Fifty two stories, p.55
Fifty-Two Stories, page 55
“All right, let ’em!” said Kozov, winking. “Go o-o-on! Let ’em squirm a bit now, these engineers! They think there’s no justice? All right! Send for the police, draw up a report!…”
“Draw up a report!” Volodka repeated.
“I don’t want to leave it like this!” Lychkov the son was shouting, shouting louder and louder, and that seemed to make his beardless face swell even more. “It’s some new fashion! If you let them, they’ll trample down all the meadows! They’ve got no full right to bully people! There are no serfs now!”
“There are no serfs now!” Volodka repeated.
“We lived without a bridge,” Lychkov the father said sullenly, “we didn’t ask for it, what do we need a bridge for? We don’t want it!”
“Brothers, good Orthodox people! We can’t leave it like this!”
“All right, go o-o-on!” Kozov winked. “Let ’em squirm a bit now! So-o-ome landowners!”
They headed back to the village, and all the while they walked, Lychkov the son beat himself on the chest with his fist and shouted, and Volodka also shouted, repeating his words. And in the village, meanwhile, a whole crowd had gathered around the thoroughbred bull calf and the horses. The bull calf was embarrassed and looked from under his brow, but suddenly he lowered his muzzle to the ground and ran, kicking up his hind legs. Kozov got frightened and waved his stick at him, and they all burst out laughing. Then they locked up the beasts and began to wait.
In the evening the engineer sent five roubles for the damages, and the two horses, the pony, and the bull calf, unfed and unwatered, went back home, hanging their heads like guilty men, as if they were being led out to execution.
Having received five roubles, the Lychkovs, father and son, the headman, and Volodka crossed the river in a boat, and on the other side went to the village of Kryakovo, where there was a pot-house, and reveled there for a long time. Their singing and the young Lychkov’s shouting could be heard. In the village the womenfolk worried and did not sleep all night. Rodion also did not sleep.
“It’s a bad business,” he kept saying, tossing from side to side and sighing. “The master will be angry, he’ll have us up in court…The master’s been offended…ohh, offended, it’s bad.”
One day the peasants, and Rodion in their number, went to their communal forest to do the haymaking, and on the way back they met the engineer. He was wearing a red calico shirt and high boots; behind him followed a pointer, his long tongue hanging out.
“Hello, brothers!” he said.
The peasants stopped and took their hats off.
“I’ve been meaning to talk with you for a long time now, brothers,” he went on. “The thing is this. Every day since early spring your herd has been coming to my garden and woods. Everything gets trampled, the pigs root around in the meadow, muck up the vegetable patch, and all the young trees in the woods have vanished. There’s no dealing with your herdsmen; you ask them something, and they get rude. Damage is done every day, and I do nothing, I don’t fine you, I don’t complain, and meanwhile you penned up my horses and my bull calf and took five roubles from me. Is that good? Do you call it neighborly?” he went on, and his voice was gentle, persuasive, and his look was not severe. “Is this the way decent people behave? A week ago one of you cut down two young oaks in my woods. You dug up the road to Eresnevo, and now I have to make a two-mile detour. Why do you harm me at every step? What wrong have I done you, tell me, for God’s sake? My wife and I try very hard to live in peace and harmony with you; we help the peasants all we can. My wife is a kind, warmhearted woman, she doesn’t refuse to help, it’s her dream to be of use to you and your children. But you repay our good with ill. It’s unfair, brothers. Think about it. I ask you earnestly to think about it. We treat you humanely, you should repay us in kind.”
He turned and left. The peasants stood there for a while, put on their hats, and went on. Rodion, who understood what was said to him not as it was meant, but always in some way of his own, sighed and said:
“We’ve got to pay it back. Pay it back, I say, brothers, in kind…”
They reached the village in silence. Having come home, Rodion said a prayer, took off his boots, and sat down on the bench beside his wife. When he and Stepanida were at home, they always sat next to each other and outside they always walked next to each other, they always ate, drank, and slept together, and the older they grew, the more they loved each other. Their cottage was crowded, hot, there were children everywhere—on the floor, on the windowsills, on the stove1…Stepanida, though she was getting on in years, still bore children, and now, looking at the heap of children, it was hard to tell which were Rodion’s and which Volodka’s. Volodka’s wife, Lukerya, an unattractive young woman with bulging eyes and a bird-like nose, was kneading dough in a tub; Volodka himself was sitting on the stove, his legs hanging down.
“On the road by Nikita’s buckwheat, you know…the engineer and his dog…,” Rodion began, after resting, scratching his sides and elbows. “You’ve got to pay it back, he says…In kind, he says…In kind or not, but ten kopecks a household it should be. We’ve harmed the master a lot. I feel sorry…”
“We lived without a bridge,” Volodka said, not looking at anyone, “and we have no wish.”
“Go on! It’s a government bridge.”
“We have no wish.”
“Nobody’s asking you. Drop it!”
“ ‘Nobody’s asking’…,” Volodka mimicked. “We’ve got nowhere to go, what do we need a bridge for? When need be, we can cross in a boat.”
Someone outside knocked so hard on the window that the whole cottage seemed to shake.
“Is Volodka there?” came the voice of Lychkov the son. “Volodka, come out, let’s go!”
Volodka jumped off the stove and started looking for his cap.
“Don’t go, Volodya,” Rodion said timidly. “Don’t go with them, sonny. You’re stupid as a little child, and they won’t teach you any good. Don’t go!”
“Don’t go, sonny!” begged Stepanida, and she blinked, getting ready to weep. “They must be calling you to the pot-house.”
“ ‘To the pot-house’…,” Volodya mimicked.
“You’ll come home drunk again, you Herod-dog!” said Lukerya, looking at him spitefully. “Go, go, and I hope you burn up with vodka, you tail-less Satan!”
“Shut up!” cried Volodka.
“They married me off to a fool, a red-haired drunkard—me, a wretched orphan—they ruined me…,” Lukerya wailed, wiping her face with her hand, which was all covered with dough. “I wish I’d never set eyes on you!”
Volodka hit her on the ear and left.
III
Elena Ivanovna and her little daughter came to the village on foot. They were taking a walk. It happened to be Sunday, and the women and girls had come outside in their bright dresses. Rodion and Stepanida, who were sitting next to each other on the porch, bowed and smiled to Elena Ivanovna and her girl as if to acquaintances. Ten or more children looked out at them through the windows; their faces expressed perplexity and curiosity, and whispering was heard.
“Kucherov’s woman! It’s Kucherov’s woman!”
“Hello,” Elena Ivanovna said and stopped; after a pause, she asked, “Well, how are you doing?”
“We’re doing all right, God be thanked!” Rodion replied in a quick patter. “We live, as you see.”
“As if this is a life!” Stepanida smirked. “You can see for yourself, lady, dearest, it’s poverty! We’re fourteen in the family, and only two breadwinners. They call us blacksmiths, but when a horse is brought to be shod, there’s no coal, no money to buy it. It’s torment, lady,” she went on, and started laughing. “A-ah, what torment!”
Elena Ivanovna sat down on the porch and, embracing her girl, fell to thinking about something, and the girl, too, judging by her face, had some cheerless thoughts wandering in her head; brooding, she toyed with the pretty lace parasol she took from her mother’s hands.
“Poverty!” said Rodion. “There’s many cares, we work—and there’s no end in sight. Now God isn’t sending rain…We don’t live well, that’s for sure.”
“In this life it’s hard for you,” said Elena Ivanovna, “but in the other world you’ll be happy.”
Rodion did not understand her and only coughed into his fist in response. And Stepanida said:
“Lady, dearest, for a rich man things will be well in the other world, too. A rich man lights candles, offers prayer services, gives alms, but what about a peasant? You’ve got no time to cross yourself, lowest of the low, there’s no way to save yourself. Many sins also come from poverty, out of grief we all quarrel like dogs, never say a decent word, and what doesn’t go on, dearest lady—God forbid! It must be there’s no happiness for us either in the other world or in this one. All happiness goes to the rich.”
She spoke cheerfully; obviously, she had long been used to talking about her hard life. And Rodion also smiled; he was pleased that his old woman was so intelligent and garrulous.
“It only seems that things are easy for the rich,” said Elena Ivanovna. “Every person has his grief. We, my husband and I, aren’t poor, we have means, but are we happy? I’m still young, but I already have four children; they’re sick all the time, and I’m also sick and constantly being treated.”
“And what kind of sickness is it?” asked Rodion.
“A woman’s. I can’t sleep, headaches give me no peace. I’m sitting here, talking, but something’s not right in my head, I’m weak all over, and I agree that the hardest work is better than such a condition. And my soul is also not at peace. I constantly worry about the children and my husband. There’s some sort of grief in every family, and so there is in ours. I’m not from the gentry. My grandfather was a simple peasant, my father went into trade in Moscow and was also a simple man. But my husband’s parents are noble and rich. They didn’t want him to marry me, but he disobeyed, quarreled with them, and they still haven’t forgiven us. This upsets my husband, worries him, keeps him in constant anxiety. He loves his mother, loves her very much. Well, and I’m upset, too. My soul aches.”
Around Rodion’s cottage peasants, men and women, were already standing and listening. Kozov also came and stopped, twitching his long, narrow beard. The Lychkovs, father and son, came.
“And, of course, you can’t be happy and content unless you feel you’re in your own place,” Elena Ivanovna went on. “Each of you has his own strip of land, each of you works and knows why he works; my husband builds bridges—in a word, each of you has his own place. And me? I just walk around. I don’t have my own land, I don’t work, and I feel like a stranger. I’m saying all this so that you won’t judge by external appearances. If somebody wears expensive clothes and is well off, that still doesn’t mean that he’s pleased with his life.”
She got up to leave and took her daughter by the hand.
“I like it here with you very much,” she said and smiled, and by that weak, timid smile one could tell how unwell she really was, how young she was still, and how attractive. She had a pale, lean face with dark eyebrows, and blond hair. And the girl was just like her mother, lean, blond, and slender. They smelled of perfume.
“I like the river, and the forest, and the village…,” Elena Ivanovna went on. “I could live here all my life, and it seems to me that here I would recover my health and find my place. I want, I passionately want to help you, to be useful, to be close to you. I know how needy you are, and what I don’t know, I feel, I guess with my heart. I’m sick, weak, and for me it’s probably already impossible to change my life as I’d like to. But I have children, I’ll try to raise them so that they’re accustomed to you and love you. I’ll constantly instill in them that their lives belong not to them, but to you. Only I ask you earnestly, I beg you, trust us, be friends with us. My husband is a kind, good man. Don’t upset him, don’t vex him. He’s sensitive about every little thing, and yesterday, for instance, your herd got into our vegetable garden, and one of you broke the wattle fence at our apiary, and this attitude drives my husband to despair. I beg you,” she went on in a pleading voice, clasping her hands on her breast, “I beg you, treat us as good neighbors, let us live in peace! They say a bad peace is better than a good quarrel, and ‘Don’t buy a house, buy a neighbor.’ I repeat, my husband is a kind man, a good man; if all goes well, I promise you, we’ll do everything in our power; we’ll repair the roads, we’ll build a school for your children. I promise you.”
“We humbly thank you, for sure, lady,” said Lychkov the father, looking at the ground. “You’re educated, you know better. Only you see, in Eresnevo a rich peasant, Ravenov, promised to build a school, he also said ‘I’ll do this, I’ll do that,’ and only put up the frame and quit, and then the peasants were forced to roof it and finish it—a thousand roubles went on it. It was nothing to Ravenov, he just stroked his beard, but it was kind of hurtful for the peasants.”
“That was the raven, and now the rook’s come flying,” Kozov said and winked.
Laughter was heard.
“We don’t need a school,” Volodka said sullenly. “Our children go to Petrovskoe, and let them. We have no wish.”
Elena Ivanovna somehow suddenly became timid. She grew pale, pinched, cringed all over, as if she had been touched by something coarse, and walked off without saying another word. And she walked more and more quickly, without looking back.
“Lady!” Rodion called out, walking after her. “Lady, wait, I’ve got something to tell you.”
He followed right behind her, without his hat, and spoke softly, as if begging for alms.
“Lady! Wait, I’ve got something to tell you.”
They left the village, and Elena Ivanovna stopped in the shade of an old rowan tree, near somebody’s cart.
“Don’t be offended, lady,” said Rodion. “It’s nothing! Just be patient. Be patient for a couple of years. You’ll live here, you’ll be patient, and it’ll all come round. Our folk are good, peaceable…decent enough folk, I’m telling you as God is my witness. Don’t look at Kozov and the Lychkovs, or my Volodka, he’s a little fool: he listens to whoever speaks first. The rest are peaceable folk, they keep mum…Some would be glad to say a word in all conscience, to stand up for you, I mean, but they can’t. There’s soul, there’s conscience, but they’ve got no tongue. Don’t be offended…be patient…It’s nothing!”
Elena Ivanovna looked at the wide, calm river, thinking about something, and tears flowed down her cheeks. And Rodion was confused by these tears; he all but wept himself.
“Never mind…,” he murmured. “Be patient for a couple of little years. The school can be done, and the roads can be done, only not right away…Say, for example, you want to sow wheat on that hillock: so first root it up, dig out all the stones, then plow it, go on and on…And so, with our folk, I mean…it’s the same, go on and on, and you’ll manage.”
The crowd separated from Rodion’s cottage and came down the street in the direction of the rowan tree. They struck up a song, a concertina played. And they drew nearer and nearer…
“Mama, let’s go away from here,” said the girl, pale, pressing herself to her mother and trembling all over. “Let’s go away, Mama!”
“Where?”
“To Moscow…Let’s go away, Mama!”
The girl wept. Rodion became totally confused, his face all covered with sweat. He took a cucumber from his pocket, small, bent like a moon sickle, stuck all over with breadcrumbs, and started shoving it into the girl’s hands.
“Now, now…,” he murmured, frowning sternly. “Take the cucumber, eat it…It’s no good crying, Mama will beat you…at home she’ll complain to your father…Now, now…”
They went on, and he kept following behind them, wishing to tell them something gentle and persuasive. But, seeing that they were both taken up with their own thoughts and their own grief and did not notice him, he stopped and, shielding his eyes from the sun, looked after them for a long time, until they disappeared into their woods.
IV
The engineer apparently became irritable, petty, and now saw every trifle as a theft or an encroachment. The gates were locked even during the day, and at night two watchmen walked in the garden, rapping on boards;2 no one from Obruchanovo was hired to do day labor any more. As if on purpose, someone (one of the peasants or a tramp—no one knew) took the new wheels off the cart and replaced them with old ones; then, a little later, two bridles and a pair of pincers were taken, and murmuring even began in the village. They said a search should be carried out at the Lychkovs’ and Volodka’s, after which the pincers and the bridles were found by the fence in the engineer’s garden: someone had put them there.
Once a crowd of them came out of the woods and again met the engineer on the road. He stopped and, without greeting them, looking angrily first at one, then at another, began:
“I’ve asked that the mushrooms not be picked in my park and around the premises, that they be left for my wife and children, but your girls come at dawn, and then there’s not a single mushroom left. Asking you or not asking—it’s all the same. Requests, kindness, persuasion, I see, are all useless.”
He fixed his indignant eyes on Rodion and went on:
“My wife and I treated you as human beings, as equals, and you? Eh, what’s there to talk about! It will end, most likely, with us looking down on you. There’s nothing else left!”
And making an effort to restrain his wrath, so as not to say something unnecessary, he turned and went on his way.
