For instance, from the stories he had to tell I learned that each summer, before the harvesting, a small cart of a particular kind appears in the villages. A man in a caftan sits in the cart and sells scythes. If the payment is in cash, he asks a rouble and twenty-five copecks in silver coinage or a rouble and fifty copecks in paper money; if it’s to be on credit, he asks three paper roubles and one silver rouble. All the peasants, of course, buy on credit. Two or three weeks later he reappears and demands his money. By this time the peasant has just harvested his oats and has the necessary with which to pay. He accompanies the trader to a tavern and there they complete their business. Some of the landowners took it into their heads to buy their own scythes for cash and distribute them on credit to their peasants for the same price. But the peasants seemed dissatisfied with this, and even succumbed to melancholy over it; they were deprived of the pleasure of giving each scythe a twanging flick, of putting their ear to it and turning it about in their hands and asking the rascally salesman twenty times over: ‘Well, now, that’s a bit of a wrong’un, isn’t it?’
Much the same sort of trickery occurs during the buying of sickles with the sole difference that in this case the women also become involved and sometimes force the trader to give them restraining slaps for their own good. But the womenfolk suffer most grievously of all in the following instance. Those responsible for supplying material to the paper factories entrust the buying of rags to a particular species of person, known in certain districts as ‘eagles’. Such an ‘eagle’ is given two hundred paper roubles by a merchant and then sets out to find his prey. But, in contrast to the noble bird after which he is named, he does not fall boldly and openly upon his victim; on the contrary, this ‘eagle’ uses cunning, underhand means. He leaves his cart somewhere in the bushes on the outskirts of the village and then, just as if he were some casual passer-by or bum on the loose, makes his way through the back alleys and backyards of the huts. The women can sense his approach and creep out to meet him. The business between them is quickly completed. For a few copper coins a woman will hand over to the ‘eagle’ not only the meanest cast-off rag but frequently even her husband’s shirt and her own day skirt. Recently the womenfolk have found it worth while to steal from each other and to unload their ill-gotten hemp or homemade sacking on the ‘eagles’ – an important augmentation and consummation of their business! The peasants, for their part, have pricked up their ears and at the least sign, at the merest hint of the approach of an ‘eagle’, they resort briskly and vigorously to remedial and preventive measures. In fact, it’s downright insulting, isn’t it? It’s their business to sell the hemp, and they do indeed sell it, though not in the town – they would have to drag themselves to the town for that – but to itinerant traders who, for want of a proper measure, consider that forty handfuls are equal to thirty-six pounds in weight – and you know the size a Russian can give to his handful or his palm when he’s in real earnest!
I, inexperienced as I am and not a ‘countryman’ (as we say in the Oryol district), had had my fill of such stories. But Khor did not do all the talking; he also asked me a great deal. He knew that I had been abroad, and his curiosity was aroused. Kalinych betrayed no less interest, but he was chiefly affected by descriptions of natural scenery, mountains, waterfalls, unusual buildings and large cities. Khor was concerned with questions of administration and government. He took things one at a time: ‘Are things there like they are here, or not the same? Well, sir, what’s you got to say about that?’ Whereas during the course of my recital Kalinych would exclaim – ‘Ah, dear Lord, Thy will be done!’ Khor would be quiet, knitting his thick brows and only occasionally remarking: ‘That wouldn’t likely be the thing for us, but t’other – that’s the proper way, that’s good.’ I cannot convey all his queries, and, besides, there’s no need. But from our talks I derived one conviction which my readers probably cannot have expected – the conviction that Peter the Great was predominantly Russian in his national characteristics and Russian specifically in his reforms. A Russian is so sure of his strength and robustness that he is not averse to overtaxing himself: he is little concerned with his past and looks boldly towards the future. If a thing’s good, he’ll like it; if a thing’s sensible, he’ll not reject it, but he couldn’t care a jot where it came from. His sane common sense will gladly make fun of the thin-as-a-stick rationalism of the Germans; but the Germans, in Khor’s words, were interesting enough folk and he was ready to learn from them. Owing to the peculiar nature of his social station, his virtual independence, Khor mentioned many things in talking with me that even a crowbar wouldn’t have dislodged in someone else or, as the peasants say, you couldn’t grind out with a millstone. He took a realistic view of his position. During my talks with Khor I heard for the first time the simple, intelligent speech of the Russian peasant. His knowledge was fairly broad, after his own fashion, but he could not read; whereas Kalinych could.
‘That rascal’s been able to pick up readin’ and writin’,’ Khor remarked, ‘an’ ’e’s never had a single bee die on ’im since he was born.’
‘And have your children learned to read and write?’
After a pause Khor said: ‘Fedya knows.’
‘And the others?’
‘The others don’t.’
‘Why not?’
The old man did not answer and changed the subject. As a matter of fact, despite all his intelligence, he clung to many prejudices and preconceived notions. Women, for example, he despised from the depths of his soul, and when in a jovial mood derived amusement from them and made fun of them. His wife, an aged and shrewish woman, spent the whole day over the stove and was the source of persistent complaints and abuse; her sons paid no attention to her, but she put the fear of God into her daughters-in-law. It’s not surprising that in the Russian song the mother-in-law sings:
O, you’re no son o’ mine,
You’re not a family man!
’Cos you don’t beat your wife,
You don’t beat your young one…
Once I thought of standing up for the daughters-in-law and attempted to solicit Khor’s sympathy; but he calmly retorted that ‘Maybe you like to bother yourself with such nonsense… Let the women quarrel… You’ll only be worse off if you try to part them, and it isn’t even worth dirtying your hands with it.’ Sometimes the bad-tempered old woman crawled down from the stove and called in the dog from the yard, enticing it with: ‘Come on, come on, nice dog!’ – only to belabour its scraggy spine with a poker, or she would stand under the awning out front and ‘bark insults’ at whoever passed by, as Khor expressed it. Her husband, however, she feared and, at his command, would climb back on to her perch on the stove.
But it was particularly curious to hear how Kalinych and Khor disagreed when talking about Polutykin. ‘Now, look here, Khor, don’t you say anything against him while I’m here,’ Kalinych would say. ‘Then why doesn’t he see that you’ve got a proper pair of boots to wear?’ the other would object. ‘To hell with boots! Why do I need boots? I’m a peasant…’ ‘And I’m also a peasant, but just look…’ Saying this, Khor would raise his leg and show Kalinych a boot that looked as if it had been cobbled from the skin of a mammoth. ‘Oh, you’re not an ordinary peasant!’ Kalinych would answer. ‘Well, surely he ought to give you something to buy them sandals with? After all, you go out hunting with him and everyday you’ll need new ones.’ ‘He gives me something to get bast sandals with.’ ‘That’s right, last year he grandly gave you ten copecks.’ At this Kalinych would turn away in annoyance and Khor would burst out laughing, his tiny little eyes almost vanishing completely.
Kalinych had quite a pleasant singing voice and could strum a little on the balalaika. Khor would listen and listen, and then he would bend his head to one side and begin to accompany in a plaintive voice. He particularly liked the song: ‘O, mine’s a hard lot, a hard life!’
Fedya never let pass an opportunity to poke fun at his father, saying, ‘Well, old ma
n, what’ve you got to complain about?’
But Khor would rest his cheek on his hand, close his eyes and continue complaining about his hard lot. Yet at other times no one was more active than he: he would always be busying himself with something – repairing the cart, making new fence supports or taking a look at the harness. He did not, however, insist on exceptional cleanliness, and in answer to my comments once remarked that ‘a hut ought to have a lived-in smell’.
‘But,’ I remarked in return, ‘look how clean it is out at Kalinych’s where he keeps bees.’
‘Bees wouldn’t live there, see, sir, unless it was clean,’ he said with a sigh.
On another occasion he asked me:
‘Do you have your own estate, sir?’
‘I do.’
‘Is it far from here?’
‘Sixty or seventy miles.’
‘Well, sir, do you live on your estate?’
‘I do.’
‘But mostly, I reckon, you’re out enjoying yourself with that gun?’
‘Yes, I must admit that.’
‘And that’s a good thing you’re doing, sir. Shoot them black grouse as much as you like, but be sure and see you change your bailiff often.’
On the evening of the fourth day Polutykin sent for me. I was sorry to have to say goodbye to the old man. Together with Kalinych I took my place in the cart.
‘Well, goodbye, Khor, and keep well,’ I said. ‘Goodbye, Fedya.’
‘Goodbye, sir, goodbye, and don’t forget us.’
We drove off. Dawn had just set fire to the sky.
‘It’s going to be beautiful weather tomorrow,’ I said, looking at the bright sky.
‘No, there’ll be rain,’ Kalinych contradicted. ‘Look how the ducks are splashing about, and the grass has got a strong smell.’
We drove through bushy undergrowth. Kalinych began to sing in a low voice, bouncing up and down on the driver’s seat and gazing all the while at the dawn.
The next day I was gone from under Polutykin’s hospitable roof.
YERMOLAY AND THE MILLER’S WIFE
IN the evening the hunter Yermolay and I set off for ‘cover’. But perhaps not all my readers know what ‘cover’ means. Pray listen, gentlemen.
In the springtime, a quarter of an hour before sundown, you go into a wood with your gun but without your dog. You seek out a place for yourself somewhere close by a thicket, look around you, inspect the firing mechanism on your gun and exchange winks with your companion. A quarter of an hour passes. The sun sinks below the horizon, but it is still light in the wood; the air is fresh and translucent; there is the spirited chatter of birds; the young grass glows with a happy emerald brilliance. You wait. The interior of the wood gradually darkens; the crimson rays of an evening sunset slowly slide across the roots and trunks of the trees, rise higher and higher, moving from the lower, still almost bare, branches to the motionless tips of the sleep-enfolded trees. Then the very tips grow faint; the pink sky becomes a dark blue. The woodland scent increases, accompanied by slight wafts of a warm dampness; the breeze that has flown into the wood around you begins to die down. The birds fall asleep – not all at once, but by types: first the finches fall silent, a few instants later the robins, after them the yellow buntings. The wood grows darker and darker. The trees fuse into large blackening masses; the first small stars emerge diffidently in the blue sky. The birds are all asleep. Only the redstarts and little woodpeckers continue to make an occasional sleepy whistling… Then they are quiet as well. Once again the ringing voice of the chiff-chaff resounds overhead; somewhere or other an oriole gives a sad cry and a nightingale offers the first trills of its song. Your heart is heavy with anticipation, and suddenly – but only hunters will know what I mean – suddenly the deep quiet is broken by a special kind of croaking and hissing, there is a measured beat of rapidly flapping wings – and a woodcock, beautifully inclining its long beak, flies out from behind a dark birch into your line of fire.
That is what is meant by ‘standing in cover’.
In such a fashion, Yermolay and I set off for ‘cover’; but forgive me, gentlemen: I must first of all acquaint you with Yermolay.
Imagine to yourself a man of about forty-five, tall and lean, with a long delicate nose, a narrow forehead, little grey eyes, dishevelled hair and wide, scornful lips. This man used to go about winter and summer in a yellowish nankeen coat of German cut, but belted with a sash; he wore wide blue trousers and a cap edged with astrakhan which had been given him, on a jovial occasion, by a bankrupt landowner. Two bags were fixed to the sash, one in front, which had been artfully twisted into two halves for powder and bird-shot, and the other behind – for game; his cotton wadding Yermolay used to extract from his own, seemingly inexhaustible cap. With the money earned by him from selling his game he could easily have purchased a cartridge belt and pouch, but the thought of making such a purchase never even so much as entered his head, and he continued to load his gun in his customary fashion, arousing astonishment in onlookers by the skill with which he avoided the danger of overpouring or mixing the shot and the powder. His gun had a single barrel, with a flintlock, endowed, moreover, with the awful habit of ‘kicking’ brutally, as a result of which Yermolay’s right cheek was always more swollen than his left. How he managed to hit anything with this gun even a wiseacre might be at a loss to explain, but hit he did.
He also had a setter, a most remarkable creature named Valetka. Yermolay never fed him. ‘Likely I’d start feeding a dog,’ he would argue, ‘since a dog’s a clever animal and’ll find his food on his own.’ And so it was, in fact: although Valetka astonished even indifferent passers-by with his unusual thinness, he lived and lived a long time; despite his miserable condition, he never even once got lost and displayed no desire to abandon his master. Once, when he was young, he disappeared for a day or two, carried away by love; but that foolishness soon took leave of him. Valetka’s most remarkable characteristic was an incomprehensible indifference to everything under the sun. If I had not been talking about a dog, I would have used the word ‘disillusionment’. He usually sat with his short tail tucked underneath him, frowning, shuddering from time to time and never smiling. (It is well known that dogs are capable of smiling, and even of smiling very charmingly.) He was extremely ugly, and there was not a single idle house-serf who let pass an opportunity of laughing venomously at his appearance; but Valetka endured all these taunts, and even blows, with astonishing composure. He provided particular satisfaction for cooks, who immediately dropped whatever they were doing and dashed after him with shouts and swearing whenever through a weakness common not only to dogs, he used to stick his famished muzzle through the half-open door of the enticingly warm and sweet-smelling kitchen. Out hunting, he distinguished himself by his tirelessness and possessed a good scent; but if he happened to catch up with a wounded hare, he at once gobbled the whole lot down with pleasure, right to the last little bone, in some cool, shady place under a leafy bush and at a respectful distance from Yermolay who swore at him in any and every dialect, known and unknown.
Yermolay belonged to one of my neighbours, a landowner of the old school. Landowners of the old school dislike ‘wildfowl’ and stick to domestic poultry. It is only on unusual occasions, such as birthdays, name-days and elections, that the cooks of old-time landowners embark on preparing long-beaked birds and, succumbing to a high state of excitement, as do all Russians when they have no clear idea of what they are doing, they invent such fancy accompaniments for the birds that guests for the most part study the dishes set in front of them with attentiveness and curiosity, but can in no wise resolve to taste them. Yermolay was under orders to supply the master’s kitchen once a month with a couple of brace of grouse and partridge, but he was otherwise permitted to live where and how he wanted. He had been rejected as a man unfit for any kind of real work – a ‘no-good’, as we say in the Oryol region. Naturally, he was given no powder and shot, following precisely the same principles as he ad
opted in not feeding his dog. Yermolay was a man of the most unusual kind: free and easy as a bird, garrulous to a fair extent, to all appearances scatter-brained and awkward; he had a strong liking for drink, could never settle in one place, when on the move he ambled and swayed from side to side – and, ambling and swaying, he would polish off between thirty and forty miles a day. He had been involved in a most extraordinary variety of adventures, spending nights in marshes, up trees, on roofs, beneath bridges, more than once under lock and key in attics, cellars and barns, relieved of his gun, his dog, his most essential clothing, receiving forceful and prolonged beatings – and yet after a short time he would return home clothed, with his gun and with his dog. One could not call him a happy man, although he was almost always in a reasonably good humour; generally, he looked a trifle eccentric.
Yermolay enjoyed passing the time of day with any congenial character, especially over a drink, but never for very long: he would soon get up and be on his way. ‘And where are you off to, you devil? It’s night outside.’ ‘I’m for Chaplino.’ ‘What’s the good of you traipsin’ off to Chaplino, more’n seven miles away?’ ‘I’m for spending the night there with the peasant Sofron.’ ‘Spend the night here.’ ‘No, that’s impossible.’ And Yermolay would be off with his Valetka into the dark night, through bushes and ditches, and the peasant Sofron would most likely not let him into his yard – what’s more, might bash him one on the neck ‘for being such a disturbance to honest folk’.