The Beauties: Essential Stories Read online

  “We left the house together – it was May Day, a Sunday, and all of us, teachers and pupils, had arranged to meet at the school and then go for a walk together out of town, to the woods. So we went out, and he was looking green, darker than a thundercloud.

  “‘What wicked, evil people there are!’ he said through trembling lips.

  “I even felt sorry for him. So we were walking along, and suddenly, just imagine, Kovalenko comes bowling along on a bicycle, with Varenka following behind on a bicycle too, red in the face and tired out, but merry and cheerful all the same.

  “‘We’ll beat you there!’ she cries. ‘The weather’s so lovely, so lovely – it’s terrible!’

  “And they both disappeared from sight. My Belikov turned from green to white and seemed to go rigid. He stopped dead and stared at me.

  “‘Excuse me, but what’s the meaning of that?’ he demanded. ‘Or were my eyes perhaps deceiving me? Is it proper for high school teachers and women to ride on bicycles?’

  “‘What’s improper about it?’ I said. ‘Let them ride around, and good luck to them.’

  “‘What on earth do you mean?’ he shouted, amazed to see me so calm. ‘Whatever are you saying?’

  “He was so shocked that he refused to go any further, and turned back home.

  “Next day he kept nervously rubbing his hands and twitching, and you could see by his face that he wasn’t well. He stayed away from work, which was the first time in his life that had happened to him. And ate nothing. That evening he dressed very warmly, though it was high summer outside, and trudged over to the Kovalenkos. Varenka was out, and he only found her brother at home.

  “‘Do sit down, please,’ said Kovalenko coldly, with a frown. His face was sleepy; he had just been having his after-dinner nap, and was very much out of temper.

  “Belikov sat in silence for ten minutes or so, and then began:

  “‘I have come to see you to relieve my mind. I am very, very distressed. Some scribbler has made a drawing that ridicules me and another individual who is close to both of us. I regard it as my duty to assure you that I had no part in this… I have given no grounds for such mockery – on the contrary, I have always conducted myself as a perfect gentleman.’

  “Kovalenko sat there scowling and said nothing. Belikov waited a little, and then went on in a quiet, mournful voice:

  “‘And I have something further to say to you. I have been in service for a long time, while you have only recently entered it, and I regard it as my duty, as an older colleague, to put you on your guard. You ride on a bicycle, a pastime that is entirely unsuitable for an educator of youth.’

  “‘Why is that?’ asked Kovalenko in his bass voice.

  “‘What need is there of explanations, Mikhail Savvich? Is it not obvious? If a teacher rides on a bicycle, what is there left for the pupils to do? All that remains is for them to walk on their heads! Since this is not authorized by official circular, it is forbidden. I was horrified yesterday! When I saw your sister, everything went black before my eyes. A woman, or a girl, on a bicycle – that is horrible!’

  “‘What is it exactly that you want?’

  “‘All that I want is one thing – to warn you, Mikhail Savvich. You are a young man, you have your future before you, and you need to conduct yourself very, very carefully – but you are going wrong, oh, so very wrong! You go about in an embroidered shirt, you’re always carrying some sort of books with you in the street, and now here’s this bicycle too. The fact that you and your sister ride on bicycles will come to the notice of the headmaster, and then the supervisor… What is the good of that?’

  “‘The fact that my sister and I ride bicycles is nobody’s business!’ said Kovalenko, turning crimson in the face. ‘And if anybody meddles in my home and family affairs, I’ll pack him straight off to the devil.’

  “Belikov turned pale and got up.

  “‘If you talk to me in that tone, I cannot continue,’ he said. ‘And I request you never to use such language about our superiors in my presence. The authorities must be treated with respect.’

  “‘Was I saying anything bad about the authorities?’ demanded Kovalenko, glaring furiously at him. ‘Kindly leave me alone. I’m an honest man and don’t want anything to do with a gentleman of your sort. I don’t like sneaks.’

  “Belikov fell into a nervous flutter and started hurriedly putting on his coat, a horrified expression on his face. This was the first time in his life he had been subjected to such rudeness.

  “‘You may say whatever you please,’ he said, stepping out from the hallway onto the landing. ‘But I must warn you that we may have been overheard, and in order to ensure that our conversation is not misrepresented, which might perhaps lead to something, I shall be obliged to report the content of our conversation to the headmaster… in its essential terms. It is my duty to do so.’

  “‘Report it? Go on, then, report it!’

  “Kovalenko seized him by the collar from behind, and gave him a shove. Belikov tumbled down the stairs, his galoshes clattering against the steps. The staircase was tall and steep, but he reached the bottom without injury. He picked himself up and felt his nose, to make sure his spectacles were undamaged. But at the very moment when he was tumbling downstairs, Varenka came in with two other ladies. They stood at the bottom of the stairs and watched – and for Belikov that was the most terrible thing of all. It might have been better for him to break his neck and both legs, rather than become a laughing stock. For now the whole town would find out, and it would reach the headmaster, and the supervisor – and oh, what might that lead to! – and someone would draw another caricature, and it would all end with him being ordered to resign his post…

  “When he got up, Varenka recognized him, and seeing his comical face, and crumpled coat, and galoshes, and not realizing what had happened, she supposed that he had accidentally fallen downstairs, and unable to restrain herself, she burst out laughing so loudly that the whole house could hear her:

  “‘Ha-ha-ha!’

  “And that pealing, rolling ‘Ha-ha-ha’ put an end to everything – to Belikov’s courtship, and his earthly existence. He didn’t hear what Varenka was saying, nor see anything. Returning home, he first of all removed the portrait from his desk, and then went to bed, never to get up again.

  “Three days later Afanasy came to see me and asked whether he ought to send for the doctor, because there was something wrong with his master. I went to see Belikov. He was lying in bed with the curtains drawn, covered with a blanket, and not speaking. If you asked him a question, he’d just say yes or no, and not another sound. He lay there, with Afanasy prowling around, gloomy, scowling, sighing deeply – and stinking of vodka like a pothouse.

  “A month later Belikov died. We all went to his funeral – both the high schools, and the seminary. Now, as he lay in his coffin, he had a pleasant, meek, even happy expression on his face, as if he was glad that he had finally been laid in a box from which he would never emerge. Yes, he had achieved his ideal! And as though in honour of him, the weather at his funeral was dull and wet, and we were all in our galoshes and carrying umbrellas. Varenka also attended the funeral, and when the coffin was being lowered into the grave, she burst into tears. I have observed that Little Russian women are always either weeping or laughing; they don’t have a mood in between.

  “I must confess that burying people like Belikov is a great pleasure. Coming back from the cemetery we all wore meek Lenten faces – nobody wanted to betray that sense of pleasure, a feeling like the one we used to have, long, long ago, in our childhood, when the grown-ups went out and we could run around the garden for an hour or two, revelling in our complete freedom. Ah, freedom, freedom! Even a hint of it, even the faint hope of its possibility, gives your soul wings, doesn’t it?

  “We arrived back from the cemetery in good spirits. But no more than a week had passed before our lives once more became just as they had been before – gloomy, exhausting and pointles
s; lives not forbidden by official circular, but not entirely permitted either. Things were no better. And indeed, Belikov was buried, but what a lot of these men in boxes there still are, and how many more are yet to come!”

  “Well, that’s just it,” said Ivan Ivanich, lighting his pipe.

  “How many more yet to come!” repeated Burkin.

  The schoolteacher stepped out of the barn. He was a man of medium height, plump, completely bald, with a black beard descending almost to his waist. The two dogs came out with him.

  “What a moon, what a moon!” he said, looking upwards.

  It was already midnight. To his right, the whole village could be seen, with its long street stretching some four miles into the distance. Everything was buried in deep, quiet sleep – not a movement, not a sound. It was hard to believe that such a silence could exist in nature. When you see a broad village street by moonlight, with its huts, haystacks and slumbering willow trees, peace descends on your soul. When it is surrounded by such tranquillity, sheltered from its labours, cares and sorrows by the shadows of night, it feels meek, melancholy and beautiful, as if even the stars are gazing down on it with tenderness and love, and there is no more wickedness on earth, and all is well. To the left, beyond the end of the village, the fields began; they could be seen stretching far away to the horizon, and here too, in all this expanse of moonlit countryside, there was not a movement, not a sound.

  “That’s just it,” repeated Ivan Ivanich. “But aren’t we ourselves, living in stuffy towns, in cramped conditions, writing pointless papers, playing at vint – aren’t we living in boxes too? And the way we spend our whole lives surrounded by idle, petty men and vain, stupid women, talking and listening to all sorts of rubbish – isn’t that living in a box? I can tell you a very instructive story, if you like.”

  “No, it’s time to go to sleep,” said Burkin. “Let’s talk tomorrow!”

  They both went into the barn and lay down on the hay. And they had both covered themselves up and fallen into a doze when they heard light footsteps: tap, tap… Someone was walking about near the barn, going a few steps and stopping, then starting off again a minute later: tap, tap… The dogs growled.

  “That’s Mavra,” said Burkin.

  The footsteps died away.

  “You see them and hear them telling all those lies,” said Ivan Ivanich, rolling over, “and they call you a fool for putting up with their lies; and you swallow insults and humiliations, and don’t dare speak out and say that you’re on the side of honest, free people; and you tell lies yourself, and smile, and all for the sake of a piece of bread and a warm corner to sit in, all for some stupid promotion that isn’t worth having – no, we can’t go on living like this!”

  “Well, now you’re off on a different tack, Ivan Ivanich,” said the schoolmaster. “Let’s go to sleep.”

  Ten minutes later Burkin was asleep. But Ivan Ivanich kept turning over from one side to the other and sighing, and eventually he got up, stepped outside again, sat down by the door and lit his pipe.

  A DAY IN THE COUNTRY

  IT IS PAST eight o’clock in the morning.

  A dark leaden mass is creeping towards the sun. Here and there, jagged streaks of red lightning flicker across it. Thunder rumbles in the distance. A warm wind plays over the grass, bending the trees and lifting the dust. In another minute the May rain will splash down and the real thunderstorm will begin.

  Fiokla the six-year-old beggar girl is running barefoot through the village, looking for Terenty the cobbler. The white-haired little girl is pale, with wide eyes and trembling lips.

  “Uncle dear, where’s Terenty?” she asks everyone she meets. Nobody tells her. They are all nervous of the coming storm, and hurrying to their huts for shelter. Eventually she meets Silanty Silych the sacristan, a good friend of Terenty’s. He’s walking along, staggering in the wind.

  “Uncle dear, where’s Terenty?”

  “In the kitchen gardens,” Silanty replies.

  The little beggar girl runs out past the huts to the kitchen gardens and finds Terenty there. Terenty the cobbler, a tall old man with a thin pockmarked face and very long legs, barefoot and wearing a torn woman’s jacket, is standing by the vegetable beds gazing with bleary, tipsy eyes at the dark storm cloud. He looks like a crane on his long legs, and in the wind he’s shaking like a birdhouse on a pole.

  “Uncle Terenty!” says the white-haired beggar girl. “Uncle, darling!”

  Terenty bends down to Fiokla, and a smile spreads over his solemn, drunken face, the way people smile when they come across something small, silly, funny, but deeply loved.

  “Aha! Fiokla, God’s servant!” he says, lisping tenderly. “Where have you sprung from?”

  “Uncle Terenty, dear,” sobs Fiokla, hanging on to the cobbler’s coat-tails. “My brother Danilka’s had a terrible accident! Come on!”

  “What sort of accident? O-ooh, what a thunderclap! Holy, holy, holy… What accident?”

  “Danilka was in the count’s wood and he pushed his hand down a hole in a tree, and now he can’t get it out. Come on, uncle dear, get it out for him, do, please!”

  “How did he get his hand stuck there? What for?”

  “He wanted to get a cuckoo’s egg out of the hole for me.”

  “The day’s hardly started, and you two are already in trouble…” says Terenty. He shakes his head and spits thoughtfully. “Well, what am I to do with you now? We’ve got to go… Got to… The wolf ought to gobble you up, you mischief-makers! Come along, little orphan!”

  Terenty leaves the kitchen garden, and raising his long legs high above the ground, strides out along the road. He walks quickly, without looking to either side and without stopping, as though he’s being pushed from behind or is scared of being pursued. Fiokla the little beggar girl can hardly keep up with him.

  The travellers leave the village behind them and follow the dusty road to the count’s wood, which shows blue in the distance. It must be a mile and a half away. Meanwhile the storm clouds have hidden the sun, and soon there won’t be a scrap of blue left in the sky. It’s getting darker.

  “Holy, holy, holy,” whispers Fiokla, hurrying after Terenty.

  The first big heavy raindrops splash down, making dark spots on the dusty road. A large drop falls onto Fiokla’s cheek and trickles down to her chin like a teardrop.

  “It’s started raining!” mutters the cobbler, kicking up the dust with his bare bony feet. “Thank God for that, Fiokla, old thing. The grass and trees feed on rain the way you and I feed on bread. And as for that thunder, don’t you worry, little orphan. Why would it want to kill a little thing like you?”

  Now that the rain has started, the wind drops. There’s only the sound of the rain, pattering down like fine shot onto the young rye and the dry road.

  “We’re going to be soaked through, you and I, Feklushka!” mutters Terenty. “There won’t be a dry patch on us anywhere! Oho, my friend! It’s trickling down my neck! But don’t you worry, you silly… The grass’ll dry out, the earth’ll dry out, and we’ll dry out too. The sun’s there just the same for everyone.”

  A bolt of lightning fifteen feet long flashes above the travellers’ heads. There’s a rumbling peal of thunder, and Fiokla has the feeling that something big, round and heavy is rolling around in the sky, tearing holes in it right over her head!

  “Holy, holy, holy…” says Terenty, crossing himself. “Don’t be afraid, little orphan! It’s not thundering out of spite.”

  The cobbler’s feet and Fiokla’s feet are getting covered in lumps of heavy wet clay. Walking is difficult and slippery, but Terenty strides out faster and faster… The weak little beggar girl is panting, ready to drop.

  But now at last they’ve reached the count’s wood. The trees, washed clean and now shaken by a sudden gust of wind, spray them with a shower of raindrops. Terenty stumbles over tree stumps and slows his pace.

  “Where’s Danilka?” he asks. “Take me to him!”

>   Fiokla leads him further into the thicket, and after a quarter of a mile she points to her brother Danilka. Her brother is a small boy of eight with ochre-coloured sandy hair and a pale, sickly face. He’s standing pressed against a tree, his head tilted sideways, squinting up at the sky. One of his hands is clutching a worn little cap; the other is hidden down a hole in the old lime tree. The boy is staring hard at the stormy sky, and doesn’t seem to be aware of his predicament. When he hears footsteps and sees the cobbler, he gives a wan smile and says:

  “What a terrible thunderstorm, Terenty! I’ve never heard thunder like this in my life…”

  “Where’s your hand?”

  “Down this hole… Do get it out, please, Terenty!”

  The edge of the hole has cracked and caught Danilka’s hand: he can push it further in, but he can’t manage to pull it back. Terenty breaks off the cracked piece, and the boy’s hand, squashed and red, comes free.

  “What terrible thunder!” repeats the boy, rubbing his hand. “Why does it thunder, Terenty?”

  “It’s one storm cloud running up against another…” says the cobbler.

  The three of them leave the trees behind and walk by the edge of the wood to the black stripe of the road. Gradually the storm dies away, and the rolls of thunder sound far off, beyond the village.

  “Terenty, some ducks flew by here the other day…” says Danilka, still rubbing his hand. “They must have settled in the marshes at Foul Meadows. Fiokla, would you like me to show you a nightingale’s nest?”

  “Don’t touch it, you’ll disturb them…” says Terenty, wringing water out of his cap. “The nightingale’s a songbird, he has no sin… he’s been given that voice in his throat to praise God and gladden mankind. It’s sinful to disturb him.”

  “What about a sparrow?”

  “A sparrow doesn’t matter. He’s a wicked, spiteful bird. All he thinks about is stealing. He doesn’t like people to be happy. When they were crucifying Christ, he brought nails to the Jews and sang out ‘Alive! Alive!’…”