They arrived at Tatarsk towards evening of the following day. From the hill Gregor glanced towards the Don: there were the backwaters fringed with a sable fur of reeds; there was the withered poplar; and the crossing over the Don was not where it used to be. The village, the familiar blocks of farms, the church, the square … As he fixed his eyes on his own farm the blood rushed to his head, and a flood of memories overwhelmed him. The crane of the well in the yard seemed to be beckoning to him with its uplifted willow arm.
‘A sight for tired eyes!’ Pantaleimon smiled, glancing round. Making no attempt to conceal his feelings. Gregor replied:
‘Yes … and how much!’
‘What a lot home means!’ the old man sighed contentedly.
He made for the centre of the village. The horses ran swiftly down the hill, and the sleigh skidded along, bouncing from hummock to hummock. Gregor guessed his father’s intention, but he asked none the less:
‘What are you going to drive through the village for? Make for our own end.’
Pantaleimon turned and winked, smiling into his beard:
‘I saw my sons off to the war as rank and file cossacks, and they fought their way to officers’ rank. Don’t you think I’m proud to drive my son through the village? Let them look and be jealous! My heart is oiled with butter!’
In the main street he called to the horses and played with his whip; and the horses, knowing they were near home, ran freshly and swiftly as though they had not done twenty-five miles that day. The passing cossacks bowed, the women stared under their palms from the yards and the windows, and the hens scattered squawking over the road. Everything went as smoothly as clockwork. They drove through the square. Gregor’s horse glanced sidelong at another horse tied up by Mokhov’s palings, snorted, and raised its head high. The end of the village and the roof of Astakhov’s hut were in sight. But at the first crossroad there was an awkward incident. A young pig running across the road lost its head, fell under the horses’ hoofs, grunted and rolled over, squealing and trying to raise its broken back.
‘The devil take you!’ Pantaleimon cried, giving the pig a taste of his whip.
Unfortunately it belonged to Aniutka, the widow of Afonka Ozierov, an ill-tempered and long-tongued woman. She ran out of her yard, and poured out such a stream of curses that Pantaleimon reined in the horses and turned back.
‘Hold your tongue, you fool!’ he shouted. ‘What are you roaring about? We’ll pay you for your mangy pig.’
‘You unclean spirit …! You devil! You’re mangy yourself, you limping hound! I’ll have you before the ataman at once!’ she screamed, waving her arms. ‘I’ll teach you to crush a poor widow’s animal!’
Pantaleimon had heard enough, and turning livid, he croaked:
‘Filthy mouth!’
‘You cursed Turk!’ the woman replied energetically.
‘You bitch, a hundred devils were mother to you!’ Pantaleimon raised his voice.
But Aniutka Ozierova was never at a loss for abuse:
‘Foreigner! Whoremonger! Thief! Who stole a harrow? Who runs after the grass-widows?’ she chattered away like a magpie.
‘I’ll give you one with this whip, you slut! Close your mouth!’ the old man retorted.
But now Aniutka shouted something so evil that even Pantaleimon, who had seen and heard much in his time, went red with embarrassment and began to sweat.
‘Drive on! What did you stop for?’ Gregor said angrily, seeing a crowd collecting and listening attentively to this fortuitous exchange of compliments between old Melekhov and the honest widow Ozierova.
‘What a tongue! As long as a pair of reins!’ Pantaleimon spat out, pulverized, and whipped up the horses as though he intended to ride down Aniutka herself. The blue shutters of their own hut sped past. Piotra, with bare head and unbelted shirt, opened the gate. There was a glimmer of a white kerchief, and Dunia, with gleaming, smiling black eyes, ran down the steps.
As Piotra kissed his brother he glanced into Gregor’s eyes:
‘Are you well?’
‘I’ve been wounded.’
‘Where?’
‘Near Gluboka.’
‘Did you have to shed some more blood there? You should have come home long since.’
He gave Gregor a warm and friendly shake, and handed him on to Dunia. Gregor embraced his sister’s broad shoulders and kissed her on the lips and the eyes, then stepped back in astonishment.
‘Why, Dunia, the devil himself wouldn’t know you! Look at the girl you’ve turned out, and I thought you would be so stupid and ugly.’
‘Now now, brother!’ Dunia turned away from his pinch, and smiling the same white-toothed smile as Gregor she ran off.
Ilinichna brought the children out in her arms, and Natalia ran in front of her. Gregor’s wife had blossomed and improved astonishingly. Her smoothly combed, gleaming black hair, gathered in a heavy knot at the back, shadowed her gladly crimson face. She pressed herself against Gregor, brushed her lips awkwardly several times against his cheeks and whiskers, and snatching her son from Ilinichna’s arms, held him out to her husband.
‘Look what a fine son you have!’ she cried with happy pride.
‘Let me have a look at my son!’ Ilinichna agitatedly pushed her aside. She pulled down Gregor’s head, kissed his brow, and stroked his face with her rough hand, weeping with excitement and joy.
‘And your daughter, Gregor! Here, take her!’
Natalia set the girl in Gregor’s other arm, and in his embarrassment he did not know whom to look at: Natalia, or his mother, or his children. The little boy, with morose eyes and knitted brows, was cast in the Melekhov mould: the same long slits of black, rather stern eyes, blue, swollen whites, the spreading line of brows, and swarthy skin. He thrust his dirty little fist into his mouth and stared stubbornly and unyieldingly at his father. Gregor could see only the tiny, attentive black eyes of his daughter: the rest of her face was wrapped in a kerchief.
Holding them both in his arms, he moved towards the steps; but his leg was shot through with pain.
‘Take them, Natalia!’ he laughed wryly and guiltily. ‘Or I shan’t be able to get up the stairs.’
Daria was standing in the middle of the kitchen, tidying her hair. She smiled and came jauntily towards Gregor, closed her laughing eyes and pressed her moist warm lips against his.
‘You taste of tobacco!’ she worked the delicate arches of her brows humorously.
Gregor took off his sheepskin and tunic and hung them at the foot of the bed, then combed his hair. He sat down on a bench and called his son:
‘Come to me, Misha! Why, don’t you know me?’
His fist still in his mouth, the child approached sideways, but came to a halt by the table. His mother gazed fondly and proudly at him. She bent down and whispered something into her daughter’s ear, and gently pushed her forward:
‘Go on!’ she said.
Gregor gathered them both up, set them on his knee, and asked:
‘Don’t you know me, you woodnuts? Polia, don’t you know your daddy?’
‘You’re not our daddy,’ the boy said, feeling more confident now that his sister was with him.
‘Then who am I?’
‘You’re some other cossack.’
‘And that’s that!’ Gregor laughed aloud. ‘Then where is your daddy?’
‘He’s away in the army,’ the girl said with conviction in her voice.
‘That’s right, children, give it to him! He’s been away all these years and it’s high time he came home!’ Ilinichna intervened with feigned harshness, and smiled at Gregor. ‘Even your wife will be giving you up soon! We were already looking for a man for her!’
‘What do you say to that, Natalia?’ Gregor turned jokingly to his wife.
She blushed, but overcoming her embarrassment, went across to him and sat down at his side. Her boundlessly happy eyes drank him in, and her burning hand stroked his dry, brown arm.
‘Daria, set the tab
le!’ Ilinichna called.
‘He’s got a wife of his own!’ Daria laughed and turned with her jaunty step towards the stove.
She was as slender and elegant as ever. Her lilac woollen stockings clung tightly to her beautiful legs, her shoes fitted her feet as though made for her. The flounced, raspberry-coloured skirt embraced her closely, and her embroidered apron was of an irreproachable whiteness. Gregor turned his eyes to his wife, and noticed that she had changed somewhat. She had decked herself out for his homecoming: a blue satin jacket with lace sleeves tight at the wrists displayed her shapely figure and swelled over her soft large breasts, a blue skirt with a full, crinkled, embroidered hem clasped her waist. Gregor looked at her sturdy legs, her swollen belly and her broad bottom, like that of a well-fed mare, and thought: ‘You can tell a cossack woman among a thousand. She dresses herself to show everything: “Look if you want to, and don’t if you don’t!” But you can’t tell the back from the front of a peasant woman, she covers her body in a sack …’
Ilinichna caught his gaze, and vaingloriously boasted:
‘See how officers’ wives dress among us cossacks! They could rub shoulders with any town lady!’
‘How can you talk like that, mother?’ Daria interrupted her. ‘We should look fine among the town ladies! One of my ear-rings is broken, and the other isn’t worth a grosch,’ she ended bitterly.
Gregor put his arm across his wife’s broad back and thought: ‘She’s goodlooking, anybody can see that. How did she live without me? I expect the cossacks ran after her, and maybe she ran after one of them. Suppose she did!’ At this unexpected thought his heart beat violently, and he stared searchingly at her rosy, shining face. Natalia flushed beneath his attentive gaze, and whispered:
‘What are you looking at me like that for? Glad to see me again?’
‘Why, of course!’
He drove away his unpleasant thought, but for a moment he almost hated his wife.
Pantaleimon came in coughing, crossed himself before the ikon, and croaked:
‘Well, good health to you all once more!’
‘Praise be, old man! Are you frozen? We’ve been waiting for you. The soup’s hot.’ Ilinichna bustled around clattering the spoons.
He untied the red handkerchief around his neck, pulled off his sheepskin, shook the icicles from his beard and whiskers, and sitting down by Gregor, said:
‘I’m all frozen; but we were warm enough coming through the village. We drove over Aniutka Ozierova’s pig. How she came running out, the bitch! How she carried on: “I’ll give it you”, and “You’re this, that and the other”, and “Who stole a harrow?” The devil knows what harrow!’
He detailed all the nicknames Aniutka had called him, ignoring only her reference to his ‘whoremongering’. Gregor laughed and sat down at the table. Seeking to justify himself in his son’s eyes, Pantaleimon ended fierily:
‘I’d have given her a taste of the whip, but Gregor was with me, and it wasn’t a good moment.’
Piotra opened the door and Dunia entered, leading in a handsome young calf by a girdle.
‘We shall be having pancakes with cream at Shrovetide,’ Piotra cried gaily, thrusting the calf forward with his foot.
After dinner, Gregor untied his sack and distributed his presents. ‘That’s for you, mother,’ he said to her, giving her a warm shawl. Frowning and blushing like a young girl, Ilinichna took the shawl and threw it around her shoulders. She spent so much time admiring herself in the glass that even Pantaleimon was riled:
‘You old hag, fussing about in front of the glass! Pah!’ he exclaimed.
‘And that’s for you, father,’ Gregor said hurriedly, untying a new cossack cap with a raised front and a flaming red band.
‘God save you! I was needing a new cap. There haven’t been any in the shop all this past year. I don’t like going to church in my old one. It was only fit for a scarecrow, but I went on wearing it,’ he said in indignant tones, looking around as though afraid someone would take away his son’s present.
He turned to go to the glass to see how it fitted, but caught Ilinichna’s eyes, wheeled suddenly round and limped to the samovar. He stood before it to try his cap on, setting the peak jauntily to one side.
‘What are you doing there, you old wire?’ Ilinichna rounded on him. But Pantaleimon barked back:
‘Lord, what a fool you are, woman! This is a samovar, not a looking-glass.’
Gregor gave his wife a length of woollen cloth for a skirt; his children received a pound of honey-cake, Daria a pair of silver ear-rings, Dunia material for a jacket, and Piotra cigarettes and tobacco. While the women were chattering away over their gifts Pantaleimon strutted about the kitchen like a lord, with his chest thrown out.
‘There’s a fine cossack of the Lifeguard regiment for you!’ Piotra said admiringly. ‘Took prizes too! Won the first prize at the Imperial review. A saddle and all its equipment! Oh, you …!’
Gregor laughed, the men lit cigarettes, and Pantaleimon, glancing uneasily at the window, said to him:
‘Before the relations and neighbours begin to come, tell Piotra what’s happening back there.’
Gregor waved his hand. ‘They’re fighting,’ he replied.
‘Where are the Bolsheviks?’ Piotra immediately asked, as he seated himself more comfortably.
‘Coming from three sides: from Tikhoretsk, from Taganrog, and Voronezh.’
‘Well, and what does your Revolutionary Committee think about that? Why are they letting them come on to our land? Christonia and Ivan Alexievitch came back and told us all sorts of yarns, but I don’t believe them. It’s not as they say.’
‘The Revolutionary Committee is helpless. The cossacks are running home.’
‘And is that why it’s leaning on the Soviets?’
‘Of course that’s why.’
Piotra was silent while he puffed at his cigarette, then he opened his eyes wide at his brother:
‘And on what side are you?’ he asked.
‘I want a Soviet government.’
‘The fool!’ Pantaleimon exploded like gunpowder. ‘Piotra, you tell him!’
Piotra smiled and clapped his brother on the shoulders. ‘He’s as fiery as an unbroken horse,’ he said. ‘Can anyone tell him anything, father?’
‘There’s nothing to tell me!’ Gregor grew angry. ‘I’m not blind. What are the frontline men in the village saying?’
‘What are the frontline men to do with us? Don’t you know that fool of a Christonia by now? What can he understand? The people are all lost, and don’t know which way to turn. It’s only misery everywhere!’ Piotra waved his hand and bit at his whisker. ‘Try to see what will happen in the spring, and you won’t have a notion. At the front we played at being Bolsheviks, but now it’s time we came back to our senses. “We don’t want anything belonging to anybody else, but don’t you touch ours!” that’s what the cossacks ought to say to all who come whining to us. It’s a dirty business that’s been going on at Kamenska. They’ve got friendly with the Bolsheviks and they’ll set up their system.’
‘You think it over, Gregor,’ his father said. ‘You’re not a fool! You must understand that once a cossack always a cossack. Stinking Russia ought not to govern us. And do you know what the foreigners are saying now? All the land ought to be divided up equally amongst all. What do you think of that?’
‘We’ll give land to those foreigners who have been living in the Don for years.’
‘Not an inch!’ Pantaleimon swore, setting his hook-nose close to Gregor’s face.
There was a tramp of feet on the steps outside, and Anikushka, Christonia, and Ivan Tomilin entered.
‘Hallo, Gregor! Pantaleimon Prokoffievitch, what about a drink to celebrate his homecoming?’ Christonia roared.
At his shout the calf dozing by the stove started up in alarm, tottering on its still feeble legs and gazing with agate eyes at the newcomers. In its fright it let a fine stream on to the floor. Dunia stoppe
d it with a tap on the back, wiped up the pool and set a dirty pot under the animal.
‘You frightened the calf, you trumpet!’ Ilinichna angrily exclaimed.
Gregor shook hands with the cossacks and invited them to sit down. Soon other cossacks from the far end of the village arrived. As they talked they smoked so much that the lamp began to sputter and the calf to choke.
‘The fever take you!’ Ilinichna cursed them as she sent the guests packing at midnight. ‘Go out into the yard and smoke, you chimneys! Clear out, clear out! Our Gregor hasn’t had any rest yet after his journey. Clear off, in God’s name!’
Next morning Gregor was the last to awake. He was aroused by the noisy, Spring-like chatter of the sparrows in the eaves and outside the window-frames. A golden drift of sunlight was sifting through the chinks in the shutters. The church-bell was ringing for matins, and he remembered that it was Sunday. Natalia was not at his side, but the feather-bed still retained the warmth of her body. Evidently she had not long been up.