IV

On the morning of the Monday before Good Friday, Matvey heard from

his room Dashutka say to Aglaia:

"Uncle Matvey said, the other day, that there is no need to fast."

Matvey remembered the whole conversation he had had the evening

before with Dashutka, and he felt hurt all at once.

"Girl, don't do wrong!" he said in a moaning voice, like a sick

man. "You can't do without fasting; our Lord Himself fasted forty

days. I only explained that fasting does a bad man no good."

"You should just listen to the factory hands; they can teach you

goodness," Aglaia said sarcastically as she washed the floor (she

usually washed the floors on working days and was always angry with

everyone when she did it). "We know how they keep the fasts in the

factory. You had better ask that uncle of yours--ask him about

his 'Darling,' how he used to guzzle milk on fast days with her,

the viper. He teaches others; he forgets about his viper. But ask

him who was it he left his money with--who was it?"

Matvey had carefully concealed from everyone, as though it were a

foul sore, that during that period of his life when old women and

unmarried girls had danced and run about with him at their prayers

he had formed a connection with a working woman and had had a child

by her. When he went home he had given this woman all he had saved

at the factory, and had borrowed from his landlord for his journey,

and now he had only a few roubles which he spent on tea and candles.

The "Darling" had informed him later on that the child was dead,

and asked him in a letter what she should do with the money. This

letter was brought from the station by the labourer. Aglaia intercepted

it and read it, and had reproached Matvey with his "Darling" every

day since.

"Just fancy, nine hundred roubles," Aglaia went on. "You gave nine

hundred roubles to a viper, no relation, a factory jade, blast you!"

She had flown into a passion by now and was shouting shrilly: "Can't

you speak? I could tear you to pieces, wretched creature! Nine

hundred roubles as though it were a farthing. You might have left

it to Dashutka--she is a relation, not a stranger--or else have

it sent to Byelev for Marya's poor orphans. And your viper did not

choke, may she be thrice accursed, the she-devil! May she never

look upon the light of day!"

Yakov Ivanitch called to her: it was time to begin the "Hours." She

washed, put on a white kerchief, and by now quiet and meek, went

into the prayer-room to the brother she loved. When she spoke to

Matvey or served peasants in the tavern with tea she was a gaunt,

keen-eyed, ill-humoured old woman; in the prayer-room her face was

serene and softened, she looked younger altogether, she curtsied

affectedly, and even pursed up her lips.

Yakov Ivanitch began reading the service softly and dolefully, as

he always did in Lent. After he had read a little he stopped to

listen to the stillness that reigned through the house, and then

went on reading again, with a feeling of gratification; he folded

his hands in supplication, rolled his eyes, shook his head, sighed.

But all at once there was the sound of voices. The policeman and

Sergey Nikanoritch had come to see Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch was

embarrassed at reading aloud and singing when there were strangers

in the house, and now, hearing voices, he began reading in a whisper

and slowly. He could hear in the prayer-room the waiter say:

"The Tatar at Shtchepovo is selling his business for fifteen hundred.

He'll take five hundred down and an I.O.U. for the rest. And so,

Matvey Vassilitch, be so kind as to lend me that five hundred

roubles. I will pay you two per cent a month."

"What money have I got?" cried Matvey, amazed. "I have no money!"

"Two per cent a month will be a godsend to you," the policeman

explained. "While lying by, your money is simply eaten by the moth,

and that's all that you get from it."

Afterwards the visitors went out and a silence followed. But Yakov

Ivanitch had hardly begun reading and singing again when a voice

was heard outside the door:

"Brother, let me have a horse to drive to Vedenyapino."

It was Matvey. And Yakov was troubled again. "Which can you go

with?" he asked after a moment's thought. "The man has gone with

the sorrel to take the pig, and I am going with the little stallion

to Shuteykino as soon as I have finished."

"Brother, why is it you can dispose of the horses and not I?" Matvey

asked with irritation.

"Because I am not taking them for pleasure, but for work."

"Our property is in common, so the horses are in common, too, and

you ought to understand that, brother."

A silence followed. Yakov did not go on praying, but waited for

Matvey to go away from the door.

"Brother," said Matvey, "I am a sick man. I don't want possession

--let them go; you have them, but give me a small share to keep

me in my illness. Give it me and I'll go away."

Yakov did not speak. He longed to be rid of Matvey, but he could

not give him money, since all the money was in the business; besides,

there had never been a case of the family dividing in the whole

history of the Terehovs. Division means ruin.

Yakov said nothing, but still waited for Matvey to go away, and

kept looking at his sister, afraid that she would interfere, and

that there would be a storm of abuse again, as there had been in

the morning. When at last Matvey did go Yakov went on reading, but

now he had no pleasure in it. There was a heaviness in his head and

a darkness before his eyes from continually bowing down to the

ground, and he was weary of the sound of his soft dejected voice.

When such a depression of spirit came over him at night, he put it

down to not being able to sleep; by day it frightened him, and he

began to feel as though devils were sitting on his head and shoulders.

Finishing the service after a fashion, dissatisfied and ill-humoured,

he set off for Shuteykino. In the previous autumn a gang of navvies

had dug a boundary ditch near Progonnaya, and had run up a bill at

the tavern for eighteen roubles, and now he had to find their foreman

in Shuteykino and get the money from him. The road had been spoilt

by the thaw and the snowstorm; it was of a dark colour and full of

holes, and in parts it had given way altogether. The snow had sunk

away at the sides below the road, so that he had to drive, as it

were, upon a narrow causeway, and it was very difficult to turn off

it when he met anything. The sky had been overcast ever since the

morning and a damp wind was blowing. . . .

A long train of sledges met him; peasant women were carting bricks.

Yakov had to turn off the road. His horse sank into the snow up to

its belly; the sledge lurched over to the right, and to avoid falling

out he bent over to the left, and sat so all the time the sledges

moved slowly by him. Through the wind he heard the creaking of the

sledge poles and the breathing of the gaunt horses, and the women

saying about him, "There's Godly coming," while one, gazing with

compassion at his horse, said quickly:

"It looks as though the snow will be lying till Yegory's Day! They

are worn out with it!"

Yakov sat uncomfortably huddled up, screwing up his eyes on account

of the wind, while horses and red bricks kept passing before him.

And perhaps because he was uncomfortable and his side ached, he

felt all at once annoyed, and the business he was going about seemed

to him unimportant, and he reflected that he might send the labourer

next day to Shuteykino. Again, as in the previous sleepless night,

he thought of the saying about the camel, and then memories of all

sorts crept into his mind; of the peasant who had sold him the

stolen horse, of the drunken man, of the peasant women who had

brought their samovars to him to pawn. Of course, every merchant

tries to get as much as he can, but Yakov felt depressed that he

was in trade; he longed to get somewhere far away from this routine,

and he felt dreary at the thought that he would have to read the

evening service that day. The wind blew straight into his face and

soughed in his collar; and it seemed as though it were whispering

to him all these thoughts, bringing them from the broad white plain

. . . . Looking at that plain, familiar to him from childhood, Yakov

remembered that he had had just this same trouble and these same

thoughts in his young days when dreams and imaginings had come upon

him and his faith had wavered.

He felt miserable at being alone in the open country; he turned

back and drove slowly after the sledges, and the women laughed and

said:

"Godly has turned back."

At home nothing had been cooked and the samovar was not heated on

account of the fast, and this made the day seem very long. Yakov

Ivanitch had long ago taken the horse to the stable, dispatched the

flour to the station, and twice taken up the Psalms to read, and

yet the evening was still far off. Aglaia has already washed all

the floors, and, having nothing to do, was tidying up her chest,

the lid of which was pasted over on the inside with labels off

bottles. Matvey, hungry and melancholy, sat reading, or went up to

the Dutch stove and slowly scrutinized the tiles which reminded him

of the factory. Dashutka was asleep; then, waking up, she went to

take water to the cattle. When she was getting water from the well

the cord broke and the pail fell in. The labourer began looking for

a boathook to get the pail out, and Dashutka, barefooted, with legs

as red as a goose's, followed him about in the muddy snow, repeating:

"It's too far!" She meant to say that the well was too deep for the

hook to reach the bottom, but the labourer did not understand her,

and evidently she bothered him, so that he suddenly turned around

and abused her in unseemly language. Yakov Ivanitch, coming out

that moment into the yard, heard Dashutka answer the labourer in a

long rapid stream of choice abuse, which she could only have learned

from drunken peasants in the tavern.

"What are you saying, shameless girl!" he cried to her, and he was

positively aghast. "What language!"

And she looked at her father in perplexity, dully, not understanding

why she should not use those words. He would have admonished her,

but she struck him as so savage and benighted; and for the first

time he realized that she had no religion. And all this life in the

forest, in the snow, with drunken peasants, with coarse oaths,

seemed to him as savage and benighted as this girl, and instead of

giving her a lecture he only waved his hand and went back into the

room.

At that moment the policeman and Sergey Nikanoritch came in again

to see Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch thought that these people, too, had

no religion, and that that did not trouble them in the least; and

human life began to seem to him as strange, senseless and unenlightened

as a dog's. Bareheaded he walked about the yard, then he went out

on to the road, clenching his fists. Snow was falling in big flakes

at the time. His beard was blown about in the wind. He kept shaking

his head, as though there were something weighing upon his head and

shoulders, as though devils were sitting on them; and it seemed to

him that it was not himself walking about, but some wild beast, a

huge terrible beast, and that if he were to cry out his voice would

be a roar that would sound all over the forest and the plain, and

would frighten everyone. . . .

V

When he went back into the house the policeman was no longer there,

but the waiter was sitting with Matvey, counting something on the

reckoning beads. He was in the habit of coming often, almost every

day, to the tavern; in old days he had come to see Yakov Ivanitch,

now he came to see Matvey. He was continually reckoning on the

beads, while his face perspired and looked strained, or he would

ask for money or, stroking his whiskers, would describe how he had

once been in a first-class station and used to prepare champagne-punch

for officers, and at grand dinners served the sturgeon-soup with

his own hands. Nothing in this world interested him but refreshment

bars, and he could only talk about things to eat, about wines and

the paraphernalia of the dinner-table. On one occasion, handing a

cup of tea to a young woman who was nursing her baby and wishing

to say something agreeable to her, he expressed himself in this

way:

"The mother's breast is the baby's refreshment bar."

Reckoning with the beads in Matvey's room, he asked for money; said

he could not go on living at Progonnaya, and several times repeated

in a tone of voice that sounded as though he were just going to

cry:

"Where am I to go? Where am I to go now? Tell me that, please."

Then Matvey went into the kitchen and began peeling some boiled

potatoes which he had probably put away from the day before. It was

quiet, and it seemed to Yakov Ivanitch that the waiter was gone.

It was past the time for evening service; he called Aglaia, and,

thinking there was no one else in the house sang out aloud without

embarrassment. He sang and read, but was inwardly pronouncing other

words, "Lord, forgive me! Lord, save me!" and, one after another,

without ceasing, he made low bows to the ground as though he wanted

to exhaust himself, and he kept shaking his head, so that Aglaia

looked at him with wonder. He was afraid Matvey would come in, and

was certain that he would come in, and felt an anger against him

which he could overcome neither by prayer nor by continually bowing

down to the ground.

Matvey opened the door very softly and went into the prayer-room.

"It's a sin, such a sin!" he said reproachfully, and heaved a sigh.

"Repent! Think what you are doing, brother!"

Yakov Ivanitch, clenching his fists and not looking at him for fear

of striking him, went quickly out of the room. Feeling himself a

huge terrible wild beast, just as he had done before on the road,

he crossed the passage into the grey, dirty room, reeking with smoke

and fog, in which the peasants usually drank tea, and there he spent

a long time walking from one corner to the other, treading heavily,

so that the crockery jingled on the shelves and the tables shook.

It was clear to him now that he was himself dissatisfied with his

religion, and could not pray as he used to do. He must repent, he

must think things over, reconsider, live and pray in some other

way. But how pray? And perhaps all this was a temptation of the

devil, and nothing of this was necessary? . . . How was it to be?

What was he to do? Who could guide him? What helplessness! He stopped

and, clutching at his head, began to think, but Matvey's being near

him prevented him from reflecting calmly. And he went rapidly into

the room.

Matvey was sitting in the kitchen before a bowl of potato, eating.

Close by, near the stove, Aglaia and Dashutka were sitting facing

one another, spinning yarn. Between the stove and the table at which

Matvey was sitting was stretched an ironing-board; on it stood a

cold iron.

"Sister," Matvey asked, "let me have a little oil!"

"Who eats oil on a day like this?" asked Aglaia.

"I am not a monk, sister, but a layman. And in my weak health I may

take not only oil but milk."

"Yes, at the factory you may have anything."

Aglaia took a bottle of Lenten oil from the shelf and banged it

angrily down before Matvey, with a malignant smile evidently pleased

that he was such a sinner.

"But I tell you, you can't eat oil!" shouted Yakov.

Aglaia and Dashutka started, but Matvey poured the oil into the

bowl and went on eating as though he had not heard.

"I tell you, you can't eat oil!" Yakov shouted still more loudly;

he turned red all over, snatched up the bowl, lifted it higher than

his head, and dashed it with all his force to the ground, so that

it flew into fragments. "Don't dare to speak!" he cried in a furious

voice, though Matvey had not said a word. "Don't dare!" he repeated,

and struck his fist on the table.

Matvey turned pale and got up.

"Brother!" he said, still munching--"brother, think what you are

about!"

"Out of my house this minute!" shouted Yakov; he loathed Matvey's

wrinkled face, and his voice, and the crumbs on his moustache, and

the fact that he was munching. "Out, I tell you!"

"Brother, calm yourself! The pride of hell has confounded you!"

"Hold your tongue!" (Yakov stamped.) "Go away, you devil!"

"If you care to know," Matvey went on in a loud voice, as he, too,

began to get angry, "you are a backslider from God and a heretic.

The accursed spirits have hidden the true light from you; your

prayer is not acceptable to God. Repent before it is too late! The

deathbed of the sinner is terrible! Repent, brother!"

Yakov seized him by the shoulders and dragged him away from the

table, while he turned whiter than ever, and frightened and bewildered,

began muttering, "What is it? What's the matter?" and, struggling

and making efforts to free himself from Yakov's hands, he accidentally

caught hold of his shirt near the neck and tore the collar; and it

seemed to Aglaia that he was trying to beat Yakov. She uttered a

shriek, snatched up the bottle of Lenten oil and with all her force

brought it down straight on the skull of the cousin she hated.

Matvey reeled, and in one instant his face became calm and indifferent.

Yakov, breathing heavily, excited, and feeling pleasure at the

gurgle the bottle had made, like a living thing, when it had struck

the head, kept him from falling and several times (he remembered

this very distinctly) motioned Aglaia towards the iron with his

finger; and only when the blood began trickling through his hands

and he heard Dashutka's loud wail, and when the ironing-board fell

with a crash, and Matvey rolled heavily on it, Yakov left off feeling

anger and understood what had happened.

"Let him rot, the factory buck!" Aglaia brought out with repulsion,

still keeping the iron in her hand. The white bloodstained kerchief

slipped on to her shoulders and her grey hair fell in disorder.

"He's got what he deserved!"

Everything was terrible. Dashutka sat on the floor near the stove

with the yarn in her hands, sobbing, and continually bowing down,

uttering at each bow a gasping sound. But nothing was so terrible

to Yakov as the potato in the blood, on which he was afraid of

stepping, and there was something else terrible which weighed upon

him like a bad dream and seemed the worst danger, though he could

not take it in for the first minute. This was the waiter, Sergey

Nikanoritch, who was standing in the doorway with the reckoning

beads in his hands, very pale, looking with horror at what was

happening in the kitchen. Only when he turned and went quickly into

the passage and from there outside, Yakov grasped who it was and

followed him.

Wiping his hands on the snow as he went, he reflected. The idea

flashed through his mind that their labourer had gone away long

before and had asked leave to stay the night at home in the village;

the day before they had killed a pig, and there were huge bloodstains

in the snow and on the sledge, and even one side of the top of the

well was splattered with blood, so that it could not have seemed

suspicious even if the whole of Yakov's family had been stained

with blood. To conceal the murder would be agonizing, but for the

policeman, who would whistle and smile ironically, to come from the

station, for the peasants to arrive and bind Yakov's and Aglaia's

hands, and take them solemnly to the district courthouse and from

there to the town, while everyone on the way would point at them

and say mirthfully, "They are taking the Godlies!"--this seemed

to Yakov more agonizing than anything, and he longed to lengthen

out the time somehow, so as to endure this shame not now, but later,

in the future.

"I can lend you a thousand roubles, . . ." he said, overtaking

Sergey Nikanoritch. "If you tell anyone, it will do no good. . . .

There's no bringing the man back, anyway;" and with difficulty

keeping up with the waiter, who did not look round, but tried to

walk away faster than ever, he went on: "I can give you fifteen

hundred. . . ."

He stopped because he was out of breath, while Sergey Nikanoritch

walked on as quickly as ever, probably afraid that he would be

killed, too. Only after passing the railway crossing and going half

the way from the crossing to the station, he furtively looked round

and walked more slowly. Lights, red and green, were already gleaming

in the station and along the line; the wind had fallen, but flakes

of snow were still coming down and the road had turned white again.

But just at the station Sergey Nikanoritch stopped, thought a minute,

and turned resolutely back. It was growing dark.

"Oblige me with the fifteen hundred, Yakov Ivanitch," he said,

trembling all over. "I agree."