On the day Peter Avdeev died in the hospital at Vozdvizhensk, his old father with the wife of the brother in whose stead he had enlisted1, and that brother’s daughter — who was already approaching womanhood and almost of age to get married — were threshing oats on the hard-frozen threshing floor.
There had been a heavy fall of snow the previous night followed towards morning by a severe front. The old man woke when the cocks were crowing for the third time, and seeing the bright moonlight through the frozen windowpanes got down from the stove, put on his boots, his sheepskin coat and cap, and went out to the threshing floor. Having worked there for a couple of hours he returned to the hut and awoke his son and the women. When the woman and girl came to the threshing floor they found it ready swept, with a wooden shovel2 sticking in the dry white snow, beside which were birch brooms with the twigs3 upwards4 and two rows of oat sheaves laid ears to ears in a long line the whole length of the clean threshing floor. They chose their flails5 and started threshing, keeping time with their triple blows. The old man struck powerfully with his heavy flail6, breaking the straw, the girl struck the ears from above with measured blows, and the daughter-in-law turned the oats over with her flail.
The moon had set, dawn was breaking, and they were finishing the line of sheaves when Akim, the eldest8 son, in his sheepskin and cap, joined the threshers.
“What are you lazing about for?” shouted his father to him, pausing in his work and leaning on his flail.
“The horses had to be seen to.”
“‘Horses seen to!’” the father repeated, mimicking9 him. “The old woman will look after them. . . . Take your flail! You’re getting too fat, you drunkard!”
“Have you been standing10 me treat?” muttered the son.
“What?” said the old man, frowning sternly and missing a stroke.
The son silently took a flail and they began threshing with four flails.
“Trak, tapatam . . . trak, tapatam . . . trak . . . ” came down the old man’s heavy flail after the three others.
“Why, you’ve got a nape like a goodly gentleman! . . . Look here, my trousers have hardly anything to hand on!” said the old man, omitting his stroke and only swinging his flail in the air so as not to get out of time.
They had finished the row, and the women began removing the straw with rakes.
“Peter was a fool to go in your stead. They’d have knocked the nonsense out of you in the army, and he was worth five of such as you at home!”
“That’s enough, father,” said the daughter-in-law, as she threw aside the binders11 that had come off the sheaves.
“Yes, feed the six of you and get no work out of a single one! Peter used to work for two. He was not like . . . ”
Along the trodden path from the house came the old man’s wife, the frozen snow creaking under the new bark shoes she wore over her tightly wound woolen12 leg-bands. The men were shovelling13 the unwinnowed grain into heaps, the woman and the girl sweeping15 up what remained.
The Elder has been and orders everybody to go and work for the master, carting bricks,” said the old woman. “I’ve got breakfast ready. . . . Come along, won’t you?”
“All right. . . . Harness the roan and go,” said the old man to Akim, “and you’d better look out that you don’t get me into trouble as you did the other day! . . . I can’t help regretting Peter!”
“When he was at home you used to scold him,” retorted Akim. “Now he’s away you keep nagging16 at me.”
“That shows you deserve it,” said his mother in the same angry tones. “You’ll never be Peter’s equal.”
“Oh, all right,” said the son.
“‘All right,’ indeed! You’ve drunk the meal, and now you say ‘all right!’”
“Let bygones be bygones!” said the daughter-in-law.
The disagreements between father and son had begun long ago — almost from the time Peter went as a soldier. Even then the old man felt that he had parted with an eagle for a cuckoo. It is true that it was right — as the old man understood it — for a childless man to go in place of a family man. Akin7 had four children and Peter had none; but Peter was a worker like his father, skilful17, observant, strong, enduring, and above all industrious18. He was always at work. If he happened to pass by where people were working he lent a helping19 hand as his father would have done, and took a turn or two with the scythe20, or loaded a cart, or felled a tree, or chopped some wood. The old man regretted his going away, but there was no help for it. Conscription in those days was like death. A soldier was a severed21 branch, and to think about him at home was to tear one’s heart uselessly. Only occasionally, to prick22 his elder son, did the father mention him, as he had done that day. But his mother often thought of her younger son, and for a long time — more than a year now — she had been asking her husband to send Peter a little money, but the old man had made no response.
The Kurenkovs were a well-to-do family and the old man had some savings23 hidden away, but he would on no account have consented to touch what he had laid by. Now however the old woman having heard him mention their younger son, made up her mind to ask him again to send him at least a ruble after selling the oats. This she did. As soon as the young people had gone to work for the proprietor24 and the old folks were left alone together, she persuaded him to send Peter a ruble out of the oats-money.
So when ninety-six bushels of the winnowed14 oats had been packed onto three sledges26 lined with sacking carefully pinned together at the top with wooden skewers27, she gave her husband a letter the church clerk had written at her dictation, and the old man promised when he got to town to enclose a ruble and send it off to the right address.
The old man, dressed in a new sheepskin with homespun cloak over it, his legs wrapped round with warm white woollen leg- bands, took the letter, placed it in his wallet, said a prayer, got into the front sledge25, and drove to town. His grandson drove in the last sledge. When he reached town the old man asked the innkeeper to read the letter to him, and listened to it attentively28 and approvingly.
In her letter Peter’s mother first sent him her blessing29, then greetings from everybody and the news of his godfather’s death, and at the end she added that Aksinya (Peter’s wife) had not wished to stay with them but had gone into service, where they heard she was living honestly and well. Then came a reference to the present of a ruble, and finally a message which the old woman, yielding to her sorrows, had dictated30 with tears in her eyes and the church clerk had taken down exactly, word for word:
“One thing more, my darling child, my sweet dove, my own Peterkin! I have wept my eyes out lamenting31 for thee, thou light of my eyes. To whom has thou left me? . . . ” At this point the old woman had sobbed32 and wept, and said: “That will do!” So the words stood in the letter; but it was not fated that Peter should receive the news of his wife’s having left home, nor the present of the ruble, nor his mother’s last words. The letter with the money in it came back with the announcement that Peter had been killed in the war, “defending his Tsar, his Fatherland, and the Orthodox Faith.” That is how the army clerk expressed it.
The old woman, when this news reached her, wept for as long as she could spare time, and then set to work again. The very next Sunday she went to church and had a requiem33 chanted and Peter’s name entered among those for whose souls prayers were to be said, and she distributed bits of holy bread to all the good people in memory of Peter, the servant of God.
Aksinya, his widow, also lamented34 loudly when she heard of the death of her beloved husband with whom she had lived but one short year. She regretted her husband and her own ruined life, and in her lamentations mentioned Peter’s brown locks and his love, and the sadness of her life with her little orphaned35 Vanka, and bitterly reproached Peter for having had pity on his brother but none on her — obliged to wander among strangers!
But in the depth of her soul Aksinya was glad of her husband’s death. She was pregnant a second time by the shopman with whom she was living, and no one would now have a right to scold her, and the shopman could marry her as he had said he would when he was persuading her to yield.
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1
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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flails
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| v.鞭打( flail的第三人称单数 )；用连枷脱粒；（臂或腿）无法控制地乱动；扫雷坦克 | |
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flail
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| v.用连枷打；击打；n.连枷（脱粒用的工具） | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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mimicking
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| v.（尤指为了逗乐而）模仿( mimic的现在分词 )；酷似 | |
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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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binders
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| n.（司机行话）刹车器；（书籍的）装订机( binder的名词复数 )；（购买不动产时包括预付订金在内的）保证书；割捆机；活页封面 | |
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12
woolen
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| adj.羊毛(制)的；毛纺的 | |
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shovelling
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| v.铲子( shovel的现在分词 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份 | |
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winnowed
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| adj.扬净的，风选的v.扬( winnow的过去式和过去分词 )；辨别；选择；除去 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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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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skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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scythe
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| n. 长柄的大镰刀，战车镰； v. 以大镰刀割 | |
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severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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24
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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25
sledge
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| n.雪橇，大锤；v.用雪橇搬运，坐雪橇往 | |
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sledges
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| n.雪橇，雪车( sledge的名词复数 )v.乘雪橇( sledge的第三人称单数 )；用雪橇运载 | |
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skewers
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| n.串肉扦( skewer的名词复数 )；烤肉扦；棒v.（用串肉扦或类似物）串起，刺穿( skewer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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31
lamenting
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| adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 ) | |
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32
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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33
requiem
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| n.安魂曲，安灵曲 | |
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34
lamented
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| adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35
orphaned
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| [计][修]孤立 | |
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