church, I saw our whole village-a crowd of women and old men, poorly
dressed, silent and as cheerless as we were. They stood in darkness;
candles were burning only in the front, where the priest was reading
24
prayers in a long-drawn-out manner. Many people were sighing and
crossing themselves.
They were doing this because he was dead, and my sister and I were
standing in the darkness of the church because he had died. And we
were standing and 'praying for his health' because he was dead.
Petrovna took my sister back with her, and I went home and sat on for
a long time without lighting the lamp. The cockroaches, which Grandma
had brought to us on purpose-for good luck—rustled on the cold stove. I
ate potatoes and wept.
Dead, and I would never see him again! There they were, carrying him
out of the Chambers, out of that room where Mother and I had handed
in the petition... I stopped eating and clenched my teeth at the memory
of that cold voice and the hand with the long dry fingers slowly dangling
a pair of spectacles. You wait! I'll pay you back for this! Some day you'll
be bowing to me, and I'll tell you: 'My dear man, the court will go into
this...' There they were, bearing the coffin down the corridor, while
messengers hurried past with papers and nobody sees or cares to see
him being carried out. Only Aunt Dasha comes forward to meet it in a
black shawl, like a nun. She comes forward, weeping. Then we stop,
someone stands at the door, the coffin sways in the men's hands and is
lowered to the floor. Mother bows, and looking up, I can see her lips
quivering.
I came to myself at the sound of my own voice. I must have been
feverish, because I was uttering some incoherent nonsense, cursing
myself and also, for some reason, my mother, and carrying on a
conversation with Ivan Ivanovich, although I knew perfectly well that he
had left long ago and that even his tracks in the field had kept for only
two days until the snow had covered them up.
But I had spoken-spoken loudly and clearly! I could now speak and
explain what had happened that night on the pontoon bridge;
I could show that knife was mine, that I had lost it when I bent over the
murdered man. Too late! A whole lifetime too late; he was now beyond
any help of mine.
I lay in the dark with my head in my hands. It was cold indoors, my
feet were chilled, but I stayed like that till morning. I decided that I
would not speak any more. Why should I? All the same he was dead and
I would never see him again. It did not matter any more.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MOTHER
I have no very clear memory of the February Revolution, and until our
return to town I did not understand that word. But I do remember
associating all the strange excitement and puzzling talk around me with
my nocturnal visitor who had taught me to speak.
25
Spring passed before I was aware of it. But summer began on the day
when the Neptune, hooting and backing in a menacing way, moored
alongside the wharf where Mother and us two had been waiting for it
since the morning. We were going back to town. Mother was taking us
home. She looked thinner and younger, and was wearing a new coat and
a new brightly coloured shawl.
I had often thought, during the winter, of how astonished she would
be to hear me speak. But she only embraced me and laughed. She had
changed a lot during the winter. All the time she was thinking about
something—I could tell that by the quick changes of expression in her
face: at one moment she looked anxious and was silent, the next she
smiled, all to herself. Petrovna decided that she was going mad, and one
day she asked her about it. Mother smiled and said she wasn't. In our
presence she rarely mentioned Father, but whenever she spoke kindly to
me I knew she was thinking of him. My sister she had always loved.
On the boat her mind was busy all the time. She kept raising her
eyebrows and shaking her head, as if arguing with somebody mentally.
How poor and neglected our yard seemed to me when we got home!
That year nobody had seen to the drain ditches, and the muddy water
with bits of wood floating on it, had remained standing under every
porch. The low sheds looked more ramshackle than ever, and the gaps
in the fence were wide enough to drive a cart through, while back of the
Skovorodnikovs' house a mountain of stinking bones, hoofs and scraps
of hides lay piled up.
The old man was making glue. 'Everybody thinks this is just ordinary
glue,' he said to me. 'It's an all-purpose glue. It'll fix anything—iron,
glass, even bricks, if anyone's fool enough to want to glue bricks
together. I invented it myself. Skovorodnikov's Skin Glue. And the
stronger it stinks the stronger it sticks.'
He regarded me suspiciously over the top of his glasses.
'Well, let's hear you say something.'
I spoke. He nodded approvingly.
'Ah, that's too bad about Ivan!'
Aunt Dasha was away, and did not come back before a couple of
weeks. If there was anyone I gladdened-and frightened too-it was she!
We were sitting in the kitchen in the evening, and she kept asking me
how we had lived in the village, and answered her own questions.
'Poor things, you must have felt pretty lonesome out there, all on your
own. Who cooked for you? Petrovna? Petrovna.'
'No, not Petrovna,' I said suddenly. 'We did our own cooking.'
I shall never forget the look on Aunt Dasha's face when I uttered those
words. Her mouth fell open and she shook her head and hiccupped.
'And we weren't lonely,' I added, laughing heartily. 'We missed you,
though, Aunt Dasha. Why didn't you come to see us?'
She hugged me.
'My darling, what's this? You can speak? You're able to speak? And he
