‘There they are!’ he was thinking. ‘There are the people for whose pleasure we have been driven from our native villages and flung to death. Ah! The reptiles! Curse them! There are the lice on our backs. Was it for them we trampled other people’s grain with our horses and killed strangers? And I crawled over the stubble and shouted? And our fear? They dragged us away from our families, starved us in barracks. Their bellies filled till they shine! I’d send you out there, curse you! Put you on a horse, under a rifle, load you with lice, feed you on rotten bread and maggoty meat!’
Gregor’s eyes wandered over the officers of the retinue, and rested on the marsupial cheeks of the royal personage.
‘A Don cossack, Cross of St George,’ the chief surgeon smirked as he pointed to Gregor, and from the tone of his voice one would have thought it was he who had won the cross.
‘From what district?’ the personage inquired, holding an ikon ready.
‘Vieshenska, your Imperial Highness.’
‘How did you win the cross?’
Boredom and satiation lurked in the clear, empty eyes of the royal personage. Her left eyebrow was artificially raised, this being intended to give her face greater expression. For a moment Gregor felt cold, and a queer chopping sensation went on inside him. He had felt a similar sensation when going into attack. His lips twisted and quivered irresistibly.
‘Excuse me … I badly want to … Your Imperial … Just a little need.’ Gregor swayed as though broken, and pointed under the bed.
The personage’s left eyebrow rose still higher. The hand holding the ikon half-extended towards Gregor was frozen stiff. Her querulous lips hanging with astonishment, the personage turned to a grey-haired general at her side and asked him something in English. A hardly perceptible embarrassment troubled the members of her suite. A tall officer with a snow-white glove thrust under his epaulette looked askance, a second looked silly; a third glanced inquiringly at his neighbour. The grey-haired general smiled respectfully and replied in English to her Imperial Highness, and the personage was pleased to thrust the ikon into Gregor’s hand, and even to bestow on him the highest of honours, a touch on the shoulder.
After the guests had departed Gregor dropped on to his bed, and burying his face in his pillow, lay for some minutes, his shoulders shaking. It was impossible to tell whether he was crying or laughing. Certain it is that he rose with dry eyes. He was immediately summoned to the room of the chief surgeon.
‘You’re a canaille,’ the doctor began, grasping his beard in his fingers.
‘I’m not a canaille, you reptile!’ Gregor replied, striding towards the doctor. ‘You’re not at the front.’ Then, recovering his self-control, he said quietly: ‘Send me home.’
The doctor turned and went to his writing table, saying more gently:
‘We’ll send you! You can go to the devil!’
Gregor went out, his lips trembling with a smile, his eyes glaring. For his monstrous, unpardonable behaviour in the presence of the royal personage he was deprived of his food for three days. But the cook and his comrades in the ward kept him supplied.
It was evening of November the seventeenth when Gregor arrived at the first village in his own district. As he passed down the street children were singing a cossack song under the river willows; as he listened to the familiar words a chill gripped his heart and hardened his eyes. Avidly sniffing in the scent of the smoke coming from the chimneys, he strode through the village, the song following him.
‘And I used to sing that song, but now my voice is gone and life has broken off the song. Here am I going to stay with another man’s wife, no corner of my own, no home, like a wolf,’ he thought, walking along at a steady, tired pace, and bitterly smiling at his own savagely misdirected life. He rose out of the village, and at the top of the hill turned to look back. The yellow light of a hanging-lamp shone through the window of the last hut, and in its light he saw an elderly woman sitting by a spinning-wheel.
He went on, walking through the damp, frosty grass at the side of the road. He spent the night in a little village, and set out again as soon as twilight was coming in the yard. He reached Yagodnoe in the evening. Jumping across the fence, he went past the stables. The sound of Sashka’s coughing arrested him. He shouted:
‘Old Sashka, you asleep?’
‘Wait, who is that? I know the voice. Who is it?’
Sashka came out, throwing his old coat around his shoulders.
‘Holy fathers …! It’s Grishka! Where the devil have you come from?’
They embraced. Gazing up into Gregor’s face, Sashka said:
‘Come in and have a smoke.’
‘No, not now. I will tomorrow. I …’
‘Come in, I tell you.’
Gregor unwillingly followed him in, and sat down on the plank bed while the old man recovered from a fit of coughing.
‘Well, dad, so you’re still alive. Still walking the earth?’
‘Ah, I’m like a flint. There’ll be no wear with me.’
‘And how’s Aksinia?’
‘Aksinia? Praise be, she’s all right.’
The old man coughed violently. Gregor guessed it was a pretence to hide his embarrassment.
‘Where did you bury Tania?’
‘In the orchard under a poplar.’
‘Well, tell me all the news.’
‘My cough’s been troubling me a lot, Grishka.’
‘Well?’
‘We’re all alive and well. The master drinks beyond all sense, the fool.’
‘Where is Aksinia?’
‘She’s in the servants’ quarters. You might have a smoke. Try my tobacco, it’s first-rate.’
‘I don’t want to smoke. Talk, or I’ll clear out! I feel …’ Gregor turned heavily, and the pallet creaked under him. ‘I feel you’re keeping something from me like a stone in the breast. Strike!’
‘And I will strike! I haven’t got the strength to be silent, Grishka, and silence would be shameful.’
‘Tell me, then,’ Gregor said, letting his hand drop caressingly on the old man’s shoulder. He waited, bowing his back.
‘You’ve been nursing a snake,’ Sashka suddenly exclaimed in a harsh, shrill voice. ‘You’ve been feeding a serpent. She’s been playing about with Eugene.’
A stream of sticky spittle ran down over the old man’s chin. He wiped it away and dried his hand on his trousers.
‘Are you telling the truth?’ Gregor demanded.
‘I’ve seen them with my own eyes. Every night he goes to her. I expect he’s with her now.’
‘Oh, well!’ Gregor bit his finger-nail and sat with hunched shoulders for a long time, the muscles of his face working.
‘A woman’s like a cat,’ Sashka said. ‘She makes up to anyone who strokes her. Don’t you trust them, don’t give them your trust.’
He rolled a cigarette and thrust it into Gregor’s hand. ‘Smoke!’ he said.
Gregor took a couple of pulls at the cigarette, then put it out with his fingers. He went out without a word. He stopped by the window of the servants’ quarters, panting heavily, and raised his hand several times to knock. But each time his hand fell as though struck away. When at last he did knock he tapped at first with his finger; but then, losing patience he threw himself against the wall and beat at the window furiously with his fist. The glass rang with the blows, and the blue, nocturnal light shimmered in the pane.
Aksinia’s frightened face appeared at the window for an instant, then she opened the door. At the sight of Gregor she screamed. He embraced her.
‘You knocked so hard you terrified me. I wasn’t expecting you. My dear …’
‘I’m frozen.’
Aksinia felt his body shuddering violently, although his hands were feverishly hot. She fussed about unnecessarily, lighted the lamp and ran about the room, a downy shawl around her shoulders. Finally she lit a fire in the stove.
‘I wasn’t expecting you. It’s so long since you wrote. I thought you w
ould never come. Did you receive my last letter? I was going to send you a parcel, but then I thought I’d wait to see if I received a letter …’
Gregor sat down on the bench without taking off his greatcoat. His unshaven cheeks burned, and a heavy shadow fell from the cowl of his coat. He began to unfasten the cowl, but suddenly turned to fidget with his tobacco-pouch, and searched his pockets for paper. With intangible yearning he ran his eyes over Aksinia’s face.
She had devilishly improved during his absence, he thought. Her beautiful head was carried with a new, authoritative poise, and only her eyes and the large, fluffy ringlets of her hair were the same. Her destructive, fiery beauty did not belong to him. Hardly, when she was the mistress of the master’s son!
‘You don’t look like a kitchen-maid, you’re more like a housekeeper,’ he remarked.
She gave him a startled look, and laughed forcedly.
Dragging his pack behind him, Gregor went towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To have a smoke.’
On the steps Gregor opened his pack, and from the bottom drew out a hand-painted kerchief carefully wrapped in a clean shirt. He had bought it from a Jewish trader in Zhitomir for two roubles, and had preserved it as the apple of his eye, occasionally pulling it out and enjoying its wealth of rainbow colours, foretasting the rapture with which Aksinia would be possessed when he should spread it open before her. A miserable gift! Could he compete in presents with the son of a rich landowner? Struggling with a spasm of dry sobbing, he tore the kerchief into little pieces and pushed them under the step. He threw the pack on to the bench in the porch and went back to the room.
‘Sit down and I’ll pull your boots off, Grishka,’ Aksinia said.
With white hands long divorced from hard work she struggled with Gregor’s heavy army boots. Falling at his knees, she wept long and silently. Gregor let her weep to her heart’s content, then asked:
‘What’s the matter? Aren’t you glad to see me?’
In bed, he quickly fell asleep. Aksinia undressed and went out to the steps. She stood there in the cold, piercing wind, under the funeral dirge of the northern blast, embracing the damp pillar, not changing her position, until dawn came.
In the morning Gregor threw his greatcoat across his shoulders and went to the house. The old master was standing on the steps, dressed in a fur jacket and a yellow Astrakhan cap.
‘Why, there he is, the Cavalier of St George! But you’re a man, my friend!’ He saluted Gregor and stretched out his hand.
‘Staying long?’ he asked.
‘Two weeks, your Excellency.’
‘We buried your daughter. A pity … a pity …’
Gregor was silent. Eugene came on to the steps, drawing on his gloves.
‘Why, it’s Gregor. Where have you arrived from?’
Gregor’s eyes darkened, but he smiled:
‘Back on leave, from Moscow.’
‘You were wounded in the eye, weren’t you? I heard about it. What a brave lad he’s grown, hasn’t he, papa?’
He nodded to Gregor and turned towards the stables, calling to the coachman:
‘The horse, Nikititch!’
Nikititch finished harnessing the horse, and giving Gregor an unfriendly look, led the old grey trotting horse to the steps. The frost-bound earth crumbled under the wheels of the light drozhki.
‘Your Excellency, let me drive you for the sake of old times,’ Gregor turned to Eugene, smiling beseechingly.
‘The poor chap doesn’t guess,’ Eugene thought, smiling with satisfaction, and his eyes glittered behind his pince-nez.
‘All right, jump up,’ he assented.
‘What, hardly arrived and you’re already leaving your young wife?’ old Listnitsky smiled benevolently.
Gregor laughed. ‘A wife isn’t a bear. She won’t run off into the forest,’ he replied.
He mounted the driver’s seat, thrust the knout beneath him and gathered up the reins:
‘Ah, I’ll give you a drive, Eugene Nikolaivitch!’
‘Drive well and you shall have tea money.’
‘Haven’t I already got enough to be thankful for … I’m grateful to you for feeding … my Aksinia … for giving her … a piece …’
Gregor’s voice suddenly broke, and a vague, unpleasant suspicion troubled Eugene. ‘Surely he doesn’t know? Of course not! How could he?’ He threw himself back in his seat and lit a cigarette.
‘Don’t be long,’ old Listnitsky called after them.
Gregor pulled with the reins at the horse’s mouth and urged it to its topmost speed. Within fifteen minutes they had crossed the rise, and the house was out of sight. In the very first valley they came to, Gregor jumped down and pulled the knout from under the seat.
‘What are you doing?’ Eugene frowned.
‘I’ll show you!’
Gregor waved the knout and brought it down with terrible force across Eugene’s face. Then, seizing it by the lash, he beat the officer with the butt on the face and arms, giving him no time to bestir himself. A fragment of the glass from his pince-nez cut Eugene above the brow, and a little stream of blood flowed into his eyes. At first he covered his face with his hands, but the blows grew more frequent. He jumped up, his face disfigured with blood and fury, and attempted to defend himself; but Gregor fell back and paralysed his arm with a blow on the wrist.
‘That’s for Aksinia! That’s for me! For Aksinia! Another for Aksinia! For me!’
The knout whistled, the blows slapped softly. At last Gregor threw Eugene down on the hard ruts of the road and rolled him on the ground, beating him bestially with the ironshod heels of his boots. When he had no strength to do more he got on to the drozhki seat, and sawing at the horse’s mouth, galloped it back. He left the drozhki by the gate, and seizing the knout, stumbling over the edges of his open greatcoat, he flew into the servants’ quarters.
At the sound of the door flung open Aksinia glanced round.
‘You reptile! You bitch!’ The knout whistled and curled around her face.
Panting, Gregor ran into the yard, and heedless of Sashka’s questionings, left the estate. When he had covered a mile he was overtaken by Aksinia. Panting violently, she walked along silently at his side, occasionally pulling at his sleeve. At a fork in the road, by a brown wayside shrine, she said in a strange, distant voice:
‘Gregor, forgive me!’
He bared his teeth, and hunching his shoulders, turned up the cowl of his greatcoat. Aksinia was left standing by the shrine. He did not look back once, and did not see her hand stretched out to him.
At the crest of the hill above Tatarsk he noticed in astonishment that he was still carrying the knout; he threw it away, then strode down into the village. Faces were pressed against the windows, amazed to see him, and the women he met bowed low as he passed.
At the gate to his own yard a lanky, black-eyed, good-looking girl ran to meet him, flung her arms around his neck and buried her face on his breast. Pressing her cheeks with his hands, he raised her head and recognized Dunia.
Pantaleimon Prokoffievitch limped down the steps, and Gregor could hear his mother weeping aloud in the hut. With his left hand he embraced his father; Dunia was kissing his right hand.
The almost painfully familiar creak of the steps, and Gregor was in the porch. His ageing mother ran with the activity of a girl, wetted the strings of his greatcoat with her tears, and inseparably embraced her son, muttering her own mother-language, disconnected, untranslatable into words; whilst by the door, holding on to it to avoid falling, stood pallid Natalia. With a tortured smile she dropped, cut down by Gregor’s hurried, distracted glance.
That night in bed, Pantaleimon gave his wife a dig in the ribs and whispered:
‘Go quietly and see whether they’re lying together or not.’
‘I made up their bed on the bedstead.’
‘But go on and look, look!’
Ilinichna got up and peeped through a cr
ack in the door leading to the best room.
‘They’re together,’ she said when she returned.
‘Well, God be praised! God be praised!’ the old man whimpered, raising himself on his elbow and crossing himself.
Chapter Ten
Nineteen-sixteen. October. Night. Rain and wind. The trenches in the alder-grown marshes of Polesie. Barbed-wire entanglements in front. A freezing slush in the trenches. The wet sheet-iron of an observation post gleams faintly. Lights here and there in the dugouts.
At the entrance to one of the officer’s dugouts a thick-set officer halted for a moment, his wet fingers slipping over his greatcoat fasteners. He hurriedly unfastened them, shook the water from the collar, wiped his boots on the heap of straw trampled into the mud at the entrance, and only then pushed open the door, stooped, and entered the dugout.
A yellow band of light streaming from a little paraffin lamp gleamed oilily on his face. An officer in an open jacket rose, passed his hand over his rumpled grey hair and yawned.
‘Raining?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ the visitor replied, and removing his greatcoat, hung it together with his sopping wet cap on a nail by the door. ‘You’re warm in here!’
‘We’ve had the fire alight recently. It’s bad though that the water is oozing up through the floor. The rain will outlast us. What do you think, Bunchuk?’
Rubbing his hairy hands, Bunchuk stooped and squatted down by the stove.
‘Put some planks down over the floor,’ he replied. ‘We’re fine and dry in our dugout. We could walk about with bare feet. Where’s Listnitsky?’
‘He’s asleep. He came back from a round of the guards and lay down at once.’
And Quiet Flows the Don Page 32