Mother (42 page)

"What friends have we?" the peasant exclaimed softly. "Up to the
first piece of bread."

"And I say that the people have friends."

"Yes, they have, but not here--that's the trouble," Stepan deliberated.

"Well, then create them here."

Stepan reflected a while. "We'll try."

"Sit down at the table," Tatyana invited her.

At supper, Pyotr, who had been subdued by the talk of the mother and appeared to be at a loss, began to speak again with animation:

"Mother, you ought to get out of here as soon as possible, to escape notice. Go to the next station, not to the city--hire the post horses."

"Why? I'm going to see her off!" said Stepan.

"You mustn't. In case anything happens and they ask you whether she slept in your house--'She did.' 'When did she go?' 'I saw her off.' 'Aha! You did? Please come to prison!' Do you understand? And no one ought to be in a hurry to get into prison; everybody's turn will come. 'Even the Czar will die,' as the saying goes. But the other way: she simply spent the night in your house, hired horses, and went away. And what of it? Somebody passing through the village sleeps with somebody in the village. There's nothing in that."

"Where did you learn to be afraid, Pyotr?" Tatyana scoffed.

"A man must know everything, friend!" Pyotr exclaimed, striking his knee--"know how to fear, know how to be brave. You remember how a policeman lashed Vaganov for that newspaper? Now you'll not persuade Vaganov for any amount of money to take a book in his hand. Yes; you believe me, mother, I'm a sharp fellow for every sort of a trick --everybody knows it. I'm going to scatter these books and papers for you in the best shape and form, as much as you please. Of course, the people here are not educated; they've been intimidated. However, the times squeeze a man and wide open go his eyes, 'What's the matter?' And the book answers him in a perfectly simple way: 'That's what's the matter--Think! Unite! Nothing else is left for you to do!' There are examples of men who can't read or write and can understand more than the educated ones--especially if the educated ones have their stomachs full. I go about here everywhere; I see much. Well? It's possible to live; but you want brains and a lot of cleverness in order not to sit down in the cesspool at once. The authorities, too, smell a rat, as though a cold wind were blowing on them from the peasants. They see the peasant smiles very little, and altogether is not very kindly disposed and wants to disaccustom himself to the authorities. The other day in Smolyakov, a village not far from here, they came to extort the taxes; and your peasants got stubborn and flew into a passion. The police commissioner said straight out: 'Oh, you damned scoundrels! why, this is disobedience to the Czar!' There was one little peasant there, Spivakin, and says he: 'Off with you to the evil mother with your Czar! What kind of a Czar is he if he pulls the last shirt off your body?' That's how far it went, mother. Of course, they snatched Spivakin off to prison. But the word remained, and even the little boys know it. It lives! It shouts! And perhaps in our days the word is worth more than a man. People are stupefied and deadened by their absorption in breadwinning. Yes."

Pyotr did not eat, but kept on talking in a quick whisper, his dark, roguish eyes gleaming merrily. He lavishly scattered before the mother innumerable little observations on the village life--they rolled from him like copper coins from a full purse.

Stepan several times reminded him: "Why don't you eat?" Pyotr would then seize a piece of bread and a spoon and fall to talking and sputtering again like a goldfinch. Finally, after the meal, he jumped to his feet and announced:

"Well, it's time for me to go home. Good-by, mother!" and he shook her hand and nodded his head. "Maybe we shall never see each other again. I must say to you that all this is very good--to meet you and hear your speeches--very good! Is there anything in your valise beside the printed matter? A shawl? Excellent! A shawl, remember, Stepan. He'll bring you the valise at once. Come, Stepan. Good-by. I wish everything good to you."

After he had gone the crawling sound of the roaches became audible in the hut, the blowing of the wind over the roof and its knocking against the door in the chimney. A fine rain dripped monotonously on the window. Tatyana prepared a bed for the mother on the bench with clothing brought from the oven and the storeroom.

"A lively man!" remarked the mother.

The hostess looked at her sidewise.

"A light fellow," she answered. "He rattles on and rattles on; you can't but hear the rattling at a great distance."

"And how is your husband?" asked the mother.

"So so. A good peasant; he doesn't drink; we live peacefully. So so. Only he has a weak character." She straightened herself, and after a pause asked:

"Why, what is it that's wanted nowadays? What's wanted is that the people should be stirred up to revolt. Of course! Everybody thinks about it, but privately, for himself. And what's necessary is that he should speak out aloud. Some one person must be the first to decide to do it." She sat down on the bench and suddenly asked: "Tell me, do young ladies also occupy themselves with this? Do they go about with the workingmen and read? Aren't they squeamish and afraid?" She listened attentively to the mother's reply and fetched a deep sigh; then drooping her eyelids and inclining her head, she said: "In one book I read the words 'senseless life.' I understood them very well at once. I know such a life. Thoughts there are, but they're not connected, and they stray like stupid sheep without a shepherd. They stray and stray, with no one to bring them together. There's no understanding in people of what must be done. That's what a senseless life is. I'd like to run away from it without even looking around--such a severe pang one suffers when one understands something!"

The mother perceived the pang in the dry gleam of the woman's green eyes, in her wizened face, in her voice. She wanted to pet and soothe her.

"You understand, my dear, what to do----"

Tatyana interrupted her softly:

"A person must be able-- The bed's ready for you. Lie down and sleep."

She went over to the oven and remained standing there erect, in silence, sternly centered in herself. The mother lay down without undressing. She began to feel the weariness in her bones and groaned softly. Tatyana walked up to the table, extinguished the lamp, and when darkness descended on the hut she resumed speech in her low, even voice, which seemed to erase something from the flat face of the oppressive darkness.

"You do not pray? I, too, think there is no God, there are no miracles. All these things were contrived to frighten us, to make us stupid."

The mother turned about on the bench uneasily; the dense darkness looked straight at her from the window, and the scarcely audible crawling of the roaches persistently disturbed the quiet. She began to speak almost in a whisper and fearfully:

"In regard to God, I don't know; but I do believe in Christ, in the Little Father. I believe in his words, 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' Yes, I believe in them." And suddenly she asked in perplexity: "But if there is a God, why did He withdraw his good power from us? Why did He allow the division of people into two worlds? Why, if He is merciful, does He permit human torture--the mockery of one man by another, all kinds of evil and beastliness?"

Tatyana was silent. In the darkness the mother saw the faint outline of her straight figure--gray on the black background. She stood motionless. The mother closed her eyes in anguish. Then the groaning, cold voice sullenly broke in upon the stillness again:

"The death of my children I will never forgive, neither God nor man-- I will never forgive--NEVER!"

Nilovna uneasily rose from her bed; her heart understood the mightiness of the pain that evoked such words.

"You are young; you will still have children," she said kindly.

The woman did not answer immediately. Then she whispered:

"No, no. I'm spoiled. The doctor says I'll never be able to have
a child again."

A mouse ran across the floor, something cracked--a flash of sound flaring up in the noiselessness. The autumn rain again rustled on the thatch like light thin fingers running over the roof. Large drops of water dismally fell to the ground, marking the slow course of the autumn night. Hollow steps on the street, then on the porch, awoke the mother from a heavy slumber. The door opened carefully.

"Tatyana!" came the low call. "Are you in bed already?"

"No."

"Is she asleep?"

"It seems she is."

A light flared up, trembled, and sank into the darkness.

The peasant walked over to the mother's bed, adjusted the sheepskin over her, and wrapped up her feet. The attention touched the mother in its simplicity. She closed her eyes again and smiled. Stepan undressed in silence, crept up to the loft, and all became quiet.

The mother lay motionless, with ears strained in the drowsy stillness, and before her in the darkness wavered Rybin's face covered with blood. In the loft a dry whisper could be heard.

"You see what sort of people go into this work? Even elderly people who have drunk the cup of misery to the bottom, who have worked, and for whom it is time to rest. And there they are! But you are young, sensible! Ah, Stepan!"

The thick, moist voice of the peasant responded:

"Such an affair--you mustn't take it up without thinking over it. Just wait a little while!"

"I've heard you say so before." The sounds dropped, and rose again. The voice of Stepan rang out:

"You must do it this way--at first you must take each peasant aside and speak to him by himself--for instance, to Makov Alesha, a lively man--can read and write--was wronged by the police; Shorin Sergey, also a sensible peasant; Knyazev, an honest, bold man, and that'll do to begin with. Then we'll get a group together, we look about us--yes. We must learn how to find her; and we ourselves must take a look at the people about whom she spoke. I'll shoulder my ax and go off to the city myself, making out I'm going there to earn money by splitting wood. You must proceed carefully in this matter. She's right when she says that the price a man has is according to his own estimate of himself--and this is an affair in which you must set a high value on yourself when once you take it up. There's that peasant! See! You can put him even before God, not to speak of before a police commissioner. He won't yield. He stands for his own firmly--up to his knees in it. And Nikita, why his honor was suddenly pricked--a marvel? No. If the people will set out in a friendly way to do something together, they'll draw everybody after them."

"Friendly! They beat a man in front of your eyes, and you stand with your mouths wide open."

"You just wait a little while. He ought to thank God we didn't beat him ourselves, that man. Yes, indeed. Sometimes the authorities compel you to beat, and you do beat. Maybe you weep inside yourself with pity, but still you beat. People don't dare to decline from beastliness--they'll be killed themselves for it. They command you, 'Be what I want you to be--a wolf, a pig'--but to be a man is prohibited. And a bold man they'll get rid of--send to the next world. No. You must contrive for many to get bold at once, and for all to arise suddenly."

He whispered for a long time, now lowering his voice so that the mother scarcely could hear, and now bursting forth powerfully. Then the woman would stop him. "S-sh, you'll wake her."

The mother fell into a heavy dreamless sleep.

Tatyana awakened her in the early twilight, when the dusk still peered through the window with blank eyes, and when brazen sounds of the church bell floated and melted over the village in the gray, cold stillness.

"I have prepared the samovar. Take some tea or you'll be cold if you go out immediately after getting up."

Stepan, combing his tangled beard, asked the mother solicitously how to find her in the city. To-day the peasant's face seemed more finished to her. While they drank tea he remarked, smiling:

"How wonderfully things happen!"

"What?" asked Tatyana.

"Why, this acquaintance--so simply."

The mother said thoughtfully, but confidently:

"In this affair there's a marvelous simplicity in everything."

The host and hostess restrained themselves from demonstrativeness in parting with her; they were sparing of words, but lavish in little attentions for her comfort.

Sitting in the post, the mother reflected that this peasant would begin to work carefully, noiselessly, like a mole, without cease, and that at his side the discontented voice of his wife would always sound, and the dry burning gleam in her green eyes would never die out of her so long as she cherished the revengeful wolfish anguish of a mother for lost children.

The mother recalled Rybin--his blood, his face, his burning eyes, his words. Her heart was compressed again with a bitter feeling of impotence; and along the entire road to the city the powerful figure of black-bearded Mikhail with his torn shirt, his hands bound behind his back, his disheveled head, clothed in wrath and faith in his truth, stood out before her on the drab background of the gray day. And as she regarded the figure, she thought of the numberless villages timidly pressed to the ground; of the people, faint-heartedly and secretly awaiting the coming of truth; and of the thousands of people who senselessly and silently work their whole lifetime without awaiting the coming of anything.

Life represented itself to her as an unplowed, hilly field which mutely awaits the workers and promises a harvest to free and honest hands: "Fertilize me with seeds of reason and truth; I will return them to you a hundredfold."

When from afar she saw the roofs and spires of the city, a warm joy animated and eased her perturbed, worn heart. The preoccupied faces of those people flashed up in her memory who, from day to day, without cease, in perfect confidence kindle the fire of thought and scatter the sparks over the whole earth. Her soul was flooded by the serene desire to give these people her entire force, and-- doubly the love of a mother, awakened and animated by their thoughts.