by Leo Tolstoy
XII
THE holiday was not a cheerful one at Pokróvsk. Though the day was beautiful the people did not go out to amuse themselves: no girls sang songs in the street, the factory hands who had come home from town for the day did not play on their concertinas and balaláykas and did not play with the girls. Everybody sat about in corners, and if they spoke did so as softly as if an evil one were there who could hear them. It was not quite so bad in the daytime, but when the twilight fell and the dogs began to howl, and when, to make matters worse, a wind sprang up and whistled down the chimneys, such fear seized all the people of the place that those who had tapers lit them before their icons. Anyone who happened to be alone in his corner went to ask the neighbours’ permission to stay the night with them, to be less lonely, and anyone whose business should have taken him into one of the out-houses did not go, but pitilessly left the cattle without fodder that night. And the holy water, of which everyone kept a little bottle to charm away anything evil, was all used up during the night. Many even heard something walking about with heavy steps up in the loft, and the blacksmith saw a serpent fly straight towards it. In Polikéy’s corner there was no one; the children and the mad woman had been taken elsewhere. Only the little dead body lay there, and two old women sat and watched it, while a third, a pilgrim woman, was reading the psalms, actuated by her own zeal, not for the sake of the baby but in a vague way because of the whole calamity. The mistress had willed it so. The pilgrim woman and these old women themselves heard how, as soon as they finished reading a passage of the Psalter, the rafters above would tremble and someone would groan. Then they would say, ‘Let God arise,’ and all would be quiet again. The carpenter’s wife invited a friend and, not sleeping all night, with her aid drank up all the tea she had laid in for the whole week. They, too, heard how the rafters creaked overhead, and a noise as if sacks were tumbling down. The presence of the peasant watchmen kept up the courage of the house-serfs somewhat, or they would have died of fear that night. The peasants lay on some hay in the passage, and afterwards declared that they too had heard wonderful things up in the loft, though at the time they were conversing very calmly together about the conscription, munching crusts of bread, scratching themselves, and above all so filling the passage with the peculiar odour characteristic of peasants that the carpenter’s wife, happening to pass by, spat and called them ‘peasant-brood’. However that might be, the dead man was still dangling in the loft, and it seemed as if the evil one himself had overshadowed the serfs’ quarters with his huge wings that night, showing his power and coming closer to these people than he had ever done before. So at least they all felt. I do not know if they were right; I even think they were quite mistaken. I think that if some bold fellow had taken a candle or lantern that terrible night, and crossing himself, or even without crossing himself, had gone up into the loft – slowly dispelling before him the horror of the night with the candle, lighting up the rafters, the sand, the cobweb-covered flue-pipe, and the tippets left behind by the carpenter’s wife – till he came to Polikéy, and, conquering his fears, had raised the lantern to the level of the face, he would have beheld the familiar spare figure: the feet touching the ground (the cord had stretched), the body bending lifelessly to one side, no cross visible under the open shirt, the head drooping on the breast, the good-natured face with open sightless eyes, and the meek, guilty smile, and a solemn calmness and silence over all. Really the carpenter’s wife, crouching in a corner of her bed with dishevelled hair and frightened eyes and telling how she heard the sacks falling, was far more terrible and frightful than Polikéy, though his cross was off and lay on a rafter.
‘Up there’, that is, in the mistress’s house, reigned the same horror as in the serfs’ quarters. Her bedroom smelt of eau-de-cologne and medicine. Dunyásha was melting yellow wax and making a plaster. What the plaster was for I don’t know, but it was always made when the lady was unwell. And now she was so upset that she was quite ill. To keep Dunyásha’s courage up her aunt had come to stay the night, so there were four of them, including the girl, sitting in the maid’s room, and talking in low voices.
‘Who will go to get some oil?’ asked Dunyásha.
‘Nothing will induce me to go, Avdótya Pávlovna!’ the second maid said decidedly.
‘Nonsense! You and Aksyútka go together.’
‘I’ll run across alone. I’m not afraid of anything!’ said Aksyútka, and at once became frightened.
‘Well then, go, dear; ask Granny Anna to give you some in a tumbler and bring it here; don’t spill any,’ said Dunyásha.
Aksyútka lifted her skirt with one hand, and being thereby prevented from swinging both arms, swung one of them twice as violently across the line of her progression, and darted away. She was afraid, and felt that if she should see or hear anything, even her own living mother, she would perish with fright. She flew, with her eyes shut, along the familiar pathway.
XIII
‘IS the mistress asleep or not?’ suddenly asked a deep peasant-voice close to Aksyútka. She opened her eyes, which she had kept shut, and saw a figure that seemed to her taller than the house. She screeched, and flew back so fast that her skirts floated behind her. With one bound she was on the porch and with another in the maid’s room, where she threw herself on her bed with a wild yell. Dunyásha, her aunt, and the second maid almost died of terror, and before they had time to recover they heard heavy, slow, hesitating steps in the passage and at their door. Dunyásha rushed to her mistress, spilling the melted wax. The second maid hid herself behind the skirts that hung on the wall; the aunt, a more determined character, was about to hold the door to the passage closed, but it opened and a peasant entered the room. It was Dútlov, with his boat-like shoes. Paying no heed to the maids’ fears, he looked round for an icon, and not seeing the tiny one in the left-hand corner of the room, he crossed himself in front of a cupboard in which teacups were kept, laid his cap on the window-sill, and thrusting his arm deep into the bosom of his coat as if he were going to scratch himself under his other arm, he pulled out the letter with the five brown seals stamped with an anchor. Dunyásha’s aunt held her hands to her heart and with difficulty brought out the words:
‘Well, you did give me a fright, Naúmych! I can’t utter a wo … ord! I thought my last moment had come!’
‘Is that the way to behave?’ said the second maid, appearing from under the skirts.
‘The mistress herself is upset,’ said Dunyásha, coming out of her mistress’s door. ‘What do you mean, shoving yourself in through the maids’ entrance without leave?… Just like a peasant lout!’
Dútlov, without excusing himself, explained that he wanted to see the lady.
‘She is not well,’ said Dunyásha.
At this moment Aksyútka burst into such loud and unseemly laughter that she was obliged to hide her face in the pillow on the bed, from which for a whole hour, in spite of Dunyásha’s and the aunt’s threats, she could not for long lift it without going off again as if something were bursting in her pink print bosom and rosy cheeks. It seemed to her so funny that everybody should have been so scared, that she again hid her head in the pillows and scraped the floor with her shoe and jerked her whole body as if in convulsions.
Dútlov stopped and looked at her attentively, as if to ascertain what was happening to her, but turned away again without having discovered what it was all about, and continued:
‘You see, it’s just this – it’s a very important matter,’ he said. ‘You just go and say that a peasant has found the letter with the money.’
‘What money?’
Dunyásha, before going to report, read the address and questioned Dútlov as to when and how he had found this money which Polikéy was to have brought back from town. Having heard all the details and pushed the little errand-girl, who was still convulsed with laughter, out into the vestibule, Dunyásha went to her mistress; but to Dútlov’s surprise the mistress would not see him and did not say anything inte
lligible to Dunyásha.
‘I know nothing about it and don’t want to know anything!’ the lady said. ‘What peasant? What money?… I can’t and won’t see anyone! He must leave me in peace.’
‘What am I to do?’ said Dútlov, turning the envelope over; ‘it’s not a small sum. What is written on it?’ he asked Dunyásha, who again read the address to him.
Dútlov seemed in doubt. He was still hoping that perhaps the money was not the mistress’s and that the address had not been read to him right, but Dunyásha confirmed it, and he put the envelope back into his bosom with a sigh, and was about to go.
‘I suppose I shall have to hand it over to the police-constable,’ he said.
‘Wait a bit! I’ll try again,’ said Dunyásha, stopping him, after attentively following the disappearance of the envelope into the bosom of the peasant’s coat. ‘Let me have the letter.’
Dútlov took it out again, but did not at once put it into Dunyásha’s outstretched hand.
‘Say that Semën Dútlov found it on the road.…’
‘Well, let me have it!’
‘I did think it was just nothing – only a letter; but a soldier read out to me that there was money inside.…’
‘Well then, let me have it.’
‘I dared not even go home first to …’ Dútlov continued, still not parting with the precious envelope. ‘Tell the lady so.’
Dunyásha took it from him and went again to her mistress.
‘O my God, Dunyásha, don’t speak to me of that money!’ said the lady in a reproachful tone. ‘Only to think of that little baby …’
‘The peasant does not know to whom you wish it to be given, madam,’ Dunyásha again said.
The lady opened the envelope, shuddering at the sight of the money, and pondered.
‘Dreadful money! How much evil it does!’ she said.
‘It is Dútlov, madam. Do you order him to go, or will you please come out and see him – and is the money all safe?’ asked Dunyásha.
‘I don’t want this money. It is terrible money! What it has done! Tell him to take it himself if he likes,’ said the lady suddenly, feeling for Dunyásha’s hand. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ she repeated to the astonished Dunyásha; ‘let him take it altogether and do what he likes with it.’
‘Fifteen hundred rubles,’ remarked Dunyásha, smiling as if at a child.
‘Let him take it all!’ the lady repeated impatiently. ‘How is it you don’t understand me? It is unlucky money. Never speak of it to me again! Let the peasant who found it take it. Go, go along!’
Dunyásha went out into the maids’ room.
‘Is it all there?’ asked Dútlov.
‘You’d better count it yourself,’ said Dunyásha, handing him the envelope. ‘My orders are to give it to you.’
Dútlov put his cap under his arm, and, bending forward, began to count the money.
‘Have you got a counting-frame?’7
Dútlov had an idea that the lady was stupid and could not count, and that that was why she ordered him to do so.
‘You can count it at home – the money is yours …!’ Dunyásha said crossly. ‘ “I don’t want to see it,” she says; “give it to the man who brought it.” ’
Dútlov, without unbending his back, stared at Dunyásha.
Dunyásha’s aunt flung up her hands.
‘O holy Mother! What luck the Lord has sent him! O holy Mother!’
The second maid would not believe it.
‘You don’t mean it, Avdótya Pávlovna; you’re joking!’
‘Joking, indeed! She told me to give it to the peasant.… There, take your money and go!’ said Dunyásha, without hiding her vexation. ‘One man’s sorrow is another man’s luck!’
‘It’s not a joke … fifteen hundred rubles!’ said the aunt.
‘It’s even more,’ stated Dunyásha. ‘Well, you’ll have to give a ten-kopek candle to St Nicholas,’ she added sarcastically. ‘Why don’t you come to your senses? If it had come to a poor man, now! … But this man has plenty of his own.’
Dútlov at last grasped that it was not a joke, and began gathering together the notes he had spread out to count and putting them back into the envelope. But his hands trembled, and he kept glancing at the maids to assure himself that it was not a joke.
‘See! He can’t come to his senses he’s so pleased,’ said Dunyásha, implying that she despised both the peasant and the money. ‘Come, I’ll put it up for you.’
She was going to take the notes, but Dútlov would not let her. He crumpled them together, pushed them in deeper, and took his cap.
‘Are you glad?’
‘I hardly know what to say! It’s really …’
He did not finish, but waved his hand, smiled, and went out almost crying.
The mistress rang.
‘Well, have you given it to him?’
‘I have.’
‘Well, was he very glad?’
‘He was just like a madman.’
‘Ah! call him back. I want to ask him how he found it. Call him in here; I can’t come out.’
Dunyásha ran out and found the peasant in the entry. He was still bareheaded, but had drawn out his purse and was stooping, untying its strings, while he held the money between his teeth. Perhaps he imagined that as long as the money was not in his purse it was not his. When Dunyásha called him he grew frightened.
‘What is it, Avdótya … Avdótya Pávlovna? Does she want to take it back? Couldn’t you say a word for me?… Now really, and I’d bring you some nice honey.’
‘Indeed! Much you ever brought!’
Again the door was opened, and the peasant was brought in to the lady. He felt anything but cheerful. ‘Oh dear, she’ll want it back!’ he thought on his way through the rooms, lifting his feet for some reason as if he were walking through high grass, and trying not to stamp with his bast shoes. He could make nothing of his surroundings. Passing by a mirror he saw flowers of some sort and a peasant in bast shoes lifting his feet high, a gentleman with an eyeglass painted on the wall, some kind of green tub, and something white.… There, now! The something white began to speak. It was his mistress. He did not understand anything but only stared. He did not know where he was, and everything appeared as in a fog.
‘Is that you, Dútlov?’
‘Yes, lady.… Just as it was, so I left it …’ he said. ‘I was not glad so help me God! How I’ve tired out my horse!…’
‘Well, it’s your luck!’ she remarked contemptuously, though with a kindly smile. ‘Take it, take it for yourself.’
He only rolled his eyes.
‘I am glad that you got it. God grant that it may be of use. Well, are you glad?’
‘How could I help being glad? I’m so glad, ma’am, so glad! I will pray for you always! … So glad that, thank Heaven, our lady is alive! It was not my fault.’
‘How did you find it?’
‘Well, I mean, we can always do our best for our lady, quite honourably, and not anyhow …’
‘He is in a regular muddle, madam,’ said Dunyásha.
‘I had taken my nephew, the conscript, and as I was driving back along the road I found it. Polikéy must have dropped it.’
‘Well, then, go – go, my good man! I am glad you found it!’
‘I am so glad, lady!’ said the peasant.
Then he remembered that he had not thanked her properly, and did not know how to behave. The lady and Dunyásha smiled, and then he again began stepping as if he were walking in very high grass, and could hardly refrain from running so afraid was he that he might be stopped and the money taken from him.
XIV
WHEN he got out into the fresh air Dútlov stepped aside from the road to the lindens, even undoing his belt to get at his purse more easily, and began putting away the money. His lips were twitching, stretching and drawing together again, though he uttered no sound. Having put away his money and fastened his belt, he crossed himself and went staggering along the road
as though he were drunk, so full was he of the thoughts that came rushing to his mind. Suddenly he saw the figure of a man coming towards him. He called out; it was Efím, with a cudgel in his hand, on watch at the serfs’ quarters.
‘Ah, Daddy Semën!’ said Efím cheerfully, drawing nearer (Efím felt it uncanny to be alone). ‘Have you got the conscripts off, daddy?’
‘We have. What are you after?’
‘Why, I’ve been put here to watch over Polikéy who’s hanged himself.’
‘And where is he?’
‘Up there, hanging in the loft, so they say,’ answered Efím, pointing with his cudgel through the darkness to the roof of the serfs’ quarters.
Dútlov looked in the direction of the arm, and though he could see nothing he puckered his brows, screwed up his eyes, and shook his head.
‘The police-constable has come,’ said Efím, ‘so the coachman said. He’ll be taken down at once. Isn’t it horrible at night, daddy? Nothing would make me go up at night even if they ordered me to. If Egór Mikháylovich were to kill me outright I wouldn’t go …’
‘What a sin, oh, what a sin!’ Dútlov kept repeating, evidently for propriety’s sake and not even thinking what he was saying. He was about to go on his way, but the voice of Egór Mikháylovich stopped him.
‘Hi! watchman! Come here!’ shouted Egór Mikháylovich from the porch of the office.