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

On St. Thomas’ week, on a clear evening barely tinged with rose, at that enchanting time when the earth has just been freed from the snow, when, in the little hollows upon the steppes, underneath the young bare oaks, some gray, hardened snow still lingers, an old beggar was going from house to house in a certain village in the Eletz province⁠—of course, he had no hat, and there was a long linen wallet slung over his shoulder.

This village was a large one, but quiet, lying far out among the fields. And besides, it happened to be a quiet evening. There was nobody near the flooded, clayey pond, that one could not see the limits of; nor upon the level common where, in the shade of the huts and hayricks, this old man was walking. His head was bald, yet still black-haired; he held a long walnut staff in his hand, and looked like a primitive bishop. The common was of a clear, vivid green; the air was freshening; the pond, concavely-full, its tone that of a flashing flesh colour, was slightly crimson, and there was a certain beauty about it, despite a bottle-green block of ice, covered with rusty manure, that still floated about in it. Somewheres on the other side, warmly and caressingly lit up against the low-lying sun⁠—somewhere far-off, it seemed⁠—a child, strayed behind some corn-kiln or storehouse, was crying, and its plaintive, monotonous wailing was not unpleasant to the ear in the evening glow.⁠ ⁠… But the folk thereabouts were none too generous of alms.

There, at the entrance to the village, near an old, well-to-do farm, where age-old oaks covered with the nests of rooks stood beyond the three-roomed izba of dark-red brick, a young gray-eyed married woman had given something, but even that had been a trifle. She had been standing near the stone threshold amid the drying spring mire upon a hard-beaten path, holding a pretty little girl, whose little eyes did not show any glimmer of intelligence, perched in her arms; the child had on a little patchwork cap, and, pressing her close against her, the woman was dancing, stamping her bare feet, and, as she turned, her cotton skirt would swell out.

“There’s an old man; I’ll give you to him to put in his little wallet,” she was saying through her teeth, her lips feasting on the little girl’s cheeks:

“I’m a-goin’ to dance
So’s the floor will creak.⁠ ⁠…”

And, turning, completely around, she changed her voice to a ringing, coquettish tone, evidently imitative of someone:

“Old man, old man⁠—don’t you need a little girl?”

The girl was not a bit frightened; she was calmly sucking a round cracknel, and the mother began coaxing the little girl, in all sorts of ways, to give it to the smiling beggar who had come up:

“Give it to him, my little babe, give it to him; for you and I are all, all alone on this whole farm; so we have nothing to give alms with.⁠ ⁠…”

And the little girl stolidly stretched out her short little arm, with the saliva-moistened cookie clenched in her little fist. And the beggar, smilingly shaking his head at other folks’ happiness, took it and munched it as he went on his way.

He held his stick lightly, in readiness, as he went; now it would be a wicked, snarling watchdog that would roll up in a ball underneath your feet⁠—and having rolled right up to you, would suddenly become quiet; or else a yellow, downy hound would ferociously tear the ground and throw it up with his hind feet, standing near a hay rick and growling, growling and gasping, with fiery eyes.⁠ ⁠… Upon approaching the little window of a hut, the beggar would make a humble bow and would tap lightly against the frame with his staff. But often no one would respond to this tap; many were still finishing up their sowing, finishing up their plowing, many were out in the fields. And his soul, the soul of a peasant from of old, even rejoiced in secret: the folks are out in the field⁠ ⁠… this is the time that feeds the whole year⁠ ⁠… no time for beggars.⁠ ⁠… And at times, on the other side of the panes upon which the beggar tapped, a fair-faced peasant woman carrying a child at breast in her arms, would lean over as she sat on a bench. Through the sorry little window, she appeared very big. Not at all abashed because the beggar could see her soft breast, as white as wheat-flour, she would wave him away with her large hand, covered with silver rings, while the infant, without letting the sweet nipple out of its mouth, lay back and looked up at her with its dark, clear eyes, scratching hard its bare little outspread legs, all dotted with pink from flea-bites. “God will give you alms⁠—don’t be angry with us,” the peasant woman would say calmly. As for the old women, each one of them would wrinkle up her face painfully, inevitably leaning out and complaining for a long time, constantly reiterating that she’d be glad as glad could be to give alms, but there wasn’t anything⁠ ⁠… everybody was out in the fields⁠ ⁠… and to give without asking she was afraid⁠—she, being an old woman, had had her head bitten off long ago, as it was.⁠ ⁠… The beggar would agree with her, would say, “Well, forgive me, for the love of God,” and would go on farther.

He had done thirty versts9 that day, and was not a bit fatigued; only his legs had grown benumbed, dulled, and had begun to wobble. His long bag was half-filled with crusts and some odds and ends; while under the patched long coat, narrow belted and long skirted, under the sheepskin jacket and the much worn blouse, under the shirt next his skin, there