Short Fiction, Ivan Bunin [reading women .TXT] 📗

whether I ain’t; but, if I do marry, it will be a decent man, that ain’t a-going to let you into his house. I ain’t your Phenka, brother; I ain’t no streetwalker or something.” When all on a sudden he jumps up from his place and gets all in a passion:

“Why,” he says, “you ain’t worth one of her fingernails!”

How was that? Good, eh? He jumped up, yelling till it didn’t sound like his own voice, slammed the door like thunder⁠—and off with him. But I, even though I was no great hand at crying, just went off into tears. I cry one day, I cry another⁠—I had only to think of the words he could find the heart to say to me, and off I’d go. I cry, but I keep one thing in mind⁠—I would never forgive him such an insult till the end of time, and I would drive him off entirely.⁠ ⁠… But all this time he don’t come home. I hear he’s carrying on a feast at her house, dancing and prancing, drinking through the money he had stolen, and threatening me: “Never mind,” he says, “I’ll settle her; I’ll lay in wait till she’ll be going somewhere in the evening; and I’ll kill her with a stone.” He sends to the store to buy things⁠—to make fun of me, of course; now for ginger cookies, now for herrings. I just quiver all over from vexation, but I hold myself in and give what’s wanted. One day I’m sitting in the store, when suddenly he comes in himself, drunk as a lord. He brings in some herrings⁠—a little wench had bought four of them that morning for his money, of course⁠—and slap with them down on the counter!

“How dare you,” he yells, “send such abominable stuff to your customers? They smell; they’re only fit for dogs to eat!”

He’s yelling, with his nostrils all puffed out⁠—looking for an excuse.

“Don’t you be raising no rumpus here,” I says, “and don’t be yelling; I don’t make the herrings myself, but buy them by the barrel. If you don’t like them, don’t guzzle them⁠—here’s your money back.”

“But what if I had ate them and died?”

“Again,” I says, “you’re swine, and ain’t got no call to be yelling at me⁠—who are you to be giving me orders? Guess you ain’t such a much. You ought to speak decent-like, and not be crowding in with a row into somebody else’s establishment.”

But all on a sudden he grabbed hold of a steelyard off a bin and sort of hisses out:

“I’ll swat you over the head,” he says, “so’s you’ll stretch right out!”

And then he ran out of the shop with all his might. But I, the way I had sat down on the floor, that’s the way I stayed⁠—I just couldn’t get up.⁠ ⁠…

Then, I hear that they done for him⁠—the Lord had punished him on account of his mother! He was barely alive when they brought him in a cab⁠—unconscious drunk, his head bobbing, his hair caked with blood and covered with dust; his boots and watch had been stolen, his new jacket was all in tatters⁠—there wasn’t as much as a square inch of whole cloth left anywhere.⁠ ⁠… I figured and I figured⁠—take him in I did, and I even paid the cabby; but that very same day I sends my compliments to Nikolai Ivannich, and say that he be told for sure that he shouldn’t be worried any more over anything; that I had decided about my son, now⁠—I would drive him out without any pity right off when he would wake up. He also sends back his compliments and bids them say: “Very wisely and well done, accept my thanks and sympathy⁠ ⁠…” and two weeks later he set the date for the wedding. Yes.⁠ ⁠…

Well, that’s enough; that’s where my story ends. Guess there’s nothing more, to tell about. I’ve gotten along so well with my husband all my days, that it’s just like a rarity nowadays. As I’m saying, what I went through whilst I was struggling to get into this heaven can’t be told in words! But, truth to tell, the Lord hath rewarded me⁠—it is now the twenty-first year that I’m living with my little old man, fenced about as with a stone wall, and I know for sure that he wouldn’t let nothing or nobody hurt me; it’s only to look at him that he’s so quiet! But, of course, no matter how I try, the heart will start yearning once in a while! Especially before Easter, in Lent, for some reason or other. I think I could die now⁠—it’s fine, peaceful; they’ll be after reading litanies in all the churches.⁠ ⁠… True, I’ve had enough of toiling and moiling in my time⁠—oh, but Nastasiya Semenovna was the persistent one! Ought I, with my mind, to be sitting on the outskirts of a town? My husband calls me Skobele,3 as it is.⁠ ⁠… Again, once in a while I get to longing for Vanniya. Never a bit of news about him in twenty years. Maybe he’s died long since, but I don’t know about it. I even felt sorry for him that time they brought him in. We dragged him in, and got him up into bed⁠—he slept like he was dead the livelong day. I’d climb up, and listen to his breathing⁠—to see if he was alive, now.⁠ ⁠… And in the room there was a sour stench of some sort; he’s lying in bed, all tattered, chewed-up, snoring and gagging.⁠ ⁠… It was a shame and a pity to look at him, and yet it was my own flesh and blood! I’d look and I’d look, and I’d listen⁠—and then walk out. And what an anguish seized hold on me! I forced myself to sup, cleared away the table, put out the light.⁠ ⁠… Can’t sleep, and that’s all there is to it⁠—I just lie there and shiver.⁠ ⁠… And it was one moonlit night. Then I hear