uttered word, and that saddening hush fell upon the world, with the
wind beginning to moan in the chimney, I heard a tap on the window.
A tall bearded man in a sheepskin coat and cap with ear-flaps stood
there; he was so stiff with cold that when I lit the lamp and let him in he
could not even close the door behind him. Screening the light with my
hand, I noticed that his nose was quite white—frost-nipped. He bent to
take off his knapsack and suddenly sat down on the floor.
That was how he first appeared before me, the man I am indebted to
for being able to write this story—frozen almost to death, crawling
towards me on all fours. He tried to put his trembling fingers into his
mouth, and sat on the floor breathing heavily. I started to help him off
with his coat. He muttered something and slumped over on his side in a
dead faint.
I had once seen Mother lying in a faint and Aunt Dasha had breathed
into her mouth. I did exactly the same now. My visitor was lying by the
warm stove and I don't know what it was in the end that brought him
round; I only knew that I blew like mad till I felt dizzy. However that
may be, he came to, sat up and began warming himself up vigorously.
The colour returned to his nose. He even attempted a smile when I
poured him out a mug of hot water.
'Are you children alone here?'
Before Sanya could answer 'Yes,' the man was asleep. He dropped off
so suddenly that I was afraid he had died. But as though in answer to my
thoughts he started to snore.
He came round properly the next day. I woke up to find him sitting on
the stove ledge with my sister and they were talking. She already knew
that his name was Ivan Ivanovich, that he had lost his way, and that we
were not to say a word about him to anyone, otherwise they'd put him in
irons. I remember that my sister and I grasped at once that our visitor
was in some sort of danger and we tacitly decided never to breathe a
word about him to anyone. It was easier for me, of course, to keep quiet,
than it was for Sanya.
Ivan Ivanovich sat on the stove ledge with his hands tucked under him,
listening while she chattered away. He had been told everything: that
Father had been put in prison, that we handed in a petition, that Mother
had brought us here and gone back to town, that I was dumb, that
Grandma Petrovna lived here—second house from the well—and that
she, too, had a beard, only it was smaller and grey.
'Ah, you little darlings,' said Ivan Ivanovich, jumping down from the
stove.
He had light-coloured eyes, but his beard was black and smooth. At
first I thought it strange that he made so many unnecessary gestures; it
seemed as if at any moment he would reach for his ear round the back of
his head or scratch the sole of his foot. But I soon got used to him. When
21
talking, he would suddenly pick something up and begin tossing it in the
air or balancing it on his hand like a juggler.
'I say, children, I'm a doctor, you know,' he said one day. 'You just
tell me if there's anything wrong with you. I'll put you right in a tick.'
We were both well, but for some reason he refused to go and see the
village elder, whose daughter was sick.
But in such a position
I'm in a terrible funk
In case the Inquisition
Is tipped off by the monk,
he said with a laugh,
It was from him that I first heard poetry. He often quoted verses,
sometimes even sang them or muttered them, his eyebrows raised as he
squatted before the fire Turkish fashion.
At first he seemed pleased that I couldn't ask him anything, especially
when he woke up in the night at the slightest sound of steps outside the
window and lay for a long time leaning on his elbow, listening. Or when
he hid himself in the attic and sat there till dark—he spent a whole day
there once, I remember. St. George's Day it was. Or when he refused to
meet Petrovna.
But after two or three days he became interested in my dumbness.
'Why don't you speak? Don't you want to?'
I looked at him in silence.
'I tell you, you must speak. You can hear, so you ought to be able to
speak. It's a very rare case yours—I mean being dumb but not deaf.
Maybe you're deaf and dumb?'
I shook my head.
'In that case we're going to make you speak.'
He took some instruments from his knapsack, complained about the
light being poor, though it was a bright sunny day, and started fiddling
about with my ear.
'Ear vulgaris,' he remarked with satisfaction. 'An ordinary ear.'
He withdrew to a corner and whispered: 'Sap.'
'Did you hear that?'
I laughed.
'You've got a good ear, like a dog's.' He winked at Sanya who was
staring at us open-mouthed. 'You can hear splendidly. Why the dickens
don't you speak then?'
He took my tongue between his finger and thumb and pulled it out so
far that I got frightened and made a croaky sound.
'What a throat you have, my dear chap! A regular Chaliapin. Well,
well!'
He looked at me for a minute, then said gravely: 'You'll have to learn,
old chap. Can you talk to yourself at all? In your mind?'
He tapped my forehead.
'In your head—get me?'
I mumbled an affirmative.
'What about saying it aloud then? Say out loud whatever you can.'
Now, then, say 'yes'.'
I could hardly say anything. Nevertheless I did bring out a 'yes'.
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