IV

Five days had passed. Anisim, who was preparing to go, went upstairs to

say good-bye to Varvara. All the lamps were burning before the ikons,

there was a smell of incense, while she sat at the window knitting a

stocking of red wool.

“You have not stayed with us long,” she said. “You’ve been dull, I dare

say. Oh, tut, tut. We live comfortably; we have plenty of everything.

We celebrated your wedding properly, in good style; your father says it

came to two thousand. In fact we live like merchants, only it’s dreary.

We treat the people very badly. My heart aches, my dear; how we treat

them, my goodness! Whether we exchange a horse or buy something or hire

a labourer--it’s cheating in everything. Cheating and cheating. The

Lenten oil in the shop is bitter, rancid, the people have pitch that is

better. But surely, tell me pray, couldn’t we sell good oil?”

“Every man to his job, mamma.”

“But you know we all have to die? Oy, oy, really you ought to talk to

your father...!”

“Why, you should talk to him yourself.”

“Well, well, I did put in my word, but he said just what you do: ‘Every

man to his own job.’ Do you suppose in the next world they’ll consider

what job you have been put to? God’s judgment is just.”

“Of course no one will consider,” said Anisim, and he heaved a sigh.

“There is no God, anyway, you know, mamma, so what considering can there

be?”

Varvara looked at him with surprise, burst out laughing, and clasped her

hands. Perhaps because she was so genuinely surprised at his words and

looked at him as though he were a queer person, he was confused.

“Perhaps there is a God, only there is no faith. When I was being

married I was not myself. Just as you may take an egg from under a hen

and there is a chicken chirping in it, so my conscience was beginning to

chirp in me, and while I was being married I thought all the time there

was a God! But when I left the church it was nothing. And indeed, how

can I tell whether there is a God or not? We are not taught right from

childhood, and while the babe is still at his mother’s breast he is

only taught ‘every man to his own job.’ Father does not believe in God,

either. You were saying that Guntorev had some sheep stolen.... I have

found them; it was a peasant at Shikalovo stole them; he stole them, but

father’s got the fleeces... so that’s all his faith amounts to.”

Anisim winked and wagged his head.

“The elder does not believe in God, either,” he went on. “And the clerk

and the deacon, too. And as for their going to church and keeping the

fasts, that is simply to prevent people talking ill of them, and in case

it really may be true that there will be a Day of Judgment. Nowadays

people say that the end of the world has come because people have grown

weaker, do not honour their parents, and so on. All that is nonsense.

My idea, mamma, is that all our trouble is because there is so little

conscience in people. I see through things, mamma, and I understand. If

a man has a stolen shirt I see it. A man sits in a tavern and you fancy

he is drinking tea and no more, but to me the tea is neither here nor

there; I see further, he has no conscience. You can go about the whole

day and not meet one man with a conscience. And the whole reason is that

they don’t know whether there is a God or not.... Well, good-bye, mamma,

keep alive and well, don’t remember evil against me.”

Anisim bowed down at Varvara’s feet.

“I thank you for everything, mamma,” he said. “You are a great gain to

our family. You are a very ladylike woman, and I am very pleased with

you.”

Much moved, Anisim went out, but returned again and said:

“Samorodov has got me mixed up in something: I shall either make my

fortune or come to grief. If anything happens, then you must comfort my

father, mamma.”

“Oh, nonsense, don’t you worry, tut, tut, tut... God is merciful. And,

Anisim, you should be affectionate to your wife, instead of giving each

other sulky looks as you do; you might smile at least.”

“Yes, she is rather a queer one,” said Anisim, and he gave a sigh. “She

does not understand anything, she never speaks. She is very young, let

her grow up.”

A tall, sleek white stallion was already standing at the front door,

harnessed to the chaise.

Old Tsybukin jumped in jauntily with a run and took the reins. Anisim

kissed Varvara, Aksinya, and his brother. On the steps Lipa, too, was

standing; she was standing motionless, looking away, and it seemed

as though she had not come to see him off but just by chance for some

unknown reason. Anisim went up to her and just touched her cheek with

his lips.

“Good-bye,” he said.

And without looking at him she gave a strange smile; her face began to

quiver, and everyone for some reason felt sorry for her. Anisim, too,

leaped into the chaise with a bound and put his arms jauntily akimbo,

for he considered himself a good-looking fellow.

When they drove up out of the ravine Anisim kept looking back towards

the village. It was a warm, bright day. The cattle were being driven out

for the first time, and the peasant girls and women were walking by the

herd in their holiday dresses. The dun-coloured bull bellowed, glad to

be free, and pawed the ground with his forefeet. On all sides, above and

below, the larks were singing. Anisim looked round at the elegant white

church--it had only lately been whitewashed--and he thought how he had

been praying in it five days before; he looked round at the school with

its green roof, at the little river in which he used once to bathe and

catch fish, and there was a stir of joy in his heart, and he wished that

walls might rise up from the ground and prevent him from going further,

and that he might be left with nothing but the past.

At the station they went to the refreshment room and drank a glass of

sherry each. His father felt in his pocket for his purse to pay.

“I will stand treat,” said Anisim. The old man, touched and delighted,

slapped him on the shoulder, and winked to the waiter as much as to say,

“See what a fine son I have got.”

“You ought to stay at home in the business, Anisim,” he said; “you would

be worth any price to me! I would shower gold on you from head to foot,

my son.”

“It can’t be done, papa.”

The sherry was sour and smelt of sealing-wax, but they had another

glass.

When old Tsybukin returned home from the station, for the first moment

he did not recognize his younger daughter-in-law. As soon as her husband

had driven out of the yard, Lipa was transformed and suddenly brightened

up. Wearing a threadbare old petticoat, with her feet bare and her

sleeves tucked up to the shoulders, she was scrubbing the stairs in the

entry and singing in a silvery little voice, and when she brought out a

big tub of dirty water and looked up at the sun with her childlike smile

it seemed as though she, too, were a lark.

An old labourer who was passing by the door shook his head and cleared

his throat.

“Yes, indeed, your daughters-in-law, Grigory Petrovitch, are a blessing

from God,” he said. “Not women, but treasures!”

V

On Friday the 8th of July, Elizarov, nicknamed Crutch, and Lipa were

returning from the village of Kazanskoe, where they had been to a

service on the occasion of a church holiday in the honour of the

Holy Mother of Kazan. A good distance after them walked Lipa’s mother

Praskovya, who always fell behind, as she was ill and short of breath.

It was drawing towards evening.

“A-a-a...” said Crutch, wondering as he listened to Lipa. “A-a!...

We-ell!

“I am very fond of jam, Ilya Makaritch,” said Lipa. “I sit down in my

little corner and drink tea and eat jam. Or I drink it with Varvara

Nikolaevna, and she tells some story full of feeling. We have a lot of

jam--four jars. ‘Have some, Lipa; eat as much as you like.’”

“A-a-a, four jars!”

“They live very well. We have white bread with our tea; and meat, too,

as much as one wants. They live very well, only I am frightened with

them, Ilya Makaritch. Oh, oh, how frightened I am!”

“Why are you frightened, child?” asked Crutch, and he looked back to see

how far Praskovya was behind.

“To begin with, when the wedding had been celebrated I was afraid of

Anisim Grigoritch. Anisim Grigoritch did nothing, he didn’t ill-treat

me, only when he comes near me a cold shiver runs all over me, through

all my bones. And I did not sleep one night, I trembled all over and

kept praying to God. And now I am afraid of Aksinya, Ilya Makaritch.

It’s not that she does anything, she is always laughing, but sometimes

she glances at the window, and her eyes are so fierce and there is a

gleam of green in them--like the eyes of the sheep in the shed. The

Hrymin Juniors are leading her astray: ‘Your old man,’ they tell her,

‘has a bit of land at Butyokino, a hundred and twenty acres,’ they say,

‘and there is sand and water there, so you, Aksinya,’ they say, ‘build

a brickyard there and we will go shares in it.’ Bricks now are twenty

roubles the thousand, it’s a profitable business. Yesterday at dinner

Aksinya said to my father-in-law: ‘I want to build a brickyard at

Butyokino; I’m going into business on my own account.’ She laughed as

she said it. And Grigory Petrovitch’s face darkened, one could see he

did not like it. ‘As long as I live,’ he said, ‘the family must not

break up, we must go on altogether.’ She gave a look and gritted her

teeth.... Fritters were served, she would not eat them.”

“A-a-a!...” Crutch was surprised.

“And tell me, if you please, when does she sleep?” said Lipa. “She

sleeps for half an hour, then jumps up and keeps walking and walking

about to see whether the peasants have not set fire to something, have

not stolen something.... I am frightened with her, Ilya Makaritch. And

the Hrymin Juniors did not go to bed after the wedding, but drove to the

town to go to law with each other; and folks do say it is all on account

of Aksinya. Two of the brothers have promised to build her a brickyard,

but the third is offended, and the factory has been at a standstill for

a month, and my uncle Prohor is without work and goes about from house

to house getting crusts. ‘Hadn’t you better go working on the land or

sawing up wood, meanwhile, uncle?’ I tell him; ‘why disgrace yourself?’

‘I’ve got out of the way of it,’ he says; ‘I don’t know how to do any

sort of peasant’s work now, Lipinka.’...”

They stopped to rest and wait for Praskovya near a copse of young

aspen-trees. Elizarov had long been a contractor in a small way, but he

kept no horses, going on foot all over the district with nothing but a

little bag in which there was bread and onions, and stalking along with

big strides, swinging his arms. And it was difficult to walk with him.

At the entrance to the copse stood a milestone. Elizarov touched it;

read it. Praskovya reached them out of breath. Her wrinkled and always

scared-looking face was beaming with happiness; she had been at church

to-day like anyone else, then she had been to the fair and there had

drunk pear cider. For her this was unusual, and it even seemed to her

now that she had lived for her own pleasure that day for the first time

in her life. After resting they all three walked on side by side. The

sun had already set, and its beams filtered through the copse, casting

a light on the trunks of the trees. There was a faint sound of voices

ahead. The Ukleevo girls had long before pushed on ahead but had

lingered in the copse, probably gathering mushrooms.

“Hey, wenches!” cried Elizarov. “Hey, my beauties!”

There was a sound of laughter in response.

“Crutch is coming! Crutch! The old horseradish.”

And the echo laughed, too. And then the copse was left behind. The

tops of the factory chimneys came into view. The cross on the belfry

glittered: this was the village: “the one at which the deacon ate all

the caviare at the funeral.” Now they were almost home; they only had

to go down into the big ravine. Lipa and Praskovya, who had been walking

barefooted, sat down on the grass to put on their boots; Elizar sat down

with them. If they looked down from above Ukleevo looked beautiful and

peaceful with its willow-trees, its white church, and its little river,

and the only blot on the picture was the roof of the factories, painted

for the sake of cheapness a gloomy ashen grey. On the slope on the

further side they could see the rye--some in stacks and sheaves here and

there as though strewn about by the storm, and some freshly cut lying

in swathes; the oats, too, were ripe and glistened now in the sun like

mother-of-pearl. It was harvest-time. To-day was a holiday, to-morrow

they would harvest the rye and carry the hay, and then Sunday a holiday

again; every day there were mutterings of distant thunder. It was misty

and looked like rain, and, gazing now at the fields, everyone thought,

God grant we get the harvest in in time; and everyone felt gay and

joyful and anxious at heart.

“Mowers ask a high price nowadays,” said Praskovya. “One rouble and

forty kopecks a day.”

People kept coming and coming from the fair at Kazanskoe: peasant women,

factory workers in new caps, beggars, children.... Here a cart would

drive by stirring up the dust and behind it would run an unsold horse,

and it seemed glad it had not been sold; then a cow was led along by

the horns, resisting stubbornly; then a cart again, and in it drunken

peasants swinging their legs. An old woman led a little boy in a big cap

and big boots; the boy was tired out with the heat and the heavy

boots which prevented his bending his legs at the knees, but yet blew

unceasingly with all his might at a tin trumpet. They had gone down the

slope and turned into the street, but the trumpet could still be heard.

“Our factory owners don’t seem quite themselves...” said Elizarov.

“There’s trouble. Kostukov is angry with me. ‘Too many boards have gone

on the cornices.’ ‘Too many? As many have gone on it as were needed,

Vassily Danilitch; I don’t eat them with my porridge.’ ‘How can you

speak to me like that?’ said he, ‘you good-for-nothing blockhead! Don’t

forget yourself! It was I made you a contractor.’ ‘That’s nothing so

wonderful,’ said I. ‘Even before I was a contractor I used to have

tea every day.’ ‘You are a rascal...’ he said. I said nothing. ‘We

are rascals in this world,’ thought I, ‘and you will be rascals in the

next....’ Ha-ha-ha! The next day he was softer. ‘Don’t you bear malice

against me for my words, Makaritch,’ he said. ‘If I said too much,’ says

he, ‘what of it? I am a merchant of the first guild, your superior--you

ought to hold your tongue.’ ‘You,’ said I, ‘are a merchant of the first

guild and I am a carpenter, that’s correct. And Saint Joseph was a

carpenter, too. Ours is a righteous calling and pleasing to God, and if

you are pleased to be my superior you are very welcome to it, Vassily

Danilitch.’ And later on, after that conversation I mean, I thought:

‘Which was the superior? A merchant of the first guild or a carpenter?’

The carpenter must be, my child!”

Crutch thought a minute and added:

“Yes, that’s how it is, child. He who works, he who is patient is the

superior.”

By now the sun had set and a thick mist as white as milk was rising over

the river, in the church enclosure, and in the open spaces round the

factories. Now when the darkness was coming on rapidly, when lights were

twinkling below, and when it seemed as though the mists were hiding

a fathomless abyss, Lipa and her mother who were born in poverty and

prepared to live so till the end, giving up to others everything except

their frightened, gentle souls, may have fancied for a minute perhaps

that in the vast, mysterious world, among the endless series of lives,

they, too, counted for something, and they, too, were superior to

someone; they liked sitting here at the top, they smiled happily and

forgot that they must go down below again all the same.

At last they went home again. The mowers were sitting on the ground at

the gates near the shop. As a rule the Ukleevo peasants did not go

to Tsybukin’s to work, and they had to hire strangers, and now in the

darkness it seemed as though there were men sitting there with long

black beards. The shop was open, and through the doorway they could

see the deaf man playing draughts with a boy. The mowers were singing

softly, scarcely audibly, or loudly demanding their wages for the

previous day, but they were not paid for fear they should go away before

to-morrow. Old Tsybukin, with his coat off, was sitting in his waistcoat

with Aksinya under the birch-tree, drinking tea; a lamp was burning on

the table.

“I say, grandfather,” a mower called from outside the gates, as though

taunting him, “pay us half anyway! Hey, grandfather.”

And at once there was the sound of laughter, and then again they sang

hardly audibly.... Crutch, too, sat down to have some tea.

“We have been at the fair, you know,” he began telling them. “We have

had a walk, a very nice walk, my children, praise the Lord. But an

unfortunate thing happened: Sashka the blacksmith bought some tobacco

and gave the shopman half a rouble to be sure. And the half rouble was

a false one”--Crutch went on, and he meant to speak in a whisper, but

he spoke in a smothered husky voice which was audible to everyone. “The

half-rouble turned out to be a bad one. He was asked where he got it.

‘Anisim Tsybukin gave it me,’ he said. ‘When I went to his wedding,’ he

said. They called the police inspector, took the man away.... Look out,

Grigory Petrovitch, that nothing comes of it, no talk....”

“Gra-ndfather!” the same voice called tauntingly outside the gates.

“Gra-andfather!”

A silence followed.

“Ah, little children, little children, little children...” Crutch

muttered rapidly, and he got up. He was overcome with drowsiness. “Well,

thank you for the tea, for the sugar, little children. It is time to

sleep. I am like a bit of rotten timber nowadays, my beams are crumbling

under me. Ho-ho-ho! I suppose it’s time I was dead.”

And he gave a gulp. Old Tsybukin did not finish his tea but sat on a

little, pondering; and his face looked as though he were listening to

the footsteps of Crutch, who was far away down the street.

“Sashka the blacksmith told a lie, I expect,” said Aksinya, guessing his

thoughts.

He went into the house and came back a little later with a parcel; he

opened it, and there was the gleam of roubles--perfectly new coins. He

took one, tried it with his teeth, flung it on the tray; then flung down

another.

“The roubles really are false...” he said, looking at Aksinya and

seeming perplexed. “These are those Anisim brought, his present. Take

them, daughter,” he whispered, and thrust the parcel into her hands.

“Take them and throw them into the well... confound them! And mind

there is no talk about it. Harm might come of it.... Take away the

samovar, put out the light.”

Lipa and her mother sitting in the barn saw the lights go out one after

the other; only overhead in Varvara’s room there were blue and red lamps

gleaming, and a feeling of peace, content, and happy ignorance seemed to

float down from there. Praskovya could never get used to her daughter’s

being married to a rich man, and when she came she huddled timidly in

the outer room with a deprecating smile on her face, and tea and sugar

were sent out to her. And Lipa, too, could not get used to it either,

and after her husband had gone away she did not sleep in her bed, but

lay down anywhere to sleep, in the kitchen or the barn, and every day

she scrubbed the floor or washed the clothes, and felt as though she

were hired by the day. And now, on coming back from the service, they

drank tea in the kitchen with the cook, then they went into the barn and

lay down on the ground between the sledge and the wall. It was dark here

and smelt of harness. The lights went out about the house, then they

could hear the deaf man shutting up the shop, the mowers settling

themselves about the yard to sleep. In the distance at the Hrymin

Juniors’ they were playing on the expensive concertina.... Praskovya and

Lipa began to go to sleep.

And when they were awakened by somebody’s steps it was bright moonlight;

at the entrance of the barn stood Aksinya with her bedding in her arms.

“Maybe it’s a bit cooler here,” she said; then she came in and lay down

almost in the doorway so that the moonlight fell full upon her.

She did not sleep, but breathed heavily, tossing from side to side

with the heat, throwing off almost all the bedclothes. And in the magic

moonlight what a beautiful, what a proud animal she was! A little time

passed, and then steps were heard again: the old father, white all over,

appeared in the doorway.

“Aksinya,” he called, “are you here?”

“Well?” she responded angrily.

“I told you just now to throw the money into the well, have you done

so?”

“What next, throwing property into the water! I gave them to the

mowers....”

“Oh my God!” cried the old man, dumbfounded and alarmed. “Oh my God! you

wicked woman....”

He flung up his hands and went out, and he kept saying something as he

went away. And a little later Aksinya sat up and sighed heavily with

annoyance, then got up and, gathering up her bedclothes in her arms,

went out.

“Why did you marry me into this family, mother?” said Lipa.

“One has to be married, daughter. It was not us who ordained it.”

And a feeling of inconsolable woe was ready to take possession of them.

But it seemed to them that someone was looking down from the height of

the heavens, out of the blue from where the stars were seeing everything

that was going on in Ukleevo, watching over them. And however great was

wickedness, still the night was calm and beautiful, and still in God’s

world there is and will be truth and justice as calm and beautiful,

and everything on earth is only waiting to be made one with truth and

justice, even as the moonlight is blended with the night.

And both, huddling close to one another, fell asleep comforted.