'Old Simon's hut's on fire !' yelled someone in a rough voice.
Marya was dashing about near her hut, crying and wringing her hands, her teeth chattering, though the fire was right away at the far end of the vilage. Out went Nicholas in his felt boots and out rushed the children in their little smocks. Near the police constable's hut someone started banging the alarm on an iron sheet. The clang, clang, clang was borne through the air and the incessant, clamorous din caught at thc heart and chilled the blood. Old women stood about holding icons. Sheep, calves and cows were driven out of the yards iruo the street. Trunks, sheepskins and tubs were carried out. A black stallion, usually kept apart from the other horses because he kicked and maimed them, was set free and galoped through the vilage and back, stamping and whinnying, then suddenly halted by a cart and lashed into it with his hind legs.
Church bells rang on the other side of the river.
Near the burning hut it was hot and so light that every blade of grass on the ground stood out clearly. Simon, a red-haired peasant with a big nose and a peaked cap pulled down to his ears, sat on one of the trunks that they had managed to drag out. He wore a jacket. His wife lay face down, swoonuig and groaning. An old fellow of about eighty walked about near by, hatless, carrying a white bundle. He was short, with a huge beard and looked like a gnome, and though not a local man, obviously had something to do with the ĥre. The flames glinted on his bald head. The village elder Antip Sedelnikov, swarthy and black-haired as a gipsy, went up to the hut with an axe and smashed the windows one after the other for no clear reason and then started chopping down the porch.
'Come on, you women! Fetch water!' he shouted. 'And let's have that fire-engine! Get a move on!'
The fire-enguie was hauled along by peasants who had just been drinking in the in. They stumbled and fell, all drunk, all looking helpless with tears in their eyes.
'Come on, you girls! Water!' yelled thc elder, also drunk. 'Gct a move on, girls!'
Women and girls ran down to the spring, lugged up buckets and tubs filled with water, emptied them in the engine, and ran down again. Olga, Marya, Sasha and Motka all fetched water. The women and boys worked the pump, the hose hissed and the elder directed it at the door or windows, holding back the jet with a finger, which made it hiss even more sharply.
Voices were raised in approval. 'Wcll done, Antip! Keep it up!'
Antip made his way into the blazing entrance-lobby. 'Pump away!' he shouted from inside. 'Do your best, mates, on this here inauspicious occasion.'
The men stood by in a huddle, idly watching the fire. No one knew what to tackle first—it was quite beyond them—and al around were stacks of wheat and hay, barns and piles of dry brushwood. K.iryak and old Osip, his father, were there as well, both the worse for drink. As ifto excuse himself for doing nothing, the old man t^^ed to the woman lying on the ground.
'Don't take on so, old girl,' he said. 'The hut's insured, so why worry ?'
Simon t^rced to one person after another and told them how the fire started.
'It was that old feUow with the bundle—him as used to work for General Zhukov... . Used to be a cook at our old general's, God rest his soul. He comes along this evening and asks us to put him up for the night. ... Well, we had a drink or two, see . . . ? The old woman fiddles round with the samovar, getting the old feUow his tea. She puts it in the lobby, worse luck, and the flame goes straight up out of that samovar chimney and catches' the thatch. That's what did it. We nearly went up too. The old man's cap was burnt—what a shame.'
They went on and on beating the iron sheet and the church beUs across the river kept ringing. Lit up by the glare and out of breath, Olga kept dashing up and down the slope, staring horror-struck at red sheep and pink pigeons flying in the smoke. The ringing seemed to go right into her like a needle. It seemed that the fire would last for ever and that Sasha was lost.
When the roof of the hut crashed in, she thought the whole village was bound to burn down. Too weak to carry any more water, she sat on the cliff, putting her pails near her, while beside and below her women sat wailing as ' if someone had died.
Then some labourers and staff from the manor farm across the river arrived with two carts and their own fire-engine. A student rode up, a lad in a white military tunic open on the chest. Axes crashed. A ladder was placed against the blazing hulk and five men ran straight up it, the student leading the way. He was red in the face and shouted in a hoarse, biting voice and sounded as if putting out fires was all part of the day's work. They dismantled the hut beam by beam and pulled down the cow-shed, a fence and the nearest rick.
Stern voices were heard in the crowd. 'Stop them biisting the placc up! Stop them!'
Kiryak made for the hut looking resolute, as if he wanted to stop the newcomers breaking things up, but a labourer turned him back and hit him in the neck. That was good for a laugh and thc labourer hit him again. Kiryak fell over and crawled back into the crowd on all fours.
Two pretty girls wearing hats—the student's sisters, no doubt—had also arrived from across the river. They stood watching the fire from some way off. The dismantled beams had stopped blazing, but were smoking furiously. The student worked the hose, pointing the jet at the beams, the peasants and the women bringing water.
'Georgie!' thc girls shouted, reproachful and anxious. 'Georgie dear!'
The fire went out, and only when they were moving off did peoplc notice that day was breaking and everyone was pale and rather dark- faced, as always when the last stars vanish from the sky at dawn. Going their several ways, the villagers laughed and made fun of General Zhukov's cook and his burnt cap. By now they wantcd to make a joke of the fire and even seemed sorry that it had gone out so quickly.
'You managed the fire ve_ry well, sir,' Olga told the student. 'They should send you to Moscow—we have fircs there most days.'
'Why, arc you from Moscow?' one of the young ladies asked.
'Yes miss. My husband worked at the Slav Fair. And this is my daughter.' She pointed to Sasha who was cold and clung to her. 'She comes from Moscow too, miss.'
The t\vo girls spoke to the student in French and he gave Sasha twenty copecks. Old Osip saw it and his face lit up.
'Thank God there was no wind, sir,' he said to the student. 'Or elsc the whole place would have gone up in no rime. And now, Guv, and you, kind ladies,' he added sheepishly in a lower voice, 'it's a cold dawn and a man needs a bit of warmth . . . so give us the price of a noggin, Guv.'
Hc got nothing, cleared his throat and sloiiched off home. Then Olga stood on the edge of the slope and watched the two waggons fording the river and the ladies and gentleman walking across the meadow—a carriage awaited them on the other side. When she had come back to the hut she spoke to her husband.
'Aren't they nice!' she said admiringly. 'And so good-looking too! J ust like little cheribs, those yoing ladies arc.'
'Damn and blast 'em!' said sleepy Fyokla vicioisly.
VI
Marya thought herself unhappy and said that she longed to be dead. But Fyokla found that the life suited her—thc poverty, the filth, the frantic cursing. She ate what she was given without fuss and did not care where she slept or what she slept on. She emptied slops outside the front door, splashing them out from the step, and cven walked barefoot in the puddles. She took against Olga and Nicholas from the start just because they disliked the life.