I
EARLY one morning in July a shabby covered chaise, one of those antediluvian
chaises without springs in which no one travels in Russia nowadays, except
merchant's clerks, dealers and the less well-to-do among priests, drove out of
N., the principal town of the province of Z., and rumbled noisily along the
posting-track. It rattled and creaked at every movement; the pail, hanging on
behind, chimed in gruffly, and from these sounds alone and from the wretched
rags of leather hanging loose about its peeling body one could judge of its
decrepit age and readiness to drop to pieces.
Two of the inhabitants of N. were sitting in the chaise; they were a merchant
of N. called Ivan Ivanitch Kuzmitchov, a man with a shaven face wearing glasses
and a straw hat, more like a government clerk than a merchant, and Father
Christopher Sireysky, the priest of the Church of St. Nikolay at N., a little
old man with long hair, in a grey canvas cassock, a wide-brimmed top-hat and a
coloured embroidered girdle. The former was absorbed in thought, and kept
tossing his head to shake off drowsiness; in his countenance an habitual
business-like reserve was struggling with the genial expression of a man who
has just said good-bye to his relatives and has had a good drink at parting.
The latter gazed with moist eyes wonderingly at God's world, and his smile was
so broad that it seemed to embrace even the brim of his hat; his face was red
and looked frozen. Both of them, Father Christopher as well as Kuzmitchov, were
going to sell wool. At parting with their families they had just eaten heartily
of pastry puffs and cream, and although it was so early in the morning had had
a glass or two. . . . Both were in the best of humours.
Apart from the two persons described above and the coachman Deniska, who lashed
the pair of frisky bay horses, there was another figure in the chaise -- a boy
of nine with a sunburnt face, wet with tears. This was Yegorushka, Kuzmitchov's
nephew. With the sanction of his uncle and the blessing of Father Christopher,
he was now on his way to go to school. His mother, Olga Ivanovna, the widow of
a collegiate secretary, and Kuzmitchov's sister, who was fond of educated
people and refined society, had entreated her brother to take Yegorushka with
him when he went to sell wool and to put him to school; and now the boy was
sitting on the box beside the coachman Deniska, holding on to his elbow to keep
from falling off, and dancing up and down like a kettle on the hob, with no
notion where he was going or what he was going for. The rapid motion through
the air blew out his red shirt like a balloon on his back and made his new hat
with a peacock's feather in it, like a coachman's, keep slipping on to the back
of his head. He felt himself an intensely unfortunate person, and had an
inclination to cry.
When the chaise drove past the prison, Yegorushka glanced at the sentinels
pacing slowly by the high white walls, at the little barred windows, at the
cross shining on the roof, and remembered how the week before, on the day of
the Holy Mother of Kazan, he had been with his mother to the prison church for
the Dedication Feast, and how before that, at Easter, he had gone to the prison
with Deniska and Ludmila the cook, and had taken the prisoners Easter bread,
eggs, cakes and roast beef. The prisoners had thanked them and made the sign of
the cross, and one of them had given Yegorushka a pewter buckle of his own
making.
The boy gazed at the familiar places, while the hateful chaise flew by and left
them all behind. After the prison he caught glimpses of black grimy foundries,
followed by the snug green cemetery surrounded by a wall of cobblestones; white
crosses and tombstones, nestling among green cherry-trees and looking in the
distance like patches of white, peeped out gaily from behind the wall.
Yegorushka remembered that when the cherries were in blossom those white
patches melted with the flowers into a sea of white; and that when the cherries
were ripe the white tombstones and crosses were dotted with splashes of red
like bloodstains. Under the cherry trees in the cemetery Yegorushka's father and
granny, Zinaida Danilovna, lay sleeping day and night. When Granny had died she
had been put in a long narrow coffin and two pennies had been put upon her
eyes, which would not keep shut. Up to the time of her death she had been
brisk, and used to bring soft rolls covered with poppy seeds from the market.
Now she did nothing but sleep and sleep. . . .
Beyond the cemetery came the smoking brickyards. From under the long roofs of
reeds that looked as though pressed flat to the ground, a thick black smoke
rose in great clouds and floated lazily upwards. The sky was murky above the
brickyards and the cemetery, and great shadows from the clouds of smoke crept
over the fields and across the roads. Men and horses covered with red dust were
moving about in the smoke near the roofs.
The town ended with the brickyards and the open country began. Yegorushka
looked at the town for the last time, pressed his face against Deniska's elbow,
and wept bitterly.
"Come, not done howling yet, cry-baby!" cried Kuzmitchov. "You
are blubbering again, little milksop! If you don't want to go, stay behind; no
one is taking you by force!
"Never mind, never mind, Yegor boy, never mind," Father Christopher
muttered rapidly -- "never mind, my boy. . . . Call upon God. . . . You
are not going for your harm, but for your good. Learning is light, as the
saying is, and ignorance is darkness. . . . That is so, truly."
"Do you want to go back?" asked Kuzmitchov.
"Yes, . . . yes, . . ." answered Yegorushka, sobbing.
"Well, you'd better go back then. Anyway, you are going for nothing; it's
a day's journey for a spoonful of porridge."
"Never mind, never mind, my boy," Father Christopher went on.
"Call upon God. . . . Lomonosov set off with the fishermen in the same
way, and he became a man famous all over Europe. Learning in conjunction with
faith brings forth fruit pleasing to God. What are the words of the prayer? For
the glory of our Maker, for the comfort of our parents, for the benefit of our
Church and our country. . . . Yes, indeed!"
"The benefit is not the same in all cases," said Kuzmitchov, lighting
a cheap cigar; "some will study twenty years and get no sense from
it."
"That does happen."
"Learning is a benefit to some, but others only muddle their brains. My
sister is a woman who does not understand; she is set upon refinement, and
wants to turn Yegorka into a learned man, and she does not understand that with
my business I could settle Yegorka happily for the rest of his life. I tell you
this, that if everyone were to go in for being learned and refined there would
be no one to sow the corn and do the trading; they would all die of
hunger."
"And if all go in for trading and sowing corn there will be no one to
acquire learning."
And considering that each of them had said something weighty and convincing,
Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher both looked serious and cleared their throats
simultaneously.
Deniska, who had been listening to their conversation without understanding a
word of it, shook his head and, rising in his seat, lashed at both the bays. A
silence followed.
Meanwhile a wide boundless plain encircled by a chain of low hills lay
stretched before the travellers' eyes. Huddling together and peeping out from
behind one another, these hills melted together into rising ground, which
stretched right to the very horizon and disappeared into the lilac distance;
one drives on and on and cannot discern where it begins or where it ends. . . .
The sun had already peeped out from beyond the town behind them, and quietly,
without fuss, set to its accustomed task. At first in the distance before them
a broad, bright, yellow streak of light crept over the ground where the earth
met the sky, near the little barrows and the windmills, which in the distance
looked like tiny men waving their arms. A minute later a similar streak gleamed
a little nearer, crept to the right and embraced the hills. Something warm
touched Yegorushka's spine; the streak of light, stealing up from behind,
darted between the chaise and the horses, moved to meet the other streak, and
soon the whole wide steppe flung off the twilight of early morning, and was
smiling and sparkling with dew.
The cut rye, the coarse steppe grass, the milkwort, the wild hemp, all withered
from the sultry heat, turned brown and half dead, now washed by the dew and
caressed by the sun, revived, to fade again. Arctic petrels flew across the
road with joyful cries; marmots called to one another in the grass. Somewhere,
far away to the left, lapwings uttered their plaintive notes. A covey of
partridges, scared by the chaise, fluttered up and with their soft
"trrrr!" flew off to the hills. In the grass crickets, locusts and
grasshoppers kept up their churring, monotonous music.
But a little time passed, the dew evaporated, the air grew stagnant, and the
disillusioned steppe began to wear its jaded July aspect. The grass drooped,
everything living was hushed. The sun-baked hills, brownish-green and lilac in
the distance, with their quiet shadowy tones, the plain with the misty distance
and, arched above them, the sky, which seems terribly deep and transparent in
the steppes, where there are no woods or high hills, seemed now endless,
petrified with dreariness. . . .
How stifling and oppressive it was! The chaise raced along, while Yegorushka saw
always the same -- the sky, the plain, the low hills. . . . The music in the
grass was hushed, the petrels had flown away, the partridges were out of sight,
rooks hovered idly over the withered grass; they were all alike and made the
steppe even more monotonous.
A hawk flew just above the ground, with an even sweep of its wings, suddenly
halted in the air as though pondering on the dreariness of life, then fluttered
its wings and flew like an arrow over the steppe, and there was no telling why
it flew off and what it wanted. In the distance a windmill waved its sails. . .
.
Now and then a glimpse of a white potsherd or a heap of stones broke the
monotony; a grey stone stood out for an instant or a parched willow with a blue
crow on its top branch; a marmot would run across the road and -- again there
flitted before the eyes only the high grass, the low hills, the rooks. . . .
But at last, thank God, a waggon loaded with sheaves came to meet them; a
peasant wench was lying on the very top. Sleepy, exhausted by the heat, she
lifted her head and looked at the travellers. Deniska gaped, looking at her;
the horses stretched out their noses towards the sheaves; the chaise,
squeaking, kissed the waggon, and the pointed ears passed over Father
Christopher's hat like a brush.
"You are driving over folks, fatty!" cried Deniska. "What a
swollen lump of a face, as though a bumble-bee had stung it!"
The girl smiled drowsily, and moving her lips lay down again; then a solitary
poplar came into sight on the low hill. Someone had planted it, and God only
knows why it was there. It was hard to tear the eyes away from its graceful
figure and green drapery. Was that lovely creature happy? Sultry heat in
summer, in winter frost and snowstorms, terrible nights in autumn when nothing
is to be seen but darkness and nothing is to be heard but the senseless angry
howling wind, and, worst of all, alone, alone for the whole of life. . . .
Beyond the poplar stretches of wheat extended like a bright yellow carpet from
the road to the top of the hills. On the hills the corn was already cut and
laid up in sheaves, while at the bottom they were still cutting. . . . Six
mowers were standing in a row swinging their scythes, and the scythes gleamed
gaily and uttered in unison together "Vzhee, vzhee!" From the
movements of the peasant women binding the sheaves, from the faces of the
mowers, from the glitter of the scythes, it could be seen that the sultry heat
was baking and stifling. A black dog with its tongue hanging out ran from the
mowers to meet the chaise, probably with the intention of barking, but stopped
halfway and stared indifferently at Deniska, who shook his whip at him; it was
too hot to bark! One peasant woman got up and, putting both hands to her aching
back, followed Yegorushka's red shirt with her eyes. Whether it was that the
colour pleased her or that he reminded her of her children, she stood a long
time motionless staring after him.
But now the wheat, too, had flashed by; again the parched plain, the sunburnt
hills, the sultry sky stretched before them; again a hawk hovered over the
earth. In the distance, as before, a windmill whirled its sails, and still it
looked like a little man waving his arms. It was wearisome to watch, and it
seemed as though one would never reach it, as though it were running away from
the chaise.
Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov were silent. Deniska lashed the horses and
kept shouting to them, while Yegorushka had left off crying, and gazed about
him listlessly. The heat and the tedium of the steppes overpowered him. He felt
as though he had been travelling and jolting up and down for a very long time,
that the sun had been baking his back a long time. Before they had gone eight
miles he began to feel "It must be time to rest." The geniality gradually
faded out of his uncle's face and nothing else was left but the air of business
reserve; and to a gaunt shaven face, especially when it is adorned with
spectacles and the nose and temples are covered with dust, this reserve gives a
relentless, inquisitorial appearance. Father Christopher never left off gazing
with wonder at God's world, and smiling. Without speaking, he brooded over
something pleasant and nice, and a kindly, genial smile remained imprinted on
his face. It seemed as though some nice and pleasant thought were imprinted on
his brain by the heat.
"Well, Deniska, shall we overtake the waggons to-day?" asked
Kuzmitchov.
Deniska looked at the sky, rose in his seat, lashed at his horses and then
answered:
"By nightfall, please God, we shall overtake them."
There was a sound of dogs barking. Half a dozen steppe sheep-dogs, suddenly
leaping out as though from ambush, with ferocious howling barks, flew to meet
the chaise. All of them, extraordinarily furious, surrounded the chaise, with
their shaggy spider-like muzzles and their eyes red with anger, and jostling
against one another in their anger, raised a hoarse howl. They were filled with
passionate hatred of the horses, of the chaise, and of the human beings, and
seemed ready to tear them into pieces. Deniska, who was fond of teasing and
beating, was delighted at the chance of it, and with a malignant expression
bent over and lashed at the sheep-dogs with his whip. The brutes growled more
than ever, the horses flew on; and Yegorushka, who had difficulty in keeping
his seat on the box, realized, looking at the dogs' eyes and teeth, that if he
fell down they would instantly tear him to bits; but he felt no fear and looked
at them as malignantly as Deniska, and regretted that he had no whip in his
hand.
