“To whom shall I tell my grief?”
THE twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily
about the street lamps, which have just been lighted, and lying in a
thin soft layer on roofs, horses’ backs, shoulders, caps. Iona Potapov,
the sledge-driver, is all white like a ghost. He sits on the box without
stirring, bent as double as the living body can be bent. If a regular
snowdrift fell on him it seems as though even then he would not think it
necessary to shake it off.... His little mare is white and motionless
too. Her stillness, the angularity of her lines, and the stick-like
straightness of her legs make her look like a halfpenny gingerbread
horse. She is probably lost in thought. Anyone who has been torn away
from the plough, from the familiar gray landscapes, and cast into this
slough, full of monstrous lights, of unceasing uproar and hurrying
people, is bound to think.
It is a long time since Iona and his nag have budged. They came out of
the yard before dinnertime and not a single fare yet. But now the shades
of evening are falling on the town. The pale light of the street lamps
changes to a vivid color, and the bustle of the street grows noisier.
“Sledge to Vyborgskaya!” Iona hears. “Sledge!”
Iona starts, and through his snow-plastered eyelashes sees an officer in
a military overcoat with a hood over his head.
“To Vyborgskaya,” repeats the officer. “Are you asleep? To Vyborgskaya!”
In token of assent Iona gives a tug at the reins which sends cakes of
snow flying from the horse’s back and shoulders. The officer gets into
the sledge. The sledge-driver clicks to the horse, cranes his neck like
a swan, rises in his seat, and more from habit than necessity brandishes
his whip. The mare cranes her neck, too, crooks her stick-like legs, and
hesitatingly sets of....
“Where are you shoving, you devil?” Iona immediately hears shouts from
the dark mass shifting to and fro before him. “Where the devil are you
going? Keep to the r-right!”
“You don’t know how to drive! Keep to the right,” says the officer
angrily.
A coachman driving a carriage swears at him; a pedestrian crossing
the road and brushing the horse’s nose with his shoulder looks at him
angrily and shakes the snow off his sleeve. Iona fidgets on the box as
though he were sitting on thorns, jerks his elbows, and turns his eyes
about like one possessed as though he did not know where he was or why
he was there.
“What rascals they all are!” says the officer jocosely. “They are simply
doing their best to run up against you or fall under the horse’s feet.
They must be doing it on purpose.”
Iona looks as his fare and moves his lips.... Apparently he means to
say something, but nothing comes but a sniff.
“What?” inquires the officer.
Iona gives a wry smile, and straining his throat, brings out huskily:
“My son... er... my son died this week, sir.”
“H’m! What did he die of?”
Iona turns his whole body round to his fare, and says:
“Who can tell! It must have been from fever.... He lay three days in
the hospital and then he died.... God’s will.”
“Turn round, you devil!” comes out of the darkness. “Have you gone
cracked, you old dog? Look where you are going!”
“Drive on! drive on!...” says the officer. “We shan’t get there till
to-morrow going on like this. Hurry up!”
The sledge-driver cranes his neck again, rises in his seat, and with
heavy grace swings his whip. Several times he looks round at the
officer, but the latter keeps his eyes shut and is apparently
disinclined to listen. Putting his fare down at Vyborgskaya, Iona stops
by a restaurant, and again sits huddled up on the box.... Again
the wet snow paints him and his horse white. One hour passes, and then
another....
Three young men, two tall and thin, one short and hunchbacked, come up,
railing at each other and loudly stamping on the pavement with their
goloshes.
“Cabby, to the Police Bridge!” the hunchback cries in a cracked voice.
“The three of us,... twenty kopecks!”
Iona tugs at the reins and clicks to his horse. Twenty kopecks is not a
fair price, but he has no thoughts for that. Whether it is a rouble or
whether it is five kopecks does not matter to him now so long as he
has a fare.... The three young men, shoving each other and using bad
language, go up to the sledge, and all three try to sit down at once.
The question remains to be settled: Which are to sit down and which one
is to stand? After a long altercation, ill-temper, and abuse, they
come to the conclusion that the hunchback must stand because he is the
shortest.
“Well, drive on,” says the hunchback in his cracked voice, settling
himself and breathing down Iona’s neck. “Cut along! What a cap you’ve
got, my friend! You wouldn’t find a worse one in all Petersburg....”
“He-he!... he-he!...” laughs Iona. “It’s nothing to boast of!”
“Well, then, nothing to boast of, drive on! Are you going to drive like
this all the way? Eh? Shall I give you one in the neck?”
“My head aches,” says one of the tall ones. “At the Dukmasovs’ yesterday
Vaska and I drank four bottles of brandy between us.”
“I can’t make out why you talk such stuff,” says the other tall one
angrily. “You lie like a brute.”
“Strike me dead, it’s the truth!...”
“It’s about as true as that a louse coughs.”
“He-he!” grins Iona. “Me-er-ry gentlemen!”
“Tfoo! the devil take you!” cries the hunchback indignantly. “Will you
get on, you old plague, or won’t you? Is that the way to drive? Give her
one with the whip. Hang it all, give it her well.”
Iona feels behind his back the jolting person and quivering voice of
the hunchback. He hears abuse addressed to him, he sees people, and the
feeling of loneliness begins little by little to be less heavy on his
heart. The hunchback swears at him, till he chokes over some elaborately
whimsical string of epithets and is overpowered by his cough. His tall
companions begin talking of a certain Nadyezhda Petrovna. Iona looks
round at them. Waiting till there is a brief pause, he looks round once
more and says:
“This week... er... my... er... son died!”
“We shall all die,...” says the hunchback with a sigh, wiping his
lips after coughing. “Come, drive on! drive on! My friends, I simply
cannot stand crawling like this! When will he get us there?”
“Well, you give him a little encouragement... one in the neck!”
“Do you hear, you old plague? I’ll make you smart. If one stands on
ceremony with fellows like you one may as well walk. Do you hear, you
old dragon? Or don’t you care a hang what we say?”
And Iona hears rather than feels a slap on the back of his neck.
“He-he!...” he laughs. “Merry gentlemen.... God give you
health!”
“Cabman, are you married?” asks one of the tall ones.
“I? He he! Me-er-ry gentlemen. The only wife for me now is the damp
earth.... He-ho-ho!.... The grave that is!... Here my son’s dead
and I am alive.... It’s a strange thing, death has come in at the
wrong door.... Instead of coming for me it went for my son....”
And Iona turns round to tell them how his son died, but at that point
the hunchback gives a faint sigh and announces that, thank God! they
have arrived at last. After taking his twenty kopecks, Iona gazes for a
long while after the revelers, who disappear into a dark entry. Again he
is alone and again there is silence for him.... The misery which has
been for a brief space eased comes back again and tears his heart more
cruelly than ever. With a look of anxiety and suffering Iona’s eyes
stray restlessly among the crowds moving to and fro on both sides of the
street: can he not find among those thousands someone who will listen
to him? But the crowds flit by heedless of him and his misery.... His
misery is immense, beyond all bounds. If Iona’s heart were to burst and
his misery to flow out, it would flood the whole world, it seems, but
yet it is not seen. It has found a hiding-place in such an insignificant
shell that one would not have found it with a candle by daylight....
Iona sees a house-porter with a parcel and makes up his mind to address
him.
“What time will it be, friend?” he asks.
“Going on for ten.... Why have you stopped here? Drive on!”
Iona drives a few paces away, bends himself double, and gives himself
up to his misery. He feels it is no good to appeal to people. But before
five minutes have passed he draws himself up, shakes his head as though
he feels a sharp pain, and tugs at the reins.... He can bear it no
longer.
“Back to the yard!” he thinks. “To the yard!”
And his little mare, as though she knew his thoughts, falls to trotting.
An hour and a half later Iona is sitting by a big dirty stove. On the
stove, on the floor, and on the benches are people snoring. The air
is full of smells and stuffiness. Iona looks at the sleeping figures,
scratches himself, and regrets that he has come home so early....
“I have not earned enough to pay for the oats, even,” he thinks. “That’s
why I am so miserable. A man who knows how to do his work,... who has
had enough to eat, and whose horse has had enough to eat, is always at
ease....”
In one of the corners a young cabman gets up, clears his throat
sleepily, and makes for the water-bucket.
“Want a drink?” Iona asks him.
“Seems so.”
“May it do you good.... But my son is dead, mate.... Do you hear?
This week in the hospital.... It’s a queer business....”
Iona looks to see the effect produced by his words, but he sees nothing.
The young man has covered his head over and is already asleep. The old
man sighs and scratches himself.... Just as the young man had been
thirsty for water, he thirsts for speech. His son will soon have been
dead a week, and he has not really talked to anybody yet.... He
wants to talk of it properly, with deliberation.... He wants to tell
how his son was taken ill, how he suffered, what he said before he died,
how he died.... He wants to describe the funeral, and how he went to
the hospital to get his son’s clothes. He still has his daughter Anisya
in the country.... And he wants to talk about her too.... Yes, he
has plenty to talk about now. His listener ought to sigh and exclaim and
lament.... It would be even better to talk to women. Though they are
silly creatures, they blubber at the first word.
“Let’s go out and have a look at the mare,” Iona thinks. “There is
always time for sleep.... You’ll have sleep enough, no fear....”
He puts on his coat and goes into the stables where his mare is
standing. He thinks about oats, about hay, about the weather.... He
cannot think about his son when he is alone.... To talk about
him with someone is possible, but to think of him and picture him is
insufferable anguish....
“Are you munching?” Iona asks his mare, seeing her shining eyes. “There,
munch away, munch away.... Since we have not earned enough for oats,
we will eat hay.... Yes,... I have grown too old to drive....
My son ought to be driving, not I.... He was a real cabman.... He
ought to have lived....”
Iona is silent for a while, and then he goes on:
“That’s how it is, old girl.... Kuzma Ionitch is gone.... He said
good-by to me.... He went and died for no reason.... Now, suppose
you had a little colt, and you were own mother to that little colt.
... And all at once that same little colt went and died.... You’d
be sorry, wouldn’t you?...”
The little mare munches, listens, and breathes on her master’s hands.
Iona is carried away and tells her all about it.