The job was hardly worth taking. In the Kuban they paid only sixty kopecks. Something awful! ... And they say that before they used to pay three, four and five rubles!”

“Before! ... Before they used to pay three rubles just to look at a Russian! I used to do this job myself about ten years ago. I would go to a stanitsa2 and say—I’m a Russian! And they’d look me up and down, feel my arms, shake their heads in wonder and say: ‘Here, take three rubles!’ And then they’d give you food and drink, and invite you to stay as long as you like!”

The lad listened to what Chelkash was saying with mouth wide open and amazement and admiration written on his round, tanned face; but soon he realized that the hobo was pulling his leg, and, smacking his lips, he burst into a hearty laugh. Chelkash kept a straight face, hiding his smile under his moustache.

“I’m a boob! You talk as if it was all true, and I listen to it and believe it.... But, still, so help me God, things were better there before!”

“Well, and what am I saying? Ain’t I saying that before things were.. ”

“Stop kidding!” interrupted the boy with a wave of his hand. “What are you, a shoemaker? Or a tailor? You, I mean.”

“Me?” asked Chelkash in his turn, and after thinking for a moment, he said: “I’m a fisherman.”

“A fish-er-man! Is that so! So you catch fish?”

“Fish! Why fish? The fishermen here don’t only catch fish. Mostly it’s drowned bodies, lost anchors, sunken ships—things like that. They have special hooks for this work....”

“Yah! It’s all lies! ... They must be the fishermen they sing about in the song:

On arid shores
We spread our nets,
And barns and sheds we trawl....

“Have you ever met fishermen like that?” asked Chelkash with a smile., looking hard at the boy.

“Met them? No, where could I have met them? But I’ve heard about them....”

“What do you think of them?”

“That kind of fisherman, you mean? Well ... they’re not a bad lot. They’re free. They have freedom....”

“What’s freedom to you? ... Do you like freedom?”

“What do you think? Be your own master. Go where you like, do what you like.... I should say so! You can keep yourself straight and have no milestone round your neck. Have a good time, and nothing to worry about, except keep God in mind. What could be better?”

Chelkash spat contemptuously and turned his head away.

“With me it’s like this,” continued the boy. “My father’s dead. We’ve only a patch of a farm. My mother’s old. The land’s all dried up. What can I do? I’ve got to live. But how? I don’t know. I thinks to myself—I’ll go and be a son-in-law in a good house. But what’s the use? It would be all right if the father-in-law gave his daughter a share of his property, and we could set up for ourselves. But do you think he’d do that? Not a bit.