“Useless. Just gave a stranger girl a stroke of good luck for nothing,” said Dyudya.
Somewhere behind the church they started singing a magnificent, melancholy song. It was impossible to make out the words, only the voices could be heard: two tenors and a bass. Everyone began to listen, and it became very quiet in the yard … Two voices suddenly broke off the song with a peal of laughter, while the third, a tenor, went on singing and struck such a high note that everyone inadvertently looked up, as if the voice in its high pitch had reached to the very sky. Varvara came out of the house and, shielding her eyes with her hand as if from the sun, looked at the church.
“It’s the priest’s sons and the schoolmaster,” she said.
Again the three voices sang together. Matvei Savvich sighed and went on.
“That’s how it was, grandpa. About two years later a letter came from Vasya in Warsaw. He wrote that his superiors were sending him home to recuperate. He was sick. By then I’d gotten that silliness out of my head, and a good match had been found for me, and I only didn’t know how to loose myself from this little love of mine. Every day I meant to talk with Mashenka, only I didn’t know how to approach her so as to avoid any female screaming. The letter untied my hands. Mashenka and I read it, she turned white as snow, and I said: ‘Thank God, now you’ll be your husband’s wife again.’ And she to me: ‘I won’t live with him.’ ‘But he’s your husband, isn’t he?’ I say. ‘It’s easy for you … I never loved him and married him against my will. My mother told me to.’ ‘Don’t go dodging, foolish woman,’ I say, ‘tell me: were you married in church or not?’ ‘I was,’ she says, ‘but I love you and will live with you till I die. Let people laugh … I don’t care…’ ‘You’re pious,’ I say, ‘you read the Scriptures, and what does it say there?’”
“You married a husband, you must live with your husband,” said Dyudya.
“Husband and wife are one flesh. ‘You and I have sinned,’ I say, ‘and enough, we should be ashamed and fear God. Let’s confess to Vasya,’ I say, ‘he’s a peaceable man, timid—he won’t kill us. And it’s better,’ I say, ‘to suffer torment in this world from your lawful husband than gnash your teeth at the Last Judgment.’ The woman won’t hear any of it, she stands her ground, and that’s that. ‘I love you,’ is all she says! Vasya came on Saturday, on the eve of the Trinity,3 early in the morning. I could see everything through the fence: he ran into the house, came out a moment later with Kuzka in his arms, laughing and crying and kissing Kuzka, and looking at the hayloft—he’s sorry to leave Kuzka, but wants to see his pigeons. A tender man he was, a sensitive one. The day passed well, quietly and modestly. The bells rang for the evening vigil, and I think: tomorrow’s the Trinity, why don’t they decorate the gates and fence with greenery?4 Something’s wrong, I think. I went over to them. I see him sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, his eyes wandering like a drunk man’s, tears running down his cheeks, his hands shaking; he’s taking pretzels, beads, gingerbread, and other treats from his bundle and scattering them around the floor. Kuzka—he was three years old then—is crawling around, chewing gingerbread, and Mashenka is standing by the stove, pale, trembling all over, and murmuring: ‘I’m not your wife, I don’t want to live with you’—and all sorts of foolishness. I bow down at Vasya’s feet and say: ‘We’re guilty before you, Vassily Maximych, forgive us for Christ’s sake!’ Then I got up and said this to Mashenka: ‘You, Marya Semyonovna,’ I say, ‘should wash Vassily Maximych’s feet now and drink the dirty water. And be his obedient wife, and pray to God for me, that He in His mercy,’ I say, ‘may forgive me my trespass.’ I was as if inspired by an angel in heaven, so I admonished her, and I spoke with such feeling that I was even moved to tears. A couple of days later, Vasya comes to me. ‘I forgive you, Matyusha, you and my wife, God be with you,’ he says. ‘She’s a soldier’s wife, it’s women’s business, she’s young, it’s hard for her to mind herself. She’s not the first, and she won’t be the last. Only,’ he says, ‘I ask you to live as if there was nothing between you and never show anything, and I’ll try to please her in everything,’ he says, ‘so she’ll come to love me again.’ He gave me his hand, had some tea, and left feeling cheerful. Well, I thought, thank God, and I was glad that everything had come out so well. But as soon as Vasya left, Mashenka came. A real punishment! She hangs on my neck, cries and begs: ‘For God’s sake, don’t abandon me, I can’t live without you.’”
“What a slut!” sighed Dyudya.
“I shouted at her, stamped my feet, dragged her to the front hall, and hooked the door. ‘Go to your husband!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t shame me in front of people, fear God!’ And every day it’s the same story. One morning I was standing in my yard near the stable, mending a bridle. Suddenly I see her running through the gate into my yard, barefoot, in nothing but her petticoat, and coming straight towards me. She took hold of the bridle, got all smeared with tar, was shaking and weeping … ‘I can’t live with the hateful man, it’s beyond me! If you don’t love me, you’d better kill me!’ I got angry and hit her twice with the bridle, and at the same time Vasya comes running through the gate and shouts in a desperate voice: ‘Don’t beat her! Don’t beat her!’ And he ran up himself like a demented man, and swung and started beating her with his fists as hard as he could, then he threw her on the ground and started trampling her with his feet. I tried to protect her, but he took some reins and went at her with the reins. He’s beating her and giving little shrieks all the while like a colt: hee, hee, hee!”
“They should take the reins and give it to you the same way …” Varvara grumbled, walking off. “You prey on women, curse you all …”
“Shut up!” Dyudya shouted at her. “You mare!”
“Hee, hee, hee!” Matvei Savvich went on. “A carter came running from his yard, I called my hired man, and the three of us took Mashenka away from him and led her home under the arms. The shame of it! That same evening I went to visit her. She was lying in bed, all wrapped up in compresses, only her eyes and nose visible, and staring at the ceiling. I say: ‘Good evening, Marya Semyonovna!’ Silence. And Vasya is sitting in the other room, holding his head and weeping: ‘I’m a villain! I’ve ruined my life! Send me death, O Lord!’ I sat by Mashenka for a little half hour and admonished her. Put a fright into her. ‘The righteous,’ I say, ‘will go to Paradise in the other world, and you to the fiery Hyena5 along with all the harlots … Don’t oppose your husband, go and bow at his feet.’ Not a word from her, not even a blink, as if I’m talking to a post. Next day Vasya took sick with something like cholera, and by evening I heard he was dead. They buried him. Mashenka didn’t go to the cemetery, didn’t want to show people her shameless face and bruises. And talk soon spread among the townsfolk that Vasya hadn’t died a natural death, that Mashenka had done him in. It came to the authorities. They dug Vasya up, cut him open, and found arsenic in his belly. The thing was clear as day; the police came and took Mashenka away, and penniless Kuzka along with her. She was put in prison. The woman had it coming, God punished her … Eight months later there was a trial. She sits on the bench, I remember, in a white kerchief and gray smock, so thin, so pale, sharp-eyed, a pity to see. Behind her a soldier with a gun. She wouldn’t confess. At the trial some said she poisoned her husband, and some tried to prove that the husband poisoned himself from grief. I was one of the witnesses. When they asked me, I explained it all in good conscience. ‘The sin is on her,’ I said. ‘There’s no hiding it, she didn’t love her husband, and she was temperamental…’ The trial started in the morning, and that night they reached a verdict: to send her to hard labor in Siberia for thirteen years. After the verdict, Mashenka sat in our jail for three months. I used to visit her, and brought her tea and sugar out of human kindness. But when she saw me, she’d start shaking all over, waving her arms and muttering: ‘Go away! Go away!’ And she’d press Kuzka to her as if she was afraid I’d take him. ‘This is what you’ve come to,’ I say. ‘Ah, Masha, Masha, you’re a lost soul! You didn’t listen to me when I taught you reason, so you can weep now. It’s your own fault and nobody else’s.’ I’m admonishing her, and she says: ‘Go away! Go away!’—and presses herself and Kuzka to the wall and trembles. When she was sent from here to the provincial capital, I went to see her off at the station and put a rouble into her bundle to save my soul. But she didn’t get as far as Siberia … In the provincial capital she came down with a fever and died in jail.”