THE VILLAGE

THIS AUTHORISED TRANSLATION HAS

BEEN MADE FROM THE ORIGINAL

RUSSIAN TEXT BY ISABEL HAPGOOD

THE VILLAGE

By Ivan Bunin

LONDON: MARTIN SECKER

NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

LONDON : MARTIN SECKER (LTD.) 1923

CONTENTS

PART ONE 15

PART TWO 131

PART THREE 203

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Dear Publisher:

You have asked me to furnish you with data con-

cerning my life and literary activities. Permit me

to repeat what I have already told my French pub-

lishers in answer to a similar request.

I am a descendant of an ancient noble family which

has given to Russia a considerable number of promi-

nent names, both in the field of statesmanship and

in the realm of art. In the latter, two poets are espe-

cially well-known, Anna Petrovna Bunina and Vasili

Zhookovski, one of the shining lights of Russian Lit-

erature, the son of Afanasi Bunin and a Turkish cap-

tive, Salma.

All my ancestors had always been connected with

the people and with the land; they were landed propri-

etors. My parents were also land-owners, who pos-

sessed estates in Central Asia, in the fertile fringe of

the steppes, where the ancient Tsars of Moscow had

created settlements of colonists from various Russian

territories, to serve as protectors of their Kingdom

against the incursions of the Southern Tartars.

Thanks to this, it was here that the richest Russian

language developed, and from here have come nearly

all the greatest Russian writers, with Turgenev and

Tolstoy at their head.

[7]

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

I was born in 1870, in the town of Voronezh, and

passed my childhood and youth almost entirely in the

country, on my father's estates. As a boy, I was

deeply affected by the death of my little sister, and

passed through a violent religious crisis, which left,

however, no morbid traces whatsoever in my soul.

I also had a passion for painting, which, I believe,

has manifested itself in my literary works. I began

to write both verse and prose rather early in my

life. My first appearance in print was likewise at an

early date.

When publishing my books, I nearly always made

them up of prose and verse, both original and trans-

lated from the English. If classified according to their

literary varieties, these books would constitute some

four volumes of original poems, approximately two of

translations, and six volumes or so of prose.

The attention of the critics was very quickly at-

tracted to me. Later on my books were more than

once granted the highest award within the gift of the

Russian Academy of Sciences — the prize bearing Push-

kin's name. In 1909 that Academy elected me one of

the twelve Honorary Academicians, who correspond

to the French Immortals, and of whom Lyof Tolstoy

was one at that time.

For a long time, however, I did not enjoy any wide

popularity, owing to many reasons: for years, after

my first stories had appeared in print, I wrote and

published almost nothing but verse; I took no part

in politics and, in my works, never touched upon ques-

tions connected with politics; I belonged to no particu-

[8]

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

lar literary school, called myself neither decadent, nor

symbolist, nor romantic, nor naturalist, donned no

mask of any kind, and hung out no flamboyant flag.

Yet, during these last stormy decades in Russia, the

fate of a Russian writer has frequently depended upon

such questions as: Is he an opponent of the existing

form of Government? Has he come from "the peo-

ple"? Has he been in prison, in exile? Or, does he

take part in the literary hubbub, in the "literary rev-

olution," which — merely in imitation of Western Eu-

rope — went on during those years in Russia, together

with a rapid development of public life in the towns, of

new critics and readers from among the young bour-

geoisie and the youthful proletariat, who were as ig-

norant in the understanding of art as they were avid

of imaginary novelties and all kinds of sensations.

Besides, I mixed very little in literary society. I lived

a great deal in the country, and traveled extensively

both in Russia and abroad: in Italy, in Sicily, in Tur-

key, in the Balkans, in Greece, in Syria, in °alestine,

in Egypt, in Algeria, in Tunisia, in the iropics. I

strove "to view the face of the earth and leave thereon

the impress of my soul," to quote Saadi, and I have

been interested in philosophic, religious, ethical and

historical problems.

Twelve years ago I published my novel "The Vil-

lage." This was the first of a whole series of works

v/hich depicted the Russian character without adorn-

ment, the Russian soul, its peculiar complexity, its

depths, both bright and dark, though almost invari-

ably tragic. On the part of the Russian critics and

19]

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

among the Russian intellectuals, where "the people"

had nearly always been idealized, owing to numerous

Russian conditions sui generis, and, of late, merely be-

cause of the ignorance of the people, or for political

reasons, — these "merciless" works of mine called forth

passionate controversies and, as a final result, brought

me what is called success, success strengthened still

further by my subsequent works.

During those years I felt my hand growing firmer

every hour; I felt that the powers which had accumu-

lated and matured in me, passionately and boldly,

demanded an outlet. Just then the World War broke

out and afterwards the Russian Revolution came. I

was not among those who were taken unawares by

these events, for whom their extent and beastliness

were a complete surprise; yet the reality has surpassed

all my expectations.

What the Russian Revolution turned into very soon,

none will comprehend who has not seen it. This spec-

tacle was utterably unbearable to any one who had

not ceased to be a man in the image and likeness of

God, and all who had a chance to flee, fled from Rus-

sia. Flight was sought by the vast majority of the

most prominent Russian writers, primarily, because

in Russia there awaited them either senseless death at

the hands of the first chance miscreant, drunk with

licentiousness and impunity, with rapine, with wine,

with blood, with cocaine; or an ignominious existence

as a slave in the darkness, teeming with lice, in rags,

amid epidemic diseases, exposed to cold, to hunger, to

the primitive torments of the stomach, and absorbed in

[10]

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

that single, degrading concern, under the eternal

threat of being thrown out of his mendicant's den into

the street, of being sent to the barracks to clean up

the soldiers' filth, of being — without any reason what-

ever, — arrested, beaten, abused, of seeing one's own

mother, sister or wife violated — and yet having to

preserve utter silence, for in Russia they cut out

tongues for the slightest word of freedom.

I left Moscow in May, 1918, lived in the South of

Russia (which passed back and forth from the hands

of the "Whites" into those of the "Reds") and then

emigrated in February, 1919, after having drained to

the dregs the cup of unspeakable suffering and vain

hopes. For too long I had believed that the eyes of

the Christian world would be opened, that it would be

horrified at its own heartlessness, and would extend to

us a helping hand in the name of God, of humanity

and of its own safety.

Some critics have called me cruel and gloomy. I

do not think that this definition is fair and accurate.

But of course, I have derived much honey and still

more bitterness from my wanderings throughout the

world, and my observations of human life. I had felt

a vague fear for the fate of Russia, when I was depict-

ing her. Is it my fault that reality, the reality in

which Russia has been living for more than five years

now, has justified my apprehensions beyond all meas-

ure; that those pictures of mine which had once upon

a time appeared black, and wide of the truth, even in

the eyes of Russian people, have become prophetic, as

some call them now? "Woe unto thee, Babylon!" —

111]

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

those terrible words of the Apocalypse kept persist-

ently ringing in my soul when I wrote "The Brothers"

and conceived "The Gentleman from San Francisco,"

only a few months before the War, when I had a pre-

sentiment of all its horror, and of the abysses which

have since been laid bare in our present-day civiliza-

tion. Is it my fault, that here again my presentiments

have not deceived me?

However, does it mean that my soul is filled only

with darkness and despair? Not at all. "As the hart

panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul

after thee, O God!"

Ivan Bunin.

{12]

PART ONE

I

THE great-grandfather of the Krasoffs, known by

the manor-house servants under the nickname

of "The Gipsy," was hunted with wolf-hounds

by Cavalry Captain Durnovo. The Gipsy had lured

his lord-and-master's mistress away from him. Dur-

novo gave orders that The Gipsy should be taken out

into the fields and placed on a hillock. Then he him-

self went out there with a pack of hounds and shouted

"Tallyho! Go for him!" The Gipsy, who was sitting

there in a state of stupor, started to run. But there

is no use in running away from wolf-hounds.

The grandfather of the Krasoffs, for some reason or

other, was given a letter of enfranchisement. Me

went off with his family to the town — and soon dis-

tinguished himself by becoming a famous thief. He

hired a tiny hovel in the Black Suburb for his wife

and set her to weaving lace for sale, while he, in

company with a petty burgher named Byelokopytoff,

roamed about the province robbing churches. At the

end of a couple of years he was caught. But at his

trial he bore himself in such fashion that his replies to

the judges were current for a long time thereafter. He

stood before them, it appears, in a velveteen kaftan,

with a silver watch and goat-hide boots, making in-

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THE VILLAGE

solent play with his cheek-bones and his eyes and, in

the most respectful manner, confessing every one of his

innumerable crimes, even the most insignificant: "Yes,

sir. Just so, sir."

The father of the Krasoffs was a petty huckster.

He roved about the county, lived for a time in

Durnovka, set up a pot-house and a little shop, failed,

took to drink, returned to the town, and soon died.

After serving for a while in shops his sons, Tikhon and

Kuzma, who were almost of an age, also took to ped-

dling. They drove about in a peasant cart which had

a carved front and a roofed, shop-like arrangement in

the middle, and shouted in doleful tones: "Wo-omen,

here's merchandise! Wo-omen, here's merchandise!"

The merchandise consisted of small mirrors, cheap

soap, rings, thread, kerchiefs, needles, cracknels — these

in the covered shop. The open-body cart contained-

everything they gathered in: dead cats, eggs, heavy

linen, crash, rags. But one day, after having thus

travelled about for the space of several years, the

brothers came near cutting each other's throats — in a

dispute over the division of the profits, rumour averred

— and separated to avoid a catastrophe. Kuzma hired

himself to a drover. Tikhon took over a small post-

ing-house on the metalled highway of Vorgol, five

versts x from Durnovka, and opened a dram-shop and

a tiny "popular" shop. — "I deal in small wears tea

shugar tubako sigars and so furth."

1 A verst is two-thirds of a mile. — trans.

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II

BY the time Tikhon Hitch was about forty years

of age his beard resembled silver with patterns

of black enamel. But he was handsome and

tall, with a fine figure, as before. He was austere and

swarthy of face, slightly pock-marked, with broad, lean

shoulders; authoritative and abrupt of speech, quick

and supple in his movements. Only — his eyebrows had

begun to come closer together and his eyes to flash

more frequently and more sharply than before. Busi-

ness demanded it!

Indcfatigably he followed up the rural police on

those dull autumnal days when taxes are collected and

forced sale follows forced sale. Unweariedly he bought

standing grain on the stalk from the landed proprietors

and took land from them and from the peasants, in

small parcels, not scorning even half a meadow. He

lived for a long time with his dumb cook — "A dumb

woman can't betray anything with her chatter!" — and

had by her one child, whom she overlay and crushed in

her sleep, after which he married an elderly waiting-

maW of old Princess Schakhovoy. And on marrying

and receiving the dowry he "finished off" the last scion

of the impoverished Durnovo family, a fat, affable

young nobleman, bald at twenty-five, but possessed of

a magnificent chestnut beard. And the peasants fairly

grunted with pride when Tikhon took possession of the

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Durnovo estate — for almost the whole of Durnovka

consisted of Krasoffs!

They s/>ed and ob-ed, also, over the way in which

he had cunningly contrived not to ruin himself. He

bargained and bought, went to the estate almost every

day, kept watch with the eye of a vulture over every

hand's breadth of the land. They uttered admiring ex-

clamations and said: "Yes, there's nothing to be done

with us devils by kindness, you know! There's a mas-

ter for you! You couldn't have one more just!"

And Tikhon Hitch dealt with them in the same spirit.

When he was in an amiable mood he read them their

lesson thus: "It's all right to live — but not to squan-

der. I shall pluck you if I get the chance! I shall

bring you back. But I shall be just. I'm a Russian

man, brother." When in an evil mood, he would say

curtly, with eyes blazing: "Pigs! There is not a

juster man in the world than I am!" "Pigs, all right

— but that's not me," the peasant would think, averting

his eyes from that gaze. And he would mumble sub-

missively: "Oh, Lord, don't we know it?" "Yes, you

know it, but you have forgotten. I don't want your

property gratis, but bear this in mind: I won't give you

a scrap of what's mine! There's that brother of mine:

he's a rascal, a toper, but I would help him if he came

and implored me. I call God as my witness that I

would help him! But coddle him — ! No, take note

of that: I do no coddling. I'm no brainless Little

Russian, brother!"

And Nastasya Petrovna, who walked like a duck,

with her toes turned inward, and waddled, thanks to her

[18]

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incessant pregnancies which always ended up with dead

girl-babies — Nastasya Petrovna, a yellow, puffy woman

with scanty whitish-blond hair, would groan and back

him up: "Okh, you are a simpleton, in my opinion!

Why do you bother with him, with that stupid man?

Is he a fit associate for you? You just knock some

sense into him; 'twill do him no harm. Look at the

way he's straddling with his legs — as if he were a bo-

khar of emir!" 1 She was "terribly fond" of pigs and

fowls, and Tikhon Hitch began to fatten sucking pigs,

turkey chicks, hens, and geese. But his ruling passion

was amassing grain. In autumn, alongside his house,

which stood with one side turned toward the highway

and the other toward the posting-station, the creaking

of wheels arose in a groan; the wagon trains turned in

from above and below. And in the farmyard horse-

traders, peddlers, chicken-vendors, cracknel peddlers,

scythe-vendors, and pilgrims passed the night. Every

moment a pulley was squeaking — now on the door of

the dram-shop, where Nastasya Petrovna bustled

about; now on the approach to the shop, a dark, dirty

place, reeking of soap, herrings, rank tobacco, ginger-

bread flavoured with peppermint, horse-collars, and

kerosene. And incessantly there rang out in the dram-

shop:

"U-ukh! Your vodka is strong, Petrovna! It has

knocked me in the head, devil take it!"

" 'Twill make your mouth water, my dear man!"

1 This muddling of "Emir of Bukhara" is only one ex-

ample of the ignorant combinations and locutions used by the

peasant characters. — trans.

[19]

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"Is there snuff in your vodka?"

"Well, now, you fool yourself!"

In the shop the crowd was even more dense.

"Hitch, weigh me out a pound of ham."

"This year, brother, I'm so well stocked with ham —

so well stocked, thank God!"

"What's the price?"

"Tis cheap!"

"Hey, proprietor, have you good tar?"

"Better tar than your grandfather had at his wed-

ding, my good man!" x

"What's the price?"

And it seemed as if, at the KrasofTs', there were never

any other conversation than that about the prices of

things: What's the price of ham, what's the price

of boards, what's the price of groats, what's the price

of tar?

Ill

THE abandonment of his hope of having children

and the closing of the dram-shops by the gov-

ernment were great events. Tikhon visibly

aged when there no longer remained any doubt that he

was not to become a father. At first he jested about

it: "No sir, I'll get my way. Without children a

man is not a man. He's only so-so — a sort of spot

X A play on words, "tar" in the second sentence meaning

"liquor."— trans.

[20]

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missed in the sowing." But later on he was assailed by

terror. What did it mean? one overlay her child, the

other bore only dead children.

And the period of Nastasya Petrovna's last preg-

nancy had been a difficult time. Tikhon Hitch suf-

fered and raged: Nastasya Petrovna prayed in secret,

wept in secret, and was a pitiful sight when, of a night

by the light of the shrine-lamp, she slipped out of bed,

assuming that her husband was asleep, and began with

difficulty to kneel down, touch her brow to the floor as

she whispered her prayers, gaze with anguish at the

holy pictures, and rise from her knees painfully, like an

old woman. Hitherto, before going to bed, she had

donned slippers and dressing-gown, said her prayers in-

differently, and, as she prayed, taken pleasure in run-

ning over the list of her acquaintances and abusing

them. Now there stood before the holy picture a

simple peasant woman in a short cotton petticoat, white

woolen stockings, and a chemise which did not cover

her neck and arms, fat like those of an old person.

Tikhon Hitch had never, from his childhood, liked

shrine-lamps, although he had never been willing to

confess it, even to himself; nor did he like their uncer-

tain churchly light. All his life there had remained

impressed upon his mind that November night when,

in the tiny lop-sided hut in the Black Suburb, a shrine-

lamp had also burned, peaceful and sweetly-sad, the

shadows of its chains barely moving, while everything

around was deathly silent; and on the bench below the

holy pictures his father lay motionless with eyes closed,

his sharp nose raised, his big purplish-waxen hands

[21]

THE VILLAGE

crossed on his breast; while by his side, just beyond the

tiny window curtained with its red rag, the conscripts

marched past with wildly mournful songs and shouts,

their accordions squealing discordantly. — Now the

shrine-lamp burned uninterruptedly, and Tikhon Hitch

felt as if Nastasya Petrovna were carrying on some

sort of secret affair with uncanny powers.

A number of book-hawkers from the Vladimir gov-

ernment halted by the posting-house to bait their

horses — with the result that there made its appearance

in the house a "New Complete Oracle and Magician,

which foretells the future in answer to questions; with

Supplement setting forth the easiest methods of tell-

ing fortunes by cards, beans, and coffee." And of an

evening Nastasya Petrovna would put on her spec-

tacles, mould a little ball of wax, and set to rolling it

over the circles of the "Oracle." And Tikhon Hitch

would look on, with sidelong glances. But all the

answers turned out to be either insulting, menacing, or

senseless.

"Does my husband love me?" Nastasya Petrovna

would inquire.

And the "Oracle" replied: "He loves you as a dog

loves a stick."

"How many children shall I have?"

"You are fated to die: the field must be cleared

of weeds."

Then Tikhon Hitch would say: "Give it here. I'll

have a try." And he would propound the question:

"Ought I to start a law-suit with a person whose name

I won't mention?"

[22]

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But he, likewise, got nonsense for an answer:

"Count the teeth in your mouth."

One day Tikhon Hitch, when he glanced into the

kitchen, saw his wife beside the cradle in which lay the

cook's baby. A speckled chicken which was wandering

along the window ledge, pecking and catching flies,

tapped the glass with its beak; but she sat there on the

sleeping-board and, while she rocked the cradle, sang

in a pitiful quaver:

"Where lieth my little child?

Where is his tiny bed?

He is in the lofty chamber,

In the painted cradle gay.

Let no one come there to us,

Or knock at the chamber door!

He hath fallen asleep, he resteth

Beneath the canopy dark,

Covered with flowered silk. . . ."

And Tikhon Hitch's face underwent such a change at

that moment that Nastasya Petrovna, as she glanced

at him, experienced no confusion, felt no fear, but only

fell a-weeping and, brushing away her tears, said

softly: "Take me away, for Christ's dear sake, to the

Holy Man."

And Tikhon Hitch took her to Zadonsk. But as he

went he was thinking in his heart that God would cer-

tainly chastise him because, in the bustle and cares

of life, he went to church only for the service on Easter

Day, and otherwise lived as if he were a Tatar. Sacri-

legious thoughts also wormed their way into his head.

[23]

THE VILLAGE

He kept comparing himself to the parents of the

Saints, who likewise had long remained childless. This

was not clever — but he had long since come to per-

ceive that; there dwe! .vithin him some one who was

more stupid than himself. Before his departure he

had received a letter from Mount Athos: "Most God-

loving Benefactor, Tikhon Hitch! Peace be unto you,

and salvation, the blessing of the Lord and the honour-

able Protection of the All-Sung Mother of God, from

her earthly portion, the holy Mount Athos! I have

had the happiness of hearing about your good works,

and that with love you apportion your mite for the

building and adornment of God's temples and monastic

cells. With the years my hovel has reached such a

dilapidated condition. . . ." And Tikhon Hitch sent a

ten-ruble bank-note to be used for repairing the hovel.

The time was long past when he had believed, with

ingenuous pride, that rumours concerning him had ac-

tually reached as far as Mount Athos, and he knew

well enough that far too many hovels on Mount Athos

had become dilapidated. Nevertheless, he sent the

money.

But even that proved of no avail.

The government monopoly of the liquor trade acted

as salt on a raw wound. When the hope of children

failed him utterly, the thought occurred ever more fre-

quently to Tikhon Hitch: "What's the object of all

this convict hard labour, anyway? devil take it!" And

his hands began to tremble with rage, his brows to con-

tract and arch themselves, his upper lip to quiver —

[24]

tHE VILLAGE

especially when he uttered the phrase which was inces-

santly in his mouth: "Bear in mind — !" He con-

tinued, as before, to affect youthfulness — wore dandy-

fied soft boots and art embroidered shirt fastened at

one side, Russian style, under a double-breagted short

coat. But his beard grew ever whiter, more sparse,

more tangled.

And that summer, as if with malicious intent, turned

out to be hot and dry. The rye was absolutely ruined.

It became a pleasure to whine to the buyers. "I'm

closing down my business — shutting up shop!" Tikhon

Hitch said with satisfaction, referring to his liquor

trade. He enunciated every word clearly. "The

Minister has a fancy for going into trade on his own

account, to be sure!"

"Okh, just look at you!" groaned Nastasya Petrovna.

"You're calling down bad luck. You'll be chased off

to a place so far that even the crows don't drag their

bones there!"

"Don't you worry, ma'am," Tikhon Hitch inter-

rupted her brusquely, with a frown. "No, ma'am!

You can't gag every mouth with a kerchief!" And

again, enunciating even more sharply, he addressed.the

customer: "And the rye, sir, is a joy to behold!

Bear that in mind — a joy to everybody! By night,

sir, if you'll believe it — by night, sir, even then it can

be seen. You step out on the threshold and gaze at

the fields by the light of the moon : it's as sparse as the

hair on a bald head. You go out and stare: the fields

are shining-naked!"

[25]

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IV

DURING the Fast of St. Peter Tikhon Hitch spent

four days in the town at the Fair and got

still more out of tune, thanks to his worries,

the heat, and sleepless nights. Ordinarily he set out for

the Fair with great gusto. At twilight the carts were

greased and heaped with hay. Behind one, that in

which the manager of his farm rode, were hitched the

horses or cows destined for sale; in the other, in which

the master himself was to ride, were placed cushions

and a peasant overcoat. Making a late start, they

journeyed squeaking all night long until daybreak.

First of all they indulged in friendly discussion and

smoking. The men told each other frightful old tales

of merchants murdered on the road and at halting

places for the night. Then Tikhon Hitch disposed him-

self for sleep; and it was extremely pleasant to hear

through his dreams the voices of those whom they met,

to feel the vigorous swaying of the cart, as if it were

constantly descending a hill, and his cheeks slipping

deep into a pillow while his cap fell off and the night

chill cooled his head. It was agreeable, too, to wake

up before sunrise in the rosy, dewy morning, in the

midst of the dull-green grain, and to see, far away in

the blue lowlands, the town shining as a cheerful white

spot, and the gleam of its churches; to yawn mightily,

cross himself at the faint sound of the bells, and take

[26]

THE VILLAGE

the reins from the hands of the half-slumbering old

man, who sat relaxed like a child in the morning chill

and was as white as chalk in the light of the dawn.

But on this occasion Tikhon Hitch sent off the carts

with his head man and drove himself in a runabout.

The night was warm and bright; there was a rosy tone

in the moonlight. He drove fast, but became extremely

weary. The lights on the Fair buildings, the jail and

the hospital, were visible from the steppe at a distance

of ten versts as one approached the town, and it seemed

as if one would never reach them — those distant, sleepy

lights. And at the posting-house on the Ststchepnoy

Square it was so hot, and the fleas bit so viciously, and

voices rang out so frequently at the entrance-gate,

and the carts rattled so as they drove into the stone-

paved courtyard, and the cocks began to screech and

the pigeons to start their rumbling coo so early, and the

sky to grow white beyond the open windows, that he

never closed an eye. He slept little the second night,

too, which he tried to pass at the Fair in his cart. The

horses neighed, lights blazed in the stalls, people walked

and talked all around him; and at dawn, when his eye-

lids were fairly sticking together with sleep, the bells on

the jail and the hospital began to ring. And right

over his head the horrible bellow of a cow boomed out.

"Might as well be a criminal condemned to hard labour

in prison!" was a thought which recurred incessantly

during those days and nights. "Struggling — getting all

snarled up — and going to destruction over trifles, ab-

surdities!"

The Fair, scattered over the town pasture land for

[27]

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a whole verst, was, as usual, noisy and muddled.

Brooms, scythes, wooden tubs with handles, shovels,

wheels lay about in heaps. A dull, discordant roar

hung over it all — the neighing of horses, the shrilling

of children's whistles, the polkas and marches thun-

dered out by the orchestrions of the merry-go-rounds.

An idle, chattering throng of peasant men and women

surged about in waves from morning till night on the

dusty, dung-strewn alleyways among the carts and

stalls, the horses and the cows, the amusement sheds

and the eating booths, whence were wafted fetid odours

of frying grease. As always, there was a huge throng

of horse-dealers, who injected a terrible irritability

into all discussion and barter. Blind men and pau-

pers, beggars, cripples on crutches and in carts, filed

past in endless bands, chanting their snuffling ballads.

The troika team of the rural police chief moved slowly

through the crowd, its bells jingling, restrained by a

coachman in a sleeveless velveteen coat and a hat

adorned with peacock feathers.

Tikhon Hitch had many customers. But nothing be-

yond empty chaffer resulted. Gipsies came, blue-black

of face; Jews from the south-west, grey of countenance,

red-haired, covered with dust, in long, wide coats of

canvas and boots down at the heel; sun-browned mem-

bers of the gentry class of small estates, in sleeveless

peasant over-jackets and caps; the commissary of rural

police and the village policeman; the wealthy merchant

Safonoff, an old man wearing a sort of overcoat af-

fected by the lower classes, fat, clean-shaven, and smok-

ing a cigar. The handsome hussar officer, Prince

[28]

THE VILLAGE

Bakhtin, came also, accompanied by his wife in an

English walking suit, and Khvostoff, the decrepit hero

of the Sevastopol campaign, tall, bony, with large

features and a dark, wrinkled face, wearing a long uni-

form coat, sagging trousers, broad-toed boots, and a

big uniform cap with a yellow band beneath which his

dyed locks, of a dead dark-brown shade, were combed

forward on his temples.

All these people gave themselves the air of being ex-

pert judges, talked fluently about colours, paces, dis-

coursed about the horses they owned. The petty

landed gentry lied and boasted. Bakhtin did not con-

descend to speak to Tikhon Hitch, although the latter

rose respectfully at his approach and said: "Tis a

suitable horse for Your Illustrious Highness, sir."

Bakhtin merely fell back a pace as he inspected the

horse, smiled gravely into his moustache, which he wore

with side-supplements, and exchanged brief suggestions

with his wife as he wriggled his leg in his cherry-

coloured cavalry breeches.

But Khvostoff, shuffling up to the horse and casting

a sidelong fiery glance at it, came to a halt in such a

posture that it seemed as if he were on the point of

falling down, elevated his crutch, and for the tenth time

demanded in a dull, absolutely expressionless voice:

"How much do you ask for him?"

And Tikhon Hitch was obliged to answer them all.

Out of sheer boredom he bought a little book entitled

"Oi, Schmul and Rivke: Collection of fashionable

farces, puns, and stories, from the wanderings of our

worthy Hebrews" — and, as he sat in his cart, he dipped

[29]

THE VILLAGE

into it frequently. But no sooner did he begin to read:

"Iveryboady knows, zhentelmen, zat vee, ze Zhews,

iss ferightfully foand of beezness/' than some one hailed

him. And Tikhon Hitch raised his eyes and answered,

although with an effort and with clenched jaws.

He grew extremely thin, sunburned, yet pallid, flew

into bad tempers, and was conscious of being bored to

death and of feeling weak all over. He got his stomach

so badly out of order that he had cramps. He was

compelled to resort to the hospital; and there he waited

two hours for his turn, seated in a resounding cor-

ridor, inhaling the repulsive odour of carbolic acid and

feeling as if he were not Tikhon Hitch and a person of

consequence, but rather as if he were waiting humbly

in the ante-room of his master or of some official. And

when the doctor — who resembled a deacon, a red-faced,

bright-eyed man in a bob-tailed coat, redolent of soap,

with a sniff — applied his cold ear to his chest, he made

haste to say that his belly-ache was almost gone, and

did not refuse a dose of castor oil simply because he

was too timid to do so. When he returned to the Fair

ground he gulped down a glass of vodka flavoured with

pepper and salt, and began once more to eat sausage,

sour black rye bread made of second-rate flour, and

to drink tea, raw vodka, and sour cabbage soup — and

he was still unable to quench his thirst. His acquaint-

ances advised him to refresh himself with beer, and he

went for some. The lame kvas-dealer shouted:

"Here's your fine kvas, the sort that makes your nose

sting! A kopek a glass — prime lemonade!" And

Tikhon Hitch bade the kvas-peddler halt. "He-ere's

[30]

THE VILLAGE

your ices!" chanted in a tenor voice a bald, perspiring

vendor, a paunch-bellied old man in a red shirt. And

Tikhon Hitch ate, with the little bone spoon, ices

which were hardly more than snow, and which made

his head ache cruelly.

Dusty, ground to powder by feet, wheels, and hoofs,

littered and covered with dung, the pasture was already

being deserted — the Fair was dispersing. But Tikhon

Hitch, as if with deliberate intent to spite some one or

other, persisted in keeping his unsold horses there in

the heat, and sat on and on in his cart. It seemed as

if he were overwhelmed not so much by illness as by

the spectacle of the great poverty, the vast wretchedness

which, from time immemorial, had reigned over this

town and its whole county. Lord God, what a coun-

try! Black-loam soil over three feet deep! But —

what of that? Never did five years pass without a

famine. The town was famous throughout all Russia

as a grain mart — but not more than a hundred persons

in the whole town ate their fill of the grain. And the

Fair? Beggars, idiots, blind men, cripples — a whole

regiment of them — and such monstrosities as it made

one frightened and sick at the stomach to behold!

ON a hot, sunny morning Tikhon Hitch started

homeward through the big Old Town. First

he drove through the town and the bazaar,

past the cathedral, across the shallow little river,

[31]

The village

which reeked with the sourly fetid odour of the tan-

yards, and beyond the river, up the hill, through the

Black Suburb. In the bazaar he and his brother had

once worked in Matorin's shop. Now every one in

the bazaar bowed low before him. In the Black

Suburb his childhood had been passed. There, half-

way up the hill, among the mud huts embedded in the

ground, with their black and decaying roofs, in the

midst of dung which lay drying in the sun for use as

fuel, amid litter, ashes, and rags, it had been his great

delight to race, with shrill shouting and whistling,

after the poverty-stricken teacher of the county school

— a malicious, depraved old man, long since expelled

from his post, who wore felt boots summer and winter,

under-drawers, and a short overcoat with a beaver

collar which was peeling off. He had been known to

the town by the peculiar nickname of "the Dog's

Pistol."

Not a trace was now left of that mud hut in which

Tikhon Hitch had been born and had grown up. On

its site stood a small new house of planking, with a

rusty sign over the entrance: "Ecclesiastical Tailor

SobolefT." Everything else in the Suburb was pre-

cisely as it had always been — pigs and hens in the

narrow alleys; tall poles at the gateways, and on each

pole a ram's horn; the big pallid faces of the lace-

makers peering forth from behind the pots of flowers

in the tiny windows; bare-legged little urchins with

one suspender over a shoulder, launching a paper snake

with a tail of bast fibre; quiet flaxen-haired little

[32]

THE VILLAGE

girls engaged in their favourite play, burying a doll,

beside the mound of earth encircling the house.

On the plain at the crest of the hill, he crossed him-

self before the cemetery, behind the fence of which,

among the trees, was the grave which had once been

such a source of terror to him — that of the rich miser

Zykoff, which had caved in at the very moment when

they were filling it. And, after a moment's reflection,

he turned the horse in at the gate of the cemetery.

By the side of that large white gate had been wont

to sit uninterruptedly, jingling a little bell to which

were attached a handle and a small bag, a squint-eyed

monk garbed in a black cassock and boots red with

age — an extremely powerful, shaggy, and fierce fel-

low, to judge by appearances; a drunkard, with a re-

markable command of abusive language. No monk

was there now. In his place sat an old woman, busy

knitting a stocking. She looked like the ancient crone

of a fairy tale, with spectacles, a beak, and sunken

lips. She was one of the widows who lived in the

asylum by the cemetery.

'"Morning, my good woman!" Tikhon Hitch called

out pleasantly, as he hitched his horse to a post near

the gate. "Can you look after my horse?"

The old woman rose to her feet, made a deep rev-

erence, and mumbled: "Yes, batiushka." 1

i"Matushka" and "batiushka" (literally, "Little Mother"

and "Little Father") are the characteristic Russian formula

for addressing elderly strangers, regardless of class distinc-

tions. — TRANS.

[33]

THE VILLAGE

Tikhon Hitch removed his cap, crossed himself once

more, rolling his eyes upward as he did so before the

holy picture of the Assumption of the Mother of God

over the gateway, and added: "Are there many of

you nowadays?"

"Twelve old women in all, batiushka."

"Well, and do you squabble often?"

"Yes, often, batiushka."

Tikhon Hitch walked at a leisurely pace among the

trees and the crosses along the alley leading to the

ancient wooden church, once painted in ochre. Dur-

ing the Fair he had had his hair cut close and his

beard trimmed and shortened, and he was looking

much younger. His leanness and sunburn also con-

tributed to the youthfulness of his appearance. The

delicate skin shone white on the recently clipped tri-

angles on his temples. The memories of his childhood

and youth made him younger; so did his new peaked

canvas cap. His face was thoughtful. He glanced

from side to side. How brief, how devoid of meaning,

was life! And what peace, what repose, was round

about, in that sunny stillness within the enclosure of

the ancient churchyard! A hot breeze drifted across

the crests of the bright trees which pierced the cloud-

less sky, their foliage made scanty before its season by

the torrid heat, their light, transparent shadows cast in

waves athwart the stones and monuments. And when

it died away the sun once more heated up the flowers

and the grass; birds warbled sweetly in the languor;

sumptuously-hued butterflies sank motionless upon the

hot paths. On one cross Tikhon Hitch read:

[34]

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"What terrible quit-rents

Doth Death collect from men!"

But there was nothing awful about the spot. He

strolled on, even noticing with considerable satisfaction

that the cemetery was growing; that many new and ex-

cellent mausoleums had made their appearance among

those ancient stones in the shapes of coffins on legs,

heavy cast-iron plates, and huge rough crosses, already

in process of decay, which now filled it. "Died in the

year 1819, on November 7, at five o'clock in the morn-

ing" — it was painful to read such inscriptions: death

was repulsive at dawn of a stormy autumnal day, in

that old county town! But alongside it a marble

angel gleamed white through the trees, as he stood

there with eyes fixed upon the blue sky; and beneath

it, on the mirror-smooth black granite, were cut in gold

letters the words: "Blessed are the dead who die in

the Lord." On the iron monument of some Collegiate

Assessor, tinted in rainbow hues by foul weather and

the hand of time, one could decipher the verses:

"His Tsar he honourably served,

His neighbour cordially loved,

And was revered of men."

And these verses struck Tikhon Hitch as hypocritical.

But in this place even a lie was touching. For —

where is truth? Yonder in the bushes lies a human

jawbone, neglected, looking as if it were made of dirty

wax — all that remains of a man. But is it all?

[35]

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Flowers, ribbons, crosses, coffins, and bones in the

earth decay — all is death and corruption. But Tikhon

Hitch walked on further and read: "Thus it is in the

resurrection of the dead; it is sown in corruption, it is

raised in incorruption." — "Our darling son, thy mem-

ory will never die in our hearts to all eternity!"

His brow furrowed even more severely; he removed

his cap and made the sign of the cross. He was pale,

and still weak from his illness. He recalled his child-

hood — his youth — Kuzma. He walked to the far cor-

ner of the cemetery where all his relatives were buried

— father, mother, the sister who had died when a little

girl. The inscriptions spoke touchingly and peace-

fully of rest, repose; of tenderness towards fathers,

mothers, husbands and wives; of a love which, appar-

ently, does not exist and never will exist on this earth;

of that devotion to one another and submission to God,

that fervent faith in a future life, that meeting once

more in another and blessed land, in which one be-

lieves only here; and of that equality which death

alone confers — of those moments when folk bestow the

last kiss upon the lips of the dead beggar as on a

brother's, compare him with kings and prelates, say

over him the loftiest and most solemn words.

And there in a distant corner of the enclosure,

among bushes of elder which dozed in the parching

heat — there where formerly had been graves, but now

were only mounds and hollows, overgrown with grass

and white flowers 1 — Tikhon Hitch saw a fresh little

grave, the grave of a child, and on the cross a couplet:

[36]

THE VILLAGE

"Softly, leaves: do not rustle,

Do not wake my Kostya dear."

And as he recalled his own child, crushed in its sleep

by the dumb cook, he began to blink back the welling

tears.

VI

NO one ever drove on the highway which ran past

the cemetery and lost itself among "he rolling

fields. Now and then some light-footed tramp

straggled along it — some young fellow in a faded pink

shirt and drawers of parti-coloured patches. But peo-

ple drove on the country road alongside. Along that

country road drove Tikhon Hitch also. His first en-

counter was with a dilapidated public carriage which

approached at racing speed — provincial cabmen

drive wildly! — and in which sat a huntsman, an official

of the bank. At his feet lay a spotted setter dog; on

his knees rested a gun in its cover; his legs were en-

cased in tall wading-boots, though there had never

been any marshes in the county. Next, diving across

the dusty hummocks, came a young postman mounted

on a bicycle of an ancient model, with an enormous

front wheel and a tiny rear one. He frightened the

horse, and Tikhon Hitch gritted his teeth with rage;

the rascal ought to be degraded to the ranks of the

[37]

THE VILLAGE

workingmen ! The mid-day sun scorched; a hot

breeze was blowing; the cloudless sky became slate-

coloured. And, as he meditated upon the brevity and

senselessness of life, Tikhon Hitch turned away with

ever-increasing irritation from the dust which whirled

along the road, and with ever-increasing anxiety cast

sidelong glances at the spindling, prematurely drying

stalks of the grain.

Throngs of pilgrims armed with long staffs, tortured

by fatigue and the heat, tramped on at a peaceful gait.

They made low, meek reverences to Tikhon Hitch; but

their obeisances struck him as shams. "Those fellows

meek! I'll bet they fight among themselves like cats

and dogs at their halting-places!" he muttered.

Drunken peasants returning from the Fair — red-

headed, black-haired, flaxen-haired, but all alike hid-

eous and tattered, and with about ten crowded into

each cart — raised clouds of dust as they whipped up

their wretched little horses. As he overtook their

rattling carts Tikhon Hitch shook his head. "Ugh,

you roving beggars, may the devil fly away with you."

One of them, in a print shirt torn to ribbons, lay

fast asleep and was bumped about like a corpse,

stretched supine with his head thrown back, his beard

blood-stained, his nose swollen and clotted with dried

blood. Another stumbled as he ran after his cap,

which had been blown off by the wind; and Tikhon

Hitch, with malicious delight, lashed him with his whip.

Then came a cart filled with sieves, shovels, and peas-

ant women. They sat with their backs to the horses,

rattling and bumping about. One had a new child's

[38]

THE VILLAGE

cap on her head, worn wrong side before; another was

singing with her mouth full of bread; a third flour-

ished her arms and, laughing, shouted after Tikhon

Hitch: "Hey there, uncle, you've lost your linch-pin!"

And Tikhon Hitch reined in his horse, let them catch

up with him, and lashed this woman, too, with his

whip.

Beyond the toll-gate, where the highway turned off

to one side, and where the rattling peasant carts fell to

the rear, and silence, the wide space and sultriness of

the steppe reigned, he felt once more that, in spite of

everything, the chief item in the world was Business.

He thought with supreme scorn of the landed proprie-

tors, putting on swagger at the Fair — they, with their

wretched troika teams! Ekh, and the poverty on

every side! The peasants were utterly ruined, with

not a scrap left on their impoverished little farms

scattered about the country. A master .was needed

here — a master!

"But you're not the right master, my good fellow!"

he announced to himself with a spiteful grin. "You're

a poor, crazy, landless stick yourself!"

Midway of his journey lay Rovnoe, a large village

in which the inhabitants were freeholders. A scorch-

ing breeze coursed through the deserted streets and

across the heat-singed bushes. Fowls were ruffling up

their feathers and burying themselves in the ashes at

the thresholds. A church of crude hue reared itself

starkly, harshly on the bare common. Beyond the

church a tiny clayey pond gleamed in the sunlight be-

low a dam of manure, a sheet of thick yellow water in

[39]

THE VILLAGE

which stood a herd of cows, incessantly discharging ac-

cording to the demands of nature; and there a naked

peasant was soaping his head. He, too, had waded

into the water up to his waist; on his breast glistened

his brass baptismal cross; his neck and face were black

with sunburn, his body strikingly white, pallid.

- "Unbridle my horse for me," said Tikhon Hitch,

driving into the pond, which reeked of the cattle.

The peasant tossed his fragment of blue-marbled

soap on the shore, black with cow-dung, and, his head

all grey, with a modest gesture as though to cover him-

self, he made haste to comply with the command. The

mare bent greedily to the water, but it was so warm

and repulsive that she raised her muzzle and turned

away. Whistling to her, Tikhon Hitch waved his

cap:

"Well, nice water you have! Do you drink it?"

"Well, then, and is yours sugar-water, I wonder?"

retorted the peasant, amiably and gaily. "We've been

drinking it these thousand years! But what's water?

— 'tis bread we're lacking."

And Tikhon Hitch was forced to hold his tongue; for

in Durnovka the water was no better, and there was no

bread there either. What was more, there would be

none.

Beyond Rovnoe the road ran again through fields of

rye — but what fields! The grain was spindling, weak,

almost wholly lacking in ears, and smothered in

corn-flowers. And near Vyselki, not far from Dur-

novka, clouds of rooks perched on the gnarled, hollow

willow-trees with their silvery beaks wide open.

[40]

THE VILLAGE

Nothing was left of Vyselki that day save its name —

the rest was only black skeletons of cottages in the

midst of rubbish! The rubbish was smoking, with a

milky-bluish emanation; there was a rank odour of

burning. And the thought of a conflagration from

lightning transfixed Tikhon Hitch. "Calamity!" he

said to himself, turning paler Nothing he owned was

insured: everything might be reduced to ashes in an

hour.

VII

FROM that Fast of St. Peter, that memorable trip

to the Fair, Tikhon Hitch began to drink fre-

quently — not to the point of downright drunk-

enness, but to the stage at which his face became pass-

ably red. This did not, however, interfere in the

slightest degree with his business, and, according to

his own account, it did not interfere with his health.

"Vodka polishes the blood," he was wont to remark;

and, truth to tell, to all appearances he became more

robust than ever. Not infrequently now he called his

life that of a galley-slave — the hangman's noose — a

gilded cage. But he strode along his pathway with

ever-increasing confidence, paying no attention to the

condition of the weather or the road. Commonplace,

uneventful days ruled supreme in his house, and sev-

eral years passed in such monotonous fashion that

everything merged together into one long working-

day. But certain new, vast events which no one had

[41]

THE VILLAGE

looked for came to pass — the war with Japan and the

revolution.

The rumours concerning the war began, of course,

with bragging. "The kazaks will soon flay his yellow

skin off him, brother!" But it smouldered so very

short a time, this pale image of former boasts! A dif-

ferent sort of talk speedily made itself heard.

"We have more land than we can manage!" said

Tikhon Hitch, in the stern tone of an expert — prob-

ably for the first time in the whole course of his life

not referring to his own land in Durnovka, but to the

whole expanse of Russia. " 'Tis not war, sir, but

downright madness!"

Another thing made itself felt, the sort of thing

which has prevailed from time immemorial — the in-

clination to take the winning side. And the news

about the frightful defeats of the Russian army excited

his enthusiasm: "Ukh, that's fine. Curse them, the

brutes!" He waxed enthusiastic also over the con-

quests of the revolution, over the assassinations:

"That Minister got a smashing blow!" said Tikhon

Hitch occasionally, in the fire of his ecstasy. "He got

such a good one that not even his ashes were left!"

But his uneasiness increased, too. As soon as any

discussion connected with the land came up, his wrath

awoke. Tis all the work of the Jews! Of the Jews,

and of those frowzy long-haired fellows, the students!"

What irritated Tikhon Hitch worst of all was, that the

son of the deacon in Ulianovka, a student in the Theo-

logical Seminary who was hanging around without

work and living on his father, called himself a Social-

[42]

THE VILLAGE

Democrat. And the whole situation was incomprehen-

sible. Everybody was talking about the revolution,

the Revolution, while round about everything was go-

ing on the same as ever, in the ordinary everyday fash-

ion: the sun shone, the rye blossomed in the fields, the

carts wended their way to the station. The populace

were incomprehensible in their taciturnity, in the eva-

siveness of their talk.

"They're an underhand lot, the populace! They

fairly scare one with their slyness!" said Tikhon Hitch.

And, forgetting the Jews, he added: "Let us assume

that not all that music is craft. Changing the govern-

ment and evening up the shares of land — why, an in-

fant could understand that, sir. And, naturally, 'tis

perfectly clear to whom they will pay court — that pop-

ulace, sir. But, of course, they hold their tongues.

And, of course, we must watch, and try to meet their

humour, so that they may go on holding their tongues.

We must put a spoke in their wheel! If you don't,

look out for yourself: they'll scent success, they'll get

wind of the fact that they've got the breeching under

their tail — and they'll smash things to smithereens,

sir!" -

When he read or heard that land was to be taken

from only such as possessed more than five hundred

desyatini 1 he himself became an "agitator." He even

entered into disputes with the Durnovka people. This

is the sort of thing that would happen: —

A peasant stood alongside Tikhon Hitch's shop; the

1 A desyatina is a unit of land measurement equalling 2.07

acres. — trans.

[43]

THE VILLAGE

man had bought vodka at the railway station, dried

salt fish and cracknels at the shop, and had doffed his

cap; but he prolonged his enjoyment, and said:

"No, Tikhon Hitch, 'tis no use your explaining. It

can be taken, at a just price. But not the way you say

— that's no good."

An odour arose from the pine boards piled up near

the granary, opposite the yard. The dried fish and

the linden bast on which the cracknels were strung had

an irritating smell. The hot locomotive of the freight-

train could be heard hissing and getting up steam be-

yond the trees, behind the buildings of the railway sta-

tion. Tikhon Hitch stood bare-headed beside his shop,

screwing up his eyes and smiling slily. Smilingly he

made reply:

"Bosh! But what if he is not a master, but a

tramp?"

"Who? The noble owner, you mean?"

"No — a low-born man."

"Well, that's a different matter. 'Tis no sin to take

it from such a man, with all his innards to boot!"

"Well now, that's exactly the point!"

But another rumour reached them: the land would

be taken from those who owned less than five hundred

desyatini! And immediately his soul was assailed by

preoccupation, suspicion, irritability. Everything that

was done in the house began to seem abhorrent.

Egorka, the assistant, brought flour-sacks out of the

shop and began to shake them. And the man's head

reminded him of the head of the town fool, "Duck-

Headed Matty." The crown of his head ran up to a

[44]

THE VILLAGE

point, his hair was harsh and thick — "Now, why is it

that fools have such thick hair?" — his forehead was

sunken, his face resembled an oblique egg, he had pro-

truding eyes, and his eyelids, with their calf-like

lashes, seemed drawn tightly over them; it looked as if

there were not enough skin — if he were to close his

eyes, his mouth would fly open of necessity, and if he

closed his mouth, he would be compelled to open his

eyes very wide. And Tikhon Hitch shouted spite-

fully: "Babbler! Blockhead! What are you shak-

ing your head at me for?"

The cook brought out a smallish box, opened it,

placed it upside down on the ground, and began to

thump the bottom with her fist. And, understanding

what that meant, Tikhon Hitch slowly shook his head:

"Akh, you housewife, curse you! You're knocking out

the cockroaches?"

'There's a regular cloud of them in there!" replied

the cook gaily. "When I peeped in — Lord, what a

sight!"

And, gritting his teeth, Tikhon Hitch walked out to

the highway and gazed long at the rolling plain, in the

direction of Durnovka.

[45]

THE VILLAGE

VIII

HIS living-rooms, the kitchen, the shop, and the

granary, where formerly his liquor-trade had

been carried on, constituted a single mass under

one iron roof. On three sides the straw-thatched sheds

of the cattle-yard were closely connected with it, and

a pleasing quadrangle was thus obtained. The porch

and all the windows faced the south. But the view

was cut off by the grain-sheds, which stood opposite

the windows and across the road. To the right was

the railway station, to the left the highway. Beyond

the highway was a small grove of birches. And when

Tikhon Hitch felt out of sorts, he went out on the

highway. It ran southward in a white winding rib-

bon from hillock to hillock, ever following the fields

in their declivities and rising again toward the horizon

from the far-away watch-tower, where the railway,

coming from the south-east, intersected it. And if

any one of the Durnovka peasants chanced to be driv-

ing to Ulianovka — one of the more energetic and

clever, that is, such as Yakoff, whom every one called

Yakoff Mikititch 1 because he was greedy, and held

1 When a man or woman begins to get on in the world his

admiring neighbours signalize their appreciation by adding to

the Christian name the patronymic, as if the clever one were

of gentle (noble) birth. In this story, Tikhon soon receives

the public acknowledgment of success, having begun as plain

"Tikhon." Peasant-fashion, "Nikititch" was transmuted into

"Mikititch."—TRANS.

[46]

THE VILLAGE

fast to his little store of grain a second year, and owned

three excellent horses — Tikhon Hitch stopped him.

"You might buy yourself a cheap little cap with a

visor, at least!" he shouted to YakofF, with a grin.

YakofT, in a peakless cap, hemp-crash shirt, and

trousers of heavy striped linen, was sitting barefoot

on the side-rail of his springless cart.

" 'Morning, Tikhon Hitch," he said, staidly.

" 'Morning! I tell you, 'tis time you sacrificed your

round cap for a jackdaw's nest!"

Yakoff, grinning shrewdly earthwards, shook his

head.

"That — how should it be expressed? — would not be

a bad idea. But, you see, my capital, so to speak, will

not permit."

"Oh, stop your babbling. We know all about you

Kazan orphans! 1 You've married off your girl, and

got a wife for your lad, and you have plenty of money.

What more is there left for you to want from the

Lord God?"

This flattered Yakoff, but he became more uncom-

municative than ever. "O, Lord!" he muttered, with

a sigh, in a sort of chuckling tone. "Money — I don't

know the sight of it, so to speak. And my lad — well,

what of him? The boy's no comfort to me. No com-

fort at all, to speak the plain truth! Young folks

are no comfort nowadays!"

Yakoff, like many peasants, was extremely nervous,

1 Sharpers who pretend to be the poverty-stricken descend-

ants of the Tatar Princes who ruled Kazan before it was

conquered, during the rein of Ivan the Terrible. — trans.

[47]

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especially if his family or his affairs were in question.

He was remarkably secretive, but on such occasions

nervousness overpowered him, although only his dis-

connected, trembling speech betrayed the fact. So, in

order to complete his disquiet, Tikhon Hitch inquired

sympathetically: "So he isn't a comfort? Tell me,

pray, is it all because of the woman?"

Yakoff, looking about him, scratched his breast with

his finger-nails. "Yes, because of the woman, his wife,

his father may go break his back with work."

"Is she jealous?"

"Yes, she is. People set me down as the lover of my

daughter-in-law."

-"H'm!" ejaculated Tikhon Hitch sympathetically, al-

though he knew full well that there is never smoke

without fire.

But Yakoff 's eyes were already wandering: "She

complained to her husband; how she complained!

And, just think, she wanted to poison me. Sometimes,

for example, a fellow catches cold and smokes a bit

to relieve his chest. Well, she noticed that — and stuck

a cigarette under my pillow. If I hadn't happened to

see it — I'd have been done for!"

"What sort of a cigarette?"

"She had pounded up the bones of dead men, and

stuffed it with that in place of tobacco."

"That boy of yours is a fool! He ought to teach

her a lesson, in Russian style — the damned hussy!"

"What are you thinking of! He climbed on my

breast, so to speak. And he wriggled like a serpent.

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I grabbed him by the head, but his head was shaved!

I grabbed hold of his stomach. I hated to tear his

shirt!"

Tikhon Hitch shook his head, remained silent for a

minute, and at last reached a decision: "Well, and

how are things going with you over there? Are you

still expecting the rebellion?"

But thereupon Yakoff's secrecy was restored instan-

taneously. He grinned and waved his hand. "Well!"

he muttered volubly. "What would we do with a

rebellion? Our folks are peaceable. Yes, a peace-

able lot." And he tightened the reins, as though his

horse were restive and would not stand.

"Then why did you have a village assembly last

Sunday?" Tikhon Hitch maliciously and abruptly

interjected.

"A village assembly, did you say? The plague only

knows! They started an awful row, so to speak."

"I know what the row was about! I know!"

"Well, what of it? I'm not making a secret of it.

They gabbled, so to speak, said orders had been issued

— orders had been issued — that no one was to work

any more at the former price."

It was extremely mortifying to reflect that, because

of wretched little Durnovka, affairs were escaping from

his grasp. And there were only thirty homesteads

altogether in that same Durnovka. And it was situ-

ated in a devil of a ravine: a broad gorge, with peasant

cottages on one side, and on the other the tiny manor.

And that manor exchanged glances with the cottages

[49]

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and from day to day expected some "order." Ekh,

he'd like to apply a few kazaks with their whips to

the situation!

IX

BUT the "order" came, at last. One Sunday a

rumour began to circulate in Durnovka that the

village assembly had worked out a plan for an

attack upon the manor. With maliciously merry eyes,

a feeling of unusual strength and daring, and a readi-

ness to "break the horns of the devil himself," Tikhon

Hitch shouted orders to have the colt harnessed to

the runabout, and within ten minutes he was driving

him at high speed along the highway to Durnovka.

The sun was setting, after a rainy day, in greyish-red

clouds; the boles of the trees in the birch-grove were

crimson; the country dirt-road, which stood out as a

line of blackish-purple mud amid the fresh greenery,

afforded heavy going. Rose-hued foam dripped from

the haunches of the colt and from the breeching which

jerked about on them. But he was not considering the

colt. Slapping him stoutly with the reins, Tikhon

Hitch turned aside from the railway, drove to the right

along the road across the fields, and, on coming within

sight of Durnovka, was inclined to doubt, for a mo-

ment, the correctness of the rumours about a rebellion.

Peaceful stillness lay all about, the larks were warbling

[50]

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their evening song in peace, the air was simply and

peacefully impregnated with an odour of damp earth

and with the fragrance of wild flowers. But all of

a sudden his glance fell upon the fallow-field alongside

the manor, thickly sown with sweet-clover. On that

fallow-field, a drove of horses belonging to the peasants

was grazing!

So it had begun. And, tugging at the reins, Tikhon

Hitch flew past the drove, past the barns overgrown

with burdocks and nettles, past a low-growing cherry-

orchard filled with sparrows, past the stables and the

cottages of the domestics, and leaped with a bound

into the farmyard.

Then something incongruous happened. There, in

the twilight, in the middle of the field, sat Tikhon Hitch

in his runabout, overwhelmed with wrath, mortifica-

tion, and terror. His heart beat violently, his hands

trembled, his face burned, his hearing was as acute

as that of a wild animal. There he sat, listening to

the shouts which were wafted from Durnovka, and re-

called how the crowd, which had seemed to him im-

mense, on catching sight of him from afar had swarmed

across the gorge to the manor and filled the yard with

uproar and abusive words, had massed themselves on

the porch and pinioned him against the door. All the

weapon he had had was the whip in his hand. And

he brandished it, now retreating, now hurling himself

in desperation against the crowd. But the harness-

maker, a vicious emaciated fellow with a sunken belly

and a sharp nose, wearing tall boots and a lavender

print shirt, advanced brandishing his stick even more

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furiously. On behalf of the whole throng, he screeched

that an order had been issued to "make an end of that

Outfit" — to make an end on one and the same day and

hour throughout the entire government. The hired

labourers from outside were to be chased out of all the

estates and replaced with local labourers — at a ruble

a day! — while the owners were to be expelled neck

and crop, in any direction, so that they would never

be seen again. And Tikhon Hitch yelled still more

frantically, in the endeavour to drown out the harness-

maker: "A — a! So that's it! Have you been whet-

ting yourself, you tramp, on the deacon's son? Have

you lost your wits?"

But the harness-maker disputatiously caught his

words on the fly: "Tramp yourself!" he yelled until

he was hoarse, and his face was suffused with blood.

"You're an old fool! Haven't I managed to get along

all my life without the deacon's son? Don't I know

how much land you own? How much is it, you skin-

flint? Two hundred desyatini? But I — damn it! —

own, in all, about as much ground as is covered by

your porch! And why? Who are you? Who are

you, anyway, I ask you? What's your brew — any

better sort than the rest of us?"

"Come to your senses, Mitka!" shouted Tikhon

Hitch helplessly at last; and, conscious that his wits

were getting muddled, he made a dash through the

crowd to his runabout. "I'll pay you off for this!"

But no one was afraid of his threats, and unanimous

laughter, yells, and whistling followed him. Then he

had made the round of the manor-estate, his heart

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sinking within him, and listened. He drove out upon

the road to the cross-roads and halted with his face

to the darkening west, toward the railway station,

holding himself in readiness to whip up his horse at

any moment. It was very quiet, warm, damp, and

dark. The land, which rose toward the horizon, where

a faint reddish gleam still smouldered, was as black

as the nethermost abyss.

"Sta-and still, you carrion!" Tikhon Hitch whis-

pered through set teeth to his restive horse. "Sta-and

still!"

And, from afar, first shouts, then songs, were wafted

to him. And among all the voices the voice of Vanka

Krasny, who had already been twice in the mines of

the Donetz Basin, was distinguishable above the rest.

And then, suddenly, a dark-fiery . column rose above

the manor-house: the peasants had shaken off all the

immature fruit in the orchard and set fire to the watch-

man's hut. A pistol which the gardener, a petty

burgher, had left behind him in the hut began to dis-

charge itself, out of the fire.

It became known, later on, that in truth a remark-

able thing had taken place. On one and the same

day, the peasants had risen through almost the entire

county. The inns in the town were crowded for a

long time thereafter with land-owners who had sought

protection of the authorities. Afterwards, Tikhon

Hitch recalled with shame that he also had sought it —

with shame, because the whole uprising had been lim-

ited to the Durnovka people's shouting for a while,

doing a lot of damage, and then quieting down. The

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harness-maker began, before long, to present himself

in the shop at Vorgol as though nothing whatever had

happened, and doffed his cap on the threshold as if he

did not perceive that Tikhon Hitch's face darkened

at his appearance. Nevertheless, rumours were still

in circulation to the effect that the Durnovka folk

intended to murder Tikhon Hitch. And he, afraid

to be caught out after dark on the road from Dur-

novka, fumbled in his pocket for his bulldog revolver,

which weighed down the pocket of his full trousers

in an annoying manner, and registered a vow that he

would burn Durnovka to the ground some fine night,

or poison the water in the Durnovka wells. Then even

these rumours died away. But Tikhon Hitch began

to think seriously of ridding himself of Durnovka.

"Real money is the money in your pocket, not the

money you're going to inherit from your grand-

mother!" Moreover, the peasants had become impu-

dent in their manner to him, and they seemed pecu-

liarly well-informed. The Durnovka folks knew "all

the ins and outs of things," and for that reason alone,

if for no other, it was stupid to entrust the oversight

and management of affairs at the manor to any of the

Durnovka labourers. More than that, Rodka was the

village Elder.

That year — the most alarming of all recent years —

Tikhon Hitch reached the age of fifty. But he had

not abandoned his dream of becoming a father. And,

lo and behold, precisely that was what brought him

into collision with Rodka.

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X

RODKA, a tall, thin, sullen young fellow from

Ulianovka, had gone two years previously to

live with Fedot, the brother of Yakoff; he had

married, and had buried Fedot, who had died from

over-drinking at the wedding; and he had then gone

away to do his military service. But the bride, a

young woman with fine figure, an extremely white,

soft skin faintly tinged with crimson, and eyelashes

for ever downcast, began to work for daily wages at

the farm. And those eyelashes perturbed Tikhon Hitch

terribly. The peasant women of Durnovka wear

"horns" on their heads: immediately after the wedding

they coil their braided hair on the crown of the head

and cover it with a kerchief, which produces a queer

effect, similar to the horns of a cow. They wear dark-

blue skirts of the antique pattern, trimmed with gal-

loon, a white apron not unlike a sarafan x in shape,

and bast-slippers. But the Bride — that name stuck

to her — was beautiful in that garb. And one evening

in the dark barn, where the Bride was alone and fin-

ishing the clearing up of the rye-ears, Tikhon Hitch,

after casting a precautionary glance around him, en-

tered, went up to her, and said hastily: "You shall

1 A straight, loose gown, falling from the armpits, worn by

unmarried girls, — trans.

[55]

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have pretty shoes and silk kerchiefs. I shall not be-

grudge a twenty-five-ruble banknote!"

But the Bride remained silent as death.

"Do you hear what I say?" cried Tikhon Hitch, in

a whisper.

But the Bride seemed turned to stone, and with

bowed head went on wielding her rake.

So he accomplished nothing at all. All of a sud-

den, Rodka appeared — ahead of his time, and minus an

eye. That was soon after the rebellion of the Dur-

novka peasants, and Tikhon Hitch immediately hired

him and his wife for the Durnovka farm, on the ground

that "nowadays it won't do to be without a soldier on

the place." About St. Ilya's Day, while Rodka had

gone off to the town, the Bride was scrubbing the

floors in the house. Picking his way among the pud-

dles, Tikhon Hitch entered the room, cast a glance

at the Bride, who was bending over the floor — at her

white calves bespattered with dirty water — at the whole

of her plump body as it flattened out before him.

And, suddenly turning the key in the door, he strode

up to the Bride. She straightened up hastily, raised

her flushed, agitated face and, clutching in her hand

the dripping floor-rag, screamed at him in a strange

tone: "I'll give you a soaking, young fellow!"

An odour of hot soapsuds, heated body, perspiration,

pervaded the air. Seizing the Bride by the hand, he

squeezed it in a brutal grip, shaking it and making

her drop the rag. Tikhon Hitch grasped the Bride

by the waist with his right arm — pressed her to him

with such force that her bones cracked — and bore

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her off into another room where there was a bed. And

the Bride, with head thrown back and eyes staring

wide open, no longer struggled, no longer resisted.

After that incident it was painful to the point of

torment to see his wife, to see Rodka; to know that

Rodka slept with the Bride, that he beat her ferociously

every day and every night. But before long the situa-

tion became alarming as well. Inscrutable are the

ways by which a jealous man arrives at the truth.

And Rodka found out. Lean, one-eyed, long-armed,

and strong as an ape, with a small closely-cropped

black head which he always carried bent forward as

he shot sidelong glances from his deep-set eyes, he

became downright terrifying. During his service as

a soldier he had acquired a stock of Little Russian

words and an accent. And if the Bride ventured to

make any reply to his curt, harsh speeches, he calmly

picked up his leather-strap knout, approached her with

a vicious grin, and calmly inquired, accenting the "re":

"What's that you're remarking?" Thereupon he gave

her such a flogging that everything turned black be-

fore her eyes.

On one occasion Tikhon Hitch himself happened

upon a thrashing of this sort and, unable to restrain

his indignation, shouted: "What are you doing, you

damned rascal?" But Rodka quietly seated himself

on the bench and merely looked at him. "What's that

you're remarking?" he inquired. And Tikhon Hitch

made haste to retreat, slamming the door behind him.

Wild thoughts began to dart through his mind.

Should he poison his wife? — with stove-gas, for ex-

[57]

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ample? — or should he arrange matters so that Rodka

would be crushed by a falling roof or earth? But

one month passed, then another — and hope, that hope

which had inspired in him these intoxicating thoughts,

was cruelly deceived. The Bride was not pregnant.

Every one in Durnovka was convinced that it was

Rodka's fault. Tikhon Hitch himself was convinced

of it, and cherished strong hopes. But one day in

September, when Rodka was absent at the railway sta-

tion, Tikhon Hitch presented himself and fairly groaned

aloud at the sight of the face of the Bride, all its

feminine beauty distorted with terror.

"Are you done for again?" he cried, as he ran up

the steps of the porch.

The Bride's lips turned white, her nose became waxen

in hue, and her eyes opened very wide; yet again,

it appeared, she was not with child. She expected to

receive a deadly blow on the head, and involuntarily

recoiled from it. But Tikhon Hitch controlled him-

self, merely uttering a groan of pain and rage.

A moment later he took his departure — and from

that day forth Rodka had no reason for jealousy.

Conscious of that fact, Rodka began to feel timid in

the presence of Tikhon Hitch. And the latter now

harboured, secretly, only one desire: to drive Rodka

out of his sight, and that as speedily as possible. But

whom could he find to take his place?

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XI

ACCIDENT came to the rescue of Tikhon Hitch.

Quite unexpectedly he became reconciled to his

brother, and persuaded him to undertake the

management of Durnovka.

He had learned from an acquaintance in the town

that Kuzma had ceased to drink and for a long time

had been serving as clerk with a landed proprietor

named Kasatkin. And, what was most amazing of

all, he had become "an author." Yes, it was said that

he had printed a whole little volume of his verses, and

on the cover was the inscription: "For sale by the

Author."

"Oh, come no-ow!" drawled Tikhon Hitch when he

heard this. "He's the same old Kuzma, and that's all

right! But let me ask one thing: Did he really

print it so — The Works of Kuzma KrasofT'?"

"Give you my word he did," replied the acquaint-

ance, being fully persuaded, nevertheless — as were

many others in the town — that Kuzma "skinned" his

verses from books and newspapers.

Thereupon Tikhon Hitch, without quitting his seat

at the table of DaefT's eating-house, wrote a brief, per-

emptory letter to his brother: 'twas high time for old

men to make peace, to repent. And there, in that

same eating-house, the reconciliation took place —

swiftly, almost without the utterance of a word.

[59]

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And on the following day came the business talk.

It was morning; the eating-house was still almost

empty. The sun shone through the dusty windows,

lighted up the small tables covered with greyish-red

tablecloths, the floor newly washed with bran and

emitting an odour of the stable, and the waiters in

their white shirts and white trousers. In a cage a

canary was singing in all possible modulations, but

like a mechanical bird which had been wound up

rather than a live one. Next door, the bells of St.

Michael Archangel's church were ringing for the Lit-

urgy, and the dense, sonorous peal shook the walls and

boomed quivering overhead. With nervous, serious

countenance, Tikhon Hitch seated himself at a table,

ordered at first only tea for two, but became impa-

tient and reached for the bill-of-fare — a novelty which

had excited the mirth of all Daeff's patrons. On the

card was printed: "A small carafe of vodka, with

snack, 25 kopeks. With tasty snack, 40 kopeks."

Tikhon Hitch ordered the carafe of vodka at forty

kopeks. He tossed off two glasses with avidity and

was on the point of drinking a third, when a long-

familiar voice resounded in his ear: "Well, good

morning once more."

Kuzma was garbed in the same fashion as his

brother. He was shorter of stature, with larger bones,

more withered, and a trifle broader of shoulder. He

had the large thin face with prominent cheek-bones

of a shrewd old peasant shopkeeper, grey overhanging

eyebrows, and large greenish eyes. His manner of

beginning was not simple:

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"First of all, I must expound to you, Tikhon Hitch,"

he began, as soon as Tikhon Hitch had poured him a

cup of tea, "I must expound to you what sort of a

man I am, so that you may know" — he chuckled —

"with whom you are dealing." 'He had a way of enun-

ciating his words very distinctly, elevating his brows,

unfastening and fastening the upper button of his short

coat while he talked. So, having buttoned it, he con-

tinued: "I, you see, am an anarchist. . . ."

Tikhon Hitch raised his eyebrows.

"Don't be afraid. I don't meddle with politics. But

you can't give a man orders how he is to think. It

won't harm you in the least. I shall manage the estate

faithfully, but I tell you straight from the shoulder

that I will not skin the people."

"Anyway, that can't be done at the present time,"

sighed Tikhon Hitch.

"Well, times are the same as they always were. It

is still possible to fleece people. I'll do my managing

properly, but my leisure I shall devote to self-devel-

opment. That is to say, to reading."

"Okh, bear in mind: Too much poking in books is

bad for the poke!" said Tikhon Hitch, shaking his

head, and making a grimace. "However, that's no

affair of ours."

"Well, that's not the way I look at it," retorted

Kuzma. "I, brother — how shall 1 put it to you? — I'm

a strange Russian type."

"I'm a Russian man myself, bear that in mind," in-

terposed Tikhon Hitch.

"But another sort. I don't mean to say that I'm bet-

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ter than you, but — I'm different. Now here are you,

I see, priding yourself on being a Russian, while I,

brother, okh! am very far from being a Slavophil!

It's not proper to jabber much, but one thing I will

say: for God's sake, don't brag of being a Russian!

We're an uncivilized people and an extremely unreli-

able one — neither candle for God nor oven-fork for the

devil. But we will discuss this as time goes on."

Tikhon Hitch contracted his brows, drummed on the

table with his fingers. "That's right, probably," he

said, and slowly filled his glass. "We're a savage lot.

A crack-brained race."

"Well, and that's precisely the point. I have, I may

say, roamed about the world a good bit. Well, and

what then? Absolutely nowhere have I seen more tire-

some and lazy types. And those who are not lazy" —

here Kuzma shot a sidelong look at his brother — "have

no sense at all. They toil and strive and acquire a

nest for themselves; but where's the sense in it, after

all?"

"What do you mean by that? What's sense?" asked

Tikhon Hitch.

"Just what I say. One must use sense in making

one's nest. I'll weave me a nest, says the man, and

then I'll live as a man should. In this way and in

that."

Here Kuzma tapped his breast and his brow with

his finger.

Tikhon Hitch poured himself out another glass of

liquor. Kuzma, having donned a silver-framed pair

of eyeglasses, sipped the boiling-hot amber fluid from

[62]

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his saucer. Tikhon Hitch gazed at him with beaming

eyes; and after turning something over in his mind, he

said: "Evidently, brother, that sort of thing is not

for the likes of us. If you live in the country, sup

your coarse cabbage-soup and wear wretched bast-

shoes. Do as your neighbours do!"

"Bast-shoes!" retorted Kuzma tartly. "We've been

wearing them a couple of thousand years, brother — the

thrice-accursed things! For two thousand years we've

been living with our mouths agape. We're doing the

devil's work. And who is to blame? What I have to

say about it is this: 'tis high time to get ashamed of

casting shame for everything on our neighbours — blam-

ing our neighbours instead of ourselves! The Tatars

oppressed us, you see! We're a young nation, you see!

Just as if, over there in Europe, all sorts of Mongols

didn't oppress folks a lot, too! As if the Germans

were any older than we are! Well, anyhow, that's a

special subject."

"Correct!" said Tikhon Hitch. "Come on, we'd bet-

ter get down to business."

Kuzma turned his empty glass upside down on the

saucer, lighted a cigarette, and resumed his exposition.

"I don't go to church."

"That signifies that you are a molokan?" x asked

Tikhon Hitch, and said to himself: "I'm lost! Evi-

dently, I must get rid of Durnovka!"

"A sort of molokan," grinned Kuzma. "And do you

1 A heretic. Literally, one who drinks milk (moloko) dur-

ing the Fasts in defiance to the Orthodox Catholic Church.

— TRANS.

[63]

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go to church? If it weren't for fear and necessity,

one would forget all about it."

"Well, I'm not the first, neither am I the last," re-

torted Tikhon Hitch, again contracting his brows in a

scowl. "We are all sinners. But 'tis stated, you

know: One sigh buys forgiveness for everything."

Kuzma shook his head.

"You're saying the usual things!" he remarked, se-

verely. "But if you will only pause and reflect, how

can that be so? You've been living on and on pig-

fashion all your life, and you utter a sigh — and every-

thing is wiped out without leaving a trace! Is there

any sense in that, or not?"

The conversation was becoming painful. "That's

correct," Tikhon Hitch said to himself, as he stared at

the table with flashing eyes. But, as always, he

wanted to dodge thought, and discussion about God

and about life; and he said the first thing that came

to the tip of his tongue: "I'd be glad enough to go

to Paradise, but my sins won't let me."

"There, there, there!" Kuzma caught him up,

tapping the table with his finger-nail. "The very

thing we love the best, our most pernicious char-

acteristic, is precisely that: words are one thing,

deeds are quite another! 'Tis the genuine Russian

tune, brother: I live disgustingly, pig-fashion, but

nevertheless I am living, and I shall continue to live,

pig-fashion! You're a type, brother! A type! — Well,

now talk business."

The pealing of the bells had ceased, the canary had

quieted down. People had assembled in the eating-

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house, and conversation was increasing at the little

tables. A waiter opened a window, and chatter from

the bazaar also became audible. Somewhere in a shop

a quail was uttering his call, very clearly and melo-

diously. And while the business talk was in progress

Kuzma kept listening to it, and from time to time in-

terposed, "That's clever!" in an undertone. And when

all had been said he slapped the table with the palm

of his hand and said energetically: "Well, all right,

so be it — don't let's discuss it!" and thrusting his hand

into the side pocket of his short coat, he drew forth a

regular heap of papers and paper scraps, sorted out

from among them a small book in a grey-marbled

binding, and laid it in front of his brother. "There!"

said he. "I yield to your request and to my own weak-

ness. Tis a wretched little book, casual verses, written

long ago. But 'tis done, and it cannot be helped.

Here, take it and put it out of sight."

And once more Tikhon Hitch, who had already be-

come extremely red in the face from the vodka, was

agitated by the consciousness that his brother was an

author; that upon that grey-marbled cover was printed:

"Poems by K. I. KrasofT." He turned the book about

in his hands, and said diffidently: "Suppose you read

me something. Hey? Pray do, read me three or four

verses."

And, with head bent low and in some confusion,

holding the book at a distance and gazing severely at

it through his glasses, Kuzma read the sort of thing

which the self-taught usually write: imitations of Kolt-

zoff and Nikitin, complaints against Fate and misery,

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challenges to impending storm-clouds and bad weather.

It is true that he himself was conscious that all this

was old and false. But behind the alien, incongruous

form lay the truth — that which had been violently and

painfully experienced at some time or other. And

upon his thin cheek-bones patches of pink made their

appearance, and his voice trembled from time to time.

Tikhon Hitch's eyes gleamed, too. It was of no im-

portance whether the verses were good or bad — the

important point was that they had been composed by

his own brother, a poor man, a simple plain fellow

who reeked of cheap tobacco and old boots.

"But with us, Kuzma Hitch," he said when Kuzma

had finished and, removing his eyeglasses, dropped his

eyes, "but with us there is only one song." And he

twisted his lips unpleasantly and bitterly: "The

only song we know is: 'What's the price of pig's

bristles?"

XII

NEVERTHELESS, after establishing his brother

at Durnovka he set about singing that song

with more gusto than ever. Before placing

Durnovka in his brother's hands, he had picked a quar-

rel with Rodka over some new harness-straps which

had been devoured by the dogs, and had discharged

him. Rodka smiled insolently by way of reply and

calmly strode off to his cottage to collect his belong-

ings. The Bride, also, listened with apparent compo-

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sure to the dismissal. On breaking with Tikhon Hitch

she had resumed her habit of maintaining silence and

never looking him in the eye. But half an hour later,

when he had got everything together, Rodka came,

accompanied by her, to ask forgiveness. The Bride

remained standing on the threshold, pale, her eyes

swollen with weeping, and held her peace; Rodka

bowed his head, fumbled with his cap, and also made

an effort to weep, — it resulted in a repulsive grimace, —

but Tikhon Hitch sat at the table with lowering

brows and rattled the balls on his abacus, shaking

his head the while. Not one of the three could raise

his eyes — especially the Bride, who felt herself the

most guilty of them all — and their entreaties were un-

availing. Tikhon Hitch showed mercy on one point

only: he did not deduct the price of the straps from

their wages.

Now he was on a firm foundation. Having got rid

of Rodka and transferred his affairs to his brother's

charge, he felt alert, at his ease. "My brother is un-

reliable, a trifling fellow, apparently, but he'll do for

the present!" And returning to Vorgol he bustled

about unweariedly through the whole month of Octo-

ber. Nastasya Petrovna was ailing all the time — her

feet, hands, and face were swollen and yellow — and

Tikhon Hitch now began to meditate at times on the

possibility of her dying, and bore himself with increas-

ing lenience to her weakness, to her uselessness in all

affairs connected with the house and the shop. And,

as though in harmony with his mood, magnificent

weather prevailed during the whole of October. But

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suddenly it broke up and was followed by storms and

torrents of rain; and in Durnovka something utterly

unexpected came to pass.

During October Rodka had been working on the

railway line, and the Bride had been sitting, without

work, at home, enduring the reproaches of her mother

and only occasionally earning fifteen or twenty kopeks

in the garden of the manor. But her behaviour was

peculiar: at home she said never a word, but only

wept, and in the garden she was shrilly merry, shouted

with laughter, sang songs with Donka the Goat, an

extremely stupid and pretty little girl who resembled

an Egyptian. The Goat was living with a petty

burgher who had leased the garden, while the Bride,

who for some reason or other had struck up a friend-

ship with her, made bold eyes at her brother, an im-

pudent youth, and as she ogled him hinted in song

that she was wasting away with love for some one.

Whether anything occurred between them was not

known, but the whole affair ended in a great catas-

trophe. When the petty burghers were departing for

the town just before the Feast of Our Lady of Kazan

they arranged an "evening party" in their watchman's

hut, invited the Goat and the Bride, played all night

on two peasant pipes, fed their guests with crude del-

icacies, and gave them tea and vodka for beverages.

And at dawn, when their cart was already harnessed,

they suddenly, with roars of laughter, flung the in-

toxicated Bride on the ground, bound her arms, lifted

her petticoats, tied them in a knot over her head, and

began to fasten them securely there with a cord. The

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Goat started to run away, and made a headlong dive

in her fright into the tall, wet steppe-grass. When

she peeped out from that shelter, after the cart with

the petty burghers had rolled briskly away out of the

garden, she espied the Bride, naked to the waist, hang-

ing from a tree. The dawn was dreary and overcast;

a fine rain was whispering through the garden. The

Goat wept in streams, and her teeth chattered as she

untied the Bride from the tree, vowing by the memory

of her father and mother that lightning might kill her,

the Goat, but never should they discover in the village

what had taken place in the garden. Nevertheless, not

a week had elapsed before rumours concerning the

Bride's disgrace became current in Durnovka.

It was impossible, of course, to verify these rumours:

"As for seeing it — why, nobody saw it. Well, and the

Goat's tongue was hung in the middle when it came

to telling absurd tales." The Bride herself, who had

aged five years in that one week, replied to them with

such insolent vituperation that even her own mother

was terrified by her face at such moments. But the

discussions provoked by the rumours did not cease, and

every one awaited with immense impatience the ar-

rival of Rodka and his chastisement of his wife.

Much agitated — once more jarred out of his rut — Tik-

hon Hitch also awaited that impending chastisement,

having heard from his own labourers of what had oc-

curred in the garden. Why, that scandal might end

in murder! But it ended in such a manner that it is

still a matter of doubt which would have startled the

Durnovka folks more powerfully — murder, or such a

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termination. On the night before the Feast of St.

Michael, Rodka, who had returned home "to change

his shirt," and who had not laid a finger on the Bride,

died suddenly of "stomach trouble"! This became

known in Vorgol late in the evening; but Tikhon

Hitch instantly gave orders to harness his horse, and

drove at top speed, through the darkness and the rain,

to his brother. And after having gulped down, on

top of his tea, a whole bottle of fruit brandy, he made

confession to him, in his burning excitement, with pas-

sionate expressions, and eyes wildly rolling: '"Tis

my fault, brother; the sin is mine!"

Having heard him out, Kuzma held his peace for a

long time, and for a long time paced up and down the

room plucking at his fingers, twisting them, cracking

their joints. At last he said: "Just think it over: is

there any nation more ferocious than ours? In town,

if a petty thief snatches from a hawker's tray a pan-

cake worth a farthing, the whole population of the

eating-house section pursues him, and when they catch

him they force him to eat soap. The whole town turns

out for a fire, or a fight, and how sorry they are that

the fire or the fight is so soon ended! Don't shake

your head, don't do it: they are sorry! And how they

revel in it when some one beats his wife to death, or

thrashes a small boy within an inch of his life, or

jeers at him! That's the most amusing thing in the

world."

Tikhon Hitch inquired: "What's your object in say-

ing that?"

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"Just for the sake of talking!" replied Kuzma, an-

grily, and went on: "Take that half-witted girl,

Fesha, who wanders about Durnovka, for example.

The young fellows squander their last coppers on her —

put her down on the village common and set to work

whacking her over her cropped head, at the rate of

ten whacks for a farthing! And is that done out of

ill-nature? Yes, out of ill-nature, certainly; and also

from a sort of stupidity, curse it! Well, and that's

the case with the Bride."

"Bear in mind," interrupted Tikhon Hitch hotly,

"that there are always plenty of blackguards and block-

heads everywhere."

"Exactly so. And didn't you yourself bring that —

well, what's his name?"

"Duck-headed Motya, you mean?" asked Tikhon

Hitch.

"Yes, that's it. Didn't you bring him here for your

own amusement?"

And Tikhon Hitch burst out laughing: he had done

that very thing. Once, even, Motya had been sent

to him by the railway in a sugar-cask. The town

was only about an arm's length distant, and he knew

the officials — so they sent the man to him. And the

inscription on the cask ran : "With care. A complete

Fool."

"And these same fools are taught vices, for amuse-

ment!" Kuzma went on bitterly. — "The yard-gates of

poor brides are smeared with tar! Beggars are hunted

with dogs! For amusement, pigeons are knocked off

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roofs with stones! Yet, as you know, 'tis a great sin

to eat those same pigeons. The Holy Spirit Himself

assumes the form of a dove, you see!"

XIII

THE samovar had long since grown cold, the

candle had guttered down, smoke hung over the

room in a dull blue cloud, the slop-basin was

filled to the very brim with soggy, reeking cigarette

butts. The ventilator — a tin pipe in the upper cor-

ner of the window — was open, and once in a while a

squeaking and a whirling and a terribly tiresome wail-

ing proceeded from it — just like the one in the District

offices, Tikhon Hitch said to himself. But the smoke

was so dense that ten ventilators would have been of

no avail. The rain rattled on the roof and Kuzma

strode from corner to corner and talked:

"Ye-es! a nice state of things, there's no denying it!

Indescribable kindliness! If you read history, your

hair rises upright in horror: brother pitted against

brother, kinsman against kinsman, son against father

— treachery and murder, murder and treachery. The

Epic legends, too, are a sheer delight: 'he slit his white

breast,' 'he let his bowels out on the ground,' 'Ilya did

not spare his own daughter; he stepped on her left foot,

and pulled her right foot' And the songs? The same

thing, always the same: the stepmother is 'wicked and

greedy'; the father-in-law, 'harsh and quarrelsome,' sits

on the sleeping-shelf above the stove, 'just like a dog

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on a rope'; the mother-in-law, equally wicked, sits on

the stove 'just like a bitch on a chain'; the sisters-in-

law are invariably 'young dogs and tricksters'; the

brothers-in-law are 'malicious scoffers'; the husband is

'either a fool or a drunkard'; the 'old father-in-law

bids him beat his wife soundly, until her hide drops

off to her heels'; while the wife, having 'scrubbed the

floor' for this same old man, 'ladled out the sour cab-

bage-soup, scraped the threshold clean, and baked

turnover-patties,' addresses this sort of a speech to

her husband: 'Get up, you disgusting fellow, wake

up: here's dish-water, wash yourself; here are your

leg-wrappers, wipe yourself; here's a bit of rope, hang

yourself.' And our adages, Tikhon Hitch! Could

anything more lewd and filthy be invented? And our

proverbs! 'One man who has been soundly thrashed

is worth two who have not been.' 'Simplicity is worse

than thieving.' "

"So, according to you, the best way for a man to

live is like an arrant fool?" inquired Tikhon Hitch with

a sneer.

And Kuzma joyfully snapped up his words: "Well,

that's right, that's the idea! There's nothing in the

whole world so beggar-bare as we are, and on the

other hand there's nobody more insolent on the ground

of that same nakedness. What's the vicious way to

insult a person? Accuse 'em of poverty! Say:

'You devil! You haven't a morsel to eat.' Here's

an illustration: Deniska — well, I mean the son

of Syery, he's a cobbler — said to me the other

day—" '

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"Wait a minute," interrupted Tikhon Hitch. "How's

Syery himself getting on?"

"Deniska says he's 'perishing with hunger.' "

"A good-for-nothing peasant!" said Tikhon Hitch

with conviction. "Don't sing any of your songs about

him to me."

"I'm not singing!" retorted Kuzma angrily. "But

I ought to do it. For his name is Krasoff. However,

that's another story. You'd better listen to what I

have to say about Deniska. Well, he told me this:

'Sometimes, in a famine year, we foremen would go to

the neighbourhood of the cemetery in the Black Sub-

urb; and there those public women were — regular

troops of them. And they were hungry, the lean hags,

extremely hungry! If you gave one of them half a

pound of bread for her work she'd devour it to the last

crumb, there under you. It was downright ridiculous!'

Take note," cried Kuzma sternly, pausing: "It was

downright ridiculous'!"

"Oh, stop it, for Christ's sake!" Tikhon Hitch in-

terrupted again. "Give me a chance to say a word

about business!"

Kuzma stopped short. "Well, talk away," said he.

"Only, what are you going to say? Tell him 'You

ought to do thus and so'? Not a bit of it! If you

give him money — that's the end of it. Just think it

over: they have no fuel, they have nothing to eat, noth-

ing to pay for a funeral. That means, 'tis your most

sacred duty to give them some money — well, and

something more to boot : a few potatoes, a wagon-load

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or two of straw. And hire the Bride. Send her here

as my cook."

And immediately Tikhon Hitch felt as though a

stone had been rolled off his breast. He hastily drew

out his purse, plucked out a ten-ruble banknote, joy-

fully assented also to all the other suggestions. And

suddenly he asked once more, in a rapid distressed

voice: "But didn't she poison him?"

Kuzma merely shrugged his shoulders by way of

reply.

Whether she had poisoned him or not, it was a ter-

rible matter to think about. And Tikhon Hitch went

home as soon as it was light, through the chill, misty

morning, when the odour of damp threshing-floors and

smoke still hung in the air, while the cocks were crow-

ing sleepily in the haze-wrapped village, and the dogs

lay sleeping on the porches, and the old faded-yellow

turkey still snoozed roosting on the bough of an apple

tree half stripped of its discoloured dead autumn

leaves, by the side of a house. In the fields nothing

could be seen at a distance of two paces, thanks to the

dense white fog driven before the wind. Tikhon

Hitch felt no desire to sleep, but he did feel exhausted,

and as usual whipped up his horse, a large brown mare

with her tail tied up; she was soaked with the moisture

and appeared leaner, more dandified, and blacker be-

cause of it. He turned his head away from the wind

and raised the cold wet collar of his overcoat on the

right side, all glistening like silver under tiny pearls

of rain which covered it with a thick veil. He ob-

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served, through the cold little drops which hung on

his eyelashes, how the sticky black loam was churned

up in ever-increasing density by his swiftly-revolving

wheels, and how clods of mud, spurting high in a

regular fountain, hung in the air and did not disperse;

how they already began to adhere to his boots and

knees. And he darted a glance at the heaving

haunches of his horse; at her ears laid flat back

against her head and darkened by the rain. And

when, at last, his face streaked with mud, he dashed

up to his own house, the first thing that met his eyes

was YakofF's horse at the hitching-bar. Hastily knot-

ting the reins on the fore-carriage, he sprang from the

runabout, ran to the open door of the shop — and halted

abruptly in terror.

"Blo-ockhead!" Nastasya Petrovna was saying

from her place behind the counter, in evident imita-

tion of himself, Tikhon Hitch, but in an ailing, caress-

ing voice, as she bent lower and lower over the money-

drawer and fumbled along the jingling coppers, un-

able, in the darkness, to find coins for change. "Block-

head! Where could you get it any cheaper, at the

present time?" And, not finding the change, she

straightened up and looked at Yakoff, who stood be-

fore her in cap and overcoat, but barefoot. She stared

at his slightly elevated face and scraggy beard of in-

determinate hue, and added: "But didn't she poison

him?"

And Yakoff mumbled in haste: "That's no affair

of ours, Petrovna. The devil only knows. It's none

of our business. Our business, for example — "

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And Tikhon Hitch's hands shook all day long as

that mumbling answer recurred to his mind. Every-

body, everybody, thought she had poisoned him!

Fortunately, the secret remained a secret. The

Sacrament was administered to Rodka before he died.

And the Bride wailed so sincerely as she followed the

coffin that it was positively indecent — for, of course,

that wailing should not be an expression of the feel-

ings, but the fulfilment of a rite. And little by little

Tikhon Hitch's perturbation subsided. But for a long

time still he continued to go about more gloomy than

a thunder-cloud.

XIV

HE was immersed to the throat in business — as

usual — and he had no one to help him. Nas-

tasya Petrovna was of very little assistance.

Tikhon Hitch never hired any labourers except "sum-

mer-workers" who were taken on merely until the cat-

tle were driven home from pasturage, and they were

already dispersed. Only the servants by the year re-

mained — the cook, the old watchman nicknamed

"Chaff," and Oska, a lad of seventeen who was both

lazy and ugly of disposition, "the Tsar of Heaven's

dolt" — a most egregious fool. And how much atten-

tion the cattle alone demanded! After the necessary

sheep were slaughtered and salted down, twenty re-

mained to be cared for over the winter. There were

six black boar-pigs in the sty, eternally sullen and dis-

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contented over something or other. In the barns stood

three cows, a young bull, and a red calf. In the yard

were eleven horses, and in a box-stall stood a grey

stallion, a vicious, heavy, full-maned, broad-chested

brute — a half-breed, but worth four hundred rubles:

his sire had a certificate, and was worth fifteen hundred.

And all these required constant and careful oversight.

But in his leisure moments Tikhon Hitch was devoured

by melancholy and boredom.

The very sight of Nastasya Petrovna irritated him,

and he was constantly urging her to go away for a

visit with acquaintances in the town. And at last she

made her preparations and went. But after she was

gone, somehow, he found things more boresome than

ever. After seeing her off, Tikhon Hitch wandered

aimlessly over the fields. Along the highway, gun over

shoulder, came the chief of the post-office at Ulia-

novka, Sakharoff, famed because of his passion for or-

dering by letter free price-lists — catalogues of guns,

seeds, musical instruments — and because of his manner

of treating the peasants, which was so savage that they

were wont to say: "When you pass in a letter, your

hands and feet fairly shake!" Tikhon Hitch went to

the edge of the highway to meet him. Elevating his

brows, he gazed at the postmaster and said to himself:

"A fool of an old man. He slumps along through the

mud like an elephant." But he called out, in friendly

tones :

"Been hunting, Anton Markitch?"

The postmaster halted. Tikhon Hitch approached

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and gave him a formal greeting. "Had any luck, or

not, I say?" he inquired, mockingly.

"Hunting, indeed! Nothing to hunt!" gloomily re-

plied the postmaster, a huge, round-shouldered man

with thick grey hairs protruding from his ears and his

nostrils, huge eye-sockets, and deeply sunken eyes —

a regular gorilla. "I merely strolled out on account of

my haemorrhoids," he said, pronouncing the last word

with special care.

"But bear in mind," retorted Tikhon Hitch with un-

expected heat, stretching forth his hand with the fingers

outspread, "bear in mind that our countryside has been

completely devastated! Not so much as the name of

bird or beast is left, sir!"

"The forests have all been cut down," remarked the

postmaster.

"I should think they had been cut down, forsooth!

Shaved off close to the earth!" Tikhon Hitch corrob-

orated him. And all of a sudden he added: " '.lis

moulting, sir! Everything is moulting, sir!"

Why that word broke loose from his tongue, Tikhon

Hitch himself did not know, but he felt that, neverthe-

less, it had not been uttered without reason. "Every-

thing's moulting," he said to himself, "exactly like

the cattle after a long, hard winter." And after he

had parted from the postmaster he stood long on the"

highway, involuntarily gazing about him. The rain

had again begun to patter down; a disagreeable, damp

wind was blowing. Darkness was descending over

the rolling fields — the fields sown with winter-grain,

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the ploughed fields, the stubble-fields, and the light

brown groves of young trees.

The gloomy sky descended lower and lower over the

earth. The roads, flooded by the rain, gleamed with

a leaden sheen. The post-train from Moscow, which

was an hour and a half late every day, was due at the

station. Only from the signal-bells, the humming

sounds, the rumbling, and the odour of coal and samo-

vars in the yards, did Tikhon Hitch know that it had

arrived and departed, for buildings screened the station

from view. The odour of samovars now remained,

and that aroused a dim longing for comfort, a warm

clean room, a family — or the desire to go away some-

where or other.

But this feeling was suddenly replaced by amaze-

ment. From the bare Ulianovka forest a man emerged

and directed his steps towards the highway — a man in

a round-topped hat and only a short roundabout coat.

On looking more closely, Tikhon Hitch recognized

ZhikharefT, the son of a wealthy land-owner, who had

long since become a thoroughgoing drunkard. His

heart contracted with pain. "Well, it makes no differ-

ence," thought Tikhon Hitch sadly. " Twill be best

to chat a bit with him and, in case of need, give him

half a ruble. 'Tis not worth while to anger the vaga-

bond: he's a spiteful fellow."

But on this occasion Zhikhareff approached in a

decidedly arrogant frame of mind, bristling, but with

his head, in its beggar's hat, thrown back, and chew-

ing between his clenched jaws the mouth end of a

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cigarette, long since smoked out and extinct. His face

was blue with the cold, puffy with drunkenness; his

eyes were red, and his mustache disheveled. He had

turned up the collar of his short coat, which was but-

toned to the chin, and, with the tips of his fingers

thrust into the pockets, he was splashing along in a

spirited manner through the mud. His rusty, dilapi-

dated high boots projected below his short trousers,

which were tightly strained over his knees.

"A — ah!" he drawled through his teeth, as he chewed

his cigarette-butt. "Whom do I see? Tikhon Fom-

itch x is looking over his domains!" And he emitted a

hoarse laugh.

"Good-day, Lyeff Lvovitch," replied Tikhon Hitch.

"Are you waiting for the train?"

"Yes, I am — and I never seem to hit it," returne-d

Zhikhareff, shrugging his shoulders. "I've been wait-

ing and waiting, and I got so bored that I've been

making the forester a little visit. We've been chatter-

ing and smoking. But I've still a whole eternity to

wait! Shall we not meet at the station? I believe

you are fond of putting something behind your collar

yourself?"

"God has been gracious," replied Tikhon Hitch, in

the same tone he had used before. "As for drinking —

why shouldn't a man drink a bit? Only, he must pick

the proper time."

1 Probably a deliberate bit of insolence, as he must have

known that the patronymic was "Hitch," not "Fomitch."

—TRANS.

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"Fudge and nonsense!" said Zhikhareff hoarsely,

skipping across a puddle with considerable agility, and

he directed his course towards the railway station at a

leisurely pace.

His aspect was pitiful, and Tikhon Hitch gazed long

and with disgust at his inadequate trousers, which hung

down like bags from beneath his short coat.

XV

DURING the night the rain poured down again,

and it was so dark you could not see your hand

before your face. Tikhon Hitch slept badly

and gritted his teeth in torture. He had a chill — evi-

dently he had taken cold by standing on the high-

way in the evening — and the overcoat which he had

thrown over himself slid off upon the floor, and im-

mediately he dreamed the same thing he had always

dreamed ever since childhood, whenever his back was

cold: twilight, narrow alleys, a hurrying throng, fire-

men galloping along in heavy carts drawn by vicious

black truck-horses. Once he woke up, struck a match,

looked at the ticking clock — it showed the hour of three

— and picked up the overcoat; and, as he fell asleep,

the thought of Zhikhareff once more recurred distress-

ingly to his mind. And athwart his slumbers a per-

sistent thought obsessed him: that the shop was being

looted and the horses driven away.

Sometimes it seemed to him that he was at the Dan-

kova posting-station, that the nocturnal rain was pat-

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tering on the pent-house over the gate, and that the

little bell above it was being pulled and was ringing

incessantly — thieves had come and had led thither,

through the impenetrable darkness, his splendid stal-

lion, and if they were to discover his presence there,

they would murder him. And again consciousness of

the reality would return to him. But even the reality

was alarming. The old watchman was walking about

under the windows with his mallet, but it seemed as if

he were far, far away; as if the sheep-dog, with chok-

ing growls, were rending some one — had rushed off into

the fields with tempestuous barking, and suddenly had

presented himself again under the windows and was

trying to rouse him by standing on one spot and bark-

ing violently. Then Tikhon Hitch started to go out

and see what was the matter, whether everything were

as it should be. But as soon as he reached the point

of making up his mind to rise, the heavy slanting rain

began to rattle more thickly and densely than ever

against the small dark windows, driven by the wind

from the dark and boundless fields, and sleep seemed

to him the most precious thing in the world. At last

a door banged, a stream of damp, cold air entered, and

the watchman, Chaff, dragged a bundle of rustling

straw into the vestibule. Tikhon Hitch opened his

eyes: it was six o'clock, the daylight was dull and wet,

the tiny windows were misted over with moisture.

"Make a little fire, my good man, make a little fire,"

said Tikhon Hitch, his voice still hoarse with sleep.

"Then we'll go and feed the cattle, and you can go to

your place and sleep."

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The old man, who had grown thin over night and all

blue with cold, the dampness, and fatigue, gazed at

him with sunken dead eyes. In his wet cap, his short

rain-drenched outer coat, and his ragged bast-slippers

soaked with mud and water, he growled out something

in a dull tone as he got down with difficulty on his

knees in front of the stove, stuffing it with the cold,

fragrant bundle of straw and blowing on the lighted

mass.

"Well, has the cow bitten your tongue off?" shouted

Tikhon Hitch hoarsely, as he climbed out of bed and

picked up his coat from the floor. "What's that you're

muttering there to yourself?"

"I've been walking all night long, and now it's 'give

the cattle their fodder/ " mumbled the old man with-

out raising his head, as if talking to himself.

Tikhon Hitch looked askance at him: "I saw the

way you walked about!"

He felt worn out; nevertheless he put on his coat

and, conquering a petty fit of shivering in his bowels,

went out on the porch, which was covered with the

footprints of the dogs, into the icy chill of the pale

stormy morning. Everywhere the ground was flooded

with lead-coloured puddles; all the walls had turned

dark with the rain.

"A nice lot; these workmen!" he said to himself an-

grily.

It was barely drizzling. "But surely it will be pour-

ing again by noon," he said to himself. And he

glanced with surprise at shaggy Buyan, who dashed

toward him from under the granary. His paws were

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muddy, but he himself was boiling with excitement, his

eyes were sparkling, his tongue was fresh and red as

fire, his healthy hot breath fairly exuding the odour

of dog. And that after racing about and barking all

night long!

He took Buyan by the collar and, slopping through

the mud, made the rounds, inspecting all the locks.

Then he chained the dog under the granary, returned

to his ante-room, and glanced into the roomy kitchen,

the cottage proper. The cottage had a hot, repulsive

odour; the cook lay fast asleep on a bare box-bench,

beneath the holy pictures, her face covered with her

apron, her loins displayed, and her legs clad in huge

old felt boots, the soles thickly plastered with the dirt

from the earthen floors. Oska lay on the sleeping-

board face downward, fully dressed, in his short sheep-

skin coat and his bast-slippers, his head buried in a

heavy, soiled pillow.

"That devil has been at the lad!" thought Tikhon

Hitch- Avith disgust. "Just look at her — at her nasty

debauch all night long — and towards morning, off she

goes to the bench!"

And after a survey of the black walls, the tiny win-

dows, the tub filled with dirty dish-water, the huge

broad-shouldered stove, he shouted loudly and harshly:

"Hey, there! My noble lords! You ought to know

when you've had enough!"

While the cook, scratching herself and yawning,

heated the stove, boiled some potatoes for the pigs, and

got the samovar alight, Oska, minus his cap and stum-

bling with sleep, dragged bran for the horses and cows.

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Tikhon Hitch himself unlocked the creaking doors of

the stable and was the first to enter its warm, dirty

comfort, surrounded by sheds, enclosures, and styes.

The stable was ankle-deep in manure. Dung, urine,

and rain had all run together and formed a thick,

light-brown fluid. The horses, already darkening with

their velvety winter coats, were roaming about under

the pent-houses. The sheep, of a dirty-grey hue, were

huddled in an agitated mass in one corner. An old

brown gelding dozed in isolation alongside his empty

manger, smeared with dough. The drizzling rain fell

and fell interminably upon the square farmyard from

the unfriendly, stormy sky, but the gelding paid no

heed to anything. The pigs moaned and grunted in

an ailing, persistent way in their pen.

" 'Tis deadly boresome!" thought Tikhon Hitch,

and immediately emitted a fierce yell at the old man,

who was dragging along a bundle of grain-straw:

"Why are you dragging that through the mud, you

vile profligate?"

The old man flung the bundle of straw on the

ground, looked him over, and all at once remarked

quietly: "I'm listening to a vile profligate."

Tikhon Hitch cast a swift glance around, to see

whether the lad had gone out, and, on convincing him-

self that he had, stepped up to the old man and with

apparent calmness gave him such a thwack in the teeth

that his head shook to and fro, seized him by the

collar, and hustled him to the gate with all his might.

"Begone!" he bawled, panting for breath and turning

as white as chalk. "Don't let me ever catch so much

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as the smell of you here in the future, you cursed tat-

terdemalion!"

The old man flew through the gate, and five minutes

later, his bag on his shoulders and a stick in his hand,

he was striding along the highway to his home in Ulia-

novka. Meanwhile Tikhon Hitch, with shaking hands,

had watered the stallion, had himself given the animal

his portion of fresh oats — he had merely turned yes-

terday's oats over with his muzzle and slobbered on

them — and with long strides, through the liquid mess

and the manure, had betaken himself to his cottage.

"Are things ready?" he inquired, opening the door

a crack.

"There's no hurry!" snarled the cook.

The cottage was beclouded with a warm, sweetish

steam emanating from the pot where the potatoes were

boiling. The cook, assisted by the lad, was energeti-

cally mashing them with a pestle, sprinkling in flour

the while, and Tikhon Hitch did not hear the reply

because of the noise. Slamming the door, he went to

drink his tea.

XVI

IN the tiny ante-room he pushed aside with his foot

a heavy, dirty horsecloth which lay across the

threshold and went to one corner, where, over a

stool surmounted by a pewter basin, a brass washstand

was fastened, while on a small shelf lay a small,

clammy piece of cocoanut-oil soap. As he rattled the

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water-tank, squinted, frowned, and puffed out his nos-

trils, he was not able to refrain from a malicious fugi-

tive glance, and he remarked with peculiar distinct-

ness: "H'm! No, who ever saw the like of the la-

bourers? There's no getting on with them at all now-

adays! Say one word to such a fellow, and he'll come

back at you with ten words! Say a dozen to him,

and he'll fling you back a hundred! They're gone

dead crazy! Though it isn't summer time, there's

plenty of you to be had, you devils! You'll want

something to eat for the winter, brother — you'll come,

you son of a dog, you'll co-ome, and bow lo-o-ow in

entreaty!"

The towel, which served for the master as well as

for the lodger-travellers, had been hanging beside the

water-tank since St. Michael's Day. It was so filthy

that Tikhon Hitch gritted his teeth when he looked at

it. "Okh!" he ejaculated, closing his eyes and

shaking his head. "Ugh! Holy Mother, Queen of

Heaven!" And hurling the towel on the floor, he

wiped himself on the embroidered skirt of his shirt,

which flapped outside his waistcoat.

Two doors opened from the ante-room. One, on the

left, led to the room assigned to travellers, which was

long, half-dark, and with tiny windows that looked out

on the barn; in it stood two large divans, hard as stone,

covered with black oilcloth, filled more than full with

living and with crushed and dried bugs, while on the

partition-wall hung the portrait of some general with

fierce beaver-like side whiskers. This portrait was

bordered with small portraits of heroes of the Russo-

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Turkish war, and underneath was an inscription:

"Long will our children and our dear Slavic brethren

remember the glorious deeds; how our father, the

courageous Suleiman Pasha, crushed and conquered the

treacherous foemen and marched with his lads along

such crags as only clouds and the feathered Kings of

the air were wont to scale." The second door led into

the master's room. There, on the right alongside the

door, glittered the glass of a cupboard, on the left a

stove-bench gleamed white; the stove had cracked at

some past day, and over the white it had been smeared

with clay, which had imparted to it the outline of

something resembling a thin, dislocated man, which

seriously displeased Tikhon Hitch. Beyond the stove

rose aloft a double bed: above the bed was nailed

up a rug of dull-green and brick-coloured wool, bear-

ing the -image of a tiger with whiskers and ears which

stood erect like those of a cat. Opposite the door,

against the wall, stood a chest of drawers covered with

a knitted tablecloth, and on the table-cloth Nastasya

Petrovna's wedding-casket. In the casket lay con-

tracts with the labourers, phials containing medicines

long since spoiled with age, matches.

"Wanted in the shop!" screamed the cook, opening

the door a crack.

"There's no hurry — the goats in the bazaar can

wait!" replied Tikhon Hitch wrathfully — but he hur-

ried out.

The distance was veiled by a watery mist; the effect

resembled that of twilight. The rain still drizzled on,

but the wind had veered round; it was now blowing

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from the North, and the air had grown colder. The

freight train, which was just pulling out of the station,

rattled more cheerfully and resoundingly than it had

for many days past.

'"Morning, Hitch," said the hare-lipped peasant,

who was holding a wet piebald horse at the porch, as

he nodded his soaking fur cap, which was of the tall

Mandzhurian shape.

'"Morning," nodded Tikhon Hitch, casting a side-

long glance at the strong white tooth which gleamed

through the peasant's cleft lip. "What do you need?"

And, hastily providing the salt and kerosene required,

he hurried back to his chamber. "The dogs, they

don't give a man time to make the sign of the cross on

his brow!" he grumbled as he went.

The samovar, which stood on a table against the

partition-wall, was bubbling and boiling hard; the

small mirror which hung above the table was enveloped

in a thin layer of white steam. The windows and the

chromo-lithograph which was nailed to the wall under

the mirror — it depicted a giant in a yellow kaftan and

red morocco boots, with a Russian banner in his hand,

from beneath which peeped the towers and domes of

the Moscow Kremlin — were also veiled in steam. Pho-

tographic portraits framed in shell-work surrounded

this picture. In the place of honour hung the por-

trait of a priest in a moire cassock, with a small, sparse

beard, plump cheeks, and extremely small penetrating

eyes. And, with a glance at him, Tikhon Hitch crossed

himself violently towards the holy pictures in the cor-

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ner. Then he removed from the samovar a smoke-

begrimed teapot and poured out a cup of tea, which

smelled very much like a steamed bathroom.

"They don't give a man a chance to cross himself,"

he said, wrinkling his face with the expression of a

person suffering martyrdom. "They fairly cut my

throat, curse them!"

It seemed as if there were something which he ought

to call to mind, to take under consideration, or as if he

ought simply to go to bed and get a good sleep. He

longed for warmth, repose, clearness, firmness of

thought. He rose, went to the glass cupboard with its

rattling panes and cups and saucers, and took from one

of the shelves a bottle of liqueur flavoured with moun-

tain-ash berries and a cask-shaped glass on which was

inscribed-:- "Even monks take this." "But perhaps I

oughtn't," he said aloud. However, he lacked firm-

ness. Through his mind, against his will, flashed the

old saw: "Drink and you'll die, and don't drink and

you'll die just the same." So he poured out a glass-

ful and tossed it off, poured out another and gulped

that down, also. And, munching at a thick cracknel,

he sat down at the table.

He became conscious of an agreeable burning sensa-

tion inside, and eagerly sipped the boiling tea from

his saucer, sucking at a lump of sugar which he held

in his teeth. He felt better, so far as his body was

concerned. But his soul went on living its own life,

which was both gloomy and melancholy. Thoughts

followed thoughts, but there was no sense in them. As

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he sipped his tea, he cast an abstracted and suspicious

glance sidelong at the partition-wall, at the man in

the yellow kaftan, at the photographs in the shell-

work frames, and even at the priest in his watered-

silk cassock. "Lerigion means nothing to us pigs!" he

said to himself; and, as though by way of justifying

himself to some one, he added roughly: "Just you

try living in the village, and drinking sparkling kvas,

like us!"

As he gazed askance at the priest he felt that

everything was dubious; even his habitual rever-

ence for that priest seemed doubtful, not founded

on reason. When one really came to think about

it. . . .

But at this point he made haste to transfer his glance

to the Moscow Kremlin. "Shame on me!" he mut-

tered. "I've never been in Moscow since I was born!"

No, he had not. And why? His pigs wouldn't let

him! Now it was his petty trading which hindered,

now the posting-station, then the pot-house, then Dur-

novka. And now he could not get away because of

the stallion and the boar-pigs. But why speak of

Moscow? For the last ten years he had been intend-

ing, without success, to get as far as the little birch

grove that lay the other side of the highway. He had

kept on hoping that somehow or other he would man-

age to tear himself free for an evening, carry a rug

and samovar with him, sit on the grass in the cool air,

in the greenery — and he simply had not been able to

get away. The days flowed past like water between

the fingers, and before one had time to gather one's

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wits together, one's fiftieth year had knocked at the

door, and that meant the end of everything, and it

didn't seem so very long ago that one was running

about without any breeches, did it? Just as if it had

been yesterday!

XVII

THE faces gazed out in complete immobility from

their shell-work frames. Here was a scene

which had never taken place and could not take

place: In the field, amid the thick-growing rye, lay

two persons — Tikhon Hitch himself and a young mer-

chant named Rostovtzeff, holding in their hands glasses

exactly half filled with dark beer. What a close

friendship had sprung up between Rostovtzeff and Tik-

hon Hitch! How well he remembered that grey day

in Carnival Week when the picture was taken! But

in what year had that happened? What had become

of Rostovtzeff? Perhaps he had died in Voronezh—

and now no one knew for a certainty whether he were

still alive in this world or not. And yonder stood

three petty burghers, drawn up in military style and

perfectly wooden, with their hair parted in the middle

and very smooth, dressed in embroidered Russian

shirts opening at the side and long coats, with their

boots well polished — Butchneff, Vystavkin, and Bogo-

moloff. Vystavkin, the one in the middle, was hold-

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ing in front of his breast the bread and salt of hos-

pitality on a wooden platter, covered with a towel em-

broidered with cocks, while Butchneff and Bogomoloff

each held a holy picture. They had been photo-

graphed on a dusty, windy day, when the grain-ele-

vator had been blessed — when the Bishop and the Gov-

ernor had come for the ceremony, when Tikhon Hitch

had felt so proud that he had been one of the crowd

appointed to greet the officials. But what had his

memory retained about that day? Merely this — that

they had waited beside the elevator for five hours, on

the new brown rails of the track, that the white dust

had been blown in clouds by the wind, that the railway

carriages and the trees were all covered with dust, that

the Governor, a long, lean man, exactly like a corpse

in white trousers with gold stripes, a uniform em-

broidered in gold, and a three-cornered hat, walked

towards the deputation in a remarkably deliberate

manner — that it was very alarming when he began to

speak as he accepted the bread and salt, that every one

had been surprised at the thinness and whiteness of his

hands, and the skin on them, as delicate and gleam-

ing as the hide stripped from a snake, the brilliant,

polished gold rings and rings with gems on his dry,

slender fingers with their long transparent nails. Now

that Governor was no longer among the living, and

Vystavkin was dead, also. And in another five or

ten years people would be saying, in speaking of Tik-

hon Hitch, too: "The late Tikhon Hitch."

The room had grown warmer and more cosy, now

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that the stove had got to going well; the little mirror

had cleared off; but nothing was to be seen through the

windows, which were white with a dull steam, indicat-

ing that the weather had grown colder outside. The

insistent grunting of the hungry pigs made itself more

and more audible. And suddenly the grunt was trans-

muted into a mighty unanimous roar: obviously the

pigs had heard the voices of the cook and Oska, who

were lugging to them the heavy tub with their mess.

And, without finishing his reflections on death, Tikhon

Hitch flung his cigarette into the slop-basin, drew on

his overcoat, and hurried out to the barn. With long

strides, sinking deep in the sloppy manure, he opened

the door of the sty with his own hands, and for a long

time kept his greedy, melancholy eyes riveted on the

pigs, which hurled themselves on the trough into

which the steaming mess had been poured.

The thought of death had been interrupted by an-

other: "the late," as applied to himself, was all right,

but possibly this particular dead man might serve as

an example. Who had he been? An orphan, a beg-

gar, who had often had no bread to eat for a couple

of days at a stretch. But now? "Your biography

ought to be written," Kuzma had said one day, in

jest. But there was no occasion for jesting, if you

please. He must have had a noddle on his shoulders,

if the wretched little urchin who barely knew how

to read had turned out not Tishka, but Tikhon Hitch:

that was what it meant.

But all of a sudden the cook, who had also been

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staring intently at the pigs as they jostled one an-

other and got their forefeet into the trough, hiccoughed

and remarked: "Okh, O Lord! I only hope some

calamity won't happen to us today! Last night I had

a dream — I thought cattle were being driven into our

farmyard: sheep, cows, all sorts of pigs were being

driven to us. And they were all black, every last one

of them was black!"

And once more his heart sank within him. Yes,

there were those cattle! The cattle alone were enough

to drive a man to hang himself. Not three hours had

elapsed — and again you had to seize your keys, again

drag fodder for the whole farmyard. In the common

stall were three milch cows; in special stalls were the

red calf and the bull Bismarck: now they must be

supplied with hay. The horse and sheep got bran for

their dinner, but the stallion — the devil himself couldn't

tell what that beast wanted! He was completely

spoiled. He thrust his muzzle against the grated top

of his door, sniffed at something, and made grimaces:

he curled back his upper lip, bared his rose-coloured

gums and white teeth, distorted his nostrils. And

Tikhon Hitch, in a rage which surprised even himself,

suddenly yelled at him: "You spoiled pet, curse you,

may the lightning strike you!"

Again he had got his feet wet; he had a chill; it be-

gan to sleet — and again he had recourse to the moun-

tain-ash-berry brandy. He ate some potatoes with sun-

flower-seed oil, and salted cucumbers, sour cabbage

soup with mushrooms added to it, and wheat groats.

His face got red, his head grew heavy.

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XVIII

HE began to feel drowsy, thanks to the vodka,

what he had eaten, and his incoherent thoughts.

Without undressing, merely pulling his muddy

boots off by the simple expedient of rubbing one foot

against the other, he threw himself on his bed. But he

was disturbed by the necessity of rising again almost

immediately: before night oat-straw must be given

to the horses, the cows, and the sheep, and also to

the stallion — or, no, it would be better to mix it with

hay and moisten and salt it well. Only, if he let him-

self go he would certainly fall asleep. Tikhon Hitch

reached out to the chest of drawers, grasped the alarm-

clock, and began to wind it up. And the alarm-clock

came to life and began to tick — and the atmosphere

in the chamber seemed to become more tranquil, more

cheerful, under the influence of its rapid, even ticking.

His thoughts began to get confused.

But no sooner had they become drowsily obscure

than a rough, loud sound of ecclesiastical chanting sud-

denly made itself audible. Opening his eyes with a

start, Tikhon Hitch at first could make out only one

thing: two peasants were roaring through their noses,

and a gust of cold air mingled with the odour of wet

great-coats penetrated from the ante-room. Then he

sprang up, sat on the side of his bed, and scrutinized

the peasants to see what sort of men they were, and

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suddenly became conscious that his heart had started

beating. One was blind — a big pockmarked fellow

with a small nose, a long upper lip, and a large round

skull — and the second was none other than Makar

Ivanovitch!

Makar Ivanovitch had been known, once on a time,

as Makarka — everybody called him "Makar-the-Pil-

grim" — and one day he entered Tikhon Hitch's dram-

shop. He was roaming somewhither along the high-

way, arrayed in bast-slippers, a pointed skull-cap of

ecclesiastical cut, and a dirty under-cassock — and he

had entered. In his hand was a long staff, painted the

hue of verdigris, with a cross on its upper extremity

and a spear-like point at its lower, a wallet and a

soldier's canteen on his back; his face was broad and

the colour of cement, his nostrils were like two gun-

barrels, his nose was broken across the middle like a

saddle-tree, and his eyes were of the sort which often

goes with such noses, light-hued and sharply brilliant.

Shameless, shrewd, greedily smoking one cigarette

after another and emitting the smoke through his nos-

trils, speaking in a rough, abrupt tone which com-

pletely excluded any reply, he had made an extremely

pleasant impression on Tikhon Hitch, in particular by

that tone, because it was immediately evident that he

was "a thoroughgoing rascal."

So Tikon Hitch kept him with him as his assistant.

He removed his tramp's garb and kept him. But

Makarka turned out to be such a thief that it became

necessary to give him a severe thrashing and turn him

out. A year later Makarka rendered himself famous

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throughout the entire county by his prophecies — proph-

ecies so ill-omened that people began to dread his

visits as they dreaded fire. He would walk up under

some one's window and snufflingly strike up, "Give rest

with the Saints," or would make a present of a frag-

ment of incense or a pinch of dust — and, infallibly,

that house soon had a corpse.

Now Makarka, in his original garb, staff in hand,

was standing on the threshold and chanting. The

blind man was chiming in, rolling his milky eyes up

under his lids the while, and Tikhon Hitch, judging

merely from his ill-proportioned features, immediately

set him down as a runaway convict, a terrible and

ruthless wild beast. But what these vagabonds were

singing was even more terrible. The blind man,

gloomily twitching his uplifted brows, sang out boldly,

in a nasty, snuffling tenor voice. Makarka, his im-

movable eyes flashing, boomed along in a savage

basso. The effect was immeasurably loud, roughly me-

lodious, antiquely ecclesiastical, powerful, and men-

acing:

"Damp Mother-Earth is weeping heavily, is sob-

bing!"

sang the blind man.

"Is Wee-p-i-i-ng hea-vi-ly, is sob-bing!"

Makarka repeated sharply, with conviction.

"Before the Saviour, before His image — "

roared the blind man.

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"Perchance the sinners will repent!"

threatened Makarka, inflating his insolent nostrils

And merging his basso with the blind man's tenor, he

articulated distinctly:

"They shall not escape God's judgment!

They shall not escape the fires eternal!"

And suddenly he broke off — in accord with the blind

man — cleared his throat, and simply, in his habitual

insolent tone, demanded: "Give us a contribution,

merchant, to warm us up." Thereupon, without wait-

ing for a reply, he strode across the threshold, marched

up to the bed, and thrust a small picture into Tikhon

Hitch's hand.

It was a simple clipping from an illustrated journal,

but, as he glanced at it, Tikhon Hitch felt a sudden

pain in his lower breast. Beneath the picture, which

depicted trees bending before the tempest, a white zig-

zag athwart the storm-cloud, and a falling man, was

the inscription: "Jean-Paul Richter, killed by light-

ning."

And Tikhon Hitch was dumbfounded.

But he immediately recovered himself. "Akh, the

scoundrel!" he said to himself, and he slowly tore the

picture into tiny bits. Then he got out of bed and,

drawing on his boots, said: "Go scare some one who

is a bigger fool than I am. I know you well, you see,

my good man! Here — take what's right, and — God

be with you!" Then he went into the shop, carried

out to Makarka, who was standing with the blind man

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near the porch, a couple of pounds of cracknels and

a couple of herrings, and repeated once more, sternly:

"The Lord be with you!"

"And how about some tobacco?" audaciously de-

manded Makarka.

"I have only a scant supply of it on hand for my-

self."

Makarka grinned.

"Correct!" said he. "That means — furnish your

own tobacco, I'll give the paper — and let's have a

smoke!"

"Behind the dram-shop in the town tobacco grows

on the bushes," retorted Tikhon Hitch curtly. "You

can't outdo me in foul language, my good man!" And,

after a pause, he added: "Hanging's too good for you,

Makarka, after the tricks you've played!"

Makarka surveyed the blind man, who was stand-

ing erect, firmly planted with brows elevated, and asked

him: "Man of God, what ought we to do, think you?

Strangle him or shoot him?"

"Shooting's surer," replied the blind man gravely.

"At any rate, that's the most direct road."

XIX

IT was growing dark, the thick layers of clouds were

turning blue and cold, and there was a touch of

winter in the air. The mud was congealing. Hav-

ing got rid of Makarka, Tikhon Hitch stamped his

frost-bitten feet on the porch and entered the house.

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There, without removing his coat and cap, he seated

himself on a chair near the little window, began to

smoke, and again became immersed in thought. He

recalled to mind the summer, the rebellion, the Bride,

his brother, his wife — and that, so far, he had not paid

off his farmhands for their season's work. It was his

custom to delay payment. The young girls and chil-

dren who came to him on daily wages stood for days

on end at his threshold, complained of their extreme

need, waxed angry, sometimes made insolent remarks.

But he was inexorable. He shouted and called upon

God to witness that he had only two coppers in his

house. "Search and see if you can find any more!"

— and he turned his pockets and his purse inside out

and spat in feigned wrath, as though amazed by the

distrust, the "dishonesty" of the suppliants. But now

that custom seemed to him the opposite of good. He

had been ruthlessly harsh with his wife, and cold, and

so complete a stranger to her that, at times, he utterly

forgot her existence. And now, all of a sudden, this

astonished him: good God, why, he had not even the

least idea what sort of person she was! If she were

to die that day, he would not be able to say two words

as to why she had lived, what she had thought, what

she had felt throughout all the long years she had lived

with him — those years which had merged themselves

into a single year, and had flashed past in ceaseless

cares and anxieties. And what had he to show for all

those worries? He threw away his cigarette, and

lighted a fresh one. Ugh, but that Makarka was a

clever beast! and, once granted that he was clever,

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why wasn't it possible that he might be able to foresee

things — when something was coming, and what it was,

and to whom? Something abominable was, indub-

itably, awaiting him, Tikhon Hitch. For one thing,

he was no longer a young man. How many of his con-

temporaries were in the other world ! And from death

and old age there is no escape! Not even children

would have saved him. And he would not have known

the children, and the children would have found him

as much of a stranger as he had been to all those, alive

or dead, who had been nearly connected with him.

There were as many people on the earth as there are

stars in the sky; but life is short, people come into

being, grow up, and die so rapidly, are so slightly

acquainted with one another, and so quickly forget all

that has happened to them, that it is enough to drive

a man crazy if he once sets about considering the

matter attentively! Only quite recently he had said

to himself: "My life ought to be written up. . . ."

But what was there to write about? Nothing. Noth-

ing at all, or nothing of any consequence. Why, he

himself could recall scarcely anything of that life.

For example, he had completely forgotten his child-

hood: once in a while, it is true, a fleeting memory

would flash across his mind of some summer day,

some incident, some playfellow. Once he had singed

somebody's cat — and had been whipped for it. Some

one had given him a little whip with a bird-call whistle

in the handle, and it had made him indescribably

happy. His drunken father had a special way of call-

ing to him — caressingly, his voice laden with sadness:

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"Come to me, Tisha, come, dear lad!" Then, sud-

denly, he would grab him by the hair. . . .

If Ilya Mironoff, the huckster, had still been alive,

Tikhon Hitch would have supported him out of kind-

ness, and would have known nothing about him, and

would barely have noticed his existence. It had been

the same way with his mother. Ask him now: "Do

you remember your mother?" and he would answer:

"I remember some crooked old woman who dried the

manure and kept the stove hot, tippled in secret, and

grumbled." Nothing more. He had served nearly ten

years with Matorin, but that decade had melted to-

gether into about a day or two: the fine April rain pat-

tering down and speckling the sheets of iron which,

rattling and clanging, were being loaded into a cart

alongside the neighbouring shop; a grey, frosty noon-

day, the pigeons alighting in a noisy flock upon the

snow beside the shop of another neighbour who dealt

in flour, groats, and bran, crowding together, cooing

and flapping their wings, while he and his brother

whipped with an ox-tail a peg-top spinning on the

threshold. Matorin was young, then, and robust, and

purplish-red of complexion, with his chin cleanly

shaven and sandy side-whiskers cut down to half-

length. Now he was poor; he ambled about with the

walk of an old man, his great-coat faded by the sun,

and his capacious cap; ambled from shop to shop,

from one acquaintance to another, played checkers,

lounged in Daeff's eating-house, drank a little, got

tipsy and loquacious: "We are pretty folks: we've

drunk, and eaten, and paid our score — and off we go,

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home!" And, on encountering Tikhon Hitch, he did

not immediately recognize him, but would smile woe-

fully and say: "Is that really you, Tisha?"

And Tikhon Hitch himself had not recognized his

own brother when first they met that autumn:

"Can that be Kuzma, with whom I roamed for so

many years about the fields, the villages, and the bye-

lanes?"

("How old you have grown, brother!"

"I have, a bit."

"And how early!"

"That's because I'm a Russian. That happens

quickly with us.")

And, great heavens, how everything had changed

since the days when they had been roving peddlers!

How dreadfully unlike was the present Tikhon Hitch

to the half-gipsy huckster Tisha, swarthy as a black-

beetle, reckless, and merry!

As he lighted his third cigarette, Tikhon Hitch stared

fixedly and questioningly out of the tiny window:

"Can it be like this in other lands?"

No, it could not be the same. Men of his acquaint-

ance had been abroad — there was merchant Rukavish-

nikoff, for instance — and they had told him things.

And even aside from RukavishnikofT, one could put

things together. Take the Germans of the towns,

or the Jews: all conduct themselves reasonably,

are punctual, all know one another, all are friends

— and that not alone in a state of intoxication

— and all are mutually helpful : if they are separated,

they write letters to one another all their lives long

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and exchange portraits of fathers, mothers, acquaint-

ances from family to family; they teach their children,

love them, walk with them, talk with them as with

equals so that the child has something to remember.

But with us, all are enemies of one another, every

one envies and slanders every one else, goes to see ac-

quaintances once a year, sits apart, each in his kennel;

all bustle about like madmen when any one drops in

for a visit, and dash around to put the rooms in order.

But what's the truth of the matter? They begrudge

the guest a spoonful of preserves! The guest will not

drink a second cup of tea without being specially in-

vited. Ugh, you slant-eyed Kirghizi! You yellow-

haired Mordvinians! You savages!

Some one's troika-team drove past the windows.

Tikhon Hitch scrutinized it attentively. The horses

were emaciated but obviously mettlesome. The taran-

tas was in good condition. Whose could it be? No

one in the immediate neighbourhood owned such a

troika. The neighbouring landed proprietors were so

indignant that they sat for three days at a stretch with-

out bread, had sold the last scrap of vestments from

their holy pictures, had not a farthing wherewith to

replace broken glass or mend the roof; instead they

stuffed cushions into the window-frames and set bread-

troughs and buckets all over the floor when rain came

on — and it poured through the ceilings as through a

sieve. Then Deniska the cobbler passed. Where was

he going? And what was that he had with him? That

couldn't be a valise he was carrying? Okh, there's a

fool for you, forgive my sin, O Lord!

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M

XX

ECHANICALLY Tikhon Hitch threw his great-

coat on over his jacket, thrust his feet into

overshoes, and went out on the porch. On

emerging he inhaled a deep breath of fresh air in the

bluish early winter twilight, then halted once mere

and sat down on the bench. Yes, there was another

nice family — the Grey Man, Syery, and his son! Tik-

hon Hitch traversed in thought the road which Deniska

had traversed in the mud, with that valise in his hand.

He descried Durnovka, his manor, the ravine, the

peasant cottages, the descending twilight, the light in

his brother's room, the lights among the peasant dwell-

ings. Kuzma was probably sitting and reading. The

Bride was standing in the dark, cold ante-room near

the faintly-heated stove, warming her hands, her back,

waiting until she should be told "Bring the supper!"

and, with her dry lips, already grown old and pursed

up, was thinking — of what? Perchance of Rodka?

Twas a lie, all that about her having poisoned Rodka

— a lie! But if she did poison him —

Oh, Lord God! If she did poison him, what must

she be feeling? What a heavy tombstone lay upon

her strange, reticent soul! And how had that come

about upon which she had decided, crazed by hatred o f

Rodka and of his brutal beatings — possibly, also, by

her outraged feelings toward him, Tikhon Hitch, and

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her disgrace, and the fear that Rodka would eventually

hear of that disgrace? Okh, and he had been in the

habit of beating her! And Tikhon Hitch had played a

fine part, too. And God would surely punish him, too.

With his mind's eye he cast a glance from the porch

of his Durnovka manor house, at Durnovka — a rebel,

also! — at the black cottages scattered over the declivity

beyond the ravine, at the threshing floors and bushes

in their back yards. Beyond the houses to the left,

on the horizon, stood a railway watch-tower. Past it,

in the twilight, a train was running, and with it ran

a chain of fiery eyes. Then eyes began to shine out

from the cottages. It grew darker; one began to feel

more comfortable — yet a disagreeable sensation stirred

every time one cast a glance at the cottages of the Bride

and the Grey Man, which stood almost in the centre

of Durnovka, separated only by three houses. There

was no light in either of them. And it was that way

nearly all winter long! The Grey Man's small chil-

dren frolicked with joy and wonder when he managed,

on some lucky evening, to burn a light in the cottage.

"Yes, 'tis sinful!" said Tikhon Hitch firmly, and

rose from his seat. "Yes, 'tis wicked! I must give

them at least a little help," he said, as he wended his

way towards the station.

The air was frosty, and the odour of the samovar

which was wafted from the station was more fragrant

than it had been on the preceding day. The lights at

the gate were burning more brightly beyond the trees,

which had been smartly frost-bitten and were almost

bare, tinted by a little scanty foliage.

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The sleighbells on the troika pealed more sonor-

ously. A capital team of horses, those three! On the

contrary, it was painful to look at the wretched nags

of the peasant cabmen, their tiny vehicles mounted on

half-crumbling, misshapen wheels, plastered with mud.

The door to the railway station was squeaking and

dully banging beyond the palisade. Making his way

around it, Tikhon Hitch ascended the lofty stone plat-

form, on which a copper samovar of a couple of

buckets' capacity was hissing, its grating glowing red

like fiery teeth; and immediately came upon the person

of whom he was in search — that is, Deniska.

Deniska, his head bowed in thought, was standing on

the platform and holding in his right hand a cheap

grey valise, lavishly studded with tin nailheads and

bound about with a rope. Deniska was wearing an

under-jacket, an old and, evidently, a very heavy gar-

ment with pendant shoulders and a very low waist-line,

a new peaked cap, and dilapidated boots. His figure

was badly built; his legs were extremely short in com-

parison with his body: "I have nothing but a body,"

he sometimes said of himself, with a laugh. Now, with

that low waist-line and those broken boots, his legs

looked shorter than ever.

"Denis?" shouted Tikhon Hitch. "What are you

doing here?"

Deniska, who was never surprised at anything, raised

his dark and languid eyes with their long lashes, looked

at him with a melancholy grin, and pulled the cap

from his hair. His hair was mouse-coloured and im-

measurably thick; his face was earthy in hue and

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bore the appearance of having been greased, but his

eyes were handsome.

"Good Morning, Tikhon Hitch," he replied, in a

sing-song citified tenor voice, and, as usual, rather

shyly. "I'm going to — what d'ye call it? — to Tula."

"But why, if you permit me to ask?"

"Maybe some sort of a job will turn up there."

Tikhon Hitch surveyed him. In his hand was the

valise; from the pocket of his long-skirted waistcoat

protruded sundry little books in green and red covers,

twisted into a roll. The waistcoat must belong to

some one else. "You're no dandy to make an im-

pression in Tula!"

Deniska also cast an appraising eye over himself.

"The waistcoat, you mean?" he inquired modestly.

"Well, when I earn some money in Tula, I'll buy my-

self a hussar jacket. I did pretty well during the

summer. I sold newspapers."

Tikhon Hitch nodded in the direction of the valise:

"What's that contraption you have there?"

Deniska lowered his eyelashes. "I bought myself

a volish, sir."

"Well, you can't possibly go about in a hussar

jacket without a valise!" said Tikhon Hitch scoffingly.

"And what's that you've got in your pocket?"

"Nothing much — just a lot of small stuff."

"Let me look at it."

Deniska set down his valise on the platform and

pulled the little books out of his pocket. Tikhon

Hitch took them and examined them attentively.

There was the song-book "Marusya," "The Woman

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Debauchee," "An Innocent Young Girl in the Clutches

of Violence," "Congratulatory Verses to Parents,

Teachers, and Benefactors," "The Role — "

At this point Tikhon Hitch faltered, but Deniska,

who was watching closely, briskly and modestly

prompted him: "The Role of the Proletariat in

Russia."

Tikhon Hitch shook his head. "Here's something

new! Not a mouthful of food, but you buy yourself a

valise and nasty little books. Truly, 'tis not for noth-

ing that folks call you an agitator. They say you are

constantly reviling the Tsar! Look out, brother!"

"Well, 'tis not so costly as buying an estate," re-

plied Deniska, with a melancholy grin. "They are

good little books. And I haven't touched the Tsar.

They tell lies about me as if I were dead and couldn't

defend myself. But I never had any such thing in my

thoughts. Am I a lunatic?"

The door-pulley creaked, and the station watchman

made his appearance— a discharged soldier, grey-haired,

afflicted with a hoarse, whistling asthma — also the

restaurant keeper, a fat man with puffy eyes and greasy

hair.

"Step aside, Messrs. Merchants, let me get the samo-

var." Deniska stepped aside and again grasped the

handle of his valise.

"You stole that somewhere, I suppose?" asked Tik-

hon Hitch, nodding towards the valise, and thinking of

the business upon which he had come to the station.

Deniska bent his head but made no reply.

"And it's empty, of course?"

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Deniska broke into a laugh.

"Yes, it's empty."

"Were you turned out of your place?"

"I left of my own accord."

Tikhon Hitch heaved a sigh. "The living image of

his father!" said he. "That one was always exactly

like that: Pitch him out of a place by the scruff of

his neck, and he'd tell you — 'I left of my own accord.' "

"May I drop dead right before your eyes if I'm ly-

ing."

"Well, all right, all right. Have you been at home?"

"Yes, two weeks."

"Is your father out of work again?"

"Yes, he is out of work naow."

"Naow!" Tikhon Hitch mimicked him. "A wooden-

headed village! And a revolutionary to boot! You're

trying to play the wolf, but your dog's tail betrays

you."

"I rather think you come from the same litter," Den-

iska said to himself, with a faint grin, keeping his

head down.

"That means, the Grey Man is sitting at home smok-

ing?"

"He's a worthless fellow!" said Deniska with con-

viction.

Tikhon Hitch rapped him on the head with his

knuckles. "You might, at least, not exhibit your

stupidity! Who speaks of his father like that?"

"He ought to be called an old dog, not a daddy,"

replied Deniska calmly. "If he's a father — then let

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him provide food. But he has fed me heartily, hasn't

he?"

But Tikhon Hitch was not listening to him. He

chose a suitable moment for beginning a business-like

talk. And, paying no heed to him, he interrupted:

"Well, you've turned out an empty-headed babbler.

Has YakofT sold the mare?"

Deniska suddenly broke out into a coarse, vocifer-

ous guffaw. But he replied in the same sing-song

tenor voice as usual: "YakofT Mikititch, you mean?

What are you talking about? He's getting richer and

richer, and stingier and stingier. There was a great

joke on him yesterday!"

"What about?"

"Why, there was! His colt died, and what sort of

a trick did he concoct? He made use of its legs and

hoofs. He hadn't enough stakes for his wattled fence,

so — he took and wove in those same legs."

"He's fit for a cabinet-minister, not a peasant!" said

Tikhon Hitch. "You tatterdemalions are not in the

same class with him. I suppose you are travelling to

Tula on a wolf's ticket?"

"And what should I want of a ticket?" retorted

Deniska. "I get into the carriage and dive straight

under the seat — and may the Lord bless and protect!

All I want is to get to Uzlovskaya."

"What's that? Uzlovskaya? Do you mean Uz-

slova?"

"Well, then, Uzslova; it's the same thing. I'll ride

there, and from there on 'tis not far — I can go afoot."

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"And what were you thinking about doing with all

your little books? You can't read them under the

seat."

Deniska thought that over. "Right you are!" said

he. "Well, I won't stay under the bench all the time.

I'll creep into the toilet — I can read there until day-

light."

Tikhon Hitch frowned. "Well, see here now," he be-

gan. "See here: 'tis time for you to stop that sort of

talk. You're not a small boy, you fool. Trot back

as fast as you can to Durnovka, Tis time to buckle

down to business. Why, as you are, it makes one

sick at the stomach just to look at you. My

courtyard-councillors there live better than you do.

I'll help you — that's got to be done — at the start.

Well, I'll help you to get some simple merchandise and

implements. Then you'll be able to feed yourself and

give a little to your father."

"What's he driving at with all this?" Deniska said

to himself.

But Tikhon I Hitch had come to a decision, and

wound up: "Yes, and 'tis time you married."

"So — oo, that's it!" said Deniska to himself, and

began in a leisurely way to roll himself a cigarette.

"Very good," he responded, with a barely perceptible

trace of sadness, and without raising his eyelashes.

"I'll not resist. I might marry. 'Tis worse to go with

the public women."

"Well, and that's precisely the point," put in Tikhon

Hitch, perturbed. "Only, brother, bear in mind that

you must make a sensible marriage. 'Tis a good

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thing to have money on which to rear your children."

Deniska burst out laughing.

"What are you guffawing about?"

"Why, what you say, of course! Rear! As though

they were chickens or pigs."

"They require food, just as much as chickens and

pigs do."

"And whom shall I marry?" inquired Deniska, with

a melancholy smile.

"Whom? Why, any one you like."

"You mean the Bride?"

Tikhon Hitch flushed deeply. "Fool! What's

wrong with the Bride? She's a peaceable, hard-work-

ing woman — "

Deniska remained silent, and picked with his finger-

nail at one of the tin nailheads on the valise. Then he

pretended to be stupid. "There's a lot of them — of

young women," he drawled. "I don't know which one

you're jabbering about. Do you happen to mean the

one with whom you lived?"

But Tikhon Hitch had already recovered his com-

posure. "Whether I have lived with her or not is none

of your business, you pig," he retorted, and that so

swiftly and peremptorily that Deniska submissively

muttered:

"Well, 'tis all the same to me. I only said — 'Twas

a chance remark — slipped off my tongue."

"Well, then, mind what you're about, and don't in-

dulge in idle chatter. I'll make decent people of you.

Do you understand? I'll give you a dowry. Under-

stand that?"

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Deniska reflected. "I think I'll go to Tula—"

he began.

"The cock has found a pearl! A priceless idea!

What are you going to do in Tula?"

"We're too starved at home."

Tikhon Hitch unfastened his coat, thrust his hand

into the pocket of his sleeveless under-kaftan — he had

almost made up his mind to give Deniska a twenty-

kopek coin. But he came to his senses — 'twas stupid

to squander his money, and, what was more, that dolt

would become conceited, would say he had been bribed.

So he pretended to be hunting for something. "Ah,

I've forgotten my cigarettes! Come, give me some

tobacco."

Deniska gave him his tobacco-pouch. The lantern

over the station entrance had already been lighted,

and by its dim light Tikhon Hitch read aloud the

inscription embroidered in coarse white thread on

the bag: "To whoam I luv I giv I luv hartilie I giv

a poch foureaver." "That's clever!" he said, when

he had finished reading.

Deniska modestly cast down his eyes.

"So you have a lady-love already?"

"There's a lot of them, the hussies, roaming about!"

replied Deniska, quite unembarrassed. "But as for

marrying — I don't refuse. I'll be back by the Meat-

days, and then, Lord bless our marriage!"

From behind the palisade thundered a peasant cart,

spattered all over with mud. It rolled up to the plat-

form with a peasant perched on the side-rail and the

deacon, Govoroff, from Ulianovka, seated on the straw

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THE VILLAGE

inside. "Has it gone?" shouted the deacon in agitated

tones, thrusting out of the straw one foot in a new

overshoe. Every individual hair of his frowsy,

reddish-sandy beard curled turbulently; his cap had

retreated to the nape of his neck: his face was fiery-

red from the wind and his excitement.

"The train, you mean?" inquired Tikhon Hitch.

"No, sir, it hasn't even arrived yet. Good morning,

Father Deacon."

"Aha! Well then, thank God!" said the deacon joy-

fully and hastily; but nevertheless he leaped from the

cart and rushed headlong to the door.

Tikhon Hitch shook his head. "Oh, that long-

maned fellow came at the wrong time! Nothing will

come of my affair!" 1 But as he grasped the handle

of the door he said, firmly and confidently: "Well,

so be it. It's settled for the meat-season."

XXI

THE railway station was permeated with the

odours of wet sheepskin coats, the samovar,

cheap tobacco, and kerosene. The smoke was

so dense that it gripped one's throat; the lamps hardly

1 All priests and monks in the Orthodox Catholic Church

wear the hair and beard long. Tikhon Hitch refers to the

superstition that it portends bad luck to meet an ecclesias-

tic when one is arranging something or going somewhere. —

TRANS.

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THE VILLAGE

shone through the clouds of it, and of the semi-

darkness, dampness, and cold. The doors squeaked and

banged; peasants, whips in hand, jostled and yelled

— cabmen from Ulianovka, who sometimes waited a

whole week before they captured a passenger. In and

out among them, with brows elevated, perambulated

a Jew grain-dealer, wearing a round-topped hat and a

hooded overcoat and carrying an umbrella over his

shoulder. Near the ticket-seller's window peasants

were dragging to the scales the trunks of some land-

owners and basket-hampers enveloped in oil-cloth.

The telegraph clerk, who was discharging the duties

of assistant station agent, was shouting at the peasants.

He was a short-legged young fellow with a big head and

a curly yellow crest of hair, brought forth from be-

neath his cap on the left temple, kazak fashion. A

pointer dog as spotted as a frog, with melancholy eyes

like those of a human being, was sitting on the dirty

floor and shivering violently.

Elbowing his way through the crowd of peasants,

Tikhon Hitch approached the door of the first-class

waiting-room, beside which, on the wall, hung a

wooden frame containing letters, telegrams, and news-

papers, which sometimes lay on the floor. It turned

out that there were no letters for him. There was

nothing but three numbers of the "OrlofT Messenger."

Tikhon Hitch was on the point of stepping over to the

counter to have a chat with the restaurant manager.

But on a stool by the counter sat a drunken man with

blue, glassy eyes and shiny purplish face, in a round

grey-peaked cap topped with a button — the cellarman

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from the whiskey distillery of Prince Lobanoff. So

Tikhon Hitch hastily turned back. He knew that

cellarman only too well: if that man's eye lighted on

him he wouldn't be able to tear himself free for twenty-

four hours.

Deniska was still standing on the platform. "I want

to ask you something, Tikhon Hitch," he said with

even more timidity than was his wont.

"What is it?" inquired Tikhon Hitch angrily.

"Money? I won't give you any."

"No, not money at all. I want you to read my

letter."

"A letter? To whom?"

"To you. I wanted to give it to you a long time

ago, but I didn't dare."

"Well, what's it about?"

"Why — I have described my way of life."

Tikhon Hitch took the scrap of paper from Deniska's

hand, thrust it into his pocket, and strode swiftly

homeward through the springy mud, which was begin-

ning to congeal.

He was now in a resolute frame of mind. He craved

work, and reflected with pleasure that there was some-

thing to be done — the cattle must be fed. After all,

'twas a pity he had lost his temper and discharged

Chaff; now he would have to lose his sleep at night.

Very little reliance could be placed on Oska. Prob-

ably he was already asleep. If not, he was sitting with

the cook and reviling his master. And, passing by

the lighted windows of his cottage, Tikhon Hitch crept

into the ante-room, stumbled in the darkness over the

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cold, fragrant straw, and glued his ear to the door.

Laughter, and then the voice of Oska, were audible

on the other side of the door.

"So now, here's another story. In a village dwelt

a peasant, poor, the poorest of the poor; in all the vil-

lage there was none poorer than he. And one day,

my good people, this same peasant went out to till

his land. And a spotted cur dogged him. The peas-

ant ploughed along, and the cur nosed about all over

the field and kept digging at something. He dug and

dug, and how he ho-owled! What was the meaning

of that? The peasant ran to him, looked into the

hole, and there was — a kettle."

"A ket-tle?" asked the cook.

"Just listen to what comes next. The kettle was

only a kettle, but in the kettle was — gold! An im-

mense quantity. Well, and so the peasant became very

rich."

"Akh, lies!" said Tikhon Hitch to himself, and began

to listen eagerly to what was going to happen to the

peasant next.

"The peasant got rich, and lost his head, just like

any merchant — "

"Exactly like our Stiff-Leg," interposed the cook.

Tikhon Hitch grinned: he knew that, for a long

time, he had been called "Stiff-leg." Every man has

some nickname.

Oska went on: "Even richer than he. Yes. And

then the dog takes and dies. What was he to do? He

couldn't bear it — he was sorry for the dog, and he

had to bury him decently — "

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An explosion of laughter rang out. The story-teller

himself guffawed, and so did some one else — some

one with an old man's cough.

"Can it be Chaff?" thought Tikhon Hitch, in per-

turbation. "Well, glory to God! I told that fool

myself: 'You'll be coming back'!"

"The peasant went to the priest," pursued Oska —

"he went to the priest: Thus and so, father, a dog

has died — he must be buried.' "

Again the cook could not control herself and shrieked

joyously: "Phew, you stick at nothing!"

"Give me a chance to finish!" shouted Oska in his

turn, and once more dropped into the narrative tone,

depicting now the priest, now the peasant: "Thus

and so, batiushka — the dog must be buried.' The

priest stamped his feet: 'How is it to be buried?

Where is it to be buried? In the cemetery? I'll

make you rot in prison, I'll have you put in fet-

ters!' — 'Batiushka, you see, this is no common dog:

when he was dying he bequeathed you five hundred

rubles!' The priest fairly leaped from his seat:

'Fool! Am I scolding you for burying the dog? I'm

scolding you about the place where he is to be buried.

He must be buried in the churchyard!' "

Tikhon Hitch coughed loudly and opened the door.

At the table beside the smoking lamp, the broken

chimney of which was patched on one side with a bit

of blackened paper, sat the cook, her head bent and her

face completely veiled by her wet hair. She was comb-

ing it with a wooden comb and inspecting the comb

athwart her hair by the light of the lamp. Oska,

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with a cigarette in his teeth, was laughing vocifer-

ously, his head thrown back, as he dangled his feet to

and fro in their bast-slippers. Near the stove, in

the semi-darkness, gleamed a red spark of flame — a

pipe. When Tikhon Hitch jerked the door open and

made his appearance on the threshold, the laughter

came to an abrupt end, and the person who was smok-

ing the pipe rose timidly from his seat, removed the

pipe from his mouth, and thrust it into his pocket.

Yes, it was Chaff! But Tikhon Hitch shouted, in an

alert and friendly way, as though nothing had hap-

pened that morning: "Time to feed the cattle, my

lads!"

XXII

THEY rambled about the stable with a lantern,

illuminating the coagulated manure, the straw

scattered all about, the mangers, the posts; cast-

ing immense shadows, waking up the fowls on the

roosts under the sloping roofs. The chickens flew

down, tumbled down, and, with heads ducked forward,

fell asleep as they ran, fleeing as chance directed. The

large purplish eyes of the horses, which turned their

heads toward the light, gleamed and looked strange

and splendid. A mist rose from their breath, as if

all of them were smoking. And when Tikhon Hitch

lowered the lantern and glanced upward, he beheld

with joy, above the square farmyard in the deep, pure

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sky, the brilliant vari-coloured stars. The north wind

could be heard crackling drily over the roofs and whis-

tling through the crevices with a frosty chill. Thank

the Lord, winter was come!

Having completed his task and ordered the samovar,

Tikhon Hitch went with his lantern into the cold shop,

reeking with smells, and picked out the best pickled

herring he could find. That was all right, not a bad

idea: to cheer oneself up a bit before tea! And at

tea he ate it, drank several small glasses of bitter-sweet,

yellowish-red liqueur made of mountain-ash berries,

poured himself out a brimming cup of tea, and drew

towards him his large old counting-frame. But,

after some reflection, he hunted out Deniska's letter

and set himself to the task of deciphering its scrawl.

"Denya reseved 40 rubles in munny, and than

kolected his thinges . . ." ("Forty!" said Tikhon

Hitch to himself. "Akh, the poor beggar!") "Denya

wint to Tula station and hee wos enstantly robbt they

tuk Evrything to the last kopak hee had nowere to

gow and sadness Sezed heem . . ."

This absurd scrawl was difficult and tiresome to de-

cipher, but the evening was long, and he had noth-

ing else to do. The samovar purred busily, the lamp

shone with a quiet light — and there was sadness in the

tranquillity and repose of the evening. The watch-

man's mallet was working away as he made his rounds

noisily, beating out a dance-tune upon the frosty air.

"Aftr thot I hainkrd to goa hoam thoa fader wcs

vairy brutl . . ."

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"Well, and there's a fool for you, Lord forgive me!"

thought Tikhon Hitch. "The Grey Man brutal, for-

sooth!"

"I wint Into the tik foarest to peck out the talest

fur-tre and taik a cord frum a shuger-loof and fixe

myselff in iternl laife in my nu briches but witaut

boots . . ."

("Without his boots, he means, I suppose?" said

Tikhon Hitch, holding the paper at a distance from

his tired eyes. "Yes, that's right; that's what he

means.")

"Eftrwords come strung wind blu clauds and thunr-

strum and a kwik bige litul rayne poared the son kam

frum behain foarest the coard bend bend and asuden

brooke and Denya fall on the grond the ents krall

and bigin to bite and wurk on hem and thair crold

alzo a snaek and a green krawfish . . ."

Tossing the letter into the slop-bowl, Tikhon Hitch

sipped his tea, planted his elbows on the table, and

stared at the lamp. What a queer nation! A soul

of many hues! Now a man is just a plain dog, then

again he is melancholy, pities himself, turns soft,

weeps over himself — after the fashion of Deniska,

or of himself, Tikhon Hitch. The window-panes were

perspiring vigorously and clearly, as they do in winter;

the watchman's mallet said something melodiously co-

herent. Ekh, if he only had children! If — well, if

he only had a nice mistress instead of that bloated old

woman, who made his flesh crawl merely by what

she said; by her words about the Princess, and about

some pious nun or other named Polikarpia, who was

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called in the town "Polukarpia." x But it was too late,

too late.

Unfastening the embroidered collar of his shirt, Tik-

hon Hitch, with a bitter smile, felt of his throat be-

hind the ears. Those hollows were the first sign of old

age; his head was assuming the shape of a horse's

head! But otherwise things were not so bad. He bent

his head, thrust his fingers into his beard. And his

beard was grey, dry, dishevelled. Yes, enough —

enough, Tikhon Hitch!

He drank, grew intoxicated, set his jaws more and

more tightly, stared more intently than ever at the

wick of the lamp, burning with an even flame. Think

of it! You couldn't go to see your own brother—

the pigs prevented, like the swine they were! And

if they would let him, there would still be small cause

for joy. Kuzma would read him a lecture, the Bride

would stand with lips pressed tight and drooping eye-

lashes. Why, those lowered eyelids alone were enough

to make a man take to his heels!

His heart sank within him, ached; a pleasing mist

clouded his brain. Where had he heard that song? —

"My tiresome evening's come;

I know not what to do.

My friend belov'd is come,

He fondles me, loves me true."

Ah, yes, it was in Lebedyan, at the posting station.

The young girls, lace-makers, were sitting on a winter

1 Polu, meaning "half," reduces the name to absurdity:

something like "the Half-carp."—

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evening and singing. There they sat, weaving their

lace and never raising their eyelashes; they sang in

deep, ringing voices:

"He kisses me, embraces me,

Then takes his leave of me. . . ."

His brain was clouded. Now it seemed as if every-

thing lay ahead of him — joy, liberty, freedom from

care — then his heart began to ache painfully, hope-

lessly. Now he said: "If I only had a bit of money

in my pocket, I could buy anything — even an aunt —

at the market!" Again he cast a vicious glance at the

lamp, and muttered, alluding to his brother: "Teacher!

Preacher! Pitiful Philaret! 1 Ragged devil!"

He drank the rest of the mountain-ash-berry cordial

and smoked until the room grew dark. With uncer-

tain steps he went out, across the shaking uneven floor,

clad only in his roundabout, into the dark ante-room.

He was sensible of the piercing coldness of the air,

the smell of straw, the odour of dogs, and he per-

ceived two greenish lights blinking on the threshold.

"Buyan!" he shouted. And he kicked Buyan over the

head with all his might.

Then he listened to the watchman's mallet, keeping

time to it with his feet. He spat on the steps of the

porch, mentally accompanying the action with:

"Come straight to me,

Look straight at me."

1 Referring to a famous Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow.

—TRANS.

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And as he set off in the direction of the highway he

shouted: "Blow on a squirrel's tail — it will be all

the more downy for it!"

A deathlike silence lay over the earth, which showed

softly black in the starlight. The highway shone

faintly white as it faded out in the gloom. Far away,

as if emanating from beneath the surface of the earth,

a rumbling sound became audible and grew louder

from moment to moment. And suddenly the orchestra

came to the surface with its droning: in the distance,

cutting across the highway, its chain of windows

lighted by electricity, gleaming whitely, trailing

smoke-wreaths as a flying witch trails her tresses,

redly illuminated from below, the express train dashed

past.

"It's passing Durnovka!" said Tikhon Hitch, with a

hiccough. "Passing the Grey Man! Akh, the rob-

bers, curse them — "

The drowsy cook entered the living-room, which was

dimly lighted by the burned-out lamp and stank of

tobacco. She was bringing in a greasy little kettle of

sour cabbage soup, which she held in rags black with

dirt and soot. Tikhon Hitch cast a sidelong glance

at her and said: "Get out of here, this very minute."

The cook wheeled round, pushed open the door with

her foot, and disappeared. Then he picked up Gat-

zuk's calendar, dipped a rusty pen into the rusty ink,

and began, with set teeth and leaden eyes staring

fixedly, to write endlessly on the calendar, up and

down and across:

"Gatzuk, Gatzuk, Gatzuk, Gatzuk . . ."

[127]

PART TWO

I

AEMOST all his life long Kuzma had dreamed of

writing, of obtaining an education. Verses did

not count. He had dallied with verses as a mere

child. He longed to narrate how he had come to

naught; to depict, with unprecedented ruthlessness,

his poverty and that dreadful factor in his common-

place life which had crippled him, made of him a bar-

ren fig-tree.

When he reviewed his life in his own mind he both

condemned and acquitted himself. Yes, he was an in-

digent petty townsman who, almost up to the age of

fifteen, had been able to read only by spelling out every

word. But his history was the history of all self-

taught Russians. He had been born in a country

which had more than a hundred million illiterate in-

habitants. He had grown up in the Black Suburb,

where down to the present day men fight to the death

with their fists. In his childhood he had seen dirt

and drunkenness, laziness and boredom. His child-

hood had furnished only one poetical impression:

there had been the dark cemetery grove, and the pas-

ture on the hill behind the Suburb, and beyond that —

space, the hot mirage of the steppe, a white cot-

tage beneath a poplar-tree in the far distance. But

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he had been taught to look upon even this cottage

with scorn : Little Russians dwelt there, and, of course,

they were so stupid that in reply to the question,

"Little Russians, where are your kettles?" 1 they said:

"Do you need to be told that they are under the wag-

ons?" He and Tikhon had been taught the alphabet

and figures by a neighbour named Byelkin, whose

trade was to make rubber overshoes in moulds; but

he had taught them because he never had any work

— for what demand was there in the Suburb for over-

shoes? — and because it was always agreeable to pull

some one's hair, and because a man cannot sit for ever

on the earth wall alongside his hut absolutely idle,

with his frowsy head bent and exposed to the sun, do-

ing nothing but spit in the dust between his bare

feet.

In Matorin's shop the brothers had speedily attained

to writing and reading, and Kuzma had begun to be

attracted by the little books which the accordeon-

player, old Balashkin, the eccentric free-thinker

of the bazaar, gave him. But what chance for read-

ing was there in the shop? Matorin very often

shouted: "I'll box your ears for those books of yours,

you abominable little devil!"

That was an old story; but Kuzma wished to re-

call, also, the morals of the bazaar. In the bazaar

he had picked up much that was opprobrious. There

he and his brother had been taught to sneer at the

1 The insulting nickname "khokhly" is used. The ques-

tion mentioned is in the form of a rhyme, intentionally of-

fensive. The reply is also rhymed. — trans.

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poverty of their mother, at her having taken to drink,

abandoned as she was by her adolescent sons. There

they once played the following prank: Every day,

on his way from the library, the son of the tailor

Vitebsky passed the door of the shop — a Jew aged

sixteen, with a pallid greyish face; a terribly lean,

big-eared fellow who wore spectacles and industriously

read as he walked, his book held close up to his eyes.

So they threw some bricks and rubbish on the side-

walk — and the Jew ("that learned man!") stumbled so

successfully that he bruised his knees, elbows, and

teeth to the point of bleeding. Then Kuzma started

to write. He began a story about a merchant who,

driving by night in a fearful thunderstorm through

the Murom forests, came upon an encampment of

bandits and got his throat cut. Kuzma fervently set

forth his remarks and thoughts on the brink of death,

his grief over his iniquitous life, "so prematurely

cut short." But the bazaar mercilessly threw cold

water on it.

"Well, you are a queer one, Lord forgive us!"

it pronounced, merrily and insolently, through

Tikhon's mouth. "'Prematurely'! That pot-bellied

devil ought to have been done for long before! Well,

and how did you know what he was thinking about?

They cut his throat, didn't they?"

Then Kuzma wrote, in the style of KoltzofT, a ballad

about an extremely ancient knight who bequeathed to

his son a faithful steed. "He carried me in my youth!*'

exclaimed the hero in the ballad. But Tikhon merely

shook his head over that.

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"Really!" said he, "how old was that horse? Akh,

Kuzma! Kuzma! You'd better compose something

practical — well, about the war, for example."

And Kuzma, catering to the taste of the market-

place, began with great zeal to write about what the

bazaar was discussing at the moment — the Russo-

Turkish war: about how —

"In the year of seventy-seven

The Turk set out to fight;

He advanced with his hordes

And tried to capture Russia"

and how those hordes

In uncouth nightcaps

Crept stealthily to the Tsar-Cannon. 1

Later on it pained him to realize how much stupidity

and ignorance this doggerel contained, the servile

quality of its language, and its Russian scorn for

foreign headgear. With pain he recalled much else.

For example, Zadonsk. One day there he was over-

come by a passionate longing for repentance, a terror

lest his mother, who had died, practically, of starva-

tion, had bitterly reported in heaven her sorrowful life;

and he set forth on foot to the abode of a holy man.

Once there, he did nothing whatever except to read to

assembled admirers, with malicious joy, a "sheet"

which had made a special impression on him: how

a certain village scribe had taken it into his head to

x That is, to the heart of the Kremlin, in Moscow. — trans.

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reject the authorities and the Church, and God had

waxed so wroth that "this aristocrat was laid low on

his bed of death," his malady such that "he devoured

more than a pig, and shrieked that that was not

enough, and withered away until he was unrecogniz-

able." And Kuzma's entire youth was spent in just

such affairs! He thought and professed one thing —

and said and did something entirely different. As-

piring to write and reckoning up the sum-total of his

life, Kuzma shook his head mournfully: "A gen-

uine Russian trait, sir! The sowing was half peas,

half thistles."

It seemed as if he had been merry in his youth,

kind, tender, quick to understand, eager to learn. But

was it really so? He was not Tikhon, of course. But

why had he, equally with Tikhon, assimilated so

promptly the savagery of those who surrounded him?

Why had he, kind and tender as he was, so mercilessly

neglected his mother? Why had the bazaar so long

reigned supreme over his heart, which was toiling

so ardently over books? Why, why was he — a barren

fig-tree ?

Tikhon had been in the habit of keeping most of

his earnings in one common money-box: they had

decided to set up in business for themselves. Kuzma

surrendered his money with a full, hearty confidence

which Tikhon never possessed. But his mother, his

mother! He groaned as he recalled how, poverty-

stricken as she was, she had bestowed her blessing on

him, had given him her sole treasure, a relic of her

better days, which had been preserved at the bottom of

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her chest — a small silver-mounted holy picture. And

the fact that he had groaned was good, also; but

all the same his money had gone to Tikhon.

II

ABANDONING the shop counter, and having

sold off what their mother had left, they had

begun to trade — had gone out among the Little

Russians, and to Voronezh. They were frequently in

their native town, and Kuzma kept up his friendship

with Balashkin as of yore, and read avidly the books

which Balashkin gave him or recommended to him.

This was not at all like Tikhon. Tikhon, when there

was nothing to do, was fond of reading, also; a year

might pass without his taking a book in his hand, but

if he did begin one, he read swiftly to the very last

line and, once he had finished that, instantly severed

all connection with the book; on one occasion he had

read through an entire volume of the "Contemporary"

in one night, had not understood much, had pro-

nounced what he had read extremely interesting — and

then had forgotten the "Contemporary" for ever.

Neither did Kuzma understand much of what he

read — even in the writings of Byelinsky, Gogol, and

Pushkin. But his comprehension increased, not by

days but by hours: he was able to grasp the gist of the

matter and rivet it in his heart to a positively amaz-

ing degree. Why, then, when he comprehended the

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words of Dobroliuboff, did he disfigure his speech in

the bazaar and say "khvakt" instead of "fact"? Why,

when conversing with Balashkin about Schiller, did he

passionately long to borrow his "ekordeon"? Waxing

enthusiastic over TurgeniefT's "Smoke," he maintained

nevertheless that "he who is intelligent but not edu-

cated, has much knowledge even without education."

On visiting the grave of Koltzoff, in rapture he wrote

upon the gravestone an illiterate epitaph: "Binith

this munament is intered the boady of citazen alesei

vasilevitch KaltzofT campoaser and poet of Voronezh

riworded by the munarch's greciousnes a lemingles

man enlitend by natur."

Balashkin explained the meaning of things to him

and impressed on Kuzma's soul a profound stamp of

himself. Old, gigantic, lean, garbed summer and win-

ter alike in a peasant overcoat which had turned green

with age and a winter-weight peaked cap, huge-faced,

clean-shaven, and wry-mouthed, Balashkin was al-

most terrifying with his malicious speeches, his deep,

senile bass voice, the prickly, silvery bristles on his

grey cheeks and lips, and his green left eye, bulging,

flashing, and squinting in the direction in which his

mouth was drawn awry. And he fairly took to bark-

ing one day at Kuzma's remark about "enlightenment

without education." That eye of his blazed as he

hurled aside his cigarette, which he had filled with the

cheap tobacco on top of a tin which had contained

pilchards. "Jaw of an ass! What's that you're jab-

bering? Have you ever considered what our 'enlight-

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enment without education' signifies? The death of

Zhadovskaya — that's its devilish symbol!"

"But what about the death of Zhadovskaya?" in-

quired Kuzma.

And Balashkin yelled in a rage: "You have for-

gotten? The poetess, a wealthy woman, a noblewoman

— but she drowned herself. You have forgotten?"

And again he seized his cigarette and began to roar

dully: "Merciful God! They killed Pushkin, they

killed LermontofT, they drowned Pisareff. They stran-

gled Rylyeeff, they condemned Polezhaeff to the ranks

as a soldier, they walled up Shevtchenko as a pris-

oner for ten years, they dragged Dostoevsky out to

be shot, Gogol went mad — and how about KoltzofT,

Nikitin, RyeshetnikofT? Okh, and is there any other

such country in the world, any other such nation?

thrice accursed may they be!"

Excitedly twisting the buttons of his long-tailed coat,

now buttoning, again unbuttoning them, frowning and

grimacing, Kuzma, perturbed, said in reply: "Such

a nation! 'Tis the greatest of nations, and not 'such'

a nation, permit me to remark to you!"

"Don't you presume to confer prizes!" Balaskhin

shouted.

"Yes, sir, I will presume! For those writers were

children of that same nation!"

"Yes, curse you, they were — but George Sand was

no worse than your Zhadovskaya, and she did not

drown herself!"

"Platon KarataefT — there's an acknowledged type

of that nation!"

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"And why not Yeroshka, why not Lukashka? My

good man, if I take a notion to shake up literature I'll

find boots to fit all the gods! Why Karataeff and not

RuzuvaefF and KolupaefT? why not a blood-sucker

spider, an extortioner priest, a venal deacon? some

Saltytchikha or other? Why not Karamazoff and

Oblomoff, KhlestyakofF and Nozdreff ? or, not to go too

far afield, why not your good-for-nothing, nasty

brother, Tishka Krasoff?"

"Platon Karataeff—"

"The lice have eaten your Karataeff! I don't see

that he's an ideal!"

"But the Russian martyrs, saints, holy men, the

fools-for-Christ's-sake, the Old Ritualists?"

"Wha-at's that? Well, how about the Coliseum,

the crusades, the lerigious wars, the countless sects?

And Luther, to wind up? No, nonsense! You can't

beat me down with one blow, like that!"

"Then what, in your opinion, ought to be done?"

shouted Kuzma. "Blindfold our eyes and rush to the

ends of the world?"

But at this point Balashkin suddenly became ex-

tinguished. He closed his eyes, and his huge grey

face portrayed advanced, painful old age. For a long

time with drooping head he turned over something in

his mind, and at last muttered: "What ought to be

done? I don't know: we are ruined. Our last asset

was 'Memoirs of the Fatherland,' and that has been

knocked in the head! And yet, you fool, you think

the only thing that is necessary is to educate oneself."

Yes, one thing was necessary — to acquire an educa-

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tion. But when? And how? Five whole years he

had spent in peddling— and they were the best period

of his life! Even the arrival in a town seemed an im-

mense happiness. Rest, acquaintances, the odour of

bake-shops and iron roofs, the pavement on Trading

Street, fresh white rolls and the Persian March on

the mechanical organ of the "Kars" eating-house. The

floors in the shops watered from a teapot, the wood-

notes of a famous quail in front of Rudakoff's door,

the smell of the fish shops in the bazaar, of fennel and

coarse tobacco. The kindly and terrible smile of Ba-

lashkin at the sight of Kuzma approaching. Then-

thunders and curses on the Slavophils, Byelinsky and

vile abuse, incoherent and passionate interchange of

opprobrious names between the two, quotations. And,

to wind up, the most desperately absurd deductions.

"Well, now we've got to the end of our rope — and

we're dashing back to Asia at full speed!" the old man

rumbled, and, abruptly lowering his voice, he cast a

glance around him : "Have you heard? They say that

Saltykoff is dying. He's the last. Tis said he was poi-

soned." And in the morning— again the springless

cart, the steppe, sultry heat or mud, strained and

painful reading to the accompaniment of jolts from

the swiftly revolving wheels. Protracted contempla-

tion of the steppe's vast spaces, the sweetly melancholy

melody of verses within, interrupted by thoughts about

grains or of squabbles with Tikhon. The perturbing

odour of the road— of dust and tar. The odour of

gingerbread, flavoured with mint, and the suffocating

stench of cat hides, of dirty fleeces, of boots greased with

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train-oil. Those years had, in truth, been a drain

on his strength — the fatigue of not changing his shirt

for a fortnight, of food eaten without the relief of any

liquid, of lameness caused by heels bruised to the

point of bleeding, of nights passed in strange villages,

in strange cottages and sheds!

Ill

KUZMA crossed himself with a grand flourish

when, at last, he escaped from that slavery.

But he was already nearly thirty years of age;

his hair was noticeably grey; he had become more

sober, more serious; he had abandoned his verses, had

abandoned reading; he had become accustomed to

eating-houses, to drinking-bouts. He served for a year

less a week with a drover near Eletz, went to Moscow

on his employer's business — and left his service. Long

before that time he had begun a love affair in Vero-

nezh, with a married woman, and he longed to go

thither. So he knocked about in Voronezh for nearly

ten years, busying himself with the purchase of grain,

horse-trading, and writing articles about the grain

trade for the newspapers, bewildering — or, to speak

more correctly, poisoning — his mind with the articles

of Tolstoy and the satires of Saltykoff. And, all the

while, he was overwhelmed with the conviction that he

was wasting — had wasted — his life.

"There, now," he said, as he recalled those years,

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"that's what it signifies — that knowledge without edu-

cation!"

In the early 'nineties Balashkin died of hernia, and

Kuzma saw him, for the last time, not long before his

death. And What an interview it was!

"I must write," complained one, gloomily and an-

grily. "One withers away like a burdock in the

field."

"Yes, yes," boomed the other. The squint of his dy-

ing eye was already drowsy, and his jaws moved with

difficulty, and the coarse tobacco did not fall as it

should have done on his cigarette paper. "As the

saying runs: learn every hour, think every hour, look

about you at all our poverty and wretchedness — "

Then, with a shame-faced grin, he laid aside his ciga-

rette and thrust his hand into the breast of his coat.

"Here," he mumbled, rummaging in a package of tat-

tered papers and clippings from newspapers. "Here,

my friend, is a pile of stuff of some value. There was

a great famine, curse it. And I read everything

about it, and wrote it all down. When I die, 'twill

be of some use to you, this devil's material. Nothing

but scurvy and typhus, typhus and scurvy. In one

county all the small children died; in another all the

dogs were eaten up. God is my witness that I am

telling no lie! Here, wait a minute, I'll find it for you

immediately — "

But he rummaged and rummaged and did not find

it, hunted for his spectacles, began in alarm to search

through his pockets, to look under the counter, got

tired, and gave it up. And, as soon as he gave up the

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search, he began to drowse and waggle his head.

"But no, no — don't you dare to touch on that yet.

You are still uneducated, a weak-minded fellow.

Cut a tree to suit your powers. Have you written any-

thing on that subject I suggested to you — about Suk-

honosy? Not yet? Well, so you are an ass's jaw, as I

said, after all. What a subject that was!"

"I ought to write about the village, about the pop-

ulace," said Kuzma. "For you yourself are always

saying: 'Russia, Russia — '"

"Well, and isn't Sukhonosy the populace? isn't it

Russia? All Russia is nothing but a village: get that

firmly fixed in your noddle! Look about you : is this

a town, in your opinion? The flocks jam the streets

every evening — they kick up such a dust that you

can't see your next-door neighbour. But you call it

a 'town'! Ugh, you dull clodhopper — 'tis plain that

one might drive a stake into your head, and still you

would never write anything."

And Kuzma understood clearly and conclusively

that Balashkin had spoken the sacred truth: he was

not destined to write. There was Sukhonosy. For

many years that repulsive old man of the Suburb had

never been out of his mind — an old man whose sole

property consisted of a mattress infested with bugs and

a woman's moth-eaten cloak which he had inherited

from his wife. He begged, fell ill, starved, roosted

for fifty kopeks a month in one corner of a cottage

occupied by a woman trader in the "gluttons' row,"

and, in her opinion, might very well set his affairs

straight by selling his inheritance. But he prized it

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as the apple of his eye — and, of course, not in the

least because of tender feelings toward the late la-

mented: it afforded him the consciousness that he

owned incomparably more property than other folks.

It seemed to him that it was worth a devilishly high

price: "Nowadays such cloaks are not to be had at

all!" He was not disinclined, not in the least disin-

clined, to sell it. But he asked such an outrageous

price that would-be purchasers were dazed. And

Kuzma understood this tragedy of the Suburb per-

fectly. But when he began to consider how it should

be expressed, he began to live through the whole

complicated life of the Suburb, through recollections

of his childhood, of his youth — and he became con-

fused, drowned Sukhonosy in the abundance of the

pictures which besieged his memory, and dropped his

hands in despair, crushed by the necessity of express-

ing his own soul, of setting forth everything which had

crippled his own life. And the most terrible thing

about that life was the fact that it was a simple, every-

day life, which broke up into petty details with in-

comprehensible rapidity. Yes, and what was more,

he did not know how to write: he did not even know

how to think regularly or long; he suffered like a

puppy in a bed of straw when he took up a pen. And

Balashkin's death-bed prophecy brought him to his

senses; 'twas not for him to write stories! So the first

thought which flashed through his mind was, to write

"The Sum-Total," a stern, harsh epitaph on himself

and — on Russia.

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IV

BUT since that time twelve more barren years

had elapsed. He had plied the trade of horse-

dealer in Voronezh; then, when the woman with

whom he had been living died of puerperal fever, he

had carried on the same trade in Eletz, had worked in a

candle shop in Lipetzk, had been a clerk on Kasatkin's

farm. And his life had flowed on smoothly, engrossed

in work, in everyday tasks — until his habit of tippling

had rather abruptly turned into hard drinking. He

had become a passionate follower of Tolstoy: for

about a year he did not smoke, never took a drop of

vodka, ate no meat, never parted with "My Confes-

sion" and "The Gospels," wanted to emigrate to the

Caucasus anoVjoin the Dukhobortzy. 1 But he was

sent to Kieff on a business matter. And as he set

forth, he felt something akin to a sickly joy, as if he

had suddenly been released, after prolonged imprison-

ment, into complete freedom. It was clear weather

at the end of September, and everything seemed easy,

very beautiful — the pure air, the comfortable sun, and

the cadence of the train, the open windows, and the

flowering forests which flashed past them. All at once,

when the train halted at Nyezhin, Kuzma saw a large

1 A sect which denies the divinity of the Holy Spirit.

They emigrated from the Caucasus to British Columbia in

the Ws, with money furnished by Count L. N. Tolstoy, and

have had many conflicts with the British authorities. — trans.

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THE VILLAGE

crowd surrounding the door of the station. The crowd

was gathered round some one, and was shouting and

quarrelling in great agitation. Kuzma's heart began to

beat violently, and he ran toward the crowd. Rapidly

elbowing his way through it, he caught sight of the

red cap of the station-master, the white, pyramidal cap

of a cook, resembling that of a Kazak Hetman, and the

grey overcoat of a sturdy gendarme, engaged in

roundly berating three Little Russians, who were stand-

ing meekly erect in front of him, clad in short, thick

coats, indestructible boots, and caps of snuff-coloured

lambskin. These caps hung precariously on some

dreadful objects that proved to be round heads band-

aged with coarse muslin, stiff with dried serous fluid,

above swollen eyes and faces puffy and glassy with

greenish-yellow bruises, bearing wounds on which the

blood had coagulated and turned black. The men had

been bitten by a mad wolf, had been despatched to the

hospital in Kieff, and had been held up for days at a

stretch at almost every large station, without a morsel

of bread or a kopek of money. And, on learning that

they were not to be taken aboard now, because the

train was called an express train, Kuzma suddenly

flew into a rage and, to the accompaniment of approv-

ing yells from the Jews in the throng, began to bawl

and stamp his feet at the gendarme. He was arrested,

an official report was drawn up, and, while awaiting

the next train, Kuzma, for the first time in his life, got

dead drunk.

The Little Russians were from the Tchernigoff

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Government. This he had always thought of as a far-

away region with a sky of dim, gloomy blue above

the forests. These men, who had gone through a

hand-to-hand encounter with the mad wolf, reminded

him of the days of Vladimir, the life of long ago, of

ancient peasant life in the pine forests. And as he

proceeded to get drunk, pouring out glass after glass

of liquor with hands shaking after the row, Kuzma

became transported with delight: "Akh, that was a

great epoch!" He was choking with wrath at the

gendarme, and at those meek cattle in their long-

tailed coats. Stupid, savage, curse them! But — Rus-

sia, ancient Russia! And tears of drunken joy and

fervour, which distorted every picture to supernatural

dimensions, obscured Kuzma's vision. "But how about

non-resistance?" recurred to his mind at intervals, and

he shook his head with a grin. A trim young of-

ficer was eating his dinner, with his back to him, at

the general table; and Kuzma gazed in an amicably

insolent manner at his white linen uniform blouse,

so short, so high-waisted, that he wanted to step up

to him and pull it down. "And I will do that!"

thought Kuzma. "But he would jump up and shout

— and slap my face! There's non-resistance for you!"

Then he journeyed on to Kieff and, completely aban-

doning his business, spent three days roaming about

the city and on the bluffs above the Dnyepr, in the

joyous excitement induced by his intoxication.

In the Cathedral of St. Sophia, at the Liturgy, many

persons stared in amazement at the thin, broad-

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THE VILLAGE

shouldered katzap x who stood in front of Yaroslaff's 2

tomb. He was neatly dressed, held in his hand a new

peaked cap, stood with decorum; but there was some-

thing queer in his general appearance. The service

came to an end: the congregation departed, and the

doors were opened; the verger extinguished the candles.

Through the upper windows, athwart the blue smoke,

filtered golden streaks of the hot noonday sun; but he,

with set teeth, his sparse greying beard drooping on

his breast and his deeply sunken eyes closed in a sort

of happy pain, remained there listening to the pealing

of the bells, carolling and dully booming above the

cathedral — that ancient peal which had, in days of

yore, accompanied the campaigns against the Petchen-

yegi. 3 And, toward evening, Kuzma was seen at the

Lavia. 4 He was sitting opposite its gate beneath a

withered acacia, alongside a crippled lad, gazing with a

troubled, melancholy smile at its white walls and en-

closures, at the gold of its little cupolas shining against

the pure autumnal sky. The lad had no cap, a sack of

coarse linen hung over his shoulder, and on his body

hung dirty, ragged old garments; in one hand he held

1 The Little Russian nickname for the Great Russians. —

TRANS.

2 YaroslafT the Great, son of Prince Vladimir, 1016-1054.

— TRANS.

3 A Turkish tribe which migrated from Asia to Eastern

Europe. They came into collision with the Russians at the

end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth. —

TRANS.

4 A Lavra is a first-class Monastery. Here it refers to the

famous "Catacombs" Monastery. — trans.

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a wooden cup, with a kopek in the bottom, while with

the other he incessantly changed the position of his de-

formed leg — which was bare to the knee, withered and

unnaturally thin, burned black by the sun, and covered

with a thick growth of golden-hued hair — as if it

did not belong to him, as if it were a mere object.

There was no one in their vicinity; but the lad, with

his close-cropped head thrown back, stiff from the ef-

fects of the sun and the dust, displaying his thin, child-

ish collar-bones, and paying no heed to the flies which

settled on the excretions of his nostrils, drawled

drowsily, painfully, and without ceasing:

"Take a look, ye mammas,

See how unhappy, how miserable we are!

Akh, God grant you, mammas,

Never to suffer so!"

And Kuzma confirmed him: "That's so, that's

right!"

When he had conquered his intoxication and come

to his senses, Kuzma felt that he was already an old

man. Since that trip to Kieff three years had elapsed.

And, during that space of time, something extremely

important had indubitably been effected within him.

How it had been effected, he himself did not even at-

tempt to define. Life during those three years had

been too abnormal — his own life and the life of the

community. Of course, he had understood while still

in Kieff that he would not remain long with Kasatkin,

and that ahead of him lay poverty, the loss of even

the semblance of manhood. And so it came to pass.

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He managed to scrape along through two more jobs,

but under very humiliating and oppressive conditions:

eternally half-drunk, slovenly, with voice turned

hoarse, permeated through and through with the reek

of cheap, strong tobacco, making herculean efforts to

conceal his unfitness for business. Then he fell lower

still; he returned to his native town, and ran through

his last kopeks; he spent his nights all winter long in

the general room of the lodging-house of Khodoff,

whiled away the days in Avdyeef's eating-house in

the Women's Bazaar. Out of these last kopeks

many went for a stupid caprice, the publication of a

little volume of verses — after which he had to stroll

about among the patrons of Avdyeef's establishment

and force his booklet on them at half-price.

But even that was not all: he came near turning

into a buffoon! Once, on a frosty, sunny morning, he

was standing in the bazaar near the flour shops and

gazing at a barefoot beggar cutting up antics before

Mozzhukin the merchant, who had come out on his

threshold. Mozzhukin, drowsily derisive, with a face

resembling the reflection in a samovar, was chiefly in-

terested in a cat which was licking his polished boot.

But the beggar did not stop. He thumped his breast

with his fists and, humping his shoulders, began in a

hoarse voice to declaim:

"He who drinks when he is already drunk,

Plays the part of a wise man. . . ."

And Kuzma, his swollen eyes beaming, suddenly cut in :

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"Then long live jollity,

Long life to good liquor!"

And an old woman of the petty burgher class, who

was passing by — she had a face like that of an aged

lioness — halted, cast a sidelong glance at him, and,

elevating her crutch, remarked distinctly and mali-

ciously: " Tis likely you don't know your prayers

as well as that!"

Lower than that there was no place to fall. But

precisely that was what saved him. He survived sev-

eral attacks of heart disease — and immediately stopped

getting drunk, firmly resolving to undertake the sim-

plest, most laborious sort of life; to hire, for example,

an orchard, a vegetable-garden; to purchase, somewhere

in his native county, a bee-farm. Fortunately, he

still had a hundred and fifty rubles left.

At first this idea delighted him. "Yes, that's capi-

tal," he said to himself with that mournful ironical

smile which he had acquired so long ago. Tis time

to go home!" And, of a truth, he needed a rest. It

was not very long since that vast agitation had be-

gun, both within him and round about him. But it

had already done its work. He had become something

very different from what he had been previously.

His beard had turned completely grey; his hair, which

he wore parted in the middle, and which curled at the

ends, had grown thin and acquired a rusty hue; his

broad face, with its high cheek bones, had grown

darker and leaner than ever. His observing, sceptical

mind had grown more keen. His soul had been puri-

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tied, had become more unhealthily sensitive, although

he was able to conceal the fact behind the serious and,

at times, even severe look of the little eyes under

brows which almost met across his nose. He had com-

pletely pulled himself together, and had begun to

think less of himself, more of those round about him.

Nevertheless, he longed to go "home" and rest: he

craved work to his liking.

V

IN the spring, several months before the reconcil-

iation with Tikhon, Kuzma heard that a garden

in the village of KazakofT, in his native district,

was to be leased, and he hastened thither. It was

a remote spot, with black loam soil, not far from the

place where the Krasoffs had first taken root.

It was the beginning of May; cold weather and rain

had returned after a hot spell; gloomy autumnal

storm-clouds sailed over the town. Kuzma, in an old

overcoat and without goloshes over his broken calf-

skin boots, was trudging to the railway station be-

yond the Cannon-makers' Suburb, and, shaking his

head and screwing up his face from the effects of the

cigarette held in his teeth, with hands clasped behind

his back under his overcoat, he was smiling to himself.

A dirty little barefoot boy ran up to him with a pile

of newspapers and, as he ran, shouted briskly the

customary phrase: "Giniral strike!"

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"You're behind the times, my lad," said Kuzma.

"Isn't there anything newer?"

The small boy came to a halt, with flashing eyes.

"The policeman has carried the news off to the

station," he replied.

"All hail to the constitution!" said Kuzma caustic-

ally, and pursued his course, skipping along through

the mud, past fences darkened by the rain, past the

branches of dripping gardens and the windows of lop-

sided hovels which were sliding down hill, to the end

of the town street. "Wonders will never cease!" he

said to himself as he went leaping along. "In former

days, with such weather, people would have been yawn-

ing, hardly exchanging a word, in all the shops and

eating-houses. But now, all over the town, they do

nothing but discuss the Duma, riots and conflagra-

tions, and how 'MurontzefF 1 has given the prime-

minister a sound rating.' Well, a frog does not keep

its tail very long!" The fireman's band was already

playing in the town park. A whole company of kazaks

had been sent. And the day before yesterday, on

Trading Street, one of them, when drunk, went up to

the window of the public library and made an insult-

ing gesture to the young lady librarian. An elderly

cabman, who was standing near by, began to reprove

him, but the kazak jerked out his sabre from its scab-

bard, slashed the cabman's shoulder, and, cursing vio-

lently, rushed down the street in pursuit of the peo-

ple who were walking and driving past, and, crazed

1 Muromtzeff.

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with fear, were flying to the first shelter which pre-

sented itself.

"The catskin man, the catskin man,

He fell down beneath a fence!" 1

piped up some naughty little girls, in their thin voices,

after Kuzma, as they hopped from stone to stone,

across the shallow stream of the Suburb.

"When he skins cats, he gets the paws!"

"Ugh, you little wretches!" a railway conductor

growled at them. In an overcoat that was dreadfully

heavy even to look at, he was walking in front of

Kuzma, and he shook a small iron box at them.

"Why don't you pick on some one of your own age?"

But one could judge from his voice that he was

restraining his laughter. The conductor's old, deep

goloshes were crusted with dried mud; the belt of his

coat hung by a single button. The small bridge of

planks along which he was walking lay askew. Fur-

ther on, alongside the ditches flooded by the spring

freshets, grew stunted bushes. And Kuzma gazed

cheerlessly at them, and at the straw-thatched roofs

on the hill of the Suburb; at the smoky and bluish

clouds which hung over them, and at the reddish-

yellow cur which was gnawing a bone in the ditch.

In the bottom of the ditch, his legs straddled far

X A rhyme in the original. The "catskinner" collects hides

throughout the countryside, for conversion into "furs." —

TRANS.

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apart, sat a petty burgher, in a waistcoat over a

cotton-print Russian shirt. His widely opened eyes

looked white in his face, which, scarlet with effort,

stared upward in an awkward, stupid grin. When

Kuzma came opposite him, he said, out of sheer clumsi-

ness: "Is it you our little girls are taunting? Why,

those little imps learn effrontery in their infancy!"

" Tis you yourselves who teach them," replied

Kuzma, with a frown. "Yes, yes," he said to him-

self, as he ascended the hill, "a frog does not keep his

tail long!" On reaching the crest of the hill, inhaling

the damp wind from the plain and catching sight of

the red buildings of the railway station in the midst

of the empty green fields, he again began to smile

faintly. Parliament, deputies! Last night he had re-

turned from the public park, where, in honour of a

holiday, there had been an illumination, rockets had

soared aloft, and the firemen had played "Le Tore-

ador" and "Beside the brook, beside the bridge," "The

Maxixe" and "The Troika," shouting in the middle of

the galop, "Hey, de-ear one!" He had returned home

and had started to pull the bell at the gate of his

lodging-house. He had pulled and pulled the rat-

tling wire — not a soul. Not a soul anywhere around,

either — only silence, darkness, the cold greenish sky

in the West, beyond the square at the end of the street,

and, overhead, storm-clouds. At last, some one

crawled forward behind the gate, clearing his throat.

He rattled his keys and grumbled: "I'm lame in my

underpinning — "

"What's the cause of it?"

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"A horse kicked me," replied the man; and, as he

unlocked and opened the gate, he added: "Well, now

there are still two left."

"The men from the court, you mean?"

"Yes."

"But don't you know why the judge came?"

"To try the deputy. They say he tried to poison

the river."

"What, the deputy? You fool, do deputies med-

dle with such things?"

"The devil only knows what they'll do."

On the outskirts of the Suburb, beside the threshold

of a clay hut, stood a tall old man wearing leg-cloths. 1

In the old man's hand was a long staff of walnut wood.

On catching sight of a passer-by, he made haste to

pretend that he was much older than he really was.

He grasped the staff in both hands, hunched up his

shoulders, and imparted to his countenance a weary,

melancholy expression. The damp, cold wind which

was blowing from the fields agitated the shaggy locks

of his grey hair. And Kuzma recalled his own fa-

ther, his own childhood.

"Russia, Russia! Whither art thou dashing?" Go-

gol's exclamation recurred to his mind. "Russia,

Russia! Akh, vain babblers, you stick at nothing!

That's the best answer you can make: The deputy

1 About three-quarters of a yard of heavy homespun crash

is wrapped over the foot and leg in lieu of a stocking, and

confined in place by the stout cord or rope with which the

slippers of plaited linden bark are tied on. — trans.

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THE VILLAGE

tried to poison the river.' Yes, but who is responsible?

First of all, the unhappy populace — and unhappy

they are!" And tears welled up in Kuzma's little

green eyes — welled up suddenly, as had often happened

with him of late. Not long ago he had strolled into

Avdyeeff's eating-house, in the Woman's Bazaar. He

had entered the courtyard, ankle deep in mud, and

from the courtyard ascended to the first storey — "the

Gentry's Department" — by a wooden staircase so stink-

ing, so rotten through and through, that it turned even

his stomach — the stomach of a man who had seen sights

in his day. With difficulty he had opened the heavy,

greasy door, covered with scraps of felt and tattered

rags in place of a proper casing, and provided with

a pulley-weight fashioned from a brick and a bit of

rope. He was fairly blinded by the charcoal vapour,

the smoke, the glare of the tin reflectors behind the

little wall-lamps, and deafened by the crash of the

dishes on the counter; by the talking, the clatter of the

waiters running about in all directions, and the repul-

sive uproar of the gramophone. Then he passed on to

the most distant room, where there were fewer people,

ate at a small table, ordered a bottle of mead. Under-

foot, on a floor soiled with the trampling of feet and

with spittle, lay slices of lemon, eggshells, butts of

cigarettes. And near the wall opposite sat a long-

limbed peasant in bast-slippers, smiling beatifically,

shaking his frowsy head, and listening to the shriek-

ing gramophone. On his small table were a small

measure of vodka, a small glass, and cracknels. But

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the peasant was not drinking: only wagging his head

and staring at his bast-shoes.

All of a sudden, becoming conscious of Kuzma's

gaze riveted upon him, he opened his eyes wide with

joy, raised his wonderfully kind face with its waving

reddish beard. "Well, so you've flown in!" he ex-

claimed, in delight and surprise. And he hastened to

add, by way of justifying himself: "Sir, I have a

brother who serves here — my own brother."

Blinking away his tears, Kuzma clenched his teeth.

Ugh, damn it, to what a point had the people been

trampled upon, beaten down! "You've flown in!"

That in connection with Avdyeeff's establishment!

And that was not all: when Kuzma rose to his feet

and said: "Well, goodbye!" the peasant hurriedly

rose to his feet also, and out of the fulness of a

happy heart, with profound gratitude for the light and

luxury of the surroundings, and because he had been

addressed in a human manner, quickly answered:

"No offence meant!"

VI

IN former days conversation in the railway car-

riages had turned exclusively on the rain and the

drought, on the fact that "God fixes the price for

grain." Now, the sheets of newspapers rustled in the

hands of many passengers, and discussion busied it-

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self with the Duma, the rights of the people, the ex-

propriation of the land. No one even noticed the

pouring rain which pattered on the roof, although

the travellers belonged to the class which was always

greedy for spring rains — grain dealers, peasants,

petty burghers from the farms. A young soldier who

had lost his leg passed along: he was suffering from

jaundice, his black eyes were mournful, he hobbled

and clattered his wooden leg as he doffed his tall Mand-

zhurian fur cap and, like a beggar, made the sign of

the cross every time he received an alms. A noisy,

angry discussion started up on the subject of the Gov-

ernment, the Minister Durnovo, and some govern'

mental oats. They referred, jeeringly, to that which

formerly had evoked their naif enthusiasm: how

"Vitya," x with the object of frightening the Japanese

at Portsmouth, had ordered his trunks to be packed.

A young man, with his hair cut close like beaver

fur, who sat opposite Kuzma, reddened, grew embar-

rassed, and made haste to interpose: "Excuse me,

gentlemen! You are talking about liberty. I serve

in the office of the tax inspector, and I write articles

for the city newspapers. Do you think that is any

business of his? He asserts that he, too, believes in

liberty, but when he found out that I had written

about the abnormal condition of our fire department,

he sent for me and said: 'Damn you, if you write

any more pieces like that I'll wring your neck!' Per-

mit me: if my views are more on the left than his — "

1 Popular form of "Witte," the famous Minister. — trans.

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"Views?" suddenly shouted the alto voice of a

dwarf, the young man's neighbour, a fat skopetz 1

in bottle-shaped boots — miller Tchernyaeff, who had

been casting sidelong glances at him all the while

from his pig-like little eyes. And, without giving

him a chance to reply, he roared: "Views? You

mean to say you have views? And you're more of

a Left? Why, I've known you ever since you were

running around without breeches in your childhood!

And you were perishing with hunger, along with your

father — you mendicants! You ought to be washing

the inspector's feet and drinking the dirty water!"

"The Con-sti-tu-u-tion," interjected Kuzma in a

shrill tone, interrupting the eunuch; and rising from

his seat and jostling the knees of the sitting pas-

sengers, he went down the carriage to the door.

The eunuch's feet were small, plump, and repulsive,

like those of some aged housekeeper; his face, also, was

feminine, large, yellow, solid, like gutta-percha; his

lips were thin. And PolozofT was another nice one —

the teacher at the pro-gymnasium, the man who had

been nodding his head so amiably, and leaning on his

stick, as he listened to the eunuch; a squat, well-

nourished man of thirty, in high shoes with the tops

tucked under grey trousers, a grey hat, and a grey

coat with sleeve-flaps; a clear-eyed fellow with a round

nose and a luxuriant sandy beard spreading all over

his chest. A teacher, but he wore a heavy gold seal

ring on his forefinger. And he already owned a small

house — the dowry he had acquired along with the

*A member of the self-mutilating sect, the Skoptzy.— trans.

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Archpriest's daughter. 1 His feet also were small, his

hands were short, his fingers mere stumps; he was neat,

groomed to a surprising nicety, and he took a bath

every day. He was said to be an execrable man; the

Lord forbid! Yes, decidedly peasants and petty citi-

zens were not fit for such as he. Kuzma, as he opened

the door to the platform, inhaled a deep breath of the

cold and fragrant rain-drenched air. The rain droned

dully on the roof over the platform, poured

off it in streams, and spurts of it spattered over

Kuzma. After the town the air of the fields, mingled

with the exciting odour of the smoke from the loco-

motive, intoxicated him. The carriages, as they

swayed, rattled louder than the noise of the rain; ris-

ing and falling as they approached, the telegraph

wires floated past; on both sides ran the dense vividly-

green borders of a hazel copse. A motley-hued gang

of small boys suddenly sprang out from under the

foot of the embankment and shouted something or

other shrilly in chorus. Kuzma burst out laughing

from sheer pleasure, and his whole face was covered

with tiny wrinkles. But when he raised his eyes, he

saw on the opposite platform a pilgrim; a kindly,

jaded peasant face, a grey beard, a broad-brimmed hat,

a cloth coat girt with a rope, a pouch and a tin tea-

kettle hanging on his back, and, on his skinny feet,

1 Parish clergy are always married men in the Orthodox

Catholic Church. An Archpriest is usually the head of a strff

of clergy at a Cathedral. To a higher post and title no mar-

ried priest can attain. The Bishops, Archbishops, and higher

clergy must be monks. — trans.

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THE VILLAGE

bast-shoes. The pilgrim was smiling, too. And

Kuzma shouted to him, athwart the rumbling and

the noise: "What's your name, grandfather?"

"Anton. Anton Bezpalykh," replied the old man

with amiable readiness, in a thin voice.

"Just back from a pilgrimage?"

"From Voronezh."

"Are they burning out the landed proprietors

there?"

"Yes, they are. . . ."

"Well, that's fine!"

"What's that you say?"

"I say 'tis fine!" shouted Kuzma. And, turning

aside and blinking away the welling tears, he began

with trembling hands to roll himself a cigarette. But

his thoughts had already grown confused. "The pil-

grim is one of the people, but do not the eunuch and

the teacher belong to the people? 'Tis only forty-

five years since serfdom was abolished — so what can

be expected of the people? Yes, but who is to blame

for it? The people themselves. Russia under the

Russian yoke; the Little Brothers 1 of divers sorts

under the Turkish; the Galicians under the Austrians

— and 'tis useless to say anything about the Poles.

Hey there, thou great Slavonic family!" And

Kuzma's face once more lightened. Darting oblique

glances about him on all sides, he began to twiddle

his fingers, wring them, and crack their joints.

1 "Bratushki" — Little Brothers — is a term which originated

during the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78, and was applied to

the Serbs and Bulgarians. — trans.

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VII

HE alighted at the fourth station and hired a con-

veyance. At first the peasant drivers demanded

seven rubles — it was twelve versts to Kazakovo

— then they came down to five and a half. At last

one of them said: "Give me a three-ruble note and

I'll drive you; otherwise, 'tis not worth wagging your

tongue about. Times nowadays are not what they

used to be." But he was unable to maintain that tone,

and added the customary phrase: "And, besides, fod-

der is dear." And he drove, after all, for a ruble and

a half. The mud was fathomless, impassable, the cart

was tiny, the wretched little nag, barely alive, was as

long-eared as an ass and extremely weak. When they

had slowly emerged from the courtyard of the station,

the peasant, seated on the side-rail, began to get im-

patient and jerked the rope reins as if he longed with

his whole being to aid the horse. At the station he

had bragged "She can't be held back," and now he

evidently felt ashamed. But the worst part of it all

was — the man himself. Young, huge of build, fairly

plump, he was clad in bast-shoes and white leg-

wrappers, a short kazak coat girt with a strip of cloth,

and an old peaked cap on his straight yellow hair.

He emitted the smoky odour out of a chimneyless hut

and of hemp — a regular husbandman of olden times,

with a white beardless face, a swollen throat and a

hoarse voice.

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"What's your name?" inquired Kuzma.

"I'm called Akhvanasiy."

"Akhvanasiy!" said Kuzma angrily to himself.

"And what else?"

"Menshoff. — Ho, get up there, antichrist!"

"Is it the evil malady?" And Kuzma indicated his

throat with a nod.

"Well, yes, it it," mumbled Menshoff, turning his

eyes aside. "I've been drinking cold kvas."

"Does it hurt you to swallow?"

"To swallow? — no, it doesn't hurt — "

"Weil, anyway, don't talk unnecessarily," said

Kuzma sternly. "You'd better go to the hospital as

soon as you can. Married, I suppose?"

"Yes, I'm married. . . ."

"Well, there, now, you see. You'll have children,

and you'll be making them all a famous present!"

"Just as sure as giving them a drink," assented

Menshoff. And, waxing impatient, he began to jerk

the reins again. "Ho, get up there. You're an un-

manageable brute, antichrist!" At last he abandoned

this futile effort and calmed down. For a long time

he maintained silence, then suddenly inquired: "Have

they assembled that Duma yet, merchant?"

"Yes."

"And they do say that Makaroff is still alive, only

they don't want it known."

Kuzma merely shrugged his shoulders: the devil only

knew what these steppe men had in their heads! "But

what wealth is here!" he said to himself, as he sat

miserably on a tuft of straw, his knees drawn up on

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the bare floor of the springless cart, covered with a

coarse cloth used for wrapping grain. He surveyed

the road. The weather had grown still colder; still

more gloomily the storm-clouds from the northwest

came sailing over this black loam region, saturated

with rains. The mud on the roads was bluish, greasy;

the green of the trees, of the grass, of the vegetable

gardens was dark and dense; and over everything lay

that bluish tint of the black loam and the storm-clouds.

But the cottages were of clay, tiny, with roofs of ma-

nure. Alongside them stood dried-up water casks.

Of course, the water in them contained tadpoles.

Here was a well-to-do farmstead. In the vege-

table garden, behind old bushes, an apiary, and a tiny

orchard of three or four wild apple-trees, rose an old,

dark-hued grain rick. The stable, the gate, and the

cottage were all under one roof, thatched with hackled

straw. The cottage was of brick, in two sections, the

dividing line marked out with chalk: on one side was

a pole surmounted by a forked branch, a fir-tree; on

the other was something resembling a cock. The small

windows were also rimmed with chalk in a toothed

pattern. "There's creative genius for you!" grinned

Kuzma. "The stone age, God forgive me — the times

of the cave men!" On the doors of the detached sheds

were crosses sketched in charcoal; by the porch stood

a large tombstone, obviously prepared in anticipation

of death by grandfather or grandmother. Yes, truly,

a well-to-do farmstead. But the mud round about was

knee deep; a pig was reclining on the porch, and on

top of him, balancing itself and flapping its wings,

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a yellow chicken was parading. The windows were

tiny, and in the part of the cottage appropriated to

human occupation, darkness and eternally cramped

conditions must inevitably reign — the sleeping shelf

on top of the oven, the loom for weaving, a good-sized

oven, a trough filled with slops. And the family would

be large, with many children, and in winter time there

would be Iambs and calves as well. And the damp-

ness and the charcoal fumes would be such that a

green vapour must hang over all. The children would

whimper and howl when slapped on the nape of the

neck; the sisters-in-law would revile one another

("May the lightning smite you, you roving, home-

less cur!") and each express the hope that the other

might "choke on a bite on the Great Day"; x the aged

mother-in-law would be incessantly hurling something

— the oven-fork, the bowls — and rushing at her daugh-

ters-in-law, her sleeves tucked up on her dark, sinewy

arms, and wearing herself out with shrill scolding, be-

sprinkling now one of them, now another with saliva

and curses. The old man, ugly-tempered and ailing,

would wear them all to exhaustion with his exhorta-

tions, would drag his married sons by the hair; and

sometimes they would weep, in the repulsive peasant

way.

"Whose farm is this?" asked Kuzma. "The Kras-

noffs'," answered Menshorf, adding, "All of them are

sick with it, too."

Beyond the Krasnoff farm they drove out on to the

pasturage. The village was large, and so was the

1 Easter. — trans.

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common for pasture. The annual Fair was being ar-

ranged on it. The framework of booths already rose

aloft here and there, and there were piles of wheels

and pottery; a hastily constructed oven was smoking,

and a smell of fritters hung in the air; the travelling

caravan-wagon of some gypsies loomed grey on the

plain, and close to its wheels sat sheep-dogs, fastened to

them by chains. On the left, peasant cottages were

visible; on the right lay a lumber-yard, two town

shops, and a bakery. Farther away, alongside the

governmental dram-shop, stood a dense cluster of

young girls and peasant men, from which shouts rang

out.

"The people are making holiday," remarked Men-

shoff thoughtully.

"What's the cause of their joy?" inquired Kuzma.

"They are hoping for — "

"For what?"

"Everybody knows for what. The house-sprite!"

And it was true. On that bare pasture-common,

that overcast, chilly day, those squeals of delight and

the sounds of two accordions played in perfect unison

seemed pitiful, were swallowed in an atmosphere of

commonplaceness, of boredom and age. The people

were experiencing something new, were celebrating

something, but did they believe in their festival?

"Oh, hardly!" said Kuzma to himself, as he drove

close and surveyed the white, pink, and green petti-

coats of the girls, the indifferent, coarsely painted

faces, the orange-coloured, golden-hued, and crimson

kerchiefs. The cart drove up to the crowd and halted.

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Menshoff stared boldly at the throng and broke into

a grin. At that close range the sounds no longer

seemed pitiful — the accordions eagerly played up to

each other, and in harmony with them, amid the ap-

proving hubbub of the drunken men, quaint adages

flew briskly about.

"Ho-o," some one shouted, to an accompaniment of

dull but lusty stamping of feet:

"Plough not, reap not,

But bring fritters to the maidens!"

And a peasant, short of stature, who was standing

behind the crowd, suddenly began to flourish his arms.

Everything about him was prosperous, clean, substan-

tial — his bast-shoes, his leg-wrappers, his new trou-

sers of heavy plaided home-made linen, and the pleated

skirts of his under-coat, made of appallingly thick

grey cloth and cut very short, with a bob-tailed effect,

It is probable that he had never danced before in his

life, but now he began, softly and skilfully, to stamp

with his bast-shoes, to wave his arms, and to shout

in a tenor voice : "Stand aside, let the merchant have

a peep!" and, leaping into the circle, which parted be-

fore him, he began to kick his legs about wildly in front

of a tall young fellow, who, tossing away his peaked

cap, twisted his boots about in devilish fashion and, as

he did so, flung aside his black jacket and danced on

in his new cotton print shirt. The face of the young

man was pale and perspiring and wore a concentrated,

gloomy expression which made his piercing yells seem

all the more violent and unexpected.

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"Son! Dear one!" shrieked an old crone in a

plaided wool skirt of South Russian fashion, stretching

out her hands. "Stop, for Christ's sake! Dear boy,

stop it — you'll kill yourself!"

And her dear son suddenly threw back his head,

clenched his fists and his teeth, and, with fury in his

countenance and his trampling, screeched through his

teeth :

"Tztzytz, good woman, shut your mouth with that

cuckoo song."

"And she has just sold the last bit of her home-made

linen for him," remarked Menshoff, as they crawled

slowly across the pasture land. "She loves him pas-

sionately. She's a widow. He raps her over the

mouth when he is drunk. Of course, she deserves

it."

What do you mean by that — 'she deserves it.'?"

inquired Kuzma.

"Because she does. You shouldn't be too indul-

gent—"

Yes, in the town, in the railway carriages, in the

hamlets, in the villages, everywhere, one could feel

the presence of something unusual, the echoes of some

great festival, some great victory, great expectations.

But back there in the suburb Kuzma had already re-

alized that the farther one went into those limitless

fields, beneath that cold, gloomy sky, the duller, the

more irrational, the more melancholy would those

echoes become. Now they had driven away, and the

shouts in the crowd about the dram-shop had again

become pitiful. There they were keeping festival and

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trying to "celebrate," but ahead lay boredom, remote

wilds, an empty street, smoky chimneyless hovels,

water-casks with putrid pond water, and then more

fields, the blue mist of the chilly distance, the dark

forest on the horizon, low-hanging storm-clouds.

At one cottage — it had a broken window and a wheel

on the rotten roof — a long-legged, ailing peasant sat

on a bench. People look handsomer in their coffins

than he looked in life. He resembled the poet Nek-

rasoff. Over his shoulders, above a long and soiled

shirt of hemp crash, was thrown an old short sheep-

skin coat; his stick-like legs stood in felt boots; his

huge dead-looking hands lay evenly spaced on his

sharp knees, upon his ragged trousers. His cap was

pulled far down on his forehead, after the fashion of

old men; his eyes were suffering, entreating; his super-

humanly meagre and emaciated face was drawn down,

his ashen lips half open.

"That's Tchutchen," x said Menshoff, nodding in the

direction of the sick man. "He's been dying these

two years from trouble with his stomach."

"Tchutchen? What's that — a nickname?"

"Yes, a nickname."

"Stupid!" said Kuzma. And he turned his head

away, in order to avoid seeing the horrid little girl

by the neighbouring cottage. She was leaning back

and holding in her arms an infant in a cap, and, as

she stared intently at the passers-by and stuck out her

tongue at them, she chewed on a bit of black bread,

which she was preparing as a sucking-piece for the

1 Scarecrow. — trans.

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child. And in the last yard and threshing-floor the

bushes hummed in the breezes, and a scarecrow, all

awry, fluttered its empty sleeves. The threshing-floor,

which adjoins the steppe, is always uncomfortable,

dreary; and there were the scarecrow, the autumnal

storm-clouds, the wind humming across the fields,

ruffling up the tails of the fowls which roved about the

threshing-floor, overgrown with pigweed and mug-

wort, alongside the grain-rick with its uncovered crest,

alongside the threshing machine of Ryazan make,

painted blue. . . .

VIII

THE small forest which lay blue against the hori-

zon consisted of two long ravines thickly over-

grown with oak-trees. It was known by the

name of Portotchka. Near this Portotchka Kuzma

was overtaken by a driving downpour of rain mingled

with hail, which accompanied him the whole way to

Kazakovo. Menshoff whipped up his sorry nag into

a gallop as they neared the village, while Kuzma sat

with eyes tightly screwed up beneath the wet grain-

cloth. His hands were stiff with cold; icy rivulets

trickled down the collar of his great-coat; the coarse

cloth, heavy with the rain, stank of the sour grain-

kiln. The hailstones rattled on his head, cakes of

mud flew up into his face, the water in the ruts be-

neath the wheels splashed noisily; lambs were bleat-

ing somewhere or other. At last Kuzma became so

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stifled that he flung the cloth from his head and greed-

ily gulped in the fresh air. The rain lessened in inten-

sity. Evening drew on; the flocks dashed past the

cart, across the green pasture land, on their way to the

cottages. A thin-legged black sheep had got astray

from the flock, and a bare-legged peasant woman,

garbed in a rain-drenched short petticoat, darted after

it, her white calves gleaming. In the west, beyond the

village, the sky was growing brighter; to the east, on

a background of dusty-bluish storm-clouds, two

greenish-violet rainbows hung over the grain fields. A

dense, damp odour of verdure arose from the fields,

and of warmth from the dwellings.

"Where's the manor-house of the proprietor?"

Kuzma shouted to a broad-shouldered woman in a

white chemise and a red petticoat.

The woman was standing on a stone beside the cot-

tage of the village policeman, holding by the hand a

little girl about two years of age. The little girl was

vociferating so lustily that his question was inaudible.

"The homestead?" repeated the woman. "Whose?"

"The manor-house."

"Whose? I can't hear anything you say. — Ah, may

you choke! I hope the fits will get you!" shrieked the

woman, jerking the little girl so violently by the hand

that she executed a complete turn and, flying off the

stone, hung suspended.

They made inquiries at another cottage. Driving

along the broad street, they turned to the left, then to

the right, and, passing some one's old-fashioned manor-

house, hermetically boarded up, they began to de-

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scend a steep declivity to a bridge across a small stream.

Water trickled from Menshoff's face, his hands, his

coat. His fat face with its long white eyelashes, thus

washed, looked more stupid than ever. He was gaz-

ing off into space ahead with an expression of curiosity.

Kuzma gazed, also. In that direction, on the slop-

ing pasture land, lay the dark manor-park of Kaza-

kovo, the spacious courtyard surrounded by decaying

outbuildings and the ruins of a stone wall; in the

centre of the courtyard, behind three withered fir-trees,

stood the house, sheathed in grey boards, with a rusty-

red roof. Below, at the bridge, was a cluster of peas-

ants. And, coming to meet them up the steep road,

which was washed into gullies, a troika-team of lean

worl:-horses, harnessed to a tarantas, was struggling

through the mud and straining up the hill. A tattered

but handsome labourer, tall, pale, with a small reddish

beard and clever eyes, was standing beside the vehicle,

jerking at the reins, exerting his utmost efforts, and

shouting: "Ge-et up there! G-g-et up there!" The

peasants, meanwhile, with shouts and whistling, were

chiming in: "Whoa! Who-oa!" A young woman

dressed in mourning, large tears hanging on her long

eyelashes and her face distorted with fear, who was

seated in the carriage, was throwing out her hands

despairingly before her. Fear, suspense, lay in the

turquoise-blue eyes of the stout, sandy-mustached

young man who sat beside her. His wedding ring

gleamed on his right hand, which clutched a revol-

ver; he kept waving his left hand, and, without doubt,

he must have felt very warm in his camel's hair waist-

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coat and his gentleman's peaked cap, which had slipped

over on the back of his head. The children, a small

boy and a girl, pallid with hunger and fatigue, wrapped

in shawls, looked on with gentle curiosity from

the little bench opposite the main seat.

"That's Mishka Siversky," said Menshoff in a loud,

hoarse voice, as he drove around the troika and stared

indifferently at the children. "They turned him out

yesterday. Evidently, he deserved it."

The affairs of the Kazakovo gentry were managed

by a superintendent, a retired soldier of the cavalry, a

tall, rough man. Kuzma was told that he must apply

to him in the servants' quarters, by a workman who

drove into the farmyard in a cart heaped with freshly

cut coarse wet green grass. But the superintendent

had had two catastrophes that day — his baby had

died and a cow had perished — so Kuzma did not

meet with an amiable reception. When, leaving Men-

shoff outside the gate, he approached the servants'

quarters, the superintendent's wife, her face all tear-

stained, was bringing in a speckled hen, which sat

peaceably under her arm. Among the columns on the

dilapidated porch stood a tall young man in full

trousers, high boots, and a Russian shirt of cotton

print, who, on catching sight of the superintendent's

wife, shouted :"Agafya, where are you taking it?"

"To kill," replied the superintendent's wife, se-

riously and sadly, coming to a halt beside the ice-house.

"Give it here and I'll kill it."

Thereupon the young man directed his steps to the

ice-house, paying no attention to the rain, which was

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beginning to drizzle down again from the drowning

sky. Opening the door of the ice-house, he took from

the threshold a hatchet. A minute later a brief tap

resounded, and the headless chicken, with a red stump

of a neck, went running across the grass, stumbling

and whirling about, flapping its wings and scattering

in all directions feathers and spatters of blood. The

young man tossed aside the hatchet and went off to

the orchard, while the superintendent's wife, after she

had caught the chicken, stepped up to Kuzma. "What

do you want?"

"I came about the garden."

"Wait for Fedor Ivanitch."

"Where is he?"

"He'll be here immediately, from the fields."

So Kuzma began to wait at the window of the serv-

ants' quarters. He glanced inside and descried in

the semi-darkness an oven, sleeping boards, a table,

a small trough on the bench near the window, and a

little coffin made from such another trough, in which

lay the dead baby with a large, nearly naked head and

a little bluish face. At the table sat a fat blind young

girl, fishing with a wooden spoon for the bits of bread

in a bowl of milk. The flies were buzzing around

her like bees in a hive, but the blind girl, sitting as

erect as a stuffed figure, with her white eyeballs star-

ing into the darkness, went on eating and eating.

She made a terrible impression on Kuzma, and he

turned away. A cold wind was blowing in gusts, and

the clouds made it darker and darker.

In the centre of the farmyard rose two pillars with

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a cross-bar, and from the cross-bar hung, as if it were

a holy picture, a large sheet of iron; upon this they

rapped when they were alarmed at night. About the

farmyard lay thin wolf hounds. A small boy about

eight years of age was running around among them,

dragging in a small cart his flaxen-haired, chubby-

faced younger brother, who wore a large black peaked

cap. The little cart was squeaking wildly. The

manor-house was grey, heavy-looking, and, assuredly,

devilishly dreary in this twilight. "If they would

only light up!" Kuzma said to himself. He was

deadly weary, and it seemed to him as if he had left

the town almost a year ago. Suddenly a sound of

roaring and barking became audible, and through the

gate of the orchard madly leaped a pair of dogs,

a greyhound and a watchdog, dragging each other

sidewise, any way as chance decreed, colliding, star-

ing wildly about, and trying to tear each other to

pieces, their heads in different directions. After them,

shouting something or other, raced the young gentle-

man.

IX

KUZMA spent the evening and the night in the

garden, in the old bath-house. The superin-

tendent, on arriving from the fields on horse-

back, had remarked angrily that the garden had been

"leased long ago," and in reply to a request for lodg-

ing over-night had expressed insolent amazement.

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"Well, but you are a sensible fellow!" he had shouted,

without either rhyme or reason. "A nice posting-

station you've picked out! Are there many of your

stamp roving about at present?" But he took pity

on Kuzma in the end, and gave him permission to go

into the bath-house. Kuzma paid off Menshoff and

walked past the manor-house to the gate into the lin-

den avenue. Through the unlighted open windows,

from beyond the wire fly-screens, thundered a grand

piano, drowned by a magnificent baritone-tenor voice,

lifted in intricate vocalizations which were completely

out of harmony with both the evening and the manor.

Along the muddy sand of the sloping avenue, at the

end of which, as if at the end of the world, the cloud-

flecked sky gleamed dully white, there advanced toward

Kuzma a poor-looking peasant, short of stature, with

dark reddish hair, his shirt minus a belt; he was cap-

less, wore heavy boots, and was carrying a bucket

in his hand.

"Oho, ho!" he said, jeeringly, as he listened to the

singing while he walked on. "Oho, he's going it

strong, may his belly burst!"

"Who is going it strong?" inquired Kuzma.

The peasant raised his head and halted. "Why,

that young gentleman of ours," he said, merrily, mak-

ing havoc with his consonants. "They say he has been

doing that these seven years."

"Which one — the one who was chasing the dogs?"

"N-no, another one. But that's not all! Some-

times he takes to screeching, 'To-day 'tis your turn,

to-morrow 'twill be mine' — regular calamity!'

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THE VILLAGE

"He's taking lessons, of course?"

"Nice lessons they must be!"

"And that other one — what does he do?"

"That fellow?" The peasant drew a long breath,

smiling in a discreetly jeering manner the while.

"Why, nothing. Why should he? he has good victuals

and amusement: Fedka tosses bottles, and he shoots

at them; sometimes he buys a peasant's beard, cuts

it off, and stuffs it into his gun, for fun. Then again,

there are the dogs: we have an immense number of

them. On Sundays, when the church bells begin to

peal, the whole pack of them sets to howling; 'tis an

awful row they make! Day before yesterday they

chewed up a peasant's dog, and the peasants went to

the courtyard of the manor. 'Give us enough to buy

a vedro x of liquor, and we'll call it quits. Otherwise,

we'll go on strike at once.' "

"Well, did he give the money?"

"Of course he didn't! Gi-ive, indeed, brother! —

There is a miller here. He came straight out on the

porch and said: 'The wind is blowing from the fields,

gentlemen-nobles!' Catch him napping, forsooth!

The young gentleman started to bully them: 'What

sort of a wind is that you're talking about?' 'Just

a certain sort,' says he. 'I've propounded a riddle

to you; now you just think it over!' That brought

him to a dead standstill, brother!"

All this was uttered in a careless sort of way,

passed over lightly, with intervening pauses, but ac-

companied by such a malignant smile and such tor-

1 2.70 gallons. — trans.

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turing of his consonants that Kuzma began to look

more attentively at the man whom he had thus casu-

ally encountered. In appearance he resembled a fool.

His hair was straight, cut in a round crop, and long.

His face was small, insignificant, of ancient Russian

type, like the holy pictures of the Suzdal school. His

boots were huge, his body lean and somehow wooden.

His eyes, beneath large, sleepy lids, were like those of

a hawk, with a golden ring around the iris. When he

lowered his lids he was a lisping idiot; when he raised

them one felt a certain fear of him.

"Do you live in the garden?" asked Kuzma.

"Yes. Where else should I live?"

"And what's your name?"

"My name? Akim. And who are you?"

"I wanted to lease the garden."

"There, now — that is an idea!" And Akim, wag-

ging his head scoffingly, went on his way.

The wind blew with ever increasing vehemence, scat-

tering showers of rain from the brilliantly green trees;

beyond the park, in some low-lying region, the thunder

rumbled dully, pale blue flashes of aurora borealis

lighted up the avenue, and nightingales were singing

everywhere about. It was utterly incomprehensible

how they were able so sedulously, in such complete

disregard of surrounding conditions, to warble, trill,

and scatter their notes broadcast so sweetly and vigor-

ously beneath that heavy sky, veiled in leaden clouds,

amid the trees bending in the wind, as they perched

in the dense, wet bushes. But still more incompre-

hensible was it how the watchmen managed to pass the

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night in such a gale, how they could sleep on damp

straw beneath the sloping roof of the rotten hut.

There were three watchmen. And all of them were

sick men. One, young, emaciated, sympathetic, for-

merly a baker by trade, but dismissed the preceding

autumn for taking part in a strike, was now a beg-

gar. He had not as yet lost the peasant look, and

he complained of fever. The second, also a beggar,

but already middle-aged, had tuberculosis, although

he declared that there was nothing the matter with him

except that he felt "cold between his shoulders."

Akim was afflicted with night-blindness — he could not

see well in the half-light of twilight. When Kuzma

approached, the baker, pale and amiable of manner,

was squatting on his heels near the hut. With the

sleeves of a woman's wadded dressing gown tucked

up on his thin, weak arms, he was engaged in wash-

ing millet in a wooden bowl. Consumptive Mitrofan,

a man of medium size, broad and dark complexioned,

who resembled a native of Dahomey, garbed entirely

in wet rags and leg-wrappers which were worn out and

stiff as an old horse's hoof, was standing beside

the baker and, with hunched-up shoulders, staring at

the latter's work with brilliant brown eyes, strained

wide open but devoid of all expression. Akim had

brought a bucket of water and was making a fire in

a little clay oven-niche opposite the hut; he was blow-

ing the fire into life. He entered the hut, selected the

driest tufts of straw he could find, and again ap-

proached the fire, which was now fragrantly smoking

beneath the iron kettle, muttering to himself the while,

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breathing with a whistling sound, smiling in a mock-

ingly mysterious way at the bantering of his com-

rades, and occasionally bringing them up short with

a venomous and clever remark. Kuzma shut his eyes

and listened now to the conversation, now to the

nightingales, as he sat on a wet bench beside the hut,

besprinkled with icy spatterings of rain whenever the

damp wind rushed through the avenue beneath the

gloomy sky, which quivered with pale flashes of light-

ning, while the thunder rumbled. He felt a pain in

his stomach, from hunger and tobacco. It seemed as if

the porridge would never be cooked, and he could not

banish from his mind the thought that perhaps he him-

self would be obliged to live just such a wild beast's

life as that of these watchmen, and that ahead of him

lay nothing but old age, sickness, loneliness, and pov-

erty. His body ached, and the gusts of wind, the far-

away monotonous grumbling of the thunder, the night-

ingales, and the leisurely, carelessly malicious lisp-

ing of Akim and his squeaking voice, all irritated him.

"You ought to buy yourself at least a belt, Akim-

ushka," said the baker with affected simplicity, as he

lighted a cigarette. He kept casting glances at Kuzma,

by way of inviting him to listen to Akim.

"Just you wait," replied Akim in an absent-minded,

scoffing tone, as he poured the fluid porridge from the

boiling kettle into a cup. "When we've lived here

with the proprietor through the summer, I'll buy you

boots with a squeak in them."

" 'With a skvvvveak'! Well, I'm not asking you to

do anything of the sort."

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"You're wearing leg-wrappers now." And Akim be-

gan anxiously to take a test sip of the porridge from

the spoon.

The baker was disconcerted, and heaved a sigh:

"Why should the likes of us wear boots?"

"Oh, stop that," said Kuzma. "You had better tell

me whether you have this porridge day in and day

out, for ever and ever, as I think you do."

"Well, and what would you like — fish, and ham?"

inquired Akim, without turning round, as he licked

the spoon. "That really wouldn't be so bad: a dram

of vodka, about three pounds of sturgeon, a knuckle

of ham, a little glass of fruit cordial. But this isn't

porridge: it's called thin gruel. The porridge is for

the appetizer snack."

"But do you make cabbage soup, or any other sort

of soup?"

"We have had that, brother — cabbage soup; and

what soup it was! If you were to spill it on the dog

his hair would peel ofT!"

"Well, you might make a little soup."

"But where would we get the potatoes? You can't

buy any from a peasant, any more than from the

devil, brother! You couldn't wheedle even snow out

of a peasant in the middle of winter."

Kuzma shook his head.

"Probably 'tis your illness that makes you so bitter!

You ought to get a little treatment — "

Akim, without replying, squatted down on his heels

in front of the fire. The fire had already died down;

only a little heap of thin coals glowed red under the

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kettle; the garden grew darker and darker, and the

blue aurora had already begun faintly to illuminate

their faces, as the gusts of wind inflated Akim's shirt.

Mitrofan was sitting beside Kuzma, leaning on his

stick; the baker sat on a stump under a linden tree.

On hearing Kuzma's last words, he grew serious.

"This is the way I look at it," he said submissively

and sadly: "that nothing can be otherwise than as

the Lord decrees. If the Lord does not grant health,

then all the doctors cannot help. Akim, yonder,

speaks the truth: no one can die before his death-hour

comes."

"Doctors!" interposed Akim, staring at the coals and

pronouncing the word in a specially vicious way —

"doktogga!" "Doctors, brother, have an eye on their

pockets. I'd let out his guts for him, for such a

doctor, so I would!"

"Not all of them are thinking of their pockets,"

said Kuzma.

"I haven't seen all of them."

"Well, then, don't chatter nonsense about what you

haven't seen," said Mitrofan severely, and turned to

the baker: "Yes, and you're a nice one, too: making

yourself out a hopeless beggar! Perchance, if you

didn't wallow round on the ground, dog-fashion, you

wouldn't have that acute pain."

"Why, you see, I — " the baker began.

But at this point Akim's scoffing composure deserted

him of a sudden. And, rolling his stupid hawk-

like eyes, he abruptly leaped to his feet and began

to yell, with the irascibility of an idiot: "What? So

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I'm chattering nonsense, am I? Have you been in the

hospital? Have you? And I have been there! I

spent seven days there — and did he give me any

white-bread rolls, that doctor of yours? Did he?"

"Yes, you're a fool," interposed Mitrofan: "white

rolls are not given to every sick person: it depends

on their disease."

"Ah! It depends on their disease! Well, let him

go burst with his disease, devil take him!" shouted

Akim.

And, casting furious glances about him, he flung

his spoon into the "thin gruel" and strode off into the

hut.

X

THERE, breathing with his whistling breath, he

lighted the lamp, and the hut assumed a cosy

air. Then he fished out spoons from some niche

close under the roof, threw them on the table, and

shouted: "Bring on that porridge, can't you?" The

baker rose and stepped over to the kettle. "Pray be

our guest," he said, as he passed Kuzma. But Kuzma

found it unpleasant to eat with Akim. He asked for a

bit of bread, salted it heavily, and, chewing it with

delight, returned to his seat on the bench. It had

become completely dark. The pale blue light illumi-

nated the trees more and more extensively, swiftly,

and clearly, as if blown into life by the wind, and at

each flash of the aurora the foliage, in its death-like

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green, became for a moment as distinctly visible as in

the daytime; then everything was again inundated by

blackness as of the tomb. The nightingales had

ceased their song — only one, directly above the hut,

continued to warble sweetly and powerfully. In the

hut, around the lamp, a peaceably ironical conversa-

tion was flowing on once more. "They did not even

ask who I am, whence I come," said Kuzma to himself.

"What a people, may the devil take it." And he

shouted, jestingly, into the hut: "Akim! You haven't

even asked who I am, and whence I come."

"And why should I want to know?" replied Akim

indifferently.

"Well, I'm going to ask him about something else,"

said the baker's voice — "how much land he expects to

receive from the Duma. What think you, Akim-

ushka? Hey?"

"I'm no clever one at interpreting writing," said

Akim. "You can see it better from the dung-heap."

And the baker must have been disconcerted once

more: silence ensued, for a minute.

"He is referring to us, the likes of himself," re-

marked Mitrofan. "I happened to mention that in

Rostoff the poor folks — the proletariat, that is to say

— save themselves in winter time in the manure — "

"They go outside the town," cut in Akim cheerfully,

"and — into the manure with them! They burrow in

exactly like the pigs — and there's no harm done."

"Fool!" Mitrofan snapped him up, and so sternly

that Kuzma turned round. "What are you gobbling

about? You stupid fool, you rickety bandy-legs!

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When poverty overtakes you, you'll burrow too."

Akim, dropping his spoon, gazed sleepily at him

and, with the same sudden irascibility which he had

recently exhibited, opened wide his empty hawk-like

eyes and yelled furiously: "A — ah! Poverty! Did

you want to work at so much the hour?"

"Of course!" angrily shouted Mitrofan, inflating his

Dahomey-like nostrils and staring point-blank at

Akim with blazing eyes. "Twenty hours for twenty

kopeks?"

"A — ah! But you wanted a ruble an hour? You're

a greedy one, devil take you!"

But the wrangle subsided as quickly as it had

flared up. A minute later Mitrofan was talking

quietly and scalding himself with the porridge: "As

if he weren't greedy himself! Why, he, that blind

devil, would strangle himself in the sanctuary for the

sake of a kopek. If you'll believe it, he sold his wife

for fifteen kopeks! God is my witness that I am not

jesting. Off yonder in our village of Lipetzk there's

a little old man, Pankoff by name, who also used to

work as gardener — well, and now he has retired and

is very fond of that sort of affair."

"Why, doesn't Akim come from over Lipetzk way?"

interrupted Kuzma.

"From Studenko, from the village," said Akim in-

differently, exactly as if they were not discussing him

at all.

"Right, right," Mitrofan confirmed his statement.

"A peasant from the roots up. He lives with his

brother, controls the land and the farmyard in com-

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mon with him, but nevertheless somewhat in the posi-

tion of a fool; and, of course, his wife has already

run away from him. But we learned the reason why

she ran away, from the man himself: he made a bar-

gain with Pankoff, for fifteen kopeks, to admit him of

a night, instead of himself, into the chamber — and

he did it."

Akim remained silent, tapping the table with his

spoon and staring at the lamp. He had already eaten

his fill, wiped his mouth, and was now engaged in

thinking over something.

"Jabbering is not working, young man," he said at

last. "And what if I did admit him: my wife is

withering, isn't she?" And as he listened to hear

what they would say to that, he bared his teeth in a

grin, elevated his eyebrows, and his tiny face, which

was like a Suzdal holy picture, assumed a joyously

sad expression and became covered with large wooden

wrinkles. "I'd like to get that fellow with a gun!"

he said with a specially strong squeak and twisting

of his consonants. "Wouldn't he go head over heels!"

"Of whom are you speaking?" inquired Kuzma.

"Why, that nightingale — "

Kuzma set his teeth and, after reflection, said:

"Well, you are a putrid peasant. A wild beast."

"Well, and who cares for what you think?" re-

torted Akim. And, giving vent to a hiccough, he rose

to his feet. "Well, what's the use of burning the lamp

for nothing?"

Mitrofan began to roll a cigarette. The baker

gathered up the spoons. Crawling from under the

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table, he turned his back on the lamp and, hurriedly

crossing himself thrice, with a flourish he bent low to

the holy picture, in the direction of the dark corner of

the hut, shook back his straight hair, which resembled

bast, and, raising his face, murmured a prayer. His

large shadow fell upon some chests made of boards

and broke across them, while he himself seemed to

Kuzma even smaller than a short time previously.

Kuzma remembered how he had once been called for

conscription. Five hundred men had been summoned,

only one hundred and twenty being wanted. He had

drawn Number 492 : yet he had almost been obliged to

undress, so many of those naked youths — they re-

sembled sparrows, with arms as thin as whiplashes and

huge, solid bellies — had been rejected. Akim hastily

crossed himself once more, and once more made a

flourishing reverence — and Kuzma gazed at him with a

feeling akin to hatred. There was Akim praying —

but just try asking him whether he believed in God!

His hawk eyes would leap out of their sockets! Evi-

dently he had the idea that no one in all the world

believed as he did. He was convinced to the very

bottom of his soul that, in order to please God and

avoid the condemnation of men, it was necessary to

comply in the strictest possible manner with even the

smallest fraction of what was appointed in regard to

the Church, fasts, feasts, good deeds; that for the sal-

vation of his soul — not out of good feeling, naturally!

— those acts must be fulfilled punctually; candles

must be placed before the holy pictures, he must eat

fish, and oil instead of butter; and on feast-days he

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must celebrate, and conciliate the priest with patties

and chickens. And every one was firmly convinced

that Akim was a profound believer, although Akim

himself had never in the whole course of his life

wondered what his God was actually like, just as he

had never pondered upon either heaven or earth, birth

or death. Why should he think? His thinking had

been done for him! He knew all the answers — calm

answers, prepared a thousand years ago. Didn't he

know that in heaven were paradise, angels, the saints;

in hell, devils and sinners; on earth, men who culti-

vate the earth, and build houses, and trade, and ac-

cumulate money, and marry, and live for their pleas-

ure? Not all of them, certainly — far from all — but

what was to be done about that? All the same, people

ought to strive toward that — and when the right time

arrived, Akim, too, would show of what he was ca-

pable! So said Kuzma to himself, recalling, as always,

with amazement and fear, the massacres. Well, and

the mystery of birth and death — that did not concern

him. After one was born, it was necessary to be

baptized, and to live according to our own manner,

the Russian manner, not after the manner of dogs

— that is, like Turks and Frenchmen. When one

died, it was indispensable to receive the Sacrament —

otherwise one could not escape hell — and the best of

all was to receive the Holy Unction with Oil. 1 That

1 Not Extreme Unction, in the meaning of the Church of

Rome. In the Orthodox Catholic Church it is a service of

Prayer and Anointment for healing, to be administered and

received at any time desired. — trans.

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was all. There are also on the earth insects, flowers,

birds, animals. But Akim did not condescend to

think about flowers and insects — he simply crushed

them. Among plants he noticed only those which bore

fruit or berries or furnished food. Birds fly, sing —

and 'tis a most gallant thing to shoot for food those

which are fit for such use, but those which are not

fit should be shot for amusement. All wild beasts, to

the very last one, must be exterminated, but pro-

cedure with regard to animals varies: one's own should

be kept in good condition, that they may be of service

to the owner, but old animals and animals which be-

long to other people should have their eyes lashed out

with a whip, and their legs should be broken.

"And what does he care," thought Kuzma sadly,

"what is it to him, seeing that he has no establish-

ment of his own, that it rains or hails, or that the

thunder rumbles for a week, that the lightnings flash;

that perchance at this very moment they are light-

ing up a dead, blue little face in the dark fly-filled

hut where that blind girl lies sleeping?"

It seemed as if he had set out from the town a

year ago; as if, now, he should never be able to

drag himself back to it. His wet cap weighed heavily;

his cold feet ached, cramped in his muddy boots. In

that one day his face had become weather-beaten and

burned. His body had been lamed by the springless

cart, by discomfort, by the longing for rest. But

sleep — no, one could not get to sleep yet. Rising

from the bench, Kuzma went out against the damp

gale, to the gate which led into the fields, to the

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waste spaces of the long-abandoned cemetery. A

faint light from the hut fell upon the mud; but as

soon as Kuzma had taken his departure, Akim blew

out the lamp, the light vanished, and night imme-

diately closed in. The bluish lightning flashed out still

more vividly and unexpectedly, laid bare the whole

sky, the extreme recesses of the orchard to the most

distant apple trees, where stood the bath-house, and

suddenly inundated everything with such blackness

that one's head swam. And once more, somewhere low

down, the dull, far-away thunder began to rumble;

and from behind the rustling of the trees and the

droning of the rain came the abrupt whining, bark-

ing, and snarling of the dogs, feasting outside the or-

chard on a cow which had died. After standing still

for a while, until he made out the dim light which

filtered under the gate, Kuzma emerged into the road

which ran past the earth wall, past rustling ancient

lindens and maple trees, and began to stroll slowly

to and fro. The rain began to patter down once more

on his cap and his hands. But he wanted to think

out what he had begun. Suddenly the black darkness

was again deeply rent; the raindrops glistened; and

on the waste land, in a corpse-like blue light, the

figure of a dripping, thin-necked horse stood out in

sharp lines. A field of oats, of a pallid, metallic green

hue, flashed into momentary sight beyond the waste

land, against an inky black background; and the horse

raised his head. Dread overpowered Kuzma. The

horse was promptly swallowed up in the darkness.

But — to whom did he belong? why was he not hob-

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bled? why was he thus roaming about without over-

sight? And Kuzma turned back toward the gate. In

the ditch alongside the earthen wall, among the dock-

weeds and nettles, some one was half growling, half

snoring. Stumbling along with his hands outstretched,

as if he were a blind man, Kuzma approached the

ditch.

"Who's there?" he shouted.

But the snore was that of a person dead drunk,

powerful and choking. Everything else round about

was wrapped in profound slumber. The lightning

flashes had ceased; the trees, invisible in the darkness,

rustled dully and gloomily under the increasing down-

pour. And when, at last, Kuzma had found his way

to the bath-house by the sense of feeling alone, the

rain was pouring down upon the earth with such force

that he began to be assailed, as he had been in his

childhood, by terrible thoughts about the Flood. He

struck a match, and beheld a broad sleeping-ledge

near the tiny window. Rolling up his overcoat, he

threw it on the head end. In the darkness he crawled

upon the ledge and with a deep sigh stretched himself

out on it; he lay, after the fashion of old people, on

his back, and shut his weary eyes. Great God, what

a stupid and toilsome journey! And how had he

chanced to come hither? In the manor-house also

darkness now reigned, and the flashes of lightning

were fleetingly, stealthily reflected in the mirrors. In

the hut, beneath the heavy downpour of the rain,

Akim was sleeping. Here in this bath-house devils

had frequently been seen, as a matter of course: did

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Akim possess a proper faith in devils? No. People

had so believed a thousand years ago, and Akim had

merely accepted his heritage mechanically. But, even

though he did not believe, he could nevertheless nar-

rate how, once on a time, his deceased grandfather

had gone to the grain crib for some bran and had

found the devil, as shaggy as a dog, sitting, his legs

twisted into a knot, on one of the girders.

Crooking one knee, Kuzma laid his wrist on his

forehead and began to doze, sighing and grieving the

while.

XI

HE had passed the summer waiting for a place.

That night, in the orchard at Kazakovo, it

became clear to him that his dreams of or-

chards were foolish. On his return to the town, after

carefully thinking over his situation he began to hunt

for a position as a shop or counting-house clerk;

then be began to reconcile himself to anything that

offered, provided only that it furnished him a morsel

of bread. But his searches, efforts, and entreaties

were vain. Despair seized upon him. How was it

he had failed to see that he had nothing to hope

for? In the town he had long borne the reputation

of being a very eccentric person. Drunkenness and

lack of employment had converted him into a laugh-

ing-stock. In the beginning his manner of life had

amazed the town; later on, it had come to seem sus-

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picious. And, of a truth, who had ever heard of such

a thing as a petty burgher at his age living in a

lodging-house, being unmarried and poor as an organ-

grinder? All his property consisted of a chest and a

ponderous old umbrella! Kuzma began to look at

himself in the mirror: really, now, what sort of man

was the one he beheld before him? He slept in the

"common room," among strangers, chance people who

came and went; in the morning he crawled in the heat

about the bazaar and to the eating-houses, where he

picked up rumours concerning jobs; after dinner, he

took a nap, then seated himself at the window and

read KostomarofT's History, gazed at the dusty, glar-

ing white street and at the sky, pale blue with sultri-

ness. For whom and for what was he living in the

world — that petty burgher, broad of bone though lean,

and already grey-haired from hunger and austere

thinking; who called himself an anarchist and was not

able to explain intelligently what an anarchist is? He

sat and read; he sighed and paced to and fro in the

room; he squatted down on his heels and unlocked his

small chest; he arranged in more orderly fashion his

tattered little books and manuscripts, two or three faded

shirts, an old long-skirted great-coat, a waistcoat, the

much worn certificates of his birth and his baptism.

And he dropped his hands forlornly. What mean-

ing was there to all this? Such poverty, such loneli-

ness! And he shuddered at the thought of what lay

ahead of him. Tikhon was childless, and rich — but

Tikhon wouldn't give so much as a copper coin to

bury him. . . .

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The summer stretched out in endless length. The

Duma was dissolved, but that did not break the mo-

notony of the long, hot days. A vast revolt in the

country districts was expected, but no one so much as

lifted an eyebrow so long as absolutely nothing of

any magnitude took place. Fresh and savage attacks

on the Jews were contrived; day after day execu-

tions and shootings took place; but the town ceased to

take the slightest interest in them. In the country, at

the manor-houses, terror reigned — especially after that

famous day when the peasants rose in rebellion at

the "order" of some one or other. But what cared

the town for the country districts? Kazakoff sent

an extra company of kazaks. The local newspaper

was closed down three times, and at last they made an

end of the whole business by prohibiting the sale of

the newspapers from the capitals. Once more poster

advertisements began to bear the inscription: "By

permission of the Authorities, temporarily in this

Town," and the posters themselves again became

abominable. Little Russians arrived, attracted by the

presentation of "the famous historical drama Taras

Bulba, the murderer of his own son,' " and by the an-

nouncement that "the entire company will take part"

in the national dance, the Hopak, "in sumptuous cos-

tumes," and that there would be "free presents" — a

milch cow and a tea set "worth seventy-five rubles."

Swift runners and fortune-tellers reappeared, as well

as certain knaves who exhibited human monstrosities

— twins, a bearded lady, a young girl who weighed

five hundred and seventy-six pounds, "the marvel of

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the XX century — a live freak captured in the Red

Sea," which lay dead in a zinc bathtub behind a cot-

ton print curtain.

"Cursed be the day I was born into this thrice-

accursed country!" Kuzma said at times, as he

hurled his newspaper on to the table, closed his eyes,

and gritted his teeth. "People ought now to be shout-

ing so that it could be heard throughout the whole

world: To arms, ye who believe in God."'

"And you'll go on shouting until you make your-

self heard," some one quietly answered him.

Then he turned the conversation to the crops, the

drought. And Kuzma relapsed into silence: the events

which were taking place were so atrocious that the

human mind was unable to grasp them.

Rain fell now and then in the countryside, but

in town, day after day from May until August, an

infernal drought held uninterrupted sway. The

lodging-house, a corner building, baked in the sun.

At night one's blood hammered in one's head from

the stilling heat, and every noise which came through

the open windows wakened one with a start. It was

impossible to sleep in the hayloft because of the

fleas, the crowing of the young cocks, and the odour

of the manure-yard. Moreover, smoking was pro-

hibited there: the landlord was fat, weak, and nerv-

ous as an old woman. All summer long Kuzma

never abandoned the hope of getting to Voronezh.

Akh, how little he had prized the days of his youth!

If now he might only saunter between trains through

the streets of Voronezh, gaze at the familiar poplar

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trees, at the tiny blue house outside the town — ! But

what was the use? Should he spend ten or fifteen

rubles, and then have to deny himself a candle or

a roll of white bread? More than that, it was shame-

ful for an old man to surrender himself to memories

of love. And how about Klasha? Was she really

his daughter? He had seen her a couple of years

ago: she was sitting at the window, weaving lace; she

had a charming, modest face, but resembled only her

mother. What could he say to her, even if he should

make up his mind to go? How could he look old

Ivan Semyonitch in the face?

Time flowed on in intolerable boredom. There

were not even any visitors at the inn. During the

whole of July the only person who put up there was

a youthful deacon, rather a queer fellow, after the

pattern of seminary queer sticks. A relative of his

came to see him, but the visit ended in nothing: the

deacon was absent in the bazaar, and his name,

Krasnobaeff, was written up on the board after the

Latin fashion: Benedictoff.

As autumn drew near, Kuzma persuaded himself

that it was indispensable for him to make a pilgrimage

to the holy places, to some monastery, or — to give

up the struggle for good and all and take to drink-

ing again in order to spite some one or other. One

day, having unlocked his chest, he found Tolstoy's

"Confession," opened it, and read the pencilled inscrip-

tion which he had written while in a state of intoxica-

tion, during his services with Kasatkin: "It is im-

possible to wean all men from vodka." A couple

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of months earlier he would merely have contracted

his brows in a frown — what a stupid inscription! —

but now he grinned and said to himself: "Why not

consign everything to the devil's mother, burn every-

thing to the last thread, and draw a razor across my

throat?"

Autumn set in. In the bazaar there was a fra-

grance of apples and plums. The schoolboys were

brought back to the gymnasium from their vacation

in the country. The horse races began. The sun be-

gan to set behind Chips Square. If one emerged from

the gate in the evening and crossed the intersection

of the streets, one was blinded: to the left the whole

street, ending at the square in the distance, was

flooded with a low, mournful light. The gardens, be-

hind their fences, were full of dust and spiders' webs.

Polozoff came to meet one, wearing a coat with sleeve-

flaps, but he had already exchanged his hat for a

peaked cap with military insignia. There was not a

soul in the town park. The band-stand for the musi-

cians was boarded up; so was the kiosk where, in

summer, kumys and lemonade were sold; the wooden

refreshment counter was closed. And one day, as

he sat near the band-stand, Kuzma was so overwhelmed

with depression that he seriously meditated committing

suicide. The sun had set; its light was reddish; thin,

rose-hued foliage was drifting along the alley; a cold

wind was blowing. The cathedral bells were ringing

the summons to the All-Night Vigil Service, and one's

soul ached unbearably at this closely set, methodical

peal, executed in countrified Saturday fashion.

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All at once, from under the band-stand, a cough

became audible, and a clearing of the throat.

"Motka," Kuzma said to himself. And sure enough,

from under the stairs crawled Duck-Headed Matty.

He wore rusty soldier's boots, an extremely long uni-

form from the shoulders of a second-school boy, be-

sprinkled with flour — evidently the bazaar had been

making merry — and a straw hat which had once been

run over by wheels. With his eyes still closed, spit-

ting and staggering with intoxication, he stalked past,

without so much as asking for a smoke. Kuzma, re-

pressing his tears, shouted to him: "Mot! Come,

let's have a chat, and a smoke — "

And Motka turned, seated himself on the bench,

began drowsily, with twitching brows, to roll himself

a cigarette. But apparently he had only a dim idea

as to the identity of the person who was sitting by

his side — who it was that was complaining to him

about his fate. . . .

On the following day that same Motka brought

Tikhon's note to Kuzma. And, once more, the noose

which had come near strangling Kuzma broke.

At the end of September he went to Durnovka.

[199]

PART THREE

I

THE estate at Durnovka was arranged after the

plan of a farm. In fact, it had originally

borne precisely that title. Durnovo had owned

several estates and had occupied the chief of them,

the one at Zusha. Afanasiy Hitch, who had hunted

the Gipsy with dogs, came only occasionally to Durn-

ovka, on his way from a hunting expedition. Nil

Afansaievitch, the Marshal of the Nobility, had no

taste for farms: he had spent his whole life in organiz-

ing dinners, drinking sherry at his club, glorying in

his fat, his appetite, his ringing whisper — he had a

silver throat — in his lavishness, his witticisms, and

his absence of mind. And his son, also, the Uhlan,

who bore the name of his grandfather, rarely looked

in at Durnovka. The Uhlan still considered himself

a great landed proprietor. On retiring from the serv-

ice he decided to accumulate millions, to show how

an estate ought to be managed. But the Uhlan was

not fond of being in the fields, and his passion for

making purchases helped to ruin him: he bought al-

most everything his eye fell upon. His trips to Mos-

cow and his amorous constitution likewise contrib-

uted to his ruin. His son, who did not finish at the

Lyceum, received as his heritage only two farms —

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Laukhino and Durnovka. And the Lyceum student

ruined these to such a point that, during the last

year he spent at Durnovka, the duties of watchman

were discharged by an old scullery-maid, who went

about at night with her mallet, garbed in a rusty rac-

coon cloak. "Well, never mind," Kuzma said to him-

self, rejoiced to the verge of tears by Tikhon's pro-

posal, and profoundly concealing his joy. "If 'tis a

farm, call it a farm! A good thing, too: 'tis a regular

end-of -nowhere, savage as in the Tatar times!"

At one period Ilya MironofT had lived in Durnovka

for a couple of years. At the time Kuzma had been

a mere child, and all he retained of it in his memory

was, first, the fragrant hemp-fields, which drowned

Durnovka, as it were, in a dark-green sea, and, sec-

ondly, one dark summer night. There had been not a

single light in the village on that night. Past their

cottage had filed, their chemises gleaming white in the

darkness, "nine maidens, nine women, and the tenth a

widow," all bare-foot, with hair flowing free, armed

with brooms, oaken cudgels, and pitchforks. A deaf-

ening ringing of bells had arisen, and a thumping of

oven-covers and frying pans, high above which soared

a wild choral chant. The widow dragged a plough;

alongside her walked a maiden carrying a large holy

picture; while the rest rang bells, and thumped, and

when the widow led off in a low tone,

"Thou cow-death,

Enter not our village!"

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the chorus repeated in long-drawn tones, with funereal

intonations :

"We plough—"

and mournfully, in throaty tones, took up the refrain,

"With incense, with the cross . . ."

Now the aspect of the Durnovka fields was common-

place. The hemp plantations had vanished, and, even

if they had not, the fields would have been bare in

autumn, as well as the vegetable patches and the back

yards. Kuzma set forth from Vorgol in a cheerful

and slightly intoxicated state. Tikhon Hitch had

treated him to liqueur cordial at dinner, and at tea,

after dinner, Nastasya Petrovna had treated him to

two kinds of preserves. Tikhon Hitch was very kindly

disposed on that day. He recalled his youth, his child-

hood; how they had eaten buckwheat cakes together,

how they had shouted "Tally-ho!" after the Dog's

Pistol, and had studied with Byelkin; he called

his wife "auntie" and ridiculed her trips to the nun

Polukarpia for the good of her soul; he said, with

regard to Kuzma's salary: "We'll square that, dear

brother, we'll make that right — I'll not wrong you!"

he referred briefly to the revolution: "That little

bird started singing too early — look out, or the cat will

eat it!" Kuzma rode a dark brown gelding, and

around him lay outspread a sea of dark brown ploughed

fields. The sun, almost like that of summer, the trans-

parent air, the clear pale-blue sky, all gladdened him

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and gave promise of prolonged repose. The grey,

crooked wormwood, turned up roots and all by the

plough, was so plentiful that it was being carried off

by the carload. Close to the farm itself, in the

ploughed field, stood a wretched little nag, with bur-

docks in his forelock, and a springless cart, piled high

with wormwood; and beside it lay Yakoff, bare-legged,

in dusty breeches and a long hempen shirt, his side

squeezed against a large grey dog which he was holding

by the ear. The dog was growling and darting angry

sidelong glances.

"Does he bite?" shouted Kuzma.

"He's savage — there's no taming him!" Yakoff

made haste to reply, as he raised his slanting beard.

"He jumps at the horses' muzzles."

And Kuzma burst out laughing with pleasure. The

peasant was a regular peasant — and the steppe was a

genuine steppe!

The road ran down a hill, and the horizon became

narrower. In front the new iron roof of a grain-kiln

gleamed green, seeming drowned in the dense low

growths of the park. Beyond the park, on the opposite

slope, stood a long row of cottages constructed of bricks

moulded from clay, and roofed with straw. On the

right, beyond the ploughed fields, stretched a large

ravine, merging into the one which separated the farm

from the village. At the point where the ravines came

together, a pond lay sparkling in the sunlight. On the

promontory between them the wings of two unsheathed

windmills reared themselves aloft, surrounded by

several cottages belonging to one-homestead owners —

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the Mysoffs, 1 as Oska had dubbed them — and the

whitewashed schoolhouse gleamed white on the pasture

land.

"Well, and do the children get schooling?" inquired

Kuzma.

" Tis obligatory," said Oska. "They have a scholar

who is a terror!"

"What scholar are you talking about? Do you

mean a teacher?"

"Well, then, teacher, it's all the same. The way

he has educated those brats — I tell you, 'tis fine. He's

a soldier. He beats them unmercifully, but on the

other hand he has them well trained in all sorts of

ways. Tikhon Hitch and I happened to drop in one

day — and if they didn't all leap to their feet and bark

out: 'We wish you health!' just as well as if they

were soldiers!"

And once more Kuzma broke into a laugh.

But when he had passed the threshing-floor, had

descended by the defective road past the cherry or-

chard and turned to the left, to the long farmyard,

lying well dried and golden-hued in the sun, his

heart actually began to beat violently. Here he was,

at home, at last. And as he mounted the porch and

stepped across the threshold, Kuzma gave vent to a

sigh, and, making the sign of the cross on brow and

breast, he bowed low before the dark holy picture

in the corner of the ante-room. . . .

1 Thus manufacturing a family name out of "Mys," a

promontory. — trans.

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And for a long time he cared not whether the Rus-

sian people had a future or not. He roamed about

the manor estate, the village; he sat for hours at a

time on the doorsteps of the cottages, on the threshing-

floors — watching the inhabitants of Durnovka, enjoy-

ing the possibility of breathing pure air, of chatting

with his new neighbours.

II

OPPOSITE the house, with their rear to Durn-

ovka, to the wide ravine, stood the storehouses.

From the porch, half of the village was vis-

ible, and beyond the storehouses the pond and a part of

the promontory — one windmill and the schoolhouse.

The sun rose to the left, beyond the fields, beyond the

railway line on the horizon. In the morning the pond

glittered with a bright, fresh exhalation, and from the

park behind the house was wafted an odour of foliage

from evergreens and leaf trees, steppe grass, apples, and

dew. The rooms were small and empty. In the study,

papered with old music sheets, rye was stored; in

the hall and the drawing-room no furniture was left

save a few Viennese chairs with broken seats and a

large extension table. The windows of the drawing-

room overlooked the park, and during almost the en-

tire autumn Kuzma passed the night in it, on a broken-

down couch, without closing the windows. The floor

was never swept: the widow Odnodvorka lived there

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temporarily, in the capacity of cook; she had been

the mistress of young Durnovo, and was obliged to

run after her small children and prepare food, after

a fashion, for herself, Kuzma, and the labourer.

Kuzma himself prepared the samovar in the morn-

ing, after which he sat at the window in the hall and

drank tea and ate apples.

Through the early glitter, beyond the brilliant mist

over the ploughed fields, the railway train dashed past

in the morning; and, above, rose-coloured wreaths

floated behind it. Dense smoke hung over the roofs

of the village. The garden was freshly fragrant; sil-

very hoar-frost lay upon the storehouses. At noon

the sun stood over the village; it was hot out of

doors;, in the park the maples and lindens grew thin,

quietly dropping their leaves; the vast spaces and

the transparent dry air of the fields were filled with

silence and with peace. The doves, warmed up by

the sun, dozed all day long on the sloping roof of the

kitchen, whose new straw roof gleamed yellow against

the clear blue sky. The labourer rested after his

dinner. Odnodvorka went off to her own home.

But Kuzma roamed about. He went to the

threshing-floor, rejoicing in the sun, the firm road,

the withered steppe grass, the beet-tops which had

turned dark brown, the charming late flower of the

blue chicory, and the down of the cotton thistle float-

ing quietly through the air. The ploughed spaces in

the fields gleamed in the sunlight with the silken

threads of barely visible spiders' webs, which extended

to an immense distance. In the vegetable garden,

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goldfinches perched on the dry stalks of the burdocks.

Upon the threshing-floor, amid the profound stillness

in the sultry heat, grasshoppers diligently emitted

their hoarse cry.

From the threshing-floor Kuzma climbed across the

earthen well and returned to the manor-house through

the orchard and the fir plantation. In the orchard he

chatted with the petty burghers, the lessees of the or-

chard, with the Bride and the Goat, who were gather-

ing up the windfalls, and forced his way, in their

company, into the nettle patch where lay the ripest

fruit of all. Sometimes he wandered to the village,

to the schoolhouse. He became freshened up, sun-

burned; he felt himself almost happy.

The Goat amazed him by her health, her cheery

stupidity, her senselessly brilliant Egyptian eyes.

The Bride was handsome and strange. With him, as

with Tikhon, she remained silent; not a word was to

be got out of her. But when one went away she gave

vent to a harsh laugh, indulged in bawling conversa-

tions with the petty burghers, and would suddenly

strike up:

"Let them thrash me, curse me —

My pretty eyes will twinkle more . . ."

The soldier-teacher, born stupid, had lost in the

service what small wits he had ever possessed. In ap-

pearance he was the most commonplace sort of peas-

ant, about forty years of age. But he always spoke

in such an extraordinary manner, and uttered such

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nonsense, that all one could do was to throw up one's

hands in despair. He was for ever smiling with the

greatest appearance of slyness at something or other;

he looked down upon his interlocutor condescendingly,

with his eyes screwed up, and never replied to any

question immediately.

"How am I to address you?" Kuzma asked him the

first time he visited the school.

The soldier blinked and considered the matter.

"The sheep without a name might be a ram," he said

at last, at his leisure. "But I will ask you something

also. Is Adam a name, or is it not?"

"It is."

"Very well. And about how many people, for ex-

ample, have died since then?"

"I don't know," said Kuzma. "Why do you in-

quire?"

"Simply because that's one of the things we never

were born to understand. Now, take any busybody

you like. Do you indulge in revolt? Do it, my dear

man: perhaps you will become a /z£-marshal! Only,

at best, that they may stretch you out without your

breeches for a flogging. Are you a peasant? Till

the soil. Are you a cooper? In that case, equally,

attend to your business. I, for example, am a soldier

and a veterinary. Not long ago I was passing

through the Fair, and what should I see but a horse

with the glanders? I went at once to the policeman:

'Thus and so,' says I, 'Your High Well-born.' 'But

can you kill that horse with a feather?' 'With the

greatest pleasure!' "

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"With what sort of a feather?" inquired Kuzma.

"Why, a goose feather. I took it, sharpened it,

jabbed it into his spinal cord, blew a little — into the

feather, I mean — and the thing was done. Tis a

simple matter, to all appearance, but just try to do it!"

And the soldier winked craftily and tapped his brow

with his finger: "Understanding is needed here."

Kuzma shrugged his shoulders and made no reply.

And as he passed Odnodvorka's cottage he found out

from her boy Senka what the soldier's name was. It

turned out to be Parmen.

"And what's your task for to-morrow?" added

Kuzma, gazing with curiosity at Senka's fiery red

mop of hair, his lively green eyes, his pock-marked

face, his rickety little body, and his hands and feet

all cracked with mud and chaps.

"The tasks are verses," said Senka, grasping his up-

lifted foot in his right hand and hopping up and down

on one spot.

"What sort of tasks?"

"Counting the geese. A flock of geese has flown

past—"

"Ah, I know," said Kuzma. "And what else?"

"Also mice — "

"They are to be counted too?"

"Yes. Six mice were walking along carrying six

copper coins," mumbled Senka rapidly, casting a side-

long glance at Kuzma's silver watch chain. "One

mouse, which was bigger, carried two coins. How

many does that make in all — ?"

"Splendid. And what are the verses?"

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Senka released his foot.

"The verses are 'Who is he?' "

"Have you learned them?"

"Yes, I have."

"Well, then, say them."

And Senka muttered still more rapidly about a

horseman who was riding above the Neva through the

forests, where there were only —

"Firs, pine-trees, and green moss. . . .'"

"Grey," said Kuzma, "not green."

"Well, then, grey," assented Senka.

"And who was that horseman?"

Senka considered the matter. "Why, a sorcerer,"

said he.

"Exactly. Now, tell your mother that she ought to

cut your hair, on your temples at least. Tis all the

worse for you as it is, when the teacher pulls it."

"Then he'll find my ears," said Senka unconcern-

edly, again grasping his foot, and off he hopped on the

pasture common.

Ill

THE promontory and Durnovka lived in a state

of perpetual enmity and mutual disdain, as ad-

joining villages always do. The promontory

dwellers regarded the Durnovka folk in the light of

bandits and beggars, while the Durnovka people re-

turned the compliment precisely and in full measure.

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Durnovka was "gentry property," while on the prom-

ontory dwelt "boors," one-farm petty owners — more

properly speaking, the remains of the one-farm people

who had emigrated to the Tomsk Government. Od-

nodvorka was the only person who was not included

in this enmity, these quarrels. Small, thin, depend-

able, she was lively, even-tempered, and agreeable in

intercourse; and she was observant. She knew every

family on the promontory and in Durnovka as well

as if it were her own; she was the first to inform

the manor-house of every smallest happening in the

life of the village. And every one was also thoroughly

well acquainted with her life.

She never concealed anything from anybody; she

talked calmly and simply about her husband and

Durnovo and stated that she had become a procuress

when he went away. "What could I do?" she said,

with a faint sigh. "I was dreadfully poor; I had

not enough bread even after the new harvest. My

good husband loved me, to speak the plain truth, but

one has to submit, you know. The master gave three

whole carloads of rye for me. 'What can I do?'

I said to my husband. Twas plain, I must go, he

said. He went for the rye, dragged home measure

after measure, and his tears drip-dripped, drip-

dripped all the while."

And, after a moment's thought, she added:

"Well, and later on, when the master went away,

and my husband went to RostofT, I began to bring

people together, as chance occurred. You're immoral

dogs, the Lord forgive you!"

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By day she toiled, never pausing for a moment; by

night she mended, sewed, stole snow-screens from the

railway. Once late at night, when Kuzma was driv-

ing to Tikhon Hitch, he ascended a hillock and halted

paralyzed with fright: across the ploughed land, half

deluged in darkness, on a faintly smouldering strip of

the sunset, something black, huge, sprang up and

bore down smoothly on Kuzma.

"Who's that?" he shouted feebly, tugging at his

reins.

"Oil" feebly and in affright shouted that which had

so swiftly and smoothly sprung up against the sky;

and it disappeared with a crash.

Kuzma recovered himself — and instantly recognized,

in the darkness, Odnodvorka. She had been running

toward him on her light, unshod feet, all bent to-

gether with the weight of two screens a fathom long —

the sort that are set up, in winter, along the railway

line, to protect it from snowdrifts. And, having re-

arranged herself, she whispered, with a quiet laugh:

"You frightened me to death. When one runs off

somewhere of a night, one is all a-tremble, but what

can one do? The whole village uses these for fire-

wood, and that's the only way we save ourselves

from freezing."

The farm-hand Koshel, on the other hand, was a

man not devoid of interest. There was nothing one

could talk about with him, and he was not loquacious

by nature. Like the majority of the Durnovka peo-

ple, he merely repeated antiquated, insignificant apoph-

thegms, reasserted that which had been known for

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many a long year. If the weather turned bad he cast

an eye at the sky: "The weather's spoiling. Rain

is what the growing green things most need at the

present moment." The fields were ploughed a second

time, and he remarked: "If you won't give a second

ploughing you'll be left without bread. That's what

the old people have always said."

He had been a soldier in his day — had been in the

Caucasus — but the military life had left no traces on

him. He was unable to pronounce the word "post-

office" properly: he called it "spost-office." He could

tell absolutely nothing whatsoever about the Caucasus,

with the exception of the facts that mountain followed

mountain there, and that terribly hot and strange

waters spurted out of the ground. If you placed a

piece of mutton in them, it was boiled in one minute,

and if you didn't take it out at the proper time, it

got raw again. And he was not in the least proud of

the fact that he had seen the world; he even bore

himself with scorn toward people who knew the world.

It is well understood that people only "rove about"

because they are forced to do so, or through poverty.

He never believed a single rumour — "all lies!" — but

he did believe, and swore to it as a fact, that not

long ago a witch had rolled in the form of a wheel

through the twilight shades near Basovka, and that

one peasant, who was no fool, had taken and caught

hold of that wheel and thrust his belt through the

hub and tied it fast.

"Well, and what happened next?" asked Kuzma.

"What?" replied Koshel. "That witch waked up

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the Village

early in the morning, and, lo and behold, that belt

was sticking out her mouth and behind, and was

tied fast over her stomach."

"But why didn't she .untie it?"

"Evidently, the knot had had the sign of the cross

made over it."

"And aren't you ashamed to believe such nonsense?"

"What is there for me to be ashamed of? People

lie, and I let them talk."

So Kuzma only liked to hear the man's songs. As

he sat in the darkness at the open window, without

a light anywhere, with the village barely discernible

like a black spot on the other side of the ravine, it

was so quiet round about that the apples could be

heard falling from the wild apple trees beyond the

corner of the house. And Koshel walked slowly

about the farmyard with his mallet, and with a serene

melancholy hummed to himself in his falsetto voice:

"Cease your song, canary, little bird." He kept watch

over the manor until morning and slept by day. He

had hardly anything to do: Tikhon Hitch had made

haste to settle up Durnovka affairs betimes that year,

and out of all the cattle only one horse and a cow

remained. So things were quiet, even rather bore-

some, at the manor-house. The clear days were fol-

lowed by colder days, bluish-grey, soundless. The

goldfinches and tomtits began to whistle in the bare

park, the cross-bills to pipe in the fir trees, the cedar-

birds made their appearance, bullfinches, and some sort

of leisurely tiny birds which hopped in flocks from

place to place on the threshing-floor, whose supports

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were already sprouting with bright green new growths;

sometimes a very silent, light little bird of that sort

perched all alone on a spear of grass in the field. In

the vegetable gardens behind Durnovka, the last po-

tatoes were being dug among the sheaves. And at

times, as evening drew on, some one of the peasants

would stand there for a long space, absorbed in

thought and gazing at the fields, as he bore on his

back a plaited basket filled with ears of grain. Dark-

ness began to fall early, and at the manor-house they

said: "How late the train passes by nowadays!" al-

though there had been no change in the schedule of the

trains. Kuzma sat near the window and read news-

papers all day long; he had written down his spring

trip to Kazakovo and his conversations with Akim;

he had jotted down remarks in an old account book

— all he had seen and heard in the village. What

occupied his attention most of all was Syery, the

Grey Man.

IV

THE village was deserted. Many had gone

away to work on the clover. Trifon had died

in mid-August, at Assumption-tide — he had

choked himself, as he broke the fast, on a bit of raw

ham. At the beginning of September Komar, one of

the chief rioters, renowned for his strength, his clever-

ness, and his daring in his dealings with the members

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of the gentry class, had entered a distillery near Eletz,

fallen into the malt-kiln while in a state of intoxica-

tion, and been suffocated. No one had known that

he was there, and the door had been bolted. Komar

had bent the door in his efforts to escape into the air,

but evidently such a death had been written in his

fate. Another rebel, Vanka Krasny, had again be-

taken himself to the Donetz mines. The harness-

maker was working about on different estates. Rodka

was working on the railway. Deniska had disap-

peared somewhere. And everybody hypocritically

pitied Syery, taking advantage of the opportunity to

ridicule both son and father. Yakoff's hands trembled

when he began to talk about Syery. And what could

they do but tremble? What had that Syery done

with the land which Yakoff was ready to "devour

in handfuls"? No one in all Durnovka suffered the

hundredth part of what Yakoff suffered when rumours

became current about rebellions, cases of arson, and

the expropriation of land. He merely held his peace

— thanks to that subterranean secretiveness which

thousands of his forebears had sucked in with their

mothers' milk. And, indeed, his breath would have

failed him had he tried to speak. Now, when the

rumours became more and more desperate, he even

became reconciled to his son Vaska, for the sake of

the land. His son was a pock-marked, rough, thickset

young fellow, all overgrown with a beard at the

age of twenty, broad-shouldered, curly-haired, and so

strong that even pincers could not have pulled out

a single one of his hairs. The son, with that beard,

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his head closely clipped, garbed in a red shirt, re-

sembled a convict, but he dressed his wife in the style

of a petty citizen of the towns. He had turned out

the image of his father so far as greed was concerned,

and had already begun to trade secretly in vodka,

coarse tobacco, soap, and kerosene. And Yakoff be-

came reconciled, in the hope of satisfying his land-

hunger by the aid of his son — in the hope that he

might become rich and begin to lease it. Why did

Syery make peace with Deniska, who had repeatedly

given him "a healthy drubbing"? What was he

hoping for, that he thus altered his course, like the

poorest beggar? He had leased his land, he did not

live out on jobs. He sat at home cold and hungry and

had no thought for anything save how he might pro-

cure the wherewithal for a smoke: he could not get

through the day without his pipe. He attended all

the village assemblies, but always arrived just as they

were coming to an end. He never missed a single

wedding or baptism or funeral, although he huddled

up against the door; and when he extended his hand

to the host, who was serving refreshments to his

guests, he not infrequently received nothing but rough

denunciations. Syery did not care greatly for liquor,

but no drinking to seal a bargain ever passed off with-

out his presence: he intruded himself not only into

all the community drinking-bouts, but also into all

those of his neighbours — after purchases, sales, and

exchanges. And his neighbours had grown so ac-

customed to this that they were not even surprised

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when Syery presented himself. And he really was

entertaining to listen to.

"He is valiant, so far as words go," people said of

Syery. And it was true: if he were at ease in his

mind — and he was at ease when his pouch was filled

with tobacco — what an active, serious peasant Syery

could appear to be!

"Well, now, 'tis time to marry off my son," he

argued in leisurely fashion, as he held his pipe between

his teeth and ground the stalks of the coarse tobacco

by strong rubbing in his palms. "If he gets married,

he'll bring every kopek home, he will become eager

for work, he'll take to digging round about the house

as a beetle burrows in a dung-heap. And we're not

afraid of work, brother! Only give us a chance!"

But Syery almost never had either peace of mind or

work. His appearance justified his nickname: he was

grey, lean, of medium stature, with sloping shoul-

ders; his short coat was extremely short, tattered, and

dirty; his felt boots were broken and their soles were

made of rope; as for his cap, it is not worth men-

tioning at all. As he sat in his cottage, with this

cap eternally on his head, his pipe never removed

from his mouth, and anxiously meditated upon some-

thing or other, he had the appearance of living in

imminent vague expectation. But, according to his

own statement, he had devilish bad luck. Nothing

worth while ever came his way. Well, and he didn't

care about playing jackstraws — taking chances.

Every one was on the watch to condemn a man, of

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course. " 'Tis well known that the tongue can

break bones, though it has none itself," Syery was

wont to remark. "Do you first place the job in my

hand, and then you can jabber."

He had a fairly large amount of land — three des-

yatini. But he was taxed for ten. And Syery no

longer put a hand to his land: "You simply have to

give it up, that land: dear heart, it ought to be kept

in proper order, but where's the order here?" He

himself planted no more than half a field, and even

the grain in that he sold standing — he "got rid of the

unwelcome for the welcome." And again he had a

reason ready: "Only wait to see what comes of it

— just you try it!"

" Tis always better, for example, to await the up-

shot of anything," muttered Yakoff with a sidelong

glance and a malicious laugh.

But Syery laughed also, sadly and scornfully. "Yes,

'tis better!" he grinned. "It's all well enough for you

to chatter nonsense: you've got a husband for your

girl, and married off your son. But just look at me

and the lot of small children who sit in the corner at

my house. They don't belong to other folks, you see.

And I keep a goat for them, and I'm fattening a young

pig. They have to have food and drink, don't they?"

"Well, but a goat is nothing new, for example, in

such cases," retorted Yakoff, getting angry. "The

trouble with you is, for example, that you think of

nothing but vodka and tobacco, tobacco and vodka."

And, in order to avoid a senseless quarrel with his

neighbour, he hastened to get away from Syery.

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But Syery calmly and practically shouted after him :

"A drunkard will come to his senses, brother, but a

fool never will."

After sharing his property with his brother, Syery

had wandered about for a long time, living in hired

lodgings, and had got jobs in the town and on divers

estates. He also went to work on the clover. And,

on that job, luck one day came his way. An organized

gang of workmen which Syery had joined engaged

themselves to get in a large crop at eighty kopeks a

pud, 1 but behold, the crop turned out twice as heavy

as had been calculated. They winnowed it, and Syery

was hired to run the machine. He drove some of the

grain out through the waste-spout and bought it. And

he grew rich: that same autumn he built a brick cot-

tage. But his calculations had been faulty: it turned

out that the cottage must be heated. And where was

the money to come from? that was the question. Why,

there was not even enough to provide food. So it

became necessary to burn the top of the cottage; and

there it stood, roofless, for a year, and turned com-

pletely black. And the chimney went for the price

of a horse-collar. There were no horses as yet, it

is true; but, naturally, one must begin to fit oneself

out some time or other. And Syery let his arms fall

by his side in despair: he decided to sell the cottage,

to build a cheaper one of beaten clay. His argument

ran as follows: There must be in the cottage — well,

at the very least, ten thousand bricks; he could sell

them for five or even six rubles a thousand; the sum-

1 Thirty-six pounds. — trans.

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total, of course, would be about one hundred and

fifty rubles. But it turned out that there were only

three thousand five hundred bricks, and he was forced

to accept two rubles and a half for each girder, in-

stead of five rubles. And for a long time a bare

mound of rubbish occupied the site of the splendid

cottage, solidifying under the rain: there was no

money available for clearing it away, and one's hands

simply refused to undertake the task. Yakoff ha-

rangued on the subject: "Matters ought, for example,

to have been more cheaply managed from the start."

"But, devil take it," Syery said to himself, "a cheap

thing doesn't last long, does it?" And, much troubled

in mind, he proceeded to look up a new cottage — and

spent a whole year in bargaining for precisely those

which were beyond his means. He had reconciled

himself to his present domicile merely in the firm

expectation of a future cottage which should be strong,

spacious, and warm.

"I simply don't intend to live on here!" he snapped

one day.

YakofT stared at him attentively and shook his cap.

"Exactly so. That means you are expecting your

ships to come in?"

"They'll come, all right," replied Syery mysteri-

ously.

"Of, drop your nonsense," said YakofT. "Get your-

self a place somewhere — anywhere you can — and keep

your teeth, for example, in their proper place."

But the thought of a fine farmstead, good order,

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some suitable, real work, poisoned Syery's entire life.

He got bored when working in a place.

"Evidently, working at home isn't as sweet as

honey, either," said his neighbours.

"Never you mind, it might be honey-sweet if the

house were managed sensibly!"

"Just so. And will you take a place by the month,

or until the working season?"

"I'll get one, never fear. Oversight is needed at

home, isn't it?"

"But all you do is to sit in the house and smoke

your pipe."

"What am I to do, then? can't I even smoke?"

And Syery, suddenly becoming animated, jerked the

cold pipe out of his mouth and began his favourite

story: how, while still a bachelor, he had lived two

full years honestly and nobly at the house of a priest

near Eletz. "Yes, and if I were to go there this minute,

they would fairly tear me to pieces with joy!" he ex-

claimed. "I need say only one word: 'I've come,

papa, to work for you — will you take me or not?'

'But why do you ask that, light of my life? Don't I

know you? Yes, good Lord, live here with us for

ever and ever, if you will'!"

"Well, and you might go there, for example — "

"I might go there! Look at them — all those brats

in the corner! We know all about that; 'tis another

man's grief, I'll not meddle. But a man is being

wasted here, in vain."

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SYERY was being wasted, in vain, this year

also. He had sat at home all winter long,

with care-worn countenance, without light,

cold and hungry. During the Great Fast (Lent), he

had managed somehow or other to get a place with

Rusanoff, near Tula: no one in his own neighbourhood

would any longer give him a place. But before the

month was out, RusanofT's establishment had become

more repulsive to him than a bitter radish.

"Of, young fellow!" the manager once remarked to

him. "I can see right through you: you are picking

a quarrel so that you can take to your heels. Here,

you dog, here's your money in advance, and now be

off with you into the bushes!"

"Perhaps some sort of vagabond might take himself

off, but not me," retorted Syery sharply.

But the manager did not understand the hint. And

it became necessary to adopt more decisive means.

One day Syery was set to hauling in some husks for

the cattle. He went to the threshing-floor and began

to load a cart with straw. The manager came along:

"Didn't I tell you, in good plain Russian, to load

up with husks?"

"'Tis not the right time to load them," replied Syery

firmly.

"Why not?"

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"Sensible farmers give husks for dinner, not at

night."

"And how do you come to be a teacher?"

"I don't like to starve the cattle. That's all there is

to my being a teacher."

"But you are hauling straw."

"One must know the proper time for everything."

"Stop loading this very minute."

Syery turned pale. "No, I won't stop my work. I

can't stop my work."

"Hand me over that fork, you dog, and get out, lest

worse happen."

"I'm no dog, but a baptized Christian man. When

I've driven in this load, I'll get out. And I'll go for

good."

"Well, brother, that's not likely! You'll go away,

and pretty soon you'll be back again — and get locked

up in the county jail."

Syery leaped from the cart and hurled his pitchfork

into the straw: "I'm going to be locked up, am I?"

"Yes, you are!"

"Hey, young fellow, see that you don't get locked

up yourself! As if we didn't know something about

you! The master has nothing good to say about you,

either, brother — "

The manager's fat cheeks became suffused with dark

blood, his eyeballs protruded until they seemed all

whites. With the back of his wrist he thrust his peaked

cap over on the nape of his neck and, drawing a deep

breath, he rapidly ejaculated : "A — ah ! So that's the

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way of it! Hasn't a good word to say of me? Tell

me, if that's the case — why not?"

"I have nothing to say," mumbled Syery, feeling his

legs instantaneously grow cold with fear.

"Yes, you have, brother: you're talking nonsense —

you'll tell!"

"Well, and what became of the flour?" suddenly

shouted Syery.

"The flour? What flour?"

"The stolen flour. From the mill."

The manager seized Syery by the collar in a death-

like grip, fit to suffocate him, and for the space of a

moment the two stood stock still.

"What do you mean by it — grabbing a man like

that, by his shirt?" calmly inquired Syery. "Do you

want co choke me?" Then, all of a sudden, he began

to squeak furiously: "Come on, thrash me, thrash

while your heart is hot!" And with a jerk he wrenched

himself free and seized his pitchfork.

"Come on, men!" the manager yelled, although

there was no one anywhere .in the vicinity. "Help the

manager! Hearken to this: he tried to stab me to

death, the dog!"

"Don't come near me, or I'll break your nose," said

Syery, balancing his pitchfork. "Don't forget, times

are not what they used to be!"

But at this point the manager made a wide sweep

with his arm, and Syery flew headlong into the straw.

The melancholy which had once more begun to take

powerful effect on Kuzma along with the change in

weather, went on constantly increasing in force in pro-

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portion to his closer acquaintance with Durnovka, with

Syery. At first the latter was merely sad and ridicu-

lous: what a stupid man! Then he became irritating

and repulsive: a degenerate! All summer long he had

sat on the doorstep of his cottage smoking, waiting

for favours from the Duma. All the autumn he had

roamed from farmstead to farmstead, in the hope of

attaching himself to some one who was bound for the

clover work. On a hot, sunny day a new grain-rick

on the edge of the village took fire. Syery was the

first person to present himself at the conflagration,

where he shouted himself hoarse, singed his eye-lashes

off, and got drenched to the skin directing the water-

carriers and the men who, pitchforks in hand, flung

themselves into the huge rosy-golden flame, dragging

out in all directions the blazing thatches, and those

who merely dashed about in the midst of the fire, the

crackling flames, the gushing water, the uproar, the

holy pictures, casks, and spinning-wheels heaped up

near the cottages, the sobbing women, and the showers

of blackened leaves scattered abroad from the burnt

bushes. But what did he do that was practical? In

October, when, after inundating rains and an icy storm,

the pond froze over and a neighbour's boar-pig slipped

from an ice-clad mound, broke through the ice, and

began to drown, Syery was the first to arrive at full

speed, leap into the water, and save it. But why? In

order that he might be the hero of the day, that he

might have the right to rush from the pond into the

servants' hall, demand vodka, tobacco, and a bite to

eat. At first he was all purple; his teeth were chatter-

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ing; he could barely move his white lips as he dressed

himself from head to foot in some one else's clothes —

Koshel's. Then he became animated, got intoxicated,

began to brag — and once more narrated how he had

served honestly, nobly, at a priest's, and how cleverly

he had married off his daughter several years previ-

ously. He sat at the table greedily devouring chunks

of raw ham and announcing in self-satisfied wise:

"Good. Matriushka, my girl, you see, had been

making up to that Yegor. Well, she made eyes at

him and made up to him. Nothing happened. One

evening I was sitting, so, near the window, when I saw

Yegor walk past the cottage once, then again — and

that daughter of mine keeps diving, diving toward the

window. That signifies, says I to myself, that they've

settled matters. And I said to my wife: 'Do you go

give the cattle their fodder: I'm off, summoned to the

village assembly.' I set myself down on the straw be-

hind the cottage, and there I sat and waited. And

the first snow began to fall. And I saw Yegorka come

sneaking along again. And she was on hand too.

They went behind the cellar-house; then — they whisked

into the cottage, the new empty one alongside. I

waited a bit — "

"A nice story!" remarked Kuzma, with an embar-

rassed laugh.

But Syery took that for praise, for enthusiasm over

his cleverness and craft. And, feeling himself a hero,

he went on, now raising his voice, now viciously lower-

ing it: "So there I sat and listened, and waited to

find out what would happen next. So, as I was say-

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ing, I waited a bit — then after them I went. I leaped

over the threshold — and straight at her, and seized

her! Weren't they frightened, though — horribly! He

tumbled flat on the floor, as limp as a sack — helpless

enough for any one to cut his throat — while she went

off in a faint — lay there like a dead duck. 'Well/

says he, 'now thrash me.' That was what he said.

'I don't ne-ed to thrash you,' says I. I took his coat,

and I took his waistcoat, too — left him in his drawers

only — pretty nearly in the condition when his mother

gave him birth. 'Now,' says I, 'get out, go wherever

you please.' And I myself set out for my house. I

looked round — and he was behind me. The snow was

white, and he was white, and he was sniffling. He had

no place to go — whither could he run? But my

Matryona Mikolavna rushes off to the fields the minute

I am out of the cottage! She went at a lively pace —

a woman neighbour had difficulty in grabbing her by

the sleeve when she had got almost to Basovka, and

brought her to me. I let her rest a while, then I said:

'We are poor folks, ain't we?' She said never a word.

'And your mother — is she a poor wretch, or is she a

decent woman?' No answer. 'You've put us to shame.

Hey, haven't you? What do you mean by it — are

you thinking you'll fill my house with that sort, with

your bastards — and I'm to shut my eyes to what's go-

ing on? Seeing how poor we are, you ought to watch

what you're about, and not make us a laughing-stock,

dragging your maiden braids all over the place — you

trash!' Then I began to tan her hide — I had a fine

suitable little whip on hand. Well, to say it simply,

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I cut up her whole body to such a degree that she slid

down at my feet and kissed my felt boots, while he sat

up on the bench and yelled. Then I began on him,

the dear man — "

"And did he marry her?" inquired Kuzma.

"I should say he did!" exclaimed Syery; and, con-

scious that intoxication was getting the better of him,

he began to scrape up the fragments of ham from the

platter and stuff them into the pockets of his breeches.

"And what a wedding we made of it! As for the ex-

pense, I don't have to blink my eyes over that,

brother!"

W

VI

64 "\ TJ JELL, that was a fine tale!" Kuzma medi-

tated within himself, for a long time after

that evening. And the weather turned

bad, to boot. He did not feel like writing; his melan-

choly increased in strength. The poverty and lack of

practical common sense on the part of Syery and Den-

iska amazed him: the village was rotting! The beastly

tale of the Bride's experience in the orchard, the death

of Rodka, stupefied him. The life of Tikhon Hitch

astonished him. And it certainly took a good deal to

astonish him! Didn't he know his country, his peo-

ple? With grief and anger he poured out his heart

to Tikhon Hitch, exhorted him, stung him. But if

Tikhon Hitch had only known with what joy Kuzma

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rushed to the window when he espied on the porch

his overcoat, his peaked cap, and his grey beard!

How afraid he was lest his brother would not spend

the night with him, how he tried to detain him as long

as possible, dragged him into discussions, reminis-

cences! Kuzma found the situation tiresome late in

the autumn; ugh, how boresome! The sole joy he had

was when some one presented himself with a petition.

Gololoby from Baskova came several times — a peasant

with a perfectly bald head and a huge cap — to write

a complaint against his daughter's father-in-law for

breaking his collar-bone. The widow Butylotchka

came from the promontory to have a letter written to

her son; and she was a mass of rags, wet through and

icy cold with the rain. She was tearful when she be-

gan to dictate.

"Town of Serpukhoff, at the Nobility Bath-Zheltu-

khin house — "

Here she burst out weeping.

"Well, what next?" asked Kuzma, sorrowfully gaz-

ing sidewise at Butylotchka, after the fashion of old

people, over his eye-glasses. "Well, I've written that.

What more?"

"What more?" inquired Butylotchka in a whisper,

and, making an effort to control her voice, she went

on: "Write further, my dear, in your very best style:

To be given to Mikhail Nazarytch Khlusoff — into his

own hands, you understand — " Then she began — now

with pauses, now entirely without: "A letter to our

dear and beloved son, Misha, why have you forgotten

us, Misha, we haven't had a word from you. You

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know yourself that we are living in lodgings, and now

they are turning us out, and where are we to go now.

Our dear little son Misha, we beg you, for the Lord

God's sake, that you will come home as fast as you

can — " And once more, through her tears, in a

whisper: "Then you and we will dig out an earthen

hut, and so we shall be in a home of our own. . . ."

The storms and icy downpours of rain, the days that

seemed all twilight, the mud at the manor-farm, all be-

sprinkled with the fine yellow foliage of the acacias,

the boundless ploughed fields and fields of winter

grain round about Durnovka, and the dark clouds

which endlessly hung over them — all began once more

to oppress him with a fierce hatred for this accursed

country where there were eight months of snow-storms

and four of rain-storms; where for the commonest

needs of nature one was forced to go to the barn or

the cherry-shed. When the bad weather set in it be-

came necessary to board up the drawing-room closely

and move into the hall, so as to sleep all winter long

there, and dine, and smoke, and pass the long evenings

by the light of a dim kitchen lamp, pacing from corner

to corner, muffled up in overcoat and cap, which barely

protected one from the cold and the wind that blew

in through the crevices. Sometimes it happened that

they forgot to renew the supply of kerosene, and

Kuzma passed the twilight hours wholly without a

light; and at times, of an evening, he lighted a candle

end merely for the purpose of supping off potato soup

and warm wheat groats, which the Bride served in

silence and with a stern countenance.

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"Whither can I go?" Kuzma said to himself, once

in a while.

There were only three neighbours in the immediate

vicinity: old Princess Shakova, who did not receive

even the Marshal of Nobility, because she regarded

him as ill-bred; the retired gendarme Zakrzhevsky, a

hasmorrhoidally vicious and self-conceitedly stupid man

who would not have permitted Kuzma to cross his

threshold; and, finally, a member of the gentry, Basoff,

a petty landed proprietor who lived in a peasant cot-

tage, had married the dissipated widow of a soldier,

and could talk of nothing but horse-collars and cat-

tle. Father Petr, the priest from Kolodeza, of which

Durnovka was a parish, called once upon Kuzma. But

neither the one nor the other cared to continue the

acquaintance. Kuzma entertained the priest with

nothing stronger than tea — and the priest laughed

harshly and awkwardly when he saw the samovar on

the table. "A samovar-man! Capital! You, I see,

are no match for your good brother — you're not lavish

in your entertainment!" Kuzma announced frankly

that he never went to church, out of conviction. The

priest began to shout with laughter in more amaze-

ment than ever, and still more harshly and loudly:

"A — ah! Those nice little new ideas! Capital! And

it's cheaper, too!" Laughter was not in the least be-

coming to him : it was as if some one else were laugh-

ing for that tall, lean man with the big cheek-bones

and coarse black hair, the furtive greedy eyes — anx-

iously absent-minded eyes, for ever meditating some-

thing offensive and tactlessly free of manner. "But at

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night, surely, at night you cross yourself, neverthe-

less — you get scared?" he said, loudly and hurriedly,

as he put on his coat and overshoes in the ante-room,

amazing Kuzma by his queries concerning the manage-

ment of the farm, and suddenly beginning to address

him as "thou."

"Yes, I make the sign of the cross," admitted Kuzma,

with a melancholy smile. "But, you know, fear is not

faith, and I don't cross myself to your God."

Kuzma did not go often to visit his brother. And

the latter came to him only when he was perturbed

over something. Altogether, the loneliness was so

desperate that at times Kuzma called himself Dreyfus

on Devil's Island. He compared himself to Syery.

Ah, and he too, like Syery, was poor, weak of will,

forced out of his proper course, and all his life had

been waiting for some happy days, for work.

An unpleasant memory lingered of drunken Syery's

bravery, his story, his boastfulness. But, ordinarily,

Syery was not like that, even when he was intoxicated:

he was merely loquacious, troubled by something, and

merry in a timid way. Moreover, he did not have an

opportunity to get drunk more than five times in the

course of a year. He was not eager for liquor — not at all

as he was for tobacco. For the sake of tobacco he was

ready to endure any and all humiliations; ready to

sit for hours by the side of a man who was smoking,

agree with everything he said, flatter him, do anything

in order that he might, after awaiting a favourable

moment, say as if quite accidentally: "Pray, gossip,

give me a filling for my pipe." He was passionately

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fond, also, of cards, long conversations, evening re-

unions in the cottages — in those cottages where there

were large families, where it was warm, and where a

light was burning; where itinerant wool-carders pre-

pared the wool, and roving tailors made winter coats.

But people were not, as yet, assembling thus in the

cottages, and Syery sat at home. After Kuzma had

been to see him a few times he felt that it was not

right to bear malice toward Syery or to make fun of

him. Syery lived on what was earned by day-labour

during the working season — by his wife, a peaceable,

silent, rather crack-brained woman — and on what he

managed to beg from Deniska (who now and then

made his appearance in Durnovka with his valise,

white bread, and sausage, of which he was inordinately

fond, cursing the Tsar and the gentry without the

slightest restraint). At the first snowfall Syery went

away somewhere and was gone for a week. He re-

turned home in a gloomy mood.

"Have you been at Rusanoff's again?" the neigh-

bours inquired.

"Yes, I have," replied Syery.

"Why?"

"He was urging me to hire with him."

"Just so. You did not consent?"

"More stupid than he I have never been and never

shall be, for ever and a day. You don't suppose I

signed the contract with my own blood?"

And Syery sat there on the bench for a long time,

without removing his cap. And the mere sight of his

cottage in the twilight made one sad at heart. In the

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twilight, beyond the broad snow-covered ravine, Dur-

novka lay in melancholy blackness, with its grain-

ricks and bushes in the back yards. But when dark-

ness fully descended, and the little lights began to

twinkle, it seemed as if all were peaceful and cosy in

the cottages. Syery's hut alone remained disagree-

ably black. It was dull, dead. Kuzma knew all about

it: if you entered its half-open ante-room, you felt al-

most as if you were on the threshold of some wild

beast's lair. There was an odour of snow; through the

holes in the roof the gloomy sky was visible; the wind

rustled the manure and the dry branches which had

been tossed at haphazard upon the rafters; if, by feel-

ing about, you found the slanting wall and opened door,

you would encounter cold, darkness, a frost-covered

little window barely discernible through the gloom.

No one was to be seen, but one could guess how things

were: the master of the house was sitting on the bench

— his pipe glowed with a tiny fire; the housewife was

quietly rocking a squeaking cradle in which a pale

child with the rickets, and drowsy with hunger, was

jolting about. The brood of small children had taken

refuge on top of the oven, which was barely warm,

and were vivaciously narrating something to one an-

other in a whisper. In the rotten straw beneath the

sleeping-board, the goat and the suckling pig, which

were great chums, were rustling about. It was neces-

sary to bend down terribly, in order to avoid knock-

ing one's head on the ceiling. Then, too, you could

not turn about without taking precautions: the distance

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between the threshold and the opposite wall was not

more than five paces.

"Who's there?" a low voice resounded from the

darkness.

"It can't be Kuzma Hitch, can it?"

" Tis he himself."

Syery moves aside, makes room on the bench.

Kuzma sits down and lights his pipe. Oppressed by

the darkness, Syery is simple, sad, confesses to his weak-

nesses. Now and then his voice quivers.

VII

THE long, snowy winter set in.

The plain, gleaming palely white beneath a

bluish lowering sky, appeared broader, more

spacious, and even more deserted than ever. The cot-

tages, sheds, bushes, grain-ricks stood out sharply

against the new-fallen snow. Then the blizzards be-

gan and swept the country, burying it under so much

snow that the village assumed a bleak northern aspect

and began to show as its black points only the doors

and tiny windows, which hardly peeped out from be-

neath white snow caps pulled well down, from amid

the white masses of the earthen banks around the

houses. Following the blizzards, across the concealed

grey surface of the frozen crust on the fields swept

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cruel winds which tore away the last remaining light-

brown foliage from the unsheltered oak scrub in the

ravines. And then the one-farm owner, Taras Mil-

yaeff, who resembled a native Siberian and was as

keen on hunting as a real Siberian, set forth, plung-

ing deep into the impenetrable snowdrifts, all dotted

with the footprints of hares, and the water barrels were

converted into frozen blocks, and slippery ice-coated

hillocks formed around the water-holes; the roads

wound among snowdrifts — and the ordinary winter

conditions reigned. Epidemic diseases broke out in

the villages: smallpox, typhus, scarlet fever, croup.

But those maladies had existed uninterruptedly in the

countryside since time immemorial, during the winter

season, and people had become so used to them that

they made no more mention of them than they did of

changes in the weather. Around the holes cut in the

ice, at which all Durnovka drank, over the fetid dark

bottle-green water, the peasant women stood for days

at a time, bent low, with their petticoats tucked up

higher than their bare blue knees: they were in wet

bast-slippers, and their heads were hugely muffled.

Out of their iron kettles of ashes they dragged their

own grey hempen chemises, patched to the waist with

calico; their husbands' heavy breeches; their chil-

dren's soiled swaddling-cloths — rinsed them out, beat

them with clothes-mallets, and screamed at one

another, imparting the information that their hands

were "numbed from the steam," that at MakarofT's

homestead his wife was dying of the typhus, that

YakofT's daughter-in-law had got her throat stopped

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up. The little girls capered out of the cottages,

straight from the stoves, with nothing on but their tiny

chemises, and round the corner on the mounds of

hardened snow. The little boys, dressed in their

fathers' old clothes, slid down the hills on their rude

sleds, flew head over heels, screeched, were racked with

terrible coughs, and returned home at evening in a

state of fever, with heavy, bewildered heads. They

were so chilled that they could barely move their lips

as they begged for a drink, and, after drinking, they

crept tearfully upon the oven. But even the mothers

paid no attention to those who were ill. And dark-

ness settled down at three o'clock, and the shaggy dogs

sat on the roofs, almost on a level with the snow-

drifts. Not a soul knew on what food those dogs ex-

isted. Nevertheless they were lively, even ferocious.

People woke early in the manor-house. At day-

break in the blue darkness, when the lights began to

twinkle from the cottages, they made the fires in the

stoves, and through the crevices under the eaves slowly

poured the thick milky smoke. In the wing, with its

frozen grey window, it became as cold as in the vesti-

bule. Kuzma was awakened by the banging of doors

and the rustling of frozen, snow-coated straw which

Koshel was dragging from the truck-sledge. His low,

hoarse voice became audible — the voice of a man who

had risen earlier than any one else, working on an

empty stomach, and chilled through. The pipe of the

samovar began to rattle, and the Bride conversed with

Koshel in a stern whisper. She did not sleep in the

servants' quarters, where the roaches bit arms and

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legs until they drew blood, but in the ante-room — and

the whole village was convinced that there was a good

reason for this. The village knew well what the Bride

had undergone in the autumn : how she had been over-

whelmed with disgrace — Rodka's death — how her

mother had gone away on a begging expedition, hav-

ing locked up the empty cottage. Silent, crushed by

the burden of her sorrow, the Bride was more severe

and mournful than a cloistered nun. But what cared

the village for other people's woes? Kuzma had

already heard, from Odnodvorka, what was being

said in the village, and, as he woke, he always recalled

it with shame and disgust. He pounded on the wall

with his fist and, clearing his throat, began to smoke

a cigarette: this quieted his heart and relieved his

chest. He slept under his sheepskin coat, and, loath

to part with the warmth, he continued to smoke, and

said to himself: "A shameless people! Why, I have

a daughter almost as old as she is. . . ." The fact that

a young woman slept on the other side of the parti-

tion wall excited only paternal tenderness in him.

By day she was taciturn and serious, niggardly of

words, shy with the modesty of a young maiden. And

when she was asleep, there was even something child-

like, sad, and lonely about her. One day she fell

asleep after dinner on her chest in the ante-room, her

head wrapped in a hempen shawl, her legs drawn

up and one knee revealed. Her feet, in their bark

shoes, lay in womanly wise, and the chilled knee

gleamed white like that of a little girl. And Kuzma,

as he passed her, turned away and called to her, so

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that she woke up and covered it. But would the

village believe that? Even Tikhon Hitch did not be-

lieve it: he laughed in a very peculiar way, at times.

Indeed, he always had been distrustful, suspicious,

coarse in his suspicions; and now he had completely

lost his head. Say what you would to him, he had

one answer for everything.

"Have you heard, Tikhon Hitch? They say that

Zakrzhevsky is dying of catarrh: they have taken

him to Orel."

"Stuff and nonsense. We know what that catarrh

really is!"

"But the medical man told me."

"Believe him if it suits you — "

"I want to subscribe to a newspaper," you would

say to him. "Please let me have ten rubles of my

wages on account."

"Hm! Why does a man want to stuff his head with

lies? Well, and to tell the truth, I haven't more than

fifteen or twenty kopeks in my pocket — "

The Bride would enter the room, with downcast

eyes: "We have hardly any flour on hand, Tikhon

Hitch—"

"How comes that? Hardly any? Of, you're talk-

ing nonsense, woman!" And he would contract his

brows in a frown. And while he was proving that

the flour ought to last for another three days, at

least, he kept darting swift glances now at Kuzma,

now at the Bride. Once he even inquired, with a

grin: "And how do you sleep — all right? are you

warm?"

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And the Bride, who was embarrassed already by his

visits, blushed deeply and, bowing her head, left the

room, while Kuzma's fingers turned cold with shame

and wrath.

"Shame on you, brother Tikhon Ilich," he blurted

out, turning away to the window. "And especially

after what you told me yourself — "

"But then why did she blush?" inquired Tikhon

Hitch maliciously, with a perturbed and awkward

smile.

VIII

THE most unpleasant thing in the morning was

— washing oneself. A frosty atmosphere was

brought into the ante-room with the straw; ice

that was like broken glass floated in the wash-basin.

Kuzma sometimes began to drink his tea after having

washed only his hands and, thus fresh from his

slumbers, appeared truly an old man. Thanks to lack

of cleanliness and the cold, he had grown extremely

thin and grey since the autumn. His hands had grown

thinner, and the skin on them had become more deli-

cate, shiny, and covered with certain tiny purplish

spots.

"The old grey horse has gone down a steep hill," he

said to himself.

It was a grey morning. Beneath the crusted grey

snow the village also had become quite grey in hue

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by St. Philip's Day. The frozen household linen hung

like grey boards from the rafters under the roofs of

the sheds. Everything round about the cottages was

frozen — they poured out the slops and threw out the

ashes. Tattered little urchins hurried through the

streets between the cottages and sheds to school, ran

up the snowdrifts and slid down them on their bark

slippers; all of them had heavy crash bags containing

slates and bread. From the opposite direction came

aged, ailing dark-faced Tohugunok, 1 with not a

trace of his former agility remaining, clad in his thin

little overcoat, and bowed beneath the weight of his

yoke, from which hung two buckets; stumbling along

in his hideous felt boots, which had turned stiff as

oaken boards, and were bound with pigskin. From

drift to drift a horse dragged the water-cask, plugged

with straw, rocking and splashing as it went; and be-

hind it ran white-eyed Kobylyai — the stammerer.

Women passed, on their way to borrow from one an-

other salt, millet, a scoop of flour for griddlecakes, or

a hasty pudding. The threshing-floors were deserted.

Only at Yakoff's place was smoke issuing from the gate

of the kiln: in imitation of the rich peasants, he

threshed during the winter. And beyond the thresh-

ing-floors, beyond the bare bushes in the back yards,

beneath a low-hanging whitish sky, stretched the grey

snow-covered plain, a waste of snow-crust frozen in

the semblance of waves. It was in truth more cosy

in the village, but the place seemed infected with the

1 The Little Kettle. — trans.

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plague: almost every household had a case of small-

pox or spotted typhus.

Occasionally Kuzma went to eat luncheon with

Koshel in the servants' quarters — potatoes as hot as

fire itself, or the remains of the sour cabbage soup

left over from the previous day. He recalled the town

where he had lived all his life, and was amazed to find

that he had no longing whatsoever to go back there.

The town was Tikhon's cherished dream; he scorned

and hated the country with all his soul. Kuzma only

tried to hate it. He now reviewed his existence with

more terror than ever. He had grown thoroughly

wild and unsociable in Durnovka; he did nothing, was

bored, was distressed by his own idleness; frequently

he omitted to wash himself; he did not take off his

undercoat; he ate greedily out of one bowl with Koshel.

But the worst of it all was that, while alarmed at his

mode of existence, which was aging him not merely

from day to day but actually from hour to hour, he

was conscious that it was nevertheless agreeable to

him; that he seemed to have got back into precisely

that rut which, possibly, had rightly belonged to him

from the day of his birth. Not for nothing, appar-

ently, did the Durnovka blood flow in his veins!

Nevertheless, that interminable Durnovka winter op-

pressed him to the point of pain — those cottages, the

holes in the ice of the pond, the horrid little boys, the

dogs on the roofs, the cold, the dirt, the sickness, the

animal-like laziness of the peasant men. Nearly

every day he called to mind Menshoff, Akim,

Syery. . . .

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After luncheon he sometimes took a stroll over the

manor-farm or in the village. He went also to Yak-

off's threshing-floor, or dropped in at the cottage of

Syery or that of Koshel, whose old woman lived alone,

was reputed to be a witch, was tall and frightfully

emaciated, and had teeth as intrusively conspicuous as

those of a skull. She spoke roughly and decisively,

like a man, and smoked a pipe: she would make a fire

in the stove, seat herself on the sleeping-board, and

set to smoking, all by herself, swinging back and forth

as she did so her long, thin leg in its heavy black bark

shoe. During the entire Fast Kuzma went away from

the farm only twice — once to the post-office, and once

to see his brother. And those little trips were pleasant,

but painful; Kuzma got so thoroughly chilled that he

could not feel whether he had any feet or not. At

the beginning of the autumn he had still possessed a

firm glance, a tidy appearance. But the firmness of

the glance had vanished, and his clothing had grown

dilapidated. The collar of his shirt was reduced to

a fringe, and the elbows of his coat wore through; his

calfskin boots had become fairly red with rust, thin,

and, in places, gaping. His sheepskin coat had served

him so long that it was dotted all over with bald spots.

And the wind on the plain was savage. After sitting

in the house so long at Durnovka he was not able to

endure the strong, fresh winter air. After prolonged

inspection of the village the snowy grey expanse came

as a surprise; the far distance, enveloped in blue tints

of winter, seemed as a picture so beautiful that one

could never gaze one's fill. The horse dashed along

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smartly in the face of the harsh wind, snorting as he

went; frozen lumps of snow flew from beneath his shod

hoofs against the dashboard of the sledge. Koshel,

with a blackish-purple frost-bitten cheek, briskly clear-

ing his throat, sprang from the box at the slopes and

leaped back into the sledge sidewise, on the run. But

the wind pierced straight through him; his feet, tucked

into straw that was all mixed with snow, ached and

stiffened; his forehead and cheekbones were racked

with rheumatic pains. And it was so boresome in the

low-ceiled post-office at Ulianovka — boresome as it can

be only in official offices in the wilds. There was an

odour of mildew, of sealing-wax. The ragged post-

man was pounding with his stamp. Grumpy Sakhar-

off, who resembled a gorilla, was roaring at the peas-

ants, raging because it had not occurred to Kuzma to

send him half a dozen fowls or, at least, a pud of

flour; and he inquired: "What's your name, and your

khamily name?" — and, after rummaging in the closet,

he announced with decision: "Nothing for you." In

the vicinity of Tikhon Hitch's house Kuzma was up-

set by the stench of manure fumes, which reminded

him that in the world exist towns, people, newspapers,

news. It was agreeable, also, to chat with his brother,

to rest at his house and get warm.

But the chat never was a success. His brother was

called off every minute to the shop, or about some

detail of domestic management, and, besides, he could

talk of nothing but his property matters, the lies,

craftiness, and malice of the peasants — about the sheer

necessity of getting rid of the estate as speedily as

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possible. Nastasya Petrovna was pitiable. Evidently

she had come to fear her husband most terribly; she

burst into the conversation at unseasonable moments,

at equally unseasonable moments she praised him —

his intelligence, his keen managerial eye, the fact that

he entered into everything, every minute detail of the

business, himself.

"And he's so accessible to every one, so approach-

able!" she said — and Tikhon Hitch roughly cut her

short, while Kuzma did not know what to say, fear-

ing to get mixed up in a quarrel. They had exchanged

roles: now it was not he who suggested alarm, but his

brother who frightened and exhorted him; it was not

he but his brother who demonstrated that it was im-

possible to live in Russia. After an hour of that sort

of conversation, Kuzma began to long to get home, to

get back to the manor. "What is to become of me?"

he thought in alarm, as he listened to his brother dis-

cussing the sale of the estate. And was it possible that

that dreadful marriage between Deniska and the Bride

would come off? And why did Tikhon so obstinately

insist that the marriage must take place? "He has

gone mad, he certainly has gone mad!" muttered

Kuzma on his way home, as he called to mind Tikhon's

surly and malevolent face, his uncommunicativeness,

his suspiciousness, and his wearisome repetition of one

and the same thing over and over. He began to shout

at Koshel, at the horse, feeling in a hurry to hide in

his little house his sadness, his old, cold clothing, his

loneliness, and his tenderness at the thought of the

Bride's sweet, sorrowful face, her womanliness and —

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her taciturnity. "Ekh, and how could she fail to go

to ruin here!" he said sadly to himself, as he gazed

through the twilight gloom at the meagre lights in

Durnovka.

IX

DURING the Christmas holidays Ivanushka,

from Basovka, dropped in to see Kuzma. He

was an old-fashioned peasant who had grown

foolish from old age, although once on a time he had

been renowned for his bear-like strength. Thickset,

bent into a bow, he never lifted his shaggy dark brown

head. He always walked with his toes turned inward.

And he amazed Kuzma even more than had Menshoff,

Akim, and Syery. In the cholera year of 'ninety-two,

the whole of Ivanushka's huge family had died. All

he had left was a son, a soldier, who was now working

for the railway as a line-guard, about five versts from

Durnovka. Ivanushka might have passed his declin-

ing days with his son, but he preferred to roam about

and ask alms. He strode lightly, in his bandy-legged

way, across the farmyard, with his cap and his staff in

his left hand, a bag in his right, and his head, on which

the snow shone white, uncovered — and for some reason

or other the sheep dogs did not growl at him. He

entered the house, mumbled "May God bless this house

and the master of this house," and seated himself on

the floor against the wall. Kuzma dropped his book

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and in amazement stared timidly at him over his eye-

glasses, as if he had been some wild beast from the

steppe, whose presence inside a house was a prodigy.

Silently, with downcast lashes and a slight amiable

smile, the Bride made her appearance, walking lightly

in her bark-slippers, gave Ivanushka a bowl of boiled

potatoes and the entire corner crust of a loaf, all grey

with salt, and remained standing at the door-jamb.

She wore bark-slippers; she was broad and robust in

the shoulders; and her handsome, faded face was so

simple and old-fashioned, in the peasant style, that

it seemed as if she could not possibly address Ivan-

ushka otherwise than as "grandfather." And, smil-

ing for him and him alone, she did indeed say softly:

"Eat, eat, grandfather."

And he, without raising his head, and recognizing

her kindliness from her voice alone, quietly wailed in

reply, at times mumbling: "The Lord save ye, grand-

daughter!" then crossed himself broadly and awk-

wardly, as if his hand had been a paw, and eagerly

fell to on the food. The snow melted on his dark

brown hair, supernaturally thick and coarse. The

water streamed down from his bark-shoes on to the

floor. From his ancient dark brown fitted coat, worn

over a dirty hemp-crash shirt, emanated the smoky

odour of a chimneyless hovel. His hands were de-

formed by long toil, and his horny unbending fingers

fished up the potatoes with difficulty.

"You must feel cold in that thin coat, don't you?"

inquired Kuzma, in a loud tone.

"Hey?" answered Ivanushka in a faint wail, hold-

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ing his hand to his ear, which was all overgrown with

hair.

"You are cold, aren't you?"

Ivanushka thought it over. "Why cold?" he replied,

pausing between his words. "Not a bit cold. 'Twas

a lot colder in days gone by."

"Lift up your head; put your hair in order!"

Ivanushka slowly shook his head.

"I can't raise it naow, brother. It drags earthward."

And with a dim smile he made an effort to lift his

dreadful face, all overgrown with hair, and his tiny

screwed-up eyes.

When he had finished eating he heaved a sigh,

made the sign of the cross, collected the crumbs from

his knees and chewed them up; then he felt about at

his sides, in search of his bag, stick, and cap, and,

having found them, and recovered his equanimity, he

began a leisurely conversation. He was capable of sit-

ting silent for the whole day, but Kuzma and the

Bride plied him with questions, and he answered, as

if asleep and from a far distance. He narrated in his

clumsy, ancient language that the Tsar was made en-

tirely of gold; that the Tsar could not eat fish — 'twas

exceeding salt — that once on a time the Prophet Elijah

broke through the sky and tumbled down on the earth

— "he was exceeding heavy" — that John the Baptist

was as shaggy as a ram when he was born, and that

at his baptism he beat his godfather over the head

with his iron crutch, in order that the man might

"come to his senses"; that every horse, once a year, on

St. Flor and St. Lavr's Day, seeks an opportunity to

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kill a man. He told how in days of yore the rye

had grown up so densely that it was impossible for

a snake to crawl through it; how in those times they

reaped at the rate of two desyatini a day for each man;

how he himself had owned a gelding which was kept

"on a chain," so powerful and terrible was it; how

one day sixty years agone he, Ivanushka, had had a

shaft arch stolen from him for which he would not

have accepted two rubles. He was firmly convinced

that his family had died, not of cholera, but because

after a fire they had gone to a new cottage and had

passed the night in it without having first let a cock

pass the night there, and that he and his son had been

saved solely by accident: he had slept on the grain-

rick.

Toward evening Ivanushka rose and walked away,

without paying the slightest heed to what the weather

was like and without yielding to all their admonitions

to remain until the morrow. And he caught his death

cold, and on Epiphany Day he died in his son's guard-

box. His son urged him to receive the Sacrament.

Ivanushka would not consent; he said that once you

received the Communion you would surely die, whereas

he was firmly determined not to "yield to death."

For whole days at a time he lay unconscious; but even

in his delirium he begged his daughter-in-law to say

that he was not at home if Death should knock at the

door. Once, at night, he came to himself, collected

his forces, crept down from the top of the oven, and

knelt down in front of the holy picture, illuminated by

a shrine-lamp. He sighed heavily, mumbled for a long

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time, kept repeating: "O Lord — Dear Little Father

— forgive my sins." Then He became thoughtful and

remained silent for a long time, with his head bowed

on the floor. Then, all of a sudden, he rose to his

feet and said firmly: "No. I will not yield!" But

the next morning he noticed that his daughter-in-law

was rolling out the dough for patties and heating the

oven hot.

"Are you preparing for my funeral?" he asked, in

a quavering voice.

His daughter-in-law made no reply. Again he col-

lected his forces, again crawled down from the oven,

and went out into the vestibule. Yes, it was true:

there, upright against the wall, stood a huge purple

coffin, adorned with white eight-pointed crosses. Then

he remembered what had happened thirty years be-

fore, to his neighbour old Lukyan: Lukyan had fallen

ill, and they had bought a coffin for him — it, too, was

a fine, expensive coffin — and brought from the town

flour, vodka, salted striped bass; but Lukyan went and

got well. What was to be done with the coffin? How

were they to justify the outlay? They cursed Lukyan

about it for the space of five years thereafter, made

life unendurable with their reproaches, tortured him

with hunger, drove him frantic with lice and dirt.

Ivanushka, recalling this, bowed his head and submis-

sively went back into the cottage. And that night, as

he lay on his back, unconscious, he began, in a trem-

bling, plaintive voice, to sing, ever more and more softly.

And suddenly he shook his knees, hiccoughed, raised

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his chest high with a sigh, and, with foam on his

parted lips, grew cold in death. . . .

KUZMA lay in his bed for almost a month, be-

cause of Ivanushka. On Epiphany morning

people declared that a bird would freeze

stiff as it flew, and Kuzma did not even possess

felt boots. Nevertheless, he went to take a last look

at the dead man. His hands, folded and rigid below

his vast chest on a clean hempen shirt, deformed by

calloused growths in the course of full eighty years of

rudimentarily heavy toil, were so coarse and dreadful

that Kuzma hastily turned his eyes away. And he

was unable to cast even so much as a sidelong glance

at Ivanushka's hair and his dead wild-beast face. He

drew the white calico up over him as speedily as pos-

sible. And from beneath the calico there suddenly

was wafted a suffocatingly repulsive sweetish

odour. . . .

With a view to warming himself up, Kuzma drank

some vodka and seated himself in front of the hotly

flaming oven. It was warm there in the guardsman's

box, and neat as for a festival. Over the head of the

spacious purple coffin, covered with calico, twinkled

the golden flame of a small wax candle affixed to the

dark holy picture in the corner; and a cheap wood-

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cut, manufactured by the Josif Brothers, glared forth

in vivid colours. The soldier's courteous wife easily

lifted on her oven-fork and thrust into the oven

kettles weighing at least a pud, chatted cheerfully about

government, supplied fuel, and kept entreating him to

remain until her husband should return from the

village. But Kuzma was shaking with fever; his

face burned from the vodka, which, coursing like

poison through his chilled body, began to induce cause-

less tears to well up in his eyes. And without having

got warm, he drove away across the white, strong

billows of the plain, to Tikhon Hitch. Covered with

hoar-frost, the whitish-curly gelding trotted swiftly

along, emitting roaring and quacking sounds, like a

drake, ejecting from his nostrils columns of grey

vapour. The sledge squeaked; its iron runners

screeched sonorously over the hard snow. Behind

Kuzma, in frozen circles, the low-hanging sun shone

yellow; in front, from the North, came a wind which

scorched one and cut short one's breath. The

branches which marked out the road bent under a

thick, curly coating of rime; the big grey gold-ham-

mers flew in flocks ahead of the horse, scattered over

the glistening road, pecked at the frozen manure,

again took flight, and again dispersed. Kuzma gazed

at them through his heavy white eyelashes, feeling

that his face had turned to wood, and that, with his

beard and mustache like white curls, he had come to

resemble a Christmastide mask. The sun was setting;

the snowy billows gleamed with a death-like green in

the orange glow, and blue shadows extended from

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their crests and crenellations. Kuzma turned his

horse sharply about and drove it back, in the direc-

tion of home. The sun had set; a faint light glim-

mered in the house with its grey, neglected panes; the

blue twilight hung over it, and it looked cold and un-

sociable. The bullfinch which had hung in a cage

riear the window, overlooking the orchard, had died

— in all probability from the coarse, strong tobacco —

and lay with its legs sticking up, its feathers ruffled,

and its crimson beak a-gape.

"Done for!" said Kuzma, and picked up the bullfinch

to throw out.

Durnovka, overwhelmed with frozen snow, was so

far from all the world on that mournful evening, in

the heart of the steppe winter, that he suddenly felt

frightened by it. All was over! His burning head

was confused and heavy. He would take to his bed

at once, and never rise from it again.

The Bride, her bark-shoes screeching on the snow

as she walked, approached the porch, carrying a pail

in her hand.

"I am ill, Duniushka!" said Kuzma caressingly, in

the hope of hearing from her lips a caressing word.

But the Bride replied indifferently, drily: "Shall

I bring in the samovar?" And she did not even in-

quire what was the matter with him. Neither did

she ask anything about Ivanushka.

Kuzma returned to the dark house and, shivering

all over and wondering with alarm where he could

now go when need compelled, lay down on the divan.

And the evenings slipped into nights and the nights

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slipped into days, and he lost all count of them.

About three o'clock on the first night he woke up and

pounded on the wall with his fist, in order to ask for a

drink: he had been tormented in his sleep by thirst and

the thought, had they thrown out the bullfinch? No

one answered his knocking: the Bride had gone off to

the servants' quarters to pass the night. And Kuzma,

conscious now, remembered that he was sick unto death,

and he was overpowered by such melancholy as would

have seized him in a tomb. Obviously the vestibule,

which smelled of snow and straw and horse-collars,

was empty! Obviously he, sick and helpless, was

utterly alone in that dark, ice-cold little house, where

the windows gleamed dim and grey amid the winter

night, with that useless cage hanging beside them!

"O Lord, save and have mercy; O Lord, help in some

way," he murmured, pulling himself up and fumbling

with trembling hands through his pockets.

He wanted to strike a match. But his whisper was

feverish; something rustled and reverberated in his

burning head; his hands and feet were icy cold. Klasha

came, quickly threw open the door, placed his head on

the pillow, and sat down on a chair by the side of the

couch. She was dressed like a young lady, in a velvet

cloak and a little cap and muff of white fur; her hands

were scented with perfume, her eyes shone, her cheeks

had turned crimson with the frost. "Ah, how well

everything has come out!" some one whispered. But

what was not nice was that Klasha, for some reason, had

not lighted the lamp; that she had come, not to see him,

but to go to Ivanushka's funeral; that she suddenly

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began to sing, accompanying herself on a guitar:

"Haz-Bulat, the dauntless, thy mountain hut is poor."

. . . Then, all at once, the whole thing vanished; he

opened his eyes — and not a trace remained of that

mysterious, agitating, and alarming affair which had

filled his head with nonsense. Again he beheld the

dark, cold room, the grey gleaming windows; he com-

prehended that everything around him was plain and

simple, too simple — that he was ill and quite, quite

alone. . . .

In the deadly melancholy which poisoned his soul

at the beginning of his illness, Kuzma had raved about

the bullfinch, Klasha, Voronezh. But even in his

delirium the thought had never left him that he must

tell some one that they must show pity on him in one

respect — they must not bury him in Kolodezy. But,

my God! was it not madness to hope for pity in Dur-

novka? Once he came to himself in the morning, when

the fire was being made in the stove — and the simple,

quiet voices of Koshel and the Bride seemed to him

pitiless, alien, and strange, as the life of well people

always appears pitiless, alien, strange to a sick person.

He tried to call out, to ask for the samovar — but re-

mained dumb and almost fell to weeping. The angry

whisper of Koshel became audible — discussing him, the

sick man, of course — and the Bride's abrupt reply:

"Well, all's up with him! He'll die — and be bur-

ied. . . ."

Then his melancholy began to abate. The sun,

declining to the west, shone through the windows,

athwart the bare branches of the acacias. The tobacco

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smoke hung in a blue cloud. Beside the bed sat the

aged medical man, redolent of drugs and frosty fresh-

ness, pulling icicles from his mustache. On the table

the samovar was bubbling, and Tikhon Hitch, tall,

grey, severe, was brewing aromatic tea as he stood by

it. The medical man drank eight or ten glasses, talked

about his cows, the price of flour and butter; Tikhon

Hitch described how wonderful, how expensive, Nas-

tasya Petrovna's funeral had been, and how glad he

was that at last he had found a purchaser for Dur-

novka. Kuzma understood that Tikhon Hitch had just

come from the town, that Nastasya Petrovna had died

there suddenly, on her way to a railway station; he

understood that the funeral had cost Tikhon Hitch

frightfully dear, and that he had already taken

earnest-money for Durnovka — and he was completely

indifferent.

XI

ONE day he awakened very late and, feeling

neither weakness nor trembling in his legs, sat

up to drink his tea. The day was overcast,

warm, and much snow had fallen. Syery passed the

window, making on the new snow imprints of his bark-

shoes, sprinkled with tiny crosses. The sheep dogs were

running beside him, sniffing at his tattered coattails.

And he was leading by the bridle a tall horse of a

dirty light bay colour, hideously old and skinny, its

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shoulders abraded by the collar; it had an in-curving

back and a thin, unclean tail. The horse was limping

on three legs and dragging the fourth, which was

broken below the knee. Then Kuzma recalled that two

days previously Tikhon Hitch had been there, and had

said that he had ordered Syery to give the dogs a

treat — to find and kill an old horse; that Syery had in

former days been engaged in that occupation at times —

the purchase of dead or worthless cattle for their hides.

A terrible thing had recently happened to Syery,

Tikhon Hitch had said; in making ready to kill a mare,

Syery had forgotten to hobble her — he had merely

bound her and turned her muzzle to one side — and the

mare, as soon as, crossing himself, he had plunged the

thin small knife into her jugular vein, had uttered a

scream and, screaming, had hurled herself upon her

assassin, her yellow teeth laid bare in pain and rage,

streams of black blood spurting out upon the snow, and

had pursued him for a long time, exactly as if she had

been a man — and would have caught him but that,

"luckily, the snow was deep."

Kuzma had been so deeply impressed by this incident

that now, as he glanced through the window, he felt the

heaviness returning in his legs. He began to gulp

down the boiling hot tea, and gradually recovered him-

self. He lighted his cigarette and sat for a while

smoking. At last he rose, went into the ante-room, and

looked out at the bare, sparse orchard through the

window, which had thawed. In the orchard, on the

snow-white pall of the meadow, a high-ribbed, bloody

carcass with a long neck and a crushed head stood out

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redly. The dogs, their backs all hunched up and their

paws braced on the meat, were greedily tearing out

and dragging away the entrails. Two aged blackish-

grey crows were hopping sidewise toward the head, and

had started to fly thither, when the dogs, snarling,

darted upon them; and once more they alighted on the

virginally pure snow. "Ivanushka, Syery, the

crows — " Kuzma said to himself. "Perhaps those

crows can recall the times of Ivan the Terrible. O

Lord, save and show mercy — take me away from here!"

Kuzma's indisposition did not leave him for an-

other fortnight. The thought of spring affected him

both mournfully and joyfully; he longed to get away

from Durnovka as speedily as possible. He knew

that the end of winter was not yet in sight; but the

thaw had already set in. The first week of February

was dark and foggy. The fog covered the plain and

devoured the snow. The village turned black; water

stood between the dirty snowdrifts; the village police-

man drove through the village one day, his horses

hitched tandem, all spattered with horse droppings.

The cocks took to crowing; through the ventilators

penetrated a disturbing spring-like dampness. He

wanted to go on living; to go on living and wait for the

spring, his removal to the town; to live on, submitting

to fate, and to do any sort of work whatsoever, if only

to earn a single bit of bread. And to work, of course,

for his brother — regardless of what he was like. Why,

his brother had proposed to him while he was ill that

they should move over to Vorgol. "Why should I

turn you out of doors?" he had said after pondering

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the matter. — "I'm giving up the shop and the home-

stead on the first of March: let's go to the town,

brother, as far as possible from these cutthroats."

And it was true : cutthroats they were. Odnodvorka

had come in and imparted the particulars of a recent

encounter with Syery. Deniska had returned from

Tula, and had been knocking about without work,

gabbling about the village that he wanted to marry;

that he had no money, but would soon earn some of

first-class quality. At first the village had pronounced

these tales absurd nonsense; then, following Deniska's

hints, it had come to understand the drift of the matter

and had believed him. Syery, too, had believed him,

and began to curry favour with his son. But after

slaying the horse and receiving a ruble from Tikhon

Hitch and securing half a ruble for the skin, he had

begun to chatter incautiously and had gone on a spree.

He drank for two days, and lost his pipe, and lay down

on the oven to recover. His head ached, and he had

nothing in which to put tobacco for a smoke. So,

to make cigarettes, he began to peel the ceiling, which

Deniska had pasted over with newspapers and divers

pictures. He did his peeling on the sly, of course; but

nevertheless, one day, Deniska caught him at it. He

caught him and began to roar at him. Syery, being

intoxicated, began to roar in return. Thereupon,

Deniska pulled him off the oven and thrashed him

within an inch of his life, until the neighbors rushed in.

Peace was concluded on the evening of the following

day, it is true, over cracknels and vodka; but, as

Kuzma said to himself, was not Tikhon Hitch a cut-

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throat also when he insisted, with the obstinacy of a

crazy man, on the marriage of the Bride to one of these

cutthroats?

When Kuzma first heard about that marriage, he

firmly made up his mind that he would not permit it.

What a horror, what folly! But later on, when he

recovered consciousness during his illness, he actually

rejoiced over this foolish idea. He had been surprised

and impressed by the indifference which the Bride had

displayed toward him, a sick man. "A beast, a sav-

age!" he had said to himself; and, calling to mind the

wedding, he had added spitefully: "And that's cap-

ital! That's exactly what she deserves!" Now, after

his illness, both his decision and his wrath disappeared.

He managed to get into conversation with the Bride

about Tikhon Hitch's intentions; and she replied

calmly:

"Well, yes, I did have some talk about that affair

with Tikhon Hitch. God grant him good health for

such a fine idea!"

"A fine idea?" said Kuzma in amazement.

The Bride looked at him and shook her head.

"Well, and why isn't it fine? Great heavens, but you

are queer, Kuzma Hitch! He offers money, and takes

the expense of the wedding on himself. Then again,

he has not picked out some widower or other, but a

young, unmarried man, without vices — neither rotten

nor a drunkard — "

"But he's a sluggard, a bully, a downright fool,"

added Kuzma.

The bride dropped her eyes and made no reply.

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Heaving a sigh, she turned and went toward the door.

"As you like," she said, her voice trembling. " Tis

your affair. Break it off — God help you — "

Kuzma opened his eyes very wide and shouted:

"Stop! have you lost your senses? Do you think I

wish you ill?"

The Bride turned round and halted. "And isn't it

wishing me ill?" she said hotly and roughly, her cheeks

flushing and her eyes blazing. "What is to become of

me, according to your idea? Am I to go on for ever

as an outcast, at the thresholds of other people's

houses? Eating the crusts of strangers? Wandering

about, a homeless beggar? Or am I to hunt up some

old widower? Haven't I swallowed tears enough

already?"

And her voice broke. She fell to weeping and left

the room. In the evening Kuzma tried to convince her

that he had no intention of breaking up the affair, and

at last she believed him and smiled a friendly, reserved

smile.

"Well, thank you," she said in the pleasant tone

which she used to Ivanushka.

But at this point the tears began to quiver on her

eyelashes, and once more Kuzma gave up in despair.

"What's the matter now?" said he.

And the Bride answered softly: "Well, perhaps

Deniska is not much of a joy — "

Koshel brought from the post-office a newspaper

nearly six weeks old. The days were dark and foggy,

and Kuzma read from morning till night, seated at

the window.

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And when he had finished and had made himself

dizzy with the number of fresh executions, he was be-

numbed. Heretofore he had been suffocated with rage

when he read the newspapers — futile rage, because hu-

man receptivity was unequal to taking in what one

read there. Now his fingers grew cold — nothing more.

Yes, yes, there was nothing to get excited about.

Everything went as if according to programme.

Everything fitted together perfectly. He raised his

head: the sleet was driving in white slanting lines, fal-

ling upon the black, miserable little village, on the

muddy roads with their hillocks and hollows, on the

horse-dung, the ice, and the pools of water. A twi-

light mist concealed the boundless plain — all that vast

empty space with its snows, forests, settlements,

towns — the kingdom of cold and of death.

"Avdotya!" shouted Kuzma, as he rose to his feet.

"Tell Koshel to harness the horse to the sledge. I'm

going to my brother's. . . ."

XII

TIKHON ILITCH was at home. In a Russian

shirt of cotton print, huge and powerful,

swarthy of countenance, with white beard and

grey frowning brows, he was sitting with the samovar

and brewing himself some tea.

"Ah! how are you, brother?" he exclaimed in wel-

come, but with his brows still contracted. "So you

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have crawled out through God's snow? Look out:

isn't it rather early?"

"I was so deadly bored, brother," replied Kuzma, as

they kissed each other.

"Well, if you were bored, come and warm yourself

and we'll have a chat. . . ."

After questioning each other as to whether there

were any news, they began in silence to drink tea, after

which they started to smoke.

"You are growing very thin, dear brother!" remarked

Tikhon Hitch as he inhaled his smoke and scrutinized

Kuzma with a sidelong glance.

"One does get thin," replied Kuzma quietly. "Don't

you read the newspapers?'"

Tikhon Hitch smiled. "That nonsense? No, God

preserve me."

"If you only knew how many executions there are!"

"Executions? That's all right. Haven't you heard

what happened near Eletz? At the farm of the Bykoff

brothers? Probably you remember — those fellows who

can't pronounce their letters right? Well, those By-

koffs were sitting, just as you and I are sitting together

now, playing checkers one evening. Suddenly — what

was it? There was a stamping on the porch and a

shout of 'Open the door!' Well, brother, and before

those Bykoffs had time to blink an eye, in rolls their

labourer, a peasant after the pattern of Syery, and

behind him two scalawags of some breed or other —

hooligan adventurers, in a word. And all of them

armed with crowbars. They brandished their crow-

bars and began to yell: 'Put up your hands, curse

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your mother's memory!' Of course, the Bykoffs were

thoroughly scared — scared to death — and they leaped

to their feet and shouted: 'What's the meaning of

this?' And their nice little peasant yells, 'Put 'em oop,

put 'em oop!' Here Tikhon Hitch smiled, became

thoughtful, and stopped talking.

"Well, tell the rest of it," said Kuzma.

"There's nothing more to tell. They stuck up their

hands, as a matter of course, and asked: 'What do

you want?' 'Give us some ham! Where are your

keys?' 'Damn you! As if you didn't know! There

they are yonder, on the door lintel, hanging on the

nail.' "

"And they said that with their hands raised?" inter-

rupted Kuzma.

"Of course they had their hands raised. And those

men are going to pay heavily for those upraised hands!

They'll be hanged, naturally. They are already in

jail, the dear creatures — "

"Are they going to hang them on account of the

ham?"

"No! for the fun of it, Lord forgive me for my sin,"

retorted Tikhon Hitch, half angrily, half in jest. "For

the love of God, do stop talking balderdash and trying

to pretend you're a Balashkin! 'Tis time to drop

that."

Kuzma pulled at his grey beard. His haggard,

emaciated face, his mournful eyes, his left brow, which

slanted upward, all were reflected in the mirror, and

as he looked at himself he silently assented.

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"Talking balderdash? Truly it is time — I ought to

have dropped that long ago. . . ."

Then Tikhon Hitch turned the conversation to

business. Evidently he had been thinking things over

a little while previously, during the story, merely be-

cause something far more important than executions

had occurred to him — a bit of business.

"Here now, I've already told Deniska that he is to

finish off that music as soon as possible," he began

firmly, clearly, and sternly, sifting tea into the tea-

pot from his fist. "And I beg you, brother, to take a

hand in it also — in that music. It is awkward for me,

you understand. And after it is over, you can move

over here. Twill be comfortable, brother! Once we

have made up our mind to change our entire invest-

ment, down to the last scrap, there's no sense in your

stopping on there with nothing to do. It only doubles

the expense. And once we have removed elsewhere,

why, get into harness alongside me. Once we have

shifted the burden from our shoulders, we'll go off to

the town, God willing, to amass grain, and we'll get

into real business. And then we'll never come back

to this hole of a place again. We'll shake the dust of

it from our feet, and it may go to hell for all I care.

I don't propose to rot in it! Bear in mind," he said,

contracting his brows in a frown, stretching out his

arms, and clenching his fists, "you can't wrest things

out of my grasp yet a while. 'Tis too early for me to

take to lying on top of the oven! I'm still capable of

ripping the horns off the devil himself!"

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Kuzma listened, staring almost in terror at his fixed,

fairly crazed eyes, at his mouth set awry, at his words

distinctly uttered in a rapacious sort of way — listened

and held his peace. Later on he inquired: "Brother,

tell me, for Christ's sake, what profit to you is there

in this marriage? I don't understand; God is my

witness, I don't understand it. I can't bear even the

sight of that Deniska of yours. That's a new type —

new Russia will be worse than all the old types. Don't

you make any mistake, thinking he is bashful and

sentimental and only pretends to be a fool : he's an ex-

tremely cynical beast. People are saying of me that

I am living with the Bride — "

"Well, you don't know moderation in anything,"

interrupted Tikhon Hitch with a frown. "You're for

ever hammering away at the same thing: 'an unhappy

nation, an unhappy nation!' And now — you call them

brutes!"

"Yes, I do hammer at that idea, and I shall go on

hammering at it!" Kuzma broke in hotly. "But

I've lost my wits completely! Nowadays I don't under-

stand at all: whether it is an unhappy nation, or —

Come now, listen to me. You know you hate that man

yourself, that Deniska! You both hate each other!

He never speaks of you except to call you a 'blood-

sucker who has gnawed himself into the very vitals of

the people,' and here you are calling him a blood-

sucker! He is boasting insolently about the village

that now he is the equal of the king!"

"Well, I know that," Tikhon Hitch again interrupted.

"But do you know what he is saying about the

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Bride?" went on Kuzma, not listening to him. "She's

handsome — she has, you know, such a white, delicate

complexion — but he, the stupid animal — do you know

what he is saying about her? 'She's all enameled, the

trollop!' And, by this vtime, you must understand

one thing: he certainly will not live in the village. You

couldn't keep that vagabond in the country now with

a lasso. What sort of a farmer and what sort of a

family man do you suppose he'll be? Yesterday, I

heard, he was roaming about the village and singing

in a lewd voice: 'She's beautiful as an angel from

heaven, as sly as a damon from hell.' "

"I know it!" yelled Tikhon Hitch. "He won't live

in the country — not for any consideration on earth,

he won't! Well, and devil take him! And as for his

being no sort of a farmer, you and I are nice farmers

ourselves, ain't we? I remember how I was talking

to you about business — in the eating-house, do you

remember? — and all the while you were listening to

that quail. Well, go on; what comes next?"

"What do you mean? What has the quail to do

with it?" inquired Kuzma.

Tikhon Hitch began to drum on the table with his

fingers and said sternly, uttering each word with great

distinctness: "Bear in mind: if you grind water,

you^Jl be left with just water as the result. My word

is sacred to~ages of ages. Once I have said I'll do a

thing — I'll do it. I won't set a candle before the holy

picture/in atonement for my sin, but I'll do a good

deed instead. Although I may give only a mite, the

Lord will remember me for that mite."

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Kuzma sprang from his seat. "The Lord, the

Lord!" he cried, in a falsetto tone. "What has the

Lord to do with that affair of yours? What can the

Lord mean to Deniska, to Akimka, to Menshoff, to

Syery, to you, or to me?"

"Eh?" inquired Tikhon Hitch severely. "What

Akimka is that you're talking about?"

"When I lay there dying," pursued Kuzma, paying

no heed to him, "did I think very much about Him?

I thought just one thing: 'I don't know anything

about Him, and I don't know how to think'!" shouted

Kuzma. "I'm an ignorant man!"

And glancing about him with roving, suffering eyes,

as he buttoned and unbuttoned his coat, he strode

across the room and halted directly in front of Tikhon

Hitch.

"Remember this, brother," he said, his cheek-bones

reddening. "Remember this: your life and mine are

finished. And no candles on earth will save us. Do

you hear? We are — Durnovka folk. We're neither

candle for God nor oven-fork for the devil." And,

unable to find words in his agitation, he fell silent.

But Tikhon Hitch had again thought of something,

and suddenly assented: "Correct. 'Tis a good-for-

nothing people! Just you consider — " And, an-

imated, carried away by his new idea:

"Just you consider: they've been tilling the soil for

a whole thousand years — what am I saying? for longer

than that! — but how to till the soil properly not a

soul of them understands! They don't know how to

do their one and only business ! They don't know the

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proper time to begin field work! Nor when to sow,

nor when to reap! 'As the people always have done,

so will we always do' — that's the whole story. Note

that!" Contracting his brows, he shouted sternly, as

Kuzma had recently shouted at him. " 'As the people

always have done, so will we always do!' Net a

single peasant woman knows how to bake bread — the

top crust is burned as black as the devil and falls off,

and underneath that crust — there's nothing but sour

water!"

Kuzma was dumbfounded. His thoughts were re-

duced to a jumble. "He has lost his senses!" he said

to himself, with uncomprehending eyes watching his

brother, who was lighting the lamp.

But Tikhon Hitch, giving him no time to recover

himself, continued wrathfully: "The people! Lewd,

lazy, liars, and so shameless that not one of them be-

lieves another! Note this," he roared, not perceiving

that the lighted wick was smoking and the soot billow-

ing up almost to the ceiling. " Tis not us they refuse

to trust, but one another! And they are all like that

— every one of them!" he shouted in a tearful voice,

as he jammed the chimney on the lamp with a crash.

The outdoor light was beginning to filter blue

through the windows. New, fresh snow was flutter-

ing down on the pools of water and the snowdrifts.

Kuzma gazed at it and held his peace. The conversa-

tion had taken such an unexpected turn that even

Kuzma's eagerness had vanished. Not knowing what

to say, unable to bring himself to look at his brother's

furious eyes, he began to roll himself a cigarette.

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"He has gone crazy!" he said to himself despair-

ingly. "Well, so be it! It makes no difference!

Nothing — nothing makes any difference. Enough!"

He began to smoke, and Tikhon Hitch also began to

calm down. He seated himself and, staring at the

lamp, muttered softly: "You were talking about

'Deniska.' Have you heard what Makar Ivanovitch,

that pilgrim fellow, has been up to? He and that

friend of his caught a peasant woman on the road and

dragged her to the sentry-box at Kliutchiki, and kept

her there for four days, visiting her in turn. Well,

and now they are in jail — "

"Tikhon Hitch," said Kuzma amiably, "why do you

talk nonsense? What's the object? You must be feel-

ing ill. You keep jumping from one thing to another;

now you assert one thing, a minute later you assert

something different. Are you drinking too much, per-

haps?"

Tikhon Hitch remained silent for a while. He

merely waved his hand, and tears trembled in his eyes,

which were riveted on the flame of the lamp.

"Are you drinking?" repeated Kuzma quietly.

"Yes, I am," quietly replied Tikhon Hitch. "And

'tis enough to make any one take to drink! Has it

been easy for me to acquire this golden cage, think

you? Do you imagine that it has been easy for me

to live like a chained hound all my life, and with my

old woman into the bargain? I have never shown any

pity to any one, brother. Well, and has any one

shown the least pity on me? Do you think I don't

know how I am hated? Do you think they wouldn't

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have murdered me in some fashion if those peasants

had once got the breeching under their tail in proper

style? If they had had luck in that revolution? Wait

a bit, wait — There'll be something doing; it's com-

ing! We have cut their throats!"

"And they are to be hanged — on account of a little

ham?" asked Kuzma.

"Well, as for the hanging," replied Tikhon Hitch

in agonized tones, "why, I just said the first thing that

came to my tongue — "

"But they certainly will hang them!"

"Well — and that's no affair of ours. They must

answer for that to the Most High." And, frowning,

he fell into thought and closed his eyes. "Ah!" he

said contritely, with a profound sigh. "Ah, my dear

brother! Soon, very soon, we also must appear be-

fore His throne for judgment! I read the Trebnik x

of an evening, and I weep and I wail over that same

book. I am greatly amazed; how was it possible to

invent such sweet words? But here, wait a minute — "

And he rose hastily, drew from behind the mirror a

thick book in ecclesiastical binding, with trembling

hands donned his spectacles, and with tears in his

voice began to read, hurriedly, as if he feared to be

interrupted.

"'I weep and I wail when I think upon death, and

1 The Trebnik contains the Services for events in daily

life: Baptism, Marriage, Confession, the Burial Rites, and so

forth. What Tikhon Hitch" quotes and reads is from the

magnificent Burial Service. See the Service Book of the

Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church. — trans.

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behold our beauty, fashioned after the image of God,

lying in the tomb disfigured, dishonoured, bereft of

form. . . .

" 'Of a truth, all things are vanity, and life is but a

shadow and a dream. For in vain doth every one who

is born of earth disquiet himself, as saith the Scrip-

tures: when we have acquired the world, then do we

take up our abode in the grave, where kings and beg-

gars lie down together. . . .'

" 'Kings and beggars!' " repeated Tikhon Hitch with

ecstatic melancholy, and shook his head. "Life is

over, dear brother! I had, you understand, a dumb

cook; I gave her, the stupid thing, a kerchief from

foreign parts; and what does she do but take and wear

it completely to rags, wrong side out! Do you under-

stand? Out of stupidity and greed. She begrudged

wearing it right side out on ordinary days — and when

a feast-day came along nothing was left of it but

rags. And that's exactly the way it is with me and

with my life. Tis truly so!"

On returning to Durnovka Kuzma was conscious of

only one feeling — a certain dull agony. And all the

last days of his stay at Durnovka were passed in that

dull agony.

\ XIII

DURING those days snow fell, and they were

only waiting for that snow at Syery's farm-

stead, so that the road might be in order for

the celebration of the wedding.

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On the twelfth of February, towards evening, in the

gloom of the cold entrance lobby, a low-toned con-

versation was in progress. Beside the stove stood the

Bride, a yellow kerchief besprinkled with black polka-

dots pulled well down on her forehead, staring at her

bark-shoes. By the door stood short-legged Deniska,

hatless, in a heavy undercoat, with drooping shoulders.

He, too, was gazing downward, at some women's high

shoes with metal tips, which he was twisting about in

his hands. The boots belonged to the Bride. Deniska

had mended them, and had come to receive five kopeks

for his work.

"But I haven't got it," the Bride was saying, "and

I think Kuzma Hitch is taking a nap. Just you wait

until to-morrow."

"I can't possibly wait," replied Deniska in a sing-

song, meditative voice, as he picked at the metal tip

with his finger nail.

"Well, what are we going to do about it?"

Deniska reflected, sighed, and, shaking back his thick

hair, suddenly raised his head. "Well, and what's the

good of wagging one's tongue for nothing?" he said

loudly and decisively, without glancing at the Bride,

and mastering his shyness. "Has Tikhon Hitch said

anything to you?"

"Yes, he has," replied the Bride. "He has down-

right bored me with his talk."

"In that case I will come at once with my father.

It won't hurt Kuzma Hitch to get up immediately and

drink tea — "

The Bride thought it over. "That's as you like — "

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Deniska set the shoes on the window-sill and went

away, without making any further mention of money.

And half an hour later the knocking of bark-shoes

coated with snow became audible on the porch. Den-

iska had returned with Syery — and Syery, for some

unknown reason, was girt about the hips, over his

kazak coat, with a red belt. Kuzma came out to

receive them. Deniska and Syery crossed themselves

for a long time toward the dark corner, then tossed

back their hair and raised their faces.

"Matchmaker or not, yet a fine man!" began Syery

without haste, in an unusually easy and pleasant tone.

"You have an adopted daughter to marry off. I have

a son who wants a wife. In good agreement, for their

happiness, let us discuss the matter between us."

"But she has a mother, you know," said Kuzma.

"Her mother is no housewife; she's a homeless

widow, her cottage is dilapidated, and no one knows

where she is," replied Syery, still maintaining his tone.

"Consider her as an orphan!" And he made a low,

stately reverence.

Repressing a sickly smile, Kuzma ordered the Bride

to be summoned.

"Run, hunt her up," Syery commanded Deniska,

speaking in a whisper as if they were in church.

"Here I am," said the Bride, emerging from behind

the door in back of the stove and bowing to Syery.

Silence ensued. The samovar, which stood on the

floor, its grating glowing red through the darkness,

boiled and bubbled. Their faces were not visible, but

it could be felt that all of them were perturbed.

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"Well, daughter, how is it to be? decide," said

Kuzma.

The Bride reflected.

"I have nothing against the young man — "

"And how about you, Deniska?"

Deniska also remained silent. "Well, anyhow, I've

got to marry some time or other. Possibly, with God's

aid, this will go all right — "

Thereupon the two matchmakers exchanged con-

gratulations on the affair's having been begun. The sam-

ovar was carried away to the servants' hall.

Odnodvorka, who had learned the news earlier than

all the rest and had run over from the promontory,

lighted the small lamp in the servants' hall, sent

Koshel off for vodka and sunflower seeds, seated the

bride and the bridegroom beneath the holy pictures,

poured them out tea, sat down herself alongside Syery,

and, in order to banish the awkwardness, started to

sing in a high, sharp voice, glancing the while at

Deniska and his long eyelashes:

"When in our little garden,

Amid our grape vines green,

There walked and roamed a gallant youth,

Comely of face, and white, so white . . ."

But Kuzma wandered to and fro from corner to

corner in the dark hall, shaking his head, wrinkling up

his face and muttering: "A'i, great heavens! AY,

what a shame, what folly, what a wretched affair!"

On the following day, every one who had heard from

Syery about this festival grinned and offered him

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advice: "You might help the young couple a bit!"

Koshel said the same: "They are a young couple

starting life, and young people ought to be helped!"

Syery went off home in silence. Presently he brought

to the Bride, who was ironing in the ante- room, two

iron kettles and a hank of black bread. "Here, dear

little daughter-in-law," he said in confusion, "take

these; your mother-in-law sends them. Perhaps they

may be of use. I haven't anything else — if I had had,

I would have jumped out of my shirt with joy!"

The Bride bowed and thanked him. She was iron-

ing a curtain, sent by Tikhon Hitch "in lieu of a veil,"

and her eyes were wet and red. Syery tried to comfort

her, saying that things weren't honey-sweet with him,

either; but he hesitated, sighed, and, placing the

kettles on the window-sill, went away. "I have put

the thread in the littlest kettle," he mumbled.

"Thanks, batiushka," the Bride thanked him once

more, in that same kindly and special tone which she

had used only toward Ivanushka; and the moment

Syery was gone she suddenly indulged in a faint

ironic smile and began to sing:

"When in our little garden . . ."

Kuzma thrust his head out of the hall and looked

sternly at her over the top of his eyeglasses. She

subsided into silence.

"Listen to me," said Kuzma. "Perhaps you would

like to drop this whole business?"

"It's too late, now," replied the Bride in a low voice.

"As it is, one can't get rid of the disgrace. Doesn't

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everybody know whose money will pay for the feast?

And we have already begun to spend it."

Kuzma shrugged his shoulders. It was true: Tik-

hon Hitch, along with the window-curtain, had sent

twenty-five rubles, a sack of fine wheaten flour, millet,

a skinny pig. But there was no reason why she should

ruin her life simply because they had already killed

the pig!

"Okh!" said Kuzma. "How you have tortured me!

'Disgraced'! 'we've spent it' — Are you cheaper than

the pig?"

"Whether I'm cheaper or not, what is done is done

— the dead are not brought back from the cemetery,"

firmly and simply replied the Bride; and, sighing, she

folded the warm, freshly-ironed curtain neatly. "Will

you have your dinner immediately?" Her face was

calm.

"Well, that settles it! You can do nothing with

her!" thought Kuzma, and he said: "Well, manage

your affairs as you see fit — "

XIV

AFTER he had dined he smoked and looked out

of the window. It had grown dark. Ha knew

that in the servants' wing they were already

baking the twisted buns of rye flour — the "ceremonial

patties." They were making ready to boil two kettles

of fish in jelly, a kettle of vermicelli-paste, a kettle of

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sour cabbage soup, a kettle of buckwheat groats — all

fresh from the slaughter-house. And Syery was mak-

ing himself very busy on a hillock of snow between

the storehouses and the shed. On the snow-mound, in

the bluislj shades of twilight, there blazed with an

orange-coloured flame the straw with which they had

surrounded the slaughtered pig. Around the fire,

awaiting their prey, sat the sheep dogs. Their muzzles

shone white; their breasts were of a silky rose hue.

Syery, stamping through the snow, ran hither and

thither, mending the fire, swinging his arms at the

dogs. He had tucked up high the tails of his coat,

thrusting them into his belt, and kept pushing his cap

to the back of his head with the wrists of his right

hand, in which glittered a knife. Fleetingly and bril-

liantly illuminated, now from this side, now from that,

Syery cast a huge, dancing shadow on the snow — the

shadow of a pagan. Then, past the storehouse along

the footpath leading to the village, ran Odnodvorka,

and disappeared beneath the snow-mound — to summon

the women for the ceremonial rites and to ask Domashka

for the fir-tree, carefully preserved in her cellar and

passed on from one bride's party to another on the

eve of the wedding. And when Kuzma, after brush-

ing his hair and changing his round jacket with the

ragged elbows for the conventional long-tailed frock

coat, had donned his overcoat and emerged upon the

porch, all white with the falling snow in the soft grey

gloom, a large crowd of children, little girls and

boys, were still outlined blackly against the lighted

windows; they were screaming and talking, and three

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accordions were being played simultaneously, and all

playing different tunes. Kuzma, his shoulders

hunched, picking at his fingers and cracking them,

stepped up to the crowd, pushed his way through it,

and, bending low, disappeared into the darkness of the

ante-room. It was full of people, crowded even, in that

entry-way. Small urchins darted about between

people's legs, were seized by the scruff of the neck and

thrust outside — whereupon they promptly crawled

back again.

"Come now, let me in, for God's sake!" said Kuzma,

who was squeezed tightly in the doorway.

They squeezed him all the harder — and some one

jerked open the door. Surrounded by jets of vapour,

he crossed the threshold and came to a halt at the

jamb. At that point the better-class people were con-

gregated — maidens in flowered shawls, children in

complete new outfits. There was an odour of woven

goods, fur coats, kerosene, cheap tobacco, and ever-

greens. A small green tree, decorated with scraps of

red cotton cloth, stood on the table, its branches out-

stretched above the dim tin lamp. Around the table

beneath the moist little windows, which had thawed

out, along the damp blackened walls, sat the ceremo-

nial w®men, festively adorned, their faces coarsely

painted red and white. Their eyes flashed. All wore

silk and woolen kerchiefs on their heads, with droop-

ing rainbow-tinted feathers from the tail of a drake

stuck into their hair at the temples. Just as Kuzma

entered, Domashka, a lame girl with a dark, malicious,

and intelligent face, sharp black eyes, and black eye-

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brows which met over her nose, had struck up in a

rough, hoarse voice the ancient "exaltation" song:

"At our house in the evening, fully evening,

At the very last end of the evening,

At Avdotya's betrothal feast . . .

In a dense, discordant chorus the maidens repeated

her last words. And all turned toward the Bride. She

was sitting, in accordance with custom, by the stove,

her hair flowing loose, her head covered with a large

dark shawl; and she was bound to answer the song

with loud weeping and wailing: "My own dear father,

my own mother dear, how am I to live forevermore

thus grieving with woe in marriage?" But the Bride

uttered never a word. And the maidens, having fin-

ished their song, involuntarily regarded her askance.

They began to whisper among themselves, and,

frowning, they slowly, in a drawling tone, struck up

the "orphan's song":

"Heat yourself hot, you little bath,

Ring out, you sonorous bell!"

And Kuzma's tightly clenched jaws began to quiver;

a chill darted through his head and his legs; his cheek-

bones ached agreeably, and his eyes were filled and

dimmed with tears. >

"Stop that, you girls!" some one shouted.

"Stop it, my dear, stop it!" cried Odnodvorka, slip-

ping down from the bench. " Tis unseemly."

But the girls did not obey:

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"Ring out, you sonorous bell,

Awaken my father dear. . . ."

And the Bride began, with a groan, to fall face down

on her knees, on her arms, and choked with tears.

She was led away at last, trembling, staggering, and

shrieking, to the cold summer half of the cottage, to

be dressed.

After that was done, Kuzma bestowed the blessing

on her. The bridegroom arrived with Vaska, Yakoff's

son. The bridegroom had donned the latter's boots;

his hair had been freshly clipped short; his neck, en-

circled by the collar of a blue shirt with lace, had been

shaved to redness. He had washed himself with soap,

and appeared much younger; he was even not at all

ill looking, and, conscious of that fact, he had drooped

his dark eyelashes in dignified and modest fashion.

Vaska, his best man, in red shirt and knee-length

fur coat worn unbuttoned, with his hair close-cut, pock-

marked, robust, resembled a convict, as usual. He

entered, frowned, and darted a sidelong look at the

ceremonial girls.

"Stop that yowling!" he said roughly and peremp-

torily. "Get out of here. Begone!"

The girls answered him in chorus: "Without the

Trinity a house cannot be built, without four corners

the cottage cannot be roofed. Place a ruble at each

;orner, a fifth ruble in the middle, and a bottle of

vodka." Vaska pulled a bottle out of his pocket and

set it on the table. The girls took it and rose to their

feet. The crowd had become more dense than ever.

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Once more the door flew open, once more there were

steam and cold. Odnodvorka entered, carrying a tin-

sel-adorned holy picture and thrusting the people out

of her way, followed by the Bride in a blue dress with

a basque. Every one uttered an exclamation of

admiration, she was so pale, gentle, quiet, and lovely.

Vaska, with the back of his fist, administered a re-

sounding blow on the forehead of a broad-shouldered,

big-headed urchin whose legs were as crooked as those

of a dachshund; then he flung upon the straw in the

centre of the cottage some one's old short fur coat.

Upon it the bride and groom were placed. Kuzma,

without lifting his head, took the holy picture from the

hands of Odnodvorka. It became so quiet that the

whistling breath of the inquisitive big-headed lad was

audible. Bride and bridegroom fell on their knees

simultaneously and bowed down to Kuzma's feet.

They rose, and once more knelt down. Kuzma glanced

at the Bride; and in their eyes, which met for an in-

stant, there was a flash of horror. Kuzma turned

pale, said to himself in terror: "In another minute

I shall throw this holy picture on the floor." But

his hands mechanically made the sign of the cross with

the ikona in the air; and the Bride, barely touching

her lips to it, fastened them on his hand and timidly

reached up to his lips. He thrust the holy picture

into the hands of some one beside him, grasped the

Bride's head with paternal pain and tenderness, and,

as he kissed her new, fragrant headkerchief, burst into

sweet tears. Then, seeing nothing because of his tears,

he turned away and, thrusting the people out of his

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path, strode into the vestibule. It was already de-

serted. The snow-laden wind beat in his face. The

snow-covered threshold shone white through the dark-

ness. The roof was humming. Beyond the threshold

an impenetrable blizzard was raging; and the snow,

falling out of the tiny window recesses from the sheer

weight of the drifts, hung like columns of smoke in

the air.

XV

WHEN morning came the blizzard was still

raging. In that grey whirling tempest

neither Durnovka nor the windmill on the

promontory was visible. Once in a while it grew

brighter, once in a while the light became like that at

nightfall. The orchard was all white, and its roar

mingled with the roar of the wind, in which one kept

imagining the peal of bells. The sharp-pointed

apexes of the snowdrifts were smoking. From the

porch, on which, with eyes screwed up, scenting athwart

the chill of the blizzard the savoury aroma from the

chimney of the servant's wing, sat the watchdogs, all

coated with snow. Kuzma was barely able to make

out the dark, misty forms of the peasants, their horses,

sledges, the jingling of the sleighbells. Two horses

had been hitched to the bridegroom's sledge; one horse

was allotted to that of the bride. The sledges were

covered with kazan felt lap robes with black patterns

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on the ends. The participants in the ceremonial pro-

cession had girt themselves with sashes of divers hues.

The women, who had donned wadded coats and

wrapped their heads in shawls, walked to the sledges

circumspectly, taking tiny steps, ceremoniously re-

marking: "Heavens, God's daylight is not visible!"

Rarely was a woman garbed in her own clothes: every-

thing had been collected among the neighbours.

Accordingly, special caution was needed not to fall,

and they lifted their long skirts as high as possible.

The bride's fur coat and her blue gown had been

turned up over her head, and she sat in the sledge

protected only by her white petticoat. Her head,

adorned with a small wreath of paper flowers, was

enveloped in undershawls. She had become so weak

from her weeping that she saw as in a dream the dark

figures through the blizzard, heard its roar, the conver-

sation, and the festive pealing of the small bells. The

horses laid their ears flat and tossed their muzzles from

side to side to escape the snow-laden gale; and it bore

away the chatter and the shouts of command, glued

eyes tightly together, whitened mustaches, beards, and

caps, and the groomsmen had difficulty in recognizing

one another in the darkness and gloom.

"Ugh, damn it all!" exclaimed Vaska as he ducked

his head, gathered up the reins, and took his seat be-

side the bridegroom. And he shouted roughly, indif-

ferently, into the teeth of the storm: "Messrs. boyars,

bestow your blessing on the bridegroom, that he may

go in search of his bride!"

Some one made answer: "May God bless him."

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Then the sleighbells began to wail, the runners to

screech; the snowdrifts, as the runners cut through

them, turned to smoke and small whirlwinds; the fore-

locks, manes, and tails of the horses were blown to

one side. . . .

At the church-warden's house in the village, where

they warmed themselves up while waiting for the priest,

all became well suffocated. In the church, also, there

was the odour of fire-gas, cold, and gloom, thanks to

the blizzard, the low ceilings, and the gratings in the

windows. Lighted candles were held only by the

bridegroom and the bride and in the hand of the

swarthy priest. He had big cheek-bones, and he bent

low over his book, which was all bespattered with wax-

droppings, and read hurriedly through his spectacles.

On the floor stood pools of water — much snow had

been brought in on their boots and bark-shoes. The

wind from the open door blew on their backs. The

priest glanced sternly now at the door, again at the

groom and bride — at their tense forms, prepared for

anything that might present itself; at their faces, con-

gealed, as it were, in obedience and submission,

illuminated from below by the golden gleam of

candles. From habit, he pronounced some words as

if he felt them, making them stand out apart from the

touching prayers; but in reality he was thinking not

at all of the words or of those to whom they were

applied.

" 'O God most pure, the Creator of every living

thing,' " he said hastily, now lowering, now raising

his voice. " 'Thou who didst bless Thy servant Abra-

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ham, and, opening the womb of Sarah . . . who didst

give Isaac unto Rebecca . . . who didst join Jacob

unto Rachel . . . vouchsafe unto these Thy serv-

ants.

"Name — ?" he interrupted himself in a stern whisper,

without altering the expression of his countenance,

addressing the lay reader. And, having caught the

answer, "Denis, Avdotya," he continued, with feeling:

'Vouchsafe unto these Thy servants, Denis and

Evdokhia,.a peaceful life, length of days, chastity. . . .

grant that they may behold their children's chil-

dren . . . and give them of the dew of heaven from

on high. . . . Fill their houses with wheat and wine

and oil . . . exhalt thou them like unto the cedars of

Lebanon. . . .' "

But even if those who were present had listened

to him and understood, they would have been think-

ing of the blizzard, the strange horses, the return home

through the twilight to Durnovka, Syery's house — and

not of Abraham and Isaac. And they would have

grinned at comparing Deniska to a cedar of Lebanon.

And it was awkward for Deniska himself, his short

legs encased in borrowed boots, his body clad in an

old undercoat, to admit that the bride was taller than

he; it was awkward and terrible to bear on his motion-

less head the imperial crown x — a huge brass crown

with a cross on top, resting far down on his very ears.

And the hand of the Bride, who looked more beautiful

1 In the marriage service crowns are used for bride and

groom, but generally they are held a short distance above the

heads, by best men standing behind. — trans.

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and more lifeless than ever in her crown, trembled, and

the wax of the melting candle dripped down on the

flounce of her blue gown. . . .

The return home was more comfortable. The

blizzard was even more terrible in the twilight, but

they were cheered by the consciousness that a burden

had been removed from their shoulders: whether for

good or for evil, the deed had been done. So they

whipped up their horses smartly, dashing ahead at

random, trusting solely to the ill-defined forms of

the small trees which marked out the road. And the

loud-mouthed wife of Vanka Krasny stood upright in

the leading sledge and danced, flourishing her hand-

kerchief and screeching to the gale, through the dark,

raging turmoil, through the snow which whipped

against her lips and drowned her wolfs voice:

The dove, the grey dove,

Has a head of gold."

Moscow, 1909.

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

PG Bunin, Ivan Alekseevich

3A53 The village

B9D513

10