Selected Stories

In Exile

OLD SEMYON, whose nickname was Preacher, and a young Tartar, whose name no one knew, were sitting by a campfire on the bank of the river, the other three ferrymen were inside the hut. Semyon, a gaunt, toothless old man of sixty, broad-shouldered and still healthy-looking, was drunk; he would have gone to bed long ago, but he had a bottle in his pocket and was afraid his comrades in the hut would ask him for a drink of vodka. The Tartar was worn out and ill, and, wrapping himself in his rags, he talked about how good it was in the province of Simbirsk, and what a beautiful and clever wife he had left at home. He was not more than twenty-five, and in the firelight his pale, sickly face and woebegone expression made him seem like a boy.

“Well, this is no paradise, of course,” said Preacher. “You can see for yourself: water, bare banks, nothing but clay wherever you look. … It’s long past Easter and there’s still ice on the river … and this morning there was snow.”

“Bad! Bad!” said the Tartar, surveying the landscape with dismay.

A few yards away the dark, cold river flowed, growling and sluicing against the pitted clay banks as it sped on to the distant sea. At the edge of the bank loomed a capacious barge, which ferrymen call a karbas. Far away on the opposite bank crawling snakes of fire were dying down then reappearing—last year’s grass being burned. Beyond the snakes there was darkness again. Little blocks of ice could be heard knocking against the barge. It was cold and damp. …

The Tartar glanced at the sky. There were as many stars as there were at home, the same blackness, but something was lacking. At home, in the province of Simbirsk, the stars and the sky seemed altogether different.

“Bad! Bad!” he repeated.

“You’ll get used to it!” said Preacher with a laugh. “You’re still young and foolish—the milk’s hardly dry on your lips—and in your foolishness you think there’s no one more unfortunate than you, but the time will come when you’ll say to yourself: may God give everyone such a life. Just look at me. In a week’s time the floods will be over and we’ll launch the ferry; you’ll all go gadding about Siberia, while I stay here, going back and forth, from one bank to the other. For twenty-two years now that’s what I’ve been doing. Day and night. The pike and the salmon under the water and me on it. That’s all I want. God give everyone such a life.”

The Tartar threw some brushwood onto the fire, lay down closer to it, and said, “My father is sick man. When he dies, my mother, my wife, will come here. Have promised.”

“And what do you want a mother and a wife for?” asked Preacher. “Just foolishness, brother. It’s the devil stirring you up, blast his soul! Don’t listen to him, the Evil One! Don’t give in to him. When he goes on about women, spite him: I don’t want them! When he talks to you about freedom, you stand up to him: I don’t want it! I want nothing! No father, no mother, no wife, no freedom, no house nor home! I want nothing, damn their souls!”

Preacher took a swig at the bottle and went on, “I’m no simple peasant, brother; I don’t come from the servile class; I’m a deacon’s son, and when I was free I lived in Kursk, and used to go around in a frock coat; but now I’ve brought myself to such a point that I can sleep naked on the ground and eat grass. And God give everyone such a life. I don’t want anything, I’m not afraid of anyone, and the way I see it, there’s no man richer or freer than I am. When they sent me here from Russia, from the very first day I jibbed: I want nothing! The devil was at me about my wife, about my kin, about freedom, but I told him: I want nothing! and I stuck to it; and here, you see, I live well, I don’t complain. But if anyone humors the devil and listens to him even once, he’s lost, no salvation for him. He’ll be stuck fast in the bog, up to his ears, and he’ll never get out.

“It’s not only the likes of you, foolish peasants, that are lost, but even the well-born and educated. Fifteen years ago they sent a gentleman here from Russia. He forged a will or something—wouldn’t share with his brothers. It was said he was a prince or a baron, but maybe he was only an official, who knows? Well, the gentleman came here, and the first thing, he bought himself a house and land in Mukhortin-skoe. ‘I want to live by my own labor,’ says he, ‘in the sweat of my brow, because I’m no longer a gentleman, but an exile.’… ‘Well,’ says I, ‘may God help you, that’s the right thing.’ He was a young man then, a hustler, always on the move; he used to do the mowing himself, catch fish, ride sixty versts on horseback. But here was the trouble: from the very first year he began riding to Gyrino to the post office. He used to stand on my ferry and sigh, ‘Ah, Semyon, for a long time now they haven’t sent me any money from home.’… ‘You don’t need money, Vasily Sergeich. What good is it? Throw off the past, forget it as if it had never happened, as if it was only a dream, and start life afresh. Don’t listen to the devil,’ I tell him, ‘he’ll bring you to no good; he’ll tighten the noose. Now you want money,’ says I, ‘and in a little while, before you know it, you’ll want something else, and then more and more. But,’ says I, ‘if you want to be happy, the very first thing is not to want anything.’ Yes. … ‘And if fate has cruelly wronged you and me,’ says I, ‘it’s no good going down on your knees to her and asking her favor; you have to spurn her and laugh at her, otherwise she’ll laugh at you.’ That’s what I said to him. …

“Two years later I ferried him over to this side, and he was rubbing his hands together and laughing. ‘I’m going to Gyrino,’ says he, ‘to meet my wife. She has taken pity on me and come here. She’s so kind and good!’ He was panting with joy. Next day he comes with his wife. A young, beautiful lady in a hat, carrying a baby girl in her arms. And plenty of baggage of all sorts. My Vasily Sergeich was spinning around her; couldn’t take his eyes of her; couldn’t praise her enough. ‘Yes, brother Semyon, even in Siberia people can live!’… ‘Well,’ thinks I, ‘just you wait; better not rejoice too soon.’… And from that time on, almost every week he went to Gyrino to find out if money had been sent from Russia. As for the money—it took plenty! ‘It’s for my sake that her youth and beauty are going to ruin here in Siberia,’ he says, ’sharing with me my bitter fate, and for this,’ he says, ‘I ought to provide her with every diversion.’ To make it more cheerful for his lady he took up with the officials and with all sorts of riffraff. And there had to be food and drink for this crowd, of course, and they must have a piano, and a fuzzy little lap dog on the sofa—may it croak!… Luxury, in short, indulgence. The lady did not stay with him long. How could she? Clay, water, cold, no vegetables for you, no fruit; uneducated and drunken people all around, no manners at all, and she a pampered lady from the capital. … Naturally, she grew tired of it. Besides, her husband, say what you like, was no longer a gentleman, but an exile—not exactly an honor.

“Three years later, I remember, on the eve of the Assumption, someone shouted from the other side. I went over in the ferry, and what do I see but the lady—all muffled up, and with her a young gentleman, an official. There was a troika. … And after I ferried them across, they got in it and vanished into thin air! That was the last that was seen of them. Toward morning Vasily Sergeich galloped up to the ferry. ‘Didn’t my wife pass this way, Semyon, with a gentleman in spectacles?’… ’She did,’ says I. ’Seek the wind in the fields!’ He galloped off in pursuit of them, and didn’t stop for five days and five nights. Afterwards, when I took him over to the other side, he threw himself down on the ferry, beat his head against the planks, and howled. ’So that’s how it is,’ says I. … I laughed and recalled to him: ‘Even in Siberia people can live!’ And he beat his head all the more.

“After that he began to long for freedom. His wife had slipped away to Russia, so, naturally, he was drawn there, both to see her and to rescue her from her lover. And, my friend, he took to galloping off every day, either to the post office or the authorities; he kept sending in petitions, and presenting them personally, asking to be pardoned so he could go back home; and he used to tell how he had spent some two hundred rubles on telegrams alone. He sold his land, and mortgaged his house to the Jews. He grew gray, stooped, and yellow in the face, as if he was consumptive. He’d talk to you and go: khe-khe-khe … and there would be tears in his eyes. He struggled with those petitions for eight years, but now he has recovered his spirits and is more cheerful: he’s thought up a new indulgence. His daughter, you see, has grown up. He keeps an eye on her, dotes on her. And, to tell the truth, she’s all right, a pretty little thing, black-browed, and with a lively disposition. Every Sunday he goes to church with her in Gyrino. Side by side they stand on the ferry, she laughing and he not taking his eyes off her. ‘Yes, Semyon,’ says he, ‘even in Siberia people can live. Even in Siberia there is happiness. Look,’ says he, ’see what a daughter I’ve got! I suppose you wouldn’t find another like her if you went a thousand versts.’… ‘Your daughter,’ says I, ‘is a fine young lady, that’s true, certainly. …’ But I think to myself: Wait a while. … The girl is young, her blood is dancing, she wants to live, and what life is there here? And, my friend, she did begin to fret. … She withered and withered, wasted away, fell ill; and now she’s completely worn out. Consumption.

“That’s your Siberian happiness for you, the pestilence take it! That’s how people can live in Siberia!… He’s taken to running after doctors and taking them home with him. As soon as he hears that there’s a doctor or quack two or three hundred versts away, he goes to fetch him. A terrible lot of money has been spent on doctors; to my way of thinking, it would have been better to spend it on drink. … She’ll die anyway. She’s certain to die, and then he’ll be completely lost. He’ll hang himself from grief, or run away to Russia—that’s sure. He’ll run away, they’ll catch him, there’ll be a trial, and then hard labor; they’ll give him a taste of the lash. …”

“Good, good,” muttered the Tartar, shivering with cold.

“What’s good?” asked Preacher.

“Wife and daughter. … Let hard labor, let suffer; he saw his wife and daughter. … You say: want nothing. But nothing is bad! Wife was with him three years—God gave him that. Nothing is bad; three years is good. How you not understand?”

Shivering and stuttering, straining to pick out the Russian words, of which he knew so few, the Tartar said God forbid one should fall sick and die in a strange land, and be buried in the cold, sodden earth; that if his wife came to him even for one day, even for one hour, he would be willing to accept any torture whatsoever, and thank God for it. Better one day of happiness than nothing.

After that he again described the beautiful and clever wife he had left at home; then, clutching his head with both hands, he began crying and assuring Semyon that he was innocent and had been falsely accused. His two brothers and his uncle stole some horses from a peasant, and beat the old man till he was half dead, and the commune had not judged fairly, but had contrived a sentence by which all three brothers were sent to Siberia, while the uncle, a rich man, remained at home.

“You’ll get u-u-used to it!” said Semyon.

The Tartar relapsed into silence and fixed his tearful eyes on the fire; his face expressed bewilderment and fright, as though he still did not understand why he was here in the dark, in the damp, among strangers, instead of in the province of Simbirsk. Preacher lay down near the fire, chuckled at something, and began singing in an undertone.

“What joy has she with her father?” he said a little later. “He loves her, she’s a consolation to him, it’s true; but you have to mind your p’s and q’s with him, brother: he’s a strict old man, a severe old man. And strictness is not what young girls want. … They want petting and ha-ha-ha and ho-ho-ho, scents and pomades! Yes. … Ekh, life, life!” sighed Semyon, getting up with difficulty. “The vodka’s all gone, so it’s time to sleep. Eh? I’m going, my boy.”

Left alone, the Tartar put more brushwood onto the fire, lay down, and, looking into the blaze, began thinking of his native village, and of his wife: if she would come only for a month, even for a day, then, if she liked, she might go back again. Better a month or even a day than nothing. But if she kept her promise and came, how could he provide for her? Where could she live?

“If not something to eat, how you live?” the Tartar asked aloud.

He was paid only ten kopecks for working at the oars a day and a night; the passengers gave him tips, it was true, but the ferrymen shared everything among themselves, giving nothing to the Tartar, but only making fun of him. And he was hungry, cold, and frightened from want. … Now, when his whole body was shivering and aching, he ought to go into the hut and lie down to sleep, but he had nothing there to cover himself with, and it was colder there than on the river bank; here, too, he had nothing to put over him, but at least he could make a fire. …

In another week, when the floods had subsided and the ferry could sail, none of the ferrymen except Semyon would be needed, and the Tartar would begin going from village to village, looking for work and begging alms. His wife was only seventeen years old; beautiful, pampered, shy—could she possibly go from village to village, her face unveiled, begging? No, even to think of it was dreadful. …

It was already growing light; the barge, the bushes of rose-willow, and the ripples on the water were clearly distinguishable, and looking back there was the steep clay precipice, below it the little hut thatched with brown straw, and above clung the huts of the villagers. The cocks were already crowing in the village.

The red clay precipice, the barge, the river, the strange, unkind people, hunger, cold, illness—perhaps all this did not exist in reality. Probably it was all a dream, thought the Tartar. He felt that he was asleep, and hearing his own snoring. … Of course, he was at home in the province of Simbirsk, and he had only to call his wife by name for her to answer, and in the next room his mother. … However, what awful dreams there are! Why? The Tartar smiled and opened his eyes. What river was this? The Volga?

“Bo-o-at!” someone shouted from the other side. “Kar-ba-a-s!”

The Tartar woke up and went to wake his comrades, to row over to the other side. Putting on their torn sheepskins as they came, the ferrymen appeared on the bank, swearing in hoarse, sleepy voices, and shivering from the cold. After their sleep, the river, from which there came a piercing gust of cold air, evidently struck them as revolting and sinister. They were not quick to jump into the barge. The Tartar and the three ferrymen took up the long, broad-bladed oars, which looked like crabs’ claws in the darkness. Semyon leaned his belly against the long tiller. The shouting from the other side continued, and two shots were fired from a revolver; the man probably thought that the ferrymen were asleep or had gone off to the village tavern.

“All right, plenty of time!” said Preacher in the tone of a man who is convinced that there is no need to hurry in this world—that it makes no difference, really, and nothing will come of it.

The heavy, clumsy barge drew away from the bank and floated between the rose-willows; and only because the willows slowly receded was it possible to see that the barge was not standing still but moving. The ferrymen plied the oars evenly, in unison; Preacher hung over the tiller on his belly, and, describing an arc in the air, flew from one side of the boat to the other. In the darkness it looked as if the men were sitting on some antideluvian animal with long paws, and sailing to a cold, bleak land, the very one of which we sometimes dream in nightmares.

They passed beyond the willows and floated out into the open. The rhythmic thump and splash of the oars were now audible on the further shore, and someone shouted, “Hurry! Hurry!” Another ten minutes passed and the barge bumped heavily against the landing stage.

“And it keeps coming down, and coming down!” muttered Semyon, wiping the snow from his face. “Where it comes from, God only knows!”

On the other side stood a thin old man of medium height wearing a jacket lined with fox fur and a white lambskin cap. He was standing at a little distance from his horses and not moving; he had a concentrated, morose expression, as if, trying to remember something, he had grown angry with his unyielding memory. When Semyon went up to him with a smile and took off his cap, he said, “I’m hastening to Anastasyevka. My daughter is worse again, and they say there’s a new doctor at Anastasyevka.”

They dragged the tarantass onto the barge and rowed back. The man, whom Semyon called Vasily Sergeich, stood motionless all the way back, his thick lips tightly compressed, his eyes fixed on one spot; when the coachman asked permission to smoke in his presence, he made no reply, as if he had not heard. And Semyon, hanging over the tiller on his belly, glanced mockingly at him and said, “Even in Siberia people can live. Li-i-ve!”

There was a triumphant expression on Preacher’s face, as if he had proved something and was rejoicing that it had turned out exactly as he had surmised. The helpless, unhappy look of the man in the fox-lined jacket evidently afforded him great satisfaction.

“It’s muddy driving now, Vasily Sergeich,” he said when the horses were harnessed on the bank. “You’d better have waited a week or two till it gets drier. … Or else not have gone at all. … If there were any sense in going, but, as you yourself know, people have been driving about for ever and ever, by day and by night, and there’s never any sense in it. That’s the truth!”

Vasily Sergeich tipped him without a word, got into the tarantass, and drove off.

“See there, he’s gone galloping off for a doctor!” said Semyon, shrinking with cold. “Yes, looking for a real doctor is like chasing the wind in the fields, or catching the devil by the tail, damn your soul! What freaks! Lord forgive me, a sinner!”

The Tartar went up to Preacher and, looking at him with hatred and abhorrence, trembling, mixing Tartar words with his broken Russian, said, “He is good—good. You bad! You bad! Gentleman is good soul, excellent, and you beast, you bad! Gentleman alive and you dead. … God created man to be live, be joyful, be sad and sorrow, but you want nothing. … You not live, you stone, clay! Stone want nothing and you want nothing. … You stone—and God not love you, love gentleman!”

Everyone laughed; the Tartar frowned scornfully and, with a gesture of despair, wrapped himself in his rags and went to the fire. Semyon and the ferrymen trailed off to the hut.

“It’s cold,” said one of the ferrymen hoarsely as he stretched out on the straw that covered the damp floor.

“Well, it’s not warm!” one of the others agreed. “It’s a hard life!”

They all lay down. The door was blown open by the wind, and snow drifted into the hut. No one felt like getting up and closing the door; it was cold and they were lazy.

“I’m all right!” said Semyon, falling asleep. “God give everyone such a life.”

“You’re a hard case, we know that. Even the devils won’t take you!”

From outside there came sounds like the howling of a dog.

“What’s that? Who’s there?”

“It’s the Tartar crying.”

“He’ll get u-u-used to it!” said Semyon, and instantly fell asleep.

Soon the others fell asleep too. And the door remained unclosed.

—1892