Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov

IN THE RAVINE

I

The village of Ukleyevo lay in a ravine, so that from the highway and the railroad station all you could see was the belfry and the smokestacks of the cotton mills. When passersby asked what village it was, they would be told:

“The one where the verger ate all the caviar at the funeral.”

Once, at the memorial dinner for the factory-owner Kostiukov, the old verger spotted black caviar among the hors d’oeuvres and greedily began to eat it; they pushed him, pulled him by the sleeve, but he was as if frozen with pleasure; he felt nothing and simply ate. He ate all the caviar, and there were about four pounds of it in the jar. And much time had passed since then, the verger was long dead, but the caviar was still remembered. Either the life there was so poor, or the people were unable to notice anything except this unimportant event that had happened ten years ago, but nothing else was ever told about the village of Ukleyevo.

It was a place of ever-present fever, and there was swampy mud even in summer, especially under the fences, over which old pussywillows hung, casting broad shadows. There was always a smell of factory waste and the acetic acid used in the treatment of the cotton. The factories—three cotton mills and one tannery—were situated not in the village itself but on the outskirts and further away. They were small factories, and in all employed about four hundred workers, not more. The water in the river often stank on account of the tannery; the waste contaminated the meadows, the peasants’ cattle suffered from anthrax, and the factory was ordered closed. It was considered closed, but went on working secretly, with the knowledge of the district police officer and the district doctor, to each of whom the owner paid ten roubles a month. There were only two decent houses in the whole village, brick, with iron roofs: one housed the rural administration; in the other, a two-story house just opposite the church, lived Grigory Petrovich Tsybukin, a tradesman from Epifanyevo.

Grigory kept a grocery store, but that was only for appearances; in reality he traded in vodka, cattle, leather, grain, pigs, traded in whatever there was, and when, for instance, there was a demand abroad for magpie feathers for ladies’ hats, he made thirty kopecks a pair; he bought up woodlots for cutting, lent money on interest, was generally a shrewd old man.

He had two sons. The elder, Anisim, served with the police, in the criminal investigation department, and was rarely at home. The younger, Stepan, went into trading and helped his father, but no real help was expected of him, because he was of weak health and deaf; his wife Aksinya, a beautiful, shapely woman, who went about on Sundays in a hat and with a parasol, got up early, went to bed late, and, with her skirts held up and her keys jangling, raced about all day long, now to the barn, now to the cellar, now to the shop, and old Tsybukin watched her merrily, his eyes glowed, and at such moments he regretted that it was not the elder son who had married her but the younger, the deaf one, who obviously had little understanding of feminine beauty.

The old man had always had an inclination for family life, and he loved his family more than anything in the world, especially his elder son, the detective, and his daughter-in-law. Aksinya had no sooner married the deaf son than she showed an extraordinary business sense and knew at once who could be given credit and who could not, kept the keys herself, not trusting them even to her husband, clicked on the abacus, looked horses in the teeth like a peasant, and was forever laughing or shouting; and, no matter what she did or said, the old man only went soft and murmured:

“Ah, what a daughter-in-law! What a beauty …”

He was a widower, but a year after his son’s wedding he could no longer stand it and got married himself. Twenty miles from Ukleyevo a girl was found for him, Varvara Nikolaevna, from a good family, no longer young, but beautiful, imposing. As soon as she settled in the little upstairs room, everything brightened in the house, as if new glass had been put in the windows. The icon lamps were lit, the tables were covered with snow-white tablecloths, red-eyed flowers appeared on the windowsills and in the front garden, and at dinner they no longer ate from one bowl, but a plate was set in front of each person. Varvara Nikolaevna smiled pleasantly and gently, and it seemed as if everything in the house were smiling. Beggars, wayfarers, and pilgrims began coming into the yard, something that had never happened before; the plaintive, sing-song voices of Ukleyevo peasant women and the guilty coughing of weak, wasted men dismissed from the factories for drunkenness, were heard under the windows. Varvara Nikolaevna helped out with money, bread, old clothes, and later, once she felt at home, also began pilfering from the shop. Once the deaf son saw her take two packets of tea, and that puzzled him.

“Mother took two packets of tea,” he said later to his father. “Where should I write it down?”

The old man did not answer, but stood thinking, moving his eyebrows, and then went upstairs to his wife.

“Varvarushka, dearest,” he said tenderly, “if you ever need anything from the shop, take it. You’re welcome to take it, don’t think twice.”

And the next day the deaf son, running across the yard, called out to her:

“Mother, if you need anything—take it!”

In her giving of alms there was something new, something cheerful and light, as with the icon lamps and red flowers. When, on the eve of a fast or a major feast that lasted three days, they sold rotten corned beef to the peasants, which gave off such a strong stench that it was hard to stand near the barrel, and took scythes, hats, and their wives’ shawls as pledges from drunken men, when factory workers stupefied by bad vodka lay about in the mud, and sin, condensing, seemed to hang like murk in the air, then it came as something of a relief to think that there, in the house, was a quiet, neat woman who had nothing to do with corned beef or vodka; in those oppressive, murky days her alms worked like a safety valve on an engine.

The days were busy in Tsybukin’s house. The sun was not up yet, and Aksinya was already snorting as she washed in the front hall, the samovar was boiling in the kitchen and humming, boding something ill. Old Grigory Petrovich, dressed in a long black frock coat and cotton trousers, with tall, shiny boots, so clean and small, walked through the rooms, tapping his heels like the dear father-in-law in the famous song. The shop was opened. When day came, a light droshky was drawn up to the porch and the old man dashingly climbed into it, pulling his big visored cap down to his ears, and nobody looking at him would have said he was fifty-six years old. His wife and daughter-in-law would see him off, and at that time, when he was wearing a fine, clean frock coat and the droshky was harnessed to a huge black stallion worth three hundred roubles, the old man did not like to have peasants approach him with their petitions and complaints; he hated the peasants and scorned them, and if he saw some peasant waiting at the gate, he would shout wrathfully:

“No standing there! Move on!”

Or, if it was a beggar, he would shout:

“God will provide!”

He would drive off on business; his wife, in a dark dress with a black apron, would tidy the rooms or help in the kitchen. Aksinya tended the shop, and from the yard came the clink of bottles and money, Aksinya’s laughter and shouting, or the angry voices of customers she had offended; at the same time it could be noted that the secret sale of vodka was already going on in the shop. The deaf man also sat in the shop, or else walked around outside, hatless, his hands in his pockets, gazing distractedly now at the cottages, now up at the sky. Six times a day they had tea in the house; four times they sat down to eat. In the evenings they counted the receipts and wrote them down, then slept soundly.

In Ukleyevo, all three cotton mills were connected by telephone with the quarters of the owners, the Khrymin Seniors, the Khrymin Juniors, and Kostiukov. A telephone was also installed in the local administrative office, but there it soon stopped working, because it got infested with bedbugs and cockroaches. The local headman was barely literate and began every word in official documents with a capital letter, but when the telephone broke down, he said:

“Yes, it’ll be hard for us now without a telephone.”

The Khrymin Seniors were constantly taking the Khrymin Juniors to court, the Juniors also sometimes quarreled with each other and went to court, and then their factory would stop working for a month or two, until they made peace, and this entertained the populace of Ukleyevo, because there would be much talk and gossip on the occasion of each quarrel. On holidays Kostiukov and the Khrymin Juniors organized drives and raced around Ukleyevo, running down calves. Aksinya, her starched skirts rustling, all dressed up, would stroll outside near her shop; the Juniors would pick her up and drive away with her as if by force. Then old Tsybukin would also drive out, to show off his new horse, and take Varvara with him.

In the evening, after the drives, when everyone was in bed, an expensive accordion would begin to play in the Juniors’ yard, and if the moon was out, these sounds would disturb and delight the heart, and Ukleyevo would no longer seem like a hole.

II

The elder son Anisim came home very rarely, only on major feasts, but to make up for it he often sent presents home with his fellow villagers and letters written in someone else’s hand, a very beautiful one, each time on a sheet of writing paper, with the look of a petition. The letters were full of expressions such as Anisim never used in conversation: “My gentle mama and papa, I am sending you a pound of chamomile tea for the satisfaction of your physical needs.”

At the bottom of each page “Anisim Tsybukin” was scrawled, as if with a broken pen, and below it, in the same beautiful hand: “Agent.”

The letters would be read aloud several times, and the old man, moved, flushed with excitement, would say:

“See, he didn’t want to live at home, he got into the learned line. So, let him! Each to his own place.”

Once just before Lent there was a heavy rain with hail; the old man and Varvara went to the window to look, and—lo and behold, Anisim was driving up in a sledge from the station. They were not expecting him at all. He came in uneasy and alarmed at something; and so he remained all the while afterwards; and his behavior was somehow casual. He was in no hurry to leave, and it looked as if he had been dismissed from his job. Varvara was glad he had come; she kept glancing at him somehow slyly, sighing and shaking her head.

“How can it be, dear hearts?” she said. “Why, the lad’s nearly twenty-eight and he’s still going around a bachelor—oh, tush, tush …”

From the other room all that could be heard of her soft, even speech was: “Oh, tush, tush.” She began to whisper with the old man and Aksinya, and their faces, too, acquired a sly and mysterious expression, as with conspirators.

They decided to get Anisim married.

“Oh, tush, tush! … The younger brother’s been married a long time,” said Varvara, “and you go on without a mate, like a cock at the market. What sort of thing is that? You’ll get married, God willing, then go to work if you like, and the wife can stay home and help us. There’s no order in your life, lad, and I can see you’ve forgotten all order. Oh, tush, tush, there’s nothing but sin with you townsfolk.”

When the Tsybukins married, the most beautiful brides were chosen for them, since they were rich. For Anisim, too, a beautiful girl was found. He himself was of uninteresting, unremarkable appearance; along with his weak, sickly build and small stature, he had full, plump cheeks, as if he puffed them out; his eyes never blinked, and their gaze was sharp; he had a sparse red beard, and when he pondered, he kept putting it in his mouth and chewing it; besides, he drank often, and it showed in his face and gait. But when he was told that they had a very beautiful bride for him, he said:

“Well, and I’m not so lopsided myself. All of us Tsybukins are handsome, I must say.”

Just below the town was the village of Torguyevo. Half of it had recently been incorporated into the town, the other half remained a village. In the first half, in her own little house, lived a certain widow; she had a sister, completely poor, who did day labor, and this sister had a daughter, Lipa, a young girl who also did day labor. Lipa’s beauty was already being talked about in Torguyevo, only everybody was disheartened by her terrible poverty; they reasoned that some older man or widower would marry her, overlooking her poverty, or would take her for himself “just so,” and her mother would be fed along with her. Varvara found out about Lipa from the matchmakers and paid a visit to Torguyevo.

Then a showing was arranged in the aunt’s house, quite properly, with food and wine, and Lipa wore a new pink dress specially made for the occasion, and a crimson ribbon shone like a flame in her hair. She was thin, frail, wan, with fine, tender features, darkened from working in the open air; a sad, timid smile never left her face, and her gaze was childlike—trusting and full of curiosity

She was young, still a girl, with barely noticeable breasts, but she could already marry, since she was of age. She was indeed beautiful, and the only thing that could be found displeasing in her was her big, mannish hands, which now hung down idly like two big claws.

“There’s no dowry, but we don’t mind,” the old man said to the aunt, “we also took one from a poor family for our son Stepan, and now we can’t praise her enough. Around the house, or at work—a golden touch.”

Lipa stood by the door and it was as if she wanted to say: “Do what you like with me, I trust you,” but her mother Praskovya, the day laborer, hid in the kitchen, dying from timidity. Once, when she was still young, a merchant whose floors she used to scrub stamped his feet at her in anger, and she was so badly frightened, so mortified, that the fear remained in her soul for the rest of her life. And from fear her hands and feet always trembled, her cheeks trembled. Sitting in the kitchen, she tried to overhear what the guests were talking about and kept crossing herself, pressing her fingers to her forehead and glancing at the icon. Anisim, slightly drunk, opened the kitchen door and said casually:

“What are you sitting in here for, precious mother? We miss you.”

And Praskovya, turning shy, pressing her hands to her skinny, emaciated breast, answered:

“Ah, mercy, sir … We’re much pleased with you, sir.”

After the showing, the day of the wedding was set. Then, at home, Anisim kept pacing the rooms, whistling, or, suddenly remembering something, would lapse into thought and stare at the floor, fixedly, piercingly, as if he wanted to penetrate deep into the ground with his gaze. He expressed neither pleasure at getting married, married soon, on Krasnaya Gorka,¹ nor any desire to see his fiancée, but simply whistled. And it was obvious that he was getting married only because his father and stepmother wanted it and because it was a village custom: a son should marry so that there would be a helper in the house. Going away, he was in no hurry and generally behaved differently than on his previous visits—was somehow especially casual and said things that were out of place.

III

In the village of Shikalovo lived two dressmakers, sisters, who belonged to the Flagellants.² They were hired to make new dresses for the wedding, and they often came for fittings and lingered a long time over tea. Varvara had a brown dress made, with black lace and bugles, and Aksinya a light green dress with a yellow front and train. When the dressmakers were done, Tsybukin paid them not in cash but in goods from his shop, and they went away from him sadly, carrying bundles of stearine candles and sardines, which they did not need at all, and when they got out of the village into the fields, they sat down on a knoll and began to cry.

Anisim came three days before the wedding in all new clothes. He wore shiny rubber galoshes and a red string tipped with beads instead of a tie, and over his shoulders hung a coat, also new, his arms not in the sleeves.

After gravely saying a prayer, he greeted his father and gave him ten silver roubles and ten half roubles; he gave the same amount to Varvara, and to Aksinya twenty quarter roubles. The main charm of this present was precisely that all the coins, as if specially chosen, were new and glittered in the sun. Trying to look grave and serious, Anisim strained his face and puffed his cheeks, and he gave off a smell of drink—he had probably rushed out to the buffet at every station. And again there was some sort of casualness, something superfluous in the man. Later Anisim and the old man had tea and a bite to eat, while Varvara fingered the new roubles and asked about local people who were living in town.

“It’s all right, thank God, they have a good life,” said Anisim. “Only Ivan Yegorov had something happen in his family: his old woman, Sofya Nikiforovna, died. Of consumption. They ordered a memorial dinner for the repose of her soul at a confectioner’s, two roubles fifty a person. And there was grape wine. Peasants came— our locals—it was two-fifty for them, too. They didn’t eat anything. What does a peasant know about sauce!”

“Two-fifty!” said the old man and shook his head.

“And so what? It’s not a village. You stop at a restaurant to have a bite to eat, you order this and that, a company gathers, you have a drink—lo and behold, it’s daybreak and three or four roubles each, if you please. And when it’s with Samorodov, he likes to top it all off with coffee and cognac, and cognac’s sixty kopecks a glass, sir.”

“And it’s all a pack of lies,” the old man said admiringly. “A pack of lies!”

“I’m always with Samorodov now. It’s that same Samorodov who writes my letters. He writes magnificently. And if I was to tell you, mother,” Anisim went on merrily, addressing Varvara, “what sort of man that same Samorodov is, you wouldn’t believe it. We all call him Mukhtar,³ because he’s got the looks of an Armenian—all dark. I can see through him, I know all his dealings like the palm of my hand, mother, and he feels it and keeps following me, never leaves me, and now we’re inseparable. He seems a little scared, but he can’t live without me. Wherever I go, he goes. I’ve got a true and trusty eye, mother. I see a peasant selling a shirt at the flea market. ‘Stop! That’s a stolen shirt!’ And it turns out to be so: the shirt’s stolen.”

“But how do you know?” asked Varvara.

“No idea, I’ve got that sort of eye. I don’t know anything about this shirt, only for some reason I’m just drawn to it: it’s stolen and that’s that. They say in the department: ‘Well, Anisim’s gone hunting woodcock!’ That means looking for stolen goods. Yes … Anybody can steal, but how to hold on to it! It’s a big world, but there’s nowhere to hide stolen goods.”

“And in our village the Guntorevs had a ram and two ewes stolen last week,” Varvara said and sighed. “And there’s nobody to go looking for them … Oh, tush, tush …”

“So what? It could be done. Nothing to it.”

The day of the wedding came. It was a cool but bright and cheerful April day. From early morning troikas and pairs, bells jingling, drove around Ukleyevo, their manes and yokes decorated with multicolored ribbons. The rooks, disturbed by this driving, squawked in the pussywillows, and the starlings sang incessantly, straining their voices, as if rejoicing that there was a wedding at the Tsybukins’.

In the house the tables were already laid with long fish, hams, and stuffed fowl, tins of sprats, various salted and pickled things, and numerous bottles of vodka and wine, and there was a smell of smoked sausage and spoiled lobster. And around the table, tapping his heels and sharpening one knife against another, walked the old man. Someone was calling Varvara all the time, asking for something, and she, with a lost look, breathing hard, kept running to the kitchen, where a chef sent by Kostiukov and a kitchen maid from the Khrymin Juniors had been working since dawn. Aksinya, her hair curled, with no dress on, in a corset and creaking new boots, rushed about the yard like a whirlwind, and only her bare knees and breast kept flashing. It was noisy, oaths and curses were heard; passersby stopped at the flung-open gates, and it all felt as if something extraordinary was being prepared.

“They’ve gone for the bride!”

Harness bells rang out and faded away far beyond the village … Between two and three o’clock people came running: again the bells were heard, they were bringing the bride! The church was packed, the big chandelier was lit, the choir, at old Tsybukin’s wish, sang from books. The shining lights and bright dresses dazzled Lipa, it seemed to her that the loud voices of the choir were beating on her head with hammers; her corset, which she was wearing for the first time in her life, and her high shoes squeezed her, and she looked as if she had just come out of a swoon—her eyes wide and uncomprehending. Anisim, in a black frock coat, with a red string instead of a tie, stared pensively at one spot, and each time the choir gave a loud cry, he quickly crossed himself. He was moved in his heart, he felt like weeping. This church had been familiar to him from childhood; his late mother had brought him there for communion; he had sung in the choir with the other boys; for him every little corner, every icon had its memories. Now he was getting married, he had to have a wife for propriety’s sake, but he no longer thought about that, he somehow did not remember, he completely forgot the wedding. Tears prevented him from seeing the icons, something pressed on his heart; he prayed and asked God that the inevitable misfortunes which were ready to break over him any day might somehow pass him by, as storm clouds in a time of drought pass by a village without giving a drop of rain. And so many sins had already been heaped up in the past, so many sins, and everything was so inextricable, irreparable, that it somehow even made no sense to ask forgiveness. Yet he did ask forgiveness, and even sobbed loudly, but nobody paid attention to it, thinking he was drunk.

An anxious child’s crying was heard:

“Mummy dear, take me home!”

“Quiet there,” shouted the priest.

As they returned from church, people ran after them; by the shop, by the gates, and under the windows in the yard there was also a crowd. Peasant women came to chant praises. The young couple had barely crossed the threshold when the choir, already standing in the front hall with their books, struck up loudly, with all their might; musicians, specially invited from town, began to play. Sparkling Don wine was brought in tall glasses, and the carpenter-contractor Yelizarov, a tall, lean old man with such thick eyebrows that his eyes were barely visible, said, addressing the young couple:

“Anisim, and you, little girl, love each other, lead a godly life, my little ones, and the Queen of Heaven will not abandon you.” He fell on the old man’s shoulder and sobbed. “Grigory Petrovich, let us weep, let us weep for joy!” he said in a high little voice and straightaway suddenly guffawed and went on loudly, in a bass voice: “Ho, ho, ho! And this daughter-in-law of yours is a fine one, too! She’s got everything in the right place, I’d say, all smooth, no rattling, the whole mechanism’s in order, plenty of screws.”

He was a native of the Yegoriev district, but from an early age he had been working in Ukleyevo at the factories and around the district and was at home there. He had long been known as the same tall and lean old man he was now, and had long been called Crutch. For over forty years he had done nothing but repair work at the factories, and that was perhaps the reason why he judged every person or object from the point of view of sturdiness alone: by whether or not it needed repair. And before sitting down at the table he tried several chairs to see if they were sturdy, and also poked the white-fish.

After the sparkling wine they all began to sit down at the table. The guests talked, moved chairs. The choir sang in the front hall, the music played, and at the same time the peasant women were singing in the courtyard, all as one voice—and the result was some terrible, wild mixture of sounds, which made one’s head spin.

Crutch fidgeted in his chair and nudged his neighbors with his elbows, preventing them from talking, and now wept, now laughed.

“Little ones, little ones, little ones …” he muttered quickly. “Aksinyushka dear, Varvarushka, let’s all live in peace and harmony, my gentle little hatchets …”

He drank rarely, and now became drunk from one glass of English bitters. This disgusting bitters, made of God knows what, stupefied everyone who drank it, as if it hit them on the head. Tongues became confused.

The clergy were there, the factory managers and their wives, merchants and tavernkeepers from other villages. The local headman and the local clerk, who had been serving together for fourteen years and in all that time had never signed a single paper nor allowed a single person to leave their office without having cheated and insulted him, were now sitting side by side, both fat, well fed, and it seemed they were so saturated with falsehood that even the skin of their faces was of some special fraudulent sort. The clerk’s wife, an emaciated, cross-eyed woman, had brought all her children with her, and, like a bird of prey, cast sidelong glances at the plates, snatched everything she could lay her hands on, and hid it in her own and her children’s pockets.

Lipa sat petrified, with the same look that she had in church. Since making her acquaintance, Anisim had not said a single word to her, so that he did not know to that day what her voice was like; and now, sitting beside her, he still kept silent and drank English bitters, but when he got drunk he began to speak, addressing her aunt, who was sitting opposite him:

“I have a friend whose last name is Samorodov. He’s a special man. A personally honorable citizen and a capable speaker. But I can see through him, auntie, and he feels it. Allow me, auntie, to drink with you to Samorodov’s health!”

Varvara, tired and confused, walked around the table offering things to the guests, and was clearly pleased that there was so much food and all of it so high-class—now no one could find fault with them. The sun set and the dinner went on; they no longer knew what they were eating, what they were drinking, it was impossible to hear anything that was said, and only from time to time, when the music died down, could some peasant woman in the yard be heard shouting:

“You’ve sucked enough of our blood, you Herods, a plague upon you!”

In the evening there was dancing to the music. The Khrymin Juniors came with their wine, and one of them, during the quadrille, held a bottle in each hand and a glass in his mouth, and that made everyone laugh. In the middle of the quadrille, someone would start a squatting dance; the green Aksinya only flitted about, and a breeze blew from her train. Someone stepped on her flounce, and Crutch shouted:

“Hey, the plinth got torn off below! Little ones!”

Aksinya had gray, naïve eyes that seldom blinked, and a naïve smile constantly played over her face. And there was something snakelike in those unblinking eyes, and in that small head on its long neck, and in her shapely build; green with a yellow front, smiling, she gazed the way a viper in springtime, stretched out and head up, gazes from the young rye at someone going past. The Khrymins behaved freely with her, and it was quite obvious that she had a long-standing intimacy with the older one. And her deaf husband, who understood nothing, did not look at her; he sat with his legs crossed eating nuts, and cracked them so loudly that it was as if he were firing a pistol.

But now old man Tsybukin himself stepped out to the middle and waved his handkerchief, giving a sign that he, too, wanted to dance a Russian dance, and a hum of approval ran through the whole house and the crowd in the courtyard:

“Himself stepped out! Himself!”

Varvara danced, while the old man just waved the handkerchief and shifted from one heel to the other, but those who were hanging over each other there in the yard, peeking through the windows, were delighted and for a moment forgave him everything—his wealth and his offenses.

“Good boy, Grigory Petrovich!” came from the crowd. “Keep it up! So you can still go to it! Ha, ha!”

It all ended late, past one o’clock in the morning. Anisim went around unsteadily to all the singers and musicians and gave each of them a new half rouble. And the old man, not swaying but somehow favoring one foot, saw the guests off and told each of them:

“The wedding cost two thousand.”

As people were leaving, somebody exchanged the Shikalovo tavernkeeper’s good vest for an old one, and Anisim suddenly flared up and started shouting:

“Stop! I’ll find him at once! I know who stole it! Stop!”

He ran outside, chasing after someone; they caught him, took him under the arms, brought him home, shoved him, drunk, flushed with anger, wet, into the room where the aunt was already undressing Lipa, and locked the door.

IV

Five days passed. Anisim got ready to leave and went upstairs to say good-bye to Varvara. She had all the icon lamps burning, there was a smell of incense, and she herself was sitting by the window knitting a red woolen stocking.

“You didn’t spend long with us,” she said. “Boring, was it? Oh, tush, tush … We have a good life, there’s plenty of everything, and your wedding was celebrated properly, the right way. The old man says two thousand went into it. In short, we live like merchants, only it’s boring here. We do people much wrong. My heart aches, my friend—oh, God, how we wrong them! We trade a horse, or buy something, or hire a workman—there’s cheating in all of it. Cheating and cheating. The vegetable oil in the shop is bitter, rancid, the people’s tar is better. Tell me, for pity’s sake, isn’t it impossible to sell good oil?”

“Each to his own place, mother.”

“But don’t we all have to die? Ah, no, really, you should talk with your father! …”

“Why don’t you talk with him yourself.”

“Well, well! I tell him what I think, and he says the same as you, word for word: each to his own place. In the other world they’re not going to sort out who had which place. God’s judgment is righteous.”

“Of course, nobody’s going to sort it out,” Anisim said and sighed. “And anyhow God doesn’t exist, mother. What’s there to sort out!”

Varvara looked at him with astonishment and laughed and clasped her hands. Because she was so sincerely astonished at his words and looked at him as if he were a freak, he became embarrassed.

“Or maybe God does exist, only there’s no faith,” he said. “As I was being married, I felt out of sorts. Like when you take an egg from under a hen and there’s a chick peeping in it, so my conscience suddenly peeped in me, and all the while I was being married, I kept thinking: God exists! But as soon as I stepped out of the church—there was nothing. And how should I know if God exists or not? We weren’t taught that when we were little, but here’s a baby still at his mother’s breast, and he’s taught just one thing: each to his own place. Papa doesn’t believe in God either. You told me that time that the Guntorevs had their sheep stolen … I found out: it was a Shikalovo peasant who stole them; he stole them, but papa got the skins … There’s faith for you!”

Anisim winked an eye and shook his head.

“And the headman doesn’t believe in God either,” he went on, “neither does the clerk or the beadle. If they go to church and keep the fasts, it’s so that people won’t speak ill of them, and in case there may really be a Judgment Day. Now they say the end of the world has come, because people have grown weak, don’t honor their parents, and so on. That’s nonsense. My understanding, mother, is that all troubles come from people having too little conscience. I can see through things, mother, and I understand. If a man’s wearing a stolen shirt, I see it. A man’s sitting in a tavern, and it looks to you like he’s having tea and nothing else, but, tea or no tea, I can also see that he’s got no conscience. You walk around the whole day, and there’s not a single person with any conscience. And the whole reason is that they don’t know whether God exists or not … Well, good-bye, mother. Keep alive and well, and think no evil of me.”

Anisim bowed to the ground in front of Varvara.

“I thank you for everything, mother,” he said. “You’ve been a great benefit to our family. You’re a very decent woman, and I’m much pleased with you.”

Feeling moved, Anisim went out, but came back again and said:

“Samorodov got me involved in a certain business: I’ll be rich or I’ll perish. If anything happens, mother, you must comfort my father.”

“Well, now! Oh, tush, tush … God is merciful. And you, Anisim, you should be more tender with your wife—the two of you just look at each other and pout. You could at least smile, really.”

“Yes, she’s sort of a strange …” Anisim said and sighed. “She doesn’t understand anything, keeps silent. She’s too young, let her grow up.”

At the porch a tall, sleek white stallion already stood hitched to a charabanc.

Old Tsybukin made a run, leaped up dashingly on the box, and took the reins. Anisim kissed Varvara, Aksinya, and his brother. Lipa also stood on the porch, stood motionless and looked aside, as though she had not come out to say good-bye but just so, for no reason. Anisim went up to her and brushed her cheek with his lips, barely, lightly.

“Good-bye,” he said.

And she smiled somehow strangely, without looking at him; her face quivered, and for some reason everyone felt sorry for her. Anisim also hopped up and sat arms akimbo, because he considered himself a handsome man.

As they drove up out of the ravine, Anisim kept looking back at the village. It was a warm, clear day. The cattle were being taken out to pasture for the first time, and girls and women walked beside the herd in their Sunday dresses. A brown bull bellowed, rejoicing in his freedom, and dug his front hooves into the earth. Larks were singing all around, above and below. Anisim looked back at the church, shapely, white—it had recently been whitewashed—and remembered praying in it five days ago; he turned to look at the school with its green roof, at the river, where he once used to swim and fish, and joy leaped in his breast, and he wished that a wall might suddenly grow up from the ground and keep him from going further, so that he could remain only with his past.

At the station they went to the buffet and drank a glass of sherry each. The old man went to his pocket for his purse, in order to pay.

“It’s on me!” said Anisim.

The old man went soft, slapped him on the shoulder, and winked at the bartender: See what a son I’ve got.

“Why don’t you stay home, Anisim,” the old man said, “you’d be priceless in the business! I’d shower you with gold, sonny.”

“I just can’t, papa.”

The sherry was sourish and smelled of sealing wax, but they drank another glass each.

When the old man came back from the station, for the first moment he did not recognize his younger daughter-in-law. As soon as her husband drove out of the yard, Lipa was transformed and suddenly became cheerful. Barefoot, in an old, tattered skirt, her sleeves rolled up to the shoulders, she was washing the stairs in the front hall and singing in a high, silvery little voice, and when she carried the big tub of dirty water outside and looked up at the sun with her childlike smile, it seemed that she, too, was a lark.

An old workman who was passing by the porch shook his head and grunted:

“Yes, Grigory Petrovich, what daughters-in-law God sent you!” he said. “Not women, but pure treasures!”

V

On July 8, a Friday, Yelizarov, nicknamed Crutch, and Lipa were coming back from the village of Kazanskoe, where they had gone on a pilgrimage, the occasion being the feast of the church there— the Kazan Mother of God.⁴ Far behind them walked Lipa’s mother Praskovya, who could never keep up, because she was ill and short of breath. It was getting towards evening.

“A-a-ah! …” Crutch was surprised as he listened to Lipa. “A-ah! … We-e-ll?”

“I’m a great lover of preserves, Ilya Makarych,” said Lipa. “I sit myself down in a little corner and drink tea with preserves. Or I drink together with Varvara Nikolaevna, and she tells me some touching story. They’ve got lots of preserves—four jars. ‘Eat, Lipa,’ they say, ‘don’t have any second thoughts.’”

“A-a-ah! … Four jars!”

“It’s a rich man’s life. Tea with white bread, and as much beef as you like. A rich man’s life, only it’s scary there, Ilya Makarych. It’s so scary!”

“What are you scared of, little one?” asked Crutch, and he turned around to see how far Praskovya was lagging behind.

“First, right after the wedding, I was afraid of Anisim Grigoryich. He was all right, he never hurt me, only as soon as he comes near me I get chills all over, in every little bone. I didn’t sleep a single night, I kept shivering and praying to God. And now I’m afraid of Aksinya, Ilya Makarych. She’s all right, she just smiles, only sometimes she looks out the window, and her eyes are so angry and they burn green, like with a sheep in the barn. The Khrymin Juniors keep egging her on: ‘Your old man has a lot in Butyokino,’ they say, ‘about a hundred acres, and there’s sand and water there,’ they say, ‘so you build yourself a brickworks, Aksiusha, and we’ll go shares with you.’ Bricks now cost twenty roubles a thousand. It’s a going trade. So yesterday at dinner Aksinya says to the old man, ‘I want to build a brickworks in Butyokino, to be a merchant in my own right.’ She says it and smiles. But Grigory Petrovich goes dark in the face; obviously he doesn’t like it. ‘As long as I’m alive,’ he says, ‘we can’t do things separately, it must be all together.’ And she flashed her eyes at him, ground her teeth … They served pancakes—she didn’t eat!”

“A-a-ah! …” Crutch was astonished. “She didn’t eat!”

“And tell me, please, when does she sleep?” Lipa went on. “She sleeps a wee half hour, then pops up, walks around, walks around all the time, checking whether the peasants are setting fire to something or stealing … It’s scary with her, Ilya Makarych! And the Khrymin Juniors didn’t even go to bed after the wedding, they went to court in town, and people say it’s all because of Aksinya. Two of the brothers promised to build her the brickworks, but the third took it wrong, and the factory has stood still for a month, and my uncle Prokhor is out of work and goes from door to door begging for a crust. ‘Uncle,’ I say to him, ‘don’t shame yourself, go and do plowing meanwhile, or cut lumber!’ ‘I’ve lost the feel for peasant work, Lipynka,’ he says, ‘I can’t do anything …’”

They stopped near a grove of young aspens to rest and wait for Praskovya. Yelizarov had been a contractor for a long time, yet he did not keep a horse, but went about the whole district on foot, with nothing but a little sack in which he kept bread and onion, and he took long strides, swinging his arms. It was hard to keep up with him.

At the entrance to the grove stood a boundary post. Yelizarov touched it to see if it was sturdy. Praskovya came up, out of breath. Her wrinkled, perpetually frightened face was radiant with happiness: she had been in church today, like other people, then had gone to the fair, and there she had drunk pear kvass! That rarely happened to her, and it even seemed to her now that she had lived for her own pleasure for the first time in her life. After resting, all three went on together. The sun was setting, and its rays penetrated the grove, shone on the tree trunks. Loud voices rang out ahead. The Ukleyevo girls had gone ahead long ago, but had tarried there in the grove, probably picking mushrooms.

“Hey, gi-i-irls!” shouted Yelizarov. “Hey, you beauties!”

He was answered with laughter.

“Crutch is coming! Crutch! The old coot!”

And the echo laughed, too. Now the grove was behind them. They could already see the tops of the factory smokestacks; the cross on the belfry flashed: this was the village, “the one where the verger ate all the caviar at the funeral.” They were almost home; they only had to go down into the big ravine. Lipa and Praskovya, who went barefoot, sat down on the grass to put their shoes on; the contractor sat down with them. Looked at from above, Ukleyevo, with its pussywillows, white church, and river, seemed beautiful, peaceful, an impression only spoiled by the factory roofs, painted a gloomy, savage color for the sake of economy. On the opposite slope one could see rye—stacked up, or in sheaves here and there, as if scattered by a storm, or in just-cut rows; the oats, too, were ripe and gleamed in the sun now, like mother-of-pearl. It was harvest time. Today was a feast day, tomorrow, a Saturday, they had to gather the rye and get the hay in, then Sunday was a feast day again; every day distant thunder rumbled; the weather was sultry, it felt like rain, and, looking at the fields now, each one hoped that God would grant them to finish the harvest in time, and was merry, and joyful, and uneasy at heart.

“Mowers cost a lot these days,” said Praskovya. “A rouble forty a day!”

And people kept on coming from the fair in Kazanskoe; peasant women, factory workers in new visored caps, beggars, children … A cart drove past, raising dust, with an unsold horse running behind it, looking as if it were glad it had not been sold; then a resisting cow was led past by the horns, then came another cart carrying drunken peasants, their legs dangling down. An old woman led a boy in a big hat and big boots; the boy was exhausted from the heat and the heavy boots, which did not let him bend his knees, but even so he kept blowing with all his might on a toy trumpet; they had already gone down and turned off on a side street, and the trumpet could still be heard.

“And our factory-owners are a bit out of sorts …” said Yelizarov. “It’s bad! Kostiukov got angry with me. He said, ‘Too much lumber went into the cornices.’ Too much? ‘As much as was needed, Vassily Danilych,’ I say, ‘that’s how much went into them. I don’t eat it with my kasha, your lumber.’ ‘How can you speak to me like that?’ he says. ‘A blockhead, that’s what you are! Don’t forget yourself! It was I,’ he shouts, ‘who made you a contractor!’ ‘Some feat,’ I say. ‘Before I was a contractor,’ I say, ‘I still drank tea every day’ ‘You’re all crooks,’ he says … I kept quiet. We’re crooks in this world, I thought, and you’ll be crooks in the next. Ho, ho, ho! The next day he softened. ‘Don’t be angry with me for my words, Makarych,’ he said. ‘If I said something unnecessary, still there’s the fact that I’m a merchant of the first guild, superior to you—you ought to keep quiet.’ ‘You’re a merchant of the first guild,’ I say, ‘and I’m a carpenter, that’s correct. And Saint Joseph,’ I say, ‘was also a carpenter. Our business is righteous, pleasing to God, and if,’ I say, ‘you want to be superior, go ahead, Vassily Danilych.’ And later—that is, after the conversation—I thought: but who’s the superior one? A merchant of the first guild or a carpenter? Turns out it’s the carpenter, little ones!”

Crutch thought briefly and added:

“So it is, little ones. He who labors, he who endures, is the superior one.”

The sun had set, and a thick mist, white as milk, was rising above the river, in the churchyard and the clearings around the mills. Now, when darkness was falling quickly and lights flashed below, and when it seemed that the mist concealed a bottomless abyss beneath it, Lipa and her mother, who were born destitute and were prepared to live out their days that way, giving everything to others except their meek, frightened souls, might have imagined for a moment that in this vast, mysterious world, among an endless number of lives, they, too, were a force and were superior to someone else; it felt good to sit up there, they smiled happily and forgot that they had to go back down all the same.

Finally they returned home. Mowers were sitting on the ground by the gates and near the shop. Ordinarily the local Ukleyevo people did not work for Tsybukin, and he had to hire outsiders, and now in the darkness it looked as if people with long black beards were sitting there. The shop was open, and through the doorway the deaf man could be seen playing checkers with a boy. The mowers sang softly, in barely audible voices, or loudly demanded to be paid for the past day’s work, but they were not paid, so that they would not leave before the next day. Old Tsybukin, without a frock coat, in just his waistcoat, sat with Aksinya under a birch tree by the porch and drank tea; and a lamp burned on the table.

“Grandpa-a-a!” a mower repeated outside the gates, as if teasing him. “Pay us at least half! Grandpa-a-a!”

And at once laughter was heard, and then barely audible singing … Crutch also sat down to have tea.

“So we were at the fair,” he began telling them. “We had a good time, little ones, a very good time, thank the Lord. And this thing happened, not very nice: the blacksmith Sashka bought some tobacco and so he gave the shopkeeper a half rouble. And the half rouble was false,” Crutch went on and glanced around; he meant to speak in a whisper, but instead spoke in a hoarse, muffled voice, and everybody could hear him. “And it turned out the half rouble was false. They ask him: ‘Where’d you get it?’ And he says, ‘Anisim Tsybukin gave it to me. When I was making merry at his wedding,’ he says … They called a policeman and took him away … Watch out, Petrovich, or something may come of it, some talk …”

“Grandpa-a-a!” the same teasing voice came from outside the gate. “Grandpa-a-a!”

Silence ensued.

“Ah, little ones, little ones, little ones …” Crutch muttered rapidly and got up; drowsiness was coming over him. “Well, thanks for the tea and the sugar, little ones. It’s time for bed. I’ve gone crumbly, the beams are all rotten in me. Ho, ho, ho!”

And, walking off, he said:

“Must be time I died!”

And he sobbed. Old Tsybukin did not finish his tea, but went on sitting, thinking; he looked as if he were listening to Crutch’s footsteps far down the street.

“Sashka the blacksmith lied, I expect,” said Aksinya, guessing his thoughts.

He went into the house and came back a little later with a package; he unwrapped it—roubles gleamed, perfectly new. He took one, tried it with his teeth, dropped it on the tray; tried another, dropped it …

“It’s a fact, the roubles are false …” he said, looking at Aksinya as if in perplexity. “They’re the ones … Anisim brought that time, they’re his present. You take them, daughter,” he whispered and shoved the package into her hands, “take them, throw them down the well … Away with them! And watch yourself, don’t go talking about it. Or something may happen … Take the samovar away, put out the lamp …”

Lipa and Praskovya, sitting in the shed, saw the lights go out one after another; only Varvara’s blue and red icon lamps shone upstairs, and from there came a breath of peace, contentment, and unawareness. Praskovya could not get used to the fact that her daughter had married a rich man, and when she came, she huddled timidly in the front hall, smiled entreatingly, and had tea and sugar sent out to her. Lipa could not get used to it either, and after her husband left, she slept not in her own bed but wherever she happened to be—in the kitchen or the shed—and every day she washed the floors or did the laundry, and it seemed to her that she was doing day labor. And now, on returning from the pilgrimage, they had tea in the kitchen with the cook, then went to the shed and lay down on the floor between the sledges and the wall. It was dark there and smelled of horse collars. The lights went out around the house, then the deaf man was heard locking up the shop and the mowers settling down to sleep in the yard. In the distance, at the Khrymin Juniors, someone was playing the expensive accordion … Praskovya and Lipa began to doze off.

And when someone’s footsteps awakened them, it was bright with moonlight; at the entrance of the shed stood Aksinya, holding her bedding in her arms.

“Maybe it’s cooler here …” she said, then came in and lay down almost on the threshold itself, and the moon cast its light all over her.

She did not sleep and sighed heavily, tossing about from the heat and throwing almost everything off—and in the magic light of the moon, what a beautiful, what a proud animal she was! A short time passed and again footsteps were heard: the old man appeared in the doorway, all white.

“Aksinya!” he called. “Are you here or what?”

“Well?” she replied angrily.

“I told you earlier to throw the money down the well. Did you do it?”

“What an idea, throwing goods into the water! I gave it to the mowers …”

“Oh, my God!” said the old man in amazement and fright. “Mischievous woman … Oh, my God!”

He clasped his hands and left, muttering something as he went. A little later Aksinya sat up, sighed heavily and vexedly, then got up and, collecting her bedding, went out.

“Why did you give me to them, mama?” said Lipa.

“You had to be married, daughter. It’s not we who set it up that way.”

And a feeling of inconsolable grief was about to come over them. But it seemed to them that someone was looking down from the heights of the sky, from the blue, from where the stars are, saw everything that went on in Ukleyevo, and was watching over them. And, however great the evil, the night was still peaceful and beautiful, and there still was and would be righteousness in God’s world, just as peaceful and beautiful, and everything on earth was only waiting to merge with righteousness, as moonlight merges with the night.

And the two women, comforted, pressed close to each other and fell asleep.

VI

The news had come long ago that Anisim had been put in prison for making and passing counterfeit money. Months went by, more than half a year went by, the long winter was over, spring came, and at home and in the village they got used to the fact that Anisim was in prison. And when anyone passed the house or the shop at night, they remembered that Anisim was in prison; and when the cemetery bell tolled, they also remembered for some reason that he was in prison and awaiting trial.

It was as if a shadow had been cast over the yard. The house became darker, the roof rusted, the ironclad door of the shop, heavy, painted green, became discolored, or, as the deaf man said, “got gristled”; and it was as if old man Tsybukin himself grew darker. He had long ceased cutting his hair and beard, was all overgrown, no longer leaped as he got into the tarantass, nor shouted “God will provide!” to the beggars. His strength was waning, and that was noticeable in everything. People were less afraid of him now, and the local policeman drew up a report on the shop, though he still collected what was owed him; and three times he was summoned to court in town for secret trading in vodka, but the hearing kept being postponed owing to the non-appearance of the witnesses, and this wore the old man out.

He visited his son frequently, hired someone, petitioned someone, donated somewhere for a church banner. He offered the warden of the prison in which Anisim was kept the gift of a silver tea-glass holder with “The soul knows moderation” inscribed on the enamel and with a long teaspoon.

“There’s nobody, nobody to intervene properly for us,” said Varvara. “Oh, tush, tush … You should ask someone of the gentry to write to the head officials … At least they’d release him till the trial! Why torment the lad?”

She, too, was upset, but she grew plumper, whiter, lit the icon lamps in her room as before, and saw to it that the house was clean, and treated guests to preserves and apple comfit. The deaf son and Aksinya tended the shop. They started a new business—a brickworks in Butyokino—and Aksinya went there almost every day in the tarantass; she drove herself and on meeting acquaintances stretched her neck like a snake from the young rye and smiled naïvely and mysteriously. And Lipa played all the time with her baby, who was born to her just before Lent. He was a small baby, skinny and pitiful, and it was strange that he cried, looked about, and that he was considered a person and was even named Nikifor. He would lie in his cradle, Lipa would go to the door and say, bowing:

“How do you do, Nikifor Anisimych!”

And she would rush headlong to him and kiss him. Then she would go to the door, bow, and say again:

“How do you do, Nikifor Anisimych!”

And he would stick up his little red legs, and his crying was mixed with laughter, as with the carpenter Yelizarov.

At last the day of the trial was set. The old man left five days ahead of time. Then it was heard that peasants called as witnesses had been sent from the village; the old hired workman also received a summons, and he left.

The trial was on a Thursday. But Sunday had already passed, and the old man had still not come back, and there was no news. On Tuesday, before evening, Varvara sat by the open window listening for the old man coming. In the next room Lipa was playing with her baby. She tossed him in her arms and said in admiration:

“You’ll grow so-o-o big, so-o-o-big! You’ll be a man, we’ll do day labor together! Day labor together!”

“We-e-ell!” Varvara became offended. “What kind of day labor have you thought up, silly girl? He’ll be a merchant for us! …”

Lipa started to sing softly, but a little later forgot herself and began again:

“You’ll grow so-o-o big, so-o-o big, you’ll be a man, we’ll go to day labor together!”

“We-e-ell! You’re at it again!”

Lipa stood in the doorway with Nikifor in her arms and asked:

“Mama, why do I love him so? Why do I pity him so?” she went on in a quavering voice, and her eyes glistened with tears. “Who is he? How is he? Light as a feather, a crumb, and I love him, I love him like a real person. He can’t do anything, can’t speak, but I understand everything he wishes with his dear eyes.”

Varvara listened: there was the sound of the evening train coming into the station. Was the old man on it? She no longer heard or understood what Lipa was saying, did not notice the time going by, but only trembled all over, and that not with fear but with intense curiosity. She saw a cart filled with peasants drive past quickly, with a rumble. It was the returning witnesses coming from the station. As the cart drove past the shop, the old workman jumped off and came into the yard. One could hear him being greeted in the yard, being questioned about something …

“Loss of rights and all property,” he said loudly, “and six years’ hard labor in Siberia.”

Aksinya could be seen coming out the back door of the shop; she had just been selling kerosene and was holding a bottle in one hand and a funnel in the other, and there were silver coins in her mouth.

“And where’s papa?” she asked, lisping.

“At the station,” the workman replied. “‘When it gets darker,’ he says, ‘then I’ll come.’”

And when it became known in the yard that Anisim had been sentenced to hard labor, the cook in the kitchen began to wail as over a dead man, thinking that propriety demanded it:

“Why have you abandoned us, Anisim Grigoryich, our bright falcon …”

The dogs barked in alarm. Varvara ran to the window and in a flurry of anguish began shouting to the cook, straining her voice as much as she could:

“Eno-o-ough, Stepanida, eno-o-ough! Don’t torment us, for Christ’s sake!”

They forgot to prepare the samovar, they were no longer thinking well. Only Lipa could not understand what was the matter and went on fussing over her baby.

When the old man came home from the station, they did not ask him about anything. He greeted everyone, then walked silently through all the rooms; he ate no supper.

“There’s nobody to intercede …” Varvara began, when they were left alone. “I said to ask the gentry—you didn’t listen then … A petition might…”

“I interceded myself!” said the old man, waving his hand. “When they sentenced Anisim, I went to the gentleman who defended him. ‘Impossible to do anything now, it’s too late.’ And Anisim says so himself: it’s too late. But all the same, as I was leaving the court, I made an arrangement with a lawyer, gave him an advance … I’ll wait a week and then go back. It’s as God wills.”

The old man walked silently through all the rooms again, and when he came back to Varvara, he said:

“I must be sick. Something in my head … A fog. My thoughts are clouded.”

He shut the door so that Lipa would not hear and went on softly:

“I don’t feel right about money. Remember, Anisim brought me new roubles and half roubles before the wedding, on St. Thomas’s Sunday?⁵ I stashed one package away then, and the rest I mixed in with my own … When my uncle Dmitri Filatych, God rest his soul, was still alive, he used to go for goods all the time, now to Moscow, now to the Crimea. He had a wife, and that same wife, while he went for goods, as I said, used to play around with other men. There were six children. So my uncle would have a drink and start laughing: ‘I just can’t sort out which are mine and which aren’t.’ An easygoing character, that is. And so now I can’t figure out which coins are real and which are false. And it seems like they’re all false.”

“Ah, no, God help you!”

“I’m buying a ticket at the station, I hand over three roubles, and I think to myself, maybe they’re false. And it scares me. I must be sick.”

“What can I say, we all walk before God … Oh, tush, tush …” said Varvara, and she shook her head. “You ought to give it some thought, Petrovich … What if something bad happens? You’re not a young man. You’ll die, and for all I know they may wrong our grandson. Aie, they’ll do Nikifor wrong, I’m afraid they will! His father can be counted as not there, his mother’s young, foolish … You ought at least to leave that land to him, to the boy, that Butyokino, Petrovich, really! Just think!” Varvara went on persuading him. “A nice little boy, it’s a pity! Go tomorrow and draw up the paper. Why wait?”

“And here I was forgetting about my grandson …” said Tsybukin. “I must go and say hello. So you say he’s a nice boy? Well, let him grow up. God grant it!”

He opened the door and beckoned to Lipa with a bent finger. She came up to him with the baby in her arms.

“If you need anything, Lipynka, just ask,” he said. “And eat whatever you like, we won’t begrudge it, as long as you’re healthy …” He made a cross over the baby. “And take care of my grandson. The son’s gone, at least the grandson is left.”

Tears ran down his cheeks; he sobbed and turned away. A little later he went to bed and fell fast asleep, after seven sleepless nights.

VII

The old man made a short trip to town. Somebody told Aksinya that he had gone to the notary to write a will, and that he was leaving Butyokino, the same place where she baked bricks, to his grandson Nikifor. She was told of it in the morning, when the old man and Varvara were sitting under the birch tree by the porch drinking tea. She locked up the shop front and back, collected all the keys she had, and flung them down at the old man’s feet.

“I won’t work for you anymore!” she cried loudly, and suddenly began to sob. “It turns out I’m not your daughter-in-law, but a hired worker! Everybody laughs: ‘Look,’ they say, ‘what a worker the Tsybukins found for themselves!’ I’m not your charwoman! I’m not a beggar, not some kind of slut, I’ve got a father and mother.”

Without wiping her tears, she turned her eyes, tear-flooded, spiteful, crossed with anger, on the old man; her face and neck were red and strained, because she was shouting with all her might.

“I don’t want to serve you anymore!” she went on. “I’m worn out! When it’s work, when it’s sitting in the shop day after day, and sneaking out at night to get vodka—then it’s me, but when it’s giving away land—then it’s the convict’s wife with her little devil! She’s the mistress, she’s the lady here, and I’m her servant! Give her everything, the jailbird’s wife, let her choke on it, I’m going home! Find yourselves another fool, you cursed Herods!”

Never in his life had the old man scolded or punished his children, and he could not admit even the thought that anyone in the family could say rude words to him or behave disrespectfully; and now he got very frightened, ran into the house, and hid behind a wardrobe. And Varvara was so taken aback that she could not get up from her place, but only waved both arms as if warding off a bee.

“Ah, saints alive, what is this?” she murmured in horror. “Why is she shouting? Oh, tush, tush … People will hear! Not so loud … Ah, not so loud!”

“You gave Butyokino to the jailbird’s wife,” Aksinya went on shouting, “so give her everything now—I don’t need anything from you! Perish the lot of you! You’re all one gang here! I’ve had enough of looking at you! You’ve robbed everybody walking or riding by, you’ve robbed them old and young! Who sold vodka without a license? And the false money? You’ve stuffed your coffers with false money—now you don’t need me anymore!”

A crowd had already gathered by the open gates and was looking into the yard.

“Let people stare!” Aksinya shouted. “I’ll disgrace you! You’ll burn with shame! You’ll grovel at my feet! Hey, Stepan!” she called the deaf man. “Let’s go home this very minute! Let’s go to my father and mother, I don’t want to live with criminals! Get ready!”

Laundry was hanging on lines stretched across the yard; she tore down her still-wet skirts and blouses and flung them into the deaf man’s arms. Then she rushed furiously about the yard, tearing down all the laundry, hers or not hers, flinging it to the ground and trampling on it.

“Ah, saints alive, calm her down!” Varvara groaned. “What’s the matter with her? Give her Butyokino, give it to her for the sake of Christ in Heaven!”

“Well, some wo-o-oman!” people were saying by the gate. “There’s a wo-o-oman for you! Got herself going—something awful!”

Aksinya ran to the kitchen where the laundry was being done just then. Lipa was doing it alone, while the cook went to the river to do the rinsing. Steam rose from the tub and the cauldron by the stove, and the kitchen was stuffy and dim with mist. There was still a pile of unwashed laundry on the floor, and on the bench beside it, his red legs sticking up, lay Nikifor, so that if he fell, he would not be hurt. Just as Aksinya came in, Lipa took a shift of hers from the pile, put it into the tub, and reached for the big dipper of boiling water that stood on the table …

“Give it here!” said Aksinya, looking at her with hatred and snatching the shift from the tub. “You’ve got no business touching my underwear! You’re a convict’s wife, and you should know your place and what you are!”

Lipa stared at her, bewildered, and did not understand, but suddenly she caught the glance that the woman shot at the baby, and suddenly she understood and went dead all over …

“You took my land, so there’s for you!”

As she said it, Aksinya seized the dipper of boiling water and dashed it over Nikifor.

After that a cry was heard such as had never yet been heard in Ukleyevo, and it was hard to believe that such a small, weak being as Lipa could scream like that. And it suddenly became hushed in the yard. Aksinya went into the house silently, with her former naïve smile … The deaf man kept walking about the yard with the laundry in his arms, then began to hang it up again, silently, unhurriedly. And until the cook came back from the river, nobody dared go into the kitchen and see what had happened there.

VIII

Nikifor was taken to the regional hospital, and towards evening he died there. Lipa did not wait till they came for her, but wrapped the dead boy in a blanket and carried him home.

The hospital, new, built recently, with big windows, stood high on a hill; it was all lit up by the setting sun and looked as if it were burning inside. At the bottom was a village. Lipa descended by the road and, before reaching the village, sat down near a small pond. Some woman brought a horse to water, but the horse would not drink.

“What else do you want?” the woman said softly, in perplexity. “What do you want?”

A boy in a red shirt, sitting right by the water, was washing his father’s boots. And there was not another soul to be seen either in the village or on the hill.

“He won’t drink …” said Lipa, looking at the horse.

But the woman and the boy with the boots left, and now there was no one to be seen. The sun went to sleep, covering itself with purple and gold brocade, and long clouds, crimson and lilac, watched over its rest, stretching across the sky. Somewhere far away, God knows where, a bittern gave a mournful, muted cry, like a cow locked in a barn. The cry of this mysterious bird was heard every spring, but no one knew what it looked like or where it lived. Up by the hospital, in the bushes just by the pond, beyond the village, and in the surrounding fields, nightingales were pouring out their song. The cuckoo was counting out someone’s years and kept losing count and starting over again. In the pond angry, straining frogs called to each other, and one could even make out the words: “You’re such a one! You’re such a one!” How noisy it was! It seemed that all these creatures were calling and singing on purpose so that no one would sleep on that spring evening, so that all, even the angry frogs, might value and enjoy every minute: for life is given only once!

A silver crescent moon shone in the sky, there were many stars. Lipa could not remember how long she had been sitting by the pond, but when she got up and left, everybody in the village was asleep, and there was not a single light. Home was probably some eight miles away, but she did not have strength enough, she could not figure out how to go; the moon shone now ahead, now to the right, and the same cuckoo kept calling, its voice grown hoarse, laughing, as if mocking her: oh-oh, watch out, you’ll lose your way! Lipa walked quickly, lost the kerchief from her head … She gazed at the sky and thought about where the soul of her boy was then: was it following her, or flitting about up there near the stars and no longer thinking of its mother! Oh, how lonely it is in the fields at night, amidst this singing, when you yourself cannot sing, amidst the ceaseless cries of joy, when you yourself cannot be joyful, when the moon looks down from the sky, also lonely, careless whether it is spring now or winter, whether people live or die … When your soul grieves, it is hard to be without people. If only her mother Praskovya was with her, or Crutch, or the cook, or some peasant!

“Boo-o-o!” cried the bittern. “Boo-o-o!”

And suddenly she clearly heard human speech:

“Harness up, Vavila!”

Ahead, just by the road, a campfire was burning; there were no longer any flames, just red embers glowing. She could hear horses munching. Two carts stood out against the darkness—one with a barrel, the other, slightly lower, with sacks—and two men: one was leading a horse in order to harness up, the other stood motionless by the fire, his hands behind his back. A dog growled near the cart. The man leading the horse stopped and said:

“Seems like somebody’s coming down the road.”

“Quiet, Sharik!” the other shouted at the dog.

And from his voice it was clear this other was an old man. Lipa stopped and said:

“God be with you!”

The old man approached her and replied after a moment:

“Good evening!”

“Your dog won’t bite, grandpa?”

“Never mind, come on. He won’t touch you.”

“I was at the hospital,” said Lipa, after a pause. “My little son died there. I’m taking him home.”

It must have been unpleasant for the old man to hear that, because he stepped away and said hastily:

“Never mind, dear. It’s God’s will. You’re taking too long, lad!” he said, turning to his companion. “Get a move on!”

“Your yoke’s gone,” said the lad. “I don’t see it.”

“You’re unyoked yourself, Vavila!”

The old man picked up an ember, blew it to flame—lighting up only his eyes and nose—then, when the yoke was found, went over to Lipa with the light and looked at her; his eyes expressed compassion and tenderness.

“You’re a mother,” he said. “Every mother feels sorry for her wee one.”

And with that he sighed and shook his head. Vavila threw something on the fire, trampled on it—and all at once it became very dark; everything vanished, and as before there were only the fields, the sky with its stars, and the birds making noise, keeping each other from sleeping. And a corncrake called, seemingly from the very place where the campfire had been.

But a minute passed, and again the carts, and the old man, and the lanky Vavila could be seen. The carts creaked as they drove out onto the road.

“Are you holy people?” Lipa asked the old man.

“No. We’re from Firsanovo.”

“You looked at me just now and my heart softened. And the lad’s quiet. So I thought: they must be holy people.”

“Are you going far?”

“To Ukleyevo.”

“Get in, we’ll give you a ride to Kuzmenki. From there you go straight and we go left.”

Vavila sat on the cart with the barrel, the old man and Lipa on the other. They went at a walk, Vavila in the lead.

“My little son suffered the whole day,” said Lipa. “He looked with his little eyes and said nothing, he wanted to speak but he couldn’t. Lord God, Queen of Heaven! I just kept falling on the floor from grief. I’d stand up and fall down beside the bed. And tell me, grandpa, why should a little one suffer before death? When a grown man or woman suffers, their sins are forgiven, but why a little one who has no sins? Why?”

“Who knows!” said the old man.

They rode for half an hour in silence.

“You can’t know the why and how of everything,” said the old man. “A bird’s given two wings, not four, because it can fly with two; so a man’s not given to know everything, but only a half or a quarter. As much as he needs to know in order to live, so much he knows.”

“It would be easier for me to walk, grandpa. Now my heart’s all shaky.”

“Never mind. Just sit.”

The old man yawned and made a cross over his mouth.

“Never mind …” he repeated. “Your grief is half a grief. Life is long, there’ll be more of good and bad, there’ll be everything. Mother Russia is vast!” he said, and he looked to both sides. “I’ve been all over Russia and seen all there is in her, and believe what I say, my dear. There will be good and there will be bad. I went on foot to Siberia, I went to the Amur and to the Altai, and I moved to live in Siberia, worked the land there, then I began to miss Mother Russia and came back to my native village. We came back to Russia on foot; and I remember us going on a ferry, and I was skinny as could be, all tattered, barefoot, chilled, sucking on a crust, and some gentleman traveler was there on the ferry—if he’s dead, God rest his soul—he looked at me pitifully, the tears pouring down. ‘Ah,’ he says, ‘black is your bread, black are your days …’ And when I got home I had neither stick nor stone, as they say; there was a wife, but she stayed in Siberia, buried. So I just live as a hired hand. And so what? I’ll tell you: since then there’s been bad and there’s been good. But I’m not up to dying, my dear, I wouldn’t mind living another twenty years—which means there’s been more good. And Mother Russia is vast!” he said and again looked to both sides and behind him.

“Grandpa,” asked Lipa, “when a man dies, how many days after does his soul wander the earth?”

“Who knows! Let’s ask Vavila, he went to school. They teach everything now. Vavila!” the old man called.

“Eh!”

“Vavila, after a man dies, how many days does his soul wander the earth?”

Vavila stopped the horse and only then replied:

“Nine days. My uncle Kyrill died, and his soul lived in our cottage thirteen days after.”

“How do you know?”

“There was a knocking in the stove for thirteen days.”

“Well, all right. Drive on,” said the old man, and it was clear that he did not believe any of it.

Near Kuzmenki the carts turned onto the high road, and Lipa kept on straight. Day was breaking. As she went down into the ravine, the cottages and church of Ukleyevo were hidden in mist. It was cold, and it seemed to her that the same cuckoo was calling.

When Lipa came home, the cattle had not gone to pasture yet: everyone was asleep. She sat on the porch and waited. The old man was the first to come out; he understood at once, from the first glance, what had happened, and for a long time could not say a word, but only smacked his lips.

“Eh, Lipa,” he said, “you didn’t take care of my grandson …”

Varvara was awakened. She clasped her hands and burst into sobs, and they immediately began laying the child out.

“And he was such a pretty little boy …” she kept saying. “Oh, tush, tush … One little boy you had, and you didn’t take care of him, foolish girl…”

They served a panikhida in the morning and in the evening. The next day was the funeral, and after the funeral the guests and clergy ate a great deal and with such greed as if they had not eaten for a long time. Lipa served at the table, and the priest, raising a fork with a pickled mushroom on it, said to her:

“Don’t grieve over the baby. Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

And only after everyone left did Lipa realize properly that there was no more Nikifor and never would be, realize it and begin to weep. And she did not know which room to go to in order to weep, because she felt that, after the boy’s death, there was no place for her in this house, that she had no part in it and was superfluous; and the others felt it, too.

“Well, what are you howling here for?” Aksinya suddenly shouted, appearing in the doorway; for the occasion of the funeral she had put on all new clothes and powdered her face. “Shut up!”

Lipa wanted to stop but could not, and wept still louder.

“Do you hear?” Aksinya shouted and stamped her foot in great wrath. I’m speaking to you! Get out and don’t ever set foot here, you convict’s wife! Out!”

“Well, well, well! …” the old man started fussing. “Aksiuta, calm down, dear … She’s crying, it’s an understandable thing … her wee one’s dead …”

“An understandable thing …” Aksinya mocked him. “Let her stay the night, but tomorrow there better not be a breath of her left here! An understandable thing! …” she mocked once more and, laughing, headed for the shop.

The next day, early in the morning, Lipa went to her mother in Torguyevo.

IX

At the present time the roof and door of the shop have been painted and are shining like new; cheerful geraniums are blooming in the windows as before, and what took place three years ago in the house and yard of the Tsybukins is almost forgotten.

Old Grigory Petrovich is considered the proprietor, as before, but in fact everything has passed into Aksinya’s hands; she sells and buys, and nothing can be done without her consent. The brickworks is going well; owing to the demand for bricks for the railway, the price has gone up to twenty-four roubles a thousand; women and girls cart bricks to the station and load them on the cars, and get twenty-five kopecks a day for it.

Aksinya has gone shares with the Khrymins, and their factory is now called “Khrymin Junior and Co.” They’ve opened a tavern by the station, and now play the expensive accordion not at the factory but in this tavern, and the place is frequented by the postmaster, who has also started some sort of business, and by the stationmaster. The Khrymin Juniors have presented deaf Stepan with a gold watch, and he is forever taking it out of his pocket and holding it to his ear.

In the village they say of Aksinya that she has acquired great power; and it is true that when she goes to her brickworks in the morning, with her naïve smile, beautiful, happy, and then when she gives orders at the brickworks, great power is felt in her. Everyone fears her at home, and in the village, and in the brickworks. When she comes to the post office, the postmaster jumps to his feet and says to her:

“I humbly beg you to be seated, Xenia Abramovna.”

A certain landowner, a fop in a fine flannel jacket and high patent-leather boots, an elderly man, was once selling her a horse, and got so carried away by his conversation with her that he let the horse go for what she offered. He held her hand for a long time and, looking into her merry, sly, naïve eyes, said:

“For a woman like you, Xenia Abramovna, I’m ready to do any pleasure. Only tell me when we can see each other, so that no one will bother us?”

“Why, whenever you like!”

And since then the elderly fop comes to the shop almost every day to drink beer. The beer is terribly bitter, like wormwood. The landowner wags his head but drinks.

Old Tsybukin no longer mixes in the business. He carries no money on him, because he cannot distinguish real money from false, but he keeps mum and tells no one about this weakness of his. He has become somehow forgetful, and if he is not given anything to eat, he will not ask himself; they are already used to eating without him, and Varvara often says:

“Our man went to bed again last night without eating.”

And she says it indifferently, because she is used to it. For some reason, summer and winter alike, he goes about in a fur coat and only on very hot days does not go out but sits at home. Ordinarily, he puts his coat on and turns up the collar, wraps himself up, and strolls around the village, along the road to the station, or else sits from morning till evening on a bench by the church gate. He sits and does not stir. Passersby bow to him, but he does not respond, because he dislikes peasants as much as ever. When someone asks him something, he replies quite reasonably and politely, but briefly.

The talk going round the village is that his daughter-in-law has driven him out of his own house and gives him nothing to eat, and that he supposedly lives by begging: some are glad, others are sorry

Varvara has grown still more plump and white and does good deeds as before, and Aksinya does not interfere with her. There is now such a quantity of preserves that there is no time to eat it before the new berries come; it crystallizes, and Varvara all but weeps, not knowing what to do with it.

They have begun to forget about Anisim. A letter came from him once, written in verse, on a big sheet of paper with the look of a petition, in the same magnificent hand. Evidently his friend Samorodov was serving his term together with him. Below the verses, in a poor, barely legible hand, a single line was written: “I’m sick all the time here, it’s hard for me, help me, for Christ’s sake.”

Once—this was on a clear autumn day, before evening—old man Tsybukin was sitting by the church gates, the collar of his coat turned up, so that only his nose and the visor of his cap could be seen. At the other end of the long bench sat the contractor Yelizarov and beside him the school watchman, Yakov, a toothless old man of about seventy. Crutch and the watchman were talking.

“Children must give their old parents food and drink … honor thy father and mother,” Yakov was saying with vexation, “but she, this daughter-in-law, has driven her father-in-law out of his ownest house. The old man’s got nothing to eat, nothing to drink—where’s he to go? It’s the third day he hasn’t eaten.”

“The third day!” Crutch said in surprise.

“He just sits like that, saying nothing. He’s grown weak. And why say nothing? If he goes to court, the court’s not going to praise her for it.”

“What’s the court going to praise?” asked Crutch, who had not heard well.

“Eh?”

“She’s an all-right woman, works hard. In that business you can’t get by without it … sin, I mean …”

“From his ownest house,” Yakov went on in vexation. “Earn yourself a house, then drive people out. Eh, she’s a fine one, she is! A pla-a-ague!”

Tsybukin listened without stirring.

“Your own house or somebody else’s, it makes no difference, so long as it’s warm and the women don’t yell at you …” said Crutch, and he laughed. “When I was still a young man, I pitied my Nastasya very much. She was a quiet little woman. She used to say: ‘Buy a house, Makarych! Buy a house, Makarych! And buy a horse, Makarych!’ She was dying, and she kept saying: ‘Buy yourself a droshky, Makarych, so as not to go on foot.’ But I only ever bought her gingerbread.”

“Her husband’s deaf and stupid,” Yakov went on, not listening to Crutch, “a fool of fools, the same as a goose. Does he understand anything? Hit a goose on the head with a stick—it still won’t understand.”

Crutch got up to go home to the factory. Yakov also got up, and the two went off together, still talking. When they were fifty paces away, old Tsybukin also got up and trudged after them, stepping uncertainly, as if on slippery ice.

The village was already sunk in evening twilight, and the sun shone only up above, on the road that ran snakelike down the slope. The old women were coming back from the forest, and the children with them; they were carrying baskets of mushrooms. Women and girls were coming in a crowd from the station, where they had been loading bricks on the cars, and their noses and cheeks under their eyes were covered with red brick dust. They were singing. Ahead of them all went Lipa, and she sang in a high voice, pouring out her song as she looked up at the sky, as if celebrating and rejoicing that the day, thank God, was over and they could rest. Her mother was in the crowd, the day laborer Praskovya, walking with a bundle in her arms and breathing heavily as always.

“Good evening, Makarych!” said Lipa, seeing Crutch. “Good evening, dear heart!”

“Good evening, Lipynka!” said Crutch, delighted. “Dear women, dear girls, love the rich carpenter! Ho, ho! Little ones, my little ones,” Crutch sobbed. “My gentle little hatchets.”

Crutch and Yakov walked on, and could still be heard talking. After them the crowd met with old Tsybukin, and it suddenly became very quiet. Lipa and Praskovya had dropped behind a little, and when the old man came abreast of them, Lipa bowed low and said:

“Good evening, Grigory Petrovich!”

And her mother also bowed. The old man stopped and looked at the two women without saying anything; his lips trembled and his eyes were filled with tears. Lipa took a piece of kasha pie from her mother’s bundle and gave it to him. He took it and began to eat.

The sun had set completely; its glow had gone out even on the road above. It was growing dark and cool. Lipa and Praskovya walked on and kept crossing themselves for a long time.

JANUARY 1900