Part 10

He went into the water two or three times himself, and lapped the waves with his tongue. But he didn't like the salt water, and was afraid of the little waves rolling over the pebbles towards him. He jumped back to dry sand, and at once set himself to bark at Sergey. "Why these silly, silly tricks? Why not come and sit down on the beach by the side of the old man? Dear, dear, what a lot of anxiety that boy does give us!"

"Hey, Serozha, time to come out, anyway. You've had enough," cried the old man.

"In a minute, grandfather Lodishkin," the boy cried back. "Just look how I do the steamboat. U-u-u-ukh!"

At last he swam in to the shore, but, before dressing, he caught Arto in his arms, and returning with him to the water's edge, flung him as far as he could. The dog at once swam back, leaving above the surface of the water his nostrils and floating ears alone, and snorting loudly and offendedly. Reaching dry sand, he shook his whole body violently, and clouds of water flew on the old man and on Sergey.

"Serozha, boy, look, surely that's for us!" said Lodishkin suddenly, staring upwards towards the cliff.

Along the downward path they saw that same gloomy-looking yard porter in the rose-coloured blouse with the speckled pattern, waving his arms and crying out to them, though they could not make out what he was saying, the same fellow who, a quarter of an hour ago, had driven the vagabond troupe from the villa.

"What does he want?" asked grandfather mistrustfully.

IV

The porter continued to cry, and at the same time to leap awkwardly down the steep path, the sleeves of his blouse trembling in the wind and the body of it blown out like a sail.

"O-ho-ho! Wait, you three!"

"There's no finishing with these people," growled Lodishkin angrily. "It's Artoshka they're after again."

"Grandfather, what d'you say? Let's pitch into him!" proposed Sergey bravely.

"You be quiet! Don't be rash! But what sort of people can they be? God forgive us...."

"I say, this is what you've got to do...," began the panting porter from afar. "You'll sell that dog. Eh, what? There's no peace with the little master. Roars like a calf: 'Give me, give me the dog....' The mistress has sent. 'Buy it,' says she, 'however much you have to pay.'"

"Now that's pretty stupid on your mistress's part," cried Lodishkin angrily, for he felt considerably more sure of himself here on the shore than he did in somebody else's garden. "And I should like to ask how can she be my mistress? She's your mistress, perhaps, but to me further off than a third cousin, and I can spit at her if I want to. And now, please, for the love of God ... I pray you ... be so good as to go away ... and leave us alone."

But the porter paid no attention. He sat down on the pebbles beside the old man, and, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck with his fingers, addressed him thus:

"Now, don't you grasp, fool?..."

"I hear it from a fool," interrupted the old man.

"Now, come ... that's not the point.... Just put it to yourself. What's the dog to you? Choose another puppy; all your expense is a stick, and there you have your dog again. Isn't that sense? Don't I speak the truth? Eh?"

Grandfather meditatively fastened the strap which served him as a belt. To the obstinate questions of the porter he replied with studied indifference.

"Talk on, say all you've got to say, and then I'll answer you at once."

"Then, brother, think of the number," cried the porter hotly. "Two hundred, perhaps three hundred roubles in a lump! Well, they generally give me something for my work ... but just you think of it. Three whole hundred! Why, you know, you could open a grocer's shop with that...."

Whilst saying this the porter plucked from his pocket a piece of sausage, and threw it to the poodle. Arto caught it in the air, swallowed it at a gulp, and ingratiatingly wagged his tail.

"Finished?" asked Lodishkin sweetly.

"Doesn't take long to say what I had to say. Give the dog, and the money will be in your hands."

"So-o," drawled grandfather mockingly. "That means the sale of the dog, I suppose?"

"What else? Just an ordinary sale. You see, our little master is so crazy. That's what's the matter. Whatever he wants, he turns the whole house upside down. 'Give,' says he, and it has to be given. That's how it is without his father. When his father's here ... holy Saints!... we all walk on our heads. The father is an engineer; perhaps you've heard of Mr. Obolyaninof? He builds railway lines all over Russia. A millionaire! They've only one boy, and they spoil him. 'I want a live pony,' says he--here's a pony for you. 'I want a boat,' says he--here's a real boat. There is nothing that they refuse him...."

"And the moon?"

"That is, in what sense?" asked the porter.

"I say, has he never asked for the moon from the sky?"

"The moon. What nonsense is that?" said the porter, turning red. "But come now, we're agreed, aren't we, dear man?"

By this time grandfather had succeeded in putting on his old green-seamed jacket, and he drew himself up as straight as his bent back would permit.

"I'll ask you one thing, young man," said he, not without dignity. "If you had a brother, or, let us say, a friend, that had grown up with you from childhood--Now stop, friend, don't throw sausage to the dog ... better eat it yourself.... You can't bribe the dog with that, brother--I say, if you had a friend, the best and truest friend that it's possible to have ... one who from childhood ... well, then, for example, for how much would you sell him?"

"I'd find a price even for him!..."

"Oh, you'd find a price. Then go and tell your master who builds the railroads," cried grandfather in a loud voice--"Go and tell him that not everything that ordinarily is for sale is also to be bought. Yes! And you'd better not stroke the dog. That's to no purpose. Here, Arto, dog, I'll give it you. Come on, Sergey."

"Oh, you old fool!" cried the porter at last.

"Fool; yes, I was one from birth, but you, bit of rabble, Judas, soul-seller!" shouted Lodishkin. "When you see your lady-general, give her our kind respects, our deepest respects. Sergey, roll up the mattress. Ai, ai, my back, how it aches! Come on."

"So-o, that's what it means," drawled the porter significantly.

"Yes. That's what it is. Take it!" answered the old man exasperatingly. The troupe then wandered off along the shore, following on the same road. Once, looking back accidentally, Sergey noticed that the porter was following them; his face seemed cogitative and gloomy, his cap was over his eyes, and he scratched with five fingers his shaggy carrotty-haired neck.

V

A certain spot between Miskhor and Aloopka had long since been put down by Lodishkin as a splendid place for having lunch, and it was to this that they journeyed now. Not far from a bridge over a rushing mountain torrent there wandered from the cliff side a cold chattering stream of limpid water. This was in the shade of crooked oak trees and thick hazel bushes. The stream had made itself a shallow basin in the earth, and from this overflowed, in tiny snake-like streamlets, glittering in the grass like living silver. Every morning and evening one might see here pious Turks making their ablutions and saying their prayers.

"Our sins are heavy and our provisions are meagre," said grandfather, sitting in the shade of a hazel bush. "Now, Serozha, come along. Lord, give Thy blessing!"

He pulled out from a sack some bread, some tomatoes, a lump of Bessarabian cheese, and a bottle of olive oil. He brought out a little bag of salt, an old rag tied round with string. Before eating, the old man crossed himself many times and whispered something. Then he broke the crust of bread into three unequal parts: the largest he gave to Sergey (he is growing--he must eat), the next largest he gave to the poodle, and the smallest he took for himself.

"In the name of the Father and the Son. The eyes of all wait upon Thee, O Lord," whispered he, making a salad of the tomatoes. "Eat, Serozha!"

They ate slowly, not hurrying, in silence, as people eat who work. All that was audible was the working of three pairs of jaws. Arto, stretched on his stomach, ate his little bit at one side, gnawing the crust of bread, which he held between his front paws. Grandfather and Sergey alternately dipped their tomatoes in the salt, and made their lips and hands red with the juice. When they had finished they drank water from the stream, filling a little tin can and putting it to their mouths. It was fine water, and so cold that the mug went cloudy on the outside from the moisture condensing on it. The mid-day heat and the long road had tired the performers, for they had been up with the sun. Grandfather's eyes closed involuntarily. Sergey yawned and stretched himself.

"Well now, little brother, what if we were to lie down and sleep for a minute or so?" asked grandfather. "One last drink of water. Ukh! Fine!" cried he, taking his lips from the can and breathing heavily, the bright drops of water running from his beard and whiskers. "If I were Tsar I'd drink that water every day ... from morning to night. Here, Arto! Well, God has fed us and nobody has seen us, or if anybody has seen us he hasn't taken offence.... Okh--okh--okhonush--kee--ee!"

The old man and the boy lay down side by side in the grass, making pillows for their heads of their jackets. The dark leaves of the rugged many-branching oaks murmured above them; occasionally through the shade gleamed patches of bright blue sky; the little streams running from stone to stone chattered monotonously and stealthily as if they were putting someone to sleep by sorcery. Grandfather turned from side to side, muttered something to Sergey, but to Sergey his voice seemed far away in a soft and sleepy distance, and the words were strange, as those spoken in a fairy tale.

"First of all--I buy you a costume, rose and gold ... slippers also of rose-coloured satin ... in Kief or Kharkof, or, perhaps, let us say in the town of Odessa--there, brother, there are circuses, if you like!... Endless lanterns ... all electricity.... People, perhaps five thousand, perhaps more ... how should I know. We should have to make up a name for you--an Italian name, of course. What can one do with a name like Esteepheyef, or let us say, Lodishkin? Quite absurd! No imagination in them whatever. So we'd let you go on the placards as Antonio, or perhaps, also quite good, Enrico or Alphonse...."

The boy heard no more. A sweet and gentle slumber settled down upon him and took possession of his body. And grandfather fell asleep, losing suddenly the thread of his favourite after-dinner thoughts, his dream of Sergey's magnificent acrobatic future. Once, however, in his dream it appeared to him that Arto was growling at somebody. For a moment through his dreamy brain there passed the half-conscious and alarming remembrance of the porter in the rose-coloured blouse, but overcome with sleep, tiredness and heat, he could not get up, but only idly, with closed eyes, cried out to the dog:

"Arto ... where're you going? I'll g-give it you, gipsy!"

But at once he forgot what he was talking about, and his mind fell back into the heaviness of sleep and vague dreams.

At last the voice of Sergey woke him up, for the boy was running to and fro just beyond the stream, shouting loudly and whistling, calling anxiously for the dog.

"Here, Arto! Come back! Pheu, pheu! Come back, Arto!"

"What are you howling about, Sergey?" cried Lodishkin in a tone of displeasure, trying to bring the circulation back to a sleeping arm.

"We've lost the dog whilst we slept. That's what we've done," answered the boy in a harsh, scolding note. "The dog's lost."

He whistled again sharply, and cried:

"Arto-o-o!"

"Ah, you're just making up nonsense! He'll return," said grandfather. But all the same, he also got up and began to call the dog in an angry, sleepy, old man's falsetto:

"Arto! Here, dog!"

The old man hurriedly and tremblingly ran across the bridge and began to go upward along the highway, calling the dog as he went. In front of him lay the bright, white stripe of the road, level and clear for half a mile, but on it not a figure, not a shadow.

"Arto! Ar-tosh-enka!" wailed the old man in a piteous voice, but suddenly he stopped calling him, bent down on the roadside and sat on his heels.

"Yes, that's what it is," said the old man in a failing voice. "Sergey! Serozha! Come here, my boy!"

"Now what do you want?" cried the boy rudely. "What have you found now? Found yesterday lying by the roadside, eh?"

"Serozha ... what is it?... What do you make of it? Do you see what it is?" asked the old man, scarcely above a whisper. He looked at the boy in a piteous and distracted way, and his arms hung helplessly at his sides.

In the dust of the road lay a comparatively large half-eaten lump of sausage, and about it in all directions were printed a dog's paw-marks.

"He's drawn it off, the scoundrel, lured it away," whispered grandfather in a frightened shiver, still sitting on his heels. "It's he; no one else, it's quite clear. Don't you remember how he threw the sausage to Arto down by the sea?"

"Yes, it's quite clear," repeated Sergey sulkily.

Grandfather's wide-open eyes filled with tears, quickly overflowing down his cheeks. He hid them with his hands.

"Now, what can we do Serozhenka? Eh, boy? What can we do now?" asked the old man, rocking to and fro and weeping helplessly.

"Wha-at to do, wha-at to do!" teased Sergey. "Get up, grandfather Lodishkin; let's be going!"

"Yes, let us go!" repeated the old man sadly and humbly, raising himself from the ground. "We'd better be going, I suppose, Serozhenka."

Losing patience, Sergey began to scold the old man as if he were a little boy.

"That's enough drivelling, old man, stupid! Who ever heard of people taking away other folks' dogs in this way? It's not the law. What-ye blinking your eyes at me for? Is what I say untrue? Let us go simply and say, 'Give us back the dog!' and if they won't give it, then to the courts with it, and there's an end of it."

"To the courts ... yes ... of course.... That's correct, to the courts, of course...," repeated Lodishkin, with a senseless bitter smile. But his eyes looked hither and thither in confusion. "To the courts ... yes ... only you know, Serozhenka ... it wouldn't work ... we'd never get to the courts...."

"How not work? The law is the same for everybody. What have they got to say for themselves?" interrupted the boy impatiently.

"Now, Serozha, don't do that ... don't be angry with me. They won't give us back the dog." At this point grandfather lowered his voice in a mysterious way. "I fear, on account of the passport. Didn't you hear what the gentleman said up there? 'Have you a passport?' he says. Well, and there, you see, I,"--here grandfather made a wry and seemingly frightened face, and whispered barely audibly--"I'm living with somebody else's passport, Serozha."

"How somebody else's?"

"Somebody else's. There's no more about it. I lost my own at Taganrog. Perhaps somebody stole it. For two years after that I wandered about, hid myself, gave bribes, wrote petitions ... at last I saw there was no getting out of it. I had to live like a hare--afraid of everything. But once in Odessa, in a night house, a Greek remarked to me the following:--'What you say,' says he, 'is nonsense. Put twenty-five roubles on the table, and I'll give you a passport that'll last you till doomsday.' I worried my brain about that. 'I'll lose my head for this,' I thought. However, 'Give it me,' said I. And from that time, my dear boy, I've been going about the world with another man's passport."

"Ah, grandfather, grandfather!" sighed Sergey, with tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry about the dog. It's a very fine dog, you know...."

"Serozhenka, my darling," cried the old man trembling. "If only I had a real passport. Do you think it would matter to me even if they were generals? I'd take them by the throat!... How's this? One minute, if you please! What right have you to steal other people's dogs? What law is there for that? But now there's a stopper on us, Serozha. If I go to the police station the first thing will be, 'Show us your passport! Are you a citizen of Samara, by name Martin Lodishkin?' I, your Excellency, dear me--I, little brother, am not Lodishkin at all, and not a citizen, but a peasant. Ivan Dudkin is my name. And who that Lodishkin might be, God alone knows! How can I tell? Perhaps a thief or an escaped convict. Perhaps even a murderer. No, Serozha, we shouldn't effect anything that way. Nothing at all...."

Grandfather choked, and tears trickled once more over his sunburnt wrinkles. Sergey, who had listened to the old man in silence, his brows tightly knit, his face pale with agitation, suddenly stood up and cried: "Come on, grandfather. To the devil with the passport! I suppose we don't intend to spend the night here on the high road?"

"Ah, my dear, my darling," said the old man, trembling. "'Twas a clever dog ... that Artoshenka of ours. We shan't find such another...."

"All right, all right. Get up!" cried Sergey imperiously. "Now let me knock the dust off you. I feel quite worn out, grandfather."

They worked no more that day. Despite his youthful years, Sergey well understood the fateful meaning of the dreadful word "passport." So he sought no longer to get Arto back, either through the courts or in any other decisive way. And as he walked along the road with grandfather towards the inn, where they should sleep, his face took on a new, obstinate, concentrated expression, as if he had just thought out something extraordinarily serious and great.

Without actually expressing their intention, the two wanderers made a considerable detour in order to pass once more by Friendship Villa, and they stopped for a little while outside the gates, in the vague hope of catching a glimpse of Arto, or of hearing his bark from afar. But the iron gates of the magnificent villa were bolted and locked, and an important, undisturbed and solemn stillness reigned over the shady garden under the sad and mighty cypresses.

"Peo-ple!" cried the old man in a quavering voice, putting into that one word all the burning grief that filled his heart.

"Ah, that's enough. Come on!" cried the boy roughly, pulling his companion by the sleeve.

"Serozhenka! Don't you think there's a chance that Artoshenka might run away from them?" sighed the old man. "Eh! What do you think, dear?"

But the boy did not answer the old man. He went ahead in firm large strides, his eyes obstinately fixed on the road, his brows obstinately frowning.

VI

They reached Aloopka in silence. Grandfather muttered to himself and sighed the whole way. Sergey preserved in his face an angry and resolute expression. They stopped for the night at a dirty Turkish coffee-house, bearing the splendid name of Eeldeez, which means in Turkish, a star. In the same room with them slept Greek stone-breakers, Turkish ditch-diggers, a gang of Russian workmen, and several dark-faced, mysterious tramps, the sort of which there are so many wandering about Southern Russia. Directly the coffee-house closed they stretched themselves out on the benches along the length of the walls, or simply upon the floor, and the more experienced placed their possessions and their clothes in a bundle under their heads.

It was long after midnight when Sergey, who had been lying side by side with grandfather on the floor, got up stealthily and began to dress himself without noise. Through the wide window-panes poured the full light of the moon, falling on the floor to make a trembling carpet of silver, and giving to the faces of the sleepers an expression of suffering and death.

"Where's you going to, zis time o' night?" cried the owner of the coffee-house, Ibrahim, a young Turk lying at the door of the shop.

"Let me pass; it's necessary. I've got to go out," answered Sergey in a harsh, business-like tone. "Get up, Turco!"

Yawning and stretching himself, Ibrahim got up and opened the door, clicking his tongue reproachfully. The narrow streets of the Tartar _bazar_ were enveloped in a dense dark-blue mist, which covered with a tooth-shaped design the whole cobbled roadway; one side of the street lay in shade, the other, with all its white-called houses, was illumined by the moonlight. Dogs were barking at distant points of the village. Somewhere on the upper high road horses were trotting, and the metallic clink of their hoofs sounded in the night stillness.

Passing the white mosque with its green cupola, surrounded by its grove of silent cypresses, Sergey tripped along a narrow, crooked lane to the great highway. In order that he might run quickly the boy was practically in his undergarments only. The moon shone on him from behind, and his shadow ran ahead in a strange foreshortened silhouette. There were mysterious shaggy shrubs on each side of the road, a bird was crying monotonously from the bushes in a gentle, tender tone "_Splew! Splew!_"[1] and it seemed as if it thought itself to be a sentry in the night silence, guarding some melancholy secret, and powerlessly struggling with sleep and tiredness, complaining hopelessly, quietly, to someone, "_Splew, splew,_ I sleep, I sleep."

[1] The word "splew" is Russian for "I sleep."

And over the dark bushes, over the blue head-dress of the distant forests, rose with its two peaks to the sky, Ai-Petri--so light, so clear-cut, so ethereal, as if it were something cut from a gigantic piece of silver cardboard in the sky. Sergey felt a little depressed by the majestic silence in which his footsteps sounded so distinctly and daringly, but at the same time there rose in his heart a sort of ticklish, head-whirling, spirit of adventure. At a turn of the road the sea suddenly opened before him, immense and calm, quietly and solemnly breaking on the shore. From the horizon to the beach stretched a narrow, a quivering, silver roadway; in the midst of the sea this roadway was lost, and only here and there the traces of it glittered, but suddenly nearer the shore it became a wide flood of living, glimmering metal, ornamenting the coast like a belt of deep lace.

Sergey slipped noiselessly through the wooden gateway leading to the park. There, under the dense foliage of the trees, it was quite dark. From afar sounded the ceaseless murmur of mountain streams, and one could feel their damp cold breath. The wooden planks of the bridge clacked soundingly as he ran across; the water beneath looked dark and dreadful. In a moment he saw in front of him the high gates with their lace pattern of iron, and the creeping gloxinia hanging over them. The moonlight, pouring from a gap in the trees, outlined the lacework of the iron gates with, as it were, a gentle phosphorescence. On the other side of the gates it was dark, and there was a terrifying stillness.

Sergey hesitated for some moments, feeling in his soul some doubt, even a little fear. But he conquered his feelings and whispered obstinately to himself:

"All the same; I'm going to climb in, all the same!"

The elegant cast-iron design furnished solid stepping places and holding places for the muscular arms and feet of the climber. But over the gateway, at a considerable height, and fitting to the gates, was a broad archway of stone. Sergey felt all over this with his hands, and climbed up on to it, lay on his stomach, and tried to let himself down on the other side. He hung by his hands, but could find no catching place for his feet. The stone archway stood out too far from the gate for his legs to reach, so he dangled there, and as he couldn't get back, his body grew limp and heavy, and terror possessed his soul.

At last he could hold on no longer; his fingers gave, and he slipped and fell violently to the ground.