Fifty-Two Stories

“I like that bird…,” I said. “You know, during migration corncrakes don’t fly, they run along the ground. They only fly over rivers and seas, otherwise they walk.”

“Good dog…,” Savka muttered, glancing with respect in the direction of the crexing corncrake.

Knowing how much Savka liked to listen, I told him all I knew about the corncrake from books on hunting. From the corncrake I gradually went on to migration. Savka listened to me attentively, without blinking, smiling with pleasure all the while.

“Which country is the birds’ native one?” he asked. “Ours or over yonder?”

“Ours, of course. The birds themselves are born here, and hatch their young here in their native land, and only fly there so as not to freeze.”

“Interesting!” Savka stretched. “Whatever you talk about, it’s all interesting. Birds now, or people…or take this little stone here—everything’s got its sense!…Ah, if I’d known, master, that you’d come along, I wouldn’t have told that peasant girl to come…There’s one that asked to come now…”

“No, please, I won’t interfere!” I said. “I can sleep in the grove…”

“Ah, what next! It wouldn’t have killed her to come tomorrow…If only she could sit here and listen to our talk, but no, she’ll just get all slobbery. With her there’s no talking seriously.”

“Is it Darya you’re waiting for?” I asked after some silence.

“No…A new one asked to come…Agafya, the switchman’s wife…”

Savka said this in his usual dispassionate, somewhat hollow voice, as if he were talking about tobacco or kasha, but I jumped with surprise. I knew this Agafya…She was a peasant girl, still quite young, about nineteen or twenty, who no more than a year ago had married a railroad switchman, a dashing young fellow. She lived in the village, and the husband came to her from the railroad every night.

“All these stories of yours with women will end badly, brother!” I sighed.

“So, let them…”

And, having pondered a little, Savka added:

“I told them, they don’t listen…The fools couldn’t care less!”

Silence ensued…Meanwhile the darkness was deepening, and things were losing their outlines. The strip beyond the knoll faded away entirely, and the stars were becoming brighter, more radiant…The monotonously melancholic chirr of the grasshoppers, the crex of the corncrake, and the call of the quail did not disrupt the night’s silence, but, on the contrary, lent it still greater monotony. It seemed that the soft sounds that enchanted our hearing came not from the birds, not from the insects, but from the stars that looked down on us from the sky…

Savka was the first to break the silence. He slowly shifted his eyes from the black Kutka to me and said:

“I see you’re bored, master. Let’s have supper.”

And, not waiting for my consent, he crawled into the hutch on his belly, rummaged around, which made the whole hutch tremble like a single leaf; then crawled back out and set before me my vodka and a clay bowl. In the bowl were baked eggs, rye griddle-cakes cooked in lard, hunks of black bread, and something else…We drank from a crooked little glass that could not stand up and began to eat…The coarse gray salt, the dirty, greasy griddle-cakes, the eggs chewy as rubber—but how tasty it all was!

“You live like a pauper, but look at the amount of goods you’ve got!” I said, pointing to the bowl. “Where do you get it all?”

“Women bring it…,” Savka murmured.

“Why do they bring it to you?”

“Just…out of pity…”

Not only the menu but Savka’s clothes also bore evidence of the women’s “pity.” For instance, that evening I noticed he was wearing a new worsted belt and a bright red ribbon on which a copper cross hung from his dirty neck. I knew that the fair sex had a weakness for Savka, and I knew how reluctantly he talked about it, and therefore I did not continue my interrogation. Besides, there was no time for talk…Kutka, who lingered near us, patiently waiting for scraps, suddenly pricked up her ears and growled. A remote, intermittent splashing of water could be heard.

“Somebody’s wading across…,” said Savka.

About three minutes later Kutka growled again and produced a sound that resembled coughing.

“Hush!” her master shouted at her.

In the darkness there was a muffled sound of timid footsteps, and from the grove appeared the silhouette of a woman. I recognized her despite the darkness. It was Agafya, the switchman’s wife. She warily approached us, stopped, and struggled to catch her breath. She was panting not so much from the wading as, probably, from fear and the unpleasant feeling everyone has when they wade across a river at night. Seeing two men by the hutch, she cried out weakly and stepped back.

“Ah…it’s you!” said Savka, stuffing a griddle-cake into his mouth.

“Me…me, sir,” she muttered, dropping a bundle with something in it on the ground and glancing sidelong at me. “Yakov sends his greetings and asked me to give you…There’s something here…”

“Well, why go lying: Yakov!” Savka grinned. “No need for lying, the master knows what you came for! Sit down, be our guest.”