Stories (40 page)

“That was the time to take away his galoshes and umbrella,” said Ivan Ivanych.

“Imagine, that turned out to be impossible. He put Varenka’s portrait on his desk and kept coming to me and talking about
Varenka, about family life, about marriage being a serious step, he visited the Kovalenkos frequently, but he didn’t change his way of life in the least. Even the opposite, the decision to marry affected him somehow morbidly, he lost weight, grew pale, and seemed to withdraw further into his case.

“‘I like Varvara Savvishna,’ he said to me with a faint, crooked little smile, ‘and I know that every man needs to marry, but … you know, all this has happened somehow suddenly … I have to think.’

“‘What’s there to think about?’ I say to him. ‘Marry her, and that’s that.’

“‘No, marriage is a serious step, I must first weigh my future duties, responsibilities … or something may come of it later. It bothers me so much that I’ve now stopped sleeping at night. And, I confess, I’m afraid: she and her brother have some strange way of thinking, they reason, you know, somehow strangely, and her character is very sprightly. I’ll get married and then, for all I know, wind up in some kind of trouble.’

“And he didn’t propose, he kept postponing it, to the great vexation of the director’s wife and our other ladies; he kept weighing his future duties and responsibilities and meanwhile went strolling with Varenka almost every day, perhaps thinking it was necessary in his position, and came to me to talk about family life. And, in all probability, he would have proposed in the end, and one of those needless, stupid marriages would have taken plac
e, such as take place here by the thousand out of boredom and idleness, if a
kolossalische Scandal
had not suddenly occurred. It must be said that Varenka’s brother, Kovalenko, had hated Belikov from the first day of their acquaintance and could not bear him.

“‘I don’t understand,’ he said to us, shrugging his shoulders, ‘I don’t understand how you stomach that snitcher, that vile mug! Eh, gentlemen, how can you live here? The atmosphere is nasty, stifling. Are you pedagogues, teachers? No, you’re rank-grabbers, your school isn’t a temple of knowledge, it’s an office of public order, and there’s a sour stink to it, like in a sentry’s box. No, brothers, I’ll live with you a little longer and then go back to my farmstead to catch crayfish and teach little Ukrainians. I’ll leave you, and you can stay here with your Judas till he bursts.’

“Or else he’d laugh, laugh himself to tears, now in a bass, now in a thin, squeaky voice, and ask me, spreading his hands:

“‘Why is he sitting with me? What does he want? He sits and looks.’

“He even gave Belikov the name of ‘the bloodsucker, alias the spider.’ And, to be sure, we avoided talking to him about his sister Varenka marrying ‘alias the spider.’ And once when the director’s wife hinted to him that it would be nice to have his sister settle down with such a solid, well-respected man as Belikov, he scowled and said gruffly:

“‘It’s none of my business. She can even marry a viper, I don’t like interfering in other people’s affairs.’

“Now hear what happened next. Some prankster drew a caricature: Belikov walking in his galoshes, with his tucked-in trousers, under an umbrella, and Varenka arm-in-arm with him; the caption underneath: ‘Anthropos in love.’ The expression was really caught remarkably well. The artist must have worked more than one night, because all the teachers in the boys’ and girls’ schools
, the seminary teachers, the officials—everybody got a copy. Belikov got one, too. The caricature made a most painful impression on him.

“We’re leaving the house together—it was the first of May, a Sunday, and all of us, teachers and students, had arranged to meet by the school and then go on foot together to the woods outside town—we’re leaving the house, and he’s green, dark as a cloud.

“‘What bad, wicked people there are!’ he said, and his lips trembled.

“I even felt sorry for him. We’re walking along and suddenly, if you can imagine, Kovalenko rides by on a bicycle, followed by Varenka, also on a bicycle, red, tired, but cheerful, joyful.

“‘And we’re going on ahead!’ she cries. ‘The weather’s so fine, so fine, it’s simply awful!’

“And they both vanished. My Belikov turned from green to white and froze. He stopped and stared at me …

“‘Excuse me, but what is that?’ he asked. ‘Or maybe my eyes are deceiving me? Is it proper for schoolmasters and women to ride bicycles?’

“‘What’s improper about it?’ I said. ‘They can ride as much as they like.’

“‘But how is this possible?’ he cried, amazed at my calmness. ‘What are you saying?!’

“He was so struck that he refused to go any further and turned back home.

“The next day he kept rubbing his hands nervously and twitching all the time, and you could see from his face that he wasn’t well. And he left class, which happened to him for the first time in his
life. And he ate no dinner. Towards evening he got dressed warmly, though it was quite summery outside, and trudged to the Kovalenkos. Varenka was not at home, he found only her brother.

“‘Kindly sit down,’ Kovalenko said coldly and scowled; his face was sleepy, he had just finished his after-dinner nap and was in a very bad humor.

“Belikov sat silently for some ten minutes and then began:

“‘I’ve come to you to ease my soul. I’m very, very distressed. Some lampoonist has portrayed me and another person close to us both in a ridiculous way. I consider it my duty to assure you that I have nothing to do with it … I never gave any pretext for such mockery—on the contrary, I’ve always behaved as a perfectly decent man.’

“Kovalenko sat pouting and said nothing. Belikov waited a little and went on softly, in a mournful voice:

“‘And I have something else to tell you. I have been teaching for a long time, while you are just beginning, and I consider it my duty, as an older colleague, to warn you. You ride a bicycle, and that is an amusement absolutely improper for a teacher of youth.’

“‘Why so?’ Kovalenko asked in a bass voice.

“‘But is there anything here that needs more explaining, Mikhail Savvich, is there anything that isn’t clear? If the teacher rides on a bicycle, what remains for the students? It remains only for them to walk on their heads! And since it is not permitted by the circulars, you cannot do it. I was horrified yesterday! When I saw your sister, my eyes went dim. A woman or a girl on a bicycle—it’s awful!’

“‘What exactly do you want?’

“‘I want just one thing—to warn you, Mikhail Savvich. You are a young man, you have a future ahead of you, you must behave very,
very carefully, yet you are negligent, oh, so negligent! You go around in an embroidered shirt, you’re always outside with some sort of books, and now there’s also the bicycle. The director will find out that you and your sister ride bicycles, then it will reach the superintendent … What’s the good of it?’

“‘That my sister and I ride bicycles is nobody’s business!’ Kovalenko said and turned purple. ‘And if anybody meddles in my domestic and family affairs, I’ll send him to all the devils in hell.’

“Belikov paled and got up.

“‘If you talk with me in such a tone, I cannot go on,’ he said. ‘And I beg you never to speak like that in my presence about our superiors. You must treat the authorities with respect.’

“‘Did I say anything bad about the authorities?’ Kovalenko asked, looking at him spitefully. ‘Kindly leave me in peace. I’m an honest man and have no wish to talk with gentlemen like you. I don’t like snitchers.’

“Belikov fussed about nervously and quickly began to dress, with a look of horror on his face. It was the first time in his life that he’d heard such rude things.

“‘You may say whatever you like,’ he said, as he went out from the front hall to the landing. ‘Only I must warn you: someone may have heard us, and, since our conversation might be misunderstood and something might come of it, I will have to report the content of our conversation to the director … in its main features. It is my duty to do so.’

“‘Report? Go on, report!’

“Kovalenko seized him from behind by the collar and shoved, and Belikov went tumbling down the stairs, his galoshes clunking. The stairs were high and steep, but he reached the bottom safely, got up, and felt his nose: were his glasses broken? Bu
t just as he was tumbling down the stairs, Varenka came in and there were two ladies with her; they stood below and watched—and for Belikov this was the most terrible thing of all. It would have been better, he thought, to break his neck and both legs than to become a laughingstock: now the whole town would know, it would reach the director, the superintendent—ah, something might come of it!— there would be a new caricature, and the upshot of it all would be that he would be ordered to resign …

“When he got up, Varenka recognized him and, looking at his ridiculous face, his crumpled overcoat, his galoshes, not understanding what it was about, and supposing he had fallen accidentally, could not help herself and laughed for the whole house to hear:

“‘Ha, ha, ha!’

“And this rolling, pealing ‘ha, ha, ha!’ put an end to everything: both the engagement and the earthly existence of Belikov. He did not hear what Varenka said, nor did he see anything. Returning home, he first of all removed the portrait from the desk, and then he lay down and never got up again.

“Three days later Afanasy came to me and asked if he ought to send for the doctor, because, he said, something was wrong with his master. I went to see Belikov. He lay under the canopy, covered with a blanket, and said nothing; you ask him, and he just says yes or no—and not another sound. He lies there, and Afanasy walks around, gloomy, scowling, and sighs deeply; and he reeks of vodka like a tavern.

“A month later Belikov died. We all went to his burial, that is, both schools and the seminary. Now, lying in the coffin, his expression was meek, pleasant, even cheerful, as if he were glad that he had finally been put in a case he would never have to leave. Yes, he had attained his ideal! And, as if in his honor, the weather during the burial was gray, rainy, and we were all in galoshes a
nd carrying umbrellas. Varenka was also at the burial, and she wept a little when the coffin was lowered into the grave. I’ve noticed that Ukrainian girls only weep or laugh, they have no in-between state.

“I confess, burying people like Belikov is a great pleasure. As we came back from the cemetery, we had modest, lenten physiognomies; nobody wanted to show this feeling of pleasure—a feeling like that experienced long, long ago, in childhood, when the grown-ups went away and we could spend an hour or two running around in the garden, relishing our full freedom. Ah, freedom, freedom! Even a hint, even a faint hope of it lends the soul wings, isn’t that so?

“We came back from the cemetery in good spirits. But no more than a week went by, and life flowed on as before, the same grim, wearisome, witless life, not forbidden by the circulars, yet not fully permitted. Things didn’t get any better. And, indeed, we had buried Belikov, but how many more men in cases there still are, and how many more there will be!”

“Right you are,” said Ivan Ivanych, and he lit his pipe.

“How many more there will be!” Burkin repeated.

The schoolteacher came out of the shed. He was a short man, fat, completely bald, with a black beard almost down to his waist. Two dogs came out with him.

“What a moon!” he said, looking up.

It was already midnight. To the right the whole village was visible, the long street stretching into the distance a good three miles. Everything was sunk in a hushed, deep sleep; not a movement, not a sound, it was hard to believe that nature could be so hushed.
When you see a wide village street on a moonlit night, with its cottages, haystacks, sleeping willows, your own soul becomes hushed; in that peace, hiding from toil, care, and grief in the
shadows of the night, it turns meek, mournful, beautiful, and it seems that the stars, too, look down on it tenderly and with feeling, and that there is no more evil on earth, and all is well. Fields spread out to the left from the edge of the village; they were visible as far as the horizon, and across the whole breadth of those fields, flooded with moonlight, there was also no movement or sound.

“Right you are,” Ivan Ivanych repeated. “And that we live in town, stifled, crowded, writing useless papers, playing cards—isn’t that a case? And that we spend our lives among do-nothings, pettifoggers, stupid, idle women, that we say and hear all kinds of nonsense—isn’t that a case? Here, if you like, I’ll tell you an instructive story.”

“No, it’s time to sleep,” said Burkin. “Good night.”

They both went into the shed and lay down in the hay. And they had both already covered themselves and dozed off when light footsteps were heard: tap, tap … Someone was walking near the shed; walked and then stopped, and after a moment again: tap, tap … The dogs growled.

“That’s Mavra out walking,” said Burkin.

The steps died away.

“To see and hear people lie,” said Ivan Ivanych, turning over on the other side, “and to be called a fool yourself for putting up with the lie; to endure insults, humiliations, not daring to say openly that you’re on the side of honest, free people, and to have to lie yourself, to smile, and all that for a crust of bread, a warm corner, some little rank that’s not worth a penny—no, it’s impossible to live like that any longer!”

“Well, that’s from another opera, Ivan Ivanych,” said the teacher. “Let’s get some sleep.”

And ten minutes later Burkin was asleep. But Ivan Ivanych kept tossing from side to side and sighing. Then he got up, went out again, sat by the doorway, and lit his pipe.

J
ULY
1898

S
ince early morning the whole sky had been covered with dark clouds; it was not hot, but still and dull, as usual on gray, bleak days, when clouds hang over the fields for a long time, you wait for rain, but it does not come. The veterinarian Ivan Ivanych and the high-school teacher Burkin were tired of walking, and the fields seemed endless to them. Far ahead the windmills of the village of Mironositskoe were barely visible, to the right a line of hills stretched away and then disappeared far beyond the village, and they both knew that this was the bank of the river, with meadows,
green willows, country houses, and if you stood on one of the hills, from there you could see equally vast fields, telegraph poles, and the train, which in the distance looked like a crawling caterpillar, and in clear weather you could even see the town. Now, in the still weather, when all nature seemed meek and pensive, Ivan Ivanych and Burkin were imbued with love for these fields, and both thought how great, how beautiful this land was.

“Last time, when we were in the headman Prokofy’s shed,” said Burkin, “you were going to tell some story.”

“Yes, I wanted to tell about my brother.”

Ivan Ivanych gave a long sigh and lit his pipe, so as to begin the story, but just then it started to rain. And about five minutes later a hard rain was pouring down and there was no telling when it would end. Ivan Ivanych and Burkin stopped and considered; the dogs,
already wet, stood with their tails between their legs, looking at them tenderly.

“We’ll have to take cover somewhere,” said Burkin. “Let’s go to Alekhin’s. It’s nearby”

“All right.”

They turned aside and went on walking over the mowed fields, now straight, now bearing to the right, until they came to the road. Soon poplars appeared, a garden, then the red roofs of the barns; the river sparkled, and the view opened onto a wide pond with a mill and a white bathing house. This was Sofyino, where Alekhin lived.

The mill was working, drowning out the noise of the rain; the dam shook. Here by the carts stood wet horses, hanging their heads, and people walked about, their heads covered with sacks. It was damp, muddy, unwelcoming, and the pond looked cold, malevolent. Ivan Ivanych and Burkin felt thoroughly wet, dirty and uncomfortable, their feet were weighed down with mud, and when, after crossing the dam, they went up toward the master’s barns, they were silent, as if angry with each other.

In one of the barns a winnowing machine was clattering; the door was open, and dust was pouring out of it. On the threshold stood Alekhin himself, a man of about forty, tall, stout, with long hair, looking more like a professor or an artist than a landowner. He was wearing a white, long-unwashed shirt with a braided belt, drawers instead of trousers, and his boots were also caked with mud and straw. His nose and eyes were black with dust. He recognized Ivan Ivanych and Burkin and was apparently very glad.

“Please go to the house, gentlemen,” he said, smiling. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

It was a big, two-storied house. Alekhin lived downstairs, in two vaulted rooms with small windows, where the stewards once lived; the furnishings here were simple, and it smelled of rye bread, cheap vodka, and harness. He rarely went upstairs to the formal rooms, only when he received guests. Ivan Ivanych and Burkin were met inside by a maid, a young woman of such beauty that they both stopped at once and looked at each other.

“You can’t imagine how glad I am to see you, gentlemen,” Alekhin said, coming into the front hall with them. “Quite unexpected! Pelageya,” he turned to the maid, “give the guests something to change into. And, incidentally, I’ll change, too. Only first I
must go and bathe—I don’t think I’ve bathed since spring. Why not come to the bathing house, gentlemen, while things are made ready here.”

The beautiful Pelageya, such a delicate girl and with such a soft look, brought towels and soap, and Alekhin went with his guests to the bathing house.

“Yes, I haven’t bathed for a long time,” he said, undressing. “My bathing house is nice, as you see, my father built it, but I somehow never have time to bathe.”

He sat down on the step, soaped his long hair and neck, and the water around him turned brown.

“Yes, I declare …” said Ivan Ivanych, looking significantly at his head.

“I haven’t bathed for a long time …” Alekhin repeated bashfully and soaped himself once more, and the water around him turned dark blue, like ink.

Ivan Ivanych went outside, threw himself noisily into the water and swam under the rain, swinging his arms widely, and he made waves, and the white lilies swayed on the waves; he reached the middle of the pond and dove, and a moment later appeared in another place and swam further, and kept diving, trying to reach the bottom. “Ah, my God…” he repeated delightedly. “Ah, my God …” He swam as far as the mill, talked about something with the peasants there and turned back, and in the middle of the pond lay face up to the rain. Burkin and Alekhin were already dressed and ready to go, but he kep
t swimming and diving.

“Ah, my God …” he repeated. “Ah, Lord have mercy.”

“That’s enough!” Burkin shouted to him.

They went back to the house. And only when the lamp was lit in the big drawing room upstairs, and Burkin and Ivan Ivanych, in silk dressing gowns and warm slippers, were sitting in armchairs, and Alekhin himself, washed, combed, in a new frock coat, was pacing about the drawing room, obviously enjoying the feeling of warmth, cleanness, dry clothes, light shoes, and when the beautiful Pelageya, stepping noiselessly over the carpet and smiling softly, served the tray with tea and preserves, only then did Ivan Ivanych begin his story, and it s
eemed that not only Burkin and Alekhin, but also the old and young ladies, and the military men, who gazed calmly and sternly from their gilded frames, listened to him.

“We’re two brothers,” he began, “I’m Ivan Ivanych, and he’s
Nikolai Ivanych, some two years younger. I went in for studying and became a veterinarian, while Nikolai sat in a government office from the age of nineteen. Our father, Chimsha-Himalaysky, was a cantonist,
¹
but he earned officer’s rank in the service and left us hereditary nobility and a small estate. After his death, the estate went to pay debts, but, be that as it may, we spent our childhood in the freedom of the countryside. Just like peasant children, we spent days and nights in the fields, in the woods, tending horses, stripp
ing bast,
²
fishing, and all the rest … And you know that anyone who at least once in his life has caught a perch or seen blackbirds migrating in the fall, when they rush in flocks over the village on clear, cool days, is no longer a townsman, and will be drawn towards freedom till his dying day. My brother languished in the office. Years passed, and he was still sitting in the same place, writing the same papers and thinking about the same thing—how to get to the country. And this languishing slowly formed itself into a definite desire, the dream of buying himself a small country place somewhere on t
he bank of a river or a lake.

“He was a kind, meek man, and I loved him, but I never sympathized with this desire to lock himself up for life in his own country place. It’s a common saying that a man needs only six feet of earth. But it’s a corpse that needs six feet, not a man. And they also say now that if our intelligentsia is drawn to the soil and longs for country places, it’s a good thing. But these country places are the same six feet of earth. To leave town, quit the struggle and noise of life, go and hide in your country place, isn’t life, it’s egoism, laziness, it’s a sort of monasticism, but a monasticism
without spiritual endeavor. Man needs, not six feet of earth, not a country place, but the whole earth, the whole of nature, where he can express at liberty all the properties and particularities of his free spirit.

“My brother Nikolai, sitting in his office, dreamed of how he would eat his own shchi, the savory smell of which would fill the whole yard, eat on the green grass, sleep in the sun, spend whole hours sitting outside the gate on a bench, gazing at the fields and woods. Books on agriculture and all sorts of almanac wisdom were his joy, his favorite spiritual nourishment; he liked to read newspapers, too, but only the advertisements about the sale of so many acres of field and meadow, with a country house, a river and a garden, a mill and a mill pond. And in his head he pictured garden paths, flower
s, fruit, birdhouses, carp in the pond—you know, all
that stuff. These imaginary pictures differed, depending on the advertisements he came upon, but for some reason gooseberries were unfailingly present in each of them. He was unable to imagine a single country place, a single poetic corner, that was without gooseberries.

“‘Country life has its conveniences,’ he used to say. ‘You sit on the balcony drinking tea, and your ducks swim in the pond, and it smells so good, and … and the gooseberries are growing.’

“He’d draw the plan of his estate, and each time it came out the same: a) the master’s house, b) the servants’ quarters, c) the kitchen garden, d) the gooseberries. He lived frugally: at
e little, drank little, dressed God knows how, like a beggar, and kept saving money and putting it in the bank. He was terribly stingy. It was painful for me to see, and I used to give him money, and send him something on holidays, but he put that away, too. Once a man gets himself an idea, there’s nothing to be done.

“Years went by, he was transferred to another province, he was already over forty, and he went on reading the advertisements in the newspapers and saving money. Then I heard he got married. Still with the same purpose of buying himself a country place with gooseberries, he married an ugly old widow for whom he felt nothing, only because she had a little money. He was tightfisted with her, too, kept her hungry, and put her money in the bank under his name. Earlier she had been married to the postmaster and had become used to pies and liqueurs, but with her second husband she didn’t even have
enough black bread; she began to pine away from such a life, and about three years later she gave up her soul to God. And, of course, my brother never thought for a moment that he was guilty of her death. Money, like vodka, does strange things to a man. A merchant was dying in our town. Before he died, he asked to be served a dish of honey and ate all his money and lottery tickets with it, so that nobody would get them. Once I was inspecting cattle at the station, and just then one of the dealers fell under a locomotive and his foot was cut off. We carried him to the hospital, blo
od was pouring out—a horrible business—and he kept asking us to find his foot and worrying: in the boot on his cut-off foot there were twenty roubles he didn’t want to lose.”

“That’s from another opera,” said Burkin.

“After his wife’s death,” Ivan Ivanych went on, having reflected for half a minute, “my brother began looking for an estate to buy.
Of course, you can look for five years and in the end make a mistake and not buy what you were dreaming of at all. Brother Nikolai bought, through an agent, by a transfer of mortgage, three hundred acres with a master’s house, servants’ quarters, a park, but no orchard, or gooseberries, or ponds with ducks; there was a riv
er, but the water in it was coffee-colored, because there was a brick factory on one side of the estate and a bone-burning factory on the other. But my brother Nikolai Ivanych didn’t lament over it; he ordered twenty gooseberry bushes, planted them, sat down and began living like a landowner.

“Last year I went to visit him. I’ll go, I thought, and see how things are there. In his letters my brother called his estate: the Chumbaroklov plot, alias Himalayskoe. I arrived in ‘alias Himalayskoe’ past noon. It was hot. Ditches, fences, hedges, lines of fir trees everywhere—I didn’t know how to get into the courtyard, where to put the horse. I walked toward the house, and a ginger dog met me, fat, looking like a pig. It would have liked to bark, but was too lazy. The cook came out of the kitchen, barefoot, fat, also looking like a pig, and said that the master was resting after dinner. I we
nt into my brother’s room, he was sitting in bed, his knees covered with a blanket; he had grown old, fat, flabby; his cheeks, nose, and lips thrust forward—he looked as if he were about to grunt into the blanket.

“We embraced and wept with joy and with the sad thought that we had been young once, and were now both gray-haired, and it was time to die. He got dressed and took me around to view his estate.

“‘Well, how are you getting on here?’ I asked.

“‘Oh, all right, thank God, I live well.’

“He was no longer a timid and wretched little official, but a real landowner, a squire. He had settled in here, grown accustomed to it, relished it; he ate a lot, washed in a bathhouse, gained weight, was already at law with the commune and both factories, and was very offended when the peasants didn’t call him ‘Your Honor.’ He took solid, squirely care of his soul, and did good deeds not simply but imposingly. And what were they? He treated the peasants for all ailments with soda and castor oil, and on his name day held a thanksgiving prayer service in the middle of the village
, and then stood them all to a half-bucket of vodka, thinking it necessary. Ah, these horrible half-buckets! Today the fat landowner drags the peasant
to the head of the zemstvo for poaching, and tomorrow, for the holiday, he treats them to a half-bucket, and they drink and shout ‘hurrah,’ and bow down drunk before him. A change of life for the better, good eating, idleness, develop the most insolent conceit in a Russian. Nikolai Ivanych, who, while in the government office, was afraid to have his own views even for himself personally, now uttered nothing but truths, and in the tone of a government minister: ‘Education is necessary, but for the people it is premature,’ ‘Corporal punishment is generally bad, but on certain oc
casions it is useful and indispensable.’