"Just look at the devil. Turning the bag inside out!"
"Something wrong there, or he wouldn't do that."
"Surely he isn't counting the shoe-nails."
"Just like a dog!"
The talk gradually died away as the commission approached. Only a few more men and it would be Grigory's turn. The provincial ataman was carrying a glove in his left hand and swinging his right, keeping the elbow straight. Grigory drew himself up. Behind him his father coughed. The wind carried the smell of horse piss and melted snow over the square. The sun looked unhappy, as though after a drinking bout.
The group of officers halted by the man next to Grigory, then came on to him one by one.
"Your surname. Christian name?" "Melekhov, Grigory."
The police officer picked up the greatcoat by its belt, smelled the lining, and hurriedly counted the fastenings; another officer, wearing a cornet's epaulettes, felt the good cloth of the trousers between his fingers. A third stopped and rummaged in the saddle-bags, stooping so low that the wind threw the skirts of his greatcoat on to his back. With his thumb and forefinger the police officer cautiously poked at the rag containing shoe-nails as though afraid it might be hot, and counted the nails in a whisper.
"Why are there only twenty-three nails? What is this?" he angrily pulled at the corner of the rag.
"Not at all. Your Honour. Twenty-four." "What, am I blind?"
Grigory hastily turned back a folded corner, revealing the twenty-fourth nail. As he did so his rough swarthy fingers lightly touched the officer's sugar-white hand. The officer snatched his hand away as though struck, rubbed it on the edge of his greatcoat, frowning fastidiously, and drew on his glove.
Grigory noticed his action and straightened up with a bitter smile. Their eyes met, and the officer flushed and raised his voice,
"What's all this, what's all this, Cossack? Why aren't your packstrings in order? Why aren't your snaffles right? And what does this mean? Are you a Cossack or a muzhik? Where's your father?"
Pantelei pulled on the horse's rein and stepped forward a pace, clicking his lame leg.
"Don't you know the Cossack regulations?" the officer, who was ill-tempered after losing at cards that morning, poured out his wrath upon him.
The provincial ataman came up, and the officer subsided. The ataman thrust the toe of his boot into the padding of the saddle, hiccupped and passed on to the next man. The draft officer of the regiment to which Grigory had been drafted politely turned out all his belongings down to the contents of the hussif, and passed on last of all, walking backwards to shield a match from the wind as he lit a cigarette.
A day later a train of red railway trucks loaded with horses, Cossacks and forage left for Voronezh. In one of them stood Grigory. Past the open door crawled an unfamiliar, flat landscape; a blue and tender thread of forest
whirled by in the distance. Behind him the horses were munching hay and stepping from hoof to hoof as they felt the unsteady floor beneath them. The wagon smelled of wormwood, horses' sweat, and the spring thaw; a distant thread of forest lurked on the horizon, blue, pensive, and as inaccessible as the faintly-shining evening-star.
PART THREE
I
t was on a warm and cheerful spring day in March, 1914 that Nata-lya returned to her father-in-law's house. Pan-telei was mending the broken wattle fence with fluffy dove-coloured twigs. The silvery icicles hanging from the roofs were dripping, and the traces of former runnels showed like black tar stains under the eaves. A ruddier, warmer sun caressed the melting hills, and the earth was swelling; the early grass looked like green malachite on the bare chalky headlands that bulged from the hill beyond the Don.
Natalya, thinner and much changed, approached her father-in-law from behind and bowed her scarred, slightly crooked neck:
"Good health. Father!"
"Natalyushka! Welcome, my dear, wel-
come!" Pantelei exclaimed fussing over her. The twigs dropped out of his hand. "Why haven't you been to see us? Come in. Mother will be right glad to see you."
"Father, I've come. . . ." Natalya stretched out her hand uncertainly, and turned away. "If you don't drive me away, I'd like to stay with you always," she added.
"And why shouldn't you. my dear? Are you a ,stranger to us? Look, Grigory has written about you in his letter. He's told us to ask about you."
They went into the kitchen. Pantelei limped about in joyful agitation. Ilyinichna wept as she embraced Natalya.
"You want a child," she whispered. "That would win him. Sit down. I'll get you some pancakes, shall I?"
Dunya, flushed and smiling, came running into the kitchen and embraced Natalya round the knees. "You shameless thing! You forgot all about us!" she reproached her.
"Now then, you madcap!" her father shouted at her with feigned severity.
"How you've grown!" Natalya murmured, pulling Dunya's arms apart and looking into her eyes.
They all talked together, interrupting one another. Ilyinichna, supporting her cheek on
S79
her palm, grieved as she looked at Natalya, so changed from what she had been.
"You've come for good?" Dunya asked, clasping Natalya's hands.
"Who knows ...?"
"Why, where else should my own daughter-in-law live? You'll stay with us," Ilyinichna decided, as she pushed a platter of pancakes across the table.
Natalya had come to her husband's parents only after long vacillation. At first her father would not let her go. He shouted at her in indignation when she suggested it, and attempted to persuade her against such a step. But it was difficult for her to look her own people in the face; since her attempted suicide she felt that with her own family she was almost a stranger. For his part, after he had seen Grigory off to the army Pantelei was continually wheedling her to come, for he was determined to have her back and to reconcile Grigory to her.
From that day in March Natalya lived with the Melekhovs. Pyotr was friendly and brotherly; Darya gave little outward sign of her dissatisfaction, but her occasional sidelong glances were more than compensated by Du-nya's attachment and the parental attitude of the old people.
The very day after Nataiya came to ttiem Pantelei ordered Dunya to write a letter to Grigory:
Greetings, our own son, Grigory Panteleye-vich! We send you a deep bow, and horn all my fatherly heart, with your mother Vasilisa llyinichna, a parental blessing. Your brother Pyotr Panteleyevich and his wife Darya Mat-veyeuna greet you and wish you health and well-being; also your sister Dunya and all at home greet you. We received your letter, sent in February, the fifth day, and heartily thank you for it. And as you wrote that the horse is knocking his legs smear him with some lard, you know how, and don't shoe his hind hoofs so long as there is no slipperiness or bare ice about. Your wife Nataiya Mironovna is living with us and is well and comfortable. Your mother sends you some dried cherries and a pair of woollen socks, and some bacon and other things. We are all alive and well, but Darya's baby has died. The other day Pyotr and I roofed the shed, and he orders you to look after the horse and keep it well. The cows have calved, the old mare seems to be in foal, we put a stallion from the district stables to her. We are glad to hear about your service and that your officers are pleased with you.
§erue as you should. Service for the Tsar will not be in vain. And Natalya will live with us now, and you think that over. And one other trouble, just before Lent a wolf killed three sheep. Now, keep well, and in Cod's keeping. Don't forget your wife, that is my order to you. She is a good woman and your legal wife. Don't break the furrow, and listen to your father.
Your father. Senior Sergeant
Pantelei Melekhov.
Grigory's regiment was stationed at a little place called Radzivillovo some four versts from the Russo-Austrian frontier. He rarely wrote home. To the letter informing him that Natalya was living with his father he wrote a cautiously worded reply, and asked his father to greet her in his name. All his letters were non-com.mi
ttal and obscure in their meaning. Pantelei made Dunya or Pyotr read them to him several times, pondering over the thought concealed between the lines. Just before Easter he wrote and asked Grigory definitely whether on his return from the army he would live with his wife or with Aksinya as before.
Grigory delayed his reply. Only after Trinity Sunday did they receive a brief letter from
him. Dunya read it quickly, swallowing the ends of her words, and Pantelei had difficulty in grasping the essential thought among the numerous greetings and inquiries. At the end of the letter Grigory dealt with the question of Natalya:
You asked me to say whether I shall live with Natalya or not, but I tell you. Father, once a thing's been cut oft, you can't stick it on again. And how shall I make it up with Natalya, when you know yourseli that I have a child. And 1 can't promise anything, it is painful for me to talk about it. The other day a fellow was caught smuggling goods across the frontier and we happened to see him. He said there would be war with the Austrians soon, that their tsar has come to the frontier to see where to begin the war from and which land to grab tor himself. If war begins maybe I shan't be left alive, and nothing pan be settled be-iorehand.
Natalya worked for her foster-parents and lived in continual hope of her husband's return. She never wrote to Grigory, but nobody in the family yearned with more pain and desire to receive a letter from him.
Life in the village continued in its inviolable order, Cossacks who had served their term in
the army returned home, on workdays dull labour imperceptibly consumed the time, on Sunday mornings the village poured in family droves into the church: the Cossacks in tunics and holiday trousers, the women in long, coloured skirts that swept the dust, and embroidered blouses with puff sleeves.
In the square stood empty wagons, their shafts high in the air, horses whinnied and all kinds of people went to and fro; by the fireshed the Bulgar settlers traded in vegetables set out in long rows; behind them the children ran about in bands and stared at the unharnessed camels superciliously surveying the market square. Everywhere were crowds of men wearing red-banded caps, and women in bright kerchiefs. The camels, their eyes glazed with a torpid green, chewed the cud as they rested from their constant toil on the water-wheels.
In the evening the streets groaned with the tramp of feet, with song, and dancing to the accordions; and only late at night did the last voices die away on the outskirts of the village.
Natalya, who never went to the evening gatherings, sat listening gladly to Dunya's artless stories. Imperceptibly Dunya was growing into a shapely and, in her way, good-looking girl. She matured early, like an early apple.
That year her elder girl-friends forgot that they had reached adolescence before her and took her into their circle. Dunya was like her father, dark and sturdy. She was fifteen now, her figure still girlish and angular. She was an artless, almost pitiful mixture of childhood and blossoming youth; her small breasts grew and pressed noticeably against Her blouse; and her black eyes in their long, rather slanting sockets, still sparkled bashfully and mischievously. She would come back after an evening out and tell only Natalya her innocent secrets.
"Natalya, I want to tell you something. . . ."
"Well, tell on!"
"Yesterday Misha Koshevoi sat the whole evening with me on the stump by the village granaries."
"Why are you blushing?"
"Oh, I'm not!"
"Look in the glass; you're all one great flame."
"Well, you made me."
"All right, go on, I won't say a thing."
Dunya rubbed her burning cheeks with her brown palms, pressed her fingers to her temples, and her laughter tinkled out youthfully and without cause.
"He said I was like a little azure flower."
"Well, go on!" Natalya encouraged her, rejoicing in another's joy, forgetting her own past and downtrodden happiness.
"And I said: 'Don't tell lies, Misha!' And he swore it was true."
Shaking her head, Dunya sent her laughter pealing through the room. The black, heavy plaits of her hair slipped like lizards over her shoulders and back.
"What else did he say?"
"He asked me to give him my hanky for a keepsake."
"And did you?"
"No. I said I wouldn't. 'Go and ask your woman,' I told him. He's been seen with Yero-feyev's daughter-in-law, and she's a bad woman, she plays about with the men."
"You'd better keep away from him."
"I'm going to!" Dunya continued her story, trying to hide the smile that came to her lips. "And then, as the three of us, two other girls and me, were coming home, drunken old Grandpa Mikhei came after us. 'Kiss me, my dears, and I'll pay you two kopecks apiece,' he shouted. And Nyura hit him on the face with a twig and we ran away."
The summer was dry. By the village the Don grew shallow, and where the surging current had run swiftly a ford was made, and bullocks
could cross to the other bank without wetting their backs. At night a sultry stuffiness flowed down into the village from the range of hills, and the wind filled the air with the spicy scent of scorched grass. The dry growth of the steppe was afire, and a sickly-smelling haze hung over the Don-side slopes. At night the clouds deepened over the river and ominous peals of thunder were heard; but no rain came to refresh the pardhed earth, although the lightning rent the sky into jagged, livid fragments.
Night after night an owl screeched from the belfry. The cries surged terrifyingly over the village, and the owl flew from the belfry to the cemetery and moaned over the brownish grassy mounds of the graves.
"There's trouble brewing," the old men prophesied, as they listened to the owl screeching from the cemetery.
"There's war coming. An owl called just like that before the Turkish campaign."
"Perhaps there will be cholera again."
"Expect no good when it flies from the church to the dead."
For two nights Martin Shamil, who lived close to the cemetery, lay in wait by the cemetery fence for the accursed owl, but the invisible, mysterious bird flew noiselessly over
him, alighted on a cross at the other end of the cemetery, and sent its alarming cries over the sleepy village. Martin swore indecently, shot at the black, hanging belly of a cloud, and went home. On his return his wife, a timorous, ailing woman as fertile as a doe rabbit, greated him with reproaches.
"You're a fool, a hopeless fool!" she declared. "The bird doesn't interfere with you, does it? What if God should punish you? Here I am in my last month and suppose I don't give birth because of you."
"Shut up, woman!" Martin ordered her. "You'll be all right, never fear! What's that bird doing here, giving us all the cold shivers? It's calling down woe on us, the devil! If war breaks out they'll take me off, and look at the litter you've given me!" He waved at the corner where the children were sleeping. Talking with the old men in the market place, Pantelei solemnly announced:
"Our Grigory mtes that the Austrian tsar has come to the frontier, and has given orders to collect all his troops in one place and to march on Moscow and Petersburg."
The old men remembered past wars, and shared their apprehensions with one another. "But there won't be any war," one objected. "Look at the harvest."
"The harvest has nothing to do with it. It's the students giving trouble, I expect."
"In any case we shall be the last to hear of it. But who will the war be with?"
"With the Turks, about the sea. They can't come to an agreement on how to divide the sea."
"Is it so difficult? Let them divide it into two strips, like we do the meadowland."
The talk turned to jest, and the old men went about their business.
The early meadow hay was waiting to be mown. The fading grass beyond the Don, which was not a patch on the grass of the steppe, was sickly and scentless. It was the same earth, yet the grass drank in different juices. In the steppe there was black soil, so heavy and firm that the herd left no traces where they passed over it.
The grass there was strong and fragrant. But along the Don banks the soil was damp and rotten, growing a poor and scrubby grass which even the cattle would not always look at.
Haymaking was about to begin when an event occurred which shook the village from one end to the other. The district chief of police arrived with an inspector and a little black-toothed officer in a uniform never seen before in the village. They sent for the ataman, col-
lected witnesses, and then went straight to cross-eyed Lukeshka's house. They walked along the path on the sunlit side of the street, the village ataman running ahead like a cockerel. The inspector, his dusty boots stamping on the blobs of sunlight, questioned him:
"Is Stockman at home?"
"Yes, Your Honour."
"What does he do for a living?"
"He's just a craftsman. Works with his plane.. . ."
"You haven't noticed anything suspicious about him?"
"Not at all."
As the police chief walked along, hat in hand, he squeezed a pimple on the bridge of his nose and panted in his thick uniform. The little officer picked his black teeth with a straw and puckered his red-rimmed eyes.
"Does he ever have visitors?" the inspector asked, pulling the ataman back.
"Yes, they play cards sometimes."
"Who?"
"Chiefly labourers from the mill."
"Who exactly?"
"The engineman, the scalesman, the roller-man David, and sometimes some of our Cossacks."
The inspector halted and waited for the of-
ficer, who had lagged behind. He said something to him, twisting a button on his tunic, then beckoned to the ataman. The ataman ran up on tiptoe, holding his breath. Knotted veins throbbed and quivered in his neck.
"Take two of those on duty and arrest the men you mentioned. Bring them to the administration, and we'll be along in a minute or two. Do you understand?"
And quiet flows the Don; a novel Page 24