IV

Granny put Sasha by her kitchen-garden and told her to keep watch that

the geese did not go in. It was a hot August day. The tavernkeeper’s

geese could make their way into the kitchen-garden by the backs of the

huts, but now they were busily engaged picking up oats by the tavern,

peacefully conversing together, and only the gander craned his head

high as though trying to see whether the old woman were coming with

her stick. The other geese might come up from below, but they were now

grazing far away the other side of the river, stretched out in a long

white garland about the meadow. Sasha stood about a little, grew weary,

and, seeing that the geese were not coming, went away to the ravine.

There she saw Marya’s eldest daughter Motka, who was standing motionless

on a big stone, staring at the church. Marya had given birth to thirteen

children, but she only had six living, all girls, not one boy, and the

eldest was eight. Motka in a long smock was standing barefooted in the

full sunshine; the sun was blazing down right on her head, but she

did not notice that, and seemed as though turned to stone. Sasha stood

beside her and said, looking at the church:

“God lives in the church. Men have lamps and candles, but God has little

green and red and blue lamps like little eyes. At night God walks about

the church, and with Him the Holy Mother of God and Saint Nikolay,

thud, thud, thud!... And the watchman is terrified, terrified! Aye, aye,

dearie,” she added, imitating her mother. “And when the end of the world

comes all the churches will be carried up to heaven.”

“With the-ir be-ells?” Motka asked in her deep voice, drawling every

syllable.

“With their bells. And when the end of the world comes the good will go

to Paradise, but the angry will burn in fire eternal and unquenchable,

dearie. To my mother as well as to Marya God will say: ‘You never

offended anyone, and for that go to the right to Paradise’; but to

Kiryak and Granny He will say: ‘You go to the left into the fire.’ And

anyone who has eaten meat in Lent will go into the fire, too.”

She looked upwards at the sky, opening wide her eyes, and said:

“Look at the sky without winking, you will see angels.”

Motka began looking at the sky, too, and a minute passed in silence.

“Do you see them?” asked Sasha.

“I don’t,” said Motka in her deep voice.

“But I do. Little angels are flying about the sky and flap, flap with

their little wings as though they were gnats.”

Motka thought for a little, with her eyes on the ground, and asked:

“Will Granny burn?”

“She will, dearie.”

From the stone an even gentle slope ran down to the bottom, covered with

soft green grass, which one longed to lie down on or to touch with one’s

hands... Sasha lay down and rolled to the bottom. Motka with a grave,

severe face, taking a deep breath, lay down, too, and rolled to the

bottom, and in doing so tore her smock from the hem to the shoulder.

“What fun it is!” said Sasha, delighted.

They walked up to the top to roll down again, but at that moment

they heard a shrill, familiar voice. Oh, how awful it was! Granny, a

toothless, bony, hunchbacked figure, with short grey hair which was

fluttering in the wind, was driving the geese out of the kitchen-garden

with a long stick, shouting.

“They have trampled all the cabbages, the damned brutes! I’d cut your

throats, thrice accursed plagues! Bad luck to you!”

She saw the little girls, flung down the stick and picked up a switch,

and, seizing Sasha by the neck with her fingers, thin and hard as the

gnarled branches of a tree, began whipping her. Sasha cried with pain

and terror, while the gander, waddling and stretching his neck, went up

to the old woman and hissed at her, and when he went back to his flock

all the geese greeted him approvingly with “Ga-ga-ga!” Then Granny

proceeded to whip Motka, and in this Motka’s smock was torn again.

Feeling in despair, and crying loudly, Sasha went to the hut to

complain. Motka followed her; she, too, was crying on a deeper note,

without wiping her tears, and her face was as wet as though it had been

dipped in water.

“Holy Saints!” cried Olga, aghast, as the two came into the hut. “Queen

of Heaven!”

Sasha began telling her story, while at the same time Granny walked in

with a storm of shrill cries and abuse; then Fyokla flew into a rage,

and there was an uproar in the hut.

“Never mind, never mind!” Olga, pale and upset, tried to comfort them,

stroking Sasha’s head. “She is your grandmother; it’s a sin to be angry

with her. Never mind, my child.”

Nikolay, who was worn out already by the everlasting hubbub, hunger,

stifling fumes, filth, who hated and despised the poverty, who was

ashamed for his wife and daughter to see his father and mother,

swung his legs off the stove and said in an irritable, tearful voice,

addressing his mother:

“You must not beat her! You have no right to beat her!”

“You lie rotting on the stove, you wretched creature!” Fyokla shouted at

him spitefully. “The devil brought you all on us, eating us out of house

and home.”

Sasha and Motka and all the little girls in the hut huddled on the stove

in the corner behind Nikolay’s back, and from that refuge listened

in silent terror, and the beating of their little hearts could be

distinctly heard. Whenever there is someone in a family who has long

been ill, and hopelessly ill, there come painful moments when all

timidly, secretly, at the bottom of their hearts long for his death; and

only the children fear the death of someone near them, and always feel

horrified at the thought of it. And now the children, with bated breath,

with a mournful look on their faces, gazed at Nikolay and thought that

he was soon to die; and they wanted to cry and to say something friendly

and compassionate to him.

He pressed close to Olga, as though seeking protection, and said to her

softly in a quavering voice:

“Olya darling, I can’t stay here longer. It’s more than I can bear. For

God’s sake, for Christ’s sake, write to your sister Klavdia Abramovna.

Let her sell and pawn everything she has; let her send us the money. We

will go away from here. Oh, Lord,” he went on miserably, “to have one

peep at Moscow! If I could see it in my dreams, the dear place!”

And when the evening came on, and it was dark in the hut, it was so

dismal that it was hard to utter a word. Granny, very ill-tempered,

soaked some crusts of rye bread in a cup, and was a long time, a whole

hour, sucking at them. Marya, after milking the cow, brought in a pail

of milk and set it on a bench; then Granny poured it from the pail into

a jug just as slowly and deliberately, evidently pleased that it was now

the Fast of the Assumption, so that no one would drink milk and it would

be left untouched. And she only poured out a very little in a saucer

for Fyokla’s baby. When Marya and she carried the jug down to the cellar

Motka suddenly stirred, clambered down from the stove, and going to the

bench where stood the wooden cup full of crusts, sprinkled into it some

milk from the saucer.

Granny, coming back into the hut, sat down to her soaked crusts again,

while Sasha and Motka, sitting on the stove, gazed at her, and they were

glad that she had broken her fast and now would go to hell. They were

comforted and lay down to sleep, and Sasha as she dozed off to sleep

imagined the Day of Judgment: a huge fire was burning, somewhat like a

potter’s kiln, and the Evil One, with horns like a cow’s, and black all

over, was driving Granny into the fire with a long stick, just as Granny

herself had been driving the geese.

V

On the day of the Feast of the Assumption, between ten and eleven in the

evening, the girls and lads who were merrymaking in the meadow suddenly

raised a clamour and outcry, and ran in the direction of the village;

and those who were above on the edge of the ravine could not for the

first moment make out what was the matter.

“Fire! Fire!” they heard desperate shouts from below. “The village is on

fire!”

Those who were sitting above looked round, and a terrible and

extraordinary spectacle met their eyes. On the thatched roof of one of

the end cottages stood a column of flame, seven feet high, which

curled round and scattered sparks in all directions as though it were

a fountain. And all at once the whole roof burst into bright flame, and

the crackling of the fire was audible.

The light of the moon was dimmed, and the whole village was by now

bathed in a red quivering glow: black shadows moved over the ground,

there was a smell of burning, and those who ran up from below were all

gasping and could not speak for trembling; they jostled against each

other, fell down, and they could hardly see in the unaccustomed

light, and did not recognize each other. It was terrible. What seemed

particularly dreadful was that doves were flying over the fire in the

smoke; and in the tavern, where they did not yet know of the fire,

they were still singing and playing the concertina as though there were

nothing the matter.

“Uncle Semyon’s on fire,” shouted a loud, coarse voice.

Marya was fussing about round her hut, weeping and wringing her hands,

while her teeth chattered, though the fire was a long way off at the

other end of the village. Nikolay came out in high felt boots, the

children ran out in their little smocks. Near the village constable’s

hut an iron sheet was struck. Boom, boom, boom!... floated through the

air, and this repeated, persistent sound sent a pang to the heart and

turned one cold. The old women stood with the holy ikons. Sheep,

calves, cows were driven out of the back-yards into the street; boxes,

sheepskins, tubs were carried out. A black stallion, who was kept apart

from the drove of horses because he kicked and injured them, on being

set free ran once or twice up and down the village, neighing and pawing

the ground; then suddenly stopped short near a cart and began kicking it

with his hind-legs.

They began ringing the bells in the church on the other side of the

river.

Near the burning hut it was hot and so light that one could distinctly

see every blade of grass. Semyon, a red-haired peasant with a long nose,

wearing a reefer-jacket and a cap pulled down right over his ears, sat

on one of the boxes which they had succeeded in bringing out: his wife

was lying on her face, moaning and unconscious. A little old man of

eighty, with a big beard, who looked like a gnome--not one of the

villagers, though obviously connected in some way with the fire--walked

about bareheaded, with a white bundle in his arms. The glare was

reflected on his bald head. The village elder, Antip Syedelnikov, as

swarthy and black-haired as a gypsy, went up to the hut with an axe, and

hacked out the windows one after another--no one knew why--then began

chopping up the roof.

“Women, water!” he shouted. “Bring the engine! Look sharp!”

The peasants, who had been drinking in the tavern just before, dragged

the engine up. They were all drunk; they kept stumbling and falling

down, and all had a helpless expression and tears in their eyes.

“Wenches, water!” shouted the elder, who was drunk, too. “Look sharp,

wenches!”

The women and the girls ran downhill to where there was a spring, and

kept hauling pails and buckets of water up the hill, and, pouring it

into the engine, ran down again. Olga and Marya and Sasha and Motka all

brought water. The women and the boys pumped the water; the pipe hissed,

and the elder, directing it now at the door, now at the windows, held

back the stream with his finger, which made it hiss more sharply still.

“Bravo, Antip!” voices shouted approvingly. “Do your best.”

Antip went inside the hut into the fire and shouted from within.

“Pump! Bestir yourselves, good Christian folk, in such a terrible

mischance!”

The peasants stood round in a crowd, doing nothing but staring at the

fire. No one knew what to do, no one had the sense to do anything,

though there were stacks of wheat, hay, barns, and piles of faggots

standing all round. Kiryak and old Osip, his father, both tipsy, were

standing there, too. And as though to justify his doing nothing, old

Osip said, addressing the woman who lay on the ground:

“What is there to trouble about, old girl! The hut is insured--why are

you taking on?”

Semyon, addressing himself first to one person and then to another, kept

describing how the fire had started.

“That old man, the one with the bundle, a house-serf of General

Zhukov’s.... He was cook at our general’s, God rest his soul! He came

over this evening: ‘Let me stay the night,’ says he.... Well, we had

a glass, to be sure.... The wife got the samovar--she was going to give

the old fellow a cup of tea, and in an unlucky hour she set the samovar

in the entrance. The sparks from the chimney must have blown straight

up to the thatch; that’s how it was. We were almost burnt ourselves. And

the old fellow’s cap has been burnt; what a shame!”

And the sheet of iron was struck indefatigably, and the bells kept

ringing in the church the other side of the river. In the glow of the

fire, Olga, breathless, looking with horror at the red sheep and the

pink doves flying in the smoke, kept running down the hill and up again.

It seemed to her that the ringing went to her heart with a sharp stab,

that the fire would never be over, that Sasha was lost.... And when the

ceiling of the hut fell in with a crash, the thought that now the whole

village would be burnt made her weak and faint, and she could not go on

fetching water, but sat down on the ravine, setting the pail down near

her; beside her and below her, the peasant women sat wailing as though

at a funeral.

Then the stewards and watchmen from the estate the other side of the

river arrived in two carts, bringing with them a fire-engine. A very

young student in an unbuttoned white tunic rode up on horseback. There

was the thud of axes. They put a ladder to the burning framework of

the house, and five men ran up it at once. Foremost of them all was the

student, who was red in the face and shouting in a harsh hoarse voice,

and in a tone as though putting out fires was a thing he was used to.

They pulled the house to pieces, a beam at a time; they dragged away the

corn, the hurdles, and the stacks that were near.

“Don’t let them break it up!” cried stern voices in the crowd. “Don’t

let them.”

Kiryak made his way up to the hut with a resolute air, as though he

meant to prevent the newcomers from breaking up the hut, but one of the

workmen turned him back with a blow in his neck. There was the sound

of laughter, the workman dealt him another blow, Kiryak fell down, and

crawled back into the crowd on his hands and knees.

Two handsome girls in hats, probably the student’s sisters, came from

the other side of the river. They stood a little way off, looking at the

fire. The beams that had been dragged apart were no longer burning, but

were smoking vigorously; the student, who was working the hose, turned

the water, first on the beams, then on the peasants, then on the women

who were bringing the water.

“George!” the girls called to him reproachfully in anxiety, “George!”

The fire was over. And only when they began to disperse they noticed

that the day was breaking, that everyone was pale and rather dark in the

face, as it always seems in the early morning when the last stars are

going out. As they separated, the peasants laughed and made jokes about

General Zhukov’s cook and his cap which had been burnt; they already

wanted to turn the fire into a joke, and even seemed sorry that it had

so soon been put out.

“How well you extinguished the fire, sir!” said Olga to the student.

“You ought to come to us in Moscow: there we have a fire every day.”

“Why, do you come from Moscow?” asked one of the young ladies.

“Yes, miss. My husband was a waiter at the Slavyansky Bazaar. And this

is my daughter,” she said, indicating Sasha, who was cold and huddling

up to her. “She is a Moscow girl, too.”

The two young ladies said something in French to the student, and he

gave Sasha a twenty-kopeck piece.

Old Father Osip saw this, and there was a gleam of hope in his face.

“We must thank God, your honour, there was no wind,” he said, addressing

the student, “or else we should have been all burnt up together. Your

honour, kind gentlefolks,” he added in embarrassment in a lower tone,

“the morning’s chilly... something to warm one... half a bottle to your

honour’s health.”

Nothing was given him, and clearing his throat he slouched home. Olga

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.