‘And do you begrudge it?’ Miron struck the table with his fist.
‘It isn’t that I begrudge it …’
‘Do you begrudge it?’
‘Wait, kinsman!’
‘And if you do begrudge it … the devil take you!’ Miron swept his perspiring hand over the table and sent the glasses to the floor.
‘A cow sold from the yard!’ Pantaleimon shook his head.
‘There has to be a gift. She has a dowry chest of her own, and you take heed of what I say if you’ve taken to her. That’s our cossack custom. That’s how it was of old, and we stick to the old ways.’
‘I do take heed!’
‘Take heed!’
‘I do take heed!’
‘And let the youngsters fend for themselves. We’ve fended for ourselves, and we live as well as anybody. Let them do the same!’
The two men’s beards mingled in a vari-coloured weave. Pantaleimon began to eat a juiceless, shrivelled cucumber, and wept with mixed, conflicting feelings.
The kinswomen were sitting locked in an embrace on a chest, deafening each other with the cackle of their voices. Ilinichna burned with a cherry-coloured flush; Maria was green with vodka, like a winter pear caught by the frost.
‘Two such children you won’t find anywhere else in the world. She’ll be dutiful and obedient, and will never say a word to contradict you,’ said Maria.
‘My dear,’ Ilinichna interrupted her, supporting her cheek with her left hand and holding her left elbow in her right hand, ‘so I’ve told him, I don’t know how many times, the son of a swine. He was getting ready to go out the other Sunday evening, and I said to him, “When will you throw her over, you accursed heathen? How long have I got to go on standing this shame in my old age? That Stepan will stop your little game one fine day!”’
Mitka stared into the room through the door crack, and below him Natalia’s two younger sisters whispered to each other. Natalia herself was sitting in the farther room, wiping her tears on the tight sleeve of her jacket. She was afraid of the new life opening before her, oppressed by the unknown.
In the front room the third bottle of vodka was finished; it was decided to bring the bridegroom and bride together on the first of August.
The Korshunovs’ hut hummed like a beehive with the bustle of preparations for the wedding. Underclothes were hurriedly sewn for the bride. Natalia sat every evening knitting her bridegroom the traditional gloves and scarf of goat’s wool. Her mother sat till dusk bent over a sewing machine, assisted by a hired sempstress. When Mitka returned with his father and the hands from the fields he did not stop to wash or pull off his heavy farming boots, but went to keep Natalia company. He found great satisfaction in tormenting his sister.
‘Knitting?’ he would ask briefly, nodding at the scarf.
‘Yes; what of it?’
‘Knit away, you idiot; but instead of being grateful to you, he’ll break your nose.’
‘What for?’
‘Oh, I know Gregor; he’s a friend of mine. He’s that sort, he’ll bite and not say what it’s for.’
‘Don’t tell lies. You think I don’t know him.’
‘But I know him better. We went to school together.’
Natalia grew angry, choked down her tears, and bent a miserable face over the scarf.
‘But the worst of all is, he’s got consumption. You’re a fool, Natalia! Throw him over! I’ll saddle the horse and ride over and tell them …’
Natalia was rescued from Mitka by grandfather Grishaka, who came into the room, groping over the floor with his knobbly stick and stroking his hempen-yellow beard. Poking his stick into Mitka’s side, he asked:
‘What are you doing here, ah?’
‘I came to pay a visit, grandad,’ Mitka said apologetically.
‘To pay a visit? Well, I tell you to get out of here. Quick march!’
Grandad Grishaka had walked the earth for sixty-nine years. He had taken part in the Turkish campaign of 1877, had been orderly to General Gurko, but had fallen into disfavour and been sent back to his regiment. He had been awarded two crosses and the medal of St George for distinction under fire at Plevna and Rossitz. And now, living with his son, enjoying the universal respect of the village for the clarity of his mind, his incorruptible honesty and his hospitable ways, he was spending his few remaining years turning over memories.
In the summer he sat from dawn till dusk on the ledge in front of the hut, drawing his stick over the ground, his head bowed. The broken peak of his cap threw a dark shade over his closed eyes. The black blood flowed sluggishly through the fingers curved over his stick, through the swollen veins on his hands.
‘Are you afraid to die, grandad?’ Natalia would ask.
The old man twisted his withered neck as though working it free of the stiff collar of his uniform coat, and shook his greenish-grey whiskers.
‘I wait for death as I would for a dear guest. It’s time – I’ve lived my days, I’ve served my Tsars, and drunk vodka enough in my day,’ he replied with a smile.
Natalia would stroke her grandfather’s hand and leave him still bowed, scraping in the earth with his stick. He took the news of Natalia’s approaching marriage with outward calm, but inwardly he grieved and was furious. At table Natalia always gave him the choicest pieces; she washed his linen, mended and knitted his stockings, his trousers and shirts. And so, when the old man heard the news he gave her harsh, stern looks for a couple of days.
‘The Melekhovs are famous cossacks. I served in the same regiment as Prokoffey. But what are his grandsons like? Ah?’ he asked Miron.
‘They’re not too bad,’ Miron replied evasively.
‘That Gregor’s a disrespectful lad. I was coming from the church the other day and he passed me without a word of greeting. The old men don’t get much respect these days … Well, so long as Natalia likes him …’
He took almost no part in the negotiations; he came out of the kitchen and sat down at the table for a moment or two, drank a glass of vodka, and then, feeling himself getting drunk, went off again. For two days he silently watched the happy Natalia, then evidently softened in his attitude.
‘Natalia!’ he called to her. ‘Well, my little grand-daughter, so you’re very happy, ah?’
‘I don’t rightly know, myself, grandad,’ Natalia confided.
‘Well, well! Christ be with you. God grant …’ and he bitterly and spitefully upbraided her. ‘I didn’t think you’d be going off while I was alive … my life will be bitter without you.’
Mitka was listening to their talk, and he remarked:
‘You’re likely to live another hundred years, grandfather. And is she to wait all that time? You’re a fine one!’
The old man turned almost purple with anger. He rapped with his stick and feet:
‘Clear off, you son of a bitch! Clear off, I say! You devil’s demon! Who told you to listen?’
The wedding was fixed to take place on the first day after the feast. On the Day of the Assumption Gregor came to visit his future bride. He sat at the round table in the best room, shelled sunflower seeds and nuts with the bride’s girl friends, then drove away again. Natalia saw him off. Under the roof of the shed, where his horse was standing saddled with a smart new saddle, she slipped her hand into her breast, and flushing, gazing at him with eyes expressive of her love, she thrust a soft little bundle, warm from her breast, into his hand. As he took the gift Gregor dazzled her with the whiteness of his wolfish teeth, and asked:
‘What is it?’
‘You’ll see … I’ve sewn you a tobacco pouch.’
Gregor irresolutely drew her towards himself, wanting to kiss her; but she held him off forcefully with her hands against his chest, bent herself back, and turned her eyes fearfully towards the window of the hut.
‘They’ll see us!’ she whispered.
‘Let them!’
‘I’m ashamed to!’
Natalia held the reins while he mounted. Frowning,
Gregor caught the stirrup with his foot, seated himself comfortably in the saddle and rode out of the yard. She opened the gate, and stood gazing after him. Gregor sat his horse with a slight list to the left, dashingly waving his whip.
‘Eleven more days,’ Natalia mentally calculated, and sighed and smiled.
Chapter Six
The green, spiked-leafed wheat breaks through the ground and grows; within a few weeks a rook can fly into its midst and not be seen. The corn sucks the juices from the earth and comes to ear, the grain swells with the sweet and scented milk; then it flowers and a golden dust covers the ear. The farmer goes out into the steppe and stands gazing, but cannot rejoice. Wherever he looks a herd of cattle has strayed into the corn; they have trodden the laden grain into the glebe. Wherever they have thronged is a circle of crushed wheat: the farmer grows bitter and savage at the sight.
So with Aksinia. Over her feelings, ripened to golden flower, Gregor had trodden with his heavy, raw-hide boots. He had sullied them, burnt them to ash – and that was all.
As she came back from the Melekhovs’ sunflower garden Aksinia’s spirit grew empty and wild, like a forgotten farmyard overgrown with goose-grass and scrub. She walked along chewing the ends of her kerchief, and a cry swelled her throat. She entered the hut and fell to the floor, choking with tears, with torment, with the dreary emptiness that lashed through her head. But then it passed. The piercing pain was drawn down and exhausted at the bottom of her heart.
The grain trampled by the cattle stands again. With the dew and the sun the trodden stalks rise; at first bowed like a man under a too heavy burden, then erect, lifting their heads; and the days shine on them and the winds set them swinging.
At night, as she passionately caressed her husband, Aksinia thought of another, and hatred was mingled with a great love in her heart. The woman mentally planned a new dishonour – yet the old infamy; she was resolved to take Gregor from the happy Natalia who had known neither the bitterness nor the joy of love. She lay thinking over her plans at night, with Stepan’s heavy head resting on her right arm. Aksinia lay thinking, but only one thing could she resolve firmly: she would take Gregor from everybody else, she would flood him with love, she would possess him as before she had possessed him.
During the day Aksinia drowned her thoughts in cares and household duties. She met Gregor occasionally, and would turn pale, proudly carrying her beautiful body that yearned so after him, gazing shamelessly, challengingly into the black depths of his eyes.
After each meeting Gregor was seized with yearning for her. He grew angry without cause, and poured out his wrath on Dunia and his mother, but most frequently he took his cap, went out into the back yard and chopped away at the stout brushwood until he was bathed in perspiration. It made Pantaleimon curse:
‘The lousy devil, he’s chopped up enough for a couple of fences. You wait, my lad! When you’re married you can chop away at that! That’ll soon take it out of you!’
Four gaily decorated pair-horsed wagonettes were to drive to fetch the bride. A crowd of village folk in holiday attire thronged around them as they stood in the Melekhovs’ yard.
Piotra was the bridesman. He was dressed in a black frock-coat and blue-striped trousers, his left arm was bound with two white kerchiefs, and he wore a permanent, unchanging smile under his wheaten whiskers.
‘Don’t be shy, Gregor,’ he said to his brother. ‘Hold your head up like a young cock!’
Daria, as slender and supple as a willow switch, attired in a woollen, raspberry-coloured skirt, gave Piotra a nudge:
‘Time you were off,’ she reminded him.
‘Take your places,’ Piotra ordered. ‘On my wagon five and the bridegroom.’ They climbed into the wagonettes. Red and triumphant, Ilinichna opened the gates. The four wagonettes chased after one another along the street.
Piotra sat at Gregor’s side. Opposite them Daria waved a lace handkerchief. The ruts and bumps interrupted their voices raised in a song. The crimson bands of the cossack caps, the blue and black uniforms and frock-coats, the sleeves bound with white kerchiefs, the scattered rainbow of the women’s kerchiefs, the gay skirts, and muslin trains of dust behind each wagonette made a colourful picture.
Gregor’s second cousin, Anikhy, drove the bridegroom’s wagonette. Bowed over the tails of the horses, almost falling off his seat, he cracked his whip and whistled and the perspiring horses pulled harder at the tautened traces.
‘Get a move on!’ Ilia Ozhogin, the bridegroom’s uncle on his mother’s side, roared as he tried to overtake them with the second wagonette. Gregor recognized Dunia’s happy face behind his uncle’s back.
‘No you don’t!’ Anikhy shouted, jumping to his feet and emitting a piercing whistle. He whipped up the horses into a frenzied gallop. ‘You’ll fall!’ Daria exclaimed, embracing Anikhy’s polished top-boots with her arms. ‘Hold on!’ Uncle Ilia called at their side, but his voice was lost in the continual groan and rattle of the wheels.
The two other wagonettes, tightly packed with men and women, drove along side by side. The horses were decorated with red, blue, and pale rose pompoms, paper flowers, and ribbons woven into their manes and forelocks. The wagonettes rumbled over the bumpy road, the horses threw off flakes of soapy foam, and the pompoms on their wet, foaming backs danced and ruffled in the wind.
At the Korshunovs’ gate a horde of urchins was on the lookout for the cavalcade. They saw the dust rising from the road and ran into the yard bawling:
‘They’re coming!’
The wagonettes came rattling up to the gate. Piotra led Gregor to the steps, the others followed behind.
The door from the porch to the kitchen was shut fast. Piotra knocked.
‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us!’ he intoned.
‘Amen!’ came from the other side of the door.
Piotra repeated the words and the knock three times, each time receiving the same answer.
‘May we come in?’ he then asked.
‘By all means.’
The door was thrown open. The parents’ representative, Natalia’s godmother, greeted Piotra with a curtsey and a fine, raspberry-lipped smile. ‘Take this for your health’s sake, bridesman!’ she said, handing him a glass of bitter, overfresh kvas. Piotra smoothed his whiskers, drank it down amid a general restrained laugh:
‘Well, you’ve made me welcome! You wait, my blackberry, I’ll not treat you like that. I’ll make you pay for it!’
Whilst the bridesman and Natalia’s godmother were competing in a duel of wits, the relatives of the bridegroom were brought three glasses of vodka each, in accordance with the marriage agreement.
Natalia, already attired in her wedding dress and veil, was behind the table, guarded by her two sisters. Maria held a rolling pin in her outstretched hand, and Agrippina, a challenging fervour in her eyes, shook a poker. Sweating, and slightly intoxicated with vodka, Piotra bowed and offered them a fifty-kopek piece in his glass. But Maria struck the table with her rolling pin.
‘Not enough! We shan’t sell the bride!’ she declared.
Once more Piotra offered them a pinch of small silver in the glass.
‘We won’t let you have her!’ the sisters said firmly, elbowing aside the downcast Natalia.
‘Here, what’s all this? We’ve already paid and over paid,’ Piotra protested.
‘Back you get, girls!’ Miron ordered, and smilingly pressed towards the table. At this signal the bride’s relatives and friends seated around the table stood up and made room for the newcomers.
Piotra thrust the end of a shawl into Gregor’s hand, jumped on to a bench, and led him to the bride, who had seated herself beneath the ikons. Natalia took the other end of the shawl in her moist and agitated hand. Gregor sat down beside her.
There was a champing of teeth around the table; the guests tore the boiled chicken into pieces with their hands, afterwards wiping them on their hair. As Anikhy chewed at a handful of chicken the yellow grease ran down his ba
re chin on to his collar.
With a feeling of self-pity Gregor stared first at his own and Natalia’s spoons tied together by a handkerchief, then at the vermicelli smoking in a bowl. He badly wanted to eat, his stomach was rolling over with hunger. But the marriage custom forbade it.
The guests ate long and heartily. The smell of resinous masculine sweat mingled with the more caustic and spicy scent of the women. From the skirts, frock-coats and shawls, long packed in chests, came the odour of naphthaline.
Gregor glanced sidelong at Natalia. And for the first time he noticed that her upper lip was swollen, and hung like the peak of a cap over her underlip. He also noticed that on the right cheek, below the upper jawbone, was a brown mole, and that two golden hairs were growing out of the mole; and for some reason this irritated him. He recalled Aksinia’s slender neck with its curly, fluffy locks, and he had the feeling that someone had dropped a handful of prickly hay down his back. He bristled, and with a suppressed feeling of wretchedness watched the others munching, chewing and smacking their lips.
When he got up from the table someone, breathing the sour scent of wheaten bread over him, poured a handful of grain down the leg of his boot in order to protect him against the evil eye. All the way back to his own hut the grain hurt his feet; moreover, the tight collar band of his shirt choked him, and in a cold, desperate fury Gregor muttered curses to himself.
On its return the procession was met by the old Melekhovs. Pantaleimon, his silver-streaked black beard glistening, held the ikon, and his wife stood at his side, her thin lips set stonily.
Beneath a shower of hops and wheat grain Gregor and Natalia approached them to receive their blessing. As he blessed them tears ran down Pantaleimon’s face, and he frowned and fidgeted, annoyed that anyone should be witness of his weakness.
The bride and bridegroom went into the hut. Daria went to the steps to look for Piotra, and ran into Dunia.
‘Where’s Piotra?’ she demanded.
‘I haven’t seen him!’
‘He ought to go for the priest, and he’s nowhere to be found, curse him!’
And Quiet Flows the Don Page 9