TRAMPS often bring blessings to men. They are very brotherly; they have given up the causes of quarrels. Perhaps sometimes they are a little divine. God’s grace comes down upon them.
Certainly one day I met a noble tramp, an Eden tramp. He came upon me at dawn with a wood smile on his old face. He was one of the society of tramps; he knew all Russia, its places and peoples, and he called himself Mr Adam. Why did he adopt that name—why had he thrown away the other name? These were questions he was not in a hurry to answer. They involved a story. Such a story! It sounded in my ears like a secret melody of the world. But first let me say how I met this most jovial wayfarer.
I had slept one night by the side of the road among nettles and thistles. My pillow was a stone, my bed soft, dusty earth. I was so near to the road that the lumbersome, creaking ox-carts, that approached and passed in the night, seemed within arm’s reach—so near that I felt the movement in the air as they passed. 225Horses snorted uneasily now and then, and once in the early morning a dog came snuffing among the herbage after me. It was a night of dew and dust. I do not suppose I slept more than three hours, but it did not seem a long night. The approach of dawn came as a surprise to me. I was glad to think it was dawn even if it should turn out to be an illusion. My bed was too cold and fresh, my eyes seemed clammy and sticky, as if spun together with gossamer threads, my forehead was heavy as iron, my body seemed long and ponderous as that of a trold. Everything in me waited for the sun. A night on the mountains gives its peculiar refreshment; it nurses each limb in cold, dewy air, and transmits its influence in cold thrills into the very depths of one.
I sat up and surveyed the scene in the half light, and what was my surprise to see an apparently monstrous figure of a man coming toward me along the road. I almost feared him, but I soon saw his peculiar smile of geniality and my fears gave way. This was Mr Adam. He came up to me as if he had known me from the cradle. The usual greeting and question passed, and then he pulled out of his ragged overcoat a chunk of bread and some hard white cheese, and sat down on a stone with the evident intention of breakfasting. I bade him wait whilst I filled my kettle. Whilst I went to get water he lit a fire. We had a very cheery meal. He cut his bread and cheese with a rusty dagger!
He told me how he came to take the name of 226Adam, in memory of an old companion of the road who made a poor woman in Vladikavkaz very happy. This is the story. There was a man named Peter who died, leaving a widow and three children. The woman was very young and had a baby at her breast and was without money. When she had paid for priest and coffin there was little left her. Her husband had been a writer in a railway office; he wrote envelopes and copied letters. He only received forty roubles a month and was very improvident. Though perhaps it was not he, but Society, that was improvident; for his wife was a good woman and her children worthy. And when one is young one does not expect to die.
Anna, for such was her name, had to leave the house where Peter had died. She had to step down in the world. She took one room in a little cottage, and lived there, and waited to starve. Neighbours helped her, but they were very poor, and her babes, like young birds in the nest, all stretched out their mouths to her and cried.
It was a bare room. The family slept upon the floor. There was an old table that had been lent to them, and a stool and a box. In a corner the Ikon picture gleamed. The woman was little clothed, and the children showed their little white bodies. So much had been sold to get a little money for food that even the samovar was not seen. Neighbours coming in held up their hands in pity of their poverty.
227But their fortune changed a little, for one day a strange chance befell. Anna had made a fire between some stones in the yard of the cottage, and was cooking a mixture in a pot when a ragged old man came up and begged a taste of the soup. She looked at him and thought how strange it was that anyone should beg of her, and then she refused him, saying, “I am as poor as you, good man, and my soup is bad, for it is what I have myself gathered. I took my pot to the market and begged. It is the first time, and it feels very strange. Everyone knew I did not beg for money, only for food. Some put in fruit, and some poured in milk; others threw in biscuits; near the butchers’ line I got a piece of meat, and by the vegetable stalls I picked up some cabbage leaves and an old cucumber. It is very well. I shall go every morning and we shall not starve. Only the soup is for us and it will not be good for others.”
The old man was tall and very hairy; one could scarcely see his face for hair, and through the rents of his ragged red shirt one saw his brown hairy chest. His overcoat was of many colours and many cloths; he had evidently sewn into it whatever cloth he had picked up during many wanderings, and he had lain in it in many muds and soils, and the stains remained. His legs were tied up in sacking like trees protected from the winter, and his boots, which he had made himself without leather, were little bags of wool and shavings 228and grasses and dandelion down. He was not, however, the least self-ashamed.
He did not reply to Anna’s refusal for some minutes, but he stood watching, fumbling among his rags, and she wished he would go away. But going away was not part of his intention. He slowly brought out a large iron spoon and, to the vexation of the woman, knelt down on the ground and peered into the pot. Then he gave his reply.
“When Christ is near, water becomes wine;” and with that he skimmed the simmering liquid and lifted a spoonful to his mouth.
“It’s tasty,” said he; “awfully tasty—really amazingly tasty.”
Anna smiled and answered simply, “I’m glad you like it, grandfather.” Grandfather took another spoonful and smacked his lips. “You know,” said he, “this is something quite out of the way; it is very original; I knew it was very good soup, it was speaking so well. I heard its voice far away. It called to me, it sang. What do you say to it, my dear, if I dine with you to-night?”
Anna looked up at him appealingly. “No,” said she, “pass by. We are very poor, and this is all we have to eat; it is too poor for any guest. Dear old man, go away.”
“Oh, no! I don’t think so. This sort of soup a king would be glad to eat. It is the sort kings can’t 229get. You might even make a great fortune if you sent a sealed tin of this to the Tsar. The Tsar’s cook is a great friend of mine; if you could get on the right side of him you’d never want for a piece of meat to throw in the soup. But I advise you, don’t part with the recipe, it’s worth its weight in gold. And now, what do you say to having me as a boarder? Yes, surely as God rules over everything why shouldn’t I stay here? How much shall I pay? Well, never mind, you make this soup each day and then you can save all the money.”
Anna now felt seriously troubled. An old ragged man could be no help to her; he could not pay her anything, and she would be poorer than before. She pinched up her pretty lips into a bunch, and frowned and shook her head violently; it would never do. “No, grandfather, I couldn’t take you; we are very poor, and you are even poorer than we are.”
Thereupon the old man laughed exuberantly, and his eyes shone like those of Santa Claus.
“I............