“You don’t say so!”
“Not at all. She was quite innocent. And what had she had to go through all that torment for! Why had Filka Morozov put her to shame before all the world?”
“Yes …”
“I knelt down before her then, on the spot, and clasped my hands. ‘Akulina Kudimovna,’ says I, ‘forgive me, fool as I am, for thinking ill of you too. Forgive a scoundrel like me,’ says I. She sat before me on the bed looking at me, put both hands on my shoulders while her tears were flowing. She was crying and laughing. … Then I went out to all of them. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘if I meet Filka Morozov now he is a dead man!’ As for the old people, they did not know which saint to pray to. The mother almost fell at her feet, howling. And the old fellow said, ‘Had we known this, we wouldn’t have found a husband like this for you, our beloved daughter.’
“When we went to church the first Sunday, I in my astrakhan cap, coat of fine cloth and velveteen breeches, and she in her new hareskin coat with a silk kerchief on her head, we looked a well-matched pair: didn’t we walk along! People were admiring us. I needn’t speak for myself, and though I can’t praise Akulina up above the rest, I can’t say she was worse: and she’d have held her own with any dozen.”
“That’s all right, then.”
“Come, listen. The day after the wedding, though I was drunk, I got away from my visitors and I escaped and ran away. ‘Bring me that wretch Filka Morozov,’ says I, ‘bring him here, the scoundrel!’ I shouted all over the market. Well, I was drunk too; I was beyond the Vlasov’s when they caught me, and three men brought me home by force. And the talk was all over the town. The wenches in the marketplace were talking to each other: ‘Girls, darlings, have you heard? Akulka is proved innocent.’ ”
“Not long after, Filka says to me before folks, ‘Sell your wife and you can drink. Yashka the soldier got married just for that,’ says he. ‘He didn’t sleep with his wife, but he was drunk for three years.’ I said to him, ‘You are a scoundrel.’ ‘And you,’ says he, ‘a fool. Why, you weren’t sober when you were married,’ says he, ‘how could you tell about it when you were drunk?’ I came home and shouted, ‘You married me when I was drunk,’ said I. My mother began scolding me, ‘Your ears are stopped with gold, mother. Give me Akulka.’ Well, I began beating her. I beat her, my lad, beat her for two hours, till I couldn’t stand up. She didn’t get up from her bed for three weeks.”
“To be sure,” observed Tcherevin phlegmatically, “if you don’t beat them, they’ll … But did you catch her with a lover?”
“Catch her? No, I didn’t,” Shishkov observed, after a pause, and; as it were, with an effort. “But I felt awfully insulted. People teased me so and Filka led the way. ‘You’ve a wife for show,’ says he, ‘for folks to look at.’ Filka invited us with others, and this was the greeting he gave me: ‘His wife is a tenderhearted soul,’ says he, ‘honourable and polite, who knows how to behave, nice in every way—that’s what he thinks now. But you’ve forgotten, lad, how you smeared her gate with pitch yourself!’ I sat drunk and then he seized me by the hair suddenly and holding me by the hair he shoved me down. ‘Dance,’ says he, ‘Akulka’s husband! I’ll hold you by your hair and you dance to amuse me!’ ‘You are a scoundrel,’ I shouted. And he says to me, ‘I shall come to you with companions and thrash Akulka, your wife, before you, as much as I like.’ Then I, would you believe it, was afraid to go out of the house for a whole month. I was afraid he’d come and disgrace me. And just for that I began beating her. …”
“But what did you beat her for! You can tie a man’s hands but you can’t stop his tongue. You shouldn’t beat your wife too much. Show her, give her a lesson, and then be kind to her. That’s what she is for.”
Shishkov was silent for some time.
“It was insulting,” he began again. “Besides, I got into the habit of it: some days I’d beat her from morning till night; everything she did was wrong. If I didn’t beat her, I felt bored. She would sit without saying a word, looking out of the window and crying. … She was always crying, I’d feel sorry for her, but I’d beat her. My mother was always swearing at me about her: ‘You are a scoundrel,’ she’d say, ‘you’re a jail bird!’ ‘I’ll kill her,’ I cried, ‘and don’t let anyone dare to speak to me; for they married me by a trick.’ At first old Ankudim stood up for her, he’d come himself: ‘You are no one of much account,’ says he, ‘I’ll find a law for you.’ But he gave it up. Marya Stepanovna humbled herself completely. One day she came and prayed me tearfully, ‘I’ve come to entreat you, Ivan Semyonovitch, it’s a small matter, but a great favour. Bid me hope again,’ she bowed down, ‘soften your heart, forgive her. Evil folk slandered our daughter. You know yourself she was innocent when you married her.’ And she bowed down to my feet and cried. But I lorded it over her. ‘I won’t hear you now! I shall do just what I like to you all now, for I am no longer master of myself. Filka Morozov is my mate and my best friend. …’ ”
“So you were drinking together again then?”
“Nothing like it! There was no approaching him. He was quite mad with drink. He’d spent all he had and hired himself out to a storekeeper to replace his eldest son, and in our
