Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/37

Rh "Don't be afraid Semyon... Senia, I mean. Til come, all right. Soon as I have time, I'll come right over. Ain't I human? My Lord, I can understand something, too. D'you believe me?"

And Senista answered with a smile on his black, parched lips:

"Yes, I believe you."

"Now you see!" Now Sazonka felt light and comfortable. He could even talk of the box on the ear he had given Senista two weeks ago. He mentioned it casually, touching Senista's head.

"And if people hit you on the head, it wasn't because they meant you harm. Lord, no! Only because your head is so handy. It's so big, and the hair is all cut so low."

Senista smiled again and Sazonka got up from his chair. He was very tall, and his curly hair, combed with a fine comb, rose like a soft cap. His shining eyes with their swollen eyelids, smiled at the boy.

"Well, good-a-by," said he, without moving away from his place, however. He purposely said "good-a-by," instead of "good-by", because he thought it would sound more sincere and heart-felt. But it did not seem enough. He felt that he ought to do something even more sincere, something good and big, after which Senista would not mind remaining at the hospital, and he, himself, could go away with a light heart. And he stood there in childish embarrassment, when Senista again helped him out:

"Good-by," said he in a thin childish voice, for which he was nicknamed "flute," and freed his hand from under the blanket and quite simply, as though he were Sazonka's equal, extended it to the man. And Sazonka, feeling that this was precisely what he was looking for, gently clasped the thin fingers with his large hand, held them for a while, and then let them go. There was something sad and mysterious in the slight pressure of those fingers, as though Senista were not only an equal of all men on earth, but above them all, freer than all. And it seemed so because he now belonged to an unknown, though terrible and powerful master. Sazonka felt that he could call him Semyon Erofeyevich.

"So you'll come, won't you?" For the fourth time Senista begged of him, and this plaintive appeal drove away that something awful and magnificent, which but a moment ago had enveloped the boy in its noiseless wings. Senista again became for Sazonka a poor, sick boy, and he was again full of pity for him.

When Sazonka walked away from the hospital, he thought that he was followed for some time by the odor of medicines and the piteous appeal:

"So you'll come, won't you?"

And Sazonka answered his absent implorer,

"Sure, I'll come. Ain't I human?"