“Stand up before me!”
“Honest to God, what are you up to....” the beggar began to mumble.
“Stand up, I’m telling you!” yelled the _moujik_. “I’m a-going to
examine you.”
The beggar stood up and shifted from foot to foot.
“Hands at the sides! So. Got a passport?”
“But are you an inspector, or something?”
“Keep still,--don’t you dare to jaw back at me like that! I’m smarter
than you be! I went all through this myself. Show it to me this minute!”
Hastily unhooking his long overcoat, then his sheepskin jacket, the
beggar submissively rummaged within the bosom of his shirt for a long
time. Finally he pulled out a paper wrapped up in a red handkerchief.
“Give it here,” said the _moujik_ abruptly.
And, unwrapping the little handkerchief, the beggar handed him a small
frayed gray book, with a large wax seal. The _moujik_ awkwardly opened
it with his gnarled fingers and pretended to read it, putting it at
a distance from him, leaning back, and looking at it for a long time
through the tobacco smoke and the red light of the evening glow.
“So. I see now. Everything ship-shape. Take it back,” he said, his
parched lips moving with difficulty. “I am poor as poor can be; it’s
the second spring, you might say, that I’m neither ploughing nor
sowing; folks have done for me.... I fell down at his feet, the dog
that he is.... And yet I’m beyond a price, you might say.... But you
just tell me all that you’ve stolen, or else I’ll kill you right off!”
he yelled ferociously. “I know everything; I’ve gone through all sorts
of things.... I’ve been boiled in pitch, you might say,--that’s how
I’ve suffered.... It is the Lord that gives us life, but any vermin can
take it away.... Give the bag here, and that’s all there is to it!”
The mistress merely shook her head, and leaned back from her
embroidery, contemplating it. The beggar went toward the door and
gave the _moujik_ the bag, just as he had given him the passport. The
_moujik_ took it, and, as he laid it near him on the stool, he said:
“That’s right. Now sit down,--let’s chat a bit. I’ll get to the bottom
of all this here. I’ll make an inspection of my own, don’t you fret!”
And he became silent, staring at the table.
“Spring...” he muttered. “Ah, but what a sorrowful sabbath-day it is,
that a man may not work in the fields.... Go on!” he cried out to some
imagined person, trying to snap his fingers:
“Oh, the lady starts to dance,
And her fingers is all blue....”
And he relapsed into silence. The mistress was smoothing down the
embroidery with her thimble.
“I’m going out to milk the cow,” said she, getting up from her seat.
“Don’t blow up the fire whilst I am out, or else you’ll burn us out in
your drunkenness.”
The _moujik_ came to with a start.
“Lordy!” he exclaimed, in hurt tones. “Little mistress! How can youse
say that.... You’ve grown aweary for your husband, never fear?”
“That’s none of your worry,” said the mistress. “He’s in town, on
business.... He don’t go traipsing around no inns.”
“You’d go traipsing, too!” said the _moujik_. “Well, what would you
have me do, now,--go out on the wayside, or what? You rich devils are
all right....”
The mistress, picking up a milk-pail, went out. It was growing dark in
the hut; everything was quiet, and the roseate light was suffused in
the soft, spring obscurity. The _moujik_, with his elbows on the table,
was dozing, as he pulled at an extinguished, crudely made cigarette.
The beggar was sitting peacefully, with never a sound, leaning against
the dark partition, and his face was almost invisible.
“Do you drink beer?” asked the _moujik_.
“I do,” came the low answer out of the dusk.
The _moujik_ was silent for a while.
“We are vagabones, you and me” said he, morosely and meditatively.
“Poor wayside rubbish.... Beggarmen.... I feel weary in your company!”
“That’s right....”
“But as for beer,--I like it,” said the _moujik_ loudly, after another
silence. “She don’t keep it, the carrion! Otherwise I would have drunk
some beer ... and would have had a snack of something.... My tongue’s
all soaked,--I want to eat.... I would have had a snack and drunk
something.... Yes.... But she, the mistress, ain’t got such a bad face!
If I was harnessed up with one like her, I would.... All right, never
mind, sit down, sit down ... I got respect for the blind. Whenever a
grand holiday used to come around, I would take twenty of these here
blind men, now, and seat them at table,--you would have had to look and
look to find another household like ours! And they would sing a stave
for me, and make me a bow to boot.... Do you know how to sing staves?
About Alexei, the Man of God? I do take to that stave. Pick up your
cup,--I’ll treat you to some of mine.”
Having taken the cup from the beggar’s hands, he held it up to the
faint light of the evening glow and half-filled it. The beggar got up,
made a low bow, drained the cup to the bottom, and again sat down. The
_moujik_ dragged the beggar’s bag upon his knees, and, untying it,
began to mutter:
“I sized you up at once ... I’ve got enough money of my own, brother;
you’re no mate for me.... I go through my money in cold blood ... I
drink it away ... I drink away a horse a year, and send a good ram up
in smoke.... Aha! So you’ve run up against a bit of a _moujik_,--do you
understand who I am? But still, I feel sorry for you. I understand!
There’s thousands of the likes of you roaming about in springtime....
There’s mire, and sloughs, and never a path or a road,--but you’ve
got to keep on going, bowing before everybody.... And you can’t never
tell whether they’ll give you anything or no.... Eh, brother! Don’t I
understand you?” asked the _moujik_ with bitter sorrow, and his eyes
filled with tears.
“No, this time of the year is not so bad, it’s all right,” said the
beggar quietly. “You walk along a field, over a big, abandoned tract
that had once been planned for a road.... All alone, with never
another soul nigh.... Then, too, there’s the dear sun, and the warm
weather.... True, there’s many a thousand of the likes of me roaming
about. Half of Russia is roaming so.”
“I’ve drunk away two horses,” said the _moujik_, raking the crusts out
of the bag, pulling out a waist-coat, the calico, the trousers, and a
bast shoe. “I’m goin’ to go all through all your miserable pickings,
and old rags.... Hold on! Pants! I must buy them from you, soon as I
come into a little money.... How much?”
The beggar thought for a while.
“Why, I’d let it go for two....”
“I’ll give you three!” said the _moujik_, getting up, placing the
trousers under him, and sitting down upon them. “They’re mine! But
where’s the other shoe? It will pass for new,--that means you must have
stolen it, for sure. But then, it’s better to be thieving, than to be
grieving your heart out in the springtime, the way I am a-doing now; to
be perishing from hunger, to be coming to the end of your rope,--when
you take the very least of the shepherds, and you’ll find him at
work.... I have drunk a horse away,--but a beastie like that is worth
more nor any man.... But am I no ploughman, no reaper? ... And now you
sing a stave, or I’ll kill you right off!” he cried out. “I feel weary
in your company!”
In a quavering, modest, but a practiced voice the beggar began to sing
out of the obscurity:
“Once upon a time there lived and were two brethren--
Two blood-brethren, two brethren in God and Christ....”
“Eh, two brethren in God and Christ!” the _moujik_ chimed in, in a
high-pitched and piteous tone, straining his voice.
The beggar, with even churchly chanting, continued:
“One dwelt in cold and poverty,
Rotting in his leprosy....”
“And the o-other was rich!” out of tune, drowning out the beggar, with
tears in his voice, the _moujik_ caught up the song. “Put more heart
in it!” he cried out, as his voice broke. “Grief has swallowed me up;
all men are having a holiday, all men are sowing,--but here I be,
biting the earth; it’s the second spring that my mother earth has been
barren.... Let me have your cup, or I’ll kill you right off! Open the
window for me!”
And again the beggar submissively gave him his cup. Then he started
to open the window. Being new, it had swollen and would not yield for
a long while. Finally it did yield, and flew open. A fresh, pleasant
odour of the fields floated in. It was completely dark out there now,
the roseate night glow had become extinguished, barely shimmering over
the soft darkness of the quiet, joyous, fecundated field. One could
hear the half-drowsy sky-larks finishing their very last songs.
“Sing, Lazarus,--sing, my own brother!” said the _moujik_, extending a
full cup to the beggar. “We’re two of a kind, you and me.... Only what
are you alongside of me? A vagabone! Whereas I am a working man, that
gives food and drink to all those that suffer....”
He sat down suddenly, losing his balance, and again dug into the bag.
“And what might you have here?” he asked, examining the calico, which
had turned the faintest pink in the barely perceptible light of the
evening glow.
“Oh, that’s just so.... Some women gave it to me,” said the beggar
quietly, feeling everything floating before him from tipsiness, and
that it was time to be going, and that it was necessary to extricate
the trousers from underneath the _moujik_ somehow.
“How can that be! You lie!” cried out the _moujik_, banging the table
with his fist. “It’s a shroud,--I can see! It’s a grave-shroud!”
he cried out with tears in his voice, and was silent for a while,
hearkening to the abating songs of the sky-larks. Then he shoved the
bag away from him, and, shaking his tousled head, began to cry: “I have
risen in my pride against God!” said he bitterly, weeping.
And then, straining himself, he began to sing loudly, keeping good time:
“Oh my mother gave me birth and she guarded me,
Though I now a sinner be, unforgivable!
All the torments have I borne,
All the sorrows have I borne,--
Nowheres found I joy for me.
Oh, my mother spoke to me
And she cautioned me;
If she only knew, if she only saw,
She could never bear
Such calamity....”
“Oh, my soul is a sinner and a creeping thing!” he cried out wildly,
weeping, and suddenly started clapping his palms with an elderitch
laughter: “Beggar-man, give me your money! I know you through and
through; I feel you through and through,--give it to me! I know you
have it! It can’t be otherwise,--give it to me for love of the Lord God
Himself!”
And, swaying, he arose, and the beggar, who had also arisen, felt his
legs giving away from fear, felt a dull ache start in his thighs. The
tear-stained face of the _moujik_, barely discernible in the twilight,
was insane.
“Give it to me!” he repeated, in a voice suddenly grown hoarse. “Give
it to me, for the Love of the Queen of Heaven! I can see, I can
see,--you’re grabbing at your bosom, at your undershirt; that means
you’ve got it,--all your kind has! Give it to me,--it ain’t of no use
to you, anyway, whereas it will set me on my feet forever! Give it to
me of your own will,--brother, don’t lead me into sin!”
“Can’t do it,” said the beggar, quietly and dispassionately.
“What?”
“Can’t do it. I’ve been saving for twenty years. Can’t bring myself to
do it.”
“You ain’t goin’ to give it to me?” asked the _moujik_ hoarsely.
“No ...” said the beggar, barely audible but unshaken.
The _moujik_ was silent for a long while. The beating of their hearts
could be heard in the darkness.
“Very well,” said the _moujik_, with an insane submissiveness. “I will
kill you; I’ll go and find me a stone and then kill you.”
And, swaying, he went toward the threshold.
The beggar, standing erect in the darkness, made a sweeping and slow
sign of the cross. As for the _moujik_, he, with his head lowered like
a bull, was already walking about under the windows.
Then there came a crunching sound,--evidently he was pulling a stone
out of the foundation.
And a minute later the door slammed again,--and the beggar drew himself
up still more.
“For the last time I’m a-telling you ...” the _moujik_ mumbled out
with his cracked lips, walking up to him with a big white stone in his
hands. “Brother....”
The beggar was silent. His fate could not be seen. Swinging back with
his left arm and catching the beggar by his neck, the _moujik_ struck
hard his shrinking face with the chill stone. The beggar tore away,
backward, and, as he fell, catching the table with his bast-shoe, he
struck the back of his head against a stool, and then against the
floor. And falling upon him, the _moujik_, squeezing the breath out of
his chest, frenziedly began to batter in his throat with the stone.
Ten minutes later he was already far out in the dark, even field. There
were many stars out; the air was fresh; the earth gave forth a metallic
odour. Completely sobered up, he was walking so rapidly and lightly
that he seemed capable of covering a hundred versts more. The amulet,
torn off the beggar’s crucifix, he was holding tightly clenched in his
hand. Later, he flung it from him into a dark, freshly ploughed field.
His eyes were staring fixedly like an owl’s; his teeth were tightly
clenched, like a lobster’s claws. Although he had looked for his cap
for a long while, he had been unable to find it in the darkness; the
chillness beat upon his bared head. His head seemed to him to be of
stone.
_1914._
THE SACRIFICE
Simon Novicov, who was living in Oats Ford with his brother
Nicon,--Nicon of the withered arm,--was burned out in midsummer, about
the fast of St. Peter. The brothers decided to divide their property,
and Simon, intending to leave the Ford, was putting up a hut for
himself near the great highway.
On the evening before Elijah’s Day the carpenters had asked for leave
to go home. After supping with the large family of his brother, in the
midst of flies and the clamour of children, he lit his pipe, put on his
short sheepskin coat, and said to his folks:
“It’s stuffy in here. I’m going to the building,--I’ll sleep the night
there. I’m afraid the tools might be stole.”
“You ought to take the dogs with you, at least,” one of the women
counselled him.
“Get along with ye!” said Simon, and went out.
There was a full moon out that night. What with his thoughts of his
future household, Simon did not even notice how he had climbed up hill
by the broad path to the pasture lands that led out of the village,
and, after putting about a verst behind him on the big road, had come
right up to his hut, which had a ceiling but was, as yet, unroofed.
It stood at the edge of the fields of grain, in the midst of an empty
field. Its sashless windows gaped blackly, and it was dully glistening
against the light of the moon with the ends of its new corner-beams,
with the tow sticking out of its joints, and the sticks and shavings
about its threshold. The aureate July moon, which had risen far
beyond the ravines of the Ford, hung low and was turbid. Its warm
glow was diffused over everything. The ripe grain glimmered whitely
ahead,--dully, sombrely, like stretches of sand. But toward the north
the sky was altogether overcast,--a cloud was gathering there. A soft
breeze, blowing from all sides, would at times gather strength and
run fitfully over the rye and oats,--and they would rustle crisply,
disquietingly. The cloud toward the north appeared immovable, but it
was frequently shot with an eerie, fleeting, golden sheen.
Simon, stooping at the threshold through habit, entered the hut. It
was dark and stuffy within it. The yellow moonlight, looking in at the
unglazed windows, did not blend with the darkness, but only intensified
it. Simon threw down his short sheepskin coat upon the shavings in the
middle of the hut, directly in the path of one of the rows of light,
and lay down on his back. After drawing at his extinguished pipe for a
space, he put it in his pocket, and, after thinking for a little while
longer, fell asleep.
But now the wind began blowing in at the windows, and, by way of the
entry, through the door. The thunder began muttering dully in the
distance. Simon sat up. The wind increased--it was now running over the
feverishly murmuring grain without cease, and the light of the moon
had become still dimmer. Simon walked out of the hut, and, turning the
corner, was among the crisp and sultry swishing of the oats, which
were as pallid as a shroud. He glanced at the cloud,--the colour of
dark slate, it had taken up half the heavens. The wind was blowing
straight in his face, tugging at his hair and tangling it, interfering
with his vision. The flashes of lightning, too, interfered with his
vision and blinded it, as they flared up, more and more ominous and
fiery. Simon, making the sign of the cross, got down on his knees: in
the distance, in the midst of the sea of oats, standing out against
the bank of the cloud, a small throng was advancing toward him. Their
heads were bared; in white girdles, in new short sheepskin coats, they
were with difficulty bearing a seven-foot altar-piece, painted by some
ancient master. The throng was mistily-spectral, but the image was very
plain,--an awesome, severe countenance, showing red upon a black panel,
which was burnt by candles, dripped over by wax, and bound at the edges
by old, blue-coloured silver.
The wind had parted the hair upon Simon’s brow, pleasantly blowing it
back, and Simon, in fear and joy, bowed down to the ground before the
image. When he finally did raise his head, he saw that the crowd had
halted, awkwardly supporting the image, which was majestically leaning
backward; while upon the cloud was limned, as in a church picture, a
towering, enormous visage: the mighty, hoary-bearded Elijah himself,
clad in chitons of fire, and sitting, like God-Sabbaoth, upon the
lifelessly-blueish tiers of the lower clouds, while two greenish-orange
rainbows were flaming above him, against the slate-coloured background.
And, flashing his lightning-like orbs, blending his voice with the
distant rumble of the thunder, Elijah spake to Simon:
“Stand up straight, Simon Novicov. Hearken, ye princes and peasants!
I am about to judge him, Simon Novicov,--a peasant tenant of the Eletz
province, of the Predtechev District, of the little village of Oats
Ford.”
And the entire field, glimmering as white as sand all around, with all
its ears of grain together with the tares darted forward, bowing down
before Elijah, and amidst their murmur Elijah began to speak:
“I was wroth with thee, Simon Novicov,--I wanted to punish thee.”
“Wherefore, Father?” questioned Simon.
“It is no fitting thing for thee, Simon Novicov, to be questioning me,
Elijah. Thou art the one to make answer.”
“Well, forgive me; let it be as thou dost will,” said Simon.
“Summer before last I did kill Pantelei, thy eldest son, with a stroke
of lightning; wherefore didst thou bury him in the ground up to his
waist, bringing him back to life through black magic?”
“Forgive me, Father,” said Simon, bowing, “I felt sorry for the young
lad. Judge for thyself,--why, he would be the one to give me food and
drink in my old age.”
“Last summer I did mow, I did trample down thy rye with hail and with
whirl-winds: why didst thou get knowledge of it beforehand, and sell
this rye while it yet stood uncut?”
“Forgive me, Father,” said Simon, bowing. “My heart felt a forewarning;
need did force me to it.”
“Well, was it not I that burned thee out but just now, at St. Peter’s
fast? Wherefore dost thou hasten to build anew, to divide thy goods
with thy brother?”
“Forgive me, Father,” said Simon, bowing. “My brother of the withered
hand is unlucky; I thought all the misfortunes were coming from him.”
“Shut thy eyes. We shall ponder, we shall take counsel, as to thy
punishment.”
Simon shut his eyes; he bowed down his head. The wind was noisy,--under
cover of its noise he was trying to eavesdrop, on the sly, what Elijah
and the peasants were whispering together about. But there came a heavy
peal of thunder near at hand,--not a thing could he hear.
“No, we can’t think of anything,” said Elijah with all his voice. “Thou
thyself must counsel me.”
“And may I open my eyes?” asked Simon.
“There is no need of that. A blind man thinks all the surer.”
“Thou art a queer fellow, Father,” Simon smiled thoughtfully. “Well,
what is there to think about? I shall place a three-rouble candle
before thee....”
“Thou hast not the wherewithal. Thou hast spent everything on building.”
“Well, in that case I shall go on a pilgrimage to Kiev, or to
Belgorod,” said Simon, irresolutely.
“That’s just loafing, and a waste of shoe-leather. Who’s going to take
care of the household?”
Simon went into deep thought.
“Well, then, slay my little girl Anphiska. She’s just going on three.
The girl, to tell the truth, is a kind-hearted, endearing little
creature,--we will all feel sorry for her; but then, there’s no help
for it.... One can’t get everything with just a little!”
“Lend ear, ye faithful,” said Elijah loudly. “I agree.”
And the cloud was rent by such a flame that Simon’s lids almost caught
fire, and the heavens were split by such a peal that all the earth
quivered beneath him.
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God-Sabbaoth!” whispered Simon. “Heaven
defend us!”
When he came to, opening his eyes, Simon beheld only the dust-laden
cloud, the deserted, agitated grain, and himself, standing on his knees
in the midst of its ears. The wind was whirling in a pillar over the
road, and the moon had grown entirely dimmed.
Simon jumped up on his feet. Forgetting all about his short coat, about
the axes and the planes, he started off for home, for the village,
braving the whirl-winds. The heavy rain caught him out on the common.
The dark clouds had piled up above the darkened ravines. The red moon
was sinking beyond them. The village was in heavy slumber, but the
cattle in the yards were stirring uneasily, the roosters were crowing
in alarm. And, running up to his old, half-burned-down hut, Simon heard
the wailing of women within. Nicon of the withered arm was standing at
the threshold, in his sheepskin coat and without a hat; scrawny and
wrinkled beyond his years, he was looking about dully and confusedly.
“There’s been a calamity at your house,” he said, and one could tell by
his voice that he was not yet thoroughly awake.
Simon ran into the hut. The women-folk were running about in the
darkness, screaming, looking for the sulphur matches. Simon snatched
a small box of them out from behind the image, and lit a tallow-wick.
The cradle, which was hung near the oven, was swinging from side to
side,--the women had been striking against it when they were running
about. And within it lay the little girl, dead. She had turned all
livid, and a quilt work cap was smouldering on her head.
Simon has been living happily, ever since.
_1913._
AGLAIA
In that community, in that forest village where Aglaia was born and had
grown up, she was called Anna.
She was bereaved of her father and mother at an early age. The
small-pox visited the village one winter, and many of those who had
gone to their rest were carted off then to the churchyard in the
settlement beyond Sviyat-Oziero.[3] Two coffins in one day stood in the
hut of the Skuratovs as well. The little girl had experienced neither
fear nor pity; she had only come to remember forever that odour which
emanated from them, which is like nothing else on earth and is unknown
and oppressive to the living, and that winter freshness, that cold of
the Lenten thaw before Easter, which had been let into the hut by the
peasants who were carrying the coffins out to the wide sledge standing
under the windows.
[3] Holy Lake. _Trans._
In that forest-covered region the villages are few and small; their
crude, log-enclosed yards are scattered without any order, just as the
clayey hummocks permit and as near as possible to the little rivers, to
the lakes. The folk thereabouts are not so very poor and watch after
their goods, their ancient way of living,--notwithstanding the fact
that they have been going out to hire since time out of mind, leaving
the women to plough the stepmotherly earth, where it is free of the
forest; to mow the grasses in the forest; and in winter to whirr at
the weaving loom. Toward that way of living did Anna’s heart incline in
her childhood; endeared to her were both the black hut and the burning
rush light in its cresset.