The village. [Translation from the original Russian text by Isabel Hapgood] (2 page)

"U-ukh! Your vodka is strong, Petrovna! It has knocked me in the head, devil take it!"

" 'Twill make your mouth water, my dear man!"

1 This muddling of "Emir of Bukhara" is only one example of the ignorant combinations and locutions used by the peasant characters.— trans.

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"Is there snuff in your vodka?"

"Well, now, you fool yourself!"

In the shop the crowd was even more dense.

"Hitch, weigh me out a pound of ham."

"This year, brother, I'm so well stocked with ham— so well stocked, thank God!"

"What's the price?"

"Tis cheap!"

"Hey, proprietor, have you good tar?"

"Better tar than your grandfather had at his wedding, my good man!" x

"What's the price?"

And it seemed as if, at the KrasofTs', there were never any other conversation than that about the prices of things: What's the price of ham, what's the price of boards, what's the price of groats, what's the price of tar?

Ill

THE abandonment of his hope of having children and the closing of the dram-shops by the government were great events. Tikhon visibly aged when there no longer remained any doubt that he was not to become a father. At first he jested about it: "No sir, I'll get my way. Without children a man is not a man. He's only so-so—a sort of spot

X A play on words, "tar" in the second sentence meaning "liquor."— trans.

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missed in the sowing." But later on he was assailed by terror. What did it mean? one overlay her child, the other bore only dead children.

And the period of Nastasya Petrovna's last pregnancy had been a difficult time. Tikhon Hitch suffered and raged: Nastasya Petrovna prayed in secret, wept in secret, and was a pitiful sight when, of a night by the light of the shrine-lamp, she slipped out of bed, assuming that her husband was asleep, and began with difficulty to kneel down, touch her brow to the floor as she whispered her prayers, gaze with anguish at the holy pictures, and rise from her knees painfully, like an old woman. Hitherto, before going to bed, she had donned slippers and dressing-gown, said her prayers indifferently, and, as she prayed, taken pleasure in running over the list of her acquaintances and abusing them. Now there stood before the holy picture a simple peasant woman in a short cotton petticoat, white woolen stockings, and a chemise which did not cover her neck and arms, fat like those of an old person.

Tikhon Hitch had never, from his childhood, liked shrine-lamps, although he had never been willing to confess it, even to himself; nor did he like their uncertain churchly light. All his life there had remained impressed upon his mind that November night when, in the tiny lop-sided hut in the Black Suburb, a shrine-lamp had also burned, peaceful and sweetly-sad, the shadows of its chains barely moving, while everything around was deathly silent; and on the bench below the holy pictures his father lay motionless with eyes closed, his sharp nose raised, his big purplish-waxen hands

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crossed on his breast; while by his side, just beyond the tiny window curtained with its red rag, the conscripts marched past with wildly mournful songs and shouts, their accordions squealing discordantly.—Now the shrine-lamp burned uninterruptedly, and Tikhon Hitch felt as if Nastasya Petrovna were carrying on some sort of secret affair with uncanny powers.

A number of book-hawkers from the Vladimir government halted by the posting-house to bait their horses—with the result that there made its appearance in the house a "New Complete Oracle and Magician, which foretells the future in answer to questions; with Supplement setting forth the easiest methods of telling fortunes by cards, beans, and coffee." And of an evening Nastasya Petrovna would put on her spectacles, mould a little ball of wax, and set to rolling it over the circles of the "Oracle." And Tikhon Hitch would look on, with sidelong glances. But all the answers turned out to be either insulting, menacing, or senseless.

"Does my husband love me?" Nastasya Petrovna would inquire.

And the "Oracle" replied: "He loves you as a dog loves a stick."

"How many children shall I have?"

"You are fated to die: the field must be cleared of weeds."

Then Tikhon Hitch would say: "Give it here. I'll have a try." And he would propound the question: "Ought I to start a law-suit with a person whose name I won't mention?"

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But he, likewise, got nonsense for an answer: "Count the teeth in your mouth."

One day Tikhon Hitch, when he glanced into the kitchen, saw his wife beside the cradle in which lay the cook's baby. A speckled chicken which was wandering along the window ledge, pecking and catching flies, tapped the glass with its beak; but she sat there on the sleeping-board and, while she rocked the cradle, sang in a pitiful quaver:

"Where lieth my little child? Where is his tiny bed? He is in the lofty chamber, In the painted cradle gay.

Let no one come there to us, Or knock at the chamber door! He hath fallen asleep, he resteth Beneath the canopy dark, Covered with flowered silk. . . ."

And Tikhon Hitch's face underwent such a change at that moment that Nastasya Petrovna, as she glanced at him, experienced no confusion, felt no fear, but only fell a-weeping and, brushing away her tears, said softly: "Take me away, for Christ's dear sake, to the Holy Man."

And Tikhon Hitch took her to Zadonsk. But as he went he was thinking in his heart that God would certainly chastise him because, in the bustle and cares of life, he went to church only for the service on Easter Day, and otherwise lived as if he were a Tatar. Sacrilegious thoughts also wormed their way into his head.

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He kept comparing himself to the parents of the Saints, who likewise had long remained childless. This was not clever—but he had long since come to perceive that; there dwe! .vithin him some one who was more stupid than himself. Before his departure he had received a letter from Mount Athos: "Most God-loving Benefactor, Tikhon Hitch! Peace be unto you, and salvation, the blessing of the Lord and the honourable Protection of the All-Sung Mother of God, from her earthly portion, the holy Mount Athos! I have had the happiness of hearing about your good works, and that with love you apportion your mite for the building and adornment of God's temples and monastic cells. With the years my hovel has reached such a dilapidated condition. . . ." And Tikhon Hitch sent a ten-ruble bank-note to be used for repairing the hovel. The time was long past when he had believed, with ingenuous pride, that rumours concerning him had actually reached as far as Mount Athos, and he knew well enough that far too many hovels on Mount Athos had become dilapidated. Nevertheless, he sent the money.

But even that proved of no avail.

The government monopoly of the liquor trade acted as salt on a raw wound. When the hope of children failed him utterly, the thought occurred ever more frequently to Tikhon Hitch: "What's the object of all this convict hard labour, anyway? devil take it!" And his hands began to tremble with rage, his brows to contract and arch themselves, his upper lip to quiver—

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especially when he uttered the phrase which was incessantly in his mouth: "Bear in mind—!" He continued, as before, to affect youthfulness—wore dandyfied soft boots and art embroidered shirt fastened at one side, Russian style, under a double-breagted short coat. But his beard grew ever whiter, more sparse, more tangled.

And that summer, as if with malicious intent, turned out to be hot and dry. The rye was absolutely ruined. It became a pleasure to whine to the buyers. "I'm closing down my business—shutting up shop!" Tikhon Hitch said with satisfaction, referring to his liquor trade. He enunciated every word clearly. "The Minister has a fancy for going into trade on his own account, to be sure!"

"Okh, just look at you!" groaned Nastasya Petrovna. "You're calling down bad luck. You'll be chased off to a place so far that even the crows don't drag their bones there!"

"Don't you worry, ma'am," Tikhon Hitch interrupted her brusquely, with a frown. "No, ma'am! You can't gag every mouth with a kerchief!" And again, enunciating even more sharply, he addressed.the customer: "And the rye, sir, is a joy to behold! Bear that in mind—a joy to everybody! By night, sir, if you'll believe it—by night, sir, even then it can be seen. You step out on the threshold and gaze at the fields by the light of the moon: it's as sparse as the hair on a bald head. You go out and stare: the fields are shining-naked!"

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IV

DURING the Fast of St. Peter Tikhon Hitch spent four days in the town at the Fair and got still more out of tune, thanks to his worries, the heat, and sleepless nights. Ordinarily he set out for the Fair with great gusto. At twilight the carts were greased and heaped with hay. Behind one, that in which the manager of his farm rode, were hitched the horses or cows destined for sale; in the other, in which the master himself was to ride, were placed cushions and a peasant overcoat. Making a late start, they journeyed squeaking all night long until daybreak. First of all they indulged in friendly discussion and smoking. The men told each other frightful old tales of merchants murdered on the road and at halting places for the night. Then Tikhon Hitch disposed himself for sleep; and it was extremely pleasant to hear through his dreams the voices of those whom they met, to feel the vigorous swaying of the cart, as if it were constantly descending a hill, and his cheeks slipping deep into a pillow while his cap fell off and the night chill cooled his head. It was agreeable, too, to wake up before sunrise in the rosy, dewy morning, in the midst of the dull-green grain, and to see, far away in the blue lowlands, the town shining as a cheerful white spot, and the gleam of its churches; to yawn mightily, cross himself at the faint sound of the bells, and take

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the reins from the hands of the half-slumbering old man, who sat relaxed like a child in the morning chill and was as white as chalk in the light of the dawn.

But on this occasion Tikhon Hitch sent off the carts with his head man and drove himself in a runabout. The night was warm and bright; there was a rosy tone in the moonlight. He drove fast, but became extremely weary. The lights on the Fair buildings, the jail and the hospital, were visible from the steppe at a distance of ten versts as one approached the town, and it seemed as if one would never reach them—those distant, sleepy lights. And at the posting-house on the Ststchepnoy Square it was so hot, and the fleas bit so viciously, and voices rang out so frequently at the entrance-gate, and the carts rattled so as they drove into the stone-paved courtyard, and the cocks began to screech and the pigeons to start their rumbling coo so early, and the sky to grow white beyond the open windows, that he never closed an eye. He slept little the second night, too, which he tried to pass at the Fair in his cart. The horses neighed, lights blazed in the stalls, people walked and talked all around him; and at dawn, when his eyelids were fairly sticking together with sleep, the bells on the jail and the hospital began to ring. And right over his head the horrible bellow of a cow boomed out. "Might as well be a criminal condemned to hard labour in prison!" was a thought which recurred incessantly during those days and nights. "Struggling—getting all snarled up—and going to destruction over trifles, absurdities!" The Fair, scattered over the town pasture land for

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a whole verst, was, as usual, noisy and muddled. Brooms, scythes, wooden tubs with handles, shovels, wheels lay about in heaps. A dull, discordant roar hung over it all—the neighing of horses, the shrilling of children's whistles, the polkas and marches thundered out by the orchestrions of the merry-go-rounds. An idle, chattering throng of peasant men and women surged about in waves from morning till night on the dusty, dung-strewn alleyways among the carts and stalls, the horses and the cows, the amusement sheds and the eating booths, whence were wafted fetid odours of frying grease. As always, there was a huge throng of horse-dealers, who injected a terrible irritability into all discussion and barter. Blind men and paupers, beggars, cripples on crutches and in carts, filed past in endless bands, chanting their snuffling ballads. The troika team of the rural police chief moved slowly through the crowd, its bells jingling, restrained by a coachman in a sleeveless velveteen coat and a hat adorned with peacock feathers.

Tikhon Hitch had many customers. But nothing beyond empty chaffer resulted. Gipsies came, blue-black of face; Jews from the south-west, grey of countenance, red-haired, covered with dust, in long, wide coats of canvas and boots down at the heel; sun-browned members of the gentry class of small estates, in sleeveless peasant over-jackets and caps; the commissary of rural police and the village policeman; the wealthy merchant Safonoff, an old man wearing a sort of overcoat affected by the lower classes, fat, clean-shaven, and smoking a cigar. The handsome hussar officer, Prince

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Bakhtin, came also, accompanied by his wife in an English walking suit, and Khvostoff, the decrepit hero of the Sevastopol campaign, tall, bony, with large features and a dark, wrinkled face, wearing a long uniform coat, sagging trousers, broad-toed boots, and a big uniform cap with a yellow band beneath which his dyed locks, of a dead dark-brown shade, were combed forward on his temples.

All these people gave themselves the air of being expert judges, talked fluently about colours, paces, discoursed about the horses they owned. The petty landed gentry lied and boasted. Bakhtin did not condescend to speak to Tikhon Hitch, although the latter rose respectfully at his approach and said: "Tis a suitable horse for Your Illustrious Highness, sir." Bakhtin merely fell back a pace as he inspected the horse, smiled gravely into his moustache, which he wore with side-supplements, and exchanged brief suggestions with his wife as he wriggled his leg in his cherry-coloured cavalry breeches.

But Khvostoff, shuffling up to the horse and casting a sidelong fiery glance at it, came to a halt in such a posture that it seemed as if he were on the point of falling down, elevated his crutch, and for the tenth time demanded in a dull, absolutely expressionless voice: "How much do you ask for him?"