The Kiss and Other Stories/The Muzhiks
Nikolai Tchikildeyeff, waiter, of the Slaviansky Bazaar Hotel at Moscow, lost his health. His numbed legs betrayed him, and once in a corridor he stumbled and fell with a tray-load of ham and peas. He had to throw up his work. What money he had, his own and his wife's, soon went on treatment; nothing remained to live on; he was tired of idleness; and he saw that nothing remained but to return to his native village. It was cheaper to live at home, after all, and the best place for invalids; and there is some truth in the proverb, “At home even the walls help.”
He arrived at Zhukovo towards evening. When he recalled his childhood he pictured his birthplace as bright, cosy, and comfortable; but now when he entered the hut he felt something like fright, so dark, so close, so dirty was it inside. And his wife Olga and little daughter Sasha looked questioningly at the big, untidy stove, black from smoke and flies, which took up half the hut. What flies! The stove was crooked, the logs in the walls sloped, and it seemed that every minute the hut would tumble to pieces. The ikon-corner, instead of pictures, was hung with bottle-labels and newspaper-cuttings. Poverty, poverty! Of the grown-ups no one was at home—they reaped in the fields; and alone on the stove sat an eight-year-old girl, fair-haired, unwashed, and so indifferent that she did not even look at the strangers. Beneath, a white cat rubbed herself against the pot-hanger.
"Puss, puss!" cried Sasha. "Pussy!"
"She can't hear," said the girl on the stove. "She's deaf!"
"How deaf?"
"Deaf. … From beating."
The first glance told Nikolai and Olga the life awaiting them; but they said nothing, silently laid down their bundles, and went into the street. The hut was the third from the corner, and the oldest and poorest in sight; its next-door neighbour, indeed, was little better; but the corner cabin boasted an iron roof and curtains in the windows. This cabin had no fence, and stood alone; it was the village inn. In one continuous row stretched other huts; and, as a whole, the village, peaceful and meditative, with the willows, elders, and mountain-ash peeping out of the gardens, was pleasing to see.
Behind the cabins the ground sloped steeply towards the river; and here and there in the clay stuck denuded stones. On the slope, around these stones and the potters' pits, lay heaps of potsherds, some brown, some red ; and below stretched a broad, flat, and bright green meadow, already mown, and now given over to the peasants' herds. A verst from the village ran the winding river with its pretty tufted banks; and beyond the river another field, a herd, long strings of white geese; then, as on the village side, a steep ascent. On the crest of the hill rose another village with a five-cupolaed church, and a little beyond it the local noble's house.
“It's a fine place, your village,” said Olga, crossing herself towards the church. “What freedom. Lord!”
At that moment (it was Saturday night) the church bells rang for vesper service. In the valley beneath, two little girls with a water-pail turned their heads towards the church and listened to the bells.
“At the Slaviansky Bazaar they're sitting down to dinner,” said Nikolai thoughtfully.
Seated on the brink of the ravine, Nikolai and Olga watched the setting sun and the image of the gold and purple sky in the river and in the church windows, and inhaled the soft, restful, inexpressibly pure air, unknown to them in Moscow. When the sun had set came lowing cattle and bleating sheep; geese flew towards them; and all was silent. The soft light faded from the air and evening shadows swept across the land.
Meantime the absent family returned to the hut. First came Nikolai's father and mother, dry, bent, and toothless, and of equal height. Later, their sons' wives, Marya and Fekla, employed on the noble's farm across the river. Marya, wife of Nikolai's brother Kiriak, had six children ; Fekla, wife of Denis, then a soldier, two; and when Nikolai, entering the hut, saw the whole family, all these big and little bodies, which moved in the loft, in cradles, in corners; when he saw the greed with which the old man and women ate black bread soaked in water, he felt that he had made a mistake in coming home, sick, penniless, and — what was worse — with his family.
“And where is brother Kiriak?” he asked, greeting his parents.
“He's watchman at the trader's,” answered the old man. “In the wood. He's a good lad, but drinks heavily.”
“He's no profit,” said the old woman in a lachrymose voice. “Our men are not much use, they bring nothing home with them, and only take things. Our Kiriak drinks; and the old man, there's no use hiding it, himself knows the way to the drink-shop. They've angered our Mother in Heaven!”
In honour of the guests the samovar was brought out. The tea smelt of fish, the sugar was damp and looked as if it had been gnawed, the bread and vessels were covered with cockroaches; it was painful to drink, and painful to hear the talk — of nothing but poverty and sickness. Before they had emptied their first glasses, from the yard came a loud, drawling, drunken cry —
“Ma-arya!”
“That sounds like Kiriak,” said the old man. “Talk of the devil and he appears!”
The peasants were silent. A moment later came the same cry, rough and drawling, and this time it seemed to come from underground.
“Ma-arya!”
The elder daughter-in-law, Marya, turned deadly pale and pressed her body to the stove; and it was strange to see the expression of terror on the face of this strong, broad-shouldered, ugly woman. Her daughter, the little, indifferent girl who had sat on the stove, suddenly began to cry loudly.
“Stop howling, cholera!” cried angrily Fekla, a good-looking woman, also strong and broad-shouldered. “He won't kill you!”
From the old man Nikolai soon learned that Marya was afraid to live with her husband in the forest; and that when he had drunk too much Kiriak came for her, and made scenes and beat her mercilessly.
“Ma-arya!” came the cry, this time from outside the door. “Help me, for the love of heaven, help me!” chattered Marya, breathing as if she had been thrown into icy water. “Help me, kinsmen ———”
The houseful of children suddenly began to cry, and, seeing them, Sasha did the same. A drunken cough echoed without, and into the hut came a tall, black-bearded muzhik wearing a winter cap. In the dim lamp-light his face was barely visible, and all the more terrible. It was Kiriak, He went straight to his wife, flourished his arm, and struck her with his clenched fist in the face. Marya did not utter a sound, the blow seemed to have stunned her, but she seemed to dwindle; a stream of blood flowed out of her nose.
“It's a shame, a shame,” muttered the old man, climbing on the stove. “And before our visitors! It's a sin!”
The old woman kept silence, and, bent in two, seemed lost in thought. Fekla rocked the cradle. Kiriak seized Marya's hand, dragged her to the door, and, to increase her terror, roared like a beast. But at that moment he saw the visitors, and stopped.
“So you've come!” he began, releasing his wife. “My own brother and his family. . . .”
He prayed a moment before the image, staggered, opened his red, drunken eyes, and continued —
“My brother and family have come to their parents' house . . . from Moscow, that means . . . The old capital, that means, the city of Moscow, mother of cities. . , . Excuse . . .”
Amid the silence of all, he dropped on the bench near the samovar, and began to diink loudly from a saucer. When he had drunk ten cupfuls he leaned back on the bench and began to snore.
Bed-time came. Nikolai, as an invalid, was given a place on the stove beside the old man; Sasha slept on the floor; and Olga went with the young women to the shed.
“Never mind, my heart!” she said, lying on the hay beside Marya. “Crying is no help. You must bear it. In the Bible it is written, ‘Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ Don't cry, my heart!”
And then, in a whisper, she began to tell of Moscow, of her life there, how she had served as housemaid in furnished lodgings.
“In Moscow the houses are big and built of brick,” said Olga. “There is no end of churches — forty forties of them — niy heart; and the houses are all full of gentlemen, so good-looking, so smart!”
And Marya answered that she had never been in the district town, much less in Moscow; she was illiterate, and knew no prayere, not even “Our Father.” Both she and her sister-in-law Fekla, who sat some way off and listened, were ignorant in the extreme, and understood nothing. Both disliked their husbands; Marya dreaded Kiriak, shook with terror when he stayed with her, and after his departure her head ached from the smell of vodka and tobacco. And Fekla, in answer to the question did she want her husband, answered angrily —
“What? . . . Him?”
For a time the women spoke, and then lay down.
It was cold, and a cock crew loudly, hindering sleep. When the blue morning light began to break through the chinks, Fekla rose stealthily and went out, and her movements could be heard, as she ran down the street in her bare feet.
When Olga went to church she took with her Marya. As they descended the path to the meadow, both were in good humour. Olga liked the freedom of the country; and Marya found in her sister-in-law a kindred spirit. The sun was rising. Close to the meadow flew a sleepy hawk; the river was dull, for there was a slight mist, but the hill beyond it was bathed in light; the church glittered, and rooks cawed in the garden of the big house beyond.
“The old man is not bad,” said Marya. “But my mother-in-law is cross and quarrelsome. Our own corn lasted till Shrovetide ; now we have to buy at the inn; and the old woman is angry, and says, ‘You eat too much.’”
“Never mind, my heart! You must bear that too. It is written in the Bible, ‘Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy laden.’”
Olga spoke gravely and slowly; and walked, like a pilgrim, quickly and briskly. Every day she read the Gospel, aloud, like a clerk; and though there was much that she did not understand, the sacred words touched her to tears, and words like astche, dondezhe she pronounced with beating heart. She believed in God, in the Virgin, in the saints; and her faith was that it was wrong to do evil to any man, even to Germans, gipsies, and Jews. When she read aloud the Gospel, even when she stopped at words she did not understand, her face grew compassionate, kindly, and bright.
“What part are you from?” asked Marya.
“Vladimir. I have been long in Moscow, since I was eight years old.”
They approached the river. On the other bank stood a woman, undressing herself.
“That is our Fekla!” said Marya. “She's been across the river at the squire's house. With the stewards ! She's impudent and ill-spoken — awful!”
Black-browed Fekla, with loosened hair, jumped into the river, and, young and firm as a girl, splashed in the water, making big waves. “She's impudent — awful!” repeated Marya.
Across the river was a shaky bridge of beams, and at that moment beneath it in the clear, transparent water swam carp. On the green bushes, imaged in the water, glistened dew. It was warm and pleasant. What a wonderful morning! And indeed, how splendid would be life in this world were it not for poverty, hideous, hopeless poverty, from which there is no escape! But look back to the village, and memory awakens all the events of yesterday; and the intoxication of joy vanishes in a wink.
The women reached the church. Marya stopped near the door, afraid to go inside. She feared, too, to sit down, though the service would not begin till nine o'clock, and stood all the time.
As the Gospel was being read the worshippers suddenly moved, and made way for the squire's family. In came two girls in white dresses with wide-brimmed hats, and behind them a stout, rosy boy dressed as a sailor. Their coming pleased Olga; she felt that here at last were well-taught, orderly, good-looking people. But Marya looked at them furtively and gloomily, as if they were not human beings but monsters who would crush her if she failed to make way.
And when the deacon sang out in a bass voice, she fancied she heard the cry “Ma-arya!” and shuddered.
The village quickly heard of the visitors' arrival, and when church was over the hut was crowded. The Leonuitcheffs, Matveitcheffs, and Ilitchoffs came for news of their kinsmen in Moscow. Every man in Zhukovo who could read and write was taken to Moscow as waiter or boots; and, similarly, the village across the river supplied only bakers; and this custom obtained since before the Emancipation, when a certain legendary Luka Ivanuitch, of Zhukovo, was lord of the buffet in a Moscow club, and hired none but fellow-villagers. These, in turn attaining power, sent for their kinsmen and found them posts in inns and restaurants; so that from that time Zhukovo was called by the local population Khamskaya[1] or Kholuefka[1]. Nikolai was taken to Moscow at the age of eleven, and given a post by Ivan Makaruitch, one of the Matveitcheffs, then porter at the Hermitage Gardens. And, now, turning to the Matveitcheffs, Nikolai said gravely —
“Ivan Makaruitch was my benefactor; it is my duty to pray God for him day and night, for it was through him I became a good man.”
“Batkishka mine!” said tearfully a tall, old woman, Ivan Makaruitch's sister. “And have you no news of him?”
“He was at Omon's last vcinter ; and this season, I heard, he's in some gardens outside town. . . . He's grown old. Once in the summer he'd bring home ten roubles a day, but now everywhere business is dull — the old man's in a bad way.”
The women, old and young, looked at the high felt boots on Nikolai's legs, and at his pale face, and said sadly —
“You're no money-maker, Nikolai Osipuitch, no money-bringer!”
And all caressed Sasha. Sasha was past her tenth birthday, but, small and very thin, she looked not more than seven. Among the sunburnt, untidy village girls, in their long cotton shirts, pale-faced, big-eyed Sasha, with the red ribbon in her hair, seemed a toy, a little strange animal caught in the fields, and brought back to the hut.
“And she knows how to read!” boasted Olga, looking tenderly at her daiighter. “Read something, child!” she said, taking a New Testament from the corner. “Read something aloud and let the orthodox listen!”
The old, heavy, leather-bound, bent-edged Bible smelt like a monk. Sasha raised her eyebrows, and began in a loud drawl —
“. . . And when they were departed, behold the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother . . .”
“‘The young child and his mother,’” repeated Olga. She reddened with joy. until I bring thee word. . . ."
“. . . and flee into Egypt . . . and be thou there”
At the word “until” Olga could not longer restrain her emotion and began to cry. Marya followed her example, and Ivan Makaruitch's sister cried also. The old man coughed and fussed about, seeking a present for his grandchild, but he found nothing, and waved his hand. When the reading ended, the visitors dispersed to their, homes, deeply touched, and pleased with Olga and Sasha.
As the day was Sunday the family remained in the hut. The old woman, whom husband, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren alike addressed as “grandmother,” did everything with her own hands: she lighted the stove, set the samovar; she even worked in the fields; and at the same time growled that she was tortured with work. She tortured herself with dread that the family might eat too much, and took care that her husband and daughters-in-law did not sit with idle hands. Once when she found that the innkeeper's geese had got into her kitchen-garden, she rushed at once out of the house armed with a long stick ; and for half an hour screamed piercingly over her cabbages, which were as weak and thin as their owner. Later she imagined that a hawk had swooped on her chickens, and with loud curses she flew to meet the hawk. She lost her temper and growled from morning to night, and often screamed so loudly that passers-by stopped to listen.
Her husband she treated badly, denouncing him sometimes as a lie-abed, sometimes as "cholera." The old man was a hopeless, unsubstantial muzhik, and perhaps, indeed, if she had not spurred him on, he would have done no work at all, but sat all day on the stove and talked. He complained to his son at great length of certain enemies in the village and of the wrongs he suffered day by day; and it was tiresome to hear him.
"Yes," he said, putting his arms to his waist. "Yes. A week after Elevation I sold my hay for thirty kopecks a pood. Yes. Good! . . . and this means that one morning I drive my hay cart and interfere with nobody; and suddenly, in an evil moment, I look round, and out of the inn comes the headman, Antip Siedelnikoff. 'Where are you driving, old So-and-so?' and bangs me in the ear!"
Kiriak's head ached badly from drink, and he was ashamed before his brother.
"It's drink that does it. Akh, my Lord God!" he stammered, shaking his big head. "You, brother, and you, sister, forgive me, for the love of Christ; I feel bad myself."
To celebrate Sunday, they bought herrings at the inn, and made soup of the heads. At midday all sat down to tea and drank until they sweated and, it seemed, swelled up; and when they had drunk the tea they set to on the soup, all eating from the same bowl. The old woman hid away the herrings.
At night a potter baked his pots in the ravine. In the meadow below, the village girls sang in chorus; and some one played a concertina. Beyond the river also glowed a potter's oven, and village girls sang; and from afar the music sounded soft and harmonious. The muzhiks gathered in the inn; they sang tipsily, each a different song; and the language they used made Olga shudder and exclaim—
"Akh, batiushki!"
She was astonished by the incessant blasphemy, and by the fact that the older men, whose time had nearly come, blasphemed worst of all. And the children and girls listened to this language, and seemed in no way uncomfortable; it was plain they were used to it, and had heard it from the cradle.
Midnight came; the potters' fires on both river-banks went out, but on the meadow below and in the inn the merry-making continued. The old man and Kiriak, both drunk, holding hands, and rolling against one another, came to the shed where Olga lay with Marya.
“Leave her alone!” reasoned the old man, “Leave her. She's not a bad sort. . . . It's a sin. . . .”
“Ma-arya!” roared Kiriak.
“Stop ! It's sinful. . . . She's not a bad sort.”
The two men stood a moment by the shed and went away.
“I love wild flowers . . .” sang the old man in a high, piercing tenor. “I love to pull them in the fields!”
After this he spat, blasphemed, and went into the hut.
Grandmother stationed Sasha in the kitchen garden, and ordered her to keep off the geese. It was a hot August day. The innkeeper's geese could get into the kitchen garden by the back way, but at present they were busy picking up oats near the inn and quietly conversing, though the old gander stood aloof, his head raised as if to make sure that grandmother was not coming with her stick. The other geese could also get into the garden; but these were feeding far across the river, and, like a big white garland, stretched across the meadow. Sasha watched a short time, and then got tired, and, seeing no geese in sight, went down to the ravine.
There she saw Motka, Marya's eldest daughter, standing motionless on a big stone, and looking at the church. Marya had borne thirteen children; but only six remained, all girls, and the eldest was eight years old. Bare-footed Motka, in her long shirt, stood in the sun; the sun burnt the top of her head, but she took no notice of this, and seemed turned to stone. Sasha stood beside her, and looking at the church, began—
"God lives in the church. People burn lamps and candles, but God has red lamps, green and blue lamps, like eyes. At night God walks about the church, and with him the Holy Virgin, and holy Nicholas . . . toup, toup, toup! . . . The watchman is frightened, terribly! Yes, my heart," she said, imitating her mother. "When the Day of Judgment comes all the churches will be carried up to heaven."
"With the bells?" asked Motka in a bass voice, drawling every word.
"With the bells. And on the Day of Judgment good people will go to paradise, and wicked people will burn in fire eternal and unextinguishable, my heart! To mother and Marya God will say, 'You have offended no one, so go to the right, to paradise'; but He'll say to Kiriak and grandmother, 'You go to the left, into the fire!' And people who eat meat on fast-days will go to the fire too."
She looked up at the sky, opened wide her eyes, and continued —
“Look up at the sky, don't wink . . . and you'll see angels.”
Motka looked at the sky, and a minute passed in silence.
“Do you see them?” asked Sasha.
“No,” answered Motka in her bass voice.
“But I can. Little angels fly about the sky, with wings . . . little, little, like gnats.”
Motka thought a moment, looked at the ground, and asked —
“Will grandmother burn really?”
“She'll burn, my heart.”
From the stone to the bottom of the hill was a gentle, even slope covered with green grass so soft that it invited repose. Sasha lay down and slid to the bottom. Motka with a serious, severe face, puffed out her cheeks, lay down, and slid, and as she slid her shirt came up to her shoulders.
“How funny I felt!” said Sasha in delight.
The two children climbed to the top intending to slide down again, but at that moment they heard a familiar, squeaky voice. Terror seized them. Toothless, bony, stooping grandmother, with her short grey hair floating in the wind, armed with the long stick, drove the geese from tha kitchen garden, and screamed — “You've spoiled all the cabbage, accursed; may you choke; threefold anathemas; plagues, there is no peace with you!”
She saw the two girls, threw down her stick, took up a bundle of brushwood, and seizing Sasha's shoulders with fingers dry and hard as tree-forks, began to beat her. Sasha cried from pain and terror; and at that moment a gander, swinging from foot to foot and stretching out its neck, came up and hissed at the old woman; and when he returned to the geese, all welcomed him approvingly: go-go-go! Thereafter grandmother seized and whipped Motka, and again Motka's shirt went over her shoulders. Trembling with terror, crying loudly, Sasha went back to the hut to complain, and after her went Motka, also crying in her bass voice. Her tears were unwiped away, and her face was wet as if she had been in the river.
“Lord in heaven!” cried Olga as they entered the hut. “Mother of God, what's this?”
Sasha began her story, and at that moment, screaming and swearing, in came grandmother. Fekla lost her temper, and the whole hut was given over to noise.
“Never mind, never mind!” consoled Olga, pale and unnerved, stroking Sasha's head. “She's your grandmother; you've no right to be angry. Never mind, child!” Nikolai, already tortured by the constant shouting, hunger, smell, and smoke, hating and despising poverty, and ashamed of his parents before his wife and child, swung his legs over the stove and said to his mother with an irritable whine —
“You mustn't touch her! You have no right whatever to beat her!”
“Nu, you'll choke there on the stove, corpse!” cried Fekla angrily. “The devil sent you to us, parasite!”
And Sasha and Motka, and all the little girls, hid on the stove behind Nikolai's back, and the throbbing of their little hearts was almost heard. In every family with an invalid, long sick and hopeless, there are moments when all, timidly, secretly, at the bottom of their hearts, wish for his death; alone, children always dread the death of any one kin to them, and feel terror at the thought. And now the little girls, with bated breath and mournful faces, looked at Nikolai, and thinking that he would soon die, wanted to cry and say something kindly and compassionate.
Nikolai pressed close to Olga, as if seeking a defender, and said in a soft, trembling voice —
“Olga, my dear, I can stand this no longer. It is beyond my strength. For the love of God, for the love of Christ in heaven, write to your sister, Claudia Abramovna; let her sell or pledge everything, and send us the money to get out of this. Lord,” he cried, with longing, “to look at Moscow again, even with one eye! Even to see it in dreams!”
When evening came and the hut grew dark, all felt such tedium that it was hard to speak. Angry grandmother soaked rye crusts in a bowl, and took an hour to eat them. Marya milked the cow, carried in the milk-pail, and set it down on a bench; and grandmother slowly poured the milk into jugs, pleased at the thought that now at Assumption fast no one would drink milk, and that it would remain whole. But she poured a little, very little, into a saucer for Fekla's youngest. When she and Marya carried the milk to the cellar Motka suddenly started up, climbed down from the stove, and going to the bench poured the saucer of milk into the wooden bowl of crusts.
Grandmother, back in the hut, sat down again to the crusts, and Sasha and Motka, perched on the stove, looked at her, and saw with joy that she was drinking milk during fast time, and therefore would go to hell. Consoled by this, they lay down to sleep; and Sasha, going off to sleep, imagined the terrible chastisement: a big stove, like the potter's, and a black unclean spirit horned like a cow drove grandmother into the stove with a long stick, as she herself had lately driven the geese.
On the night of Assumption, at eleven o'clock, the young men and girls playing below in the meadow suddenly cried and shrieked and ran back towards the village. The boys and girls who sat above, on the brink of the ravine, at first could not understand the cause of their cries.
“Fire! Fire!” came from beneath in a despairing scream! “The hut's on fire!”
The boys and girls on the ravine turned their heads and saw a picture terrible and rare. Over one of the farthest thatched huts rose a fathom-high pillar of fire which curled and scattered fountain-wise on all sides showers of bright sparks. And immediately afterwards the whole roof caught fire, and the crackling of burning beams was heard by all.
The moonlight faded, and soon the whole village was bathed in a red, trembling glare; black shadows moved across the ground, and there was a smell of burning. The merry-makers from below, all panting, speechless, shuddering, jostled one another and fell; dazzled by the bright light, they saw nothing, and could not even tell who was who. The sight was terrible; and most terrible of all was that in the smoke above the conflagration fluttered doves, and that the men in the inn, knowing nothing of the fire, continued to sing and play the concertina as if nothing had happened.
“Uncle Semion is burning!” cried a loud, hoarse voice.
Marya with chattering teeth wandered about her hut weeping and wringing her hands, although the fire was far away at the other end of the village; Nikolai came out in his felt boots, and after him the children in their shirts. At the village policeman's hut they beat the alarm. Bem, bem, bem! echoed through the air; and this tireless, repeated sound made the heart sink and the listeners turn cold. The old women stood about with images. From the yards were di'iven sheep, calves, and cows; and the villagers carried into the street their boxes, sheepskins, and pails. A black stallion, kept apart from the herd because he kicked and injured the horses, found himself in freedom, and neighing loudly, he tore up and down the village, and at last stopped beside a cart and kicked it violently.
In the church beyond the river the fire-alarm was rung.
It was hot all around the burning hut, and in the bright glare even the blades of grass were visible. On a box which the peasants had managed to save sat Semion, a big-nosed, red-headed muzhik, in short coat, with a forage-cap pressed down to his ears; his wife lay on her face on the earth and groaned. A little, big-bearded, capless, gnome-like stranger of eighty, evidently partial to fires, wandered around, carrying a white bundle ; his bald head reflected the glare. The starosta, Antip Siedelnikoff, swarthy and black-haired as a gipsy, went up to the hut with his axe, and for no apparent reason beat in all the windows and began to hack at the steps.
“Women, water!” he roared. “Bring the engine! Look sharp!”
TTie peasants, fresh from merry-making in the inn, dragged up the fire-engine. All were drunk; they staggered and fell; their expressions were helpless, and tears stood in their eyes.
“Bring water, girls!” cried the starosta, also drunk. “Look sharp!”
The young women and girls ran down the slope to the well, returned with pails and pitchers of water, and, having emptied them into the engine, ran back for more. Olga, and Marya, and Sasha, and Motka, all helped. The water was pumped up by women and small boys; the hose-nozzle hissed; and the starosta, aiming it now at the door, now at the windows, held his finger on the stream of water, so that it hissed still more fiercely.
“Good man, Antip!” came approving cries. “Keep it up!”
And Antip went into the hall and cried thence — “Bring more water! Do your best, Orthodox men and women, on this unfortunate occasion!”
The muzhiks stood in a crowd with idle hands and gaped at the fire. Not one knew what to start on, not one was capable of help ; although around were stacks of grain, hay, outhouses, and heaps of dry brushwood. Kiriak and his father Osip, both tipsy, stood in the crowd. As if to excuse his idleness, the old man turned to the woman who lay on the ground and said —
“Don't worry yourself, gossip! The hut's insured — it's all the same to you!”
And Semion, addressing each muzhik in turn, explained how the hut caught fire.
“That old man there with the bundle is General Zhukoff's servant. . . . He was with our general, heaven kingdom to him! as cook. He comes up to us in the evening and begins, ‘Let me sleep here to-night.’ . . . We had a drink each, of course. . . . The woman prepared the samovar to get the old man tea, when in an unlucky moment she put it in the hall; and the fire from the chimney, of course, went up to the roof, the straw and all! We were nearly burnt ourselves. And the old man lost his cap; it's a pity.”
The fire-alarm boomed without cease; and the bells of the church across the river rang again and again. Olga, panting, bathed in the glare, looked with terror at the red sheep and the red pigeons flying about in the smoke; and it seemed to her that the boom of the fire-alarm pierced into her soul, that the fire would last for ever, and that Sasha was lost. . . . And when the roof crashed in she grew so weak with fear lest the whole village burn that she could no longer carry water; and she sat on the brink of the ravine with her pail beside her; beside her sat other women, and spoke as if they were speaking of a corpse.
At last from the manor-house came two cartloads of factors and workmen. They brought with them a fire-engine. A very youthful student in white, unbuttoned tunic rode into the village on horseback. Axes crashed, a ladder was placed against the burning log-walls; and up it promptly climbed five men led by the student, whor was very red, and shouted sharply and hoarsely, and in a tone which implied that he was well accustomed to extinguishing fires. They took the hut to pieces, beam by beam; and dragged apart stall, the wattle fence, and the nearest hayrick.
“Don't let them break it!” came angry voices from the crowd. “Don't let them!”
Kiriak with a resolute face went into the hut as if to prevent the new-comers breaking, but one of the workmen turned him back with a blow on the neck. Kiriak tumbled, and on all fours crept back to the crowd.
From across the river came two pretty girls in hats; the student's sisters, no doubt. They stood some way off and watched the conflagration. The scattered logs no longer burned, but smoked fiercely; and the student, handling the hose, sent the water sometimes on the logs, sometimes into the crowd, sometimes at the women who were carrying pails.
“George!” cried the ifrightened girls reproachfully. “George!”
The fire ended. Before the crowd dispersed the dawn had begun ; and all faces were pale and a little dark — or so it always seems in early morning when the last stars fade away. As they went to their homes the muzhiks laughed and joked at the expense of General Zhukoff's cook and his burnt cap: they reenacted the fire as a joke, and, it seemed, were sorry it had come so quickly to an end.
“You put out the fire beautifully, sir,” said Olga to the student. “Quite in the Moscow way; there we have fires every day.”
“Are you really from Moscow?” asked one of the girls.
“Yes. My husband served in the Slaviansky Bazaar. And this is my little girl.” She pointed to Sasha, who pressed close to her from the cold. “Also from Moscow, miss.”
The girls spoke to the student in French, and handed Sasha a twenty-kopeck piece. When old Osip saw this his face grew bright with hope.
“Thank God, your honour, there was no wind,” he said, turning to the student. “We'd have been all burnt up in an hour. Your honour, good gentleman,” he added shamefacedly. “It's a cold morning; we want warming badly . . . a half a bottle from your kindness . . .”
Osip's hint proved vain; and, grunting, he staggered home. Olga stood at the end of the village and watched as the two carts forded the stream, and the pretty girls walked through the meadow towards the carriage waiting on the other side. She returned to the hut in ecstasies —
“And such nice people! So good-looking. The young ladies, just like little cherubs!”
“May they burst asunder!” growled sleepy Fekla angrily.
Marya was unhappy, and said that she wanted to die. But life as she found it was quite to Fekla's taste: she liked the poverty, and the dirt, and the never-ceasing bad language. She ate what she was given without picking and choosing, and could sleep comfortably anywhere; she emptied the slops in front of the steps: threw them, in fact, from the threshold, though in her own naked feet she had to walk through the puddle. And from the first day she hated Olga and Nikolai for no reason save that they loathed this life. “We'll see what you're going to eat here, my nobles from Moscow!” she said maliciously. “We'll see!”
Once on an early September morning, Fekla, rosy from the cold, healthy, and good-looking, carried up the hill two pails of water ; when she entered the hut Marya and Olga sat at the table and drank tea.
“Tea . . . and sugar!” began Fekla ironically. “Fine ladies you are!” she added, setting down the pails. “A nice fashion you've got of drinking tea every day! See that you don't swell up with tea!” she continued, looking with hatred at Olga. “You got a thick snout already in Moscow, fatbeef!”
She swung round the yoke and struck Olga on the shoulder. The two women clapped their hands and exclaimed —
“Akh, batiushki!”
After which Fekla returned to the river to wash clothes, and all the time cursed so loudly that she was heard in the hut.
The day passed, and behind it came the long autumn evening. All sat winding silk, except Fekla, who went down to the river. The silk was given out by a neighbouring factory; and at this work the whole family earned not more than twenty kopecks a week.
“We were better off as serfs,” said the old man, winding away busily. “In those days you'd work, and eat, and sleep . . . each in its turn. For dinner you'd have schtchi[2] and porridge, and for supper again schtchi and porridge. Gherkins and cabbage as much as you liked; and you'd eat freely, as much as you liked. And there was more order. Each man knew his place.
The one lamp in the hut burned dimly and smoked. When any worker rose and passed the lamp a black shadow fell on the window, and the bright moonlight shone in. Old Osip related slowly how the peasants lived before the Emancipation; how in these same villages where all to-day lived penuriously there were great shooting parties, and on such days the muzhiks were treated to vodka without end; how whole trains of carts with game for the young squire were hurried off to Moscow; how the wicked were punished with rods or exiled to the estate in Tver, and the good were rewarded. And grandmother also spoke. She remembered everything. She told of her old mistress, a good, God-fearing woman with a wicked, dissolute husband ; and of the queer marriages made by all the daughters: one, it appeared, married a drunkard; another a petty tradesman; and the third was carried off clandestinely (she, grandmother, then unmarried, helped in the adventure): and all soon afterwards died of grief, as died, indeed, their mother. And, remembering these events, grandmother began to cry.
When a knock was heard at the door all started. “Uncle Osip, let me stay the night!”
Into the hut came the little, bald old man, General Zhukoff's cook, whose cap was burnt in the fire. He sat and listened, and, like his hosts, related many strange happenings. Nikolai, his legs hanging over the stove, listened ; and asked what sort of food was eaten at the manor-house. They spoke of bitki, cutlets, soups of various kinds, and sauces; and the cook, who, too, had an excellent memory, named certain dishes which no one eats nowadays; there was a dish, for instance, made of ox-eyes, and called “Awake in the morning.”
“And did you cook cutlets maréchal?” asked Nikolai.
“No.”
Nikolai shook his head reproachfully, and said —
“Then you are a queer sort of cook.”
The little girls sat and lay on the stove, and looked down with widely opened eyes; there seemed to be no end to them — like cherubs in the sky. The stories delighted them; they sighed, shuddered, and turned pale, sometimes from rapture, sometimes from fear; and, breathless, afraid to move, they listened to the stories of their grandmother, which were the most interesting of all.
They went to bed in silence; and the old men, agitated by their stories, thought how glorious was youth, which — however meagre it might be — left behind it only joyful, living, touching recollections; and how terribly cold was this death, which was now so near. Better not think of it! The lamp went out. And the darkness, the two windows, bright with moonshine, the silence, the cradle's creak somehow reminded them that life was now past, and that it would never ^return. They slumbered, lost consciousness; then suddenly some one jostled their shoulders, or breathed into their cheeks — and there was no real sleep; through their heads crept thoughts of death; they turned round and forgot about death; but their heads were full of old, mean, tedious thoughts, thoughts of need, of forage, of the rise in the price of flour; and again they remembered that life had now passed by, and that it would never return.
“O Lord!” sighed the cook.
Some one tapped cautiously at the window. That must be Fekla. Olga rose, yawned, muttered a prayer, opened the inner door, then drew the bolt in the hall. But no one entered. A draught blew and the moon shone brightly. Through the open door, Olga saw the quiet and deserted street, and the moon itself, swimming high in the sky.
“Who's there?” she cried.
“I!” came a voice. “It's I.”
Near the door, pressing close to the wall, stood Fekla, naked as she was born. She shuddered from the cold, her teeth chattered; and in the bright moonlight she was pale, pretty, and strange. The patches of shade and the moonlight on her skin stood out sharply; and plainest of all stood out her dark eyebrows and her young, firm breast.
“Some impudent fellows across the river undressed me and sent me off in this way — as my mother bore me! Bring me something to put on.”
“Go into the hut yourself!” whispered Olga, with a shudder.
“The old ones will see me.”
And as a fact grandmother got restless, and growled; and the old man asked, “Who is there?” Olga brought out her shift and petticoat and dressed Fekla ; and the two women softly, and doing their best to close the doors without noise, went into the hut.
“So that's you, devil?” came an angry growl from grandmother, who guessed that it was Fekla. “May you be . . . night walker . . . there's no peace with you!”
“Don't mind, don't mind,” whispered Olga, wrapping Fekla up. “Don't mind, my heart!”
Again silence. The whole family always slept badly; each was troubled by something aggressive and insistent: the old man by a pain in the back; grandmother by worry and ill-temper; Marya by fright; the children by itching and hunger. And to-night the sleep of all was troubled; they rolled from side to side, wandered, and rose constantly to drink.
Fekla suddenly cried out in a loud, rough voice; but soon mastered herself, and merely sobbed quietly until at last she ceased. Now and then from beyond the river were heard the church chimes; but the clock struck strangely; and at first beat struck five, and later three.
“O Lord!” sighed the cook.
From the light in the windows it was hard to judge whether the moon still shone or whether dawn had come. Marya rose and went out; and she was heard milking the cows and shouting “Stand!” Grandmother also went out. It was still dark in the hut, but everything could be seen.
Nikolai, who had spent a sleepless night, climbed down from the stove. He took from a green box his evening dress-coat, put it on, and going over to the window, smoothed the sleeves and the folds, and smiled. Then he took off the coat, returned it to the box, and lay down.
Marya returned, and began to light the stove. Apparently she was not yet quite awake. Probably she still dreamed of something, or recalled the stories of last night, for she stretched herself lazily before the stove and said —
“No, we're better in freedom.”
In the village arrived “the gentleman,” as the peasants called the superintendent of police. Every one knew a week ahead the day and cause of his arrival. For though Zhukovo had only forty houses, it owed in arrears to the Imperial Treasury and the Zemstvo more than two thousand roubles.
The superintendent stopped at the inn, drank two glasses of tea, and then walked to the starostа's hut, where already waited a crowd of peasants in arrear. The starosta, Antip Siedelnikoff, despite his youth — he was little over thirty — was a stern man who always took the side of the authorities, although he himself was poor and paid his taxes irregularly. It was clear to all that he was flattered by his position and revelled in the sense of power, which he had no other way of displaying save by sternness. The mir feared and listened to him; when in the street or at the inn he met a drunken man he would seize him, tie his hands behind his back, and put him in the village gaol; once, indeed, he even imprisoned grandmother for several days, because, appearing at the mir instead of her husband, she used abusive language. The starosta had never lived in town and read no books; but he had a copious collection of learned words and used them so liberally that people respected him, even when they did not understand.
When Osip with his tax book entered the starosta's hut, the superintendent, a thin, old, grey-whiskered man in a grey coat, sat at a table in the near corner and made notes in a book. The hut was clean, the walls were decorated with pictures from magazines, and in a prominent place near the ikon hung a portrait of Alexander of Battenberg, ex-Prince of Bulgaria. At the table, with crossed arms, stood Antip Siedelnikoff.
“This man, your honour, owes 119 roubles,” he said when it came to Osip's turn. “Before Holy Week he paid a rouble, since then, nothing.”
The superintendent turned his eyes on Osip, and asked —
“What's the reason of that, brother?”
“Your honour, be merciful to me . . .” began Osip in agitation. “Let me explain . . . this summer . . . Squire Liutoretzky . . . ‘Osip,’ he says, ‘sell me your hay. . . . Sell it,’ he says. . . . I had a hundred poods for sale, which the women mowed. . . . Well, we bargained. . . . All went well, without friction. . . .”
He complained of the starosta, and now and again turned to the muzhiks as if asking for support; his flushed face sweated, and his eyes turned bright and vicious. “I don't understand why you tell me all that,” said the superintendent. “I ask you . . . it's you I ask, why you don't pay your arrears? None of you pay, and I am held responsible.”
“I'm not able to.”
“These expressions are without consequence, your honour,” said the starosta magniloquently. “In reality, the Tchikildeyeffs belong to the impoverished class, but be so good as to ask the others what is the reason. Vodka and impudence . . . without any comprehension.”
The superintendent made a note, and said to Osip in a quiet, even voice, as if he were asking for water —
“Begone!”
Soon afterwards he drove away; and as he sat in his cheap tarantass and coughed, it was plain, even from the appearance of his long, thin back, that he had forgotten Osip, and the starosta, and the arrears of Zhukovo, and was thinking of his own domestic affairs. He had hardly covered a verst before Antip Siedelnikoff was carrying off the Tchikildeyeff^s samovar; and after him ran grandmother, and whined like a dog.
“I won't give it! I won't give it to you, accursed!”
The starosta walked quickly, taking big steps; and grandmother, stooping and fierce and breathless, tottered after him; and her green-grey hair floated in the wind. At last she stopped, beat her breast with her fists, and exclaimed, with a whine and a sob — “Orthodox men who believe in God! Batiushki, they're wronging me! Kinsmen, they've robbed me. Oi, oi, will no one help me!”
“Grandmother, grandmother!” said the starosta severely, “have some reason in your head!”
With the loss of the samovar, things in the TehikildeyefTs' hut grew even worse. There was something humiliating and shameful in this last privation, and it seemed that the hut had suddenly lost its honour. The table itself, the chairs, and all the pots, had the starosta seized them, would have been less missed. Grandmother screamed, Marya cried, and the children, listening, began to cry also. The old man, with a feeling of guilt, sat gloomily in the corner and held his tongue. And Nikolai was silent. As a rule grandmother liked him and pitied him; but at this crisis her pity evaporated, and she cursed and reproached him, and thrust her fists under his nose. She screamed that he was guilty of the family's misfortunes and asked why he had sent so little home, though he boasted in his letters that he earned fifty roubles a month at the Slaviansky Bazaar. Why did he come home, and, still worse, bring his family? If he died whence would the money come for his funeral? . . . And it was painful to look at Nikolai, Olga, and Sasha.
The old man grunted, took his cap, and went to the starosta's. It was getting dark. Antip Siedelnikoff, with cheeks puffed out, stood at the stove and soldered. It was stifling. His children, skinny and unwashed — no better than the Tchikildeyeffs' — sprawled on the floor ; his ugly, freckled wife wound silk. This, too, was an unhappy, God-forsaken family; alone Antip was smart and good-looking. On a bench in a row stood five samovars. The old man prayed towards the Battenberg prince, and began —
“Antip, show the mercy of God: give me the samovar! For the love of God!”
“Bring me three roubles, and then you'll get it.”
“I haven't got them.”
Antip puffed out his cheeks, the fire hummed and hissed, and the samovars shone. The old man fumbled with his cap, thought a moment, and repeated —
“Give it to me!”
The swarthy starosta seemed quite black and resembled a wizard; he turned to Osip and said roughly and quickly —
“All depends from the Rural Chief. In the administrative session of the twenty-sixth of this month you can expose the causes of your dissatisfaction verbally or in writing.”
Not one of these learned words was understood by Osip, but he felt contented, and returned to his hut.
Ten days later the superintendent returned, stayed about an hour, and drove away. It had turned windy and cold, but though the river was frozen, there was no snow, and the state of the roads was a torture to every one. On Sunday evening the neighbours looked in to see and talk with Osip. They spoke in the darkness; to work was a sin, and no one lighted the lamp. News was exchanged, chiefly disagreeable. Three houses away the hens had been taken in payment of arrears and sent to the cantonal office, and there they died of starvation; sheep had also been taken, and while they were being driven away tied with ropes and transferred to fresh carts at each village one had died. And now they discussed the question, Who was responsible?
“The Zemstvo!” said Osip. “Who else?”
“Of course, the Zemstvo!”
They accused the Zemstvo of everything — of arrears, of oppression, of famines, although not one of them knew exactly what the Zemstvo was. And that rule had been observed since wealthy peasants with factories, shops, and houses were elected as Zemstvo members, and being discontented with the institution, thenceforth in their factories and inns abused the Zemstvo.
They complained of the fact that God had sent no snow, and that though it was time to lay in firewood, you could neither drive nor walk upon the frozen roads. Fifteen years before, and earlier, the small-talk of Zhukovo was infinitely more entertaining. In those days every old man pretended he held some secret, knew something, and waited for something; they talked of rescripts with gold seals, redistribution of lands, and hidden treasures, and hinted of things mysterious; to-day the people of Zhukovo had no secrets; their life was open to all; and they had no themes for conversation save need, and forage, and the absence of snow. . . .
For a moment they were silent. But soon they remembered the hens and dead sheep, and returned to the problem. Who was responsible?
“The Zemstvo!” said Osip gloomily. “Who else?”
The parish church was Kosogorovo, six versts away, but the peasants went there only to christen, marry, or bury; they worshipped at the church across the river. On Sundays, when the weather was fine, the village girls dressed in their best and went in a crowd to the service; and the red, yellow, and green dresses fluttering across the meadow were pleasant to see. In bad weather all stayed at home. They fasted, prayed, and prepared for the sacrament. From those who had failed in this duty during the Great Fast, the priest, when he went round the huts with his crucifix, took fifteen kopecks fine.
The old man did not believe in God, because he had hardly ever thought of Him; he admitted the supernatural, but held that that was an affair for women; and when others spoke of religion, or of miracles, and asked him questions on the subject, he scratched himself and said reluctantly —
“Who knows anything about it?”
Grandmother believed vaguely; in her mind all things were confused, and when she began to meditate on death and salvation, hunger and poverty took the upper hand, and she forgot her meditations. She remembered no prayers, but at night before lying down she stood before the ikons and muttered —
“Mother of God of Kazan, Mother of God of Smolensk, Three-Handed Mother of God! . . .”
Marya and Fekla crossed themselves and fasted, but knew nothing of religion. They neither taught their children to pray nor spoke to them of God; and they taught them no principles save that they must not eat meat during fasts. With the other villagers it was the same; few believed and few understood. Nevertheless, all loved the Scriptures, loved them dearly and piously; the misfortune was that there were no books and no one to read and explain, so that when Olga read aloud the Gospel she was treated with respect, and all addressed her and her daughter Sasha as “You.”
At Church festivals Olga often walked to neighbouring villages, and even to the district town, where there were two monasteries and twenty-seven churches. She was abstracted, and as she walked on her pilgrimage forgot her family. When she returned home it seemed that she had only just discovered her husband and daughter, and she smiled and said radiantly —
“God has sent us His mercy!”
Everything that happened in the village repelled and tormented her. On Elijah's Day they drank, at Assumption they drank, at Elevation they drank. At Intercession Zhukovo had its parish festival; and this the muzhiks observed by drinking for three days; they drank fifty roubles from the communal funds; and then went round the huts and collected money for more vodka. On the first days the Tchikildeyeffs killed a ram, and ate mutton in the morning, at dinner, and for supper; and in the night all the children got out of bed to eat more. Kiriak was drunk all three days; he drank away his cap and boots, and beat Marya so badly that she had to be soused with water. And then all were sick with shame.
Despite this, even this Zhukovo, this Kholuefka, had once a real religious festival. That was in August, when through every village in the district was borne the Life-giving Ikon. The day it was due at Zhukovo was windless and dull. Early in the morning the village girls, in their bright, holiday dress, set out to meet the ikon, which arrived at evening with a procession and singing; and at that moment the church bells rang loudly. A vast crowd from Zhukovo and neighbouring villages filled the street; there were noise, dust, and crushing. And the old man, grandmother, and Kiriak — all stretched out their hands to the ikon, looked at it greedily, and cried with tears —
“Intercessor, Mother! Intercessor!”
All at once, it seemed, realised that there is no void between earth and heaven, that the great and strong of this world have not seized upon everything, that there is intercession against injury, against slavish subjection, against heavy, intolerable need, against the terrible vodka.
“Intercessor, Mother!” sobbed Marya. “Mother!”
When the service was said and the ikon carried away, all things were as of old, and noisy, drunken voices echoed from the inn.
Death was dreaded only by the wealthy muzhiks; the richer they grew the less their faith in God and in salvation ; and only out of fear of the end of the world, to make certain, so to speak, they lighted candles in the church and said mass. The poorer muzhiks knew no fear of death. They told the old man and grandmother to their faces that they had lived their day, that it was high time to die, and the old man and grandmother listened indifferently. They did not scruple to tell Fekla in Nikolai's presence that when he, Nikolai, died, her husband, Denis, would get his discharge from the army and be sent home. And Marya not only had no fear of death, but was even sorry that it lingered; and she rejoiced when her own children died.
But though they knew no dread of death, they looked on sickness with exaggerated dread. The most trifling ailment, a disordered stomach, a slight chill, sent grandmother on to the stove, where she rolled herself up, and groaned loudly without cease, “I'm dying I” And the old man would send for the priest to confess her and administer the last sacrament. They talked eternally of colds, of worms, of tumours which begin in the stomach and slowly creep towards the heart. Most of all they dreaded colds, and even in summer dressed warmly, and cowered over the stove. Grandmother loved medical treatment, and constantly drove to hospital, where she said she was fifty-eight instead of seventy, for she feared that if the doctor knew her age, he would refuse to treat her, and would tell her it was time to die. She usually started for the hospital at early morning, taking a couple of the little girls, and returned at night, hungry and ill-tempered, with a mixture for herself and ointments for the girls. Once she took with her Nikolai, who for the next two weeks dosed himself with a mixture, and said that he felt better.
Grandmother knew every doctor, feldscher, and wisewoman within thirty versts, and disapproved of all. At Intercession, when the priest made his round of the huts with a crucifix, the clerk told her that near the town prison there was an old man, formerly an army feldscher, who doctored cleverly, and he advised grandmother to see him. She took the advice. When the first snow fell she drove into town, and brought back an old, bearded Jew in a long caftan, whose whole face was covered with blue veins. At that time journey-men worked in the hut: an old tailor in terrifying spectacles made a waistcoat out of rags; and two young lads made felt for top-boots. Kiriak, dismissed for drunkenness, and now living at home, sat beside the tailor and mended a horse-collar. The hut was close and smoky. The Jew looked at Nikolai, and said that he must be bled.
He applied leeches, and the old tailor, Kiriak, and the little girls looked on, and imagined they saw the disease coming out of Nikolai. And Nikolai also watched the leeches sucking his chest, and saw them fill with dark blood; and feeling that, indeed, something was coming out of him, he smiled contentedly.
“It's a good way!” said the tailor. “God grant that it does him good!”
The Jew applied twelve leeches to Nikolai, then twelve more ; drank tea, and drove away. Nikolai began to tremble; his face turned haggard, and — as the women put it — dwindled into a fist; his fingers turned blue. He wrapped himself up in the counterpane and then in a sheepskin coat; but felt colder and colder. Towards evening he was peevish; asked them to lay him on the floor, asked the tailor not to smoke, then lay still under the sheepskin; and towards morning died.
It was a rough, a long winter.
Since Christmas there had been no gi'ain, and flour was bought outside. Kiriak, who still lived at home, made scenes at night, causing terror to all; and next morning his head ached, and he was ashamed, so that it was painful to see him. Night and day in the stall a hungry cow lowed, and rent the hearts of grandmother and Marya. And to make things worse the frost grew severer, and the snow heaped itself high in the street, and the winter stretched out. Annunciation was marked by a genuine winter snow-storm, and snow fell in Holy Week.
But even this ended. The beginning of April brought warm days and frosty nights. Winter gave way reluctantly, but the hot sunshine foiled him, and at last the brooks melted and the birds began to sing. The fields and shrubs by the river-side were hidden in spring floods, and from Zhukovo to the village beyond stretched a big lake, given over to wild duck. The spring sunsets, fiery and with splendid clouds, yielded each day sights new and incredible, sights which are often laughed at when they appear on canvas.
The cranes cried mournfully, as if they called on men to follow them. Standing on the brink of the ravine, Olga looked at the flood, at the sun, at the bright, it seemed rejuvenated, church; and her tears flowed and she panted with passionate longing to go away, though it might be to the end of the earth. And indeed, it was decided that she should return to Moscow and seek a place as housemaid; and with her would go Kiriak to earn his living as dvornik, or somehow else. Akh, to get away soon!
When the roads dried and the weather turned hot they prepared for the journey. Olga and Sasha with wallets on their backs, both in bast-shoes, left at dawn; and Marya came to see them off. Kiriak, ill, remained for a week more. For the last time Olga prayed towards the church, and thought of her husband, and though she did not cry, her face wrinkled, and seemed ugly, as an old woman's. During the winter she had grown thinner, uglier, and a little grey; instead of the old charm and pleasant smile her face expressed submissiveness and sorrow outlived; and her look was dull and fixed as if she were deaf. She was sorry to leave the village and the muzhiks. She remembered how they carried away Nikolai; how mass was said at nearly every hut; and how all wept, feeling her grief their own. Summer and winter there were hours and days when it seemed to her that these men lived worse than beasts, and to look at them was terrible: they were coarse, dishonest, dirty, drunken ; they lived in discord; they fought eternally, because they despised, feared, and suspected one another. Who kept the drink shop and dosed the muzhik with drink? The muzhik. Who squandered and spent on drink the money of the commune, of the school, of the Church? The muzhik. Who stole from his neighbour, burnt his house, perjured himself in court for a bottle of vodka? The muzhik. Who first spoke at the Zemstvo and on other boards against the muzhik? The muzhik. Yes; to live with them was torture! But despite all this, they were men, they suffered and wept as men; and in their whole lives there was not one act for which an excuse might not be found. Labour unbearable, from which the whole body ached at night, fierce winters, scanty harvests, crowding; help from nowhere, and no hope of help! The richer and the stronger gave no help because they themselves were rude, dishonest, intemperate, and foul-tongued; the pettiest official or clerk treated the muzhiks as vagabonds ; even the cantonal chiefs and Church elders addressed them as “Thou,” and believed they had a right thereto. Yes! And could there be help or good example from the selfish, the greedy, the dissolute, the idle, who came to these villages with but one intent : to insult, terrify, and rob? Olga remembered the piteous, humiliated faces of the old men when in winter Kiriak was brought out to be flogged! And now she was sorry for all these men and women; and on her last walk through the village she looked at every hut.
When she had accompanied them three versts Marya said good-bye; then fell upon her knees, and with her face touching the ground, cried loudly —
“Again I am left alone; alas, poor me, poor, poor, unfortunate ! . . .”
And she continued to keen, so that long afterwards Olga and Sasha could see her on her knees, bent on one side, holding her head with her hands. And above her head flew rooks.
The sun rose higher : the day grew warm. Zhukovo was left far behind. The travellers followed many circuitous paths, and Olga and Sasha soon forgot the village and Marya. They were in good humour, and everything amused them. First a mound; then a line of telegraph posts, with mysterious humming wires, which vanished on the horizon, and sped to some unknown destination; then a farm, buried in green, which sent from afar a smell of dampness and hemp, and seemed to say that it was the home of happy people; then a horse's skeleton lying white in a field. And larks sang untiredly; quails cried to one another; and the landrail cried with a sound like the drawing of an old bolt.
At midday Olga and Sasha reached a big village, and, in the broad street, came upon General Zhukoff's old cook. He was hot, and his red, sweating bald patch shone in the sun. At first he did not recognise Olga; then he looked and recognised her, but both, without exchanging a word, continued their paths. Olga stopped and bowed low before the open windows of a hut which seemed richer and newer than its neighbours, and cried in a loud, thin, and singing voice —
“Orthodox Christians, give alms for the love of Christ; Kingdom of Heaven to your father and mother, eternal rest.”
“Orthodox Christians,” echoed little Sasha. “Give for the love of Christ, Heavenly Kingdom. . .”