And Quiet Flows the Don

by Mikhail Sholokhov

  Leaning on Misha Koshevoi’s arm, Gregor entered the forest. The bullets ricochetted off the sloping ground. On the Germans’ left flank a machine-gun was spitting out a fine hail, sounding as though stones flung by a strong hand were ringingly bouncing off the thin ice of a frozen river.

  ‘They’re giving us a warm time!’ Uriupin shouted almost exultantly. Leaning against the ruddy breast of a pine, he fired lazily at the Germans pouring over the ridge of the trenches.

  ‘This will teach the fools, this will teach them!’ Koshevoi shouted, tearing his arm away from Gregor. ‘The people are swines, swines! When they’ve poured out all their blood, then they’ll learn what they’re being shot down for!’

  ‘What are you raving about?’ Uriupin frowned.

  ‘If you’re wise you can understand for yourself. But the fools, what of them? You can’t drive sense into their heads even with a hammer.’

  ‘Do you remember your oath? Did you take the oath or not?’ Uriupin demanded.

  Instead of replying, Koshevoi fell to his knees and with fumbling hands raked up some snow. He swallowed it greedily, shivering and coughing the while.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Through the sky, flecked with a grey ripple of cloud, the autumn sun rolled over Tatarsk. In the heaven a gentle breeze urged the clouds slowly on towards the west; but over the village, over the dark green plain of the Don valley, over the bare forest it blew strongly, bending the crowns of the willows and poplars, ruffling the Don, and chasing droves of crimson leaves along the streets. In Christonia’s threshing-floor it tousled a badly stacked rick of wheat-straw, tearing away its top and sending the thin ridge-pole flying. Suddenly snatching up a golden load of straw as if on a pitchfork, it carried the burden out into the yard, sent it whirling across the street, and scattered it munificently over the deserted road, finally throwing the untidy bundle on to the roof of Stepan Astakhov’s hut. Christonia’s wife ran out into the yard and stood for a minute or two watching the wind lording it about the threshing-floor, then went in again.

  The third year of the war had left noticeable marks in the village. Where the huts had been deprived of all male hands the sheds gaped wide open, the yards were shabby, and gradual decay was leaving its traces everywhere. Christonia’s wife had only her little nine-year-old son to help her. Anikushka’s wife was no hand whatever at farm work, and because of her lonely situation paid redoubled attention to her own appearance, painted her face with a veneer of beauty, and as there were not enough grown-up cossacks, accepted lads of fourteen or so. The state of her long untarred gates witnessed eloquently to the neglect of the farm. Stepan Astakhov’s hut was completely abandoned; the owner had boarded up the windows, the roof was falling in and was overgrown with burdocks, the door lock was rusting, and wandering cattle strayed through the open gate, seeking shelter from the heat or rain in the weedy, grass-grown yard. The wall of Ivan Tomilin’s hut was falling into the street, being kept from doing so only by a forked wooden prop. Fate seemed to be wreaking its vengeance on the hardy artilleryman for the German and Russian houses he had destroyed.

  And so in all the streets and alleys of the village. At the lower end only Pantaleimon Melekhov’s hut and yard had their usual appearance; there everything seemed sound and in order, yet it was not entirely so. On the granary roof the sheet-iron cocks had fallen, eaten away with age; the granary was sinking on one side; and an experienced eye would have detected other signs of neglect. The old man could not manage everything. He sowed less and less, and only the Melekhov family itself did not diminish. To make up for Piotra and Gregor’s absence Natalia gave birth to twins in the autumn of 1915. She was clever enough to please both Pantaleimon and Ilinichna by having a girl and a boy. Natalia’s child-bearing was a painful one; there were whole days when she could hardly walk owing to the tormenting pains in her legs, and tottered about dragging her feet one behind the other. But she bore the pain stoically, and it never found any reflection in her swarthy, lean and happy face. Only the sweat stood out on her temples when the pain was more intense, by which Ilinichna would guess at her suffering and tell her to go and lie down.

  One fine September day Natalia, feeling her time near at hand, turned to go out into the street.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ Ilinichna asked her.

  ‘Into the meadow. I’ll see the cows out.’

  Groaning and holding her hands beneath her belly, she walked hurriedly out beyond the village, made her way into a wilderness of wild thorn, and lay down. Dusk was falling when she returned by side ways to the hut, carrying twins in her canvas apron.

  ‘My dear! You little devil! What’s all this! And where have you been?’ Ilinichna found her voice.

  ‘I was ashamed, so I went out … I didn’t like to … in front of father … I am clean, mother, and I’ve washed them. Take them …’ Natalia replied, turning pale.

  Dunia ran for the midwife, and Daria busied herself lining a trough. Ilinichna, laughing and weeping for joy, shouted at her:

  ‘Daria, put that trough down. Are they kittens, that you want to put them in a trough? Lord, there’s two of them! Oh Lord, one’s a boy! Natalia … Put them to bed!’

  When Pantaleimon heard that his daughter-in-law had given birth to twins he opened wide his arms with astonishment, then wept happily and combed his beard. He shouted irrationally at the approaching midwife.

  ‘You’re a liar, you old hag!’ he shook his fist in front of the old crone’s nose. ‘You’re a liar! The Melekhov line isn’t died out yet! My daughter’s got a cossack and a girl. There’s a daughter-in-law for you! Lord, my God! For such kindness how can I repay her?’

  Fruitful was that year; the cow gave birth to twins, the sheep had twins, the goats … Astonished at the circumstance, Pantaleimon reasoned to himself:

  ‘This is a lucky year, and profitable! Everything having twins! What a fruitful time for us, oho!’

  Natalia kept her children at the breast for twelve months. She weaned them in the September, but she did not get really well again until late in the autumn. Her teeth gleamed milkily in her emaciated face, and her eyes, seeming unnaturally large because of her thinness, shone with a warm light. All her life was devoted to the children. She grew negligent of herself and spent all her spare time with them, washing them, binding them, mending for them; frequently, sitting on the bed with one leg hanging, she would lift them out of the cradle, and with a movement of her shoulders releasing her full, large melon-yellow breasts, would feed them both at once.

  ‘They’ve sucked enough at you already. You feed them too often,’ Ilinichna would remark, slapping the full little legs of her grandchildren.

  ‘Feed them! Don’t spare the milk! We don’t want it for cream!’ Pantaleimon would intervene with jealous roughness.

  During these years life declined to its ebb, like flood water in the Don. The days were dreary and exhausting and passed unobtrusively, in continual activity, in work, in petty needs, in little joys and a great, unsleeping anxiety for those who were at the war. Rare letters in envelopes covered with postmarks arrived from Piotra and Gregor. Gregor’s last letter had fallen into someone else’s hands; half of it was carefully obliterated with violet ink, and an incomprehensible sign had been made in ink in the margin of the grey paper. Piotra wrote more frequently than Gregor, and in his letters to Daria he implored and adjured her to give up her goings on. Evidently rumours of his wife’s unseemly life had reached his ears. With his letters Gregor sent home money, his pay and allowances for his crosses, and indicated that he had tried to get leave, but had failed. The two brothers’ roads ran in very different directions. Gregor was oppressed by the war, and the flush was sucked out of his face, leaving a yellow jaundice. He did not expect to live to see the end. But Piotra climbed swiftly and easily upward; he wormed his way into the good graces of his company commander, was awarded two crosses, in the autumn of 1916 was made a corporal, and he was now talking in his letters of attempting to get himself sen
t to an officers’ school. During the summer he sent home a German officer’s helmet and cloak, and his own photograph. His ageing features stared complacently from the grey card, his twisted, flaxen moustaches stuck upward, and under the snub nose the well-known grin parted his lips. Life was smiling on Piotra, and the war delighted him because it opened up unusual prospects. But for its coming how could he, a simple cossack, ever have dreamed of an officer’s commission and a different, sweeter life? Only in one respect did Piotra’s life have an unpleasant feature: ugly rumours concerning his wife circulated in the village. Stepan Astakhov was given leave in the autumn of 1916, and on his return to the regiment boasted to all the company of his splendid time with Piotra’s wife. Piotra would not believe the stories; his face went dark, but he smiled and said:

  ‘Stepan’s a liar! He’s trying to get his own back for Gregor.’

  But one day, as Stepan was coming out of his dugout, whether by accident or design he dropped an embroidered lace handkerchief. Piotra, who was just behind him, picked it up, and at once recognized his wife’s handiwork. Again the old hostility broke out between them. Piotra watched for his opportunity; death watched over Stepan. If Piotra could, he would have had Stepan lying on the bank of the Dvina with Piotra’s mark on his skull. But ere long it happened that Stepan went out on an expedition to get rid of a German outpost, and did not come back. The cossacks who went with him said the German heard them cutting the barbed wire, and flung a grenade. The cossacks managed to get up to him and Stepan knocked him down with his fist, but a supporting guard opened fire, and Stepan fell. The cossacks bayoneted the second guard, dragged away the German stunned by Stepan’s blow, and attempted to pick Stepan up also. But he was too heavy and they had to leave him. Stepan pleaded: ‘Brothers, don’t let me go! Comrades! What are you leaving me for?’ But a hail of machine-gun bullets spattered through the wire, and the cossacks crawled away. ‘Brothers!’ Stepan called after them, but what of that? Your own skin has to be saved before another’s. When Piotra heard of Stepan’s fate he felt relieved, like a sore on the bottom after anointing it with dripping, but he resolved none the less that when he got leave he would have Daria’s blood. He wasn’t Stepan! He wouldn’t stand for that! He thought of killing her, but at once rejected the idea. ‘Kill the serpent, and ruin all my life because of her? Rot in a prison, lose all my labours, lose everything?’ He decided merely to beat her, but in such a fashion that it would deprive her of all desire ever to raise her tail again. ‘I’ll knock her eyes out, the snake!’ he thought as he sat in the trenches not far from the steep, clayey bank of the Dvina river.

  That autumn Daria made up for all her hungry, husbandless life. One morning Pantaleimon Prokoffievitch awoke as usual before the rest of the family, and went out into the yard. He clutched his head, overcome by what he saw. The gates had been removed from their hinges and had been flung down in the middle of the road. It was an insult, a disgrace! The old man immediately put the gates back in their place, and after breakfast called Daria outside into the summer kitchen. What they talked about was never known to the others, but a few minutes later Dunia saw Daria run dishevelled and crying out of the kitchen, her kerchief awry. As she passed Dunia she swung her shoulders, and the black arches of her eyebrows quivered in her tear-stained, angry face.

  ‘You wait, you old devil! I’ll pay you out for this!’ she hissed between her swollen lips.

  Dunia saw that her jacket was torn at the back, and a fresh livid bruise showed on her bare shoulders. She ran up the steps and disappeared into the porch, while from the summer kitchen Pantaleimon came limping, as evil as the devil, and folding up some new leather reins as he walked. Dunia heard her father say:

  ‘I’ll teach you to play those games, you bitch! You whore!’

  Order was restored in the hut. For some days Daria went about quieter than water, lower than the grass, went to bed before anybody else each night, and smiled coldly at Natalia’s sympathetic glances, shrugging her shoulders and raising her eyebrows as though saying: ‘All right, we shall see!’ On the fourth day after, an incident occurred of which only Daria and old Pantaleimon knew. Afterwards Daria went about laughing triumphantly, but the old man was embarrassed for a whole week, and as disconcerted as a doctored cat. He did not tell his wife what had occurred, and even at confession kept the incident and his own sinful thoughts about it a secret from Father Vissarion.

  What happened was this. Pantaleimon was not sure of Daria’s complete conversion, and he told his wife Ilinichna:

  ‘Don’t spare Daria! Make her work harder. She’ll never go wrong at work, and she’s a slippery hussy; all she thinks of is nights out.’

  He himself made Daria clean out the threshing-floor and gather up the wood chips in the backyard, and helped her to clear the chaff-shed. Later the same afternoon he thought he would shift the winnowing machine from the barn into the chaff-shed, and called his daughter-in-law to help him.

  Adjusting her kerchief and shaking off the chaff which had worked beneath the collar of her jacket, Daria came out and passed through the threshing-floor into the barn. Pantaleimon, in a padded woollen work-a-day coat and ragged trousers, went in front. The yard was empty. Dunia was helping her mother spin the autumn’s wool, and Natalia was setting the dough for the morrow’s bread. The evening sunset was glowing beyond the village. The bell was ringing for vespers. A little raspberry-coloured cloud hung motionless in the zenith of the translucent sky, the rooks were hanging in black, burning knobs on the bare branches of the grey poplars beyond the Don. In the empty silence of the evening every sound was sharp and distinct. The heavy scent of steaming dung and hay came from the cattle-yard. Pantaleimon and Daria carried the faded red winnowing machine into the chaff-shed, and set it down in a corner. He raked away some fallen chaff and turned to go out.

  ‘Father!’ Daria called in a low whisper.

  He went back to the winnowing machine, asking:

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Here, father, here’s something … Come and look,’ she said, bending sideways and stealthily glancing across the old man’s shoulder at the open door. He went right up to her. Suddenly she flung out her arms, and embracing his neck and interlocking her fingers, she stepped back dragging him after her and whispering:

  ‘Here, father … Here … It’s softer …’

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Pantaleimon asked in alarm. Wriggling his head from side to side, he tried to free himself of her arms; but she drew his head more strongly towards her own face, breathing hotly in his beard and laughing and whispering.

  ‘Let me go, you bitch!’ the old man struggled, feeling his daughter-in-law’s straining belly right against him. Pressing still close, she fell backward and drew him down on top of herself.

  ‘The devil! She’s gone silly! Damn you! Let me go!’ he spluttered.

  ‘Don’t you want to?’ Daria panted. Opening her hands, she shoved the old man in the chest. ‘Or perhaps you can’t? Then don’t judge me! Do you hear?’

  Jumping to her feet, she hurriedly adjusted her skirt, brushed the chaff off her back and shouted into the frenzied old man’s face:

  ‘What did you beat me for the other day? Am I an old woman? Weren’t you the same when you were young? My husband …? I haven’t seen him for a year! And what am I to do … lie with a dog? A fig for you, one leg! Here, take this!’ she made an indecent gesture, and, her eyebrows working, went towards the door. At the door she once more carefully examined her clothes, brushed the dust from her jacket and kerchief, and said without looking at Pantaleimon:

  ‘I can’t do without it. I need a cossack, and if you don’t want to … I’ll find one for myself, and you keep your mouth shut!’

  With a furtive, hurried gait she went to the door of the threshing-floor and disappeared without a glance back, while Pantaleimon remained standing by the winnowing machine, chewing his beard and staring guiltily and disconcertedly around the chaff-shed. ‘Perhaps she’s righ
t after all? Maybe I should have sinned with her?’ he thought in his perplexity, flabbergasted by what had happened to him.

  In November the frost gripped icily. An early snow fell. At the bend by the upper end of the village the Don was frozen over. Occasionally someone ventured over the dove-blue ice to the farther side. Lower down only the edges of the river were sheeted with thin ice, and the stream ran turbulently in the middle, the green waves tossing their grey heads. In the pool below the Black Cliff the sheatfish had long since sunk in a wintry somnolence to a depth of seventy feet. The carp lay near by. Only the pike struggled upstream and shied at the dam in its chase after whitebait. The sterlet lay above the gravel. The fishermen waited for a strong frost, in order to drag the river for fish.

  In November the Melekhovs received a letter from Gregor. He wrote from Roumania saying he had been wounded; a bullet had shattered the bone of his left arm, and so he was being sent back to his own district whilst the wound was healing. A further woe came upon the Melekhov household hard on the heels of the first. Eighteen months previously Pantaleimon had had need of money, and had borrowed a hundred roubles from Sergei Mokhov, giving him a bill of sale as security. During the summer the old man had been called into Mokhov’s shop and had been asked whether he intended to pay or not. Pantaleimon’s gaze had wandered distractedly around the half-empty shelves and the shining counters, and he had hesitated.