I
The first night of Passover. It is already about ten o'clock. Outside it
is dark, wet, cold as the grave. A fine, close, sleety rain is driving
down, a light, sharp, fitful wind blows, whistles, sighs, and whines,
and wanders round on every side, like a returned and sinful soul seeking
means to qualify for eternal bliss. The mud is very thick, and reaches
nearly to the waist.
At one end of the town of Kamenivke, in the Poor People's Street, which
runs along by the bath-house, it is darkest of all, and muddiest. The
houses there are small, low, and overhanging, tumbled together in such a
way that there is no seeing where the mud begins and the dwelling ends.
No gleam of light, even in the windows. Either the inhabitants of the
street are all asleep, resting their tired bones and aching limbs, or
else they all lie suffocated in the sea of mud, simply because the mud
is higher than the windows. Whatever the reason, the street is quiet as
a God's-acre, and the darkness may be felt with the hands.
Suddenly the dead stillness of the street is broken by the heavy tread
of some ponderous creature, walking and plunging through the Kamenivke
mud, and there appears the tall, broad figure of a man. He staggers like
one tipsy or sick, but he keeps on in a straight line, at an even pace,
like one born and bred and doomed to die in the familiar mud, till he
drags his way to a low, crouching house at the very end of the street,
almost under the hillside. It grows lighter--a bright flame shines
through the little window-panes. He has not reached the door before it
opens, and a shaky, tearful voice, full of melancholy, pain, and woe,
breaks the hush a second time this night:
"Bertzi, is it you? Are you all right? So late? Has there been another
accident? And the cart and the horse, wu senen?"
"All right, all right! A happy holiday!"
His voice is rough, hoarse, and muffled.
She lets him into the passage, and opens the inner door.
But scarcely is he conscious of the light, warmth, and cleanliness of
the room, when he gives a strange, wild cry, takes one leap, like a
hare, onto the "eating-couch" spread for him on the red-painted, wooden
sofa, and--he lies already in a deep sleep.