on the same spot and jerking with his elbows in all directions,
he begins awkwardly trying to describe a circle on the ice. Seryozhka
screws up his eyes contemptuously and obviously enjoys his awkwardness
and incompetence.

"Eh-eh-eh!" he mutters angrily. "Even that you can't do! The fact
is you are a stupid peasant, a wooden-head! You ought to be grazing
geese and not making a Jordan! Give the compasses here! Give them
here, I say!"

Seryozhka snatches the compasses out of the hands of the perspiring
Matvey, and in an instant, jauntily twirling round on one heel, he
describes a circle on the ice. The outline of the new Jordan is
ready now, all that is left to do is to break the ice. . .

But before proceeding to the work Seryozhka spends a long time in
airs and graces, whims and reproaches. . .

"I am not obliged to work for you! You are employed in the church,
you do it!"

He obviously enjoys the peculiar position in which he has been
placed by the fate that has bestowed on him the rare talent of
surprising the whole parish once a year by his art. Poor mild Matvey
has to listen to many venomous and contemptuous words from him.
Seryozhka sets to work with vexation, with anger. He is lazy. He
has hardly described the circle when he is already itching to go
up to the village to drink tea, lounge about, and babble. . .

"I'll be back directly," he says, lighting his cigarette, "and
meanwhile you had better bring something to sit on and sweep up,
instead of standing there counting the crows."

Matvey is left alone. The air is grey and harsh but still. The white
church peeps out genially from behind the huts scattered on the
river bank. Jackdaws are incessantly circling round its golden
crosses. On one side of the village where the river bank breaks off
and is steep a hobbled horse is standing at the very edge, motionless
as a stone, probably asleep or deep in thought.

Matvey, too, stands motionless as a statue, waiting patiently. The
dreamily brooding look of the river, the circling of the jackdaws,
and the sight of the horse make him drowsy. One hour passes, a
second, and still Seryozhka does not come. The river has long been
swept and a box brought to sit on, but the drunken fellow does not
appear. Matvey waits and merely yawns. The feeling of boredom is
one of which he knows nothing. If he were told to stand on the river
for a day, a month, or a year he would stand there.

At last Seryozhka comes into sight