style="font-size:15px;"> They got to the gates. Two soldiers ran their hands down Chelkash’s clothes and pushed him out into the street.
He crossed the road and sat down on the curbstone opposite a pub. A line of loaded carts came thundering out of the dock gates, while a line of empty ones moved in the other direction, their drivers bouncing in their seats. The docks belched forth a roar of sound and clouds of dust that stuck to the skin.
Chelkash was in his element amid this mad welter. He was anticipating a good haul that night, a haul that would cost him little effort but require a great deal of skill. He did not doubt but that his skill was sufficient, and he screwed up his eyes with pleasure as he reflected on how he would spend all his banknotes the next morning. He thought of his pal Mishka. He needed him badly, and here he had gone and broken his leg. Chelkash cursed under his breath, for he feared he could not handle the job alone. What would the weather be like? He glanced up at the sky, then down the street.
Sitting on the pavement, his back against a hitching post some half a dozen paces away, was a young lad in a blue homespun shirt and trousers, with bast sandals on his feet and a torn brown cap on his head. Beside him lay a small knapsack and a haftless scythe wrapped in straw and neatly tied with string. The lad was sturdy, broad-shouldered, fair-haired, his face was tanned by wind and sun, and he had large blue eyes that stared amiably at Chelkash.
Chelkash bared his teeth, stuck out his tongue, made a frightful face and stared back with popping eyes.
The boy blinked in astonishment at first, then he burst out laughing, calling out between spasms: “Crazy as a loon!” Without getting up, he hitched along the curbstone to where Chelkash was sitting, dragging his knapsack through the dust and allowing the tip of his scythe to clank over the cobbles.
“Been on the booze, eh?” he said to Chelkash, giving a tug at his trousers.
“You’re right, baby-face, you’re right,” confessed Chelkash with a smile. He was instantly drawn to this wholesome good-natured chap with eyes as clear as a baby’s. “Been haymaking? “
“Yes. Made hay, but no money. Times are bad. You never saw so many people! They all come drifting down from the famine districts. No point in working for such pay. Sixty kopeks in the Kuban, think of that! They say they used to pay three or four roubles, or even five.”
“Used to! They used to pay three roubles just to get a look at a Russian! That’s how I earned a living ten years ago. I’d come to a Cossack village: ‘Here I am, folks, an honest-to-God Russian!’ They’d all crowd round, look me over, poke me, pinch me, oh-and-ah and pay me three roubles. Give me food and drink besides and invite me to stay as long as I liked.”
At first the boy opened wide his mouth, an expression of wondering admiration on his round face, but as he realized Chelkash was fabricating, he snapped his mouth shut, then burst out laughing again. Chelkash kept a straight face, hiding his smile in his moustache.
“A queer bird you are, talking talk as if it was God’s truth and me swallowing it. But honest to goodness, it used to be —“
“Isn’t that just what I was saying? It used to be —“
“Oh, come!” said the boy with a wave of his hand.
“What are you, a cobbler, or a tailor, or what?”
“Me?” Chelkash mused awhile and then said: “I’m a fisherman.”
“A fisherman? Think of that! So you catch fish, do you?”
“Why fish? The fishermen here don’t only catch fish. Mostly dead bodies, old anchors, sunken boats. There’s special fish-hooks for such things.”
“Lying again. Maybe you’re one of those fishermen who sing:
We cast our nets Upon the shores, In market stalls, in open doors.
“Ever met fishermen like that?” asked Chelkash, looking hard at the boy and grinning.
“No, but I’ve heard about them.”
“Like the idea?”
“Of people like that? Why not? At least they’re free; they can do what they please.”
“What’s freedom to you? Do you hanker after freedom?”
“Of course. What could be better than to be your own boss, go where you like and do what you like? Only you’ve got to keep straight and see that no millstones get hung round your neck. Outside of that, go ahead and have a good time without a thought for anything save God and your conscience.”
Chelkash spat contemptuously and turned away.
“Here’s what I’m up against,” went on the boy. “My father died without leaving anything much, my mother’s old, the land’s sucked dry. What am I supposed to do? I’ve got to go on living, but how? God knows. I have a chance to marry into a good family. I wouldn’t mind if they’d give the daughter her portion. But they won’t. Her old man won’t give her an inch of land. So I’d have to work for him, and for a long time. For years. There you are. If only I could lay hands on, say, a hundred and fifty roubles I’d be able to stand up to her father and say: ‘Do you want me to marry your Marfa? You don’t? Just as you say; she’s not the only girl in the village, thank God.’ I’d be independent, see? and could do what I liked.” The boy heaved a sigh. “But it looks as if there was nothing for it but to be his son-in-law. I thought I’d bring back a couple of hundred roubles from the Kuban. That would be the thing! Then I’d be a gentleman! But I didn’t earn a damn thing. Nothing for it but to be a farm-hand. I’ll never have a farm of my own. So there you are.”
The boy squirmed and his face fell at the prospect of being this man’s son-in-law.
“Where you bound now?” asked Chelkash.
“Home. Where else?”
“How do I know? Maybe you’re bound for Turkey.”
“Turkey?” marvelled the boy. “What honest Christian would ever go to Turkey? A fine thing to say!”
“You are a blockhead,” murmured Chelkash, turning away again. Yet this wholesome village lad had stirred something in him; a vague feeling of dissatisfaction was slowly taking form within him, and this kept him from concentrating his mind on the night’s task.
The boy, offended by Chelkash’s words, muttered to himself and threw sidelong glances at the older man. His cheeks were puffed up in a droll way, his lips were pouting and his narrowed eyes blinked rapidly. Evidently he had not expected his talk with this bewhiskered ruffian tramp to end so suddenly and so unsatisfactorily.
But the tramp paid no more attention to him. His mind was on something else as he sat there on the curbstone whistling to himself and beating time with a dirty toe.
The boy wanted to get even with him.
“Hey, you fisherman! Do you often go on a bout?” he began, but at that moment the fisherman turned to him impulsively and said:
“Look, baby-face, would you like to help me to do a job tonight? Make up your mind, quick!”
“What sort of job?” asked the boy dubiously.
“‘What sort’! Whatever sort I give you. We’re going fishing. You’ll
