cow, or only a big bird rustling in the trees. And then a figure emerged out of the shadows, paused, said something in a man’s voice, and disappeared down the church lane. A moment later another figure emerged about six feet away from the church gate, and this figure went straight from the church to the gate, and when it saw Sophia sitting on the bench, it stood still.
“Is that you, Varvara?” Sophia said.
“What if it is?”
It was Varvara. She stood perfectly still for a few moments, and then she went to the bench and sat down.
“Where have you been?” Sophia asked.
Varvara said nothing.
“You’ll get into trouble if you play around, you young bride!” Sophia said. “Did you hear what happened to Mashenka, how she was kicked and beaten with the reins? Look out, or the same thing will happen to you!”
“I don’t care!” Varvara laughed into her handkerchief and whispered: “I’ve been having fun with the priest’s son.”
“You’re making it up!”
“I swear to God …”
“It’s a sin,” whispered Sophia.
“I don’t care! What should I be sorry for? If it’s a sin, then it’s a sin, and it’s better to be struck dead by lightning than to live as I am doing. I’m young and healthy. I’m saddled with a horrible, hunchbacked husband, and he’s worse than that damned Dyudya! Before I was married I never had enough to eat, I went barefoot, I had to get away from all that misery, and there was Alyoshka’s wealth tempting me, and so I became a slave, or a fish caught in a net, and I would sooner sleep with a serpent than with that scab-covered Alyoshka! And what about your life? It’s terrible to think about it! Your Fedor threw you out of the factory and sent you home to his father, and now he has taken another woman: they took your boy away and sold him into slavery. You work like a horse, and never hear a kind word! I’d rather spend my days an old maid and get half a ruble from the priest’s son, I’d rather beg for a pittance, I’d rather throw myself down a well.…”
“It’s a sin,” Sophia whispered again.
“I don’t care.”
From somewhere behind the church came the mournful song of three voices: two tenors and a bass. And again it was impossible to distinguish the words.
“They’re nightbirds all right,” Varvara said, laughing.
And she began to whisper about her nightly escapades with the priest’s son, and what he said to her, and what his friends were like, and how she carried on with the officials and merchants who came to the house. The mournful songs awoke in Sophia a longing for life and freedom, and she began to laugh. For her, it was all sinful and terrible and sweet to hear about, and she envied Varvara and was sorry that she too had not been a sinner when she was young and beautiful.
From the church cemetery came the twelve strokes of the watchman’s rattle, announcing midnight.
“It’s time to sleep,” Sophia said, getting up. “Dyudya will catch us if we don’t!”
They both went quietly into the courtyard.
“I went away and never heard what happened to Mashenka afterwards,” Varvara said, making her bed beneath the window.
“He said she died in prison. She poisoned her husband.”
Varvara lay down beside Sophia, deep in thought, and then she said softly: “I could kill Alyoshka and never regret it.”
“God help you, you are talking nonsense!”
When Sophia was dropping asleep, Varvara pressed close to her and whispered in her ear: “Let’s kill Dyudya and Alyoshka!”
Sophia shuddered and said nothing, but her eyes were open wide and for a long time she gazed steadily at the sky.
“People might find out,” she murmured.
“No, they would never find out. Dyudya is old, and it’s time for him to die, and they’d say Alyoshka had croaked from drinking!”
“It’s terrible.… God would strike us dead.…”
“I don’t care.”
Neither of them slept; they went on thinking in silence.
“It’s cold,” Sophia said, and she was beginning to shiver all over. “It will soon be light. Are you sleeping?”
“No.… Don’t listen to me, my dear,” Varvara whispered. “I get so mad with those damned swine, and sometimes I don’t know what I am saying. Go to sleep—the dawn will be coming up soon.… Are you asleep?”
They were both quiet, and soon they grew calm and fell asleep.
Old Afanasyevna was the first to wake up. She woke Sophia, and they both went to the cowshed to milk the cows. Then the hunchback Alyoshka walked in, hopelessly drunk, without his concertina, and with his knees and chest all covered with dust and straw—he must have fallen down on the road. Swaying from side to side, he went into the cowshed, and without undressing he rolled over on a sleigh and a moment later was snoring. And when the rising sun shone with a clear flame on the gold crosses of the church, and silvered the windows, and the shadows of the trees and the wellhead were strewn across the courtyard over the dew-wet grass, then Matvey Savvich rose
