"Yes, miss. My husband was employed at the Slavyan- sky Bazar. And this is my daughter," she said, pointing to Sasha, who was chilly and huddled up to her. "She is a Moscow girl, too."
The two young ladies said some^^g in French to the student and he gave Sasha a twenty-kopeck piece.
Old Osip noticed this, and a gleam of hope came into his face.
"We must thank God, your honor, there was no wind," he said, addressing the student, "or else we should have been all burnt out in no time. Your honor, kind gentlefolk," he added, with embarrassment in a lower tone, "the dawn's chilly . . . something to warm a man . . . half a bottle to your honor's health."
He was given nothing, and clearing his throat, he sh^Hed off towards home. Afterwards Olga stood on the edge of the slope and watched the two carts fording the river and the gentlefolk walking across the meadow; a carriage was waiting for them on the other side of the river. Going into the cabin, she said to her husband with enthusiasm:
"Such kind people! And so good-looking! The young ladies were like cherubs!"
"May they burst!" Fyokla, who was sleepy, said spite- fully.
VI
Marya thought herself unhappy, and often said that she longed to die; Fyokla, on the contrary, found every- thing in this life to her taste: the poverty, the filth, the incessant cursing. She ate whatever was given her in- discriminately, slept anywhere and on whatever came to hand. She would empty the slops just at the porch, would splash them out from the doorsill, and then walk barefoot through the puddle. And from the very first day she conceived a hatred for Olga and Nikolay just because they did not like this life.
"I'll see what you'll eat here, you Moscow gentry!" she would say maliciously. "I'l see!"
One morning at the beginning of September Fyokla, vigorous, good-looking, and rosy from the cold, brought up two pails of water from do^ below on a yoke; Marya and Olga were just then sitting at the table, hav- ing tea.
"Enjoy your tea!" said Fyokla sarcastically. "The fine ladies!" she added, setting do^ the pails. "They've got- ten into the habit of tea every day. You'd better look out you don't swell up with your tea-drinking," she went on, looking at Olga with hatred. "She's come by her fat mug in Moscow, the tub of lard!"
She swung the yoke and hit Olga a blow on the shoul- der so that the two sisters-in-law could only strike their hands together and say:
"Oh, holy saints!"
Then Fyokla went do^ to the river to wash the clothes, swearing all the time so loudly that she could be heard in the house.
The day passed and then came the long autumn eve- ning. They wound silk in the cabin; everyone did it ex- cept Fyokla; she had gone across the river. They got the silk from a factory near by, and the whole family work- ing together earned a mere trifle, some twenty kopecks a week.
"Under the masters things were better," said the old man as he wound silk. "You worked and ate and slept, everything in its turn. At dinner you had shchi and kasha, and at supper the same again. Cuc^bers and cabbage galore: you could eat to your heart's content, as much as you liked. And there was more strictness. Everyone knew his place."
The cabin was lighted by a single little lamp, which burned dimly and smoked. When someone stood in front of the lamp and a large shadow fell across the window, one noticed the bright moonlight. Speaking unhurriedly, old Osip related how people used to live before the Emancipation; how in these very parts, where life was now so poverty-stricken and dreary, they used to hunt with harriers, greyhounds, and specially trained stalkers, and the peasants who were employed as beaters got vodka; how caravans loaded with slaugh- tered fowls were sent to Moscow for the young masters; how the serfs that were bad were beaten with rods or sent off to the Tver estate, while those who were good were rewarded. And Granny, too, had something to tell. She remembered everything, absolutely everything. She told about her mistress, a kind, God-fearing woman, whose husband was a boozer and a rake, and all of whose daughters made wretched marriages: one mar- ried a drunkard, another a commoner, a third eloped (Granny herself, a young girl at the time, had helped with the elopement) , and they had all three soon died of grief, as did their mother. And remembering all this, Granny actually shed a tear.
Suddenly someone knocked at the door, and they aU started.
"Uncle Osip, put me up for the night."
The little bald old man, General Zhukov's cook, the very one whose cap had been burnt, walked in. He sat down and listened. Then he, too, began to reminisce and tell stories. Nikolay, sitting on the stove with his legs hanging down, listened and asked questions about the dishes that were prepared for the gentry in the old days. They talked about chops, cutlets, various soups and sauces, and the cook, who remembered everything very well, mentioned dishes that are no longer prepared; there was one, for instance—a dish made of bulls' eyes, that was called "Waking up in the morning."
"And did you have cutlets ^rechal then?" asked Nikolay.
"No."
Nikolay shook his head scornfully and said:
"Ah-hl Fine cooks you were!"
The little girls, who were sitting or lying on the stove, stared downwn without blinking; there seemed to be a lot of them, like cherubs in the clouds. They liked the stories; they sighed and shuddered and turned pale with rapture or terror, and to Granny, whose stories were the most interesting of all, they listened breathlessly, afraid to stir.
They lay down to sleep in silence; and the old people, stirred up and troubled by their reminiscences, thought what a fine thing it was to be young: youth, whatever it may have been like, left nothing in the memory but what was buoyant, joyful, touching; and death, they thought, how terribly cold was death, which was not far off—better not think of it! The little lamp went out. The darkness, and the two little windows brightly lit by the moon, and the stillness and the creak of the cradle, for some reason made them think of nothing but that life was over and that there was no way of bringing it back. You doze off, you sink into obliviousness, and suddenly someone touches your shoulder or breathes on your cheek—and sleep is gone; your body feels numb, as though circulation had stopped, and thoughts of death keep coming into your head. You turn on the other side: you forget about death, but old, dull, dismal thoughts of want, of fodder, of how dear flour is getting, stray through the mind, and a little later you remember again that life is over and there is no way of bringing it back. . . .
"Oh, Lordl" sighed the cook.
Someone rapped gently, ever so gently, at the win- dow. It must have been Fyokla, come back. Olga got up, and yawning and whispering a prayer, unlocked the door, then pulled the bolt of the outer door. But no one came in; only there was a cold draft of air from the street and the entry suddenly grew bright with moon- light. Through the open door could be seen the silent, deserted street, and the moon itself floating across the sky.
'Who's there?" called Olga.
"Me," came the answer, "it's me."
Near the door, hugging the wall, stood Fyokla, stark naked. She was shivering with cold, her teeth were chattering, and in the bright moonlight she looked very pale, strange, and beautiful. The shadows and the bright spots of moonlight on her skin stood out sharply, and her dark eyebrows and firm, young breasts were defined with peculiar distinctness.
"The ruffians over there stripped me and turned me out like this," she muttered. "I had to go home without my clothes—mother-naked. Bring me something to put on."
"But come inside," Olga said softly, beginning to shiver, too.
"I don't want the old folks to see." Cranny was, in fact, already stirring and grumbling, and the old man asked: "Who's there?" Olga brought out her own shift and skirt, dressed Fyokla, and then both went softly into the house, trying to close the door noiselessly.