The shadows gathered under Miron’s eyelashes, giving his face a ludicrously smiling twist.
‘So!’ he croaked, and turned to cross the street. Pantaleimon hurried after him, opening the bag and trembling with anger.
‘Here, try these chocolates, they’re as sweet as honey,’ he said spitefully. ‘Try them, I offer them in my son’s name. Your life is none too sweet, so you can have one; and your son may earn such an honour some day, but then he may not.’
‘Don’t pry into my life … I know best what it’s like.’
‘Just try one, do me the favour,’ Pantaleimon bowed with exaggerated affability, running in front of Miron.
‘We’re not used to sweets,’ Miron pushed away his hand. ‘And we’re not used to breaking our teeth on others’ hospitality. It was hardly decent of you to go begging alms for your son. If you’re in need, you can come to me. Our Natalia’s eating your bread. We could have given to you in your poverty.’
‘Don’t you tell those lies, no one has ever begged for alms in our family. You’re too proud, much too proud. Maybe it is because you are rich that your daughter came to us.’
‘Wait!’ Miron said authoritatively. ‘There’s no point in our quarrelling. I didn’t stop you to have a quarrel. I’ve some business I want to talk over with you.’
‘We have no business to talk over.’
‘Yes, we have. Come on.’
He seized Pantaleimon’s sleeve and dragged him into a side-street. They walked out of the village on to the steppe.
‘Well, what’s the business?’ Pantaleimon asked in more amiable tones. He glanced sidelong at Korshunov’s face. Turning the edges of his long coat under him, Miron sat down on the bank of a ditch and pulled out his old tobacco pouch.
‘You know, Prokoffitch, the devil knows why you went for me like a quarrelsome cock. As it is, things aren’t too good, are they? I want to know,’ his voice changed to a hard, rough tone, ‘how long your son is going to make a laughing-stock of Natalia. Tell me that!’
‘You must ask him about it, not me.’
‘I’ve nothing to ask him; you’re the head of your house and I’m talking to you.’
Pantaleimon squeezed the chocolate still held in his hand, and the sticky mess oozed through his fingers. He wiped his palm on the brown clay of the bank and silently began to make a cigarette, opening the packet of Turkish tobacco and pouring out a pinch. Then he offered the packet to Miron. Korshunov took it without hesitation, and made a cigarette from the tobacco intended for Gregor. Above them a cloud hung its white, sumptuous breast, and a tender flying web stretched up towards it, fluttering in the wind.
The day declined to its close. The September stillness lulled peacefully and with inexpressible sweetness. The sky had lost its full summer gleam, and was a hazy dove-colour. Over the ditch apple-leaves, carried God knows whence, rustled their exuberant purple. The road disappeared over the undulating crest of the hills; in vain did it beckon to pass along it, beyond the emerald, dreamily uncertain horizon into unseen space. Held down to their huts and their daily round, the people pined in their labour, exhausted their strength on the threshing-floor; and the road, a deserted, yearning track, flowed across the horizon into the unseen. The wind trod along it, with aimless elegance, stirring up the dust.
‘This is weak tobacco, it’s like grass,’ Miron said, emitting a cloud of smoke from his mouth.
‘It’s weak, but it’s pleasant,’ Pantaleimon half-agreed.
‘Give me an answer, Pantaleimon,’ Korshunov asked in a quieter tone, putting out his cigarette.
‘Gregor never says anything about it in his letters. He’s wounded now. What will come after, I don’t know. Maybe he’ll be killed, and then what?’
‘But how can it go on like this?’ Miron blinked distractedly and miserably. ‘There she is, neither maid nor wife nor honest widow, and it’s a disgrace. If I had known it was going to turn out like this I’d never have allowed the matchmakers across my threshold. Ah, Pantaleimon … Pantaleimon … Each is sorry for his own child. Blood is thicker than water.’
‘How can I help it?’ Pantaleimon replied with restrained frenzy. ‘Tell me! Do you think I’m glad my son left home? Was it any gain to me?’
‘Write to him,’ Miron dictated, and the dust streaming from under his hands into the ditch kept time with his words. ‘Let him say once for all.’
‘He’s got a child by that …’
‘And he’ll have a child by this!’ Korshunov shouted, turning livid. ‘Can you treat a human being like that? Ah? Once she’s tried to kill herself and is maimed for life? And you can trample her into the grave? Ah …? His heart, his heart …’ Miron hissed, tearing at his breast with one hand, tugging at Pantaleimon’s coat tails with the other. ‘Is it a wolf’s heart he’s got?’
Pantaleimon wheezed and turned away.
‘The woman’s devoted to him, and there’s no other life for her without him. Is she a serf in your service?’ Miron demanded.
‘She’s better off with us than with you! Hold your tongue!’ Pantaleimon shouted, and he rose from the bank.
They parted without a word of farewell, and went off in different directions.
When swept out of its normal channel, life scatters into innumerable streams. It is difficult to foresee which it will take in its treacherous and winding course. Where today it flows in shallows, like a rivulet over sandbanks, so shallow that the shoals are visible, tomorrow it will flow richly and fully.
Suddenly Natalia came to the decision to go to Aksinia at Yagodnoe, and to ask, to beseech her to return Gregor to her. For some reason it seemed to Natalia that everything depended on Aksinia, and if she asked her Gregor would return, and with him her own former happiness. She did not stop to consider whether this was possible, or how Aksinia would receive her strange request. Driven on by sub-conscious motives, she sought to act upon her decision as quickly as possible.
At the end of the month a letter arrived from Gregor. After messages to his father and mother he sent his greeting and regards to Natalia. Whatever the reason inciting him to this, it was the stimulus Natalia required, and she made ready to go to Yagodnoe the very next Sunday.
‘Where are you off to, Natalia?’ Dunia asked, watching as she attentively studied her features in the scrap of looking-glass.
‘I’m going to visit my people,’ Natalia lied, and blushed as she realized for the first time that she was going towards a great humiliation, a terrible moral test.
‘You might have an evening out with me just for once,’ Daria suggested. ‘Come this evening, won’t you?’
‘I don’t know, but I don’t think so.’
‘You little thorn! Our turn only comes when our husbands are away,’ Daria winked, and stooped to examine the embroidered hem of her new pale-blue skirt. Daria’s attitude to Natalia had changed of late, and their relations had grown simple and friendly. The dislike which she had felt for the younger woman was gone, and the two, different in every respect, lived together amicably. Daria had altered considerably since Piotra’s departure. Unrest showed in her eyes, her movements and carriage. She arrayed herself more diligently on Sundays, and came back late in the evening to complain to Natalia:
‘It’s woeful, God’s truth! They’ve taken away all the suitable cossacks, and left only lads and old men in the village.’
‘Well, what difference does that make to you?’
‘Why, there’s nobody to lark about with of an evening.’ And with cynical frankness she asked Natalia: ‘How can you bear it, my dear; so long without a cossack?’
‘Shame on you! Haven’t you any conscience?’ Natalia blushed.
‘Don’t you feel any desire?’
‘It’s clear you do.’
Daria laughed, and the arches of her brows quivered. ‘Why should I hide it? I’d throw any old man on his back this very minute! Just think, it’s two months since Piotra went.’
‘You’re laying up sorrow for yourself,
Daria.’
‘Shut up, you respectable old woman! We know you quiet ones! You would never admit it.’
‘I’ve nothing to admit.’
Daria gave her a ludicrous sidelong glance, and bit her lips. ‘The other day Timothy Manitsev, the ataman’s son, sat down beside me. I could see he was afraid to begin. Then he quietly slipped his hand under my arm, and his hand was trembling. I just waited and said nothing, but I was getting angry. If he had been a lad now – but he’s only a snot. Sixteen years old, not a day more. I sat without speaking, and he pawed and pawed, and whispered: “Come along to our shed.” Then I gave him one!’ She laughed merrily. ‘I jumped up. “Oh, you this and that! You yellow-necked whelp! Do you think you can wheedle me like that? When did you wet the bed last?” I gave him a fine dressing-down.’
Natalia went out. Daria overtook her in the porch.
‘You’ll open the door for me tonight?’ she asked.
‘I expect I shall stop the night with my people.’
Daria thoughtfully scratched her nose with her comb and shook her head:
‘Oh, all right. I didn’t want to ask Dunia, but I see I shall have to.’
Natalia told Ilinichna she was going to visit her people, and went into the street. The wagons were rattling away from the market in the square, and the villagers were coming from church. She turned up a side lane and hurriedly climbed the hill. At the top she turned and looked back. The village lay flooded in sunlight, the little limewashed huts were white, and the sun glittered on the steep roof of the mill, making the sheet-iron shine like molten ore.
Yagodnoe also had lost men, torn away by the war. Benyamin and Tikhon had gone, and the place was still sleepier, more dreary and isolated than ever. Aksinia waited on the general in Benyamin’s place, while fat-bottomed Lukeria took over all the cooking and fed the fowls. There was only one new face, an old cossack named Nikititch who had been taken on as coachman.
This year old Listnitsky sowed less, and supplied some twenty horses for army remounts, leaving only three or four for the needs of the estate. He passed his time shooting bustards and hunting with the Borzois.
Aksinia received only brief, infrequent letters from Gregor, informing her that so far he was well. He had grown stronger, or else he did not want to tell her of his weakness, for he never let slip any complaint that he found active service difficult and dreary. His letters were cold, as though he had written them because he felt he had to, and only in one did he write: ‘all the time at the front, and I’m fed up with fighting and carrying death on my back.’ In every letter he asked after his daughter, telling Aksinia to write about her. Aksinia seemed to bear the separation bravely. All her love for Gregor was poured out on her daughter, especially after she became convinced that the child was really his. Life gave irrefragable proofs of that: the girl’s dark ruddy hair was replaced by a black, curly growth; her eyes changed to a dark tint, and elongated in their slits. With every day she grew more and more like her father; even her smile was Gregor’s. Now Aksinia could see him beyond all doubt in the child, and her feeling for it deepened.
The days passed on, and at the end of each one a caustic bitterness settled in Aksinia’s breast. Anxiety for the life of her beloved pierced her mind like a sharp needle; it left her neither day nor night. Restrained during the hours of labour, it burst all dams at night, and she tossed in an inarticulate cry, in tears, biting her hand to avoid awakening the child with her sobs, and to kill her mental with a physical pain. She wept her tears into a napkin, thinking in her childish naïveté: ‘Grishka must feel through his child how I yearn for him.’
After such nights she arose in the morning as though she had been beaten unmercifully. All her body ached, little silver hammers knocked incessantly in her veins, and sorrow lurked in the corners of her swollen lips. The nights of yearning aged Aksinia.
On the Sunday of Natalia’s visit she had given her master his breakfast, and was standing on the steps when she saw a woman approaching the gate. The eyes beneath the white kerchief seemed strangely familiar. The woman opened the gate and entered the yard. Aksinia turned pale as she recognized Natalia. She went slowly to meet her. A heavy layer of dust had settled on Natalia’s shoes. She halted, her large, labour-scarred hands hanging lifelessly at her sides, and breathed heavily, trying to straighten her mutilated neck.
‘I want to see you, Aksinia,’ she said, running her dry tongue over her lips.
Aksinia gave a swift glance at the windows of the house and silently led Natalia into her room. She closed the door, and standing in the middle of the room with her hands under her apron, took charge of the situation, asking stealthily, almost in a whisper:
‘What have you come for?’
‘I’d like a drink,’ Natalia asked, staring heavily around the room.
Aksinia waited. Natalia began to speak, with difficulty raising her voice:
‘You’ve taken my husband from me … Give me my Gregor back. You have broken my life. You see how I am …’
‘Husband to you?’ Aksinia grated her teeth, and the words came sharply and freely like raindrops on stone. ‘Husband to you? Who are you asking? Why did you come? You’ve thought of it too late. Too late!’
Laughing caustically, her whole body swaying, Aksinia went right up to Natalia. She sneered as she stared in the face of her enemy. There she stood, the lawful but abandoned wife, humiliated, crushed with misery. She who had come between Aksinia and Gregor, separating them, causing a bloody pain like a heavy stone in Aksinia’s heart. And while she had been wearing herself out with mortal longing, this other one, this Natalia had been caressing Gregor and no doubt laughing at her, the unsuccessful, forsaken lover.
‘And you’ve come to ask me to give him up?’ Aksinia panted. ‘You snake in the grass! You took Gregor away from me first! You knew he was living with me. Why did you marry him? I only took back my own. He’s mine. I have a child by him, but you …’
With stormy hatred she stared into Natalia’s eyes, and waving her arms wildly, poured out a boiling torrent of words.
‘Grishka’s mine, and I’ll give him up to no one. He’s mine, mine! D’you hear …? Mine! Clear out, you shameless bitch, you’re not his wife. You want to rob a child of its father? And why didn’t you come before? Well, why didn’t you come before?’
Natalia went sideways to the bench and sat down, drooping her head and covering her face with her palms.
‘You left your husband. Don’t shout like that,’ she answered.
‘Except for Grishka I haven’t any husband. No one nowhere in the whole world.’ Feeling an anger that could not find vent raging within her, Aksinia gazed at the strand of black hair that had slipped from under Natalia’s kerchief.
‘Does he need you?’ she demanded. ‘Look at your twisted neck! And do you think he longs for you? He left you when you were well, and is he likely to yearn for you as you are now? I won’t give Gregor up! That’s all I have to say. Clear out!’
Aksinia grew ferocious in defence of her nest. She could see that, despite the slightly crooked neck, Natalia was as good-looking as before. Her cheeks and lips were fresh, untouched by time, whilst her own eyes were lined with furrows, and all because of Natalia.
‘Do you think I had any hope of getting him back by asking?’ Natalia raised her eyes, drunk with suffering.
‘Then why did you come?’ Aksinia asked.
‘My yearning drove me on.’
Awakened by the voices, Aksinia’s daughter stirred in the bed and broke into a cry. The mother took up the child, and sat down with her face to the window. Trembling in every limb, Natalia gazed at the infant. A dry spasm clutched her throat. Gregor’s eyes stared at her inquisitively from the baby’s face.
Weeping and swaying, she walked out into the porch. Aksinia did not see her off. A minute or two later Sashka came into the room.
‘Who was that woman?’ he asked, evidently half-guessing.
‘Someone from our village.’
>
Natalia walked back towards Tatarsk for a couple of miles, and then lay down under a wild thorn. Crushed by her yearning, she lay thinking of nothing. Gregor’s black, morose eyes, staring out of a child’s face, were continually before her own eyes.
Chapter Seven
So vivid that it was almost a blinding pain, the night after the battle remained for ever imprinted in Gregor’s memory. He returned to consciousness some time before dawn; his hands stirred among the prickly stubble, and he groaned with the pain that filled his head. With an effort he raised his hand, drew it up to his brow, and felt his blood-clotted hair. He touched the flesh wound with his finger. Then, grating his teeth, he lay on his back. Above him the frost-nipped leaves of a tree rustled mournfully with a glassy tinkle. The black silhouettes of the branches were clearly outlined against the deep blue background of the sky, and stars glittered among them. Gregor gazed unwinkingly, and the stars seemed to him like strange, bluish-yellow fruits hanging from the twigs.
Realizing what had happened to him, and conscious of an invincible, approaching horror, he crawled away on all fours, grinding his teeth. The pain played with him, threw him down headlong. He seemed to be crawling an immeasurably long time. He forced himself to look back; the tree stood out blackly some fifty paces away. Once he crawled across a corpse, resting his elbows on the dead man’s hard, sunken belly. He was sick with loss of blood, wept like a babe, and chewed the dewy grass to avoid losing consciousness. Close to an overturned case of shells he managed to get on to his feet, and stood a long time swaying, then started to walk. His strength began to return; he stepped out more firmly, and was even able to take his bearings by the Great Bear, moving in an easterly direction.
At the edge of the forest he was halted by a sudden warning shout:
‘Stop, or I’ll fire!’