Chelkash and Other Stories (3 page)

“N-no! Not much,” gasped Gavrila.

“You needn't pull so hard now. It's all over. There's only one spot that we've got to pass.... Take a rest....”

Gavrila obediently stopped rowing, wiped the perspiration from his face with his sleeve and dropped the oars.

“Well, have another go now,” said Chelkash after a little while. “But don't make the water talk. There's a gate we have to pass. Quietly now, quietly! They're a stern lot here. . . . They wouldn't hesitate to shoot and bore a hole in your head before you have time to shout—oh!”

The boat now glided slowly over the water making scarcely a sound, except for the blue drops that dripped from the oars and caused small, blue, momentary patches to form on the water where they fell. The night became darker and even more silent. The sky no longer resembled a storm-tossed sea—the clouds had spread and covered it with a smooth heavy blanket that hung low and motionless over the water. The sea became still calmer and blacker, its warm saline odour became still more pungent, and it no longer seemed as broad as it was before.

“I wish it would rain!” whispered Chelkash. “We'd get through as if we were behind a curtain.”

On the right and left eerie structures loomed out of the black water—barges, motionless, gloomy, and also black. But on one of them a light was moving; evidently somebody carrying a lantern was walking on the deck. The sea sounded plaintive and hollow, as it lapped against the sides of the barges, and the barges answered with a cold, muffled echo, as if arguing with the sea and refusing to yield to its plaint.

“A cordon!” exclaimed Chelkash in a scarcely audible whisper.

The moment Chelkash told him to row more slowly, Gavrila was again overcome by that feeling of tense expectation. He bent forward and peered into the darkness, and he felt as if he were growing, as if his bones and sinews were stretching within him, giving him a dull pain; his head, filled with but one thought, ached; the skin on his back quivered, and small, sharp, cold needles were shooting through his legs. His eyes ached from the tenseness with which he peered into the darkness, out of which, every moment, he expected to hear the cry: “Stop, thief!”

And now, when Chelkash whispered “cordon,” Gavrila shuddered; a piercing, burning thought shot through his brain and sent his taut nerves tingling. He wanted to shout and call for help. . . . He opened his mouth, rose slightly from the seat, stuck out his chest and took a deep breath—but suddenly he was paralysed by fear, which struck him like a whip. He closed his eyes and collapsed in the bottom of the boat.

Ahead of the boat, far away on the horizon, out of the black water, an enormous, fiery-blue sword rose and cleaved the darkness of the night; it ran its edge over the clouds and then lay on the breast of the sea, a broad blue strip. And within this bright strip ships appeared out of the darkness, ships hitherto invisible, black, silent, and shrouded in the solemn gloom of the night. They looked as though they had long been at the bottom of the sea, sent there by the mighty power of the storm, and had now risen at the command of the fiery sword that was born of the sea—had risen to look at the sky and at everything that was on the water.... Their rigging, clinging to their masts like festoons of seaweed brought up from the sea bottom together with the black giants who were enmeshed in their net. The sinister blue sword rose again out of the depth of the sea, and flashing, again cleaved the night, and again lay flat on the water, but in another direction. And where it lay, other ships' hulls, hitherto invisible, appeared.

The boat stopped and rocked on the water as if in perplexity. Gavrila lay in the bottom of the boat, his face covered with his hands. Chelkash jabbed at him with his foot and hissed furiously:

“That's the Customs cruiser, you fool.... It's an electric lamp! Get up, you dolt! They'll shine the light on us in a minute and everything will be all up with you and me! Get up!”

At last a kick from the heel of a heavy top boot heavier than the first caught Gavrila in the back. He started up, and still afraid to open his eyes, took his seat, groped for the oars and began to row.

“Quieter! Quieter, or I'll murder you! ... What a dolt you are, the devil take you! What frightened you, ugly mug? A lantern, that's all it is! Quieter with the oars ... you sour-faced devil! ... They're on the lookout for smugglers. They won't see us—they're too far out. Don't be afraid, they won't see us. Now we....” Chelkash looked round triumphantly. “Of course! We're out of it! Phew! ... Well, you're lucky, you thick-headed boob!”

Gavrila said nothing. He pulled at the oars and, breathing heavily, looked out of the corners of his eyes in the direction where the fiery sword was rising and falling. He could not possibly believe what Chelkash said—that this was only a lantern. The cold blue radiance that cleaved the darkness caused the sea to sparkle with mysterious silvery brilliance, and Gavrila again felt hypnotized by that soul-crushing fear. He rowed mechanically, crouching as if expecting a blow from above, and now he was bereft of all desire—he was empty and soulless. The excitement of this night had driven everything human out of him.

But Chelkash was jubilant. His nerves, accustomed to shocks, were now relaxed. His moustache twitched voluptuously and a light shone in his eyes. He felt splendid. He whistled through his teeth, inhaled deep breaths of the moist sea air. He looked around, and smiled good-naturedly when his eyes fell upon Gavrila.

The wind swept down and chopped up the sea. The clouds were now thinner and less opaque, but they covered the whole sky. The wind, though still light, was freely sweeping over the sea, but the clouds were motionless and seemed to be absorbed in grey, dull thought.

“Now lad, it's time you pulled yourself together! You look as if all your guts have been squeezed out of your body and there's nothing left but a bag of bones! It's all over now. Hey!”

Gavrila was pleased to hear a human voice at last, even if that voice was Chelkash's.

“I can hear what you say,” he said softly.

“Very well, then, milksop.... Come and steer and I'll take the oars. I suppose you're tired.”

Gavrila mechanically changed places with Chelkash, and as they crossed, Chelkash saw the boy's woe-begone face, and he noticed that his legs were trembling. He felt sorry for him. Patting him on the shoulder, he said:

“Come on, lad! Don't be so down in the dumps. You've earned a good bit tonight. I'll reward you well, my boy. Would you like the feel of a twenty-five ruble bill?”

“I don't want anything. All I want is to get ashore....”

Chelkash waved his hand in disgust, spat, took up the oars and began to row, swinging the oars far back with his long arms.

The sea woke up and began to play with its little waves, giving birth to them, ornamenting them with fringes of foam, dashing them against each other, and breaking them up into fine spray. The foam melted with hisses and sighs, and the air all around was filled with a musical splashing noise. Even the darkness seemed to come to life.

Chelkash began to talk.

“Well now, tell me,” he said. “You'll go back to your village and get married, and start grubbing the earth and sow corn. The wife will start bearing children. You won't have enough food for them. Well, you'll be struggling all your life.... Is there any pleasure in that?”

“Pleasure! I should say there isn't!” answered Gavrila with a shudder.

Here and there the wind rent the clouds apart and scraps of the sky with one or two stars in them peeped between the spaces. Reflected in the sea, these stars played among the waves, now vanishing and now twinkling again.

“Steer to the right!” said Chelkash, “we shall be there soon.... Y-e-ss! ... We're finished. It was a nice job! D'you see how it is? ... One night's work, and we land a cool five hundred!”

“Fi-v-e hundred?!” drawled Gavrila incredulously. But he at once caught fright and hurriedly asked, kicking one of the bales at the bottom of the boat: “What's this?”

“That's worth a lot of money. If we sold it at its proper price we could get a thousand for it. But I'll ask for less.... Clever, ain't it?”

“Y-e-s?” drawled Gavrila interrogatingly. “I wish I could get a bag like that!” he added with a sigh as he suddenly remembered his village, his wretched farm, his mother, and all that was distant and dear to him, and for the sake of which he had left home to earn some money, and had gone through all the horrors of this night. He was overwhelmed by a wave of recollections of his little village which scrambled down the steep slope to the river that was concealed by birches, willows, ash, and bird cherry.... “Wouldn't that be fine,” he murmured with a mournful sigh.

“Ye-s!” continued Chelkash. “I'm thinking how nice it would be for you now to take the train home.... Wouldn't you have all the girls running after you! You could choose any one you liked! You could build yourself a new house.... I don't think you'll have enough to build a new one though....”

“That's true ... it won't be enough to build a house. Timber's dear in our parts.”

“Well, you could repair the old one. What about a horse? Have you got one?”

“A horse! Yes, I've got a horse, but she's too old, the devil.”

“Well, you could buy a horse. Ekh, a f-i-n-e horse! And a cow ... sheep ... and poultry.... Eh?”

“Oh, don't talk about it! ... Good Lord! Wouldn't I live then!”

“Y-e-s, brother, it wouldn't be at all bad.... I've got some idea of what that kind of life is. I had my own little nest once.... My father was one of the richest men in our village....”

Chelkash lazily pulled at the oars. The boat rocked on the waves that were playfully lapping against its sides, barely moving over the dark sea which was becoming more and more boisterous. The two men dreamed as they rocked on the water, thoughtfully gazing around. Wishing to soothe the lad and cheer him up, Chelkash had turned Gavrila's thoughts to his village and had begun the talk in a bantering tone, hiding his smile under his moustache. When questioning Gavrila and reminding him of the joys of peasant life, in which he himself had long been disillusioned, had forgotten and had only recalled now he gradually allowed himself to be carried away by this new train of thought. He stopped questioning the lad about his village and its affairs, and, before he was aware of it, continued in the following strain:

“The main thing in peasant life, brother, is freedom! You're your own master. You have a house. It's not worth much, but it's your own. You have land; only a patch, but it's your own! You are a king on your land! ... You have a face.... You can demand respect from everybody. ... Isn't that so?” he concluded feelingly.

Gavrila stared at him with curiosity, and he too was carried away by the same feeling. In the course of this conversation he forgot the kind of man he was dealing with and saw before him a peasant, like himself, stuck to the land forever by the sweat of many generations, bound to it by the recollections of childhood, but who had voluntarily run away from it and its cares, and was suffering due punishment for this truancy.

“Yes, brother, what you say is true!” he said. “Oh how true! Look at yourself. What are you now without land? Land is like a mother, you can't forget it so easily.”

Chelkash awoke from his musing.... He was conscious of that irritating heartburn which he always felt whenever his pride—the pride of the reckless daredevil—was touched by anybody, particularly by one whom he despised.

“Stop sermonizing!” he said fiercely. “Did you think I was talking seriously? ... You must take me for a fool!”

“You're a funny chap!” Gavrila blurted out, feeling crushed again. “I wasn't talking about you, was I? There's lots of men like you. Lots of them! Ekh! How many unhappy people there are in the world! ... Roaming around! ...”

“Here, come and take the oars, you boob!” commanded Chelkash, for some reason restraining the flood of oaths that came rushing up into his throat.

They changed places again, and as he stepped over the bales in the bottom of the boat to reach the stern, Chelkash felt an almost irresistible desire to give Gavrila a push that would send him tumbling into the sea.

The conversation was not resumed, but Chelkash felt the breath of the village even in Gavrila's silence.... Musing over the past, he forgot to steer, with the result that the boat, turned by current, drifted out to sea. The waves seemed to understand that the boat had lost its way and began to toss it higher and higher, lightly playing with it, causing kindly blue lights to flash under the oars. And before Chelkash's mental vision floated pictures of the past, of the distant past which was separated from the present by a wall of eleven years of hobo life. He saw himself as a child; he saw his village; his mother, a plump ruddy-cheeked woman with kind grey eyes; he saw his father, a red-bearded giant with a stern face; he saw himself as a bridegroom, and he saw his wife, black-eyed Anfisa, a soft, buxom, cheerful girl with a long plait of hair; he saw himself again as the handsome Guardsman; again he saw his father, now grey and bent by toil, and his mother wrinkled and bowed; he also saw the vision of his return to his village from the army, and how proud his father was of his Grigori, of this handsome, sturdy, bewhiskered soldier.... Memory, that scourge of the unhappy, reanimates even the stones of the past, and even pours a drop of honey into the poison that one had once to drink....

Chelkash felt as if he were being fanned by the tender, soothing breath of his native air, which wafted to his ears the kind words of his mother, the grave speech of his earnest peasant father, many forgotten sounds and many fragrant smells of mother earth which has only just thawed, which has only just been ploughed, and is only just being covered with the emerald silken carpet of winter wheat.... He felt lonely, uprooted and isolated forever from the way of life which had produced the blood that now flowed in his veins.