Savka shook his hand as much as to say, "Don't shout," and vanished into
the darkness. Savka was an excellent sportsman and fisherman when he
liked, but his talents in this direction were as completely thrown away
as his strength. He was too slothful to do things in the routine way,
and vented his passion for sport in useless tricks. For instance, he
would catch nightingales only with his hands, would shoot pike with a
fowling piece, he would spend whole hours by the river trying to catch
little fish with a big hook.
Left alone with me, Agafya coughed and passed her hand several times
over her forehead.... She began to feel a little drunk from the vodka.
"How are you getting on, Agasha?" I asked her, after a long silence,
when it began to be awkward to remain mute any longer.
"Very well, thank God.... Don't tell anyone, sir, will you?" she added
suddenly in a whisper.
"That's all right," I reassured her. "But how reckless you are,
Agasha!... What if Yakov finds out?"
"He won't find out."
"But what if he does?"
"No... I shall be at home before he is. He is on the line now, and he
will come back when the mail train brings him, and from here I can hear
when the train's coming...."
Agafya once more passed her hand over her forehead and looked away in
the direction in which Savka had vanished. The nightingale was singing.
Some night bird flew low down close to the ground and, noticing us, was
startled, fluttered its wings and flew across to the other side of the
river.
Soon the nightingale was silent, but Savka did not come back. Agafya got
up, took a few steps uneasily, and sat down again.
"What is he doing?" she could not refrain from saying. "The train's not
coming in to-morrow! I shall have to go away directly."
"Savka," I shouted. "Savka."
I was not answered even by an echo. Agafya moved uneasily and sat down
again.
"It's time I was going," she said in an agitated voice. "The train will
be here directly! I know when the trains come in."
The poor woman was not mistaken. Before a quarter of an hour had passed
a sound was heard in the distance.
Agafya kept her eyes fixed on the copse for a long time and moved her
hands impatiently.
"Why, where can he be?" she said, laughing nervously. "Where has the
devil carried him? I am going! I really must be going."
Meanwhile the noise was growing more and more distinct. By now one could
distinguish the rumble of the wheels from the heavy gasps of the engine.
Then we heard the whistle, the train crossed the bridge with a hollow
rumble... another minute and all was still.
"I'll wait one minute more," said Agafya, sitting down resolutely. "So
be it, I'll wait."
At last Savka appeared in the darkness. He walked noiselessly on the
crumbling earth of the kitchen gardens and hummed something softly to
himself.
"Here's a bit of luck; what do you say to that now?" he said gaily. "As
soon as I got up to the bush and began taking aim with my hand it left
off singing! Ah, the bald dog! I waited and waited to see when it would
begin again, but I had to give it up."
Savka flopped clumsily down to the ground beside Agafya and, to keep his
balance, clutched at her waist with both hands.
"Why do you look cross, as though your aunt were your mother?" he asked.
With all his soft-heartedness and good-nature, Savka despised women. He
behaved carelessly, condescendingly with them, and even stooped to
scornful laughter of their feelings for himself. God knows, perhaps this
careless, contemptuous manner was one of the causes of his irresistible
attraction for the village Dulcineas. He was handsome and well-built; in
his eyes there was always a soft friendliness, even when he was looking
at the women he so despised, but the fascination was not to be explained
by merely external qualities. Apart from his happy exterior and original
manner, one must suppose that the touching position of Savka as an
acknowledged failure and an unhappy exile from his own hut to the
kitchen gardens also had an influence upon the women.
"Tell the gentleman what you have come here for!" Savka went on, still
holding Agafya by the waist. "Come, tell him, you good married woman!
Ho-ho! Shall we have another drop of vodka, friend Agasha?"
I got up and, threading my way between the plots, I walked the length of
the kitchen garden. The dark beds looked like flattened-out graves. They
smelt of dug earth and the tender dampness of plants beginning to be
covered with dew.... A red light was still gleaming on the left. It
winked genially and seemed to smile.
I heard a happy laugh. It was Agafya laughing.
"And the train?" I thought. "The train has come in long ago."
Waiting a little longer, I went back to the shanty. Savka was sitting
motionless, his legs crossed like a Turk, and was softly, scarcely
audibly humming a song consisting of words of one syllable something
like: "Out on you, fie on you... I and you." Agafya, intoxicated by the
vodka, by Savka's scornful caresses, and by the stifling warmth of the
night, was lying on the earth beside him, pressing her face convulsively
to his knees. She was so carried away by her feelings that she did not
even notice my arrival.
"Agasha, the train has been in a long time," I said.
"It's time--it's time you were gone," Savka, tossing his head, took up my
thought. "What are you sprawling here for? You shameless hussy!"
Agafya started, took her head from his knees, glanced at me, and sank
down beside him again.
"You ought to have gone long ago," I said.
Agafya turned round and got up on one knee.... She was unhappy.... For
half a minute her whole figure, as far as I could distinguish it through
the darkness, expressed conflict and hesitation. There was an instant
when, seeming to come to herself, she drew herself up to get upon her
feet, but then some invincible and implacable force seemed to push her
whole body, and she sank down beside Savka again.
"Bother him!" she said, with a wild, guttural laugh, and reckless
determination, impotence, and pain could be heard in that laugh.
I strolled quietly away to the copse, and from there down to the river,
where our fishing lines were set. The river slept. Some soft, fluffy-
petalled flower on a tall stalk touched my cheek tenderly like a child
who wants to let one know it's awake. To pass the time I felt for one of
the lines and pulled at it. It yielded easily and hung limply--nothing
had been caught.... The further bank and the village could not be seen.
A light gleamed in one hut, but soon went out. I felt my way along the
bank, found a hollow place which I had noticed in the daylight, and sat
down in it as in an arm-chair. I sat there a long time.... I saw the
stars begin to grow misty and lose their brightness; a cool breath
passed over the earth like a faint sigh and touched the leaves of the
slumbering osiers....
"A-ga-fya!" a hollow voice called from the village. "Agafya!"
It was the husband, who had returned home, and in alarm was looking for
his wife in the village. At that moment there came the sound of
unrestrained laughter: the wife, forgetful of everything, sought in her
intoxication to make up by a few hours of happiness for the misery
awaiting her next day.
I dropped asleep.
When I woke up Savka was sitting beside me and lightly shaking my
shoulder. The river, the copse, both banks, green and washed, trees and
fields--all were bathed in bright morning light. Through the slim trunks
of the trees the rays of the newly risen sun beat upon my back.
"So that's how you catch fish?" laughed Savka. "Get up!"
I got up, gave a luxurious stretch, and began greedily drinking in the
damp and fragrant air.
"Has Agasha gone?" I asked.
"There she is," said Savka, pointing in the direction of the ford.
I glanced and saw Agafya. Dishevelled, with her kerchief dropping off
her head, she was crossing the river, holding up her skirt. Her legs
were scarcely moving....
"The cat knows whose meat it has eaten," muttered Savka, screwing up his
eyes as he looked at her. "She goes with her tail hanging down.... They
are sly as cats, these women, and timid as hares.... She didn't go,
silly thing, in the evening when we told her to! Now she will catch it,
and they'll flog me again at the peasant court... all on account of the
women...."
Agafya stepped upon the bank and went across the fields to the village.
At first she walked fairly boldly, but soon terror and excitement got
the upper hand; she turned round fearfully, stopped and took breath.
"Yes, you are frightened!" Savka laughed mournfully, looking at the
bright green streak left by Agafya in the dewy grass. "She doesn't want
to go! Her husband's been standing waiting for her for a good hour....
Did you see him?"
Savka said the last words with a smile, but they sent a chill to my
heart. In the village, near the furthest hut, Yakov was standing in the
road, gazing fixedly at his returning wife. He stood without stirring,
and was as motionless as a post. What was he thinking as he looked at
her? What words was he preparing to greet her with? Agafya stood still a
little while, looked round once more as though expecting help from us,
and went on. I have never seen anyone, drunk or sober, move as she did.
Agafya seemed to be shrivelled up by her husband's eyes. At one time she
moved in zigzags, then she moved her feet up and down without going
forward, bending her knees and stretching out her hands, then she
staggered back. When she had gone another hundred paces she looked round
once more and sat down.
"You ought at least to hide behind a bush..." I said to Savka. "If the
husband sees you..."
"He knows, anyway, who it is Agafya has come from.... The women don't go
to the kitchen garden at night for cabbages--we all know that."
I glanced at Savka's face. It was pale and puckered up with a look of
fastidious pity such as one sees in the faces of people watching
tortured animals.
"What's fun for the cat is tears for the mouse..." he muttered.
Agafya suddenly jumped up, shook her head, and with a bold step went
towards her husband. She had evidently plucked up her courage and made
up her mind.
AT CHRISTMAS TIME I
|"WHAT shall I write?" said Yegor, and he dipped his pen in the ink.
Vasilisa had not seen her daughter for four years. Her daughter Yefimya
had gone after her wedding to Petersburg, had sent them two letters, and
since then seemed to vanish out of their lives; there had been no sight
nor sound of her. And whether the old woman were milking her cow at
dawn, or heating her stove, or dozing at night, she was always thinking
of one and the same thing--what was happening to Yefimya, whether she
were alive out yonder. She ought to have sent a letter, but the old
father could not write, and there was no one to write.
But now Christmas had come, and Vasilisa could not bear it any longer,
and went to the tavern to Yegor, the brother of the innkeeper's wife,
who had sat in the tavern doing nothing ever since he came back from the
army; people said that he could write letters very well if he were
properly paid. Vasilisa talked to the cook at the tavern, then to the
mistress of the house, then to Yegor himself. They agreed upon fifteen
kopecks.
And now--it happened on the second day of the holidays, in the tavern
kitchen--Yegor was sitting at the table, holding the pen in his hand.
Vasilisa was standing before him, pondering with an expression of
anxiety and woe on her face. Pyotr, her husband, a very thin old man
with a brownish bald patch, had come with her; he stood looking straight
before him like a blind man. On the stove a piece of pork was being
braised in a saucepan; it was spurting and hissing, and seemed to be
actually saying: "Flu-flu-flu." It was stifling.
"What am I to write?" Yegor asked again.
"What?" asked Vasilisa, looking at him angrily and suspiciously. "Don't
worry me! You are not writing for nothing; no fear, you'll be paid for
it. Come, write: 'To our dear son-in-law, Andrey Hrisanfitch, and to our
only beloved daughter, Yefimya Petrovna, with our love we send a low bow
and our parental blessing abiding for ever.'"
"Written; fire away."
"'And we wish them a happy Christmas; we are alive and well, and I wish
you the same, please the Lord... the Heavenly King.'"
Vasilisa pondered and exchanged glances with the old man.
"'And I wish you the same, please the Lord the Heavenly King,'" she
repeated, beginning to cry.
She could say nothing more. And yet before, when she lay awake thinking
at night, it had seemed to her that she could not get all she had to say
into a dozen letters. Since the time when her daughter had gone away
with her husband much water had flowed into the sea, the old people had
lived feeling bereaved, and sighed heavily at night as though they had
buried their daughter. And how many events had occurred in the village
since then, how many marriages and deaths! How long the winters had
been! How long the nights!
"It's hot," said Yegor, unbuttoning his waistcoat. "It must be seventy
degrees. What more?" he asked.
The old people were silent.
"What does your son-in-law do in Petersburg?" asked Yegor.
"He was a soldier, my good friend," the old man answered in a weak
voice. "He left the service at the same time as you did. He was a
soldier, and now, to be sure, he is at Petersburg at a hydropathic
establishment. The doctor treats the sick with water. So he, to be sure,
is house-porter at the doctor's."
"Here it is written down," said the old woman, taking a letter out of
her pocket. "We got it from Yefimya, goodness knows when. Maybe they are
no longer in this world."
Yegor thought a little and began writing rapidly:
"At the present time"--he wrote--"since your destiny through your own
doing allotted you to the Military Career, we counsel you to look into
the Code of Disciplinary Offences and Fundamental Laws of the War
Office, and you will see in that law the Civilization of the Officials
of the War Office."
He wrote and kept reading aloud what was written, while Vasilisa
considered what she ought to write: how great had been their want the
year before, how their corn had not lasted even till Christmas, how they
had to sell their cow. She ought to ask for money, ought to write that
the old father was often ailing and would soon no doubt give up his soul
to God... but how to express this in words? What must be said first and
what afterwards?
"Take note," Yegor went on writing, "in volume five of the Army
Regulations soldier is a common noun and a proper one, a soldier of the
first rank is called a general, and of the last a private...."
The old man stirred his lips and said softly:
"It would be all right to have a look at the grandchildren."
"What grandchildren?" asked the old woman, and she looked angrily at
him; "perhaps there are none."
"Well, but perhaps there are. Who knows?"
"And thereby you can judge," Yegor hurried on, "what is the enemy
without and what is the enemy within. The foremost of our enemies within
is Bacchus." The pen squeaked, executing upon the paper flourishes like
fish-hooks. Yegor hastened and read over every line several times. He
sat on a stool sprawling his broad feet under the table, well-fed,
bursting with health, with a coarse animal face and a red bull neck. He
was vulgarity itself: coarse, conceited, invincible, proud of having
been born and bred in a pot-house; and Vasilisa quite understood the
vulgarity, but could not express it in words, and could only look
angrily and suspiciously at Yegor. Her head was beginning to ache, and
her thoughts were in confusion from the sound of his voice and his
unintelligible words, from the heat and the stuffiness, and she said
nothing and thought nothing, but simply waited for him to finish
scribbling. But the old man looked with full confidence. He believed in
his old woman who had brought him there, and in Yegor; and when he had
mentioned the hydropathic establishment it could be seen that he
believed in the establishment and the healing efficacy of water.
Having finished the letter, Yegor got up and read the whole of it
through from the beginning. The old man did not understand, but he
nodded his head trustfully.
"That's all right; it is smooth..." he said. "God give you health.
That's all right...."
They laid on the table three five-kopeck pieces and went out of the
tavern; the old man looked immovably straight before him as though he
were blind, and perfect trustfulness was written on his face; but as
Vasilisa came out of the tavern she waved angrily at the dog, and said
angrily:
"Ugh, the plague."
The old woman did not sleep all night; she was disturbed by thoughts,
and at daybreak she got up, said her prayers, and went to the station to
send off the letter.
It was between eight and nine miles to the station.
II
Dr. B. O. Mozelweiser's hydropathic establishment worked on New Year's
Day exactly as on ordinary days; the only difference was that the
porter, Andrey Hrisanfitch, had on a uniform with new braiding, his
boots had an extra polish, and he greeted every visitor with "A Happy
New Year to you!"
It was the morning; Andrey Hrisanfitch was standing at the door, reading
the newspaper. Just at ten o'clock there arrived a general, one of the
habitual visitors, and directly after him the postman; Andrey
Hrisanfitch helped the general off with his great-coat, and said:
"A Happy New Year to your Excellency!"
"Thank you, my good fellow; the same to you."
And at the top of the stairs the general asked, nodding towards the door
(he asked the same question every day and always forgot the answer):
"And what is there in that room?"
"The massage room, your Excellency."
When the general's steps had died away Andrey Hrisanfitch looked at the
post that had come, and found one addressed to himself. He tore it open,
read several lines, then, looking at the newspaper, he walked without
haste to his own room, which was downstairs close by at the end of the
passage. His wife Yefimya was sitting on the bed, feeding her baby;
another child, the eldest, was standing by, laying its curly head on her
knee; a third was asleep on the bed.
Going into the room, Andrey gave his wife the letter and said:
"From the country, I suppose."
Then he walked out again without taking his eyes from the paper. He
could hear Yefimya with a shaking voice reading the first lines. She
read them and could read no more; these lines were enough for her. She
burst into tears, and hugging her eldest child, kissing him, she began
saying--and it was hard to say whether she were laughing or crying:
"It's from granny, from grandfather," she said. "From the country....
The Heavenly Mother, Saints and Martyrs! The snow lies heaped up under
the roofs now... the trees are as white as white. The boys slide on
little sledges... and dear old bald grandfather is on the stove... and
there is a little yellow dog.... My own darlings!"
Andrey Hrisanfitch, hearing this, recalled that his wife had on three or
four occasions given him letters and asked him to send them to the
country, but some important business had always prevented him; he had
not sent them, and the letters somehow got lost.
"And little hares run about in the fields," Yefimya went on chanting,
kissing her boy and shedding tears. "Grandfather is kind and gentle;
granny is good, too--kind-hearted. They are warm-hearted in the country,
they are God-fearing... and there is a little church in the village; the
peasants sing in the choir. Queen of Heaven, Holy Mother and Defender,
take us away from here!"
Andrey Hrisanfitch returned to his room to smoke a little till there was
another ring at the door, and Yefimya ceased speaking, subsided, and
wiped her eyes, though her lips were still quivering. She was very much
frightened of him--oh, how frightened of him! She trembled and was
reduced to terror by the sound of his steps, by the look in his eyes,
and dared not utter a word in his presence.
Andrey Hrisanfitch lighted a cigarette, but at that very moment there
was a ring from upstairs. He put out his cigarette, and, assuming a very
grave face, hastened to his front door.
The general was coming downstairs, fresh and rosy from his bath.
"And what is there in that room?" he asked, pointing to a door.
Andrey Hrisanfitch put his hands down swiftly to the seams of his
trousers, and pronounced loudly:
"Charcot douche, your Excellency!"
GUSEV I
IT was getting dark; it would soon be night.
Gusev, a discharged soldier, sat up in his hammock and said in an
undertone:
"I say, Pavel Ivanitch. A soldier at Sutchan told me: while they were
sailing a big fish came into collision with their ship and stove a hole
in it."
The nondescript individual whom he was addressing, and whom everyone in
the ship's hospital called Pavel Ivanitch, was silent, as though he had
not heard.
And again a stillness followed... The wind frolicked with the rigging,
the screw throbbed, the waves lashed, the hammocks creaked, but the ear
had long ago become accustomed to these sounds, and it seemed that
everything around was asleep and silent. It was dreary. The three
invalids--two soldiers and a sailor--who had been playing cards all the
day were asleep and talking in their dreams.
It seemed as though the ship were beginning to rock. The hammock slowly
rose and fell under Gusev, as though it were heaving a sigh, and this
was repeated once, twice, three times.... Something crashed on to the
floor with a clang: it must have been a jug falling down.
"The wind has broken loose from its chain..." said Gusev, listening.
This time Pavel Ivanitch cleared his throat and answered irritably:
"One minute a vessel's running into a fish, the next, the wind's
breaking loose from its chain. Is the wind a beast that it can break
loose from its chain?"
"That's how christened folk talk."
"They are as ignorant as you are then. They say all sorts of things. One
must keep a head on one's shoulders and use one's reason. You are a
senseless creature."
Pavel Ivanitch was subject to sea-sickness. When the sea was rough he
was usually ill-humoured, and the merest trifle would make him
irritable. And in Gusev's opinion there was absolutely nothing to be
vexed about. What was there strange or wonderful, for instance, in the
fish or in the wind's breaking loose from its chain? Suppose the fish
were as big as a mountain and its back were as hard as a sturgeon: and
in the same way, supposing that away yonder at the end of the world
there stood great stone walls and the fierce winds were chained up to
the walls... if they had not broken loose, why did they tear about all
over the sea like maniacs, and struggle to escape like dogs? If they
were not chained up, what did become of them when it was calm?
Gusev pondered for a long time about fishes as big as a mountain and
stout, rusty chains, then he began to feel dull and thought of his
native place to which he was returning after five years' service in the
East. He pictured an immense pond covered with snow.... On one side of
the pond the red-brick building of the potteries with a tall chimney and
clouds of black smoke; on the other side--a village.... His brother
Alexey comes out in a sledge from the fifth yard from the end; behind
him sits his little son Vanka in big felt over-boots, and his little
girl Akulka, also in big felt boots. Alexey has been drinking, Vanka is
laughing, Akulka's face he could not see, she had muffled herself up.
"You never know, he'll get the children frozen..." thought Gusev. "Lord
send them sense and judgment that they may honour their father and
mother and not be wiser than their parents."
"They want re-soleing," a delirious sailor says in a bass voice. "Yes,
yes!"
Gusev's thoughts break off, and instead of a pond there suddenly appears
apropos of nothing a huge bull's head without eyes, and the horse and
sledge are not driving along, but are whirling round and round in a
cloud of smoke. But still he was glad he had seen his own folks. He held
his breath from delight, shudders ran all over him, and his fingers
twitched.
"The Lord let us meet again," he muttered feverishly, but he at once
opened his eyes and sought in the darkness for water.
He drank and lay back, and again the sledge was moving, then again the
bull's head without eyes, smoke, clouds.... And so on till daybreak.
II