The village. [Translation from the original Russian text by Isabel Hapgood] (5 page)

"Well, what of it? I'm not making a secret of it. They gabbled, so to speak, said orders had been issued —orders had been issued—that no one was to work any more at the former price."

It was extremely mortifying to reflect that, because of wretched little Durnovka, affairs were escaping from his grasp. And there were only thirty homesteads altogether in that same Durnovka. And it was situated in a devil of a ravine: a broad gorge, with peasant cottages on one side, and on the other the tiny manor. And that manor exchanged glances with the cottages

THE VILLAGE

and from day to day expected some "order." Ekh, he'd like to apply a few kazaks with their whips to the situation!

IX

BUT the "order" came, at last. One Sunday a rumour began to circulate in Durnovka that the village assembly had worked out a plan for an attack upon the manor. With maliciously merry eyes, a feeling of unusual strength and daring, and a readiness to "break the horns of the devil himself," Tikhon Hitch shouted orders to have the colt harnessed to the runabout, and within ten minutes he was driving him at high speed along the highway to Durnovka. The sun was setting, after a rainy day, in greyish-red clouds; the boles of the trees in the birch-grove were crimson; the country dirt-road, which stood out as a line of blackish-purple mud amid the fresh greenery, afforded heavy going. Rose-hued foam dripped from the haunches of the colt and from the breeching which jerked about on them. But he was not considering the colt. Slapping him stoutly with the reins, Tikhon Hitch turned aside from the railway, drove to the right along the road across the fields, and, on coming within sight of Durnovka, was inclined to doubt, for a moment, the correctness of the rumours about a rebellion. Peaceful stillness lay all about, the larks were warbling

THE VILLAGE

their evening song in peace, the air was simply and peacefully impregnated with an odour of damp earth and with the fragrance of wild flowers. But all of a sudden his glance fell upon the fallow-field alongside the manor, thickly sown with sweet-clover. On that fallow-field, a drove of horses belonging to the peasants was grazing!

So it had begun. And, tugging at the reins, Tikhon Hitch flew past the drove, past the barns overgrown with burdocks and nettles, past a low-growing cherry-orchard filled with sparrows, past the stables and the cottages of the domestics, and leaped with a bound into the farmyard.

Then something incongruous happened. There, in the twilight, in the middle of the field, sat Tikhon Hitch in his runabout, overwhelmed with wrath, mortification, and terror. His heart beat violently, his hands trembled, his face burned, his hearing was as acute as that of a wild animal. There he sat, listening to the shouts which were wafted from Durnovka, and recalled how the crowd, which had seemed to him immense, on catching sight of him from afar had swarmed across the gorge to the manor and filled the yard with uproar and abusive words, had massed themselves on the porch and pinioned him against the door. All the weapon he had had was the whip in his hand. And he brandished it, now retreating, now hurling himself in desperation against the crowd. But the harness-maker, a vicious emaciated fellow with a sunken belly and a sharp nose, wearing tall boots and a lavender print shirt, advanced brandishing his stick even more

THE VILLAGE

furiously. On behalf of the whole throng, he screeched that an order had been issued to "make an end of that Outfit"—to make an end on one and the same day and hour throughout the entire government. The hired labourers from outside were to be chased out of all the estates and replaced with local labourers—at a ruble a day!—while the owners were to be expelled neck and crop, in any direction, so that they would never be seen again. And Tikhon Hitch yelled still more frantically, in the endeavour to drown out the harness-maker: "A—a! So that's it! Have you been whetting yourself, you tramp, on the deacon's son? Have you lost your wits?"

But the harness-maker disputatiously caught his words on the fly: "Tramp yourself!" he yelled until he was hoarse, and his face was suffused with blood. "You're an old fool! Haven't I managed to get along all my life without the deacon's son? Don't I know how much land you own? How much is it, you skinflint? Two hundred desyatini? But I—damn it!— own, in all, about as much ground as is covered by your porch! And why? Who are you? Who are you, anyway, I ask you? What's your brew—any better sort than the rest of us?"

"Come to your senses, Mitka!" shouted Tikhon Hitch helplessly at last; and, conscious that his wits were getting muddled, he made a dash through the crowd to his runabout. "I'll pay you off for this!"

But no one was afraid of his threats, and unanimous laughter, yells, and whistling followed him. Then he had made the round of the manor-estate, his heart

THE VILLAGE

sinking within him, and listened. He drove out upon the road to the cross-roads and halted with his face to the darkening west, toward the railway station, holding himself in readiness to whip up his horse at any moment. It was very quiet, warm, damp, and dark. The land, which rose toward the horizon, where a faint reddish gleam still smouldered, was as black as the nethermost abyss.

"Sta-and still, you carrion!" Tikhon Hitch whispered through set teeth to his restive horse. "Sta-and still!"

And, from afar, first shouts, then songs, were wafted to him. And among all the voices the voice of Vanka Krasny, who had already been twice in the mines of the Donetz Basin, was distinguishable above the rest. And then, suddenly, a dark-fiery. column rose above the manor-house: the peasants had shaken off all the immature fruit in the orchard and set fire to the watchman's hut. A pistol which the gardener, a petty burgher, had left behind him in the hut began to discharge itself, out of the fire.

It became known, later on, that in truth a remarkable thing had taken place. On one and the same day, the peasants had risen through almost the entire county. The inns in the town were crowded for a long time thereafter with land-owners who had sought protection of the authorities. Afterwards, Tikhon Hitch recalled with shame that he also had sought it— with shame, because the whole uprising had been limited to the Durnovka people's shouting for a while, doing a lot of damage, and then quieting down. The

THE VILLAGE

harness-maker began, before long, to present himself in the shop at Vorgol as though nothing whatever had happened, and doffed his cap on the threshold as if he did not perceive that Tikhon Hitch's face darkened at his appearance. Nevertheless, rumours were still in circulation to the effect that the Durnovka folk intended to murder Tikhon Hitch. And he, afraid to be caught out after dark on the road from Durnovka, fumbled in his pocket for his bulldog revolver, which weighed down the pocket of his full trousers in an annoying manner, and registered a vow that he would burn Durnovka to the ground some fine night, or poison the water in the Durnovka wells. Then even these rumours died away. But Tikhon Hitch began to think seriously of ridding himself of Durnovka. "Real money is the money in your pocket, not the money you're going to inherit from your grandmother!" Moreover, the peasants had become impudent in their manner to him, and they seemed peculiarly well-informed. The Durnovka folks knew "all the ins and outs of things," and for that reason alone, if for no other, it was stupid to entrust the oversight and management of affairs at the manor to any of the Durnovka labourers. More than that, Rodka was the village Elder.

That year—the most alarming of all recent years— Tikhon Hitch reached the age of fifty. But he had not abandoned his dream of becoming a father. And, lo and behold, precisely that was what brought him into collision with Rodka.

THE VILLAGE

X

RODKA, a tall, thin, sullen young fellow from Ulianovka, had gone two years previously to live with Fedot, the brother of Yakoff; he had married, and had buried Fedot, who had died from over-drinking at the wedding; and he had then gone away to do his military service. But the bride, a young woman with fine figure, an extremely white, soft skin faintly tinged with crimson, and eyelashes for ever downcast, began to work for daily wages at the farm. And those eyelashes perturbed Tikhon Hitch terribly. The peasant women of Durnovka wear "horns" on their heads: immediately after the wedding they coil their braided hair on the crown of the head and cover it with a kerchief, which produces a queer effect, similar to the horns of a cow. They wear dark-blue skirts of the antique pattern, trimmed with galloon, a white apron not unlike a sarafan x in shape, and bast-slippers. But the Bride—that name stuck to her—was beautiful in that garb. And one evening in the dark barn, where the Bride was alone and finishing the clearing up of the rye-ears, Tikhon Hitch, after casting a precautionary glance around him, entered, went up to her, and said hastily: "You shall

1 A straight, loose gown, falling from the armpits, worn by unmarried girls,— trans.

THE VILLAGE

have pretty shoes and silk kerchiefs. I shall not begrudge a twenty-five-ruble banknote!"

But the Bride remained silent as death.

"Do you hear what I say?" cried Tikhon Hitch, in a whisper.

But the Bride seemed turned to stone, and with bowed head went on wielding her rake.

So he accomplished nothing at all. All of a sudden, Rodka appeared—ahead of his time, and minus an eye. That was soon after the rebellion of the Dur-novka peasants, and Tikhon Hitch immediately hired him and his wife for the Durnovka farm, on the ground that "nowadays it won't do to be without a soldier on the place." About St. Ilya's Day, while Rodka had gone off to the town, the Bride was scrubbing the floors in the house. Picking his way among the puddles, Tikhon Hitch entered the room, cast a glance at the Bride, who was bending over the floor—at her white calves bespattered with dirty water—at the whole of her plump body as it flattened out before him. And, suddenly turning the key in the door, he strode up to the Bride. She straightened up hastily, raised her flushed, agitated face and, clutching in her hand the dripping floor-rag, screamed at him in a strange tone: "I'll give you a soaking, young fellow!"

An odour of hot soapsuds, heated body, perspiration, pervaded the air. Seizing the Bride by the hand, he squeezed it in a brutal grip, shaking it and making her drop the rag. Tikhon Hitch grasped the Bride by the waist with his right arm—pressed her to him with such force that her bones cracked—and bore

THE VILLAGE

her off into another room where there was a bed. And the Bride, with head thrown back and eyes staring wide open, no longer struggled, no longer resisted.

After that incident it was painful to the point of torment to see his wife, to see Rodka; to know that Rodka slept with the Bride, that he beat her ferociously every day and every night. But before long the situation became alarming as well. Inscrutable are the ways by which a jealous man arrives at the truth. And Rodka found out. Lean, one-eyed, long-armed, and strong as an ape, with a small closely-cropped black head which he always carried bent forward as he shot sidelong glances from his deep-set eyes, he became downright terrifying. During his service as a soldier he had acquired a stock of Little Russian words and an accent. And if the Bride ventured to make any reply to his curt, harsh speeches, he calmly picked up his leather-strap knout, approached her with a vicious grin, and calmly inquired, accenting the "re": "What's that you're remarking?" Thereupon he gave her such a flogging that everything turned black before her eyes.

On one occasion Tikhon Hitch himself happened upon a thrashing of this sort and, unable to restrain his indignation, shouted: "What are you doing, you damned rascal?" But Rodka quietly seated himself on the bench and merely looked at him. "What's that you're remarking?" he inquired. And Tikhon Hitch made haste to retreat, slamming the door behind him.

Wild thoughts began to dart through his mind. Should he poison his wife?—with stove-gas, for ex-

THE VILLAGE

ample?—or should he arrange matters so that Rodka would be crushed by a falling roof or earth? But one month passed, then another—and hope, that hope which had inspired in him these intoxicating thoughts, was cruelly deceived. The Bride was not pregnant. Every one in Durnovka was convinced that it was Rodka's fault. Tikhon Hitch himself was convinced of it, and cherished strong hopes. But one day in September, when Rodka was absent at the railway station, Tikhon Hitch presented himself and fairly groaned aloud at the sight of the face of the Bride, all its feminine beauty distorted with terror.

"Are you done for again?" he cried, as he ran up the steps of the porch.

The Bride's lips turned white, her nose became waxen in hue, and her eyes opened very wide; yet again, it appeared, she was not with child. She expected to receive a deadly blow on the head, and involuntarily recoiled from it. But Tikhon Hitch controlled himself, merely uttering a groan of pain and rage.

A moment later he took his departure—and from that day forth Rodka had no reason for jealousy. Conscious of that fact, Rodka began to feel timid in the presence of Tikhon Hitch. And the latter now harboured, secretly, only one desire: to drive Rodka out of his sight, and that as speedily as possible. But whom could he find to take his place?

THE VILLAGE

XI

ACCIDENT came to the rescue of Tikhon Hitch. Quite unexpectedly he became reconciled to his brother, and persuaded him to undertake the management of Durnovka.

He had learned from an acquaintance in the town that Kuzma had ceased to drink and for a long time had been serving as clerk with a landed proprietor named Kasatkin. And, what was most amazing of all, he had become "an author." Yes, it was said that he had printed a whole little volume of his verses, and on the cover was the inscription: "For sale by the Author."

"Oh, come no-ow!" drawled Tikhon Hitch when he heard this. "He's the same old Kuzma, and that's all right! But let me ask one thing: Did he really print it so—The Works of Kuzma KrasofT'?"

"Give you my word he did," replied the acquaintance, being fully persuaded, nevertheless—as were many others in the town—that Kuzma "skinned" his verses from books and newspapers.