Gregor ran out on to the steps, and the last sound he heard was Natalia’s weeping.
The frosty night held the village in its grip, a needly powder was falling from the inky sky, the ice on the Don was cracking like pistol shots. Gregor ran panting out of the gate. At the far end of the village dogs were barking in chorus, yellow points of light shone through the frosty haze.
He walked aimlessly down the street. Astakhov’s windows sparkled like diamonds through the darkness.
‘Grishka!’ he heard Natalia’s yearning cry from the gate.
‘Go to hell, you fickle bitch!’ Gregor grated his teeth and hastened his steps.
‘Grishka, come back!’
He turned into the first cross-lane, and for the last time heard her distant, bitter cry:
‘Grishenka, dearest …!’
He swiftly crossed the square and stopped at a fork in the road, wondering with whom he could spend the night. He decided on Misha Koshevoi. Misha lived with his mother and sister in a lonely straw-thatched hut right by the hill. Gregor entered their yard and knocked at the tiny window.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Is Misha in?’
‘Yes, who is it wants him?’
‘It’s me, Gregor Melekhov.’
After a moment Misha, awakened from his first sleep, opened the door.
‘You, Grishka?’
‘Me.’
‘What do you want at this time of night?’
‘Let me in, and I’ll tell you inside.’
In the porch, Gregor seized Misha by the elbow and whispered:
‘I want to spend the night with you. I’ve fallen out with my people. Have you got room for me? Anywhere will do.’
‘We’ll fix you up somewhere. What’s the row all about?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’
They made Gregor a bed on the bench. He lay thinking, his head wrapped in his sheepskin to muffle the snores of Misha’s mother. What was happening at home now, he wondered. Would Natalia go back to her father or not? Well, life had taken a new turn. Where should he go? And the answer came swiftly. He would send for Aksinia tomorrow, and go with her to the Kuban, far away from the village … far away … away.
His sleep was troubled by the approaching unknown. Before he finally dropped off he tried hard to recall what it was that oppressed him. In his drowsy state his thoughts would flow easily and smoothly, like a boat downstream, then suddenly they would come up against something, as though the boat had struck a sandbank. He wrestled with the baffling obstacle. What was it that lay across the road?
In the morning he awoke and at once remembered his army service. That was it! How could he go away with Aksinia? In the spring there was the training camp, and in the autumn the army draft.
He had some breakfast, and called Misha into the porch.
‘Misha, go to the Astakhovs for me, will you?’ he asked. ‘Tell Aksinia to go to the windmill this evening after dark.’
‘But what about Stepan?’ Misha stammered.
‘Say you’ve come on some business or other.’
‘All right, I’ll go.’
‘Tell her to be sure to go alone.’
In the evening Gregor went and sat down by the windmill. He lit a cigarette. Beyond the windmill the wind was stumbling over withered maize stalks. The torn linen flapped on the motionless sails. He thought it sounded like a great bird winging around the mill and unable to fly away, and it was unpleasant and disturbing. Aksinia did not come. The sun had set in the west in a fading, gilded lilac, the wind began to flow freshly from the east, the darkness overtook the moon stranded among the willows. Above the windmill the sky was deathly dark, with blue streaks. From the village came the last sounds of the day’s activities.
He smoked three cigarettes in succession, thrust the last end into the trodden snow, and gazed around in anxious irritation. There was no one in sight. He rose, stretched himself, and moved towards the light twinkling invitingly in Misha’s window. He was approaching the yard when he stumbled into Aksinia. She had evidently been running: she was out of breath, and the scent of the winter wind, or perhaps of fresh steppe hay, came from her cold mouth.
‘I waited and waited, and thought you weren’t coming,’ he said.
‘I had to get rid of Stepan.’
‘I’m frozen through you, you accursed woman!’
‘I’m hot, I’ll warm you.’ She flung open her wool-lined coat and wrapped herself around Gregor like hops around an oak.
‘Why did you send for me?’ she asked.
‘Wait, take my arm. There are people likely to be around here.’
‘You haven’t quarrelled with your people?’
‘I’ve left them. I spent the night with Misha. I’m a homeless dog now.’
They turned off the road, and Gregor, sweeping away the drift-snow, leant against a wattle fence.
‘You don’t know whether Natalia has gone home, do you?’ he asked.
‘I don’t … She’ll go, I expect.’
Gregor slipped Aksinia’s frozen hand up the sleeve of his coat, and squeezing her slender fingers, he asked:
‘And what about us?’
‘I don’t know, dear. Whatever you think best.’
‘Will you leave Stepan?’
‘Without a sigh. This evening, if you like.’
‘And we’ll find work somewhere, and live somehow.’
‘I’ll sleep with the cattle to be with you, Grishka. Anything to be with you.’
They stood close together, each warming the other. Gregor did not want to stir; he stood with his head towards the wind, his nostrils quivering, his eyelids closed. Her face pressed into his armpit, Aksinia breathed in the familiar, intoxicating scent of his sweat; and on her shamelessly avid lips, hidden from Gregor’s eyes, trembled a joyous smile.
‘Tomorrow I’ll go and see Mokhov. He may be able to give me work,’ Gregor said, gripping Aksinia’s moist arm above the hand. Aksinia did not speak, nor did she raise her head. The smile slipped from her face like a dying wind, anxiety and fear started to her dilated eyes like a frightened animal. ‘Shall I tell him or not?’ she thought, as she remembered that she was pregnant. ‘I must tell him,’ she decided, but immediately, trembling with fear, she drove away the terrible thought. Her woman’s instinct divined that this was not the moment to tell him; she realized that she might lose Gregor for ever; and uncertain whether the child leaping beneath her heart was Gregor’s or Stepan’s, she temporized, and did not tell him.
‘What did you tremble for? Are you cold?’ Gregor asked, wrapping her in his coat.
‘I am a little … I must go, Grishka. Stepan will come back and find me not there.’
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘I took him along to Anikey to play cards.’
They parted. The agitating scent of her lips remained on Gregor’s lips: the scent of the winter wind, or perhaps the intangible scent of rain-sprinkled steppe hay.
Aksinia turned into a by-way, bowed, and almost running. By a well, where the cattle had churned up the autumn mud, she stumbled awkwardly, her foot slipping on a frozen clod; and feeling a lacerating pain in her bowels, she caught at the fence. The pain died away, but in her side something living, turning, knocked angrily and strongly time and again.
Next morning Gregor went to see Mokhov. Sergei Platonovitch had just returned from the shop, and was sitting in the dining-room, sipping strong, claret-coloured tea. Gregor left his cap in the ante-room and went in.
‘I’d like to have a word with you, Sergei Platonovitch,’ he said.
‘Ah, Pantaleimon Melekhov’s son, isn’t it? What do you want?’
‘I’ve come to ask whether you could take me on as a workman.’
As Gregor spoke the door creaked, and a young officer in a green tunic with a troop commander’s epaulettes entered. Gregor recognized him as the young Listnitsky, whom Mitka Korshunov had outraced the previous summer. Sergei Platonovitch gave the officer a chai
r, and turned back to Gregor.
‘Has your father come down in the world, that he is putting his son out to work?’ he inquired.
‘I’m no longer living with him.’
‘Left him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I’d gladly take you on, I know your family to be a hard-working lot, but I’m afraid I haven’t any work for you to do.’
‘What’s the matter?’ Listnitsky inquired, pulling his chair up to the table.
‘This lad is looking for work.’
‘Can you look after horses? Can you drive a pair?’ the officer asked as he stirred his tea.
‘I can. I’ve had the care of our own six horses.’
‘I want a coachman. What wage do you require?’
‘I’m not asking for much.’
‘In that case come to my father at our estate tomorrow. You know the house? At Yagodnoe, some eight miles from here.’
‘Yes, I know it.’
Gregor went to the door. As he turned the handle he hesitated, and said:
‘I’d like to have a word with you in private, sir.’
Listnitsky followed Gregor out into the twilit passage. A rosy light filtered dimly through the Venetian glass of the door leading to the balcony.
‘Well, what is it?’ the officer asked.
‘I’m not alone …’ Gregor flushed darkly. ‘I’ve a woman with me … Perhaps you can find something for her to do?’
‘Your wife?’ Listnitsky inquired, smiling and raising his eyebrows.
‘Someone else’s wife.’
‘Ah, so that’s it, is it? All right, we’ll fix her up as cook for the servants. But where is her husband?’
‘Here in the village.’
‘So you’ve stolen another man’s wife?’
‘She came of her own accord.’
‘A romantic story! Well, don’t fail to come tomorrow. You can go now.’
Gregor arrived at Yagodnoe at about eight the next morning. The great house stood in a broad valley, and was surrounded by a brick wall. Outbuildings straggled over the yard: a wing with a tiled roof, the date 1910 picked out with tiles of a different colour; the servants’ quarters, a bath-house, stables, poultry-house and cattle-shed, a long barn and a coach-house. The main building was old, and nestled in an orchard. Beyond the house rose bare poplars and the willows of the meadows, empty crows’ nests swinging in their brown tops.
As he entered the yard Gregor was welcomed by a pack of Crimean Borzois. An old lame bitch was the first to snuff at him and follow him with drooping head. In the servants’ quarters a cook was quarrelling with a young, freckled maid. Sitting in a cloud of tobacco smoke at the threshold was an old, bowed man. The maid conducted Gregor to the house. The ante-room smelt of dogs and uncured pelts. On a table lay the case of a double-barrelled gun and a fringed game-bag.
‘The young master will see you,’ the maid called to Gregor through a side door.
Gregor looked anxiously at his muddy boots, and entered. Listnitsky was lying on a bed under the window. The officer rolled a cigarette, buttoned up the collar of his white shirt, and remarked:
‘You’re in good time. Wait; my father will be here in a minute.’
Gregor stood by the door. After a moment or two there was the sound of footsteps in the ante-room, and a deep bass voice asked through the door:
‘Are you asleep, Eugene?’
‘Come in,’ Listnitsky replied.
An old man wearing a black Caucasian cloak entered. Gregor gave him a stealthy glance. He was immediately struck by the fine hooked nose and the white, tobacco-stained arch of whiskers. Old Listnitsky was tall and broad-shouldered, but gaunt. Beneath the cloak a long coat of camel-hair hung on him. His eyes were set close to his nose.
‘Papa, here is the coachman I spoke to you about,’ Eugene remarked.
‘Whose son is he?’
‘Pantaleimon Melekhov’s.’
‘I knew Prokoffey, he was in the army with me. I remember Pantaleimon, too. Lame, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, your Excellency,’ Gregor replied, mentally recalling his father’s stories of the retired General Listnitsky, a hero of the Russo-Turkish war.
‘Why are you seeking work?’ the old man inquired.
‘I’m not living with my father, your Excellency.’
‘What sort of cossack will you make if you hire yourself out? Didn’t your father provide for you when you left him?’
‘No, your Excellency.’
‘Hm, that’s another matter. You want work for your wife as well?’
The younger Listnitsky’s bed creaked heavily. Gregor turned his eyes in that direction, and saw the officer winking.
‘That’s right, your Excellency,’ he answered.
‘Without any “Excellencies”. I don’t like them. Your wage will be eight roubles a month. For both of you. Your wife will cook for the yard and seasonal workers. Is that satisfactory?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come along tomorrow morning. You will occupy the room the previous coachman had. And now, quick march. Be here at eight.’
Gregor went out. On the far side of the barn the Borzois were sunning themselves on a patch of ground bare of snow. The old bitch followed Gregor a little way with head still drooping mournfully, then turned back.
That same morning Aksinia finished cooking early. She raked out the fire, washed the dishes, and glanced out of the window looking on to the yard. Stepan was standing by the wood-pile close to the fence bordering on the Melekhovs’ yard. The left-hand corner of the shed was tumbling down, and he was selecting posts suitable for its repair.
Aksinia had arisen with two rosy blushes in her cheeks and a youthful glitter in her eyes. Stepan noticed the change, and as he was having breakfast he could not forbear to ask:
‘What’s happened to you?’
‘What’s happened?’ Aksinia echoed him.
‘Your face is shining as though you had smeared yourself with butter.’
‘It’s the heat of the fire’, and turning round, she glanced stealthily out of the window to see whether Misha Koshevoi’s sister was coming.
But the girl did not arrive until late in the afternoon. Tormented with waiting, Aksinia started up, asking:
‘Do you want me, Mashutka?’
‘Come out for a moment,’ the girl replied.
Stepan was combing his hair before a scrap of mirror fixed above the stove. Aksinia looked at him nervously.
‘You aren’t going out, are you?’ she asked.
He did not answer immediately, but put the comb into his trouser pocket, and picked up a pack of cards and his tobacco pipe lying on the stove ledge. Then he said:
‘I’m going along to Anikushka’s for a while.’
‘And when are you ever at home? You spend every night at cards. You’re not going to play for points?’
‘Enough of that, Aksinia. There’s someone waiting for you.’
Aksinia went out. Mashutka welcomed her with a smile and a droop of her eyelashes.
‘Grishka’s come back,’ she said.
‘Well?’
‘He told me to tell you to come along to our hut as soon as it’s dark.’
Seizing the girl’s hand, Aksinia drew her towards the outer door.
‘Softer, softer, dear! Did he tell you to say anything else?’
‘He said you were to get your things together and take them along.’
Burning and trembling, stepping from foot to foot like a mettlesome horse, Aksinia turned and glanced at the kitchen door.
‘Lord, how am I to … So quickly? Well … wait; tell him I’ll be along as soon as I can … But where will he meet me?’
‘You’re to come to our hut.’
‘Oh, no!’
‘All right, I’ll tell him to come out and wait for you.’
Stepan was drawing on his coat as Aksinia went in. ‘What did she want?’ he asked between two puffs at a cigarette.
‘Oh, she came to
ask me … to cut out a skirt for her.’
Blowing the ash off his cigarette, Stepan went to the door. ‘Don’t wait up for me,’ he said as he went out.
Aksinia rose to the frosted window and dropped to her knees before the bench. Stepan’s footsteps sounded along the path trodden out in the snow to the gate. The wind caught a spark from his cigarette and carried it back to the window. Through the melted circle of glass Aksinia caught a glimpse of his fur cap and the profile of his face.
She feverishly turned jackets, skirts and kerchiefs – her dowry – out of the great chest and threw them into a large shawl. Panting, her eyes wandering, she passed through the kitchen for the last time, and putting out the light, ran on to the steps. She fastened the kitchen door by the chain. Someone emerged from the Melekhovs’ hut to see to the cattle. She waited until the footsteps had died away, then ran down to the Don. Strands of hair escaped from her kerchief and tickled her cheeks. Clutching her bundle, she made her way by side lanes to the Koshevois’ hut, her strength ebbing, her feet feeling like cast-iron. Gregor was waiting for her at the gate. He took the bundle and silently led the way into the steppe.
Beyond the hut Aksinia slowed her pace and caught at Gregor’s sleeve. ‘Wait a moment,’ she asked him.
‘What is there to wait for? The moon will be late tonight, so we must hurry.’
‘Wait, Grishka!’ She halted, doubled up with pain.
‘What’s the matter?’ Gregor turned back to her.
‘Something … in my belly. I carried too much away with me.’ She licked her dry lips and clutched at her bowels. She stood a moment, bowed and miserable, and then, poking her hair under her kerchief, set off again.
‘You haven’t asked where I’m taking you to. I might be leading you to the nearest cliff to push you over,’ Gregor smiled in the darkness.
‘It’s all the same to me now. I can’t go back,’ her voice trembled with an unhappy smile.
That night Stepan returned at midnight as usual. He went first to the stable, threw the scattered hay back into the manger, removed the horse’s halter, then went to the hut. ‘She must have gone out for the evening,’ he thought, as he unfastened the chain. He entered the kitchen, closed the door fast, and struck a match. He had been in a winning vein that evening, and so was quiet and drowsy. He lit the lamp, and gaped at the disorder of the kitchen, not divining the reason. A little astonished, he went into the best room. The open chest yawned blackly. On the floor lay an old jacket which Aksinia had forgotten in her hurry. Stepan tore off his sheepskin and ran back to the kitchen for the light. He stared around the best room, and at last he understood. He dropped the lamp, tore his sabre down from the wall, gripped the hilt until the veins swelled in his fingers, raised Aksinia’s blue and yellow jacket on its point, threw the jacket up in the air and with a short swing of the sabre cut it in two as it fell.
And Quiet Flows the Don Page 15