stood afterwards at the end of the street and watched the two carts
crossing the river by the ford and the gentlefolks walking across the
meadow; a carriage was waiting for them the other side of the river.
Going into the hut, she described to her husband with enthusiasm:
"Such good people! And so beautiful! The young ladies were like
cherubim."
"Plague take them!" Fyokla, sleepy, said spitefully.
VI
Marya thought herself unhappy, and said that she would be very glad to
die; Fyokla, on the other hand, found all this life to her taste: the
poverty, the uncleanliness, and the incessant quarrelling. She ate what
was given her without discrimination; slept anywhere, on whatever came
to hand. She would empty the slops just at the porch, would splash them
out from the doorway, and then walk barefoot through the puddle. And
from the very first day she took a dislike to Olga and Nikolay just
because they did not like this life.
"We shall see what you'll find to eat here, you Moscow gentry!" she said
malignantly. "We shall see!"
One morning, it was at the beginning of September, Fyokla, vigorous,
good-looking, and rosy from the cold, brought up two pails of water;
Marya and Olga were sitting meanwhile at the table drinking tea.
"Tea and sugar," said Fyokla sarcastically. "The fine ladies!" she
added, setting down the pails. "You have taken to the fashion of tea
every day. You better look out that you don't burst with your tea-
drinking," she went on, looking with hatred at Olga. "That's how you
have come by your fat mug, having a good time in Moscow, you lump of
flesh!" She swung the yoke and hit Olga such a blow on the shoulder that
the two sisters-in-law could only clasp their hands and say:
"Oh, holy Saints!"
Then Fyokla went down to the river to wash the clothes, swearing all the
time so loudly that she could be heard in the hut.
The day passed and was followed by the long autumn evening. They wound
silk in the hut; everyone did it except Fyokla; she had gone over the
river. They got the silk from a factory close by, and the whole family
working together earned next to nothing, twenty kopecks a week.
"Things were better in the old days under the gentry," said the old
father as he wound silk. "You worked and ate and slept, everything in
its turn. At dinner you had cabbage-soup and boiled grain, and at supper
the same again. Cucumbers and cabbage in plenty: you could eat to your
heart's content, as much as you wanted. And there was more strictness.
Everyone minded what he was about."
The hut was lighted by a single little lamp, which burned dimly and
smoked. When someone screened the lamp and a big shadow fell across the
window, the bright moonlight could be seen. Old Osip, speaking slowly,
told them how they used to live before the emancipation; how in those
very parts, where life was now so poor and so dreary, they used to hunt
with harriers, greyhounds, retrievers, and when they went out as beaters
the peasants were given vodka; how whole waggonloads of game used to be
sent to Moscow for the young masters; how the bad were beaten with rods
or sent away to the Tver estate, while the good were rewarded. And
Granny told them something, too. She remembered everything, positively
everything. She described her mistress, a kind, God-fearing woman, whose
husband was a profligate and a rake, and all of whose daughters made
unlucky marriages: one married a drunkard, another married a workman,
the other eloped secretly (Granny herself, at that time a young girl,
helped in the elopement), and they had all three as well as their mother
died early from grief. And remembering all this, Granny positively began
to shed tears.
All at once someone knocked at the door, and they all started.
"Uncle Osip, give me a night's lodging."
The little bald old man, General Zhukov's cook, the one whose cap had
been burnt, walked in. He sat down and listened, then he, too, began
telling stories of all sorts. Nikolay, sitting on the stove with his
legs hanging down, listened and asked questions about the dishes that
were prepared in the old days for the gentry. They talked of rissoles,
cutlets, various soups and sauces, and the cook, who remembered
everything very well, mentioned dishes that are no longer served. There
was one, for instance--a dish made of bulls' eyes, which was called
"waking up in the morning."
"And used you to do cutlets a la marechal?" asked Nikolay.
"No."
Nikolay shook his head reproachfully and said:
"Tut, tut! You were not much of a cook!"
The little girls sitting and lying on the stove stared down without
blinking; it seemed as though there were a great many of them, like
cherubim in the clouds. They liked the stories: they were breathless;
they shuddered and turned pale with alternate rapture and terror, and
they listened breathlessly, afraid to stir, to Granny, whose stories
were the most interesting of all.
They lay down to sleep in silence; and the old people, troubled and
excited by their reminiscences, thought how precious was youth, of
which, whatever it might have been like, nothing was left in the memory
but what was living, joyful, touching, and how terribly cold was death,
which was not far off, better not think of it! The lamp died down. And
the dusk, and the two little windows sharply defined by the moonlight,
and the stillness and the creak of the cradle, reminded them for some
reason that life was over, that nothing one could do would bring it
back.... You doze off, you forget yourself, and suddenly someone touches
your shoulder or breathes on your cheek--and sleep is gone; your body
feels cramped, and thoughts of death keep creeping into your mind. You
turn on the other side: death is forgotten, but old dreary, sickening
thoughts of poverty, of food, of how dear flour is getting, stray
through the mind, and a little later again you remember that life is
over and you cannot bring it back....
"Oh, Lord!" sighed the cook.
Someone gave a soft, soft tap at the window. It must be Fyokla come
back. Olga got up, and yawning and whispering a prayer, opened the door,
then drew the bolt in the outer room, but no one came in; only from the
street came a cold draught and a sudden brightness from the moonlight.
The street, still and deserted, and the moon itself floating across the
sky, could be seen at the open door.
"Who is there?" called Olga.
"I," she heard the answer--"it is I."
Near the door, crouching against the wall, stood Fyokla, absolutely
naked. She was shivering with cold, her teeth were chattering, and in
the bright moonlight she looked very pale, strange, and beautiful. The
shadows on her, and the bright moonlight on her skin, stood out vividly,
and her dark eyebrows and firm, youthful bosom were defined with
peculiar distinctness.
"The ruffians over there undressed me and turned me out like this," she
said. "I've come home without my clothes... naked as my mother bore me.
Bring me something to put on."
"But go inside!" Olga said softly, beginning to shiver, too.
"I don't want the old folks to see." Granny was, in fact, already
stirring and muttering, and the old father asked: "Who is there?" Olga
brought her own smock and skirt, dressed Fyokla, and then both went
softly into the inner room, trying not to make a noise with the door.
"Is that you, you sleek one?" Granny grumbled angrily, guessing who it
was. "Fie upon you, nightwalker!... Bad luck to you!"
"It's all right, it's all right," whispered Olga, wrapping Fyokla up;
"it's all right, dearie."
All was stillness again. They always slept badly; everyone was kept
awake by something worrying and persistent: the old man by the pain in
his back, Granny by anxiety and anger, Marya by terror, the children by
itch and hunger. Now, too, their sleep was troubled; they kept turning
over from one side to the other, talking in their sleep, getting up for
a drink.
Fyokla suddenly broke into a loud, coarse howl, but immediately checked
herself, and only uttered sobs from time to time, growing softer and on
a lower note, until she relapsed into silence. From time to time from
the other side of the river there floated the sound of the beating of
the hours; but the time seemed somehow strange--five was struck and then
three.
"Oh Lord!" sighed the cook.
Looking at the windows, it was difficult to tell whether it was still
moonlight or whether the dawn had begun. Marya got up and went out, and
she could be heard milking the cows and saying, "Stea-dy!" Granny went
out, too. It was still dark in the hut, but all the objects in it could
be discerned.
Nikolay, who had not slept all night, got down from the stove. He took
his dress-coat out of a green box, put it on, and going to the window,
stroked the sleeves and took hold of the coat-tails--and smiled. Then he
carefully took off the coat, put it away in his box, and lay down again.
Marya came in again and began lighting the stove. She was evidently
hardly awake, and seemed dropping asleep as she walked. Probably she had
had some dream, or the stories of the night before came into her mind
as, stretching luxuriously before the stove, she said:
"No, freedom is better."
VII
The master arrived--that was what they called the police inspector. When
he would come and what he was coming for had been known for the last
week. There were only forty households in Zhukovo, but more than two
thousand roubles of arrears of rates and taxes had accumulated.
The police inspector stopped at the tavern. He drank there two glasses
of tea, and then went on foot to the village elder's hut, near which a
crowd of those who were in debt stood waiting. The elder, Antip
Syedelnikov, was, in spite of his youth--he was only a little over
thirty--strict and always on the side of the authorities, though he
himself was poor and did not pay his taxes regularly. Evidently he
enjoyed being elder, and liked the sense of authority, which he could
only display by strictness. In the village council the peasants were
afraid of him and obeyed him. It would sometimes happen that he would
pounce on a drunken man in the street or near the tavern, tie his hands
behind him, and put him in the lock-up. On one occasion he even put
Granny in the lock-up because she went to the village council instead of
Osip, and began swearing, and he kept her there for a whole day and
night. He had never lived in a town or read a book, but somewhere or
other had picked up various learned expressions, and loved to make use
of them in conversation, and he was respected for this though he was not
always understood.
When Osip came into the village elder's hut with his tax book, the
police inspector, a lean old man with a long grey beard, in a grey
tunic, was sitting at a table in the passage, writing something. It was
clean in the hut; all the walls were dotted with pictures cut out of the
illustrated papers, and in the most conspicuous place near the ikon
there was a portrait of the Battenburg who was the Prince of Bulgaria.
By the table stood Antip Syedelnikov with his arms folded.
"There is one hundred and nineteen roubles standing against him," he
said when it came to Osip's turn. "Before Easter he paid a rouble, and
he has not paid a kopeck since."
The police inspector raised his eyes to Osip and asked:
"Why is this, brother?"
"Show Divine mercy, your honour," Osip began, growing agitated. "Allow
me to say last year the gentleman at Lutorydsky said to me, 'Osip,' he
said, 'sell your hay... you sell it,' he said. Well, I had a hundred
poods for sale; the women mowed it on the water-meadow. Well, we struck
a bargain all right, willingly...."
He complained of the elder, and kept turning round to the peasants as
though inviting them to bear witness; his face flushed red and
perspired, and his eyes grew sharp and angry.
"I don't know why you are saying all this," said the police inspector.
"I am asking you... I am asking you why you don't pay your arrears. You
don't pay, any of you, and am I to be responsible for you?"
"I can't do it."
"His words have no sequel, your honour," said the elder. "The
Tchikildyeevs certainly are of a defective class, but if you will just
ask the others, the root of it all is vodka, and they are a very bad
lot. With no sort of understanding."
The police inspector wrote something down, and said to Osip quietly, in
an even tone, as though he were asking him for water:
"Be off."
Soon he went away; and when he got into his cheap chaise and cleared his
throat, it could be seen from the very expression of his long thin back
that he was no longer thinking of Osip or of the village elder, nor of
the Zhukovo arrears, but was thinking of his own affairs. Before he had
gone three-quarters of a mile Antip was already carrying off the samovar
from the Tchikildyeevs' cottage, followed by Granny, screaming shrilly
and straining her throat:
"I won't let you have it, I won't let you have it, damn you!"
He walked rapidly with long steps, and she pursued him panting, almost
falling over, a bent, ferocious figure; her kerchief slipped on to her
shoulders, her grey hair with greenish lights on it was blown about in
the wind. She suddenly stopped short, and like a genuine rebel, fell to
beating her breast with her fists and shouting louder than ever in a
sing-song voice, as though she were sobbing:
"Good Christians and believers in God! Neighbours, they have ill-treated
me! Kind friends, they have oppressed me! Oh, oh! dear people, take my
part."
"Granny, Granny!" said the village elder sternly, "have some sense in
your head!"
It was hopelessly dreary in the Tchikildyeevs' hut without the samovar;
there was something humiliating in this loss, insulting, as though the
honour of the hut had been outraged. Better if the elder had carried off
the table, all the benches, all the pots--it would not have seemed so
empty. Granny screamed, Marya cried, and the little girls, looking at
her, cried, too. The old father, feeling guilty, sat in the corner with
bowed head and said nothing. And Nikolay, too, was silent. Granny loved
him and was sorry for him, but now, forgetting her pity, she fell upon
him with abuse, with reproaches, shaking her fist right in his face. She
shouted that it was all his fault; why had he sent them so little when
he boasted in his letters that he was getting fifty roubles a month at
the Slavyansky Bazaar? Why had he come, and with his family, too? If he
died, where was the money to come from for his funeral...? And it was
pitiful to look at Nikolay, Olga, and Sasha.
The old father cleared his throat, took his cap, and went off to the
village elder. Antip was soldering something by the stove, puffing out
his cheeks; there was a smell of burning. His children, emaciated and
unwashed, no better than the Tchikildyeevs, were scrambling about the
floor; his wife, an ugly, freckled woman with a prominent stomach, was
winding silk. They were a poor, unlucky family, and Antip was the only
one who looked vigorous and handsome. On a bench there were five
samovars standing in a row. The old man said his prayer to Battenburg
and said:
"Antip, show the Divine mercy. Give me back the samovar, for Christ's
sake!"
"Bring three roubles, then you shall have it."
"I can't do it!"
Antip puffed out his cheeks, the fire roared and hissed, and the glow
was reflected in the samovar. The old man crumpled up his cap and said
after a moment's thought:
"You give it me back."
The swarthy elder looked quite black, and was like a magician; he turned
round to Osip and said sternly and rapidly:
"It all depends on the rural captain. On the twenty-sixth instant you
can state the grounds for your dissatisfaction before the administrative
session, verbally or in writing."
Osip did not understand a word, but he was satisfied with that and went
home.
Ten days later the police inspector came again, stayed an hour and went
away. During those days the weather had changed to cold and windy; the
river had been frozen for some time past, but still there was no snow,
and people found it difficult to get about. On the eve of a holiday some
of the neighbours came in to Osip's to sit and have a talk. They did not
light the lamp, as it would have been a sin to work, but talked in the
darkness. There were some items of news, all rather unpleasant. In two
or three households hens had been taken for the arrears, and had been
sent to the district police station, and there they had died because no
one had fed them; they had taken sheep, and while they were being driven
away tied to one another, shifted into another cart at each village, one
of them had died. And now they were discussing the question, who was to
blame?
"The Zemstvo," said Osip. "Who else?"
"Of course it is the Zemstvo."
The Zemstvo was blamed for everything--for the arrears, and for the
oppressions, and for the failure of the crops, though no one of them
knew what was meant by the Zemstvo. And this dated from the time when
well-to-do peasants who had factories, shops, and inns of their own were
members of the Zemstvos, were dissatisfied with them, and took to
swearing at the Zemstvos in their factories and inns.
They talked of God's not sending the snow; they had to bring in wood for
fuel, and there was no driving nor walking in the frozen ruts. In old
days fifteen to twenty years ago conversation was much more interesting
in Zhukovo. In those days every old man looked as though he were
treasuring some secret; as though he knew something and was expecting
something. They used to talk about an edict in golden letters, about the
division of lands, about new land, about treasures; they hinted at
something. Now the people of Zhukovo had no mystery at all; their whole
life was bare and open in the sight of all, and they could talk of
nothing but poverty, food, there being no snow yet....
There was a pause. Then they thought again of the hens, of the sheep,
and began discussing whose fault it was.
"The Zemstvo," said Osip wearily. "Who else?"
VIII
The parish church was nearly five miles away at Kosogorovo, and the
peasants only attended it when they had to do so for baptisms, weddings,
or funerals; they went to the services at the church across the river.
On holidays in fine weather the girls dressed up in their best and went
in a crowd together to church, and it was a cheering sight to see them
in their red, yellow, and green dresses cross the meadow; in bad weather
they all stayed at home. They went for the sacrament to the parish
church. From each of those who did not manage in Lent to go to
confession in readiness for the sacrament the parish priest, going the
round of the huts with the cross at Easter, took fifteen kopecks.
The old father did not believe in God, for he hardly ever thought about
Him; he recognized the supernatural, but considered it was entirely the
women's concern, and when religion or miracles were discussed before
him, or a question were put to him, he would say reluctantly, scratching
himself:
"Who can tell!"
Granny believed, but her faith was somewhat hazy; everything was mixed
up in her memory, and she could scarcely begin to think of sins, of
death, of the salvation of the soul, before poverty and her daily cares
took possession of her mind, and she instantly forgot what she was
thinking about. She did not remember the prayers, and usually in the
evenings, before lying down to sleep, she would stand before the ikons
and whisper:
"Holy Mother of Kazan, Holy Mother of Smolensk, Holy Mother of
Troerutchitsy..."
Marya and Fyokla crossed themselves, fasted, and took the sacrament
every year, but understood nothing. The children were not taught their
prayers, nothing was told them about God, and no moral principles were
instilled into them; they were only forbidden to eat meat or milk in
Lent. In the other families it was much the same: there were few who
believed, few who understood. At the same time everyone loved the Holy
Scripture, loved it with a tender, reverent love; but they had no Bible,
there was no one to read it and explain it, and because Olga sometimes
read them the gospel, they respected her, and they all addressed her and
Sasha as though they were superior to themselves.
For church holidays and services Olga often went to neighbouring
villages, and to the district town, in which there were two monasteries
and twenty-seven churches. She was dreamy, and when she was on these
pilgrimages she quite forgot her family, and only when she got home
again suddenly made the joyful discovery that she had a husband and
daughter, and then would say, smiling and radiant:
"God has sent me blessings!"
What went on in the village worried her and seemed to her revolting. On
Elijah's Day they drank, at the Assumption they drank, at the Ascension
they drank. The Feast of the Intercession was the parish holiday for
Zhukovo, and the peasants used to drink then for three days; they
squandered on drink fifty roubles of money belonging to the Mir, and
then collected more for vodka from all the households. On the first day
of the feast the Tchikildyeevs killed a sheep and ate of it in the
morning, at dinner-time, and in the evening; they ate it ravenously, and
the children got up at night to eat more. Kiryak was fearfully drunk for
three whole days; he drank up everything, even his boots and cap, and
beat Marya so terribly that they had to pour water over her. And then
they were all ashamed and sick.
However, even in Zhukovo, in this "Slaveytown," there was once an
outburst of genuine religious enthusiasm. It was in August, when
throughout the district they carried from village to village the Holy
Mother, the giver of life. It was still and overcast on the day when
they expected Her at Zhukovo. The girls set off in the morning to meet
the ikon, in their bright holiday dresses, and brought Her towards the
evening, in procession with the cross and with singing, while the bells
pealed in the church across the river. An immense crowd of villagers and
strangers flooded the street; there was noise, dust, a great crush....
And the old father and Granny and Kiryak--all stretched out their hands
to the ikon, looked eagerly at it and said, weeping:
"Defender! Mother! Defender!"
All seemed suddenly to realize that there was not an empty void between
earth and heaven, that the rich and the powerful had not taken
possession of everything, that there was still a refuge from injury,
from slavish bondage, from crushing, unendurable poverty, from the
terrible vodka.
"Defender! Mother!" sobbed Marya. "Mother!"
But the thanksgiving service ended and the ikon was carried away, and
everything went on as before; and again there was a sound of coarse
drunken oaths from the tavern.
Only the well-to-do peasants were afraid of death; the richer they were
the less they believed in God, and in the salvation of souls, and only
through fear of the end of the world put up candles and had services
said for them, to be on the safe side. The peasants who were rather
poorer were not afraid of death. The old father and Granny were told to
their faces that they had lived too long, that it was time they were
dead, and they did not mind. They did not hinder Fyokla from saying in
Nikolay's presence that when Nikolay died her husband Denis would get
exemption--to return home from the army. And Marya, far from fearing
death, regretted that it was so slow in coming, and was glad when her
children died.
Death they did not fear, but of every disease they had an exaggerated
terror. The merest trifle was enough--a stomach upset, a slight chill,
and Granny would be wrapped up on the stove, and would begin moaning
loudly and incessantly:
"I am dy-ing!"