So that’s what he is! One of the very people who write all those Slovos and Bogatstvos!
[15]
(FROM THE NOTEBOOKS OF FYODOR KOVYNEV)
* * *
“Sir, sir,” Signei said timidly, edging toward the lieutenant colonel, “permission to ask. Is it true what they’re all nattering about?” He lowered his voice confidentially. “That the ‘Merican Tsar has sent a letter to Russia … Says he wants some Cossacks of his own … Says the Russian Tsar can’t feed his Cossacks, so let them come to America, they won’t go hungry with me.”
“God only knows,” the lieutenant colonel yelled, “what nonsense they’ll dream up next! Where did you get that from?”
“Tongues will wag, your honor … It’s mostly the women babbling.”
“Troublemakers! Spit in their eyes! Your home is here—on the free steppes of the quiet Don.”
Signei dolefully seconds him: “Where all our roots are.”
“And you won’t find a better place anywhere in the world!”
“Quite so, your honor.”
* * *
A Cossack who had risen to officer rank came home from the army.
The best room was full of guests—the old men at the table, relatives and neighbors on benches, young men standing by the stove—and there was a sweating ruck of spectators looking in from the storeroom.
“Is that your own uniform, Gavril Makarich?”
“It’s the one that goes with the rank of ensign.”
“It’s a very beautiful uniform.”
“Only farming may come hard to you in that rank. While you’ve been in the army, you’ve probably forgotten what it’s like working in a field.”
“Well, of course, I wanted to stay on in the regiment, but my father wouldn’t give his blessing. I wanted to come home as well, of course, to the things I was born among.”
“And the food you’ll get here is a bit plain. Plenty of noodle soup, mind you. Stuff yourself till you can crack a flea on your belly—that’s how things are here.”
A brainy neighbor with a beard asks if “things are quiet in Russia now.”
“It’s all right at present, the riots have been put down.”
“From what the newspapers say it doesn’t look much like it …”
“No, they’ve quieted down now. There used to be these strikes, for instance, but you never hear of them now.”
An old man with a shaven skull and a George medal on his blue cloth smock says, “Gavrusha, can you kindly tell me why these riots happen? Why do those people turn so nasty?”
“Well, they’re dissatisfied, of course.”
“Is it land they want?”
“Some want land, others are feeling the pinch because things are so dear in the shops. But all in all you have to put it down to ignorance.”
“Yes, but who’s to blame, which side? Some loudmouths say its the authorities.”
“Whatever the authorities are like, the rioters have to share the blame, grandpa: they must educate themselves.”
The old man shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s the main thing. People lived before them without getting educated … and managed without rioting. Life was freer and easier. There weren’t any orchards, but you could pick all the cherries you wanted in the woods, or apples, or pears, or sloes … and all the fish! Now all that’s vanished. But everybody’s educated now, everybody wears galoshes.”
Karpo Tiun rises and speaks haltingly. “Get educated, you say, Gavril Makarich … But let me ask you … where is there free access? Claiming your rights costs money—where is it supposed to come from?”
The soldier’s jaw sets firmly. “If you have anything in your head,” he says, “you’ll find a way in.”
* * *
A bright March day. Ice on the Neva, dry and brittle, marbled with dark streaks. Happy agitation in my heart. On the embankment a slim, well-dressed woman in black, with black eyes and eyebrows, heavily made up, seems troubled by something. A singer perhaps. Our eyes meet, mine express compassion and fellow feeling.
* * *
6 April 1913. St. Petersburg. Last night, the eve of Ascension Day, we had a meeting of the editorial committee. Korolenko took his time going over the manuscript in great detail. He spoke to me about my story with such enthusiasm, his small but beautiful, gentle eyes sparkling affectionately. He has a beautiful face framed by a gray beard, and his head is a mass of dark gray curls. He has the face of a man used to hard physical work, fleshless but firm, and made handsome by an expression that speaks of strength, endurance, intellect, and prudence. My heart ached with admiration. His quiet, even, enchanting voice was at once extraordinarily sad and lively. When he got up from behind his desk I noticed that his boots were patched.
* * *
5 August. Riding to the station. Swarms of women wearing white head scarves. Carriages, bullock carts, rejoicing workers. Meadows as green as if it were spring! Fodder galore! A mass of green, ages since we saw the like. “When we took Turkey on—it was just like this.” Grain rattling into harvesters’ bins. The dear, nourishing prosperous smell of ripe wheat. For some reason it occurred to me that I shall never again see such a harvest, such wealth, such lushness.
* * *
The hair on old Cossack heads—dry feather grass.
* * *
Mustaches like shortened Turkish yataghans.
* * *
Wrote to Z. Told her that in the village nowadays young men ride around on bicycles, wearing bowler hats and transparent blouses, and play cards in the presence of grown-ups. The young ladies walk along the dusty street in tight frocks and French court shoes, stepping around pungent cowpats just left behind by the herd. Village life is changing. People want different things. She says the young simply want more, especially from love. The ability to give yourself and form firm attachments is getting rarer all the time.
* * *
Fine rain rustling in the leaves. The smell of dill. I’m sitting in a cabin, waiting, hoping some girl will come along. Nothing in my heart except desire—and fear of falling sick. Long birdcalls in the orchard.
* * *
An old Cossack with a beard joins the singing, one hand raised, fingers splayed, bending toward his neighbors and wagging his head as though telling them a story.
Another old man reminisces: “There was one ataman called von Ryaby”* (meaning von Grabbe or von Taube; an ataman like that was too much for Cossack tongues). “A fierce general he was, blew his top at the least little thing. Ripped one Cossack’s nostril with a pencil for arguing.”
* * *
In Pamfilich’s orchard.
“Tell me, Pamfilich, which was better the old days or now?”
“It’s better now, I reckon. Life’s a bit brighter. Gramophones, nice clothes. We used to have nothing but homespun, like sackcloth.”
“But what about the way young people swear?”
“Yes, we never had anything like that. Mother-swearing, do they call it? The Mother of God is our intercessor. I remember my grandfather saying, ‘Our children have got it coming to them, and our grandchildren will really suffer.’ ”
* * *
A gray-blue steppe with hillocks and gullies. Stunted oaks along the gullies and the drying river Medveditsa. Squat shanties smelling of smoky dung fires. A peeling village church. I remember how I used to love running to vespers in the half-empty church in my bast clogs. And I loved even more the view from the belfry, when I was allowed up there.
* * *
Cradled in the womb of a placid life.
* * *
“Never get anywhere near the bottom of it.”
* * *
“My son has a medal for bravery. Pin it on, Grishka—where have you put it?”
The clumsy, pockmarked Cossack takes his silver medal on a scarlet ribbon from his pocket, affixes it to his chest, and says solemnly, “A St. Anna.”
“For what exactly?” the matchmaker asks respectfully.
“I was on stabl
e duty. The commanding officer came during the night, sees everything’s in order, and I hadn’t slept a wink all night. ‘Well done!’ he says. And puts my name in for a medal.”
* * *
Z. writes, after a performance of Gorky’s The Petty Bourgeois at Tambov: “I was feeling very dejected, left the theater like a robot, walked down the middle of the street, and got stuck in the mud. There was a complete vacuum inside me, as though everything had been removed and nothing put in its place. The big question—what is there to live for?—remains unanswered. All the negative characters (as Gorky portrays them) find that life is dull, dead, uninteresting, while all his positive types do nothing but exclaim, ‘It’s good to be alive! Life is good!’ but nobody makes any attempt to say why. Nil is a self-satisfied, overfed bull of a man, trampling and stifling all who cross his path—and he’s Gorky’s idea of the hero of the future? Can the heroism of the future reside in cruelty? Gorky echoes Nietzsche: ‘Knock down whatever must fall.’ If that means obsolete institutions, I understand, but surely not people? Why should we? Just because they were born before us? It’s nasty, it’s depressing, it’s vile. If it hadn’t been so late I’d have fled—anywhere, maybe to my aunt in the convent. And you, my dear, mean to ‘expose our present conditions, Russian reality’? Is that it? If so I beg you not to, it’s all false, just self-indulgence.”
A little provincial girl, seen nothing of the world, but so bold in her judgments. Try telling the staff of Russkoye Bogatstvo that sort of thing.
* * *
A grimace of effort (on the face of a docker) that looked like a smile.
* * *
“If I start talking about my life it would fill a whole library. There’s not as much water in the Volga as I’ve had troubles to put up with.”
“What in particular”
“No end of them. I once had my new galoshes and a samovar I’d just soldered stolen on the same day.”
* * *
“If something like an armful of a woman comes my way, all right … but all this stuff about the meaninglessness of life is not my specialty.”
* * *
“You aren’t a socialist, I hope. So why don’t we have ourselves a drink?”
* * *
The sound of many voices calling back from a distance—like gravel pouring out of a bucket.
* * *
Ilyich on his son:
“First off, he’s no good on his feet. His feet are useless, they sweat so much you can wring them out.”
Agafon, a weedy little chap, four feet and a bit, says, “I found the wounded man the other day. Missing a leg but still laughing. We’ve got to squash those German sons of bitches good and proper.”
“But what if they capture you and me, Agafon? The Germans are threatening to water their horses in the Don.”
Agafon, holding his cigarette in the air at ear level, answers scornfully. “Whatever we’re asked we’ll do, but I could never respect a German.”
“What if he flies over in an airplane and swipes us?”
“He can beat me black and blue. I won’t give in.”
* * *
Changes of heart can be quite unforeseeable. After being demoted so often Filip volunteered for the army. They sent him back as a lieutenant, and his son was put in the same regiment, with the rank of ensign. They were stuck on reconnaissance the first three weeks. The father was promoted to captain, and got a Vladimir, fourth class, an Anna, second class, and a George medal holder’s sword knot. The son was promoted to lieutenant, also got a medal, and was killed in the offensive.
* * *
Cross meets cross: a second lieutenant with a George medal and a Red Cross nurse.
* * *
Letter from my brother Aleksandr: Peasant carriers have been mobilized for compulsory haulage of firewood to the arms factory. But it’s all a muddle. They make the men drive forty versts with a single horse (some from neighboring districts as well), leaving two or three at home idle. If they used only the nearest they’d all be kept busy. Next, the boss tells the foresters to stop delivering wood to the Bryansk arsenal and to load it for the police chief.
* * *
Letter from my sister Masha: A Cossack with a farm out at Sebryakovo came in yesterday to get a parcel for his son in the army repacked. He says “my mother baked me a batch of cakes with butter and eggs and a touch of sour cream, and the boss at the post office asked what’s sewn up in that parcel, come on, tell the truth. So I say a shirt, some underdrawers, some mittens, and my mother’s popped a few dried crusts inside some stockings. No, he says, that’s absolutely forbidden, you’ll have to make it up again!”
It’s a long way back to the farm, so he comes to me. While he’s unstitching it I ask him news about his son. “Well, in his last letter he wrote that they’ve declared a campaign against the Germans. An enormous amount of blood is being shed, and untold numbers are dying. Lord, oh Lord, we’ve just one little son. My lad and his woman are quiet folk, they’ve got nobody, only one little child. Syomushka comes home from the regular army, just has time to beget one child, and he’s off again to the war … There you are, my love, I’ve unstitched it, but I’m thinking maybe I could slip some rusks, just a dozen say, into this coat lining? Would it get through, d’you think? His mother wanted to put a duck in, but his wife said no, rusks he can pop in his pocket and eat on the move as he goes along. And she guided little Vanya’s hand and his little foot and made him write a few extra words: Strike the cruel German enemy with my hand, Daddy, and kick him with my foot, so they won’t drink your blood, dear father, and make your one and only baby an orphan, and bring your own dear mother to the grave. Look, you can see her tears on the paper—she cried and cried.”
While I’m sewing it up I ask what else the Cossacks are writing. “Mostly they write that they aren’t allowed to write the whole truth about it, and there’s no time! Those in the Carpathians write that they’re hungry and cold, there’s lots of meat but usually no bread, the horses under them are too weak to move. Those in Aleksandropol write that they’re expecting the Turk to attack, and mending the fort. Working like chain gangs, they say, carrying sacks of sand on their own backs. ‘But never mind, dear parents, it’s safer here than where there’s fighting. We’ll rest up after the sand and bust our fists on Turkish snouts. It’s time we got moving, we can’t bow our heads to those hook-nosed devils.’ Say what you like, my love, a lot of Russian strength has been buried in the ground. Sewn it up? Oh dear, the old woman will be scolding me about the rusks.”
* * *
One peasant to another (from Pskov):
“You want just a medium swing of the scythe, but you snatch at it. You don’t know a thing about scythes. You’ve disgraced the ‘Skov province in the eyes of all Europe.”
“Just give me a proper tool, then you can talk. Scythes like this are all right for shifting frozen shit, but not for mowing.”
“It’s the meadow I’m condoling with, not you. You’ll hack it all up for nothing.”
* * *
“You can tell a serious man by the way he knocks it back.”
* * *
I went into the X-ray room at the Ksenia field hospital. A young Tartar was brought in. Very slim, a slip of a boy, breathing with difficulty, feverish eyes. “A remarkable case,” said the doctor (something of an actor). “Legs paralyzed, but no wound. Shell-shocked apparently.” They X-rayed him, found a bullet in his spine, and were even more astonished: there was no sign of an entry wound. They discussed it, thought it over. The Tartar’s breathing was labored. A nurse came up. “I like little Tartar boys,” she said, stroking his cheek and chin tenderly. “They’re so nice. Do you want to go home?” There was a gleam of happiness in the boy’s feverish, bloodshot eyes, he laughed soundlessly, openmouthed, forgetting his sufferings. The orderlies carried him out on a stretcher, but the radiant look did not leave his face.
The magical power of a woman’s caress.
* * *
A fat voice—like the crackling of hot fat in a pan.
* * *
Letter from my brother: “According to Russky Invalid, we can expect the front to liven up a lot soon. If we could just once hit the Germans where it hurts. Will we manage it? Things are so tense I fear a catastrophe. I only hope there’ll be no bread riots in Passion Week and at Easter. Everything’s gone up 500 percent for the holiday. You can only marvel at the bare-faced greed of the trading class. Let’s hope it doesn’t end in total chaos on the home front. You can’t find anybody to help in the house, you can’t even get a little girl to mind a child at ten rubles a time, and she’s right, ten rubles used to be real money, but what is it now? So you have to do your own job and look after the house. Spring is here, we’ve run out of meat, and we’re down to porridge and milk—who would want to be a forester!”
* * *
Rumors going around the village about the pickings to be had on the battlefield have excited some imaginations. Old Ulyana, a polecat of a woman, shot off first, all the way to the Carpathians, to join her man. When she got back the women were around her like flies … She’s a skinny, pockmarked creature, but with handsome black eyebrows.
She told them quite a tale. “Eh, my sweet ones, we never once slept soundly. We were on the watch all the time, like geese on a pond in autumn.”
“Still, he must have picked up a bit of extra cash?”
The women waited with bated breath to hear how her Rodion had made out.
“Twenty-three rubles was all he had in the kitty.”
“Come on—tell the truth and shame the devil!”
“As God’s my judge!” Ulyana crossed herself, looking at the grocer’s sign in lieu of an icon. “I was there three days, and all I came out with was a three-ruble note. They skinned me alive, so he took me off the till.”
“Folks said you’d made a pile.”
“Just talk, dearie. Some of them have made a bit, but mine blew it all gambling as fast as he raked it in. Then they had to move up the line and he says all I need now is the bay … no good you tagging on behind with a bag of rusks. Go home and say a few prayers for me.”
“It was all over the village—Ulyana’s gone to make her pile.”
November 1916 Page 27