FullReads

In answer to my invitation to come to supper, the newcomer sprang to his feet, folded up his manuscript, stuffed it into one of the pockets of his ragged coat, and said with a smile:

“I had just been going to resort to the carpenters, for they would have given us some bread, I suppose? Long is it since I tasted anything.”

The same words he repeated on our approaching the ex-soldier; much as though he took a pleasure in their phraseology.

“You suppose that they would have given us bread?” echoed the ex- soldier as he unfastened his wallet. “Not they! No love is lost between them and ourselves.”

“Whom do you mean by ‘ourselves’?”

“Us here–you and myself–all Russian folk who may happen to be in these parts. From the way in which those fellows keep singing about palms, I should judge them to be sectarians of the sort called Mennonites.”

“Or Molokans, rather?” the other man suggested as he seated himself in front of the fire.

“Yes, or Molokans. Molokans or Mennonites– they’re all one. It is a German faith and though such fellows love a Teuton, they do not exactly welcome US.”

Upon this the man with the Cossack forelock took a slice of bread which the ex-soldier cut from a loaf, with an onion and a pinch of salt. Then, as he regarded us with a pair of good-humoured eyes, he said, balancing his food on the palms of his hands:

“There is a spot on the Sunzha, near here, where those fellows have a colony of their own. Yes, I myself have visited it. True, those fellows are hard enough, but at the same time to speak plainly, NO ONE in these parts has any regard for us since only too many of the sort of Russian folk who come here in search of work are not overly-desirable.”

“Where do you yourself come from?” The ex-soldier’s tone was severe.

“From Kursk, we might say.”

“From Russia, then?”

“Yes, I suppose so. But I have no great opinion even of myself.”

The ex-soldier glanced distrustfully at the newcomer. Then he remarked:

“What you say is cant, sheer Jesuitism. It is fellows like THOSE, rather, that ought to have a poor opinion of themselves.”

To this the other made no reply–merely he put a piece of bread into his mouth. For a moment or two the ex-soldier eyed him frowningly. Then he continued:

“You seem to me to be a native of the Don country? “

“Yes, I have lived on the Don as well.”

“And also served in the army?”

“No. I was an only son.”

“Of a miestchanin? ” [A member of the small commercial class.]

“No, of a merchant.”

“And your name–?”

“Is Vasili.”

The last reply came only after a pause, and reluctantly; wherefore, perceiving that the Kurskan had no particular desire to discuss his own affairs, the ex-soldier said no more on the subject, but lifted the kettle from the fire.

The Molokans also had kindled a blaze behind the corner of the barraque, and now its glow was licking the yellow boards of the structure until they seemed almost to be liquescent, to be about to dissolve and flow over the ground in a golden stream.

Presently, as their fervour increased, the carpenters, invisible amid the obscurity, fell to singing hymns–the basses intoning monotonously, ” Sing, thou Holy Angel! ” and voices of higher pitch responding, coldly and formally.

“Sing ye!
Sing glory unto Christ, thou Angel of Holiness!
Sing ye!
Our singing will we add unto Thine,
Thou Angel of Holiness!”

And though the chorus failed altogether to dull the splashing of the rivulet and the babbling of the by-cut over a bed of stones, it seemed out of place in this particular spot;it aroused resentment against men who could not think of a lay more atune with the particular living, breathing objects around us.

Gradually darkness enveloped the defile until only over the mouth of the pass, over the spot where, gleaming a brilliant blue, the rivulet escaped into a cleft that was overhung with a mist of a deeper shade, was there not yet suspended the curtain of the Southern night.