The Ice Breaker

by Maxim Gorky

　　On a frozen river near a certain Russian town, a gang of sevencarpenters were hastily repairing an icebreaker which thetownsfolk had stripped for firewood.That year spring happened to be late in arriving, and youthfulMarch looked more like October, and only at noon, and that noton every day, did the pale, wintry sun show himself in theovercast heavens, or, glimmering in blue spaces between clouds,contemplate the earth with a squinting, malevolent eye.The day in question was the Friday in Holy Week, and, as nightdrew on, drippings were becoming congealed into icicles half anarshin long, and in the snow-stripped ice of the river only thedun hue of the wintry clouds was reflected.As the carpenters worked there kept mournfully, insistentlyechoing from the town the coppery note of bells; and atintervals heads would raise themselves, and blue eyes would gleamthoughtfully through the same grey fog in which the town layenveloped, and an axe uplifted would hover a moment in the airas though fearing with its descent to cleave the luscious floodof sound.Scattered over the spacious river-track were dark pine branches,projecting obliquely from the ice, to mark paths, open spaces,and cracks on the surface; and where they reared themselvesaloft, these branches looked like the cramped, distorted arms ofdrowning men.From the river came a whiff of gloom and depression. Coveredover with sodden slush, it stretched with irksome rigiditytowards the misty quarter whence blew a languid, sluggish, damp,cold wind.Suddenly the foreman, one Ossip, a cleanly built, uprightlittle peasant with a neatly curling, silvery beard, ruddycheeks, and a flexible neck, a man everywhere and always inevidence, shouted:"Look alive there, my hearties!"Presently he turned his attention to myself, and smiledinsinuatingly."Inspector," he said, "what are you trying to poke out ofthe sky with that squat nose of yours? And why are you here atall? You come from the contractor, you say? -- from VasiliSergeitch? Well, well! Then your job is to hurry us up, to keepbarking out,' Mind what you are doing, such-and-such gang! ' Yetthere you stand-blinking over your task like an object driedstiff! It's not to blink that you're here, but to play thewatchdog upon us, and to keep an eye open, and your tongue onthe wag. So issue your commands, young cockerel."Then he shouted to the workmen:"Now, then! No shirking! Is the job going to be finishedtonight, or is it not? "As a matter of fact, he himself was the worst shirker in theartel [Workman's union]. True, he was also a first-rate hand athis trade, and a man who could work quickly and well and withskill and concentration; but, unfortunately, he hated puttinghimself out, and preferred to spend his time spinningarresting yarns. For instance, on the present occasion he chosethe moment when work was proceeding with a swing, when everyonewas busily and silently and wholeheartedly labouring with theobject of running the job through to the end, to begin in hismusical voice:"Look here, lads. Once upon a time--"And though for the first two or three minutes the men appearednot to hear him, and continued their planing and chopping asbefore, the moment came when the soft tenor accents caught andheld the men's attention, as they trickled and burbled forth.Then, screwing up his bright eyes with a humorous air, andtwisting his curly beard between his fingers, Ossip gave acomplacent click of his tongue, and continued measuredly, andwith deliberation:"So he seized hold of the tench, and thrust it back into thecave. And as he turned to proceed through the forest he thoughtto himself: 'Now I must keep my eyes about me.' And suddenly,from somewhere (no one could have said where), a woman's voiceshrieked: 'Elesi-a-ah! Elesia-ah!'"Here a tall, lanky Morduine named Leuka, with, as surname,Narodetz, a young fellow whose small eyes wore always anexpression of astonishment, laid aside his axe, and stood gaping."And from the cave a deep bass voice replied: 'Elesi-a-ah!'while at the same moment the tench sprang from the cave, and,champing its jaws, wriggled and wriggled back to the slough."Here an old soldier named Saniavin, a morose man, a tippler,and a sufferer from asthma and an inexplicable grudge againstlife in general, croaked out:"How could your tench have wriggled across dry land if it was afish?""Can, for that matter, a fish speak?" was Ossip'sgood-humoured retort.All of which inspired Mokei Budirin, a grey-headed muzhik of acast of countenance canine in the prominence of his jaws and therecession of his forehead, and taciturn withal, though nototherwise remarkable, to give slow, nasal utterance to hisfavourite formula."That is true enough," he said.For never could anything be spoken of that was grim ormarvellous or lewd or malicious, but Budirin at once re-echoedsoftly, but in a tone of unshakable conviction: "That is trueenough."Thereafter he would tap me on the breast with his hard andponderous fist.Presently work again underwent an interruption through the factthat Yakov Boev, a man who possessed both a stammer and asquint, became similarly filled with a desire to tell ussomething about a fish. Yet from the moment that he began hisnarrative everyone declined to believe it, and laughed at hisbroken verbiage as, frequently invoking the Deity, and cursing,and brandishing his awl, and viciously swallowing spittle, heshouted amid general ridicule:"Once-once upon a time there lived a man. Yes, other folkbefore YOU have believed my tale. Indeed, it is no more than thetruth that I'm going to tell you. Very well! Cackle away, and bedamned!"Here everyone without exception dropped his work to shout withmerriment and clap his hands: with the result that, doffing hiscap, and thereby disclosing a silvered, symmetrically shapedhead with one bald spot amid its one dark portion, Ossip wasforced to shout severely:"Hi, you Budirin! You've had your say, and given us some fun,and there must be no more of it.""But I had only just begun what I want to say," the old soldiergrumbled, spitting upon the palms of his hands.Next, Ossip turned to myself."Inspector," he began . . .It is my opinion that in thus hindering the men from workthrough his tale-telling, Ossip had some definite end in view. Icould not say precisely what that end was, but it must have beenthe object either of cloaking his own laziness or of giving themen a rest. On the other hand, whenever the contractor waspresent he, Ossip, bore himself with humble obsequiousness , andcontinued to assume a guise of simplicity which none the lessdid not prevent him, on the advent of each Saturday, frominducing his employer to bestow a pourboire upon the artel.And though this same Ossip was an artelui, and a director of theartel, his senior co-members bore him no affection, but, rather,looked upon him as a wag or trifler, and treated him as of noimportance. And, similarly, the younger members of the artelliked well enough to listen to his tales, but declined to takehim seriously, and, in some cases, regarded him withill-concealed, or openly expressed, distrust.Once the Morduine, a man of education with whom, on occasions, Iheld discussions on intimate subjects, replied to a question ofmine on the subject of Ossip:"I scarcely know. Goodness alone knows! No, I do not knowanything about him."To which, after a pause, he added:"Once a fellow named Mikhailo, a clever fellow who is now dead,insulted Ossip by saying to him: 'Do you call yourself a man?Why, regarded as a workman, you're as lifeless as a doornail,while, seeing that you weren't born to be a master, you'll allyour life continue chattering in corners, like a plummetswinging at the end of a string!' Yes, and that was true enough."Lastly. after another pause the Morduine concluded:"No matter. He is not such a bad sort."My own position among these men was a position of someawkwardness, for, a young fellow of only fifteen, I had beenappointed by the contractor, a distant relative of mine, to thetask of superintending the expenditure of material. That is tosay, I had to see to it that the carpenters did not make awaywith nails, or dispose of planks in return for drink. Yet allthe time my presence was practically useless, seeing that themen stole nails as though I were not even in existence andstrove to show me that among them I was a person too many, asheer incubus, and seized every opportunity of giving me covertjogs with a beam, and similarly affronting me.This, of course, made my relations with them highly difficult,embarrassing, and irksome; and though moments occurred when Ilonged to say something that might ingratiate me, andendeavoured to effect an advance in that direction, the wordsalways failed me at the necessary juncture, and I found myselflying crushed as before under a burdensome sense of thesuperfluity of my existence.Again, if ever I tried to make an entry as to some materialwhich had been used, Ossip would approach me, and, for instance,say:"Is it jotted down, eh? Then let me look at it."And, eyeing the notebook with a frown, he would add vaguely:"What a nice hand you write!" (He himself could write only inprinting fashion, in the large scriptory characters of theEcclesiastical Rubric, not in those of the ordinary kind.)"For example, that scoop there--what does IT say?""It is the word 'Good.'""'Good'? But what a slip-knot of a thing! And what are thosewords THERE, on THAT line?""They say, 'Planks, 1 vershok by 9 arshini, 5.'""No, six was the number used.""No, five.""Five? Why, the soldier broke one, didn't he?""Yes, but never mind--at least it wasn't a plank that waswanted.""Oh! Well, I may tell you that he took the two pieces to thetavern to get drink with."Then, glancing into my face with his cornflower-blue eyes andquiet, quizzical smile, he would say without the least confusionas he twisted the ringlets of his beard:"Put down '6.' And see here, young cockerel. The weather hasturned wet and cold, and the work is hard, and sometimes folkneed to have their spirits cheered and raised with a drop ofliquor. So don't you be too hard upon us, for God won't thinkthe more of you for being strict."And as he thus talked to me in his slow and kindly, butsemi-affected, fashion--bespattering me, as it were, with wordysawdust--I would suddenly grow blind of an eye and silently showhim the corrected figure."That's it--that's right. And how fine the figure looks now, asit squats there like a merchant's buxom, comely dame!"Then he would be seen triumphantly telling his mates of hissuccess; then, I would find myself feeling acutely conscious ofthe fact that everyone was despising me for my complacence Yes,grown sick beyond endurance with a yearning for some thing whichit could not descry, my fifteen-year-old heart would dissolve ina flood of mortified tears, and there would pass through mybrain the despondent, aching thought:"Oh, what a sad, uncomfortable world is this! How should Ossiphave known so well that I should not re-correct the 6 into a 5,or that I should not tell the contractor that the men havebartered a plank for liquor?"Again, there befell an occasion when the men stole two pounds'weight of five vershok mandrels and bolts."Look here," I said to Ossip warningly. "I am going to reportthis.""All right," he agreed with a twitch of his grey eyebrows."Though what such a trifle can matter I fail to see. Yes, goand report every mother's son of them."And to the men themselves he shouted:"Hi, boobies! Each of you now stands docked for some mandrelsand bolts.""Why?" was the old soldier's grim inquiry."Because you DO so stand," carelessly retorted the other.With snarls thereafter, the men eyed me covertly, until I beganto feel that very likely I should not do as I had threatened,and even that so to do might not be expedient."But look here," said I to Ossip. "I am going to give thecontractor notice, and let all of you go to the devil. For if Iwere to remain with you much longer I too should become a thief."Ossip stroked his beard awhile, and pondered. Then he seatedhimself beside me, and said in an undertone:"That is true.""Well?""But things are always so. The truth is that it's time youdeparted. What sort of a watchman, of a checker, are you? Injobs of this kind what a man needs to know is the meaning ofproperty. He needs to have in him the spirit of a dog, so thathe shall look after his master's stuff as he would look afterthe skin which his mother has put on to his own body. But you,you young puppy, haven't the slightest notion of what propertymeans. In fact, were anyone to go and tell Vasili Sergeitchabout the way in which you keep letting us off, he'd give it youin the neck. Yes, you're no good to him at all, but just anexpense: whereas when a man serves a master he ought, do youunderstand, to be PROFITABLE to that master."He rolled and handed me a cigarette."Smoke this," said he, "and perhaps it'll make your brain workeasier. If only you had been of a less awkward, uncomfortablenature, I should have said to you, 'Go and join the priests;but, as things are, you aren't the right sort for that--you'retoo stiff and unbending, and would never make headway even withan abbot. No, you're not the sort to play cards with. A monk islike a jackdaw--he chatters without knowing what he is chatteringabout, and pays no heed to the root of things, so busy is hewith stuffing himself full with the grain. I say this to youwith absolute earnestness, for I perceive you to be strange toour ways--a cuckoo that has blundered into the wrong nest."And, doffing his cap, a gesture which he never failed to executewhen he had something particularly important to say, he addedhumbly and sonorously as he glanced at the grey firmament:"In the sight of the Lord our ways are the ways of thieves, andsuch as will never gain of Him salvation.""And that is true enough," responded Mokei Budirin after thefashion of a clarionet.From that time forth, Ossip of the curly, silvered head, brighteyes, and shadowy soul became an object of agreeable interestfor me. Indeed, there grew up between us a species offriendship, even though I could see that a civil bearing towardsme in public was a thing that it hurt him to maintain. At allevents, in the presence of others he avoided my glance, and hiseyes, clear, unsullied, and fight blue in tint, waveredunsteadily, and his lips twitched and assumed an artificiallyunpleasant expression, while he uttered some such speech as:"Hi, you Makarei, see that you keep your eyes open, and camyour pay, or that pig of a soldier will be making away with morenails!"But at other times, when we were alone together, he would speakto me kindly and instructively, while his eyes would dance andgleam with a faint, grave, knowing smile, and dart blue raysdirect into mine, while for my part, as I listened to his words,I took every one of them to be absolutely true and balanced,despite their strange delivery."A man's duty consists in being good," I remarked on oneoccasion."Yes, of course," assented Ossip, though the next moment heveiled his eyes with a smile, and added in an undertone:"But what do you understand by the term 'good'? In my opinion,unless virtue be to their advantage, folk spit upon that'goodness,' that 'honourableness,' of yours. Hence, the betterplan is to pay folk court, and be civil to them, and flatter andcajole every mother's son of them. Yes, do that, and your'goodness' will have a chance of bringing you in some return. Notthat I do not say that to be 'good,' to be able to look yourown ugly jowl in the face in a mirror, is pleasant enough; but,as I see the matter, it is all one to other people whether yoube a cardsharper or a priest so long as you're polite, and letdown your neighbours lightly. That's what they want."For my part I never, at that period, grew weary of watching myfellows, for it was my constant idea that some day one of themwould be able to raise me to a higher level, and to bring me toan understanding of this unintelligible and complicatedexistence of ours. Hence I kept asking myself the restless, theimportunate question:"What precisely is the human soul?Certain souls, I thought, existed which seemed like balls ofcopper, for, solid and immovable, they reflected things fromtheir own point of view alone, in a dull and irregular anddistorted fashion. And souls, I thought, existed which seemed asflat as mirrors, and, for all intents and purposes, had noexistence at all.And in every case the human soul seemed formless, like a cloud,and as murkily mutable as an imitation opal, a thing whichaltered according to the colour of what adjoined it.Only as regarded the soul of the intelligent Ossip was Iabsolutely at a loss, absolutely unable to reach a conclusion.Pondering these and similar matters in my mind, I, on the day ofwhich I speak, stood gazing at the river, and at the town underthe hill, as I listened to the bells. Rearing themselves aloftlike the organ pipes in my favourite Polish-Roman Catholicchurch, the steeples of the town had their crosses dimlysparkling as though the latter had been stars imprisoned in amurky sky. Yet it was as though those stars hoped eventually toascend into the purer firmament above the wind-torn clouds thatthey sparkled; and as I stood watching the clouds glide onward,and momentarily efface with their shadows, the town'smultifarious hues, I marked the fact that although, wheneverdark-blue cavities in their substance permitted the beams of thesun to illuminate the buildings below, those buildings' roofsassumed tints of increased cheerfulness. The clouds seemed toglide the faster to veil the beams, while the humid shadows grewmore opaque-- and the scene darkened as though only for a momenthad it assumed a semblance of joy.The buildings of the town (looking like heaps of muddy snow),the black, naked earth around those buildings, the trees in thegardens, the hummocks of piled-up soil, the dull grey glimmer ofthe window panes of the houses--all these things reminded me ofwinter, even though the misty breath of the northern spring wasbeginning to steal over the whole.Presently a young fellow with flaxen hair, a pendent underlip,and a tall, ungainly figure, by name Mishuk Diatlov, essayed totroll the stanza:"That morn to him the maiden came,To find his soul had fled."Whereupon the old soldier shouted:"Hi, you! Have you forgotten the day?"And even Boev saw fit to take umbrage at the singing, and,threatening Diatlov with his fist, to rap out:"Ah, sobatchnia dusha!" ["Soul of a dog."]"What a rude, rough, primitive lot we Russians are!" commentedOssip, seating himself atop of the icebreaker, and screwing uphis eyes to measure its fall. "To speak plainly, we Russiansare sheer barbarians. Once upon a time, I may tell you, ananchorite happened to be on his travels; and as the people camepressing around him, and kneeling to him, and tearfullybeseeching him with the words, '0h holy father, intercede for uswith the wolves which are devouring our substance!' he replied:'Ha! Are you, or are you not, Orthodox Christians? See that Iassign you not to condign perdition!' Yes, angry, in very truthhe was. Nay, he even spat in the people's faces. Yet in realityhe was a kindly old man, for his eyes kept shedding tearsequally with theirs."Twenty sazheni below the icebreaker was a gang of barefootedsailors, engaged in hacking out the floes from under theirbarges; and as they shattered the brittle, greyish-blue crust onthe river, the mattocks rang out, and the sharp blades of theicecutters gleamed as they thrust the broken fragments under thesurface. Meanwhile, there could be heard a bubbling of water, andthe sound of rivulets trickling down to the sandy margin of theriver. And similarly among our own gang was there audible ascraping of planes, and a screeching of saws, and a clatteringof iron braces as they were driven into the smooth yellow wood,while through all the web of these sounds there ran theceaseless song of the bells, a song so softened by distance asto thrill the soul, much as though dingy, burdensome labour wereholding revel in honour of spring, and calling upon the latterto spread itself over the starved, naked surface of thegradually thawing ground.At this point someone shouted hoarsely:"Go and fetch the German. We have not got hands enough."And from the bank someone bawled in reply:"Where IS he?""In the tavern. That is where you must go and look for him."And as they made themselves heard, the voices floated upturgidly into the sodden air, spread themselves over the river'smournful void, and died away,Meanwhile our men worked with industry and speed, but notwithout a fault or two, for their thoughts were fixed upon thetown and its washhouses and churches. And particularly restlesswas Sashok Diatlov, a man whose hair, as flaxen as that of hisbrother, seemed to have been boiled in lye. At intervals,glancing up-river, this well-built, sturdy young fellow wouldsay softly to his brother:"It's cracking now, eh?"And, certainly, the ice had "moved" two nights ago, so thatsince yesterday morning the river watchmen had refused to permithorsed vehicles to cross, and only a few beadlike pedestriansnow were making their way along the marked-out ice paths, while,as they proceeded, one could hear the water slapping against theplanks as the latter bent under the travellers' weight."Yes, it IS cracking," at length Mishuk replied with a hoistof his ginger eyebrows.Ossip too scanned the river from under his hand. Then he said toMishuk:"Pah! It is the dry squeak of the planes in your own hand thatyou keep hearing, so go on with your work, you son of a beldame.And as for you, Inspector, do you help me to speed up the meninstead of burying your nose in your notebook."By this time there remained only two more hours for work, andthe arch of the icebreaker had been wholly sheathed inbutter-tinted scantlings, and nothing required to be added to itsave the great iron braces. Unfortunately, Boev and Saniavin,the men who had been engaged upon the task of cutting out thesockets for the braces, had worked so amiss, and run their linesso straight, that, when it came to the point, the arms of thebraces refused to sink properly into the wood."Oh, you cock-eyed fool of a Morduine!" shouted Ossip, smitinghis fist against the side of his cap. "Do you call THAT sort ofthing work?"At this juncture there came from somewhere on the bank aseemingly exultant shout of:"Ah! NOW it's giving way!"And almost at the same moment, there stole over the river a sortof rustle, a sort of quiet crunching which made the projectingpine branches quiver as though they were trying to catch atsomething, while, shouldering their mattocks, the barefootedsailors noisily hastened aboard their barges with the aid ofrope ladders.And then curious indeed was it to see how many people suddenlycame into view on the river--to see how they appeared to issuefrom below the very ice itself, and, hurrying to and fro likejackdaws startled by the shot of a gun, to dart hither andthither, and to seize up planks and boathooks, and to throw themdown again, and once more to seize them up."Put the tools together," Ossip shouted. "And look alivethere, and make for the bank.""Aye, and a fine Easter Day it will be for us on THAT bank!"growled Sashok.Meanwhile, it was the river rather than the town that seemed tobe motionless--the latter had begun, as it were, to quiver andreel, and, with the hill above it, to appear to be glidingslowly up stream, even as the grey, sandy bank some ten sazhenifrom us was beginning to grow tremulous, and to recede."Run, all of you!" shouted Ossip, giving me a violent push ashe did so. Then to myself in particular he added: "Why standgaping there?"This caused a keen sense of danger to strike home in my heart,and to make my feet feel as though already the ice was escapingtheir tread. So, automatically picking themselves up, those feetstarted to bear my body in the direction of a spot on the sandybank where the winter-stripped branches of a willow tree werewrithing, and whither there were betaking themselves also Boev,the old soldier, Budirin, and the brothers Diatlov. Meanwhilethe Morduine ran by my side, cursing vigorously as he did so,and Ossip followed us, walking backwards."No, no, Narodetz," he said."But, my good Ossip--""Never mind. What has to be, has to be.""But, as likely as not, we may remain stuck here for two days!""Never mind even if we DO remain stuck here.""But what of the festival?""It will have, for this year at least, to be kept without you."Seating himself on the sand, the old soldier lit his pipe andgrowled:"What cowards you all are! The bank was only fifteen sazhenifrom us, yet you ran as though possessed!""With you yourself as leader," put in Mokei.The old soldier took no notice, but added:"What were you all afraid of? Once upon a time Christ Himself,Our Little Father, died.""And rose again," muttered the Morduine with a tinge ofresentment. Which led Boev to exclaim:"Puppy, hold your tongue! What right have you to air youropinions?""Besides, this is Good Friday, not Easter Day," the old soldierconcluded with severe, didactical mien.In a gap of blue between the clouds there was shining the Marchsun, and everywhere the ice was sparkling as though in derisionof ourselves. Shading his eyes, Ossip gazed at the dissolvingriver, and said:"Yes, it IS rising--but that will not last for long.""No, but long enough to make us miss the festival," grumbledSashok.Upon this the smooth, beardless face of the youthful Morduine, aface dark and angular like the skin of an unpeeled potato,assumed a resentful frown, and, blinking his eyes, he muttered:"Yes, here we may have to sit--here where there's neither foodnor money! Other folk will be enjoying themselves, but we shallhave to remain hugging our hungry stomachs like a pack of dogs! "Meanwhile Ossip's eyes had remained fixed upon the river, forevidently his thoughts were far away, and it was in absentmindedfashion that he replied:"Hunger cannot be considered where necessity impels. Bythe way, what use are our damned icebreakers? For the protectionof barges and such? Why, the ice hasn't the sense to care. Itjust goes sliding over a barge, and farewell is the word to THATbit of property! ""Damn it, but none of us have a barge for property, have we?"You had better go and talk to a fool.""The truth is that the icebreaker ought to have been taken inhand sooner."Finally, the old soldier made a queer grimace, and ejaculated:"Blockhead!"From a barge a knot of sailors shouted something, and at thesame moment the river sent forth a sort of whiff of cruelchilliness and brooding calm. The disposition of the pine boughsnow had changed. Nay, everything in sight was beginning toassume a different air, as though everything were charged withtense expectancy.One of the younger men asked diffidently, beneath his breath:"Mate Ossip, what are we going to do?""What do you say?" Ossip queried absent-mindedly."I say, what are we going to do? Just to sit here?"To this Boev responded, with loud, nasal derision in his tone:"Yes, my lad, for the Lord has seen fit to prevent you fromparticipating in His most holy festival."And the old soldier, in support of his mate, extended his pipetowards the river, and muttered with a grin:"You want to cross to the town, do you? Well, be off withyou, and though the ice may give way beneath your feetand drown you, at least you'll be taken to the police station,and so get to your festival. For that's what you want, Isuppose?""True enough," Mokei re-echoed.Then the sun went in, and the river grew darker, while thetown stood out more clearly. Ceaselessly, the younger men gazedtowards the town with wistful, gloomy eyes, though silently theyremained where they were.Similarly, I myself was beginning to find things irksome anduncomfortable, as always happens when a number of companions arethinking different thoughts, and contain in themselves none ofthat unity of will which alone can join men into a direct,uniform force. Rather, I felt as though I could gladly leave mycompanions and start out upon the ice alone.Suddenly Ossip recovered his faculties. Rising, then doffing hiscap and making the sign of the cross in the direction of thetown, he said with a quiet, simple, yet somehow authoritative,air:"Very well, my mates. Go in peace, and may the Lord go withyou!""But whither?" asked Sashok, leaping to his feet. "To thetown? ""Whither else?"The old soldier was the only one not to rise, and withconviction he remarked:"It will result but in our getting drowned.""Then stay where you are."Ossip glanced around the party. Then he continued:"Bestir yourselves! Look alive!"Upon which all crowded together, and Boev, thrusting the toolsinto a hole in the bank, groaned:"The order 'go' has been given, so go we MUST, well though aman in receipt of such an order might ask himself, 'How is itgoing to be done?'"Ossip seemed, in some way, to have grown younger and moreactive, while the habitually shy, though good-humoured,expression of his countenance was gone from his ruddy features,and his darkened eyes had assumed an air of stern activity. Nay,even his indolent, rolling gait had disappeared, and in his stepthere was more firmness, more assurance, than had ever beforebeen the case."Let every man take a plank," he said, "and hold it in frontof him. Then, should anyone fall in (which God forbid!), theplank-ends will catch upon the ice to either side of him, andhold him up. Also, every man must avoid cracks in the ice. Yes,and is there a rope handy? Here, Narodetz! Reach me thatspirit-level. Is everyone ready? I will walk first, and nextthere must come--well, which is the heaviest?--you, soldier, andthen Mokei, and then the Morduine, and then Boev, and thenMishuk, and then Sashok, and then Makarei, the lightest of all.And do you all take off your caps before starting, and say aprayer to the Mother of God. Ha! Here is Old Father Sun comingout to greet us."Readily did the men bare their tousled grey or flaxen heads asmomentarily the sun glanced through a bank of thin white vapourbefore again concealing himself, as though averse to arousingany false hopes."Now!" sharply commanded Ossip in his new-found voice. "Andmay God go with us! Watch my feet, and don't crowd too much uponone another, but keep each at a sazhen's distance or more--infact, the more the better. Yes, come, mates!"With which, stuffing his cap into his bosom, and grasping thespirit-level in his hands, Ossip set foot upon the ice with asliding, cautious, shuffling gait. At the same moment, there camefrom the bank behind us a startled cry of:"Where are you off to, you fools?""Never mind," said Ossip to ourselves. "Come along with you,and don't stand staring.""You blockheads!" the voice repeated. "You had far betterreturn.""No, no! come on!" was Ossip's counter-command. "And as youmove think of God, or you'll never find yourselves among theinvited guests at His holy festival of Eastertide."Next Ossip sounded a police whistle, which act led the oldsoldier to exclaim:"Oh, that's the way, mate! Good! Yes, you know what to do. Nownotice will have been given to the police on the further bank,and, if we're not drowned, we shall find ourselves clapped ingaol when we get there. However, I'm not responsible."In spite of this remonstrance, Ossip's sturdy voice drew hiscompanions after him as though they had been tied to a rope."Watch your feet carefully," once more he cried.Our line of march was directed obliquely, and in the oppositedirection to the current. Also, I, as the rearmost of the party,found it pleasant to note how the wary little Ossip of thesilvery head went looping over the ice with the deftness of ahare, and practically no raising of the feet, while behind himthere trailed, in wild-goose fashion, and as though tied to asingle invisible string, six dark and undulating figures theshadows of which kept making themselves visible on the ice, fromthose figures' feet to points indefinitely remote. And as weproceeded, all of us kept our heads lowered as though we had beendescending from a mountain in momentary fear of a false step.Also, though the shouting in our rear kept growing in volume,and we could tell that by this time a crowd had gathered, not aword could we distinguish, but only a sort of ugly din.In time our cautious march became for me a mere, mechanical,wearisome task, for on ordinary occasions it was my custom tomaintain a pace of greater rapidity. Thus, eventually I sank intothe semiconscious condition amid which the soul turns tovacuity, and one no longer thinks of oneself, but, on thecontrary issues from one's personality, and begins to seeobjects with unwonted clarity, and to hear sounds with unwontedprecision. Under my feet the seams in the blue-grey, leaden icelay full of water, while as for the ice itself, it was blindingin its expansive glitter, even though in places it had come tobe either cracked or bulbous, or had ground itself into powderwith its own movement, or had become heaped into slushy hummocksof pumice-like sponginess and the consistency of broken glass.And everywhere around me I could discern the chilly, gapingsmile of blue crevices which caught at my feet, and rendered thetread of my boot-soles unstable. And ever, as we marched, couldthe voices of Boev and the old soldier be heard speaking inantiphony, like two pipes being fluted by one and the same pairof lips."I won't be responsible," said the one voice."Nor I," responded the other."The only reason why I have come is that I was told to do so.That's all about it.""Yes, and the same with me.""One man gives an order, and another man, perhaps a man athousand times more sensible than he, is forced to obey it.""Is any man, in these days, sensible, seeing what a racket wehave to live among?"By this time Ossip had tucked the skirts of his greatcoat intohis belt, while beneath those skirts his legs (clad in greycloth gaiters of a military pattern) were shuffling along aslightly and easily as springs, and in a manner that suggestedthat there was turning and twisting in front of him some personwhom, though desirous of barring to him the direct course, theshortest route, Ossip successfully opposed and evaded by dint ofdodges and deviations to right and left, and occasional turnsabout, and the execution of dance steps and loops andsemicircles. Meanwhile in the tones of Ossip's voice there was asoft, musical ring that struck agreeably upon the ear, andharmonised to admiration with the song of the bells just when wewere approaching the middle of the river's breadth of fourhundred sazheni. There resounded over the surface of the ice avicious rustle ' while a piece of ice slid from under my feet.Stumbling, and powerless to retain my footing, I blundered downupon my knees in helpless astonishment; and then, as I glancedupstream, fear gripped at my throat, deprived me of speech, anddarkened all my vision. For the whole substance of the greyice-core had come to life and begun to heave itself upwards!Yes, the hitherto level surface was thrusting forth sharpangular ridges, and the air seemed full of a strange sound likethe trampling of some heavy being over broken glass.With a quiet trickle there came a swirl of water around me,while an adjacent pine bough cracked and squeaked as though ittoo had come to life. My companions shouted, and collected intoa knot; whereupon, at once dominating and quelling the tense,painful hubbub of sounds, there rang forth the voice of Ossip."Mother of God!" he shouted. "Scatter, lads! Get away fromone another, and keep each to himself! Now! Courage!"With that, springing towards us as though wasps had been afterhim, and grasping the spirit-level as though it had been aweapon, he jabbed it to every side, as though fighting invisiblefoes, while, just as the quivering town began, seemingly, toglide past us, and the ice at my feet gave a screech andcrumbled to fragments beneath me, so that water bubbled to myknees. I leapt up from where I was, and rushed blindly inOssip's direction."Where are you coming to, fool?" was his shout as hebrandished the spirit-level. "Stand still where you are!"Indeed, Ossip seemed no longer to be Ossip at all, but a personcuriously younger, a person in whom all that had been familiarin Ossip had become effaced. Yes, the once blue eyes had turnedto grey, and the figure added half an arshin to its stature as,standing as erect as a newly made nail, and pressing both feettogether, the foreman stretched himself to his full height, andshouted with his mouth open to its widest extent:"Don't shuffle about, nor crowd upon one another, or I'll breakyour heads!"Whereafter, of myself in particular, he inquired as he raised thespirit-level:"What is the matter with YOU, pray?""I am feeling frightened," I muttered in response."Feeling frightened of WHAT, indeed?""Of being drowned.""Pooh! Just you hold your tongue."Yet the next moment he glanced at me, and added in a gentler,quieter tone:"None but a fool gets drowned. Pick yourself up and come along."Then once more he shouted full-throated words of encouragementto his men; and as he did so, his chest swelled and hishead rocked with the effort.Yet, crackling and cracking, the ice was breaking up; and soonit began slowly to bear us past the town. 'Twas as though someunknown force ashore had awakened, and was striving to tear thebanks of the river in two, so much did the portion of thelandscape downstream seem to be standing still while the portionlevel with us seemed to be receding in the opposite direction,and thus causing a break to take place in the middle of thepicture.And soon this movement, a movement agonisingly slow, deprived meof my sense of being connected with the rest of the world,until, as the whole receded, despair again gripped my heart andunnerved my limbs. Roseate clouds were gliding across the skyand causing stray fragments of the ice, which, seemingly,yearned to engulf me, to assume reflected tints of a similarhue. Yes, it was as though the birth of spring had reawakenedthe universe, and was causing it to stretch itself, and to emitdeep, hurried, broken pants that cracked its bones as the river,embedded in the earth's stout framework, revivified the wholewith thick, turbulent, ebullient blood.And this sense of littleness, of impotence amid the calm,assured movement of the earth's vast bulk, weighed upon my soul,and evoked, and momentarily fanned to flame in me, the shamelesshuman question: "What if I should stretch forth my hand and layit upon the hill and the banks of the river, and say, 'Haltuntil I come to you!'? "Meanwhile the bells continued the mournful moaning of theirresonant, coppery notes; and that moaning led me to reflect thatwithin two days (on the night of the morrow) they would bepealing a joyous welcome to the Resurrection Feast."Oh that all of us may live to hear that sound!" was myunspoken thought.Before my vision there kept quavering seven dark figures--figuresshuffling over the ice, and brandishing planks like oars. And,wriggling like a lamprey in front of them was a little oldfellow, an old fellow resembling Saint Nicholas theWonder-Worker, an old fellow who kept crying softly, butauthoritatively:"Do not stare about you!"And ever the river was growing rougher and ruder; ever itsbackbone was beginning to puiver and flounder like a whaleunderfoot, with its liquescent body of cold, grey, murky waterbursting with increasing frequency from its shell of ice, andlapping hungrily at our feet.Yes, we were human beings traversing, as it were, a slender poleover a bottomless abyss; and as we walked, the water's soft,cantabile splash set me in mind of the depths below, of theinfinite time during which a body would continue sinking throughdense, chilly bulk until sight faded and the heart stoppedbeating. Yes, before my mind's eye there arose men drowned anddevoured by crayfish, men with crumbling skulls and swollenfeatures, and glassy, bulging eyes and puffy hands andoutstretched fingers and palms of which the skin had rotted offwith the damp.The first to fall in was Mokei Budirin. He had been walking nextahead of the Morduine, and, as a man habitually silent andabsorbed, proceeding on his way more quietly than the rest.Suddenly something had seemed to catch at his legs, and he haddisappeared until only his head and his hands, as the latterclutched at his plank, had been left above-level."Run and help him, somebody!" was Ossip's instant cry. "Yes,but not all of you--just one or two. Help him I say!"The spluttering Mokei, however, said to the Morduine and myself:"No; do you move away, mates, for I shall best help myself.Never you mind."And, sure enough, he did succeed in drawing himself out on tothe ice without assistance. Whereafter he remarked as he shookhimself:"A nice pickle, this, to be in! I might as well have beendrowned!"And, in fact, at the moment he looked, with his chattering teethand great tongue licking a dripping moustache, precisely like alarge, good-natured dog.Then I remembered how, a month earlier, he had accidentallydriven the blade of his axe through the joint of his left thumb,and, merely picking up the white fragment of flesh with the nailturning blue, and scanning it with his unfathomable eyes, hadremarked, as though it was he himself that had been at fault:"How often before I have injured that thumb, I could not say.And when once I dislocated it, I went on working with it longerthan was right. . . . Now I will go and bury it."With which, carefully wrapping up the fragment in some shavings,he had thrust the whole into his pocket, and bandaged thewounded hand,Similarly, after that, did Boev, the man next in order behindMokei, contrive to wrest himself from the grasp of the ice,though, on immersion, he started bawling, "Mates, I shalldrown! I am dead already! Help me, help me!" and became socramped with terror as to be extricated only with greatdifficulty, while amid the general confusion the Morduine toonearly slipped into the water."A narrow shave of saying Vespers tonight with the devils inHell!" he remarked as he clambered back, and stood grinningwith an even more angular and attenuated appearance than usual.The next moment Boev achieved a second plunge, and screamed, asbefore, for help."Don't shout, you goat of a Yashka!" Ossip exclaimed as hethreatened him with the spirit-level. "Why scare people? I'llgive it you! Look here, lads. Let every man take off his beltand turn out his pockets. Then he'll walk lighter."Toothed jaws gaped and crunched at us at every step, andvomited thick spittle; at every tenth step their keen blue fangsreached for our lives. Meanwhile, the soaked condition of ourboots and clothes had rendered us as slimy as though smearedwith paste. Also, it so weighed us down as to hinder any activemovement, and to cause each step to be taken cautiously, slowly,silently, and with ponderous diffidence.Yet, soaked though we were, Ossip might verily have known thenumber of cracks in advance, so smooth and harelike was hisprogress from floe to floe as at intervals he faced about,watched us, and cried sonorously:"That's the way to do it, eh?"Yes, he absolutely played with the river, and though it keptcatching at his diminutive form, he always evaded it,circumvented its movements, and avoided its snares. Nay, capableeven of directing its trend did he seem, and of thrusting underour feet only the largest and firmest floes."Lads, there is no need to be downhearted," he would cry atintervals."Ah, that brave Ossip!" the Morduine once ejaculated. "In verytruth is he a man, and no mistake! Just look at him!"The closer we approached the further shore, the thinner and themore brittle did the ice become, and the more liable we tobreak through it. By this time the town had nearly passed us,and we were bidding fair to be carried out into the Volga, wherethe ice would still be sound, and, as likely as not, draw usunder itself."By your leave, we are going to be drowned," the Morduinemurmured as he glanced at the blue shadow of eventide on ourleft.And simultaneously, as though compassionating our lot, a largefloe grounded upon the bank, glided upwards with a cracking anda crashing, and there held fast!"Run, all of you!" came a furious shout from Ossip."Hurry up, now! Put your very best legs foremost!"For myself, as I sprang upon the floe I lost my footing, and,falling headlong and remaining seated on the hither end of thefloe amid a shower of spray, saw five of my seven comrades rushpast, pushing and jostling, as they made for the shore. Butpresently the Morduine turned and halted beside me, with theintention of rendering Ossip assistance."Run, you young fools!" the latter exclaimed. "Come! Be offwith you!"Somehow in his face there was now a livid, uncertain air, whilehis eyes had lost their fire, and his mouth was curiously agape."No, mate. Do YOU get up," was my counter-adjuration."Unfortunately, I have hurt my leg," he replied with his headbent down. "In fact, I am not sure that I can get up."However, we contrived to raise him and carry him ashore with anarm of his resting on each of our necks. Meanwhile he growledwith chattering teeth:"Aha, you river devils! Drown me if you can! But I've not givenyou a chance, the Lord be thanked! Hi, look out! The ice won'tbear the three of us. Mind how you step, and choose places wherethe ice is bare of snow. There it's firmer. No, a better planstill would be to leave me where I am."Next, with a frowning scrutiny of my face, he inquired:"That notebook of our misdeeds--hasn't it had a wetting and gotdone for?"That very moment, as we stepped from the stranded floe (ingrounding, it had crushed and shattered a small boat), such partof it as lay in the water gave a loud crack, and, swaying to andfro, and emitting a gurgling sound, floated clear of the rest."Ah!" was the Morduine's quizzical comment. "YOU knew wellenough what needed to be done."Wet, and chilled to the bone, though relieved in spirit, westepped ashore to find a crowd of townspeople in conversationwith Boev and the old soldier. And as we deposited our chargeunder the lea of a pile of logs he shouted cheerfully:"Mates, Makarei's notebook is done for, soaked through!" Andsince the notebook in question was weighing upon my breast likea brick, I pulled it out unseen, and hurled it far into theriver with a plop like that of a frog.As for the Diatlovs, they lost no time in setting out in searchof vodka in the tavern on the hill, and slapped one another onthe back as they ran, and could be heard shouting, "Hurrah,hurrah!"Upon this, a tall old man with the beard of an apostle and theeyes of a brigand muttered:"Infidels, why disturb peaceful folk like this? You ought to bethrashed!"Whereupon Boev, who was changing his clothes, retorted:"What do you mean by 'disturb'?""Besides," put in the old soldier, " even though we areChristians like yourself, we might as well have been drowned forall that you did to help us.""What could we have done?"Meanwhile Ossip had remained lying on the ground with one legstretched out at full length, and tremulous hands fumbling athis greatcoat as under his breath he muttered:"Holy Mother, how wet I am! My clothes, though I have only wornthem a year, are ruined for ever!"Moreover, he seemed now to have shrunken again in stature--tohave become crumpled up like a man run over. Indeed, as he layhe seemed actually to be melting, so continuously was his bulkdecreasing in size.But suddenly he raised himself to a sitting posture, groaned,and exclaimed in high-pitched, wrathful accents:"May the devil take you all! Be off with you to your washhousesand churches! Yes, be off, for it seems that, as God couldn'tkeep His holy festival without you, I've had to stand within anace of death and to spoil my clothes-yes, all that you fellowsshould be got out of your fix!"Nevertheless, the men merely continued taking off their boots,and wringing out their clothes, and conversing with sundrygasps and grunts with the bystanders. So presently Ossipresumed:"What are you thinking of, you fools? The washhouse is the bestplace for you, for if the police get you, they'll soon find youa lodging, and no mistake!"One of the townspeople put in officiously:"Aye, aye. The police have been sent for."And this led Boev to exclaim to Ossip:"Why pretend like that?""Pretend? I?""Yes--you.""What do you mean?""I mean that it was you who egged us on to cross the river.""You say that it was I?""I do.""Indeed?""Aye," put in Budirin quietly, but incisively. And him theMorduine supported by saying in a sullen undertone:"It was you, mate. By God it was. It would seem that you haveforgotten.""Yes, you started all this business," the old soldiercorroborated, in dour, ponderous accents."Forgotten, indeed? HE? " was Boev's heated exclamation."How can you say such a thing? Well, let him not try to shiftthe responsibility on to others--that's all! WE'LL see, rightenough, that he goes through with it!"To this Ossip made no reply, but gazed frowningly at hisdripping, half-clad men.All at once, with a curious outburst of mingled smiles and tears(it would be hard to say which), he shrugged his shoulders,threw up his hands, and muttered:"Yes, it IS true. If it please you, it was I that contrived theidea.""Of COURSE it was! " the old soldier cried triumphantly.Ossip turned his eyes again to where the river was seething likea bowl of porridge, and, letting his eyes fall with a frown,continued:"In a moment of forgetfulness I did it. Yet how is it that wewere not all drowned? Well, you wouldn't understand even if Iwere to tell you. No, by God, you wouldn't! . . . Don't be angrywith me, mates. Pardon me for the festival's sake, for I amfeeling uneasy of mind. Yes, I it was that egged you on to crossthe river, the old fool that I was!""Aha!" exclaimed Boev. "But, had I been drowned, what shouldyou have said THEN?"In fact, by this time Ossip seemed conscious to the full of thefutility and the senselessness of what he had done: and in hisstate of sliminess, as he sat nodding his head, picking at thesand, looking at no one, and emitting a torrent of remorsefulwords, he reminded me strongly of a new-born calf.And as I watched him I thought to myself:"Where now is the leader of men who could draw his fellows inhis train with so much care and skill and authority?"And into my soul there trickled an uneasy sense of somethinglacking. Seating myself beside Ossip (for I desired still toretain a measure of my late impression of him), I said to him inan undertone:"Soon you will be all right again."With a sideways glance he muttered in reply, as he combed hisbeard:"Well, you saw what happened just now. Always do things sohappen."While for the benefit of the men he added:"That was a good jest of mine, eh?"The summit of the hill which lay crouching, like a great beast,on the brink of the river was standing out clearly against thefast darkening sky; while a clump of trees thereon had grownblack, and everywhere blue shadows of the spring eventide werecoming into view, and looming between the housetops where thehouses lay pressed like scabs against the hill's opaque surface,and peering from the moist, red jaws of the ravine which, gapingtowards the river, seemed as though it were stretching forth fora draught of water.Also, by now the rustling and crunching of the ice on thesimilarly darkening river was beginning to assume a deeper note,and at times a floe would thrust one of its extremities into thebank as a pig thrusts its snout into the earth, and there remainmotionless before once more beginning to sway, tearing itselffree, and floating away down the river as another such floeglided into its place.And ever more and more swiftly was the water rising, and washingaway soil from the bank, and spreading a thick sediment over thedark blue surface of the river. And as it did so, there resoundedin the air a strange noise as of chewing and champing, a noiseas though some huge wild animal were masticating, and lickingitself with its great long tongue.And still there continued to come from the town the melancholy,distance-softened, sweet-toned song of the bells.Presently, the brothers Diatlov appeared descending from the hillwith bottles in their hands, and sporting like a couple ofjoyous puppies, while to intercept them there could be seenadvancing along the bank of the river a grey-coated policesergeant and two black-coated constables."0h Lord!" groaned Ossip as he rubbed his knee.As for the townsfolk, they had no love for the police, sohastened to withdraw to a little distance, where they silentlyawaited the officers' approach. Before long the sergeant, alittle, withered sort of a fellow with diminutive features and asandy, stubby moustache, called out in gruff, stern, hoarse,laboured accents:"So here you are, you rascals!"Ossip prised himself up from the ground with his elbow, and saidhurriedly:"It was I that contrived the idea of the thing, yourExcellency; but, pray let me off in honour of the festival.""What do you say, you--?" the sergeant began, but his blusterwas lost amid the swift flow of Ossip's further conciliatorywords."We are folk of this town," Ossip continued, "who tonightfound ourselves stranded on the further bank, with nothing tobuy bread with, even though the day after tomorrow will beChrist's day, the day when Christians like ourselves wish toclean themselves up a little, and to go to church. So I said tomy mates, 'Be off with you, my good fellows, and may God sendthat no mishap befall you!' And for this presumptuousness ofmine I have been punished already, for, as you can see, have asgood as broken my leg.""Yes," ejaculated the sergeant grimly. "But if you had beendrowned, what then?"Ossip sighed wearily."What then, do you say, your Excellency? Why, then, nothing,with your permission."This led the officer to start railing at the culprit, while thecrowd listened as silently and attentively as though he had beensaying something worthy to be heard and heeded, rather thanfoully and cynically miscalling their mothers.Lastly, our names having been noted, the police withdrew, whileeach of us drank a dram of vodka (and thereby gained a measureof warmth and comfort), and then began to make for our severalhomes. Ossip followed the police with derisive eyes; whereafter,he leapt to his feet with a nimble, adroit movement, and crossedhimself with punctilious piety."That's all about it, thank God!" he exclaimed."What?" sniggered Boev, now both disillusioned and astonished."Do you really mean to say that that leg of yours is betteralready? Or do you mean that it never was injured at all? ""Ah! So you wish that it HAD been injured, eh?""The rascal of a Petrushka!" the other exclaimed."Now," commanded Ossip, "do all of you be off, mates." Andwith that he pulled his wet cap on to his head.I accompanied him--walking a little behind the rest. As he limpedalong, he said in an undertone-said kindly-- and as though he werecommunicating a secret known only to himself:"Whatsoever one may do, and whithersoever one may turn, onewill find that life cannot be lived without a measure of fraudand deceit. For that is what life IS, Makarei, the devil flyaway with it! . . . I suppose you're making for the hill? Well,I'll keep you company."Darkness had fallen, but at a certain spot some red and yellowlamps, lamps the beams of which seemed to be saying, "Come uphither!" were shining through the obscurity.Meanwhile, as we proceeded in the direction of the bells thatwere ringing on the hill, rivulets of water flowed with a murmurunder our feet, and Ossip's kindly voice kept mingling withtheir sound."See," he continued, "how easily I befooled that sergeant!That is how things have to be done, Makarei--one has to keep folkfrom knowing one's business, yet to make them think that theyare the chief persons concerned, and the persons whose wit hasput the cap on the whole."Yet as I listened to his speech, while supporting his steps, Icould make little of it.Nor did I care to make very much of it, for I was of a simpleand easygoing nature. And though at the moment I could not havetold whether I really liked Ossip, I would still have followedhis lead in any direction--yes, even across the river again,though the ice had been giving way beneath me.And as we proceeded, and the bells echoed and re-echoed, Ithought to myself with a spasm of joy:"Ah, many times may I thus walk to greet the spring!"While Ossip said with a sigh:"The human soul is a winged thing. Even in sleep it flies."***********************A winged thing? Yes, and a thing of wonder.