I ran to the stern. The night was cloudy, the river black. In the wake of the boat seethed two gray lines of water leading to the invisible shore; between these two lines the barge dragged on its way. Now on the right, now on the left appeared red patches of light, without illuminating anything. They disappeared, hidden by the sudden winding of the shore. After this it became still darker and more gruesome.
The cook came and sat beside me, sighed deeply, and pulled at his cigarette.
"So they were taking you to that creature? _Ekh!_ Dirty beasts! I heard them trying."
"Her?" He abused the girl coarsely, and continued in a sad tone:
"It is all nastiness here. This boat is worse than a village. Have you ever lived in a village?"
"In a village there is nothing but misery, especially in the winter."
Throwing his cigarette overboard, he was silent. Then he spoke again.
"You have fallen among a herd of swine, and I am sorry for you, my little one. I am sorry for all of them, too. Another time I do not know what I should have done. Gone on my knees and prayed. What are you doing, sons of ----? What are you doing, blind creatures? Camels!"
The steamer gave a long-drawn-out hoot, the tow-rope splashed in the water, the lights of lanterns jumped up and down, showing where the harbor was. Out of the darkness more lights appeared.
"Pyani Bor [a certain pine forest]. Drunk," growled the cook. "And there is a river called Pyanaia, and there was a captain called Pyenkov, and a writer called Zapivokhin, and yet another captain called Nepei-pivo.[1] I am going on shore."
The coarse-grained women and girls of Kamska dragged logs of wood from the shore in long trucks. Bending under their load-straps, with pliable tread, they arrived in pairs at the stoker's hold, and, emptying their sooty loads into the black hole, cried ringingly:
[Footnote 1: Pyanaia means "drunk," and the other names mentioned come from the same root. Nepei-pivo means, "Do not drink beer."]
When they brought the wood the sailors would take hold of them by the breasts or the legs. The women squealed, spat at the men, turned back, and defended themselves against pinches and blows with their trucks. I saw this a hundred times, on every voyage and at every land-stage where they took in wood, and it was always the same thing.