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

again, while others that had been young had grown old.

The village of Gáyi was still the same, though some new houses had been built at the end, where none stood before; and some of the wooden houses had been replaced by brick ones. His own brick house had not changed except to grow older. The iron roof had long needed repainting, some bricks had been knocked away at one corner, and the porch leaned to one side.

As he approached the house that had been his, the gates creaked, and out came a mare with its foal, a roan gelding, and a two-year-old colt. The old roan was just like the mare Kornéy had bought at the fair the year before he left home.

“It must be the very one she was in foal with at the time. It’s got just her slanting haunches, broad chest, and shaggy legs,” thought he.

A black-eyed boy, wearing new bark shoes, was taking the horses to water.

“It must be Fédka’s boy⁠—my grandson⁠—he’s got just his black eyes,” thought Kornéy.

The boy glanced at the old stranger and ran after the colt that was frisking in the mud. A dog as black as old Wolfey followed the boy.

“Can it be Wolfey?” thought he, and remembered that Wolfey would have been twenty by now. He came to the porch, ascended with difficulty the steps on which he had sat that night swallowing snow from the handrail, and opened the door leading into the passage.

“Where are you shoving to, without leave?” came a woman’s voice from inside. He recognized her voice. And then she herself, a withered, sinewy, wrinkled woman, looked out of the room. Kornéy had expected to see the young and handsome Martha, who had offended him so deeply. He hated her, and wished to reproach her, but now this old woman appeared in her stead.

“If it’s alms you want, ask at the window,” she said, in a shrill, harsh voice.

“No, it’s not alms,” said Kornéy.

“Well, what is it you do want? Eh?”

She stopped suddenly; and by her face he saw that she recognized him.

“There are plenty of the likes of you loafing about! Go away, go away⁠ ⁠… in Heaven’s name!”

Kornéy fell back against the wall, supporting himself with his staff, and looked intently at her. He was surprised to find that he no longer felt the anger he had nursed against her all these years, but that a mixed feeling of tenderness and languor had suddenly overcome him.

“Martha!⁠ ⁠… We shall have to die soon⁠ ⁠…”

“Go⁠ ⁠… go, in Heaven’s name!” said she, rapidly and angrily.

“Is that all you have to say?”

“I have nothing to say,” she answered. “Go⁠ ⁠… for Heaven’s sake! Go, go!⁠ ⁠… There are plenty of you ne’er-do-well devils loafing about!”

She hurriedly re-entered the room, and slammed the door.

“Why scold?” he heard a man say; and a dark peasant⁠—such as Kornéy had been forty years before, only shorter and thinner, but with the same sparkling black eyes⁠—came out, with an axe stuck in his belt.

This was that same Fédka to whom, seventeen years before, he had given a picture-book. It was he who was now reproaching his mother for showing no pity to the beggar. With him came the dumb nephew, also with an axe at his belt. He was now a grown man, wrinkled and sinewy, with a thin beard, long neck, and a determined, penetrating glance. Both men had just finished their breakfast, and were going to the woods.

“Wait a bit, daddy,” said Fédka, and, turning to his dumb companion, he pointed first to the old man and then to the room, and made a movement as if cutting bread.

Fédka went into the street, and the dumb man returned to the room. Kornéy, his head hanging down, still stood in the passage, leaning against the wall and supporting himself on his staff. He felt quite weak, and could hardly check his sobs. The dumb man returned from the room with a large chunk of fresh, sweet-smelling black bread, which he gave to Kornéy. When Kornéy, having crossed himself, took the bread, the dumb man turned towards the room door, passed his hands before his face, and made as though he spat⁠—thereby expressing his disapproval of his aunt’s conduct. Suddenly he stopped dead, opened his mouth, and fixed his eyes on Kornéy as though he recognized him. Kornéy could no longer restrain his tears; and, wiping his eyes, nose, and grey beard on the skirt of his coat, turned away and went out into the porch.

He was overcome by a strange feeling of tenderness, elation, humility and meekness towards all men: to her, to his son, to everybody; and this feeling rent his soul with pain and joy.

Martha looked out of the window, and breathed freely only when she saw the old man disappear behind the corner of the house.

When she was sure he had gone, she sat down at her loom and began weaving. Some ten times she struck with the batten, but her hands would not obey her. She stopped, and began thinking, and recalling Kornéy as she had just seen him. She knew it was he who had nearly killed her, and who, before that, had loved her; and she was frightened at what she had just done. She had not done right. But how should she have treated him? He had not even said that he was Kornéy, and that he had come home. And she again took the shuttle, and went on weaving till evening.

V

Kornéy with difficulty dragged himself back to Andréyevo by the evening, and again asked permission to stay the night at the Zinóvyefs’. They let him in.

“So you’ve not gone on, daddy?”

“No, I felt too weak. It seems I shall have to go back. Will you let me stay the night?”

“Oh yes! You’ll not wear out the spot you lie on. Come in and get dry.”

All night Kornéy shivered with fever. Towards morning he dozed off, and when he awoke the family had all gone