Chapter II (3)

Jacob walked across the common to the edge of the town without knowing where he was going, and the little boys shouted after him. “There goes old man Bronze! There goes old man Bronze!” He found himself by the river where the snipe were darting about with shrill cries, and the ducks were quacking and swimming to and fro. The sun was shining fiercely and the water was sparkling so brightly that it was painful to look at. Jacob struck into a path that led along the river bank. He came to a stout, red-cheeked woman just leaving a bath-house. “Aha, you otter, you!” he thought. Not far from the bath-house some little boys were fishing for crabs with pieces of meat. When they saw Jacob they shouted mischievously: “Old man Bronze! Old man Bronze!” But there before him stood an ancient, spreading willow tree with a massive trunk, and a crow’s nest among its branches. Suddenly there flashed across Jacob’s memory with all the vividness of life a little child with golden curls, and the willow of which Martha had spoken. Yes, this was the same tree, so green and peaceful and sad. How old it had grown, poor thing!

He sat down at its foot and thought of the past. On the opposite shore, where that meadow now was, there had stood in those days a wood of tall birch-trees, and that bare hill on the horizon yonder had been covered with the blue bloom of an ancient pine forest. And sailboats had plied the river then, but now all lay smooth and still, and only one little birch-tree was left on the opposite bank, a graceful young thing, like a girl, while on the river there swam only ducks and geese. It was hard to believe that boats had once sailed there. It even seemed to him that there were fewer geese now than there had been. Jacob shut his eyes, and one by one white geese came flying toward him, an endless flock.

He was puzzled to know why he had never once been down to the river during the last forty or fifty years of his life, or, if he had been there, why he had never paid any attention to it. The stream was fine and large; he might have fished in it and sold the fish to the merchants and the government officials and the restaurant keeper at the station, and put the money in the bank. He might have rowed in a boat from farm to farm and played on his fiddle. People of every rank would have paid him money to hear him. He might have tried to run a boat on the river, that would have been better than making coffins. Finally, he might have raised geese, and killed them, and sent them to Moscow in the winter. Why, the down alone would have brought him ten roubles a year! But he had missed all these chances and had done nothing. What losses were here! Ah, what terrible losses! And, oh, if he had only done all these things at the same time! If he had only fished, and played the fiddle, and sailed a boat, and raised geese, what capital he would have had by now! But he had not even dreamed of doing all this; his life had gone by without profit or pleasure. It had been lost for a song. Nothing was left ahead; behind lay only losses, and such terrible losses that he shuddered to think of them. But why shouldn’t men live so as to avoid all this waste and these losses? Why, oh, why, should those birch and pine forests have been felled? Why should those meadows be lying so deserted? Why did people always do exactly what they ought not to do? Why had Jacob scolded and growled and clenched his fists and hurt his wife’s feelings all his life? Why, oh why, had he frightened and insulted that Jew just now? Why did people in general always interfere with one another? What losses resulted from this! What terrible losses! If it were not for envy and anger they would get great profit from one another.

All that evening and night Jacob dreamed of the child, of the willow tree, of the fish and the geese, of Martha with her profile like a thirsty bird, and of Rothschild’s pale, piteous mien. Queer faces seemed to be moving toward him from all sides, muttering to him about his losses. He tossed from side to side, and got up five times during the night to play his fiddle.

He rose with difficulty next morning, and walked to the hospital. The same doctor’s assistant ordered him to put cold bandages on his head, and gave him little powders to take; by his expression and the tone of his voice Jacob knew that the state of affairs was bad, and that no powders could save him now. As he walked home he reflected that one good thing would result from his death: he would no longer have to eat and drink and pay taxes, neither would he offend people any more, and, as a man lies in his grave for hundreds of thousands of years, the sum of his profits would be immense. So, life to a man was a loss—death, a gain. Of course this reasoning was correct, but it was also distressingly sad. Why should the world be so strangely arranged that a man’s life which was only given to him once must pass without profit?

He was not sorry then that he was going to die, but when he reached home, and saw his fiddle, his heart ached, and he regretted it deeply. He would not be able to take his fiddle with him into the grave, and now it would be left an orphan, and its fate would be that of the birch grove and the pine forest. Everything in the world had been lost, and would always be lost for ever. Jacob went out and sat on the threshold of his hut, clasping his fiddle to his breast. And as he thought of his life so full of waste and losses he began playing without knowing how piteous and touching his music was, and the tears streamed down his cheeks. And the more he thought the more sorrowfully sang his violin.

The latch clicked and Rothschild came in through the garden-gate, and walked boldly half-way across the garden. Then he suddenly stopped, crouched down, and, probably from fear, began making signs with his hands as if he were trying to show on his fingers what time it was.

“Come on, don’t be afraid!” said Jacob gently, beckoning him to advance. “Come on!”

With many mistrustful and fearful glances Rothschild went slowly up to Jacob, and stopped about two yards away.

“Please don’t beat me!” he said with a ducking bow. “Moses Shakess has sent me to you again. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said, ‘go to Jacob,’ says he, ‘and say that we can’t possibly manage without him.’ There is a wedding next Thursday. Ye-es, sir. Mr. Shapovaloff is marrying his daughter to a very fine man. It will be an expensive wedding, ai, ai!” added the Jew with a wink.

“I can’t go” said Jacob breathing hard. “I’m ill, brother.”

And he began to play again, and the tears gushed out of his eyes over his fiddle. Rothschild listened intently with his head turned away and his arms folded on his breast. The startled, irresolute look on his face gradually gave way to one of suffering and grief. He cast up his eyes as if in an ecstasy of agony and murmured: “Ou—ouch!” And the tears began to trickle slowly down his cheeks, and to drip over his green coat.

All day Jacob lay and suffered. When the priest came in the evening to administer the Sacrament he asked him if he could not think of any particular sin.

Struggling with his fading memories, Jacob recalled once more Martha’s sad face, and the despairing cry of the Jew when the dog had bitten him. He murmured almost inaudibly:

“Give my fiddle to Rothschild.”

“It shall be done,” answered the priest.

So it happened that every one in the little town began asking:

“Where did Rothschild get that good fiddle? Did he buy it or steal it or get it out of a pawnshop?”

Rothschild has long since abandoned his flute, and now only plays on the violin. The same mournful notes flow from under his bow that used to come from his flute, and when he tries to repeat what Jacob played as he sat on the threshold of his hut, the result is an air so plaintive and sad that every one who hears him weeps, and he himself at last raises his eyes and murmurs: “Ou—ouch!” And this new song has so delighted the town that the merchants and government officials vie with each other in getting Rothschild to come to their houses, and sometimes make him play it ten times in succession.

A HORSEY NAME

Major-General Buldeeff was suffering from toothache. He had rinsed his mouth with vodka and cognac; applied tobacco ashes, opium, turpentine, and kerosene to the aching tooth; rubbed his cheek with iodine, and put cotton wool soaked with alcohol into his ears, but all these remedies had either failed to relieve him or else had made him sick. The dentist was sent for. He picked at his tooth and prescribed quinine, but this did not help the general. Buldeeff met the suggestion that the tooth should be pulled with refusal. Every one in the house, his wife, his children, the servants, even Petka, the scullery boy, suggested some remedy. Among others his steward, Ivan Evceitch came to him, and advised him to try a conjuror.

“Your Excellency,” said he, “ten years ago an exciseman lived in this county whose name was Jacob. He was a first-class conjuror for the toothache. He used simply to turn toward the window and spit, and the pain would go in a minute. That was his gift.”

“Where is he now?”

“After he was dismissed from the revenue service, he went to live in Saratoff with his mother-in-law. He makes his living off nothing but teeth now. If any one has a toothache, he sends for him to cure it. The Saratoff people have him come to their houses, but he cures people in other cities by telegraph. Send him a telegram, your Excellency, say: ‘I, God’s servant Alexei, have the toothache. I want you to cure me.’ You can send him his fee by mail.”

“Stuff and nonsense! Humbug!”

“Just try it, your Excellency! He is fond of vodka, it is true, and is living with some German woman instead of his wife, and he uses terrible language, but he is a remarkable wonder worker.”

“Do send him a telegram, Alexei!” begged the general’s wife. “You don’t believe in conjuring, I know, but I have tried it. Why not send him the message, even if you don’t believe it will do you any good? It can’t kill you!”

“Very well, then,” Buldeeff consented. “I would willingly send a telegram to the devil, let alone to an exciseman. Ouch! I can’t stand this! Come, where does your conjuror live? What is his name?”

The general sat down at his desk, and took up a pen.

“He is known to every dog in Saratoff,” said the steward. “Just address the telegram to Mr. Jacob—Jacob——”

“Well?”

“Jacob—Jacob—what? I can’t remember his surname. Jacob—darn it, what is his surname? I thought of it as I was coming along. Wait a minute!”

Ivan raised his eyes to the ceiling, and moved his lips. Buldeeff and his wife waited impatiently for him to remember the name.

“Well then, what is it? Think harder.”

“Just a minute! Jacob—Jacob—I can’t remember it! It’s a common name too, something to do with a horse. Is it Mayres? No it isn’t Mayres—Wait a bit, is it Colt? No, it isn’t Colt. I know perfectly well it’s a horsey name, but it has absolutely gone out of my head!”

“It isn’t Filley?”

“No, no—wait a jiffy. Maresfield, Maresden—Farrier—Harrier——”

“That’s a doggy name, not a horsey one. Is it Foley?”

“No, no, it isn’t Foley. Just a second—Horseman—Horsey—Hackney. No, it isn’t any of those.”

“Then how am I to send that telegram? Think a little harder!”

“One moment! Carter—Coltsford—Shafter——”

“Shaftsbury?” suggested the general’s wife.

“No, no—Wheeler—no, that isn’t it! I’ve forgotten it!”

“Then why on earth did you come pestering me with your advice, if you couldn’t remember the man’s name?” stormed the general. “Get out of here!”

Ivan went slowly out, and the general clutched his cheek, and went rushing through the house.

“Ouch! Oh Lord!” he howled. “Oh, mother! Ouch! I’m as blind as a bat!”

The steward went into the garden, and, raising his eyes to heaven, tried to remember the exciseman’s name.

“Hunt—Hunter—Huntley. No, that’s wrong! Cobb—Cobden—Dobbins—Maresly——”

Shortly afterward, the steward was again summoned by his master.

“Well, have you thought of it?” asked the general.

“No, not yet, your Excellency!”

“Is it Barnes?” asked the general. “Is it Palfrey, by any chance?”

Every one in the house began madly to invent names. Horses of every possible age, breed, and sex were considered; their names, hoofs, and harness were all thought of. People were frantically walking up and down in the house, garden, servants’ quarters, and kitchen, all scratching their heads, and searching for the right name.

Suddenly the steward was sent for again.

“Is it Herder?” they asked him. “Hocker? Hyde? Groome?”

“No, no, no,” answered Ivan, and, casting up his eyes, he went on thinking aloud.

“Steed—Charger—Horsely—Harness——”

“Papa!” cried a voice from the nursery. “Tracey! Bitter!”

The whole farm was now in an uproar. The impatient, agonised general promised five roubles to any one who would think of the right name, and a perfect mob began to follow Ivan Evceitch about.

“Bayley!” They cried to him. “Trotter! Hackett!”

Evening came at last, and still the name had not been found. The household went to bed without sending the telegram.

The general did not sleep a wink, but walked, groaning, up and down his room. At three o’clock in the morning he went out into the yard and tapped at the steward’s window.

“It isn’t Gelder, is it?” he asked almost in tears.

“No, not Gelder, your Excellency,” answered Ivan, sighing apologetically.

“Perhaps it isn’t a horsey name at all? Perhaps it is something entirely different?”

“No, no, upon my word, it’s a horsey name, your Excellency, I remember that perfectly.”

“What an abominable memory you have, brother! That name is worth more than anything on earth to me now! I’m in agony!”

Next morning the general sent for the dentist again.

“I’ll have it out!” he cried. “I can’t stand this any longer!”

The dentist came and pulled out the aching tooth. The pain at once subsided, and the general grew quieter. Having done his work and received his fee, the dentist climbed into his gig, and drove away. In the field outside the front gate he met Ivan. The steward was standing by the roadside plunged in thought, with his eyes fixed on the ground at his feet. Judging from the deep wrinkles that furrowed his brow, he was painfully racking his brains over something, and was muttering to himself:

“Dunn—Sadler—Buckle—Coachman——”

“Hello, Ivan!” cried the doctor driving up. “Won’t you sell me a load of hay? I have been buying mine from the peasants lately, but it’s no good.”

Ivan glared dully at the doctor, smiled vaguely, and without answering a word threw up his arms, and rushed toward the house as if a mad dog were after him.

“I’ve thought of the name, your Excellency!” he shrieked with delight, bursting into the general’s study. “I’ve thought of it, thanks to the doctor. Hayes! Hayes is the exciseman’s name! Hayes, your Honour! Send a telegram to Hayes!”

“Slow-coach!” said the general contemptuously, snapping his fingers at him. “I don’t need your horsey name now! Slow-coach!”

THE PETCHENEG[1]

One hot summer’s day Ivan Jmukin was returning from town to his farm in southern Russia. Jmukin was a retired old Cossack officer, who had served in the Caucasus, and had once been lusty and strong, but he was an old man now, shrivelled and bent, with bushy eyebrows and a long, greenish-grey moustache. He had been fasting in town, and had made his will, for it was only two weeks since he had had a slight stroke of paralysis, and now, sitting in the train, he was full of deep, gloomy thoughts of his approaching death, of the vanity of life, and of the transient quality of all earthly things. At Provalye, one of the stations on the Don railway, a fair-haired, middle-aged man, carrying a worn portfolio under his arm, entered the compartment and sat down opposite the old Cossack. They began talking together.

Footnote 1:

Petchenegs, wild tribesmen of the Caucasus.

“No,” said Jmukin gazing pensively out of the window. “It is never too late to marry. I myself was forty-eight when I married, and every one said it was too late, but it has turned out to be neither too late nor too early. Still, it is better never to marry at all. Every one soon gets tired of a wife, though not every one will tell you the truth, because, you know, people are ashamed of their family troubles, and try to conceal them. It is often ‘Manya, dear Manya,’ with a man when, if he had his way, he would put that Manya of his into a sack, and throw her into the river. A wife is a nuisance and a bore, and children are no better, I can assure you. I have two scoundrels myself. There is nowhere they can go to school on the steppe, and I can’t afford to send them to Novotcherkask, so they are growing up here like young wolf cubs. At any moment they may murder some one on the highway.”

The fair-haired man listened attentively, and answered all questions addressed to him briefly, in a low voice. He was evidently gentle and unassuming. He told his companion that he was an attorney, on his way to the village of Duevka on business.

“Why, for heaven’s sake, that’s only nine miles from where I live!” cried Jmukin, as if some one had been disputing it. “You won’t be able to get any horses at the station this evening. In my opinion the best thing for you to do is to come home with me, you know, and spend the night at my house, you know, and let me send you on to-morrow with my horses.”

After a moment’s reflection the attorney accepted the invitation.

The sun was hanging low over the steppe when they arrived at the station. The two men remained silent as they drove from the railway to the farm, for the jolting that the road gave them forbade conversation. The tarantass[2] bounded and whined and seemed to be sobbing, as if its leaps caused it the keenest pain, and the attorney, who found his seat very uncomfortable, gazed with anguish before him, hoping to descry the farm in the distance. After they had driven eight miles a low house surrounded by a dark wattle fence came into view. The roof was painted green, the stucco on the walls was peeling off, and the little windows looked like puckered eyes. The farmhouse stood exposed to all the ardour of the sun; neither trees nor water were visible anywhere near it. The neighbouring landowners and peasants called it “Petcheneg Grange.” Many years ago a passing surveyor, who was spending the night at the farm, had talked with Jmukin all night, and had gone away in the morning much displeased, saying sternly as he left: “Sir, you are nothing but a Petcheneg!” So the name “Petcheneg Grange” had been given to the farm, and had stuck to it all the more closely as Jmukin’s boys began to grow up, and to perpetrate raids on the neighbouring gardens and melon fields. Jmukin himself was known as “old man you know,” because he talked so much, and used the words “you know” so often.

Footnote 2:

A rough carriage used in southern Russia.

Jmukin’s two sons were standing in the courtyard, near the stables, as the tarantass drove up. One was about nineteen, the other was a hobbledehoy of a few years younger; both were barefoot and hatless. As the carriage went by the younger boy threw a hen high up over his head. It described an arc in the air, and fluttered cackling down till the elder fired a shot from his gun, and the dead bird fell to earth with a thud.

“Those are my boys learning to shoot birds on the wing,” Jmukin said.

The travellers were met in the front entry by a woman, a thin, pale-faced little creature, still pretty and young, who, from her dress, might have been taken for a servant.

“This,” said Jmukin, “is the mother of those sons of guns of mine. Come on, Lyuboff!” he cried to his wife. “Hustle, now, mother, and help entertain our guest. Bring us some supper! Quick!”

The house consisted of two wings. On one side were the “drawing-room” and, adjoining it, the old man’s bedchamber; close, stuffy apartments both, with low ceilings, infested by thousands of flies. On the other side was the kitchen, where the cooking and washing were done and the workmen were fed. Here, under benches, geese and turkeys were sitting on their nests, and here stood the beds of Lyuboff and her two sons. The furniture in the drawing-room was unpainted and had evidently been made by a country joiner. On the walls hung guns, game bags, and whips, all of which old trash was rusty and grey with dust. Not a picture was on the walls, only a dark, painted board that had once been an icon hung in one corner of the room.

A young peasant woman set the table and brought in ham and borstch.[3] Jmukin’s guest declined vodka, and confined himself to eating cucumbers and bread.

Footnote 3:

Borstch: the national soup of Little Russia.

“And what about the ham?” Jmukin asked.

“No, thank you, I don’t eat ham,” answered his guest. “I don’t eat meat of any kind.”

“Why not?”

“I’m a vegetarian. It’s against my principles to kill animals.”

Jmukin was silent for a moment, and then said slowly, with a sigh:

“I see—yes. I saw a man in town who didn’t eat meat either. It is a new religion people have. And why shouldn’t they have it? It’s a good thing. One can’t always be killing and shooting; one must take a rest sometimes and let the animals have a little peace. Of course it’s a sin to kill, there’s no doubt about that. Sometimes, when you shoot a hare, and hit him in the leg he will scream like a baby. So it hurts him!”

“Of course it hurts him! Animals suffer pain just as much as we do.”

“That’s a fact!” Jmukin agreed. “I see that perfectly,” he added pensively. “Only there is one thing that I must say I can’t quite understand. Suppose, for instance, you know, every one were to stop eating meat, what would become of all our barnyard fowls, like chickens and geese?”

“Chickens and geese would go free just like all other birds.”

“Ah! Now I understand. Of course. Crows and magpies get on without us all right. Yes. And chickens and geese and rabbits and sheep would all be free and happy, you know, and would praise God, and not be afraid of us any more. So peace and quiet would reign upon earth. Only one thing I can’t understand, you know,” Jmukin continued, with a glance at the ham. “Where would all the pigs go to? What would become of them?”

“The same thing that would become of all the other animals, they would go free.”

“I see—yes. But, listen, if they were not killed, they would multiply, you know, and then it would be good-by to our meadows and vegetable gardens! Why, if a pig is turned loose and not watched, it will ruin everything for you in a day! A pig is a pig, and hasn’t been called one for nothing!”

They finished their supper. Jmukin rose from the table, and walked up and down the room for a long time, talking interminably. He loved to think of and discuss deep and serious subjects, and was longing to discover some theory that would sustain him in his old age, so that he might find peace of mind, and not think it so terrible to die. He desired for himself the same gentleness and self-confidence and peace of mind which he saw in this guest of his, who had just eaten his fill of cucumbers and bread, and was a better man for it, sitting there on a bench so healthy and fat, patiently bored, looking like a huge heathen idol that nothing could move from his seat.

“If a man can only find some idea to hold to in life, he will be happy,” Jmukin thought.

The old Cossack went out on the front steps, and the attorney could hear him sighing and repeating to himself:

“Yes—I see——”

Night was falling, and the stars were shining out one by one. The lamps in the house had not been lit. Some one came creeping toward the drawing-room as silently as a shadow, and stopped in the doorway. It was Lyuboff, Jmukin’s wife.

“Have you come from the city?” she asked timidly, without looking at her guest.

“Yes, I live in the city.”

“Maybe you know about schools, master, and can tell us what to do if you will be so kind. We need advice.”

“What do you want?”

“We have two sons, kind master, and they should have been sent to school long ago, but nobody ever comes here and we have no one to tell us anything. I myself know nothing. If they don’t go to school, they will be taken into the army as common Cossacks. That is hard, master. They can’t read or write, they are worse off than peasants, and their father himself despises them, and won’t let them come into the house. Is it their fault? If only the younger one, at least, could be sent to school! It’s a pity to see them so!” she wailed, and her voice trembled. It seemed incredible that a woman so little and young could already have grown-up children. “Ah, it is such a pity!” she said again.

“You know nothing about it, mother, and it’s none of your business,” said Jmukin, appearing in the doorway. “Don’t pester our guest with your wild talk. Go away, mother!”

Lyuboff went out, repeating once more in a high little voice as she reached the hall:

“Ah, it is such a pity!”

A bed was made up for the attorney on a sofa in the drawing-room, and Jmukin lit the little shrine lamp, so that he might not be left in the dark. Then he lay down in his own bedroom. Lying there he thought of many things: his soul, his old age, and his recent stroke which had given him such a fright and had so sharply reminded him of his approaching death. He liked to philosophise when he was alone in the dark, and at these times he imagined himself to be a very deep and serious person indeed, whose attention only questions of importance could engage. He now kept thinking that he would like to get hold of some one idea unlike any other idea he had ever had, something significant that would be the lodestar of his life. He wanted to think of some law for himself, that would make his life as serious and deep as he himself personally was. And here was an idea! He could go without meat now, and deprive himself of everything that was superfluous to his existence! The time would surely come when people would no longer kill animals or one another, it could not but come, and he pictured this future in his mind’s eye, and distinctly saw himself living at peace with all the animal world. Then he remembered the pigs again, and his brain began to reel.

“What a muddle it all is!” he muttered, heaving a deep sigh.

“Are you asleep?” he asked.

“No.”

Jmukin rose from his bed, and stood on the threshold of the door in his nightshirt, exposing to his guest’s view his thin, sinewy legs, as straight as posts.

“Just look, now,” he began. “Here is all this telegraph and telephone business, in a word, all these marvels, you know, and yet people are no more virtuous than they used to be. It is said that when I was young, thirty or forty years ago, people were rougher and crueller than they are now, but aren’t they just the same to-day? Of course, they were less ceremonious when I was a youngster. I remember how once, when we had been stationed on the bank of a river in the Caucasus for four months without anything to do, quite a little romance took place. On the very bank of the river, you know, where our regiment was encamped, we had buried a prince whom we had killed not long before. So at night, you know, his princess used to come down to the grave and cry. She screamed and screamed, and groaned and groaned until we got into such a state that we couldn’t sleep a wink. We didn’t sleep for nights. We grew tired of it. And honestly, why should we be kept awake by that devil of a voice? Excuse the expression! So we took that princess and gave her a good thrashing, and she stopped coming to the grave. There you are! Nowadays, of course, men of that category don’t exist any more. People don’t thrash one another, and they live more cleanly and learn more lessons than they used to, but their hearts haven’t changed one bit, you know. Listen to this, for instance. There is a landlord near here who owns a coal mine, you know. He has all sorts of vagabonds and men without passports working for him, men who have nowhere else to go. When Saturday comes round the workmen have to be paid, and their employer never wants to do that, he is too fond of his money. So he has picked out a foreman, a vagabond, too, though he wears a hat, and he says to him: ‘Don’t pay them a thing,’ says our gentleman, ‘not even a penny. They will beat you, but you must stand it. If you do, I’ll give you ten roubles every Saturday.’ So every week, regularly, when Saturday evening comes round the workmen come for their wages, and the foreman says: ‘There aren’t any wages!’ Well, words follow, and then come abuse, and a drubbing. They beat him and kick him, for the men are wild with hunger, you know; they beat him until he is unconscious, and then go off to the four winds of heaven. The owner of the mine orders cold water to be thrown over his foreman, and pitches him ten roubles. The man takes the money, and is thankful, for the fact is he would agree to wear a noose round his neck for a penny! Yes, and on Monday a new gang of workmen arrives. They come because they have nowhere else to go. On Saturday there is the same old story over again.”

The attorney rolled over, with his face toward the back of the sofa, and mumbled something incoherent.

“Take another example, for instance,” Jmukin went on. “When we had the Siberian cattle plague here, you know, the cattle died like flies, I can tell you. The veterinary surgeons came, and strictly ordered all infected stock that died to be buried as far away from the farm as possible, and to be covered with lime and so on, according to the laws of science. Well, one of my horses died. I buried it with the greatest care, and shovelled at least ten poods[4] of lime on top of it, but what do you think? That pair of young jackanapes of mine dug up the horse one night, and sold the skin for three roubles! There now, what do you think of that?”

Footnote 4:

Pood: Russian measure of weight = 40 pounds.

Flashes of lightning were gleaming through the cracks of the shutters on one side of the room. The air was sultry before the approaching storm, and the mosquitoes had begun to bite. Jmukin groaned and sighed, as he lay meditating in his bed, and kept repeating to himself:

“Yes—I see——”

Sleep was impossible. Somewhere in the distance thunder was growling.

“Are you awake?”

“Yes,” answered his guest.

Jmukin rose and walked with shuffling slippers through the drawing-room, and hall, and into the kitchen to get a drink of water.

“The worst thing in the world is stupidity,” he said, as he returned a few minutes later with a dipper in his hand. “That Lyuboff of mine gets down on her knees and prays to God every night. She flops down on the floor and prays that the boys may be sent to school, you know. She is afraid they will be drafted into the army as common Cossacks, and have their backs tickled with sabres. But it would take money to send them to school, and where can I get it? What you haven’t got you haven’t got, and it’s no use crying for the moon! Another reason she prays is because, like all women, you know, she thinks she is the most unhappy creature in the world. I am an outspoken man, and I won’t hide anything from you. She comes of a poor priest’s family—of church-bell stock, one might say—and I married her when she was seventeen. They gave her to me chiefly because times were hard, and her family were in want and had nothing to eat, and when all is said and done I do own some land, as you see, and I am an officer of sorts. She felt flattered at the idea of being my wife, you know. But she began to cry on the day of our wedding, and has cried every day since for twenty years; her eyes must be made of water! She does nothing but sit and think. What does she think about, I ask you? What can a woman think about? Nothing! The fact is, I don’t consider women human beings.”

The attorney jumped up impetuously, and sat up in bed.

“Excuse me, I feel a little faint,” he said. “I am going out-of-doors.”

Jmukin, still talking about women, drew back the bolts of the hall door, and both men went out together. A full moon was floating over the grange. The house and stables looked whiter than they had by day, and shimmering white bands of light lay among the shadows on the lawn. To the right lay the steppe, with the stars glowing softly over it; as one gazed into its depths, it looked mysterious and infinitely distant, like some bottomless abyss. To the left, heavy thunder-clouds lay piled one upon another. Their margins were lit by the rays of the moon, and they resembled dark forests, seas, and mountains with snowy summits. Flashes of lightning were playing about their peaks, and soft thunder was growling in their depths; a battle seemed to be raging among them.

Quite near the house a little screech owl was crying monotonously:

“Whew! Whew!”

“What time is it?” asked the attorney.

“Nearly two o’clock.”

“What a long time yet until dawn!”

They re-entered the house and lay down. It was time to go to sleep, and sleep is usually so sound before a storm, but the old man was pining for grave, weighty meditations, and he not only wanted to think, he wanted to talk as well. So he babbled on of what a fine thing it would be if, for the sake of his soul, a man could shake off this idleness that was imperceptibly and uselessly devouring his days and years one after another. He said he would like to think of some feat of strength to perform, such as making a long journey on foot or giving up meat, as this young man had done. And once more he pictured the future when men would no longer kill animals; he pictured it as clearly and precisely as if he himself had lived at that time, but suddenly his thoughts grew confused, and again he understood nothing.

The thunder-storm rolled by, but one corner of the cloud passed over the grange, and the rain began to drum on the roof. Jmukin got up, sighing with age and stretching his limbs, and peered into the drawing-room. Seeing that his guest was still awake, he said:

“When we were in the Caucasus, you know, we had a colonel who was a vegetarian as you are. He never ate meat and never hunted or allowed his men to fish. I can understand that, of course. Every animal has a right to enjoy its life and its freedom. But I can’t understand how pigs could be allowed to roam wherever they pleased without being watched——”

His guest sat up in bed; his pale, haggard face was stamped with vexation and fatigue. It was plain that he was suffering agonies, and that only a kind and considerate heart forbade him to put his irritation into words.

“It is already light,” he said briefly. “Please let me have a horse now.”

“What do you mean? Wait until the rain stops!”

“No, please!” begged the guest in a panic. “I really must be going at once!”

And he began to dress quickly.

The sun was already rising when a horse and carriage were brought to the door. The rain had stopped, the clouds were skimming across the sky, and the rifts of blue were growing wider and wider between them. The first rays of the sun were timidly lighting up the meadows below. The attorney passed through the front entry with his portfolio under his arm, while Jmukin’s wife, with red eyes, and a face even paler than it had been the evening before, stood gazing fixedly at him with the innocent look of a little girl. Her sorrowful face showed how much she envied her guest his liberty. Ah, with what joy she, too, would have left this place! Her eyes spoke of something she longed to say to him, perhaps some advice she wanted to ask him about her boys. How pitiful she was! She was not a wife, she was not the mistress of the house, she was not even a servant, but a miserable dependent, a poor relation, a nonentity wanted by no one. Her husband bustled about near his guest, not ceasing his talk for an instant, and at last ran ahead to see him into the carriage, while she stood shrinking timidly and guiltily against the wall, still waiting for the moment to come that would give her an opportunity to speak.

“Come again! Come again!” the old man repeated over and over again. “Everything we have is at your service, you know!”

His guest hastily climbed into the tarantass, obviously with infinite pleasure, looking as if he were afraid every second of being detained. The tarantass bounded and whined as it had done the day before, and a bucket tied on behind clattered madly. The attorney looked round at Jmukin with a peculiar expression in his eyes. He seemed to be wanting to call him a Petcheneg, or something of the sort, as the surveyor had done, but his kindness triumphed. He controlled himself, and the words remained unsaid. As he reached the gate, however, he suddenly felt that he could no longer contain himself; he rose in his seat, and cried out in a loud, angry voice:

“You bore me to death!”

And with these words he vanished through the gate.

Jmukin’s two sons were standing in front of the stable. The older was holding a gun, the younger had in his arms a grey cock with a bright red comb. The younger tossed the cock into the air with all his might; the bird shot up higher than the roof of the house, and turned over in the air. The elder boy shot, and it fell to the ground like a stone.

The old man stood nonplussed, and unable to comprehend his guest’s unexpected exclamation. At last he turned and slowly went into the house. Sitting down to his breakfast, he fell into a long reverie about the present tendency of thought, about the universal wickedness of the present generation, about the telegraph and the telephone and bicycles, and about how unnecessary it all was. But he grew calmer little by little as he slowly ate his meal. He drank five glasses of tea, and lay down to take a nap.

THE BISHOP

It was on the eve of Palm Sunday; vespers were being sung in the Staro-Petrovski Convent. The hour was nearly ten when the palm leaves were distributed, and the little shrine lamps were growing dim; their wicks had burnt low, and a soft haze hung in the chapel. As the worshippers surged forward in the twilight like the waves of the sea, it seemed to his Reverence Peter, who had been feeling ill for three days, that the people who came to him for palm leaves all looked alike, and, men or women, old or young, all had the same expression in their eyes. He could not see the doors through the haze; the endless procession rolled toward him, and seemed as if it must go on rolling for ever. A choir of women’s voices was singing and a nun was reading the canon.

How hot and close the air was, and how long the prayers! His Reverence was tired. His dry, parching breath was coming quickly and painfully, his shoulders were aching, and his legs were trembling. The occasional cries of an idiot in the gallery annoyed him. And now, as a climax, his Reverence saw, as in a delirium, his own mother whom he had not seen for nine years coming toward him in the crowd. She, or an old woman exactly like her, took a palm leaf from his hands, and moved away looking at him all the while with a glad, sweet smile, until she was lost in the crowd. And for some reason the tears began to course down his cheeks. His heart was happy and peaceful, but his eyes were fixed on a distant part of the chapel where the prayers were being read, and where no human being could be distinguished among the shadows. The tears glistened on his cheeks and beard. Then some one who was standing near him began to weep, too, and then another, and then another, until little by little the chapel was filled with a low sound of weeping. Then the convent choir began to sing, the weeping stopped, and everything went on as before.

Soon afterward the service ended. The fine, jubilant notes of the heavy chapel-bells were throbbing through the moonlit garden as the bishop stepped into his coach and drove away. The white walls, the crosses on the graves, the silvery birches, and the far-away moon hanging directly over the monastery, all seemed to be living a life of their own, incomprehensible, but very near to mankind. It was early in April, and a chilly night had succeeded a warm spring day. A light frost was falling, but the breath of spring could be felt in the soft, cool air. The road from the monastery was sandy, the horses were obliged to proceed at a walk, and, bathed in the bright, tranquil moonlight, a stream of pilgrims was crawling along on either side of the coach. All were thoughtful, no one spoke. Everything around them, the trees, the sky, and even the moon, looked so young and intimate and friendly that they were reluctant to break the spell which they hoped might last for ever.

Finally the coach entered the city, and rolled down the main street. All the stores were closed but that of Erakin, the millionaire merchant. He was trying his electric lights for the first time, and they were flashing so violently that a crowd had collected in front of the store. Then came wide, dark streets in endless succession, and then the highway, and fields, and the smell of pines. Suddenly a white crenelated wall loomed before him, and beyond it rose a tall belfry flanked by five flashing golden cupolas, all bathed in moonlight. This was the Pankratievski Monastery where his Reverence Peter lived. Here, too, the calm, brooding moon was floating directly above the monastery. The coach drove through the gate, its wheels crunching on the sand. Here and there the dark forms of monks started out into the moonlight and footsteps rang along the flagstone paths.

“Your mother has been here while you were away, your Reverence,” a lay brother told the bishop as he entered his room.

“My mother? When did she come?”

“Before vespers. She first found out where you were, and then drove to the convent.”

“Then it was she whom I saw just now in the chapel! Oh, Father in heaven!”

And his Reverence laughed for joy.

“She told me to tell you, your Reverence,” the lay brother continued, “that she would come back to-morrow. She had a little girl with her, a grandchild, I think. She is stopping at Ovsianikoff’s inn.”

“What time is it now?”

“It is after eleven.”

“What a nuisance!”

His Reverence sat down irresolutely in his sitting-room, unwilling to believe that it was already so late. His arms and legs were racked with pain, the back of his neck was aching, and he felt uncomfortable and hot. When he had rested a few moments he went into his bedroom and there, too, he sat down, and dreamed of his mother. He heard the lay brother walking away and Father Sisoi the priest coughing in the next room. The monastery clock struck the quarter.

His Reverence undressed and began his prayers. He spoke the old, familiar words with scrupulous attention, and at the same time he thought of his mother. She had nine children, and about forty grandchildren. She had lived from the age of seventeen to the age of sixty with her husband the deacon in a little village. His Reverence remembered her from the days of his earliest childhood, and, ah, how he had loved her! Oh, that dear, precious, unforgettable childhood of his! Why did those years that had vanished for ever seem so much brighter and richer and gayer than they really had been? How tender and kind his mother had been when he was ill in his childhood and youth! His prayers mingled with the memories that burned ever brighter and brighter in his heart like a flame, but they did not hinder his thoughts of his mother.

When he had prayed he lay down, and as soon as he found himself in the dark there rose before his eyes the vision of his dead father, his mother, and Lyesopolye, his native village. The creaking of wagon wheels, the bleating of sheep, the sound of church-bells on a clear summer morning, ah, how pleasant it was to think of these things! He remembered Father Simeon, the old priest at Lyesopolye, a kind, gentle, good-natured old man. He himself had been small, and the priest’s son had been a huge strapping novice with a terrible bass voice. He remembered how this young priest had scolded the cook once, and had shouted: “Ah, you she-ass of Jehovah!” And Father Simeon had said nothing, and had only been mortified because he could not for the life of him remember reading of an ass of that name in the Bible!

Father Simeon had been succeeded by Father Demian, a hard drinker who sometimes even went so far as to see green snakes. He had actually borne the nickname of “Demian the Snake-Seer” in the village. Matvei Nikolaitch had been the schoolmaster, a kind, intelligent man, but a hard drinker, too. He never thrashed his scholars, but for some reason he kept a little bundle of birch twigs hanging on his wall, under which was a tablet bearing the absolutely unintelligible inscription: “Betula Kinderbalsamica Secuta.” He had had a woolly black dog whom he called “Syntax.”

The bishop laughed. Eight miles from Lyesopolye lay the village of Obnino possessing a miraculous icon. A procession started from Obnino every summer bearing the wonder-working icon and making the round of all the neighbouring villages. The church-bells would ring all day long first in one village, then in another, and to Little Paul (his Reverence was called Little Paul then) the air itself seemed tremulous with rapture. Barefoot, hatless, and infinitely happy, he followed the icon with a naïve smile on his lips and naïve faith in his heart.

Until the age of fifteen Little Paul had been so slow at his lessons that his parents had even thought of taking him out of the ecclesiastical school and putting him to work in the village store.

The bishop turned over so as to break the train of his thoughts, and tried to go to sleep.

“My mother has come!” he remembered, and laughed.

The moon was shining in through the window, and the floor was lit by its rays while he lay in shadow. A cricket was chirping. Father Sisoi was snoring in the next room, and there was a forlorn, friendless, even a vagrant note in the old man’s cadences.

Sisoi had once been the steward of a diocesan bishop and was known as “Father Former Steward.” He was seventy years old, and lived sometimes in a monastery sixteen miles away, sometimes in the city, sometimes wherever he happened to be. Three days ago he had turned up at the Pankratievski Monastery, and the bishop had kept him here in order to discuss with him at his leisure the affairs of the monastery.

The bell for matins rang at half past one. Father Sisoi coughed, growled something, and got up.

“Father Sisoi!” called the bishop.

Sisoi came in dressed in a white cassock, carrying a candle in his hand.

“I can’t go to sleep,” his Reverence said. “I must be ill. I don’t know what the matter is; I have fever.”

“You have caught cold, your Lordship. I must rub you with tallow.”

Father Sisoi stood looking at him for a while and yawned: “Ah-h—the Lord have mercy on us!”

“Erakin has electricity in his store now—I hate it!” he continued.

Father Sisoi was aged, and round-shouldered, and gaunt. He was always displeased with something or other, and his eyes, which protruded like those of a crab, always wore an angry expression.

“I don’t like it at all,” he repeated—“I hate it.”