Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

by Leo Tolstoy

  ‘He never was any good,’ said Yevgeny Mikhailovich. ‘Look how ready he was to perjure himself that time. I’d never have thought it of him.’

  ‘They say he actually came round to our place one day. The cook said it was him. She says he paid the dowries for fourteen poor girls to get married.’

  ‘Well, no doubt they’re making it up.’

  Just at that moment a strange-looking elderly man in a woollen jacket came into the shop.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’ve got a letter for you.’

  ‘Who is it from?’

  ‘It says on it.’

  ‘I presume they will want a reply. Just wait a moment, please.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  And the strange-looking man handed over the envelope and hurriedly departed.

  ‘Extraordinary!’

  Yevgeny Mikhailovich tore open the bulging envelope and could hardly believe his eyes: inside there were hundred-rouble notes. Four of them. What on earth was this? And there was a semi-literate letter addressed to Yevgeny Mikhailovich. It read: ‘In the Gospel it says to retern good for evil. You did me a lot of evil with that cupon and I offended that peasant to but now I am sorry for you. So take these 4 Cathrines and remember your yardman Vasily.’

  ‘This is absolutely amazing,’ said Yevgeny Mikhailovich, to his wife and to himself. And whenever he subsequently remembered it or spoke of it to his wife, the tears would come into his eyes and her heart would be filled with joy.

  XVIII

  In the prison at Suzdal there were fourteen clergymen who were there primarily for having deviated from Orthodox teaching; and this was where Isidor too had been sent. Father Misail admitted Isidor in accordance with the written instructions he had received and, without interviewing him, gave the order that he should be placed in a solitary cell, as befitted a serious offender. In the third week of Isidor’s stay in the prison Father Misail was making the rounds of the inmates. Going into Isidor’s cell, he asked whether there was anything he needed.

  ‘There is a great deal that I need, but I cannot talk about it in the presence of other people. Please allow me the opportunity to speak to you on your own.’

  They looked at one another, and Father Misail realized that he had nothing to fear from this man. He ordered that Isidor should be brought to his cell in the monastery, and as soon as they were left alone he said:

  ‘Well, tell me what you have to say.’

  Isidor fell to his knees.

  ‘Brother!’ said Isidor, ‘what are you doing? Have mercy on yourself. There cannot be a villain alive worse than you, you have profaned everything that is holy …’

  *

  A month later Father Misail sent in applications for the release, on the grounds of repentance, not only of Isidor, but of seven of the other prisoners, together with a request that he himself should be allowed to withdraw from the world in another monastery.

  XIX

  Ten years went by.

  Mitya Smokovnikov had long since graduated from the technical institute and was now working as an engineer on a large salary in the Siberian gold-mines. He was due to go on a prospecting trip in a certain area. The mine director recommended that he should take with him the convict Stepan Pelageyushkin.

  ‘But why should I take a convict with me? Won’t that be dangerous?’

  ‘There’s nothing dangerous about him. He’s a holy man. Ask anyone you like.’

  ‘So why is he here?’

  The director smiled.

  ‘He murdered six people, but he’s a holy man. I’ll vouch for him absolutely.’

  And so Mitya agreed to take Stepan, now bald, thin and weather-beaten, and they set off together.

  On the journey Stepan looked after everybody’s needs as far as he could, and he looked after Mitya Smokovnikov as if Mitya had been his own offspring; and as they travelled on he told Smokovnikov his whole story. And he told him how, and why, and on what lines he was living now.

  And it was a very strange thing. Mitya Smokovnikov, who until that time had lived only to eat and drink, to play cards, and to enjoy wine and women, fell to thinking for the first time about his own life. And these thoughts of his would not leave him, in fact they started an upheaval in his soul which spread out wider and wider. He was offered a job which would have brought him great benefits. He turned it down and decided to settle for what he had, to buy an estate, to get married, and to serve the common people as best he could.

  XX

  And so he did. But first he went to see his father, with whom his relations were strained on account of his father’s new wife and family. Now, however, he had decided to make things up with his father. And so he did. And his father was quite astonished, and ridiculed him at first, but then he stopped criticizing his son and recalled the many, many occasions when he had been at fault with regard to him.

  1 A detachable voucher issued with government bonds and exchangeable for interest payments.

  2 Gentlemanly, respectable.

  3 A card game resembling bridge.

  4 Sazhen: a measure equivalent to 2.13 metres (here cubic).

  5 An educational and cultural centre for working people.

  6 One desyatin = 1.09 hectares or 2.7 acres.

  7 An elected district council which functioned in Russia from 1864 to 1917.

  8 The raised platform from which the Scriptures were read and sermons preached.

  9 I should like nothing better than to release the poor little girl, but you know how it is – one must stick to one’s duty.

  10 The traditional names for a, b, v – the first letters of the Russian alphabet. Tolstoy promoted a more phonetic method of learning, and wrote several reading books.

  11 It is extremely nice of her.

  12 Have him sent for. He can preach at the cathedral.

  13 He grew more and more aggressive.

  ALYOSHA GORSHOK

  ALYOSHKA was the youngest boy in his family. People started calling him ‘Gorshok’ because his mother once sent him to fetch some water for the deacon’s wife, and he tripped up and smashed the pot [gorshók] he was carrying it in. His mother beat him, and the children took to mocking him by calling him ‘Pot’. So ‘Alyoshka Gorshok’ – Alyoshka the Pot – became his nickname.

  Alyoshka was a thin boy with lop-ears (his ears stuck out just like wings) and he had a big nose. The other children would taunt him by saying ‘Alyoshka’s got a nose like a dog on a hillock.’ There was a school in the village, but Alyoshka never managed to learn reading and writing, in fact he had no time to study. His elder brother was living in a merchant’s household in the town, and from his earliest childhood Alyoshka began helping his father. At the age of six he was already minding the sheep and cows on the common pasture with his sister who was not much older, and when he had got a little bigger he started minding the horses, by day and by night. From his twelfth year he was ploughing, and driving the cart. He was not particularly strong, but he had the knack of doing things. And he was always cheerful. The other children made fun of him, but he would just keep quiet, or laugh. If his father cursed at him, he kept quiet and listened. And when the cursing was over he would smile, and get on with the job in hand.

  Alyosha was nineteen years old when his brother was taken away to be a soldier. And his father sent Alyosha to take his brother’s place as a yardman at the merchant’s house. Alyosha was given his brother’s old boots, his father’s cap and a coat, and went off on a cart to the town. Alyosha himself was not too delighted with his outfit, but the merchant was quite displeased at the look of him.

  ‘I reckoned I was going to get something like a man in place of Semyon,’ said the merchant, giving Alyosha the once over, ‘but this is a proper little milksop you’ve brought me. Whatever use is he going to be?’

  ‘He can do anything you want – he can harness up, and fetch and carry anywhere, and he’s a glutton for work. He may look like a yard of wattle fencing, but in fact he’s a w
iry young chap.’

  ‘Well, I can see what he looks like, but I’ll give him a try.’

  ‘And the best thing about him is, he doesn’t answer back. He’s really keen to work.’

  ‘There’s no getting round you. All right, you can leave him with me.’

  So Alyosha came to live at the merchant’s house.

  The merchant’s family was a small one: the master’s wife, his old mother, an elder son with only a basic education, married, who helped his father in the business, and another son who was a scholar – after leaving the grammar school he had gone to the university, but he had been expelled from there and was now living at home; and there was a daughter, a young schoolgirl.

  To begin with Alyosha was not happy there – for he was a real country bumpkin, poorly dressed and without manners, and he called everyone ‘thou’; but they soon got used to him. He worked even harder than his brother had done. He really was meek and didn’t answer back: they sent him on all kinds of errands and he did everything willingly and quickly, and switched over from one task to the next with no break whatever. And as it had been at home, so too in the merchant’s house, all manner of work fell on Alyosha’s shoulders. The master’s wife, the master’s mother, the master’s daughter and the master’s son, the steward, the cook, they all sent him running hither and thither and told him to do this, that and the other. You would never hear anything but ‘Run and fetch this, lad’, or ‘Alyosha, you sort it out’, or ‘You did remember to do that, didn’t you Alyosha?’ or ‘Look here, Alyosha, don’t forget this’. And Alyosha ran, and sorted out, and looked, and didn’t forget, and managed to do it all, and all the time he never stopped smiling.

  He soon wore his brother’s boots to pieces and the master told him off for going about with his boots full of holes and his bare toes sticking out, and gave orders for some new boots to be bought for him at the bazaar. The boots were brand new and Alyosha was delighted with them, but his legs were still the same old pair, and towards evening they ached from all this running about, and he would get cross with them. Alyosha was afraid that his father, when he came to get his money, might take offence if the merchant was to deduct part of his wages in payment for the boots.

  In winter Alyosha would get up before it was light, chop the firewood, sweep the yard, give the horse and the cow their fodder and water them. Then he would heat up the stoves, clean the master’s boots and brush his clothes, and take out the samovars and clean them; then either the steward would call him to help get out the wares, or the cook would order him to knead the dough and scour the saucepans. Then he would be sent into town, sometimes with a note for somebody, sometimes to take something to the master’s daughter at the grammar school, sometimes to fetch lamp-oil for the old lady.

  ‘Wherever did you get to, you wretch?’ now one of them, now another would say to him. ‘Why go yourself? Alyosha will run and get it. Alyoshka! Here, Alyoshka!’ And Alyosha would come running.

  He ate his breakfast as he went along, and rarely managed to have his dinner with the others. The cook swore at him for not bringing everything that was needed, but then felt sorry for him all the same and left him something hot for his dinner or his supper. There was a particularly large amount of work for him on high days and holidays and on the days leading up to them. And Alyosha took special pleasure in the feastdays, because on feastdays they would give him tips, not much, of course – not above sixty copecks all told – but still, it was his own money. He was able to spend it as he wished. His actual wages he never set eyes on. His father would arrive and receive the money from the merchant, merely reprimanding Alyoshka for getting his boots looking worn so quickly.

  When he had collected two roubles’ worth of this ‘tea-money’, he bought, on the cook’s advice, a fine knitted jacket, and when he put it on he was unable to stop grinning from sheer pleasure.

  Alyosha spoke little, and when he did speak it was always short and fragmentary. And when he was ordered to do something, or asked whether he could do such and such a thing, he always replied without the slightest hesitation ‘I can do that’, and at once threw himself into the task, and did it.

  Of prayers, he knew none at all. Whatever his mother had taught him he had forgotten, but he still prayed morning and evening – he prayed with his hands, by crossing himself.

  Alyosha’s life went on in this way for a year and a half, and then in the second half of the second year, something happened to him which was the most remarkable event in his life. This event had to do with his astonishing discovery that apart from the relationships between human beings which arise from their mutual needs, there are other, quite special relationships: not the ones which cause a person to brush the boots, to bring home some shopping, or to harness the horse, but the sort of relationship in which a man, although he is not needed at all by the other person, feels the need to devote himself to that other person, to be nice to them; and he discovered that he, Alyosha, was just such a man. He got to know about all this through the cook, Ustinya. Little Ustinya had been an orphan, and a hardworking child just like Alyosha. She began to feel sorry for Alyosha and Alyosha felt for the first time that he, he himself and not his services, was actually needed by another human being. When his mother had shown him that she was sorry for him, he had not really noticed it; it seemed to him that this was how things must be, that it was all one and the same, just as if he had been feeling sorry for himself. But now all of a sudden he realized that Ustinya was quite separate from him, but she did feel sorry for him and would leave him some buttery porridge at the bottom of the pot, and while he ate it she would rest her chin on her arm, the sleeve rolled up to her elbow, and watch him. And he would glance at her, and she would laugh, and then he would laugh too.

  All this was so new and strange to him that at first it quite frightened Alyosha. He felt it was preventing him from carrying out his duties as he used to do. But all the same he felt glad, and when he looked at his trousers which Ustinya had darned, he shook his head and smiled. Often when he was working or as he walked along, he would think of Ustinya and say ‘Oh yes, Ustinya!’ Ustinya helped him where she could, and he helped her. She told him all about her past life, how she had lost her parents, how her aunt took her in, then sent her to the town, how the merchant’s son had tried to talk her into doing something stupid, and how she had put him in his place. She loved talking, and he loved listening to her. He had heard that in towns it often happened that peasant workmen ended up marrying cooks. And on one occasion she asked him whether his family would soon be marrying him off. He said he didn’t know, and that he wasn’t keen to take a country girl for a wife.

  ‘Well then, who have you got your eye set on?’ she said.

  ‘Ah, I’d like to marry you, of course. Would you be willing to marry me?’

  ‘Just look at him, he may be only Alyosha the Pot, just a pot, but see how he’s contrived to speak out and say what he wanted,’ she said, giving him a whack on the back with the towel she was holding. ‘And why shouldn’t I marry you indeed?’

  At Shrovetide the old man came to town to collect his money. The merchant’s wife had heard how Alexei had hit on the idea that he was going to marry Ustinya, and she did not like it. ‘She’ll go and get pregnant, and what use will she be with a child?’ she said to her husband.

  The master paid over the money to Alexei’s father.

  ‘Well then, and how is the boy behaving himself?’ asked the peasant. ‘I told you he was a meek one.’

  ‘Meek or not meek, he’s thought up a thoroughly stupid scheme. He’s got it into his head that he’s going to marry the cook. But I’m not going to start employing married people. That sort of thing doesn’t suit us.’

  ‘He’s a fool, nothing but a fool. Look what he’s thought up here,’ said the father. ‘You wouldn’t credit it. I’ll tell him straight out he’s got to give up this notion.’

  Going into the kitchen, the father sat down at the table to wait for his son. Alyosha wa
s out running errands, and he was panting when he came in.

  ‘I thought you were a sensible lad. But now what’s this you’ve gone and thought up?’ said the father.

  ‘I haven’t thought up anything.’

  ‘What do you mean, you haven’t thought up anything? You’ve decided you want to get married. I’ll marry you off when the time’s right, and I’ll marry you off to the right person, and not to some town slut.’

  The father went on talking for some time. Alyosha stood there and sighed. When his father had finished talking, Alyosha smiled.

  ‘So I’m to give the whole thing up.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  When his father had gone and he was left alone with Ustinya, he said to her (she had been listening behind the door while the father was talking to his son):

  ‘Our plan wasn’t right, it didn’t work out. Did you hear him? He got real angry; he won’t allow it.’

  She said nothing, but burst into tears and buried her face in her apron.

  Alyosha made a clicking noise with his tongue.

  ‘It’s no use going against it. It’s clear we must just give the whole thing up.’

  That evening, when the merchant’s wife ordered him to close the shutters, she said to him:

  ‘Well then, did you listen to your father, and have you given up your silly notions?’

  ‘Stands to reason I’ve given them up,’ replied Alyosha; and he laughed, then immediately burst into tears.

  *

  From that time on Alyosha said nothing more to Ustinya about marriage, and he went on living as he had before.

  One day in Lent the steward sent him to clear the snow off the roof. He had climbed up on to the roof, and had got it clear and was just starting to pull away the frozen snow from the gutters, when his feet slipped, and he fell off the roof, holding the shovel. Unfortunately he landed not on the snow, but on the iron-covered entrance gate of the yard. Ustinya came running up, as did the master’s daughter.