the left ... And the whole place was nothing like yesterday. There were no more hills, and wherever you looked, the endless, brown, bleak plain stretched away; here and there small barrows rose up on it, and yesterday’s rooks were flying about. Far ahead the belfries and cottages of some village showed white; on account of Sunday, the khokhly13 stayed home, baking and cooking—that could be seen by the smoke that came from all the chimneys and hung in a transparent dove-gray veil over the village. In the spaces between cottages and behind the church a blue river appeared, and beyond it the misty distance. But there was nothing that so little resembled yesterday as the road. Something extraordinarily broad, sweeping, and mighty stretched across the steppe instead of a road; it was a gray strip, well trodden and covered with dust, like all roads, but it was several dozen yards wide. Its vastness aroused perplexity in Egorushka and suggested folktale thoughts to him. Who drives on it? Who needs such vastness? Incomprehensible and strange. You might really think there were still enormous, long-striding people in Russia, like Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber,14 and that mighty steeds had not died out yet. Looking at the road, Egorushka imagined some six tall chariots galloping in a row, as he had seen in pictures from sacred history; harnessed to these chariots are six wild, furious horses, and they raise clouds of dust in the sky with their high wheels, and the horses are driven by people such as might appear in dreams or grow in folktale thoughts. And how those figures would suit the steppe and the road, if they existed!
On the right side of the road, for the whole of its length, stood telegraph poles with two wires. Getting smaller and smaller, they disappeared near the village behind the cottages and greenery, and then appeared again in the purple distance, in the guise of very small, thin sticks, like pencils stuck in the ground. On the wires sat hawks, merlins, and crows, looking indifferently at the moving train.
Egorushka lay on the very last wagon and could therefore see the whole train. There were about twenty wagons in the train, and one wagoner for every three wagons. By the last wagon, where Egorushka was, walked an old man with a gray beard, as skinny and short as Father Khristofor, but with a face dirty brown from sunburn, stern and pensive. It might very well have been that this old man was neither stern nor pensive, but his red eyelids and long, sharp nose gave his face the stern, dry expression that occurs in people who are accustomed to always thinking of serious things, and in solitude. Like Father Khristofor, he was wearing a broad-brimmed top hat, though not a gentleman’s, but made of felt and of a dirty brown color, more like a truncated cone than a cylinder. He was barefoot. Probably from a habit acquired during the cold winters, when more than once he must have frozen beside the wagons, he kept slapping his thighs and stamping his feet as he walked. Noticing that Egorushka was awake, he looked at him and said, squirming as if from cold:
‘‘Ah, you’re awake, my fine lad! Are you Ivan Ivanovich’s son?’’
‘‘No, his nephew ...’’
‘‘Ivan Ivanych’s? And here I’ve taken my boots off and go hopping around barefoot. My feet hurt, they got frostbit, and it feels freer without boots ... Freer, my fine lad ... Without boots, that is ... So, you’re his nephew? He’s a good man, all right ... God grant him health ... He’s all right ... Ivan Ivanych, I mean ... He’s gone to the Molokan’s ... Lord have mercy!’’
The old man also spoke as if it was very cold, with pauses, and not opening his mouth properly; and he articulated labial consonants poorly, faltering over them as if his lips were frozen. Addressing Egorushka, he never once smiled and appeared stern.
Two wagons ahead walked a man in a long reddish coat, a visored cap, and boots with crumpled tops, holding a whip. This one was not old, about forty. When he turned around, Egorushka saw a long red face with a thin goatee and a spongy bump under the right eye. Besides this very unattractive bump, he had another special mark that struck the eye sharply: he held the whip in his left hand, and his right hand he waved in such fashion as if he was conducting an invisible choir; occasionally he put the whip under his arm, and then he conducted with both hands and hummed something under his nose.
The next wagoner after this one presented a tall, rectilinear figure with extremely sloping shoulders and a back flat as a board. He held himself erect, as if he was marching or had swallowed a yardstick; his arms did not swing, but hung down like straight sticks, and he strode somehow woodenly, in the manner of toy soldiers, almost without bending his knees, and trying to take the longest stride possible. Where the old man or the owner of the spongy bump took two strides, he managed to take only one, and this made it look as if he was walking more slowly than everyone else and lagging behind. His face was bound in a rag, and something like a monk’s skullcap was stuck on his head; he was dressed in a short Ukrainian caftan all sprinkled with patches, and dark blue balloon trousers over his bast shoes.
Those who were further ahead, Egorushka did not examine. He lay belly-down, poked a little hole in the bale, and, having nothing to do, began twisting the wool into threads. The old man striding along below turned out to be not as stern and serious as one might have judged by his face. Once he had started the conversation, he kept it up.
‘‘Where are you going, then?’’ he asked, stamping his feet.
‘‘To study,’’ answered Egorushka.
‘‘To study? Aha ... Well, may the Queen of Heaven help you. So. Two heads are better than one. To one man God gives one brain, to another two brains, and to some even three ... To some even three, that’s for sure ... One brain you’re born with, another you get from studies, the third from a good life. So you see, little brother, it’s good if somebody has three brains. It’s easier for such a man not only to live but even to die. To die, yes ... And die we all will.’’
The old man scratched his forehead, glanced up at Egorushka with his red eyes, and went on:
‘‘Last year Maxim Nikolaich, a master from near Slavyanoserbsk, also took his lad to study. I don’t know how he is regards to learning, but he’s an all right lad, a good one ... God grant them health, they’re nice masters. Yes, he also took him to study ... In Slavyanoserbsk there is no such institution so as to finish your learning ... None ... But it’s an all right town, a good one ... There’s an ordinary school, for simple folk, but as for greater learning, there’s nonesuch ... None, that’s for sure. What’s your name?’’
‘‘Egorushka.’’
‘‘Meaning Egory ... The great and holy martyr Saint Egory the Dragonslayer, 15 whose feast day is the twenty-third of April. And my saint’s name is Pantelei ... Pantelei Zakharovich Kholodov ... We’re Kholodovs . . . I myself was born, you might have heard, in Tim, in Kursk province. My brothers registered themselves as tradesmen and work in town as craftsmen, but I’m a peasant ... I stayed a peasant. Some seven years ago I went there ... home, that is. And I was in the village and in the town ... I was in Tim, I’m saying. Back then, thank God, everybody was alive and well, but I don’t know about now ... Maybe some have died ... It’s time to die now, because everybody’s old, there’s some are older than me. Death’s all right, it’s good, only, of course, so long as you don’t die unrepentant. There’s no greater evil than an impudent death. An impudent death is the devil’s joy. And if you want to die repentant, so that the mansions of God aren’t barred to you, pray to the great martyr Varvara.16 She’s our intercessor ... She is, that’s for sure ... Because that’s the position God set up for her in heaven, meaning everyone has the full right to pray to her as regards repentance.’’
Pantelei was muttering and apparently did not care whether Egorushka heard him or not. He spoke listlessly,
