They tried this and they tried that--yet nobody came. And they began to pray to the Lord, '0h Lord! 0h Lord!'"Foma knew this awful story about God's godchild. He had heard it more than once and was already picturing to himself this godchild riding on a white horse to his godfather and godmother; he was riding in the darkness, over the desert, and he saw there all the unbearable miseries to which sinners are condemned. And he heard their faint moans and requests:
"Oh! Man! Ask the Lord yet how long are we to suffer here!"Then it appeared to Foma that it was he who was riding at night on the white horse, and that the moans and the implorings were addressed to him. His heart contracts with some incomprehensible desire; sorrow compressed his breast and tears gathered in his eyes, which he had firmly closed and now feared to open.
He is tossing about in his bed restlessly, "Sleep, my child. Christ be with you!" says the old woman, interrupting her tale of men suffering for their sins.
But in the morning after such a night Foma rose sound and cheerful, washed himself hastily, drank his tea in haste and ran off to school, provided with sweet cakes, which were awaited by the always hungry little Yozhov, who greedily subsisted on his rich friend's generosity.
"Got anything to eat?" he accosted Foma, turning up his sharp-pointed nose. "Let me have it, for I left the house without eating anything.
I slept too long, devil take it! I studied up to two o'clock last night. Have you solved your problems?""No, I haven't."
"Eh, you lazy bones! Well, I'll dash them off for you directly!"Driving his small, thin teeth into the cakes, he purred something like a kitten, stamped his left foot, beating time, and at the same time solved the problem, rattling off short phrases to Foma:
"See? Eight bucketfuls leaked out in one hour. And how many hours did it leak--six? Eh, what good things they eat in your house!
Consequently, we must multiply six by eight. Do you like cake with green onions? Oh, how I like it! So that in six hours forty-eight bucketfuls leaked out of the first gauge-cock. And altogether the tub contained ninety. Do you understand the rest?"Foma liked Yozhov better than Smolin, but he was more friendly with Smolin. He wondered at the ability and the sprightliness of the little fellow. He saw that Yozhov was more clever and better than himself; he envied him, and felt offended on that account, and at the same time he pitied him with the condescending compassion of a satisfied man for a hungry one. Perhaps it was this very compassion that prevented him from preferring this bright boy to the boring red-headed Smolin. Yozhov, fond of having a laugh at the expense of his well-fed friends, told them quite often: "Eh, you are little trunks full of cakes!"Foma was angry with him for his sneers, and one day, touched to the quick, said wickedly and with contempt:
"And you are a beggar--a pauper!"
Yozhov's yellow face became overcast, and he replied slowly:
"Very well, so be it! I shall never prompt you again--and you'll be like a log of wood!"And they did not speak to each other for about three days, very much to the regret of the teacher, who during these days had to give the lowest markings to the son of the esteemed Ignat Matveyich.
Yozhov knew everything: he related at school how the procurator's chambermaid gave birth to a child, and that for this the procurator's wife poured hot coffee over her husband; he could tell where and when it was best to catch perch; he knew how to make traps and cages for birds; he could give a detailed account of how the soldier had hanged himself in the garret of the armoury, and knew from which of the pupils' parents the teacher had received a present that day and precisely what sort of a present it was.
The sphere of Smolin's knowledge and interests was confined to the merchant's mode of life, and, above all, the red-headed boy was fond of judging whether this man was richer than that, valuing and pricing their houses, their vessels and their horses.
All this he knew to perfection, and spoke of it with enthusiasm.
Like Foma, he regarded Yozhov with the same condescending pity, but more as a friend and equal. Whenever Gordyeeff quarrelled with Yozhov, Smolin hastened to reconcile them, and he said to Foma one day, on their way home:
"Why do you always quarrel with Yozhov?"
"Well, why is he so self-conceited?" said Foma, angrily.
"He is proud because you never know your lessons, and he always helps you out. He is clever. And because he is poor--is he to blame for that?
He can learn anything he wants to, and he will be rich, too.""He is like a mosquito," said Foma, disdainfully; "he will buzz and buzz, and then of a sudden will bite."But there was something in the life of these boys that united them all; there were hours when the consciousness of difference in their natures and positions was entirely lost. On Sundays they all gathered at Smolin's, and, getting up on the roof of the wing, where they had an enormous pigeon-house, they let the pigeons loose.
The beautiful, well-fed birds, ruffling their snow-white wings, darted out of the pigeon-house one by one, and, seating themselves in a row on the ridge of the roof, and, illumined by the sun, cooing, flaunted before the boys.
"Scare them!" implored Yozhov, trembling for impatience.
Smolin swung a pole with a bast-wisp fastened to its end, and whistled.
