Bab Bab 17 · THE HUSBAND OF AKOULKA

It was late at night, about eleven o’clock. I had been sleeping some

time and woke up with a start. The wan and weak light of the distant

lamp barely lit the room. Nearly everybody was fast asleep, even

Oustiantsef; in the quiet of the night I heard his difficult breathing,

and the rattlings in his throat with every respiration. In the

ante-chamber sounded the heavy and distant footsteps of the patrol as

the men came up. The butt of a gun struck the floor with its low and

heavy sound.

The door of the room was opened, and the corporal counted the sick,

stepping softly about the place. After a minute or so he closed the door

again, leaving a fresh sentinel there; the patrol went off, silence

reigned again. It was only then that I observed two prisoners, not far

from me, who were not sleeping, and who seemed to be holding a muttered

conversation. Sometimes, in fact, it would happen that a couple of sick

people, whose beds adjoined and who had not exchanged a word for weeks,

would all of a sudden break out into conversation with one another, in

the middle of the night, and one of them would tell the other his

history.

Probably they had been speaking for some considerable time. I did not

hear the beginning of it, and could not at first seize upon their words,

but little by little I got familiar with the muttered sounds, and

understood all that was going on. I had not the least desire for sleep

on me, so what could I do but listen.

One of them was telling his story with some warmth, half-lying on his

bed, with his head lifted and stretched towards his companion. He was

plainly excited to no little degree; the necessity of speech was on him.

The man listening was sitting up on his pallet, with a gloomy and

indifferent air, his legs stretched out flat on the mattress, and now

and again murmured some words in reply, more out of politeness than

interest, and kept stuffing his nose with snuff from a horn box. This

was the soldier Techérévin, one of the company of discipline; a morose,

cold-reasoning pedant, an idiot full of _amour propre_; while the

narrator was Chichkof, about thirty years old; this was a civilian

convict, whom up to that time I had not at all observed; and during the

whole time I was at the prison I never could get up the smallest

interest in him, for he was a conceited, heady fellow.

Sometimes he would hold his tongue for weeks together, and look sulky

and brutal enough for anything; then all of a sudden he would strike

into anything that was going on, behave insufferably, go into a white

heat about nothing at all, and tell you long stories with nothing in

them whatever about one barrack or another, blowing abuse on all the

world, and acting like a man beside himself. Then some one would give

him a hiding, and he would have another fit of silence. He was a mean

and cowardly fellow, and the object of general contempt. His stature

was low, he had little flesh on him, he had wandering eyes, though they

sometimes got mixed and seemed filled with a stupid sort of thinking.

When he told you anything he worked himself into a fever, gesticulated

wildly, suddenly broke off and went to another subject, lost himself in

fresh details, and at last forgot altogether what he was talking about.

He often got into squabbles, this Chichkof, and when he poured insult on

his adversary, he spoke with a sentimental whine and was affected nearly

to tears. He was not a bad hand at playing the _balalaika_, and had a

weakness for it; on fête days he would show you his dancing powers when

others set him at it, and he danced by no means badly. You could easily

enough make him do what you wanted ... not that he was of a complying

turn, but he liked to please and to get intimate with fellows.

For some considerable time I couldn’t understand the story Chichkoff was

telling; that night I mean. It seemed to me as though he were constantly

rambling from the point to talk of something else. Perhaps he had

observed that Tchérévine was paying little attention to the narrative,

but I fancy that he was minded to overlook this indifference, so as not

to take offence.

“When he went out on business,” he continued, “every one saluted him

politely, paid him every respect ... a fellow with money that.”

“You say that he was in some trade or other.”

“Yes; trade indeed! The trading class in my country is wretchedly

ill-off; just poverty-stricken. The women go to the river and fetch

water from ever such a distance to water their gardens. They wear

themselves to the very bone, and, for all that, when winter comes, they

haven’t got enough to make a mere cabbage soup. I tell you it’s

starvation. But that fellow had a good lump of land, which his labourers

cultivated; he had three. Then he had hives, and sold his honey; he was

a cattle-dealer too; a much respected man in our parts. He was very old

and quite gray, his seventy years lay heavy on his old bones. When he

came to the market-place with his fox-skin pelisse, everybody saluted

him.

“‘Good-day, daddy Aukoudim Trophimtych!’

“‘Good-day,’ he’d return.

“‘How are you getting along;’ he never looked down on any one.

“‘God keep you, Aukoudim Trophimtych!’

“‘How goes business with you?’

“‘Business is as good as tallow’s white with me; and how’s yours,

daddy?’

“‘We’ve just got enough of a livelihood to pay the price of sin; always

sweating over our bit of land.’

“‘Lord preserve you, Aukoudim Trophimtych!’

“He never looked down on anybody. All his advice was always worth

having; every one of his words was worth a rouble. A great reader he

was, quite a man of learning; but he stuck to religious books. He would

call his old wife and say to her, ‘Listen, woman, take well in what I

say;’ then he would explain things. His old Marie Stépanovna was not

exactly an old woman, if you please; it was his second wife; he had

married her to have children, his first wife had not brought him any. He

had two boys still quite young, for the second of them was born when his

father was close on sixty; Akoulka, his daughter, was eighteen years

old, she was the eldest.”

“Your wife? Isn’t it so?”

“Wait a bit, wait. Then Philka Marosof begins to kick up a row. Says he

to Aukoudim: ‘Let’s split the difference. Give me back my four hundred

roubles. I’m not your beast of burden; I don’t want to do any more

business with you, and I don’t want to marry your Akoulka. I want to

have my fling now that my parents are dead. I’ll liquor away my money,

then I’ll engage myself, ’list for a soldier; and in ten years I’ll come

back here a field-marshal!’ Aukoudim gave him back his money--all he

had of his. You see he and Philka’s father had both put in money and

done business together.

“‘You’re a lost man,’ that’s what he said to Philka.

“‘Whether I’m a lost man or not, old gray-beard, you’re the biggest

cheat I know. You’d try to screw a fortune out of four farthings, and

pick up all the dirt about to do it with. I spit upon it. There you are

piling up here, digging deep there, the devil only knows why. I’ve got a

will of my own, I tell you. All the same I won’t take your Akoulka; I’ve

slept with her already.’

“‘How dare you insult a respectable father--a respectable girl? When did

you sleep with her, you spawn of the sucker, you dog, you hound,

you----?’ said Aukoudim shaking with passion. (Philka told us all this

later).

“‘I’ll not only not marry your daughter, but I’ll take good care that

nobody marries her, not even Mikita Grigoritch, for she’s a disreputable

girl. We had a fine time together, she and I, all last autumn. I don’t

want her at any price. All the money in the world wouldn’t make me take

her.’

“Then the fellow went and had high jinks for a while. All the town was

as one man in sending up a cry against him. He got a lot of other

fellows round him, for he had a heap of money. Three months he had of

it. Such recklessness as you never heard of. Every penny went.

“‘I want to see the end of this money. I’ll sell the house; everything;

then I’ll ’list or go on the tramp.’

“He was drunk from morning to evening, and went about with a carriage

and pair.

“The girls liked him well, I tell you, for he played the guitar very

nicely.”

“Then it is true that he had been too well with this Akoulka?”

“Wait, wait, can’t you? I had just buried my father. My mother lived by

baking gingerbread. We got our livelihood by working for Aukoudim;

barely enough to eat, a precious hard life it was. We had a bit of land

the other side of the woods, and grew corn there; but when my father

died I went on a spree. I made my mother give me money; but I had to

give her a good hiding first.”

“You were very wrong to beat her; a great sin that?”

“Sometimes I was drunk the whole blessed day. We had a house that was

just tumbling to pieces with dry rot, still it was our own; we were as

near famished as could be; for weeks together we had nothing but rags to

chew. Mother nearly killed me with one stupid trick or another, but I

didn’t care a curse. Philka Marosof and I were always together day and

night. ‘Play the guitar to me,’ he’d say, ‘and I’ll lie in bed the

while. I’ll throw money to you, for I’m the richest chap in the world!’

The fellow could not speak without lying. There was only one thing. He

wouldn’t touch a thing if it had been stolen. ‘I’m no thief, I’m an

honest man. Let’s go and daub Akoulka’s door with pitch,[5] for I won’t

have her marry Mikita Grigoritch, I’ll stick to that.’

“The old man had long meant to give his daughter to this Mikita

Grigoritch. He was a man well on in life, in trade too, and wore

spectacles. When he heard the story of Akoulka’s bad conduct, he said to

the old father, ‘That would be a terrible disgrace for me, Aukoudim

Trophimtych; on the whole, I’ve made up my mind not to marry; it’s to

late.’

“So we went and daubed Akoulka’s door all over with pitch. When we’d

done that her folks beat her so that they nearly killed her.

“Her mother, Marie Stépanovna, cried, ‘I shall die of it,’ while the old

man said, ‘If we were in the days of the patriarchs, I’d have hacked

her to pieces on a block. But now everything is rottenness and

corruption in this world.’ Sometimes the neighbours from one end of the

street to the other heard Akoulka’s screams. She was whipped from

morning to evening, and Philka would cry out in the market-place before

everybody:

“Akoulka’s a jolly girl to get drunk with. I’ve given it those people

between the eyes, they won’t forget me in a hurry.’

“Well, one day, I met Akoulka, she was going for water with her bucket,

so I cried out to her: ‘A fine morning, pet Akoulka Koudimovna! you’re

the girl who knows how to please fellows. Who’s living with you now, and

where do you get your money for your finery?’ That’s just what I said to

her; she opened her eyes as wide as you please. No more flesh on her

than on a log of wood. She had only just given me a look, but her mother

thought she was larking with me, and cried from her door-step, ‘Impudent

hussy, what do you mean by talking with that fellow?’ And from that

moment they began to beat her again. Sometimes they hided her for an

hour together. The mother said, ‘I give her the whip because she isn’t

my daughter any more.’”

“She was then as bad as they said?”

“Now you just listen to my story, nunky, will you? Well, we used to get

drunk all the time with Philka. One day when I was abed, mother comes

and says:

“‘What d’ye mean by lying in bed, you hound, you thief!’ She abused me

for some time, then she said, ‘Marry Akoulka. They’ll be glad to give

her to you, and they’ll give three hundred roubles with her.’

“‘But,’ says I, ‘all the world knows that she’s a bad girl----’

“‘Hist, the marriage ceremony cures all that; besides, she’ll always be

in fear of her life from you, so you’ll be in clover together. Their

money would make us comfortable; I’ve spoken about the marriage already

to Marie Stépanovna, we’re of one mind about it.’

“So I say, ‘Let’s have twenty roubles down on the spot, and I’ll have

her.’

“Well, you needn’t believe it unless you please, but I was drunk right

up to the wedding-day. Then Philka Marosof kept threatening me all the

time.

“‘I’ll break every bone in your body, a nice fellow you to be engaged,

and to Akoulka; if I like I’ll sleep every blessed night with her when

she’s your wife.’

“‘You’re a hound, and a liar,’ that’s what I said to him. But he

insulted me so in the street, before everybody, that I ran to Aukoudim’s

and said, ‘I won’t marry her unless I have fifty roubles down this

moment.’”

“And they really did give her to you in marriage?”

“Me? Why not, I should like to know? We were respectable people enough.

Father had been ruined by a fire a little before he died; he had been a

richer man than Aukoudim Trophimtych.

“‘A fellow without a shirt to his back like you ought to be only too

happy to marry my daughter;’ that’s what old Aukoudim said.

“‘Just you think of your door, and the pitch that went on it,’ I said to

him.

“‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said he, ‘there’s no proof whatever that the

girl’s gone wrong.’

“‘Please yourself. There’s the door, and you can go about your business;

but give back the money you’ve had!’

“Then Philka Marosof and I settled it together to send Mitri Bykoff to

Father Aukoudim to tell him that we’d insult him to his face before

everybody. Well, I had my skin as full as it could hold right up to the

wedding-day. I wasn’t sober till I got into the church. When they took

us home after church the girl’s uncle, Mitrophone Stépanytch, said:

“‘This isn’t a nice business; but it’s over and done now.’

“Old Aukoudim was sitting there crying, the tears rolled down on his

gray beard. Comrade, I’ll tell you what I had done: I had put a whip

into my pocket before we went to church, and I’d made up my mind to have

it out of her with that, so that all the world might know how I’d been

swindled into the marriage, and not think me a bigger fool than I am.”

“I see, and you wanted her to know what was in store for her. Ah,

was----?”

“Quiet, nunky, quiet! Among our people I’ll tell you how it is; directly

after the marriage ceremony they take the couple to a room apart, and

the others remain drinking till they return. So I’m left alone with

Akoulka; she was pale, not a bit of colour on her cheeks; frightened out

of her wits. She had fine hair, supple and bright as flax, and great big

eyes. She scarcely ever was known to speak; you might have thought she

was dumb; an odd creature, Akoulka, if ever there was one. Well, you can

just imagine the scene. My whip was ready on the bed. Well, she was as

pure a girl as ever was, not a word of it all was true.”

“Impossible!”

“True, I swear; as good a girl as any good family might wish.”

“Then, brother, why--why--why had she had to undergo all that torture?

Why had Philka Marosof slandered her so?”

“Yes, why, indeed?”

“Well, I got down from the bed, and went on my knees before her, and put

my hands together as if I were praying, and just said to her, ‘Little

mother, pet, Akoulka Koudimovna, forgive me for having been such an

idiot as to believe all that slander; forgive me. I’m a hound!’

“She was seated on the bed, and gazed at me fixedly. She put her two

hands on my shoulders and began to laugh; but the tears were running

all down her cheeks. She sobbed and laughed all at once.

“Then I went out and said to the people in the other room, ‘Let Philka

Marosof look to himself. If I come across him he won’t be long for this

world.’

“The old people were beside themselves with delight. Akoulka’s mother

was ready to throw herself at her daughter’s feet, and sobbed.

“Then the old man said, ‘If we had known really how it was, my dearest

child, we wouldn’t have given you a husband of that sort.’

“You ought to have seen how we were dressed the first Sunday after our

marriage--when we left church! I’d got a long coat of fine cloth, a fur

cap, with plush breeches. She had a pelisse of hareskin, quite new, and

a silk kerchief on her head. One was as fine as the other. Everybody

admired us. I must say I looked well, and pet Akoulka did too. One

oughtn’t to boast, but one oughtn’t to sing small. I tell you people

like us are not turned out by the dozen.”

“Not a doubt about it.”

“Just you listen, I tell you. The day after my marriage I ran off from

my guests, drunk as I was, and went about the streets crying, ‘Where’s

that scoundrel of a Philka Marosof? Just let him come near me, the

hound, that’s all!’ I went all over the market-place yelling that out. I

was as drunk as a man could be, and stand.

“They went after me and caught me close to Vlassof’s place. It took

three men to get me back again to the house.

“Well, nothing else was spoken about all over the village. The girls

said, when they met in the market-place, ‘Well, you’ve heard the

news--Akoulka was all right!’

“A little while after I do come across Philka Marosof, who said to me

before everybody, strangers to the place, too, ‘Sell your wife, and

spend the money on drink. Jackka the soldier only married for that; he

didn’t sleep one night with his wife; but he got enough to keep his skin

full for three years.’

“I answered him, ‘Hound!’

“‘But,’ says he, ‘you’re an idiot! You didn’t know what you were about

when you married--you were drunk. How could you tell all about it?’

“So off I went to the house, and cried out to them ‘You married me when

I was drunk.’

“Akoulka’s mother tried to fasten herself on me; but I cried, ‘Mother,

you don’t know about anything but money. You bring me Akoulka!’

“And didn’t I beat her! I tell you I beat her for two hours running,

till I rolled on the floor myself with fatigue. She couldn’t leave her

bed for three weeks.”

“It’s a dead sure thing,” said Tchérévine phlegmatically; “if you don’t

beat them they---- Did you find her with her lover?”

“No; to tell the truth, I never actually caught her,” said Chichkoff

after a pause, speaking with effort; “but I was hurt, a good deal hurt,

for every one made fun of me. The cause of it all was Philka. ‘Your wife

is just made for everybody to look at,’ said he.

“One day he invited us to see him, and then he went at it. ‘Do just look

what a good little wife he has! Isn’t she tender, fine, nicely brought

up, affectionate, full of kindness for all the world? I say, my lad,

have you forgotten how we daubed their door with pitch?’ I was full at

that moment, drunk as may be; then he seized me by the hair and had me

down upon the ground before I knew where I was. ‘Come along--dance;

aren’t you Akoulka’s husband? I’ll hold your hair for you, and you shall

dance; it will be good fun.’ ‘Dog!’ said I to him. ‘I’ll bring some

jolly fellows to your house,’ said he, ‘and I’ll whip your Akoulka

before your very eyes just as long as I please.’ Would you believe it?

For a whole month I daren’t go out of the house, I was so afraid he’d

come to us and drag my wife through the dirt. And how I did beat her for

it!”

“What was the use of beating her? You can tie a woman’s hands, but not

her tongue. You oughtn’t to give them a hiding too often. Beat ’em a

bit, then scold ’em well, then fondle ’em; that’s what a woman is made

for.”

Chichkoff remained quite silent for a few moments.

“I was very much hurt,” he went on; “I began it again just as before. I

beat her from morning till night for nothing; because she didn’t get up

from her seat the way I liked; because she didn’t walk to suit me. When

I wasn’t hiding her, time hung heavy on my hands. Sometimes she sat by

the window crying silently--it hurt my feelings sometimes to see her

cry, but I beat her all the same. Sometimes her mother abused me for it:

‘You’re a scoundrel, a gallows-bird!’ ‘Don’t say a word or I’ll kill

you; you made me marry her when I was drunk, you swindled me.’ Old

Aukoudim wanted at first to have his finger in the pie. Said he to me

one day: ‘Look here, you’re not such a tremendous fellow that one can’t

put you down;’ but he didn’t get far on that track. Marie Stépanovna had

become as sweet as milk. One day she came to me crying her eyes out and

said: ‘My heart is almost broken, Ivan Semionytch; what I’m going to ask

of you is a little thing for you, but it is a good deal to me; let her

go, let her leave you, daddy Ivan.’ Then she throws herself at my feet.

‘Do give up being so angry! Wicked people slander her; you know quite

well she was good when you married her.’ Then she threw herself at my

feet again and cried. But I was as hard as nails. ‘I won’t hear a word

you have to say; what I choose to do, I do, to you or anybody, for I’m

crazed with it all. As to Philka Marosof, he’s my best and dearest

friend.’”

“You’d begun to play your pranks together again, you and he?”

“No, by Jove! He was out of the way by this time; he was killing himself

with drink, nothing less. He had spent all he had on drink, and had

’listed for a soldier, as substitute for a citizen body in the town. In

our parts, when a lad makes up his mind to be substitute for another, he

is master of that house and everybody there till he’s called to the

ranks. He gets the sum agreed on the day he goes off, but up to then he

lives in the house of the man who buys him, sometimes six whole months,

and there isn’t a horror in the whole world those fellows are not guilty

of. It’s enough to make folks take the holy images out of the house.

From the moment he consents to be substitute for the son of the family

then he considers himself their patron and benefactor, and makes them

dance as he pipes, or else he goes off the bargain.

“So Philka Marosof played the very mischief at the home of this

townsman. He slept with the daughter, pulled the master of the house by

the beard after dinner, did anything that came into his head. They had

to heat the bath for him every day, and, what’s more, give him brandy

fumes with the steam of the bath: and he would have the women lead him

by the arms to the bath room.[6]

“When he came back to the man’s house after a revel elsewhere, he would

stop right in the middle of the road and cry out:

“‘I won’t go in by the door; pull down the fence!’

“And they actually _had_ to pull down the fence, though there was the

door right at it to let him in. That all came to an end though, the day

they took him to the regiment. That day he was sobered sufficiently. The

crowd gathered all through the street.

“‘They’re taking off Philka Marosof!’

“He made a salute on all sides, right and left. Just at that moment

Akoulka was returning from the kitchen-garden. Directly Philka saw her

he cried out to her:

“‘Stop!’ and down he jumped from the cart and threw himself down at her

feet.

“‘My soul, my sweet little strawberry, I’ve loved you two years long.

Now they’re taking me off to the regiment with the band playing. Forgive

me, good honest girl of a good honest father, for I’m nothing but a

hound, and all you’ve gone through is my fault.’

“Then he flings himself down before her a second time. At first Akoulka

was exceedingly frightened; but she made him a great bow, which nearly

bent her double.

“‘Forgive me, too, my good lad; but I am really not at all angry with

you.’

“As she went into the house I was at her heels.

“‘What did you say to him, you she-devil, you?’

“Now you may believe it or not as you like, but she looked at me as bold

as you please, and answered:

“‘I love him better than anything or anybody in this world.’

“‘I say!’

“That day I didn’t utter one single word. Only towards evening I said to

her: ‘Akoulka, I’m going to kill you now.’ I didn’t close an eye the

whole night. I went into the little room leading to ours and drank

kwass. At daybreak I went into the house again. ‘Akoulka, get ready and

come into the fields.’ I had arranged to go there before; my wife knew

it.

“‘You are right,’ said she. ‘It’s quite time to begin reaping. I’ve

heard that our labourer is ill and doesn’t work a bit.’

“I put to the cart without saying a word. As you go out of the town

there’s a forest fifteen versts in length. At the end of it is our

field. When we had gone about three versts through the wood I stopped

the horse.

“‘Come, get up, Akoulka; your end is come.’

“She looked at me all in a fright, and got up without a word.

“‘You’ve tormented me enough. Say your prayers.’

“I seized her by the hair--she had long, thick tresses--I rolled them

round my arm. I held her between my knees; took out my knife; threw her

head back, and cut her throat. She screamed; the blood spurted out. Then

I threw away my knife. I pressed her with all my might in my arms. I put

her on the ground and embraced her, yelling with all my might. She

screamed; I yelled; she struggled and struggled. The blood--her

blood--splashed my face, my hands. It was stronger than I was--stronger.

Then I took fright. I left her--left my horse and began to run; ran back

to the house.

“I went in the back way, and hid myself in the old ramshackle

bath-house, which we never used now. I lay myself down under the seat,

and remained hid till the dead of the night.”

“And Akoulka?”

“She got up to come back to the house; they found her later, a hundred

steps from the place.”

“So you hadn’t finished her?”

“No.” Chichkoff stopped a while.

“Yes,” said Tchérévine, “there’s a vein; if you don’t cut it at the

first the man will go on struggling; the blood may flow fast enough, but

he won’t die.”

“But she was dead all the same. They found her in the evening, and she

was cold. They told the police, and hunted me up. They found me in the

night in the old bath.

“And there you have it. I’ve been four years here already,” added he,

after a pause.

“Yes, if you don’t beat ’em you make no way at all,” said Tchérévine

sententiously, taking out his snuff-box once more. He took his pinches

very slowly, with long pauses. “For all that, my lad, you behaved like a

fool. Why, I myself--I came upon my wife with a lover. I made her come

into the shed, and then I doubled up a halter and said to her:

“‘To whom did you swear to be faithful?--to whom did you swear it in

church? Tell me that?’

“And then I gave it her with my halter--beat her and beat her for an

hour and a half; till at last she was quite spent, and cried out:

“‘I’ll wash your feet and drink the water afterwards.’

“Her name was Crodotia.”

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Daubing the door of a house, where a young girl lives, is done to

show that she is dishonoured.

[6] A mark of respect paid in Russia formerly, now disused.