Fifty-Two Stories

“No,” the guest replied.

Zhmukhin got up and walked, stomping his heels, through the reception room and the front hall to the kitchen, to have a drink of water.

“The worst thing in the world, you know, is stupidity,” he said a little later, returning with a dipper. “My Lyubov Osipovna kneels and prays to God. She prays every night, you know, and bows to the ground, first of all, that the children be sent to study. She’s afraid they’ll go into the army as simple Cossacks and be whacked across the back with swords. But it takes money for them to study, and where to get it? She can beat her head on the floor, but if there isn’t any, there just isn’t. Second, she prays because, you know, every woman thinks there’s nobody in the world unhappier than she is. I’m a plainspoken man and have no wish to conceal anything from you. She comes from a poor family, a priest’s daughter, the bell-ringing class, so to speak. I married her when she was seventeen, and they gave her to me more on account of having nothing to eat, want, dire poverty, and after all, as you see, I have some land, a farm, well, anyhow, I’m an officer after all; it was flattering for her to marry me, you know. On the first day of our marriage she wept, and after that for all of twenty years she’s been weeping—there was always a tear in her eye. And she goes on sitting and thinking, thinking. And what’s she thinking about, you may ask? What can a woman think about? Nothing. I confess, I don’t consider women human beings.”

The attorney got up abruptly and sat on the bed.

“Sorry, I feel somehow stifled,” he said. “I’ll step outside.”

Zhmukhin, still talking about women, unbolted the door in the front hall, and they both went out. Just then a full moon was floating in the sky over the yard, and in the moonlight the yard and the sheds looked whiter than during the day; and on the grass between the black shadows stretched bright strips of light, also white. To the right the steppe is visible far away, with stars quietly shining over it—and it is all mysterious, infinitely far away, as if you are looking into a deep abyss; and to the left over the steppe heavy thunderclouds are piled on each other, black as soot; their edges are lit by the moon, and it looks as if there are mountains there with white snow on their peaks, dark forests, the sea; lightning flashes, thunder rumbles softly, and it looks as if there is a battle going on in the mountains…

Just by the farmstead a small night owl cries monotonously: “Sleep! Sleep!”

“What time is it now?” the guest asked.

“A little past one.”

“Dawn is still a long way off!”

They went back to the house and lay down again. It was time to sleep, and one usually sleeps so well before rain, but the old man wanted to have important, serious thoughts; he wanted not simply to think, but to reflect. And he reflected that it would be good, seeing the imminence of death, for the sake of his soul, to put an end to the idleness that so imperceptibly swallows day after day, year after year, without leaving a trace; to think up some great deed for himself, for instance, to go somewhere on foot far, far away, to give up meat, like this young man. And again he pictured to himself a time when people would not kill animals, pictured it clearly, distinctly, as if he were living in that time; but suddenly everything became confused in his head again and it all became unclear.

The thunderstorm passed by, but the edge of the cloud caught them, rain fell and pattered softly on the roof. Zhmukhin got up and, stretching and groaning from old age, looked into the reception room. Noticing that the guest was not asleep, he said:

“One of our colonels in the Caucasus, you know, was also a vegetarian. He didn’t eat meat, never went hunting, didn’t allow his men to fish. Of course, I understand. Every animal should live in freedom and enjoy life; only I don’t understand how a pig can go wherever it likes, untended…”

The guest got up and sat on the bed. His pale, crumpled face expressed vexation and fatigue; he was obviously exhausted, and only his meekness and inner delicacy kept him from voicing his vexation.

“Dawn already,” he said meekly. “Please order them to give me a horse.”

“What for? Wait a bit, the rain will pass.”

“No, I beg you,” the guest said pleadingly, in fright. “I need it right now.”

And he hastily began to dress.