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«Then let’s have supper,» he cried. «There is bread and onions. What more can a man want?»
By following the high road, Mesentzeff, Mitia and Vania came in sight of the village of O. ... In the course of the last few days, Mitia had become wonderfully sweet in his manner to Mesentzeff, much to the latter’s surprise. He smoked Mesentzeff’s cigarettes, showed him how to keep warm when they slept at night in the open fields and once in sudden burst of confidence, after first begging permission with an appealing glance, rested his head on the other’s knee. Mesentzeff felt flattered, though ashamed to admit it even to himself.
The red twilight was too red, the heat overpowering. A fetid wind covered the road with little columns of dust, spinning slowly. The peasants say that if these columns are cut with a sickle or scythe, a drop of blood remains upon the steel.
Vania picked blades of grass and chewed them, murmuring, «My soul glorifies the Lord,» while Mitia scanned the horizon, his hand raised to protect his eyes, for the sun was quite low.
«What a sky! what a sky!» he exclaimed at last, rubbing his palms together in glee.
«Why, what a sky?» asked Mesentzeff who was getting tired.
«Arrayed by prayer, burnt by fire, and scarred by the flight of dragons! In the olden times the dragons flew freely about Russia, trying to catch the Russian maids. The men were not worth much. It’s only the legends that make them out to be heroes; but the girls!.. Nowadays there are none like them. The dragons were eagles; red, red eagles, flecked with blue... They had tails like horses and beaks like martins and this was their fate. When a dragon carried away a maid beyond the Caspian and fed on the sweet-tasting crab-apples of her breasts, the girl died. And when the girl died, the dragon died also. That is why the race has disappeared. Maids are common, but dragons are rare.»
«That’s all nonsense,» said Vania.
«It may be nonsense; but old people will tell you so; and Vania is not a universal genius or an Aristotle!» replied Mitia sharply and almost immediately burst out again in a joyful tone: «There’s Misha. The dove is out of his cote! He must have discovered something.»
On the outskirts of the village a figure rather resembling a bear was limping at a slow pace towards the travellers.
«A cripple!» thought Mesentzeff surprised; though when the figure came nearer he saw it had no infirmity whatsoever. Sometimes Misha walked dragging his feet one after the other behind him, sometimes quite normally. At one moment his arms would hang forward limply and at another be hunched up, his shoulders touching his ears. His swollen eyelids see med to conceal a fell disease. It was almost alarming when he opened them and disclosed a pair of clear, grey eyes. He was advancing now in strange fashion, sideways, like a crab. Having reached the travellers, he hesitated and stopped shyly.
«Good day, my beauty,» said Mitia, embracing him. «How’s the work getting on?»
«The work is all right. There is nothing the matter with the work,» said Misha, rubbing his cheek where Mitia’s lips had touched it. Presently, seeming to gain courage, he bowed low before Mesentzeff and Vania.
«Forgive me,» he murmured.
«What’s the matter with you?» cried Mitia. «These are friends,» and turning to his companions, he went on: «He’s afraid lest you should think ill of him because of his feet and arms. But why should you? What’s the use? Who knows if we are better than he? Well, my pigeon, take us home!» And he put his arm round Misha’s neck in his most caressing manner.
The hut they were taken to was large and well lit. The window curtains were of cheap stuff but of pleasant colour and gracefully complicated design. On the walls were rough, highly tinted reproductions of the Battle of Plevna, the last Judgment and the Princes of Bova. All was neat and simple until a visitor came in sight of en object as out of place and unexpected in such surroundings as a peacock’s tail on an ox, or a dog sitting on a tree top. On a large table in a comer stood a complete chemical laboratory!..
On the table was also a spirit lamp such as is used to heat coffee and over it a number of tiny phials in which an evil looking mixture was being concocted. Among a number of crystals, lay aimlessly, half a herring.
«This must be the last survivor of the Ancient Order of Alchemists,» thought Mesentzeff, «searching I presume for the philosopher’s stone.»
Very respectfully, Mitia went to the table.
«Is it boiling?» he inquired, touching a crucible. «Doesn’t it burst sometimes?»
«Why should it burst?» growled Misha.
«When will it be finished?»
«In another two years perhaps.»
«But you tried before? How often does this make?»
«The third time.»
«So it will have taken, six years altogether.»
«Why only six? Why not sixteen? The task is very difficult.»
«Well, well no doubt it’ll succeed some day and then the whole machine begins working. Go on! We won’t stop you. We’re only staying the night and tomorrow morning will bid you ‘good bye!’ Where do the girls meet hereabouts at night?» he concluded unexpectedly.