Part I

More Books

"What do you want it for?"

"Give it to me . . . Perhaps there is something in it about us. . . ."

"About whom?"

"About the village."

They laughed at him, and threw him the paper. He took it, and read in it how in the village the hail had destroyed the cornfields, how in another village fire destroyed thirty houses, and that in a third a woman had poisoned her family--in fact, everything that it is customary to write of--everything, that is to say, which is bad, and which depicts only the worst side of the unfortunate village.

Tyapa read all this silently and roared, perhaps from sympathy, perhaps from delight at the sad news.

He passed the whole Sunday in reading his Bible, and never went out collecting rags on that day. While reading, he groaned and sighed continually. He kept the book close to his breast, and was angry with any one who interrupted him or who touched his Bible.

"Oh, you drunken blackguard," said Kuvalda to him, "what do you understand of it?"

"Nothing, wizard! I don't understand anything, and I do not read any books . . . But I read. . . ."

"Therefore you are a fool . . ." said the Captain, decidedly. "When there are insects in your head, you know it is uncomfortable, but if some thoughts enter there too, how will you live then, you old toad?"

"I have not long to live," said Tyapa, quietly.

Once the teacher asked how he had learned to read.

"In prison," answered Tyapa shortly.

"Have you been there?"

"I was there. "

"For what?"

"Just so . . . It was a mistake . . . But I brought the Bible out with me from there. A lady gave it to me . . . It is good in prison, brother."

"Is that so? And why?"

"It teaches one . . . I learned to read there . . . I also got this book . . . And all these you see, free. . . ."

When the teacher appeared in the dosshouse, Tyapa had already lived there for some time. He looked long into the teacher's face, as if to discover what kind of a man he was.

Tyapa often listened to his conversation, and once, sitting down beside him, said:

"I see you are very learned . . . Have you read the Bible?"

"I have read it. . . ."

"I see; I see . . . Can you remember it?"

"Yes . . . I remember it. . . ."

Then the old man leaned to one side and gazed at the other with a serious, suspicious glance.