(From _The Pictorial Review_)
Sabinka lay buried in snow. The hills, the forest, the lake, all lay
hard, white, glittering, and the air also glittered and stung and cut.
Looking toward the village, the two rows of huts looked small,
insignificant, mere specks of time-grayed timber weighed down with
snow. Over each speck a thread of smoke rose, going straight up into
the still, glittering air. Within, doors and windows sealed, the
peasants huddled for warmth, here and there, together with their
animals, to keep them alive, or for the life that they could give.
In the chimneyless huts even the smoke was kept in for the warmth it
gave. It poured from the oven into the room and hung there from the
ceiling. Beneath it the peasants went about, their bodies bent to
the ground. When at last the smoke settled on ceiling and walls they
still went about bent, from habit now, and peering with weakened eyes.
Then winter ended! Suddenly, as if it spent itself in its own
cruelty, it ended. The sun came out warm. From the ragged straw roofs
of the huts the snow slipped and melted and fell in a thick shower.
Birds appeared. The peasants came out to look at their fields. Their
faces were sallow and pinched, and the smoke soaked into the skin
showed plainer in the strong light.
The snow blackened with every moment, and suddenly the earth lay
bare. The men began to scatter over the fields. The women tended
nearer home.
One afternoon, when the air was sweet with the warmth and the
moisture of the earth, and in the pastures about the village Sabinka
a tint of green showed faintly, Katherina came to her husband,
Gavrelo, where he was mending the fence around the field to be
planted with wheat.
“Gavrelo,” she said, “I have come to plead with you again about the
marriage portion of our daughter Natalka.” She stood meekly, a clumsy
little body in a red plaid shawl. Her face was steaming with heat and
perspiration, and her worn birch-bark sandals were clogged with earth
from the soggy fields.
Gavrelo had not looked up when she had been coming to him through
the fields, and now it was as if she were not there. Near him lay a
pile of poles, a heap of freshly cut twigs and a hatchet. He selected
a long, pliant twig and began twisting it in and out between two
poles as a bar-rest. His face was sullen. He was short and wide and
brown; his thick hair and beard, and worn homespun clothes, and his
weather-beaten skin, all were brown. He was like the powerful trees
about him, and, like these deep-rooted trees, he looked as capable of
being moved.
Katherina turned her eyes away from him. It crushed her to see him
so. It had always crushed her--even so long ago when he used to come
to court her at her father’s house--the way he would sit there of a
Sunday, sullen, silent, never a kind word, never a smile, contrary,
scowling at the whole world.
“Gavrelo,” she repeated her sentences in a way peculiar to the people
of Sabinka, “I have come to plead with you about Natalka’s marriage
portion.” Her voice was full of restrained passion.
“Look, Gavrelo, at your home.” She pointed to a hut across the great
field. In one of the two dingy windows a young girl could be seen,
though vaguely, at a spinning-board.
“There is your home. Moldy and rotten, it is sinking to the ground.
You were supposed to have built twenty years ago, soon after we were
married. All you have built are barns. There they stand, shaming your
house. And there is your daughter, as pretty as the prettiest in
Sabinka, in that rotting home. Yet, Gavrelo, have I ever pestered you
about it? But now it is about Natalka that I beg you.” Her clumsy
little body leaned toward him. But her voice became more patient,
more restrained.
“Gavrelko!” She used the diminutive, and then stood dumbly looking
down a moment. Yes, she could have cared for him if he had let her.
“Gavrelko, you are not going to send Natalka away without a portion
to her husband’s home, a strange home in a strange village! You are
not going to do it!”
Dumb and silent, Gavrelo’s scowl never relaxed. It was always so,
always--except--except when he stood looking at his fields--at his
wheat. Then his furrowed face smoothed and the light in his eyes
reflected the light in the fields.
Gavrelo now selected a long pole, sharpened it, and began driving it
into the ground. “Hagh!” his breath echoed, and the pole sank deep
into the earth.
“And you have so much, Gavrelo.” She glanced about. Their hut stood
a good distance away from the village, and all surrounding it was
Gavrelo’s.
“All that, all about us is yours, and your barns are stacked with
wheat. You will not send Natalka away with empty hands.” Her own
clasped in agony. “You won’t do it. I know, Gavrelo, how bitter it is
to come with empty hands.” Her head drooped, her voice sank low.
“I know how it is. I came to your home, Gavrelo, without a portion.
My people were very poor. You have never thrown it up to me, Gavrelo,
but your mother cast it in my face every day as long as she lived.
And I was never able to lift my head.”
Gavrelo’s face was turned from her, and he worked on steadily.
“And Natalka, too, is marrying into a large family. It is perhaps
a disadvantage to marry into a large family. There are so many to
find fault with your ways, a mother-in-law and sisters-in-law and
brothers-in-law. All watching and criticizing you. And when you
have come without a portion--Ach! Gavrelko! They will throw it up
to her, the mother-in-law and the sisters-in-law--and--and even
Simyonka--Simyonka is a fine fellow. And yet--in a quarrel--would
he not remember?” She began to weep passionately. “You won’t do it,
Gavrelo. And Natalka has really earned it. You know how she can spin
and weave. Her cloth is straight and fine. And during the harvest she
has been among the quickest hands. You won’t bring this shame upon
her, Gavrelo!”
Gavrelo turned to her. At last she had touched him. His face was
distorted with anger, and he stopped his work for a moment. “Why does
she want to marry, the fool!” The words burst from him through his
teeth, and he bent down to pick up his tools. He had finished the
fence. Katherina stared at him.
“What--what else do you expect? Oh! It is a harvest hand you are
thinking of!” Then realizing that he was going, she ran to him.
“Gavrelo!” she cried, “what do you say? What will you say when at the
wedding Simyonka’s father will ask, ‘And what do you give Natalka as
her portion?’ What will you say, Gavrelo?”
Gavrelo lifted a few poles to his shoulder and slipped the hatchet
into his girdle. “I told you,” he said doggedly. “Simyonka has
enough!” And he walked away with his long, even stride, his sandals
making deep prints in the soft earth.
Katherina staggered to the newly mended fence and buried her face in
her arms. “_Ach, Boshi Moi!_” she cried. With the habit of the lonely
she talked to herself. Gavrelo did not tolerate neighbors. Indeed, he
was hated because of his hardness and meanness.
“Life is bitter,” she wept. Her own had been a cruel fate.
“You have come like a beggar.” Her mother-in-law had cast it in her
face. And now her own fate was to be Natalka’s fate! And why? Because
Gavrelo was an unnatural father, because he was stingy and cared for
nothing--but--his fields, his wheat, more and more wheat. His barns
were stacked with wheat. He kept them under lock and key, and he
sowed still more wheat. She raised her head and looked about. This
field was to be all wheat, acres and acres. And Natalka was to go
to her husband like a beggar. “They will throw it up to her, the
mother-in-law and the sisters-in-law. And Natalka is young; she will
never be able to lift her head!” Her own head sank into her arms
again.
It was late when she started for the hut. The red sun hung on the
very edge of the forest. She picked her way to a back road not far
off which would be less soggy than the fields, though roundabout and
longer. Trudging along, her eyes on the path, her sandals heavy with
the mud, she at once upbraided and defended Gavrelo, and analyzed and
schemed.
It would take so little to give Natalka a fine portion. There, for
instance, was the little pig, only a year old, but so aggressive that
he had to be fed with the old hogs. Parshuchuck would be an excellent
gift. He could take care of himself anywhere. Even in a litter of
strange pigs he could hold his own. Also there was Chulka, a heifer,
for whom no fence was too high. She used her knobby little horns with
such skill that often won a long stare of surprise from the old cows.
Chulka, too, could take care of herself in a strange herd. These two
would be an excellent gift. It would be pleasant for little Natalka
to have something of her own that was alive, in a strange home, in a
strange village. Parshuchuck and Chulka might even be an example to
her, not to bend her head too low.
But what was the use in thinking about it? “Ach! The mean peasant!
The unnatural father!” She stumbled, unable to see the path through
her tears.
“Bah! They are fools, those wise men,” she shook her head
disgustedly. “They are fools who say that it is better to have a
relative rich, though a miser, than one who is poor and generous.
Both are like death. Can you take from the miser? Nor can you take
from the one who has nothing to give.”
Presently, on reaching a sudden turn in the road, she heard a merry
voice babbling incoherent fits of song. That was Addom on his way
home from the _kabock_. Addom was a drunkard. He drank like a fish.
Addom, too, was often idle, she mused. Gavrelo never drank, though
he liked a glass of vodka. But what would Gavrelo do in a _kabock_
where men talked as they drank? Gavrelo never talked to any one. He
only worked. That was why her parents had made her marry him instead
of Addom, who drank and who never kept his word, just as Gavrelo
never broke his word. But Addom’s daughter Anulia, who was also to
marry this spring, was to receive one of her father’s two cows as her
wedding-gift. Anulia Addom also wore machine-made stockings which she
bought from the Jewess Deborah--stockings and boots every Sunday!
Natalka bound her ankles in cloths and wore birch-bark sandals
to church. Katherina shook her head. A man who drank was perhaps
better-natured, more generous.
Reaching the yard, she saw Natalka still in the window spinning.
Natalka was eighteen. She was small like her mother, but she was rosy
and healthy. Her hair lay in two thick, brown braids on her back. Her
faded red kerchief was tied with a coquettish knot, and her little
round nose had a mischievous tilt. But just now she was neither
coquettish nor mischievous. She was very earnest. Her wedding was
to be the first in the village this spring, and she was hurrying to
finish all her mother’s spinning before it came. Her hands twirled
the spindle rapidly; her head scarcely moved except to moisten the
thread with her lips, or to extricate a knot in the flax with her
small white teeth.
Katherina watched her a moment. Should she tell her--that her father
would send her away with empty hands? No! There was time enough.
But as she stood watching she saw Natalka stop her work suddenly;
her hands became still, her head drooped for a moment. In agony,
Katherina wondered. Could she know, then? Perhaps she guessed!
Katherina turned away from the window.
About the yard all the buildings stood facing in a semicircle, the
hut, the barns, the pig-pen, the chicken-coop. Katherina went toward
the coop. In the barn she heard Gavrelo. He rarely forgot the keys.
“He rarely forgets them,” she muttered to herself. The corners of
her mouth lifted firmly. “Well, Natalka shall have a fine trousseau,
anyway. Her _kubial_, at any rate, shall not go off empty!”
Late that night the full moon rose, and Sabinka, with its two rows
of huts, its hills and dales and lakes, lay transformed in silver
light.
In the shadow of the fences a woman went stealing along. Climbing,
here forcing a way through the bars, running a step where the shadow
broke, and again lingering where it resumed, she reached a small hut
standing in the full light. She rapped on the door and shook the
latch impatiently.
“Open, Deborah!” she whispered. “It is I, Katherina.” A tall, thin
woman with a white kerchief about her head came out on the threshold.
“So late, Katherina!”
“Yes, and I must hurry back. Here.” Katherina took a large ball of
thread from her _swita_ pocket. “You are to knit a pair of stockings
for my daughter Natalka’s wedding,” she whispered. “But mind,
Jewess,” her voice rose suspiciously, “you are to return to me what
is left of the thread.”
“We are not thieves!” came from Deborah in a tone hurt, yet patient.
“Well, perhaps not,” Katherina said, softening slightly. “Perhaps
not. But all Jews are swindlers.”
“We are what we are forced to be.” Restraint and infinite patience
were in Deborah’s voice. Hesitating an instant, she turned suddenly.
“Look, Katherina, would you not much rather come along the road, in
the light of day, to order stockings for Natalka, instead----”
“Do you mean to insinuate, Jewess?” Katherina flamed.
“No, no,” Deborah hastened to assure her. “I am not insulting you. I
am not blaming you. I just want you to see, Katherina, how one may be
forced to become what one does not want to be.”
“Well,” said Katherina, somewhat mollified, “I suppose so. I suppose
Jews, like people, have their troubles.”
Carefully she put her hand into her bosom and counted slowly six
eggs into the apron Deborah held out. “There,” she said, brushing
her hands with an air as if the transaction was quite satisfactorily
completed.
“My dear Katherina!” Deborah exclaimed, “you expect me to knit a pair
of stockings for six eggs?”
“How much then?” Katherina’s voice was suspicious again and cross.
“Twelve, Katherina; at least twelve. This is not winter, you know.”
“In the next village----”
“I know,” Deborah broke in. “In the next village lives a Jewess who
knits a pair of stockings for six eggs. Don’t believe it, Katherina.
It’s a fairy-tale. Anyway, I cannot do it. We have to live, too. And
little Miriam is growing up. There is no chance for a penniless girl
here, a girl without a dowry.” Deborah’s voice came brooding.
Katherina put her hand into her _swita_ again. The trouble of a dowry
she could easily understand.
“Here, Deborah,” she said sympathetically, “here are twelve eggs. But
remember every inch of the thread you are to return. And don’t let
your blind mother-in-law knit the stockings. She might drop a stitch!”
A whispered good night followed, and Katherina stole forth into the
shadows again.
The village peeped through a mist of tender green buds. Warm
sunshine, dazzling blue skies were continuous. Scattered over the
fields far and near the peasants were. Mere specks between earth and
sky, their bodies moved slowly, heavily, all day long. Nearer the
homes the women labored, digging in the gardens, bleaching at the
lake. At dawn and after dark they took the time to prepare for the
weddings in the village.
When the mud in the road had dried a peddler came driving through the
village with summer finery and pots to sell.
“Pots to sell! Earthen pots to sell!” the peddler cried in a ringing
voice. And the dogs barked, and the children stared, and the women
left their work and hurried to the wagon with their bundles of rags.
Katherina was digging a draining-canal between two long beds in the
garden. When the peddler stopped at her gate she left her spade and
looked around. Natalka was at the lake bleaching. And Gavrelo--she
could see him in a far field, his arm swinging rhythmically back and
forth. Hastening to the outhouse, she came out with two bundles,
one of rags, and one small sackful of wheat. She carried it with
difficulty and threw it over the fence into the road, where it lay
hidden among some weeds.
“Did you see, little Jew?” she called to the peddler. “It is wheat!”
“I saw,” the peddler answered significantly. He was as accustomed to
this kind of transaction among the peasants as they themselves were.
Katherina hurried out to the wagon and climbed onto the axle.
“Quick, little Jew, let me see what you have. And don’t think you
can rob me. Wheat is dear now! Have you ribbons? And I want two red
bandannas, but of different patterns. And show me beads. Have you got
rings? Yes, show me that one with the red stone.”
And the peddler measured, using the length of his arm, and watched
Katherina. And she picked and fussed and worried in indecision, her
eyes never quite leaving the distant field where Gavrelo was working.
Her selections made finally, she gathered them into her apron
jealously, and a haggling ensued between the two, not unlike the
transaction some weeks earlier at Deborah’s hut.
“Now, peddler, how much? That sack of wheat is almost a bushel.”
“Almost!” he cried. “That should have been a full bushel for all you
have taken.”
“Don’t shriek!” she paled. “There are those rags. What do you give
for the rags?”
“The rags go to make up the full bushel of wheat.” His dark eyes
snapped.
“Oh, very well,” she said. “Take it! Take it! You are a robber.” She
climbed down and hurried away. The peddler threw his bundles into the
wagon and touched his pony with the end of his whip, his dark eyes
measuring the distance to the next hut.
Katherina breathed a sigh of relief as his wagon creaked away, and
she slowly entered the deep interior of the outhouse which adjoined
the living room. It was late afternoon, and the road was hot and
dusty. But here it was cool and dark; the only light came from the
door opening on the garden path.
In the dimmest corner Natalka’s _kubial_ stood, filled with her
trousseau. Katherina reached it by a small step-ladder and dipped
down into its tank-like body. She touched and patted the cool,
smooth linens, heavily embroidered and plain pieces. She added the
newly-purchased treasures. Yes, Natalka’s _kubial_ was filling--but
of the portion there was no prospect. She sighed hopelessly. There
was no prospect, and the day of the wedding was drawing nearer.
Gavrelo had ordered vodka from the _kabock_, and told her she might
have all the pork she wanted for the wedding-feast. But that was all.
Natalka must enter into a strange family owning nothing, come with
nothing belonging to her, nothing familiar. Everything she will look
at will be strange, his! Nothing that she had brought, that she could
feel pride in. “_Ach, Boshi Moi!_”
She finally climbed down the ladder. It had grown late. Outside the
mellow sunset lay full on the path and the bit of road she could see
before the gate. But in the outhouse the dimness was quite deep. And
the living room, through its door, looked out at her, a dark hole
with its sooty walls; the two tiny windows in it admitted but little
light. Only one bright spot--the icon in vivid red and blue of the
“Gracious Mother” looked out at her from the dimness.
“_Boshi Moi!_” Katherina’s eyes went out to it in a dumb appeal,
“_Boshi Moi!_” Wearily she sat down after a moment on the lower step
of the ladder. Voices came from the road. Presently she saw, from
her seclusion, Natalka and Simyonka enter through the gate. Their
young forms stood out clean, clear, in the soft light. This was
Simyonka’s market day, she remembered. He had evidently met Natalka
at the lake on his way from market. They were talking heatedly. The
little chit Natalka was arguing, smiling, coquetting. The youth
seemed to be entreating her, begging earnestly. Simyonka was not much
older than Natalka. He was tall and lean and brown, clean-featured,
clean-looking in his coarse, home-spun linen. Katherina watched, and
her soul filled with gratitude that he was so beautiful, for Natalka.
They came a few steps nearer on the garden path and she caught their
words.
“Just one! Just one, Natalka!” His face was lifted. His eyes were
beseeching her. And Natalka, laughing, radiant, mischievous, turned
and was backing away from him toward the house, her hand raised
between them.
“_Lublue ya tibya._” (I love thee.)
With the palm of her hand against his mouth, she pressed him away. He
was murmuring, “You are like a little flower, Natalka. You are like a
little birch-tree, a little white birch growing in the field.”
Katherina’s own face was radiant. “_Ya tibya lublue._” He loves her!
Yes, he loves her. She herself had never known such love. “Simyonka
loves Natalka!” The words filled her with dizzy joy.
Then her face twisted with agony. But soon, very soon, he would look
upon her with shame! At once! At her wedding! His father will ask
Gavrelo, “What is your daughter’s portion?” And Gavrelo will say,
“Nothing!” And the whole village will laugh and jeer. And little
Natalka will bend her head with shame. And later, again, when he
brings her home and the villagers and relatives gather about him, and
he has nothing of hers that he could tell them she brought, that he
could show--
She rose. Carried away by this thought, she no longer saw nor heard
them outside, and she went staggering into the living room of the hut
and fell upon her knees before the icon.
“Gracious Mother Maria!” Her clumsy little body crumpled to the
hard-trodden earth.
“Blessed Mother Maria, can you hear me?” she pleaded in the crude
way of Sabinka people. “Can you hear me? I have come to beg of you
for Natalka. You know, Mother, I have never come to you for myself.
But now I come for her. Mother,” her voice rose brokenly, “you know
how hard my life has been. At home when I was young we were so poor.
Often I was hungry for just bread. In marriage--Gavrelo is a strange
person.” She fell silent a moment, her tears choking her.
“The children were all I had. And when little Zacharka died I felt
as if my heart would break, Mother. He was so sweet to look at with
his golden hair and blue eyes. He would have been fifteen years old
now. Oh, Mother! It is hard; it has been hard to see other little
lads in the village and not see Zacharka. In the spring, when the
sky is blue, and the fields are covered with grass, I miss little
Zacharka. I miss him when from each home in the village a little lad
goes forth with his father’s herd. The mothers wait for them all day,
and in the evening they meet them at the gate. I, too, wait all day,
but it is a strange little lad that brings our cattle home.” She lay
still, sobbing brokenly.
“It has been hard, Mother Maria. Yet, have I complained? But now I
beg pity for Natalka.” Her hands clasped, her forehead pressed to the
earth. “Pity, Mother, pity for Natalka!”
The trees were in full leaf. The meadows were dotted with the first
flowers. The wheat in the great field stood a foot high. It was
Saturday at dusk. The cattle had long passed, and the dust they
had stirred was laid. Swarms of tiny insects danced in the open
spaces of the road. Far out frogs croaked at regular intervals.
The air was warm and sweet with the breath of the flowers and the
dew. The village seemed quietly at rest. Yet there was a silent
stir--preparation for the morrow, the first wedding in Sabinka this
spring.
The fence enclosing Gavrelo’s hut was strung with branches of green
foliage. High over the gate a wreath of orange-colored flowers hung
to mark the bride’s dwelling. Inside the yard was swept clean and
sprinkled with yellow sand, and long benches stood along the walls.
On the doorstep of the outhouse Natalka sat with her two bridesmaids
trimming her veil. Natalka herself was making the little rosettes of
red or green ribbon, and the maids stitched them on all over the long
strip of white muslin. The maids were talking and giggling, their
heads bent over their work. Natalka was quiet and solemn.
In the deep interior of the outhouse Katherina was giving the last
touches to the _kubial_. She lifted and replaced and folded and
finally fitted the cover and slipped in the bar. It was done! Her
hands fell at her sides. Katherina had grown thinner, paler, more
pinched. Since she prayed before the icon she had spent the time from
day to day, from hour to hour, waiting. But nothing--nothing had
happened to save Natalka. Since that hour at dusk, she, Katherina,
had spent morning and night kneeling before the icon. She had been
to the cemetery many times, where her dead were laid, and hung their
moldy wooden crosses with new little aprons of many colors. She had
watched Gavrelo from day to day, hoping for a sign of relenting, of
softening. But none had come. Sullen, stolid, he went about as usual,
working early and late in the fields and at the barns, only coming
in to eat his three meals of black bread and cabbage soup, and to
sleep the few hours between the extreme dark and early dawn. Standing
there, she could hear him now at the barns, still working--still
working--while others were long at rest.
“Ach, Gavrelo!” she cried to him silently, “what is it all for? What
are you doing it for, Gavrelo?” She lifted her coarse apron and wiped
away stinging tears.
The shadow before the door had just fallen on the threshold. By clock
time it would have been perhaps ten in the morning. A wagon lined
with green leaves and buttercups, harnessed to four pair, stood at
the gate in the road. The horses were snorting and beating the ground
impatiently, and a sturdy youth sat holding the reins mightily.
Within, the yard flashed with color--red, short, wide skirts, blue
and green streamers, red bandannas, white shirts, patent-leather
boots, sparkling black or green beads, shining brass buttons.
The guests sat primly on the benches along the walls, chanting
solemnly. Katherina and Gavrelo sat among the elders of the village.
Gavrelo looked browner in a well-bleached shirt, and he was the only
man who wore birch sandals instead of boots. Katherina sat beside
him, her head swathed in a white linen scarf decorated with little
red crosses. Her head was bowed, her hands were folded in her lap,
her face as white as her scarf. Simyonka, in patent leather boots
and white shirt, looked solemn. Natalka was tearful. Natalka looked
like some strange wild-flower, a poppy perhaps, with all the red
and green, and her loose brown hair. Her scarf flashed with every
possible color. Her skirt was red; her breast was covered with many
strings of beads.
Suddenly the chanting stopped. A hush fell. Solemnly, between her
two maids, the bride rose to ask a blessing of her parents before
starting for church. She walked with studied and becoming dignity,
her head bowed, her hands clasped in front of her. She reached her
parents. And here she forgot her rôle. Overcome by emotion, she fell
upon her knees rather clumsily, humanly, and a low cry, half song,
half wail of the braid song, pierced the air.
“_Boshi Moi_----”
“My braids--my beautiful brown braids.”
Blindly and convulsed, Katherina rose and made the sign of the cross
over her. Gavrelo did the same. Katherina watched, still watched and
hoped for a sign of relenting. But his face looked more stubborn than
ever. And Katherina now suddenly knew that she must not expect him to
relent. When had Gavrelo ever relented that she should have expected
it? Fool that she was! It had always been just the contrary even when
it was to his own disadvantage. His word given became law. Fool that
she was to have expected Gavrelo to change his word!
Meanwhile, Natalka, kneeling before each guest for a blessing,
reached the gate. There was a burst of song. All pressed forward.
The horses pranced, a whip cracked and a cloud of dust rose before
the gate, and the bride was gone. Katherina and Gavrelo followed in
a vehicle. Dazed and crushed, she was sped along. What could now
happen? The beginning of Natalka’s shame a mere few hours off.
Noise and confusion filled the yard. There was a babble of voices,
thick voices, incoherent, affectionate, querulous, crying of
children, snatches of song, the strains of a fiddle rising a moment
over the clamor, a rhythmic thomp, thomp of dancing feet.
It was late in the afternoon. The bridal pair had long returned from
church. The yard was now divided in two parts. One-half was occupied
by the dancers, and in the other half two long tables stood spread
with food--roast pork, dishes heaped with sour pickles glistening in
juice, salt herring, thick slices of black bread, tall green bottles
of vodka, white and stinging.
The guests sat about the tables, while the children clamored at their
elders’ elbows. The feast was at its height. Among the men several
of the guests already lay under the table. Of the women most were
intoxicated. Some sat wagging their heads. Others were awakened now
and then to shrill merriment. Still others drank little and sat
chanting solemnly, keeping up dutifully the burden of the rites.
In the dancers’ corner several couples whirled in a quadrille. In one
of these Natalka flashed in and out. Natalka’s face was still solemn
and dignified. But a twinkle of mischief and coquettishness was in
her eyes. Her husband was dancing in the same quadrille. Whenever
they had to dance opposite each other her eyes teased him; her little
red hand extended and withdrew half-way, and Simyonka was tantalized
and radiant.
Further a circle of young folk surrounded the great-grandfather of
the village, dancing a jig.
His hands on his hips, his white beard flowing, his head high, a
smile on his lips, his aged limbs performed with wonderful agility.
He toed to the right, he toed to the left, here he crossed, there he
kneeled. And the fiddlers fiddled with all their might, and the women
clapped, and the men cheered and stamped.
“Trala-lala-lala.”
At one table Katherina sat among her guests. Leaning to this one and
that one, she urged:
“Another piece of pork? Some more _kvass_?” She herself neither
ate nor drank. Her face was ashen white. Her eyes were fastened on
Gavrelo, who sat at the side of Simyonka’s father. At the other table
Gavrelo, urged by Simyonka’s father, had drunk deeply. This was the
second time in his life he had drunk. His face was purple, he talked
incoherently, and he sat gazing about him helplessly, as if he could
not make out what had happened to him. Simyonka’s father was leaning
on the table to keep his balance; but being accustomed to vodka he
had not quite lost his wits.
“You--you half a fine stock of cattle,” he told Gavrelo, dealing him
a complimentary blow on the back. “You half fine cowsh!”
Gavrelo threw his head back to drain a glassful, and drew it back
with difficulty, then sat swaying.
“Fine cowsh,” mumbled Simyonka’s father. Gavrelo turned his head and
eyed his new relative with a vacant stare. Then came the dreaded
question. Katherina, watching from her table, sat as still as if cut
from stone.
“What--what ish Natalka’s portion, Gavrelo?” Many bleared eyes were
turned on Gavrelo. This would be the first time Gavrelo had given
anything in his life. Some of the villagers actually sobered for a
moment and stared.
“Natalka’s portion?” Simyonka’s father insisted with drunken
stubbornness.
Suddenly Katherina’s face turned from its ashen pallor to a live red.
Oh, yes! Yes! She would! Why not? She would do it, yes, she would!
Or why would it have come into her head? Could it be that the Sacred
Mother had not forgotten her? She sat a moment staring stupidly, then
rose quickly, elbowed her way to her husband and stood at his side.
“Natalka’s portion?” Simyonka’s father clamored with piggish
persistence. His voice rose to a squeal. Katherina bent over Gavrelo
and whispered.
“Say Parshuchuck.”
“Parshuchuck,” Gavrelo repeated, and looked up at her as though he
were trying to recognize her.
“Natalka’s portion a pig!” the father-in-law called out to the guests.
“And Chulka,” Katherina again whispered to her husband. Gavrelo
stared at her doubtfully, but repeated “Chulka.”
“And the large field of wheat,” Katherina urged hoarsely.
“Wheat!” repeated Gavrelo. His head fell forward and his mouth
dripped water.
“Three pishes!” Simyonka’s father bawled out.
“Three pieces!” It was repeated around the yard.
“Simyonka! You lucky hound!” a young man shrieked. All were now
staring, eyes bleared, at the three. Natalka came over to her mother.
Her face looked white and scared.
“_Matushka!_” she exclaimed, “what have you done?” And Katherina
suddenly realized that Natalka had known all along that her father
would give her nothing.
“It is all right,” Katherina said. “Go dance. Go. But tell Simyonka
to come and fetch his father-in-law to a cool place. And Natalka--you
better tell Simyonka to take the pig and the heifer tonight. The
wheat you will get in the fall.”
“But, _Matushka_----”
“It is all right, Natalka. You know your father is a man of his word.
Go dance.”
A few minutes later Gavrelo lay stretched on a bench in the cool, dim
outhouse. Natalka and Simyonka were congratulated on their generous
portion. New quadrilles were formed, a new jig was being danced.
Katherina went back and sat among her guests. And as she clapped her
hands for the dancers she wondered, “And what about the morrow? Will
he think he did it of his own accord, or will he remember?” But what
mattered the morrow? Just now Anulia Addom was screaming into her
grandmother’s deaf ear:
“Natalka received three things, _Babushka_; you hear me, three
things!” And Katherina clapped.
“Trala-lala-lala-lala.”
“Ach, they were wise after all, those men,” she thought; “they were
wise who said that it is better to have a relative rich though a
miser than one who is poor and generous. The miser, sooner or later,
in one way or another, you may overcome. It is poverty that is like
unto death.”
[8] Copyright, 1922, by The Pictorial Review Company.
Copyright, 1923, by Rose Gollup Cohen.