Five Great Short Stories

CHAPTER III Songs

THE VILLAGE quickly heard of the visitors’ arrival, and when church was over the hut was crowded. The Leonuitcheffs, Matveitcheffs, and Ilitchoffs came for news of their kinsmen in Moscow. Every man in Zhukovo who could read and write was taken to Moscow as waiter or boots; and, similarly, the village across the river supplied only bakers; and this custom obtained since before the Emancipation, when a certain legendary Luka Ivanuitch, of Zhukovo, was lord of the buffet in a Moscow club, and hired none but fellow-villagers. These, in turn attaining power, sent for their kinsmen and found them posts in inns and restaurants; so that from that time Zhukovo was called by the local population Khamskaya or Kholuefka.⁸ Nikolai was taken to Moscow at the age of eleven, and given a post by Ivan Makaruitch, one of the Matveitcheffs, then porter at the Hermitage Gardens. And, now, turning to the Matveitcheffs, Nikolai said gravely—

“Ivan Makaruitch was my benefactor; it is my duty to pray God for him day and night, for it was through him I became a good man.”

“Batiushka⁹ mine!” said tearfully a tall, old woman, Ivan Makaruitch’s sister. “And have you no news of him?”

“He was at Omon’s last winter; and this season, I heard, he’s in some gardens outside town. . . . He’s grown old. Once in the summer he’d bring home ten roubles a day, but now everywhere business is dull—the old man’s in a bad way.”

The women, old and young, looked at the high felt boots on Nikolai’s legs, and at his pale face, and said sadly—

“You’re no money-maker, Nikolai Osipuitch, no money-bringer!”

And all caressed Sasha. Sasha was past her tenth birthday, but, small and very thin, she looked not more than seven. Among the sunburnt, untidy village girls, in their long cotton shirts, pale-faced, big-eyed Sasha, with the red ribbon in her hair, seemed a toy, a little strange animal caught in the fields, and brought back to the hut.

“And she knows how to read!” boasted Olga, looking tenderly at her daughter. “Read something, child!” she said, taking a New Testament from the corner. “Read something aloud and let the orthodox listen!”

The old, heavy, leather-bound, bent-edged Bible smelt like a monk. Sasha raised her eyebrows, and began in a loud drawl—

“. . . And when they were departed, behold the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother . . .”

“‘The young child and his mother,’” repeated Olga. She reddened with joy.

“. . . and flee into Egypt . . . and be thou there until I bring thee word. . . .”

At the word “until” Olga could not longer restrain her emotion and began to cry. Marya followed her example, and Ivan Makaruitch’s sister cried also. The old man coughed and fussed about, seeking a present for his grandchild, but he found nothing, and waved his hand. When the reading ended, the visitors dispersed to their homes, deeply touched, and pleased with Olga and Sasha.

As the day was Sunday the family remained in the hut. The old woman, whom husband, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren alike addressed as “grandmother,” did everything with her own hands: she lighted the stove, set the samovar; she even worked in the fields; and at the same time growled that she was tortured with work. She tortured herself with dread that the family might eat too much, and took care that her husband and daughters-in-law did not sit with idle hands. Once when she found that the innkeeper’s geese had got into her kitchen-garden, she rushed at once out of the house armed with a long stick; and for half an hour screamed piercingly over her cabbages, which were as weak and thin as their owner. Later she imagined that a hawk had swooped on her chickens, and with loud curses she flew to meet the hawk. She lost her temper and growled from morning to night, and often screamed so loudly that passers-by stopped to listen.

Her husband she treated badly, denouncing him sometimes as a lie-abed, sometimes as “cholera.” The old man was a hopeless, unsubstantial muzhik, and perhaps, indeed, if she had not spurred him on, he would have done no work at all, but sat all day on the stove and talked. He complained to his son at great length of certain enemies in the village and of the wrongs he suffered day by day; and it was tiresome to hear him.

“Yes,” he said, putting his arms to his waist. “Yes. A week after Elevation I sold my hay for thirty kopeks a pood. Yes. Good! . . . and this means that one morning I drive my hay cart and interfere with nobody; and suddenly, in an evil moment, I look round, and out of the inn comes the headman, Antip Siedelnikoff. ‘Where are you driving, old So-and-so?’ and bangs me in the ear!”

Kiriak’s head ached badly from drink, and he was ashamed before his brother.

“It’s drink that does it. Akh, my Lord God!” he stammered, shaking his big head. “You, brother, and you, sister, forgive me, for the love of Christ; I feel bad myself.”

To celebrate Sunday, they bought herrings at the inn, and made soup of the heads. At midday all sat down to tea and drank until they sweated and, it seemed, swelled up; and when they had drunk the tea they set to on the soup, all eating from the same bowl. The old woman hid away the herrings.

At night a potter baked his pots in the ravine. In the meadow below, the village girls sang in chorus; and some one played a concertina. Beyond the river also glowed a potter’s oven, and village girls sang; and from afar the music sounded soft and harmonious. The muzhiks gathered in the inn; they sang tipsily, each a different song; and the language they used made Olga shudder and exclaim—

“Akh, batiushki!”

She was astonished by the incessant blasphemy, and by the fact that the older men, whose time had nearly come, blasphemed worst of all. And the children and girls listened to this language, and seemed in no way uncomfortable; it was plain they were used to it, and had heard it from the cradle.

Midnight came; the potters’ fires on both river-banks went out, but on the meadow below and in the inn the merry-making continued. The old man and Kiriak, both drunk, holding hands, and rolling against one another, came to the shed where Olga lay with Marya.

“Leave her alone!” reasoned the old man. “Leave her. She’s not a bad sort. . . . It’s a sin. . . .”

“Ma-arya!” roared Kiriak.

“Stop! It’s sinful. . . . She’s not a bad sort.”

The two men stood a moment by the shed and went away.

“I love wild flowers . . .” sang the old man in a high, piercing tenor. “I love to pull them in the fields!”

After this he spat, blasphemed, and went into the hut.