News had come long before that Anisim had been put in prison for coining
and passing bad money. Months passed, more than half a year passed, the
long winter was over, spring had begun, and everyone in the house and
the village had grown used to the fact that Anisim was in prison. And
when anyone passed by the house or the shop at night he would remember
that Anisim was in prison; and when they rang at the churchyard for some
reason, that, too, reminded them that he was in prison awaiting trial.
It seemed as though a shadow had fallen upon the house. The house looked
darker, the roof was rustier, the heavy, iron-bound door into the shop,
which was painted green, was covered with cracks, or, as the deaf man
expressed it, “blisters”; and old Tsybukin seemed to have grown dingy,
too. He had given up cutting his hair and beard, and looked shaggy. He
no longer sprang jauntily into his chaise, nor shouted to beggars: “God
will provide!” His strength was on the wane, and that was evident in
everything. People were less afraid of him now, and the police officer
drew up a formal charge against him in the shop though he received his
regular bribe as before; and three times the old man was called up to
the town to be tried for illicit dealing in spirits, and the case was
continually adjourned owing to the non-appearance of witnesses, and old
Tsybukin was worn out with worry.
He often went to see his son, hired somebody, handed in a petition to
somebody else, presented a holy banner to some church. He presented the
governor of the prison in which Anisim was confined with a silver glass
stand with a long spoon and the inscription: “The soul knows its right
measure.”
“There is no one to look after things for us,” said Varvara. “Tut,
tut.... You ought to ask someone of the gentlefolks, they would write to
the head officials.... At least they might let him out on bail! Why wear
the poor fellow out?”
She, too, was grieved, but had grown stouter and whiter; she lighted the
lamps before the ikons as before, and saw that everything in the house
was clean, and regaled the guests with jam and apple cheese. The deaf
man and Aksinya looked after the shop. A new project was in progress--a
brickyard in Butyokino--and Aksinya went there almost every day in the
chaise. She drove herself, and when she met acquaintances she stretched
out her neck like a snake out of the young rye, and smiled naively and
enigmatically. Lipa spent her time playing with the baby which had been
born to her before Lent. It was a tiny, thin, pitiful little baby, and
it was strange that it should cry and gaze about and be considered a
human being, and even be called Nikifor. He lay in his swinging cradle,
and Lipa would walk away towards the door and say, bowing to him:
“Good-day, Nikifor Anisimitch!”
And she would rush at him and kiss him. Then she would walk away to the
door, bow again, and say:
‘Good-day, Nikifor Anisimitch!
And he kicked up his little red legs, and his crying was mixed with
laughter like the carpenter Elizarov’s.
At last the day of the trial was fixed. Tsybukin went away five days
before. Then they heard that the peasants called as witnesses had been
fetched; their old workman who had received a notice to appear went too.
The trial was on a Thursday. But Sunday had passed, and Tsybukin was
still not back, and there was no news. Towards the evening on Tuesday
Varvara was sitting at the open window, listening for her husband to
come. In the next room Lipa was playing with her baby. She was tossing
him up in her arms and saying enthusiastically:
“You will grow up ever so big, ever so big. You will be a peasant, we
shall go out to work together! We shall go out to work together!”
“Come, come,” said Varvara, offended. “Go out to work, what an idea, you
silly girl! He will be a merchant...!”
Lipa sang softly, but a minute later she forgot and again:
“You will grow ever so big, ever so big. You will be a peasant, we’ll go
out to work together.”
“There she is at it again!”
Lipa, with Nikifor in her arms, stood still in the doorway and asked:
“Why do I love him so much, mamma? Why do I feel so sorry for him?” she
went on in a quivering voice, and her eyes glistened with tears. “Who
is he? What is he like? As light as a little feather, as a little crumb,
but I love him; I love him like a real person. Here he can do nothing,
he can’t talk, and yet I know what he wants with his little eyes.”
Varvara was listening; the sound of the evening train coming in to the
station reached her. Had her husband come? She did not hear and she did
not heed what Lipa was saying, she had no idea how the time passed, but
only trembled all over--not from dread, but intense curiosity. She saw
a cart full of peasants roll quickly by with a rattle. It was the
witnesses coming back from the station. When the cart passed the shop
the old workman jumped out and walked into the yard. She could hear him
being greeted in the yard and being asked some questions....
“Deprivation of rights and all his property,” he said loudly, “and six
years’ penal servitude in Siberia.”
She could see Aksinya come out of the shop by the back way; she had just
been selling kerosene, and in one hand held a bottle and in the other a
can, and in her mouth she had some silver coins.
“Where is father?” she asked, lisping.
“At the station,” answered the labourer. “‘When it gets a little
darker,’ he said, ‘then I shall come.’”
And when it became known all through the household that Anisim was
sentenced to penal servitude, the cook in the kitchen suddenly broke
into a wail as though at a funeral, imagining that this was demanded by
the proprieties:
“There is no one to care for us now you have gone, Anisim Grigoritch,
our bright falcon....”
The dogs began barking in alarm. Varvara ran to the window, and rushing
about in distress, shouted to the cook with all her might, straining her
voice:
“Sto-op, Stepanida, sto-op! Don’t harrow us, for Christ’s sake!”
They forgot to set the samovar, they could think of nothing. Only Lipa
could not make out what it was all about and went on playing with her
baby.
When the old father arrived from the station they asked him no
questions. He greeted them and walked through all the rooms in silence;
he had no supper.
“There was no one to see about things...” Varvara began when they were
alone. “I said you should have asked some of the gentry, you would not
heed me at the time.... A petition would...”
“I saw to things,” said her husband with a wave of his hand. “When
Anisim was condemned I went to the gentleman who was defending him.
‘It’s no use now,’ he said, ‘it’s too late’; and Anisim said the same;
it’s too late. But all the same as I came out of the court I made an
agreement with a lawyer, I paid him something in advance. I’ll wait a
week and then I will go again. It is as God wills.”
Again the old man walked through all the rooms, and when he went back to
Varvara he said:
“I must be ill. My head’s in a sort of... fog. My thoughts are in a
maze.”
He closed the door that Lipa might not hear, and went on softly:
“I am unhappy about my money. Do you remember on Low Sunday before his
wedding Anisim’s bringing me some new roubles and half-roubles? One
parcel I put away at the time, but the others I mixed with my own money.
When my uncle Dmitri Filatitch--the kingdom of heaven be his--was alive,
he used constantly to go journeys to Moscow and to the Crimea to buy
goods. He had a wife, and this same wife, when he was away buying goods,
used to take up with other men. She had half a dozen children. And when
uncle was in his cups he would laugh and say: ‘I never can make out,’
he used to say, ‘which are my children and which are other people’s.’ An
easy-going disposition, to be sure; and so I now can’t distinguish which
are genuine roubles and which are false ones. And it seems to me that
they are all false.”
“Nonsense, God bless you.”
“I take a ticket at the station, I give the man three roubles, and I
keep fancying they are false. And I am frightened. I must be ill.”
“There’s no denying it, we are all in God’s hands.... Oh dear, dear...”
said Varvara, and she shook her head. “You ought to think about this,
Grigory Petrovitch: you never know, anything may happen, you are not a
young man. See they don’t wrong your grandchild when you are dead and
gone. Oy, I am afraid they will be unfair to Nikifor! He has as good
as no father, his mother’s young and foolish... you ought to secure
something for him, poor little boy, at least the land, Butyokino,
Grigory Petrovitch, really! Think it over!” Varvara went on persuading
him. “The pretty boy, one is sorry for him! You go to-morrow and make
out a deed; why put it off?”
“I’d forgotten about my grandson,” said Tsybukin. “I must go and have
a look at him. So you say the boy is all right? Well, let him grow up,
please God.”
He opened the door and, crooking his finger, beckoned to Lipa. She went
up to him with the baby in her arms.
“If there is anything you want, Lipinka, you ask for it,” he said.
“And eat anything you like, we don’t grudge it, so long as it does you
good....” He made the sign of the cross over the baby. “And take care of
my grandchild. My son is gone, but my grandson is left.”
Tears rolled down his cheeks; he gave a sob and went away. Soon
afterwards he went to bed and slept soundly after seven sleepless
nights.