The tramp bares his head, with its sparse tufts ofbristles, raises his eyes, and signs himself twice with the cross.
'Bring her, O Lord, to a verdant pasture, a place of repose!' he intones in a voice more like an old woman's than a man's. 'Teach her, O Lord, thy servant Kseniya, thy statutes! If it weren't for my kind mamma, I'd be just a simple peasant with no clue about anything! Now though, lad, you can ask me about anything you like and I'll tell you - whether it's profane writings, or holy writ, your prayers or your catechism. And I live by the good Book,too . . . I harm noone, I keep my body in purity and chastity, I observe the fasts, I eat at the appointed times. Another man might have no pleasure in life but vodka and lewd talk, but if I have any spare"time I sit down in a little corner and read a book. I read, and cry and cry . . .'
'What do you cry for?'
'They write so sadly ! A book might not cost you more than five
kopecks, yet you can cry and groan over it no end.'
'Is your father dead?' asks Ptakha.
'I don't know, lad. No harm in telling you -1 don't know who my parent was. The way I see it, I was my mamma's illegitimate child. My mamma lived all her life with the gentry and didn't wish to marry an ordinary peasant -'
'So she set her sights on the master instead,' grins Ptakha.
'She transgressed, that she did. She was devout, God-fearing, but she did not preserve her maidenhood. It's a sin, ofcourse, a great sin, no denying it, but then maybe there's noble blood in me as a result. Maybe I'm only a peasant in rank, underneath it I'm a noble gentle- man.'
The 'noble gentleman' says all this in a soft, treacly high-pitched voice, furrowing his narrow little brow and emitting little squeaks through his frozen red nose. Ptakha listens, squints at him amazed, and never ceases shrugging his shoulders.
After walking nearly six versts, the constables and the tramp sit down on a mound to rest.
'Even a dog remembers its own name,' Ptakha mutters. 'I'm called Andryushka, he's called Nikandra -every man has his holy name, and that name must never be forgot! Never!'
'Who needs to know my name?' sighs the tramp, propping his cheek on his fist. 'And what good will it do me? Maybe, if they'd let me go where I like . . . but as it is it'd only make matters worse. My brothers in the faith, I know the law. Now I'm just a tramp, anonym- ous, and at worst they'll send me to East Siberia and give me thirty or forty lashes. But if I tell them my real name and statusthey'll pack me off to hard labour again. I know!'
'You mean to say you were doing hard labour?'
'I was, dear friend. Four years I went round with my head shaven and with irons on.'
'What were you there for?'
'For murder, kindsir! When I wasjust a lad, about eighteen or so, by accident my mamma put arsenic in the master's glass instead of soda and acid. There were lots of different medicine boxes in the storeroom, it wasn't difficult to muddle them up ...'
The tramp sighs, wags his head, and says:
'She was devout all right, but who can really tell-another'ssoul is a dense forest! Maybe it was an accident, but maybe in her heart she couldn't bear the insult of the master taking another maidservant unto him . . . Maybe she pnt it in on purpose, who knows! I was young then and didn't understand it all ... Come to think of it, the master did take another paramour, and my mamma was sorely put out about it. Nearlytwo years ittook them totry us . .. My mamma was sentenced to twenty years' hard labour and myselfjust to seven, because I was under age.'
'Why did they sentence yo«?'
'Asan accomplice. I took him theglass. That's howit always was: my mamma used to mix the soda, and I took it to him. Mind you, brothers, I'm only telling you this as one Christian to another, as I would before God, don't go telling anyone . . .'
'Oh, no one'll ask us,' says Ptakha. 'So you escaped from the penal colony, is that it?'
'l did, dear friend. There was about fourteen of us bolted. God bless them for it, they'd decided to run away themselves, and they took me with them. So you work it out, lad, and tell me honestly, why should I reveal my origins? They'll send me straight back to hard labour! And what kind of a convict am I? I'm delicate, I'm not very well, I like it to be clean where I eat and sleep. When I say my prayers, I like to light a little lamp or candle, and there must be no noise roundabout. When I do my bows to the ground, there must be no litter or spittle on the floor. And I do forty every morning and evening, you know, for my mamma.'
The tramp takes off his cap and crosses himself.
'But let 'em send me to East Siberia,' he says. 'I'm not afraid of that!'
'Is that better, then?'
'It's a completely different story! In the penal colony you're like crayfish stuffed in a basket - cramped and crushed together, you can't even draw breath, may the Holy Mother spare us such hell! You're a criminal, and that's how they treat you, worse than a dog. You can't eat or sleep or pray properly there. But it's different in a settlement. In a senlement the first thing that happens is I become a member of the community like everyone else. The authorities have to give me my share by law . . . oh yes! Land there, they say, costs no more than snow - you take as much as you want! They'll give me land to till, lad, land for my vegetables, and land to build on ... I'll plough and sow just like other people, I'll keep cattle and the whole lot— bees, sheep, dogs . .. And a Siberian cat to stop the rats and mice eating my goods . .. I'll put up a log hut, brothers, I'll buy myself icons .. . God willing, I'll get married and have my own little children.'
The tramp mumbles all this looking not at his listeners but some- where to one side. For all their naivety, he voices these fantasies with such smcerity and inner conviction that it is hard not to believe them. The tramp's little mouth has slanted into a smile, whilst his eyes and nose and whole face are set hard in blissful anticipation of that far->ff happiness. The constables listen and regard him seriously, not without sympathy. They too believe.
'No, I'm not afraid of Siberia,' the tramp goes on mumbling. 'Siberia's all part of the same Russia, it's got the same God and Tsar as we have, they talk the same Orthodox tongue as you and me. Only there's more scope there, people are better off. Everything's better there. The rivers, for instance, are far better than the ones here! As for fish and game and what have you - it's teeming with them! And my Number One pleasure in life, brothers, is fishing. I'm happy to go without bread, so long as I can sit with a rod. I mean it. I fish with a rod and with pike-lines, I set creels, and when the ice is under way I fish with a cast-net. I'm not strong enough to lift it myself, so I pay a peasant five kopecks to do it for me. Lord, what sport that is! To catch a burbot or chub, say, is like coming across your own long-lost brother! And every fish has its own mentality, you know: one of them you catch with a live-bait, another with a grub, another with a frog or a grasshopper. You've got to know all about that! Take the burbot, for example. The burbot's not a choosy fish, she'll go for a ruffe even, whilst the pike is fond of a gudgeon and the asp a butterfly. As for chub, there's no better pleasure than fishing for them in a swift stream. You let out about seventy foot of line with no sinker, and a butterfly or beetle on the end, make sure the bait floats on top, then stand in the water with your trousers off, let it go downstream, and - jerk! - you've got a chub. Only you must watch he doesn't whip the bait off, the rascal. Assoon as he jiggles your line, you must strike, don't hang about. Goodgrief, the fish I've caught in my time! When we were on the run and the other prisoners were asleep in the forest, I'd be wide awake itching to get down to the river. And the rivers there are broad and fast, and goodness the banks are steep! Along the banks it's nothing but dense forest. The trees are so tall you only have to look at their tops and your head swims. By prices hereabouts, each pine tree would fetch ten roubles or so.'