VIII
About midnight the tradesman’s men and Polikéy were wakened by a knocking at the gate and the shouting of peasants. It was the party of recruits from Pokróvsk. There were about ten of them: Harúshkin, Mitúshkin, and Elijah (Doútlof’s nephew), two reserve recruits, the village Elder, old Doútlof, and the men who had driven them. A night-light was burning in the room, and the cook was sleeping on a bench under the icons. She jumped up and began lighting a candle. Polikéy awoke also, and, leaning over from the top of the oven, looked at the peasants as they came in. They came in crossing themselves, and sat down on the benches round the room. They all seemed perfectly calm, so that one could not tell which of them were being enlisted and who had them in charge. They were saying “How d’you do?” talking loudly, and asking for food. It is true that some were silent and sad; but, on the other hand, others were unusually merry, evidently drunk. Among these was Elijah, who had never had too much to drink before.
“Well, lads, shall we go to sleep, or have some supper?” asked the Elder.
“Supper!” said Elijah, throwing open his coat, and settling himself on a bench. “Send for vodka.”
“Enough of your vodka!” answered the Elder shortly, and turning to the others he said:
“You just cut yourselves a bit of bread, lads! Why wake people up?”
“Give me vodka!” Elijah repeated, without looking at anybody. “I tell you, give me some!” Then, noticing Polikéy: “Polikéy! Hi, Polikéy! You here, dear friend? Why, I am going for a soldier. … Have taken final leave of mother, of my missus. … How she howled! They’ve bundled me off for a soldier. … Stand me some vodka!”
“I’ve no money,” answered Polikéy, and to comfort him, added: “Who knows? By God’s help you may be rejected! …”
“No, friend. I’m as sound as a young birch. I’ve never had an illness. There’s no rejecting for me! What better soldier can the Tsar want?”
Polikéy began telling him how a peasant gave the doctor a five-rouble note and got rejected.
Elijah drew nearer the oven, and started talking.
“No, Polikéy, it’s all up now! I don’t wish to stay myself. Uncle has done for me. As if we could not have bought a substitute! … No, he pities his son, and grudges the money, so they send me. No! I don’t want to stay myself.” He spoke gently, confidingly, under the influence of quiet sorrow. “One thing only—I am sorry for mother, dear heart! … How she grieved! And the missus, too! … They’ve ruined the woman just for nothing; now she’ll perish—in a word, she’ll be a soldier’s wife! Better not have married. Why did they marry me? … They’ll come here tomorrow.”
“But why have they brought you so soon?” asked Polikéy; “nothing was heard about it, and then, all of a sudden …”
“Why, they’re afraid I shall do myself some injury,” answered Elijah, smiling. “No fear! I’ll do nothing of the kind. I shall not be lost even as a soldier; only I’m sorry for mother. … Why did they marry me?” he said gently and sadly.
The door opened and banged loudly as old Doútlof came in, shaking the wet off his cap, and, as usual, in bark shoes so big that they looked like boats.
“Athanasius,” he said to the porter, when he had crossed himself, “isn’t there a lantern, to get some oats by?”
Doútlof, without looking at Elijah, began slowly lighting a bit of candle. His gloves and whip were stuck into the girdle tied neatly round his coat, and his toil-worn face appeared as ordinary, simple, quiet, and full of business cares as if he had just arrived with a train of loaded carts.
Elijah became silent when he saw his uncle, and looked dismally down at the bench again. Then, addressing the Elder, he muttered:
“Vodka, Ermíl! I want some drink!” His voice sounded vindictive and dejected.
“Drink, at this time?” answered the Elder, who was eating something out of a bowl. “Don’t you see the others have had a bite and gone to lie down? Why do you kick up a row?”
The word “row” evidently suggested to Elijah the idea of violence.
“Elder, I’ll do some mischief if you don’t give me vodka!”
“Couldn’t you bring him to reason?” the Elder said, turning to Doútlof, who had lit the lantern and stopped, apparently to see what would happen, and was looking pityingly at his nephew out of the corners of his eyes, as if surprised at his childishness.
Elijah, taken aback, again muttered:
“Vodka! Give … do mischief!”
“Leave off, Elijah!” said the Elder gently. “Really, now, leave off! You’d better!”
But before the words were out, Elijah had jumped up and hit a windowpane with his fist, and shouting at the top of his voice: “You won’t hear me! So there you are!” rushed to the other window to break that also.
Polikéy, in the twinkling of an eye, rolled twice over and hid in the farthest corner of the top of the oven, so quickly that he scared all the cockroaches there. The Elder threw down his spoon and rushed toward Elijah. Doútlof untied his girdle, and shaking his head and making a clicking noise with his tongue, approached Elijah, who was already struggling with the Elder and the porter, who were keeping him away from the window. They had caught his arms and seemed to be holding him fast; but as soon as he saw his uncle and the girdle, his strength increased tenfold and he tore himself away, and with rolling eyes and clenched fists stepped up to Doútlof.
“I’ll kill you! Keep away, barbarian! … You have ruined me, you and your brigands of sons, you’ve ruined me! … Why did they marry me? … Keep away! I’ll kill you! …”
Elijah was terrible. His face was purple, his eyes rolled, the whole of his young, healthy body trembled as in a fever. He seemed to wish and to be able to kill all the three men who were facing him.
“You’re drinking your brother’s blood, you bloodsucker!”
Something flashed across Doútlof’s ever-placid face. He took a step forward.
“You won’t take it peaceably!” said he suddenly. The wonder was, where he got the energy; for with a quick motion he caught hold of his nephew, fell to the ground with him, and, with the aid of the Elder, began binding his hands with the girdle. They struggled for about five minutes. At last, with the help of the peasants, Doútlof rose, pulling his coat out of Elijah’s clutch. Then he raised Elijah, whose hands were bound behind his back, and made him sit down in a corner on a bench.
“I told you it would be the worse for you,” he said, still out of breath with the struggle, and pulling straight the narrow girdle tied over his shirt.
“What’s the use of sinning? We shall all have to die! … Fold a coat for a pillow,” he said, turning to the porter, “or the blood will get to his head.” And he tied the cord round his waist over his sheepskin, and taking up the lantern, went to see after the horses.
Elijah, pale, dishevelled, his shirt pulled out of place, was gazing round the room as if he were trying to remember where he was. The porter picked up the broken bits of glass, and stuck a coat into the hole in the window to keep out the draught. The Elder again sat down to his bowl.
“Ah, Elijah, Elijah! I’m sorry for you, really! What’s to be done? There’s Harúshkin … he, too, is married. Seems it can’t be helped!”
“It’s all on account of that fiend, my uncle, that I’m being ruined!” Elijah repeated, dryly and bitterly. “He is chary of his own! … Mother says the steward told him to buy a substitute. He won’t; he says he can’t afford it. As if what my brother and I have brought into his house were a trifle! … He is a fiend!”
Doútlof returned, said his prayers in front of the icons, took off his outdoor things, and sat down beside the Elder. The cook brought more kvass and another spoon. Elijah was quiet, and closing his eyes lay down on the folded coat. The Elder, shaking his head silently, pointed to him. Doútlof waved his hand.
“As if one was not sorry! … My own brother’s son! … One is not only sorry, but it seems they also make me out a villain towards him. … Whether it’s his wife … she’s a cunning little woman though she’s so young … that has put it into his head that we could afford to buy a substitute! … Anyhow, he’s reproaching me. But one does pity the lad! …”
“Ah! he’s a fine lad,” said the Elder.
“But I’m at the end of my tether with him! Tomorrow I shall let Ignát come, and his wife wanted to come too.”
“All right—let them come,” said the Elder, rising and climbing on to the oven. “What is money? Money is dross!”
“If one had the money, who would grudge it?” muttered one of the tradesman’s men, lifting his head.
“Ah, money, money! It’s the cause of much sin,” replied Doútlof. “Nothing in the world is the cause of so much sin, and the Scriptures say so too.”
“Everything is said there,” the porter agreed. “There was a man told me how a merchant had stored up a heap of money and did not wish to leave any behind; he loved it so that he took it with him to the grave. As he was dying he asked to have a small pillow buried with him. No one suspected anything, and so it was done. Then the sons began to search for the money. Nothing was to be found. At last one of the sons guessed that probably the notes were all in the pillow. It went as far as the Tsar, and he allowed the grave to be opened. And what do you think? There was nothing in the pillow, but the coffin was full of creeping things, and so it was buried again. … You see what money does!”
“It’s a fact, it causes much sin,” said Doútlof, and he got up and began to say his prayers.
When he had finished, he looked at his nephew. The lad was asleep. Doútlof came up to him, loosened the girdle, and then lay down. One of the other peasants went out to sleep with the horses.