IT was between nine and ten o’clock in the evening. Stepan the coachman,
Mihailo the house-porter, Alyoshka the coachman’s grandson, who had come
up from the village to stay with his grandfather, and Nikandr, an old
man of seventy, who used to come into the yard every evening to sell
salt herrings, were sitting round a lantern in the big coach-house,
playing “kings.” Through the wide-open door could be seen the whole
yard, the big house, where the master’s family lived, the gates, the
cellars, and the porter’s lodge. It was all shrouded in the darkness of
night, and only the four windows of one of the lodges which was let
were brightly lit up. The shadows of the coaches and sledges with their
shafts tipped upwards stretched from the walls to the doors, quivering
and cutting across the shadows cast by the lantern and the players....
On the other side of the thin partition that divided the coach-house
from the stable were the horses. There was a scent of hay, and a
disagreeable smell of salt herrings coming from old Nikandr.
The porter won and was king; he assumed an attitude such as was in his
opinion befitting a king, and blew his nose loudly on a red-checked
handkerchief.
“Now if I like I can chop off anybody’s head,” he said. Alyoshka, a
boy of eight with a head of flaxen hair, left long uncut, who had only
missed being king by two tricks, looked angrily and with envy at the
porter. He pouted and frowned.
“I shall give you the trick, grandfather,” he said, pondering over his
cards; “I know you have got the queen of diamonds.”
“Well, well, little silly, you have thought enough!”
Alyoshka timidly played the knave of diamonds. At that moment a ring was
heard from the yard.
“Oh, hang you!” muttered the porter, getting up. “Go and open the gate,
O king!”
When he came back a little later, Alyoshka was already a prince, the
fish-hawker a soldier, and the coachman a peasant.
“It’s a nasty business,” said the porter, sitting down to the cards
again. “I have just let the doctors out. They have not extracted it.”
“How could they? Just think, they would have to pick open the brains. If
there is a bullet in the head, of what use are doctors?”
“He is lying unconscious,” the porter went on. “He is bound to die.
Alyoshka, don’t look at the cards, you little puppy, or I will pull your
ears! Yes, I let the doctors out, and the father and mother in... They
have only just arrived. Such crying and wailing, Lord preserve us! They
say he is the only son.... It’s a grief!”
All except Alyoshka, who was absorbed in the game, looked round at the
brightly lighted windows of the lodge.
“I have orders to go to the police station tomorrow,” said the porter.
“There will be an inquiry... But what do I know about it? I saw
nothing of it. He called me this morning, gave me a letter, and said:
‘Put it in the letter-box for me.’ And his eyes were red with crying.
His wife and children were not at home. They had gone out for a walk. So
when I had gone with the letter, he put a bullet into his forehead from
a revolver. When I came back his cook was wailing for the whole yard to
hear.”
“It’s a great sin,” said the fish-hawker in a husky voice, and he shook
his head, “a great sin!”
“From too much learning,” said the porter, taking a trick; “his wits
outstripped his wisdom. Sometimes he would sit writing papers all
night.... Play, peasant!... But he was a nice gentleman. And so white
skinned, black-haired and tall!... He was a good lodger.”
“It seems the fair sex is at the bottom of it,” said the coachman,
slapping the nine of trumps on the king of diamonds. “It seems he was
fond of another man’s wife and disliked his own; it does happen.”
“The king rebels,” said the porter.
At that moment there was again a ring from the yard. The rebellious king
spat with vexation and went out. Shadows like dancing couples flitted
across the windows of the lodge. There was the sound of voices and
hurried footsteps in the yard.
“I suppose the doctors have come again,” said the coachman. “Our Mihailo
is run off his legs....”
A strange wailing voice rang out for a moment in the air. Alyoshka
looked in alarm at his grandfather, the coachman; then at the windows,
and said:
“He stroked me on the head at the gate yesterday, and said, ‘What
district do you come from, boy?’ Grandfather, who was that howled just
now?”
His grandfather trimmed the light in the lantern and made no answer.
“The man is lost,” he said a little later, with a yawn. “He is lost, and
his children are ruined, too. It’s a disgrace for his children for the
rest of their lives now.”
The porter came back and sat down by the lantern.
“He is dead,” he said. “They have sent to the almshouse for the old
women to lay him out.”
“The kingdom of heaven and eternal peace to him!” whispered the
coachman, and he crossed himself.
Looking at him, Alyoshka crossed himself too.
“You can’t pray for such as him,” said the fish-hawker.
“Why not?”
“It’s a sin.”
“That’s true,” the porter assented. “Now his soul has gone straight to
hell, to the devil....”
“It’s a sin,” repeated the fish-hawker; “such as he have no funeral, no
requiem, but are buried like carrion with no respect.”
The old man put on his cap and got up.
“It was the same thing at our lady’s,” he said, pulling his cap on
further. “We were serfs in those days; the younger son of our mistress,
the General’s lady, shot himself through the mouth with a pistol, from
too much learning, too. It seems that by law such have to be buried
outside the cemetery, without priests, without a requiem service; but to
save disgrace our lady, you know, bribed the police and the doctors,
and they gave her a paper to say her son had done it when delirious, not
knowing what he was doing. You can do anything with money. So he had
a funeral with priests and every honor, the music played, and he was
buried in the church; for the deceased General had built that church
with his own money, and all his family were buried there. Only this is
what happened, friends. One month passed, and then another, and it was
all right. In the third month they informed the General’s lady that the
watchmen had come from that same church. What did they want? They were
brought to her, they fell at her feet. ‘We can’t go on serving, your
excellency,’ they said. ‘Look out for other watchmen and graciously
dismiss us.’ ‘What for?’ ‘No,’ they said, ‘we can’t possibly; your son
howls under the church all night.’”
Alyoshka shuddered, and pressed his face to the coachman’s back so as
not to see the windows.
“At first the General’s lady would not listen,” continued the old man.
“‘All this is your fancy, you simple folk have such notions,’ she said.
‘A dead man cannot howl.’ Some time afterwards the watchmen came to her
again, and with them the sacristan. So the sacristan, too, had heard
him howling. The General’s lady saw that it was a bad job; she locked
herself in her bedroom with the watchmen. ‘Here, my friends, here are
twenty-five roubles for you, and for that go by night in secret, so that
no one should hear or see you, dig up my unhappy son, and bury him,’ she
said, ‘outside the cemetery.’ And I suppose she stood them a glass...
And the watchmen did so. The stone with the inscription on it is there
to this day, but he himself, the General’s son, is outside the
cemetery.... O Lord, forgive us our transgressions!” sighed the
fish-hawker. “There is only one day in the year when one may pray for
such people: the Saturday before Trinity.... You mustn’t give alms to
beggars for their sake, it is a sin, but you may feed the birds for the
rest of their souls. The General’s lady used to go out to the crossroads
every three days to feed the birds. Once at the cross-roads a black dog
suddenly appeared; it ran up to the bread, and was such a... we all know
what that dog was. The General’s lady was like a half-crazy creature for
five days afterwards, she neither ate nor drank.... All at once she fell
on her knees in the garden, and prayed and prayed.... Well, good-by,
friends, the blessing of God and the Heavenly Mother be with you. Let us
go, Mihailo, you’ll open the gate for me.”
The fish-hawker and the porter went out. The coachman and Alyoshka went
out too, so as not to be left in the coach-house.
“The man was living and is dead!” said the coachman, looking towards the
windows where shadows were still flitting to and fro. “Only this morning
he was walking about the yard, and now he is lying dead.”
“The time will come and we shall die too,” said the porter, walking away
with the fish-hawker, and at once they both vanished from sight in the
darkness.
The coachman, and Alyoshka after him, somewhat timidly went up to the
lighted windows. A very pale lady with large tear stained eyes, and a
fine-looking gray headed man were moving two card-tables into the middle
of the room, probably with the intention of laying the dead man upon
them, and on the green cloth of the table numbers could still be seen
written in chalk. The cook who had run about the yard wailing in the
morning was now standing on a chair, stretching up to try and cover the
looking glass with a towel.
“Grandfather what are they doing?” asked Alyoshka in a whisper.
“They are just going to lay him on the tables,” answered his
grandfather. “Let us go, child, it is bedtime.”
The coachman and Alyoshka went back to the coach-house. They said their
prayers, and took off their boots. Stepan lay down in a corner on the
floor, Alyoshka in a sledge. The doors of the coach house were shut,
there was a horrible stench from the extinguished lantern. A little
later Alyoshka sat up and looked about him; through the crack of the
door he could still see a light from those lighted windows.
“Grandfather, I am frightened!” he said.
“Come, go to sleep, go to sleep!...”
“I tell you I am frightened!”
“What are you frightened of? What a baby!”
They were silent.
Alyoshka suddenly jumped out of the sledge and, loudly weeping, ran to
his grandfather.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” cried the coachman in a fright, getting
up also.
“He’s howling!”
“Who is howling?”
“I am frightened, grandfather, do you hear?”
The coachman listened.
“It’s their crying,” he said. “Come! there, little silly! They are sad,
so they are crying.”
“I want to go home,...” his grandson went on sobbing and trembling
all over. “Grandfather, let us go back to the village, to mammy; come,
grandfather dear, God will give you the heavenly kingdom for it....”
“What a silly, ah! Come, be quiet, be quiet! Be quiet, I will light the
lantern,... silly!”
The coachman fumbled for the matches and lighted the lantern. But the
light did not comfort Alyoshka.
“Grandfather Stepan, let’s go to the village!” he besought him, weeping.
“I am frightened here; oh, oh, how frightened I am! And why did you
bring me from the village, accursed man?”
“Who’s an accursed man? You mustn’t use such disrespectable words to
your lawful grandfather. I shall whip you.”
“Do whip me, grandfather, do; beat me like Sidor’s goat, but only take
me to mammy, for God’s mercy!...”
“Come, come, grandson, come!” the coachman said kindly. “It’s all
right, don’t be frightened....I am frightened myself.... Say your
prayers!”
The door creaked and the porter’s head appeared. “Aren’t you asleep,
Stepan?” he asked. “I shan’t get any sleep all night,” he said, coming
in. “I shall be opening and shutting the gates all night.... What are
you crying for, Alyoshka?”
“He is frightened,” the coachman answered for his grandson.
Again there was the sound of a wailing voice in the air. The porter
said:
“They are crying. The mother can’t believe her eyes.... It’s dreadful
how upset she is.”
“And is the father there?”
“Yes.... The father is all right. He sits in the corner and says
nothing. They have taken the children to relations.... Well, Stepan,
shall we have a game of trumps?”
“Yes,” the coachman agreed, scratching himself, “and you, Alyoshka, go
to sleep. Almost big enough to be married, and blubbering, you rascal.
Come, go along, grandson, go along....”
The presence of the porter reassured Alyoshka. He went, not very
resolutely, towards the sledge and lay down. And while he was falling
asleep he heard a half-whisper.
“I beat and cover,” said his grandfather.
“I beat and cover,” repeated the porter.
The bell rang in the yard, the door creaked and seemed also saying: “I
beat and cover.” When Alyoshka dreamed of the gentleman and, frightened
by his eyes, jumped up and burst out crying, it was morning, his
grandfather was snoring, and the coach-house no longer seemed terrible.