And quiet flows the Don; a novel (23 page)

"Don't come near me, Mitka!"

"I won't now, but I'll come at night. By God, I'll come!"

Trembling, Natalya left the yard. That evening she made her bed on the chest, and took her younger sister to sleep with her. All night she tossed and turned, her burning eyes seeking to pierce the darkness, her ears alert for the slightest sound, ready to scream the house down. But the silence was broken only by the snores of Grishaka sleeping in the next room, and an occasional grunt from her sister.

The thread of days unwound in that constant inconsolable grief that only women know.

Mitka had not got over the shame of his recent attempt at marriage, and he went about morose and ill-tempered. He went out every evening and rarely arrived home again before dawn. He carried on with women who liked to amuse themselves while their husbands were soldiering and went to Stepan Astakhov's to play cards for stakes. His father watched

his behaviour, but said nothing for the time being.

Just before Easter, Natalya met Pantelei Prokofyevich outside Mokhov's shop. He called to her:

"Wait a moment!"

She halted. Her heart felt a pang of yearning as she saw her father-in-law's face, remotely reminding her of Grigory.

"Why don't you come and see us old folks, sometimes?" the old man asked her, giving her a quick look, as though he himself had been guilty of some offence against her. "The wife misses you. . . . Well, how are you getting on?"

Natalya recovered from her embarrassment. "Thank you .. ." she said, and after a moment's hesitation (she wanted to say "Father!"), she added: "Pantelei Prokofyevich, I've been very busy at home."

"Our Grisha ., . ah!" the old man shook his head bitterly. "He's let us down, the scoundrel. And we were getting on so well together."

"Oh well. Father," Natalya answered shrilly with a catch in her voice. "I suppose it wasn't to be."

Pantelei fidgeted in embarrassment as he saw Natalya's eyes fill. Her lips twisted in an effort to hold back her tears,

"Good-bye, my dear," he said, "Don't grieve

over him, the son of a bitch! He's not worth the nail on your little finger. Maybe he'll come back. I'd like to see him. I'd like to get at him."

Natalya walked away with her head sunk on her breast. Pantelei stood shifting from foot to foot as though about to break into a run. As she turned the comer Natalya glanced back; the old man was limping across the square, leaning heavily on his stick.

XVI

As spring approached, the meetings in Stockman's workshop were held less frequently. The villagers were preparing for the field work, and only Ivan Alexeyevich the engine-man and Knave came from the mill, bringing David with them. On Maundy Thursday they gathered at the workshop in the early evening. Stockman was sitting on his bench, filing a silver ring made from a fifty-kopeck piece. A sheaf of rays from the setting sun streamed through the window, forming a square of dusty yellowish-pink light on the floor. The engine-man picked up a pair of pincers and turned them over in his hand.

"I had to go to the master the other day to ask about a piston." he remarked, "It will have

to be taken to Millerovo, we can't mend it here. There's a crack in it this long." Ivan Alexeyevich measured the length of his little finger.

"There's a works at Millerovo, isn't there?" Stockman said, scattering a fine silver dust as he filed the coin.

"A steel foundry. I had to spend a few days there last year."

"Many workers?"

"I should say four hundred or thereabouts."

"And what are they like?" Stockman's tone was deliberate.

"They're well off. They're none of your pioletariat, they're muck."

"Why is that?" asked Knave, who was sitting next to Stockman, his stubby fingers clasped under his knees.

David, the mill-hand, his hair grey with flour dust, padded about the workshop, listening with a smile to the dry rustle of the shavings that he stirred up with his boots. He felt as if he were walking along a ravine deep in fallen scarlet leaves with the leaves giving easily and the damp turf springing youthfully underfoot.

"Because they're too well off. Each has his own little house, his wife, and every comfort. And a good half of them are Baptists into the bargain. The master himself is their preacher,

and they suck one another's noses, and the dirt on them is so thick you couldn't scrape it off with a hoe."

"Ivan Alexeyevich, what are these Baptists?" asked David, pouncing on the unfamiliar word.

"Baptists? They worship God in their own fashion. A kind of sect, like the Old Believers."

"Every fool goes crazy in his own fashion," added Knave.

"As I was saying, I went to see Sergei Pla-tonovich," Ivan Alexeyevich continued his story, "and Atyopin was there, so he told me to wait outside. I sat down and waited and heard them talking through the door. Mokhov was saying there- was going to be a war with the Germans very soon; he had read it in a book. But Atyopin said there couldn't be a war between Germany and Russia."

Ivan Alexeyevich so cleverly imitated Atyo-pin's lisp that David let out a short laugh, but, seeing Knave's sarcastic expression, immediately shut up.

" 'There can be no war with Germany because Germany's feeding on our grain,' " Ivan Alexeyevich continued to report the conversation he had overheard. "Then I heard a a third voice: I found out afterwards it was the officer, old Listnitsky's son. 'There will be a war,' he said, 'between Germany and France,

over the vineyards, but it has nothing to do with us.' What do you think, Osip Davydovich?" Ivan asked, turning to Stockman.

"I'm no good at prophecies," Stockman replied, staring fixedly at the ring in his outstretched hand.

"Once they do start we'll have to be in it too. Like it or not, they'll drag us there by the hair," Knave declared.

"It's like this, boys," Stockman said, gently taking the pincers out of the engineman's hands. He spoke seriously, evidently intending to explain the matter thoroughly. Knave seated himself comfortably on the bench, and David's lips shaped into an "O," revealing his strong teeth. In his concise vivid way Stockman outlined the struggle of the capitalist states for markets and colonies. When he had finished Ivan Alexeyevich asked indignantly:

"Yes, but where do we come in?"

"Your heads will ache from the drunken orgies of others," Stockman smiled.

"Don't talk like a kid," Knave said sarcastically. "You know the saying: 'When masters quarrel, the peasants' forelocks shake.' "

"Humph," Ivan Alexeyevich frowned as if he were trying to break down some great unyielding lump of thought.

"What's that Listnitsky always calling on

Mokhov for? After his daughter, eh?" David asked.

"The Korshunov brat has had a go there already," Knave interposed maliciously.

"Ivan Alexeyevich, can't you hear? What's that officer nosing around there for?" David repeated.

Ivan Alexeyevich started as if he had been struck behind the knees with a whiplash.

"Eh? What were you saying?"

"He's been having a nap! We're talking about Listnitsky."

"He was on his way to the station. Yes, and here's some more news. When I went out of the house I saw . . . who do you think? Grigory Melekhov! He was standing outside with a whip in his hand. 'What are you doing here, Grigory?' I says. 'Taking Lieutenant Listnitsky to Millerovo Station.' "

"He's Listnitsky's coachman," David explained.

"Picking the crumbs from the rich man's table."

"You're like a dog on a chain. Knave, you'd snarl at anyone,"

The conversation flagged. Ivan Alexeyevich rose to go.

"Hurrying off to service?" Knave got in g last dig.

"I do plenty of serving every day." Stockman accompanied his guests to the gate, then locked up the workshop and went into the house.

The night before Easter Sunday the sky was overcast with masses of black cloud, and rain began to fall. A raw darkness weighed on the village. At dusk the ice on the Don began to crack with a protracted, rolling groan, and squeezed by a mass of broken ice the first floe emerged from the water. The ice broke up all at once over a stretch of four versts, and drifted downstream. The floes crashed against one another and against the banks, while in the background the church bell rang measuredly for service. At the first bend, where the Don sweeps to the left, the ice was dammed up. The roar and clash of the bumping floes reached the village. A crowd of lads had gathered in the churchyard, which was already dotted with puddles. Through the open doors came the muffled tones of the service, and lights gleamed with festive brightness in the latticed windows, while in the darkness of the yard the lads tickled and kissed the girls, and whispered dirty stories to one another.

The churchwarden's lodge was crowded with Cossacks from villages all over the district. Weary with fatigue and the stuffiness of the

room, people slept on benches, even on the floor.

Men were sitting on the rickety steps, smoking and talking about the weather and the winter crops.

"When will your lot be going out in the fields?"

"Should be moving about Thomas' day, I reckon."

"That's all right for you, the land round your way is sandy."

"Some of it is, this side of the gully there's a salt marsh."

"The earth'll get plenty of moisture now."

"When we ploughed last year it was like gristle, hard and sticky all the way over."

"Dunya, where are you?" a high-pitched voice called from the steps of the lodge.

From the churchyard gate a rough throaty voice could be heard blustering: "A fine place to be kissing, you. . .. Get out of here, you dirty young brats. What an idea!"

"Can't you find a partner for yourself? Go and kiss the bitch in our yard," a wobbly young voice retorted from the darkness.

"Bitch?! I'll learn you. . . ."

A squelchy patter of running feet, a rustle of skirts.

Water dripped from the roof with a glassy tinkle; and again that slow voice, clinging as the muddy black earth:

"Been trying to buy a plough off Prokhor, offered him twelve rubles but he won't take it. He wouldn't let something go cheap, not him. . . ."

From the Don came a smooth swishing, rustling and crunching, as though a buxom wench, dressed-up and tall as a poplar, were passing by, her great skirts rustling.

At midnight, Mitka Korshunov, riding a horse bareback, clattered through the sticky darkness up to the church. He tied the bridle rein to the horse's mane, and gave her a smack on her steaming flanks. He listened to the squelch of the hoofs for a moment, then, adjusting his belt, he went into the churchyard. In the porch he removed his cap, bent his head devoutly, and thrusting aside the women, pressed up to the altar. The Cossacks were crowded in a black mass on the left; on the right was a motley throng of women. Mitka found his father in the front row, and gripping him by the elbow, whispered into his ear: "Father, come outside for a moment."

As he pushed his way out of the church through the dense curtain of mingled odours, Mitka's nostrils quivered. He was overwhelmed

I

by the vapour of burning wax, the odour of women's sweating bodies, the sepulchral stench of clothes brought out only at Christmas and Easter time, and the smell of damp leather, moth balls, and the windiness of fast-hungered bellies.

In the porch Mitka put his mouth close to his father's ear and said: "Natalya's dying."

XVII

Grigory returned on Palm Sunday from his journey with Yevgeny to the station. He found the thaw had eaten away the snow; the road had broken up within a couple of days.

At a Ukrainian village some twenty-five versts from the station he all but lost his horses as he was crossing a stream. He had arrived at the village early in the evening. During the previous night the ice had broken up and started moving, and the stream, swollen and foaming with muddy brown water, threatened the streets. The inn at which he had stopped to feed the horses on the way out lay on the farther side of the stream. The water might easily rise still higher during the night, and Grigory decided to cross.

He drove to the point where he had crossed the ice on the outward journey, and found the

m

stream had overflowed its banks. A piece of fencing and half a cartwheel were eddying in the middle. There were fresh traces oi sledge runners on the bare sand at the edge. He halted the sweating foam-flecked horses and jumped down to look at the marks more closely. At the water's edge the tracks turned a little to the left and disappeared into the stream. He measured the distance to the other side with his eyes: fifty paces at the most. He went to the horses to check the harness. At that moment an aged Ukrainian came towards him from the nearest hut.

"Is there a good crossing here?" Grigory asked him, waving his reins at the seething brown flood.

"Some folk crossed there this morning."

"Is it deep?"

"No. But it might splash into your sleigh."

Grigory gathered up the reins, and holding his knout ready, urged on the horses with a curt, imperative command. They moved unwillingly, snorting and snuffing at the water. Grigory cracked his whip and stood up on the seat.

The bay on the left tossed its head and suddenly pulled on the traces. Grigory glanced down at his feet; the water was swirling over the front of the sledge. At first the horses were

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wading up to their knees, but suddenly the stream rose to their breasts. Grigory tried to turn them back, but they refused to answer the rein and began to swim for it. The tail of the sledge was swung round by the current, and the horses' heads were forced upstream. The water flowed in waves over their backs, and the sledge rocked and pulled them back strongly.

"Hey! Hey! To the right!" the Ukrainian shouted, running along the bank and waving his fur cap.

In a wild fury Grigory kept shouting and urging on the horses. The water foamed in eddies behind the dragging sledge. The runners struck against a jutting pile, the remains of the bridge which had been swept away overnight, and the sledge turned over with extraordinary ease. With a gasp Grigory plunged in head first, but he did not lose his grip of the reins. While he was tossed about by the rocking sledge, the water dragged at his legs and the skirts of his sheepskin with gentle insistence. He succeeded in clutching a runner, dropped the reins, and hauled himself along hand over hand, making his way to the swingle-tree. He was about to seize the iron-shod end of the swingle-tree when the bay, in its struggle against the current, lashed out with