‘Natalia!’ he called.
Dunia entered. ‘What do you want, brother?’ she asked.
‘Open the window and call Natalia. What is she doing?’
‘She’s helping mother. She’ll come in a minute.’
Natalia came in, screwing up her eyes in the twilight of the room. Her hands smelt of fresh dough. Without rising he embraced her, and laughed as he recalled the night.
‘You overslept yourself!’ he said.
‘Aha! The night … tired me out,’ she smiled and blushed, hiding her head against Gregor’s hairy chest.
She helped him to dress his wound, then drew his best trousers out of the chest, and asked:
‘Will you wear your officer’s tunic with the crosses?’
‘No, why?’ He waved her off in alarm. But she pleaded importunately:
‘Do wear it! Father will be pleased. Why did you win them if you’re going to let them lie in the chest?’
He yielded to her entreaties. He rose, borrowed his brother’s razor, shaved, and washed his face and neck.
‘Shaved the back of your neck?’ Piotra asked.
‘Oh, the devil! I forgot!’
‘Well, sit down and I’ll do it.’
The cold lather burnt his neck. Reflected in the glass he saw his brother wielding the razor, his tongue sticking out at one corner of his mouth.
‘Your neck’s got thinner, like a bull does after ploughing,’ Piotra smiled.
‘Well, you don’t grow fat on army victuals.’
Gregor put on his tunic with its officer’s epaulettes and row of heavy crosses, and when he glanced into the steaming mirror he hardly recognized himself: a tall, gaunt officer as swarthy as a gypsy stared back at him.
‘You look like a colonel!’ Piotra exclaimed in delight, without the least trace of envy in his voice as he admired his brother. The words pleased Gregor despite himself. He went into the kitchen. Daria stared at him admiringly, while Dunia cried:
‘Pfooh! How elegant you look!’
At this Ilinichna could not restrain her tears. Wiping them away with her dirty apron, she replied to Dunia’s banter:
‘You have children like that, you hussy! I’ve had two sons and they’ve both got on in the world.’
Gregor threw his greatcoat around his shoulders and went out into the yard. Because of his wounded leg he found it difficult to get down the steps. ‘I’ll have to use a stick,’ he thought as he held on to the balustrade. The bullet had been removed at Millerovo, but the scab had drawn the skin tight and he could not bend his leg properly.
The cat was sunning itself on the ledge of the hut wall. The snow was melting into a pool around the steps. Gregor stared gladly and observantly around the yard. Right by the steps stood a post with a wheel fastened across its top. It had been there ever since he was a child, being used by the women. At night they stood at the top of the steps and placed the milk-jugs on it, and during the day the pots and household utensils dried on it. Certain changes in the yard struck his eyes at once: the door of the granary had been painted with brown clay instead of paint, the shed had been rethatched with still yellow rye straw; the pile of stakes seemed smaller – probably some had been used to repair the fence. The hummock of the earth-cellar was blue with ashes; a raven-black cock surrounded by a dozen or so variegated hens was perched on it with one leg raised limply. The farm implements were stored under the shed for the winter; the ribbed side-frames of the wagons were stood up, and some metal part of the reaping-machine burned in a ray of sunlight that pierced through a hole in the roof. Geese were squatting on a pile of dung by the stable, and a crested Dutch gander squinted arrogantly at Gregor as he limped past.
He went all over the farm, then returned to the hut. The kitchen smelt sweetly of warmed butter and hot bread. Dunia was washing some pickled apples. He glanced at her and asked with sudden interest:
‘Is there any salted water-melon?’
‘Go and get him some, Natalia,’ Ilinichna called.
Pantaleimon returned from church. He divided the wafer into nine parts, a bit for each member of the family, and distributed it around the table. They sat down to breakfast. Piotra, also dressed up for the occasion, even his moustaches greased with some fat, sat at Gregor’s side. Opposite them Daria balanced herself on the edge of a stool. A pillar of sunrays poured over her rosy, shining face, and she screwed up her eyes and discontentedly lowered the black arches of her gleaming brows. Natalia fed the children with baked pumpkin, Dunia sat at her father’s side, while Ilinichna was at the end of the table nearest the stove.
As always on holidays, they ate a hearty meal. The cabbage soup with lamb was followed by home-made vermicelli, then mutton, a chicken, cold lamb’s trotters, potatoes baked in their jackets, wheat-gruel with butter, vermicelli with dried cherries, pancakes and clotted cream, and salted water-melon. After the heavy meal Gregor rose with difficulty, drunkenly crossed himself, puffed and lay down on the bed. Pantaleimon was still tackling the gruel; making a hole with his spoon, he poured the amber melted butter into it and drew up a spoonful of the greasy mess. Piotra, who was very fond of children, sat feeding Misha, and playfully anointing the lad’s cheeks and nose with sour milk.
‘Uncle, don’t play about!’ the boy objected.
‘Why, what’s the matter?’
‘What are you putting it all over my face for?’
‘Well, what of it?’
‘I’ll tell mumma.’ Misha’s morose eyes glittered angrily, and tears of vexation trembled in them. He wiped his nose with his fist and shouted, in despair of persuading Piotra with fair words:
‘Don’t do it! Stupid! Fool!’
Piotra only burst into a roar of laughter and again anointed his nephew on the nose and mouth.
Dunia sat down by Gregor and told him: ‘Piotra’s just a big stupid! He’s always up to some new trick. The other day he went with Misha out into the yard, and the boy badly wanted to go, and asked: “Uncle, can I go by the steps?” But Piotra said: “No, you mustn’t. Go a little farther off.” Misha ran a little way, and asked: “Here?” “No, no; run to the granary.” From the granary he sent him to the stable, from the stable to the threshing-floor. He made the poor boy run and run until he did it in his trousers. And Natalia did go on at him!’
Gregor listened with a smile to Piotra and Misha, and rolled himself a cigarette. His father came across to him.
‘I’m thinking of driving to Vieshenska today,’ the old man confided.
‘What for?’
Pantaleimon belched heavily with the food he had eaten, and stroked his beard:
‘I’ve got some business with the saddler; he’s had two yokes of ours to mend.’
‘Coming back today?’
‘Why not? I’ll be back in the evening.’
After a rest, the old man harnessed the mare, which had gone blind that year, into the shafts of the sledge, and drove off. In two hours or so he was at Vieshenska. He went to the post office, then to the saddler and collected the yokes. Then he drove to an old acquaintance and gossip who lived by the new church. The man, a thoroughly hospitable sort, made him stay to dinner.
‘Been to the post?’ he asked as he poured something into a glass.
‘Yes,’ Pantaleimon answered, staring in astonishment at the bottle and sniffing the air like a hound tracking an animal.
‘Then you’ve heard the news?’
‘News? No, I’ve heard nothing. What is it?’
‘Kaledin, Alexei Maximovitch Kaledin, has gone to his rest.’
‘What are you saying?’ Pantaleimon turned noticeably green, forgot the suspect bottle and its scent, and threw himself back in his chair. Blinking moodily, his host told him:
We’ve had the news by the telegraph that he shot himself the other day in Novocherkass. And he was the one real general in all the province. What a spirit the man had! He wouldn’t have let any shame come on the cossacks.’
‘Wait a bit! What’s going to happen
now?’ Pantaleimon asked distractedly, pushing away the glass offered him.
‘God knows. Bad days are coming. I fear a man wouldn’t put a bullet into himself if the times were good.’
‘What made him do it?’
His host, a man as conservative as Pantaleimon himself, waved his hand angrily:
‘The frontline men had deserted him, and had let the Bolsheviks into the province; and so the ataman went. I doubt we’ll find any more like him. Who will defend us? A Revcom or something has been set up in Kamenska, with frontline cossacks in it. And here … have you heard? We’ve had an order from Kamenska to get rid of the atamans and to elect Revcoms in their place. The peasants are beginning to raise their heads. All these carpenters, smiths and job-hunters … they’re as thick in Vieshenska as midges in a meadow.’
Pantaleimon sat a long time silent, his grey head drooping. When he looked up his gaze was stern and harsh.
‘What is that you’ve got in the bottle?’ he asked.
‘Spirits. A relation brought it from the Caucasus.’
‘Well, pour it out, friend. We’ll drink to the memory of the dead ataman. May the heavenly kingdom open to him!’
They drank. The daughter of the house, a tall, long-lashed girl, brought in food. At first Pantaleimon glanced at the mare standing morosely by the sledge, but his host assured him:
‘Don’t worry about the horse. I’ll see that she’s fed and watered.’
Over the burning conversation and the bottle Pantaleimon soon forgot his horse and all else in the world. He talked disconnectedly about Gregor, fell into an argument with his tipsy host, went on arguing and then quite forgot what it was all about. It was evening when he started to his feet. Ignoring an invitation to stay the night, he decided to set off home. His friend’s son harnessed the horse, and his host assisted him into the sledge. Then the man thought he would see him out of the village. They lay down together in the bottom of the sledge, and embraced. Their sledge first hooked against the gatepost, then caught in every projecting corner until they drove out into the steppe. There his host burst into tears and fell voluntarily out of the sledge. For a long time he stood on all fours, cursing and unable to rise to his feet. Pantaleimon whipped the horse into a trot, and saw no more of his host crawling along the road with nose thrust into the snow, laughing happily and hoarsely pleading:
‘Stop tickling … Please stop tickling.’
Warmed up with the whip, the mare moved swiftly but uncertainly at a blind trot. Soon her master, overcome by a drowsy intoxication, fell back with his head against the wall of the sledge, and was silent. The reins happened to fall underneath him, and the horse, unguided and helpless, dropped into an easy walk. At the first fork she turned off the right road and made for a little village. After a few minutes she lost this road also. She struck across the open steppe, was stranded in the deep snow lying under a wood, and dropped down into a hollow. The sledge hooked against a bush, and she came to a halt. The jerk awoke the old man for a second. He raised his head and hoarsely shouted: ‘Now, you devil …’ then lay down again.
The horse moved on and passed the wood without mishap, successfully made her way down to the bank of the Don, and guided by the scent of smoke brought by the easterly wind, made for the next village.
Some half-mile from the village there is a gap in the left bank of the river. Around the gap springs emerge from the sandy bank, and here the water is never frozen, even in the depth of winter, but lies in a broad, semi-circular pool. The road along the riverside carefully avoids the water, making a sharp turn to one side. In Springtime, when the field water pours in a mighty flood back through the gap to the Don, a roaring whirlpool is formed. All the summer the carp lie at a great depth close to piled driftwood fallen from the bank.
The old mare directed her blind steps towards the left edge of the pool. When it was some fifty yards away Pantaleimon turned over and half-opened his eyes. Out of the black heaven the yellow-green, unripe cherries of stars stared down at him. ‘Night …’ he mistily realized, and pulled violently at the reins.
‘Now! I’ll give you one, you old horse-radish!’ he shouted at the horse.
The mare broke into a trot. The scent of the nearby water entered her nostrils. She pricked up her ears and turned a blind, uncomprehending eye in the direction of her master. Suddenly the splash of swirling water came to her ears. Snorting wildly, she turned aside and tried to back. The half-melted ice at the edge of the pool scrunched softly beneath her hoofs, and the snowy fringe broke away. The mare gave a snort of mortal terror. With all her strength she resisted with her hind feet, but her forefeet were already in the water, and the thin ice began to break under her hind hoofs. Groaning and crackling, the ice gave way. As the pool swallowed up the mare, she convulsively kicked out with one hind leg and struck the shaft. At that very moment Pantaleimon, hearing that something was wrong, jumped from the sledge and tumbled backward. He saw the back of the sledge rise, laying bare the gleaming runners, as the front was drawn down by the weight of the mare; then it slipped away into the green-black depths. The water, mingled with pieces of ice, hissed softly and rolled in a wave almost to his feet. With incredible swiftness he crawled backward and jumped firmly to his feet, roaring:
‘Help, good people! We’re drowning!’
His drunkenness passed from him as though cut away by a sabre. He ran to the pool. The freshly broken ice gleamed sharply. The wind drove bits of ice over the broad black half-circle of the pool; the waves shook their green manes and muttered. All around was a deathly silence. The lights of the distant village shone yellow through the darkness. The stars, granular as though freshly winnowed, burned ecstatically in the plush of the sky. The breeze raised the snow from the field, and it flew hissingly in a floury dust into the black depths of the pool. And the pool steamed a little and remained menacingly, yawningly black.
Pantaleimon realized that it was useless and foolish to shout now. He looked around, discovered where he had got to in his drunken torpor, and shook with anger at himself and at what had happened. His knout was still in his hand: he had jumped out of the sledge with it. Cursing frightfully, he whipped away at his back with the lash, but it did not pain him, for his stout sheepskin softened the blows. And it seemed senseless to undress just for that pleasure. He tore a handful of hair out of his beard, and mentally counting the purchases he had lost, the value of the mare, the sledge, and the yokes, he swore frenziedly and went still closer to the pool.
‘You blind devil, your mother was …’ he said in a trembling, moaning voice, addressing the drowned mare. ‘You chicken! Drowned yourself and all but drowned me! Where has the unclean spirit taken you? The devils will harness you up and drive you, but they won’t have anything to touch you up with! Here, take the whip, too!’ he waved the cherry knout desperately around his head and flung it into the middle of the pool.
It smacked and pierced the water stock first, and disappeared into the depths.
Chapter Four
The first sight to meet Bunchuk’s gaze when he returned to consciousness was Anna’s black eyes glittering with tears and a smile.
For three weeks he had been delirious. For three weeks he had wandered in another, intangible and fantastic world. His senses returned to him towards the evening of January sixth. He stared at Anna with serious, filmy eyes, trying to recall all that was associated with her, but only partly succeeding. Much of his recent past was still inflexibly concealed in the depths of his memory.
‘Give me a drink …’ he heard his own voice coming from afar off, and he smiled with amusement at it. He stretched out his hand for the cup held by Anna, but she pushed it aside.
‘You must drink from my hand,’ she said.
He felt a stirring of gratitude towards her. Trembling with the effort of lifting his head, he drank, then fell wearily back on to the pillow. He lay staring at the wall, wanting to say something. But his weakness took the upper hand, and he dozed off.
W
hen he awoke it was again Anna’s anxious, troubling eyes that first met his own; then he noticed the saffron light of the lamp, and the white circle cast by it on the bare planks of the ceiling.
‘Anna, come here!’
She approached and took his hand. He replied with a feeble pressure.
‘How do you feel?’ she asked.
‘My tongue belongs to someone else, my head belongs to someone else, and my legs also; and I feel as though I am two hundred years old,’ he carefully enunciated every word. After a silence, he asked: ‘Have I had typhus?’
‘Yes.’
His eyes wandered around the room, and he asked indistinctly:
‘Where are we?’
‘In Tsaritsin.’
‘And you … how is it you’re here?’
‘I stayed with you’, and as though justifying herself or trying to avert some unexpressed thought of his, she hastened to add:
‘We couldn’t leave you entirely to strangers. So Abramson and the comrades of the Committee asked me to look after you … And so you see I had quite unexpectedly to come with you.’
He thanked her with a look and a weak movement of his hand.
‘And Krutogorov?’ he asked.
‘He’s gone to Lugansk.’
‘And Gievorkiantz?’
‘He … you see … he died of typhus.’
They were both silent, as though paying respect to the memory of the dead.
‘I was afraid for you. You were very ill,’ she said quietly.
‘And Bogovoi?’
‘I’ve lost touch with them all. Some of them went to Kamenska. But is it all right for you to talk? And wouldn’t you like a drink of milk?’
Bunchuk shook his head. He turned awkwardly over; his head swam and the blood rushed to his eyes. Feeling her cool palm on his brow, he opened his eyes. One question was tormenting him: he had been unconscious, and who had attended to his needs? Surely not she? A faint flush coloured his cheek, and he asked:
‘Did you have to look after me all by yourself?’
‘Yes.’
And Quiet Flows the Don Page 54