During the night the rain poured down again, and it was so dark you
could not see your hand before your face. Tikhon Ilitch slept badly and
gritted his teeth in torture. He had a chill--evidently he had taken
cold by standing on the highway in the evening--and the overcoat which
he had thrown over himself slid off upon the floor, and immediately
he dreamed the same thing he had always dreamed ever since childhood,
whenever his back was cold: twilight, narrow alleys, a hurrying
throng, firemen galloping along in heavy carts drawn by vicious black
truck-horses. Once he woke up, struck a match, looked at the ticking
clock--it showed the hour of three--and picked up the overcoat; and,
as he fell asleep, the thought of Zhikhareff once more recurred
distressingly to his mind. And athwart his slumbers a persistent
thought obsessed him: that the shop was being looted and the horses
driven away.
Sometimes it seemed to him that he was at the Dankova posting-station,
that the nocturnal rain was pattering on the pent-house over the
gate, and that the little bell above it was being pulled and was
ringing incessantly--thieves had come and had led thither, through
the impenetrable darkness, his splendid stallion, and if they were
to discover his presence there, they would murder him. And again
consciousness of the reality would return to him. But even the reality
was alarming. The old watchman was walking about under the windows
with his mallet, but it seemed as if he were far, far away; as if the
sheep-dog, with choking growls, were rending some one--had rushed off
into the fields with tempestuous barking, and suddenly had presented
himself again under the windows and was trying to rouse him by standing
on one spot and barking violently. Then Tikhon Ilitch started to go
out and see what was the matter, whether everything were as it should
be. But as soon as he reached the point of making up his mind to rise,
the heavy slanting rain began to rattle more thickly and densely than
ever against the small dark windows, driven by the wind from the
dark and boundless fields, and sleep seemed to him the most precious
thing in the world. At last a door banged, a stream of damp, cold air
entered, and the watchman, Chaff, dragged a bundle of rustling straw
into the vestibule. Tikhon Ilitch opened his eyes: it was six o’clock,
the daylight was dull and wet, the tiny windows were misted over with
moisture.
“Make a little fire, my good man, make a little fire,” said Tikhon
Ilitch, his voice still hoarse with sleep. “Then we’ll go and feed the
cattle, and you can go to your place and sleep.”
The old man, who had grown thin over night and all blue with cold, the
dampness, and fatigue, gazed at him with sunken dead eyes. In his wet
cap, his short rain-drenched outer coat, and his ragged bast-slippers
soaked with mud and water, he growled out something in a dull tone
as he got down with difficulty on his knees in front of the stove,
stuffing it with the cold, fragrant bundle of straw and blowing on the
lighted mass.
“Well, has the cow bitten your tongue off?” shouted Tikhon Ilitch
hoarsely, as he climbed out of bed and picked up his coat from the
floor. “What’s that you’re muttering there to yourself?”
“I’ve been walking all night long, and now it’s ‘give the cattle their
fodder,’” mumbled the old man without raising his head, as if talking
to himself.
Tikhon Ilitch looked askance at him: “I saw the way you walked about!”
He felt worn out; nevertheless he put on his coat and, conquering a
petty fit of shivering in his bowels, went out on the porch, which was
covered with the footprints of the dogs, into the icy chill of the pale
stormy morning. Everywhere the ground was flooded with lead-coloured
puddles; all the walls had turned dark with the rain.
“A nice lot; these workmen!” he said to himself angrily.
It was barely drizzling. “But surely it will be pouring again by noon,”
he said to himself. And he glanced with surprise at shaggy Buyan, who
dashed toward him from under the granary. His paws were muddy, but
he himself was boiling with excitement, his eyes were sparkling, his
tongue was fresh and red as fire, his healthy hot breath fairly exuding
the odour of dog. And that after racing about and barking all night
long!
He took Buyan by the collar and, slopping through the mud, made the
rounds, inspecting all the locks. Then he chained the dog under the
granary, returned to his ante-room, and glanced into the roomy kitchen,
the cottage proper. The cottage had a hot, repulsive odour; the cook
lay fast asleep on a bare box-bench, beneath the holy pictures, her
face covered with her apron, her loins displayed, and her legs clad in
huge old felt boots, the soles thickly plastered with the dirt from the
earthen floors. Oska lay on the sleeping-board face downward, fully
dressed, in his short sheepskin coat and his bast-slippers, his head
buried in a heavy, soiled pillow.
“That devil has been at the lad!” thought Tikhon Ilitch with disgust.
“Just look at her--at her nasty debauch all night long--and towards
morning, off she goes to the bench!”
And after a survey of the black walls, the tiny windows, the tub filled
with dirty dish-water, the huge broad-shouldered stove, he shouted
loudly and harshly: “Hey, there! My noble lords! You ought to know when
you’ve had enough!”
While the cook, scratching herself and yawning, heated the stove,
boiled some potatoes for the pigs, and got the samovar alight, Oska,
minus his cap and stumbling with sleep, dragged bran for the horses
and cows. Tikhon Ilitch himself unlocked the creaking doors of the
stable and was the first to enter its warm, dirty comfort, surrounded
by sheds, enclosures, and styes. The stable was ankle-deep in manure.
Dung, urine, and rain had all run together and formed a thick,
light-brown fluid. The horses, already darkening with their velvety
winter coats, were roaming about under the pent-houses. The sheep,
of a dirty-grey hue, were huddled in an agitated mass in one corner.
An old brown gelding dozed in isolation alongside his empty manger,
smeared with dough. The drizzling rain fell and fell interminably upon
the square farmyard from the unfriendly, stormy sky, but the gelding
paid no heed to anything. The pigs moaned and grunted in an ailing,
persistent way in their pen.
“’Tis deadly boresome!” thought Tikhon Ilitch, and immediately emitted
a fierce yell at the old man, who was dragging along a bundle of
grain-straw: “Why are you dragging that through the mud, you vile
profligate?”
The old man flung the bundle of straw on the ground, looked him over,
and all at once remarked quietly: “I’m listening to a vile profligate.”
Tikhon Ilitch cast a swift glance around, to see whether the lad had
gone out, and, on convincing himself that he had, stepped up to the old
man and with apparent calmness gave him such a thwack in the teeth that
his head shook to and fro, seized him by the collar, and hustled him to
the gate with all his might. “Begone!” he bawled, panting for breath
and turning as white as chalk. “Don’t let me ever catch so much as the
smell of you here in the future, you cursed tatterdemalion!”
The old man flew through the gate, and five minutes later, his bag
on his shoulders and a stick in his hand, he was striding along the
highway to his home in Ulianovka. Meanwhile Tikhon Ilitch, with shaking
hands, had watered the stallion, had himself given the animal his
portion of fresh oats--he had merely turned yesterday’s oats over with
his muzzle and slobbered on them--and with long strides, through the
liquid mess and the manure, had betaken himself to his cottage.
“Are things ready?” he inquired, opening the door a crack.
“There’s no hurry!” snarled the cook.
The cottage was beclouded with a warm, sweetish steam emanating from
the pot where the potatoes were boiling. The cook, assisted by the lad,
was energetically mashing them with a pestle, sprinkling in flour the
while, and Tikhon Ilitch did not hear the reply because of the noise.
Slamming the door, he went to drink his tea.