“A dog’s death for a dog,” said Dyudya.
“Kuzka was brought back home … I thought a little and took him in. Why not? Though he’s a jailbird’s spawn, he’s still a living soul, a Christian … It’s a pity. I’ll make him my manager, and if I don’t have children of my own, I’ll make a merchant out of him. Now, whenever I go somewhere, I take him with me—let him get used to it.”
All the while Matvei Savvich was telling his story, Kuzka sat on a stone by the gate, his head propped in his hands, looking at the sky. From a distance, in the twilight, he looked like a little stump.
“Kuzka, go to bed!” Matvei Savvich shouted to him.
“Yes, it’s time,” said Dyudya, getting up. He yawned loudly and added: “They’ve just got to live by their own minds, not listening to anybody, and so they get what’s coming to them.”
The moon was already sailing in the sky above the yard; it raced quickly in one direction, while the clouds below it raced in the other; the clouds went on their way, but the moon could still be seen above the yard. Matvei Savvich prayed facing the church and, wishing everyone good night, lay down on the ground by the cart. Kuzka also said a prayer, lay down in the cart, and covered himself with his frock coat. To be more comfortable, he made a depression in the straw and curled up so that his elbows touched his knees. From the yard Dyudya could be seen lighting a candle in his downstairs room, putting his spectacles on, and standing in the corner with a book. He spent a long time reading and bowing.
The travelers fell asleep. Afanasyevna and Sofya went over to the cart and began looking at Kuzka.
“The little orphan’s asleep,” the old woman said. “So thin, so skinny, nothing but bones. He’s got no mother, there’s nobody to feed him properly.”
“My Grishutka must be a couple of years older,” said Sofya. “He lives at the factory, like a prisoner, without a mother. The master probably beats him. As I looked at this little lad today and remembered my Grishutka, my heart just bled.”
A minute passed in silence.
“He surely doesn’t remember his mother,” said the old woman.
“How could he!”
Big tears poured from Sofya’s eyes.
“All curled up …” she said, sobbing and laughing with tenderness and pity. “My poor orphan.”
Kuzka gave a start and opened his eyes. He saw before him an ugly, wrinkled, tear-stained face, beside it another face, an old woman’s, toothless, with a sharp chin and hooked nose, and above them the fathomless sky with racing clouds and the moon, and he cried out in terror. Sofya also cried out; an echo answered both of them, and anxiety passed through the stuffy air; the watchman rapped at the neighbor’s, a dog barked. Matvei Savvich murmured something in his sleep and rolled over on his other side.
Late in the evening, when Dyudya and the old woman and the neighbor’s watchman were already asleep, Sofya went out the gate and sat on a bench. She needed air, and her head ached from weeping. The street was wide and long; about two miles to the right, the same to the left, and no end to be seen. The moon had left the yard and stood behind the church. One side of the street was flooded with moonlight, and the other was black with shadow; the long shadows of poplars and birdhouses stretched across the whole street, and the shadow of the church, black and frightening, lay broadly, having swallowed up Dyudya’s gate and half the house. The place was deserted and quiet. From time to time, barely audible music came from the end of the street; it must have been Alyoshka playing his accordion.
Someone was walking in the shadow by the church fence, and it was impossible to make out whether it was a man, or a cow, or perhaps no one at all, but only a big bird rustling in the trees. But then a figure emerged from the shadow, stopped and said something in a man’s voice, then vanished into the lane by the church. A while later another figure appeared about five yards from the gate; it walked from the church straight towards the gate and, seeing Sofya on the bench, stopped.
“Varvara, is that you?” asked Sofya.
“And what if it is?”
It was Varvara. She stood for a moment, then came up to the bench and sat down.
“Where have you been?” asked Sofya.
Varvara did not answer.
“Watch out that you don’t come to grief, girl, with your wanderings,” said Sofya. “Did you hear how Mashenka got it with feet and reins? You may get yourself the same thing.”
“Who cares.”
Varvara laughed into her kerchief and said in a whisper:
“I’ve just been with the priest’s son.”
“You’re babbling.”
“By God.”
“It’s a sin!” Sofya whispered.
“Who cares … What’s there to be sorry about? If it’s a sin, it’s a sin, but I’d rather be struck down by lightning than live such a life. I’m young, healthy, and my husband’s hunchbacked, hateful, harsh, worse than that cursed Dyudya. Before I got married, I never had enough to eat, I went barefoot, so I left that wicked lot, got tempted by Alyoshka’s riches, and got snared like a fish in a net, and it would be easier for me to sleep with a viper than with that mangy Alyoshka. And your life? I don’t even want to look at it. Your Fyodor drove you away from the factory back to his father and found himself another woman; they took your boy from you and put him into bondage. You work like a horse and never hear a kind word. It’s better to pine away unmarried all your life, better to take fifty kopecks from the priest’s son, to beg for alms, better to go head first down a well …”
“It’s a sin,” Sofya whispered again.
“Who cares.”
Somewhere behind the church the same three voices—two tenors and a bass—started up a melancholy song again. And again it was impossible to make out the words.
“Night owls …” laughed Varvara.
And she began to tell in a whisper how she spends nights out with the priest’s son, and what he says to her, and what sorts of friends he has, and how she had spent time with traveling officials and merchants. The melancholy song called up a free life, Sofya began to laugh, she felt it was sinful, and scary, and sweet to listen, and she was envious and sorry that she had not sinned herself when she was young and beautiful …
In the old cemetery church it struck midnight.
“Time for bed,” said Sofya, getting up, “or else Dyudya will catch us out.”
The two women slowly went into the yard.
“I left and didn’t hear what he told afterwards about Mashenka,” said Varvara, making up a bed under the window.
“She died in jail, he says. Poisoned her husband.”
Varvara lay down beside Sofya, thought a little, and said softly:
“I could do in my Alyoshka and not regret it.”
“You’re babbling, God help you.”
As Sofya was falling asleep, Varvara pressed herself to her and whispered in her ear: