Chapter V (1)

There was a silence. Theodot raised himself up to a sitting posture, and, bending down, spreading his hands, began slowly to unwind the cords with which his old, constantly falling foot-cloths were tied up. And a minute later the school-boy with horror and repulsion saw that which he had seen so many times before with perfect calmness: a _moujik’s_ bare foot, dead-white, enormous, flat, with a monstrously grown great toe lying crookedly on top of the others, and the thin, hairy skin, which Theodot, having unwound and dropped the foot-cloth, began to scratch hard in a delectable fury, tearing it with his nails, as strong as those of a beast. Having scratched his fill and wriggled his toes, he took the foot-cloth with both hands,--it was hardened, bent, and blackened at the heel and sole, just as though it had been rubbed with black wax,--and shook it out, spreading an unbearable stench upon the fresh breeze. “Yes, murder means nothing to him!” reflected the student, shivering. “That is the foot of a real murderer! How horribly he killed this beautiful she-goat! And the man that he killed with a whet-stone ... he must have been sharpening a scythe ... and must have struck him straight in the temple, killing him on the stop.... But Pashka! ... Pashka! ... How could he tell about it so gaily and with such enjoyment, too! ‘It came right out at his back!’”

Suddenly, without raising his head, Ivan began speaking morosely:

“Fools are beaten even at the altar. Why, Postnii, it wouldn’t be half-enough to beat you to death for this here she-goat. What did you go and kill her for? You should have sold it. What sort of a husbandman do you call yourself after that, you durn ninny, when you don’t understand that a _moujik_ can’t get along without live-stock? It should be valued. If I only had a she-goat, now....”

He didn’t finish his sentence, was silent for a while, then suddenly grinned.

“There was an affair in Stanova, now; well that really was something.... It wasn’t worse than your goat, now; a land-owner by the name of Mussin was keeping a wild bull. This bull just wouldn’t let anybody pass; he gored two young cowherds to death. They’d fasten him up with a chain, but still he’d tear loose and go off. Just the very same way, too, like your goat, he’d trample the peasants’ grain; but no one dared to chase him off: they were afraid, and would walk a mile around him. Well, of course, they sawed off his horns, gelded him.... He quieted down a bit. Only the _moujiks_ scored up everything against him. When these here riots began, here’s what they did: they caught him in the field, tied him up with ropes, threw him off his feet.... They didn’t beat him at all, but just took and stripped him to the last hair. So, all bare, he dashed into the owner’s yard,--he ran in at full speed, fell all in a heap, and died right on the spot,--losing all his blood.”

“How?” asked the school-boy; “they took his hide off? While he was alive?”

“No, while he was cooked,” mumbled Ivan. “Oh you Moscow city feller!”

Everybody started laughing; while Pashka, laughing more than all of them, quickly picked up the conversation.

“Well, there’s a lot of murderers for you! And you was saying, just like that, that we ought to be treated kindly. No brother, guess you can’t get along here without us marching soldiers! When after the Seniyaks we was stationed at Kursk, now, we was also restoring order in a certain settlement. The _moujiks_ had gotten it into their head to ruinate an owner.... And the owner, they do say, was a good sort, at that.... Well, the whole settlement went for him, and, naturally, the women tagged along. The watchmen came out to meet the villagers. The peasants went for them with stakes and scythes. The guards fired one volley, and then, of course, took to their heels: what the devil sort of strength can you expect from those dunderheads!--but one bullet did get a baby in a woman’s arms. The woman was left alive, but he, of course, didn’t even let out a squeak,--just gave one jerk with his little legs. So, good Lord!” said Pashka, tossing his head from laughter and seating himself more comfortably, “what only didn’t the _moujiks_ do! They broke everything to smash and smithereens; chased this same owner into a corner, trampling him down, while this _moujik_, the father of this here child, ran up to that very spot with this same baby; he was all gasping and crazed from grief, and he starts in to beat the owner over his head with this dead baby! Grabbed him by the little legs and starts in lambasting the owner. And then the others fall upon him, and, of course, all for one and one for all, they finished him. We were rushed up, but he was already beginning to rot when we got there.”

“Well, what are you laughing about, you fool!” the school-boy wanted to cry out, suddenly feeling a ferocious hatred for Pashka’s laughter, for Pashka’s voice. But here Kiriushka suddenly stirred, and, raising his head, said with childish naïveness:

“But that which took place when Kochergin the land-owner was bein’ wrecked,--_that_ was something awful! I was then living with him as one of his shepherds.... So all their mirrors was thrown into the pond.... Afterwards, people from the village would come over for a swim, and would always be pulling them out of the slime.... You’d dive, stand up,--and then your foot would just slide over a mirror.... And this, now ... how do you call it ... fortopianner was dragged into the rye.... We used to come ...” Kiriushka raised himself up, and, laughing, leant back on his elbows; “we would come and there it would be standing.... You’d take a club, and start banging upon it,--upon its keys, that is.... From one end to the other.... Why, it would play better nor any accordeon!”

Everybody laughed once more. Theodot had adjusted his foot-gear, had again criss-crossed his foot-cloths accurately with the cords, and, having set himself to rights, had resumed his former position. And, having waited for a moment of silence, he began to finish his story in measured tones:

“Yes, he gave me one on the ear, and yet put in a suit as well.... For all these, now, losses and damages, for the forage, that is. He was called Andrei Bogdanov,--Andrei Ivannov Bogdanov. A tall _moujik_, he was,--red-faced, thin, always evil-tempered, always drunk. Well, now, so he started a suit. It was he that had warmed my ear, and he it was that was suing me to boot. Here the busiest time of the year came along, with nary a breathing space; but I’ve got to be hiking off fifteen miles away.... I guess that’s just what the Lord must have punished him for....”

As he gazed at the straw, stifling his cough and wiping his flat lips with the palm of his hand, Theodot’s speech was becoming more and more sombre, more and more expressive. Having said “The Lord must have punished him,” he was silent for a while, and then went on:

“The suit, of course, came to nothing. A peace was patched up between us. We was both at fault, that is. But only he wasn’t content with that. He made up with me, but right after he walked away, drank till he was blind-drunk, started threatening to kill me. He yells before everybody: ‘Wait,’ says he, ‘wait, I ain’t drunk yet, now; but when I’ve drunk enough I’ll settle your hash.’ I wanted to get away from the mixup,--it made me feel sick in the stomach.... Then he took to coming to our village: he’d come under my windows, drunk as drunk could be, and would start in to curse me out, saying things about my mother. And I have a grown-up daughter....”

“That weren’t right,” sympathetically grunted out the old man, and yawned.

“Oh, it was a grand story!” said Theodot. “Well, now, so he comes on an evening before the Kiriki. I hear him making a hubbub in the street. I got up, without saying a word, went out into the yard, sat down on a harrow, and started sharpening a scythe. But I was taken with such a rage that I saw red before my eyes. Then I hear him walking up to the hut, raising a rumpus. Must be wanting to break the panes, thinks I to myself. But no; he just made a lot of noise and was already going somewhere else. That would have been the end of it perhaps,--if only Ollka, my daughter, hadn’t jumped out ... And then she starts in yelling, with a voice not her own: ‘Help, father, Andrushka is beating me!’ I dashed out with the scythe whet-stone in my hand,--and, all in a passion, hit him once right over his head! He just hit the ground. Folks ran up, started dousing him with water ... but he lies there, and by now he’s only hiccoughing.... Maybe something might have been done then.... Like putting a cold pack on him, or something like that.... He ought to have been carried off to a hospital as fast as possible, and a tenner should have been handed to the doctor.... But where was a tenner to be gotten? Well, so he hiccoughed and he hiccoughed, and he passed away toward night. He threshed about and threshed about; then turned over on his back, stretched himself out, and there he was, all ready. And the folks were standing around, looking, all silent. And the lights was already lit by that time.”

All atremble with a quick shivering, his face flaming, the high-school student got up, and, sinking in the straw up to his waist, started climbing down the stack. A _borzoi_ bitch, frightened by him, suddenly jumped up and gave a jerky bark. The student drew back sharply, falling into the straw, and stood stock still. The chill wind was rustling; a cluster of chill autumn stars showed white above his very head, while from beyond the hillock of rustling straw came the measured, low-pitched voice of Theodot.

“I sat in the barn for two days under guard, and saw the whole thing through a little window.... How they cut him up, that is. The people flocked in from all the villages, to have a look at this murdered man,--and me too, for that matter. They used to shove their way right up to the very barn. Two benches was carried out on the common, placed right near the barn, and the murdered man put upon them. A log of wood was put under his head; chairs and a table were brought out for the coroner and the sawbones. The sawbones walks up to him; he tears off his shirt, tears off his drawers,--and I see a corpse lying all naked, already stiff; yellow here and green there, while his face was all like wax; the red beard had become thin, and simply stood out. The sawbones put a burdock over you know what place. Right at hand, as usual, there was a box with all sorts of contraptions. The sawbones walks up, parts his hair from ear to ear, makes a cut, and begins to take off the scalp together with the hair, in halves. Where it was thin, he scraped with a little knife. He tore away a half to either side,--soon as he gets one piece off, he pulls it down over the eye. The whole skull became visible,--like some kind of a little pot, it was.... And there’s a black spot on it, near the right ear,--black clotted blood; where the blow had come, that is. The sawbones says something to the coroner, and the coroner writes: ‘Three cracks on such and such parts.’ Then the sawbones starts in sawing through the skull all around. The saw don’t work, so he takes a little hammer and a small chisel, see, and goes over the marks that he’d made with the saw, breaking through with the little chisel. And the top of the skull just fell away, like a cup,--the brain was all plain to be seen....”

“What don’t they do, the murdering cut-throats!” hoarsely remarked the old man, who had just dozed off.

But Theodot was firmly finishing his say:

“Then he took out a heavy knife, and starts cutting the chest, right through the gristle. He hacks out a three cornered piece, and starts pulling it away,--it even started cracking.... All the stomach came to view, and the blue lungs, and all the innards....”

Deafened by the beating of his own heart, the student got up on his feet, standing up to the full of his great height,--in his cap, shoved back on the nape of his neck, in his light uniform overcoat, which was already too short for him. Gray, huge, dreadful in his Mongolian calmness, Theodot was speaking in measured tones, his pipe gripped between his teeth; but the student was no longer listening to him. With all his eyes he was looking at all these men--so familiar and yet so unknown, so incomprehensible,--who had made his whole soul so sick on this night. Pitiful in his vice and his meekness, in all his pastoral primitiveness, Kiriushka was sleeping, covered with his great coat, one thick leg, swathed in white foot-cloths, and twisted at the knee, sticking out from underneath it. Ivan, too, was sleeping; Ivan of the morose, disdainful face, whose mother, a horrible, black old woman, had been dying for three years now, in his black mud hut, standing near the ditches at the edge of the bare village, in the darkness and the dirt, underneath the low ceiling, underneath the low roof of sods, and yet cannot in anyway die, to her grief; while his buck-toothed thin wife feeds at her dark-yellow, hanging dry breast a bare-bellied, clear-eyed child, with its nose running, and its lips bitten into blood by the countless flies in the hut. The happy Pashka was sleeping his heavy, healthy sleep in the fresh wind, in his soldier’s cap, heavy boots, and his new short coat. As for Khomut, the old man, who has not got even a short coat (he has only a long coat, frayed and with a large hole through the shoulder), whose drawers always hung so low upon his flabby thighs,--he was sitting with his back to the wind, bare-headed, stripped to the waist. He, senilely emaciated, yellow of body, with his shoulders elevated at a slant, with his twisted prominent backbone glistening in the light of the stars, was sitting with his big tousled head, ruffled by the fresh wind, bowed down, bending his neck which was already scrawny and all in coarse wrinkles. He was intently examining the shirt he had taken off, and, as he listened to Theodot, he would at times squeeze its collar band between his thumb-nails.

The student jumped down upon the hard and smooth autumnal earth, and, stooping, quickly walked toward the dark, murmurous garden, toward home.

All three dogs also arose, and, showing dimly white, started running sideways after him, with their tails curled tightly.

_1911._

A GOODLY LIFE

My life has been a well-spent one; I got everything I went after. I even own real property,--my little old man right after the wedding signed the house over in my name; and I keep horses, and two cows, and we have a business all our own. Of course, not a regular shop, now, but just a little store, as they say,--but then, in our village, it will pass. I always was successful, but then I have a persistent character, at that.

As to all sorts of work, it was still my daddy that learned me. Though he was a widower, and took to drink, he wasn’t far behind me in being awful smart, business-like, and heartless. When the serfs was freed, now, he up and says to me:

“Well, wench, I’m my own master now; let’s save up some money. As soon as we save it up, we’ll go to the city, buy a house all to our own selves; I’ll marry you off to a fine gentleman, and live like a king. As for our masters, it’s no use sticking here with them,--they ain’t worth it.”

Our masters, now,--although, to tell the truth, they were good and kind,--was the poorest of the poor; actual beggars, you might say. And so we went away from them to another settlement; as for the house, the cattle, and whatever household goods we had, we sold them. We moved right near to the city, and hired a cabbage patch from a lady by the name of Meshcherina. She had been a _fräulein_ in the Tsar’s court; she was plain, freckled, and had grown gray as a maid,--nobody would take her to wife, so she lived in retirement. So, then, we hired the meadows from her, and settled down in our little hut, all peaceful and quiet. The weather’s chill; fall is coming on,--but little we care! We sit and wait for good profits and never feel trouble coming along. But the trouble was right there,--and what trouble, at that! Our venture was drawing near the winding up, when suddenly something terrible happens. We had had our tea in the morning,--it was a holiday,--so I stood, just so, near the hut, watching the folks coming from church over the meadow. As for my daddy, he had gone to see about the cabbages. It was a sort of a bright day, even though it was windy, and so I was gaping and didn’t notice that there was two men approaching me. One was the priest,--so tall, you know, in a gray cassock and carrying a stick; his face was dark, earthy; he’s got a mane like any fine horse, just simply spreading out in the wind. The other was just a common peasant,--his farm hand. They walked right up to the hut; I got confused, made him a bow, and says:

“How do you do, Father? Thanks for thinking of us and calling.”

But he, I see, is angry, sullen, doesn’t even look at me; he just stands and breaks up clods with his stock.

“And where,” says he, “is your father?”

“They’ve gone to the cabbage field,” says I. “If you like, now, I can call them. But there he’s coming, himself.”

“Well, you just tell him to take away whatever goods he’s got, together with this dinky little samovar, and get away from here. My watchman is coming here to-day.”

“What do you mean, a watchman? Why, we have already given the lady the money, ninety roubles it was. What do you mean, Father?” (Though I was young, I knew just what was what in such things.) “Are you joking, or something?” I says. “You ought to produce some proper paper,” I says.

“No talk out of you!” he yells. “The owner is going to live in the city; I’ve bought the meadows from her, and now the land is my own property!”

But he, himself, waves his arms about, knocks his stick against the ground,--like as not to hit you in the snout any minute.

Father sees these goings-on, and starts running toward us,--he was awful hot-headed. He runs up and asks:

“What’s all this noise about? What are you yelling at her for, Father, without knowing yourself what’s what? You oughtn’t to be shaking your stick, but ought to come right out and explain by what sort of right the cabbages have come to be yours? We are poor folks, now, we can go to court about it. You,” he says, “are a person in holy orders; you can’t hold no enmity against nobody; your kind can’t touch the holy sacrament if you do.”

Father, you understand, hadn’t said as much as one saucy word to him; but the other, though he was a pastor, was as wicked as the most ordinary drab _moujik_; and so, when he heard that kind of talk, he just grew pale,--not a word could he say, but you could just see his legs quivering under his cassock. And then, don’t he let out a squeal, and don’t he go for father,--to hit him over the head, you understand! But father got from under it, grabbed the stick, tore it out of the priest’s hands, and then went smash! over his knee with it. The other tried to grapple with him, but father breaks it in halves, flings the pieces away as far as he can and calls out:

“Don’t come near me, for God’s sake, your reverence! You,” he calls out, “are black and like a beetle, but I am still more of a beetle than you be.”

And then he grabs him by the arms!

What with courts and law, father was sent to a convict colony for this here thing. I was left all alone in this world, and thinks I, what am I to do now? Plainly, you can’t get through the world on righteousness alone; plainly, you must needs keep your eyes open. I figured it out a whole year, living with my aunt; then I saw there was nowhere for me to go,--I had to marry fast as I could. My dad had a good friend in town, a harness maker,--well, him it was that courted me. You couldn’t say as how he made a striking bridegroom,--but still he was a good catch, at that. There was, to tell the truth, one man that I liked,--and liked right well; but then he was poor too, about as bad off as I was, also living with strangers, like me; but the other was his own master, after all. I didn’t have a copper of dowry, and here, I see, he is taking me without anything,--how could I let a chance like that pass by? I thought, and I thought, and went and married him,--although, of course, I knew that he was an elderly man, and a drunkard, and always excitable; a cut-throat, to put it plainer.... I married him and became, you understand, not an ordinary wench any more, but Nastasiya Semenovna Zhokhova, a citizen’s wife, living in a city.... Of course, it seemed flattering.

I suffered for nine years with this husband. That citizen business was just a name; we was so poor really that we was about as bad off as the _moujiks_! And then there was scrapping and rows every blessed day. Well, the Lord took pity on me, and took him away. The children I had by him all used to die on me; there was only two boys left,--one was Vanniya, going on nine; the other was an infant in arms. He was an awful lively and healthy boy; about ten months he started in to walk, to talk; all of my children, now, used to begin walking and talking about the eleventh month. He got to drinking tea all by his own self,--used to sink his little face in the saucer so’s you couldn’t pull it away, nohow. But this boy died, too, when he weren’t a year yet. I come home one day from washing clothes in the river, and my sister-in-law,--we used to rent our rooms off her,--up and says:

“Your Kostiya was yelling and squirming all day to-day. I done all sorts of things to him already; I worked his arms and I patted him hard, and I gave him some sugar and water; but all he does is gag, and throw up the water through his nose. Either he’s gone and caught a cold, or else he’s ate something; for the children always put everything in their mouth,--how is a body to look after them?”

I was just scared stiff. I make a dash for the cradle and throw back the curtain, but he was already beginning to pass away then; couldn’t even as much as cry out. My sister ran to get a doctor’s assistant we knew; when he comes, he asks: “What did you feed him with?”

“He’s eaten some manna porridge, now, and that was all.”

“And wasn’t he playing with something?”

“That’s right, he was,” says my sister. “There was a copper ring from a horse-collar knocking about all the time,--well, he was playing with that.”

“Well,” says the doctor’s assistant, “he must have swallowed it, for sure. May your arms wither!” says he. “You’ve gone and done it now,--why, he’s going to die on your hands!”

Of course, it turned out just like he said. Not even two hours had gone when he passed away. We took on and we took on, but there was nothing as could be done about it; for it’s no use going against the will of God. So I buried him too; only Vanniya was left. Only he was left; but then, as they say, one is enough. A small creature, it’s true, and yet he’ll eat and drink as much as a grown-up. So I started scrubbing floors at the home of Nikulin,--a colonel in the army, he was. Him and his wife was rather well off; they paid thirty roubles a month for the rooms they had. They lived in the upper floor; the kitchen was below. The woman they had to get up their meals was a no-account little old woman; she wasn’t responsible, and yet she was loose. Well, naturally, she got in the family way. Couldn’t bend down to scrub the floors, couldn’t pull a pot out the oven.... She went away when her time came, and I just grabbed her place: that’s how I had gotten around the masters! To tell the truth, I’ve been clever and cunning from a girl up; no matter what I took a hold of, I’d do it neat, accurate, better nor any waiter. Again, I knew how to please them: no matter what the masters would say, I’d just say “Yes, sir,” or “Yes, ma’am,” all the time, and “You are absolutely right....” I used to get up when you could still see the moon. I’d mop up the floors, make the stove, polish up the samovar,--in the meanwhile the masters would wake up, but I had everything ready. And then, of course, I always kept myself clean, and was well-built,--I was spare, but still I was handsome. There was times when I’d even get to feeling sorry for myself: what were my beauty and my knowledge going to waste for, now, in such hard work?

Thinks I, I ought to take advantage of the opportunity. And the opportunity was, that the colonel was awful strong himself and couldn’t bear to look at me calmly. His wife, now, was a German,--fat, ailing, and some ten years older than he. He weren’t good-looking; heavy-bodied, short-legged, looking like a wild pig,--and she was still worse. Well, I see he’s started to pay court to me, to sit in my kitchen, to teach me smoking. Soon as his wife went out, he was right there on the spot. He’d chase his orderly into town, as though on some errand, and be sitting there. He bored me to death, but, of course, I pretended otherwise: I’d laugh, and I’d sit and swing my leg,--getting him heated up in all sorts of ways, that is.... What can you do when there’s poverty; and, as they say, this little was as good as a feast. Somehow one day, on the Tsar’s birthday, he comes down to the kitchen in his uniform frock, in epaulettes, belted with that white belt of his like with a hoop, with kid gloves in his hands. He’s buttoned his collar so tight that his neck is all swollen and he’s all blue in the face; he’s all perfumed,--his eyes shining, his moustache black and thick.... He comes down and says:

“I’m going to the cathedral with the missus right away; dust off my boots,--I’ve only gone through the yard and yet I managed to get all dusty.”

He put his foot in its patent-leather boot upon a bench,--just like a big iron pillar, his leg was; I bent down, wanting to wipe it off, but he grabs me by the neck, even tearing my kerchief off; then he grabbed me tight about the bosom and was already dragging me behind the stove. I try this way and that,--can’t get away from him nohow. And he is hot all over, just swelling up with blood,--trying to overpower me, that is; to get at my face and kiss me.

“What are you doing!” I says. “The mistress is coming,--go away, for the love of Christ!”

“If you will get to love me,” he says, “I won’t begrudge you anything!”

“Oh yes, now, we know all about those promises!”

“May I never leave this spot,--may I die without absolution!”

Well, of course, there was more of the same sort of thing. But, to tell the honest truth, what did I know at that time? I could have very easily been taken in by his words; but, glory be to God, things didn’t turn out his way. Somehow he caught hold of me another time, at an unlucky moment. I broke away, all mussed up, and got mortal angry,--and there was the mistress, now; she was coming down, dressed up, all yellow, fat, like a dead person, groaning, her dress rustling on the stairs. I break away, and stand there without my kerchief,--and there she is, heading straight for us. He goes past her and shows his heels, but I stand there like a fool, not knowing what to do. She stood opposite me, and she stood some more, holding the silk skirt of her dress,--I remember like it was to-day: she was going out visiting, and had on a brown silk dress, and white mittens without fingers, and she carried a parasol, and wore a hat like a basket. She stood for a while, let out a groan, and went out. To tell the truth, though, she never said a word to him or to me. But when the colonel went away to Kiev, she just took and drove me out.

So I got all my little belongings together and went back to my sister,--Vanniya was living at her house, you understand. I went away from this place, and again I figure: my brains are just going for nothing; I can’t save up anything, nor make a decent match and have a business of my own,--God has wronged me! I’ll get in harness once again, thinks I, turn about somehow, and I _will_ get what I’m after, and _will_ have a capital of my own, or die trying! So I thought it all out, apprenticed Vanniya to a tailor, and then got a place for myself as maid with Samokhvalov the merchant.... And that was the beginning of my rise.

They gave me a wage of two and a quarter. There was two servants,--me, and a girl by the name of Vera. One day I wait at table, and she washes the dishes; the next day I wash the dishes, and she waits at table. You couldn’t call it a large family: there was the master, Matvei Ivannich; the mistress, Liubov Ivanna; two grown-up daughters; and two sons. The master himself was a serious-minded man, not much given to talking,--he was never even at home on week-days, and whenever there was a holiday, he’d be sitting upstairs in his room, reading all sorts of newspapers and smoking a cigar. As for the mistress, she was a simple soul, kind, and, like myself, from the middle classes. They wasn’t long in marrying off their daughters, Anna and Klasha, and held two weddings in one year,--married them off to military men. Right there, to tell the truth, is where I begun to save up,--for the military men did give me a great deal in tips. If you just did anything, even a trifle,--like handing them the matches, say, or their overcoats and rubbers,--right off you’d have twenty kopecks, or thirty.... But then I used to go about awful neat, and I pleased the military. Vera, to tell the truth, was always putting on some airs, like some miss or something; she took short, mincing steps, was tender and awful easy hurt,--the minute anything would happen, she’d knit her downy eye-brows, her lips, like cherries, would start to quiver, and there was the tears in her eye-lashes. True, she did have pretty eye-lashes, great big ones, I never saw anybody else with anything like them. But then, I was wiser. I used to put on a smooth waist, cut on a bias, with open-work; I’d put a switch on my head with a black velvet bow, and I wore a starched white apron,--it would interest anybody just to look at me. Vera, she always used to lace herself tight in corsets; she’d lace herself so tight she couldn’t stand it, and at once her head would start aching till she’d throw up,--but I never even had no use for a corset, and was all right as I was.... And when the military men were gone, the sons started in tipping me.

The elder had already reached twenty when I took the place, and the younger was going on fourteen. This boy had to sit all the while, poor fellow. He had broken all his legs and arms,--I seen that business many a time. When he’d break something, the doctor would come to him right away, bandage it up with cotton, lint, and all that sort of thing; then he’d pour something over it like lime; this same lime would dry up together with the lint, would become like a splint; and when the hurt part was healed up, the doctor would just cut all that stuff, taking it all off,--and the arm, when you’d look at it, was all grown together. He couldn’t walk by himself, but crawled around on his bottom. He used to simply dash upon sofas, and over thresholds, and up the stairs. He even used to crawl across the whole yard into the garden. He had a great big head, clumsy looking, like his father’s; his temples coarse, red-haired, like a dog’s wool; he had a broad, old-looking face. That was because he used to eat an awful lot,--he’d eat sausage, and chocolate bon-bons, and pretzels, and pastry made out of layers of dough,--whatsoever his heart might desire. But his little legs, his little arms, was like a sheep’s, and all broken, all in scars. They used to keep him just so for a long time, making long shirts for him of different colours; sometimes blue, sometimes pink. They had a lady teacher from a parochial school coming over to our house to teach him. He was a great hand for learning, and had a good head on his shoulders! And the way he’d play on an accordeon--you couldn’t find even a whole person to play like that! He’d play, and sing in time with the music. He had a strong, piercing voice. He used to go way, way up when he’d sing: “I’m a monk, and handsome too!” He used to sing that song often.

The elder son was in good health, but also a sort of innocent, not fit for any business. They gave him away for instruction into all sorts of schools,--and he was chased out of all of them; they couldn’t learn him anything. Come night,--he’d get full some place or other, and be gone until dawn. Still, he really was afraid of his mother, and would not come in through the front door for anything. I’d get through with my work in the evening, and wait until the master and mistress would be asleep; then I’d steal through the rooms, open the window in his little den, and then go back to my place again. He’d take his boots off in the street, crawl through the window in only his stocking-feet, and never a squeak or a creak out of him. The next day he’d get up like he’d never been any place, and in some spot where we couldn’t be seen he’d shove what was coming to me into my hand. It wasn’t none of my worry, and I’d take it right gladly! If he was to break his neck, that would be his lookout.... And then I started in having an income from the younger, from Nicanor Matveich.

I was after what I wanted day and night, you might say. Once I took into my head that one idea, to absolutely provide for myself and to marry a decent party, I had taken a fresh hold on life. I used to save every little copper, now; money, you know, has little wings, once you let it out of your hands!

I got rid of this here Vera,--but she, to tell the truth, was there really without need; I just put it that way to the master and mistress: “I can get along all by my own self,” I says; “you just add any trifle you like to my wage, and you’ll do better nor now.” So, then, I was left alone and managing everything myself. I wouldn’t even take the wages in my hands,--soon as twenty or twenty-five roubles would gather, I’d beg the mistress to go to the bank and put it away in my name. Clothes, and shoes, and everything else went with the place,--what was I to spend money for? The only expenses I had was to put up a little stone at my husband’s grave,--I paid two roubles seventy, so’s people wouldn’t talk. And right here, the Lord forgive us,--such was my luck and his misfortune,--this poor wretch had to go and fall in love with me....

Of course, now I often think: maybe it was on account of him that God punished me through my son. Sometimes I can’t get it out of my head,--I’ll tell you right away what he went and done to himself. And besides, just consider that it really was very hard,--I used to look at this big-headed fellow, and what a vexation would take hold on me! “May this and that befall you,” I’d think, “you was born, with a silver spoon in your mouth! Even though you be a cripple, yet how rich you live.... Whereas mine is all sound, and yet he don’t eat or drink as much on a holiday as you do on a week-day, just so.” Then I started in to notice,--it looked like he’d fallen in love with me; well, now, he just wouldn’t take his eyes off my face. By that time he was already sixteen, and had taken to wearing wide trousers, and to belting his blouse; a red-haired moustache started cropping out. But he was homely, tow-haired, green-eyed--God deliver me! His face was broad, but he himself was as thin as a bone. At first, evidently, he got it into his head that he could be pleasing,--he began to dress up, to buy polly-seeds, and used to play on his accordeon so fine that you could listen to him for hours. He played well, to tell the truth. When he seen that his affair weren’t coming along, he grew quiet and thoughtful-like. Once I was standing in the balcony, and I see him crawling through the yard with a new German accordeon. He had shaved and combed himself once more; had put on a three-buttoned blouse with a high collar, fastening at the side; his head was thrown back,--looking for me, that is. He looked and he looked; his eyes became longing-like and dim, and then he began a polka:

“Let us go, let us go,
I would dance a polka through;
Dancing makes one braver; so
I can speak my love for you....”

But, like as if I hadn’t noticed him, I took and threw down a slop-bowl, with water! I threw it down, and then was scared myself. But he crawls, he struggles up the stairs, drying himself with one hand and dragging the accordeon by the other. His eyes were lowered, and he was all white, and he spoke meek-like, all aquiver:

“May your hands wither. What you’ve done is a sin, Nastiya.”

And that was all.... True, he was a peaceful one.

He was losing flesh at that time, not by the day but by the hour; and the doctor had already said that he wasn’t long for this world, that he was bound to die from a consumption. It made me shudder even as much as to touch him. But then a poor person ain’t got no call to be particular,--money can do anything, and so he started in to bribe me. Just as soon as everybody used to fall asleep, right off he’d call me to him,--either into the garden or into his room. (He lived apart from everybody, living downstairs; his room was large, warm, and yet bleak; all the windows looked out into the yard, the ceiling was low, the wall paper was old and brown.)

“You just sit with me a while,” he says, “and I’ll give you some money for that. I don’t want anything from you,--I have simply fallen in love with you, and want to be with you; these walls have near drove me crazy.”

Well, I’d take the money and sit for a while, and I got together about half a hundred in that way. And then I had about four hundred of wages and interest laid by. So, thinks I to myself, it’s about time now for me to be crawling out of the harness, bit by bit. But, to tell the honest truth, it was a pity to do so,--I wanted to bide my time for another year or so, to save up a little more. But the main thing was,--he had let it slip once when he was talking with me,--he had a little toy saving bank that he was keeping most secret,--he had gotten over two hundred roubles in trifling sums from his mother. Naturally, with him lying sick, always abed, and all alone, his mother would thrust the money upon him to cheer him up. But no matter how I tried not to, I still would think once in a while: “The Lord forgive my transgression, but it would be best if he gave that money to me! It’s of no use to him, anyway; he’s like to die at any moment; whereas I’d be well-fixed for all time with it.” I just waited to see how this business might be worked, as cleverly as possible. I became more kind to him, of course; began to sit with him more often. I used to come into his room, and then look over my shoulder on purpose, as though I had come in by stealth. I’d close the door and begin speaking in a low whisper:

“There now,” I’d say, “I’ve got away; let’s sit together like a lovin’ couple.”

Making believe, that is, like I had a meeting arranged with him, but that I was losing my courage, and yet at the same time was glad that I had got through with my work and could now be with him. Then I began to put on a weary air, to pretend I was in deep thought. And he was always trying to get the reason out of me:

“Nast, why have you grown so sad?”

“Oh, just so! I’ve got more than my share of trouble!”

And then I’d top that with a sigh, become quiet, and lean my cheek on my hand.

“But just what,” he’d say, “is the matter?”

“Well,” I says, “poor folks got a lot of things the matter with them, but who ever worries about them? I wouldn’t even want to bore you with them.”

Well, he guessed what was what pretty soon. He was clever, like I said,--he’d be a match even for a healthy person. One day I came into his room,--it was, as I remember even now, in mid-Lent; the weather was sort of gloomy, wet, with a fog outside; everybody in the house was sleeping after dinner. I come into his room with some needle-work in my hands,--I was sewing something or other for myself; I sat down near his bed and was just wanting to heave a sigh, and again make believe I was aweary, and then start leading him on to my idea easy-like, when he starts in talking about it himself. I can see him right now, lying in his pink blouse,--brand new, never yet washed; in blue wide trousers; in new small boots with patent-leather tops; his legs laid one acrost the other, and him looking out of the corner of his eye. His sleeves was wide, the trousers wider still, and his little legs and arms like match-sticks; his head was heavy, big, and he were all little himself,--it even made a body unwell to see him. To look at him, he seemed a boy, yet his face was that of an old man, although it was somehow youngish at the same time,--that was on account of him being clean-shaved,--and he had a thick moustache. (Come to think of it, he shaved himself every day, that’s how fast his beard would grow; his hands looked like they was covered with tow, and the hair upon them was all red, too.) Well, as I was saying, he’s lying there, his hair parted on one side, his face turned toward the wall; he was picking at the wall-paper, and all of a sudden he says;

“Nast!”

I even shuddered all over.

“What is it, Nicanor Matveich?”

And meanwhile my own heart rolled up to my mouth.

“Do you know where my toy bank is lying?”

“No,” I says, “how should I know that, Nicanor Matveich? I never had no evil designs in my mind upon you.”

“Get up; draw out the bottom drawer in the wardrobe; take out the old accordeon,--that’s where the toy bank is. Let me have it here.”

“But what do you want it for?”

“Just so,--I want to count the money.”

I got at the drawer, opened the cover of the accordeon,--and there, stuffed into the bellows, was a tin elephant,--feeling pretty heavy. I take it out and hand it to him. He takes it, rattles it, lays it by him,--just like a baby, he was, honest to God,--and goes off into thought about something. He keeps silent, and he keeps silent; then he smiles, and says:

“To-day, Nast, I had a fine dream. I even woke up before daybreak on account of it, and it has made me feel very good all day, up to dinner. Just look,--I have even shaved myself, and have got all dressed up for you.”

“But then, Nicanor Matveich, you always go about neat-dressed, anyway.”

And I don’t understand myself what I’m saying, I’m that excited.

“Well,” says he, “I guess I will be able to go about in the other world. You can’t even imagine what a good-looking fellow I’m going to be in the other world!”

I even got to feeling sorry for him.

“It’s a sin to make fun of such things, Nicanor Matveich, and I can’t even understand why you say such things. Perhaps,” I says, “God will send you health yet. You’d do better to tell me what your dream was.”

He started in beating about the bush again; started in to smile wryly,--“What good am I alive!” he says. Then he began, without rhyme or reason, to talk about a cow we had:

“For God’s sake,” says he, “tell mother to sell it; I can’t stand it no more, that’s how tired I am of it; I lie here in bed and look at the little barn where she’s kept, and she always looks back at me through the bars,”--and all the while he’s rattling the money, and keeps from looking me in the eyes. And I listen, and also can’t understand half of what he’s saying,--just like two persons out of their minds, we was, saying anything that came into our heads. Finally I couldn’t stand it no more; for, thinks I, everybody will wake up at any second, and they’ll be calling for a samovar, and then the whole business falls through! And so I interrupt him as soon as I can, going in for cunning:

“But no,” I says, “you’d better tell me what dream you saw.... _Was it anything about us two?_”

Of course, I wanted to say something that would please him, and I struck it so right that he even changed colour entirely, and cast his eyes down. All of a sudden he takes the toy bank, gets a little key out of his trousers’-pocket, and wants to open it,--and can’t, nohow; just, can’t get at the key-hole, his hands are trembling so. At last he does manage to open it and pours out all it held onto his belly,--I remember it all like it was now: there was two paper bills and eight gold pieces; he scoops it all into his hand, and suddenly says in a whisper:

“Could you kiss me just once?”

My hands and feet just got numb from fright. But he’s carrying on like he was going out of his mind, whispering, stretching upward to me:

“Nastechka, just once! God is my witness I will never say another word, never ask again!”

I looked over my shoulder,--well, thinks I, I might just as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb,--and I kissed him. So he was all just gasping; he grabbed me around the neck, caught my lips, and I guess he didn’t let me go for a whole minute. Then he shoves all the money into my hand,--and turns his face to the wall.

“Go,” he says.

I ran out and went straight into my room. I put the money away under lock and key, grabbed hold of a lemon, and started in to rub my lips. I rubbed them so hard that they simply turned all white. I was awful afraid, to tell the truth, that I might get a consumption from him....

Well and good,--this business, then, turned out all right, glory be to God; so I begin to lay my plans for the next move, of more importance,--the one which I had the most struggles about. I felt that there was trouble brewing; I was afraid he wouldn’t let me leave my place. “He’ll start in,” thinks I, “to pester me with his love, will want to become my husband on account of this money.” But no; nothing happens, I see. He don’t try to annoy me; he treats me rightly, the same like before, as though nothing had taken place between us,--even more modestly, it looks like,--and he don’t call me into his room: that meant he was keeping his word. Then I bring the talk around to my going away, putting it up to my master and mistress: it’s time for me to see about my son a little, now; to be free for a little while. They won’t even hear of it. And as for him, you can understand how he felt, without my saying a word about it. I hinted about my going away to him at one time,--so he just got all white. He turns his face to the wall, and says with a sort of a bitter little smile:

“You have no right to do it,” he says. “You have led me on, have got me used to you. You must wait,--I will die soon. But if you go away now, I will strangle myself.”

A fine modest fellow he turned out to be, didn’t he? “Ah,” thinks I, “damn your shameless eyes! Here I have forced myself to do like you wanted, but you take to threatening me! Oh, no, you haven’t come across one of that sort in me!” And I started looking for an excuse harder than ever. About that time, most luckily, the mistress gave birth to another girl, and a wet-nurse was hired for her; so I picked on that, saying that I couldn’t get along with her. She was, to tell the truth, a wicked, daft old woman; even the mistress herself was afraid of her. And she used to drink, on top of that,--there was always a demijohn on duty under her bed,--and she couldn’t bear anybody to be near her. So she began saying things about me, making trouble in all sorts of ways. Either I hadn’t pressed the linen right, or else I didn’t know how to wait at table at all.... But, if you was just to say one word to her, she’d get all in a trembling passion and run off to complain. She’d sob out loud, and, of course, not so much because she had been offended, but just dissembling. The further it went, the worse it got, so I up and says to the master and mistress:

“So and so,” I says, “let me go; I can’t bear to live on account of that old woman; I will lay hands on myself.”