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

and he knew no one, so he decided to return home to his son.

“That wicked wife of mine may be dead by now,” thought he as he journeyed homewards; “or if she’s still alive, I’ll tell her everything before I die, that the wretch may know what she has done to me.”

The fever-attacks came on every other day. He grew weaker and weaker, so that he could not walk more than eight or ten miles. When still a hundred and fifty miles from home, he had no money at all left, and had to beg his way in Christ’s name, and to sleep where the village officials lodged him.

“Rejoice at what you have brought me to,” said he, mentally addressing his wife, and from habit he clenched his feeble old fists. But there was no one to strike, and his fists had no strength left in them.

It took him a fortnight to walk those last hundred and fifty miles. Quite ill and worn out, he reached the place three miles from home, where he met Agatha, who was wrongly considered to be his daughter, and whose arm he had broken.

III

He did as Agatha suggested. On reaching the Zinóvyefs’ house he asked leave to spend the night there. They let him in.

On entering the hut he, as usual, crossed himself before the icon, and greeted his hosts.

“You’re frozen, daddy! Get up onto the oven!” said the wrinkled cheerful old housewife, clearing away the things on the table.

Agatha’s husband, a young-looking peasant, sat on a bench by the table, trimming the lamp.

“How wet you are, daddy!” said he. “Well, it can’t be helped. Make haste and dry yourself!”

Kornéy took off his coat, bared his feet, hung his leg-bands up to dry near the oven, and himself climbed onto the top of it.

Agatha entered the hut, carrying a jug. She had already driven the herd home, and had attended to the cattle.

“Has an old pilgrim been here?” asked she. “I met one, and told him to call.”

“There he is,” said her husband, pointing to the oven, on which sat Kornéy, rubbing his lean and hairy legs.

When tea was ready, they asked Kornéy to join them. He climbed down, and seated himself at the end of a bench. They handed him a cup of tea and a piece of sugar.

The talk was about the weather and the harvest. There was no getting the corn in. The landowner’s sheaves were sprouting in the fields. As soon as one started carting them, down came the rain again. The peasants had pretty well got theirs in, but the landowner’s corn was rotting like mad. And the mice in the sheaves were just dreadful!

Kornéy told of a field he had seen as he came along which was still full of sheaves.

The young housewife poured him out a fifth cup of the weak, pale yellow tea, and handed it to him.

“Never mind if it is your fifth, daddy, it will do you good,” said she, when he made as if to refuse it.

“How is it your arm is not all right?” he asked her, twitching his eyebrows, and carefully taking the full cup she handed him.

“It was broken when she was still a baby⁠—her father wanted to kill our Agatha,” said the talkative old mother-in-law.

“What was that for?” asked Kornéy. And, looking at the young housewife’s face, he suddenly remembered Justin with his light blue eyes, and the hand in which he held his cup shook so that he spilt half the tea before he could set it on the table.

“Why, her father⁠—who lived at Gáyi⁠—was a man named Kornéy Vasílyef. He was well-to-do; and high and mighty with his wife. He beat her and injured the child.”

Kornéy was silent, glancing, from under his continually twitching black eyebrows, first at the husband and then at Agatha.

“What did he do that for?” asked he, biting a morsel off his piece of sugar.

“Who knows? Tales of all sorts get told about us women, and we have to answer for them all,” said the old woman. “They had some row about their labourer.⁠ ⁠… The man was a good fellow from our village. He died afterwards at their house.”

“He died?” asked Kornéy, and cleared his throat.

“Died long ago. From them we took my daughter-in-law. They were well off. When the husband was alive they were the richest folk in the village.”

“And what became of him?” asked Kornéy.

“He died, too, I suppose. He disappeared at the time⁠—some fifteen years ago now.”

“It must be more. Mother used to tell me she had not long weaned me when it happened.”

“And don’t you bear a grudge against him, because of your arm?” began Kornéy⁠—with a sob.

“No! Wasn’t he my father? It’s not as if some stranger had done it.⁠ ⁠… Have another cup, after being so cold. Shall I pour it out for you?”

Kornéy did not reply, but burst into tears and sobs.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing⁠—nothing. May Christ reward you!”

And with trembling hands Kornéy took hold of the bunk and the post supporting it, and with his long thin legs climbed onto the oven.

“There, now!” said the old housewife to her son, making a sign in the direction of their visitor.

IV

Next day Kornéy was the first to rise. He climbed down from the top of the oven, rubbed his dried and stiffened leg-bands, painfully drew on his mud-clogged boots, and slung the wallet onto his back.

“Why, daddy, you’d better have some breakfast,” said the old housewife.

“The Lord bless you!⁠ ⁠… I’ll be going.”

“Well, then, at least take some of yesterday’s cakes with you. I’ll put them into your wallet.”

Kornéy thanked her, and took his leave.

“Call in when you return. If we are still alive⁠ ⁠…”

Outside everything was wrapped in dense autumn fog, but Kornéy knew the way well; he knew every descent and ascent, every bush, and all the willows along the road, right and left⁠—though during the last seventeen years some had been cut down and from old had become young