I pushed my head into her apron. “Mommie, Mommie,” I pleaded. “For Christ’s sake I’d rather have you beat me up than hear you cry. Mommie, I’m sorry I wore you out; please beat me up an’ you’ll feel better. You will …”
She stopped crying and threw away the stick. Her hand moved affectionately over my head, then gave me a light tap on the shoulder. “Go inside,” she said softly. “You must be hungry.”
I went inside with her following. She set a pot full of potatoes in front of me on the table. “Because of you, you little imp, they gave us no flour,” she growled, without looking at me. “An’ two full lorries they ground up yesterday …” While my little sister and me ate potatoes, Mom went out to the pantry shed to bring me a slice of bread from the last loaf we had been eating a whole week already. She came back a few minutes later, a mixture of fright and joy on her face. She winked at Dad who was gulping the potato water. “Father,” she whispered at him, “come out with me, quick.”
“Why?” he asked guiltily.
“Where did you scrounge up the flour?” she asked.
“What flour?” Dad looked at her, then at us in amazement.
“Come take a look at the pantry,” she pointed her head.
He got up, wiping his hands on his pants. We went out—Mom leading, me right behind her, and the rest of us following. She led us to the bin in the pantry. “There,” she pointed.
Dad rubbed his eyes and bent over. “My Lord,” he exclaimed, taking a handful of flour, “what’s this? Where did you hustle it up, Mother?”
“That’s what I’m askin’ you,” she replied. “Where did you get it?”
“Don’t know anything, Mother. Don’t know a thing, so help me.” Dad kept shaking his head.
He and Mother and all of us stood there over the bin, basking our eyes in about three measures of beautiful flour. Where did it come from? we asked ourselves. I was getting dizzy from trying to think. Where did it come from? I asked myself time and time again. Then a thought struck me. This thought made me tremble, and in my trembling I hadn’t realized that I said aloud, “You won’t croak from hunger!”
“What did you say?” Mother asked.
“You won’t croak,” I repeated in a clear voice, then looking around as if to tell a secret, I began to explain in a whisper: “That’s Lukashka’s flour … Last night …”
Dad sighed and mumbled. Mom bent over the bin and cried. Her tears fell into the flour and made a few tiny clumps …
1916
Me’n My Big Mouth
by Semyon Podyachev
Semyon Pavlovitch Podyachev, 1866-1934. Born to a peasant family, studied in technical school, later performed all kinds of jobs before starting to write. He wrote mostly short stories about village life. On Gorki’s suggestion, Podyachev wrote an autobiographical novel My Life which appeared in serial form from 1929 through 1934.
The wind howled and every now and then I could hear the roof crackling from the frost. We felt cozy inside, my wife and I, she was busy with her sewing, me—reading a book. The silence and the monotonous tick-tock of the old clock pendulum hanging on the wall made me forget time. When I looked up and saw it was nine (because my wife had suddenly stopped sewing and begun listening), I wondered who might be calling at this late hour—late by our village habits.
“A lorry pulled up,” she had said.
“Come on,” I had told her. “It’s probably the wind.”
“Somebody pulled up,” she insisted. “Can’t you hear? They’re unhitching the horse. Go out, have a look. Go on, you can drop your book for a minute. Sits there his nose in his book, the whole evening not a word out of him. Go out, have a look.”
“What for?” I asked. “The door’s not locked. If somebody’s out there, he’ll find his way in.”
“How lazy can you get? Perhaps it’s a stranger? Are you afraid you’ll freeze if you go out a minute? You better watch out,” she sneered, “there may be a dog, it’ll bite you.”
“I don’t think it’s a dog,” I said. “A dog would’ve been barking its head off by now.” It was just that I didn’t feel like going out into the cold. “If somebody wants, he’ll find the door,” I repeated.
“Oh, go to hell,” my wife became angry. She threw her sewing aside, got up and walked out silently onto the porch to have a look through the window. I put my book aside too, turned up the lamp and began to wait and listen.
“Who’s there?” I heard my wife’s voice a moment later. In response there was something that sounded like a hoarse, low mooing.
“Ah, it’s you,” I heard her voice again. “Come in, come on in. What’s the matter, you afraid of the dog? Don’t, he ran away, the neighbors probably took’im in. You cold?” ’
The same mooing in reply but this time closer. I could make out the words by now: “A little … Frost’s not too big but better not stay out too long. Sam home?”
“He’s home, he’s home,” my wife said. “Come on in … Tied up the horse?”
“Sure thing. Where’ve you got the entrance here? Can’t see a darn thing … afraid to bump my head in this unholy dusk. My eyes, they ain’t what they used to be. Where are you?”
“I’s here. There …”
The voice stopped. I heard the slamming of the closed porch door and a few seconds later I saw my wife stepping in over the threshold and right behind her I saw something big, wrapped in coats, taking up the whole doorway. It was panting heavily.
The visitor first stopped at the threshold, took off his fur hat, and crossed himself toward the icon in the corner. Then, twisting his mouth from side to side, he began to pull icicles off his moustache and when he was through, he rasped: “Hello there, cousin. I’m on business … What a hard time findin’ your place.”
The muzhik looked familiar yet I couldn’t recognize him right away. “What swept you in here, Uncle Pyotr?” I asked when I finally knew who he was. “Haven’t seen you in how many years? Take off your coat.”
“I ’bin to see you the other day,” Uncle Pyotr said. “You ’bin away or somethin’. Didn’t your woman tell ye?”
“No.”
“I all forgot about it,” my wife said. “Goin’ out of my mind; how can you remember everythin’ with so many things to do around here?”
“ ‘Course,” the muzhik agreed. I thought there was some irony in his voice. I watched him pull off his worn-out cloth coat with its molten fur collar, and saw that the sheepskin underneath was also old and shoddy. “ ‘Course,” he repeated, taking this off too and tossing it on the stove. “Why should’ye think of us? Any fun? Too many of my kind … Well, you live all right, I see,” he said, limbering up. “To tell ye the truth, I’m a little chilly; nasty weather an’ agains’ the wind … Quite nasty. Besides, I’m no young colt any more, an’ as they say, an old trot is new to an old horse.”
He had been talking in a sort of hoarse, sickly drawl, giving me from time to time a water-eyed scowl from under his reddish, overhanging brows. His thin, livid lips had been twitching nervously, twisting in-between words into a kind of neither vicious nor pitiable pretense of a timid sneer.
“Come on in,” I said, as I saw him stepping from foot to foot, slapping against the floor with his frozen, patched felt boots. “Why do you stand at the door? Come on in and sit at the fireplace … If your feet’re cold, go ahead, take off your boots. You may lie down on the stove while they’re drying …”
“Never mind,” he said. “It’s all right. They’ll thaw by th’selves. What am I, a squire or somethin’?”
“What do you think, only squires get chilly and simple folks don’t?” I asked.
He laughed. “It seems so,” he rubbed his hands. “It seems so, Pavlitch,” he repeated, sitting at the table where the light of the lamp slanting from under the tilted shade shone on his face. “We’re always gettin’ it from everywhere. The wind’s ablowin’ from all four sides, it seems.”
“Have patience,” I said. “Give it some time and
things may change. Maybe it’ll blow only at your back … Nyusha,” I asked my wife, “why don’t you put on the samovar?”
“If it’s just for me don’t bother,” Uncle Pyotr grunted.
“It’s no bother, no bother,” my wife assured him. “This thing here makes boiling water in no time. Sit a while, rest …”
“Oh, well,” he agreed. “But I didn’t come here for that.”
“Why did you come?” I asked.
“How shall I say it? I don’t feel right ’bout puttin’ye into all that trouble—samovar, night time an’ all that …” It was apparent, however, that the muzhik didn’t mean what he’d said. He liked the invitation—to sit a while in the cozy room and sip tea. He seemed to have cheered up; his neither vicious nor pitiable pretense of a timid sneer transformed into a smile, an invitingly trustful, simple smile. “I came to you, cousin, for advice,” he began, rubbing his chilled hands. “There’s a little business I have … I’d like you to write an appeal for me. Please do me a favor, I’ll return it somehow. All I’ve got now is a ten-kopeck bit, but I can repay you with potatoes or somethin’. You won’t lose out on me.”
“What’s it all about? What did they do to you?” I asked.
“You see,” he began in a plaintive voice. “They took me off relief. They gave me all the time but now they refuse. I don’t know what to do.”
“What kind of relief?”
“For my son … my son’d been took to war. It’s the second month already that there’s no news from him. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. It was on account’o him I was on relief, but now … they cut it off.”
“Who cut it off?” I asked.
“How do I know? County authorities … all of them nothin’ but one unholy gang.”
“But why?” I wondered. “It’s strange.”
“They say I oughtn’t t’ be gettin’ any. They say I’m healthy an’ can work, they say. Healthy, they should see so well! Here, here I’ve got a cettificat from the doctor. It says right here that I’m ill and cannot do any work.”
“Show it to me.”
He plunged into his pocket and fished out a clumsy purse. His thick fingers trembled nervously as he fumbled in its contents. “Here it is,” he finally got out a folded piece of paper and reached it to me. “The lady dokhtor herself made it out for me.”
I unfolded the paper. Indeed, it was a doctor’s certificate that this so and so peasant had been sick, had recently been to a hospital; the name of the sickness was given and it was pointed out that it was a chronic disease.
“So why didn’t you show it to the board?” I asked.
“I showed it,” Uncle Pyotr assured me. “ ‘This,’ they said, ‘don’t mean a thing. You can work.’ To hell I can work … Can’t breathe, cough ’bin chokin’ me for months, burns right here …” he pointed at his side.
“I don’t get it,” I asked. “You say, they gave you and then suddenly stopped?”
“They gave me … once. Didn’t say a word and now nothin’. My son, I raised him, ’n raised him. ‘I’m growin’ a heck of a helper,’ I usta tell myself. Married him off too, now his wife, she’s with me, young an’ a baby too, an’ another on the way … My old woman, she’s even worse than me … none of us work. What can I do?”
“How about her, your daughter-in-law? Doesn’t she get anything?”
“She does, why shouldn’t she get?” the muzhik’s voice rang with indignation. “So what if she gets? What’s hers is hers. But why shouldn’t old parents get too? They owe it to us, let ’em give! It’s not theirs to give anyway. What do you think, my son came easy to me?”
“I don’t know, Uncle Pyotr, so help me. I just don’t know what to say,” I sighed.
“You’ve got to write the appeal for me, Pavlitch,” he begged.
“Where to?”
“To the District, some people teached me. ‘Write to the committee,’ they said. And this dokhtor paper ought to go there too. Do me a favor, cousin, write it up for me. There’s a fellow in town who I asked to write it for me and he says, ‘Gimme three quarters and I’ll do it.’ You ever heard of such people? All they want is skin you. I ’bout started to give that sonovubitch a good tongue lashin’ when …” The muzhik paused, sniffled for a while, then resumed, “I s’pose it’s because of my big mouth that they got mad at me. It’s my big mouth, that’s why.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“That’s because of the truth. ’cause I blabber the truth to their faces. Why should I be afraid of it?” Uncle Pyotr glared at me. “A few weeks ‘go, the County scribe jumped at me and began screamin’. ‘Don’t you raise your voice at me,’ I tol’m, ‘an’ stop elbowin’. Who d’you think you are? You work for me. Who pays your salary? Me, us! You ought to serve me not me you,’ I point my finger at him. He didn’t like it a bit. Then the chief clerk came out. ‘Why are you yelling, big mouth?’ he asks. ‘You think you have it comin’ more than anybody else?’ So I gave him a piece of my mind. An’ now they all hate me.”
Uncle Pyotr was getting more and more excitable. “Not so long ago,” he went on, “they had a meetin’ in the County House about this relief thing. I made sure that I was ‘round. I came, they’re all there, shut the’selves in the other room, don’t let anybody in. ‘May I get in?’ I ask the assistant scribe. ‘No,’ he says. ‘An’ why not?’ I ask. ‘Because the doors’re shut, that’s why,’ he tells me. ‘An’ why’s the door shut?’ I ask ’gain. ‘Because they don’t want any busybody fools like you to bother them,’ he shouts an’ tries to chase me away. So I shoved’im aside, this thievin’ raw pup, an’ made my way inside where all the board’s sittin’ around a table. ‘What are you doing here?’ they all yell at me, ‘No outsiders allowed.’ I’m already mad. ‘An’ why not allowed?’ I ask, ‘Would’ye mind explainin’? Why all these secret meetin’s? Why can you be here and not me? Unless you’ve done somethin’ screwy, why shouldn’t I hear?’ I really gave it to them.”
“So what happened?” I was becoming interested.
“You know what happened.” Uncle Pyotr snickered bitterly. “They couldn’t stand my guts an’ made me leave … Then I went to the count an’ told’im everything, tried to explain, showed’im the paper … But he says, ‘I don’t know anything. We have a county board for that.’ I pleaded with the count, ‘What board!’ I cried. ‘They don’t let me open my mouth. They give to who don’t need and me they cut off.’ The count gets disgusted with me. ‘I don’t know anything,’ he shouts. ‘I’m sick and tired of you fellows!’ So what do you do? One says, ‘I don’t know,’ says the other, ‘this isn’t my case,’ and the third one don’t even want to listen. Who does know? The Tsar hisself told’em to give, why don’t they? My son’s no foreigner, he may be dead by now—who’s to feed me if not them? No,” the muzhik had a hard glare in his watering eyes, “I won’t let ’em get away with it, I won’t.”
I was feeling very sorry for Uncle Pyotr, yet I didn’t know how I could help him, whether writing the appeal would really help. I glanced at him but didn’t say anything.
“I even went to see our priest, Father Vassily,” Uncle Pyotr went on. “He, too, got at my throat, began rememberin’ things, an’ somebody must’ve squealed on me that I didn’t osserf fastin’ times … ‘Why aren’t you to confessions?’ Father Vassily asks me, ‘and why are you guzzling milk on Wednesdays and Fridays?’ Who am I to listen, him or the dokhtor? The dokhtor tole me to keep drinkin’ milk … ‘You so-’n-so,’ the priest tells me, ‘why don’t you come to church?’ I tell’im I’ve got no suit of clothes to wear to church, and he says, ‘What do you need a suit of clothes for? You a young bride or something, or a girl looking for a suitor? You come to church to pray to God and not show off your clothes.’ Father Vassily’s gettin’ annoyed with me but I feel I’ve got to tell’im the truth. ‘To pray I can do much better at home by myself,’ I say. ‘With nobody t’ bother me or tempt me.’ He’s mad. ‘Don’t you get smart-alecky, you he
retic,’ he shouts. ‘I’ll probably grab’ye by the tail and knock your brains out. What d’yea think you are, you devil, another Tolstoy or Gorki?’ An’ he went on an’ on, an’ I lissen till I can’t anymore. ‘What’s the use of comin’ t’ye,’ I say. ‘You never tell anythin’ new, alway’ the same Lord’ve mercy, Lord’ve mercy.’ That deak lissens, chewin’ his cud an’ starin’ at me. He’s beginnin’ to look as if he wants to eat me up. An’ then he bares his teeth ’n reaches out for my neck, an’ before I know he’s grabbed me by the collar. So tight that I’m beginnin’ to think my end has come. He turns me around an’ sticks my snout into the door an’ makes me push it wide open. I twitch in his iron clutch like a chicken under a knife an’ itch with my heels to give’im a kick somewhere, but I can’t do it. In the meantime he’s dragged me out through the porch an’ onto the wing an’ there he stops for a sekind on top of all those steps, to take a breather like, then socks me with his knee in the spot I’m sittin’ … I come tumblin’ down all those steps an’ he yells, ‘There’s your relief, bigmouth, and if it isn’t enough come back for more. I’ll teach you how to wag your tongue.”
The muzhik paused. “Nifty, huh?” he asked with a bitter smile.
“Not bad,” I agreed.
We were both silent. He was staring at his feet, I watched the samovar. Several times I caught his questioning glimpses before he asked, “You know little Igor Kila, the cashier at County Credit ’ssociation?”
I nodded.
“Well, I had some business with that viper. I come to his office to ask for a loan … to pay pasturin’ fees, buy some boots, some rags … I went late in the afternoon, the tavern next door’s still open, folks comin’ in and out. I had a mind to stop in and lose myself a ten-kopeck bit but then thought better of it. They might smell the booze on me an’ not like it. Might stop in later, I thought. So I walked straight to the office an’ gave the chief clerk my pass book. I wait ’n wait an’ see the members of the board are all there, Igor Kila has come too. They all go into the other room to talk things over. Then they begin to call out names. One goes in and comes out with money; then next an’ next … ‘Pyotr Baboshkin,’ somebody shouts, ‘Here he is,’ I call back, ‘I is Baboshkin.’ They ask me in an’ I greet’em, an’ then the chairman sittin’ at the head of the table gives me back the empty passbook, ‘Your request was declined, Mr. Baboshkin.’ he says. ‘Why?’ I ask. ‘Everybody got the money, why not me?’ Little Igor Kila gets hot under the collar. ‘Let me remind you,’ he shouts, ‘when you took you never made payments on time.’ I, too, am beginnin’ to get hot. ‘So what,’ I shout back, ‘I paid interess, didn’t I?’ He shouts, ‘We don’t care for your interest; we want our borrowers to make payments when they’re due.’ So I stop shoutin’ and plead with him. ‘But what could I do if I had no money at times?’ Little Igor gets fresh with me, ‘You took, you should’ve known the time to pay back. I know your kind. From here you go right to the tavern.’ This, I tell you, Pavlitch, made me see red. I gave that little Igor an’ all the rest of ’em the tongue lashing of their lives. Let’em remember Pyotr Baboshkin!”
Treasury of Russian Short Stories 1900-1966 Page 5