quickly and get away from it... They ate a quick supper, put out the fire, and silently began harnessing up. From their bustling and their curt phrases, one could tell that they foresaw some disaster.
Before they started on their way, Dymov went up to Pantelei and asked quietly:
‘‘What’s his name?’’
‘Egory ...’ answered Pantelei.
Dymov put one foot on the wheel, took hold of the rope that tied down the bale, and hoisted himself up. Egorushka saw his face and curly head. His face was pale, tired, and serious, but it no longer expressed spite.
‘‘Era!’’ he said quietly. ‘‘Go on, hit me!’’
Egorushka looked at him in surprise; just then lightning flashed.
‘‘Never mind, just hit me!’’ Dymov repeated.
And, without waiting for Egorushka to hit him or talk to him, he jumped down and said:
‘‘I’m bored!’’
Then, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, rolling his shoulders, he lazily plodded along the line of wagons and repeated in a half-plaintive, half-vexed voice:
‘‘I’m bored! Oh, Lord! And don’t be offended, Emelya,’’ he said as he passed Emelyan. ‘‘Our life’s cruel, beyond hope!’’
Lightning flashed to the right and, as if reflected in a mirror, at once flashed in the distance.
‘‘Egory, take this!’’ Pantelei shouted, handing up something big and dark from below.
‘‘What is it?’’ asked Egorushka.
‘‘A bast mat! There’ll be rain, you can cover yourself.’’
Egorushka raised himself and looked around. The distance had become noticeably more black and now blinked more than once a minute with a pale light, as if through eyelids. Its blackness leaned to the right, as though weighted down.
‘‘Will there be a thunderstorm, grandpa?’’ asked Egorushka.
‘‘Ah, my poor, ailing, frozen feet!’’ Pantelei said in a singsong voice, not hearing him and stamping his feet.
To the left, as if someone had struck a match against the sky, a pale phosphorescent strip flashed and went out. There was a sound of someone walking on an iron roof somewhere very far away. He was probably walking barefoot, because the iron made a dull rumble.
‘‘It’s all around!’’ cried Kiriukha.
Between the distance and the horizon to the right, lightning flashed, so bright that it lit up part of the steppe and the place where the clear sky bordered on the blackness. An awful thunderhead was approaching unhurriedly, in a solid mass; from its edge hung big black rags; exactly the same rags, crushing each other, heaped up on the horizon to right and left. This torn, ragged look of the thunderhead gave it a drunken, mischievous expression. Thunder rumbled clearly and not dully. Egorushka crossed himself and quickly began putting on his coat.
‘‘I’m bored!’’ Dymov’s cry came from the front wagons, and one could tell by his voice that he was beginning to get angry again. ‘‘Bored!’’
Suddenly there was a gust of wind, so strong that it almost tore Egorushka’s little bundle and bast mat from his hands; the mat fluttered up, tearing in all directions, and flapped on the bale and on Egorushka’s face. The wind raced whistling over the steppe, whirled haphazardly, raising such a din with the grass that because of it neither the thunder nor the creaking of the wheels could be heard. It blew from the black thunderhead, carrying clouds of dust and the smell of rain and wet earth with it. The moonlight grew dim, became as if dirtier, the stars became still more morose, and you could see clouds of dust and their shadows hurrying backwards somewhere along the edge of the road. Now, in all probability, whirlwinds, spinning and drawing dust, dry grass, and feathers up from the ground, were rising all the way into the sky; tumbleweed was probably flying about right by the black thunderhead, and how frightened it must be! But nothing could be seen through the dust that clogged the eyes except flashes of lightning.
Egorushka, thinking the rain would pour down that minute, got to his knees and covered himself with the bast mat.
‘‘Pantel-ei!’’ someone shouted from the front. ‘A... a ... va!’
‘‘I can’t hear you!’’ Pantelei answered loudly and in a singsong voice.
‘A ... a ... va! Arya ... a!’
Thunder crashed angrily, rolling across the sky from right to left, then back, and dying down near the front wagon.
‘‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth,’’ Egorushka whispered, crossing himself, ‘‘heaven and earth are full of Thy glory...’24
The blackness in the sky opened its mouth and breathed out white fire; at once thunder rolled again; it had barely fallen silent when lightning flashed so broadly that Egorushka suddenly saw, through the openings in the bast mat, the whole of the high road into the far distance, all the wagoners, and even Kiriukha’s waistcoat. On the left, the dark rags were already rising upwards, and one of them, crude, clumsy, looking like a paw with fingers, was reaching towards the moon. Egorushka decided to shut his eyes tight, pay no attention, and wait till it was all over.
The rain, for some reason, took a long time to begin. Egorushka, hoping the storm cloud might pass by, peeked out from behind the bast mat. It was awfully dark. Egorushka could not see Pantelei, or the bale, or himself; he glanced sidelong to where the moon had been recently, but there was the same black darkness as on the wagon. And in the dark the lightning seemed more white and dazzling, so that it hurt his eyes.
‘‘Pantelei!’’ cried Egorushka.
