“Why did you do it?” I screamed. “What did I do to you? Am I not a human being as you?” I went on raving pitifully—words full of nonsense—shaking from insane rage. If I had expected them to play another mean trick on me, I was wrong—dumb-struck faces were staring at me. I realized that the awareness of guilt had suddenly dawned upon them. Matvey had lost his aplomb, and even the Scalplock had pulled down his sleeves and plunged his hands into his pockets.
“Why don’t you tell me?” I insisted, waving my arms at them.
Their reply was stony silence. The Scalplock stared at his feet while rolling a cigaret. Matvey had managed to join the rear of the crowd. The men began to go for their barrows, scratching in grim silence. The foreman had come to the group, vituperating, gesturing menacingly. But I wanted answers. The bitter feeling of undeserved hurt with which I was left only served to intensify the pain in my hands. “Wait a moment, chums,” I shouted.
They halted, scowling, silent.
“I’ve got to know, chums, why did you do it? Have you any conscience?”
Nothing but silence. What could they say? There was another awkward pause, before I addressed them once more, in a much calmer tone of voice. “Chums,” I said, “I am a human being—the same as you. I, too, want to eat, and that’s why I came here. I trusted to find akin people, equal to me by our common, miserable station in life. And what do I get?”
“We are all alike,” I emphasized several times. “We ought to understand each other; we ought to help each other as much as we can …”
They had gathered around me, listening attentively, though avoiding my pleading glances. After a while, as I scanned some faces of the crowd, I noticed that my sermon had taken effect. They had seemed contrite. A feeling of joy, acute and glowing, overwhelmed me. I threw myself upon a heap of salt and burst into tears. Yes, I cried …
An hour passed, maybe two, when I raised my head I saw that the day’s work was about done. The workers, sitting at the parapet in clusters of five to six people, were silhouetted against the setting sun and the pinkish salt background like ungainly, big blotches. Chilly air had begun to waft in from the sea. A little, white cloud sailed across the sky, shedding thin, transparent wisps. Soon they evanesced into the deep, blue yonder.
When I got up I had made up my mind: I’d take my leave and return to the fisherman’s hut. When I approached the group consisting of the Scalplock, Matvey, the foreman, and three other stout vagabonds, they all rose to meet me. “Friend,” Matvey rasped before I had a chance to say a word, “you better go your way, wherever it is. Correct. As a go-away present we collected a few pennies for you.” His head was bowed, as he reached out his arm to me.
In his trembling hand he had a bunch of coppers. Stepping from foot to foot, the others somberly glanced in all directions but at me. First I had been staring at them in confusion; then I realized that they were impatient to see me go.
“No, keep ’em,” I pushed Matvey’s hand aside.
“You better take’m, friend, don’t offend us. We ain’t that bad if you stop to think of it. We know, pal, we’ve done you wrong. Was there any reason for it, you’d ask? No, absolutely none. Life itself is the reason. What kind of life do we have? A dog’s life is better’n ours. A barrow, a quarter of a ton; the brine chews up our legs, the sun burns us like fire the whole day—and what’s a day? Four bits, or five! Ain’t that enough to turn a man into a beast? You toil and toil, you drink your wages away, and you come back to toil some more. That’s all to it! You waste five years of your life and find you’ve lost all your human dignity—you’ve become a fiend. We wrong each other, chum, more than we wronged you. Yet, we know each other, whereas you’re a stranger. Why should we pity you? Sure, some of this and that. Sure, you told us a few things—so what? Sure, you put them smartly there … Of course, it was all true, but it’s neither here nor there. So, go on wherever you want,—you with your brand of truth, and we’ll stay here with ours. It isn’t healthy for you to stay. We here stick to each other like flies to flypaper—be glad you can still fly away. Scat! Take the coppers and goodbye, pal. We ain’t guilty to you nor are you to us. It just cannot turn out well. Goodbye, chum, shove your way.”
I pored over their faces; they were nodding in agreement with Matvey. “So long, pals,” I tossed my bundle over my shoulder.
“Hold it, man,” the Scalplock’s heavy hand stopped me by the arm. “If tsat was not you but somebody else, I’d chase him out wits my fists. Und’stand? But you—even some pennies you have for present. So why don’t ya tsank us?” He spat aside and began to twirl his tobacco pouch around his finger, grinning victoriously, as if to say, marvel at me, see how clever I am!
Crushed by the day’s events, I hastened to thank them and take my leave. I felt painful and ashamed. The sky had lost its swelter, but the deserted sea hadn’t stopped rolling its greenish surf. As the murmuring waves serenely sparkled at the setting sun, the surf seemed to be conversing about things incomprehensible and melancholy.
When I approached the hut, the old fisherman rose to meet me. “Well, pal, have you found it salty?” he asked in the triumphant voice of a man whose opinions proved to be right.
I looked at him in silence.
“Uhm, a bit too salty, huh?” he decided, examining me from head to foot. “Grab some food, get yourself a bowl of chowder. They made a potful of it; half of it, like as not, is left. Go on, but blow on the spoon. Dee-ee-licious chowder, it is—with flounder and sturgeon.”
Two minutes later I was sitting again in the shade of his mud hut. I was dirty, exhausted, and very hungry. My heart ached, yet I ate, and ate. The chowder with sturgeon and flounder tasted good.
1927
The Two Kinds of Truth
by Pyotr Zamoyski
Pyotr Ivanovitch Zamoyski, 1896-1958, born Zevalkin, of a poor peasant family. Self-taught, he did all kinds of work, wrote mostly about village life. Under the influence of Gorki wrote a biographical trilogy, Stripling, Youth, and Sunrise.
“What’s he doin’ so long?” my mother said, unable to tear herself away from the window.
“They won’t give him none,” Mishka told her in a quiet voice. “Why go to them at all?” he added after a moment of silence.
All of us, a roomful of kids clinging to the window, gazing impatiently toward the school and those white willows, trying to picture that nine-walled Glazov house where our father had gone to borrow some rye flour. The Glazovs weren’t the first; yesterday he had made the rounds of all “benefactors” as he called them, those who “help out” the needy, lend a measure of rye and take back a measure-and-a-half in the fall. But today all those “benefactors” seemed to be in cahoots; my father was refused by each one of them. The Glazovs were his last straw; old Glazov was a God-fearing man, as my dad was, and they’d meet almost every Sunday in church on the left choir loft where they sang together.
“He’ll give, Uncle Ossip will,” Mom said. “They’ve lots of grain, all shelves full.”
“They’ll first’ve their teeth pulled,” Mishka growled.
All of us kids, except Mishka who was the oldest now, kept clinging to the window, staring at those willows and waiting. We hoped something would suddenly begin to move in those willows and come away onto the road, and then we’d see that it was our daddy, and our daddy’d have a bag on his back … What would our dad have on his back, one bag full of rye or full of nothing? That’s what it was all about.
Did Mother really believe when she said that Uncle Ossip won’t refuse? She probably didn’t because her face was worried and her eyes were scared. There were nine mouths to feed in our family and they’d given us soil for one-and-a-half souls. Only my dad had the right to soil and our oldest brother, now in the army. My dad was one soul and the soldier boy one-half; we kids didn’t count—we were “soulless” they said. That had been the law, and after the law was made there was no more soil to share out; we couldn’t rent land either for half-and-half because we had n
o horse and no seeds.
As Dad used to say, we had to knock like fishes against the ice, trying to break it.
“Is it him?” Mom shouted out and her face became pale. We all saw him. We looked at each other and quietly came down from the bench. Sitting near Mom, I could hear her sniffing into her apron. She’s crying, I thought, and a mist came over my eyes. I was sorry for her but I knew if I ever tried to ask her not to, she’d cry even harder and what’s more, she’d begin to sob aloud, and then she’d wake up Aksutka in the chamber, and I’d have to rock her, pick her up and carry her. So I decided, let Mom cry … Maybe I’ll cry a little too—quietly—because a twelve-year-old boy isn’t supposed to cry aloud …
Though we weren’t looking at the street any more we knew by the passing shadow that Dad was home. We could see him now standing at the door of our cottage. He groaned for a while, fumbling and knocking at something, then began to scrape, as if groping for the cramp. There was a jerk, and then … the door opened slowly, slowly.
Dad didn’t look at us, at our worried faces. He lazily laid the empty bag. on the Dutch stove we had, rubbed his hands as if they had been frozen, and only then did he give us a glance—sort of begging and scared too. It seemed as if Dad was afraid of us, his own kids. He was afraid and felt guilty. None of us said anything, and there was silence for a long time which Dad seemed to find harder and harder to stand. We all knew that Mom would be first to speak up. She lifted her tearful face, chewed for a while on her dried-up lips and began to shake her head.
“You’re nothing but a piece of clay,” she said bitterly to Dad. Mom was speaking very softly but we all heard her … he too. “You’re a good-for-nothing goofy nincompoop unfit even to be shot by a good cannon. Why don’t we get rid of you before you tire us all out to death?” Mom kept scolding Dad and us. Dad didn’t say anything; he knew that if he said something they might end fighting with the wooden poker. So he just shook his head and whispered, “Oh, you stupid nag, you nag!”
When Mom finished scolding she got up from the bench, made a step toward the stove, and snatched the bag. Giving Dad a look that almost made him stagger, she slammed the door and left.
I ran after and caught up with her at the pantry shed. “Mommie, where’re you going?” I asked.
She stopped and stared at me. Then she bent down as if looking for a stick but I didn’t wait. “You miserable brat,” I heard her scream. “Go home before I make a short end of you.”
I ran back. I knew where she was going anyhow—to the Karpukhins. The Karpukhins were richer than the Glazovs but more stingy. Dad wouldn’t even try there; only Mom had a chance. Mom knew how to go about these things; she’d not crawl or bow as Dad did. No, she’d pretend to laugh, joke and wouldn’t ask for anything at first. Only later she’d say, as if it suddenly came to her, “Heck, I just thought of something. I’d started on the dough and found I haven’t got enough flour. Heck, could you help me out with a measure until tomorrow?”
The Karpukhins knew only too well that “tomorrow” meant until fall. Still only rarely did they refuse Mom. True, they’d first make fun out of Dad, out of our whole household, our misery, and then they’d either give right away or promise to.
I hadn’t gone with Mom to the Karpukhins this time, nor did I even follow to watch her through the window. Too often she’d catch me and give me a few on the behind. But I waited until I saw her come out of the Karpukhins’ porch. I knew from her face that she got it.
“Mom?” I asked softly, “are we going to get it?”
“We are,” she said.
“When?”
“Don’t be nosy,” she snapped. “They’re takin’ a lorry to the mill tomorrow an’ after they come back they’ll give us two measures till New Moon.”
I ran inside. When Mom came in everybody knew by her face that we were going to have bread. Even Dad cheered up though he asked no questions.
Only Mishka was glum. He sprawled with his elbows all over the table and pressed his hands to his temples. Mishka was thinking, but I paid no attention to him because all I thought of was that we were going to have bread. I was so happy that I felt like running out into the meadow to watch the grazing horses at the mill or play with other kids my age. They were burning cow dung and baking potatoes in it.
I stopped at the threshing floor and peeked into our neighbor’s hut where I liked to sit and think. I don’t know how long I was sitting there when I heard somebody come by in a hurry. I looked: it was my brother Mishka. In one hand he had a blue sackcloth bundle, in the other he carried a thick stick.
“Mish,” I shouted at him. “Where’re you going?”
He turned around and yelled back at me, a little too happily: “To wild geeses, to pieces, and misty hills—that’s where. Don’t say a word, though, to Dad or Mom,” he warned.
“If you say so,” I promised, my heart aching. My older brother was going to find his luck in neighboring villages. As my eyes followed him sadly, I was beginning to be afraid that Mishka’d never come back to us. I remembered him telling me, “Vasya, some day I’m going to go where my eyes’ll carry me. I’m tired of looking after people’s cows and begging for little handouts. You’ll grow up and go away too. We’ve got no roots in this village, the Tsar gives us no soil, and there’s nothing here to cling to.”
There he went, my older brother, and now there was nobody to talk to and tell my troubles. I wanted to run after him when somebody called me. It was Lukashka, taking a cart out into the fields. I had completely forgotten about him—I still did have a friend! Lukashka was from Kochki, not far from here; he was living in our village now, working for the rich farmer Damyotka. Several years older than me, Lukashka was a strong lad and a good worker. He had only one good eye, though; the other a shepherd had spattered out with a whip.
Lukashka had been telling me interesting things and giving me books to read. Whenever I had a chance to crawl up into the attic, I’d sit down at the chimney where there was a hole in the roof and read. Mom couldn’t find me there, no matter how hard she looked. I knew if she ever found me there she would take my book away and tear it to pieces.
“Where’re you going?” Lukashka asked.
“Oh, wherever my eyes go,” I said. “Just seen my brother off.”
“Into the world?”
“Where else,” I sighed.
“I’m afraid Mishka won’t come back to you,” Lukashka shook his head.
“I’m afraid so,” I agreed.
“Get on the cart,” Lukashka invited me.
I jumped up. “Your brother’s going to get far, far away,” Lukashka went on. “He’ll get into a big town with all kinds of houses and tall chimneys. He’ll hire himself out to work in some factory and never come back into this village.”
“No, he won’t,” I nodded. My heart pained me and I didn’t want to think of it. I looked at the two-share plough dragging behind us on its gauge wheels, then watched Lukashka’s huge dog Kaukas, running ahead of the cart. Kaukas was big and yellow, came out on top in most dog fights. And Lukashka loved to see dogs fight; he’d seem to change when he sicked them. “Sick’em Kaukas!” he’d yell, and Kaukas’d throw himself at his enemy from a running jump.
We barely managed to get by two boundary stones from the meadow when a two-horse cart showed up on the road crossing. It was driven by Pavel, one of Karpukhin’s married sons. Pavel was older than Lukashka but he always liked to ride out into the fields with his dog, the huge Polkan. He too loved to see dogs fight. His Polkan had already been in many fights with Lukashka’s Kaukas; sometimes one, sometimes the other dog won.
“Hello there, Lukashka,” Pavel shouted.
“Hello there, Pavel. Opening the fall tilling?”
“Some people’ve started already.”
“My landlord’s sending me out,” Lukashka explained.
The dogs were already snarling at each other. Pavel’s eyes began to flash. “Look at them,” he shouted with joy.
“Th
ey know their business,” Lukashka said.
“Shall we sick’em, what d’ya say?” Pavel asked.
“Why not?”
They stopped their horses and jumped off the carts. “G-get’im, Polkan!” Pavel shouted.
“Take’m, Kaukas!” Lukashka yelled.
The dogs seemed to be waiting just for that; they jumped at each other, turned over a few times, and bunched in a cloud of dust. Each dog had his own way of fighting; Polkan tried to grab his enemy’s throat. Kaukas aimed for the upper lip. The winner would usually be the dog that made the first grab.
This time Kaukas had goofed. Almost at once Polkan had his throat. Whooping happily, Pavel kept running around the dogs, baiting Polkan, “G-et’im!”
Lukashka, too, ran around, yelling, “Take’m, Kaukas! Take’m!”
The dogs whirled, uprooting grass and crushing somebody’s millet. Kaukas was pressed to the ground, his throat in Polkan’s teeth. He had stopped growling, whined for a while, then began to groan hoarsely.
I sat on the cart, trembling from fright and watching little rivers of sweat flowing down Lukashka’s face. Kids had come hurrying down from the meadow, and they too, like Pavel and Lukashka, started running around the dogs, whistling and yowling.
Kaukas was quiet and all bloody as Polkan was sitting on top of him, biting his throat. “Lukashka,” I yelled out. “Do something, he’ll chew Kaukas to death.”
Lukashka had seen that. He made up his mind to do the last thing he’d have wanted to. Running up to the dogs, he kicked Kaukas as hard as he could. “S-sick’ im,” he shouted “S-sick’ im!”
Kaukas shot up like a flash of lightning. Before I could blink an eye he was on top of Polkan, clamping him with his paws and sinking his teeth in his enemy’s upper jaw. There was Polkan’s scared yap, as Kaukas tossed him up and threw him against the plough, and then clamped him again with his paws, tearing at his side and throwing off bloody clumps of hair.
Treasury of Russian Short Stories 1900-1966 Page 3