DURING my stay in the district of S. I often used to go to see the watchman Savva
Stukatch, or simply Savka, in the kitchen gardens of Dubovo. These kitchen gardens were
my favorite resort for so-called "mixed" fishing, when one goes out without knowing
what day or hour one may return, taking with one every sort of fishing tackle as well as a
store of provisions. To tell the truth, it was not so much the fishing that attracted me as
the peaceful stroll, the meals at no set time, the talk with Savka, and being for so long
face to face with the calm summer nights. Savka was a young man of five-and-twenty,
well grown and handsome, and as strong as a flint. He had the reputation of being a
sensible and reasonable fellow. He could read and write, and very rarely drank, but as a
workman this strong and healthy young man was not worth a farthing. A sluggish,
overpowering sloth was mingled with the strength in his muscles, which were strong as
cords. Like everyone else in his village, he lived in his own hut, and had his share of land,
but neither tilled it nor sowed it, and did not work at any sort of trade. His old mother
begged alms at people's windows and he himself lived like a bird of the air; he did not
know in the morning what he would eat at midday. It was not that he was lacking in will,
or energy, or feeling for his mother; it was simply that he felt no inclination for work and
did not recognize the advantage of it. His whole figure suggested unruffled serenity, an
innate, almost artistic passion for living carelessly, never with his sleeves tucked up.
When Savka's young, healthy body had a physical craving for muscular work, the young
man abandoned himself completely for a brief interval to some free but nonsensical
pursuit, such as sharpening skates not wanted for any special purpose, or racing about
after the peasant women. His favorite attitude was one of concentrated immobility. He
was capable of standing for hours at a stretch in the same place with his eyes fixed on the
same spot without stirring. He never moved except on impulse, and then only when an
occasion presented itself for some rapid and abrupt action: catching a running dog by the
tail, pulling off a woman's k erchief, or jumping over a big hole. It need hardly be said
that with such parsimony of movement Savka was as poor as a mouse and lived worse
than any homeless outcast. As time went on, I suppose he accumulated arrears of taxes
and, young and sturdy as he was, he was sent by the commune to do an old man's job --
to be watchman and scarecrow in the kitchen gardens. However much they laughed at
him for his premature senility he did not object to it. This position, quiet and convenient
for motionless contemplation, exactly fitted his temperament.
It happened I was with this Savka one fine May evening. I remember I was lying on a
torn and dirty sackcloth cover close to the shanty from which came a heavy, fragrant
scent of hay. Clasping my hands under my head I looked before me. At my feet was lying
a wooden fork. Behind it Savka's dog Kutka stood out like a black patch, and not a dozen
feet from Kutka the ground ended abruptly in the steep bank of the little river. Lying
down I could not see the river; I could only see the tops of the young willows growing
thickly on the nearer bank, and the twisting, as it were gnawed away, edges of the
opposite bank. At a distance beyond the bank on the dark hillside the huts of the village
in which Savka lived lay huddling together like frightened young partridges. Beyond the
