by Leo Tolstoy
“Yes, all the same, do try to persuade her to stay until the winter roads are open,” said the doctor, shaking his head significantly. “Nothing good will come of this journey…”
“Aksyusha! Hey, Aksyusha!” the stationmaster’s daughter squealed, stamping about on the filthy back porch in her fur-trimmed jacket. “Let’s go have a look at the Shirkinsky lady—they say they’re takin’ her abroad ’cause she’s sick in the chest. Ain’t never seen a consumptive before.”
Aksyusha skipped over the threshold and the two girls dashed out of the gate, clutching each other’s hands. Slackening their pace, they walked by the carriage and peered in at the open window. The sick woman turned her head towards them, but then perceived their curiosity, knit her brows and turned away.
“Heavens above!” said the stationmaster’s daughter, quickly shaking her head. “What a beauty she was—and look at her now. Enough to scare you, isn’t it? Did you get a good look, Aksyusha?”
“I did—and how skinny she is!” Aksyusha nodded along. “Let’s go and have another look—we’ll make as if we’re heading to the well. She turned away, but I still saw her… Masha, it’s pitiful, ain’t it?”
“Oh, this mud’s something awful!” Masha answered, and both girls raced back through the gate.
I must look a fright, thought the sick woman. We have to hurry, hurry abroad, and I’ll get better, be myself again.
“Well, how are you, my friend?” asked her husband as he approached the carriage, still chewing the last of his food.
Always the same question, the sick woman thought. And he’s eating!
“Fine,” she muttered through her teeth.
“You know, my friend, I’m afraid the journey, in this weather, will injure your health and Eduard Ivanovich feels the same way. Shouldn’t we turn back?”
She remained angrily silent.
“The weather might improve, they’ll restore the roads and you might feel better—we’d all go together.”
“Excuse me. If I hadn’t been fool enough to listen to you all this time, I would have been in Berlin by now, completely healthy.”
“But angel, what could we do? It was impossible—you know it was. And if you were to wait just one more month you’d be back on your feet, I’d settle my affairs and we’d take the children along…”
“The children are healthy. It is I who am ill.”
“My friend, please understand—in this weather, if you should grow worse on the way… at least at home—”
“What? At least what? I’d die at home?” the sick woman cut in testily. But the word die had evidently frightened her and she gazed at her husband with a pleading, enquiring look. He lowered his eyes and kept silent. The sick woman’s mouth suddenly twisted in a childish manner and tears began to flow down her cheeks. Her husband covered his face with a handkerchief and walked away from the carriage without saying a word.
“No, I am going,” the sick woman declared, raised her eyes to the sky, folded her hands and began to whisper incoherent words. “My God, why? Why me?” she kept saying, and her tears flowed more freely. She prayed long and fervently but there was still the same pain, the same tightness in her chest; the sky, the fields and the road were just as grey and overcast; and the same autumn mist—no thicker, no thinner, but exactly the same—fell on the mud, on the roofs, on the carriage and on the sheepskin coats of the drivers, who chatted in strong, cheerful voices as they greased the wheels and harnessed a fresh team…
II
The carriage was harnessed but the driver tarried. He went into the drivers’ hut—a hot, stuffy, dark and oppressive place which smelt of humans, bread, cabbage and sheepskin. There were several drivers in the main room and a cook was busy at the stove, atop of which, covered in sheepskins, lay a sick man.
“Uncle Fyodor! Hey, Uncle Fyodor,” said the driver—a young fellow in a sheepskin coat with a whip in his belt—as he entered the room and turned to the sick man.
“Whatcha need Fedya fer, numbskull?” one of the drivers replied. “Cantcha see yer carriage is waitin’?”
“Wanna ask him for his boots. Worn mine out,” the young fellow answered, tossing back his hair and straightening the heavy gloves in his belt. “He sleepin’? Hey, Uncle Fyodor,” he repeated, walking up to the stove.
“Whatcha want?” a weak voice said, and a gaunt, red-whiskered face looked down from the stove. A broad, emaciated hand, pale and hairy, pulled a drab coat over a bony shoulder clothed in a dirty shirt. “Gimme me a drink, brother… Whatcha want?”
The young fellow handed him a dipper filled with water.
“Fedya, listen,” he said, shifting from foot to foot. “I reckon you won’t be needin’ them new boots… Maybe I could have ’em? Reckon you won’t be walkin’ no more.”
Bending his weary head over the polished dipper, plunging his sparse, sagging moustaches in the water, the sick man drank weakly and greedily. His tangled beard was unclean and his dull, sunken eyes rose with difficulty to the young fellow’s face. When he was done drinking he tried to lift a hand to his wet lips but he couldn’t, so he wiped them off with the sleeve of his coat. Saying nothing and breathing heavily through his nose, he stared straight into the young fellow’s eyes, gathering his strength.
“Maybe you promised ’em to someone else,” said the fellow. “Then forget it. Only it’s wet outside, and I’ve got a long ways to go, so I think to myself, I’ll go and ask Fedya for his boots. I reckon he don’t need ’em no more. But maybe you do—just say…”
Something overflowed and bubbled in the sick man’s chest; he bent double, overtaken with a fit of choking, unrelenting, throaty coughing.
“Sure, he needs boots!” the cook suddenly bellowed for the whole hut to hear. “Hasn’t left the stove for more ’n a month. Look at ’im, bustin’ his guts—you know he’s sick deep down inside when you hear him. Tell me, what’s he need boots fer? They won’t bury ’im in new ones. And it’s high time for that, God forgive me… Look at ’im, bustin’ his guts… Oughta put ’im in another hut, maybe… They got hospitals in town… But here he takes up the whole corner. Can’t do a thing about it. Ain’t got room to turn around—and they tell me to keep things neat…”
“Hey, Seryoga, get movin’, will ya? People are waitin’,” the drivers’ headman shouted from the doorway.
Seryoga was ready to leave, but the sick man, still coughing, indicated with his eyes that he had an answer for him.
“You take the boots, Seryoga,” he said, after suppressing the cough and catching his breath. “But when I die, buy me a stone, you hear?” he added hoarsely.
“Thank you, Uncle—I’ll take the boots, then, and you’ll get that stone.”
“You heard him, fellas,” the sick man managed to say, then again bent double and began to choke.
“Sure, we heard him,” said one of the drivers. “You’d better go, Seryoga—the headman’s comin’ again. That Shirkinsky lady is in a bad way, you know.”
Seryoga pulled off his torn, oversized boots in a hurry and tossed them under a bench. Uncle Fyodor’s new boots fitted him perfectly, and he kept glancing down at them as he walked to the carriage.
“Fine-lookin’ boots! Let me polish ’em,” said the other driver, with brush in hand, as Seryoga climbed onto the box and picked up the reins. “Gave ’em up free, just like that?”
“Jealous, eh?” replied Seryoga, rising up and parting the bottom of his coat to show his feet. “Off you go, my dears!” he shouted at the horses, swinging his whip; and the carriage and barouche, with their passengers, bags and trunks, rolled off down the wet road and disappeared into the grey autumn mist.
The sick driver remained on the stove in the stuffy hut; unable to cough his lungs clear, he made a great effort to turn over on his other side and fell silent.
People came, went and ate in the hut all day long, while the sick man lay quiet. Before nightfall the cook climbed onto the stove and reached over his legs to get a sheepskin.
>
“Don’t be cross with me, Nastasya,” he said to her. “I’ll quit your corner soon enough.”
“Don’t fret, nothin’ we can do about it,” muttered Nastasya. “But tell me, Uncle, what’s the matter? Where does it hurt?”
“My insides is all rotten. God knows what it is.”
“Your throat must be plenty sore, with all that coughin’…”
“Everything’s sore. Death is coming—that’s what it is. Oh…” the sick man groaned.
“Listen, you just cover up your legs like this,” Nastasya said, pulling his coat over him as she climbed down from the stove.
Throughout the night a single light burned feebly in the hut. Nastasya and some ten drivers slept on the floor and benches, snoring loudly. The sick man alone kept groaning weakly, coughing and turning from side to side on the stove. Towards morning he fell completely silent.
“Had a strange dream last night,” said the cook the next morning, stretching herself in the half-light. “I see Uncle Fyodor come down from the stove. He’s goin’ out to chop wood. ‘Nastya,’ he tells me, ‘let me give you a hand.’ And I say to him, ‘You ain’t fit to chop wood.’ But he grabs hold of the axe and starts choppin’—swingin’ and swingin’—all you see is chips flyin’. ‘But you were sick,’ I say. ‘No,’ he tells me, ‘I’m all right.’ Then he swings the axe so hard that it scares me… And I scream and wake up. You don’t think he’s dead, do ya? Uncle Fyodor! Hey, Uncle Fyodor!”
Fyodor did not respond.
“Might be… Let’s have a look,” said one of the drivers.
A thin arm covered with reddish hairs hung down from the stove; it was cold and pale.
“Go tell the stationmaster. Looks dead to me,” said the driver.
Fyodor had no family—he had come from someplace else. On the following day they buried him in the new churchyard, beyond the woods, and for several days Nastasya kept telling everyone about her dream—how she had been the first to know that Uncle Fyodor was gone.
III
Spring had come. Murmuring streamlets flowed quickly down wet streets, wending their way among frozen clumps of dung; crowds bustled about in bright-coloured clothing, conversing in bright tones. The trees in little fenced-off gardens smelt of flower buds, and their boughs swayed lightly, barely audibly, in the fresh wind. Translucent droplets dripped and poured down every surface… Sparrows chirped tunelessly and flitted about on their tiny wings. On the sunny side of every street, on the fences, houses and trees, all was in motion, all sparkled. Joy and youth pervaded the sky, the earth and the heart.
On one of the main streets, in front of a large manor house, fresh straw had been scattered; inside the house lay the dying woman who had been so eager to go abroad.
By the closed door of her room stood her husband and a woman of mature years. A priest sat on a couch, keeping his eyes lowered and holding something wrapped in an epitrachelion.1 In the corner, an old lady—the sick woman’s mother—reclined in a Voltaire chair, weeping bitterly. One maid stood beside her with a clean handkerchief, waiting for the old lady to ask for it; another was rubbing something into her temples and blowing on the grey hair beneath her cap.
“Christ is with you, my friend,” the husband said to the woman who stood by the door with him. “She has such trust in you… She listens to you… Please, persuade her, my dear—go on.” He was about to open the door for the cousin, but she stopped him, dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief and shook her head.
“I don’t want her to see that I’ve been crying,” she said and, opening the door herself, went into the room.
The husband was greatly agitated and seemed to be at his wits’ end. He was about to approach the old lady, but stopped short, turned away and walked over to the priest on the other side of the room. The priest looked at him, raised his eyebrows heavenwards and sighed. His bushy, grey-flecked beard also rose and sank.
“My God, my God!” said the husband.
“What can we do?” the priest responded with a sigh, and again his eyebrows and beard rose and sank.
“And Mother,” said the husband, almost in utter despair. “She cannot bear much more. To love someone—to love someone as she loves her… I just don’t know. Father, if you could calm her down and persuade her to leave…”
The priest rose and went over to the old lady.
“Yes, a mother’s heart is beyond price,” he said, “but God is merciful.”
The old lady’s face suddenly began to twitch and she was seized with a hysterical hiccough.
“God is merciful,” the priest continued when she had calmed down a little. “Let me say this, I had a sick man in my parish, much worse off than Marya Dmitrievna, and what do you know? A simple townsman cured him in no time, using nothing but herbs. And this very townsman is now in Moscow. I told Vasily Dmitrievich—worth trying, perhaps. If nothing else, it might console her. And with God, all things are possible.”
“No, she won’t live,” said the old woman. “God will take her, when He should take me instead.” And the hysterical hiccough grew so violent that she fainted away.
The sick woman’s husband covered his face with his hands and ran out of the room.
The first person he saw in the corridor was his six-year-old boy, who was chasing his little sister with all his might.
“Shall I take the children to see their mother?” asked the nanny.
“No, she does not wish to see them. It would only upset her.”
The boy halted for a minute, stared intently into his father’s face, then suddenly stamped his foot and took off again with a cheerful cry.
“Daddy, she’s a black horsey!” the boy shouted, pointing to his sister.
Meanwhile, in the bedroom, the cousin sat beside the sick woman and attempted, by skilfully directing the conversation, to prepare her for the thought of death. A doctor stood at one of the windows, mixing a draught.
The sick woman, in a white housecoat, was sitting up in bed, surrounded by pillows and gazing silently at her cousin.
“My friend,” she cut in unexpectedly. “Don’t try to prepare me. I am not a child. I am a Christian woman. I know all I need to know. I know I’m not long for this world. I know that if my husband had listened to me earlier I would have been in Italy and, possibly—no, certainly—would have been well by now. Everyone told him so. But what can one do? It must have been God’s will. We are all guilty of many sins, I know—but I hope for God’s mercy. We will all be forgiven—surely we will all be forgiven. I try to understand myself. I too am guilty of many sins, my friend—but I have suffered… How I have suffered… And I’ve tried to endure it patiently.”
“Shall I summon the father, my friend? Receive the sacraments—your heart will feel all the lighter for it,” said the cousin.
The sick woman bowed her head in token of consent.
“God, forgive me, a sinner,” she whispered.
The cousin stepped out and winked a signal to the father.
“An angel,” she said to the husband, with tears in her eyes.
The husband began to cry; the priest went through the door; the old lady remained unconscious; and silence descended on the antechamber. When five minutes had passed the priest emerged from the bedroom, removed his epitrachelion and arranged his hair.
“Thank the Lord, she is calmer now,” he said. “She wishes to see you.”
The cousin and husband entered the bedroom. The sick woman was crying softly as she gazed at the icon.
“Congratulations, my friend,” said the husband.
“Thank you! I feel so good now—such a sweet, inexplicable feeling,” the sick woman said as a faint smile played over her thin lips. “Oh, God is merciful! Isn’t that true? He is merciful and all-powerful.” And with an eager prayer she again fixed her tearful eyes on the icon.
Then, as if suddenly remembering something, she beckoned to her husband.
“You never want to do what I ask,” she said in a weak, dissatisfied
voice.
The husband, craning his neck, listened meekly.
“What is it, my friend?”
“How many times have I told you that these doctors don’t know a thing? There are simple healers… They work wonders… The father was saying… A townsman… Send for him.”
“For whom, my friend?”
“My God, he doesn’t want to understand…” And the sick woman knit her brows and closed her eyes.
The doctor approached the bed and took her wrist. Her pulse was growing weaker and weaker. He winked a signal to the husband. The sick woman noticed this gesture and glanced about fearfully. Her cousin turned away and burst into tears.
“Don’t cry. Don’t torture us both,” the sick woman told her. “You’ll only rob me of my final comfort.”
“You are an angel,” said the cousin, kissing her hand.
“No, kiss me here—one only kisses the dead on the hand. My God, my God!”
That evening the sick woman was already a corpse, and the corpse lay in a coffin in the large home’s parlour. Inside that large room, behind closed doors, a lector sat and intoned the psalms of David in a steady, nasal voice. Bright waxen light fell from tall silver candlesticks onto the pale brow of the deceased, onto the heavy waxen hands and the stony folds of the shroud that rose frightfully above the knees and toes. The lector read steadily, without understanding what he read, and in the quiet room his words sounded strange and died away slowly. Now and then the noise of children’s voices and the patter of their feet wafted in from a distant room.
Thou hidest Thy face, they are troubled: Thou takest away their breath, they die and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth Thy spirit, they are created: and Thou renewest the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure forever.
The face of the deceased was stern, calm and dignified. There was no movement in the clean, cold brow or the firmly pressed lips. She was all attention. But did she at last grasp the meaning of these exalted words?