The ranger lit his pipe, illuminating for a moment his large moustache and prominent nose, which was angular and pointed. Small rings of light jumped from his hands to his cap, ran across the saddle to the horse’s back and disappeared in its mane up around its ears.
‘There is a lot of treasure buried in these parts,’ he said.
Drawing slowly on his pipe, he looked around, fixed his gaze on the white sky in the east, and added:
‘There must be treasure.’
‘Of course there is,’ said the old man with a sigh. ‘It’s obvious to everyone, but there is no one to dig it up. No one knows the actual places, and you have to bear in mind that they all have a spell on them still. In order to find hidden treasure and be able to see it, you have to have a charm; you can’t do anything without a charm. Zhmenya had charms, but do you think you could ask that devil for anything? He kept them to himself, so no one else could get hold of them.’
The young shepherd shifted a couple of feet over towards the old man, and propping his head on his clenched hands, fixed on him an unbroken stare. A childish expression of fear and curiosity lit up his dark eyes and the shadows seemed to stretch and flatten the features of his rough young face. He was listening intently.
‘It says in books that there is a lot of treasure in these parts,’ continued the old man. ‘And it’s all true. They showed one old Novopavlovka soldier in Ivanovka a scroll, and on that scroll was written the place were the treasure was buried, and how many pounds of gold there were, and what kind of pot it was in; they would have found the treasure long ago from that scroll, but the treasure has a spell on it and you can’t get at it.’
‘So why don’t you go after it?’ asked the young man.
‘There must be some reason, but the soldier didn’t say. It’s got a spell on it… You need a charm.’
The old man talked with great emotion, as if he was pouring out his soul to complete strangers. He was speaking in a nasal drawl because he was unused to talking so much and so quickly; he was stuttering too, and trying to make up for the inadequacy of his speech by gesticulating with his head, his arms, and his scrawny shoulders; his linen shirt crumpled into wrinkles every time he moved, slipping down to his shoulders and revealing his back, which was black from sunburn and old age. He kept hitching it up, but it immediately slid down again. Finally, as if his patience was exhausted by his disobedient shirt, the old man jumped up and said with bitterness:
‘There is treasure out there, but what is the use if it’s buried in the ground? It will just be lost, without any use, like chaff or sheep droppings. But there is a lot of treasure, my boy, so much that there would be enough for the whole district, except that not a soul can see it! People will carry on waiting until the landowners dig it up or the government takes it. The landowners have already begun to dig up the kurgans… * They have sniffed them out! They are envious of the fortune which belongs to us peasants! The government has the same plan up its sleeve. It says in the law that if a peasant finds treasure, he has to report it to the authorities. Well, they are going to have to hang on a bit; they’ll be waiting for ever! It’s our treasure!’
The old man laughed contemptuously and sat down on the ground. The ranger listened attentively and agreed with him, but from the expression on his face and from his silence, you could tell that what the old man was telling him was not new to him, and that he had thought everything over long ago and knew much more about it all than the old man did.
‘I’ve looked for a fortune about ten times in my lifetime, I have to confess,’ said the old man, scratching his head bashfully. ‘I was looking in the right places, but I just kept finding treasure that had a spell on it, you know. My father searched, and my brother searched, and they didn’t find a thing, and so they died without finding their fortune. A monk revealed to my brother Ilya, God rest his soul, that there was treasure hidden underneath three particular stones in the Taganrog fortress, and that the treasure had a spell on it. And in those days—it was in thirty-eight, I remember—there was an Armenian living in Matveyev Kurgan who sold charms. So Ilya bought a charm, took two lads with him, and went off to Taganrog. But when my brother got to the fortress, there was a soldier standing there with a gun…’
A noise pierced the quiet air and echoed across the steppe. Something far off banged threateningly, hit against rock, and carried across the steppe with an echoing ‘Takh! Takh! Takh! Takh!’ When the sound died away, the old man looked questioningly at the impassive Panteley, who was standing not moving a muscle.
‘That was a bucket breaking loose in the mines,’ * said the young man.
It was already becoming light. The Milky Way had grown pale and was slowly melting like snow, losing its outline. The sky was becoming overcast and dull, so that it was difficult to tell whether it was clear or completely covered with clouds, and only the bright, glossy strip in the east and the few remaining stars here and there indicated what was happening.
The first morning breeze ran along the road without a murmur, cautiously rustling the euphorbia and the brown stubble of last year’s wild steppe grass.
The ranger woke from his thoughts and shook his head. He rocked his saddle with both hands, adjusted the girth, and again became lost in thought, as if he could not make up his mind whether to get on his horse or not.
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘so near and yet so far… There is fortune there to be had, but no way of working out how to find it.’
And he turned to face the shepherds. His stern face was sad and contemptuous, like that of someone who has encountered disappointment.
‘Yes, we will die without finding a fortune, whatever it may be…,’ he said slowly, as he lifted his left foot into the stirrup. ‘Maybe someone younger will be lucky, but us lot will just have to give up.’
Stroking his long whiskers, which were covered with dew, he climbed heavily onto his horse and narrowed his eyes as he gazed into the distance, looking as if he had forgotten to say something or had somehow not finished what he had to say. Nothing stirred in the bluish distance, where the last visible hill merged with the mist; the kurgans, which towered here and there above the horizon and the endless steppe, looked severe and lifeless; in their mute immobility one could sense past centuries and complete indifference to human beings; another thousand years would go by, millions of people would die, and they would still be standing there, as they did now, neither sorry for those who had died, nor interested in the living, and not one soul would know why they stood there and what secrets of the steppe they contained.
Solitary rooks who had woken up were flying silently over the earth. There was no obvious point to the lazy flight of these long-lived birds, nor to the morning which repeated itself punctually every day, nor to the infinity of the steppe. The ranger smiled, and said:
‘Heavens, what an expanse! You just try and go looking for a fortune. But it was likely round about here,’ he continued, lowering his voice and putting on a serious expression, ‘that two lots of treasure were found. The landowners don’t know about them, but the old peasants certainly do, particularly the ones who were soldiers. Some robbers fell upon a convoy carrying gold here somewhere on this ridge (the ranger pointed with his whip); they were taking the gold from Petersburg to Emperor Peter, who was building his navy in Voronezh * at that time. The robbers beat up the waggoners and buried the gold, but then they couldn’t find it. It was our Don Cossacks who buried the other lot of treasure. They stole heaps of goods and silver and gold from the French back in 1812. When they were on their way home they heard that the government wanted to take the silver and gold from them. Rather than give up all their loot to the authorities for nothing, they were clever enough to go and bury it, so their children could have it, but no one knows where they buried it.’
‘I’ve heard about those treasure troves,’ the old man muttered gloomily.
‘Yes,’ said Panteley, lost in thought again. ‘Indeed…’
Silence ensued. The ranger loo
ked into the distance pensively, smiled, and then touched the reins with the same expression as before, as if he had forgotten something or not finished what he wanted to say. The horse reluctantly started walking. After about a hundred paces, Panteley shook his head vigorously, came out of his reverie, and set off at a trot, whipping his horse.
The shepherds were left alone.
‘That’s Panteley from the Makarov estate,’ said the old man. ‘He gets a hundred-and-fifty a year, and eats with the squire. Educated man…’
Not having anything better to do, the awakened sheep, all three-thousand of them, started eating the short, half-trampled grass. The sun had not yet risen, but distant Saur’s Grave, with its pointed top which looked like a cloud, and all the other kurgans were already visible. If you climbed to the top of Saur’s Grave, you could look out and see a plain that was as flat and boundless as the sky, manor houses and estates, German and Molokan farms, * villages; a far-sighted Kalmyk * would even be able to see the town and railway trains. Only from up here was it possible to see that there was another life in the world beyond the silent steppe and ancient kurgans, a life which was not concerned with buried treasure and the thoughts of sheep.
The old man felt around him for his crook, a long stick with a hook at the top, and got to his feet. He was silent and thinking. The childlike expression of fear and curiosity had not yet disappeared from the young man’s face. He was still awestruck by what he had heard and was looking forward to new stories.
‘What did your brother Ilya do with the soldier?’ he asked, getting up and taking his crook.
The old man did not hear the question. He looked absent-mindedly at the young man and replied, mumbling through his lips:
‘You know, Sanka, I’ve been thinking about the scroll they showed to the soldier in Ivanovka. I didn’t tell Panteley, I wish him all the best, but there was a place indicated on the scroll which even a woman could find. You know where it is? In Bogataya Gully, you know, where there is a gully which splits into three like a goose’s foot; it’s in the middle one.’
‘So are you going to go and dig it up?’
‘I’ll have a go at finding my fortune, sure…’
‘And what will you do with the gold when you find it?’
‘What am I going to do with it?’ said the the old man, grinning.
‘Hmm! I’ve got to find it first, and then… well, I’ll show everyone… Hmm! I know what I’d do…’
The old man was not able to give an answer as to what he would do with the treasure if he found it. He had probably been asked this question for the very first time in his life that morning, and to judge from his nonchalant and indifferent expression, it did not seem to him to be important or worth reflecting on. Another confusing thought was stirring in Sanka’s head: why was it that only old men looked for treasure, and what was the point of them finding a fortune on earth when they were just about to die from old age? But Sanka could not form his confusion into a question, and the old man would probably not have known what to answer him anyway.
The huge crimson sun appeared, enveloped in a light haze. As if pretending that they were not yet bored, broad bands of still, cold light started descending merrily to the earth and stretching out, basking in the dewy grass. Silvery artemisia, the blue flowers of wild allium, yellow rape, and cornflowers all burst into radiant colour, taking the sunlight as their own smile.
The old man and Sanka separated and went to stand at opposite ends of the flock. They both stood like columns without moving, staring at the ground and thinking. The former was still thinking about finding a fortune, while the latter was thinking about what had been discussed during the night; he was not so much interested in finding a fortune, which he did not want and could not really understand, as in marvelling at how human fortune was fantastic and wondrous.
A hundred or so sheep suddenly became jittery and then charged off from the flock in some inexplicable terror, as if responding to a signal. And Sanka started to charge off too, feeling the same incomprehensible animal terror, as if the sheep’s long and leisurely thoughts had for a moment communicated themselves to him, but he immediately came to his senses and shouted out:
‘Hey, you mad sheep! You’ve gone beserk; you should be properly punished!’
And when the sun started to burn the earth, promising a long, unconquerable sultriness, everything alive, everything which had moved and made noises at night, sank into somnolence. The old man and Sanka stood at opposite ends of the flock with their crooks; they stood there without moving, like fakirs at prayer, deep in thought. Wrapped up in their own lives, they were already oblivious of each other. The sheep were also lost in thought…
GUSEV
I
It has already grown dark, and soon it will be night.
Gusev, a private on indefinite leave, raises himself in his berth and says in a low voice:
‘Pavel Ivanych, are you listening? A soldier in Suchan * told me that their ship hit a big fish out at sea which made a hole in its bottom.’
The person of unknown social status whom he is addressing, and whom everyone in the ship’s sick bay calls Pavel Ivanych, remains silent, as if he cannot hear.
And again there is stillness… The wind is running through the rigging, the screw propeller is throbbing, waves are crashing, bunks are creaking, but the ear has grown used to all this long ago, and it seems that everything all around is sleeping and staying silent. It is dull. The three sick people who played cards all day—two soldiers and a sailor—are already asleep and delirious.
It feels like the sea is becoming rough. Underneath him, Gusev’s bunk goes slowly up and down as if it is sighing: once, twice, three times… Something hits the floor with a clang: a mug must have fallen.
‘The wind has broken its chain…’ says Gusev, listening closely.
This time Pavel Ivanych coughs before answering irritably:
‘One minute you’ve got a boat that has hit a fish, and next it’s the wind that has broken its chain… So the wind is an animal is it, if it’s breaking its chain?
‘That’s what people say.’
‘Then people are as ignorant as you… You’ve got to keep your head on your shoulders and use your brain. You stupid man.’
Pavel Ivanych is prone to seasickness. When the ship rolls, he usually gets angry and is irritated by the slightest thing. But there is absolutely nothing to get angry about in Gusev’s opinion. What is strange or weird about a fish or the wind breaking its chain, for instance? Suppose the fish is as big as a mountain, with a back as hard as a sturgeon’s; or suppose that there are thick stone walls where the end of the world is, and ferocious winds chained to the walls… If they haven’t broken their chains, why do they charge all over the sea like madmen, tugging as if they were dogs? And if they aren’t chained up, where do they go when it is calm?
Gusev spends a long time thinking about fish as big as mountains and about thick, rusty chains, then he gets bored and starts thinking about his village, which he is now returning to after five years of service in the Far East. A picture of a huge pond covered with snow appears in his mind… On one side of the pond is the brick-coloured pottery, with a tall chimney and clouds of black smoke; on the other side is the village… Out of the yard—the fifth one along from the end—his brother Alexey is driving a sleigh; sitting behind him are his little son Vanka in big felt boots, and his little girl Akulka, also in felt boots. Alexey has been drinking, and Vanka is laughing, but you can’t see Akulka’s face because she is all wrapped up.
‘He should watch out, or those children will catch their death,’ thinks Gusev. ‘May the Lord give them the good sense to honour their parents,’ he whispers, ‘and not be cleverer than their mother and father…’
‘These need new soles,’ says the sick sailor deliriously in his bass voice. ‘Oh yes!’
Gusev’s thoughts are cut short, and instead of the pond, a large bull’s head without eyes suddenly appears in his vision for n
o apparent reason, and the horse and sleigh are no longer moving forward, but whirling round and round in black smoke. But he is still glad that he has seen his family. The pleasure of it quite takes his breath away, making his body tingle and his fingers tremble.
‘The Lord ordained we should meet!’ he mutters deliriously, but then he immediately opens his eyes and looks for water in the darkness.
He takes a drink then lies down, and once again he sees the sleigh being pulled along, then again the bull’s head without eyes, the smoke and the clouds… And so it continues until dawn.
II
A dark blue circle becomes visible in the darkness first–that is the round porthole; then little by little Gusev begins to his make out his cabin-mate, Pavel Ivanych. The man has to sleep sitting up, because he can hardly breathe when he lies down. His face is grey, his nose long and pointed, and his eyes are huge because he is so emaciated; his temples are sunken, his beard is sparse, and the hairs on his head are long… Looking at his face, it is impossible to work out his class: is he a gentleman, a merchant, or a peasant? To judge from his expression and his long hair, he looks as if he is on a fast, like a novice monk, but if you listen to what he says, he does not seem like a monk. He is exhausted from the pitching of the ship, from the lack of air, and from his illness; he is breathing with difficulty, moving his parched lips. Having noticed Gusev looking at him, he turns to face him and says:
‘I’m beginning to work things out… Yes… I understand everything very well now.’