And quiet flows the Don; a novel

by Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, 1905-

  The chief of staff of the division. Staff Colonel Golovachev, took several snap-shots of the attack, and afterwards showed them to some officers. A wounded lieutenant struck him in the face with his fist and burst into tears. Then Cossacks ran up and tore Golovachev to pieces, made game of his corpse, and finally threw it into the mud of a roadside ditch. So ended this brilliantly inglorious offensive.

  From a hospital in Warsaw Yevgeny informed his father that he had been given leave and was coming down to Yagodnoye. The old man shut himself up in his room, and came out

  again only the next day. He ordered Nikitich, the coachman, to harness the trotting horse to the drozhki, had breakfast, and drove to Vyeshenskaya. There he telegraphed four hundred rubles to his son and sent him a short letter.

  I am very glad, my dear boy, that you have received your baptism of Bre. The nobleman's place is out there, not in the palace. You are much too honest and clever to be able to cringe with a peaceful conscience. Nobody in our family has ever done that. For that reason, your grandfather lost favour and died in Yagodnoye, neither hoping for nor awaiting grace from the Emperor. Take care of yourself, Yevgeny, and get well. Remember, you are all I have in the world. Your aunt sends her love. She is well. As for myself, I have nothing to write. You know how I live. How can things at the front be as they are? Is it possible that we have no people with common sense"? I don't believe the newspaper reports. They are all lies, as I know from past years. Is it possible, Yevgeny, that we shall lose the campaign? I am impatiently awaiting you at home.

  True, there was nothing in old Listnitsky's life to write about. It dragged on as before,

  without variation; only the cost of labour rose, and there was a shortage of liquor. The master drank more frequently, and grew more irritable and fault-finding. One day he summoned Aksinya to him and complained:

  "You're not attending to your duties. Why was the breakfast cold yesterday? Why wasn't the glass properly cleaned? If it happens again I shall discharge you. I can't stand slovenliness. D'you hear?"

  Aksinya pressed her lips together and burst into tears.

  "Nikolai Alexeyevich! My daughter is ill. Let me have time to attend to her. I can't leave her."

  "What's the matter with the child?"

  "She seems to be choking."

  "What? Scarlet fever? Why didn't you speak before, you fool? Run and tell Nikitich to drive to Vyeshenskaya for the doctor. Hurry!"

  Aksinya ran out, the old man bombarding her the while, with his deep bass voice:

  "You fool of a woman, fool!"

  Nikitich brought the doctor back the next morning. He examined the unconscious, feverish child, and without replying to Aksinya's entreaties went straight to the master. The old man received him in the ante-room.

  "Well, what's wrong with the child?" he asked, acknowledging the doctor's greeting with a careless nod.

  "Scarlet fever. Your Excellency!"

  "Will it get better? Any hope?"

  "Very little. It's dying. Think of its age."

  "You fool!" The old man turned livid. "What did you study medicine for? Cure her!" He slammed the door in the doctor's face and paced up and down the hall.

  Aksinya knocked and entered. "The doctor wants horses to take him to Vyeshenskaya."

  The old man turned on his heel. "Tell him he's a blockhead! Tell him he doesn't leave this place until the child is well. Give him a room and feed him to his heart's content. But he won't go away," he shouted, shaking his bony fist. He strode over to the window, drummed with his fingers for a minute, and then, turning to a photograph of his son as a baby in his nurse's arms, stepped back two paces and stared hard at it, as though unable to recognize the child.

  As soon as her child had fallen ill Aksinya had decided that God was punishing her for taunting Natalya. Crushed with fear for the child's life, she lost control of herself, wandered aimlessly about, and could not work. "Surely Cod won't take her!" the feverish thought beat

  incessantly in her brain, and not believing, with all her might trying not to believe, that the child would die, she prayed frantically to God for his last mercy, that its life might be spared.

  But the fever was choking the little life. The girl lay flat on her back, the breath coming in little hoarse gasps from her swollen throat. The doctor attended her four times a day, and stood of an evening smoking on the steps of the servants' quarters, gazing up at the cold sprinkling of autumn stars.

  All night Aksinya remained on her knees by the bed. The child's gurgling rattle wrung her heart.

  "Mama. . ." whispered the small parched lips.

  "My little one, my little daughter," she groaned; "my flower, don't go away, Tanya. Look, my pretty one, open your little eyes, come back. My dark-eyed darling! Why, oh Lord . . .?"

  Occasionally the child opened its inflamed lids, and the bloodshot eyes gave her a wavering glance. The mother caught at the glance greedily. It seemed to be withdrawn into itself, yearning, resigned.

  She died in her mother's arms. For the last time the little mouth gaped, and the body was

  racked with a convulsion. The tiny head fell back on its mother's arm, and the little Mele-khov eyes gazed with an astonished, sombre stare.

  Old Sashka dug a small grave under an old poplar by the lake, carried the coffin to the grave and with unwonted haste covered it with earth, then waited long and patiently for Aksinya to rise from the clayey mound. When he could wait no longer, he blew his nose violently and went off to the stables. He drew a bottle of eau-de-Cologne and a little flagon of denatured alcohol out of a manger, mixed the spirits in a bottle, and muttered as he held the concoction up to the light:

  "In memory! May the heavenly kingdom open its gates to the little one! The angel is dead." He drank and shook his head wildly as he bit into a soft pickled tomato; then staring tenderly at the bottle, he said:

  "Don't forget me, dear, and I'll never forget you!" and burst into tears.

  Three weeks later Yevgeny Listnitsky sent a telegram saying he was on his way home. A troika of horses was sent to meet him at the station, and everybody on the estate was on tiptoe with expectation. Turkeys and geese were killed, and old Sashka flayed a sheep. The preparations were elaborate enough for a grand

  ball. The young master arrived at night. A freezing rain was falling, and the lamps flung little fugitive beams of light into the puddles. The horses drew up at the steps, their bells jangling. Throwing his warm cloak to Sashka, Yevgeny, limping slightly and very agitated, walked up the steps. His father hastened to meet him, sending the chairs flying in his progress.

  Aksinya served supper in the dining-room, and went to summon them to table. Looking through the keyhole, she saw the old man embracing and kissing his son on the shoulder; the loose flesh of the old man's neck was quivering. Waiting a few minutes, she looked again. This time Yevgeny was on his knees before a great map spread out on the floor. The old man, puffing clouds of smoke from his pipe, was knocking with his knuckles on the arm of a chair and roaring indignantly:

  "Alexeyev? It can't be! I don't believe it!"

  Yevgeny replied quietly, persuasively running his fingers over the map.

  The old man answered in a deep steady voice: "In that case the commander-in-chief was in the wrong. Complete lack of vision. Look, Yevgeny, I'll give you a similar instance from the Russo-Japanese campaign. Let me! Let me!"

  Aksinya knocked. The old man came out animated and gay, with his eyes glittering youthfully. With his son he drank a bottle of wine of 1879 vintage. As Aksinya waited on them and observed their cheerful faces, she felt her own loneliness all the more keenly. An unwept yearning tortured her. After the death of the child she had wanted to weep, but tears would not come. A cry came to her throat, but her eyes were dry, and so the stony grief oppressed her doubly. She slept a great deal, seeking relief in a drowsy oblivion, but the child's call reached her even in sleep. She imagined the infant was asleep at her side, and she turned over and groped about the bed, hearing
the whispered: "Mama, mama." "My darling," she would answer with icy lips. Even in the oppressive light of day she sometimes imagined that the child was at her knee, and she caught herself reaching out her hand to stroke the curly head.

  The third day after his arrival Yevgeny sat until late in the evening with old Sashka in the stables, listening to his artless stories of the free life the Don Cossacks had led in bygone days. He left him at nine o'clock. A sharp wind was blowing through the yard; the mud squelched slushily underfoot. A young, yellow-whiskered moon pranced among the clouds. By

  its light Yevgeny looked at his watch, and turned towards the servants' quarters. He stopped by the steps to light a cigarette, stood thinking for a moment, then, shrugging his shoulders, resolutely mounted the steps. He cautiously lifted the latch and opened the door, passed through into Aksinya's room, and struck a match.

  "Who's there?" she asked, drawing the blanket around her.

  "It's only me."

  "I'll be dressed in a minute."

  "Don't trouble. I shall only stop for a moment or two."

  He threw off his overcoat and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  "So your little girl died. . . ."

  "Yes, she died . . ." Aksinya exclaimed echoingly.

  "You've changed considerably. I can guess what the loss of the child meant to you. But I think you're torturing yourself uselessly; you can't bring her back, and you're still young enough to have children. Take yourself in hand and be reconciled to the loss. After all, you haven't lost everything. All your life is still before you."

  He pressed her hand and stroked her caressingly yet authoritatively, playing on the low

  tones of his voice. He dropped his voice to a whisper and, hearing Aksinya's stifled weeping, began to kiss her wet cheeks and eyes.

  Woman's heart is susceptible to pity and kindness. Burdened with her despair, not realizing what she was doing, Aksinya yielded herself to him with all her strong, long dormant passion. But as the devastating, maddening wave of delight abated she came to her senses and cried out sharply; losing all sense of reason or shame she ran out half-naked, in only her shift, on to the steps. Yevgeny hastily followed her out, leaving the door open, pulling on his overcoat as he went. As he mounted the steps to the terrace of the house he smiled joyfully and contentedly.

  Lying in his bed, rubbing his soft plump chest, he thought: "From the point of view of an honest man, what I have done is shameful, immoral. Grigory, ... I have robbed my neighbour; but after all, I have risked my life at the front. If the bullet had been a little more to the right it would have gone through my head and I should have been feeding the worms now. These days one has to live passionately for each moment as it comes. I am allowed to do anything." He was momentarily horrified by his own thoughts; but his imagination again conjured up the terrible moment of attack, and

  how he had raised himself from his dead horse only to fall again, shot down by bullets. As he dropped off to sleep he decided: "Time enough for this tom.orrow, but now to rest."

  Next morning, finding himself alone with Aksinya in the dining-room, he went towards her, a guilty smile on his face. But she pressed against the wall and stretched out her hands, scorching him with her frenzied whisper:

  "Keep away, you devil!"

  Life dictates its own unwritten laws to man. Within three days Yevgeny went again to Aksinya at night, and she did not refuse him.

  XXIII !

  A small garden was attached to the eye hospital. There are many such clipped, uninviting gardens on the outskirts of Moscow, where the eye finds no rest from the stony, heavy dreariness of the city, and as one looks at them the memory recalls still more sharply and painfully the wild freedom of the forest. Autumn reigned in the hospital garden. The paths were covered with leaves of orange and bronze, a morning frost crumpled the flowers and flooded the patches of grass with a watery green. On fine days the patients wandered along the paths, listening to the church bells

  of pious Moscow. When the weather was bad (and such days were frequent that year) they wandered from room to room or lay silently on their beds, boring themselves and one another.

  The civilian patients were in the majority in the hospital, and the wounded soldiers were accommodated in one room. There were five of them: Jan Vareikis, a tall, ruddy-faced, blue-eyed Latvian; Ivan Vrublevsky, a handsome young dragoon from the Vladimir Province; a Siberian rifleman named Kosykh; a restless little yellow soldier called Burdin, and Grigory. At the end of September another was added to the number.

  While they were drinking their evening tea they heard a long ring at the bell. Grigory looked out into the corridor. Three people had entered the hall, a nurse and a man in a long Caucasian coat holding a third man under the armpits. The man's dirty soldier's tunic with dark blood-stains on the chest indicated that he had only just arrived from the station. He was operated on the same evening. A few minutes after he had been taken into the operating theatre, the other patients heard the muffled sound of singing. While he was under chloroform and the surgeon was removing the remains of one eye, which had been shattered by

  a shell splinter, he sang and uttered unintelligible curses. After the operation he was brought into the ward. When the effects of the chloroform passed, he informed the others that he had been wounded on the German front, that his name was Garanzha, and that he was a machine-gunner, a Ukrainian from Chernigov Province. He made a particvilar friend of Grigory, whose bed was next to his, and after the evening inspection they would talk a long time in undertones.

  "Well, Cossack, how goes it?" he opened their first conversation.

  "Rotten."

  "Going to lose your eye?"

  "I'm having injections."

  "How many have you had?"

  "Eighteen so far."

  "Does it hurt?"

  "No, I enjoy it."

  "Ask them to cut the eye right out."

  "What for? Not everybody has to be one-eyed."

  "That's so."

  Grigory's jaundiced, venomous neighbour was discontented with everything. He cursed the government, the war, his own lot, the hospital food, the cook, the doctors, everything he could lay his tongue to.

  "What did we, you and I, go to war for, that's what I want to know?"

  "For the same reason everybody else did."

  "Hah! You're a fool! I've got to chew it all over for you! It's the bourgeoisie we're fighting for, don't you see? What are the bourgeoisie? They're birds among the fruit-trees."

  He explained the difficult words to Grigory, peppering his speech with invective. "Don't talk so fast. I can't understand your Ukrainian lingo. Speak slower," Grigory would interrupt him.

  "I'm not talking so quick as that, my boy. You think you're fighting for the tsar, but what is the tsar? The tsar's a grabber, and the tsaritsa's a whore, and they're both a weight on our backs. Don't you see? The factory-owner drinks vodka, while the soldier kills the lice. The factory-owner takes the profit, the worker goes bare. That's the system we've got. Serve on, Cossack, serve on! You'll earn another cross, a good one, made of oak."

  He spoke in Ukrainian, but on the rare occasions when he grew excited, he would break into pure Russian generously sprinkled with invective.

  Day after day he revealed truths hitherto unknown to Grigory, explaining the real causes of war, and jesting bitterly at the auto-

  cratic government. Grigory tried to raise objections, but Garanzha silenced him with simple, murderously simple questions, and he was forced to agree.

  Most terrible of all, Grigory began to think Garanzha was right, and that he was impotent to oppose him. He realized with horror that the intelligent and bitter Ukrainian was gradually but surely destroying all his former ideas about the tsar, the country, and his own military duty as a Cossack. Within a month of the Ukrainian's arrival the whole system on which Grigory's life had been based was a smoking ruin. It had already grown rotten, eaten up with the canker of the monstrous absurdity of the war, and it needed
only a jolt. That jolt was given, and Grigory's artless straightforward mind awoke. He tossed about seeking a way out, a solution to his predicament, and gladly found it in Garanzha's answers.

  Late one night Grigory rose from his bed and awoke Garanzha. He sat on the edge of the Ukrainian's bed. The greenish light of the September moon streamed through the window. Garanzha's cheeks were dark with furrows, the black sockets of his eyes gleamed humidly. He yawned and wrapped his legs in the blanket.

  "Why aren't you asleep?"

  "I can't sleep," Grigory replied. "Tell me this one thing. War is good for one and bad for another, isn't it?"

  "Well?" the Ukrainian yawned.

  "Wait!" Grigory whispered, blazing with anger. "You say we are being driven to death for the benefit of the rich. But what about the people? Don't they understand? Aren't there any who could tell them, who could go and say: 'Brothers, this is what you are dying for'?"

  "How could they? Tell me that! Supposing you did. Here we are whispering like geese in the reeds, but talk out loud, and they'll have a bullet ready for you. The people are deep in ignorance. The war will wake them up. After the thunder comes the storm."

  "But what's to be done about it? Tell me, you snake! You've stirred up my heart."

  "And what does your heart tell you?"

  "I can't understand what it's saying," Grigory confessed.

  "The man who tries to push me over the brink will get pushed over himself. We mustn't be afraid to turn our rifles against them. We must shoot the ones who're sending the people into hell." Garanzha rose in his bed and, grinding his teeth, stretched out his hand:

  "A great wave will rise and sweep them all away."