the upper end--and got up. He was silent and thoughtful. The young
shepherd's face had not lost the look of childish terror and curiosity.
He was still under the influence of what he had heard in the night, and
impatiently awaiting fresh stories.
"Grandfather," he asked, getting up and taking his crook, "what did your
brother Ilya do with the soldier?"
The old man did not hear the question. He looked absent-mindedly at the
young man, and answered, mumbling with his lips:
"I keep thinking, Sanka, about that writing that was shown to that
soldier at Ivanovka. I didn't tell Panteley--God be with him--but you know
in that writing the place was marked out so that even a woman could find
it. Do you know where it is? At Bogata Bylotchka at the spot, you know,
where the ravine parts like a goose's foot into three little ravines; it
is the middle one."
"Well, will you dig?"
"I will try my luck..."
"And, grandfather, what will you do with the treasure when you find it?"
"Do with it?" laughed the old man. "H'm!... If only I could find it
then.... I would show them all.... H'm!... I should know what to do...."
And the old man could not answer what he would do with the treasure if
he found it. That question had presented itself to him that morning
probably for the first time in his life, and judging from the expression
of his face, indifferent and uncritical, it did not seem to him
important and deserving of consideration. In Sanka's brain another
puzzled question was stirring: why was it only old men searched for
hidden treasure, and what was the use of earthly happiness to people who
might die any day of old age? But Sanka could not put this perplexity
into words, and the old man could scarcely have found an answer to it.
An immense crimson sun came into view surrounded by a faint haze. Broad
streaks of light, still cold, bathing in the dewy grass, lengthening out
with a joyous air as though to prove they were not weary of their task,
began spreading over the earth. The silvery wormwood, the blue flowers
of the pig's onion, the yellow mustard, the corn-flowers--all burst into
gay colours, taking the sunlight for their own smile.
The old shepherd and Sanka parted and stood at the further sides of the
flock. Both stood like posts, without moving, staring at the ground and
thinking. The former was haunted by thoughts of fortune, the latter was
pondering on what had been said in the night; what interested him was
not the fortune itself, which he did not want and could not imagine, but
the fantastic, fairy-tale character of human happiness.
A hundred sheep started and, in some inexplicable panic as at a signal,
dashed away from the flock; and as though the thoughts of the
sheep--tedious and oppressive--had for a moment infected Sanka also, he,
too, dashed aside in the same inexplicable animal panic, but at once he
recovered himself and shouted:
"You crazy creatures! You've gone mad, plague take you!"
When the sun, promising long hours of overwhelming heat, began to bake
the earth, all living things that in the night had moved and uttered
sounds were sunk in drowsiness. The old shepherd and Sanka stood with
their crooks on opposite sides of the flock, stood without stirring,
like fakirs at their prayers, absorbed in thought. They did not heed
each other; each of them was living in his own life. The sheep were
pondering, too.
A MALEFACTOR
AN exceedingly lean little peasant, in a striped hempen shirt and
patched drawers, stands facing the investigating magistrate. His face
overgrown with hair and pitted with smallpox, and his eyes scarcely
visible under thick, overhanging eyebrows have an expression of sullen
moroseness. On his head there is a perfect mop of tangled, unkempt hair,
which gives him an even more spider-like air of moroseness. He is
barefooted.
"Denis Grigoryev!" the magistrate begins. "Come nearer, and answer my
questions. On the seventh of this July the railway watchman, Ivan
Semyonovitch Akinfov, going along the line in the morning, found you at
the hundred-and-forty-first mile engaged in unscrewing a nut by which
the rails are made fast to the sleepers. Here it is, the nut!... With
the aforesaid nut he detained you. Was that so?"
"Wha-at?"
"Was this all as Akinfov states?"
"To be sure, it was."
"Very good; well, what were you unscrewing the nut for?"
"Wha-at?"
"Drop that 'wha-at' and answer the question; what were you unscrewing
the nut for?"
"If I hadn't wanted it I shouldn't have unscrewed it," croaks Denis,
looking at the ceiling.
"What did you want that nut for?"
"The nut? We make weights out of those nuts for our lines."
"Who is 'we'?"
"We, people.... The Klimovo peasants, that is."
"Listen, my man; don't play the idiot to me, but speak sensibly. It's no
use telling lies here about weights!"
"I've never been a liar from a child, and now I'm telling lies..."
mutters Denis, blinking. "But can you do without a weight, your honour?
If you put live bait or maggots on a hook, would it go to the bottom
without a weight?... I am telling lies," grins Denis.... "What the devil
is the use of the worm if it swims on the surface! The perch and the
pike and the eel-pout always go to the bottom, and a bait on the surface
is only taken by a shillisper, not very often then, and there are no
shillispers in our river.... That fish likes plenty of room."
"Why are you telling me about shillispers?"
"Wha-at? Why, you asked me yourself! The gentry catch fish that way too
in our parts. The silliest little boy would not try to catch a fish
without a weight. Of course anyone who did not understand might go to
fish without a weight. There is no rule for a fool."
"So you say you unscrewed this nut to make a weight for your fishing
line out of it?"
"What else for? It wasn't to play knuckle-bones with!"
"But you might have taken lead, a bullet... a nail of some sort...."
"You don't pick up lead in the road, you have to buy it, and a nail's no
good. You can't find anything better than a nut.... It's heavy, and
there's a hole in it."
"He keeps pretending to be a fool! as though he'd been born yesterday or
dropped from heaven! Don't you understand, you blockhead, what
unscrewing these nuts leads to? If the watchman had not noticed it the
train might have run off the rails, people would have been killed--you
would have killed people."
"God forbid, your honour! What should I kill them for? Are we heathens
or wicked people? Thank God, good gentlemen, we have lived all our lives
without ever dreaming of such a thing.... Save, and have mercy on us,
Queen of Heaven!... What are you saying?"
"And what do you suppose railway accidents do come from? Unscrew two or
three nuts and you have an accident."
Denis grins, and screws up his eye at the magistrate incredulously.
"Why! how many years have we all in the village been unscrewing nuts,
and the Lord has been merciful; and you talk of accidents, killing
people. If I had carried away a rail or put a log across the line, say,
then maybe it might have upset the train, but... pouf! a nut!"
"But you must understand that the nut holds the rail fast to the
sleepers!"
"We understand that.... We don't unscrew them all... we leave some....
We don't do it thoughtlessly... we understand...."
Denis yawns and makes the sign of the cross over his mouth.
"Last year the train went off the rails here," says the magistrate. "Now
I see why!"
"What do you say, your honour?"
"I am telling you that now I see why the train went off the rails last
year.... I understand!"
"That's what you are educated people for, to understand, you kind
gentlemen. The Lord knows to whom to give understanding.... Here you
have reasoned how and what, but the watchman, a peasant like ourselves,
with no understanding at all, catches one by the collar and hauls one
along.... You should reason first and then haul me off. It's a saying
that a peasant has a peasant's wit.... Write down, too, your honour,
that he hit me twice--in the jaw and in the chest."
"When your hut was searched they found another nut.... At what spot did
you unscrew that, and when?"
"You mean the nut which lay under the red box?"
"I don't know where it was lying, only it was found. When did you
unscrew it?"
"I didn't unscrew it; Ignashka, the son of one-eyed Semyon, gave it me.
I mean the one which was under the box, but the one which was in the
sledge in the yard Mitrofan and I unscrewed together."
"What Mitrofan?"
"Mitrofan Petrov.... Haven't you heard of him? He makes nets in our
village and sells them to the gentry. He needs a lot of those nuts.
Reckon a matter of ten for each net."
"Listen. Article 1081 of the Penal Code lays down that every wilful
damage of the railway line committed when it can expose the traffic on
that line to danger, and the guilty party knows that an accident must be
caused by it... (Do you understand? Knows! And you could not help
knowing what this unscrewing would lead to...) is liable to penal
servitude."
"Of course, you know best.... We are ignorant people.... What do we
understand?"
"You understand all about it! You are lying, shamming!"
"What should I lie for? Ask in the village if you don't believe me. Only
a bleak is caught without a weight, and there is no fish worse than a
gudgeon, yet even that won't bite without a weight."
"You'd better tell me about the shillisper next," said the magistrate,
smiling.
"There are no shillispers in our parts.... We cast our line without a
weight on the top of the water with a butterfly; a mullet may be caught
that way, though that is not often."
"Come, hold your tongue."
A silence follows. Denis shifts from one foot to the other, looks at the
table with the green cloth on it, and blinks his eyes violently as
though what was before him was not the cloth but the sun. The magistrate
writes rapidly.
"Can I go?" asks Denis after a long silence.
"No. I must take you under guard and send you to prison."
Denis leaves off blinking and, raising his thick eyebrows, looks
inquiringly at the magistrate.
"How do you mean, to prison? Your honour! I have no time to spare, I
must go to the fair; I must get three roubles from Yegor for some
tallow!..."
"Hold your tongue; don't interrupt."
"To prison.... If there was something to go for, I'd go; but just to go
for nothing! What for? I haven't stolen anything, I believe, and I've
not been fighting.... If you are in doubt about the arrears, your
honour, don't believe the elder.... You ask the agent... he's a regular
heathen, the elder, you know."
"Hold your tongue."
"I am holding my tongue, as it is," mutters Denis; "but that the elder
has lied over the account, I'll take my oath for it.... There are three
of us brothers: Kuzma Grigoryev, then Yegor Grigoryev, and me, Denis
Grigoryev."
"You are hindering me.... Hey, Semyon," cries the magistrate, "take him
away!"
"There are three of us brothers," mutters Denis, as two stalwart
soldiers take him and lead him out of the room. "A brother is not
responsible for a brother. Kuzma does not pay, so you, Denis, must
answer for it.... Judges indeed! Our master the general is dead--the
Kingdom of Heaven be his--or he would have shown you judges.... You ought
to judge sensibly, not at random.... Flog if you like, but flog someone
who deserves it, flog with conscience."
PEASANTS I
NIKOLAY TCHIKILDYEEV, a waiter in the Moscow hotel, Slavyansky Bazaar,
was taken ill. His legs went numb and his gait was affected, so that on
one occasion, as he was going along the corridor, he tumbled and fell
down with a tray full of ham and peas. He had to leave his job. All his
own savings and his wife's were spent on doctors and medicines; they had
nothing left to live upon. He felt dull with no work to do, and he made
up his mind he must go home to the village. It is better to be ill at
home, and living there is cheaper; and it is a true saying that the
walls of home are a help.
He reached Zhukovo towards evening. In his memories of childhood he had
pictured his home as bright, snug, comfortable. Now, going into the hut,
he was positively frightened; it was so dark, so crowded, so unclean.
His wife Olga and his daughter Sasha, who had come with him, kept
looking in bewilderment at the big untidy stove, which filled up almost
half the hut and was black with soot and flies. What lots of flies! The
stove was on one side, the beams lay slanting on the walls, and it
looked as though the hut were just going to fall to pieces. In the
corner, facing the door, under the holy images, bottle labels and
newspaper cuttings were stuck on the walls instead of pictures. The
poverty, the poverty! Of the grown-up people there were none at home;
all were at work at the harvest. On the stove was sitting a white-headed
girl of eight, unwashed and apathetic; she did not even glance at them
as they came in. On the floor a white cat was rubbing itself against the
oven fork.
"Puss, puss!" Sasha called to her. "Puss!"
"She can't hear," said the little girl; "she has gone deaf."
"How is that?"
"Oh, she was beaten."
Nikolay and Olga realized from the firs t glance what life was like
here, but said nothing to one another; in silence they put down their
bundles, and went out into the village street. Their hut was the third
from the end, and seemed the very poorest and oldest-looking; the second
was not much better; but the last one had an iron roof, and curtains in
the windows. That hut stood apart, not enclosed; it was a tavern. The
huts were in a single row, and the whole of the little village--quiet and
dreamy, with willows, elders, and mountain-ash trees peeping out from
the yards--had an attractive look.
Beyond the peasants homesteads there was a slope down to the river, so
steep and precipitous that huge stones jutted out bare here and there
through the clay. Down the slope, among the stones and holes dug by the
potters, ran winding paths; bits of broken pottery, some brown, some
red, lay piled up in heaps, and below there stretched a broad, level,
bright green meadow, from which the hay had been already carried, and in
which the peasants' cattle were wandering. The river, three-quarters of
a mile from the village, ran twisting and turning, with beautiful leafy
banks; beyond it was again a broad meadow, a herd of cattle, long
strings of white geese; then, just as on the near side, a steep ascent
uphill, and on the top of the hill a hamlet, and a church with five
domes, and at a little distance the manor-house.
"It's lovely here in your parts!" said Olga, crossing herself at the
sight of the church. "What space, oh Lord!"
Just at that moment the bell began ringing for service (it was Saturday
evening). Two little girls, down below, who were dragging up a pail of
water, looked round at the church to listen to the bell.
"At this time they are serving the dinners at the Slavyansky Bazaar,"
said Nikolay dreamily.
Sitting on the edge of the slope, Nikolay and Olga watched the sun
setting, watched the gold and crimson sky reflected in the river, in the
church windows, and in the whole air--which was soft and still and
unutterably pure as it never was in Moscow. And when the sun had set the
flocks and herds passed, bleating and lowing; geese flew across from the
further side of the river, and all sank into silence; the soft light
died away in the air, and the dusk of evening began quickly moving down
upon them.
Meanwhile Nikolay's father and mother, two gaunt, bent, toothless old
people, just of the same height, came back. The women--the sisters-in-law
Marya and Fyokla--who had been working on the landowner's estate beyond
the river, arrived home, too. Marya, the wife of Nikolay's brother
Kiryak, had six children, and Fyokla, the wife of Nikolay's brother
Denis--who had gone for a soldier--had two; and when Nikolay, going into
the hut, saw all the family, all those bodies big and little moving
about on the lockers, in the hanging cradles and in all the corners, and
when he saw the greed with which the old father and the women ate the
black bread, dipping it in water, he realized he had made a mistake in
coming here, sick, penniless, and with a family, too--a great mistake!
"And where is Kiryak?" he asked after they had exchanged greetings.
"He is in service at the merchant's," answered his father; "a keeper in
the woods. He is not a bad peasant, but too fond of his glass."
"He is no great help!" said the old woman tearfully. "Our men are a
grievous lot; they bring nothing into the house, but take plenty out.
Kiryak drinks, and so does the old man; it is no use hiding a sin; he
knows his way to the tavern. The Heavenly Mother is wroth."
In honour of the visitors they brought out the samovar. The tea smelt of
fish; the sugar was grey and looked as though it had been nibbled;
cockroaches ran to and fro over the bread and among the crockery. It was
disgusting to drink, and the conversation was disgusting, too--about
nothing but poverty and illnesses. But before they had time to empty
their first cups there came a loud, prolonged, drunken shout from the
yard:
"Ma-arya!"
"It looks as though Kiryak were coming," said the old man. "Speak of the
devil."
All were hushed. And again, soon afterwards, the same shout, coarse and
drawn-out as though it came out of the earth:
"Ma-arya!"
Marya, the elder sister-in-law, turned pale and huddled against the
stove, and it was strange to see the look of terror on the face of the
strong, broad-shouldered, ugly woman. Her daughter, the child who had
been sitting on the stove and looked so apathetic, suddenly broke into
loud weeping.
"What are you howling for, you plague?" Fyokla, a handsome woman, also
strong and broad-shouldered, shouted to her. "He won't kill you, no
fear!"
From his old father Nikolay learned that Marya was afraid to live in the
forest with Kiryak, and that when he was drunk he always came for her,
made a row, and beat her mercilessly.
"Ma-arya!" the shout sounded close to the door.
"Protect me, for Christ's sake, good people!" faltered Marya, breathing
as though she had been plunged into very cold water. "Protect me, kind
people...."
All the children in the hut began crying, and looking at them, Sasha,
too, began to cry. They heard a drunken cough, and a tall, black-bearded
peasant wearing a winter cap came into the hut, and was the more
terrible because his face could not be seen in the dim light of the
little lamp. It was Kiryak. Going up to his wife, he swung his arm and
punched her in the face with his fist. Stunned by the blow, she did not
utter a sound, but sat down, and her nose instantly began bleeding.
"What a disgrace! What a disgrace!" muttered the old man, clambering up
on to the stove. "Before visitors, too! It's a sin!"
The old mother sat silent, bowed, lost in thought; Fyokla rocked the
cradle.
Evidently conscious of inspiring fear, and pleased at doing so, Kiryak
seized Marya by the arm, dragged her towards the door, and bellowed like
an animal in order to seem still more terrible; but at that moment he
suddenly caught sight of the visitors and stopped.
"Oh, they have come,..." he said, letting his wife go; "my own brother
and his family...."
Staggering and opening wide his red, drunken eyes, he said his prayer
before the image and went on:
"My brother and his family have come to the parental home... from
Moscow, I suppose. The great capital Moscow, to be sure, the mother of
cities.... Excuse me."
He sank down on the bench near the samovar and began drinking tea,
sipping it loudly from the saucer in the midst of general silence.... He
drank off a dozen cups, then reclined on the bench and began snoring.
They began going to bed. Nikolay, as an invalid, was put on the stove
with his old father; Sasha lay down on the floor, while Olga went with
the other women into the barn.
"Aye, aye, dearie," she said, lying down on the hay beside Marya; "you
won't mend your trouble with tears. Bear it in patience, that is all. It
is written in the Scriptures: 'If anyone smite thee on the right cheek,
offer him the left one also.'... Aye, aye, dearie."
Then in a low singsong murmur she told them about Moscow, about her own
life, how she had been a servant in furnished lodgings.
"And in Moscow the houses are big, built of brick," she said; "and there
are ever so many churches, forty times forty, dearie; and they are all
gentry in the houses, so handsome and so proper!"
Marya told her that she had not only never been in Moscow, but had not
even been in their own district town; she could not read or write, and
knew no prayers, not even "Our Father." Both she and Fyokla, the other
sister-in-law, who was sitting a little way off listening, were
extremely ignorant and could understand nothing. They both disliked
their husbands; Marya was afraid of Kiryak, and whenever he stayed with
her she was shaking with fear, and always got a headache from the fumes
of vodka and tobacco with which he reeked. And in answer to the question
whether she did not miss her husband, Fyokla answered with vexation:
"Miss him!"
They talked a little and sank into silence.
It was cool, and a cock crowed at the top of his voice near the barn,
preventing them from sleeping. When the bluish morning light was already
peeping through all the crevices, Fyokla got up stealthily and went out,
and then they heard the sound of her bare feet running off somewhere.
II
Olga went to church, and took Marya with her. As they went down the path
towards the meadow both were in good spirits. Olga liked the wide view,
and Marya felt that in her sister-in-law she had someone near and akin
to her. The sun was rising. Low down over the meadow floated a drowsy
hawk. The river looked gloomy; there was a haze hovering over it here
and there, but on the further bank a streak of light already stretched
across the hill. The church was gleaming, and in the manor garden the
rooks were cawing furiously.
"The old man is all right," Marya told her, "but Granny is strict; she
is continually nagging. Our own grain lasted till Carnival. We buy flour
now at the tavern. She is angry about it; she says we eat too much."
"Aye, aye, dearie! Bear it in patience, that is all. It is written:
'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.'"
Olga spoke sedately, rhythmically, and she walked like a pilgrim woman,
with a rapid, anxious step. Every day she read the gospel, read it aloud
like a deacon; a great deal of it she did not understand, but the words
of the gospel moved her to tears, and words like "forasmuch as" and
"verily" she pronounced with a sweet flutter at her heart. She believed
in God, in the Holy Mother, in the Saints; she believed one must not
offend anyone in the world--not simple folks, nor Germans, nor gypsies,
nor Jews--and woe even to those who have no compassion on the beasts. She
believed this was written in the Holy Scriptures; and so, when she
pronounced phrases from Holy Writ, even though she did not understand
them, her face grew softened, compassionate, and radiant.
"What part do you come from?" Marya asked her.
"I am from Vladimir. Only I was taken to Moscow long ago, when I was
eight years old."
They reached the river. On the further side a woman was standing at the
water's edge, undressing.
"It's our Fyokla," said Marya, recognizing her. "She has been over the
river to the manor yard. To the stewards. She is a shameless hussy and
foul-mouthed--fearfully!"
Fyokla, young and vigorous as a girl, with her black eyebrows and her
loose hair, jumped off the bank and began splashing the water with her
feet, and waves ran in all directions from her.
"Shameless--dreadfully!" repeated Marya.
The river was crossed by a rickety little bridge of logs, and exactly
below it in the clear, limpid water was a shoal of broad-headed mullets.
The dew was glistening on the green bushes that looked into the water.
There was a feeling of warmth; it was comforting! What a lovely morning!
And how lovely life would have been in this world, in all likelihood, if
it were not for poverty, horrible, hopeless poverty, from which one can
find no refuge! One had only to look round at the village to remember
vividly all that had happened the day before, and the illusion of
happiness which seemed to surround them vanished instantly.
They reached the church. Marya stood at the entrance, and did not dare
to go farther. She did not dare to sit down either. Though they only
began ringing for mass between eight and nine, she remained standing the
whole time.