'Go on, help yourself,' urged Kuzmichov.
Deniska seized the pie decisively, went off far to one side and sat on the ground, his back to the carriage. There ensued a chewing noise so loud that even the horses turned round and looked at Deniska sus- piciously.
After his meal Kuzmichov got a bag containing something out of the carriage. 'I'm going to sleep,' he told Yegorushka. 'You mind no one takes this bag from under my head.'
Father Christopher removed his cassock, belt and caftan, seeing which Yegorushka was do^right astounded. That priests wore trousers he had had no inkling, and Father Christopher was wearing real canvas trousers tucked into his high boots, and a short cotton jacket. With his long hair and beard, and in this costume so unsuited to his calling, he looked to the boy very like Robinson Crusoe. Having disrobed, Father Christopher and Kuzmichov lay in the shade undcr the britzka facing each other, and closed their eyes. Deniska, who had finished chewing, stretched out belly upwards in the sun's heat and also closed his eyes. 'Make sure no one steals the horses,' he told Ycgorudika and fell asleep at once.
Quictncss ensued. Nothing was heard but the horses' whinnying and chewing, and some snorcs from the sleepers. A little way off a single lapwing wailed, and there was an occasional squeak from the thrcc snipe, which had flo^ up to see if the uninvited guests had left. Thc brook softly lisped and gurgled, but none of thesc sounds tres- paued on the silence or stirred the sluggish air. Far from it, thcy only made nature drowsier still.
Panting in the heat, which was panicululy oppre^ive after the meal, Yegorushka ran to the sedge and surveyed the l^lity from there. He saw exactly what he had seen that morning: plain, hills, sky, purple horizons. But the hills were nearer and there was no ^mdmill, for that had been left far behind. From behind the rocky hiU where the stream flowed another—smoother and broader—hill loomed, with a small hamlet of five or six homesteads clinging to it. Near the huts neither people, trees nor shadows could be seen—Ae settlement might have choked in the hot air and withered away. To pass the time the boy caught a grasshopper in the herbage, held it to his ear in his closed hand, and listened to its pizzicato for some time. Bored with that music, he chased a flock of yellow butterflies flying up to the sedge to drink, and somehow found limselfnear the carriage again. His uncle and Father Christopher were fast asleep—a sleep that was sure to last two or three hours, to let the horses rest. How was the boy to get through all that time? Where could he escape the heat? No easy problem, that.
Without thinking, Yegorushka put his lips under thejet ^ning out of the pipe. His mouth felt cold, and there was a smell ofhemlock. He drank thirstily at first, and then forced himself to go on till the sharp cold had spread from his mouth throughout his body and water had spilt on his shirt. Then he went to the carriage and looked at the sleepers. His uncle's face still expressed businesslike reserve. Obsessed with his business, Kuzmichov was always brooding on it—even in his sleep, and in church during the anthem 'And the Cherubims'. Not for a minute could he forget it, and at this moment he was probably dream- ing of bales of wool, wagons, prices and Varlamov. But Father Chris- topher—gentle, light-hearted, always ready to laugh—had never in his life kno-wn anything capable of taking a stranglehold on his entire being. In the many deals he had embarked on in his time he had been le^ attracted by the business side than by the bustle and contact with other people that are part of any undertaking. For instance, what interested lim about their presentjourney was less the wool, Varlamov and the prices than the long road, conversation on the way, sleeping under the carriage and eating at the wrong times. From his expression he must be dreaming of Bishop Christopher, the Latin conversation, his wife, cream doughnuts and everything that Kuzmichov could not possibly be dreaming oЈ
Watching their sleepy faces, the boy unexpectedly heard someone quietly singing. It was a woman's voice—not near, but just where it came from and from what direction it was hard to tell. Despondent, dirgelike, scarcely audible, thc quiet song droned on. Now it came from the right, now from the left, now from above, now from under- ground, as if an invisible spirit floated, chanting, above the steppe. Looking around him, Yegorushka could not tell where the strange song originated, but as his ears became attuned he fancied that the grass must be the singer. Half dead, already perished, it was ^^ng— wordlessly, but plaintively and earnestly—to plead that it was guilty of no crime and that it was unfair for the sun to scorch it. It asserted the passionate love of life of a creature still young and, but for the heat and drought, potentially beautiful. Guiltless, it yet begged forgiveness, swearing that it was suffering agonies of grief and self-pity.
Ycgorushka listened for a while, until the lugubrious chant began to make the air seem more suffocating, hot and stagnant than ever. To drown the sound he hummed to himself and ran to the sedge, trying to bring his feet down noisily. Then he looked all around and found the singer. Near the last hut in the hamlet stood a woman in a short petti- coat, long-legged like a heron. She was sowing, and white dust floated languidly down the hillock from her sieve. That she was the singer was now patently obvious. Two paces from her a small bareheaded boy, wearing just a smock, stood stock-stili. As if bewitched by the song, he remained immobile, looking downhill—probably at Yego- rushka's red shirt.
The singing ceased. Yegorushka made his way back to the carriage and, having nothing else to do, started playing with the jet of water again.
Once again the song droned out. It was the same long-legged woman in the hamlet over the hill. Suddenly Yegorushka felt bored again, left the water-pipe and cast his eyes aloft. What he saw was so unexpected that he was a little frightened. On one of the large, awkward boulders above his head stood a chubby little boy wearingjust a smock. It was the same boy—with large, protruding stomach and thin legs—who had been with the woman. Open-mouthed, unblinking, with a blank stare and in some fear—as if contemplating a ghost—he inspected Yegorushka's crimson shirt and the britzka. The red colour attracted and beguiled him, while the carriage and the men asleep under it stirred his curiosity. Perhaps he himself had not been aware that the agreeable red colour and his own inquisitiveness had lurcd him down from the hamlet, and by now he was probably amazed at his o^ boldness. Yegorushka and he surveyed each other for a while, neither speaking, and both feeling slight embarrassment.
'What's your name?' Yegorushb askcd, aftcr a long silence.
The stranger's checks puRcd out still more. He braced his back against the rock, opencd his eyes widc, moved his lips and answered in a husky bass. 'Titus.'
That was all the boys said to each other. After more silence the mysterious Titus liftcd one foot, foimd a heelhold and climbed up the bouldcr backwards without taking his eyes off Yegorushka. Backing away, while staring at Yegorushka as ifafraid of being hit from behind, he clambercd on to the ncxt rock and so made his way up till he vanished altogether behind a crest.
Watching him out of sight, Ycgorushka clasped his knecs and bowed forward. Thc hot rays burnt the back of his head, neck and spine. Thc mclancholy song now died away, now floated again in the still, stifling air, the stream gurgled monotonously, the horses munched, and time sccmcd to drag on for ever, as if it too had stagnated and congealed. A hundred years might have passed since morning. Perhaps God wanted Yegorushka, the carriage and the horses to come to a standstill, turn to stone like thc hills, and stay in the same place for ever?