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.”