VII   OLD RIMSKY THINKS

OLD Rimsky had a wise head. Many people were afraid of him and said that he talked with witches and had charms against evil—and he did sell charms against sickness, bad luck and poor crops. Besides, he had the reputation of knowing many things before they happened. But he was merely a wise old owl with the keen perception of human motives which is sometimes given to the unlettered man, though he could read well enough to get the meanings out of newspapers if there were not too many words in the articles invented by aristocrats to fool the poor people.

He spent the remainder of the day thinking about the Russian in the American coat who paid double for cigarettes and took a profit in getting answers to questions. He had watched Peter closely, and turned the whole matter over mentally, sitting by his fire and drinking tea.

Rimsky decided that he had not been clever enough with the stranger. It was plain enough now that the stranger had come to learn something about Michael Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff who had been Governor. And the stranger did not know where Michael was to be found. In some way the business could be turned to profit and over many glasses of smoky tea Rimsky evolved a plan by which he could put money in his purse.

There was an old pig-killing moujik named Ilya Andreitch who slept in the basement of a bakery on a street up near the bazaar. Ilya had worked for Kirsakoff years before, and should know where the general lived if anybody did. As for that, Rimsky now remembered that Ilya had once boasted that he knew where Kirsakoff lived since the troubles came and all the rich people were in hiding.

But there might be little in the boast, for Ilya was an old fool who was always pretending to know things. But for all his outward stupidity, Ilya was a sly rascal. His father had been sent into exile for taking money from revolutionists in Moscow by pretending to have knowledge of what the secret police were going to do—who was going to be arrested, and so on.

It happened that Rimsky had Ilya pretty much under the thumb, as the saying is. For Ilya had once fed the pigs of a watch-fixer in the city, and had stolen from his employer a whole handful of silver holy medals. Rimsky had bought them from Ilya for a tenth of their value. Out of appreciation for buying them, Ilya had spent all the money he got on vodka with Rimsky. The vodka had been stolen by a waiter in a restaurant owned by a Greek, and at half price sold it to Ilya, which was quite all right, for everybody stole from foreigners if they could. The thing for the foreigners to do is to stay at home and not go about selling food and drink at prices too high.

Rimsky knew that he might be able to induce Ilya to tell where Kirsakoff was living. That might mean double money for Rimsky. Kirsakoff would no doubt pay well to know that an American was seeking him, and the American would probably pay well to know where Kirsakoff might be found. It was only a matter of handling them properly.

And by delaying the information sought by both Kirsakoff and the man who called himself an American, a pretty penny might be realized. It was by such smart methods, Rimsky felt sure, that rich folks got rich. And by getting rich, they made poor folks poorer. Being rich was all simple enough, for there was only so much money in the world, and the trick was to get a lot of it by being smarter than other folks. There being many fools, the problem was easy enough. Rimsky knew that the Jews got rich by being able to figure interest on money, and by selling only when people wanted to buy and buying only when people wanted to sell.

So he contrived a plan by which Ilya was to supply the information for little or nothing, and Rimsky was to sell it for a bundle of rubles. It would not do to tell Ilya what was wanted. It would be best to loosen his tongue with vodka, and then accuse him of having lied when he had said he knew where Kirsakoff was living. That method would get Ilya to boasting and he would pop it all out. It could all be passed off as drinking talk, and if Ilya insisted on keeping his secret, it would be easy enough to turn the talk to holy medals. That would make Ilya see the honey pot, as the saying is; then he would get Ilya so drunk that he would forget all that had been said.

So when the lights began to appear in the shops across the Sofistkaya, Rimsky put up his own shutters over the window and wandered toward the bazaar to look in at the bakery where Ilya might be found.

It was quite dark when Rimsky reached the courtyard in rear of the building of the bakery. There was a shaft of flickering light dancing out from a partly open door, and the yard was filled with the comforting odor of burning dough. Rimsky planned to ask the bakers first for a man who once hauled wood for them—a peasant dead several months before. That would be excuse enough for coming, and talk could be made till it was time to ask casually for Ilya. That would throw sand in Ilya’s eyes as to why Rimsky appeared at the bakery.

The old cigarette-seller prowled in through the door and stumbled over loose wood in the hall till he came to the great room where the bakers were working. A big man, bare to the waist, was drawing huge loaves from the stone stove with a wooden shovel. His damp skin shone in the dancing light. A group of men and women was sitting on benches in the dark side of the room about a samovar. A ball of dough was smoking on an iron sheet laid on the shoulder of the stove.

There had been the murmur of voices till Rimsky stood framed in the doorway of the room, looking in. When he appeared there was a sudden hush and silence, except for the grating of the wooden shovel as it drew out the steaming loaves and the cracking of the fire in the fire-pit.

“God’s blessing on those who labor for us,” said Rimsky, crossing himself.

Some one gave a muttered reply. The man drawing the loaves turned and peered at Rimsky and then went on deftly pulling out the bread, puckering his face against the heat.

A man came clumping down the hall and fell over the wood. Rimsky stood aside from the door, and the light from the fire revealed the man with a face shrouded by long and unkempt whiskers, and on his head a sheepskin cap black with dirt. He wore a ragged old coat with a rope turned round his middle several times as a belt.

“So this is my old friend, Ilya Andreitch!” exclaimed Rimsky. “It is long since I have seen you. Perhaps you can tell me of the friend I am looking for.”

Ilya ogled him suspiciously.

“What has gone wrong that you should be here?” he growled. He had a healthy fear of Rimsky and wanted to forget the business of the holy medals.

“Can you tell me where I can find Vanusha?”

“You are chasing ghosts,” grumbled Ilya, crossing himself at mention of a dead man. “That man is dead. Or is it that you are looking for souls for the devil?”

“Dead!” exclaimed Rimsky. “Now that is a pity. I came to get a drinking friend, but now I shall have to go and have a glass of vodka by myself in his memory. He owed me two rubles but he was a good man, I can say that for him.”

“Better than I can say for you,” Ilya called out into the dark yard after Rimsky, who had retreated abruptly from the hall. “He never drank his vodka alone, for one thing, like others I know, and they not far off. He was civil to his friends, I can say that—and when you are dead you had better take care that folks say the same of you.”

“Then you didn’t learn your manners from him,” retorted Rimsky, stopping in the court. “You swing your tongue too much for an honest man—or to have it wet with vodka. When I drink I wish to be merry.”

“You are an old wolf with the fleas!” called Ilya.

Rimsky laughed at him.

“May you die blind!” bawled Ilya.

“Oh, come and warm your belly with a sup of vodka,” said Rimsky, “unless you think that if you turned good-natured you would come down with a distemper.”

Ilya ran after him and the pair walked down to the little restaurant kept by a one-eared gypsy from Bessarabia where in the old days the thieves gathered to dispose of their loot to Chinese.

There were but a few people inside the place. A Buriat, who had probably sold some cattle, was lying across a table in a drunken stupor, his purple conical cap on the floor under his feet. A crippled beggar was drinking soup from a bowl with a wooden ladle, and a Chinese peddler of charms was gambling in a corner with a Mongol holy man.

Rimsky led the way to a table distant from the others and called for the serving girl. He was in good humor and ordered a whole bottle of vodka, swearing that he would take only the best and would break the tax seal with his own fingers.

“Something has turned your way, you old shark!” said Ilya. “Or perhaps this is your name day.”

“No, it is that I am getting old and may as well spend my money before it falls into the hands of robbers,” said Rimsky. “Soon I shall go to meet the dead. I pick up a few rubles a day. What is the use of keeping them these days? I want to spend them with my friends, and you are a good fellow and a great joker, Ilya Andreitch.”

“True, I can make jokes if I have the wine,” said Ilya, and hastened to take a swig from the first glass poured.

They proceeded to talk of nothings, and finished the bottle.

“Fetch another!” Rimsky called to the girl, “and I’ll drink a health to the rings in your ears, my damsel. When you were—what am I saying?—when I was younger you would not have escaped without a kiss.”

“You had better be putting your grandchildren to bed,” retorted the girl, but she brought the bottle.

Ilya was suddenly filled with a desire to be modest in his drinking. He felt it would not be wise to abuse such a show of hospitality on the part of Rimsky. And the moujik’s crafty brain suspected that there was a purpose behind Rimsky’s unlimited generosity. Folks were not so free-handed without having good cause, he reasoned. So for every full glass that Rimsky drank, Ilya managed to dispose of but half a glass. He had a notion that if he could get Rimsky drunk there might be part of a bottle left which could be made away with and the joyous occasion could be carried on alone into the night and perhaps the following day. Also, he took good care that Rimsky always paid in advance by making a joke with the gypsy girl that Rimsky had no more money. Rimsky’s generosity made Ilya suspicious.

“Pooh! Money!” said Rimsky, when the third bottle was brought. “I have enough money to buy all the vodka in the city.”

“That’s the vodka talking,” sneered Ilya. “I feel as if I could buy a farm, but it would be another matter for me to find the money. That is the way with you.”

“Don’t go on so with big talk,” warned Rimsky, “or I will begin to talk of the holy medals.”

“Talk and the devil take you!” cried Ilya, thumping the bottle down on the table angrily. “If you do I’ll go my way and wish a curse on you!”

“Sit still!” commanded Rimsky. “I’ve money enough, I tell you. If not, I can go and borrow from my rich friends.”

Ilya laughed so loudly at this that he disturbed the drunken Buriat, who lifted his black head from the table and glared about the room. He looked like a mandarin, with his long thin drooping mustaches.

“But I tell you I have rich friends,” insisted Rimsky. “I could go now and get a hundred rubles if I needed them—yes, twenty and a hundred and no interest. Kirsakoff would let me have them, and no questions asked, and nothing about when they should be paid back.”

“What!” exclaimed Ilya, staring at Rimsky. “You say the old Governor would lend you twenty and a hundred rubles! Tfu! That’s crazy talk!”

“Yes! You think I don’t know the old Governor, eh! Well, Kirsakoff is a friend of mine, you had better know that.”

“Pooh!” snorted Ilya. “You are an old mud-head! You don’t even know where the old Governor lives in the city, and you sit there telling to me that he is your friend! Oh, ho, ho!”

“Perhaps you think you are the only one who knows where Kirsakoff lives? You are a fool who thinks he is wise, and that’s the worst fool of all.”

Ilya was cautious at once. He gave Rimsky a careful look, but Rimsky paid no attention to the look.

“Who told you I said I knew where Kirsakoff lived?” demanded Ilya.

“You said it yourself. I heard you say it last Butter Week in the bazaar. You were drunk and you went boasting about to the old man from Pischenko with the red boots. I heard you say it, Ilya Andreitch.”

Ilya ruffled his brow and tried to remember when he had been talking to a man with red boots from Pischenko. He knew no one in that town who had red boots—unless it was the butcher’s assistant who married the cake-maker.

“True,” said Ilya. “I might have known then where Kirsakoff lived. I don’t deny it. Perhaps I was drunk Butter Week. It wasn’t my fault if I was sober. But that was a long time ago as time runs now—and I don’t know where Kirsakoff lives now. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

Rimsky laughed good-naturedly. “Let us have another drink. You are a good fellow. Of course you do not know where Michael Alexandrovitch lives. If you did, you could have money, as I have. It is worth money to know where the old Governor lives.”

Ilya saw that Rimsky was getting very drunk and seeking an argument.

“If you knew where Kirsakoff lived, who would pay?” asked Ilya, becoming greedy at the mention of money.

“Who? There are many. That is something I do not want to talk about, Ilya. Hold your tongue,” and Rimsky picked up his glass and filled it again.

Ilya drank with sad mien, turning over in his mind Rimsky’s statement that it was worth money to know where Kirsakoff lived. If that were true, Ilya argued to himself, he should have the money, for he knew where Kirsakoff lived with his daughter in an old log house in the outskirts of the city.

“I don’t intend to hold my tongue,” Ilya announced. “What I want to know is who would pay money to know where Kirsakoff lives!”

Rimsky was startled by the suddenness and vigor with which Ilya had put the matter before him. And Ilya leaned across the table, with a big and dirty fist thrust forward.

“Who?” asked Rimsky. “Why do you ask me that? What is there to fight over? We are good friends—we are—you are friend to me, or——”

Rimsky swayed in his chair and could not finish. He made an effort to rally his drugged brain, but slipped deeper into the chair and his eyes closed on him despite all he could do to keep them open. His right arm flopped across the table limply, as useless as a dead seal’s flipper.

“Everybody knows where Michael Kirsakoff lives,” went on Ilya. “Why should any one pay money for what every one knows. That knowledge is not worth a beggar’s kopeck.” Ilya lied, but he sought to learn all he could before Rimsky got too deep into drunken slumber.

“True,” muttered the befuddled Rimsky. “You talk true talk, Ilya Andreitch. But why do you fight with me when I can’t see? What did I say?”

“You talked about there being money in knowing where Kirsakoff lived,” accused Ilya.

Rimsky tried to remember why he had said any such thing. The matter must be as Ilya said—no one would give a beggar’s kopeck to know where Kirsakoff lived. For that matter, Rimsky cared about nothing. The world was a very pleasant place for all people said about bad times. He could feel himself slipping away into a delicious unconsciousness, and he talked aloud the thoughts which crossed his mind.

“There is something wrong about this,” he confided to himself, unaware that Ilya could hear what was said. Then he went on, head on chest, and almost under the table, muttering into his whiskers.

“The American officer—no, a Russian—well, the American officer—he wants to know where Michael lives. And he—will pay well. Didn’t he come to my place asking about the old Governor? And where did he go? Yes, the Dauria, I remember, even if I am drunk—to the Dauria, where the Bolsheviki smashed all the windows. I know. I remember the time my father’s cow fell in the river. Was Ilya there? No. How could Ilya be there—I am dreaming now. Let us all—be merry, for this is Carnival. Am I not a young man? That is right—dance—dance——”

Rimsky began to snore softly. The gypsy girl came and grinned at Ilya, who reached out unsteadily and plucked the flame from the candle.

“Let him sleep,” said Ilya to the girl. “He is a good fellow,” and putting the cork back into the vodka-bottle which was half full by the best of good luck, he slipped it into his pocket, pulled his ragged old coat about his shoulders and tightened the rope belt. Then he slipped out of the restaurant, chuckling at his cleverness at putting Rimsky under the table and learning something which might put money into his own purse. Besides, he had the half-bottle of vodka.

He made up his mind to go at once to the house of Michael Alexandrovitch Kirsakoff and sell the news he had heard—an American officer was at the Hotel Dauria and wanted to find the old Governor. Perhaps Michael would give five rubles for that news—if not five, then four, anyhow, a piece of boiled partridge. But Ilya decided that he would do his best to get five rubles. Michael Kirsakoff had plenty of money, and who was he anyway?—once a Governor, true, but no better now than Ilya Andreitch.