'Oh God!' sighed the cook.
72 Someone was tapping ever so gently on the window - that
must be Fyokla. Olga stood up, yawning and whispering a prayer as she opened the door and then drew the bolt back in the hall. But no one came in and there was just a breath of chiU air from the street and the sudden bright light of the moon. Through the open door she could see the quiet, deserted street and the moon itself sailing across the heavens.
Olga called out, 'Who is it?'
'It's me,' came the answer, 'it's me.'
Fyokla was standing near the door, pressing close to the wall, and she was stark naked. She was trembling with the cold and her teeth chattered. In the bright moonlight she looked very pale, beautiful and strange. The shadow and the brilliant light playing over her skin struck Olga particularly vividly and those dark eyebrows and firm young breasts were very sharply outlined.
'It was them beasts on the other side of the river, they stripped me naked and sent me away like this . ..' she muttered. 'I've come all the way home without nothing on ... stark naked . .. Give me some clothes.'
'Come into the hut!' Olga said softly and she too started shivering.
'I don't want the old people to se me!'
But in actual fact Grannie had already become alarmed and was grumbling away, while the old man asked, 'Who's there?'
Olga fetched her own smock and skirt and dressed Fyokla in them. Then they both tiptoed into the hut, trying not to bang the doors.
'Is that you, my beauty?' Grannie growled angrily when 73
she realized who it was. 'You little nightbird, want a nice flogging, do you.?'
It's all right, it's all right, dear,' Olga whispered as she wrapped Fyokla up.
Everything became quiet again. They always slept badly in the hut, every one of them would be kept awake by obsessive, nagging thoughts - the old man by his backache, Grannie by her worrying and evil mind, Marya by her fear and the children by itching and hunger.
And now their sleep was as disturbed as ever and they kept tossing and turning, and saying wild things; time after time they got up for a drink of water.
Suddenly Fyokla started bawling in her loud, coarse voice, but immediately tried to pull herself together and broke into an intermittent sobbing which gradually became fainter and fainter until it died away completely. Now and again the church on the other side of the river could be heard striking the hour, but in the most peculiar way: first it struck five and then three.
'Oh, my God!' sighed the cook.
It was hard to tell, just by looking at the windows, whether the moon was still shining or if dawn had already come. Marya got up and went outside. They could hear her milking the cow in the yard and telling it, 'Ooh, keep still!' Grannie went out as well. Although it was still dark in the hut, by now every object was visible.
Nikolay, who had not slept the whole night, climbed down from the stove. He took his tailcoat out of a green trunk, put 74 it on, smoothed the sleeves as he went over to the window,
held the tails for a moment and smiled. Then he carefully took it off, put it back in the trunk and lay down again.
Marya returned and started lighting the stove. Quite clearly she was not really awake yet and she was still coming to as she moved around. Most probably she had had a dream or suddenly remembered the stories of the evening before, since she said, 'No, freedom* is best,' as she sensuously stretched herself in front of the stove.
7
The 'gentleman' arrived - this was how the local police inspector was called in the village. Everyone knew a week beforehand exactly when and why he was coming. In Zhukovo there were only forty households, but they were so much in arrears with their taxes and rates that over two thousand roubles were overdue.
75
The inspector stopped at the inn. There he 'imbibed' two glasses of tea and then set off on foot for the village elder's hut, where a crowd of defaulters was waiting for him. Antip Sedelnikov, the village elder, despite his lack of years (he had only just turned thirty) was a very strict man and always sided with the authorities, although he was poor himself and was always behind with his payments. Being the village elder obviously amused him and he enjoyed the feeling of power and the only way he knew to exercise this was by enforcing
Marya means freedom from serfdom.
strict discipline. At village meetings everyone was scared of him and did what he said. If he came across a drunk in the street or near the inn he would swoop down on him, tie his arms behind his back and put him in the village lock-up. Once he had even put Grannie there for swearing when she was deputizing for Osip at a meeting and he kept her locked up for twenty-four hours. Although he had never lived in a town or read any books, somehow he had managed to accumu- late a store of various clever-sounding words and he loved using them in conversation, which made him respected, if not always understood.
When Osip entered the elder's hut with his rent-book, the inspector - a lean old man with long grey whiskers, in a grey double-breasted jacket - was sitting at a table in the comer near the stove, writing something down. The hut was clean and all the walls were gay and colourful with pictures cut out of magazines. In the most conspicuous place, near the ikons, hung a portrait of Battenberg, once Prince of Bulgaria. Antip Sedelnikov stood by the table with his arms crossed.
'This one 'ere owes a hundred and nineteen roubles, your honour,' he said when it was Osip's tum. "E paid a rouble before Easter, but not one kopek since.'
The inspector looked up at Osip and asked, 'How come, my dear friend?'
'Don't be too hard on me, your honour,' Osip said, get- ting very worked up, 'just please let me explain, sir. Last summer the squire from Lyutoretsk says to me, "Sell me your hay, Osip, sell it to me ..." Why not? I had about a 76 ton and a half of it, what the women mowed in the meadows
. . . well, we agreed the price . . . It was all very nice and proper.'
He complained about the elder and kept turning towards the other peasants as though summoning them as witnesses. His face became red and sweaty and his eyes sharp and evil- looking.
'I don't see why you're telling me all this,' the inspector said. 'I'm asking you why you're so behind with your rates. It's you I'm asking. None of you pays up, so do you think Fm going to be responsible!'
'But I just can't!'
'These words have no consequences, your honour,' the elder said. 'In actual fact those Chikildeyevs belong to the impecum- ous class. But if it please your honour to ask the others, the whole reason for it is vodka. And they're real troublemakers. They've no comprehension.'
The inspector jotted something down and told Osip ina calm, even voice, as though asking for some water, 'Clear off!'
Shortly afterwards he drove away and he was coughing as he climbed into his carriage. From the way he stretched his long, thin back one could tell that Osip, the elder and the arrears at Zhukovo were no more than dim memories, and that he was now thinking about something that concerned him alone. Even before he was half a mile away, Antip Sedelnikov was carrying the samovar out of the Chikildeyevs' hut, pursued by Grannie, who was shrieking for all she was worth, 'I won't let you have it, I won't, blast you!'
Antip strode along quickly, while Grannie puffed and panted after him, nearly falling over and looking quite 77
ferocious with her hunched back. Her shawl had slipped down over her shoulders and her grey hair, tinged green, streamed in the wind. Suddenly she stopped and began beating her breast like a real rebel and shouted in an even louder sing-song voice, just as though she were sobbing, 'Good Christians, you who believe in God! Heavens, we've been trampled on! Dear ones, we've been persecuted. Oh, please help us!'