IV

The village was deserted. Many had gone away to work on the clover.

Trifon had died in mid-August, at Assumption-tide--he had choked

himself, as he broke the fast, on a bit of raw ham. At the beginning of

September Komar, one of the chief rioters, renowned for his strength,

his cleverness, and his daring in his dealings with the members of

the gentry class, had entered a distillery near Eletz, fallen into the

malt-kiln while in a state of intoxication, and been suffocated. No

one had known that he was there, and the door had been bolted. Komar

had bent the door in his efforts to escape into the air, but evidently

such a death had been written in his fate. Another rebel, Vanka Krasny,

had again betaken himself to the Donetz mines. The harness-maker was

working about on different estates. Rodka was working on the railway.

Deniska had disappeared somewhere. And everybody hypocritically

pitied Syery, taking advantage of the opportunity to ridicule both

son and father. Yakoff’s hands trembled when he began to talk about

Syery. And what could they do but tremble? What had that Syery done

with the land which Yakoff was ready to “devour in handfuls”? No one

in all Durnovka suffered the hundredth part of what Yakoff suffered

when rumours became current about rebellions, cases of arson, and

the expropriation of land. He merely held his peace--thanks to that

subterranean secretiveness which thousands of his forebears had sucked

in with their mothers’ milk. And, indeed, his breath would have failed

him had he tried to speak. Now, when the rumours became more and more

desperate, he even became reconciled to his son Vaska, for the sake

of the land. His son was a pock-marked, rough, thickset young fellow,

all overgrown with a beard at the age of twenty, broad-shouldered,

curly-haired, and so strong that even pincers could not have pulled out

a single one of his hairs. The son, with that beard, his head closely

clipped, garbed in a red shirt, resembled a convict, but he dressed his

wife in the style of a petty citizen of the towns. He had turned out

the image of his father so far as greed was concerned, and had already

begun to trade secretly in vodka, coarse tobacco, soap, and kerosene.

And Yakoff became reconciled, in the hope of satisfying his land-hunger

by the aid of his son--in the hope that he might become rich and begin

to lease it. Why did Syery make peace with Deniska, who had repeatedly

given him “a healthy drubbing”? What was he hoping for, that he thus

altered his course, like the poorest beggar? He had leased his land,

he did not live out on jobs. He sat at home cold and hungry and had

no thought for anything save how he might procure the wherewithal

for a smoke: he could not get through the day without his pipe. He

attended all the village assemblies, but always arrived just as they

were coming to an end. He never missed a single wedding or baptism or

funeral, although he huddled up against the door; and when he extended

his hand to the host, who was serving refreshments to his guests,

he not infrequently received nothing but rough denunciations. Syery

did not care greatly for liquor, but no drinking to seal a bargain

ever passed off without his presence: he intruded himself not only

into all the community drinking-bouts, but also into all those of his

neighbours--after purchases, sales, and exchanges. And his neighbours

had grown so accustomed to this that they were not even surprised when

Syery presented himself. And he really was entertaining to listen to.

“He is valiant, so far as words go,” people said of Syery. And it was

true: if he were at ease in his mind--and he was at ease when his pouch

was filled with tobacco--what an active, serious peasant Syery could

appear to be!

“Well, now, ’tis time to marry off my son,” he argued in leisurely

fashion, as he held his pipe between his teeth and ground the stalks of

the coarse tobacco by strong rubbing in his palms. “If he gets married,

he’ll bring every kopek home, he will become eager for work, he’ll take

to digging round about the house as a beetle burrows in a dung-heap.

And we’re not afraid of work, brother! Only give us a chance!”

But Syery almost never had either peace of mind or work. His appearance

justified his nickname: he was grey, lean, of medium stature, with

sloping shoulders; his short coat was extremely short, tattered, and

dirty; his felt boots were broken and their soles were made of rope;

as for his cap, it is not worth mentioning at all. As he sat in his

cottage, with this cap eternally on his head, his pipe never removed

from his mouth, and anxiously meditated upon something or other, he

had the appearance of living in imminent vague expectation. But,

according to his own statement, he had devilish bad luck. Nothing

worth while ever came his way. Well, and he didn’t care about playing

jackstraws--taking chances. Every one was on the watch to condemn a

man, of course. “’Tis well known that the tongue can break bones,

though it has none itself,” Syery was wont to remark. “Do you first

place the job in my hand, and then you can jabber.”

He had a fairly large amount of land--three desyatini. But he was taxed

for ten. And Syery no longer put a hand to his land: “You simply have

to give it up, that land: dear heart, it ought to be kept in proper

order, but where’s the order here?” He himself planted no more than

half a field, and even the grain in that he sold standing--he “got rid

of the unwelcome for the welcome.” And again he had a reason ready:

“Only wait to see what comes of it--just you try it!”

“’Tis always better, for example, to await the upshot of anything,”

muttered Yakoff with a sidelong glance and a malicious laugh.

But Syery laughed also, sadly and scornfully. “Yes, ’tis better!” he

grinned. “It’s all well enough for you to chatter nonsense: you’ve got

a husband for your girl, and married off your son. But just look at me

and the lot of small children who sit in the corner at my house. They

don’t belong to other folks, you see. And I keep a goat for them, and

I’m fattening a young pig. They have to have food and drink, don’t

they?”

“Well, but a goat is nothing new, for example, in such cases,” retorted

Yakoff, getting angry. “The trouble with you is, for example, that you

think of nothing but vodka and tobacco, tobacco and vodka.” And, in

order to avoid a senseless quarrel with his neighbour, he hastened to

get away from Syery.

But Syery calmly and practically shouted after him: “A drunkard will

come to his senses, brother, but a fool never will.”

After sharing his property with his brother, Syery had wandered about

for a long time, living in hired lodgings, and had got jobs in the

town and on divers estates. He also went to work on the clover. And,

on that job, luck one day came his way. An organized gang of workmen

which Syery had joined engaged themselves to get in a large crop at

eighty kopeks a pud,[33] but behold, the crop turned out twice as heavy

as had been calculated. They winnowed it, and Syery was hired to run

the machine. He drove some of the grain out through the waste-spout

and bought it. And he grew rich: that same autumn he built a brick

cottage. But his calculations had been faulty: it turned out that the

cottage must be heated. And where was the money to come from? that was

the question. Why, there was not even enough to provide food. So it

became necessary to burn the top of the cottage; and there it stood,

roofless, for a year, and turned completely black. And the chimney

went for the price of a horse-collar. There were no horses as yet,

it is true; but, naturally, one must begin to fit oneself out some

time or other. And Syery let his arms fall by his side in despair: he

decided to sell the cottage, to build a cheaper one of beaten clay.

His argument ran as follows: There must be in the cottage--well, at

the very least, ten thousand bricks; he could sell them for five or

even six rubles a thousand; the sum-total, of course, would be about

one hundred and fifty rubles. But it turned out that there were only

three thousand five hundred bricks, and he was forced to accept two

rubles and a half for each girder, instead of five rubles. And for a

long time a bare mound of rubbish occupied the site of the splendid

cottage, solidifying under the rain: there was no money available for

clearing it away, and one’s hands simply refused to undertake the task.

Yakoff harangued on the subject: “Matters ought, for example, to have

been more cheaply managed from the start.” “But, devil take it,” Syery

said to himself, “a cheap thing doesn’t last long, does it?” And, much

troubled in mind, he proceeded to look up a new cottage--and spent a

whole year in bargaining for precisely those which were beyond his

means. He had reconciled himself to his present domicile merely in the

firm expectation of a future cottage which should be strong, spacious,

and warm.

“I simply don’t intend to live on here!” he snapped one day.

Yakoff stared at him attentively and shook his cap. “Exactly so. That

means you are expecting your ships to come in?”

“They’ll come, all right,” replied Syery mysteriously.

“Oï, drop your nonsense,” said Yakoff. “Get yourself a place

somewhere--anywhere you can--and keep your teeth, for example, in their

proper place.”

But the thought of a fine farmstead, good order, some suitable, real

work, poisoned Syery’s entire life. He got bored when working in a

place.

“Evidently, working at home isn’t as sweet as honey, either,” said his

neighbours.

“Never you mind, it might be honey-sweet if the house were managed

sensibly!”

“Just so. And will you take a place by the month, or until the working

season?”

“I’ll get one, never fear. Oversight is needed at home, isn’t it?”

“But all you do is to sit in the house and smoke your pipe.”

“What am I to do, then? can’t I even smoke?”

And Syery, suddenly becoming animated, jerked the cold pipe out of his

mouth and began his favourite story: how, while still a bachelor, he

had lived two full years honestly and nobly at the house of a priest

near Eletz. “Yes, and if I were to go there this minute, they would

fairly tear me to pieces with joy!” he exclaimed. “I need say only one

word: ‘I’ve come, papa, to work for you--will you take me or not?’ ‘But

why do you ask that, light of my life? Don’t I know you? Yes, good

Lord, live here with us for ever and ever, if you will’!”

“Well, and you might go there, for example--”

“I might go there! Look at them--all those brats in the corner! We know

all about that; ’tis another man’s grief, I’ll not meddle. But a man is

being wasted here, in vain.”

V

Syery was being wasted, in vain, this year also. He had sat at home

all winter long, with care-worn countenance, without light, cold

and hungry. During the Great Fast (Lent), he had managed somehow or

other to get a place with Rusanoff, near Tula: no one in his own

neighbourhood would any longer give him a place. But before the month

was out, Rusanoff’s establishment had become more repulsive to him than

a bitter radish.

“Oï, young fellow!” the manager once remarked to him. “I can see right

through you: you are picking a quarrel so that you can take to your

heels. Here, you dog, here’s your money in advance, and now be off with

you into the bushes!”

“Perhaps some sort of vagabond might take himself off, but not me,”

retorted Syery sharply.

But the manager did not understand the hint. And it became necessary

to adopt more decisive means. One day Syery was set to hauling in some

husks for the cattle. He went to the threshing-floor and began to load

a cart with straw. The manager came along:

“Didn’t I tell you, in good plain Russian, to load up with husks?”

“’Tis not the right time to load them,” replied Syery firmly.

“Why not?”

“Sensible farmers give husks for dinner, not at night.”

“And how do you come to be a teacher?”

“I don’t like to starve the cattle. That’s all there is to my being a

teacher.”

“But you are hauling straw.”

“One must know the proper time for everything.”

“Stop loading this very minute.”

Syery turned pale. “No, I won’t stop my work. I can’t stop my work.”

“Hand me over that fork, you dog, and get out, lest worse happen.”

“I’m no dog, but a baptized Christian man. When I’ve driven in this

load, I’ll get out. And I’ll go for good.”

“Well, brother, that’s not likely! You’ll go away, and pretty soon

you’ll be back again--and get locked up in the county jail.”

Syery leaped from the cart and hurled his pitchfork into the straw:

“I’m going to be locked up, am I?”

“Yes, you are!”

“Hey, young fellow, see that you don’t get locked up yourself! As if

we didn’t know something about you! The master has nothing good to say

about you, either, brother--”

The manager’s fat cheeks became suffused with dark blood, his eyeballs

protruded until they seemed all whites. With the back of his wrist he

thrust his peaked cap over on the nape of his neck and, drawing a deep

breath, he rapidly ejaculated: “A--ah! So that’s the way of it! Hasn’t

a good word to say of me? Tell me, if that’s the case--why not?”

“I have nothing to say,” mumbled Syery, feeling his legs

instantaneously grow cold with fear.

“Yes, you have, brother: you’re talking nonsense--you’ll tell!”

“Well, and what became of the flour?” suddenly shouted Syery.

“The flour? What flour?”

“The stolen flour. From the mill.”

The manager seized Syery by the collar in a death-like grip, fit to

suffocate him, and for the space of a moment the two stood stock still.

“What do you mean by it--grabbing a man like that, by his shirt?”

calmly inquired Syery. “Do you want to choke me?” Then, all of a

sudden, he began to squeak furiously: “Come on, thrash me, thrash while

your heart is hot!” And with a jerk he wrenched himself free and seized

his pitchfork.

“Come on, men!” the manager yelled, although there was no one anywhere

in the vicinity. “Help the manager! Hearken to this: he tried to stab

me to death, the dog!”

“Don’t come near me, or I’ll break your nose,” said Syery, balancing

his pitchfork. “Don’t forget, times are not what they used to be!”

But at this point the manager made a wide sweep with his arm, and Syery

flew headlong into the straw.

The melancholy which had once more begun to take powerful effect on

Kuzma along with the change in weather, went on constantly increasing

in force in proportion to his closer acquaintance with Dumovka,

with Syery. At first the latter was merely sad and ridiculous: what

a stupid man! Then he became irritating and repulsive: a degenerate!

All summer long he had sat on the doorstep of his cottage smoking,

waiting for favours from the Duma. All the autumn he had roamed from

farmstead to farmstead, in the hope of attaching himself to some one

who was bound for the clover work. On a hot, sunny day a new grain-rick

on the edge of the village took fire. Syery was the first person to

present himself at the conflagration, where he shouted himself hoarse,

singed his eyelashes off, and got drenched to the skin directing the

water-carriers and the men who, pitchforks in hand, flung themselves

into the huge rosy-golden flame, dragging out in all directions the

blazing thatches, and those who merely dashed about in the midst of the

fire, the crackling flames, the gushing water, the uproar, the holy

pictures, casks, and spinning-wheels heaped up near the cottages, the

sobbing women, and the showers of blackened leaves scattered abroad

from the burnt bushes. But what did he do that was practical? In

October, when, after inundating rains and an icy storm, the pond froze

over and a neighbour’s boar-pig slipped from an ice-clad mound, broke

through the ice, and began to drown, Syery was the first to arrive at

full speed, leap into the water, and save it. But why? In order that

he might be the hero of the day, that he might have the right to rush

from the pond into the servants’ hall, demand vodka, tobacco, and a

bite to eat. At first he was all purple; his teeth were chattering;

he could barely move his white lips as he dressed himself from head to

foot in some one else’s clothes--Koshel’s. Then he became animated, got

intoxicated, began to brag--and once more narrated how he had served

honestly, nobly, at a priest’s, and how cleverly he had married off

his daughter several years previously. He sat at the table greedily

devouring chunks of raw ham and announcing in self-satisfied wise:

“Good. Matriushka, my girl, you see, had been making up to that Yegor.

Well, she made eyes at him and made up to him. Nothing happened. One

evening I was sitting, so, near the window, when I saw Yegor walk

past the cottage once, then again--and that daughter of mine keeps

diving, diving toward the window. That signifies, says I to myself,

that they’ve settled matters. And I said to my wife: ‘Do you go give

the cattle their fodder: I’m off, summoned to the village assembly.’

I set myself down on the straw behind the cottage, and there I sat

and waited. And the first snow began to fall. And I saw Yegorka come

sneaking along again. And she was on hand too. They went behind the

cellar-house; then--they whisked into the cottage, the new empty one

alongside. I waited a bit--”

“A nice story!” remarked Kuzma, with an embarrassed laugh.

But Syery took that for praise, for enthusiasm over his cleverness and

craft. And, feeling himself a hero, he went on, now raising his voice,

now viciously lowering it: “So there I sat and listened, and waited

to find out what would happen next. So, as I was saying, I waited a

bit--then after them I went. I leaped over the threshold--and straight

at her, and seized her! Weren’t they frightened, though--horribly! He

tumbled flat on the floor, as limp as a sack--helpless enough for any

one to cut his throat--while she went off in a faint--lay there like

a dead duck. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘now thrash me.’ That was what he said.

‘I don’t ne-ed to thrash you,’ says I. I took his coat, and I took his

waistcoat, too--left him in his drawers only--pretty nearly in the

condition when his mother gave him birth. ‘Now,’ says I, ‘get out,

go wherever you please.’ And I myself set out for my house. I looked

round--and he was behind me. The snow was white, and he was white, and

he was sniffling. He had no place to go--whither could he run? But my

Matryona Mikolavna rushes off to the fields the minute I am out of the

cottage! She went at a lively pace--a woman neighbour had difficulty

in grabbing her by the sleeve when she had got almost to Basovka, and

brought her to me. I let her rest a while, then I said: ‘We are poor

folks, ain’t we?’ She said never a word. ‘And your mother--is she a

poor wretch, or is she a decent woman?’ No answer. ‘You’ve put us to

shame. Hey, haven’t you? What do you mean by it--are you thinking

you’ll fill my house with that sort, with your bastards--and I’m to

shut my eyes to what’s going on? Seeing how poor we are, you ought to

watch what you’re about, and not make us a laughing-stock, dragging

your maiden braids all over the place--you trash!’ Then I began to tan

her hide--I had a fine suitable little whip on hand. Well, to say it

simply, I cut up her whole body to such a degree that she slid down

at my feet and kissed my felt boots, while he sat up on the bench and

yelled. Then I began on him, the dear man--”

“And did he marry her?” inquired Kuzma.

“I should say he did!” exclaimed Syery; and, conscious that

intoxication was getting the better of him, he began to scrape up the

fragments of ham from the platter and stuff them into the pockets of

his breeches. “And what a wedding we made of it! As for the expense, I

don’t have to blink my eyes over that, brother!”