XV
WHEN morning came the blizzard was still raging. In that grey whirling tempest neither Durnovka nor the windmill on the promontory was visible. Once in a while it grew brighter, once in a while the light became like that at nightfall. The orchard was all white, and its roar mingled with the roar of the wind, in which one kept imagining the peal of bells. The sharp-pointed apexes of the snowdrifts were smoking. From the porch, on which, with eyes screwed up, scenting athwart the chill of the blizzard the savoury aroma from the chimney of the servant’s wing, sat the watchdogs, all coated with snow. Kuzma was barely able to make out the dark, misty forms of the peasants, their horses, sledges, the jingling of the sleighbells. Two horses had been hitched to the bridegroom’s sledge; one horse was allotted to that of the bride. The sledges were covered with kazan felt lap robes with black patterns on the ends. The participants in the ceremonial procession had girt themselves with sashes of divers hues. The women, who had donned wadded coats and wrapped their heads in shawls, walked to the sledges circumspectly, taking tiny steps, ceremoniously remarking: “Heavens, God’s daylight is not visible!” Rarely was a woman garbed in her own clothes: everything had been collected among the neighbours. Accordingly, special caution was needed not to fall, and they lifted their long skirts as high as possible. The bride’s fur coat and her blue gown had been turned up over her head, and she sat in the sledge protected only by her white petticoat. Her head, adorned with a small wreath of paper flowers, was enveloped in undershawls. She had become so weak from her weeping that she saw as in a dream the dark figures through the blizzard, heard its roar, the conversation, and the festive pealing of the small bells. The horses laid their ears flat and tossed their muzzles from side to side to escape the snow-laden gale; and it bore away the chatter and the shouts of command, glued eyes tightly together, whitened mustaches, beards, and caps, and the groomsmen had difficulty in recognizing one another in the darkness and gloom.
“Ugh, damn it all!” exclaimed Vaska as he ducked his head, gathered up the reins, and took his seat beside the bridegroom. And he shouted roughly, indifferently, into the teeth of the storm: “Messrs. boyars, bestow your blessing on the bridegroom, that he may go in search of his bride!”
Some one made answer: “May God bless him.”
Then the sleighbells began to wail, the runners to screech; the snowdrifts, as the runners cut through them, turned to smoke and small whirlwinds; the forelocks, manes, and tails of the horses were blown to one side....
At the church-warden’s house in the village, where they warmed themselves up while waiting for the priest, all became well suffocated. In the church, also, there was the odour of fire-gas, cold, and gloom, thanks to the blizzard, the low ceilings, and the gratings in the windows. Lighted candles were held only by the bridegroom and the bride and in the hand of the swarthy priest. He had big cheek-bones, and he bent low over his book, which was all bespattered with wax-droppings, and read hurriedly through his spectacles. On the floor stood pools of water—much snow had been brought in on their boots and bark-shoes. The wind from the open door blew on their backs. The priest glanced sternly now at the door, again at the groom and bride—at their tense forms, prepared for anything that might present itself; at their faces, congealed, as it were, in obedience and submission, illuminated from below by the golden gleam of candles. From habit, he pronounced some words as if he felt them, making them stand out apart from the touching prayers; but in reality he was thinking not at all of the words or of those to whom they were applied.
“‘O God most pure, the Creator of every living thing,’” he said hastily, now lowering, now raising his voice. “‘Thou who didst bless Thy servant Abraham, and, opening the womb of Sarah ... who didst give Isaac unto Rebecca ... who didst join Jacob unto Rachel ... vouchsafe unto these Thy servants....’”
“Name—?” he interrupted himself in a stern whisper, without altering the expression of his countenance, addressing the lay reader. And, having caught the answer, “Denis, Avdotya,” he continued, with feeling:
“‘Vouchsafe unto these Thy servants, Denis and Evdokhia, a peaceful life, length of days, chastity ... grant that they may behold their children’s children ... and give them of the dew of heaven from on high.... Fill their houses with wheat and wine and oil ... exhalt thou them like unto the cedars of Lebanon....’”
But even if those who were present had listened to him and understood, they would have been thinking of the blizzard, the strange horses, the return home through the twilight to Durnovka, Syery’s house—and not of Abraham and Isaac. And they would have grinned at comparing Deniska to a cedar of Lebanon. And it was awkward for Deniska himself, his short legs encased in borrowed boots, his body clad in an old undercoat, to admit that the bride was taller than he; it was awkward and terrible to bear on his motionless head the imperial crown[36]—a huge brass crown with a cross on top, resting far down on his very ears. And the hand of the Bride, who looked more beautiful and more lifeless than ever in her crown, trembled, and the wax of the melting candle dripped down on the flounce of her blue gown....
The return home was more comfortable. The blizzard was even more terrible in the twilight, but they were cheered by the consciousness that a burden had been removed from their shoulders: whether for good or for evil, the deed had been done. So they whipped up their horses smartly, dashing ahead at random, trusting solely to the ill-defined forms of the small trees which marked out the road. And the loud-mouthed wife of Vanka Krasny stood upright in the leading sledge and danced, flourishing her handkerchief and screeching to the gale, through the dark, raging turmoil, through the snow which whipped against her lips and drowned her wolf’s voice:
“The dove, the grey dove,
Has a head of gold.”
Moscow, 1909.
[FOOTNOTES:]
[1] A verst is two-thirds of a mile.—TRANS.
[2] This muddling of “Emir of Bukhara” is only one example of the ignorant combinations and locutions used by the peasant characters.—TRANS.
[3] A play on words, “tar” in the second sentence meaning “liquor.”—TRANS.
[4] “Matushka” and “batiushka” (literally, “Little Mother” and “Little Father”) are the characteristic Russian formula for addressing elderly strangers, regardless of class distinctions.—TRANS.
[5] A desyatina is a unit of land measurement equalling 2.07 acres.—TRANS.
[6] When a man or woman begins to get on in the world his admiring neighbours signalize their appreciation by adding to the Christian name the patronymic, as if the clever one were of gentle (noble) birth. In this story, Tikhon soon receives the public acknowledgment of success, having begun as plain “Tikhon.” Peasant-fashion, “Nikititch” was transmuted into “Mikititch.”—TRANS.
[7] Sharpers who pretend to be the poverty-stricken descendants of the Tatar Princes who ruled Kazan before it was conquered, during the rein of Ivan the Terrible.—TRANS.
[8] A straight, loose gown, falling from the armpits, worn by unmarried girls.—TRANS.
[9] A heretic. Literally, one who drinks milk (moloko) during the Fasts in defiance to the Orthodox Catholic Church.—TRANS.
[10] Probably a deliberate bit of insolence, as he must have known that the patronymic was “Ilitch,” not “Fomitch.”—TRANS.
[11] All priests and monks in the Orthodox Catholic Church wear the hair and beard long. Tikhon Ilitch refers to the superstition that it portends bad luck to meet an ecclesiastic when one is arranging something or going somewhere.—TRANS.
[12] Polu, meaning “half,” reduces the name to absurdity: something like “the Half-carp.”—TRANS.
[13] Referring to a famous Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow.—TRANS.
[14] The insulting nickname “khokhly” is used. The question mentioned is in the form of a rhyme, intentionally offensive. The reply is also rhymed.—TRANS.
[15] That is, to the heart of the Kremlin, in Moscow.—TRANS.
[16] A sect which denies the divinity of the Holy Spirit. They emigrated from the Caucasus to British Columbia in the ’90’s, with money furnished by Count L. N. Tolstoy, and have had many conflicts with the British authorities.—TRANS.
[17] The Little Russian nickname for the Great Russians.—TRANS.
[18] Yaroslaff the Great, son of Prince Vladimir, 1016-1054.—TRANS.
[19] A Turkish tribe which migrated from Asia to Eastern Europe. They came into collision with the Russians at the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth.—TRANS.
[20] A Lavra is a first-class Monastery. Here it refers to the famous “Catacombs” Monastery.—TRANS.
[21] Muromtzeff.
[22] A rhyme in the original. The “catskinner” collects hides throughout the countryside, for conversion into “furs.”—TRANS.
[23] About three-quarters of a yard of heavy homespun crash is wrapped over the foot and leg in lieu of a stocking, and confined in place by the stout cord or rope with which the slippers of plaited linden bark are tied on.—TRANS.
[24] Popular form of “Witte,” the famous Minister.—TRANS.
[25] A member of the self-mutilating sect, the Skoptzy.—TRANS.
[26] Parish clergy are always married men in the Orthodox Catholic Church. An Archpriest is usually the head of a staff of clergy at a Cathedral. To a higher post and title no married priest can attain. The Bishops, Archbishops, and higher clergy must be monks.—TRANS.
[27] “Bratushki”—Little Brothers—is a term which originated during the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78, and was applied to the Serbs and Bulgarians.—TRANS.
[28] Easter.—TRANS.
[29] Scarecrow.—TRANS.
[30] 2.70 gallons.—TRANS.
[31] Not Extreme Unction, in the meaning of the Church of Rome. In the Orthodox Catholic Church it is a service of Prayer and Anointment for healing, to be administered and received at any time desired.—TRANS.
[32] Thus manufacturing a family name out of “Mys,” a promontory.—TRANS.
[33] Thirty-six pounds.—TRANS.
[34] The Little Kettle.—TRANS.
[35] The Trebnik contains the Services for events in daily life: Baptism, Marriage, Confession, the Burial Rites, and so forth. What Tikhon Ilitch quotes and reads is from the magnificent Burial Service. See the Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church.—TRANS.
[36] In the marriage service crowns are used for bride and groom, but generally they are held a short distance above the heads, by best men standing behind.—TRANS.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic and dialectal variations in spelling have been retained.
The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber and is entered into the public domain.