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

“Well, and how go things in the village⁠—with you, I mean?” asked Kornéy.

“Why, not up to much.”

“How’s that?⁠ ⁠… And is my old mother still alive?”

“The old woman’s alive. She was at church t’other day. She’s alive, and so is your missis.⁠ ⁠… She’s right enough. She’s taken a new labourer.”

And Kouzmá laughed in a queer way, as it seemed to Kornéy.

“A labourer? Why, what’s become of Peter?”

“Peter fell ill. She’s taken Justin from Kámenka⁠—from her own village, you see.”

“Dear me!” said Kornéy.

When Kornéy was courting Martha, there had been some talk among the womenfolk about this Justin.

“Ah, yes, Kornéy Vasílyef!” Kouzmá went on; “the women have got quite out of hand nowadays.”

“No doubt about it,” muttered Kornéy. “But your grey horse has grown old,” he added, wishing to change the subject.

“I am not young myself. He matches his master,” answered Kouzmá, touching up the shaggy, bowlegged gelding with his whip.

Halfway to the village was an inn where Kornéy, having told Kouzmá to stop, went in. Kouzmá led his horses to an empty manger, and stood pulling the harness straight, without looking Kornéy’s way, but expecting to be called in to have a drink.

“Come in, won’t you, Daddy Kouzmá?” said Kornéy, coming out into the porch. “Come in and have a glass.”

“I don’t mind if I do,” answered Kouzmá, pretending not to be in a hurry.

Kornéy ordered a bottle of vodka, and offered some to Kouzmá. Kouzmá, who had eaten nothing since morning, soon got intoxicated; and immediately sidling up to Kornéy, began to repeat in a whisper what was being said in the village⁠—namely, that Kornéy’s wife, Martha, had taken on her former lover as labourer, and was now living with him.

“What’s it to me?⁠ ⁠… But I’m sorry for you,” said tipsy Kouzmá. “It’s not nice, and people are laughing. One sees she’s not afraid of sinning. ‘But,’ thinks I, ‘just you wait a bit! Presently your man will come back!’⁠ ⁠… That’s how it is, brother Kornéy.”

Kornéy listened in silence to Kouzmá’s words, and his thick eyebrows descended lower and lower over his sparkling jet-black eyes.

“Are you going to water your horses?” was all he said, when the bottle was empty. “No? Then let’s get on!”

He paid the landlord, and went out.

It was dusk before he reached home. The first person he met there was this same Justin, about whom he had not been able to help thinking all the way home. Kornéy said, “How do you do?” to this thin, pale-faced, bustling Justin, but then shook his head doubtfully.

“That old hound, Kouzmá, has been lying,” thought he. “But who knows? Anyhow, I’ll find out all about it.”

Kouzmá stood beside the horses, winking towards Justin with his one eye.

“So you are living here?” Kornéy inquired.

“Why not? One must work somewhere,” Justin replied.

“Is our room heated?”

“Why, of course! Martha Matvéyevna is there,” answered Justin.

Kornéy went up the steps of the porch. Hearing his voice, Martha came out into the passage, and, seeing her husband, she flushed, and greeted him hurriedly and with special tenderness.

“Mother and I had almost given up waiting for you,” she said, following him into the room.

“Well, and how have you been getting on without me?”

“We go on in the same old way,” she answered; and snatching up her two-year-old daughter, who was pulling at her skirts and asking for milk, she went with large firm strides back into the passage.

Kornéy’s mother (whose black eyes resembled her son’s) entered the room, dragging her feet in their thick felt boots.

“Glad you’ve come to see us,” said she, nodding her shaking head.

Kornéy told his mother what business had brought him, and remembering Kouzmá, went out to pay him.

Hardly had he opened the door into the passage, when, right in front of him by the door leading into the yard, he saw Martha and Justin. They were standing close together, and she was speaking to him. Seeing Kornéy, Justin scuttled into the yard, and Martha went up to the samovar standing there, and began adjusting the roaring chimney put on to make it draw.

Kornéy passed silently behind her stooping back, and, taking his portmanteau and bundle out of the sledge, asked Kouzmá into the house to drink tea. Before tea, Kornéy gave his family the presents he had brought from Moscow: for his mother, a woollen shawl; for his boy Fédka, a picture-book; for his dumb nephew, a waistcoat; and for his wife, print for a dress.

At the tea-table Kornéy sat sullen and silent, only now and then smiling reluctantly at the dumb lad, who amused everybody by his delight at the new waistcoat. He did not know what to do for joy. He put it away, unfolded it again, put it on, and smilingly kissed his hand, looking gratefully at Kornéy.

After tea and supper, Kornéy went at once to the part of the hut where he slept with Martha and their little daughter. Martha remained in the larger half of the hut to clear away the tea-things. Kornéy sat by himself at the table, leant his head on his hand, and waited. Rising anger towards his wife stirred within him. He took down a counting-frame from a nail in the wall, drew his notebook from his pocket, and to divert his thoughts began making up his accounts. He sat reckoning, looking towards the door, and listening to the voices in the other half of the house.

Several times he heard the door go, and steps in the passage, but not hers. At last he heard her step and a pull at the door, which yielded. She entered, rosy and handsome, with a red kerchief on her head, carrying her little girl in her arms.

“You must be tired out after your journey,” said she, smiling, as if not noticing his sullen looks.

Kornéy glanced at her, and, without replying, again began calculating, though he had nothing more to count.

“It’s getting late,” she said, and, setting down the child, she went behind the partition. He could hear her making the bed and putting her