hard he tried to imagine himself in the dark grave, far from home, abandoned, helpless, and dead, he did not succeed, he could not allow the possibility of death for himself personally, and he felt he would never die ...
And Pantelei, for whom it was already time to die, walked below and took a roll call of his thoughts.
‘‘It’s all right ... nice masters . . .’’ he muttered. ‘‘They took the lad to study, but how he’s doing there, nobody hears ... In Slavyanoserbsk, I say, there’s no such institution as gives bigger learning . . . None, that’s for sure ... And he’s a good lad, he’s all right ... He’ll grow up and help his father. You’re small now, Egory, but when you’re big, you’ll feed your father and mother. That’s set up by God ... Honor your father and mother ... I had children, too, but they got burned up ... My wife got burned up and my children ... That’s for sure, on the eve of the Baptism,20 the cottage caught fire ... Me, I wasn’t home, I’d gone to Orel. To Orel ... Marya jumped outside, then remembered the children were asleep in the cottage, ran back in, and got burned up with the children ... Yes ... The next day they found nothing but bones.’’
Around midnight the wagoners and Egorushka were again sitting around a small campfire. While the weeds were catching fire, Kiriukha and Vasya went to fetch water somewhere in a little gully; they disappeared into the darkness, but could be heard all the while clanging the buckets and talking; that meant the gully was not far away. The light from the campfire lay in a big, flickering patch on the ground; though the moon was shining, everything outside the red patch seemed impenetrably black. The light struck the wagoners’ eyes, and they could see only a part of the high road; in the darkness, the horses and the wagons with their bales were outlined in barely visible mounds of an indefinite shape. Twenty paces from the campfire, on the boundary between the road and the fields, stood a wooden grave cross sunk to one side. When the campfire had not yet been lit and it was possible to see far, Egorushka had noticed exactly the same old sunken cross standing on the other side of the high road.
Coming back with water, Kiriukha and Vasya filled the cauldron and fixed it over the fire. Styopka, with the nicked spoon in his hand, took his place in the smoke by the cauldron and, watching the water pensively, began to wait till froth appeared. Pantelei and Emelyan sat next to each other, kept silent, and thought about something. Dymov lay on his stomach, his head propped on his fists, and looked at the fire; Styopka’s shadow leaped across him, so that his handsome face was now covered with darkness, now suddenly blazed up ... Kiriukha and Vasya wandered a little way off, gathering weeds and birch bark for the fire. Egorushka, his hands in his pockets, stood beside Pantelei and watched how the fire ate the grass.
Everyone rested, thought about something, glanced fleetingly at the cross, over which red patches leaped. There is something sad, dreamy, and in the highest degree poetic in a lonely grave ... You can hear its silence, and in this silence you sense the presence of the soul of the unknown person who lies under the cross. Is it good for this soul in the steppe? Does it languish on a moonlit night? And the steppe near the grave seems sad, dismal, and pensive, the grass is sorrowful, and the grasshoppers seem to call with more restraint ... And there is no passerby who would not give thought to the lonely soul and turn to look back at the grave until it was left far behind and covered in dusk ...
‘‘Grandpa, why’s that cross standing here?’’ asked Egorushka.
Pantelei looked at the cross, then at Dymov, and asked:
‘‘Mikolka, mightn’t this be the place where the mowers killed the merchants?’’
Dymov reluctantly raised himself on his elbow, looked at the road, and replied:
‘‘The very same . . .’’
Silence ensued. Kiriukha made a crackling noise as he crumpled the dry grass into a ball and put it under the cauldron. The fire blazed up more brightly; Styopka was engulfed in black smoke, and the shadow of the cross raced through the darkness over the road by the wagons.
‘‘Yes, killed them . . .’’ Dymov said reluctantly. ‘‘The merchants, a father and son, were on their way to sell icons. They stopped at an inn nearby, the one that Ignat Fomin keeps now. The old man drank a bit too much and started boasting that he had a lot of money with him. Merchants are known to be boastful folk, God forbid ... They can’t help showing off at their best before the likes of us. But just then there were some mowers spending the night at the inn. So they heard the merchant boast and made note of it.’’
‘‘Oh, Lord ... Our Lady!’’ sighed Pantelei.
‘‘The next day, at first light,’’ Dymov went on, ‘‘the merchants got ready for the road, and the mowers mixed in with them. ‘Let’s go together, Your Honor. It’s more fun, and less dangerous, because it’s a godforsaken place here ...’ The merchants drove at a slow pace so as not to damage the icons, and that played into the mowers’ hands . . .’’
Dymov got up on his knees and stretched himself.
‘‘Yes,’’ he went on, yawning. ‘‘Everything went all right, but when the merchants reached this place, the mowers started cleaning them up with their scythes. The son was a fine fellow, he snatched the scythe from one of them and also did some cleaning ... Well, of course, those fellows overpowered them, because there were about eight of them. They cut the merchants up so there wasn’t a live spot left on their bodies; they finished their business and dragged the two of them off the road, the father to one side, the son to the other. Opposite here, on the other side of the road, there’s another cross ... I don’t know if it’s still there . . . You can’t see it from here.’’
‘‘It’s there,’’ said Kiriukha.
‘‘They say afterwards they didn’t find much money.’’
‘‘Not much,’’ Pantelei confirmed. ‘‘About a hundred roubles.’’
‘‘Yes, and three of them died afterwards, because the merchant also cut them badly with the scythe ... They bled to death. One of them had his arm lopped off, and they say he ran about four miles without his arm, and they found him on a little knoll near Kurikovo. He was crouched there with his head resting on his knees, as if he was deep in thought, but when they took a look, there was no soul in him, he was dead . . .’’
‘‘They found him by the trail of blood . . .’’ said Pantelei.
Everyone looked at the cross, and again silence ensued. From somewhere, probably the little gully, came the mournful cry of a bird: ‘‘Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! ...’’
‘‘There’s lots of wicked people in the world,’’ said Emelyan.
‘‘Lots, lots!’’ Pantelei agreed and moved closer to the fire, looking as if he felt eerie. ‘‘Lots,’’ he went on in a low voice. ‘‘I’ve seen no end of ’em in my life ... Wicked people, that is ... I’ve seen lots of saintly and righteous people, but the sinful ones there’s no counting ... Queen of Heaven, save us and have mercy . . . I remember once, thirty years ago, maybe more, I was driving a merchant from Morshansk. He was a nice man, fine-looking, and with
