And quiet flows the Don; a novel Read online

Her lashes flickered in alarm, but she took the fish.

  "Well, I'm going."

  Holding the fish by the willow twig Mitka had fixed through their gills, she turned miserably away. Gone were her recent assurance and gaiety, left behind in the hawthorn bushes.

  "Liza!"

  She turned round, surprise and irritation in her frown.

  "Come back a minute."

  And when she came closer he said, annoyed at his own embarrassment, "We were a bit care-

  less. Your dress at the back ... there's a stain on it. It's only a little one.. . ."

  A hot flush spread over her face and neck. After a moment's silence, Mitka advised: "Go by the back ways,"

  "I'll have to pass through the square in any case. ... I meant to put my black skirt on," she whispered, looking at Mitka with regret and sudden hatred.

  "Let me green it a bit with a leaf," Mitka suggested simply, and was surprised to see the tears come into her eyes.

  Like the rustling whisper of a summer breeze the news flew round the village. "Mitka Kor-shunov's been out all night with Sergei Plato-novich's daughter." The women talked about it as they drove out the cattle to join the village herd in the morning, as they stood in the narrow shade of the well-sweeps with the grey dust swirling round them and water dripping from their buckets, or as they beat out their washing on the flat stones down by the river.

  "Her own mother's dead you know."

  "Her father never has a minute to spare, and her stepmother just doesn't trouble."

  "The watchman says he saw a man tapping at the end window at midnight. He thought at first it was someone trying to break in. He ran to see who it waS/ and found it was Mitka."

  "The girls these days, I don't know what they're coming to."

  "Mitka told my Nikita he's going to marry her."

  "He'd better wipe his nose first."

  "He forced her, they say."

  "Don't you believe it.. . ."

  The rumours flowed round main street and back street, smearing the girl's good name, as a clean gate is smeared with thick tar.

  Finally they descended on the greying head of Mokhov himself and crushed him to the ground. For two days he went neither to the shop nor to the mill. His servants, who lived downstairs, came to him only at dinner.

  On the third day Sergei Platonovich had his dapple-grey stallion harnessed to his droshki, and drove to the stanitsa, bowing remotely to the Cossacks he met on the way. The droshki was followed by a highly-varnished carriage, which swished out of the yard, drawn by a pair of prancing black horses. Yemelyan the coachman, sucking his pipe, which had become permanently attached to his greying beard, shook out the blue silk of the reins and the two black horses went prancing down the street. Liza could be seen sitting pale-faced behind Yemelyan's craggy back. She held a light valise on her knees and was smiling sadly. At the

  gate she waved her glove to Vladimir and her stepmother.

  Pantelei Prokofyevich happened to be limping out of the shop at the moment, and he stopped to ask the yardman Nikita: "Where's the master's daughter going?"

  And Nikita, condescending to the simple human weakness, replied: "To Moscow, to study."

  The next day an incident occurred which was long the subject of talk down by the river, under the shadow of the well-sweeps, and when the cattle were being driven out to graze. Just before nightfall (the village herd had already returned from the steppe) Mitka went to see Sergei Platonovich. He had waited until evening in order to avoid meeting anyone, for he came not merely to make a friendly call, but to ask for the hand of Mokhov's daughter, Liza.

  He had met her perhaps four times, not more. At the last meeting the conversation had taken the following course:

  "Liza, will you marry me?"

  "Nonsense!"

  "I shall care for you, I'll love you. We have people to work for us, you shall sit at the window and read your books."

  "You're a fool!"

  Mitka took offence, and said no more. That evening he went home early, and in the

  morning he announced to his astonished father:

  "Father, arrange for my marriage."

  "Don't be a fool."

  "Honestly, Father, I'm not joking."

  "In a hurry, aren't you? Who're you smitten on-crazy Marfa?"

  "Send the match-makers to Sergei Platono-vich."

  Miron Grigoryevich carefully set down the cobbling tools with which he was mending harness, and roared with laughter.

  "You're in a funny vein today, my son."

  But Mitka stuck to his guns, and his father flared up.

  "You fool! Sergei Platonovich has a capital of over a hundred thousand rubles. He's a merchant, and what are you? Clear off, or I'll leather you with this strap."

  "We've got fourteen pairs of bullocks, and look at the land we own. Besides he's a muzhik, and we're Cossacks."

  "Clear off!" Miron said curtly. He did not like long discussions.

  Mitka found a sympathetic listener only in his grandfather. The old man attempted to persuade Miron in favour of his son's suit.

  "Miron!" old Grishaka said. "Why don't you agree? As the boy's taken it into his head..,."

  "Father, you're a great baby, God's truth you are! Mitka's silly enough, but you're...."

  "Hold your tongue!" Grishaka rapped his stick on the floor. "Aren't we good enough for them? He ought to take it as an honour for a Cossack's son to wed his daughter. He'll give up, and gladly too. We're known all over the countryside. We're not farm-hands, we're masters. Go and ask him, Miron. What's stopping you? Let him give his mill as the dowry."

  Miron snorted and went out into the yard. So Mitka decided to wait until evening and then go to Mokhov himself. He knew that his father's obstinacy was like a well-rooted elm: you might bend it, but you could never break it. It was not worth trying.

  He went whistling as far as Mokhov's front door, then grew timid. He hesitated a moment, and finally went through the yard to the side door. On the steps he asked the maid in her crackling starched apron: "Master at home?" "He's drinking his tea. Wait!" Mitka sat down and waited, lit a cigarette, smoked it, and crushed the end on the floor. Mokhov came out, brushing crumbs off his waistcoat. When he saw Mitka he frowned, but said: "Come in."

  Mitka entered Mokhov's cool private room that smelled of books and tobacco, feeling that

  the courage with which he had been charged so far had been sufficient to last only to the merchant's threshold. The merchant went to his table, and swung round on his heels: "Well?" Behind his back his fingers scratched at the top of the table.

  "I've come to find out . . ." Mitka plunged into the cold slime of Mokhov's piercing eyes and shuddered. "Perhaps you'll give me Liza?" Despair, anger, fear, all combined to bring his face out in perspiration, fine as dew during a drought.

  Mokhov's left eyebrow quivered, and his upper lip writhed back from the gums. He stretched out his neck and leaned all his body forward:

  "What? Wha-a-at? You scoundrel! Get out! I'll have you before the ataman! You son of a bitch!"

  Encouraged by this shout, Mitka watched the grey-blue blood flooding into Mokhov's cheeks.

  "Don't take it as an insult. I only wanted to make up for what I've done."

  Mokhov rolled his bloodshot eyes and threw a massive iron ash-tray at Mitka's feet. It rebounded and struck him on the knee. But he stoically bore the pain, and jerking open the door, shouted, baring his teeth with resentment and pain:

  "As you like, Sergei Platonovich, just as you

  like, but I meant it. . . . Who would want her now? I thought I'd cover her shame. But now .. . even a dog won't touch a gnawed bone."

  Pressing a crumpled handkerchief to his lips, Mokhov followed on Mitka's heels. He barred the way to the main door, and Mitka ran out into the yard. Here the master had only to wink to Yemelyan the coachman, and as Mitka was struggling with the stout latch at the wicket-gate, four unleashed hounds tore round the corner of the barn. Seeing a stranger, they
bounded across the clean-swept yard straight at him.

  In 1910, Sergei Platonovich had brought back a pair of black curly-haired pups from the fair at Nizhny Novgorod. In a year those black, curly, big-mouthed pups shot up like yearling calves. At first they snapped at the skirts of the women who passed Mokhov's yard, then they learned to pull the women to the ground and bite their legs, and it was only when they had killed Father Pankraty's calf and a pair of Atyopin's hogs that Sergei Platonovich ordered them to be chained up. Now the dogs were let loose only at night, and once every spring for the mating.

  Before Mitka could turn round the foremost dog was up at his shoulders with its teeth fastened into his jacket. The writhing black bodies bit and tore at him. Mitka fought them off

  and tried to keep his balance. He saw Yeme-lyan, his pipe scattering sparks, disappear into the kitchen, and heard the door slam behind him.

  By the steps, leaning against a drain-pipe, stood Sergei Platonovich, his hairy white fists clenched. Swaying and staggering, Mitka tore open the gate and dragged the bunch of snarling, hot-breathed dogs after him on his bleeding legs. He seized one by the throat and choked it, and passing Cossacks with difficulty beat off the others.

  Ill

  Natalya fitted well into the Melekhov household. Although he was rich and employed labourers, her father had brought up his children to work. Hard-working Natalya won the hearts of her husband's parents. Ilyinichna, who secretly did not like her elder clothes-loving daughter-in-law Darya, took to Natalya from the very first.

  "Sleep on, sleep on, little one! What are you out so early for?" she would protest kindly, bustling about the kitchen on her stout legs. "Go back to bed, we'll manage without you."

  And Natalya who had got up at dawn to help in the kitchen would go back to the best room to complete her rest,

  Even Pantelei, who was usually strict in regard to household matters, said to his wife:

  "Listen, wife, don't wake Natalya. She works hard enough as it is. She's going out with Grisha to plough today. But whip up that Darya. She's a lazy woman, and bad. She paints her face and blacken^ her brows, the bitch."

  "Let her take it a bit easy, the first year," sighed Ilyinichna, remembering her own back-breaking life,

  Grigory had begun to get used to his newly-married state; but after two or three weeks he realized with fear and chagrin that he had not completely broken with Aksinya. Something was left like a thorn in his heart, and the pain would not go soon. The feeling which, in the excitement of marriage, he had dismissed with a careless wave of the hand was deep-rooted. He thought he could forget, but it refused to be forgotten, and the wound bled. Even before the wedding Pyotr had asked him when they were threshing together:

  "Grisha, but what about Aksinya?"

  "Well, what about her?"

  "Won't you feel sorry to throw her over?"

  "Someone else will pick her up," Grigory had said with a laugh.

  "Well, you know best," Pyotr said, biting at

  the chewed tip of his moustache, "but don't make a hash of your marriage."

  "Love grows old and the body cold," Grigory replied lightly.

  But it had not worked out like that. As he dutifully caressed his wife, trying to inflame her with his own youthful zest, he met with only coldness and an embarrassed submission from her. Natalya shrank from bodily delights; she had inherited something of her mother's slow, unresponsive blood, and as he recalled Aksinya's passionate fervour Grigory sighed: "Your father must have made you on ice, Natalya. You're too chilly by half."

  And when he met Aksinya she would smile with a vague darkening of the pupils and her words clung like the mud at the bottom of a stream.

  "Hullo, Grisha! How's love with your young wife?"

  "All right," Grigory would reply evasively, and escape as quickly as possible from her caressing glance.

  Stepan had evidently made up his quarrel with his wife. He visited the tavern less frequently, and one evening, as he was winnowing grain on the threshing-floor, he suggested, for the first time since the beginning of the trouble: "Let's sing a song, Aksinya!"

  They sat down, their backs against a heap of threshed, dusty wheat. Stepan began an army song, Aksinya joined in with her full, throaty voice. They sang well together, as they had in the first years of their married life, when they used to jog back from the fields under the crimson hem of the sunset glow and Stepan would sit on the load and sing an old song, as long and sad as the wild and desolate road across the steppe. Aksinya with her head resting on the bulging hoops of her husband's chest would take up the tune. The horses would pull the creaking wagon and the shaft-bow would bob up and down. And from afar the old men of the village would listen to the song.

  "She's got a fine voice, that wife of Stepan's."

  "Aye, nice singing."

  "And what a voice Stepan has got, clear as a bell."

  And as they sat on the earthen banks round their cottages watching the dusty purple of the sunset, the old men would exchange remarks across the street, about the song, where it came from, and about those who had loved it.

  Grigory heard the Astakhovs singing, and while he was threshing (the two threshing-floors adjoined) he could see Aksinya as self-assured as before, and apparently happy. Or so it seemed to him.

  Stepan was not on speaking terms with the Melekhovs. He worked on the threshing-floor, swinging his great sloping shoulders, occasionally making a jesting remark to Aksinya. And she would respond with a smile, her black eyes flashing. Her green skirt hovered constantly before Grigory's eyes. His neck was continually being twisted by a strange force which turned his head in the direction of Stepan's yard. He did not notice that Natalya, who was helping Pantelei. spread out the sheaves for threshing, intercepted every involuntary glance with her own yearning, jealous gaze; he did not see Pyotr, who was driving the horses round the threshing circle, wrinkling his nose with a faint grin as he watched his brother.

  The earth groaned under the crushing weight of the stone rollers and with the muffled rumble in his ears Grigory groped hazily in his mind and failed to catch the scraps of thought that slipped elusively out of range of his consciousness.

  From near and distant threshing-floors came the sound of threshing: the shouts of drivers, the whistle of knouts, the rattle of the winnowing drums. The village, fat with the harvest, basked in the September warmth, stretching along the Don like a beaded snake across a road. In every farmyard with its wattle fence,

  under every Cossack roof, each brimming bitter-sweet life whirled on, separate and apart from the rest. Old Grishaka had taken a chill and was suffering with his teeth; Mokhov, crushed by his shame, clawed his beard, weeping and grinding his teeth in solitude; Stepan nursed his hatred for Grigory in his heart and his iron fingers tore at the patchwork quilt in his sleep; Natalya would run to the shed and threw herself on the heap of cowdung fuel, shaking and huddling into a ball as she wept over her desecrated happiness; Christonya, who had sold a calf at the fair, then spent the money on drink, was tortured by pangs of conscience; Grigory sighed with insatiable longing and renewed pain; Aksinya, as she caressed her husband, flooded her undying hatred for him with tears. David had been discharged from the mill, and sat night after night with Knave in the carters' shed, while Knave, his angry eyes flashing, would declare:

  "Just wait! They'll have their throats cut before long. One revolution wasn't enough for them. Wait till we have another 1905, then we'll settle scores. We'll settle scores!" he shook his scarred finger threateningly, and with a shrug adjusted the jacket flung across his shoulders.

  And over the village slipped the days, pass ing into the nights; the weeks flowed by, the

  months crept on, the wind howled over the hill, warning of bad v/eather to come, and, glazed with the clear greenish-blue of autumn, the Don flowed on indifferently to the sea.

  IV

  One Sunday at the end of October Fedot Bo-dovskov drove to the stanitsa on business. He took with him four braces of
fattened ducks and sold them at the market; he bought his wife some cotton print, and was on the point of driving home (with one foot on the wheel he was tightening the hame strap), when a stranger, obviously not of those parts, came up to him.

  "Good-afternoon," he greeted Fedot, putting a sunburnt hand to the edge of his black hat.

  " 'Afternoon," said Fedot and paused inquiringly, narrowing his Kalmyk eyes.

  "Where are you from?"

  "One of the villages."

  "And which village may that be?"

  "Tatarsky."

  The stranger drew a silver cigarette-case out of his pocket and offered Fedot a cigarette.

  "Is yours a large village?"

  "No thanks, just had one. Our village? Pretty big. Three hundred families or thereabouts."

  "Is there a church there?"

  ""Of course."

  "Any blacksmiths there?"

  "Aye, there's a smithy."

  "Is there a workshop at the mill?"

  Fedot fastened the rein to his horse's bit, and looked distrustfully at the man's black hat and the furrows in the broad white face, fringed with a black beard.

  "What do you want to know for?"

  "I'm coming to live at your village. I've just been to the district ataman. Are you going back empty?"

  "Aye."

  "Will you take me back with you? I'm not alone. I have my wife with me and a couple of boxes."

  "I can take you."

  Having agreed about the price, they drove to Froska the bun-maker's where his passenger was lodging, collected the man's thin, blond wife, put the boxes in the back and set out on the return journey. Clicking his tongue and flicking the plaited reins over the horse's backs, Fedot twisted his angular head round from time to time; he was eaten up with curiosity. His passengers sat quietly behind him. Fedot first asked for a cigarette, then he inquired:

  "Where are you from?"

  "From Rostov."

  "One o' them?"