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Chapter 22 Cassian of the Beauty River (3)
"No, not very long, about four years. We all lived in the same place when the old master was alive, and the rear headlight guards moved us here. Our old master was soft-hearted and mild-tempered--I wish him the best of luck." In heaven! But the guardians, of course, are doing the right thing. It always seems to be the way."

"Where did you live?" "We are from the Mech River the Beauty." "Is that far from here?" "Two hundred versts." "Oh, is it better there?"

"It's better than here... better than here. There's a wide place, and a river, and our old home. But it's not open here, and there's no water. We're all alone here. On our pretty Meach River, you crawl Go up the hill, climb up and have a look, my God, what is that scene? Eh?... There is a river, there is a meadow, and there is a wood; there is a chapel, and there is a meadow in the past. Can You can see far, far away. You can see so far...you look, look, oh, it’s really wonderful! The soil here is indeed better, it’s sandy clay, and the peasants say it’s good sand clay; my corn grows well all over the place."

"Hey, old man, to be honest, you probably want to go back to your hometown for a walk?" "Yes, I want to go and see. However, anywhere is fine. I am a person without a family and I like to move around. No, sit What's the good of being at home? Walking around, walking," he went on, raising his voice, "doesn't make you feel better. The sun shines on you, and God sees you better, and you sing with more vigor. , you see a kind of grass growing; if you see it clearly, you pick some. There is still water flowing here, such as spring water, which is holy water; There are grasslands on the other side of Sk, the beautiful grasslands, which make people feel surprised and happy, so vast and wide, it is really a gift from God! According to people, these grasslands lead to the warm sea, and there lives a The beautiful bird called 'Gema Yun', the leaves on the tree do not fall in winter and autumn, and the golden apples grow on the branches of the silver tree, and all the people live affluent and honest lives... I just want to go there for a walk ... I have traveled far enough! I have been to Romny, I have been to the beautiful city of Novobilsk, I have been to Moscow with its golden cupolas; I've been to the 'Pigeon Tsna'. I've been to the 'Mother Volga' too; I've seen a lot of people, a lot of good Christians, I've been to decent cities...so I'd love to go there...and ...I really want to...it's not just me who is a sinner...Many other believers are wearing straw sandals, begging all the way, seeking the truth...Yes!...What's the point of staying at home, huh? There is no justice in the world, that's what it is..."

Cassian spoke these last words so quickly that I could hardly hear them; then he said something more that I could barely hear, with a strange expression on his face that reminded me of "Madman" "This title.Then he lowered his head, coughed, and seemed to wake up.

"What a sun!" he whispered. "What a gift, God! How warm it is in the woods!"

He shrugged his shoulders, was silent for a while, looked at it indifferently, and began to sing in a low voice.I couldn't make out all the words of his melodious song, I only heard the following two lines:
My name is Cassian, and my nickname is Flea... "Ah!" I thought, "He made it up himself..." Suddenly he shivered, stopped singing, and stared into the depths of the woods , I turned my head and saw a little peasant girl about 8 years old, wearing a blue sleeveless gown, with a plaid patterned turban wrapped around her head, and a sun-tanned, naked arm with a basket.She probably did not expect to meet us at all, she just "bumped" us, and stood motionless on the dark grass among the green hazel bushes, looking at us with panicked eyes. .As soon as I saw her clearly, she immediately hid behind the tree.

"Anushka! Anushka! Come here, don't be afraid," the old man called kindly.

"I'm afraid." Came a shrill voice. "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, come to me."

Annushka left her hiding place without a sound, made a stealthy circle—her young feet barely made a sound on the thick grass—and walked through the jungle beside the old man. out.This is not an eight-year-old girl as I first guessed when I saw her small figure, but she is thirteen or fourteen years old.She is thin, but well-proportioned, very agile, and her pretty little face is very similar to Cassian's face, although Cassian is not good-looking.The same pointed face, the same peculiar eyes, sly and sincere, pensive and keen, and the manner is similar... Cassian looked at her, and she was standing beside him.

"What, do you pick mushrooms?" he asked. "Yes, mushroom picking," she replied with a shy smile. "Are there a lot?" "A lot." (She glanced at him quickly, and smiled again.) "Are there any white ones?"

"There are white ones too." "Let me see, let me see... (She takes the basket off her arm and partly lifts a wide burdock leaf that covers the mushrooms.) Ah!" Cassian looked at the basket He bent down and said, "Excellent! Anushka is really good!"

"Cassian, is this your daughter?" I asked. (Anushka's face blushed slightly.) "No, um, relatives," Kasyan said pretending not to care, "Okay, Annushka, you go." He immediately Then said: "You go back. Be careful..."

"Why let her walk back!" I interrupted him, "Let her go back in our carriage..."

Anushka's face was as red as poppies, she grabbed the rope of the basket with both hands, and looked at the old man in fear. "No, she'll walk back," he replied, still in a lazy, nonchalant voice, "it's nothing to her, . . . will go back . . . go."

Annushka soon went into the woods.Cassian watched her off from behind, then lowered his head and smiled slightly.In that long smile, in the few words he said to Annushka, in the tone of his voice when he spoke to her, there was an indescribably passionate love and tenderness.He looked in the direction she was walking again, smiled again, touched his face, and nodded.

"Why are you in such a hurry to send her away?" I asked him, "I was going to buy mushrooms from her..."

"If you want to buy it, you can buy it at my house." He answered me, using the title "you" for the first time.

"You little girl is very cute." "No...where...um..." He seemed to answer reluctantly, and from this moment on, he returned to the previous silence.Seeing that all efforts to get him to talk were in vain, I set out for the clearing.By this time the heat had subsided a little; but my hunting failure, or "bad luck," as we used to call it, was the same, and I was obliged to return to the colony with a crake and a new axle.As the carriage approached the courtyard, Cassian suddenly turned to me. "My lord, oh my lord," said he, "I'm sorry, but my spell drove all your wild birds away." "How do you say that?"

"I know the spell. Your dog is smart and good, but he can't help it. You think man is great, don't you? Like this beast, what has man trained him to do?"

I tried to convince Cassian of the impossibility of "charming" to get rid of wild birds, but it was useless, so I gave him no answer.Besides, our car had already turned into the gate at this time.

Annushka was not in the house; she had already arrived home and left a basket of mushrooms there.Ye Luofei assembled the new axle and gave it a critical and unfair evaluation from the beginning.After an hour, we set off.Before leaving, I gave Cassian some money, but at first he refused to accept it, but after thinking about it, I held it in my hand for a while, and then put it into my pocket.During that hour he hardly spoke a word; he still stood leaning against the gate, and, ignoring my coachman's reproaches, took leave of me with the utmost indifference.

As soon as I came back, I noticed that my Ye Luofei was depressed again.Indeed, he found no food in the village, and the water for the horses was poor.Then we set off and he sat in the driver's seat full of dissatisfaction and wanted to talk to me, but he waited for me to ask first, and at this time he just whined in a low voice and said something to the horse Meaningful, sometimes thin words. "The village!" he murmured, "it's a village! I want kvass, and there's no kvass. . . . Oh, hell! The water, it's terrible! (He spits loudly.) Cucumbers are good too , Kvass, nothing. Huh, you!" He continued loudly towards the side horse on the right, "I know you, you cunning! You probably want to be lazy... (He whips it A riding whip.) The horse has become completely cunning, how obedient the beast used to be... Hum, hum, how dare you look back! . . . "

"Ye Luofei, let me ask you," I began, "what kind of person is this Kaxiyang?"

Ye Luofei didn't answer me immediately, he has always been a thoughtful and calm person; but I guessed right away that my question made him very happy.

"Fleas?" Finally, he tugged at the rein and said, "What a weird guy, he's just a lunatic. It's not easy to find a second one for such a weird guy. He's just like...here, just Like our yellow-and-gray horse, he's as rough as we are...that is, he doesn't like to work. Well, of course, he's a poor worker—he's weak, but anyway...he's been a Such a virtue. At first he was a courier with his uncles—they drove three sets of carts; but then he probably got tired of it and gave up. He lived at home, but he couldn't stay at home Come on, he's such a restless man--like a flea. Fortunately his master was a kind man and didn't force him. Since then he's wandered about like an unattended sheep The man is strange, God knows how he is, and sometimes he's as silent as a stump, and sometimes he starts talking--God knows what he's going to say. Is it decent? It's not. He's a real disgrace. Sings well backwards. Well indeed--not bad, not bad."

"Can he really heal?"

"What kind of disease is healed!...Ah, how can he cure diseases! He is such a person. After all, he cured my scrofula..." He was silent for a while, and then said: "How can he cure me?" Can cure diseases! He is a fool."

"Have you known him before?"

"We've known each other for a long time. We were neighbors living in Seciovka when we were at the Mech the Beauty."

"Then who is she, the girl Anushka we met in the woods, is she from his family?" Ye Luofei looked back at me and smiled with all her teeth. "Hey! . . . Yes, a relative. She's an orphan, she has no mother, and she doesn't know who her mother is. Well, it should be a relative, because she looks so much like him... She lives with him. A clever girl, of course. A good girl, the old man doted on her, she was a good girl. You may not believe it, but he might even want to teach Anushka to read. He really will Yes, he's a strange fellow. He's so unconventional that it's out of place... oh-oh-oh!" My coachman stopped himself suddenly, reined in his horse, and bent aside. body, sniffing the air.

"Doesn't it smell burnt? Yes! New axles are a nuisance... I seem to have been oiled a lot... I must get some water... There's a pond right here."

So Ye Luofei unhurriedly climbed down from the driving platform, untied the bucket, fetched water from the pond and came back. When he heard the wheel shafts creaking suddenly when they got water, he became happy... ...He poured water on the hot axle six times during a distance of no more than ten versts.When we got home, it was already late.

(End of this chapter)