Fifty-Two Stories

They made a bed for the guest on the sofa in the reception room and lit an icon lamp so that he would not be in the dark. Zhmukhin lay down in his bedroom. And, lying there, he thought about his soul, about old age, about the recent stroke, which had frightened him so much and had vividly reminded him of death. He liked to philosophize, left by himself, in silence, and then it seemed to him that he was a very serious, profound man, and in this world he was concerned only with important questions. And now he kept thinking, and he wished to settle on some one thought, unlike the others, a significant one, that would be a guidance in life, and he wished to think up some rules for himself, so as to make his life as serious and profound as he himself was. For instance, it would be good if an old man like him could give up meat and various excesses entirely. The time when people stop killing animals and each other would come sooner or later, it could not be otherwise, and he imagined that time to himself, and clearly pictured himself living in peace with all animals, and suddenly he again remembered about the pigs, and everything became confused in his head.

“Lord have mercy, what a puzzle!” he muttered, sighing heavily. “Are you asleep?” he asked.

“No.”

Zhmukhin got out of bed and stood in the doorway in nothing but his nightshirt, showing the guest his legs, sinewy and dry as sticks.

“Nowadays, you know,” he began, “all sorts of telegraphs, telephones, and various wonders, in a word, have come along, but people haven’t gotten better. They say that in our time, some thirty or forty years ago, people were coarse, cruel; but isn’t it the same now? Actually, in my time we lived without ceremony. I remember, in the Caucasus, when we spent a whole four months by the same little river with nothing to do—I was still a sergeant then—a story happened, something like a novel. Right on the bank of that little river, you know, where our squadron was stationed, they buried a little prince we had killed earlier. And by night, you know, the widowed princess came to his grave and wept. She howled and howled, moaned and moaned, and annoyed us so much that we couldn’t sleep at all. We didn’t sleep one night, we didn’t sleep another night; well, enough of that! And, reasoning from common sense, in fact one shouldn’t lose sleep on account of the devil knows what, forgive the expression. We took that princess, gave her a whipping—and she stopped coming. There you have it. Now, of course, people are no longer of that category, and nobody gets whipped, and they live cleaner, and there’s more learning, but, you know, the soul’s still the same, there’s no change. So, kindly see, we’ve got a landowner living here. He owns mines, you know. He’s got people working for him who have nowhere to go: all sorts of vagrants, without passports.⁴ On Saturdays he was supposed to pay his workers, but he didn’t want to pay them, you know, he was sorry for the money. So he found this clerk, also a bum, though he went around in a hat. ‘Pay them nothing,’ he said, ‘not a kopeck. They’ll beat you, but let them beat you,’ he said, ‘bear with it, and I’ll pay you ten roubles for it every Saturday.’ So on Saturday evening the workers, in good order, as usual, come for their pay; the clerk tells them, ‘No money.’ Well, one thing leads to another, they start a fight, a brawl…They beat him, beat him and kick him—you know, the folk are brutal from hunger—they beat him unconscious, and then go their ways. The owner has the clerk doused with water, then shoves ten roubles at him, which he gladly takes, because in fact he’d do anything, even put his head in a noose, for three roubles, let alone ten. Yes…And on Monday a new party of workers comes; they come, no way out of it…On Saturday, the same story all over again…”

The guest turned on his other side, facing the back of the sofa, and murmured something.

“And here’s another example,” Zhmukhin went on. “Once there was anthrax here, you know; cattle dropping like flies, let me tell you, and veterinarians came here, and there were strict orders to bury the dead animals further, deeper in the ground, and to pour lime on them, you know, on a scientific basis. A horse dropped dead on me, too. I buried it with all the precautions and poured three hundred pounds of lime on it. And what do you think? My fine fellows, you know, these dear sons of mine, dug up the horse at night, skinned it, and sold the skin for three roubles. There you have it. Meaning people haven’t gotten better, and meaning once a wolf, always a wolf. There you have it. There’s something to think about! Eh? How does that strike you?”

In the windows on one side, through the chinks in the shutters, lightning flashed. It was stifling before the storm, mosquitoes were biting, and Zhmukhin, lying in his room and reflecting, groaned, moaned, and said to himself: “Yes…so”—and it was impossible to fall asleep. Thunder rumbled somewhere very far away.

“Are you asleep?”