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

growing more cheerful and unconstrained again, when Doútlof saw Egór Miháylovitch, seized on him at once, and began to beg and bow to him.

Egór Miháylovitch helped him so efficiently that by about three o’clock, to his great dissatisfaction and surprise, the volunteer was taken into the hall and placed for examination, and amid general merriment (in which for some reason everybody joined, from the watchmen to the President), he was undressed, dressed again, shaved, and let out at the door; and five minutes later Doútlof counted out the money, received the receipt, and, having taken leave of the volunteer and his master, went to the lodging-house where the Pokróvsk recruits were staying.

Elijah and his young wife were sitting in a corner of the kitchen; and as soon as the old man came in they stopped talking, and looked at him with a resigned expression, but not with goodwill. As was his wont, the old man said a prayer; and he then unfastened his girdle, got out a paper, and called into the room his eldest son Ignát and Elijah’s mother, who was in the yard.

“Don’t go sinning, Elijah,” he said, coming up to his nephew. “The other day you said a word to me.⁠ ⁠… Don’t I care about you? I remember how my brother left you to me. If it were in my power, would I have let you go? God has sent me luck, and I am not grudging it you.⁠ ⁠… Here it is, the paper”; and he put the receipt on the table, and carefully smoothed it out with his stiff, crooked fingers.

All the Pokróvsk peasants, the innkeeper’s men, and even some outsiders, came in from the yard. All guessed what was happening, and no one interrupted the old man’s solemn speech.

“Here it is, the paper! I’ve given four hundred roubles for it. Don’t reproach your uncle.”

Elijah rose, but remained silent, not knowing what to say. His lips quivered with emotion. His old mother came up, and was about to throw herself, sobbing, on his neck; but the old man motioned her away slowly and authoritatively, and continued to speak.

“You said a word to me yesterday,” the old man again repeated. “You stabbed me to the heart with that word, as with a knife! Your dying father left you to me, and you have been as my own son to me, and if I have offended you in any way⁠—well, we all live in sin! Is it not so, Orthodox Christians?” he said, turning to the peasants who stood round. “Here is your own mother and your young missis⁠ ⁠… and here is the receipt.⁠ ⁠… Never mind the money, and forgive me, for Christ’s sake!”

And, turning up the skirts of his coat, he slowly sank on his knees and bowed down before Elijah and his wife. The young people tried in vain to stop him, but not till his forehead had touched the ground did he get up. Then, after giving his skirts a shake, he sat down.

Elijah’s mother and wife sobbed with joy, and words of approbation were heard among the crowd. “That’s according to truth, that’s the godly way,” said one. “What’s money? You can’t buy a fellow for money,” said another. “What joy!” said a third; “in a word, he’s a just man!” Only the recruits said nothing, and went softly out into the yard.

Two hours later Doútlof’s two carts were passing out of the suburb of the town. In the first, to which was harnessed the grey mare, her sides fallen in and her neck moist with sweat, sat the old man and Ignát. Behind them jerked a couple of bundles, containing a small cauldron and a string of ring-shaped cakes. In the second cart, in which nobody held the reins, the young wife and her mother-in-law, with shawls over their heads, were sitting, dignified and happy. The former held a bottle of vodka under her apron. Elijah, very red in the face, sat all in a heap with his back to the horse, jolting on the front of the cart, biting into a cake and talking incessantly. The voices, the rumbling of the cartwheels on the stony road, and the snorting of the horses blent into one merry sound. The horses, swishing their tails, increased their speed more and more, feeling themselves on the homeward road. The passersby involuntarily turned round to look at the happy family party.

At the very outskirts of the town, the Doútlofs began to overtake a party of recruits. A group of them were standing in a circle outside a public-house. One of the recruits, with that unnatural expression on his face which comes of having the front of the head shaved, his grey cap pushed back, was vigorously strumming on a balalaika; another, bareheaded and with a bottle of vodka in his hand, was dancing inside the circle. Ignát got down to tighten the traces. All the Doútlofs looked with curiosity, approval, and merriment at the dancer. The recruit seemed not to see anyone, but felt that the numbers of the admiring public had increased, and this added to his strength and agility. He danced briskly. His brows were frowning, his ruddy face was set, and his lips were fixed in a grin that had long since lost all meaning. It seemed as if all the strength of his soul was concentrated on placing one foot as quickly as possible after the other, now on the heel, now on the toe. Sometimes he stopped suddenly and winked to the player, who began playing still more briskly, strumming on all the strings, and even knocking the case with his knuckles. The recruit would stop, but even when he stood motionless he still seemed to be dancing. Then he began slowly jerking his shoulders, and suddenly twirling round leaped in the air, and descending crouched down, throwing out first one leg and then the other. The little boys laughed, the women shook their heads, the men smiled approvingly. An old sergeant