I have already begun to forget about the house with the mezzanine, and only now and then, when I am working or reading, suddenly—without rhyme or reason—I remember the green light in the window, and the sound of my own footsteps as I walked through the fields that night, when I was in love, rubbing my hands to keep them warm. And even more rarely, when I am sad and lonely, I begin already to recollect and it seems to me that I, too, am being remembered and waited for, and that we shall meet. . . .
Missyuss, where are you?
The Peasants
CHAPTER I Blows
NIKOLAI TCHIKILDEYEFF, WAITER, of the Slaviansky Bazaar Hotel at Moscow, became ill. Once in a corridor he stumbled and fell with a tray of ham and peas and had to resign. What money he had, his own and his wife’s, soon went on treatment. He was tired of idleness and had to return to his native village. It was cheaper to live at home, after all, and the best place for invalids; and there is some truth in the proverb, “At home the walls feel good.”
He arrived at Zhukovo towards evening. He pictured his birthplace as cosy, and comfortable as a child, but now when he entered the hut he knew it was close, and dirty inside. And his wife Olga and little daughter Sasha looked questioningly at the big, sooty stove, black from smoke, which took up half the hut and was covered with flies. The stove was crooked, the logs in the walls sloped, and it seemed that every minute the hut would tumble to pieces. The ikon-corner, instead of pictures, was hung with bottle-labels and newspaper-cuttings. Poverty, poverty! Of the grown-ups no one was at home—they reaped in the fields; and alone on the stove sat an eight-year-old girl, fair-haired, unwashed, and so indifferent that she did not even look at the strangers. Beneath, a white cat rubbed herself against the pot-hanger.
“Puss, puss!” cried Sasha. “Pussy!”
“She can’t hear,” said the girl on the stove. “She’s deaf!”
“How deaf?”
“Deaf. . . . From beating.”
The first glance told Nikolai and Olga the life awaiting them; but they said nothing, silently laid down their bundles, and went into the street. The hut was the third from the corner, and the oldest and poorest in sight; its next-door neighbour, indeed, was little better; but the corner cabin boasted an iron roof and curtains in the windows. This cabin had no fence, and stood alone; it was the village inn. In one continuous row stretched other huts; and, as a whole, the village, peaceful and meditative, with the willows, elders, and mountain-ash peeping out of the gardens, was pleasing to see.
Behind the cabins the ground sloped steeply towards the river; and here and there in the clay stuck denuded stones. On the slope, around these stones and the potters’ pits, lay heaps of potsherds, some brown, some red; and below stretched a broad, flat, and bright green meadow, already mown, and now given over to the peasants’ herds. A verst5 from the village ran the winding river with its pretty tufted banks; and beyond the river another field, a herd, long strings of white geese; then, as on the village side, a steep ascent. On the crest of the hill rose another village with a five-cupolaed church, and a little beyond it the local noble’s house.
“It’s a fine place, your village,” said Olga, crossing herself towards the church. “What freedom, Lord!”
At that moment (it was Saturday night) the church bells rang for vesper service. In the valley beneath, two little girls with a water-pail turned their heads towards the church and listened to the bells.
“At the Slaviansky Bazaar they’re sitting down to dinner,” said Nikolai thoughtfully.
Seated on the brink of the ravine, Nikolai and Olga watched the setting sun and the image of the gold and purple sky in the river and in the church windows, and inhaled the soft, restful, inexpressibly pure air, unknown to them in Moscow. When the sun had set came lowing cattle and bleating sheep; geese flew towards them; and all was silent. The soft light faded from the air and evening shadows swept across the land.
Meantime the absent family returned to the hut. First came Nikolai’s father and mother, dry, bent, and toothless, and of equal height. Later, their sons’ wives, Marya and Fekla, employed on the noble’s farm across the river. Marya, wife of Nikolai’s brother Kiriak, had six children; Fekla, wife of Denis, then a soldier, two; and when Nikolai, entering the hut, saw the whole family, all these big and little bodies, which moved in the loft, in cradles, in corners; when he saw the greed with which the old man and women ate black bread soaked in water, he felt that he had made a mistake in coming home, sick, penniless, and—what was worse—with his family.
“And where is brother Kiriak?” he asked, greeting his parents.
“He’s watchman at the trader’s,” answered the old man. “In the wood. He’s a good lad, but drinks heavily.”
“He’s no profit,” said the old woman in a lachrymose voice. “Our men are not much use, they bring nothing home with them, and only take things. Our Kiriak drinks; and the old man, there’s no use hiding it, himself knows the way to the drink-shop. They’ve angered our Mother in Heaven!”
In honor of the guests the samovar was brought out. The tea smelt of fish, the sugar was damp and looked as if it had been gnawed, the bread and vessels were covered with cockroaches; it was painful to drink, and painful to hear the talk—of nothing but poverty and sickness. Before they had emptied their first glasses, from the yard came a loud drawling, drunken cry—
“Ma-arya!”
“That sounds like Kiriak,” said the old man. “Talk of the devil and he appears!”
The peasants were silent. A moment later came the same cry, rough and drawling, and this time it seemed to come from underground.
“Ma-arya!”
The elder daughter-in-law, Marya, turned deadly pale and pressed her body to the stove; and it was strange to see the expression of terror on the face of this strong, broad-shouldered, ugly woman. Her daughter, the little, indifferent girl who had sat on the stove, suddenly began to cry loudly.
“Stop howling, cholera!” cried angrily Fekla, a good-looking woman, also strong and broad-shouldered. “He won’t kill you!”
From the old man Nikolai soon learned that Marya was afraid to live with her husband in the forest; and that when he had drunk too much Kiriak came for her, and made scenes and beat her mercilessly.
“Ma-arya!” came the cry, this time from outside the door.
“Help me, for the love of heaven, help me!” chattered Marya, breathing as if she had been thrown into icy water. “Help me, kinsmen——”
The houseful of children suddenly began to cry, and, seeing them, Sasha did the same. A drunken cough echoed without, and into the hut came a tall, black-bearded muzhik6 wearing a winter cap. In the dim lamp-light his face was barely visible, and all the more terrible. It was Kiriak. He went straight to his wife, flourished his arm, and struck her with his clenched fist in the face. Marya did not utter a sound, the blow seemed to have stunned her, but she seemed to dwindle; a stream of blood flowed out of her nose.
“It’s a shame, a shame,” muttered the old man, climbing on the stove. “And before our visitors! It’s a sin!”