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Updated: June 26, 2025
"Enough said, wait a little. Let us go to the tavern." They walked side by side along the street; Tchelkache twisting his moustache with the important air of an employer, the lad submissively, but at the same time filled with distrust and fear. "What's your name?" asked Tchelkache. "Gavrilo," replied the lad.
"Happy Grichka, what good care the authorities take of him!" cried someone in a group of 'longshoremen who had eaten their dinner and were lying, stretched out on the ground. "I have no shoes; Semenitch is afraid that I may hurt my feet," replied Tchelkache. They reached the gate. Two soldiers searched Tchelkache and pushed him gently aside.
Set me down somewhere. Oh dear! oh, dear! I'm lost! For God's sake, let me go. What do you want of me? I can't do this, I've never done anything like it. It's the first time, Lord! I'm lost! How did you manage, comrade, to get around me like this? Say? It's a sin, you make me lose my soul! . . . Ah! what a piece of business!" "What business?" sternly questioned Tchelkache.
The boat, as though frightened, leaped ahead rapidly and nervously, noisily cutting the water. "Better than that!" Tchelkache had risen from the helm and, without letting go his oar, he fixed his cold eyes upon the pale face and trembling lips of Gavrilo. Sinuous and bending forward, he resembled a cat ready to jump. A furious grinding of teeth and rattling of bones could be heard.
Tchelkache's boat stopped and rocked on the water as though hesitating. Gavrilo lay flat on the bottom of the boat, covering his face with his hands, and Tchelkache prodded him with his oar, hissing furiously, but quite low. "Idiot, that's the custom-house cruiser. The electric lantern! Get up, row with all your might! They'll throw the light upon us! You'll ruin us, devil, both of us!"
"Yes, brother, life under those circumstances would not be bad . . . I, too, I know a little about such things. I also have a nest belonging to me. My father was one of the richest peasants of his village." Tchelkache rowed slowly. The boat danced upon the waves which beat against its sides; it scarcely advanced over the somber sea, now disporting itself harder than ever.
As before, the sun never peeped in through our windows, and Tanya never came there again! . . . . Tchelkache The sky is clouded by the dark smoke rising from the harbor. The ardent sun gazes at the green sea through a thin veil.
He was a pitiful and dull object. His likeness to a bird of prey had disappeared; self-abasement appeared in the very folds of his dirty blouse. "I'm tired, worn out!" "We are landing. . . Here we are." Tchelkache abruptly turned the boat and guided it toward something black that arose from the water.
Tchelkache gazed at him with astonishment. "What's the matter with you?" he asked. "Nothing." But Gavrilo's face grew red and then ashy pale. The lad moved his feet restlessly as though he would have thrown himself upon Tchelkache, or as though he were torn by Borne secret desire difficult to realize. His suppressed excitement moved Tchelkache to some apprehension.
The dinner hour had come. When the longshoremen, leaving their work, were dispersed in noisy groups over the wharf, buying food from the open-air merchants, and settling themselves on the pavement, in shady corners, to eat, Grichka Tchelkache, an old jail-bird, appeared among them. He was game often hunted by the police, and the entire quay knew him for a hard drinker and a clever, daring thief.
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