We lived together in a dream. I worked automatically, saw nothing and
did not wish to see anything. I hurried home to my wife and walked with
her in the fields and in the woods.
My past came back to me. I caught birds and our home became light and
airy with the cages which were hung on the walls and the singing of the
birds. My gentle wife loved them, and when I came home she told me how
the tomtit behaved and how the client-finch sang.
In the evening I read Minea or the Prologue, but more often I spoke to
my wife of my childhood and of Larion and Savelko; how they sang songs
to the Lord and how they talked about Him. I told her about crazy old
Vlassi, who was dead by this time. I told her everything that I knew,
and it seemed that I knew very much about man and birds and fish. I
cannot describe my happiness in words, for a man who has never known
happiness and only enjoys it for a little time, never can describe it.
We went together to church and stood next to each other in a corner
and prayed in unison. I offered prayers of thanks to God in order to
praise Him, though not without secret pride, for it seemed to me that
I had conquered God's might and forced Him, against His will, to make
me happy. He had given in to me and I praised Him for it:
"Thou hast done well, O Lord," I said, "but it is only just and right,
what Thou hast done."
Oh, the miserable paganism of it!
The winter passed like one long day of joy. One day Olga confided to
me that she was to become a mother. It was a new happiness for us. My
father-in-law murmured something indistinctly and my mother-in-law
looked with pity at my wife.
I began to think of bettering my condition a little; I decided to have
a beehive, and I called it "Larion's Garden," so that it should bring
me luck. Also, I planned to have a vegetable garden, and to breed
song-birds, and I thought of doing things which would bring no harm to
man. One day Titoff said to me, quite harshly:
"You have become so sugar-coated, Matvei; see that you do not get sour.
You will have a child in the summer. Have you forgotten that?"
I had already wished to tell him the truth as I understood it then, so
I said to him:
"I have sinned as much as I wished. I have become like you in
sins--just as you desired. But to become worse than you, that I will
not."
"I do not understand what you mean," he answered. "I only want to
explain to you that seventy-two rubles a year for a man and a family
is not much; and I will not permit you to squander my daughter's
dowry. You must consider things well. Your wisdom is in reality hatred
of me because I am more clever than you. But that will help neither you
nor me. Each one is a saint just so long as the devil doesn't catch
him."
I could have beaten him well, but out of consideration for Olga I
restrained myself.
In the village it was known that I did not get on well with my
father-in-law, and the people began to look at me in a friendlier way.
As for myself, happiness had made me more gentle, and Olga, too, was
mild and good of heart.
In order to save the peasants from loss I began to give in to them here
and there; helped one and spoke up for another. The village is like a
glass house, where every one can look in, and so pretty soon Titoff
said to me:
"You again wish to bribe God."
I decided to drop my work in the office and said to my wife:
"I earn six rubles a month, and with my birds I can make more."
But the poor child became sad. "Do whatever you want," she answered,
"only let us not become beggars. I am sorry for my father," she added.
"He wanted to do the best by us, and has taken many sins upon his soul
for our sakes."
"Ah, my dear one," I thought, "his well-wishing weighs heavily enough
on me."
Some days later I told my father-in-law that I was going to leave the
office.
"To become a soldier?" he asked, smiling ironically.
I was hurt to the quick. I felt that he was ready to do anything
against me, and it would not be difficult for him to harm me,
considering who his acquaintances were. If I became a soldier I would
be lost. Even for the love he bore his daughter he would not save me.
My hands became more and more tied. My wife wept in secret and went
about with red eyes.
"What is the matter, Olga?" I asked her.
And she answered: "I do not feel well."
I remembered the oath I had made to her, and I became ashamed and
embarrassed. One step and my problem would be settled, but I pitied the
beloved woman. Had I not had Olga on my hands I would have even become
a soldier to get out of Titoff's clutches.
Toward the end of June a son was born to us, and again for some time
I was as if dazed. The travail was difficult, Olga screamed, and my
heart almost burst with fear. Titoff looked into the room gloomily,
though most of the time he stood in the court and trembled. He leaned
against the staircase, wrung his hands, let his head hang and muttered
to himself:
"She will die. My whole life was useless. O Lord, have mercy! When you
shall have children, Matvei, then you will know my pain and you will
understand my life; and you will cease to curse others for their sins."
At this moment I really pitied him. I walked up and down the court and
thought:
"Again Thou threatenest me, O Lord. Again Thy hand is raised against
me. Thou shouldst give me time to better myself and to find the
straight path. Why art Thou so miserly with Thy grace? Is it not in Thy
goodness that all Thy strength and power lie?"
When I remember these words now I grow ashamed at my foolishness.
My child was born and my wife became changed. Her voice was louder,
her body taller, and in her attitude toward me there was a change,
too. She counted every bite she gave me, although she was not exactly
stingy. She gave alms less and less often and always reminded me of the
peasants' debts to us. Even if it were only five rubles, she thought it
worth while to remind me of it. At first I thought, "that will pass."
I became more and more interested in the breeding of my birds. I went
twice a month to town with my cages and brought five rubles or more
each time I returned. We had a cow and a dozen hens. What more did we
want?
But Olga's eyes had an unpleasant light in them. When I brought her a
gift from town she reproached me:
"Why did you do that? You should rather have saved the money."
It was hard to bear, and in order to get over it, I worked the harder
among my birds. I went into the woods, laid the net and the snares,
stretched myself out on the ground, whistled low and thought. My soul
was quiet; not a wish stirred in me. A thought arose, moved my heart
and vanished again into the unknown, as a stone sinks into the sea. It
left ripples on my soul; they were feelings about God.
At such times I looked upon the clear sky, the blue space, the woods
clothed in golden autumn garments or in silvery winter treasure, and
the river, the fields and the hills, the stars and the flowers, and saw
them as God. All that was beautiful was of God and all that was of God
was related to the soul.
But when I thought of man, my heart started as a bird does when
frightened in its sleep. I was perplexed and I thought about life. I
could not unite the great beauty of God with the dark, poverty-stricken
life of man. The luminous God was somewhere far off, in His own
strength, in His own pride. And man, separated from Him, lived in
wretchedness and want.
Why were the children of God sacrificed to misery and hunger--Why were
they lowered and dragged to the earth as worms in the mud? Why did God
permit it? How could it give Him joy to see this degradation of His own
work?
Where was the man who saw God and His beauty? The soul of man is
blinded through the black misery of the day. To be satisfied is
considered a joy; to be rich a happiness. Man looks for the freedom to
sin; but to be free from sin, that is unknown to him. Where is there in
him the strength of fatherly love, where the beauty of God? Does God
exist? Where is the God-like?
Suddenly I felt a hazy intuition, a slight thought. It encircled and
hid everything. My soul became empty and cold, like a field in winter.
At this time, I did not dare express my thoughts in words, but even
if they did not appear before me clothed in words, still I felt their
power and dreaded them, and was afraid, as a little child in a dark
cave. I jumped up, took my hunting traps with me, and hurried from the
house. To rid myself of my sickly fear, I sang as I hurried along.
The people in the village laughed at me. A catcher of birds is not
especially respected in the country, and Olga sighed heavily many
times; for it seemed to her, too, that my occupation was something to
be ashamed of. My father-in-law gave me long lectures, but I did not
answer. I waited for autumn. Perhaps I would draw a lucky number and
not have to serve in the military, and so escape this terrible abyss.
My wife became with child again, and her sadness increased.
"What is the matter, Olga?" I asked.
At first she evaded the question and made believe that nothing was
troubling her. But one day she embraced me and said:
"I shall die, Matvei--I shall die in childbirth."
I knew that women often talk thus, still I was frightened. I tried to
comfort her, but she would not listen to me.
"You will remain alone again," she said, "beloved by none. You are so
difficult and so haughty toward all. I ask you for the sake of the
children, don't be so proud. We are all sinners, before God, and you
also."
She spoke this way often to me, and I was wretched with pity and fear
for her.
As to my father-in-law, I had made a sort of truce with him, and he
immediately made use of it in his own way:
"Here, Matvei, sign this," or "Do not write that."
Things were coming to a climax. We were, close to the recruiting time,
and a second child was soon expected. The recruits were making holiday
in the village. They called me out, but I refused to go, and they broke
my windows for me.
The day came when I had to go to town to draw my lot. Olga was
already afraid at this time to leave the house, and my father-in-law
accompanied me and during the whole way he impressed it upon me what
trouble he had taken for me, how much money he had spent and how
everything had been arranged for my benefit.
"Perhaps it is all in vain," I said.
And so it was. My number came along the last, and I was free. Titoff
could hardly believe my luck and he laughed at me gloomily.
"It seems really that God is with you."
I did not answer, but I was unspeakably happy. My freedom meant
everything to me--everything that oppressed my soul. And above all, it
meant freedom from my dear father-in-law.
At home Olga's joy was great. She wept and laughed, the dear one;
praised and caressed me as if I had killed a bear.
"God be praised," she said; "now I can die in peace."
I poked fun at her, but at the bottom of my heart I felt badly, for I
knew that she believed in her death--a ruinous belief, which destroys
the life force in man.
Three days later her travail began. For two long days she suffered
horrible agony, and on the third day it was ended, after giving birth
to a still-born child--ended as she had believed, my dear, sweet one.
I do not remember the burial, for I was as if blind and deaf for some
time afterward. It was Titoff who woke me. I was at Olga's grave, and
I can see him now as he stood before me and looked into my face, and
said:
"So, Matvei, it is for the second time that we meet near the dead. Here
our friendship was born. Here it should be strengthened anew."
I looked about me as if I had found myself on earth for the first
time. The rain drizzled, a mist surrounded everything, in which the
bare trees swayed and the crosses on the tombstones swam and vanished.
Everything looked dressed, garbed in cold, and in a piercing dampness
which was difficult to breathe, as if the rain and the mist had sucked
up all the air.
"What do you want? Go away from here," I said to Titoff.
"I want you to understand my pain. Perhaps because I hindered you from
living out your own life God has now punished me by taking away my
daughter."
The earth under my feet was melting and turned into sticky mud, which
seemed to drag down my feet. I clutched him, threw him on the ground as
if he were a sack of bran.
"Damn you!" I shouted.
A mad, wild period began for me. I could not hold my head up. I was as
if struck down by some strong hand and lay stretched out powerless on
the ground. My heart was full of pain and I was outraged with God. I
looked up at the holy images and hurried away as fast as I could, for
I wanted to quarrel, not to repent. I knew that according to the law I
had to do penance and should have said:
"Thy will be done, O Lord. Thy hand is heavy, but righteous; Thy wrath
is great yet beneficent."
My conscience did not let me say such words. I remained standing, lost
in my thoughts, and was unable to find myself.
"Has this blow fallen upon me," I thought, "because I doubted Thy
existence in secret?"
This thought terrified me and I found excuses for myself:
"It was not Thy existence that I doubted, but Thy mercy; for it seemed
to me that we are all abandoned by Thee without help and without
guidance."
My soul was unbearably tortured; I could not sleep; I could do nothing.
At night dark shadows tried to strangle me. Olga appeared before me. My
heart was overcome with fear and I had no more strength to live.
I decided to hang myself.
It was night. I lay dressed on my bed. I glanced about me. I could see
my poor, innocent wife before me, her blue eyes shining with a quiet
light and calling me. The moon shone through the window and its bright
reflection lay upon the floor and only increased the darkness in my
soul.
I jumped up, took the rope from my bird snare, hammered a nail into the
beam of the roof, made a noose and fixed the chair. I had already taken
off my coat and tom off my collar, when suddenly I saw a little face
appear indistinctly and mysteriously on the wall. I could have screamed
with fear, though I understood that it was my own face which looked
back at me from Olga's round mirror. I looked insane--so distracted and
wretched, with my hair wild, my cheeks sunken in, my nose sharp, my
mouth half open as with asthma, and my eyes agonized, full of a deep,
great pain.
I pitied this human face; I pitied it for the beauty that had gone out
of it, and I sat down on the bench and wept over myself, as a child who
is hurt. After those tears the noose seemed something to be ashamed of,
like a joke against myself. And in wrath I tore it down and threw it
into the corner of the room. Death was also a riddle, but I had not yet
answered the riddle of life!
What should I do? Some more days passed. It was as if I were seeking
peace. I must do penance, I thought, and I gritted my teeth and went to
the priest.
I visited him one Sunday evening, just as he and his wife were at table
drinking tea. Four children sat around them. Drops of sweat shone on
the dark face of the priest, as scales on a fish.
"Sit down," he said, good-naturedly, "and drink some tea with us."
The room was warm and dry; everything was clean and in order. It
occurred to me how negligent this priest was in the performance of his
church duties, and the thought came to me, "This, then, is his church."
I was not sufficiently humble.
"Well, Matvei, you suffer?" the priest asked.
"Yes," I answered.
"Ah, then you must say the Forty-Day prayers. Does she appear in dreams
to you?"
"Yes."
"Then only the Forty-Day prayer will help you. That is certain."
I remained silent. I could not speak before the wife of the priest. I
did not like her. She was a large, stout, short-winded woman, with a
broad, fat face. She lent money on interest.
"Pray earnestly," the priest said to me. "And do not eat your heart. It
is a sin against the Lord. He knows what He does."
"Does He really know?" I asked.
"Certainly. Oh, oh, my young man, I know well that you are proud toward
people, but do not dare to carry your pride against the laws of God.
You will be punished a hundredfold more severely. This sour stuff which
ferments in you comes from the time of Larion, does it not? I know the
heresies which he committed when he was drunk--remember this!"
Here the priest's wife interrupted:
"They should have sent that Larion to a monastery, but the father was
too good and did not even complain about him."
"That is not true," I answered. "He did complain, but not on account
of his opinions, but because of his negligence, for which the father
himself was to blame."
We began to quarrel. First he reproached me for my insolence, and then
he began talking about things which I knew just as well as he, but the
meaning of which, in his anger, he changed. And then they both began,
he as well as his wife, to insult me.
"You are both rascals," they cried, "you and your father-in-law! You
have robbed the church. The swampy field belonged to the church from
time immemorial, and that is why God has punished you."
"You are right," I said. "The swampy field was taken from you unjustly.
But you yourself had taken it away from the peasants."
I rose and wanted to go.
"Stop!" cried the priest, "and the money for the Forty-Day prayer?"
"It is not necessary," I answered.
I went out and thought: "Here you have found comfort for your soul,
Matvei."
Three days later, Sasha, my little son, died. He had mistaken arsenic
for sugar, and eaten it.
His death made no impression on me. I had become cold and indifferent
to everything.