Orlóff and His Wife: Tales of the Barefoot Brigade. Maksim Gorky
the present, and the gloomy picture of the cellar-existence gradually retreated further and further from her. The authorities at the barracks liked her; because of her intelligence, and knowledge of how to work, they all treated her graciously, they all saw in her an individual; and this was new for her, it gave her animation.
One day when she was on night-duty, the fat woman-doctor began to question her about her life, and Matréna, as she was willingly and frankly telling her about her life, suddenly paused and smiled.
"What are you laughing at?" asked the doctor.
"Why nothing. … I lived very badly … and, you see, if you will believe it, my dear madam—I did not understand it … up to this very moment, I never understood how badly."
After this glance into the past, a strange feeling took form in Mrs. Orlóff's breast toward her husband, she loved him exactly as much as before—with the blind love of the female, but it began to seem to her as though Grigóry were her debtor. At times, when she was talking with him, she assumed a patronizing tone, for he often inspired her with pity by his uneasy speeches. But, nevertheless, she was sometimes seized with doubt as to the possibility of a quiet and peaceful life with her husband, although, on the whole, she still believed that Grigóry would become steady, and that this melancholy would be extinguished in him.
They were fatally bound to grow nearer to each other, and—both were young, fit for work, strong—they might have gone on and lived out their days in the gray life of half-fed poverty, a life of exploiting others, to the end completely absorbed in the pursuit of the kopék, but they had been saved from this end by what Gríshka called his "uneasiness in the heart," and was, in its essence, unable to reconcile itself with every-day things.
On the morning of a gloomy September day a wagon drove into the court-yard of the barracks, and Prónin took out of it a little boy, all streaked with paints, bony, yellow, hardly breathing.
"From the Petúnnikoff house, in Damp street, again," the driver reported, in answer to the query, whence the patient came.
"Tchízhik!" exclaimed Orlóff, in distress—"akh, oh, Lord! Sénka! Tchizh![16] Do you know me?"
[16] Tchizh means—a canary-bird. Tchízhik—a little canary-bird.—Translator.
"Y—yes, I know you. … " said Tchízhik, with an effort, as he lay on the stretcher, and slowly rolled his eyes up under his brow, in order to see Orlóff, who was walking at his head, and bending over him.
"Akh … what a merry bird you were! How did you come to give up?"—asked Orlóff. He was, somehow, strangely alarmed at the sight of that dirty little boy, in the throes of the disease.—"Why did it seize on this poor little boy?" he embodied in one question all his sensations, and sadly shook his head.
Tchízhik made no reply, and shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm cold," said he, when they laid him on a cot, and began to remove his rags, streaked all over with every sort of paint-color.
"Now, we're going to put you into hot water immediately … " promised Orlóff.—"And we'll cure you."
Tchízhik shook his little head, and whispered:
"You can't cure me. … Uncle Grigóry … bend down your … ear. I stole the accordeon. … It's in the wood-shed … Day before yesterday I touched it, for the first time since I stole it. Akh, what an accordeon it is! I hid it … and then my belly began to ache. … So. … That means, that this is for my sin. … It's hanging on the wall, under the stairs … and I piled wood up over it. … So. … Uncle Grigóry … give it. … The accordeon-player had a sister. … She asked about it. … Gi-ive it … to … her! … " He began to groan, and to writhe in convulsions.
They did everything they could for him, but the gaunt, exhausted little body would not retain life in it, and in the evening, Orlóff carried him on the stretcher to the dead-house. As he carried him, he felt exactly as though he had been wronged.
In the dead-house, Orlóff tried to straighten out Tchízhik's body, but he did not succeed. Orlóff went away overwhelmed, mournful, bearing with him the image of the merry lad distorted with the disease.
He was seized with a debilitating consciousness of his powerlessness in the face of death, and his ignorance of it. Despite all the pains he had taken over Tchízhik, despite the zealous labors of the doctors, … the boy had died! This was outrageous. … It would seize upon him, Orlóff, one of these days, and twist him up in convulsions. … And that would be the end of him. He grew frightened, and, along with this feeling, he was invaded by a sense of loneliness. He wanted to discuss all this with some clever man. More than once, he tried to strike up a comprehensive conversation with one or another of the students, but no one had any time for philosophy, and Grigóry's attempts were not crowned with success. He was obliged to go to his wife, and talk with her. So he went to her, morose and sad.
She had only just come off duty, and was washing herself self in the corner of the room, but the samovár was already standing on the table, filling the air with steam and hissing.
Grigóry seated himself, in silence, at the table, and began to gaze at his wife's bare, plump shoulders. The samovár bubbled away, splashing water over; Matréna snorted; orderlies ran swiftly back and forth along the corridor, and Grigóry tried to determine, from the walk, who was passing.
All of a sudden, it seemed to him, as though Matréna's shoulders were as cold, and covered with the same sort of sticky sweat as Tchízhik, when the latter was writhing with convulsions on the hospital cot. He shuddered, and said, in a dull voice:
"Sénka is dead. … "
"Dead? The kingdom of heaven to the child Sénka, newly-appeared before God!"[17] said Matréna prayerfully, and then she began to spit fiercely—some of the soap had got into her mouth.
[17] The Holy Orthodox Catholic Church of the East, of which Russia is now the most prominent representative, has four different burial-services: one for ecclesiastics, one for laymen, which undergoes certain changes if the burial takes place at Easter-tide (making the third), and one for children, or "infants," meaning children under eight years of age. All are very beautiful and touching. The above exclamation is the general one.—Translator.
"I'm sorry for him," sighed Grigóry.
"He was a dreadful tease."
"He's dead, and that ends it! It's no business of yours now, what sort of a fellow he was! … But it's a pity he died. He was bold and lively. … The accordeon … Hm! … He was a clever lad. … I sometimes used to look at him and think: I'll take him as an apprentice, or something of that sort. … He was an orphan … he would have got used to us, and have taken the place of a son to us. … For, you see, we have no children. … No. … You're so healthy, yet you don't bear any children. … You had one, and that was the end of it. Ekh, you woman! If we had some squalling little brats, you'd see we shouldn't find life so tiresome. … But now it's only live on, and work. … And for what? To feed myself and you. … And of what use are we … of what use is food to us? In order that we may work. … So it turns out to be a senseless circle. … But if we had children—that would be quite another matter. … That it would."
He said this in a sad, dissatisfied tone, with his head drooping low. Matréna stood before him and listened, gradually turning pale, as he continued:
"I'm healthy, you're healthy, and still we have no children. … What's the meaning of it? Why? Ye-es … a man thinks and thinks about it … and then he takes to drink!"
"You lie!" said Matréna firmly and loudly.—"You lie! Don't you dare to utter your dastardly words to me … do you hear? Don't you dare! You drink—because you choose to, out of self-indulgence,