第62章 CHAPTER VIII(4)

"0h Lord!" sighed Foma, rising to his feet. "Eh, Sasha! Peasant!

Who are you?" he almost shouted.

"I am--Stepan," said the peasant, smiling confusedly, and also rose to his feet. "I'm Stepan. Of course!""How you sing! Ah!" Foma exclaimed in astonishment, uneasily shifting from foot to foot.

"Eh, your Honour!" sighed the peasant and added softly and convincingly: "Sorrow can compel an ox to sing like a nightingale. And what makes the lady sing like this, only God knows. And she sings, with all her veins--that is to say, so you might just lie down and die with sorrow! Well, that's a lady.""That was sung very well!" said Ookhtishchev in a drunken voice.

No, the devil knows what this is!" Zvantzev suddenly shouted, almost crying, irritated as he jumped up from the table. "I've come out here for a good time. I want to enjoy myself, and here they perform a funeral service for me! What an outrage! I can't stand this any longer. I'm going away!""Jean, I am also going. I'm weary, too," announced the gentleman with the side whiskers.

"Vassa," cried Zvantzev to his lady, "dress yourself!""Yes, it's time to go," said the red-haired lady to Ookhtishchev.

"It is cold, and it will soon be dark."

"Stepan! Clear everything away!" commanded Vassa.

All began to bustle about, all began to speak of something. Foma stared at them in suspense and shuddered. Staggering, the crowd walked along the rafts. Pale and fatigued, they said to one another stupid, disconnected things. Sasha jostled them unceremoniously, as she was getting her things together.

"Stepan! Call for the horses!"

"And I'll drink some more cognac. Who wants some more cognac with me?" drawled the gentleman with the side whiskers in a beatific voice, holding a bottle in his hands.

Vassa was muffling Zvantzev's neck with a scarf. He stood in front of her, frowning, dissatisfied, his lips curled capriciously, the calves of his legs shivering. Foma became disgusted as he looked at them, and he went off to the other raft. He was astonished that all these people behaved as though they had not heard the song at all. In his breast the song was alive and there it called to life a restless desire to do something, to say something. But he had no one there to speak to.

The sun had set and the distance was enveloped in blue mist. Foma glanced thither and turned away. He did not feel like going to town with these people, neither did he care to stay here with them. And they were still pacing the raft with uneven steps, shaking from side to side and muttering disconnected words. The women were not quite as drunk as the men, and only the red-haired one could not lift herself from the bench for a long time, and finally, when she rose, she declared:

"Well, I'm drunk."

Foma sat down on a log of wood, and lifting the axe, with which the peasant had chopped wood for the fire, he began to play with it, tossing it up in the air and catching it.

"Oh, my God! How mean this is!" Zvantzev's capricious voice was heard.

Foma began to feel that he hated it, and him, and everybody, except Sasha, who awakened in him a certain uneasy feeling, which contained at once admiration for her and a fear lest she might do something unexpected and terrible.

"Brute!" shouted Zvantzev in a shrill voice, and Foma noticed that he struck the peasant on the chest, after which the peasant removed his cap humbly and stepped aside.

"Fo-o-ol!" cried Zvantzev, walking after him and lifting his hand.

Foma jumped to his feet and said threateningly, in a loud voice:

"Eh, you! Don't touch him!"

"Wha-a-at?" Zvantzev turned around toward him.

"Stepan, come over here," called Foma.

"Peasant!" Zvantzev hurled with contempt, looking at Foma.

Foma shrugged his shoulders and made a step toward him; but suddenly a thought flashed vividly through his mind! He smiled maliciously and inquired of Stepan, softly:

"The string of rafts is moored in three places, isn't it?

"In three, of course!"

"Cut the connections!"

"And they?"

"Keep quiet! Cut!"

"But--"

"Cut! Quietly, so they don't notice it!"

The peasant took the axe in his hands, slowly walked up to the place where one link was well fastened to another link, struck a few times with his axe, and returned to Foma.

"I'm not responsible, your Honour," he said.

"Don't be afraid."

"They've started off," whispered the peasant with fright, and hastily made the sign of the cross. And Foma gazed, laughing softly, and experienced a painful sensation that keenly and sharply stung his heart with a certain strange, pleasant and sweet fear.

The people on the raft were still pacing to and fro, moving about slowly, jostling one another, assisting the ladies with their wraps, laughing and talking, and the raft was meanwhile turning slowly and irresolutely in the water.