DREAMS
Two police deputies: one is black-bearded and stocky, with legs so short that if you looked at him from behind you would think his legs began much lower than in other people; the other is long, thin, and upright as a stick, with a sparse beard of a dark, reddish color. They are escorting a tramp who doesn’t remember his name into town. The stocky deputy struts, looking from side to side, and chewing now a straw, now his own sleeve; at times he slaps himself on the hips and hums a tune. He appears completely unconcerned and flippant. The other, despite his gaunt face and narrow shoulders, looks reliable, serious, and thorough. The way he is built and the expression of his whole body reminds one of the Old Believers or the warriors painted on icons. “For his wisdom God has added to his forehead”; in other words, he is bald, which only increases the above likeness. The first is called Andrei Ptaha, the latter Nikolai Sapozhnikov.
The appearance of the man they are escorting does not correspond in the least to the standard conception of a tramp. He is a small, frail man, feeble-bodied and sickly, his features faint, colorless, and extremely indefinite. His eyebrows are sparse, his eyes submissive and pale, and he has hardly any facial hair, although he is over thirty. He walks timidly, with his shoulders bent forward and his hands thrust into his sleeves. The collar of his threadbare wool overcoat, too nice for a tramp, is turned up to the very edge of his cap, so that nothing but his little red nose dares to peep out into the big, wide world. He has an inaudible, ingratiating tenor voice, and he coughs lightly now and again. It is exceedingly difficult to take him for a tramp who won’t reveal his own name. He looks more like a penniless priest’s son, a God-forgotten loser, a scribe fired for drinking, or the son or nephew of a merchant, who, having tried his scanty talent in the theatrical world, is now walking home to play the last act of the parable of the prodigal son; or, perhaps, judging by the dull patience with which he struggles through the thick autumn mud, he could be a fanatic crawling from one monastery to another, endlessly seeking a life that is peaceful, holy, and free from sin, and never finding it …
The travelers have been walking quite a while now but they never seem to advance beyond the same small patch of land. About thirty feet of the blackish-brown muddy road still lies ahead of them, about the same is seen behind, and farther ahead, as far as your eyes can see, there is an impenetrable wall of white fog. They march on and on, but the land remains the same, the wall will not move closer, and the same patch of ground is forever there. From time to time they glimpse a craggy white stone, a gully, or a bundle of hay dropped by a passerby. A large, dirty puddle will glimmer, or a shadow with vague outlines will suddenly come into view ahead of them; the nearer they come to it the smaller and darker it becomes; still nearer, and there in front of them stands a leaning milestone with its illegible number, or a miserable birch tree, drenched and bare, like a wayside beggar. The birch tree will whisper something with its last yellow leaves, and one leaf will break off and float lazily to the ground. And then again the same fog, mud, the brown grass along the edges of the road. Dim tears are hanging on the grass. These are not the tears of tender joy that the earth sheds when welcoming and parting from the summer sun, and that she gives at dawn for the quails, corncakes, and slender, long-beaked curlews to drink. The travelers’ feet get stuck in a heavy, sticky mud. Every step takes effort.
Andrei Ptaha is somewhat excited. He keeps examining the tramp, trying to figure out how on earth a man, alive and sober, could happen to forget his name.
“Are you Christian at all?” he asks.
“I am,” the tramp answers timidly.
“Hmm … then you’ve been baptized?”
“Well, to be sure! I’m no Turk. I go to church and I observe the fasts, and I don’t eat meat when not allowed. And I do exactly what the pastor says….”
“So what’s your name, then?”
“Call me whatever you like, chap.”
Completely at a loss, Ptaha shrugs his shoulders and slaps himself on the hips. His partner, Nicholas Sapozhnikov, maintains a significant silence. He is not as simple-minded as Ptaha and apparently knows very well the reasons that could induce an orthodox Christian to conceal his name. His expressive face remains cold and stern. He walks a little bit apart from the others and does not condescend to idle chatter. He seems to be trying to demonstrate to everyone, the fog included, his gravity and reason.
“God knows what to make of you,” Ptaha keeps nagging. “Common man you are not, and gentleman you are not, you are sort of in the middle or so…. I was washing a sieve in the pond the other day and up comes this viper, you know, long as a finger, with gills and a tail. First I thought it was a fish, and then I had a good look at it—and, plague upon it! The thing had legs. Maybe it was a fish, or something else, deuce only knows. So that’s like you. What’s your calling?”
“I’m a common man and of a peasant family,” sighs the tramp. “My mother was a house serf. I don’t look like a serf, I don’t, as my family were of a different kind, good men. They kept my mamma as a nurse with the gentlemen, and she had every comfort, and I being of her flesh and blood, I used to live with her in the master’s house. She petted and pampered me, and did her best to take me out of my humble condition and make a gentleman of me. I’d sleep in a bed and eat a real dinner every day, and I wore breeches and half-boots like any other gentleman boy. What my mamma ate she’d give me to eat, too; they gave her money to buy herself new clothes, and she’d buy clothes for me. A good life it was! So many sweets and cakes I was eating as a boy that if I’d sold them all now I could’ve got a good horse. Mamma took me in hand in my learning, and taught me fear of God from my early days.”
The tramp bares his head, and the hair on it looks like a toothless old brush; he turns his eyes upward and crosses himself twice.
“Grant her, dear Lord, a place plenteous and benevolent.” He pronounces this in a drawl, sounding more like an old woman than a man. “Teach Thy servant Ksenia Thy justifications. My beloved mamma had such a good heart that without her I would’ve been the most commonest sort of man with no understanding. And now, chap, you can ask me about whatever you wish and I know it alclass="underline" scriptures secular and holy, and prayers of all kinds, and catechism. And I live accordingly. I don’t harm anyone, I keep my flesh clean and chaste, I observe the fasts, I eat at the appropriate time. Another man may be the slave of vodka and fish, and I—whenever I have some time—I’d sit in a corner and read a book. I’d read and I’d weep and weep.”
“And why would you weep?”
“They write most pitiful! You can give just a five-kopeck piece for a book, and yet you’ll weep and sigh uncommonly over it.”
“Is your father dead?” asked Ptaha.
“I don’t know, fellow. I don’t know my father; I shall be sincere with you. I think I was Mamma’s illegitimate child. My mamma lived with the gentry all her life and didn’t want to marry a muzhik.”
“Aye, and got mixed up with the master,” Ptaha grins.
“She gave in to temptation, she did. She was very goodhearted, and God-fearing, but she didn’t keep herself chaste. It is vicious, of course, very vicious, but now maybe I have some genteel blood in me and maybe they only call me a muzhik but in nature I am a noble gentleman.”
This speech is delivered by the “noble gentleman” in a quiet and sugary little tenor, his narrow forehead wrinkled up and his chilled little nose emitting squeaking sounds. Ptaha listens to what he is saying, looks at him with surprise, and continually shrugs his shoulders.
Having walked nearly four miles, the police deputies and the tramp sit down on a little hill to have a rest.