Orlóff and His Wife: Tales of the Barefoot Brigade. Maksim Gorky
her immense delight, stirring up her whole soul, and, instead of extinguishing his jealousy by a couple of words, she proceeded still further to enrage him, smiling up into his face with strange, extremely significant smiles. He flew into a fury, and beat her, beat her mercilessly.
But at night when, all broken, and crushed, she lay groaning beside him in bed, he stared askance at her, and sighed heavily. He felt ill at ease, his conscience tortured him, he understood that there was no foundation for his jealousy, and that he had beaten her without cause.
"Come, that will do, … " he said abashed.—"Am I to blame, if I have that sort of character? And you're nice, too. … Instead of persuading me—you spur me on. Why did you find it necessary to do it?"
She held her peace, but she knew why, knew that now, all beaten and wronged as she was, she might expect his caresses, the passionate and tender caresses of reconciliation. For this she was ready to pay every day with pain in her bruised sides.—And she was already weeping, with the mere joy of anticipation, even before her husband succeeded in touching her.
"Come, enough of that, Mótrya! Come, my darling, won't you? Have done, forgive me, do!"—He smoothed her hair, kissed her, and gnashed his teeth with the bitterness which filled his whole being.
Their windows were open, but the main wall of the neighboring house hid the sky, and in their room, as always, it was dark, and stifling and close.
"Ekh, life! Thou art a magnificent hard-labor prison!"—whispered Gríshka, unable to express what he so painfully felt.—"It comes from this hole, Mótrya. What are we? Something as though we were buried in the earth before our death. … "
"Let's move into another lodging,"—suggested Matréna, through sweet tears, understanding his words literally.
"E-ekh! No you don't, aunty! If you betake yourself to a garret, you'll still be in a hole, … it isn't the lodging that's the hole … but life—that's the hole!"
Matréna reflected, and began again:
"God willing, we may reform ourselves … we shall get used to one another."
"Yes, we'll reform. … You often say that. … But it doesn't look like reform with us. … The rows get more frequent all the time—understand?"
That was unqualifiedly true. The intervals between their fights kept growing shorter and shorter, and here, at last, every Saturday, Gríshka began from early in the morning to screw himself up into a hostile mood against his wife.
"This evening I'm going to cut work, and go to meet Lýsy in the dram-shop. … I shall get drunk. … " he announced.
Matréna, puckering up her eyes strangely, made no reply.
"You won't speak? Well then, just go on holding your tongue—it'll be better for your health—" he said warningly.
In the course of the day, with irritation which increased in proportion as the evening drew near—he reminded her several times of his intention to get drunk, was conscious that it pained her to hear this, and perceiving that she maintained a persistent silence, with a firm gleam in her eyes, preparing for the struggle, he strode about the room and raged all the more furiously.
In the evening, the herald of their unhappiness, Sénka Tchízhik, proclaimed the "brattle."[8]
[8] Sénka twists his words, in a way which cannot always be reproduced. This is a fair specimen.—Translator.
When he had finished beating his wife, Gríshka vanished, sometimes for the whole night, sometimes he did not even put in an appearance on Sunday. She, covered with bruises, greeted him morosely, with taciturnity, but was filled with concealed compassion for him, all tattered, and often battered also, in filth, with his eyes suffused with blood.
She knew that he must get over his fit of intoxication, and she had already supplied herself with half a bottle of vódka. He, also, knew this.
"Give me a little glass. … " he entreated hoarsely, drank off two or three glasses, and sat down to his work. The day passed with him in gnawings of conscience; often he could not endure their sting, flung aside his work, and swore terrible oaths, as he rushed about the room, or threw himself on the bed. Mótrya gave him time to simmer down, and then they made peace.
Formerly, this reconciliation had had much that was subtle and sweet about it, but, in the course of time, all this evaporated, and they made peace almost for the sole reason that it was not convenient to remain silent for the five whole days before Sunday.
"You feel sleepy," said Matréna, with a sigh.
"I do,"—assented Gríshka, and spat aside, with the air of a man to whom it is a matter of utter indifference whether he feels sleepy or not.—"And you're going to scamper off and leave me. … " he completed the picture of the future, looking searchingly into her eyes. For some time past, she had taken to dropping them, which she had never been in the habit of doing previously, and Gríshka, taking note of this, frowned portentously, and softly gritted his teeth. But, privily from her husband, she was still frequenting the fortune-tellers and sorceresses, bringing back from them spells, in the form of roots and embers. And when all this was of no avail, she had a prayer-service celebrated to the holy great-martyr Vonifánty, who aids drunkards, and as she knelt throughout the prayer-service, she wept burning tears, noiselessly moving her quivering lips.
And more and more frequently did she feel toward her husband a savage, cold hatred, which aroused black thoughts within her, and she had ever less and less of pity for this man who, three years before, had so enriched her life with his merry laughter, his caresses, his affectionate speeches.
Thus these people, in reality, not at all a bad sort of people, lived on, day after day—lived on, fatally anticipating something which should finally smash to atoms their torturingly-foolish life.
*
One Monday morning, when the Orlóff pair had just begun to drink their tea, the impressive form of a policeman made its appearance on the threshold of the door which led into their cheerless abode. Orlóff sprang from his seat and, with a glance of reproachful alarm at his wife, as he endeavored to reconstruct in his fuddled head the events of the last few days, he stared silently and fixedly at the visitor, with troubled eyes, filled with the most horrible expectation.
"Here, this is the place—" the policeman invited someone in.
"It's as dark as the pool under the mill-wheel, devil take merchant Petúnnikoff—" rang out a young, cheerful voice. Then the policeman stood aside, and into the Orlóffs' room there stepped briskly a student, in a white duck coat, cap in hand, with close-cut hair, a large, sun-burned forehead, and merry brown eyes, which sparkled laughingly from beneath his spectacles.
"Good morning!—" he exclaimed in a bass voice which had not yet grown hoarse.—"I have the honor to introduce myself—the sanitary officer! I have come to investigate how you live … and to smell your air … your air is thoroughly foul!"
Orlóff breathed freely and cordially, and smiled cheerily. He took an instantaneous liking to this noisy student: the fellow's face was so healthy, rosy, kindly, covered on cheeks and chin with golden-brown down. It smiled incessantly, with a peculiar, fresh and clear smile, which seemed to render the Orlóffs' cellar brighter and more cheerful.
"Well then, Mr. and Mrs. Occupant!"—said the student without a pause—"you must empty your slop-bucket more frequently, that unsavory smell comes from it. I would advise you, aunty, to wash it out very often, and also to sprinkle unslaked lime in the corners, to purify the air … and lime is also good as a remedy for dampness. And why have you so bored an aspect, uncle?"—he addressed himself to Orlóff, and immediately seizing him by the hand, he began to feel his pulse.
The student's audacity stunned the Orlóffs. Matréna smiled abstractedly, surveying him in silence. Grigóry