The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 12, 1925, Page 10

POO TET roe ene THE ’M (Copyright, 1925, by International Publishers Co., Ine.) A A MUZHIK with bandaged head, drove his pie- pald horse wildly along the lane. His body was glued to the flat back of the horse; his face twitched, his fists were swinging in the air; glee- ful yells issued from his throat: “Brothers—we’ve caught—a ’Merican!” Okorok shouted : “Oh-ho-ho !” Three muzhiks, carrying rifles, appeared in the lane. ‘ Behind them, walking with a slight limp, was an American soldier, dressed in a khaki uniform. His face was young and clean-shaven; his parged lips showed his teeth chattering from fear; on this right cheek, close to the cheek-bone, a muscle Was trembling. A lanky, gray-haired muzhik, who was escort- ing the American, asked: “Who's chief here?” Vershinin spoke up: “What’s the matter?” “He’s the chief—him!” shouted Okorok. “Nik- ita Yegorich Vershinin. Come, tell us how they got. him!” The muzhik spat to one side, and patting the American soldier on the back, as if he had come of his own will, began to tell the story with the garrulous eagerness of an old man: “T’ve brot him to you, Nikita Yegorich. We're from Voznesnski county. Our band has been fol- lowing the Japs a long, long way.” “And what village are you from?” “Ours is a town. The small town of Penino,— you’ve heard of it, maybe?” “They say it burned down.” “The damned dogs! They burned the whole nlyce richt down, little father, so we all took to the hills!” ‘The muzhiks came closer, saying: “Sure! The same evil had come to us all!” The gray-haired muzhik continued: “There were two of them, the ’Mericans! They: were driving a cart with tinned milk. Such fools they are; they come to fight, and they stuff them- selves with milk and ‘chucklade.’ Well, we nip- ped off one of ’em, and the other threw up his hands. So we took him along. We wanted to turn him over to the elder, but now, here’s a whole company !”? The American stood erect in soldierly fashion and without taking his eyes off Vershinin, as if the latter were a judge. The muzhiks crowded closer. The odor of tobacco and sour peasant-bread floated to the American, enveloping him. The mass of crowded bodies gave forth a warmth to turn the head, and dry, feverish wrath stirred into flame. The muzhiks began to clamor: “Now then!” “Shoot him, the damned dog!” “Give’m hell!” “Make an end of him!” “Go to it!” The American soldier hunched hig back slight- ly, and, guardedly pulled in his head between his shoulders; at,this movement the fierce wrath of the muzhiks ‘flared up still more strongly. *Théy burn our villages, the sons of —~!” *They act like masters here!” | “As ifat home!” “Look how they’ve butted in!” “Who asked them?” ‘ Someone shrieked in a piercing voice: “Get at him!” ; * At that moment, Pentefli Znobov, who had been |: a longshoreman at Vladivostok, climbed up on a wagon and; as if pointing to something that had been lost, shouted: “Wait!” And added ;.. “Comrades!” , he peasants gazed at his mustache, shaggy as a fox’s.tail; they looked at the unbottoned flap of his trousers, thru which his swarthy body was visible, and grew silent: “There’s time enuf for killing! That is simple! That is easy! Look how many are piled up in the street already! But I think, comrades, we ought to fill him up with propaganda and let him go. Let him smell the Bolshevist truth. That’s what I think!” Suddenly the muzhiks uttered a roar of laugh- Two Stories by the Russian Writer, Vsevolod Ivanov ERICAN ter that came pouring out thickly, like grain from a bag: “Ho-ho-ho !” . “He-khe !” “Ho-o yp ‘ “Button your pants, you devil!” “Go ahead, Pentya, fire away!” “Knock it into his head!” “He’s a man like others, after all.” “Eyen a stone can be chiseled.” “Out with it!” The sturdy, Avdotya Steshchenkoya raised her dowdy skirts, bent down, and ‘nudged the Ameri- can with her shoulder; “Listen, you fool, it’s for your own good.” The American soldier surveyed the hairy, bronze-red faces of the muzhiks, and the unbut- toned flap of Znoboy’s trousers; he listened to the incomprehensible speech, and politely screwed up his clean-shaven face into a smile. . The muzhiks walked around him excitedly, shifting him about in the crowd, like a leaf over water, and bawled at him, as people shout to the deaf. The American raised his head, blinking as if gazing thru smoke, smiled, and understood noth- ing. Okorok shouted to the American at the top of his voice: “You must tell them there—everything—it’s no good like this!” “Why should you interfere with us!” “They make you go against your own broth- ers!” Vershinin said stolidly: “You. are all good people; you must under- stand. You are, we may say, peasants, like us; you till the soil, and all that. The Japs, well, they gobble rice; with them it’s a different story !” Znobov stamped uneasily before the American, and stroking his mustache, said: “We are not highwaymen; we're trying to bring order. They don’t know this in your land, I sup- pose; it’s far away, and then, again, your soul is of a foreign land. . .”7,... usd 1 tid & ni .iTThe voices rose and thickened. ' The American glanced around helplessly and said: “T don’t understand!’ The muzhiks at once became silent. Vaska Okorok said: “He can’t get what you say. know Russian, poor devil!” The muzhiks walked away from the American. Vershinin was embarrassed. “Send him to the rear; what’s the sense of both- ering with him,” he said to Znobov. Znobov would not give in, repeating stub- bornly: “He will understand! He will understand !” Znobov was thinking. The American remained standing, continually shifting one foot, and swaying slightl A scarcely preceptible shadow of wistfulness agitated his face, as a light wind the haystacks. Sin-Bin-Ou, stretched on the ground near the American, covered his eyes with his palm, and drawled out a high-pitched Chinese song. “What a torture,” said Vershinin plaintively. Vaska Okorok offered hesitatingly : “Perhaps somé book will do?” All the books at hand were in Russian. “All they’s good for is. to.roll cigarets with,” said Znobov. “If we could find one with pictures.” Avdotya walked over to the wagons that stood along the paddock fence; she rummaged in the coffers for a long time, and at last brot out a He doesn’t Only it’s necessary. . . (Copyright, 1925, by International Publishers Co., Inc.) — hes Moevuxtep on a round-bellied hofse that was as shaggy as a mastiff, Nikita Vershinin rode along the bushes near the railroad embankment. The muzhiks were lying in the bushes, smoking and getting ready for a long, stubborn wait. Their shirts—scores, hundreds of motley spots of color—flashed on both sides of the embankment between the crossings—over a distance of almost ten versts. . A lazy horse; a bag instead of a saddle. Ver- worn, dog-eared textbook of religion, the kind used in the village schools. “Perhaps this,—‘eligion’?” she asked. way: “The pictures are all *bout religion! . We’re not | Ther going to rechristen him. We’re not priests!” “Try it, just the same,” suggested Vaska. “But how? He won’t understand, I guess.” “He might. Go ahead!’ Znoboy called to the American: “Hey, comrade, comé here.” The American approached, be sy RMeery SON OaL The muzhiks gathered again, Once ‘More. exhal- |” ing the smell of tobacco and bread, Remsen “Lenin!” said Znoboy firmly and loudly, and then smiled, as if in spite of himself, A swift tremor passed thru the Ameriean’s body; his eyes sparkled, and he responded joy- fully: “There’s a chap!” . Znobov smote his breast with his fist, and, his | palm patting the backs and shoulders of the muz- hiks, he shouted, speaking for some reason in broken Russian: P “Sovietska respublica!” __ / The American stretched out his arms to the muzhiks; his cheeks quivered, and he shouted ex- citedly : “That is pretty indeed!” The muzhiks burst into joyful laughter. “He understands, the son of a——!” “The rascal!” “And our Pentya, look at our Pentya reeling off American!” “Send their bourzhuis to hell, Pentya!” : Znobov hastily opened the textbook of religion, and pointing to the picture showing Abraham about to sacrfice Isaac, while god was suspended in the clouds above, he began to explain: “This one, with the Knife, is a bourzhui. Look at his fat belly; it needs only a watch and chain. And here, on the logs, lies the proletariat, do you understand? Pro-le-ta-ri-at.” The American pointed to his chest, and stutter- ing joyously, he said proudly: “Pro-le-ta-ri-at! ... Wel” : The muzhiks embraced the- American, touched his clothes, and with all their might squeeséd ‘hiw| hands and shoulders. Vaska Okorok, grabbing him by the head and looking into his eyes, yelled exultantly : “Lad, you tell them there, over the sea. . 2” “There, that will do, you fidget,” Vershinin lov- ingly remonstrated. Znobov continued : “So, he, the proletariat, lies on the logs and the bourzhui chops him up. And there in the clouds is the Jap the Inglish, the ’Merican, all that trash; the ‘imperialisma’ herself sits there.” The American tore off his cap and yelled: “Imperialism! Away!” Znobov angrily threw the cap to the groung. Piss “Imperialism and the bourzhuis, to the devil AS Sin-Bin-Ou jumped over to the American, and { ¥ pulling up his falling trousers said rapidly: vag “Russki respublica-a. Chinese respublica:a. *Mericanski respublica-a no go-od. Japanee no good; must, must get respublic-a. Must get, must get Red respublica. . . .” And glancing around, he stood on tiptoe, and slowly raising his thumb, he said: “Shango.”’* : Vershinin commanded: : “Give him something to eat. Then lead. him out to the road and let him go.” ~~ The old man who had brot the prisoner asked : “Shall we bandage his eyes when we take him? Ain’t he going to bring them here?” The muzhiks decided: “Not necessary. He won’t give us away.” to p! *Good, in Chinese. sri aed shinin’s legs dangled down and ‘his boot pain- fully rubbed his‘heel thru the carelessly wrapped rags. | Je r fay yA ae ‘ “Look here, boys, there must be no women!” | @ Vershinin was saying.) °° Detachment-commanders drew themselves up soldier-fashion, and briskly, as if steadying them- selves thru soldierly deportment, asked: ; “Any news from the city, Nikita Yegorich ” “There’s an uprising.” ‘ * “And how’s the military advances?” Vershinin struck the belly of his horse with his | h heel and started off, feeling sleepy fatigue in his body: