Fifty-Two Stories

NIGHT WAS FALLING. The sexton Savely Gykin lay at home in the chuch warden’s hut on an enormous bed and did not sleep, though he had the habit of falling asleep at the same time as the chickens. From under one end of a greasy quilt sewn together from motley cotton scraps peeked his stiff red hair, from the other stuck his big, long-unwashed feet. He was listening…His little hut was built into the fence, and its only window looked onto the field. And in the field a veritable war was going on. It was hard to figure out who was hounding who to death and for whose sake this calamity had brewed up in nature, but, judging by the ceaseless, sinister din, someone was having a very hard time of it. Some invincible force was chasing someone around the field, rampaging through the forest and over the church roof, angrily beating its fists on the window, ripping and tearing, and something vanquished wept and howled…Pitiful weeping was heard now outside the window, now over the roof, now on the stove. No call for help could be heard in it, but anguish, the awareness that it was too late, there was no salvation. Snowdrifts were covered by a thin crust of ice; teardrops trembled on them and on the trees, and along the roads and paths flowed a dark swill of mud and melting snow. In short, on earth there was a thaw, but the sky, through the dark night, did not see that and with all its might poured flakes of new snow onto the thawing ground. And the wind caroused like a drunk man…It would not let the snow settle on the ground and whirled it through the darkness as it pleased.

Gykin listened to this music and frowned. The thing was that he knew, or at least guessed, what all this racket outside the window was about and whose handiwork it was.

“I kno-o-ow!” he murmured, shaking his finger under the covers at somebody. “I know everything!”

On a stool by the window sat his wife, Raissa Nilovna. A tin lamp, standing on another stool, timorously, as if not believing in its own power, cast a thin, flickering light over her broad shoulders, the beautiful, appetizing reliefs of her body, the thick braid that reached to the ground. She was sewing burlap sacks. Her hands moved swiftly, but her whole body, the expression of her eyes, eyebrows, plump lips, white neck, were still, immersed in the monotonous mechanical work, and seemed to be asleep. Only occasionally she raised her head, to give her tired neck a rest, glanced for a moment at the window, outside which a blizzard raged, and then bent again over the burlap. Neither desire, nor sorrow, nor joy—nothing expressed itself on her beautiful face with its upturned nose and dimpled cheeks. Just so a beautiful fountain expresses nothing when it is not spouting.

But here she finished one sack, flung it aside, and, stretching sweetly, rested her dull, fixed gaze on the window…Teardrops flowed down the windowpanes and short-lived snowflakes dotted them with white. A snowflake would land on the pane, glance at the woman, and melt…

“Go to bed,” the sexton muttered. His wife said nothing. But suddenly her eyelashes stirred and attention flickered in her eyes. Savely, who had been watching the expression of her face all the while from under the blanket, stuck his head out and asked:

“What is it?”

“Nothing…Seems like somebody’s driving…,” his wife replied softly.

The sexton threw off the blanket with his hands and feet, knelt on the bed, and looked dully at his wife. The lamp’s timid light shone on his hairy, pockmarked face and flitted over his coarse, matted head.

“Do you hear it?” asked his wife. Through the monotonous howling of the blizzard he heard a barely audible, high-pitched, ringing moan, like the buzzing of a mosquito when it wants to land on your cheek and is angry at being prevented.

“It’s the postman…,” Savely muttered, sitting back on his heels.

The post road lay two miles from the church. In windy weather, when it blew from the road towards the church, the inhabitants of the house could hear a jingling.

“Lord, who wants to drive in such weather!” the sexton’s wife sighed.

“It’s a government job. Like it or not, you have to go…” The moan lingered in the air and died away.

“It passed by!” said Savely, lying down.

But he had not managed to cover himself with the blanket before the distinct sound of a bell reached his ears. The sexton glanced anxiously at his wife, jumped off the bed, and started waddling back and forth beside the stove. The sound of the bell went on for a little while and died away again, as if broken off.

“I can’t hear it…,” the sexton muttered, stopping and squinting at his wife. But just then the wind rapped on the window, bearing the high-pitched, ringing moan…Savely turned pale, grunted, and again his bare feet slapped against the floor.

“The postman’s going in circles!” he croaked, casting a spiteful sidelong glance at his wife. “Do you hear? The postman’s going in circles!…I…I know! As if I…don’t understand!” he muttered. “I know everything, curse you!”