‘What was that?’ Matvei Kashulin asked, dropping his axe in his astonishment.
With inexplicable pride Christonia roared through the magically silent forest:
‘It must have been a goat. A wild goat! I’ve seen them in the Carpathians.’
‘Then the war must have driven it into our steppe.’
There was nothing left for Christonia but to agree. ‘That must be it,’ he said. ‘And did you see the kid with her? A pleasant sight, damn it! Just like a child with its mother.’
All the way back to the village they were discussing this unprecedented visitor to the district. Old Matvei began to have his doubts.
‘But if it was a goat, where was its horns?’ he asked.
‘And what do you want horns for?’
‘I don’t want the horns! I simply asked, if it was a goat why wasn’t it like a goat? Have you ever seen a goat without horns? That’s the point. Maybe it’s some sort of wild sheep?’
‘Old man, you’ve lived past your time!’ Christonia took offence. ‘Go and call on the Melekhovs. Their Gregor’s got a whip made out of goat’s legs. Then will you admit it or not?’
It happened that old Matvei had occasion to visit the Melekhovs the same day. Certainly the stock of Gregor’s whip was covered with leather made from a wild goat’s leg; even the tiny hoof at the end was there in its entirety and was ingeniously shod with a copper shoe.
On the Wednesday of the last week in Lent Misha Koshevoi went early one morning to examine the nets he had set in the river by the forest. He left his hut before dawn. The earth, crumbled by the morning frost, was crusted with fine ice, and scrunched beneath his feet. Misha walked along with a great oar over his shoulder, his cap thrust on the back of his head, his trousers gathered into white woollen stockings, breathing in the intoxicating morning air and the scent of the raw dampness. He pushed off his boat and rowed swiftly, standing and pulling strongly at the oar.
He examined his nets, took a fish from the last, dropped the net back into the water, and then, as he rowed easily back, decided to have a smoke. The sky was reddening with the sunrise. In the east the mistily blue heaven looked as though splashed from below with blood. The blood flowed over the horizon and turned a rusty-gold. As he lit his cigarette Misha watched the slow flight of a grebe. The smoke curled and clung to the branches of the trees, and drifted off in clouds. Examining his catch – three young sterlet, some eight pounds of carp, and a heap of white fish – he thought:
‘Must sell some of it. Squinting Lukieshka will take it in exchange for some dried pears. Mother can make jam from them.’
He rowed up to the landing stage. By the garden fences where he kept the boat a man was sitting. When he got a little nearer he saw that it was Valet squatting on his haunches and smoking an enormous cigarette made of newspaper. His sly little eyes gleamed sleepily, and his cheeks were overgrown with a scrub of hair.
‘What do you want?’ Misha shouted to him. His voice went bouncing over the water like a ball.
‘Row closer.’
‘Do you want some fish?’
‘What should I want fish for?’
Valet shook with a fit of coughing, spat violently, and reluctantly stood up. His ill-fitting greatcoat hung on him like a coat on a scarecrow. His sharp, unwashed ears were covered by the hanging flaps of his cap. He had only recently returned to the village, accompanied by the doubtful fame of a Red Guard man. The cossacks asked him where he had been since he was demobilized, but Valet gave evasive answers, avoiding the dangerous questions. To Ivan Alexievitch and Misha Koshevoi he admitted that he had spent four months in a Red Guard detachment in the Ukraine, had been captured by the Ukrainian national troops, had escaped and joined the Red Army close to Rostov, and had given himself furlough to get a rest and re-equip himself.
Valet took off his cap, stroked his bristling hair, looked around, then went to the boat and muttered:
‘There’s bad business afoot … bad! Stop your fishing for fish! Or we’ll go on fishing and fishing and forget everything else.’
‘What’s your news? Tell me!’ Misha asked, squeezing Valet’s hand with his own fishy paw, and smiling warmly. They had long been close friends.
‘Yesterday Red Guards were smashed up at Migulinsk. The struggle has begun, brother! The fur’s beginning to fly!’
‘What Red Guards? How did they get to Migulinsk?’
‘They were marching through the district, and the cossacks set about them and have driven the prisoners to Kargin. They’ve already begun a field court-martial there. Today they’re going to mobilize everybody in Tatarsk.’
Koshevoi tied up his boat, poured his fish into a basket, and walked away with great strides. Valet danced along in front like a young horse, his coat tails flying, his arms swinging.
‘Ivan Alexievitch told me. He’s just relieved me; the mill’s been working all night. And he had it straight from the horse’s mouth. An officer from Vieshenska has called at Mokhov’s.’
Across Misha’s face, matured and faded with the years of war, passed a look of anxiety. He glanced sidelong at Valet. ‘Now what’s going to happen?’ he asked.
‘We must clear out of the village.’
‘Where to?’
‘To Kamenska.’
‘But the cossacks are White there.’
‘Then more to the left.’
‘How are you going to get through?’
‘It can be done if you want to. And if not, stay behind and the devil take you!’ Valet suddenly snarled. ‘“Where to”, and “where to”! How am I to know? Look around a bit and you’ll find a hole through for yourself.’
‘Don’t get angry. What does Ivan say?’
‘While you’re getting Ivan to move …’
‘Not so loud! There’s a woman looking.’
They glanced fearfully at a young woman driving cows out of a yard. At the first cross-road Misha turned back.
‘Where are you going?’ Valet asked in surprise.
Without looking back, Misha muttered:
‘I’m going to get my nets out.’
‘What for?’
‘I don’t want to lose them.’
‘So we’ll be going?’ Valet said in delight.
Misha waved his oar, and said as he walked away:
‘Go along to Ivan Alexievitch, and I’ll take my nets home and come along after.’
Ivan Alexievitch had already succeeded in passing the news on to the cossacks who were friendly. He sent his little son to the Melekhovs, and Gregor came back with him. Christonia turned up without being warned, as though he had had a presentiment of impending trouble. Soon Koshevoi also arrived, and they began to discuss the situation. They all talked at once, hurriedly, every moment expecting to hear the tocsin bell.
‘We must clear out at once. They’ll be bridling us this very day,’ Valet incited them with burning words.
‘Give us your reasons? Why must we?’ Christonia queried.
‘How, “why must we”? They’ll be ordering a mobilization, and do you think you’ll escape it?’
‘I won’t go, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘They’ll carry you!’
‘Let them try! I’m not a bullock at the plough.’
Ivan Alexievitch sent his cross-eyed wife out of the hut, then angrily snorted:
‘They’ll take you! Valet’s right there. Only where are we to go? That’s the question.’
‘That’s what I’ve already told him,’ Misha sighed.
‘Well, do as you like. Do you think I want the lot of you?’ Valet snarled. ‘I’ll clear out by myself. I don’t want any white-livers with me. “Yes, but why”! And “yes, but where”! They’ll give it you hot and shove you into prison for Bolshevism. How can you sit there joking? In such times as these? Everything will go to the devil!’
Concentratedly, and with quiet anger turning over in his hands a rusty nail torn out of the wall, Gregor Melekhov poured cold water over Valet:
>
‘Not so much talk! Your position is different, you can go where you like! But we must think it over carefully. I’ve got a wife and two little children. I can’t look at it in the same way as you.’ He narrowed his black, angry eyes, bared his stout teeth, and shouted: ‘You can wag your tongue, you whipper-snapper! As you were so you still remain! You’ve got nothing but your jacket …’
‘What are you bellowing about?’ Valet cried. ‘Showing off your officer’s ways! Don’t shout! I don’t care a spit for you!’ His little nose went white with rage and his tiny, evil eyes glittered balefully.
Gregor had vented on him the anger he felt at having his peace disturbed by the news of the Red Guards’ irruption into the district. He jumped up as though struck, strode across to where Valet was fidgeting on his stool, and restraining with difficulty his desire to strike him, he said:
‘Shut up, you reptile! Lousy snot! You stump of a man! Who are you ordering about? Go where your arse takes you! Clear out so that you don’t stink here! Don’t speak, you needn’t say good-bye!’
‘Drop it, Gregor! That’s not the way!’ Koshevoi shouted, pushing Gregor’s fist away from Valet’s nose. ‘You ought to drop those cossack habits! Aren’t you ashamed? Shame on you, Melekhov! Shame on you!’
Coughing guiltily, Valet rose and went to the door. But at the threshold he could no longer contain himself, and turning round, stabbed the smiling Gregor with his tongue:
‘And he was in the Red Guards! You gendarme! We shot men like you …’
At that, Gregor also could not restrain himself. He jumped up as though made of rubber, thrust Valet into the porch, treading on the heels of his boots, and in an unpleasant voice promised him:
‘Clear out, or I’ll tear your legs from your arse!’
Ivan Alexievitch disapprovingly shook his head and gave Gregor an unfriendly look. Misha sat silently biting his lips, evidently struggling to keep back the angry words that were on the tip of his tongue.
‘Well, why did he take on himself to tell other people what they’d got to do? What did he disagree with us for?’ Gregor embarrassedly tried to justify his behaviour. Christonia gave him a sympathetic look, and beneath his gaze Gregor smiled a simple, childlike smile. ‘I all but struck him! And hit him once and he’d bleed!’
‘Well, what do you think? We must come to some decision.’
Ivan Alexievitch fidgeted under the steely gaze of Misha Koshevoi who had asked the question, and answered with an effort:
‘Well, what, Mikhael? Gregor’s right in a way. How can we just pick up our things and fly? We’ve got our families to think of. Now wait a bit,’ he said hurriedly as he caught Misha’s impatient gesture. ‘Maybe nothing will happen … who is to know? They’ve broken up the detachment at Sietrakov, and others won’t come. We can wait a bit. I’ve got a wife and child, our clothes are worn out and we’ve got no flour. So how can I go off? Who’s going to look after them?’
Misha irritatedly raised his eyebrows and fixed his eyes on the earthen floor.
‘So you’re not thinking of clearing out?’ he said slowly.
‘I think it’s better to wait. It’s never too late to clear out. What do you think, Gregor, and you, Christonia?’
Finding unexpected support from Ivan and Christonia, Gregor spoke more animatedly:
‘Why of course; that’s just what I said. That’s what I fell out with Valet over. Are we to break with everything? One, two and off we go? We’ve got to think it over … think it over, I say.’
As he finished speaking there was a sudden clang from the bell in the church tower, and the sound flooded the square, the streets, the alleys. Over the brown surface of the flood waters, over the damp, chalky slopes of the hills the clangour rolled, disintegrating into fragments and dying away in the forest. Then once more it broke out incessantly and uneasily:
‘Dong, dong, dong, dong …’
‘There it goes!’ Christonia blinked. ‘I’m off to my boat. Over to the other side and into the forest. Then let them find me!’
‘Well, and what now?’ Koshevoi rose heavily like an old man.
‘We’re not going at once,’ Gregor answered for the others.
Misha once more raised his brows, and brushed a heavy lock of golden hair off his forehead.
‘Good-bye …’ he said. ‘It’s clear our roads lie in different directions.’
Ivan Alexievitch smiled apologetically.
‘You’re young, Misha, and fiery. You think they won’t run together again? They will! Be sure of that!’
Koshevoi took leave of the others and went out. He struck across the yard to the neighbouring threshing-floor. In the ditch Valet was huddled. He must have sensed that Misha would go that way. He rose to meet him, and asked:
‘Well?’
‘They’ve refused.’
‘I knew they would all along. They’re weak … And Grishka – that friend of yours is a cur! He’s only in love with himself. He insulted me, the swine! Just because he’s stronger. I hadn’t a weapon with me, or I’d have killed him,’ he said in a choking voice.
Striding along at his side, Misha glanced at his bristling scrub of hair and thought: ‘And he would have killed him too, the skunk!’
They walked swiftly, every beat of the bell whipping them along. ‘Come along to my hut,’ Misha proposed. ‘We’ll get some victuals and be off. We’ll go on foot; I shall leave my horse behind. You’ve got nothing to take?’
‘I’ve got nothing,’ Valet said wrily. ‘I’ve not saved enough to buy a mansion or an estate. I haven’t even received my wages for the last fortnight. But let old pot-belly Mokhov get fatter on them! He’ll dance with joy at not having to pay them.’
The bell stopped ringing. The drowsy silence was undisturbed. The chickens were pecking in the ashes along the roadside, calves were looking for herbage under the fences. Misha looked back: cossacks were hurrying to the meeting on the square, some of them buttoning up their uniform tunics as they went. A rider sped across the square. A crowd gathered by the school, the women in white kerchiefs and skirts, the men a mass of black.
A woman carrying pails halted in their path, superstitiously refusing to cross in front of them. She said angrily:
‘Come on, come on! I don’t want to cross your path.’
Misha greeted her, and with a gleaming smile she asked:
‘The cossacks are all going to the meeting. Where are you off to? You’re going the wrong way, Misha.’
‘I’ve got something to do at home,’ he replied.
They turned down a side-alley. They could see the roof of Misha’s hut, the starling-box with a dry cherry branch tied to it rocking in the wind. The sails of the windmill on the rise were slowly turning, the torn sail-cloth flapping and striking the sheet-iron of the steep roof.
The sun was not strong, but warm. A fresh breeze was blowing from the Don. In one yard some women were plastering a large hut with clay and whitewashing it in readiness for Easter. One of them was kneading the clay with dung. She walked round in a circle, her skirt raised high, with difficulty pulling her full, white legs out of the sticky mess. She held her skirt in the ends of her fingers, her cotton garters were pulled above her knees and cut tightly into the flesh. The two other women, their faces wrapped to the eyes in kerchiefs, had clambered on ladders right under the reed-thatched roof, and were whitewashing. With sleeves tucked up above the elbows they worked the brushes backward and forward, and splashes of whitewash spattered over them. They sang as they worked. The elder, Maria, a widow of one of Bogatiriev’s sons, was openly setting her cap at Misha. She was a freckled but good-looking woman. She sang away in a low voice, almost masculine in strength and famed throughout the village:
‘Ah, there’s no-one suffers more …’
The other women took up the words, and the three voices tunefully carried on the bitter, naïvely complaining song:
‘Than my darling at the war.
An artillery-man is he,
&
nbsp; And he always thinks of me.’
Misha and Valet passed close to the fence, listening to the song:
‘Then a letter came which said
That my darling had been killed.
Oh, he’s killed, my darling’s killed.
Now under a bush he’s dead.’
Maria, her warm grey eyes glittering beneath her kerchief, looked down and stared at Misha. Her bespattered face lighting up with a smile, she sang in a deep, amorous voice:
‘And his curls, his golden curls
In the wind were tossed about.
And his eyes, his deep black eyes –
A black raven pecked them out.’
Misha smiled the tender smile he always kept for women. Maria glanced around, then bent down from the ladder and said:
‘Where have you been, dear?’
‘Fishing.’
‘Don’t go far, and we’ll go into the barn and have a cuddle.’
‘You shameless hussy!’
Maria clicked her tongue, and with a laugh waved the wet brush at Misha. The drops of whitewash scattered over his jacket and cap.
‘You might lend us Valet at least. He could help us clean up the hut,’ the other woman cried after them, smiling and revealing her milky-white teeth. Maria muttered something to her and they burst into laughter.
‘Lewd bitches!’ Valet frowned, hastening his steps. But Misha corrected him with a languishing and gentle smile.
‘Not lewd, only merry. I’m going off, but I’m leaving my darling behind,’ he added as he passed through the wicket-gate of his yard.
After Koshevoi’s departure the others sat on for a little while without speaking. The tocsin bell rocked over the village and rattled the little window-panes of the hut. Ivan Alexievitch stared out through the window. A crumbly morning shadow cast by the shed fell over the ground. The dew lay greyly on the young grass. Even through the glass the sky showed azure. Ivan glanced at Christonia’s hanging head.