"Where are you from, my man?" Listnitsky turned to Stepan.
"From Tatarsky," Stepan answered after a momentary hesitation, and took a step in Grigory's direction,
"What's your name?" Listnitsky asked.
"Astakhov."
"When are you going home, my lad?"
"Tonight."
Listnitsky pointed to the wolf with his foot. The animal's jaws were snapping feebly in its death agony and one of its hindlegs, with a brownish tuft. of fur sticking to it, was stiffly raised.
"Bring us that carcass," he said. "I'll pay whatever it costs." He wiped the sweat from his purple face with his scarf, turned away, and slipped the flask off his back.
Grigory went to his stallion. As he set foot in the stirrup he glanced back. Trembling uncontrollably, Stepan was coming towards him, his great, heavy fists pressed against his chest.
XVIII
On Good Friday night the women gathered in the house of Korshunov's neighbour, Pela-geya Maidannikova, for a talk. Her husband Gavrila had written from Lodz that he was trying to get furlough for Easter. Pelageya had whitewashed the walls and tidied up the hut as early as the Monday before Easter, and from Thursday onward she waited expectantly, running to the gate and standing at the fence, bare-headed and gaunt, the signs of her pregnancy showing in her face. Shading her eyes with her palm she stared down the road to see whether he was coming. Gavrila had
returned from his regiment the previous year, bringing his wife a present of Polish chintz. He had spent four nights with her, and on the fifth day had got drunk, cursed in Polish and German, and with tears in his eyes had sat singing an old Cossack song about Poland that dated from 1831. His friends and brothers had sat with him, singing and drinking vodka before dinner.
They said of Poland, it's a very rich land. But we found out it's as poor as the damned. And in this said Poland there stands an inn, A Polish inn, belongs to the Polish king. And at this said inn three lads had a drink, A Prussian, a Pole, and a Don Cossack
Russian. The Prussian, he drinks vodka, and pays his
score. The Pole, he drinks vodka, and pays some
more. The Cossack, he drinks-and the inn's as
poor as before. Then he walks around with clinking spur And the barmaid sees his eye is on her. "Oh, mistress, dear, come live with me, "Come live with me, on the quiet Don, "The folk on the Don, they don't live your
way,
"Don't weave, don't spin, don't sow, don't
mow,
"Don't sow, don't mow, but they dress very
gay."
After dinner Gavrila had said good-bye to his family and ridden off. And from that day Pela-geya had begun to watch the hem of her skirt.
She explained to Natalya Korshunova how she came to be with child. "A day or two before Gavrila arrived, I had a dream," she said. "I was going through the meadow, and I saw our old cow in front of me, the one we had sold last holiday. She was going along with the milk dripping from her teats. Lord, I thought, however did I come to milk her so badly? Next day old Drozdikha came for some hops, and 1 told her my dream. And she told me to break a bit of wax off a candle, roll it into a ball, and to take and bury it in some cowdung, for misfortune was watching at the window. I ran to do as she said, but I couldn't find the candle. I had had one, I knew, but the children must have taken it to catch tarantulas. Then Gavrila arrived, and trouble with him. Before that I had gone for three years without trouble, and now look at me!" She prodded her swollen belly.
Pelageya fretted while waiting for her
husband. She was bored with her own company, and so on the Friday she invited her women friends to come and spend the evening with her. Natalya came with an unfinished stocking she was knitting, for when spring came Grandad Grishaka felt the cold all the more. She was unnaturally full of high spirits, and laughed more than necessary at the others' jokes, trying to hide her yearning for her husband from them. Pelageya was sitting on the stove with her bare, violet-veined legs dangling, and bantering the young shrewish Frosya.
"How d'you come to beat your husband, Frosya?"
"Don't you know how? On the back, on the head, and wherever I could lay my hands on him."
"I didn't mean that, I meant how did it happen."
"It just happened," Frosya answered unwillingly.
"If you were to catch your husband with another woman would you keep your tongue quiet?" a tall gaunt woman asked deliberately.
"Tell us all about it, Frosya."
"There's nothing to tell. .. ."
"Oh, come on, we're all friends here."
Spitting the husk of a sunflower seed into her hand, Frosya smiled:
"Well, I'd noticed his goings-on for a long time, and then someone told me he'd been carrying on at the mill with a hussy from across the Don. I went out and found them by the mill."
"Any news of your husband, Natalya?" the gaunt woman interrupted, turning to Natalya.
"He's at Yagodnoye," she replied in a whisper.
"Do you think of living with him or not?"
"She might think of it, but he doesn't," their hostess intervened. Natalya felt the hot blood surging to her face. She bent her head over her stocking and glanced from under her brows at the women. Realizing that she could not hide her flush of shame from them, she deliberately, yet so clumsily that everybody noticed it, sent the ball of wool rolling from her knees, and then bent down and groped over the cold floor.
"Spit on him, woman! So long as you have a neck, you'll always find a yoke for it," one woman advised her with unconcealed pity in her voice.
Natalya's affected liveliness died away like a spark in the wind. The women's conversation turned to the latest scandal, to tittle-tattle and gossip. Natalya knitted in silence. She forced herself to sit on until the party broke up, and
then went home, with a half-formed decision in her mind. Shame for her uncertain situation (for she still would not believe that Grigory had gone for ever, and was ready to forgive him and take him back) drove her on to a further step. She resolved to send a letter secretly to him, in order to learn whether he had gone for good or whether he might change his mind. When she reached home she found Grishaka sitting in his little room reading an old, greasy leather-bound copy of the Gospels. Her father was in the kitchen mending a fishing-net and listening to a story Mikhei was telling him about a recent murder. Her mother had put the children to bed and was asleep over the ledge above stove, the blackened soles of her feet facing the door. Natalya took off her jacket and wandered aimlessly about the rooms. In one corner of the front room there was a pile of hempreed and the mice could be heard scampering and squeaking.
She stopped for a moment in her grandfather's room, staring dully at the stack of devotional books under the icons.
"Grandad, have you any paper?"
"What sort of paper?" Grishaka asked, puckering his forehead into a frown.
"Paper to write on."
The old man fumbled in a psalter, and drew
out a crumpled sheet of paper that smelt strongly of incense.
"And a pencil?"
"Ask your father. Go away, my dear, and don't bother me."
She obtained a stump of pencil from her father, and sitting down at the table, struggled again with the thoughts that had tortured her for so long, thoughts that evoked a numb, gnawing pain in her heart.
She wrote:
Grigory Panteleyevich,
Tell me how I am to live, and whether my lite is quite lost or not. You leit home and you didn't say a single word to me. I haven't done you any wrong, and I've waited lor you to untie my hands, to say you've gone for good, but you've gone away and are as silent as the grave.
I thought you had gone oft in the heat of the moment, and waited for you to come hack, hut I don't want to come between you. Better one should he trodden into the ground than two. Have pity for once and write. Then I shall know what to think, but now I stand in the middle of the road.
Don't be angry with me
, Grisha, for the love of Christ.
Natalya.
Next morning she promised vodka to Het-Baba and persuaded him to ride with the letter to Yagodnoye. Moody in expectation of his drinking spell, Het-Baba led a horse into the yard, and without informing his master went jogging off to Yagodnoye.
On his horse he looked awkward, as any stranger among Cossack riders does; his ragged elbows jerked as he trotted. The Cossack children playing in the street sent him off with jeering cries.
"Dirty Ukrainian!"
"Mind you don't fall off!"
"Looks like a dog on a fence!"
He returned in the afternoon. He brought with him a piece of blue sugar-bag paper, and as he drew it out of his pocket he winked at Natalya.
"The road was terrible. I got such a shaking it near brought my liver up."
Natalya read the note, and her face turned grey. The four words scribbled on the paper entered her heart like sharp teeth rending a weave.
Live alone.-Grigory Melekhou.
Hurriedly, as though not trusting her own strength, Natalya went into the house and lay down on her bed. Her mother was lighting the
stove for the night, in order to have the place tidy early on Easter Sunday morning and to get the Easter cake ready in time.
"Natalya, come and give me a hand," she called to her daughter.
"I've got a headache. Mamma, I'll lie down for a bit."
Her mother put her head in at the door. "Drink some pickle juice, it'll put you right in no time."
Natalya licked her cold lips with her dry tongue and made no reply.
She lay until evening, her head covered with a warm woollen shawl, a light tremor shaking her huddled body. Miron and Grishaka were about to go off to church when she got up and went into the kitchen. Beads of perspiration shone on her temples under her smoothly-combed hair, and her eyes were dim with an unhealthy, oily film.
As Miron fastened his fly-buttons, he glanced at his daughter:
"A fine time to fall sick. Daughter. Come along with us to the service."
"You go, I'll come along later."
"In time to go home again, I expect?"
"No, I'll come when I've dressed."
The men went out. Lukinichna and Natalya were left in the kitchen. Natalya went listlessly
backward and forward from the chest to the bed, stared with unseeing eyes at the jumbled heap of clothing in the chest, her lips whispering, the same agonizing thoughts in her mind. Lukinichna decided she could not make up her mind which clothes to wear, and with motherly kindness she suggested: "Wear my blue skirt, dear. It will just fit you. Shall I get it for
you
?"
Natalya had had no new clothes made for Easter, and Lukinichna, suddenly remembering how before she married her daughter had loved to wear her dark-blue hobble skirt, pressed Natalya to take it, thinking she was worried about what to wear,
"No, I'll go in this!" Natalya carefully drew out her green skirt, and suddenly remembered that she had been wearing it when Grigory first visited her as her future bridegroom, when he had shamed her with that first fleeting kiss by the barn. Shaking with sobs, she fell forward against the raised lid of the chest.
"Natalya, what is the matter?" her mother exclaimed, clapping her hands.
Natalya choked down her desire to scream and, mastering herself, gave a rasping, wooden laugh.
"I don't know what's come over me today."
"Oh, Natalya, I've noticed... ."
"Well, and what have you noticed. Mamma?" she cried with unexpected irritation, crumpling the green skirt in her fingers.
"You can't go on like this; what you need is a husband."
"One was enough for me!"
She went to her room, and quickly returned to the kitchen, dressed, girlishly slender, a bluish mournful flush in her pallid cheeks.
"You go on, I'm not ready yet," her mother said.
Pushing a handkerchief into her sleeve, Na-talya went out. The rumble of the floating ice and the bracing tang of thaw dampness was wafted to her on the wind. Holding up her skirt in her left hand, picking her way across the pearly-blue puddles, she reached the church. On the way she attempted to recover her former comparatively tranquil state of mind, thinking of the holiday, of everything vaguely and in snatches. But her thoughts returned stubbornly to the scrap of blue paper hidden at her breast, to Grigory and the happy woman who was now complacently laughing at her, perhaps even pitying her.
As she entered the churchyard some lads barred her way. She passed round them, and heard the whisper:
"Who is she? Did you see?"
"Natalya Korshunova."
"She's ruptured, they say. That's why her husband left her."
"That's not true. She got playing about with her father-in-law, lame Pantelei."
"Oh, so that's it! And is that why Grigory ran away from home?"
"That's right. And she's still at it. . . ."
Stumbling over the uneven stones, followed by the shameful, filthy whispering, she reached the church porch. The girls standing in the porch giggled as she turned and made her way to the farther gate. Swaying drunkenly, she ran home. At the gate of the yard she took a quick breath and then entered, stumbling over the hem of her skirt, biting her lips till the blood came. Through the lilac darkness the open doorway of the shed yawned blackly. With fierce determination she gathered her last strength, ran to the door and hastily stepped across the threshold. The shed was dry and cold, and smelled of leather harness and musty straw. Gropingly, without thought or feeling, in a sombre yearning which clawed at her shamed and despairing soul, she made her way to a comer. There she picked up a scythe by the handle, removed the blade (her movements were deliberately assured and precise); andi,
throwing back her head, in a sudden joyous fire of resolution slashed her throat with its point. She fell as though struck down by the burning, savage pain, and vaguely aware that she had not completely carried out her intention, she struggled on to all fours, then on to her knees. Hurriedly (she was terrified by the blood pouring over her chest), with trembling fingers she tore off the buttons of her jacket, then with one hand she drew aside her taut, unyielding breast, and with the other she guided the point of the scythe. She crawled on her knees to the wall, thrust the blunt end of the scythe blade into it, and throwing her arms behind her head, pressed her chest firmly forward, forward. . . . She clearly heard and felt the revolting cabbage-like scrunch of the rending flesh; a rising wave of intense pain flowed over her breast to her throat, and pressed ringing needles into her ears.. . .
The kitchen door scraped. Lukinichna groped her way down the steps. From the belfry came the measured tolling of the church bell. With an incessant grinding roar the giant upreared floes were floating down the Don. The joyous, full-flowing, liberated river was carrying its icy fetters away down to the Sea of Azov.
Stepan walked up to Grigory and, seizing the horse's stirrup, pressed hard against its sweating flank.
"Well, how are you, Grigory?" "Praise be!"
"What are you thinking about? Huh?" "What should I be thinking about?" "You've carried off another man's wife. . . . Having your will of her?" "Let go of the stirrup." "Don't be scared! I won't hit you." "I'm not afraid. Don't start that!" Grigory flushed and raised his voice.
"I shan't fight you today. I don't want to.. . . But mark my words, Grigory, sooner or later I'll kill you."
" 'We'll see,' the blind man said!" "Mark my words well. You've wronged me. You've gelded my life like a hog's. You see there . , ." he stretched out his hands with their grimy palms upward. "I'm ploughing, and the Lord knows what for. Do I need it for myself? I could shift around a bit and get through the winter that way. It's only the loneliness of it all that gets me down. You've done me a great wrong, Grigory."
340
"It's no good complaining to me. The full man doesn't understand the hungry,"
"That's true," Stepan agreed, staring up into Grigory's face. And suddenly
he broke into a simple, boyish smile which splintered the corners of his eyes into tiny cracks. "I'm sorry only for one thing, lad, very sorry. .. . You remember the year before last, that village fight at Shrovetide?"
"No, I don't."
"The day they killed the fuller. When the single men fought the married, don't you remember? Remember how I chased after you? You were young and weak then, a green rush compared to me. I spared you that time, but if I'd hit you as you were running away, I'd have split you in two. You ran quickly, all springy-like; if I'd struck you hard in the ribs you wouldn't be living in the world today."
"Don't let it worry you, we'll have another go at each other yet."
Stepan rubbed his forehead as though trying to recall something. Old Listnitsky, leading his horse by the reins, called to Grigory. Still holding the stirrup with his left hand, Stepan walked alongside the stallion, Grigory watched his every movement. He noticed Stepan's drooping chestnut moustache, the heavy scrub on his }ong-unshaven chin, the cracked patent-
leather strap of his military cap. His dirty face, marked with white runnels of sweat, was sad and strangely unfamiliar. As he looked Grigory felt that he might well be gazing from a hilltop at the distant steppe veiled in a rainy mist. A grey weariness and emptiness ashened Ste-pan's features. He dropped behind without a word of farewell. Grigory rode on at a walk.
"Wait a bit. And how is . . . how is Aksi-nya?"
Knocking a lump of earth off his boot with the whip, Grigory replied: "Oh, she's all right."
He halted the stallion and glanced back. Stepan was standing with his feet planted wide apart, chewing a stalk between his teeth. For a moment Grigory suddenly felt unaccountably sorry for him, but jealousy rose uppermost. Turning in his saddle, he shouted:
"She doesn't miss you, don't worry!"
"Is that so?"
Grigory lashed his horse between the ears and galloped away without replying.
And quiet flows the Don; a novel Page 21