love the past too well.

Tchelkache was enveloped in a peaceful whiff of natal air that was
wafting toward him the sweet words of his mother, the sage counsel of
his father, the stern peasant, and many forgotten sounds and savory
odors of the earth, frozen as in the springtime, or freshly ploughed,
or lastly, covered with young wheat, silky, and green as an
emerald. . . Then he felt himself a pitiable, solitary being, gone
astray, without attachments and an outcast from the life where the
blood in his veins had been formed.

"Hey! Where are we going?" suddenly asked Gavrilo.

Tchelkache started and turned around with the uneasy glance of a wild
beast.

"Oh! the devil! Never mind. . . Row more cautiously. . . We're almost
there."

"Were you dreaming?" asked Gavrilo, smiling.

Tchelkache looked searchingly at him. The lad was entirely himself
again; calm, gay, he even seemed complacent. He was very young, all
his life was before him. That was bad! But perhaps the soil would
retain him. At this thought, Tchelkache grew sad again, and growled
out in reply:

"I'm tired! . . . and the boat rocks!"

"Of course it rocks! So, now, there's no danger of being caught with
this?"

Gavrilo kicked the bales.

"No, be quiet. I'm going to deliver them at once and receive the
money. Yes!"

"Five hundred?"

"Not less, probably. . ."

"It's a lot! If I had it, poor beggar that I am, I'd soon let it be
known."

"At the village? . . ."

"Sure! without delay. . ."

Gavrilo let himself be carried away by his imagination. Tchelkache
appeared crushed. His moustache hung down straight; his right side
was all wet from the waves, his eyes were sunken in his head and
without life. 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.

The sky was covered with clouds, and a fine, drizzling rain began to
fall, pattering joyously on the crests of the waves.

"Stop! . . . Softly!" ordered Tchelkache.

The bow of the boat hit the hull of a vessel.

"Are the devils sleeping?" growled Tchelkache, catching the ropes
hanging over the side with his boat-hook. "The ladder isn't lowered.
In this rain, besides. . . It couldn't have rained before! Eh! You