CHAPTER I

When Yevsey Klimkov was four years old, his father was shot dead by the forester; and when he was seven years old, his mother died. She died suddenly in the field at harvest time. And so strange was this that Yevsey was not even frightened by the sight of her dead body.

Uncle Piotr, a blacksmith, put his hand on the boy's head, and said:

"What are we going to do now?"

Yevsey took a sidelong glance at the corner where his mother lay upon a bench, and answered in a low voice:

"I don't know."

The blacksmith wiped the sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve, and after a long silence gently shoved his nephew aside.

"You're going to live with me," he said. "We'll send you to school, I suppose, so that you won't be in our way. Ah, you old man!"

From that day the boy was called Old Man. The nickname suited him very well. He was too small for his age, his movements were sluggish, and his voice thin. A little bird-like nose stuck out sadly from a bony face, his round colorless eyes blinked timorously, his hair was sparse and grew in tufts. The impression he made was of a puny, shriveled-up little old fellow. The children in school laughed at him and beat him, his dull oldish look and his owl-like face somehow irritating the healthier and livelier among them. He held himself aloof, and lived alone, silently, always in the shade, or in some corner or hole. Without winking his round eyes he looked forth upon the people from his retirement, cautiously contracted like a snail in its shell. When his eyes grew tired, he closed them, and for a long time sat sightless, gently swaying his thin body.

Yevsey endeavored to escape observation even in his uncle's home; but here it was difficult. He had to dine and sup in the company of the whole family, and when he sat at the table, Yakov, the uncle's youngest son, a lusty, red-faced youngster, tried every trick to tease him or make him laugh. He made faces, stuck out his tongue, kicked Yevsey's legs under the table, and pinched him. He never succeeded, however, in making the Old Man laugh, though he did succeed in producing quite the opposite result, for often Yevsey would start with pain, his yellow face would turn grey, his eyes open wide, and his spoon tremble in his hand.

"What is it?" his uncle Piotr sometimes asked.

"It's Yashka," the boy explained in an even voice, in which there was no note of complaint.

If Uncle Piotr gave Yashka a box on the ear, or pulled his hair, Aunt Agafya puckered up her lips and muttered angrily:

"Ugh, you telltale!"

And then Yashka found him somewhere, and pummeled him long and assiduously upon back, sides, and stomach. Yevsey endured the drubbing as something inevitable. It would not have been profitable to complain of Yashka, because if Uncle Piotr beat his son, Aunt Agafya repaid the punishment with interest upon her nephew, and her blows were more painful than Yashka's. So when Yevsey saw that Yashka wanted to attack him, he merely ran away, though he was always overtaken. Then the Old Man dropped to the ground, and pressed his body to the soil with all his might, pulling up his knees to his stomach, covering his face and his head with his hands, and silently yielding his sides and back to his cousin's fists. The more patiently he bore the buffeting, the angrier grew Yashka. Sometimes Yashka even cried and shouted, while he kicked his cousin's body:

"You nasty louse, you, scream!"

Once Yevsey found a horseshoe and gave it to the little pugilist, because he knew Yashka would take it from him at any rate. Mollified by the present, Yashka asked:

"Did I hurt you very much when I beat you the last time?"

"Very much," answered Yevsey.

Yashka thought a while, scratched his head, and said in embarrassment:

"It's nothing. It will pass away."

He left Yevsey, but somehow his words settled deep in the Old Man's heart, and he repeated hopefully in an undertone:

"It will pass away."

Once Yevsey saw some women pilgrims rubbing their tired feet with nettles. He followed their example, and applied the nettles to his bruised sides. It seemed to him his pain was greatly assuaged. From that time he religiously rubbed his wounds with the down of the noxious and despised weed.

He was poor at his lessons, because he came to school full of dread of beatings, and he left school swelling with a sense of insult. His apparent apprehension of being wronged evoked in others the unconquerable desire to ply the Old Man with blows.

It turned out that Yevsey had a counter-tenor, and the teacher took him to the church choir. After this he had to be at home less, but to compensate he met his schoolmates more frequently, at the rehearsals, and they all fought no less than Yashka.

The old frame church pleased Yevsey. He was always strongly drawn to peep into the snug warm quiet of its many dark corners, expecting to find in one of them something uncommon and good, which would embrace him, press him tenderly to itself, and speak to him the way his mother used to. All the sacred images, black with many years of soot, with their good yet stern expression, recalled the dark-bearded face of Uncle Piotr.

At the church entrance was a picture, which depicted a saint who had caught the devil and was beating him; the saint, a tall, dark, sinewy fellow with long hands, the devil, a reddish, lean wizened creature of stunted growth resembling a little goat. At first Yevsey did not look at the devil; he had a desire to spit at him surreptitiously; but then he began to pity the unfortunate little fiend, and when nobody was around he tenderly stroked the goat-like little chin disfigured by dread and pain. Thus, for the first time a sense of pity sprang up in the boy's heart.

Yevsey liked the church for another reason: here all the people, even the notorious ruffians, dropped their boisterousness, and conducted themselves quietly and submissively. For loud talk frightened Yevsey. He ran away from excited faces and shouts, and hid himself, owing to the fact that once on a market-day he had seen a brawl between a number of muzhiks, which began by their talking to one another in very loud voices. Then they shouted and pushed; next someone seized a pole, waved it about, and struck another man. A terrible howl ensued, many started to run. They knocked the Old Man off his feet, and he fell face downward in a puddle. When he jumped up he saw a huge muzhik coming toward him waving his hands, with a quivering, gory blotch instead of a face. This was so terrible that Yevsey yelled, and suddenly felt as if he were being precipitated into a black pit. He had to be sprinkled with water to bring him to his senses.

Yevsey was also afraid of drunken men. His mother had told him that a demon takes up his abode in the body of a drunkard. The Old Man imagined this demon prickly as a hedgehog and moist as a frog, with a reddish body and green eyes, who settles in a man's stomach, stirs about there, and turns the man into an evil fiend.

There were many other good things about the church. Besides the quiet and tender twilight, Yevsey liked the singing. When he sang without notes, he closed his eyes firmly, and letting his clear plaintive soprano blend with the general chorus in order it should not be heard above the others, he hid himself deliciously somewhere, as if overcome by a sweet sleep. In this drowsy state it seemed to him he was drifting away from life, approaching another gentle, peaceful existence.

A thought took shape in his mind, which he once expressed to his uncle in these words:

"Can a person live so that he can go everywhere and see everything, but be seen by nobody?"

"Invisibly?" asked the blacksmith, and thought a while. "I should suppose it would be impossible." He turned his black face to his nephew, and added seriously, "Yes, of course, it would be very nice if you could do it, Orphan."

From the moment that all the villagers began to call Yevsey "Old Man," Uncle Piotr used "Orphan" instead. A peculiar man in every respect the blacksmith was not terrible even when drunk. He would merely remove his hat from his head and walk about the street waving it, singing in a high doleful voice, smiling, and shaking his head. The tears would run down his face even more copiously than when he was sober.

His uncle seemed to Yevsey the very wisest and best muzhik in the whole village. He could talk with him about everything. Though he often smiled he scarcely ever laughed; he spoke without haste, in a quiet, serious tone. Either failing to notice his nephew, or forgetting about him – which especially pleased Yevsey – he would talk to himself in his shop, keeping up a constant dispute with some invisible opponent and forever admonishing him.

"Confound you," he would mumble, but without anger. "Greedy maw! Don't I work? There, I have scorched my eyes. I'll soon get blind. What else do you want? A curse on this life! Hard luck! No beauty – no joy."

His interjections sounded as if he were composing psalms; and Yevsey had the impression that his uncle was actually facing the man he was addressing.

Once Yevsey asked:

"Whom are you talking to?"

"Whom am I talking to?" repeated the blacksmith without looking at the boy. Then he smiled and answered. "I'm talking to my stupidity."

But it was a rare thing for Yevsey to be able to speak with his guardian, for he was seldom alone. Yashka, round as a top, often spun about the place, drowning the blows of the hammer and the crackling of the coals in the furnace with his piercing shouts. In his presence Yevsey did not dare even to look at his uncle.

The smithy stood at the edge of the shallow ravine, at the bottom of which among the osier bushes, Yevsey passed all his leisure time in spring, summer, and autumn. Here it was as peaceful as in the church. The birds warbled, the bees and drones hummed, and a fine quiet song quivered in the air. The boy sat there swaying his body and brooding with tightly shut eyes. Or he roamed amid the bushes, listening to the noise in the blacksmith shop. When he perceived his uncle was alone, he crept out and went up to him.

"What, you, Orphan?" was the blacksmith's greeting, as he scrutinized the boy with his little eyes wet with tears.

Once Yevsey asked:

"Is the evil power in the church at night?"

The smith thought a while, and answered:

"Why shouldn't it be? It gets everywhere. That's easy for it."

The boy raised his shoulders, and with his round eyes searchingly examined the dark corners of the shop.

"Don't be afraid of the devils," the uncle advised.

Yevsey sighed, and answered quietly:

"I'm not afraid."

"They won't hurt you," the blacksmith explained with assurance, wiping his eyes with his black fingers. Then Yevsey asked:

"And how about God?"

"What about Him?"

"Why does God let devils get into the church?"

"What's that to him? God isn't the keeper of the church."

"Doesn't he live there?"

"Who? God? Why should He? His place, Orphan, is everywhere. The churches are for the people."

"And the people, what are they for?"