CHAPTER III

It was the end of November. As far as eye could see the ground was covered with a white shroud. A blizzard reigned in the night outdoors; the biting wind drove the snow, piled up huge snow-drifts in an instant, lashed the snow higher and higher, covering every object and filling the air with a wailing. The village, the church, the nearby woods, all vanished in the whirling snowy mist. The wind howled in the trees of the ancient Golovliovo orchard. But inside the landlord's manor it was warm and cozy. In the dining-room there was a samovar on the table. Around it were Arina Petrovna, Porfiry Vladimirych, and Yevpraksia. To one side stood a card-table with tattered cards on it. The open door from the dining-room led on one side to the ikon room, all flooded with light from the ikon lamps, on the other, to the master's study, where an ikon lamp was also burning before an image. The rooms were overheated and stuffy, the odor of olive oil and of the charcoal burning in the samovar filled the air. Yevpraksia, seated in front of the samovar, was engaged in rinsing the cups and drying them with a dish towel. The samovar made spirited music, now humming aloud with all its might, now falling into a doze, as it were, and snoring. Clouds of steam escaped from under the cover and wrapped the tea-pot in a mist. The three at the table were conversing.

"Well, how many times were you the 'fool' to-day?" Arina Petrovna asked Yevpraksia.

"I shouldn't have been fool once if I hadn't given in. I wanted to please you, you see," answered Yevpraksia.

"Fiddlesticks! I remember how pleased you were last time when I bombarded you with threes and fives. You see, I am not Porfiry Vladimirych. He makes it easy for you, hands only one at a time, but I, my dear, have no reason to."

"Yes, indeed! You were playing foul!"

"Well, I say! I never do such things."

"No? Who was it I caught a little while ago? Who wanted to slip through a seven of clubs and an eight of hearts and call them a pair? Well, I saw it myself and I myself showed you up!" While talking Yevpraksia rose to remove the tea-pot from the samovar and turned her back to Arina Petrovna.

"My, what a back you have! God bless you!" Arina Petrovna exclaimed, in involuntary admiration.

"Yes, a wonderful back," Yudushka repeated mechanically.

"My back again! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? What has my back done to you?" Yevpraksia turned her back first to the right, then to the left, and smiled. Her back was her joy. A few days before even the cook Savelich, an old man, had looked at her admiringly and said: "Well, well, what a back! Just like a hearth-plate!" She did not, be it noticed, complain to Porfiry Vladimirych about the cook's remark.

The cups were filled with tea over and over again, and the samovar grew silent. Meanwhile the snowstorm became fiercer and fiercer. A veritable cataract of snow struck the windowpanes every now and then, and wild sobs ran at intervals down the chimney flue.

"The storm seems to be in real earnest," said Arina Petrovna. "Listen to it howling and whining."

"Oh, well, let it whine. The blizzard keeps on whining and we keep on drinking tea. That's how it is, mother dear," replied Porfiry Vladimirych.

"It must be a terrible thing for one to be out in the fields now."

"Yes, it may be terrible to some, but what do we care? Some feel cold and dreary, but we are bright and cheery. We sit here and sip our tea, with sugar, and cream, and lemon. And should we want tea with rum, we can have it with rum."

"Yes, but suppose----"

"Just a moment, mother dear. I say, it is very bad in the open now. There is no road or path. Everything is wiped out. And then--wolves! But here we are warm and cozy, afraid of nothing. We just keep sitting here, quietly and peacefully. If we want to play a little game of cards, we play cards; if we want to have some hot tea, well, then we have tea. We won't drink more than we want to, but we may drink to our heart's content. And why all this? Because, mother dear, God's mercy is with us. Were it not for Him, the King of Kings, maybe we, too, would now be wandering in the fields, in the cold and the darkness, in a shabby little coat, a flimsy little girdle, bast shoes."

"Oh, come now, what do you mean--bast shoes? We are gentlefolk, surely. In any circumstances we can afford decent footwear."

"Do you know why we were born in the gentry, mother dear? All because God's mercy was with us. Were it not for that we would now be in a hut and it would be lighted not by a candle but by a _luchina_ and as to tea or coffee, we wouldn't dare dream about them. I would be patching my miserable little bast shoes, and you would be getting ready to sup off thin cabbage soup, and Yevpraksia would be weaving tick, and on top of it all, maybe the _desyatsky_ would come to press us and the wagon into service."

"Yes, catch the _desyatsky_ coming on a night like this!"

"Who knows, mother dear? And maybe the regiments would come! Maybe there would be war or mutiny. The regiments must be there on the dot. The other day, for instance, the chief of police was telling me Napoleon III. had died. So you may be sure the French will be up to some mischief again. Naturally, our soldiers will have to make for the front at once, and you, friend peasant, will have to get your wagon out, quick! Never mind cold, blizzard, and snowdrifts. You go if the authorities tell you to, and if you know what is good for you. But we, don't you see, will be spared a while. They won't turn us out with the wagon."

"Yes, who dares deny it? The mercy the Lord has shown us is great."

"That's just what I say. God, mother dear, is everything. He gives us wood to burn and food to eat. It's all His doing. We think we buy things ourselves, and pay our own hard cash, but when you look into it more deeply, and reckon it up, and figure it out, it's all He, it's all God. If it be His will, we'll have nothing. Here, for instance, I would like to have some fine little oranges, I would have some myself, would offer one to my mother dear, would give an orange to everyone. I have the money to buy oranges. Suppose I produce some coin and say, 'Here, let me have some oranges,' but God says, 'Halt, man!' Then here I am, a philosopher without cucumbers."

They laughed.

"That's all talk," said Yevpraksia. "My uncle was sexton at the Uspenye Church in Pesochnoye. You may be sure he was as pious a man as ever was. So I think God ought to have done something for him. But he was caught in a snowstorm out in the fields and froze to death all the same."

"That's just my point. If such is God's will, you will freeze to death, and if such is not His will, you will remain alive. There are prayers that please God and there are prayers that do not please Him. If a prayer pleases God it will reach Him, if it does not, you may as well not pray at all."

"I remember in 1824 I was travelling and was pregnant with Pavel. It was in the month of December, and I was going to Moscow----"

"Just a moment, mother dear. Let me finish about the prayers. A man prays for everything, for he needs everything. He needs some butter and some cabbage, and some gherkins, well, in a word, he needs everything. Sometimes he doesn't need the thing, but in his human weakness he prays for it all the same. But God from above sees better. You pray for butter, and he gives you cabbage or onions. You are after fair and warm weather and he sends you rain and hail. What you have to do is to understand it all and not complain. Last September, for example, we prayed God for frost, so that the winter corn might not rot, but God, you see, sent no frosts, and our winter corn rotted away."

"It certainly did rot away," remarked Arina Petrovna commiseratingly. "The peasants' winter fields at Novinky weren't worth a straw. They'll have to plow them all over and plant spring corn."

"That's just it. Here we are planning and philosophizing, and figuring it one way, and trying it another way, but God in a trice reduces all our plots and plans to dust. You, mother dear, wanted to tell us something that happened to you in 1824?"

"What was it? I really don't remember. I suppose I wanted to tell you again about God's mercy. I don't remember, my friend, I don't."

"Well, you'll recall it some other time, if God is willing. And while the blizzard is whirling out there you'd better have some jam, my dear. This is cherry jam from the Golovliovo orchard. Yevpraksia herself put it up."

"I am already helping myself to some. I must admit cherry jam is a rare thing with me now. Years ago I used to indulge every now and then, but now----! Your Golovliovo cherries are fine, so large and juicy. No matter how hard I tried to grow them at Dubrovino, they wouldn't come. Did you add some French brandy to the jam, Yevpraksia?"

"Of course I did. Followed your directions. Another thing I meant to ask you, how do you pickle cucumbers, do you use cardamoms?"

Arina Petrovna thought a bit, then made a gesture of perplexity.

"I don't remember, my dear. I think I used to put cardamoms in. Now I don't. My pickling now is not much. But I used to put cardamoms in, yes, I remember very well now. When I get home I'll look among the recipes, maybe I'll find it. When I had my strength I used to make a note of everything. If I liked something somewhere, I would ask how it was made, write it on a piece of paper, and then try it at home. I once learned a secret, such a secret that the man who knew it was offered a thousand rubles to tell. He wouldn't do it. And I gave the housekeeper a quarter, and she told me every bit of it."

"Yes, mother dear, in your day you certainly were a wizard."

"Well, I don't know if I was a wizard, but I can thank the Lord, I didn't squander my fortune. I kept adding to it. Even now I taste of my righteous labors. It was I who planted the cherry trees in Golovliovo."

"Thanks for it, mother dear, many thanks. Eternal thanks from me and my descendants. That's what I say."

Yudushka rose, went to mother dear and kissed her hand.

"And thanks to you, too, that you take your mother's welfare to heart. Yes, your provisions are fine, very fine."

"Well, how do my provisions compare? You used to have provisions--perfectly stunning! My, what cellars! And not an empty spot!"

"Yes, I used to have provisions, I may as well be frank about it. Mine was a well-stocked house. And as to the many cellars I had, well, the household was much larger, ten times as many mouths as you have to-day. Take the domestics alone. Everyone had to be fed and provided for. Gherkins for one, cider for another, little by little, bit by bit, and it mounts up."

"Yes, those were good times. Plenty of everything. Grain and fruit, all in abundance."

"We used to save more manure, that is why."

"No, mother dear, that is not the reason. It was God's blessing, that's what it was. I remember father once brought an apple from the orchard, and it surprised everybody, it was too big to be put on a plate."

"Well, I don't remember that. I know generally that apples used to be fine, but that they were the size of a plate, that I don't remember. I do remember though, that we caught a carp in the Dubrovino pond weighing twenty pounds, yes, I remember that."

"Carps and fruit--everything was large then. I remember the watermelons the gardener Ivan used to get. They were as big as this!"

Yudushka stretched out his arms in a circle, pretending he could not embrace the imaginary watermelon.

"Yes, those were watermelons. Watermelons, my friend, are according to the year. One year you get lots of them and they are good. Another year they are poor and few. And some years you don't get any at all. Well, it depends upon the lucky ground, too. On the estate of Grigory Aleksandrovich, for example, nothing came up, no fruit and no berries--nothing. Only melons. Nothing but melons used to come up."

"Then he had God's blessing for melons."

"Why, yes, certainly. You can't get along without God's mercy. You can't run away from it either."

Arina Petrovna finished her second cup and cast glances at the card table. Yevpraksia, too, was burning with impatience to have a hand at cards. But the plans were thwarted by Arina Petrovna herself. She suddenly recollected something.

"I have a bit of news for you," she declared. "I received a letter from the orphans yesterday."

"And you kept it to yourself all this time, and only just thought of it? I suppose they are hard up. Do they ask for money?"

"No, they do not. Here, read it. You'll like it."

Arina Petrovna produced a letter from her pocket and gave it to Yudushka, who read aloud:

/# "Please, grandma, don't send us any more turkeys or hens. Don't send us money, either, but invest the money. We are not at Moscow but at Kharkov. We've gone on the stage, and in summer we are going to travel to the fairs. I, Anninka, made my début in _Pericola,_ and Lubinka in _Pansies_. I was called out several times, especially after the scene where Pericola comes out and sings 'I am ready, ready, read-d-d-y!' Lubinka made a hit, too. The director put me on a salary of one hundred rubles a month and a benefit performance at Kharkov; and Lubinka, at seventy-five a month and a benefit the coming summer, at a fair. Besides, we get gifts from army officers and lawyers. The lawyers sometimes, though, give you counterfeit money, and you have to be careful. And you, dear granny, can have Pogorelka all to yourself, we will never come there again, we don't understand how people can live there. We had the first snow here yesterday, and we had troika rides with the lawyers. One looks like Plevako--my! just stunning! He put a glass of champagne on his head and danced a trepak. It's jolly, beats anything I've seen! The other one isn't so handsome, he looks a little like Yazikov from St. Petersburg. Just think, after he read "The Collection of the Best Russian Songs and Romances," his imagination became unstrung and he got so weak that he fainted in the court-room. And so we spend almost every day in the company of army officers and lawyers. We go on rides and dine and sup in the best restaurants, and pay nothing. And you, granny dear, don't be stingy and use up everything growing in Pogorelka, corn, chickens, mushrooms. We shall be very glad to send some money. Good-by. Our gentlemen have just arrived. They have come to take us driving again. Darling! Divine! Farewell!

/$ ANNINKA. And I, too--LUBINKA." $/

#/

Yudushka spat in disgust and returned the letter. For a while Arina Petrovna was pensive and silent.

"Mother dear, you haven't answered them yet?"

"No, not yet. I just got the letter yesterday. I came here on purpose to show it to you, but between this and that I almost forgot all about it."

"Don't answer it. It's best not to."

"How can I? I must account to them. Pogorelka is theirs, you know."

Yudushka also became pensive. A sinister plan flashed through his mind.

"And I keep wondering how they will preserve themselves in that foul den," Arina Petrovna continued. "You know how it is in these things--once you stumble, you can't get your maiden honor back! Go hunt for it!"

"Much they need it!" Yudushka snarled back.

"Still, you know. Honor is a girl's best treasure, one may say. Who will marry a girl without it?"

"Nowadays, mother dear, unmarried people live like married ones. Nowadays they laugh at the precepts of religion. They get married without benefit of clergy, like heathens. They call it civil marriage."

Yudushka suddenly recollected that he, too, was living in sinful relationship with a daughter of the clergy.

"Of course, sometimes you can't help it," he hastened to add. "If a man, let us say, is in full vigor and a widower--in an emergency the law itself is often modified."

"Yes, of course. When hard pressed a snipe sings like a nightingale. Even saints sin when sorely tried, let alone us mortals."

"Yes, that's just it. Do you know what I would do if I were you?"

"Yes, tell me, please tell me."

"I would insist that they make Pogorelka over to you in full legal fashion."

Arina Petrovna looked at him in fright.

"Well, I have a deed giving me the full powers and rights of a manager."

"Manager is not enough. You ought to get a deed that would entitle you to sell and mortgage it, in a word, to dispose of the property as you see fit."

Arina Petrovna lowered her eyes and remained silent.

"Of course, it is a matter that requires deliberation. Think it over, mother dear," Yudushka insisted.

But Arina Petrovna said nothing. Though age had considerably dulled her powers of judgment, she was somehow uneasy about Yudushka's insinuations. She was afraid of Yudushka, and loath to part with the warmth, spaciousness, and abundance that reigned at Golovliovo, but at the same time she felt that Yudushka had something up his sleeve when he spoke of the Pogorelka deed, and was casting a new snare. The situation grew so embarrassing that she began to scold herself inwardly for having shown him the letter. Happily Yevpraksia came to the rescue.

"Well, are we going to play cards or not?" she asked.

"Yes, come on, come on!" Arina Petrovna hurried them and jumped up quickly. On her way to the card table a new thought dawned upon her.

"Do you know what day it is?" she turned to Porfiry Vladimirych.

"The twenty-third of November," Yudushka replied, somewhat nonplussed.

"Yes, the twenty-third. Do you remember what happened on the twenty-third of November? You have forgotten about the requiem, haven't you?"

Porfiry Vladimirych turned pale and made the sign of the cross.

"Oh, Lord! Did you ever!" he exclaimed. "Really? Is that so? Just a moment. Let's look at the calendar."

In a few minutes he had brought the calendar and taken out a sheet of paper inserted in it, on which was written.

"November 23. The death of my dear son Vladimir."

"Rest in peace, beloved dust, till the joyous morn. And pray the Lord for your father, who will never fail to have memorial services performed on this day."

"There, now!" said Porfiry Vladimirych. "Ah, Volodya! You are not a good son. You are a wicked son. You haven't prayed for your papa in Heaven, it seems, and so he has lost his memory. What are we going to do about it, mother dear?"

"It is not so terrible, after all. You can have the requiem service tomorrow. A requiem and a mass--we'll have both of them sung. It is all my fault, I am old and have lost my memory. I came on purpose to remind you, but on my way it slipped my mind."

"Ah, what a sin! It is a good thing the ikon lamps are burning. It is as if it had dawned on me from above. To-day is not a holiday, but the lamps have been left burning ever since the day of Presentation. The other day Yevpraksia came over to me and asked: 'Do you think I ought to put out the side ikon lamps?' And I, as if a voice were speaking to me from within, thought a while and said: 'Don't touch them. Let them burn.' And now I see what it all meant."

"Well, it is good at least the lamps have been burning. It is some relief to the soul. Where will you sit? Will you be my partner, or will you join your queen?"

"But, mother dear, I don't know if it's proper."

"Yes, it is. Sit down. God will forgive you. It wasn't done on purpose, with evil intentions. It was just because you forgot. It may happen even to saints. To-morrow, you see, we'll rise with the sun, and stand throughout the mass and have the requiem sung--all as it should be. His soul will rejoice that good people remembered him, and we will be at peace because we did our duty. That's the way to do, my friend. No use worrying. I'll always say, in the first place, worry will not bring back your son, and, in the second place, it is a sin before God."

Yudushka yielded to the persuasiveness of these words, and kissed his mother's hands.

"Ah, mother, mother, you have a golden soul, really! If not for you what would I do now? It would be the end of me, that's all. I just wouldn't know what to do and would go under."

Porfiry Vladimirych gave orders for to-morrow's ceremony, and all sat down to play. They played one hand out, then another. Arina Petrovna became heated and denounced Yudushka because he had been handing Yevpraksia only one card at a time. In the intervals between the deals, Yudushka abandoned himself to reminiscences of his dead son.

"And how kind he was," he said. "He wouldn't take a thing without permission. If he needed paper, 'May I have some paper, papa?' 'Yes, you may, my friend,' Or, 'Won't you be so kind, father dear, as to order carps for breakfast?' 'If you wish it, my friend.' Ah, Volodya, my son, you were a good lad in every way, but it was not good of you to leave your father."

A few more hands were played, and Yudushka again gave vent to his reminiscences.

"And, pray, what in the world happened to him? I really can't understand it. He lived quietly and nicely, was a joy to me--it couldn't have been better. And all of a sudden--bang! What a sin, what a sin! Just think of it, mother dear, what a deed! His very life, the gift of the Heavenly Father. Why? What for? What did he lack? Was it money? I think I never held back his allowance. Even my enemies will not dare say that about me. Well, and if his allowance was not enough, I couldn't help it. Your father's money wasn't stolen money. If you haven't enough money, well, learn to restrain yourself. You can't always be eating cookies, you must sometimes be content with simpler fare. Yes, you must. Your father, for example, expected some money the other day, and then the manager comes and says, 'The Torpenlovskoye peasants won't pay their rent.' Well, I couldn't help it, I wrote a complaint to the Justice of the Peace. Ah, Volodya, Volodya! No, you were not a good boy. You deserted your poor father. Left him an orphan."

The livelier the game the more copious and sentimental Yudushka's reminiscences.

"And how bright he was! I remember once, he was laid up with the measles. He was no more than seven years old. My late Sasha came over to him, and he says, 'Mother, mother, is it true that only angels have wings?' 'Well,' she said, 'yes, only angels.' 'Why?' he asked. 'Did father have wings when he came here a while ago?'"

Yudushka remained the fool with as many as eight cards on his hands, among them the ace, king and queen of trumps. Peals of laughter rose, Yudushka was displeased, but he affably joined in the merriment. In the midst of the general excitement, Arina Petrovna suddenly grew silent and listened attentively.

"Stop, be quiet. Somebody is coming," she said.

Yudushka and Yevpraksia listened, but heard no sound.

"I tell you, somebody is coming. Listen, listen! Someone is coming and he is not far off."

They listened again, and surely there was a faint tinkling in the distance, which the wind brought nearer one moment and carried away the next. Five minutes later the bells were distinctly heard. The sound of them was followed by voices in the court-yard.

"The young master, Piotr Porfirych, has arrived," came from the antechamber.

Yudushka rose, and remained standing, dumfounded and pale as death.