who stole them; he stole them, but papa got the skins … There’s faith for you!”
Anisim winked an eye and shook his head.
“And the headman doesn’t believe in God either,” he went on, “neither does the clerk or the beadle. If they go to church and keep the fasts, it’s so that people won’t speak ill of them, and in case there may really be a Judgment Day. Now they say the end of the world has come, because people have grown weak, don’t honor their parents, and so on. That’s nonsense. My understanding, mother, is that all troubles come from people having too little conscience. I can see through things, mother, and I understand. If a man’s wearing a stolen shirt, I see it. A man’s sitting in a tavern, and it looks to you like he’s having tea and nothing else, but, tea or no tea, I can also see that he’s got no conscience. You walk around the whole day, and there’s not a single person with any conscience. And the whole reason is that they don’t know whether God exists or not … Well, good-bye, mother. Keep alive and well, and think no evil of me.”
Anisim bowed to the ground in front of Varvara.
“I thank you for everything, mother,” he said. “You’ve been a great benefit to our family. You’re a very decent woman, and I’m much pleased with you.”
Feeling moved, Anisim went out, but came back again and said:
“Samorodov got me involved in a certain business: I’ll be rich or I’ll perish. If anything happens, mother, you must comfort my father.”
“Well, now! Oh, tush, tush … God is merciful. And you, Anisim, you should be more tender with your wife—the two of you just look at each other and pout. You could at least smile, really.”
“Yes, she’s sort of a strange …” Anisim said and sighed. “She doesn’t understand anything, keeps silent. She’s too young, let her grow up.”
At the porch a tall, sleek white stallion already stood hitched to a charabanc.
Old Tsybukin made a run, leaped up dashingly on the box, and took the reins. Anisim kissed Varvara, Aksinya, and his brother. Lipa also stood on the porch, stood motionless and looked aside, as though she had not come out to say good-bye but just so, for no reason. Anisim went up to her and brushed her cheek with his lips, barely, lightly.
“Good-bye,” he said.
And she smiled somehow strangely, without looking at him; her face quivered, and for some reason everyone felt sorry for her. Anisim also hopped up and sat arms akimbo, because he considered himself a handsome man.
As they drove up out of the ravine, Anisim kept looking back at the village. It was a warm, clear day. The cattle were being taken out to pasture for the first time, and girls and women walked beside the herd in their Sunday dresses. A brown bull bellowed, rejoicing in his freedom, and dug his front hooves into the earth. Larks were singing all around, above and below. Anisim looked back at the church, shapely, white—it had recently been whitewashed —and remembered praying in it five days ago; he turned to look at the school with its green roof, at the river, where he once used to swim and fish, and joy leaped in his breast, and he wished that a wall might suddenly grow up from the ground and keep him from going further, so that he could remain only with his past.
At the station they went to the buffet and drank a glass of sherry each. The old man went to his pocket for his purse, in order to pay.
“It’s on me!” said Anisim.
The old man went soft, slapped him on the shoulder, and winked at the bartender: See what a son I’ve got.
“Why don’t you stay home, Anisim,” the old man said, “you’d be priceless in the business! I’d shower you with gold, sonny.”
“I just can’t, papa.”
The sherry was sourish and smelled of sealing wax, but they drank another glass each.
When the old man came back from the station, for the first moment he did not recognize his younger daughter- in-law. As soon as her husband drove out of the yard, Lipa was transformed and suddenly became cheerful. Barefoot, in an old, tattered skirt, her sleeves rolled up to the shoulders, she was washing the stairs in the front hall and singing in a high, silvery little voice, and when she carried the big tub of dirty water outside and looked up at the sun with her childlike smile, it seemed that she, too, was a lark.
An old workman who was passing by the porch shook his head and grunted:
“Yes, Grigory Petrovich, what daughters-in-law God sent you!” he said. “Not women, but pure treasures!”
V
On July 8, a Friday, Yelizarov, nicknamed Crutch, and Lipa were coming back from the village of Kazanskoe, where they had gone on a pilgrimage, the occasion being the feast of the church there— the Kazan Mother of God.4 Far behind them walked Lipa’s mother Praskovya, who could never keep up, because she was ill and short of breath. It was getting towards evening.
“A-a-ah! …” Crutch was surprised as he listened to Lipa. “A-ah! … We-e-ll?”
“I’m a great lover of preserves, Ilya Makarych,” said Lipa. “I sit myself down in a little corner and drink tea with preserves. Or I drink together with Varvara Nikolaevna, and she tells me some touching story. They’ve got lots of preserves—four jars. ‘Eat, Lipa,’ they say, ‘don’t have any second thoughts.’”
“A-a-ah! … Four jars!”
“It’s a rich man’s life. Tea with white bread, and as much beef as you like. A rich man’s life, only it’s scary there, Ilya Makarych. It’s so scary!”
“What are you scared of, little one?” asked Crutch, and he turned around to see how far Praskovya was lagging behind.
“First, right after the wedding, I was afraid of Anisim Grigoryich. He was all right, he never hurt me, only as soon as he comes near me I get chills all over, in every little bone. I didn’t sleep a single night, I kept shivering and praying to God. And now I’m afraid of Aksinya, Ilya Makarych. She’s all right, she just smiles, only sometimes she
