Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

holiday. The bread had to come out of the oven before daybreak, kvass had to be made, cakes baked, the cow milked, dresses and shirts ironed, the children washed, and the neighbour not allowed to take up the whole of the oven. So Akoulína, still listening, set to work.

It had grown light, and the church bells were ringing. The children were up, and Polikéy had still not returned. A little snow had fallen the day before, and lay in patches on the fields, on the road, and on the roofs; and now, as if in honour of the feast, the day was fair, sunny and frosty, so that one could see far and hear far.

But Akoulína, standing by the brick oven, her head thrust into the opening in front, was so busy with her cakes that she did not hear Polikéy drive up, and knew only from the children’s shouting that her husband had returned.

Annie, as the eldest, had greased her hair and dressed herself without help. She wore a new but crumpled print dress⁠—a present from the proprietress. It stuck out as stiff as if it were made of bark, and was a thorn in the neighbours’ eyes; her hair was shining; she had smeared half an inch of tallow candle onto it. Her shoes, though not new, were respectable. Mary was still wrapped in the old jacket, and was covered with mud; and Annie would not let her come near for fear of getting dirtied. Mary was outside. She saw her father drive up, bringing a sack.

“Daddy has come!” she shrieked, and rushed headlong in at the door, past Annie, dirtying her. Annie, no longer fearing the dirt, went for her at once and hit her. Akoulína could not leave her work, and only shouted at the children: “Now, then⁠ ⁠… I’ll whip you all!” and glowered round at the door.

Polikéy came in with the bag, and at once passed through to his own cubicle.

It seemed to Akoulína that he was pale, and his face looked as if he were either smiling or crying, but she had no time to find out which it was.

“Well, Polikéy, is it all right?” she called to him from the oven.

Polikéy muttered something that she did not understand.

“Eh?” she cried. “Have you been to the mistress?”

Polikéy was sitting on the bed in their cubicle, looking wildly round him, and smiling his guilty, deeply sorrowful smile. He did not answer for a long time.

“Eh, Polikéy? Why so long?” came Akoulína’s voice.

“Yes, Akoulína, I have handed the lady her money. How she thanked me!” he said suddenly, and began looking round and smiling still more uneasily. Two things attracted his feverishly staring eyes: the baby, and a rope attached to the cradle.

He came up to where the cradle hung, and began hastily undoing the knot of the rope with his thin fingers. Then his eyes fixed themselves on the baby; but when Akoulína entered, carrying a board full of cakes, Polikéy quickly hid the rope in his bosom and sat down on the bed.

“What is it, Polikéy? You seem not yourself,” said Akoulína.

“Haven’t slept,” he answered.

Suddenly something flitted past the window, and in a moment Aksyúta, the maid from “up there,” darted in like an arrow.

“The mistress orders Polikéy to come this minute,” she said⁠—“this minute, Avdótya Nikoláyevna’s orders are⁠ ⁠… this minute!”

Polikéy looked at Akoulína, then at the girl.

“I’m coming. What can she want?” he said, so simply that Akoulína grew quieter. “Perhaps she wants to reward me. Tell her I’m coming.”

He rose and went out. Akoulína took the washing-trough, put it on a bench, filled it with water from the pails which stood by the door and from the boiler in the oven, rolled up her sleeves, and felt the water.

“Come, Mary, I’ll wash you.”

The cross, lisping little girl began howling.

“Come, you slattern! I’ll give you a clean smock. Now then, don’t make a fuss! Come along.⁠ ⁠… I’ve still your brother to wash.”

Meanwhile Polikéy had not followed the maid from “up there,” but had gone to a very different place. In the passage, by the wall, was a stepladder leading to the garret. Polikéy, when he came out, looked round, and not seeing anyone climbed that ladder almost at a run, nimbly and hurriedly.

“What can it mean that Polikéy does not come?” asked the mistress impatiently of Dounyásha, who was dressing her hair. “Where is Polikéy? Why has he not come?”

Aksyúta again flew to the serfs’ quarters, and again rushed into the passage, calling Polikéy to her mistress.

“Why, he went long ago,” answered Akoulína, who, having washed Mary, had just put her baby-boy into the washing-trough, and was moistening his thin short hair, regardless of his cries. The boy screamed, puckered his face, and tried to catch hold of something with his helpless little hands. Akoulína supported his plump, dimpled little back with one large hand, while washing him with the other.

“See if he has not fallen asleep somewhere,” said she, looking round anxiously.

Just then the joiner’s wife, with her hair undone and her dress unfastened, and holding up her skirts, went up into the garret to get some things she had hung up to dry there. Suddenly a cry of horror filled the garret, and the joiner’s wife, with her eyes closed, came down the steps on all fours, backwards, sliding rather than running, like a madwoman.

“Polikéy!⁠ ⁠…” she screamed.

Akoulína let go the baby.

“Strangled!” bellowed the joiner’s wife.

Akoulína, paying no heed to the baby, who rolled over like a ball and fell backwards, with his little legs in the air and his head under water, rushed out into the passage.

“On a rafter⁠ ⁠… hanging!” the joiner’s wife ejaculated, but stopped when she saw Akoulína.

Akoulína darted up the steps, and before anyone could stop her she was at the top; but from there with a terrible cry she fell back like a corpse; and would have been killed if the people who had come running from every cubicle had not been in time to catch her.