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Anton Chekhov's Peasants
I
II
III IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
VI Marya thought herself unhappy, and said that she would be very
glad to die; Fyokla, on the other hand, found all this life to
her taste: the poverty, the uncleanliness, and the incessant
quarrelling. She ate what was given her without discrimination;
slept anywhere, on whatever came to hand. She would empty the
slops just at the porch, would splash them out from the doorway,
and then walk barefoot through the puddle. And from the very
first day she took a dislike to Olga and Nikolay just because
they did not like this life.
"We shall see what you'll find to eat here, you Moscow gentry!"
she said malignantly. "We shall see!"
One morning, it was at the beginning of September, Fyokla,
vigorous, good-looking, and rosy from the cold, brought up two
pails of water; Marya and Olga were sitting meanwhile at the
table drinking tea.
"Tea and sugar," said Fyokla sarcastically. "The fine ladies!"
she added, setting down the pails. "You have taken to the
fashion of tea every day. You better look out that you don't
burst with your tea-drinking," she went on, looking with hatred
at Olga. "That's how you have come by your fat mug, having a
good time in Moscow, you lump of flesh!" She swung the yoke and
hit Olga such a blow on the shoulder that the two sisters-in-law
could only clasp their hands and say:
"Oh, holy Saints!"
Then Fyokla went down to the river to wash the clothes, swearing
all the time so loudly that she could be heard in the hut.
The day passed and was followed by the long autumn evening. They
wound silk in the hut; everyone did it except Fyokla; she had
gone over the river. They got the silk from a factory close by,
and the whole family working together earned next to nothing,
twenty kopecks a week.
"Things were better in the old days under the gentry," said the
old father as he wound silk. "You worked and ate and slept,
everything in its turn. At dinner you had cabbage-soup and
boiled grain, and at supper the same again. Cucumbers and
cabbage in plenty: you could eat to your heart's content, as
much as you wanted. And there was more strictness. Everyone
minded what he was about."
The hut was lighted by a single little lamp, which burned dimly
and smoked. When someone screened the lamp and a big shadow fell
across the window, the bright moonlight could be seen. Old Osip,
speaking slowly, told them how they used to live before the
emancipation; how in those very parts, where life was now so
poor and so dreary, they used to hunt with harriers, greyhounds,
retrievers, and when they went out as beaters the peasants were
given vodka; how whole waggonloads of game used to be sent to
Moscow for the young masters; how the bad were beaten with rods
or sent away to the Tver estate, while the good were rewarded.
And Granny told them something, too. She remembered everything,
positively everything. She described her mistress, a kind,
God-fearing woman, whose husband was a profligate and a rake,
and all of whose daughters made unlucky marriages: one married a
drunkard, another married a workman, the other eloped secretly
(Granny herself, at that time a young girl, helped in the
elopement), and they had all three as well as their mother died
early from grief. And remembering all this, Granny positively
began to shed tears.
All at once someone knocked at the door, and they all started.
"Uncle Osip, give me a night's lodging."
The little bald old man, General Zhukov's cook, the one whose
cap had been burnt, walked in. He sat down and listened, then
he, too, began telling stories of all sorts. Nikolay, sitting on
the stove with his legs hanging down, listened and asked
questions about the dishes that were prepared in the old days
for the gentry. They talked of rissoles, cutlets, various soups
and sauces, and the cook, who remembered everything very well,
mentioned dishes that are no longer served. There was one, for
instance -- a dish made of bulls' eyes, which was called "waking
up in the morning."
"And used you to do cutlets ?la mar?hal?" asked Nikolay.
"No."
Nikolay shook his head reproachfully and said:
"Tut, tut! You were not much of a cook!"
The little girls sitting and lying on the stove stared down
without blinking; it seemed as though there were a great many of
them, like cherubim in the clouds. They liked the stories: they
were breathless; they shuddered and turned pale with alternate
rapture and terror, and they listened breathlessly, afraid to
stir, to Granny, whose stories were the most interesting of all.
They lay down to sleep in silence; and the old people, troubled
and excited by their reminiscences, thought how precious was
youth, of which, whatever it might have been like, nothing was
left in the memory but what was living, joyful, touching, and
how terribly cold was death, which was not far off, better not
think of it! The lamp died down. And the dusk, and the two
little windows sharply defined by the moonlight, and the
stillness and the creak of the cradle, reminded them for some
reason that life was over, that nothing one could do would bring
it back. . . . You doze off, you forget yourself, and suddenly
someone touches your shoulder or breathes on your cheek -- and
sleep is gone; your body feels cramped, and thoughts of death
keep creeping into your mind. You turn on the other side: death
is forgotten, but old dreary, sickening thoughts of poverty, of
food, of how dear flour is getting, stray through the mind, and
a little later again you remember that life is over and you
cannot bring it back. . . .
"Oh, Lord!" sighed the cook.
Someone gave a soft, soft tap at the window. It must be Fyokla
come back. Olga got up, and yawning and whispering a prayer,
opened the door, then drew the bolt in the outer room, but no
one came in; only from the street came a cold draught and a
sudden brightness from the moonlight. The street, still and
deserted, and the moon itself floating across the sky, could be
seen at the open door.
"Who is there?" called Olga.
"I," she heard the answer -- "it is I."
Near the door, crouching against the wall, stood Fyokla,
absolutely naked. She was shivering with cold, her teeth were
chattering, and in the bright moonlight she looked very pale,
strange, and beautiful. The shadows on her, and the bright
moonlight on her skin, stood out vividly, and her dark eyebrows
and firm, youthful bosom were defined with peculiar
distinctness.
"The ruffians over there undressed me and turned me out like
this," she said. "I've come home without my clothes . . . naked
as my mother bore me. Bring me something to put on."
"But go inside!" Olga said softly, beginning to shiver, too.
"I don't want the old folks to see." Granny was, in fact,
already stirring and muttering, and the old father asked: "Who
is there?" Olga brought her own smock and skirt, dressed Fyokla,
and then both went softly into the inner room, trying not to
make a noise with the door.
"Is that you, you sleek one?" Granny grumbled angrily, guessing
who it was. "Fie upon you, nightwalker! . . . Bad luck to you!"
"It's all right, it's all right," whispered Olga, wrapping
Fyokla up; "it's all right, dearie."
All was stillness again. They always slept badly; everyone was
kept awake by something worrying and persistent: the old man by
the pain in his back, Granny by anxiety and anger, Marya by
terror, the children by itch and hunger. Now, too, their sleep
was troubled; they kept turning over from one side to the other,
talking in their sleep, getting up for a drink.
Fyokla suddenly broke into a loud, coarse howl, but immediately
checked herself, and only uttered sobs from time to time,
growing softer and on a lower note, until she relapsed into
silence. From time to time from the other side of the river
there floated the sound of the beating of the hours; but the
time seemed somehow strange -- five was struck and then three.
"Oh Lord!" sighed the cook.
Looking at the windows, it was difficult to tell whether it was
still moonlight or whether the dawn had begun. Marya got up and
went out, and she could be heard milking the cows and saying,
"Stea-dy!" Granny went out, too. It was still dark in the hut,
but all the objects in it could be discerned.
Nikolay, who had not slept all night, got down from the stove.
He took his dress-coat out of a green box, put it on, and going
to the window, stroked the sleeves and took hold of the
coat-tails -- and smiled. Then he carefully took off the coat,
put it away in his box, and lay down again.
Marya came in again and began lighting the stove. She was
evidently hardly awake, and seemed dropping asleep as she
walked. Probably she had had some dream, or the stories of the
night before came into her mind as, stretching luxuriously
before the stove, she said:
"No, freedom is better."
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