The Sowers | Page 5

and
say nothing about it. I wonder where his passport is? We have here a
tragedy."
He turned to the horse, which was grazing hurriedly.
"My friend of the four legs," he said, "it is a thousand pities that you
are dumb."
Paul was still examining the dead man with that callousness which

denotes one who, for love or convenience, has become a doctor. He
was a doctor--an amateur. He was a Caius man.
Steinmetz looked down at him with a little laugh. He noticed the
tenderness of the touch, the deft fingering which had something of
respect in it. Paul Alexis was visibly one of those men who take
mankind seriously, and have that in their hearts which for want of a
better word we call sympathy.
"Mind you do not catch some infectious disease," said Steinmetz
gruffly. "I should not care to handle any stray moujik one finds dead
about the roadside; unless, of course, you think there is more money
about him. It would be a pity to leave that for the police."
Paul did not answer. He was examining the limp, dirty hands of the
dead man. The fingers were covered with soil, the nails were broken.
He had evidently clutched at the earth and at every tuft of grass, after
his fall from the saddle.
"Look here, at these hands," said Paul suddenly. "This is an
Englishman. You never see fingers this shape in Russia."
Steinmetz stooped down. He held out his own square-tipped fingers in
comparison. Paul rubbed the dead hand with his sleeve as if it were a
piece of statuary.
"Look here," he continued, "the dirt rubs off and leaves the hand quite a
gentlemanly color. This"--he paused and lifted Steinmetz's
handkerchief, dropping it again hurriedly over the mutilated face--"this
thing was once a gentleman."
"It certainly has seen better days," admitted Steinmetz, with a grim
humor which was sometimes his. "Come, let us drag him beneath that
pine-tree and ride on to Tver. We shall do no good, my dear Alexis,
wasting our time over the possible antecedents of a gentleman who, for
reasons of his own, is silent on the subject."
Paul rose from the ground. His movements were those of a strong and

supple man, one whose muscles had never had time to grow stiff. He
was an active man, who never hurried. Standing thus upright he was
very tall--nearly a giant. Only in St. Petersburg, of all the cities of the
world, could he expect to pass unnoticed--the city of tall men and plain
women. He rubbed his two hands together in a singularly professional
manner which sat amiss on him.
"What do you propose doing?" he asked. "You know the laws of this
country better than I do."
Steinmetz scratched his forehead with his forefinger.
"Our theatrical friends the police," he said, "are going to enjoy this.
Suppose we prop him up sitting against that tree--no one will run away
with him--and lead his horse into Tver. I will give notice to the police,
but I will not do so until you are in the Petersburg train. I will, of
course, give the ispravnik to understand that your princely mind could
not be bothered by such details as this--that you have proceeded on
your journey."
"I do not like leaving the poor beggar alone all night," said Paul. "There
may be wolves--the crows in the early morning."
"Bah! that is because you are so soft-hearted. My dear fellow, what
business is it of ours if the universal laws of nature are illustrated upon
this unpleasant object? We all live on each other. The wolves and the
crows have the last word. Tant mieux for the wolves and the crows!
Come, let us carry him to that tree."
The moon was just rising over the line of the horizon. All around them
the steppe lay in grim and lifeless silence. In such a scene, where life
seemed rare and precious, death gained in its power of inspiring fear. It
is different in crowded cities, where an excess of human life seems to
vouch for the continuity of the race, where, in a teeming population,
one life more or less seems of little value. The rosy hue of sunset was
fading to a clear green, and in the midst of a cloudless sky,
Jupiter--very near the earth at that time--shone intense, and brilliant like
a lamp. It was an evening such as only Russia and the great North lands

ever see, where the sunset is almost in the north and the sunrise holds it
by the hand. Over the whole scene there hung a clear, transparent night,
green and shimmering, which would never be darker than an English
twilight.
The two living men carried the nameless, unrecognizable dead to a
resting-place beneath