When they were awakened by somebody's steps, the moon was shining brightly; at the entrance to the shed stood Aksinya with her bedding in her arms.
"Maybe it's a bit cooler here," she said; then she came in and lay down almost in the doorway so that the moonlight feU full upon her.
She did not sleep, but breathed heavily, tossing from side to side with the heat, throwing off almost all the bedclothes. And in the magic moonlight what a beauti- ful, what a proud animal she was! A little time passed, and then steps were heard again: the old father, white all over, appeared in the doorway.
"Aksinya," he called, "are you here?"
'Well?" she responded angrily.
"I told you just now to throw the money into the well, did you do it?"
"What next! Throwing property into the water! I gave it to the mowers . . ."
"Oh my God!" cried the old man, dumfounded and alarmed. "Oh my God! you wicked woman. . .
He struck his hands together and went out, and kept talking to himself as he went away. And a little later Aksinya sat up and sighed heavily with annoyance, then rose and, gathering up her bedclothes in her arms, went out.
"Why did you marry me into this family, mother?" said Lipa.
"One has to be married, daughter. It was not us that ordered things so."
And a feeling of inconsolable woe was ready to take possession of them. But it seemed to them that someone was looking down from the height of the heavens, out of the blue, where the stars were, that someone saw everything that was going on in Ukleyevo, and was watching over them. And however powerful evil was, yet the night was cahn and beautiful, and yet in God's world there is and will be righteousness as cahn and beautiful, and everything on earth is only waiting to be made one with righteousness, even as the moonlight is blended with the night.
And both, huddling close to one another, fell asleep comforted.
VI
News had come long before that Anisim had been put in prison for counterfeiting money and circulating it. Months went by, more than half a year went by, the long winter was over, spring had begun, and everyone in the house and in the village had grown used to the fact that Anisim was in prison. And when anyone passed by the house or the shop at night he would remember that Anisim was in prison; and when they rang at the churchyard for some reason, that, too, reminded people that he was in prison awaiting trial.
It seemed as though a shadow had fallen upon the house. It looked more somber, the roof had become rusty, the green paint on the heavy, iron-bound door into the shop had faded; and old Tzybukin himself seemed to have grown darker. He had given up cutting his hair and beard, and looked shaggy. He no longer sprang jauntily into his chaise, nor shouted to beggars: "God will provide!" His strength was on the wane, and that was evident in everything. People were less afraid of him now, and the police officer drew up a formal charge against him in the shop, though he received his regular bribe as before; and three times the old man was called up to the town to be tried for the illicit sale of spirits, and the case was continually adjourned owing to the nonappearance of witnesses, and old Tzybukin was worn out with worry.
He often went to see his son, hired lawyers, handed in petitions, presented a banner to some church. He presented the warden of the prison in which Anisim was confined with a long spoon and a silver holder for a tea- glass with the inscription: "The soul knows its right measure."
"There is no one to look after things for us," said Varvara. "Tut, tut. . . . You ought to ask someone of the gentry to write to the head officials. . . . At least they might let him out on bail! Why wear the poor fellow out?"
She, too, was grieved, but she nevertheless grew stouter and whiter; she lighted the lamps before the icons as before, and saw that everything in the house was clean, and regaled the guests with jam and apple tarts. The deaf man and Aksinya looked after the shop.
A new project was in progress—a brickyard in Butyo- kino—and Aksinya went there almost every day in the chaise. She drove herseU, and when she met acquaint- ances she stretched out her neck like a snake in the young rye, and smiled naively and enigmatically. Lipa spent her time playing with the baby which had been born to her just before Lent. It was a tiny, thin, pitiful little baby, and it was strange that it should cry and gaze about and be considered a human being, and even be called Nikifor. He lay in his cradle, and Lipa would walk away towards the door and say, bowing to him: "How do you do, Nikifor Anisimych!" And she would rush at him and kiss him. Then she would walk away to the door, bow again, and say: "How do you do, Nikifor Anisimych!" And he kicked up his little red legs, and his crying was mixed with laughter like the carpenter Yelizarov's.
At last the day of the trial was fixed. Tzybukin went away some five days before. Then the Tzybukins heard that the peasants called as witnesses had been fetched; their old workman who was one of those to receive a notice to appear went too.
The trial was on a Thursday. But Sunday had passed, and Tzybukin was still not back, and there was no news. Towards evening on Tuesday Varvara was sitting at the open window, waiting for her husband to come. In the next room Lipa was playing with her baby. She was tossing him up in her arms and saying ecstatically:
"You will grow ever so big, ever so big. You will be a peasant, we shall go out to work by the day together! We shall go out to work by the day together!"
"Come, come," said Varvara, offended. "Go out to work by the day, what an idea, you silly thing! He will be a merchant . . . I"
Lipa sang softly, but a minute later she forgot and began again:
"You will grow ever so big, ever so big. You wiU be a peasant, we'll go out to work by the day together."
"There she is at it again!"
Lipa, with Nikifor in her arms, stood still in the door- way and asked:
"Why do I love him so much, maminka? Why do I feel so sorry for him?" she went on in a quivering voice, and her eyes glistened with tears.
"Who is he? What is he like? As light as a little feather, as a little crumb, but I love him, I love him as if he were a real person. Here he can do nothing, he can't talk, and yet I know from his little eyes what he vvants."
Varvara pricked up her ears: the sound of the eve- ning train coming into the station reached her. Had her husband come? She did not hear and she did not heed what Lipa was saying, she had no idea how the time passed, but only trembled all over—not with dread, but with intense curiosity. She saw a cart fuU of peasants roll quickly by with a rattle. It was the witnesses coming back from the station. When the cart passed the shop the old workman jumped out and walked into the yard. She could hear him being greeted in the yard and being asked some questions. . . •
"Loss of rights and all property," he said loudly, "and six years' penal servitude in Siberia."
She could see Aksinya come out of the shop by the back way; she had just been selling kerosene, and in one hand held a bottle and in the other a can, and she had some silver coins in her mouth.
"Where is father?" she asked, lisping.
"At the station," answered the laborer.
" 'When it gets a little darker,' he said, 'then I'll come.'"
And when it became known all through the house- hold that Anisim was sentenced to penal servitude, the cook in the kitchen suddenly broke into a wail as though at a funeral, imagining that this was demanded by the proprieties: