XI
ONE day he awakened very late and, feeling neither weakness nor trembling in his legs, sat up to drink his tea. The day was overcast, warm, and much snow had fallen. Syery passed the window, making on the new snow imprints of his bark-shoes, sprinkled with tiny crosses. The sheep dogs were running beside him, sniffing at his tattered coattails. And he was leading by the bridle a tall horse of a dirty light bay colour, hideously old and skinny, its shoulders abraded by the collar; it had an in-curving back and a thin, unclean tail. The horse was limping on three legs and dragging the fourth, which was broken below the knee. Then Kuzma recalled that two days previously Tikhon Ilitch had been there, and had said that he had ordered Syery to give the dogs a treat—to find and kill an old horse; that Syery had in former days been engaged in that occupation at times—the purchase of dead or worthless cattle for their hides. A terrible thing had recently happened to Syery, Tikhon Ilitch had said: in making ready to kill a mare, Syery had forgotten to hobble her—he had merely bound her and turned her muzzle to one side—and the mare, as soon as, crossing himself, he had plunged the thin small knife into her jugular vein, had uttered a scream and, screaming, had hurled herself upon her assassin, her yellow teeth laid bare in pain and rage, streams of black blood spurting out upon the snow, and had pursued him for a long time, exactly as if she had been a man—and would have caught him but that, “luckily, the snow was deep.”
Kuzma had been so deeply impressed by this incident that now, as he glanced through the window, he felt the heaviness returning in his legs. He began to gulp down the boiling hot tea, and gradually recovered himself. He lighted his cigarette and sat for a while smoking. At last he rose, went into the ante-room, and looked out at the bare, sparse orchard through the window, which had thawed. In the orchard, on the snow-white pall of the meadow, a high-ribbed, bloody carcass with a long neck and a crushed head stood out redly. The dogs, their backs all hunched up and their paws braced on the meat, were greedily tearing out and dragging away the entrails. Two aged blackish-grey crows were hopping sidewise toward the head, and had started to fly thither, when the dogs, snarling, darted upon them; and once more they alighted on the virginally pure snow. “Ivanushka, Syery, the crows—” Kuzma said to himself. “Perhaps those crows can recall the times of Ivan the Terrible. O Lord, save and show mercy—take me away from here!”
Kuzma’s indisposition did not leave him for another fortnight. The thought of spring affected him both mournfully and joyfully; he longed to get away from Durnovka as speedily as possible. He knew that the end of winter was not yet in sight; but the thaw had already set in. The first week of February was dark and foggy. The fog covered the plain and devoured the snow. The village turned black; water stood between the dirty snowdrifts; the village policeman drove through the village one day, his horses hitched tandem, all spattered with horse droppings. The cocks took to crowing; through the ventilators penetrated a disturbing spring-like dampness. He wanted to go on living; to go on living and wait for the spring, his removal to the town; to live on, submitting to fate, and to do any sort of work whatsoever, if only to earn a single bit of bread. And to work, of course, for his brother—regardless of what he was like. Why, his brother had proposed to him while he was ill that they should move over to Vorgol. “Why should I turn you out of doors?” he had said after pondering the matter.—“I’m giving up the shop and the homestead on the first of March: let’s go to the town, brother, as far as possible from these cutthroats.”
And it was true: cutthroats they were. Odnodvorka had come in and imparted the particulars of a recent encounter with Syery. Deniska had returned from Tula, and had been knocking about without work, gabbling about the village that he wanted to marry; that he had no money, but would soon earn some of first-class quality. At first the village had pronounced these tales absurd nonsense; then, following Deniska’s hints, it had come to understand the drift of the matter and had believed him. Syery, too, had believed him, and began to curry favour with his son. But after slaying the horse and receiving a ruble from Tikhon Ilitch and securing half a ruble for the skin, he had begun to chatter incautiously and had gone on a spree. He drank for two days, and lost his pipe, and lay down on the oven to recover. His head ached, and he had nothing in which to put tobacco for a smoke. So, to make cigarettes, he began to peel the ceiling, which Deniska had pasted over with newspapers and divers pictures. He did his peeling on the sly, of course; but nevertheless, one day, Deniska caught him at it. He caught him and began to roar at him. Syery, being intoxicated, began to roar in return. Thereupon, Deniska pulled him off the oven and thrashed him within an inch of his life, until the neighbors rushed in. Peace was concluded on the evening of the following day, it is true, over cracknels and vodka; but, as Kuzma said to himself, was not Tikhon Ilitch a cut-throat also when he insisted, with the obstinacy of a crazy man, on the marriage of the Bride to one of these cutthroats?
When Kuzma first heard about that marriage, he firmly made up his mind that he would not permit it. What a horror, what folly! But later on, when he recovered consciousness during his illness, he actually rejoiced over this foolish idea. He had been surprised and impressed by the indifference which the Bride had displayed toward him, a sick man. “A beast, a savage!” he had said to himself; and, calling to mind the wedding, he had added spitefully: “And that’s capital! That’s exactly what she deserves!” Now, after his illness, both his decision and his wrath disappeared. He managed to get into conversation with the Bride about Tikhon Ilitch’s intentions; and she replied calmly:
“Well, yes, I did have some talk about that affair with Tikhon Ilitch. God grant him good health for such a fine idea!”
“A fine idea?” said Kuzma in amazement.
The Bride looked at him and shook her head. “Well, and why isn’t it fine? Great heavens, but you are queer, Kuzma Ilitch! He offers money, and takes the expense of the wedding on himself. Then again, he has not picked out some widower or other, but a young, unmarried man, without vices—neither rotten nor a drunkard—”
“But he’s a sluggard, a bully, a downright fool,” added Kuzma.
The Bride dropped her eyes and made no reply. Heaving a sigh, she turned and went toward the door.
“As you like,” she said, her voice trembling. “’Tis your affair. Break it off—God help you—”
Kuzma opened his eyes very wide and shouted: “Stop! have you lost your senses? Do you think I wish you ill?”
The Bride turned round and halted. “And isn’t it wishing me ill?” she said hotly and roughly, her cheeks flushing and her eyes blazing. “What is to become of me, according to your idea? Am I to go on for ever as an outcast, at the thresholds of other people’s houses? Eating the crusts of strangers? Wandering about, a homeless beggar? Or am I to hunt up some old widower? Haven’t I swallowed tears enough already?”
And her voice broke. She fell to weeping and left the room. In the evening Kuzma tried to convince her that he had no intention of breaking up the affair, and at last she believed him and smiled a friendly, reserved smile.
“Well, thank you,” she said in the pleasant tone which she used to Ivanushka.
But at this point the tears began to quiver on her eyelashes, and once more Kuzma gave up in despair. “What’s the matter now?” said he.
And the Bride answered softly: “Well, perhaps Deniska is not much of a joy—”
Koshel brought from the post-office a newspaper nearly six weeks old. The days were dark and foggy, and Kuzma read from morning till night, seated at the window.
And when he had finished and had made himself dizzy with the number of fresh executions, he was benumbed. Heretofore he had been suffocated with rage when he read the newspapers—futile rage, because human receptivity was unequal to taking in what one read there. Now his fingers grew cold—nothing more. Yes, yes, there was nothing to get excited about. Everything went as if according to programme. Everything fitted together perfectly. He raised his head: the sleet was driving in white slanting lines, falling upon the black, miserable little village, on the muddy roads with their hillocks and hollows, on the horse-dung, the ice, and the pools of water. A twilight mist concealed the boundless plain—all that vast empty space with its snows, forests, settlements, towns—the kingdom of cold and of death.
“Avdotya!” shouted Kuzma, as he rose to his feet. “Tell Koshel to harness the horse to the sledge. I’m going to my brother’s....”