The old, heavy, leather-bound, bent-edged Bible smelt like a monk. Sasha raised her eyebrows, and began in a loud drawl—
“. . . And when they were departed, behold the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother . . .”
“‘The young child and his mother,’” repeated Olga. She reddened with joy.
“. . . and flee into Egypt . . . and be thou there until I bring thee word. . . .”
At the word “until” Olga could not longer restrain her emotion and began to cry. Marya followed her example, and Ivan Makaruitch’s sister cried also. The old man coughed and fussed about, seeking a present for his grandchild, but he found nothing, and waved his hand. When the reading ended, the visitors dispersed to their homes, deeply touched, and pleased with Olga and Sasha.
As the day was Sunday the family remained in the hut. The old woman, whom husband, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren alike addressed as “grandmother,” did everything with her own hands: she lighted the stove, set the samovar; she even worked in the fields; and at the same time growled that she was tortured with work. She tortured herself with dread that the family might eat too much, and took care that her husband and daughters-in-law did not sit with idle hands. Once when she found that the innkeeper’s geese had got into her kitchen-garden, she rushed at once out of the house armed with a long stick; and for half an hour screamed piercingly over her cabbages, which were as weak and thin as their owner. Later she imagined that a hawk had swooped on her chickens, and with loud curses she flew to meet the hawk. She lost her temper and growled from morning to night, and often screamed so loudly that passers-by stopped to listen.
Her husband she treated badly, denouncing him sometimes as a lie-abed, sometimes as “cholera.” The old man was a hopeless, unsubstantial muzhik, and perhaps, indeed, if she had not spurred him on, he would have done no work at all, but sat all day on the stove and talked. He complained to his son at great length of certain enemies in the village and of the wrongs he suffered day by day; and it was tiresome to hear him.
“Yes,” he said, putting his arms to his waist. “Yes. A week after Elevation I sold my hay for thirty kopeks a pood. Yes. Good! . . . and this means that one morning I drive my hay cart and interfere with nobody; and suddenly, in an evil moment, I look round, and out of the inn comes the headman, Antip Siedelnikoff. ‘Where are you driving, old So-and-so?’ and bangs me in the ear!”
Kiriak’s head ached badly from drink, and he was ashamed before his brother.
“It’s drink that does it. Akh, my Lord God!” he stammered, shaking his big head. “You, brother, and you, sister, forgive me, for the love of Christ; I feel bad myself.”
To celebrate Sunday, they bought herrings at the inn, and made soup of the heads. At midday all sat down to tea and drank until they sweated and, it seemed, swelled up; and when they had drunk the tea they set to on the soup, all eating from the same bowl. The old woman hid away the herrings.
At night a potter baked his pots in the ravine. In the meadow below, the village girls sang in chorus; and some one played a concertina. Beyond the river also glowed a potter’s oven, and village girls sang; and from afar the music sounded soft and harmonious. The muzhiks gathered in the inn; they sang tipsily, each a different song; and the language they used made Olga shudder and exclaim—
“Akh, batiushki!”
She was astonished by the incessant blasphemy, and by the fact that the older men, whose time had nearly come, blasphemed worst of all. And the children and girls listened to this language, and seemed in no way uncomfortable; it was plain they were used to it, and had heard it from the cradle.
Midnight came; the potters’ fires on both river-banks went out, but on the meadow below and in the inn the merry-making continued. The old man and Kiriak, both drunk, holding hands, and rolling against one another, came to the shed where Olga lay with Marya.
“Leave her alone!” reasoned the old man. “Leave her. She’s not a bad sort. . . . It’s a sin. . . .”
“Ma-arya!” roared Kiriak.
“Stop! It’s sinful. . . . She’s not a bad sort.”
The two men stood a moment by the shed and went away.
“I love wild flowers . . .” sang the old man in a high, piercing tenor. “I love to pull them in the fields!”
After this he spat, blasphemed, and went into the hut.
CHAPTER IV Dreams!
GRANDMOTHER STATIONED Sasha in the kitchen garden, and ordered her to keep off the geese. It was a hot August day. The innkeeper’s geese could get into the kitchen garden by the back way, but at present they were busy picking up oats near the inn and quietly conversing, though the old gander stood aloof, his head raised as if to make sure that grandmother was not coming with her stick. The other geese could also get into the garden; but these were feeding far across the river, and, like a big white garland, stretched across the meadow. Sasha watched a short time, and then got tired, and, seeing no geese in sight, went down to the ravine.
There she saw Motka, Marya’s eldest daughter, standing motionless on a big stone, and looking at the church. Marya had borne thirteen children; but only six remained, all girls, and the eldest was eight years old. Bare-footed Motka, in her long shirt, stood in the sun; the sun burnt the top of her head, but she took no notice of this, and seemed turned to stone. Sasha stood beside her, and looking at the church, began—
“God lives in the church. People burn lamps and candles, but God has red lamps, green and blue lamps, like eyes. At night God walks about the church, and with him the Holy Virgin, and holy Nicholas . . . toup, toup, toup! . . . The watchman is frightened, terribly! Yes, my heart,” she said, imitating her mother. “When the Day of Judgment comes all the churches will be carried to heaven.”
“With the bells?” asked Motka in a bass voice, drawling every word.
“With the bells. And on the Day of Judgment good people will go to paradise, and wicked people will burn in fire eternal and unextinguishable, my heart! To mother and Marya God will say, ‘You have offended no one, so go to the right, to paradise’; but He’ll say to Kiriak and grandmother, ‘You go to the left, into the fire!’ And people who eat meat on fast-days will go to the fire too.”
She looked up at the sky, opened wide her eyes, and continued—
“Look up at the sky, don’t wink . . . and you’ll see angels.”
Motka looked at the sky, and a minute passed in silence.
“Do you see them?” asked Sasha.
“No,” answered Motka in her bass voice.
“But I can. Little angels fly about the sky, with wings . . . little, little, like gnats.”
Motka thought, looked at the ground, and asked—
“Will grandmother burn really?”
“She’ll burn, my heart.”
From the stone to the bottom of the hill was a gentle, even slope covered with green grass so soft that it invited repose. Sasha lay down and slid to the bottom. Motka with a serious, severe face, puffed out her cheeks, lay down, and slid, and as she slid her shirt came up to her shoulders.
“How funny I felt!” said Sasha in delight.
The two children climbed to the top intending to slide down again, but at that moment they heard a familiar, squeaky voice. Terror seized them. Toothless, bony, stooping grandmother, with her short grey hair floating in the wind, armed with the long stick, drove the geese from the kitchen garden, and screamed—
“You’ve spoiled all the cabbage, accursed; may you choke; threefold anathemas; plagues, there is no peace with you!”
She saw the two girls, threw down her stick, took up a bundle of brushwood, and seizing Sasha’s shoulders with fingers dry and hard as tree-forks, began to beat her. Sasha cried from pain and terror; and at that moment a gander, swinging from foot to foot and stretching out its neck, came up and hissed at the old woman; and when he returned to the geese, all welcomed him approvingly: go-go-go! Thereafter grandmother seized and whipped Motka, and again Motka’s shirt went over her shoulders. Trembling with terror, crying loudly, Sasha went back to the hut to complain, and after her went Motka, also crying in her bass voice. Her tears were unwiped away, and her face was wet as if she had been in the river.