The village. [Translation from the original Russian text by Isabel Hapgood] (24 page)

But the Bride replied indifferently, drily: "Shall I bring in the samovar?" And she did not even inquire what was the matter with him. Neither did she ask anything about Ivanushka.

Kuzma returned to the dark house and, shivering all over and wondering with alarm where he could now go when need compelled, lay down on the divan. And the evenings slipped into nights and the nights

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slipped into days, and he lost all count of them.

About three o'clock on the first night he woke up and pounded on the wall with his fist, in order to ask for a drink: he had been tormented in his sleep by thirst and the thought, had they thrown out the bullfinch? No one answered his knocking: the Bride had gone off to the servants' quarters to pass the night. And Kuzma, conscious now, remembered that he was sick unto death, and he was overpowered by such melancholy as would have seized him in a tomb. Obviously the vestibule, which smelled of snow and straw and horse-collars, was empty! Obviously he, sick and helpless, was utterly alone in that dark, ice-cold little house, where the windows gleamed dim and grey amid the winter night, with that useless cage hanging beside them!

"O Lord, save and have mercy; O Lord, help in some way," he murmured, pulling himself up and fumbling with trembling hands through his pockets.

He wanted to strike a match. But his whisper was feverish; something rustled and reverberated in his burning head; his hands and feet were icy cold. Klasha came, quickly threw open the door, placed his head on the pillow, and sat down on a chair by the side of the couch. She was dressed like a young lady, in a velvet cloak and a little cap and muff of white fur; her hands were scented with perfume, her eyes shone, her cheeks had turned crimson with the frost. "Ah, how well everything has come out!" some one whispered. But what was not nice was that Klasha, for some reason, had not lighted the lamp; that she had come, not to see him, but to go to Ivanushka's funeral; that she suddenly

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began to sing, accompanying herself on a guitar: "Haz-Bulat, the dauntless, thy mountain hut is poor." . . . Then, all at once, the whole thing vanished; he opened his eyes—and not a trace remained of that mysterious, agitating, and alarming affair which had filled his head with nonsense. Again he beheld the dark, cold room, the grey gleaming windows; he comprehended that everything around him was plain and simple, too simple—that he was ill and quite, quite alone. . . .

In the deadly melancholy which poisoned his soul at the beginning of his illness, Kuzma had raved about the bullfinch, Klasha, Voronezh. But even in his delirium the thought had never left him that he must tell some one that they must show pity on him in one respect—they must not bury him in Kolodezy. But, my God! was it not madness to hope for pity in Dur-novka? Once he came to himself in the morning, when the fire was being made in the stove—and the simple, quiet voices of Koshel and the Bride seemed to him pitiless, alien, and strange, as the life of well people always appears pitiless, alien, strange to a sick person. He tried to call out, to ask for the samovar—but remained dumb and almost fell to weeping. The angry whisper of Koshel became audible—discussing him, the sick man, of course—and the Bride's abrupt reply: "Well, all's up with him! He'll die—and be buried. . . ."

Then his melancholy began to abate. The sun, declining to the west, shone through the windows, athwart the bare branches of the acacias. The tobacco

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smoke hung in a blue cloud. Beside the bed sat the aged medical man, redolent of drugs and frosty freshness, pulling icicles from his mustache. On the table the samovar was bubbling, and Tikhon Hitch, tall, grey, severe, was brewing aromatic tea as he stood by it. The medical man drank eight or ten glasses, talked about his cows, the price of flour and butter; Tikhon Hitch described how wonderful, how expensive, Nas-tasya Petrovna's funeral had been, and how glad he was that at last he had found a purchaser for Dur-novka. Kuzma understood that Tikhon Hitch had just come from the town, that Nastasya Petrovna had died there suddenly, on her way to a railway station; he understood that the funeral had cost Tikhon Hitch frightfully dear, and that he had already taken earnest-money for Durnovka—and he was completely indifferent.

XI

ONE day he awakened very late and, feeling neither weakness nor trembling in his legs, sat up to drink his tea. The day was overcast, warm, and much snow had fallen. Syery passed the window, making on the new snow imprints of his bark-shoes, sprinkled with tiny crosses. The sheep dogs were running beside him, sniffing at his tattered coattails. And he was leading by the bridle a tall horse of a dirty light bay colour, hideously old and skinny, its

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shoulders abraded by the collar; it had an in-curving back and a thin, unclean tail. The horse was limping on three legs and dragging the fourth, which was broken below the knee. Then Kuzma recalled that two days previously Tikhon Hitch had been there, and had said that he had ordered Syery to give the dogs a treat—to find and kill an old horse; that Syery had in former days been engaged in that occupation at times— the purchase of dead or worthless cattle for their hides. A terrible thing had recently happened to Syery, Tikhon Hitch had said; in making ready to kill a mare, Syery had forgotten to hobble her—he had merely bound her and turned her muzzle to one side—and the mare, as soon as, crossing himself, he had plunged the thin small knife into her jugular vein, had uttered a scream and, screaming, had hurled herself upon her assassin, her yellow teeth laid bare in pain and rage, streams of black blood spurting out upon the snow, and had pursued him for a long time, exactly as if she had been a man—and would have caught him but that, "luckily, the snow was deep."

Kuzma had been so deeply impressed by this incident that now, as he glanced through the window, he felt the heaviness returning in his legs. He began to gulp down the boiling hot tea, and gradually recovered himself. He lighted his cigarette and sat for a while smoking. At last he rose, went into the ante-room, and looked out at the bare, sparse orchard through the window, which had thawed. In the orchard, on the snow-white pall of the meadow, a high-ribbed, bloody carcass with a long neck and a crushed head stood out

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redly. The dogs, their backs all hunched up and their paws braced on the meat, were greedily tearing out and dragging away the entrails. Two aged blackish-grey crows were hopping sidewise toward the head, and had started to fly thither, when the dogs, snarling, darted upon them; and once more they alighted on the virginally pure snow. "Ivanushka, Syery, the crows—" Kuzma said to himself. "Perhaps those crows can recall the times of Ivan the Terrible. O Lord, save and show mercy—take me away from here!" Kuzma's indisposition did not leave him for another fortnight. The thought of spring affected him both mournfully and joyfully; he longed to get away from Durnovka as speedily as possible. He knew that the end of winter was not yet in sight; but the thaw had already set in. The first week of February was dark and foggy. The fog covered the plain and devoured the snow. The village turned black; water stood between the dirty snowdrifts; the village policeman drove through the village one day, his horses hitched tandem, all spattered with horse droppings. The cocks took to crowing; through the ventilators penetrated a disturbing spring-like dampness. He wanted to go on living; to go on living and wait for the spring, his removal to the town; to live on, submitting to fate, and to do any sort of work whatsoever, if only to earn a single bit of bread. And to work, of course, for his brother—regardless of what he was like. Why, his brother had proposed to him while he was ill that they should move over to Vorgol. "Why should I turn you out of doors?" he had said after pondering

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the matter.—"I'm giving up the shop and the homestead on the first of March: let's go to the town, brother, as far as possible from these cutthroats."

And it was true: cutthroats they were. Odnodvorka had come in and imparted the particulars of a recent encounter with Syery. Deniska had returned from Tula, and had been knocking about without work, gabbling about the village that he wanted to marry; that he had no money, but would soon earn some of first-class quality. At first the village had pronounced these tales absurd nonsense; then, following Deniska's hints, it had come to understand the drift of the matter and had believed him. Syery, too, had believed him, and began to curry favour with his son. But after slaying the horse and receiving a ruble from Tikhon Hitch and securing half a ruble for the skin, he had begun to chatter incautiously and had gone on a spree. He drank for two days, and lost his pipe, and lay down on the oven to recover. His head ached, and he had nothing in which to put tobacco for a smoke. So, to make cigarettes, he began to peel the ceiling, which Deniska had pasted over with newspapers and divers pictures. He did his peeling on the sly, of course; but nevertheless, one day, Deniska caught him at it. He caught him and began to roar at him. Syery, being intoxicated, began to roar in return. Thereupon, Deniska pulled him off the oven and thrashed him within an inch of his life, until the neighbors rushed in. Peace was concluded on the evening of the following day, it is true, over cracknels and vodka; but, as Kuzma said to himself, was not Tikhon Hitch a cut-

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throat also when he insisted, with the obstinacy of a crazy man, on the marriage of the Bride to one of these cutthroats?

When Kuzma first heard about that marriage, he firmly made up his mind that he would not permit it. What a horror, what folly! But later on, when he recovered consciousness during his illness, he actually rejoiced over this foolish idea. He had been surprised and impressed by the indifference which the Bride had displayed toward him, a sick man. "A beast, a savage!" he had said to himself; and, calling to mind the wedding, he had added spitefully: "And that's capital! That's exactly what she deserves!" Now, after his illness, both his decision and his wrath disappeared. He managed to get into conversation with the Bride about Tikhon Hitch's intentions; and she replied calmly:

"Well, yes, I did have some talk about that affair with Tikhon Hitch. God grant him good health for such a fine idea!"

"A fine idea?" said Kuzma in amazement.

The Bride looked at him and shook her head. "Well, and why isn't it fine? Great heavens, but you are queer, Kuzma Hitch! He offers money, and takes the expense of the wedding on himself. Then again, he has not picked out some widower or other, but a young, unmarried man, without vices—neither rotten nor a drunkard—"

"But he's a sluggard, a bully, a downright fool," added Kuzma.

The bride dropped her eyes and made no reply.

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Heaving a sigh, she turned and went toward the door.

"As you like," she said, her voice trembling. " Tis your affair. Break it off—God help you—"

Kuzma opened his eyes very wide and shouted: "Stop! have you lost your senses? Do you think I wish you ill?"

The Bride turned round and halted. "And isn't it wishing me ill?" she said hotly and roughly, her cheeks flushing and her eyes blazing. "What is to become of me, according to your idea? Am I to go on for ever as an outcast, at the thresholds of other people's houses? Eating the crusts of strangers? Wandering about, a homeless beggar? Or am I to hunt up some old widower? Haven't I swallowed tears enough already?"

And her voice broke. She fell to weeping and left the room. In the evening Kuzma tried to convince her that he had no intention of breaking up the affair, and at last she believed him and smiled a friendly, reserved smile.

"Well, thank you," she said in the pleasant tone which she used to Ivanushka.

But at this point the tears began to quiver on her eyelashes, and once more Kuzma gave up in despair. "What's the matter now?" said he.

And the Bride answered softly: "Well, perhaps Deniska is not much of a joy—"

Koshel brought from the post-office a newspaper nearly six weeks old. The days were dark and foggy, and Kuzma read from morning till night, seated at the window.

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And when he had finished and had made himself dizzy with the number of fresh executions, he was benumbed. Heretofore he had been suffocated with rage when he read the newspapers—futile rage, because human receptivity was unequal to taking in what one read there. Now his fingers grew cold—nothing more. Yes, yes, there was nothing to get excited about. Everything went as if according to programme. Everything fitted together perfectly. He raised his head: the sleet was driving in white slanting lines, falling upon the black, miserable little village, on the muddy roads with their hillocks and hollows, on the horse-dung, the ice, and the pools of water. A twilight mist concealed the boundless plain—all that vast empty space with its snows, forests, settlements, towns—the kingdom of cold and of death.

"Avdotya!" shouted Kuzma, as he rose to his feet. "Tell Koshel to harness the horse to the sledge. I'm going to my brother's. . . ."

XII

TIKHON ILITCH was at home. In a Russian shirt of cotton print, huge and powerful, swarthy of countenance, with white beard and grey frowning brows, he was sitting with the samovar and brewing himself some tea.

"Ah! how are you, brother?" he exclaimed in welcome, but with his brows still contracted. "So you

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have crawled out through God's snow? Look out: isn't it rather early?"

"I was so deadly bored, brother," replied Kuzma, as they kissed each other.

"Well, if you were bored, come and warm yourself and we'll have a chat. . . ."

After questioning each other as to whether there were any news, they began in silence to drink tea, after which they started to smoke.

"You are growing very thin, dear brother!" remarked Tikhon Hitch as he inhaled his smoke and scrutinized Kuzma with a sidelong glance.

"One does get thin," replied Kuzma quietly. "Don't you read the newspapers?'"

Tikhon Hitch smiled. "That nonsense? No, God preserve me."