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when Syery presented himself. And he really was entertaining to listen to.
"He is valiant, so far as words go," people said of Syery. And it was true: if he were at ease in his mind—and he was at ease when his pouch was filled with tobacco—what an active, serious peasant Syery could appear to be!
"Well, now, 'tis time to marry off my son," he argued in leisurely fashion, as he held his pipe between his teeth and ground the stalks of the coarse tobacco by strong rubbing in his palms. "If he gets married, he'll bring every kopek home, he will become eager for work, he'll take to digging round about the house as a beetle burrows in a dung-heap. And we're not afraid of work, brother! Only give us a chance!"
But Syery almost never had either peace of mind or work. His appearance justified his nickname: he was grey, lean, of medium stature, with sloping shoulders; his short coat was extremely short, tattered, and dirty; his felt boots were broken and their soles were made of rope; as for his cap, it is not worth mentioning at all. As he sat in his cottage, with this cap eternally on his head, his pipe never removed from his mouth, and anxiously meditated upon something or other, he had the appearance of living in imminent vague expectation. But, according to his own statement, he had devilish bad luck. Nothing worth while ever came his way. Well, and he didn't care about playing jackstraws—taking chances. Every one was on the watch to condemn a man, of
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course. " 'Tis well known that the tongue can break bones, though it has none itself," Syery was wont to remark. "Do you first place the job in my hand, and then you can jabber."
He had a fairly large amount of land—three des-yatini. But he was taxed for ten. And Syery no longer put a hand to his land: "You simply have to give it up, that land: dear heart, it ought to be kept in proper order, but where's the order here?" He himself planted no more than half a field, and even the grain in that he sold standing—he "got rid of the unwelcome for the welcome." And again he had a reason ready: "Only wait to see what comes of it —just you try it!"
" Tis always better, for example, to await the upshot of anything," muttered Yakoff with a sidelong glance and a malicious laugh.
But Syery laughed also, sadly and scornfully. "Yes, 'tis better!" he grinned. "It's all well enough for you to chatter nonsense: you've got a husband for your girl, and married off your son. But just look at me and the lot of small children who sit in the corner at my house. They don't belong to other folks, you see. And I keep a goat for them, and I'm fattening a young pig. They have to have food and drink, don't they?"
"Well, but a goat is nothing new, for example, in such cases," retorted Yakoff, getting angry. "The trouble with you is, for example, that you think of nothing but vodka and tobacco, tobacco and vodka." And, in order to avoid a senseless quarrel with his neighbour, he hastened to get away from Syery.
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But Syery calmly and practically shouted after him: "A drunkard will come to his senses, brother, but a fool never will."
After sharing his property with his brother, Syery had wandered about for a long time, living in hired lodgings, and had got jobs in the town and on divers estates. He also went to work on the clover. And, on that job, luck one day came his way. An organized gang of workmen which Syery had joined engaged themselves to get in a large crop at eighty kopeks a pud, 1 but behold, the crop turned out twice as heavy as had been calculated. They winnowed it, and Syery was hired to run the machine. He drove some of the grain out through the waste-spout and bought it. And he grew rich: that same autumn he built a brick cottage. But his calculations had been faulty: it turned out that the cottage must be heated. And where was the money to come from? that was the question. Why, there was not even enough to provide food. So it became necessary to burn the top of the cottage; and there it stood, roofless, for a year, and turned completely black. And the chimney went for the price of a horse-collar. There were no horses as yet, it is true; but, naturally, one must begin to fit oneself out some time or other. And Syery let his arms fall by his side in despair: he decided to sell the cottage, to build a cheaper one of beaten clay. His argument ran as follows: There must be in the cottage—well, at the very least, ten thousand bricks; he could sell them for five or even six rubles a thousand; the sum-
1 Thirty-six pounds.— trans.
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total, of course, would be about one hundred and fifty rubles. But it turned out that there were only three thousand five hundred bricks, and he was forced to accept two rubles and a half for each girder, instead of five rubles. And for a long time a bare mound of rubbish occupied the site of the splendid cottage, solidifying under the rain: there was no money available for clearing it away, and one's hands simply refused to undertake the task. Yakoff harangued on the subject: "Matters ought, for example, to have been more cheaply managed from the start." "But, devil take it," Syery said to himself, "a cheap thing doesn't last long, does it?" And, much troubled in mind, he proceeded to look up a new cottage—and spent a whole year in bargaining for precisely those which were beyond his means. He had reconciled himself to his present domicile merely in the firm expectation of a future cottage which should be strong, spacious, and warm.
"I simply don't intend to live on here!" he snapped one day.
YakofT stared at him attentively and shook his cap. "Exactly so. That means you are expecting your ships to come in?"
"They'll come, all right," replied Syery mysteriously.
"Of, drop your nonsense," said YakofT. "Get yourself a place somewhere—anywhere you can—and keep your teeth, for example, in their proper place."
But the thought of a fine farmstead, good order,
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some suitable, real work, poisoned Syery's entire life. He got bored when working in a place.
"Evidently, working at home isn't as sweet as honey, either," said his neighbours.
"Never you mind, it might be honey-sweet if the house were managed sensibly!"
"Just so. And will you take a place by the month, or until the working season?"
"I'll get one, never fear. Oversight is needed at home, isn't it?"
"But all you do is to sit in the house and smoke your pipe."
"What am I to do, then? can't I even smoke?"
And Syery, suddenly becoming animated, jerked the cold pipe out of his mouth and began his favourite story: how, while still a bachelor, he had lived two full years honestly and nobly at the house of a priest near Eletz. "Yes, and if I were to go there this minute, they would fairly tear me to pieces with joy!" he exclaimed. "I need say only one word: 'I've come, papa, to work for you—will you take me or not?' 'But why do you ask that, light of my life? Don't I know you? Yes, good Lord, live here with us for ever and ever, if you will'!"
"Well, and you might go there, for example—"
"I might go there! Look at them—all those brats in the corner! We know all about that; 'tis another man's grief, I'll not meddle. But a man is being wasted here, in vain."
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SYERY was being wasted, in vain, this year also. He had sat at home all winter long, with care-worn countenance, without light, cold and hungry. During the Great Fast (Lent), he had managed somehow or other to get a place with Rusanoff, near Tula: no one in his own neighbourhood would any longer give him a place. But before the month was out, RusanofT's establishment had become more repulsive to him than a bitter radish.
"Of, young fellow!" the manager once remarked to him. "I can see right through you: you are picking a quarrel so that you can take to your heels. Here, you dog, here's your money in advance, and now be off with you into the bushes!"
"Perhaps some sort of vagabond might take himself off, but not me," retorted Syery sharply.
But the manager did not understand the hint. And it became necessary to adopt more decisive means. One day Syery was set to hauling in some husks for the cattle. He went to the threshing-floor and began to load a cart with straw. The manager came
along:
"Didn't I tell you, in good plain Russian, to load up with husks?"
"'Tis not the right time to load them," replied Syery firmly.
"Why not?"
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"Sensible farmers give husks for dinner, not at night."
"And how do you come to be a teacher?"
"I don't like to starve the cattle. That's all there is to my being a teacher."
"But you are hauling straw."
"One must know the proper time for everything."
"Stop loading this very minute."
Syery turned pale. "No, I won't stop my work. I can't stop my work."
"Hand me over that fork, you dog, and get out, lest worse happen."
"I'm no dog, but a baptized Christian man. When I've driven in this load, I'll get out. And I'll go for good."
"Well, brother, that's not likely! You'll go away, and pretty soon you'll be back again—and get locked up in the county jail."
Syery leaped from the cart and hurled his pitchfork into the straw: "I'm going to be locked up, am I?"
"Yes, you are!"
"Hey, young fellow, see that you don't get locked up yourself! As if we didn't know something about you! The master has nothing good to say about you, either, brother—"
The manager's fat cheeks became suffused with dark blood, his eyeballs protruded until they seemed all whites. With the back of his wrist he thrust his peaked cap over on the nape of his neck and, drawing a deep breath, he rapidly ejaculated: "A—ah! So that's the
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way of it! Hasn't a good word to say of me? Tell me, if that's the case—why not?"
"I have nothing to say," mumbled Syery, feeling his legs instantaneously grow cold with fear.
"Yes, you have, brother: you're talking nonsense— you'll tell!"
"Well, and what became of the flour?" suddenly shouted Syery.
"The flour? What flour?"
"The stolen flour. From the mill."
The manager seized Syery by the collar in a deathlike grip, fit to suffocate him, and for the space of a moment the two stood stock still.
"What do you mean by it—grabbing a man like that, by his shirt?" calmly inquired Syery. "Do you want co choke me?" Then, all of a sudden, he began to squeak furiously: "Come on, thrash me, thrash while your heart is hot!" And with a jerk he wrenched himself free and seized his pitchfork.
"Come on, men!" the manager yelled, although there was no one anywhere .in the vicinity. "Help the manager! Hearken to this: he tried to stab me to death, the dog!"
"Don't come near me, or I'll break your nose," said Syery, balancing his pitchfork. "Don't forget, times are not what they used to be!"
But at this point the manager made a wide sweep with his arm, and Syery flew headlong into the straw.
The melancholy which had once more begun to take powerful effect on Kuzma along with the change in weather, went on constantly increasing in force in pro-
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portion to his closer acquaintance with Durnovka, with Syery. At first the latter was merely sad and ridiculous: what a stupid man! Then he became irritating and repulsive: a degenerate! All summer long he had sat on the doorstep of his cottage smoking, waiting for favours from the Duma. All the autumn he had roamed from farmstead to farmstead, in the hope of attaching himself to some one who was bound for the clover work. On a hot, sunny day a new grain-rick on the edge of the village took fire. Syery was the first person to present himself at the conflagration, where he shouted himself hoarse, singed his eye-lashes off, and got drenched to the skin directing the water-carriers and the men who, pitchforks in hand, flung themselves into the huge rosy-golden flame, dragging out in all directions the blazing thatches, and those who merely dashed about in the midst of the fire, the crackling flames, the gushing water, the uproar, the holy pictures, casks, and spinning-wheels heaped up near the cottages, the sobbing women, and the showers of blackened leaves scattered abroad from the burnt bushes. But what did he do that was practical? In October, when, after inundating rains and an icy storm, the pond froze over and a neighbour's boar-pig slipped from an ice-clad mound, broke through the ice, and began to drown, Syery was the first to arrive at full speed, leap into the water, and save it. But why? In order that he might be the hero of the day, that he might have the right to rush from the pond into the servants' hall, demand vodka, tobacco, and a bite to eat. At first he was all purple; his teeth were chatter-
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ing; he could barely move his white lips as he dressed himself from head to foot in some one else's clothes— Koshel's. Then he became animated, got intoxicated, began to brag—and once more narrated how he had served honestly, nobly, at a priest's, and how cleverly he had married off his daughter several years previously. He sat at the table greedily devouring chunks of raw ham and announcing in self-satisfied wise:
"Good. Matriushka, my girl, you see, had been making up to that Yegor. Well, she made eyes at him and made up to him. Nothing happened. One evening I was sitting, so, near the window, when I saw Yegor walk past the cottage once, then again—and that daughter of mine keeps diving, diving toward the window. That signifies, says I to myself, that they've settled matters. And I said to my wife: 'Do you go give the cattle their fodder: I'm off, summoned to the village assembly.' I set myself down on the straw behind the cottage, and there I sat and waited. And the first snow began to fall. And I saw Yegorka come sneaking along again. And she was on hand too. They went behind the cellar-house; then—they whisked into the cottage, the new empty one alongside. I waited a bit—"
"A nice story!" remarked Kuzma, with an embarrassed laugh.
But Syery took that for praise, for enthusiasm over his cleverness and craft. And, feeling himself a hero, he went on, now raising his voice, now viciously lowering it: "So there I sat and listened, and waited to find out what would happen next. So, as I was say-
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ing, I waited a bit—then after them I went. I leaped over the threshold—and straight at her, and seized her! Weren't they frightened, though—horribly! He tumbled flat on the floor, as limp as a sack—helpless enough for any one to cut his throat—while she went off in a faint—lay there like a dead duck. 'Well/ says he, 'now thrash me.' That was what he said. 'I don't ne-ed to thrash you,' says I. I took his coat, and I took his waistcoat, too—left him in his drawers only—pretty nearly in the condition when his mother gave him birth. 'Now,' says I, 'get out, go wherever you please.' And I myself set out for my house. I looked round—and he was behind me. The snow was white, and he was white, and he was sniffling. He had no place to go—whither could he run? But my Matryona Mikolavna rushes off to the fields the minute I am out of the cottage! She went at a lively pace— a woman neighbour had difficulty in grabbing her by the sleeve when she had got almost to Basovka, and brought her to me. I let her rest a while, then I said: 'We are poor folks, ain't we?' She said never a word. 'And your mother—is she a poor wretch, or is she a decent woman?' No answer. 'You've put us to shame. Hey, haven't you? What do you mean by it—are you thinking you'll fill my house with that sort, with your bastards—and I'm to shut my eyes to what's going on? Seeing how poor we are, you ought to watch what you're about, and not make us a laughing-stock, dragging your maiden braids all over the place—you trash!' Then I began to tan her hide—I had a fine suitable little whip on hand. Well, to say it simply,
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I cut up her whole body to such a degree that she slid down at my feet and kissed my felt boots, while he sat up on the bench and yelled. Then I began on him, the dear man—"
"And did he marry her?" inquired Kuzma.
"I should say he did!" exclaimed Syery; and, conscious that intoxication was getting the better of him, he began to scrape up the fragments of ham from the platter and stuff them into the pockets of his breeches. "And what a wedding we made of it! As for the expense, I don't have to blink my eyes over that, brother!"
W
VI
64 " TJ JELL, that was a fine tale!" Kuzma meditated within himself, for a long time after that evening. And the weather turned bad, to boot. He did not feel like writing; his melancholy increased in strength. The poverty and lack of practical common sense on the part of Syery and Den-iska amazed him: the village was rotting! The beastly tale of the Bride's experience in the orchard, the death of Rodka, stupefied him. The life of Tikhon Hitch astonished him. And it certainly took a good deal to astonish him! Didn't he know his country, his people? With grief and anger he poured out his heart to Tikhon Hitch, exhorted him, stung him. But if Tikhon Hitch had only known with what joy Kuzma
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rushed to the window when he espied on the porch his overcoat, his peaked cap, and his grey beard! How afraid he was lest his brother would not spend the night with him, how he tried to detain him as long as possible, dragged him into discussions, reminiscences! Kuzma found the situation tiresome late in the autumn; ugh, how boresome! The sole joy he had was when some one presented himself with a petition. Gololoby from Baskova came several times—a peasant with a perfectly bald head and a huge cap—to write a complaint against his daughter's father-in-law for breaking his collar-bone. The widow Butylotchka came from the promontory to have a letter written to her son; and she was a mass of rags, wet through and icy cold with the rain. She was tearful when she began to dictate.
The village. [Translation from the original Russian text by Isabel Hapgood] Page 17
