Part 38 (1/2)
”Yes; how are you?” a voice, hoa.r.s.e with the frost, cried from a distance; and presently a man of middle height, dressed in fur from head to foot, emerged from the darkness. ”What are you doing, you silly fellow, standing out here in a blouse in cold like this? You are certain to catch pneumonia.”
”And why not?... A year sooner or later----”
”All very fine! But I confess to you, Stefan, I shouldn't like to die here. One can't even decay like a human being; one would have to lie here for centuries like an ice statue, while the dogs would howl and howl----”
”Well, they are howling unbearably now; it's as if they scented something. They are worse than ever to-day.”
”They are certain to smell something; in the town they say that the Chukchee are encamping here, and I have just come to tell you of it.
But let us go indoors; it's terribly cold, worse than it has yet been this year.”
They went in. Stefan lighted the fire and busied himself with getting tea ready; Jzef threw off his furs and paced up and down the room with long strides.
”I say! This news is not quite without importance for us.”
”What?”
”That they have come.”
”The Chukchee?”
”Why, yes!”
Stefan burst out laughing.
”It's imperative for us to make friends with them; they are said to trade with America.”
”Then with whom are we to make friends? With the Yankees?”
”No, with the Chukchee. Do be serious. You must do it, and it will be easy enough for you with your workshop,--all kinds of people constantly come to you. I will persuade Buza, the Cossack, to bring them; you will have a first-rate interpreter.”
”By all means persuade Buza----”
”Oh, stop that! You always pretend to be indifferent to everything. If I had your health and strength, and were as clever----”
”Then you would be as homesick as I am, and pretend to care as little----”
”Do you think that I am not homesick?”
”No, I don't think you are--not in the least. You have a happy disposition, and can distract yourself with books and plans and dreaming, even if it is only for a short time. I must live, work, be active; I need impressions from outside. Otherwise I go utterly to pieces; I feel that I am slowly dying.”
They sat down to tea and chatted until midnight. In that continuous darkness the late hours of night differed from the rest in the position of the stars, a harder frost with louder reports of the cracking ground, the fact that the fires in the cottages were extinguished, and the quieter but more dismal howling of the dogs.
”Then remember that I will bring them. Do something to take their fancy; you know how to do it.”
”Very good. It just happens that I have the District Administrator's musical box here to repair; I will play it to them.”
”That will delight them. 'A talking box'--I can imagine what they will say! And don't forget to buy vodka for them, and to entertain Buza also. We shall have need of him. I don't yet know what we shall decide upon--I don't even try to think about it; but I feel that something will come of this....”
”What?... Nothing will come of it. There will not even be any vodka left as a result, for they will drink it all up.”