‘‘Holy, holy, holy ...’ he whispered.
Suddenly, just above his head, the sky broke up with a frightful, deafening crash; he bent over and held his breath, waiting for the pieces to fall on his neck and back. His eyes opened inadvertently, and he saw a blinding, cutting light flash and blink some five times on his fingers, on his wet sleeves, on the streams running off the bast mat, on the bale, and on the ground below. Another clap resounded, just as strong and terrible. The sky no longer rumbled or crashed, but produced dry, crackling noises, like the creaking of dry wood.
‘‘Trrack! Tak! Tak! Tak!’’ the thunder rapped out clearly, rolled down the sky, stumbled, and collapsed somewhere by the front wagons or far behind, with an angry, abrupt ‘‘Trrah!’’
The earlier flashes of lightning had only been scary, but with such thunder, they felt sinister. Their bewitching light penetrated your closed eyelids and spread cold through your whole body. What to do so as not to see them? Egorushka decided to turn and face the other way. Carefully, as if afraid he was being watched, he got up on all fours and, his hands slipping on the wet bale, turned around.
‘‘Trrack! Tak! Tak!’’ swept over his head, fell under the wagon, and exploded—‘‘Rrrah!’’
His eyes again opened inadvertently, and Egorushka saw a new danger; behind the wagon walked three huge giants with long spears. Lightning flashed on the tips of their spears and lit up their figures very clearly. They were people of huge size, with covered faces, drooping heads, and heavy footsteps. They seemed sad and despondent, immersed in thought. Maybe they were not walking after the train in order to do any harm, but still, there was something terrible in their nearness.
Egorushka quickly turned frontwards and, trembling all over, cried out:
‘‘Pantelei! Grandpa!’’
‘‘Trrak! Tak! Tak!’’ the sky answered him.
He opened his eyes to see whether the wagoners were there. Lightning flashed in two places and lit up the road into the far distance, the whole wagon train, and all the wagoners. Streams flowed down the road, and bubbles leaped. Pantelei strode along beside the wagon, his tall hat and shoulders covered by a small bast mat; his figure expressed neither fear nor alarm, as if he had been deafened by the thunder and blinded by the lightning.
‘‘Grandpa, giants!’’ Egorushka cried to him, weeping.
But the old man did not hear. Emelyan walked further on. He was covered from head to foot with a big bast mat and now had the form of a triangle. Vasya, not covered by anything, strode along as woodenly as ever, lifting his legs high and not bending his knees. In the glare of the lightning, it seemed that the wagon train was not moving and the wagoners were frozen, that Vasya’s lifted leg had stopped dead...
Egorushka called the old man again. Not getting any answer, he sat without moving, no longer waiting for it all to end. He was certain that a thunderbolt would kill him that very minute, that his eyes would open inadvertently and he would see the frightful giants. And he did not cross himself anymore, did not call out to the old man, did not think of his mother, and only went numb with cold and the certainty that the storm would never end.
But suddenly voices were heard.
‘‘Egory, are you asleep or what?’’ Pantelei shouted from below. ‘‘Climb down! Are you deaf, you little fool?...’
‘‘What a storm!’’ said some unfamiliar bass, grunting as if he had drunk a good glass of vodka.
Egorushka opened his eyes. Below, by the wagon, stood Pantelei, the triangular Emelyan, and the giants. The latter were now much smaller and, once Egorushka had taken a better look, turned out to be ordinary muzhiks, holding not spears but iron pitchforks on their shoulders. In the space between Pantelei and the triangle shone the lighted window of a low cottage. This meant that the wagon train was standing in a village. Egorushka threw off the bast mat, took his little bundle, and hastened down from the wagon. Now, with people talking nearby and the lighted window, he was no longer afraid, though the thunder crashed as before and lightning slashed across the whole sky.
‘‘A good storm, all right...’ muttered Pantelei. ‘‘Thank God... My feet got a little soggy from the rain, but that’s all right, too... Did you climb down, Egory? Well, go inside the cottage... It’s all right...’
‘‘Holy, holy, holy ...’ wheezed Emelyan. ‘‘It must have struck somewhere... Are you from hereabouts?’’ he asked the giants.
‘‘No, we’re from Glinovo... Glinovo folk. We work for the Plater family.’’
‘‘Threshing or what?’’
‘‘All sorts of things. Right now we’re harvesting wheat. But what lightning, what lightning! Haven’t had such a storm in a long time...’
Egorushka went into the cottage. He was met by a skinny, humpbacked old woman with a sharp chin. She was holding a tallow candle, squinting, and letting out long sighs.
‘‘What a storm God sent us!’’ she said. ‘‘And ours spent the night on the steppe, that’s hard on ’em, dear hearts! Get undressed, laddie, get undressed...’
Trembling with cold and shrinking squeamishly, Egorushka pulled off his drenched coat, then spread his arms and legs wide and did not move for a long time. Each little movement gave him an unpleasant sensation of wetness and cold. The sleeves and back of his shirt were wet, the trousers clung to his legs, his head was dripping...
‘‘What are you standing all astraddle for, poppet?’’ said the old woman. ‘‘Go sit down!’’
Moving his legs wide apart, Egorushka went over to the table and sat down on a bench by somebody’s head. The head stirred, let out a stream of air from its nose, munched its lips, and grew still. From the head, a lump extended along the bench, covered by a sheepskin coat. It was a sleeping peasant woman.
The old woman, sighing, went out and soon came back with a watermelon and a cantaloupe.
‘‘Eat, laddie! There’s nothing else to give you ...’ she said, yawning, then rummaged in the table drawer and took out a long, sharp knife, very much like the knives with which robbers kill merchants in roadside inns. ‘‘Eat, laddie!’’
Egorushka, trembling as in a fever, ate a slice of cantaloupe with some rye bread, then a slice of watermelon, and that made him feel even more chilled.
‘‘Ours spent the night on the steppe ...’ the old woman sighed while he ate. ‘‘Suffering Jesus... I’d light a candle in front of the icon, but I don’t know where Stepanida put them. Eat, laddie, eat...’
The old woman yawned and, thrusting her right hand behind her back, scratched her left shoulder with it.
‘‘Must be two o’clock now,’’ she said. ‘‘Soon time to get up. Ours spent the night on the steppe ... must be all soaked...’
‘‘Grandma,’’ said Egorushka, ‘‘I’m sleepy.’’
‘‘Lie down, laddie, lie down ...’ the old woman sighed, yawning. ‘‘Lord Jesus Christ! I was asleep, and it seemed I heard somebody knocking. I woke up, looked, and it was this storm God sent us... I should light a candle, but I can’t find any.’’
Talking to herself, she pulled some rags off the bench, probably her own bedding, took two sheepskin coats from a nail by the stove, and started making up a bed for Egorushka.
‘‘The storm won’t be still,’’ she muttered. ‘‘Hope nothing burns down, worse luck. Ours spent the night on the steppe... Lie down, laddie, sleep... Christ be with you, sonny... I won’t put the melon away, maybe you’ll get up and eat it.’’
The old woman’s sighs and yawns, the measured breathing of the sleeping woman, the dimness in the cottage, and the sound of the rain outside the window were conducive to sleep. Egorushka was embarrassed to undress in front of the old woman. He took off only his boots, lay down, and covered himself with a sheepskin coat.