Tales of the Wilderness Part 26

"Be good enough to state your price."

The two Tartars looked over the old-fashioned articles, criticised them, none too well, and fixed the most ridiculous prices. The general burst out laughing and tried to be witty. Katerina grew angrier and angrier, until at last she could no longer contain herself:

"Kirill Lvovich," she shouted, "you are impossible!" "Very well,"

came the infuriated reply; "I am not one of the heirs, I can go!"

They calmed him, however, and then began bargaining with the Tartars, who slung the old-fashioned articles carelessly over their arms-- laces worked by serfs, antique, hand made candle-sticks, a field- gla.s.s and an acetylene lamp.

The twilight spread gently over the town, and through its dusky, star-spangled veil, loomed the old Cathedral--reminiscent of Stenka Razin; now and then came the chime of its deep-toned bells.

The Tartars at length succeeding in striking a bargain, rolled the goods up into neat little packs with their customary prompt.i.tude, paid out Kerensky notes from their bulging purses and left.

Then the heirs divided the proceeds. They were sitting in the drawing-room. Blinds covered the low windows; some portraits hung on the walls, a chandelier was shrouded in a muslin wrapper that had not been changed for years. A yellow oaken piano was covered with dust, and the furniture's velvet covering was tarnished and threadbare. The house struck cold.

The heirs were dressed fantastically; the general in a dressing-gown with gold embroideries and ta.s.sels; Sergius wore a black hooded coat; Lina a warm hare-skin jacket, and Katerina, the eldest--the moustached guardian--a man's thick overcoat, a petticoat and felt shoes. On all were jewels--rings, ear-rings, bracelets and necklaces.

Sergius remarked ungallantly:

"This is a trying time for us all, and I propose that we divide the proceeds among us according to the number of consumers."

"I am not one of the heirs," the general hastily interposed.

"I don't share your socialistic views." Constantine informed Sergius with a cold smile; "I think they should be divided according to the number of heirs."

A heated argument followed, above which rang the Cathedral bells. At last, with great difficulty, they came to an agreement. Then Katerina brought in the samovar. All fetched their own bread and sweet roots and drank the tea, thankful not to have to prepare it for themselves.

Suddenly--with unexpected sadness and, therefore, unusually well--the general began to speak:

"When I--a lieutenant-bridegroom--met our Aunt Kseniya for the first time, she was wearing that bustle that you sold just now. Ah, will things ever be the same again? If I were told the Bolshevik tyranny would endure for another year, I should shoot myself! For, good Lord, what I suffer! How my heart is wrung! And I am an old man.... Life is simply not worth living."

All burst into tears; the general wept as old men weep, the moustached Katerina cried in a sobbing ba.s.s. Neither could Anna Andreevna, nor the two girls who stood clasping each other in the corner, refrain from shedding tears, the girls for their youth and the sparkling joys of their maidenhood of which they had been deprived.

"I would shoot them all if I could!" Katerina declared.

Then Sergius' children, Kira and Lira, came in and Lina told them they might take some alb.u.men. Kira put b.u.t.ter on his.

The moon rose.... The stars shone brilliantly. The snow was dead- white. The river Volga was deserted. It was dark and still by the old Cathedral. The frost was hard and crisp, crackling underfoot. The two young girls, Kseniya and Lena, with Sergius and the general, were returning to the mansion to fetch their handsleighs and toboggan down the slope to the river.

Constantine had gone into town, to a club of cocaine-eaters, to drug himself, utter vulgar plat.i.tudes, and kiss the hands of loose women.

Leontyevna, the Cyclop maid from the Exchange, lay down on a bench in the kitchen to rest from the day's work, said her prayers, and fell into a sound sleep.

The general stood on the door-steps. Sergius drew up the sleighs, and they took their seats--three abreast--Kseniya, Elena and himself, and whirled along over the crackling snow, down to the ice-covered Volga.

The sleighs flew wildly down the slope, and in this impetuous flight, in the sprinkling and crackling snow, and bitter, numbing frost, Kseniya dreamed of a wondrous bliss: she felt a desire to embrace the world! Life suddenly seemed so joyous.

The frost was harsh, cruel and penetrating. On regaining the house the general bristled up like a sparrow--he was frozen--and called out from the door-step:

"Sergius! There is a frost to-day that will certainly burst the water-pipes. We will have to place a guard for the night."

Perhaps Sergius, and even the old man, had had a glimpse of wonderful happiness in the sleigh's swift flight over the snow. The former called back:

"Never mind!"--and again whirled wildly down from the old Cathedral to the Volga, where the boats and steamers plied amid the deep-blue, ma.s.sive ice-floes, so sparkling and luminous in their snowy raiment.

But the general had now worked himself up to a state of great excitement. He rushed indoors and roused everyone:

"I tell you, it will freeze and the pipes will burst unless you let the water run a little. There are 27 degrees of frost!"

"But the tap is in the kitchen and Leontyevna is sleeping there,"

objected Lina.

"Well, waken her!"

"Impossible!"

"d.a.m.n rot!" snarled the general and went into the kitchen and shook Leontyevna, explaining to her about the pipes.

"I will go to the Exchange and complain! Not even letting one rest!...Stealing in to an undressed woman!..."

Lina jabbered her words after her like a parrot. Sergius ran in.

"Leave off, please," he begged. "It is I who am responsible. Let Leontyevna sleep."

"Certainly, I am not one of the heirs," the general retorted smoothly.

The night and the frost swept over the Volga, the Steppe, and Saratov. The general was unable to sleep. Kseniya and Lena were crying in the attic. Constantine arrived home late, and noiselessly crept in to Leontyevna.

Bluish patches of moonlight fell in through the windows.

The water pipes froze in the night and burst.

THE CROSSWAYS

Forest, thickets, marshes, fields, a tranquil sky--and the crossways!

The sky is overcast at times with dove-coloured clouds; the forest now gabbles, now groans in the glittering summer sunshine.

The crossways creep and crawl like a winding thread, without beginning and without end. Sometimes their stretch tires and vexes-- one wants to go by a shorter route and turns aside, goes astray, comes back to the former way. Two wheel-tracks, ripple gra.s.s, a foot- path and around them, besides sky or rye or snow or trees, are the crossways, without beginning or end or limit. And over them pa.s.s the peasants singing their low toned songs. At times these are sorrowful, as endless as the crossways themselves: Russia was borne in these songs, born with them, from them.

Our ways lie through the crossways as they ever have done, and ever will. All Russia is in the crossways--amid the fields, thickets marshes, and forests.

But there were also those Others who wanted to march over the bog- ways, who planned to throw Russia on to her haunches, to press on through the marshlands, make main-roads straight as rules, and barricade themselves behind granite and steel, forgetful of Russia's peasant cottages. And on they marched!

Sometimes the main-road is joined by the crossways, and from them to the main-road and over it pa.s.ses the long vaunted Rising, the people's tumult, to sweep away the Unnecessary, then vanish back again into the crossways.

Near the main-road lies the railway. By turning aside from it, walking through a field, fording a river, penetrating first through a dark aspen grove, then through a red pine belt, skirting some ravines, threading a way across a village, trudging wearily through dried-up river-beds and on through a marsh, the village of Poc.h.i.n.ki is reached, surrounded by forest.

In the village were three cottages, their backs to the forest; their rugged noses seemed to scowl from beneath the pine-trees, and their dim, tear-dribbling window-eyes looked wolfish. Their grey timbers lay on them like wrinkles, their reddish-yellow thatch, like bobbed hair, hung to the ground. Behind them was the forest; in front, pasture, thickets, forest again, and sky. The neighbouring crossways coiled round them in a ring, then narrowed away into the forest.