by Maxim Gorky
They embraced three times. Afterwards Vassili’s stupor became mingled with both joy and uneasiness. The watchman stroked his blond beard with one hand and with the other gesticulated:
“I knew something was up; my heart told me so. So it was you! I kept asking myself if it was Serejka. But I saw it was not Serejka. How did you come here?”
Vassili would have liked to look at Malva, but his son’s rollicking eyes were upon him and he did not dare. The pride he felt at having a son so strong and handsome struggled in him with the embarrassment caused by the presence of Malva. He shuffled about and kept asking Iakov one question after another, often without waiting for a reply. His head felt awhirl, and he felt particularly uneasy when he heard Malva say in a mocking tone.
“Don’t skip about—for joy. Take him to the cabin and give him something to eat.”
The father examined his son from head to foot. On the latter’s lips hovered that cunning smile Vassili knew so well. Malva turned her green eyes from the father to the son and munched melon seeds between her small white teeth. Iakov smiled and for a few seconds, which were painful to Vassili, all three were silent.
“I’ll come back in a moment,” said Vassili suddenly going towards the cabin. “Don’t stay there in the sun, I’m going to fetch some water. We’ll make some soup. I’ll give you some fish soup, Iakov.”
He seized a saucepan that was lying on the ground and disappeared behind the fishing nets.
Malva and the peasant followed him.
“Well, my fine young fellow, I brought you to your father, didn’t I?” said Malva, brushing up against Iakov’s robust figure.
He turned towards her his face framed in its curled blond beard, and with a brilliant gleam in his eyes said:
“Yes, here we are—It’s fine here, isn’t it? What a stretch of sea!”
“The sea is great. Has the old man changed much?”
“No, not much. I expected to find him more grey. He’s still pretty solid.”
“How long is it since you saw him?”
“About five years. I was nearly seventeen when he left the village.”
They entered the cabin, the air of which was suffocating from the heat and the odor of cooking fish. They sat down. Between them there was a roughly-hewn oak table. They looked at each other for a long time without speaking.
“So you want to work here?” said Malva at last.
“I don’t know. If I find something, I’ll work.”
“You’ll find work,” replied Malva with assurance, examining him critically with her green eyes.
He paid no attention to her, and with his sleeve wiped away the perspiration that covered his face.
She suddenly began to laugh.
“Your mother probably sent messages for your father by you?”
Iakov gave a shrug of ill humor and replied:
“Of course. What if she did?”
“Oh, nothing.”
And she laughed the louder.
Her laugh displeased Iakov. He paid no attention to her and thought of his mother’s instructions. When she accompanied him to the end of the village she had said quickly, blinking her eyes:
“In Christ’s name, Iakov say to him: ‘Father, mother is alone yonder. Five years have gone by and she is always alone. She is getting old.’ Tell him that, Iakov, my little Iakov, for the love of God. Mother will soon be an old woman. She’s always alone, always at work. In Christ’s name, tell him that.”
And she had wept silently, hiding her face in her apron.
Iakov had not pitied her then, but he did now. And his face took on a hard expression before Malva, as if he were about to abuse her.
“Here I am!” cried Vassili, bursting in on them with a wriggling fish in one hand and a knife in the other.
He had not got over his uneasiness, but had succeeded in dissimulating it deep within him. Now he looked at his guests with serenity and good nature; only his manner was more agitated than usual.
“I’ll make a bit of a fire in a minute, and we’ll talk. Why, Iakov, what a fine fellow you’ve grown!”
Again he disappeared.
Malva went on munching her melon seeds. She stared familiarly at Iakov. He tried not to meet her eyes, although he would have liked to, and he thought to himself:
“Life must come easy here. People seem to eat as much as they want to. How strong she is and father, too!”
Then intimidated by the silence, he said aloud:
“I forgot my bag in the boat. I’ll go and get it.”
Iakov rose leisurely and went out. Vassili appeared a moment later. He bent down towards Malva and said rapidly with anger:
“What did you want to bring him for? What shall I tell him about you?”
“What’s that to me? Am I afraid of him? Or of you?” she asked, closing her green eyes with disdain. Then she laughed: “How you went on when you saw him. It was so funny!”
“Funny, eh?”
The sand crunched under Iakov’s steps and they had to suspend their conversation. Iakov had brought a bag which he threw into a corner. He cast a hostile look at the young woman.
She went on munching her seeds. Vassili, seating himself on the woodbin, said with a forced smile:
“What made you think of coming?”
“Why, I just came. We wrote you.”
“When? I haven’t received any letter.”
“Really? We wrote often.”
“The letter must have got lost,” said Vassili regretfully. “It always does when it’s important.”
“So you don’t know how things are at home?” asked Iakov, suspiciously.
“How should I know? I received no letter.”
Then Iakov told him that the horse was dead, that all the corn had been eaten before the beginning of February, and that he himself had been unable to find any work. Hay was also short, and the cow had almost perished from hunger. They had managed as best they could until April and then they decided that Iakov should join the father far away and work three months with him. That is what they had written. Then they sold three sheep, bought flour and hay and Iakov had started.
“How is that possible?” cried Vassali. “I sent you some money.”
“Your money didn’t go far. We repaired the cottage, we had to marry sister off and I bought a plough. You know five years is a long time.”
“Hum,” said Vassili, “wasn’t it enough? What a tale of woe! Ah, there’s my soup boiling over!”
He rose and stooping before the fire on which was the saucepan, Vassili meditated while throwing the scum into the flame. Nothing in his son’s recital had touched him particularly, and he felt irritated against his wife and Iakov. He had sent them a great deal of money during the last five years, and yet they had not been able to manage. If Malva had not been present he would have told his son what he thought about it. Iakov was smart enough to leave the village on his own responsibility and without the father’s permission, but he had not been able to get a living out of the soil. Vassili sighed as he stirred the soup, and as he watched the blue flames he thought of his son and Malva. Henceforward, he thought, his life would be less agreeable, less free. Iakov had surely guessed what Malva was.
Meanwhile Malva, in the cabin, was trying to arouse the rustic with her bold eyes.
“Perhaps you left a girl in the village?” she asked suddenly.
“Perhaps,” he responded surlily.
Inwardly he was abusing Malva.
“Is she pretty?” she asked with indifference.
Iakov made no reply.
“Why don’t you answer? Is she better looking than I, or no?”
He looked at her in spite of himself. Her cheeks were sunburnt and plump, her lips red and tempting and now, parted in a malicious smile, showing the white even teeth, they seemed to
tremble. Her bust was full and firm under a pink cotton waist that set off to advantage her trim waist and well-rounded arms. But he did not like her green and cynical eyes.
“Why do you talk like that?” he asked.
He sighed without reason and spoke in a beseeching tone, yet he wanted to speak brutally to her.
“How shall I talk?” she asked laughing.
“There you are, laughing—at what?”
“At you—.”
“What have I done to you?” he said with irritation. And once more he lowered his eyes under her gaze.
She made no reply.
Iakov understood her relations towards his father perfectly well and that prevented him from expressing himself freely. He was not surprised. It would have been difficult for a man like his father to have been long without a companion.
“The soup is ready,” announced Vassili, at the threshold of the cabin. “Get the spoons, Malva.”
When she found the spoons she said she must go down to the sea to wash them.
The father and son watched her as she ran down the sands and both were silent.
“Where did you meet her?” asked Vassili, finally.
“I went to get news of you at the office. She was there. She said to me: ‘Why go on foot along the sand? Come in the boat. I’m going there.’ And so we started.”
“And—what do you think of her?”
“Not bad,” said Iakov, vaguely, blinking his eyes.
“What could I do?” asked Vassili. “I tried at first. But it was impossible. She mends my clothes and so on. Besides it’s as easy to escape from death as from a woman when once she’s after you.”
“What’s it to me?” said Iakov. “It’s your affair. I’m not your judge.”
Malva now returned with the spoons, and they sat down to dinner. They ate without talking, sucking the bones noisily and spitting them out on the sand, near the door. Iakov literally devoured his food, which seemed to please Malva vastly; she watched with tender interest his sunburnt cheeks extend and his thick humid lips moving quickly. Vassili was not hungry. He tried, however, to appear absorbed in the meal so as to be able to watch Malva and Iakov at his ease.
After awhile, when Iakov had eaten his fill he said he was sleepy.
“Lie down here,” said Vassili. “We’ll wake you up.”
“I’m willing,” said Iakov, sinking down on a coil of rope. “And what will you do?”
Embarrassed by his son’s smile, Vassili left the cabin hastily, Malva frowned and replied to Iakov:
“What’s that to you? Learn to mind your own business, my lad.”
Then she went out.
Iakov turned over and went to sleep.
Vassili had fixed three stakes in the sand, and with a piece of matting had rigged up a shelter from the sun. Then he lay down flat on his back and contemplated the sky. When Malva came up and dropped on the sand by his side he turned towards her with vexation plainly written on his face.
“Well, old man,” she said laughing, “you don’t seem pleased to see your son.”
“He mocks me. And why? Because of you,” replied Vassili testily.
“Oh, I am sorry. What can we do? I mustn’t come here again, eh? All right. I’ll not come again.”
“Siren that you are! Ah, you women! He mocks me and you too—and yet you are what I have dearest to me.”
He moved away from her and was silent. Squatting on the sand, with her legs drawn up to her chin, Malva balanced herself gently to and fro, idly gazing with her green eyes over the dazzling joyous sea, and she smiled with triumph as all women do when they understand the power of their beauty.
“Why don’t you speak?” asked Vassili.
“I’m thinking,” said Malva. Then after a pause she added:
“Your son’s a fine fellow.”
“What’s that to you?” cried Vassili, jealously.
“Who knows?”
He glanced at her suspiciously. “Take care,” he said, menacingly. “Don’t play the imbecile. I’m a patient man, but I mustn’t be crossed.”
He ground his teeth and clenched his fists.
“Don’t frighten me, Vassili,” she said indifferently, without looking up at him.
“Well, stop your joking.”
“Don’t try to frighten me.”
“I’ll soon make you dance if you begin any foolishness.”
“Would you beat me?”
She went up to him and gazed with curiosity at his frowning face.
“One would think you were a countess. Yes, I would beat you.”
“Yet I’m not your wife,” said Malva, calmly. “You have been accustomed to beat your wife for nothing, and you imagine that you can do the same with me. No, I am free. I belong only to myself, and I am afraid of no one. But you are afraid of your son, and now you dare threaten me.”
She shook her head with disdain. Her careless manner cooled Vassili’s anger. He had never seen her look so beautiful.
“I have something else to tell you,” she went on. “You boasted to Serejka that I could no more get along without you than without bread, and that I cannot live without you. You are mistaken. Perhaps it is not you that I love and not for you that I come. Perhaps I love the peace of this deserted beach. (Here she made a wide gesture with her arms.) Perhaps I love these lonely sands, with their vast stretch of sea and sky, and to be away from vile beings. Because you are here is nothing to me. If this were Serejka’s place I should come here. If your son lived here, I should come too. It would be better still if no one were here, for I am disgusted with you all. But if I take it into my head one day—beautiful as I am—I can always choose a man, and one who’ll please me better than you.”
“So, so!” hissed Vassili, furiously, and he seized her by the throat. “So that’s your game, is it?”
He shook her, and she did not strive to get away from his grasp, although her face was congested and her eyes bloodshot. She merely placed her two hands on the rough hands that were around her throat.
“Ah, now I know you!” Vassili was hoarse with rage. “And yet you said you loved me, and you kissed me and caressed me? Ah, I’ll show you!”
Holding her down to the ground, he struck her repeatedly with his clenched fist. Finally, fatigued with the exertion, he pushed her away from him crying:
“There, serpent. Now you’ve got what you deserved.”
Without a complaint, silent and calm, Malva fell back on her back, all crumpled, red and still beautiful. Her green eyes watched him furtively under the lashes, and burned with a cold flame full of hatred, but he, gasping with excitement and satisfied with the punishment he had inflicted, did not notice the look, and when he stooped down towards her to see if she was crying, she smiled up at him gently.
He looked at her, not understanding and not knowing what to do next. Should he beat her again? But his fury was appeased, and he had no desire to recommence.
“How you love me!” she whispered.
Vassili felt hot all over.
“All right! all right! the devil take you,” he said gloomily. “Are you satisfied now?”
“Was I not foolish, Vassili? I thought you no longer loved me! I said to myself, ‘now his son is here he will neglect me for him.’”
And she burst out laughing, a strange forced laugh.
“Foolish girl!” said Vassili, smiling in spite of himself.
He felt himself at fault, and was sorry for her, but remembering what she had said, he went on crossly:
“My son has nothing to do with it. If I beat you it was your own fault. Why did you cross me?”
“I did it on purpose to try you.”
And purring like a cat she rubbed herself against his shoulder.
He glanced furtively towards the cabin and bending down embraced the
young woman.
“To try me?” he repeated. “As if you wanted to do that? You see the result?”
“Oh, that’s nothing!” said Malva, half closing her eyes. “I’m not angry. You beat me only because you loved me. You’ll make it up to me.”
She gave him a long look, trembled and lowering her voice repeated:
“Oh, yes, you’ll make it up to me.”
Vassili interpreted her words in a sense agreeable to him.
“How?” he asked.
“You’ll see,” replied Malva calmly, very calmly, but her lips trembled.
“Ah, my darling!” cried Vassili, clasping her close in his arms. “Do you know that since I have beaten you I love you better.” Her head fell back on his shoulders and he placed his lips on her trembling mouth.
The sea gulls whirled about over their heads uttering hoarse cries. From the distance came the regular and gentle splash of the tiny waves breaking on the sand.
When, at last, they broke from their long embrace, Malva sat up on Vassili’s knee. The peasant’s face, tanned by wind and sun, was bent close to hers and his great blond beard tickled her neck. The young woman was motionless; only the gradual and regular rise and fall of her bosom showed her to be alive. Vassili’s eyes wandered in turn from the sea to this woman by his side. He told Malva how tired he was of living alone and how painful were his sleepless nights filled with gloomy thoughts. Then he kissed her again on the mouth with the same sound that he might have made in chewing a hot piece of meat.
They stayed there three hours in this way, and finally, when he saw the sun setting, Vassili said with a bored look:
“I must go and make some tea. Our guest will soon he awake.”
Malva rose with the indolent gesture of a languorous cat, and with a gesture of regret he started towards the cabin. Through her half-open lids the young woman watched him as he moved away, and sighed as people sigh when they have borne too heavy a burden.
* * * *
Fifteen days later it was again Sunday and again Vassili Legostev, stretched out on the sand near his hut, was gazing out to sea, waiting for Malva. And the deserted sea laughed, playing with the reflections of the sun, and legions of waves were born to run on the sand, deposit the foam of their crests and return to the sea, where they melted.
