The Horse-stealers
A HOSPITAL assistant,
called Yergunov, an empty-headed fellow, known throughout the district as a
great braggart and drunkard, was returning one evening in Christmas week from
the hamlet of Ryepino, where he had been to make some purchases for the
hospital. That he might get home in good time and not be late, the doctor had
lent him his very best horse.
At first it had
been a still day, but at eight o’clock a violent snow-storm came on, and when
he was only about four miles from home Yergunov completely lost his way.
He did not know
how to drive, he did not know the road, and he drove on at random, hoping that
the horse would find the way of itself. Two hours passed; the horse was
exhausted, he himself was chilled, and already began to fancy that he was not
going home, but back towards Ryepino. But at last above the uproar of the storm
he heard the far-away barking of a dog, and a murky red blur came into sight
ahead of him: little by little, the outlines of a high gate could be discerned,
then a long fence on which there were nails with their points uppermost, and beyond
the fence there stood the slanting crane of a well. The wind drove away the
mist of snow from before the eyes, and where there had been a red blur, there
sprang up a small, squat little house with a steep thatched roof. Of the three
little windows one, covered on the inside with something red, was lighted up.
What sort of
place was it? Yergunov remembered that to the right of the road, three and a
half or four miles from the hospital, there was Andrey Tchirikov’s tavern. He
remembered, too, that this Tchirikov, who had been lately killed by some
sledge-drivers, had left a wife and a daughter called Lyubka, who had come to
the hospital two years before as a patient. The inn had a bad reputation, and
to visit it late in the evening, and especially with someone else’s horse, was
not free from risk. But there was no help for it. Yergunov fumbled in his
knapsack for his revolver, and, coughing sternly, tapped at the window-frame
with his whip.
“Hey! who is
within?” he cried. “Hey, granny! let me come in and get warm!”
With a hoarse
bark a black dog rolled like a ball under the horse’s feet, then another white
one, then another black one — there must have been a dozen of them. Yergunov
looked to see which was the biggest, swung his whip and lashed at it with all
his might. A small, long-legged puppy turned its sharp muzzle upwards and set
up a shrill, piercing howl.
Yergunov stood
for a long while at the window, tapping. But at last the hoar-frost on the
trees near the house glowed red, and a muffled female figure appeared with a
lantern in her hands.
“Let me in to
get warm, granny,” said Yergunov. “I was driving to the hospital, and I have
lost my way. It’s such weather, God preserve us. Don’t be afraid; we are your
own people, granny.”
“All my own
people are at home, and we didn’t invite strangers,” said the figure grimly.
“And what are you knocking for? The gate is not locked.”
Yergunov drove
into the yard and stopped at the steps.
“Bid your
labourer take my horse out, granny,” said he.
“I am not
granny.”
And indeed she
was not a granny. While she was putting out the lantern the light fell on her
face, and Yergunov saw black eyebrows, and recognized Lyubka.
“There are no
labourers about now,” she said as she went into the house. “Some are drunk and
asleep, and some have been gone to Ryepino since the morning. It’s a holiday
. . . .”
As he fastened
his horse up in the shed, Yergunov heard a neigh, and distinguished in the
darkness another horse, and felt on it a Cossack saddle. So there must be
someone else in the house besides the woman and her daughter. For greater
security Yergunov unsaddled his horse, and when he went into the house, took
with him both his purchases and his saddle.
The first room
into which he went was large and very hot, and smelt of freshly washed floors.
A short, lean peasant of about forty, with a small, fair beard, wearing a dark
blue shirt, was sitting at the table under the holy images. It was Kalashnikov,
an arrant scoundrel and horse-stealer, whose father and uncle kept a tavern in
Bogalyovka, and disposed of the stolen horses where they could. He too had been
to the hospital more than once, not for medical treatment, but to see the
doctor about horses — to ask whether he had not one for sale, and whether his
honour would not like to swop his bay mare for a dun-coloured gelding. Now his
head was pomaded and a silver ear-ring glittered in his ear, and altogether he
had a holiday air. Frowning and dropping his lower lip, he was looking intently
at a big dog’s-eared picture-book. Another peasant lay stretched on the floor
near the stove; his head, his shoulders, and his chest were covered with a
sheepskin — he was probably asleep; beside his new boots, with shining bits of
metal on the heels, there were two dark pools of melted snow.
Seeing the
hospital assistant, Kalashnikov greeted him.
“Yes, it is
weather,” said Yergunov, rubbing his chilled knees with his open hands. “The
snow is up to one’s neck; I am soaked to the skin, I can tell you. And I
believe my revolver is, too . . . .”
He took out his
revolver, looked it all over, and put it back in his knapsack. But the revolver
made no impression at all; the peasant went on looking at the book.
“Yes, it is
weather. . . . I lost my way, and if it had not been for the dogs
here, I do believe it would have been my death. There would have been a nice
to-do. And where are the women?”
“The old woman
has gone to Ryepino, and the girl is getting supper ready . . .” answered
Kalashnikov.
Silence
followed. Yergunov, shivering and gasping, breathed on his hands, huddled up,
and made a show of being very cold and exhausted. The still angry dogs could be
heard howling outside. It was dreary.
“You come from
Bogalyovka, don’t you?” he asked the peasant sternly.
“Yes, from
Bogalyovka.”
And to while
away the time Yergunov began to think about Bogalyovka. It was a big village
and it lay in a deep ravine, so that when one drove along the highroad on a
moonlight night, and looked down into the dark ravine and then up at the sky,
it seemed as though the moon were hanging over a bottomless abyss and it were
the end of the world. The path going down was steep, winding, and so narrow
that when one drove down to Bogalyovka on account of some epidemic or to
vaccinate the people, one had to shout at the top of one’s voice, or whistle
all the way, for if one met a cart coming up one could not pass. The peasants
of Bogalyovka had the reputation of being good gardeners and horse-stealers.
They had well-stocked gardens. In spring the whole village was buried in white
cherry-blossom, and in the summer they sold cherries at three kopecks a pail.
One could pay three kopecks and pick as one liked. Their women were handsome
and looked well fed, they were fond of finery, and never did anything even on
working-days, but spent all their time sitting on the ledge in front of their
houses and searching in each other’s heads.
But at last
there was the sound of footsteps. Lyubka, a girl of twenty, with bare feet and
a red dress, came into the room. . . . She looked sideways at
Yergunov and walked twice from one end of the room to the other. She did not
move simply, but with tiny steps, thrusting forward her bosom; evidently she
enjoyed padding about with her bare feet on the freshly washed floor, and had
taken off her shoes on purpose.
Kalashnikov
laughed at something and beckoned her with his finger. She went up to the
table, and he showed her a picture of the Prophet Elijah, who, driving three
horses abreast, was dashing up to the sky. Lyubka put her elbow on the table;
her plait fell across her shoulder — a long chestnut plait tied with red ribbon
at the end — and it almost touched the floor. She, too, smiled.
“A splendid,
wonderful picture,” said Kalashnikov. “Wonderful,” he repeated, and motioned
with his hand as though he wanted to take the reins instead of Elijah.
The wind howled
in the stove; something growled and squeaked as though a big dog had strangled
a rat.
“Ugh! the
unclean spirits are abroad!” said Lyubka.
“That’s the
wind,” said Kalashnikov; and after a pause he raised his eyes to Yergunov and
asked:
“And what is
your learned opinion, Osip Vassilyitch — are there devils in this world or
not?”
“What’s one to
say, brother?” said Yergunov, and he shrugged one shoulder. “If one reasons
from science, of course there are no devils, for it’s a superstition; but if
one looks at it simply, as you and I do now, there are devils, to put it
shortly. . . . I have seen a great deal in my life. . . .
When I finished my studies I served as medical assistant in the army in a
regiment of the dragoons, and I have been in the war, of course. I have a medal
and a decoration from the Red Cross, but after the treaty of San Stefano I
returned to Russia and went into the service of the Zemstvo. And in consequence
of my enormous circulation about the world, I may say I have seen more than
many another has dreamed of. It has happened to me to see devils, too; that is,
not devils with horns and a tail — that is all nonsense — but just, to speak
precisely, something of the sort.”
“Where?” asked
Kalashnikov.
“In various
places. There is no need to go far. Last year I met him here — speak of him not
at night — near this very inn. I was driving, I remember, to Golyshino; I was
going there to vaccinate. Of course, as usual, I had the racing droshky and a
horse, and all the necessary paraphernalia, and, what’s more, I had a watch and
all the rest of it, so I was on my guard as I drove along, for fear of some
mischance. There are lots of tramps of all sorts. I came up to the Zmeinoy
Ravine — damnation take it — and was just going down it, when all at once
somebody comes up to me — such a fellow! Black hair, black eyes, and his whole
face looked smutted with soot . . . . He comes straight up to the
horse and takes hold of the left rein: ‘Stop!’ He looked at the horse, then at
me, then dropped the reins, and without saying a bad word, ‘Where are you
going?’ says he. And he showed his teeth in a grin, and his eyes were
spiteful-looking.
“‘Ah,’ thought
I, ‘you are a queer customer!’ ‘I am going to vaccinate for the smallpox,’ said
I. ‘And what is that to you?’ ‘Well, if that’s so,’ says he, ‘vaccinate me. He
bared his arm and thrust it under my nose. Of course, I did not bandy words
with him; I just vaccinated him to get rid of him. Afterwards I looked at my
lancet and it had gone rusty.”
The peasant who
was asleep near the stove suddenly turned over and flung off the sheepskin; to
his great surprise, Yergunov recognized the stranger he had met that day at
Zmeinoy Ravine. This peasant’s hair, beard, and eyes were black as soot; his
face was swarthy; and, to add to the effect, there was a black spot the size of
a lentil on his right cheek. He looked mockingly at the hospital assistant and
said:
“I did take
hold of the left rein — that was so; but about the smallpox you are lying, sir.
And there was not a word said about the smallpox between us.”
Yergunov was
disconcerted.
“I’m not
talking about you,” he said. “Lie down, since you are lying down.”
The
dark-skinned peasant had never been to the hospital, and Yergunov did not know
who he was or where he came from; and now, looking at him, he made up his mind
that the man must be a gypsy. The peasant got up and, stretching and yawning
loudly, went up to Lyubka and Kalashnikov, and sat down beside them, and he,
too, began looking at the book. His sleepy face softened and a look of envy
came into it.
“Look, Merik,”
Lyubka said to him; “get me such horses and I will drive to heaven.”
“Sinners can’t
drive to heaven,” said Kalashnikov. “That’s for holiness.”
Then Lyubka
laid the table and brought in a big piece of fat bacon, salted cucumbers, a
wooden platter of boiled meat cut up into little pieces, then a frying-pan, in
which there were sausages and cabbage spluttering. A cut-glass decanter of
vodka, which diffused a smell of orange-peel all over the room when it was
poured out, was put on the table also.
Yergunov was
annoyed that Kalashnikov and the dark fellow Merik talked together and took no
notice of him at all, behaving exactly as though he were not in the room. And
he wanted to talk to them, to brag, to drink, to have a good meal, and if
possible to have a little fun with Lyubka, who sat down near him half a dozen
times while they were at supper, and, as though by accident, brushed against
him with her handsome shoulders and passed her hands over her broad hips. She
was a healthy, active girl, always laughing and never still: she would sit
down, then get up, and when she was sitting down she would keep turning first
her face and then her back to her neighbour, like a fidgety child, and never
failed to brush against him with her elbows or her knees.
And he was
displeased, too, that the peasants drank only a glass each and no more, and it
was awkward for him to drink alone. But he could not refrain from taking a
second glass, all the same, then a third, and he ate all the sausage. He
brought himself to flatter the peasants, that they might accept him as one of
the party instead of holding him at arm’s length.
“You are a fine
set of fellows in Bogalyovka!” he said, and wagged his head.
“In what way
fine fellows?” enquired Kalashnikov.
“Why, about
horses, for instance. Fine fellows at stealing!”
“H’m! fine
fellows, you call them. Nothing but thieves and drunkards.”
“They have had
their day, but it is over,” said Merik, after a pause. “But now they have only
Filya left, and he is blind.”
“Yes, there is
no one but Filya,” said Kalashnikov, with a sigh. “Reckon it up, he must be
seventy; the German settlers knocked out one of his eyes, and he does not see
well with the other. It is cataract. In old days the police officer would shout
as soon as he saw him: ‘Hey, you Shamil!’ and all the peasants called him that
— he was Shamil all over the place; and now his only name is One-eyed Filya.
But he was a fine fellow! Lyuba’s father, Andrey Grigoritch, and he stole one
night into Rozhnovo — there were cavalry regiments stationed there — and
carried off nine of the soldiers’ horses, the very best of them. They weren’t
frightened of the sentry, and in the morning they sold all the horses for
twenty roubles to the gypsy Afonka. Yes! But nowadays a man contrives to carry
off a horse whose rider is drunk or asleep, and has no fear of God, but will
take the very boots from a drunkard, and then slinks off and goes away a
hundred and fifty miles with a horse, and haggles at the market, haggles like a
Jew, till the policeman catches him, the fool. There is no fun in it; it is
simply a disgrace! A paltry set of people, I must say.”
“What about
Merik?” asked Lyubka.
“Merik is not
one of us,” said Kalashnikov. “He is a Harkov man from Mizhiritch. But that he
is a bold fellow, that’s the truth; there’s no gainsaying that he is a fine
fellow.”
Lyubka looked
slily and gleefully at Merik, and said:
“It wasn’t for
nothing they dipped him in a hole in the ice.”
“How was that?”
asked Yergunov.
“It was like
this . . .” said Merik, and he laughed. “Filya carried off three horses from
the Samoylenka tenants, and they pitched upon me. There were ten of the tenants
at Samoylenka, and with their labourers there were thirty altogether, and all
of them Molokans . . . . So one of them says to me at the market:
‘Come and have a look, Merik; we have brought some new horses from the fair.’ I
was interested, of course. I went up to them, and the whole lot of them, thirty
men, tied my hands behind me and led me to the river. ‘We’ll show you fine
horses,’ they said. One hole in the ice was there already; they cut another
beside it seven feet away. Then, to be sure, they took a cord and put a noose
under my armpits, and tied a crooked stick to the other end, long enough to
reach both holes. They thrust the stick in and dragged it through. I went plop
into the ice-hole just as I was, in my fur coat and my high boots, while they
stood and shoved me, one with his foot and one with his stick, then dragged me
under the ice and pulled me out of the other hole.”
Lyubka
shuddered and shrugged.
“At first I was
in a fever from the cold,” Merik went on, “but when they pulled me out I was
helpless, and lay in the snow, and the Molokans stood round and hit me with
sticks on my knees and my elbows. It hurt fearfully. They beat me and they went
away . . . and everything on me was frozen, my clothes were covered
with ice. I got up, but I couldn’t move. Thank God, a woman drove by and gave
me a lift.”
Meanwhile
Yergunov had drunk five or six glasses of vodka; his heart felt lighter, and he
longed to tell some extraordinary, wonderful story too, and to show that he,
too, was a bold fellow and not afraid of anything.
“I’ll tell you
what happened to us in Penza Province . . .” he began.
Either because
he had drunk a great deal and was a little tipsy, or perhaps because he had
twice been detected in a lie, the peasants took not the slightest notice of
him, and even left off answering his questions. What was worse, they permitted
themselves a frankness in his presence that made him feel uncomfortable and
cold all over, and that meant that they took no notice of him.
Kalashnikov had
the dignified manners of a sedate and sensible man; he spoke weightily, and
made the sign of the cross over his mouth every time he yawned, and no one
could have supposed that this was a thief, a heartless thief who had stripped
poor creatures, who had already been twice in prison, and who had been
sentenced by the commune to exile in Siberia, and had been bought off by his
father and uncle, who were as great thieves and rogues as he was. Merik gave
himself the airs of a bravo. He saw that Lyubka and Kalashnikov were admiring
him, and looked upon himself as a very fine fellow, and put his arms akimbo,
squared his chest, or stretched so that the bench creaked under him
. . . .
After supper
Kalashnikov prayed to the holy image without getting up from his seat, and
shook hands with Merik; the latter prayed too, and shook Kalashnikov’s hand.
Lyubka cleared away the supper, shook out on the table some peppermint
biscuits, dried nuts, and pumpkin seeds, and placed two bottles of sweet wine.
“The kingdom of
heaven and peace everlasting to Andrey Grigoritch,” said Kalashnikov, clinking
glasses with Merik. “When he was alive we used to gather together here or at
his brother Martin’s, and — my word! my word! what men, what talks! Remarkable
conversations! Martin used to be here, and Filya, and Fyodor Stukotey.
. . . It was all done in style, it was all in keeping.
. . . And what fun we had! We did have fun, we did have fun!”
Lyubka went out
and soon afterwards came back wearing a green kerchief and beads.
“Look, Merik,
what Kalashnikov brought me today,” she said.
She looked at
herself in the looking-glass, and tossed her head several times to make the
beads jingle. And then she opened a chest and began taking out, first, a cotton
dress with red and blue flowers on it, and then a red one with flounces which
rustled and crackled like paper, then a new kerchief, dark blue, shot with many
colours — and all these things she showed and flung up her hands, laughing as
though astonished that she had such treasures.
Kalashnikov
tuned the balalaika and began playing it, but Yergunov could not make out what
sort of song he was singing, and whether it was gay or melancholy, because at
one moment it was so mournful he wanted to cry, and at the next it would be
merry. Merik suddenly jumped up and began tapping with his heels on the same
spot, then, brandishing his arms, he moved on his heels from the table to the
stove, from the stove to the chest, then he bounded up as though he had been
stung, clicked the heels of his boots together in the air, and began going
round and round in a crouching position. Lyubka waved both her arms, uttered a
desperate shriek, and followed him. At first she moved sideways, like a snake,
as though she wanted to steal up to someone and strike him from behind. She
tapped rapidly with her bare heels as Merik had done with the heels of his
boots, then she turned round and round like a top and crouched down, and her
red dress was blown out like a bell. Merik, looking angrily at her, and showing
his teeth in a grin, flew towards her in the same crouching posture as though
he wanted to crush her with his terrible legs, while she jumped up, flung back
her head, and waving her arms as a big bird does its wings, floated across the
room scarcely touching the floor . . . .
“What a flame
of a girl!” thought Yergunov, sitting on the chest, and from there watching the
dance. “What fire! Give up everything for her, and it would be too little
. . . .”
And he
regretted that he was a hospital assistant, and not a simple peasant, that he
wore a reefer coat and a chain with a gilt key on it instead of a blue shirt
with a cord tied round the waist. Then he could boldly have sung, danced, flung
both arms round Lyubka as Merik did . . . .
The sharp
tapping, shouts, and whoops set the crockery ringing in the cupboard and the
flame of the candle dancing.
The thread
broke and the beads were scattered all over the floor, the green kerchief
slipped off, and Lyubka was transformed into a red cloud flitting by and
flashing black eyes, and it seemed as though in another second Merik’s arms and
legs would drop off.
But finally
Merik stamped for the last time, and stood still as though turned to stone.
Exhausted and almost breathless, Lyubka sank on to his bosom and leaned against
him as against a post, and he put his arms round her, and looking into her
eyes, said tenderly and caressingly, as though in jest:
“I’ll find out
where your old mother’s money is hidden, I’ll murder her and cut your little
throat for you, and after that I will set fire to the inn. . . .
People will think you have perished in the fire, and with your money I shall go
to Kuban. I’ll keep droves of horses and flocks of sheep . . . .”
Lyubka made no
answer, but only looked at him with a guilty air, and asked:
“And is it nice
in Kuban, Merik?”
He said
nothing, but went to the chest, sat down, and sank into thought; most likely he
was dreaming of Kuban.
“It’s time for
me to be going,” said Kalashnikov, getting up. “Filya must be waiting for me.
Goodbye, Lyuba.”
Yergunov went
out into the yard to see that Kalashnikov did not go off with his horse. The
snowstorm still persisted. White clouds were floating about the yard, their
long tails clinging to the rough grass and the bushes, while on the other side
of the fence in the open country huge giants in white robes with wide sleeves
were whirling round and falling to the ground, and getting up again to wave
their arms and fight. And the wind, the wind! The bare birches and
cherry-trees, unable to endure its rude caresses, bowed low down to the ground
and wailed: “God, for what sin hast Thou bound us to the earth and will not let
us go free?”
“Wo!” said
Kalashnikov sternly, and he got on his horse; one half of the gate was opened,
and by it lay a high snowdrift. “Well, get on!” shouted Kalashnikov. His little
short-legged nag set off, and sank up to its stomach in the drift at once.
Kalashnikov was white all over with the snow, and soon vanished from sight with
his horse.
When Yergunov
went back into the room, Lyubka was creeping about the floor picking up her
beads; Merik was not there.
“A splendid
girl!” thought Yergunov, as he lay down on the bench and put his coat under his
head. “Oh, if only Merik were not here.” Lyubka excited him as she crept about
the floor by the bench, and he thought that if Merik had not been there he
would certainly have got up and embraced her, and then one would see what would
happen. It was true she was only a girl, but not likely to be chaste; and even
if she were — need one stand on ceremony in a den of thieves? Lyubka collected
her beads and went out. The candle burnt down and the flame caught the paper in
the candlestick. Yergunov laid his revolver and matches beside him, and put out
the candle. The light before the holy images flickered so much that it hurt his
eyes, and patches of light danced on the ceiling, on the floor, and on the
cupboard, and among them he had visions of Lyubka, buxom, full-bosomed: now she
was turning round like a top, now she was exhausted and breathless
. . . .
“Oh, if the
devils would carry off that Merik,” he thought.
The little lamp
gave a last flicker, spluttered, and went out. Someone, it must have been
Merik, came into the room and sat down on the bench. He puffed at his pipe, and
for an instant lighted up a dark cheek with a patch on it. Yergunov’s throat
was irritated by the horrible fumes of the tobacco smoke.
“What filthy
tobacco you have got — damnation take it!” said Yergunov. “It makes me
positively sick.”
“I mix my
tobacco with the flowers of the oats,” answered Merik after a pause. “It is
better for the chest.”
He smoked,
spat, and went out again. Half an hour passed, and all at once there was the
gleam of a light in the passage. Merik appeared in a coat and cap, then Lyubka
with a candle in her hand.
“Do stay,
Merik,” said Lyubka in an imploring voice.
“No, Lyuba,
don’t keep me.”
“Listen,
Merik,” said Lyubka, and her voice grew soft and tender. “I know you will find
mother’s money, and will do for her and for me, and will go to Kuban and love
other girls; but God be with you. I only ask you one thing, sweetheart: do
stay!”
“No, I want
some fun . . .” said Merik, fastening his belt.
“But you have
nothing to go on. . . . You came on foot; what are you going on?”
Merik bent down
to Lyubka and whispered something in her ear; she looked towards the door and
laughed through her tears.
“He is asleep,
the puffed-up devil . . .” she said.
Merik embraced
her, kissed her vigorously, and went out. Yergunov thrust his revolver into his
pocket, jumped up, and ran after him.
“Get out of the
way!” he said to Lyubka, who hurriedly bolted the door of the entry and stood
across the threshold. “Let me pass! Why are you standing here?”
“What do you
want to go out for?”
“To have a look
at my horse.”
Lyubka gazed up
at him with a sly and caressing look.
“Why look at
it? You had better look at me . . . .” she said, then she bent down
and touched with her finger the gilt watch-key that hung on his chain.
“Let me pass,
or he will go off on my horse,” said Yergunov. “Let me go, you devil!” he
shouted, and giving her an angry blow on the shoulder, he pressed his chest
against her with all his might to push her away from the door, but she kept
tight hold of the bolt, and was like iron.
“Let me go!” he
shouted, exhausted; “he will go off with it, I tell you.”
“Why should he?
He won’t.” Breathing hard and rubbing her shoulder, which hurt, she looked up
at him again, flushed a little and laughed. “Don’t go away, dear heart,” she
said; “I am dull alone.”
Yergunov looked
into her eyes, hesitated, and put his arms round her; she did not resist.
“Come, no
nonsense; let me go,” he begged her. She did not speak.
“I heard you
just now,” he said, “telling Merik that you love him.
“I dare say.
. . . My heart knows who it is I love.”
She put her
finger on the key again, and said softly: “Give me that.”
Yergunov
unfastened the key and gave it to her. She suddenly craned her neck and
listened with a grave face, and her expression struck Yergunov as cold and cunning;
he thought of his horse, and now easily pushed her aside and ran out into the
yard. In the shed a sleepy pig was grunting with lazy regularity and a cow was
knocking her horn. Yergunov lighted a match and saw the pig, and the cow, and
the dogs, which rushed at him on all sides at seeing the light, but there was
no trace of the horse. Shouting and waving his arms at the dogs, stumbling over
the drifts and sticking in the snow, he ran out at the gate and fell to gazing
into the darkness. He strained his eyes to the utmost, and saw only the snow
flying and the snowflakes distinctly forming into all sorts of shapes; at one
moment the white, laughing face of a corpse would peep out of the darkness, at
the next a white horse would gallop by with an Amazon in a muslin dress upon
it, at the next a string of white swans would fly overhead. . . .
Shaking with anger and cold, and not knowing what to do, Yergunov fired his
revolver at the dogs, and did not hit one of them; then he rushed back to the
house.
When he went
into the entry he distinctly heard someone scurry out of the room and bang the
door. It was dark in the room. Yergunov pushed against the door; it was locked.
Then, lighting match after match, he rushed back into the entry, from there
into the kitchen, and from the kitchen into a little room where all the walls
were hung with petticoats and dresses, where there was a smell of cornflowers
and fennel, and a bedstead with a perfect mountain of pillows, standing in the
corner by the stove; this must have been the old mother’s room. From there he
passed into another little room, and here he saw Lyubka. She was lying on a
chest, covered with a gay-coloured patchwork cotton quilt, pretending to be
asleep. A little ikon-lamp was burning in the corner above the pillow.
“Where is my
horse?” Yergunov asked.
Lyubka did not
stir.
“Where is my
horse, I am asking you?” Yergunov repeated still more sternly, and he tore the
quilt off her. “I am asking you, she-devil!” he shouted.
She jumped up
on her knees, and with one hand holding her shift and with the other trying to
clutch the quilt, huddled against the wall . . . . She looked at
Yergunov with repulsion and terror in her eyes, and, like a wild beast in a
trap, kept cunning watch on his faintest movement.
“Tell me where
my horse is, or I’ll knock the life out of you,” shouted Yergunov.
“Get away,
dirty brute!” she said in a hoarse voice.
Yergunov seized
her by the shift near the neck and tore it. And then he could not restrain
himself, and with all his might embraced the girl. But hissing with fury, she
slipped out of his arms, and freeing one hand — the other was tangled in the
torn shift — hit him a blow with her fist on the skull.
His head was
dizzy with the pain, there was a ringing and rattling in his ears, he staggered
back, and at that moment received another blow — this time on the temple.
Reeling and clutching at the doorposts, that he might not fall, he made his way
to the room where his things were, and lay down on the bench; then after lying
for a little time, took the matchbox out of his pocket and began lighting match
after match for no object: he lit it, blew it out, and threw it under the
table, and went on till all the matches were gone.
Meanwhile the
air began to turn blue outside, the cocks began to crow, but his head still
ached, and there was an uproar in his ears as though he were sitting under a
railway bridge and hearing the trains passing over his head. He got, somehow,
into his coat and cap; the saddle and the bundle of his purchases he could not
find, his knapsack was empty: it was not for nothing that someone had scurried
out of the room when he came in from the yard.
He took a poker
from the kitchen to keep off the dogs, and went out into the yard, leaving the
door open. The snow-storm had subsided and it was calm outside. . . .
When he went out at the gate, the white plain looked dead, and there was not a
single bird in the morning sky. On both sides of the road and in the distance
there were bluish patches of young copse.
Yergunov began
thinking how he would be greeted at the hospital and what the doctor would say
to him; it was absolutely necessary to think of that, and to prepare beforehand
to answer questions he would be asked, but this thought grew blurred and
slipped away. He walked along thinking of nothing but Lyubka, of the peasants
with whom he had passed the night; he remembered how, after Lyubka struck him
the second time, she had bent down to the floor for the quilt, and how her
loose hair had fallen on the floor. His mind was in a maze, and he wondered why
there were in the world doctors, hospital assistants, merchants, clerks, and
peasants instead of simple free men? There are, to be sure, free birds, free
beasts, a free Merik, and they are not afraid of anyone, and don’t need anyone!
And whose idea was it, who had decreed that one must get up in the morning,
dine at midday, go to bed in the evening; that a doctor takes precedence of a
hospital assistant; that one must live in rooms and love only one’s wife? And
why not the contrary — dine at night and sleep in the day? Ah, to jump on a
horse without enquiring whose it is, to ride races with the wind like a devil,
over fields and forests and ravines, to make love to girls, to mock at everyone
. . . .
Yergunov thrust
the poker into the snow, pressed his forehead to the cold white trunk of a
birch-tree, and sank into thought; and his grey, monotonous life, his wages,
his subordinate position, the dispensary, the everlasting to-do with the
bottles and blisters, struck him as contemptible, sickening.
“Who says it’s
a sin to enjoy oneself?” he asked himself with vexation. “Those who say that
have never lived in freedom like Merik and Kalashnikov, and have never loved
Lyubka; they have been beggars all their lives, have lived without any
pleasure, and have only loved their wives, who are like frogs.”
And he thought
about himself that he had not hitherto been a thief, a swindler, or even a
brigand, simply because he could not, or had not yet met with a suitable
opportunity.
A year and a half passed.
In spring, after Easter, Yergunov, who had long before been dismissed from the
hospital and was hanging about without a job, came out of the tavern in Ryepino
and sauntered aimlessly along the street.
He went out
into the open country. Here there was the scent of spring, and a warm caressing
wind was blowing. The calm, starry night looked down from the sky on the earth.
My God, how infinite the depth of the sky, and with what fathomless immensity
it stretched over the world! The world is created well enough, only why and
with what right do people, thought Yergunov, divide their fellows into the
sober and the drunken, the employed and the dismissed, and so on. Why do the
sober and well fed sleep comfortably in their homes while the drunken and the
hungry must wander about the country without a refuge? Why was it that if
anyone had not a job and did not get a salary he had to go hungry, without
clothes and boots? Whose idea was it? Why was it the birds and the wild beasts
in the woods did not have jobs and get salaries, but lived as they pleased?
Far away in the
sky a beautiful crimson glow lay quivering, stretched wide over the horizon.
Yergunov stopped, and for a long time he gazed at it, and kept wondering why
was it that if he had carried off someone else’s samovar the day before and
sold it for drink in the taverns it would be a sin? Why was it?
Two carts drove
by on the road; in one of them there was a woman asleep, in the other sat an
old man without a cap on.
“Grandfather,
where is that fire?” asked Yergunov.
“Andrey
Tchirikov’s inn,” answered the old man.
And Yergunov
recalled what had happened to him eighteen months before in the winter, in that
very inn, and how Merik had boasted; and he imagined the old woman and Lyubka,
with their throats cut, burning, and he envied Merik. And when he walked back
to the tavern, looking at the houses of the rich publicans, cattle-dealers, and
blacksmiths, he reflected how nice it would be to steal by night into some rich
man’s house!
1890.
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