Mechanically Tikhon Ilitch threw his great-coat on over his jacket,
thrust his feet into overshoes, and went out on the porch. On emerging
he inhaled a deep breath of fresh air in the bluish early winter
twilight, then halted once more and sat down on the bench. Yes, there
was another nice family--the Grey Man, Syery, and his son! Tikhon
Ilitch traversed in thought the road which Deniska had traversed in the
mud, with that valise in his hand. He descried Durnovka, his manor, the
ravine, the peasant cottages, the descending twilight, the light in
his brother’s room, the lights among the peasant dwellings. Kuzma was
probably sitting and reading. The Bride was standing in the dark, cold
ante-room near the faintly-heated stove, warming her hands, her back,
waiting until she should be told “Bring the supper!” and, with her dry
lips, already grown old and pursed up, was thinking--of what? Perchance
of Rodka? ’Twas a lie, all that about her having poisoned Rodka--a lie!
But if she did poison him--
Oh, Lord God! If she did poison him, what must she be feeling? What a
heavy tombstone lay upon her strange, reticent soul! And how had that
come about upon which she had decided, crazed by hatred of Rodka and of
his brutal beatings--possibly, also, by her outraged feelings toward
him, Tikhon Ilitch, and her disgrace, and the fear that Rodka would
eventually hear of that disgrace? Okh, and he had been in the habit of
beating her! And Tikhon Ilitch had played a fine part, too. And God
would surely punish him, too.
With his mind’s eye he cast a glance from the porch of his Durnovka
manor house, at Durnovka--a rebel, also!--at the black cottages
scattered over the declivity beyond the ravine, at the threshing floors
and bushes in their back yards. Beyond the houses to the left, on the
horizon, stood a railway watch-tower. Past it, in the twilight, a train
was running, and with it ran a chain of fiery eyes. Then eyes began to
shine out from the cottages. It grew darker; one began to feel more
comfortable--yet a disagreeable sensation stirred every time one cast
a glance at the cottages of the Bride and the Grey Man, which stood
almost in the centre of Durnovka, separated only by three houses. There
was no light in either of them. And it was that way nearly all winter
long! The Grey Man’s small children frolicked with joy and wonder when
he managed, on some lucky evening, to burn a light in the cottage.
“Yes, ’tis sinful!” said Tikhon Ilitch firmly, and rose from his seat.
“Yes, ’tis wicked! I must give them at least a little help,” he said,
as he wended his way towards the station.
The air was frosty, and the odour of the samovar which was wafted from
the station was more fragrant than it had been on the preceding day.
The lights at the gate were burning more brightly beyond the trees,
which had been smartly frost-bitten and were almost bare, tinted by a
little scanty foliage.
The sleighbells on the troika pealed more sonorously. A capital team
of horses, those three! On the contrary, it was painful to look at the
wretched nags of the peasant cabmen, their tiny vehicles mounted on
half-crumbling, misshapen wheels, plastered with mud. The door to the
railway station was squeaking and dully banging beyond the palisade.
Making his way around it, Tikhon Ilitch ascended the lofty stone
platform, on which a copper samovar of a couple of buckets’ capacity
was hissing, its grating glowing red like fiery teeth; and immediately
came upon the person of whom he was in search--that is, Deniska.
Deniska, his head bowed in thought, was standing on the platform and
holding in his right hand a cheap grey valise, lavishly studded with
tin nailheads and bound about with a rope. Deniska was wearing an
under-jacket, an old and, evidently, a very heavy garment with pendant
shoulders and a very low waist-line, a new peaked cap, and dilapidated
boots. His figure was badly built; his legs were extremely short in
comparison with his body: “I have nothing but a body,” he sometimes
said of himself, with a laugh. Now, with that low waist-line and those
broken boots, his legs looked shorter than ever.
“Denis?” shouted Tikhon Ilitch. “What are you doing here?”
Deniska, who was never surprised at anything, raised his dark and
languid eyes with their long lashes, looked at him with a melancholy
grin, and pulled the cap from his hair. His hair was mouse-coloured and
immeasurably thick; his face was earthy in hue and bore the appearance
of having been greased, but his eyes were handsome.
“Good Morning, Tikhon Ilitch,” he replied, in a sing-song citified
tenor voice, and, as usual, rather shyly. “I’m going to--what d’ye call
it?--to Tula.”
“But why, if you permit me to ask?”
“Maybe some sort of a job will turn up there.”
Tikhon Ilitch surveyed him. In his hand was the valise; from the pocket
of his long-skirted waistcoat protruded sundry little books in green
and red covers, twisted into a roll. The waistcoat must belong to some
one else. “You’re no dandy to make an impression in Tula!”
Deniska also cast an appraising eye over himself.
“The waistcoat, you mean?” he inquired modestly. “Well, when I earn
some money in Tula, I’ll buy myself a hussar jacket. I did pretty well
during the summer. I sold newspapers.”
Tikhon Ilitch nodded in the direction of the valise: “What’s that
contraption you have there?”
Deniska lowered his eyelashes. “I bought myself a volish, sir.”
“Well, you can’t possibly go about in a hussar jacket without a
valise!” said Tikhon Ilitch scoffingly. “And what’s that you’ve got in
your pocket?”
“Nothing much--just a lot of small stuff.”
“Let me look at it.”
Deniska set down his valise on the platform and pulled the little
books out of his pocket. Tikhon Ilitch took them and examined them
attentively. There was the song-book “Marusya,” “The Woman Debauchee,”
“An Innocent Young Girl in the Clutches of Violence,” “Congratulatory
Verses to Parents, Teachers, and Benefactors,” “The Rôle--”
At this point Tikhon Ilitch faltered, but Deniska, who was watching
closely, briskly and modestly prompted him: “The Rôle of the
Proletariat in Russia.”
Tikhon Ilitch shook his head. “Here’s something new! Not a mouthful of
food, but you buy yourself a valise and nasty little books. Truly, ’tis
not for nothing that folks call you an agitator. They say you are
constantly reviling the Tsar! Look out, brother!”
“Well, ’tis not so costly as buying an estate,” replied Deniska, with
a melancholy grin. “They are good little books. And I haven’t touched
the Tsar. They tell lies about me as if I were dead and couldn’t defend
myself. But I never had any such thing in my thoughts. Am I a lunatic?”
The door-pulley creaked, and the station watchman made his
appearance--a discharged soldier, grey-haired, afflicted with a hoarse,
whistling asthma--also the restaurant keeper, a fat man with puffy eyes
and greasy hair.
“Step aside, Messrs. Merchants, let me get the samovar.” Deniska
stepped aside and again grasped the handle of his valise.
“You stole that somewhere, I suppose?” asked Tikhon Ilitch, nodding
towards the valise, and thinking of the business upon which he had come
to the station.
Deniska bent his head but made no reply.
“And it’s empty, of course?”
Deniska broke into a laugh.
“Yes, it’s empty.”
“Were you turned out of your place?”
“I left of my own accord.”
Tikhon Ilitch heaved a sigh. “The living image of his father!” said he.
“That one was always exactly like that: Pitch him out of a place by the
scruff of his neck, and he’d tell you--‘I left of my own accord.’”
“May I drop dead right before your eyes if I’m lying.”
“Well, all right, all right. Have you been at home?”
“Yes, two weeks.”
“Is your father out of work again?”
“Yes, he is out of work naow.”
“Naow!” Tikhon Ilitch mimicked him. “A wooden-headed village! And a
revolutionary to boot! You’re trying to play the wolf, but your dog’s
tail betrays you.”
“I rather think you come from the same litter,” Deniska said to
himself, with a faint grin, keeping his head down.
“That means, the Grey Man is sitting at home smoking?”
“He’s a worthless fellow!” said Deniska with conviction.
Tikhon Ilitch rapped him on the head with his knuckles. “You might, at
least, not exhibit your stupidity! Who speaks of his father like that?”
“He ought to be called an old dog, not a daddy,” replied Deniska
calmly. “If he’s a father--then let him provide food. But he has fed
me heartily, hasn’t he?”
But Tikhon Ilitch was not listening to him. He chose a suitable moment
for beginning a business-like talk. And, paying no heed to him, he
interrupted: “Well, you’ve turned out an empty-headed babbler. Has
Yakoff sold the mare?”
Deniska suddenly broke out into a coarse, vociferous guffaw. But he
replied in the same sing-song tenor voice as usual: “Yakoff Mikititch,
you mean? What are you talking about? He’s getting richer and richer,
and stingier and stingier. There was a great joke on him yesterday!”
“What about?”
“Why, there was! His colt died, and what sort of a trick did he
concoct? He made use of its legs and hoofs. He hadn’t enough stakes for
his wattled fence, so--he took and wove in those same legs.”
“He’s fit for a cabinet-minister, not a peasant!” said Tikhon Ilitch.
“You tatterdemalions are not in the same class with him. I suppose you
are travelling to Tula on a wolf’s ticket?”
“And what should I want of a ticket?” retorted Deniska. “I get into the
carriage and dive straight under the seat--and may the Lord bless and
protect! All I want is to get to Uzlovskaya.”
“What’s that? Uzlovskaya? Do you mean Uzslova?”
“Well, then, Uzslova; it’s the same thing. I’ll ride there, and from
there on ’tis not far--I can go afoot.”
“And what were you thinking about doing with all your little books? You
can’t read them under the seat.”
Deniska thought that over. “Right you are!” said he. “Well, I won’t
stay under the bench all the time. I’ll creep into the toilet--I can
read there until daylight.”
Tikhon Ilitch frowned. “Well, see here now,” he began. “See here: ’tis
time for you to stop that sort of talk. You’re not a small boy, you
fool. Trot back as fast as you can to Durnovka. ’Tis time to buckle
down to business. Why, as you are, it makes one sick at the stomach
just to look at you. My courtyard-councillors there live better than
you do. I’ll help you--that’s got to be done--at the start. Well, I’ll
help you to get some simple merchandise and implements. Then you’ll be
able to feed yourself and give a little to your father.”
“What’s he driving at with all this?” Deniska said to himself.
But Tikhon Ilitch had come to a decision, and wound up: “Yes, and ’tis
time you married.”
“So--oo, that’s it!” said Deniska to himself, and began in a leisurely
way to roll himself a cigarette.
“Very good,” he responded, with a barely perceptible trace of sadness,
and without raising his eyelashes. “I’ll not resist. I might marry.
’Tis worse to go with the public women.”
“Well, and that’s precisely the point,” put in Tikhon Ilitch,
perturbed. “Only, brother, bear in mind that you must make a sensible
marriage. ’Tis a good thing to have money on which to rear your
children.”
Deniska burst out laughing.
“What are you guffawing about?”
“Why, what you say, of course! Rear! As though they were chickens or
pigs.”
“They require food, just as much as chickens and pigs do.”
“And whom shall I marry?” inquired Deniska, with a melancholy smile.
“Whom? Why, any one you like.”
“You mean the Bride?”
Tikhon Ilitch flushed deeply. “Fool! What’s wrong with the Bride? She’s
a peaceable, hard-working woman--”
Deniska remained silent, and picked with his finger-nail at one of the
tin nailheads on the valise. Then he pretended to be stupid. “There’s
a lot of them--of young women,” he drawled. “I don’t know which one
you’re jabbering about. Do you happen to mean the one with whom you
lived?”
But Tikhon Ilitch had already recovered his composure. “Whether I have
lived with her or not is none of your business, you pig,” he retorted,
and that so swiftly and peremptorily that Deniska submissively muttered:
“Well, ’tis all the same to me. I only said--’Twas a chance
remark--slipped off my tongue.”
“Well, then, mind what you’re about, and don’t indulge in idle chatter.
I’ll make decent people of you. Do you understand? I’ll give you a
dowry. Understand that?”
Deniska reflected. “I think I’ll go to Tula--” he began.
“The cock has found a pearl! A priceless idea! What are you going to do
in Tula?”
“We’re too starved at home.”
Tikhon Ilitch unfastened his coat, thrust his hand into the pocket of
his sleeveless under-kaftan--he had almost made up his mind to give
Deniska a twenty-kopek coin. But he came to his senses--’twas stupid
to squander his money, and, what was more, that dolt would become
conceited, would say he had been bribed. So he pretended to be hunting
for something. “Ah, I’ve forgotten my cigarettes! Come, give me some
tobacco.”
Deniska gave him his tobacco-pouch. The lantern over the station
entrance had already been lighted, and by its dim light Tikhon Ilitch
read aloud the inscription embroidered in coarse white thread on the
bag: “To whoam I luv I giv I luv hartilie I giv a poch foureaver.”
“That’s clever!” he said, when he had finished reading.
Deniska modestly cast down his eyes.
“So you have a lady-love already?”
“There’s a lot of them, the hussies, roaming about!” replied Deniska,
quite unembarrassed. “But as for marrying--I don’t refuse. I’ll be back
by the Meat-days, and then, Lord bless our marriage!”
From behind the palisade thundered a peasant cart, spattered all over
with mud. It rolled up to the platform with a peasant perched on the
side-rail and the deacon, Govoroff, from Ulianovka, seated on the
straw inside. “Has it gone?” shouted the deacon in agitated tones,
thrusting out of the straw one foot in a new overshoe. Every individual
hair of his frowsy, reddish-sandy beard curled turbulently; his cap had
retreated to the nape of his neck: his face was fiery-red from the wind
and his excitement.
“The train, you mean?” inquired Tikhon Ilitch. “No, sir, it hasn’t even
arrived yet. Good morning, Father Deacon.”
“Aha! Well then, thank God!” said the deacon joyfully and hastily; but
nevertheless he leaped from the cart and rushed headlong to the door.
Tikhon Ilitch shook his head. “Oh, that long-maned fellow came at the
wrong time! Nothing will come of my affair!”[11] But as he grasped the
handle of the door he said, firmly and confidently: “Well, so be it.
It’s settled for the meat-season.”