III
At first the two men drove on in silence. The road through the village was so uneven that although they moved slowly the cart was thrown from side to side, while the priest kept sliding off his seat, settling himself again and wrapping his cloak round him.
It was only after they had left the village behind, and crossed over the trench into the meadow that the priest spoke.
“Is your wife very bad?” he asked.
“We don’t expect her to live,” answered the peasant reluctantly.
“It is in God’s, not man’s hands. It is God’s will,” said the priest. “There is nothing for it but to submit.”
The peasant raised his head and glanced at the priest’s face. Apparently he was on the point of making an angry rejoinder, but the kind look which met his eyes disarmed him—so shaking his head he only said: “It may be God’s will, but it is very hard on me. Father. I am alone. What will become of my little ones?”
“Don’t be fainthearted—God will protect them.” The peasant did not reply, but swearing at the mare, who had changed from a trot into a slow walk, he pulled the rope reins sharply.
They entered a forest where the tracks were all equally bad, and drove along in silence for some time, trying to pick out the best of them. It was only after they had passed through the forest, and were on the high road which led through fields bright with springing shoots of the autumn-sown corn, that the priest spoke again.
“There is promise of a good crop,” he said.
“Not bad,” answered the peasant, and was silent. All further attempts at conversation on the part of the priest were in vain.
They reached the patient’s house about breakfast-time.
The woman, who was still alive, had ceased to suffer, but lay on her bed too weak to move, her expressive eyes alone showing that life was not yet extinct. She gazed at the priest with a look of entreaty, and kept her eyes fixed on him alone. An old woman stood near her, and the children were up on the stove. The eldest girl, a child of ten, dressed in a loose shirt, was standing, as if she were grown up, at a table near the bed, and resting her chin on her right hand, and supporting the right arm with her left, silently stared at her mother. The priest went to the bedside and administered the sacrament, and turning towards the icon, began to pray. The old woman drew near to the dying woman, and looking at her shook her head and then covered her face with a piece of linen; after which she approached the priest, and put a coin into his hand. He knew it was a five kopeck piece, and accepted it. At that moment the husband came into the hut.
“Is she dead?” he asked.
“She is dying,” said the old woman.
On hearing this the girl burst into tears, muttering something. The three children on the stove began to howl in chorus.
The peasant crossed himself, and going up to his wife, uncovered her face and looked at her. The white face was calm and still. He stood over the dead woman for a few minutes, then tenderly covered the face again, and crossing himself several times, tamed to the priest and said—
“Shall we start?”
“Yes, we had better go.”
“All right. I’ll just water the mare.” And he left the hut.
The old woman began a wailing chant about the orphans left motherless, with no one to feed or clothe them, comparing them to young birds who have fallen from their nest. At every verse of her chant she breathed heavily, and was more and more carried away by her own wailing. The priest listened, and became sad and sorry for the children and wanted to help them. He felt for his purse in the pocket of his cassock, remembering that he had a half-rouble coin in it, which he had received from the landowner at whose house he had said vespers the evening before. He had not found time to hand it over to his wife, as he always did with his money; and, regardless of the consequences, he took out the coin, and showing it to the old woman, put it on the windowsill.
The peasant came in without his coat on and said that he had asked a friend to drive the priest back, as he had to go himself to fetch some boards for the coffin.