And quiet flows the Don; a novel
Page 25
The ataman drew himself up so that the veins bulged over his high collar, uttered a kind of grunt and turned away to execute his instructions.
Stockman, his vest unbuttoned, was sitting with his back to the door, cutting out a plywood pattern with a fret-saw.
"Kindly stand up; you're under arrest."
"What for?"
"You occupy two rooms?"
"Yes."
"We shall search them."
The officer caught his spur on the doormat, walked across to the table and with a frown picked up the first book that came to hand.
"I want the key of that trunk."
"To what do I owe this visit?"
"There'll be time to talk to you afterwards."
Stockman's wife looked through the doorway from the other room and drew back. The
inspector and his clerk followed her into the other room.
"What's this?" the officer asked Stockman quietly, holding up a book in a yellow cover.
"A book," Stockman replied with a shrug.
"You can keep your witticisms for a more suitable occasion. Answer the question properly."
Suppressing a wry smile Stockman leaned his back against the stove. The district chief of police glanced over the officer's shoulder at the book, and then turned to Stockman:
"Are you studying this?"
"I'm interested in the subject," Stockman replied drily, parting his black beard into two equal strands with a small comb.
"I see!"
The officer glanced through the pages of the book and threw it back on the table. He looked through a second, put it aside, and having read the cover of the third, turned to Stockman again.
"Where do you keep the rest of this type of literature?"
Stockman screwed up one eye as though taking aim, and replied:
"You see all that I have."
"You're lying," the officer retorted, waving the book at him.
"I demand. ..."
"Search the rooms!"
Gripping the hilt of his sabre, the chief of police went across to the trunk, where a pockmarked Cossack guard, obviously terrified by the circumstances in which he found himself, had begun to rummage among the clothing and linen.
"I demand polite treatment," Stockman managed to say at last, screwing up his eye and aiming at the bridge of the officer's nose.
"Be quiet, fellow."
The men turned out everything that it was possible to turn out. The search was conducted in the workshop also. The zealous inspector even knocked on the walls with his knuckles.
When the search was over. Stockman was taken to the administration office. He walked along the middle of the road in front of the Cossack guard, one hand tucked into the lapel of his old coat, the other swinging as though he were shaking mud off his fingers. The others walked along the sunlit path by the walls; and again the inspector trod on the blobs of sunlight with his boots that were now green from the grass. He was no longer carrying his hat in his hand, but had clamped it down firmly over his gristly ears.
Stockman was the last of the prisoners to be examined. Ivan Alexeyevich, with hands still oily, the smiling David, Knave with his jacket over his shoulders, and Misha Koshevoi, who had already been questioned, were herded together in the ante-room, guarded by Cossacks.
Rummaging in his portfolio the inspector questioned Stockman:
"When I examined you in regard to the manslaughter at the mill why did you conceal the fact that you are a member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party?"
Stockman stared silently over the investigator's head.
"That much is established. You will receive a suitable reward for your work," the inspector shouted, annoyed by the prisoner's silence.
"Please begin your examination," Stockman said in a bored tone, and glancing at a stool, he asked for permission to sit down. The inspector did not reply, but glared as Stockman calmly seated himself.
"When did you come here?"
"Last year."
"On the instructions of your organization?"
"Without any instructions."
"How long have you been a member of your party?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I ask you, how long have you been a member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party?"
"I think that "
"I don't care what you think. Answer the question. Denial is useless, even dangerous." The inspector drew a document out of his portfolio and pinned it to the table with his forefinger. "1 have here a report from Rostov, confirming your membership in the party I mentioned."
Stockman turned his eyes quickly to the document, rested his gaze on it for a moment, and then, stroking his knee, replied firmly:
"Since 1907."
"I see! You deny that you have been sent here by your party?"
"Yes."
"In that case why did you come here?"
"There seemed to be a shortage of mechanics here."
"But why did you choose this particular district?"
"For the same reason."
"Have you now, or have you at any time had any contact with your organization during the period of your stay here?"
"No."
"Do they know you have come here?"
"I expect so."
The inspector sharpened his pencil with a pearl-handled penknife, and pursed his lips:
"Are you in correspondence with any members of your party?"
"No."
"Then what about the letter which was discovered during the search?"
"That is from a friend who has no connection whatever with any revolutionary organization."
"Have you received any instructions from Rostov?"
"No."
"What did the labourers at the mill gather in your rooms for?"
Stockman shrugged his shoulders as though astonished at the stupidity of the question.
"They used to come along in the winter evenings, to pass the time away. We played cards. . . ."
"And read books prohibited by law?" the inspector suggested.
"No. Everyone of them was almost illiterate."
"Nonetheless the engineman from the mill, and the others also do not deny this fact."
"That is untrue."
"It seems to me you haven't even an ele-
mentary understanding of . , ." Stockman smiled at this, and the inspector, forgetting what he had been going to say, concluded: "You simply have no sense. You persist in denials that are to your own disadvantage. It is quite clear that you've been sent here by your party in order to carry on demoralizing activities among the Cossacks, in order to turn them against the government. I fail to understand why you're playing this game of pretence. It can't diminish your offence.. . ."
"Those are all quesses on your part. May I smoke? Thank you. And they are guesses entirely without foundation."
"Did you read this book to the workers who visited your rooms?" the inspector put his hand on a small book and covered the title. Above his hand the name "Plekhanov" was visible.
"We read poetry," Stockman replied, and puffed at his cigarette, gripping the bone holder tightly between his fingers.
The next morning the postal tarantass drove out of the village with Stockman dozing on the back seat, his beard buried in his coat collar. On each side of him a Cossack armed with a sabre was squeezed on the seat. One of them, a curly-headed pock-marked fellow, gripped Stockman's elbow firmly in his knotty, dirty fingers,
casting timorous sidelong glances at him, and keeping his other hand on his battered scabbard. The tarantass rattled briskly down the street. By the Melekhovs' farmyard a little woman wrapped in a shawl stood waiting for it, her back against the wattle fence.
The tarantass sped past, and the woman, pressing her hands to her breast, flung herself after it.
"Osip! Osip Davydovich! Oh, what shall I do.. . ."
Stockman attempted to wave his hand to her, but the pock-marked Cossack jumped up and clutched his arm, a
nd in a hoarse, savage voice shouted:
"Sit down, or I'll cut you down!"
For the first time in all his simple life he had seen a man who dared to act against the tsar himself.
II
The long road from Mankovo to the little town of Radzivillovo lay somewhere behind him in a grey, intangible mist. Grigory tried occasionally to recall the road, but could only dimly remember station buildings, the train wheels clattering beneath the shaking floor, the scent of horses and hay, endless threads of railway line flowing under them, the smoke
that billowed from the engine, and the bearded face of a gendarme on the station platform either at Voronezh or at Kiev, he was not sure which.
At the place where they detrained were crowds of officers, and clean-shaven men in grey overcoats, talking a language he could not understand. It took a long time for-the horses to be unloaded, but when this had been accomplished the assistant echelon commander led three hundred or more Cossacks to the veterinary hospital. A long procedure in connection with the examination of the horses. Then allotment to troops. N.C.O.'s bustling about. The First Troop was formed of light-brown horses, the Second of bay and dun, the Third of dark-brown. Grigory was allotted to the Fourth, which consisted of plain brown and golden horses. The Fifth was composed entirely of sorrel, and the Sixth of black horses. The troops were put under the command of sergeants-major, who took them out to the various cavalry squadrons stationed at villages and estates in the neighbourhood.
The debonair pop-eyed sergeant-major wearing long-service badges rode past Grigory and asked:
"What stanitsa are you from?"
"Vyeshenskaya."
"Are you bob-tailed*?"
The Cossacks from other stanitsas chuckled and Grigory swallowed the insult in silence.
The road taken by Grigory's troop led them along the highway. The Don horses, which had never seen proper highways before, at first stepped along gingerly, as if on an ice-bound river, setting their ears back and snorting; but after a while they got the feel of the road and their fresh-shod hoofs clattered sharply as they moved on. The unfamiliar Polish land was criss-crossed with slices of straggling forest. The day was warm and overcast, and the sun hovering behind a dense curtain of cloud also seemed alien and unfamiliar.
The estate of Radzivillovo was some four versts from the station, and they reached it in half an hour.
"What village is this, uncle?" a young Cossack asked the sergeant-major, pointing to the naked tree tops in a garden.
"What village? You forget about your Cossack villages here, my lad, this isn't the Don Province."
"What is it then, uncle?"
* Each stanitsa had a nickname. Vyeshenskaya was known as Dogs.
"I, your uncle? A fine nephew you make! That, my lad, is the estate of Princess Urusova, Our Fourth Company is quartered here."
Despondently stroking his horse's neck, Gri-gory stared at the neatly-built, two-storied house, the wooden fence, and the unfamiliar style of the farm buildings. But as they rode past the orchard the bare trees whispered the same language as those in the distant Don country.
Life now showed its most tedious, stupefying side to the Cossacks. Deprived of work, the young men quickly grew homesick, and spent most of their free time talking. Grigory's troop was quartered in a great tile-roofed wing of the house, sleeping on pallet beds under the windows. At night the paper pasted over the chinks of the window sounded in the breeze like a distant shepherd's horn, and as he listened to it amid the snoring Grigory was seized with a well-nigh irresistible desire to get up, go to the stables, saddle his horse and ride and ride until he reached home again.
Reveille was sounded at five o'clock, and the first duty of the day was to clean and groom the horses. During the brief half-hour when the horses were feeding there was opportunity for desultory conversation.
"This is a hell of a life, boys!"
"1 can't stick it."
"And the sergeant-major! What a swine! Making us wash the horses' hoofs!"
"They're making the pancakes at home now . , . today is Shrove-Tuesday."
"I could just do with a spot of necking."
"I had a dream last night, lads, I dreamed that Father and me were mowing hay in the meadow and the village folk were all scattered round like daisies on a threshing-floor," said Prokhor Zykov, a quiet lad with gentle calflike eyes. "And we just went on mowing and mowing. . . . Made me feel right cheerful!"
"I bet my wife is saying: 'I wonder what my Nikolai is doing?' "
"Ho-ho-ho! She'll be belly-rubbing with your father most likely!"
"Well, that's "
"There isn't a woman in the world who won't try another man when her husband's away."
"Why worry? A woman's not a jug of milk. There'll be enough left for us when we get back."
Yegor Zharkov, the gayest, lewdest man in the company, who had little respect for anyone and still less shame, broke into the conversation, winking and smiling suggestively:
"It's a sure thing: your father won't leave your wife alone. He's a fine he-dog. I'll tell you
a story," he added, sweeping his listeners with his glittering glance.
"One old grumble kept running after his daughter-in-law, gave her no rest, but his son was always in the way. So what did the old man do? At night he went into the yard and opened the gate. And all the cattle got out. So he says to his son: "What have you done, you lazy so-and-so? Why didn't you shut the gate? Look, all the cattle have wandered out. Go and drive them back.' You see, he thought when his son had gone he'd have time to get at his daughter-in-law. But his son was lazy and whispered to his wife: 'You go and drive them back.' So she went out, and he lay there, listening. The father slipped down from the stove and crawled over on his hands and knees towards the bed. But his son was no fool. He took a rolling-pin from the shelf and waited. As soon as his father crawled up to the bed and put his hand on him, he gave him such a whack with the pin right across his bold head. 'Go away,' he shouted, 'don't you chew my blanket, curse you.'
"You see, they had a calf in the house which had a habit of chewing things, so the son pretended he had struck the calf. The old man managed to crawl back to his stove and lay there, tenderly fingering the bump which was as
big as a goose egg. 'Ivan/ says he at last, 'who did you strike just now?' 'Only the calf/ Ivan answers. 'What kind of a master will you make/ says the old man almost in tears, 'if you knock the cattle about like that?' "
"You're a mighty good liar!"
"What's this, the market-place? Break it up!" shouted the sergeant-major, coming up to them. The Cossacks went to their horses, laughing and joking.
During exercise the officers stood smoking at the side of the yard, occasionally intervening. As Grigory glanced at the polished, well-groomed officers in their handsome grey greatcoats and closely-fitting uniforms, he felt that there was an impassable wall between them and himself. Their very different, comfortable, well-ordered existence, so unlike that of the Cossacks, flowed on peacefully, untroubled by mud, lice, or fear of the sergeant-major's fists.
An incident which occurred on the third day after their arrival at Radzivillovo made a painful impression on Grigory, and indeed on all the young Cossacks. They were being instructed in cavalry drill, and the horse ridden by Pro-khor Zykov, the lad with gentle eyes, who often dreamed of his faraway Cossack village, was a wild, spirited animal and happened to kick the sergeant-major's mount as it passed,
The blow was not very hard and it only grazed the skin on the horse's left leg. But the sergeant-major struck Prokhor across the face with his whip, and riding straight at him, shouted:
"Why the hell don't you look where you're going, you son of a bitch? I'll show you. . . . You'll spend the next three days on duty!"
The squadron commander happened to witness the scene, but he turned his back, fingering the sword-knot of his sabre and yawning with boredom. His lips trembling, Prokhor rubbed a streak of blood from his swollen cheek.
"Don't you touch me," Grigory said huskily, looking into the rippling water below.
"What? Climb down and get it, you bastard! I'll smash your face in for this!"
"I'll get it, but don't you touch me," Grigory said slowly, without raising his head.
If there had been any Cossacks at the well, the sergeant-major would undoubtedly have beaten Grigory, but they were attending to
their horses at the fence and could not hear what was going on. The sergeant-major approached Grigory, glancing back at the Cossacks, his bulging eyes insane with rage as he hissed:
"Who do you think you are? How dare you speak to your superior in this way?"
"Don't look for trouble, Semyon Yegorov."
"Are you threatening me? I'll. . . ."
"Look here," Grigory said, raising his head from the well. "If you strike me-I'll kill you. Understand?"
The sergeant-major's great carp-like mouth gaped in amazement but no answer came. The moment for punishment had been missed. Gri-gory's greyish face boded nothing good. The sergeant-major was nonplussed. He walked away from the well, slipping in the mud, and when some distance away, turned and shook his huge fist.
"I'll report you to the squadron commander," he shouted. "Yes, I'll report you."
However, for some unknown reason, he did not report Grigory. But for about a fortnight afterwards he was always finding fault with him and appointing him for sentry duty out of turn.
The dreary, monotonous order of existence crushed the spirit out of the young Cossacks.
m
Until sundown they were kept continually at foot and horse exercises, and in the evening the horses had to be groomed and fed. At ten o'clock, after roll call and stationing of guards, they were drawn up for prayers, and the sergeant-major, his eyes wandering over the ranks before him, intoned the Lord's prayer.