IV

The gate-keeper went on shouting as he came down at a clumsy trot, his sleeves flapping in the wind and his shirt-front swelling like a sail.

“Hallo-o-o there! Wait a bit!”

“Curse you and blast you,” grumbled Lodizhkin. “It must be about Arto again.”

“Let’s lick him, Grandad,” Sergei suggested bravely.

“Oh, don’t be silly. Good heavens, what people!”

“Listen,” the gate-keeper gasped, even before reaching them. “Sell the dog, will you? We just can’t manage the young master. He just keeps squealing, ‘I want the dog, I want it!’ The mistress has sent me to buy the dog, no matter what the price.”

“That’s rather silly of the mistress!” Lodizhkin retorted, feeling much more confident on the beach than he had at the villa. “Besides, who says she’s a mistress to me? She may be a mistress to you, but I don’t care a fig who she is. Please leave us alone, for Christ’s sake, and – and lay off.”

But the gate-keeper would not give in. He sat down on the shingle, next to the old man, and said, poking his fingers awkwardly in front of him, “But can’t you see, you fool?”

“Fool yourself,” the old man snapped calmly.

“Wait a second! I didn’t mean it that way. How touchy you are. Just think: what’s a dog to you? You can pick up another puppy, teach it how to stand up, and there you are again. Well? Am I wrong? Eh?”

The old man was busy tightening the belt round his trousers.

“Keep yapping,” he said with affected indifference, in reply to the gate-keeper’s persistent questioning. “I’ll give you my answer all in one.”

“And here they are offering you a whale of a sum right away!” the gate-keeper went on heatedly. “Two or three hundred rubles all at once! Of course I must get something for the trouble I’m taking. But just imagine: three hundred rubles! Why, you could open a grocery.”

While talking like that the gate-keeper took a piece of sausage out of his pocket and hurled it to the poodle. Arto snatched it in mid-air, swallowed it at a gulp, and fawningly wagged his tail.

“That all?” asked Lodizhkin briefly.

“There isn’t much to be said. Gimme the dog and let’s call it a bargain.”

“I see,” the old man said with a sneer. “So you suggest I should sell the dog, eh?”

“Of course, I do. Why not? The trouble is, the young master’s so wild. Once he gets it into his head to have something he’ll kick up hell. He just wants it, and that’s all there is to it. It ain’t so bad when his father’s away, but when he’s here, holy smoke! Everybody runs about like mad. His father’s an engineer – perhaps you’ve heard the name – Mr. Obolyaninov? He builds railways all over Russia. A millionaire! And the boy’s his only son. So he’s up to mischief all the time. If it’s a pony he wants, he gets a pony. If it’s a boat, he gets a real boat. There just isn’t a thing he can’t have.”

“What about the moon?”

“Just what d’you mean?”

“I mean, did he never want the moon down from the sky?”

“Well, now, what an idea!” The gate-keeper was taken aback. “So what do you say, good man? Is it a deal?”

The old man, who in the meantime had pulled on his brown jacket, green with age at the seams, straightened proudly as far as his bent back would let him.

“I’ll tell you this much, my lad,” he began, with a touch of solemnity. “Suppose you had a brother or, say, a friend, one that you’d known since you were kids. Hold on, don’t waste your sausage on the dog – that won’t get you anywhere; better eat it yourself. As I was saying, suppose you had a faithful friend since you were kids. How much d’you think you’d sell him for?”

“Some comparison!”

“You asked for it. Tell your master who’s building a railway” – the old man raised his voice – ”tell him all isn’t sold that is bought. Yes! And you’d better stop stroking the dog, that’s no use. Come here, Arto, you son of a dog, I’ll teach you! Get ready, Sergei.”

“You’re an old fool, that’s what you are,” the gatekeeper burst out, losing his temper at last.

“Perhaps I am a fool, but you’re a cur, a Juda’s, a mean sneek,” Lodizhkin countered. “Tell your grand lady when you see her that I send her my love and humble compliments. Roll up that rug, Sergei! Oh, my back, my poor back! Let’s go.”

“So that’s how it is!” said the gate-keeper, meaningly.

“Exactly!” replied the old man.

The three plodded along the same seaside road. Glancing back by chance Sergei saw the gate-keeper watching them. He looked preoccupied and sullen. With all the five fingers of one hand he was studiously scratching the red-haired nape of his neck under the cap, which had slipped down over his eyes.

V

Old Lodizhkin had long ago marked a nook between Miskhor and Alupka, beneath the lower highway, where you could have a nice meal. There he now led his companions. A bubbling spring sent its cool water running out of the ground in the shade of crooked oaks and dense hazel bushes, not far from a bridge spanning a muddy, turbulent mountain stream. It had hollowed out in the soil a shallow bowl from which it flowed to the stream in a thin meandering line that glittered in the grass like quicksilver. Every morning and evening you could see at the spring pious Turks drinking the water or performing their sacred ablutions.

‘’Heavy are our sins and scanty is our food,” said the old man, sitting down in the cool shade of the hazel bushes. “Well, Sergei, blessings on our food!”

Out of his canvas bag he took a loaf of bread, a dozen tomatoes, a chunk of Bessarabian cheese, and a bottle of olive-oil. The salt was tied up in a rag of doubtful cleanness. Before starting the meal he crossed himself and whispered for a long time. Then he broke up the loaf into three unequal parts; one of them, the biggest, he held out to Sergei – the boy was growing and had to be fed properly – the second he left for the poodle, and the third, the smallest, he kept for himself.

“In the name of the Father and the Son. The eyes of all look upon Thee, О Lord,” he whispered as he fussily distributed the food and poured oil upon it. “Eat, Sergei!” The three ate their frugal meal, slowly and silently, as real workers always do. All that could be heard was the noise of the three pairs of jaws munching. Arto was eating his share a little way off, sprawled on his belly and holding the bread with his forefeet. The old man and Sergei took turns to dip the ripe tomatoes into the salt, and as they bit into them the blood-red juice ran over their lips and hands; bread and cheese followed each bite of tomato. When they had stilled their hunger they drank from a tin mug, which they held under the running water. The water was crystal-clear and had an excellent taste; it was so cold that the mug dimmed on the outside. The day’s heat and the long walk had exhausted them, for they had risen at dawn. The old man could hardly keep his eyes open. Sergei yawned and stretched.

“Shall we take a little snooze, my boy?” asked the old man. “Let me have a last drink. Mmmm, lovely!” He took the mug away from his lips with a gasp, and clear drops of water trickled down his moustache and beard. “If I was a king I’d always drink this water – from morning till night! Here, Arto, come here! Well, God gave us a meal with nobody to steal, so we had our food and it was good.”

The old man and the boy lay down on the grass side by side, pillowing their heads on their old jackets. The dark leaves of the gnarled spreading oaks rustled overhead, and the serene blue sky showed through them. The brook leaping from rock to rock gurgled monotonously and soothingly, as if trying to charm someone by its lulling babble. For a while the old man tossed and groaned and mumbled, but to Sergei the voice seemed to be coming from some soft and sleepy distance, and the words were as mysterious as in a fairy-tale.

“First of all I’ll buy you an outfit: pink tights with gold, and satin shoes, also pink. In Kiev, Kharkov or, say, the city of Odessa – that’s where they have real circuses! Lamps as thick as stars, all electricity. Perhaps five thousand people sit there, or even more – I don’t know exactly. We must think up an Italian name for you. D’you call Yestifeyev or Lodizhkin a name? It’s just trash – no imagination lat all. But we’ll put you on a poster and call you Antonio, or – here’s a nice name – Enrico or Alfonso.”

The boy heard no more. A soft, sweet drowsiness overcame him, weakening and paralyzing his body. The old man also fell asleep, losing all of a sudden the thread of his favourite after-dinner thoughts about Sergei’s brilliant future in the circus. Once it seemed to him in his sleep that Arto was snarling at someone. A half-conscious recollection of the gate-keeper in the pink shirt flitted across his drowsy mind; yet, overpowered by sleep, fatigue and heat, he was unable to get up. He only called to the dog lazily, without opening his eyes, “Back, Arto! I’ll teach you, you tramp!”

But immediately his thoughts tangled and straggled in heavy, shapeless visions.

Sergei’s voice roused the old man. The boy was running up and down on the other side of the brook, whistling shrilly and shouting in anxiety and fright, “Here, Arto! Come back! Whew, whe-e-ew! Come back, Arto!”

“What are you yelling for, Sergei?” asked Lodizhkin gruffly, straightening his numbed arm with an effort.

“We’ve lost the dog, that’s what!” the boy retorted irritably. “The dog’s gone.”

He gave a sharp whistle and called once more, “Arto-o-o!”

“Rubbish! He’ll come back,” said the old man. But he scrambled quickly to his feet and started calling the dog in an angry, quaking falsetto, husky with sleep, “Come here, Arto, you son of a dog!”

With small unsteady steps he ran over the bridge and up the highway, calling the dog again and again. The smooth, dazzling white road stretched away before him for nearly a quarter of a mile, but there was not a single form, not a shadow, upon it.

“Arto! Arto my doggie!” wailed the old man piteously. Then he suddenly bent down and squatted.

“So!” he muttered in a hollow voice. “Sergei! Come up here.”

“What’s the matter now?” the boy cried rudely, walking up to Lodizhkin. “Found something you didn’t lose?”

“What’s this, Sergei? I mean this – what is it? Do you understand?” the old man asked him, almost in a whisper.

He was looking at the boy with miserable, perplexed eyes, while his trembling hand pointed to the ground.

A fairly big gnawed piece of sausage lay in the white dust, with a dog’s footprints all around it.

“He’s lured away the dog, that ruffian!” the old man whispered in fright, still squatting. “It must be him – it’s clear enough. Remember him on the beach feeding sausage to the dog?”

“It’s clear enough,” Sergei repeated with sullen fury.

The old man’s eyes, wide open, suddenly filled with large tears and started blinking. He covered them with his hands.

“What shall we do now, Sergei dear? Eh? What shall we do?” asked the old man, rocking to and fro land sobbing helplessly.

“What shall we do! What shall we do!” Sergei aped him angrily. “Get up, Grandad Lodizhkin – let’s go.”

“Let’s go,” the crestfallen old man agreed meekly, rising from the ground. “Yes, let’s go, Sergei dear!”

Sergei lost his temper.

“Stop slobbering, will you!” he shouted at the old man as if he had been his elder. “They have no right to lure away other people’s dogs. What are you gaping at me for? Am I wrong? We’ll go right there and say, ‘Give us back the dog!’ And if they don’t we’ll go to the J. P. That’s all there is to it.”

“To the J. P. – yes, of course. You’re right about the J. P.,” Lodizhkin muttered with an inane, bitter smile, while his eyes shifted in awkward embarrassment. “To the J. P., yes – Only, we can’t go to the J. P.”

“Why not? There’s one law for all. Why should we be scared?” the boy interrupted him impatiently.

“Please, Sergei, don’t be cross with me. They won’t give us back the dog, anyway.” He lowered his voice with a mysterious air. “I’m worried about my passport. Did you hear what that gentleman said? ‘Have you got a passport?’ he says. See how it is? Now the passport I’ve got” – the old man’s face took on a frightened look, and he went on in a scarcely audible whisper – ”that passport isn’t mine, Sergei.”

“What d’you mean, not yours?”

“Just that. I lost mine in Taganrog, or perhaps somebody stole it. For two years after that I shifted and hid and gave bribes and wrote petitions. At last I saw I couldn’t keep it up any longer, living like a rabbit – being afraid of everybody. I had no peace. One day a Greek popped up in a doss-house in Odessa. That’s easy,’ he said. ‘You fork out twenty-five rubles, old man,’ he says, – ’and I’ll provide you with a passport that will last you till you die.’ I turned it over in my mind. ‘Come what may,’ I said to myself. ‘Get it,’ I says. Ever since then, my boy, I’ve been using somebody else’s passport.”

“Oh, Grandad!” Sergei sighed with a sob. “It’s such a pity we lost the dog. Such a fine dog, too!”

“Sergei, my own dear boy!” The old man stretched out his trembling hands. “If only I had a proper passport, do you really think I’d be scared because they’re generals? Why, I’d grab them by the throat! ‘What’s this?’ I’d say. ‘What right have you to steal dogs? There’s no such law!’ But now we’re done for, Sergei. If I went to police the first thing they’d say would be, ‘Show your passport! Are you Martin Lodizhkin of Samara?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ But I’m not Lodizhkin – I’m Ivan Dudkin, a peasant. God alone knows who that Lodizhkin is. How do I know he isn’t a thief or a runaway convict? Or even a murderer? We can’t do anything, Sergei, believe me we can’t. It’s no use.”

The old man’s voice broke off. Fresh tears rolled down the deep wrinkles on his face, browned by the sun. Sergei, who had been listening in silence, his lips pressed tight and his face pale with emotion, suddenly caught the old man under the arms to raise him.

“Come on, Grandad,” he said in an imperious but friendly tone. “To hell with the passport – come on! We can’t spend the night out here on the highway.”

“You dear, dear boy,” the old man murmured, shaking from head to foot. “It’s such a clever dog, is our poor Arto. We’ll never have another so good.”

“All right, all right. Get up,” Sergei commanded. “Here, let me brush you. Keep your chin up!”

They did not perform any more that day. Though still a boy, Sergei well knew the fatal meaning of that terrible word, “passport.” He therefore did not insist on looking for Arto, going to the Justice of the Peace, or taking any other strong measures. But while he walked to the doss-house beside the old man, his face kept its new, stubborn expression, as if he were planning something big and exceedingly important.

Without previous agreement, but apparently moved by the same secret desire, they purposely made a long detour in order to pass Friendship Villa again. They lingered for a moment at the gate, in the vague hope of seeing Arto, or at least hearing his bark.

But the wrought-iron gate of the magnificent villa was tightly shut, and there was an unruffled, solemn quiet in the shady garden, under the slender, melancholy cypresses.

“Gentry, are they!” hissed the old man, putting into the exclamation all the bitterness that filled his heart!

“That’s enough – come on,” the boy commanded grimly and pulled at his companion’s sleeve.

“Perhaps Arto will run away from them, Sergei dear?” The old man gave a sob. “What do you think, my boy?”

But the boy made no reply. He was walking ahead with a firm stride. He kept his eyes fixed on the road, his thin eyebrows gathered in an angry frown.