Fifty-Two Stories

AGAFYA

WHEN I WAS LIVING in the S——m district, I often used to go to the Dubovsky kitchen gardens, tended by the gardener Savva Stukach, or simply Savka. These gardens were my favorite place for so-called “general” fishing, when, on leaving home, you do not know the day and hour of your return, and you take along all your fishing gear and a stock of provisions. In fact, I was not as interested in fishing as I was in carefree loafing, eating at odd times, talking with Savka, and prolonged encounters with the quiet summer nights. Savka was a lad of about twenty-five, tall, handsome, strong as flint. He was reputed to be a reasonable and sensible person, was literate, drank vodka rarely, but as a worker this young and strong fellow was not worth a red cent. Along with strength, his taut, rope-like muscles were filled with inert, invincible laziness. He lived, like all of us, in the village, in his own cottage, had a plot of land, but did not plow, did not sow, and did not practice any craft. His old mother went begging under people’s windows, and he himself lived like a bird of the air: he did not know in the morning what he would eat at noon. It was not that he was lacking in willpower, energy, or pity for his mother, but simply so, one sensed no wish to work in him and no awareness of its benefit…His whole figure had an aura of serenity, of an inborn, almost artistic passion for living idly, any old way. When Savka’s young, healthy body felt a physiological need for muscle work, for a short while the lad would give himself up entirely to some free but worthless occupation, like whittling totally useless pegs or running races with the village women. His favorite position was concentrated immobility. He was able to stand in one place for hours at a time, not budging and gazing at one spot. He moved by inspiration, and then only when the chance presented itself for making some sort of quick, impetuous movement: grabbing a running dog by the tail, tearing the kerchief off a woman, jumping over a wide ditch. Needless to say, being so sparing in movement, Savka was poor as a church mouse and lived worse than any pauper. In the course of time he accumulated arrears, and, healthy and young as he was, the village sent to him an old man’s post, as a watchman and scarecrow over the common kitchen gardens. However much people laughed at his premature old age, he did not give a hoot. That spot, quiet, good for motionless contemplation, exactly suited his nature.

I happened to be with this same Savka one fine May evening. I remember I was lying on a tattered, shabby travel rug almost up against a hutch, which gave off a dense and stifling smell of dry grass. Putting my hands behind my head, I looked straight in front of me. At my feet lay a wooden pitchfork. Beyond it was the sharply outlined black patch of Savka’s little dog Kutka, and no more than fifteen feet from Kutka the ground fell away into the steep riverbank. Lying there, I could not see the river. All I saw were the tops of the willows growing thickly on this bank, and the meandering, as if gnawed-away, edge of the bank opposite. Far beyond the bank, on a dark knoll, like frightened young partridges, the cottages of the village where my Savka lived huddled together. Beyond the knoll the evening sunset was dying out. Only a pale crimson strip was left, and it was beginning to be covered by small clouds, like coals with ash.

To the right of the kitchen gardens a dark alder grove softly whispered, shuddering occasionally under chance gusts of wind; to the left stretched a boundless field. There, where in the darkness the eye could no longer distinguish field from sky, a bright light glimmered. A short distance from me sat Savka. His legs tucked under Turkish fashion, and his head hanging, he pensively gazed at Kutka. Our hooks with live bait had long been dropped in the river, and we had nothing left to do but give ourselves up to rest, which the never-tiring and ever-resting Savka loved so much. The evening glow had not quite died out, but the summer night was already enveloping nature with its tender, lulling caress.

Everything was lapsing into the first deep sleep, only some night bird, unknown to me, drawlingly and lazily kept repeating in the grove a long, articulate sound, resembling the phrase: “Is Ni-ki-ta here?” and immediately answered himself: “He is! He is! He is!”

“Why isn’t the nightingale singing now?” I asked Savka.

He slowly turned to me. The features of his face were large, but clean-cut, expressive, and soft, like a woman’s. Then he looked with his meek, pensive eyes at the grove, at the willow thicket, slowly drew a reed pipe from his pocket, put it to his lips, and peeped like a female nightingale. And at once, as if in response to his peeping, a corncrake on the opposite bank crexed.

“There’s your nightingale…” Savka laughed. “Crex-crex! Crex-crex! Just like a door creaking, but he must think he’s singing, too.”

“I like that bird…,” I said. “You know, during migration corncrakes don’t fly, they run along the ground. They only fly over rivers and seas, otherwise they walk.”

“Good dog…,” Savka muttered, glancing with respect in the direction of the crexing corncrake.

Knowing how much Savka liked to listen, I told him all I knew about the corncrake from books on hunting. From the corncrake I gradually went on to migration. Savka listened to me attentively, without blinking, smiling with pleasure all the while.

“Which country is the birds’ native one?” he asked. “Ours or over yonder?”

“Ours, of course. The birds themselves are born here, and hatch their young here in their native land, and only fly there so as not to freeze.”

“Interesting!” Savka stretched. “Whatever you talk about, it’s all interesting. Birds now, or people…or take this little stone here—everything’s got its sense!…Ah, if I’d known, master, that you’d come along, I wouldn’t have told that peasant girl to come…There’s one that asked to come now…”

“No, please, I won’t interfere!” I said. “I can sleep in the grove…”

“Ah, what next! It wouldn’t have killed her to come tomorrow…If only she could sit here and listen to our talk, but no, she’ll just get all slobbery. With her there’s no talking seriously.”

“Is it Darya you’re waiting for?” I asked after some silence.

“No…A new one asked to come…Agafya, the switchman’s wife…”

Savka said this in his usual dispassionate, somewhat hollow voice, as if he were talking about tobacco or kasha, but I jumped with surprise. I knew this Agafya…She was a peasant girl, still quite young, about nineteen or twenty, who no more than a year ago had married a railroad switchman, a dashing young fellow. She lived in the village, and the husband came to her from the railroad every night.

“All these stories of yours with women will end badly, brother!” I sighed.

“So, let them…”

And, having pondered a little, Savka added:

“I told them, they don’t listen…The fools couldn’t care less!”

Silence ensued…Meanwhile the darkness was deepening, and things were losing their outlines. The strip beyond the knoll faded away entirely, and the stars were becoming brighter, more radiant…The monotonously melancholic chirr of the grasshoppers, the crex of the corncrake, and the call of the quail did not disrupt the night’s silence, but, on the contrary, lent it still greater monotony. It seemed that the soft sounds that enchanted our hearing came not from the birds, not from the insects, but from the stars that looked down on us from the sky…

Savka was the first to break the silence. He slowly shifted his eyes from the black Kutka to me and said:

“I see you’re bored, master. Let’s have supper.”

And, not waiting for my consent, he crawled into the hutch on his belly, rummaged around, which made the whole hutch tremble like a single leaf; then crawled back out and set before me my vodka and a clay bowl. In the bowl were baked eggs, rye griddle-cakes cooked in lard, hunks of black bread, and something else…We drank from a crooked little glass that could not stand up and began to eat…The coarse gray salt, the dirty, greasy griddle-cakes, the eggs chewy as rubber—but how tasty it all was!

“You live like a pauper, but look at the amount of goods you’ve got!” I said, pointing to the bowl. “Where do you get it all?”

“Women bring it…,” Savka murmured.

“Why do they bring it to you?”

“Just…out of pity…”

Not only the menu but Savka’s clothes also bore evidence of the women’s “pity.” For instance, that evening I noticed he was wearing a new worsted belt and a bright red ribbon on which a copper cross hung from his dirty neck. I knew that the fair sex had a weakness for Savka, and I knew how reluctantly he talked about it, and therefore I did not continue my interrogation. Besides, there was no time for talk…Kutka, who lingered near us, patiently waiting for scraps, suddenly pricked up her ears and growled. A remote, intermittent splashing of water could be heard.

“Somebody’s wading across…,” said Savka.

About three minutes later Kutka growled again and produced a sound that resembled coughing.

“Hush!” her master shouted at her.

In the darkness there was a muffled sound of timid footsteps, and from the grove appeared the silhouette of a woman. I recognized her despite the darkness. It was Agafya, the switchman’s wife. She warily approached us, stopped, and struggled to catch her breath. She was panting not so much from the wading as, probably, from fear and the unpleasant feeling everyone has when they wade across a river at night. Seeing two men by the hutch, she cried out weakly and stepped back.

“Ah…it’s you!” said Savka, stuffing a griddle-cake into his mouth.

“Me…me, sir,” she muttered, dropping a bundle with something in it on the ground and glancing sidelong at me. “Yakov sends his greetings and asked me to give you…There’s something here…”

“Well, why go lying: Yakov!” Savka grinned. “No need for lying, the master knows what you came for! Sit down, be our guest.”

Agafya cast a sidelong glance at me and hesitantly sat down.

“And I got to thinking you wouldn’t come tonight,” Savka said after a prolonged silence. “Why just sit there? Eat! Or shall I give you a little nip of vodka?”

“What an idea!” said Agafya. “Found yourself some sort of drunkard…”

“Have a drink…It’ll warm up your soul…Here!”

Savka handed Agafya the crooked little glass. She drank the vodka slowly, and ate nothing after it, but just exhaled loudly.

“You brought something…,” Savka went on, untying the bundle and giving his voice a condescendingly jocular tone. “A woman can’t do without bringing something. Ah, a pie and some potatoes…They live well!” he sighed, turning his face to me. “They’re the only ones in the village who still have potatoes after winter!”

In the darkness I could not see Agafya’s face, but from the movements of her head and shoulders it seemed to me that she never took her eyes off Savka’s face. So as not to be the third at their tryst, I decided to take a stroll and got up to go. But at that moment a nightingale in the grove unexpectedly produced two low contralto notes. Half a minute later he let out a high trill and, having thus tested his voice, began to sing. Savka jumped up and listened.

“It’s yesterday’s!” he said. “Hold on!…”

And, tearing from his place, he ran noiselessly to the grove.

“What do you need him for?” I called out behind him. “Let him be!”

Savka waved his hand—meaning “don’t shout”—and disappeared into the darkness. When he wished, Savka could be an excellent hunter and fisherman, but here, too, his talents, like his strength, went to waste. He was too lazy for the standard ways, and all his hunting passion was spent on empty tricks. He caught nightingales not otherwise than with his bare hands, he killed pike with birdshot, or he would stand for long hours on the riverbank, trying with all his might to snag a small fish on a big hook.

Left with me, Agafya coughed and wiped her hand across her forehead several times…She was beginning to feel the effect of the vodka she had drunk.

“How’s your life, Agasha?” I asked her after a prolonged silence, when it finally became awkward to keep silent.

“Good, thank God…Don’t tell anybody, master…,” she suddenly added in a whisper.

“Come now,” I reassured her. “You’re so fearless, Agasha…What if Yakov finds out?”

“He won’t…”

“Well, but what if!”

“No…I’ll be home before him. He’s at the tracks now and will come back once he sees off the mail train, and you can hear the train coming from here…”

Agafya wiped her hand across her forehead again and looked towards where Savka had gone. The nightingale was singing. Some night bird flew low over the ground and, noticing us, got frightened, swished its wings, and flew off across the river.

Soon the nightingale fell silent, but Savka did not come back. Agafya stood up, took a few uneasy steps, and sat down again.

“What’s he doing?” she burst out. “The train’s not coming tomorrow! I’ve got to go now!”

“Savka!” I called. “Savka!”

Not even an echo answered. Agafya shifted restlessly and stood up again.

“It’s time for me to go!” she said in a nervous voice. “The train’s coming now! I know when the trains run!”

The poor girl was not mistaken. Before a quarter of an hour went by, there came a distant noise.

Agafya fixed her gaze on the grove for a long time and moved her hands impatiently.

“Well, where is he?” she said, laughing nervously. “Where the deuce has he gone to? I’ll leave! By God, master, I’ll leave!”

Meanwhile the noise was becoming more distinct. It was already possible to tell the clatter of the wheels from the heavy sighing of the steam engine. A whistle was heard, the train hollowly clattered over the bridge…Another minute, and everything became still.

“I’ll wait another little minute…,” Agafya sighed, resolutely sitting down. “So be it, I’ll wait!”

Finally Savka appeared from the darkness. He noiselessly stepped barefoot over the loose soil of the kitchen gardens and was softly murmuring something.

“There’s luck, thank you very much!” he laughed merrily. “I was just coming up to that same bush, and was just aiming my hand, and he shut up! Ah, dash it all! I waited and waited for him to sing again, then spat on it…”

Savka dropped clumsily to the ground beside Agafya and, to keep his balance, grabbed her by the waist with both hands.

“And what are you scowling at, as if some old witch gave birth to you?” he asked.

For all his kind-heartedness and ingenuousness, Savka scorned women. He treated them casually, haughtily, and even lowered himself so far as to laugh scornfully at their feelings for his own person. God knows, maybe this casual, scornful treatment was one of the causes of the intense, insuperable charm he had for the village dulcineas? He was handsome and well-built, and his eyes always shone with quiet tenderness even at the sight of women he scorned, but it was impossible to explain this charm by external qualities alone. Besides his fortunate appearance and original manner of treating them, it must be thought that it was also Savka’s touching role as a universally recognized failure and unfortunate exile from his own cottage to the kitchen gardens that influenced the women.

“Now tell the master why you’ve come here!” Savka went on, still holding Agafya by the waist. “Go on, tell him, you husband’s wife! Ho-ho…What do you say, good old Agasha, shall we have another nip of vodka?”

I got up and, making my way between the beds, walked along the garden. The dark beds looked like big, flattened graves. They gave off a smell of tilled soil and the delicate dampness of the plants that were beginning to be covered with dew…To the left the little red light still shone. It blinked affably and seemed to smile. I heard happy laughter. It was Agafya laughing.

“And the train?” I remembered. “The train came long ago.”

Having waited a little, I went back to the hutch. Savka was sitting motionless, Turkish fashion, and quietly, barely audibly, murmuring some song that consisted only of one-syllable words, something like “Phoo-you, to-you…me and you…” Agafya, drunk on the vodka, Savka’s scornful caress, and the stifling night, lay beside him on the ground and pressed her face hard against his knee. She was so far gone in her feeling that she did not notice my coming.

“Agasha, you know the train came long ago!” I said.

“It’s time, it’s time.” Savka picked up my thought, shaking his head. “What are you doing lying around here? You’re shameless!”

Agafya roused herself, glanced at me, and pressed her head to his knee again.

“It’s long been time!” I said.

Agafya stirred and got to one knee…She was suffering…For half a minute her whole figure, as far as I could make it out in the dark, expressed struggle and hesitation. There was a moment when, as if coming to her senses, she raised herself so as to get to her feet, but then some invincible and implacable force pushed her whole body, and she pressed herself to Savka again.

“Ah, forget him!” she said with wild, deep-throated laughter, and in that laughter you could hear reckless resolution, powerlessness, pain.

I slowly trudged off to the grove and from there went down to the river, where our fishing rods were standing. The river was asleep. Some soft, fluffy flower on a tall stem tenderly touched my cheek, like a child who wants to let you know he is not asleep. Having nothing to do, I felt for one line and pulled it. It responded limply and hung down—nothing had been caught…I could not see the other bank and the village. A little light glimmered in one cottage, but soon went out. I felt around on the bank, found a depression I had already noticed during the day, and sat down in it as in an armchair. I sat for a long time…I saw how the stars began to fade and lose their brightness, how a slight breath of coolness passed over the earth, touching the leaves of the awakening willows…

“A-ga-fya!…” Someone’s muffled voice reached me from the village. “Agafya!”

It was the returned and alarmed husband, looking for his wife in the village. And in the kitchen gardens I heard unrestrained laughter: the wife had forgotten herself, was drunk, and with the happiness of a few hours was trying to offset the suffering that awaited her the next day.

I fell asleep.

When I woke up, Savka was sitting beside me, lightly shaking me by the shoulder. The river, the grove, both banks, green and washed, the village, and the field—all was flooded with bright morning light. The rays of the just-risen sun struck my back through the thin trunks of the trees.

“So that’s how you fish?” Savka smiled. “Well, up you get!”

I stood up, stretched sweetly, and my awakened chest eagerly began to drink in the moist, fragrant air.

“Agasha left?” I asked.

“There she is,” Savka pointed in the direction of the ford.

I looked and saw Agafya. Tucking up her skirts, disheveled, her kerchief askew on her head, she was crossing the river. Her legs could barely move…

“The cat knows she ate the canary!” Savka muttered, narrowing his eyes at her. “There she goes, tail between her legs…These women are mischievous as cats, and cowardly as hares…The foolish woman, she should have gone when she was told! Now she’s going to get it, and me, too, at the local precinct…another flogging on account of a woman…”

Agafya stepped onto the bank and went off across the field to the village. At first she walked rather boldly, but then agitation and fear claimed their own: she turned in fright, stopped, and caught her breath.

“See, it’s scary!” Savka smiled sadly, looking at the bright green stripe Agafya left on the dewy grass. “She doesn’t want to go! The husband’s been standing there waiting for a whole hour…Did you see him?”

Savka said these last words with a smile, but they chilled my heart. In the village, by the last cottage, on the road, Yakov stood and stared fixedly at his returning wife. He did not stir and was still as a post. What was he thinking as he looked at her? What words had he prepared for their meeting? Agafya stood for a time, looked back once, as if expecting help from us, and went on. I had never yet seen anyone walk like that, either drunk or sober. It was as if Agafya writhed under her husband’s gaze. She walked in zigzags, then stamped in place, her knees bending and her arms spreading, then backed up a little. Having gone some hundred steps forward, she looked back again and sat down.

“You should at least hide behind a bush,” I said to Savka. “What if the husband sees you…”

“He knows who Agasha’s coming from anyway…It’s not for cabbage that women go to the kitchen gardens at night—everybody knows that.”

I looked at Savka’s face. It was pale and wincing from squeamish pity, as with people when they see an animal tortured.

“The cat laughs, the mouse weeps…,” he sighed.

Agafya suddenly jumped to her feet, shook her head, and, stepping boldly, went to meet her husband. She had evidently gathered her forces and made up her mind.

1886