Part 10

“I sized you up at once ... I’ve got enough money of my own, brother; you’re no mate for me.... I go through my money in cold blood ... I drink it away ... I drink away a horse a year, and send a good ram up in smoke.... Aha! So you’ve run up against a bit of a _moujik_,--do you understand who I am? But still, I feel sorry for you. I understand! There’s thousands of the likes of you roaming about in springtime.... There’s mire, and sloughs, and never a path or a road,--but you’ve got to keep on going, bowing before everybody.... And you can’t never tell whether they’ll give you anything or no.... Eh, brother! Don’t I understand you?” asked the _moujik_ with bitter sorrow, and his eyes filled with tears.

“No, this time of the year is not so bad, it’s all right,” said the beggar quietly. “You walk along a field, over a big, abandoned tract that had once been planned for a road.... All alone, with never another soul nigh.... Then, too, there’s the dear sun, and the warm weather.... True, there’s many a thousand of the likes of me roaming about. Half of Russia is roaming so.”

“I’ve drunk away two horses,” said the _moujik_, raking the crusts out of the bag, pulling out a waist-coat, the calico, the trousers, and a bast shoe. “I’m goin’ to go all through all your miserable pickings, and old rags.... Hold on! Pants! I must buy them from you, soon as I come into a little money.... How much?”

The beggar thought for a while.

“Why, I’d let it go for two....”

“I’ll give you three!” said the _moujik_, getting up, placing the trousers under him, and sitting down upon them. “They’re mine! But where’s the other shoe? It will pass for new,--that means you must have stolen it, for sure. But then, it’s better to be thieving, than to be grieving your heart out in the springtime, the way I am a-doing now; to be perishing from hunger, to be coming to the end of your rope,--when you take the very least of the shepherds, and you’ll find him at work.... I have drunk a horse away,--but a beastie like that is worth more nor any man.... But am I no ploughman, no reaper? ... And now you sing a stave, or I’ll kill you right off!” he cried out. “I feel weary in your company!”

In a quavering, modest, but a practiced voice the beggar began to sing out of the obscurity:

“Once upon a time there lived and were two brethren-- Two blood-brethren, two brethren in God and Christ....”

“Eh, two brethren in God and Christ!” the _moujik_ chimed in, in a high-pitched and piteous tone, straining his voice.

The beggar, with even churchly chanting, continued:

“One dwelt in cold and poverty, Rotting in his leprosy....”

“And the o-other was rich!” out of tune, drowning out the beggar, with tears in his voice, the _moujik_ caught up the song. “Put more heart in it!” he cried out, as his voice broke. “Grief has swallowed me up; all men are having a holiday, all men are sowing,--but here I be, biting the earth; it’s the second spring that my mother earth has been barren.... Let me have your cup, or I’ll kill you right off! Open the window for me!”

And again the beggar submissively gave him his cup. Then he started to open the window. Being new, it had swollen and would not yield for a long while. Finally it did yield, and flew open. A fresh, pleasant odour of the fields floated in. It was completely dark out there now, the roseate night glow had become extinguished, barely shimmering over the soft darkness of the quiet, joyous, fecundated field. One could hear the half-drowsy sky-larks finishing their very last songs.

“Sing, Lazarus,--sing, my own brother!” said the _moujik_, extending a full cup to the beggar. “We’re two of a kind, you and me.... Only what are you alongside of me? A vagabone! Whereas I am a working man, that gives food and drink to all those that suffer....”

He sat down suddenly, losing his balance, and again dug into the bag.

“And what might you have here?” he asked, examining the calico, which had turned the faintest pink in the barely perceptible light of the evening glow.

“Oh, that’s just so.... Some women gave it to me,” said the beggar quietly, feeling everything floating before him from tipsiness, and that it was time to be going, and that it was necessary to extricate the trousers from underneath the _moujik_ somehow.

“How can that be! You lie!” cried out the _moujik_, banging the table with his fist. “It’s a shroud,--I can see! It’s a grave-shroud!” he cried out with tears in his voice, and was silent for a while, hearkening to the abating songs of the sky-larks. Then he shoved the bag away from him, and, shaking his tousled head, began to cry: “I have risen in my pride against God!” said he bitterly, weeping.

And then, straining himself, he began to sing loudly, keeping good time:

“Oh my mother gave me birth and she guarded me, Though I now a sinner be, unforgivable! All the torments have I borne, All the sorrows have I borne,-- Nowheres found I joy for me. Oh, my mother spoke to me And she cautioned me; If she only knew, if she only saw, She could never bear Such calamity....”

“Oh, my soul is a sinner and a creeping thing!” he cried out wildly, weeping, and suddenly started clapping his palms with an elderitch laughter: “Beggar-man, give me your money! I know you through and through; I feel you through and through,--give it to me! I know you have it! It can’t be otherwise,--give it to me for love of the Lord God Himself!”

And, swaying, he arose, and the beggar, who had also arisen, felt his legs giving away from fear, felt a dull ache start in his thighs. The tear-stained face of the _moujik_, barely discernible in the twilight, was insane.

“Give it to me!” he repeated, in a voice suddenly grown hoarse. “Give it to me, for the Love of the Queen of Heaven! I can see, I can see,--you’re grabbing at your bosom, at your undershirt; that means you’ve got it,--all your kind has! Give it to me,--it ain’t of no use to you, anyway, whereas it will set me on my feet forever! Give it to me of your own will,--brother, don’t lead me into sin!”

“Can’t do it,” said the beggar, quietly and dispassionately.

“What?”

“Can’t do it. I’ve been saving for twenty years. Can’t bring myself to do it.”

“You ain’t goin’ to give it to me?” asked the _moujik_ hoarsely.

“No ...” said the beggar, barely audible but unshaken.

The _moujik_ was silent for a long while. The beating of their hearts could be heard in the darkness.

“Very well,” said the _moujik_, with an insane submissiveness. “I will kill you; I’ll go and find me a stone and then kill you.”

And, swaying, he went toward the threshold.

The beggar, standing erect in the darkness, made a sweeping and slow sign of the cross. As for the _moujik_, he, with his head lowered like a bull, was already walking about under the windows.

Then there came a crunching sound,--evidently he was pulling a stone out of the foundation.

And a minute later the door slammed again,--and the beggar drew himself up still more.

“For the last time I’m a-telling you ...” the _moujik_ mumbled out with his cracked lips, walking up to him with a big white stone in his hands. “Brother....”

The beggar was silent. His fate could not be seen. Swinging back with his left arm and catching the beggar by his neck, the _moujik_ struck hard his shrinking face with the chill stone. The beggar tore away, backward, and, as he fell, catching the table with his bast-shoe, he struck the back of his head against a stool, and then against the floor. And falling upon him, the _moujik_, squeezing the breath out of his chest, frenziedly began to batter in his throat with the stone.

Ten minutes later he was already far out in the dark, even field. There were many stars out; the air was fresh; the earth gave forth a metallic odour. Completely sobered up, he was walking so rapidly and lightly that he seemed capable of covering a hundred versts more. The amulet, torn off the beggar’s crucifix, he was holding tightly clenched in his hand. Later, he flung it from him into a dark, freshly ploughed field. His eyes were staring fixedly like an owl’s; his teeth were tightly clenched, like a lobster’s claws. Although he had looked for his cap for a long while, he had been unable to find it in the darkness; the chillness beat upon his bared head. His head seemed to him to be of stone.

_1914._

THE SACRIFICE

Simon Novicov, who was living in Oats Ford with his brother Nicon,--Nicon of the withered arm,--was burned out in midsummer, about the fast of St. Peter. The brothers decided to divide their property, and Simon, intending to leave the Ford, was putting up a hut for himself near the great highway.

On the evening before Elijah’s Day the carpenters had asked for leave to go home. After supping with the large family of his brother, in the midst of flies and the clamour of children, he lit his pipe, put on his short sheepskin coat, and said to his folks:

“It’s stuffy in here. I’m going to the building,--I’ll sleep the night there. I’m afraid the tools might be stole.”

“You ought to take the dogs with you, at least,” one of the women counselled him.

“Get along with ye!” said Simon, and went out.

There was a full moon out that night. What with his thoughts of his future household, Simon did not even notice how he had climbed up hill by the broad path to the pasture lands that led out of the village, and, after putting about a verst behind him on the big road, had come right up to his hut, which had a ceiling but was, as yet, unroofed. It stood at the edge of the fields of grain, in the midst of an empty field. Its sashless windows gaped blackly, and it was dully glistening against the light of the moon with the ends of its new corner-beams, with the tow sticking out of its joints, and the sticks and shavings about its threshold. The aureate July moon, which had risen far beyond the ravines of the Ford, hung low and was turbid. Its warm glow was diffused over everything. The ripe grain glimmered whitely ahead,--dully, sombrely, like stretches of sand. But toward the north the sky was altogether overcast,--a cloud was gathering there. A soft breeze, blowing from all sides, would at times gather strength and run fitfully over the rye and oats,--and they would rustle crisply, disquietingly. The cloud toward the north appeared immovable, but it was frequently shot with an eerie, fleeting, golden sheen.

Simon, stooping at the threshold through habit, entered the hut. It was dark and stuffy within it. The yellow moonlight, looking in at the unglazed windows, did not blend with the darkness, but only intensified it. Simon threw down his short sheepskin coat upon the shavings in the middle of the hut, directly in the path of one of the rows of light, and lay down on his back. After drawing at his extinguished pipe for a space, he put it in his pocket, and, after thinking for a little while longer, fell asleep.

But now the wind began blowing in at the windows, and, by way of the entry, through the door. The thunder began muttering dully in the distance. Simon sat up. The wind increased--it was now running over the feverishly murmuring grain without cease, and the light of the moon had become still dimmer. Simon walked out of the hut, and, turning the corner, was among the crisp and sultry swishing of the oats, which were as pallid as a shroud. He glanced at the cloud,--the colour of dark slate, it had taken up half the heavens. The wind was blowing straight in his face, tugging at his hair and tangling it, interfering with his vision. The flashes of lightning, too, interfered with his vision and blinded it, as they flared up, more and more ominous and fiery. Simon, making the sign of the cross, got down on his knees: in the distance, in the midst of the sea of oats, standing out against the bank of the cloud, a small throng was advancing toward him. Their heads were bared; in white girdles, in new short sheepskin coats, they were with difficulty bearing a seven-foot altar-piece, painted by some ancient master. The throng was mistily-spectral, but the image was very plain,--an awesome, severe countenance, showing red upon a black panel, which was burnt by candles, dripped over by wax, and bound at the edges by old, blue-coloured silver.

The wind had parted the hair upon Simon’s brow, pleasantly blowing it back, and Simon, in fear and joy, bowed down to the ground before the image. When he finally did raise his head, he saw that the crowd had halted, awkwardly supporting the image, which was majestically leaning backward; while upon the cloud was limned, as in a church picture, a towering, enormous visage: the mighty, hoary-bearded Elijah himself, clad in chitons of fire, and sitting, like God-Sabbaoth, upon the lifelessly-blueish tiers of the lower clouds, while two greenish-orange rainbows were flaming above him, against the slate-coloured background. And, flashing his lightning-like orbs, blending his voice with the distant rumble of the thunder, Elijah spake to Simon:

“Stand up straight, Simon Novicov. Hearken, ye princes and peasants! I am about to judge him, Simon Novicov,--a peasant tenant of the Eletz province, of the Predtechev District, of the little village of Oats Ford.”

And the entire field, glimmering as white as sand all around, with all its ears of grain together with the tares darted forward, bowing down before Elijah, and amidst their murmur Elijah began to speak:

“I was wroth with thee, Simon Novicov,--I wanted to punish thee.”

“Wherefore, Father?” questioned Simon.

“It is no fitting thing for thee, Simon Novicov, to be questioning me, Elijah. Thou art the one to make answer.”

“Well, forgive me; let it be as thou dost will,” said Simon.

“Summer before last I did kill Pantelei, thy eldest son, with a stroke of lightning; wherefore didst thou bury him in the ground up to his waist, bringing him back to life through black magic?”

“Forgive me, Father,” said Simon, bowing, “I felt sorry for the young lad. Judge for thyself,--why, he would be the one to give me food and drink in my old age.”

“Last summer I did mow, I did trample down thy rye with hail and with whirl-winds: why didst thou get knowledge of it beforehand, and sell this rye while it yet stood uncut?”

“Forgive me, Father,” said Simon, bowing. “My heart felt a forewarning; need did force me to it.”

“Well, was it not I that burned thee out but just now, at St. Peter’s fast? Wherefore dost thou hasten to build anew, to divide thy goods with thy brother?”

“Forgive me, Father,” said Simon, bowing. “My brother of the withered hand is unlucky; I thought all the misfortunes were coming from him.”

“Shut thy eyes. We shall ponder, we shall take counsel, as to thy punishment.”

Simon shut his eyes; he bowed down his head. The wind was noisy,--under cover of its noise he was trying to eavesdrop, on the sly, what Elijah and the peasants were whispering together about. But there came a heavy peal of thunder near at hand,--not a thing could he hear.

“No, we can’t think of anything,” said Elijah with all his voice. “Thou thyself must counsel me.”

“And may I open my eyes?” asked Simon.

“There is no need of that. A blind man thinks all the surer.”

“Thou art a queer fellow, Father,” Simon smiled thoughtfully. “Well, what is there to think about? I shall place a three-rouble candle before thee....”

“Thou hast not the wherewithal. Thou hast spent everything on building.”

“Well, in that case I shall go on a pilgrimage to Kiev, or to Belgorod,” said Simon, irresolutely.

“That’s just loafing, and a waste of shoe-leather. Who’s going to take care of the household?”

Simon went into deep thought.

“Well, then, slay my little girl Anphiska. She’s just going on three. The girl, to tell the truth, is a kind-hearted, endearing little creature,--we will all feel sorry for her; but then, there’s no help for it.... One can’t get everything with just a little!”

“Lend ear, ye faithful,” said Elijah loudly. “I agree.”

And the cloud was rent by such a flame that Simon’s lids almost caught fire, and the heavens were split by such a peal that all the earth quivered beneath him.

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God-Sabbaoth!” whispered Simon. “Heaven defend us!”

When he came to, opening his eyes, Simon beheld only the dust-laden cloud, the deserted, agitated grain, and himself, standing on his knees in the midst of its ears. The wind was whirling in a pillar over the road, and the moon had grown entirely dimmed.

Simon jumped up on his feet. Forgetting all about his short coat, about the axes and the planes, he started off for home, for the village, braving the whirl-winds. The heavy rain caught him out on the common. The dark clouds had piled up above the darkened ravines. The red moon was sinking beyond them. The village was in heavy slumber, but the cattle in the yards were stirring uneasily, the roosters were crowing in alarm. And, running up to his old, half-burned-down hut, Simon heard the wailing of women within. Nicon of the withered arm was standing at the threshold, in his sheepskin coat and without a hat; scrawny and wrinkled beyond his years, he was looking about dully and confusedly.

“There’s been a calamity at your house,” he said, and one could tell by his voice that he was not yet thoroughly awake.

Simon ran into the hut. The women-folk were running about in the darkness, screaming, looking for the sulphur matches. Simon snatched a small box of them out from behind the image, and lit a tallow-wick. The cradle, which was hung near the oven, was swinging from side to side,--the women had been striking against it when they were running about. And within it lay the little girl, dead. She had turned all livid, and a quilt work cap was smouldering on her head.

Simon has been living happily, ever since.

_1913._

AGLAIA

In that community, in that forest village where Aglaia was born and had grown up, she was called Anna.

She was bereaved of her father and mother at an early age. The small-pox visited the village one winter, and many of those who had gone to their rest were carted off then to the churchyard in the settlement beyond Sviyat-Oziero.[3] Two coffins in one day stood in the hut of the Skuratovs as well. The little girl had experienced neither fear nor pity; she had only come to remember forever that odour which emanated from them, which is like nothing else on earth and is unknown and oppressive to the living, and that winter freshness, that cold of the Lenten thaw before Easter, which had been let into the hut by the peasants who were carrying the coffins out to the wide sledge standing under the windows.

[3] Holy Lake. _Trans._

In that forest-covered region the villages are few and small; their crude, log-enclosed yards are scattered without any order, just as the clayey hummocks permit and as near as possible to the little rivers, to the lakes. The folk thereabouts are not so very poor and watch after their goods, their ancient way of living,--notwithstanding the fact that they have been going out to hire since time out of mind, leaving the women to plough the stepmotherly earth, where it is free of the forest; to mow the grasses in the forest; and in winter to whirr at the weaving loom. Toward that way of living did Anna’s heart incline in her childhood; endeared to her were both the black hut and the burning rush light in its cresset.

Katherine, her sister, had long been married. She it was who managed the house,--at first together with her husband, who had been taken into the household; and later, when he began going away for a whole year at a time, all by herself. Under her eyes the girl grew, steadily and rapidly; never did she cry, never did she complain of aught; only she had constant fits of pensiveness. If Katherine called to her, asking what the matter with her was, she would answer simply, saying that her neck was creaking, and that she was listening to it. “There,” she would say, turning her neck, and her fair little face, “do you hear it?” “And what are you thinking of?” “Oh, just so. I don’t know.” During her childhood she never had anything to do with girls of her own age, and never did she go anywheres,--only once had she gone with her sister to that old settlement beyond Sviyat-Oziero, where in the churchyard, under pine trees, crosses of pine wood stick up out of the ground, and where stands a little church of logs, roofed with blackened tiles of wood that look like scales. That was the first time that she had been dressed up in bast slippers and a _sarafan_ of bright coloured linen, and that a necklace and a yellow kerchief had been bought for her.

Katherine grieved about her husband and wept; wept, too, about her childlessness. But, having shed all her tears, she gave a vow to have no more knowledge of her husband. When her husband would come, she would meet him joyously, speaking with him cheerily, painstakingly looked over his shirts, mending all that stood in need of mending; she bustled about the oven, and was pleased when he liked anything; but they slept apart, like strangers. And when he would go away, she would again become wearied and quiet. More and more frequently did she leave the house, staying at a near-by nunnery, visiting the holy old man Rodion, who was striving for his soul in a hut within a forest that was beyond that nunnery. She was perseveringly learning to read, bringing saintly books from the nunnery, and would read them aloud; not in her usual voice, but pitching it in high sing-song. She would be sitting at a table, her eyes cast-down, holding the book with both hands, while the girl stood near by, listening and picking a splinter from the table, looking all about the hut, which was always in the best of order. Drinking in the sounds of her own voice, Katherine read on of saints, of martyrs, who had contemned the dark things of our earth for things heavenly, desirous of crucifying their flesh with its lusts and its passions. Anna listened attentively to the reading, as to a chant in an unknown tongue. But as soon as Katherine would shut the book, she would never ask her to read some more: the book was always beyond her understanding.