must have put a spell on him!”
So Varka took the baby and laid him in the cradle, and once more she began to rock the cradle. Slowly the shadows and the green stain faded to nothing, and there was no teeming darkness, nothing at all, to keep her brain in turmoil. She wanted so terribly to sleep. She laid her head on the edge of the cradle and rocked it with her whole body in order to overcome the desire for sleep; but soon her eyelids were glued together and her head grew heavy.
“Varka, light the stove!” Her master’s voice came from behind the door.
This meant it was time to get up and start the day’s work. She abandoned the cradle and ran into the woodshed. This made her happy, for while she was running or walking, she had no desire for sleep: that desire which overcame her whenever she was sitting down. She gathered up the sticks of wood and lit the stove, and her face no longer felt stiff, and her thoughts were coming clear.
“Varka, get the samovar ready!” her mistress shouted.
Varka split the fagots into small pieces, and she had scarcely put fire to them and pushed them into the samovar when there came another order: “Varka, clean your master’s galoshes!”
Varka sat on the floor, cleaned the galoshes, and thought how wonderful it would be if she could hide her head in those big, deep galoshes and go to sleep for a while. Before her eyes the galoshes began to grow and swell up and fill the whole room. She let the cleaning brush fall from her hands, and she shook her head from side to side. Her eyes were bulging, and she was gazing at objects as though they had not grown larger and were not continually moving in front of her eyes.
“Varka, wash the outside steps! They’re an insult to our customers!”
Varka washed the steps, tidied up the room, lit another stove, and ran into the shop. There was so much work to be done: not a single moment left free for herself.
There is nothing in the world so tiring as to stand in one spot beside a kitchen table peeling potatoes. Her head fell forward, the potatoes made her eyes ache, the knife dropped from her hand, and the stout, ill-tempered mistress strode about the room with her sleeves rolled up, complaining in a loud, menacing voice which set Varka’s ears ringing. It was sheer torture for her to wait at table, and do the washing up and sewing. There were moments when, in spite of everything that was happening around her, she wanted only to throw herself on the floor and fall asleep.
The day passed. While gazing at the darkening windows, Varka pressed her fists against her numbed temples and smiled, scarcely knowing why she was so happy. The evening shadows caressed her drooping eyelids, promising her that she would soon sleep sound.
That evening visitors came flocking to the shoemaker’s house.
“Varka, get the samovar ready!” her mistress shouted.
It was a small samovar, and before the visitors had drunk all the tea they wanted, it had to be warmed up five times. After the tea Varka had to stand in one place for a whole hour, gazing at the visitors and attending to their wishes.
“Varka, go out and buy three bottles of beer!”
Varka tore herself away, running faster than ever so as to drive sleep away.
“Varka! Get the vodka! Where’s the corkscrew? Varka, gut the herrings!”
At last the visitors left. The fires were put out, and the master and mistress went off to bed.
“Varka! Rock the cradle!” This was the last of the orders she received.
A cricket chirruped in the stove. Once again the green stain on the ceiling and the shadows of trousers and diapers penetrated her half-closed eyelids, beckoned to her, and darkened her brain.
“Hush-a-bye, baby,” she murmured softly. “I’ll sing you a song …”
The baby went on crying, though the effort exhausted him. Once more Varka saw the muddy highway, the people with knapsacks, Pelageya and her father, Yefim. She knew them all; recognized them all; but in her drowsy state of mind she was far from understanding the power which bound her hand and foot, suffocated her, and prevented her from being alive. She gazed round the room, searching for that power in order to push it away from her. She could not find it. At last, worn out beyond endurance, she exerted all her strength, all her gift of sight; and while gazing at the green and beckoning stain, she heard the baby crying and discovered the enemy who was destroying her.
Her enemy was the baby. She laughed aloud. She was astonished how simple it all was! It seemed to her that the shadows, the cricket, the green stain—all of them were smiling in astonishment.
A strange idea took possession of her. She rose from her low chair, smiling broadly, and with wide-open eyes she began pacing up and down the room. It pleased her, and she was also amused, by the thought that she would soon be free of the baby, which had bound her hand and foot. To kill the baby, and then to sleep—
Smiling, her eyes sparkling, she made a threatening gesture with her finger at the green stain, and then she crept up to the cradle and bent over the baby. She strangled him. Then she fell on the floor, laughing with joy because now at last it was given to her to be able to sleep. A moment later, she was fast asleep.
T
A CARRIAGE drawn by four plump, beautiful horses drove through the so-called Red Gate of the N–– — Monastery, and the monks and lay brothers crowding round the rooms of the hostel reserved for the gentry recognized the coachman and the horses from afar, and they knew that the lady sitting in the carriage was their own dear, familiar Princess Vera Gavrilovna.
An old man in livery jumped off the box and helped the Princess down. She raised her dark veil, and without hurrying went up to the priests to receive their blessing, and then with a gracious nod to the lay brothers she made her way into the hostel.
“I suppose you have missed your Princess,” she said to the monk who brought in her things. “I haven’t come to
