twenty years ago there used to be geese here, and cranes and ducks and
grouse--clouds and clouds of them! The gentry used to meet together for
shooting, and one heard nothing but pouf-pouf-pouf! pouf-pouf-pouf!
There was no end to the woodcocks, the snipe, and the little teals, and
the water-snipe were as common as starlings, or let us say sparrows--lots
and lots of them! And what has become of them all? We don't even see the
birds of prey. The eagles, the hawks, and the owls have all gone....
There are fewer of every sort of wild beast, too. Nowadays, brother,
even the wolf and the fox have grown rare, let alone the bear or the
otter. And you know in old days there were even elks! For forty years I
have been observing the works of God from year to year, and it is my
opinion that everything is going the same way."
"What way?"
"To the bad, young man. To ruin, we must suppose... The time has come
for God's world to perish."
The old man put on his cap and began gazing at the sky.
"It's a pity," he sighed, after a brief silence. "O God, what a pity! Of
course it is God's will; the world was not created by us, but yet it is
a pity, brother. If a single tree withers away, or let us say a single
cow dies, it makes one sorry, but what will it be, good man, if the
whole world crumbles into dust? Such blessings, Lord Jesus! The sun, and
the sky, and the forest, and the rivers, and the creatures--all these
have been created, adapted, and adjusted to one another. Each has been
put to its appointed task and knows its place. And all that must
perish."
A mournful smile gleamed on the shepherd's face, and his eyelids
quivered.
"You say--the world is perishing," said Meliton, pondering. "It may be
that the end of the world is near at hand, but you can't judge by the
birds. I don't think the birds can be taken as a sign."
"Not the birds only," said the shepherd. "It's the wild beasts, too, and
the cattle, and the bees, and the fish.... If you don't believe me ask
the old people; every old man will tell you that the fish are not at all
what they used to be. In the seas, in the lakes, and in the rivers,
there are fewer fish from year to year. In our Pestchanka, I remember,
pike used to be caught a yard long, and there were eel-pouts, and roach,
and bream, and every fish had a presentable appearance; while nowadays,
if you catch a wretched little pikelet or perch six inches long you have
to be thankful. There are not any gudgeon even worth talking about.
Every year it is worse and worse, and in a little while there will be no
fish at all. And take the rivers now... the rivers are drying up, for
sure."
"It is true; they are drying up."
"To be sure, that's what I say. Every year they are shallower and
shallower, and there are not the deep holes there used to be. And do you
see the bushes yonder?" the old man asked, pointing to one side. "Beyond
them is an old river-bed; it's called a backwater. In my father's time
the Pestchanka flowed there, but now look; where have the evil spirits
taken it to? It changes its course, and, mind you, it will go on
changing till such time as it has dried up altogether. There used to be
marshes and ponds beyond Kurgasovo, and where are they now? And what has
become of the streams? Here in this very wood we used to have a stream
flowing, and such a stream that the peasants used to set creels in it
and caught pike; wild ducks used to spend the winter by it, and nowadays
there is no water in it worth speaking of, even at the spring floods.
Yes, brother, look where you will, things are bad everywhere.
Everywhere!"
A silence followed. Meliton sank into thought, with his eyes fixed on
one spot. He wanted to think of some one part of nature as yet untouched
by the all-embracing ruin. Spots of light glistened on the mist and the
slanting streaks of rain as though on opaque glass, and immediately died
away again--it was the rising sun trying to break through the clouds and
peep at the earth.
"Yes, the forests, too..." Meliton muttered.
"The forests, too," the shepherd repeated. "They cut them down, and they
catch fire, and they wither away, and no new ones are growing. Whatever
does grow up is cut down at once; one day it shoots up and the next it
has been cut down--and so on without end till nothing's left. I have kept
the herds of the commune ever since the time of Freedom, good man;
before the time of Freedom I was shepherd of the master's herds. I have
watched them in this very spot, and I can't remember a summer day in all
my life that I have not been here. And all the time I have been
observing the works of God. I have looked at them in my time till I know
them, and it is my opinion that all things growing are on the decline.
Whether you take the rye, or the vegetables, or flowers of any sort,
they are all going the same way."
"But people have grown better," observed the bailiff.
"In what way better?"
"Cleverer."
"Cleverer, maybe, that's true, young man; but what's the use of that?
What earthly good is cleverness to people on the brink of ruin? One can
perish without cleverness. What's the good of cleverness to a huntsman
if there is no game? What I think is that God has given men brains and
taken away their strength. People have grown weak, exceedingly weak.
Take me, for instance... I am not worth a halfpenny, I am the humblest
peasant in the whole village, and yet, young man, I have strength. Mind
you, I am in my seventies, and I tend my herd day in and day out, and
keep the night watch, too, for twenty kopecks, and I don't sleep, and I
don't feel the cold; my son is cleverer than I am, but put him in my
place and he would ask for a raise next day, or would be going to the
doctors. There it is. I eat nothing but bread, for 'Give us this day our
daily bread,' and my father ate nothing but bread, and my grandfather;
but the peasant nowadays must have tea and vodka and white loaves, and
must sleep from sunset to dawn, and he goes to the doctor and pampers
himself in all sorts of ways. And why is it? He has grown weak; he has
not the strength to endure. If he wants to stay awake, his eyes
close--there is no doing anything."
"That's true," Meliton agreed; "the peasant is good for nothing
nowadays."
"It's no good hiding what is wrong; we get worse from year to year. And
if you take the gentry into consideration, they've grown feebler even
more than the peasants have. The gentleman nowadays has mastered
everything; he knows what he ought not to know, and what is the sense of
it? It makes you feel pitiful to look at him.... He is a thin, puny
little fellow, like some Hungarian or Frenchman; there is no dignity nor
air about him; it's only in name he is a gentleman. There is no place
for him, poor dear, and nothing for him to do, and there is no making
out what he wants. Either he sits with a hook catching fish, or he lolls
on his back reading, or trots about among the peasants saying all sorts
of things to them, and those that are hungry go in for being clerks. So
he spends his life in vain. And he has no notion of doing something real
and useful. The gentry in old days were half of them generals, but
nowadays they are--a poor lot."
"They are badly off nowadays," said Meliton.
"They are poorer because God has taken away their strength. You can't go
against God."
Meliton stared at a fixed point again. After thinking a little he heaved
a sigh as staid, reasonable people do sigh, shook his head, and said:
"And all because of what? We have sinned greatly, we have forgotten
God.. and it seems that the time has come for all to end. And, after
all, the world can't last for ever--it's time to know when to take
leave."
The shepherd sighed and, as though wishing to cut short an unpleasant
conversation, he walked away from the birch-tree and began silently
reckoning over the cows.
"Hey-hey-hey!" he shouted. "Hey-hey-hey! Bother you, the plague take
you! The devil has taken you into the thicket. Tu-lu-lu!"
With an angry face he went into the bushes to collect his herd. Meliton
got up and sauntered slowly along the edge of the wood. He looked at the
ground at his feet and pondered; he still wanted to think of something
which had not yet been touched by death. Patches of light crept upon the
slanting streaks of rain again; they danced on the tops of the trees and
died away among the wet leaves. Damka found a hedgehog under a bush, and
wanting to attract her master's attention to it, barked and howled.
"Did you have an eclipse or not?" the shepherd called from the bushes.
"Yes, we had," answered Meliton.
"Ah! Folks are complaining all about that there was one. It shows there
is disorder even in the heavens! It's not for nothing.... Hey-hey-hey!
Hey!"
Driving his herd together to the edge of the wood, the shepherd leaned
against the birch-tree, looked up at the sky, without haste took his
pipe from his bosom and began playing. As before, he played mechanically
and took no more than five or six notes; as though the pipe had come
into his hands for the first time, the sounds floated from it
uncertainly, with no regularity, not blending into a tune, but to
Meliton, brooding on the destruction of the world, there was a sound in
it of something very depressing and revolting which he would much rather
not have heard. The highest, shrillest notes, which quivered and broke,
seemed to be weeping disconsolately, as though the pipe were sick and
frightened, while the lowest notes for some reason reminded him of the
mist, the dejected trees, the grey sky. Such music seemed in keeping
with the weather, the old man and his sayings.
Meliton wanted to complain. He went up to the old man and, looking at
his mournful, mocking face and at the pipe, muttered:
"And life has grown worse, grandfather. It is utterly impossible to
live. Bad crops, want.... Cattle plague continually, diseases of all
sorts.... We are crushed by poverty."
The bailiff's puffy face turned crimson and took a dejected, womanish
expression. He twirled his fingers as though seeking words to convey his
vague feeling and went on:
"Eight children, a wife... and my mother still living, and my whole
salary ten roubles a month and to board myself. My wife has become a
Satan from poverty.... I go off drinking myself. I am a sensible, steady
man; I have education. I ought to sit at home in peace, but I stray
about all day with my gun like a dog because it is more than I can
stand; my home is hateful to me!"
Feeling that his tongue was uttering something quite different from what
he wanted to say, the bailiff waved his hand and said bitterly:
"If the world's going to end I wish it would make haste about it.
There's no need to drag it out and make folks miserable for nothing...."
The old man took the pipe from his lips and, screwing up one eye, looked
into its little opening. His face was sad and covered with thick drops
like tears. He smiled and said:
"It's a pity, my friend! My goodness, what a pity! The earth, the
forest, the sky, the beasts of all sorts--all this has been created, you
know, adapted; they all have their intelligence. It is all going to
ruin. And most of all I am sorry for people."
There was the sound in the wood of heavy rain coming nearer. Meliton
looked in the direction of the sound, did up all his buttons, and said:
"I am going to the village. Good-bye, grandfather. What is your name?"
"Luka the Poor."
"Well, good-bye, Luka! Thank you for your good words. Damka, ici!"
After parting from the shepherd Meliton made his way along the edge of
the wood, and then down hill to a meadow which by degrees turned into a
marsh. There was a squelch of water under his feet, and the rusty marsh
sedge, still green and juicy, drooped down to the earth as though afraid
of being trampled underfoot. Beyond the marsh, on the bank of the
Pestchanka, of which the old man had spoken, stood a row of willows, and
beyond the willows a barn looked dark blue in the mist. One could feel
the approach of that miserable, utterly inevitable season, when the
fields grow dark and the earth is muddy and cold, when the weeping
willow seems still more mournful and tears trickle down its stem, and
only the cranes fly away from the general misery, and even they, as
though afraid of insulting dispirited nature by the expression of their
happiness, fill the air with their mournful, dreary notes.
Meliton plodded along to the river, and heard the sounds of the pipe
gradually dying away behind him. He still wanted to complain. He looked
dejectedly about him, and he felt insufferably sorry for the sky and the
earth and the sun and the woods and his Damka, and when the highest
drawn-out note of the pipe floated quivering in the air, like a voice
weeping, he felt extremely bitter and resentful of the impropriety in
the conduct of nature.
The high note quivered, broke off, and the pipe was silent.
AGAFYA
DURING my stay in the district of S. I often used to go to see the
watchman Savva Stukatch, or simply Savka, in the kitchen gardens of
Dubovo. These kitchen gardens were my favorite resort for so-called
"mixed" fishing, when one goes out without knowing what day or hour one
may return, taking with one every sort of fishing tackle as well as a
store of provisions. To tell the truth, it was not so much the fishing
that attracted me as the peaceful stroll, the meals at no set time, the
talk with Savka, and being for so long face to face with the calm summer
nights. Savka was a young man of five-and-twenty, well grown and
handsome, and as strong as a flint. He had the reputation of being a
sensible and reasonable fellow. He could read and write, and very rarely
drank, but as a workman this strong and healthy young man was not worth
a farthing. A sluggish, overpowering sloth was mingled with the strength
in his muscles, which were strong as cords. Like everyone else in his
village, he lived in his own hut, and had his share of land, but neither
tilled it nor sowed it, and did not work at any sort of trade. His old
mother begged alms at people's windows and he himself lived like a bird
of the air; he did not know in the morning what he would eat at midday.
It was not that he was lacking in will, or energy, or feeling for his
mother; it was simply that he felt no inclination for work and did not
recognize the advantage of it. His whole figure suggested unruffled
serenity, an innate, almost artistic passion for living carelessly,
never with his sleeves tucked up. When Savka's young, healthy body had a
physical craving for muscular work, the young man abandoned himself
completely for a brief interval to some free but nonsensical pursuit,
such as sharpening skates not wanted for any special purpose, or racing
about after the peasant women. His favorite attitude was one of
concentrated immobility. He was capable of standing for hours at a
stretch in the same place with his eyes fixed on the same spot without
stirring. He never moved except on impulse, and then only when an
occasion presented itself for some rapid and abrupt action: catching a
running dog by the tail, pulling off a woman's kerchief, or jumping over
a big hole. It need hardly be said that with such parsimony of movement
Savka was as poor as a mouse and lived worse than any homeless outcast.
As time went on, I suppose he accumulated arrears of taxes and, young
and sturdy as he was, he was sent by the commune to do an old man's
job--to be watchman and scarecrow in the kitchen gardens. However much
they laughed at him for his premature senility he did not object to it.
This position, quiet and convenient for motionless contemplation,
exactly fitted his temperament.
It happened I was with this Savka one fine May evening. I remember I was
lying on a torn and dirty sackcloth cover close to the shanty from which
came a heavy, fragrant scent of hay. Clasping my hands under my head I
looked before me. At my feet was lying a wooden fork. Behind it Savka's
dog Kutka stood out like a black patch, and not a dozen feet from Kutka
the ground ended abruptly in the steep bank of the little river. Lying
down I could not see the river; I could only see the tops of the young
willows growing thickly on the nearer bank, and the twisting, as it were
gnawed away, edges of the opposite bank. At a distance beyond the bank
on the dark hillside the huts of the village in which Savka lived lay
huddling together like frightened young partridges. Beyond the hill the
afterglow of sunset still lingered in the sky. One pale crimson streak
was all that was left, and even that began to be covered by little
clouds as a fire with ash.
A copse with alder-trees, softly whispering, and from time to time
shuddering in the fitful breeze, lay, a dark blur, on the right of the
kitchen gardens; on the left stretched the immense plain. In the
distance, where the eye could not distinguish between the sky and the
plain, there was a bright gleam of light. A little way off from me sat
Savka. With his legs tucked under him like a Turk and his head hanging,
he looked pensively at Kutka. Our hooks with live bait on them had long
been in the river, and we had nothing left to do but to abandon
ourselves to repose, which Savka, who was never exhausted and always
rested, loved so much. The glow had not yet quite died away, but the
summer night was already enfolding nature in its caressing, soothing
embrace.
Everything was sinking into its first deep sleep except some night bird
unfamiliar to me, which indolently uttered a long, protracted cry in
several distinct notes like the phrase, "Have you seen Ni-ki-ta?" and
immediately answered itself, "Seen him, seen him, seen him!"
"Why is it the nightingales aren't singing tonight?" I asked Savka.
He turned slowly towards me. His features were large, but his face was
open, soft, and expressive as a woman's. Then he gazed with his mild,
dreamy eyes at the copse, at the willows, slowly pulled a whistle out of
his pocket, put it in his mouth and whistled the note of a hen-
nightingale. And at once, as though in answer to his call, a landrail
called on the opposite bank.
"There's a nightingale for you..." laughed Savka. "Drag-drag! drag-drag!
just like pulling at a hook, and yet I bet he thinks he is singing,
too."
"I like that bird," I said. "Do you know, when the birds are migrating
the landrail does not fly, but runs along the ground? It only flies over
the rivers and the sea, but all the rest it does on foot."
"Upon my word, the dog..." muttered Savka, looking with respect in the
direction of the calling landrail.
Knowing how fond Savka was of listening, I told him all I had learned
about the landrail from sportsman's books. From the landrail I passed
imperceptibly to the migration of the birds. Savka listened attentively,
looking at me without blinking, and smiling all the while with
pleasure.
"And which country is most the bird's home? Ours or those foreign
parts?" he asked.
"Ours, of course. The bird itself is hatched here, and it hatches out
its little ones here in its native country, and they only fly off there
to escape being frozen."
"It's interesting," said Savka. "Whatever one talks about it is always
interesting. Take a bird now, or a man... or take this little stone;
there's something to learn about all of them.... Ah, sir, if I had known
you were coming I wouldn't have told a woman to come here this
evening.... She asked to come to-day."
"Oh, please don't let me be in your way," I said. "I can lie down in the
wood...."
"What next! She wouldn't have died if she hadn't come till to-morrow....
If only she would sit quiet and listen, but she always wants to be
slobbering.... You can't have a good talk when she's here."
"Are you expecting Darya?" I asked, after a pause.
"No... a new one has asked to come this evening... Agafya, the
signalman's wife."
Savka said this in his usual passionless, somewhat hollow voice, as
though he were talking of tobacco or porridge, while I started with
surprise. I knew Agafya.... She was quite a young peasant woman of
nineteen or twenty, who had been married not more than a year before to
a railway signalman, a fine young fellow. She lived in the village, and
her husband came home there from the line every night.
"Your goings on with the women will lead to trouble, my boy," said I.
"Well, may be...."
And after a moment's thought Savka added:
"I've said so to the women; they won't heed me....They don't trouble
about it, the silly things!"
Silence followed.... Meanwhile the darkness was growing thicker and
thicker, and objects began to lose their contours. The streak behind the
hill had completely died away, and the stars were growing brighter and
more luminous.... The mournfully monotonous chirping of the
grasshoppers, the call of the landrail, and the cry of the quail did not
destroy the stillness of the night, but, on the contrary, gave it an
added monotony. It seemed as though the soft sounds that enchanted the
ear came, not from birds or insects, but from the stars looking down
upon us from the sky....
Savka was the first to break the silence. He slowly turned his eyes from
black Kutka and said:
"I see you are dull, sir. Let's have supper."
And without waiting for my consent he crept on his stomach into the
shanty, rummaged about there, making the whole edifice tremble like a
leaf; then he crawled back and set before me my vodka and an earthenware
bowl; in the bowl there were baked eggs, lard scones made of rye, pieces
of black bread, and something else.... We had a drink from a little
crooked glass that wouldn't stand, and then we fell upon the food....
Coarse grey salt, dirty, greasy cakes, eggs tough as india-rubber, but
how nice it all was!
"You live all alone, but what lots of good things you have," I said,
pointing to the bowl. "Where do you get them from?"
"The women bring them," mumbled Savka.
"What do they bring them to you for?"
"Oh... from pity."
Not only Savka's menu, but his clothing, too, bore traces of feminine
"pity." Thus I noticed that he had on, that evening, a new woven belt
and a crimson ribbon on which a copper cross hung round his dirty neck.
I knew of the weakness of the fair sex for Savka, and I knew that he did
not like talking about it, and so I did not carry my inquiries any
further. Besides there was not time to talk.... Kutka, who had been
fidgeting about near us and patiently waiting for scraps, suddenly
pricked up his ears and growled. We heard in the distance repeated
splashing of water.
"Someone is coming by the ford," said Savka.
Three minutes later Kutka growled again and made a sound like a cough.
"Shsh!" his master shouted at him.
In the darkness there was a muffled thud of timid footsteps, and the
silhouette of a woman appeared out of the copse. I recognized her,
although it was dark--it was Agafya. She came up to us diffidently and
stopped, breathing hard. She was breathless, probably not so much from
walking as from fear and the unpleasant sensation everyone experiences
in wading across a river at night. Seeing near the shanty not one but
two persons, she uttered a faint cry and fell back a step.
"Ah... that is you!" said Savka, stuffing a scone into his mouth.
"Ye-es... I," she muttered, dropping on the ground a bundle of some sort
and looking sideways at me. "Yakov sent his greetings to you and told me
to give you... something here...."
"Come, why tell stories? Yakov!" laughed Savka. "There is no need for
lying; the gentleman knows why you have come! Sit down; you shall have
supper with us."
Agafya looked sideways at me and sat down irresolutely.
"I thought you weren't coming this evening," Savka said, after a
prolonged silence. "Why sit like that? Eat! Or shall I give you a drop
of vodka?"
"What an idea!" laughed Agafya; "do you think you have got hold of a
drunkard?..."
"Oh, drink it up.... Your heart will feel warmer.... There!"
Savka gave Agafya the crooked glass. She slowly drank the vodka, ate
nothing with it, but drew a deep breath when she had finished.
"You've brought something," said Savka, untying the bundle and throwing
a condescending, jesting shade into his voice. "Women can never come
without bringing something. Ah, pie and potatoes.... They live well," he
sighed, turning to me. "They are the only ones in the whole village who
have got potatoes left from the winter!"
In the darkness I did not see Agafya's face, but from the movement of
her shoulders and head it seemed to me that she could not take her eyes
off Savka's face. To avoid being the third person at this tryst, I
decided to go for a walk and got up. But at that moment a nightingale in
the wood suddenly uttered two low contralto notes. Half a minute later
it gave a tiny high trill and then, having thus tried its voice, began
singing. Savka jumped up and listened.
"It's the same one as yesterday," he said. "Wait a minute."
And, getting up, he went noiselessly to the wood.