The impassive Bruyakin sat motionless, hands together on his knees.
Pluzhnikov, now by the smooth-tiled stove, spoke from his full height. “Because the town has lost its conscience! If it ever had one. Who started it? The town! Who wouldn’t let us have sugar? The town. So we started holding on to our eggs. Grain is cheaper now in Russia, not ten times dearer, like everything we get from the towns. They skin us alive, and then they gnash their teeth at us.”
Zyablitsky, following Pluzhnikov’s movements, fidgeted as if there was a hedgehog on his chair.
“Come, come, Grigori Naumych!” he implored. “You go too far, you mustn’t draw such extreme conclusions! It simply isn’t right to say that the town is the village’s enemy!”
Pluzhnikov went back to the table and tapped it gently with his fist. “That’s just what it is, though—the enemy!” The vase tinkled assent. “Take yourself—you’re a good friend, a nice fellow, but you’re only here for our grain, aren’t you? To ‘take inventory of our stocks.’ For the zemstvo, of course, between friends, not to confiscate any of it. But then the governor will issue a decree saying confiscate it all, and you’ll roll up to do the job.”
“Come, come, Grigori Naumych,” Zyablitsky implored, “how can you! You’re much too harsh! Who would ever dare forcibly remove grain from your barns?”
True, it almost defied belief: to take by force what it had cost blood to grow? And anyway, would the peasants let them do it?
What—that flimsy, dainty little man with the rooster’s neck—take grain from the village? Laughable!
Pluzhnikov, still on the march, by the door now: “I’ll tell you this much, the army we don’t mind feeding, of course. But the towns? The profiteers, the banks? No, we do mind! The crowd that’s gathered in Russia’s towns now, all sorts and conditions of people, the whole of the western provinces, all stepping on each other’s toes, none of them are doing any work—and the Tambov peasant is supposed to feed them all? Think again! When you get back, you can tell them that we won’t give up our grain as easily as that! Get it into your head: the peasant’s like a bear spear—once dug in there he stays. We’ll give grain for the army, of course, but for Petersburg—no, we won’t!”
That was when Agasha came in, still in her holiday best, just as she had been in church, except that she had tied an apron over it, as fresh and brightly colored as the rest—and still wearing brand-new seamless galoshes over her indoor shoes. She had brought a linen cloth, to lay the table, and also a message: “Evpati Gavrilych, your son’s come for you, he says come home, you’ve got guests.”
Time for Evpati to go, then. And he still hadn’t said a thing. Might as well not have been there. Ah, but he’d listened carefully, heard every word.
The woman had something else on her mind. She called to the boy in the hall: “Kolya, come on in here.”
Fourteen-year-old Kolya came in, looking sheepish. His auburn hair stood in curly tufts. He was big for his age.
“Some ladies’ man you are, can’t even comb your hair,” Agasha declared. “Evpati Gavrilych, did you know this boy of yours had started going with grown women?”
Kolya gave himself away by blushing furiously.
“Still,” Agasha said approvingly, “you can see he has some shame left.”
Evpati shot a shrewd glance at Kolya, then at Agasha, and said simply, “Oh?”
Dubiously. But not looking for an argument.
Kolya’s cheeks were on fire. He couldn’t help it.
“You didn’t know, then?” Agasha seemed happy about it. There’s no game women enjoy more. “Make him tell you himself. People have seen him going there.”
“Well, that’s soon fixed,” Bruyakin said, laughing. “Lie down on the bench, get your backside smacked, and marry the wench.”
They took their leave.
Women are nasty creatures! Kolya was frightened and angry. Always spying and prying and their tongues are sharp as razors. We’ve been careful—how did it get out? He was cold with fear, expecting his father to pitch into him at any moment, and still not sure whether to own up or lie his way out of it. Just as long as the old man didn’t tell his mother. She wasn’t his real mother, but better than a real mother to him. He would be ashamed if she knew.
They were outside now and his father still hadn’t said a word. Kolya was very surprised. They walked on side by side, in step—still not a word. Would the storm break at home? Did he mean it, the big stick? That would be worse still. After Marusya, whose husband was away in the army, Kolya Satych felt more or less grown up. But against his father and the big stick he was still powerless.
His father remained silent. Miraculously. Nothing could be surer to rile him than Agasha’s revelation. But he was bottling up his anger.
In fact, Kolya’s father had other things on his mind. He was going over again his decision to go out of business. It would be a breakneck swerve, a sort of betrayal of his own father and of himself, putting an end to something handed down from generation to generation. And nothing told him clearly that he ought to stop. This or that was in short supply, but it would sort itself out once the war ended. Still, a kind of tightness in his chest warned Bruyakin of troubles as yet unknown, and he was half afraid that he might not be in time to wind up his affairs. That would take a year, if not two. Some of his best goods, those that weren’t perishable, he could keep back, to make a killing when better times came. Have to find a good hiding place. Talking to Pluzhnikov, and even listening to that outsider, had only helped to convince him in some obscure way that life was about to change completely, and that freedom to do business was a thing of the past.
As for the boy, yes, it was news to him, he hadn’t known. At fourteen? A bit early. Still, he recognized his own flesh and blood in his younger son. The older one wasn’t like that, but his own father, Gavrila, had had the same weakness, and used to mend looms and distaffs and sharpen spindles for village women, more often for love than for money. Evpati’s own first name, in fact, meant “sentimental.” He had been about Kolya’s age when he started sniffing around women. And from that day to this he hadn’t lost his liking for them—not with his first wife, nor with his second—he liked making presents of fine cloth on the sly, and had his own reasons for liking weddings, and dances at the fair, where you could slip the women a few drinks (he never touched spirits himself) and have fun with them when they got tipsy. But Kolya? At fourteen? Oh well, good for him. Let him get on with it, the sooner he grew up, the sooner he’d be able to help out, though he’d been able to harrow and reap and mow since he was ten.
Kolya still couldn’t feel the ground under his feet, but began to take heart: his father was saying nothing!
Swarthy Marusya was twenty-two, and came from near the Tambov powder mill, but had married into Kamenka. She had heard from her husband during his first year in the army, but not after that. She must have gotten bored and restless as soldiers’ wives do. She had taken notice of the boy first, and she had sent him messages, through a woman friend and the friend’s young man. She could have chosen an older boy, of course, but he was the one she took a fancy to. Which was when Kolya Satych first realized that there was something special about him. He knew what it was all about, he’d known since he was seven, playing weddings with little girls, but before Marusya he hadn’t tried it for himself. Her cottage was on the edge of the village, over toward the Savala. He made his way there furtively, his heart beating wildly, and abandoned himself to her tyrannical passion. She wouldn’t even let him undress himself, she took off all his clothes, kissing him here, there, and everywhere, petting and teasing him, taking her pleasure in every way she could think of. Her eyes were like glowing coals, her lips brick red, and there was a deep flush on her cheeks. She licked the boy into shape and taught him all sorts of diabolical tricks.
Kolya Satych began to feel grown up. And although nobody in the village knew—Agasha was the first to let the cat out of the bag—he noticed that girls seemed to
sense something in him and he could now see right through them and treated them differently, affectionately. His head was in a whirl, he craved excitement, and forbidden pleasures. As Marusya once told him, with her rippling laugh: “That’s when we’re happiest, my little Kolya, when our eyes show no shame. Now you’re like that too.” It annoyed him a lot that his father still made him go to the zemstvo school even though he was older than his classmates. And he was never going to cope with all he was supposed to learn.
What he most wanted right now was to latch on to a gang of young toughs, all of them at least two, some of them four years older than himself. The leader of this gang was Mishka Rul, the champion prankster, brawler, and daredevil. Rul’s father still sometimes tried to beat him, but Mishka fought him off: “Lay a hand on me one more time and I’ll stick a knife in you.” To gain entrance to this gang Kolya had already started stealing from his father’s shop—cigarettes for the boys and goods he could exchange for moonshine liquor, to treat them to a bottle. He listened enviously, slavishly, to stories of the wild tricks they had already played or were planning. Rul made fun of all who objected to his behavior or threatened to cut him down to size. Now they were trying to think of tricks they could play to exasperate the priest. The boys listened openmouthed to Rul’s tales of his exploits.
“Remember when Mokei Likhvantsev’s Thoroughbred stallion got loose? Nobody knows it, but that was me. Know why? He was too eager to establish order in the village, so I decided to get my own back on him with his lovely Lipa, and enjoy myself with lovely Lipa while I was at it.”
The boys could only gasp at his daring. But how had he managed it?
“I was on the lookout for when he and Lipa went to the bathhouse. It was nearly dark, and I sneaked into his yard and let the stallion out. Then I knocked at his niece Lushka’s house, two doors away, and said run to the bathhouse and tell your uncle the stallion’s gotten loose and run off to the meadows! Then I watched from behind the bushes while Mokei got dressed and rushed off to look for the stallion. I knew he’d be at it a good two hours. So I walked into the anteroom of the bathhouse slow-like and got undressed. Lipushka was splashing about on the other side of the door. She thought her husband had come back. I went in and said, ‘It’s only me, Rul, don’t be afraid.’ There was a dip burning, she saw me, cried out, and scrambled onto the sweating shelf to get away from me, ‘Get out of here,’ she says, ‘or I’ll scald you.’
“ ‘Splash me just once,’ I said, ‘and I’ll stick your head in the boiler, and that’s where you’ll stay.’ ‘Get out! I’ll tell Mokei!’ ‘When I go you can tell him,’ I say, ‘but while we’re waiting—come down from there, Lipushka, onto the floor.’ ‘I’ll scratch you to pieces!’ ‘And I’ll rip you to bits!’ Then I pulled her down from the shelf, and she’s really soft. Women can be like that—really soft. She tries to struggle. ‘Look,’ I say, ‘if you thrash about like this I’ll tell Mokei myself, and say it was you who put me up to letting the stallion out!’ ‘I’m done for,’ she moans, ‘it’s curtains for me. What have you done to me, you villain? Well, the sin will be yours.’ ‘All mine,’ I said, ‘all mine.’ So then she relaxed and gave in to me.”
The boys howled with glee. What a hero! If only we could do the same!
Kolya felt faint with envy, with a jealous yearning to do desperate deeds of his own.
Rul pointed up the moral. “So remember, boys, when you get married don’t trust your wives. There’s always some bachelor hanging around to take advantage. You can never be sure of them. And she didn’t tell Mokei, of course not.”
[46]
Pluzhnikov, wearing an embroidered shirt and baggy breeches like those of an officer, was waiting for the Blagodarevs on his front porch. He shook hands, yet again, first the father’s, then the son’s, and led them into the long entrance hall. While they were taking off their hats and coats outside the parlor door Agafya emerged from the back room to pay her respects. Agafya Anastasyevna to some, plain Agasha to others, was not much older than Katya, and they had gone to the same girlish get-togethers. Small children peeped out from behind her. But the master of the house invited his guests into the parlor.
There they were introduced to a guest from town, who tentatively offered a soft hand. “Anatol Sergeich.”
The Blagodarevs settled for the sofa, Pluzhnikov pulled up an armchair and sat cross-legged, and the man from town found himself a seat. Agasha came through the other door, from the living room, to set the table: there was a clatter of gleaming spoons, she deftly distributed forks with black-and-white bone handles and shiny town-bought knives, placed heavy glazed tankards, tumblers, and wineglasses on the table, and came back with jugs, decanters, a fat Caspian herring on an oval platter, looking for all the world like a sterlet in aspic, and other cold dishes, together with a tomato salad, mushrooms of all descriptions, and homemade cheese—enough to feed a dozen. After all they’d eaten those last few days you wouldn’t think there was room for another morsel, but their eyes took note of it all as they talked. It eased conversation and favorably disposed them toward their host.
Agasha was wearing her Sunday best—a light blue cloth sarafan, with the puffed-out white linen sleeves of her petticoat showing from underneath it. She was sturdy, robust, and not too thin in the arm. Her back was unbent, and her head, with its thick straw-colored plaits gathered at the temples, was held high as she carried in the heavy trays. She walked quickly, but not with mincing steps, quickly but noiselessly in her galoshes.
Pluzhnikov took the lead, warmly declaring that what Kamenka needed was more fine young men like Arseni. The war, he said, will not go on forever, and when it ends all those heads and hands, with all they’ve picked up in far-off countries, will come in handy here at home, life won’t be the same after the war, it won’t go on in the old way, we’ll be like somebody who recovers from a mortal illness and is a completely new man afterward, seeing and doing many things as he never did before.
The elder Blagodarev eyed him closely. That keen gaze from under the corn-colored eyebrows had always been able to sight a distant sail on Lake Baikal, or a mouse a hundred sazhens away in a field. In that room his vision was so much better than it need be that he squinted to avoid seeing too much. Or perhaps he was trying to look through the man and decide whether he meant what he said.
He did. Pluzhnikov thought about life in the round, not just what to do next as he rose each morning. He did the thinking for the whole community.
He had a lot of questions for Arseni about the war. Did they have enough arms? Enough shells? Was it true that they now had plenty of everything? Men as well? Companies and batteries at full strength?
Maybe a bit too full, Arseni said. It’s terrible in the trenches, men falling over each other’s feet, a single mortar shell can finish off five at a time. Truth is, so many of us Russians have been knocked out they’re filling the gap with non-Russians and non-Christians.
What do the soldiers think about it all? What do they talk about among themselves?
What do they talk about? What we talk about isn’t worth knowing: it’s who’s been under bombardment or in a gas attack or caught some shrapnel lately. Or else they talk about the old woman, wonder whether she’s playing around back home, or else about the farm, and how they’re getting along back there without enough working hands, or about how the Germans shoe their horses differently from us, or about how the Belorussians …
All right, but what do they say about the war in general? When do they think peace will come? Have we got the strength to fight on to the end?
The thing is, the Germans on the staff will be too much for us. If there weren’t any traitors …
Are there any?
Actually, maybe there aren’t. It would be mighty hard to take if there really are. Then there’s a lot of mud slung at Rasputin.
Both Blagodarevs were angry with Rasputin. After all, he started out as a peasant himself, and look at him now, shows how much we can rely on our ow
n kind. Once a peasant rises in the world he gets too big for his boots, forgets his own people, he’s worse than any gentleman. Just think, somebody who’s climbed so high he may have humped the Tsaritsa herself still won’t stand up for the peasant. Here you’re hit with fixed prices, you can’t get a nail or a scythe—and back there he’s gorging and swilling?
Pluzhnikov dismissed it. “That’s all silly gossip.” He wanted to get at the root of things. Rasputin or no Rasputin, Grigori Naumovich refused to believe that it was no good putting your hopes on the peasant. The peasant was the only hope! He, and no one else. Peasants could only be saved by peasants, by themselves! And it was time they woke up to the fact.
Next month, November, there was to be—just imagine—what they called a congress of small landowners in Petersburg. Maybe something sensible would come of it.
Was Grigori Naumovich invited?
“I don’t know, I’m waiting to hear. They promised to send me a ticket from Tambov, but I don’t know if they will.”
And so—to the table. Each had a side to himself, Arseni facing Pluzhnikov, his father facing the guest. Town fashion: a large plate and a small one before each of them, spoons stuck in the food on the serving dishes, but watch your manners, no helping yourself from the dish straight into your mouth, load the food onto your plate first (funny idea all the same—dirties the plate and lets the food get cold). Eat what you’ve put on your plate, and don’t take more until you’re asked: “Please, help yourself, it’s not there just to look at!” Arseni had seen these town ways among the officers, and only hoped his father wouldn’t let himself down. No, it was all right, the old man was treading cautiously, taking no risks, looking neither to right nor to left. But the worry of it all tied his tongue and his thoughts as with ropes.
November 1916 Page 95