Peasant Wives

Peasant Wives

IN the village of Reybuzh, just facing the church, stands a
two-storeyed house with a stone foundation and an iron roof. In
the lower storey the owner himself, Filip Ivanov Kashin,
nicknamed Dyudya, lives with his family, and on the upper floor,
where it is apt to be very hot in summer and very cold in winter,
they put up government officials, merchants, or landowners, who
chance to be travelling that way. Dyudya rents some bits of land,
keeps a tavern on the highroad, does a trade in tar, honey,
cattle, and jackdaws, and has already something like eight
thousand roubles put by in the bank in the town.

His elder son, Fyodor, is head engineer in the factory, and, as
the peasants say of him, he has risen so high in the world that
he is quite out of reach now. Fyodor's wife, Sofya, a plain,
ailing woman, lives at home at her father-in-law's. She is for
ever crying, and every Sunday she goes over to the hospital for
medicine. Dyudya's second son, the hunchback Alyoshka, is living
at home at his father's. He has only lately been married to
Varvara, whom they singled out for him from a poor family. She is
a handsome young woman, smart and buxom. When officials or
merchants put up at the house, they always insist on having
Varvara to bring in the samovar and make their beds.

One June evening when the sun was setting and the air was full of
the smell of hay, of steaming dung-heaps and new milk, a
plain-looking cart drove into Dyudya's yard with three people in
it: a man of about thirty in a canvas suit, beside him a little
boy of seven or eight in a long black coat with big bone buttons,
and on the driver's seat a young fellow in a red shirt.

The young fellow took out the horses and led them out into the
street to walk them up and down a bit, while the traveller
washed, said a prayer, turning towards the church, then spread a
rug near the cart and sat down with the boy to supper. He ate
without haste, sedately, and Dyudya, who had seen a good many
travellers in his time, knew him from his manners for a
businesslike man, serious and aware of his own value.

Dyudya was sitting on the step in his waistcoat without a cap on,
waiting for the visitor to speak first. He was used to hearing
all kinds of stories from the travellers in the evening, and he
liked listening to them before going to bed. His old wife,
Afanasyevna, and his daughter-in-law Sofya, were milking in the
cowshed. The other daughter-in-law, Varvara, was sitting at the
open window of the upper storey, eating sunflower seeds.

"The little chap will be your son, I'm thinking?" Dyudya asked
the traveller.

"No; adopted. An orphan. I took him for my soul's salvation."

They got into conversation. The stranger seemed to be a man fond
of talking and ready of speech, and Dyudya learned from him that
he was from the town, was of the tradesman class, and had a house
of his own, that his name was Matvey Savitch, that he was on his
way now to look at some gardens that he was renting from some
German colonists, and that the boy's name was Kuzka. The evening
was hot and close, no one felt inclined for sleep. When it was
getting dark and pale stars began to twinkle here and there in
the sky, Matvey Savitch began to tell how he had come by Kuzka.
Afanasyevna and Sofya stood a little way off, listening. Kuzka
had gone to the gate.

"It's a complicated story, old man," began Matvey Savitch, "and
if I were to tell you all just as it happened, it would take all
night and more. Ten years ago in a little house in our street,
next door to me, where now there's a tallow and oil factory,
there was living an old widow, Marfa Semyonovna Kapluntsev, and
she had two sons: one was a guard on the railway, but the other,
Vasya, who was just my own age, lived at home with his mother.
Old Kapluntsev had kept five pair of horses and sent carriers all
over the town; his widow had not given up the business, but
managed the carriers as well as her husband had done, so that
some days they would bring in as much as five roubles from their
rounds.

"The young fellow, too, made a trifle on his own account. He used
to breed fancy pigeons and sell them to fanciers; at times he
would stand for hours on the roof, waving a broom in the air and
whistling; his pigeons were right up in the clouds, but it wasn't
enough for him, and he'd want them to go higher yet. Siskins and
starlings, too, he used to catch, and he made cages for sale. All
trifles, but, mind you, he'd pick up some ten roubles a month
over such trifles. Well, as time went on, the old lady lost the
use of her legs and took to her bed. In consequence of which
event the house was left without a woman to look after it, and
that's for all the world like a man without an eye. The old lady
bestirred herself and made up her mind to marry Vasya. They
called in a matchmaker at once, the women got to talking of one
thing and another, and Vasya went off to have a look at the
girls. He picked out Mashenka, a widow's daughter. They made up
their minds without loss of time and in a week it was all
settled. The girl was a little slip of a thing, seventeen, but
fair-skinned and pretty-looking, and like a lady in all her ways;
and a decent dowry with her, five hundred roubles, a cow, a bed.
. . . Well, the old lady -- it seemed as though she had known it
was coming -- three days after the wedding, departed to the
Heavenly Jerusalem where is neither sickness nor sighing. The
young people gave her a good funeral and began their life
together. For just six months they got on splendidly, and then
all of a sudden another misfortune. It never rains but it pours:
Vasya was summoned to the recruiting office to draw lots for the
service. He was taken, poor chap, for a soldier, and not even
granted exemption. They shaved his head and packed him off to
Poland. It was God's will; there was nothing to be done. When he
said good-bye to his wife in the yard, he bore it all right; but
as he glanced up at the hay-loft and his pigeons for the last
time, he burst out crying. It was pitiful to see him.

"At first Mashenka got her mother to stay with her, that she
mightn't be dull all alone; she stayed till the baby -- this very
Kuzka here -- was born, and then she went off to Oboyan to
another married daughter's and left Mashenka alone with the baby.
There were five peasants -- the carriers -- a drunken saucy lot;
horses, too, and dray-carts to see to, and then the fence would
be broken or the soot afire in the chimney -- jobs beyond a
woman, and through our being neighbours, she got into the way of
turning to me for every little thing. . . . Well, I'd go over,
set things to rights, and give advice. . . . Naturally, not
without going indoors, drinking a cup of tea and having a little
chat with her. I was a young fellow, intellectual, and fond of
talking on all sorts of subjects; she, too, was well-bred and
educated. She was always neatly dressed, and in summer she
walked out with a sunshade. Sometimes I would begin upon religion
or politics with her, and she was flattered and would entertain
me with tea and jam. . . . In a word, not to make a long story of
it, I must tell you, old man, a year had not passed before the
Evil One, the enemy of all mankind, confounded me. I began to
notice that any day I didn't go to see her, I seemed out of sorts
and dull. And I'd be continually making up something that I must
see her about: 'It's high time,' I'd say to myself, 'to put the
double windows in for the winter,' and the whole day I'd idle
away over at her place putting in the windows and take good care
to leave a couple of them over for the next day too.

" 'I ought to count over Vasya's pigeons, to see none of them
have strayed,' and so on. I used always to be talking to her
across the fence, and in the end I made a little gate in the
fence so as not to have to go so far round. From womankind comes
much evil into the world and every kind of abomination. Not we
sinners only; even the saints themselves have been led astray by
them. Mashenka did not try to keep me at a distance. Instead of
thinking of her husband and being on her guard, she fell in love
with me. I began to notice that she was dull without me, and was
always walking to and fro by the fence looking into my yard
through the cracks.

"My brains were going round in my head in a sort of frenzy. On
Thursday in Holy Week I was going early in the morning -- it was
scarcely light -- to market. I passed close by her gate, and the
Evil One was by me -- at my elbow. I looked -- she had a gate
with open trellis work at the top -- and there she was, up
already, standing in the middle of the yard, feeding the ducks. I
could not restrain myself, and I called her name. She came up and
looked at me through the trellis. . . . Her little face was
white, her eyes soft and sleepy-looking. . . . I liked her looks
immensely, and I began paying her compliments, as though we were
not at the gate, but just as one does on namedays, while she
blushed, and laughed, and kept looking straight into my eyes
without winking. . . . I lost all sense and began to declare my
love to her. . . . She opened the gate, and from that morning we
began to live as man and wife. . . ."

The hunchback Alyoshka came into the yard from the street and ran
out of breath into the house, not looking at any one. A minute
later he ran out of the house with a concertina. Jingling some
coppers in his pocket, and cracking sunflower seeds as he ran, he
went out at the gate.

"And who's that, pray?" asked Matvey Savitch.

"My son Alexey," answered Dyudya. "He's off on a spree, the
rascal. God has afflicted him with a hump, so we are not very
hard on him."

"And he's always drinking with the other fellows, always
drinking," sighed Afanasyevna. "Before Carnival we married him,
thinking he'd be steadier, but there! he's worse than ever."

"It's been no use. Simply keeping another man's daughter for
nothing," said Dyudya.

Somewhere behind the church they began to sing a glorious,
mournful song. The words they could not catch and only the voices
could be heard -- two tenors and a bass. All were listening;
there was complete stillness in the yard. . . . Two voices
suddenly broke off with a loud roar of laughter, but the third, a
tenor, still sang on, and took so high a note that every one
instinctively looked upwards, as though the voice had soared to
heaven itself.

Varvara came out of the house, and screening her eyes with her
hand, as though from the sun, she looked towards the church.

"It's the priest's sons with the schoolmaster," she said.

Again all the three voices began to sing together. Matvey Savitch
sighed and went on:

"Well, that's how it was, old man. Two years later we got a
letter from Vasya from Warsaw. He wrote that he was being sent
home sick. He was ill. By that time I had put all that
foolishness out of my head, and I had a fine match picked out all
ready for me, only I didn't know how to break it off with my
sweetheart. Every day I'd make up my mind to have it out with
Mashenka, but I didn't know how to approach her so as not to have
a woman's screeching about my ears. The letter freed my hands. I
read it through with Mashenka; she turned white as a sheet, while
I said to her: 'Thank God; now,' says I, 'you'll be a married
woman again.' But says she: 'I'm not going to live with him.'
'Why, isn't he your husband?' said I. 'Is it an easy thing? . . .
I never loved him and I married him not of my own free will. My
mother made me.' 'Don't try to get out of it, silly,' said I,
'but tell me this: were you married to him in church or not?' 'I
was married,' she said, 'but it's you that I love, and I will
stay with you to the day of my death. Folks may jeer. I don't
care. . . .' 'You're a Christian woman,' said I, 'and have read
the Scriptures; what is written there?'

"Once married, with her husband she must live," said Dyudya.

" 'Man and wife are one flesh. We have sinned,' I said, 'you and
I, and it is enough; we must repent and fear God. We must confess
it all to Vasya,' said I; 'he's a quiet fellow and soft -- he
won't kill you. And indeed,' said I, 'better to suffer torments
in this world at the hands of your lawful master than to gnash
your teeth at the dread Seat of Judgment.' The wench wouldn't
listen; she stuck to her silly, 'It's you I love!' and nothing
more could I get out of her.

"Vasya came back on the Saturday before Trinity, early in the
morning. From my fence I could see everything; he ran into the
house, and came back a minute later with Kuzka in his arms, and
he was laughing and crying all at once; he was kissing Kuzka and
looking up at the hay-loft, and hadn't the heart to put the child
down, and yet he was longing to go to his pigeons. He was always
a soft sort of chap -- sentimental. That day passed off very
well, all quiet and proper. They had begun ringing the church
bells for the evening service, when the thought struck me:
'To-morrow's Trinity Sunday; how is it they are not decking the
gates and the fence with green? Something's wrong,' I thought. I
went over to them. I peeped in, and there he was, sitting on the
floor in the middle of the room, his eyes staring like a drunken
man's, the tears streaming down his cheeks and his hands shaking;
he was pulling cracknels, necklaces, gingerbread nuts, and all
sorts of little presents out of his bundle and flinging them on
the floor. Kuzka -- he was three years old -- was crawling on the
floor, munching the gingerbreads, while Mashenka stood by the
stove, white and shivering all over, muttering: 'I'm not your
wife; I can't live with you,' and all sorts of foolishness. I
bowed down at Vasya's feet, and said: 'We have sinned against
you, Vassily Maximitch; forgive us, for Christ's sake!' Then I
got up and spoke to Mashenka: 'You, Marya Semyonovna, ought now
to wash Vassily Maximitch's feet and drink the water. Do you be
an obedient wife to him, and pray to God for me, that He in His
mercy may forgive my transgression.' It came to me like an
inspiration from an angel of Heaven; I gave her solemn counsel
and spoke with such feeling that my own tears flowed too. And so
two days later Vasya comes to me: 'Matyusha,' says he, 'I forgive
you and my wife; God have mercy on you! She was a soldier's wife,
a young thing all alone; it was hard for her to be on her guard.
She's not the first, nor will she be the last. Only,' he says, 'I
beg you to behave as though there had never been anything between
you, and to make no sign, while I,' says he, 'will do my best to
please her in every way, so that she may come to love me again.'
He gave me his hand on it, drank a cup of tea, and went away more
cheerful.

" 'Well,' thought I, 'thank God!' and I did feel glad that
everything had gone off so well. But no sooner had Vasya gone out
of the yard, when in came Mashenka. Ah! What I had to suffer! She
hung on my neck, weeping and praying: 'For God's sake, don't cast
me off; I can't live without you!' "

"The vile hussy!" sighed Dyudya.

"I swore at her, stamped my foot, and dragging her
into the passage, I fastened the door with the hook. 'Go to your
husband,' I cried. 'Don't shame me before folks. Fear God!' And
every day there was a scene of that sort.

"One morning I was standing in my yard near the stable cleaning a
bridle. All at once I saw her running through the little gate
into my yard, with bare feet, in her petticoat, and straight
towards me; she clutched at the bridle, getting all smeared with
the pitch, and shaking and weeping, she cried: 'I can't stand
him; I loathe him; I can't bear it! If you don't love me, better
kill me!' I was angry, and I struck her twice with the bridle,
but at that instant Vasya ran in at the gate, and in a despairing
voice he shouted: 'Don't beat her! Don't beat her!' But he ran up
himself, and waving his arms, as though he were mad, he let fly
with his fists at her with all his might, then flung her on the
ground and kicked her. I tried to defend her, but he snatched up
the reins and thrashed her with them, and all the while, like a
colt's whinny, he went: 'He -- he-- he!' "

"I'd take the reins and let you feel them," muttered Varvara,
moving away; "murdering our sister, the damned brutes! . . ."

"Hold your tongue, you jade!" Dyudya shouted at her.

" 'He -- he -- he!' " Matvey Savitch went on. "A carrier ran out
of his yard; I called to my workman, and the three of us got
Mashenka away from him and carried her home in our arms. The
disgrace of it! The same day I went over in the evening to see
how things were. She was lying in bed, all wrapped up in
bandages, nothing but her eyes and nose to be seen; she was
looking at the ceiling. I said: 'Good-evening, Marya Semyonovna!'
She did not speak. And Vasya was sitting in the next room, his
head in his hands, crying and saying: 'Brute that I am! I've
ruined my life! O God, let me die!' I sat for half an hour by
Mashenka and gave her a good talking-to. I tried to frighten her
a bit. 'The righteous,' said I, 'after this life go to Paradise,
but you will go to a Gehenna of fire, like all adulteresses.
Don't strive against your husband, go and lay yourself at his
feet.' But never a word from her; she didn't so much as blink an
eyelid, for all the world as though I were talking to a post. The
next day Vasya fell ill with something like cholera, and in the
evening I heard that he was dead. Well, so they buried him, and
Mashenka did not go to the funeral; she didn't care to show her
shameless face and her bruises. And soon there began to be talk
all over the district that Vasya had not died a natural death,
that Mashenka had made away with him. It got to the ears of the
police; they had Vasya dug up and cut open, and in his stomach
they found arsenic. It was clear he had been poisoned; the police
came and took Mashenka away, and with her the innocent Kuzka.
They were put in prison. . . . The woman had gone too far -- God
punished her. . . . Eight months later they tried her. She sat, I
remember, on a low stool, with a little white kerchief on her
head, wearing a grey gown, and she was so thin, so pale, so
sharp-eyed it made one sad to look at her. Behind her stood a
soldier with a gun. She would not confess her guilt. Some in the
court said she had poisoned her husband and others declared he
had poisoned himself for grief. I was one of the witnesses. When
they questioned me, I told the whole truth according to my oath.
'Hers,' said I, 'is the guilt. It's no good to conceal it; she
did not love her husband, and she had a will of her own. . . .'
The trial began in the morning and towards night they passed this
sentence: to send her to hard labour in Siberia for thirteen
years. After that sentence Mashenka remained three months longer
in prison. I went to see her, and from Christian charity I took
her a little tea and sugar. But as soon as she set eyes on me she
began to shake all over, wringing her hands and muttering: 'Go
away! go away!' And Kuzka she clasped to her as though she were
afraid I would take him away. 'See,' said I, 'what you have come
to! Ah, Masha, Masha! you would not listen to me when I gave you
good advice, and now you must repent it. You are yourself to
blame,' said I; 'blame yourself!' I was giving her good counsel,
but she: 'Go away, go away!' huddling herself and Kuzka against
the wall, and trembling all over.

"When they were taking her away to the chief town of our
province, I walked by the escort as far as the station and
slipped a rouble into her bundle for my soul's salvation. But she
did not get as far as Siberia. . . . She fell sick of fever and
died in prison."

"Live like a dog and you must die a dog's death," said Dyudya.

"Kuzka was sent back home. . . . I thought it over and took him
to bring up. After all -- though a convict's child -- still he
was a living soul, a Christian. . . . I was sorry for him. I
shall make him my clerk, and if I have no children of my own,
I'll make a merchant of him. Wherever I go now, I take him with
me; let him learn his work."

All the while Matvey Savitch had been telling his story, Kuzka
had sat on a little stone near the gate. His head propped in both
hands, he gazed at the sky, and in the distance he looked in the
dark like a stump of wood.

"Kuzka, come to bed," Matvey Savitch bawled to him.

"Yes, it's time," said Dyudya, getting up; he yawned loudly and
added:

"Folks will go their own way, and that's what comes of it."

Over the yard the moon was floating now in the heavens; she was
moving one way, while the clouds beneath moved the other way; the
clouds were disappearing into the darkness, but still the moon
could be seen high above the yard.

Matvey Savitch said a prayer, facing the church, and saying
good-night, he lay down on the ground near his cart. Kuzka, too,
said a prayer, lay down in the cart, and covered himself with his
little overcoat; he made himself a little hole in the hay so as
to be more comfortable, and curled up so that his elbows looked
like knees. From the yard Dyudya could be seen lighting a candle
in his room below, putting on his spectacles and standing in the
corner with a book. He was a long while reading and crossing
himself.

The travellers fell asleep. Afanasyevna and Sofya came up to the
cart and began looking at Kuzka.

"The little orphan's asleep," said the old woman. "He's thin and
frail, nothing but bones. No mother and no one to care for him
properly."

"My Grishutka must be two years older," said Sofya. "Up at the
factory he lives like a slave without his mother. The foreman
beats him, I dare say. When I looked at this poor mite just now,
I thought of my own Grishutka, and my heart went cold within me."

A minute passed in silence.

"Doesn't remember his mother, I suppose," said the old woman.

"How could he remember?"

And big tears began dropping from Sofya's eyes.

"He's curled himself up like a cat," she said, sobbing and
laughing with tenderness and sorrow. . . . "Poor motherless mite!

Kuzka started and opened his eyes. He saw before him an ugly,
wrinkled, tear-stained face, and beside it another, aged and
toothless, with a sharp chin and hooked nose, and high above them
the infinite sky with the flying clouds and the moon. He cried
out in fright, and Sofya, too, uttered a cry; both were answered
by the echo, and a faint stir passed over the stifling air; a
watchman tapped somewhere near, a dog barked. Matvey Savitch
muttered something in his sleep and turned over on the other
side.

Late at night when Dyudya and the old woman and the neighbouring
watchman were all asleep, Sofya went out to the gate and sat down
on the bench. She felt stifled and her head ached from weeping.
The street was a wide and long one; it stretched for nearly two
miles to the right and as far to the left, and the end of it was
out of sight. The moon was now not over the yard, but behind the
church. One side of the street was flooded with moonlight, while
the other side lay in black shadow. The long shadows of the
poplars and the starling-cotes stretched right across the street,
while the church cast a broad shadow, black and terrible that
enfolded Dyudya's gates and half his house. The street was still
and deserted. From time to time the strains of mu sic floated
faintly from the end of the street -- Alyoshka, most likely,
playing his concertina.

Someone moved in the shadow near the church enclosure, and Sofya
could not make out whether it were a man or a cow, or perhaps
merely a big bird rustling in the trees. But then a figure
stepped out of the shadow, halted, and said something in a man's
voice, then vanished down the turning by the church. A little
later, not three yards from the gate, another figure came into
sight; it walked straight from the church to the gate and stopped
short, seeing Sofya on the bench.

"Varvara, is that you?" said Sofya.

"And if it were?"

It was Varvara. She stood still a minute, then came up to the
bench and sat down.

"Where have you been?" asked Sofya.

Varvara made no answer.

"You'd better mind you don't get into trouble with such
goings-on, my girl," said Sofya. "Did you hear how Mashenka was
kicked and lashed with the reins? You'd better look out, or
they'll treat you the same."

"Well, let them!"

Varvara laughed into her kerchief and whispered:

"I have just been with the priest's son."

"Nonsense!"

"I have!"

"It's a sin!" whispered Sofya.

"Well, let it be. . . . What do I care? If it's a sin, then it is
a sin, but better be struck dead by thunder than live like this.
I'm young and strong, and I've a filthy crooked hunchback for a
husband, worse than Dyudya himself, curse him! When I was a girl,
I hadn't bread to eat, or a shoe to my foot, and to get away from
that wretchedness I was tempted by Alyoshka's money, and got
caught like a fish in a net, and I'd rather have a viper for my
bedfellow than that scurvy Alyoshka. And what's your life? It
makes me sick to look at it. Your Fyodor sent you packing from
the factory and he's taken up with another woman. They have
robbed you of your boy and made a slave of him. You work like a
horse, and never hear a kind word. I'd rather pine all my days an
old maid, I'd rather get half a rouble from the priest's son, I'd
rather beg my bread, or throw myself into the well. . .

"It's a sin!" whispered Sofya again.

"Well, let it be."

Somewhere behind the church the same three voices, two tenors and
a bass, began singing again a mournful song. And again the words
could not be distinguished.

"They are not early to bed," Varvara said, laughing.

And she began telling in a whisper of her midnight walks with the
priest's son, and of the stories he had told her, and of his
comrades, and of the fun she had with the travellers who stayed
in the house. The mournful song stirred a longing for life and
freedom. Sofya began to laugh; she thought it sinful and terrible
and sweet to hear about, and she felt envious and sorry that she,
too, had not been a sinner when she was young and pretty.

In the churchyard they heard twelve strokes beaten on the
watchman's board.

"It's time we were asleep," said Sofya, getting up, "or, maybe,
we shall catch it from Dyudya."

They both went softly into the yard.

"I went away without hearing what he was telling about Mashenka,"
said Varvara, making herself a bed under the window.

"She died in prison, he said. She poisoned her husband."

Varvara lay down beside Sofya a while, and said softly:

"I'd make away with my Alyoshka and never regret it."

"You talk nonsense; God forgive you."

When Sofya was just dropping asleep, Varvara, coming close,
whispered in her ear:

"Let us get rid of Dyudya and Alyoshka!"

Sofya started and said nothing. Then she opened her eyes and
gazed a long while steadily at the sky.

"People would find out," she said.

"No, they wouldn't. Dyudya's an old man, it's time he did die;
and they'd say Alyoshka died of drink."

"I'm afraid . . . God would chastise us."

"Well, let Him. . . ."

Both lay awake thinking in silence.

"It's cold," said Sofya, beginning to shiver all over. "It will
soon be morning. . . . Are you asleep?"

"No. . . . Don't you mind what I say, dear," whispered Varvara;
"I get so mad with the damned brutes, I don't know what I do say.
Go to sleep, or it will be daylight directly. . . . Go to sleep."

Both were quiet and soon they fell asleep.

Earlier than all woke the old woman. She waked up Sofya and they
went together into the cowshed to milk the cows. The hunchback
Alyoshka came in hopelessly drunk without his concertina; his
breast and knees had been in the dust and straw -- he must have
fallen down in the road. Staggering, he went into the cowshed,
and without undressing he rolled into a sledge and began to snore
at once. When first the crosses on the church and then the
windows were flashing in the light of the rising sun, and shadows
stretched across the yard over the dewy grass from the trees and
the top of the well, Matvey Savitch jumped up and began hurrying
about:

"Kuzka! get up!" he shouted. "It's time to put in the horses!
Look sharp!"

The bustle of morning was beginning. A young Jewess in a brown
gown with flounces led a horse into the yard to drink. The pulley
of the well creaked plaintively, the bucket knocked as it went
down. . . .

Kuzka, sleepy, tired, covered with dew, sat up in the cart,
lazily putting on his little overcoat, and listening to the drip
of the water from the bucket into the well as he shivered with
the cold.

"Auntie!" shouted Matvey Savitch to Sofya, "tell my lad to hurry
up and to harness the horses!"

And Dyudya at the same instant shouted from the window:

"Sofya, take a farthing from the Jewess for the horse's drink!
They're always in here, the mangy creatures!

In the street sheep were running up and down, baaing; the peasant
women were shouting at the shepherd, while he played his pipes,
cracked his whip, or answered them in a thick sleepy bass. Three
sheep strayed into the yard, and not finding the gate again,
pushed at the fence.

Varvara was waked by the noise, and bundling her bedding up in
her arms, she went into the house.

"You might at least drive the sheep out!" the old woman bawled
after her, "my lady!"

"I dare say! As if I were going to slave for you Herods!"
muttered Varvara, going into the house.

Dyudya came out of the house with his accounts in his hands, sat
down on the step, and began reckoning how much the traveller owed
him for the night's lodging, oats, and watering his horses.

"You charge pretty heavily for the oats, my good man," said
Matvey Savitch.

"If it's too much, don't take them. There's no compulsion,
merchant."

When the travellers were ready to start, they were detained for a
minute. Kuzka had lost his cap.

"Little swine, where did you put it?" Matvey Savitch roared
angrily. "Where is it?"

Kuzka's face was working with terror; he ran up and down near the
cart, and not finding it there, ran to the gate and then to the
shed. The old woman and Sofya helped him look.

"I'll pull your ears off!" yelled Matvey Savitch. "Dirty brat!"

The cap was found at the bottom of the cart.

Kuzka brushed the hay off it with his sleeve, put it on, and
timidly he crawled into the cart, still with an expression of
terror on his face as though he were afraid of a blow from
behind.

Matvey Savitch crossed himself. The driver gave a tug at the
reins and the cart rolled out of the yard.

-THE END-
Anton Chekhov's short story: Peasant Wives

GO TO TOP OF SCREEN