Fifty-Two Stories

Suddenly there was a knocking on the window, so loud and unusual that Savely turned pale and crouched down in fear. His wife jumped up and also turned pale.

“For God’s sake, let us in to warm up!” A quavering, low bass was heard. “Is anyone there? Be so kind! We’ve lost our way!”

“And who are you?” asked the sexton’s wife, afraid to look out the window.

“The postmen!” answered another voice.

“Your devilry wasn’t in vain!” Savely waved his hand. “There it is! The truth’s mine…Watch out now!”

The sexton bounced twice in front of the bed, fell onto the mattress, and, breathing angrily, turned his face to the wall. Soon there was a draft of cold air on his back. The door creaked, and a tall human figure appeared on the threshold, covered with snow from head to foot. Behind him flashed another, also white…

“Shall I bring the pouches in?” the second one asked in a hoarse bass.

“We can’t leave them there!” Having said this, the first began to unwind his bashlyk, and, not waiting until it was undone, tore it from his head along with the visored cap and angrily flung it towards the stove. Then he pulled off his coat, threw it the same way, and, without any greeting, paced up and down the hut. He was a blond young postman in a shabby uniform jacket and dirty reddish boots. Having warmed himself by walking, he sat down at the table, stretched his dirty feet towards the pouches, and propped his head on his fist. His pale face with red blotches bore the signs of recent pain and fear. Distorted by anger, with fresh traces of physical and moral suffering, with melting snow on its eyebrows, moustache, and rounded beard, it was handsome.

“A dog’s life!” the postman growled, passing his gaze over the walls as if not believing he was in warmth. “We nearly perished. If it hadn’t been for your light, I don’t know what would have happened…And devil knows when all this will end! There’s no end to this dog’s life! Where have we come to?” he asked, lowering his voice and glancing up at the sexton’s wife.

“To Gulyaevo Knoll, General Kalinovsky’s estate,” the woman replied, rousing herself and blushing.

“Hear that, Stepan?” The postman turned to the coachman, who got stuck in the doorway with a big leather pouch on his back. “We’ve made it to Gulyaevo Knoll!”

“Yes…a long way!” Having uttered this phrase in the form of a hoarse, gasping sigh, the coachman went out and a little later brought in another, smaller pouch, then went out again and this time brought in the postman’s saber on a wide belt, resembling in form that long, flat sword with which Judith is portrayed on popular prints at the bedside of Holofernes. Having placed the pouches along the wall, he went to the entryway, sat down, and lit his pipe.

“Maybe you’d like some tea after the road?” the sexton’s wife asked.

“No tea drinking for us!” the postman frowned. “We’ve got to warm up quickly and go, otherwise we’ll be late for the mail train. We’ll stay for ten minutes and then be on our way. Only be so good as to show us the road…”

“It’s God’s punishment, this weather!” sighed the sexton’s wife.

“M-m, yes…And who are you, then?”

“Us? Local people, attached to the church…Of the clerical estate…That’s my husband lying there! Savely, stand up, come and say hello! There used to be a parish here, but a year and a half ago it was abolished. Of course, when the masters lived here, there were people around, it was worth having a parish, but now, without the masters, judge for yourselves, how can the clergy live, if the nearest village is Markovka, and it’s three miles away! Savely’s retired now and…is a sort of watchman. He’s charged with watching over the church…”

And here the postman learned that if Savely were to go to the general’s wife and ask for a note to his grace the archbishop, he would be given a good post; that he does not go to the general’s wife because he is lazy and afraid of people.

“After all, we’re from the clerical estate…,” the sexton’s wife added.

“What do you live on?” asked the postman.

“There’s haymaking and vegetable gardens that go with the church. Only we get very little from it…,” sighed the sexton’s wife. “Father Nikodim from Dyadkino has a greedy eye. He serves here on Saint Nicholas in the summer and Saint Nicholas in the winter,⁵ and takes almost all of it for that. There’s nobody to defend us.”

“Lies!” Savely croaked. “Father Nikodim is a saintly soul and a bright light of the Church, and if he takes, it’s according to the rules!”

“What an angry one you’ve got!” smiled the postman. “Have you been married long?”

“It’ll be three years come this Forgiveness Sunday.⁶ My papa used to be the sexton here, and when it came time for him to die, he wanted to keep the place for me, so he went to the consistory and asked that some unmarried sexton be sent here. And I married him.”

“Aha, so you killed two flies with one swat!” the postman said, looking at Savely’s back. “Got a post and took a wife.”