Five Great Short Stories

CHAPTER VII Who Else?

IN THE VILLAGE arrived “the gentleman,” as the peasants called the superintendent of police. Every one knew a week ahead the day and cause of his arrival. For though Zhukovo had only forty houses, it owed in arrears to the Imperial Treasury and the Zemstvo¹³ more than two thousand roubles.

The superintendent stopped at the inn, drank two glasses of tea, and then walked to the starosta’s hut, where already waited a crowd of peasants in arrears. The starosta, Antip Siedelnikoff, despite his youth—he was little over thirty—was a stern man who always took the side of the authorities, although he himself was poor and paid his taxes irregularly. It was clear to all that he was flattered by his position and revelled in the sense of power, which he had no other way of displaying save by sternness. The mir¹⁴ feared and listened to him; when in the street or at the inn he met a drunken man he would seize him, tie his hands behind his back, and put him in the village gaol; once, indeed, he even imprisoned grandmother for several days, because, appearing at the mir instead of her husband, she used abusive language. The starosta had never lived in town and read no books; but he had a copious collection of learned words and used them so liberally that people respected him, even when they did not understand.

When Osip with his tax book entered the starosta’s hut, the superintendent, a thin, old, grey-whiskered man in a grey coat, sat at a table in the near corner and made notes in a book. The hut was clean, the walls were decorated with pictures from magazines, and in a prominent place near the ikon hung a portrait of Alexander of Battenberg, ex-Prince of Bulgaria. At the table, with crossed arms, stood Antip Siedelnikoff.

“This man, your honour, owes 119 roubles,” he said when it came to Osip’s turn. “Before Holy Week, he paid a rouble, since then, nothing.”

The superintendent turned his eyes on Osip, and asked—

“What’s the reason of that, brother?”

“Your honour, be merciful to me . . .” began Osip in agitation. “Let me explain . . . this summer . . . Squire Liutoretzky . . . ‘Osip,’ he says, ‘sell me your hay. . . . Sell it,’ he says. . . . I had a hundred poods for sale, which the women mowed. . . . Well, we bargained. . . . All went well, without friction. . . .”

He complained of the starosta, and now and again turned to the muzhiks as if asking for support; his flushed face sweated, and his eyes turned bright and vicious.

“I don’t understand why you tell me all that,” said the superintendent. “I ask you . . . it’s you I ask, why you don’t pay your arrears? None of you pay, and I am held responsible.”

“I’m not able to.”

“These expressions are without consequence, your honour,” said the starosta magniloquently. “In reality, the Tchikildeyeffs belong to the impoverished class, but be so good as to ask the others what is the reason. Vodka and impudence . . . without any comprehension.”

The superintendent made a note, and said to Osip in a quiet, even voice, as if he were asking for water—

“Begone!”

Soon afterwards he drove away; and as he sat in his cheap tarantass¹⁵ and coughed, it was plain, even from the appearance of his long, thin back, that he had forgotten Osip, and the starosta, and the arrears of Zhukovo, and was thinking of his own domestic affairs. He had hardly covered a verst before Antip Siedelnikoff was carrying off the Tchikildeyeff samovar; and after him ran grandmother, and whined like a dog.

“I won’t give it! I won’t give it to you, accursed!”

The starosta walked quickly, taking big steps; and grandmother, stooping and fierce and breathless, tottered after him; and her green-grey hair floated in the wind. At last she stopped, beat her breast with her fists, and exclaimed, with a whine and a sob—

“Orthodox men who believe in God! Batiushki, they’re wronging me! Kinsmen, they’ve robbed me. Oi, oi, will no one help me!”

“Grandmother, grandmother!” said the starosta severely, “have some reason in your head!”

With the loss of the samovar, things in the Tchikildeyeffs’ hut grew even worse. There was something humiliating and shameful in this last privation, and it seemed that the hut had suddenly lost its honour. The table itself, the chairs, and all the pots, had the starosta seized them, would have been less missed. Grandmother screamed, Marya cried, and the children, listening, began to cry also. The old man, with a feeling of guilt, sat gloomily in the corner and held his tongue. And Nikolai was silent. As a rule grandmother liked him and pitied him; but at this crisis her pity evaporated, and she cursed and reproached him, and thrust her fists under his nose. She screamed that he was guilty of the family’s misfortunes and asked why he had sent so little home, though he boasted in his letters that he earned fifty roubles a month at the Slaviansky Bazaar. Why did he come home, and still worse, bring his family? If he died whence would the money come for his funeral? . . . And it was painful to look at Nikolai, Olga and Sasha.

The old man grunted, took his cap, and went to the starosta’s. It was getting dark. Antip Siedelnikoff, with cheeks puffed out, stood at the stove and soldered. It was stifling. His children, skinny and unwashed—not better than the Tchikildeyeffs’—sprawled on the floor; his ugly, freckled wife wound silk. This, too, was an unhappy, Godforsaken family; alone Antip was smart and good-looking. On a bench in a row stood five samovars. The old man prayed towards the Battenberg prince, and began—

“Antip, show the mercy of God: give me the samovar! For the love of God!”

“Bring me three roubles, and then you’ll get it.”

“I haven’t got them.”

Antip puffed out his cheeks, the fire hummed and hissed, and the samovars shone. The old man fumbled with his cap, thought a moment, and repeated—

“Give it to me!”

The swarthy starosta seemed quite black and resembled a wizard; he turned to Osip and said roughly and quickly—

“All depends from the Rural Chief. In the administrative session of the twenty-sixth of this month you can expose the causes of your dissatisfaction verbally or in writing.”

Not one of these learned words was understood by Osip, but he felt contented, and returned to his hut.

Ten days later the superintendent returned, stayed about an hour, and drove away. It had turned windy and cold, but though the river was frozen, there was no snow, and the state of the roads was a torture to every one. On Sunday evening the neighbours looked in to see and talk with Osip. They spoke in the darkness; to work was a sin, and no one lighted the lamp. News was exchanged, chiefly disagreeable. Three houses away the hens had been taken in payment of arrears and sent to the cantonal office, and there they died of starvation; sheep had also been taken, and while they were being driven away tied with ropes and transferred to fresh carts at each village one had died. And now they discussed the question, Who was responsible?

“The Zemstvo!” said Osip. “Who else?”

“Of course, the Zemstvo!”

They accused the Zemstvo of everything—of arrears, of oppression, of famines, although not one of them knew exactly what the Zemstvo was. And that rule had been observed since wealthy peasants with factories, shops, and houses were elected as Zemstvo members, and being discontented with the institution, thenceforth in their factories and inns abused the Zemstvo.

They complained of the fact that God had sent no snow, and that though it was time to lay in firewood, you could neither drive nor walk upon the frozen roads. Fifteen years before, and earlier, the small-talk of Zhukovo was infinitely more entertaining. In those days every old man pretended he held some secret, knew something, and waited for something; they talked of rescripts with gold seals, redistribution of lands, and hidden treasures, and hinted of things mysterious; to-day the people of Zhukovo had no secrets; their life was open to all; and they had no themes for conversation save need, and forage, and the absence of snow. . . .

For a moment they were silent. But soon they remembered the hens and dead sheep, and returned to the problem, Who was responsible?

“The Zemstvo!” said Osip gloomily. “Who else?”