The Best Stories of Anton Chekhov

It was cool, and a cock crowed at the top of his voice near the barn, preventing them from sleeping. When the bluish morning light was already peeping through all the crevices, Fyokla got up stealthily and went out, and then they heard the sound of her bare feet running off somewhere.

II

Olga went to church, and took Marya with her. As they went down the path towards the meadow both were in good spirits. Olga liked the wide view, and Marya felt that in her sister-in-law she had someone near and akin to her. The sun was nsmg. Low down over the meadow floated a drowsy hawk. The river looked gloomy; there was a haze hovering over it here and there, but on the further bank a streak of light already stretched across the hill. The church was gleaming, and in the manor garden the rooks were cawing furiously.

" The old man is all right," Marya told her, " but Granny is strict; she is continually nagging. Our own grain lasted till Carnival. We buy flour now at the tavern. She is angry about it; she says we eat too much."

" Aye, aye, dearie! Bear it in patience, that is all. It is written: ' Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.' "

Olga spoke sedately, rhythmically, and she walked like a pilgrim woman, with a rapid, anxious step. Every day she read the gospel, read it aloud like a deacon; a great deal of it she did not understand, but the words of the gospel moved her to tears, and words like " forasmuch as " and " verily " she pronounced with a sweet flutter at her heart. She believed in God, in the Holy Mother, in the Saints; she believed one must not offend anyone in the world — not simple folks, nor Germans, nor gypsies, nor Jews — and woe even to those who have no com- passion on the beasts. She believed this was written in the Holy Scriptures; and so, when she pronounced phrases from Holy Writ, even though she did not understand them, her face grew softened, compas- sionate, and radiant.

" What part do you come from?" Marya asked her.

" I am from Vladimir. Only I was taken to Moscow long ago, when I was eight years old."

They reached the river. On the further side a woman was standing at the water's edge, undress- mg.

" It's our Fyokla," said Marya, recognizing her. " She has been over the river to the manor yard. To the stewards. She is a shameless hussy and foul- mouthed — fearfully I "

Fyokla, young and vigorous as a girl, with her black eyebrows and her loose hair, jumped off the bank and began splashing the water with her feet, and waves ran in all directions from her.

" Shameless — dreadfully I " repeated Marya.

The river was crossed by a rickety little bridge of logs, and exactly below it in the clear, limpid water was a shoal of broad-headed mullets. The dew was glistening on the green bushes that looked into the water. There was a feeling of warmth; it was com- forting I What a lovely morning I And how lovely life would have been in this world, in all like- lihood, if it were not for poverty, horrible, hopeless poverty, from which one can find no refuge I One had only to look round at the village to remember vividly all that had happened the day before, and the illusion of happiness which seemed to surround them vanished instantly.

They reached the church. Marya stood at the entrance, and did not dare to go farther. She did not dare to sit down either. Though they only be- gan ringing for mass between eight and nine, she remained standing the whole time.

While the gospel was being read the crowd sud- denly parted to make way for the family from the great house. Two young girls in white frocks and wide-brimmed hats walked in; with them a chubby, rosy boy in a sailor suit. Their appearance touched Olga; she made up her mind from the fi.rst glance that they were refi.ned, well-educated, handsome people. Marya looked at them from under her brows, sullenly, dejectedly, as though they were not human beings coming in, but monsters who might crush her if she did not make way for them.

And every time the deacon boomed out something in his bass voice she fancied she heard " Ma-arya I " and she shuddered.

III

The arrival of the visitors was already known in the village, and directly after mass a number of people gathered together in the hut. The Leonyt- chevs and Matvyeitchevs and the Ilyitchovs came to inquire about their relations who were in service in Moscow. All the lads of Zhukovo who could read and write were packed off to Moscow and hired out as butlers or waiters (while from the village on the other side of the river the boys all became bakers), and that had been the custom from the days of serf- dom long ago when a certain Luka Ivanitch, a peas- ant from Zhukovo, now a legendary figure, who had been a waiter in one of the Moscow clubs, would take none but his fellow-villagers into his service, and found jobs for them in taverns and restaurants; and from that time the village of Zhukovo was always called among the inhabitants of the surround- ing districts Slaveytown. Nikolay had been taken to Moscow when he was eleven, and Ivan Makar- itch, one of the Matvyeitchevs, at that time a head- waiter in the " Hermitage " garden, had put him into a situation. And now, addressing the Matvyeitchevs, Nikolay said emphatically:

" Ivan Makaritch was my benefactor, and I am bound to pray for him day and night, as it is owing to him I have become a good man."

" My good soul! " a tall old woman, the sister of Ivan Makaritch, said tearfully, " and not a word have we heard about him, poor dear."

" In the winter he was in service at Omon's, and this season there was a rumour he was somewhere out of town, in gardens. . . . He has aged! In old days he would bring home as much as ten roubles a day in the summer-time, but now things are very quiet everywhere. The old man frets."

The women looked at Nikolay's feet, shod in felt boots, and at his pale face, and said mournfully:

" You are not one to get on, Nikolay Osipitch; you are not one to get on I No, indeed I "

And they all made much of Sasha. She was ten years old, but she was little and very thin, and might have been taken for no more than seven. Among the other little girls, with their sunburnt faces and roughly cropped hair, dressed in long faded smocks, she with her white little face, with her big dark eyes, with a red ribbon in her hair, looked funny, as though she were some little wild creature that had been caught and brought into the hut.

" She can read, too," Olga said in her praise, looking tenderly at her daughter. " Read a little, child I " she said, taking the gospel from the corner. " You read, and the good Christian people will listen."

The testarpent was an old and heavy one in leather binding, with dog's-eared edges, and it exhaled a smell as though monks had come into the hut. Sasha raised her eyebrows and began in a loud rhythmic chant :

" ' And the angel of the Lord . . . appeared unto Joseph, saying unto him: Rise up, and take the Babe and His mother.' "

" The Babe and His mother," Olga repeated, and flushed all over with emotion.

" ' And flee into Egypt, . . . and tarry there un- til such time as . . .' "

At the word " tarry " Olga could not refrain from tears. Looking at her, Marya began to whimper, and after her Ivan Makaritch's sister. The old father cleared his throat, and bustled about to find something to give his grand-daughter, but, finding nothing, gave it up with a wave of his hand. And when the reading was over the neighbours dispersed to their homes, feeling touched and very much pleased with Olga and Sasha.

As it was a holiday, the family spent the whole day at home. The old woman, whom her husband, her daughters-in-law, her grandchildren all alike called Granny, tried to do everything herself; she heated the stove and set the samovar with her own hands, even waited at the midday meal, and then complained that she was worn out with work. And all the time she was uneasy for fear someone should eat a piece too much, or that her husband and daughters-in-law would sit idle. At one time she would hear the tavern-keeper's geese going at the back of the huts to her kitchen-garden, and she would run out of the hut with a long stick and spend half an hour screaming shrilly by her cabbages, which were as gaunt and scraggy as herself; at another time she fancied that a crow had designs on her chickens, and she rushed to attack it with loud words of abuse. She was cross and grumbling from morning till night. And often she raised such 1-n outcry that passers-by stopped in the street.

She was not affectionate towards the old man, rt'- viling him as a lazy-bones and a plague. He wu not a responsible, reliable peasant, and perhaps if she had not been continually nagging at him he would not have worked at all, but would have simply sat on the stove and talked. He talked to his son at great length about certain enemies of his, com- plained of the insults he said he had to put up with every day from the neighbours, and it was tedious to listen to him.

" Yes," he would say, standing with his arms akimbo, " yes. . . . A week after the Exaltation of the Cross I sold my hay willingly at thirty kopecks a pood. . . . Well and good. . . . So' you see I was taking the hay in the morning with a good will; I was interfering with no one. In an unlucky hour I see the village elder, Antip Syedelnikov, coming out of the tavern. ' Where are you taking it, you ruffian? ' says he, and takes me by the ear."

Kiryak had a fearful headache after his drinking bout, and was ashamed to face his brother.

" What vodka does! Ah, my God ! " he mut- tered, shaking his aching head. " For Christ's sake, forgive me, brother and sister; I'm not happy my- self."

As it was a holiday, they bought a herring at the tavern and made a soup of the herring's head. At midday they all sat down to drink tea, and went on drinking it for a long time, till they were all perspir- ing; they looked positively swollen from the tea- drinking, and after it began sipping the broth from the herring's head, all helping themselves out of one bowl. But the herring itself Granny had hidden.

In the evening a potter began firing pots on the ravine. In the meadow below the girls got up a choral dance and sang songs. They played the con- certina. And on the other side of the river a kiln for baking pots was lighted, too, and the girls sang songs, and in the distance the singing sounded soft and musical. The . peasants were noisy in and about the tavern. They were singing with drunken voices, each on his own account, and swearing at one an- other, so that Olga could only shudder and say:

" Oh, holy Saints I "

She was amazed that the abuse was incessant, and those who were loudest and most persistent in this foul language were the old men who were so near their end. And the girls and children heard the swearing, and were not in the least disturbed by it, and it was evident that they were used to it from their cradles.

It was past midnight, the kilns on both sides of the river were put out, but in the meadow below and in the tavern the merrymaking still went on. The old father and Kiryak, both drunk, walking arm- in-arm and jostling against each other's shoulders, went to the barn where Olga and Marya were lying.

¹¹ Let her alone," the old man persuaded him; " let her alone. . . . She is a harmless woman. . . . It's a sin. . . ."

" Ma-arya! " shouted Kiryak.

" Let her be. . . . It's a sin. . . . She is not a bad woman."

Both stopped by the barn and went on.

" I lo-ove the flowers of the fi-ield," the old man began singing suddenly in a high, piercing tenor. " I lo-ove to gather them in the meadows ! "

Then he spat, and with a fi.lthy oath went into the hut.

IV

Granny put Sasha by her kitchen-garden and told her to keep watch that the geese did not go in. It was a hot August day. The tavernkeeper's geese could make their way into the kitchen-garden by the backs of the huts, but now they were busily engaged picking up oats by the tavern, peacefully conversing together, and only the gander craned his head high as though trying to see whether the old woman were coming with her stick. The other geese might come up from below, but they were now grazing far away the other side of the river, stretched out in a long white garland about the meadow. Sasha stood about a little, grew weary, and, seeing that the geese were not coming, went away to the ravine.

There she saw Marya's eldest daughter Motka, who was standing motionless on a big stone, staring at the church. Marya had given birth to thirteen children, but she only had six living, all girls, not one boy, and the eldest was eight. Motka in a long smock was standing barefooted in the full sunshine; the sun was blazing down right on her head, but she did not notice that, and seemed as though turned to stone. Sasha stood beside her and said, looking at the church:

" God lives in the church. Men have lamps and candles, but God has little green and red and blue lamps like little eyes. At night God walks about the church, and with Him the Holy Mother of God and Saint Nikolay, thud, thud, thud I . . . And the watchman is terrified, terrified I Aye, aye, dearie," she added, imitating her mother. " And when the end of the world comes all the churches will be car- ried up to heaven."

" With the-ir be-ells? " Motka asked in her deep voice, drawling every syllable.

"With their bells. And when the end of the world comes the good will go to Paradise, but the angry will burn in fire eternal and unquenchable, dearie. To my mother as well as to Marya God will say: ' You never offended anyone, and for that go to the right to Paradise ' ; but to Kiryak and Granny He will say: ' You go to the left into the fire.' And anyone who has eaten meat in Lent will go into the fire, too."

She looked upwards at the sky, opening wide her eyes, and said:

" Look at the sky without winking, you will see angels."

Motka began looking at the sky, too, and a minute passed in silence.

" Do you see them? " asked Sasha.

" I don't," said Motka in her deep voice.

" But I do. Little angels are flying about the sky and flap, flap with their little wings as though they were gnats."

Motka thought for a little, with her eyes on the ground, and asked :

" Will Granny burn? "

" She will, dearie."

From the stone an even gentle slope ran down to the bottom, covered with soft green grass, which one longed to lie down on or to touch with one's hands. . . . Sasha lay down and rolled to the bottom. Motka with a grave, severe face, taking a deep breath, lay down, too, and rolled to the bottom, and in doing so tore her smock from the hem to the shoulder.

" What fun it is I " said Sasha, delighted.

They walked up to the top to roll down again, but at that moment they heard a shrill, familiar voice. Oh, how awful it was I Granny, a toothless, bony, hunchbacked figure, with short grey hair which was fluttering in the wind, was driving the geese out of the kitchen-ga.rden with a long stick, shouting.

" They have trampled all the cabbages, the damned brutes I I'd cut your throats, thrice accursed plagues! Bad luck to you ! "

She saw the little girls, flung down the stick and picked up a switch, and, seizing Sasha by the neck with her fingers, thin and hard as the gnarled branches of a tree, began whipping her. Sasha cried with pain and terror, while the gander, waddling and stretching his neck, went up to the old woman and hissed at her, and when he went back to his flock all the geese greeted him approvingly with " Ga- ga-ga! " Then Granny proceeded to whip Motka, and in this Motka's smock was torn again. Feel- ing in despair, and crying loudly, Sasha went to the hut to complain. Motka followed her; s_the, too, was crying on a deeper note, without wiping her tears, and her face was as wet as though it had been dipped in water.

" Holy Saints I " cried Olga, aghast, as the two came into the hut. " Queen of Heaven! "

Sasha began telling her story, while at the same time Granny walked in with a storm of shrill cries and abuse; then Fyokla flew into a rage, and there was an uproar in the hut.

" Never mind, never mind I " Olga, pale and upset, tried to comfort them, stroking Sasha's head. " She is your grandmother; it's a sin to be angry with her. Never mind, my child."

Nikolay, who was worn out already by the ever- lasting hubbub, hunger, stifling fumes, filth, who hated and despised the poverty, who was ashamed for his wife and daughter to see his father and mother, swung his legs off the stove and said in an irritable, tearful voice, addressing his mother:

" You must not beat her I You have no right to beat herI "

" You lie rotting on the stove, you wretched crea- ture I " Fyokla shouted at him spitefully. " Thc devil brought you all on us, eating us out of house and home."

Sasha and Motka and all the little girls in the hut huddled on the stove in the corner behind Nikolay's back, and from that refuge listened in silent terror, and the beating of their little hearts could be dis- tinctly heard. Whenever there is someone in a fam- ily who has long been ill, and hopelessly ill, there come painful moments when all timidly, secretly, at the bottom of their hearts long for his death; and only the children fear the death of someone near them, and always feel horrified at the thought of it. And now the children, with bated breath, with a mournful look on their faces, gazed at Nikolay and thought that he was soon to die; and they wanted to cry and to say something friendly and compassionate to him.

He pressed close to Olga, as though seeking pro- tection, and said to her softly in a quavering voice:

" Olya darling, I can't stay here longer. It's more than I can bear. For God's sake, for Christ's sake, write to your sister Klavdia Abramovna. Let her sell and pawn everything she has; let her send us the money. We will go away from here. Oh, Lord," he went on miserably, " to have one peep at Mos- cow I If I could see it in my dreams, the dear place I "

And when the evening came on, and it was dark in the hut, it was so dismal that it was hard to utter a word. Granny, very ill-tempered, soaked some crusts of rye bread in a cup, and was a long time, a whole hour, sucking at them. Marya, after milking the cow, brought in a pail of milk and set it on a bench; then Granny poured it from the pail into a jug just as slowly and deliberately, evidently pleased that it was now the Fast of the Assumption, so that no one would drink milk and it would be left untouched. And she only poured out a very little in a saucer for Fyokla's baby. When Marya and she carried the jug down to the cellar Motka suddenly stirred, clam- bered down from the stove, and going to the bench where stood the wooden cup full of crusts, sprinkled into it some milk from the saucer.

Granny, coming back into the hut, sat down to her soaked crusts again, while Sasha and Motka, sitting on the stove, gazed at her, and they were glad that she had broken her fast and now would go to hell. They were comforted and lay down to sleep, and Sasha as she dozed off to sleep imagined the Day of Judgment: a huge fire was burning, somewhat like a potter's kiln, and the Evil One, with horns like a cow's, and black all over, was driving Granny into the fire with a long stick, just as Granny herself had been driving the geese.

v

On the day of the Feast of the Assumption, be- tween ten and eleven in the evening, the girls and lads who were merrymaking in the meadow sud- denly raised a clamour and outcry, and ran in the direction of the village; and those who were above on the edge of the ravine could not for the first mo- ment make out what was the matter.

" Fire I Fire I" they heard desperate shouts from below. " The village is on fire! "

Those who were sitting above looked round, and a terrible and extraordinary spectacle met their eyes. On the thatched roof of one of the end cottages stood a column of flame, seven feet high, which curled round and scattered sparks in all directions as though it were a fountain. And all at once the whole roof burst into bright flame, and the crackling of the fire was audible.

The light of the moon was dimmed, and the whol" village was by now bathed in a red quivering glow: black shadows moved over the ground, there was a smell of burning, and those who ran up from below were all gasping and could not speak for trembling; they jostled against each other, fell down, and they could hardly see in the unaccustomed light, and did not recognize each other. It was terrible. What seemed particularly dreadful was that doves were flying over the fire in the smoke ; and in the tavern, where they did not yet know of the fire, they were still singing and playing the concertina as though there were nothing the matter.

" Uncle Semyon's on fire," shouted a loud, coarse voice.

Marya was fussing about round her hut, weeping and wringing her hands, while her teeth chattered, though the fire was a long way off at the other end of the village. Nikolay came out in high felt boots, the children ran out in their little smocks. Near the village constable's hut an iron sheet was struck. Boom, boom, boom I . . . floated through the air, and this repeated, persistent sound sent a pang to the heart and turned one cold. The old women stood with the holy ikons. Sheep, calves, cows were driven out of the back-yards into the street; boxes, sheep- skins, tubs were carried out. A black stallion, who was kept apart from the drove of horses because he kicked and injured them, on being set free ran once or twice up and down the village, neighing and paw- ing the ground; then suddenly stopped short near a cart and began kicking it with his hind-legs.

They began ringing the bells in the church on the other side of the river.

Near the burning hut it was hot and so light that one could distinctly see every blade of grass. Sem- yon, a red-haired peasant with a long nose, wearing a reefer-jacket and a cap pulled down right over his ears, sat on one of the boxes which they had suc- ceeded in bringing out: his wife was lying on her face, moaning and unconscious. A little old man of eighty, with a big beard, who looked like a gnome — not one of the villagers, though obviously connected in some way with the fire — walked about bare- headed, with a white bundle in his arms. The glare was reflected on his bald head. The village elder, Antip Syedelnikov, as swarthy and black-haired as a gypsy, went up to the hut with an axe, and hacked out the windows one after another — no one knew why — then began chopping up the roof.

" Women, water I " he shouted. " Bring the en- gine I Look sharp I "

The peasants, who had been drinking in the tavern just before, dragged the engine up. They were all drunk; they kept stumbling and falling down, and all had a helpless expression and tears in their eyes.

" Wenches, water I " shouted the elder, who was drunk, too. " Look sharp, wenches ^! "

The women and the girls ran downhill to where there was a spring, and kept hauling pails and buckets of water up the hill, and, pouring it into the engine, ran down again. Olga and Marya and Sasha and Motka all brought water. The women and the boys pumped the water; the pipe hissed, and the elder, directing it now at the door, now at the windows, held back the stream with his finger, which made it hiss more sharply still.

" Bravo, Antip! " voices shouted approvingly. " Do your best."

Antip went inside the hut into the fire and shouted from within.

" Pump I Bestir yourselves, good Christian folk, in such a terrible mischance! "

The peasants stood round in a crowd, doing noth- ing but staring at the fire. No one knew what to do, no one had the sense to do anything, though there were stacks of wheat, hay, barns, and piles of fag- gots standing all round. Kiryak and old Osip, his father, both tipsy, were standing there, too. And as though to justify his doing nothing, old Osip said, addressing the woman who lay on the ground :

" What is there to trouble about, old girl! The hut is insured — why are you taking on? "

Semyon, addressing himself first to one person and then to another, kept describing how the fire had started.

" That old man, the one with the bundle, a house- serf of General Zhukov's. . . . He was cook at our general's, God rest his soul! He came over this evening: ' Let me stay the night,' says he. . . . Well, we had a glass, to be sure. . . . The wife got the samovar — she was going to give the old fellow a cup of tea, and in an unlucky hour she set the samovar in the entrance. The sparks from the chimney must have blown straight up to the thatch; that's how it was. We were almost burnt ourselves.

And the old fellow's cap has been burnt; what a shame! "

And the sheet of iron was struck indefatigably, and the bells kept ringing in the church the other side of the river. In the glow of the fire Olga, breath- less, looking with horror at the red sheep and the pink doves flying in the smoke, kept running down the hill and up again. It seemed to her that the ringing went to her heart with a sharp stab, that the fire would never be over, that Sasha was lost. . . . And when the ceiling of the hut fell in with a crash, the thought that now the whole village would be burnt made her weak and faint, and she could not go on fetching water, but sat down on the ravine, set- ting the pail down near her; beside her and below her, the peasant women sat wailing as though at a funeral.

Then the stewards and watchmen from the estate the other side of the river arrived in two carts, bringing with them a fire-engine. A very young stu- dent in an unbuttoned white tunic rode up on horse- back. There was the thud of axes. They put a ladder to the burning framework of the house, and five men ran up it at once. Foremost of them all was the student, who was red in the face and shout- ing in a harsh hoarse voice, and in a tone as though putting out fires was a thing he was used to. They pulled the house to pieces, a beam at a time; they dragged away the corn, the hurdles, and the stacks that were near.

¹¹ Don't let them break it up! " cried stern voices in the rrowd. ¹¹ Don't let them."

Kiryak made his way up to the hut .with a resolute air, as though he meant to prevent the newcomers from breaking up the hut, but one of the workmen turned him back with a blow in his neck. There was the sound of laughter, the workman dealt him an- other blow, Kiryak fell down, and crawled back into the crowd on his hands and knees.

Two handsome girls in hats, probably the student's sisters, came from the other side of the river. They stood a little way off, looking at the fire. The beams that had been dragged apart were no longer burning, but were smoking vigorously; the student, who was working the hose, turned the water, first on the beams, then on the peasants, then on the women who were bringing the water.

" George! " the girls called to him reproachfully in anxiety, " George I ¹¹

The fire was over. And only when they began to disperse they noticed that the day was breaking, that everyone was pale and rather dark in the face, as it always seems in the early morning when the last stars are going out. As they separated, the peasants laughed and made jokes about General Zhukov's cook and his cap which had been burnt ; they already wanted to turn the fire into a joke, and even seemed sorry that it had so soon been put out.

" How well you extinguished the fire, sir I " said Olga to the student. " You ought to come to us in Moscow: there we have a fire every day."

" Why, do you come from Moscow? " asked one of the young ladies.

" Yes, miss. My husband was a waiter at the

Slavyansky Bazaar. And this is my daughter," she said, indicating Sasha, who was cold and huddling up to her. " She is a Moscow girl, too."

The two young ladies said something in French to the student, and he gave Sasha a twenty-kopeck piece.

Old Father Osip saw this, and there was a gleam of hope in his face.

" We must thank God, your honour, there was no wind," he said, addressing the student, " or else we should have been all burnt up together. Your honour, kind gentlefolks," he added in embarrass- ment in a lower tone, " the morning's chilly . . . something to warm one . . . half a bottle to your honour's health."

Nothing was given him, and clearing his throat he slouched home. Olga stood afterwards at the end of the street and watched the two carts crossing the river by the ford and the gentlefolks walking across the meadow; a carriage was waiting for them the other side of the river. Going into the hut, she de- scribed to her husband with enthusiasm:

" Such good people I And so beautiful! The young ladies were like cherubim."

" Plague take them I " Fyokla, sleepy, said spite- fully.

VI

Marya thought herself unhappy, and said that she would be very glad to die; Fyokla, on the other hand, found all this life to her taste: the poverty, the uncleanliness, and the incessant quarrelling.

She ate what was given her without discrimination; slept anywhere, on whatever came to. hand. She would empty the slops just at the porch, would splash them out from the doorway, and then walk barefoot through the puddle. And from the very first day she took a dislike to Olga and Nikolay just because they did not like this life.

" We shall see what you'il find to eat here, you Moscow gentry I " she said malignantly. " We shall see! "

One morning, it was at the beginning of Septem- ber, Fyokla, vigorous, good-looking, and rosy from the cold, brought up two pails of water; Marya and Olga were sitting meanwhile at the table drinking tea.

" Tea and sugar," said Fyokla sarcastically. " The fine ladies! " she added, setting down the pails. " You have taken to the fashion of tea every day. You better look out that you don't burst with your tea-drinking," she went on, looking with hatred at Olga. " That's how you have come by your fat mug, having a good time in Moscow, you lump of flesh! " She swung the yoke and hit Olga such a blow on the shoulder that the two sisters-in-law could only clasp their hands and say :

" Oh, holy Saints I "

Then Fyokla went down to the river to wash the clothes, swearing all the time so loudly that she could be heard in the hut.

The day passed and was followed by the long autumn evening. They wound silk in the hut; every- one did it except Fyokla; she had gone over the river. They got the silk from a factory close by, and the whole family working together earned next to nothing, twenty kopecks a week.

" Things were better in the old days under the gentry," said the old father as he wound silk. " You worked and ate and slept, everything in its turn. At dinner you had cabbage-soup and boiled grain, and at supper the same again. Cucumbers and cabbage in plenty: you could eat to your heart's content, as much as you wanted. And there was more strictness. Everyone minded what he was about."

The hut was lighted by a single little lamp, which burned dimly and smoked. When someone screened the lamp and a big shadow fell across the window, the bright moonlight could be seen. Old Osip, speaking slowly, told them how they used to live before the emancipation; how in those very parts, where life was now so poor and so dreary, they used to hunt with harriers, greyhounds,. re- trievers, and when they went out as beaters the peas- ants were given vodka ; how whole waggonloads of game used to be sent to Moscow for the young mas- ters; how the bad were beaten with rods or sent away to the Tver estate, while the good were re- warded. And Granny told them something, too. She remembered everything, positively everything. She described her mistress, a kind, God-fearing woman, whose husband was a profligate and a rake, and all of whose daughters made unlucky marriages: one married a drunkard, another married a work- man, the other eloped secretly (Granny herself, at that time a young girl, helped in the elopement), and they had all three as well as their mother died early from grief. And remembering all this, Granny posi- tively began to shed tears.

All at once someone knocked at the door, and they all started.

" Uncle Osip, give me a night's lodging."

The little bald old man, General Zhukov's cook, the one whose cap had been burnt, walked in. He sat down and listened, then he, too, began telling stories of all sorts. Nikolay, sitting on the stove with his legs hanging down, listened and asked ques- tions about the dishes that were prepared in the old days for the gentry. They talked of rissoles, cut- lets, various soups and sauces, and the cook, who remembered everything very well, mentioned dishes that are no longer served. There was one, for in- stance — a dish made of bulls' eyes, which was called " waking up in the morning."

" And used you to do cutlets a marichal?" asked Nikolay.

"No."

Nikolay shook his head reproachfully and said:

" Tut, tut! You were not much of a cook I "

The little girls sitting and lying on the stove stared down without blinking; it seemed as though there were a great many of them, like cherubim in the clouds. They liked the stories: they were breathless; they shuddered and turned pale with alternate rapture and terror, and they listened breathlessly, afraid to stir, to Granny, whose stories were the most interesting of all.

They lay down to sleep in silence; and the old people, troubled and excited by their reminiscences, thought how precious was youth, of which, what- ever it might have been like, riothing was left in the memory but what was livin^, joyful, touching, and how terribly cold was death, which was not far off, better not think of it I The \amp died down. And the dusk, and the two little windows sharply defined by the moonlight, and the stillness and the creak of the cradle, reminded them for some reason that life was over, that nothing one cculd do would bring it back. . . . You doze off, you forget your- self, and suddenly someone touches yt.\\ir shoulder or breathes on your cheek — and sleep is gone; your body feels cramped, and thoughts of cUath keep creeping into your mind. You turn on vhe other side: death is forgotten, but old dreary, s\ckening thoughts of poverty, of food, of how dear flcur is getting, stray through the mind, and a littta later again you remember that life is over and yo\'. tan« not bring it back. . . .

" Oh, Lord I " sighed the cook.

Someone gave a soft, soft tap at the windtiW. It must be Fyokla come back. Olga got up, and yawning and whispering a prayer, opened the door, then drew the bolt in the outer room, but no one came in; only from the street came a cold draught and a sudden brightness from the moonlight. The street, still and deserted, and the moon itself float- ing across the sky, could be seen at the open door.

" Who is there ? " called Olga.

¹¹ I," she heard the answer —" it is 1."

Near the door, crouching against the wall, stood Fyokla, absolutely naked. She was shivering with cold, her teeth were chattering, and in the bright moonlight she looked very pale, strange, and beau- tiful. The shadows on her, and the bright moon- light on her skin, stood out vividly, and her dark eyebrows and firm, youthful bosom were defined with peculiar distinctness.

" The ruffians over there undressed me and turned me out like this," she said. " I've come home with- out my clothes . . . naked as my mother bore me. Bring me something to put on."

" But go inside I " Olga said softly, beginning to shiver, too.

" I don't want the old folks to see." Granny was, in fact, already stirring and muttering, and the old father asked: " Who is there? " Olga brought her own smock and skirt, dressed Fyokla, and then both went softly into the inner room, try- ing not to make a noise with the door.

" Is that you, you sleek one? " Granny grumbled angrily, guessing who it was. " Fie upon you, night- walker! . . . Bad luck to you ! "

" It's all right, it's all right," whispered Olga, wrapping Fyokla up; " it's all right, dearie."

All was stillness again. They always slept badly; everyone was kept awake by something worrying and persistent: the old man by the pain in his back, Granny by anxiety and anger, Marya by terror, the children by itch and hunger. Now, too, their sleep was troubled; they kept turning over from one side to the other, talking in their sleep, getting up for a drink.

Fyokla suddenly broke into a loud, coarse howl, but immediately checked herself, and only uttered sobs from time to time, growing softer and on a lower note, until she relapsed into silence. From time to time from the other side of the river there floated the sound of the beating of the hours; but the time seemed somehow strange — five was struck and then three.

" Oh Lord ! " sighed the cook.

Looking at the windows, it was difficult to tell whether it was still moonlight or whether the dawn had begun. Marya got up and went out, and she could be heard milking the cows and saying, "Stea-dy! " Granny went out, too. It was still dark in the hut, but all the objects in it could be discerned.

Nikolay, who had not slept all night, got down from the stove. ' He took his dress-coat out of a green box, put it on, and going to the window, stroked the sleeves and took hold of the coat-tails — and smiled. Then he carefully took off the coat, put it away in his box, and lay down again.

Marya came in again and began lighting the stove. She was evidently hardly awake, and seemed dropping asleep as she walked. Probably she had had some dream, or the stories of the night before came into her mind as, stretching luxuriously before the stove, she said:

" No, freedom is better."

VII

The master arrived — that was what they called the police inspector. When he would come and what he was coming for had been known for the last week. There were only forty households in Zhukovo, but more than two thousand roubles of arrears of rates and taxes had accumulated.

The police inspector stopped at the tavern. He drank there two glasses of tea, and then went on foot to the village elder's hut, near which a crowd of those who were in debt stood waiting. The elder, Antip Syedelnikov, was, in spite of his youth — he was only a little over thirty — strict and always on the side of the authorities, though he himself was poor and did not pay his taxes regularly. Evidently he enjoyed being elder, and liked the sense of au- thority, which he could only display by strictness. In the village council the peasants were afraid of him and obeyed him. It would sometimes happen that he would pounce on a drunken man in the street or near the tavern, tie his hands behind him, and put him in the lock-up. On one occasion he even put Granny in the lock-up because she went to the village council instead of Osip, and began swear- ing, and he kept her there for a whole day and night. He had never lived in a town or read a book, but somewhere or other had picked up various learned expressions, and loved to make use of them in con- versation, and he was respected for this though he was not always understood.

When Osip came into the village elder's hut with his tax book, the police inspector, a lean old man with a long grey beard, in a grey tunic, was sitting at a table in the passage, writing something. It was clean in the hut; all the walls were dotted with pic- tures cut out of the illustrated papers, and in the most conspicuous place near the ikon there was a portrait of the Battenburg who was the Prince of Bulgaria. By the table stood Antip Syedelnikov with his arms folded.

" There is one hundred and nineteen roubles standing against him," he said when it came to Osip's turn. " Before Easter he paid a rouble, and he has not paid a kopeck since."

The police inspector raised his eyes to Osip and asked*

" Why is this, brother? "

" Show Divine mercy, your honour," Osip began, growing agitated. " Allow me to say last year the gentleman at Lutorydsky said to me, ' Osip,' , he said, ' sell your hay . . . you sell it,' he said. Well, I had a hundred poods for sale; the women mowed it on the water- meadow. Well, we struck a bargain all right, willingly. . . ."

He complained of the elder, and kept turning round to the peasants as though inviting them to bear witness; his face flushed red and perspired, and his eyes grew sharp and angry.

" I don't know why you are saying all this," said the police inspector. " I am asking you . . .I am asking you why you don't pay your arrears. You don't pay, any of you, and am I to be responsible for you ? "

" I can't do it."

" His words have no sequel, your honour," said the elder. " The Tchikildyeevs certainly are of a defective class, but if you will just ask the others, the root of it all is vodka, and they are a very bad lot. With no sort of understanding."

The police inspector wrote something down, and said to Osip quietly, in an even tone, as though he were asking him for water:

" Be off."

Soon he went away; and when he got into his cheap chaise and cleared his throat, it could be seen from the very expression of his long thin back that he was no longer thinking of Osip or of the village elder, nor of the Zhukovo arrears, but was thinking of his own affairs. Before he had gone three-quarters of a mile Antip was already carrying off the samovar from the Tchikildyeevs' cottage, fol- lowed by Granny, screaming shrilly and straining her throat :

" I won't let you have it, I won't let you have it, damn you I "

He walked rapidly with long steps, and she pur- sued him panting, almost falling over, a bent, fero- cious figure; her kerchief slipped on to her shoul- ders, her grey hair with greenish lights on it was blown about in the wind. She suddenly stbpped short, and like a genuine rebel, fell to beating her breast with her fists and shouting louder than ever in a sing-song voice, as though she were sobbing:

" Good Christians and believers in God I Neigh- bours, they have ill-treated me I Kind friends, they have oppressed me I Oh, oh I dear people, take my part."

" Granny, Granny I " said the village elder sternly, " have some sense in your head I "

It was hopelessly dreary in the Tchikildyeevs' hut without the samovar; there was something humili- ating in this loss, insulting, as though the honour of the hut had been outraged. Better if the elder had carried off the table, all the benches, all the pots — it would not have seemed so empty. Granny screamed, Marya cried, and the little girls, looking at her, cried, too. The old father, feeling guilty, sat in the corner with bowed head and said nothing. And Nikolay, too, was silent. Granny loved him and was sorry for him, but now, forgetting her pity, she fell upon him with abuse, with reproaches, shak- ing her fist right in his face. She shouted that it was all his fault ; why had he sent them so little when he boasted in his letters that he was getting fifty roubles a month at the Slavyansky Bazaar? Why had he come, and with his family, too? If he died, where was the money to come from for his funeral . . . ? And it was pitiful to look at Nikolay, Olga, and Sasha.

The old father cleared his throat, took his cap, and went off to the village elder. Antip was solder- ing something by the stove, puffing out his cheeks; there was a smell of burning. His children, emaci- ated and unwashed, no better than the Tchikildyeevs, were scrambling about the floor; his wife, an ugly, freckled woman with a prominent stomach, was wind- ing silk. They were a poor, unlucky family, and Antip was the only one who looked vigorous and handsome. On a bench there were five samovars standing in a row. The old man said his prayer to Battenburg and said:

" Antip, show the Divine mercy. Give me back the samovar, for Christ's sake I "

" Bring three roubles, then you shall have it." " I can't do it I "

Antip puffed out his cheeks, the fire roared and hissed, and the glow was reflected in the samovar. The old man crumpled up his cap and said after a moment's thought: ¹¹ You give it me back."

The swarthy elder looked quite black, and was like a magician; he turned round to Osip and said sternly and rapidly:

" It all depends on the rural captain. On the twenty-sixth instant you can state the grounds for your dissatisfaction before the administrative ses- sion, verbally or in writing."

Osip did not understand a word, but he was satis- fied with that and went home.

Ten days later the police inspector came again, stayed an hour and went away. During those days the weather had changed to cold and windy; the river had been frozen for some time past, but still there was no snow, and people found it difficult to get about. On the eve of a holiday some of the neighbours came in to Osip's to sit and have a talk. They did not light the lamp, as it would have been a sm to work, but talked in the darkness. There were some items of news, all rather unpleasant. In two or three households hens had been taken for the arrears, and had been sent to the district police station, and there they had died because no one had fed them; they had taken sheep, and while they were being driven away tied to one another, shifted into another cart at each village, one of them had died. And now they were discussing the ques- tion, who was to blame?

" The Zemstvo," said Osip. " Who else ? "

" Of course it is the Zemstvo."

The Zemstvo was blamed for everything — for the arrears, and for the oppressions, and for the failure of the crops, though no one of them knew what was meant by the Zemstvo. And this dated from the time when well-to-do peasants who had factories, shops, and inns of their own were mem- bers of the Zemstvos, were dissatisfied with them, and took to swearing at the Zemstvos in their fac- tories and inns.

They talked of God's not sending the snow; they had to bring in wood for fuel, and there was no driving nor walking in the frozen ruts. In old days fifteen to twenty years ago conversation was much more interesting in Zhukovo. In those days every old man looked as though he were treasuring some secret ; as though he knew something and was expecting something. They used to talk about an edict in golden letters, about the division of lands, about new land, about treasures; they hinted at something. Now the people of Zhukovo had no mystery at all; their whole life was bare and open in the sight of all, and they could talk of nothing but poverty, food, there being no snow yet. . . .

There was a pause. Then they thought again of the hens, of the sheep, and began discussing whose fault it was.

" The Zemstvo," said Osip wearily. " Who else? "

VIII

The parish church was nearly five miles away at Kosogorovo, and the peasants only attended it when they had to do so for baptisms, weddings, or funerals; they went to the services at the church across the river. On holidays in fine weather the girls dressed up in their best and went in a crowd together to church, and it was a cheering sight to see them in their red, yellow, and green dresses cross the meadow; in bad weather they all stayed at home. They went for the sacrament to the parish church. From each of those who did not manage in Lent to go to confession in readiness for the sacrament the parish priest, going the round of the huts with the cross at Easter, took fifteen kopecks.

The old father did not believe in God, for he hardly ever thought about Him; he recognized the supernatural, but considered it was entirely the wom- en's concern, and when religion or miracles were discussed before him, or a question were put to him, he would say reluctantly, scratching himself:

" Who can tell! "

Granny believed, but her faith was somewhat hazy; everything was mixed up in her memory, and she could scarcely begin to think of sins, of death, of the salvation of the soul, before poverty and her daily cares took possession of her mind, and she instantly forgot what she was thinking about. She did not remember the prayers, and usually in the evenings, before lying down to sleep, she would stand before the ikons and whisper:

¹¹ Holy Mother of Kazan, Holy Mother of Smolensk, Holy Mother of Troerutchitsy. . . ."

Marya and Fyokla crossed themselves, fasted, and took the sacrament every year, but understood nothing. The children were not taught their pray- ers, nothing was told them about God, and no moral principles were instilled into them; they were only forbidden to eat meat or milk in Lent. In the other families it was much the same: there were few who believed, few who understood. At the same time everyone loved the Holy Scripture, loved it with a tender, reverent love; but they had no Bible, there was no one to read it and explain it, and be- cause Olga sometimes read them the gospel, they respected her, and they all addressed her and Sasha as though they were superior to themselves.

For church holidays and services Olga often went to neighbouring villages, and to the district town, in which there were two monasteries and twenty- seven churches. She was dreamy, and when she was on these pilgrimages she quite forgot her family, and only when she got home again suddenly made the joyful discovery that she had a husband and daugh- ter, and then would say, smiling and radiant:

¹¹ God has sent me blessings I "

What went on in the village worried her and seemed to her revolting. On Elijah's Day they drank, at the Assumption they drank, at the Ascen- sion they drank. The Feast of the Intercession was the parish holiday for Zhukovo, and the peasants used to drink then for three days; they squandered on drink fifty roubles of money belonging to the Mir, and then collected more for vodka from all the households. On the first day of the feast the Tchi- kildyeevs killed a sheep and ate of it in the morn- ing, at dinner-time, and in the evening; they ate it ravenously, and the children got up at night to eat more. Kiryak was fearfully drunk for three whole days; he drank up everything, even his boots and cap, and beat Marya so terribly that they had to pour water over her. And then they were all ashamed and sick.

However, even in Zhukovo, in this " Slavey- town," there was once an outburst of genuine re- ligious enthusiasm. It was in August, when through- out the district they carried from village to village the Holy Mother, the giver of life. It was still and overcast on the day when they expected Her at Zhukovo. The girls set off in the morning to meet the ikon, in their bright holiday dresses, and brought Her towards the evening, in procession with the cross and with singing, while the bells pealed in the church across the river. An immense crowd of villagers and strangers flooded the street; there was noise, dust, a great crush. . . . And the old father and Granny and Kiryak — all stretched out their hands to the ikon, looked eagerly at it and said, weepmg:

" Defender I Mother! Defender I "

All seemed suddenly to realize that there was not an empty void between earth and heaven, that the rich and the powerful had not taken possession of everything, that there was still a refuge from in- jury, from slavish bondage, from crushing, unendur- able poverty, from the terrible vodka.

" Defender I Mother I " sobbed Marya. " Mother! "

But the thanksgiving service ended and the ikon was carried away, and everything went on as be- fore; and again there was a sound of coarse drunken oaths from the tavern.

Only the well-to-do peasants were afraid of death; the richer they were the less they believed in God, and in the salvation of souls, and only through fear of the end of the world put up candles and had services said for them, to be on the safe side. The peasants who were rather poorer were not afraid of death. The old father and Granny were told to their faces that they had lived too long, that it was time they were dead, and they did not mind. They did not hinder Fyokla from saying in Nikolay's presence that when Nikolay died her husband Denis would get exemption — to return home from the army. And Marya, far from fearing death, re- gretted that it was so slow in coming, and was glad when her children died.

Death they did not fear, but of every disease they had an exaggerated terror. The merest trifl.e was enough — a stomach upset, a slight chill, and Granny would be wrapped up on the stove, and would begin moaning loudly and incessantly:

" I am dy-ing I "

The old father hurried off for the priest, and Granny received the sacrament and extreme unc- tion. They often talked of colds, of worms, of tumours which move in the stomach and coil round to the heart. Above all, they were afraid of catch- ing cold, and so put on thick clothes even in the sum- mer and warmed themselves at the stove. Granny was fond of being doctored, and often went to the hospital, where she used to say she was not seventy, but fi.fty-eight; she supposed that if the doctor knew her real age he would not treat her, but would say it was time she died instead of taking medicine. She usually went to the hospital early in the morn- ing, taking with her two or three of the little girls, and came back in the evening, hungry and ill-tem- pered — with drops for herself and ointments for the little girls. Once she took Nikolay, who swal- lowed drops for a fortnight afterwards, and said he felt better.

Granny knew all the doctors and their assistants :and the wise men for twenty miles round, and not one of them she liked. At the Intercession, when the priest made the round of the huts with the cross, the deacon told her that in the town near the prison lived an old man who had been a med- ical orderly in the army, and who made wonderful cures, and advised her to try him. Granny took his advice. When the first snow fell she drove to the town and fetched an old man with a big beard, a converted Jew, in a long gown, whose face was covered with blue veins. There were outsiders at work in the hut at the time: an old tailor, in terrible spectacles, was cutting a waistcoat out of some rags, and two young men were making felt boots out of wool ; Kiryak, who had been dismissed from his place for drunkenness, and now lived at home, was sitting beside the tailor mending a bridle. And it was crowded, stifling, and noisome in the hut. The converted Jew examined Nikolay and said that it was necessary to try cupping.

He put on the cups, and the old tailor, Kiryak, and the little girls stood round and looked on, and it seemed to them that they saw the disease being drawn out of Nikolay; and Nikolay, too, watched how the cups suckling at his breast gradually filled with dark blood, and felt as though there really were something coming out of him, and smiled with pleas- ure.

" It's a good thing," said the tailor. " Please God, it will do you good."

The Jew put on twelve cups and then another twelve, drank some tea, and went away. Nikolay began shivering; his face looked drawn, and, as the women expressed it, shrank up like a fist; his fingers turned blue. He wrapped himself up in a quilt and in a sheepskin, but got colder and colder. Towards the evening he began to be in great distress; asked to be laid on the ground, asked the tailor not to smoke; then he subsided under the sheepskin and towards morning he died.

IX

Oh, what a grim, what a long winter I

Their own grain did not last beyond Christmas, and they had to buy flour. Kiryak, who lived at home now, was noisy in the evenings, inspiring terror in everyone, and in the mornings he suffered from headache and was ashamed; and he was a pitiful sight. In the stall the starved cows bellowed day and night—a heart-rending sound to Granny and Marya. And as ill-luck would have it, there was a sharp frost all the winter, the snow drifted in high heaps, and the winter dragged on. At Annuncia- tion there was a regular blizzard, and there was a fall of snow at Easter.

But in spite of it all the winter did end. At the beginning of April there came warm days and frosty nights. Winter would not give way, but one warm day overpowered it at last, and the streams began to flow and the birds began to sing. The whole meadow and the bushes near the river were drowned in the spring floods, and all the space between Zhukovo and the further side was filled up with a vast sheet of water, from which wild ducks rose up in flocks here and there. The spring sun- set, flaming among gorgeous clouds, gave every eve- ning something new, extraordinary, incredible — just what one does not believe in afterwards, when one sees those very colours and those very clouds in a picture.

The cranes flew swiftly, swiftly, with mournful cries, as though they were calling themselves. Standing on the edge of the ravine, Olga looked a long time at the flooded meadow, at the sunshine, at the bright church, that looked as though it had grown younger; and her tears flowed and her breath came in gasps from her passionate longing to go away, to go far away to the end of the world. It was already settled that she should go back to Mos- cow to be a servant, and that Kiryak should set off with her to get a job as a porter or something. Oh, to get away quickly I

As soon as it dried up and grew warm they got ready to set off. Olga and Sasha, with wallets on their backs and shoes of plaited bark on their feet, came out before daybreak: Marya came out, too, to see them on their way. Kiryak was not well, and was kept at home for another week. For the last time Olga prayed at the church and thought of her husband, and though she did not shed tears, her face puckered up and looked ugly like an old woman's. During the winter she had grown thin- ner and plainer, and her hair had gone a little grey, and instead of the old look of sweetness and the pleasant smile on her face, she had the resigned, mournful expression left by the sorrows she had been t':trough, and there was something blank and irresponsive in her eyes, as though she did not hear what was said. She was sorry to part from the village and the peasants. She remembered how they had carried out Nikolay, and how a requiem had been ordered for him at almost every hut, and all had shed tears in sympathy with her grief. In the course of the summer and the winter there had been hours and days when it seemed as though these people lived worse than the beasts, and to live with them was terrible; they were coarse, dishonest, filthy, and drunken ; they did not live in harmony, but quarrelled continually, because they distrusted and feared and did not respect one another. Who keeps the tavern and makes the people drunken? A peasant. Who wastes and spends on drink the funds of the commune, of the schools, of the church? A peasant. Who stole from his neighbours, set fire to their property, gave false witness at the court for a bottle of vodka? At the meetings of the Zemstvo and other local bodies, who was the first to fall foul of the peasants? A peasant. Yes, to live with them was terrible; but yet, they were hu- man beings, they suffered and wept like human be- ings, and there was nothing in their lives for which one could not find excuse. Hard labour that made the whole body ache at night, the cruel winters, the scanty harvests, the overcrowding; and they had no help and none to whom they could look for help. Those of them who were a little stronger and better off could be no help, as they were themselves coarse, dishonest, drunken, and abused one another just as revoltingly; the paltriest little clerk or official treated the peasants as though they were tramps, and ad- dressed even the village elders and church wardens as inferiors, and considered they had a right to do so. And, indeed, can any sort of help or good example be given by mercenary, greedy, depraved, and idle persons who only visit the village in order to insult, to despoil, and to terrorize? Olga remem- bered the pitiful, humiliated look of the old people when in the winter Kiryak had been taken to be flogged. . . . And now she felt sorry for all these people, painfully so, and as she walked on she kept looking back at the huts.

After walking two miles with them Marya said good-bye, then kneeling, and falling forward with her face on the earth, she began wailing:

" Again I am left alone. Alas, for poor me I poor, unhappy I . . ."

And she wailed like this for a long time, and for a long way Olga and Sasha could still see her on her knees, bowing down to someone at the side and clutching her head in her hands, while the rooks flew over her head.

The sun rose high; it began to get hot. Zhukovo was left far behind. Walking was pleasant. Olga and Sasha soon forgot both the village and Marya; they were gay and everything entertained them. Now they came upon an ancient barrow, now upon a row of telegraph posts running one after another into the distance and disappearing into the horizon, and the wires hummed mysteriously. Then they saw a homestead, all wreathed in green foliage; there came a scent from it of dampness, of hemp, and it seemed for some reason that happy people lived there. Then they came upon a horse's skele- ton whitening in solitude in the open fields. And the larks trilled unceasingly, the corncrakes called to one another, and the landrail cried as though some- one were really scraping at an old iron rail.

At midday Olga and Sasha reached a big village. There in the broad street they met the little old man who was General Zhukov's cook. He was hot, and his red, perspiring bald head shone in the sun- shine. Olga and he did not recognize each other, then looked round at the same moment, recognized each other, and went their separate ways without saying a word. Stopping near the hut whie'h looked newest and most prosperous, Olga bowed down be- fore the open windows, and said in a loud, thin, chanting voice :

" Good Christian folk, give alms, for Christ's sake, that God's blessing may be upon you, and that your parents may be in the Kingdom of Heaven in peace eternal."

" Good Christian folk," Sasha began chanting, " give, for Christ's sake, that God's blessing, the Heavenly Kingdom . . ."

1897

THE MAN IN A CASE

At the furthest end of the village of Mironositskoe some belated sportsmen lodged for the night in the elder Prokofy's barn. There were two of them, the veterinary surgeon Ivan Ivanovitch and the schoolmaster Burkin. I van Ivanovitch had a rather strange double-barrelled surname — Tchimsha-Him- alaisky — which did not suit him at all, and he was called simply Ivan Ivanovitch all over the province. He lived at a stud-farm near the town, and had come out shooting now to get a breath of fresh air. Bur- kin, the high-school teacher, stayed every summer at

Count P 's, and had been thoroughly at home in

this district for years.

They did not sleep. I van Ivanovitch, a tall, lean old fellow with long moustaches, was sitting outside the door, smoking a pipe in the moonlight. Burkin was lying within on the hay, and could not be seen in the darkness.

They were telling each other all sorts of stories. Among other things, they spoke of the fact that the elder's wife, Mavra, a healthy and by no means stupid woman, had never been beyond her native village, had never seen a town nor a railway in her life, and had spent the last ten years sitting behind the stove, and only at night going out into the street.

" What is there wonderful in that I " said Burkin.

" There are plenty of people in the world, solitary by temperament, who try to retreat into their shell like a hermit crab or a snail. Perhaps it is an in- stance of atavism, a return to the period when the ancestor of man was not yet a social animal and lived alone in his den, or perhaps it is only one of the di- versities of human character — who knows? I am not a natural science man, and it is not my business to settle such questions; I only mean to say that peo- ple like Mavra are not uncommon. There is no need to look far; two months ago a man called Bye- likov, a colleague of mine, the Greek master, died in our town. You have heard of him, no doubt. He was remarkable for always wearing goloshes and a warm wadded coat, and carrying an umbrella even in the very finest weather. And his umbrella was in a case, and his watch was in a case made of grey chamois leather, and when he took out his penknife to sharpen his pencil, his penknife, too, was in a little case; and his face seemed to be in a case too, because he always hid it in his turned-up collar. He wore dark spectacles and flannel vests, stuffed up his ears with cotton-wool, and when he got into a cab always told the driver to put up the hood. In short, the man displayed a constant and insurmountable im- pulse to wrap himself in a covering, to make him- self, so to speak, a case which would isolate him and protect him from external influences. Reality irritated him, frightened him, kept him in continual agitation, and, perhaps to justify his timiditv, his aversion for the actual, he always praised the past and what had never existed; and even the classical languages which he taught were in reality for him goloshes and umbrellas in which he sheltered himself from real life.

¹¹ ' Oh, how sonorous, how beautiful is the Greek language! ' he would say, with a sugary expression; and as though to prove his words he would screw up his eyes and, raising his finger, would pronounce ' An thropos ! '

¹¹ And Byelikov tried to hide his thoughts also in a case. The only things that were clear to his mind were government circulars and newspaper articles in which something was forbidden. When some proc- lamation prohibited the boys from going out in the streets after nine o'clock in the evening, or some article declared carnal love unlawful, it was to his mind clear and definite; it was forbidden, and that was enough. For him there was always a doubtful element, something vague and not fully expressed, in any sanction or permission. When a dramatic club or a reading-room or a tea-shop was licensed in the town, he would shake his head and say softly:

¹¹ ' It is all right, of course; it is all very nice, but I hope it won't lead to anything! '

" Every sort of breach of order, deviation or de- parture from rule, depressed him, though one would have thought it was no business of his. If one of his colleagues was late for church or if rumours reached him of some prank of the high-school boys, or one of the mistresses was seen late in the evening in the company of an officer, he was much disturbed, and said he hoped that nothing would come of it. At the teachers' meetings he simply oppressed us with his caution, his circumspection, and his characteristic reflection on the ill-behaviour of the young people in both male and female high-schools, the uproar in the classes. . . .

" Oh, he hoped it would not reach the ears of the author.ties; oh, he hoped nothing would come of it; and he thought it would be a very good thing if Petrov were expelled from the second class and Yegorov from the fourth. And, do you know, by his sighs, his despondency, his black spectacles on his pale little face, a little face like a pole-cat's, you know, he crushed us all, and we gave way, reduced Petrov's and Yegorov's marks for conduct, kept them in, and in the end expelled them both. He had a strange habit of visiting our lodgings. He would come to a teacher's, would sit down, and remain silent, as though he were carefully inspecting some- thing. He would sit like this in silence for an hour or two and then go away. This he called ' maintain- ing good relations with his colleagues '; and it was obvious that coming to see us and sitting there was tiresome to him, and that he came to see us simply because he considered it his duty as our colleague. We teachers were afraid of him. And even the headmaster was afraid of him. Would you believe it, our teachers were all intellectual, right-minded people, brought up on Turgenev and Shtchedrin, yet this little chap, who always went about with goloshes and an umbrella, had the whole high-school under his thumb for fifteen long years! High-school, in- deed — he had the whole town under his thumb I Our ladies did not get up private theatricals on Sat- urdays for fear he should hear of it, and the clergy dared not eat meat or play cards in his presence. Under the influence of people like Byelikov we have got into the way of being afraid of everything in our town for the last ten or fifteen years, They are afraid to speak aloud, afraid to send letters, afraid to make acquaintances, afraid to read books, afraid to help the poor, to teach people to read and wnte. . . ."

Ivan Ivanovitch cleared his throat, meaning to say something, but first lighted his pipe, gazed at the moon, and then said, with pauses:

" Yes, intellectual, right minded people read Shtchedrin and Turgenev, Buckle, and all the rest of them, yet they knocked under and put up with it ... that's just how it is."

" Byelikov lived in the same house as I did," Burkin went on, " on the same storey, his door fac- ing mine; we often saw each other, and I knew how he lived when he was at home. And at home it was the same story: dressing-gown, nightcap, blinds, bolts, a perfect succession of prohibitions and restric- tions of all sorts, and —' Oh, I hope nothing will come of it! ' Lenten fare was bad for him, yet he could not eat meat, as people might perhaps say Byelikov did not keep the fasts, and he ate fresh- water fish with butter — not a Lenten dish, yet one could not say that it was meat. He did not keep a female servant for fear people might think evil of him, but had as cook an old man of sixty, called Afan- asy, half-witted and given to tippling, who had once been an officer's servant and could cook after a fash- ion. This Afanasy was usually standing at the door with his arms folded; with a deep sigh, he would mutter always the same thing:

" ' There are plenty of /hem about nowadays I '

¹¹ Byelikov had a little bedroom like a box; his bed had curtains. When he went to bed he covered his head over; it was hot and stuffy; the wind bat- tered on the closed doors ; there was a droning noise in the stove and a sound of sighs from the kitchen — ominous sighs. . . . And he felt frightened under the bed-clothes. He was afraid that something might happen, that Afanasy might murder him, that thieves might break in, and so he had troubled dreams all night, and in the morning, when we went to- gether to the high-school, he was depressed and pale, and it was evident that the high-school full of peo- ple excited dread and aversion in his whole being, and that to walk beside me was irksome to a man of his solitary temperament.

" ' They make a great noise in our classes,' he used to say, as though trying to find an explanation for his depression. ' Tt's beyond anything.'

" And the Greek master, this man in a case — would you believe it? — almost got married."

Ivan Ivanovitch glanced quickly into the barn, and said:

¹¹ You are joking! "

¹¹ Yes, strange as it seems, he almost got married. A new teacher of history and geography, Milhail Savvitch Kovalenko, a Little Russian, was appointed. He came, not alone, but with his sister Varinka. He was a tall, dark young man with huge hands, and one could see from his face that he had a bass voice, and, in fact, he had a voice that seemed to come out of a barrel —' boom, boom, boom! ' And she was not so young, about thirty, but she, too, was tall, well- made, with black eyebrows and red cheeks — in fact, she was a regular sugar-plum, and so sprightly, so noisy; she was always singing Little Russian songs and laughing. For the least thing she would go off into a ringing laugh —' Ha-ha-ha ! ' We made our first thorough acquaintance with the Kovalenkos at the headmaster's name-day party. Among the glum and intensely bored teachers who came even to the name-day party as a duty we suddenlv saw a new Aphrodite risen from the waves; she walked with her arms akimbo, laughcd, sang. danced. . . . She sang with feeling ' The 'Vinds do Blow,' then another song, and another, and she fascinated us all — all, even Byelikov He sat down by her and said with a honeyed smile:

¹¹ ' The Little Russian reminds one of the ancient Greek in its softness and agreeable resonance.'

¹¹ That flattered her, and she began telling him with feeling and earnestness that they had a farm in the Gadyatchsky district, and that her mamma lived at the farm, and that they had such pears, such mel- ons, such kabaks! The Little Russians call pump- kins kabaks (i.e., pothouses), while their pothouses they call shinki, and they make a beetroot soup with tomatoes and aubergines in it, ' which was so nice — awfully nice! '

¹¹ We listened and listened, and suddenly the same idea dawned upon us all:

" ' It would be a good thing to make a match of it,' the headmaster's wife said to me softly.

" We all for some reason recalled the fact that our friend Byelikov was not married, and it now seemed to us strange that we had hitherto failed to observe, and had in fact completely lost sight of. a detail so important in his life. 'Vhat was his at- titude to woman? How had he settled this vital question for himself? This had not interested us in the least till then; perhaps we had not even ad- mitted the idea that a man who went out in all weathers in goloshes and slept under curtains could be in love.

" ' He is a good deal over forty and she is thirty.' the headmaster's wife went on, developing her idea. ' I believe she would marry him.'

" All sorts of things are done in the provinces through boredom, all sorts of unnecessary and non- sensical things! And that is because what is neces- sary is not done at all. What need was there, for instance, for us to make a match for this Bvelikov, whom one could not even imagine married? The headmaster's wife, the inspector's wife, and all our high-school ladies, grew livelier and even better-look- ing, as though they had suddenly found a new object in life. The headmaster's wife would take a box at the theatre, and we beheld sitting in her box Varinka, with such a fan, beaming and happy. and beside her Byelikov, a little bent figure, looking as though he had been extracted from his house by, pincers. I would give an evening partv, and the ladies would insist on my inviting Byelikov and Varinka. In short, the machine \vas set in motion. It appeared that Varinka was not averse to matrimony. She had not a very cheerful life with her brother; they could do nothing but quarrel and scold one another from morning till night. Here is a scenc, for in- stance. Kovalenko would he coming along the street, a tall, sturdy young ruffian, in an embroidered shirt, his love-locks falling on his forehead under his cap, in one hand a biindle of books, in the other a thick knotted stick, followed by his sister, also with books in her hand.

" ' But you haven't read it, Mihalik! ' she would be arguing loudly. ' I tell you, I swear you have not read it at all! '

" ' And I tell you I have read it,' cries Kovalenko, thumping his stick on the pavement.

" ' Oh, my goodness, Mihalik! why are you so cross? We are arguing about principles.'

" ' I tell you that I have read it I ' Kovalenko would shout, more loudly than ever.

" And at home, if there was an outsider present, there was sure to be a skirmish. Such a life must have been wearisome, and of course she must have longed for a home of her own. Besides, there was her age to be considered; there was no time left to pick and choose; it was a case of marrying anybody, even a Greek master. And, indeed, most of our yoing ladies don't mind whom they marry so long as they do get married. However that may be, Varinka began to show an unmistakable partiality for Byelikov.

" And Byelikov? He used to visit Kovalenko just as he did us. He would arrive, sit down, and re- main silent. He would sit quiet, and Varinka would sing to him ' The \Vinds do Blow,' or would look pensively at him with her dark eyes, or would sud- denly go off into a peal —' Ha-ha-ha I '

" Suggestion plays a great part in love affairs, and still more in getting married. Everybody — both his colleagues and the ladies — began assuring Bye- likov that he ought to get married, that there was nothing left for him in life but to get married; we all congratulated him, with solemn countenances delivered ourselves of various platitudes, such as ' Marriage is a serious step.' Besides, Varinka was good-looking and interesting; she was the daughter of a civil councillor, and had a farm; and what was more, she was the first woman who had bcen warm and friendly in her manner to him. His head was turned, and he decided that he really ought to get married."

" Well, at that point you ought to have taken away his goloshes and umbrella," said Ivan Ivano- vitch.

" Only fancy! that turned out to be impossible. He put Varinka's portrait on his table, kept coming to see me and talking about Varinka, and home life, saying marriage was a serious step. He was fre- quently at Kovalenko's, but he did not alter his man- ner of life in the least; on the contrary, indeed, his determination to get married seemed to have a de- pressing effect on him. He grew thinner and paler, and seemed to retreat further and further into his case.

" ' I like Varvara Savvishna,' he used to say to me, with a faint and wry smile, ' and I know that every one ought to get married, but . . . you know all this has happened so suddenly. . . . One must think a little.'

" ' What is there to think over?' I used to say to him. ' Get married — that is all.'

"' No; marriage is a serious step. One must first weigh the duties before one, the responsibilities . . . that nothing may go wrong afterwards. It worries me so much that I don't sleep at night. And I must confess I am afraid: her brother and she have a strange way of thinking; they look at things strangely, you know, and her disposition is very im- petuous. One may get married, and then, there is no knowing, one may find oneself in an unpleasant position.'

" And he did not make an offer; he kept putting it off, to the great vexation of the headmaster's wife and all our ladies; he went on weighing his future duties and responsibilities, and meanwhile he went for a walk with Varinka almost every day — possibly he thought that this was necessary in his position — and came to see me to talk about family life. And in all probability in the end he would have proposed to her, and would have made one of those unneces- sary, stupid marriages such as are made by thousands among us from being bored and having nothing to do, if it had not been for a kolossalische scandal. I must mention that Varinka's brother, Kovalenko, de- tested Byelikov from the first day of their acquaint- ance, and could not endure him.

" ' I don't understand,' he used to say to us, shrug- ging his shoulders—' I don't understand how you can put up with that sneak, that nasty phiz. Ugh I how can you live here I The atmosphere is stifling and unclean ! Do you call yourselves schoolmasters, teachers? You are paltry government clerks. You keep, not a temple of science, but a department for red tape and loyal behaviour, and it smells as sour as a police-station. No, my friends; I will stay with you for a while, and then I will go to my farm and there catch crabs and teach the Little Russians. I shall go, and you can stay here with your Judas — damn his soul ! '

" Or he would laugh till he cried, first in a loud bass, then in a shrill, thin laugh, and ask me, waving his hands:

" ' What does he sit here for? What does he want? He sits and stares.'

" He even gave Byelikov a nickname, ' The Spider.' And it will readily be understood that we avoided talking to him of his sister's being about to marry ' The Spider.'

" And on one occasion, when the headmaster's wife hinted to him what a good thing it would be to se- cure his sister's future with such a reliable, univer- sally respected man as Byelikov, he frowned and mut- tered :

" ' It's not my business; let her marry a reptile if she likes. I don't like meddling in other people's affairs.'

" Now hear what happened next. Some mis- chievous person drew a caricature of Byelikov walk- ing along in his goloshes with his trousers tucked up, under his umbrella, with Varinka on his arm; below, the inscription ' Anthropos in love.' The expression was caught to a marvel, you know. The artist must have worked for more than one night, for the teach- ers of both the boys' and girls' high-schools, the teachers of the seminary, the government officials, all received a copy. Byelikov received one, too. The caricature made a very painful impression on him.

" \Ve went out together; it was the first of May, a Sunday, and all of us, the boys and the teachers, had agreed to meet at the high-school and then to go for a walk together to a wood beyond the town. We set off, and he was green in the face and gloomier than a storm-cloud.

" ' \Vhat wicked, ill-natured people there are!' he said, and his lips quivered.

" I felt really sorry for him. We were walking along, and all of a sudden — would you believe it? — Kovalenko came howling along on a bicycle, and after him, also on a bicycle, Varinka, flushed and ex- hausted, but good-humoured and gay.

" ' We are going on ahead,' she called. ' What lovely weather! Awfully lovely!'

" And they both disappeared from our sight. Byelikov turned white instead of green, and seemed petrified. He stopped short and stared at me. . . .

" ' What is the meaning of it? Tell me, please 1 ' he asked. ' Can my eyes have deceived me? Is it the proper thing for high-school masters and ladies to ride bicycles? '

¹¹ ' What is there improper about it? ' I said. ' Let them ride and enjoy themselves.'

¹¹ ' But how can that be? ' he cried, amazed at my calm. ' What are you saying? '

" And he was so shocked that he was unwilling to go on, and returned home.

¹¹ Next day he was continually twitching and nervously rubbing his hands, and it was evident from his face that he was unwell. And he left before his work was over, for the first time in his life. And he ate no dinner. Towards evening he wrapped himself up warmly, though it was quite warm weather, and sallied out to the Kovalenkos'. Var- inka was out; he found her brother, however.

" ' Pray sit down,' Kovalenko said coldly, with a frown. His face looked sleepy; he had just had a nap after dinner, and was in a very bad humour.

¹¹ Byelikov sat in silence for ten minutes, and then began:

" ' I have come to see you to relieve my mind. I am very, very much troubled. Some scurrilous fel- low has drawn an absurd caricature of me and an- other person, in whom we are both deeply interested. I regard it as a duty to assure you that I have had no hand in it. . . . I have given no sort of ground for such ridicule — on the contrary, I have always be- haved in every way like a gentleman.'

¹¹ Kovalenko sat sulky and silent. Byelikov waited a little, and went on slowly in a mournful voice:

" ' And I have something else to say to you. I have been in the service for years. while you have only lately entered it, and I consider it my duty as an older colleague to give you a warning. You ride on a bicycle, and that pastime is utterly unsuit- able for an educator of youth.'

" ' Why so? ' asked Kovalenko in his bass. " | Surely that needs no explanation, Mihail Sav- vitch — surely you can understand that? If the teacher rides a bicycle, what can you expect the pupils to do ? You will have them walking on their heads next! And so long as there is no formal permission to do so, it is out of the question. I was horrified yesterday! When I saw your sister everything seemed dancing before my eyes. A lady or a young girl on a bicycle — it's awful! ' " ¹ What is it you want exactly? ' " ' All I want is to warn you, Mihail Savvitch. You are a young man, you have a future before you, you must be very, very careful in your behaviour, and you are so careless — oh, so careless I You go about in an embroidered shirt, are constantly seen in the street carrying books, and now the bicycle, too. The headmaster will learn that you and your sister ride the bicycle, and then it will reach the higher au- thorities. . . . Will that be a good thing? '

" ¹ It's no business of anybody else if my sister and I do bicycle I ' said Kovalenko, and he turned crim- son. ' And damnation take any one who meddles in my private affairs ! '

" Byelikov turned pale and got up. " ¹ If you speak to me in that tone I cannot con- tinue,' he said. ' And I beg you never to express yourself like that about our superiors in my pres- ence; you ought to be respectful to the authorities.'

" ' Why, have I said any harm of the authorities? ' asked Kovalenko, looking at him wrathfully. * Please leave me alone. I am an honest man, and do not care to talk to a gentleman like you. I don't like sneaks I '

" Byelikov flew into a nervous flutter, and began hurriedly putting on his coat, with an expression of horror on his face. It was the first time in his life he had been spoken to so rudely.

" ' You can say what you please,' he said, as he went out from the entry to the landing on the stair- case. * I ought only to warn you : possibly some one may have overheard us, and that our conversation may not be misunderstood and harm come of it, I shall be compelled to inform our headmaster of our conversation . . . in its main features. I am bound to do so.'

" ' Inform him? You can go and make your re- port! '

" Kovalenko seized him from behind by the collar and gave him a push, and Byelikov rolled down- stairs, thudding with his goloshes. The staircase was high and steep, but he rolled to the bottom un- hurt, got up, and touched his nose to see whether his spectacles were all right. But just as he was falling down the stairs Varinka came in, and with her two ladies; they stood below staring, and to Byelikov this was more terrible than anything. I be- lieve he would rather have broken his neck or both legs than have been an object of ridicule. Why, now the whole town would hear of it; it would come to the headmaster's ears, would reach the higher authorities — oh, it might lead to something I There would be another caricature, and it would all end in his being asked to resign his post. . . .

¹¹ When he got up, Varinka recognized him, and, looking at his ridiculous face, his crumpled overcoat, and his goloshes, not understanding what had hap- pened and supposing that he had slipped down by accident, could not restrain herself, and laughed loud enough to be heard by all the flats:

" ¹ Ha-ha-ha ! '

¹¹ And this pealing, ringing 'Ha-ha-ha! ' was the last straw that put an end to everything: to the pro- posed match and to Byelikov's earthly existence. He did not hear what Varinka said to him; he saw nothing. On reaching home, the fi.rst thing he did was to remove her portrait from the table; then he went to bed, and he never got up again.

" Three days later Afanasy came to me and asked whether we should not send for the doctor, as there was something wrong with his master. I went in to Byelikov. He lay silent behind the curtain, covered with a quilt; if one asked him a question, he said ' Yes ' or ' No ' and not another sound. He lay there while Afanasy, gloomy and scowling, hovered about him, sighing heavily, and smelling like a pot- house.

" A month later Byelikov died. We all went to his funeral — that is, both the high-schools and the seminary. Now when he was lying in his coffin his expression was mild, agreeable, even cheerful, as though he were glad that he had at last been put into a case which he would never leave again. Yes, he had attained his ideal! And, as though in his hon- our, it was dull, rainy weather on the day of his fun- eral, and we all wore goloshes and took our um- brellas. Varinka, too, was at the funeral, and when the coffin was lowered into the grave she burst into tears. I have noticed that Little Russian women are always laughing or crying — no intermediate mood.

" One must confess that to bury people like Bye- likov is a great pleasure. As we were returning from the cemetery we wore discreet Lenten faces; no one wanted to display this feeling of pleasure — a feeling like that we had experienced long, long ago as children when our elders had gone out and we ran about the garden for an hour or two, enjoying complete freedom. Ah, freedom, freedom! The merest hint, the faintest hope of its possibility gives wings to the soul, does it not?

" We returned from the cemetery in a good hu- mour. But not more than a week had passed before life went on as in the past, as gloomy, oppressive, and senseless — a life not forbidden by government prohibition, but not fully permitted, either: it was no better. And, indeed, though we had buried Bye- likov, how many such men in cases were left, how many more of them there will be! "

" That's just how it is," said I van Ivanovitch and he lighted his pipe.

" How many more of them there will be! " re- peated Burkin.

The schoolmaster came out of the barn. He was a short, stout man, completely bald, with a black beard down to his waist. The two dogs came out with him.

" What a moon I " he said, looking upwards.

It was midnight. On the right could be seen the whole village, a long street stretching far away for four miles. All was buried in deep silent slumber; not a movement, not a sound; one could hardly be- lieve that nature could be so still. When on a moon- light night you see a broad village street, with its cottages, haystacks, and slumbering willows, a feel- ing of calm comes over the soul; in this peace, wrapped away from care, toil, and sorrow in the darkness of night, it is mild, melancholy, beautiful, and it seems as though the stars look down upon it kindly and with tenderness, and as though there were no evil on earth and all were well. On the left the open country began from the end of the village; it could be seen stretching far away to the horizon, and there was no movement, no sound in that whole expanse bathed in moonlight.

" Yes, that is just how it is," repeated Ivan Ivano- vitch; " and isn't our living in town, airless and crowded, our writing useless papers, our playing vinl — isn't that all a sort of case for us? And our spending our whole lives among trivial, fussy men and silly, idle women, our talking and our listening to all sorts of nonsense — isn't that a case for us, too? If you like, I will tell you a very edifying story."

" No; it's time we were asleep," said Burkin.

" Tell it tomorrow."

They went into the barn and lay down on the hay. And they were both covered up and beginning to doze when they suddenly heard light footsteps — patter, patter. . . . Some one was walking not far from the barn, walking a little and stopping, and a minute later, patter, patter again. . . . The dogs began growling.

" That's Mavra," said Burkin.

The footsteps died away.

" You see and hear that they lie," said Ivan Ivano- vitch, turning over on the other side, " and they call you a fool for putting up with their lying. You en- dure insult and humiliation, and dare not openly say that you are on the side of the honest and the' free, and you lie and smile yourself; and all that for the sake of a crust of bread, for the sake of a warm corner, for the sake of a wretched little worthless rank in the service. No, one can't go on living like this."

" Well, you are off on another tack now, Ivan Ivanovitch," said the schoolmaster. " Let us go to sleep! "

And ten minutes later Burkin was asleep. But Ivan I vanovitch kept sighing and turning over from side to side; then he got up, went outside again, and, sitting in the doorway, lighted his pipe.

1898

GOOSEBE^ES

The whole sky had been overcast with rain-clouds from early morning; it was a still day, not hot, but heavy, as it is in grey dull weather when the clouds have been hanging over the country for a long while, when one expects rain and it does not come. Ivan Ivanovitch, the veterinary surgeon, and Burkin, the high-school teacher, were already tired from walking, and the fields seemed to them endless. Far ahead of them they could just see the windmills of the village of Mironositskoe; on the right stretched a row of hillocks which disappeared in the distance behind the village, and they both knew that this was the bank of the river, that there were meadows, green willows, homesteads there, and that if one stood on one of the hillocks one could see from it the same vast plain, telegraph-wires, and a train which in the distance looked like a crawling cater- pillar, and that in clear weather one could even see the town. Now, in still weather, when all nature seemed mild and dreamy, Ivan Ivanovitch and Bur- kin were filled with love of that countryside, and both thought how great, how beautiful a land it was.

¹¹ Last time we were in Prokofy's barn." said Burkin, " you were about to tell me a story."

⁴¹ Yes; I meant to tell you about my brother."

Ivan Ivanovitch heaved a deep sigh and lighted a pipe to begin to tell his story, but just at that moment the rain began. And five minutes later hea^' rain came down, covering the sky, and it was hard to tell when it would be over. I van Ivanovitch and Burkin stopped in hesitation; the dogs, already drenched, stood with their tails between their legs gazing at tlrem feelingly.

" We must take shelter somewhere," said Burkin. " Let us go to Alehin's; it's close by."

" Come along."

They turned aside and walked through mown fields, sometimes going straight forward, sometimes turning to the right, till they came out on the road. Soon they saw poplars, a garden, then the red roofs of barns; there was a gleam of the river, and the view opened on to a broad expanse of water with a windmill and a white bath-house: this was Sofino, where Alehin lived.

The watermi1l was at work, drowning the sound of the rain; the dam was shaking. Here wet horses with drooping heads were standing near their carts, and men were walking about covered with sacks. It was damp, muddy, and desolate; the water looked cold and malignant. I van I vanovitch and Burkin were already conscious of a feeling of wetness, messi- ness, and discomfort all over; their feet were heavy with mud, and when, crossing the dam, they went up to the barns, they were silent, as though they were angry with one another.

In one of the barns there was the sound of a winnowing machine, the door was open, and clouds of dust were coming from it. In the doorway was standing Alehin himself, a man of forty, tall and stout, with long hair, more like a professor or an artist than a landowner. He had on a white shirt that badly needed washing, a rope for a belt, draw- ers instead of trousers, and his boots, too, were plastered up with mud and straw. His eyes and nose were black with dust. He recognized Ivan Ivanovitch and Burkin, and was apparently much delighted to see them.

" Go into the house, gentlemen," he said, smiling; " I'll come directly, this minute."

It was a big two-storeyed house. Alehin lived in the lower storey, with arched ceilings and little windows, where the bailiffs had once lived; here everything was plain, and there was a smell of rye bread, cheap vodka, and harness. He went upstairs into the best rooms only on rare occasions, when visitors came. I van Ivanovitch and Burkin were met in the house by a maid-servant, a young woman so beautiful that they both stood still and looked at one another.

" You can't imagine how delighted I am to see you, my friends," said Alehin, going into the hall with them. " It is a surprise! Pelagea," he said, addressing the girl, " give our visitors something to change into. And, by the way, I will change too. Only I must first go and wash, for I almost think I have not washed since spring. Wouldn't you like to come into the bath-house? and meanwhile they will get things ready here."

Beautiful Pelagea, looking so refined and soft, brought them towels and soap, and Alehin went to the bath-house with his guests.

" It's a long time since I had a wash," he said, undressing. " I have got a nice bath-house, as you see — my father built it — but I somehow never have time to wash."

He sat down on the steps and soaped his long hair and his neck, and the water round him turned brown.

" Yes, I must say," said Ivan Ivanovitch mean- ingly, looking at his head.

" It's a long time since I washed . . ." said Alehin with embarrassment, giving himself a second soap- ing, and the water near him turned dark blue, like ink.

I van I vanovitch went outside, plunged into the water with a loud splash, and swam in the rain, fling- ing his arms out wide. He stirred the water into waves which set the white lilies bobbing up and down; he swam to the very middle of the millpond and dived, and came up a minute later in another place, and swam on, and kept on diving, trying to touch the bottom.

" Oh, my goodness I " he repeated continually, en- joying himself thoroughly. " Oh, my goodness 1 " He swam to the mill, talked to the peasants there, then returned and lay on his back in the middle of the pond, turning his face to the rain. Burkin and Alehin were dressed and ready to go, but he still went on swimming and diving. " Oh, my good- ness! . . ." he said. " Oh, Lord, have mercy on me! . . .

" That's enough I " Burkin shouted to him.

They went back to the house. And only when the lamp was lighted in the big drawing-room up- stairs, and Burkin and I van I vanovitch, attired in silk dressing-gowns and warm slippers, were sitting in arm-chairs; and Alehin, washed and combed, in a new coat, was walking about the drawing-room, evi- dently enjoying the feelir.g of warmth, cleanliness, dry clothes, and light shoes; and when lovely Pel- agea, stepping noiselessly on the carpet and smiling softly, handed tea and jam on a tray — only then I van Ivanovitch began on his story, and it seemed as though not only Burkin and Alehin were listening, but also the ladies, young and old, and the officers who looked down upon them sternly and calmly from their gold frames.

" There are two of us brothers," he began—" I, Ivan Ivanovitch, and my brother, Nikolay Ivano- vitch, two years younger. I went in for a learned profession and became a veterinary surgeon, while Nikolay sat in a government office from the time he was nineteen. Our father, Tchimsha-Himalaisky, was a kantonist, but he rose to be an officer and left us a little estate and the rank of nobility. After his death the little estate went in debts and legal ex- penses ; but, anyway, we had spent our childhood running wild in the country. Like peasant children, we passed our days and nights in the fields and the woods, looked after horses, stripped the bark off the trees, fished, and so on. . . . And, you know, whoever has once in his life caught perch or has seen the migrating of the thrushes in autumn, watched how they float in flocks over the village on bright, cool days, he will never be a real townsman, and will have a yearning for freedom to the day of his death. My brother was miserable in the government office. Years passed by, and he went on sitting in the same place, went on writing the same papers and thinking of one and the same thing — how to get into the country. And this yearning by degrees passed into a definite desire, into a dream of buying himself a little farm somewhere on the banks of a river or a lake.

" He was a gentle, good-natured fellow, and I was fond of him, but I never sympathized with this de- sire to shut himself up for the rest of his life in a little farm of his own. It's the correct thing to say that a man needs no more than six feet of earth. But six feet is what a corpse needs, not a man. And they say, too, now, that if our intellectual classes are attracted to the land and yearn for a farm, it's a good thing. But these farms are just the same as six feet of earth. To retreat from town, from the struggle, from the bustle of life, to retreat and bury oneself in one's farm — it's not life, it's egoism, lazi- ness, it's monasticism of a sort, but monasticism without good works. A man does not need six feet of earth or a farm, but the whole globe, all nature, where he can have room to display all the qualities and peculiarities of his free spirit.

" My brother Nikolay, sitting in his government office, dreamed of how he would eat his own cab- bages, which would fill the whole yard with such a gavoury smell, take his meals on the green grass, sleep in the sun, sit for whole hours on the seat by the gate gazing at the fields and the forest. Garden- ing books and the agricultural hints in calendars were his delight, his favourite spiritual sustenance; he enjoyed reading newspapers, too, but the only things he read in them were the advertisements of so many acres of arable land and a grass meadow with farm-houses and buildings, a river, a garden, a mill and millponds, for sale. And his imagination pictured the garden-paths, flowers and fruit, starling cotes, the carp in the pond, and all that sort of thing, you know. These imaginary pictures were of dif- ferent kinds according to the advertisements which he came across, but for some reason in every one of them he had always to have gooseberries. He could not imagine a homestead, he could not picture an idyllic nook, without gooseberries.

" ' Country life has its conveniences,' he would sometimes say. ' You sit on the verandah and you drink tea, while your ducks swim on the pond, there is a delicious smell everywhere, and . . . and the gooseberries are growing.'

" He used to draw a map of his property, and in every map there were the same things— (a) house for the family, (b) servants' quarters, (c) kitchen- garden, (d) gooseberry-bushes. He lived parsi- moniously, was frugal in food and drink, his clothes were beyond description; he looked like a beggar, but kept on saving and putting money in the bank. He grew fearfully avaricious. I did not like to look at him, and I used to give him something and send him presents for Christmas and Easter, but he used to save that too. Once a man is absorbed by an idea there is no doing anything with him.

" Years passed: he was transferred to another province. He was over forty, and he was still read- ing the advertisements in the papers and saving up. Then I heard he was married. Still with the same object of buying a farm and having gooseberries, he married an elderly and ugly widow without a trace of feeling for her, simply because she had filthy lucre. He went on living frugally after marrying her, and kept her short of food, while he put her money in the hank in his name.

¹¹ Her first husband had been a postmaster, and. with him she was accustomed to pies and home-made wines, while with her second husband she did not get enough black bread; she began to pine away with this sort of life, and three years later she gave up her soul to God. And I need hardly say that my brother never for one moment imagined that he was responsible for her death. Money, like vodka, makes a man queer. In our town there was a merchant who, before he died, ordered a plateful of honey and ate up all his money and lottery tickets with the honey, so that no one might get the benefit of it. While I was inspecting cattle at a railway- station, a cattle-dealer fell under an engine and had his leg cut off. We carried him into the waiting- room, the blood was flowing—it was a horrible thing — and he kept asking them to look for his leg and was very much worried about it; there were twenty roubles in the boot on the leg that had been cut off, and he was afraid they would be lost."

" That's a story from a different opera," said Burkin.

" After his wife's death," Ivan Ivanovitch went on, after thinking for half a minute, " my brother began looking out for an estate for himself. Of course, you may look about for five years and yet end by making a mistake, and buying something quite different from what you have dreamed of. My brother Nikolay bought through an agent a mort- gaged estate of three hundred and thirty acres, with a house for the family, with servants' quarters, with a park, but with no orchard, no gooseberry-bushes, and no duck-pond; there was a river, but the water in it was the colour of coffee, because on one side of the estate there was a brickyard and on the other a factory for burning bones. But Nikolay Ivano- vitch did not grieve much; he ordered twenty goose- berry-bushes, planted them, and began living as a country gentleman.

" Last year I went to pay him a visit. I thought I would go and see what it was like. In his letters my brother called his estate ' Tchumbaroklov Waste, alias Himalaiskoe.' I reached ' alias Himalaiskoe ' in the afternoon. It was hot. Everywhere there were ditches, fences, hedges, fir-trees planted in rows, and there was no knowing how to get to the yard, where to put one's horse. I went up to the house, and was met by a fat red dog that looked like a pig. It wanted to bark, but it was too lazy. The cook, a fat, barefooted woman, came out of the kitchen, and she, too, looked like a pig, and said that her master was resting after dinner. I went in to see my brother. He was sitting up in bed with a quilt over his legs; he had grown older, fatter, wrinkled; his cheeks, his nose, and his mouth all stuck ou^ — he looked as though he might begin grunting into the quilt at any moment.

" We embraced each other, and shed tears of joy and of sadness at the thought that we had once been young and now were both grey-headed and near the grave. He dressed, and led me out to show me the estate.

" ' Well, how are you getting on here? ' I asked.

" ' Oh, all right, thank God; I am getting on very well.'

" He was no more a poor timid clerk, but a real landowner, a gentleman. He was already accus- tomed to it, had grown used to it, and liked it. He ate a great deal, went to the bath-house, was grow- ing stout, was already at law with the village com- mune and both factories, and was very much offended when the peasants did not call him ' Your Honour.' And he concerned himself with the salvaoion of his soul in a substantial, gentlemanly manner, and performed deeds of charity, not simply, but with an air of consequence. And what deeds of charity! He treated the peasants for every sort of disease with soda and castor oil, and on his name-day had a thanksgiving service in the middle of the village, and then treated the peasants to a gallon of vodka — he thought that was the thing to do. Oh, those horrible gallons of vodka I One day the fat landowner hauls the peasants up before the district captain for tres- pass, and next day, in honour of a holiday, treats them to a gallon of vodka, and they drink and shout ' Hurrah I ' and when they are drunk bow down to his feet. A change of life for the better, and being well-fed and idle develop in a Russian the most in- solent self-conceit. Nikolay Ivanovitch, who at one time in the government office was afraid to have any views of his own, now could say nothing that was not gospel truth, and uttered such truths in the tone of a prime minister. ' Education is essential, but for the peasants it is premature.' ' Corporal punish- ment is harmful as a rule, but in some cases it is necessary and there is nothing to take its place.'

" ' I know the peasants and understand how to treat them,' he would say. ' The peasants like me. I need only to hold up my little finger and the peas- ants will do anything I like.'

" And all this, observe, was uttered with a wise, benevolent smile. He repeated twenty times over ' We noblemen,' ' I as a noble '; obviously he did not remember that our grandfather was a peasant, and our father a soldier. Even our surname Tchimsha- Himalaisky, in reality so incongruous, seemed to him now melodious, distinguished, and very agreeable.

" But the point just now is not he, but myself. I want to tell you about the change that took place in me during the brief hours I spent at his country place. In the evening, when we were drinking tea, the cook put on the table a plateful of gooseberries. They were not bought, but his own goosberries, gath- ered for the first time since the bushes were planted. Nikolay Ivanovitch laughed and looked for a minute in silence at the gooseberries, with tears in his eyes; he could not speak for excitement. Then he put one gooseberry in his mouth, looked at me with the triumph of a child who has at last received his fa- vourite toy, and said : " ' How delicious 1 '

" And he ate them greedily, continually repeating, ¹ Ah, how delicious 1 Do taste them! '

" They were sour and unripe, but, as Pushkin says:

" ' Dearer to us the falsehood that exalts Than hosts of baser truths.'

¹¹ I saw a happy man whose cherished dream was so obviously fulfilled, who had attained his object in life, who had gained what he wanted, who was satisfied with his fate and himself. There is always, for some reason, an element of sadness mingled with my thoughts of human happiness, and, on this oc- casion, at the sight of a happy man I was overcome by an oppressive feeling that was close upon despair. It was particularly oppressive at night. A bed was made up for me in the room next to my brother's bedroom, and I could hear that he was awake, and that he kept getting up and going to the plate of gooseberries and taking one. I reflected how many satisfied, happy people there really are! What a suffocating force it is! You look at life: the inso- lence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance a'nd brutishness of the weak, incredible poverty all about us. overcrowding, degeneration, drunkenness, hy- pocrisy, lying. . . . Yet all is calm and stillness in the houses and in the streets; of the fifty thousand living in a town, there is not one who would cry out, who would give vent to his indignation aloud. We see the people going to market for provisions, eating by day, sleeping by night, talking their silly nonsense, getting married, growing old, serenely escorting their dead to the cemetery; but we do not see and we do not hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life goes on somewhere behind the scenes. . . . Every- thing is quiet and peaceful, and nothing protests but mute statistics: so many people gone out of their minds, so many gallons of vodka drunk, so many children dead from malnutrition. . . . And this or- der of things is evidently necessary; evidently the happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burdens in silence, and without that silence happiness would be impossible. It's a case of gen- eral hypnotism. There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man some one standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, trouble will come for him — disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer; the happy man lives at his ease, and trivial daily cares faintly agitate him like the wind in the aspen-tree — and all goes well.

" That night I realized that I, too, was happy and contented," Ivan Ivanovitch went on, getting up. " I, too, at dinner and at the hunt liked to lay down the law on life and religion, and the way to manage the peasantry. I, too, used to say that science was light, that culture was essential, but for the simple people reading and writing was enough for the time. Freedom is a blessing, I used to say; we can no more do without it than without air, but we must wait a little. Yes, I used to talk like that, and now I ask, ' For what reason are we to wait?'" asked Ivan Ivanovitch, looking angrily at Burkin. " Why wait, I ask you? What grounds have we for wait- ing? I shall be told, it can't be done all at once; every idea takes shape in life gradually, in its due time. But who is it says that? Where is the proof that it's right? You will fall back upon the natural order of things, the uniformity of phenomena; but is there order and uniformity in the fact that I, a living, thinking man, stand over a chasm and wait for it to close of itself, or to fill up with mud at the very time when perhaps I might leap over it or build a bridge across it? And again, wait for the sake of what? Wait till there's no strength to live? And meanwhile one must live, and one wants to live I

" I went away from my brother's early in the morning, and ever since then it has been unbearable for me to be in town. I am oppressed by its peace and quiet; I am afraid to look at the windows, for there is no spectacle more painful to me now than the sight of a happy family sitting round the table drinking tea. T am old and am not fit for the 6trug- gle; I am not even capable of hatred; I can only grieve inwardly, feel irritated and vexed; but at night my head is hot from the rush of ideas, and I cannot sleep. . . . Ah, if I were young! "

Ivan Ivanovitch walked backwards and forwards in excitement, and repeated: " If I were young! " He suddenly went up to Alehin and began pressing first one of his hands and then the other.

" Pavel Konstantinovitch," he said in an implor- ing voice, ¹¹ don't be calm and contented, don't let yourself be put to sleep! While you are young, strong, confident, be not weary in well-doing I There is no happiness, and there ought not to be; but if there is a meaning and an object in life, that meaning and object is not our happiness, but something greater and more rational. Do good! "

And all this Ivan Ivanovitch said with a pitiful, imploring smile, as though he were asking him a personal favour.

Then all three sat in arm-chairs at different ends of the drawing-room and were silent. I van Ivano- vitch's story had not satisfied either Burkin or Alehin. When the generals and ladies gazed down from their gilt frames, looking in the dusk as though they were alive, it was dreary to listen to the story of the poor clerk who ate gooseberries. They felt inclined, for some reason, to talk about elegant people, about women. And their sitting in the drawing-room where everything — the chandeliers in their covers, the arm-chairs, and the carpet under their feet — re- minded them that those very people who were now looking down from their frames had once moved about, sat, drunk tea in this room, and the fact thatlovely Pelagea was moving noiselessly about was bet- ter than any story.

Alehin was fearfully sleepy; he had got up early, before three o'clock in the morning, to look after his work, and now his eyes were closing; but he was afraid his visitors might tell some interesting story after he had gone, and he lingered on. He did not go into the question whether what Ivan I vanovitch had just said was right and true. His visitors did not talk of groats, nor of hay, nor of tar, but of something that had no direct bearing on his life, and he was glad and wanted them to go on.

" It's bed-time, though," said Burkin, getting up. " Allow me to wish you good-night."

Alehin said good-night and went downstairs to his own domain, while the visitors remained upstairs. They were both taken for the night to a big room where there stood two old wooden beds decorated with carvings, and in the corner was an ivory crucifix. The big cool beds, which had been made by the lovely Pelagea, smelt agreeably of clean linen.

Ivan Ivanovitch undressed in silence and got into bed.

" Lord forgive us sinners I " he said, and put his head under the quilt.

His pipe lying on the table smelt strongly of stale tobacco, and Burkin could not sleep for a long while, and kept wondering where the oppressive smell came from.

1898

The rain was pattering on the window-panes all night.

328

ABOUT LOVE

At lunch next day there were very nice pies, crayfish, and mutton cutlets; and while we were eating, Nika- nor, the cook, came up to ask what the visitors would like for dinner. He was a man of medium height, with a puffy face and little eyes; he was close-shaven, and it looked as though his moustaches had not been shaved, but had been pulled out by the roots. Ale- hin told us that the beautiful Pelagea was in love with this cook. As he drank and was of a violent character, she did not want to marry him, but was willing to live with him without. He was very de- vout, and his religious convictions would not allow him to " live in sin"; he insisted on her marrying him, and would consent to nothing else, and when he was drunk he used to abuse her and even beat her. Whenever he got drunk she used to hide upstairs and sob, and on such occasions Alehin and the serv- ants stayed in the house to be ready to defend her in case of necessity.

We began talking about love.

" How love is born," said Alehin, " why Pelagea does not love somebody more like herself in her spiritual and external qualities, and why she fell in love with Nikanor, that ugly snout — we all call him ' The Snout '— how far questions of personal happi- ness are of consequence in love — all that is un- known; one can take what view one likes of it. So far only one incontestable truth has been. uttered about love: ' This is a great mystery.' Every- thing else that has been written or said about love is not a conclusion, but only a statement of questions which have remained unanswered. The explanation which would seem to fit one case does not apply in a dozen others, and the very best thing, to my mind, would be to explain every case individually without attempting to generalize. We ought, as the doctors say, to individualize each case."

" Perfectly true," Burkin assented.

¹¹ We Russians of the educated class have a par- tiality for these questions that remain unanswered. Love is usually poeticized, decorated with roses, nightingales; we Russians decorate our loves with these momentous questions, and select the most unin- teresting of them, too. In Moscow, when I was a student, I had a friend who shared my life, a charm- ing lady, and every time I took her in my arms she was thinking what I would allow her a month for housekeeping and what was the price of beef a pound. In the same way, when we are in love we are never tired of asking ourselves questions: whether it is honourable or dishonourable, sensible or stupid, what this love is leading up to, and so on. Whether it is a good thing or not I don't know, but that it is in the way, unsatisfactory, and irritating, I do know."

It looked as though he wanted to tell some story. People who lead a solitary existence always have something in their hearts which they are eager to talk about. In town bachelors visit the baths and the restaurants on purpose to talk, and sometimes tell the most interesting things to bath attendants and waiters ; in the country, as a rule, they unbosom them- selves to their guests. Now from the window we could see a grey sky, trees drenched in the rain; in such weather we could go nowhere, and there was nothing for us to do but to tell stories and to listen.

" I have lived at Sofino and been farming for a long time," Alehin began, " ever since I left the Uni- versity. I am an idle gentleman by education, a studious person by disposition; but there was a big debt owing on the estate when I came here, and as my father was in debt partly because he had spent so much on my education, I resolved not to go away, but to work till I paid off the debt. I made up my mind to this and set to work, not, I must confess, without some repugnance. The land here does not yield much, and if one is not to farm at a loss one must employ serf labour or hired labourers, which is almost the same thing, or put it on a peasant footing — that is, work the fields oneself and with one's fam- ily. There is no middle path. But in those days I did not go into such subtleties. I did not leave a clod of earth unturned; I gathered together all the peas- ants, men and women, from the neighbouring vil- lages; the work went on at a tremendous pace. I myself ploughed and sowed and reaped, and was bored doing it, and frowned with disgust, like a vil- lage cat driven by hunger to eat cucumbers in the kitchen-garden. My body ached, and I slept as I walked. At first it seemed to me that I could easily reconcile this life of toil with my cultured habits; to do so, I thought, all that is necessary is to maintain a certain external order in life. I established myself upstairs here in the best rooms, and ordered them to bring me there coffee and liquor after lunch and dinner, and when I went to bed I read every night the Ji'yestnik Evropi. But one day our priest, Fa- ther Ivan, carne and drank up all my liquor at one sitting; and the Ji'yestnik Evropi went to the priest's daughters; as in the summer, especially at the hay- making, I did not succeed in getting to my bed at all, and slept in the sledge in the barn, or somewhere in the forester's lodge, what chance was there of reading? Little by little I moved downstairs, began dining in the servants' kitchen, and of my former luxury nothing is left but the servants who were in my father's service, and whom it would be painful to turn away.

" In the first years I was elected here an honourary justice of the peace. I used to have to go to the town and tak.e part in the sessions of the congress and of the circuit court, and this was a pleasant change for me. When you live here for two or three months without a break, especially in the winter, you begin at last to pine for a black coat. And in the circuit court there were frock-coats, and uniforms, and dress-coats, too, all lawyers, men who have received a general education; I had some one to talk to. After sleeping in the sledge and dining in the kitchen, to sit in an arm-chair in clean linen, in thin boots, with a chain on one's waistcoat, is such luxuryI

" I received a warm welcome in the town. I made friends eagerly. And of all my acquaintanceships the most intimate and, to tell the truth, the most agreeable to me was my acquaintance with Lugano- vitch, the vice-president of the circuit court. You both know him: a most charming personalitv. It all happened just after a celebrated case of incendiar- ism; the preliminary investigation lasted two days; we were exhausted. Luganovitch looked at me and said:

" ' Look here, come round to dinner with me.'

" This was unexpected, as I knew Luganovitch very little, only officially, and I had never been to his house. I only just went to mv hotel room to change and went off to dinner. And here it was my lot to meet Anna Alexyevna, Luganovitch's wife. At that time she was still very voung, not more than twenty-two, and her first babv had been born just six months before. It is all a thing of tht> past; and now I should find it difficult to define what there was so exceptional in her, what it was in her attracted me so much; at the time, at dinner, it was all per- fectly clear to me. I saw a lovely young, good, in- telligent, fascinating woman, such as I had never met before; and I felt her at once some one close and already familiar, as though that face, those cordial, intelligent eyes, I had seen somewhere in my child- hood, in the album which lay on my mother's chest of drawers.

" Four Jews were charged with being incendiaries, were regarded as a gang of robbers, and, to my mind, quite groundlessly. At dinner I was very much excited, I was uncomfortable, and I don't know what I said, but Anna Alexyevna kept shaking her head and saying to her husband:

" ' Dmitry, how is this? '

" Luganovitch is a good-natured man, one of those simple-hearted people who fi.rmly maintain the opin- ion that once a man is charged before a court he is guilty, and to express doubt of the correctness of a sentence cannot be done except in legal form on paper, and not at dinner and in private conversation.

" ' You and I did not set fire to the place,' he said softly, ' and you see we are not condemned, and not in prison.'

" And both husband and wife tried to make me eat and drink as much as possible. From some tri- fling details, from the way they made the coffee to- gether, for instance, and from the way they under- stood each other at half a word, I could gather that they lived in harmony and comfort, and that they were glad of a visitor. After dinner they played a duet on the piano; then it got dark, and I went home. That was at the beginning of spring.

" After that I spent the whole summer at Sofi.no without a break, and I had no time to think of the town, either, but the memory of the graceful fair- haired woman remained in my mind all those days; I did not think of her, but it was as though her light shadow were lying on my heart.

" In the late autumn there was a theatrical per- formance for some charitable object in the town. I went into the governor's box (I was invited to go there in the interval) ; I looked, and there was Anna Alexyevna sitting beside the governor's wife; and again the same irresistible, thrilling impression of beauty and sweet, caressing eyes, and again the same feeling of nearness. We sat side by side, then went to the foyer.

^{11 1} You've grown thinner,' she said ; ¹ have you been ill ?'

^{11 1} Yes, I've had rheumatism in my shoulder, and in rainy weather I can't sleep.'

" ¹ You look dispirited. In the spring, when you came to dinner, you were younger, more confident. You were full of eagerness, and talked a great deal then ; you were very interesting, and I really must confess I was a little carried away by you. For some reason you often came back to my memory during the summer, and when I was getting ready foi" the theatre today I thought I should see you.'

And she laughed.

But you look dispirited today,' she repeated; ' it makes you seem older.'

" The next day I lunched at the Luganovitchs'. After lunch they drove out to their summer villa, in order to make arrangements there for the winter, and I went with them. I returned with them to the town, and at midnight drank tea with them in quiet domestic surroundings, while the fire glowed, and the young mother kept going to see if her baby girl was asleep. And after that, every time I went to town I never failed to visit the Luganovitchs. They grew used to me, and I grew used to them. As a rule I went in unannounced, as though I were one of the family.

" ¹ Who is there? ' I would hear from a faraway room, in the drawling voice that seemed to me so lovely.

" ' It is Pavel Konstantinovitch,' answered the maid or the nurse.

" Anna Alexyevna would come out to me with an anxious face, and would ask every time:

" ' Why is it so long since you have been? Has anything happened? '

" Her eyes, the elegant refined hand she gave me, her indoor dress, the way she did her hair, her voice, her step, always produced the same impression on me of something new and extraordinary in my life, and very important. We talked together for hours, were silent, thinking each our own thoughts, or she played for hours to me on the piano. If there were no one at home I stayed and waited, talked to the nurse, played with the child, or lay on the sofa in the study and read; and when Anna Alexyevna came back I met her in the hall, took all her parcels from her, and for some reason I carried those parcels every time with as much love, with as much solem- nity, as a boy.

" There is a proverb that if a peasant woman has no troubles she will buy a pig. The Luganovitchs had no troubles, so they made friends with me. If I did not come to the town I must be ill or some- thing must have happened to me, and both of them were extremely anxious. They were worried that I, an educated man with a knowledge of languages, should, instead of devoting myself to science or lit- erary work, live in the country, rush round like a squirrel in a rage, work hard with never a penny to show for it. They fancied that I was unhappy, and that I only talked, laughed, and ate to conceal my sufferings, and even at cheerful moments when I felt happy I was aware of their searching eyes fixed upon me. They were particularly touching when I really was depressed, when I was being worried by some creditor or had not money enough to pay interest on the proper day. The two of them, husband and wife, would whisper togcther at the window; then he would come to me and say with a grave face:

" ' If you really are in need of money at the mo- ment, Pavel Konstantinovitch, my wife and I beg you not to hesitate to borrow from us.'

" And he would blush to his ears with emotion. And it would happen that, after whispering in the same way at the window, he would come up to me, with red ears, and say:

" ' My wife and I earnestly beg you to accept this present.'

" And he would give me studs, a cigar-case, or a lamp, and I would send them game, butter, and flowers from the country. They both, by the way, had considerable means of their own. In early days I often borrowed money, and was not very particu- lar about it — borrowed wherever I could — but nothing in the world would have induced me to bor- row from the Luganovitchs. But why talk of it?

" I was unhappy. At home, in the fields, in the barn, I thought of her; I tried to understand the mystery of a beautiful, intelligent young woman's marrying some one so uninteresting, almost an old man (her husband was over forty), and having chil- dren by him; to understand the mystery of this un- interesting, good, simple-hearted man, who argued with such wearisome good sense, at balls and evening parties kept near the more solid people, looking list- less and superfluous, with a submissive, uninterested expression, as though he had been brought there for sale, who yet believed in his right to be happy, to have children by her; and I kept trying to under- stand why she had met him first and not me, and why such a terrible mistake in our lives need have happened.

" And when I went to the town I saw every time from her eyes that she was expecting me, and she would confess to me herself that she had had a pe- culiar feeling all that day and had guessed that I should come. We talked a long time, and were silent, yet we did not confess our love to each other, but timidly and jealously concealed it. We were afraid of everything that might reveal our secret to ourselves. I loved her tenderly, deeply, but I re- flected and kept asking myself what our love could lead to if we had not the strength to fight against it. It seemed to be incredible that my gentle, sad love could all at once coarsely break up the even tenor of the life of her husband, her children, and all the household in which I was so loved and trusted. Would it be honourable? She would go away with me, but where? Where could I take her? It would have been a different matter if I had h"ad a beautiful, interesting life — if, for instance, I had been struggling for the emancipation of my country, or had been a celebrated man of science, an artist or a painter; but as it was it would mean taking her from one everyday humdrum life to another as hum- drum or perhaps more so. And how long would our happiness last? What would happen to her in case I was ill, in case I died, or if we simply grew cold to one another ?

" And she apparently reasoned in the same way. She thought of her husband, her children, and of her mother, who loved the husband like a son. If she abandoned herself to her feelings she would have to lie, or else to tell the truth, and in her position either would have been equally terrible and inconvenient. And she was tormented by the question whether her love would bring me happiness — would she not complicate my life, which, as it was, was hard enough and full of all sorts of trouble? She fancied she was not young enough for me, that she was not industrious nor energetic enough to begin a new life, and she often talked to her husband of the impor- tance of my marrying a girl of intelligence and merit who would be a capable housewife and a help to me — and she would immediately add that it would be difficult to find such a girl in the whole town.

" Meanwhile the years were passing. Anna Alexyevna already had two children. When I ar- rived at the Luganovitchs' the servants smiled cordially, the children shouted that Uncle Pavel Konstantinovitch had come, and hung on my neck; every one was overjoyed. They did not understand what was passing in my soul, and thought that I, too, was happy. Every one looked on me as a noble being. And grown-ups and children alike felt that a noble being was walking about their rooms, and that gave a peculiar charm to their manner towards me, as though in my presence their life, too, was purer and more beautiful. Anna Alexyevna and I used to go to the theatre together, always walking there; we used to sit side by side in the stalls, our shoulders touching. I would take the opera-glass from her hands without a word, and feel at that minute that she was near me, that she was mine, that we could not live without each other; but by some strange misunderstanding, when we came out of the theatre we always said good-bye and parted as though we were strangers. Goodness knows what people were saying about us in the town already, but there was not a word of truth in it all!

" In the latter years Anna Alexyevna took to going away for frequent visits to her mother or to her sister; she began to suffer from low spirits, she began to recognize that her life was spoilt and un- satisfied, and at times she did not care to see her husband nor her children. She was already being troited for neurasthenia.

" We were silent and still silent, and in the pres^ ence of outsiders she displayed a strange irritation in regard to me; whatever I talked about, she dis- agreed with me, and if I had an argument she sided with my opponent. If I dropped anything, she would say coldly:

" ' I congratulate you.'

" If I forgot to take the opera-glass when we were going to the theatre, she would say afterwards:

" ¹1 knew you would forget it.'

" Luckily or unluckily, there is nothing in our lives that does not end sooner or later. The time of parting came, as Luganovitch was appointed presi- dent in one of the western provinces. They had to sell their furniture, their horses, their summer villa. When they drove out to the villa, and afterwards looked back as they were going away, to look for the last time at the garden, at the green roof, every one was sad, and I realized that I had to say good- bye not only to the villa. It was arranged that at the end of August we should see Anna Alexyevna off to the Crimea, where the doctors were sending her, and that a little later Luganovitch and the children would set off for the western province.

" We were a great crowd to see Anna Alexyevna off. When she had said good-bye to her husband and her children and there was only a minute left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put a basket, which she had almost forgotten, on the rack, and I had to say good-bye. When our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude deserted us both; I took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast, and tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears — oh, how unhappy we were I — I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.

" I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and parted for ever. The train had already started. I went into the next compartment — it was empty — and until I reached the next station I sat there crying. Then I walked home to Sofino. . . ."

While Alehin was telling his story, the rain left off and the sun came out. Burkin and I van Ivano- vitch went out on the balcony, from which there was a beautiful view over the garden and the mill-pond, which was shining now in the sunshine like a mirror. They admired it, and at the same time they were sorry that this man with the kind, clever eyes, who had told them this story with such genuine feeling, should be rushing round and round this huge estate like a squirrel on a wheel instead of devoting himself to science or something else which would have made his life more pleasant; and they thought what a sor- rowful face Anna Alexyevna must have had when he said good-bye to her in the railway-carriage and kissed her face and shoulders. Both of them had met her in the town, and Burkin knew her and thought her beautiful.

1898