XV
Doútlof went homeward, still moving his lips. At first he had an uncanny feeling, but it passed as he drew nearer home, and joy gradually penetrated his heart. In the village he heard songs and drunken voices. Doútlof never drank, and this time too he went straight home.
It was late when he entered his hut. His old woman was asleep. His eldest son and his grandchildren were sleeping on the top of the brick oven, and the younger one in a little room outside. Elijah’s wife alone was awake, and sat on the bench, bareheaded, in a dirty, everyday smock, wailing. She did not go out to meet her uncle, but, when he entered, sobbed louder, lamenting her fate. According to the old woman, she “lamented” very fluently and well, taking into consideration the fact that at her age she could not have had much practice.
The old woman rose and got her husband’s supper ready. Doútlof turned Elijah’s wife away from the table, saying: “That’s enough—that’s enough!”
Aksínya went away, and, lying down on a bench, continued to lament. The old woman put the supper on the table, and afterwards silently cleared it away again. The old man did not speak either. When he had said grace, he hiccuped, washed his hands, took the counting-frame from a nail in the wall, and went into the little room outside. There he and his old woman spoke in whispers for a little while; and then, after she had gone away, he began counting on the frame, making the beads click. At last he banged the lid of the chest standing there, and went down into the cellar under the room. For a long time he went on bustling about between the room and the cellar.
When he reentered, it was dark in the hut. The wooden splint that served for a candle had gone out. His old woman, quiet and silent in the daytime, had rolled herself up on the sleeping-bunk, and filled the hut with her snoring. Elijah’s noisy wife was also asleep, breathing quietly. She lay on the bench, dressed just as she had been, and with nothing under her head to serve as a pillow. Doútlof began to pray, then looked at Elijah’s wife, shook his head, put out the light, hiccuped again, and climbed up on to the oven, where he lay down beside his little grandson. He threw his plaited bark shoes down from the oven in the dark and lay on his back, looking up at the rafter—hardly discernible above the oven-top just over his head—and listening to the sounds of the cockroaches crawling along the walls, of sighs, snoring, rubbing of foot against foot, and the noise made by the cattle outside. It was a long time before he could sleep. The moon rose. It grew lighter in the hut. He could see Aksínya in her corner, and something he could not make out: was it a coat his son had forgotten, or a tub the women had put there, or someone standing?
Perhaps he was drowsing, perhaps not; anyhow, he began to peer into the darkness. Evidently that evil spirit which had led Polikéy to commit his awful deed, and whose nearness was felt that night by all the domestic serfs, had stretched out his wing and reached across the village to the house in which lay the money that he had used to ruin Polikéy. At least, Doútlof felt his presence, and was ill at ease. He could neither sleep nor get up. After noticing the something he could not make out, he remembered Elijah, with his hands bound, and Akshaya’s face and her rhythmical lamentations; and he recalled Polikéy, with his swinging hands.
Suddenly it seemed to the old man that someone passed by the window. “Who was that? Could it be the village Elder coming so early to call a Meeting?” thought he. “How did he open the door?” thought the old man, hearing a step in the passage. “Had the old woman forgotten to draw the bolt when she went out into the passage?” The dog began to howl in the yard, and he came stepping along the passage—so the old man related afterwards—as if he were trying to find the door, then passed on, and began groping along the wall, stumbled over a tub and made it clatter, and again began groping, as if feeling for the latch. Now he pulled the handle and entered, in the shape of a man. Doútlof knew it was he. He wished to cross himself, but could not. He approached the table, which was covered with a cloth, and, pulling off the cloth, threw it on the floor, and began climbing on to the oven. The old man knew that he had taken the shape of Polikéy. He was showing his teeth, and his hands were swinging about. He climbed up, tumbled on to the old man’s chest, and began to strangle him.
“The money’s mine!” muttered Polikéy.
“Let go! Never again!” Semyón tried to say, but could not.
Polikéy was pressing down on him with the weight of a mountain. Doútlof knew that if he said a prayer he would leave him alone, and knew which prayer he ought to say, but could not get it out.
His grandson, sleeping beside him, uttered a shrill scream, and began to cry. His grandfather had pressed him against the wall. The child’s cry loosened the old man’s lips.
“May the Lord arise! …” he said.
He pressed less hard.
“… and burst asunder …” spluttered Doútlof. He got off the oven. Doútlof heard him strike the floor with both feet. Doútlof went on repeating in turn all the prayers he knew. He went towards the door, passed the table, and banged the door so that the whole hut shook. However, everybody but the grandfather and grandson continued to sleep. The grandfather, trembling all over, muttered prayers, while the grandson was crying himself to sleep and clinging to his grandfather. All became quiet once more. The old man lay still. A cock crowed behind the wall close to Doútlof’s ear. He heard the hens stirring, and a cockerel unsuccessfully trying to crow in answer to the old cock. Something moved over the old man’s legs. It was the cat; she jumped from the oven on to the floor with her soft paws, and stood mewing by the door. The old man rose and opened the window. It was dark and muddy in the street. Crossing himself, he went out barefoot into the yard to the horses. One could see that he had been there too. The mare standing under the shed beside a tub of chaff had got her foot into the cord of her halter, had spilt the chaff, and now, holding up her foot, turned her head and waited for her master. Her foal had tumbled behind a heap of manure. The old man raised it to its feet, disentangled the mare’s foot and fed her, and went back to the hut. The old woman got up and lit the splint.
“Wake the lads! I’m going to town!” And, taking a wax taper from the icon, Doútlof lit it and went down with it into the cellar. Not only in his hut, but in all the neighbouring houses the lights were burning when he came up again. The young fellows were up and preparing to start. The women were coming and going with pails of milk. Ignát was harnessing the horse to one cart, and the second son was greasing the wheels of another. The young wife was no longer sobbing. She had made herself neat, and had bound a shawl over her head, and now sat waiting till it would be time to go to town to say goodbye to her husband.
The old man appeared particularly stern. He did not say a word to anyone, put on his best coat, tied his girdle round him, and with all Polikéy’s money in the bosom of his coat, went to Egór Miháylovitch.
“Mind you don’t dawdle,” he called to his son, who was turning the wheels on the raised and newly greased axle. “I’ll be back in a minute; see that everything is ready.”
The steward had only just got up, and was drinking tea. He, too, was preparing to go to town, to hand over the recruits.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Egór Miháylovitch, I want to buy the lad off. Do be so good! You said t’other day that you knew one in the town that was willing … Explain it to me, how to do it; we are ignorant people.”
“Why, have you reconsidered it?”
“I have, Egór Miháylovitch. I’m so sorry … a brother’s child, after all, whatever he may be. … I’m sorry for him! … It’s the cause of much sin, money is. Do be so good and explain it to me!” he said, bowing low.
Egór Miháylovitch, as was his wont on such occasions, stood for a long time thoughtfully smacking his lips; and, having considered the matter, wrote two notes, and explained what was to be done in town, and how to do it.
When Doútlof got home, the young wife had already set off with Ignát. The fat grey mare stood ready harnessed in the gateway. Doútlof broke a twig out of the hedge, and, lapping his coat over, got into the cart and whipped up the horse. He made the mare run so fast that her fat sides gradually shrank, and Doútlof did not look at her, so as not to awaken any feeling of pity in himself. He was tormented by the thought that he might come too late for the recruiting, that Elijah would go as a soldier, and the devil’s money would remain on his hands.
I will not describe all Doútlof’s proceedings that morning. I will only say that he was specially lucky. The man to whom Egór Miháylovitch had given him a note had a volunteer quite ready, who had already spent twenty-three roubles, and had already been passed by the Court. His master wanted four hundred roubles for him, and a buyer in the town had for the last three weeks been offering him three hundred. Doútlof settled the matter in a couple of words.
“Will you take three and a quarter hundred?” he said, holding out his hand, but with a look that showed that he was prepared to give more. The master held back his hand, and went on asking four hundred.
“You won’t take a quarter?” Doútlof said, catching hold with his left hand of the man’s right, and preparing to smack it with his own right hand. “You won’t take it? Well, Heaven help you!” he said suddenly, smacking the master’s hand with the full swing of his other arm, and turning away with his whole body.
“Evidently it must come to that … take three and a half hundred! Get the receipt ready, and bring the fellow along. And now, here are two ten-rouble notes on account. Is it enough?”
And Doútlof unfastened his girdle and got out the money.
The master, though he did not draw away his hand, yet did not seem quite to agree, and, not accepting the deposit money, went on stipulating that Doútlof should wet the bargain and stand treat to the volunteer.
“Don’t you commit a sin,” Doútlof kept repeating, as he held out the money. “We shall all have to die some day,” he went on, in such a gentle, persuasive and assured tone that the master said:
“Well, all right!”
Doútlof smacked his hand again, and began praying for God’s blessing. They woke up the volunteer, who was still sleeping after yesterday’s carouse, thought fit to examine him, and went with him to the offices of the Administration.
The volunteer was merry. He demanded rum to get screwed on, for which Doútlof gave him some money, and only when they came into the vestibule did he become abashed. For a long time they stood in the anteroom, the old master in his full blue cloak, and the volunteer in a short fur coat, his eyebrows raised and his eyes staring. For a long time they whispered, asked to be allowed to go somewhere or other, looked for somebody or other, and for some reason took off their caps and bowed to every scrivener they met, and meditatively listened to the decisions read out by a scrivener whom the master knew. All hope of getting the business done that day began to vanish, and the volunteer was growing more cheerful and unconstrained again, when Doútlof saw Egór Miháylovitch, seized on him at once, and began to beg and bow to him.
Egór Miháylovitch helped him so efficiently that by about three o’clock, to his great dissatisfaction and surprise, the volunteer was taken into the hall and placed for examination, and amid general merriment (in which for some reason everybody joined, from the watchmen to the President), he was undressed, dressed again, shaved, and let out at the door; and five minutes later Doútlof counted out the money, received the receipt, and, having taken leave of the volunteer and his master, went to the lodging-house where the Pokróvsk recruits were staying.
Elijah and his young wife were sitting in a corner of the kitchen; and as soon as the old man came in they stopped talking, and looked at him with a resigned expression, but not with goodwill. As was his wont, the old man said a prayer; and he then unfastened his girdle, got out a paper, and called into the room his eldest son Ignát and Elijah’s mother, who was in the yard.
“Don’t go sinning, Elijah,” he said, coming up to his nephew. “The other day you said a word to me. … Don’t I care about you? I remember how my brother left you to me. If it were in my power, would I have let you go? God has sent me luck, and I am not grudging it you. … Here it is, the paper”; and he put the receipt on the table, and carefully smoothed it out with his stiff, crooked fingers.
All the Pokróvsk peasants, the innkeeper’s men, and even some outsiders, came in from the yard. All guessed what was happening, and no one interrupted the old man’s solemn speech.
“Here it is, the paper! I’ve given four hundred roubles for it. Don’t reproach your uncle.”
Elijah rose, but remained silent, not knowing what to say. His lips quivered with emotion. His old mother came up, and was about to throw herself, sobbing, on his neck; but the old man motioned her away slowly and authoritatively, and continued to speak.
“You said a word to me yesterday,” the old man again repeated. “You stabbed me to the heart with that word, as with a knife! Your dying father left you to me, and you have been as my own son to me, and if I have offended you in any way—well, we all live in sin! Is it not so, Orthodox Christians?” he said, turning to the peasants who stood round. “Here is your own mother and your young missis … and here is the receipt. … Never mind the money, and forgive me, for Christ’s sake!”
And, turning up the skirts of his coat, he slowly sank on his knees and bowed down before Elijah and his wife. The young people tried in vain to stop him, but not till his forehead had touched the ground did he get up. Then, after giving his skirts a shake, he sat down.
Elijah’s mother and wife sobbed with joy, and words of approbation were heard among the crowd. “That’s according to truth, that’s the godly way,” said one. “What’s money? You can’t buy a fellow for money,” said another. “What joy!” said a third; “in a word, he’s a just man!” Only the recruits said nothing, and went softly out into the yard.
Two hours later Doútlof’s two carts were passing out of the suburb of the town. In the first, to which was harnessed the grey mare, her sides fallen in and her neck moist with sweat, sat the old man and Ignát. Behind them jerked a couple of bundles, containing a small cauldron and a string of ring-shaped cakes. In the second cart, in which nobody held the reins, the young wife and her mother-in-law, with shawls over their heads, were sitting, dignified and happy. The former held a bottle of vodka under her apron. Elijah, very red in the face, sat all in a heap with his back to the horse, jolting on the front of the cart, biting into a cake and talking incessantly. The voices, the rumbling of the cartwheels on the stony road, and the snorting of the horses blent into one merry sound. The horses, swishing their tails, increased their speed more and more, feeling themselves on the homeward road. The passersby involuntarily turned round to look at the happy family party.
At the very outskirts of the town, the Doútlofs began to overtake a party of recruits. A group of them were standing in a circle outside a public-house. One of the recruits, with that unnatural expression on his face which comes of having the front of the head shaved, his grey cap pushed back, was vigorously strumming on a balalaika; another, bareheaded and with a bottle of vodka in his hand, was dancing inside the circle. Ignát got down to tighten the traces. All the Doútlofs looked with curiosity, approval, and merriment at the dancer. The recruit seemed not to see anyone, but felt that the numbers of the admiring public had increased, and this added to his strength and agility. He danced briskly. His brows were frowning, his ruddy face was set, and his lips were fixed in a grin that had long since lost all meaning. It seemed as if all the strength of his soul was concentrated on placing one foot as quickly as possible after the other, now on the heel, now on the toe. Sometimes he stopped suddenly and winked to the player, who began playing still more briskly, strumming on all the strings, and even knocking the case with his knuckles. The recruit would stop, but even when he stood motionless he still seemed to be dancing. Then he began slowly jerking his shoulders, and suddenly twirling round leaped in the air, and descending crouched down, throwing out first one leg and then the other. The little boys laughed, the women shook their heads, the men smiled approvingly. An old sergeant stood quietly by, with a look that seemed to say: “You think it wonderful, but we have long been familiar with it.” The balalaika-player appeared tired; he looked lazily round, struck a false chord, and suddenly knocked on the case with his knuckles, and the dance came to an end.
“Eh, Alyósha,” he said to the dancer, pointing at Doútlof, “there’s your godfather!”
“Where? You, my dearest friend!” shouted Alyósha, the very recruit whom Doútlof had bought; and staggering forward on his weary legs and holding the bottle of vodka above his head, he moved towards the cart.
“Míshka, a glass!” he cried to the player. “Master … you’re my dearest friend. What a pleasure, really!” he shouted, drooping his tipsy head over the cart, and he began to treat the men and women to vodka. The men drank, but the women refused.
“My own friends, what could I present you with?” exclaimed Alyósha, embracing the old woman.
A woman selling eatables was standing among the crowd. Alyósha noticed her, seized her tray, and poured its contents into the cart.
“I’ll pay, no fear, you devil!” he howled tearfully, pulling a purse from his pocket and throwing it to Míshka. He stood leaning with his elbows on the cart, and looking with moist eyes at those who sat inside.
“Which is the mother … you?” he asked. “I’ll make an offering to you too.”
He stood thinking for a moment, then he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a new folded handkerchief, hurriedly took off a towel which was tied round his waist under his coat, and also a red scarf he was wearing round his neck; and, crumpling them all together, shoved them into the old woman’s lap.
“There! I’m sacrificing them to you,” he said in a voice that was growing softer and softer.
“What for? … Thank you, sonny! Just see what a simple lad it is!” said the old woman, addressing Doútlof, who had come up to their cart.
Alyósha was quite quiet, quite stupefied, and looked as if he were falling asleep. He drooped his head lower and lower.
“It’s for you I am going, for you I am perishing …” he muttered; “that’s why I am giving you presents.”
“I dare say he, too, has a mother,” said someone in the crowd. “What a simple fellow! It’s awful!”
Alyósha lifted his head. “I have a mother,” said he; “I have a father. All have given me up. … Listen to me, you old one,” he went on, taking the old woman’s hand. “I have offered you gifts. … Listen to me for Christ’s sake! Go to the village of Vódnoye, ask for the old woman Níkonovna—the same is my own mother, see? Say to this same old woman, this Níkonovna, the third hut from the end, by a new well … Tell her that Alyósha—your son, you see. … Eh! you musician! strike up!” he shouted.
And, muttering something, he immediately began dancing again, and hurled the bottle with the remaining vodka to the ground.
Ignát got into the cart, and was about to start.
“Goodbye! May God give you …” said the old woman, wrapping her cloak closer round her.
Alyósha suddenly stopped.
“Drive to the devil!” he shouted, clenching his fists. “May your mother! …”
“O Lord!” said Elijah’s mother, crossing herself.
Ignát touched the reins, and the carts rattled on again. Alyósha the recruit stood in the middle of the road with clenched fists and with a look of rage on his face, and abused the peasants with all his might.
“What are you stopping for? Go on, devil! cannibal!” he cried. “You’ll not escape my hand! … Devil’s clodhoppers!”
At these words his voice broke off, and he fell full length to the ground, just where he stood.
Soon the Doútlofs had driven out into the fields, and, looking round, could no longer see the crowd of recruits. Having gone some four miles at a walking pace, Ignát got off his father’s cart, where the old man lay asleep, and walked beside Elijah.
Together they emptied the bottle they had brought from town. After a while Elijah began a song, the women joined in, and Ignát shouted merrily in tune with the song. A mail-cart drove gaily towards them and passed by at full speed. The driver called lustily to his horses as he came by the merry carts; and the postman turned round and winked at the red-faced men and women who sat jolting inside.