But that is all irrelevant. In short, Khlopov was kind to me.
As to Anna, she was entirely different. She was close-mouthed, ill-tempered, and a great stay-at-home. She never visited her neighbors, and they, in turn, called on her very rarely. In the village she was spoken of as a snob and a hypocrite. Peter was afraid of her as of the plague, especially in his sober hours. All her power lay in her eyes. When that strong man—he who had the whole village in the palm of his hand—felt her eye fixed on him, his strength left him. It seemed as if some devil were ready to jump out of that eye and turn the house topsyturvy. You fellows are mere youngsters, you have seen nothing of the world yet; but take it from me, there are eyes that seem quite harmless when you first look into them, but just try to arouse their temper: you will see a hellish fire spring up in them. Have you ever looked into my Rebekah's eyes? Well, beware of the eyes.
The look Anna gave me when I first entered her house promised me nothing good. She hated me heartily. She never called me by my own name. She called me "Zhid" all the time, in a tone of deep hatred and contempt.
Among the orders the Cantonists had to obey were the following: to speak no Yiddish; to say no Jewish prayer; to recite daily a certain prayer before the image of the Virgin and before the crucifix, and not to abstain from non-kosher food.
With regard to all injunctions except the last, Anna was very strict with me. But she was not very particular as to the last injunction. Out of sheer stinginess she fed me on bread and vegetables, and that in the kitchen. Once she did offer me some meat, and I refused to touch it. Then she got very angry, flew into a temper, and decided to complain to the sergeant. But Peter did not let her be so cruel. "Let him grow up, he will know better," said Peter, waving his hand at me.
Then Anna made up her mind to force me to eat forbidden meat. But I was obstinate. And she decided once more to complain to the sergeant. Just at that time another Cantonist had been found guilty of some offense. He belonged to the same village; his name was Jacob. I did not know him at that time. His patron complained that Jacob had persisted in reciting Hebrew prayers, and that he abstained from meat. Jacob was condemned to twenty lashes with rods. An order was issued that all Cantonists should assemble to witness the flogging of the offender.
In the course of time we got used to such sights; but the first time we were terribly shocked. Just imagine: a lad of about fifteen is stripped, put on the ground face downwards; one man sits on his head, and another on his feet. Two men are put on either side of him, each with a bundle of birch-rods in his hand. Ten times each of them has to strike him with the rods, to make up the twenty lashes. I looked at the face of the culprit; it was as white as chalk. His lips were moving. I thought he was reciting the prayer: "And He, the Merciful, will forgive sin, and will not destroy. . . ." Up went the rods, down they went: a piercing cry . . . . blood . . . . flaps of loose skin . . . . cries . . . . "one, two, three" . . . . again cries . . . . sudden silence . . . . more cries . . . . again silence . . . . "four, five" . . . . "stop!"
Because the culprit fainted, the sergeant in the goodness of his heart divided the punishment into two parts. Jacob was carried off to the hospital, and it was put down in the book that he was to get ten more lashes after his recover.
I went home.
Had Anna given me a piece of pork to eat that evening, I do not know what I should have done.