Night. Nursemaid Varka, aged thirteen, rocks the cradle where baby
lies, and murmurs almost inaudibly:
"Bayú, bayúshki, bayú!
Nurse will sing a song to you!..."
In front of the ikon burns a green lamp; across the room from wall to
wall stretches a cord on which hang baby-clothes and a great pair of
black trousers. On the ceiling above the lamp shines a great green
spot, and the baby-clothes and trousers cast long shadows on the stove,
on the cradle, on Varka.... When the lamp flickers, the spot and
shadows move as if from a draught. It is stifling. There is a smell of
soup and boots.
The child cries. It has long been hoarse and weak from crying, but
still it cries, and who can say when it will be comforted P And Varka
wants to sleep. Her eyelids droop, her head hangs, her neck pains
her.... She can hardly move her eyelids or her lips, and it seems to
her that her face is sapless and petrified, and that her head has
shrivelled up to the size of a pinhead.
"_Bayú, bayúshki, bayú!_" she murmurs, "Nurse is making pap for you...."
In the stove chirrups a cricket. In the next room behind that door
snore Varka's master and the journeyman Athanasius. The cradle creaks
plaintively, Varka murmurs--and the two sounds mingle soothingly in a
lullaby sweet to the ears of those who lie in bed. But now the music is
only irritating and oppressive, for it inclines to sleep, and sleep is
impossible. If Varka, which God forbid, were to go to sleep, her master
and mistress would beat her.
The lamp flickers. The green spot and the shadows move about, they pass
into the half-open, motionless eyes of Varka, and in her half-awakened
brain blend in misty images. She sees dark clouds chasing one another
across the sky and crying like the child. And then a wind blows; the
clouds vanish; and Varka sees a wide road covered with liquid mud;
along the road stretch waggons, men with satchels on their backs crawl
along, and shadows move backwards and forwards; on either side through
the chilly, thick mist are visible hills. And suddenly the men with the
satchels, and the shadows collapse in the liquid mud. "Why is this?"
asks Varka. "To sleep, to sleep!" comes the answer. And they sleep
soundly, sleep sweetly; and on the telegraph wires perch crows, and
cry like the child, and try to awaken them.
"_Bayú, bayúshki, bayú._ Nurse will sing a song to you," murmurs Varka;
and now she sees herself in a dark and stifling cabin.
On the floor lies her dead father, Yéfim Stépanoff. She cannot see him,
but she hears him rolling from side to side, and groaning. In his own
words he "has had a rupture." The pain is so intense that he cannot
utter a single word, and only inhales air and emits through his lips a
drumming sound.
"Bu, bu, bu, bu, bu...."
Mother Pelageya has run to the manor-house to tell the squire that
Yéfim is dying. She has been gone a long time ... will she ever return?
Varka lies on the stove, and listens to her father's "Bu, bu, bu, bu.'"
And then someone drives up to the cabin door. It is the doctor, sent
from the manor-house where he is staying as a guest. The doctor comes
into the hut; in the darkness he is invisible, but Varka can hear him
coughing and hear the creaking of the door.
"Bring a light!" he says.
"Bu, bu, bu," answers Yéfim.
Pelageya runs to the stove and searches for a jar of matches. A minute
passes in silence. The doctor dives into his pockets and lights a
match himself. "Immediately, batiushka, immediately!" cries Pelageya,
running out of the cabin. In a minute she returns with a candle end.
Yéfim's cheeks are flushed, his eyes sparkle, and his look is piercing,
as if he could see through the doctor and the cabin wall.
"Well, what's the matter with you?" asks the doctor, bending over him.
"Ah! You have been like this long?"
"What's the matter? The time has come, your honour, to die.... I shall
not live any longer...."
"Nonsense.... We'll soon cure you!"
"As you will, your honour. Thank you humbly ... only we understand....
If we must die, we must die...."
Half an hour the doctor spends with Yéfim; then he rises and says:
"I can do nothing.... You must go to the hospital; there they will
operate on you. You must go at once ... without fail! It is late, and
they will all be asleep at the hospital ... but never mind, I will give
you a note.... Do you hear?"
"_Batiushka_, how can he go to the hospital?" asks Pelageya. "We have
no horse."
"Never mind, I will speak to the squire, he will lend you one."
The doctor leaves, the light goes out, and again Varka hears: "Bu, bu,
bu." In half an hour someone drives up to the cabin.... This is the
cart for Yéfim to go to hospital in.... Yéfim gets ready and goes....
And now comes a clear and fine morning. Pelageya is not at home; she
has gone to the hospital to find out how Yéfim is.... There is a child
crying, and Varka hears someone singing with her own voice:
"_Bayú, bayúshki, bayú_, Nurse will sing a song to you...."
Pelageya returns, she crosses herself and whispers: "Last night he was
better, towards morning he gave his soul to God.... Heavenly kingdom,
eternal rest! ... They say we brought him too late.... We should have
done it sooner...."
Varka goes into the wood, and cries, and suddenly someone slaps her on
the nape of the neck with such force that her forehead bangs against
a birch tree. She lifts her head, and sees before her her master, the
shoemaker.
"What are you doing, scabby?" he asks. "The child is crying and you are
asleep."
He gives her a slap on the ear; and she shakes her head, rocks the
cradle, and murmurs her lullaby. The green spot, the shadows from the
trousers and the baby-clothes, tremble, wink at her, and soon again
possess her brain. Again she sees a road covered with liquid mud. Men
with satchels on their backs, and shadows lie down and sleep soundly.
When she looks at them Varka passionately desires to sleep; she would
lie down with joy; but mother Pelageya comes along and hurries her.
They are going into town to seek situations.
"Give me a kopeck for the love of Christ," says her mother to everyone
she meets. "Show the pity of God, merciful gentleman!"
"Give me here the child," cries a well-known voice. "Give me the
child," repeats the same voice, but this time angrily and sharply. "You
are asleep, beast!"
Varka jumps up, and looking around her remembers where she is; there
is neither road, nor Pelageya, nor people, but only, standing in the
middle of the room, her mistress who has come to feed the child. While
the stout, broad-shouldered woman feeds and soothes the baby, Varka
stands still, looks at her, and waits till she has finished.
And outside the window the air grows blue, the shadows fade and the
green spot on the ceiling pales. It will soon be morning.
"Take it," says her mistress buttoning her nightdress. "It is crying.
The evil eye is upon it!"
Varka takes the child, lays it in the cradle, and again begins rocking.
The shadows and the green spot fade away, and there is nothing now
to set her brain going. But, as before, she wants to sleep, wants
passionately to sleep. Varka lays her head on the edge of the cradle
and rocks it with her whole body so as to drive away sleep; but her
eyelids droop again, and her head is heavy.
"Varka, light the stove!" rings the voice of her master from behind the
door.
That is to say: it is at last time to get up and begin the day's
work. Varka leaves the cradle, and runs to the shed for wood. She is
delighted. When she runs or walks she does not feel the want of sleep
as badly as when she is sitting down. She brings in wood, lights the
stove, and feels how her petrified face is waking up, and how her
thoughts are clearing.
"Varka, get ready the samovar!" cries her mistress.
Varka cuts splinters of wood, and has hardly lighted them and laid them
in the samovar when another order conies:
"Varka, clean your master's goloshes!"
Varka sits on the floor, cleans the goloshes, and thinks how delightful
it would be to thrust her head into the big, deep golosh, and slumber
in it awhile. ... And suddenly the golosh grows, swells, and fills the
whole room. Varka drops the brush, but immediately shakes her head,
distends her eyes, and tries to look at things as if they had not grown
and did not move in her eyes.
"Varka, wash the steps outside ... the customers will be scandalised!"
Varka cleans the steps, tidies the room, and then lights another stove
and runs into the shop. There is much work to be done, and not a moment
free.
But nothing is so tiresome as to stand at the kitchen-table and peel
potatoes. Varka's head falls on the table, the potatoes glimmer in her
eyes, the knife drops from her hand, and around her bustles her stout,
angry mistress with sleeves tucked up, and talks so loudly that her
voice rings in Varka's ears. It is torture, too, to wait at table, to
wash up, and to sew. There are moments when she wishes, notwithstanding
everything around her, to throw herself on the floor and sleep.
The day passes. And watching how the windows darken, Varka presses her
petrified temples, and smiles, herself not knowing why. The darkness
caresses her drooping eyelids, and promises a sound sleep soon. But
towards evening the bootmaker's rooms are full of visitors.
"Varka, prepare the samovar!" cries her mistress.
It is a small samovar, and before the guests are tired of drinking tea,
it has to be filled and heated five times. After tea Varka stands a
whole hour on one spot, looks at the guests, and waits for orders.
"Varka, run and buy three bottles of beer!"
Varka jumps from her place, and tries to run as quickly as possible so
as to drive away sleep.
"Varka, go for vodka! Varka, where is the corkscrew? Varka, clean the
herrings!"
At last the guests are gone; the fires are extinguished; master and
mistress go to bed.
"Varka, rock the cradle!" echoes the last order. In the stove chirrups
a cricket; the green spot on the ceiling, and the shadows from the
trousers and baby-clothes again twinkle before Varka's half-opened
eyes, they wink at her, and obscure her brain.
"_Bayú, bayúshki, bayú_," she murmurs, "Nurse will sing a song to
you...."
But the child cries and wearies itself with crying. Varka sees again
the muddy road, the men with satchels, Pelageya, and father Yéfim. She
remembers, she recognises them all, but in her semi-slumber she cannot
understand the force which binds her, hand and foot, and crushes her,
and ruins her life. She looks around her, and seeks that force that she
may rid herself of it. But she cannot find it. And at last, tortured,
she strains all her strength and sight; she looks upward at the winking
green spot, and as she hears the cry of the baby, she finds the enemy
who is crushing her heart.
The enemy is the child.
Varka laughs. She is astonished. How was it that never before could she
understand such a simple thing? The green spot, the shadows, and the
cricket, it seems, all smile and are surprised at it.
An idea takes possession of Varka. She rises from the stool, and,
smiling broadly with unwinking eyes, walks up and down the room. She
is delighted and touched by the thought that she will soon be delivered
from the child who has bound her, hand and foot. To kill the child, and
then to sleep, sleep, sleep....
And smiling and blinking and threatening the green spot with her
fingers, Varka steals to the cradle and bends over the child.... And
having smothered the child she drops on the floor, and, laughing with
joy at the thought that she can sleep, in a moment sleeps as soundly as
the dead child.