Fifty-Two Stories

THE WITCH

NIGHT WAS FALLING. The sexton Savely Gykin lay at home in the chuch warden’s hut on an enormous bed and did not sleep, though he had the habit of falling asleep at the same time as the chickens. From under one end of a greasy quilt sewn together from motley cotton scraps peeked his stiff red hair, from the other stuck his big, long-unwashed feet. He was listening…His little hut was built into the fence, and its only window looked onto the field. And in the field a veritable war was going on. It was hard to figure out who was hounding who to death and for whose sake this calamity had brewed up in nature, but, judging by the ceaseless, sinister din, someone was having a very hard time of it. Some invincible force was chasing someone around the field, rampaging through the forest and over the church roof, angrily beating its fists on the window, ripping and tearing, and something vanquished wept and howled…Pitiful weeping was heard now outside the window, now over the roof, now on the stove. No call for help could be heard in it, but anguish, the awareness that it was too late, there was no salvation. Snowdrifts were covered by a thin crust of ice; teardrops trembled on them and on the trees, and along the roads and paths flowed a dark swill of mud and melting snow. In short, on earth there was a thaw, but the sky, through the dark night, did not see that and with all its might poured flakes of new snow onto the thawing ground. And the wind caroused like a drunk man…It would not let the snow settle on the ground and whirled it through the darkness as it pleased.

Gykin listened to this music and frowned. The thing was that he knew, or at least guessed, what all this racket outside the window was about and whose handiwork it was.

“I kno-o-ow!” he murmured, shaking his finger under the covers at somebody. “I know everything!”

On a stool by the window sat his wife, Raissa Nilovna. A tin lamp, standing on another stool, timorously, as if not believing in its own power, cast a thin, flickering light over her broad shoulders, the beautiful, appetizing reliefs of her body, the thick braid that reached to the ground. She was sewing burlap sacks. Her hands moved swiftly, but her whole body, the expression of her eyes, eyebrows, plump lips, white neck, were still, immersed in the monotonous mechanical work, and seemed to be asleep. Only occasionally she raised her head, to give her tired neck a rest, glanced for a moment at the window, outside which a blizzard raged, and then bent again over the burlap. Neither desire, nor sorrow, nor joy—nothing expressed itself on her beautiful face with its upturned nose and dimpled cheeks. Just so a beautiful fountain expresses nothing when it is not spouting.

But here she finished one sack, flung it aside, and, stretching sweetly, rested her dull, fixed gaze on the window…Teardrops flowed down the windowpanes and short-lived snowflakes dotted them with white. A snowflake would land on the pane, glance at the woman, and melt…

“Go to bed,” the sexton muttered. His wife said nothing. But suddenly her eyelashes stirred and attention flickered in her eyes. Savely, who had been watching the expression of her face all the while from under the blanket, stuck his head out and asked:

“What is it?”

“Nothing…Seems like somebody’s driving…,” his wife replied softly.

The sexton threw off the blanket with his hands and feet, knelt on the bed, and looked dully at his wife. The lamp’s timid light shone on his hairy, pockmarked face and flitted over his coarse, matted head.

“Do you hear it?” asked his wife. Through the monotonous howling of the blizzard he heard a barely audible, high-pitched, ringing moan, like the buzzing of a mosquito when it wants to land on your cheek and is angry at being prevented.

“It’s the postman…,” Savely muttered, sitting back on his heels.

The post road lay two miles from the church. In windy weather, when it blew from the road towards the church, the inhabitants of the house could hear a jingling.

“Lord, who wants to drive in such weather!” the sexton’s wife sighed.

“It’s a government job. Like it or not, you have to go…” The moan lingered in the air and died away.

“It passed by!” said Savely, lying down.

But he had not managed to cover himself with the blanket before the distinct sound of a bell reached his ears. The sexton glanced anxiously at his wife, jumped off the bed, and started waddling back and forth beside the stove. The sound of the bell went on for a little while and died away again, as if broken off.

“I can’t hear it…,” the sexton muttered, stopping and squinting at his wife. But just then the wind rapped on the window, bearing the high-pitched, ringing moan…Savely turned pale, grunted, and again his bare feet slapped against the floor.

“The postman’s going in circles!” he croaked, casting a spiteful sidelong glance at his wife. “Do you hear? The postman’s going in circles!…I…I know! As if I…don’t understand!” he muttered. “I know everything, curse you!”

“What do you know?” his wife asked softly, not taking her eyes from the window.

“I know this, that it’s all your doing, you she-devil! It’s your doing, curse you! This blizzard, and the postman going in circles…You caused it all! You!”

“You’re raving, you silly man,” his wife observed calmly.

“I noticed it about you long ago! When we were just married, in the first days, I saw you had a bitch’s blood in you!”

“Pah!” Raissa was surprised, shrugged, and crossed herself. “Cross yourself, too, dimwit!”

“A witch, you’re a witch!” Savely went on in a hollow, tearful voice, hastily blowing his nose on the hem of his shirt. “Though you’re my wife, though you’re also of the clerical estate, I’ll even tell at confession what you are…What else? Lord, save us and have mercy on us! Last year on the day of the prophet Daniel and the three holy youths,¹ there was a blizzard and—what then? A foreman stopped by to get warm. Then on the day of St. Alexei the man of God,² the ice on the river broke up, and the constable dropped by…He spent the whole night here jabbering with you, curse him, and when he appeared in the morning, and I looked at him, he had black rings around his eyes and his cheeks were all sunken! Eh? During the Dormition fast³ there were thunderstorms twice, and both times the huntsman came to spend the night. I saw it all, curse him! All! Oh, you’ve turned red as a crayfish! Hah!”

“You didn’t see anything…”

“Oh, no! And this winter, before Christmas, on the day of the Ten Martyrs of Crete,⁴ when a blizzard went on all day and night…Remember?—when the marshal’s clerk lost his way and wound up here, the dog…And what were you tempted by! Phoo, a clerk! It wasn’t worth riling up God’s weather on his account! A puny devil, a runt, a mere speck, his mug all in blackheads, his neck bent…Maybe if he was handsome, but him—pah—a satan!”

The sexton caught his breath, wiped his lips, and listened. There was no bell to be heard, but the wind tore over the roof, and in the darkness outside the window something clanged again.

“And now, too!” Savely went on. “It’s not for nothing this postman is circling! Spit in my eye if the postman isn’t looking for you! Oh, the devil knows his business, he’s a good helper! He’ll make him circle and circle and lead him here. I kno-o-ow! I see-e-e! You can’t hide it, you devil’s chatterbox, you fiend’s lust! As soon as the blizzard started, I immediately understood your thoughts.”

“What a dimwit!” his wife smirked. “So, to your foolish mind, I can cause bad weather?”

“Hm…Go on, smirk! You or not you, only I notice as soon as your blood begins to act up, there’s bad weather, and once there’s bad weather, whatever madman is around comes racing here. It happens each time. So it’s you!”

For greater persuasiveness, the sexton put a finger to his brow, closed his left eye, and said in a sing-song voice:

“O, madness! O, Judas’s fiendishness! If you are indeed a human being and not a witch, you should have thought in your head: What if those were not a foreman, a huntsman, or a clerk, but the devil in their guise! Eh? You’d have thought that.”

“How stupid you are, Savely!” his wife sighed, looking at him with pity. “When my papa was alive and lived here, all sorts of people used to come to him to be treated for ague: from the village, from the settlements, from the Armenian farmsteads. It seems they came every day, and nobody called them devils. And with us, if somebody comes once to warm up in bad weather, you, you stupid man, start wondering and getting all sorts of ideas.”

Savely was affected by his wife’s logic. He stood with his legs apart, his head bent, thinking. He was not yet firmly convinced of his suppositions, and his wife’s sincere, indifferent tone threw him off completely, but, even so, after thinking a little, he shook his head and said:

“It’s not old men or some sort of bandylegs, it’s all young ones that are asking to spend the night…Why’s that? And they don’t just get warm, they play the devil’s own games. No, woman, there’s no creature in this world slyer than your womankind. Of true reason there’s none in you, less than in a starling, but of demonic slyness—o-o-oh!—Queen of Heaven, save us! There, the postman’s ringing! The blizzard had only just begun when I already knew all your thoughts! You witched it all up, you spider!”

“Why are you badgering me, curse you?” His wife lost all patience. “Why are you badgering me, you beast?”

“I’m badgering you because if, God forbid, something happens tonight…you listen!…If something happens, tomorrow at the crack of dawn I’ll go to Father Nikodim in Dyadkino and tell him everything. Thus and so, I’ll say, Father Nikodim, mercifully forgive me, but she’s a witch. Why? Hm…you want to know why? All right…Thus and so…And woe to you, woman! You’ll be punished not only at the Last Judgment, but also in this earthly life! It’s not for nothing there are prayers against your kind in the service book.”

Suddenly there was a knocking on the window, so loud and unusual that Savely turned pale and crouched down in fear. His wife jumped up and also turned pale.

“For God’s sake, let us in to warm up!” A quavering, low bass was heard. “Is anyone there? Be so kind! We’ve lost our way!”

“And who are you?” asked the sexton’s wife, afraid to look out the window.

“The postmen!” answered another voice.

“Your devilry wasn’t in vain!” Savely waved his hand. “There it is! The truth’s mine…Watch out now!”

The sexton bounced twice in front of the bed, fell onto the mattress, and, breathing angrily, turned his face to the wall. Soon there was a draft of cold air on his back. The door creaked, and a tall human figure appeared on the threshold, covered with snow from head to foot. Behind him flashed another, also white…

“Shall I bring the pouches in?” the second one asked in a hoarse bass.

“We can’t leave them there!” Having said this, the first began to unwind his bashlyk, and, not waiting until it was undone, tore it from his head along with the visored cap and angrily flung it towards the stove. Then he pulled off his coat, threw it the same way, and, without any greeting, paced up and down the hut. He was a blond young postman in a shabby uniform jacket and dirty reddish boots. Having warmed himself by walking, he sat down at the table, stretched his dirty feet towards the pouches, and propped his head on his fist. His pale face with red blotches bore the signs of recent pain and fear. Distorted by anger, with fresh traces of physical and moral suffering, with melting snow on its eyebrows, moustache, and rounded beard, it was handsome.

“A dog’s life!” the postman growled, passing his gaze over the walls as if not believing he was in warmth. “We nearly perished. If it hadn’t been for your light, I don’t know what would have happened…And devil knows when all this will end! There’s no end to this dog’s life! Where have we come to?” he asked, lowering his voice and glancing up at the sexton’s wife.

“To Gulyaevo Knoll, General Kalinovsky’s estate,” the woman replied, rousing herself and blushing.

“Hear that, Stepan?” The postman turned to the coachman, who got stuck in the doorway with a big leather pouch on his back. “We’ve made it to Gulyaevo Knoll!”

“Yes…a long way!” Having uttered this phrase in the form of a hoarse, gasping sigh, the coachman went out and a little later brought in another, smaller pouch, then went out again and this time brought in the postman’s saber on a wide belt, resembling in form that long, flat sword with which Judith is portrayed on popular prints at the bedside of Holofernes. Having placed the pouches along the wall, he went to the entryway, sat down, and lit his pipe.

“Maybe you’d like some tea after the road?” the sexton’s wife asked.

“No tea drinking for us!” the postman frowned. “We’ve got to warm up quickly and go, otherwise we’ll be late for the mail train. We’ll stay for ten minutes and then be on our way. Only be so good as to show us the road…”

“It’s God’s punishment, this weather!” sighed the sexton’s wife.

“M-m, yes…And who are you, then?”

“Us? Local people, attached to the church…Of the clerical estate…That’s my husband lying there! Savely, stand up, come and say hello! There used to be a parish here, but a year and a half ago it was abolished. Of course, when the masters lived here, there were people around, it was worth having a parish, but now, without the masters, judge for yourselves, how can the clergy live, if the nearest village is Markovka, and it’s three miles away! Savely’s retired now and…is a sort of watchman. He’s charged with watching over the church…”

And here the postman learned that if Savely were to go to the general’s wife and ask for a note to his grace the archbishop, he would be given a good post; that he does not go to the general’s wife because he is lazy and afraid of people.

“After all, we’re from the clerical estate…,” the sexton’s wife added.

“What do you live on?” asked the postman.

“There’s haymaking and vegetable gardens that go with the church. Only we get very little from it…,” sighed the sexton’s wife. “Father Nikodim from Dyadkino has a greedy eye. He serves here on Saint Nicholas in the summer and Saint Nicholas in the winter,⁵ and takes almost all of it for that. There’s nobody to defend us.”

“Lies!” Savely croaked. “Father Nikodim is a saintly soul and a bright light of the Church, and if he takes, it’s according to the rules!”

“What an angry one you’ve got!” smiled the postman. “Have you been married long?”

“It’ll be three years come this Forgiveness Sunday.⁶ My papa used to be the sexton here, and when it came time for him to die, he wanted to keep the place for me, so he went to the consistory and asked that some unmarried sexton be sent here. And I married him.”

“Aha, so you killed two flies with one swat!” the postman said, looking at Savely’s back. “Got a post and took a wife.”

Savely twitched his leg impatiently and moved closer to the wall. The postman got up from the table, stretched, and sat on the mail pouch. Having thought a little, he felt the pouches with his hand, moved the sword to another place, and stretched out, one leg hanging on the floor.

“A dog’s life…,” he muttered, putting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. “I wouldn’t wish such a life even on a wicked Tartar.”

Soon silence fell. Only Savely could be heard puffing and the now sleeping postman breathing rhythmically and slowly, emitting at each exhalation a thick, prolonged “k-kh-kh-kh…” From time to time some little wheel squeaked in his throat and a twitching leg brushed against the pouch.

Savely stirred under the blanket and slowly turned over. His wife sat on the stool, her cheeks pressed between her palms, and gazed at the postman’s face. Her gaze was fixed, as of someone surprised or frightened.

“Well, what are you staring for?” Savely whispered angrily.

“What is it to you? Lie there!” replied his wife, not taking her eyes from the blond head.

Savely angrily exhaled all the air from his chest and turned abruptly to the wall. After some three minutes, he again stirred restlessly, knelt on his bed, and, propping himself on the pillow, looked sidelong at his wife. She was still unmoving and gazed at the guest. Her cheeks were pale, and her gaze was now lit with some strange fire. The sexton grunted, slid off the bed on his stomach, went up to the postman, and covered his face with a handkerchief.

“Why did you do that?” asked his wife.

“So the light doesn’t shine in his eyes.”

“Just put it out, then!”

Savely looked mistrustfully at his wife, thrust his lips towards the lamp, but at once thought better of it and clasped his hands.

“Well, isn’t that the devil’s own cunning?” he exclaimed. “Eh? Well, is there any creature more cunning than womankind?”

“Ah, you long-skirted satan!” his wife hissed, wincing with vexation. “Just you wait!” And, settling herself more comfortably, she again stared at the postman. Never mind that his face was covered. She was interested not so much in the face as in the general look, the novelty of the man. His chest was broad, powerful, his hands handsome, fine, and his muscular, shapely legs were more handsome and masculine than Savely’s two “stubs.” There was even no comparison.

“Maybe I am a long-skirted satan,” Savely said, after standing there a little while, “but they have no business sleeping here. Yes…They’re on official business, we’ll be answerable if we keep them here. You deliver mail, so go and deliver it, don’t sleep…Hey, you!” Savely shouted into the entryway. “You, coachman, what’s your name? Shall I show you the way out? Get up, you can’t sleep on the job!” And coming unhinged, Savely jumped over to the postman and pulled him by the sleeve.

“Hey, your honor! If it’s go, it’s go; if not, then…It’s no good sleeping.”

The postman gave a start, sat up, passed a dull gaze around the cottage, and lay back down.

“When are you going to go?” Savely rattled on, pulling him by the sleeve. “The mail’s got to be delivered in good time, that’s what it’s for, do you hear? I’ll see you off.”

The postman opened his eyes. Warmed up and listless from the first sweet sleep, not yet fully awake, he saw as in a fog the sexton’s wife’s white neck and her fixed, unctuous gaze, closed his eyes and smiled as if for him it was all a dream.

“Well, where can you go in such weather!” He heard a soft feminine voice. “You might as well go on sleeping to your heart’s content.”

“And the mail?” Savely became alarmed. “Who’ll deliver the mail? Or maybe you’re going to deliver it? You?”

The postman opened his eyes again, saw the dimples moving on the woman’s cheeks, remembered where he was, and understood Savely. The thought that he was faced with driving through the cold darkness sent chills from his head all over his body, and he scrunched up.

“We could sleep five little minutes more,” he yawned. “We’re late anyway.”

“And maybe we’ll get there just in time!” a voice came from the entryway. “With any luck the train will also be late.”

The postman got up and, stretching sweetly, began to put his coat on. Savely, seeing that the visitors were getting ready to leave, even snickered with pleasure.

“Help me, will you!” the coachman shouted to him, lifting the pouch from the floor. The sexton ran over, and together they carried the load of mail outside. The postman began to disentangle the knot of his bashlyk. And the sexton’s wife peered into his eyes as if she were about to get into his soul.

“You could have some tea…,” she said.

“I wouldn’t mind…,” he agreed, “but they’re all ready. We’re late as it is.”

“Why don’t you stay!” she whispered, lowering her eyes and touching his sleeve.

The postman finally undid the knot and hesitantly threw the bashlyk over his elbow. He felt warm standing next to the sexton’s wife.

“What a…neck…you have…” And he touched her neck with two fingers. Seeing that there was no resistance, he stroked her neck, her shoulder with his hand…“Oh-h, what a…”

“You could stay…have some tea.”

“Where are you putting it? You soggy pancake!” The coachman’s voice came from outside. “Put it crosswise.”

“You could stay…Look how the weather’s howling!”

And not yet quite awake, still under the spell of youthful, languorous sleep, the postman was suddenly overcome by a desire for the sake of which one forgets mail pouches, trains…everything in the world. Fearfully, as if wishing to flee or hide, he glanced at the door, seized the sexton’s wife by the waist, and was already bending down to put out the lamp, when boots stomped in the entryway and the coachman appeared in the doorway…Savely peeked over his shoulder. The postman quickly lowered his arms and stood as if in thought.

“Everything’s ready!” said the coachman.

The postman stood there for a while, briskly shook his head as if completely awake at last, and followed the coachman. The sexton’s wife remained alone.

“So, get in, show us the road!” she heard.

There was a lazy sound of one bell, then of another, and the jingling raced on in a quick, long chain away from the watchman’s hut. When it gradually died down, the sexton’s wife tore from her place and started pacing nervously from corner to corner. First she was pale, then she turned all red. Her face was distorted by hatred, she gasped for breath, her eyes gleamed with a savage, ferocious anger, and, pacing as in a cage, she resembled a she-tiger frightened by a red-hot iron.

For a moment she stopped and glanced around her room. Almost half of it was taken up by the bed, which went along the whole wall and consisted of a dirty feather mattress, hard gray pillows, a blanket, and various nameless rags. This bed looked like a shapeless, ugly lump, almost the same as the one sticking up on Savely’s head whenever he took a fancy to oil his hair. From the bed to the door leading to the cold entryway stretched the dark stove, with pots and hanging rags. Everything, not excluding the just-stepped-out Savely, was utterly dirty, greasy, sooty, so that it was strange to see, in the midst of such surroundings, the white neck and fine, tender skin of a woman. The sexton’s wife ran to the bed, stretched out her arms, as if wishing to scatter it all, trample on it, and reduce it to dust; but then, as if afraid to touch the dirt, she jumped back and started pacing again…

When Savely returned a couple of hours later, all covered with snow and worn out, she was already lying undressed in bed. Her eyes were closed, but by the small tremors that passed over her face, he guessed that she was not asleep.

On his way home he promised himself to keep silent until the next day and not to touch her, but now he could not help prodding her.

“Your sorcery was wasted: he’s gone!” he said with a gleeful grin. His wife was silent; only her chin twitched.

Savely slowly undressed, climbed over his wife, and lay by the wall.

“And tomorrow I’ll explain to Father Nikodim what sort of wife you are!” he muttered, curling up. His wife quickly turned to face him and flashed her eyes at him.

“It’s enough that you’ve got a job,” she said. “As for a wife, go and look for one in the forest! What kind of wife am I to you, blast you! What a clodpate, what a slug-a-bed they’ve hung on my neck, God forgive me!”

“All right, all right…Sleep!”

“Miserable me!” his wife sobbed. “If it weren’t for you, I might have married a merchant, or some nobleman! If it weren’t for you, I might love my husband now! And you weren’t buried in the snow, you didn’t freeze there on the high road, you Herod!”

The sexton’s wife wept for a long time. At last she sighed deeply and quieted down. Outside the window, the blizzard went on raging. In the stove, in the chimney, behind all the walls something wept, and to Savely it seemed that it was inside him and in his ears that it wept. Tonight he was finally confirmed in his suppositions about his wife. He no longer doubted that his wife, with the help of unclean powers, controlled the winds and the post roads. But to his greater grief, this mysteriousness, this savage supernatural power endowed the woman who lay beside him with a special, incomprehensible charm that he had never noticed before. Because, in his stupidity, he poeticized her, not noticing it himself, she became as if whiter, smoother, more unapproachable…

“Witch!” he said indignantly. “Tphoo, disgusting!”

And yet, having waited until she quieted down and began to breathe evenly, he touched her nape with his finger…held her thick braid in his hand. She did not feel it…Then he grew bolder and stroked her neck.

“Leave me alone!” she cried and hit the bridge of his nose so hard that sparks flew out of his eyes. The pain in his nose soon went away, but his torment continued.

1886