Makaritch. Glad that he had not been prevented from writing, he put on
his cap and, without putting on his little greatcoat, ran out into the
street as he was in his shirt. . . .
The shopmen at the butcher's, whom he had questioned the day before,
told him that letters were put in post-boxes, and from the boxes were
carried about all over the earth in mailcarts with drunken drivers and
ringing bells. Vanka ran to the nearest post-box, and thrust the
precious letter in the slit. . . .
An hour later, lulled by sweet hopes, he was sound asleep. . . . He
dreamed of the stove. On the stove was sitting his grandfather, swinging
his bare legs, and reading the letter to the cooks. . . .
By the stove was Eel, wagging his tail.
AN INCIDENT
MORNING. Brilliant sunshine is piercing through the frozen lacework on
the window-panes into the nursery. Vanya, a boy of six, with a cropped
head and a nose like a button, and his sister Nina, a short, chubby,
curly-headed girl of four, wake up and look crossly at each other
through the bars of their cots.
"Oo-oo-oo! naughty children!" grumbles their nurse. "Good people have
had their breakfast already, while you can't get your eyes open."
The sunbeams frolic over the rugs, the walls, and nurse's skirts, and
seem inviting the children to join in their play, but they take no
notice. They have woken up in a bad humour. Nina pouts, makes a grimace,
and begins to whine:
"Brea-eakfast, nurse, breakfast!"
Vanya knits his brows and ponders what to pitch upon to howl over. He
has already begun screwing up his eyes and opening his mouth, but at
that instant the voice of mamma reaches them from the drawing-room,
saying: "Don't forget to give the cat her milk, she has a family now!"
The children's puckered countenances grow smooth again as they look at
each other in astonishment. Then both at once begin shouting, jump out
of their cots, and filling the air with piercing shrieks, run barefoot,
in their nightgowns, to the kitchen.
"The cat has puppies!" they cry. "The cat has got puppies!"
Under the bench in the kitchen there stands a small box, the one in
which Stepan brings coal when he lights the fire. The cat is peeping out
of the box. There is an expression of extreme exhaustion on her grey
face; her green eyes, with their narrow black pupils, have a languid,
sentimental look. From her face it is clear that the only thing lacking
to complete her happiness is the presence in the box of "him," the
father of her children, to whom she had abandoned herself so recklessly!
She wants to mew, and opens her mouth wide, but nothing but a hiss comes
from her throat; the squealing of the kittens is audible.
The children squat on their heels before the box, and, motionless,
holding their breath, gaze at the cat. . . . They are surprised,
impressed, and do not hear nurse grumbling as she pursues them. The most
genuine delight shines in the eyes of both.
Domestic animals play a scarcely noticed but undoubtedly beneficial part
in the education and life of children. Which of us does not remember
powerful but magnanimous dogs, lazy lapdogs, birds dying in captivity,
dull-witted but haughty turkeys, mild old tabby cats, who forgave us
when we trod on their tails for fun and caused them agonising pain? I
even fancy, sometimes, that the patience, the fidelity, the readiness to
forgive, and the sincerity which are characteristic of our domestic
animals have a far stronger and more definite effect on the mind of a
child than the long exhortations of some dry, pale Karl Karlovitch, or
the misty expositions of a governess, trying to prove to children that
water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen.
"What little things!" says Nina, opening her eyes wide and going off
into a joyous laugh. "They are like mice!"
"One, two, three," Vanya counts. "Three kittens. So there is one for
you, one for me, and one for somebody else, too."
"Murrm . . . murrm . . ." purrs the mother, flattered by their
attention. "Murrm."
After gazing at the kittens, the children take them from under the cat,
and begin squeezing them in their hands, then, not satisfied with this,
they put them in the skirts of their nightgowns, and run into the other
rooms.
"Mamma, the cat has got pups!" they shout.
Mamma is sitting in the drawing-room with some unknown gentleman. Seeing
the children unwashed, undressed, with their nightgowns held up high,
she is embarrassed, and looks at them severely.
"Let your nightgowns down, disgraceful children," she says. "Go out of
the room, or I will punish you."
But the children do not notice either mamma's threats or the presence of
a stranger. They put the kittens down on the carpet, and go off into
deafening squeals. The mother walks round them, mewing imploringly.
When, a little afterwards, the children are dragged off to the nursery,
dressed, made to say their prayers, and given their breakfast, they are
full of a passionate desire to get away from these prosaic duties as
quickly as possible, and to run to the kitchen again.
Their habitual pursuits and games are thrown completely into the
background.
The kittens throw everything into the shade by making their appearance
in the world, and supply the great sensation of the day. If Nina or
Vanya had been offered forty pounds of sweets or ten thousand kopecks
for each kitten, they would have rejected such a barter without the
slightest hesitation. In spite of the heated protests of the nurse and
the cook, the children persist in sitting by the cat's box in the
kitchen, busy with the kittens till dinner-time. Their faces are earnest
and concentrated and express anxiety. They are worried not so much by
the present as by the future of the kittens. They decide that one kitten
shall remain at home with the old cat to be a comfort to her mother,
while the second shall go to their summer villa, and the third shall
live in the cellar, where there are ever so many rats.
"But why don't they look at us?" Nina wondered. "Their eyes are blind
like the beggars'."
Vanya, too, is perturbed by this question. He tries to open one kitten's
eyes, and spends a long time puffing and breathing hard over it, but his
operation is unsuccessful. They are a good deal troubled, too, by the
circumstance that the kittens obstinately refuse the milk and the meat
that is offered to them. Everything that is put before their little
noses is eaten by their grey mamma.
"Let's build the kittens little houses," Vanya suggests. "They shall
live in different houses, and the cat shall come and pay them visits. .
. ."
Cardboard hat-boxes are put in the different corners of the kitchen and
the kittens are installed in them. But this division turns out to be
premature; the cat, still wearing an imploring and sentimental
expression on her face, goes the round of all the hat-boxes, and carries
off her children to their original position.
"The cat's their mother," observed Vanya, "but who is their father?"
"Yes, who is their father?" repeats Nina.
"They must have a father."
Vanya and Nina are a long time deciding who is to be the kittens'
father, and, in the end, their choice falls on a big dark-red horse
without a tail, which is lying in the store-cupboard under the stairs,
together with other relics of toys that have outlived their day. They
drag him up out of the store-cupboard and stand him by the box.
"Mind now!" they admonish him, "stand here and see they behave
themselves properly."
All this is said and done in the gravest way, with an expression of
anxiety on their faces. Vanya and Nina refuse to recognise the existence
of any world but the box of kittens. Their joy knows no bounds. But they
have to pass through bitter, agonising moments, too.
Just before dinner, Vanya is sitting in his father's study, gazing
dreamily at the table. A kitten is moving about by the lamp, on stamped
note paper. Vanya is watching its movements, and thrusting first a
pencil, then a match into its little mouth. . . . All at once, as though
he has sprung out of the floor, his father is beside the table.
"What's this?" Vanya hears, in an angry voice.
"It's . . . it's the kitty, papa. . . ."
"I'll give it you; look what you have done, you naughty boy! You've
dirtied all my paper!"
To Vanya's great surprise his papa does not share his partiality for the
kittens, and, instead of being moved to enthusiasm and delight, he pulls
Vanya's ear and shouts:
"Stepan, take away this horrid thing."
At dinner, too, there is a scene. . . . During the second course there
is suddenly the sound of a shrill mew. They begin to investigate its
origin, and discover a kitten under Nina's pinafore.
"Nina, leave the table!" cries her father angrily. "Throw the kittens in
the cesspool! I won't have the nasty things in the house! . . ."
Vanya and Nina are horrified. Death in the cesspool, apart from its
cruelty, threatens to rob the cat and the wooden horse of their
children, to lay waste the cat's box, to destroy their plans for the
future, that fair future in which one cat will be a comfort to its old
mother, another will live in the country, while the third will catch
rats in the cellar. The children begin to cry and entreat that the
kittens may be spared. Their father consents, but on the condition that
the children do not go into the kitchen and touch the kittens.
After dinner, Vanya and Nina slouch about the rooms, feeling depressed.
The prohibition of visits to the kitchen has reduced them to dejection.
They refuse sweets, are naughty, and are rude to their mother. When
their uncle Petrusha comes in the evening, they draw him aside, and
complain to him of their father, who wanted to throw the kittens into
the cesspool.
"Uncle Petrusha, tell mamma to have the kittens taken to the nursery,"
the children beg their uncle, "do-o tell her."
"There, there . . . very well," says their uncle, waving them off. "All
right."
Uncle Petrusha does not usually come alone. He is accompanied by Nero, a
big black dog of Danish breed, with drooping ears, and a tail as hard as
a stick. The dog is silent, morose, and full of a sense of his own
dignity. He takes not the slightest notice of the children, and when he
passes them hits them with his tail as though they were chairs. The
children hate him from the bottom of their hearts, but on this occasion,
practical considerations override sentiment.
"I say, Nina," says Vanya, opening his eyes wide. "Let Nero be their
father, instead of the horse! The horse is dead and he is alive, you
see."
They are waiting the whole evening for the moment when papa will sit
down to his cards and it will be possible to take Nero to the kitchen
without being observed. . . . At last, papa sits down to cards, mamma is
busy with the samovar and not noticing the children. . . .
The happy moment arrives.
"Come along!" Vanya whispers to his sister.
But, at that moment, Stepan comes in and, with a snigger, announces:
"Nero has eaten the kittens, madam."
Nina and Vanya turn pale and look at Stepan with horror.
"He really has . . ." laughs the footman, "he went to the box and
gobbled them up."
The children expect that all the people in the house will be aghast and
fall upon the miscreant Nero. But they all sit calmly in their seats,
and only express surprise at the appetite of the huge dog. Papa and
mamma laugh. Nero walks about by the table, wags his tail, and licks his
lips complacently . . . the cat is the only one who is uneasy. With her
tail in the air she walks about the rooms, looking suspiciously at
people and mewing plaintively.
"Children, it's past nine," cries mamma, "it's bedtime."
Vanya and Nina go to bed, shed tears, and spend a long time thinking
about the injured cat, and the cruel, insolent, and unpunished Nero.
A DAY IN THE COUNTRY BETWEEN eight and nine o'clock in the morning.
A dark leaden-coloured mass is creeping over the sky towards the sun.
Red zigzags of lightning gleam here and there across it. There is a
sound of far-away rumbling. A warm wind frolics over the grass, bends
the trees, and stirs up the dust. In a minute there will be a spurt of
May rain and a real storm will begin.
Fyokla, a little beggar-girl of six, is running through the village,
looking for Terenty the cobbler. The white-haired, barefoot child is
pale. Her eyes are wide-open, her lips are trembling.
"Uncle, where is Terenty?" she asks every one she meets. No one answers.
They are all preoccupied with the approaching storm and take refuge in
their huts. At last she meets Silanty Silitch, the sacristan, Terenty's
bosom friend. He is coming along, staggering from the wind.
"Uncle, where is Terenty?"
"At the kitchen-gardens," answers Silanty.
The beggar-girl runs behind the huts to the kitchen-gardens and there
finds Terenty; the tall old man with a thin, pock-marked face, very long
legs, and bare feet, dressed in a woman's tattered jacket, is standing
near the vegetable plots, looking with drowsy, drunken eyes at the dark
storm-cloud. On his long crane-like legs he sways in the wind like a
starling-cote.
"Uncle Terenty!" the white-headed beggar-girl addresses him. "Uncle,
darling!"
Terenty bends down to Fyokla, and his grim, drunken face is overspread
with a smile, such as come into people's faces when they look at
something little, foolish, and absurd, but warmly loved.
"Ah! servant of God, Fyokia," he says, lisping tenderly, "where have you
come from?"
"Uncle Terenty," says Fyokia, with a sob, tugging at the lapel of the
cobbler's coat. "Brother Danilka has had an accident! Come along!"
"What sort of accident? Ough, what thunder! Holy, holy, holy. . . . What
sort of accident?"
"In the count's copse Danilka stuck his hand into a hole in a tree, and
he can't get it out. Come along, uncle, do be kind and pull his hand
out!"
"How was it he put his hand in? What for?"
"He wanted to get a cuckoo's egg out of the hole for me."
"The day has hardly begun and already you are in trouble. . . ." Terenty
shook his head and spat deliberately. "Well, what am I to do with you
now? I must come . . . I must, may the wolf gobble you up, you naughty
children! Come, little orphan!"
Terenty comes out of the kitchen-garden and, lifting high his long legs,
begins striding down the village street. He walks quickly without
stopping or looking from side to side, as though he were shoved from
behind or afraid of pursuit. Fyokla can hardly keep up with him.
They come out of the village and turn along the dusty road towards the
count's copse that lies dark blue in the distance. It is about a mile
and a half away. The clouds have by now covered the sun, and soon
afterwards there is not a speck of blue left in the sky. It grows dark.
"Holy, holy, holy . . ." whispers Fyokla, hurrying after Terenty. The
first rain-drops, big and heavy, lie, dark dots on the dusty road. A big
drop falls on Fyokla's cheek and glides like a tear down her chin.
"The rain has begun," mutters the cobbler, kicking up the dust with his
bare, bony feet. "That's fine, Fyokla, old girl. The grass and the trees
are fed by the rain, as we are by bread. And as for the thunder, don't
you be frightened, little orphan. Why should it kill a little thing like
you?"
As soon as the rain begins, the wind drops. The only sound is the patter
of rain dropping like fine shot on the young rye and the parched road.
"We shall get soaked, Fyolka," mutters Terenty. "There won't be a dry
spot left on us. . . . Ho-ho, my girl! It's run down my neck! But don't
be frightened, silly. . . . The grass will be dry again, the earth will
be dry again, and we shall be dry again. There is the same sun for us
all."
A flash of lightning, some fourteen feet long, gleams above their heads.
There is a loud peal of thunder, and it seems to Fyokla that something
big, heavy, and round is rolling over the sky and tearing it open,
exactly over her head.
"Holy, holy, holy . . ." says Terenty, crossing himself. "Don't be
afraid, little orphan! It is not from spite that it thunders."
Terenty's and Fyokla's feet are covered with lumps of heavy, wet clay.
It is slippery and difficult to walk, but Terenty strides on more and
more rapidly. The weak little beggar-girl is breathless and ready to
drop.
But at last they go into the count's copse. The washed trees, stirred by
a gust of wind, drop a perfect waterfall upon them. Terenty stumbles
over stumps and begins to slacken his pace.
"Whereabouts is Danilka?" he asks. "Lead me to him."
Fyokla leads him into a thicket, and, after going a quarter of a mile,
points to Danilka. Her brother, a little fellow of eight, with hair as
red as ochre and a pale sickly face, stands leaning against a tree, and,
with his head on one side, looking sideways at the sky. In one hand he
holds his shabby old cap, the other is hidden in an old lime tree. The
boy is gazing at the stormy sky, and apparently not thinking of his
trouble. Hearing footsteps and seeing the cobbler he gives a sickly
smile and says:
"A terrible lot of thunder, Terenty. . . . I've never heard so much
thunder in all my life."
"And where is your hand?"
"In the hole. . . . Pull it out, please, Terenty!"
The wood had broken at the edge of the hole and jammed Danilka's hand:
he could push it farther in, but could not pull it out. Terenty snaps
off the broken piece, and the boy's hand, red and crushed, is released.
"It's terrible how it's thundering," the boy says again, rubbing his
hand. "What makes it thunder, Terenty?"
"One cloud runs against the other," answers the cobbler. The party come
out of the copse, and walk along the edge of it towards the darkened
road. The thunder gradually abates, and its rumbling is heard far away
beyond the village.
"The ducks flew by here the other day, Terenty," says Danilka, still
rubbing his hand. "They must be nesting in the Gniliya Zaimishtcha
marshes. . . . Fyolka, would you like me to show you a nightingale's
nest?"
"Don't touch it, you might disturb them," says Terenty, wringing the
water out of his cap. "The nightingale is a singing-bird, without sin.
He has had a voice given him in his throat, to praise God and gladden
the heart of man. It's a sin to disturb him."
"What about the sparrow?"
"The sparrow doesn't matter, he's a bad, spiteful bird. He is like a
pickpocket in his ways. He doesn't like man to be happy. When Christ was
crucified it was the sparrow brought nails to the Jews, and called
'alive! alive!'"
A bright patch of blue appears in the sky.
"Look!" says Terenty. "An ant-heap burst open by the rain! They've been
flooded, the rogues!"
They bend over the ant-heap. The downpour has damaged it; the insects
are scurrying to and fro in the mud, agitated, and busily trying to
carry away their drowned companions.
"You needn't be in such a taking, you won't die of it!" says Terenty,
grinning. "As soon as the sun warms you, you'll come to your senses
again. . . . It's a lesson to you, you stupids. You won't settle on low
ground another time."
They go on.
"And here are some bees," cries Danilka, pointing to the branch of a
young oak tree.
The drenched and chilled bees are huddled together on the branch. There
are so many of them that neither bark nor leaf can be seen. Many of them
are settled on one another.
"That's a swarm of bees," Terenty informs them. "They were flying
looking for a home, and when the rain came down upon them they settled.
If a swarm is flying, you need only sprinkle water on them to make them
settle. Now if, say, you wanted to take the swarm, you would bend the
branch with them into a sack and shake it, and they all fall in."
Little Fyokla suddenly frowns and rubs her neck vigorously. Her brother
looks at her neck, and sees a big swelling on it.
"Hey-hey!" laughs the cobbler. "Do you know where you got that from,
Fyokia, old girl? There are Spanish flies on some tree in the wood. The
rain has trickled off them, and a drop has fallen on your neck --that's
what has made the swelling."
The sun appears from behind the clouds and floods the wood, the fields,
and the three friends with its warm light. The dark menacing cloud has
gone far away and taken the storm with it. The air is warm and fragrant.
There is a scent of bird-cherry, meadowsweet, and lilies-of-the-valley.
"That herb is given when your nose bleeds," says Terenty, pointing to a
woolly-looking flower. "It does good."
They hear a whistle and a rumble, but not such a rumble as the storm-
clouds carried away. A goods train races by before the eyes of Terenty,
Danilka, and Fyokla. The engine, panting and puffing out black smoke,
drags more than twenty vans after it. Its power is tremendous. The
children are interested to know how an engine, not alive and without the
help of horses, can move and drag such weights, and Terenty undertakes
to explain it to them:
"It's all the steam's doing, children. . . . The steam does the work. .
. . You see, it shoves under that thing near the wheels, and it . . .
you see . . . it works. . . ."
They cross the railway line, and, going down from the embankment, walk
towards the river. They walk not with any object, but just at random,
and talk all the way. . . . Danilka asks questions, Terenty answers
them. . . .
Terenty answers all his questions, and there is no secret in Nature
which baffles him. He knows everything. Thus, for example, he knows the
names of all the wild flowers, animals, and stones. He knows what herbs
cure diseases, he has no difficulty in telling the age of a horse or a
cow. Looking at the sunset, at the moon, or the birds, he can tell what
sort of weather it will be next day. And indeed, it is not only Terenty
who is so wise. Silanty Silitch, the innkeeper, the market-gardener, the
shepherd, and all the villagers, generally speaking, know as much as he
does. These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in
the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds
themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of
crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.
Danilka looks at Terenty and greedily drinks in every word. In spring,
before one is weary of the warmth and the monotonous green of the
fields, when everything is fresh and full of fragrance, who would not
want to hear about the golden may-beetles, about the cranes, about the
gurgling streams, and the corn mounting into ear?
The two of them, the cobbler and the orphan, walk about the fields, talk
unceasingly, and are not weary. They could wander about the world
endlessly. They walk, and in their talk of the beauty of the earth do
not notice the frail little beggar-girl tripping after them. She is
breathless and moves with a lagging step. There are tears in her eyes;
she would be glad to stop these inexhaustible wanderers, but to whom and
where can she go? She has no home or people of her own; whether she
likes it or not, she must walk and listen to their talk.
Towards midday, all three sit down on the river bank. Danilka takes out
of his bag a piece of bread, soaked and reduced to a mash, and they
begin to eat. Terenty says a prayer when he has eaten the bread, then
stretches himself on the sandy bank and falls asleep. While he is
asleep, the boy gazes at the water, pondering. He has many different
things to think of. He has just seen the storm, the bees, the ants, the
train. Now, before his eyes, fishes are whisking about. Some are two
inches long and more, others are no bigger than one's nail. A viper,
with its head held high, is swimming from one bank to the other.
Only towards the evening our wanderers return to the village. The
children go for the night to a deserted barn, where the corn of the
commune used to be kept, while Terenty, leaving them, goes to the
tavern. The children lie huddled together on the straw, dozing.
The boy does not sleep. He gazes into the darkness, and it seems to him
that he is seeing all that he has seen in the day: the storm-clouds, the
bright sunshine, the birds, the fish, lanky Terenty. The number of his
impressions, together with exhaustion and hunger, are too much for him;
he is as hot as though he were on fire, and tosses from, side to side.
He longs to tell someone all that is haunting him now in the darkness
and agitating his soul, but there is no one to tell. Fyokla is too
little and could not understand.
"I'll tell Terenty to-morrow," thinks the boy.