Orlóff and His Wife: Tales of the Barefoot Brigade. Maksim Gorky
against that part of the wall.
Orlóff was about thirty years of age. His bronzed, nervous face, with delicate features, was adorned with a small, dark mustache, which sharply shaded his full, red lips. His eyebrows almost met above his large, cartilaginous nose; from beneath them gazed black eyes which always blazed uneasily. His curly hair, tangled in front, fell behind over a sinewy, light-brown neck. Of medium stature, and somewhat round-shouldered from his work, muscular and ardent, he sat for a long time on the sledge, in a sort of benumbed condition, and surveyed the paint-bedaubed wall, breathing deeply with his healthy, swarthy breast.
The sun had already set, but it was stifling in the courtyard; it smelled of oil-paints, tar, sour cabbage, and something rotten. From all the windows in both stories of the house which opened on the court-yard, poured songs and scolding; from time to time someone's intoxicated countenance inspected Orlóff for a minute, being thrust forth from behind a window-jamb and withdrawn with a laugh.
The painters made their appearance from their work; as they passed Orlóff they cast furtive glances at him, exchanging winks among themselves, and filling the courtyard with the lively dialect of Kostromá, they made ready to go out, some to the bath, some to the pot-house. From above, from the second story, tailors crept out into the court—a half-clad, consumptive and bow-legged lot of men—and began to make fun of the Kostromá painters for their mode of speech, which rattled about like peas. The whole court was filled with noise, with daring, lively laughter, with jests. … Orlóff sat in his corner and maintained silence, not even casting a glance at anyone. No one approached him, and no one could make up his mind to ridicule him, for everyone knew that now he was—a raging wild beast.
He sat there, the prey to a dull and heavy wrath, which oppressed his breast, made breathing difficult, and his nostrils quivered rapaciously from time to time while his lips curled in a snarl, laying bare two rows of large, strong, yellow teeth. Within him something dark and formless was springing up, red, turbid spots swam before his eyes, grief and a thirst for vódka sucked at his entrails. He knew that he would feel better when he had had a drink, but it was still daylight, and it mortified him to go to the dram-shop in such a tattered and disreputable condition through the street where everybody knew him, Grigóry Orlóff.
He knew his own value, and did not wish to go out as a general laughing-stock, but neither could he go home to wash and dress himself. There, on the floor, lay his wife whom he had unmercifully beaten, and now she was repulsive to him in every way.
She was groaning there, and he felt that she was a martyr, and that she was right, so far as he was concerned—he knew that. He knew, also, that she was really in the right, and he was to blame, but this still further augmented his hatred toward her, because, along with this consciousness a dark, evil feeling was seething in his soul, and it was more powerful than the consciousness. Everything within him was heavy and confused, and, without any exertion of his will, he gave himself over to the weight of his inward sensations, unable to disentangle them, and knowing that nothing but half a bottle of vódka would afford him relief.
Now Kislyakóff the accordeon-player comes along. He is clad in a sleeveless cotton-velvet jacket, over a red silk shirt, with voluminous trousers tucked into dandified boots. Under his arm is his accordeon in a green bag, the ends of his small black mustache are twisted into arrows, his cap is set dashingly on one side, and his whole countenance is beaming with audacity and jollity. Orlóff loves him for his audacity, for his playing, and for his merry character, and envies him his easy, care-free life.
"Congratulations, Grísha,[3] on your vi-ic-to-ory, And on your well-scra-a-atched cheek!"
Orlóff did not fly into a rage with him for this joke, although he had already heard it fifty times, and besides, the accordeon-player did not say it out of malice, but simply because he was fond of joking.
"What now, brother! Had another Plevna?"—asked Kislyakóff, halting for a minute in front of the shoemaker.
"Ekh, Grísha, you're a ripe melon! You ought to go where the road for all of us lies. … You and I might have a bite together....'
"I'm coming soon. … " said Orlóff, without raising his head.
"I'll wait and suffer for you. … "
And before long, Orlóff went off after him.
Then, from the cellar emerged a small, plump woman, clinging to the wall as she went. Her head wad closely enveloped in a kerchief, and from the aperture over the face, only one eye, and a bit of the cheek and forehead peeped out. She walked, staggering, across the court, and seated herself on the same spot where her husband had been sitting not long before. Her appearance surprised no one—they had got used to it, and everybody knew that there she would sit until Grísha, intoxicated and in a repentant mood, should make his appearance from the dram-shop. She came out into the court, because it was suffocating in the cellar, and for the purpose of leading drunken Grísha down the stairs. The staircase was half-decayed, and steep; Grísha had tumbled down it one day, and had sprained his wrist, so that he had not worked for a fortnight, and, during that time, they had pawned nearly all their chattels to feed themselves.
From that time forth, Matréna had kept watch for him.
Now and then someone from the court would sit down beside her. Most frequently of all, the person who did so was Levtchénko, a mustached non-commissioned officer on the retired list, an argumentative and sedate Little Russian, with close-cut hair and a blue nose. He would seat himself, and inquire, with a yawn:
"Been banging each other round again?"
"What's that to you?" said Matréna, in a hostile and irritable manner.
"Oh, nothing!" explained the Little Russian, and after that, neither of them spoke again for a long time.
Matryóna breathed heavily, and there was a rattling in her chest.
"Why are you always fighting? What scores have you to settle?"—the Little Russian would begin to argue.
"That's our affair. … " said Matréna Orlóff curtly.
"That's so, it is your affair. … " assented Levtchénko, and he even nodded his head in confirmation of what had been said.
"Then what are you poking your nose into my business for?" argued Mrs. Orlóff[4] logically.
[4] "Mrs. Orlóff" is rather a stiff rendering of the feminine form "Orlóva," minus all prefix, which is not at all disrespectful in Russian, but is somewhat confusing in English.—Translator.
"Phew … what a touchy woman you are! One can't say a word to you! As I look at it—you and Grísha are a well-matched pair! He ought to give you a good drubbing with a club every day—morning and night—that's what he ought! Then neither of you would be such hedge-hogs. … "
And off he went, in a towering rage, which thoroughly pleased her:—for a long time past, a rumor had been going the rounds of the court-yard, to the effect that the Little Russian was not making up to her for nothing, and she was angry with him, with him and with all people who intruded themselves on other folks' affairs. But the Little Russian walked off to the corner of the court with his upright, soldierly gait, alert and strong despite his forty years.
Then Tchízhik bobbed up under his feet from somewhere or other.
"She's a bitter radish too, that Aunty Orlíkha!" he confided to Levtchénko, in an undertone, with a sly wink in the direction where Matréna was sitting.
"Well, I'll prescribe that sort of a radish for you, when you need one!" threatened the Little Russian, laughing