The Naked Year (15 page)

In the morning he woke up when everyone was still sleeping, walked about the estate. In the stable yard the boys were still playing–

“Why aren't you asleep?”

“We've already slept it off!”

He woke the cattle girls. The cowman Semyon went outside, stood, combed his hair, swore hard, displeased that he'd been wakened, said:

“Mind your own damn business! I know when to wake up!”

The dawn was blue, clear frosty. A light appeared in the drawing room; he saw the prince go out across the terrace, go away into the steppe.

At ten he sat down in the office, busied himself with utterly torturing work–and utterly useless, in his opinion–he was compiling an inventory of all the wheat and rye possessed by each muzhik–senseless because he knew by heart how much of what each muzhik had, as everyone in the village knew, torturing because it was necessary to write a great deal. They called from town on the telephone, ordered him to evict the Prince. For a whole hour he was typing the order to the Prince.

In the evening the Prince went away. They began to haul, to shift the things, they ripped the veneer off the writing table. They wanted to move the clock into the office, but someone noticed that it only had one hand–nobody knew that the old Kuvaldin clock was only meant to have one hand, showing every five minutes, surely because in the old days they didn't begrudge the minutes–someone noticed that the clock lifted out of a box, and Ivan Koloturov ordered:

“Take the clock out of the case! Tell the carpenter to attach shelves. It'll make a cupboard for the office… And your feet, don't stamp your feet.”

In the evening a peasant woman came. In the village there was an event: a girl was raped–nobody knows who by–whether it was their own people or whether it was the Moscow people who had come for flour. The peasant woman came down on the committee members. The peasant woman stood under the windows and cursed at the top of her voice–Ivan Koloturov chased her away, gave her one on the ear. The peasant woman left with a yelp.

It was already completely dark, in the house silence had frozen hard, outside the cattle girls were bawling songs. He went through to the study, sat a while on the settee, tested its quality and softness, came across a forgotten electric lamp, played a little with it, lit up the walls and caught sight of a watch on the floor in the drawing room, thought for a moment–where was he to put it?–he carried it away and threw it down the toilet. At the other end of the house, in a gang, the boys had burst in, someone began banging on the piano, Ivan Koloturov felt like chasing them away so that they wouldn't make a mess–he didn't dare. Suddenly he began to feel very sorry for himself and the peasant woman, and he wanted to go home, to the stove.

They rang the gong for supper. Surreptitiously he made his way to the spirits store, poured out a mug, drank it, managed to lock the cellar, but did not go to the house, collapsed in the park, lay for a long time, trying to get up, wanted to tell all about something and explain, but fell asleep. The night was coming black, hard, autumnal–it was coming over the empty fields, cold and dead.

And the landowners' Porechye, the Porechye of the anarchists, the Porechye of Ivan Koloturov–perished because
Porechye
was
dead
. Because the first, the second and the third (surely Ivan Koloturov had rights?!–he did, of course, for all this–is his)–and the first, the second and the third–did not have the very first: the will to
act, create
, for a creation
always
destroys.

And–

THIRD PART OF THE TRIPTYCH,
the darkest

A cold dusk shrouds the earth–that autumnal dusk when the sky is snowy and wintry and the clouds are bound to disintegrate into snow towards dawn. The earth is silent and black. Steppe. Black earth. The further the steppe, the higher the ricks, the lower the cottages, the rarer the settlements. Out of the steppe–over the plundered desert–out of the black chink between the sky and steppe–blows a winter wind. In the steppe there is the barely audible swishing of the sward after the mowing of the grass, the rye and the wheat. Soon a glassy moon rises. If the storm clouds trail after, there will be snow, and not hoar frost. –Grain.

The oxen stand for a long time by the crossing. The oxen's necks are bowed, the oxen stand humbly, humbly they look into the steppe, steppe inhabitants. A train crawls past, further off. There is no church in the settlement, a miserable mosque towers up. Steppe. The train crawls along slowly–the brown freight car, cluttered with people, as these people are with lice. The train is silent: people hanging on the roofs, on the footboards, on the buffers. And at the little station “Mar loop-station,” where trains never stop and they don't even change the points, the train buzzes with human buzzing: from roof to roof to the engine the people are crying out something frightening, about something, in this cold dusk. And “mack” stops the train. A young man on duty wearing a cap with a red hatband–out of boredom–meets the train on the platform. The people head from the train to the puddles for water. The train buzzes like a beehive, buzzes, moves off, squeaking, like a large coach, and on the sleepers remains a peasant woman with eyes frenzied in pain. A peasant woman is running after the train and frenziedly shouting:

“Mitya, dar-ling! Feed my kids!”

Then, waving her bundle, a peasant woman runs somewhere beyond the sleepers, howling and yelping like a dog. Ahead is the empty steppe distance–the peasant woman turns and runs to the station, to the man on duty, who's still standing on the platform out of boredom and in boredom. The peasant woman looks at the man on duty worryingly, her lips shaking, and her eyes filled with pain.

“What's up with you?” says the man on duty.

The peasant woman remains silent, shouts out in a fit and, screaming, again runs away somewhere to the side, shaking her bundle. The guard, an old Tartar, says gloomily:

“The woman's about to go into labor. The woman's having a child. –Hey, woman!–come ‘ere!… A Russian peasant woman is like a cat,” –and the old man leads the peasant woman to the station cottage, into his own small room, where on a bunk a rotten hay mattress and sheepskin coat were thrown down. The peasant woman, exactly like a cat, throws herself onto a plank bed and whispers maliciously:

“Go away, loudmouth–go away! Call a woman…”

But there is no woman on the station.

The man on duty walks along the platform from end to end, looks into the dark steppe and thinks maliciously:–Asia!

The steppe is empty and silent. In the sky moves the glassy small moon. The wind swishes stale and cold. The man on duty wanders along the platform, then goes to the office. Behind the wall a woman is groaning. The duty man rings to the neighboring station and speaks the way all Russian duty men speak:

“Akhmytovaaa! No. 58 is on its way. Is one comm-ming this way?”

But none was coming. The duty man sits on a hard government issue settee, flicks through “The Awakening,” flicked through a thousand times, and lies down so as not to sit. –The old man brings in a lamp. –The duty man is sleeping sweetly.

After his shift the duty man goes home to the village. “Mar loop-station,” at which trains never stop and they don't even change the points, immediately vanishes in the darkness. Around there is emptiness and steppe. The duty man goes past the burial mound: a steppe burial mound towers death-like and silently–who, when, what nomads piled it up here, and what does it contain?–the withered feather-grass swishes by the burial mound. The black earth in the lanes has been trampled flat, like asphalt, and it squelches underfoot.

The village is silent, only the dogs bark. The duty man crosses the Tatar district, descends into the ravine, where the Mordva settled, climbs up the hillside. In her cottage the soldier's wife puts the kasha onto the table, pork dripping, the milk. The duty man eats quickly, changes into more elegant clothes and goes to visit the school mistress.

At the school mistress's the duty man puts into its holder one burning torch after another, and says in a melancholy way:

“Asia. Not a country, but Asia. The Tatars, Mordva. Poverty. Not a country, but Asia.”

And the duty man thinks about his own poverty.

The school mistress stands by the stove, muffling herself up in a downy shawl, already looking her age. Then the school mistress heats the samovar and makes the rye coffee…

Late at night the duty man goes to bed in his cottage, beside the soldier's wife. The bed creaks, a guitar twangs. The cricket chirrs, in the corner behind the little stove a piglet snorts. The soldier's wife clears the table, goes outside. Behind the slender clayey wall she can be heard defecating and chasing away a dog which had hurried to eat up her excretia. The duty man listens and thinks about unusual things: about wealth, beautiful, elegant women, about fashionable dress, about wines, gaiety, luxury, which will come to him… The soldier's wife prays for a long time, whispers her prayers. The light is dimming, and the soldier's wife in bare feet over the earth floor, scratching herself, goes to the duty man's bed.

Night moves over the steppe. Stalely swishes the sward of the mown grasses. By the burial mound the feather-grass rings. In the steppe the microscopic station “Mar loop-station” cannot be seen.

And train No. 57 mixed crawls over the black steppe.

People, human legs, arms, heads, stomachs, backs, human manure–people, crawling with lice, as the freight cars are with people. The people, who had gathered here and stood out for their right to travel with the greatest Kulak fortitude, for there, in the hungry provinces, at every station dozens of hungry people dashed for the freight cars and across their heads, necks, backs, legs they crawled over people to the inside–they were thrashed, they thrashed, tearing, throwing down those already traveling, and the slaughter continued until the train moved off, conveying those who had got wedged in, and those who had recently climbed in prepared for a fresh fight at the next station. The people journey for weeks. All these people have long since lost the distinction between night and day, between filth and cleanliness, and had learned to sleep sitting, standing, hanging. In the freight cars along and across in several tiers bunks were laid out, and on the bunks, under the bunks, on the floor, on the shelves, in all the chinks, sitting, standing, lying, people were silent–to make a noise at the station. The air in the freight car is polluted with human stomachs and shag tobacco. At night in the freight car it is dark, the doors and hatches are closed. In the freight car it is cold, the wind blows through the chinks. Somebody is snoring, somebody is scratching himself, the freight car squeaks like an old carriage. It's impossible to move in the freight car, as the feet of one lie on the chest of another, and a third has fallen asleep above them, and his legs have gone and stood by the neck of the first. And still–they move… A man whose lungs must have been eaten away presses instinctively against the door, and near him, having opened the door, the people, men and women exercise their natural needs, hanging over the crawling sleepers or squatting–a man learned in complete detail how this is done–everyone differently.

A man burning with the last flush of consumption has strange and muddled sensations. Thoughts about stoicism and honor, his small room, his pamphlets and books, hunger–all this has flown to the Devil. After many sleepless nights, the thoughts, like a man's with a fever, were differentiated, and the man felt his “I” breaking into two, into three, his right hand living and thinking in its own way, independently, and arguing about something with the divided “I.” The days, nights, heated freight cars, station settlements, third classes, footboards, roofs–all merged, got entangled, and the man felt like falling down and sleeping immeasurably sweetly–let them walk over him, let them spit on him, let the lice pour forth all over him. Stoicism, pamphlets about socialism and consumption and books about God–the man is thinking about a new, unusual brotherhood–to fall, felled by sleep, to huddle against a man–who is he? syphilitic? has he got typhus?–warm him and warm oneself by his human body warmth… Hooters, whistles, bells… The brain seems coated with down, and, because down is always hot and scorching hot, his thoughts are scorching hot, unusual, persistent and passionate, on the border of feverish nonexistence… In his brain the transom on the doors is rocking, rocking, the doors are creaking, and women, women are hanging out, they are squatting over the crawling sleepers. Sex!…

Yesterday at a small station a peasant woman walked up to a wagon. By the doors stood a sentry.

“Darling, let me on for Christ's sake! There's no way we can get on, y'see, darling,” said the peasant woman.

“There's nowhere, aunty! And you can't. There are no places!”–answered the soldier.

“For Christ's sake.”

“And how will you pay?”

“Somehow or other.”

“You give me a cuddle.”

“Anything you fancy… let's make a deal…”

“Aha! Well, climb under the bunk. Our greatcoats are lying there. Hey, Semyon, take this woman on!”

The soldier crawled under the bunk, the people crowded around, and the man's heart twinged with an immeasurable sweet pain, brutal–he wanted to shout out, thrash, throw himself on the first woman, be immeasurably
strong and cruel, and here, in the presence of the people, rape, rape, rape! Thought, nobility, shame, stoicism–to the devil! A wild animal!

It rocks, the transom in his brain is rocking… Women, women, women… His “I” is painfully distinctly being divided in two, and his heart is boringly arguing about something with his chest… The freight car crawls along, it squeaks, it rocks.

The man falls asleep standing and falls, felled by sleep, at somebody's feet. Somebody rolls on him. The man is sleeping sweetly, deafly, like a stone. The freight car deafly sleeps… A station, whistles, jolts… The man wakes up for a minute. The man's head–the man's “I” is split into two, split into three, split into ten–his head is lying on a woman's naked belly, pungently smelling of carbolic acid, his thoughts throng, like mottled peasant women at the fair–thoughts are flying to the devil!–a wild animal! instinct!–and the man kisses, kisses, kisses the naked female belly passionately, painfully–who is she? where's she from?–The peasant woman slowly wakes up, scratches herself, says sleepily:

“Finish, loudmouth… Oh, you smarty!..” –and she begins to breathe unevenly.

Steppe. Emptiness. Boundlessness. Darkness. Cold.

At the station, where the train met with the dawn, people run to the empty wells and to the puddles for water, they start fires to warm themselves up and boil potatoes–and in the empty freight car a corpse has been discovered: yesterday an old man was suffering from typhus, now the old man is dead. Gray dawn murkiness. From the black chinks of the steppe horizons comes the wind, cold and evil. The clouds are low–there'll be snow. Sleepers, freight cars, people. The fires burn like red lights, there's a smell of smoke. By the fires where the potatoes are boiling–while the potatoes are boiling–the people take off their shirts, jackets, trousers, skirts, they shake the fleas into the fire and press out the nits. The people journey for weeks–into the steppe! for bread!–there's no bread, there's no salt. The people avidly eat the potatoes. The train has stopped and will remain for a day and a night, two days and nights… At dawn the people in their hundreds split up and wander through the surrounding villages, and in the villages (the further into the steppe, the lower the cottages, the higher the ricks) breaking up into small clusters, the people go begging. The peasant women stand under the windows, bow down and sing:

“Give aaalms for Chriiiist's saaake!”

The train will remain for a day and a night, two days and nights. The freight car officials go up to the dutyman, from the dutyman to the Cheka. The Whites had been here–the station is a freight car taken off its wheels, or rather a number of freight cars, placed in a row, with smashed-in gaps for doors. In the office–a dark freight car–the “stove” is smoking, there's a smell of sealing wax, wires and people buzz.

A man whispers to the duty man.

“I-I-I c-c-an't, Sir!” says the duty man in a self-satisfied bass voice. “A full complement. A hundred and fifty axles, seventy-five wagons. I-I-I c-can't, Sir!…”

The man strokes with his cuff the duty man's cuff and slips him a packet.

“C-comrades! –I-I-I can't! I accept only on those occasions when I can help, but on this occasion–seventy-five cars, a hundred and fifty axles. I-I can't sir…”

He strokes his cuff with his cuff–he must be offering to “grease his palm.”

But it turns out–the duty man could. Towards evening a new train arrives, new hundreds light campfires and press out the fleas–and this train got away first at night. The people run to see the dutyman, the duty man's not there–a new duty man (this was–the guards assured them:–he is not here, d'you hear… He was beaten up seven times in that week, d'you hear…)… The people run to the Cheka–but towards night a detail of the food collecting battalion came, and a search of the car is carried out.