“What have you done, Marusia? Take it back immediately,” he ordered. I began to cry and said that the sugar was not really Nastasia Leontievna’s, that the error had been made at the refinery. Then my father consented to keep it.
I returned to the shop and went to bed, but my eyes would not close; my conscience troubled me. “What if she suspects that a loaf of sugar was missing? What if she discovers that I have stolen it?” And a feeling of shame came over me. The following day I could not look straight into Nastasia Leontievna’s eyes. I felt guilty. My face burned. At every motion of hers my heart quivered in anticipation of the terrible disclosure. Finally she noticed that there was something the matter with me.
“What’s wrong with you, Marusia?” she questioned, drawing me close to her. “Are you not well?”
This hurt even more. The burden of the sin I had committed weighed heavier and heavier. It rapidly became unbearable. My conscience would not be quieted. At the end of a couple of restless days and sleepless nights I decided to confess. I went into Nastasia Leontievna’s bedroom when she was asleep. Rushing to her bed, I fell on my knees and broke into sobs. She awoke in alarm.
“What’s happened, child? What is it?”
Weeping, I told the story of my theft, begging forgiveness and promising never to steal again. Nastasia Leontievna calmed me and sent me back to bed, but she could not forgive my parents. Next morning she visited our home, remonstrating with my father for his failure to return the sugar and punish me. The shame and humiliation of my parents knew no bounds.
Sundays I spent at home, helping my mother in the house. I would go to the well, which was a considerable distance away, for water. My mother baked bread all the week and my father carried it to the market, selling it at ten kopeks a loaf. His temper was steadily getting worse, and it was not unusual for me to find my mother in the yard in tears after my father had come home drunk.
I was now fifteen and began to grow dissatisfied with my lot. Life was stirring within me and quickening my imagination. Everything that passed by and beyond the narrow little world in which I lived and laboured called me, beckoned to me, lured me. The impressions of that unfamiliar world which I had caught in the theatre had taken deep root in my soul and had kindled in me new ardours and desires. I wanted to dress nicely, to go out, to enjoy life’s pleasures. I wanted to be educated. I wanted to have enough money to secure my parents forever from starvation and to be able to lead for a time, for a day even, an idle life, without having to rise with the sun, to scrub the floor or to wash clothes.
Ah! what would I not have given to taste the sweetness, the joy, that life held. But there seemed to be none for me. All day long I slaved in the little shop and kitchen. I never had a spare rouble. Something revolted within me against this bleak, purposeless, futureless existence.
II
Marriage at Fifteen
Then came the Russo-Japanese War. And with it, Siberia, from Tomsk to Manchuria, teemed with a new life. It reached even our street, hitherto so lifeless and uneventful. Two officers, the brothers Lazov, one of them married, rented the quarters opposite Nastasia Leontievna’s shop. The young Madame Lazov knew nothing of housekeeping. She observed me at work in the shop, and offered me work in her home at seven roubles a month.
Seven roubles a month was so attractive a sum that I immediately accepted the offer. What could not one do with so much money? Why, that would leave four roubles for me, after the payment of my mother’s rent. Four roubles! Enough to buy a new dress, a coat, or a pair of fashionable shoes. Besides, it gave me an opportunity to release myself from the bondage of Nastasia Leontievna.
I took entire charge of the housekeeping at the Lazovs. They were kind and courteous, and took an interest in me. They taught me how to behave at table and in society, and took care that I appeared neat and clean.
The younger Lazov, Lieutenant Vasili, began to notice me, and one evening invited me to take a walk with him. In time Vasili’s interest in me deepened. We went out together many times. He made love to me, caressing and kissing me. Did I realize clearly the meaning of it all? Hardly. It was all so new, so wonderful, so attractive. It made my pulse throb at his approach. It made my cheeks flame with the heat of my young blood.
Vasili said he loved me. Did I love him? If I did, it was more because of the marvellous world into which he was to lead me, than on account of himself. He promised to marry me. Did I particularly want to marry him? Scarcely. The prospect of marriage was more enticing to me because of the end it would put to my life of drudgery and misery than on account of anything else. To become free, independent, possessed of means, was the attractive prospect that marriage held for me.
I was fifteen and a half when Vasili seduced me by the promise of marriage. We lived together for a short while, when orders came to the Lazovs to leave for a different post. Vasili informed me of the order.
“Then we shall have to get married quickly, before you go,” I declared. But Vasili did not think so.
“That’s quite impossible, Marusia,” he said.
“Why?” I inquired sharply, something rising in my throat, like a tide, with suffocating force.
“Because I am an officer, and you are only a plain moujitchka. You understand, yourself, that at
