"'Go away," she mutters. "Go away!"
'And she clasps Kuzka to her as if afraid I might take him off her.
'"Now," I say, "see what you've sunk to! Oh Mashenka, Mashenka, you lost soul! You wouldn't listen when I tried to talk sense into you, and now you must pay for it. It's your fault," say I, "you'vc only yourself to blame."
'I read her a lecture, and she kecps telling me to go away, go away, huddling against the w;ill with Kuzka and shivering. When they're taking her to our county town, I go to see her off at the railway station and slip a rouble in her bundle to save my soul. Dut she never got to Siberia—she fell sick of a fever in the county to^ and died in gaol.'
'Serve the bitch right!' said Dyudya.
'They brought Kuzka back home. I thought it over, and decidcd to adopt him. And why not? Gaol-bird's spa^ he may be—still he's a living soul, a Christian. I felt sorry for him. I'll make him a clerk, and if I don't have children of my own I'll make him a merchant. Nowa- days I take him with me wherever I go, so he can learn something.'
All the time while Matthew Savvich was telling his story, Kuzka sat on a stone near the gate, his head cupped in his hands, and looking at the sky. In the darkness he looked like a tree-stump from a distancc.
'Go to ^d, Kuzka,' Matthcw Savvich yelled.
'Yes, it's time,' said Dyudya, getting up and yawning noisily. 'They all try to be too clever,' he added. 'They won't listen, and then they end up getting what they asked for.'
The moon was already sailing in the sky above the yard. It was moving swiftly to one side, while the clouds below it sped the other way. The clouds drifted off, but the moon was still clearly seen above the yard. Matthew Savvich turned towards the church and prayed, then wished them good night and lay do^ on the ground near the cart. Kuzka also said his prayers, then lay in the cart, covering hiisclf with his coat. To make himself comfortable, he burrowed in the hay, curling up with his elbows touching his knees. From the yard Dyudya could bc seen lighting a candle in a downstairs room, putting on his spectacles, and standing in the comcr with a book. For a long time he read, bowing before the icon.
The visitors fell asleep. Afanasyevna and Sophia went up to the cart and looked at Kuzka.
'He's asleep, poor little orphan,' the old woman said. 'He's thin and pale, nothing but skin and bones. He has no mother, and no one to feed him properly.'
'My Grishutka's two years older, I reckon,' Sophia said. 'He's no better than a slave, living in that factory without his mother. The master beats him, I'll warrant. When I looked at this little boy j ust now, I remembered Grishutka, and it made my blood tum cold.'
A minute passed in silence.
'He won't remember his mother, I reckon,' said the old woman.
'How could he?'
Huge tears flowed from Sophia's eyes.
'He's curled up like a kitten,' she said, sobbing and laughing with tender pity. 'Poor little orphan.'
Kuzka started, and opened his eyes. He saw an ugly, wrinkled, tear- stained face before him, and next to it another, an old woman's— toothless, sharp-chinned, hook-nosed. Above was the fathomless sky with its racing clouds and moon. He screamed in terror, and Sophia screamed too. Echo answered both of them, and thcir alarm Bashed through the stifling air. A neighbouring watchman started banging, and a dog barked. Matthew Savvich muttered in his sleep, and turned over.
Late at night, when Dyudya, the old woman and the watchman next door were all asleep, Sophia went out through the gate and sat on a bench. The heat was stifling, and her head ached from crying. Broad and long—with two verst-posts visible on the right, and another two on the left—the street seemcd to go on for ever. The moon had abandoned the yard to stand behind the church, and one side of the street was bathed in moonlight, while the other was black with shadows. The long shadows of poplars and starling-cotes spanned the entire street, and the church's shadow, black and menacing, lay in a broad band, clasping Dyudya's gate and half his house. There was no one about and it was quiet. From time to time faint strains of music were wafted from the end of the street—Alyoshka playing his accor- dion, no doubt.
In the shadow near the church fence someone was walking. Was it man or cow—or no more than a large bird rustling in the trees? One could not tell. Then a figure emerged from the shadows, paused, said something in a man's voice and vanished down the church lane. A little later another figure appeared about five yards from the gate. This person was moving straight to the gate from the church, and stopped still on seeing Sophia on the bench.
'Is that you, Barbara?' Sophia asked.
'What if it is?'
Barbara it was. She stood still for a minute, then came and sat on the bench.
'Where have you been ?' asked Sophia.
Barbara made no answer.
'You mind you don't get into trouble,' Sophia said. 'Playing around like this, and you only just married. Did you hear how they kicked Mashenka and whipped her with the reins? You mind that don't happen to you.'
'I don't care.'
Barbara laughed into her handkerchief.
'I've been having a bit of fun with the priest's son,' she whispered.
'You don't mean it!'
'It's God's truth.'
'That's a sin,' Sophia whispered.
'Who cares? Why bothet? Sin or no sin, I'd rather be struck by lightning than live this way. I'm young and healthy, and I have a hunchbacked husband that I can't abide—he's that pig-headed, he's wotse than that blasted Dyudya. I never had enough to eat as a gitl, and I went batefoot. To escape such misery I took the bait of Alyoshka's money, and became a slave. I was caught like a rat in a trap, and now I'd rather sleep with a viper than with that rotten Alyoshka. And your life too—it don't bear thinking of! Your Theodote threw you out of the factoty—sent you to his father's—and took up with another woman. They took your boy off you and made a slave out of him. You wotk like a horse, and never hear a kind wotd. Better pine away as an old maid all yout life, better take yout half-roubles from the priest's sons, better go begging, bettet throw yourself head first do^ a well ' 'That's a sin,' Sophia whispered again.
'Who cares ?'
Somewhere beyond the church the same three voices—the two tenors and the bass—started another sad song. Once again the words were inaudible.
'They're making quite a night of it,' Barbara laughed.
She began whispering about the fun she was having with the priest's son of a night—what he said, what his friends were like, and about how she also carried on with officials and merchants who stayed at the house. The sad song bore a whiff of freedom, and Sophia began laughing. It was all very sinful and frightening and sweet to the ear. She envied Barbara, sorry that she hadn't sinned herself when she was young and beautiful.
Midnight struck in the old church by the cemetery.
'We'd better go to bed, or else Dyudya rna y miM us,' said Sophia, getting up.
Both went quietly into the yard.
'I went away and missed the end of his story about Mashenka,' said Barbara, making her bed under the window.
'She died in gaol, he said. She'd poisoned her husband.'
Barbara lay down by Sophia and thought for a moment.
'I could kill Alyoshka,' she said. 'I'd think nothing of it.'
'You don't mean that, God help you.'
As Sophia was dropping off, Barbara huddled up to her.
'Let's do away with Dyudya and Alyoshka,' she whispered in her ear.
Sophia shuddered and said nothing, then opened her eyes and stared at the sky for a long time without winking.
'They'd find out,' she said.
'No, they wouldn't. Dyudya's an old man, he's not long for this world. And they'll say Alyoshka died of drink.'
'I'm afraid—. God would strike us dead.'
'Who cares ?'
Both lay awake, silently thinking.