The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887-91 Read online

  ‘Cor, it’s deep!’ croaked Kiryukha. ‘We won’t catch nothing ’ere!’

  ‘Stop pulling, damn you!’ cried Dymov as he tried to bring the net into position. ‘Hold it there!’

  ‘You won’t catch nothing ’ere!’ Panteley shouted from the bank. ‘You’re only scaring the fish, you silly fools! Try a bit more to the left, it’s shallower there!’

  Once a big fish gleamed above the net. Everyone gasped and Dymov hit out at the place where it had vanished, frustration written all over his face.

  ‘Ugh, you lot!’ cried Panteley, stamping his feet. ‘You’ve let a perch get away! It’s gone!’

  Moving the net over to the left, Dymov and Kiryukha gradually managed to reach a shallow spot and there the fishing began in earnest. They were about three hundred yards away from the wagons now and they could be seen barely moving their legs, silently endeavouring to haul the net as deep and close as possible to the reeds. To frighten the fish and drive them into the net they thrashed the water with their fists, making the reeds crackle. From the reeds they went over to the far bank, trawled around with the net and then, with a disappointed look and knees held high, they returned to the reeds. They were in active discussion, but what they were discussing no one could hear. Meanwhile the sun was burning their backs, flies were biting them and their bodies had turned from mauve to crimson. They were followed by Styopka, bucket in hand, his shirt tucked right up under the armpits, holding the hem between his teeth. After each successful catch he held the fish high above his head so that it glittered in the sun.

  ‘Look at that for a perch!’ he cried. ‘And we’ve caught five like that!’

  Every time Dymov, Kiryukha and Styopka pulled in the net they could be seen rooting about for a long time in the mud, putting things in the bucket and throwing others out. Occasionally they passed something that was caught in the net from hand to hand, examined it with curiosity and then threw that away too…

  ‘What’ve you caught?’ came shouts from the bank.

  Styopka gave some sort of answer but it was hard to make out what he was saying. Then he emerged from the water, grasped the bucket with both hands, forgot to let his shirt down and ran towards the wagons.

  ‘This one’s full!’ he shouted, panting heavily. ‘Give me another!’

  Yegorushka peered into the bucket: it was full to the brim. A young pike poked its ugly snout out of the water, whilst around it teemed crayfish and minnows. Yegorushka touched the bottom and stirred the water with his hand. The pike disappeared under the crayfish and in its place a perch and a tench floated upwards.

  Vasya too looked into the bucket. His eyes glinted and his face softened as it had done when he saw the fox. He picked something out, put it in his mouth and started chewing. There was a crunching sound.

  ‘Lads!’ Styopka cried out in astonishment. ‘Vasya’s eating a live gudgeon. Ugh!’

  ‘It ain’t no gudgeon, it’s a chub,’ Vasya calmly replied and carried on munching. He took the tail from his mouth, lovingly examined it and put it back. While he was chewing and crunching Yegorushka felt that it was no human being he was watching. Vasya’s swollen chin, lacklustre eyes, his exceptionally keen eyesight, the fish tail in his mouth and the loving affection with which he chewed the gudgeon – all this gave him the appearance of an animal.

  Yegorushka began to find his company tiresome. And besides, the fishing was over. He strolled by the wagons, reflected for a moment and plodded off to the village out of sheer boredom.

  A few moments later he was standing in the church, leaning his forehead on someone’s back that smelled of hemp and listening to the choir. The service was drawing to a close. Yegorushka understood nothing about church singing and felt indifferent towards it. He listened for a while, yawned and began examining people’s backs and necks. One of these heads, reddish-brown and wet from the recent bathe, he recognized as Yemelyan’s. At the back the hair had been cut evenly and higher than usual; the hair on his temples was also cut higher than fashion dictated; his red ears stuck out like burdock leaves and they seemed to sense they were out of place. As he studied the back of his head and his ears Yegorushka thought for some reason that Yemelyan was probably very unhappy. He remembered his conducting, his hoarse voice, those timid looks when he was bathing and he felt an intense pity for him. He had an urge to say a few kind words to him.

  ‘I’m here!’ he said, tugging his sleeve.

  People who sing in choirs, whether tenor or bass, especially those who at least once in their lives have done some conducting, usually take a stern, hostile attitude to young boys. Nor do they lose this habit later in life when they no longer sing. Yemelyan turned to Yegorushka and scowled.

  ‘No larking about in church!’ he said.

  Then Yegorushka made his way forward, to be nearer the icon-stand. There he saw some interesting people. At the front, to the right, a gentleman and lady were standing on a carpet. Behind each of them was a chair. Wearing a newly pressed tussore16 suit, the gentleman was standing stock-still, like a soldier saluting, and he held his blue, clean-shaven chin high. There was an enormous amount of dignity in his stiff collar, his blue chin, small bald patch and cane. From this excess of dignity his neck seemed so tense and his chin strained upwards so forcefully that his head appeared ready to fly off and soar upwards at any minute. The lady, who was stout and elderly and wearing a white silk shawl, was holding her head to one side and she looked as if she had just done someone a favour and wanted to say, ‘Ah, you don’t need to thank me! I don’t like that sort of thing…’ All round the carpet was a dense throng of peasants.

  Yegorushka went to the icon-stand and started kissing the local icons. Before each one he bowed to the ground and without rising looked back at the congregation; then he stood up and applied his lips again. The feel of the cold floor against his forehead was extremely pleasant. When the verger came from the chancel with a pair of long snuffers to put the candles out Yegorushka quickly leapt up from the floor and ran to him.

  ‘Have they given out the communion bread yet?’ he asked.

  ‘There isn’t any,’ the verger replied crustily. ‘And what would you be wanting it for?’

  The service came to an end. Yegorushka left the church without hurrying and wandered around the village square. In his time he had seen many villages, squares, peasants and nothing that he saw now interested him in the least. For want of anything to do and to kill time one way or the other, he called at a shop over whose doorway hung a wide red calico strip. This shop consisted of two spacious, badly lit halves: in one half haberdashery and groceries were sold, whilst in the other there were barrels of tar, with horse-collars hanging from the ceiling. From this second half came the rich smell of leather and tar. The floor of the shop had been watered – and the water had probably been sprinkled by some great visionary or free-thinker, since the floor was completely covered with patterns and cabbalistic signs. Behind the counter, leaning his stomach on a desk, stood a fat, broad-faced, round-bearded shopkeeper. Evidently he came from the north. He was drinking tea through a lump of sugar and after every sip he heaved a deep sigh. His face was the picture of apathy, but every sigh seemed to be saying, ‘You wait! I’ll give you what-for!’

  ‘A copeckworth of sunflower seeds please,’ Yegorushka said.

  The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out from behind the counter and poured a copeckworth of sunflower seeds into Yegorushka’s pocket, using an empty pomade jar as a measure. Yegorushka was reluctant to leave and he spent a long time inspecting the trays of cakes. Then he pondered for a moment and pointed to some fine Vyazma17 gingerbreads that were mildewed with age.

  ‘How much are these?’ he asked.

  ‘Two for a copeck.’

  Yegorushka took out the cake given him by the Jewess the previous day.

  ‘And how much are these?’ he asked.

  The shopkeeper took the cake in his hands, examined it from all angles and raised one eyebrow.

&nb
sp; ‘This kind?’

  He raised the other eyebrow and paused for thought.

  ‘Two for three copecks.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the shopkeeper, pouring himself some tea from a copper teapot.

  ‘I’m Ivan Ivanych’s nephew.’

  ‘But there’s no end of Ivan Ivanyches!’ sighed the shopkeeper. He glanced over Yegorushka’s head at the door, was silent for a moment and then he asked, ‘Would you like some tea?’

  ‘Oh, yes please,’ said Yegorushka, feigning reluctance, although he was longing for his usual morning tea.

  The shopkeeper poured him a glass and gave it to him, together with a nibbled lump of sugar. Yegorushka sat on a folding-chair and drank. He wanted to ask another question – the price of a pound of sugared almonds – and had just begun when in came a customer. The shopkeeper put his glass to one side to attend to his business. He led the customer into the other half of the shop that smelt of tar and had a long conversation with him. This customer was obviously exceedingly stubborn and shrewd, kept shaking his head in disagreement and backing towards the door. The shopkeeper reassured him on some point and began pouring oats into a large sack.

  ‘Call that stuff oats?’ the customer said dolefully. ‘They’re not oats – they’re just chaff. They’d make a cat laugh! I’m off to Bondarenko’s, that I am!’

  When Yegorushka returned to the river a small camp fire was smoking on the bank – the drivers were cooking their dinner. In the midst of the smoke stood Styopka, stirring the pot with a large, jagged spoon. A little to one side, their eyes reddened by the smoke, Kiryukha and Vasya were sitting down cleaning the fish. Before them lay the net, covered in slime and weeds – and in it were a gleaming fish and some crawling crayfish.

  Having just got back from church, Yemelyan was sitting next to Panteley, waving his arm and humming in a barely audible voice, ‘To Thee we sing…’ Dymov was wandering among the horses.

  When they had finished cleaning the fish Kiryukha and Vasya dropped them all, together with the live crayfish, into the bucket, rinsed them and then emptied the whole lot into boiling water.

  ‘Should I add some fat?’ asked Styopka, skimming off the froth with a spoon.

  ‘Whatever for? Fish provide their own sauce,’ replied Kiryukha.

  Before removing the pot from the fire Styopka added three handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salt. Finally he tasted it, smacked his lips, licked the spoon and grunted in self-satisfaction – this meant the stew was ready.

  Everyone except Panteley sat round the pot and got to work with their spoons.

  ‘Hey, you lot! Give the lad a spoon,’ Panteley sternly remarked. ‘I reckon he wants to eat too!’

  ‘It’s only plain peasant fare,’ sighed Kiryukha.

  ‘And there’s nothing wrong with it – if that’s what you fancy!’

  They gave Yegorushka a spoon. He started eating, but he did not sit down and stood by the pot, looking into it as if into a deep pit. The stew smelled of fishy wetness and now and then a few scales popped up in the millet. It was impossible to scoop out the crayfish with a spoon and the diners picked them straight out of the pot with their fingers. In this respect Vasya displayed particular abandon, wetting not only his hands in the stew but his sleeves as well. But for all that Yegorushka found it very tasty and it reminded him of the crayfish his mother used to make at home on fast-days. Panteley sat to one side, chewing some bread.

  ‘Why aren’t you eating, grandpa?’ Yegorushka asked.

  ‘Don’t eat crayfish… blow them!’ the old man said, turning aside in disgust.

  While they ate there was a general conversation from which Yegorushka gathered that, regardless of differences in age and temperament, all his new friends had one thing in common which made them alike: they were all people with a wonderful past and an appalling present. To a man they spoke ecstatically of their past, but almost contemptuously of the present. Russians like to reminisce, but they don’t like living. Yegorushka was not yet aware of this and before the stew was finished he was firmly convinced that the men who were sitting eating around the pot had been humiliated and wronged by fate. Panteley said that in the old days – before the railways – he used to go with the wagon trains to Moscow and Nizhny-Novgorod, earning so much that he didn’t know what to do with the money. And what merchants they were in those days, what fish they had, how cheap everything was! Nowadays the highways were shorter, the merchants stingier, the people poorer, the bread dearer. Everything had degenerated, dwindled to nothing. Yemelyan said that he had once sung in the choir at the Lugansk factory. He had possessed a remarkable voice and read music excellently, but now he was a mere peasant, living on the charity of his brother who sent him out with the horses and kept half of his earnings for himself. Vasya had once worked in the match factory; Kiryukha had been coachman to a very good family and used to be considered the best troika driver in the district. Dymov, son of a well-to-do peasant, had lived a life of pleasure, made merry and didn’t have a care in the world. But the moment he was twenty his strict, harsh father, wanting him to learn a trade and afraid he might become spoilt at home, started sending him out to work as a wagon driver, like any poor peasant labourer. Styopka alone said nothing, but one could tell from his clean-shaven face that he had seen much better days.

  Remembering his father, Dymov stopped eating and frowned. He scowled at his mates and let his eyes rest on Yegorushka.

  ‘Heathen! Take your cap off!’ he snapped. ‘Do you think it’s right eating with your cap on? Call yourself a gentleman!’

  Without a word Yegorushka took off his cap. But by now the stew had lost all taste for him, nor did he hear Panteley and Vasya stand up for him. An intense feeling of anger towards that bully welled up inside him and he decided to do him some injury, come what may.

  After dinner they all trudged off to the wagons and collapsed in the shade.

  ‘Are we leaving soon, grandpa?’ Yegorushka asked Panteley.

  ‘We’ll leave when God wills it… No good leaving now, it’s too hot… Oh Lord, Thy will be done… Holy Mother of God!… Now, lie down, lad.’

  The sound of snoring soon came from under the wagons. Yegorushka would have liked to go back to the village, but after a moment’s thought he yawned and lay down next to the old man.

  VI

  All day the wagons stayed by the river and they left when the sun was setting.

  Once again Yegorushka was lying on a bale of wool; the wagon gently creaked and swayed. Down below walked Panteley, slapping his thighs and muttering. As on the day before, the music of the steppes trilled in the air.

  Yegorushka lay on his back, his hands under his head, gazing up at the sky. He watched the sunset take fire and then fade. Guardian angels covered the horizon with their golden wings and were preparing themselves for slumber: the day had passed calmly, serene and tranquil night had come and now they could rest peacefully in their heavenly home. Yegorushka saw the sky gradually darken and darkness descend on the earth; one after the other the stars began to shine.

  If you look at the deep sky for long, without averting your gaze, your thoughts and your spirit somehow blend in a consciousness of solitude. You begin to feel desperately lonely and all that you had once considered near and dear becomes infinitely remote and trivial. The stars that have been looking down for thousands of years, the inscrutable sky itself and the darkness, so indifferent to man’s short life – when you are confronted by them and try to fathom their meaning they oppress your spirit with their silence. Then you are reminded of the solitude that awaits all of us in the grave – and the reality of existence seems awful, terrible…

  Yegorushka thought of Grandmother sleeping now in the graveyard beneath the cherry trees. He remembered her lying in her coffin with bronze coins over her eyes; he remembered how they had then closed the lid and lowered her into the grave; he remembered the dull thud of clods of earth on the lid… He visualized Grandmo
ther in her dark, narrow coffin, helpless and forsaken by all. He imagined her suddenly awakening, unable to understand where she was, knocking on the lid, calling for help and in the end growing faint with terror and dying a second death. He imagined that Mother, Father Khristofor, Countess Dranitsky, Solomon were dead. But try as he might to picture himself in the dark grave, far from home, abandoned, helpless and dead, he did not succeed. He could not admit the possibility of death for himself, personally, and he felt that he would never die…

  Panteley, whose time was approaching, was walking down below, making a roll-call of his thoughts.

  ‘Yes, they was fine gentlefolk,’ he was muttering. ‘They took their young lad off to school, but I ’aven’t heard say how he’s getting on… In Slavyanoserbsk there’s no establishment as can make you all brainy, like… No… that’s a fact… He’s a good lad, that boy, no worries with him. When he grows up he’ll be a help to his father. You’re just a shaver now, Yegory, but when you’re a grown man you’ll keep your father and mother. That’s what God’s ordained – “Honour thy father and thy mother.” I myself had little ones… but they was all burned to death in a fire. And me wife died too… and the children… that’s a fact… The hut burned down on Twelfth Night eve. I wasn’t at home, was on me way to Oryol18… to Oryol like. Marya jumped out into the street and she remembered the children was asleep in the hut so she ran back and was burned to death with the little ones… Yes… Next day all they found was bones…’

  Around midnight Yegorushka and the drivers were once again seated around a small fire. While the dry brushwood was kindling Kiryukha and Vasya went to fetch some water from a gully. They vanished in the darkness, but the whole time one could hear them clanking their buckets and talking, which meant the gully wasn’t very far away. The light from the fire lay on the ground in a large flickering patch; although the moon was bright, everything outside that red patch seemed impenetrably dark. The light shone into the drivers’ eyes so that they could see only part of the road. In the darkness the wagons, bales and horses resembled vaguely shaped mountains and were barely visible. About twenty paces from the fire, where road and steppe converged, stood a wooden grave-cross, leaning to one side. Before they had lit the fire and he could still see a long way, Yegorushka noticed that there was an identical slanting cross on the other side of the road.