The village. [Translation from the original Russian text by Isabel Hapgood] (11 page)

"They require food, just as much as chickens and pigs do."

"And whom shall I marry?" inquired Deniska, with a melancholy smile.

"Whom? Why, any one you like."

"You mean the Bride?"

Tikhon Hitch flushed deeply. "Fool! What's wrong with the Bride? She's a peaceable, hard-working woman—"

Deniska remained silent, and picked with his fingernail at one of the tin nailheads on the valise. Then he pretended to be stupid. "There's a lot of them—of young women," he drawled. "I don't know which one you're jabbering about. Do you happen to mean the one with whom you lived?"

But Tikhon Hitch had already recovered his composure. "Whether I have lived with her or not is none of your business, you pig," he retorted, and that so swiftly and peremptorily that Deniska submissively muttered:

"Well, 'tis all the same to me. I only said— 'Twas a chance remark—slipped off my tongue."

"Well, then, mind what you're about, and don't indulge in idle chatter. I'll make decent people of you. Do you understand? I'll give you a dowry. Understand that?"

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Deniska reflected. "I think I'll go to Tula—" he began.

"The cock has found a pearl! A priceless idea! What are you going to do in Tula?"

"We're too starved at home."

Tikhon Hitch unfastened his coat, thrust his hand into the pocket of his sleeveless under-kaftan—he had almost made up his mind to give Deniska a twenty-kopek coin. But he came to his senses—'twas stupid to squander his money, and, what was more, that dolt would become conceited, would say he had been bribed. So he pretended to be hunting for something. "Ah, I've forgotten my cigarettes! Come, give me some tobacco."

Deniska gave him his tobacco-pouch. The lantern over the station entrance had already been lighted, and by its dim light Tikhon Hitch read aloud the inscription embroidered in coarse white thread on the bag: "To whoam I luv I giv I luv hartilie I giv a poch foureaver." "That's clever!" he said, when he had finished reading.

Deniska modestly cast down his eyes.

"So you have a lady-love already?"

"There's a lot of them, the hussies, roaming about!" replied Deniska, quite unembarrassed. "But as for marrying—I don't refuse. I'll be back by the Meat-days, and then, Lord bless our marriage!"

From behind the palisade thundered a peasant cart, spattered all over with mud. It rolled up to the platform with a peasant perched on the side-rail and the deacon, Govoroff, from Ulianovka, seated on the straw

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inside. "Has it gone?" shouted the deacon in agitated tones, thrusting out of the straw one foot in a new overshoe. Every individual hair of his frowsy, reddish-sandy beard curled turbulently; his cap had retreated to the nape of his neck: his face was fiery-red from the wind and his excitement.

"The train, you mean?" inquired Tikhon Hitch. "No, sir, it hasn't even arrived yet. Good morning, Father Deacon."

"Aha! Well then, thank God!" said the deacon joyfully and hastily; but nevertheless he leaped from the cart and rushed headlong to the door.

Tikhon Hitch shook his head. "Oh, that long-maned fellow came at the wrong time! Nothing will come of my affair!" 1 But as he grasped the handle of the door he said, firmly and confidently: "Well, so be it. It's settled for the meat-season."

XXI

THE railway station was permeated with the odours of wet sheepskin coats, the samovar, cheap tobacco, and kerosene. The smoke was so dense that it gripped one's throat; the lamps hardly

1 All priests and monks in the Orthodox Catholic Church wear the hair and beard long. Tikhon Hitch refers to the superstition that it portends bad luck to meet an ecclesiastic when one is arranging something or going somewhere.—

TRANS.

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shone through the clouds of it, and of the semi-darkness, dampness, and cold. The doors squeaked and banged; peasants, whips in hand, jostled and yelled —cabmen from Ulianovka, who sometimes waited a whole week before they captured a passenger. In and out among them, with brows elevated, perambulated a Jew grain-dealer, wearing a round-topped hat and a hooded overcoat and carrying an umbrella over his shoulder. Near the ticket-seller's window peasants were dragging to the scales the trunks of some landowners and basket-hampers enveloped in oil-cloth. The telegraph clerk, who was discharging the duties of assistant station agent, was shouting at the peasants. He was a short-legged young fellow with a big head and a curly yellow crest of hair, brought forth from beneath his cap on the left temple, kazak fashion. A pointer dog as spotted as a frog, with melancholy eyes like those of a human being, was sitting on the dirty floor and shivering violently.

Elbowing his way through the crowd of peasants, Tikhon Hitch approached the door of the first-class waiting-room, beside which, on the wall, hung a wooden frame containing letters, telegrams, and newspapers, which sometimes lay on the floor. It turned out that there were no letters for him. There was nothing but three numbers of the "OrlofT Messenger." Tikhon Hitch was on the point of stepping over to the counter to have a chat with the restaurant manager. But on a stool by the counter sat a drunken man with blue, glassy eyes and shiny purplish face, in a round grey-peaked cap topped with a button—the cellarman

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from the whiskey distillery of Prince Lobanoff. So Tikhon Hitch hastily turned back. He knew that cellarman only too well: if that man's eye lighted on him he wouldn't be able to tear himself free for twenty-four hours.

Deniska was still standing on the platform. "I want to ask you something, Tikhon Hitch," he said with even more timidity than was his wont.

"What is it?" inquired Tikhon Hitch angrily. "Money? I won't give you any."

"No, not money at all. I want you to read my letter."

"A letter? To whom?"

"To you. I wanted to give it to you a long time ago, but I didn't dare."

"Well, what's it about?"

"Why—I have described my way of life."

Tikhon Hitch took the scrap of paper from Deniska's hand, thrust it into his pocket, and strode swiftly homeward through the springy mud, which was beginning to congeal.

He was now in a resolute frame of mind. He craved work, and reflected with pleasure that there was something to be done—the cattle must be fed. After all, 'twas a pity he had lost his temper and discharged Chaff; now he would have to lose his sleep at night. Very little reliance could be placed on Oska. Probably he was already asleep. If not, he was sitting with the cook and reviling his master. And, passing by the lighted windows of his cottage, Tikhon Hitch crept into the ante-room, stumbled in the darkness over the

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cold, fragrant straw, and glued his ear to the door. Laughter, and then the voice of Oska, were audible on the other side of the door.

"So now, here's another story. In a village dwelt a peasant, poor, the poorest of the poor; in all the village there was none poorer than he. And one day, my good people, this same peasant went out to till his land. And a spotted cur dogged him. The peasant ploughed along, and the cur nosed about all over the field and kept digging at something. He dug and dug, and how he ho-owled! What was the meaning of that? The peasant ran to him, looked into the hole, and there was—a kettle."

"A ket-tle?" asked the cook.

"Just listen to what comes next. The kettle was only a kettle, but in the kettle was—gold! An immense quantity. Well, and so the peasant became very rich."

"Akh, lies!" said Tikhon Hitch to himself, and began to listen eagerly to what was going to happen to the peasant next.

"The peasant got rich, and lost his head, just like any merchant—"

"Exactly like our Stiff-Leg," interposed the cook.

Tikhon Hitch grinned: he knew that, for a long time, he had been called "Stiff-leg." Every man has some nickname.

Oska went on: "Even richer than he. Yes. And then the dog takes and dies. What was he to do? He couldn't bear it—he was sorry for the dog, and he had to bury him decently—"

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An explosion of laughter rang out. The story-teller himself guffawed, and so did some one else—some one with an old man's cough.

"Can it be Chaff?" thought Tikhon Hitch, in perturbation. "Well, glory to God! I told that fool myself: 'You'll be coming back'!"

"The peasant went to the priest," pursued Oska— "he went to the priest: Thus and so, father, a dog has died—he must be buried.'"

Again the cook could not control herself and shrieked joyously: "Phew, you stick at nothing!"

"Give me a chance to finish!" shouted Oska in his turn, and once more dropped into the narrative tone, depicting now the priest, now the peasant: "Thus and so, batiushka—the dog must be buried.' The priest stamped his feet: 'How is it to be buried? Where is it to be buried? In the cemetery? I'll make you rot in prison, I'll have you put in fetters!'—'Batiushka, you see, this is no common dog: when he was dying he bequeathed you five hundred rubles!' The priest fairly leaped from his seat: 'Fool! Am I scolding you for burying the dog? I'm scolding you about the place where he is to be buried. He must be buried in the churchyard!' "

Tikhon Hitch coughed loudly and opened the door. At the table beside the smoking lamp, the broken chimney of which was patched on one side with a bit of blackened paper, sat the cook, her head bent and her face completely veiled by her wet hair. She was combing it with a wooden comb and inspecting the comb athwart her hair by the light of the lamp. Oska,

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with a cigarette in his teeth, was laughing vociferously, his head thrown back, as he dangled his feet to and fro in their bast-slippers. Near the stove, in the semi-darkness, gleamed a red spark of flame—a pipe. When Tikhon Hitch jerked the door open and made his appearance on the threshold, the laughter came to an abrupt end, and the person who was smoking the pipe rose timidly from his seat, removed the pipe from his mouth, and thrust it into his pocket. Yes, it was Chaff! But Tikhon Hitch shouted, in an alert and friendly way, as though nothing had happened that morning: "Time to feed the cattle, my lads!"

XXII

THEY rambled about the stable with a lantern, illuminating the coagulated manure, the straw scattered all about, the mangers, the posts; casting immense shadows, waking up the fowls on the roosts under the sloping roofs. The chickens flew down, tumbled down, and, with heads ducked forward, fell asleep as they ran, fleeing as chance directed. The large purplish eyes of the horses, which turned their heads toward the light, gleamed and looked strange and splendid. A mist rose from their breath, as if all of them were smoking. And when Tikhon Hitch lowered the lantern and glanced upward, he beheld with joy, above the square farmyard in the deep, pure

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sky, the brilliant vari-coloured stars. The north wind could be heard crackling drily over the roofs and whistling through the crevices with a frosty chill. Thank the Lord, winter was come!

Having completed his task and ordered the samovar, Tikhon Hitch went with his lantern into the cold shop, reeking with smells, and picked out the best pickled herring he could find. That was all right, not a bad idea: to cheer oneself up a bit before tea! And at tea he ate it, drank several small glasses of bitter-sweet, yellowish-red liqueur made of mountain-ash berries, poured himself out a brimming cup of tea, and drew towards him his large old counting-frame. But, after some reflection, he hunted out Deniska's letter and set himself to the task of deciphering its scrawl.

"Denya reseved 40 rubles in munny, and than kolected his thinges . . ." ("Forty!" said Tikhon Hitch to himself. "Akh, the poor beggar!") "Denya wint to Tula station and hee wos enstantly robbt they tuk Evrything to the last kopak hee had nowere to gow and sadness Sezed heem . . ."

This absurd scrawl was difficult and tiresome to decipher, but the evening was long, and he had nothing else to do. The samovar purred busily, the lamp shone with a quiet light—and there was sadness in the tranquillity and repose of the evening. The watchman's mallet was working away as he made his rounds noisily, beating out a dance-tune upon the frosty air.

"Aftr thot I hainkrd to goa hoam thoa fader wcs vairy brutl . . ."

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"Well, and there's a fool for you, Lord forgive me!" thought Tikhon Hitch. "The Grey Man brutal, forsooth!"

"I wint Into the tik foarest to peck out the talest fur-tre and taik a cord frum a shuger-loof and fixe myselff in iternl laife in my nu briches but witaut boots . . ."

("Without his boots, he means, I suppose?" said Tikhon Hitch, holding the paper at a distance from his tired eyes. "Yes, that's right; that's what he means.")

"Eftrwords come strung wind blu clauds and thunr-strum and a kwik bige litul rayne poared the son kam frum behain foarest the coard bend bend and asuden brooke and Denya fall on the grond the ents krall and bigin to bite and wurk on hem and thair crold alzo a snaek and a green krawfish . . ."

Tossing the letter into the slop-bowl, Tikhon Hitch sipped his tea, planted his elbows on the table, and stared at the lamp. What a queer nation! A soul of many hues! Now a man is just a plain dog, then again he is melancholy, pities himself, turns soft, weeps over himself—after the fashion of Deniska, or of himself, Tikhon Hitch. The window-panes were perspiring vigorously and clearly, as they do in winter; the watchman's mallet said something melodiously coherent. Ekh, if he only had children! If—well, if he only had a nice mistress instead of that bloated old woman, who made his flesh crawl merely by what she said; by her words about the Princess, and about some pious nun or other named Polikarpia, who was

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called in the town "Polukarpia." x But it was too late, too late.

Unfastening the embroidered collar of his shirt, Tik-hon Hitch, with a bitter smile, felt of his throat behind the ears. Those hollows were the first sign of old age; his head was assuming the shape of a horse's head! But otherwise things were not so bad. He bent his head, thrust his fingers into his beard. And his beard was grey, dry, dishevelled. Yes, enough— enough, Tikhon Hitch!