Stories (5 page)

B
efore the examining magistrate stands a puny, exceedingly scrawny little peasant in a calico shirt and patched trousers. His face is overgrown with hair and eaten with pockmarks, and his eyes, barely visible through his thick, beetling brows, have an expression of sullen sternness. On his head a whole mop of long-uncombed, matted hair, which endows him with a still greater spiderlike sternness. He is barefoot.

“Denis Grigoriev!” the magistrate begins. “Come closer and answer my questions. On the seventh day of July instant the railroad watchman Ivan Semyonovich Akinfov, proceeding along the line in the morning, at the ninety-first mile post found you unscrewing one of the nuts by means of which the rails are fastened to the ties. Here is that nut! … With which nut he also detained you. Is that how it went?”

“Wha?”

“Did it all go as Akinfov explains?”

“Sure it did.”

“Good. Now, why were you unscrewing the nut?”

“Wha?”

“Drop this ‘wha?’ of yours and answer the question: why were you unscrewing the nut?”

“If I didn’t need it, I wouldn’t have been unscrewing it,” croaks Denis, looking askance at the ceiling.

“And why did you need this nut?”

“That nut there? We make sinkers out of ’em …”

“We who?”

“Us folk … the Klimovo peasants, that is.”

“Listen, brother, don’t play the idiot here. Talk sense. There’s no point in lying about sinkers!”

“Never lied in all my born days, so now I’m lying …” mumbles Denis, blinking his eyes. “Could we do without a sinker, Your Honor? If you put a live worm or a minnow on a hook, how’ll it ever go down without a sinker? Lying …” Denis smirks. “Who the devil needs live bait if it floats up top! Your perch, your pike, your burbot always bites on the bottom, and if the bait floats up top, it’s only good for catching gobies, and even that’s rare … Gobies don’t live in our river … It’s a fish that likes space.”

“What are you telling me about gobies for?”

“Wha? But you asked yourself! The gentry here fish the same way, too. Not even the merest lad would go fishing without a sinker. Of course, if somebody’s got no sense at all, he’ll try and fish without a sinker. A fool is as a fool does …”

“So you tell me that you were unscrewing this nut in order to make a sinker out of it?”

“What else? Can’t play knucklebones with it!”

“But you could use a bit of lead for a sinker, a bullet … a nail of some sort…”

“You won’t find lead lying about, you’ve got to buy it, and a nail’s no good. There nothing better than a nut … It’s heavy, and it’s got a hole in it.”

“He pretends to be such a fool! As if he was born yesterday or fell from the moon! Don’t you understand, dunderhead, what this unscrewing leads to? If the watchman hadn’t spotted it, a train might have gone off the rails, people might have been killed! You’d have killed people!”

“God forbid, Your Honor! Why kill? Are we heathens or villains of some kind? Thank the Lord, my good sir, we’ve lived our life without any killing, such thoughts never even enter our head … Queen of Heaven, save us and have mercy … How could you, sir!”

“And what do you think causes train accidents? Unscrew two or three nuts, and you’ve got yourself an accident!”

Denis smirks and squints his eyes mistrustfully at the magistrate.

“Well! All these years the whole village has been unscrewing nuts and the Lord’s preserved us, so now it’s an accident … killing people … If I took away the rail or, let’s say, put a log across the tracks, well, then the train might go off, but this … pah! a nut!”

“But you must understand, the nuts fasten the rail to the tie!”

“We understand that … We don’t unscrew all of them … we leave some … We don’t do it mindlessly … we understand …”

Denis yawns and makes a cross over his mouth.

“Last year a train went off the rails here,” says the magistrate, “now I see why …”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“Now, I said, I see why a train went off the rails last year … I understand!”

“That’s what you get educated for, so you’ll understand, most merciful judges … The Lord knew who to give understanding to
… And here you’ve considered how and what, but a watchman’s the same as a peasant, he’s got no understanding, he just grabs you by the scruff of the neck and drags you off… Reason first, and then drag! Like they say—peasant head, peasant thoughts … Write this down, too, Your Honor, that he hit me twice in the teeth and the chest.”

“When they searched your place, they found a second nut … When and where did you unscrew it?”

“You mean the one that was under the little red trunk?”

“I don’t know where it was, I only know they found it. When did you unscrew it?”

“I didn’t unscrew it, it was Ignashka, the son of one-eyed Semyon, gave it to me. I mean the one that was under the little trunk, and the one that was in the sledge in the yard I unscrewed along with Mitrofan.”

“Which Mitrofan?”

“Mitrofan Petrov … You’ve never heard of him? He makes nets and sells them to the gentry. He needs a lot of these same nuts. Reckon maybe a dozen for each net …”

“Listen … Article one thousand and eighty-one of the Criminal Code says that any deliberate damage to the railways, in case it endangers the transport availing itself of those railways, and with the perpetrator’s knowledge that the consequences thereof will be an accident—understand? knowledge! And you couldn’t help knowing
what this unscrewing would lead to—will be punishable by a term at hard labor.”

“Of course, you know best … We’re ignorant folk … what do we understand?”

“You understand everything! You’re lying and dissembling!”

“Why lie? Ask in the village, if you don’t believe me … Without a sinker you only get bleak. You won’t even get gudgeon, the worst of the lot, without a sinker.”

“Next you’ll be talking about gobies again!” the magistrate smiles.

“We’ve got no gobies here … If we fish on top without a sinker, using butterflies for bait, we get chub, and even that’s rare.”

“Well, be quiet …”

Silence ensues. Denis shifts from one foot to the other, stares at the table covered with green baize, and blinks his eyes strenuously, as if what he sees before him is not baize but the sun. The magistrate is writing rapidly.

“Can I go?” asks Denis, after some silence.

“No. I must put you under arrest and send you to prison.”

Denis stops blinking and, raising his thick eyebrows, looks questioningly at the official.

“That is, how do you mean—to prison? Your Honor! I haven’t got time, I have to go to the fair, and also get three roubles from Yegor for the lard …”

“Quiet, don’t disturb me …”

“To prison … If it was for something, I’d go, but like this … for a fleabite … Why? Seems I didn’t steal, I didn’t fight … And if you’ve got doubts about the arrears, Your Honor, don’t believe the headman … Better ask mister permanent member … An ungodly fellow, that headman …”

“Quiet!”

“I’m quiet as it is …” mutters Denis. “I’ll swear an oath the headman’s accounts are a pack of lies … We’re three brothers: Kuzma Grigoriev, that is, and Yegor Grigoriev, and me, Denis Grigoriev…”

“You’re disturbing me … Hey, Semyon!” shouts the magistrate. “Take him away!”

“We’re three brothers,” mutters Denis, as two stalwart soldiers take him and lead him from the chamber. “Brother’s not answerable
for brother. Kuzma doesn’t pay and you, Denis, have to answer … Judges! Our late master, the general, died, may he rest in peace, otherwise he’d show you judges something … You’ve got to judge knowingly, not just anyhow… Give a whipping, even, but so as it’s for a reason, in all fairness …”

J
ULY
1885

I
n the church of the Mother of God Hodigitria,
¹
the one in the village of Verkhnie Zaprudy, the morning liturgy has just ended. People have begun moving and pouring out of the church. The only one who does not stir is the shopkeeper Andrei Andreich, the Verkhnie Zaprudy intellectual and old-timer. He leans his elbow on the railing of the choir to the right and waits. His clean-shaven, fat face, bumpy from former pimples, on this occasion expresses two opposite feelings: humility before inscrutable destiny, and a dumb, boundless haughtiness before all those passing kaftans and motley ker
chiefs. He is smartly dressed for Sunday. He is wearing a flannel coat with yellow ivory buttons, dark blue, straight-legged trousers, and stout galoshes, the same huge, clumsy galoshes that are met with only on the feet of people who are positive, sensible, and have firm religious convictions.

His swollen, lazy eyes are turned to the iconostasis.
²
He sees the long-familiar faces of the saints, the caretaker Matvei puffing his cheeks to blow out the candles, the darkened icon stands, the worn rug, the beadle Lopukhov, who rushes from the sanctuary and brings the warden a prosphora
³
… All this he has seen over and over again, like his own five fingers … One thing, however, is somewhat strange and unusual: Father Grigory is standing by the north door, still in his vestments, blinking angrily with his thick eyebrows.

“Who is he blinking at, God be with him?” thinks the
shopkeeper. “Ah, now he’s beckoning with his finger! And, mercy me, stamping his foot … Holy Mother, what a thing! Who is it at?”

Andrei Andreich turns around and sees that the church is already quite empty There are about a dozen people crowding at the door, and with their backs turned to the sanctuary

“Come when you’re called! Why are you standing there like a statue?” he hears the angry voice of Father Grigory “It’s you I’m calling!”

The shopkeeper looks at the red, wrathful face of Father Grigory and only now realizes that the blinking of the eyebrows and beckoning of the finger may be addressed to him. He gives a start, separates himself from the choir, and, stamping his stout galoshes, goes hesitantly towards the sanctuary.

“Andrei Andreich, was it you who sent in a note about the departed Maria?” the priest asks, angrily looking up at his fat, sweaty face.

“It was.”

“So, then, it was you who wrote this? You?”

And Father Grigory angrily thrusts a little note into his eyes. And in this note, which Andrei Andreich sent in with a prosphora for the proskomedia,
⁴
there is written in big, unsteady-looking letters:

“For the departed servant of God, the harlot Maria.”

“It was … I wrote it, sir …” the shopkeeper replies.

“But how did you dare to write that?” the priest draws out in a whisper, and in his hoarse whisper both wrath and fear can be heard.

The shopkeeper gazes at him in dumb astonishment, becomes perplexed and frightened himself: never before has Father Grigory spoken in that tone with the Verkhnie Zaprudy intellectual! For a moment the two are silent, peering into each other’s eye
s. The shopkeeper’s perplexity is so great that his fat face spreads in all directions like spilled batter.

“How did you dare?” the priest repeats.

“Wh … what, sir?” Andrei Andreich’s perplexity continues.

“You don’t understand?!” Father Grigory whispers, stepping back in amazement and clasping his hands. “What’s that on your shoulders—a head, or some other object? You send a note in to the sanctuary and write a word on it that is even indecent to say in the
street! Why are you goggling your eyes? Don’t you know the meaning of this word?”

“That is, concerning the harlot, sir?” murmurs the shopkeeper, blushing and blinking his eyes. “But the Lord, in his goodness, I mean … that is, he forgave the harlot … and prepared a place for her, and from the life of the blessed Mary of Egypt
⁵
we can see, in that same sense of the word, begging your pardon …”

The shopkeeper wants to give some further argument as an excuse, but gets confused and wipes his mouth with his sleeve.

“So that’s how you understand it!” Father Grigory clasps his hands. “But the Lord forgave—you understand?—forgave, and you judge, denounce, call someone an indecent name—and who? Your own departed daughter! Not only in sacred, but even in secular writings you cannot find such a sin! I repeat to you, Andrei: don’t get too clever! Yes, brother, don’t get too clever! God may have given you a searching mind, but if you can’t control it, you’d better give up thinking … Give up thinking and keep quiet!”

“But she was a sort of… begging your pardon … a play-actress!” pronounces the stunned Andrei Andreich.

“A play-actress! But whoever she was, you must forget it all after her death, and not go writing it in your notes!”

“That’s so …” agrees the shopkeeper.

“You ought to have a penance laid on you.” From inside the sanctuary comes the bass voice of the deacon, who looks contemptuously at Andrei Andreich’s abashed face. “Then you’d stop acting smart! Your daughter was a famous artiste. Her death was even reported in the newspapers … Philosophizer!”

“That, of course … in fact …” mutters the shopkeeper, “is not a suitable word, but it wasn’t by way of judging, Father Grigory, but to make it godly-like … so you could see better who to pray for. People do write different titles for commemoration, like, say, the child Ioann, the drowned Pelageya, the warrior Yegor, the murdered Pavel, and such like … That’s what I wanted.”

“None too bright, Andrei! God will forgive you, but next time watch out. Above all, don’t get clever, just think as others do. Make ten bows and go.”

“Yes, sir,” says the shopkeeper, happy that the admonishment is over, and again giving his face an expression of gravity and importance. “Ten bows? Very good, sir, I understand. And now, Father,
allow me to make a request … Because, since I’m her father, after all … you know, and she, whatever she was, she’s my daughter, after all, I sort of… begging your pardon, I’d like to ask you to serve a panikhida
⁶
today And I’d like to ask you, too, Father Deacon!”

“Now, that’s good!” says Father Grigory, taking off his vestments. “I praise you for it. Meets my approval … Well, go! We’ll come out at once.”

Andrei Andreich gravely walks away from the sanctuary and stops in the middle of the church, flushed, with a solemnly panikhidal expression on his face. The caretaker Matvei places a little table with kolivo
⁷
before him, and in a short time the panikhida begins.

The church is quiet. There is only the metallic sound of the censer and the drawn-out singing … Beside Andrei Andreich stands the caretaker Matvei, the midwife Makaryevna, and her boy Mitka with the paralyzed arm. There is no one else. The beadle sings poorly, in an unpleasant, hollow bass, but the melody and the words are so sad that the shopkeeper gradually loses his grave expression and is plunged in sorrow. He remembers his little Mashutka. He recalls that she was born while he was still working as a servant for the master of Verkhnie Zaprudy Owing to the bustle of his servant’s life, h
e did not notice his girl growing up. For him the long period during which she formed into a graceful being with a blond little head and pensive eyes as big as kopecks went unnoticed. She was brought up, like all children of favorite servants, pampered, together with the young ladies. The gentlefolk, having nothing to do, taught her to read, write, and dance, and he did not interfere with her upbringing. Only rarely, accidentally, meeting her somewhere by the gate or on the landing of the stairs, did he remember that she was his daughter, and he began, as far as his time allowed, t
o teach her prayers and sacred history. Oh, even then he had a reputation for knowing the services and the holy scriptures! The girl, however grim and solemn her father’s face, listened to him willingly. She yawned repeating prayers after him, but on the other hand, when he began telling her stories, stammering and adding flowery embellishments, she turned all ears. At Esau’s mess of pottage, the punishment of Sodom, and the ordeals of the little boy Joseph,
⁸
she grew pale and opened her blue eyes wide.

Later, when he quit being a servant and opened a village shop with the money he had saved, Mashutka left for Moscow with the master’s family.

Three years before her death, she came to see her father. He barely recognized her. She was a slender young woman with the manners of a lady and dressed like gentlefolk. She spoke cleverly, as if from a book, smoked tobacco, slept till noon. When Andrei Andreich asked her what she was, she boldly looked him straig
ht in the eye and said: “I am an actress!” Such frankness seemed to the former servant the height of cynicism. Mashutka began boasting of her successes and of her artistic life, but seeing that her father only turned purple and spread his arms, she fell silent. And thus silently, without looking at each other, they spent some two weeks, until she left. Before leaving, she persuaded her father to go for a stroll with her along the embankment. Terrified though he was of going for a stroll with his actress daughter in broad daylight, in front of all honest people, he yielded to her entreaties …

“What wonderful places you have here!” she admired as they strolled. “Such dells and marshes! God, how beautiful my birthplace is!”

And she wept.

“These places only take up room …” thought Andrei Andreich, gazing stupidly at the dells and failing to understand his daughter’s admiration. “They’re about as useful as teats on a bull.”

But she wept, wept and breathed greedily with her whole breast, as if sensing that she did not have long to breathe …

Andrei Andreich tosses his head like a stung horse and, to stifle the painful memories, starts crossing himself rapidly …

“Remember, O Lord,” he murmurs, “the departed servant of God, the harlot Maria, and forgive her transgressions both voluntary and involuntary …”

The indecent word again escapes his mouth, but he does not notice it: what is stuck fast in his consciousness will not be dug out of it even by a nail, still less by Father Grigory’s admonitions! Makaryevna sighs and whispers something, sucking in air. Mitka with the paralyzed arm ponders something …

“… where there is no sickness, sorrow or sighing …” drones the beadle, putting his hand to his right cheek.

Bluish smoke streams from the censer and bathes in a wide,
slanting ray of sunlight that crosses the gloomy, lifeless emptiness of the church. And it seems that, together with the smoke, the soul of the departed woman herself hovers in the ray of sunlight. The streams of smoke, looking like a child’s curls, twist, rush upwards to the window and seem to shun the dejection and grief that fill this poor soul.

F
EBRUARY
1886