IVAN ABRAMITCH ZHMUHIN, a retired Cossack officer, who had once
served in the Caucasus, but now lived on his own farm, and who had
once been young, strong, and vigorous, but now was old, dried up,
and bent, with shaggy eyebrows and a greenish-grey moustache, was
returning from the town to his farm one hot summer's day. In the
town he had confessed and received absolution, and had made his
will at the notary's (a fortnight before he had had a slight stroke),
and now all the while he was in the railway carriage he was haunted
by melancholy, serious thoughts of approaching death, of the vanity
of vanities, of the transitoriness of all things earthly. At the
station of Provalye--there is such a one on the Donetz line--a
fair-haired, plump, middle-aged gentleman with a shabby portfolio
stepped into the carriage and sat down opposite. They got into
conversation.
"Yes," said Ivan Abramitch, looking pensively out of window, "it
is never too late to marry. I myself married when I was forty-eight;
I was told it was late, but it has turned out that it was not late
or early, but simply that it would have been better not to marry
at all. Everyone is soon tired of his wife, but not everyone tells
the truth, because, you know, people are ashamed of an unhappy home
life and conceal it. It's 'Manya this' and 'Manya that' with many
a man by his wife's side, but if he had his way he'd put that Manya
in a sack and drop her in the water. It's dull with one's wife,
it's mere foolishness. And it's no better with one's children, I
make bold to assure you. I have two of them, the rascals. There's
nowhere for them to be taught out here in the steppe; I haven't the
money to send them to school in Novo Tcherkask, and they live here
like young wolves. Next thing they will be murdering someone on the
highroad."
The fair-haired gentleman listened attentively, answered questions
briefly in a low voice, and was apparently a gentleman of gentle
and modest disposition. He mentioned that he was a lawyer, and that
he was going to the village Dyuevka on business.
"Why, merciful heavens, that is six miles from me!" said Zhmuhin
in a tone of voice as though someone were disputing with him. "But
excuse me, you won't find horses at the station now. To my mind,
the very best thing you can do, you know, is to come straight to
me, stay the night, you know, and in the morning drive over with
my horses."
The lawyer thought a moment and accepted the invitation.
When they reached the station the sun was already low over the
steppe. They said nothing all the way from the station to the farm:
the jolting prevented conversation. The trap bounded up and down,
squeaked, and seemed to be sobbing, and the lawyer, who was sitting
very uncomfortably, stared before him, miserably hoping to see the
farm. After they had driven five or six miles there came into view
in the distance a low-pitched house and a yard enclosed by a fence
made of dark, flat stones standing on end; the roof was green, the
stucco was peeling off, and the windows were little narrow slits
like screwed-up eyes. The farm stood in the full sunshine, and there
was no sign either of water or trees anywhere round. Among the
neighbouring landowners and the peasants it was known as the
Petchenyegs' farm. Many years before, a land surveyor, who was
passing through the neighbourhood and put up at the farm, spent the
whole night talking to Ivan Abramitch, was not favourably impressed,
and as he was driving away in the morning said to him grimly:
"You are a Petchenyeg,* my good sir!"
* The Petchenyegs were a tribe of wild Mongolian nomads who made
frequent inroads upon the Russians in the tenth and eleventh
centuries.--_Translator's Note._
From this came the nickname, the Petchenyegs' farm, which stuck to
the place even more when Zhmuhin's boys grew up and began to make
raids on the orchards and kitchen-gardens. Ivan Abramitch was called
"You Know," as he usually talked a very great deal and frequently
made use of that expression.
In the yard near a barn Zhmuhin's sons were standing, one a young
man of nineteen, the other a younger lad, both barefoot and bareheaded.
Just at the moment when the trap drove into the yard the younger
one flung high up a hen which, cackling, described an arc in the
air; the elder shot at it with a gun and the hen fell dead on the
earth.
"Those are my boys learning to shoot birds flying," said Zhmuhin.
In the entry the travellers were met by a little thin woman with a
pale face, still young and beautiful; from her dress she might have
been taken for a servant.
"And this, allow me to introduce her," said Zhmuhin, "is the mother
of my young cubs. Come, Lyubov Osipovna," he said, addressing her,
"you must be spry, mother, and get something for our guest. Let us
have supper. Look sharp!"
The house consisted of two parts: in one was the parlour and beside
it old Zhmuhin's bedroom, both stuffy rooms with low ceilings and
multitudes of flies and wasps, and in the other was the kitchen in
which the cooking and washing was done and the labourers had their
meals; here geese and turkey-hens were sitting on their eggs under
the benches, and here were the beds of Lyubov Osipovna and her two
sons. The furniture in the parlour was unpainted and evidently
roughly made by a carpenter; guns, game-bags, and whips were hanging
on the walls, and all this old rubbish was covered with the rust
of years and looked grey with dust. There was not one picture; in
the corner was a dingy board which had at one time been an ikon.
A young Little Russian woman laid the table and handed ham, then
beetroot soup. The visitor refused vodka and ate only bread and
cucumbers.
"How about ham?" asked Zhmuhin.
"Thank you, I don't eat it," answered the visitor, "I don't eat
meat at all."
"Why is that?"
"I am a vegetarian. Killing animals is against my principles."
Zhmuhin thought a minute and then said slowly with a sigh:
"Yes . . . to be sure. . . . I saw a man who did not eat meat in
town, too. It's a new religion they've got now. Well, it's good.
We can't go on always shooting and slaughtering, you know; we must
give it up some day and leave even the beasts in peace. It's a sin
to kill, it's a sin, there is no denying it. Sometimes one kills a
hare and wounds him in the leg, and he cries like a child. . . .
So it must hurt him!"
"Of course it hurts him; animals suffer just like human beings."
"That's true," Zhmuhin assented. "I understand that very well," he
went on, musing, "only there is this one thing I don't understand:
suppose, you know, everyone gave up eating meat, what would become
of the domestic animals--fowls and geese, for instance?"
"Fowls and geese would live in freedom like wild birds."
"Now I understand. To be sure, crows and jackdaws get on all right
without us. Yes. . . . Fowls and geese and hares and sheep, all
will live in freedom, rejoicing, you know, and praising God; and
they will not fear us, peace and concord will come. Only there is
one thing, you know, I can't understand," Zhmuhin went on, glancing
at the ham. "How will it be with the pigs? What is to be done with
them?"
"They will be like all the rest--that is, they will live in
freedom."
"Ah! Yes. But allow me to say, if they were not slaughtered they
would multiply, you know, and then good-bye to the kitchen-gardens
and the meadows. Why, a pig, if you let it free and don't look after
it, will ruin everything in a day. A pig is a pig, and it is not
for nothing it is called a pig. . . ."
They finished supper. Zhmuhin got up from the table and for a long
while walked up and down the room, talking and talking. . . . He
was fond of talking of something important or serious and was fond
of meditating, and in his old age he had a longing to reach some
haven, to be reassured, that he might not be so frightened of dying.
He had a longing for meekness, spiritual calm, and confidence in
himself, such as this guest of theirs had, who had satisfied his
hunger on cucumbers and bread, and believed that doing so made him
more perfect; he was sitting on a chest, plump and healthy, keeping
silent and patiently enduring his boredom, and in the dusk when one
glanced at him from the entry he looked like a big round stone which
one could not move from its place. If a man has something to lay
hold of in life he is all right.
Zhmuhin went through the entry to the porch, and then he could be
heard sighing and saying reflectively to himself: "Yes. . . . To
be sure. . . . " By now it was dark, and here and there stars could
be seen in the sky. They had not yet lighted up indoors. Someone
came into the parlour as noiselessly as a shadow and stood still
near the door. It was Lyubov Osipovna, Zhmuhin's wife.
"Are you from the town?" she asked timidly, not looking at her
visitor.
"Yes, I live in the town."
"Perhaps you are something in the learned way, sir; be so kind as
to advise us. We ought to send in a petition."
"To whom?" asked the visitor.
"We have two sons, kind gentleman, and they ought to have been sent
to school long ago, but we never see anyone and have no one to
advise us. And I know nothing. For if they are not taught they will
have to serve in the army as common Cossacks. It's not right, sir!
They can't read and write, they are worse than peasants, and Ivan
Abramitch himself can't stand them and won't let them indoors. But
they are not to blame. The younger one, at any rate, ought to be
sent to school, it is such a pity!" she said slowly, and there was
a quiver in her voice; and it seemed incredible that a woman so
small and so youthful could have grown-up children. "Oh, it's such
a pity!"
"You don't know anything about it, mother, and it is not your
affair," said Zhmuhin, appearing in the doorway. "Don't pester our
guest with your wild talk. Go away, mother!"
Lyubov Osipovna went out, and in the entry repeated once more in a
thin little voice: "Oh, it's such a pity!"
A bed was made up for the visitor on the sofa in the parlour, and
that it might not be dark for him they lighted the lamp before the
ikon. Zhmuhin went to bed in his own room. And as he lay there he
thought of his soul, of his age, of his recent stroke which had so
frightened him and made him think of death. He was fond of
philosophizing when he was in quietness by himself, and then he
fancied that he was a very earnest, deep thinker, and that nothing
in this world interested him but serious questions. And now he kept
thinking and he longed to pitch upon some one significant thought
unlike others, which would be a guide to him in life, and he wanted
to think out principles of some sort for himself so as to make his
life as deep and earnest as he imagined that he felt himself to be.
It would be a good thing for an old man like him to abstain altogether
from meat, from superfluities of all sorts. The time when men give
up killing each other and animals would come sooner or later, it
could not but be so, and he imagined that time to himself and clearly
pictured himself living in peace with all the animals, and suddenly
he thought again of the pigs, and everything was in a tangle in his
brain.
"It's a queer business, Lord have mercy upon us," he muttered,
sighing heavily. "Are you asleep?" he asked.
"No."
Zhmuhin got out of bed and stopped in the doorway with nothing but
his shirt on, displaying to his guest his sinewy legs, that looked
as dry as sticks.
"Nowadays, you know," he began, "all sorts of telegraphs, telephones,
and marvels of all kinds, in fact, have come in, but people are no
better than they were. They say that in our day, thirty or forty
years ago, men were coarse and cruel; but isn't it just the same
now? We certainly did not stand on ceremony in our day. I remember
in the Caucasus when we were stationed by a little river with nothing
to do for four whole months--I was an under-officer at that
time--something queer happened, quite in the style of a novel. Just
on the banks of that river, you know, where our division was encamped,
a wretched prince whom we had killed not long before was buried.
And at night, you know, the princess used to come to his grave and
weep. She would wail and wail, and moan and moan, and make us so
depressed we couldn't sleep, and that's the fact. We couldn't sleep
one night, we couldn't sleep a second; well, we got sick of it. And
from a common-sense point of view you really can't go without your
sleep for the devil knows what (excuse the expression). We took
that princess and gave her a good thrashing, and she gave up coming.
There's an instance for you. Nowadays, of course, there is not the
same class of people, and they are not given to thrashing and they
live in cleaner style, and there is more learning, but, you know,
the soul is just the same: there is no change. Now, look here,
there's a landowner living here among us; he has mines, you know;
all sorts of tramps without passports who don't know where to go
work for him. On Saturdays he has to settle up with the workmen,
but he doesn't care to pay them, you know, he grudges the money.
So he's got hold of a foreman who is a tramp too, though he does
wear a hat. 'Don't you pay them anything,' he says, 'not a kopeck;
they'll beat you, and let them beat you,' says he, 'but you put up
with it, and I'll pay you ten roubles every Saturday for it.' So
on the Saturday evening the workmen come to settle up in the usual
way; the foreman says to them: 'Nothing!' Well, word for word, as
the master said, they begin swearing and using their fists. . . .
They beat him and they kick him . . . you know, they are a set of
men brutalized by hunger--they beat him till he is senseless, and
then they go each on his way. The master gives orders for cold water
to be poured on the foreman, then flings ten roubles in his face.
And he takes it and is pleased too, for indeed he'd be ready to be
hanged for three roubles, let alone ten. Yes . . . and on Monday a
new gang of workmen arrive; they work, for they have nowhere to go
. . . . On Saturday it is the same story over again."
The visitor turned over on the other side with his face to the back
of the sofa and muttered something.
"And here's another instance," Zhmuhin went on. "We had the Siberian
plague here, you know--the cattle die off like flies, I can tell
you--and the veterinary surgeons came here, and strict orders
were given that the dead cattle were to be buried at a distance
deep in the earth, that lime was to be thrown over them, and so on,
you know, on scientific principles. My horse died too. I buried it
with every precaution, and threw over three hundredweight of lime
over it. And what do you think? My fine fellows--my precious sons,
I mean--dug it up, skinned it, and sold the hide for three roubles;
there's an instance for you. So people have grown no better, and
however you feed a wolf he will always look towards the forest;
there it is. It gives one something to think about, eh? How do you
look at it?"
On one side a flash of lightning gleamed through a chink in the
window-blinds. There was the stifling feeling of a storm coming,
the gnats were biting, and Zhmuhin, as he lay in his bedroom
meditating, sighed and groaned and said to himself: "Yes, to be
sure ----" and there was no possibility of getting to sleep. Somewhere
far, far away there was a growl of thunder.
"Are you asleep?"
"No," answered the visitor.
Zhmuhin got up, and thudding with his heels walked through the
parlour and the entry to the kitchen to get a drink of water.
"The worst thing in the world, you know, is stupidity," he said a
little later, coming back with a dipper. "My Lyubov Osipovna is on
her knees saying her prayers. She prays every night, you know, and
bows down to the ground, first that her children may be sent to
school; she is afraid her boys will go into the army as simple
Cossacks, and that they will be whacked across their backs with
sabres. But for teaching one must have money, and where is one to
get it? You may break the floor beating your head against it, but
if you haven't got it you haven't. And the other reason she prays
is because, you know, every woman imagines there is no one in the
world as unhappy as she is. I am a plain-spoken man, and I don't
want to conceal anything from you. She comes of a poor family, a
village priest's daughter. I married her when she was seventeen,
and they accepted my offer chiefly because they hadn't enough to
eat; it was nothing but poverty and misery, while I have anyway
land, you see--a farm--and after all I am an officer; it was a
step up for her to marry me, you know. On the very first day when
she was married she cried, and she has been crying ever since, all
these twenty years; she has got a watery eye. And she's always
sitting and thinking, and what do you suppose she is thinking about?
What can a woman think about? Why, nothing. I must own I don't
consider a woman a human being."
The visitor got up abruptly and sat on the bed.
"Excuse me, I feel stifled," he said; "I will go outside."
Zhmuhin, still talking about women, drew the bolt in the entry and
they both went out. A full moon was floating in the sky just over
the yard, and in the moonlight the house and barn looked whiter
than by day; and on the grass brilliant streaks of moonlight, white
too, stretched between the black shadows. Far away on the right
could be seen the steppe, above it the stars were softly
glowing--and it was all mysterious, infinitely far away, as though one
were gazing into a deep abyss; while on the left heavy storm-clouds,
black as soot, were piling up one upon another above the steppe;
their edges were lighted up by the moon, and it looked as though
there were mountains there with white snow on their peaks, dark
forests, the sea. There was a flash of lightning, a faint rumble
of thunder, and it seemed as though a battle were being fought in
the mountains.
Quite close to the house a little night-owl screeched monotonously:
"Asleep! asleep!"
"What time is it now?" asked the visitor.
"Just after one."
"How long it is still to dawn!"
They went back to the house and lay down again. It was time to
sleep, and one can usually sleep so splendidly before rain; but the
old man had a hankering after serious, weighty thoughts; he wanted
not simply to think but to meditate, and he meditated how good it
would be, as death was near at hand, for the sake of his soul to
give up the idleness which so imperceptibly swallowed up day after
day, year after year, leaving no trace; to think out for himself
some great exploit--for instance, to walk on foot far, far away,
or to give up meat like this young man. And again he pictured to
himself the time when animals would not be killed, pictured it
clearly and distinctly as though he were living through that time
himself; but suddenly it was all in a tangle again in his head and
all was muddled.
The thunderstorm had passed over, but from the edges of the
storm-clouds came rain softly pattering on the roof. Zhmuhin got
up, stretching and groaning with old age, and looked into the
parlour. Noticing that his visitor was not asleep, he said:
"When we were in the Caucasus, you know, there was a colonel there
who was a vegetarian, too; he didn't eat meat, never went shooting,
and would not let his servants catch fish. Of course, I understand
that every animal ought to live in freedom and enjoy its life; only
I don't understand how a pig can go about where it likes without
being looked after. . . ."
The visitor got up and sat down. His pale, haggard face expressed
weariness and vexation; it was evident that he was exhausted, and
only his gentleness and the delicacy of his soul prevented him from
expressing his vexation in words.
"It's getting light," he said mildly. "Please have the horse brought
round for me."
"Why so? Wait a little and the rain will be over."
"No, I entreat you," said the visitor in horror, with a supplicating
voice; "it is essential for me to go at once."
And he began hurriedly dressing.
By the time the horse was harnessed the sun was rising. It had just
left off raining, the clouds were racing swiftly by, and the patches
of blue were growing bigger and bigger in the sky. The first rays
of the sun were timidly reflected below in the big puddles. The
visitor walked through the entry with his portfolio to get into the
trap, and at that moment Zhmuhin's wife, pale, and it seemed paler
than the day before, with tear-stained eyes, looked at him intently
without blinking, with the naïve expression of a little girl, and
it was evident from her dejected face that she was envying him
his freedom--oh, with what joy she would have gone away from
there!--and she wanted to say something to him, most likely to ask advice
about her children. And what a pitiable figure she was! This was
not a wife, not the head of a house, not even a servant, but more
like a dependent, a poor relation not wanted by anyone, a nonentity
. . . . Her husband, fussing about, talking unceasingly, was seeing
his visitor off, continually running in front of him, while she
huddled up to the wall with a timid, guilty air, waiting for a
convenient minute to speak.
"Please come again another time," the old man kept repeating
incessantly; "what we have we are glad to offer, you know."
The visitor hurriedly got into the trap, evidently with relief, as
though he were afraid every minute that they would detain him. The
trap lurched about as it had the day before, squeaked, and furiously
rattled the pail that was tied on at the back. He glanced round at
Zhmuhin with a peculiar expression; it looked as though he wanted
to call him a Petchenyeg, as the surveyor had once done, or some
such name, but his gentleness got the upper hand. He controlled
himself and said nothing. But in the gateway he suddenly could not
restrain himself; he got up and shouted loudly and angrily:
"You have bored me to death."
And he disappeared through the gate.
Near the barn Zhmuhin's sons were standing; the elder held a gun,
while the younger had in his hands a grey cockerel with a bright
red comb. The younger flung up the cockerel with all his might; the
bird flew upwards higher than the house and turned over in the air
like a pigeon. The elder boy fired and the cockerel fell like a
stone.
The old man, overcome with confusion, not knowing how to explain
the visitor's strange, unexpected shout, went slowly back into the
house. And sitting down at the table he spent a long while meditating
on the intellectual tendencies of the day, on the universal immorality,
on the telegraph, on the telephone, on velocipedes, on how unnecessary
it all was; little by little he regained his composure, then slowly
had a meal, drank five glasses of tea, and lay down for a nap.