PAGE 6
Tchelkache
by
He went out. Gavrilo looked around him. The ale-house was in a basement; it was damp and dark and reeking with tobacco smoke, tar and a musty odor. In front of Gavrilo, at another table, was a drunken sailor, with a red beard, all covered with charcoal and tar. He was humming, interrupted by frequent hiccoughs, a fragment of a song very much out of tune. He was evidently not a Russian.
Behind him were two ragged women from Moldavia, black-haired and sun-burned; they were also grinding out a song.
Further on, other faces started out from the darkness, all dishevelled, half drunk, writhing, restless. . .
Gavrilo was afraid to remain alone. He longed for his master’s return. The divers noises of the ale-house blended in one single note: it seemed like the roaring of some enormous animal with a hundred voices, struggling blindly and furiously in this stone box and finding no issue. Gavrilo felt himself growing heavy and dull as though his body had absorbed intoxication; his head swam and he could not see, in spite of his desire to satisfy his curiosity.
Tchelkache returned; he ate and drank while he talked. At the third glass Gavrilo was drunk. He grew lively; he wanted to say something nice to his host, who, worthy man that he was, was treating him so well, before he had availed himself of his services. But the words, which vaguely mounted to his throat, refused to leave his suddenly thick tongue.
Tchelkache looked at him. He said, smiling sarcastically.
“So you’re done for, already! . . . it isn’t possible! Just for five small glasses! How will you manage to work?”
“Friend,” stammered Gavrilo, “don’t be afraid! I will serve you. Ah, how I’ll serve you! Let me embrace you, come?”
“That’s right, that’s right! . . . One more glass?”
Gavrilo drank. Everything swam before his eyes in unequal waves. That was unpleasant and gave him nausea. His face had a stupid expression. In his efforts to speak, he protruded his lips comically and roared. Tchelkache looked at him fixedly as though he was recalling something, then without turning aside his gaze twisted his moustache and smiled, but this time, moodily and viciously.
The ale-house was filled with a drunken uproar. The red-haired sailor was asleep with his elbows on the table.
“Let us get out of here!” said Tchelkache rising.
Gavrilo tried to rise, but not succeeding, uttered a formidable oath and burst out into an idiotic, drunken laugh.
“See how fresh you are!” said Tchelkache, sitting down again. Gavrilo continued to laugh, stupidly contemplating his master. The other looked at him lucidly and penetratingly. He saw before him a man whose life he held in his hands. He knew that he had it in his power to do what he would with him. He could bend him like a piece of cardboard, or help him to develop amid his staid, village environments. Feeling himself the master and lord of another being, he enjoyed this thought and said to himself that this lad should never drink of the cup that destiny had made him, Tchelkache, empty. He at once envied and pitied this young existence, derided it and was moved to compassion at the thought that it might again fall into hands like his own. All these feelings were finally mingled in one–paternal and authoritative. He took Gavrilo by the arm, led and gently pushed him from the public house and deposited him in the shade of a pile of cut wood; he sat down beside him and lighted his pipe. Gavrilo stirred a little, muttered something and went to sleep.
* * * * *
“Well, is it ready?” asked Tchelkache in a low voice to Gavrilo who was looking after the oars.
“In a moment! one of the thole-pins is loose; may I pound it down with an oar?”
“No, no! No noise! Push it down with your hands, it will be firm.”
They noiselessly cut loose the boat fastened to the bow of a sailing vessel. There was here a whole fleet of sailing vessels, loaded with oak bark, and Turkish feluccas still half full of palma, sandal-wood and great cypress logs.