There’s a woman for you, he thought. To Karaganda she went, to Moscow she won’t. Certainly he knew that nothing could aggravate the destructive force of a subterranean explosion as the least, minimal token of resistance. A blast wave might move quite harmlessly along empty drifts of a large section, but should it meet an obstacle, the lightest ventillation door, and the pressure would increase hundredfolds to create an unbelievable havoc.
As Polina Pavlovna, in her blue dress reminding him so much of that old house dress of bygone years, kept staring at him, Korolkov, the engineer, retreated for the first time from his blast theory. He decided the time had come to prevent an explosion from spreading along empty drifts. “Polya,” he said calmly, “you’re right in what you’re saying. But can you imagine what’s going to happen if I refuse an upright, honest invitation of the chief? He might bear me a grudge for the rest of his life, and you wouldn’t want that to happen, Polya!”
Polya didn’t explode.
1940
Once Upon a Morning
by Vitali Vassilevski
Vitali Vassilevski, author and critic, wrote a number of short stories published under the name Yesterday and Today, in 1951. He also wrote a novel, The Little Military Bone, published in 1947, which deals with World War Two.
Doctor Ivan Petrovitch Semyonov had been called out to the village Medvezhye to help a woman in childbirth. However, it wasn’t until evening that he was able to tear himself away from the clinic and pedal out of town on his bicycle. Municipal employees in their shirt sleeves sat around boiling samovars in their front yards, sweating and drinking tea. “Hitting the dust again?” they asked in reply to his friendly nods.
Everybody in town knew the tall, lanky doctor with the fair, round beard. Ivan Petrovitch was born in the village Medvezhye, only about six verst from here. As one of the youngest students to graduate, he had begun to grow a beard while still in his last year at the Voronezh Medical Institute. A good doctor, he felt, ought to have the respect of his patients and they would have no respect for too young a physician. He loved to indulge in long conversations with them but the result was the opposite: they thought he was doing this from lack of experience. They’d go away dissatisfied and only because he was a native son, so to say, they treated him well. Petrovitch, they called him from behind his back, not doctor. But he didn’t care.
Ivan Petrovitch pedalled down the river, along a narrow path. Every now and then he had to dismount and pull out long blades of grass caught in the transmission. He didn’t mind. Everything around was too pleasant—willows planted along the banks, meadows full of intoxicating honeysuckle and flocks of white clouds on the horizon. Ivan Petrovitch smiled. “How great, how great,” he muttered in delight.
The woman had a difficult labor. He became tired and irritated. “Where’s the hot water?” he kept scolding the old woman that assisted him. It was dawn when he was able to walk outside onto the porch and light a cigarette. It tasted sweet.
The woman’s husband Andrey Zhuchkov and the kolkhoz chairman lay at the barn on the grass. They had been speaking in low voices, afraid to annoy him. “Congratulations, Andrey Mikhailovitch,” the doctor shouted. “A son!”
Both men jumped up, looking sheepishly at Ivan Petrovitch. Andrey was embarrassed for having had to keep the doctor most of the night; his face was drawn, drops of perspiration glistened on his cheeks. His father, old Laryonitch, came up. “Ivan Petrovitch,” he said, leaning over the wattled hedge. “Your papa’d have been proud of you.” The old man began reminiscing; the doctor, too, remembered how he used to run around without pants, and how this very Laryonitch had caught him once in his orchard and boxed his ears. But now every villager would respectfully take his hat off when addressing him.
Not waiting for breakfast, the doctor got on his bicycle and was gone in a cloud of dust as Laryonitch and the others had been clanging on a piece of rail to wake up the village and announce the news that the baby was delivered by one of their own kind—Petrovitch.
Ivan Petrovitch rode along a path in a field of rye, listening to the murmur of the grain, watching it suddenly turn dark as the crimson sun that had just risen from the river hid behind a cloud. The scene made him reflect about those endless fields of rye, about his life and delivering babies (this was the two hundred and thirty-seventh time) and how their first cries made him pale and fearful, the same as ever, in spite of the cool, professional confidence he had acquired through years of experience.
He rode out of the field, but instead of following the dusty highway, he turned to the track along the river now enveloped by a milky-white mist. The splashes of perches were so loud that they sounded like stones jumping out and falling back into the water. They reminded him of the time he was a little boy and used to come here with Laryonitch and carry his tin with soil and fat rain worms entwined into a clump. At the grove they’d stop, Laryonitch would spit on the bait and cast out, and then they’d sit down on the sand and fish in silence until hot midnoon.
At the former Tushkov farm of which only the orchard and a stone henge remained, the doctor saw the back of an old, ragged-looking man, sitting on his haunches at a low fire. At the sound of his bicycle the man raised his head; the face was dirty and the disheveled beard in clumped skeins, but Ivan Petrovitch recognized the beggar. It was Ankudinov, the one-time kulak who came back recently from Siberia and stayed with his son-in-law, the bathhouse keeper. Now a mendicant, this man had been his father’s master for seventeen years. “Good morning, old timer,” Ivan Petrovitch said, jumping off his bicycle.
“Good morning, if you ain’t joking.”
“Don’t you recognize me?”
“How? A fog’s been over my eyes for years,” the old man said while stirring with a wooden spoon in the kettle which stood on glowing embers amid a rosy-colored flame of gnarled wood.
“I’m Semyonov, Vanka Semyonov,” the doctor said. “Remember your laborer Pyotr? I’m his son.”
“Pyotr? I remember lazy-bones Pyotr. …”
“You stinking beggar,” Ivan Petrovitch said. “All his life my father travailed for you and never earned enough to buy himself a decent pair of pants, and now he’s lazy-bones. You could never have enough, could you?”
“Yeah,” the old man agreed. “I never could have enough. I was greedy, wanted to become rich quick.”
“But you couldn’t make it?”
“No, I couldn’t. All because I was a fool. I should’ve sold everything and joined a kolkhoz somewhere close to Moscow. With money I’d have made it anywhere.”
“They would’ve caught up with you.”
“They probably would’ve,” Ankudinov agreed meekly. “But then who knows? I might’ve been able to lose myself. Take my oldest, Ivan, where is he? You think they caught him? Nah, he’s shrewd, Ivan. Like as not he managed to buy himself a good passport.”
The old man removed the scum from the broth, straightened up and waved toward the yellowing fields at the river. “All this earth there, all of it is mine,” he declared.
“The tractors too?” the doctor sneered.
“I didn’t buy them, but the soil’s mine. I’ve bank drafts to show for it.”
“So what’re you going to do now?” the doctor asked.
“I’m going to be dyin’,” Ankudinov sighed. “My time’s about over; God’s been calling me. I hear Him at night; he’s right beside me, warm as a cat. Luke, he says to me, I’m waiting.”
“You’ve mellowed,” Ivan Petrovitch observed. “Yet there was a time. …”
“There was, there was,” the old man shook his head. “There used to be mushroom pie but now there’re handouts. Have pity on me.”
“A billy goat once pitied a wolf. …”
“You compare me to a wolf?” the old man smiled, showing his rosy, toothless gums. “I’ve no bite left. You’re a learned man, Vanya. I’d be ashamed to think of you as a billy goat. I’m afraid of you.”
Ivan Petrovitch took a careful look at the
old beggar. His dirty rags, the clumps of disheveled beard, and those trembling hands gave him a shudder. What a lonely old age, he thought, moving away from the fire. Not mounting his bicycle, he began to guide it slowly up the path. When he looked back, the fire had disappeared behind the osier bushes and only the odor of smoke could be almost seen spreading across the water. The doctor stopped where the bank turned steeply into a cliff; the water seemed to be hugging the shore, pushing out little waves onto the rocky ground but keeping driftwood and knobby branches swirling in foamy eddies.
Were it not for the Revolution, Ivan Petrovitch thought, I too might’ve been Ankudinov’s laborer, getting it with the whip the same way as my father did. My father! What makes a man lose his dignity to the degree that he considers a slave’s existence to be the normal life of a human being? My father never protested. Until he died he never stopped believing that Ankudinov was going to give him a reward for twenty years of labor: fifty rubles. He’d have bought a few acres, a horse, and grown richer and richer. … Just like Ankudinov.
It’s either slave or master, as Chekhov said.
There was a noise in the bushes. Old Ankudinov pushed through the thicket. “You’re still here, Vanya,” he panted. “I thought you’d not get too far on this path.”
“What happened?”
“Vanya,” the old man said, “your father once lost a leather whip I had. A good three-ruble whip it was. Listen, you give me back those three rubles.”
The doctor pulled out his wallet and fingered in it for a moment. “Here,” he said, giving Ankudinov a five-ruble bill. The old man took it nonchalantly, spit on it, and smiled. “I hope it isn’t your last,” he said, putting the bill away into his pouch. “You’ve got a lot of money, Vanya?”
“Quite a lot,” the doctor said, then added glumly, “vacation money. Saturday I’m going away into the Crimea.”
“Probably more’n a thousand?” the old man asked eagerly.
“Much more.”
“If I had that much, oh, ho—holy sinners, I’d take off for Moscow.”
“What would you be doing there?”
“I’d look for my son,” the old man said.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ivan Petrovitch waved his hand. “You don’t even know he’s there.”
A sly smile sprouted on Ankudinov’s shaggy face. “A father’s heart knows. I’d find him even blindfolded. Vanya, give me a smoke,” he suddenly said in a plaintive voice. “I’m so hungry for a smoke that I’ve a burning inside.”
Ivan Petrovitch bent over his bicycle and fished out a cigarette from his bag. “Here, Luke Kuzmitch, have a smoke,” he offered.
“God bless you,” the old man mumbled. He took the cigarette and stashed it away in his bosom.
“Why did you come back, Luke Kuzmitch?” the doctor asked. “Was it so bad there?”
“A dog came back to his kennel,” the old man tried to grin. “You’re right, Vanya, it isn’t bad there. But I came back while there’s still time,” he gave Ivan Petrovitch a cold stare. “While there’s still time. …”
“Time for what?” Ivan Petrovitch asked in amazement.
“They’ll be giving back the soil to the former owners,” the old man whispered mysteriously, drawing his tense, dirty face closer to the doctor. “I’m here waiting. I’ve got all the papers in order—deed, invoices, drafts an’ everything. They let me keep’em. I have’m in a secret place.”
“You’re crazy,” the doctor laughed merrily. “Waiting for yesterday?”
“That’s right. I’m waiting. You think Siberian hills could bridle me, an old war horse?” The old man turned around sharply, and before disappearing in the bushes he fiercely crunched the grass with his boots.
Everything became peaceful again. A crested lapwing flew low over the doctor’s head with a shrill wail, “Tee-veet,” then turned around, flaunting its white belly. The river breathed fast, rolling its rapid waters. Ivan Petrovitch moved on.
At the millhouse he undressed and took a running jump into the cool water. He hit the sandy bottom, gave a strong push with his legs and came up to the surface. Lying on his side and cleaving the water with his shoulder, he swam to shore.
The quiet morning, lightly colored by unhurried gurgling of whirls and gently reflected by the blue sky and foamy-white clouds, gave Ivan Petrovitch the clarity of thought he hadn’t had earlier. It was too early to forget the past because together with love there still was enough room in his heart for hate.
He dressed quickly and pedalled into town. A light fast drizzle caught him not far from the clinic, and when he reached the porch, the clouds hadn’t dispersed yet, and the morning promised to be breezeless and sultry.
1943
The Birthday
by Constantin Trenyev
Constantin Andreyevitch Trenyev, 1876-1945. Playwright and novelist. His novel Lubov’ Yarovaya (Sterile Love), published in 1926, has been played on the Soviet stage for many years. It won the Stalin prize in 1941.
It was of little importance anymore that it had been a busy, productive week—meetings, a wood-procurement campaign, and a well-done job on the new draftees. Sitting at his office desk at the window, Ivan Dmitryevitch felt as depressed as the snow-covered square outside that sloped sharply toward the frozen river and the bluish line of forests right behind it.
This morning had started as noisily as any other morning. He had been opening mechanically a few official envelopes, trying to scan their contents and at the same time follow a heated argument between his assistant Shmarina and a fellow in a gay-colored tall hat. There was an envelope addressed to him personally; one look at its contents and the letters had turned red. The noise had suddenly stopped, the gay-colored hat had disappeared, and Ivan Dmitryevitch had thought he was going to faint. Mitya, his only son Mitya—was dead.
With a tremendous effort Ivan Dmitryevitch had managed to get a hold of himself. The noise had come back, Shmarina was still trying to prevent that fellow from making a scene, and nobody paid any attention to his heart-clamping sorrow. Nobody had seemed to notice his stupor. When somebody had walked up to his desk a while later for a reference extract, he had mechanically checked the books and issued it. How strange, he had mused, people were going about their business, the job was still the same, the dark-green wall was as smudgy as ever, but Mitya—Mitya was not alive anymore. …
Ivan Dmitryevitch shuddered. A flood of sorrow broke out of his chest in a grave moan, and he saw through a haze the chairman of the draft board Yezhov come up to him. Yezhov said something, but Ivan Dmitryevitch didn’t hear—he stared in stupor somewhere at the wall, at the ceiling, and at people without seeing anything.
“Five kopecks for your thoughts, uncle Vanya,” Yezhov boomed gaily. “I bet, I know,” he added in a semi-whisper, winking at Ivan Dmitryevitch’s unrecognizing face. “Shmarina’s on your mind. What if I tell Maria Nicolayevna?”
Ivan Dmitryevitch was unaware of Yezhov’s chuckle or of his comradely nudge. “Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled. “How can I tell her?” His wife had been sick for several weeks until a few days ago. She had been taken ill just before New Year and went back to work only yesterday. They had been trying to hide their worry from each other: there had been no letter from Mitya for a long time … and there still wasn’t any. One week from now Mitya would have been twenty years old. …
Twenty years! Mitya’s birthday used to be the most joyous, the most legal holiday in the year. How carefully each one of them had been preparing for that day! Maria Nicolayevna would make her best pie, guests would arrive with their little presents, and Mitya would have a little surprise for each parent. Now this would be the second time they celebrated Mitya’s birthday without him. Last time he somehow managed to have a letter delivered on the very eve of his birthday. It had lain there on the festive table together with the pie and all the birthday presents, waiting for the guests to take their seats. It was read aloud again and again, every time a new guest had arri
ved, as if Mitya had been there with them.
There was their dear old friend Cyril Ilyitch! He had been listening in silence each time the letter was read, slightly twitching his barely grey walrus moustache and wiping off every now and then a tear from his blue goggle eyes. With a distraught look Cyril Ilyitch had tried to find something not too expensive to “break for luck.” This was the way he had been expressing his happiness for years, but recently he had his qualms about it—dishes weren’t easy to come by.
Ivan Dmitryevitch glanced at the clock on the wall: in three hours it would be five and he’d go home and find Maria Nicolayevna waiting for him with supper and then … he’d have to plunge the knife of the news into her. How cruel was life! He drew in a deep breath and began to work hecticly. He became absorbed, and when he looked at the clock again it was four. Why did time have to rush so catastrophically ahead?
The office day was over. Wasn’t there anything that could keep him here for another hour? Was there no meeting, no pep talk this evening? Everybody was going home, leaving him alone at this terrible time. Ivan Dmitryevitch kept lingering at his desk.
He was alone now. Time to rise and go. He got up and then … like a cut tree he dropped, his head hitting the desk. Ivan Dmitryevitch gave vent to his grief in loud, incontrollable sobs.
On his way home he stopped at the city park. He passed the snow-covered Summer Theatre and turned onto a little square where benches had been swept cleanly. My God, he thought, how dear and familiar everything looked! On this very age-twisted, age-blackened bench he had once confessed his love to Maria Nicolayevna. The chestnuts had been blooming in bright clusters, shining like big chandeliers just lit in their honor. There had been the sweet aroma of verdure and a cool breeze from the river. And then … on that yonder bench under the linden they would sit, holding hands, while little Mitya’s carriage had stood right by. Years passed, it was here that Mitya had been running around, playing, growing up. … How tall and handsome he was, always so pensive and serious. …
Treasury of Russian Short Stories 1900-1966 Page 8