at all; he’d be playing _Time Fled Beyond Recall_ on his accordeon, and
his eyes would fill with tears. Well, I see my affairs are in a bad
way,--time for me to get married, soon as I can. And right then they
was trying to make a match betwixt me and a certain widower,--he had
a store, too, and lived in a suburb. An elderly man, he was, but in
good standing, with means. Just the very thing, you understand, that
I was striving for. I find out as quickly as I can from trustworthy
folks all about his life, down to the last stitch; I see there’s
nothing out of the way whatsoever. I got to decide about getting up
an acquaintance as quick as possible,--the match-maker had only shown
us to each other in church before that; I got to bring it about, you
understand, so’s we can visit each other,--sort of make an inspection,
as it were. He comes to me first, and gives his credentials: “Lagutin,
Nikolai Ivannich,--store-keeper.” “Very pleased to meet you,” I says. I
see he’s altogether a fine man,--not any too tall, of course, and all
gray; but so agreeable, quiet, neat, diplomatic,--you could see he was
a thrifty sort; he had never run up a copper of debt to anybody in all
his life, he says. Then me and the match-maker went to see him, like
it was on business. We get there. I see he’s got a wine-cellar,--Rhine
wines, mostly; and a store stocked with everything that goes with
wines: cured lard, now, and ham, and sardines, and herrings. The house
wasn’t large, but neat as a pin. There was flowers and little curtains
on the windows, the floor was swept clean,--even though he were a
bachelor. In the yard everything was in order, too. There was three
cows and two horses. One was a three-year-old brood-mare,--he’d been
offered five hundred for it already, he said, but he’d turned the offer
down. Well, I just went into raptures watching that horse,--that’s how
handsome it was! But he only smiles quiet-like, walks with little steps
before us, crackling his fingers, and telling us everything, like he
was reading off some price-list: here’s this and this, and there’s that
and that.... So, thinks I, it’s no use trying to be too smart here; the
business ought to be brought to an end quick....
Of course, it’s only now that I’m telling all these things so briefly;
but only my poor head knows what feelings I went through at that
time! I couldn’t feel my legs under me for joy,--I’d gotten what I
was after, you see, I had found the party I was looking for! But I
kept silent, I was afraid and shivering all over,--supposing all my
hopes was to be dashed down? And that’s almost what did happen; all my
trouble almost went for nothing,--and I can’t tell calmly the reason
why, even now;--it was on account of this here poor cripple, and on
account of my darling little son! We was managing this business so
quietly, so genteel, that we thought never a soul would know. But no,
I hear that the entire suburb already knows about my intentions and
Nikolai Ivannich’s; the rumour, of course, reached the Samokhvalovs as
well,--never fear, it was nobody else but Polkanikha that whispered it
to them. And he, the poor cripple, now, took and hung himself, like I’m
telling you! “There now, you,--I threatened and you didn’t believe me,
so now, I’ll do it just to spite you!” He hammered a nail into the wall
above his head, fixed a cord from a sugar-loaf to it, drew it around
his throat, and crawled off the bed. It wasn’t no great trick; didn’t
take much brains! One day at twilight I was standing in the store,
putting some things to rights,--when suddenly some one thunders again
and again against a shutter in the house. My heart just went down into
my shoes. I jump out on the threshold,--it’s Polkanikha.
“What do you want?”
“Nicanor Matveich has passed away!”
She barked it out, turned on her heel, and went for home. But I, in the
first excitement, didn’t take anything into account,--it was just like
I had been scalded with steam from fright.... I threw a shawl over my
shoulders, and started after her. She runs, with her skirt caught up in
front, stumbling, stooping,--and I keep on running too.... It was just
a disgrace before the whole town! I run, and can’t understand a thing.
I had only one thought,--I’m ruined forever! Just think of what he’d
gone and done,--may God not bear it against him! Just think what little
conscience some people have! I run up to the house,--and there are as
many people there as at a fire. The front entrance is ajar; whoever
wants to pushes his way in,--everybody is curious, naturally. In my
lightheadedness I tried to get in there too. But, glory be, something
seemed to hit me over the head; I came to my senses and backed out.
Maybe that was what saved me,--else I would have known what crow tastes
like. If any one,--why, even this Polkanikha, say,--had remembered
me!... “Here, now, your honour, is the one we think is to blame, who is
the reason of it all; just you question her,”--and all would have been
over with me. Try and wriggle out of it then. A person may not have a
blessed thing to do with it, but they grab you and put you away.... It
wouldn’t be the first time a thing like that has happened.
Well, soon as they buried him, my heart eased up a little. I’m getting
ready for the wedding, hurrying to wind up my business, to sell what I
could without loss,--when again there’s grief and woe. I was knocked
off my feet as it was, what with one worry and another, and was all
roasted from the heat,--the heat that year was simply unbearable, with
dust, with a hot wind, especially in our neighbourhood, in Glukhaya
Ulitza, standing half way up on a hill,--when suddenly there was
another bit of news: Nikolai Ivannich had taken offense. He sends over
this same match-maker, now, that had brought us together,--a terrible
slut, she was, and kept both her eyes peeled; never fear, it was she
herself that put him, Nikolai Ivannich, up to it. Nikolai Ivannich lets
me know through her as how he’s putting off the wedding until the first
of September,--he’s got a lot of affairs to attend to, now,--and lets
me know about my son, about Vanniya: to figure out what was best to be
done with him; that he was to be placed anywhere at all,--“Because,
now,” he says, “I won’t take him into my house, for no amount. Even
though he be your own son,” he says, “he’s bound to clear ruin us, and
he’ll be upsetting me.” (And really, just think of his position! Since
he’s never known any turmoil, had never raised any rows, of course he
was afraid of any excitement: whenever he’d get excited, everything in
his head would get muddled,--he wouldn’t be able to say a word.) “Let
her get rid of him,” he says. And where was I to place him, how was I
to get rid of him? The young fellow had gotten out of hand entirely;
with strangers he’d break his neck altogether. But there was no way
of getting away from his riddance. As it was, I was all through with
him ever since he’d come to know Phenka: she had just bewitched him,
the bitch! He’d sleep all day and drink all night,--turning night into
day.... I couldn’t even begin to tell the trouble I went through with
him that summer! He got me so that I began to melt away like a candle;
I couldn’t hold a spoon, my hands shook so. Soon as it got dark I’d sit
down on the bench before the house and wait until he’d come in off the
street,--I was afeared the boys in the city might do him up....
Well, having gotten such a decision from Nikolai Ivannich, I call my
son to me: “So and so, my little son,” I says, “I’ve borne with you
long enough, but you’ve turned out a weakling and have gone astray;
you have disgraced me all over this neighbourhood. You’ve got used
to having everything soft and nice, now, until at last you’ve become
a tramp, a drunkard. You haven’t got a gift like I have,--no matter
how many times I fell, I always got up again; but you can’t save up
anything for yourself. Here am I,--I’ve come to be respected, and I
own real estate, and I drink and eat no worse nor other folk; I don’t
deny my heart nothing,--and all along of being governed by common
sense, always and above all things. But you, I see, want to stay a
flutter-fly, like you’d always been. It’s time you was getting off my
neck....”
He sits there and never a word out of him,--just picks the oilcloth on
the table. I had just called him out to dinner, for he’d been sleeping
all along, and his mug was all puffed up.
“Well, why don’t you say something?” I asks. “Don’t you be tearing that
oilcloth,--get one of your own first; just you answer me.”
Again he don’t say a word; he bends his head and his lips quiver.
“You’re going to marry?” he says.
“Well,” I says, “it ain’t known yet whether I am or whether I ain’t;
but, if I do marry, it will be a decent man, that ain’t a-going to
let you into his house. I ain’t your Phenka, brother; I ain’t no
street-walker or something.”
When all on a sudden he jumps up from his place and gets all in a
passion:
“Why,” he says, “you ain’t worth one of her fingernails!”
How was that? Good, eh? He jumped up, yelling till it didn’t sound
like his own voice, slammed the door like thunder,--and off with him.
But I, even though I was no great hand at crying, just went off into
tears. I cry one day, I cry another,--I had only to think of the words
he could find the heart to say to me, and off I’d go. I cry, but I
keep one thing in mind,--I would never forgive him such an insult till
the end of time, and I would drive him off entirely.... But all this
time he don’t come home. I hear he’s carrying on a feast at her house,
dancing and prancing, drinking through the money he had stolen, and
threatening me: “Never mind,” he says, “I’ll settle her; I’ll lay in
wait till she’ll be going somewhere in the evening; and I’ll kill her
with a stone.” He sends to the store to buy things,--to make fun of me,
of course; now for ginger cookies, now for herrings. I just quiver all
over from vexation, but I hold myself in and give what’s wanted. One
day I’m sitting in the store, when suddenly he comes in himself, drunk
as a lord. He brings in some herrings,--a little wench had bought four
of them that morning for his money, of course,--and slap with them down
on the counter!
“How dare you,” he yells, “send such abominable stuff to your
customers? They smell; they’re only fit for dogs to eat!”
He’s yelling, with his nostrils all puffed out,--looking for an excuse.
“Don’t you be raising no rumpus here,” I says, “and don’t be yelling;
I don’t make the herrings myself, but buy them by the barrel. If you
don’t like them, don’t guzzle them,--here’s your money back.”
“But what if I had ate them and died?”
“Again,” I says, “you’re swine, and ain’t got no call to be yelling at
me,--who are you to be giving me orders? Guess you ain’t such a much.
You ought to speak decent-like, and not be crowding in with a row into
somebody else’s establishment.”
But all on a sudden he grabbed hold of a steelyard off a bin and sort
of hisses out:
“I’ll swat you over the head,” he says, “so’s you’ll stretch right out!”
And then he ran out of the shop with all his might. But I, the way I
had sat down on the floor, that’s the way I stayed,--I just couldn’t
get up....
Then, I hear that they done for him,--the Lord had punished him on
account of his mother! He was barely alive when they brought him in a
cab,--unconscious drunk, his head bobbing, his hair caked with blood
and covered with dust; his boots and watch had been stolen, his new
jacket was all in tatters,--there wasn’t as much as a square inch of
whole cloth left anywhere.... I figured and I figured,--take him in
I did, and I even paid the cabby; but that very same day I sends my
compliments to Nikolai Ivannich, and say that he be told for sure that
he shouldn’t be worried any more over anything; that I had decided
about my son, now,--I would drive him out without any pity right off
when he would wake up. He also sends back his compliments and bids them
say: “Very wisely and well done, accept my thanks and sympathy ...” and
two weeks later he set the date for the wedding. Yes....
Well, that’s enough; that’s where my story ends. Guess there’s nothing
more, to tell about. I’ve gotten along so well with my husband all my
days, that it’s just like a rarity nowadays. As I’m saying, what I went
through whilst I was struggling to get into this heaven can’t be told
in words! But, truth to tell, the Lord hath rewarded me,--it is now the
twenty-first year that I’m living with my little old man, fenced about
as with a stone wall, and I know for sure that he wouldn’t let nothing
or nobody hurt me; it’s only to look at him that he’s so quiet! But, of
course, no matter how I try, the heart _will_ start yearning once in a
while! Especially before Easter, in Lent, for some reason or other. I
think I could die now,--it’s fine, peaceful; they’ll be after reading
litanies in all the churches.... True, I’ve had enough of toiling and
moiling in my time,--oh, but Nastasiya Semenovna was the persistent
one! Ought I, with my mind, to be sitting on the outskirts of a town?
My husband calls me Skobele,[13] as it is.... Again, once in a while
I get to longing for Vanniya. Never a bit of news about him in twenty
years. Maybe he’s died long since, but I don’t know about it. I even
felt sorry for him that time they brought him in. We dragged him in,
and got him up into bed,--he slept like he was dead the livelong day.
I’d climb up, and listen to his breathing,--to see if he was alive,
now.... And in the room there was a sour stench of some sort; he’s
lying in bed, all tattered, chewed-up, snoring and gagging.... It was a
shame and a pity to look at him, and yet it was my own flesh and blood!
I’d look and I’d look, and I’d listen,--and then walk out. And what an
anguish seized hold on me! I forced myself to sup, cleared away the
table, put out the light.... Can’t sleep, and that’s all there is to
it,--I just lie there and shiver.... And it was one moonlit night. Then
I hear he’s waked up. He’s coughing all the time, all the time going
out into the yard, banging the door.
[13] A great Russian general and a universal military genius and
strategist. _Trans._
“What you walking about for?” I ask.
“My stomach aches,” he says.
I can hear by his voice that he’s upset and grieving.
“Drink some of that mugwort and vodka that you’ll find in a bottle
standing in the image shrine.”
I lay a little longer,--I may have dozed off a little,--when I felt
through my slumber, that some one is stealing up over the flooring. I
jumped up,--it was he.
“Mother, dear,” he says, “don’t be afraid of me, for the love of
Christ!”
And then he went off into a flood of tears! He sat down on the bed,
catching my hands, kissing them, raining tears on them,--and just
unable to catch his breath,--that’s how he was crying and sobbing. I
couldn’t bear it--and went off on my own! It was a pity, of course,
but there was no help for it,--all my future lot turned upon him. But
then, I saw he understood all this very well himself.
“I can forgive you,” I says, “but you see yourself, now, that there’s
nothing to be done about it. So you just go away as far as possible,
so’s I shouldn’t even hear about you!”
“Mother, dear,” he says, “why have you ruined me, just like you ruined
that poor cripple Nicanor Matveich?”
Well, I see the man ain’t in his right senses yet, so I didn’t even
start to argue with him. He cried and he cried, then he got up and went
away. And in the morning, I look into the room where he’d slept, but
he was already gone for a long while. That meant he had gone as early
as possible for shame,--and then he just disappeared, like a stone in
the water. There was a rumour, now, that he had lived for a while in
a monastery at Zadorsk; that he had then travelled to Tsaritsin,--and
there, never fear, he must have broken his neck.... But what’s the use
of talking about it--it only troubles the heart! No matter how much you
cook water, it will still be water....
But as to what he’d said about Nicanor Matveich,--why, I think it’s
even silly. It wasn’t like I had been greedy after a great sum, or had
pulled it out of his pocket. He knew his unfortunate condition himself,
and was often taken with spells of sadness. He used to say to me at
times:
“Nastiya, fate has made me a cripple, and my nature is an insane one:
either I’m gay somehow, like just before some misfortune,--or else I
have such a melancholy spell, especially in summer, during the heat,
with all this dust, that I could just lay hands on myself! I’ll die;
they’ll bury me in the Chernoslobodskaya cemetery,--and this dust will
swirl for all eternity on to my grave, from beyond the enclosing wall!”
“But, now, Nicanor Matveich, why take on so about that? We don’t feel
such things when we’re dead.”
“Why,” he says, “what of it that we won’t feel them,--the trouble is
that one thinks about them while one is still alive....”
And, to tell the truth, it was awful wearisome in the house, in the
Samokhvalovs’, when everybody would fall asleep after dinner, and
the wind would be swirling this dust along! And he had laid hands on
himself just at the time of the greatest heat, at the dullest time. Our
whole town, to tell the truth, is wearisome. I was in Tula the other
day, now,--why, you can’t even compare them!
_1911._
“I SAY NOTHING”
When he had been a young man, everybody used to call Alexander Romanov
Shasha; at that time he was living in the settlement of Limovo, in an
iron-roofed house that stood facing the common, and his beatings were
administered to him by his father, Roman.
Roman deemed himself the first man in all that district,--he used
to shove his hand out to all the gentry and the squires whenever he
would meet them. He had a store in the settlement, and a mill beyond
it; but the way he got richer and richer was by buying up groves from
the land-owners and then cutting them down. Makar, his own brother,
had nothing to eat; all in tatters, he might be hobbling over the
common, and, doffing his hat meekly, would say: “Greetings, brother.”
But Roman, well-fed, looking like a deacon, would answer him from his
stoop: “Don’t you brother me, you dolt. You’ve made your bow, so just
keep on going on your way.” What, then, must have been the feelings of
the sole heir of such a man? He used to stroll through the village in a
cap that had come from the city; in a sleeveless overcoat of the finest
broadcloth, in boots with patent-leather tops. He was all the time
cracking polly-seeds, and playing polkas on an expensive accordeon.
Whenever he met any wenches or young lads,--all his relatives, all
consanguine, everyone of them,--he would be followed by that sort of
gaze from which celebrities feel a chill run down their back. But he
would meet such a gaze with a surly--even a ferocious--one; all his
youth seemed to have passed in a preparation for that rôle in which he
attained such perfection later on.
Roman, at the height of his prosperity, began to decline in strength,
and to get muddled in his affairs. Grizzled, bearded, pot-bellied, clad
in a sleeveless overcoat of casinette that resembled an under-cassock,
it was only when he was in his cups that he plucked up heart; but when
sober he was always despondent and deliberately churlish. He still
retained his glory and his might. Out on the common, near the church,
right opposite his windows, he had built a school; he was trustee over
it, and could at any instant he liked make the teacher grovel at his
feet. He was still able to give goods on credit to the land-owners;
to give bribes to the police inspector, without the least necessity;
he could still regale one with smoked sprats, with a pickled lobster
in a rusty can, with sherry and with wine from Tsimliyan, which is
something like champagne,--and, even as he entertained, he would yell,
if his guest were of the humbler sort: “Drink, you blockhead!” But it
surely was high time to supplant him. But who could do it? That was
just it,--there was no supplanting him. Shasha was withdrawing more
and more into his rôle of a man upon whom had been inflicted an insult
which could be wiped out only by blood, and his relations with Roman
resolved themselves merely into Roman’s dragging him around by his
“temples.” Shasha, to use Roman’s words, could make an angel lose his
patience,--it was impossible not to be dragging him around. And drag
him around Roman did. But the more he dragged him, the more unbearable
did Shasha become.
Who but he should have taken pride in the house, the might, the ways
of his father? His father would yell at him, in the presence of
guests: “Go on, now, be a trifle more free and easy, you dolt!” But
then, that was the way of those whom his father imitated, the way of
the merchants; and was it not a matter for the highest pride to feel
one’s self a merchant’s son? At times his father would even boast
about him, self-complacently saying to the guest: “Wait, I’ll show
youse my son!”--and would shout all over the house: “Shash, c’mon
over here,--Mikolai Mikhalich wants to have a look at ye!” But, oh,
the way Shasha would enter the room where his father and the guest
were sitting! He would enter with his face crimsoning, glowering from
underneath his beetling and knit eye-brows, holding his arms stiffly
akimbo, like a pretzel, and stepping still more stiffly, toeing in,
and as elegantly as if he, were dancing the fifth figure of the
quadrille,--and, having made a scraping bow to the guest, he would
instantly rush backward to the window, toward the lintel of the door;
blowing out his nostrils, he would tear his hang-nails with his teeth,
and, in the expectation of an affront from the visitor, answered all
questions with the most ludicrous brevity and abruptness.... How, then,
could one refrain from beating him? The guest would depart; Roman,
having seen him off, would walk up to Shasha without a word, and,
swinging back his arm, would grab Shasha fast by his hair. Without a
word, Shasha would extricate his head out of his father’s fingers, and,
having run out into the anteroom, would smite his bosom with his fist:
“All r-r-right, father! I say nothing! I always say nothing!” he would
hiss ominously.
“Why, she-animal that you are!” Roman would bawl at him. “Why, it’s for
this same silence and hoiti-toitiness that I’m a-beating you of! So,
then, you’re striving for the beating yourself? Why? Wherefore?”
“My ashes when I’m laid in my grave shall know it all!” Shasha would
answer ferociously and enigmatically.