Anisim bowed down at Varvara's feet.
"I thank you for everything, mamma," he said. "You are a great asset to our family. You are a very decent woman, and I am very pleased with you."
Much moved, Anisim went out, but returned again and said:
"Samorodov has got me mixed up in something: I shall either make my fortune or come to grief. If any- thing happens, then you must comfort my father, mamma."
"Oh, nonsense, don't you worry, tut, tut, tut . . • God is merciful. And Anisim, you should pet your wife a little, instead you give each other sulky looks; you might smile at least."
"Yes, she is rather a queer one," said Anisim, and he gave a sigh. "She does not understand anything, she never speaks. She is very young, let her grow up."
A tall, sleek white stallion was already standing at the front door, harnessed to the chaise.
Old Tzybukin jumped in, sat down jauntily, and took the reins. Anisim kissed Varvara, Aksinya, and his brother. On the steps Lipa, too, was standing; she was standing motionless, looking away, and it seemed as though she had not come to see him off but just by chance for some unknown reason. Anisim went up to her and just touched her cheeks with his lips.
"Good-by," he said.
And without looking at him she gave a strange smile; her face began to quiver, and everyone for some reason felt sorry for her. Anisim, too, leaped into the chaise with a bound and put his arms jauntily akimbo, for he considered himself a good-looking fellow.
When they drove up out of the ravine Anisim kept looking back towards the village! It was a warm, bright day. The cattle were being driven out for the first time, and the peasant girls and women were walking by the herd in their holiday dresses. The dun-colored bull bel- lowed, glad to be free, and pawed the ground with his forefeet. On all sides, above and below, the larks were singing. Anisim looked round at the elegant white church—it had only lately been whitewashed—and he thought how he had been praying in it five days before; he looked round at the school with its green roof, at the little river in which he used to bathe and catch fish, and there was a stir of joy in his heart, and he wished that a wall might rise up from the ground and prevent him from going farther, and that he might be left with noth- ing but the past.
At the station they went to the refreshment room and drank a glass of sherry each. His father felt in his pocket for his purse to pay.
"I will stand treat," said Anisim. The old man, touched and delighted, slapped him on the shoulder, and winked to the waiter as much as to say, "See what a fine son I have got."
"You ought to stay at home in the business, Anisim," he said; "you would be worth any price to me! I would gild you from head to foot, my son."
"It can't be done, papa."
The sherry was sour and smelled of sealing-wax, but they had another glass.
When old Tzybukin returned home from the station, at first he did not recognize his younger daughter-in- law. As soon as her husband had driven out of the yard, Lipa was transformed and suddenly brightened up. Wearing a shabby skirt with her feet bare and her sleeves tucked up to the shoulders, she was scrubbing the stairs in the entry and singing in a silvery little voice, and when she brought out a big tub of slops and looked up at the sun with her childlike smile it seemed as though she, too, were a lark.
An old laborer who was passing by the door shook his head and cleared his throat.
"Yes, indeed, your daughters-in-law, Grigory Petro- vich, are a blessing from God," he said. "Not women, but treasures!"
v
On Friday the eighth of July, Yelizarov, nicknamed Crutch, and Lipa were returning from the village of Kazanskoye, where they had been to a service on the occasion of a local church holiday in honor of the Holy Mother of Kazan. A good distance behind them walked Lipa's mother Praskovya, who always fell back, as she was ill and short of breath. It was drawing towards evening.
"A-a-a . • said Crutch, wondering as he listened to Lipa. "A-al . . . We-ell!"
"I am very fond of jam, Ilya Makarych," said Lipa. "I sit down in my little corner and drink tea and eat jam. Or I drink it with Varvara Nikolayevna, and she tells some story full of feeling. She has a lot of jam—four jars. 'Have some, Lipa,' she says, 'eat as much as you like.'"
"A-a-a, four jars!"
"They live very well. We have white bread with our tea; and meat, too, as much as one wants. They live very well, only I am frightened in their presence, Ilya Makarych. Oh, oh, how frightened I am!"
"Why are you frightened, child?" asked Crutch, and he looked back to see how far behind Praskovya was.
"At first, after the wedding, I was afraid of Anisim
Grigorich. Anisim Grigorich did nothing, he didn't ill- treat me, only when he comes near me a cold shiver runs all over me, through all my bones. And I did not sleep one night, I trembled all over and kept praying to God. And now I am afraid of Aksinya, Ilya Makarych. It's not that she does anything, she is always laughing, but sometimes she glances at the window, and her eyes are so angry and there is a greenish gleam in them— like the eyes of the sheep in the pen. The Hrymin Juniors are leading her astray: 'Your old man,' they tell her, 'has a bit of land at Butyokino, a hundred acres,' they say, 'and there is sand and water there, so you, Aksinya,' they say, 'build a brickyard there and we wiU go shares in it.' Bricks now are twenty rubles the thou- sand, it's a profitable business. Yesterday at dinner Ak- sinya said to the old man: 'I want to build a brickyard at Butyokino; I'm going into the business on my own account.' She laughed as she said it. And Grigory Petro- vich's face darkened, one could see he did not like it. 'As long as I live,' he said, 'the family must not break up, we must keep together.' She gave a look and gritted her teeth. . . . Fritters were served, she would not eat them.''
"A-a-a! . . .'' Crutch was surprised.
"And tell me, if you please, when does she sleep?" said Lipa. "She sleeps for half an hour, then jumps up and keeps walking and walking about to see whether the peasants have not set fire to something, have not stolen something. . . . She frightens me, Ilya Maka- rych. And the Hrymin Juniors did not go to bed after the wedding, but drove to the town to go to law with each other; and folks do say it is all on account of Aksinya. Two of the brothers have promised to build her a brickyard, but the third is offended, and the fac- tory has been at a standstill for a month, and my uncle
Prohor is without work and goes about from house to housc getting crusts. 'Hadn't you better go working on the land or sawing up wood, meanwhile, uncle?' I tell him; 'why disgrace yourself?' Tve got out of the way of it,' he says; 'I don't know how to do any sort of peas- ant's work now, Lipinka.' . . ."
They stopped to rest and wait for Praskovya near a copse of young aspen-trees. Yelizarov had long been a contractor in a small way, but he kept no horse, going on foot all over the district with nothing but a little bag in which there was bread and onions, and stalking along with big strides, swinging his arms. And it was difficult to walk with him.
At the entrance to the copse stood a milestone. Ye- lizarov touched it to see if it we.j firm. Praskovya reached them out of breath. Her wrinkled and always scared- looking face was beaming with happiness; she had been at church today like anyone else, then she had been to the fair and there had drunk pear cider. For her this was unusual, and it even seemed to her now that she had lived for her own pleasure that day for the first time in her life. Mter resting they all three walked on side by side. The sun had already set, and its beams filtered through the copse, gleaming on the trunks of the trees. There was a faint sound of voices ahead. The Ukleyevo girls had gone on 1ong before but had lingered in the copse, probably gathering mushrooms.