Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories Part 38

When, in the year 1817, during Pa.s.sion-week,--it fell late that year,--the time came to plough the ground, the Izlegoshcha peasants began to discuss at a meeting whether they ought to plough the land under litigation during that year, or not; and, although Apkhtin's clerk had come to see them during Lent with the order that they should not plough the land and should come to some agreement with him in regard to the rye already planted in what had been the doubtful, and now was Apkhtin's land, the peasants, for the very reason that the winter crop had been sowed on the debatable land, and because Apkhtin, in his desire to avoid being unfair to them, wished to arbitrate the matter with them, decided to plough the land under litigation and to take possession of it before touching any other fields.

On the very day when the peasants went out to plough, which was Maundy Thursday, Ivan Petrovich Apkhtin, who had been preparing himself for communion during the Pa.s.sion-week, went to communion, and early in the morning drove to the church in the village of Izlegoshcha, of which he was a paris.h.i.+oner, and there he, without knowing anything about the matter, amicably chatted with the church elder. Ivan Petrovich had been to confession the night before, and had attended vigils at home; in the morning he had himself read the Rules, and at eight o'clock had left the house. They waited for him with the ma.s.s. As he stood at the altar, where he usually stood, Ivan Petrovich rather reflected than prayed, which made him dissatisfied with himself.

Like many people of that time, and, so far as that goes, of all times, he was not quite clear in matters of religion. He was past fifty years of age; he never omitted carrying out any rite, attended church, and went to communion once a year; in talking to his only daughter, he instructed her in the articles of faith; but, if he had been asked whether he really believed, he would not have known what to reply.

On that day more than on any other, he felt meek of spirit, and, standing at the altar, he, instead of praying, thought of how strangely everything was constructed in the world: there he was, almost an old man, taking the communion for perhaps the fortieth time in his life, and he knew that everybody, all his home folk and all the people in the church, looked at him as a model and took him for an example, and he felt himself obliged to act as an example in matters of religion, whereas he himself did not know anything, and soon, very soon, he would die, and even if he were killed he could not tell whether that in which he was showing an example to others was true. And it also seemed strange to him how every one considered--that he saw--old people to be firm and to know what was necessary and what not (thus he always thought about old men), and there he was old and positively failed to know, and was just as frivolous as he had been twenty years before; the only difference was that formerly he did not conceal it, while now he did.

Just as in his childhood it had occurred to him during the service that he might crow like a c.o.c.k, even so now all kinds of foolish things pa.s.sed through his mind, and he, the old man, reverentially bent his head, touching the flagstones of the church with the old knuckles of his hands, and Father Vasili was evidently timid in celebrating ma.s.s in his presence, and incited to zeal by his zeal.

"If they only knew what foolish things are running through my head! But that is a sin, a sin; I must pray," he said to himself, when the service commenced; and, trying to catch the meaning of the responses, he began to pray. Indeed, he soon transferred himself in feeling to the prayer and thought of his sins and of everything which he regretted.

A respectable-looking old man, bald-headed, with thick gray hair, dressed in a fur coat with a new white patch on one-half of his back, stepping evenly with his out-toeing bast shoes, went up to the altar, bowed low to him, tossed his hair, and went beyond the altar to place some tapers. This was the church elder, Ivan Fedotov, one of the best peasants of the village of Izlegoshcha. Ivan Petrovich knew him. The sight of this stern, firm face led Ivan Petrovich to a new train of thoughts. He was one of those peasants who wanted to take the land away from him, and one of the best and richest married farmers, who needed the land, who could manage it, and had the means to work it. His stern aspect, ceremonious bow, and measured gait, and the exactness of his wearing-apparel,--the leg-rags fitted his legs like stockings and the laces crossed each other symmetrically on either leg,--all his appearance seemed to express rebuke and enmity on account of the land.

"I have asked forgiveness of my wife, of Manya" (his daughter), "of the nurse, of my valet, Volodya, but it is his forgiveness that I ought to ask for, and I ought to forgive him," thought Ivan Petrovich, and he decided that after matins he would ask Ivan Fedotov to forgive him.

And so he did.

There were but few people in church. The country people were in the habit of going to communion in the first and in the fourth week. Now there were only forty men and women present, who had not had time to go to communion before, a few old peasant women, the church servants, and the manorial people of the Apkhtins and his rich neighbours, the Chernshevs. There was also there an old woman, a relative of the Chernshevs, who was living with them, and a deacon's widow, whose son the Chernshevs, in the goodness of their hearts, had educated and made a man of, and who now was serving as an official in the Senate. Between the matins and the ma.s.s there were even fewer people left in the church.

There were left two beggar women, who were sitting in the corner and conversing with each other and looking at Ivan Petrovich with the evident desire to congratulate him and talk with him, and two lackeys,--one his own, in livery, and the other, Chernshev's, who had come with the old woman. These two were also whispering in an animated manner to each other, just as Ivan Petrovich came out from the altar-place; when they saw him, they grew silent. There was also a woman in a tall head-gear with a pearl face-ornament and in a white fur coat, with which she covered up a sick child, who was crying, and whom she was attempting to quiet; and another, a stooping old woman, also in a head-gear, but with a woollen face-ornament and a white kerchief, which was tied in the fas.h.i.+on of old women, and in a gray gathered coat with an iris-design on the back, who, kneeling in the middle of the church, and turning to an old image between two latticed windows, over which hung a new scarf with red edges, was praying so fervently, solemnly, and impa.s.sionately that one could not fail directing one's attention to her.

Before reaching the elder, who, standing at the little safe, was kneading over the remnants of some tapers into one piece of wax, Ivan Petrovich stopped to take a look at the praying woman. The old woman was praying well. She knelt as straight as it was possible to kneel in front of the image; all the members of her body were mathematically symmetrical; her feet behind her pressed with the tips of her bast shoes at the same angle against the stone floor; her body was bent back, to the extent to which her stooping shoulders permitted her to do so; her hands were quite regularly placed below her abdomen; her head was thrown back, and her face, with an expression of bashful commiseration, wrinkled, and with a dim glance, was turned straight toward the image with the scarf. Having remained in an immobile position for a minute or less,--evidently a definite s.p.a.ce of time,--she heaved a deep sigh and, taking her right hand away, swung it above her head-gear, touched the crown of her head with folded fingers, and made ample crosses by carrying her hand down again to her abdomen and to her shoulders; then she swayed back and dropped her head on her hands, which were placed evenly on the floor, and again raised herself, and repeated the same.

"Now she is praying," Ivan Petrovich thought, as he looked at her. "She does it differently from us sinners: this is faith, though I know that she is praying to her own image, or to her scarf, or to her adornment on the image, just like the rest of them. All right. What of it?" he said to himself, "every person has his own faith: she prays to her image, and I consider it necessary to beg the peasant's forgiveness."

And he walked over to the elder, instinctively scrutinizing the church in order to see who was going to see his deed, which both pleased and shamed him. It was disagreeable to him, because the old beggar women would see it, and more disagreeable still, because Mishka, his lackey, would see it. In the presence of Mishka,--he knew how wide-awake and shrewd he was,--he felt that he should not have the strength to walk up to Ivan Fedotov. He beckoned to Mishka to come up to him.

"What is it you wish?"

"Go, my dear, and bring me the rug from the carriage, for it is too damp here for my feet."

"Yes, sir."

When Mishka went away, Ivan Petrovich at once went up to Ivan Fedotov.

Ivan Fedotov was disconcerted, like a guilty person, at the approach of the gentleman. Timidity and hasty motions formed a queer contradiction to his austere face and curly steel-gray hair and beard.

"Do you wish a dime taper?" he said, raising the desk, and now and then casting his large, beautiful eyes upon the master.

"No, I do not want a taper, Ivan. I ask you to forgive me for Christ's sake, if I have in any way offended you. Forgive me, for Christ's sake,"

Ivan Petrovich repeated, with a low bow.

Ivan Fedotov completely lost his composure and began to move restlessly, but when he comprehended it all, he smiled a gentle smile:

"G.o.d forgives," he said. "It seems to me, I have received no offence from you. G.o.d will forgive you,--I have not been offended by you," he hastened to repeat.

"Still--"

"G.o.d will forgive you, Ivan Petrovich. So you want two dime tapers?"

"Yes, two."

"He is an angel, truly, an angel. He begs even a base peasant to forgive him. O Lord, true angels," muttered the deacon's widow, in an old black capote and black kerchief. "Truly, we ought to understand that."

"Ah, Paramonovna!" Ivan Petrovich turned to her. "Are you getting ready for communion, too? You, too, must forgive me, for Christ's sake."

"G.o.d will forgive you, sir, angel, merciful benefactor! Let me kiss your hand!"

"That will do, that will do, you know I do not like that," said Ivan Petrovich, smiling, and going away from the altar.

The ma.s.s, as always, did not take long to celebrate in the parish of Izlegoshcha, the more so since there were few communicants. Just as, after the Lord's Prayer, the regal doors were closed, Ivan Petrovich looked through the north door, to call Mishka to take off his fur coat.

When the priest saw that motion, he angrily beckoned to the deacon, and the deacon almost ran out to call in the lackey. Ivan Petrovich was in a pretty good humour, but this subserviency and expression of respect from the priest who was celebrating ma.s.s again soured him entirely; his thin, bent, shaven lips were bent still more and his kindly eyes were lighted up by sarcasm.

"He acts as though I were his general," he thought, and immediately he thought of the words of the German tutor, whom he had once taken to the altar to attend a Russian divine service, and who had made him laugh and had angered his wife, when he said, "_Der Pop war ganz bose, da.s.s ich ihm Alles nachgesehen hatte_." He also recalled the answer of the young Turk that there was no G.o.d, because he had eaten up the last piece of him. "And here I am going to communion," he thought, and, frowning, he made a low obeisance.

He took off his bear-fur coat, and in his blue dress coat with bright b.u.t.tons and in his tall white neckerchief and waistcoat, and tightly fitting trousers, and heelless, sharp-toed boots, went with his soft, modest, and light gait to make his obeisances to the large images. Here he again met that same obsequiousness from the other communicants, who gave up their places to him.

"They act as though they said, '_Apres vous, s'il en reste_,'" he thought, awkwardly making side obeisances; this awkwardness was due to the fact that he was trying to find that mean in which there would be neither disrespect, nor hypocrisy. Finally the doors were opened. He said the prayer after the priest, repeating the words, "As a robber;"

his neckerchief was covered with the chalice cloth, and he received his communion and the lukewarm water in the ancient dipper, having put new silver twenty-kopek pieces on ancient plates; after hearing the last prayers, he kissed the cross and, putting on his fur coat left the church, receiving congratulations and experiencing the pleasant sensation of having everything over. As he left the church, he again fell in with Ivan Fedotov.

"Thank you, thank you!" he replied to his congratulations. "Well, are you going to plough soon?"

"The boys have gone out, the boys have," replied Ivan Fedotov, more timidly even than before. He supposed that Ivan Petrovich knew whither the Izlegoshcha peasants had gone out to plough. "It is damp, though.

Damp it is. It is early yet, early it is."

Ivan Petrovich went up to his parents' monument, bowed to it, and went back to be helped into his six-in-hand with an outrider.

"Well, thank G.o.d," he said to himself, swaying on the soft, round springs and looking at the vernal sky with the scattering clouds, at the bared earth and the white spots of unmelted snow, and at the tightly braided tail of a side horse, and inhaling the fresh spring air, which was particularly pleasant after the air in the church.

"Thank G.o.d that I have been through the communion, and thank G.o.d that I now may take a pinch of snuff." And he took out his snuff-box and for a long time held the pinch between his fingers, smiling and, without letting the pinch out of the hand, raising his cap in response to the low bows of the people on the way, especially of the women, who were was.h.i.+ng the tables and chairs in front of their houses, just as the carriage at a fast trot of the large horses of the six-in-hand plashed and clattered through the mud of the street of the village of Izlegoshcha.

Ivan Petrovich held the pinch of snuff, antic.i.p.ating the pleasure of snuffing, not only down the whole village, but even until they got out of a bad place at the foot of a hill, toward which the coachman descended not without anxiety: he held up the reins, seated himself more firmly, and shouted to the outrider to go over the ice. When they went around the bridge, over the bed of the river, and scrambled out of the breaking ice and mud, Ivan Petrovich, looking at two plovers that rose from the hollow, took the snuff and, feeling chilly, put on his glove, wrapped himself in his fur coat, plunged his chin into the high neckerchief, and said to himself, almost aloud, "Glorious!" which he was in the habit of saying secretly to himself whenever he felt well.

In the night snow had fallen, and when Ivan Petrovich had driven to church the snow had not yet disappeared, but was soft; now, though there was no sun, it was all melted from the moisture, and on the highway, on which he had to travel for three versts before turning into Chirakovo, the snow was white only in last year's gra.s.s, which grew in parallel lines along the ruts; but on the black road the horses splashed through the viscous mud. The good, well-fed, large horses of his own stud had no difficulty in pulling the carriage, and it just rolled over the gra.s.s, where it left black marks, and over the mud, without being at all detained. Ivan Petrovich was having pleasant reveries; he was thinking of his home, his wife, and his daughter.

"Manya will meet me at the porch, and with delight. She will see such holiness in me! She is a strange, sweet girl, but she takes everything too much to heart. The role of importance and of knowing everything that is going on in this world, which I must play before her, is getting to be too serious and ridiculous. If she knew that I am afraid of her!" he thought. "Well, Kato," (his wife) "will no doubt be in good humour to-day, she will purposely be in good humour, and we shall have a fine day. It will not be as it was last week on account of the Proshkin women. What a remarkable creature! How afraid of her I am! What is to be done? She does not like it herself." And he recalled a famous anecdote about a calf. A proprietor, having quarrelled with his wife, was sitting at a window, when he saw a frisky calf: "I should like to get you married!" he said. And Ivan Petrovich smiled again, according to his custom solving every difficulty and every perplexity by a joke, which generally was directed against himself.

At the third verst, near a chapel, the outrider bore to the left, into a cross-road, and the coachman shouted to him for having turned in so abruptly that the centre horses were struck by the shaft; and the carriage almost glided all the way down-hill. Before reaching the house, the outrider looked back at the coachman and pointed to something; the coachman looked back at the lackey, and indicated something to him. And all of them looked in the same direction.

"What are you looking at?" asked Ivan Petrovich.

"Geese," said Mishka.

"Where?"

Though he strained his vision, he could not see them.