Fifty-Two Stories

The house consisted of two halves. In one was the “reception room,” and next to it old Zhmukhin’s bedroom—both stuffy, with low ceilings, and with multitudes of flies and wasps. The other was the kitchen, where the cooking and laundry were done, and workers were fed; right there, under the benches, geese and turkeys hatched their eggs, and there, too, were the beds of Lyubov Osipovna and her two sons. The furniture in the reception room was unpainted, knocked together, obviously, by a carpenter; on the walls hung rifles, hunting bags, whips, and all that old trash had rusted long ago and gone gray with dust. Not a single painting; in one corner a dark board that had once been an icon.

A young Ukrainian woman set the table and served ham, then borscht. The guest declined vodka and ate only bread and cucumbers.

“How about some ham?” Zhmukhin asked.

“No, thank you, I don’t eat it,” the guest replied. “I generally don’t eat meat.”

“Why not?”

“I’m a vegetarian. Killing animals is against my convictions.”

Zhmukhin thought for a moment and then said slowly, with a sigh:

“Yes…So…In town I also saw a man who doesn’t eat meat. There’s this belief going around now. Well, so? It’s a good thing. Can’t keep slaughtering and shooting, you know, someday you’ve got to back off and give the animals some peace. It’s a sin to kill, a sin—no disputing it. Sometimes you wound a hare, hit him in the leg, and he screams like a baby. That means it hurts!”

“Of course it hurts. Animals suffer just as people do.”

“That’s true,” Zhmukhin agreed. “I understand it all very well,” he went on, still thinking, “only, I confess, there’s one thing I can’t understand: suppose, you know, if people all stop eating meat, then what will become of domestic animals, for instance chickens and geese?”

“Chickens and geese will live freely, like the wild ones.”

“Now I see. In fact, crows and jackdaws live and get along without us. Yes…And chickens, and geese, and hares, and sheep will all live in freedom, you know, they’ll rejoice and praise God, and they won’t be afraid of us. There’ll be peace and quiet. Only, you know, there’s one thing I can’t understand,” Zhmukhin went on, glancing at the ham. “What do you do with the pigs? Where do you put them?”

“They’ll be like all the rest, that is, they’ll be free, too.”

“Yes. Right. But, excuse me, if they’re not slaughtered, they’ll multiply, you know, and then say goodbye to your meadows and vegetable gardens. If a pig is set free and not watched over, he’ll destroy everything in a single day. A pig’s a pig, and it’s not for nothing he’s called a pig…”

They finished supper. Zhmukhin got up from the table and walked around the room for a long time and kept talking, talking…He liked to talk about important and serious things and liked to think; and he wished in his old age to settle on something, to put his mind at rest, so that it would not be so frightening to die. He wished for such meekness, inner peace, self-confidence, as this guest had, who ate his fill of cucumbers and bread and thought it made him more perfect; he sits there on a chest, healthy, plump, silent, patiently bored, and in the twilight, when you look at him from the hallway, he resembles a big immoveable boulder. The man has an anchor in life—and all’s well with him.

Zhmukhin walked out through the front hall to the porch, and then could be heard sighing and saying broodingly to himself: “Yes…so.” It was already getting dark, and stars appeared here and there in the sky. Inside they had not yet brought lights. Someone came into the reception room noiselessly, like a shadow, and stopped by the door. It was Lyubov Osipovna, Zhmukhin’s wife.

“Are you from town?” she asked timidly, without looking at the guest.

“Yes, I live in town.”

“Maybe you’re in the teaching line, sir, so kindly teach us. We need to make an application.”

“Where?” asked the guest.

“We have two sons, good sir, and we should have sent them to study long ago, but nobody visits us and there’s no one to advise us. And I don’t know anything myself. Because if they don’t study, they’ll be taken into the army as simple Cossacks. It’s not good, sir! They’re illiterate, worse than peasants, and Ivan Abramych himself scorns them and won’t allow them in his room. But is it their fault? At least the younger one could be sent to study, really, or it’s such a pity!” she said, drawing out the words, and her voice quivered; and it seemed incredible that such a small and young woman already had grown-up children. “Ah, such a pity!”

“You don’t understand anything, Mother, and it’s none of your business,” Zhmukhin said, appearing in the doorway. “Don’t pester the guest with your wild talk. Go away, Mother!”

Lyubov Osipovna left and in the front hall repeated in a high voice:

“Ah, such a pity!”