When Savely returned some two hours later, plastered in snow and worn out, she was already lying in bed undressed. Her eyes were shut, but from the faint twitchingof the muscles on her face he could tell that she was still awake. On his way home he had vowed to say nothing and to leave her alone until morning, but now he could not resist the temptation to say something wounding.
'So much for your sorcery - he's gone!' he said with a malicious smirk.
She did not reply, but her chin quivered. Savely slowly undressed, climbed over her and lay down next to the wall.
'And tomorrow I shall explain to Father Nikodim what sort of a wife you are!' he muttered, curling up in a ball.
His wife rolled over to face him, her eyes flashing.
'You've got the living,' she said, 'what more do you want? If you want a wife, go and look forone in the forest! What sort ofwife am I ? May you drop dead! Why should I be lumbered with an idle, bumbl- ing oaf like you, so help me?'
'That'll do ... Go to sleep!'
'Oh how wretched I am!' she sobbed. 'But for you I might have married a merchant or a gentleman, even! But for you I'd love my husband now! Why weren't you buried in a snowdrift, why weren't you frozen to death out there on the highroad - you tyrant!'
The subdeacon's wife cried for a long time. Eventually she gave a deep sigh and quietened down. Outside, the storm was still raging. Something was crying in the stove, the chimney and round every wall, but to Savely the crying seemed to be within him, in his own ears. That evening had finally convinced him that his theories were right. He no longer had any doubt that his wife was in league with the devil and could make winds and post-troikas do as she wished. But to his utter dismay, this mysteriousness, this wild, supernatural power lent the woman lying beside him an especial, incomprehensible charm that he had not been aware of before. Because in his stupid fashion he had unconsciously poeticised her, she now seemed whiter, sleeker, lnore inaccessible . . .
'Witch!' he muttered to himself indignantly. 'Repulsive witch!'
But when she had fallen quiet and begun to breathe evenly, he reached out a finger and touched the back of her head . . . and hehl her thick plait in his hand. She didn't feel it ... Then he became bolder and stroked her neck.
'Get off!' she yelled and gave him such a thump on the nose with her elbow that he saw stars.
The pain in his nose soon passed but his torment continued.
Grisha
Grisha, a chubby little boy born two years and eight months ago, is out for a walk in the park with his nanny. He is wearing a long felt pelisse, a scaff, a big cap with a fur bobble, and warm overshoes. He feels hot and stuffy, and to make matters worse the April sun is shining with cheerful abandon straight into his eyes and making his eyelids smart.
Everything about Grisha's ungainly appearance and timid, uncer- tain steps, expresses extreme bewilderment.
Hitherto the only world known to Grisha has been a rectangular one, with his bed in one corner, Nanny's trunk in another, the table in the third and the icon-lamp burning in the fourth. If you look under the bed, you can see a doll with one arm missing, and a drum, and if you look behind the trunk, you can see all sorts of different things: cotton-reels, pieces of paper, a box without a lid, and a broken toy clown. Apart from Nanny and Grisha, Mamma and the cat often appcar in this world. Mamma looks like a doll, and the cat looks like Papa's fur coat, only the fur coat doesn't have eycs and a tail. From this world, which is called the nurscry, a door leads to the spacc whcre thcy eat and drink tea. Here Grisha's high chair stands .and on the wall hangs the clock, whosc sole purpose is to swing its pcndulum and strike. From the dining-room you can go through into a room with red armchairs. There is a dark stain here on the carpct which they still point to and wag their fingcrs at Grisha. Beyond this room is another onc, which Grisha must not enter, and wherc Papa is somctimes to be seen -a most mysterious kmd ofperson! Nanny and Mamma arc easy to undcrstand: they are there to dress Grisha, to feed him and put him to bed, but what Papa is there for-Grisha has no idea. Thcn there's anothcr mysterious person, and that is Auntie, who gave Grisha the drum. Sometimes she's there, sometimes she's not. Where does shc disappcar to? Grisha has lookcd several times under thc bcd, behind the trunk and undcr the settee, but she was nevcr there . . .
In this new world, though, where the sun hurts your eyes, there are so many Papas, Mammas and Aunties that you don't know which one to run up to. But the oddest, funnicst things of all are the horses. Grisha looks at the way their legs move and is completely baffled. He looks at "lanny to see if she is going to explain it for him, but Nanny says nothing.
Suddcnly he hears a terrible tramping sound . . . A crowd of soldiers is bearing straight down upon him, marching in step through the park. Their faces are red from the steam baths and under their arms they are carrying bundles of birch twigs. Grisha turns cold with horror and looks enquiringly at Nanny to see if they are dangerous. But Nanny doesn't run away or burst into tears, so they can't be dangerous after all. Grisha watches the soldiers go past and starts marching along in time with them.
Two big cats with pointed faces dash across the path, their tongues lolling out and their tails curling upwards. Grisha thinks he must start running, too, and hurries after them.
'Hey!' shouts Nanny, grabbing hold of him roughly by the shoul- ders. 'Where do you think you're going?Just you behave yourself!'
By the path another nanny is sittingwith a little tub of oranges on her knees. As he walks past, Grisha quietly helps himself to one.
'What do you think you're up to?' shouts his companion, smack- ing him on the fingers and snatching away the orange. 'Stupid child!'
Grisha would love to pick up that piece of glass which he now sees lying at his feet and gleaming like the lamp in the corner of the room, but he's afraid of getting another smack on the fingers.
'My humble respects!' — he suddenly hears a loud, deep voice say almost above his ear, and sees a tall man with bright buttons.
Much to Grisha's joy, this man offers Nanny his hand and stands there talking to her. The brilliant light of the sun, the noise of the carriages, the horses, the bright buttons- all this is so astonishingly new and unfrightening that Grisha's whole being fills with delight and he starts chuckling.
'Come on! Come on!' he shouts at the man with the bright but- tons, tugging at his coat-tails.
'Come on where?' the man asks.
'Come on!' Grisha insists. What he wants to say is that it would be nice to take Papa, Mamma and the cat along with them as well; but his tongue says something completely different.
After a while Nanny leaves the park and takes Grisha into a large courtyard, where there is still snow lying about. The man with the bright buttons follows, too. Carefully they pick their way round the blocks of snow and the puddles, then they go down a dark, dirty staircase and enter a room. It's very smoky inside, there's a strong smell ofcooking, and a woman is standing by the stove frying some chops. The cook and Nanny kiss each other, then they and the man sit down on a bench and start talking quietly. Wrapped up in his warm clothes, Grisha begins to feel unbearably hot and stuffy.