my earliest childhood. I was only twelve years old when I used to read
the epistle in church, and my parents were greatly delighted, and every
summer I used to go on a pilgrimage with my dear mother. Sometimes other
lads would be singing songs and catching crayfish, while I would be all
the time with my mother. My elders commended me, and, indeed, I was
pleased myself that I was of such good behaviour. And when my mother
sent me with her blessing to the factory, I used between working hours
to sing tenor there in our choir, and nothing gave me greater pleasure.
I needn't say, I drank no vodka, I smoked no tobacco, and lived in
chastity; but we all know such a mode of life is displeasing to the
enemy of mankind, and he, the unclean spirit, once tried to ruin me and
began to darken my mind, just as now with my cousin. First of all, I
took a vow to fast every Monday and not to eat meat any day, and as time
went on all sorts of fancies came over me. For the first week of Lent
down to Saturday the holy fathers have ordained a diet of dry food, but
it is no sin for the weak or those who work hard even to drink tea, yet
not a crumb passed into my mouth till the Sunday, and afterwards all
through Lent I did not allow myself a drop of oil, and on Wednesdays and
Fridays I did not touch a morsel at all. It was the same in the lesser
fasts. Sometimes in St. Peter's fast our factory lads would have fish
soup, while I would sit a little apart from them and suck a dry crust.
Different people have different powers, of course, but I can say of
myself I did not find fast days hard, and, indeed, the greater the zeal
the easier it seems. You are only hungry on the first days of the fast,
and then you get used to it; it goes on getting easier, and by the end
of a week you don't mind it at all, and there is a numb feeling in your
legs as though you were not on earth, but in the clouds. And, besides
that, I laid all sorts of penances on myself; I used to get up in the
night and pray, bowing down to the ground, used to drag heavy stones
from place to place, used to go out barefoot in the snow, and I even
wore chains, too. Only, as time went on, you know, I was confessing one
day to the priest and suddenly this reflection occurred to me: why, this
priest, I thought, is married, he eats meat and smokes tobacco--how can
he confess me, and what power has he to absolve my sins if he is more
sinful that I? I even scruple to eat Lenten oil, while he eats sturgeon,
I dare say. I went to another priest, and he, as ill luck would have it,
was a fat fleshy man, in a silk cassock; he rustled like a lady, and he
smelt of tobacco too. I went to fast and confess in the monastery, and
my heart was not at ease even there; I kept fancying the monks were not
living according to their rules. And after that I could not find a
service to my mind: in one place they read the service too fast, in
another they sang the wrong prayer, in a third the sacristan stammered.
Sometimes, the Lord forgive me a sinner, I would stand in church and my
heart would throb with anger. How could one pray, feeling like that? And
I fancied that the people in the church did not cross themselves
properly, did not listen properly; wherever I looked it seemed to me
that they were all drunkards, that they broke the fast, smoked, lived
loose lives and played cards. I was the only one who lived according to
the commandments. The wily spirit did not slumber; it got worse as it
went on. I gave up singing in the choir and I did not go to church at
all; since my notion was that I was a righteous man and that the church
did not suit me owing to its imperfections--that is, indeed, like a
fallen angel, I was puffed up in my pride beyond all belief. After this
I began attempting to make a church for myself. I hired from a deaf
woman a tiny little room, a long way out of town near the cemetery, and
made a prayer-room like my cousin's, only I had big church candlesticks,
too, and a real censer. In this prayer-room of mine I kept the rules of
holy Mount Athos--that is, every day my matins began at midnight without
fail, and on the eve of the chief of the twelve great holy days my
midnight service lasted ten hours and sometimes even twelve. Monks are
allowed by rule to sit during the singing of the Psalter and the reading
of the Bible, but I wanted to be better than the monks, and so I used to
stand all through. I used to read and sing slowly, with tears and
sighing, lifting up my hands, and I used to go straight from prayer to
work without sleeping; and, indeed, I was always praying at my work,
too. Well, it got all over the town 'Matvey is a saint; Matvey heals the
sick and senseless.' I never had healed anyone, of course, but we all
know wherever any heresy or false doctrine springs up there's no keeping
the female sex away. They are just like flies on the honey. Old maids
and females of all sorts came trailing to me, bowing down to my feet,
kissing my hands and crying out I was a saint and all the rest of it,
and one even saw a halo round my head. It was too crowded in the prayer-
room. I took a bigger room, and then we had a regular tower of Babel.
The devil got hold of me completely and screened the light from my eyes
with his unclean hoofs. We all behaved as though we were frantic. I
read, while the old maids and other females sang, and then after
standing on their legs for twenty-four hours or longer without eating or
drinking, suddenly a trembling would come over them as though they were
in a fever; after that, one would begin screaming and then another--it
was horrible! I, too, would shiver all over like a Jew in a frying-pan,
I don't know myself why, and our legs began to prance about. It's a
strange thing, indeed: you don't want to, but you prance about and
waggle your arms; and after that, screaming and shrieking, we all danced
and ran after one another --ran till we dropped; and in that way, in wild
frenzy, I fell into fornication."
The policeman laughed, but, noticing that no one else was laughing,
became serious and said:
"That's Molokanism. I have heard they are all like that in the
Caucasus."
"But I was not killed by a thunderbolt," Matvey went on, crossing
himself before the ikon and moving his lips. "My dead mother must have
been praying for me in the other world. When everyone in the town looked
upon me as a saint, and even the ladies and gentlemen of good family
used to come to me in secret for consolation, I happened to go into our
landlord, Osip Varlamitch, to ask forgiveness --it was the Day of
Forgiveness--and he fastened the door with the hook, and we were left
alone face to face. And he began to reprove me, and I must tell you Osip
Varlamitch was a man of brains, though without education, and everyone
respected and feared him, for he was a man of stern, God-fearing life
and worked hard. He had been the mayor of the town, and a warden of the
church for twenty years maybe, and had done a great deal of good; he had
covered all the New Moscow Road with gravel, had painted the church, and
had decorated the columns to look like malachite. Well, he fastened the
door, and--'I have been wanting to get at you for a long time, you
rascal, . . .' he said. 'You think you are a saint,' he said. 'No you
are not a saint, but a backslider from God, a heretic and an evildoer! .
. .' And he went on and on. . . . I can't tell you how he said it, so
eloquently and cleverly, as though it were all written down, and so
touchingly. He talked for two hours. His words penetrated my soul; my
eyes were opened. I listened, listened and --burst into sobs! 'Be an
ordinary man,' he said, 'eat and drink, dress and pray like everyone
else. All that is above the ordinary is of the devil. Your chains,' he
said, 'are of the devil; your fasting is of the devil; your prayer-room
is of the devil. It is all pride,' he said. Next day, on Monday in Holy
Week, it pleased God I should fall ill. I ruptured myself and was taken
to the hospital. I was terribly worried, and wept bitterly and trembled.
I thought there was a straight road before me from the hospital to hell,
and I almost died. I was in misery on a bed of sickness for six months,
and when I was discharged the first thing I did I confessed, and took
the sacrament in the regular way and became a man again. Osip Varlamitch
saw me off home and exhorted me: 'Remember, Matvey, that anything above
the ordinary is of the devil.' And now I eat and drink like everyone
else and pray like everyone else . . . . If it happens now that the
priest smells of tobacco or vodka I don't venture to blame him, because
the priest, too, of course, is an ordinary man. But as soon as I am told
that in the town or in the village a saint has set up who does not eat
for weeks, and makes rules of his own, I know whose work it is. So that
is how I carried on in the past, gentlemen. Now, like Osip Varlamitch, I
am continually exhorting my cousins and reproaching them, but I am a
voice crying in the wilderness. God has not vouchsafed me the gift."
Matvey's story evidently made no impression whatever. Sergey Nikanoritch
said nothing, but began clearing the refreshments off the counter, while
the policeman began talking of how rich Matvey's cousin was.
"He must have thirty thousand at least," he said.
Zhukov the policeman, a sturdy, well-fed, red-haired man with a full
face (his cheeks quivered when he walked), usually sat lolling and
crossing his legs when not in the presence of his superiors. As he
talked he swayed to and fro and whistled carelessly, while his face had
a self-satisfied replete air, as though he had just had dinner. He was
making money, and he always talked of it with the air of a connoisseur.
He undertook jobs as an agent, and when anyone wanted to sell an estate,
a horse or a carriage, they applied to him.
"Yes, it will be thirty thousand, I dare say," Sergey Nikanoritch
assented. "Your grandfather had an immense fortune," he said, addressing
Matvey. "Immense it was; all left to your father and your uncle. Your
father died as a young man and your uncle got hold of it all, and
afterwards, of course, Yakov Ivanitch. While you were going pilgrimages
with your mama and singing tenor in the factory, they didn't let the
grass grow under their feet."
"Fifteen thousand comes to your share," said the policeman swaying from
side to side. "The tavern belongs to you in common, so the capital is in
common. Yes. If I were in your place I should have taken it into court
long ago. I would have taken it into court for one thing, and while the
case was going on I'd have knocked his face to a jelly."
Yakov Ivanitch was disliked because, when anyone believes differently
from others, it upsets even people who are indifferent to religion. The
policeman disliked him also because he, too, sold horses and carriages.
"You don't care about going to law with your cousin because you have
plenty of money of your own," said the waiter to Matvey, looking at him
with envy. "It is all very well for anyone who has means, but here I
shall die in this position, I suppose. . . ."
Matvey began declaring that he hadn't any money at all, but Sergey
Nikanoritch was not listening. Memories of the past and of the insults
which he endured every day came showering upon him. His bald head began
to perspire; he flushed and blinked.
"A cursed life!" he said with vexation, and he banged the sausage on the
floor. III
The story ran that the tavern had been built in the time of Alexander I,
by a widow who had settled here with her son; her name was Avdotya
Terehov. The dark roofed-in courtyard and the gates always kept locked
excited, especially on moonlight nights, a feeling of depression and
unaccountable uneasiness in people who drove by with posting-horses, as
though sorcerers or robbers were living in it; and the driver always
looked back after he passed, and whipped up his horses. Travellers did
not care to put up here, as the people of the house were always
unfriendly and charged heavily. The yard was muddy even in summer; huge
fat pigs used to lie there in the mud, and the horses in which the
Terehovs dealt wandered about untethered, and often it happened that
they ran out of the yard and dashed along the road like mad creatures,
terrifying the pilgrim women. At that time there was a great deal of
traffic on the road; long trains of loaded waggons trailed by, and all
sorts of adventures happened, such as, for instance, that thirty years
ago some waggoners got up a quarrel with a passing merchant and killed
him, and a slanting cross is standing to this day half a mile from the
tavern; posting-chaises with bells and the heavy dormeuses of country
gentlemen drove by; and herds of horned cattle passed bellowing and
stirring up clouds of dust.
When the railway came there was at first at this place only a platform,
which was called simply a halt; ten years afterwards the present
station, Progonnaya, was built. The traffic on the old posting-road
almost ceased, and only local landowners and peasants drove along it
now, but the working people walked there in crowds in spring and autumn.
The posting-inn was transformed into a restaurant; the upper storey was
destroyed by fire, the roof had grown yellow with rust, the roof over
the yard had fallen by degrees, but huge fat pigs, pink and revolting,
still wallowed in the mud in the yard. As before, the horses sometimes
ran away and, lashing their tails dashed madly along the road. In the
tavern they sold tea, hay oats and flour, as well as vodka and beer, to
be drunk on the premises and also to be taken away; they sold spirituous
liquors warily, for they had never taken out a licence.
The Terehovs had always been distinguished by their piety, so much so
that they had even been given the nickname of the "Godlies." But perhaps
because they lived apart like bears, avoided people and thought out all
their ideas for themselves, they were given to dreams and to doubts and
to changes of faith and almost each generation had a peculiar faith of
its own. The grandmother Avdotya, who had built the inn, was an Old
Believer; her son and both her grandsons (the fathers of Matvey and
Yakov) went to the Orthodox church, entertained the clergy, and
worshipped before the new ikons as devoutly as they had done before the
old. The son in old age refused to eat meat and imposed upon himself the
rule of silence, considering all conversation as sin; it was the
peculiarity of the grandsons that they interpreted the Scripture not
simply, but sought in it a hidden meaning, declaring that every sacred
word must contain a mystery.
Avdotya's great-grandson Matvey had struggled from early childhood with
all sorts of dreams and fancies and had been almost ruined by it; the
other great-grandson, Yakov Ivanitch, was orthodox, but after his wife's
death he gave up going to church and prayed at home. Following his
example, his sister Aglaia had turned, too; she did not go to church
herself, and did not let Dashutka go. Of Aglaia it was told that in her
youth she used to attend the Flagellant meetings in Vedenyapino, and
that she was still a Flagellant in secret, and that was why she wore a
white kerchief.
Yakov Ivanitch was ten years older than Matvey--he was a very handsome
tall old man with a big grey beard almost to his waist, and bushy
eyebrows which gave his face a stern, even ill-natured expression. He
wore a long jerkin of good cloth or a black sheepskin coat, and
altogether tried to be clean and neat in dress; he wore goloshes even in
dry weather. He did not go to church, because, to his thinking, the
services were not properly celebrated and because the priests drank wine
at unlawful times and smoked tobacco. Every day he read and sang the
service at home with Aglaia. At Vedenyapino they left out the "Praises"
at early matins, and had no evening service even on great holidays, but
he used to read through at home everything that was laid down for every
day, without hurrying or leaving out a single line, and even in his
spare time read aloud the Lives of the Saints. And in everyday life he
adhered strictly to the rules of the church; thus, if wine were allowed
on some day in Lent "for the sake of the vigil," then he never failed to
drink wine, even if he were not inclined.
He read, sang, burned incense and fasted, not for the sake of receiving
blessings of some sort from God, but for the sake of good order. Man
cannot live without religion, and religion ought to be expressed from
year to year and from day to day in a certain order, so that every
morning and every evening a man might turn to God with exactly those
words and thoughts that were befitting that special day and hour. One
must live, and, therefore, also pray as is pleasing to God, and so every
day one must read and sing what is pleasing to God--that is, what is laid
down in the rule of the church. Thus the first chapter of St. John must
only be read on Easter Day, and "It is most meet" must not be sung from
Easter to Ascension, and so on. The consciousness of this order and its
importance afforded Yakov Ivanitch great gratification during his
religious exercises. When he was forced to break this order by some
necessity--to drive to town or to the bank, for instance his conscience
was uneasy and he felt miserable.
When his cousin Matvey had returned unexpectedly from the factory and
settled in the tavern as though it were his home, he had from the very
first day disturbed his settled order. He refused to pray with them, had
meals and drank tea at wrong times, got up late, drank milk on
Wednesdays and Fridays on the pretext of weak health; almost every day
he went into the prayer-room while they were at prayers and cried:
"Think what you are doing, brother! Repent, brother!" These words threw
Yakov into a fury, while Aglaia could not refrain from beginning to
scold; or at night Matvey would steal into the prayer-room and say
softly: "Cousin, your prayer is not pleasing to God. For it is written,
First be reconciled with thy brother and then offer thy gift. You lend
money at usury, you deal in vodka--repent!"
In Matvey's words Yakov saw nothing but the usual evasions of empty-
headed and careless people who talk of loving your neighbour, of being
reconciled with your brother, and so on, simply to avoid praying,
fasting and reading holy books, and who talk contemptuously of profit
and interest simply because they don't like working. Of course, to be
poor, save nothing, and put by nothing was a great deal easier than
being rich.
But yet he was troubled and could not pray as before. As soon as he went
into the prayer-room and opened the book he began to be afraid his
cousin would come in and hinder him; and, in fact, Matvey did soon
appear and cry in a trembling voice: "Think what you are doing, brother!
Repent, brother!" Aglaia stormed and Yakov, too, flew into a passion and
shouted: "Go out of my house!" while Matvey answered him: "The house
belongs to both of us."
Yakov would begin singing and reading again, but he could not regain his
calm, and unconsciously fell to dreaming over his book. Though he
regarded his cousin's words as nonsense, yet for some reason it had of
late haunted his memory that it is hard for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of heaven, that the year before last he had made a very good
bargain over buying a stolen horse, that one day when his wife was alive
a drunkard had died of vodka in his tavern. . . .
He slept badly at nights now and woke easily, and he could hear that
Matvey, too, was awake, and continually sighing and pining for his tile
factory. And while Yakov turned over from one side to another at night
he thought of the stolen horse and the drunken man, and what was said in
the gospels about the camel.
It looked as though his dreaminess were coming over him again. And as
ill-luck would have it, although it was the end of March, every day it
kept snowing, and the forest roared as though it were winter, and there
was no believing that spring would ever come. The weather disposed one
to depression, and to quarrelling and to hatred and in the night, when
the wind droned over the ceiling, it seemed as though someone were
living overhead in the empty storey; little by little the broodings
settled like a burden on his mind, his head burned and he could not
sleep. IV
On the morning of the Monday before Good Friday, Matvey heard from his
room Dashutka say to Aglaia:
"Uncle Matvey said, the other day, that there is no need to fast."
Matvey remembered the whole conversation he had had the evening before
with Dashutka, and he felt hurt all at once.
"Girl, don't do wrong!" he said in a moaning voice, like a sick man.
"You can't do without fasting; our Lord Himself fasted forty days. I
only explained that fasting does a bad man no good."
"You should just listen to the factory hands; they can teach you
goodness," Aglaia said sarcastically as she washed the floor (she
usually washed the floors on working days and was always angry with
everyone when she did it). "We know how they keep the fasts in the
factory. You had better ask that uncle of yours--ask him about his
'Darling,' how he used to guzzle milk on fast days with her, the viper.
He teaches others; he forgets about his viper. But ask him who was it he
left his money with--who was it?"
Matvey had carefully concealed from everyone, as though it were a foul
sore, that during that period of his life when old women and unmarried
girls had danced and run about with him at their prayers he had formed a
connection with a working woman and had had a child by her. When he went
home he had given this woman all he had saved at the factory, and had
borrowed from his landlord for his journey, and now he had only a few
roubles which he spent on tea and candles. The "Darling" had informed
him later on that the child was dead, and asked him in a letter what she
should do with the money. This letter was brought from the station by
the labourer. Aglaia intercepted it and read it, and had reproached
Matvey with his "Darling" every day since.
"Just fancy, nine hundred roubles," Aglaia went on. "You gave nine
hundred roubles to a viper, no relation, a factory jade, blast you!" She
had flown into a passion by now and was shouting shrilly: "Can't you
speak? I could tear you to pieces, wretched creature! Nine hundred
roubles as though it were a farthing. You might have left it to
Dashutka--she is a relation, not a stranger--or else have it sent to
Byelev for Marya's poor orphans. And your viper did not choke, may she
be thrice accursed, the she-devil! May she never look upon the light of
day!"
Yakov Ivanitch called to her: it was time to begin the "Hours." She
washed, put on a white kerchief, and by now quiet and meek, went into
the prayer-room to the brother she loved. When she spoke to Matvey or
served peasants in the tavern with tea she was a gaunt, keen-eyed, ill-
humoured old woman; in the prayer-room her face was serene and softened,
she looked younger altogether, she curtsied affectedly, and even pursed
up her lips.
Yakov Ivanitch began reading the service softly and dolefully, as he
always did in Lent. After he had read a little he stopped to listen to
the stillness that reigned through the house, and then went on reading
again, with a feeling of gratification; he folded his hands in
supplication, rolled his eyes, shook his head, sighed. But all at once
there was the sound of voices. The policeman and Sergey Nikanoritch had
come to see Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch was embarrassed at reading aloud and
singing when there were strangers in the house, and now, hearing voices,
he began reading in a whisper and slowly. He could hear in the prayer-
room the waiter say:
"The Tatar at Shtchepovo is selling his business for fifteen hundred.
He'll take five hundred down and an I.O.U. for the rest. And so, Matvey
Vassilitch, be so kind as to lend me that five hundred roubles. I will
pay you two per cent a month."
"What money have I got?" cried Matvey, amazed. "I have no money!"
"Two per cent a month will be a godsend to you," the policeman
explained. "While lying by, your money is simply eaten by the moth, and
that's all that you get from it."
Afterwards the visitors went out and a silence followed. But Yakov
Ivanitch had hardly begun reading and singing again when a voice was
heard outside the door:
"Brother, let me have a horse to drive to Vedenyapino."
It was Matvey. And Yakov was troubled again. "Which can you go with?" he
asked after a moment's thought. "The man has gone with the sorrel to
take the pig, and I am going with the little stallion to Shuteykino as
soon as I have finished."
"Brother, why is it you can dispose of the horses and not I?" Matvey
asked with irritation.
"Because I am not taking them for pleasure, but for work."
"Our property is in common, so the horses are in common, too, and you
ought to understand that, brother."
A silence followed. Yakov did not go on praying, but waited for Matvey
to go away from the door.
"Brother," said Matvey, "I am a sick man. I don't want possession --let
them go; you have them, but give me a small share to keep me in my
illness. Give it me and I'll go away."
Yakov did not speak. He longed to be rid of Matvey, but he could not
give him money, since all the money was in the business; besides, there
had never been a case of the family dividing in the whole history of the
Terehovs. Division means ruin.
Yakov said nothing, but still waited for Matvey to go away, and kept
looking at his sister, afraid that she would interfere, and that there
would be a storm of abuse again, as there had been in the morning. When
at last Matvey did go Yakov went on reading, but now he had no pleasure
in it. There was a heaviness in his head and a darkness before his eyes
from continually bowing down to the ground, and he was weary of the
sound of his soft dejected voice. When such a depression of spirit came
over him at night, he put it down to not being able to sleep; by day it
frightened him, and he began to feel as though devils were sitting on
his head and shoulders.
Finishing the service after a fashion, dissatisfied and ill-humoured, he
set off for Shuteykino. In the previous autumn a gang of navvies had dug
a boundary ditch near Progonnaya, and had run up a bill at the tavern
for eighteen roubles, and now he had to find their foreman in Shuteykino
and get the money from him. The road had been spoilt by the thaw and the
snowstorm; it was of a dark colour and full of holes, and in parts it
had given way altogether. The snow had sunk away at the sides below the
road, so that he had to drive, as it were, upon a narrow causeway, and
it was very difficult to turn off it when he met anything. The sky had
been overcast ever since the morning and a damp wind was blowing. . . .
A long train of sledges met him; peasant women were carting bricks.
Yakov had to turn off the road. His horse sank into the snow up to its
belly; the sledge lurched over to the right, and to avoid falling out he
bent over to the left, and sat so all the time the sledges moved slowly
by him. Through the wind he heard the creaking of the sledge poles and
the breathing of the gaunt horses, and the women saying about him,
"There's Godly coming," while one, gazing with compassion at his horse,
said quickly:
"It looks as though the snow will be lying till Yegory's Day! They are
worn out with it!"