And quiet flows the Don; a novel Read online

  "Oh, you mad devil!"

  Wheeling sharply and riding his excited mount at her, Grigory demanded:

  "Why don't you say hullo?"

  "You're not worth it!"

  "And that's why I sent the mud over you. Don't think so much of yourself."

  "Let me pass!" Aksinya shouted, waving her arms in front of the horse's nose. "What are you trampling me with your horse for?"

  "She's a mare, not a horse."

  "1 don't care; let me pass."

  "What are you getting angry for, Aksinya? Siurely not because of the other day, in the meadow?"

  Grigory gazed into her eyes. Aksinya tried to say something, but a little tear started from the

  comer of her dark eye, and her lips quivered pitifully. Swallowing hard, she whispered:

  "Go away, Grigory. . . . I'm not angry. . , , I. . . ." And she went.

  The astonished Grigory overtook Mitka at the gate.

  "Coming out for the evening?" Mitka asked.

  "No."

  "Why, what's on? Or did she invite you to spend the night with her?"

  Grigory rubbed his forehead with his palm and made no reply.

  IX

  All that was left of Trinity in the village houses was the dry thyme scattered over the floors, the dust of crumpled leaves, and the shrivelled, withered green of broken oak and ash branches fastened to the gates and stairs.

  The haymaking began immediately after Trinity. From early morning the meadow blossomed with women's holiday skirts, the bright embroidery of aprons, and coloured kerchiefs. The whole village turned out for the mowing. The mowers and rakers attired themselves as though for an annual holiday. So it had been from of old. From the Don to the distant alder

  thickets the ravaged meadowland stirred and sighed.

  The Melekhovs were late in starting. They set out when nearly half the village were already in the meadow.

  "You sleep late, Pantelei Prokofyevich," the perspiring haymakers greeted him.

  "Not my fault . . . the women again!" the old man laughed, and urged on the bullocks with his knout of raw hide.

  "Good-day to you, neighbour! You're a bit late, aren't you?" a tall Cossack in a straw hat said, shaking his head as he stood sharpening his scythe at the side of the road.

  "You reckon the grass will be dry?"

  "If you don't get a move on, it soon will be."

  At the back of the cart sat Aksinya, her face completely covered to protect it from the sun. From the narrow slits left for her eyes she stared calmly and severely at Grigory seated opposite her. Darya, also wrapped up and dressed in her Sunday best, her legs dangling between the rungs of the wagon-side, was giving her long blue-veined breast to the child dozing in her arms. Dunya fidgeted on the box, her happy eyes scanning the meadow and the people walking along the road. Her face, cheerful and sunburnt, with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, seemed to say, "I feel gay and happy, be-

  cause the day, with its blue and cloudless sky, is also happy; because my soul is filled with the same cloudless blue calm. I'm happy, I have everything I want."

  Drawing the sleeve of his cotton shirt over his fists, Pantelei wiped away the sweat running down from under the peak of his cap. The shirt stretched tightly across his bent back, darkened with moist patches. The sun pierced slantingly through a grey fleecy cloud, and dropped a fan of misty, refracted rays over the meadov/, the village, and the distant, silvery hills of the Don.

  The day was sultry. The little clouds crept along drowsily, not even overtaking Pantelei's bullocks as they plodded along the road. The old man himself lifted and waved the knout languidly, as though in doubt whether to strike their bony flanks or not. Evidently realizing this, the bullocks did not hasten their pace, and slowly, gropingly set forward their cloven hoofs and swished their tails. A dusty gold-and-orange-tingled horsefly circled above them. The meadowland that had been scythed near the threshing-floors glowed with pale-green patches; where the grass had not yet been cut, the grassy silk, green with a gleam of black in it, rustled in the breeze,

  "There's our strip," Pantelei waved his knout.

  Grigory unharnessed the weary bullocks. The

  old man, his ear-ring glittering, went to look for the mark he had made at the end of the strip.

  "Bring the scythes," he called out after a moment, waving his hand.

  Grigory went to him, treading down the grass, and leaving an undulating trail behind him, Pantelei faced the distant bell-tower and crossed himself. His hook-nose shone as though freshly varnished, the sweat clung to the hollows of his swarthy cheeks. He smiled, baring a close-set row of white, gleaming teeth in his raven beard, and, with his wrinkled neck bent to the right, swept the scythe through the grass. A seven-foot semicircle of mown grass lay at his feet.

  Eyes half closed, Grigory followed in his steps, laying the grass low with the scythe. The women's aprons blossomed in a scattered rainbow before him, but his eyes sought only one, a white one with an embroidered border; he glanced at Aksinya and started mowing again, keeping pace with his father.

  Aksinya was continually in his thoughts. Half closing his eyes, in imagination he kissed her and spoke to her in burning tender words that came to his tongue from he knew not where. Then he dropped such thoughts and stepped out again methodically, one . .. two . . . three; and his memory slipped in fragments of the

  Ji>ast, Sitting under the damp hayrick ... the moon over the meadow ... now and then a drop falling from the bush into the puddle . . . one . . . two . . . three. . . . Good! Ah, that had been good!

  He heard laughter behind him. He looked back: Darya lay under the cart and Aksinya was bending over her, telling her something. Darya waved her arms, and again they both laughed. Dunya was sitting on the shaft and singing in a shrill voice.

  "I'll get to that bush, then I'll sharpen my scythe," Grigory thought. At that moment he felt the scythe pass through something soft and yielding. He bent down. A little wild duckling went scurrying into the grass with a squawk. By the hole where the nest had been another was huddled, cut in two by the scythe, the rest of the brood scattered twittering in the grass. He lay the dead bird on his palm. It had evidently come from the egg only a few days previously; there was still a living warmth in the down.

  On the flat, half-open beak there was a pinkish bubble of blood, the beady eyes were puckered slyly, the little legs were still warm and quivering. With a sudden keen feeling of compassion he stared at the inert little ball lying in his hand.

  "What have you found, Grisha?''

  Dunya came dancing along the mown alley, her pigtails tossing on her breast. Frowning, Grigory threw away the duckling and angrily wielded his scythe.

  Dinner was eaten in haste. Bacon-fat and the Cossacks' stand-by, sour skimmed milk, brought from home in a bag, were the entire meal.

  After dinner the women began to rake the hay. The cut grass wilted and dried, giving off a heavy, stupefying scent.

  "No point in going home!" Pantelei said during dinner. "We'll turn the bullocks out to graze in the forest, and tomorrow as soon as the dew is off the grass we'll finish the mowing."

  Dusk had fallen when they stopped for the day. Aksinya raked the last rows together, and went to the cart to cook some millet mash. All day she had maliciously made fun of Grigory, gazing at him with eyes full of hatred, as though in revenge for some great, unforgettable injury. Grigory, gloomy and faded somehow, drove the bullocks down to the Don for water. His father had watched him and Aksinya all day. Eyeing Grigory unpleasantly he said:

  "Have your supper, and then guard the bullocks. See that they don't get into the grass! Take my sheepskin."

  Darya laid her child under the cart and went into the forest with Dunya for brushwood.

  Over the meadow the waning moon mounted the dark, inaccessible heaven. A snowstorm of moths whirled around the flames. Near the fire supper was laid on a piece of coarse cloth. The millet boiled in the smoky field-pot. Wiping a spoon with the edge of her
underskirt, Darya called to Grigory:

  "Come and have your supper."

  His father's sheepskin draped over his shoulders, Grigory emerged from the darkness and approached the fire.

  "What's made you so moody?" Darya smiled.

  "Got the back-ache. Must be going to rain," he countered lightly,

  "He doesn't want to watch the bullocks," Dunya laughed, and, sitting down by her brother, she tried to start a conversation. But somehow her efforts were unsuccessful. Pan-telei supped his porridge, crunching the undercooked millet with his teeth. Aksinya ate without lifting her eyes, smiling half-heartedly at Darya's jokes. A troubled flush burned in her cheeks.

  Grigory got up first and went off to the bullocks.

  "Take care the bullocks don't trample some-

  body else's grass," his father shouted after him, then a crumb of millet stuck in his throat and for a long time he coughed raspingly. Dunya's cheeks swelled as she tried to suppress her laughter.

  The fire burned low. The smouldering brushwood wrapped the little group in the honey scent of burning leaves.

  At midnight Grigory stole up to the camp, and halted some ten paces away. His father was snoring tunefully on the cart. The unquenched embers stared out from the ash with golden peacock's eyes.

  A grey, shrouded figure broke away from the cart and came slowly towards Grigory. Two or three paces away, it halted. Aksinya! Grigory's heart thumped fast and heavily; he stepped forward crouchingly, flinging back the edge of his sheepskin, and pressed her compliant, burning body to his own. Her legs bowed at the knees; she trembled, her teeth chattering. Grigory suddenly flung her over his arm as a wolf throws a slaughtered sheep across its back, and, stumbling over the trailing edges of his open coat, and panting hard, made off.

  "Oh, Grisha, Grisha! Your father. . .."

  "Quiet!"

  Tearing herself away, gasping for breath in the sour sheep's wool, choking with the bitter-

  ness of regret, Aksinya cried in a low moaning voice that was almost a shout:

  "Let go, what does it matter now.. .? I'll go of my own accord."

  X

  Not azure and poppy-red, but rabid as the wayside henbane is a woman's belated love.

  After the mowing Aksinya was a changed woman: as though someone had set a mark on her face, branded her. When other women met her they smiled slyly, and nodded their heads after her. The girls were envious, but she held her happy, shameful head proud and high.

  Soon everybody knew of her affair with Gri-gory Melekhov. At first it was talked about in whispers-only half-believed-but after the village shepherd had seen them in the early dawn by the windmill, lying under the moon in the young rye, the rumour spread like a wave breaking turbidly on the shore.

  It reached Pantelei's ears also. One Sunday he happened to go along to Mokhov's shop. The throng was so great that no more could have crowded through the door. He entered, and everybody seemed to be making way for him, smiling at him. He pushed towards the counter where the draperies were sold. The master, Ser-

  gei Platonovich Mokhov, took it upon himself to attend to the old man.

  "Where have you been all this long while, Prokofyevich?" he asked.

  "Too much to do. Troubles with the farm." "What? Sons like yours, and troubles?" "What of my sons? I've seen Pyotr off to camp, there's only me and Grisha to do everything."

  Mokhov divided his stiff, ruddy beard into two with his fingers and glanced significantly out of the corner of his eye at the crowd of Cossacks.

  "Oh, yes, old man, and why haven't you told us anything about it?" "About what?"

  "How d'you mean, what? Thinking of marrying your son, and not a word to anybody!" "Which son?"

  "Why, your son Grigory isn't married." "And I'm not thinking of marrying him yet." "But I've heard that you're getting yourself a daughter-in-law . . . Stepan Astakhov's Aksi-nya."

  "What? With her husband alive.. ., Why,

  Platonovich, you must be joking! Aren't you?"

  "Joking? But I've had it from others."

  Pantelei smoothed out the piece of material

  spread over the counter, then, turning sharply,

  limped towards the door. He made straight for home. He walked with his head lowered like a bull, his fingers knotted in his fist, hobbling more noticeably on his lame leg. As he passed the Astakhovs' house he glanced over the wattle fence: Aksinya, looking young and smart, with a lithe swing in her hips, was going into the house with an empty bucket.

  "Hey, wait!" he called, and stumped in at the gate. Aksinya halted and waited for him. They went into the house. The cleanly-swept earthen floor was sprinkled with red sand; on the bench in the corner were pasties fresh from the oven. A smell of musty clothes and sweet apples came from the best room.

  A tabby cat with a huge head purred round Pantelei's legs. It arched its back and pressed itself against his boots. With a fierce kick he sent it flying against the bench.

  "What's all this I hear? Eh?" he shouted looking Aksinya straight in the eyes. "Your husband hardly out of sight, and you already setting your cap at other men! I'll make Grisha's blood flow for this, and I'll write to your Stepan! Let him hear of it! You whore, haven't you been beaten enough! Don't set your foot inside my yard from this day on. Carrying on with a young man, and when Stepan comes, I'll have to.. .."

  Aksinya listened with narrowed eyes. And suddenly she shamelessly swung the hem of her skirt, enveloped Pantelei in the smell of woman's clothes, and came breasting at him with writhing lips and bared teeth.

  "What are you, my father-in-law? Eh? Who are you to teach me? Co and teach your own fat-bottomed woman! Keep order in your own yard! You limping, stump-footed devil! Clear out of here, you won't frighten me!"

  "Wait, you daft hussy!"

  "There's nothing to wait for! Get back where you came from! And if I want your Grisha, I'll eat him, bones and all, and answer for it myself! Chew that over! What if I love Grisha? Beat me, will you? Write to my husband? Write to the ataman if you like, but Grisha belongs to me! He's mine! Mine! I have him and I shall keep him!"

  Aksinya pressed against the quailing Pantelei with her breast (it beat against her thin blouse like a bustard in a noose), seared him with the flame of her black eyes, overwhelmed him with more and more terrible and shameless words. His eyebrows quivering, the old man backed to the door, groped for the stick he had left in the comer, and waving his hand, pushed open the door with his bottom, Aksinya pressed him out of the passage, pantingly, frenziedly shouting:

  "I'll have my love, I'll make up for all the wrongs I've suffered! And then kill me if you like! He's my Grisha! Mine!"

  Muttering something into his beard, Pantelei limped off to his house.

  He found Grigory in the room. Without saying a word, he brought his stick down over his son's back. Doubling up, Grigory hung on his father's arm.

  "What's that for. Father?"

  "For your goings-on, you son of a bitch!"

  "What goings-on?"

  "Don't wrong your neighbour! Don't shame your father! Don't run after women, you young buck!" Pantelei snorted, dragging Grigory, who had grabbed the stick, around the room trying to wrest it from him.

  "I'm not going to let you beat me'" Grigory cried hoarsely, and setting his teeth, he tore the stick out of his father's hand. Across his knee it went, and-snap!

  Pantelei Prokofyevich struck him on the neck with his hard fist.

  "I'll whip you in public. You accursed son of the devil! I'll marry you to the village idiot! I'll geld you!" his father roared.

  The noise brought the old mother running into the room.

  "Pantelei, Pantelei! Cool down a little! Wait!"

  But the old man had lost his temper in real earnest. He sent his wife flying, overturned the table with the sewing-machine on it, and victoriously flew out into the yard. Grigory, whose shirt had been torn in the struggle, had not had time to take it off when the door banged open again, and his father appeared once more lik
e a storm-cloud on the threshold.

  "I'll marry him off, the son of a bitch!" He stamped his foot like a horse and fixed his gaze on Grigory's muscular back. "I'll drive off tomorrow and arrange the match. To think that I should live to see people laugh in my face about my son."

  "Let me get my shirt on first, then you can marry me off."

  "I'll marry you to the village idiot!" The door slammed, and the old man clattered away down the steps.

  XI

  Beyond the village of Setrakov the carts with tarpaulin covers stretched in rows across the steppe. At unbelievable speed a neat, white-roofed little town had grown up, with straight streets and a small square in the centre, where a sentry stood guard.

  The men lived the usual monotonous life of a training camp. In the morning the detachment of Cossacks guarding the grazing horses drove them into the camp. Then followed cleaning, grooming, saddling, the roll-call, and muster. The staff officer in command of the camp, Lieutenant-Colonel Popov, bawled stentoriously; the sergeants training the young Cossacks shouted their orders. They staged mock attacks on a hill, they cunningly encircled the "enemy." They fired at targets. The younger Cossacks eagerly vied with one another in the sabre exercises, and the old hands dodged as much of the training as they could.

  While voices grew hoarse with the heat and the vodka, a fragrant exciting wind blew over the long lines of covered wagons, the susliks whistled in the distance, and the steppe beckoned away from the stuffiness and smoke of the whitewashed huts.

  About a week before the break-up of the camp Andrei Tomilin's wife came to visit him. She brought him some home-made cracknel, an assortment of dainties and a sheaf of village news.

  She left again very early in the morning, taking the Cossacks' greetings and instructions to their families and relations in the village. Only Stepan Astakhov sent no message back by her.

  He had fallen ill the evening before, drunk vodka to cure himself and was incapable of seeing anything in the whole wide world, including Tomilin's wife. He did not turn up on parade; at his own request the doctor's assistant let his blood, setting a dozen leeches on his chest. Ste-pan sat in his undershirt against the wheel of his cart (making the white linen cover of his cap oily with cart grease) and stared sulkily at the leeches sucking at his barrel-like chest and swelling with dark blood.