Nikolay Tchikildyeev, a waiter in the Moscow hotel, Slavyansky Bazaar1, was taken ill. His legs went numb2 and his gait was affected3, so that on one occasion, as he was going along the corridor, he tumbled and fell down with a tray full of ham and peas. He had to leave his job. All his own savings4 and his wife’s were spent on doctors and medicines; they had nothing left to live upon. He felt dull with no work to do, and he made up his mind he must go home to the village. It is better to be ill at home, and living there is cheaper; and it is a true saying that the walls of home are a help.
He reached Zhukovo towards evening. In his memories of childhood he had pictured his home as bright, snug5, comfortable. Now, going into the hut, he was positively6 frightened; it was so dark, so crowded, so unclean. His wife Olga and his daughter Sasha, who had come with him, kept looking in bewilderment at the big untidy stove, which filled up almost half the hut and was black with soot7 and flies. What lots of flies! The stove was on one side, the beams lay slanting8 on the walls, and it looked as though the hut were just going to fall to pieces. In the corner, facing the door, under the holy images, bottle labels and newspaper cuttings were stuck on the walls instead of pictures. The poverty, the poverty! Of the grown-up people there were none at home; all were at work at the harvest. On the stove was sitting a white-headed girl of eight, unwashed and apathetic9; she did not even glance at them as they came in. On the floor a white cat was rubbing itself against the oven fork.
“Puss, puss!” Sasha called to her. “Puss!”
“She can’t hear,” said the little girl; “she has gone deaf.”
“How is that?”
“Oh, she was beaten.”
Nikolay and Olga realized from the firs t glance what life was like here, but said nothing to one another; in silence they put down their bundles, and went out into the village street. Their hut was the third from the end, and seemed the very poorest and oldest-looking; the second was not much better; but the last one had an iron roof, and curtains in the windows. That hut stood apart, not enclosed; it was a tavern11. The huts were in a single row, and the whole of the little village — quiet and dreamy, with willows12, elders, and mountain-ash trees peeping out from the yards — had an attractive look.
Beyond the peasants homesteads there was a slope down to the river, so steep and precipitous that huge stones jutted13 out bare here and there through the clay. Down the slope, among the stones and holes dug by the potters, ran winding14 paths; bits of broken pottery15, some brown, some red, lay piled up in heaps, and below there stretched a broad, level, bright green meadow, from which the hay had been already carried, and in which the peasants’ cattle were wandering. The river, three-quarters of a mile from the village, ran twisting and turning, with beautiful leafy banks; beyond it was again a broad meadow, a herd16 of cattle, long strings17 of white geese; then, just as on the near side, a steep ascent18 uphill, and on the top of the hill a hamlet, and a church with five domes20, and at a little distance the manor21-house.
“It’s lovely here in your parts!” said Olga, crossing herself at the sight of the church. “What space, oh Lord!”
Just at that moment the bell began ringing for service (it was Saturday evening). Two little girls, down below, who were dragging up a pail of water, looked round at the church to listen to the bell.
“At this time they are serving the dinners at the Slavyansky Bazaar,” said Nikolay dreamily.
Sitting on the edge of the slope, Nikolay and Olga watched the sun setting, watched the gold and crimson22 sky reflected in the river, in the church windows, and in the whole air — which was soft and still and unutterably pure as it never was in Moscow. And when the sun had set the flocks and herds23 passed, bleating24 and lowing; geese flew across from the further side of the river, and all sank into silence; the soft light died away in the air, and the dusk of evening began quickly moving down upon them.
Meanwhile Nikolay’s father and mother, two gaunt, bent25, toothless old people, just of the same height, came back. The women — the sisters-in-law Marya and Fyokla — who had been working on the landowner’s estate beyond the river, arrived home, too. Marya, the wife of Nikolay’s brother Kiryak, had six children, and Fyokla, the wife of Nikolay’s brother Denis — who had gone for a soldier — had two; and when Nikolay, going into the hut, saw all the family, all those bodies big and little moving about on the lockers28, in the hanging cradles and in all the corners, and when he saw the greed with which the old father and the women ate the black bread, dipping it in water, he realized he had made a mistake in coming here, sick, penniless, and with a family, too — a great mistake!
“And where is Kiryak?” he asked after they had exchanged greetings.
“He is in service at the merchant’s,” answered his father; “a keeper in the woods. He is not a bad peasant, but too fond of his glass.”
“He is no great help!” said the old woman tearfully. “Our men are a grievous lot; they bring nothing into the house, but take plenty out. Kiryak drinks, and so does the old man; it is no use hiding a sin; he knows his way to the tavern. The Heavenly Mother is wroth.”
In honour of the visitors they brought out the samovar. The tea smelt29 of fish; the sugar was grey and looked as though it had been nibbled30; cockroaches31 ran to and fro over the bread and among the crockery. It was disgusting to drink, and the conversation was disgusting, too — about nothing but poverty and illnesses. But before they had time to empty their first cups there came a loud, prolonged, drunken shout from the yard:
“Ma-arya!”
“It looks as though Kiryak were coming,” said the old man. “Speak of the devil.”
All were hushed. And again, soon afterwards, the same shout, coarse and drawn32-out as though it came out of the earth:
“Ma-arya!”
Marya, the elder sister-in-law, turned pale and huddled33 against the stove, and it was strange to see the look of terror on the face of the strong, broad-shouldered, ugly woman. Her daughter, the child who had been sitting on the stove and looked so apathetic, suddenly broke into loud weeping.
“What are you howling for, you plague?” Fyokla, a handsome woman, also strong and broad-shouldered, shouted to her. “He won’t kill you, no fear!”
From his old father Nikolay learned that Marya was afraid to live in the forest with Kiryak, and that when he was drunk he always came for her, made a row, and beat her mercilessly.
“Ma-arya!” the shout sounded close to the door.
“Protect me, for Christ’s sake, good people!” faltered34 Marya, breathing as though she had been plunged35 into very cold water. “Protect me, kind people. . . . ”
All the children in the hut began crying, and looking at them, Sasha, too, began to cry. They heard a drunken cough, and a tall, black-bearded peasant wearing a winter cap came into the hut, and was the more terrible because his face could not be seen in the dim light of the little lamp. It was Kiryak. Going up to his wife, he swung his arm and punched her in the face with his fist. Stunned36 by the blow, she did not utter a sound, but sat down, and her nose instantly began bleeding.
“What a disgrace! What a disgrace!” muttered the old man, clambering up on to the stove. “Before visitors, too! It’s a sin!”
The old mother sat silent, bowed, lost in thought; Fyokla rocked the cradle.
Evidently conscious of inspiring fear, and pleased at doing so, Kiryak seized Marya by the arm, dragged her towards the door, and bellowed37 like an animal in order to seem still more terrible; but at that moment he suddenly caught sight of the visitors and stopped.
“Oh, they have come, . . . ” he said, letting his wife go; “my own brother and his family. . . . ”
Staggering and opening wide his red, drunken eyes, he said his prayer before the image and went on:
“My brother and his family have come to the parental38 home . . . from Moscow, I suppose. The great capital Moscow, to be sure, the mother of cities. . . . Excuse me.”
He sank down on the bench near the samovar and began drinking tea, sipping39 it loudly from the saucer in the midst of general silence. . . . He drank off a dozen cups, then reclined on the bench and began snoring.
They began going to bed. Nikolay, as an invalid41, was put on the stove with his old father; Sasha lay down on the floor, while Olga went with the other women into the barn.
“Aye, aye, dearie,” she said, lying down on the hay beside Marya; “you won’t mend your trouble with tears. Bear it in patience, that is all. It is written in the Scriptures43: ‘If anyone smite45 thee on the right cheek, offer him the left one also.’ . . . Aye, aye, dearie.”
Then in a low singsong murmur46 she told them about Moscow, about her own life, how she had been a servant in furnished lodgings48.
“And in Moscow the houses are big, built of brick,” she said; “and there are ever so many churches, forty times forty, dearie; and they are all gentry49 in the houses, so handsome and so proper!”
Marya told her that she had not only never been in Moscow, but had not even been in their own district town; she could not read or write, and knew no prayers, not even “Our Father.” Both she and Fyokla, the other sister-in-law, who was sitting a little way off listening, were extremely ignorant and could understand nothing. They both disliked their husbands; Marya was afraid of Kiryak, and whenever he stayed with her she was shaking with fear, and always got a headache from the fumes51 of vodka and tobacco with which he reeked52. And in answer to the question whether she did not miss her husband, Fyokla answered with vexation:
“Miss him!”
They talked a little and sank into silence.
It was cool, and a cock crowed at the top of his voice near the barn, preventing them from sleeping. When the bluish morning light was already peeping through all the crevices53, Fyokla got up stealthily and went out, and then they heard the sound of her bare feet running off somewhere.
II
Olga went to church, and took Marya with her. As they went down the path towards the meadow both were in good spirits. Olga liked the wide view, and Marya felt that in her sister-in-law she had someone near and akin50 to her. The sun was rising. Low down over the meadow floated a drowsy54 hawk55. The river looked gloomy; there was a haze56 hovering57 over it here and there, but on the further bank a streak58 of light already stretched across the hill. The church was gleaming, and in the manor garden the rooks were cawing furiously.
“The old man is all right,” Marya told her, “but Granny is strict; she is continually nagging59. Our own grain lasted till Carnival60. We buy flour now at the tavern. She is angry about it; she says we eat too much.”
“Aye, aye, dearie! Bear it in patience, that is all. It is written: ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden61.’ “
Olga spoke62 sedately63, rhythmically65, and she walked like a pilgrim woman, with a rapid, anxious step. Every day she read the gospel, read it aloud like a deacon; a great deal of it she did not understand, but the words of the gospel moved her to tears, and words like “forasmuch as” and “verily” she pronounced with a sweet flutter at her heart. She believed in God, in the Holy Mother, in the Saints; she believed one must not offend anyone in the world — not simple folks, nor Germans, nor gypsies, nor Jews — and woe66 even to those who have no compassion67 on the beasts. She believed this was written in the Holy Scriptures; and so, when she pronounced phrases from Holy Writ42, even though she did not understand them, her face grew softened68, compassionate69, and radiant.
“What part do you come from?” Marya asked her.
“I am from Vladimir. Only I was taken to Moscow long ago, when I was eight years old.”
They reached the river. On the further side a woman was standing71 at the water’s edge, undressing.
“It’s our Fyokla,” said Marya, recognizing her. “She has been over the river to the manor yard. To the stewards72. She is a shameless hussy and foul73-mouthed — fearfully!”
Fyokla, young and vigorous as a girl, with her black eyebrows74 and her loose hair, jumped off the bank and began splashing the water with her feet, and waves ran in all directions from her.
“Shameless — dreadfully! “ repeated Marya.
The river was crossed by a rickety little bridge of logs, and exactly below it in the clear, limpid75 water was a shoal of broad-headed mullets. The dew was glistening76 on the green bushes that looked into the water. There was a feeling of warmth; it was comforting! What a lovely morning! And how lovely life would have been in this world, in all likelihood, if it were not for poverty, horrible, hopeless poverty, from which one can find no refuge! One had only to look round at the village to remember vividly77 all that had happened the day before, and the illusion of happiness which seemed to surround them vanished instantly.
They reached the church. Marya stood at the entrance, and did not dare to go farther. She did not dare to sit down either. Though they only began ringing for mass between eight and nine, she remained standing the whole time.
While the gospel was being read the crowd suddenly parted to make way for the family from the great house. Two young girls in white frocks and wide-brimmed hats walked in; with them a chubby78, rosy79 boy in a sailor suit. Their appearance touched Olga; she made up her mind from the first glance that they were refined, well-educated, handsome people. Marya looked at them from under her brows, sullenly80, dejectedly, as though they were not human beings coming in, but monsters who might crush her if she did not make way for them.
And every time the deacon boomed out something in his bass81 voice she fancied she heard “Ma-arya!” and she shuddered83.
III
The arrival of the visitors was already known in the village, and directly after mass a number of people gathered together in the hut. The Leonytchevs and Matvyeitchevs and the Ilyitchovs came to inquire about their relations who were in service in Moscow. All the lads of Zhukovo who could read and write were packed off to Moscow and hired out as butlers or waiters (while from the village on the other side of the river the boys all became bakers), and that had been the custom from the days of serfdom long ago when a certain Luka Ivanitch, a peasant from Zhukovo, now a legendary85 figure, who had been a waiter in one of the Moscow clubs, would take none but his fellow-villagers into his service, and found jobs for them in taverns86 and restaurants; and from that time the village of Zhukovo was always called among the inhabitants of the surrounding districts Slaveytown. Nikolay had been taken to Moscow when he was eleven, and Ivan Makaritch, one of the Matvyeitchevs, at that time a headwaiter in the “Hermitage” garden, had put him into a situation. And now, addressing the Matvyeitchevs, Nikolay said emphatically:
“Ivan Makaritch was my benefactor87, and I am bound to pray for him day and night, as it is owing to him I have become a good man.”
“My good soul!” a tall old woman, the sister of Ivan Makaritch, said tearfully, “and not a word have we heard about him, poor dear.”
“In the winter he was in service at Omon’s, and this season there was a rumour88 he was somewhere out of town, in gardens. . . . He has aged89! In old days he would bring home as much as ten roubles a day in the summer-time, but now things are very quiet everywhere. The old man frets90.”
The women looked at Nikolay’s feet, shod in felt boots, and at his pale face, and said mournfully:
“You are not one to get on, Nikolay Osipitch; you are not one to get on! No, indeed!”
And they all made much of Sasha. She was ten years old, but she was little and very thin, and might have been taken for no more than seven. Among the other little girls, with their sunburnt faces and roughly cropped hair, dressed in long faded smocks, she with her white little face, with her big dark eyes, with a red ribbon in her hair, looked funny, as though she were some little wild creature that had been caught and brought into the hut.
“She can read, too,” Olga said in her praise, looking tenderly at her daughter. “Read a little, child!” she said, taking the gospel from the corner. “You read, and the good Christian91 people will listen.”
The testament92 was an old and heavy one in leather binding93, with dog’s-eared edges, and it exhaled94 a smell as though monks95 had come into the hut. Sasha raised her eyebrows and began in a loud rhythmic64 chant:
“ ‘And the angel of the Lord . . . appeared unto Joseph, saying unto him: Rise up, and take the Babe and His mother.’ ”
“The Babe and His mother,” Olga repeated, and flushed all over with emotion.
“ ‘And flee into Egypt, . . . and tarry there until such time as . . . ’ ”
At the word “tarry” Olga could not refrain from tears. Looking at her, Marya began to whimper, and after her Ivan Makaritch’s sister. The old father cleared his throat, and bustled96 about to find something to give his grand-daughter, but, finding nothing, gave it up with a wave of his hand. And when the reading was over the neighbours dispersed97 to their homes, feeling touched and very much pleased with Olga and Sasha.
As it was a holiday, the family spent the whole day at home. The old woman, whom her husband, her daughters-in-law, her grandchildren all alike called Granny, tried to do everything herself; she heated the stove and set the samovar with her own hands, even waited at the midday meal, and then complained that she was worn out with work. And all the time she was uneasy for fear someone should eat a piece too much, or that her husband and daughters-in-law would sit idle. At one time she would hear the tavern-keeper’s geese going at the back of the huts to her kitchen-garden, and she would run out of the hut with a long stick and spend half an hour screaming shrilly100 by her cabbages, which were as gaunt and scraggy as herself; at another time she fancied that a crow had designs on her chickens, and she rushed to attack it wi th loud words of abuse. She was cross and grumbling101 from morning till night. And often she raised such an outcry that passers-by stopped in the street.
She was not affectionate towards the old man, reviling102 him as a lazy-bones and a plague. He was not a responsible, reliable peasant, and perhaps if she had not been continually nagging at him he would not have worked at all, but would have simply sat on the stove and talked. He talked to his son at great length about certain enemies of his, complained of the insults he said he had to put up with every day from the neighbours, and it was tedious to listen to him.
“Yes,” he would say, standing with his arms akimbo, “yes. . . . A week after the Exaltation of the Cross I sold my hay willingly at thirty kopecks a pood. . . . Well and good. . . . So you see I was taking the hay in the morning with a good will; I was interfering103 with no one. In an unlucky hour I see the village elder, Antip Syedelnikov, coming out of the tavern. ‘Where are you taking it, you ruffian?’ says he, and takes me by the ear.”
Kiryak had a fearful headache after his drinking bout27, and was ashamed to face his brother.
“What vodka does! Ah, my God!” he muttered, shaking his aching head. “For Christ’s sake, forgive me, brother and sister; I’m not happy myself.”
As it was a holiday, they bought a herring at the tavern and made a soup of the herring’s head. At midday they all sat down to drink tea, and went on drinking it for a long time, till they were all perspiring104; they looked positively swollen105 from the tea-drinking, and after it began sipping the broth26 from the herring’s head, all helping106 themselves out of one bowl. But the herring itself Granny had hidden.
In the evening a potter began firing pots on the ravine. In the meadow below the girls got up a choral dance and sang songs. They played the concertina. And on the other side of the river a kiln107 for baking pots was lighted, too, and the girls sang songs, and in the distance the singing sounded soft and musical. The peasants were noisy in and about the tavern. They were singing with drunken voices, each on his own account, and swearing at one another, so that Olga could only shudder82 and say:
“Oh, holy Saints!”
She was amazed that the abuse was incessant108, and those who were loudest and most persistent109 in this foul language were the old men who were so near their end. And the girls and children heard the swearing, and were not in the least disturbed by it, and it was evident that they were used to it from their cradles.
It was past midnight, the kilns110 on both sides of the river were put out, but in the meadow below and in the tavern the merrymaking still went on. The old father and Kiryak, both drunk, walking arm-in-arm and jostling against each other’s shoulders, went to the barn where Olga and Marya were lying.
“Let her alone,” the old man persuaded him; “let her alone. . . . She is a harmless woman. . . . It’s a sin. . . . ”
“Ma-arya! “ shouted Kiryak.
“Let her be. . . . It’s a sin. . . . She is not a bad woman.”
Both stopped by the barn and went on.
“I lo-ove the flowers of the fi-ield,” the old man began singing suddenly in a high, piercing tenor111. “I lo-ove to gather them in the meadows!”
Then he spat112, and with a filthy113 oath went into the hut.
IV
Granny put Sasha by her kitchen-garden and told her to keep watch that the geese did not go in. It was a hot August day. The tavernkeeper’s geese could make their way into the kitchen-garden by the backs of the huts, but now they were busily engaged picking up oats by the tavern, peacefully conversing115 together, and only the gander craned his head high as though trying to see whether the old woman were coming with her stick. The other geese might come up from below, but they were now grazing far away the other side of the river, stretched out in a long white garland about the meadow. Sasha stood about a little, grew weary, and, seeing that the geese were not coming, went away to the ravine.
There she saw Marya’s eldest116 daughter Motka, who was standing motionless on a big stone, staring at the church. Marya had given birth to thirteen children, but she only had six living, all girls, not one boy, and the eldest was eight. Motka in a long smock was standing barefooted in the full sunshine; the sun was blazing down right on her head, but she did not notice that, and seemed as though turned to stone. Sasha stood beside her and said, looking at the church:
“God lives in the church. Men have lamps and candles, but God has little green and red and blue lamps like little eyes. At night God walks about the church, and with Him the Holy Mother of God and Saint Nikolay, thud, thud, thud! . . . And the watchman is terrified, terrified! Aye, aye, dearie,” she added, imitating her mother. “And when the end of the world comes all the churches will be carried up to heaven.”
“With the-ir be-ells?” Motka asked in her deep voice, drawling every syllable117.
“With their bells. And when the end of the world comes the good will go to Paradise, but the angry will burn in fire eternal and unquenchable, dearie. To my mother as well as to Marya God will say: ‘You never offended anyone, and for that go to the right to Paradise’; but to Kiryak and Granny He will say: ‘You go to the left into the fire.’ And anyone who has eaten meat in Lent will go into the fire, too.”
She looked upwards118 at the sky, opening wide her eyes, and said:
“Look at the sky without winking119, you will see angels.”
Motka began looking at the sky, too, and a minute passed in silence.
“Do you see them?” asked Sasha.
“I don’t,” said Motka in her deep voice.
“But I do. Little angels are flying about the sky and flap, flap with their little wings as though they were gnats120.”
Motka thought for a little, with her eyes on the ground, and asked:
“Will Granny burn?”
“She will, dearie.”
From the stone an even gentle slope ran down to the bottom, covered with soft green grass, which one longed to lie down on or to touch with one’s hands . . . Sasha lay down and rolled to the bottom. Motka with a grave, severe face, taking a deep breath, lay down, too, and rolled to the bottom, and in doing so tore her smock from the hem10 to the shoulder.
“What fun it is!” said Sasha, delighted.
They walked up to the top to roll down again, but at that moment they heard a shrill99, familiar voice. Oh, how awful it was! Granny, a toothless, bony, hunchbacked figure, with short grey hair which was fluttering in the wind, was driving the geese out of the kitchen-garden with a long stick, shouting.
“They have trampled121 all the cabbages, the damned brutes122! I’d cut your throats, thrice accursed plagues! Bad luck to you!”
She saw the little girls, flung down the stick and picked up a switch, and, seizing Sasha by the neck with her fingers, thin and hard as the gnarled branches of a tree, began whipping her. Sasha cried with pain and terror, while the gander, waddling123 and stretching his neck, went up to the old woman and hissed124 at her, and when he went back to his flock all the geese greeted him approvingly with “Ga-ga-ga!” Then Granny proceeded to whip Motka, and in this Motka’s smock was torn again. Feeling in despair, and crying loudly, Sasha went to the hut to complain. Motka followed her; she, too, was crying on a deeper note, without wiping her tears, and her face was as wet as though it had been dipped in water.
“Holy Saints!” cried Olga, aghast, as the two came into the hut. “Queen of Heaven!”
Sasha began telling her story, while at the same time Granny walked in with a storm of shrill cries and abuse; then Fyokla flew into a rage, and there was an uproar126 in the hut.
“Never mind, never mind!” Olga, pale and upset, tried to comfort them, stroking Sasha’s head. “She is your grandmother; it’s a sin to be angry with her. Never mind, my child.”
Nikolay, who was worn out already by the everlasting127 hubbub128, hunger, stifling129 fumes, filth114, who hated and despised the poverty, who was ashamed for his wife and daughter to see his father and mother, swung his legs off the stove and said in an irritable130, tearful voice, addressing his mother:
“You must not beat her! You have no right to beat he r!”
“You lie rotting on the stove, you wretched creature!” Fyokla shouted at him spitefully. “The devil brought you all on us, eating us out of house and home.”
Sasha and Motka and all the little girls in the hut huddled on the stove in the corner behind Nikolay’s back, and from that refuge listened in silent terror, and the beating of their little hearts could be distinctly heard. Whenever there is someone in a family who has long been ill, and hopelessly ill, there come painful moments when all timidly, secretly, at the bottom of their hearts long for his death; and only the children fear the death of someone near them, and always feel horrified131 at the thought of it. And now the children, with bated breath, with a mournful look on their faces, gazed at Nikolay and thought that he was soon to die; and they wanted to cry and to say something friendly and compassionate to him.
He pressed close to Olga, as though seeking protection, and said to her softly in a quavering voice:
“Olya darling, I can’t stay here longer. It’s more than I can bear. For God’s sake, for Christ’s sake, write to your sister Klavdia Abramovna. Let her sell and pawn132 everything she has; let her send us the money. We will go away from here. Oh, Lord,” he went on miserably133, “to have one peep at Moscow! If I could see it in my dreams, the dear place!
And when the evening came on, and it was dark in the hut, it was so dismal134 that it was hard to utter a word. Granny, very ill-tempered, soaked some crusts of rye bread in a cup, and was a long time, a whole hour, sucking at them. Marya, after milking the cow, brought in a pail of milk and set it on a bench; then Granny poured it from the pail into a jug135 just as slowly and deliberately136, evidently pleased that it was now the Fast of the Assumption, so that no one would drink milk and it would be left untouched. And she only poured out a very little in a saucer for Fyokla’s baby. When Marya and she carried the jug down to the cellar Motka suddenly stirred, clambered down from the stove, and going to the bench where stood the wooden cup full of crusts, sprinkled into it some milk from the saucer.
Granny, coming back into the hut, sat down to her soaked crusts again, while Sasha and Motka, sitting on the stove, gazed at her, and they were glad that she had broken her fast and now would go to hell. They were comforted and lay down to sleep, and Sasha as she dozed137 off to sleep imagined the Day of Judgment138: a huge fire was burning, somewhat like a potter’s kiln, and the Evil One, with horns like a cow’s, and black all over, was driving Granny into the fire with a long stick, just as Granny herself had been driving the geese.
V
On the day of the Feast of the Assumption, between ten and eleven in the evening, the girls and lads who were merrymaking in the meadow suddenly raised a clamour and outcry, and ran in the direction of the village; and those who were above on the edge of the ravine could not for the first moment make out what was the matter.
“Fire! Fire!” they heard desperate shouts from below. “The village is on fire!”
Those who were sitting above looked round, and a terrible and extraordinary spectacle met their eyes. On the thatched roof of one of the end cottages stood a column of flame, seven feet high, which curled round and scattered140 sparks in all directions as though it were a fountain. And all at once the whole roof burst into bright flame, and the crackling of the fire was audible.
The light of the moon was dimmed, and the whole village was by now bathed in a red quivering glow: black shadows moved over the ground, there was a smell of burning, and those who ran up from below were all gasping141 and could not speak for trembling; they jostled against each other, fell down, and they could hardly see in the unaccustomed light, and did not recognize each other. It was terrible. What seemed particularly dreadful was that doves were flying over the fire in the smoke; and in the tavern, where they did not yet know of the fire, they were still singing and playing the concertina as though there were nothing the matter.
“Uncle Semyon’s on fire,” shouted a loud, coarse voice.
Marya was fussing about round her hut, weeping and wringing142 her hands, while her teeth chattered143, though the fire was a long way off at the other end of the village. Nikolay came out in high felt boots, the children ran out in their little smocks. Near the village constable’s hut an iron sheet was struck. Boom, boom, boom! . . . floated through the air, and this repeated, persistent sound sent a pang144 to the heart and turned one cold. The old women stood with the holy ikons. Sheep, calves145, cows were driven out of the back-yards into the street; boxes, sheepskins, tubs were carried out. A black stallion, who was kept apart from the drove of horses because he kicked and injured them, on being set free ran once or twice up and down the village, neighing and pawing the ground; then suddenly stopped short near a cart and began kicking it with his hind-legs.
They began ringing the bells in the church on the other side of the river.
Near the burning hut it was hot and so light that one could distinctly see every blade of grass. Semyon, a red-haired peasant with a long nose, wearing a reefer-jacket and a cap pulled down right over his ears, sat on one of the boxes which they had succeeded in bringing out: his wife was lying on her face, moaning and unconscious. A little old man of eighty, with a big beard, who looked like a gnome146 — not one of the villagers, though obviously connected in some way with the fire — walked about bareheaded, with a white bundle in his arms. The glare was reflected on his bald head. The village elder, Antip Syedelnikov, as swarthy and black-haired as a gypsy, went up to the hut with an axe147, and hacked148 out the windows one after another — no one knew why — then began chopping up the roof.
“Women, water!” he shouted. “Bring the engine! Look sharp!”
The peasants, who had been drinking in the tavern just before, dragged the engine up. They were all drunk; they kept stumbling and falling down, and all had a helpless expression and tears in their eyes.
“Wenches, water! “ shouted the elder, who was drunk, too. “Look sharp, wenches!”
The women and the girls ran downhill to where there was a spring, and kept hauling pails and buckets of water up the hill, and, pouring it into the engine, ran down again. Olga and Marya and Sasha and Motka all brought water. The women and the boys pumped the water; the pipe hissed, and the elder, directing it now at the door, now at the windows, held back the stream with his finger, which made it hiss125 more sharply still.
“Bravo, Antip!” voices shouted approvingly. “Do your best.”
Antip went inside the hut into the fire and shouted from within.
“Pump! Bestir yourselves, good Christian folk, in such a terrible mischance!”
The peasants stood round in a crowd, doing nothing but staring at the fire. No one knew what to do, no one had the sense to do anything, though there were stacks of wheat, hay, barns, and piles of faggots standing all round. Kiryak and old Osip, his father, both tipsy, were standing there, too. And as though to justify149 his doing nothing, old Osip said, addressing the woman who lay on the ground:
“What is there to trouble about, old girl! The hut is insured — why are you taking on?”
Semyon, addressing himself first to one person and then to another, kept describing how the fire had started.
“That old man, the one with the bundle, a house-serf of General Zhukov’s. . . . He was cook at our general’s, God rest his soul! He came over this evening: ‘Let me stay the night,’ says he. . . . Well, we had a glass, to be sure. . . . The wife got the samovar — she was going to give the old fellow a cup of tea, and in an unlucky hour she set the samovar in the entrance. The sparks from the chimney must have blown straight up to the thatch139; that’s how it was. We were almost burnt ourselves. And the old fellow’s cap has been burnt; what a shame!”
And the sheet of iron was struck indefatigably150, and the bells kept ringing in the church the other side of the river. In the glow of the fir e Olga, breathless, looking with horror at the red sheep and the pink doves flying in the smoke, kept running down the hill and up again. It seemed to her that the ringing went to her heart with a sharp stab, that the fire would never be over, that Sasha was lost. . . . And when the ceiling of the hut fell in with a crash, the thought that now the whole village would be burnt made her weak and faint, and she could not go on fetching water, but sat down on the ravine, setting the pail down near her; beside her and below her, the peasant women sat wailing151 as though at a funeral.
Then the stewards and watchmen from the estate the other side of the river arrived in two carts, bringing with them a fire-engine. A very young student in an unbuttoned white tunic152 rode up on horseback. There was the thud of axes. They put a ladder to the burning framework of the house, and five men ran up it at once. Foremost of them all was the student, who was red in the face and shouting in a harsh hoarse153 voice, and in a tone as though putting out fires was a thing he was used to. They pulled the house to pieces, a beam at a time; they dragged away the corn, the hurdles154, and the stacks that were near.
“Don’t let them break it up! “ cried stern voices in the crowd. “Don’t let them.”
Kiryak made his way up to the hut with a resolute155 air, as though he meant to prevent the newcomers from breaking up the hut, but one of the workmen turned him back with a blow in his neck. There was the sound of laughter, the workman dealt him another blow, Kiryak fell down, and crawled back into the crowd on his hands and knees.
Two handsome girls in hats, probably the student’s sisters, came from the other side of the river. They stood a little way off, looking at the fire. The beams that had been dragged apart were no longer burning, but were smoking vigorously; the student, who was working the hose, turned the water, first on the beams, then on the peasants, then on the women who were bringing the water.
“George!” the girls called to him reproachfully in anxiety, “George!”
The fire was over. And only when they began to disperse98 they noticed that the day was breaking, that everyone was pale and rather dark in the face, as it always seems in the early morning when the last stars are going out. As they separated, the peasants laughed and made jokes about General Zhukov’s cook and his cap which had been burnt; they already wanted to turn the fire into a joke, and even seemed sorry that it had so soon been put out.
“How well you extinguished the fire, sir!” said Olga to the student. “You ought to come to us in Moscow: there we have a fire every day.”
“Why, do you come from Moscow?” asked one of the young ladies.
“Yes, miss. My husband was a waiter at the Slavyansky Bazaar. And this is my daughter,” she said, indicating Sasha, who was cold and huddling156 up to her. “She is a Moscow girl, too.”
The two young ladies said something in French to the student, and he gave Sasha a twenty-kopeck piece.
Old Father Osip saw this, and there was a gleam of hope in his face.
“We must thank God, your honour, there was no wind,” he said, addressing the student, “or else we should have been all burnt up together. Your honour, kind gentlefolks,” he added in embarrassment157 in a lower tone, “the morning’s chilly158 . . . something to warm one . . . half a bottle to your honour’s health.”
Nothing was given him, and clearing his throat he slouched home. Olga stood afterwards at the end of the street and watched the two carts crossing the river by the ford159 and the gentlefolks walking across the meadow; a carriage was waiting for them the other side of the river. Going into the hut, she described to her husband with enthusiasm:
“Such good people! And so beautiful! The young ladies were like cherubim.”
“Plague take them!” Fyokla, sleepy, said spitefully.
VI
Marya thought herself unhappy, and said that she would be very glad to die; Fyokla, on the other hand, found all this life to her taste: the poverty, the uncleanliness, and the incessant quarrelling. She ate what was given her without discrimination; slept anywhere, on whatever came to hand. She would empty the slops just at the porch, would splash them out from the doorway160, and then walk barefoot through the puddle161. And from the very first day she took a dislike to Olga and Nikolay just because they did not like this life.
“We shall see what you’ll find to eat here, you Moscow gentry!” she said malignantly162. “We shall see!”
One morning, it was at the beginning of September, Fyokla, vigorous, good-looking, and rosy from the cold, brought up two pails of water; Marya and Olga were sitting meanwhile at the table drinking tea.
“Tea and sugar,” said Fyokla sarcastically163. “The fine ladies!” she added, setting down the pails. “You have taken to the fashion of tea every day. You better look out that you don’t burst with your tea-drinking,” she went on, looking with hatred164 at Olga. “That’s how you have come by your fat mug, having a good time in Moscow, you lump of flesh!” She swung the yoke165 and hit Olga such a blow on the shoulder that the two sisters-in-law could only clasp their hands and say:
“Oh, holy Saints!”
Then Fyokla went down to the river to wash the clothes, swearing all the time so loudly that she could be heard in the hut.
The day passed and was followed by the long autumn evening. They wound silk in the hut; everyone did it except Fyokla; she had gone over the river. They got the silk from a factory close by, and the whole family working together earned next to nothing, twenty kopecks a week.
“Things were better in the old days under the gentry,” said the old father as he wound silk. “You worked and ate and slept, everything in its turn. At dinner you had cabbage-soup and boiled grain, and at supper the same again. Cucumbers and cabbage in plenty: you could eat to your heart’s content, as much as you wanted. And there was more strictness. Everyone minded what he was about.”
The hut was lighted by a single little lamp, which burned dimly and smoked. When someone screened the lamp and a big shadow fell across the window, the bright moonlight could be seen. Old Osip, speaking slowly, told them how they used to live before the emancipation166; how in those very parts, where life was now so poor and so dreary167, they used to hunt with harriers, greyhounds,. retrievers, and when they went out as beaters the peasants were given vodka; how whole waggonloads of game used to be sent to Moscow for the young masters; how the bad were beaten with rods or sent away to the Tver estate, while the good were rewarded. And Granny told them something, too. She remembered everything, positively everything. She described her mistress, a kind, God-fearing woman, whose husband was a profligate168 and a rake, and all of whose daughters made unlucky marriages: one married a drunkard, another married a workman, the other eloped secretly (Granny herself, at that time a young girl, helped in the elopement), and they had all three as well as their mother died early from grief. And remembering all this, Granny positively began to shed tears.
All at once someone knocked at the door, and they all started.
“Uncle Osip, give me a night’s lodging47.”
The little bald old man, General Zhukov’s cook, the one whose cap had been burnt, walked in. He sat down and listened, then he, too, began telling stories of all sorts. Nikolay, sitting on the stove with his legs hanging down, listened and asked questions about the dishes that were prepared in the old days for the gentry. They talked of rissoles, cutlets, various soups and sauces, and the cook, who remembered everything very well, mentioned dishes that are no longer served. There was one, for instance — a dish made of bulls’ eyes, which was called “waking up in the morning.”
“And used you to do cutlets a’ la marechal?” asked Nikolay.
“No.”
Nikolay shook his head reproachfully and said:
“Tut, tut! You were not much of a cook!”
The little girls sitting and lying on the stove stared down without blinking; it seemed as though there were a great many of them, like cherubim in the clouds. They liked the stories: they were brea thless; they shuddered and turned pale with alternate rapture169 and terror, and they listened breathlessly, afraid to stir, to Granny, whose stories were the most interesting of all.
They lay down to sleep in silence; and the old people, troubled and excited by their reminiscences, thought how precious was youth, of which, whatever it might have been like, nothing was left in the memory but what was living, joyful170, touching171, and how terribly cold was death, which was not far off, better not think of it! The lamp died down. And the dusk, and the two little windows sharply defined by the moonlight, and the stillness and the creak of the cradle, reminded them for some reason that life was over, that nothing one could do would bring it back. . . . You doze40 off, you forget yourself, and suddenly someone touches your shoulder or breathes on your cheek — and sleep is gone; your body feels cramped172, and thoughts of death keep creeping into your mind. You turn on the other side: death is forgotten, but old dreary, sickening thoughts of poverty, of food, of how dear flour is getting, stray through the mind, and a little later again you remember that life is over and you cannot bring it back. . . .
“Oh, Lord!” sighed the cook.
Someone gave a soft, soft tap at the window. It must be Fyokla come back. Olga got up, and yawning and whispering a prayer, opened the door, then drew the bolt in the outer room, but no one came in; only from the street came a cold draught173 and a sudden brightness from the moonlight. The street, still and deserted174, and the moon itself floating across the sky, could be seen at the open door.
“Who is there?” called Olga.
“I,” she heard the answer — “it is I.”
Near the door, crouching175 against the wall, stood Fyokla, absolutely naked. She was shivering with cold, her teeth were chattering176, and in the bright moonlight she looked very pale, strange, and beautiful. The shadows on her, and the bright moonlight on her skin, stood out vividly, and her dark eyebrows and firm, youthful bosom177 were defined with peculiar178 distinctness.
“The ruffians over there undressed me and turned me out like this,” she said. “I’ve come home without my clothes . . . naked as my mother bore me. Bring me something to put on.”
“But go inside!” Olga said softly, beginning to shiver, too.
“I don’t want the old folks to see.” Granny was, in fact, already stirring and muttering, and the old father asked: “Who is there?” Olga brought her own smock and skirt, dressed Fyokla, and then both went softly into the inner room, trying not to make a noise with the door.
“Is that you, you sleek179 one?” Granny grumbled180 angrily, guessing who it was. “Fie upon you, nightwalker! . . . Bad luck to you!”
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” whispered Olga, wrapping Fyokla up; “it’s all right, dearie.”
All was stillness again. They always slept badly; everyone was kept awake by something worrying and persistent: the old man by the pain in his back, Granny by anxiety and anger, Marya by terror, the children by itch84 and hunger. Now, too, their sleep was troubled; they kept turning over from one side to the other, talking in their sleep, getting up for a drink.
Fyokla suddenly broke into a loud, coarse howl, but immediately checked herself, and only uttered sobs181 from time to time, growing softer and on a lower note, until she relapsed into silence. From time to time from the other side of the river there floated the sound of the beating of the hours; but the time seemed somehow strange — five was struck and then three.
“Oh Lord!” sighed the cook.
Looking at the windows, it was difficult to tell whether it was still moonlight or whether the dawn had begun. Marya got up and went out, and she could be heard milking the cows and saying, “Stea-dy!” Granny went out, too. It was still dark in the hut, but all the objects in it could be discerned.
Nikolay, who had not slept all night, got down from the stove. He took his dress-coat out of a green box, put it on, and going to the window, stroked the sleeves and took hold of the coat-tails — and smiled. Then he carefully took off the coat, put it away in his box, and lay down again.
Marya came in again and began lighting182 the stove. She was evidently hardly awake, and seemed dropping asleep as she walked. Probably she had had some dream, or the stories of the night before came into her mind as, stretching luxuriously183 before the stove, she said:
“No, freedom is better.”
VII
The master arrived — that was what they called the police inspector184. When he would come and what he was coming for had been known for the last week. There were only forty households in Zhukovo, but more than two thousand roubles of arrears185 of rates and taxes had accumulated.
The police inspector stopped at the tavern. He drank there two glasses of tea, and then went on foot to the village elder’s hut, near which a crowd of those who were in debt stood waiting. The elder, Antip Syedelnikov, was, in spite of his youth — he was only a little over thirty — strict and always on the side of the authorities, though he himself was poor and did not pay his taxes regularly. Evidently he enjoyed being elder, and liked the sense of authority, which he could only display by strictness. In the village council the peasants were afraid of him and obeyed him. It would sometimes happen that he would pounce186 on a drunken man in the street or near the tavern, tie his hands behind him, and put him in the lock-up. On one occasion he even put Granny in the lock-up because she went to the village council instead of Osip, and began swearing, and he kept her there for a whole day and night. He had never lived in a town or read a book, but somewhere or other had picked up various learned expressions, and loved to make use of them in conversation, and he was respected for this though he was not always understood.
When Osip came into the village elder’s hut with his tax book, the police inspector, a lean old man with a long grey beard, in a grey tunic, was sitting at a table in the passage, writing something. It was clean in the hut; all the walls were dotted with pictures cut out of the illustrated187 papers, and in the most conspicuous188 place near the ikon there was a portrait of the Battenburg who was the Prince of Bulgaria. By the table stood Antip Syedelnikov with his arms folded.
“There is one hundred and nineteen roubles standing against him,” he said when it came to Osip’s turn. “Before Easter he paid a rouble, and he has not paid a kopeck since.”
The police inspector raised his eyes to Osip and asked:
“Why is this, brother?”
“Show Divine mercy, your honour,” Osip began, growing agitated189. “Allow me to say last year the gentleman at Lutorydsky said to me, ‘Osip,’ he said, ‘sell your hay . . . you sell it,’ he said. Well, I had a hundred poods for sale; the women mowed190 it on the water-meadow. Well, we struck a bargain all right, willingly. . . . ”
He complained of the elder, and kept turning round to the peasants as though inviting191 them to bear witness; his face flushed red and perspired192, and his eyes grew sharp and angry.
“I don’t know why you are saying all this,” said the police inspector. “I am asking you . . . I am asking you why you don’t pay your arrears. You don’t pay, any of you, and am I to be responsible for you?”
“I can’t do it.”
“His words have no sequel, your honour,” said the elder. “The Tchikildyeevs certainly are of a defective193 class, but if you will just ask the others, the root of it all is vodka, and they are a very bad lot. With no sort of understanding.”
The police inspector wrote something down, and said to Osip quietly, in an even tone, as though he were asking him for water:
“Be off.”
Soon he went away; and when he got into his cheap chaise and cleared his throat, it could be seen from the very expression of his long thin back that he was no longer thinking of Osip or of the village elder, nor of the Zhukovo arrears, but was thinking of his own affairs. Before he had gone three-quarters of a mile Antip was already carrying off the samovar from the Tchikildyeevs’ cottage, followed by Granny, screaming shrilly and straining her throat:
“I won’t let you have it, I won’t let you have it, damn you!”
He walked rapidly with long steps, and she pursued him panting, almost falling over, a bent, ferocious194 figure; her kerchief slipped on to her shoulders, her grey hair with greenish lights on it was blown about in the wind. She suddenly stopped short, and like a genuine rebel, fell to beating her breast with her fists and shouting louder than ever in a sing-song voice, as though she were sobbing195:
“Good Christians196 and believers in God! Neighbours, they have ill-treated me! Kind friends, they have oppressed me! Oh, oh! dear people, take my part.”
“Granny, Granny!” said the village elder sternly, “have some sense in your head!”
It was hopelessly dreary in the Tchikildyeevs’ hut without the samovar; there was something humiliating in this loss, insulting, as though the honour of the hut had been outraged197. Better if the elder had carried off the table, all the benches, all the pots — it would not have seemed so empty. Granny screamed, Marya cried, and the little girls, looking at her, cried, too. The old father, feeling guilty, sat in the corner with bowed head and said nothing. And Nikolay, too, was silent. Granny loved him and was sorry for him, but now, forgetting her pity, she fell upon him with abuse, with reproaches, shaking her fist right in his face. She shouted that it was all his fault; why had he sent them so little when he boasted in his letters that he was getting fifty roubles a month at the Slavyansky Bazaar? Why had he come, and with his family, too? If he died, where was the money to come from for his funeral . . .? And it was pitiful to look at Nikolay, Olga, and Sasha.
The old father cleared his throat, took his cap, and went off to the village elder. Antip was soldering198 something by the stove, puffing199 out his cheeks; there was a smell of burning. His children, emaciated200 and unwashed, no better than the Tchikildyeevs, were scrambling201 about the floor; his wife, an ugly, freckled202 woman with a prominent stomach, was winding silk. They were a poor, unlucky family, and Antip was the only one who looked vigorous and handsome. On a bench there were five samovars standing in a row. The old man said his prayer to Battenburg and said:
“Antip, show the Divine mercy. Give me back the samovar, for Christ’s sake!”
“Bring three roubles, then you shall have it.
“I can’t do it!”
Antip puffed203 out his cheeks, the fire roared and hissed, and the glow was reflected in the samovar. The old man crumpled204 up his cap and said after a moment’s thought:
“You give it me back.”
The swarthy elder looked quite black, and was like a magician; he turned round to Osip and said sternly and rapidly:
“It all depends on the rural captain. On the twenty-sixth instant you can state the grounds for your dissatisfaction before the administrative205 session, verbally or in writing.”
Osip did not understand a word, but he was satisfied with that and went home.
Ten days later the police inspector came again, stayed an hour and went away. During those days the weather had changed to cold and windy; the river had been frozen for some time past, but still there was no snow, and people found it difficult to get about. On the eve of a holiday some of the neighbours came in to Osip’s to sit and have a talk. They did not light the lamp, as it would have been a sin to work, but talked in the darkness. There were some items of news, all rather unpleasant. In two or three households hens had been taken for the arrears, and had been sent to the district police station, and there they had died because no one had fed them; they had taken sheep, and while they were being driven away tied to one another, shifted into another cart at each village, one of them had died. And now they were discussing the question, who was to blame?
“The Zemstvo,” said Osip. “Who else?”
“Of course it is the Zemstvo.”
The Zemstvo was blamed for everything — for the arrears, and for the oppressions, and for the failure of the crops, though no one of them knew what was meant by the Zemstvo. And this dated from the time when well-to-do peasants who had factories, shops, and inns of their own were members of the Zemstvos, were dissatisfied with them, and took to swearing at the Zemstvos in their factories and inns.
They talked of God’s not sending the snow; they had to bring in wood for fuel, and there was no driving nor walking in the frozen ruts. In old days fifteen to twenty years ago conversation was much more interesting in Zhukovo. In those days every old man looked as though he were treasuring some secret; as though he knew something and was expecting something. They used to talk about an edict in golden letters, about the division of lands, about new land, about treasures; they hinted at something. Now the people of Zhukovo had no mystery at all; their whole life was bare and open in the sight of all, and they could talk of nothing but poverty, food, there being no snow yet. . . .
There was a pause. Then they thought again of the hens, of the sheep, and began discussing whose fault it was.
“The Zemstvo,” said Osip wearily. “Who else?”
VIII
The parish church was nearly five miles away at Kosogorovo, and the peasants only attended it when they had to do so for baptisms, weddings, or funerals; they went to the services at the church across the river. On holidays in fine weather the girls dressed up in their best and went in a crowd together to church, and it was a cheering sight to see them in their red, yellow, and green dresses cross the meadow; in bad weather they all stayed at home. They went for the sacrament to the parish church. From each of those who did not manage in Lent to go to confession206 in readiness for the sacrament the parish priest, going the round of the huts with the cross at Easter, took fifteen kopecks.
The old father did not believe in God, for he hardly ever thought about Him; he recognized the supernatural, but considered it was entirely207 the women’s concern, and when religion or miracles were discussed before him, or a question were put to him, he would say reluctantly, scratching himself:
“Who can tell!”
Granny believed, but her faith was somewhat hazy208; everything was mixed up in her memory, and she could scarcely begin to think of sins, of death, of the salvation209 of the soul, before poverty and her daily cares took possession of her mind, and she instantly forgot what she was thinking about. She did not remember the prayers, and usually in the evenings, before lying down to sleep, she would stand before the ikons and whisper:
“Holy Mother of Kazan, Holy Mother of Smolensk, Holy Mother of Troerutchitsy . . . ”
Marya and Fyokla crossed themselves, fasted, and took the sacrament every year, but understood nothing. The children were not taught their prayers, nothing was told them about God, and no moral principles were instilled210 into them; they were only forbidden to eat meat or milk in Lent. In the other families it was much the same: there were few who believed, few who understood. At the same time everyone loved the Holy Scripture44, loved it with a tender, reverent211 love; but they had no Bible, there was no one to read it and explain it, and because Olga sometimes read them the gospel, they respected her, and they all addressed her and Sasha as though they were superior to themselves.
For church holidays and services Olga often went to neighbouring villages, and to the district town, in which there were two monasteries212 and twenty-seven churches. She was dreamy, and when she was on these pilgrimages she quite forgot her family, and only when she got home again suddenly made the joyful discovery that she had a husband and daughter, and then would say, smiling and radiant:
“God has sent me blessings213!”
What went on in the village worried her and seemed to her revolting. On Elijah’s Day they drank, at the Assumption they drank, at the Ascension they drank. The Feast of the Intercession was the parish holiday for Zhukovo, and the peasants used to drink then for three days; they squandered215 on drink fifty roubles of money belonging to the Mir, and then collected more for vodka from all the households. On the first day of the feast the Tchikildyeevs killed a sheep and ate of it in the morning, at dinner-time, and in the evening; they ate it ravenously217, and the children got up at night to eat more. Kiryak was fearfully drunk for three whole days; he drank up everything, even his boots and cap, and beat Marya so terribly that they had to pour water over her. And then they were all ashamed and sick.
However, even in Zhukovo, in this “Slaveytown,” there was once an outburst of genuine religious enthusiasm. It was in August, when throughout the district they carried from village to village the Holy Mother, the giver of life. It was still and overcast218 on the day when they expected Her at Zhukovo. The girls set off in the morning to meet the ikon, in their bright holiday dresses, and brought Her towards the evening, in procession with the cross and with singing, while the bells pealed219 in the church across the river. An immense crowd of villagers and strangers flooded the street; there was noise, dust, a great crush. . . . And the old father and Granny and Kiryak — all stretched out their hands to the ikon, looked eagerly at it and said, weeping:
“Defender220! Mother! Defender!”
All seemed suddenly to realize that there was not an empty void between earth and heaven, that the rich and the powerful had not taken possession of everything, that there was still a refuge from injury, from slavish bondage221, from crushing, unendurable poverty, from the terrible vodka.
“Defender! Mother!” sobbed222 Marya. “Mother!”
But the thanksgiving service ended and the ikon was carried away, and everything went on as before; and again there was a sound of coarse drunken oaths from the tavern.
Only the well-to-do peasants were afraid of death; the richer they were the less they believed in God, and in the salvation of souls, and only through fear of the end of the world put up candles and had services said for them, to be on the safe side. The peasants who were rather poorer were not afraid of death. The old father and Granny were told to their faces that they had lived too long, that it was time they were dead, and they did not mind. They did not hinder Fyokla from saying in Nikolay’s presence that when Nikolay died her husband Denis would get exemption223 — to return home from the army. And Marya, far from fearing death, regretted that it was so slow in coming, and was glad when her children died.
Death they did not fear, but of every disease they had an exaggerated terror. The merest trifle was enough — a stomach upset, a slight chill, and Granny would be wrapped up on the stove, and would begin moaning loudly and incessantly224:
“I am dy-ing!”
The old father hurried off for the priest, and Granny received the sacrament and extreme unction. They often talked of colds, of worms, of tumours225 which move in the stomach and coil round to the heart. Above all, they were afraid of catching226 cold, and so put on thick clothes even in the summer and warmed themselves at the stove. Granny was fond of being doctored, and often went to the hospital, where she used to say she was not seventy, but fifty-eight; she supposed that if the doctor knew her real age he would not treat her, but would say it was time she died instead of taking medicine. She usually went to the hospital early in the morning, taking with her two or three of the little girls, and came back in the evening, hungry and ill-tempered — with drops for herself and ointments227 for the little girls. Once she took Nikolay, who swallowed drops for a fortnight afterwards, and said he felt better.
Granny knew all the doctors and their assistants and the wise men for twenty miles round, and not one of them she liked. At the Intercession, when the priest made the round of the huts with the cross, the deacon told her that in the town near the prison lived an old man who had been a medical orderly in the army, and who made wonderful cures, and advised her to try him. Granny took his advice. When the first snow fell she drove to the town and fetched an old man with a big beard, a converted Jew, in a long gown, whose face was covered with blue veins228. There were outsiders at work in the hut at the time: an old tailor, in terrible spectacles, was cutting a waistcoat out of some rags, and two young men were making felt boots out of wool; Kiryak, who had been dismissed from his place for drunkenness, and now lived at home, was sitting beside the tailor mending a bridle229. And it was crowded, stifling, and noisome230 in the hut. The converted Jew examined Nikolay and said that it was necessary to try cupping.
He put on the cups, and the old tailor, Kiryak, and the little girls stood round and looked on, and it seemed to them that they saw the disease being drawn out of Nikolay; and Nikolay, too, watched how the cups suckling at his breast gradually filled with dark blood, and felt as though there really were something coming out of him, and smiled with pleasure.
“It’s a good thing,” said the tailor. “Please God, it will do you good.”
The Jew put on twelve cups and then another twelve, drank some tea, and went away. Nikolay began shivering; his face looked drawn, and, as the women expressed it, shrank up like a fist; his fingers turned blue. He wrapped himself up in a quilt and in a sheepskin, but got colder and colder. Towards the evening he began to be in great distress231; asked to be laid on the ground, asked the tailor not to smoke; then he subsided232 under the sheepskin and towards morning he died.
IX
Oh, what a grim, what a long winter!
Their own grain did not last beyond Christmas, and they had to buy flour. Kiryak, who lived at home now, was noisy in the evenings, inspiring terror in everyone, and in the mornings he suffered from headache and was ashamed; and he was a pitiful sight. In the stall the starved cows bellowed day and night — a heart-rending sound to Granny and Marya. And as ill-luck would have it, there was a sharp frost all the winter, the snow drifted in high heaps, and the winter dragged on. At Annunciation there was a regular blizzard233, and there was a fall of snow at Easter.
But in spite of it all the winter did end. At the beginning of April there came warm days and frosty nights. Winter would not give way, but one warm day overpowered it at last, and the streams began to flow and the birds began to sing. The whole meadow and the bushes near the river were drowned in the spring floods, and all the space between Zhukovo and the further side was filled up with a vast sheet of water, from which wild ducks rose up in flocks here and there. The spring sunset, flaming among gorgeous clouds, gave every evening something new, extraordinary, incredible — just what one does not believe in afterwards, when one sees those very colours and those very clouds in a picture.
The cranes flew swiftly, swiftly, with mournful cries, as though they were calling themselves. Standing on the edge of the ravine, Olga looked a long time at the flooded meadow, at the sunshine, at the bright church, that looked as though it had grown younger; and her tears flowed and her breath came in gasps234 from her passionate70 longing216 to go away, to go far away to the end of the world. It was already settled that she should go back to Moscow to be a servant, and that Kiryak should set off with her to get a job as a porter or something. Oh, to get away quickly!
As soon as it dried up and grew warm they got ready to set off. Olga and Sasha, with wallets on their backs and shoes of plaited bark on their feet, came out before daybreak: Marya came out, too, to see them on their way. Kiryak was not well, and was kept at home for another week. For the last time Olga prayed at the church and thought of her husband, and though she did not shed tears, her face puckered235 up and looked ugly like an old woman’s. During the winter she had grown thinner and plainer, and her hair had gone a little grey, and instead of the old look of sweetness and the pleasant smile on her face, she had the resigned, mournful expression left by the sorrows she had been through, and there was something blank and irresponsive in her eyes, as though she did not hear what was said. She was sorry to part from the village and the peasants. She remembered how they had carried out Nikolay, and how a requiem236 had been ordered for him at almost every hut, and all had shed tears in sympathy with her grief. In the course of the summer and the winter there had been hours and days when it seemed as though these people lived worse than the beasts, and to live with them was terrible; they were coarse, dishonest, filthy, and drunken; they did not live in harmony, but quarrelled continually, because they distrusted and feared and did not respect one another. Who keeps the tavern and makes the people drunken? A peasant. Who wastes and spends on drink the funds of the commune, of the schools, of the church? A peasant. Who stole from his neighbours, set fire to their property, gave false witness at the court for a bottle of vodka? At the meetings of the Zemstvo and other local bodies, who was the first to fall foul of the peasants? A peasant. Yes, to live with them was terrible; but yet, they were human beings, they suffered and wept like human beings, and there was nothing in their lives for which one could not find excuse. Hard labour that made the whole body ache at night, the cruel winters, the scanty237 harvests, the overcrowding; and they had no help and none to whom they could look for help. Those of them who were a little stronger and better off could be no help, as they were themselves coarse, dishonest, drunken, and abused one another just as revoltingly; the paltriest238 little clerk or official treated the peasants as though they were tramps, and addressed even the village elders and church wardens239 as inferiors, and considered they had a right to do so. And, indeed, can any sort of help or good example be given by mercenary, greedy, depraved, and idle persons who only visit the village in order to insult, to despoil240, and to terrorize? Olga remembered the pitiful, humiliated241 look of the old people when in the winter Kiryak had been taken to be flogged. . . . And now she felt sorry for all these people, painfully so, and as she walked on she kept looking back at the huts.
After walking two miles with them Marya said good-bye, then kneeling, and falling forward with her face on the earth, she began wailing:
“Again I am left alone. Alas242, for poor me! poor, unhappy! . . . ”
And she wailed243 like this for a long time, and for a long way Olga and Sasha could still see her on her knees, bowing down to someone at the side and clutching her head in her hands, while the rooks flew over her head.
The sun rose high; it began to get hot. Zhukovo was left far behind. Walking was pleasant. Olga and Sasha soon forgot both the village and Marya; they were gay and everything entertained them. Now they came upon an ancient barrow, now upon a row of telegraph posts running one after another into the distance and disappearing into the horizon, and the wires hummed mysteriously. Then they saw a homestead, all wreathed in green foliage244; there came a scent19 from it of dampness, of hemp245, and it seemed for some reason that happy people lived there. Then they came upon a horse’s skeleton whitening in solitude246 in the open fields. And the larks247 trilled unceasingly, the corncrakes called to one another, and the landrail cried as though someone were really scraping at an old iron rail.
At midday Olga and Sasha reached a big village. There in the broad street they met the little old man who was General Zhukov’s cook. He was hot, and his red, perspiring bald head shone in the sunshine. Olga and he did not recognize each other, then looked round at the same moment, recognized each other, and went their separate ways without saying a word. Stopping near the hut which looked newest and most prosperous, Olga bowed down before the open windows, and said in a loud, thin, chanting voice:
“Good Christian folk, give alms, for Christ’s sake, that God’s blessing214 may be upon you, and that your parents may be in the Kingdom of Heaven in peace eternal.”
“Good Christian folk,” Sasha began chanting, “give, for Christ’s sake, that God’s blessing, the Heavenly Kingdom.. .”
The End
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1
bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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2
numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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5
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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6
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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8
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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apathetic
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| adj.冷漠的，无动于衷的 | |
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10
hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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11
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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12
willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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13
jutted
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| v.（使）突出( jut的过去式和过去分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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14
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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15
pottery
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| n.陶器，陶器场 | |
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16
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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18
ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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20
domes
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| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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21
manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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23
herds
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| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
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24
bleating
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| v.（羊，小牛）叫( bleat的现在分词 )；哭诉；发出羊叫似的声音；轻声诉说 | |
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25
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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26
broth
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| n.原(汁)汤(鱼汤、肉汤、菜汤等) | |
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27
bout
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| n.侵袭，发作；一次(阵，回)；拳击等比赛 | |
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28
lockers
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| n.寄物柜( locker的名词复数 ) | |
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29
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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30
nibbled
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| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的过去式和过去分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
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31
cockroaches
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| n.蟑螂( cockroach的名词复数 ) | |
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32
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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35
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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36
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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37
bellowed
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的过去式和过去分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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38
parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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39
sipping
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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40
doze
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| v.打瞌睡；n.打盹，假寐 | |
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41
invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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42
writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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43
scriptures
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| 经文，圣典( scripture的名词复数 )； 经典 | |
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scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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45
smite
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| v.重击；彻底击败；n.打；尝试；一点儿 | |
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46
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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47
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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48
lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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49
gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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50
akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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51
fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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52
reeked
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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53
crevices
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| n.（尤指岩石的）裂缝，缺口( crevice的名词复数 ) | |
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54
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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55
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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56
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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57
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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58
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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59
nagging
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| adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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60
carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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61
laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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62
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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63
sedately
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| adv.镇静地，安详地 | |
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64
rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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rhythmically
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| adv.有节奏地 | |
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66
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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67
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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68
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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compassionate
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| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
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70
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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71
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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72
stewards
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| （轮船、飞机等的）乘务员( steward的名词复数 )； （俱乐部、旅馆、工会等的）管理员； （大型活动的）组织者； （私人家中的）管家 | |
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73
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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74
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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75
limpid
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| adj.清澈的，透明的 | |
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76
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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77
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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78
chubby
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| adj.丰满的，圆胖的 | |
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79
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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80
sullenly
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| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
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81
bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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82
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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83
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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84
itch
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| n.痒，渴望，疥癣；vi.发痒，渴望 | |
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85
legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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86
taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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87
benefactor
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| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
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88
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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89
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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90
frets
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| 基质间片； 品丝（吉他等指板上定音的）( fret的名词复数 ) | |
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91
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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92
testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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93
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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94
exhaled
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的过去式和过去分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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95
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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96
bustled
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| 闹哄哄地忙乱，奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 )； 催促 | |
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97
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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98
disperse
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| vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散 | |
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99
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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100
shrilly
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| 尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的 | |
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101
grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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102
reviling
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| v.辱骂，痛斥( revile的现在分词 ) | |
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103
interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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104
perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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105
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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106
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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107
kiln
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| n.（砖、石灰等）窑，炉；v.烧窑 | |
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108
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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109
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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110
kilns
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| n.窑( kiln的名词复数 )；烧窑工人 | |
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111
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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112
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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113
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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114
filth
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| n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥 | |
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115
conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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116
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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117
syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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118
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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119
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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120
gnats
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| n.叮人小虫( gnat的名词复数 ) | |
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121
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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122
brutes
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| 兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性 | |
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123
waddling
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| v.（像鸭子一样）摇摇摆摆地走( waddle的现在分词 ) | |
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124
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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125
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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126
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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127
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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128
hubbub
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| n.嘈杂；骚乱 | |
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129
stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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130
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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131
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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132
pawn
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| n.典当，抵押，小人物，走卒；v.典当，抵押 | |
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133
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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134
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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135
jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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136
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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137
dozed
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| v.打盹儿，打瞌睡( doze的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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138
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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139
thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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140
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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141
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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142
wringing
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| 淋湿的，湿透的 | |
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143
chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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144
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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145
calves
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| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
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146
gnome
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| n.土地神；侏儒，地精 | |
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147
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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148
hacked
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| 生气 | |
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149
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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150
indefatigably
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| adv.不厌倦地，不屈不挠地 | |
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151
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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152
tunic
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| n.束腰外衣 | |
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153
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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154
hurdles
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| n.障碍( hurdle的名词复数 )；跳栏；（供人或马跳跃的）栏架；跨栏赛 | |
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155
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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156
huddling
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| n. 杂乱一团, 混乱, 拥挤 v. 推挤, 乱堆, 草率了事 | |
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157
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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158
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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159
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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160
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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161
puddle
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| n.(雨)水坑，泥潭 | |
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162
malignantly
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| 怀恶意地； 恶毒地； 有害地； 恶性地 | |
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163
sarcastically
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| adv.挖苦地，讽刺地 | |
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164
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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165
yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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166
emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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167
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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168
profligate
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| adj.行为不检的；n.放荡的人，浪子，肆意挥霍者 | |
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169
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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170
joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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171
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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172
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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173
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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174
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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175
crouching
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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176
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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177
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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178
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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179
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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180
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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181
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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182
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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183
luxuriously
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| adv.奢侈地，豪华地 | |
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184
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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185
arrears
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| n.到期未付之债，拖欠的款项；待做的工作 | |
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186
pounce
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| n.猛扑；v.猛扑，突然袭击，欣然同意 | |
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187
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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188
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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189
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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190
mowed
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| v.刈，割( mow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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191
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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192
perspired
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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193
defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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194
ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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195
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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196
Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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197
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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198
soldering
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| n.软焊；锡焊；低温焊接；热焊接v.（使）焊接，焊合( solder的现在分词 ) | |
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199
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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200
emaciated
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| adj.衰弱的，消瘦的 | |
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201
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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202
freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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203
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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204
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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205
administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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206
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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207
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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208
hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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209
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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210
instilled
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| v.逐渐使某人获得（某种可取的品质），逐步灌输( instill的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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211
reverent
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| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
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212
monasteries
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| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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213
blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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214
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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215
squandered
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| v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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216
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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217
ravenously
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| adv.大嚼地，饥饿地 | |
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218
overcast
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| adj.阴天的，阴暗的，愁闷的；v.遮盖，（使）变暗，包边缝；n.覆盖，阴天 | |
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219
pealed
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| v.（使）（钟等）鸣响，（雷等）发出隆隆声( peal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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220
defender
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| n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人 | |
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221
bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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222
sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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223
exemption
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| n.豁免，免税额，免除 | |
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224
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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225
tumours
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| 肿瘤( tumour的名词复数 ) | |
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226
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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227
ointments
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| n.软膏( ointment的名词复数 )；扫兴的人；煞风景的事物；药膏 | |
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228
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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229
bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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230
noisome
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| adj.有害的，可厌的 | |
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231
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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232
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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233
blizzard
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| n.暴风雪 | |
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234
gasps
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| v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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235
puckered
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| v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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236
requiem
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| n.安魂曲，安灵曲 | |
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237
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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238
paltriest
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| paltry（微小的）的最高级形式 | |
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239
wardens
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| n.看守人( warden的名词复数 )；管理员；监察员；监察官 | |
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240
despoil
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| v.夺取，抢夺 | |
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241
humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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242
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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243
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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244
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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245
hemp
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| n.大麻；纤维 | |
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246
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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247
larks
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| n.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的名词复数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了v.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的第三人称单数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了 | |
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