No answer came. But now, finally, the wind tore at the bast mat for a last time and ran off somewhere. A calm, steady noise was heard. A big cold drop fell on Egorushka’s knee, another trickled down his arm. He noticed that his knees were not covered and was going to straighten the bast mat, but just then something poured down and beat on the road, then on the shafts, on the bale. It was rain. The rain and the bast mat, as if they understood each other, began talking about something rapidly, merrily, and quite disgustingly, like two magpies.
Egorushka stood on his knees, or, more precisely, sat on his boots. When the rain began to beat on the bast mat, he leaned his body forward to shield his knees, which suddenly became wet; he managed to cover his knees, but in less than a minute he felt a sharp, unpleasant dampness behind, on his lower back and his calves. He reassumed his former position, stuck his knees out into the rain, and began thinking what to do, how to straighten the invisible bast mat in the dark. But his arms were already wet, water ran down his sleeves and behind his collar, his shoulder blades were cold. And he decided to do nothing but sit motionless and wait till it all ended.
‘‘Holy, holy, holy ...’ he whispered.
Suddenly, just above his head, the sky broke up with a frightful, deafening crash; he bent over and held his breath, waiting for the pieces to fall on his neck and back. His eyes opened inadvertently, and he saw a blinding, cutting light flash and blink some five times on his fingers, on his wet sleeves, on the streams running off the bast mat, on the bale, and on the ground below. Another clap resounded, just as strong and terrible. The sky no longer rumbled or crashed, but produced dry, crackling noises, like the creaking of dry wood.
‘‘Trrack! Tak! Tak! Tak!’’ the thunder rapped out clearly, rolled down the sky, stumbled, and collapsed somewhere by the front wagons or far behind, with an angry, abrupt ‘‘Trrah!’’
The earlier flashes of lightning had only been scary, but with such thunder, they felt sinister. Their bewitching light penetrated your closed eyelids and spread cold through your whole body. What to do so as not to see them? Egorushka decided to turn and face the other way. Carefully, as if afraid he was being watched, he got up on all fours and, his hands slipping on the wet bale, turned around.
‘‘Trrack! Tak! Tak!’’ swept over his head, fell under the wagon, and exploded—‘‘Rrrah!’’
His eyes again opened inadvertently, and Egorushka saw a new danger; behind the wagon walked three huge giants with long spears. Lightning flashed on the tips of their spears and lit up their figures very clearly. They were people of huge size, with covered faces, drooping heads, and heavy footsteps. They seemed sad and despondent, immersed in thought. Maybe they were not walking after the train in order to do any harm, but still, there was something terrible in their nearness.
Egorushka quickly turned frontwards and, trembling all over, cried out:
‘‘Pantelei! Grandpa!’’
‘‘Trrak! Tak! Tak!’’ the sky answered him.
He opened his eyes to see whether the wagoners were there. Lightning flashed in two places and lit up the road into the far distance, the whole wagon train, and all the wagoners. Streams flowed down the road, and bubbles leaped. Pantelei strode along beside the wagon, his tall hat and shoulders covered by a small bast mat; his figure expressed neither fear nor alarm, as if he had been deafened by the thunder and blinded by the lightning.
‘‘Grandpa, giants!’’ Egorushka cried to him, weeping.
But the old man did not hear. Emelyan walked further on. He was covered from head to foot with a big bast mat and now had the form of a triangle. Vasya, not covered by anything, strode along as woodenly as ever, lifting his legs high and not bending his knees. In the glare of the lightning, it seemed that the wagon train was not moving and the wagoners were frozen, that Vasya’s lifted leg had stopped dead...
Egorushka called the old man again. Not getting any answer, he sat without moving, no longer waiting for it all to end. He was certain that a thunderbolt would kill him that very minute, that his eyes would open inadvertently and he would see the frightful giants. And he did not cross himself anymore, did not call out to the old man, did not think of his mother, and only went numb with cold and the certainty that the storm would never end.
But suddenly voices were heard.
‘‘Egory, are you asleep or what?’’ Pantelei shouted from below. ‘‘Climb down! Are you deaf, you little fool?...’
‘‘What a storm!’’ said some unfamiliar bass, grunting as if he had drunk a good glass of vodka.
Egorushka opened his eyes. Below, by the wagon, stood Pantelei, the triangular Emelyan, and the giants. The latter were now much smaller and, once Egorushka had taken a better look, turned out to be ordinary muzhiks, holding not spears but iron pitchforks on their shoulders. In the space between Pantelei and the triangle shone the lighted window of a low cottage. This meant that the wagon train was standing in a village. Egorushka threw off the bast mat, took his little bundle, and hastened down from the wagon. Now, with people talking nearby and the lighted window, he was no longer afraid, though the thunder crashed as before and lightning slashed across the whole sky.
‘‘A good storm, all right...’ muttered Pantelei. ‘‘Thank God... My feet got a little soggy from the rain, but that’s all right, too... Did you climb down, Egory? Well, go inside the cottage... It’s all right...’
‘‘Holy, holy, holy ...’ wheezed Emelyan. ‘‘It must have struck somewhere... Are you from hereabouts?’’ he asked the giants.
‘‘No, we’re from Glinovo... Glinovo folk. We work for the Plater family.’’
‘‘Threshing or what?’’
‘‘All sorts of things. Right now we’re harvesting wheat. But what lightning, what lightning! Haven’t had such a storm in a long time...’
Egorushka went into the cottage. He was met by a skinny, humpbacked old woman with a sharp chin. She was holding a tallow candle, squinting, and letting out long sighs.
‘‘What a storm God sent us!’’ she said. ‘‘And ours spent the night on the steppe, that’s hard on ’em, dear hearts! Get undressed, laddie, get undressed...’
Trembling with cold and shrinking squeamishly, Egorushka pulled off his drenched coat, then spread his arms and legs wide and did not move for a long time. Each little movement gave him an unpleasant sensation of wetness and cold. The sleeves and back of his shirt were wet, the trousers clung to his legs, his head was dripping...
