“I’m buying a ticket at the station, I hand over three roubles, and I think to myself, maybe they’re false. And it scares me. I must be sick.”
“What can I say, we all walk before God … Oh, tush, tush …” said Varvara, and she shook her head. “You ought to give it some thought, Petrovich … What if something bad happens? You’re not a young man. You’ll die, and for all I know they may wrong our grandson. Aie, they’ll do Nikifor wrong, I’m afraid they will! His father can be counted as not there, his mother’s young, foolish … You ought at least to leave that land to him, to the boy, that Butyokino, Petrovich, really! Just think!” Varvara went on persuading him. “A nice little boy, it’s a pity! Go tomorrow and draw up the paper. Why wait?”
“And here I was forgetting about my grandson …” said Tsybukin. “I must go and say hello. So you say he’s a nice boy? Well, let him grow up. God grant it!”
He opened the door and beckoned to Lipa with a bent finger. She came up to him with the baby in her arms.
“If you need anything, Lipynka, just ask,” he said. “And eat whatever you like, we won’t begrudge it, as long as you’re healthy …” He made a cross over the baby. “And take care of my grandson. The son’s gone, at least the grandson is left.”
Tears ran down his cheeks; he sobbed and turned away. A little later he went to bed and fell fast asleep, after seven sleepless nights.
VII
The old man made a short trip to town. Somebody told Aksinya that he had gone to the notary to write a will, and that he was leaving Butyokino, the same place where she baked bricks, to his grandson Nikifor. She was told of it in the morning, when the old man and Varvara were sitting under the birch tree by the porch drinking tea. She locked up the shop front and back, collected all the keys she had, and flung them down at the old man’s feet.
“I won’t work for you anymore!” she cried loudly, and suddenly began to sob. “It turns out I’m not your daughter-in-law, but a hired worker! Everybody laughs: ‘Look,’ they say, ‘what a worker the Tsybukins found for themselves!’ I’m not your charwoman! I’m not a beggar, not some kind of slut, I’ve got a father and mother.”
Without wiping her tears, she turned her eyes, tear-flooded, spiteful, crossed with anger, on the old man; her face and neck were red and strained, because she was shouting with all her might.
“I don’t want to serve you anymore!” she went on. “I’m worn out! When it’s work, when it’s sitting in the shop day after day, and sneaking out at night to get vodka—then it’s me, but when it’s giving away land—then it’s the convict’s wife with her little devil! She’s the mistress, she’s the lady here, and I’m her servant! Give her everything, the jailbird’s wife, let her choke on it, I’m going home! Find yourselves another fool, you cursed Herods!”
Never in his life had the old man scolded or punished his children, and he could not admit even the thought that anyone in the family could say rude words to him or behave disrespectfully; and now he got very frightened, ran into the house, and hid behind a wardrobe. And Varvara was so taken aback that she could not get up from her place, but only waved both arms as if warding off a bee.
“Ah, saints alive, what is this?” she murmured in horror. “Why is she shouting? Oh, tush, tush … People will hear! Not so loud … Ah, not so loud!”
“You gave Butyokino to the jailbird’s wife,” Aksinya went on shouting, “so give her everything now—I don’t need anything from you! Perish the lot of you! You’re all one gang here! I’ve had enough of looking at you! You’ve robbed everybody walking or riding by, you’ve robbed them old and young! Who sold vodka without a license? And the false money? You’ve stuffed your coffers with false money—now you don’t need me anymore!”
A crowd had already gathered by the open gates and was looking into the yard.
“Let people stare!” Aksinya shouted. “I’ll disgrace you! You’ll burn with shame! You’ll grovel at my feet! Hey, Stepan!” she called the deaf man. “Let’s go home this very minute! Let’s go to my father and mother, I don’t want to live with criminals! Get ready!”
Laundry was hanging on lines stretched across the yard; she tore down her still-wet skirts and blouses and flung them into the deaf man’s arms. Then she rushed furiously about the yard, tearing down all the laundry, hers or not hers, flinging it to the ground and trampling on it.
“Ah, saints alive, calm her down!” Varvara groaned. “What’s the matter with her? Give her Butyokino, give it to her for the sake of Christ in Heaven!”
“Well, some wo-o-oman!” people were saying by the gate. “There’s a wo-o-oman for you! Got herself going— something awful!”
Aksinya ran to the kitchen where the laundry was being done just then. Lipa was doing it alone, while the cook went to the river to do the rinsing. Steam rose from the tub and the cauldron by the stove, and the kitchen was stuffy and dim with mist. There was still a pile of unwashed laundry on the floor, and on the bench beside it, his red legs sticking up, lay Nikifor, so that if he fell, he would not be hurt. Just as Aksinya came in, Lipa took a shift of hers from the pile, put it into the tub, and reached for the big dipper of boiling water that stood on the table …
“Give it here!” said Aksinya, looking at her with hatred and snatching the shift from the tub. “You’ve got no business touching my underwear! You’re a convict’s wife, and you should know your place and what you are!”
Lipa stared at her, bewildered, and did not understand, but suddenly she caught the glance that the woman shot at the baby, and suddenly she understood and went dead all over …
“You took my land, so there’s for you!”
As she said it, Aksinya seized the dipper of boiling water and dashed it over Nikifor.
After that a cry was heard such as had never yet been heard in Ukleyevo, and it was hard to believe that such a small, weak being as Lipa could scream like that. And it suddenly became hushed in the yard. Aksinya went into the house silently, with her former naive smile … The deaf man kept walking about the yard with the laundry in his arms, then began to hang it up again, silently, unhurriedly. And until the cook came back from the river, nobody dared go into the kitchen and see what had happened there.
VIII
Nikifor was taken to the regional hospital, and towards evening he died there. Lipa did not wait till they came for her, but wrapped the dead boy in a blanket and carried him home.
The hospital, new, built recently, with big windows, stood high on a hill; it was all lit up by the setting sun and looked as if it were burning inside. At the bottom was a village. Lipa descended by the road and, before reaching the village, sat down near a small pond. Some woman brought a horse to water, but the horse would not
