The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

Lefty took a good look at their whole life and all their work, but he paid most attention to something that greatly astonished the Englishmen. He was interested not so much in how new guns were made as in the way the old ones were kept. He goes around and praises it all, and says:

“We can do that, too.”

But when he comes to an old gun, he puts his finger into the barrel, moves it around inside, and sighs:

“That,” he says, “is far superior to ours.”

The Englishmen simply couldn’t figure out what Lefty had noticed, and then he asks:

“Might I know whether our generals ever looked at that or not?”

They say:

“Those who were here must have looked at it.”

“And how were they,” he asks, “in gloves or without gloves?”

“Your generals,” they say, “wear dress uniforms, they always go about in gloves, meaning here as well.”

Lefty said nothing. But he suddenly felt a restless longing. He languished and languished and said to the Englishmen:

“I humbly thank you for all your treats, and I’m very pleased with everything here, and I’ve already seen everything I had to see, and now I’d like to go home quickly.”

There was no way they could keep him any longer. It was impossible for him to go by land, because he didn’t speak any languages, and to go by sea was not so good, because it was autumn and stormy, but he insisted that they let him go.

“We looked at the blowrometer,” they say. “A storm’s blowing up, you may drown; it’s not like your Gulf of Finland, it’s the real Firmaterranean Sea.”

“That makes no difference,” he replies. “Where you die is all the same, it’s God’s will, and I want to get back to my native land soon, because otherwise I may fetch myself some kind of insanity.”

They didn’t force him to stay: they fed him up, rewarded him with money, gave him a gold watch with a rebeater as a souvenir, and for the sea’s coolness on his late autumn journey they gave him a woolen coat with a windbreaking hood. They dressed Lefty very warmly and took him to a ship that was going to Russia. There they accommodated him in the best way, like a real squire, but he didn’t like sitting with other gentlemen in a closed space and felt abashed, so he would go up on deck, sit under a tarpoling, and ask: “Where is our Russia?”

The Englishman whom he asked would point his hand in that direction or nod his head, and Lefty would turn his face and look impatiently towards his native shore.

Once they left harbord for the Firmaterranean Sea, his longing for Russia became so strong that there was no way to calm him. There was a terrible downflood, but Lefty still would not go below to his room—he sits under the tarpoling, his hood pulled over his head, and looks towards his fatherland.

The Englishmen came many times to call him to the warm place below, but he even began to snap at them, so as not to be bothered.

“No,” he replies, “it’s better for me here outside; under the roof I may get seaccups from the fluctations.”

And so he never went below in all that time until one special occasion, through a certain bos’man who liked him very much and who, to our Lefty’s misfortune, could speak Russian. This bos’man could not help admiring that a Russian landlubber could endure such foul weather.

“Fine fellow, Rus!” he says. “Let’s drink!”

Lefty drank.

The bos’man says:

“Another!”

Lefty drank another, and they got drunk.

Then the bos’man asks him:

“What’s the secret you’re taking from our state to Russia?”

Lefty replies:

“That’s my business.”

“In that case,” replied the bos’man, “let’s make an English bet between us.”

Lefty asks:

“What sort?”

“This sort: that we don’t drink anything on our lonesome, but everything equally; whatever the one drinks, the other’s got to drink, too, and whichever out-drinks the other is the winner.”

Lefty thought: “The sky’s cloudy, my belly’s rowdy—the trip’s a big bore, it’s a long way to shore, and my native land can’t be seen beyond the waves—anyhow to make a bet will cheer things up.”

“All right,” he says, “you’re on!”

“Only keep it honest.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” he says.

So they agreed and shook hands.

XVII

They made the bet while still in the Firmaterranean Sea, and they drank till Dünamünde near Riga, but they kept even and did not yield to each other, and were so perfectly matched that when one looked into the sea and saw a devil emerging from the water, the same thing at once appeared to the other. Only the bos’man saw a red-haired devil, while Lefty said he was dark as a Moor.

Lefty says:

“Cross yourself and turn away—it’s the devil from the watery deep.”

And the Englishman argues that “it’s a deep-sea driver.”

“Do you want me to toss you into the sea?” he says. “Don’t be afraid—he’ll give you back to me at once.”

And Lefty replies:

“In that case, toss me in.”

The bos’man took him on his back and carried him to the bulwarps.