他們是在傍晚時分回到故鄉茹科沃村的。在他儿時的記憶中，自己的家總是那么明亮、舒适、方便，可是現在，當他跨進家門，他簡直嚇了一跳：木屋 里又暗又擠又髒。跟他一道回來的妻子奧莉加和女儿薩莎望著爐子惊呆了：爐子大得几乎占去半間屋，讓煤煙和蒼蠅弄得黑糊糊的。有多少蒼蠅啊！爐子歪了，四壁 的原木傾斜了，看上去小木屋隨時都會塌下來。在前面牆角放圣像的地方，旁邊貼滿了瓶子上的商標和剪下來的報紙－－這些權當畫片。窮啊，窮啊！大人都不在 家，都去收割庄稼了。爐台上坐著一個六八歲的小姑娘，淡黃頭發，沒有梳洗，表情冷淡。她甚至沒有瞧一眼進來的人。爐台下一只白貓在爐叉上蹭背。
“咪咪，咪咪”薩莎喚它，“咪咪！”
“我們家的貓听不見，”小姑娘說，“它聾了。”
“怎么會呢？”
“就是聾了。挨打了。”
尼古拉和奧莉加看一眼就明白這里的生活怎么樣，但誰也沒有向對方說出來。他們默默地放下包裹，又默默地走到街上。他們的房子是村頭第三家，看 樣子是最窮困、最破舊的了。第二家也好不了多少，可是盡頭的一家卻有鐵皮屋頂，窗子上挂著窗帘。這所孤零零的房子沒有圍牆，那是一家小飯館。所有的農舍排 成一行，整個小村安然寂靜，各家院子里的柳樹、接骨木和花椒樹都探出牆來，景致煞是好看。
在農家的宅旁地之后，一道陡峭的土坡通向河邊，坡上這儿那儿的粘土里露出一塊塊大石頭。在這些石頭和陶工挖出的土坑之間，有一些彎彎曲曲的小 道，成堆的陶器碎片，有褐色的，有紅色的，遺留在那里。山坡下面是一片廣闊而平整的綠油油的草場。草場已經割過，此刻只有農家的牲畜在游蕩。那條河离村有 一俄里遠，河水在綠樹成蔭的美麗的河岸間婉蜒而去。河那邊又是很大一片草場，草場上有牲畜，成排成排的白鵝。草場過去，跟河的這邊一樣，一道陡坡爬到山 上。山頂上有個村子和一座五個圓頂的教堂，再遠一點是地主的庄園。
“你們這地方真好！”奧莉加說，對著教堂畫著十字，“多么開闊啊，主啊！”
正在這時候，響起了教堂的鐘聲，召喚人們去做徹夜祈禱（這是禮拜天的前夜）。坡下的兩個小姑娘正抬著一桶水，她們回過頭去望著教堂，听那鐘聲。
“這會儿‘斯拉夫商場’正好開飯……”尼古拉出神地說。
尼古拉和奧莉加坐在陡坡邊上，看著太陽怎樣落山，那金黃的、紫紅的晚霞怎樣映在河里，映在教堂的窗子上，映在四野的空气中。空气柔和、宁靜、 說不出的純淨，這在莫斯科是從來沒有的。太陽落山，一群群牛羊陣陣地、嘩嘩地叫著回村來，鵝群也從對岸飛過河來。隨后四下里靜下來，柔和的亮光消失了，昏 暗的暮色很快就降落下來。
這時候，尼古拉的父親和母親回家來了，兩位老人身材一般高，同樣消瘦、駝背、掉了牙。兩個女人，儿媳婦瑪麗亞和菲奧克拉，白天在對岸地主家幫 工，這時也回家來了。瑪麗亞是哥哥基里亞克的妻子，有六個孩子。菲奧克拉是弟弟杰尼斯的妻子，有兩個孩子，杰尼斯現在在外面當兵。尼古拉走進木房，看到一 大家子的人，所有這些大大小小的身子在高板床１上、在搖籃里、在所有的屋角果蠕動，看到老人和女人們怎樣把黑面包泡在水里，狼吞虎咽地吃下去，這當儿他想 到，他，一個有病的人，沒有錢，還拖著一家人，回到老家來是錯了，錯了！
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１鄉村木房中裝在爐子和側壁之間，有一人高，很寬。
“基里亞克哥哥在哪儿？”大家打過招呼后他問道。
“他在一個商人家里當看守人，”父親回答，“守林子。他是個不錯的庄稼人，就是酒灌得大多。”
“不掙錢的人！”老太婆抱怨說，“我們家的漢子都命苦，從不拿東西回家，反倒從家里往外拿。基里亞克酗酒，老頭子呢，用不著隱瞞，也認得上小酒館的路。惹得圣母娘娘生气啦。”
因為來了客人才燒起了茶炊。茶水里有一股魚腥味。灰色的糖塊是咬過剩下的；面包上，碗碟上，有不少蟑螂爬來爬去。這种茶叫人喝不下去，談話也叫人不痛快－－談來談去，不是窮就是病。可是大家還沒喝完一杯茶，忽然從院子里傳來響亮的、拖長的、醉醺醺的喊叫聲。
“瑪－瑪麗－亞！”
“好像基里亞克回來了，”老頭子說，“真是提到誰，誰就到。”
大家不作聲了。不一會儿，喊聲又響起來，粗聲粗气，拖得很長，像從地底下發出來的：
“瑪－瑪麗－亞！”
大儿媳瑪麗亞，臉色煞白，直往爐子邊靠。這個寬肩膀、壯實、難看的女人一臉惊嚇的神色，讓人看了有點奇怪。她的女儿，那個坐在爐台上的小姑娘，一直表情冷淡，這時突然大聲哭起來。
“你哭什么，討厭鬼？”菲奧克拉喝斥她，她是個漂亮女人，身子也壯實，肩膀很寬，“別怕，他又不會把你打死！”
從老人口里尼古拉得知，瑪麗亞害怕跟基里亞克一塊儿住在林子里，因為每當他喝醉了酒，回來就找她鬧事，毫不留情地毒打她。
“瑪－瑪麗－亞！”喊聲到了房門口。
“看在基督份上，救救我，親人們，”瑪麗亞費力地說，她喘著粗气，就像被人扔進冰水里一樣，“救救我，親人們哪……”
屋里所有的孩子都哭起來，薩莎望著他們也哭了。先是一聲醉醺醺的咳嗽，隨后一個身材高大的黑胡子農民走進屋來。他戴一頂冬天的帽子，所以在昏 暗的燈光下看不清他的臉－－可是樣子嚇人。他就是基里亞克。他走到妻子跟前，掄起胳膊，一拳頭打在她的臉上。她一聲沒出，被打昏過去，一下子癱在地上，鼻 子里立刻流出血來。
“真丟人，丟人，”老頭子嘟噥著爬到了爐台上，“還當著客人的面！造孽呀！”
老太婆默默地坐著，弓腰駝背，在想心事。菲奧克拉搖著搖籃……顯然基里亞克覺得自己能嚇住人，十分得意，便一把抓住瑪麗亞的手，把她拖到門口，為了顯得更凶，就像野獸一樣吼起來。可是這當儿忽然看到有客人在場，就停住了。
“啊，回來了……”他說著，放開了妻子，“親兄弟帶著家眷……”
他對著圣像祈禱一陣，身子搖搖晃晃，使勁睜大那雙發紅的醉眼，接著說，
“親兄弟帶著家眷回老家了……這么說，是從莫斯科來的。不用說，莫斯科是古時候定為國都的城市，是万城之母……對不起……”
他在茶炊旁的長凳上坐下，喝起茶來。大家默不作聲，只有他就著小茶盅大聲地喝著。他一連喝了十杯，隨后倒在長凳上，立即打起呼嚕來。
大家准備睡覺。尼古拉因為有病，跟父親一起躺在爐台上。薩莎睡在地板上，奧莉加和兩個妯娌去板棚里睡。
“唉，算了，親人儿，”她挨著瑪麗亞在干草上躺下后說，“眼淚也除不了痛苦！忍一忍就算了。圣書上說：‘有人打你的右臉，連左臉也轉過來由他打。’１唉，算了，親人儿！”
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１見《圣經·馬太福音》第五章第三十八節。
后來她曼聲細語地講起莫斯科，講起自己的生活，講她怎樣在帶家具的公寓里當女仆。
“莫斯科的房子都很大，石砌的，”她說，“教堂很多很多，有四十個教區的教堂哩，親人儿。房子的主人都是老爺，又体面，又有禮貌。”
瑪麗亞說，她別說莫斯科，就連縣城也沒有去過。她不認字，不會禱告，連“我們在天上的父”也不知道。她和奧菲克拉，她此刻坐在一旁听著，兩人 的智力都很低下，什么也不懂。兩人都不喜歡自己的丈夫。瑪麗亞怕基里亞克，每當他留下來，跟她在一起的時候，她就嚇得渾身發抖。只要她一挨近他，他身上的 那股濃重的酒气和煙味總熏得她頭痛。菲奧克拉呢，每當有人間她，丈夫不在是不是煩悶，她總是气惱地回答：
“去他的！”
她們聊了一陣，后來就不出聲了……
天气涼了。板棚附近有只公雞扯著嗓門喔喔啼叫，吵得人沒法睡覺。當淡藍色的晨光穿過每一條板縫時，菲奧克拉就悄悄地起身，走了出去，隨后可以听到她的光腳板的吧嗒聲，她不知跑哪儿去了。
奧莉加去教堂時，把瑪麗亞也帶去了。她們順著小路下坡，朝草場走去。兩個人都心情愉快。奧莉加喜歡遼闊的田園，瑪麗亞覺得這個妯娌和藹可親。 太陽升起來了。一只睡意未消的鷹在草場上低低地盤旋，河水暗淡無光，有些地方晨霧繚繞。河對岸的山上一條光帶延伸開去，照得教堂金光閃閃。在地主家的花園 里，一群白嘴鴉呱呱地大聲喧鬧著。
“老爺子倒沒什么，”瑪麗亞講起來，“老奶奶可厲害了，老跟人吵架。自家种的糧食只夠吃到謝肉節１，只好在小舖里買面粉，所以她就發火，老說：你們吃得太多。”
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１東正教節日，在大齋前一星期，俄舊歷二月下旬，帶有送冬迎春的意思。
“唉，算了，親人儿，忍一忍就算了。圣書上寫著：‘凡勞苦擔重擔的人，可以到我這里來。’２”
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２見《圣經·馬大福音》第十一章第二十八節。
奧莉加說話穩重，曼聲曼調，走起路來像朝圣女人那樣，又快又急。她每天必讀《福音書》，像教堂誦經士那樣大聲吟誦，盡管許多地方不懂，但神圣 的語言總讓她感動得流下眼淚，每當她讀到“如果”和“直到”這類詞時，她的心髒似乎都要停止跳動了。她信仰上帝，信仰圣母，信仰所有侍奉上帝的人。她相信 不能欺負人；普通人也罷，德國人也罷，茨岡人也罷，猶太人也罷，世上的任何人都欺負不得。她相信，凡是不怜恤動物的人遲早都要遭難。她相信這些都是在圣書 里寫著的。所以每當她讀《圣經》的時候，即使讀不懂，她的臉也總是流露出怜憫、感動和歡欣的表情。
“你是哪個地方的人呢？”瑪麗亞問道。
“我是弗拉基米爾人。只是我很早就去了莫斯科，那年我才八歲。”
她們來到河邊。河對岸有個女人站在水邊，正在脫衣服。
“那是我們家的菲奧克拉，”瑪麗亞認出人來，“她過河去地主的庄園。找那里的男管家。她盡胡鬧，愛吵架－－真不得了！”
黑眉毛的菲奧克拉頭發披散著，她還很年輕、健壯，像個姑娘家。她從岸上跳進河里，兩條腿使勁拍打，在她的四圍掀起了一片浪花。
“她盡胡鬧－－真不得了！”瑪麗亞又說一遍。
河上架著一道原木搭成的搖搖晃晃的橋。橋底下，在清澈透明的河水里，成群的大頭圓鰭雅羅魚游來游去。綠色的樹叢倒映在水里，樹葉上的露珠閃閃 發亮。四下里暖融融的，讓人滿心喜歡。多么美麗的早晨啊！若是沒有貧窮，沒有可怕的、無盡頭的、哪儿也躲不掉的貧窮，大概這人世間的生活也像這早晨一樣美 麗吧！可是只消回頭看一眼村子，就會清晰地記起昨天發生的一切，于是由周圍的景色喚起的那份讓人陶醉的幸福感，立即便消失了。
她們來到教堂。瑪麗亞站在大門口，不敢再在前走。她又不敢坐下，盡管要到八點多鐘才打鐘做彌撒。她就一直這樣站著。
念福音書的時候，人群忽然動起來，給地主一家人讓路。進來了兩個穿白色連衣裙、戴寬邊帽的姑娘，身后跟著一個紅紅胖胖穿水手服的男孩。他們的 到來使奧莉加大為感動，她一眼就看出，他們是上流社會有教養的、高貴的人。瑪麗亞卻皺起眉頭、沉著臉、沮喪地看著他們，仿佛進來的不是人，而是惡魔，她若 不讓路，就要被他們踩死似的。
每當助祭的男低音宣讀經文的時候，瑪麗亞總好像听到“瑪－瑪麗－亞”的喝斥聲，于是地不由得打起哆嗦來。
村里人听說來了客人，做完彌撤，不少人來到他們家。列昂內切夫家的人，瑪特維伊切夫家的人和伊利伊喬家的人都來打听他們在莫斯科當差的親戚的 情況。茹科沃村里的所有年輕人，只要認得字，能讀會寫，都被送到莫斯科，而且只送到飯館和旅店當學徒（正如河對岸的村子里年輕人只送到面包房當學徒一 樣）。這种風气由來已久，還在農奴制時代就這樣了。那時有個茹科沃的農民盧卡·伊凡內奇，如今他已是傳奇人物，在莫斯科的一個俱樂部里當小賣部的店主，只 接受同村人來做事，這些同村人站穩了腳跟，又把自己的親戚叫來，安排他們在飯館和旅店當差。從那時起，四周圍的鄉民把茹科沃的村名都改了，管它叫“下人 村”或者“奴才村”。尼古拉是十一歲那年被送到莫斯科的，由瑪特維伊切大家的伊凡·瑪卡雷奇為他謀了一份差事。伊凡·瑪卡雷奇當時在“艾爾米塔日”花園的 劇場里當引座員。現在，尼古拉對著瑪特維伊切夫家的人，說得頭頭是道：
“伊凡·瑪克雷奇是我的恩人，我得日日夜夜祈求上帝保佑他，因為多虧了他，我才成了体面人。”
“我的天哪，”一個高個子老太婆，伊凡·瑪卡雷奇的妹妹含著眼淚說，“他老人家，我那親人，現在一點音信都沒有了。”
“去年冬天他在奧蒙老爺家當差，這個季節听說他到城外的花園里做事……他老啦！從前吧，往往一個夏季，每天都能帶回家十來個盧布，可是現在到處都生意清淡，這下苦了他老人家了。”
那些老太婆和女人看著他穿氈鞋的腳，看著他蒼白的臉，傷心地說：
“你不是掙錢人了，尼古拉·奧西佩奇，不是掙錢人了！哪儿行呢！”
大家都喜歡薩莎。她已經滿十歲，可是長得很瘦小，看上去頂多只有七歲。別的小姑娘一個個臉蛋晒得發黑，頭發胡亂地剪短，穿著褪色的長衫。她呢，臉蛋白白的，眼睛又大又黑，頭發上還系著紅絲帶，夾在她們中間顯得有點滑稽，好像這是一頭剛從野地里捉回來的小獸。
“她會念書呢！”奧莉加溫柔地瞧著女儿，夸獎道。“你念一念，好孩子！”她說，從包裹里拿出一本《福音書》，“你念一念，念給那些正教徒听听。”
《福音書》很舊，很重，羊皮封面，書邊已經摸髒了。書本有股那樣的气味，就好像修士進屋來了。薩莎揚起眉毛，開始響亮地、像唱詩般念起來：
“‘有主的使者向約瑟夢中顯現，說，起來，帶著小孩子同他母親……’”
“帶著小孩子同他母親，”奧莉加重复道，她激動得滿臉通紅。
“‘逃往埃及，住在那里，等我吩咐你……１’”
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１見《圣經·馬大福音》第二章第十三節。
听到“等”字，奧莉加再也忍不住，失聲哭起來。瑪麗亞望著她也嗚咽抽泣，隨后便是伊凡·瑪卡雷奇的妹妹跟著落淚。老頭子不住地咳嗽，翻來翻去 想找件小禮物送給孫女，可是什么也沒有找到，只好揮揮手算了。經書念完之后，鄰居們四散回家，一個個深受感動，對奧莉加和薩莎十分滿意。
因為這天是節日，全家人整天都待在家里。老太婆，不論丈夫、儿媳，還是孫子、孫女都管她叫老奶奶，樣樣事情都要親自動手，親自生爐子，親自燒 茶炊，甚至在午間親自去擠牛奶，然后就不住地抱怨，說她干得快累死了。她老是擔心家里人吃多了，擔心老頭子和儿媳們閒著不干活。她時不時听到，小舖老板家 的一群鵝好像從后面鑽進她家的菜園子，于是她操起一根長杆子，赶緊跑出屋來，守著跟她一樣干瘦、發蔫的白菜，不歇气地一連喊上半個鐘頭。有時她好像覺得烏 鴉想來抓她的小雞，她就一邊罵，一邊朝烏鴉沖去。她從早到晚生气，咦叨，動不動就提著嗓門叫罵，弄得街上的行人不由得停了下來。
她對她的老頭子很不和气，不是叫他懶骨頭，就是叫他討厭鬼。他是個不大正經的、靠不住的庄稼人，若不是她經常催赶著他，恐怕他真的什么活都不干，成天坐在爐台上說閒話了。他沒完沒了地對儿子講起他的好些仇人，抱怨他每天都受鄰居的欺負，听他說話真是無聊。
“是啊，”他雙手叉腰，說起來，“是啊……在十字架節１后一個禮拜，我把干草賣了，一擔三十戈比，我自愿賣的……是啊……挺好……可是，有一 天早晨，我把干草推出去，我是自愿賣的，也沒有招惹誰，可是運气不好，我一看，村長安季普·謝杰利尼科夫正巧打從酒館里出來。‘你往哪儿送？沒出息的東 西！’他說完還隨手給了我一記耳光。”
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１東正教節日，在俄舊歷九月十四日。
基里亞爾喝醉后頭痛欲裂，在弟弟面前他很不好意思。
“伏特加真害人。唉，我的天哪！”他嘟噥著，不住地搖晃痛脹的頭，“你們要看在基督份上，親兄弟和親弟妹，原諒我才好，我自己也不快活呀。”
因為這天是節日，他們從酒館里買了一條鯡魚，熬了一鍋魚頭湯。中午大家先喝茶，喝了很長時間，直喝到頭上冒汗，看來茶水把肚子都撐大了。這之后才開始喝魚湯，大家就著一個瓦罐喝。至于魚身子，老奶奶卻藏起來了。
傍晚，有個陶工在坡上燒窯。坡下的草場上，姑娘們圍成圓圈唱歌跳舞。有人在拉手風琴。河對岸也有人在燒窯，也有姑娘們唱歌，遠處的歌聲悠揚動听。酒館內外不少農民吵吵嚷嚷，他們醉醞釀地各唱各的調，破口大罵，讓奧莉加听了直打哆哼，連呼：
“哎呀，天哪……”
她感到吃惊的是，那些罵人話可以連續不斷，而且罵得最凶、嗓門最大的倒是那些快要人士的老頭子。可是孩子們和姑娘家听了卻毫不理會，顯然他們在搖籃里就听慣了。
過了午夜，兩岸的窯火都已熄滅，可是下面草場上和酒館里還有人在玩樂。老頭子和基里亞克都醉了。他們胳膊挽著胳膊，肩膀撞著肩膀，跌跌撞撞來到奧莉加和瑪麗亞睡覺的板棚前。
“算了吧，”老頭子勸他說，“算了吧……這婆娘挺老實……罪過呀……”
“瑪－瑪麗－亞！”基里亞克喊道。
“算了吧……罪過呀……這婆娘不錯的。”
兩人在板棚前站了一會儿，走開了。
“我－我愛－野花儿！”老頭子突然用刺耳的男高音唱起來，“我－我愛－到野地里－摘花儿！”
隨后他啐了一口，罵了一句粗話，進屋去了。
老奶奶讓薩莎待在菜園里，守著白菜，別讓鵝進來禍害。己是炎熱的八月天。酒館老板家的鵝經常從后面鑽進菜園，不過現在它們干的是正經事：在酒 館附近啄食燕麥，和睦地閒聊著，只有一只公鵝高高地昂起頭，似乎想觀察一下，老太婆是不是拿著杆子跑來了。別的鵝也可能從坡下上來，不過那群鵝此刻在河對 岸覓食，在綠色的草場上拉出一道長長的白線。薩莎站了一會儿，覺得挺沒意思，看看鵝也不來，就跑到陡坡的邊上去了。
她在那里看到瑪麗亞的大女儿莫季卡正一動不動地站在一塊大石頭上望著教堂。瑪麗亞生了十三胎，可是只留下六個孩子，而且全是女儿，沒有男孩。 大女儿才八歲。莫季卡光著腳，穿一件長襯衫，站在太陽地里，火辣辣的太陽烤著她的頭頂，但她毫不理會，仿佛成了化石。薩莎站到她身邊，望著教堂說：
“上帝就住在教堂里。人到了晚上點燈，點蜡燭，上帝呢，點長明燈。長明燈有紅的，綠的，藍的，像小眼睛似的。到了夜里上帝就在教堂里走來走 去，圣母娘娘和上帝的仆人尼古拉陪著他－－咯，哆，哆……守夜人听了嚇坏了，嚇坏了！唉，算了，親人儿，”她學著母親的話，說道，“到了世界未日那一天， 所有的教堂都飛到天上去。”
“鐘－樓－也－飛？”莫季卡一字一頓地低聲問道。
“鐘樓也飛。到了世界未日那一天，好心的人都進天堂，凶惡的人呢，給扔進永遠不滅的火里去燒，親人儿。上帝會對我媽媽和瑪麗亞說，你們沒有欺負人。所以往右邊走，去天堂吧。可是對基里亞克和老奶奶他就會說：你們往左邊走，到火里去。誰在持齋日吃葷，他也要到火里去。”
她仰望天空，睜大眼睛，又說：
“你望著天空，別眨眼睛，就能看到天使。”
莫季卡也仰望天空，在沉默中過了一分鐘。
“看見了嗎？”薩莎問道。
“看不見，”莫季卡低聲說。
“我可看見了。一群小天使在天上飛，扇著小翅膀－－一閃一閃，像小蚊子似的。”
莫季卡想了一會儿，看著地面，問道：
“老奶奶也要遭火燒嗎？”
“會的，親人儿。”
從她們站著的大石頭一直到山腳下，是一道平整的緩坡，長滿了綠油油的嫩草，叫人見了真想伸出手去摸一摸，或者在上面躺一躺。薩莎躺下，翻身往下滾。莫季卡一臉嚴肅認真的樣子，喘著气，也躺下，翻身往下滾，這么一來，她的衫子就卷到肩膀上去了。
“多好玩呀！”薩莎快活地說。
她倆往上走，想再玩一次，可是這當儿傳來了熟悉的尖叫聲。哎呀，真可怕！老奶奶沒了牙，瘦骨伶仔，駝著背，短短的白發隨風飄起，拿著一根長杆子正把一群鵝赶出菜園子，一邊大聲叫罵著：
“所有的白菜都給搗碎了，這些該死的畜生，把你們統統宰了才好，你們這些挨千刀的禍根子，怎么不死喲！”
她看到兩個小姑娘，就扔下杆子，拾起一根枯樹枝，伸出干瘦、粗硬、像彎鉤似的手指抓住薩莎的脖子，開始抽打她。薩莎又痛又嚇，立即大哭，這當 儿那只公鵝伸長脖子，一搖一擺地走到老太婆跟前，嘎嘎地吼了一陣，當它轉身歸隊時，所有的母鵝贊賞地歡迎它：嘎一嘎一嘎！隨后老奶奶揮著樹伎抽打莫季卡， 這下莫季卡的衫子又給掀了起來。薩莎傷心透了，大哭著跑回屋里，想訴說委屈。莫季卡跟在她后面，也放聲大哭，不過她的哭聲低沉，而且不擦眼淚，她的臉上淚 水漣漣，就像她剛把臉泡進水里似的。
“我的天哪！”奧莉加見她倆跑進屋來，惊呼道，“圣母娘娘啊！”
薩莎開始講起怎么回事，這當儿老奶奶尖聲叫罵著也進了屋，菲奧克拉也惱了，于是屋子里鬧得亂成一團。
“不要緊，不要緊！”奧莉加臉色蒼白，心慌意亂，一邊撫摩著薩莎的頭，一邊安慰她，“她是你的奶奶，生奶奶的气是罪過的。不要緊的，好孩子。”
尼古拉早已被這經常不斷的叫罵、饑餓、煤煙和臭气弄得筋疲力盡，他已經痛恨、鄙視這种貧窮的生活，而且在妻子、女儿面前常常為自己的爹娘感到羞愧－－這時候，他從爐台上垂下腿來，用哭泣的聲音气憤地對母親說：
“您不能打她！您根本沒有權利打她！”
“得了吧。你躺在爐台上等死吧，你這個病鬼！”菲奧克拉惡狠狠地沖著他大聲嚷嚷，“真見鬼，誰叫你們回來吃閒飯啦？”
薩莎、莫季卡和家里所有的小姑娘都爬到爐台上，躲在尼古拉背后的角落里，在那儿一聲不響地、戰戰兢兢地听著這些話，似乎可以听到她們那小小的 心髒在怦怦地跳動。每當一個家庭里有人久病不愈，絕了生還的希望，常常會出現极其沉重的時刻，這時他身邊的所有親人會膽怯地、暗暗地、在內心深處希望他死 去。只有孩子們害怕親人的死亡，一想到這個就會膽戰心惊。此刻，小姑娘們都屏住呼吸，臉上一副悲哀的表情，望著尼古拉，想到他很快就要死掉，她們不由得想 哭，想對他說几句親切的、可怜他的話。
尼古拉直往奧莉加這邊靠，仿佛在尋找她的保護，用顫抖的聲音輕輕地對她說：
“奧莉亞１，親愛的，我在這儿再也待不下去了。我筋疲力盡了。看在上帝份上，看在天主基督份上，你給你妹妹克拉夫季婭·阿勃拉莫夫娜寫封信 吧，讓她把她所有的東西都賣了，當了，讓她把錢寄來，我們好离開這里。啊，上帝，”他苦惱地繼續道，“哪怕讓我再看一眼莫斯科也好啊！哪怕我能夢見莫斯科 也好啊，親愛的！”
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１奧莉加的昵稱。
黃昏來臨，木屋里越來越暗，大家愁閥得說不出話來。愛生气的老奶奶把黑麥面包的硬殼掰碎后泡在碗里，再放進嘴里慢慢地嚼著，吃了足足一個鐘 頭。瑪麗亞擠完牛奶，提著牛奶桶進來，把它放在凳子上。老奶奶再把桶里的牛奶倒進一只只瓦罐里，不慌不忙地干了很長時間。顯然她很滿意，因為眼下正是圣母 升天節２齋戒期，誰也不興喝牛奶，這些牛奶就都留下了。她只往一個小碟子里倒了少許，留給菲奧克拉的小娃娃喝。后來她和瑪麗亞把一只只瓦罐送到地窖去。莫 季卡忽然跳起來，從爐台上爬下來，走到凳子跟前，拿起碟子，往那只泡著面包硬皮的木碗里潑了一點牛奶。
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２圣母升天節，在俄舊歷八月十五日，齋期半個月，持齋日不吃葷（肉食及牛奶）。
老奶奶回到屋里，又端起自己的碗吃起來。薩莎和莫季卡坐在爐台上望著老奶奶，心里特別高興：這下她開葷了，往后只能入地獄了。她們得到了安 慰，就躺下睡覺。薩莎快要入睡，可還在想象著最后的審判：一只像陶窯那樣的大爐子里烈火熊熊，有個頭上長著牛那樣的犄角、渾身烏黑的魔鬼，拿著一根長杆子 把老奶奶往火里赶，就像她自己剛才赶鵝一樣。
在圣母升天節晚上十點多鐘，在坡下草場上玩樂的姑娘們和小伙子們，忽然發出刺耳的惊叫，紛紛朝村子方向奔跑。那些坐在陡坡上邊的人一時間怎么也弄不明白出了什么事。
“著火啦！著火啦！”下面傳來聲嘶力竭的呼喊聲，“村里著火啦！”
坐在陡坡上邊的人回頭一看，在他們前面呈現出一幅可怕的、不同尋常的景象。村頭一座木房的干草頂上，躥起一俄丈１的火柱，火舌翻滾，無數的火星撒向口面八方，像噴泉噴水似的。隨即整個屋頂燃起熊熊大火，可以听到火燒時的僻啪聲。
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１一俄丈等于二·一二三米。
月色變暗淡了，整個村子已經籠罩在顫動的紅光中，黑影在地上移動，空气中有一股熏糊味。從坡下跑上來的人，一個個气喘吁吁，戰戰兢兢，說不出 話來。他們互相推擠，跌跌撞撞，由于不習慣刺眼的火光，他們什么也看不清楚，甚至彼此都認不出來了。真是可怕。特別可怕的是几只鴿子在火焰上空的濃煙里飛 來飛去，而在酒館里，那些還不知道村里起火的人還在唱歌，拉手風琴，像什么事也沒有發生一樣。
“謝苗大叔家起火啦！”有人粗聲粗气地大喊道。
瑪麗亞在自己屋前急得團團轉。她哭哭啼啼，搓著手，嚇得牙齒直打顫，雖說火還遠著呢，在村子的另一頭。尼古拉穿著氈靴走出屋來，孩子們穿著貼 身衫子紛紛跑出來。在鄉村巡警的小屋附近有人敲起了鐵板。當當的聲音響徹夜空。這急促的無休止的鐵板聲弄得人心里隱隱作痛，渾身發冷。一些老奶奶們都捧著 圣像站著。所有的羊、牛犢和母牛都讓人從院子里轟到街上，不少箱籠、熟羊皮和木桶都搬了出來。一匹毛色烏黑的种馬，平常不放它進馬群，因為它老踢傷別的 馬，這會儿也放了出來。它一聲嘶嗚，馬蹄得得，在村里一連跑了兩個來回，忽然在一輛大車旁停住，用后腿使勁踢那輛車子。
河對岸的教堂里也敲起了鐘。
在起火的木屋附近熱气的人，亮得連地上的每一棵小草都清晰可見。一些箱子好不容易給拖了出來。謝苗坐在其中的一只箱子上，這是一個須發棕紅的 農民，大鼻子，一頂便帽壓得很低，直到耳朵，穿一件西服上衣。他的妻子臉朝下躺在地上，已經不省人事，嘴里不住地哼哼著。有個八十歲上下的老頭，身材矮 小，一把大胡子，像個地精１。他不是本地人，但顯然与這場火災有牽連，在一旁走來走去，沒戴帽子，手里抱一個白包袱。他的禿頂上映照出火光來。村長安季 普·謝杰利尼科夫，晒黑的臉膛，烏黑的頭發，像個茨岡人，拿一把斧子走到木屋前，不知道為什么，把所有的窗子接連砍下來，隨后便砍起台階來。
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１西歐神話中守護地下財寶的丑陋的侏儒。
“婆娘們，弄水來！”他喊道，“把机器抬來！麻利點，姑娘們！”
剛才在酒館里飲酒作樂的農民們把救火机抬來了。他們都已喝醉，不時磕磕絆絆，跌跌撞撞，眼睛里含著淚水，一副無可奈何的表情。
“姑娘們，弄水來！”村長吆喝著，他也醉了，“麻利些，姑娘們！”
女人和姑娘們跑到下面泉水邊，把大桶、小桶灌滿了水往山上送，倒進救火机里，又往下跑。奧莉加、瑪麗亞、薩莎和莫季卡都去弄水。有些女人和男 孩子壓唧筒抽水，消防水龍帶便吱吱地冒水，村長拿著它一會儿對著門，一會儿對著窗，有時還用手指堵住水流，這一來吱吱聲就更刺耳了。
“好樣的，安季普！”有些人稱贊道，“加油啊！”
安季普沖進起火的門廊里，在里面大聲喊叫：
“使勁壓水！正教徒們，為了這場災禍，合力干哪！”
不少農民站在一旁，什么事也不干，瞧著火發愣。誰也不知該做什么，也不會做，而周圍全是糧垛、干草、板棚和柴堆。基里亞克和老頭奧西普也站在里面，兩人都帶著醉意。像是為自己的袖手旁觀開脫，老頭對躺在地上的女人說：
“大嫂子，你何苦拿腦袋撞地呢？你這房子是上過保險的，你愁什么！”
謝苗時而對這個人，時而對那個人講起著火的原因：
“就是那個拿包袱的小老頭子，茹科夫將軍家的仆人……他從前在將軍家當廚子，愿將軍的靈魂升天堂。晚上來我家說：‘留我在這儿住一夜……’好 吧，不用說，我們兩人就喝了那么一小杯……老婆子忙著生茶炊，想請老頭子喝點茶，可是合該倒霉，她把茶炊放到門廊里，煙囪里的火星一直躥到屋頂，點著了干 草，這下就出事了。我們差點沒給燒死。老頭子的帽子燒掉了，作孽呀。”
鐵板的當當聲響個不停，河對岸的教堂里鐘聲齊嗚。奧莉加周身映在火光里，气喘吁吁地時而跑下，時而跑上，惊恐地看著那些火紅色的綿羊和在煙霧 里飛來飛去的粉紅色的鴿子。她覺得這鐘聲像尖刺扎進她的心髒，又覺得這場火永遠扑不滅，而薩莎找不見了……后來轟隆一聲木屋的天花板塌下來，她心想這下全 村准會燒光，這時她渾身癱軟，再也提不起水桶，就坐在坡上，水桶扔在一旁。在她身旁和身后都有女人在呼天喊地地放聲大哭，像哭喪一樣。
這時候，從河對岸的地主庄園里駛來兩輛馬拉大車，車上坐著地主的管家和雇工，他們運來了一台救人机。有個身穿白色海軍眼、敞著怀的年輕大學生 騎著馬也赶來了。響起了斧子的砍擊聲，一把梯子架到已經著火的木屋框架上，立即有五個人往上爬，打頭的就是那個大學生。他周身被火光照紅，用刺耳的、嘶啞 的聲音喊叫著，那口气，就好像他是救火的行家似的。他們把木屋拆掉，把原木一根根卸下來，把畜欄、篱笆和近處的干草垛都拖開了。
“不准他們拆屋子，”人群里傳來嚴厲的喊聲，“不准！”
基里亞克一副果斷的神態走向木屋，似乎要阻止來人拆房子。可是一名雇工把他赶回來，還狠狠地揍了他一拳。大家一陣哄笑，雇工又給了一拳，基里亞克倒下了，手腳并用爬回到人群里。
河對岸又來了兩個戴帽子的漂亮姑娘，多半是大學生的姐妹。她們站在遠處觀望。拆下拖走的原木不再燃燒，但是冒著濃煙。現在大學生拿著水籠頭，時而對著原木沖，時而對農民和提水的女人沖。
“喬治！”兩個姑娘責備地、不安地向他喊道，“喬治！”
火熄滅了。大家四散回家，這時才發現天快亮了，人人臉色蒼白，還帶點淡褐色－－每當清早天空中的殘星消失的時候，總是這樣的。回家路上，農民 們嘻嘻哈哈，不斷地拿茹科夫將軍的廚子開玩笑，取笑他把帽子燒掉了。他們已經有興致把火災變成笑談，甚至好像有點惋惜火很快就被扑滅了。
“您，少爺，救人挺內行，”奧莉加對大學生說，“真該把您調到我們莫斯科，那儿差不多天天有火災。”
“您難道從莫斯科來的？”一位小姐問道。
“是這樣。我丈夫在‘斯拉夫商場，當差。這是我的女儿，”她指著冷得發抖、緊貼著她的薩莎說，“她也算是莫斯科人哩，小姐。”
兩位小姐對大學生講了几句法語，他就給了薩莎一個二十戈比的硬幣。老頭子奧西普見到了，他的臉上頓時閃現出希望的光芒。
“感謝上帝，老爺，多虧沒風，”他對大學生說，“要不然只消一個鐘頭就會燒個精光。老爺，您心好，”他壓低嗓音，不好意思地加了一句：“大清早好冷？真想暖暖身子……您行行好，賞几個小錢打點酒喝。”
他什么也沒有得著，于是大聲清了清嗓子，慢騰騰地回家了。奧莉加一直站在坡邊，望著兩輛車子怎樣涉水過河，少爺和小姐怎樣穿過草地，河對岸有一輛馬車正等著他們，她一回到木屋，就惊喜地對丈夫說：
“多好的人哪！長得也漂亮！兩位小姐簡直就是天使！”
“她們不得好死！”睡得迷迷糊糊的菲奧克拉惡狠狠地說。
瑪麗亞認定自己命苦，常說不如死了算了。菲奧克拉正相反，貧窮也好，齷齪也好，不停的叫罵也好，這生活樣樣合她的口味。給她什么，她就吃什 么，從不挑挑揀揀；不管什么地方，不管有沒有舖的蓋的，她倒頭就睡。她把髒水倒在台階上，潑到門外頭，再光著腳從水洼里走過去。她從第一天起就痛恨奧莉加 和尼古拉，只因為他們不喜歡這种生活。
“我倒要瞧瞧你們在這里吃什么，莫斯科的貴族！”她常常幸災樂禍地說，“我倒要瞧一瞧！”
有一天早晨，那已是九月初了，菲奧克拉挑了一擔水從坡下回來，凍得臉蛋紅紅的，又健康又漂亮。這時候瑪麗亞和奧莉加正坐在桌子旁喝茶。
“又是茶又是糖，”菲奧克拉挖苦地說，“好气派的太太們，”她放下水桶，又說，“倒時興天天喝茶哩，小心點，別讓茶把你們嗆死了！”她痛恨地瞧著奧莉加，接下去說，“在莫斯科養得肥頭胖臉的，瞧這一身肥膘！”
她掄起扁擔，一頭打在奧莉加的肩膀上，兩個妯娌吃惊得擊掌歎道：
“哎呀，我的天哪！”
隨后菲奧克拉又去河邊洗衣服，一路上破口大罵，響得連屋子里都听得見。
白天過去了，隨后是秋天漫長的夜晚。木屋里在繞絲。大家動手，除了奧菲克拉：她又跑到河對岸去了。這絲是從附近的工厂里弄來的，全家人靠它掙几個錢－－一星期二十來戈比。
“當年在東家手下，日子要好過些，”老頭子一面繞絲，一面說，“干活，吃飯，睡覺，都按部就班的。中午飯有菜湯和粥，晚飯還是菜湯和粥。黃瓜和白菜多的是，由你敞開吃。可是規矩也大些。人人都守本分。”
屋里只點一盞小燈，光線暗淡，燈芯冒煙。要是有人擋住了小燈，就有很大一片黑影落在窗上，這時可以看到明亮的月光。老頭子奧西普不慌不忙地談 起農奴解放１前人們怎樣生活。他說到，在這一帶地方，現如今日子過得太煩悶，太窮苦，想當年老爺們常常帶著獵犬、靈＊（左反犬右是）２和職業獵手外出打 獵，圍獵的時候，農民都能喝到伏特加。之后整車整車被打死的野禽就送到莫斯科的少東家那里。他還說到，作惡的農奴受到懲罰，挨樹條抽打，還要發配到特維爾 的世襲領地上當農奴；好心的農奴受到獎賞。老奶奶也講些往事。她什么都記得。她談起自己的女主人，說她心地善良，嚴守教規，可是丈夫是個酒徒和浪蕩子。說 她有三個女儿，天知道都嫁了些什么人：一個嫁給酒鬼，另一個嫁給小市民，第三個私奔了（老奶奶當時很年輕，還幫過小姐的忙）。她們三個很快都愁苦死了，跟 她們的母親一樣，想起這些，老奶奶甚至抽泣了几聲。
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１俄國于一八六一年廢除農奴制。
２一种跑得特別快的獵犬。
突然有人敲門，大家都嚇了一跳。
“奧西普大叔，留我住一夜吧！”
進來一個禿頂的小老頭子，就是那個燒掉帽子的茹科夫將軍的廚子。他坐下來，听著，隨后也開始回憶往事，講起各种各樣的故事來。尼古拉坐在爐台 上，垂著兩條腿，听著，老是間他當年老爺們吃些什么菜。他們談起了炸肉餅、肉排、各种湯和佐料。廚子的記性也很好，他還舉出一些現在沒有的菜，比如說有一 道用牛眼睛做的菜，取名叫“早晨醒”。
“那時候你們燒‘元帥肉排’嗎？”尼古拉問。
“不燒。”
尼古拉搖搖頭，責備說：
“哎呀，你們這些沒本事的廚子！”
爐台上的小姑娘們有的坐著，有的躺著，不眨眼地往下瞧著，她們人很多，看上去真像云端里的一群小天使。她們喜歡听大人講話，她們時而高興，時而害怕，不住地歎气，發抖，臉色變白。她們覺得老奶奶的故事講得最有趣，她們便屏住呼吸听著，不敢動一下。
后來大家默默地躺下睡覺。老年人被那些陳年往事弄得心神不定，興奮起來，想起年輕的時候多么美好。青春，不管它什么樣，在人的記憶中總是留下 生動、愉快、動人的印象。至于死亡，它已經不遠了，卻是那么可怕而無情－－最好不去想它！油燈熄滅了。黑暗也好，月光照亮的兩扇小窗也好，寂靜也好，搖籃 的吱嘎聲也好，不知什么緣故這一切使老人們想起他們的生活已經過去，青春再也回不來了……他們剛要朦朧入睡，忽地有人碰碰你的肩膀，一口气吹到臉上，立即 就睡意全消了，覺得身子發麻，种种死的念頭直往腦子里鑽。翻一個身再睡－－死的事倒忘了，可是滿腦子都是貧窮、飼料、面粉漲价等等早就讓人發愁、煩心的 事。過了一會儿，不由得又會想起：生活已經過去了，再也回不來了……
“唉，主啊！”廚子歎了一口气。
有人輕輕地敲了几下小窗子。多半是菲奧克拉回來了。奧莉加打著哈欠，小聲念著禱詞，起身去開房門，又到門道里拉開了門閂。可是沒有人進來，只是從外面啟進一陣冷風，月光一下子照亮了門道。從門里望出去，可以看到寂靜而荒涼的街道和天上浮游的月亮。
“是誰呢？”奧莉加大聲問。
“我，”有人回答，“是我。”
大門旁貼著牆跟站著菲奧克拉，全身一絲不挂。她凍得渾身發抖、牙齒打顫，在明亮的月色里顯得很白，很美，很怪。她身上的暗處和皮膚上的月輝，不知怎么十分顯眼，她那烏黑的眉毛和一對年輕、結實的乳房顯得特別清楚。
“河對岸的那幫家伙胡鬧，剝光了我的衣服才放我回來……”她說，“我只好光著身子回家，像出娘胎時那樣。快給我拿點穿的來。”
“你倒是進屋呀！”奧莉加小聲說，她也冷得哆嗦起來。
“千万別讓老東西們看見。”
實際上，老奶奶已經操心地嘟噥起來，老頭子問：“誰在那邊？”奧莉加把自己的上衣和裙子拿出去，幫菲奧克拉穿上，隨后兩人极力不出聲地關上門，輕手輕腳地走進木屋。
“是你吧，討厭鬼？”老奶奶猜出是誰，生气地嘟噥道，“嘿，叫你這夜貓子……不得好死！”
“不要緊，不要緊，”奧莉加悄悄地說，給菲奧克拉披上衣服，“不要緊的，親人儿。”
屋里又靜下來。這家人向來睡不踏實：那种糾纏不休、擺脫不掉的苦惱妨礙他們每個人安睡：者頭子背痛，老奶奶滿心焦慮和气惱，瑪麗亞擔惊受怕，孩子們疥瘡發痒、肚子老餓。此刻他們在睡夢中也是不安的：他們不斷地翻身，說夢話，爬起來喝水。
菲奧克拉突然哇的一聲哭起來，但立即又忍住，不時抽抽搭搭，聲音越來越輕，最后不響了。河對岸有時傳來報時的鐘聲，可是敲得很怪：先是五下，后來是三下。
“唉，主啊！”廚子連連歎息。
望著窗子，很難弄清楚，這是月色呢，或者已經天亮了。瑪麗亞起身后走出屋子，可以听見她在院子里擠牛奶，不時說：“站好！”后來老奶奶也出去了。屋子里還很暗，但所有的東西都已顯露出來。
尼古拉一夜沒睡著，從爐台上爬下來。他從一只綠色的小箱子里拿出自己的燕尾服，穿到身上，走到窗前，不住地用手掌抿平衣袖，又抻抻后襟。他笑了。后來他小心地脫下燕尾服，收進箱子里，又去躺下了。
瑪麗亞回到屋里，開始生爐子。她顯然還沒有完全睡醒，現在一邊走，一邊慢慢地清醒過來。她大概夢見了什么，或者又想起了昨晚的故事，因此她在爐子跟前舒舒服服地伸了個懶腰，說：
“不，還是自由好啊！”
老爺坐車來了－－村里人都這樣稱呼區警察局局長。他什么時候來，為什么來，一周以前大家就知道了。茹科沃村只有四十戶人家，可是他們欠下官府和地方自治局的稅款已累計兩千有余。
區警察局局長先在小酒館里歇腳，他“賞光”喝了兩杯清茶，然后步行到村長家里，房子外面一群拖欠稅款的農民已在恭候。村長安季普·謝杰利尼科 夫盡管很年輕－－他只有三十歲出頭－－卻很嚴厲，總是幫上級說話，其實他自己也很窮，也不能按時交納稅款。顯然他很樂意當村長，喜歡意識到自己擁有權力， 這權力就是嚴厲，此外他不知道還有什么能表現出這份權力。村民大會上，大家都怕他，由他說了算。有時，在街上或者酒館附近，他會突然沖著某個醉漢大聲呵 叱，反綁了他的手，把他關進拘留室。有一次他甚至把老奶奶也關了一天一夜，原因是她代替奧西普來開村會，還在會上罵街。他沒有在城市里住過，也從來沒有念 過書，但他不知從哪儿弄來了許多深奧的字眼儿，喜歡在言談中用一用，為此他備受村民敬重，盡管別人听不懂是什么意思。
奧西普帶著他的納稅簿走進村長家的小木屋。區警察局局長，一個瘦老頭子，灰白的連鬢胡子蓄得很長，穿一身灰制服，正坐在上座１的桌子旁寫些什 么。屋子里干干淨淨，四面牆上貼滿了從雜志上撕下來的花花綠綠的畫片。在圣像旁邊最顯眼的地方，挂著從前的保加利亞大公巴滕貝克２的肖像。村長安季普·謝 杰利尼科夫兩手交叉抱在胸前，站在桌旁。
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１俄羅斯農舍內，上面放圣像的地方。
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２巴滕貝克（一八五七－－一八九三），德國親王，一八七九年任保加利亞大公，親德奧勢力，一八八六年在親俄派軍官的壓力下，被迫退位。
“大人，他欠一百十九盧布，”輪到奧西普時，他說，“复活節前他交了一個盧布，打從那天起再沒交過一個小錢。”
區警察局局長抬眼望著奧西普，問道：
“這是為什么，老鄉？”
“請您開恩，大人，”奧西普激動地說，“容我說几句，頭年柳托列茨村的老爺對我說：‘奧西普，把你的干草賣了吧……賣給我。’怎么不行呢？我有一百普特干草要賣出去，都是几個婆娘在草場上割的。行，我們談妥了价錢……本來挺好，兩廂情愿……”
他抱怨起村長來，不時轉身瞧瞧農民們，似乎要請他們來作證似的。他滿臉通紅，額頭冒汗，眼神變得尖利而凶狠。
“我不明白你說這些干嗎？”區警察分局局長說，“我問你……我只問你為什么不交納欠款？你們大家都不交，難道要我來替你們承擔責任嗎？”
“我拿不出來嘛！”
“這些話毫無道理，大人，”村長說，“不錯，奇基利杰耶夫一家屬于不富足階層，不過請您問問其余的人，全部過錯在伏特加，一幫胡作非為的人。他們一竅不通。”
區警察局局長記下什么，然后心平气和地對奧西普說，那語气就像討杯水喝似的：
“你去吧。”
區警察局局長很快就走了。他坐進一輛廉价的四輪馬車，不住地咳嗽，望著他那又長又瘦的背影可以看出，此刻他已經忘了奧西普，忘了村長，忘了茹 科沃村的欠款，他在想著自己的心事了。他還沒有走出一俄里，安季普·謝杰利尼科夫已經奪走了奇基利杰耶夫家的茶炊，老奶奶在后面追，使足勁尖聲喊叫：
“不准拿走！我不准你拿走，你這個魔鬼！”
村長邁開大步，走得很快；老奶奶駝著背，憤怒若狂、气喘吁吁、跌跌撞撞地在后面追他，她的頭巾掉到肩上，一頭白發泛出淡淡的綠色，在風中飄揚。她突然站住，像一個真正的暴動者，雙拳不住地捶胸，拖長聲調，叫罵得更響，嚎啕哭訴起來：
“正教徒們，信仰印上帝的人啊！老天爺哪，他們欺負人！鄉親們哪，他們壓迫人！哎呀，哎呀，好人們哪，替我伸冤雪恨啊！”
“老奶奶，老奶奶，”村長厲聲說，“不得無理取鬧！”
沒有了茶炊，奇基利杰耶夫的家里變得异常沉悶。茶炊被人奪走，這是有損尊嚴、有失体面的事，就像這家人的名譽忽然掃地一樣。要是村長拿走桌子 和凳子，拿走所有的瓶瓶罐罐倒也好些，那樣的話，屋子里會顯得空一些。老奶奶呼天喊地，瑪麗亞傷心落淚，所有的小姑娘望著她們也都哇哇哭起來。老頭子感到 心中有愧，垂頭喪气地坐在屋角里一聲不吭。尼古拉無話可說。老奶奶一向疼他，可怜他，可是這會儿忘了体恤，忽然沖著他不停地叫罵，責難，對著他的臉不住地 搖拳頭。她大聲斥責，說全是他的過錯，還在信里吹牛，說什么在“斯拉夫商場”每月領五十盧布，可實際上給家里寄的錢卻很少很少，這是為什么？他干嗎回家 來，還帶著家眷？他要是死了，哪儿弄錢來葬他？……尼古拉、奧莉加和薩莎的模樣儿看上去真可怜。
老頭子咳了一聲，拿起帽子，找村長去了。天色已黑。安季普·謝杰利尼科夫鼓著腮幫子在爐子旁焊什么東西。滿屋子煤气味。他的孩子們都很瘦，沒 有梳洗，在地板上爬來爬去，不比奇基利杰耶夫家的強多少。她的妻子長相難看，臉上有雀斑，挺著大肚子在繞絲。這是一個不幸的赤貧的家庭。只有安季普一人看 上去既年輕又漂亮。在長凳上放著一溜五把茶炊。老頭子對著巴滕貝克念著禱詞１，說：
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１保加利亞大公巴滕貝克的像挂在圣像旁邊，奧西普忙中出錯了。
“安季普，求你發發慈悲，把茶炊還給我！看在基督面上！”
“拿三個盧布來，你就取走。”
“我拿不出來嘛！”
安季普不時鼓起腮幫子，火就呼呼地響，僻啪地叫，火光映紅了那些茶炊。老頭子揉著帽子，想了一陣，又說：
“還給我吧！”
皮膚晒黑的村長此刻全身烏黑，活像個巫師。他轉身對著奧西普，說得又快又嚴厲：
“這得由地方長官說了算。本月二十六日，你可以到行政會議上口頭或者書面申訴你不滿的理由。”
奧西普一點也听不懂他的意思，只好到此為止，回家去了。
十多天后，區警察局局長又來了，坐了個把鐘頭，后來又坐車走了。那些天，風大而寒冷，河面早已結冰，雪倒沒有下，可是道路難走，令大家苦惱。 有一天，一個節日的傍晚，鄰居們到奧西普家閒坐，聊天。他們在黑屋子里說著話，因為節日里不該干活，所以沒有點燈。新聞倒有几件，不過都叫人不痛快。比如 有兩三戶人家的公雞被抓去抵債，送到鄉公所，在那里死掉了，因為誰也不去喂它們。又比如，有几家的綿羊給拉走了，他們把羊捆起來，裝在大車上運走，每到一 個村子就換一輛大車，結果一頭羊悶死了。現在有一個問題需要解答：誰的過鍺？該怪誰？
“該怪地方自治局！”奧西普說，“不怪它怪誰！”
“沒說的，該怪地方自治局。”
他們把欠款、受欺壓、糧食歉收等等所有的事都怪罪于地方自治局，雖說他們中誰也不知地方自治局是怎么回事。這种情況由來己久。當初一些富裕的農民自己開了工厂、小舖和客店，當上了地方自治會議員，卻始終心怀不滿，后來便在自己的工厂和舖子里大罵地方自治局。
他們又談到了者天爺不下雪：本該去運木柴了，可是眼下路面坑坑洼洼，車不能行，人不能走。過去吧，十五年、二十年以前，茹科沃村里人的談話要 有趣得多。那時候，每個老頭子臉上都是這樣一副神气，仿佛他心里藏著什么秘密，知道什么，盼著什么。他們談論蓋著金印的公文，土地的划分，新的土地和埋藏 的財寶；他們的話里都暗示著什么；現在的茹科沃人誰都沒有秘密，他們的全部生活像擺在掌心里一樣，人人都看得見，他們能談的不外乎貧窮和飼料，再就是老天 爺怎么不下雪……
他們沉默片刻。后來又想起了公雞和綿羊的事，又開始議論是誰的過錯。
“地方自治局！”奧西普沮喪地說，“不怪它怪誰！”
教區的教堂在六俄里外的科索戈羅沃村。農民們只在需要時，如給嬰儿施洗禮、舉行婚禮、舉行葬儀時才去那里。平時做祈禱到過河的教堂就行了。到 了節日，遇上好天气，姑娘們打扮一番，成群結隊去做彌撒。她們穿著紅的、黃的、綠的連衣裙，穿過草場，叫人看了心里就高興。不過遇上坏天气，她們只好待在 家里。持齋的日子里，他們去教區的教堂作忏悔、領圣餐。在复活節后的一周內，神父舉著十字架走遍所有的農舍，向大齋日沒有去教堂作忏悔的教徒每人收取十五 戈比。
老頭子不信上帝，因此他几乎從來不想他。他承認有神奇的事，但他認為這种事只跟女人有關。有人在他面前談起宗教或者奇跡這類事，向他提個什么問題，他總是搔搔頭皮，不樂意地回答：
“誰知道這個呀！”
老奶奶信上帝，不過有點糊涂。她的腦子里所有的事都混在一起，她剛想起罪孽、死亡、靈魂得救，忽地貧窮啦，种种操心的事啦，又都插進來，她立即忘了剛才在想什么。禱告詞她記不住，通常在晚上睡覺前，她站在圣像面前小聲念道：
“喀山圣母娘娘，斯摩棱斯克圣母娘娘，三臂圣母娘娘……”
瑪麗亞和菲奧克拉經常在身上畫十字，每年都持齋，可是什么也不懂。孩子們沒有學過禱告，大人們也不對他們講上帝，傳授什么教規，只是禁止他們 在齋期吃葷。其余的家庭几乎一樣：相信的人少，懂教規的人更少。同時大家又都喜歡《圣經》，溫存地、虔敬地喜歡它，可是他們沒有書，沒人念《圣經》，講 《圣經》。奧莉加有時念《福音書》，為此大家都敬重她，對她和薩莎都恭敬地稱呼“您”。
奧莉加經常去鄰村和縣城參加教堂命名節活動和感恩祈禱，在縣城里有兩個修道院和二十六座教堂。她去朝圣的路上總是神不守舍，完全忘了家人，直到回村來，才突然惊喜地發現自己有丈夫，有女儿，于是喜气洋洋地笑著說：
“上帝賜福給我了！”
村子里發生的事使她厭惡、痛苦。農民們在伊利亞節１喝酒，在圣母升天節喝酒，在十字架節又喝酒。圣母庇護節２是教區的節日，茹科沃村的農民為 此一連喝三天酒。他們不但喝光了五十盧布的公款，過后還挨家挨戶收取酒錢。頭一天，奇基利杰耶夫家就宰了一頭公羊，早中晚一連吃了三頓羊肉。他們吃得很 多，到了夜里孩子們爬起來再吃一點。這三天里基里亞克喝得酪叮大醉，他喝光了所有的家當，把帽子和靴子也換酒喝了。他死命毆打瑪麗亞，打得她暈過去，家里 人只好往她頭上潑水。事后大家都感到羞愧、厭惡。
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１東正教節日，在俄舊歷七月二日。
２在俄舊歷十月一日。
不過，即使在茹科沃這樣的“奴才村”，一年一度也有一次真正的宗教盛典。那是在八月份，在全縣，從一個村子到一個村子，人們迎送著賦予生命的 圣母像。到了茹科沃村盼望的這一天，正好無風，天色陰沉。一大清早，姑娘們就穿上鮮艷漂亮的衣裙去迎圣像，到了傍晚時人們才抬著圣像，舉著十字架和神幡、 唱著圣詩，進了村子，這時河對面的教堂里鐘聲齊鳴。一群群本村人和外村人擠滿了大街，吵吵嚷嚷，塵土飛揚，擠得水泄不通……老頭子也好，老奶奶也好，基里 亞克也好，大家都向圣像伸出手去，渴望地瞧著它，哭著說：
“保護神啊，圣母娘娘！保護神啊！”
大家好像突然明白了，天地之間并不虛空，有錢有勢的人還沒有奪走一切，盡管他們遭受著欺凌和奴役，遭受著難以忍受的貧窮，遭受著可怕的伏特加的禍害，卻有神靈在保佑著他們。
“保護神啊，圣母娘娘！”瑪麗亞嚎吻大哭，“圣母娘娘啊！”
可是感恩析禱做完，圣像又抬走了。一切都恢复原樣，酒館里又不時傳出醉漢粗魯的喊聲。
只有富裕農民才怕死，他們越有錢，就越不信上帝，不信靈魂得救的話。他們只是出于對死亡的恐懼，才點起蜡燭，做做禱告，以防万一。窮苦的農民 不怕死。人們當著老頭子和老奶奶的面說他們活得太久，早該死了，他們听了也沒什么。他們也當著尼古拉的面毫無顧忌地對菲奧克拉說，等尼古拉死了，她的丈夫 丹尼斯就可以得到照顧－－退役回家了。至于瑪麗亞，她不但不怕死，甚至還巴不得早點死才好。她的几個孩子死了，她反倒高興呢。
他們不怕死，可是對各种各樣的病卻估計得過于可怕。本來是一些小毛病，如腸胃失調啦，著了點涼啦，老奶奶立即躺到爐台上，捂得嚴嚴實實，開始 大聲地不停地呻吟：“我要一死一啦！”老頭子赶緊去請神父，老奶奶就領圣餐，接受臨終前的涂圣油儀式。他們經常談到感冒，蛔虫和硬結，說蛔虫在肚子里鬧 騰，結成團能堵到心口。他們最怕感冒，所以哪怕夏天也穿得很厚，在爐台上取暖。老奶奶喜歡看病，經常坐車跑醫院，在那里說她五十八歲，不說七十歲。照她 想，要是醫生知道她的實際年齡，就不會給她治病，只會說：她該死了，用不著治了。她通常一清早就動身去醫院，再帶上兩三個小孫女，到了晚上才能回來，又餓 又气，給自己帶回了藥水，給小孫女帶回了藥膏。有一次她把尼古拉也帶去了，后來他一連喝了兩周的藥水，老說他感覺好些了。
老奶奶認識方圓三十俄里內所有的醫師、醫士和巫醫，可是卻沒有一個讓她滿意。在圣母庇護節那一天，神父舉著十字架走遍所有的農舍，教堂執事對 她說，城里監獄附近住著一個小老頭子，做過軍隊上的醫士，醫道高明，勸她找他去看病。老奶奶听了他的勸告。等下了頭一場雪，她就坐車進城，帶回一個小老頭 子。這人留著大胡子，臉上布滿了青筋，穿著長袍，是個皈依正教的猶太人。當時家里正請了几個雇工做事：一個老裁縫戴一副嚇人的眼鏡用碎布頭拼成坎肩，兩個 年輕小伙子用羊毛搏氈靴。基里亞克因為酗酒丟了差事，現在只好住在家里。他坐在裁縫旁邊修理馬脖子上的套具。屋子里又擠又悶，有一股臭味。猶太人給尼古拉 做完檢查，說需要拔罐子放血。
他放上許多罐子。老裁縫、基里亞克和小姑娘們站在一旁看著，他們好像覺得，他們看到疾病從尼古拉身上流出來了。尼古拉自己也瞧著，那些附在胸口的罐子慢慢地充滿了濃黑的血，感到當真有什么東西從他身子里跑出去了，于是他高興得笑了。
“這樣行，”裁縫說，“謝天謝地，能見效就好。”
猶太人拔完十二個罐子，隨后又放上十二個。他喝足了茶，就坐車走了。尼古拉開始打顫，他的臉瘦下去，用女人們的話說，縮成拳頭那么大小了，他 的手指發青。他蓋上一條被子，再壓上一件羊皮襖，但還是覺得越來越冷。傍晚時他難受得叫起來，要他們把他放到地板上，要裁縫別抽煙，隨后靜靜地躺在羊皮襖 下面，天不亮就死了。
唉，多么嚴酷、多么漫長的冬季啊！
圣誕節過后，自家的糧食已經吃完，只得去買面粉。基里亞克現在住在家里，每天晚上都要大吵大鬧，弄得大家心惊膽戰，一到早晨又因頭痛和羞愧而 痛苦不堪，看他那副模樣真叫人可怜。在畜欄里，那頭饑餓的母牛日日夜夜不停地眸陣哀叫，叫得老奶奶和瑪麗亞的心都碎了。好像是故意為難，一直是凍得樹木喀 喀響的嚴寒天气，到處是厚厚的積雪和高高的雪堆，冬天拖得很長。到了報喜節１，還刮了一場真正的冬天的暴風雪，在复活節還下了一場雪。
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１東正教節日，在俄舊歷三月二十五日，据說天使于此日告知圣母：耶穌將誕生。
但是不管怎么樣，冬天總算過去了。四月初，白天變得暖和起來，夜里依然寒冷。冬天不肯退讓，但暖和的春日終于戰而胜之，最后，冰雪消融，河水 奔流，百鳥齊鳴。河邊的整個草場和灌木叢淹沒在泛濫的春水中，從茹科沃村直到河對岸成了一片澤國，水面上不時有一群群野鴨振翅飛起飛落。春天的落日如火如 茶，映紅了滿天的彩霞，每天晚上都變出一幅不同往常的新的圖景，那樣美妙絕倫，日后當你在畫面上看到同樣的色彩、同樣的云朵時，簡直就難以置信。
仙鶴飛得很快很快，發出聲聲哀鳴，似乎在召喚同伴。奧莉加站在斜坡的邊上，久久地望著這片泛濫的春水，望著太陽，望著那明亮的、仿佛變年輕了 的教堂，她不禁流下了眼淚，激動得喘不過气來。她急切地想离開這里，隨便去什么地方，哪怕天涯海角。家里已經決定，讓她還回到莫斯科去當女仆，讓基里亞克 跟她同行，去那里找個看門人或者其他的差事。好啊，快點走吧！
等路變千一些，天气暖和了，她們就動身上路。奧莉加和薩莎每人背著行翼，穿著樹皮鞋，天不亮就出發了。瑪麗亞出來送她們一程。基里亞克因為身 体不好，還得在家再待上一個星期。奧莉加最后一次面對著教堂畫十字、默默禱告。她想起了自己的丈夫，但沒有哭，只是她的臉皺起來，像老太婆那樣難看了。這 一冬，她變瘦了，變丑了，頭發有點灰白，臉上再沒有昔日那种可愛的模樣和愉快的微笑，在經受了喪夫之痛以后，只有一种悲哀的听天由命的神情。她的目光有點 遲鈍、呆板，好像她耳背似的。她舍不得离開這個村子和這些農民。她回想起抬走尼古拉的情景，在一座座農舍旁邊都有人做安魂祈禱，大家同情她的悲痛，陪著她 哭，在夏天和冬天，經常有一些時日，這些人過得好像比牲口還糟，同他們生活在一起是可怕的。他們粗魯，不誠實，肮髒，酗酒；他們不和睦，老是吵架，因為他 們彼此不是尊重，而是互相害怕、互相猜疑。是誰開小酒館，把老鄉灌醉？農民。是誰揮霍掉村社、學校和教堂的公款，把錢換酒喝了？農民。是誰偷鄰居家的東 西，縱火，為了一瓶伏特加在法庭上作偽證？是誰在地方自治會和其他會議上頭一個出來反對農民？還是農民。确實，同他們生活在一起是可怕的，可是他們畢竟是 人，他們跟常人一樣也感到痛苦，也哭泣，而且在他們的生活里沒有哪件事是不能找到使人諒解的緣由的。沉重的勞動使他們到了夜里就渾身酸痛，嚴寒的冬天，糧 食歉收，住房擁擠，可是沒有人幫助他們，哪儿也等不到幫助。那些比他們有錢有勢的人是不可能幫助他們的，因為他們自己就粗魯，不誠實，酗酒，罵起人來照樣 難听得很。那些小官和地主管家對待農民如同對待流浪漢一樣，他們甚至對村長和教堂主持都用“你”相稱，自以為有權這樣做。至于那些貪財的、吝嗇的、放蕩 的、懶惰的人，他們到農村里來只是為了欺壓、掠奪、嚇唬農民，哪里還談得上幫助農民或者樹立良好的榜樣呢？奧莉加回想起，去年冬天，當基里亞克被拉去用樹 條体罰時，兩位老人的模樣是多么可怜而屈辱啊！現在她很可怜所有這些人，為他們難過，所以她一邊走，一邊頻頻回頭再看看那些小木屋。
送出三俄里，瑪麗亞開始告別，隨后她跪下來，不住地磕頭，大聲哭訴起來：
“又剩下我孤零零一人了，我這苦命人啊，多么可怜、多么不幸啊……”
她就這樣哭訴了很長時間，奧莉加和薩莎每一回頭總能看到她跪在地上，雙手抱住頭，向著旁邊的什么人不住地磕頭。在她上空有几只白嘴鴉在盤旋。
太陽高高地升起，天气熱起來。茹科沃村遠遠地落在后頭了。走路讓人舒暢，奧莉加和薩莎很快就忘了村子，忘了瑪麗亞。她們高興起來，四周的一切 都引起她們的興趣。有時出現一個土崗；有時出現一排電線杆，一根接一根不知伸向何方，最后消失在地平線上，那上面的電線發出神秘的嗡嗡聲；有時看到遠處綠 樹叢中有個小村子，從那邊飄來一股潮气和大麻的香味，不知怎么讓人覺得，那里住著幸福的人們；有時在野地里孤零零地躺著一具馬的白骨。云雀不停地婉轉啼 唱，鵪鶉的叫聲此起彼伏，互相呼應，一只秧雞斷斷續續發出急促的叫聲，仿佛真有人在拉扯舊的鐵門環一樣。
中午時分，奧莉加和薩莎來到一個大村子。在一條寬闊的街上，她們遇見一個小老頭，茹科夫將軍的廚子。他感到熱，他那汗淋淋的紅禿頂在陽光下發 亮。他同奧莉加都沒有立即認出對方，隨后都回過頭來對視了一會儿，認出來后一句話沒說，又各走各的路了。她們停在一座顯得更闊气、更新的木屋前，奧莉加對 著敞開的窗子深深地一鞠躬，用委婉的唱歌般的聲調響亮地說：
“正教徒啊，看在基督份上，給點施舍吧，求上帝保佑你們，保佑你們的雙親在天國安息。”
“正教徒啊，”薩莎也唱起來，“看在基督份上，給點施舍吧，求上帝保佑你們，保佑你們的雙親在天國……”
一八九七年四月
NIKOLAY TCHIKILDYEEV, a waiter in the Moscow hotel, Slavyansky Bazaar, was taken ill. His legs went numb and his gait was affected, so that on one occasion, as he was going along the corridor, he tumbled and fell down with a tray full of ham and peas. He had to leave his job. All his own savings and his wife's were spent on doctors and medicines; they had nothing left to live upon. He felt dull with no work to do, and he made up his mind he must go home to the village. It is better to be ill at home, and living there is cheaper; and it is a true saying that the walls of home are a help. He reached Zhukovo towards evening. In his memories of childhood he had pictured his home as bright, snug, comfortable. Now, going into the hut, he was positively frightened; it was so dark, so crowded, so unclean. His wife Olga and his daughter Sasha, who had come with him, kept looking in bewilderment at the big untidy stove, which filled up almost half the hut and was black with soot and flies. What lots of flies! The stove was on one side, the beams lay slanting on the walls, and it looked as though the hut were just going to fall to pieces. In the corner, facing the door, under the holy images, bottle labels and newspaper cuttings were stuck on the walls instead of pictures. The poverty, the poverty! Of the grown-up people there were none at home; all were at work at the harvest. On the stove was sitting a white-headed girl of eight, unwashed and apathetic; she did not even glance at them as they came in. On the floor a white cat was rubbing itself against the oven fork. "Puss, puss!" Sasha called to her. "Puss!" "She can't hear," said the little girl; "she has gone deaf." "How is that?" "Oh, she was beaten." Nikolay and Olga realized from the firs t glance what life was like here, but said nothing to one another; in silence they put down their bundles, and went out into the village street. Their hut was the third from the end, and seemed the very poorest and oldest-looking; the second was not much better; but the last one had an iron roof, and curtains in the windows. That hut stood apart, not enclosed; it was a tavern. The huts were in a single row, and the whole of the little village -- quiet and dreamy, with willows, elders, and mountain-ash trees peeping out from the yards -- had an attractive look. Beyond the peasants homesteads there was a slope down to the river, so steep and precipitous that huge stones jutted out bare here and there through the clay. Down the slope, among the stones and holes dug by the potters, ran winding paths; bits of broken pottery, some brown, some red, lay piled up in heaps, and below there stretched a broad, level, bright green meadow, from which the hay had been already carried, and in which the peasants' cattle were wandering. The river, three-quarters of a mile from the village, ran twisting and turning, with beautiful leafy banks; beyond it was again a broad meadow, a herd of cattle, long strings of white geese; then, just as on the near side, a steep ascent uphill, and on the top of the hill a hamlet, and a church with five domes, and at a little distance the manor-house. "It's lovely here in your parts!" said Olga, crossing herself at the sight of the church. "What space, oh Lord!" Just at that moment the bell began ringing for service (it was Saturday evening). Two little girls, down below, who were dragging up a pail of water, looked round at the church to listen to the bell. "At this time they are serving the dinners at the Slavyansky Bazaar," said Nikolay dreamily. Sitting on the edge of the slope, Nikolay and Olga watched the sun setting, watched the gold and crimson sky reflected in the river, in the church windows, and in the whole air -- which was soft and still and unutterably pure as it never was in Moscow. And when the sun had set the flocks and herds passed, bleating and lowing; geese flew across from the further side of the river, and all sank into silence; the soft light died away in the air, and the dusk of evening began quickly moving down upon them. Meanwhile Nikolay's father and mother, two gaunt, bent, toothless old people, just of the same height, came back. The women -- the sisters-in-law Marya and Fyokla -- who had been working on the landowner's estate beyond the river, arrived home, too. Marya, the wife of Nikolay's brother Kiryak, had six children, and Fyokla, the wife of Nikolay's brother Denis -- who had gone for a soldier -- had two; and when Nikolay, going into the hut, saw all the family, all those bodies big and little moving about on the lockers, in the hanging cradles and in all the corners, and when he saw the greed with which the old father and the women ate the black bread, dipping it in water, he realized he had made a mistake in coming here, sick, penniless, and with a family, too -- a great mistake! "And where is Kiryak?" he asked after they had exchanged greetings. "He is in service at the merchant's," answered his father; "a keeper in the woods. He is not a bad peasant, but too fond of his glass." "He is no great help!" said the old woman tearfully. "Our men are a grievous lot; they bring nothing into the house, but take plenty out. Kiryak drinks, and so does the old man; it is no use hiding a sin; he knows his way to the tavern. The Heavenly Mother is wroth." In honour of the visitors they brought out the samovar. The tea smelt of fish; the sugar was grey and looked as though it had been nibbled; cockroaches ran to and fro over the bread and among the crockery. It was disgusting to drink, and the conversation was disgusting, too -- about nothing but poverty and illnesses. But before they had time to empty their first cups there came a loud, prolonged, drunken shout from the yard: "Ma-arya!" "It looks as though Kiryak were coming," said the old man. "Speak of the devil." All were hushed. And again, soon afterwards, the same shout, coarse and drawn-out as though it came out of the earth: "Ma-arya!" Marya, the elder sister-in-law, turned pale and huddled against the stove, and it was strange to see the look of terror on the face of the strong, broad-shouldered, ugly woman. Her daughter, the child who had been sitting on the stove and looked so apathetic, suddenly broke into loud weeping. "What are you howling for, you plague?" Fyokla, a handsome woman, also strong and broad-shouldered, shouted to her. "He won't kill you, no fear!" From his old father Nikolay learned that Marya was afraid to live in the forest with Kiryak, and that when he was drunk he always came for her, made a row, and beat her mercilessly. "Ma-arya!" the shout sounded close to the door. "Protect me, for Christ's sake, good people!" faltered Marya, breathing as though she had been plunged into very cold water. "Protect me, kind people. . . ." All the children in the hut began crying, and looking at them, Sasha, too, began to cry. They heard a drunken cough, and a tall, black-bearded peasant wearing a winter cap came into the hut, and was the more terrible because his face could not be seen in the dim light of the little lamp. It was Kiryak. Going up to his wife, he swung his arm and punched her in the face with his fist. Stunned by the blow, she did not utter a sound, but sat down, and her nose instantly began bleeding. "What a disgrace! What a disgrace!" muttered the old man, clambering up on to the stove. "Before visitors, too! It's a sin!" The old mother sat silent, bowed, lost in thought; Fyokla rocked the cradle. Evidently conscious of inspiring fear, and pleased at doing so, Kiryak seized Marya by the arm, dragged her towards the door, and bellowed like an animal in order to seem still more terrible; but at that moment he suddenly caught sight of the visitors and stopped. "Oh, they have come, . . ." he said, letting his wife go; "my own brother and his family. . . ." Staggering and opening wide his red, drunken eyes, he said his prayer before the image and went on: "My brother and his family have come to the parental home . . . from Moscow, I suppose. The great capital Moscow, to be sure, the mother of cities. . . . Excuse me." He sank down on the bench near the samovar and began drinking tea, sipping it loudly from the saucer in the midst of general silence. . . . He drank off a dozen cups, then reclined on the bench and began snoring. They began going to bed. Nikolay, as an invalid, was put on the stove with his old father; Sasha lay down on the floor, while Olga went with the other women into the barn. "Aye, aye, dearie," she said, lying down on the hay beside Marya; "you won't mend your trouble with tears. Bear it in patience, that is all. It is written in the Scriptures: 'If anyone smite thee on the right cheek, offer him the left one also.' . . . Aye, aye, dearie." Then in a low singsong murmur she told them about Moscow, about her own life, how she had been a servant in furnished lodgings. "And in Moscow the houses are big, built of brick," she said; "and there are ever so many churches, forty times forty, dearie; and they are all gentry in the houses, so handsome and so proper!" Marya told her that she had not only never been in Moscow, but had not even been in their own district town; she could not read or write, and knew no prayers, not even "Our Father." Both she and Fyokla, the other sister-in-law, who was sitting a little way off listening, were extremely ignorant and could understand nothing. They both disliked their husbands; Marya was afraid of Kiryak, and whenever he stayed with her she was shaking with fear, and always got a headache from the fumes of vodka and tobacco with which he reeked. And in answer to the question whether she did not miss her husband, Fyokla answered with vexation: "Miss him!" They talked a little and sank into silence. It was cool, and a cock crowed at the top of his voice near the barn, preventing them from sleeping. When the bluish morning light was already peeping through all the crevices, Fyokla got up stealthily and went out, and then they heard the sound of her bare feet running off somewhere. II Olga went to church, and took Marya with her. As they went down the path towards the meadow both were in good spirits. Olga liked the wide view, and Marya felt that in her sister-in-law she had someone near and akin to her. The sun was rising. Low down over the meadow floated a drowsy hawk. The river looked gloomy; there was a haze hovering over it here and there, but on the further bank a streak of light already stretched across the hill. The church was gleaming, and in the manor garden the rooks were cawing furiously. "The old man is all right," Marya told her, "but Granny is strict; she is continually nagging. Our own grain lasted till Carnival. We buy flour now at the tavern. She is angry about it; she says we eat too much." "Aye, aye, dearie! Bear it in patience, that is all. It is written: 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.' " Olga spoke sedately, rhythmically, and she walked like a pilgrim woman, with a rapid, anxious step. Every day she read the gospel, read it aloud like a deacon; a great deal of it she did not understand, but the words of the gospel moved her to tears, and words like "forasmuch as" and "verily" she pronounced with a sweet flutter at her heart. She believed in God, in the Holy Mother, in the Saints; she believed one must not offend anyone in the world -- not simple folks, nor Germans, nor gypsies, nor Jews -- and woe even to those who have no compassion on the beasts. She believed this was written in the Holy Scriptures; and so, when she pronounced phrases from Holy Writ, even though she did not understand them, her face grew softened, compassionate, and radiant. "What part do you come from?" Marya asked her. "I am from Vladimir. Only I was taken to Moscow long ago, when I was eight years old." They reached the river. On the further side a woman was standing at the water's edge, undressing. "It's our Fyokla," said Marya, recognizing her. "She has been over the river to the manor yard. To the stewards. She is a shameless hussy and foul-mouthed -- fearfully!" Fyokla, young and vigorous as a girl, with her black eyebrows and her loose hair, jumped off the bank and began splashing the water with her feet, and waves ran in all directions from her. "Shameless -- dreadfully! " repeated Marya. The river was crossed by a rickety little bridge of logs, and exactly below it in the clear, limpid water was a shoal of broad-headed mullets. The dew was glistening on the green bushes that looked into the water. There was a feeling of warmth; it was comforting! What a lovely morning! And how lovely life would have been in this world, in all likelihood, if it were not for poverty, horrible, hopeless poverty, from which one can find no refuge! One had only to look round at the village to remember vividly all that had happened the day before, and the illusion of happiness which seemed to surround them vanished instantly. They reached the church. Marya stood at the entrance, and did not dare to go farther. She did not dare to sit down either. Though they only began ringing for mass between eight and nine, she remained standing the whole time. While the gospel was being read the crowd suddenly parted to make way for the family from the great house. Two young girls in white frocks and wide-brimmed hats walked in; with them a chubby, rosy boy in a sailor suit. Their appearance touched Olga; she made up her mind from the first glance that they were refined, well-educated, handsome people. Marya looked at them from under her brows, sullenly, dejectedly, as though they were not human beings coming in, but monsters who might crush her if she did not make way for them. And every time the deacon boomed out something in his bass voice she fancied she heard "Ma-arya!" and she shuddered. III The arrival of the visitors was already known in the village, and directly after mass a number of people gathered together in the hut. The Leonytchevs and Matvyeitchevs and the Ilyitchovs came to inquire about their relations who were in service in Moscow. All the lads of Zhukovo who could read and write were packed off to Moscow and hired out as butlers or waiters (while from the village on the other side of the river the boys all became bakers), and that had been the custom from the days of serfdom long ago when a certain Luka Ivanitch, a peasant from Zhukovo, now a legendary figure, who had been a waiter in one of the Moscow clubs, would take none but his fellow-villagers into his service, and found jobs for them in taverns and restaurants; and from that time the village of Zhukovo was always called among the inhabitants of the surrounding districts Slaveytown. Nikolay had been taken to Moscow when he was eleven, and Ivan Makaritch, one of the Matvyeitchevs, at that time a headwaiter in the "Hermitage" garden, had put him into a situation. And now, addressing the Matvyeitchevs, Nikolay said emphatically: "Ivan Makaritch was my benefactor, and I am bound to pray for him day and night, as it is owing to him I have become a good man." "My good soul!" a tall old woman, the sister of Ivan Makaritch, said tearfully, "and not a word have we heard about him, poor dear." "In the winter he was in service at Omon's, and this season there was a rumour he was somewhere out of town, in gardens. . . . He has aged! In old days he would bring home as much as ten roubles a day in the summer-time, but now things are very quiet everywhere. The old man frets." The women looked at Nikolay's feet, shod in felt boots, and at his pale face, and said mournfully: "You are not one to get on, Nikolay Osipitch; you are not one to get on! No, indeed!" And they all made much of Sasha. She was ten years old, but she was little and very thin, and might have been taken for no more than seven. Among the other little girls, with their sunburnt faces and roughly cropped hair, dressed in long faded smocks, she with her white little face, with her big dark eyes, with a red ribbon in her hair, looked funny, as though she were some little wild creature that had been caught and brought into the hut. "She can read, too," Olga said in her praise, looking tenderly at her daughter. "Read a little, child!" she said, taking the gospel from the corner. "You read, and the good Christian people will listen." The testament was an old and heavy one in leather binding, with dog's-eared edges, and it exhaled a smell as though monks had come into the hut. Sasha raised her eyebrows and began in a loud rhythmic chant: " 'And the angel of the Lord . . . appeared unto Joseph, saying unto him: Rise up, and take the Babe and His mother.' " "The Babe and His mother," Olga repeated, and flushed all over with emotion. " 'And flee into Egypt, . . . and tarry there until such time as . . .' " At the word "tarry" Olga could not refrain from tears. Looking at her, Marya began to whimper, and after her Ivan Makaritch's sister. The old father cleared his throat, and bustled about to find something to give his grand-daughter, but, finding nothing, gave it up with a wave of his hand. And when the reading was over the neighbours dispersed to their homes, feeling touched and very much pleased with Olga and Sasha. As it was a holiday, the family spent the whole day at home. The old woman, whom her husband, her daughters-in-law, her grandchildren all alike called Granny, tried to do everything herself; she heated the stove and set the samovar with her own hands, even waited at the midday meal, and then complained that she was worn out with work. And all the time she was uneasy for fear someone should eat a piece too much, or that her husband and daughters-in-law would sit idle. At one time she would hear the tavern-keeper's geese going at the back of the huts to her kitchen-garden, and she would run out of the hut with a long stick and spend half an hour screaming shrilly by her cabbages, which were as gaunt and scraggy as herself; at another time she fancied that a crow had designs on her chickens, and she rushed to attack it wi th loud words of abuse. She was cross and grumbling from morning till night. And often she raised such an outcry that passers-by stopped in the street. She was not affectionate towards the old man, reviling him as a lazy-bones and a plague. He was not a responsible, reliable peasant, and perhaps if she had not been continually nagging at him he would not have worked at all, but would have simply sat on the stove and talked. He talked to his son at great length about certain enemies of his, complained of the insults he said he had to put up with every day from the neighbours, and it was tedious to listen to him. "Yes," he would say, standing with his arms akimbo, "yes. . . . A week after the Exaltation of the Cross I sold my hay willingly at thirty kopecks a pood. . . . Well and good. . . . So you see I was taking the hay in the morning with a good will; I was interfering with no one. In an unlucky hour I see the village elder, Antip Syedelnikov, coming out of the tavern. 'Where are you taking it, you ruffian?' says he, and takes me by the ear." Kiryak had a fearful headache after his drinking bout, and was ashamed to face his brother. "What vodka does! Ah, my God!" he muttered, shaking his aching head. "For Christ's sake, forgive me, brother and sister; I'm not happy myself." As it was a holiday, they bought a herring at the tavern and made a soup of the herring's head. At midday they all sat down to drink tea, and went on drinking it for a long time, till they were all perspiring; they looked positively swollen from the tea-drinking, and after it began sipping the broth from the herring's head, all helping themselves out of one bowl. But the herring itself Granny had hidden. In the evening a potter began firing pots on the ravine. In the meadow below the girls got up a choral dance and sang songs. They played the concertina. And on the other side of the river a kiln for baking pots was lighted, too, and the girls sang songs, and in the distance the singing sounded soft and musical. The peasants were noisy in and about the tavern. They were singing with drunken voices, each on his own account, and swearing at one another, so that Olga could only shudder and say: "Oh, holy Saints!" She was amazed that the abuse was incessant, and those who were loudest and most persistent in this foul language were the old men who were so near their end. And the girls and children heard the swearing, and were not in the least disturbed by it, and it was evident that they were used to it from their cradles. It was past midnight, the kilns on both sides of the river were put out, but in the meadow below and in the tavern the merrymaking still went on. The old father and Kiryak, both drunk, walking arm-in-arm and jostling against each other's shoulders, went to the barn where Olga and Marya were lying. "Let her alone," the old man persuaded him; "let her alone. . . . She is a harmless woman. . . . It's a sin. . . ." "Ma-arya! " shouted Kiryak. "Let her be. . . . It's a sin. . . . She is not a bad woman." Both stopped by the barn and went on. "I lo-ove the flowers of the fi-ield," the old man began singing suddenly in a high, piercing tenor. "I lo-ove to gather them in the meadows!" Then he spat, and with a filthy oath went into the hut. IV Granny put Sasha by her kitchen-garden and told her to keep watch that the geese did not go in. It was a hot August day. The tavernkeeper's geese could make their way into the kitchen-garden by the backs of the huts, but now they were busily engaged picking up oats by the tavern, peacefully conversing together, and only the gander craned his head high as though trying to see whether the old woman were coming with her stick. The other geese might come up from below, but they were now grazing far away the other side of the river, stretched out in a long white garland about the meadow. Sasha stood about a little, grew weary, and, seeing that the geese were not coming, went away to the ravine. There she saw Marya's eldest daughter Motka, who was standing motionless on a big stone, staring at the church. Marya had given birth to thirteen children, but she only had six living, all girls, not one boy, and the eldest was eight. Motka in a long smock was standing barefooted in the full sunshine; the sun was blazing down right on her head, but she did not notice that, and seemed as though turned to stone. Sasha stood beside her and said, looking at the church: "God lives in the church. Men have lamps and candles, but God has little green and red and blue lamps like little eyes. At night God walks about the church, and with Him the Holy Mother of God and Saint Nikolay, thud, thud, thud! . . . And the watchman is terrified, terrified! Aye, aye, dearie," she added, imitating her mother. "And when the end of the world comes all the churches will be carried up to heaven." "With the-ir be-ells?" Motka asked in her deep voice, drawling every syllable. "With their bells. And when the end of the world comes the good will go to Paradise, but the angry will burn in fire eternal and unquenchable, dearie. To my mother as well as to Marya God will say: 'You never offended anyone, and for that go to the right to Paradise'; but to Kiryak and Granny He will say: 'You go to the left into the fire.' And anyone who has eaten meat in Lent will go into the fire, too." She looked upwards at the sky, opening wide her eyes, and said: "Look at the sky without winking, you will see angels." Motka began looking at the sky, too, and a minute passed in silence. "Do you see them?" asked Sasha. "I don't," said Motka in her deep voice. "But I do. Little angels are flying about the sky and flap, flap with their little wings as though they were gnats." Motka thought for a little, with her eyes on the ground, and asked: "Will Granny burn?" "She will, dearie." From the stone an even gentle slope ran down to the bottom, covered with soft green grass, which one longed to lie down on or to touch with one's hands. . . Sasha lay down and rolled to the bottom. Motka with a grave, severe face, taking a deep breath, lay down, too, and rolled to the bottom, and in doing so tore her smock from the hem to the shoulder. "What fun it is!" said Sasha, delighted. They walked up to the top to roll down again, but at that moment they heard a shrill, familiar voice. Oh, how awful it was! Granny, a toothless, bony, hunchbacked figure, with short grey hair which was fluttering in the wind, was driving the geese out of the kitchen-garden with a long stick, shouting. "They have trampled all the cabbages, the damned brutes! I'd cut your throats, thrice accursed plagues! Bad luck to you!" She saw the little girls, flung down the stick and picked up a switch, and, seizing Sasha by the neck with her fingers, thin and hard as the gnarled branches of a tree, began whipping her. Sasha cried with pain and terror, while the gander, waddling and stretching his neck, went up to the old woman and hissed at her, and when he went back to his flock all the geese greeted him approvingly with "Ga-ga-ga!" Then Granny proceeded to whip Motka, and in this Motka's smock was torn again. Feeling in despair, and crying loudly, Sasha went to the hut to complain. Motka followed her; she, too, was crying on a deeper note, without wiping her tears, and her face was as wet as though it had been dipped in water. "Holy Saints!" cried Olga, aghast, as the two came into the hut. "Queen of Heaven!" Sasha began telling her story, while at the same time Granny walked in with a storm of shrill cries and abuse; then Fyokla flew into a rage, and there was an uproar in the hut. "Never mind, never mind!" Olga, pale and upset, tried to comfort them, stroking Sasha's head. "She is your grandmother; it's a sin to be angry with her. Never mind, my child." Nikolay, who was worn out already by the everlasting hubbub, hunger, stifling fumes, filth, who hated and despised the poverty, who was ashamed for his wife and daughter to see his father and mother, swung his legs off the stove and said in an irritable, tearful voice, addressing his mother: "You must not beat her! You have no right to beat he r!" "You lie rotting on the stove, you wretched creature!" Fyokla shouted at him spitefully. "The devil brought you all on us, eating us out of house and home." Sasha and Motka and all the little girls in the hut huddled on the stove in the corner behind Nikolay's back, and from that refuge listened in silent terror, and the beating of their little hearts could be distinctly heard. Whenever there is someone in a family who has long been ill, and hopelessly ill, there come painful moments when all timidly, secretly, at the bottom of their hearts long for his death; and only the children fear the death of someone near them, and always feel horrified at the thought of it. And now the children, with bated breath, with a mournful look on their faces, gazed at Nikolay and thought that he was soon to die; and they wanted to cry and to say something friendly and compassionate to him. He pressed close to Olga, as though seeking protection, and said to her softly in a quavering voice: "Olya darling, I can't stay here longer. It's more than I can bear. For God's sake, for Christ's sake, write to your sister Klavdia Abramovna. Let her sell and pawn everything she has; let her send us the money. We will go away from here. Oh, Lord," he went on miserably, "to have one peep at Moscow! If I could see it in my dreams, the dear place! And when the evening came on, and it was dark in the hut, it was so dismal that it was hard to utter a word. Granny, very ill-tempered, soaked some crusts of rye bread in a cup, and was a long time, a whole hour, sucking at them. Marya, after milking the cow, brought in a pail of milk and set it on a bench; then Granny poured it from the pail into a jug just as slowly and deliberately, evidently pleased that it was now the Fast of the Assumption, so that no one would drink milk and it would be left untouched. And she only poured out a very little in a saucer for Fyokla's baby. When Marya and she carried the jug down to the cellar Motka suddenly stirred, clambered down from the stove, and going to the bench where stood the wooden cup full of crusts, sprinkled into it some milk from the saucer. Granny, coming back into the hut, sat down to her soaked crusts again, while Sasha and Motka, sitting on the stove, gazed at her, and they were glad that she had broken her fast and now would go to hell. They were comforted and lay down to sleep, and Sasha as she dozed off to sleep imagined the Day of Judgment: a huge fire was burning, somewhat like a potter's kiln, and the Evil One, with horns like a cow's, and black all over, was driving Granny into the fire with a long stick, just as Granny herself had been driving the geese. V On the day of the Feast of the Assumption, between ten and eleven in the evening, the girls and lads who were merrymaking in the meadow suddenly raised a clamour and outcry, and ran in the direction of the village; and those who were above on the edge of the ravine could not for the first moment make out what was the matter. "Fire! Fire!" they heard desperate shouts from below. "The village is on fire!" Those who were sitting above looked round, and a terrible and extraordinary spectacle met their eyes. On the thatched roof of one of the end cottages stood a column of flame, seven feet high, which curled round and scattered sparks in all directions as though it were a fountain. And all at once the whole roof burst into bright flame, and the crackling of the fire was audible. The light of the moon was dimmed, and the whole village was by now bathed in a red quivering glow: black shadows moved over the ground, there was a smell of burning, and those who ran up from below were all gasping and could not speak for trembling; they jostled against each other, fell down, and they could hardly see in the unaccustomed light, and did not recognize each other. It was terrible. What seemed particularly dreadful was that doves were flying over the fire in the smoke; and in the tavern, where they did not yet know of the fire, they were still singing and playing the concertina as though there were nothing the matter. "Uncle Semyon's on fire," shouted a loud, coarse voice. Marya was fussing about round her hut, weeping and wringing her hands, while her teeth chattered, though the fire was a long way off at the other end of the village. Nikolay came out in high felt boots, the children ran out in their little smocks. Near the village constable's hut an iron sheet was struck. Boom, boom, boom! . . . floated through the air, and this repeated, persistent sound sent a pang to the heart and turned one cold. The old women stood with the holy ikons. Sheep, calves, cows were driven out of the back-yards into the street; boxes, sheepskins, tubs were carried out. A black stallion, who was kept apart from the drove of horses because he kicked and injured them, on being set free ran once or twice up and down the village, neighing and pawing the ground; then suddenly stopped short near a cart and began kicking it with his hind-legs. They began ringing the bells in the church on the other side of the river. Near the burning hut it was hot and so light that one could distinctly see every blade of grass. Semyon, a red-haired peasant with a long nose, wearing a reefer-jacket and a cap pulled down right over his ears, sat on one of the boxes which they had succeeded in bringing out: his wife was lying on her face, moaning and unconscious. A little old man of eighty, with a big beard, who looked like a gnome -- not one of the villagers, though obviously connected in some way with the fire -- walked about bareheaded, with a white bundle in his arms. The glare was reflected on his bald head. The village elder, Antip Syedelnikov, as swarthy and black-haired as a gypsy, went up to the hut with an axe, and hacked out the windows one after another -- no one knew why -- then began chopping up the roof. "Women, water!" he shouted. "Bring the engine! Look sharp!" The peasants, who had been drinking in the tavern just before, dragged the engine up. They were all drunk; they kept stumbling and falling down, and all had a helpless expression and tears in their eyes. "Wenches, water! " shouted the elder, who was drunk, too. "Look sharp, wenches!" The women and the girls ran downhill to where there was a spring, and kept hauling pails and buckets of water up the hill, and, pouring it into the engine, ran down again. Olga and Marya and Sasha and Motka all brought water. The women and the boys pumped the water; the pipe hissed, and the elder, directing it now at the door, now at the windows, held back the stream with his finger, which made it hiss more sharply still. "Bravo, Antip!" voices shouted approvingly. "Do your best." Antip went inside the hut into the fire and shouted from within. "Pump! Bestir yourselves, good Christian folk, in such a terrible mischance!" The peasants stood round in a crowd, doing nothing but staring at the fire. No one knew what to do, no one had the sense to do anything, though there were stacks of wheat, hay, barns, and piles of faggots standing all round. Kiryak and old Osip, his father, both tipsy, were standing there, too. And as though to justify his doing nothing, old Osip said, addressing the woman who lay on the ground: "What is there to trouble about, old girl! The hut is insured -- why are you taking on?" Semyon, addressing himself first to one person and then to another, kept describing how the fire had started. "That old man, the one with the bundle, a house-serf of General Zhukov's. . . . He was cook at our general's, God rest his soul! He came over this evening: 'Let me stay the night,' says he. . . . Well, we had a glass, to be sure. . . . The wife got the samovar -- she was going to give the old fellow a cup of tea, and in an unlucky hour she set the samovar in the entrance. The sparks from the chimney must have blown straight up to the thatch; that's how it was. We were almost burnt ourselves. And the old fellow's cap has been burnt; what a shame!" And the sheet of iron was struck indefatigably, and the bells kept ringing in the church the other side of the river. In the glow of the fir e Olga, breathless, looking with horror at the red sheep and the pink doves flying in the smoke, kept running down the hill and up again. It seemed to her that the ringing went to her heart with a sharp stab, that the fire would never be over, that Sasha was lost. . . . And when the ceiling of the hut fell in with a crash, the thought that now the whole village would be burnt made her weak and faint, and she could not go on fetching water, but sat down on the ravine, setting the pail down near her; beside her and below her, the peasant women sat wailing as though at a funeral. Then the stewards and watchmen from the estate the other side of the river arrived in two carts, bringing with them a fire-engine. A very young student in an unbuttoned white tunic rode up on horseback. There was the thud of axes. They put a ladder to the burning framework of the house, and five men ran up it at once. Foremost of them all was the student, who was red in the face and shouting in a harsh hoarse voice, and in a tone as though putting out fires was a thing he was used to. They pulled the house to pieces, a beam at a time; they dragged away the corn, the hurdles, and the stacks that were near. "Don't let them break it up! " cried stern voices in the crowd. "Don't let them." Kiryak made his way up to the hut with a resolute air, as though he meant to prevent the newcomers from breaking up the hut, but one of the workmen turned him back with a blow in his neck. There was the sound of laughter, the workman dealt him another blow, Kiryak fell down, and crawled back into the crowd on his hands and knees. Two handsome girls in hats, probably the student's sisters, came from the other side of the river. They stood a little way off, looking at the fire. The beams that had been dragged apart were no longer burning, but were smoking vigorously; the student, who was working the hose, turned the water, first on the beams, then on the peasants, then on the women who were bringing the water. "George!" the girls called to him reproachfully in anxiety, "George!" The fire was over. And only when they began to disperse they noticed that the day was breaking, that everyone was pale and rather dark in the face, as it always seems in the early morning when the last stars are going out. As they separated, the peasants laughed and made jokes about General Zhukov's cook and his cap which had been burnt; they already wanted to turn the fire into a joke, and even seemed sorry that it had so soon been put out. "How well you extinguished the fire, sir!" said Olga to the student. "You ought to come to us in Moscow: there we have a fire every day." "Why, do you come from Moscow?" asked one of the young ladies. "Yes, miss. My husband was a waiter at the Slavyansky Bazaar. And this is my daughter," she said, indicating Sasha, who was cold and huddling up to her. "She is a Moscow girl, too." The two young ladies said something in French to the student, and he gave Sasha a twenty-kopeck piece. Old Father Osip saw this, and there was a gleam of hope in his face. "We must thank God, your honour, there was no wind," he said, addressing the student, "or else we should have been all burnt up together. Your honour, kind gentlefolks," he added in embarrassment in a lower tone, "the morning's chilly . . . something to warm one . . . half a bottle to your honour's health." Nothing was given him, and clearing his throat he slouched home. Olga stood afterwards at the end of the street and watched the two carts crossing the river by the ford and the gentlefolks walking across the meadow; a carriage was waiting for them the other side of the river. Going into the hut, she described to her husband with enthusiasm: "Such good people! And so beautiful! The young ladies were like cherubim." "Plague take them!" Fyokla, sleepy, said spitefully. VI Marya thought herself unhappy, and said that she would be very glad to die; Fyokla, on the other hand, found all this life to her taste: the poverty, the uncleanliness, and the incessant quarrelling. She ate what was given her without discrimination; slept anywhere, on whatever came to hand. She would empty the slops just at the porch, would splash them out from the doorway, and then walk barefoot through the puddle. And from the very first day she took a dislike to Olga and Nikolay just because they did not like this life. "We shall see what you'll find to eat here, you Moscow gentry!" she said malignantly. "We shall see!" One morning, it was at the beginning of September, Fyokla, vigorous, good-looking, and rosy from the cold, brought up two pails of water; Marya and Olga were sitting meanwhile at the table drinking tea. "Tea and sugar," said Fyokla sarcastically. "The fine ladies!" she added, setting down the pails. "You have taken to the fashion of tea every day. You better look out that you don't burst with your tea-drinking," she went on, looking with hatred at Olga. "That's how you have come by your fat mug, having a good time in Moscow, you lump of flesh!" She swung the yoke and hit Olga such a blow on the shoulder that the two sisters-in-law could only clasp their hands and say: "Oh, holy Saints!" Then Fyokla went down to the river to wash the clothes, swearing all the time so loudly that she could be heard in the hut. The day passed and was followed by the long autumn evening. They wound silk in the hut; everyone did it except Fyokla; she had gone over the river. They got the silk from a factory close by, and the whole family working together earned next to nothing, twenty kopecks a week. "Things were better in the old days under the gentry," said the old father as he wound silk. "You worked and ate and slept, everything in its turn. At dinner you had cabbage-soup and boiled grain, and at supper the same again. Cucumbers and cabbage in plenty: you could eat to your heart's content, as much as you wanted. And there was more strictness. Everyone minded what he was about." The hut was lighted by a single little lamp, which burned dimly and smoked. When someone screened the lamp and a big shadow fell across the window, the bright moonlight could be seen. Old Osip, speaking slowly, told them how they used to live before the emancipation; how in those very parts, where life was now so poor and so dreary, they used to hunt with harriers, greyhounds,. retrievers, and when they went out as beaters the peasants were given vodka; how whole waggonloads of game used to be sent to Moscow for the young masters; how the bad were beaten with rods or sent away to the Tver estate, while the good were rewarded. And Granny told them something, too. She remembered everything, positively everything. She described her mistress, a kind, God-fearing woman, whose husband was a profligate and a rake, and all of whose daughters made unlucky marriages: one married a drunkard, another married a workman, the other eloped secretly (Granny herself, at that time a young girl, helped in the elopement), and they had all three as well as their mother died early from grief. And remembering all this, Granny positively began to shed tears. All at once someone knocked at the door, and they all started. "Uncle Osip, give me a night's lodging." The little bald old man, General Zhukov's cook, the one whose cap had been burnt, walked in. He sat down and listened, then he, too, began telling stories of all sorts. Nikolay, sitting on the stove with his legs hanging down, listened and asked questions about the dishes that were prepared in the old days for the gentry. They talked of rissoles, cutlets, various soups and sauces, and the cook, who remembered everything very well, mentioned dishes that are no longer served. There was one, for instance -- a dish made of bulls' eyes, which was called "waking up in the morning." "And used you to do cutlets a' la marechal?" asked Nikolay. "No." Nikolay shook his head reproachfully and said: "Tut, tut! You were not much of a cook!" The little girls sitting and lying on the stove stared down without blinking; it seemed as though there were a great many of them, like cherubim in the clouds. They liked the stories: they were brea thless; they shuddered and turned pale with alternate rapture and terror, and they listened breathlessly, afraid to stir, to Granny, whose stories were the most interesting of all. They lay down to sleep in silence; and the old people, troubled and excited by their reminiscences, thought how precious was youth, of which, whatever it might have been like, nothing was left in the memory but what was living, joyful, touching, and how terribly cold was death, which was not far off, better not think of it! The lamp died down. And the dusk, and the two little windows sharply defined by the moonlight, and the stillness and the creak of the cradle, reminded them for some reason that life was over, that nothing one could do would bring it back. . . . You doze off, you forget yourself, and suddenly someone touches your shoulder or breathes on your cheek -- and sleep is gone; your body feels cramped, and thoughts of death keep creeping into your mind. You turn on the other side: death is forgotten, but old dreary, sickening thoughts of poverty, of food, of how dear flour is getting, stray through the mind, and a little later again you remember that life is over and you cannot bring it back. . . . "Oh, Lord!" sighed the cook. Someone gave a soft, soft tap at the window. It must be Fyokla come back. Olga got up, and yawning and whispering a prayer, opened the door, then drew the bolt in the outer room, but no one came in; only from the street came a cold draught and a sudden brightness from the moonlight. The street, still and deserted, and the moon itself floating across the sky, could be seen at the open door. "Who is there?" called Olga. "I," she heard the answer -- "it is I." Near the door, crouching against the wall, stood Fyokla, absolutely naked. She was shivering with cold, her teeth were chattering, and in the bright moonlight she looked very pale, strange, and beautiful. The shadows on her, and the bright moonlight on her skin, stood out vividly, and her dark eyebrows and firm, youthful bosom were defined with peculiar distinctness. "The ruffians over there undressed me and turned me out like this," she said. "I've come home without my clothes . . . naked as my mother bore me. Bring me something to put on." "But go inside!" Olga said softly, beginning to shiver, too. "I don't want the old folks to see." Granny was, in fact, already stirring and muttering, and the old father asked: "Who is there?" Olga brought her own smock and skirt, dressed Fyokla, and then both went softly into the inner room, trying not to make a noise with the door. "Is that you, you sleek one?" Granny grumbled angrily, guessing who it was. "Fie upon you, nightwalker! . . . Bad luck to you!" "It's all right, it's all right," whispered Olga, wrapping Fyokla up; "it's all right, dearie." All was stillness again. They always slept badly; everyone was kept awake by something worrying and persistent: the old man by the pain in his back, Granny by anxiety and anger, Marya by terror, the children by itch and hunger. Now, too, their sleep was troubled; they kept turning over from one side to the other, talking in their sleep, getting up for a drink. Fyokla suddenly broke into a loud, coarse howl, but immediately checked herself, and only uttered sobs from time to time, growing softer and on a lower note, until she relapsed into silence. From time to time from the other side of the river there floated the sound of the beating of the hours; but the time seemed somehow strange -- five was struck and then three. "Oh Lord!" sighed the cook. Looking at the windows, it was difficult to tell whether it was still moonlight or whether the dawn had begun. Marya got up and went out, and she could be heard milking the cows and saying, "Stea-dy!" Granny went out, too. It was still dark in the hut, but all the objects in it could be discerned. Nikolay, who had not slept all night, got down from the stove. He took his dress-coat out of a green box, put it on, and going to the window, stroked the sleeves and took hold of the coat-tails -- and smiled. Then he carefully took off the coat, put it away in his box, and lay down again. Marya came in again and began lighting the stove. She was evidently hardly awake, and seemed dropping asleep as she walked. Probably she had had some dream, or the stories of the night before came into her mind as, stretching luxuriously before the stove, she said: "No, freedom is better." VII The master arrived -- that was what they called the police inspector. When he would come and what he was coming for had been known for the last week. There were only forty households in Zhukovo, but more than two thousand roubles of arrears of rates and taxes had accumulated. The police inspector stopped at the tavern. He drank there two glasses of tea, and then went on foot to the village elder's hut, near which a crowd of those who were in debt stood waiting. The elder, Antip Syedelnikov, was, in spite of his youth -- he was only a little over thirty -- strict and always on the side of the authorities, though he himself was poor and did not pay his taxes regularly. Evidently he enjoyed being elder, and liked the sense of authority, which he could only display by strictness. In the village council the peasants were afraid of him and obeyed him. It would sometimes happen that he would pounce on a drunken man in the street or near the tavern, tie his hands behind him, and put him in the lock-up. On one occasion he even put Granny in the lock-up because she went to the village council instead of Osip, and began swearing, and he kept her there for a whole day and night. He had never lived in a town or read a book, but somewhere or other had picked up various learned expressions, and loved to make use of them in conversation, and he was respected for this though he was not always understood. When Osip came into the village elder's hut with his tax book, the police inspector, a lean old man with a long grey beard, in a grey tunic, was sitting at a table in the passage, writing something. It was clean in the hut; all the walls were dotted with pictures cut out of the illustrated papers, and in the most conspicuous place near the ikon there was a portrait of the Battenburg who was the Prince of Bulgaria. By the table stood Antip Syedelnikov with his arms folded. "There is one hundred and nineteen roubles standing against him," he said when it came to Osip's turn. "Before Easter he paid a rouble, and he has not paid a kopeck since." The police inspector raised his eyes to Osip and asked: "Why is this, brother?" "Show Divine mercy, your honour," Osip began, growing agitated. "Allow me to say last year the gentleman at Lutorydsky said to me, 'Osip,' he said, 'sell your hay . . . you sell it,' he said. Well, I had a hundred poods for sale; the women mowed it on the water-meadow. Well, we struck a bargain all right, willingly. . . ." He complained of the elder, and kept turning round to the peasants as though inviting them to bear witness; his face flushed red and perspired, and his eyes grew sharp and angry. "I don't know why you are saying all this," said the police inspector. "I am asking you . . . I am asking you why you don't pay your arrears. You don't pay, any of you, and am I to be responsible for you?" "I can't do it." "His words have no sequel, your honour," said the elder. "The Tchikildyeevs certainly are of a defective class, but if you will just ask the others, the root of it all is vodka, and they are a very bad lot. With no sort of understanding." The police inspector wrote something down, and said to Osip quietly, in an even tone, as though he were asking him for water: "Be off." Soon he went away; and when he got into his cheap chaise and cleared his throat, it could be seen from the very expression of his long thin back that he was no longer thinking of Osip or of the village elder, nor of the Zhukovo arrears, but was thinking of his own affairs. Before he had gone three-quarters of a mile Antip was already carrying off the samovar from the Tchikildyeevs' cottage, followed by Granny, screaming shrilly and straining her throat: "I won't let you have it, I won't let you have it, damn you!" He walked rapidly with long steps, and she pursued him panting, almost falling over, a bent, ferocious figure; her kerchief slipped on to her shoulders, her grey hair with greenish lights on it was blown about in the wind. She suddenly stopped short, and like a genuine rebel, fell to beating her breast with her fists and shouting louder than ever in a sing-song voice, as though she were sobbing: "Good Christians and believers in God! Neighbours, they have ill-treated me! Kind friends, they have oppressed me! Oh, oh! dear people, take my part." "Granny, Granny!" said the village elder sternly, "have some sense in your head!" It was hopelessly dreary in the Tchikildyeevs' hut without the samovar; there was something humiliating in this loss, insulting, as though the honour of the hut had been outraged. Better if the elder had carried off the table, all the benches, all the pots -- it would not have seemed so empty. Granny screamed, Marya cried, and the little girls, looking at her, cried, too. The old father, feeling guilty, sat in the corner with bowed head and said nothing. And Nikolay, too, was silent. Granny loved him and was sorry for him, but now, forgetting her pity, she fell upon him with abuse, with reproaches, shaking her fist right in his face. She shouted that it was all his fault; why had he sent them so little when he boasted in his letters that he was getting fifty roubles a month at the Slavyansky Bazaar? Why had he come, and with his family, too? If he died, where was the money to come from for his funeral . . . ? And it was pitiful to look at Nikolay, Olga, and Sasha. The old father cleared his throat, took his cap, and went off to the village elder. Antip was soldering something by the stove, puffing out his cheeks; there was a smell of burning. His children, emaciated and unwashed, no better than the Tchikildyeevs, were scrambling about the floor; his wife, an ugly, freckled woman with a prominent stomach, was winding silk. They were a poor, unlucky family, and Antip was the only one who looked vigorous and handsome. On a bench there were five samovars standing in a row. The old man said his prayer to Battenburg and said: "Antip, show the Divine mercy. Give me back the samovar, for Christ's sake!" "Bring three roubles, then you shall have it. "I can't do it!" Antip puffed out his cheeks, the fire roared and hissed, and the glow was reflected in the samovar. The old man crumpled up his cap and said after a moment's thought: "You give it me back." The swarthy elder looked quite black, and was like a magician; he turned round to Osip and said sternly and rapidly: "It all depends on the rural captain. On the twenty-sixth instant you can state the grounds for your dissatisfaction before the administrative session, verbally or in writing." Osip did not understand a word, but he was satisfied with that and went home. Ten days later the police inspector came again, stayed an hour and went away. During those days the weather had changed to cold and windy; the river had been frozen for some time past, but still there was no snow, and people found it difficult to get about. On the eve of a holiday some of the neighbours came in to Osip's to sit and have a talk. They did not light the lamp, as it would have been a sin to work, but talked in the darkness. There were some items of news, all rather unpleasant. In two or three households hens had been taken for the arrears, and had been sent to the district police station, and there they had died because no one had fed them; they had taken sheep, and while they were being driven away tied to one another, shifted into another cart at each village, one of them had died. And now they were discussing the question, who was to blame? "The Zemstvo," said Osip. "Who else?" "Of course it is the Zemstvo." The Zemstvo was blamed for everything -- for the arrears, and for the oppressions, and for the failure of the crops, though no one of them knew what was meant by the Zemstvo. And this dated from the time when well-to-do peasants who had factories, shops, and inns of their own were members of the Zemstvos, were dissatisfied with them, and took to swearing at the Zemstvos in their factories and inns. They talked of God's not sending the snow; they had to bring in wood for fuel, and there was no driving nor walking in the frozen ruts. In old days fifteen to twenty years ago conversation was much more interesting in Zhukovo. In those days every old man looked as though he were treasuring some secret; as though he knew something and was expecting something. They used to talk about an edict in golden letters, about the division of lands, about new land, about treasures; they hinted at something. Now the people of Zhukovo had no mystery at all; their whole life was bare and open in the sight of all, and they could talk of nothing but poverty, food, there being no snow yet. . . . There was a pause. Then they thought again of the hens, of the sheep, and began discussing whose fault it was. "The Zemstvo," said Osip wearily. "Who else?" VIII The parish church was nearly five miles away at Kosogorovo, and the peasants only attended it when they had to do so for baptisms, weddings, or funerals; they went to the services at the church across the river. On holidays in fine weather the girls dressed up in their best and went in a crowd together to church, and it was a cheering sight to see them in their red, yellow, and green dresses cross the meadow; in bad weather they all stayed at home. They went for the sacrament to the parish church. From each of those who did not manage in Lent to go to confession in readiness for the sacrament the parish priest, going the round of the huts with the cross at Easter, took fifteen kopecks. The old father did not believe in God, for he hardly ever thought about Him; he recognized the supernatural, but considered it was entirely the women's concern, and when religion or miracles were discussed before him, or a question were put to him, he would say reluctantly, scratching himself: "Who can tell!" Granny believed, but her faith was somewhat hazy; everything was mixed up in her memory, and she could scarcely begin to think of sins, of death, of the salvation of the soul, before poverty and her daily cares took possession of her mind, and she instantly forgot what she was thinking about. She did not remember the prayers, and usually in the evenings, before lying down to sleep, she would stand before the ikons and whisper: "Holy Mother of Kazan, Holy Mother of Smolensk, Holy Mother of Troerutchitsy. . ." Marya and Fyokla crossed themselves, fasted, and took the sacrament every year, but understood nothing. The children were not taught their prayers, nothing was told them about God, and no moral principles were instilled into them; they were only forbidden to eat meat or milk in Lent. In the other families it was much the same: there were few who believed, few who understood. At the same time everyone loved the Holy Scripture, loved it with a tender, reverent love; but they had no Bible, there was no one to read it and explain it, and because Olga sometimes read them the gospel, they respected her, and they all addressed her and Sasha as though they were superior to themselves. For church holidays and services Olga often went to neighbouring villages, and to the district town, in which there were two monasteries and twenty-seven churches. She was dreamy, and when she was on these pilgrimages she quite forgot her family, and only when she got home again suddenly made the joyful discovery that she had a husband and daughter, and then would say, smiling and radiant: "God has sent me blessings!" What went on in the village worried her and seemed to her revolting. On Elijah's Day they drank, at the Assumption they drank, at the Ascension they drank. The Feast of the Intercession was the parish holiday for Zhukovo, and the peasants used to drink then for three days; they squandered on drink fifty roubles of money belonging to the Mir, and then collected more for vodka from all the households. On the first day of the feast the Tchikildyeevs killed a sheep and ate of it in the morning, at dinner-time, and in the evening; they ate it ravenously, and the children got up at night to eat more. Kiryak was fearfully drunk for three whole days; he drank up everything, even his boots and cap, and beat Marya so terribly that they had to pour water over her. And then they were all ashamed and sick. However, even in Zhukovo, in this "Slaveytown," there was once an outburst of genuine religious enthusiasm. It was in August, when throughout the district they carried from village to village the Holy Mother, the giver of life. It was still and overcast on the day when they expected _Her_ at Zhukovo. The girls set off in the morning to meet the ikon, in their bright holiday dresses, and brought Her towards the evening, in procession with the cross and with singing, while the bells pealed in the church across the river. An immense crowd of villagers and strangers flooded the street; there was noise, dust, a great crush. . . . And the old father and Granny and Kiryak -- all stretched out their hands to the ikon, looked eagerly at it and said, weeping: "Defender! Mother! Defender!" All seemed suddenly to realize that there was not an empty void between earth and heaven, that the rich and the powerful had not taken possession of everything, that there was still a refuge from injury, from slavish bondage, from crushing, unendurable poverty, from the terrible vodka. "Defender! Mother!" sobbed Marya. "Mother!" But the thanksgiving service ended and the ikon was carried away, and everything went on as before; and again there was a sound of coarse drunken oaths from the tavern. Only the well-to-do peasants were afraid of death; the richer they were the less they believed in God, and in the salvation of souls, and only through fear of the end of the world put up candles and had services said for them, to be on the safe side. The peasants who were rather poorer were not afraid of death. The old father and Granny were told to their faces that they had lived too long, that it was time they were dead, and they did not mind. They did not hinder Fyokla from saying in Nikolay's presence that when Nikolay died her husband Denis would get exemption -- to return home from the army. And Marya, far from fearing death, regretted that it was so slow in coming, and was glad when her children died. Death they did not fear, but of every disease they had an exaggerated terror. The merest trifle was enough -- a stomach upset, a slight chill, and Granny would be wrapped up on the stove, and would begin moaning loudly and incessantly: "I am dy-ing!" The old father hurried off for the priest, and Granny received the sacrament and extreme unction. They often talked of colds, of worms, of tumours which move in the stomach and coil round to the heart. Above all, they were afraid of catching cold, and so put on thick clothes even in the summer and warmed themselves at the stove. Granny was fond of being doctored, and often went to the hospital, where she used to say she was not seventy, but fifty-eight; she supposed that if the doctor knew her real age he would not treat her, but would say it was time she died instead of taking medicine. She usually went to the hospital early in the morning, taking with her two or three of the little girls, and came back in the evening, hungry and ill-tempered -- with drops for herself and ointments for the little girls. Once she took Nikolay, who swallowed drops for a fortnight afterwards, and said he felt better. Granny knew all the doctors and their assistants and the wise men for twenty miles round, and not one of them she liked. At the Intercession, when the priest made the round of the huts with the cross, the deacon told her that in the town near the prison lived an old man who had been a medical orderly in the army, and who made wonderful cures, and advised her to try him. Granny took his advice. When the first snow fell she drove to the town and fetched an old man with a big beard, a converted Jew, in a long gown, whose face was covered with blue veins. There were outsiders at work in the hut at the time: an old tailor, in terrible spectacles, was cutting a waistcoat out of some rags, and two young men were making felt boots out of wool; Kiryak, who had been dismissed from his place for drunkenness, and now lived at home, was sitting beside the tailor mending a bridle. And it was crowded, stifling, and noisome in the hut. The converted Jew examined Nikolay and said that it was necessary to try cupping. He put on the cups, and the old tailor, Kiryak, and the little girls stood round and looked on, and it seemed to them that they saw the disease being drawn out of Nikolay; and Nikolay, too, watched how the cups suckling at his breast gradually filled with dark blood, and felt as though there really were something coming out of him, and smiled with pleasure. "It's a good thing," said the tailor. "Please God, it will do you good." The Jew put on twelve cups and then another twelve, drank some tea, and went away. Nikolay began shivering; his face looked drawn, and, as the women expressed it, shrank up like a fist; his fingers turned blue. He wrapped himself up in a quilt and in a sheepskin, but got colder and colder. Towards the evening he began to be in great distress; asked to be laid on the ground, asked the tailor not to smoke; then he subsided under the sheepskin and towards morning he died. IX Oh, what a grim, what a long winter! Their own grain did not last beyond Christmas, and they had to buy flour. Kiryak, who lived at home now, was noisy in the evenings, inspiring terror in everyone, and in the mornings he suffered from headache and was ashamed; and he was a pitiful sight. In the stall the starved cows bellowed day and night -- a heart-rending sound to Granny and Marya. And as ill-luck would have it, there was a sharp frost all the winter, the snow drifted in high heaps, and the winter dragged on. At Annunciation there was a regular blizzard, and there was a fall of snow at Easter. But in spite of it all the winter did end. At the beginning of April there came warm days and frosty nights. Winter would not give way, but one warm day overpowered it at last, and the streams began to flow and the birds began to sing. The whole meadow and the bushes near the river were drowned in the spring floods, and all the space between Zhukovo and the further side was filled up with a vast sheet of water, from which wild ducks rose up in flocks here and there. The spring sunset, flaming among gorgeous clouds, gave every evening something new, extraordinary, incredible -- just what one does not believe in afterwards, when one sees those very colours and those very clouds in a picture. The cranes flew swiftly, swiftly, with mournful cries, as though they were calling themselves. Standing on the edge of the ravine, Olga looked a long time at the flooded meadow, at the sunshine, at the bright church, that looked as though it had grown younger; and her tears flowed and her breath came in gasps from her passionate longing to go away, to go far away to the end of the world. It was already settled that she should go back to Moscow to be a servant, and that Kiryak should set off with her to get a job as a porter or something. Oh, to get away quickly! As soon as it dried up and grew warm they got ready to set off. Olga and Sasha, with wallets on their backs and shoes of plaited bark on their feet, came out before daybreak: Marya came out, too, to see them on their way. Kiryak was not well, and was kept at home for another week. For the last time Olga prayed at the church and thought of her husband, and though she did not shed tears, her face puckered up and looked ugly like an old woman's. During the winter she had grown thinner and plainer, and her hair had gone a little grey, and instead of the old look of sweetness and the pleasant smile on her face, she had the resigned, mournful expression left by the sorrows she had been through, and there was something blank and irresponsive in her eyes, as though she did not hear what was said. She was sorry to part from the village and the peasants. She remembered how they had carried out Nikolay, and how a requiem had been ordered for him at almost every hut, and all had shed tears in sympathy with her grief. In the course of the summer and the winter there had been hours and days when it seemed as though these people lived worse than the beasts, and to live with them was terrible; they were coarse, dishonest, filthy, and drunken; they did not live in harmony, but quarrelled continually, because they distrusted and feared and did not respect one another. Who keeps the tavern and makes the people drunken? A peasant. Who wastes and spends on drink the funds of the commune, of the schools, of the church? A peasant. Who stole from his neighbours, set fire to their property, gave false witness at the court for a bottle of vodka? At the meetings of the Zemstvo and other local bodies, who was the first to fall foul of the peasants? A peasant. Yes, to live with them was terrible; but yet, they were human beings, they suffered and wept like human beings, and there was nothing in their lives for which one could not find excuse. Hard labour that made the whole body ache at night, the cruel winters, the scanty harvests, the overcrowding; and they had no help and none to whom they could look for help. Those of them who were a little stronger and better off could be no help, as they were themselves coarse, dishonest, drunken, and abused one another just as revoltingly; the paltriest little clerk or official treated the peasants as though they were tramps, and addressed even the village elders and church wardens as inferiors, and considered they had a right to do so. And, indeed, can any sort of help or good example be given by mercenary, greedy, depraved, and idle persons who only visit the village in order to insult, to despoil, and to terrorize? Olga remembered the pitiful, humiliated look of the old people when in the winter Kiryak had been taken to be flogged. . . . And now she felt sorry for all these people, painfully so, and as she walked on she kept looking back at the huts. After walking two miles with them Marya said good-bye, then kneeling, and falling forward with her face on the earth, she began wailing: "Again I am left alone. Alas, for poor me! poor, unhappy! . . ." And she wailed like this for a long time, and for a long way Olga and Sasha could still see her on her knees, bowing down to someone at the side and clutching her head in her hands, while the rooks flew over her head. The sun rose high; it began to get hot. Zhukovo was left far behind. Walking was pleasant. Olga and Sasha soon forgot both the village and Marya; they were gay and everything entertained them. Now they came upon an ancient barrow, now upon a row of telegraph posts running one after another into the distance and disappearing into the horizon, and the wires hummed mysteriously. Then they saw a homestead, all wreathed in green foliage; there came a scent from it of dampness, of hemp, and it seemed for some reason that happy people lived there. Then they came upon a horse's skeleton whitening in solitude in the open fields. And the larks trilled unceasingly, the corncrakes called to one another, and the landrail cried as though someone were really scraping at an old iron rail. At midday Olga and Sasha reached a big village. There in the broad street they met the little old man who was General Zhukov's cook. He was hot, and his red, perspiring bald head shone in the sunshine. Olga and he did not recognize each other, then looked round at the same moment, recognized each other, and went their separate ways without saying a word. Stopping near the hut which looked newest and most prosperous, Olga bowed down before the open windows, and said in a loud, thin, chanting voice: "Good Christian folk, give alms, for Christ's sake, that God's blessing may be upon you, and that your parents may be in the Kingdom of Heaven in peace eternal." "Good Christian folk," Sasha began chanting, "give, for Christ's sake, that God's blessing, the Heavenly Kingdom . . ." -THE END-
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