by Maxim Gorky
From that time forth, Matréna had kept watch for him.
Now and then someone from the court would sit down beside her. Most frequently of all, the person who did so was Levtchénko, a mustached non-commissioned officer on the retired list, an argumentative and sedate Little Russian, with close-cut hair and a blue nose. He would seat himself, and inquire, with a yawn:
“Been banging each other round again?”
“What’s that to you?” said Matréna, in a hostile and irritable manner.
“Oh, nothing!” explained the Little Russian, and after that, neither of them spoke again for a long time.
Matryóna breathed heavily, and there was a rattling in her chest.
“Why are you always fighting? What scores have you to settle?”—the Little Russian would begin to argue.
“That’s our affair.…” said Matréna Orlóff curtly.
“That’s so, it is your affair.…” assented Levtchénko, and he even nodded his head in confirmation of what had been said.
“Then what are you poking your nose into my business for?” argued Mrs. Orlóff3 logically.
“Phew…what a touchy woman you are! One can’t say a word to you! As I look at it—you and Grísha are a well-matched pair! He ought to give you a good drubbing with a club every day—morning and night—that’s what he ought! Then neither of you would be such hedge-hogs.…”
And off he went, in a towering rage, which thoroughly pleased her:—for a long time past, a rumor had been going the rounds of the court-yard, to the effect that the Little Russian was not making up to her for nothing, and she was angry with him, with him and with all people who intruded themselves on other folks’ affairs. But the Little Russian walked off to the corner of the court with his upright, soldierly gait, alert and strong despite his forty years.
Then Tchízhik bobbed up under his feet from somewhere or other.
“She’s a bitter radish too, that Aunty Orlíkha!” he confided to Levtchénko, in an undertone, with a sly wink in the direction where Matréna was sitting.
“Well, I’ll prescribe that sort of a radish for you, when you need one!” threatened the Little Russian, laughing behind his mustache. He was fond of impudent Tchízhik, and listened attentively to him, being aware that all the secrets of the court-yard were known to Tchízhik.
“You can’t do any fishing round her,”—explained Tchízhik, paying no attention to the threat.—“Maxím the painter tried it, and bang! she let fly such a slap in the face at him! I heard it myself…a healthy whack! Straight in his ugly face…just as though it had been a drum!”
Half-child, half-man, in spite of his fifteen years, lively and impressionable, he eagerly absorbed, like a sponge, the dirt of the life around him, and on his brow there was a thin wrinkle, which showed that Sénka Tchízhik was given to thinking.
… It was dark in the court-yard. Above it shone a quadrangular bit of blue sky, all glittering with stars, and surrounded by lofty roofs, so that the court seemed to be a deep pit, when one looked up out of it. In one corner of this pit sat a tiny female form, resting after her beating, and awaiting her drunken husband.…
* * * *
The Orlóffs had been married three years. They had had a child, but after living for about a year and a half, it died; neither of them mourned it long, being consoled with the hope that they would have another. The cellar, in which they had taken up their abode, was a large, long, dark room with a vaulted ceiling. Directly at the door stood a huge Russian stove, facing the windows; between it and the wall a narrow passage led into a square space, lighted by two windows, which opened on the court-yard. The light fell through them into the cellar in slanting, turbid streaks, and the atmosphere in the room was damp, dull, dead life pulsated somewhere, tar away, up above, but only faint, ill-defined sounds of it were wafted hither, and fell, together with the dust, into the Orlóffs’ hole, in a sort of formless, colorless flakes. Opposite the stove, against the wall, stood a wooden double-bed, with print curtains of a cinnamon-brown dotted with pink flowers; opposite the bed, against the other wall, was a table, on which they drank tea and dined; and between the bed and the wall, the husband and wife worked, in the two streaks of light.
Cockroaches travelled indolently over the walls, feeding on the bread-crumbs with which various little pictures from old newspapers were stuck to the plaster; melancholy flies flitted about everywhere, buzzing tiresomely, and the little pictures, which they had covered with specks, stood out like dark spots against the dirty-gray background of the walls.
The Orlóffs’ day began after this fashion: at six o’clock in the morning, Matréna awoke, washed herself, and prepared the samovár, which had more than once been crippled in the heat of battle, and was covered all over with patches of lead. While the samovár was coming to a boil, she put the room in order, went to the shop,4 then roused her husband; he rose, washed himself, and the samovár was already standing on the table, hissing and purring. They sat down to drink tea, with white bread, of which, together, they ate a pound.
Grigóry worked well, and he always had work; after tea he portioned it out. He did the fine work, which required the hand of a master, his wife prepared the waxed ends, pasted in the linings, put on the outside layer on the heels, and did other trifling jobs of that sort. After tea, they discussed their dinner. In winter, when it was necessary to eat more, this was a tolerably interesting question; in summer, from economy, they heated the oven only on feast-days, and not always then, feeding themselves chiefly on a cold dish made of kvas,5 with the addition of onions, salt-fish, sometimes of meat, boiled in the oven of someone in the court-yard. When they had finished their tea, they sat down to work: Grigóry on a small kneading-trough, covered with leather, and with a crack in the side, his wife by his side, on a low bench.
At first they worked in silence,—what had they to talk about? They exchanged a couple of words about their work, and maintained silence for half an hour, or more, at a stretch. The hammer tapped, the waxed-ends hissed, as they were drawn through the leather. Grigóry yawned from time to time, and invariably concluded his yawn with a prolonged roar or howl. Matréna sighed and held her peace. Sometimes Orlóff started a song. He had a sharp voice, with a metallic ring, but he knew how to sing. The words of the song were arranged in a swift, plaintive recitative, and now burst impetuously from Grigóry’s breast, as though afraid to finish what they wished to say, now, all of a sudden, lengthened out into mournful sighs, or—with a wail of “ekh!”—flew in loud, melancholy strains, through the windows into the court. Matréna sang an accompaniment to her husband, with her soft contralto. The faces of both grew pensive, and sad, Grísha’s dark eyes became dimmed with moisture. His wife, absorbed in the sounds, seemed to grow stupid, and sat as though half-dozing, swaying from side to side, and sometimes the song seemed to choke her, and she broke off in the middle of a note, and then went on with it, in harmony with her husband. Neither of them was conscious of the presence of the other while they were singing, and striving to pour forth in the words of others the emptiness and dulness of their gloomy life; perhaps they wished to give expression, in these words, to the half-conscious thoughts and sensations, which sprang into life in their souls.
At times Gríshka improvised:
“E-okh, thou life…ekh, yea, thou, my thrice-accursed life.…
And thou, oh grief! Ekh, and thou, my cursed grief,
Maledictions on thee, gri-i-ief!…”
Matréna did not like these improvisations, and, on such occasions, she generally asked him:
“Why are you howling, like a dog before a corpse?”
For some reason, he instantly flew into a rage with her:
“You blunt-snouted pig! What can you understand? You marsh-spectre!”
“He howled, and howled, and now he has taken to barking.…”
“Your business is to hold your tongue! Who am I
—your foreman, I’d like to know, that you meddle and read me lectures, hey?.… Just so!”
Matréna, perceiving that the sinews of his neck were becoming tense, and that his eyes were blazing with wrath, held her peace, held it for a long time, demonstratively evading a reply to the questions of her husband, whose wrath died out as rapidly as it had flared up.
She turned away from his glances, which sought reconciliation with her, awaited her smiles, and was completely filled with a palpitating feeling of fear, lest he should fly into a passion with her again for this play of hers with him. But, at the same time, she was incensed at him, and was greatly pleased to observe his efforts to make peace with her,—for this signified living, thinking, experiencing agitation.
They were both of them young and healthy, they loved each other, and were proud of each other.… Gríshka was so strong, ardent, handsome, and Matréna was white, plump, with a spark of fire in her gray eyes,—“a buxom woman,” as they called her in the court-yard. They loved each other, but their life was so tiresome, they had hardly any interests and impressions which could, occasionally, afford them the possibility of getting a rest from each other, and might have satisfied the natural demand of the human soul—to feel excitement, to think, to glow—in short, to live. For under such conditions of lack of external impressions and interests which lend a zest to life, husband and wife—even when they are persons of highly cultivated minds—are bound, inevitably, to become repulsive to each other. This law is as inevitable as it is just. If the Orlóffs had had an aim in life, even so limited an aim as the amassing of money, penny by penny, they would, undoubtedly, in that case, have got along better together.
But they had not even that.
Being constantly under each other’s eye, they had grown used to each other, knew each other’s every word and gesture. Day after day passed by, and brought into their life nothing which might have diverted their attention. Sometimes, on holidays, they went to visit others as poor in spirit as themselves, and sometimes visitors came to see them, ate, drank and, frequently—fought. And then again the colorless days dragged by, like the links of an invisible chain of toil which burdened the lives of these people, of tediousness, and senseless irritation against each other.
Sometimes Gríshka said:
“What a life—a witch is its grandmother! And why was it ever given to me? Work and tediousness, tediousness and work.…” And after a pause, with eyes cast upward toward the ceiling, and a wavering smile, he resumed:—“My mother bore me, by the will of God…there’s no gainsaying that! I learned my trade…and why? Weren’t there shoemakers enough without me? Well, all right, I’m a shoemaker, and what then? What satisfaction is there for me in that?… I sit in a pit and sew.… Then I shall die. Now, there’s the cholera coming, they say.… Well, what of that? Grigóry Orlóff lived, made shoes—and died of the cholera. What virtue is there in that? And why was it necessary that I should live, make shoes and die, hey?”
Matréna made no reply, conscious that there was something terrible about her husband’s words; but, now and then, she begged him not to utter such words, because they were contrary to God, Who must know how to arrange a man’s life. And sometimes, when she was not in good spirits, she sceptically announced to her husband:
“You’d better stop drinking liquor—then you’d find life more cheerful, and such thoughts wouldn’t creep into your head. Other folks live,—they don’t complain, and they hoard up a little pile of money, and with it set up their own work-shops, and then they live after their own hearts, like lords!”
“And you come out with those nonsensical words of yours, you devil’s doll! Use your brains—can I help drinking, if that is my only joy? Others! How many such successful folks do you know? And was I like that before my marriage? If you speak according to your conscience, it’s you who are sucking me, and harassing my life.… Ugh, you toad!”
Matréna was angered, but felt that her husband was right. In a state of intoxication he was jolly and amiable,—the other people were the fruit of her imagination,—and he had not been like that before his marriage. He had been a jolly fellow then, engaging and kind. And now he had become a regular wild beast.
“Why is it so? Am I really a burden to him?” she thought.
Her heart contracted at that bitter reflection, she felt sorry for herself, and for him; she went up to him, and caressingly, affectionately gazing into his eyes, pressed close to his breast.
“Well, now you’re going to lick yourself, you cow .…” said Gríshka surlily, and pretended that he wished to thrust her from him; but she knew that he would not do it, and pressed closer and harder against him.
Then his eyes flashed, he flung his work on the floor, and setting his wife on his knees, he kissed her much and long, sighing from a full heart, and saying, in a low voice, as though afraid that someone would overhear him: “E-ekh, Mótrya!6 Aï, aï, how ill you and I live together…we snarl at each other like wild beasts…and why? Such is my star…a man is born beneath a star, and the star is his fate!”
But this explanation did not satisfy him, and straining his wife to his breast, he sank into thought.
They sat thus for a long time, in the murky light and close air of their cellar. She held her peace and sighed, but sometimes in such fair moments as these, she recalled the undeserved insults and beatings administered by him, and with quiet tears she complained to him of them.
Then he, abashed by her fond reproaches, caressed her yet more ardently, and she poured forth her heart in more and more complaints. At last, this irritated him.
“Stop your jawing! How do you know but that it hurts me a thousand times more than it does you when I thrash you. Do you understand? Well, then, stop your noise! Give you and the dike of you free sway, and they’d fly at one’s throat. Drop the subject. What can you say to a man if life has made a devil of him?”
At other times he softened under the flood of her quiet tears, and passionate remonstrances, and explained, sadly and thoughtfully:
“What am I, with my character, to do? I insult you…that’s true. I know that you and I are one soul—but sometimes I forget that. Do you understand, Mótrya, that there are times when I can’t bear the sight of you?! Just as though I had had a surfeit of you. And, at such times, such a vicious feeling comes up under my heart—I could tear you to bits, and myself along with you. And the more in the right you are, as against me, the more I want to thrash you.…”
She hardly understood him, but the repentant, affectionate tone soothed her.
“God grant, that we may get straight somehow, that we may get used to each other”—she said, not recognizing the fact that they had long ago got used to each other, and had drained each other.
“Now, if we only had had some children born to us—we should get along better,” she sometimes added, with a sigh.—“We should have had an amusement, and an anxiety.”
“Well, what ails you? Bear some.…”
“Yes…you see, I can’t bear any, with these thrashings of yours. Yon beat me awfully hard on the body and ribs.… If only you wouldn’t use your feet on me.…”
“Come now,—” Grigóry gruffly and in confusion defended himself,—“can a man stop to consider at such a time, where and with what he ought to thrash? And I’m not the hangman, either…and I don’t beat you for my amusement, but from grief.…”
“And how was this grief bred in you?”—asked Matréna mournfully.
“Such is my fate, Mótrya!—” philosophized Gríshka. “My fate, and the character of my soul.… Look, am I any worse than the rest, than that Little Russian, for example? Only, the Little Russian lives on and does not feel melancholy. He’s alone, he has no wife, nothing I should perish without you.… But he doesn’t mind it!… He smokes his pipe and smiles; he’s contented, the devil, just because he’s smoking his pipe. But I can’t do like that.… I was born, evidently, with un
easiness in my heart. That’s the sort of character I have.… The Little Russian’s is—like a stick, but mine is like—a spring; when you press it, it shakes.… I go out, for instance, into the street, I see this thing, that thing, a third thing, but I have nothing myself. This angers me. The Little Russian—he wants nothing, but I get mad, also, because he, that mustached devil, doesn’t want anything, while I.… I don’t even know what I want…everything! So there now! Here I sit in a hole, and work all the time, and have nothing. And there, again, it’s your fault.… You’re my wife, and what is there about you that’s interesting? One womans just like another woman, with the whole lot of females.… I know everything in you; how you will sneeze to-morrow—and I know it, because you have sneezed before me a thousand times, probably.…. And so what sort of life, and what interest can I have? There’s no interest. Well, and so I go and sit in the dram-shop, because it’s cheerful there.”
“But why did you marry?”—asked Matréna.
“Why?”—Gríshka laughed.—“The devil knows why I did.… I oughtn’t to have done it, to tell the truth. It would have been better to start out as a tramp.… Then, if you are hungry, you’re free—go where you like! March all over the world!”
“Then go, and set me at liberty,” blurted out Matréna, on the verge of bursting into tears.