But now old man Tsybukin himself stepped out to the middle and waved his handkerchief, giving a sign that he, too, wanted to dance a Russian dance, and a hum of approval ran through the whole house and the crowd in the courtyard:
“Himself stepped out! Himself!”
Varvara danced, while the old man just waved the handkerchief and shifted from one heel to the other, but those who were hanging over each other there in the yard, peeking through the windows, were delighted and for a moment forgave him everything—his wealth and his offenses.
“Good boy, Grigory Petrovich!” came from the crowd. “Keep it up! So you can still go to it! Ha, ha!”
It all ended late, past one o’clock in the morning. Anisim went around unsteadily to all the singers and musicians and gave each of them a new half rouble. And the old man, not swaying but somehow favoring one foot, saw the guests off and told each of them:
“The wedding cost two thousand.”
As people were leaving, somebody exchanged the Shikalovo tavernkeeper’s good vest for an old one, and Anisim suddenly flared up and started shouting:
“Stop! I’ll find him at once! I know who stole it! Stop!”
He ran outside, chasing after someone; they caught him, took him under the arms, brought him home, shoved him, drunk, flushed with anger, wet, into the room where the aunt was already undressing Lipa, and locked the door.
IV
Five days passed. Anisim got ready to leave and went upstairs to say good-bye to Varvara. She had all the icon lamps burning, there was a smell of incense, and she herself was sitting by the window knitting a red woolen stocking.
“You didn’t spend long with us,” she said. “Boring, was it? Oh, tush, tush … We have a good life, there’s plenty of everything, and your wedding was celebrated properly, the right way. The old man says two thousand went into it. In short, we live like merchants, only it’s boring here. We do people much wrong. My heart aches, my friend—oh, God, how we wrong them! We trade a horse, or buy something, or hire a workman—there’s cheating in all of it. Cheating and cheating. The vegetable oil in the shop is bitter, rancid, the people’s tar is better. Tell me, for pity’s sake, isn’t it impossible to sell good oil?”
“Each to his own place, mother.”
“But don’t we all have to die? Ah, no, really, you should talk with your father! …”
“Why don’t you talk with him yourself.”
“Well, well! I tell him what I think, and he says the same as you, word for word: each to his own place. In the other world they’re not going to sort out who had which place. God’s judgment is righteous.”
“Of course, nobody’s going to sort it out,” Anisim said and sighed. “And anyhow God doesn’t exist, mother. What’s there to sort out!”
Varvara looked at him with astonishment and laughed and clasped her hands. Because she was so sincerely astonished at his words and looked at him as if he were a freak, he became embarrassed.
“Or maybe God does exist, only there’s no faith,” he said. “As I was being married, I felt out of sorts. Like when you take an egg from under a hen and there’s a chick peeping in it, so my conscience suddenly peeped in me, and all the while I was being married, I kept thinking: God exists! But as soon as I stepped out of the church—there was nothing. And how should I know if God exists or not? We weren’t taught that when we were little, but here’s a baby still at his mother’s breast, and he’s taught just one thing: each to his own place. Papa doesn’t believe in God either. You told me that time that the Guntorevs had their sheep stolen … I found out: it was a Shikalovo peasant who stole them; he stole them, but papa got the skins … There’s faith for you!”
Anisim winked an eye and shook his head.
“And the headman doesn’t believe in God either,” he went on, “neither does the clerk or the beadle. If they go to church and keep the fasts, it’s so that people won’t speak ill of them, and in case there may really be a Judgment Day. Now they say the end of the world has come, because people have grown weak, don’t honor their parents, and so on. That’s nonsense. My understanding, mother, is that all troubles come from people having too little conscience. I can see through things, mother, and I understand. If a man’s wearing a stolen shirt, I see it. A man’s sitting in a tavern, and it looks to you like he’s having tea and nothing else, but, tea or no tea, I can also see that he’s got no conscience. You walk around the whole day, and there’s not a single person with any conscience. And the whole reason is that they don’t know whether God exists or not … Well, good-bye, mother. Keep alive and well, and think no evil of me.”
Anisim bowed to the ground in front of Varvara.
“I thank you for everything, mother,” he said. “You’ve been a great benefit to our family. You’re a very decent woman, and I’m much pleased with you.”
Feeling moved, Anisim went out, but came back again and said:
“Samorodov got me involved in a certain business: I’ll be rich or I’ll perish. If anything happens, mother, you must comfort my father.”
“Well, now! Oh, tush, tush … God is merciful. And you, Anisim, you should be more tender with your wife—the two of you just look at each other and pout. You could at least smile, really.”
“Yes, she’s sort of a strange …” Anisim said and sighed. “She doesn’t understand anything, keeps silent. She’s too young, let her grow up.”
At the porch a tall, sleek white stallion already stood hitched to a charabanc.
Old Tsybukin made a run, leaped up dashingly on the box, and took the reins. Anisim kissed Varvara, Aksinya, and his brother. Lipa also stood on the porch, stood motionless and looked aside, as though she had not come out to say good-bye but just so, for no reason. Anisim went up to her and brushed her cheek with his lips, barely, lightly.
“Good-bye,” he said.
And she smiled somehow strangely, without looking at him; her face quivered, and for some reason everyone felt sorry for her. Anisim also hopped up and sat arms akimbo, because he considered himself a handsome man.
As they drove up out of the ravine, Anisim kept looking back at the village. It was a warm, clear day. The cattle were being taken out to pasture for the first time, and girls and women walked beside the herd in their Sunday dresses. A brown bull bellowed, rejoicing in his freedom, and dug his front hooves into the earth. Larks were singing all around, above and below. Anisim looked back at the church, shapely, white—it had recently been whitewashed—and remembered praying in it five days ago; he turned to look at the school with its green roof, at the river, where he once used to swim and fish, and joy leaped in his breast, and he wished that a wall might suddenly grow up from the ground and keep him from going further, so that he could remain only with his past.
At the station they went to the buffet and drank a glass of sherry each. The old man went to his pocket for his purse, in order to pay.
“It’s on me!” said Anisim.
The old man went soft, slapped him on the shoulder, and winked at the bartender: See what a son I’ve got.
“Why don’t you stay home, Anisim,” the old man said, “you’d be priceless in the business! I’d shower you with gold, sonny.”
“I just can’t, papa.”
The sherry was sourish and smelled of sealing wax, but they drank another glass each.
When the old man came back from the station, for the first moment he did not recognize his younger daughter-in-law. As soon as her husband drove out of the yard, Lipa was transformed and suddenly became cheerful. Barefoot, in an old, tattered skirt, her sleeves rolled up to the shoulders, she was washing the stairs in the front hall and singing in a high, silvery little voice, and when she carried the big tub of dirty water outside and looked up at the sun with her childlike smile, it seemed that she, too, was a lark.