第15章 THE ICEBREAKER(10)

And ever more and more swiftly was the water rising, and washing away soil from the bank, and spreading a thick sediment over the dark blue surface of the river. And as it did so, there resounded in the air a strange noise as of chewing and champing, a noise as though some huge wild animal were masticating, and licking itself 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 hill with bottles in their hands, and sporting like a couple of joyous puppies, while to intercept them there could be seen advancing along the bank of the river a grey-coated police sergeant 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, so hastened to withdraw to a little distance, where they silently awaited the officers' approach. Before long the sergeant, a little, withered sort of a fellow with diminutive features and a sandy, 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 said hurriedly:

"It was I that contrived the idea of the thing, your Excellency; but, pray let me off in honour of the festival."

"What do you say, you--?" the sergeant began, but his bluster was lost amid the swift flow of Ossip's further conciliatory words.

"We are folk of this town," Ossip continued, "who tonight found ourselves stranded on the further bank, with nothing to buy bread with, even though the day after tomorrow will be Christ's day, the day when Christians like ourselves wish to clean themselves up a little, and to go to church. So I said to my mates, 'Be off with you, my good fellows, and may God send that no mishap befall you!' And for this presumptuousness of mine I have been punished already, for, as you can see, have as good as broken my leg."

"Yes," ejaculated the sergeant grimly. "But if you had been drowned, 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 the crowd listened as silently and attentively as though he had been saying something worthy to be heard and heeded, rather than foully and cynically miscalling their mothers.

Lastly, our names having been noted, the police withdrew, while each of us drank a dram of vodka (and thereby gained a measure of warmth and comfort), and then began to make for our several homes. Ossip followed the police with derisive eyes; whereafter, he leapt to his feet with a nimble, adroit movement, and crossed himself 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 better already? 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." And with that he pulled his wet cap on to his head.

I accompanied him--walking a little behind the rest. As he limped along, he said in an undertone-said kindly-- and as though he were communicating a secret known only to himself:

"Whatsoever one may do, and whithersoever one may turn, one will find that life cannot be lived without a measure of fraud and deceit. For that is what life IS, Makarei, the devil fly away 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 yellow lamps, lamps the beams of which seemed to be saying, "Come up hither!" were shining through the obscurity.

Meanwhile, as we proceeded in the direction of the bells that were ringing on the hill, rivulets of water flowed with a murmur under our feet, and Ossip's kindly voice kept mingling with their sound.

"See," he continued, "how easily I befooled that sergeant!

That is how things have to be done, Makarei--one has to keep folk from knowing one's business, yet to make them think that they are the chief persons concerned, and the persons whose wit has put the cap on the whole."

Yet as I listened to his speech, while supporting his steps, I could make little of it.

Nor did I care to make very much of it, for I was of a simple and easygoing nature. And though at the moment I could not have told whether I really liked Ossip, I would still have followed his 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, I thought 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."

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A winged thing? Yes, and a thing of wonder.