The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  But she told them how she loved the snow and ice and could never be too cold, and proved this by wilting every time she got too near the warm fire in the hearth.

  Natasha and Igor filled their days watching their own daughter play with the other village children. All the children loved her and she was a great friend in return. She taught them many new and wonderful snow games, and no one every saw such clever hands as hers build and fashion the most intricate and delightful shapes in the snow.

  Natasha and Igor and their snow daughter grew to love one another very much. She was as good a child as any parent could hope for, always kind and respectful and obedient.

  One day the pale winter sun grew brighter and warmer. The snow began to melt, and the icicles turned to large dripping streams from the trees and eves of the cottages.

  The village children clapped their hands with joy and excitement, for they knew the long winter was coming to an end and spring would soon descend upon the land. Green blades of grass sprang up in the fields, and shoots of green burst forth from the branches of trees. The song of the lark filled the warm air.

  The children danced and sang, welcoming the advent of spring, and they called to the snow maiden to join them. But she only stayed by the window of the cottage and watched with a sad face, growing pale and thin.

  “What is wrong with you, my daughter?” asked Natasha with great concern. “Are you ill?”

  “I am well, Mother,” sighed the snow maiden.

  “Why not go play with your friends? That will cheer you up.”

  The snow maiden went outside, but while the other children sought wide, sunlit patches for their games, she hovered beneath the shade of trees or in dark, cool corners. She became very sad, and only at night, when the sun set, did she perk up. However, before long, even the night could not comfort her.

  Finally, the last of the snow melted away from the land, and with it seemed to go the rosy color from the snow daughter’s cheeks and the merry smile from her holly berry lips. Igor and Natasha fretted over her and felt afraid.

  “Mother and Father, don’t be sad,” the snow daughter said as she gently kissed her parents. “But it is time that I go away to the far north where there is always snow and ice.”

  Natasha and even Igor wept at this, though they both had felt it must happen sooner or later. They embraced their daughter and kissed her many times. They did not want to let her go, but knew they must.

  “Will we ever see you again?” they asked hopefully.

  She tried to laugh like her merry old self, but could only say, “Who can tell what the future will bring? We can only hope and pray.”

  Then, with one final embrace, the snow daughter left the cottage and ran toward the north while her parents watched, weeping.

  Through the long summer they went about their daily work. Igor planted the crops and chopped wood for the winter, and Natasha tended the garden and helped thresh the grain. All the while they watched and wondered. Would their snow daughter return to them? Would they never see her again? Perhaps she would return with the Russian winter.

  So, they waited, until, much to their joy, the first snow fell. Every day they looked out their window, but saw only the village children playing. Igor and Natasha no longer received any enjoyment from this, for they missed their snow daughter too much.

  Early one icy morning, however, they heard a familiar voice ringing like sweet music outside their cottage door.

  “Mother, Father, I am home!”

  They rushed to the door and flung it open, and there stood their dear snow daughter, looking as fresh and merry as the day they had fashioned her from the snow in the yard.

  What hugs and kisses and shouts of joy rose from the cottage that day! And never again were Igor and Natasha sad, for even in the summer when their snow daughter had to go away to the north, they knew she would return to them as faithfully as the winter snow.

  Only in Russia, thought Yevno, could winter be portrayed as the season to usher in joy.

  He glanced up into the grayness overhead. The rain will not be long in coming, he thought. He could smell it up there, awaiting its moment.

  Ah, but what could they do? There was too much winter in this severe land to spend it in gloom. Why not rejoice in the rain and the snow? They were God’s gifts, too.

  His optimism, however, was not shared by all. Even Yevno had to admit that he occasionally denounced the clouds from the north that brought with them little but hardship. For a poor peasant family, winter bore a special cruelty. His own family felt it in their empty stomachs and through their thin, shabby clothing.

  This winter they would feel it more painfully than ever. For their Snow Child must leave them, and perhaps not return again.

  Yevno’s lip trembled at the thought. Quickly he brushed a ragged glove across his eyes.

  He lowered his weary gaze from the sky. As he did, his eyes fell upon the very object of his thoughts and silent agony. He was nearing home now, and about half a versta1 from the road, among a small grove of maples and willows near the edge of the stream, he spied the form of his Anna.

  She sat with her back against a stout tree trunk, and, though Yevno’s old eyes could not tell for certain, he knew his daughter well enough to guess that she was reading a book.

  Often when the day’s chores were completed she walked off alone, found a quiet place, and sat down with a book. Several years ago the priest, noting special promise in Anna, asked Yevno permission to teach her the rudiments of reading. The priest went to another village the next year, but Anna’s hunger had been whetted. With the few books he had provided her, and his own treasured Bible, she continued to teach herself until she became proficient enough to pass her knowledge along to her brother Paul, and even to the little ones.

  One day she had sought to make Yevno her pupil.

  “But, Papa,” she implored, “there is no reason you should not learn. It is not so difficult.”

  “Imagine,” chuckled Yevno, “an old man like me taking lessons.”

  “Listen to this passage from your book,” she said, then paused to flip through the pages of the old Bible until she located it. “It’s from one of the books of Timothy. It says, These command and teach. Let no man despise thy youth—maybe that’s for me, Papa! But listen, there’s more. Give attendance to reading—and that’s you, Papa! Neglect not the gift that is in thee. . . . Wouldn’t you like to be able to read such things from your book for yourself, Papa, instead of having to have me or a priest read it to you? It says we should teach these things and give attention to reading. What do you think, Papa? I am certain I could teach you.”

  “You know the proverb that says new tricks are for the puppy, not the old dog.”

  “Would you not like to read, Papa?”

  “Ah,” answered the old man dreamily, “it would truly be an unspeakable joy. But it is enough that my children do. When you are old you will understand that a man looks to his offspring to carry on his life. In teaching the others, Anna, you give something to the next generation, almost as if you were doing for me what I cannot do myself. In so doing you shall bring me great honor. How can I tell you this, my child? To hear you—and maybe one day the younger ones—read brings me greater joy than were I able to read myself.”

  Such honor did come to Yevno Burenin. His children were among the few in the village of Katyk, ten versts east of Pskov, who could pick up a book and make sense of the marks contained within its covers. Yevno himself was well respected because of that fact.

  He started to raise his hand to beckon to his daughter, then thought better of it. He had no heart to face her just yet.

  All his thoughts during his journey home, even his reflection on the story of the snow child, had been to one end: to keep from thinking about what he must do after he arrived home.

  He had been putting it off for days now. He could do so no longer. It was not fair to Anna.

  It would break old Yevno’s heart, but he must tell her to
night.

  1. Russian linear measurement. Versta equals approximately 2/3 mile. Versts is the plural.

  3

  The smoke rising from the simple log cottage could not ascend in peace. Around the roof it swirled, troubled by the wind, gradually shooting southward in unpredictable bursts until it rose, with seeming effort, only to be consumed in the overspreading grayness of the sky.

  Yevno witnessed the battle between smoke and wind as a welcoming sight. But before he could enter into the inviting warmth of his humble dwelling, he must first tend to poor, tired Lukiv. He walked the animal around behind the house to the small stable, where they also kept their aging, emaciated, black-and-white milk cow. Yevno lifted the heavy burden of unsold wares and rubbed down Lukiv’s dull gray back, murmuring gently in the beast’s ear.

  “Next week, eh, little Lukiv! I shall carry some on my own back. We help one another—what do you say, my friend?”

  He laid a handful of browning hay mixed with straw in the trough, regretting that he had no better provision for his faithful horse. Then, after a friendly word to the cow, he headed for the house.

  Inside, Yevno’s wife of twenty-two years bent over the hearth stirring a large, black cast-iron pot filled with kasha, the buckwheat gruel they ate several times a week. A simple tune hummed from her lips, one which contained little musical design, except that it was lighthearted and merry. No matter how many days this month they had eaten kasha and black bread for supper, she remained cheerful. Her figure retained its pleasant plumpness in spite of their humble fare, and her round face wore a smiling greeting.

  “Ah, my husband,” she said, “it is you.”

  He nodded and returned his wife’s smile. But before speaking, as tradition demanded, he turned toward the “beautiful” corner of their cottage where the family held their devotions. There stood a small wooden table covered with an embroidered cloth, on which sat an unlit taper in a dish. Above it hung the family’s simple icon of St. Nicholas. Yevno bowed, but not, like most Russians, to the icon itself; he knew Him of whom all icons were but a faint and obscure shadow. He closed his eyes in a brief prayer before crossing himself. Only then did he turn back and speak.

  “So, my matushka,” he said, removing his black fur schapska and frayed coat, hanging them on two pegs near the door. “The house is so quiet, I wondered if I had mistakenly entered the wrong cottage.”

  “I sent Paul and the little ones into the village with bread for Polya. I half expected that you might be them returning—or Anna, tiring at last from the wind.”

  Yevno gave a weary laugh. “Our Anna does not tire of anything when her nose is between the boards of a book!”

  Sophia joined him with a chuckle of her own. Then her smile faded briefly as she surveyed him up and down.

  “You look weary, Yevno.”

  “I walked all the way to Pskov today.”

  “On St. Peter’s tomb, you can’t mean it!” she exclaimed.

  His only reply was a nod of assent.

  “Twelve versts, Yevno! It is too much for you!”

  “Andrae says it is but nine,” he rejoined with a feeble smile.

  “Twelve . . . nine! What difference to the tired feet of my hard-working husband? It is too much! I will need to use all my bark just to keep you supplied with new lapti. You will wear out a new pair every day.”

  “We must eat, Sophia. When the fields lie fallow, if we are to eat I must sell.”

  “And it has come to this in the end, that the people in Katyk and the other villages can afford shoes no more than we can afford fresh meat?”

  Without answering, Yevno strode to a small bare table which held a large bowl. He thrust his hands into the water, rubbed them briskly across one another, then applied them with several spirited slaps to his face, all with apparent satisfaction. “And in Pskov,” he went on, toweling off the dripping water, “so many others were about hawking their wares, I felt foolish adding still another load to the pile. And the looks they cast upon your fine shoes!”

  “In the city their tastes are richer,” offered Sophia in consolation.

  “There are no shoes finer than yours, wife,” sighed Yevno. “In the city they do not know truly well-made shoes from those that only appear that way!”

  He sat down heavily, pulling up first one leg, then the other, to remove his large lapti from both feet. He took off his inner boots, and finally began unwrapping the long, coarse strips of linen onoochi, until at length his feet and toes felt the warmth of the fire.

  Watching him, Sophia said, “When you next go to the city, you must buy some wool and I will make you a pair of stockings.”

  “I have worn onoochi all my life. There is no reason for me to have such a luxury when all your time is needed just to keep the children in something to wear.”

  She knew it would be useless to argue. “Did you sell nothing?” she asked after a short pause.

  “Three pair. And for those I had to lower the price. Four hours walking for one ruble and a handful of kopecks. Ah, the Lord have mercy upon us, wife!”

  “He will that. Come over to the table and sit, Yevno. Have some tea.”

  He did so gladly, watching affectionately as she drew boiling water from the samovar into a teapot filled with leaves. He never tired of watching this old Russian ritual, and his wife performed it with such dexterity. He supposed most Russian women learned to make tea after this fashion almost before they learned anything else. So important was it to peasant life that the tall metal urn occupied a place of prominence in even the poorest of Russian cottages.

  In a few moments she filled a glass with the dark amber brew, set it in a coarse wooden stand, and handed it to her husband. He took it with thanks. Then she stretched out her hand with an unexpected gift.

  “Sugar!” he exclaimed, gazing with disbelief at the small lump in her hand.

  “I’ve been saving it,” Sophia replied. “It is the last. But what good can it do sitting in the cupboard awaiting a special occasion while the mice nibble at it? Enjoy it, then I will not have to worry about it again.”

  He took the sweet morsel, wedging it in his mouth between tongue and cheek so it could dissolve slowly while he sipped his tea. Sophia’s cheeks glowed at her husband’s pleasure.

  “You treat me like the tsar himself!” he said as he drank.

  Yevno savored his tea, and Sophia busied herself with final preparations for the evening’s meal. Before many minutes Yevno resumed the conversation.

  “And how is Polya these days? We must go see her tomorrow.”

  “She’s ill again, poor thing,” Sophia answered.

  “She should not be living alone. Why will she not come here?”

  “My sister is stubborn, you know that, Yevno. When I last mentioned our taking her in, she became angry. ‘Another mouth to feed! You have not enough as it is?’ she said. ‘I will not hear of it!’ She’s not far wrong, batiushka, though I hate to admit it.”

  “We would be provided for, Sophia,” said Yevno. “The Lord will not let us starve. And with the little that Anna will bring in—”

  He stopped short at the sound of a soft gasp of dismay from his wife.

  “I am sorry,” he went on gently. “Though our hearts break, there are always practicalities of life that must be considered.”

  “I am the most practical of women. But how I loathe it sometimes!”

  “You must keep telling yourself it is the best thing for Anna—and it is. I know it!”

  His tone somehow lacked the conviction that his words attempted to convey.

  “The baron assured us it is a good family in St. Petersburg,” he added.

  “Relatives of the master! Yevno, how can they be anything but cruel?”

  “Distant relatives, wife. Baron Gorskov is a fair man as promieshik go. I think we do well to trust him. Besides, he says Vlasenko is as different from his cousin in the capital as two men can be. The baron is well acquainted with the family.”

  �
��I know, I know!” moaned Sophia. “It will be a fine house and she will have plenty to eat.”

  “Do not forget the education,” put in Yevno, gathering some small enthusiasm, if only to convince himself that their decision was the right one. “The baron says the prince is well known for educating promising servants. That could never be said about our master.”

  “Our Anna is promising. She reads better than anyone in Katyk.”

  “Yes,” said Yevno, his tone softening with fatherly tenderness. “Think what an education would mean to one such as she. The baron says the prince has a great library, famous in all of St. Petersburg.”

  “Anna would love finding herself surrounded by books.”

  “Can you not see her face, Sophia,” grinned Yevno, “to walk into a room full of nothing but books? They say that is what a library is like.”

  “She would be in heaven!” Sophia paused thoughtfully, then added, “Yet, to send her away, as a servant to strangers . . . Is it the right thing to do, Yevno?”

  “It is the best way, wife. Best for her. But if Anna does not agree—” Yevno’s speech was cut off in mid-sentence as the door burst open.

  4

  Into the cottage ran the two young Burenin daughters, chattering and laughing noisily.

  “Girls, girls!” scolded Sophia. “Is this the way to enter your house? Your father was speaking.”

  “Oh, Papa!” they both exclaimed in unison, racing to him with open arms. Yevno set down his tea and greeted them with the happy face of a father who finds contentment in his offspring. After a minor tussle over who would occupy their father’s lap, they were situated, one on each of the man’s strong knees.

  “We are sorry to interrupt you, Papa,” said Tanya, youngest of the two.

  “It can wait, my little tushka. But I will tell you all about Pskov.”

  “You went to the city, Papa?” asked seven-year-old Vera.