At last they went home again. The mowers were sitting on the ground at the gates near the shop. As a rule the Ukleyevo peasants did not go to Tsybukin’s to work, and they had to hire strangers, and now in the darkness it seemed as though there were men sitting there with long black beards. The shop was open, and through the doorway they could see the deaf man playing draughts with a boy. The mowers were singing softly, scarcely audibly, or loudly demanding their wages for the previous day, but they were not paid for fear they should go away before tomorrow. Old Tsybukin, with his coat off, was sitting in his waistcoat with Aksinya under the birch tree, drinking tea; a lamp was burning on the table.
“I say, grandfather,” a mower called from outside the gates, as though taunting him, “pay us half anyway! Hey, grandfather.”
And at once there was the sound of laughter, and then again they sang hardly audibly. . . . Crutch, too, sat down to have some tea.
“We have been at the fair, you know,” he began telling them. “We have had a walk, a very nice walk, my children, praise the Lord. But an unfortunate thing happened: Sashka, the blacksmith, bought some tobacco and gave the shopman half a ruble to be sure. And the half ruble was a false one,” Crutch went on, and he meant to speak in a whisper, but he spoke in a smothered husky voice which was audible to everyone. “The half ruble turned out to be a bad one. He was asked where he got it. ‘Anisim Tsybukin gave it me,’ he said. ‘When I went to his wedding,’ he said. They called the police inspector, took the man away. . . . Look out, Grigory Petrovich, that nothing comes of it, no talk. . . .”
“Gra-andfather!” the same voice called tauntingly outside the gates. “Gra-andfather!”
A silence followed.
“Ah, little children, little children, little children . . .” Crutch muttered rapidly, and he got up. He was overcome with drowsiness. “Well, thank you for the tea, for the sugar, little children. It is time to sleep. I am like a bit of rotten timber nowadays, my beams are crumbling under me. Ho-ho-ho! I suppose it’s time I was dead.” And he gave a gulp.
Old Tsybukin did not finish his tea but sat on a little, pondering; and his face looked as though he were listening to the footsteps of Crutch, who was far away down the street.
“Sashka, the blacksmith, told a lie, I expect,” said Aksinya, guessing his thoughts.
He went into the house and came back a little later with a parcel; he opened it, and there was the gleam of rubles—perfectly new coins. He took one, tried it with his teeth, flung it on the tray; then flung down another.
“The rubles really are false . . .” he said, looking at Aksinya and seeming perplexed. “These are those Anisim brought, his present. Take them, Daughter,” he whispered, and thrust the parcel into her hands. “Take them and throw them into the well . . . confound them! And mind there is no talk about it. Harm might come of it. . . . Take away the samovar, put out the light.”
Lipa and her mother, sitting in the barn, saw the lights go out one after the other; only overhead in Varvara’s room there were blue and red lamps gleaming, and a feeling of peace, content, and happy ignorance seemed to float down from there. Praskovya could never get used to her daughter’s being married to a rich man, and when she came she huddled timidly in the outer room with a deprecating smile on her face, and tea and sugar were sent out to her. And Lipa, too, could not get used to it either, and after her husband had gone away she did not sleep in her bed but lay down anywhere to sleep, in the kitchen or the barn, and every day she scrubbed the floor or washed the clothes, and felt as though she were hired by the day. And now, on coming back from the service, they drank tea in the kitchen with the cook, then they went into the barn and lay down on the ground between the sledge and the wall. It was dark here and smelled of harness. The lights went out about the house, then they could hear the deaf man shutting up the shop, the mowers settling themselves about the yard to sleep. In the distance at the Khrymin Juniors’ they were playing on the expensive concertina. . . . Praskovya and Lipa began to go to sleep.
And when they were awakened by somebody’s steps it was bright moonlight; at the entrance of the barn stood Aksinya with her bedding in her arms.
“Maybe it’s a bit cooler here,” she said; then she came in and lay down almost in the doorway so that the moonlight fell full upon her.
She did not sleep, but breathed heavily, tossing from side to side with the heat, throwing off almost all the bedclothes. And in the magic moonlight what a beautiful, what a proud animal she was! A little time passed, and then steps were heard again: the old father, white all over, appeared in the doorway.
“Aksinya,” he called, “are you here?”
“Well?” she responded angrily.
“I told you just now to throw the money into the well, have you done so?”
“What next, throwing property into the water! I gave them to the mowers. . . .”
“Oh my God!” cried the old man, dumbfounded and alarmed. “Oh my God! you wicked woman. . . .”
He flung up his hands and went out, and he kept saying something as he went away. And a little later Aksinya sat up and sighed heavily with annoyance, then got up and, gathering up her bedclothes in her arms, went out.
“Why did you marry me into this family, Mother?” said Lipa.
“One has to be married, Daughter. It was not us who ordained it.”
And a feeling of inconsolable woe was ready to take possession of them. But it seemed to them that someone was looking down from the height of the heavens, out of the blue from where the stars were seeing everything that was going on in Ukleyevo, watching over them. And however great was wickedness, still the night was calm and beautiful, and still in God’s world there is and will be truth and justice as calm and beautiful, and everything on earth is only waiting to be made one with truth and justice, even as the moonlight is blended with the night.
And both, huddling close to one another, fell asleep comforted.
6.
News had come long before that Anisim had been put in prison for coining and passing bad money. Months passed, more than half a year passed, the long winter was over, spring had begun, and everyone in the house and the village had grown used to the fact that Anisim was in prison. And when anyone passed by the house or the shop at night he would remember that Anisim was in prison; and when they rang at the churchyard for some reason, that, too, reminded them that he was in prison awaiting trial.
It seemed as though a shadow had fallen upon the house. The house looked darker, the roof was rustier, the heavy, ironbound door into the shop, which was painted green, was covered with cracks, or, as the deaf man expressed it, “blisters”; and old Tsybukin seemed to have grown dingy, too. He had given up cutting his hair and beard and looked shaggy. He no longer sprang jauntily into his chaise, nor shouted to beggars: “God will provide!” His strength was on the wane, and that was evident in everything. People were less afraid of him now, and the police officer drew up a formal charge against him in the shop though he received his regular bribe as before; and three times the old man was called up to the town to be tried for illicit dealing in spirits, and the case was continually adjourned owing to the non-appearance of witnesses, and old Tsybukin was worn out with worry.
He often went to see his son, hired somebody, handed in a petition to somebody else, presented a holy banner to some church. He presented the governor of the prison in which Anisim was confined with a silver glass stand with a long spoon and the inscription: “The soul knows its right measure.”