Death they did not fear, but they had an exaggerated terror of every disease. The merest trifle—an upset stomach, a slight chill, and Granny would lie down on the stove, wrap herself up, and start moaning loudly and incessantly: "I am dy-ing!" The old man would hurry off for the priest, and Granny would receive the sacrament and extreme unction. They often talked of colds, of worms, of tumors that shifted about in the stomach and moved up close to the heart. Most of all they feared catching cold, and so dressed in heavy clothes even in summer and warmed themselves on the stove. Granny was fond of doctoring herself and often drove to the dispensary, where she always said she was fifty-eight instead of seventy; she supposed that if the doctor knew her real age he would not treat her, but would say it was time she died instead of doctoring herself. She usually went to the dispensary early in the morning, taking with her two or three of the little girls, and came back in the evening, hungry and cross, with drops for herself and salves for the little girls. Once she had Nikolay go along with her, too, and for a fortnight afterwards he took drops, and said he felt better.
Granny knew all the doctors, medical assistants, and quacks for twenty miles round, and not one of them she liked. At the Feast of the Intercession, when the priest made the round of the cabins with the cross, the deacon told her that in the town near the prison lived an old man who had been an army surgeon's assistant and who worked many cures, and advised her to turn to him. Granny took his advice. After the first snowfall she drove to the town and fetched a little bearded old man, in a long coat, a converted Jew, whose face was covered with a network of tiny blue veins. Just then there were people working in the house: an old tailor, in terrifying spectacles, was cutting a waistcoat out of some rags, and two young men were making felt boots out of wool; Kir- yak, who had been sacked for drunkenness and now lived at home, was sitting beside the tailor mending a horse-collar. And the place was crowded, stuffy, and evil- smelling. The converted Jew examined Nikolay and said that it was necessary to cup the patient.
He put on the cups, and the old tailor, Kiryak, and the little girls stood round and looked on, and it seemed to them that they saw the disease coming out of Nikolay; and Nikolay, too, watched how the cups sucking at his breast gradually filled with dark blood, and felt as though there really were something coming out of him, and smiled with pleasure.
"That's fine," said the tailor. "Please God, it will do you good."
The convert put on twelve cups and then another twelve, had tea, and drove away. Nikolay began shiver- ing; his face took on a drawn look, and, as the women put it, shrank up into a little fist; his fingers turned blue. He wrapped himself up in a quilt and a sheepskin coat, but felt colder and colder. Towards evening he began to feel very ill, asked to be laid on the floor, begged the tailor not to smoke; then he grew quiet under the coat,
and towards morning he died.
IX
Oh, what a hard, what a long, winter it was!
Already by Christm;is their own flour had given out and they started buying flour. Kiryak, who lived at home now, was disorderly in the evenings, terrifying everyone, and in the mornings he was tormented by headache and shame, and it was pitiful to look at him. Day and night the bellowing of the starved cow came from the barn—breaking the hearts of Granny and Marya. And as though out of spite, the frosts were bitter the whole time and the snowdrifts high; and the winter dragged on. At Annunciation there was a regular bliz- zard, and snow fell at Easter.
But after all, the winter did end. At the beginning of April there were warm days and frosty nights; winter would not yield, but one warm day overpowered it at last, and the streams began to flow and the birds to sing. The whole meadow and the shrubs that fringed the river were submerged by the spring floods, and the area between Zhukovo and the farther bank was one vast sheet of water, from which wild ducks rose up in flocks here and there. Every evening a fiery spring sunset, with superb clouds, offered new, extraordinary, incredible sights, just the sort of thing that one does not credit af- terwards, when one sees those very colors and those very clouds in a painting.
The cranes flew swiftly, swiftly, uttering mournful sounds, and there seemed to be a s^moning note in their cries. Standing on the edge of the slope, Olga stared for a long time at the flooded meadow, at the sun- shine, at the church, which looked bright and rejuve- nated, as it were; and her tears flowed and she gasped for breath: so passionate was her longing to go away, anywhere, to the end of the world. It was already de- cided that she should return to Moscow to go into serv- ice as a chambermaid, and that Kiryak should set off with her to get a job as a gatekeeper or something of the sort. Oh, to get away quickly!
As soon as the ground was dry and it was wann, they made ready to leave. Olga and Sasha, with bundles on their backs and sandals of plaited bast on their feet, left at daybreak: Marya came out, too, to see them off. Kiryak was not well and remained at home for another week. For the last time Olga, looking at the church, crossed herself and murmured a prayer; thought of her husband, and though she did not cry, her face puckered up and turned ugly, like an old woman's. During the winter she had grown thinner and plainer, her hair had gone a little gray, and instead of her former attractive appearance and pleasant smile, her face now had the sad, resigned expression left by the sorrows she had ex- perienced, and there was something obtuse and wooden about her gaze, as though she were deaf.
She was sorry to leave the village and the peasants. She kept remembering how they had carried Nikolay down the street, and how a Mass for the repose of his: soul had been said at every cabin, and how aU had wept in sympathy with her grief. During the summer and the winter there had been hours and days when it seemed as though these people lived worse than cattle, and it was terrible to be with them; they were coarse, dishonest, dirty, and drunken; they did not live at peace with one another but quarreled continually, because they feared, suspected, and despised each other. Who keeps the tavern and encourages drunkenness? The peasant. Who embezzles and drinks up the funds that belong to the community, the schools, the church? The peasant. Who steals from his neighbors, sets fire to their property, bears false witness at court for a bottle of vodka? At meetings of the Zemstvo and other local bodies, who is the first to raise his voice against the peasants? The peasant. Yes, to live with them was ter- rible; but yet, they were human beings, they suffered and wept like human beings, and there was nothing in their lives for which one could not find justification. Crushing labor that made the whole body ache at night, cruel winters, scanty crops, overcrowding; and no help, and nowhere to look for help. Those who were stronger and better-off could give no assistance, as they were themselves coarse, dishonest, drunken, and swore just as foully. The most insignificant little clerk or official treated the peasants as though they were tramps, and addressed even the village elders and church wardens as inferiors, and as though they had a right to do so. And indeed, can any sort of help or good example be given by lazy, grasping, greedy, dissolute men who only visit the village in order to outrage, to despoil, to terror- ize? Olga recalled the wretched, humiliated look of the old folks when in the winter Kiryak had been led off to be flogged. . . . And now she felt sorry for all these people, it hurt her, and as she walked on she kept look- ing back at the cabins.
After walking two miles with them Marya said
good-by, then she knelt, and pressing her face against the earth, began wailing:
"Again I am left alone. Poor me! poor unhappy soul that I am!"
And for a long time she went on wailing like this, and for a long time Olga and Sasha could see her still on her knees, as she kept bowing sideways, clutching her head in her hands, while the rooks flew over her.