A HOSPITAL assistant, called Yergunov, an empty-headed fellow, known
throughout the district as a great braggart and drunkard, was
returning one evening in Christmas week from the hamlet of Ryepino,
where he had been to make some purchases for the hospital. That he
might get home in good time and not be late, the doctor had lent
him his very best horse.
At first it had been a still day, but at eight o'clock a violent
snow-storm came on, and when he was only about four miles from home
Yergunov completely lost his way.
He did not know how to drive, he did not know the road, and he drove
on at random, hoping that the horse would find the way of itself.
Two hours passed; the horse was exhausted, he himself was chilled,
and already began to fancy that he was not going home, but back
towards Ryepino. But at last above the uproar of the storm he heard
the far-away barking of a dog, and a murky red blur came into sight
ahead of him: little by little, the outlines of a high gate could
be discerned, then a long fence on which there were nails with their
points uppermost, and beyond the fence there stood the slanting
crane of a well. The wind drove away the mist of snow from before
the eyes, and where there had been a red blur, there sprang up a
small, squat little house with a steep thatched roof. Of the three
little windows one, covered on the inside with something red, was
lighted up.
What sort of place was it? Yergunov remembered that to the right
of the road, three and a half or four miles from the hospital, there
was Andrey Tchirikov's tavern. He remembered, too, that this
Tchirikov, who had been lately killed by some sledge-drivers, had
left a wife and a daughter called Lyubka, who had come to the
hospital two years before as a patient. The inn had a bad reputation,
and to visit it late in the evening, and especially with someone
else's horse, was not free from risk. But there was no help for it.
Yergunov fumbled in his knapsack for his revolver, and, coughing
sternly, tapped at the window-frame with his whip.
"Hey! who is within?" he cried. "Hey, granny! let me come in and
get warm!"
With a hoarse bark a black dog rolled like a ball under the horse's
feet, then another white one, then another black one--there must
have been a dozen of them. Yergunov looked to see which was the
biggest, swung his whip and lashed at it with all his might. A
small, long-legged puppy turned its sharp muzzle upwards and set
up a shrill, piercing howl.
Yergunov stood for a long while at the window, tapping. But at last
the hoar-frost on the trees near the house glowed red, and a muffled
female figure appeared with a lantern in her hands.
"Let me in to get warm, granny," said Yergunov. "I was driving to
the hospital, and I have lost my way. It's such weather, God preserve
us. Don't be afraid; we are your own people, granny."
"All my own people are at home, and we didn't invite strangers,"
said the figure grimly. "And what are you knocking for? The gate
is not locked."
Yergunov drove into the yard and stopped at the steps.
"Bid your labourer take my horse out, granny," said he.
"I am not granny."
And indeed she was not a granny. While she was putting out the
lantern the light fell on her face, and Yergunov saw black eyebrows,
and recognized Lyubka.
"There are no labourers about now," she said as she went into the
house. "Some are drunk and asleep, and some have been gone to Ryepino
since the morning. It's a holiday. . . ."
As he fastened his horse up in the shed, Yergunov heard a neigh,
and distinguished in the darkness another horse, and felt on it a
Cossack saddle. So there must be someone else in the house besides
the woman and her daughter. For greater security Yergunov unsaddled
his horse, and when he went into the house, took with him both his
purchases and his saddle.
The first room into which he went was large and very hot, and smelt
of freshly washed floors. A short, lean peasant of about forty,
with a small, fair beard, wearing a dark blue shirt, was sitting
at the table under the holy images. It was Kalashnikov, an arrant
scoundrel and horse-stealer, whose father and uncle kept a tavern
in Bogalyovka, and disposed of the stolen horses where they could.
He too had been to the hospital more than once, not for medical
treatment, but to see the doctor about horses--to ask whether he
had not one for sale, and whether his honour would not like to swop
his bay mare for a dun-coloured gelding. Now his head was pomaded
and a silver ear-ring glittered in his ear, and altogether he had
a holiday air. Frowning and dropping his lower lip, he was looking
intently at a big dog's-eared picture-book. Another peasant lay
stretched on the floor near the stove; his head, his shoulders, and
his chest were covered with a sheepskin--he was probably asleep;
beside his new boots, with shining bits of metal on the heels, there
were two dark pools of melted snow.
Seeing the hospital assistant, Kalashnikov greeted him.
"Yes, it is weather," said Yergunov, rubbing his chilled knees with
his open hands. "The snow is up to one's neck; I am soaked to the
skin, I can tell you. And I believe my revolver is, too. . . ."
He took out his revolver, looked it all over, and put it back in
his knapsack. But the revolver made no impression at all; the peasant
went on looking at the book.
"Yes, it is weather. . . . I lost my way, and if it had not been
for the dogs here, I do believe it would have been my death. There
would have been a nice to-do. And where are the women?"
"The old woman has gone to Ryepino, and the girl is getting supper
ready . . ." answered Kalashnikov.
Silence followed. Yergunov, shivering and gasping, breathed on his
hands, huddled up, and made a show of being very cold and exhausted.
The still angry dogs could be heard howling outside. It was dreary.
"You come from Bogalyovka, don't you?" he asked the peasant sternly.
"Yes, from Bogalyovka."
And to while away the time Yergunov began to think about Bogalyovka.
It was a big village and it lay in a deep ravine, so that when one
drove along the highroad on a moonlight night, and looked down into
the dark ravine and then up at the sky, it seemed as though the
moon were hanging over a bottomless abyss and it were the end of
the world. The path going down was steep, winding, and so narrow
that when one drove down to Bogalyovka on account of some epidemic
or to vaccinate the people, one had to shout at the top of one's
voice, or whistle all the way, for if one met a cart coming up one
could not pass. The peasants of Bogalyovka had the reputation of
being good gardeners and horse-stealers. They had well-stocked
gardens. In spring the whole village was buried in white cherry-blossom,
and in the summer they sold cherries at three kopecks a pail. One
could pay three kopecks and pick as one liked. Their women were
handsome and looked well fed, they were fond of finery, and never
did anything even on working-days, but spent all their time sitting
on the ledge in front of their houses and searching in each other's
heads.
But at last there was the sound of footsteps. Lyubka, a girl of
twenty, with bare feet and a red dress, came into the room. . . .
She looked sideways at Yergunov and walked twice from one end of
the room to the other. She did not move simply, but with tiny steps,
thrusting forward her bosom; evidently she enjoyed padding about
with her bare feet on the freshly washed floor, and had taken off
her shoes on purpose.
Kalashnikov laughed at something and beckoned her with his finger.
She went up to the table, and he showed her a picture of the Prophet
Elijah, who, driving three horses abreast, was dashing up to the
sky. Lyubka put her elbow on the table; her plait fell across her
shoulder--a long chestnut plait tied with red ribbon at the
end--and it almost touched the floor. She, too, smiled.
"A splendid, wonderful picture," said Kalashnikov. "Wonderful," he
repeated, and motioned with his hand as though he wanted to take
the reins instead of Elijah.
The wind howled in the stove; something growled and squeaked as
though a big dog had strangled a rat.
"Ugh! the unclean spirits are abroad!" said Lyubka.
"That's the wind," said Kalashnikov; and after a pause he raised
his eyes to Yergunov and asked:
"And what is your learned opinion, Osip Vassilyitch--are there
devils in this world or not?"
"What's one to say, brother?" said Yergunov, and he shrugged one
shoulder. "If one reasons from science, of course there are no
devils, for it's a superstition; but if one looks at it simply, as
you and I do now, there are devils, to put it shortly. . . . I have
seen a great deal in my life. . . . When I finished my studies I
served as medical assistant in the army in a regiment of the dragoons,
and I have been in the war, of course. I have a medal and a decoration
from the Red Cross, but after the treaty of San Stefano I returned
to Russia and went into the service of the Zemstvo. And in consequence
of my enormous circulation about the world, I may say I have seen
more than many another has dreamed of. It has happened to me to see
devils, too; that is, not devils with horns and a tail--that is
all nonsense--but just, to speak precisely, something of the
sort."
"Where?" asked Kalashnikov.
"In various places. There is no need to go far. Last year I met him
here--speak of him not at night--near this very inn. I was
driving, I remember, to Golyshino; I was going there to vaccinate.
Of course, as usual, I had the racing droshky and a horse, and all
the necessary paraphernalia, and, what's more, I had a watch and
all the rest of it, so I was on my guard as I drove along, for fear
of some mischance. There are lots of tramps of all sorts. I came
up to the Zmeinoy Ravine--damnation take it--and was just going
down it, when all at once somebody comes up to me--such a fellow!
Black hair, black eyes, and his whole face looked smutted with soot
. . . . He comes straight up to the horse and takes hold of the left
rein: 'Stop!' He looked at the horse, then at me, then dropped the
reins, and without saying a bad word, 'Where are you going?' says
he. And he showed his teeth in a grin, and his eyes were spiteful-looking.
"'Ah,' thought I, 'you are a queer customer!' 'I am going to
vaccinate for the smallpox,' said I. 'And what is that to you?'
'Well, if that's so,' says he, 'vaccinate me. He bared his arm and
thrust it under my nose. Of course, I did not bandy words with him;
I just vaccinated him to get rid of him. Afterwards I looked at my
lancet and it had gone rusty."
The peasant who was asleep near the stove suddenly turned over and
flung off the sheepskin; to his great surprise, Yergunov recognized
the stranger he had met that day at Zmeinoy Ravine. This peasant's
hair, beard, and eyes were black as soot; his face was swarthy;
and, to add to the effect, there was a black spot the size of a
lentil on his right cheek. He looked mockingly at the hospital
assistant and said:
"I did take hold of the left rein--that was so; but about the
smallpox you are lying, sir. And there was not a word said about
the smallpox between us."
Yergunov was disconcerted.
"I'm not talking about you," he said. "Lie down, since you are lying
down."
The dark-skinned peasant had never been to the hospital, and Yergunov
did not know who he was or where he came from; and now, looking at
him, he made up his mind that the man must be a gypsy. The peasant
got up and, stretching and yawning loudly, went up to Lyubka and
Kalashnikov, and sat down beside them, and he, too, began looking
at the book. His sleepy face softened and a look of envy came into
it.
"Look, Merik," Lyubka said to him; "get me such horses and I will
drive to heaven."
"Sinners can't drive to heaven," said Kalashnikov. "That's for
holiness."
Then Lyubka laid the table and brought in a big piece of fat bacon,
salted cucumbers, a wooden platter of boiled meat cut up into little
pieces, then a frying-pan, in which there were sausages and cabbage
spluttering. A cut-glass decanter of vodka, which diffused a smell
of orange-peel all over the room when it was poured out, was put
on the table also.
Yergunov was annoyed that Kalashnikov and the dark fellow Merik
talked together and took no notice of him at all, behaving exactly
as though he were not in the room. And he wanted to talk to them,
to brag, to drink, to have a good meal, and if possible to have a
little fun with Lyubka, who sat down near him half a dozen times
while they were at supper, and, as though by accident, brushed
against him with her handsome shoulders and passed her hands over
her broad hips. She was a healthy, active girl, always laughing and
never still: she would sit down, then get up, and when she was
sitting down she would keep turning first her face and then her
back to her neighbour, like a fidgety child, and never failed to
brush against him with her elbows or her knees.
And he was displeased, too, that the peasants drank only a glass
each and no more, and it was awkward for him to drink alone. But
he could not refrain from taking a second glass, all the same, then
a third, and he ate all the sausage. He brought himself to flatter
the peasants, that they might accept him as one of the party instead
of holding him at arm's length.
"You are a fine set of fellows in Bogalyovka!" he said, and wagged
his head.
"In what way fine fellows?" enquired Kalashnikov.
"Why, about horses, for instance. Fine fellows at stealing!"
"H'm! fine fellows, you call them. Nothing but thieves and drunkards."
"They have had their day, but it is over," said Merik, after a
pause. "But now they have only Filya left, and he is blind."
"Yes, there is no one but Filya," said Kalashnikov, with a sigh.
"Reckon it up, he must be seventy; the German settlers knocked out
one of his eyes, and he does not see well with the other. It is
cataract. In old days the police officer would shout as soon as he
saw him: 'Hey, you Shamil!' and all the peasants called him
that--he was Shamil all over the place; and now his only name is
One-eyed Filya. But he was a fine fellow! Lyuba's father, Andrey
Grigoritch, and he stole one night into Rozhnovo--there were
cavalry regiments stationed there--and carried off nine of the
soldiers' horses, the very best of them. They weren't frightened
of the sentry, and in the morning they sold all the horses for
twenty roubles to the gypsy Afonka. Yes! But nowadays a man contrives
to carry off a horse whose rider is drunk or asleep, and has no
fear of God, but will take the very boots from a drunkard, and then
slinks off and goes away a hundred and fifty miles with a horse,
and haggles at the market, haggles like a Jew, till the policeman
catches him, the fool. There is no fun in it; it is simply a disgrace!
A paltry set of people, I must say."
"What about Merik?" asked Lyubka.
"Merik is not one of us," said Kalashnikov. "He is a Harkov man
from Mizhiritch. But that he is a bold fellow, that's the truth;
there's no gainsaying that he is a fine fellow."
Lyubka looked slily and gleefully at Merik, and said:
"It wasn't for nothing they dipped him in a hole in the ice."
"How was that?" asked Yergunov.
"It was like this . . ." said Merik, and he laughed. "Filya carried
off three horses from the Samoylenka tenants, and they pitched upon
me. There were ten of the tenants at Samoylenka, and with their
labourers there were thirty altogether, and all of them Molokans
. . . . So one of them says to me at the market: 'Come and have a
look, Merik; we have brought some new horses from the fair.' I was
interested, of course. I went up to them, and the whole lot of them,
thirty men, tied my hands behind me and led me to the river. 'We'll
show you fine horses,' they said. One hole in the ice was there
already; they cut another beside it seven feet away. Then, to be
sure, they took a cord and put a noose under my armpits, and tied
a crooked stick to the other end, long enough to reach both holes.
They thrust the stick in and dragged it through. I went plop into
the ice-hole just as I was, in my fur coat and my high boots, while
they stood and shoved me, one with his foot and one with his stick,
then dragged me under the ice and pulled me out of the other hole."
Lyubka shuddered and shrugged.
"At first I was in a fever from the cold," Merik went on, "but when
they pulled me out I was helpless, and lay in the snow, and the
Molokans stood round and hit me with sticks on my knees and my
elbows. It hurt fearfully. They beat me and they went away . . .
and everything on me was frozen, my clothes were covered with ice.
I got up, but I couldn't move. Thank God, a woman drove by and gave
me a lift."
Meanwhile Yergunov had drunk five or six glasses of vodka; his heart
felt lighter, and he longed to tell some extraordinary, wonderful
story too, and to show that he, too, was a bold fellow and not
afraid of anything.
"I'll tell you what happened to us in Penza Province . . ." he
began.
Either because he had drunk a great deal and was a little tipsy,
or perhaps because he had twice been detected in a lie, the peasants
took not the slightest notice of him, and even left off answering
his questions. What was worse, they permitted themselves a frankness
in his presence that made him feel uncomfortable and cold all over,
and that meant that they took no notice of him.
Kalashnikov had the dignified manners of a sedate and sensible man;
he spoke weightily, and made the sign of the cross over his mouth
every time he yawned, and no one could have supposed that this was
a thief, a heartless thief who had stripped poor creatures, who had
already been twice in prison, and who had been sentenced by the
commune to exile in Siberia, and had been bought off by his father
and uncle, who were as great thieves and rogues as he was. Merik
gave himself the airs of a bravo. He saw that Lyubka and Kalashnikov
were admiring him, and looked upon himself as a very fine fellow,
and put his arms akimbo, squared his chest, or stretched so that
the bench creaked under him. . . .
After supper Kalashnikov prayed to the holy image without getting
up from his seat, and shook hands with Merik; the latter prayed
too, and shook Kalashnikov's hand. Lyubka cleared away the supper,
shook out on the table some peppermint biscuits, dried nuts, and
pumpkin seeds, and placed two bottles of sweet wine.
"The kingdom of heaven and peace everlasting to Andrey Grigoritch,"
said Kalashnikov, clinking glasses with Merik. "When he was alive
we used to gather together here or at his brother Martin's,
and--my word! my word! what men, what talks! Remarkable conversations!
Martin used to be here, and Filya, and Fyodor Stukotey. . . . It
was all done in style, it was all in keeping. . . . And what fun
we had! We did have fun, we did have fun!"
Lyubka went out and soon afterwards came back wearing a green
kerchief and beads.
"Look, Merik, what Kalashnikov brought me to-day," she said.
She looked at herself in the looking-glass, and tossed her head
several times to make the beads jingle. And then she opened a chest
and began taking out, first, a cotton dress with red and blue flowers
on it, and then a red one with flounces which rustled and crackled
like paper, then a new kerchief, dark blue, shot with many
colours--and all these things she showed and flung up her hands, laughing
as though astonished that she had such treasures.
Kalashnikov tuned the balalaika and began playing it, but Yergunov
could not make out what sort of song he was singing, and whether
it was gay or melancholy, because at one moment it was so mournful
he wanted to cry, and at the next it would be merry. Merik suddenly
jumped up and began tapping with his heels on the same spot, then,
brandishing his arms, he moved on his heels from the table to the
stove, from the stove to the chest, then he bounded up as though
he had been stung, clicked the heels of his boots together in the
air, and began going round and round in a crouching position. Lyubka
waved both her arms, uttered a desperate shriek, and followed him.
At first she moved sideways, like a snake, as though she wanted to
steal up to someone and strike him from behind. She tapped rapidly
with her bare heels as Merik had done with the heels of his boots,
then she turned round and round like a top and crouched down, and
her red dress was blown out like a bell. Merik, looking angrily at
her, and showing his teeth in a grin, flew towards her in the same
crouching posture as though he wanted to crush her with his terrible
legs, while she jumped up, flung back her head, and waving her arms
as a big bird does its wings, floated across the room scarcely
touching the floor. . . .
"What a flame of a girl!" thought Yergunov, sitting on the chest,
and from there watching the dance. "What fire! Give up everything
for her, and it would be too little . . . ."
And he regretted that he was a hospital assistant, and not a simple
peasant, that he wore a reefer coat and a chain with a gilt key on
it instead of a blue shirt with a cord tied round the waist. Then
he could boldly have sung, danced, flung both arms round Lyubka as
Merik did. . . .
The sharp tapping, shouts, and whoops set the crockery ringing in
the cupboard and the flame of the candle dancing.
The thread broke and the beads were scattered all over the floor,
the green kerchief slipped off, and Lyubka was transformed into a
red cloud flitting by and flashing black eyes, and it seemed as
though in another second Merik's arms and legs would drop off.
But finally Merik stamped for the last time, and stood still as
though turned to stone. Exhausted and almost breathless, Lyubka
sank on to his bosom and leaned against him as against a post, and
he put his arms round her, and looking into her eyes, said tenderly
and caressingly, as though in jest:
"I'll find out where your old mother's money is hidden, I'll murder
her and cut your little throat for you, and after that I will set
fire to the inn. . . . People will think you have perished in the
fire, and with your money I shall go to Kuban. I'll keep droves of
horses and flocks of sheep. . . ."
Lyubka made no answer, but only looked at him with a guilty air,
and asked:
"And is it nice in Kuban, Merik?"
He said nothing, but went to the chest, sat down, and sank into
thought; most likely he was dreaming of Kuban.
"It's time for me to be going," said Kalashnikov, getting up. "Filya
must be waiting for me. Goodbye, Lyuba."
Yergunov went out into the yard to see that Kalashnikov did not go
off with his horse. The snowstorm still persisted. White clouds
were floating about the yard, their long tails clinging to the rough
grass and the bushes, while on the other side of the fence in the
open country huge giants in white robes with wide sleeves were
whirling round and falling to the ground, and getting up again to
wave their arms and fight. And the wind, the wind! The bare birches
and cherry-trees, unable to endure its rude caresses, bowed low
down to the ground and wailed: "God, for what sin hast Thou bound
us to the earth and will not let us go free?"
"Wo!" said Kalashnikov sternly, and he got on his horse; one half
of the gate was opened, and by it lay a high snowdrift. "Well, get
on!" shouted Kalashnikov. His little short-legged nag set off, and
sank up to its stomach in the drift at once. Kalashnikov was white
all over with the snow, and soon vanished from sight with his horse.
When Yergunov went back into the room, Lyubka was creeping about
the floor picking up her beads; Merik was not there.
"A splendid girl!" thought Yergunov, as he lay down on the bench
and put his coat under his head. "Oh, if only Merik were not here."
Lyubka excited him as she crept about the floor by the bench, and
he thought that if Merik had not been there he would certainly have
got up and embraced her, and then one would see what would happen.
It was true she was only a girl, but not likely to be chaste; and
even if she were--need one stand on ceremony in a den of thieves?
Lyubka collected her beads and went out. The candle burnt down and
the flame caught the paper in the candlestick. Yergunov laid his
revolver and matches beside him, and put out the candle. The light
before the holy images flickered so much that it hurt his eyes, and
patches of light danced on the ceiling, on the floor, and on the
cupboard, and among them he had visions of Lyubka, buxom, full-bosomed:
now she was turning round like a top, now she was exhausted and
breathless. . . .
"Oh, if the devils would carry off that Merik," he thought.
The little lamp gave a last flicker, spluttered, and went out.
Someone, it must have been Merik, came into the room and sat down
on the bench. He puffed at his pipe, and for an instant lighted up
a dark cheek with a patch on it. Yergunov's throat was irritated
by the horrible fumes of the tobacco smoke.
"What filthy tobacco you have got--damnation take it!" said
Yergunov. "It makes me positively sick."
"I mix my tobacco with the flowers of the oats," answered Merik
after a pause. "It is better for the chest."
He smoked, spat, and went out again. Half an hour passed, and all
at once there was the gleam of a light in the passage. Merik appeared
in a coat and cap, then Lyubka with a candle in her hand.
"Do stay, Merik," said Lyubka in an imploring voice.
"No, Lyuba, don't keep me."
"Listen, Merik," said Lyubka, and her voice grew soft and tender.
"I know you will find mother's money, and will do for her and for
me, and will go to Kuban and love other girls; but God be with you.
I only ask you one thing, sweetheart: do stay!"
"No, I want some fun . . ." said Merik, fastening his belt.
"But you have nothing to go on. . . . You came on foot; what are
you going on?"
Merik bent down to Lyubka and whispered something in her ear; she
looked towards the door and laughed through her tears.
"He is asleep, the puffed-up devil . . ." she said.
Merik embraced her, kissed her vigorously, and went out. Yergunov
thrust his revolver into his pocket, jumped up, and ran after him.
"Get out of the way!" he said to Lyubka, who hurriedly bolted the
door of the entry and stood across the threshold. "Let me pass! Why
are you standing here?"
"What do you want to go out for?"
"To have a look at my horse."
Lyubka gazed up at him with a sly and caressing look.
"Why look at it? You had better look at me . . . ." she said, then
she bent down and touched with her finger the gilt watch-key that
hung on his chain.
"Let me pass, or he will go off on my horse," said Yergunov. "Let
me go, you devil!" he shouted, and giving her an angry blow on the
shoulder, he pressed his chest against her with all his might to
push her away from the door, but she kept tight hold of the bolt,
and was like iron.
"Let me go!" he shouted, exhausted; "he will go off with it, I tell
you."
"Why should he? He won't." Breathing hard and rubbing her shoulder,
which hurt, she looked up at him again, flushed a little and laughed.
"Don't go away, dear heart," she said; "I am dull alone."
Yergunov looked into her eyes, hesitated, and put his arms round
her; she did not resist.
"Come, no nonsense; let me go," he begged her. She did not speak.
"I heard you just now," he said, "telling Merik that you love him."
"I dare say. . . . My heart knows who it is I love."
She put her finger on the key again, and said softly: "Give me
that."
Yergunov unfastened the key and gave it to her. She suddenly craned
her neck and listened with a grave face, and her expression struck
Yergunov as cold and cunning; he thought of his horse, and now
easily pushed her aside and ran out into the yard. In the shed a
sleepy pig was grunting with lazy regularity and a cow was knocking
her horn. Yergunov lighted a match and saw the pig, and the cow,
and the dogs, which rushed at him on all sides at seeing the light,
but there was no trace of the horse. Shouting and waving his arms
at the dogs, stumbling over the drifts and sticking in the snow,
he ran out at the gate and fell to gazing into the darkness. He
strained his eyes to the utmost, and saw only the snow flying and
the snowflakes distinctly forming into all sorts of shapes; at one
moment the white, laughing face of a corpse would peep out of the
darkness, at the next a white horse would gallop by with an Amazon
in a muslin dress upon it, at the next a string of white swans would
fly overhead. . . . Shaking with anger and cold, and not knowing
what to do, Yergunov fired his revolver at the dogs, and did not
hit one of them; then he rushed back to the house.
When he went into the entry he distinctly heard someone scurry out
of the room and bang the door. It was dark in the room. Yergunov
pushed against the door; it was locked. Then, lighting match after
match, he rushed back into the entry, from there into the kitchen,
and from the kitchen into a little room where all the walls were
hung with petticoats and dresses, where there was a smell of
cornflowers and fennel, and a bedstead with a perfect mountain of
pillows, standing in the corner by the stove; this must have been
the old mother's room. From there he passed into another little
room, and here he saw Lyubka. She was lying on a chest, covered
with a gay-coloured patchwork cotton quilt, pretending to be asleep.
A little ikon-lamp was burning in the corner above the pillow.
"Where is my horse?" Yergunov asked.
Lyubka did not stir.
"Where is my horse, I am asking you?" Yergunov repeated still more
sternly, and he tore the quilt off her. "I am asking you, she-devil!"
he shouted.
She jumped up on her knees, and with one hand holding her shift and
with the other trying to clutch the quilt, huddled against the wall
. . . . She looked at Yergunov with repulsion and terror in her eyes,
and, like a wild beast in a trap, kept cunning watch on his faintest
movement.
"Tell me where my horse is, or I'll knock the life out of you,"
shouted Yergunov.
"Get away, dirty brute!" she said in a hoarse voice.
Yergunov seized her by the shift near the neck and tore it. And
then he could not restrain himself, and with all his might embraced
the girl. But hissing with fury, she slipped out of his arms, and
freeing one hand--the other was tangled in the torn shift--hit
him a blow with her fist on the skull.
His head was dizzy with the pain, there was a ringing and rattling
in his ears, he staggered back, and at that moment received another
blow--this time on the temple. Reeling and clutching at the
doorposts, that he might not fall, he made his way to the room where
his things were, and lay down on the bench; then after lying for a
little time, took the matchbox out of his pocket and began lighting
match after match for no object: he lit it, blew it out, and threw
it under the table, and went on till all the matches were gone.
Meanwhile the air began to turn blue outside, the cocks began to
crow, but his head still ached, and there was an uproar in his ears
as though he were sitting under a railway bridge and hearing the
trains passing over his head. He got, somehow, into his coat and
cap; the saddle and the bundle of his purchases he could not find,
his knapsack was empty: it was not for nothing that someone had
scurried out of the room when he came in from the yard.
He took a poker from the kitchen to keep off the dogs, and went out
into the yard, leaving the door open. The snow-storm had subsided
and it was calm outside. . . . When he went out at the gate, the
white plain looked dead, and there was not a single bird in the
morning sky. On both sides of the road and in the distance there
were bluish patches of young copse.
Yergunov began thinking how he would be greeted at the hospital and
what the doctor would say to him; it was absolutely necessary to
think of that, and to prepare beforehand to answer questions he
would be asked, but this thought grew blurred and slipped away. He
walked along thinking of nothing but Lyubka, of the peasants with
whom he had passed the night; he remembered how, after Lyubka struck
him the second time, she had bent down to the floor for the quilt,
and how her loose hair had fallen on the floor. His mind was in a
maze, and he wondered why there were in the world doctors, hospital
assistants, merchants, clerks, and peasants instead of simple free
men? There are, to be sure, free birds, free beasts, a free Merik,
and they are not afraid of anyone, and don't need anyone! And whose
idea was it, who had decreed that one must get up in the morning,
dine at midday, go to bed in the evening; that a doctor takes
precedence of a hospital assistant; that one must live in rooms and
love only one's wife? And why not the contrary--dine at night and
sleep in the day? Ah, to jump on a horse without enquiring whose
it is, to ride races with the wind like a devil, over fields and
forests and ravines, to make love to girls, to mock at
everyone . . . .
Yergunov thrust the poker into the snow, pressed his forehead to
the cold white trunk of a birch-tree, and sank into thought; and
his grey, monotonous life, his wages, his subordinate position, the
dispensary, the everlasting to-do with the bottles and blisters,
struck him as contemptible, sickening.
"Who says it's a sin to enjoy oneself?" he asked himself with
vexation. "Those who say that have never lived in freedom like Merik
and Kalashnikov, and have never loved Lyubka; they have been beggars
all their lives, have lived without any pleasure, and have only
loved their wives, who are like frogs."
And he thought about himself that he had not hitherto been a thief,
a swindler, or even a brigand, simply because he could not, or had
not yet met with a suitable opportunity.
----
A year and a half passed. In spring, after Easter, Yergunov, who
had long before been dismissed from the hospital and was hanging
about without a job, came out of the tavern in Ryepino and sauntered
aimlessly along the street.
He went out into the open country. Here there was the scent of
spring, and a warm caressing wind was blowing. The calm, starry
night looked down from the sky on the earth. My God, how infinite
the depth of the sky, and with what fathomless immensity it stretched
over the world! The world is created well enough, only why and with
what right do people, thought Yergunov, divide their fellows into
the sober and the drunken, the employed and the dismissed, and so
on. Why do the sober and well fed sleep comfortably in their homes
while the drunken and the hungry must wander about the country
without a refuge? Why was it that if anyone had not a job and did
not get a salary he had to go hungry, without clothes and boots?
Whose idea was it? Why was it the birds and the wild beasts in the
woods did not have jobs and get salaries, but lived as they pleased?
Far away in the sky a beautiful crimson glow lay quivering, stretched
wide over the horizon. Yergunov stopped, and for a long time he
gazed at it, and kept wondering why was it that if he had carried
off someone else's samovar the day before and sold it for drink in
the taverns it would be a sin? Why was it?
Two carts drove by on the road; in one of them there was a woman
asleep, in the other sat an old man without a cap on.
"Grandfather, where is that fire?" asked Yergunov.
"Andrey Tchirikov's inn," answered the old man.
And Yergunov recalled what had happened to him eighteen months
before in the winter, in that very inn, and how Merik had boasted;
and he imagined the old woman and Lyubka, with their throats cut,
burning, and he envied Merik. And when he walked back to the tavern,
looking at the houses of the rich publicans, cattle-dealers, and
blacksmiths, he reflected how nice it would be to steal by night
into some rich man's house!