ads:
In The Ravine
Anton Chekhov
I
THE village of Ukleevo lay in a ravine so that only the belfry and the chimneys of the
printed cottons factories could be seen from the high road and the railway-station. When
visitors asked what village this was, they were told:
"That's the village where the deacon ate all the caviare at the funeral."
It had happened at the dinner at the funeral of Kostukov that the old deacon saw among the
savouries some large-grained caviare and began eating it greedily; people nudged him,
tugged at his arm, but he seemed petrified with enjoyment: felt nothing, and only went on
eating. He ate up all the caviare, and there were four pounds in the jar. And years had
passed since then, the deacon had long been dead, but the caviare was still remembered.
Whether life was so poor here or people had not been clever enough to notice anything but
that unimportant incident that had occurred ten years before, anyway the people had nothing
else to tell about the village Ukleevo.
The village was never free from fever, and there was boggy mud there even in the summer,
especially under the fences over which hung old willow-trees that gave deep shade. Here
there was always a smell from the factory refuse and the acetic acid which was used in the
finishing of the cotton print.
The three cotton factories and the tanyard were not in the village itself, but a little way off.
They were small factories, and not more than four hundred workmen were employed in all
of them. The tanyard often made the water in the little river stink; the refuse contaminated
the meadows, the peasants' cattle suffered from Siberian plague, and orders were given that
the factory should be closed. It was considered to be closed, but went on working in secret
with the connivance of the local police officer and the district doctor, who was paid ten
roubles a month by the owner. In the whole village there were only two decent houses built
of brick with iron roofs; one of them was the local court, in the other, a two-storied house
just opposite the church, there lived a shopkeeper from Epifan called Grigory Petrovitch
Tsybukin.
Grigory kept a grocer's shop, but that was only for appearance' sake: in reality he sold
vodka, cattle, hides, grain, and pigs; he traded in anything that came to hand, and when, for
instance, magpies were wanted abroad for ladies' hats, he made some thirty kopecks on
every pair of birds; he bought timber for felling, lent money at interest, and altogether was a
sharp old man, full of resources.
He had two sons. The elder, Anisim, was in the police in the detective department and was
rarely at home. The younger, Stepan, had gone in for trade and helped his father: but no
great help was expected from him as he was weak in health and deaf; his wife Aksinya, a
handsome woman with a good figure, who wore a hat and carried a parasol on holidays, got
up early and went to bed late, and ran about all day long, picking up her skirts and jingling
ads:
Livros Grátis
http://www.livrosgratis.com.br
Milhares de livros grátis para download.
her keys, going from the granary to the cellar and from there to the shop, and old Tsybukin
looked at her good-humouredly while his eyes glowed, and at such moments he regretted
she had not been married to his elder son instead of to the younger one, who was deaf, and
who evidently knew very little about female beauty.
The old man had always an inclination for family life, and he loved his family more than
anything on earth, especially his elder son, the detective, and his daughter-in-law. Aksinya
had no sooner married the deaf son than she began to display an extraordinary gift for
business, and knew who could be allowed to run up a bill and who could not: she kept the
keys and would not trust them even to her husband; she kept the accounts by means of the
reckoning beads, looked at the horses' teeth like a peasant, and was always laughing or
shouting; and whatever she did or said the old man was simply delighted and muttered:
"Well done, daughter-in-law! You are a smart wench!"
He was a widower, but a year after his son's marriage he could not resist getting married
himself. A girl was found for him, living twenty miles from Ukleevo, called Varvara
Nikolaevna, no longer quite young, but good-looking, comely, and belonging to a decent
family. As soon as she was installed into the upper-storey room everything in the house
seemed to brighten up as though new glass had been put into all the windows. The lamps
gleamed before the ikons, the tables were covered with snow-white cloths, flowers with red
buds made their appearance in the windows and in the front garden, and at dinner, instead
of eating from a single bowl, each person had a separate plate set for him. Varvara
Nikolaevna had a pleasant, friendly smile, and it seemed as though the whole house were
smiling, too. Beggars and pilgrims, male and female, began to come into the yard, a thing
which had never happened in the past; the plaintive sing-song voices of the Ukleevo
peasant women and the apologetic coughs of weak, seedy-looking men, who had been
dismissed from the factory for drunkenness were heard under the windows. Varvara helped
them with money, with bread, with old clothes, and afterwards, when she felt more at home,
began taking things out of the shop. One day the deaf man saw her take four ounces of tea
and that disturbed him.
"Here, mother's taken four ounces of tea," he informed his father afterwards; "where is that
to be entered?"
The old man made no reply but stood still and thought a moment, moving his eyebrows,
and then went upstairs to his wife.
"Varvarushka, if you want anything out of the shop," he said affectionately, "take it, my
dear. Take it and welcome; don't hesitate."
And the next day the deaf man, running across the yard, called to her:
"If there is anything you want, mother, take it."
There was something new, something gay and light-hearted in her giving of alms, just as
there was in the lamps before the ikons and in the red flowers. When at Carnival or at the
church festival, which lasted for three days, they sold the peasants tainted salt meat,
smelling so strong it was hard to stand near the tub of it, and took scythes, caps, and their
ads:
wives' kerchiefs in pledge from the drunken men; when the factory hands stupefied with
bad vodka lay rolling in the mud, and sin seemed to hover thick like a fog in the air, then it
was a relief to think that up there in the house there was a gentle, neatly dressed woman
who had nothing to do with salt meat or vodka; her charity had in those burdensome, murky
days the effect of a safety valve in a machine.
The days in Tsybukin's house were spent in business cares. Before the sun had risen in the
morning Aksinya was panting and puffing as she washed in the outer room, and the
samovar was boiling in the kitchen with a hum that boded no good. Old Grigory Petrovitch,
dressed in a long black coat, cotton breeches and shiny top boots, looking a dapper little
figure, walked about the rooms, tapping with his little heels like the father-in-law in a well-
known song. The shop was opened. When it was daylight a racing droshky was brought up
to the front door and the old man got jauntily on to it, pulling his big cap down to his ears;
and, looking at him, no one would have said he was fifty-six. His wife and daughter-in-law
saw him off, and at such times when he had on a good, clean coat, and had in the droshky a
huge black horse that had cost three hundred roubles, the old man did not like the peasants
to come up to him with their complaints and petitions; he hated the peasants and disdained
them, and if he saw some peasants waiting at the gate, he would shout angrily:
"Why are you standing there? Go further off."
Or if it were a beggar, he would say:
"God will provide!"
He used to drive off on business; his wife, in a dark dress and a black apron, tidied the
rooms or helped in the kitchen. Aksinya attended to the shop, and from the yard could be
heard the clink of bottles and of money, her laughter and loud talk, and the anger of
customers whom she had offended; and at the same time it could be seen that the secret sale
of vodka was already going on in the shop. The deaf man sat in the shop, too, or walked
about the street bare-headed, with his hands in his pockets looking absent-mindedly now at
the huts, now at the sky overhead. Six times a day they had tea; four times a day they sat
down to meals; and in the evening they counted over their takings, put them down, went to
bed, and slept soundly.
All the three cotton factories in Ukleevo and the houses of the factory owners -- Hrymin
Seniors, Hrymin Juniors, and Kostukov -- were on a telephone. The telephone was laid on
in the local court, too, but it soon ceased to work as bugs and beetles bred there. The elder
of the rural district had had little education and wrote every word in the official documents
in capitals. But when the telephone was spoiled he said:
"Yes, now we shall be badly off without a telephone."
The Hrymin Seniors were continually at law with the Juniors, and sometimes the Juniors
quarrelled among themselves and began going to law, and their factory did not work for a
month or two till they were reconciled again, and this was an entertainment for the people
of Ukleevo, as there was a great deal of talk and gossip on the occasion of each quarrel. On
holidays Kostukov and the Juniors used to get up races, used to dash about Ukleevo and run
over calves. Aksinya, rustling her starched petticoats, used to promenade in a low-necked
dress up and down the street near her shop; the Juniors used to snatch her up and carry her
off as though by force. Then old Tsybukin would drive out to show his new horse and take
Varvara with him.
In the evening, after the races, when people were going to bed, an expensive concertina was
played in the Juniors' yard and, if it were a moonlight night, those sounds sent a thrill of
delight to the heart, and Ukleevo no longer seemed a wretched hole.
II
The elder son Anisim came home very rarely, only on great holidays, but he often sent by a
returning villager presents and letters written in very good writing by some other hand,
always on a sheet of foolscap in the form of a petition. The letters were full of expressions
that Anisim never made use of in conversation: "Dear papa and mamma, I send you a pound
of flower tea for the satisfaction of your physical needs."
At the bottom of every letter was scratched, as though with a broken pen: "Anisim
Tsybukin," and again in the same excellent hand: "Agent."
The letters were read aloud several times, and the old father, touched, red with emotion,
would say:
"Here he did not care to stay at home, he has gone in for an intellectual line. Well, let him!
Every man to his own job!
It happened just before Carnival there was a heavy storm of rain mixed with hail; the old
man and Varvara went to the window to look at it, and lo and behold! Anisim drove up in a
sledge from the station. He was quite unexpected. He came indoors, looking anxious and
troubled about something, and he remained the same all the time; there was something free
and easy in his manner. He was in no haste to go away, it seemed, as though he had been
dismissed from the service. Varvara was pleased at his arrival; she looked at him with a sly
expression, sighed, and shook her head.
"How is this, my friends?" she said. "Tut, tut, the lad's in his twenty-eighth year, and he is
still leading a gay bachelor life; tut, tut, tut. . . ."
From the other room her soft, even speech sounded like tut, tut, tut. She began whispering
with her husband and Aksinya, and their faces wore the same sly and mysterious expression
as though they were conspirators.
It was decided to marry Anisim.
"Oh, tut, tut . . . the younger brother has been married long ago," said Varvara, "and you are
still without a helpmate like a cock at a fair. What is the meaning of it? Tut, tut, you will be
married, please God, then as you choose -- you will go into the service and your wife will
remain here at home to help us. There is no order in your life, young man, and I see you
have forgotten how to live properly. Tut, tut, it's the same trouble with all you
townspeople."
When the Tsybukins married, the most handsome girls were chosen as brides for them as
rich men. For Anisim, too, they found a handsome one. He was himself of an uninteresting
and inconspicuous appearance; of a feeble, sickly build and short stature; he had full, puffy
cheeks which looked as though he were blowing them out; his eyes looked with a keen,
unblinking stare; his beard was red and scanty, and when he was thinking he always put it
into his mouth and bit it; moreover he often drank too much, and that was noticeable from
his face and his walk. But when he was informed that they had found a very beautiful bride
for him, he said:
"Oh well, I am not a fright myself. All of us Tsybukins are handsome, I may say."
The village of Torguevo was near the town. Half of it had lately been incorporated into the
town, the other half remained a village. In the first -- the town half -- there was a widow
living in her own little house; she had a sister living with her who was quite poor and went
out to work by the day, and this sister had a daughter called Lipa, a girl who went out to
work, too. People in Torguevo were already talking about Lipa's good looks, but her terrible
poverty put everyone off; people opined that some widower or elderly man would marry her
regardless of her poverty, or would perhaps take her to himself without marriage, and that
her mother would get enough to eat living with her. Varvara heard about Lipa from the
matchmakers, and she drove over to Torguevo.
Then a visit of inspection was arranged at the aunt's, with lunch and wine all in due order,
and Lipa wore a new pink dress made on purpose for this occasion, and a crimson ribbon
like a flame gleamed in her hair. She was pale-faced, thin, and frail, with soft, delicate
features sunburnt from working in the open air; a shy, mournful smile always hovered about
her face, and there was a childlike look in her eyes, trustful and curious.
She was young, quite a little girl, her bosom still scarcely perceptible, but she could be
married because she had reached the legal age. She really was beautiful, and the only thing
that might be thought unattractive was her big masculine hands which hung idle now like
two big claws.
"There is no dowry -- and we don't think much of that," said Tsybukin to the aunt. "We took
a wife from a poor family for our son Stepan, too, and now we can't say too much for her. In
house and in business alike she has hands of gold."
Lipa stood in the doorway and looked as though she would say: "Do with me as you will, I
trust you," while her mother Praskovya the work-woman hid herself in the kitchen numb
with shyness. At one time in her youth a merchant whose floors she was scrubbing stamped
at her in a rage; she went chill with terror and there always was a feeling of fear at the
bottom of her heart. When she was frightened her arms and legs trembled and her cheeks
twitched. Sitting in the kitchen she tried to hear what the visitors were saying, and she kept
crossing herself, pressing her fingers to her forehead, and gazing at the ikons. Anisim,
slightly drunk, opened the door into the kitchen and said in a free-and-easy way:
"Why are you sitting in here, precious mamma? We are dull without you."
And Praskovya, overcome with timidity, pressing her hands to her lean, wasted bosom,
said:
"Oh, not at all. . . . It's very kind of you."
After the visit of inspection the wedding day was fixed. Then Anisim walked about the
rooms at home whistling, or suddenly thinking of something, would fall to brooding and
would look at the floor fixedly, silently, as though he would probe to the depths of the
earth. He expressed neither pleasure that he was to be married, married so soon, on Low
Sunday, nor a desire to see his bride, but simply went on whistling. And it was evident he
was only getting married because his father and stepmother wished him to, and because it
was the custom in the village to marry the son in order to have a woman to help in the
house. When he went away he seemed in no haste, and behaved altogether not as he had
done on previous visits -- was particularly free and easy, and talked inappropriately.
III
In the village Shikalovo lived two dressmakers, sisters, belonging to the Flagellant sect. The
new clothes for the wedding were ordered from them, and they often came to try them on,
and stayed a long while drinking tea. They were making Varvara a brown dress with black
lace and bugles on it, and Aksinya a light green dress with a yellow front, with a train.
When the dressmakers had finished their work Tsybukin paid them not in money but in
goods from the shop, and they went away depressed, carrying parcels of tallow candles and
tins of sardines which they did not in the least need, and when they got out of the village
into the open country they sat down on a hillock and cried.
Anisim arrived three days before the wedding, rigged out in new clothes from top to toe. He
had dazzling india-rubber goloshes, and instead of a cravat wore a red cord with little balls
on it, and over his shoulder he had hung an overcoat, also new, without putting his arms
into the sleeves.
After crossing himself sedately before the ikon, he greeted his father and gave him ten
silver roubles and ten half-roubles; to Varvara he gave as much, and to Aksinya twenty
quarter-roubles. The chief charm of the present lay in the fact that all the coins, as though
carefully matched, were new and glittered in the sun. Trying to seem grave and sedate he
pursed up his face and puffed out his cheeks, and he smelt of spirits. Probably he had
visited the refreshment bar at every station. And again there was a free-and-easiness about
the man -- something superfluous and out of place. Then Anisim had lunch and drank tea
with the old man, and Varvara turned the new coins over in her hand and inquired about
villagers who had gone to live in the town.
"They are all right, thank God, they get on quite well," said Anisim. "Only something has
happened to Ivan Yegorov: his old wife Sofya Nikiforovna is dead. From consumption.
They ordered the memorial dinner for the peace of her soul at the confectioner's at two and
a half roubles a head. And there was real wine. Those who were peasants from our village --
they paid two and a half roubles for them, too. They ate nothing, as though a peasant would
understand sauce!"
"Two and a half," said his father, shaking his head.
"Well, it's not like the country there, you go into a restaurant to have a snack of something,
you ask for one thing and another, others join till there is a party of us, one has a drink --
and before you know where you are it is daylight and you've three or four roubles each to
pay. And when one is with Samorodov he likes to have coffee with brandy in it after
everything, and brandy is sixty kopecks for a little glass."
"And he is making it all up," said the old man enthusiastically; "he is making it all up,
lying!"
"I am always with Samorodov now. It is Samorodov who writes my letters to you. He
writes splendidly. And if I were to tell you, mamma," Anisim went on gaily, addressing
Varvara, "the sort of fellow that Samorodov is, you would not believe me. We call him
Muhtar, because he is black like an Armenian. I can see through him, I know all his affairs
like the five fingers of my hand, and he feels that, and he always follows me about, we are
regular inseparables. He seems not to like it in a way, but he can't get on without me. Where
I go he goes. I have a correct, trustworthy eye, mamma. One sees a peasant selling a shirt in
the market place. 'Stay, that shirt's stolen.' And really it turns out it is so: the shirt was a
stolen one."
"What do you tell from?" asked Varvara.
"Not from anything, I have just an eye for it. I know nothing about the shirt, only for some
reason I seem drawn to it: it's stolen, and that's all I can say. Among us detectives it's come
to their saying, 'Oh, Anisim has gone to shoot snipe!' That means looking for stolen goods.
Yes. . . . Anybody can steal, but it is another thing to keep! The earth is wide, but there is
nowhere to hide stolen goods."
"In our village a ram and two ewes were carried off last week," said Varvara, and she
heaved a sigh, and there is no one to try and find them. . . . Oh, tut, tut. ."
"Well, I might have a try. I don't mind."
The day of the wedding arrived. It was a cool but bright, cheerful April day. People were
driving about Ukleevo from early morning with pairs or teams of three horses decked with
many-coloured ribbons on their yokes and manes, with a jingle of bells. The rooks,
disturbed by this activity, were cawing noisily in the willows, and the starlings sang their
loudest unceasingly as though rejoicing that there was a wedding at the Tsybukins'.
Indoors the tables were already covered with long fish, smoked hams, stuffed fowls, boxes
of sprats, pickled savouries of various sorts, and a number of bottles of vodka and wine;
there was a smell of smoked sausage and of sour tinned lobster. Old Tsybukin walked about
near the tables, tapping with his heels and sharpening the knives against each other. They
kept calling Varvara and asking for things, and she was constantly with a distracted face
running breathlessly into the kitchen, where the man cook from Kostukov's and the woman
cook from Hrymin Juniors' had been at work since early morning. Aksinya, with her hair
curled, in her stays without her dress on, in new creaky boots, flew about the yard like a
whirlwind showing glimpses of her bare knees and bosom.
It was noisy, there was a sound of scolding and oaths; passers-by stopped at the wide-open
gates, and in everything there was a feeling that something extraordinary was happening.
"They have gone for the bride!"
The bells began jingling and died away far beyond the village. . . . Between two and three
o'clock people ran up: again there was a jingling of bells: they were bringing the bride! The
church was full, the candelabra were lighted, the choir were singing from music books as
old Tsybukin had wished it. The glare of the lights and the bright coloured dresses dazzled
Lipa; she felt as though the singers with their loud voices were hitting her on the head with
a hammer. Her boots and the stays, which she had put on for the first time in her life,
pinched her, and her face looked as though she had only just come to herself after fainting;
she gazed about without understanding. Anisim, in his black coat with a red cord instead of
a tie, stared at the same spot lost in thought, and when the singers shouted loudly he
hurriedly crossed himself. He felt touched and disposed to weep. This church was familiar
to him from earliest childhood; at one time his dead mother used to bring him here to take
the sacrament; at one time he used to sing in the choir; every ikon he remembered so well,
every corner. Here he was being married, he had to take a wife for the sake of doing the
proper thing, but he was not thinking of that now, he had forgotten his wedding completely.
Tears dimmed his eyes so that he could not see the ikons, he felt heavy at heart; he prayed
and besought God that the misfortunes that threatened him, that were ready to burst upon
him to-morrow, if not to-day, might somehow pass him by as storm-clouds in time of
drought pass over the village without yielding one drop of rain. And so many sins were
heaped up in the past, so many sins, all getting away from them or setting them right was so
beyond hope that it seemed incongruous even to ask forgiveness. But he did ask
forgiveness, and even gave a loud sob, but no one took any notice of that, since they all
supposed he had had a drop too much.
There was a sound of a fretful childish wail:
"Take me away, mamma darling!"
"Quiet there!" cried the priest.
When they returned from the church people ran after them; there were crowds, too, round
the shop, round the gates, and in the yard under the windows. The peasant women came in
to sing songs of congratulation to them. The young couple had scarcely crossed the
threshold when the singers, who were already standing in the outer room with their music
books, broke into a loud chant at the top of their voices; a band ordered expressly from the
town began playing. Foaming Don wine was brought in tall wine-glasses, and Elizarov, a
carpenter who did jobs by contract, a tall, gaunt old man with eyebrows so bushy that his
eyes could scarcely be seen, said, addressing the happy pair:
"Anisim and you, my child, love one another, live in God's way, little children, and the
Heavenly Mother will not abandon you."
He leaned his face on the old father's shoulder and gave a sob.
"Grigory Petrovitch, let us weep, let us weep with joy!" he said in a thin voice, and then at
once burst out laughing in a loud bass guffaw. "Ho-ho-ho! This is a fine daughter-in-law for
you too! Everything is in its place in her; all runs smoothly, no creaking, the mechanism
works well, lots of screws in it."
He was a native of the Yegoryevsky district, but had worked in the factories in Ukleevo and
the neighborhood from his youth up, and had made it his home. He had been a familiar
figure for years as old and gaunt and lanky as now, and for years he had been nicknamed
"Crutch." Perhaps because he had been for forty years occupied in repairing the factory
machinery he judged everybody and everything by its soundness or its need of repair. And
before sitting down to the table he tried several chairs to see whether they were solid, and
he touched the smoked fish also.
After the Don wine, they all sat down to the table. The visitors talked, moving their chairs.
The singers were singing in the outer room. The band was playing, and at the same time the
peasant women in the yard were singing their songs all in chorus -- and there was an awful,
wild medley of sounds which made one giddy.
Crutch turned round in his chair and prodded his neighbours with his elbows, prevented
people from talking, and laughed and cried alternately.
"Little children, little children, little children," he muttered rapidly. "Aksinya my dear,
Varvara darling, we will live all in peace and harmony, my dear little axes. . . ."
He drank little and was now only drunk from one glass of English bitters. The revolting
bitters, made from nobody knows what, intoxicated everyone who drank it as though it had
stunned them. Their tongues began to falter.
The local clergy, the clerks from the factories with their wives, the tradesmen and tavern-
keepers from the other villages were present. The clerk and the elder of the rural district
who had served together for fourteen years, and who had during all that time never signed a
single document for anybody nor let a single person out of the local court without deceiving
or insulting him, were sitting now side by side, both fat and well-fed, and it seemed as
though they were so saturated in injustice and falsehood that even the skin of their faces
was somehow peculiar, fraudulent. The clerk's wife, a thin woman with a squint, had
brought all her children with her, and like a bird of prey looked aslant at the plates and
snatched anything she could get hold of to put in her own or her children's pockets.
Lipa sat as though turned to stone, still with the same expression as in church. Anisim had
not said a single word to her since he had made her acquaintance, so that he did not yet
know the sound of her voice; and now, sitting beside her, he remained mute and went on
drinking bitters, and when he got drunk he began talking to the aunt who was sitting
opposite:
"I have a friend called Samorodov. A peculiar man. He is by rank an honorary citizen, and
he can talk. But I know him through and through, auntie, and he feels it. Pray join me in
drinking to the health of Samorodov, auntie!"
Varvara, worn out and distracted, walked round the table pressing the guests to eat, and was
evidently pleased that there were so many dishes and that everything was so lavish -- no one
could disparage them now. The sun set, but the dinner went on: the guests were beyond
knowing what they were eating or drinking, it was impossible to distinguish what was said,
and only from time to time when the band subsided some peasant woman could be heard
shouting:
"They have sucked the blood out of us, the Herods; a pest on them!"
In the evening they danced to the band. The Hrymin Juniors came, bringing their wine, and
one of them, when dancing a quadrille, held a bottle in each hand and a wineglass in his
mouth, and that made everyone laugh. In the middle of the quadrille they suddenly crooked
their knees and danced in a squatting position; Aksinya in green flew by like a flash, stirring
up a wind with her train. Someone trod on her flounce and Crutch shouted:
"Aie, they have torn off the panel! Children!"
Aksinya had naïve grey eyes which rarely blinked, and a naïve smile played continually on
her face. And in those unblinking eyes, and in that little head on the long neck, and in her
slenderness there was something snake-like; all in green but for the yellow on her bosom,
she looked with a smile on her face as a viper looks out of the young rye in the spring at the
passers-by, stretching itself and lifting its head. The Hrymins were free in their behaviour to
her, and it was very noticeable that she was on intimate terms with the elder of them. But
her deaf husband saw nothing, he did not look at her; he sat with his legs crossed and ate
nuts, cracking them so loudly that it sounded like pistol shots.
But, behold, old Tsybukin himself walked into the middle of the room and waved his
handkerchief as a sign that he, too, wanted to dance the Russian dance, and all over the
house and from the crowd in the yard rose a roar of approbation:
"He's going to dance! He himself!"
Varvara danced, but the old man only waved his handkerchief and kicked up his heels, but
the people in the yard, propped against one another, peeping in at the windows, were in
raptures, and for the moment forgave him everything -- his wealth and the wrongs he had
done them.
"Well done, Grigory Petrovitch!" was heard in the crowd. "That's right, do your best! You
can still play your part! Ha-ha!"
It was kept up till late, till two o'clock in the morning. Anisim, staggering, went to take
leave of the singers and bandsmen, and gave each of them a new half-rouble. His father,
who was not staggering but still seemed to be standing on one leg, saw his guests off, and
said to each of them:
"The wedding has cost two thousand."
As the party was breaking up, someone took the Shikalovo innkeeper's good coat instead of
his own old one, and Anisim suddenly flew into a rage and began shouting:
"Stop, I'll find it at once; I know who stole it, stop."
He ran out into the street and pursued someone. He was caught, brought back home and
shoved, drunken, red with anger, and wet, into the room where the aunt was undressing
Lipa, and was locked in.
IV
Five days had passed. Anisim, who was preparing to go, went upstairs to say good-bye to
Varvara. All the lamps were burning before the ikons, there was a smell of incense, while
she sat at the window knitting a stocking of red wool.
"You have not stayed with us long," she said. "You've been dull, I dare say. Oh, tut, tut. We
live comfortably; we have plenty of everything. We celebrated your wedding properly, in
good style; your father says it came to two thousand. In fact we live like merchants, only it's
dreary. We treat the people very badly. My heart aches, my dear; how we treat them, my
goodness! Whether we exchange a horse or buy something or hire a labourer -- it's cheating
in everything. Cheating and cheating. The Lenten oil in the shop is bitter, rancid, the people
have pitch that is better. But surely, tell me pray, couldn't we sell good oil?"
"Every man to his job, mamma."
"But you know we all have to die? Oy, oy, really you ought to talk to your father . . . !"
"Why, you should talk to him yourself."
"Well, well, I did put in my word, but he said just what you do: 'Every man to his own job.'
Do you suppose in the next world they'll consider what job you have been put to? God's
judgment is just."
"Of course no one will consider," said Anisim, and he heaved a sigh. "There is no God,
anyway, you know, mamma, so what considering can there be?"
Varvara looked at him with surprise, burst out laughing, and clasped her hands. Perhaps
because she was so genuinely surprised at his words and looked at him as though he were a
queer person, he was confused.
"Perhaps there is a God, only there is no faith. When I was being married I was not myself.
Just as you may take an egg from under a hen and there is a chicken chirping in it, so my
conscience was beginning to chirp in me, and while I was being married I thought all the
time there was a God! But when I left the church it was nothing. And indeed, how can I tell
whether there is a God or not? We are not taught right from childhood, and while the babe
is still at his mother's breast he is only taught 'every man to his own job.' Father does not
believe in God, either. You were saying that Guntorev had some sheep stolen. . . . I have
found them; it was a peasant at Shikalovo stole them; he stole them, but father's got the
fleeces . . . so that's all his faith amounts to."
Anisim winked and wagged his head.
"The elder does not believe in God, either," he went on. "And the clerk and the deacon, too.
And as for their going to church and keeping the fasts, that is simply to prevent people
talking ill of them, and in case it really may be true that there will be a Day of Judgment.
Nowadays people say that the end of the world has come because people have grown
weaker, do not honour their parents, and so on. All that is nonsense. My idea, mamma, is
that all our trouble is because there is so little conscience in people. I see through things,
mamma, and I understand. If a man has a stolen shirt I see it. A man sits in a tavern and you
fancy he is drinking tea and no more, but to me the tea is neither here nor there; I see
further, he has no conscience. You can go about the whole day and not meet one man with a
conscience. And the whole reason is that they don't know whether there is a God or not. . . .
Well, good-bye, mamma, keep alive and well, don't remember evil against me."
Anisim bowed down at Varvara's feet.
"I thank you for everything, mamma," he said. "You are a great gain to our family. You are
a very ladylike woman, and I am very pleased with you."
Much moved, Anisim went out, but returned again and said:
"Samorodov has got me mixed up in something: I shall either make my fortune or come to
grief. If anything happens, then you must comfort my father, mamma."
"Oh, nonsense, don't you worry, tut, tut, tut. . . God is merciful. And, Anisim, you should be
affectionate to your wife, instead of giving each other sulky looks as you do; you might
smile at least."
"Yes, she is rather a queer one," said Anisim, and he gave a sigh. "She does not understand
anything, she never speaks. She is very young, let her grow up."
A tall, sleek white stallion was already standing at the front door, harnessed to the chaise.
Old Tsybukin jumped in jauntily with a run and took the reins. Anisim kissed Varvara,
Aksinya, and his brother. On the steps Lipa, too, was standing; she was standing
motionless, looking away, and it seemed as though she had not come to see him off but just
by chance for some unknown reason. Anisim went up to her and just touched her cheek
with his lips.
"Good-bye," he said.
And without looking at him she gave a strange smile; her face began to quiver, and
everyone for some reason felt sorry for her. Anisim, too, leaped into the chaise with a
bound and put his arms jauntily akimbo, for he considered himself a good-looking fellow.
When they drove up out of the ravine Anisim kept looking back towards the village. It was
a warm, bright day. The cattle were being driven out for the first time, and the peasant girls
and women were walking by the herd in their holiday dresses. The dun-coloured bull
bellowed, glad to be free, and pawed the ground with his forefeet. On all sides, above and
below, the larks were singing. Anisim looked round at the elegant white church -- it had
only lately been whitewashed -- and he thought how he had been praying in it five days
before; he looked round at the school with its green roof, at the little river in which he used
once to bathe and catch fish, and there was a stir of joy in his heart, and he wished that
walls might rise up from the ground and prevent him from going further, and that he might
be left with nothing but the past.
At the station they went to the refreshment room and drank a glass of sherry each. His
father felt in his pocket for his purse to pay.
"I will stand treat," said Anisim. The old man, touched and delighted, slapped him on the
shoulder, and winked to the waiter as much as to say, "See what a fine son I have got."
"You ought to stay at home in the business, Anisim," he said; "you would be worth any
price to me! I would shower gold on you from head to foot, my son."
"It can't be done, papa."
The sherry was sour and smelt of sealing-wax, but they had another glass.
When old Tsybukin returned home from the station, for the first moment he did not
recognize his younger daughter-in-law. As soon as her husband had driven out of the yard,
Lipa was transformed and suddenly brightened up. Wearing a threadbare old petticoat, with
her feet bare and her sleeves tucked up to the shoulders, she was scrubbing the stairs in the
entry and singing in a silvery little voice, and when she brought out a big tub of dirty water
and looked up at the sun with her childlike smile it seemed as though she, too, were a lark.
An old labourer who was passing by the door shook his head and cleared his throat.
"Yes, indeed, your daughters-in-law, Grigory Petrovitch, are a blessing from God," he said.
"Not women, but treasures!"
V
On Friday the 8th of July, Elizarov, nicknamed Crutch, and Lipa were returning from the
village of Kazanskoe, where they had been to a service on the occasion of a church holiday
in the honour of the Holy Mother of Kazan. A good distance after them walked Lipa's
mother Praskovya, who always fell behind, as she was ill and short of breath. It was
drawing towards evening.
"A-a-a . . ." said Crutch, wondering as he listened to Lipa. "A-a! . . . We-ell!
"I am very fond of jam, Ilya Makaritch," said Lipa. "I sit down in my little corner and drink
tea and eat jam. Or I drink it with Varvara Nikolaevna, and she tells some story full of
feeling. We have a lot of jam -- four jars. 'Have some, Lipa; eat as much as you like.' "
"A-a-a, four jars!"
"They live very well. We have white bread with our tea; and meat, too, as much as one
wants. They live very well, only I am frightened with them, Ilya Makaritch. Oh, oh, how
frightened I am!"
"Why are you frightened, child?" asked Crutch, and he looked back to see how far
Praskovya was behind.
"To begin with, when the wedding had been celebrated I was afraid of Anisim Grigoritch.
Anisim Grigoritch did nothing, he didn't ill-treat me, only when he comes near me a cold
shiver runs all over me, through all my bones. And I did not sleep one night, I trembled all
over and kept praying to God. And now I am afraid of Aksinya, Ilya Makaritch. It's not that
she does anything, she is always laughing, but sometimes she glances at the window, and
her eyes are so fierce and there is a gleam of green in them -- like the eyes of the sheep in
the shed. The Hrymin Juniors are leading her astray: 'Your old man,' they tell her, 'has a bit
of land at Butyokino, a hundred and twenty acres,' they say, 'and there is sand and water
there, so you, Aksinya,' they say, 'build a brickyard there and we will go shares in it.' Bricks
now are twenty roubles the thousand, it's a profitable business. Yesterday at dinner Aksinya
said to my father-in-law: 'I want to build a brickyard at Butyokino; I'm going into business
on my own account.' She laughed as she said it. And Grigory Petrovitch's face darkened,
one could see he did not like it. 'As long as I live,' he said, 'the family must not break up, we
must go on altogether.' She gave a look and gritted her teeth. . . . Fritters were served, she
would not eat them."
"A-a-a! . . ." Crutch was surprised.
"And tell me, if you please, when does she sleep?" said Lipa. "She sleeps for half an hour,
then jumps up and keeps walking and walking about to see whether the peasants have not
set fire to something, have not stolen something. . . . I am frightened with her, Ilya
Makaritch. And the Hrymin Juniors did not go to bed after the wedding, but drove to the
town to go to law with each other; and folks do say it is all on account of Aksinya. Two of
the brothers have promised to build her a brickyard, but the third is offended, and the
factory has been at a standstill for a month, and my uncle Prohor is without work and goes
about from house to house getting crusts. 'Hadn't you better go working on the land or
sawing up wood, meanwhile, uncle?' I tell him; 'why disgrace yourself?' 'I've got out of the
way of it,' he says; 'I don't know how to do any sort of peasant's work now, Lipinka.' . . ."
They stopped to rest and wait for Praskovya near a copse of young aspen-trees. Elizarov had
long been a contractor in a small way, but he kept no horses, going on foot all over the
district with nothing but a little bag in which there was bread and onions, and stalking along
with big strides, swinging his arms. And it was difficult to walk with him.
At the entrance to the copse stood a milestone. Elizarov touched it; read it. Praskovya
reached them out of breath. Her wrinkled and always scared-looking face was beaming with
happiness; she had been at church to-day like anyone else, then she had been to the fair and
there had drunk pear cider. For her this was unusual, and it even seemed to her now that she
had lived for her own pleasure that day for the first time in her life. After resting they all
three walked on side by side. The sun had already set, and its beams filtered through the
copse, casting a light on the trunks of the trees. There was a faint sound of voices ahead.
The Ukleevo girls had long before pushed on ahead but had lingered in the copse, probably
gathering mushrooms.
"Hey, wenches!" cried Elizarov. "Hey, my beauties!"
There was a sound of laughter in response.
"Crutch is coming! Crutch! The old horseradish."
And the echo laughed, too. And then the copse was left behind. The tops of the factory
chimneys came into view. The cross on the belfry glittered: this was the village: "the one at
which the deacon ate all the caviare at the funeral." Now they were almost home; they only
had to go down into the big ravine. Lipa and Praskovya, who had been walking barefooted,
sat down on the grass to put on their boots; Elizar sat down with them. If they looked down
from above Ukleevo looked beautiful and peaceful with its willow-trees, its white church,
and its little river, and the only blot on the picture was the roof of the factories, painted for
the sake of cheapness a gloomy ashen grey. On the slope on the further side they could see
the rye -- some in stacks and sheaves here and there as though strewn about by the storm,
and some freshly cut lying in swathes; the oats, too, were ripe and glistened now in the sun
like mother-of-pearl. It was harvest-time. To-day was a holiday, to-morrow they would
harvest the rye and carry the hay, and then Sunday a holiday again; every day there were
mutterings of distant thunder. It was misty and looked like rain, and, gazing now at the
fields, everyone thought, God grant we get the harvest in in time; and everyone felt gay and
joyful and anxious at heart.
"Mowers ask a high price nowadays," said Praskovya. "One rouble and forty kopecks a
day."
People kept coming and coming from the fair at Kazanskoe: peasant women, factory
workers in new caps, beggars, children. . . . Here a cart would drive by stirring up the dust
and behind it would run an unsold horse, and it seemed glad it had not been sold; then a
cow was led along by the horns, resisting stubbornly; then a cart again, and in it drunken
peasants swinging their legs. An old woman led a little boy in a big cap and big boots; the
boy was tired out with the heat and the heavy boots which prevented his bending his legs at
the knees, but yet blew unceasingly with all his might at a tin trumpet. They had gone down
the slope and turned into the street, but the trumpet could still be heard.
"Our factory owners don't seem quite themselves . . ." said Elizarov. "There's trouble.
Kostukov is angry with me. 'Too many boards have gone on the cornices.' 'Too many? As
many have gone on it as were needed, Vassily Danilitch; I don't eat them with my porridge.'
'How can you speak to me like that?' said he, 'you good-for-nothing blockhead! Don't forget
yourself! It was I made you a contractor.' 'That's nothing so wonderful,' said I. 'Even before I
was a contractor I used to have tea every day.' 'You are a rascal . . .' he said. I said nothing.
'We are rascals in this world,' thought I, 'and you will be rascals in the next. . . .' Ha-ha-ha!
The next day he was softer. 'Don't you bear malice against me for my words, Makaritch,' he
said. 'If I said too much,' says he, 'what of it? I am a merchant of the first guild, your
superior -- you ought to hold your tongue.' 'You,' said I, 'are a merchant of the first guild and
I am a carpenter, that's correct. And Saint Joseph was a carpenter, too. Ours is a righteous
calling and pleasing to God, and if you are pleased to be my superior you are very welcome
to it, Vassily Danilitch.' And later on, after that conversation I mean, I thought: 'Which was
the superior? A merchant of the first guild or a carpenter?' The carpenter must be, my
child!"
Crutch thought a minute and added:
"Yes, that's how it is, child. He who works, he who is patient is the superior."
By now the sun had set and a thick mist as white as milk was rising over the river, in the
church enclosure, and in the open spaces round the factories. Now when the darkness was
coming on rapidly, when lights were twinkling below, and when it seemed as though the
mists were hiding a fathomless abyss, Lipa and her mother who were born in poverty and
prepared to live so till the end, giving up to others everything except their frightened, gentle
souls, may have fancied for a minute perhaps that in the vast, mysterious world, among the
endless series of lives, they, too, counted for something, and they, too, were superior to
someone; they liked sitting here at the top, they smiled happily and forgot that they must go
down below again all the same.
At last they went home again. The mowers were sitting on the ground at the gates near the
shop. As a rule the Ukleevo peasants did not go to Tsybukin's to work, and they had to hire
strangers, and now in the darkness it seemed as though there were men sitting there with
long black beards. The shop was open, and through the doorway they could see the deaf
man playing draughts with a boy. The mowers were singing softly, scarcely audibly, or
loudly demanding their wages for the previous day, but they were not paid for fear they
should go away before to-morrow. Old Tsybukin, with his coat off, was sitting in his
waistcoat with Aksinya under the birch-tree, drinking tea; a lamp was burning on the table.
"I say, grandfather," a mower called from outside the gates, as though taunting him, "pay us
half anyway! Hey, grandfather."
And at once there was the sound of laughter, and then again they sang hardly audibly. . . .
Crutch, too, sat down to have some tea.
"We have been at the fair, you know," he began telling them. "We have had a walk, a very
nice walk, my children, praise the Lord. But an unfortunate thing happened: Sashka the
blacksmith bought some tobacco and gave the shopman half a rouble to be sure. And the
half rouble was a false one" --Crutch went on, and he meant to speak in a whisper, but he
spoke in a smothered husky voice which was audible to everyone. "The half-rouble turned
out to be a bad one. He was asked where he got it. 'Anisim Tsybukin gave it me,' he said.
'When I went to his wedding,' he said. They called the police inspector, took the man
away. . . . Look out, Grigory Petrovitch, that nothing comes of it, no talk. . . ."
"Gra-ndfather!" the same voice called tauntingly outside the gates. "Gra-andfather!"
A silence followed.
"Ah, little children, little children, little children . . ." Crutch muttered rapidly, and he got
up. He was overcome with drowsiness. "Well, thank you for the tea, for the sugar, little
children. It is time to sleep. I am like a bit of rotten timber nowadays, my beams are
crumbling under me. Ho-ho-ho! I suppose it's time I was dead."
And he gave a gulp. Old Tsybukin did not finish his tea but sat on a little, pondering; and
his face looked as though he were listening to the footsteps of Crutch, who was far away
down the street.
"Sashka the blacksmith told a lie, I expect," said Aksinya, guessing his thoughts.
He went into the house and came back a little later with a parcel; he opened it, and there
was the gleam of roubles -- perfectly new coins. He took one, tried it with his teeth, flung it
on the tray; then flung down another.
"The roubles really are false . . ." he said, looking at Aksinya and seeming perplexed.
"These are those Anisim brought, his present. Take them, daughter," he whispered, and
thrust the parcel into her hands. "Take them and throw them into the well . . . confound
them! And mind there is no talk about it. Harm might come of it. . . . Take away the
samovar, put out the light."
Lipa and her mother sitting in the barn saw the lights go out one after the other; only
overhead in Varvara's room there were blue and red lamps gleaming, and a feeling of peace,
content, and happy ignorance seemed to float down from there. Praskovya could never get
used to her daughter's being married to a rich man, and when she came she huddled timidly
in the outer room with a deprecating smile on her face, and tea and sugar were sent out to
her. And Lipa, too, could not get used to it either, and after her husband had gone away she
did not sleep in her bed, but lay down anywhere to sleep, in the kitchen or the barn, and
every day she scrubbed the floor or washed the clothes, and felt as though she were hired by
the day. And now, on coming back from the service, they drank tea in the kitchen with the
cook, then they went into the barn and lay down on the ground between the sledge and the
wall. It was dark here and smelt of harness. The lights went out about the house, then they
could hear the deaf man shutting up the shop, the mowers settling themselves about the
yard to sleep. In the distance at the Hrymin Juniors' they were playing on the expensive
concertina. . . . Praskovya and Lipa began to go to sleep.
And when they were awakened by somebody's steps it was bright moonlight; at the entrance
of the barn stood Aksinya with her bedding in her arms.
"Maybe it's a bit cooler here," she said; then she came in and lay down almost in the
doorway so that the moonlight fell full upon her.
She did not sleep, but breathed heavily, tossing from side to side with the heat, throwing off
almost all the bedclothes. And in the magic moonlight what a beautiful, what a proud
animal she was! A little time passed, and then steps were heard again: the old father, white
all over, appeared in the doorway.
"Aksinya," he called, " are you here?"
"Well?" she responded angrily.
"I told you just now to throw the money into the well, have you done so?"
"What next, throwing property into the water! I gave them to the mowers. . . ."
"Oh my God!" cried the old man, dumbfounded and alarmed. "Oh my God! you wicked
woman. . . ."
He flung up his hands and went out, and he kept saying something as he went away. And a
little later Aksinya sat up and sighed heavily with annoyance, then got up and, gathering up
her bedclothes in her arms, went out.
"Why did you marry me into this family, mother?" said Lipa.
"One has to be married, daughter. It was not us who ordained it."
And a feeling of inconsolable woe was ready to take possession of them. But it seemed to
them that someone was looking down from the height of the heavens, out of the blue from
where the stars were seeing everything that was going on in Ukleevo, watching over them.
And however great was wickedness, still the night was calm and beautiful, and still in God's
world there is and will be truth and justice as calm and beautiful, and everything on earth is
only waiting to be made one with truth and justice, even as the moonlight is blended with
the night.
And both, huddling close to one another, fell asleep comforted.
VI
News had come long before that Anisim had been put in prison for coining and passing bad
money. Months passed, more than half a year passed, the long winter was over, spring had
begun, and everyone in the house and the village had grown used to the fact that Anisim
was in prison. And when anyone passed by the house or the shop at night he would
remember that Anisim was in prison; and when they rang at the churchyard for some
reason, that, too, reminded them that he was in prison awaiting trial.
It seemed as though a shadow had fallen upon the house. The house looked darker, the roof
was rustier, the heavy, iron-bound door into the shop, which was painted green, was
covered with cracks, or, as the deaf man expressed it, "blisters"; and old Tsybukin seemed
to have grown dingy, too. He had given up cutting his hair and beard, and looked shaggy.
He no longer sprang jauntily into his chaise, nor shouted to beggars: "God will provide!"
His strength was on the wane, and that was evident in everything. People were less afraid of
him now, and the police officer drew up a formal charge against him in the shop though he
received his regular bribe as before; and three times the old man was called up to the town
to be tried for illicit dealing in spirits, and the case was continually adjourned owing to the
non-appearance of witnesses, and old Tsybukin was worn out with worry.
He often went to see his son, hired somebody, handed in a petition to somebody else,
presented a holy banner to some church. He presented the governor of the prison in which
Anisim was confined with a silver glass stand with a long spoon and the inscription: "The
soul knows its right measure."
"There is no one to look after things for us," said Varvara. "Tut, tut. . . . You ought to ask
someone of the gentlefolks, they would write to the head officials. . . . At least they might
let him out on bail! Why wear the poor fellow out?"
She, too, was grieved, but had grown stouter and whiter; she lighted the lamps before the
ikons as before, and saw that everything in the house was clean, and regaled the guests with
jam and apple cheese. The deaf man and Aksinya looked after the shop. A new project was
in progress -- a brickyard in Butyokino -- and Aksinya went there almost every day in the
chaise. She drove herself, and when she met acquaintances she stretched out her neck like a
snake out of the young rye, and smiled naïvely and enigmatically. Lipa spent her time
playing with the baby which had been born to her before Lent. It was a tiny, thin, pitiful
little baby, and it was strange that it should cry and gaze about and be considered a human
being, and even be called Nikifor. He lay in his swinging cradle, and Lipa would walk away
towards the door and say, bowing to him:
"Good-day, Nikifor Anisimitch!"
And she would rush at him and kiss him. Then she would walk away to the door, bow
again, and say:
'Good-day, Nikifor Anisimitch!
And he kicked up his little red legs, and his crying was mixed with laughter like the
carpenter Elizarov's.
At last the day of the trial was fixed. Tsybukin went away five days before. Then they heard
that the peasants called as witnesses had been fetched; their old workman who had received
a notice to appear went too.
The trial was on a Thursday. But Sunday had passed, and Tsybukin was still not back, and
there was no news. Towards the evening on Tuesday Varvara was sitting at the open
window, listening for her husband to come. In the next room Lipa was playing with her
baby. She was tossing him up in her arms and saying enthusiastically:
"You will grow up ever so big, ever so big. You will be a peasant, we shall go out to work
together! We shall go out to work together!"
"Come, come," said Varvara, offended. "Go out to work, what an idea, you silly girl! He
will be a merchant . . .!"
Lipa sang softly, but a minute later she forgot and again:
"You will grow ever so big, ever so big. You will be a peasant, we'll go out to work
together."
"There she is at it again!"
Lipa, with Nikifor in her arms, stood still in the doorway and asked:
"Why do I love him so much, mamma? Why do I feel so sorry for him?" she went on in a
quivering voice, and her eyes glistened with tears. "Who is he? What is he like? As light as
a little feather, as a little crumb, but I love him; I love him like a real person. Here he can do
nothing, he can't talk, and yet I know what he wants with his little eyes."
Varvara was listening; the sound of the evening train coming in to the station reached her.
Had her husband come? She did not hear and she did not heed what Lipa was saying, she
had no idea how the time passed, but only trembled all over -- not from dread, but intense
curiosity. She saw a cart full of peasants roll quickly by with a rattle. It was the witnesses
coming back from the station. When the cart passed the shop the old workman jumped out
and walked into the yard. She could hear him being greeted in the yard and being asked
some questions. . . .
"Deprivation of rights and all his property," he said loudly, "and six years' penal servitude in
Siberia."
She could see Aksinya come out of the shop by the back way; she had just been selling
kerosene, and in one hand held a bottle and in the other a can, and in her mouth she had
some silver coins.
"Where is father?" she asked, lisping.
"At the station," answered the labourer. " 'When it gets a little darker,' he said, 'then I shall
come.' "
And when it became known all through the household that Anisim was sentenced to penal
servitude, the cook in the kitchen suddenly broke into a wail as though at a funeral,
imagining that this was demanded by the proprieties:
"There is no one to care for us now you have gone, Anisim Grigoritch, our bright
falcon. . . ."
The dogs began barking in alarm. Varvara ran to the window, and rushing about in distress,
shouted to the cook with all her might, straining her voice:
"Sto-op, Stepanida, sto-op! Don't harrow us, for Christ's sake!"
They forgot to set the samovar, they could think of nothing. Only Lipa could not make out
what it was all about and went on playing with her baby.
When the old father arrived from the station they asked him no questions. He greeted them
and walked through all the rooms in silence; he had no supper.
"There was no one to see about things . . ." Varvara began when they were alone. "I said
you should have asked some of the gentry, you would not heed me at the time. . . . A
petition would . . ."
"I saw to things," said her husband with a wave of his hand. "When Anisim was condemned
I went to the gentleman who was defending him. 'It's no use now,' he said, 'it's too late'; and
Anisim said the same; it's too late. But all the same as I came out of the court I made an
agreement with a lawyer, I paid him something in advance. I'll wait a week and then I will
go again. It is as God wills."
Again the old man walked through all the rooms, and when he went back to Varvara he
said:
"I must be ill. My head's in a sort of . . . fog. My thoughts are in a maze."
He closed the door that Lipa might not hear, and went on softly:
"I am unhappy about my money. Do you remember on Low Sunday before his wedding
Anisim's bringing me some new roubles and half-roubles? One parcel I put away at the
time, but the others I mixed with my own money. When my uncle Dmitri Filatitch -- the
kingdom of heaven be his -- was alive, he used constantly to go journeys to Moscow and to
the Crimea to buy goods. He had a wife, and this same wife, when he was away buying
goods, used to take up with other men. She had half a dozen children. And when uncle was
in his cups he would laugh and say: 'I never can make out,' he used to say, 'which are my
children and which are other people's.' An easy-going disposition, to be sure; and so I now
can't distinguish which are genuine roubles and which are false ones. And it seems to me
that they are all false."
"Nonsense, God bless you."
"I take a ticket at the station, I give the man three roubles, and I keep fancying they are
false. And I am frightened. I must be ill."
"There's no denying it, we are all in God's hands. . . . Oh dear, dear . . ." said Varvara, and
she shook her head. "You ought to think about this, Grigory Petrovitch: you never know,
anything may happen, you are not a young man. See they don't wrong your grandchild when
you are dead and gone. Oy, I am afraid they will be unfair to Nikifor! He has as good as no
father, his mother's young and foolish . . . you ought to secure something for him, poor little
boy, at least the land, Butyokino, Grigory Petrovitch, really! Think it over!" Varvara went
on persuading him. "The pretty boy, one is sorry for him! You go to-morrow and make out
a deed; why put it off?"
"I'd forgotten about my grandson," said Tsybukin. "I must go and have a look at him. So
you say the boy is all right? Well, let him grow up, please God."
He opened the door and, crooking his finger, beckoned to Lipa. She went up to him with the
baby in her arms.
"If there is anything you want, Lipinka, you ask for it," he said. "And eat anything you like,
we don't grudge it, so long as it does you good. . . ." He made the sign of the cross over the
baby. "And take care of my grandchild. My son is gone, but my grandson is left."
Tears rolled down his cheeks; he gave a sob and went away. Soon afterwards he went to
bed and slept soundly after seven sleepless nights.
VII
Old Tsybukin went to the town for a short time. Someone told Aksinya that he had gone to
the notary to make his will and that he was leaving Butyokino, the very place where she had
set up a brickyard, to Nikifor, his grandson. She was informed of this in the morning when
old Tsybukin and Varvara were sitting near the steps under the birch-tree, drinking their tea.
She closed the shop in the front and at the back, gathered together all the keys she had, and
flung them at her father-in-law's feet.
"I am not going on working for you," she began in a loud voice, and suddenly broke into
sobs. "It seems I am not your daughter-in-law, but a servant! Everybody's jeering and
saying, 'See what a servant the Tsybukins have got hold of!' I did not come to you for
wages! I am not a beggar, I am not a slave, I have a father and mother."
She did not wipe away her tears, she fixed upon her father-in-law eyes full of tears,
vindictive, squinting with wrath; her face and neck were red and tense, and she was
shouting at the top of her voice.
"I don't mean to go on being a slave!" she went on. "I am worn out. When it is work, when
it is sitting in the shop day in and day out, scurrying out at night for vodka -- then it is my
share, but when it is giving away the land then it is for that convict's wife and her imp. She
is mistress here, and I am her servant. Give her everything, the convict's wife, and may it
choke her! I am going home! Find yourselves some other fool, you damned Herods!"
Tsybukin had never in his life scolded or punished his children, and had never dreamed that
one of his family could speak to him rudely or behave disrespectfully; and now he was very
much frightened; he ran into the house and there hid behind the cupboard. And Varvara was
so much flustered that she could not get up from her seat, and only waved her hands before
her as though she were warding off a bee.
"Oh, Holy Saints! what's the meaning of it?" she muttered in horror. "What is she shouting?
Oh, dear, dear! . . . People will hear! Hush. Oh, hush!"
"He has given Butyokino to the convict's wife," Aksinya went on bawling. "Give her
everything now, I don't want anything from you! Let me alone! You are all a gang of thieves
here! I have seen my fill of it, I have had enough! You have robbed folks coming in and
going out; you have robbed old and young alike, you brigands! And who has been selling
vodka without a licence? And false money? You've filled boxes full of false coins, and now
I am no more use!"
A crowd had by now collected at the open gate and was staring into the yard.
"Let the people look,"
Livros Grátis
( http://www.livrosgratis.com.br )
Milhares de Livros para Download:
Baixar livros de Administração
Baixar livros de Agronomia
Baixar livros de Arquitetura
Baixar livros de Artes
Baixar livros de Astronomia
Baixar livros de Biologia Geral
Baixar livros de Ciência da Computação
Baixar livros de Ciência da Informação
Baixar livros de Ciência Política
Baixar livros de Ciências da Saúde
Baixar livros de Comunicação
Baixar livros do Conselho Nacional de Educação - CNE
Baixar livros de Defesa civil
Baixar livros de Direito
Baixar livros de Direitos humanos
Baixar livros de Economia
Baixar livros de Economia Doméstica
Baixar livros de Educação
Baixar livros de Educação - Trânsito
Baixar livros de Educação Física
Baixar livros de Engenharia Aeroespacial
Baixar livros de Farmácia
Baixar livros de Filosofia
Baixar livros de Física
Baixar livros de Geociências
Baixar livros de Geografia
Baixar livros de História
Baixar livros de Línguas
Baixar livros de Literatura
Baixar livros de Literatura de Cordel
Baixar livros de Literatura Infantil
Baixar livros de Matemática
Baixar livros de Medicina
Baixar livros de Medicina Veterinária
Baixar livros de Meio Ambiente
Baixar livros de Meteorologia
Baixar Monografias e TCC
Baixar livros Multidisciplinar
Baixar livros de Música
Baixar livros de Psicologia
Baixar livros de Química
Baixar livros de Saúde Coletiva
Baixar livros de Serviço Social
Baixar livros de Sociologia
Baixar livros de Teologia
Baixar livros de Trabalho
Baixar livros de Turismo
