Forty Stories

Sleepyhead

NIGHT. Varka, the nursemaid, a girl of about thirteen, was rocking the cradle and singing in an almost inaudible voice to the baby:

Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye,

I’ll sing you a song …

A green lamp was burning in front of the icon, and there was a rope stretching from one corner of the room to the other, with diapers and an enormous pair of black trousers hanging down from it. A great stain of green light, reflected upward from the lamp, glowed on the ceiling. The diapers and trousers threw heavy shadows on the stove, on Varka, and on the cradle. When the lamp flame flickered, the green stain and the shadows moved in unison and seemed to be buffeted by a wind. There was a suffocating smell of soup and old boot leather.

The baby was crying. For a long time he had been hoarse and weak from crying, but nevertheless he continued to cry and showed no sign of stopping. Varka wanted to sleep. Her eyelids were glued together, her head ached, her neck throbbed. She could scarcely move her eyes or her lips; her face felt stiff and dry, and her head seemed to have shriveled to the size of a pinhead.

“Hush-a-bye, baby,” she sang softly. “You shall be fed bye and bye.”

A cricket chirped in the stove. Behind the door, in the next room, Varka’s master and the journeyman Afanasy were snoring. The cradle creaked plaintively and Varka sang her songs; and these two noises mingled together in a soft, lulling night music sweet to the ears of those who lie in bed. But now this music only irritated and depressed her, for it made her sleepy and sleep had become impossible. God forbid that Varka should fall asleep, for if she did her master and mistress would beat her unmercifully.

The lamp flickered. The green stain and the shadows wandered about the room, falling upon the half-open motionless eyes of Varka, creating images in her drowsy, half-awakened brain. She saw dark clouds chasing each other across the sky and crying like the child. When the wind rose, the clouds vanished, and then she saw a wide highway covered with liquid mud: along this highway she saw baggage trains stretching into the distance, and men crawled after them with knapsacks on their backs, and the shadows hovered over them. On both sides of the highway were forests, which could be seen emerging out of the raw and chilling mists. Suddenly the men with the knapsacks and the shadows fell in the liquid mud. “Why did this happen?” Varka asked, and the reply came: “Go to sleep! Go to sleep!” So they slept sweetly and soundlessly. Crows and magpies perched on the telegraph wires, and they were weeping like children, trying to awaken those who had fallen by the wayside.

“Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye,” Varka sang softly. “I’ll sing you a song.” And then she found herself in a dark and suffocating hut.

Her dead father, Yefim Stepanov, was sprawled over the floor. She could not see him, but heard him tossing about and moaning. He used to say: “My hernia is acting up!” and so it was. The pain was so fierce that he was unable to speak a single word. He just sucked in the air and expelled it from his mouth with a sound like the rolling of drums.

“Bu, bu, bu, bu …”

Her mother, Pelageya, ran off to the farmhouse to tell the master that Yefim was dying. She had been gone for a long while, and Varka wondered whether she would ever return. She lay on the stove, unable to sleep, growing accustomed to her father’s voice, the interminable “Bu-bu-bu-bu …” She heard someone coming up to the hut. The master had sent the young doctor: he was a guest from a neighboring town and was staying at the master’s house. The doctor came into the hut. The shadows were so thick that he remained invisible, but she heard his cough and the creaking of the door.

“Let me have a light!” the doctor said.

“Bu-bu-bu-bu …” Yefim muttered.

At that moment Pelageya sprang to the stove and began to search for the crock with the matches. A whole minute passed in silence. The doctor, diving into his pocket, produced a match and struck it.

“I’m coming straight away, batyushka!” Pelageya said, running out of the hut and returning a moment later with a candle end.

Yefim’s cheeks were flushed, his eyes glittered, and his gaze was very penetrating, as though he could see right through the hut and right through the doctor.

“How do you feel?” the doctor said. “Has it been going on a long time?”

“Eh, what’s that? My time’s up, Your Honor. I’m on my way out.…”

“Fiddlesticks! We’ll have you cured in no time!”

“Just as you say, Your Honor.… We thank you humbly.… Only we understand, if it comes to dying, then there’s nothing we can do about it.”

For a quarter of an hour the doctor stayed with Yefim, and then he rose and said: “There’s nothing more I can do for you. You’ll have to go to the hospital, and they’ll operate on you. You have to go now, make no mistake. It’s a bit late. They’ll all be asleep at the hospital, but that’s all right. I’ll give you a note.… Can you hear me?”

“Batyushka, how can they take him there?” Pelageya said. “We don’t have a horse to our name.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll speak to the master, and he’ll lend you a horse.”

The doctor went away, and then it grew dark, and once more she heard: “Bu-bu-bu-bu …” Half an hour later someone drove up to the hut. It was the small cart sent by the master to take Yefim to the hospital. Yefim got ready, and then he went away in the cart.

The next morning rose fine and clear. Pelageya was not at home: she had gone to the hospital to see her husband. Somewhere a baby was crying, and Varka was surprised to hear someone singing in her own voice:

Hush-a-bye, baby, hush-a-bye,

Nurse will sing for you bye and bye …

When Pelageya returned from the hospital, she crossed herself and whispered: “He was operated on last night, but early this morning he gave up his soul to God. Heavenly kingdom, eternal rest … They say he went too late to the hospital. We should have taken him earlier.…”

Varka slipped away into the forest and gave herself up to weeping, and suddenly someone hit her across the nape of the neck with such force she cracked her forehead against a birch tree. Then she looked up, and saw it was her master, the shoemaker.

“What do you think you are doing, stupid!” he shouted. “The baby is crying, and you let yourself fall asleep.”

He smacked her across the ears. It hurt, but she only shook her head and went on rocking the cradle and murmuring her song. The green stain, the shadow of the diapers and the trousers waved and winked at her, and once again penetrated into her brain. Once again she saw a highway covered with liquid mud. Men with knapsacks on their backs, dark with shadow, lay down in the mud and slept soundly. And while she gazed at them, Varka passionately wanted to sleep. She could have thrown herself down on a bed with perfect happiness, but at that moment her mother, Pelageya, came and hurried her away, and together they went to the town to look for work.

“Give us something for the love of Christ!” her mother called to everyone she met. “Dear good people, be merciful to us!”

The well-known voice was saying: “Give me the baby! Give him to me!” The same voice said angrily, with a sharp cutting edge: “So you are sleeping again, you little wretch!”

Varka jumped up and looked around her. She remembered now where she was. There was no highway, no Pelageya, no passers-by: only her mistress standing there in the middle of the room, coming to feed her baby. She was a stout, heavy-shouldered woman, and while she was feeding and soothing the baby, Varka stood quite still, gazing at her and waiting until she had finished. Outside the windows darkness was giving place to blue sky, and all the shadows and the green stain on the ceiling were visibly turning pale. Soon it would be morning.

“Now you take him,” the mother said, buttoning the top buttons of her nightgown. “He’s still crying. Someone must have put a spell on him!”

So Varka took the baby and laid him in the cradle, and once more she began to rock the cradle. Slowly the shadows and the green stain faded to nothing, and there was no teeming darkness, nothing at all, to keep her brain in turmoil. She wanted so terribly to sleep. She laid her head on the edge of the cradle and rocked it with her whole body in order to overcome the desire for sleep; but soon her eyelids were glued together and her head grew heavy.

“Varka, light the stove!” Her master’s voice came from behind the door.

This meant it was time to get up and start the day’s work. She abandoned the cradle and ran into the woodshed. This made her happy, for while she was running or walking, she had no desire for sleep: that desire which overcame her whenever she was sitting down. She gathered up the sticks of wood and lit the stove, and her face no longer felt stiff, and her thoughts were coming clear.

“Varka, get the samovar ready!” her mistress shouted.

Varka split the fagots into small pieces, and she had scarcely put fire to them and pushed them into the samovar when there came another order: “Varka, clean your master’s galoshes!”

Varka sat on the floor, cleaned the galoshes, and thought how wonderful it would be if she could hide her head in those big, deep galoshes and go to sleep for a while. Before her eyes the galoshes began to grow and swell up and fill the whole room. She let the cleaning brush fall from her hands, and she shook her head from side to side. Her eyes were bulging, and she was gazing at objects as though they had not grown larger and were not continually moving in front of her eyes.

“Varka, wash the outside steps! They’re an insult to our customers!”

Varka washed the steps, tidied up the room, lit another stove, and ran into the shop. There was so much work to be done: not a single moment left free for herself.

There is nothing in the world so tiring as to stand in one spot beside a kitchen table peeling potatoes. Her head fell forward, the potatoes made her eyes ache, the knife dropped from her hand, and the stout, ill-tempered mistress strode about the room with her sleeves rolled up, complaining in a loud, menacing voice which set Varka’s ears ringing. It was sheer torture for her to wait at table, and do the washing up and sewing. There were moments when, in spite of everything that was happening around her, she wanted only to throw herself on the floor and fall asleep.

The day passed. While gazing at the darkening windows, Varka pressed her fists against her numbed temples and smiled, scarcely knowing why she was so happy. The evening shadows caressed her drooping eyelids, promising her that she would soon sleep sound.

That evening visitors came flocking to the shoemaker’s house.

“Varka, get the samovar ready!” her mistress shouted.

It was a small samovar, and before the visitors had drunk all the tea they wanted, it had to be warmed up five times. After the tea Varka had to stand in one place for a whole hour, gazing at the visitors and attending to their wishes.

“Varka, go out and buy three bottles of beer!”

Varka tore herself away, running faster than ever so as to drive sleep away.

“Varka! Get the vodka! Where’s the corkscrew? Varka, gut the herrings!”

At last the visitors left. The fires were put out, and the master and mistress went off to bed.

“Varka! Rock the cradle!” This was the last of the orders she received.

A cricket chirruped in the stove. Once again the green stain on the ceiling and the shadows of trousers and diapers penetrated her half-closed eyelids, beckoned to her, and darkened her brain.

“Hush-a-bye, baby,” she murmured softly. “I’ll sing you a song …”

The baby went on crying, though the effort exhausted him. Once more Varka saw the muddy highway, the people with knapsacks, Pelageya and her father, Yefim. She knew them all; recognized them all; but in her drowsy state of mind she was far from understanding the power which bound her hand and foot, suffocated her, and prevented her from being alive. She gazed round the room, searching for that power in order to push it away from her. She could not find it. At last, worn out beyond endurance, she exerted all her strength, all her gift of sight; and while gazing at the green and beckoning stain, she heard the baby crying and discovered the enemy who was destroying her.

Her enemy was the baby. She laughed aloud. She was astonished how simple it all was! It seemed to her that the shadows, the cricket, the green stain—all of them were smiling in astonishment.

A strange idea took possession of her. She rose from her low chair, smiling broadly, and with wide-open eyes she began pacing up and down the room. It pleased her, and she was also amused, by the thought that she would soon be free of the baby, which had bound her hand and foot. To kill the baby, and then to sleep—

Smiling, her eyes sparkling, she made a threatening gesture with her finger at the green stain, and then she crept up to the cradle and bent over the baby. She strangled him. Then she fell on the floor, laughing with joy because now at last it was given to her to be able to sleep. A moment later, she was fast asleep.

January 1888