Once a crowd of them came out of the woods and again met the engineer on the road. He stopped and, without greeting them, looking angrily first at one, then at another, began:
“I’ve asked that the mushrooms not be picked in my park and around the premises, that they be left for my wife and children, but your girls come at dawn, and then there’s not a single mushroom left. Asking you or not asking—it’s all the same. Requests, kindness, persuasion, I see, are all useless.”
He fixed his indignant eyes on Rodion and went on:
“My wife and I treated you as human beings, as equals, and you? Eh, what’s there to talk about! It will end, most likely, with us looking down on you. There’s nothing else left!”
And making an effort to restrain his wrath, so as not to say something unnecessary, he turned and went on his way.
On coming home, Rodion said a prayer, took off his boots, and sat down on the bench beside his wife.
“Yes…,” he began, after resting. “We were going along just now and met Mister Kucherov…Yes…He’s seen the village girls at daybreak…He says, ‘Why don’t they bring mushrooms,’ he says…‘to my wife and children?’ And then he looks at me and says: ‘My wife and I,’ he says, ‘are going to look after you.’ I wanted to bow down at his feet, but I turned shy…God grant him good health…Lord, send them…”
Stepanida crossed herself and sighed.
“They’re kind masters, sort of simple…,” Rodion went on. “ ‘We’ll look after you…’ he promised in front of everybody. In our old age and…it would be nice…I’d pray to God for them eternally…Queen of Heaven, send them…”
The Elevation, on the fourteenth of September, was the church feast.3 The Lychkovs, father and son, crossed the river in the morning, and came back drunk at lunchtime; they went around the village for a long time, now singing, now abusing each other in foul language; then they got into a fight and went to the estate to complain. First Lychkov the father came into the yard with a long aspen stick in his hand; he stopped hesitantly and took off his hat. Just then the engineer and his family were sitting on the terrace having tea.
“What do you want?” the engineer shouted.
“Your Honor, sir…,” Lychkov began and burst into tears. “Show me divine mercy, intercede…My son won’t let me live…He’s ruined me, he beats me…Your Honor…”
Lychkov the son also came in, hatless, also with a stick. He stopped and fixed his drunken, mindless gaze on the terrace.
“It’s not my business to sort it out,” said the engineer. “Go to the local court or the police.”
“I’ve been everywhere…I’ve petitioned…,” said Lychkov the father, and he started sobbing. “Where can I go now? So it means he can kill me now? It means he can do anything? And me his father? His father?”
He raised his stick and hit his son on the head; the son raised his and hit the old man right on his bald spot, so that the stick even bounced off. Lychkov the father did not even sway and again hit his son, again on the head. They stood like that and kept hitting each other on the head, and it looked not like a fight, but like some sort of game. And outside the gate peasant men and women crowded and silently looked into the yard, and their faces were all serious. They had come with wishes for the feast day, but, seeing the Lychkovs, they felt ashamed and did not enter the yard.
The next morning Elena Ivanovna left for Moscow with the children. And the rumor spread that the engineer was selling his dacha…
V
The bridge had long been a familiar sight, and it was already hard to imagine the river in that place without it. The heaps of debris left from the construction had long been overgrown with grass, the vagabonds were forgotten, and instead of the song “Dubinushka,” the sound of a passing train was heard almost every hour.
The New Dacha was sold long ago; it now belongs to some official, who comes here from town on holidays with his family, has tea on the terrace, and then goes back to town. He has a cockade on his visored cap, he talks and coughs like a very important official, though in rank he is a mere collegiate secretary,4 and when the peasants bow to him, he does not respond.
In Obruchanovo everyone has aged; Kozov has already died, Rodion has even more children in his cottage, Volodka has grown a long red beard. Life is as poor as before.
In early spring the Obruchanovo peasants saw wood near the train station. Now they are going home after work, going unhurriedly, one by one; the wide saws bend over their shoulders, and the sun is reflected in them. Nightingales sing in the bushes along the riverbank, larks pour out their song in the sky. It is quiet at the New Dacha, not a soul is there, and only golden pigeons, golden because the sun is shining on them, fly over the house. Everyone—Rodion, both Lychkovs, and Volodka—remembers the white horses, the little ponies, the fireworks, the boat with its lamps, remembers how the engineer’s wife, beautiful, finely dressed, came to the village and spoke so gently. And it is all as if it never was. All like in a dream or a fairy tale.
They walk one foot after the other, worn out, and they think…
In their village, they think, the folk are good, quiet, sensible, they fear God, and Elena Ivanovna was also quiet, kind, meek, it was such a pity to look at her, but why is it that they did not get along and parted as enemies? What was this mist that hid from sight the most important things and let only the damage be seen, the bridles, the pincers, and all those trifles which now in recollection seem like such nonsense? Why is it that they live in peace with the new owner, but could not get along with the engineer?
And, not knowing how to answer these questions for themselves, they all keep silent, and only Volodka mutters something.
“What’s that?” asks Rodion.
“We lived without the bridge…,” Volodka says glumly. “We lived without the bridge and didn’t ask…and we’ve got no need.”
Nobody responds to him, and they walk on silently, hanging their heads.
1898
NOTES
JOY
1.
Collegiate Registrar:
In the table of ranks established by Peter the Great in 1722, there were fourteen grades of government officials, of which collegiate registrar was fourteenth and lowest.
FAT AND SKINNY
1.
Nikolaevsky train station:
A railway terminal in Moscow and Petersburg, named after the emperor Nicholas I.
2.
Herostratus…Ephialtes:
In the fourth century B.C. the arsonist Herostratus burned down the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, listed by the historian Herodotus as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Ephialtes of Trachis betrayed the Greeks to the Persians, enabling the latter to win the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.
3.
collegiate assessor…a Stanislas:
Collegiate assessor was eighth in the table of ranks (see note 1 to “Joy,” above). The Polish Order of St. Stanislaus (or Stanislas), founded in 1765, was adopted by Russia in 1832.
4.
state councillor…privy councillor:
State councillor was fifth in the table of ranks; privy councillor was third and brought with it the right to be addressed as “Your Excellency.”
AT THE POST OFFICE
1.
blini:
Thin Russian wheat or buckwheat pancakes served with various accompaniments, sweet or savory.
READING
1.
actual state councillor:
Or “active state councillor,” fourth grade in the table of ranks.
2.
The Count of Monte Cristo