Through Russia Part 50

Presently two other men approached us. In the hand of the first was a torch which he kept waving to and fro to prevent its being extinguished, and whence, therefore, he kept strewing showers of golden sparks. A fair-headed little fellow, he had a body as thin as a pike when standing on its tail, a grey, stonelike countenance that was deeply sunken between the shoulders, a mouth perpetually half-agape, and round, owlish-looking eyes.

As he approached the corpse he bent forward with one hand upon his knee to throw the more light upon Silantiev's bruised head and body. That head was resting turned upon the shoulder, and no longer could I recognise the once handsome Cossack face, so buried was the jaunty forelock under a clot of black-red mud, and concealed by a swelling which had made its appearance above the left ear. Also, since the mouth and moustache had been bashed aside the teeth lay bared in a twisted, truly horrible smile, while, as the most horrible point of all, the left eye was hanging from its socket, and, become hideously large, gazing, seemingly, at the inner pocket of the flap of Silantiev's pea-jacket, whence there was protruding a white edging of paper.

Slowly the torch holder described a circle of fire in the air, and thereby sprinkled a further shower of sparks over the poor mutilated face, with its streaks of shining blood. Then he muttered with a smack of the lips:

"You can see for yourselves who the man is."

As he spoke a few more sparks descended upon Silantiev's scalp and wet cheeks, and went out, while the flare's reflection so played in the ball of Silantiev's eye as to communicate to it an added appearance of death.

Finally the torch holder straightened his back, threw his torch into the river, expectorated after it, and said to his companion as he smoothed a flaxen poll which, in the darkness, looked almost greenish:

"Do you go to the barraque, and tell them that a man has been done to death."

"No; I should be afraid to go alone."

"Come, come! Nothing is there to be afraid of. Go, I tell you."

"But I would much rather not."

"Don't be such a fool!"

Suddenly there sounded over my head the quiet voice of the foreman.

"I will accompany you," he said. Then he added disgustedly as he sc.r.a.ped his foot against a stone:

"How horrible the blood smells! It would seem that my very foot is smeared with it."

With a frown the fair-headed muzhik eyed him, while the foreman returned the muzhik's gaze with a scrutiny that never wavered. Finally the elder man commented with cold severity:

"All the mischief has come of vodka and tobacco, the devil's drugs."

Not only were the pair strangely alike, but both of them strangely resembled wizards, in that both were short of stature, as sharp-finished as gimlets, and as green-tinted by the darkness as tufts of lichen.

"Let us go, brother," the foreman said. "Go we with the Holy Spirit."

And, omitting even to inquire who had been killed, or even to glance at the corpse, or even to pay it the last salute demanded of custom, the foreman departed down the stream, while in his wake followed the messenger, a man who kept stumbling as he picked his way from stone to stone. Amid the gloom the pair moved as silently as ghosts.

The narrow-chested, fair-headed little muzhik then raked me with his eyes; whereafter he produced a cigarette from a tin box, snapped-to the lid of the box, struck a match (illuminating once more the face of the dead man), and applied the flame to the cigarette. Lastly he said:

"This is the sixth murder which I have seen one thing and another commit."

"One thing and another commit?" I queried.

The reply came only after a pause; when the little muzhik asked: "What did you say? I did not quite catch it."

I explained that human beings, not inanimate ent.i.ties, murdered human beings.

"Well, be they human beings or machinery or lightning or anything else, they are all one. One of my mates was caught in some machinery at Bakhmakh. Another one had his throat cut in a brawl. Another one was crushed against the bucket in a coal mine. Another one was--"

Carefully though the man counted, he ended by erring in his reckoning to the extent of making his total "five." Accordingly he re-computed the list--and this time succeeded in making the total amount to "seven."

"Never mind," he remarked with a sigh as he blew his cigarette into a red glow which illuminated the whole of his face. "The truth is that I cannot always repeat the list correctly, just as I should like. Were I older than I am, I too should contrive to get finished off; for old-age is a far from desirable thing. Yes, indeed! But, as things are, I am still alive, nor, thank the Lord, does anything matter very much."

Presently, with a nod towards Silantiev, he continued:

"Even now HIS kinsfolk or his wife may be looking for news of him, or a letter from him. Well, never again will he write, and as likely as not his kinsfolk will end by saying to themselves: 'He has taken to bad ways, and forgotten his family.' Yes, good sir."

By this time the clamour around the barraque had ceased, and the two fires had burnt themselves out, and most of the men dispersed. From the smooth yellow walls of the barraque dark, round, knot-holes were gazing at the rivulet like eyes. Only in a single window without a frame was there visible a faint light, while at intervals there issued thence fragmentary, angry exclamations such as:

"Look sharp there, and deal! Clubs will be the winners."

"Ah! Here is a trump!"

"Indeed? What luck, d.a.m.n it!"

The fair-headed muzhik blew the ashes from his cigarette, and observed:

"No such thing is there at cards as luck--only skill."

At this juncture we saw approaching us softly from across the rivulet a young carpenter who wore a moustache. He halted beside us, and drew a deep breath.

"Well, mate?" the fair-headed muzhik inquired.

"Would you mind giving me something to smoke?" the carpenter asked. The obscurity caused him to look large and shapeless, though his manner of speaking was bashful and subdued.

"Certainly. Here is a cigarette."

"Christ reward you! Today my wife forgot to bring my tobacco, and my grandfather has strict ideas on the subject of smoking."

"Was it he who departed just now? It was."

As the carpenter inhaled a whiff he continued:

"I suppose that man was beaten to death?"

"He was--to death."

For a while the pair smoked in silence. The hour was past midnight.

Over the defile the jagged strip of sky which roofed it looked like a river of blue flowing at an immense height above the night-enveloped earth, and bearing the brilliant stars on its smooth current.

Quieter and quieter was everything growing; more and more was everything becoming part of the night....

One might have thought that nothing particular had happened.

KALININ