And quiet flows the Don; a novel Read online

  She walked with a twisting movement of the shoulders; she laughed at the shouts of her husband; a firm row of small close-set teeth showed under the fine rim of her shrewish lips.

  "You ought to have brought some fuel-bricks in overnight. They would have dried in the stove," Ilyinichna grumbled.

  "I forgot. Mother, It can't be helped," Darya answered.

  Dawn broke before the meal was ready. Pan-telei hurried over his breakfast,.blowing on the thin porridge. Grigory ate slowly and moodily, his jaw muscles working up and down, and Pyotr, unnoticed by his father, amused himself with teasing Dunya, who was suffering with toothache and had her face bound up.

  The sound of sledge-runners was heard from the street. Bullock sledges were moving down to the river in the grey dawn. Grigory and Pyotr went out to harness their sledges. As he went Grigory wound a soft scarf, his wife's gift, around his neck, and gulped in the dry frosty air. A raven flew overhead with a full, throaty cry. The swish of its slowly flapping wings could be heard distinctly in the frosty stillness. Pyotr watched its flight and remarked :

  "Flying south, to the warm."

  Behind a rosy little cloud, as gay as a girlish smile, a tiny slip of moon gleamed dimly. The smoke from the chimneys rose in columns, reaching towards the inaccessibly distant, golden pointed blade of the waning moon:

  The river was not quite frozen over opposite the Melekhovs' house. Along the edges of the stream the ice was firm and green under drifts

  of snow. But beyond the middle where springs flowed from the Black Bank, a gap in the ice yawned sombre and menacing out of the corroded whiteness. The water was freckled with the wild duck that were wintering there.

  Pantelei drove off first with the old bullocks, leaving his sons to follow later. On the slope down to the river-crossing Pyotr and Grigory caught up with Anikushka. With a new axe handle sticking out of his sledge, and wearing a broad green sash he was walking at the side of his bullocks, while his wife, a stunted sickly woman, held the reins.

  "Hullo, neighbour, surely you're not taking your woman with you?" Pyotr shouted to him.

  Anikushka, hopping up and down to keep warm, grinned and went over to the brothers.

  "Yes, I am, to keep me warm."

  "You'll get no warmth from her, she's too lean."

  "That's true; and I feed her with oats, but still she doesn't fatten!"

  "Shall we be cutting in the same strip?" Grigory asked, jumping off the sledge.

  "Yes, if you'll give me a smoke."

  "You've always been a scrounger, Anikushka."

  "The sweetest things in life are begged and stolen," Anikushka chuckled, wrinkling his hairless womanish face in a smile.

  The three drove on together. The forest was laced with rime, and of a virgin whiteness. Ani-kushka rode in front, lashing his whip against the branches overhead. The needle-sharp snow crystals showered down on his wife.

  "Don't play about, you devil!" she shouted at him, as she shook the snow off.

  "Drop her into the snow head first," Pyotr advised trying to get his whip under the bullock's belly to speed its pace.

  At a turn of the road they met Stepan Asta-khov driving two yoked bullocks back towards the village. The leather soles of his felt boots squeaked on the snow as he strode along. His curly forelock hung below his fur cap like a bunch of white grapes.

  "Hey, Stepan, lost your way?" Anikushka shouted as he passed.

  "Lost my way be damned! We swung over, and the sledge snapped its runner on a stump. So I've got to go back," Stepan cursed obscenely and his fierce light eyes narrowed insolently as he passed Pyotr.

  "Left your sledge behind?" Anikushka asked, turning round.

  Ignoring the remark, Stepan cracked his whip at the bullocks that were heading away from the track and gave Grigory a long hard stare as he passed on. A little farther on the

  group came to a sledge abandoned in the middle of the road. Aksinya was standing by it. Holding down the edge of her sheepskin with her left hand, she was gazing along the road in their direction.

  "Out of the way or I'll run you over. Oho, you're the wife for me!" Anikushka roared. Aksinya stepped aside with a smile, and sat down on the overturned sledge.

  "You've got your own wife with you."

  "Yes, she sticks to me like a burr on a pig's tail, otherwise I'd give you a lift."

  "Thank you kindly."

  As Pyotr came up to her he gave a quick glance back at Grigory. Grigory was smiling uncertainly, anxiety and expectation expressed in all his movements.

  "Good health to you, neighbour," Pyotr greeted her, touching his cap with his mitten.

  "Praise be."

  "What, sledge broken?" Pyotr asked.

  "Yes, it is," she replied slowly without looking at Pyotr, and rising to her feet, turned towards Grigory. "Grigory Panteleyevich, I'd like a word with you," she said as he came up.

  Asking Pyotr to look after his bullocks for a moment, Grigory turned to her. Pyotr laughed suggestively, and drove on.

  The two stood silently regarding each other. Aksinya glanced cautiously around, then turned her liquid black eyes again to Grigory's face. Shame and joy flamed in her cheeks and dried her lips. Her breath came in sharp gasps.

  At a turn in the road Anikushka and Pyotr disappeared behind the brown oak trunks.

  Grigory looked straight into Aksinya's eyes and saw in them a spark of stubborn recklessness.

  "Well, Grisha, do as you please, but I can't live without you," she said firmly, and pressed her lips together waiting for his answer.

  Grigory made no reply. The forest was locked in silence. A glassy emptiness rang in his ears. The surface of the road, polished smooth by sledge-runners, the grey rag of sky, the forest, dumb, deathly drowsy.... A sudden cry of a raven near by seemed to rouse Grigory from his momentary lethargy. He raised his head and watched the bird winging away in silent flight. He was surprised when he heard himself say:

  "It's going to be warm. He's making for the warm." He seemed to shake himself and laughed hoarsely. "Well. . .." He turned his intoxicated eyes furtively on Aksinya, and suddenly snatched her to him.

  During the winter evenings a little group of villagers gathered in Stockman's room at Lu-keshka's house. There were Christonya, and Knave from the mill, a greasy jacket draped over his shoulders, the ever-smiling David (now three months a loafer), the engineman, Ivan Alexeyevich Kotlyarov, sometimes Filka the cobbler, and always Misha Koshevoi, a young Cossack who had not yet done his regular army service.

  At first the group played cards. Then Stockman casually brought out a book of Nekrasov's poetry. They began to read the volume aloud, and liked it. Then they went on to Nikitin, and about Christmas-time Stockman suggested the reading of a dog-eared, unbound booklet. Koshevoi, who had been to the church school and could read aloud, glanced contemptuously at the greasy pages.

  "You could make noodles of it, it's so greasy," he said in disgust.

  Christonya roared with laughter; David smiled dazzlingly. But Stockman waited for the merriment to die away, and then said:

  "Read it, Misha. It's interesting. It's all about the Cossacks."

  253

  Bending his head over the table, Koshevoi spelt out laboriously:

  "A Short History oi the Don Cossacks," and then glanced around expectantly.

  "Read it!" Kotlyarov said.

  They laboured through the book for three evenings, reading about the free life of the past, about Pugachov, Stenka Razin and Kon-draty Bulavin. Finally they came down to recent times. The unknown author poured scorn on the Cossacks' miserable existence; scoffed at the authorities and the system, the tsar's government and the Cossackry itself which had hired itself out to the monarchs as their henchmen. The listeners grew excited and began to quarrel among themselves. Christonya, his head touching the roof-beam, spoke up in his booming voice. Stockman sat at the door, smoking a pipe, his eyes smiling.

  "He's right! It's all true!" Christonya burst out.


  "It's not our fault such shame was brought upon the Cossacks." Koshevoi spread his arms in perplexity and puckered up his handsome face.

  He was thick-set, broad in the shoulders and hips, almost square. From the cast-iron foundation of his body rose a firm brick-red neck on which his small, gracefully set head looked

  strange, with its effeminately soft cheeks, small obstinate mouth and dark eyes under the golden slab of curly hair.

  The engineman Kotlyarov, a tall thin Cossack, was steeped to the bone in Cossack traditions, and his round protruding eyes flashed as he vigorously defended the Cossacks:

  "You're a muzhik, Christonya, you've only got a drop of Cossack blood in you to a bucketful of water. Your mother was mated with a muzhik from Voronezh."

  "You're a fool, you're a fool, brother!" Christonya boomed. "I stand for the truth."

  "I wasn't in the Lifeguards," Kotlyarov said slyly. "They're all fools there."

  "There are some pretty hopeless cases in the rest of the army too."

  "Shut up, muzhik!"

  "And aren't the muzhiks just as much men as you?"

  "They're muzhiks, they're made of bast and stuffed with brushwood."

  "When I was serving in Petersburg, brother, I saw many things," Christonya said, his southern accent coming out strongly. "Once it happened that we were on guard at the tsar's palace, inside and outside. We used to ride round the walls on horseback, two this way and two that. When we met we used to ask:

  'All quiet, no disorders anywhere?' and then we'd ride on. We weren't allowed to stop and talk. And they chose us for our looks. When we had to take our turn on guard at the doors they'd choose each pair so as they should be alike in their faces and their figures. Once the barber even had to dye my beard because of this stupidity. I had to take a turn at guard with a Cossack in our squadron with hair that was a kind of bay colour. Plagued if I know how he got like it, must have been scorched by a fire or something. They searched all through the regiment and there wasn't another like him. So the troop commander sent me to the barber to have my beard dyed. When I looked in the glass afterwards my heart almost broke. I looked as if I was on fire. Honestly I did. Made my fingers sizzle to touch the thing!"

  "Now he's off, the old windbag. But what were we talking about?" Kotlyarov interrupted him,

  "About the people."

  "Well, tell us about them. What the blithering hell do we want to hear about your beard for!"

  "Well, as I was saying-I once had to take a turn on guard outside. We were riding along, me and my comrade, when a mob of students

  came running round the corner. Thick as flies they were! As soon as they saw us they roared: Hah!' and then again: 'Hah!' And before we knew where we were they had surrounded us, 'What are you riding about for, Cossacks?' they asked. And I said: 'We're keeping guard, and you let go those reins, young fella'' and clapped my hands on my sword. 'Don't get me wrong, Cossack, I'm from Kamenskaya District myself, and I'm studying in the uniservity, or the univorsity, or whatever you call it, one said. We make to ride on, and one fellow with a big nose pulls out a ten-ruble piece and says: 'Drink to the health of my dead father,' And then he pulls a picture out of his pocket. 'Look, that's my father,' he says, 'take it as a keepsake.' Well, we took it, we couldn't refuse. And they went off again. Just then a lieutenant comes riding out of the back gates of the palace with a troop of men. 'What's happened?' he shouts. And I tell him students had come and begun talking to us, and we had wanted to sabre them according to instructions, but as they had set us free we had ridden off. When we went off duty later, we told the corporal we'd earned ten rubles and wanted to drink them to the memory of the old man, showing him the picture. In the evening the corporal brought some vodka, and we had a good time

  for a couple of days. But afterwards we found out what the trick was. It turned out that this student, the young bastard, had given us a picture of the biggest trouble-maker in Germany. I had hung it over my bed; he had a grey beard and looked a decent sort of chap. But the lieutenant saw it and asked: 'Where did you get that picture from, you son of a gun?' So I told him, and he began swearing at me and punching me in the face: 'Do you know who that is? He's their ataman Karl. . . .' Drat it, I've forgotten his name. Now, what was it. .. ?"

  "Karl Marx?" Stockman suggested with a broad smile.

  "That's it, Karl Mars," Christonya exclaimed joyfully. "He got me into trouble all right. Why, sometimes the tsarevich Alexei and his tutors used to come into the guardroom. They might have seen it. What would have happened then?"

  "And you keep praising the muzhiks. What a trick they played on you," Kotlyarov chuckled.

  "But we drank the ten rubles. It was the bearded Karl we drank to, but we drank all the same!"

  "He deserves to be drunk to," Stockman smiled, playing with his cigarette-holder.

  "Why, what good did he do?" Koshevoi queried.

  "I'll tell you another time, it's getting late now." Stockman held the holder between his fingers, and ejected the dead cigarette-end with a slap from the other hand.

  After long sifting and testing, a little group of ten Cossacks began to meet regularly in Stockman's workshop. Stockman was the heart and soul of the group and he worked straight towards a goal that only he fully understood. He ate into the simple understandings and conceptions like a worm into wood, instilling repugnance and hatred towards the existing system. At first he found himself confronted with the cold steel of distrust, but he was not to be repulsed. Even that could be worn away.

  X

  On the sandy slope of the left bank of the Don lies Vyeshenskaya stanitsa, the most ancient stanitsa of the upper Don. Originally called Chigonaki, it was moved to a new site after being sacked during the reign of Peter the First, and renamed Vyeshenskaya, It was formerly an important link along the great water-way from Voronezh to Azov.

  Opposite Vyeshenskaya the Don bends like

  a Tatar bow, turns sharply to the right, and by the little village of Bazki majestically straightens again, carries its greenish-blue waters over the chalky base of the hills on the west bank, then, with thickly-clustered villages on the right and occasional stanitsas on the left, down to the sea, to the blue Sea of Azov.

  At Ust-Khoperskaya it joins with its tributary the Khoper, and at Ust-Medveditskaya, with the Medveditsa, and then it flows on deep and full-watered amid a riotous growth of populous villages and stanitsas.

  The stanitsa of Vyeshenskaya stands among yellow sand-drifts. It is a bald cheerless place without orchards. In the square stands an old church, grey with age, and six streets run out of the square in lines parallel with the river. Where the Don bends towards Bazki, a lake, about as wide as the Don in the dry season, branches off into a thicket of poplars. The far end of Vyeshenskaya slopes down to this lake, and in a smaller square, overgrown with golden prickly thorn, is a second church, with green cupolas and green roof, matching the green of the poplars on the other side of the lake.

  Beyond the village to the north stretches a saffron waste of sands, a stunted pine plantation, and creeks whose water is pink from the red-clay soil. Here and there in the sandy

  wilderness are rare oases of villages, meadow-land, and a rusty scrub of willows.

  One Sunday in December a dense crowd of five hundred young Cossacks from all the villages in the district was assembled in the square outside the old church. Mass ended, the senior sergeant, a gallant old Cossack with long-service decorations, gave an order, and the youngsters drew up in two long straggling ranks. Sergeants rushed to and fro to get them dressed off.

  "Ranks!" the sergeant boomed and making a vague gesture with his hand, snapped: "Form fours."

  The ataman entered the churchyard, dressed according to form and wearing a new officer's greatcoat, his spurs jingling, and followed by the military policeman,

  Grigory Melekhov who was standing next to Mitka Korshunov heard him whisper:

  "My boot pinches like hell."

  "Stick it out, they'll make yo
u an ataman."

  "We'll be going inside soon."

  As if to confirm this, the senior sergeant fell back a pace or two, turned sharply on his heels and shouted:

  "Right turn. Forward march!"

  The column filed through the wide-open

  gate, and the church dome rang with the sound of tramping feet.

  Grigory paid no attention to the words of the oath of allegiance being read by the priest. By his side stood Mitka Korshunov, his face contorted with the pain of his tight new boots. Grigory's upraised arm grew numb, an aching jumble of thoughts was running through his mind. As he came up to the crucifix and kissed the silver, damp with the moisture of many lips, he thought of Aksinya, and of his wife With the suddenness of a flash of forked lightning he had a vision of the forest, its brown trunks and branches fluffed with white down, and the humid gleam of Aksinya's black eyes under her kerchief. . . .

  When the ceremony was ended they were marched out into the square and were again drawn up in ranks. Blowing his nose and stealthily wiping his fingers on the lining of his coat, the sergeant addressed them:

  "You're not boys any longer now, you're Cossacks. You've taken the oath and you ought to understand what's what. You've grown up into Cossacks and you've got to guard your honour, obey your fathers and mothers and all the rest of it. You were boys once, you've had your fun and games-used to play tipcat in the road, I expect-but now you must think about

  your future service. In a year's time they'll be calling you up into the army. . . ." Here the sergeant blew his nose again, shook his hand clean and, drawing on his rabbit's down gloves, ended: "And your fathers and mothers must think about getting you your equipment. They must fit you out with an army horse, and . . . in general. . . . And now, home you go and God be with you, my lads."