Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

ALYOSHKA was the youngest boy in his family. People started calling him ‘Gorshok’ because his mother once sent him to fetch some water for the deacon’s wife, and he tripped up and smashed the pot [gorshók] he was carrying it in. His mother beat him, and the children took to mocking him by calling him ‘Pot’. So ‘Alyoshka Gorshok’ – Alyoshka the Pot – became his nickname.

Alyoshka was a thin boy with lop-ears (his ears stuck out just like wings) and he had a big nose. The other children would taunt him by saying ‘Alyoshka’s got a nose like a dog on a hillock.’ There was a school in the village, but Alyoshka never managed to learn reading and writing, in fact he had no time to study. His elder brother was living in a merchant’s household in the town, and from his earliest childhood Alyoshka began helping his father. At the age of six he was already minding the sheep and cows on the common pasture with his sister who was not much older, and when he had got a little bigger he started minding the horses, by day and by night. From his twelfth year he was ploughing, and driving the cart. He was not particularly strong, but he had the knack of doing things. And he was always cheerful. The other children made fun of him, but he would just keep quiet, or laugh. If his father cursed at him, he kept quiet and listened. And when the cursing was over he would smile, and get on with the job in hand.

Alyosha was nineteen years old when his brother was taken away to be a soldier. And his father sent Alyosha to take his brother’s place as a yardman at the merchant’s house. Alyosha was given his brother’s old boots, his father’s cap and a coat, and went off on a cart to the town. Alyosha himself was not too delighted with his outfit, but the merchant was quite displeased at the look of him.

‘I reckoned I was going to get something like a man in place of Semyon,’ said the merchant, giving Alyosha the once over, ‘but this is a proper little milksop you’ve brought me. Whatever use is he going to be?’

‘He can do anything you want – he can harness up, and fetch and carry anywhere, and he’s a glutton for work. He may look like a yard of wattle fencing, but in fact he’s a wiry young chap.’

‘Well, I can see what he looks like, but I’ll give him a try.’

‘And the best thing about him is, he doesn’t answer back. He’s really keen to work.’

‘There’s no getting round you. All right, you can leave him with me.’

So Alyosha came to live at the merchant’s house.

The merchant’s family was a small one: the master’s wife, his old mother, an elder son with only a basic education, married, who helped his father in the business, and another son who was a scholar – after leaving the grammar school he had gone to the university, but he had been expelled from there and was now living at home; and there was a daughter, a young schoolgirl.

To begin with Alyosha was not happy there – for he was a real country bumpkin, poorly dressed and without manners, and he called everyone ‘thou’; but they soon got used to him. He worked even harder than his brother had done. He really was meek and didn’t answer back: they sent him on all kinds of errands and he did everything willingly and quickly, and switched over from one task to the next with no break whatever. And as it had been at home, so too in the merchant’s house, all manner of work fell on Alyosha’s shoulders. The master’s wife, the master’s mother, the master’s daughter and the master’s son, the steward, the cook, they all sent him running hither and thither and told him to do this, that and the other. You would never hear anything but ‘Run and fetch this, lad’, or ‘Alyosha, you sort it out’, or ‘You did remember to do that, didn’t you Alyosha?’ or ‘Look here, Alyosha, don’t forget this’. And Alyosha ran, and sorted out, and looked, and didn’t forget, and managed to do it all, and all the time he never stopped smiling.

He soon wore his brother’s boots to pieces and the master told him off for going about with his boots full of holes and his bare toes sticking out, and gave orders for some new boots to be bought for him at the bazaar. The boots were brand new and Alyosha was delighted with them, but his legs were still the same old pair, and towards evening they ached from all this running about, and he would get cross with them. Alyosha was afraid that his father, when he came to get his money, might take offence if the merchant was to deduct part of his wages in payment for the boots.

In winter Alyosha would get up before it was light, chop the firewood, sweep the yard, give the horse and the cow their fodder and water them. Then he would heat up the stoves, clean the master’s boots and brush his clothes, and take out the samovars and clean them; then either the steward would call him to help get out the wares, or the cook would order him to knead the dough and scour the saucepans. Then he would be sent into town, sometimes with a note for somebody, sometimes to take something to the master’s daughter at the grammar school, sometimes to fetch lamp-oil for the old lady.

‘Wherever did you get to, you wretch?’ now one of them, now another would say to him. ‘Why go yourself? Alyosha will run and get it. Alyoshka! Here, Alyoshka!’ And Alyosha would come running.

He ate his breakfast as he went along, and rarely managed to have his dinner with the others. The cook swore at him for not bringing everything that was needed, but then felt sorry for him all the same and left him something hot for his dinner or his supper. There was a particularly large amount of work for him on high days and holidays and on the days leading up to them. And Alyosha took special pleasure in the feastdays, because on feastdays they would give him tips, not much, of course – not above sixty copecks all told – but still, it was his own money. He was able to spend it as he wished. His actual wages he never set eyes on. His father would arrive and receive the money from the merchant, merely reprimanding Alyoshka for getting his boots looking worn so quickly.

When he had collected two roubles’ worth of this ‘tea-money’, he bought, on the cook’s advice, a fine knitted jacket, and when he put it on he was unable to stop grinning from sheer pleasure.

Alyosha spoke little, and when he did speak it was always short and fragmentary. And when he was ordered to do something, or asked whether he could do such and such a thing, he always replied without the slightest hesitation ‘I can do that’, and at once threw himself into the task, and did it.

Of prayers, he knew none at all. Whatever his mother had taught him he had forgotten, but he still prayed morning and evening – he prayed with his hands, by crossing himself.

Alyosha’s life went on in this way for a year and a half, and then in the second half of the second year, something happened to him which was the most remarkable event in his life. This event had to do with his astonishing discovery that apart from the relationships between human beings which arise from their mutual needs, there are other, quite special relationships: not the ones which cause a person to brush the boots, to bring home some shopping, or to harness the horse, but the sort of relationship in which a man, although he is not needed at all by the other person, feels the need to devote himself to that other person, to be nice to them; and he discovered that he, Alyosha, was just such a man. He got to know about all this through the cook, Ustinya. Little Ustinya had been an orphan, and a hardworking child just like Alyosha. She began to feel sorry for Alyosha and Alyosha felt for the first time that he, he himself and not his services, was actually needed by another human being. When his mother had shown him that she was sorry for him, he had not really noticed it; it seemed to him that this was how things must be, that it was all one and the same, just as if he had been feeling sorry for himself. But now all of a sudden he realized that Ustinya was quite separate from him, but she did feel sorry for him and would leave him some buttery porridge at the bottom of the pot, and while he ate it she would rest her chin on her arm, the sleeve rolled up to her elbow, and watch him. And he would glance at her, and she would laugh, and then he would laugh too.

All this was so new and strange to him that at first it quite frightened Alyosha. He felt it was preventing him from carrying out his duties as he used to do. But all the same he felt glad, and when he looked at his trousers which Ustinya had darned, he shook his head and smiled. Often when he was working or as he walked along, he would think of Ustinya and say ‘Oh yes, Ustinya!’ Ustinya helped him where she could, and he helped her. She told him all about her past life, how she had lost her parents, how her aunt took her in, then sent her to the town, how the merchant’s son had tried to talk her into doing something stupid, and how she had put him in his place. She loved talking, and he loved listening to her. He had heard that in towns it often happened that peasant workmen ended up marrying cooks. And on one occasion she asked him whether his family would soon be marrying him off. He said he didn’t know, and that he wasn’t keen to take a country girl for a wife.

‘Well then, who have you got your eye set on?’ she said.

‘Ah, I’d like to marry you, of course. Would you be willing to marry me?’

‘Just look at him, he may be only Alyosha the Pot, just a pot, but see how he’s contrived to speak out and say what he wanted,’ she said, giving him a whack on the back with the towel she was holding. ‘And why shouldn’t I marry you indeed?’

At Shrovetide the old man came to town to collect his money. The merchant’s wife had heard how Alexei had hit on the idea that he was going to marry Ustinya, and she did not like it. ‘She’ll go and get pregnant, and what use will she be with a child?’ she said to her husband.

The master paid over the money to Alexei’s father.

‘Well then, and how is the boy behaving himself?’ asked the peasant. ‘I told you he was a meek one.’

‘Meek or not meek, he’s thought up a thoroughly stupid scheme. He’s got it into his head that he’s going to marry the cook. But I’m not going to start employing married people. That sort of thing doesn’t suit us.’

‘He’s a fool, nothing but a fool. Look what he’s thought up here,’ said the father. ‘You wouldn’t credit it. I’ll tell him straight out he’s got to give up this notion.’

Going into the kitchen, the father sat down at the table to wait for his son. Alyosha was out running errands, and he was panting when he came in.

‘I thought you were a sensible lad. But now what’s this you’ve gone and thought up?’ said the father.

‘I haven’t thought up anything.’

‘What do you mean, you haven’t thought up anything? You’ve decided you want to get married. I’ll marry you off when the time’s right, and I’ll marry you off to the right person, and not to some town slut.’

The father went on talking for some time. Alyosha stood there and sighed. When his father had finished talking, Alyosha smiled.

‘So I’m to give the whole thing up.’

‘That’s right.’

When his father had gone and he was left alone with Ustinya, he said to her (she had been listening behind the door while the father was talking to his son):

‘Our plan wasn’t right, it didn’t work out. Did you hear him? He got real angry; he won’t allow it.’

She said nothing, but burst into tears and buried her face in her apron.

Alyosha made a clicking noise with his tongue.

‘It’s no use going against it. It’s clear we must just give the whole thing up.’

That evening, when the merchant’s wife ordered him to close the shutters, she said to him:

‘Well then, did you listen to your father, and have you given up your silly notions?’

‘Stands to reason I’ve given them up,’ replied Alyosha; and he laughed, then immediately burst into tears.

*

From that time on Alyosha said nothing more to Ustinya about marriage, and he went on living as he had before.

One day in Lent the steward sent him to clear the snow off the roof. He had climbed up on to the roof, and had got it clear and was just starting to pull away the frozen snow from the gutters, when his feet slipped, and he fell off the roof, holding the shovel. Unfortunately he landed not on the snow, but on the iron-covered entrance gate of the yard. Ustinya came running up, as did the master’s daughter.

‘Are you hurt, Alyosha?’

‘I reckon you could say that again. But not to worry.’

He tried to stand up, but could not, and he began to smile. They carried him into the yardman’s lodge. The doctor’s assistant arrived. He examined Alyosha and asked him where it hurt.

‘It hurts all over, but it’s not too bad. But the master’s going to be upset. And they ought to send word to my old man.’

Alyosha lay in bed for two days and nights, and on the third day they sent for the priest.

‘And what if you should be going to die?’ asked Ustinya.

‘What if I am? We don’t go on living for ever, do we? You’ve got to go sometime,’ said Alyosha quickly, in his usual tone of voice. ‘Thank you, Ustinya, for having pity on me. But it was really better that they didn’t let me get married, it wouldn’t have been any good. And now we’re on friendly terms, you and me.’

He accompanied the priest’s prayers only with his hands and in his heart. But in his heart was the knowledge that life here on earth is good if you do what you are told and don’t offend people, and there too it will be good.

He did not say very much. He just asked for something to drink, and as he drank it he looked as if he was surprised at something.

He looked surprised, stretched himself out, and died.