On Lubyanka Square, where the cabbies water their horses at the fountain, Senka suddenly felt like having a drink too – some kvass, or spiced tea, or orangeade. And his belly started rumbling as well. How long could he carry on, walking around empty-bellied? He hadn’t had a bite to eat since yesterday morning. He wasn’t some kind of monk now, was he?
That was when Senka’s problems started.
An ordinary person has all sorts of money: roubles and ten-kopeck coins and fifty-kopeck coins. But Senka the rich man had nothing but five-hundred-rouble notes. What good was that in a tavern or for hiring a cab? Who could give you that much change? Especially if you were dressed up Khitrovka-style: with you shirt hanging outside your trousers, concertina boots and a bandit’s cap perched on the back of your head.
Ah, he should have taken at least one petrusha from the jeweller in small notes, he could die of hunger like this, like the king in that story, the one they told at college: whatever the king touched turned to gold, so even with all those riches, there was no way the poor beggar could eat or drink a thing.
Senka went back on to Maroseika Street. He tried the shop – it was locked. There was just the parrot, Levonchik, sitting behind the glass squealing something – you couldn’t make out what it was from outside.
But it was plain to see – Ashot Ashotovich had stopped trading and gone running after those . . . what-were-they-called?. . . numismatist collectioners, to get down to business.
Maybe he should drop in on Tashka? Take back some of the money he gave her?
Well, for starters, she was probably already out walking the street. And anyway, he’d be ashamed. He gave her the beads and took them back again. He gave her money, and now he wanted to take that back too. No, he had to wriggle out of this fix himself.
Maybe he could nick something at the market, before it closed?
Just that morning, Senka would have lifted some grub no problem, he wouldn’t have thought twice. But it’s easy to steal when you’ve got nothing to lose and your heart’s wild and brave. If you’re afraid, you’re bound to get caught. And how could he not be afraid, with all that crunch rustling away under his shirt?
He was so desperately hungry, he could have howled. Why did he have to suffer this kind of torment? Two thousand in his pocket, and he couldn’t even buy a kopeck bun!
Senka got so annoyed with the low cunning of life that he stamped his foot, tossed his cap down on the ground, and let the tears come pouring out – not in two streams (like in the stories) but in four!
He stood there by a street lamp, bawling like a cretin.
Suddenly a child’s voice said: ‘Glasha, Glasha, look – a big boy, and he’s crying!’
The little kid was walking out of the market in a sailor suit. He had a red-faced woman with him – his nanny or someone like that, carrying a basket. She’d obviously just been to market to do her shopping, and the master’s little boy had tagged along.
The woman said: ‘If he’s crying, he must have troubles. He wants to eat.’
And she dropped a coin into his cap on the ground – fifteen kopecks, plonk.
Senka looked at that coin and started wailing even louder. He felt really hard done by now.
Suddenly there was a clang – another coin, five kopecks this time. An old woman in a shawl had thrown it. She made the sign of the cross over Senka and walked on.
He picked up the alms, and was about to dash off and buy some pies or some buns, but then he changed his mind. So he’d stuff his belly with a couple of buns, and then what? If he could collect three or four roubles, he could buy himself a jacket, and then maybe he could change a petrusha.
He squatted down on his haunches and started rubbing his eyes with his fists, not real hard, just enough to give them a pitiful look. And what do you think? The Christian people took pity on the weeping beggar. Senka had sat there for less than an hour before he had collected a whole heap of coppers. A rouble and a quarter, to be precise.
He sat there, blubbing and reasoning philosophically: