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

up the fire whilst I am out, or else you’ll burn us out in your drunkenness.”

The muzhik came to with a start.

“Lordy!” he exclaimed, in hurt tones. “Little mistress! How can youse say that.⁠ ⁠… You’ve grown aweary for your husband, never fear?”

“That’s none of your worry,” said the mistress. “He’s in town, on business.⁠ ⁠… He don’t go traipsing around no inns.”

“You’d go traipsing, too!” said the muzhik.

“Well, what would you have me do, now⁠—go out on the wayside, or what? You rich devils are all right.⁠ ⁠…”

The mistress, picking up a milk-pail, went out. It was growing dark in the hut; everything was quiet, and the roseate light was suffused in the soft, spring obscurity. The muzhik, with his elbows on the table, was dozing, as he pulled at an extinguished, crudely made cigarette. The beggar was sitting peacefully, with never a sound, leaning against the dark partition, and his face was almost invisible.

“Do you drink beer?” asked the muzhik.

“I do,” came the low answer out of the dusk.

The muzhik was silent for a while.

“We are vagabones, you and me” said he, morosely and meditatively. “Poor wayside rubbish.⁠ ⁠… Beggar-men.⁠ ⁠… I feel weary in your company!”

“That’s right.⁠ ⁠…”

“But as for beer⁠—I like it,” said the muzhik loudly, after another silence. “She don’t keep it, the carrion! Otherwise I would have drunk some beer⁠ ⁠… and would have had a snack of something.⁠ ⁠… My tongue’s all soaked⁠—I want to eat.⁠ ⁠… I would have had a snack and drunk something.⁠ ⁠… Yes.⁠ ⁠… But she, the mistress, ain’t got such a bad face! If I was harnessed up with one like her, I would.⁠ ⁠… All right, never mind, sit down, sit down⁠ ⁠… I got respect for the blind. Whenever a grand holiday used to come around, I would take twenty of these here blind men, now, and seat them at table⁠—you would have had to look and look to find another household like ours! And they would sing a stave for me, and make me a bow to boot.⁠ ⁠… Do you know how to sing staves? About Alexei, the Man of God? I do take to that stave. Pick up your cup⁠—I’ll treat you to some of mine.”

Having taken the cup from the beggar’s hands, he held it up to the faint light of the evening glow and half-filled it. The beggar got up, made a low bow, drained the cup to the bottom, and again sat down. The muzhik dragged the beggar’s bag upon his knees, and, untying it, began to mutter:

“I sized you up at once⁠ ⁠… I’ve got enough money of my own, brother; you’re no mate for me.⁠ ⁠… I go through my money in cold blood⁠ ⁠… I drink it away⁠ ⁠… I drink away a horse a year, and send a good ram up in smoke.⁠ ⁠… Aha! So you’ve run up against a bit of a muzhik⁠—do you understand who I am? But still, I feel sorry for you. I understand! There’s thousands of the likes of you roaming about in springtime.⁠ ⁠… There’s mire, and sloughs, and never a path or a road⁠—but you’ve got to keep on going, bowing before everybody.⁠ ⁠… And you can’t never tell whether they’ll give you anything or no.⁠ ⁠… Eh, brother! Don’t I understand you?” asked the muzhik with bitter sorrow, and his eyes filled with tears.

“No, this time of the year is not so bad, it’s all right,” said the beggar quietly. “You walk along a field, over a big, abandoned tract that had once been planned for a road.⁠ ⁠… All alone, with never another soul nigh.⁠ ⁠… Then, too, there’s the dear sun, and the warm weather.⁠ ⁠… True, there’s many a thousand of the likes of me roaming about. Half of Russia is roaming so.”

“I’ve drunk away two horses,” said the muzhik, raking the crusts out of the bag, pulling out a waistcoat, the calico, the trousers, and a bast shoe. “I’m goin’ to go all through all your miserable pickings, and old rags.⁠ ⁠… Hold on! Pants! I must buy them from you, soon as I come into a little money.⁠ ⁠… How much?”

The beggar thought for a while.

“Why, I’d let it go for two.⁠ ⁠…”

“I’ll give you three!” said the muzhik, getting up, placing the trousers under him, and sitting down upon them. “They’re mine! But where’s the other shoe? It will pass for new⁠—that means you must have stolen it, for sure. But then, it’s better to be thieving, than to be grieving your heart out in the springtime, the way I am a-doing now; to be perishing from hunger, to be coming to the end of your rope⁠—when you take the very least of the shepherds, and you’ll find him at work.⁠ ⁠… I have drunk a horse away⁠—but a beastie like that is worth more nor any man.⁠ ⁠… But am I no ploughman, no reaper?⁠ ⁠… And now you sing a stave, or I’ll kill you right off!” he cried out. “I feel weary in your company!”

In a quavering, modest, but a practiced voice the beggar began to sing out of the obscurity:

“Once upon a time there lived and were two brethren⁠—
Two blood-brethren, two brethren in God and Christ⁠ ⁠…”

“Eh, two brethren in God and Christ!” the muzhik chimed in, in a high-pitched and piteous tone, straining his voice.

The beggar, with even churchly chanting, continued:

“One dwelt in cold and poverty,
Rotting in his leprosy.⁠ ⁠…”

“And the o-other was rich!” out of tune, drowning out the beggar, with tears in his voice, the muzhik caught up the song. “Put more heart in it!” he cried out, as his voice broke. “Grief has swallowed me up; all men are having a holiday, all men are sowing⁠—but here I be, biting the earth; it’s the second spring that my mother earth has been barren.⁠ ⁠… Let me have your cup, or I’ll kill you right off! Open the window for me!”

And again the beggar submissively gave him his cup. Then he started to open the window. Being new, it had swollen and would not yield for a long while. Finally it did yield, and flew