And quiet flows the Don; a novel (22 page)

Venyamin was a half-witted, swarthy young peasant, with a shock of thick black hair. He had been in Listnitsky's service for six years. When he first had to wait on the general it made him feel sick to watch the old man

spitting out the chewed food. But he got used to it.

The other inhabitants of the estate were the cook Lukerya, the ancient stableman Sashka, and the shepherd Tikhon. From the very first the flabby pock-marked Lukerya, who with her huge bottom looked like a yellow lump of un-risen dough, would not allow Aksinya near the stove.

"You can cook when the master takes on extra workers in the summer. Now I can manage by myself,"

Aksinya was set to work washing the floors of the house three times a week, feeding the innumerable fowls, and keeping the fowl-house clean. She worked with a will, trying to please everyone, even the cook. Grigory spent much of his time in the spacious log-built stables with Sashka the stableman. The old man was one mass of grey hair, but everybody still familiarly called him "Sashka." Probably even old Listnitsky, for whom he had worked more than twenty years, had forgotten his surname. In his youth Sashka had been the coachman, but as he grew old and feeble and his sight began to fail he was made stableman. Stocky, covered with greenish-grey hair (even the hair on his hands was grey), with a nose that had been flattened by a club in his youth, he wore

an everlasting childish smile and gazed out on the world with blinking artless eyes. The apostolic expression of his face was marred by his broken nose and his hanging scarred un-derlip.

In his army days Sashka had once got drunk and taken by mistake a swill of aqua regia instead of vodka. The fiery liquid had welded his lower lip to his chin, leaving a crooked glowing pink scar. Sashka was fond of vodka, and when he was in his cups he would strut about the yard as though he were master. Stamping his feet, he would stand under old Listnitsky's bedroom and call loudly and sternly: '

"Mikolai 'Lexeyevich! Mikolai Xexeyevich!"

If old Listnitsky happened to be in his bedroom he would come to the window.

"You're drunk, you good-for-nothing!" he would thunder.

Sashka would hitch up his trousers, and wink and smile. His smile danced diagonally right across his face, from his puckered left eye to the pink scar trailing from the right corner of his mouth; it was a crooked smile but a pleasant one.

"Mikolai 'Lexeyevich, Your Excellency, I know you!" he would wag his lean, dirty finger threateningly.

"Go and sleep it off!" his master would smile pacifyingly, twisting his drooping moustache with all five nicotine-stained fingers.

"You can't take me in!" the stableman would laugh, going up to the railings of the fence. "Mikolai 'Lexeyevich, you're like me. You and me-we know each other like a fish knows water. You and me, we're rich. Ah!" Here he would fling his arms wide open to show how rich. "We're known by everybody, all over the Don District, We,,.." Sashka's voice would suddenly grow mournful and ingratiating: "Me and you-Your Excellency, everything's all right, only we've both got rotting noses,"

"Why is that?" his master would ask, turning purple with laughter and twitching his moustache,

"Through vodka!" Sashka would bark out the words, blinking rapidly and licking his lips. "Don't drink, Mikolai 'Lexeyevich, or we'll go broke-you and me. We'll drink everything away!"

"Go and drink this away!" old Listnitsky would throw out a twenty-kopeck piece, and Sashka would catch it and hide it in his cap, crying: i

"Well, good-bye. General,"

"Have you watered the horses yet?" his

master would ask with a smile, knowing what was coming.

"Oh, you lousy devil! You son of a swine!" Sashka would turn livid, and his voice would crack with anger. "Sashka forget to water the horses? Eh? Even if I was dead I'd still crawl for a pail to water the horses. And he thinks. .,."

The old man would march off fuming at the undeserved reproach, cursing and shaking his fist. Everything he did was forgiven, even drinking and his familiarity with his master. He was indispensable as a stableman. Winter and summer he slept in the stables, in an empty stall. He was stableman and horse-doctor; he gathered herbs for the horses in the spring, and dug up medicinal roots in the steppe and in the valleys. Bunches of dried herbs hung high up on the stable walls: milfoil to cure heaves, snake-eye grass as an antidote for adder-bite, blackleaf for the feet, a small white herb that grows at the root of the willow to treat sores, and many other little-known remedies for all the various ailments and diseases of horses.

Winter and summer, a subtle throat-tickling aroma hung like a fine-spun web about the stall in which Sashka slept. Hay packed as

hard as a board, covered with a horse-cloth, and his coat, smelling of horse sweat, served as mattress and bedding to his plank-bed. The coat and a sheepskin were all the old man's worldly goods.

Tikhon, a huge, dull-witted Cossack, lived with Lukerya, and secretly nursed a quite needless jealousy of her and Sashka, Once every month he would take the old man by the button of his greasy shirt and lead him round to the back of the house.

"Old man, don't you set your cap at my woman,"

"That depends ..." Sashka would wink significantly.

"Keep off her!" Tikhon begged.

"I like 'em pock-marked, lad. I don't need vodka if you can give me a pock-marked wench. The more pock-marked they are the fonder they are of us menfolk, the hussies."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself at your age,... And you a doctor, too; you look after the horses, you know all the secrets."

"I can do all kinds of doctoring," Sashka persisted.

"Keep off her, grandad. It's wrong,"

"I'll get that Lukerya one of these days, lad, I'll have her, my lad. You can say good-bye to Lukerya, I'll be taking her away from you.

She's like a currant pie, only with the currants picked out. That's the kind for me!"

"Don't let me catch you or I'll kill you!" Tikhon would say, sighing and drawing some copper coins out of his pocket.

And so it went on month after month.

Life mouldered away in a sleepy torpor at Yagodnoye, The estate lay in a valley remote from all frequented roads, and from the autumn onward all communication with the neighbouring villages was broken. In the winter nights the wolf packs emerged from their forest lairs and terrified the horses with their howling. Tikhon used to go to the meadow to frighten them off with his master's double-barrelled gun, and Lukerya, wrapping her ample bottom in her rough blanket, would wait in suspense for the sound of the shots, her little eyes disappearing into her greasy pockmarked cheeks. At such times her imagination transformed the ugly bald-headed Tikhon into a handsome and reckless youth, and when the door of the servants' quarters slammed and Tikhon entered in a cloud of steam, she made room for him on the bed and, cooing affectionately, warmly embraced her frozen mate.

In summer-time Yagodnoye hummed till late at night with the voices of labourers. The master sowed some forty dessiatines with various

crops, and hired labourers to harvest them. Occasionally Yevgeny came home, and would stroll through the orchard and over the meadow, and feel bored. The mornings he spent fishing in the pond. Plump^chested and of medium height, he wore a forelock Cossack fashion on the right side of his head. His officer's tunic fitted him snugly.

During the first days of Grigory's life on the estate he was frequently in the young master's company. One day Venyamin came smiling into the servants' quarters and, bowing his fuzzy head, announced:

"The young master wants you, Grigory."

Grigory, as on many other occasions, went to Yevgeny's room and stood at the door. The master pointed to a chair. Grigory seated himself on the very edge.

"How do you like our horses?"

"They're good horses. The grey is fine."

"Give him plenty of exercise, but don't gallop him."

"So Grandad Sashka told me."

"What about Sturdy?"

"The bay? He's a fine horse. Shoe's loose though, I'll have to get him reshod."

Screwing up his piercing grey eyes, the young master said: "You have to go to the training camp in May, don't you?"

"Yes."

"I'll speak to the ataman about it. You won't have to go."

"Thank you, sir."

There was a momentary silence. Unbuttoning the collar of his uniform, Yevgeny scratched his womanishly white chest.

"Aren't you afraid of Aksinya's husband taking her from you?"

"He's thrown her over; he won't take her back."

"How do you know?"

"I saw one of the men from the village the other day when I went there for nails. He told me Stepan was drinking hard. Says he doesn't want Aksinya any more, thinks he'll find someone hotter."

"Aksinya's a fine-looking woman," Listni-tsky remarked thoughtfully, staring over Gri-gory's head with something licentious in his smile.

"Not bad," Grigory agreed, and his face clouded.

Yevgeny's furlough was nearly over. He no longer wore a sling and could bend his arm freely.

During the last few days of his stay Yevgeny spent a great deal of his time in Gri-gory's room. Aksinya had whitewashed the

dirt-caked walls, scrubbed the window-frames, and scoured the floor with broken brick. There was a feminine warmth and cosiness in the cheerful empty little room. The officer, his short, fashionably-out coat thrown over his shoulders, chose times for his visits when Gri-gory was occupied with the horses. He would first go into the kitchen, stand joking with Lukerya for a minute or two, then pass into the farther room. He would sit down on a stool, hunching his shoulders, and fix a shamelessly smiling gaze on Aksinya. She was embarrassed by his presence, and the knitting-needles trembled in her fingers.

"Well, Aksinya, how are you getting on?" he would ask, puffing at his cigarette until the room was filled with blue smoke.

"Very well, thank you." Aksinya would raise her eyes, and meeting the lieutenant's transparent gaze, silently telling of his desire, she turned crimson. That naked stare of his was unpleasant and annoying. She replied disconnectedly to his questions, avoiding his eyes and seeking an opportunity to leave the room.

"I must go and feed the ducks now,"

"There's no hurry. The ducks can wait," he smiled, and his legs trembled in his tight riding breeches, and he continued to ply her with questions concerning her past life, using the

deep tones of his voice, which was like his father's and pleading lewdly with his crystal-clear eyes.

When Grigory came in, the fire would die out of Yevgeny's eyes and he would offer him a cigarette, leaving soon after.

"What did he want?" Grigory would ask Aksinya, not looking at her.

"How should I know?" Remembering the officer's look, Aksinya would laugh forcedly. "He came in and just sat there like this, Gri-sha," (she showed him how Yevgeny had sat with hunched back) "and sat and sat until I was sick of him."

"Did you ask him in?" Grigory's eyes would narrow angrily,

"What do I need him for?"

"You watch out, or I'll kick him down the steps one day."

Aksinya would gaze at Grigory with a smile on her lips, and not be sure whether he was speaking in jest or earnest.

XV

The winter broke up during the fourth week of Lent. Open water began to fringe the edges of the Don; the ice, melting from the top, turned grey and swelled spongily. In the evening

a low murmur came from the hills, indicating frost according to the time-honoured saying, but in reality the thaw was already on its way. In the morning the air tingled with the light frost, but by noon the earth was bare in patches, and in the nostrils was the scent of March, of the frozen bark, of cherry-trees, and rotting straw.

Miron Korshunov took his time preparing for the ploughing season, spending the lengthening days in the shed sharpening the teeth of the harrows and repairing cartwheels. Old Grishaka usually fasted in the fourth week of Lent, He would come home from church, blue with cold, and complain to his daughter-in-law Lukinichna:

"That priest makes me sick. He's no good. He's as slow with the service as a carter with a load of eggs."

"You'd have been wiser to have fasted during Passion Week, it's warmer by then."

"Call Natalya," he replied. "I'll get her to make me a pair of warmer stockings."

Natalya still lived in the belief that Grigory would return to her; her heart longed and waited for him, and would not listen to the warning whisper of sober reason. She spent the nights in weary yearning, tossing on her bed, crushed by her undeserved and unexpect-

ed shame. Another woe was now added to the first, and she awaited its sequel in cold terror, fluttering about in her maiden room like a wounded lapwing in a forest glade. From the earliest days of her return home her brother Mitka had begun to give her odd glances, and one day, catching her in the porch, he asked frankly:

"Still hankering after Grisha?"

"What's it got to do with you?"

"I want to cheer you up."

Natalya glanced into his eyes and was terrified by what she saw there. Mitka's green cat's eyes glittered and their slits gleamed greasily in the dim light of the porch. Natalya slammed the door and ran to her grandfather's room, where she stood listening to the wild beating of her heart. The next day Mitka came up to her in the yard. He had been tui^ning over fresh hay for the cattle, and green stalks of grass hung from his straight hair and his fur cap, Natalya was chasing the dogs away from the pigs' trough.

"Don't fret yourself, Natalya...."

"I'll tell Father," she cried, raising her hands to protect herself.

"You're an idiot!"

"Keep away, you beast!"

"What are you shouting for?"

"Go away, Mitka! I'll go at once and tell Father. How dare you look at me like that? Have you no shame! It's a wonder the earth doesn't open and swallow you up."

"Well, it doesn't, does it?" Mitka stamped with his boots to confirm the statement and edged up to her.