Then the bell rang for evensong—it was Saturday evening. Two little girls, carrying a bucket of water down below, looked back at the church to listen to the bells.
'Dinner time at the Slav Fair,' said Nicholas dreamily.
Nicholas and Olga sat on the edge of the cliff and watched the sun go down. The sky, all gold and crimson, glowed in the river, in the church windows and through the whole air, gentle, quiet, incredibly pure as it never is in Moscow. After sunset cows and sheep moved past, lowing and bleating, geese flew over from across the river, and then all was quiet. The soft light faded in the air and the evening dark- ness swiftly descended.
Meanwhile the old folk—Nicholas's father and mother—had come home. They were gaunt, bent, toothless and both the same height. His brothers' wives came too—Marya and Fyokla, who workcd at the sqnire's place across the river. Marya, his brother Kiryak's wife, had six children, and Fyokla—the wife of his brother Denis, who was away ui tbe army—had two. Nicholas went into the hut and saw the whole family, all these bodies large and small, swarming on the sleeping platform, in cradles and in aU the comers. He saw how ravenously the old man and the women ate their black bread, dipping it in water, and he knew that he had Been wrong to come here—sick, penniless, and with a family too. A great mistake.
'Where's Kiryak ?' he asked, after they had greeted each other.
'Lives in some woods belonging to a merchant. He's the watchman there,' his fathcr answered. 'Not a bad lad, but he can put away the liquor aH right.'
'He's no good to us,' uid the old womin teufully. 'A rotten lot, our men ue—a11 spend and no earn. Kiryak drinks and the old man knows his way to the pub too, no use saying he d^n't. The Blessed Virgin's angry with us.'
They put the samovar on in honour of the visitors. The tea smelt of fish, the sugar was grey and looked nibbled, and cockroaches scurried over the bread and crockery. The tea was disgusting. No les disgusting was their ulk, a11 about being ill and hard up. Before they had got through their first cup a loud, long, drunken shout was heard from outside.
'Ma-arya!'
'Sounds like Kiryak.' said the old min. 'Talk of the devil.'
No one spoke. A little later the same shout was heard again. Hush and prolonged, it seemed to come from underground.
'Ma-arya!'
M^ya. the elder sister-in-law, turned pale and pressed against the stove. It was odd somehow to see this broad-shouldered, strong, ugly woman so scared. Her daughter, the little girl who had been sitting on the stove looking .bored, burst out sobbing.
'What's up with you, you little pest?' shouted Fyokla. a good- looking woman, also strong :md broad-shouldered. 'He won't kill anyone, I reckon.'
The old man told Nicholas that Muya was afraid to live in the woods with Kiryak :md that he always came for her when drunk, making a great row about it and beating her cruelly.
The yell rang out right by the door.
'Ma-arya!'
'For the love of Christ don't let him hurt me, plcasc,' summered Marya, gasping as though plungcd into icy water. 'Don't let him hurt me. Please. . . .'
The children in the hut all burst into tears. and. seeing this sasha surted up as wcll. Thcre was a drunken cough and a tall man camc mto thc hut. Hc had a black beard and worc a fur cap. In the dim light of the lamp his face could not be scen, which made him tcrrifying. This was Ki^pk. He went up to his wife, lashed out and punched her in the face. Stunncd by the blow, she made not a sound, but her feet seemed to give way. Her nose started bleeding at once.
'A disgrace! A downright disgrace!' muttered the old man. climbing onto thc stove. 'In front of visitors too! Proper wickcd, I call it!'
The old woman sat there in silence, hunched up and thoughtful. Fyokla rocked a cradle.
Clearly aware of the fear that he caused and pleased by it, Kiryak seized Marya's arm and dragged her to the door, bcllowing like a wild animal to make himself more frightening still. Then he saw the visitors and stopped.
'Oh, look who's come . . .' he said, letting go of his wife. 'My dear old brother and family. . . .'
He said a prayer before the icon, staggeruig and opening widc his drunken red eyes.
'My dear brother and family come back to the old home . . .' he went on. 'From Moscow, ch? From our great capital city of Moscow, eh? The mother ofcities. . . . So sorry. . . .'
He flopped down on the bench ncar the samovar and began drinking tea, lapping noisily out of the saucer. No one spoke. He drank a dozen cups, then lay on the bench and started snoring.
They went to bed. Nicholas, being ill, was put on the stove with the old man, Sasha lay on the floor and Olga went to the barn with the women. .
'Now then, dearie,' she said, lying on the hay by Marya's side. 'Tears won't do no good. You must just put up with it. The Bible says, "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right check, turn to him the other also. .. ." That's how it is, dearie.'
Then she spoke in a low, sing-song voice about Moscow and her life there as a maid in a lodging-house.
'They have big houses in Moscow, made of brick and stone,' she said. 'There are lots of churches, hundreds and hundreds of them, dearie. And there's gentlefolk living in them houses. All nice and pretty, they are.'
Marya said that she had never been as far as the local town, let alone Moscow. She could not read or write and knew no prayers, not even 'Our Father'. She and Fyokla, the other sister-in-law who sat a little way off listening, were both very backward and imderstood nothing. They both disliked their husbands. Marya was scared of Kiryak. She shook with fear whenever he was with her and felt queer in the head because he smelt so strongly of vodka and tobacco. And when Fyokla was asked ifshe missed her husband, she answered crossly,'What—him!'
They talked a little and then grew quiet. . . .
It was chily and near the bam a cock was crowing at the top of his voice, keeping them awake. When the bluish morning light began to peep through the cracks, Fyokla quietly got up and went out. Her bue feet were heard pounding the ground as she ran off.
II
Olga went to church and took Marya with her. On their way dou^ tlie path to the meadow both felt cheerful. Olga liked the open view and Marya felt that her sister-in-h.w was very near and ^^ to her. The sun was rising. A sleepy hawk skimmed over the meadow, the river looked gloomy and there were patches of drifting ^^t, but a strea of sunlight 'by on the hill across the river, the church shone, and in the manor garden rooks cawed furiously.
'The old man's al right,' Marya was saying. 'But Gran's very strict. A proper terror, she is. Our o^ grain only lasted tiU Shrovetide so we bought some flour at the pub. Real angry, tlut made her. She says we eat too much.'
'Now then, dearie, you must put up with things, tlut's al. As was said, "Come unto me, al ye tlut labour and are heavy 'b^^.'' ' .
Olga spoke in a dignified, sing-song voice and walked li.k.e a pilgrim, with quick, bustling steps. She read the Gospels every day aloud, like someone reading the lesson in church, not understanding much of them. But the holy words moved her to tears and she ^most swooned with delight as she brought out such things as 'who^vcr' or 'until I bring thee word'. She believed in God, the Holy Virgin and the Saints. She believed that no one in the world—whether simple folk, Germans, gipsies or Jcws-s—should be harmed, and woe betide even those who were u^^d to animals. She believed that this was what the ^riptures teU us, so when she said words from the Bible, even without under- sunding them, she looked compassionate, radiant and deeply moved.
'Where are you from?' Marya asked her.
'Vh.dimir. But I was t:Uen to Moscow long ago when I wa.s about eight.'
They reached the river. A woman st^^ undressing by the water's edge on the far side.