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

“Well, wench, I’m my own master now; let’s save up some money. As soon as we save it up, we’ll go to the city, buy a house all to our own selves; I’ll marry you off to a fine gentleman, and live like a king. As for our masters, it’s no use sticking here with them⁠—they ain’t worth it.”

Our masters, now⁠—although, to tell the truth, they were good and kind⁠—was the poorest of the poor; actual beggars, you might say. And so we went away from them to another settlement; as for the house, the cattle, and whatever household goods we had, we sold them. We moved right near to the city, and hired a cabbage patch from a lady by the name of Meshcherina. She had been a fräulein in the Tsar’s court; she was plain, freckled, and had grown gray as a maid⁠—nobody would take her to wife, so she lived in retirement. So, then, we hired the meadows from her, and settled down in our little hut, all peaceful and quiet. The weather’s chill; fall is coming on⁠—but little we care! We sit and wait for good profits and never feel trouble coming along. But the trouble was right there⁠—and what trouble, at that! Our venture was drawing near the winding up, when suddenly something terrible happens. We had had our tea in the morning⁠—it was a holiday⁠—so I stood, just so, near the hut, watching the folks coming from church over the meadow. As for my daddy, he had gone to see about the cabbages. It was a sort of a bright day, even though it was windy, and so I was gaping and didn’t notice that there was two men approaching me. One was the priest⁠—so tall, you know, in a gray cassock and carrying a stick; his face was dark, earthy; he’s got a mane like any fine horse, just simply spreading out in the wind. The other was just a common peasant⁠—his farm hand. They walked right up to the hut; I got confused, made him a bow, and says:

“How do you do, Father? Thanks for thinking of us and calling.”

But he, I see, is angry, sullen, doesn’t even look at me; he just stands and breaks up clods with his stock.

“And where,” says he, “is your father?”

“They’ve gone to the cabbage field,” says I. “If you like, now, I can call them. But there he’s coming, himself.”

“Well, you just tell him to take away whatever goods he’s got, together with this dinky little samovar, and get away from here. My watchman is coming here today.”

“What do you mean, a watchman? Why, we have already given the lady the money, ninety roubles it was. What do you mean, Father?” (Though I was young, I knew just what was what in such things.) “Are you joking, or something?” I says. “You ought to produce some proper paper,” I says.

“No talk out of you!” he yells. “The owner is going to live in the city; I’ve bought the meadows from her, and now the land is my own property!”

But he, himself, waves his arms about, knocks his stick against the ground⁠—like as not to hit you in the snout any minute.

Father sees these goings-on, and starts running toward us⁠—he was awful hotheaded. He runs up and asks:

“What’s all this noise about? What are you yelling at her for, Father, without knowing yourself what’s what? You oughtn’t to be shaking your stick, but ought to come right out and explain by what sort of right the cabbages have come to be yours? We are poor folks, now, we can go to court about it. You,” he says, “are a person in holy orders; you can’t hold no enmity against nobody; your kind can’t touch the holy sacrament if you do.”

Father, you understand, hadn’t said as much as one saucy word to him; but the other, though he was a pastor, was as wicked as the most ordinary drab muzhik; and so, when he heard that kind of talk, he just grew pale⁠—not a word could he say, but you could just see his legs quivering under his cassock. And then, don’t he let out a squeal, and don’t he go for father⁠—to hit him over the head, you understand! But father got from under it, grabbed the stick, tore it out of the priest’s hands, and then went smash! over his knee with it. The other tried to grapple with him, but father breaks it in halves, flings the pieces away as far as he can and calls out:

“Don’t come near me, for God’s sake, your reverence! You,” he calls out, “are black and like a beetle, but I am still more of a beetle than you be.”

And then he grabs him by the arms!

What with courts and law, father was sent to a convict colony for this here thing. I was left all alone in this world, and thinks I, what am I to do now? Plainly, you can’t get through the world on righteousness alone; plainly, you must needs keep your eyes open. I figured it out a whole year, living with my aunt; then I saw there was nowhere for me to go⁠—I had to marry fast as I could. My dad had a good friend in town, a harness maker⁠—well, him it was that courted me. You couldn’t say as how he made a striking bridegroom⁠—but still he was a good catch, at that. There was, to tell the truth, one man that I liked⁠—and liked right well; but then he was poor too, about as bad off as I was, also living with strangers, like me; but the other was his own master, after all. I didn’t have a copper of dowry, and here, I see, he is taking me without anything⁠—how could I let a chance like that pass by? I thought, and I thought, and went and married him⁠—although, of course, I knew that he