VISIONS

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VISIONS

Tales from the Russian

BY
COUNT ILYA TOLSTOY

Author of “Reminiscences of Tolstoy”

Illustrated by
Ossip Perelma

 

Rew Work

JAMES B. POND

1917
EL.
“PO
S416
T6S

AG 2098S

Copyraicat, 1917
By JAMES B. POND

Publisbed March, 1917

VAIL~BALLOU COMPANY
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
PREFACE

The stories in this volume have been trans-
lated by different people. ‘‘A War Vision’’ was
translated by William Ressnick; ‘‘An Affair of
Honor’’ and ‘‘Too Late,’’ by Elbert Aidline;
‘‘Without a Nose’? and ‘‘The Little Green
Stick,’’ by Nicholas Aleinikoff and ‘‘The Scarlet
Bashlyks,’’ by Miss Rojansky. Thanks is due
to Louis Weinberg for assistance in editing the
translations.
CONTENTS

STORIES OF THE WAR

Tae Littie Nurse

War Visions . . 2.
An ArrarrR OF HoNoR .. .
THe ScaRLET BASHLYKS. . . .
THE LittLe GREEN STICK

STORIES OF RUSSIAN LIFE
Too Lats . . . 2...
One Scounpreu Less
WirHour a Nose .
CHOLERA

PAGE

27
41
57
65

75

. 113
. 141
. 151
STORIES OF THE WAR
THE LITTLE NURSE
THE LITTLE NURSE

Ir had been an arduous day. Two operations
took place in the morning, and toward the eve-
ning, just before supper time, there came on
wagons, direct from the battlefield, twenty-
eight more seriously wounded.

The hospital was, as usual, over-crowded; the
doctor cried out that he had no room for more
patients. ‘‘All cots are taken.’? However, to
refuse them shelter would mean to expose the
wounded over night to the mercy of the rain,
and so they were finally taken in, washed,
dressed with clean white bandages and put for
the night in the ‘‘assorting’’ room, upon new
linen mattresses thickly stuffed with fresh,
sweetly smelling hay.

When everything had been arranged and the
nurses gathered for their evening meal, the
wounded wanted to eat, for they had had noth-
ing in their mouths for over twenty-four hours.

The nurses ran to the kitchen, gathered up.
everything that was there and handed to each
patient a cutlet and a piece of stale brown bread.

They themselves remained hungry, and as-
3
4 THE LITTLE NURSE

sembling in their rooms satisfied their appe-
tites with chocolate and tea biscuits.

Chocolate with sisters of mercy stands for
everything. One cannot imagine what a nurse
would do if there were no chocolate in the world.
When about to make a journey, she will never
think of other provisions; she puts a bar of
chocolate into her valise and considers herself
fully supplied for several days. If seized with
a sudden pang of hunger during relaxation from
her labors, she will break off a piece of choco-
late and eat it. Before going to sleep, tired,
undressed, and unwashed, she will stoop down,
draw out from under her bed her basket, and
take a bit of chocolate, and so falls asleep with
a pleasant taste in her mouth, contented and
happy.

Far be it from me, dear, pathetic toilers to
make sport of your efforts. I recall with affec-
tion, that little brown morsel in your clean,
tender hands. To me that bit is the symbol of
your spirit of self-sacrifice, of your boundless
patience and love. I saw your work at the front
and I take my hat off to you.

The watch nurse for the night was Miss
Zavialova, ‘‘Little Vera,’’ as she was called by
her companions.
THE LITTLE NURSE 5

Before the war she had simply been a young
lady who lived with her parents on their estate.
_ Like all the young ladies of that period, she

too, had been raving about Artzibashev’s nov-
els, swallowed Sergius Gorodetsky, adored Bal-
mont and wore a silken shawl of ‘‘tango’’ color.
As soon as she learned that the war had broken
out she left the city, almost against the will of
her parents, entered a training school, finished
her course and enrolled as a civil nurse in the
hospital erected at the expense of the local
merchants. There she had stayed ever since.

At first it was not easy for her to grow used
to her new life. While at college she had been
present at one serious operation, the amputation
of a leg. She nearly fainted. She was grow-
ing pale and commenced to waver, when some
one caught her arm; and this touch was enough
to make her remember in time that she must
not display any weakness. She braced up, and
even went quite close to the operating table.

The surgeon just then lopped off the leg and
threw it into the washtub. The cold water
splashed upon her apron and sprayed her face,
and she had to leave the room to go and wash
herself. She did not come back. For a whole
hour she sat in the hallway and wept.

She later saw other operations, more terri-
6 THE LITTLE NURSE

ble still, but she could never forget that white
leg with the big, crooked, dirty nails.

Another vivid impression was engraved on
her memory, that of a transport of wounded
which she received in Kieff, at the freight depot,
where a temporary feeding place had been
established. Some crawled out of the cars un-
aided—lame, with arms in slings, heads band-
aged. The more seriously wounded were taken
out from the railway cars on stretchers, and
were carried into the large, long warehouse,
where they were emptied onto the straw cov-
ered floor. In one of the warehouses there
were Russians, in the other Austrians.

Little Vera brought them hot tea and gruel.
While attending them, the thought came to her
how dreadfully strange it was that these people
should mutilate and cut up each other on pur-
pose.

Later when she got into the rut and became
a professional, these thoughts ceased to agitate
her mind. In her work she forgot to think, her
nerves grew strong and her only anxiety was
to do her duty in the best and quickest way so
as to most ably serve the patients. Only occa-
sionally, at night, when sleep would not come,
was she gripped by the horror of human suffer-
ing, and then she would pass long wakeful vigils,
THE LITTLE NURSE 7

with eyes wide open staring into space, while
her heart wept and prayed.

So it happened with her this night.

She said good night to her companions,
washed herself quickly, put on her soft felt
slippers and, ascending the broad gravel stairs
with noiseless step and gnawing heart, entered
into the dimly lighted sick room. It smelled of
drugs and human flesh. Many of the seriously
wounded were still awake. On one of the cots,
by the wall, there loomed the white figure of a
wounded Austrian with a bandaged head, who
rocked rhythmically to and fro on one place—
like a bear in a cage, Vera thought.

He was one of the wounded whose days were
numbered. A few days ago his skull had been
opened and a splinter extracted from his brain,
and now serious inflammation was developing.

Already he had lost all sense of reality. Last
night he could still be spoken to, moved, band-
aged. But now, he permitted no one to ap-
proach him, and kept on screaming loudly and
despairingly: ‘“‘Ah...ah,’’ as if he were
being beaten or stabbed.

“Tf only not to-night,’’ thought little Vera,
casting a side glance at him and listening to his
cries.
8 THE LITTLE NURSE

Several men asked her for water; for some
she herself lit cigarettes and put them into their
mouths (she did that only at night, without the
physician’s knowledge), adjusted the pillows
under others, and so finally came to the door
which opened into a small room where lay the
only officer in the hospital, Ensign Nelidov.

This officer, the favorite of the whole hospital,
had lain there for a long time and was in a dan-
gerous condition. He had been wounded in the
leg in a battle during the retreat of the Russians
and was found unconscious by an Austrian re-
connoitering detachment. »

To evade being taken prisoner, Nelidov
feigned death. But the Austrian officer bent
over him, saw that he was still alive and began
to fire at him from his revolver. After the
third bullet Nelidov still retained sufficient
strength to rise and, putting his hand to his
temple, remarked ‘‘Schiessen sie hier’’ (shoot
here). Then the Austrian gave him a parting
shot and went off without looking around.

Nelidov was not picked up by our forces until
the following day. When brought to the hospi-
tal riddled with bullets, no one imagined he
could live.

Although he was better now, his condition was
very critical, for his temperature rose every
THE LITTLE NURSE 9

day without visible cause and there was danger
of blood poisoning. It was especially bad that
he grew nervous, excited, and continually
jumped up and would not lie quiet. He said he
was in good health and would presently leave
the hospital and go back to war.

Of course, no one told him of the danger of
his condition. The physicians and the nurses
exerted all their efforts to keep him quiet. For
that reason when he could not often sleep of
nights he was given small doses of morphine.

When little Vera opened the door into his
room she saw Nelidov sitting in his bed and
smoking.

‘‘Why don’t you go to sleep? You know it
harms you to be awake. I will give you an in-
jection if you want it.’’

“‘Come in; come in, Vera Pavlovna. I don’t
want to sleep. I knew you’d keep watch to-
night and I have ‘been waiting for you. Only,
for God’s sake, no medicine! I do not want to
sleep. I slept during the day. My only desire
is that you will be with me. Do not go away.’’

‘¢Will you promise to sleep then, yes?”’

“Yes, yes, I promise. Come here; sit down
near me; say something. I love your voice so
much. It is so soft and sympathetic.’’

‘‘Did your leg hurt you to-day?’’ inquired
10 THE LITTLE NURSE

Vera, while seating herself on the chair by the _
small white wooden table.

‘‘No, don’t speak of my leg; it is not neces-
sary. It is entirely uninteresting. Tell me
something of yourself. How pale you are to-
night. . . . What an interesting face you have!
How well your uniform becomes you! I get so
used to seeing you in this attire that I cannot
picture you in ordinary garb, with uncovered
hair. I often want to imagine how you looked
when quite young. Do tell me, where did you
live before the war; who are you; what are you?
I want to know everything.’’

‘“Why, that is not interesting.’’

‘“Why uninteresting? Perhaps after the
war, if I remain alive, if I come out unscathed,
—perhaps, then I will seek you out; maybe you
will permit me to hope. .. .’’

“One must not think of what shall happen
later. Just the same, you will forget me; be-
sides, that is not important.’’

‘What, unimportant? If that be not impor-
tant, what is important?’’

‘‘Well, the important thing now is that you
speedily recover, and you don’t want to listen
and you do need sleep.”’

*‘T will not sleep. Do you really believe that
I am in the least concerned about this silly
THE LITTLE NURSE 11

thing, my health, my sleep? Can’t you under-
stand that the fact that you sit here near me,
in my room, so close to me, that I gaze at you
and hear your voice—don’t you know that this
is dearer to me than everything else in the
world? My dear Vera Pavlovna, I don’t know
what has happened to me to-day; forgive me!
You know I have been silent all this time, have
not said a word to you. But now I can’t keep
quiet; I must speak.’’

“‘There, you must not talk, dear. Lie down;
let me take your temperature.’’

‘‘Again temperature!’’

‘‘Certainly. If you remain obdurate, I shall
get angry and go. Lie down; I will cover you
up, and put in the therniometer.’’

‘“You are not angry now, are you?”’

“No. If you will only listen to me.’’

Vera took the thermometer from the table,
shook it, looked at the mercury and, unbutton-
ing the collar of his shirt, started, with trained
hand, to adjust the instrument.

‘“‘Tet me; I can do it myself.”’

‘‘Well, all right, do it yourself,’’ said little
Vera in the tone of one appeasing a capricious
child. She walked up to the head of his bed
and straightened his pillow.

Nelidov glanced over his head, caught her
12 THE LITTLE NURSE

hand and covered it with passionate, burning
kisses,

‘“‘Oh, my darling, forgive me! You are not
angry?’’

‘“‘Let go, dear; you must sleep. What a
queer person you are; just like a child, indeed!”’

‘Kiss me, then, on the forehead as you would
a child; kiss me. No harm in it for you, while
I... Ishall be happy.’’

‘And you will sleep?’’

ée Yes.”

‘‘Then I will go?’’

“Ves.??

Vera bent softly and guardedly touched his
forehead with a dry, child’s kiss. How hot and
moist his head felt on her lips!

‘*T will return shortly to see the thermometer.
I must be going now,’’ she said, making an ef-
fort to remain composed. With an even, silent
tread she started out.

““You will come back?”’

‘“Ves,.”?

The big Austrian was still sitting and rock-
ing.

WAR ces Albee s Oh aw

The air grew close. The men fell asleep and
it was uncanny to hear the screams of the dying
THE LITTLE NURSE 13

Austrian amidst the measured, even-tempered
snoring of the armless, legless and shot-riddled
sufferers reposing in forgetful slumber. As if
they did not feel that right here, near them, a
man was dying. The moans grew adi and
weaker.

A sudden, wild, insane shrill and ‘ses calmer,
lower...

An . Sh cies Boo

Little Vera sat down under the lamp and took
out her watch. In ten minutes she must go to
Nelidov and see his temperature.

‘‘Of course, he has fever heat. Otherwise he
could not have talked such things, would not
have kissed my hand. Why did he do it?’’ she
said to herself. ‘‘At such moments, when there
is so much suffering about, when death hovers
in the air,—can one talk of love?’’ Then, as if
in deciding, she thought, ‘‘It must be because
he is lonesome, and it grows hard for him.
How he has suffered, poor soul! He needs rest,
rest alone.’’

Ah 94 obs) salsa”

‘“‘Sister, you had better do something for him
or call in the warden,’’ she heard one of the
wounded say from somewhere in a corner.

‘All right, I will return presently,’’ replied
Vera, and, rising, went to see Nelidov.
14 THE LITTLE NURSE

The temperature showed 39.

‘“‘Thirty-one and _ five-tenths,’’ lied little
Vera; ‘‘a small rise has taken place, though.
Go to sleep now. I will visit you once more, to
see if you are obedient.’’

‘““Vera Pavlovna, wait. Who is it that
screams so awfully?’’

‘‘A soldier, whose finger is swollen.’’

‘“‘Ah ... ah,’’ came through the open door.

Vera put the thermometer in its place, ar-
ranged on her way, by force of habit, the bed-
cover of the patient and went out again into the
large hall.

At first she thought of calling in the doctor,
but remembering how he had grumbled at din-
ner, because the nurse on duty had twice dis-
turbed his sleep the night before for trivial
cases, she desisted.

“‘T will go myself. Perhaps he will let me
come near him,”’ she decided, and, bravely, with
firm foot stepped up to the cot.

The wounded Austrian continued to toss
about and it seemed as if he did not perceive
her. Little Vera then came close behind him
and placed her shoulder and arm under his
head. The patient leaned against her with all
his weight and continued to rock, swaying her
with him. With each motion he rolled on her
THE LITTLE NURSE 15

with his broad uncouth frame, and his cheek
pressed upon her little body. She tried hard to
sepport his weight and not to move lest he
notice her presence.

His breathing was violent and hot, and deep
in his lungs little Vera could hear something
that creaked and gurgled and grated. He
screamed no more. He only groaned in slow,
low sounds, his voice sinking lower, lower.

FOAL co Ol a wc?”

Vera sat in such a manner that she could not
see his eyes and it seemed to her that he was
falling asleep.

She herself grew numb because of the tension
of her spirit and body; she almost stopped
thinking. Time dragged, tormentingly slow.
Somewhere a clock chimed. Once, then two
times, then once again... .

At times, amidst the snoring and whistled
breathing there was audible here and there a
rasping of teeth or the detached, incoherent
sounds of. delirium. Some quietly moaned.
And in the corner of the wall there sat two in-
terlocked white figures, silent, without words,
closely pressed to each other and rocking back
and forth.

One—powerful, roughly hewn, desperately re-
sisting the coming end: the other—little, phys-
16 THE LITTLE NURSE

ically feeble, but full of spiritual strength and
beauty.

About three o’clock the agony set in.

The patient swung violently from side to side

several times and fell with all the weight of his
mighty body upon the bed, dragging little Vera
under him. She freed herself with great diffi-
culty from under his shoulder, arranged his feet
and ran for water.
. When she returned the patient was in his last
struggles. His large dark eyes were unnatu-
rally wide and stared with amazement into
space, through the room, through the walls.

Something surged in his breast. His breath
became broken.

“‘There; now that’s the end,’’ thought little
Vera, standing over him and involuntarily hold-
ing her own breath. But life struggled on.
When the man finally became still forever, the
little white figure silently bent over his head
and with two slender pink fingers closed his
eyelids.

They were still warm and soft.

‘‘He at least suffers no more,’’ thought little
Vera. This was the customary consolation in
such cases,

‘“What, dead?’ queried some one from the
THE LITTLE NURSE 17

opposite corner of the chamber. . ‘Peace to
his soul! Many of our kind will fave gone his
way. I would gladly follow him, if God only
willed.’?

‘“Why, what’s the matter? You will recover
and live,’’ retorted Vera.

‘‘What’s life without a leg? Do you call that
life?’’

‘Why don’t you go to sleep? Does some-
thing bother you?’’ asked the nurse, approach-
ing the bed.

“Yes, thoughts bothered all the time I looked
at you, sister, as you rocked with the Austrian.
What; are you spent?’’

‘‘No, it’s nothing. I was so sorry for him;
he suffered much.’’

“It is a pity. He, too, was a human being.
Sister, won’t you give me a cigarette?”

“In a minute.’’

Having made her rounds once more, she came
again to the door of Nelidov’s room and
stopped, halted by indecision.

‘‘Shall I enter? Have I a right to listen to
what he tells me? It were, perhaps, better to
leave him alone if he is asleep.’’

Deep in her heart something drew her to this
room; therefore, she wavered.

After the horror just experienced, she wanted
18 THE LITTLE NURSE

to hear a human voice; she instinctively craved
for the kindness of this dear, sensitive boy and
she felt that just as he had needed her sisterly
kiss so would she sacrifice all to be able to for-
get herself, even for a second, in loving and
being loved. But she dared not think of it.

She had never yet really loved anybody.
Formerly, when she lived with her parents, the
thought of love never entered her mind. There
was no time for love—life presented too many
diversions.’ Here, however, on the background
of human suffering, amidst the setting of hor-
rors and mutual destruction of people, her soul
lost its anchor and became chilled in perpetual
fear; she wanted caresses and warmth.

Sometimes at night, lying on her hard narrow
cot, she would start from some terrible dream,
light the candle and pass long, long hours, open-
eyed and thinking. It even happened that she
became at times so frightened that she would
wake her companion-nurse, Miss Kornilova, —
nestle up to her, kiss her and treat her, sleepy
as she was, to some chocolate. So clinging to
the edge of her co-worker’s bed, she would slum-
ber till morning.

If some one had asked little Vera whether she
were happy or not, she would certainly have re-
plied, ‘‘Yes,’? because here for the first time
THE LITTLE NURSE 19

she learned that she was of help to people.
Deep in her soul, however, there was a void that
gnawed at her heart. .

Occasionally something stirred there.

There was one Russian soldier who had been
long confined in the hospital. He was nervous
and permitted no one to dress his wound. The
‘little nurse’’ alone could manage him. When
they wanted anything done for him they sent
for her, and she went to ‘‘her’’ patient and
helped him. And the ‘‘little one’’ loved him
for it, as a mother would, and this feeling was
dear to her and cheered her.

In the same way she loved Nelidov. At least,
so she thought, so it seemed to her, for she
would not admit another feeling, a more selfish
one; she did not: permit herself to think other-
wise.

Vera opened the door and peered in. Neli-
dov was not asleep. He sat in the same posi-
tion in which she had left him two hours ago.

At first she felt a thrill of gladness at seeing
him in such condition, but a closer glimpse of
his inflamed, burning eyes frightened her, and
her heart sank. Evidently the temperature of
the patient had not fallen, but, on the contrary,
was rising.
20 THE LITTLE NURSE

“At last!’? he said, breathing heavily.
‘“With my eyes riveted on the doorsill I have
been waiting for you for three solid hours.
Three hours I have been counting each second,
listening for the slightest rustle. If you only
knew what a torture it was! And now you have
come and will put me to sleep and doctor me
with morphine. Therein you see the sacred
duties of a nurse. You do not understand what
I have lived through in these three hours with
my eyes glued to that silly white door. I
thought of everything. I lived through every-
thing. I recalled how they were shooting me
full of holes there, on the field. It was so fool-
ish, ridiculous. Was life indeed necessary to
me? That blockhead thought he was making
game of me. And I showed him where to aim.
But the dunce missed again. Then I thought
that everything was the same to me, everything.
Did I suffer then? Not the least bit. I have
not suffered at all during this time. But now,
these hours, I have been through the utmost tor-
ture. That plank there, which you crossed—
there it is,—it tormented me, and that door
which would not open till now.”’

Nelidov reclined his head, put his hand
across his eyes and heaved a deep sigh.

She stood near his bed, like a culprit, with
THE LITTLE NURSE 21

downcast eyes, and kept silent. Casually she
leaned with her hand upon the small white table
and her trembling made all the medicine bottles
shake and rattle. She drew back her hand and
seated herself on the chair by the wall.

Nelidov bent over his emaciated knees and
sought her eye.

For a flitting instant she raised her lashes
and then lowered them again, hiding her eyes.

She thought they were moist. ‘‘Bad.’’

‘““Why did you come? Tell me, was it to doc-
tor my: body, to heal a wounded hero?...
You think I needed that? Can’t you see that
my soul aches? The soul alone? You kissed
me this evening. No, it was not a kiss,—just
a lip-touch, for the dead. Do you know what it
has meant to me? Happiness, insane happi-
ness. That alone has kept me alive all these
three hours. I stared at that door there and
waited, while you were outside nursing a
kicker with a swollen finger. And I will wait
again. I ask for nothing of you now. Later,
after the war. Then will you let me come to
you? Then—if I find you—you will not drive
me away? You will let me love you? Tell me,
do tell me, dear. Will you be mine? No, not
simply mine; no, not that—I want to love you
forever. Will you be my wife?”’
22 THE LITTLE NURSE

Vera rose quietly from her seat, walked up to
him and touched his forehead. Her face ap-
peared composed; only her eyes looked differ-
ent.

“‘T came to see you because I feared you did
not sleep. You see how disturbed you are.
The doctor ordered in such cases not to fail to
give you an injection.”’

‘‘Again, again the same thing. Oh, this is
awful. Tell your doctor that he is a dolt. He
doesn’t know a thing. But you, why don’t you
understand? . . . Do you believe in the immor-
tality of the soul? Tell me that you believe,
yes?’’

‘‘Well, all right; I do.’’

‘‘And still you don’t misunderstand? If I
love you, what difference is there whether I
live or die? The love willremain. What I live
through now will exist forever, won’t it? It
will, yes?. And you here talk of medicine. A
thing that no one needs, that will pass away.
Do you wish my soul to live, and be ever happy?
Do you? Yes? Tell me, do you? Then say
that you love me, a little. A little bit, at least.
Look at me; raise your lashes.’’

‘Will you let me, then, inject the morphine?’’

‘*Yes, yes, anything you want.’’ :

‘‘Very well, I love you.’’
THE LITTLE NURSE 23

‘‘My darling.’’ ... Nelidov bent over and
wheezed through his nose. ‘‘Do with me what
you please. Put me to sleep, stab me—it’s all
the same to me, absolutely the same. Darling,
you do not deceive me?”’

‘No, no.”’

“Tray 2”?

‘“Yes, truly, only don’t interfere now. I will
prepare the syringe and make the injection.
Lie quiet.’’

While little Vera busied herself with the
preparations, Nelidov did not take his eyes off
her, but watched her .every movement. He
gazed upon her long, well-shaped fingers; he
watched those fingers as they moved gracefully
and dexterously about their work—and he was
happy.

While she pricked his arm, he lay still and
looked under her eyelashes.

‘‘Now, sleep.’’

‘All right. Only let me kiss your hands.
Both. They both labored for me. They are
mine? Yes?’’

‘Yes, yes. Sleep. Good-by, till morning.’’

In half an hour dawn broke. Little Vera
came again to Nelidov’s door, stood for a while
undecided and then walked silently in. He was
sound asleep.
24 THE LITTLE NURSE

She neared the head of his bed and gave him
a long tender kiss.

Retracing her steps, she halted at the door,
stopped, and wiped the tears from out her eyes.

On the following day Nelidov got worse.

‘‘Little Vera’’ would not leave his bed and
kept watch over him.

In the evening the patient lost his memory.

After two days he passed away, without gain-
ing consciousness.
WAR VISIONS
WAR VISIONS

THE war relics of devastated structures leave
a sad and painful impression.

Of the many deserted battlefields which I have
seen during the two years passed; of the name-
less little graves faintly marked with little

wooden crosses; of the deserted trenches, noth-

ing gave me so much food for deep and sad re-
flection as the bare and lonely chimneys pro-
jecting from amid piles of rubbish, melancholy
blackened blots, the scattered remnants of
domesticity; a smashed pail, a broken wheel, a
binding of a torn book, the splinters of what
Was once a crib.

To think that hereabout dwelt a family; that
they were contented, and possibly happy.

Those walls stripped and crumbled, what
have they not seen!

It always seems to me that an event having
occurred at a given place, the memory of the
occurrence attaches itself permanently to it.
Whenever I happened to find myself in a local-

ity in which some memorable events had taken
27
28 WAR VISIONS

place I could not think of those events without
at the same time visualizing the surroundings
amid which they occurred; and the more recent
the occurrence, the more vividly I can see the
scene unfolding itself before my eyes.

To think of the number of such impressions,
which the present war has scattered.

It is a film vivid and endless.

I remember one such pile of ruins, which I
saw not far from the road leading to Jaroslav.
This ruin remained permanently fixed in my
memory by reason of a horrible tale connected
with it.

Some time ago there lived on this farm a well-
to-do Galician gardener. When the war broke
out he was drafted into the army, and he went
forth leaving behind him a wife and three small
- children. Shortly following his departure
troops commenced appearing in the immediate
neighborhood. At first there came small de-
tachments, but these were quickly followed by
more formidable bodies. In a short time lines
of trenches were dug on both sides of the farm
and real warfare begun.

The firing was continuous. The family
sought safety in the corners of their hut. They
hid in the cellar under the heaps of beets and
potatoes, but the children soon became accus-
WAR VISIONS 29

tomed to the hissing of bullets and lost all fear
of them.

The wounded soldiers, for the most part
Austrians, began crawling towards the farm.
There they bound up their wounds. The chil-
dren looked on and sometimes gave aid, hold-
ing with their little tiny fingers the blood soaked
cotton or winding long and transparent band-
ages around the wounded limbs. They became
accustomed to the pain and the groans of the
dying and in their naive and simple way ren-
dered all the help of which they were capable.

At night when darkness fell, and when firing
from both sides would cease, the Austrians’
Sanitary Corps would come, place the wounded
on long and unsteady stretchers and carry them
to the rear.

On one oceasion the wounded sent the eldest
girl to the pond to fetch some water. She
stayed away for a long, long time. Later she
was found lying on the grass with a bullet in
her slender little shoulder. The pails lay near
her empty.

During the night she, too, was placed on a
stretcher and was carried away. With her
went the mother and the rest of the children.
From that night on the farm remained for-
saken.
30 WAR VISIONS

The wounded, however, continued crawling
to the hut, their numbers increasing from day
to day. At times the sanitarians were not able
to reach the farm and the wounded would lay
for days at a stretch without aid.

At the end of October a serious cholera epi-
demic broke out among the Austrian troops.
From that time on there appeared among those
creeping towards the lonely farm large numbers
of emaciated and pale blue forms—shadows of
men. On reaching the farm they would fall on
the straw, coiled up and groaning in their agony,
most of them to remain lying there until si-
lenced by everlasting sleep.

There was no one to bury the bodies and they
gradually began to decompose.

On top of those bodies fell more and more. It
became impossible to live amid these hellish sur-
roundings, and if by chance some unfortunate
wounded happened to come along most of them
would leave the little hut and limp on, prefer-
ring to dare the firing line rather than be stifled
in this horrible atmosphere of death and stench.

The engagements, which had lasted several
weeks, became more and more stubborn.
The trenches crept nearer and nearer until
WAR VISIONS 31

they resembled two live gigantic horns about to
embrace each other.

Presently one of the Austrian trenches came
so near the farm that it became an obstacle to
firing, and an order was issued to apply the
torch to the encumbrance.

It was quite a dangerous task. All knew
through experience that the Russians keep a
sharp lookout on all that transpires in the enemy
line and do not allow to pass with impunity the
least move on the part of the enemy. At night
the men while smoking would lay low at the
very base of the trench as the mere striking
of a match sufficed to draw fire from the oppo-
site lines.

As a result of some faint noise or a slight
movement vigorous firing would not infre-
quently burst out all along the line and instead
of getting the much needed rest, the soldiers
would pass nights on their feet and remain
fatigued from sleeplessness and nervous ex-
ertion.

A young second lieutenant, who had but re-
cently begun his career of battle, volunteered to
apply the torch. Being an ambitious man he
was at the same time limited and cowardly.
He always tried to conceal his cowardice under
82 WAR VISIONS

a mask of arrogance, pushing his way forward
whenever there was an opportunity to get into
the spot light, and have his name mentioned.
To brace himself, the’ officer emptied a large
glass of spirits, and taking along one of the
men left the cozy sheltered trench and began
feeling his way across the fields.

The night was dark as a grave and over the
lowland of the garden hung a thick, milky fog.
Their feet sank deep into the sticky, soaking
mud. The men went slowly, bent to the ground
and breathing heavily.

They continued on their way without seeing
anything ahead. Though the distance between
them and their object was only two hundred
yards it seemed to them from time to time as
if they had lost their bearings and were going
in the wrong direction.

Soon they were aware of a heavy, suffocating
smell; the next moment there loomed up before
their very eyes a somber silhouette of a build-
ing. It stood there enveloped in fog.

Reaching a corner of the house, the lieu-
tenant stopped short, drew from his holster a
big field revolver and whispered to the man to
come near.

It seemed that his main care was not that of
carrying out the-assumed task, but to hide con-
WAR VISIONS 33

veniently from the Russian fire, and then slip
-off to the rear as soon as the house would catch
fire. He figured that while the flames were
spreading over the structure and before they
would reach the last wall, he could quietly and
without the least danger to himself remain un-
der shelter.

As soon as the fire enveloped the structure
and before the walls began crumbling, he would
run back in time to avoid exposure by the con-+
flagration.

With this in view, he gave orders to his sub-
ordinate to pile up straw on the side of the
building directly facing the trenches. In the
meantime the officer having taken shelter behind
the opposite wall, lit a cigar and remained wait-
ing for developments.

A few moments of long and painful suspense
followed. The poor lieutenant was in a state
of frenzy. It was not the personal danger alone
that now excited his imagination. He was tor-
mented by the mystic fear of that which he was
about to carry out. In the darkness he drew
a somber sketch of all that was hidden behind
the wall, the inevitable which he was to face
within a few moments.

How many of them are there? In what stage
of decomposition? How do they lie?
84 WAR VISIONS

The officer suddenly recalled a conversation
in the course of which some one told him that
when the flames touched the dead in the crema-
tory they coiled and twisted as if alive, In his
excited imagination he quickly pictured a wild
dance of the dead which was about to begin.

‘“‘But they will calm down,’’ he thought,
‘‘after they are burned. As soon as burning
flesh is scented I will run, and then let the Rus-
sians shoot at them. All I have to do is to
get away in-time. If we were only done with
this... Quick... Quick... .”’

At this moment he became aware of a pleasant
smell of straw smoke and immediately after the
opposite corner of the structure burst out into
a bright flame.

Almost simultaneously with the flash, firing
began from the Russian trenches, and it seemed
to the officer that a few bullets hissed nearby.

The soldier succeeded in pouring a great
quantity of kerosene into the interior of the
house. The fire spread with unusual swiftness:
In two minutes the structure was all ablaze.

The officer stood at the open door watching
curiously the interior of the main room. Scat-
tered all over the floor there lay contorted and
twisted forms. They lay in irregular heaps.
It was an appalling and gruesome sight.
WAR VISIONS 85

From somewhere protruded some one’s long
bare legs, near the wall lingered a lonely arm.
Curled, swollen and slightly lifted, it hung in
a threatening posture. From under a tattered
old military coat projected a thick brush of
black-blue hair, and at some distance leaning on
the stone there half set a mighty figure of a
stately corpse. The majestic body was bent
in gloom, two huge rough and calloused hands
supporting a big head.

Suddenly it seemed to the lieutenant as if he
heard some one groan. The sound became more
and more audible, coming nearer and nearer;
one voice, a second, somebody called, a cry rang
out, and suddenly pandemonium broke loose.
Air rending cries came from all sides and men
began to drop one by one, falling about the
officer and stretching at his feet. Some fell
straight from the ceiling to the earthen floor,
others came creeping down the ladder; they
dropped into the flames, choking and writhing
in deadly agony.

The officer, half dead from fright, drew his
revolver and opened fire. He ceased firing,
when his supply of bullets gave out. His am-
munition gone, the lieutenant threw down the
-weapon and ran. No one will ever know the
number of unfortunates he thus killed. All I
36 WAR VISIONS

know is that of all the men hiding in the garret
of that farm only one was saved. It was he
who told me this terrible tale. He did this while
lying in one of our hospitals. According to his
version, there were at the time in the building
a great number of wounded soldiers, who came
there during the last engagement. When fire
was set to the house, they endeavored to get
down. All of them perished. Some were
burned alive, while others were shot to death
by their own officer. Among those who perished
was also the soldier who came here with the
lieutenant. He-.was found on the following day,
his breast pierced with a bullet. The brave
officer vanished without leaving a trace behind
him.

These were the horrible visions: I saw them
every time I chanced to pass the ruined and
devastated spot. It is painful to think of this
place .. . How many human sorrows it wit-
nessed. What strength, and what spiritual
weakness!

The fate of the vain and unhappy officer does
not in the least concern me. I am not even dis-
posed to blame him for his weakness. For this
we can only pity a man. One is bound to pity
also those who met death at his hands.

But for some reason or other I cannot help
WAR VISIONS 37

remembering the wounded little girl. There she
lay, dying from loss of blood; there at the turn-

ing of the footpath, near the two little birch
trees.
AN AFFAIR OF HONOR:
AN AFFAIR OF HONOR

I once witnessed a unique duel.

It happened during the present war. The
cavalry regiment in which I served as Red Cross
worker was stationed in a forsaken locality in
the Carpathians, in a small Galician village.
The enemy was retreating, and while our forces
were regrouping, and before fresh reserves had
arrived, we were doomed to tedious inactivity.
There is nothing more dreadful than the tedi-
ousness of waiting.

War, like gambling, engulfs one. When the
cards are dealt out I never have the patience to
wait for the outcome of the game. I am eager
to know the result at once, immediately. And
here, in war, it is my life that is at stake—and
I am anxious to know whether my card loses or
wins.

Do not believe those who say they experience
no fear at war. Itis not true. There are men
who evince no fear, who suppress it with their

will, but they do feel it, and it takes an excep-
41
42 AN AFFAIR OF HONOR

tionally brave man to admit it. I was fond of
observing the different ways in which people
display this fear, for every one has his own way
of showing it. Some hide it under a mask of
calmness; others, on the contrary, become pos-
sessed of a sort of bravado and courage; but
most frequently this fear finds expression in in-
tensified nervousness, in a highly agitated state
. of the senses.

The atrocities committed by an infuriated
enemy over defenseless wounded soldiers are
nothing but signs of cowardice. I sometimes
perceived the same cowardice in outbursts of
sentimentality—towards animals, or towards a
man’s mother at home, to whom, in times of
peace, this very man never gave a thought, and
for whom he never cared.

Such is human nature—and such it will re-
main.

My best friends, with whom I whiled away
my time in the Carpathians, were two young of-
ficers, Ensign Shumilin and Lieutenant Petrov,
both well-bred young men, both excellent chums,
and both enjoying splendid reputations for their
boundless bravery.

Shumilin, about thirty years of age, an olive-
complexioned, dark man, with merging eye-
brows, at first made an impression of a person
AN. AFFAIR OF HONOR 48

of stern character. He was not talkative, in-
deed, quite reserved, and people who did not
know him well thought him haughty. |

At first I, too, formed a similar opinion of
him. Once, however, when he told me how dur-
ing an attack a little hare strayed among the
pursuers, and how the soldiers caught it and
carried it to the trenches with them, and how
afterwards they were obtaining food for it at
the risk of their lives, I divined something new
in the eyes of this man, a reflection of a benevo-
lent, childlike sentiment, and since then I un-
derstood and began to love him for his soul.

As for Petrov, I had known him before the
war broke out. He was a man of a jolly dispo-
sition, an excellent guitar player and singer, in-
dispensable at gatherings, and a great favorite
with women. His only fault was a certain de-
gree of bragging which he displayed rather fre-
quently and which at times produced‘a repulsive
impression. Most of all he was fond of boast-
ing of his conquests over women.

To this day I am not fully familiar with the
details of the quarrel which took place between |
the two friends, but quarrels are by no means a
rare occurrence during a campaign. All I know
is that Petrov, under the influence of intoxi-
cants, began to tell of his relations with a cer-
44 AN AFFAIR OF HONOR

tain Red Cross nurse in whom, to all appear-
ances, Shumilin was also interested. Shumilin
asked him to shut up, both grew excited, and the
incident wound up with the gravest mutual in-
sults, insults which among officers can be washed
off only with blood.

The rumor of a quarrel between the two inti-
mate friends shocked the whole regiment. No
matter what we undertook, no matter what
efforts we applied to reconcile them, the two
enemies remained inflexible and insisted that a
duel be arranged at once, on the most difficult
conditions possible. ,

Finally the commander of the regiment inter-
vened, sent an official invitation to the two
adversaries to call on him, and decided the af-
fair in his own way.

‘“‘We are fighting now,’’ he said to them.
‘‘Duelling during war is prohibited, and I can-
not permit two of my best officers to risk their
lives needlessly. But I understand your situa-
tion and wish to help you. I will give you per-
mission to have a duel, but on one condition,
which I am going to impose on you. Here it is:
We'll shortly resume the offensive. Wherever
desperate bravery and self-sacrifice are re-
quired, wherever the most risky exploits are
necessary—I’ll send you two together. From
AN AFFAIR OF HONOR 45

now on you will be united in a bond of common
danger. Your quarrel will be decided not by
your own bullets, but by those of the enemy.
The duel will be considered ended as soon as
either of you is wounded. And until then I or-
der you to forget all that has taken place be-
tween you and to become again the same valor-
ous comrades that you have been heretofore.’’

Nothing was to be said, and both officers de-
parted in silence.

The raffle began before we expected it.
The very next morning an important recon-
noissance party was sent out under the com-
mand of Shumilin, with Petrov in the capacity
of junior officer. The party was ordered to
capture without fail one or more of the enemy’s
soldiers for information purposes. The enter-
prise was highly dangerous, one of the most
daring affairs I ever heard of. The scouts
numbered eight, not including the officers.

They left the village in the small hours of the
morning, and at dawn reached the edge of a
vast forest which, as was well known, was oc-
cupied by Austrian troops.

‘‘Scouts, forward! Party, gallop, forward
march!’’ loudly commanded Shumilin, giving
his horse the spurs and looking around with a
vigilant eye.
46 AN AFFAIR OF HONOR

At this moment he forgot all about the duel
and was all engrossed in the earnestness of his
enterprise. He reminded himself of the duel
only when Petrov, followed by his orderly,
swept by on his chestnut charger, overtaking
him.

“‘T’d just love to see how you’ll feel when
you come across the enemy,’’ thought Shumi-
lin with an evil feeling of hidden vengeance.

But hardly had he become conscious of this
thought when he noticed a few puffs of smoke
ahead of him—and a volley was fired.

‘‘Germans,’’ some one near him said in an
undertone.

“‘Charge at full speed!’’ Shumilin replied to
the remark, and unsheathing his saber tore
along the frozen road.

Reaching the meadow he noticed Petrov still
racing ahead and, at a distance, a band of
Austrian Hussars who had already turned their
horses preparing to flee. One of them, a stout
and short-legged officer, kept jumping on one
foot around his large thoroughbred horse and
could by no means get his foot into the stirrup.
Shumilin was on him but Petrov had already
a hold of the horse’s bridle.

‘‘Hold the prisoner, I’ll pursue the rest,’’
shouted Petrov and swept on.
AN AFFAIR OF HONOR at

‘‘Where are you going? Come back!” cried
Shumilin after him, but it was too late, and
Petrov disappeared behind the bushes.

‘*He’ll be killed, he will,’’ thought Shumilin
with alarm, forgetting all about the duel, and
dashed after his comrade at full speed.

The scouting party having splendidly exe-
cuted its assigned task, did not return until
evening, having lost but three soldiers killed
in the skirmish, and bringing in four pris-
oners, among them the officer with German
maps and important documents in his posses-
sion.

Shumilin reported officially the limitless
bravery of Lieutenant Petrov, while the latter
declared before everybody that the enterprise
was a success due solely to the courage and
determination of the head of the scouting party,
and that he would refuse a reward unless one
would be given also to Ensign Shumilin.

Neither of the duelists was wounded, and the
duel had to be continued.

The second act of the combat took place in
the trenches and lasted a whole month. The
regiment’ was dismounted and intrenched. The
two rivals sat almost side by side, a few paces
from one another, before the barbed wire en-
48 AN AFFAIR OF HONOR

tanglements of the enemy and for a whole
month kept on tempting fate with their acts of
desperate madness.

But, as is usual in such cases, fate spared
them. They slept together, almost side by side,
ate dinner together, and together exposed their
breasts to the fire of the Austrians. But they
never spoke to each other—they were ene-
mies,

At first, as during the reconnoissance sortie,
they tried to outrival each other, and sought
in each other signs of cowardice and faint-
heartedness. But there was no trace of cow-
ardice in either of them. On the contrary, both
of them carried their bravery to madness, and
each was aware of it—in the other.

Gradually the petty feeling of lying in wait
and jealousy gave way first to a certain degree
of mutual astonishment, and finally to full
mutual respect and even more than that. Often
they secretly admired each other. -

But they were enemies and were not on
speaking terms.

At length their constant association, their
constant being together resulted in their getting
used and in becoming indispensable to each
other. Whenever one of them stood up waist
high above the trench, thus attracting a hail of
AN AFFAIR OF HONOR 49

the enemy’s bullets, the other would look at him
with trepidation, fear for him, and pray in his
innermost soul that the bullets might spare his
adversary.

But neither dared say it loudly—they were
enemies.

They conquered the most powerful feeling in
men, the fear of death. They conquered their
mutual hatred and envy; moreover, they forgot
their mutual insults and offenses, but when it
came to the feeling of petty selfishness, cheap
and unnecessary, they could not overcome it,
and both maintained a stern silence, and hid
from themselves as well as from others their
best impulses.

They were enemies!

Death raged all around them, the regiment
thinned down, having lost more than half of
its number in killed and mangled, but the two
enemies still continued to turn away from and
would not speak to each other. And yet—
how often did they experience a keen desire to
make up and be friends as before!

Why, then, did they not communicate their
thoughts to each other? Why did they look
at each other only at night when one of them,
wrapped up in his tarpaulin sack, slept and
could not see the expression of his ‘‘enemy’s’’
50 AN AFFAIR OF HONOR

face, as the latter carefully adjusted his com-
rade’s damp overcoat?

The trench warfare resulted in one of the
largest battles of that year. Our regiment was
in the thick of the fighting and suffered tre-
mendous losses.

During sorties, the rivals were near each
other. In the confusion of the attack, deafened
by the roar of cannon, by the rattling of ma-
chine guns and incessant explosions of shrap-
nel and hand-grenades, the soldiers rushed for-
ward, breaking through the barbed wire en-
tanglements in that bewildered state of mind,
when all consciousness ceases, and one yields
one’s self to the elemental forces, without re-
straint; perhaps even like a madman. One has
no time to think on such occasions. Only im-
pressions and images become indelibly im-
printed on one’s mind with an unusual force.

Whoever has experienced this feeling once is
sure never to forget it.

One cannot possibly forget an attack. Vie
haunts one in dreams at night, it pursues the
imagination like a nightmare during spells of
insomnia, and in one’s dying hour one sees be-
fore him images of infuriated, beastlike faces,
images of lost comrades, and of the stricken,
helplessly falling enemy... .
AN AFFAIR OF HONOR 51

Thunder, smoke, blood—and, mainly, men’s
eyes.

Eyes! All sorts of expressions. All shades,
beginning with the ravenous beastly glance of
an attacking soldier, and ending with the glassy,
dreadful eyes of a silent corpse.

The entire life of Mankind with all its experi-
ences lies in those eyes. .

The last Shumilin saw of Petrov was on the
very ridge of the enemy’s trench. The rem-
nants of the enemy’s detachment were still
holding out in the trenches, and a hand-to-hand
fight was going on.

It was over in a few minutes, for the few
remaining Austrians had surrendered and the
trench was ours.

Shumilin, following his habit, looked around
seeking Petrov with his eyes, and failed to dis-
cover him, ,

‘‘He must have been killed,’’ he thought, his
heart sinking within him. He ran along the
trenches examining the corpses.

Petrov lay, motionless, on the bottom of the
trench.

Shumilin jumped down, bent over him and
listened for his breathing.
52 AN AFFAIR OF HONOR

‘‘God be thanked, he’s alive,’’ he said, almost
aloud and called the Red Cross men. -

Shumilin himself lifted his enemy, carefully
examined his wound—Petrov’s breast had been
shot through—and placed him on a stretcher.

The wounded officer came to at the field
lazaret, in my presence.

His very first question was whether Shumilin
was alive.

‘‘He is, and luckier than you, too, I have not
even been wounded,’’ responded Shumilin who
sat nearby awaiting with anxiety the physi-
cian’s verdict.

The patient made an effort to shake hands
with his comrade, but Shumilin rose and kissed
Petrov’s head.

‘““Those confounded nerves!’’ he muttered,
stepping aside and wiping away a tear.

‘‘T’m glad our duel is over,’’ moaned Petrov
in a hardly audible voice, and once more lost
consciousness.

I left the theater of war operations while
Petrov was convalescing.

Shumilin visited him daily and treated him
with all the tenderness of a brother. He
confessed to me that during the last attack he
 

HIS FIRST QUESTION WAS WHETHER SHUMULIN
WAS ALIVE.

An Affair of Honor)
AN AFFAIR OF HONOR 53

had vowed, were he to remain alive, to make
up with his enemy.

But he had not the time to do it.

His commendable impulse was not destined
to be realized.

It was forestalled by the enemy’s bullet.
THE SCARLET BASHLYKS
THE SCARLET BASHLYKS

Wuen war broke out and the news spread
over vast, immeasureable Russia, the sons of
the various peoples that make up this mighty
empire heard the call, and like one man flocked
to the defense of their common land.

Wild and independent Caucasus, the beauty
spot of Russia, so recently joined to its present
Mother-country, heard of the war; and, like an
eagle waking after a long sleep, stretched its
mighty .wings, and together with the rest of
Russia, dashed off to the West to meet the foe.

The division, consisting of six select Cau-
casian cavalry regiments bearing the names of
the tribes of which they were composed, were
at once nicknamed ‘‘wild’’ in the everyday life
at the front. All the men of this division, both
privates and officers, were volunteers. The
horses under them were their own, brought from
their native hills; even their weapons, barring
the guns and rifles, were their own, family heir-
looms, the pride of many generations.

Sixty years ago, with these same weapons,

the fathers and grandfathers of these soldiers
57 :
\

58 THE SCARLET BASHLYKS

had fought for independence against Russia;
and now, side by side with their former enemies,
they are fighting for a common Motherland
against an ancient common foe.

I met this Division in Lvov, the capital of
Galicia; and I am happy that I was able to
spend some time with these men in surroundings
of war in the very depths of the Carpathian
Mountains.

I was attached to the Staff of the Cavalry
Corps as member of the Red Cross.

I remember the first impression I had of these
people when I arrived in the tiny Galician vil-
lage at the foot of the hills, on what happened
to be a regimental feast day. It was wonder-
ful autumn weather. The whole regiment was
drawn up on a green field by the roadside; the
sun gilded the tops of the distant hills.

During the review, which was held by the com-
manding officer, the squadron passed by us in
rows; and to the music of native airs the riders
and their steeds caracoled with such marvelous
grace and beauty that I shall never forget the
scene.

First, the music. Wild, primitive melodies,
often with a plaintive note, came from some
special wind instruments, reminding one of
shepherds’ pipes; only the beat of the drum
THE SCARLET BASHLYKS 59

gave energy and relieved the minor tone. To
this sound of the pipes the Caucasian hillmen
caracole on their horses, dance on feast-days,
rush to battle—die.

Their horses are small, active, wiry; and
the riders sit so freely and gracefully that it
would seem as though they were born on horse-
back. Man and horse are one; and looking
at them you do not know which is the more
beautiful. Both man and horse are decorated.

A silver bridle, saddle, silver or gold dagger
at the belt, curved sword, of silver and Da-
mascus steel, on the breast a row of silvered
rifle cartridges, a huge yellow sheep’s hat on the
head—these are the ornaments habitual to every
one of these men. And to cap it all, each one
of them wears a bright red woollen bashlyk.1
This is the sign of fearlessness; a sort of chal-
lenge thrown to the enemy.

‘“‘T have no fear of you. My bright-colored
bashlyk is seen everywhere; its color is a con-
spicuous bright spot all around. I know this,
and I wear it purposely. I am not afraid of
you.”’

In the introduction to his posthumous story,
‘‘Hadji-Murat,’’ my father compares a Cau-

1 Bashlyk is a head cloth resembling that worn by monks,
with a point at the top, with two long ends to wrap around
the throat.
60 THE SCARLET BASHLYKS

casian hillman to the pretty field flower, ‘‘Ta-
tarnik.’’

Watching the regiment before me, I recol-
lected this comparison and saw its aptness.

After the review there was dinner. Wine was
drunk; and dancers from Daghestan performed
their- favorite dance—the lezginka. Sticking
their daggers, as sharp as razors, into the
ground, they flew about, to the tune of their
native music, in their wild, impulsive and in-
spired dance—heedless, fearless, agile, like
panthers.

Look at them I thought, ‘‘How well they take
in joy! How thoroughly and heartily they en-
ter into these bright moments of common
pleasure, common holiday.

‘‘And to-morrow brings battle. How many
of these will that battle leave cripples; and how
many will it carry away from us forever—never
to return?’’

A few days later fighting recommenced.
Along a mountain ridge, waist-deep in snow,
the regiment passed over the crest of the Car-
pathians, and in the dead of night, just before
daybreak, fell on the Austrian staff head-
quarters. It was a thunderbolt for the enemy.
It was unbelievable that at this time of the year
THE SCARLET BASHLYKS 61

it was possible to cross the Carpathian strong-
holds; the place was considered impenetrable.

The battle was short and ended in complete
victory for the Caucasians. The entire staff
of the enemy was captured.

Returning, the hillmen brought some of their
wounded and dead comrades on the backs of
their horses.

The bond between these men is great.
‘‘Kunak’’ is their name for a friend, and never
and under no circumstances will they abandon
one. With them, friendship is a cult, a religion.
And in battle, seeing one of ‘‘his own’’ falling,
the hillman forgets all danger, and runs to suc-
cor a Kunak. No wounded are ever left in the
hands of the enemy.

After the battle the wounded were placed in
the hospital. Among them was an officer, an
Eastern Prince, one of whose legs had to be
amputated.

I saw him the next day. Pale and weak from
loss of blood he was lying there. With a distant
look in his large divining eyes, staring straight
ahead of him, he quietly hummed the dancing
tune of the Caucasian lezginka.

Seeing me, he stretched out his hand.

‘‘Thanks for coming to see me, Kunak.’’
62 THE SCARLET BASHLYKS

‘“Tired?’?

S*No.”’

“Your leg painful?’’

‘‘My heart aches and not the leg. I want to
fight again but no more fighting for me without
aleg. No! I think when I get up, even without,
the leg I’ll jump on my horse and will fight.’’

A few days later blood-poisoning set in; and
his strength was ebbing from hour to hour.
But all the time he hummed his tune, the same
lezginka, only slower and slower, lower and
lower. Now hardly audible, just with his
breath.

He died with that song on his lips; and his
brother serving in the same regiment took an
oath over the corpse that his death would be
avenged, and that with his own hands he would
cut up ten Austrians.

I do not know whether he carried out this
oath, as within a few months he also fell, like
so many of his comrades; like half of the origi-
nal number of the division.

The ranks of the regiments, though, do not
thin. They are filled with hosts of new volun-
teers with bright red bashlyks; fearless, un-
tamed.

Bright wild flowers of monger primitive
Caucasus!
THE LITTLE GREEN STICK
THE LITTLE GREEN STICK

This fantastic tale is an attempt to answer the question that
is asked me so often: “What would your father say about
the war if he were living to-day?” My father is buried in
. the woods about a mile from his home at Vasnaya Polyana.
This place he chose himself in memory of his beloved eldest
brother, Nicolai, and the fairy tale that he heard from him.
In this place, says the tale, is buried a little green stick on
which is written a word that will render all men brothers, and
all people happy.—I. T.

No time, no space.

Sometime, long, long ago—the oldest men
cannot remember it, and tradition has long since
disappeared—there were some mills on this
spot. Men dug ore from the bowels of the
earth and burned it in furnaces.

Ages have passed. The land has been cov-
ered by soft meadows and deep shadowed
woods; a blue carpet of forget-me-nots adds a
pleasant tinge of color to the landscape; only
a few small hills here and there, as if set to
order, testify to the fact that some time, long,
long ago, there had been a busy life here. The
soil is black, mixed with grains of slag, granu-

lated and glistening.
65
66 THE LITTLE GREEN STICK

It was more than eighty years ago. Two
blue-eyed boys, one twelve and the other five
years old, roamed through these woods telling
each other stories.

The younger one, Liovushka, listens with awe
and admiration to the older one whom he loves
dearly and for whom he is so full of respect that
he does not even address him by ‘‘thou,’’ but
by ‘‘you’’—‘‘Nikolenka-you.’’ They are, both
talking of love; that all men must some day be-
come brothers; that all men will love one an-
other and will help one another; just like ants
on their mound; they will be ‘‘ant-brothers.”’
Some day this will be, but to be brothers, one
word must become known.

This word Nikolenka wrote on a little green
stick, and this little stick he buried here on the
slope in the black soil.

Whoever will find this little stick will make
men brothers, and every one happy.

No time, no space.

Ages passed.

Peasants came to the slope with shovels in
their hands. They dug a three-yard grave at
the summit; and the next day a multitude of
people gathered here and into the dug grave
THE LITTLE GREEN STICK 67

they lowered the corpse of a gray, robust old
man. ; |

Among the seven oaks a bed of flowers has
- grown on this grave, and often men gather
around the spot. They stop, raise their hats
and stand in silent meditation. Some careful
hand has laid flowers upon the bed, and the
same hand throws daily handfuls of oat-seeds
‘among the flowers.

Sparrows and pinnocks flutter over the tops
of the trees and joyfully whistle their mutual
greetings. When the people disappear, they
come down upon the slope, pick up the grains,
chide them in the crevices of the oak-bark as if
in a vise, and artfully peck out the kernels with
their beaks. The empty spikes, like the bristles
of a brush, are sticking out of the crevices along
the trunks of all the seven oaks.

At night a hare often roams around the
grave. He jumps upon the pathway, scents
horea traces, picks up the stems of hay, sits
up! on his hind legs, rushes hither and thither,
and, doubling on his trail, makes a hasty leap
and disappears to the byway.

Then behind the slope he builds his lair.

Days and nights close in over the grave.

Years are fleeting.
68 THE LITTLE GREEN STICK

te

No time—Years pass.

There was a night. The earth was covered
with the first light winter snowfall. No moon;
but the whole western horizon was purple red
with fire. The sky was bathed in blood. The
long fiery tongues were blazing so glaringly
that the shadows of the oaks upon the snow
seemed to dance.

Slowly a spirit rose from the grave—and in
measured steps he walked to the highway.

In his hands he held a little green stick.

He looked around. Cherishingly he beheld
the little stick, read the word scratched on it in
an uneven childish handwriting, and with a
speedy and noiseless step he moved towards the
house.

Midnight was approaching; people were
going to bed and all around was silence and
darkness. Only in the West that lurid fire was
burning.

He walked around the house and peeped into
the window by the porch; the only window in
which a light was shining. The panes of glass
were coated with silvery glistening crystals of
hoar frost, and he had to warm them with his
breath before he could look in.

She sat alone, bending her near-sighted eyes
over a sheet of paper, and in elderly, feeble
THE LITTLE GREEN STICK 69

hand she wrote something. Her face showed
great affliction. Cautiously he approached her
ear and gently he whispered his word to her;
the word written on the little stick—

He continued to look at her.

When the word shone upon the paper and its
luster reflected on her eyes and brightened her
soul, he looked upon her with tears of joy in
his eyes, and off he went on his way.

Through houses, humble huts and hamlets he
rambled; the whole village he roamed through.
He spoke the word to everybody and every one
understood him. He whispered the word to
children in their dreams and they rejoiced and
smiled at him in their sleep.

In one of the houses he heard a noise. He
went to the window and saw a drunken peasant
beating his wife because she had hidden his
money from him. When the drunkard became
so exhausted that he fell upon the floor, his wife
lifted him up and looked at him with hatred
and scorn.

The spirit approached her and whispered the
word to her. The woman breathed with an ef-
fort to overcome her physical pain. She ap-
proached the man who had just beaten her al-
most senseless, cautiously she raised his head
and put a pillow under it. (Episode adapted
70 THE LITTLE GREEN STICK

from the novel of Polentz’ ‘‘The Peasant.’’)

In another place he found two brothers
quarreling over the partition of a parcel of
land; and here, too, he helped them by his word.

Many people has he visited; and many a time
he spoke the coveted word of Nikolenka—and
everywhere this word aided the people and
made them brothers.

But the West was still aflame.

The spirit stood hesitating, meditating; and
finally, determined, was off with a firm step
towards the purple, burning sky. Thunder
roared from afar; lightning zigzagged through
the sky, and the blasting grew more and more
terrific and deafening. He walked with quick-
ened step, all the while closely pressing his little
stick to his bosom.

On the outlines of the fire he could discern
the faint features of men hurrying and rushing
somewhere, as people usually rush to a fire.
Confused and disconcerted people rushed by;
some towards him; other past and ahead of
him. The faces of all of them were full of
anguish and terror. He was so anxious to help
them, he wanted to tell them but one word, only
one word; but his feeble, senile voice was
drowned by the roar of the thunder, and in the
fumes of smoke people did not notice him.
THE LITTLE GREEN STICK 71

Long stood the spirit on the field furrowed by
narrow trenches and ditches. Finally he turned
around; and, noticed by no one, slowly wended
his way back to his refuge; back to his ravine,
to the seven oaks.

No time, no space. :

The fire will be extinguished.

The sacred, coveted word will some day be
heard.

The little green stick is there; its power must
manifest itself upon the earth.

It is dawning. The sparrows and pinnocks
wake up and joyfully they are twittering on the
bare branches of the oaks.

The white hare is taking his day’s repose in
his warm lair.

The pure white fresh snow has decked the
earth.

The fog is rising; and from behind the milky
way shine the first rays of the bright rising sun.
STORIES OF RUSSIAN LIFE
TOO LATE

7
TOO LATE

My wife died forty days ago.

The priests came in the morning and served
mass.

I did not want to leave my room, but sister
Varia came in, all in tears, and dragged me out
almost by force. When I entered the drawing
room I was at once overwhelmed by the suffo-
cating odor of incense. The servants crowded
at the door, coachman Ivan, with smoothly
pomatumed hair, was busy wielding the censer,
the deacon was distributing candles, and in the
front, at the window, stood the children. In
white, clean dresses, with thin legs, they nestled
to the nurse and seemed to me frightened and
piteous.

Especially Tanya.

I perceive that her seven-year-old brain is
undergoing a conscious process of grief, and I
am astonished at the fortitude with which she
bears it. As if she knows something we grown-

ups cannot grasp.
75
76 TOO LATE

Every morning, when she comes to greet me
she looks at me with such tenderness in her
eyes that a dread comes over me and I rudely
turn away from her. To look at Misha also
causes me pain—he resembles his mother too
closely.

After mass, when they began to sing
‘‘Kternal Memory”’ my nerves again played me
false and in order not to burst into tears in
everybody’s presence I returned to my room.

They all pity me, take care of me, are moved
by my love for my deceased wife. This is un-
bearable. I cannot live like this any longer.
From the very day of her death I have been
trying to understand all that took place, and
the more I think of it the more entangled do I
get. Is it possible that my whole life has been
a continuous self-deception? And was it in-
deed necessary to kill my wife in order to come
finally to my senses? I make an endeavor to
look over the memories of the entire period of
my conscious life and to find among them at
least one act without an underlying motive of
egoism in its rudest aspect,—and I cannot find
any.

I shall begin with my youth.
It causes me pain to recall that period of
TOO LATE 77

my life, just as in youth it was painful to recall
my childhood,—I was so much better then. It
seemed as though only good things were in
store for me—and I endeavored to preserve
myself for them and kept on preparing for life.
I did not live, I only anticipated life. As luck
would have it, I remained chaste and without
knowing woman to my very wedding day. And
well did I know how to pride myself on it.
With what haughty disdain did I regard my
chums when, after a spree they would betake
themselves to the women, while I would very
proudly bid them good-by at the threshold of .
the house of ill-repute and go home to sleep.

My moral chastity was my only trump and I
used it in the game in order to rise above others
. at least in one respect. That is why I took care
to preserve my chastity.

I never told anybody that many a time I found
myself on the very brink of falling and if, after
all, I saved myself it was only due to chance.

I remember Varia, the chambermaid, who
slept in the hallway opposite my parents’ bed-
room. Had she slept somewhere further away,
at the other end of the house it would have
been much more difficult for her to get rid of
me when I used to come at night and annoy
her. I also remember the modiste, Lienka, with
78 TOO LATE

whom I made an appointment for ten o’clock in
the evening in the wood-house. I disappointed
her and did not come because that very day
some one told me she was sick. I also remem-
ber the black-eyed chambermaid, Liza, who
stayed with us only one week. My parents
noticed that I became too frequent a visitor
to the maid-servants’ room—and discharged
her. ? ;

The number of such cases proving my cow-
ardice and vileness, was very great. Of course,
I kept them secret even from my most intimate
friends because it did not pay me to admit that
my chastity was purely accidental. It behooved
me to display my achievement in order to flaunt
and show my pride in it.

Chaste people are invariably of an amorous
disposition.

My love affairs began at the age of fifteen.
And since then not a minute of my life passed
but I was infatuated by one woman or another.
As soon as one affair was over I would im-
mediately start another; and thus I always
found myself in a hurly-burly of voluptuous de-
sires.

It must have been instinctively that I never
fell in love with married women, probably feel-
TOO LATE 79

ing myself unequal to resisting the tempta-
tions held out by them.

In my self-delusion I attempted to convince
myself and others that it is a crime to solicit
the love of a woman who belongs to another,
and therefore I preferred to corrupt with my
love-making sixteen-year- ‘old girls with whom |
success was a foregone conclusion almost in
every case.

And how could they possibly help loving me,
who so adroitly played before them the part of
a pure, chaste youth languishing under the yoke
of an incessant struggle with temptation?

And whenever I approached my pure ideal
in whose name I waged the struggle and im-
plored to grant me ‘‘at least a drop of sym-
pathy’’ to strengthen me on my difficult road—
needless to say, it was next to impossible to re-
fuse me. And from heartfelt sympathy to an
innocent caress, to a brotherly kiss is not far
to travel. And was not all this nothing but
lewdness, willful and artful? In what, then,
did I differ from my spoiled chums? Perhaps
in that they acted in a straightforward manner
and took the responsibility for their actions on
themselves while I disguised my carnal desires
under a mask of purity.

I do not know which is worse.
80 TOO LATE

And thus I lived until the age of nineteen.

When I made the acquaintance of my future
wife she was sixteen years old.

She was a jolly, rustically simple girl, beau-
tiful in her straightforwardness and purity.

It was at Moscow, in her parents’ home.

The very first evening of our acquaintance
we became engaged in a lively game of blind
man’s buff, and were so carried away by it
that I had my new coat torn. At supper I very
cleverly joined the conversation of the older
folks and tried my best to make a show with
my moral arguments, most probably of a very
naive character, but they must have made an
impression on her. And this was all I needed.
She became firm in the conviction that I was a
jolly good fellow and—what is most important
—a youth of high morals.

Two years later I left the university, got
married and settled in the country. Since then
I have been living here for the last eight years
without leaving the place once.

I remember how I brought my young, inex-
perienced Liza to my family estate.

It was on a deep-black autumnal night.
After we left the railway carriage, riding along
the muddy road, full of holes and hollows, see-
ing nothing before us in the darkness, jumping
TOO LATE 81

up and down and bumping into each other in
the wicker seat of. the country buggy, she
nestled to me and laughed like a child. It was
comical, indeed, and rather in queer contrast
with the magnificent wedding dinner at Moscow,
with the softly lit compartment in the railway
carriage, with the elastic velvet couches in
which we had been sitting for a few hours, ex-
changing caresses once in a while, and hiding
with all our might our thoughts from one an-
other.

And I myself joined in her laughter because
my nerves were overstrained.

It was then that I for the first time happened
to think of the tremendous moral responsibility
I had taken upon myself by having married her,
and I vowed to myself to do all in my power
to make my wife happy.

My only aim in life then was to gratify her
thoughts and wishes, and it seemed to me I
loved her.

We grew accustomed to each other in an
appallingly short period of time, and for a few
years in succession I had felt so happy with
her that I did not even notice how the time
flew.

The calm and happy existence I led served to
82 TOO LATE

deaden still more the hardly perceptible traces
of Good which had still been in me and, ulti-
mately, I became altogether hardened.

I did not even notice how my wife and I ex-
changed réles.

It turned out in the end that it was not I
who tried to make her happy, but on the con-
trary I led an entirely inane animal existence,
and she watched over my idleness, and herself
bore all the burdens, beginning with the ad-
ministration of our estate and ending with
household duties and the care of the children.

Giving birth to a boy, three years ago, she
became dangerously ill and was on the very
verge of death. The doctors told me that
childbirth was dangerous for my wife’s life,
and advised us to take precautions against con-
ception. Accidentally this happened to coin-
cide with the commencement of my activity in
Zemstvo affairs.

In the company of neighbors and friends I
diverted myself with hunting, meetings, ca-
rouses, and little by little I learned to keep away
from my family until it ceased to disturb me.

And it was then that I became acquainted
with Natasha.

How painful it is to recall all that! And
TOO LATE 83

how difficult it is to compel myself to think and
not to lie to myself. Even now...

Now I see many an event in a new light. I
make efforts to place myself again in that half
insane state in which I had been for two years
—and I cannot do it. Who knows, but I may
be insane now, too...

Even so . :

Since I have not succeeded in deceiving my-
self to the last, it is better for me to pause and
face the truth. And furthermore... .

But is it not immaterial?

I served as chairman of the District Zemstvo
Administration. Forty versts from my country
estate, in the most forsaken part of the district,
was located the Gorki Zemstvo Hospital.

My duties included the general supervision
of the business administration of the hospital,
and I had to visit it a few times during the year.
Oh, how I hated those journeys!

An awfully long distance, an infamously bad
road, an old, decaying building always in need
of repair, an ill smelling inn, and, besides, the
ever changing physicians. During the two
years of my service with the Zemstvo, three
doctors left Gorki one after another. True,
84 TOO LATE

the conditions of their life there were absolutely
impossible. Everybody knew it. And for a
long time every now and then voices had been
raised among the members of the Zemstvo urg-
ing the necessity of thorough alterations in all
the hospital buildings. But a large amount of
money was required for the purpose, nobody
was very persistent, and for a number of years
in succession this question would be submitted
to the Zemstvo and tabled from one year to
another.

That year there lived in Gorki a newly ap-
pointed young physician, Panov, an idealist
and energetic worker. From the very out-
set of his new activity he launched an insistent
campaign for the improvements which he con-
sidered indispensable, and urged me to come to
see him in order to devise by mutual efforts a
plan for alterations.

I distinctly remember this journey because
a terrible snow storm was raging that day.

A few times coachman Ivan and I lost our
way; we got off the sleigh, groped for the road,
or else tried to locate it by the snow-swept,
hardly visible guide posts; then we would again
lose the way, and find it once more. It was due

_only to the endurance of the horses that at about
six o’clock in the evening, half frozen, all cov-
TOO LATE 85

ered with snow, we reached Gorki. I alighted
at the inn and went to the hospital on foot. In
the entrance hall of the hospital wing I was
met by the doctor.

‘‘My God, how you look!’’ he said, helping
me off with my fur coat, ‘‘let me have your
coat, I’ll have it shaken out for you at once—it
is all covered with snow. Walk right in, we
happen to have the samovar on the table.’’

“It must be terribly cold. Allow me to in-
troduce you to my sister,’’ he hastened to add,
perceiving Natasha who stood at the door with
a white apron on and smiling. It seemed to
me he was afraid lest I mistake her for a
chambermaid.

But could I possibly?

I stood before her picking the icicles out of
my beard and moustache and scrutinizing her
amiable face and searching for some memories,
distant and lost—who knows where and when?
Where was it that I had met her?

Why is everything in her so near and dear
to me? As though I had always known her?

And yet I could not describe her appearance
even: now...

And how ean I expect to be able to describe
her who for two years had been dwelling in my
soul and possessing my entire being and whose
86 _ TOO LATE

image had changed in my imagination a count-
less number of times?

I see her before me at this moment, but she
is different now and I find it difficult to restore
her in my memory as I met her for the first time.
I remember her large, light eyes, always with
a slight expression of astonishment in them,
and her long, thick braid. For some unknown
reason, whenever she smiled I would begin to
pity her and feel like consoling her.

Hers was the smile of a child asking forgive-
ness,

I did not see much of her that evening. She
attended to the supper, ran to the kitchen every
minute and returned all flushed and listened
with interest to our conversation. I must have
been scrutinizing her very closely, because she
told me later that she was amazed by my fixed
look, ‘‘as though I wanted to see the very bot-
tom of her soul.’’

At supper, their mother, a rather elderly,
carefully dressed lady joined us and the con-
versation became general.

I shall never forget that evening, when
Natasha and I, absolute strangers, timorously
listened to each other as though seeking for
points of common interest. Unfortunately,
TOO LATE 87

there proved to be only too many of them later
on. I do not know whether I fell in love with
her at first sight. It is hard to tell. In order
to love a person we must know him or her thor-
oughly. That is why I think that the feeling
which awakens in people at the first meeting is
not love, but most probably, desire; and possi-
bly, mere curiosity. Does not my greatest
error lie in this direction?

After supper I intended to return to the inn,
but it turned out that my hosts had already pre-
pared a room for me and in order not to offend
them I had to spend the night there. In spite
of my fatigue I did not fall asleep at once.

I lay in a small cozy room, on a clean bed and
sank’'in an idle revery. Soon everything was
silent in the house. I was about to blow out the
candle when I happened to notice ladies’ dresses
hanging in the corner and neatly covered with
a white sheet. Against another wall, directly
opposite me, stood an old walnut chest of draw-
ers, and on it a small looking glass and a few
trinkets.

‘““This must be Natasha’s room,’’ occurred to
me, and at first I felt embarrassed at the thought
that she gave me her bed to sleep in.

But afterwards, very soon afterwards, this
88 TOO LATE

bashful feeling gave way to a new, keen sensa-
tion of cynical, curiosity, so alluring that I had
to make an effort in order not to succumb to it,
and I blew out the candle. In the darkness the
feeling of uneasiness became still more acute.

Now, after my wife’s death, I know that a
room preserves for a long, very long time a
particle of the soul of the man or woman that
occupied it.

I know it now, for I cannot enter her room
without seeing her there and even hearing her
breathe,—but then, in Natasha’s room, all I
felt was an incomprehensible titillation of which
I was not conscious at the time.

I awoke rather early, got up at once and be-
gan to dress. Washing myself I caught a
glimpse of the hem of a light gray skirt which
protruded from under the bulging sheet, recol-
lected my nocturnal thoughts and once more
felt somewhat ashamed.

I felt as though I overheard something or
peered through a key hole.

The same feeling arose in me when I entered
the dining room in the morning and met
Natasha’s childishly confiding glance.

She stood with her white apron on, at the
boiling samovar preparing tea. Through the
window panes covered with hoar frost, through
TOO LATE 89

the brightly sparkling figures, shone the red
winter sun.

‘‘Mother has not got up yet, and Petia went
to see his patients so as to get through
earlier,’’? she said, shaking hands with me.
‘Please sit down. What will you have, tea or
coffee? Have you slept well? I was afraid
you would feel uncomfortable in a small room.
But it is warm there, isn’t it?’’

‘‘Natalia Michailovna, it was your room and
I’m very sorry you troubled yourself about
me,’’? I said, admiring her handsome, strong
hand with which she was serving the tea.

‘Oh, nonsense, I have -slept in mother’s
room. I sleep there often anyhow, especially
when she’s indisposed. I am very fond of her
divan, it is so wide and comfortable. I always
slept on it when I was a child,’’? answered
Natasha and for some reason or other got em-
barrassed. I noticed the guilty look in her eyes
-and smiled against my will.

‘“What are you laughing at?’’ she asked, in-
tercepting my smile.

‘Because it is strange to hear you say
of yourself: ‘When I was a child.’ One would
think you were grown up now.”’

“Of course, I am. I’m already eighteen.
I’ve graduated from the pedagogical class of
90 TOO LATE

the gymnasium this year and shall soon be-
come a teacher. I’ve been dreaming of it all
my life. It is such an interesting profes-
sion.’’

‘‘And where would you like to teach?’’ I in-
quired.

“‘It is immaterial to me, but mother doesn’t
want me to leave her and insists that I ask to
be appointed to our school in Gorki. You never
visited it. It has about fifty pupils, and I am
very fond of children,’’ she said and became lost
in thought.

How lovely she was at that moment! While
she spoke, I watched the expression of her face
without taking my eyes off her.

Of course I promised her on the spot to ob-
tain a position for her not later than next
spring. It gave me pleasure to watch her joy
and to be active together with her in school
affairs. Half an hour later the doctor came,
drank his glass of tea hurriedly and took me
along with him to the hospital wards.

Having inspected everything, I prepared to-
gether with Peter Michailovitch a detailed plan
of alterations, ate my breakfast and departed.

Passing the Zemstvo school I suddenly felt
a desire to see it and halted the horses.
TOO LATE 91

I opened the door and entered a large, light
room; the children jumped to their feet with
quite some commotion, the teacher pulled nerv-
ously the collar of his soiled shirt, and I myself
felt lost during the first minute, not knowing
what I came for.

As usual in such cases, after the first minute
of surprise, the children became accustomed to
the situation, and I asked the teacher to go on
with the lesson and not to pay any attention
to me.

The advanced section was having a lesson in
dictation.

Watching the pock-marked seminary gradu-
ate slowly pacing to and fro across the class
room and fixing at every step his eye glasses
which had a tendency to slide off his large nose,
and listening to his clear enunciation of the
sentences of some foolish story, I thought very
sincerely that I was interested in the school.
And it seemed to me that intercourse with these
little men clad in dirty hemp shirts and large
felt boots, was pleasant and dear to me.

And for all I know it might have been so.
But why was it that before meeting Natasha I
never visited the schools except when as a mem-
ber of the Zemstvo I had to be present at the
examinations?
92 TOO LATE

At the ‘time this question somehow did not
occur to me .

When I was on my way home the weather was
frosty and sunny. No trace remained of yes-
terday’s snow storm. Only in a few places, in
the narrow village streets rose the glossy
humps of snow drifts deposited during the
night, and the newly cleaned, soft trail of the
road wound in a novel, strange manner. Now
it ducked under the very windows of the peas-
ants’ cottages, now it rose and ran almost on a
level with the roofs, now it suddenly made a
sharp turn and unexpectedly led somewhere
into a backyard. In, such places the horses
would prick up their ears and thrust their heads
into the road, the coachman would rise in his
seat and strongly pull at the hempen rein. Men
with spades were bustling around the cottages.
At a distance, behind the snow drifts, only their
bare heads were visible and it seemed as though
they were buried in the snow up to their waists.

There was less snow on the fields. The wind
had swept it off the ice-glazed road. The sleigh
glided lightly, and only at times running into the
fluffy sand banks stretching across the road, it
would jump up softly; the irritating creaking
TOO LATE 93

of the runners would cease for a moment and
my face would be scalded by the stinging snow
dust.

How light and gay everything seems in such
weather! .

How vigorous one feels!

Wrapped up in a warm dry fur coat and
analyzing my impressions, it suddenly dawned
on me that I was determined to insist upon re-
building the Gorki hospital that very year. The
rest of the time spent on my homeward journey
I was reflecting upon the report which I had to
submit at the next meeting of the Zemstvo.

The report seemed to me so strong and con-
vincing, that there was not the least doubt of
its being approved.

On my return home I told my wife in detail
about my journey and at the same time flattered
myself with my decision concerning the hospital.
I knew she would praise me, and it pleased me
considerably.

I mentioned in passing the physician’s sister,
‘‘a very charming girl,’’ in order not to keep
anything secret from my wife. And I always
used to do so, because it was more convenient.

After all, I deceived my wife as well as my-
self.
94 TOO LATE

But, perhaps, she was happier than I for she
died without having understood all my mean-
ness. She loved me too well. Whenever I pre-
tended to be interested in social activities, she
would sympathize with me and would become
enthusiastic over my plans more than I myself
would. How often I followed her carefully
thought-out and sincere advices! But I never
admitted it to her. On the contrary, I treated
her in such a way as to make her think that
every time she interfered with my affairs—I
felt displeased and ‘disturbed. And she would
modestly lower her large, kind eyes and change
the subject of the conversation.

Was she indeed unconscious of my little-
ness?

A month later the meeting of the Zemstvo
took place, and it was decided to begin work on
the rebuilding of the hospital at once. The
building materials had to be stored up during
the winter, and the work was supposed to begin
in the spring.

My visits to Gorki became more frequent.

At the same time I arranged for Natasha’s
appointment as teacher. Carried away by her
work, ‘and always absorbed in it, she became
each time I saw her lovelier and more endeared.
TOO LATE 95

to me. Was there anything we did not discuss
during those long winter evenings which I used
to spend at Panovs?

How hotly we used to argue about educa-
tional questions, about social activity and about
literature.

And strangely enough—I was interested in
her views and listened to her attentively. And
at night I would lie in her little, cosy, warm
room and recall her words, her voice. ...

Little Tanya was taken ill this morning and I
have spent the whole day at her bedside. This
morning her temperature rose above the normal,
and her throat was affected.

She lay in her little bed, all flushed, throw-
ing about her bare arms and moaning. A few
times she grew delirious, kept on calling Mama
and telling her something, Misha was kept in
the parlor but he escaped twice and rushed
noisily into the nursery.

Seeing my stern glance he would become
abashed and leave the room bending his little
back.

The doctor came in the evening and diagnosed
Tanya’s sickness as angina.

At present she is feeling better,—she is
asleep. I sit in the adjoining room the door of
96 TOO LATE

which is open and hear her quick, childish
breathing. Just now I have recalled a trifling
incident, which occurred recently, after Liza’s
death. It was at twilight. I was sitting on my
sofa and thinking of something.

The children were playing in their room.

Tanya wanted a pencil for some purpose.

She ran tip-toe into my study and went over
to my writing table. Taking a pencil she looked
around and not seeing me made a sign of the
cross over my bed. I called her over to me and
began to tell her that she did a foolish thing.
She began to ery. Only afterwards, when she
ran out of the room, I understood that I acted
meanly. The children are my real judges. All
this time I have been trying to avoid them be-
cause I fear them. And yet how dear they are
tome! IfIbut dared love them! All day long
I felt Liza’s presence so clearly that it seemed
to me the door of her bedroom would open any
instant and she would appear on the threshold.

A few times I even trembled and turned
around.

And I know now that she is here, near me; I
see her loving eyes before me and I know now
that I never loved anybody else but her. I re-
call my infatuation with Natasha, I recollect
how I thought at times I would be able to cross
TOO LATE 97

my wife’s grave in order to find happiness with

‘Natasha—and I do not feel like believing those
were my real feelings . . . And yet it was so.
I consciously dreamt about it. And all my
dreams have come true.

A great deal of my love for Natasha ‘‘took its
usual course.”’

‘‘As usual,’’ we first became interested in
each other, later we began to see something out
of the commonplace in each other, which dis-
tinguished us from other people; afterwards,
again ‘‘as usual,’’ we began to believe in friend-
ship, in pure love; finally came embraces,
kisses .. . and all that was also ‘‘as usual,’’
unintentional, and unexpected.

I am lying again.

Could it have come unexpected to me?

Since the first day of our acquaintance I be-
gan to feel that we must fall in love with each
other, and I did not attempt to avert it; on the
contrary, I did all in my power to bring it about.
I devised all means possible, towards one end,
to entangle her and myself—and, I may say, I
managed it all cunningly and cleverly. Under
the mask of absorbing social activity I was en-
abled to get rid entirely of every care of my
family, and was spending almost all my time in
98 TOO LATE

traveling and at Gorki. Due to my activity all
the hospitals and sehools of our district werd
brought into a most commendable condition and
in many schools I succeeded in inaugurating hot
luncheons for the children.

Of course, I began with Natasha’s school.

But can I possibly state with clear conscience
that I was doing all that only because I loved
my work?

Did it not serve only as a pretext to meet
Natasha more often and to show off with my
work before her? JI remember how once, during
the first year of our acquaintance I happened
to come to Gorki and remain there for the
night.

Alexandra Pavlovna was not feeling well, the
doctor went to visit his patients, and I spent
the whole evening alone with Natasha. I had
not seen her for a long time and I noticed that
she was more than usually glad to see me.

“It is so nice of you to.come to-night! I
have been waiting for you,’’ she said, greeting
me. ‘‘Petia will come home late. If my com-
pany does not bore you, I’ll stay with you.”’

Was there anything we left undiscussed that
memorable evening? I remember it well, be-
cause it was the boundary line where it still was
possible to stop, but I did not, and went fur-
TOO LATE 99

ther . . . While talking we sat side by side on
the divan, and my hand slipped unintentionally
and touched hers. I immediately jerked it back
and moved away from her.

But it was too late.

We both felt the spark of this first touch
and silently exchanged glances.

Probably she, too, understood the significance
of this glance, for long after it we avoided to
look at each other, and our conversation lagged.
Was it not a warning? Did I not know after-
wards what it-was leading to? At night when
I was alone, [ reealled the touch and the thought
ran through my mind that it was necessary to
escape, to save her and myself before it would
be too late, but I succeeded immediately in get-
ting rid of this thought and fell asleep with the
pleasant consciousness that Natasha was under
the same roof with me and that to-morrow I
would see her again and talk to her and, mainly,
greet her and press her hand.

The next morning I found out that Natasha
was preparing to go to the city and I offered to
take her there in my carriage. She accepted
with enthusiasm, and we set out.

Sitting side by side in the carriage I de-
lighted in her naive, childish joy and was unable
to take my eyes off her. She watched like a
100 TOO LATE

child every movement of the horses and smiled
all the time. And when Ivan let the troika run
by itself on the even stretches of the road, she
would lean back in the carriage and remain
motionless.

T looked at her immobile, unblinking eyes, at
her high, heaving bosom and at her passionate
half open mouth from which were gleaming her
closely set, white teeth and she seemed to me
new and alluring... .

How lovely she was that day! I had never
before seen her so pretty.

‘Why do you look at me so queerly?’’ she
asked. ...

‘Because you are so pretty to-day. Give me
your hand.’’ :

“‘No, don’t, for God’s sake, what for? It is
better so...’

But I could not restrain myself any longer.
I took her hand, rolled up the glove and kissed
her wrist. And I admired the frightened ex-
pression on her face and her guilty smile when
she was saying all absorbed in herself:

‘“Why are you doing it? Don’t! You have
a family. We shall stop at this. Yes, for
God’s sake .. .”’

I did stop, for just as long as was required
in order to advance afterwards and be surer of
TOO LATE 101

attaining my end. I showed her I was a moral
man and that I was able to restrain myself.
Afterwards I held her hand in mine many a
time, caressed it, and touched it with my lips
without kissing it... .

And after a few meetings I again kissed her
hand, and then I dared more and more... I
excited her nerves and her curiosity, and when
she implored me with her inborn straightfor-
wardness to take pity on her ‘‘because she was
not made of stone,’’ I played on her compassion
for me and frightened her by saying I would be
unable to bear being parted from her... .

At the same time I consoled myself with the
thought that I could have taken from Natasha
much more than she was giving me and that I
was sparing her. And finally when I brought
her down to giving herself to me entirely, I my-
self restrained her, because I knew that her
honest, unsullied soul would not survive the
disgrace of falling. I took from her all that
was possible to take and, again as in my youth
with all those Varias and Lizas, I restrained
myself at the very threshold and preserved both
her purity and mine. I did not spare her bash-
fulness—I compelled her to live through the
torments of the most distressing inner struggle,
I compelled her to deceive her old mother, to
102 TOO LATE

whom she never had lied in her life, and what
did I give her in return?

I gave her a great deal. Once she asked me
to come and began to tell me that she could not
continue living like that, that she could not
bear any longer the eternal deceits, the pangs of
conscience, and that it would be better for us to
part forever. Without stopping to think for a
single moment, I told her that I understood her
fully and was going to divorce my wife and
marry her.

I shall never forget the frightened expres-
sion with which she gazed on me.

It was the horror before the abyss of happi-
ness which suddenly opened before her and
about which she had never dared dream.—And
she threw herself into it with all her being, but
at that very moment she made an effort over
herself and said in a calm voice: ‘‘No. You
know yourself that one can not become happy
by depriving some one else of happiness. Why,
then, talk like that???

And I was offering her a great sacrifice, was
I not? I, a moral monogamist, an exemplary
family man—was offering to break up my fam-
ily for her sake. Could there have been a
greater proof of my love for her? There was
only one thing Natasha was not aware of then,
TOO LATE 103

—she did not know that I would never have
uttered those words to her had I not known be-
forehand what her answer would be. I believed
in her spiritual strength, and I was not mis-
taken. She saw that I was heading for a preci-
pice and tried to restrain me as best she could.
Had I only listened to the dictates of her
heart!

Perhaps it still would have been possible to
save ourselves. But I did not feel like return-
ing to my family, and was sinking deeper and
deeper.

Many a time the question comes to my mind,
did I love Natasha? What has become of the
feeling which turned my life upside down?
Where is it now? Why is it that after my
wife’s death I have not felt even a single time
the desire to see Natasha? Does it not mean
that I never thought of her as a friend, not even
as a human being? In other words, it was only
cheap and vulgar sensuality.

Is it possible? I recollect now that I never
was entirely happy with Natasha. There al-
ways existed something between us that dis-
turbed us, something we could not trespass. It
must have been her conscience. And I had to
violate this conscience all the time. Many a
104 TOO LATE :

time I would find her cold, reserved and any-
thing but affable. And I had to force her will
and torture her highly strung nerves in order to
make her respond with a caress. And yet she
never said ‘‘thou’’ to me and never called me
‘thers.’’ We made a few attempts to part for-
ever. There were long, tormenting intervals
during which we avoided meeting and seeing
each other for long lapses of time. I would
visit the hospital, inspect the buildings, give
orders and leave without seeing her.

All this was very tormenting.

I recall how once, after such a separation, we
happened to meet in the hospital garden. At
first we were so confused that we forgot even
to greet each other. I saw how her eyes began
to blink and tears appeared on her eyelashes.

‘*You won’t believe how happy I have been
all this time,’’ she said, lowering her eyes.
‘‘Let us not spoil it. To think that I have not
lied nor felt any pangs of conscience! You
yourself know how bad we feel after misbehav-
ing. When I don’t see you I love you still more
because I know how hard you struggle and I
am grateful to you. And afterwards maybe
you, too, will feel better; yes, you will.”’

I stood facing her, leaning against a tree and
kept still . . . I was afraid to speak because I
TOO LATE 105

felt that my lips were trembling. All of a sud-
den she bent down and kissed my hand.

‘‘Don’t, don’t be so agitated, dear. I can’t
bear to see you suffer so greatly on my account.
Is it not better that we restrain ourselves and
do not sink? Are they so absolutely necessary,
those kisses, those caresses? .. .’’

‘‘Of course not, I, too, appreciate your pure
love .. . I want nothing else, but to see these
eyes, this hand . . . I myself feel bad when I
realize that I sully you with passion. Forgive
me...’

I do not know what else I said to her. In such
moments it seemed to me that my love for her
was pure and the belief in my own words used
to fill me with self-admiration and tears... .
And right there on the spot, immediately after
those words were spoken, I would sink still
deeper, rudely dragging her with me. And the
purer my love seemed to me the more madly
would flare up afterwards the basest manifesta-
tions of passion. And we would part like ac-
complices in a crime, in silence, without daring
to look at each other, full of disbelief and dis-
dain for ourselves.

Once Natasha happened to ask me why I had
not had any children for a long time. I told
106 TOO LATE

her of my wife’s illness and of the doctor’s
warning.

“It’s a pity, I’m so fond of little ones.
Maybe if a child were born to you it would at-
tach you to your family and it would be easier
for you to forget me. Honestly, I’m not worthy
of your love. After all, we’ll have to part
sooner or later... .’’

I do not know why, but this conversation took
possession of my mind. Whether it was the
impending parting with Natasha or something
else, but that very evening, on my return home
I told my wife that I felt lonely without babies,
that I loved to hear them ery at night, and that
if not for her illness I would have welcomed a
new child.

It appalls me to tell about it... .

I never knew that a human being could be so
disgusting. But—further, further to the very
end. If I stop here I shall not tell every-
thing . . . And all through that night I caressed
my wife, kissed her and told her I loved
Wer cus

Did she know about my infatuation with
Natasha?

Of course she did. Can a loving wife help
knowing, when her husband loves another
woman? Did she not notice how I sat on the

4
TOO LATE 107

divan in my study for days at a stretch, my
eyes fixed on one spot, without reading, without
speaking and, perhaps without thinking?

And, then, my repeated visits to Gorki. ...

. Whenever I assured her that I was interested
in the hospitals and the schools she wished to
believe me, but I do not think she could.

And now I know that she understood every-
thing. I must have been blind not to have
noticed it then. I shall never forget that night,
when lying in the arms of a woman who gave
me her life, I. was whispering the name of an-
other, the road to whom she facilitated for me,
consciously and voluntarily.:.

And I also reasoned then—I remember it.
I argued with myself that the physicians must
have been lying, that it was natural to live with
one’s wife, and that whatever is natural must
not lead to death and that all precautions
against childbirth were immoral—and Na-
tasha’s words about babies came to my mind.
I also thought that perhaps I was killing my
wife—but I dismissed that thought—because it
was the only true one and I was afraid to ad-
mit it....

And for nine months I had been attempting
to deceive myself until the catastrophe came,
108 TOO LATE

and no lie could save me any longer. If she
were conscious that she was doomed to die—who
knows what she had gone through during that
time?—TI never heard her reproach me, I never
saw a tear which would have shown me she
realized her situation. All I saw was that she
redoubled her tenderness to myself and to the
children, that she never got angry with anybody
during that time, and I understood that she was
a saint. It is not worth while to recall the
lucid intervals when I pitied her—there were
too few of them to expiate all that she had given
me. I remember how, during her illness, I
availed myself of the minutes when she sank in
a heavy, oblivious sleep, in order to gaze at
her and kiss her hands, because I dared not
speak to her of my love when she was conscious.
I knew she would not believe me. How often
did I feel like approaching her and telling her
all—the whole truth.

Was it better? I do not know. At last that
very disease came which had doomed her to
death. I was not in the house at the time and
they ran to the garden to call me. Running up
the staircase I met the doctor. He wore a
troubled expression and told me that there was
very little hope; that my wife was in grave
danger.
TOO LATE 109

I went to her room. Her head high on the
pillows, she was breathing heavily and petting
Tanichka’s light hair. I bent down and kissed
her on the forehead. It was still wet with per-
spiration.

She gazed thoughtfully into my eyes, smiled
with a smile which was new to me and drew me
toward herself.

Did she see my tears at that moment?

What does it matter now?

The tears of an executioner who became
afraid of his victim. .. .

And I ran out of the room on tip-toe.

And then the death struggle came. At times
she would lose consciousness. Then she would
regain her senses, open her eyes and seek me.
So it went on until she fell asleep forever. .. .

To this day I see before me those deep, for-
giving eyes, and to this day I fear to speak her
name, for I love only her and have never loved
anybody but her. ... And I could not have
loved. ...

It is all clear to me now....
ONE SCOUNDREL LESS
ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

Ir was in the middle of June. An intolerable
heat ravaged the country. The crops, not as
yet in their full bloom, were fast perishing,
scorched by the rays of the burning sun. A
second hunger year was in prospect.

I say ‘‘hunger-year,’’ for thus it was called
by the peasants who starved, by that part of the
land-holders who came into close contact with
the peasants and by a part of the press—which
opened funds for the ‘‘starving’’ peasants in
their various editorial offices. The rest of Rus-
sia either ignored the hunger altogether, or
looked on it as a more or less serious deficiency
‘of crops. For the amelioration of these condi-
tions, various means were adopted, all depend-
ing on the man who at the time happened to be
at the head of the country government. Por-
tions of the corn-reserves were distributed, help
was given out of the funds of the Red Cross,
or loans were made out of the reserve-capital
by the Zemstvo or the government.

The succor was given not in accordance with
113
114 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

the locality where the need of the population
was greatest, but depended on the ‘‘Ukase’”’ of
the various authorities—the governors, leaders
of the nobility, captains of the Zemstvo, alder-
men and the like. It frequently happened that
in the same county ‘(coyezde) the peasants of
one section were recognized as in dire need and
were accorded the necessary loan, while the
peasants of an adjoining town, though coping
with the same difficulties, were denied all help,
and only after great efforts were allowed to take
corn from the barns which they themselves had
filled.

Those who maintained that there was no fam-
ine were right, for nobody actually died of
starvation. They continued to live, no matter
how wretchedly. If at some places the typhoid
fever epidemic assumed unusual proportions, it
was argued that it had always existed. If chil-
dren were underfed and grew up crippled for
life by rickets, it was again pointed out that this
had always been the case. If the peasants had
nothing to feed their stock with and sold their
cows or killed their horses by the hundreds
merely for the hide, it was pointed out to them
that they should thank God for having some-
thing to sell! Others even went as far as to
naively advise the people to eat meat instead

»
ONE SCOUNDREL LESS 115

of bread as it was cheaper and more nutritious.
In a word, although almost all admitted that the
conditions of the people were worse than ever
before, some held that the people were hardened
and tough enough through habit to meet any
situation, while others claimed that the hard-
ships had reached the limit of the impossible
and maintained that help was indispensable.

The county of Ch—— was divided into two
different parties, one calling itself the ‘‘Con-
servative Party,’’ the other the ‘‘Liberal
Party.’’? Unfortunately where such_divisions
exist, a social program is for the most part en-
gaged in on a personal basis and so becomes a
political issue for the contending parties.

This soon became evident in the matter of
recognizing or not recognizing the hunger in the
county. As soon as some representatives of
the Liberal Party deemed it necessary to give
succor to the worn-out people and opened a sub-
scription of private contributions for the starv-
ing peasants, the Conservatives at once arose
in opposition, and with an unusual passion com-
. menced arguing that help was not only unnec-
essary, but might produce an altogether injuri-
ous effect by keeping the people from useful
work,

It is possible, nay certain, that had there been

%
116 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

no division of parties, the majority would have
recognized some form of help as indispensable
and the people would at least have been fed.
But now, since the Liberals recognized the ex-
istence of hunger, the Conservatives refused to
recognize it at all, and a fight arose, in which
the contestants were the social workers while
the hungry peasants were its innocent victims.

Owing to the fact that one party exaggerated
in one direction and the other party felt bound
to exaggerate in the opposite direction, the re-
ports of the Zemstvo captains, of whom two
were Liberals and three Conservatives, pre-
sented such a maze that one could not help see-
ing absolute famine in some centers and unpar-
alleled prosperity in others. In accordance
with these reports a loan was granted out of
the Zemstvo capital to only ten districts of the
county, while the slightest help was completely
denied the remaining districts in spite of their
continued protestations and entreaties.

The peasants could not help but see injustice
in all this, and along with the growing want
there grew a hidden hate towards their com-
placent and cruel landlords.

Peter Kiruchin had spent the night at the
night-watchers. When he approached the vil-
ONE SCOUNDREL LESS 117

lage on horseback, the sun had not yet risen, but,
from the chimneys of the huddled houses,
pillars of smoke lazily ascended and one could
see that the simple dwellers of the village were
already awake.

During the night Peter had fed his horse par-
ticularly well, for he was planning to that day
call on the Zemstvo captain who lived about
twenty versts away. He was not looking for-
ward to the journey with any pleasure, and so
for some days had kept on postponing it. A
month ago he had believed in the possibility of
obtaining official help, and he had visited every
governmental office, from that of the alderman
to that of the nobility leader, but these authori-
ties were all conservatives and, though Peter
had never heard this word, he none the less felt
the force of it! He no longer had any faith in
appeals for government aid, and during the last
month had sold everything he possessed to get
money for his small family needs.

Now he again found himself destitute, with
no bread for himself.nor his. family. There
were still two linen sheets left that could be
pawned, but Matrena, his wife, clung fast to
them, and in order to get her to part with them,
he had to resort to the very last means, a sec-
ond visit to the Zemstvo captain. She had
118 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

insisted on it. Matrena could not understand
why the peasants of the neighboring district re-
ceived a loan; why the shoemaker at Lvashkin,
who was a drunkard, received three pouds of
flour, every month, while Peter, who was a
sober, hard-working fellow, had to starve.
Peter had grown stolidly accustomed to this in-
justice, but Matrena complained about it con-
tinually.

Every day Peter had to listen to these grum-
blings, and had to bear up as best he could while
she gave him a thousand reasons why she ought
to be helped. Endlessly she kept repeating the
things which, according to her opinion, Peter
ought to tell the Zemstvo captain. Peter had
finally yielded to silence her, and to-day he was
again going to repeat the disagreeable task of
seeking government help.

‘On reaching home, Peter went, as soon as he
had attended to his horse, into the house. On
the bench sat a fair-faced, golden-haired boy of
about eight years, who was fretfully rocking a
cradle.

‘Where is mamma?’’ asked Peter.

“She is dut milking the cow.”’

‘‘Vaska, go open the gates and chase out the
cattle.’ It was Matrena speaking, and she
ONE SCOUNDREL LESS _ 119

soon came through the doorway, carrying a pail
of warm milk.

Vaska fetched his cap, and with the speed of
‘an arrow, ran into the yard, glad of his free-
dom. Matrena, covering the pail with a cloth,
placed it on the bench, and went over to the cra-
dle.

‘‘What are you waiting for?’’ she said, turn-
ing to Peter. ‘‘We’ll soon finish the last crust,
and that will be the end. We have already
eaten up the sheep. What have we left now?
Go to the captain, I tell you. What’s the use
of waiting any longer?’’

““Confound you with your captain! You
have not seen him, but I have. It is no easy
thing to talk to him. He came out, and began
to holler at us: ‘Ah, you lazy things!, When.
there is work to do you can’t be found, but you
are here all right to take the money for loafing.’
I would like to ask him: ‘Who is working any-
way?’ Not he, I’m sure. And how can any
one work now? The other day I went out to
plow the field, but it was impossible to touch
the soil. I’m sure he isn’t any better off with
his own plows. Besides, they want me to dig
no less than nine furrows on each sazhen (three
yards). Get me the sheets, I tell you. I will
120 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

go to him, but if I don’t succeed I’ll go to the
city. For the two sheets I can surely get three
pouds (120 pounds) of flour. You don’t want
me to sell the cow, do you?’’

‘‘The linens,’? grumbled Matrena, taking a
pot full of boiled potatoes off the stove. ‘‘We
have eaten up everything; we are worse off
than beggars. Why do others get monthly pay-
ments? Look at the Lidorskis, or at the
Khommtooskis. Every month they go with
their bags to the mill. And what is the matter
with us? Do we belong to a different Czar?’’

Paying no attention to the grumblings of his
wife, Peter sat down to the table, took a potato
out of the pot and began peeling it with his
enormous hook-like fingers.

A herd of cattle stumbled by the window, rais-
ing clouds of dust. Vaska came running in,
stopped against the table, crossed himself and,
trying in all his movements to imitate his
father, sat down to the table for breakfast. In
the cradle the baby got uneasy, and was about
to begin crying, but a nipple filled with chewed
bread bought his silence. ;

The light in the house grew brighter. It was
the beginning of another long, hot June day.
Peter knew that the Zemstvo captain was not in
the habit of getting up early and was therefore
ONE SCOUNDREL LESS 121

in no hurry. Placing Vaska on the horse, he
sent the two to the river so that the animal
might quench its thirst, while he himself was
oiling the cart.

About nine o’clock Peter reached the estate
of the Zemstvo captain and, along with other
petitioners, waited for his coming out.

Nicolai Ivanovitch Gayevsky got up in an
abominable mood. And to make matters worse,
there followed one unpleasantness after the
other. The coffee was served him with cream
that was sour. When he asked the reason, he
was told the separator was broken and had not
worked for two days. There was nothing left
but to chastise the dairymaid and to send the
separator to Moscow for repairs. Besides,
during the night the horses of some peasants
had broken into his garden and destroyed the
whole patch of cauliflower. Now two women
were waiting to ask his forgiveness.

By the time Nicolai Ivanovitch went out to
the petitioners he was in such an irritated state
of mind that he had already decided to chase
out the whole bunch, rejoicing at the bottom of
his heart that this time he had real cause for
being angry.

Petitioners visited him every day. At the be-

\
122 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

ginning he earnestly regretted their lot, atten- .
tively listened to their complaints, promised aid
and sometimes even gave it. But after he had
joined the Conservative Party, quite imper-
ceptibly to himself, he changed his opinions, and
began to think that after all the need of the peo-
ple was not as great as he had imagined. And
when his manager, Mironov, started complain-
ing to him that one peasant did not take out the
manure, that another one did not finish plowing,
while a third one took the deposit and never
returned, Gayevsky more and more justified his
indifferent attitude towards the people and
grasped every occasion that helped to kill com-
passion in him or to provoke his resentment to-
ward the petitioners.

This was also the case this morning. The
dairymaid had spoiled the separator, the horses
had trampled down the cauliflower, yesterday
trees had been felled in the forest, the day be-
fore yesterday something else had happened—
and all on account of these scoundrels, who em-
bittered his life and who ought to be chased out.

Which he promptly did! All those who came
to ask for help he rejected, making it plain that
no help was to be expected. The women who
came to ask regarding the horses he sent to the
manager, while the rest who came concerning
ONE SCOUNDREL LESS 128

matters judicial he sent to the clerk. Peter did
not get a single word with him, and, muttering
to himself, turned homeward.

But Gayevsky felt no inward echo of Peter’s
curses. Besides the fact that he had nothing to
tell these people who came to him for relief, he
simply had no time. Towards evening he had
to be at a birthday party given by Zarubin, the
leader of the nobility, who lived twenty versts
away, and till then he had lots of work to do.
He had to be at the stable, in the garden and
especially in the field, where he was to experi-
ment for the first time with a new plow A. Z. D.,
which was imported from abroad and which was
recommended to him by one of his neighbors.
He wanted by all means to see how the plow
worked that he might boast of it before the
gathering at the party.

About five o’clock he ordered the horses
hitched and started. It was still hot and the
driver rode slowly, lashing the horses to greater
speed only when they passed a village. While
passing the last of these villages not far from
the estate of the leader, a new unpleasantness
occurred. Some boy running across the street
fell down and the wheel of the carriage ran right
over him. Nicolai Ivanovitch wanted to stop

to see what had happened arid shouted to the
124 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

driver to halt, but the driver did not heed him.
Looking back, Gayevsky was only in time to see
some woman run out of a house and carry a
golden-haired boy away.

Gayevsky could not make out whether the boy
had been run down or whether he merely fell,
but when he approached his destination he felt
somewhat uneasy.

A large crowd from all parts of the country
gathered on that day at the leader’s. All the
members of the Conservative Party deemed it
their duty to visit their spokesman. The num-
ber of guests usually indicated the vote at the
ensuing provincial and electoral sessions.

The traditional birthday cake graced the table
all day dong. Around it there stood bottles con-
taining the choicest of wines. There were also
two small decanters of ancient cut glass, jocu-
larly named Yasha and Petjka. In spite of the
indissoluble chumminess of these twins, who
were always together, they were dreadfully jeal-
ous of each other. When one was drunk out of,
the other felt mortally offended. When the
first was sent to the buffet for reénforcements,
the second would delight in the popularity he
had gained. The first, returning full of new
vigor, and seeing his rival being so entertained,
had to in turn become the aggrieved, until his
ONE SCOUNDREL LESS _ 125

rival’s strength waned. So they had alterna-
tives of joy and anguish. On such days as this
the rivalry of the twins intensified and almost
reached a climax!

Nicolai Ivanovitch greeted the host and the
guests, lit a cigarette and joined at the luncheon
table a group of persons who were engaged in a
heated discussion. A young man with honest
and open face, whom Gayevsky had not seen
before, held the center of the group.

‘‘But, gentlemen, it is not fair to take and
give nothing. We exact of them labor and
work, we demand of them honesty, we present to
them the highest ethical claims, and what do we
give them in return? You say, they are well
fed; however, I as a physician can tell you that
half of the diseases of the peasantry result from
bad food and poverty. I am entrusted with an
infirmary; they expect good work of me, but is
it possible to accomplish anything under the
conditions of destitution and barbarity? Truly,
I am getting discouraged.’’

‘Gentlemen, won’t you please have some-
thing?’’ interrupted the host. ‘‘Mr. Gayevsky,
how about it? Yasha, you know, is very anx-
ious; won’t you have some cake, with cabbage
and mushrooms? [I followed your conversation
closely. You’re young yet, doctor, young!
126 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

What you demand is all very well, but try it
once; schools, hospitals. . . . This is not Mos-
cow, you must understand. Just try to increase
the provincial tax by five copeks and you’ll
hear a new song. We ourselves shall soon have
nothing to eat; so why talk of the peasants?
Our fathers got along without these fads and
fancies; they fed on swans, drank mead and
choice wine, and everything was well. Now
they all come with innovations. Gentlemen,
please, something cooling! See how Petjka is
getting fretful; he must not be offended.’’

After doing justice to the refreshments, the
guests sauntered out into the park, where the
young folks played tennis, then into the garden
and the stables. Zarubin was considered a
model master and he liked to boast of his house-
hold management.

During the season of horse breeding he would
delight in telling the pedigree of each steed, in
showing the distinguishing marks of every
breed. Hach horse was first walked with meas-
ured step to the platform and then after the
admiring observers had sufficiently feasted their
eyes on it, it was made to run while the doctor
and many others who knew nothing of horses
and their breeds wondered at the alacrity and
speed of the grooms.

N
\

ONE SCOUNDREL LESS 127

At the approach of evening all returned home
and played whist a little till supper was served.
Gayevsky found himself sitting next to the doc-
tor. His other neighbor at the table was the
local police captain, a buffoon and notorious
cynic. He was a frequenter at Zarubin’s house
and the twins, Yosha and Petjka, enjoyed his
especial favor. He knew how to keep on good
terms with both of them and they served him
faithfully..

All of this evening Nicolai Ivanovitch was
somber and concentrated. The case of the boy
constantly recurred to his mind and he. was
sorry he had not stopped his horse and ascer-
tained what had happened to him. He tried
‘several times to drive these thoughts from his
mind, seeking to still his remorse by the thought
that perhaps nothing had happened, that if it
had, he was not to blame, but his conscience
would not be lulled. Several times in the course
of the evening, he wanted to talk about it to
some one, but no opportunity presented itself.
Hither he thought that the person he was about
to address would not take the proper attitude to
the occurrence, and would assume that he feared
the consequences, or it seemed to him that such
a conversation would be out of place.

At last, however, he decided that the physi-
128 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

cian would prove responsive and determined to
open his heart to him and even to ask him to
pay a visit to the village and advise him of what
had actually happened to the boy.

A sense of false shame did not permit him to
go straight into the matter. He approached the
subject from afar, asking the doctor how long it
was since he had been assigned to the hospital,
what university he had graduated from, and
then, as if unintentionally:

‘¢You know, I had a perfectly ridiculous ex-
perience to-day; I nearly ran over a lad in the
village. The driver did not check the horses
while a boy, as the devil would have it, was
crossing the street. I think he was even caught
in the wheel.’

‘‘Did that happen with you, too, Nicolai Ivan-
ovitch?’? asked the police captain. ‘‘ Well, the
rascals. How many times have I punished
them for it, but still whenever anybody drives
by they are always in the road. I will find out
to-morrow whose boy it was and I will give him
his due; you may count on that.’’

‘No, Vassili Petrovitch, please, don’t do that.
I told the doctor of it because I fear I may have
injured him, not because I want him chastised.’’

‘‘Eh, why get disquieted? A blow with an ax
ONE SCOUNDREL LESS 129

would leave him unharmed, and if you really
did hurt him he deserved it well. There will be
one scoundrel less in the world, that’s all.
‘You’d better empty your wine-glass; he who
does not finish his goblet must have it filled
again,’’ jested the police captain, panting and
replenishing the glasses on his right and left.

“‘T will go home shortly and will stop on the
way to look in,’’ whispered the doctor. ‘‘Tell
me, where did it happen?”’

“On the hillock, near the first or second hut.’’

‘‘Very well, I think I can findit. But tell me,
is it possible that everybody here takes the same
attitude to human beings as our neighbor?
This is awful; life cannot be treated thus. I
came into the country full of hope, the highest
aspirations. It seemed to me that the country
offered the best opportunity for work, and now
I find one disappointment after another. You
cannot imagine how heartbreaking it all is!
And this famine, too! Recently a patient came
to me from the Vassilieff Volost and told of the
plight of the people there. What horror, what
indescribable misery !’’

The Vassilieff Volost formed part of Gayev-
sky’s estate. The doctor did not know it. Un-
der different circumstances Nicolai Ivanovitch
130 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

would surely have taken issue with the doctor,
but now he held his tongue and turned the con-
versation into other channels.

After supper the visitors began to disperse.
Gayevsky was one of the last to leave.

In crossing the village, Gayevsky noticed the
doctor’s horse standing near the home of Kiru-
chin and bade the coachman stop. He no
sooner opened the door and entered the hut than
he felt that something terrible had taken place.
He wanted to runaway. He saw tragedy in the
figure of the woman holding a babe in her arms,
as she talked to the doctor; he saw it.in the
countenance of the doctor himself and he felt
instinctively that there, on the boards which
served as a bed, the victim of his speed was dy-
ing. He feared to look. He wanted to shut his
ears to the short moans, as sharp and as meas-
ured as the strokes of a pendulum. He tried to
turn his eyes away—but could not. At this mo-
ment nothing and nobody existed for him but
two. creatures: himself, big, but helpless and
weak, and this little curly head with inflamed
eyes.

The eyes of the lad looked straight before him
and seemed to discern something new and seri-
ous which he had not seen before. Suddenly a
ONE SCOUNDREL LESS 131

shudder ran through him and he uttered a loud,
piercing scream.

Nicolai Ivanovitch shook with terror.

‘He is unconscious,’’ said the doctor, coming
up to him and taking his arm. ‘‘Let us go; we
are not needed here.’’

When the door closed after them the doctor
halted and said:

‘‘His condition is hopeless; he will hardly
survive until morning. I could not examine all
of his injuries, because each movement caused
him unendurable suffering. Apparently his
chest is caved in and several of his ribs broken.
Ican do nothing. Those screams are the begin-
ning of the final agony.’

**Can’t anything be done?”’

‘‘Hardly, but if you wish, I will call to-mor-
row morning. But come now, let us go. You
have to pass by my infirmary, and if you do not
mind, I will ride with you.”’

The doctor saw the state of dejection Gayev-
sky was in and he pitied him. He sought on
the way to console him, and argued that he was
as good as guiltless in this case and cited in-
stances of a similar nature. Gayevsky listened
and kept silent. A great complex idea, as yet
undefined, but persistent and tormenting, was
working in his mind.
182 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

For the first time in his life he experienced
complete helplessness. He was ready to re-
trace his steps, to speak to that hapless mother
and beg her forgiveness, but he felt he could not
do it, that it would not be sincere, that he would
not assuage her sorrow, that he might even en-
rage her. To understand one another, human
relations are prerequisite and that was exactly
what he lacked.

The doctor told him, casually, that Peter Ki-
ruchin, father of the injured boy, had gone that
morning to him for help, and Gayevsky remem-
bered how that very morning he had driven all
petitioners from his house. He vividly pic-
tured to himself Peter’s return to his home and
the hatred that would fill Peter’s soul. This
feeling of the anger which he aroused in others
had come to his mind often before, but he never
had permitted himself to pay any attention to
it. His part in life was to punish and to re-
ward and he stood in no need of anybody’s
indulgence. Now, however, when he craved the
pardon of these very people whom he consid-
ered immeasurably lower than himself, he felt
he was not worthy of it. Deep in his heart he
knew that if the boy should die, nothing could
repay for his life. But he would not undeceive
himself and he kept on thinking of how best he
ONE SCOUNDREL LESS 133

could make amends to the parents. At one mo-
ment he would decide to give the father money,
then he thought three acres of land would be a
fairer recompense, and then again any offer ap-
peared to be inadequate; it was not the real
thing. He came to no decision.

At the hospital the physician left him, and
Nicolai Ivanovitch Gayevsky went home alone.
When he approached his house the day had al-
ready dawned.

Gayevsky undressed and laid down in his
bedroom. He wanted to fall asleep, to escape
from his torturing mind, to forget. ‘‘Morning
is wiser than evening,’’ he concluded, closing
his eyes; ‘‘to-morrow I will do something.’’
What that ‘‘something’’ would be he did not
know, but he felt that something must be done
and contented himself with the belief that it
would be something good.

‘¢One scoundrel less’’; the words of the police
captain suddenly stabbed him like a knife. He
remembered this officer’s pampered, liquor-
flushed face and alongside of it he saw the fa-
cial expression of the woman bending over her
dying son, her features lit by the smoking lamp.

‘He stood near her, saw her affliction and was
unable to utter a single word of consolation.

i
134 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

He hastened to escape, to avoid seeing her suf-
fering and the pains of the curly-haired ‘‘scoun-
drel’’ he had himself mortally injured.

‘‘What horror! The fault is not so much in
the fact that I ran over the lad; that is a mis-
fortune, as in our whole attitude towards him
and his kind. That is our crime. When the
police captain said ‘one scoundrel less’ nobody
even retorted; I saw how our neighbors smiled
at his charming witticism. If I did not share
his feeling towards these people, I should not
have gone away and left that woman alone. I
cannot help the boy, but the mother I can, I
must help. This is my chief and only duty and
I dare not shirk it as a coward or a criminal
would.’

Nicolai Ivanovitch arose from his bed, called
in his servant and ordered him to get the horses
ready.

He quickly dressed and without waiting for
the horses to come, went into the stable and left
directly from there for the village. He did not
know what he was going for, and he did not
care. He felt that he must go, that he was do-
ing right, and this thought quieted him and gave
him new strength.

The morning was cloudy, and Nicolai Ivano-
vitch felt chilly after a sleepless night.
y

ONE SCOUNDREL LESS 135

His carriage rolled noiselessly along the
dusty roadway. Gayevsky tried to imagine
how he would enter the hut, what he would say
to the woman and what she would retort, but
it did not work. In spite of all his efforts he
did not even succeed in framing an opening sen-
tence to relieve the embarrassment of his en-
trance. At moments he would succumb to
dread and false shame and was ready to turn
back. But he knew the thoughts which would
weigh upon his mind at home, and drove on.

‘The nearer he came to the village the more
frightened he grew at what awaited him. Peas-
ants who passed him took off their hats and
bowed low. He fancied they surmised the ob-
ject of his trip and he turned his head aside to
avoid their looks.

At Kiruchin’s dwelling Gayevsky alighted
from his earriage and, without glancing behind
him, hastily stepped into the hovel.

The first thing that he saw was the pallid,
waxen face of the dead Vaska lying with his
head toward the Holy Image. Near the oven
stood Matrena, talking with two other women.
At the sight of the stranger she hastily covered
her face with her apron and started to cry. Be-
tween her groaning and sobbing it was impos-
sible to make out what she said. Only single
186 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

words were heard: ‘‘Darling ... left me.

..? But most of the sounds were quite im-
possible to distinguish; as likely as not she her-
self did not know what she was uttering.

Gayevsky stood and felt hot tears roll down
his cheeks. Almost unconsciously he walked up
to Matrena and in a quaking voice, which
sounded strange and unfamiliar to him, blurted
out, ‘‘Forgive me in the name of God; I am
guilty.’’

Matrena quieted down for a moment, looked
into his face frightened and then broke into an
irresistible gush of tears and cries.

Nicolai Ivanovitch stood over her, as she
cried. He felt his own tears trickling down his
face into his mustache and beard. He wept like
a child and like a child was happy in his tears
and would not stop their flow. He no longer
paid heed to what people thought of him. He
felt himself emerging from a shell which had
held him tightly encased. Something clear and
infinitely happy was filling his soul. He no
_ longer feared to share the sorrow of this
woman, for he felt it with all his inner self.
And while she sobbed and told him how her son
had suffered before he died, he looked at her
with inflamed eyes and together with her lived
through the awful night. At times when the
ONE SCOUNDREL LESS 187

tears blinded his eyes, he wiped them away,
while the woman quieted and consoled him.
From Matrena, Gayevsky learned all about the
life of that family and listening to her narra-
tion he felt himself growing closer and closer to
her life. He wondered more and more how he
ever could have harbored feelings other than
compassion and love for these people.

Months rolled by.

The second famine year was more terrible
than the first. As heretofore, the parties were
engrossed in their campaigns, and in those
places where the famine was not officially recog-
nized the distress of the people reached extreme
limits.

Gayevsky sat in his study and looked over the
lists of names of the peasants throughout his
five volosts. There was a rap on the door, and
the doctor came in.

“Nicolai Ivanovitch, I bring you good tidings.
Your petition on behalf of the peasants has been
granted and you will get ten carloads of flour.
The police captain told me that he will raise
heaven and hell against you for spoiling the
whole district and that he is going to denounce
you to the Government.’’

‘‘Don’t mind him,’’ rejoined Gayevsky, smil-
188 ONE SCOUNDREL LESS

ing at the doctor with a good nature he had not
possessed in former days, ‘‘I cannot be angry
with him. He served me a good turn once and I
will ever remain grateful to him. Do you re-
member the words that he said when I killed
that unlucky boy last summer, that there would ,
be ‘one scoundrel less in the world’? I never
will be able to forget those words, for they
made me realize what I had been until then. I
am beginning now to believe that the world has
indeed lost one scoundrel. But at what an aw-
ful price!’’
WITHOUT A NOSE
WITHOUT A NOSE

Tr is a brilliantly illuminated salon. Petro-
grad’s elite is assembled; the ladies are in
sumptuous evening dress that would make even
Paris envious; the men in their swallow tails
show that they, too, have fashions to watch, and
that they have kept apace with them.

I know that she will soon make her appear-
ance here, and I am waiting with an anxiety
that is delightfully painful. I cannot imagine,
try as I will, how we will meet here in the
presence of every one, after what transpired
between us such a short time ago. It takes all
the effort I can command not to betray my con-
fusion.

She enters with a light and even step, gor-
geously beautiful; pure and irreproachable in
her simplicity. I see ladies, under a mask of
amiability, trying to conceal their jealousy. I
see gentlemen respectfully kissing the gracefully
chisled hand, the beauty of which even her long
white gloves cannot conceal.

She comes to me. She extends her hand with
141
142 WITHOUT A NOSE

the same indifferent smile, not a muscle of her
face betrays the slightest disturbance or em-
barrassment. How charming sli is.

I gaze at her and contrast this to what hap-
pened half an hour ago. Half an hour ago, I
entered her boudoir. She was but half-dressed ;
her long black tresses were streaming over her
bare shoulders. She was standing in front of
her mirror; and as I opened the door, she saw
my reflection. She threw up her head, and
thrust her beautiful bare arms backwards,
gracefully luring me into her embrace.

‘“‘Quick, quick. I have been waiting for you.”’

I rushed into her arms and we were lost in
the ecstasy of an eternal kiss.—Then I caressed
her, I kissed her, . . . kissed her all over, and
long, so long; we could not tear ourselves from
each other. For a moment we would separate
to gaze at each other’s intoxicated eyes, and
then again and over again, our lips sealed the
tempest of our passions. ...

And now she entered this reception room,
majestic and pure, and this very hand, which
has just been so passionately caressed by me,
this hand is kissed as if it were one of a sacred
deity.

‘‘Oh, if you only knew, you foolish dressed
up apes, who are worshiping her purity... .’’
WITHOUT A NOSE 148

Suddenly, I know not why, this hand brought
to my memory the history of a noseless beggar-
woman, who had lately died in our village,

What a wild comparison. .. .

She was the daughter of a former serf, Ivan
Suvoroff, who had served as a valet to my
father, in his younger years. When yet a little
girl, she used to come to our Manor to help her
father in the pantry, and at the age of twenty
she had grown to be a charming, gentle girl. I
was a mere child then, and I can remember how
I used to run around with her on the meadow
in front of our house, playing ‘‘hot and cold.’’
Even the whirlwind rustle of her skirts comes
back to me; I can remember the delight with
which I was possessed, when, making a quick
turn, she ran towards me and grasped me with
both hands under my arm-pits and lifted me
high up into her arms.

I patted her ruddy cheeks, I tossed her head
hither and thither admiring her eyes, her even
white teeth; I closely pressed myself to her
elastic, panting breast.

I remember even the fragrancy of her breath,
a wholesome, pure breath.

Then she disappeared somewhere, and I have
never seen her since. I had almost forgotten
144 - WITHOUT A NOSE

her; when one day after a lapse of some years,
I entered our new church, and my gaze fell upon
the Ikon of the Holy Virgin. I was amazed
by its striking likeness to some one I could not
remember. I stood before the pure image
tenderly leaning over the Holy Infant, and won-
dered where had I seen that face, that ex-
pression of the features?

Suddenly it came to me,... ‘‘Katya.’’
Was it really she, or was it merely my imagi-
nation? Was it possible that it was a mere
coincidence? Or, perhaps was it that youthful
half forgotten impressions are so pure, that they
see in people only their abstract beauty? I
wondered.

I am forty years old now. Lately, taking a
walk behind the barn, I met two old women, re-
turning from the cemetery, their heads covered
with white kerchiefs, and with them a peasant
carrying a spade on his shoulder.

‘“Whom have you buried?’’ I asked.

‘“Katherine, the noseless.’’

‘““What Katherine?’’

“‘The beggar-woman, the daughter of the
former Serf, Ivan. Well, Master, you hardly
knew her, she was here so little. She lived
mostly in Moscow.’’
WITHOUT A NOSE 145

Katya? Is it possible? My beautiful child-
ish reminiscences, my dream. Pure, fragrant
Katya,—the noseless beggar-woman.

I followed the women, and bit by bit I gath-
ered from them the following story:

When our church was being built, a strange
image painter came to the village, to paint the
altar screen for the church.

He became acquainted with Katya, and soon
fell in love with her. So close did the attach-
ment become that when he returned to Moscow,
he took her ‘with him. For several years, until
he died, she lived with him, acting as his model.
At his death, she had to earn her own livelihood,
and knowing no other trade, she continued to
follow her vocation of a model. But her beauty
faded all too soon; she went astray; the ground
shook under her feet and she slid down the in-
cline. It was the old, old story of the easy road
of thorns.

As long as her youth lasted she lived comfort-
ably with never a thought of the morrow.
Sometimes she had plenty of money, but she was
not mercenary. She never saved anything, she
gave all away. She was good and large.
hearted. Who knows, she might have gone
astray just because of this goodness of her
heart. She knew not how to refuse.
146 WITHOUT A NOSE

When finally the evil disease seized her, she
had'no means to seek treatment, and she had to
beg in the streets. The police soon found her,
placed her in a public hospital from which she
was discharged with the yellow ticket and a
nose eaten away by the ravages of disease.

Thus fallen, half decayed, and hungry she be-
thought herself of her native village, and
wearily she dragged herself back there to wind
up her life’s journey.

It was a Sunday, when she straggled into the
church to offer her prayers. She had bought
a penny candle and brought it to the Image of
the Holy Virgin. Holding the candle in her left
hand, she lifted her right hand to her forehead
to make the cross; she raised her eyes and
stared at the image.

The choir sang, ‘‘The Song of the Cherubim.’’

The old woman stood petrified, her hand not
finishing the cross; she did not believe her eyes.

To whom was she offering her prayer?

For whom had she bought the candle, upon
which she had spent her last penny?

From under the Silver Sacerdotal Vestment
there gazed upon her, her own eyes, her own
pure girlish face.

Some features were so similar, so intimately
familiar were the corners of the mouth, the
 

WEARILY SHE DRAGGED HERSELF BACK TO WIND
UP HER LIFE’S JOURNEY. a:

Without a Nose)
WITHOUT A NOSE 147

wavy locks on the temples protruding from
under the veil, and even the hand, that she could
not stand her fright and she fell in.a hysterical
fit upon the stony steps in front of the altar.

They lifted her up and carried her away.

‘‘Klikusha,’’! was all they said. There are
such in every parish.

Katherine lived but six months after, and
every Sunday, every holiday, up to her death,
she used to come to church and stand in the
right hand corner near the choir in front of the
Ikon of the Holy Virgin.

She stood with a sinking heart and malevo-
lently followed the people kissing her hand; she
looked at them as they brought their infants
after communion and made them kiss that hand.

‘‘My hands, these very dirty, soiled hands,—
you do not know whose hands you are kissing.
Kiss, kiss—the hands of Noseless Katherine. .

‘“‘These hands were painted by my lover,
Volodya, and with these hands I had caressed
him,—caressed him all over, and I kissed him
with this mouth, and he loved to kiss me upon
these dimples of my cheeks and my eyes.

‘And then . . . whom have those hands not
caressed. . . . Kiss, kiss.”’

1 Klikusha is a Russian term for women suffering from reli-
gious hysteria.
148 WITHOUT A NOSE

The life of Katherine was now bent upon ac-
complishing a few tasks before she died.

All week long, this withered, soulless woman
walked from house to house with a bag on her
belt, and waited for the day, when there was
service at the church. Then she felt revived.

All the money she gathered during the week—
sometimes considerable—she spent on candles,
which she placed before the Ikon of the Holy
Virgin. She started to embroider a towel for
her.

Just started, but did not finish it, for she died.

‘“Frozen on the highway.’’

She was placed in a coffin of thin planks and
was brought to church for funeral service.

She lay with her face towards the Ikon of the
Holy Virgin, and instead of her eyes, the gap-
ing hole of the fallen nose looked upward from
the coffin.

Some one approached and covered her with a
shroud.

Next Sunday, on the ninth day after Katya’s
death I went to church, and placed a 10 copek
candle before the Ikon of the Holy Virgin and

issed her pure, slender hand.

This was before my departure for Petrograd.
CHOLERA
CHOLERA
Cuapter I

Awnpret AFANASIEVITCH RazuMov was return-
ing from the district town, where at a special
meeting of the Rural Council the question of
combating the approaching epidemic of cholera
was discussed.

He was a provincial, small landowner, and
this was the first time in his life that he took
part in a matter of public importance.

Two weeks previously, on receipt of the
printed invitation from the President of the
Council himself, he ordered his mistress, Masha,
to wash and starch his white shirt, yellowed
lying in the closet, whilst he himself looked over
and cleaned his creased double-breasted coat,
made about a decade ago in the Government
town.

On the eve of leaving he called the head
laborer and coachman, Danilo, and instructed
him to oil the harness thoroughly, wash the

carriage, and to himself give a half-measure of
‘ 151
152 CHOLERA

oats to the two driving horses—a couple of
home-bred, round stallions. _

It was Danilo also who trimmed Andrei
Afanasievitch’s wide spade-shaped beard and
his curly gray locks that framed so comically
his round absolutely bare head.

In town, at the meeting, Andrei Afanasie-
vitch felt exalted. He was met quite like a per-
sona grata and was unanimously elected district
sanitary supervisor. After the meeting he was
invited to dinner at the Club.

Before zakuska,’ when Andrei Afanasievitch
was offered a tumbler of vodka, he at first at-
tempted to decline, out of modesty, but the
president of the nobility was so gently and
kindly insistent that he could not withstand and
it ended by his taking some, and even not quite
moderately. .. . And now, having traveled on
about 20 versts, he found that all the way, sit-
ting in his wicker buggy, he was sleeping
soundly and must have been wakened at some
jolt.

Looking round, he found that he was near
home.

The heat was subsiding.

Danilo, loosening the reins, was sitting mo-
tionless on his seat; his bowed back, clad in a

1 Hors @euvre.
CHOLERA 158

black sleeveless coat, and his shaven neck were
covered with a thick layer of dark, gray dust.

‘The horses, partly blackened by the dust,
were running at that quietly brisk trot, which
in their experience just kept away the whip, and
regularly, almost in turn, they waved their
thick, plebeian tails..

On both sides of the road the full grown rye
was yellowing.

** About 9 ricks,’’ reflected Andrei Afanasie-
vitch aloud, reaching in his pocket for a ciga-
rette and lighting it.

‘‘Were it not forthe marsh, we could have
made it more than 12,’’ remarked Danilo with-
out emotion, lifting himself on the seat and ad-
justing with the end of his whip a displaced
strap of the harness on the side horse.
‘“‘They’ll be commencing near town.”’

‘‘The ground is better there, with the sand;
here it will ripen in about two days, not ear-.
lier.’’

‘‘Depends on the weather.’’

‘‘Danilo, are there many oats left in the
wing?’’ Andrei Afanasievitch asked suddenly.

‘“‘You saw yourself, Andrei Afanasievitch;
there are four quarters there.”’

‘“<Then this is what you do: you take this over
to-morrow to the barn. The wing I will turn
154 CHOLERA

into a barrack. The feldsher* will live there.
The dispensary and ambulance will be in our
house, understand?’’

‘‘And where will you put the pigs? And all
the harness, ropes, and all the other.goods?”’

‘Where, where? Anywhere you like. Can’t
you find place for all this in the closet upstairs?
You can space off a corner in the barn, or in the
house, in the closet.’’

_ ‘Maria Gavrilovna won’t let you put it in the
closet, and there is no room in the barn. The
corn will ripen, and where will you put the
seeds? You want to be left without seeds? .. .
What will you do without seeds? . . . What
need had you to start with all this cholera, what
need . . . indeed?”’

“There, right away you talk like an unedu-
cated fool,’? Andrei Afanasievitch began, sen-
tentiously; ‘‘you don’t understand. Do you
know what cholera is? Cleverer people than
you and I have thought of this thing. You
should have heard what was said at to-day’s
meeting; where it comes from and how to fight
it. You see, a tiny little speck of cholera gets
into the water or mud... .”’

“‘T know. In the village a whole wall is plas-
tered with these pictures. The masters have

1 Assistant doctor.
CHOLERA 155

nothing to do, so they think out all kinds
of specks. We never had this cholera and
wouldn’t have it. But it does not take long to
call her in ... not long at all. Where the doc-
tors are, there is cholera. Look at Spassky, the
village coachman was telling of only the other
day. There is a doctor there, two assistants,
and the people die off. When we get the doc-
tors, she will come to us, too... sure, she’ll
come.”’

‘‘That’s why we can do nothing with you, be-
cause you are ignorant churls. You are being
helped, doctored, and you still harp on your
own. You don’t deserve to be cared for,’’ con-
cluded Andrei Afanasievitch finally.

Passing through the village of Nikolskoie, the
horses turned sharply to the right, past the
church, ran round the thicket of lilac and
stopped near a small, double-log homestead with
ornamented porch.

Andrei Afanasievitch with serious mien
alighted from the carriage and went up the
steps. Stepping on the porch, he took off his
wide-rimmed soft hat, and somehow became
shorter in stature and more comical in appear-
ance. Smoothing down his disheveled hair, he
entered the dining room.

From the adjacent room, the bedroom, there
156 CHOLERA

came out to meet him Maria Gavrilovna, a soft,
round-faced blonde.

This Masha,’ daughter of the dairymaid, was
enticed by Andrei Afanasievitch about a year
previously, and had been living in his house ever
since. Like all women of the lower classes,
when transplanted into better conditions with
plenty of good food, she very quickly settled,
grew lazy and became fat.

Andrei Afanasievitch, by nature kindly and
weak-willed, making pretense at power, yet ut-
terly incapable of ruling, although he appeared
to treat Masha strictly, and before onlookers
even liked to order her about, was in reality
quite under her influence and even feared her.

The fact that she was soon to bear a child, a
matter to which she herself was quite indiffer-
ent, was a source of the greatest embarrassment
to him. Many times he had begun to think of
how he should act when the child was born, but
the problem seemed too difficult; he therefore
postponed it from day to day, and thus it still
remained unsolved.

To marry Masha seemed to him inconvenient,
primarily from self-esteem. How can he, Razu-
mov, marry his servant girl? Whilst she was
still his paramour, his chattel, in the position of

1 Short for Maria.
CHOLERA 157

a servant, who prepared tea for his guests and
dared not even take a place at the corner of the
table, he derived some pleasure in noting the en-
vious glances his neighbors cast on her, and
even took a certain pride in her. He experi-
enced then the same feeling that the owner of
a fine thoroughbred horse has when leading it
out. For such occasions he ordered Masha to
put on a fine dress and took inner pride in the
fact that he pretended not to notice her.
After that it seemed impossible for Andrei
Afanasievitch to marry Masha, whilst to keep
her in the house with a child seemed still more
inconvenient.
Only one way was left, the simplest way out
—to put the child into a foundling institution.
This thought, however, was repulsive to his
whole being and never seriously entered his
mind. He loved children so tenderly, womanly,
and was so happy at the thought that to him, a
man no longer young, would be born a son (most
assuredly a son), that to give this son away into
strangers’ hands seemed absolutely impossible.
Thus it went on, without any decision, and
‘‘for the time being’’ he only engaged the cook
Arina to be in the kitchen, so that Masha should
not have to work as hard as formerly.
158 CHOLERA

After taking his tea, Andrei Afanasievitch
made the round of his farm, took a peep into
the threshing barn, where the men were making
preparations, and went to bed early. .
Cxuaprer II

Tue next day, after sending out the men for
the second plowing, Danilo went on to clean the
wing.

Harnessing the water-carrier ‘‘Golovasty”’ to
the cart, he, first of all, removed to the barn the
oats and the harness; he then screened off a cor-
ner near the stable for the pigs, put some straw
in it and started pulling them in. :
_ All this he did without hurry, murmuring
Something under his breath in an assured and
business-like manner. Catching the pigs by
their hind legs, he dragged them two at a time
across the whole yard to the new pen.

They grunted and squealed, but he paid not
the slightest attention, but carefully deposited
them on the fresh straw and returned for some
more. _

‘‘Now, stay there and good luck to you, you
. dirty pigs,’’ was his parting remark, as he went
on to do something else, ‘‘to-morrow you shall
have a roof, too.’’

By midday the wing was all ready and two
159
160 CHOLERA

maids, hired for the day, their skirts tucked up
high, were already scrubbing the greasy wooden
floor, on which the dirt and mud of many years
had formed a thick layer.

The feldsher appointed by the Council ar-
rived in the evening.

Andrei Afanasievitch, who was anxious to
play the rédle of benefactor, had given instruc-
tions to invite the feldsher to him and had al-
ready ordered Masha to set the table, but it ap-
peared that the guest was so drunk that he could
not even get out of the cart. He was picked up
and put to bed to sleep it off till the morning.

The old man who brought the feldsher was
also tipsy. Unharnessing his horse and giv-
ing it some food, he went into the servants’
room.

It was supper time. The laborers were just
coming in. Washing their hands from the
spout of the kettle hanging over the basin, they
seated themselves by the table.

The old man was invited to join them.

Questions arose on all sides,—who he was,
where he came from, and whom he had brought.

‘‘From the village ‘Dolgoie,’ ’’ explained the
old man, ‘‘and this is the assistant doctor, Sidor
Ivanovitch, named Gnidin. He was on the chol-
era there. A good man, and no end of brains;
CHOLERA 161

but for him, God bless him, I would not have
escaped death; he rubbed me off. He likes his
glass a bit too much, but what of that? There
is the other feldsher, from the army, a good one
at that, but not so good as this one, although he
does not drink.’’

‘And how can you keep away from the bottle
in this blackness? You can’t; it’s cholera.’’

‘What is she like, uncle, this cholera?’’ sud-
denly asked Seriezhka, a jolly, happy-go-lucky
youngster, the best dancer in the village and the
first to run all kinds of errands.

‘‘Wait until you get it, you rascal, and you'll
see what it is,’’ angrily replied one of the labor-
ers. ‘‘He, too, needs must know what she is
like. Eat and keep your tongue; ’tis none of
your business.’’

“‘How is it not mine? And what if in truth
she comes here, what then?’’

‘“‘Then you will know. Now don’t poke your
nose where you are not wanted.”’

Just then Danilo entered. With an unfavor-
able side glance at the speakers and with an ear
to what they were saying, he quietly took his
seat and ate his food.

There was a little hush in the conversation.
In turn the men reached out to the steaming
bowl, carefully holding the heaped up spoonfuls
162 CHOLERA

over a piece of bread, so as not to lose any pre-
cious drops of soup, and ate with relish and
with noise.

Danilo was held in esteem and no light or un-
necessary talk was made in his presence by
those beneath him.

‘*Well, you brought some .. . artist,—’’ he
remarked, just glancing at the old man side-
ways, ‘‘an artist indeed.’’

‘‘And what’s the matter with him? Is he
bad? We would not mind taking him back.’’

‘Who said bad? Too good, perhaps. With
such a one, good friend, even cholera has no
terrors; cholera herself would drown there,
yea... . 2”?

‘¢And what do you think?”’ replied the old
man with spirit. ‘‘Yes, sure, she will drown.
You see him drunk now, but once he starts,
there is no other like him. Wait till she comes
to you, then you'll talk.’’

‘“‘The Lord save us. What’s to be done?
This is the will of God.’’

‘‘None of God’s. Too many people there are,
that’s why the cholera came.’’

“‘Now, you tell me this. -Why is it that where
the doctors are, there the cholera comes?
Here, take our village, may the blessing con-
tinue, we had none of it. And now I don’t
CHOLERA 163

know. They have brought this drunken devil
and I fear she may come.’’

‘‘How is it cured, uncle?’’ again jumped in
Seriezhka.

‘“How? Quite simple. Drink wine and
you’ll be well. Without wine, of course, you
can do nothing. The body weakens, the spirit
fails. And there is the end. She is afraid of
wine.’’

‘‘T see that she is afraid,’’ remarked Danilo
gloomliy. ‘‘Brought a drunkard and himself
no better. Get to bed, all of you, and you, Nico-
lai, go to the wing; see lest that devil does not
set us all on fire,’’ commanded Danilo, licking up
his spoon and wiping the handle with the edge
_ of his shirt.

‘‘Tt’s time to go is bed. Is everything ready
for the field? To-morrow after dinner we may
begin.’’

After supper the laborers still lingered a few
minutes, exchanged a few pleasantries about the
cholera and retired.

The old man returned to his cart and there
went to sleep.
Cuapter III

DaniLo’s gloomy forebodings came true even
sooner than he himself anticipated. The very
next day after the arrival of the feldsher a peas-
ant died of cholera in the neighboring village,
Lopashino, and in Nikolskoie a woman took ill.

It was not yet known in the village that the
feldsher had arrived, therefore the messenger
ran to Maria Gavrilovna for some drops. He
was directed to the wing, but took no heed and,
saying nothing, went on his way.

Some time later Sidor Ivanovitch heard of
the case and, without further loss of time,
jumped on the first horse he could see and at
great speed arrived at the house even before
the man returned.

The woman was lying on a wooden bench
moaning. The convulsions had subsided and
her body was getting cold. A very old woman
and two young children were hovering round
her. A little girl with a black pitcher in her

hand was giving her to drink, and a boy with
164
CHOLERA 165

only a shirt on, and no knickers, was standing
listlessly watching the proceedings.

Looking around, Sidor Ivanovitch immedi-
ately ordered two women to start rubbing the
patient. At the same time he found, goodness
knows where, some bottles, which he filled with
hot water and put at her feet and on her stom-
ach. When the women grew exhausted, he
would snatch out of their hands the rough cloth
and rub the sick woman with such force that the
skin grew fiery red and the poor woman
screamed with pain.

‘‘It’s nothing, dearie, nothing; just bear up
a bit and you’ll be saved,’’ were his encourag-
ing words as he applied greater and greater
force.

Towards the evening the woman was better
and the danger was passed. Sidor Ivanovitch
gave her some drops and ordered the children
not to leave the house till the next day; he also
left instructions to collect the woman’s soiled
clothes, and turned homewards.

Passing a saloon, he bought a bottle of vodka
and emptied it almost at one gulp.

His horse had moved on and he returned
home drunk, humming an indiscernible tune.

Andrei Afanasievitch, who had not yet re-
tired, was drinking tea on the porch.
166 CHOLERA

‘*Well, how goes it?’’ he asked, catching sight
in the darkness of the returning feldsher.

‘‘She’ll live; must have some lime to-mor-
row... for dis... disinfecting,’’? stammered
Sidor Ivanovitch, smiling vaguely, ‘‘and must

..b... burnthecl... clothes... butm

.. mustn’t... poverty .. .—”’

Seeing that the feldsher was again drunk, An-
drei Afanasievitch did not detain him but let
him pass on to the wing.

Going in to sleep, he made a mental note that
when sending next to town he would certainly
write to the Council and ask that Gnidin be re-
moved and another one sent in his stead.

Early next morning he went over to the wing.
Sidor Ivanovitch was already up and dressed,
and was mixing some medicines.

‘‘Am preparing the disinfectants,’’ he ex:
plained, as Andrei Afanasievitch approached;
“must go over immediately to my yesterday’s
patient and disinfect the house and clothes as
much as I can. Where can we get some lime?
We have here other things, but lime is the best,
after all. I am going over there right away,
and from there must'run over to Lopashino. A
man died there yesterday; they did not tell me
about it. Distinfecting has to be done there,
too.”’
CHOLERA 167

Watching Gnidin’s serious face and listening
to his business-like speech, Andrei Afanasie-
vitch recollected the spectacle he presented the
previous night and the night of his arrival, and
it was difficult to reconcile the two; was it one
and the same man?

The feldsher’s words were so full of confi-
dence and in them he felt such deep conscious-
ness of duty that he was aware of a feeling of
respect towards him. He recollected his last
night’s thoughts and for the moment he was
ashamed before this man.

That night Gnidin was brought from Lopa-
shine very late, again dead drunk.

It appeared afterwards that he had disin-
fected several houses, treated a patient and him-
self washed and cleaned the clothes of the one
that had died.
Cuarter IV

Tue weather continued hot and dry.

The rye was ripening quickly and beginning
to drop, and from morning till night every one
was in the field in order to gather it in time.

The women came out to work with their nurs-
ing infants, which they placed by the rick or.
under the cart. The elder children kept a
watch on the youngsters and were also kept
busy running for cold dinner, water and kvass.!

The dry weather increased stomach ailments
and cases of cholera occurred more and more
frequently. Sidor Ivanovitch was busy all day
long running about the villages, never resting,
often going without dinner, and still not able to
accomplish half of what was necessary. There
were occasions when he worked throughout the
night and then he returned home sober, but most
evenings he took stiff doses and went to bed
drunk.

His frequent cures and his bold and at the

1 Home-brewed cider.
168
CHOLERA 169

same time kindly manner inspired the people
with trust towards him; he was treated every-
where with confidence and generally liked.

With Andrei Afanasievitch’s consent, he en-
gaged a woman to help him and trained her for
these duties. She often went out in his stead
or was left to look after the dispensary.

This nurse, a homeless soldier’s widow, Av-
dotia, so quickly adapted herself to her new
duties that the peasants trusted her no less than
the feldsher himself and often came to her with
diseases that had nothing whatever to do with
cholera. :

Andrei Afanasievitch also effected cures, but
in his own way.

He believed only in foreign imported medi-
cines and in pepper-wine.

Although he feigned great bravery, at bottom
he was dreadfully afraid of the cholera and con-
tinually picked up his courage with unaccus-
tomed drinking. It came to such a pass that he
drank surreptitiously, hiding from Masha.

If anybody on the farm had any stomach pain,
Andrei Afanasievitch immediately sent over a
tumbler of pepper-wine, and only after that
recommended the feldsher. Encouraged by
this, nearly all of his men took ill almost daily ;
170 CHOLERA

at first singly and then in groups they crowded
near the house asking for ‘‘medicine.’’

On one occasion Andrei Afanasievitch at-
tempted to refuse. After dinner that day Da-
nilo appeared and stated that the laborers were
protesting and refused to go on with the work.

‘“They are afraid of the cholera,’’ he added.

Andrei Afanasievitch had to give in.

From that time on the men received their
glass twice a day, before dinner and before sup-
per, whilst in the evening they often took a lit-
tle extra ‘‘on their own.’’

After a long day’s work returning to the serv-
ants’ room they had songs, music on the con-
certina, and Seriezhka danced, singing up-to-
date ribald peasant couplets.

The worst for Andrei Afanasievitch was
when some one came to him asking for ‘‘some-
thing, your honor, for the coffin.’’

This put him out terrifically. Still more so
when it was women in white kerchiefs that came
to beg. He had such fear of death that just to
rid himself of any caller who might mention
any one dead, he would immediately order Da-
nilo to give four large boards, whilst he himself
hastened to the sideboard to pick up his spirits
in a glass.

Lately these demands for wood grew more
CHOLERA 171

frequent and insistent. All the boards on the
estate were used up. The demand came for
logs. There were plenty of these. No permis-
sion was asked from the master. Danilo sim-
ply distributed them.

And finally they came for them even without
asking Danilo. Sometimes also not for coffins.

Every day corpses were brought into the
church. The burials were quick, without any
bell ringing, without the carrying out ceremony
and without walking behind the hearse. Shal-
low two-yard graves and transparent coffins
were all that many a person got. There is no
time to dig a deep grave and put together a
tight coffin, when the corn in the field is uncut
and ungarnered.

“<The dead won’t mind; they are comfortable
as it is.’’

The harvesting on Andrei Afanasievitch’s
field was also progressing slowly. One whole
field was still standing uncut and there were no
women to bind the sheaves. After a consulta-
tion with Danilo, Andrei Afanasievitch decided
to appeal to the peasants to help him out ‘‘for
vodka,’’ the more so as the next day was Sun-
day when it is sinful to work for money.

In the evening Danilo harnessed the horse
and went through the village, returning home
172 CHOLERA

with the good news that the peasants had
agreed.

Early next morning Andrei Afanasievitch
started out in his racing buggy. Placing in the
bottom a good measure of pepper-wine, and,
‘‘for any emergency,’’ taking the foreign medi-
cine, he went to the fields.

Work had already begun. Danilo had di-
vided the reapers two to the acre and leading
his horse, whip in hand, he walked around giv-
ing orders. —

From amongst the high corn stood out the
straight-haired heads and shoulders of the
reapers; with every movement of the shoulder
one could distinguish in the distance the clang
of the sickle and the crisp sound as the har-
dened straw fell to the ground.

_ Andrei Afanasievitch rode through the field,
amiably greeted the peasants and stopped off
at some distance to have a smoke.

‘About twenty-five have turned out,’’ said
Danilo, approaching; ‘‘some have backed out
on account, they say, of the cholera and such
things.’

‘‘Have you brought the wine?’’ Andrei Afa-
nasievitch inquired.

“T have brought about five gallons; that’ll be
enough for them; besides there’s also yours.’’
CHOLERA 178

‘‘Mine’s medicinal,’’ replied Andrei Afana-
sievitch, stroking his bottle, ‘‘but perhaps we
may add some of it to give a better taste.”’

Just then Danilo noticed a peasant walking
towards them along the furrow. He was ad-
vancing slowly, without a sickle.

‘‘What do you want?’’ inquired Danilo, as
the man approached.

‘““To your honor, Danilo Petrovitch, I was
sent to say that Ivan Makarytchev over there is
took bad.’’

‘“Where?”’

“‘Over there, under the rick.’’

‘“‘What’s the matter with him?’’ Andrei
Afanasievitch was alarmed.

‘‘He is tossing about as in a fit and has turned
blue all over.’’

‘“‘Get up behind on the buggy, and we’ll go ,

over; you hold the bottle,’? commanded Andrei
Afanasievitch, gathering the reins and whip-
ping up the horse.

Danilo got on his horse and followed behind.

The sick peasant was lying face down on the
ground on the shady side of the tall, freshly
made stack, surrounded by the other peasants,
and moaned. Hearing the approach of the
newcomers, he raised himself on his knees and
_ listened.
174 CHOLERA

His face had a forlorn and miserable expres-
sion. The unwiped saliva was dripping down
his beard and mustache. To his temples, wet
with perspiration, stuck his thin yellow hair,
from beneath which looked out a pair of color-
less, tearful, bleached eyes.

As his eyes fell on Andrei Afanasievitch, his
moans increased.

“Oh, good friends, I am dying . . ..oh, death
has come .. . oh, friends of mine... .’’

Andrei Afanasievitch alighted from his
buggy. With trembling hands he reached in
his pockets for the foreign medicine, poured out
a measure without count, about 50 drops, and
filled up the cup with pepper-wine.

‘‘Well, Ivan, what’s the matter? Stop that
howling; what are you, a woman? Here, take
this; it will pass away. Here, drink.’’

“‘Oh, Andrei Afanasievitch, I can’t; my death
has come.’’

‘Here, you are told to drink; then drink, or
you will indeed die.’’

“‘T can’t, master,’? moaned Ivan, a little
louder now.

‘‘Now, drink. You, boys, hold his head and
pass me the glass,’? commanded Andrei Afa-
nasievitch.

‘Wait, let me lift myself. I may do it my-
CHOLERA 175

self,’? moaned Ivan, raising himself and wiping
his mustache with his hand. ‘‘Well, to your
health.’’

‘‘To your health, to your health,’’ replied
Andrei Afanasievitch; ‘‘you will presently go
on to reap, and just now you wanted to die.”’

Ivan swallowed his glassful slowly, in small
gulps, and only after he had emptied it did he
notice that the pepper-wine had burned his
mouth and his whole inside. For a moment it
caught his breath and there he sat with eyes
bulging out. Then he sort of coughed, cleared
his throat, took a bite of bread and started up.

“‘That’s right,’’? said Andrei Afanasievitch,
quite pleased with himself, ‘‘but rest awhile;
you’ll soon run, not only walk.’’

A few minutes later he took up his bottle and
rode back to the field.

When during rest-time the men had their
round of vodka, Ivan Makarytchev took his
glass with the others.

There were several other similar cures of
cholera effected by Andrei Afanasievitch. His
pepper-wine did not so much cure as give the
patients courage. ’Tis true, in some cases his
medicine did not cure, but he avowed that that
was because it was not taken in time.
176 CHOLERA

The next day after the case with Ivan, Andrei
Afanasievitch stopped in a field where a peas-
ant woman was taken ill. Again he gave her
his wine, and later on the feldsher attended her;
but she died towards the evening.

Her death became known at the farm when
some messengers came to Danilo for boards to
make a coffin.
CHarter V

DeatTa is terrible only to those who still await
something in life and who take pleasure in it.
And thus the.other way too: the harder the life,
the more indifferent is the attitude towards it,
and the easier and less painful to die. In time
of cholera, when death is all around and when
every one feels its proximity, these two atti-
tudes towards it come into evidence with
greater force.

On the Razumov estate the one who feared
death most was Andrei Afanasievitch. Several
times he had already imagined that he had all
the symptoms of the epidemic and constantly
took his own medicine. With this growing fear
of the cholera upon him, the thought of the fate
of his future son bothered him more and more
often, and he made up his mind to arrange
something in the event of his own death.

One evening he even went so far as to call on
the priest with the idea of consulting him, but

it so happened that the priest immediately
177
178 CHOLERA

placed the bottle between them, the conversa-
tion veered in quite a different direction and
Andrei Afanasievitch totally forgot the original
purpose of his visit.

That day there had been three burials at the
church and the priest was also excited and dis-
turbed. Inured though he was to the sight of
dead, the large number of them at once acted
upon him terribly; at heart he, too, was afraid
of death, not less than Andrei Afanasievitch.

Danilo also feared death, but with him it
showed differently. He only hated the feld-
sher, and, wherever possible, made things un-
pleasant for him. He would take away his
horse, or refuse to give him lime or tar, or cur-
tail the supply to the nurse of bread or pota-
toes. All this he did gloomily, growling under
his breath, avoiding any explanations even to
the master.

When mentioning the feldsher in conversa-
tion with Andrei Afanasievitch, he never called
him by his name; it was always ‘‘your feld-
sher,’’ or ‘‘your drunken devil,’’ ‘‘that one,’’
and he always found some legitimate cause for
his arbitrary actions.

‘‘Seriezhka, go and harness ‘Skinny’ for that
. . . devil,’? he would order in an angry voice,
and, having purposely given the laziest horse,
CHOLERA 179

he would look to it that there was no whip in
the cart.

‘‘Give him a good horse and he will drive her
to death, or she will be led away from him, the
drunkard ... the drunkard... .’’

As a rule, the feldsher only got a common
cart, sometimes even just a dung-cart. And if
Seriezhka would run to the barn to fetch some
straw to make a seat, Danilo would stop him,
saying, ‘‘No need to; he isn’t made of sugar,
won’t break on the way.’’

Gnidin, though, did not notice Danilo’s ani-
mosity towards him and treated him as ever,
and as he treated everybody, kindly and trust-
ingly.

In his quarters, in the wing, he had his own
little sphere and life, which was shared only by
one other person, the sanitary nurse, Avdotia.

whe washed and cooked for him; she helped
him in his work; she it was who put him to bed
when drunk. No one, except the patients, ever
entered their abode contaminated by the plague,
and therefore nobody on the estate knew of
their intimacy. And it was difficult to even im-
agine that such a thing could be; she was so old
and ugly, this Avdotia, so fat, her face all pock
marked.

Only the sick and dying loved her, for her
180 CHOLERA

care, the softness of her movements, her kind
and gentle voice, with which she consoled the
suffering and alleviated their last moments.
And when the sick one died, she would calmly
and seriously go on to wash the corpse in the
tub, dress it and place it with crossed hands on
the bench under the ikon. ;

This she had been doing before the cholera.
When a dead body was to be ‘‘attended’’ and
women were called in, Avdotia was always the
first. She received no money for it. Occasion-
ally, at the funeral feast a piece of rye-cake
would be reserved for her, or at times she would
get a glass of vodka, of which she was fond and
which she never refused.

Her relations with Sidor Ivanovitch hap-
pened unexpectedly, one night after a very hard
and strenuous day.

During the day they had both been rubbing
down a sick man, who in the end died in their
hands. This was an armless old man, almost
a pauper, who lived with his old woman at the
end of the village in a dilapidated hut, without
a yard and almost without a roof.

A few years previously, when one of his
arms had sickened off, the community took away
his only piece of land and undertook to feed
him ‘‘in common.’’ This way he was always
CHOLERA 181

without bread and he and his wife took turns in
begging for ‘‘crusts.’’

When he was caught by the cholera, he was
alone in his hut and was a long time without
help. When the big cramps came on he moaned
with his poor might, and when the pain sub-
sided he would go outside by the wall.

Feeling worse and worse, he took out the wax
candle from the ikon and got the matches ready
to light it before dying. He would have liked,
too, to take his last sacrament, and was think-
ing of crawling to the neighbor’s to ask him to
go for the priest, but at first he was still hesi-
tating whether this was really death or not, and
afterwards he became so weak he could no
longer raise himself.

In this condition he was found by his old wife,
who immediately ran to the estate.

Sidor Ivanovitch arrived together with Av-
dotia, and when the old man died he left her
there, himself going over to the next village
where a whole family took ill.

Two more died there that day.

Gnidin returned home drunk and excited,
with a bottle of vodka in his pocket. He or-
dered Avdotia to get ready a samovar and
treated her with the wine. She drank with him
and, putting him to bed, took pity on him.
Craprer VI

NotwitHstanpinc the terrors and ravages of
the cholera, every day bringing new cases of
‘““cramps’’ and agonizing convulsions, with
death lurking at every corner and new hil-
locks appearing in the churchyard, life on the
Razumov estate flowed on as ever and from
all appearances this terrible summer seemed
hardly any different from other summers.
Perhaps in the evening there was rather more
singing in the servants’ room, and wilder and
louder were Seriezhka’s entertainments.

Towards the end of July all the corn was har-
vested and all that was left in the fields was
the bristly stubble. The work was now cen-
tered in the threshing barn. Mountains of
sweetly smelling sheaves were already care-
fully pressed together, and in the next barn the
seeds were being prepared.

In the distance were audible the jovial out-
bursts and whistling of the driver, and all day

long the thresher whined monotonously.
182
CHOLERA 188

Danilo, in an improvised apron made out of
an old sack, was standing by the cylinder and
fed in, while Andrei Afanasievitch, in white cap
and blue glasses (his eyes pained him) rushed
about the threshing barn giving orders.

He was very anxious to clear his crop by the
new method, which he had seen on the neighbor-
ing estate, belonging to a German, named Hu-
bert, but in no way could he accomplish it.
Hither the rope would be too short, or the horse
would lose his footing, or the loop would not be
tied properly and the sheaf would again roll
down—whilst all the time the sheaves kept com-
ing in from the carts. Much time was lost by
all these interruptions and only after dinner
did the work get into full swing and the baskets
underneath begin to fill.

Towards the evening Arina, the cook, sud-
denly ran in, frightened and out of breath, and
informed Andrei Afanasievitch that the sani-
tary nurse was ‘‘dying.”’

““The feldsher has been away since the morn-
ing,’’? she panted. ‘‘I went up to her to ask
for some drops for my cough, and there she was
on the floor lying on some straw, all blue, with
terrible eyes. I ran to her and shouted ‘Aunt
Avdotia,’ ‘Aunt Avdotia!’ but no sound; she
seemed not to hear. Her eyes were just look-
184 CHOLERA

ing straight in front of her. Perhaps she’s
dead? Let’s go quick, master.’’

Andrei Afanasievitch’s eyes blinked nerv-
ously. With unsteady hands he buttoned his
rough short-coat and with hasty steps he went
over to the wing.

. In front of him was the cook, who kept on re-
peating her tale.

Approaching the steps leading into the house,
Andrei Afanasievitch slowed down and then
stopped in indecision.

‘‘Come on, master,’’ urged Arina, looking
back, ‘‘she is just here in the large room. She
may be still alive; who knows?’’

‘“‘Go and see,’’ replied Razumov, lighting a
cigarette.

“‘T am afraid to go alone. Why don’t you
go?”’

‘‘Go when you are told, you fool; what, is she
going to bite you?’’

“‘Then you just stand in the door, sir,’’
begged Arina, as she slowly went over to where
Avdotia lay.

Coming up close to her, she looked into the
fixed eyes of the dead woman, shook her cold
arm and tiptoed back to the door.

‘‘She’s dead, sir; peace be with her,’’ she
whispered and piously crossed herself.
CHOLERA  —_si185

Andrei Afanasievitch also made a sign of the
Cross.

““How was it no one heard how she died?’’ he
asked, as they retreated their steps. ‘‘Perhaps
some help could have been given her. I think I
saw her this morning going for water.’’

‘‘Indeed, sir, she was seen much later. At
dinner, she was over to Maria Gavrilovna and
complained of pains inside.’’

‘Why did no one tell me of it?’’

‘‘Impossible, sir. You were all day by the
threshing and everybody was busy. Who could
bother about her? We thought it was nothing,
and now... oh, Lord!’’

‘Well, there is nothing to be done now. Go
and see that she is removed,’’ concluded Andrei
Afanasievitch, glancing at his watch, ‘‘and lock
the door with the chain so that the dog does
not get in,’’ he added, suddenly turning into his
house with quick steps.

Sidor Ivanovitch returned home late from his
round. It was dark. Leaving the horse by the
stable, he tottered on unsteady legs towards the
wing. Getting into his small room, he com-
menced to undress.

‘‘Any tea, Avdotia?’’ he asked loudly, ad-
dressing the other side of the room.

No reply.
186 CHOLERA

‘‘Must be asleep,’’ he reflected and stepped
into the large room.

On the floor, where Avdotia usually slept, was
now lying a human body, covered with some-
thing white, and at the head, with an unsteady
light, flickered a thin wax candle stuck on a low
stool.’

Sidor Ivanovitch came nearer.

‘Ts it a corpse?’’ he wondered, as he uncov-
ered the sheet.

The thought that Avdotia could be dead was
so far from his mind that he looked long before
he recognized her. And even then he did not
seem to understand what had happened. His
clouded brain could in no way comprehend that
the Avdotia, with whom he had spent the
night just passed and who this very morning,
strong and healthy, had brought him the horse
to the porch—was now lying before him...
dead!

He bent close over her head, looked into the
slits of her half-closed eyes, turned her stiff
head and in a drunken voice was telling her
something in a whisper.

Then he burst into tears and embracing Av-
dotia threw himself on the straw by her side.

Falling, he upset the wax candle, which fell
down and began to glow.
CHOLERA 187

Gnidin came to himself when the fire had
crept up to his head and a bright fire was in the
room. Jumping to his feet, he began to run
around the room, looking for water, and, finding
none, went back to the room, attempted to drag
away the corpse, stumbled twice, then ran out
on the porch and commenced to shout.

Luckily the men had not turned in yet. His
shouts were heard; the people came running
and the fire was finally put out.

Avdotia, half burned, with charred face and
burned hair, was dressed in a new shroud and
placed on the bench.

Sidor Ivanovitch was sent to sleep in the serv-
ants’ room.
Cuaptrr VII

Tart night Andrei Afanasievitch’s sleep was
disturbed.

The nurse’s death and the fire had left such a
strong impression upon him, that throughout
the night he had horrible dreams, and waking
several times in a cold sweat he would light the
candle and rouse Masha. Growling lazily, she
would open her sleepy eyes for a second, blink
in the light unconsciously, and turning over on
the other side would immediately resume her
snoring. But even this gave him some courage.

It was necessary for him to feel that here
near him was a live, warm being, that could be
roused and made to speak, and for the moment
he would forget his fears, would move nearer
towards her and fall off to sleep.

Once, out of such a doze, he awoke with a hor-
rible dream upon him. He saw himself in the
last clutches of cholera with the feldsher work-
ing in vain to keep him from dying. The bodily

agony was almost unbearable, yet his suffering
188
CHOLERA 189

was chiefly in his mind.’ He wanted to live to
look after his son, his son that would be his heir,
and here he was dying and no provision had
been made for him, nor his natural mother at
his side.

Struggling in bed, Andrei Afanasievitch
gradually realized it was all a dream; that he
was still alive and that he yet would have time
to arrange matters for his son. Already that
son was a very real person to him and in his
heart there burned the fire of a great and ten-
der love for him.

And falling asleep again, he dreamt, not of
cholera, nor of death, but of how he would edu-
cate his son, and send him to a great university.

Andrei Afanasievitch awoke late the next
morning. Masha was already dressed and
drinking tea.

Summoning Danilo, he inquired if everything
was ready for the nurse’s funeral; he also told
him to go over to the priest and ask him to
have everything ready. , Andrei Afanasievitch
had decided to bury Avdotia at his own expense
and wanted to make the funeral grand and im-
pressive.

Danilo returned with the news that, the priest
was not home, but had gone to Pashutino, and
190 CHOLERA

that four more coffins were outside the church,
waiting for his return.

‘“We, too, shall have to wait. He may return
to dinner,’’ added Danilo calmly, ‘‘and in the
meantime I’ll put the boys to fan the rye; no
use their standing about all day.’’

Twelve and one o’clock had passed, but no
sign of the priest, and no word from him either.

At the door of the closed church, under the
scorching sun, on the bare ground stood the
coffins, hardly covered by cloths, under which
were discernible the stiff contours of the head,
the arms crossed on the chest, and the unnat-
urally upright feet covered by woolen socks and
old rags.

On the steps leading into the church and lean-
ing on the fence were several women and about
half a dozen peasants. The women had cried
their fill and at intervals only emitted deep
sighs and sobs. The men were discussing the
harvest.

The loudest amongst the speakers was Ivan
Sidorkov, who brought for burial his only son,
his supporter. After digging the grave he was
tired and had taken a glass of vodka, for cour-
age.

‘‘What good is there in the master’s land?’’
he was saying in an excited voice. ‘‘You pay
CHOLERA 191

him ten roubles for it and reap one of his acres,
but nothing grows in it but weeds and garlic,
that’s all. If he gave us some land nearer .. .
but, not likely, that land he won’t give....
Too clever.’’

‘‘See what he wants,’’ said some one.

‘*And why not? Look at his crop; eighteen
ricks standing on each acre, six measures al-
ready brought from the mills, whilst I only have
five tiny ricks harvested and only three small
measures to be ground. A quarter for seeding,
and what have you left? You slave only for the
cattle. At least there is a little straw and
chaff. And now there won’t be even that;
we have reaped to the bottom.’’ Pointing
towards the coffins, he added, ‘‘Time for me to
go there, too.’’

There was a lull in the conversation for a
time. They were all quiet, each one thinking
of his own sorrow; the women renewed their
stifled sobbing. Seeing Andrei Afanasievitch
approaching on his racing buggy, the peasants
rose and bowed.

‘‘Well, hasn’t he arrived yet?’’ inquired Ra-
zumov, reining in his horse.

‘“‘Not yet, Andrei Afanasievitch, and we don’t
know what to do. We can’t stay here over-
night with the dead. We have sent a messenger
192 CHOLERA

on a horse for him; he said he’d be back in no
time, but he isn’t back yet.’’

‘“What is the Father doing there?’’

‘‘He went to visit the priest at Pashutino.
He went over last night.’’

Andrei: Afanasievitch sharply turned his
horse around, pulled at the reins, and with a
parting shout to the peasants to wait for him,
headed for Pashutino.

He drove his horse with all his might and
within half an hour arrived at his destination.
Cuaprer VIII

Tue priest of Pashutino, Father Ivan Gene-
rozov, was an old friend of Andrei Afanasie-
vitch’s. In former years, when there was no
cholera, Generozov was fond of arranging fish-
ing parties on the river, in which all the clergy
around and the Razumov estate participated.

The priests, their long coats tucked up, rowed
the boats and gave instructions to the men, who
pulled the net, keeping it straight, and with
long poles frightened the fish out of the bushes
near the banks.

Whenever the net became entangled or would
catch on any undergrowth, Uvar, the church
reader from Pashutino, would dive into the
river. He could remain under water an amaz-
ingly long time, and his patience seemed inex-
haustible. By the time the net was dragged up,
Uvar would generally be quite blue and shiver-
ing in his whole body.

After the fishing, the workmen were treated

to vodka on the bank and the sportsmen would
193
194 CHOLERA

return to Father Generozov’s summer tent.
There, waiting until the mother cleaned the fish
and prepared the ‘‘ukha,’’2 the guests would
partake of ‘‘what the Lord sent,’’ and it was
seldom that the company parted before day-
break.

Arriving at the clergyman’s house, Andrei
Afanasievitch tied his horse to the porch and,
without entering the house, walked right into
the garden.

He was seen from the distance and greeted
joyously.

‘“‘Come in, come in. It was good of you to
come,’’ said Father Ivan, as he came forward
and stretched his hand out cordially.

Andrei Afanasievitch bowed down for a bless-
ing, then shook hands all round, and immedi-
ately turned to Father Nicolai with the request
to come back with him at once to Nikolskoie.

He knew that there would be invitations to
stay and join the party, but he had made up his
mind on the way not even to sit down and he
wanted to remain firm.

‘Wait a bit, old fellow; what’s the hurry?
Runs in once in a blue moon, and here he is off
again. Sit down; take a drink, at least,’’ the

1 Fish stew.
CHOLERA 195

host was saying; ‘‘don’t offend an old friend.
There is no hurry; we’ll manage to bury them
all in good time. This is no fire.’’

‘“‘There was a fire, too, on my farm,’’ put in
Andrei Afanasievitch, ‘‘and the wing was
nearly burned down.”’

‘“Well, did you put it out?’’ asked Father
Nicolai, anxiously.

“It was put out; just a corpse was charred.’’

‘‘Thanks to Heaven. And how did it hap-
pen? Do tell us. Just take a sip of this tum-
bler and a bite; you can then go back. Mother,
hand some cake to Andrei Afanasievitch.

That’s right. Good health!’’
’ Andrei Afanasievitch had eaten nothing since
morning and the sight of the tasty pie tempted
him. He approached the table ‘‘just for a sec-
ond’’ and emptied the rather large glass of
vodka. Some one filled it up again. Recount-
ing to them recent occurrences, he did not notice
how he drank a second and then another and
still another glass, and only some time later
happening to look at the clock he found to his
dismay that it was 4 o’clock.

He began to hurry. Father Ivan tried to
hold him back, saying that Father Nicolai was
not well and that the coffin could be placed in
the church overnight; but Andrei Afanasievitch.
196 CHOLERA

recollected the crowd that was waiting by the
church and insisted that Father Nicolai should
accompany him immediately.

‘‘And if Father Nicolai is unwell,’’ he added,
“‘T will have to trouble you, father, to come with
me,”?

‘‘Well, if you must go, I suppose there is
nothing to be done,’’ agreed the host, as he filled
their glasses for the parting.

He saw them off to the buggy. They got in,
the priest in front and Andrei Afanasievitch be-
hind him, and started.

Leaving the priest at the church, Andrei Afa-
nasievitch hurried on to the estate to make ar-
rangements for the removal of the dead nurse.
The men, however, had gathered near the wing
and announced that they could not carry the
corpse.

‘‘We are afraid, Andrei Afanasievitch. Let
the villagers carry it.’’

' «What are you afraid of, you fools?’’ Ra-
zumov flared up, ‘‘is she going to eat you,
what???

“*No, not that, but we are afraid of the cholera
without the medicine.’’

‘‘What medicine?’? Andrei Afanasievitch
did not yet grasp their meaning.
CHOLERA 197

‘*What medicine? Why, to be sure, your
medicine, sir, the peppery. There’d be more
courage then.’’

“Is that what you want, you wretched
knaves? You’ll get it, but be quick. Seriezhka,
run in there and tell Maria Gavrilovna to bring
it out,’’ he ordered, and he started towards the
house followed by the men. ©

Filling the first glass, he was, according to
custom, made to drink it himself, the master’s
cup, and then the men in turn came up for their
share.

Andrei Afanasievitch arrived at church half
drunk, unsteady on his legs and with a noise
in his ears.

The requiem was held for all the dead bodies
at once, and they were all carried to the ceme-
tery together. The priest walked in front with
the cross, followed closely by the bearers with
the nurse’s body, behind which walked Andrei
Afanasievitch. The other coffins followed, and
behind them hurried the women with spades.
Several boys closed the procession.

In lowering Avdotia’s coffin, one of the ropes
under it got entangled. No pulling or drawing
could move it.

‘“‘Leave it, throw the earth over as it is,’’
ordered Andrei Afanasievitch. ‘‘There’s no
198 CHOLERA

use worrying over a piece of rope that only
cost a few copeks.”’

‘‘How can you, Andrei Afanasievitch, waste
such good material. We need the rope,’’ re-
marked one of his men, Vassili. ‘‘Eh, there,
Seriezhka, get down, I’ll hold you.’’

Andrei Afanasievitch had no time to reply
for Sereizhka, catching hold of the rope, had
swiftly slipped down and was already with his
feet on the coffin.

Disentangling the rope, he lifted his head and
shouted up, ‘‘Andrei Afanasievitch, if the
cholera gets me, will you bury me?’’

‘We'll bury you sure.”’

‘“With wine, too?’’

‘“Yes, with wine.’’ ;

‘If death comes, will die,’’ cried Seriezhka,
defiantly, and tapped the coffin with his foot.

‘‘All right, come out,’’ said Vassili, pressing
his feet into the muddy clay and drawing up the
rope.

Seriezhka, jumping off the sharp edges of the
sides, flew up like a bird.

‘‘Will up,’’ he ordered, pulling out the rope
and smiling.

While the grave was being filled, Andrei
Afanasievitch was standing aside and seemed to
be thinking very hard about something.
CHOLERA 199

‘‘Well, let us go, Andrei Afanasievitch,’’ at
last said Father Nicolai, coming up to him, ‘‘we
have nothing more to do here.”’

‘‘Just a minute, Father, let’s wait till the
mound is evened. Now, boys, livelier, throw
some soft earth here, on the side, just here,
that’s right.’’

‘‘Well, is it all ready? Now let’s go back.
Gather up the spades, and don’t leave the rope
behind.’’

“‘Come, Father.’’

Coming up to the church, Andrei Afanasie-
vitch seemed to have remembered something
and he suddenly inquired:

‘When does fast begin?’’

“Tt begins next Saturday. Why are you
asking?’’ Father Nicolai was surprised.

‘‘And what day is to-day?’’

‘“Wednesday.’’

‘‘Tell me, Father, is it permissible to be
married to-day?’’

“‘To-day! Yes, to-day, it’s permitted, but
why do you ask it, Andrei Afanasievitch, I don’t
understand you?”’

‘‘Well, then, Father,’? Andrei Afanasievitch
spoke solemnly, ‘‘I would ask you not to lock
the church. I wish to be married immediately.
Seriezhka, run quickly home and tell Maria -
200 CHOLERA

Gavrilovna to come here right away, but tell
her to hurry; say it’s most important. Let her
come as she is, and not stop to change her
clothes.’’

‘Wait a bit, Andrei Afanasievitch, you can’t
do it like this, at once, without witnesses, with-
out bans. Wait a fortnight and if you are still
of the same mind, you can have your wedding
by Assumption Day.’’

“‘T can’t wait, Father; I have decided, let it
be so. We’ll find witnesses. Which of you
boys can sign his name?’’ he addressed his men.
‘‘And no bans are necessary. Don’t you know
me? And as to Masha, you christened her.’’

‘““Yes, that’s so, but still it would be better

‘to put it off a bit; nothing will change until
then.’’

‘“What if I get the cholera and before we can
be married? Where will the child be? No,
Father, it can’t be postponed. You must marry
us at once,’’ insisted Andrei Afanasievitch, see-
ing that the priest was already wavering and
inclining to give in.

“‘T’ll go and see if there are any candles,”’
said Father Nicolai, going into the church.
‘*Shall I call the choir?’’ he inquired. ‘‘We’ll
at least call some neighbors,’’ he decided, as he
ascended the steps, crossing himself.
CHOLERA 201

Andrei Afanasievitch found a little comb in
his pocket, straightened his hair and beard and
took his place at the right side of the altar. In-
formed by Seriezhka of the purpose for which
she was summoned Masha soon arrived at the
church, and in spite of Andrei Afanasievitch’s
instructions, she had found time to put on her
gray best dress and scarf, and on her head she
wore a kerchief.

The witnesses for the bride and bridegroom,
who signed the register, were:

Danito AGNEV, peasant.
FELpsHer Sipor GNIDIN, non-commissioned
officer of the reserve.