The gang reached the mine, and the men took their places on the quay.  It was said there would not be any loading, as the weather kept getting worse and the steamer was meaning to set off.  They could see three lights.  One of them was moving:  that was the steam-cutter going to the steamer, and it seemed to be coming back to tell them whether the work was to be done or not.  Shivering with the autumn cold and the damp sea mist, wrapping himself in his short torn coat, Yakov Ivanitch looked intently without blinking in the direction in which lay his home.  Ever since he had lived in prison together with men banished here from all ends of the earth—­with Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Georgians, Chinese, Gypsies, Jews—­ and ever since he had listened to their talk and watched their sufferings, he had begun to turn again to God, and it seemed to him at last that he had learned the true faith for which all his family, from his grandmother Avdotya down, had so thirsted, which they had sought so long and which they had never found.  He knew it all now and understood where God was, and how He was to be served, and the only thing he could not understand was why men’s destinies were so diverse, why this simple faith which other men receive from God for nothing and together with their lives, had cost him such a price that his arms and legs trembled like a drunken man’s from all the horrors and agonies which as far as he could see would go on without a break to the day of his death.  He looked with strained eyes into the darkness, and it seemed to him that through the thousand miles of that mist he could see home, could see his native province, his district, Progonnaya, could see the darkness, the savagery, the heartlessness, and the dull, sullen, animal indifference of the men he had left there.  His eyes were dimmed with tears; but still he gazed into the distance where the pale lights of the steamer faintly gleamed, and his heart ached with yearning for home, and he longed to live, to go back home to tell them there of his new faith and to save from ruin if only one man, and to live without suffering if only for one day.

The cutter arrived, and the overseer announced in a loud voice that there would be no loading.

“Back!” he commanded.  “Steady!”

They could hear the hoisting of the anchor chain on the steamer.  A strong piercing wind was blowing by now; somewhere on the steep cliff overhead the trees were creaking.  Most likely a storm was coming.

UPROOTED

An Incident of My Travels