Part 101

As I did so, there arose from the ground-level an animated clod of earth in the shape of a sturdy individual. Unwashed and unshaven, he had hanging on his frame an open canvas shirt, grey with dust, and baggy blue breeches.

"Good evening," I said to the fellow.

"I wish you the same," he replied. "Whither are you bound?"

"First of all, what is the name of this river?"

"What is its name? Why, it is the Sagaidak, of course."

On the man's large, round head there was a shock of bristling, grizzled curls, while pendent to the moustache below it were ends like those of the moustache of a Chinaman. Also, as his small eyes scanned me with an air of impudent distrust, I could detect that they were engaged in counting the holes and dams in my raiment. Only after a long interval did he draw a deep breath as from his pocket he produced a clay pipe with a cane mouthpiece, and, knitting his brows attentively, fell to peering into the pipe's black bowl. Then he said:

"Have you matches?"

I replied in the affirmative.

"And some tobacco?"

For awhile he continued to contemplate the sun where that luminary hung suspended above a cloud-bank before finally declining. Then he remarked:

"Give me a pinch of the tobacco. As for matches, I have some."

So both of us lit up; after which he rested his elbows upon the balustrade of the bridge, leant back against the central stanchions, and for some time continued merely to emit and inhale blue coils of smoke. Then his nose wrinkled, and he expectorated.

"Muscovite tobacco is it?" he inquired.

"No--Roman, Italian."

"Oh!" And as the wrinkles of his nose straightened themselves again he added: "Then of course it is good tobacco."

To enter a dwelling in advance of one's host is a breach of decorum; wherefore, I found myself forced to remain standing where I was until my interlocutor's tale of questions as to my precise identity, my exact place of origin, my true destination, and my real reasons for travelling should tardily win its way to a finish. Greatly the process vexed me, for I was eager, rather, to learn what the steppe settlement might have in store for my delectation.

"Work?" the fellow drawled through his teeth. "Oh no, there is no work to be got here. How could there be at this season of the year?"

Turning aside, he spat into the rivulet.

On the further bank of the latter, a goose was strutting importantly at the head of a string of round, fluffy, yellow goslings, whilst driving the brood were two little girls--the one a child but little larger than the goose itself, dressed in a red frock, and armed with a switch; and the other one a youngster absolutely of a size with the bird, pale of feature, plump of body, bowed of leg, and grave of expression.

"Ufim!" came at this moment in the strident voice of a woman unseen, but incensed; upon which my companion bestowed upon me a sidelong nod, and muttered with an air of appreciation:

"THERE'S lungs for you!"

Whereafter, he fell to twitching the toes of a chafed and blackened foot, and to gazing at their nails. His next question was:

"Are you, maybe, a scholar?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because, if you are, you might like to read the Book over a corpse."

And so proud, apparently, was he of the proposal that a faint smile crossed his flaccid countenance.

"You see, it would be work," he added with his brown eyes veiled, "whilst, in addition, you would be paid ten kopecks for your trouble, and allowed to keep the shroud."

"And should also be given some supper, I suppose?"