“Good day to you,” said Yakov, leading his old woman into the receiving room. “Excuse us, Maxim Nikolaich, for troubling you with our trifling affairs. Here, you’ll kindly see, my object has taken sick. My life’s companion, as they say, excuse the expression …”
Knitting his gray eyebrows and stroking his side-whiskers, the assistant doctor began to examine the old woman, and she sat there on the stool, hunched up and skinny, sharp-nosed, her mouth open, in profile resembling a thirsty bird.
“Mm, yes … So …” the assistant said slowly and sighed. “Influenza, and maybe ague. There’s typhus going around town. So? The old woman has lived, thank God … How old is she?”
“One year short of seventy, Maxim Nikolaich.”
“So? The old woman has lived. Enough and to spare.”
“There, of course, you’ve made a correct observation, Maxim Nikolaich,” said Yakov, smiling out of politeness, “and we’re heartily grateful for your agreeableness, but—permit me the expression—every insect wants to live.”
“What else is new!” the assistant said, sounding as if it depended on him whether the old woman was to live or die. “Now then, my good man, you put a cold compress on her head and give her these powders twice a day. And with that—bye-bye, bonzhur.”
From the expression of his face Yakov could see that things were bad and that no powders would help; it was clear to him now that Marfa would die very soon, if not today then tomorrow. He gave the assistant a slight nudge in the arm, winked at him, and said in a low voice:
“Maybe try cupping glasses,1 Maxim Nikolaich.”
“No time, no time, my good man. Take your old woman and God speed you. Bye-bye.”
“Do us a kindness,” Yakov implored. “You know yourself that if she had, say, a stomachache or something else inside, well, then it would be powders and drops, but she’s got a cold! The first thing with a cold is to let blood, Maxim Nikolaich.”
But the assistant doctor was already calling for the next patient, and a peasant woman with a boy was coming into the receiving room.
“Go, go …” he said to Yakov, frowning. “Don’t blow smoke.”
“In that case at least apply leeches to her! I’ll pray to God eternally for you!”
The assistant doctor blew up and shouted:
“Just won’t stop talking! B-blockhead …”
Yakov also blew up and turned all purple, but he did not say a word, he took Marfa under the arm and led her out of the receiving room. Only when they were getting into the cart did he give the clinic a stern and derisive look and say: “Got yourselves nicely planted there, play-actors! You’d be sure to cup a rich man, but you won’t even spare a poor man a leech! Herods!”
When they came home, Marfa went into the cottage and stood for ten minutes holding on to the stove. She thought that if she lay down Yakov would start talking about losses and scold her for lying down all the time and not wanting to work. And Yakov gazed dully at her and remembered that tomorrow was St. John the Theologian’s, and the next day St. Nicholas the Wonderworker’s,2then Sunday, then Monday—the unlucky day. He would not be able to work for four days, and Marfa was sure to die on one of them; meaning that the coffin had to be made today. He took his iron ruler, went over to the old woman and measured her. Then she lay down, and he crossed himself and started making the coffin.
When the work was done, Bronzy put on his spectacles and wrote in his notebook:
“Coffin for Marfa Ivanov—2 roubles, 40 kopecks.”
And sighed. The old woman lay silent all the while with her eyes closed. But in the evening, when it grew dark, she suddenly called to the old man.
“Remember, Yakov?” she asked, looking at him joyfully. “Remember, fifty years ago God gave us a little baby with a blond little head? You and I used to sit by the river then and sing songs … under the pussywillow.” And with a bitter smile she added: “The little girl died.”
Yakov strained his memory, but simply could not remember either the baby or the pussywillow.
“You’re imagining it,” he said.
The priest came, gave her communion and anointed her with oil. Then Marfa began to murmur something incoherent, and towards morning she passed away.
Some old neighbor women washed her and dressed her and put her in the coffin. To avoid paying extra to the reader, Yakov read the Psalter himself, and they did not charge him for the grave either, because the cemetery caretaker was his chum. Four peasants carried the coffin to the cemetery, not for money but out of respect. Old women, beggars, and two holy fools followed the coffin, passersby crossed themselves piously … And Yakov was very pleased that it was all so honorable, decent, and cheap, and no offense to anyone. Bidding his last farewell to Marfa, he touched the coffin with his hand and thought, “Fine work!”
But on his way back from the cemetery, he was overcome by intense anguish. Something was wrong with him: his breath was hot and heavy, his legs were weak, he felt thirsty. And then all sorts of thoughts began coming into his head. He recalled again that in his whole life he had never once pitied Marfa or been gentle with her. The fifty-two years that they had lived in the same cottage had dragged on and on, yet it turned out somehow that in all that time he had never thought of her, never paid attention to her, as if she were a cat or a dog. And yet every day she had stoked the stove, cooked and baked, fetched water, chopped wood, slept in the same bed with him, and when he came home drunk from weddings, she reverently hung his fiddle on the wall each time and put him to bed, and all that in silence, with a timid, solicitous look.
Rothschild came towards Yakov, smiling and bowing.
“And I’ve been looking for you, uncle!” he said. “Moisei Ilyich greets you and tells you to come to him right away.”
Yakov could not be bothered with that. He wanted to weep.
“Let me be!” he said and walked on.
“But how is this possible?” Rothschild became all alarmed and ran ahead of him. “Moisei Ilyich will be upset! He said right away.”
Yakov found it disgusting that the Jew was out of breath, kept blinking, and had so many red freckles. And it was repulsive to look at his green frock coat with its dark patches and at his whole fragile, delicate figure.
“What are you bothering me for, you piece of garlic?” Yakov shouted. “Leave me alone!”
The Jew got angry and also shouted:
“But you please calm down, or I’m sending you flying over the fence!”
“Out of my sight!” Yakov bellowed and rushed at him with his fists. “These mangy Yids won’t let a man live!”
Rothschild went dead with fear, cowered, and waved his arms over his head as if protecting himself from blows, then jumped up and ran away as fast as he could. He hopped as he ran, clasped his hands, and you could see his long, skinny back twitch. The street urchins, glad of the chance, ran after him, shouting: “Yid! Yid!” The dogs also chased him, barking. Somebody guffawed, then whistled, the dogs barked louder and more in unison … Then one of the dogs must have bitten Rothschild, because there was a desperate cry of pain.
Yakov walked about the common, then, skirting the town, went wherever his feet took him, and the urchins shouted: “There goes Bronzy! There goes Bronzy!” And here was the river. Snipe flitted about and peeped, ducks quacked. The sun was very hot, and the water was so dazzling it was painful to look at. Yakov strolled down the path along the bank, saw a fat, red-cheeked lady come out of a bathing house, and thought: “Some otter you are!” Not far from the bathing house boys were catching crayfish with meat for bait; seeing him, they started shouting maliciously: “Bronzy! Bronzy!” And here was an old spreading pussywillow with an enormous hole and crows’ nests in its branches … And suddenly in Yakov’s memory there appeared, as if alive, the blond-headed little baby and the pussywillow Marfa had spoken of. Yes, it was the same pussywillow, green, quiet, sad … How aged it was, poor thing!