The village. [Translation from the original Russian text by Isabel Hapgood]

by Bunin, Ivan Alekseevich, 1870-1953

  "I know it!" yelled Tikhon Hitch. "He won't live in the country—not for any consideration on earth, he won't! Well, and devil take him! And as for his being no sort of a farmer, you and I are nice farmers ourselves, ain't we? I remember how I was talking to you about business—in the eating-house, do you remember?—and all the while you were listening to that quail. Well, go on; what comes next?"

  "What do you mean? What has the quail to do with it?" inquired Kuzma.

  Tikhon Hitch began to drum on the table with his fingers and said sternly, uttering each word with great distinctness: "Bear in mind: if you grind water, you^Jl be left with just water as the result. My word is sacred to~ages of ages. Once I have said I'll do a thing— I'll do it. I won't set a candle before the holy picture/in atonement for my sin, but I'll do a good deed instead. Although I may give only a mite, the Lord will remember me for that mite."

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  Kuzma sprang from his seat. "The Lord, the Lord!" he cried, in a falsetto tone. "What has the Lord to do with that affair of yours? What can the Lord mean to Deniska, to Akimka, to Menshoff, to Syery, to you, or to me?"

  "Eh?" inquired Tikhon Hitch severely. "What Akimka is that you're talking about?"

  "When I lay there dying," pursued Kuzma, paying no heed to him, "did I think very much about Him? I thought just one thing: 'I don't know anything about Him, and I don't know how to think'!" shouted Kuzma. "I'm an ignorant man!"

  And glancing about him with roving, suffering eyes, as he buttoned and unbuttoned his coat, he strode across the room and halted directly in front of Tikhon Hitch.

  "Remember this, brother," he said, his cheek-bones reddening. "Remember this: your life and mine are finished. And no candles on earth will save us. Do you hear? We are—Durnovka folk. We're neither candle for God nor oven-fork for the devil." And, unable to find words in his agitation, he fell silent.

  But Tikhon Hitch had again thought of something, and suddenly assented: "Correct. 'Tis a good-for-nothing people! Just you consider—" And, animated, carried away by his new idea:

  "Just you consider: they've been tilling the soil for a whole thousand years—what am I saying? for longer than that!—but how to till the soil properly not a soul of them understands! They don't know how to do their one and only business! They don't know the

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  proper time to begin field work! Nor when to sow, nor when to reap! 'As the people always have done, so will we always do'—that's the whole story. Note that!" Contracting his brows, he shouted sternly, as Kuzma had recently shouted at him. " 'As the people always have done, so will we always do!' Net a single peasant woman knows how to bake bread—the top crust is burned as black as the devil and falls off, and underneath that crust—there's nothing but sour water!"

  Kuzma was dumbfounded. His thoughts were reduced to a jumble. "He has lost his senses!" he said to himself, with uncomprehending eyes watching his brother, who was lighting the lamp.

  But Tikhon Hitch, giving him no time to recover himself, continued wrathfully: "The people! Lewd, lazy, liars, and so shameless that not one of them believes another! Note this," he roared, not perceiving that the lighted wick was smoking and the soot billowing up almost to the ceiling. " Tis not us they refuse to trust, but one another! And they are all like that —every one of them!" he shouted in a tearful voice, as he jammed the chimney on the lamp with a crash.

  The outdoor light was beginning to filter blue through the windows. New, fresh snow was fluttering down on the pools of water and the snowdrifts. Kuzma gazed at it and held his peace. The conversation had taken such an unexpected turn that even Kuzma's eagerness had vanished. Not knowing what to say, unable to bring himself to look at his brother's furious eyes, he began to roll himself a cigarette.

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  "He has gone crazy!" he said to himself despairingly. "Well, so be it! It makes no difference! Nothing—nothing makes any difference. Enough!"

  He began to smoke, and Tikhon Hitch also began to calm down. He seated himself and, staring at the lamp, muttered softly: "You were talking about 'Deniska.' Have you heard what Makar Ivanovitch, that pilgrim fellow, has been up to? He and that friend of his caught a peasant woman on the road and dragged her to the sentry-box at Kliutchiki, and kept her there for four days, visiting her in turn. Well, and now they are in jail—"

  "Tikhon Hitch," said Kuzma amiably, "why do you talk nonsense? What's the object? You must be feeling ill. You keep jumping from one thing to another; now you assert one thing, a minute later you assert something different. Are you drinking too much, perhaps?"

  Tikhon Hitch remained silent for a while. He merely waved his hand, and tears trembled in his eyes, which were riveted on the flame of the lamp.

  "Are you drinking?" repeated Kuzma quietly.

  "Yes, I am," quietly replied Tikhon Hitch. "And 'tis enough to make any one take to drink! Has it been easy for me to acquire this golden cage, think you? Do you imagine that it has been easy for me to live like a chained hound all my life, and with my old woman into the bargain? I have never shown any pity to any one, brother. Well, and has any one shown the least pity on me? Do you think I don't know how I am hated? Do you think they wouldn't

  /

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  have murdered me in some fashion if those peasants had once got the breeching under their tail in proper style? If they had had luck in that revolution? Wait a bit, wait— There'll be something doing; it's coming! We have cut their throats!"

  "And they are to be hanged—on account of a little ham?" asked Kuzma.

  "Well, as for the hanging," replied Tikhon Hitch in agonized tones, "why, I just said the first thing that came to my tongue—"

  "But they certainly will hang them!"

  "Well—and that's no affair of ours. They must answer for that to the Most High." And, frowning, he fell into thought and closed his eyes. "Ah!" he said contritely, with a profound sigh. "Ah, my dear brother! Soon, very soon, we also must appear before His throne for judgment! I read the Trebnik x of an evening, and I weep and I wail over that same book. I am greatly amazed; how was it possible to invent such sweet words? But here, wait a minute—"

  And he rose hastily, drew from behind the mirror a thick book in ecclesiastical binding, with trembling hands donned his spectacles, and with tears in his voice began to read, hurriedly, as if he feared to be interrupted.

  "'I weep and I wail when I think upon death, and

  1 The Trebnik contains the Services for events in daily life: Baptism, Marriage, Confession, the Burial Rites, and so forth. What Tikhon Hitch" quotes and reads is from the magnificent Burial Service. See the Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church.— trans.

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  behold our beauty, fashioned after the image of God, lying in the tomb disfigured, dishonoured, bereft of form. . . .

  " 'Of a truth, all things are vanity, and life is but a shadow and a dream. For in vain doth every one who is born of earth disquiet himself, as saith the Scriptures: when we have acquired the world, then do we take up our abode in the grave, where kings and beggars lie down together. . . .'

  " 'Kings and beggars!' " repeated Tikhon Hitch with ecstatic melancholy, and shook his head. "Life is over, dear brother! I had, you understand, a dumb cook; I gave her, the stupid thing, a kerchief from foreign parts; and what does she do but take and wear it completely to rags, wrong side out! Do you understand? Out of stupidity and greed. She begrudged wearing it right side out on ordinary days—and when a feast-day came along nothing was left of it but rags. And that's exactly the way it is with me and with my life. Tis truly so!"

  On returning to Durnovka Kuzma was conscious of only one feeling—a certain dull agony. And all the last days of his stay at Durnovka were passed in that dull agony.

  XIII

  DURING those days snow fell, and they were only waiting for that snow at Syery's farmstead, so that the road might be in order for the celebration of the wedding.

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  On the twelfth of February, towards evening, in the gloom of the cold entrance lobby, a low-toned conversation was in progress. Beside the stove stood the Bride, a yellow kerchief besprinkled with black polka-dots pulled well down on her forehead, staring at her bark-shoes. By the door stood short-legged Deniska, hatless, in a heavy undercoat, with drooping shoulders. He, too, was gazing downward, at some women's high shoes with metal tips, which he was twisting about in his hands. The boots belonged to the Bride. Deniska had mended them, and had come to receive five kopeks for his work.

  "But I haven't got it," the Bride was saying, "and I think Kuzma Hitch is taking a nap. Just you wait until to-morrow."

  "I can't possibly wait," replied Deniska in a singsong, meditative voice, as he picked at the metal tip with his finger nail.

  "Well, what are we going to do about it?"

  Deniska reflected, sighed, and, shaking back his thick hair, suddenly raised his head. "Well, and what's the good of wagging one's tongue for nothing?" he said loudly and decisively, without glancing at the Bride, and mastering his shyness. "Has Tikhon Hitch said anything to you?"

  "Yes, he has," replied the Bride. "He has downright bored me with his talk."

  "In that case I will come at once with my father. It won't hurt Kuzma Hitch to get up immediately and drink tea—"

  The Bride thought it over. "That's as you like—"

  [277>]

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  Deniska set the shoes on the window-sill and went away, without making any further mention of money. And half an hour later the knocking of bark-shoes coated with snow became audible on the porch. Deniska had returned with Syery—and Syery, for some unknown reason, was girt about the hips, over his kazak coat, with a red belt. Kuzma came out to receive them. Deniska and Syery crossed themselves for a long time toward the dark corner, then tossed back their hair and raised their faces.

  "Matchmaker or not, yet a fine man!" began Syery without haste, in an unusually easy and pleasant tone. "You have an adopted daughter to marry off. I have a son who wants a wife. In good agreement, for their happiness, let us discuss the matter between us."

  "But she has a mother, you know," said Kuzma.

  "Her mother is no housewife; she's a homeless widow, her cottage is dilapidated, and no one knows where she is," replied Syery, still maintaining his tone. "Consider her as an orphan!" And he made a low, stately reverence.

  Repressing a sickly smile, Kuzma ordered the Bride to be summoned.

  "Run, hunt her up," Syery commanded Deniska, speaking in a whisper as if they were in church.

  "Here I am," said the Bride, emerging from behind the door in back of the stove and bowing to Syery.

  Silence ensued. The samovar, which stood on the floor, its grating glowing red through the darkness, boiled and bubbled. Their faces were not visible, but it could be felt that all of them were perturbed.

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  "Well, daughter, how is it to be? decide," said Kuzma.

  The Bride reflected.

  "I have nothing against the young man—"

  "And how about you, Deniska?"

  Deniska also remained silent. "Well, anyhow, I've got to marry some time or other. Possibly, with God's aid, this will go all right—"

  Thereupon the two matchmakers exchanged congratulations on the affair's having been begun. The samovar was carried away to the servants' hall. Odnodvorka, who had learned the news earlier than all the rest and had run over from the promontory, lighted the small lamp in the servants' hall, sent Koshel off for vodka and sunflower seeds, seated the bride and the bridegroom beneath the holy pictures, poured them out tea, sat down herself alongside Syery, and, in order to banish the awkwardness, started to sing in a high, sharp voice, glancing the while at Deniska and his long eyelashes:

  "When in our little garden, Amid our grape vines green, There walked and roamed a gallant youth, Comely of face, and white, so white . . ."

  But Kuzma wandered to and fro from corner to corner in the dark hall, shaking his head, wrinkling up his face and muttering: "A'i, great heavens! AY, what a shame, what folly, what a wretched affair!"

  On the following day, every one who had heard from Syery about this festival grinned and offered him

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  advice: "You might help the young couple a bit!" Koshel said the same: "They are a young couple starting life, and young people ought to be helped!" Syery went off home in silence. Presently he brought to the Bride, who was ironing in the ante-room, two iron kettles and a hank of black bread. "Here, dear little daughter-in-law," he said in confusion, "take these; your mother-in-law sends them. Perhaps they may be of use. I haven't anything else—if I had had, I would have jumped out of my shirt with joy!"

  The Bride bowed and thanked him. She was ironing a curtain, sent by Tikhon Hitch "in lieu of a veil," and her eyes were wet and red. Syery tried to comfort her, saying that things weren't honey-sweet with him, either; but he hesitated, sighed, and, placing the kettles on the window-sill, went away. "I have put the thread in the littlest kettle," he mumbled.

  "Thanks, batiushka," the Bride thanked him once more, in that same kindly and special tone which she had used only toward Ivanushka; and the moment Syery was gone she suddenly indulged in a faint ironic smile and began to sing:

  "When in our little garden . . ."

  Kuzma thrust his head out of the hall and looked sternly at her over the top of his eyeglasses. She subsided into silence.

  "Listen to me," said Kuzma. "Perhaps you would like to drop this whole business?"

  "It's too late, now," replied the Bride in a low voice. "As it is, one can't get rid of the disgrace. Doesn't

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  everybody know whose money will pay for the feast? And we have already begun to spend it."

  Kuzma shrugged his shoulders. It was true: Tik-hon Hitch, along with the window-curtain, had sent twenty-five rubles, a sack of fine wheaten flour, millet, a skinny pig. But there was no reason why she should ruin her life simply because they had already killed the pig!

  "Okh!" said Kuzma. "How you have tortured me! 'Disgraced'! 'we've spent it'— Are you cheaper than the pig?"

  "Whether I'm cheaper or not, what is done is done —the dead are not brought back from the cemetery," firmly and simply replied the Bride; and, sighing, she folded the warm, freshly-ironed curtain neatly. "Will you have your dinner immediately?" Her face was calm.

  "Well, that settles it! You can do nothing with her!" thought Kuzma, and he said: "Well, manage your affairs as you see fit—"

  XIV

  AFTER he had dined he smoked and looked out of the window. It had grown dark. Ha knew that in the servants' wing they were already baking the twisted buns of rye flour—the "ceremonial patties." They were making ready to boil two kettles of fish in jelly, a kettle of vermicelli-paste, a kettle of

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  sour cabbage soup, a kettle of buckwheat groats—all fresh from the slaughter-house. And Syery was making himself very busy on a hillock of snow between the storehouses and the shed. On the snow-mound, in the bluislj shades of twilight, there blazed with an orange-coloured flame the straw with which they had surrounded the slaughtered pig. Around the fire, awaiting their prey, sat the sheep dogs. Their muzzles shone white; their breasts were of a silky rose hue. Syery, stamping through the snow, ran hither and thither, mending the fire, swinging his arms at the dogs. He had tucked up high the tails of his coat, thrusting them into his belt, and kept pushing his cap to the back of his head with the wrists of his right hand, in which glittered a knife. Fleetingly and brilliantly illuminated, now from this side, now from that, Syery cast a huge, dancing shadow on the snow—the shadow of a pagan. Then, past the storehouse along the footpath leading to the village, ran Odnodvorka, and disappeared beneath the snow-mound—to summon the women for the ceremonial rites and to ask Domashka for the fir-tree, carefully preserved in her cellar and passed on from one bride's party to another on the eve of
the wedding. And when Kuzma, after brushing his hair and changing his round jacket with the ragged elbows for the conventional long-tailed frock coat, had donned his overcoat and emerged upon the porch, all white with the falling snow in the soft grey gloom, a large crowd of children, little girls and boys, were still outlined blackly against the lighted windows; they were screaming and talking, and three

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  accordions were being played simultaneously, and all playing different tunes. Kuzma, his shoulders hunched, picking at his fingers and cracking them, stepped up to the crowd, pushed his way through it, and, bending low, disappeared into the darkness of the ante-room. It was full of people, crowded even, in that entry-way. Small urchins darted about between people's legs, were seized by the scruff of the neck and thrust outside—whereupon they promptly crawled back again.

  "Come now, let me in, for God's sake!" said Kuzma, who was squeezed tightly in the doorway.

  They squeezed him all the harder—and some one jerked open the door. Surrounded by jets of vapour, he crossed the threshold and came to a halt at the jamb. At that point the better-class people were congregated—maidens in flowered shawls, children in complete new outfits. There was an odour of woven goods, fur coats, kerosene, cheap tobacco, and evergreens. A small green tree, decorated with scraps of red cotton cloth, stood on the table, its branches outstretched above the dim tin lamp. Around the table beneath the moist little windows, which had thawed out, along the damp blackened walls, sat the ceremonial w®men, festively adorned, their faces coarsely painted red and white. Their eyes flashed. All wore silk and woolen kerchiefs on their heads, with drooping rainbow-tinted feathers from the tail of a drake stuck into their hair at the temples. Just as Kuzma entered, Domashka, a lame girl with a dark, malicious, and intelligent face, sharp black eyes, and black eye-