'All the same, we still coum as clergy . . .' added the subdeacon's wife.
'What do you live on?' asked the postman.
'There's a hay meadow and vegetable plots that go with the church. Not that we get much out of them . ..' sighed the sub- deacon's wife. 'Father Nikodim from Dyadkovo, he's an old grasper, he celebrates here on St Nicholas summertide and St Nicholas win- tertide, and in return he takes practically everything for himself. There's no one who'll stick up for us!'
'Liar!' rasped Savely. 'Father Nikodim is a holy man, a luminary of the church, and whatever he takes, he's emitled w.'
'You've an angry one there!' chuckled the postman. 'Been married long?'
'Three years last Sunday before Lent. My Papa used to be sub- deacon here and when his life was drawing to its close, to make sure the living was passed on to me, he went t the Consistory and asked them to send me an unmarried subdeacon as a bridegroom. And I married him.'
'Aha, so you killed two birds with one stne!' said the postman to Savely's back. 'A job and a wife in one go.'
Savely's foot twitched impatiemly and he pressed himselfcloser to the wall. The postman got up from the table, stretched and sat down on a mailbag. Then, after a moment's thought, he plumped up the mailbags, transferred the sabre to a differem position and stretched himself out full-length with one leg reaching to the floor.
'A dog's life,' he muttered, putting his hands behind his head and
closing his eyes. 'I wouldn't wish it on the boldest Tartar.'
All was soon silent. The only sounds were ofSavely wheezing and the postman breathing slowly and evenly in his sleep and emining a deep, prolonged 'k-hhhh' each time he breathed out. Every so often some kind of little wheel creaked in his throat, or his leg jerked and brushed against the mailbag.
Savely rolled over beneath the quilt and gazed slowly round the room. Hiswife was sitting on the stool looking at the postman's face, her cheeks pressed between the palms of her hands. Her eyes were staring, as if she had been taken by surprise and had a fright.
'What are you gawping at?' Savely whispered angrily.
'Ncver you mind! Go to sleep!' his wife replied, without taking her eyes off the fair head.
Savely emptied his lungs in one angry breath and turned abruptly to the wall. Three minutes later he rolled over restlessly again, knelt up in bed, sat back with his hands on the pillow, and peered suspici- ously at his wife. She was still staring at the visitor, motionless. Her cheeks looked paler and her eyes burned with a strange fiery light. The subdeacon made a noise in his throat, crawled across the bed on his stomach, went over to the postman and put a piece ofcloth over his face.
'What's that for?' asked his wife.
'To keep the light off his eyes.'
'The light? Why not put it ouc altogether then?'
Glancing sceptically at his wife, Savely bent down to blow out the lamp, but straightway checked himself and flung up his hands.
'If that's not the devil's own cunning!' he exclaimed. 'Eh? I ask you, is there a creature on earth more cunning than you women?'
'Ahh, you black-robed devil!' hissed his wife, grimacing with annoyance. 'Just you wait!'
And senling herself more comfortably, she went back to gazing at the postman.
No matter that his face was hidden. It was not so much this man's face that she found absorbing, as his general appearance, his novelty. His chest was broad and powei ful, his hands slender and beautiful, his legs straight and muscular, much more beautiful and manly than Savely's 'two little stubs'. There was simply no comparison.
'I may be a black-robed unclean spirit,' Savely said after standing there a while, 'but it's no good them sleeping here . . . No . . . Their work's official - we'll be the ones get the blame ifwe hold them up.
They've a job to do and they must do it, it's no good them sleeping . . . Hey, you!' Savely shouted into the outer passage. 'You, driver . . . what's your name? Want me to guide you? Get up, it's no good you sleeping in charge of the mail!'
And in his temper Savely daned towards the postman and tugged at his sleeve.
'Sir, sir! Ifyou're going, go, ifnot, then you . . . You oughtn't to be asleep.'
The postman leapt up, sat down again, looked round the room bleary-eyed and lay down once more.
'You've got to be off,' Savely gabbled away, tugging at his sleeve. 'What's the mail for, eh, ifnot to get to places in good time? I'll guide you.'
The postman opened his eyes. Warmed and enervated by the sweetness of first sleep, still not fully awake, he had a hazy vision of the white neck and steady voluptuous gaze of the subdeacon's wife, closed his eyes and smiled, as if it were all a dream.
'How can they travel in weather like this?' he heard a woman's soft voice say. 'What they need is a good long sleep!'
'And the mail?' Savely said in alarm. 'Who'll take that then? Are you going to? You?'
The postman opened his eyes again, looked at the way the dimples were moving on the face ofthe subdeacon's wife, remembered where he was, understood what Savely was saying. The thought of having to drive on in the cold dark night sent a chill through his whole body, and he shuddered.
'Five more minutes' sleep won't matter . . .' he yawned. 'We've missed the connection anyway . . .'
'We might just make it!' came a voice from the outer passage. 'You never know, if we're lucky the train may be late, too.'
The postman stood up, stretched luxuriously and started to put on his greatcoat.
At the sight of the visitors preparing to leave, Savely positively neighed with pleasure.
'Give us a hand then!' rhe driver shouted to him, heaving a mailbag off the floor.
The subdeacon darted forward and helped him drag all the mail outside. The postman began unpicking the knot on hishood. And the subdeacon'swifelooked deep into hiseyes, as ifshe intended stealing right into his soul.
'Stay and have some tea .. .' she said.
'I'd be glad to,' he conceded, 'but they're all ready. We've missed the connection anyway.'
'Do stay then!' she whispered, looking down and touching his sleeve.
The postman finally undid the knot and flung the hood hesitantly over his arm. He felt warm standing by the subdeacon's wife.
'What a ... lovely neck you have . . .'
And he touched her neck with two fingers. She did not resist, so with his whole hand he stroked her neck, her shoulder . ..
'You beauty .. .'
'Don't go . .. stay and have some tea.'
'Hey you, Black Pudding!' came the driver's voice from outside. 'What do you think you're doing? Lay them crossways.'
'Don't go ... Hark at that wind howling!'
And the postman, who was still not fully awake and had not had time to shake off the enchantment of languid young sleep, was suddenly overwhelmed by a desire which makes one forget mailbags, mail-trains ... absolutely everything. With a frightened glance at the door, as if wanting to hide or run away, he seized the subdeacon's wife by the waist, and had j ust leaned over to put out the lamp when there came the tramp of boots in the outer passage and the driver appeared in the doorway . . . Savely was peeping round his shoulder. The postman hastily dropped his arms and looked thoughtful.
'All ready!' said the driver.
The postman paused briefly, roused himselfonce and for all with a jerk of the head, and followed the driver out. The subdeacon's wife was left on her own.
'Well get in then and show us the route!' she heard a voice say.
First one bell began to ring sluggishly, then another, and the tinkling notes sped forth from the lodge in a long fine chain.
When they had very gradually died away, the subdeacon's wife sprang up and began walking nervously to and fro. At first she was pale, then she flushed all over. Her face disfigured with hate, her breathing coming in starts, her eyes flashing with a fierce, wild anger, she paced up and down like a tigress in a cage being tormented with a red-hot iron. For a minute she stopped and looked around at the place where she lived. Almost halfthe room was taken up by the bed, which stretched the whole length of the wall and consisted of a dirty feather-mattress, hard grey pillows, the quilt, and various nameless old bits and pieces. The bed was an ugly, shapeless lump, very much like that which stuck up on Savely's head whenever the latter felt an urge to put oil on his hair. In the space from the end of the bed to the door, which opened into the cold outer passage, stood the dark stove with its pots and hanging rags. Everything-including Savely, when he was present - was impossibly dirty, greasy and grimy, so that it struck one as strange to see the white neck and fine, delicate skin ofa woman amid such surroundings. The subdeacon's wife ran over to the bed and flung out her hands as if wanting to sweep all this aside, to stamp on it and trample it to dust, but then the thought of coming into contact with the dirt seemed to scare her, she jumped back and began pacing again . . .