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The Naked Year

Page 10

by Boris Pilnyak


  “We don’t need war, sir.”

  “But on your farmstead, I’m told, they found a butchered Cheremiss and, they say, you shelter horse thieves?”

  “I don’t know what events you’re pleased to speak of,” answered Donat calmly. “Over the steppes wander many wolves, it’s impossible not to beware of them. We came to these places in Catherine’s reign and live as we lived thirty years ago, like a hundred, we fend for ourselves, in our own way. Thus we need no governments, or of course, soldiers.

  This Petersburg, sir, is like lichen, sir. I dare say, the people themselves will live better without supervision, will find time to rest and meditate. In a group, sir, the people, perhaps, will live a thousand years.”

  “Well, and horse stealing?” –becoming just noticeably irritated, asked Semyon Ivanovich, interrupting Donat.

  “I don’t know what events you’re talking about. No one saw this. But I think, if they catch the horse thief–they’ll kill him. And they’ll kill him I suppose, with cruelty, sir. The Tatars sometimes catch horse thieves–they bury them in hay ricks, trussed up and burn them alive. Ours is a cruel life, s-sir.”

  The fiery ruins grew dark, like coals, and were covered with ash. Outside the sheep began to bleat and a whip crack. The redstart grew silent. In the dining room they lit a candle, through the open door they attracted the moths. The grasshoppers began to chirr. A wind began to blow and it brought not the scorching heat but relief. It grew dark quickly, and in the distance the summer lightning flashed.

  “There’ll be a storm,” Donat said, grew quiet, not moving, and began to talk about something else: “I look at your farm, sir. No use. It’s bad. Very bad. No skill. The youths aren’t interested. No skill, sir, no love. Useless.”

  “We’ll learn,” answered Semyon Ivanovich dryly. “Not immediately.”

  “The land to the peasants, it’s God’s will.”

  Irina came out onto the terrace, with a candle, in a white dress. Irina placed the candle next to Donat. Donat looked attentively at her, Irina did not lower her eyes, the light was falling obliquely, Irina’s pupils flashed like red-purplish-scarlet little lights.

  “Semyon Ivanovich, the comrades are holding a short meeting in the reading room,” said Irina. “Comrade Yuzik isn’t there. I’ll be with a guest.”

  Semyon Ivanovich got up. Donat said after him:

  “Were you talking about horse thieves, sir? Horse thieves sometimes come along, that’s true. We live, like a hundred years ago. But then you arrived from Petersburg, when it had gone to lichen, sir. Yes, sir. Time is cramped. Our Petersburg has long been finished. We lived without it and will survive, sir.”

  “Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” said Semyon Ivanovich, and went out.

  Irina sat down in his place, against the pillar. They sat in silence. Again a light wind began to blow and brought relief. From the south came a heavy cloud, gleaming, it rumbled evilly. It grew dark, black, it was silent and close. By the candle the moths rustled. In the drawing room Andrei began to play the piano. Suddenly in the distance beyond the estate someone whistled twice in a short bandit’s whistle, very likely through his fingers. Both Donat and Irina pricked up their ears. Donat looked intently into the darkness and lowered his head listening hard. Irina stood up, stood a while on the steps of the terrace and descended into the darkness. Soon she returned, walked past into the house and came out again in a raincoat and, barefoot, again went onto the terrace. The rain began to drizzle in large drops, several gusts of wind surged, the leaves began to rustle autumnally, the candle light fluttered, it was as if the stone columns and the floor began to rock, and the candle went out.

  Semyon Ivanovich walked through the dark rooms into the reading room. In the reading room two candles were burning, on the settees, on the windows, on the floor in free poses sat the anarchists, they smoked, all–both men and women, in blue blouses. By the round table stiffly stood Comrade Konstantin. Semyon Ivanovich sat down at the table and picked up a pencil.

  “What’s the matter, Comrade?” asked Semyon Ivanovich.

  From the corner, from Anna, answered Kirill:

  “We want to resolve a basic question. Comrade Konstantin, going away to the village, took the new puttees out of Comrade Nikolai’s drawer, without notification, didn’t return the puttees and in general concealed this fact. The puttees, it goes without saying, are not the property of Comrade Nikolai, but they were being used by him. How is one to qualify this fact?”

  “I deem this to be robbery,” said Nikolai.

  “Comrades! Wait a while! Not like this!” retorted Semyon Ivanovich vexedly and began to drum with his slender fingers on the table. “It is first necessary to establish the fact and the principle…”

  Semyon Ivanovich spoke at great length, then spoke Kirill, Konstantin, Nikolai–and, finally, the question got utterly confused. It turned out that there were precedents, Konstantin and Nikolai had an argument and that the puttees were needed by Konstantin, but were Nikolai’s extras. Through the window the thunder rumbled, the lightning flashed, the wind and rain howled at will. The moths flew near the candles orphan-like, dying. Along the walls and shelves dimly gleamed the backs of books and the panes. It got very smoky, from the shag. Finally Semyon Ivanovich spoke again–about how where there is genuine brotherliness, the question of theft cannot arise, but, on the other hand–this is not a basic decision–and he finished:

  “I declare the meeting closed, comrades. I want to impart to you another fact. Comrade Andrei is marrying Comrade Irina. I think this is sensible. Anybody have anything to say?”

  Nobody said anything. Everyone stood up noisily and began to disperse.

  Andrei, having got up at dawn, carted water in the morning, and then all day cleaned up the dung, becoming exhausted with the heat, sweating, with tired eyes. After dinner until the bell he did not go to sleep–he sat in the drawing room and played the piano, and, it seemed, in his music were heard both the buzzing of horseflies, and the desert scorching steppe silence, of the deserts, scorching heats. After the bell he again carted dung, and in the evening again played. When Semyon Ivanovich passed through the dining room after the meeting, Andrei came up to him again and, touching his shoulders, said:

  “Semyon Ivanovich!… I thought… Irina. I and she…”

  Semyon Ivanovich freed his shoulder, moving away Andrei’s arm with his own cold fingers, and vexedly-tiredly answered:

  “You’ve already spoken, Comrade Andrei!… I heard! This is irregular. Both you and Irina are sensible people. Sentimental romanticism is complete nonsense. Has the lad gone away?”

  On the terrace in the columns the wind howled, the lightning flashed by the minute, but the thunder was already thundering elsewhere–the storm was passing. The murk was thick, black and damp. Lightning flashed and lit up Donat, he was sitting in the same pose as Semyon Ivanovich had left him in, erect, one hand placed on the table and one leg on the other.

  “Excuse me, I was held up,” said Semyon Ivanovich.

  “So, goodbye. It’s time!” Donat said and got up.

  “Where to in the storm? Stay the night!”

  “It’s not the first time. Tomorrow I’m up at dawn. Ploughing! I’ll go through the field.”

  Soon Donat was riding out of the estate. The rain had passed, the lightning elsewhere blinked weakly, it was a thundery summer night. Beyond the estate Donat stopped the horse, placed his palm on his eyes, all in white, mounted on a black steed. He peered at the phosphorescent reflections. Having paused awhile, he inserted two fingers into his mouth and whistled shortly. He listened carefully. Nobody replied. Then Donat turned off the road and at a steady trot rode off across the empty field.

  Late at night, when the storm had already died down, Baudek and Natalya came up to the excavations. By the huts they lit a campfire, dried themselves out and heated water. The campfire burned brightly, crackled, casting out sparks, and, perhaps because of it the night seemed closer, darker and more distinc
t. Some were lying by the campfire, some were sitting, drying their shirts.

  “And the dew on that night is melifluous and health-giving, the grass has a special, curative power. And on that night, lads, the fern flowers. But you have to go carefully into this wood, lads, because on that night the trees move from place to place… How?…”

  They fell silent.

  Someone stood up to have a look at the pot, a rough shadow crawled over the mountain, fell into the ravine. Another picked up a coal, and, passing it from one hand to another, lit up. For a minute it was very quiet, and in the quietness the crickets were heard distinctly. Beyond the campfire in the steppe the summer lightning flashed, its dead light came into being and vanished ghost-like–and the summer lightning flashed not where the storm had moved on, but from the south–another storm must have been coming. A roguish breeze began to blow, it wafted the dampness–it became clear that a second storm was coming.

  Natalya and Baudek did not go up to the fire, they sat down on wheelbarrows.

  “And I have come to you, lads–you have no business digging these places. Because this place, Uvek, is mysterious, and it always smells of wormwood. In Stepan Timofeevich’s time there stood a tower here right on the high ground, and in that tower a Persian princess was locked up, and the Persian princess, of indescribable beauty, turned into a magpie–she flew over the steppes, disturbed the people, having become wild, like a wolf, she brought the darkness… This is an ancient fact. Ataman Stepan Timofeevich found out about it, came to the tower, looked through the window–the Princess was lying down, asleep–he did not realize this was her body lying there, and that her soul was not in it–it was flying, the soul, as a magpie over the earth at that hour. The Ataman summoned the priest, he made the sign of the cross on the windows with the holy water of life… Well, since that time the restless soul has flown about Uvek, it cries, it cannot unite with its body, it beats against the stone walls. The tower collapsed. Stepan Timofeevich is chained to Mount Kapkaz, and she still languishes–cries… This place is silent, mysterious. The girls at times jump naked for the Persian beauty, at night, at the solstice, in this season, but this is not known… And so the wormwood grows here, and may it grow.”

  Someone retorted:

  “However, father, now Stepan Timofeevich, Ataman Razin has gone from this mountain, so it must be all right to dig. Now there’s a levolution, people’s rebellion.”

  “He’s gone, yes, he’s gone, my boy,” said the first, “and he’s not yet reached our place. Just wait, my boy–just wait!… Everything will be! And the levolution–you’re right there–is our rebellion! The time has not come. The people will show their snouts, they’ve shown them–rebellion! We are silent, we are silent, we know, we are silent! Fire: it’s red, blood is red–where there is fire there is blood. We’ll be silent, we’ll be silent!…”

  “Y-yes!…”

  One of the diggers got up, went to a hut, noticed Baudek and said dryly:

  “And you, Florich, you listening? You shouldn’t ought ‘a be lis’nin’ to our peasant talk! That’s our business.”

  They fell silent. Some indifferently changed positions, began to smoke.

  “The time now is favorable. Farewell, lads. Don’t judge. Farewell, master!” From the earth arose an old man with a white beard, in white pants, barefoot, unhurriedly he walked over to the bank–this was the wizard, stooping Yegorka.

  The summer lightning flashed nearer, oftener, clearer. The night grew relentlessly dark, deeply. Again the stars began to grow dim. From the distance, boundlessly the thunder of a new storm began to roll.

  Natalya was sitting on a wheelbarrow, leaning her hands on its bottom, head bowed, the campfire illumined her weakly, she sensed, felt with each little corner of her body a great joy, joyful agony, a sweet pain; she understood that the bitter bitterness of wormwood–is a beautiful sweetness, an unusual, boundless joy. Each touch of Baudek’s, still rough, fired her like the water of life.

  That night it was impossible to sleep.

  The storm came with a cloudburst, with thunder and lightning. This storm caught Natalya and Baudek behind the high point, behind the ruins of the tower of the Persian princess, Natalya was drinking absinth–that witch’s grief, which the Persian princess left on Uvek.

  And when Donat was approaching the farmsteads, having ridden already about fifteen versts from the estate, he heard behind him in the field the song:

  Shine, shine, moon, your light is bright,

  Warm us up, little red sun!

  Donat stopped his horse. And the second storm had already gone, faint lightning flashed distantly. In the steppe there was murkiness and quiet. Soon a horse’s gallop was heard. The farmsteads were near at hand, sprawling down the slope–but if even in the day one came within a verst of them–one wouldn’t notice–the steppe around is empty, bare. Donat put his fingers into his mouth and whistled, and he was answered by a whistle. A rider rode up on a gray Khirgiz-ambler, also all in white.

  “Mark?”

  “You, Father?”

  “I was at the estate, son,” said Donat. “I heard your whistle. It was yours?”

  “Mine, Father.”

  “Were you calling the girl Arina?”

  “Her, Father.”

  “Will you take her for your wife?”

  “I will.”

  “It’s your life. Look. Good horses on the estate. Where have you been?”

  “From the steppe, for food–It’s too far for the women… What then! our women are healthy and free. Freedom’s no sin! I’m a man–I’ll teach them!… Good horses on the estate!”

  Donat and Mark rode to the ravine and began to descend in single file down into the thicket of guelder rose and young oaks; in the ravine after the rain it was damp and silent, there was the sticky smell of lungwort, the hooves slipped, from the branches fell cold drops. They went down to the bottom, waded across a rivulet and rode up at a gallop. Donat’s house suddenly crept out of the murkiness, and a cottage and yard under one roof. In the yard and in the house it was deserted–both the people and the cattle had gone into the steppe for the harvest work. Mark led the horses into the stall, gave them oats. Donat took off his metal-shod boots on the porch, wheezed, washed himself in a clay washbasin.

  “Tomorrow at dawn I’ll go into the field, to plough, to rest! Give a bit more,” said Donat.

  “And I’ve come to you, Donat,” began a third, coming out of the cottage. “I dropped in to wait, and dozed off in the storm.”

  Donat three times embraced the man he’d met. All three passed through into the cottage. In the cottage, in the heat was a smell of sage, wormwood and other medicinal herbs. They turned up the lamp, the murkiness ran under the benches, the cottage was large, consisting of several rooms, an attic, well kept, tidied up, clean. In the clean half on the walls hung saddles, reins, small saddles. There were no ikons on the walls. They sat down at the table. Donat fetched some kasha and mutton from the stove.

  “I’m just back from my watch, from the steppe. I’ve traveled far,” said the third. “There’s trouble in the steppe. They said the Tatars from Krivoi Uglan roam about the steppe, for the Tsar, they say, enlisting people for the war. I’ve traveled about, they’ve come to an arrangement–if they see anyone, they warn them. I’ve been with our distant brothers. They’ve burned all the Tsar’s documents–the remains into the water. Ploughmen, they say.”

  “We won’t give any young men for the war,” said Donat. “Then into the steppe! It’s a ride of about seventy versts to the south–ravines, in the ravines there are caves. You know?”

  “I know.”

  “There!… On the estate–in the newspapers they write–the war has ended along our railway. The steppe–it is free. And there’s no end to it.

  Mark came out onto the porch. The clouds were dispersing. From behind them shone the round greenish moon. Mark stretched hard, sweetly yawned and went off to the hay to sleep.

  At dawn Donat and Mar
k dashed over the steppe, having left at home on the table bread, kvass and kasha for wayfarers (the house was never locked)–loaded with food for the brothers, sisters and wives who worked in the steppe, living there under carts, under the sky and the scorching heat, at summer harvest time, on the earth. In the east shone a crimson peaceful dawn, and bitter was the smell of wormwood.

  THROUGH IRINA’S EYES

  (This is a short poem of Irina’s: through her eyes)

  “About the steppes, about its breathlessness, about absurd landowner existence, about landowner-serf drunken outlaws, about borzois, concubines, tears–it’s not the steppe which speaks to me, with its scorching heat and desert, not this old estate where we have settled–it is the kitchen, the one in the semibasement, which speaks to me about the confusion, dissipation, absurdity, about steppe life and about the steppe. In the kitchen are stone brick floors, huge cooker and stove, vaulted ceilings and walls smeared with clay, and huge rusty rings are screwed into the walls for something. In the kitchen buzz the flies; also–half-darkness, heat and a smell of leaven. But in the living room, where the ivy has entwined the windows is green darkness, coolness, and in this cool green darkness shine the portraits and gilt silk armchairs. I entered the house through the kitchen.

  “How many days, beautiful and joyful do I have ahead of me?

  “I know–around there are woods and steppes. I know, Semyon Ivanovich, Andrei (my spouse!), Kirill–all believe, believe honorably and disinterestedly. I know–our sectarians, who walk about all in white and call themselves Christians, not only believe, but also live on their farmsteads by this faith. Semyon Ivanovich, already tired, talks about goodness dryly and evilly, just as dry as are his fingers. I know–people live in order to fight and in order to obtain a piece of bread–in order to fight over a woman.

  “In the morning I loaf about behind the estate on the little hill, behind the old ash tree, I tend the geese and pluck blue flowers, those which are for snake bites. At midday I bathe in the pond beneath the hot sun, and I return through the kitchen gardens and pluck poppies–the white ones with violet patches on the bottom and red ones with black stamens. By the apiary Andrei usually meets me; I don’t notice him approaching. He says:

 

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