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Read Ebook: The Outcasts and Other Stories by Gorky Maksim Jakowleff Emily Translator Montefiore Dora B Translator Volkhovsky Vera Translator
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Ebook has 956 lines and 32205 words, and 20 pages
don't understand anything; but then I don't read books."
"But I do."
"More fool you!" answered the captain. "It's bad enough to have vermin in the head. But to get thoughts into the bargain. How will you ever be able to live, you old toad?"
"Well, I have not got much longer to live," said Tiapa quietly.
One day the schoolmaster inquired where he had learned to read, and Tiapa answered shortly--
"In prison."
"Have you been there?"
"Yes, I have."
"For what?"
"Because--I made a mistake. It was there I got my Bible. A lady gave it me. It's good in prison, don't you know that, brother?"
"It can't be. What is there good in it?"
"They teach one there. You see how I was taught to read. They gave me a book, and all that free!"
When the schoolmaster came to the doss-house, Tiapa had been there already a long time. He watched the schoolmaster constantly; he would bend his body on one side in order to get a good look at him, and would listen attentively to his conversation.
Once he began, "Well, I see you are a learned man. Have you ever read the Bible?"
"Yes, I have."
"Well, do you remember it?"
"I do! What then?"
The old man bent his whole body on one side and looked at the schoolmaster with grey, morose, distrustful eyes.
"And do you remember anything about the Amalekites?"
"Well, what then?"
"Where are they now?"
"They have died out, Tiapa--disappeared."
The old man was silent, but soon he asked again--
"And the Philistines?"
"They've gone also."
"Have they all disappeared?"
"Yes, all."
"Does that mean that we shall also disappear as well?"
"Yes, when the time comes," the schoolmaster replied, in an indifferent tone of voice.
"And to which tribe of Israel do we belong?"
The schoolmaster looked at him steadily, thought for a moment, and began telling him about the Cymri, the Scythians, the Huns, and the Slavs.
The old man seemed to bend more than ever on one side, and watched the schoolmaster with scared eyes.
"You are telling lies!" he hissed out, when the schoolmaster had finished.
"Why do you think I am lying?" asked the astonished schoolmaster.
"Those people you have spoken of, none of them are in the Bible!" He rose and went out, deeply insulted, and cursing angrily.
"You are going mad, Tiapa!" cried the schoolmaster after him.
Then the old man turned round, and stretching out his hand shook with a threatening action his dirty, crooked forefinger.
"Adam came from the Lord. The Jews came from Adam. And all people come from the Jews--we amongst them."
"Well?"
"The Tartars came from Ishmael. And he came from a Jew!"
"Well, what then?"
"Nothing. Only why do you tell lies?"
And he went off, leaving his companion in a state of bewilderment. But in two or three days' time he approached him again.
"As you are a learned man, you ought at least to know who we are!"
"Slavs, Tiapa--Slavs!" replied the schoolmaster.
And he awaited with interest Tiapa's answer, hoping to understand him.
"Speak according to the Bible! There are no names like that in the Bible. Who are we, Babylonians or Edomites?"
The teacher began criticising the Bible. The old man listened long and attentively, and finally interrupted him.
"Stop all that! Do you mean that among all the people known to God there were no Russians? We were unknown to God? Is that what you mean to say? Those people, written about in the Bible, God knew them all. He used to punish them with fire and sword; He destroyed their towns and villages, but still He sent them His prophets to teach them, which meant He loved them. He dispersed the Jews and Tartars, but He still preserved them. And what about us? Why have we no prophets?"
"Well, I don't know," said the schoolmaster, trying in vain to understand the old man.
The old peasant put his hand on the schoolmaster's shoulder, rocking him gently to and fro whilst he hissed and gurgled as if swallowing something, and muttered in a hoarse voice--
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