ON THE VOLGA

I

As he went out on the deck of the steamer which was running upstream, Dmitry Parfentyevich drew a deep breath.

The day was ending and the sun was hanging low above the forest-covered mountain. The river furnished a majestic and peaceful picture. Somewhere in the distance a steamboat whistled; a sailboat heavily laden lay on the river and seemed as immobile as the sleepy wife of a merchant. The rafts all carried fires,—the men were cooking their dinners. Two small barks, fastened together and heading obliquely across stream, floated by, hardly touching the glassy surface of the river, and beneath them, swinging and swaying, hung their reflection in the blue depths. When the wake of the steamer, spreading ever wider and wider, touched this image, it suddenly broke and scattered. It was a sudden shattering of a mirror and the fragments floated and sparkled for a long time.

“Are you all right, Grunya?” asked Dmitry Parfentyevich, sitting down beside his daughter.

“Yes,” she answered briefly.

The girl wore a dark dress. A Scythian kerchief on her forehead threw a shadow over her pale young face; her large eyes were dreamy and thoughtful.

“The main thing is heavenly blessing and quiet,” moralized Dmitry Parfentyevich.

His life was moving toward its close and he thought that nothing could be better than the quiet of a dying day....

Only quiet and prayer after sinful vanity and weakness.... May God grant no new wishes, but save from every new temptation.

“Grunya?” Dmitry Parfentyevich looked at his daughter and he wished to ask about her own thoughts.

“Yes,” answered the girl, but her gaze, dreamily running far ahead over the golden river and the mountains with their quiet veil of bluish mist, seemed to be seeking something else.

The passengers on the deck were just as quiet. Some were carrying on private conversations; others were getting ready for tea at the little tables.

In the stern sat a group of Tatars, returning home from Astrakhan. There was an old patriarch with three sons. A fourth, the favorite, had been buried in a strange city. Akhmetzyan had been taken ill with an unknown disease, lay a week and died.

“All is as Allah wills,” said the stern face of the old man, but he had still to tell the mother of the death of her beloved son.

Everything breathed of silence and peace and the mountains on the right bank swam up one after the other and then, receding into the distance, they seemed to wrap themselves in a blue haze.

II

Near Dmitry Parfentyevich were the knots of passengers, some on benches by the table, others on the deck and sitting on bundles.

There were several raftsmen from Unzha, a fat and good-natured country woman, and an old man, probably also a small farmer. The centre of the group at this moment was a steward for the third class passengers. He was still young and was dressed in a worn and dirty frock coat, with the number “2” on the left side. A napkin hung over his shoulder and with this he attained remarkable success in rubbing the wet tables and the glasses. He had just brought to the deck a tray of dishes with his arms wide open and with his eyes looking ahead and at his feet at the same instant. He had put the tray on the table, wiped off the dust around it with his napkin, and then joining this group of his countrymen sat down on the end of the bench and at once assumed a leading rÔle in the conversation which they had already commenced.

“I’ll tell you,” he said in a wholly confident tone, “if I cross myself with my fist, it works. This way: in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. It really works just the same. What do you think?”

He looked at the others with the air of a man who had just propounded a very clever riddle.

“The fist, you say?” asked one of the peasants from Unzha in surprise.

“Yes, the fist.”

The listeners shook their heads as a mark of doubt and reproof. The farmer turned sternly to the young fellow:

“N-now, stop that! You claim to be above God....”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, you are a foo-fool to make the sign of the cross with your fist. Impossible. It never works.”

“It does!”

The young fellow looked round upon his auditors with a joyously radiant face and was about to give the answer to the riddle when he heard at one of the tables the impatient tapping of a spoon on a glass.

The fellow jumped up as if he had been shot. In an instant he was at the other end of the deck, grabbed the tea-pots, ran to the machinery and back, set the table, shook himself, ran below again, put up the orders and passed them around the tables, and all the while the conversation continued before an enchanted audience.

“He’s beside himself!” said the farmer.

“Due to a stupid mind,” added the old woman pityingly.

“The little fellow was a liar, that’s all!”

“How can you do it with your fist?... That never works....”

The general opinion was evidently very definite.

“Impossible,” said several voices suddenly. “It’s impudence and nothing else....”

“What——?”

“Where did you get that notion?”

“It’s impudence....”

“Just you listen,” interrupted the young waiter, suddenly coming up the hatch, “and you may not think it impudent.... In the linen factory in the place where I lived there was a fellow and a machine caught all his fingers and slash bang! That’s all! He didn’t have a finger left! And his right hand too.... Just imagine: being a man with nothing but his palm left....”

The audience was charmed.

“What are you driving at?”

“You see the question.... What would you do, brothers?... Could he cross himself with his left hand?...”

“What, what?” The farmer waved his hand. “You can’t use the left hand.... That’s for Satan....”

“But he’d lost the fingers on the right, so he couldn’t join them.... Had only the palm left!...”

“That’s so....”

The riddle became more popular. The passengers nearby listened; those further off got up and walked nearer to the speaker. Even the young merchant who was talking very authoritatively about politics at the tea table with a fat gentleman, deigned to turn his benevolent attention to the all-ingrossing riddle. He tapped with his spoon and beckoned to the waiter.

“Waiter, how much?... O-oh! What did you say: with the fist?”

“Yes, your excellency, among ourselves.... It doesn’t interest you....”

“No, but it’s really clever, isn’t it?” remarked the merchant to his fat friend.

The latter’s answer was unintelligible, for the man was struggling with a slice of bread and butter.

But the Tatars sat in the stern without taking any part in the general conversation. They were silent, but once in a while they made brief remarks to one another in their own language.

III

Dmitry Parfentyevich started like a war horse at the sound of a trumpet. Grunya did not take her eyes from the distant mountains and the river, but it was easy to see that she was not looking at them. Without turning her head she was listening intently to the conversation of her neighbors.

Dmitry Parfentyevich looked at her askance. Hitherto she would have turned to him immediately with a trusting question: “Papa, how’s that?” Now she seemed to pay no attention to her father’s opinion.

He waited for her to ask but her large eyes fell with evident sympathy upon that knot of dark, ignorant people, who were shocked by such a meaningless change in their faith....

He rose and walked up to the disputants. His thickset, dry figure, savagely pure, in an old-fashioned costume, won for him the immediate attention of all.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked.

“It’s this way, you see, merchant.... This little fellow says you can cross yourself with your fist.”

“I heard him but don’t repeat it! That man’s a fool!”

“Yes, yes,” whispered one timidly, “we’re all dark people....”

“That’s true, ... you are. If you follow the teachings of your true masters, you’ll find nothing surprising here.”

The audience grew rapidly larger. All were now interested in the tall old man with quiet and majestically austere manners. Dmitry Parfentyevich was not embarrassed by the attention he was receiving. It was not the first time. There was only one person in that crowd that interested him and that was his scholar, his disobedient and devout Grunya. In his own way he loved his daughter and his rough heart was torn by her unwearied doubts and her sad look. He passionately wished her to feel that peace from heaven which his own heart had so fully obtained. But her disobedience always aroused in his stern soul a storm of suppressed rage and this struggled with his love and usually conquered it.

Grunya still kept her seat. She did not stir but she listened intently.

“Now listen,” came to her ears the confident and harsh voice of her father. “This is the true cross and it is to this cross that we hold in order to be saved.”

He raised his hand with two fingers raised, so that all could see.

“A dissenter,” was the murmur in the crowd. Two or three merchants who were apparently fond of religious discussions, pressed nearer, when they heard this unexpected confession.

“We are not dissenters,” continued Dmitry Parfentyevich. “We confess the true faith. This was the form of the cross which the holy fathers and the patriarchs believed in. This was taught by St. Theodoret.”

He raised his hand with the two fingers joined still higher.

“Press the thumb against the little finger and the ring finger. That is to signify the Holy Trinity. Three Persons united. Raise two fingers: that’s for deity and humanity—two natures. Theodoret teaches again that the middle finger is to be bent a little. That symbolizes humanity reverencing deity. See!”

“Wait!” interrupted one of the merchants who had forced his way to the front. “St. Cyril says something else.”

“St. Cyril says the same thing. Only he bids you keep both fingers straight.”

“That must make a difference.”

“Wait, my good man, that’s wrong.... Don’t interrupt....” The speakers stopped. “Let him finish.... What about the fist, merchant?”

“Yes ... that’s the main thing.”

“It’s like this: if he lost his fingers he wasn’t to blame. That means: God allowed it. It was His will! But a man can’t live without making the sign of the cross. Without the sign of the cross he’s worse than this heathen Tatar. He’s bound to cross himself ... with his right hand....”

“Well?”

“And his fingers,” concluded Dmitry Parfentyevich after a pause: “His fingers he must place in thought, as he is ordered by the holy fathers and patriarchs....”

The crowd heaved a sigh of relief and joy.

“Merchant, we thank you!”

“He decided....”

“That’s it: he just chewed it up and explained it.”

“With thought! That’s true!”

“Of course!... With thought, nothing else!”

“That will work all right....”

Dmitry Parfentyevich looked at his daughter.... What did he care for this applause, these praises from strange, ignorant people! She, his daughter, kept looking straight ahead with a look of indifference upon her face, as if her father had said something which she had long known and which had lost all power to touch her confused and weary soul....

The old man frowned and his voice became menacing.

“If he joins his imaginary thumb with the two imaginary fingers beside it—he is wrong.... A man who crosses himself that way will be condemned to eternal damnation.... Cursed be he in this life and he will have no lot in the next.”

These violent and harsh words, suddenly falling upon the crowd which had just quieted down, changed its mood.

It became excited, began to murmur, separate into smaller groups. A black-eyed, black-haired merchant, who had maintained hitherto an obstinate silence, now struck his fist on the table and said with a flash of his deepset and enthusiastic eyes:

“True! The Devil Kuka and his whole crew are in that cursed cross with the thumb and the fingers next to it.”

“No, stop!” shouted the Orthodox, “don’t insult the true cross! Why do you separate the Three Persons, c-curses on you?... This is the Trinity in these three fingers....”

“Where are your first fingers?”

“Merchant, have you read the hundred and fifth article?”

“Yes, it’s on the end of the world.”

Dmitry Parfentyevich remained the centre of the group. He was still composed and calm, but each time when he answered any of his opponents, he transfixed him with a stubborn and unfriendly glance.

With splashing wheels, the steamboat steadily ascended the river and cleft the blue surface of the stream; it carried with it this group of violently quarreling people and the clay slopes of the steep bank reËchoed their confused voices.

A steep mountain, which had concealed a bend in the river, now receded to the rear and a broad sweep of the river appeared in front. The sun hung like a red ball above the water and from the east, darkness spread over the meadows as if on the soft wingbeats of the evening shadows, overtaking the boat and falling more and more noticeably over the Volga.

IV

The silent group of Tatars suddenly rose from their places in the stern and with even step moved to the paddle box at the edge of the upper deck. They took off their coats and spread them on the deck. Then they took off their slippers and reverently stepped upon their coats. The glow of the sunset fell upon the rough faces of the Tatars. Their thickset figures were sharply outlined against the light and cooling heavens.

“They’re praying,” one man whispered and several left the quarreling group and walked to the railing.

Others followed. The argument quieted down.

The Tatars stood with their eyes closed, their brows were raised and their thoughts were apparently lifted up to that place where the last rays of daylight were fading on the heights. At times they unlocked their arms which were crossed on their breasts and placed them on their knees, and then they bowed their heads with their sheepskin caps, low, so low. They arose again and stretched their hands with the fingers extended toward the light.

The lips of the Moslems were whispering the words of an unknown and unintelligible prayer....

“Look there,” said one peasant, and he stopped hesitatingly, without expressing his thought.

“They are fulfilling the rites of their religion,” asserted another.

“Yes, they’re praying too....”

The Tatars suddenly knelt, touched their foreheads to the deck, and at once rose again. The three young men took their coats and slippers and went back to their former seats on the stern. The old man was left alone. He sat with his feet crossed under him. His lips moved and over his beautiful face with its gray beard passed a strange and touching expression of deep sorrow softened by reverence before the will of the Most High. His hands quickly fingered his beads.

“See.... He has beads too.”

“A zealous man....”

“Yes, it’s for his son.... He died in Astrakhan,” explained the merchant who had gone down the river with the Tatars.

“Oh, oh, oh!” sighed one of them philosophically. “Every man wishes to be saved. No one wishes to perish, whoever he is, even if he’s a Tatar....”

It was too dark to tell who was speaking. The group melted together but the isolated figure of the old man still at his devotions could be seen at the edge of the paddle box above the water. He was silently swaying backwards and forwards.

“Papa!” suddenly came a soft voice.

It was Grunya calling her father.

“What is it, daughter?”

The girl was silent for a moment; she kept looking at that praying figure of the adherent of an alien faith, and then her young and eager voice clearly sounded through the quiet:

“Please, ... what do you think: will God hear that prayer?”

Grunya spoke softly, but all heard her. It seemed as if a light breeze had passed along the deck and in more than one soul the question of the pale girl found response: will God hear that prayer?

All were silent.... Their eyes involuntarily turned upward, as if they wished to follow in the blue of the evening sky the invisible flight of that strange and unintelligible but beautiful prayer....

“Why won’t He?...” came the irresolutely soft words of a good-natured peasant. “You see, he’s not praying to any one else. There’s only one God.”

“Yes, the Father. You see, he’s looking to heaven.”

“Who knows, who knows?...”

“It’s a hard question—the ways of the Lord....”

A block creaked at the bow, the light of a golden star flew to the top of the mast; the waves splashed somewhere in the darkness; the distant whistle of an almost invisible steamboat reËchoed above the sleeping river. In the sky the bright stars appeared one after the other, and the blue night hung noiselessly above the meadows, the mountains and the ravines of the Volga.

The earth seemed to be sadly asking some question but the heavens remained silent with its quiet and its mystery....