Through Russia Part 44

True, the women p.r.o.nounced their words distinctly enough; yet always they prolonged the final "u" sound of the stanza's first and third lines until, as the melody floated away into the darkness, and, as it were, sank to earth, it came to resemble the long-drawn howl of a wolf.

In answer to my invitation to come to supper, the newcomer sprang to his feet, folded up his ma.n.u.script, stuffed it into one of the pockets of his ragged coat, and said with a smile:

"I had just been going to resort to the carpenters, for they would have given us some bread, I suppose? Long is it since I tasted anything."

The same words he repeated on our approaching the ex-soldier; much as though he took a pleasure in their phraseology.

"You suppose that they would have given us bread?" echoed the ex-soldier as he unfastened his wallet. "Not they! No love is lost between them and ourselves."

"Whom do you mean by 'ourselves'?"

"Us here--you and myself--all Russian folk who may happen to be in these parts. From the way in which those fellows keep singing about palms, I should judge them to be sectarians of the sort called Mennonites."

"Or Molokans, rather?" the other man suggested as he seated himself in front of the fire.

"Yes, or Molokans. Molokans or Mennonites--they're all one. It is a German faith and though such fellows love a Teuton, they do not exactly welcome US."

Upon this the man with the Cossack forelock took a slice of bread which the ex-soldier cut from a loaf, with an onion and a pinch of salt.

Then, as he regarded us with a pair of good-humoured eyes, he said, balancing his food on the palms of his hands:

"There is a spot on the Sunzha, near here, where those fellows have a colony of their own. Yes, I myself have visited it. True, those fellows are hard enough, but at the same time to speak plainly, NO ONE in these parts has any regard for us since only too many of the sort of Russian folk who come here in search of work are not overly-desirable."

"Where do you yourself come from?" The ex-soldier's tone was severe.

"From Kursk, we might say."

"From Russia, then?"

"Yes, I suppose so. But I have no great opinion even of myself."

The ex-soldier glanced distrustfully at the newcomer. Then he remarked:

"What you say is cant, sheer Jesuitism. It is fellows like THOSE, rather, that ought to have a poor opinion of themselves."

To this the other made no reply--merely he put a piece of bread into his mouth. For a moment or two the ex-soldier eyed him frowningly. Then he continued:

"You seem to me to be a native of the Don country?"

"Yes, I have lived on the Don as well."

"And also served in the army?"

"No. I was an only son."

"Of a miestchanin?" [A member of the small commercial cla.s.s.]

"No, of a merchant."

"And your name--?"

"Is Vasili."

The last reply came only after a pause, and reluctantly; wherefore, perceiving that the Kurskan had no particular desire to discuss his own affairs, the ex-soldier said no more on the subject, but lifted the kettle from the fire.

The Molokans also had kindled a blaze behind the corner of the barraque, and now its glow was licking the yellow boards of the structure until they seemed almost to be liquescent, to be about to dissolve and flow over the ground in a golden stream.

Presently, as their fervour increased, the carpenters, invisible amid the obscurity, fell to singing hymns--the ba.s.ses intoning monotonously, "Sing, thou Holy Angel!" and voices of higher pitch responding, coldly and formally.

"Sing ye!

Sing glory unto Christ, thou Angel of Holiness!

Sing ye!

Our singing will we add unto Thine, Thou Angel of Holiness!"

And though the chorus failed altogether to dull the splashing of the rivulet and the babbling of the by-cut over a bed of stones, it seemed out of place in this particular spot; it aroused resentment against men who could not think of a lay more atune with the particular living, breathing objects around us.

Gradually darkness enveloped the defile until only over the mouth of the pa.s.s, over the spot where, gleaming a brilliant blue, the rivulet escaped into a cleft that was overhung with a mist of a deeper shade, was there not yet suspended the curtain of the Southern night.

Presently, the gloom caused one of the rocks in our vicinity to a.s.sume the guise of a monk who, kneeling in prayer, had his head adorned with a pointed skull-cap, and his face buried in his hands. Similarly, the stems of the trees stirred in the firelight until they developed the semblance of a file of friars entering, for early Ma.s.s, the porch of their chapel-of-ease.

To my mind there then recurred a certain occasion when, on just such a dark and sultry night as this, I had been seated tale-telling under the boundary-wall of a row of monastic cells in the Don country. Suddenly I had heard a window above my head open, and someone exclaim in a kindly, youthful voice:

"The Mother of G.o.d be blessed for all this goodly world of ours!"

And though the window had closed again before I had had time to discern the speaker, I had known that there was resident in the monastery a friar who had large eyes, and a limp, and just such a face as had Vasili here; wherefore, in all probability it had been he who had breathed the benediction upon mankind at large, for the reason that moments there are when all humanity seems to be one's own body, and in oneself there seems to beat the heart of all humanity....

Vasili consumed his food deliberately as, breaking off morsels from his slice, and neatly parting his moustache, he placed the morsels in his mouth with a curious stirring of two globules which underlay the skin near the ears.

The ex-soldier, however, merely nibbled at his food--he ate but little, and that lazily. Then he extracted a pipe from his breast pocket, filled it with tobacco, lit it with a f.a.ggot taken from the fire, and said as he set himself to listen to the singing of the Molokans:

"They are filled full, and have started bleating. Always folk like them seek to be on the right side of the Almighty."

"Does that hurt you in any way?" Vasili asked with a smile.

"No, but I do not respect them--they are less saints than humbugs, than prevaricators whose first word is G.o.d, and second word rouble."

"How do you know that?" cried Vasili amusedly. "And even if their first word IS G.o.d, and their second word rouble, we had best not be too hard upon them, since if they chose to be hard upon US, where should WE be?

Yes, we have only to open our mouths to speak a word or two for ourselves, and we should find every fist at our teeth."

"Quite so," the ex-soldier agreed as, taking up a square of scantling, he examined it attentively.

"Whom DO you respect?" Vasili continued after a pause.

"I respect," the ex-soldier said with some emphasis, "only the Russian people, the true Russian people, the folk who labour on land whereon labour is hard. Yet who are the folk whom you find HERE? In this part of the world the business of living is an easy one. Much of every sort of natural produce is to be had, and the soil is generous and light--you need but to scratch it for it to bear, and for yourself to reap. Yes, it is indulgent to a fault. Rather, it is like a maiden. Do but touch her, and a child will arrive."

"Agreed," was Vasili's remark as he drank tea from a tin mug. "Yet to this very part of the world is it that I should like to transport every soul in Russia."

"And why?"

"Because here they could earn a living."