Three Stories/Poldik the Scavenger/Chapter 1
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CHAPTER I.
EE! heesta!” (gee) shouted Poldik to his horses; he was driving with his wagon into Podskali (Undercliff) be it understood, and from there distributed throughout the city sand in summer and ice in winter.
Through summer, all through winter, and for many a long year it was the same monotonous journey to and fro. In summer he carted sand for the builders. When one house was completed, he carted for other builders perhaps in quite a different quarter of the city—that change occurred in summer. In winter when he had stocked the cellar of one brewer, he led ice to the neighbouring brewery, which was perhaps some streets distant—that change occurred in winter. Otherwise, provided the order was for the produce for the Moldau, ice and sand, he carted anywhere, his pilgrimage to the Moldau, always finishing with Myslikoff Street, thence diverging to the Zitne gasse, and finally passing the Sipkoff mills until at last it was brought to a termination at Naplavka (the Quay).
As soon as his vehicle had entered these streets, Poldik might have sat in his cart and gone to sleep; his horses would have found their way as we say “blindfold.” They knew hardly any other road. They were like the bucket of a well: we let it down one way and draw it up the same without a span breadth of difference, but always the same; and if they had awoke some morning in any of the streets, Poldik need never have opened his lips; they would have gone on of their own accord like automata through that portion of their circuit which was yet before them, be it to Naplavka or from Naplavka to the building steads. So perfectly familiar to them was this road that they knew instinctively where the ale-house was, where was the blacksmith’s forge, where the fruit stall, and where Poldik bought his tobacco.
Very frequently they stopped at the ale-house without Poldik’s bidding: and only again jogged on with the vehicle when their master tugged at the reins and said gee up or swore at them. But it also very frequently happened that their master did not tug the reins or say ‘gee up’ or swear at them; but let the reins hang loose by the cart and with heavy steps slouched into the ale-house. Much the same occurred at the blacksmith’s shop; here they generally stopped of their own accord for certain, because whenever they lost a shoe Poldik swore at them then and there, and that was a sign that they would get a fresh shoe at the blacksmith’s. As for the fruit stall, Poldik only occasionally recollected this halting place, turned aside to the little booth and shouted at the door “Two.” This had divers meanings according to the season of the year; either two kreutzer’s worth of cherries or pears, of plums or apples—or when there were none of these delicacies to be found at the stall—two kreutzer’s worth of brandy. Here, perhaps, for the sake of completeness I ought to detail what happened at the tobacconist’s. But Poldik frequently filled his pipe at the fruit stall and struck a light, and then it appeared to him that the world was better by a whole pipe of tobacco.
I do not pretend to enter into the sentiments of horses, but even Poldik’s horses saw the world in a better light after these halts, because they had a moment’s rest and quiet. They knew these modest stations well, and perhaps said to themselves, “There, if all be well, we shall enjoy another rest.”
I paint these horses for you, though you have seen them a hundred times; but they are indispensible for a proper understanding of my hero; although you have seen him also a hundred times. I do not know their life-history: they may have formed part of some grand turn-out: perhaps they had once served in a campaign, perhaps they were victorious with the heroes who rode them, perhaps with the same they beat an ignominious retreat. Now, they were horses because the Lord God had created them horses. Otherwise, they were more skeletons, with just a strip of horse’s hide stretched across them for the sake of appearances, and if animals, like men, were in the habit of divesting themselves of their outer garments at night, a pair of bony frameworks would have been seen taking their rest in the stables, and might have served for a sciolist to demonstrate anatomy on. Nor did the afore-mentioned horses’ hides by any means interfere with anyone who wished to compute the number of their ribs. You could do it to a hair, and see where the ribs began and where they ended, where the stomach was or rather ought to have been, where the hip bones were and similar portions, which even a painter tries to endue with a certain amount of flesh.
They were, then, bones and leather, only that even this comparison is not quite correct. Their leather was rent in many a place, particularly in the region of the ribs and hip bones where the straps frayed them; in some places it was even frayed off altogether, especially about the neck where the collar sat. At times these frayed and shabby objects tempted the fancy to divers comparisons. They looked like the seedy old sofa of some aged country parson, and only wanted a little horse hair or whatever the sofa was stuffed with to peep out from their rent hides, to make the comparison perfect. Or, again, they looked like an old sleeve of a past generation, which no longer gave any warmth to the wearer, because all the nap was rubbed off.
These horses, then, were far removed from their prototype Pegasus—as far, indeed, as the hod-man is from the architect, or the drummer in the orchestra from the composer of the overture.
Had Apollo clapped wings on to these creatures of Poldik—had he clapped on to them the original pair of poet’s wings, they would never, for all the world, have flown along Myslikoff Street—much less have taken flight above it. When they stood still and Poldik’s “Cl! cl!” and his whip gave them to understand that they were to bestir themselves, you could count up a fair number of seconds before their volition imparted itself to all the harness, before the traces stretched tight, before the fore wheel got an inkling of what was toward, before the cart creaked and incited even the hind wheels to rotate, and before the whole system was in motion: horses, cart, and Poldik.
And when they were at last on the go their pace was above measure deliberate. Perhaps not even clockwork is so completely uniform, for we see clocks gain or lose. But Poldik’s horses never gained a minute in a whole year, though to their praise be it added that they never lost a minute either. A sluggish, even, deliberate pace was so strong a portion of their characters that neither Poldik’s whip nor his oaths caused the least variation therefrom. Poldik’s whip seemed to them a necessary concomitant to their own deliberate pace; if they had missed it in certain conjunctures, and in the same conjunctures had not. heard the well-known oaths, they would certainly have cried out—had they been gifted with human speech—“Why don’t you crack your whip again now? why don’t you swear at us again?”
An anatomist, gazing at their even, and ever sluggish pace, might have verified what muscles it was by which they extended their feet; he would have had plenty of time for this.
For their regularity of movement they were not themselves wholly to blame. They got just enough fodder to keep them in leather, and this leather held them together just enough for Poldik still at times to boast to his companions that they pulled “like clockwork.” Perhaps if they had got more fodder they would have pulled like greased clockwork, but no opportunity was given to them of converting more victuals into blood and muscle; therefore we can believe that if more fodder had been placed before them, they would not have cared about it.
Poldik’s own gait much resembled the pace of these dilapidated horses. By long tramping beside his vehicle, his pace had been drilled into one just as sluggish, slow, and vacillating, even on Sunday, when he no longer walked behind his vehicle, his step was no fresher nor brisker. The ‘tempo’ of the previous week still maintained itself in his limbs, and he went on just as regularly as the small wheel in a watch. But inasmuch as the usual pace at which people move is considerably brisker than that of scavenger’s horses, Poldik’s step was uniformly shaky; every time he lifted one foot and brought it forward his body made a corresponding contortion as though he wished to take half a step backward. This shaky manner of walking was his habitual manner, and so even on Sunday when he indulged in something of a strut the upper portion of his person kept shaking and swaying as if it wished to compensate for the sluggishness of his ordinary pace.
It also sometimes came to pass that Poldik had to quicken his steps, when the horses entangled the reins or traces under their feet, when a horse lost a shoe or anything of the like nature occurred. But as soon as the affair was put to rights and the cranky vehicle moved on, Poldik remained standing and waited until the vehicle had jogged on so far that he found himself once more in his usual place. Then he felt as though he had over-exerted himself, and lapsed into his usual regular pace to rest himself. And he rested long enough.
Sometimes it would happen that he wished to have some confidential and important conversation with the scavenger who was driving the cart behind him. On these occasions he allowed his vehicle to rumble on ahead while he himself paused and waited until the other carter caught him up. When their chat was over, Poldik had to overtake his own horses, and perhaps they might be thirty paces or thereabouts in advance. Such moments necessarily stirred both his blood and his stumps, and for thirty paces he had matters for reflection as to how he had lagged behind, how he had fatigued himself, and whether it was worth the while.
Such pauses and delays did not occur frequently. Poldik had no great need of them.
Not only was his step measured, vacillating and swaying his whole character was equally measured vacillating and swaying. All his thoughts and conceptions were so in their inception and concludings. It must be something of extreme importance, in fact, of absolute necessity which should cause Poldik to halt and wait for his follower and cart to catch him up and enter into conversation. In general he managed to learn what he wished to know by looks alone, and seldom had recourse to words. A whole dialogue was thus disposed of as they passed one another or trailed after one another, merely by means of glances. Thus one of his mates had a white horse that limped on Saturday. Poldik saw them again on Monday, and the white horse no longer limped. He glanced at the happy possessor of the beast, and this glance meant “the white horse has soon recovered.” The other glanced at Poldik, infused a certain smug satisfaction into his look, and this look meant “No; he does not limp to-day,” or he saw the white horse in the forenoon with one of its shoes off, and when he met it in the afternoon the shoe was still missing. Here Poldik looked at the carter, and and this look meant “It is still with one of its shoes off!” The owner of the white horse similarly replied by a look, and in it Poldik heard or saw the words “we have been very busy to-day, and really have not had time.”
Poldik’s regularity was shown moreover in the way he spoke to his horses. Just as if he had been laying out a road, he counted twenty Poldikian steps—and only after this precise measurement, pulled the rein, cracked the whip, and shouted “Hee!” You might wager your head it would not come one step before or after the twenty paces. Only I must except certain special occasions. On Monday when he put to the horses after their Sabbath rest he shouted ‘hee!’ twenty times during the first twenty steps. That was to compensate for all that had been omitted on the Sunday. And this single circumstance proves to me that he did not usually shout out in his sleep or in moments of rest and abstraction. Moreover this exclamation occurred more frequently early in the morning during the first few steps, and again in the afternoon after the midday meal.
In this Poldikian “hee!” rested a whole dictionary. Generally it was only a common-place incitement to activity, pronounced clearly and pithily. But when something touched, angered, or vexed Poldik, the horses certainly became aware of the fact, for the “hee!” was forcibly expressed and sharply pronounced. Similarly, if he congratulated himself about some trifle or if he felt a bit of self-satisfaction, the horses knew it, for then the “hee!” was scarcely audible, it was only softly murmured as if spoken in a sort of a soliloquy. At such times it would happen that the horses stopped at the ale-house of their own accord. But something much out of the common way must have staggered the soul of Poldik before he prolonged the “hee!” and made of it “heesta!” Then the horses gathered themselves together and took several steps at a quicker rate, so that it was only on these occasions that, comparing them to a watch, they could be said to gain a little. But, indeed, these irregularities were so rare that they were almost lost in the distance of ages. Only to us who are Poldik’s biographers, are even these irregularities matters of importance; as we shall see in the sequel.
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