menu_book Chapter 17

Chapter 17 of A Sportsman's Sketches This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, auto-volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Tavaresh A Sportsman's Sketches by Ivan Turgenev translated by Constance Garnet

The Singers The small village of Kolotovka once belonged to a lady known in the neighborhood by the nickname of Skinflint In allusion to her keen business habits her real name is lost in oblivion But has of late years been the property of a German from Petersburg The village lies on the slope of a barren hill which is cut in half from top to bottom by a tremendous ravine

It is a yawning chasm with shelving sides hallowed out by the action of rain and snow and it winds along the very center of the village street It separates the two sides of the unlucky hamlet far more than a river would do For a river could at least be crossed by a bridge A few gaunt willows creep timidly down its sandy sides. At the very bottom

which is dry and yellow as copper lie huge slabs of argillacious rock A cheerless position. There is no denying yet all the surrounding inhabitants know the road to Kolotovka well, they go there often and are always glad to go At the very summit of the ravine a few paces from the point where it starts as a narrow fissure in the earth

There stands a small square hut It stands alone apart from all the others. It is thatched and has a chimney One window keeps watch like a sharp eye over the ravine and on winter evenings when it is lighted from within it is seen far away in the dim frosty fog and Its twinkling light is the guiding star of many a peasant on his road

A blue board is nailed up above the door. This hut is a tavern called the welcome resort Spirits are sold here probably no cheaper than the usual price But it is far more frequented than any other establishment of the same sort in the neighborhood The explanation of this is to be found in the tavern keeper Nikolai Ivanovich Nikolai Ivanovich once a slender curly headed and rosy cheeked young fellow

now an excessively stout grizzled man with a fat face sly and good-natured little eyes and a shiny forehead With wrinkles like lines drawn all over it has lived for more than 20 years in Kolotovka Nikolai Ivanovich is a shrewd acute fellow like the majority of tavern keepers though. He makes no Conspicuous effort to please or to talk to people

He has the art of attracting and keeping customers who find it particularly pleasant to sit at his bar Under the placid and genial though alert eye of the phlegmatic host He has a great deal of common sense He thoroughly understands the landowners conditions of life the peasants and the tradesmen's He could give sensible advice on difficult points, but like a cautious man and an egoist

Prefers to stand aloof and at most and that only in the case of his favorite customers By remote hints dropped as it were unintentionally to lead them into the true way He is an authority on Everything that is of interest or importance to a Russian on horses and cattle on timber bricks and crockery on

Woolen stuffs and on leather on songs and dances When he has no customers He is usually sitting like a sack on the ground before the door of his hut his thin legs tucked under him Exchanging a friendly greeting with every passer by He has seen a great deal in his time many a score of petty landowners who used to come to him for spirits

He has seen pass away before him He knows everything that is done for 80 miles around and never gossips never gives a sign of knowing what is Unsuspected by the most keen sighted police officer He keeps his own counsel laughs and makes his glasses ring his neighbors respect him the civilian general

Sherpetenko the landowner highest in rank in the district gives him a condescending nod whenever he drives past his little house Nikolai Ivanovich is a man of influence. He made a notorious horse stealer return a horse He had taken from the stable of one of his friends He brought the peasants of a neighboring village to their senses when they refused to accept a new overseer and so on It must not be imagined though that he does this from love of justice from devotion to his neighbor

No, he simply tries to prevent anything that might in any way interfere with his ease and comfort Nikolai Ivanovich is married and has children his wife a smart sharp-nosed and keen eyed woman of the tradesman class Has grown somewhat stout of late years like her husband He relies on her in everything and she keeps the key of the cash box Drunken brawlers are afraid of her. She does not like them

They bring little profit and make a great deal of noise Those who are taciturn and surly in their cups are more to her taste Nikolai Ivanovich's children are still small the first four all died But those that are left take after their parents. It is a pleasure to look at their intelligent healthy little faces It was an insufferably hot day in July when slowly dragging my feet along

I went up alongside the Kolotovka ravine with my dog towards the welcome resort The Sun blazed as it were fiercely in the sky baking the parched earth relentlessly The air was thick with stifling dust glossy crows and ravens with gaping beaks looked plaintively at the passers-by as though asking for sympathy

Only the sparrows did not droop but pluming their feathers Twittered more vigorously than ever as they quarreled among the hedges or flew up Altogether from the dusty road and hovered in gray clouds over the green hem fields. I was tormented by thirst There was no water near in Kolotovka as in many other villages of the steppes The peasants having no spring or well drink a sort of thin mud out of the pond

For no one could call that repulsive beverage water I wanted to ask for a glass of beer or kvass at Nikolai Ivanch's It must be confessed that at no time of the year does Kolotovka present a very cheering spectacle But it has a particularly depressing effect when the relentless rays of a dazzling July Sun pour down full upon the brown

Tumbledown roofs of the houses in the deep ravine and the parched dusty common over which the thin long-legged hens are straying hopelessly and the remains of the old manor house now a hollow gray framework of Aspenwood with holes instead of windows overgrown with nettles wormwood and rank grass and The pond black as though charred and covered with goose feathers With its edge of half-dried mud and it's broken down dyke near which on the finely trodden ash like earth

sheep Breathless and gasping with the heat huddled dejectedly together Their heads drooping with weary patience as though waiting for this insufferable heat to pass at last With weary steps I drew near Nikolai Ivanch's dwelling Arousing in the village children the usual wonder manifested in a

concentrated meaningless stare and in the dogs and Indignation expressed in such hoarse and furious barking that it seemed as if it were tearing at their very entrails and left them breathless and choking when suddenly in the tavern doorway There appeared a tall peasant without a cap in a freeze cloak Girt about below his waist with a blue handkerchief

He looked like a house sir thick gray hair stood up in disorder above his withered and wrinkled face He was calling to someone hurriedly waving his arms, which obviously were not quite under his control It could be seen that he had been drinking already Come come along he stammered raising his shaggy eyebrows with an effort come Blinked come along our brother how you creep along pod my word

It's too bad brother. They're waiting for you within and here you crawl along Come well, I am coming I'm coming Called a jarring voice and from behind a hut a little short fat lame man Came into sight he wore a rather tidy cloth coat

Fooled half on and a high pointed cap right over his brows Which gave his round plum face a sly and comic expression His little yellow eyes moved restlessly about his thin lips were a continual forced smile While his sharp long nose peered forward Socially in front like a rudder I am coming my dear fellow

He went hobbling towards the tavern. What are you calling me for who is waiting for me? What am I calling you for repeated the men in the freeze code reproachfully you are a queer fish blinkered We call you to come to the tavern and you ask what for Here are honest folks all waiting for you Yashka the Turk and the wild master and the booth keeper from Gistree

Yashka's got a bet on with the booth keeper this takes a pot of beer For the one that does best sings the best I mean do you see is Yashka going to sing Said the man addressed as blinkered with lively interest But isn't it your humble Gabler I'm not humbugging

Answered the Gabler with dignity. It's you are crazy I should think he would sing since he's got a bet on it you precious innocent you noodle blinkered Well, come in simpleton retorted the blinkered Then give us a kiss at least lovey stammered the Gabler opening wide his arms

Get out you great softy responded the blinkered Contemptuously giving him a poke with his elbow and both stooping entered the low doorway The conversation I had overheard roused my curiosity Exceedingly more than once rumors had reached me of Yashka the Turk as the best singer in the vicinity and Here was an opportunity all at once of hearing human competition with another master of the art

I quickened my steps and went into the house Few of my readers have probably had an opportunity of getting a good view of any village taverns But we sportsmen go everywhere. They are constructed on an exceedingly simple plan They usually consist of a dark outer shed and an inner room with a chimney Divided in two by a partition behind which none of the customers have a right to go in this partition

There is a wide opening cut above a broad oak table at this table of bar The spirits are served sealed up bottles of various sizes stand on the shelves right opposite the opening in The front part of the room devoted to customers There are benches two or three empty barrels and the corner table Village taverns are for the most part rather dark and you hardly ever see on their

Wayne's cutted walls any of the glaring cheap prints which few huts are without When I went into the welcome resort a fairly large party were already assembled there In his usual place behind the bar almost filling up the entire opening in the partition stood Nikolai Varnage in a striped print shirt with a lazy smile on his full face He poured out with his plump white hand two glasses of spirits for the blinkered and the Gabler as they came in

Behind him in a corner near the window could be seen his sharp-eyed wife in the middle of the room was standing Yashka the Turk a thin graceful fellow of 320 dressed in a long skirted coat of blue Nanking He looked a smart factory hand and could not to judge by his appearance boast of very good health His hollow cheeks his large restless gray eyes his straight nose

With its delicate mobile nostrils his pale brown curls brushed back over the sloping white brow His full but beautiful expressive lips and his whole face betrayed a passionate and sensitive nature He was in a state of great excitement He blinked his breathing was hurried his hands shook as though in fever And he was really in a fever that sudden fever of excitement which is so well known to all who have to speak and sing

before an audience Near him stood a man of about 40 with broad shoulders and broad jaws with a low forehead narrow Tata eyes a short flat nose a square chin and shining black hair course as bristles the expression of his face a swarthy face with a sort of leaden hue in it and

Especially of his pale lips might almost have been called savage if it had not been so still and dreamy He hardly served a muscle. He only looked slowly around him like a bull under the yoke he was dressed in a sort of suit toot not over new with smooth brass buttons an Old black silk handkerchief was twisted round his immense neck He was called the wild master right opposite him on a bench under the holy pictures

Was sitting Yasko's rival the booth keeper from Rizji He was a short stoutly build man about 30 pork marked and curly headed with a blunt turn up nose lively brown eyes and a scanty beard he looked keenly about him and Sitting with his hands under him He kept carelessly swinging his legs and tapping with his feet which were encased in stylish top boots with a colored edging

He wore a new thin coat of gray cloth with a plush color in Sharp contrast with a crimson shirt below buttoned clothes across the chest in the opposite corner to the right of the door a Peasant set at the table in a narrow shabby smock frock with a huge rant on the shoulder

The sunlight fell in a narrow yellowish streak through the dusty panes of the two small windows But it seemed as if it struggled in vain with the habitual darkness of the room all the objects in it were dimly as It were patchily lighted up on the other hand It was almost cool in the room and the sense of stifling heat dropped off me like a weary load Directly I crossed the threshold

My entrance I could see was at first somewhat disconcerting to Nikolai Ivanovich's customers But observing that he greeted me as a friend they were reassured and took no more notice of me I asked for some beer and sat down in the corner near the peasant in the ragged smoke Well, well piped the Gabler suddenly draining a glass of spirits at one gulp and Accompanying his exclamation with a strange gesticulation without which he seemed unable to utter a single word

What are we waiting for if we're going to begin then begin? Hey Yasha? Begin begin chimed in Nikolai Ivanovich approvingly Let's begin by all means observe the boothkeeper Cooley with a self-confident smile I'm ready and I'm ready Yakov pronounced in a voice thrilled with excitement well

Begin lads wine the blinker But in spite of the unanimously expressed desire neither began the boothkeeper did not even get up from the bench They all seem to be waiting for something Begin said the wild master sharply and suddenly Yashka started the boothkeeper pulled down his girdle and cleared his throat

But who's to begin he inquired in a slightly changed voice of the wild master who still stood motionless in the middle of the room He stalwart legs wide apart and his powerful arms thrust up to the elbow into his breeches pockets You you boothkeeper stammered the Gabler you to be sure brother The wild master looked at him from under his brows the Gabler gave a faint squeak in Confusion looked away at the ceiling twitched his shoulder and said no more

Cast lots the wild master pronounced emphatically and the pot on the table Nikolai Ivanovich bent down and with a gasp picked up the pot of beer from the floor and set it on the table The wild master glanced at Yakov and said come Yakov fumbled in his pockets took out a half penny and marked it with his teeth The boothkeeper pulled from under the skirts of his long coat a new leather purse

Deliberately untied the string and shaking out a quantity of small change into his hand picked out a new half penny The Gabler held out his dirty cap with its broken peak hanging loose Yakov dropped his half penny in and the boothkeeper his You must pick out one said the wild master turning to the blinker the blinker smiled Compleasantly took the cap in both hands and began shaking it

For an instant a profound silence rained the half pennies clinked faintly Jingling against each other. I looked round Attentively every face wore an expression of intense expectation The wild master himself showed signs of uneasiness My neighbor even the peasant in the tattered smoke craned his neck

Inquisitively the blinker put his hand into the cap and took out the boothkeepers half penny Everyone drew a long breath Yakov flushed and the boothkeeper passed his hand over his hair There I said you'd begin cried the Gabler didn't I say so there there don't cluck remarked the wild master contemptuously

Begin he went on with a nod to the boothkeeper What song am I to sing asked the boothkeeper beginning to be nervous? What you choose answered the blinker saying what you think best What you choose to be sure Nikolai Ivanovich chimed in slowly smoothing his hand on his breast You're quite a liberty about that saying what you like only sing well

And we'll give a fair decision afterwards a Fair decision of course put in the Gabler licking the edge of his empty glass Let me clear my throat a bit mates said the boothkeeper fingering the color of his coat Come come no nonsense begin Protested the wild master and he looked down the boothkeeper

Thought a minute shook his head and stepped forward Yakov's eyes were riveted upon him, but before I enter upon a description of the contest itself I think it will not be a mess to say a few words about each of the personages Taking part in my story The lives of some of them were known to me already when I met them in the welcome resort

I collected some facts about the others later on Let us begin with the Gabler this man's real name was Evgraf Ivanovich But no one in the whole neighborhood knew him as anything But the Gabler and he himself referred to himself by that nickname so well did it fit him indeed? Nothing could have been more appropriate to his insignificant ever restless features

He was a dissipated unmarried house serf whose own masters had long ago got rid of him and who without any employment without earning a half penny found means to get drunk every day at other people's expense He had a great number of acquaintances who treated him to drinks of spirits and tea Though they could not have said why they did so themselves For far from being entertaining in company he bored everyone with his meaningless chatter

His insufferable familiarity his spasmodic gestures and incessant unnatural laugh He could neither sing nor dance. He had never said a clever or even a sensible thing in his life He chatted away telling lies about everything a regular Gabler And yet not a single drinking party for 30 miles around took place without his lang figure turning up among the guests So that they were used to him by now and put up with his presence as a necessary evil

They all it is true treated him with contempt But the wild master was the only one who knew how to keep his foolish sallies in check The blinker was not in the least like the Gabler his nickname too suited him though He was no more given to blinking than other people It is a well-known fact the Russian peasants have a talent for finding good nicknames

In spite of my endeavors to get more detailed information about this man's past Many passages in his life have remained spots of darkness to me and probably to many other people Episodes buried as the bookmen say in the darkness of oblivion I could only find out that he was once a coachman in the service of an old childless lady That he had run away with three horses

He was in charge of had been lost for a whole year and no doubt convinced by experience of the drawbacks and hardships Of a wandering life. He had gone back a cripple and flung himself at his mistress's feet He succeeded in a few years in smoothing over his offense by his exemplary conduct And gradually getting higher in her favor at last gained her complete confidence Was made a bailiff and on his mistress's death turned out in what way was never known to have received his freedom

He got admitted into the class of tradesmen rented patches of market garden from the neighbors Grew rich and now was living in ease and comfort He was a man of experience who knew on which side his bread was buttered Was more actuated by prudence than by either good or ill nature Had knocked about understood men and knew how to turn them to his own advantage

He was cautious and at the same time enterprising like a fox Though he was as fond of gossip as an old woman He never let out his own affairs while he made everyone else talk freely of theirs He did not affect to be a simpleton though as so many crafty men of his sort do Indeed it would have been difficult for him to take anyone in in that way

I have never seen a sharper kine pair of eyes than his tiny cunning little peepers as they call them in a roll They were never simply looking about they were always looking one up and down and through and through The blinkered would sometimes ponder for weeks together over some apparently simple undertaking And again, he would suddenly decide on a desperately Bold line of action which one would fancy would bring him to ruin

But it would be sure to turn out. All right Everything would go smoothly He was lucky and believed in his own luck and believed in omens He was exceedingly superstitious in general He was not liked because he would have nothing much to do with anyone, but he was respected

His whole family consisted of one little son whom he idolized and who brought up by such a father Is likely to get on in the world Little blinker, it'll be his father over again Is said of him already in undertones by the old men as they sit on their mud walls gossiping on summer evenings And everyone knows what that means. There is no need to say more

As to Yashka the Turk and the Boothkeeper, there is no need to say much about them Yakov called the Turk because he actually was descended from a Turkish woman a prisoner from the war Was by nature an artist in every sense of the word and by calling a ladler in the paper factory belonging to a merchant As for the Boothkeeper his career I must own I know nothing of He struck me as being a smart townsman of the tradesman class

Ready to turn his hand to anything But the Wild Master calls for a more detailed account The first impression the sight of this man produced on you was a sense of coarse heavy Irresistible power. He was clumsily built a shambler as they say about us But there was an air of triumphant vigor about him and strange to say

His bear-like figure was not without a certain grace of its own proceeding perhaps from his absolutely Placid confidence in his own strength It was hard to decide at first to what class this Hercules belonged He did not look like a house serf nor a tradesman nor an impoverished clerk out of work Nor a small ruined landowner such as takes to being a huntsman or a fishing man

He was in fact quite individual. No one knew where he came from or what brought him into our district It was said that he came of free peasant proprietor stock and had once been in the government service somewhere But nothing positive was known about this and indeed there was no one From whom one could learn certainly not from him. He was the most silent and morose of men So much so that no one knew for certain what he lived on he followed no trade visited no one

Associated with scarcely anyone yet. He had money to spend little enough. It is true. Still he had some In his behavior, he was not exactly retiring retiring was not a word that could be applied to him He lived as though he noticed no one about him and cared for no one The wild master that was the nickname they had given him. His real name was perevlyesev Enjoyed an immense influence in the whole district

He was obeyed with eager Promptitude though he had no kind of right to give orders to anyone and did not himself evince the slightest Pretension to authority over the people with whom he came into casual contact He spoke they obeyed Strength always has an influence of its own

He scarcely drank at all had nothing to do with women and was passionately fond of singing There was much that was mysterious about this man. It seemed as though vast forces Suddenly reposed within him knowing as it were that once roused once bursting free They were bound to crush him and everything they came in contact with And I am greatly mistaken if in this man's life there had not been some such outbreak

If it was not owing to the lessons of experience to a narrow escape from ruin that he now kept himself So tightly in hand What especially struck me in him was the combination of a sort of inborn natural ferocity With an equally inborn generosity a combination. I have never met in any other man And so the booth keeper stepped forward and half shutting his eyes began singing in high falsetto

He had a fairly sweet and pleasant voice though rather hoarse He played with his voice like a woodlark twisting and turning it in incessant roulades and trills up and down the scale Continually returning to the highest notes which he held and prolonged with special care Then he would break off and again suddenly take up the first motive with a sort of go-ahead daring His modulations were at times rather bold at times rather comical

They would have given a connoisseur great satisfaction and have made a german furiously indignant He was a russian tenore di grazia tenor ledger He sang a song to a lively dance tune the words of which All that I could catch through the endless maze of variations ejaculations and repetitions were as follows A tiny patch of land young lass i'll plough for thee and tiny crimson flowers young lass

I'll sow for thee He sang All listened to him with great attention He seemed to feel that he had to do with really musical people and therefore was exerting himself to do his best And they really are musical in our part of the country the village of sergievskaya on the orel high road is

Deservedly noted throughout russia for its harmonious chorus singing The booth keeper sang for a long while without evoking much enthusiasm in his audience He lacked the support of a chorus, but at last after one particularly bold flourish Which set even the wild master smiling the gabler could not refrain from a shout of delight Everyone was roused the gabler and the blinker began joining in in an undertone

And exclaiming bravely done Take it you rogue sing it out you serpent hold it that shake again you dog you May herod confound your soul and so on nikolai evanovich behind the bar was nodding his head from side to side approvingly the gabler at last was swinging his legs tapping with his feet and twitching his shoulder While yashka's eyes fairly glowed like coal and he trembled all over like a leaf and smiled nervously

The wild master alone did not change countenance and stood motionless as before But his eyes fastened on the booth keeper looked somewhat softened though the expression of his lips was still scornful Emboldened by the signs of general approbation the booth keeper went off in a whirl of flourishes And began to round off such trills to turn such shakes off his tongue And to make such furious play with his throat that when at last

Pale exhausted and bathed in hot perspiration He uttered the last dying note his whole body flung back A general united shout greeted him in a violent outburst The gabler threw himself on his neck and began strangling him in his long bony arms A flush came out on nikolai evanovich's oily face and he seemed to have grown younger

Yashka shouted like mad Capital capital even my neighbor the peasant in the torn smock could not restrain himself And with a blow of his fist on the table he cried aha Well done. Damn my soul. Well done And he spat on one side with an air of decision

Well, brother, you've given us a treat bold the gabler not releasing the exhausted booth keeper from his embraces You've given us a treat. There is no denying you've won brother. You've won I congratulate you the quartz yours Yashka's miles behind you. I tell you miles Take my word for it. And again he hugged the booth keeper to his breast

There let him alone. Let him alone. There is no being rid of you Said the blanket with vexation let him sit down on the bench. He's tired. See You're a ninny brother perfect ninny. What are you sticking to him like a wet leaf for Well, then let him sit down and i'll drink to his health said the gabler and he went up to the bar At your expense brother

He added addressing the booth keeper The latter nodded sat down on the bench pulled a piece of cloth out of his cap and began wiping his face While the gabler with greedy haste emptied his glass and with a grunt assumed after the manner of confirmed drinkers An expression of careworn melancholy You sing beautifully brother beautifully nikolay evanovich observed caressingly

And now it's your turn yasha Mind now don't be afraid We shall see who's who we shall see the booth keeper sings beautifully though upon my soul he does Very beautifully observed nikolay evanovich's wife and she looked with a smile at yakov beautifully, huh

Repeated my neighbor in an undertone Ah a wild man of the woods the gabler was separated suddenly and going up to the peasant with a rent on his shoulder He pointed at him with his finger while he pranced about and went off into an insulting gaffer Ha ha get along wild man of the woods. Here is a Rugger muffin from woodland village. What brought you here? He bawled amidst laughter

The poor peasant was abashed and was just about to get up and make off as fast as he could When suddenly the wild master's iron voice was heard What does the insufferable brood mean? He articulated grinding his teeth. I wasn't doing nothing Muttered the gabler. I didn't I only

There. All right. Shut up retorted the wild master yakov begin Yakov took himself by his throat Well, really brothers something Hmm

I don't know on my word What? Come that's enough. Don't be timid for shame Why go back? Sing the best you can by god's gift

And the wild master looked down expectant Yakov was silent for a minute. He glanced round and covered his face with his hand All had their eyes simply fastened upon him Especially the booth keeper on whose face a feigned involuntary uneasiness could be seen through his habitual expression of self-confidence and the triumph of his success

He leaned back against the wall and again put both hands under him but did not swing his legs as before When at last yakov uncovered his face, it was pale as a dead man's His eyes gleamed faintly under their drooping lashes He gave a deep sigh And began to sing

The first sound of his voice was feigned And unequal and seemed not to come from his chest But to be wafted from somewhere afar off As though it had floated by chance into the room A strange effect was produced on all of us by this trembling resonant note

We glanced at one another and Nikolai Ivanovich's wife seemed to draw herself up This first note was followed by another bolder and prolonged but still obviously quivering like a harp string When suddenly struck by a stray finger it throbs in a last swiftly dying tremble The second was followed by a third and gradually gaining fire and breath The strains swelled into a pathetic melody

Not one little path ran into the field he sang And sweet and mournful it was in our ears I have seldom I must confess heard a voice like it It was slightly hoarse and not perfectly true There was even something morbid about it at first

But it had genuine depth of passion and youth and sweetness and a sort of fascinating careless pathetic melancholy A spirit of truth and fire a Russian spirit was sounding and breathing in that voice And it seemed to go straight to your heart to go straight to all that was Russian in it The song swelled and flowed Yakov was clearly carried away by enthusiasm

He was not timid now. He surrendered himself wholly to the rapture of his art His voice no longer trembled it quivered but with a scarce perceptible inward quiver of passion Which pierces like an arrow to the very soul of the listeners and he steadily gained strength and firmness and breath I remember I once saw at sunset on a flat sandy shore When the tide was low and the sea's

Roar came weighty and menacing from the distance a great wide seagull It sat motionless its silky bosom facing the crimson glow of the setting sun and only now and then opening wide its great wings To greet the well-known sea to greet the sinking lurid sun I recalled it as I heard Yakov

He sang utterly forgetful of his rival and all of us He seemed supported as a bold swimmer by the waves by our silent passionate sympathy He sang and in every sound of his voice One seemed to feel something dear and akin to us something of breath and space As though the familiar steps were unfolding before our eyes

And stretching away into endless distance. I felt the tears gathering in my bosom and rising to my eyes Suddenly, I was struck by dull smothered sobs I looked round the innkeeper's wife was weeping her bosom pressed close to the window Yakov threw a quick glance at her and he sang more sweetly more melodiously than ever Nikolai Ivanovich looked down the blinker turned away the gabler quite touched stood his gaping mouth

Stupidly open the humble peasant was sobbing softly in the corner and shaking his head with a plaintive murmur And on the iron visage of the wild master from under his overhanging brows there slowly rolled a heavy tear The booth keeper raised his clenched fist to his brow and did not stir I don't know how the general emotion would have ended If yakov had not suddenly come to a full stop on a high exceptionally shrill note

As though his voice had broken No one called out or even stirred everyone seemed to be waiting to see whether he was not going to sing more But he opened his eyes as though wondering at our silence looked round at all of us with a face of inquiry And saw that the victory was his Yasha

Said the wild master laying his hand on his shoulder and he could say no more We all stood as it were petrified The booth keeper softly rose and went up to yakov you yours you've

won He articulated at last with an effort and rushed out of the room His rapid decided action as it were broke the spell We all suddenly fell into noisy delighted talk The gabler bounded up and down

Stammered and brandished his arms like milsails The blinkered limped up to yakov and began kissing him Nikolai Ivanovich got up and solemnly announced that he would add a second pot of beer from himself The wild master laughed a sort of kind simple laugh, which I should never have expected to see on his face The humble peasant as he wiped his eyes cheeks nose and beard on his sleeves kept repeating in his corner

Ah beautiful it was by god. Blast me for the son of a god, but it was fine While Nikolai Ivanovich's wife her face red with weeping got up quickly and went away Yakov was enjoying his triumph like a child his whole face was transformed His eyes especially fairly glowed with happiness They dragged him to the bar

He beckoned the weeping peasant up to it and sent the innkeeper's little son to look after the boothkeeper who was not found However, and the festivities began You'll sing to us again. You're going to sing to us till evening the gabler declared flourishing his hands in the air I took one more look at yakov and went out I did not want to stay. I was afraid of spoiling the impression I had received

But the heat was as insupportable as before it seemed hanging in a thick heavy layer Right over the earth over the dark blue sky tiny bright fires seemed whisking through the finest almost black dust Everything was still and there was something hopeless and oppressive in this profound Hush of exhausted nature I made my way to a hayloft and lay down on the fresh cut but already almost dry grass

For a long while I could not go to sleep for a long while. Yakov's irresistible voice was ringing in my ears At last the heat and fatigue regained their sway. However, and I fell into a dead sleep When I waked up everything was in darkness The hay scattered around smelled strong and was slightly damp Through the slender rafters of the half open roof pale stars were faintly twinkling. I went out

The glow of sunset had long died away and its last trace showed in a faint light on the horizon But above the freshness of the night there was still a feeling of heat in the atmosphere Lately baked through by the sun and the breast still craved for a draught of cool air There was no wind nor were there any clouds. The sky all around was clear and Transparently dark softly glimmering with innumerable but scarcely visible stars

There were lights twinkling about the village from the flaring tavern close by rose a confused discordant din Amid which I fancied I recognized the voice of yakov Violent laughter came from there in an outburst at times I went up to the little window and pressed my face against the pain I saw a cheerless though varied and animated scene

All were drunk All from yakov upwards with breast bared He sat on a bench and singing in a thick voice a street song to a dance tune He lazily fingered and strummed on the strings of a guitar His moist hair hung in tufts over his fearfully pale face

In the middle of the room the gabler completely screwed And without his coat was hopping about in a dance before the peasant in the gray smock The peasant on his side Was with difficulty stamping and scraping with his feet and grinning meaninglessly over his disheveled beard He waved one hand from time to time as much as to say here goes

Nothing could be more ludicrous than his face. However much he twitched up his eyebrows His heavy lids would hardly rise but seemed lying upon his scarcely visible dim and morkish eyes He was in that amiable frame of mind of a perfectly intoxicated man When every passerby directly he looks him in the face is sure to say Bless you brother bless you

The blinkered as red as a lobster and his nostrils dilated wide was laughing malignantly in a corner Only Nikolai Ivanovich as befits a good tavern keeper preserved his composure unchanged The room was thronged with many new faces, but the wild master I did not see in it I turned away with rapid steps and began descending the hill on which Kolotovka lies At the foot of this hill stretches a wide plain

Plunged in the misty waves of the evening haze it seemed more immense and was as it were merged with a darkening sky I walked with long strides along the road by the ravine When all at once from somewhere far away in the plain came a boy's clear voice He shouted in obstinate and tearful desperation with long long drawing out of the last syllable He was silent for a few instants and started shouting again his voice rang out clear in the still lightly slumbering air

30 times at least he had called the name Antropka When suddenly from the farthest end of the plain as though from another world there floated a scarcely audible reply What? The boy's voice shouted back at once with gleeful exasperation Come here devil

wood imp What for? Replied the other after a long interval because dad wants to thrash you The first voice shouted back hurriedly The second voice did not call back again and the boy fell to shouting Antropka once more his cries

Fainter and less and less frequent still floated up to my ears when it had grown completely dark And I had turned the corner of the wood which skirts my village and lies over three miles from Kolotovka Was still audible in the air filled with the shadows of night end of the singers