The mother looked down her nose at him, waiting for the moment when it would be most convenient to go off to her room. The peasant’s face was pensive and handsome, and his eyes were sad. Broad-shouldered and tall, he was wearing a kaftan, covered all over in patches, a clean cotton shirt, ginger-coloured trousers of heavy rural cloth and down-at-heel shoes on otherwise bare feet…
For some reason the mother heaved a sigh of relief. And suddenly, giving in to an instinct that preceded a vague idea, she surprised herself by asking him:
“Well, can I spend the night at your place?”
She asked, and everything inside her stretched taut – her muscles, her bones. She drew herself up straight, gazing at the peasant with fixed eyes. Prickly thoughts flashed quickly through her head:
“I’ll be the undoing of Nikolai Ivanovich. I won’t see Pasha for a long time! They’ll beat me up!”
Gazing at the ground and pulling the kaftan together at his chest, the peasant unhurriedly replied:
“Spend the night? Yes, you can, why not? Only my hut isn’t a very good one…”
“I’ve not been spoilt!” the mother answered instinctively.
“Yes, you can!” the peasant repeated, looking her up and down searchingly.
It had already grown dark, his eyes shone coldly in the gloom and his face seemed very pale. As if gathering momentum, the mother said:
“I’ll come right away, then, and you can bring my suitcase…”
“All right.”
He twitched his shoulders, pulled his kaftan together again and said in a low voice:
“Look, here comes the cart…”
Rybin appeared on the porch of the volost-board building with his hands again tied together and his head and face wrapped in something grey.
“Farewell, good people!” his voice rang out in the cold of the evening twilight. “Search for truth, keep it safe, trust the man who brings you an honest word, don’t spare yourselves in the pursuit of truth!…”
“Silence, dog!” the voice of the superintendent cried from somewhere. “Drive the horses on, you fool of a policeman!”
“Why spare yourselves? What sort of life do you have?…”
The cart moved off. Sitting on it with the two village policemen on either side, Rybin cried in a muffled voice:
“What do you perish for, going hungry? Try for freedom; it’ll bring both bread and truth – farewell, good people!…”
The hurrying noise of the wheels, the tramp of the horses and the voice of the superintendent enveloped his speech, confused and smothered it.
“It’s over!” said the peasant with a toss of his head and, turning to the mother, continued in a low voice: “You sit there at the posting station, and I’ll be along in a little while…”
The mother went into the room, sat down at the table in front of the samovar, picked up a piece of bread, glanced at it and slowly put it back on the plate. She did not feel like eating, and there was a sensation of nausea growing again in the pit of her stomach. Disagreeably warm, it weakened her, sucking the blood out of her heart and making her head spin. Before her was the face of the blue-eyed peasant – strange, as though unfinished, it did not inspire trust. For some reason she did not want to think openly that he would give her away, but the idea had already occurred to her and lay heavy on her heart, blunt and immobile.
“He noticed me!” she pondered idly and impotently. “He noticed, he guessed…”
But the idea developed no further, drowning in wearisome despondency and the viscous feeling of nausea.
Succeeding the noise, the timid quietness that had hidden outside the window laid bare something repressed and frightened about the village, it sharpened her sense of solitude, filling her soul with gloom, as grey and soft as cinders.
The girl came in and, stopping by the door, asked:
“Shall I bring some fried eggs?”
“There’s no need. I really don’t feel like anything – they’ve frightened me with their shouting!”
The girl approached the table, recounting in an excited, but low voice:
“The way the superintendent hit him! I was standing nearby, I could see; he made all his teeth crumble, he’s spitting, and the blood’s as thick as can be, and dark!… No eyes at all! He’s a tar-worker. The village constable’s lying down here with us, he’s good and drunk, but still calling for liquor. He says there was a whole band of them, and that one, the bearded one, he’s the oldest, so he’s the leader. They caught three, but one escaped, you see. They caught the teacher too, he’s with them as well. They don’t believe in God, and they try and persuade others to rob churches, that’s the way they are! And our men, some of them felt sorry for him, that man, but others say they should finish him off! We’ve got such vicious people here, dear oh dear!”
The mother listened carefully to the incoherent, rapid speech, trying to suppress her alarm and dispel her doleful expectation. And the girl must have been pleased that someone was listening to her, for, choking on her words, she chattered more and more animatedly, lowering her voice:
“Daddy says everything’s because of the bad harvest! Our earth’s bearing nothing for a second year, and we’re worn out! Now, because of that, men like them are appearing – it’s awful! They’re shouting at assemblies and fighting. The other day, when Vasyukov was being sold up for arrears, he gave the elder such a whack in the mug. ‘There’s my arrears for you,’ he says…”
Heavy footsteps rang out on the other side of the door. Resting her hands on the table, the mother rose to her feet…
In came the blue-eyed peasant and, without removing his hat, asked:
“So where’s the luggage?”
He picked up the suitcase with ease, gave it a shake and said:
“It’s empty! Marka, see the visitor to my hut.”
And off he went without a backward glance.
“Are you spending the night here?” the girl asked.
“Yes! I’ve come for lace – I buy lace…”
“They don’t make it here! They do in Tinkovo and Daryina, but not here!” the girl explained.
“I’m going there tomorrow…”
After paying the girl for the tea, she gave her three copecks and thus greatly delighted her. In the street, with her bare feet slapping quickly over the damp earth, the girl said:
“Would you like me to run to Daryina and tell the women to bring their lace here? They’ll come here, and you don’t have to go there. After all, it’s twelve versts…”
“That’s not necessary, dear!” the mother replied, striding beside her. The cold air had refreshed her, and an unclear resolve was slowly being born inside her. Vague, but promising, it was having difficulty developing, and, wanting to quicken its growth, the woman asked herself insistently:
“What am I to do? If I’m frank and do my best…”
It was dark, damp and cold. The windows of the huts shone dimly with a reddish, motionless light. Cattle were lowing drowsily in the quietness, and brief cries rang out. The village was shrouded in dark, dispirited pensiveness…
“This way!” said the girl. “You’ve picked a bad place to spend the night: he’s terribly poor, that man…”
She felt her way to the door, opened it and cried cheerfully into the hut:
“Auntie Tatyana!”
And off she ran. Her voice came flying out of the darkness:
“Farewell!…”
XVII
The mother stopped by the threshold and, shading her eyes with the palm of her hand, looked around. The hut was cramped and small, but clean, that was immediately striking. Out from behind the stove looked a young woman, who bowed in silence and disappeared. A lamp was burning on the table in the corner with the icons.
The master of the hut was sitting at the table, tapping a finger on its edge and l
ooking the mother intently in the eye.
“Come in!” he said, though not at once. “Tatyana, go and call Pyotr, look lively!”
The woman went away quickly without a glance at her guest. Sitting on the bench opposite her host, the mother looked around – her suitcase was nowhere to be seen. A wearisome quietness filled the hut; there was only the barely audible crackling of the flame in the lamp. The peasant’s face, preoccupied and frowning, swayed indefinitely in the mother’s eyes, arousing in her a doleful vexation.
“So where’s my suitcase?” she asked, loudly and all of a sudden, surprising herself.
The peasant shifted his shoulders and replied pensively:
“It won’t get lost…”
Lowering his voice, he continued glumly:
“In front of the little girl just now I said it was empty on purpose, but no, it isn’t empty. There’s heavy things inside it!”
“Well?” asked the mother. “What, then?”
He stood up, went over to her, bent down and quietly asked:
“Do you know that man?”
The mother winced, but replied firmly:
“I do!”
It was as if this short answer had lit her up inside and made everything outside her clear. She sighed with relief, shifted on the bench and sat more firmly…
The peasant gave a broad grin.
“I saw when you gave him a sign, and so did he. I had a word in his ear and asked if it was someone he knew standing on the porch.”
“And what did he say?” the mother asked quickly.
“Him? He said: ‘There’s a lot of us.’ Yes! ‘A lot,’ he says…”
He glanced enquiringly into his guest’s eyes and, smiling again, continued:
“A man of great strength!… Bold… straight out he says: ‘Me!’ They beat him, but he sticks to his guns…”
His voice, uncertain and not strong, his unfinished face and bright, open eyes were more and more reassuring for the mother. The place of alarm and despondency in her breast was gradually being taken by caustic, sharp pity for Rybin. Unable to stop herself, with anger sudden and bitter she dispiritedly exclaimed:
“The scoundrels, the fiends!”
And she let out a sob.
The peasant moved away from her, nodding his head morosely.
“The authorities have certainly made themselves some friends, ye-es!!”
And suddenly turning to the mother again, he said to her quietly:
“What I want to say is, I’m guessing there’s a newspaper in the suitcase, is that right?”
“Yes!” the mother replied simply, wiping away her tears. “I was bringing it to him.”
Furrowing his brows, he gathered his beard in his fist and, gazing to one side, paused.
“It used to reach us, and books did too. We know that man – we’d seen him!”
The peasant stopped, had a think and then asked:
“Well then, what are you going to do with it now – with the suitcase?”
The mother looked at him and said in a challenging tone:
“Leave it with you!…”
He was not surprised and did not protest, just repeating briefly:
“With us…”
With an affirmative nod of the head he released his beard from his fist, combed it out with his fingers and sat down.
With implacable, stubborn insistence the mother’s memory brought the scene of Rybin’s torture in front of her eyes; his image extinguished all thoughts in her head, pain and hurt on the man’s behalf pushed all other feelings into the background, and she was no longer able to think of the suitcase or of anything else. Tears flowed unrestrained from her eyes, but her face was morose and her voice did not quaver when she said to the master of the hut:
“They rob, crush and trample a man in the dirt – curse them!”
“Strength!” the peasant responded quietly. “They’ve got great strength!”
“And where do they get it from?” the mother exclaimed in vexation. “They get it from us, from the people, everything’s taken from us!”
This peasant was irritating her with his bright, but incomprehensible face.
“Ye-es!” he drawled pensively. “It’s a wheel…”
He pricked up his ears sharply, bent his head down towards the door and, after having a listen, said quietly:
“They’re coming…”
“Who?”
“Friends… probably…”
In came his wife, and after her into the hut stepped a peasant. He threw his hat into a corner, quickly went up to his host and asked him:
“Well, and?”
The latter gave an affirmative nod of the head.
“Stepan!” said the woman, standing by the stove. “Maybe she, the visitor, wants something to eat?”
“I don’t, thank you, dear!” the mother replied.
The peasant went up to the mother and started talking in a quick, overstrained voice:
“So, allow me to make your acquaintance! My name’s Pyotr Yegorov Ryabinin, nicknamed the Awl. I understand a little of your affairs. Literate and no fool, so to speak…”
He grasped the hand the mother reached out to him and, shaking it, turned to his host:
“Here, Stepan, look! Varvara Nikolayevna’s a kind lady, it’s true! But what she says about all this is nonsense, fantasy! As though it’s little boys and various students stirring the people up out of stupidity. But you and I have just seen a solid peasant, just the way he should be, seen him arrested, and now here, a middle-aged woman and, as it would appear, not the blood of gentlefolk. Don’t take offence – of what stock would you be?”
He spoke hurriedly, distinctly and without drawing breath; his little beard trembled nervously, and his eyes, squinting, quickly scanned the woman’s face and figure. Ragged, dishevelled, with tangled hair on his head, he looked as if he had just been fighting with someone, had overcome his opponent and was utterly gripped by the joyous excitement of victory. The mother liked his cheerfulness and the fact that he had immediately begun talking directly and simply. Gazing affectionately into his face, she answered the question, and he shook her hand hard once again, and burst into quiet, rather dry, broken laughter.
“It’s clean work, Stepan, you see? Excellent work! I told you, it’s the people beginning to do things for themselves. And that fine lady, she won’t tell the truth – it’s harmful for her. I respect her, sure enough! A good person and wishes us well – a little bit, anyway, but with no losses for herself! But the people, they want to go straight ahead and aren’t afraid of losses or harm, d’you see? The whole of life’s harmful for them, there’s losses everywhere, there’s nowhere for them to turn, there’s nothing anywhere around except people on all sides shouting: “Stop!’”
“I see!” said Stepan, nodding his head, and immediately added: “She’s worried about her luggage.”
Pyotr winked slyly at the mother and again began to talk, waving his hand in reassurance:
“Don’t worry! Everything’ll be in order, Mamasha! I’ve got your little suitcase. A while ago, when he told me about you, that you had a part in this, too, and knew that man, I says to him: ‘Look, Stepan! You can’t stand gaping in such a severe case!’ Well, and you seemed to sense us too, Mamasha, when we were standing beside you. The faces of honest people are easy to see, as there aren’t a lot of them walking the streets, if truth be told! I’ve got your little suitcase…”
He sat down next to her and, with a pleading look into her eyes, continued:
“If you want to disembowel it, we’ll help you to do so with pleasure! We need books…”
“She wants to give us the lot!” Stepan remarked.
“Excellent, Mamasha! We’ll find a place for everything!…”
He leapt to his feet, laughed and, contented
, striding quickly to and fro about the hut, said:
“An amazing occurrence, so to speak! Though perfectly simple. In one place there’s a rip, in another a fastening. That’s all right! And a newspaper’s good, Mamasha, and it does its work – it rubs people’s eyes! It’s not nice for the gentlefolk. I work for a fine lady about seven versts from here, doing carpentry; she’s a good woman, it’s got to be said: she gives us various books, and sometimes you’ll read one and things just come to you! All in all, we’re grateful to her. But I showed her an edition of a newspaper, and she was even a bit offended. ‘Stop reading that, Pyotr,’ she says! ‘It’s little boys with no sense that make them,’ she says. ‘And your woes will only grow as a result, prison and Siberia,’ she says, ‘follow that…’”
He fell silent again all of a sudden, had a think and asked:
“Tell me, Mamasha, is that man a relative of yours?”
“Not family!” the mother replied.
Pyotr laughed soundlessly, very pleased with something, and started nodding his head, but the next second it seemed to the mother that the words “not family” were out of place, and offensive in relation to Rybin.
“I’m not related to him,” she said, “but I’ve known him a long time and respect him like my own brother… an elder brother!”
The word she needed was not to be found, something with which she was unhappy, and again she was unable to contain her quiet sobs. Morose, expectant quietness filled the hut. Bending his head towards his shoulder, Pyotr stood as though listening to something intently. Leaning his elbows on the table, Stepan kept pensively tapping a finger on the tabletop all the time. His wife was in the gloom, leaning against the stove, and the mother could feel her incessant gaze, and at times the mother herself would look her in the face, which was oval and dark-complexioned with a straight nose and abruptly receding chin. Her greenish eyes shone attentively and sharply.
“A friend, then!” said Pyotr quietly. “With a strong character, oh yes!… Rated himself highly, as he should! There’s a man, eh, Tatyana? You say…”
“Is he married?” Tatyana asked, interrupting his speech, and the thin lips of her small mouth compressed tightly.