In the Ravine
- A.P. Chekhov
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Old Tsybukin went to the town for a short
time. Someone told Aksinya that he had gone to the notary to
make his will and that he was leaving Butyokino, the very place
where she had set up a brickyard, to Nikifor, his grandson. She
was informed of this in the morning when old Tsybukin and
Varvara were sitting near the steps under the birch-tree,
drinking their tea. She closed the shop in the front and at the
back, gathered together all the keys she had, and flung them at
her father-in-law's feet.
"I am not going on working for you," she began in a loud voice,
and suddenly broke into sobs. "It seems I am not your
daughter-in-law, but a servant! Everybody's jeering and saying,
'See what a servant the Tsybukins have got hold of!' I did not
come to you for wages! I am not a beggar, I am not a slave, I
have a father and mother."
She did not wipe away her tears, she fixed upon her
father-in-law eyes full of tears, vindictive, squinting with
wrath; her face and neck were red and tense, and she was
shouting at the top of her voice.
"I don't mean to go on being a slave!" she went on. "I am worn
out. When it is work, when it is sitting in the shop day in and
day out, scurrying out at night for vodka -- then it is my
share, but when it is giving away the land then it is for that
convict's wife and her imp. She is mistress here, and I am her
servant. Give her everything, the convict's wife, and may it
choke her! I am going home! Find yourselves some other fool, you
damned Herods!"
Tsybukin had never in his life scolded or punished his children,
and had never dreamed that one of his family could speak to him
rudely or behave disrespectfully; and now he was very much
frightened; he ran into the house and there hid behind the
cupboard. And Varvara was so much flustered that she could not
get up from her seat, and only waved her hands before her as
though she were warding off a bee.
"Oh, Holy Saints! what's the meaning of it?" she muttered in
horror. "What is she shouting? Oh, dear, dear! . . . People will
hear! Hush. Oh, hush!"
"He has given Butyokino to the convict's wife," Aksinya went on
bawling. "Give her everything now, I don't want anything from
you! Let me alone! You are all a gang of thieves here! I have
seen my fill of it, I have had enough! You have robbed folks
coming in and going out; you have robbed old and young alike,
you brigands! And who has been selling vodka without a licence?
And false money? You've filled boxes full of false coins, and
now I am no more use!"
A crowd had by now collected at the open gate and was staring
into the yard.
"Let the people look," bawled Aksinya. "I will shame you all!
You shall burn with shame! You shall grovel at my feet. Hey!
Stepan," she called to the deaf man, "let us go home this
minute! Let us go to my father and mother; I don't want to live
with convicts. Get ready!"
Clothes were hanging on lines stretched across the yard; she
snatched off her petticoats and blouses still wet and flung them
into the deaf man's arms. Then in her fury she dashed about the
yard by the linen, tore down all of it, and what was not hers
she threw on the ground and trampled upon.
"Holy Saints, take her away," moaned Varvara. "What a woman!
Give her Butyokino! Give it her, for the Lord's sake!
"Well! Wha-at a woman!" people were saying at the gate. "She's a
wo-oman! She's going it -- something like!"
Aksinya ran into the kitchen where washing was going on. Lipa
was washing alone, the cook had gone to the river to rinse the
clothes. Steam was rising from the trough and from the caldron
on the side of the stove, and the kitchen was thick and stifling
from the steam. On the floor was a heap of unwashed clothes, and
Nikifor, kicking up his little red legs, had been put down on a
bench near them, so that if he fell he should not hurt himself.
Just as Aksinya went in Lipa took the former's chemise out of
the heap and put it in the trough, and was just stretching out
her hand to a big ladle of boiling water which was standing on
the table.
"Give it here," said Aksinya, looking at her with hatred, and
snatching the chemise out of the trough; "it is not your
business to touch my linen! You are a convict's wife, and ought
to know your place and who you are."
Lipa gazed at her, taken aback, and did not understand, but
suddenly she caught the look Aksinya turned upon the child, and
at once she understood and went numb all over.
"You've taken my land, so here you are!" Saying this Aksinya
snatched up the ladle with the boiling water and flung it over
Nikifor.
After this there was heard a scream such as had never been heard
before in Ukleevo, and no one would have believed that a little
weak creature like Lipa could scream like that. And it was
suddenly silent in the yard.
Aksinya walked into the house with her old nave smile. . . .
The deaf man kept moving about the yard with his arms full of
linen, then he began hanging it up again, in silence, without
haste. And until the cook came back from the river no one
ventured to go into the kitchen and see what was there.
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