V
After ten o’clock, on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption, the young men and girls who were strolling in the meadows down below suddenly started shouting and screaming and came running back to the village. People who were sitting up on the hill, on the edge of the cliff, could not understand at first what had happened.
‘Fire! Fire!’ came the desperate cry from below. ‘We’re on fire!’
The people up above looked round and were confronted by the most terrifying, extraordinary sight: on the thatched roof of one of the huts at the end of the village a pillar of fire swirled upwards, showering sparks everywhere like a fountain. The whole roof turned into a mass of bright flames and there was a loud crackling. The moonlight was dimmed by the glare and the whole village became enveloped in a red, flickering light. Black shadows stole over the ground and there was a smell of burning. The villagers had come running up the hill, were all out of breath and could not speak for trembling; they jostled each other and kept falling down, unable to see properly in that sudden blinding light and not recognizing one another. It was terrifying, particularly with pigeons flying around in the smoke above the fire, while down at the inn (they had not heard about the fire) the singing and accordion-playing continued as if nothing had happened.
‘Uncle Semyon’s hut’s on fire!’ someone shouted in a loud, rough voice.
Marya was dashing around near the hut, crying and wringing her hands and her teeth chattered – even though the fire was some distance away, at the far end of the village.
Nikolay emerged in his felt boots and the children came running out in their little smocks. Some of the villagers banged on an iron plate by the police constable’s hut, filling the air with a loud clanging; this incessant, unremitting sound made your heart ache and made you go cold all over.
Old women stood holding icons.
Sheep, calves and cows were driven out into the street from the yards; trunks, sheepskins and tubs were carried outside. A black stallion, normally kept apart from the herd – it had a tendency to kick and injure the others – was set loose and galloped once or twice through the village, whinnying and stamping, and then suddenly stopped near a cart and lashed out with its hind legs.
And the bells were ringing out in the church on the other side of the river. Near the blazing hut it was hot and so light that the tiniest blade of grass was visible.
Semyon, a red-haired peasant with a large nose, wearing a waistcoat and with his cap pulled down over his ears, was sitting on one of the trunks they had managed to drag out. His wife was lying face downwards moaning in despair. An old man of about eighty, shortish, with an enormous beard – rather like a gnome – and who was obviously in some way connected with the fire (although he came from another village), was pacing up and down without any hat, carrying a white bundle. A bald patch on his head glinted in the light of the fire. Antip Sedelnikov, the village elder – a swarthy man with the black hair of a gipsy – went up to the hut with an axe and, for some obscure reason, knocked out the windows, one after the other. Then he started hacking away at the front steps.
‘Get some water, you women!’ he shouted. ‘Bring the fire-engine! And be quick about it!’
A fire-engine was hauled up by the same villagers who had just been drinking and singing at the inn. They were all dead drunk and kept stumbling and falling over; all of them had a helpless look and they had tears in their eyes.
The village elder, who was drunk as well, shouted, ‘Get some water, quick!’
The women and girls ran down to the bottom of the hill, where there was a spring, dragged up the full buckets and tubs, emptied them into the fire-engine and ran down again. Olga, Marya, Sasha and Motka all helped. The women and little boys helped to pump the water, making the hosepipe hiss, and the village elder began by directing a jet into the doorway, then through the windows, regulating the flow with his finger, which made the water hiss all the more.
‘Well done, Antip!’ the villagers said approvingly. ‘Come on now!’
Antip climbed right into the burning hall from where he shouted, ‘Keep on pouring. Try your best, you good Christians, on the occasion of such an unhappy event.’
The villagers crowded round and did nothing – they just gazed at the fire. No one had any idea what to do – no one was capable of doing anything – and close by there were stacks of wheat and hay, piles of dry brushwood, and barns. Kiryak and old Osip, his father, had joined in the crowd, and they were both drunk. The old man turned to the woman lying on the ground and said – as though trying to find some excuse for his idleness – ‘Now don’t get so worked up! The hut’s insured, so don’t worry!’
Semyon turned to one villager after the other, telling them how the fire had started.
‘It was that old man with the bundle, him what worked for General Zhukov… used to cook for him, God rest his soul. Along he comes this evening and says, “Let me stay the night, please.” Well, we had a drink or two… the old girl started messing around with the samovar to make the old man a cup of tea and she put it in the hall before the charcoal was out. The flames shot straight up out of the pipe and set the thatched roof alight, so there you are! We nearly went up as well. The old man’s cap was burnt, a terrible shame.’
Meanwhile they banged away at the iron plate for all they were worth and the bells in the church across the river kept ringing. Olga ran breathlessly up and down the slope. As she looked in horror at the red sheep, at the pink doves fluttering around in the smoke, she was lit up by the fierce glow. The loud clanging had the effect of a sharp needle piercing her heart and it seemed that the fire would never go out, that Sasha was lost… And when the ceiling in the hut collapsed with a loud crash, the thought that the whole village was bound to burn down now made her feel weak and she could not carry any more water. So she sat on the cliff, with the buckets at her side. Nearby, a little lower down, women were sitting and seemed to be wailing for the dead.
But just then some labourers and men from the manor across the river arrived in two carts, together with a fire-engine. A very young student came riding up in his unbuttoned white tunic. Axes started hacking away, a ladder was propped against the blazing framework and five men clambered up it at once, with the student leading the way. His face was red from the flames and he shouted in a hoarse, rasping voice, in such an authoritative way it seemed putting fires out was something he did every day. They tore the hut to pieces beam by beam, and they tore down the cowshed, a wattle fence and the nearest haystack.
Stern voices rang out from the crowd: ‘Don’t let them smash the place up. Stop them!’
Kiryak went off towards the hut with a determined look and as though intending stopping the newly arrived helpers from breaking the whole place up. But one of the workmen turned him round and hit him in the neck. There was laughter and the workman hit him again. Kiryak fell down and crawled back to the crowd on all fours.
Two pretty girls, wearing hats – they were probably the student’s sisters – arrived from across the river. They stood a little way off, watching the fire. The beams that had been pulled down had stopped burning, but a great deal of smoke still came from them. As he manipulated the hose, the student directed the jet at the beams, then at the peasants and then at the women fetching the water.
‘Georges!’ the girls shouted, in anxious, reproachful voices. ‘Georges!’