'Bjyu-bjyusfcki-bjy«, I'll sing a song for you . . .'
Pelageya comes back; she crosses herself and whispers:
'They put him to rights last night, but early this morning he gave up the ghost . . . May he rest in everlasting peace . . . They got him too late, they said . . . He should have come before . . .'
Varka goes into the wood and cries there, but all of a sudden someone strikes her so violently on the back of the head rhat she bangs her forehead against a birch trunk. She raises her eyes and sees her master, the bootmaker, standing in front of her.
'What are you up to,' he says, 'you lousy slur? Sleep while the kid's crying, would you?'
And he gives her ear a painful twisr. Varka tosses her head, rocks rhe cradle and croons her song. The green patch and the shadows from rhe rrousers and baby-clothes sway, wink at her, and soon possess her brain once more. Once more she sees rhe highway, swimming in mud. The people with knapsacks on their backs and the shadows are sprawled out fast asleep. Looking ar them, Varka feels so dreadfully sleepy; how lovely it would be to lie down, but Pelageya, her morher, is walking along beside her, urging her on. They are hurrying to the town together to look for work.
'Give us alms, for the dear Lord's sake!' her mother begs the passers-by. 'Be merciful unto us, good people!'
'Give the baby here!' someone's familiar voice answers. 'Give the baby here!' the same voice repeats, now harsh and angry. 'You asleep, you little wretch?'
Varka jumps up, looks round and realises what's going on: there's no highway, no Pelageya, no passers-by, there's no one but the mistress who's standing in the middle of the little room and hascome to feed the baby. While the mistress, fat and broad-shouldered, feeds the baby and tries to soothe it, Varka stands looking at her, waiting for her to finish. Already there's a bluish light outside, and the shadows and green patch on the ceiling are growing noticeably paler. Soon it will be morning.
'Here!' says the mistress, buttoning up her night-dress. 'He's cry- ing. He's had a spell put on him.'
Varka takes the baby, puts it in the cradle and begins rocking again. The green patch and the shadows gradually disappear, so now there is no one to steal into her head and befuddle her brain. But she wants to sleep as badly as before, oh so badly! Varka rests her head on the edge of the cradle and rocks it with her whole body to overcome her sleepiness, but her lids still stick together and her head is heavy.
'Varka, make up the stove!' the master's voice resounds from the other room. Time to get up, then, and start the day's work. Varka leaves the cradle and runs to the shed for firewood. She is glad. Running and moving about are easier than sitting down: you don't feel so sleepy. She brings in the wood, makes up the stove, and begins to feel her shrivelled face smoothing out again and her thoughts clearing.
'Varka, put on the samovar!' bawls the mistress.
Varka splits a piece of wood, but has scarcely had time to light the splinters and poke them into the samovar before there comes a fresh order:
'Varka, clean the master's galoshes!'
She sits down on the floor, cleans the galoshes and thinks it would be nice to poke her head into the big deep galosh and have a quick doze . . . All of a sudden the galosh starts to grow, swells, fills the whole room, Varka drops her brush, but immediately gives a toss of the head, opens her eyes wide and forces herself to stare at things hard, so that they don't stan growing and moving about.
'Varka, wash down the outside steps! The customers mustn't see them in that state.'
Varka washes the steps, tidies the rooms, then makes up the other stove and runs round to the shop. There's lots to be done, she doesn't have a moment to herself.
But what she finds hardest of all is standing on one spot at the kitchen table, peeling potatoes. Her head keeps falling towards the table, the potatoes dance before her eyes, the knife slips from her hands, while the mistress, fat and bad-tempered, crowds round her with her sleeves rolled up, talking so loudly that it makes Varka's ears ring. Waiting at table, doing the washing, sewing: these, too, are agonising. There are moments when she simply wants to forget everything, flop down on the floor and sleep.
The day goes by. Watching the windows grow dark, Varka rubs her hardening temples and smiles without herself knowing why. The evening gloom caresses her heavy eyes and promises her a deep sleep soon. In the evening there are visitors.
'Varka, samovar!' bawls the mistress.
The samovar is a small one and has to be heated half a dozen times before the visitors have finished drinking. After the tea, Varka stands on the same spot for an hour on end, looking ar the visitors and awaiting orders.
'Varka, run and buy three bottles of beer!'
She darts off and tries to run as fast as possible, to drive her sleepiness away.
'Varka, run and fetch some vodka! Varka, where's the corkscrew? Varka, clean some herrings!'
But now at last the visitors have gone; the lights are put out, the master and mistress go to bed.
'Varka, rock the baby!' echoes the final order.
The cricket chirps in the stove; the green patch on the ceiling and the shadows from the trousers and baby-clothes steal once more into Varka's half-open eyes, wink at her and befuddle her brain.
'Bayu-bayushki-bayu,' she croons, 'I'll sing a song for you . . .'
And the baby screams and wears itself out screaming. Varka sees once more the muddy highway, the people with knapsacks, Pelageya, her father Yefim. She understands everything, she recog- nises everyone, but through her half-sleep there is one thing that she simply cannot grasp: the nature of the force that binds her hand and foot, that oppresses her and makes life a misery. She looks all round the room, searching for this force in order to rid herself of it; but cannot find it. Worn out, she makes one last, supreme effort to concentrate her attention, looks up at the winkinggreen patch, and, as she listens to the sound of the crying, finds it, this enemy that is making life a misery.
c. - 10 195
lt is the baby.
She laughs in astonishment: how could she have failed to notice such a simple little thing before! The green patch, the shadows, and the cricket, also seem to be laughing in astonishment.
The delusion takes possession of Varka. She gets up from her stool, and walks up and down the room. There is a broad smile on her face and her eyes are unblinking. The thought that in a moment she will be rid of the baby that binds her hand and foot, tickles her with delight . . . To kill the baby, then sleep, sleep, sleep . . .
Laughing, winking at the green patch and wagging her finger at it, Varka creeps up to the cradle and bends over the baby. Having smothered it, she lies down quickly on the floor, laughs with joy that now she can sleep, and a minute later is sleeping the sleep of the dead ...
Notes
We give below the original titles in transliteration of all the stories in this volume, with brief notes on points in some of them that may be of help or interest to English readers.
The texts from which the translations were made are those of A.P. Chekhov: Complete Collection of the Works and Letters in Thirty Volumes published by the Gorky Institute of World Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Moscow, 1974-82). These are the revised versions prepared by Chekhov for his Collected Works pub- lished in 1899-1902.
The system of transliteration used throughout is that of The Oxford Chekhov, with the following qualification.
In many of the early stories Chekhov uses proper names that sound comic, carry comic allusions, or are in other ways meaningful. Simply to transliterate such names fails to convey to the English reader an element that is present in the original and sometimes extremely important. To convert a comic Russian name into a comic English one is not satisfactory, either, since the intrusion of an English form into a Russian story is bound to jar. Moreover, in English comic surnames are comparatively rare and immediately stand out, whereas in Russian they are common and there is nothing very unusual about being called Toothless (Bezzubov) or Parsnip (Pasternak). In rendering these names, therefore, we have tried to convey something of the meaning and flavour of the original, to make the names sound plausibly Russian, and not to let them stand out more in English than they do in Chekhov's Russian. Often this involved a complicated juggling act. It inevitably meant that in the comic stories we have departed from the strict system oftranslitera- tion.