Two main roads went east and west from Meliuzeevo. One, a forest dirt road, led to Zybushino, a grain trading post, administratively subordinate to Meliuzeevo, but far ahead of it in all respects. The other, paved with gravel, was laid across swampy meadows that dried up in the summer and went to Biriuchi, a railway junction not far from Meliuzeevo.
That June in Zybushino the independent republic of Zybushino, which lasted for two weeks, was proclaimed by the local miller Blazheiko.
The republic was supported by deserters from the 212th infantry regiment, who, weapons in hand, abandoned their positions and came through Biriuchi to Zybushino at the moment of the coup.
The republic did not recognize the authority of the Provisional Government2 and separated itself from the rest of Russia. The sectarian Blazheiko, who as a young man had corresponded with Tolstoy, proclaimed a new thousand-year kingdom in Zybushino, communalized labor and property, and renamed the local administration an apostolate.
Zybushino had always been a source of legends and exaggerations. It stood in the deep forest, was mentioned in documents from the Time of Troubles,3 and in later times its environs swarmed with robbers. The prosperity of its merchants and the fantastic fertility of its soil were on everyone’s lips. Some of the beliefs, customs, and peculiarities of speech that distinguished this western sector of the front line came precisely from Zybushino.
Now the same sort of tall tales were told about Blazheiko’s chief assistant. It was maintained that he was deaf and dumb from birth, acquired the gift of speech under inspiration, and lost it again when the illumination expired.
In July the Zybushino republic fell. A unit loyal to the Provisional Government entered the place. The deserters were driven out of Zybushino and withdrew to Biriuchi.
There, beyond the tracks, for a few miles around, stood a cleared forest, with stumps sticking up overgrown with wild strawberry, stacks of old, undelivered firewood, half of which had been stolen, and the dilapidated mud huts of the seasonal woodcutters who had once worked there. It was here that the deserters lodged themselves.
4
The hospital in which the doctor had been a patient, and had then worked, and which he was now preparing to leave, was housed in the mansion of the countess Zhabrinskaya, which the owner had donated for the care of the wounded at the beginning of the war.
The two-story mansion occupied one of the best locations in Meliuzeevo. It stood at the intersection of the main street with the central square of the town, the so-called “platz,” on which soldiers formerly performed their drills and meetings now took place in the evenings.
Its position at the intersection gave the mansion good views on several sides. Besides the main street and the square, one could see the next-door neighbors’ yard—a poor provincial property, in no way different from a villager’s. One could also see the countess’s old garden behind the back wall of the house.
The mansion had never had any independent value for Countess Zhabrinskaya. Razdolnoe, a large estate in the district, belonged to her, and the house in town served only as a pied-a-terre for business visits, and also as a gathering place for guests who came to the estate from all sides in the summer.
Now there was a hospital in the house, and the owner had been arrested in Petersburg, her place of permanent residence.
Of the former staff, two curious women remained in the mansion, Mademoiselle Fleury, the old governess of the countess’s daughters (now married), and the countess’s former first cook, Ustinya.
The gray-haired and ruddy-cheeked old woman, Mademoiselle Fleury, shuffling her slippers, in a loose, shabby jacket, slovenly and disheveled, strolled about the whole hospital, where she was now on familiar terms with everyone, as once with the Zhabrinsky family, and told something or other in broken language, swallowing the endings of the Russian words in French fashion. She struck a pose, swung her arms, and at the end of her babble burst into hoarse laughter, which turned into a prolonged, irrepressible coughing.
Mademoiselle knew all about the nurse Antipova. It seemed to her that the doctor and the nurse simply must like each other. Yielding to the passion for matchmaking deeply rooted in the Latin nature, Mademoiselle was glad when she found them together, shook her finger at them meaningfully, and winked mischievously. Antipova was perplexed, the doctor was angry, but Mademoiselle, like all eccentrics, greatly valued her delusions and would not part with them for anything.
Ustinya presented a still more curious nature. She was a woman of a figure tapering awkwardly upward, which gave her the look of a brooding hen. Ustinya was dry and sober to the point of venom, but with that rationality she combined an unbridled fantasy with regard to superstitions.
Ustinya knew a great many folk charms, and never stepped out without putting a spell against fire on the stove and whispering over the keyhole to keep the unclean spirit from slipping in while she was gone. She was a native of Zybushino. They said she was the daughter of the local sorcerer.
Ustinya could be silent for years, but once the first fit came and she burst out, there was no stopping her. Her passion was standing up for justice.
After the fall of the Zybushino republic, the executive committee of Meliuzeevo launched a campaign against the anarchic tendencies coming from there. Every evening on the platz peaceful and poorly attended meetings sprang up of themselves, to which the unoccupied Meliuzeevans would trickle in, as in past times they used to sit together in summer under the open sky by the gates of the fire station. The Meliuzeevo cultural committee encouraged these meetings and sent their own or visiting activists to them in the quality of guides for the discussion. They considered the talking deaf-mute the most crying absurdity of all the tales told about Zybushino, and referred to him especially often in their exposures. But the small artisans of Meliuzeevo, the soldiers’ wives, and the former servants of the nobility were of a different opinion. The talking deaf-mute did not seem to them the height of nonsense. They defended him.
Among the disjointed cries coming from the crowd in his defense, Ustinya’s voice was often heard. At first she did not dare to come forward; womanly modesty held her back. But, gradually plucking up courage, she began ever more boldly to attack the orators, whose opinions were not favored in Meliuzeevo. Thus inconspicuously she became a real speaker from the rostrum.
Through the open windows of the mansion, the monotonous hum of voices on the square could be heard, and on especially quiet evenings even fragments of some of the speeches. Often, when Ustinya spoke, Mademoiselle would run into the room, insist that those present listen, and, distorting the words, imitate her good- naturedly:
