The kitchen door scraped. Lukinichna came down the stairs, feeling for the steps with her feet. From the belfry came the measured beat of the church bell. With an incessant grinding the giant floes were floating end up down the Don. The joyous, full-flowing, liberated river was carrying its icy fetters away down to the Sea of Azov.
Chapter Twelve
Aksinia confessed her pregnancy to Gregor only during the sixth month, when she was no longer able to conceal it from him. She had kept silent so long because she was afraid he would not believe it was his child she was carrying.
She told him agitatedly one evening, anxiously scanning his face the while for any change in its expression. But he turned away to the window and coughed with vexation.
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ he demanded.
‘I was afraid to, Gregor. I thought you might throw me over …’
Drumming his fingers on the back of the bed, he asked:
‘Is it to be soon?’
‘The beginning of August, I think.’
‘Is it Stepan’s?’
‘No, it’s yours.’
‘So you say.’
‘Reckon up for yourself. From the day of the wood-cutting it is …’
‘Don’t lie, Aksinia! Even if it was Stepan’s, where would you go to now?’
Weeping angry tears, Aksinia sat down on the bench and broke into a burning whisper:
‘I lived with him so many years and nothing ever happened! Think for yourself! I’m not an ailing woman … I must have got it from you … And you …’
Gregor talked no more about the matter. A new thread of anxious aloofness and a light mocking pity entered into his attitude to Aksinia. She withdrew into herself, asking for no favours. Since the summer she had lost her good looks, but pregnancy hardly affected her shapely figure; her general fullness concealed her condition, and although her face was thinner it gained a new beauty from her warmly glowing eyes. She easily managed her work as cook, especially as that year fewer labourers were employed on the farm.
Eugene had arranged for Gregor to be freed from the spring training camp, and he worked at the mowing, occasionally drove old Listnitsky to the district centre, and spent the rest of the time hunting with him after bustards. The easygoing, comfortable life began to spoil him. He grew lazy and stout, and looked older than his years. He was troubled only by the thought of his forthcoming army service. He had neither horse nor equipment, and he could hope for nothing from his father. He saved the wages he received for himself and Aksinia, and spent nothing even on tobacco, hoping to be able to buy a horse without having to beg from his father. Old Listnitsky also promised to help him. Gregor’s presentiment that his father would give him nothing was quickly confirmed. At the end of June Piotra visited his brother, and in the course of conversation mentioned that his father was as angry with him as ever, and had declared that he would not help him to get a horse. ‘Let him go to the local command for one,’ he had said.
‘He needn’t worry, I’ll go to do my service on my own horse,’ Gregor declared, stressing ‘my own’.
‘Where will you get it from?’ Piotra asked.
‘I’ll beg for it, or dance for it, and if I don’t get it that way I’ll steal it.’
‘Brave lad!’
‘I shall buy a horse with my wages.’ Gregor said more seriously.
Piotra sat on the steps, asking about Gregor’s work and chewing the ends of his moustache. Having completed his inquiries, as he turned to go he said to his brother:
‘You should come back; there’s no point in knocking your head against a brick wall.’
‘I’m not intending to.’
‘Are you thinking of staying with her?’
‘With who?’
‘With this one.’
‘At present I am, but what of it?’
‘Oh, I’m just interested.’
As Gregor went to see his brother off he had to ask at last: ‘How is everything at home?’
Piotra laughed as he untied his horse from the balustrade of the steps:
‘You’ve got as many homes as a rabbit has holes! Everything is all right. Your mother longs to see you. We’ve got in the hay; three loads of it.’
Agitatedly Gregor scanned the old mare his brother was riding: ‘No foal this year?’ he inquired.
‘No, brother, she’s barren. But the bay which we got from Christonia has foaled. A stallion it is, a good one too. High on the legs, sound pasterns, and strong in the chest. It’ll be a good horse.’
Gregor sighed. ‘I pine for the village, Piotra,’ he said. ‘I pine for the Don. You never see running water here. It’s a dreary place!’
‘Come and see us,’ Piotra replied as he hoisted his body on to the mare’s bony spine.
‘Some day.’
‘Well, good-bye.’
‘A good journey.’
Piotra had ridden out of the yard when, remembering something, he called to Gregor who was still standing on the steps:
‘Natalia … I’d forgotten … a misfortune …’
The wind blowing round the farm carried the end of the sentence away from Gregor’s ears. Piotra and the horse were enveloped in velvety dust, and Gregor shrugged his shoulders and went off to the stables.
The summer was dry. Rain fell but rarely, and the corn ripened early. As soon as the rye was garnered the barley was ripe and yellow. The four day labourers and Gregor went out to reap it.
Aksinia had finished work early that day, and she asked Gregor to take her with him. Despite his attempt to dissuade her, she quickly threw a kerchief over her head, ran out, and caught up with the wagon in which the men were riding.
The event which Aksinia anticipated with yearning and joyous impatience, which Gregor awaited with apprehension, happened during the harvesting. Feeling certain symptoms, she threw down the rake and lay under a stook. Her travail came on quickly. Biting her blackened tongue, she lay flat on the ground. The labourers with the reaping machine drove in a circle around her. As they passed one of them called out to her:
‘Hey you! You’ve lain yourself down to bake in an awkward spot, haven’t you? Get up, or you’ll melt!’
Gregor got one of the men to take his place at the machine and went across to her.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
Her lips writhing uncontrollably, she said hoarsely:
‘I’m in labour …’
‘I told you not to come, you devilish bitch! Now what are we to do?’
‘Don’t be angry with me, Grishka! … Oh! … Oh! … Grishka, harness the horse to the wagon. I must get home … How could I, here? … with the cossacks …’ she groaned, gripped in an iron band of pain.
Gregor ran for the horse. It was grazing in a hollow a little way off, and by the time he drove up Aksinia had struggled on to all-fours, thrust her head into a pile of dusty barley, and was spitting out the prickly beards she had chewed in her pain. She fixed her dilated eyes vacantly on Gregor, and set her teeth into her crumpled handkerchief to prevent the labourers from hearing her horrible, rending cry.
Gregor tumbled her into the wagon and drove the horse fast towards the estate.
‘Oh! Don’t hurry … Oh, death! You’re … shaking … me …’ Aksinia screamed as her head knocked on the bottom of the wagon.
Gregor silently plied the whip and swung the reins around his head, without a glance back at her.
Pressing her cheeks with her palms, her staring, frenzied eyes rolling wildly, Aksinia bounced about in the wagon, tumbling from side to side over the bumpy, unworn road. Gregor kept the horse at a gallop. For a moment Aksinia ceased her shrieking howl. The wheels rattled, and her head thudded heavily against the bottom-board. At first her silence did not impress itself on Gregor, but then, taking thought, he glanced back. Aksinia was lying with horribly distorted face, her cheek pressed hard against the side of the wagon, her jaws working like a fish flung ashore. The sweat was pouring from her brow into her sunke
n eyes. Gregor turned and raised her head, putting his crumpled cap beneath it. Glancing sidelong at him, she said firmly:
‘I shall die, Grishka. And that’s all there is to it!’
Gregor shuddered; a chill ran down his body to his toes. Suddenly alarmed, he sought for words of encouragement, of comfort, but could not find them. From his trembling lips came:
‘You’re lying, you fool!’ He shook his head, and bending over her, awkwardly squeezed her foot:
‘Aksinia, my little pigeon …’
The pain died away and left Aksinia for a moment, then returned with redoubled force. Feeling something rending and bending in an arch under her belly, she pierced Gregor’s ears with an inexpressibly horrible, rising scream. Gregor frantically whipped up the horse.
‘Oh …! Ah …!’ Aksinia shrieked in her agony.
Then above the rattle of the wheels Gregor just heard her thin, yearning voice:
‘Grishka!’
He reined in the horse and turned his head. Aksinia lay in a pool of blood, her arms flung out. Below her skirt, between her legs, a white and crimson living thing was stirring. Gregor frenziedly jumped down from the wagon and stumbled to the back. Staring into Aksinia’s panting, burning mouth, he rather guessed than caught the words:
‘Bite through the cord … tie it with cotton … from the shirt …’
With trembling fingers he tore a bunch of threads from the sleeve of his own cotton shirt, and screwing up his eyes until they pained him, he bit through the cord and carefully tied up the bleeding end with cotton.
The estate of Yagodnoe lay in a spacious valley. The wind blew changeably from north or south, summer advanced on the valley, the autumn rustled with falling leaves, winter flung its forces of frost and snow against it, but Yagodnoe remained sunk in its wooden torpor. So the days passed, crawling over the high wall that cut off the estate from the rest of the world.
The farmyard was always alive with black ducks wearing red spectacles; the guinea-fowls scattered like a beady rain; gaily feathered peacocks called hoarsely from the roof of the stables. The old general was fond of all kinds of birds, and even kept a maimed crane. In November it wrung the heart-strings with its copper-tongued, yearning cry as it heard the call of the wild cranes flying to the south. But it could not fly, for one wing hung uselessly at its side. As the general stood at the window and watched the bird stretching out its neck and jumping, fluttering off the ground, he laughed; and the bass tone of his laughter rocked through the empty hall like clouds of tobacco smoke.
During all the time of Gregor’s stay at Yagodnoe only two events disturbed the sleepy, monotonous life: the coming of Aksinia’s child, and the loss of a prize gander. The inhabitants of Yagodnoe quickly grew accustomed to the baby girl, and they found some of the gander’s feathers in the meadow and concluded that a fox had carried it off.
One day in December Gregor was summoned to the district administration at Vieshenska. There he was given a hundred roubles to buy a horse, and was instructed to report on two days after Christmas at the village of Mankovo for the army draft.
He returned to Yagodnoe in considerable agitation. Christmas was approaching, and he had nothing ready. With the money he had received from the authorities plus his own savings he bought a horse for a hundred and forty roubles. He took Sashka with him and they purchased a presentable animal enough, a six-year-old bay with one hidden blemish. Old Sashka combed his beard with his fingers and advised:
‘You won’t get one cheaper, and the authorities won’t see the fault! They’re not smart enough!’
Gregor rode the horse bareback to Yagodnoe, trying out its paces.
A week before Christmas Pantaleimon arrived unexpectedly at Yagodnoe. He did not drive into the yard, but tied up his horse and basket sledge at the gate, and limped into the servants’ quarters, rubbing the icicles off his beard. As through the window he saw his father approaching Gregor exclaimed in confusion:
‘Well I’m … Father!’
For some reason Aksinia ran to the cradle and wrapped up the child. Pantaleimon entered, bringing a breath of cold air with him. He removed his three-cornered cap and crossed himself to the ikon, then gazed slowly around the room.
‘Good health!’ he greeted his son.
‘Good morning, father!’ Gregor replied, rising from the bench and striding to the centre of the room.
Pantaleimon offered Gregor his ice-cold hand, and sat down on the edge of the bench, wrapping his sheepskin around him. He would not look at Aksinia.
‘Getting ready for your service?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’
Pantaleimon was silent, staring long and questioningly at Gregor.
‘Take your things off, father, and we’ll get a samovar going.’
‘Thank you’; the old man scraped an old spot of mud off his coat with his finger-nail, and added: ‘I’ve brought your equipment; two coats, a saddle, and trousers. You’ll find them all there in the sledge.’
Gregor went out and removed the two sacks of equipment from the sledge. When he returned his father rose from the bench.
‘When are you going off?’ he asked his son.
‘The day after Christmas. You aren’t going already, are you, father?’
‘I want to get back early.’
He took leave of Gregor, and still avoiding Aksinia’s eyes, went towards the door. As he lifted the latch he turned his eyes in the direction of the cradle, and said:
‘Your mother sends her greetings. She’s in bed with trouble in her legs.’ After a momentary pause, he said heavily: ‘I shall ride with you to Mankovo. Be ready when I come.’
He went out, thrusting his hands into warm, knitted gloves. Aksinia, pale with the humiliation she had suffered, said nothing. Gregor followed his father, trying to avoid a creaking floorboard, and giving Aksinia a sidelong glance as he passed.
On Christmas Day Gregor drove his master to Vieshenska. Listnitsky attended mass, had breakfast with his cousin, a local landowner, and then ordered Gregor to get the sleigh ready for the return journey. Gregor had not finished his bowl of greasy soup, but he rose at once, went to the stable, and harnessed the grey trotting-horse into the light sleigh.
The wind was blowing the crumbling, tingling snow into spray; a silvery froth whirled hissingly through the yard; on the trees beyond the palisade hung a tender scalloped hoarfrost. The wind sent it flying, and as it fell and scattered it reflected a marvellous variety of colours from the sun. On the roof close to the smoking chimney rooks were chattering coldly. Startled by the sound of footsteps, they flew off, circled round the house like dove-coloured snowflakes, then flew to the east, to the church, clearly outlined against the violet morning sky.
‘Tell the master we’re ready,’ Gregor shouted to the maid that came to the steps of the house.
Listnitsky came out and entered the sleigh, his whiskers buried in the collar of his raccoon-fur coat. Gregor wrapped up his legs and buttoned the shaggy wolf-skin over him.
They arrived at Yagodnoe within two hours. Listnitsky held no communication whatever with Gregor during the journey, except for an occasional tap on the back with his finger, to order him to stop while he rolled and lit a cigarette. Only as they were descending the hill to the house did he ask:
‘Early in the morning?’
Gregor turned sideways in his seat, and with difficulty opened his frozen lips. His tongue, bursting and stiff with cold, stuck to the back of his teeth.
‘Yes,’ he managed to reply.
‘Received all your money?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t be anxious about your wife; she’ll be all right. Be a good soldier; your grandfather was a fine cossack, you must conduct yourself in a manner worthy of your grandfather and father. Your father received the first prize for trick riding at the Imperial Review in 1883, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, it was my father.’
‘Well, well!’ the old man ended with a stern note in his voice,
as though admonishing Gregor. And he buried his face once more in his fur coat.
At the yard Gregor handed over the horse to Sashka, and turned to go to the servants’ quarters.
‘Your father’s arrived,’ Sashka shouted after him.
Gregor found Pantaleimon sitting at the table, eating cranberry jelly. ‘Drunk!’ Gregor decided, as he glanced at his father’s sodden face.
‘So you’re back, soldier?’ Pantaleimon exclaimed.
‘I’m all frozen,’ Gregor answered, clapping his hands together. Turning to Aksinia, he added: ‘Untie my hood, my fingers are too cold to do it.’
On this occasion his father was much more affable, and told Aksinia curtly, as though he were master in the house:
‘Cut me some more bread; don’t spare it!’
When he had finished he rose from the table and went towards the door to have a smoke in the yard. As he passed the cradle he rocked it once or twice, pretending that the action was accidental, and asked:
‘A cossack?’
‘A girl,’ Aksinia replied for Gregor; and catching the expression of dissatisfaction that passed over the old man’s face, she hurriedly added:
‘She’s so bonny! Just like Grishka!’
Pantaleimon attentively examined the dark little head sticking out of the clothes, and declared, not without a touch of pride:
‘She’s of our blood …! Ah, you …!’
‘How did you come, father?’ Gregor asked.
‘With the mare and Piotra’s horse.’
‘You need only have used one, and we could have harnessed mine for the journey to Mankovo.’
‘Let him go light. He’s a good horse, too.’
And Quiet Flows the Don Page 19