"The people – it seems they are – in general – for everything. You can't get along without people."

"Are they for God?"

The blacksmith looked askance at his nephew, and answered after a pause:

"Of course." Wiping his hands on his apron and staring at the fire in the furnace, he added, "I don't know about this business, Orphan. Why don't you ask the teacher or the priest?"

Yevsey wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve.

"I'm afraid of them."

"It would be better for you not to talk of such things," the uncle advised gravely. "You are a little boy. You should play out in the open air, and store up health. If you want to live you must be a healthy man. If you are not strong, you can't work. Then you can't live at all. That's all we know, and what God needs is unknown to us." He grew silent, and meditated without removing his eyes from the fire. After a time he continued in a serious tone, speaking choppily: "On the one hand I know nothing, on the other hand I don't understand. They say all wisdom comes from Him. Yet it's evident that the thicker one's candle before God the more wolfish the heart." He looked around the shop, and his eyes fell on the boy in the corner. "Why are you squeezing yourself into that crack? I told you to go out and play." As Yevsey crept out timidly, the smith added, "A spark will fall into your eye, and then you'll be one-eyed. Who wants a one-eyed fellow?"

His mother had told Yevsey several stories on winter nights when the snowstorm knocking against the walls of the hut ran along the roof, touched everything as if groping for something in anguish, crept down the chimney, and whined there mournfully in different keys. The mother recited the tales quietly, drowsily. Her speech sometimes grew confused; often she repeated the same words several times. It seemed to the boy she saw everything about which she spoke, but obscurely, as in the dark.

The neighbors reminded Yevsey of his mother's tales. The blacksmith, too, it seemed, saw in the furnace-fire both devils and God, and all the terrors of human life. That was why he continually wept. While Yevsey listened to his talk, which set his heart aquiver with a dreadful tremor of expectation, the hope insensibly formulated itself that some day he would see something remarkable, not resembling the life in the village, the drunken muzhiks, the cantankerous women, the boisterous children – something quite different, without noise and confusion, without malice and quarreling, something lovable and serious, like the church service.

One of the neighbors was a blind girl, with whom Yevsey became intimate. He took her to walk in the village; carefully helped her down the ravine, and spoke to her in a low voice, opening wide his watery eyes in fear. This friendship did not escape the notice of the villagers, all of whom it pleased. But once the mother of the blind girl came to Uncle Piotr with a complaint. She declared Yevsey had frightened Tanya with his talk, and now she could not leave her daughter alone, because the girl cried and slept poorly, had disturbed dreams, and started out of her sleep screaming. What Yevsey had said to her it was impossible to make out. She kept babbling about devils, about the sky being black and having holes in it, about fires visible through the holes, and about devils who made sport in there, and teased people. What does it mean? How can anyone tell a little girl such stuff?

"Come here," said Uncle Piotr to his nephew.

When Yevsey quietly left his corner, the smith put his rough heavy hand on his head and asked:

"Did you tell her all that?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

The blacksmith, without removing his hand, shoved back the boy's head, and looking into his eyes asked gravely:

"Why, is the sky black?"

"What else is it if she can't see?" Yevsey muttered.

"Who?"

"Tanya."

"Yes," said the blacksmith. After a moment's reflection he asked, "And how about the fire being black? Why did you invent that?"

The boy dropped his eyes and was silent.

"Well, speak. Nobody is beating you. Why did you tell her all that nonsense, eh?"

"I was sorry for her," whispered Yevsey.

The blacksmith pushed him aside lightly.

"You shan't talk to her any more, do you hear? Never! Don't worry, Aunt Praskovya, we'll put an end to this friendship."

"You ought to give him a whipping," said the mother. "My little girl lived quietly, she wasn't a bit of a bother to anybody, and now someone has to be with her all the time."

After Praskovya had left, the smith without saying anything led Yevsey by the hand into the yard.

"Now talk sensibly. Why did you frighten the little girl?"

The uncle's voice was not loud, but it was stern. Yevsey became frightened, and quickly began to justify himself, stuttering over his words.

"I didn't frighten her – I did it just – just – she kept complaining – she said I see only black, but for you everything – so I began to tell her everything is black to keep her from being envious. I didn't mean to frighten her at all."

Yevsey broke into sobs, feeling himself wronged. Uncle Piotr smiled.

"You fool! You should have remembered that she's been blind only three years. She wasn't born blind. She lost her sight after she had the smallpox. So she recollects what things are really bright. Oh, what a stupid fellow!"

"I'm not stupid. She believed me," Yevsey retorted, wiping his eyes.

"Well, all right. Only don't go with her any more. Do you hear?"

"I won't."

"As to your crying; it's nothing. Let them think I gave you a beating." The blacksmith tapped Yevsey on the shoulder, and continued with a smile, "You and I, we're cheats, both of us."

The little fellow buried his head in his uncle's side, and asked tremulously:

"Why is everybody down on me?"

"I don't know, Orphan," answered the uncle after a moment's reflection.

The wrongs to which he was subjected now began to yield the boy a sort of bitter satisfaction. A dim conviction settled upon him that he was not like everybody else, and this was why all were down on him. He observed that all the people were malicious and worn out with ill-will. They lived, each deceiving his neighbor, abusing one another, and drinking. Everyone sought for mastery over his fellow, though over himself he was not master. Yevsey saw no man who was not in constant fear of something. The whole of life was filled with terror, and terror divided the people into fragments.

The village stood upon a low hill. On the other side of the river stretched a marsh. In the summer after a hot day it exhaled a stifling lilac-colored mist, which breathed a putrid breath upon the village, and sent upon the people a swarm of mosquitoes. The people, angry and pitiful, scratched themselves until blood came. From behind the thin woods in the distance climbed a lowering reddish moon. Huge and round it looked through the haze like a dull sinister eye. Yevsey thought it was threatening him with all kinds of misery and dread. He feared its dirty reddish face. When he saw it over the marsh, he hid himself, and in his sleep he was tormented by heavy dreams. At night bluish, trembling lights strayed over the marsh, said to be the homeless spirits of sinners. The villagers sighed over them sorrowfully, pitying them. But for one another they had no pity.

It was possible for them, however, to have lived differently, in friendship and joy. An incident Yevsey once witnessed proved this to him.

One night the granary of the rich muzhik Veretennikov caught fire. The little boy ran into the garden, and climbed up a willow tree to look at the conflagration.

It seemed to him that the many-winged, supple body of a horrible smoke-begrimed bird with a fiery jaw was circling in the sky. It inclined its red blazing head to the ground, greedily tore the straw with its sharp fiery teeth, gnawed at the wood, and licked it with its hundred yellow tongues. Its smoky body playfully coiled in the black sky, fell upon the village, crept along the roofs of the houses, and again raised itself aloft majestically and lightly, without removing its flaming red head from the ground. It snorted, scattering sheaves of sparks, whistling with joy in its evil work, singing, puffing, and spreading its raging jaw wider and wider, embracing the wood more and more greedily with its red ribbons of flame.

In the presence of the fire the people turned small and black. They sprinkled water into its jaws, thrust long poles at it, and tore flaming sheaves from between its teeth. Then they trampled the sheaves. The people, too, coughed, sniffed, and sneezed, gasping for breath in the greasy smoke. They shouted and roared, their voices blending with the crackling and roaring of the fire. They approached nearer and nearer to the great bird, surrounding its red head with a black living ring, as if tightening a noose about its body. Here and there the noose broke, but they tied it again, and crowded about more firmly. The noose strangled the fire, which lay there savagely. It jumped up, and its body swelled, writhing like a snake, striving to free its head; but the people held it fast to the ground. Finally, enfeebled, exhausted, and sullen it fell upon the neighboring granaries, crept along the gardens, and dwindled away, shattered and faint.

"All together!" shouted the villagers, encouraging one another.

"Water!" rang out the women's voices.

The women formed a chain from the fire to the river, strangers and kinsmen, friends and enemies all in a row. And the buckets of water were rapidly passed from hand to hand.

"Quick, women! Quick, good women!"

It was pleasant and cheerful to look upon this good, friendly life in conflict with the fire. The people emboldened one another. They spoke words of praise for displays of dexterity and disputed in kindly jest. The shouts were free from malice. In the presence of the fire everybody seemed to see his neighbor as good, and each grew pleasant to the other. When at last the fire was vanquished, the villagers grew even jolly. They sang songs, laughed, boasted of the work, and joked. The older people got whiskey to drink away their exhaustion, while the young folk remained in the streets amusing themselves almost until morning. And everything was as good as in a dream.

Yevsey heard not a single malicious shout, nor noticed a single angry face. During the entire time the fire was burning no one wept from pain or abuse, no one roared with the beastly roar of savage malice, ready for murder.

The next day Yevsey said to his uncle:

"How nice it was last night!"

"Yes, Orphan, it was nice. A little more, and the fire would have burned away half the village."

"I mean about the people," explained the boy. "How they joined together in a friendly way. If they would live like that all the time, if there were a fire all the time!"

The blacksmith reflected for an instant, then asked in surprise:

"You mean there should be fires all the time?" He looked at Yevsey sternly, and shook his finger. "You wiseacre, you, look out! Don't think such sinful thoughts. Just see him! He finds pleasure in fires!"