Forty Stories

motionless eyes of Varka, creating images in her drowsy, half-awakened brain. She saw dark clouds chasing each other across the sky and crying like the child. When the wind rose, the clouds vanished, and then she saw a wide highway covered with liquid mud: along this highway she saw baggage trains stretching into the distance, and men crawled after them with knapsacks on their backs, and the shadows hovered over them. On both sides of the highway were forests, which could be seen emerging out of the raw and chilling mists. Suddenly the men with the knapsacks and the shadows fell in the liquid mud. “Why did this happen?” Varka asked, and the reply came: “Go to sleep! Go to sleep!” So they slept sweetly and soundlessly. Crows and magpies perched on the telegraph wires, and they were weeping like children, trying to awaken those who had fallen by the wayside.

“Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye,” Varka sang softly. “I’ll sing you a song.” And then she found herself in a dark and suffocating hut.

Her dead father, Yefim Stepanov, was sprawled over the floor. She could not see him, but heard him tossing about and moaning. He used to say: “My hernia is acting up!” and so it was. The pain was so fierce that he was unable to speak a single word. He just sucked in the air and expelled it from his mouth with a sound like the rolling of drums.

“Bu, bu, bu, bu …”

Her mother, Pelageya, ran off to the farmhouse to tell the master that Yefim was dying. She had been gone for a long while, and Varka wondered whether she would ever return. She lay on the stove, unable to sleep, growing accustomed to her father’s voice, the interminable “Bu-bu-bu-bu …” She heard someone coming up to the hut. The master had sent the young doctor: he was a guest from a neighboring town and was staying at the master’s house. The doctor came into the hut. The shadows were so thick that he remained invisible, but she heard his cough and the creaking of the door.

“Let me have a light!” the doctor said.

“Bu-bu-bu-bu …” Yefim muttered.

At that moment Pelageya sprang to the stove and began to search for the crock with the matches. A whole minute passed in silence. The doctor, diving into his pocket, produced a match and struck it.

“I’m coming straight away, batyushka!” Pelageya said, running out of the hut and returning a moment later with a candle end.

Yefim’s cheeks were flushed, his eyes glittered, and his gaze was very penetrating, as though he could see right through the hut and right through the doctor.

“How do you feel?” the doctor said. “Has it been going on a long time?”

“Eh, what’s that? My time’s up, Your Honor. I’m on my way out.…”

“Fiddlesticks! We’ll have you cured in no time!”

“Just as you say, Your Honor.… We thank you humbly.… Only we understand, if it comes to dying, then there’s nothing we can do about it.”

For a quarter of an hour the doctor stayed with Yefim, and then he rose and said: “There’s nothing more I can do for you. You’ll have to go to the hospital, and they’ll operate on you. You have to go now, make no mistake. It’s a bit late. They’ll all be asleep at the hospital, but that’s all right. I’ll give you a note.… Can you hear me?”

“Batyushka, how can they take him there?” Pelageya said. “We don’t have a horse to our name.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll speak to the master, and he’ll lend you a horse.”

The doctor went away, and then it grew dark, and once more she heard: “Bu-bu-bu- bu …” Half an hour later someone drove up to the hut. It was the small cart sent by the master to take Yefim to the hospital. Yefim got ready, and then he went away in the cart.

The next morning rose fine and clear. Pelageya was not at home: she had gone to the hospital to see her husband. Somewhere a baby was crying, and Varka was surprised to hear someone singing in her own voice:

Hush-a-bye, baby, hush-a-bye,

Nurse will sing for you bye and bye …

When Pelageya returned from the hospital, she crossed herself and whispered: “He was operated on last night, but early this morning he gave up his soul to God. Heavenly kingdom, eternal rest … They say he went too late to the hospital. We should have taken him earlier.…”

Varka slipped away into the forest and gave herself up to weeping, and suddenly someone hit her across the nape of the neck with such force she cracked her forehead against a birch tree. Then she looked up, and saw it was her master, the shoemaker.

“What do you think you are doing, stupid!” he shouted. “The baby is crying, and you let yourself fall asleep.”

He smacked her across the ears. It hurt, but she only shook her head and went on rocking the cradle and murmuring her song. The green stain, the shadow of the diapers and the trousers waved and winked at her, and once again penetrated into her brain. Once again she saw a highway covered with liquid mud. Men with knapsacks on their backs, dark with shadow, lay down in the mud and slept soundly. And while she gazed at them, Varka passionately wanted to sleep. She could have thrown herself down on a bed with perfect happiness, but at that moment her mother, Pelageya, came and hurried her away, and together they went to the town to look for work.

“Give us something for the love of Christ!” her mother called to everyone she met. “Dear good people, be merciful to us!”

The well-known voice was saying: “Give me the baby! Give him to me!” The same voice said angrily, with a sharp cutting edge: “So you are sleeping again, you little wretch!”

Varka jumped up and looked around her. She remembered now where she was. There was no highway, no Pelageya, no passers-by: only her mistress standing there in the middle of the room, coming to feed her baby. She was a stout, heavy-shouldered woman, and while she was feeding and soothing the baby, Varka stood quite still, gazing at her and waiting until she had finished. Outside the windows darkness was giving place to blue sky, and all the shadows and the green stain on the ceiling were visibly turning pale. Soon it would be morning.

“Now you take him,” the mother said, buttoning the top buttons of her nightgown. “He’s still crying. Someone