The House of the Dead/Part 2/Chapter 4
(A Story)
It was rather late at night, about twelve o’clock. I had fallen asleep but soon waked up. The tiny dim light of the night-lamp glimmered faintly in the ward. . . . Almost all were asleep. Even Ustyantsev was asleep, and in the stillness one could hear how painfully he breathed and the husky, wheezing in his throat at every gasp. Far away in the passage there suddenly sounded the heavy footsteps of the sentinel coming to relieve the watch. There was a clang of a gun against the floor. The ward door was opened: the corporal, stepping in cautiously, counted over the patients. A minute later the ward was shut up, a new sentinel was put on duty, the watchman moved away, and again the same stillness. Only then I noticed that on the left at a little distance from me there were two patients awake, who seemed to be whispering together. It used to happen in the ward sometimes that two men would lie side by side for days and months without speaking, and suddenly would begin talking, excited by the stillness of the night, and one would reveal his whole past to the other.
They had evidently been talking for a long time already. I missed the beginning and even now I could not make it all out; but by degrees I grew used to it and began to understand it all. I could not get to sleep; what could I do but listen? One was speaking with heat, half reclining on the bed, with his head raised, and craning his neck towards his companion. He was obviously roused and excited; he wanted to tell his story. His listener was sitting sullen and quite unconcerned in his bed, occasionally growling in answer or in token of sympathy with the speaker, more as it seemed out of politeness than from real feeling, and at every moment stuffing his nose with snuff. He was a soldier called Tcherevin from the disciplinary battalion, a man of fifty, a sullen pedant, a cold formalist and a conceited fool. The speaker, whose name was Shishkov, was a young fellow under thirty, a convict in the civil division in our prison, who worked in the tailor’s workshop. So far, I had taken very little notice of him, and I was not drawn to see more of him during the remainder of my time in prison. He was a shallow, whimsical fellow; sometimes he would be silent, sullen and rude and not say a word for weeks together. Sometimes he would suddenly get mixed up in some affair, would begin talking scandal, would get excited over trifles and flit from one ward to another repeating gossip, talking endlessly, frantic with excitement. He would be beaten and relapse into silence again. He was a cowardly, mawkish youth. Every one seemed to treat him with contempt. He was short and thin, his eyes were restless and sometimes had a blank dreamy look. At times he would tell a story, he would begin hotly, with excitement, gesticulating with his hands, and suddenly he would break off or pass to another subject, carried away by fresh ideas and forgetting what he had begun about. He was often quarrelling, and whenever he quarrelled would reproach his opponent for some wrong he had done him, would speak with feeling and almost with tears. . . . He played fairly well on the balalaika and was fond of playing it. On holidays he even danced and danced well when they made him. He could very easily be made to do anything. It was not that he was specially docile but he was fond of making friends and was ready to do anything to please.
For a long time I could not grasp what he was talking about. I fancy, too, that at first he was constantly straying away from his subject into other things. He noticed perhaps that Tcherevin took scarcely any interest in his story, but he seemed anxious to convince himself that his listener was all attention, and perhaps it would have hurt him very much if he had been convinced of the contrary.
“. . . He would go out into the market,” he went on. “Every one would bow to him. They felt he was a rich man; that’s the only word for it.”
“He had some trade, you say?”
“Yes, he had. They were poor folks there, regular beggars. The women used to carry water from the river ever so far up the steep bank to water their vegetables; they wore themselves out and did not get cabbage enough for soup in the autumn. It was poverty. Well, he rented a big piece of land, kept three labourers to work it; besides he had his own beehives and sold honey, and cattle too in our parts, you know; he was highly respected. He was pretty old, seventy if he was a day, his old bones were heavy, his hair was grey, he was a great big fellow. He would go into the market-place in a fox-skin coat and all did him honour. They felt what he was, you see! ‘Good morning, Ankudim Trofimitch, sir.’ ‘Good day to you,’ he’d say. He wasn’t too proud to speak to anyone, you know. ‘Long life to you, Ankudim Trofimitch!’ ‘And how’s your luck?’ he’d ask. ‘Our luck’s as right as soot is white; how are you doing, sir?’ ‘I am doing as well as my sins will let me, I am jogging along.’ ‘Good health to you, Ankudim Trofimitch!’ He wasn’t too proud for anyone, but if he spoke, every word he said was worth a rouble. He was a Bible reader, an educated man, always reading something religious. He’d set his old woman before him: Now wife, listen and mark!’ and he’d begin expounding to her. And the old woman was not so very old, she was his second wife, he married her for the sake of children, you know, he had none from the first. But by the second, Marya Stepanovna, he had two sons not grown up. He was sixty when the youngest, Vasya, was born and his daughter, Akulka, the eldest of the lot, was eighteen.”
“Was that your wife?”
“Wait a bit. First there was the upset with Filka Morozov. ‘You give me my share,’ says Filka to Ankudim, ‘give me my four hundred roubles—am I your servant? I won’t be in business with you and I don’t want your Akulka. I am going to have my fling. Now my father and mother are dead, so I shall drink up my money and then hire myself out, that is, go for a soldier, and in ten years I’ll come back here as a field-marshal.’ Ankudim gave him the money and settled up with him for good—for his father and the old man had set up business together. ‘You are a lost man,’ says he. ‘Whether I am a lost man or not, you, grey beard, you’d teach one to sup milk with an awl. You’d save off every penny, you’d rake over rubbish to make porridge. I’d like to spit on it all. Save every pin and the devil you win. I’ve a will of my own,’ says he. And I am not taking your Akulka, anyway. I’ve slept with her as it is,’ says he. ‘What!’ says Ankudim, ‘do you dare shame the honest daughter of an honest father? When have you slept with her, you adder’s fat? You pike’s blood!’ And he was all of a tremble, so Filka told me.
“‘I’ll take good care,’ says he, that your Akulka won’t get any husband now, let alone me; no one will have her, even Mikita Grigoritch won’t take her, for now she is disgraced. I’ve been carrying on with her ever since autumn. I wouldn’t consent for a hundred crabs now. You can try giving me a hundred crabs, I won’t consent. . . .’
“And didn’t he run a fine rig among us, the lad! He kept the country in an uproar and the town was ringing with his noise. He got together a crew of companions, heaps of money; he was carousing for three months, he spent everything. ‘When I’ve got through all the money,’ he used to say, ‘I’ll sell the house, sell everything, and then I’ll either sell myself for a soldier or go on the tramp.’ He’d be drunk from morning till night, he drove about with bells and a pair of horses. And the way the wenches ran after him was tremendous. He used to play the torba finely.”
“Then he’d been carrying on with Akulka before?”
“Stop, wait a bit. I’d buried my father just then too, and my mother used to make cakes, she worked for Ankudim, and that was how we lived. We had a hard time of it. We used to rent a bit of ground beyond the wood and we sowed it with corn, but we lost everything after father died, for I went on the spree too, my lad. I used to get money out of my mother by beating her.”
“That’s not the right thing, to beat your mother. It’s a great sin.”
“I used to be drunk from morning till night, my lad. Our house was all right, though it was tumbledown, it was our own, but it was empty as a drum. We used to sit hungry, we had hardly a morsel from one week’s end to another. My mother used to keep on nagging at me; but what did I care? I was always with Filka Morozov in those days. I never left him from morning till night. ‘Play on the guitar and dance,’ he’d say to me, and I’ll lie down and fling money at you, for I’m an extremely wealthy man!’ And what wouldn't he do! But he wouldn’t take stolen goods. I’m not a thief,’ he says, ‘I’m an honest man. But let’s go and smear Akulka’s gate with pitch, for I don’t want Akulka to marry Mikita Grigoritch. I care more for that than for jelly.’ The old man had been meaning to marry Akulka to Mikita Grigoritch for some time past. Mikita, too, was an old fellow in spectacles and a widower with a business. When he heard the stories about Akulka he drew back: ‘That would be a great disgrace to me, Ankudim Trofimitch,’ says he, ‘and I don’t want to get married in my old age.’ So we smeared Akulka’s gate. And they thrashed her, thrashed her for it at home. . . . Marya Stepanovna cried, ‘I’ll wipe her off the face of the earth! In ancient years,’ says the old man, ‘in the time of the worthy patriarchs, I should have chopped her to pieces at the stake, but nowadays it’s all darkness and rottenness.’ Sometimes the neighbours all along the street would hear Akulka howling—they beat her from morning till night. Filka would shout for the whole market-place to hear: Akulka’s a fine wench to drink with,’ says he. You walk in fine array, who’s your lover, pray! I’ve made them feel it,’ says he, ‘they won’t forget it.’
“About that time I met Akulka one day carrying the pails and I shouted at her, ‘Good morning, Akulina Kudimovna. Greetings to your grace! You walk in fine array. Where do you get it, pray? Come, who’s your lover, say!’ That was all I said. But how she did look at me. She had such big eyes and she had grown as thin as a stick. And as she looked at me her mother thought she was laughing with me and shouted from the gateway, ‘What are you gaping at, shameless hussy,’ and she gave her another beating that day. Sometimes she’d beat her for an hour together. ‘I’ll do for her,’ says she, for she is no daughter of mine now.’”
“Then she was a loose wench?”
“You listen, old man. While I was always drinking with Filka, my mother comes up to me one day—I was lying down. ‘Why are you lying there, you rascal?’ says she. ‘You are a blackguard,’ says she. She swore at me in fact. ‘You get married,’ says she. ‘You marry Akulka. They’ll be glad to marry her now even to you, they’d give you three hundred roubles in money alone.’ ‘But she is disgraced in the eyes of all the world,’ says I. ‘You are a fool,’ says she, the wedding ring covers all, it will be all the better for you if she feels her guilt all her life. And their money will set us on our feet again. I’ve talked it over with Marya Stepanovna already. She is very ready to listen.” Twenty roubles down on the table and I’ll marry her,’ says I. And would you believe it, right up to the day of the wedding I was drunk. And Filka Morozov was threatening me, too: ‘I’ll break all your ribs, Akulka’s husband,’ says he, and I’ll sleep with your wife every night if I please.’ You lie, you dog’s flesh,’ says I. And then he put me to shame before all the street. I ran home: ‘I won’t be married,’ says I, if they don’t lay down another fifty roubles on the spot.’”
“But did they agree to her marrying you?”
“Me? Why not? We were respectable people. My father was only ruined at the end by a fire, till then we’d been better off than they. Ankudim says, ‘You are as poor as a rat,’ says he. ‘There’s been a lot of pitch smeared on your gate,’ I answered. ‘There’s no need for you to cry us down,’ says he.
‘You don’t know that she has disgraced herself, but there’s no stopping people’s mouths. Here’s the ikon and here’s the door,’ says he. ‘You needn’t take her. Only pay back the money you’ve had.’ Then I talked it over with Filka and I sent Mitri Bikov to tell him I’d dishonour him now over all the world; and right up to the wedding, lad, I was dead drunk. I was only just sober for the wedding. When we were driven home from the wedding and sat down, Mitrofan Stepanovitch, my uncle, said, ‘Though it’s done in dishonour, it’s just as binding,’ says he, ‘the thing’s done and finished.’ Old Ankudim was drunk too and he cried, he sat there and the tears ran down his beard. And I tell you what I did, my lad: I’d put a whip in my pocket, I got it ready before the wedding. I’d made up my mind to have a bit of fun with Akulka, to teach her what it meant to get married by a dirty trick and that folks might know I wasn’t being fooled over the marriage.
“Quite right too! To make her future . . .”
“No, old chap, you hold your tongue. In our part of the country they take us straight after the wedding to a room apart while the others drink outside. So they left Akulka and me inside. She sits there so white, not a drop of blood in her face. She was scared, to be sure. Her hair, too, was as white as flax, her eyes were large and she was always quiet, you heard nothing of her, she was like a dumb thing in the house. A strange girl altogether. And can you believe it, brother, I got that whip ready and laid it beside me by the bed, but it turned out she had not wronged me at all, my lad!”
“You don’t say so!”.
“Not at all. She was quite innocent. And what had she had to go through all that torment for! Why had Filka Morozov put her to shame before all the world?”
“Yes . . .”
“I knelt down before her then, on the spot, and clasped my hands. ‘Akulina Kudimovna,’ says I, ‘forgive me, fool as I am, for thinking ill of you too. Forgive a scoundrel like me,’ says I. She sat before me on the bed looking at me, put both hands on my shoulders while her tears were flowing. She was crying and laughing. . . . Then I went out to all of them. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘if I meet Filka Morozov now he is a dead man!’ As for the old people, they did not know which saint to pray to. The mother almost fell at her feet, howling. And the old fellow said, ‘Had we known this, we wouldn’t have found a husband like this for you, our beloved daughter.”
When we went to church the first Sunday, I in my astrakhan cap, coat of fine cloth and velveteen breeches, and she in her new hareskin coat with a silk kerchief on her head, we looked a well-matched pair: didn’t we walk along! People were admiring us. I needn’t speak for myself, and though I can’t praise Akulina up above the rest, I can’t say she was worse: and she’d have held her own with any dozen.”
“That’s all right, then.”
“Come, listen. The day after the wedding, though I was drunk, I got away from my visitors and I escaped and ran away. ‘Bring me that wretch Filka Morozov,’ says I, ‘bring him here, the scoundrel!’ I shouted all over the market. Well, I was drunk too; I was beyond the Vlasov’s when they caught me, and three men brought me home by force. And the talk was all over the town. The wenches in the market-place were talking to each other: ‘Girls, darlings, have you heard? Akulka is proved innocent.’”
“Not long after, Filka says to me before folks, Sell your wife and you can drink. Yashka the soldier got married just for that, says he. ‘He didn’t sleep with his wife, but he was drunk for three years.’ I said to him, ‘You are a scoundrel.’ ‘And you,’ says he, ‘a fool. Why, you weren’t sober when you were married,’ says he, ‘how could you tell about it when you were drunk?’ I came home and shouted, ‘You married me when I was drunk,’ said I. My mother began scolding me, ‘Your ears are stopped with gold, mother. Give me Akulka.’ Well, I began beating her. I beat her, my lad, beat her for two hours, till I couldn’t stand up. She didn’t get up from her bed for three weeks.”
“To be sure,” observed Tcherevin phlegmatically, “if you don’t beat them, they’ll . . . But did you catch her with a lover?”
“Catch her? No, I didn’t,” Shishkov observed, after a pause, and; as it were, with an effort. “But I felt awfully insulted. People teased me so and Filka led the way. ‘You’ve a wife for show,’ says he, ‘for folks to look at.’ Filka invited us with others, and this was the greeting he gave me: ‘His wife is a tender-hearted soul,’ says he, honourable and polite, who knows how to behave, nice in every way—that’s what he thinks now. But you’ve forgotten, lad, how you smeared her gate with pitch yourself!’ I sat drunk and then he seized me by the hair suddenly and holding me by the hair he shoved me down. ‘Dance,’ says he, ‘Akulka’s husband! I’ll hold you by your hair and you dance to amuse me!’ ‘You are a scoundrel,’ I shouted. And he says to me, ‘I shall come to you with companions and thrash Akulka, your wife, before you, as much as I like.’ Then I, would you believe it, was afraid to go out of the house for a whole month. I was afraid he’d come and disgrace me. And just for that I began beating her. . . .”
“But what did you beat her for! You can tie a man’s hands but you can’t stop his tongue. You shouldn’t beat your wife too much. Show her, give her a lesson, and then be kind to her. That’s what she is for.”
Shishkov was silent for some time.
“It was insulting,” he began again. “Besides, I got into the habit of it some days I’d beat her from morning till night; everything she did was wrong. If I didn’t beat her, I felt bored. She would sit without saying a word, looking out of the window and crying. . . . She was always crying, I’d feel sorry for her, but I’d beat her. My mother was always swearing at me about her: ‘You are a scoundrel,’ she’d say, ‘you’re a jail bird!’ ‘I’ll kill her,’ I cried, ‘and don’t let anyone dare to speak to me; for they married me by a trick.’ At first old Ankudim stood up for her, he’d come himself: ‘You are no one of much account,’ says he, ‘I’ll find a law for you.’ But he gave it up. Marya Stepanovna humbled herself completely. One day she came and prayed me tearfully, ‘I’ve come to entreat you, Ivan Semyonovitch, it’s a small matter, but a great favour. Bid me hope again,’ she bowed down, ‘soften your heart, forgive her. Evil folk slandered our daughter. You know yourself she was innocent when you married her.’ And she bowed down to my feet and cried. But I lorded it over her. ‘I won’t hear you now! I shall do just what I like to you all now, for I am no longer master of myself. Filka Morozov is my mate and my best friend. . . .”
“So you were drinking together again then?”
“Nothing like it! There was no approaching him. He was quite mad with drink. He’d spent all he had and hired himself out to a storekeeper to replace his eldest son, and in our part of the country when a man sells himself for a soldier, up to the very day he is taken away, everything in the house has to give way to him, and he is master over all. He gets the sum in full when he goes and till that time he lives in the house; he sometimes stays there for six months and the way he’ll go on, it’s a disgrace to a decent house. ‘I am going for a soldier in place of your son,’ the fellow would say, ‘so I am your benefactor, so you must all respect me, or I’ll refuse.’ So Filka was having a rare time at the shopkeeper’s, sleeping with the daughter, pulling the father’s beard every day after dinner, and doing just as he liked. He had a bath every day and insisted on using vodka for water, and the women carrying him to the bath-house in their arms. When he came back from a walk he would stand in the middle of the street and say, ‘I won’t go in at the gate, pull down the fence,’ so they had to pull down the fence in another place beside the gate for him to go through. At last his time was up, they got him sober and took him off. The people came out in crowds into the street saying, ‘Filka Morozov’s being taken for a soldier!’ He bowed in all directions. Just then Akulka came out of the kitchen garden. When Filka saw her just at our gate, 'Stop,’ he cried, and leapt out of the cart and bowed down before her. ‘You are my soul,’ he said, ‘my darling, I’ve loved you for two years, and now they are taking me for a soldier with music. Forgive me,’ said he, ‘honest daughter of an honest father, for I’ve been a scoundrel to you and it’s all been my fault!’ And he bowed down to the ground again. Akulka stood, seeming scared at first, then she made him a low bow and said, ‘You forgive me too, good youth, I have no thought of any evil you have done.’ I followed her into the hut. ‘What did you say to him, dog’s flesh?’ And you may not believe me but she looked at me: ‘Why, I love him now more than all the world,’ said she.”
“You don’t say so!”
“I did not say one word to her all that day . . . only in the evening. ‘Akulka, I shall kill you now,’ says I. All night I could not sleep; I went into the passage to get some kvas to drink, and the sun was beginning to rise. I went back into the room. ‘Akulka,’ said I, ‘get ready to go out to the field.’ I had been meaning to go before and mother knew we were going. ‘That’s right,’ said she. ‘It’s harvest-time now and I hear the labourer’s been laid up with his stomach for the last three days.’ I got out the cart without saying a word. As you go out of our town there’s a pine forest that stretches for ten miles, and beyond the forest was the land we rented. When we had gone two miles I stopped the horse. ‘Get out, Akulina,’ said I, ‘your end has come.’ She looked at me, she was scared; she stood up before me, she did not speak. ‘I am sick of you,’ says I, ‘say your prayers!’ And then I snatched her by the hair; she had two thick long plaits. I twisted them round my hand and held her tight from behind between my knees. I drew out my knife, I pulled her head back and I slid the knife along her throat. She screamed, the blood spurted out, I threw down the knife, flung my arms round her, lay down on the ground, embraced her and screamed over her, yelling; she screamed and I screamed; she was fluttering all over, struggling to get out of my arms, and the blood was simply streaming, simply streaming on to my face and on to my hands. I left her, a panic came over me, and I left the horse and set off running, and ran home along the backs of the houses and straight to the bath-house. We had an old bath-house we didn’t use I squeezed myself into a corner under the steps and there I sat. And there I sat till nightfall.”
“And Akulka?”
“She must have got up, too, after I had gone and walked homewards too. They found her a hundred paces from the place.”
“Then you hadn’t killed her.”
“Yes. . . .” Shishkov paused for a moment.
“There’s a vein, you know,” observed Tcherevin, “if you don’t cut through that vein straightaway a man will go on struggling and won’t die, however much blood is lost.”
“But she did die. They found her dead in the evening. They informed the police, began searching for me, and found me at nightfall in the bath-house! . . . And here I’ve been close upon four years,” he added, after a pause.
“H’m . . . to be sure if you don’t beat them there will be trouble,” Tcherevin observed coolly and methodically, pulling out his tobacco-pouch again. He began taking long sniffs at intervals. ‘Then again you seem to have been a regular fool, young fellow, too. I caught my wife with a lover once. So I called her into the barn; I folded the bridle in two. ‘To whom do you swear to be true? To whom do you swear to be true?’ says I. And I did give her a beating with that bridle, I beat her for an hour and a half. ‘I’ll wash your feet and drink the water,’ she cried at last. Ovdotya was her name.”