Through Russia by Maksim Gorky

Author:Maksim Gorky [Gorky, Maksim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Russia -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Published: 2000-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

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When, after an interval, he reappeared on deck, he was clean and dry, and clad in a cook's white jumper and a sailor's blue serge trousers. Clasping his hands behind his back, hunching his shoulders, and bending his head forward, he walked swiftly to the stern, with a throng of idlers—at first one by one, and then in parties of from three to a dozen—following in his wake.

The man seated himself upon a coil of rope, and, craning his neck in wolf-like fashion to eye the bystanders, frowned, let fall his temples upon hands thrust into his flaxen hair, and fixed his gaze upon the barge.

Standing or sitting about in the hot sunshine, people stared at him without stint. Evidently they would have liked, but did not dare, to engage him in conversation. Presently the big peasant also arrived on the scene, and, after glancing at all present, took off his hat, and wiped his perspiring face. Next, a grey-headed old man with a red nose, a thin wisp of beard, and watery eyes cleared his throat, and in honeyed tones took the initiative.

"Would you mind telling us how it all happened?" he began.

"Why should I do so?" retorted the young fellow without moving.

Taking a red handkerchief from his bosom, the old man shook it out and applied it cautiously to his eyes. Then he said through its folds in the quiet accents of a man who is determined to persevere:

"Why, you say? For the reason that the occasion is one when all ought to know the tru—"

Lurching forward, the bearded peasant interposed with a rasp:

"Yes, do you tell us all about it, and things will become easier for you. For a sin always needs to be made known."

While, like an echo, a voice said in bold and sarcastic accents:

"It would be better to seize him and tie him up."

Upon this the young fellow raised his brows a little, and retorted in an undertone:

"Let me bide."

"The rascal!" the crowd commented, while the old man, neatly folding and replacing his handkerchief, raised a hand as dry as a cock's leg, and remarked with a sharp, knowing smile:

"Possibly it is not merely out of idle curiosity that folk are making this request."

"Go and be damned to you!" the young fellow exclaimed with a grim snap. Whereupon the big peasant bellowed out in a blustering fashion:

"What? Then you will not tell us at least your destination?"

Whereafter the same speaker continued to hold forth on humanity, God, and the human conscience—staring wildly around him as he did so, waving his arms about, and growing ever more frantic, until really it was curious to watch him.

At length the crowd grew similarly excited, and took to encouraging the speaker with cries of "True! That is so!"

As for the young fellow, he listened awhile in silence, without moving. Then, straightening his back, he rose, thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers, and, swaying his body to and fro, began to glare at the crowd with greenish eyes which were manifestly lightening to a vicious gleam.

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