“A-a-ah! …” Crutch was surprised as he listened to Lipa. “A-ah! … We-e-ll?”
“I’m a great lover of preserves, Ilya Makarych,” said Lipa. “I sit myself down in a little corner and drink tea with preserves. Or I drink together with Varvara Nikolaevna, and she tells me some touching story. They’ve got lots of preserves—four jars. ‘Eat, Lipa,’ they say, ‘don’t have any second thoughts.’”
“A-a-ah! … Four jars!”
“It’s a rich man’s life. Tea with white bread, and as much beef as you like. A rich man’s life, only it’s scary there, Ilya Makarych. It’s so scary!”
“What are you scared of, little one?” asked Crutch, and he turned around to see how far Praskovya was lagging behind.
“First, right after the wedding, I was afraid of Anisim Grigoryich. He was all right, he never hurt me, only as soon as he comes near me I get chills all over, in every little bone. I didn’t sleep a single night, I kept shivering and praying to God. And now I’m afraid of Aksinya, Ilya Makarych. She’s all right, she just smiles, only sometimes she looks out the window, and her eyes are so angry and they burn green, like with a sheep in the barn. The Khrymin Juniors keep egging her on: ‘Your old man has a lot in Butyokino,’ they say, ‘about a hundred acres, and there’s sand and water there,’ they say, ‘so you build yourself a brickworks, Aksiusha, and we’ll go shares with you.’ Bricks now cost twenty roubles a thousand. It’s a going trade. So yesterday at dinner Aksinya says to the old man, ‘I want to build a brickworks in Butyokino, to be a merchant in my own right.’ She says it and smiles. But Grigory Petrovich goes dark in the face; obviously he doesn’t like it. ‘As long as I’m alive,’ he says, ‘we can’t do things separately, it must be all together.’ And she flashed her eyes at him, ground her teeth … They served pancakes—she didn’t eat!”
“A-a-ah! …” Crutch was astonished. “She didn’t eat!”
“And tell me, please, when does she sleep?” Lipa went on. “She sleeps a wee half hour, then pops up, walks around, walks around all the time, checking whether the peasants are setting fire to something or stealing … It’s scary with her, Ilya Makarych! And the Khrymin Juniors didn’t even go to bed after the wedding, they went to court in town, and people say it’s all because of Aksinya. Two of the brothers promised to build her the brickworks, but the third took it wrong, and the factory has stood still for a month, and my uncle Prokhor is out of work and goes from door to door begging for a crust. ‘Uncle,’ I say to him, ‘don’t shame yourself, go and do plowing meanwhile, or cut lumber!’ ‘I’ve lost the feel for peasant work, Lipynka,’ he says, ‘I can’t do anything …’”
They stopped near a grove of young aspens to rest and wait for Praskovya. Yelizarov had been a contractor for a long time, yet he did not keep a horse, but went about the whole district on foot, with nothing but a little sack in which he kept bread and onion, and he took long strides, swinging his arms. It was hard to keep up with him.
At the entrance to the grove stood a boundary post. Yelizarov touched it to see if it was sturdy. Praskovya came up, out of breath. Her wrinkled, perpetually frightened face was radiant with happiness: she had been in church today, like other people, then had gone to the fair, and there she had drunk pear kvass! That rarely happened to her, and it even seemed to her now that she had lived for her own pleasure for the first time in her life. After resting, all three went on together. The sun was setting, and its rays penetrated the grove, shone on the tree trunks. Loud voices rang out ahead. The Ukleyevo girls had gone ahead long ago, but had tarried there in the grove, probably picking mushrooms.
“Hey, gi-i-irls!” shouted Yelizarov. “Hey, you beauties!”
He was answered with laughter.
“Crutch is coming! Crutch! The old coot!”
And the echo laughed, too. Now the grove was behind them. They could already see the tops of the factory smokestacks; the cross on the belfry flashed: this was the village, “the one where the verger ate all the caviar at the funeral.” They were almost home; they only had to go down into the big ravine. Lipa and Praskovya, who went barefoot, sat down on the grass to put their shoes on; the contractor sat down with them. Looked at from above, Ukleyevo, with its pussywillows, white church, and river, seemed beautiful, peaceful, an impression only spoiled by the factory roofs, painted a gloomy, savage color for the sake of economy. On the opposite slope one could see rye—stacked up, or in sheaves here and there, as if scattered by a storm, or in just-cut rows; the oats, too, were ripe and gleamed in the sun now, like mother-of-pearl. It was harvest time. Today was a feast day, tomorrow, a Saturday, they had to gather the rye and get the hay in, then Sunday was a feast day again; every day distant thunder rumbled; the weather was sultry, it felt like rain, and, looking at the fields now, each one hoped that God would grant them to finish the harvest in time, and was merry, and joyful, and uneasy at heart.
“Mowers cost a lot these days,” said Praskovya. “A rouble forty a day!”
And people kept on coming from the fair in Kazanskoe; peasant women, factory workers in new visored caps, beggars, children … A cart drove past, raising dust, with an unsold horse running behind it, looking as if it were glad it had not been sold; then a resisting cow was led past by the horns, then came another cart carrying drunken peasants, their legs dangling down. An old woman led a boy in a big hat and big boots; the boy was exhausted from the heat and the heavy boots, which did not let him bend his knees, but even so he kept blowing with all his might on a toy trumpet; they had already gone down and turned off on a side street, and the trumpet could still be heard.
“And our factory-owners are a bit out of sorts …” said Yelizarov. “It’s bad! Kostiukov got angry with me. He said, ‘Too much lumber went into the cornices.’ Too much? ‘As much as was needed, Vassily Danilych,’ I say, ‘that’s how much went into them. I don’t eat it with my kasha, your lumber.’ ‘How can you speak to me like that?’ he says. ‘A blockhead, that’s what you are! Don’t forget yourself! It was I,’ he shouts, ‘who made you a contractor!’ ‘Some feat,’ I say. ‘Before I was a contractor,’ I say, ‘I still drank tea every day’ ‘You’re all crooks,’ he says … I kept quiet. We’re crooks in this world, I thought, and you’ll be crooks in the next. Ho, ho, ho! The next day he softened. ‘Don’t be angry with me for my words, Makarych,’ he said. ‘If I said something unnecessary, still there’s the fact that I’m a merchant of the first guild, superior to you—you ought to keep quiet.’ ‘You’re a merchant of the first guild,’ I say, ‘and I’m a carpenter, that’s correct. And Saint Joseph,’ I say, ‘was also a carpenter. Our business is righteous, pleasing to God, and if,’ I say, ‘you want to be superior, go ahead, Vassily Danilych.’ And later—that is, after the conversation—I thought: but who’s the superior one? A merchant of the first guild or a carpenter? Turns out it’s the carpenter, little ones!”
Crutch thought briefly and added:
“So it is, little ones. He who labors, he who endures, is the superior one.”
The sun had set, and a thick mist, white as milk, was rising above the river, in the churchyard and the clearings around the mills. Now, when darkness was falling quickly and lights flashed below, and when it seemed that the mist concealed a bottomless abyss beneath it, Lipa and her mother, who were born destitute and were prepared to live out their days that way, giving everything to others except their meek, frightened souls, might have imagined for a moment that in this vast, mysterious world, among an endless number of lives, they, too, were a force and were superior to someone else; it felt good to sit up there, they smiled happily and forgot that they had to go back down all the same.
Finally they returned home. Mowers were sitting on the ground by the gates and near the shop. Ordinarily the local Ukleyevo people did not work for Tsybukin, and he had to hire outsiders, and now in the darkness it looked as if people with long black beards were sitting there. The shop was open, and through the doorway the deaf man could be seen playing
checkers with a boy. The mowers sang softly, in barely audible voices, or loudly demanded to be paid for the past day’s work, but they were not paid, so that they would not leave before the next day. Old Tsybukin, without a frock coat, in just his waistcoat, sat with Aksinya under a birch tree by the porch and drank tea; and a lamp burned on the table.
“Grandpa-a-a!” a mower repeated outside the gates, as if teasing him. “Pay us at least half! Grandpa-a-a!”
And at once laughter was heard, and then barely audible singing … Crutch also sat down to have tea.
“So we were at the fair,” he began telling them. “We had a good time, little ones, a very good time, thank the Lord. And this thing happened, not very nice: the blacksmith Sashka bought some tobacco and so he gave the shopkeeper a half rouble. And the half rouble was false,” Crutch went on and glanced around; he meant to speak in a whisper, but instead spoke in a hoarse, muffled voice, and everybody could hear him. “And it turned out the half rouble was false. They ask him: ‘Where’d you get it?’ And he says, ‘Anisim Tsybukin gave it to me. When I was making merry at his wedding,’ he says … They called a policeman and took him away … Watch out, Petrovich, or something may come of it, some talk …”
“Grandpa-a-a!” the same teasing voice came from outside the gate. “Grandpa-a-a!”
Silence ensued.
“Ah, little ones, little ones, little ones …” Crutch muttered rapidly and got up; drowsiness was coming over him. “Well, thanks for the tea and the sugar, little ones. It’s time for bed. I’ve gone crumbly, the beams are all rotten in me. Ho, ho, ho!”
And, walking off, he said:
“Must be time I died!”
And he sobbed. Old Tsybukin did not finish his tea, but went on sitting, thinking; he looked as if he were listening to Crutch’s footsteps far down the street.
“Sashka the blacksmith lied, I expect,” said Aksinya, guessing his thoughts.
He went into the house and came back a little later with a package; he unwrapped it—roubles gleamed, perfectly new. He took one, tried it with his teeth, dropped it on the tray; tried another, dropped it …
“It’s a fact, the roubles are false …” he said, looking at Aksinya as if in perplexity. “They’re the ones … Anisim brought that time, they’re his present. You take them, daughter,” he whispered and shoved the package into her hands, “take them, throw them down the well … Away with them! And watch yourself, don’t go talking about it. Or something may happen … Take the samovar away, put out the lamp …”
Lipa and Praskovya, sitting in the shed, saw the lights go out one after another; only Varvara’s blue and red icon lamps shone upstairs, and from there came a breath of peace, contentment, and unawareness. Praskovya could not get used to the fact that her daughter had married a rich man, and when she came, she huddled timidly in the front hall, smiled entreatingly, and had tea and sugar sent out to her. Lipa could not get used to it either, and after her husband left, she slept not in her own bed but wherever she happened to be—in the kitchen or the shed—and every day she washed the floors or did the laundry, and it seemed to her that she was doing day labor. And now, on returning from the pilgrimage, they had tea in the kitchen with the cook, then went to the shed and lay down on the floor between the sledges and the wall. It was dark there and smelled of horse collars. The lights went out around the house, then the deaf man was heard locking up the shop and the mowers settling down to sleep in the yard. In the distance, at the Khrymin Juniors, someone was playing the expensive accordion … Praskovya and Lipa began to doze off.
And when someone’s footsteps awakened them, it was bright with moonlight; at the entrance of the shed stood Aksinya, holding her bedding in her arms.
“Maybe it’s cooler here …” she said, then came in and lay down almost on the threshold itself, and the moon cast its light all over her.
She did not sleep and sighed heavily, tossing about from the heat and throwing almost everything off—and in the magic light of the moon, what a beautiful, what a proud animal she was! A short time passed and again footsteps were heard: the old man appeared in the doorway, all white.
“Aksinya!” he called. “Are you here or what?”
“Well?” she replied angrily.
“I told you earlier to throw the money down the well. Did you do it?”
“What an idea, throwing goods into the water! I gave it to the mowers …”
“Oh, my God!” said the old man in amazement and fright. “Mischievous woman … Oh, my God!”
He clasped his hands and left, muttering something as he went. A little later Aksinya sat up, sighed heavily and vexedly, then got up and, collecting her bedding, went out.
“Why did you give me to them, mama?” said Lipa.
“You had to be married, daughter. It’s not we who set it up that way.”
And a feeling of inconsolable grief was about to come over them. But it seemed to them that someone was looking down from the heights of the sky, from the blue, from where the stars are, saw everything that went on in Ukleyevo, and was watching over them. And, however great the evil, the night was still peaceful and beautiful, and there still was and would be righteousness in God’s world, just as peaceful and beautiful, and everything on earth was only waiting to merge with righteousness, as moonlight merges with the night.
And the two women, comforted, pressed close to each other and fell asleep.
VI
The news had come long ago that Anisim had been put in prison for making and passing counterfeit money. Months went by, more than half a year went by, the long winter was over, spring came, and at home and in the village they got used to the fact that Anisim was in prison. And when anyone passed the house or the shop at night, they remembered that Anisim was in prison; and when the cemetery bell tolled, they also remembered for some reason that he was in prison and awaiting trial.
It was as if a shadow had been cast over the yard. The house became darker, the roof rusted, the ironclad door of the shop, heavy, painted green, became discolored, or, as the deaf man said, “got gristled”; and it was as if old man Tsybukin himself grew darker. He had long ceased cutting his hair and beard, was all overgrown, no longer leaped as he got into the tarantass, nor shouted “God will provide!” to the beggars. His strength was waning, and that was noticeable in everything. People were less afraid of him now, and the local policeman drew up a report on the shop, though he still collected what was owed him; and three times he was summoned to court in town for secret trading in vodka, but the hearing kept being postponed owing to the non-appearance of the witnesses, and this wore the old man out.
He visited his son frequently, hired someone, petitioned someone, donated somewhere for a church banner. He offered the warden of the prison in which Anisim was kept the gift of a silver tea-glass holder with “The soul knows moderation” inscribed on the enamel and with a long teaspoon.
“There’s nobody, nobody to intervene properly for us,” said Varvara. “Oh, tush, tush … You should ask someone of the gentry to write to the head officials … At least they’d release him till the trial! Why torment the lad?”
She, too, was upset, but she grew plumper, whiter, lit the icon lamps in her room as before, and saw to it that the house was clean, and treated guests to preserves and apple comfit. The deaf son and Aksinya tended the shop. They started a new business—a brickworks in Butyokino—and Aksinya went there almost every day in the tarantass; she drove herself and on meeting acquaintances stretched her neck like a snake from the young rye and smiled naïvely and mysteriously. And Lipa played all the time with her baby, who was born to her just before Lent. He was a small baby, skinny and pitiful, and it was strange that he cried, looked about, and that he was considered a person and was even named Nikifor. He would lie in his cradle, Lipa would go to the door and say, bowing:
“How do you do, Nikifor Anisimych!”
And she would rush headlong to him and kiss him. Then she would go to the door, bow, a
nd say again:
“How do you do, Nikifor Anisimych!”
And he would stick up his little red legs, and his crying was mixed with laughter, as with the carpenter Yelizarov.
At last the day of the trial was set. The old man left five days ahead of time. Then it was heard that peasants called as witnesses had been sent from the village; the old hired workman also received a summons, and he left.
The trial was on a Thursday. But Sunday had already passed, and the old man had still not come back, and there was no news. On Tuesday, before evening, Varvara sat by the open window listening for the old man coming. In the next room Lipa was playing with her baby. She tossed him in her arms and said in admiration:
“You’ll grow so-o-o big, so-o-o-big! You’ll be a man, we’ll do day labor together! Day labor together!”
“We-e-ell!” Varvara became offended. “What kind of day labor have you thought up, silly girl? He’ll be a merchant for us! …”
Lipa started to sing softly, but a little later forgot herself and began again:
“You’ll grow so-o-o big, so-o-o big, you’ll be a man, we’ll go to day labor together!”
“We-e-ell! You’re at it again!”
Lipa stood in the doorway with Nikifor in her arms and asked:
“Mama, why do I love him so? Why do I pity him so?” she went on in a quavering voice, and her eyes glistened with tears. “Who is he? How is he? Light as a feather, a crumb, and I love him, I love him like a real person. He can’t do anything, can’t speak, but I understand everything he wishes with his dear eyes.”
Varvara listened: there was the sound of the evening train coming into the station. Was the old man on it? She no longer heard or understood what Lipa was saying, did not notice the time going by, but only trembled all over, and that not with fear but with intense curiosity. She saw a cart filled with peasants drive past quickly, with a rumble. It was the returning witnesses coming from the station. As the cart drove past the shop, the old workman jumped off and came into the yard. One could hear him being greeted in the yard, being questioned about something …