Mother Read online

  Vlasova began wiping the tears quickly from her cheeks. Frightened that the Ukrainian would offend Pavel, she hurriedly opened the door and, going into the kitchen, trembling and full of woe and fear, began loudly:

  “Ooh, it’s cold! But it’s spring…”

  Aimlessly moving things from one place to another in the kitchen and trying to drown out the lowered voices in the other room, she continued more loudly:

  “Everything’s changed: people have become hotter and the weather colder. At this time it used to be warm with a clear sky, sunshine…”

  They had fallen silent in the other room. She stopped in the middle of the kitchen, waiting.

  “Do you hear?” came the Ukrainian’s quiet question. “You’ve got to understand, damn it! There are greater riches there than there are in you…”

  “Will you have some tea?” she asked in a quavering voice. And without waiting for an answer, to conceal the quaver she exclaimed:

  “What can the matter be? I’m quite frozen!”

  Pavel slowly came through to her. He was looking from under his brows and had a smile trembling guiltily on his lips.

  “Forgive me, Mother!” he said in a low voice. “I’m still a little boy, a fool…”

  “Don’t touch me!” she cried miserably, pressing his head against her breast. “Don’t say anything! The Lord be with you – your life is your business! But don’t wound my heart! How can a mother fail to feel pity? She can’t… I pity everyone! You’re all dear to me, all deserving! And who’s going to pity you apart from me? On you go, behind you others, you’ve given up everything and gone… Pasha!”

  Inside her breast beat a big, ardent idea, whose inspired sense of melancholy joy, filled with suffering, lent wings to her heart, but the mother could find no words, and in the torment of her muteness, flapping a hand helplessly, she looked into the face of her son with eyes that burnt with a pain bright and sharp…

  “All right, Mama! Forgive me – I can see!” he murmured, lowering his head, and, after taking a fleeting glance at her, he added with a smile as he turned away, troubled but gladdened:

  “I won’t forget this – honestly!”

  She pushed him away and, glancing into the other room, said to Andrei in a gently plaintive voice:

  “Andryusha! Don’t shout at him! You’re older, of course…”

  Standing with his back to her and not moving, the Ukrainian growled in a strange and funny way:

  “Grrr! I will yell at him! And I’ll hit him too!”

  She went towards him slowly, reaching out a hand, and said:

  “My dear man…”

  The Ukrainian turned, dipped his head like a bull and, clenching his fists behind his back, walked past her into the kitchen. From there his voice rang out, gloomily mocking:

  “Go away, Pavel, or else I’ll bite your head off! I’m joking, nenko, don’t believe it! I’ll put the samovar on. Yes! Our charcoal… is damp, damn it!”

  He fell silent. When the mother went through into the kitchen, he was sitting on the floor, blowing to get the samovar going. Without looking at her, the Ukrainian began again:

  “Don’t be afraid – I won’t touch him! I’m as soft as a stewed turnip! And I’m… Hey, you, hero, don’t listen – I’m fond of him! But I’m not fond of his waistcoat! He’s put on a new waistcoat, you see, and he really likes it, so he goes around with his stomach stuck out, pushing everyone: ‘Just look at my waistcoat!’ It’s a good one, it’s true, but why all the pushing? There’s not a lot of room as it is.”

  Pavel asked with a grin:

  “Are you going to be grumbling long? You’ve given me one scolding, that ought to be enough!”

  Sitting on the floor, the Ukrainian stretched his legs out on either side of the samovar and looked at it. The mother stood by the door with her eyes fixed sadly and affectionately on the round back of Andrei’s head and on his long, bent neck. He leant his trunk back and rested his hands on the floor, glanced at mother and son with slightly reddened eyes and said in a low voice, blinking:

  “You’re good persons – yes!”

  Pavel bent down and seized his arm.

  “Don’t pull!” said the Ukrainian in a muffled voice. “You’ll have me over like that…”

  “Why are you being bashful?” said the mother sadly. “You should kiss one another and give each other a big hug…”

  “Do you want to?” asked Pavel.

  “All right,” replied the Ukrainian, rising.

  They froze for a second in a tight embrace – two bodies and one soul burning hotly with a sense of friendship.

  Tears, easy ones now, flowed down the mother’s face. Wiping them away, she said in embarrassment:

  “A woman enjoys crying: she cries in grief, she cries in joy!…”

  With a gentle movement the Ukrainian pushed Pavel away and, wiping his eyes with his fingers too, said:

  “Enough! The calves have had their fun – now it’s time to roast them! This damned charcoal! I’ve been blowing and blowing on it, and now I’ve got muck in my eyes…”

  Lowering his head, Pavel sat down by the window and said quietly:

  “There’s no shame in such tears…”

  The mother went over and sat down beside him. Her heart was warmly and softly clad in a sprightly feeling. She felt sad, but nice and calm.

  “I’ll get the tea things together – you have a sit down, nenko!” said the Ukrainian, going off into the other room. “Have a rest! Your heart’s taken a battering…”

  And his melodious voice rang out in the other room:

  “We’ve just had a splendid taste of life, real human life!…”

  “Yes!” said Pavel, glancing at his mother.

  “Everything’s become different!” she responded. “Woe’s different, joy’s different…”

  “That’s as it should be!” said the Ukrainian. “Because there’s a new heart growing, my dear nenko, there’s a new heart growing in life. There’s man walking along, illuminating life with the light of reason and crying out, calling: ‘Hey, you! People of all countries, unite in a single family!’ And at his call the healthy bits of all hearts are joining together into a single enormous one, strong and resonant as a silver bell…”

  The mother squeezed her lips firmly together so that they did not tremble, and she shut her eyes tight so that they did not cry.

  Pavel raised a hand and wanted to say something, but his mother took him by the other hand and, pulling it down, whispered:

  “Don’t interrupt him…”

  “Do you know?” said the Ukrainian, standing in the doorway. “There’s much woe ahead for people, there’s much blood yet to be squeezed out of them, but all of that, all the woe and my blood, is a small price to pay for what’s already in my breast, in my brain… I’m already as rich as a star is in rays, I’ll bear anything, endure anything, because there’s joy inside me that no one, nothing will ever kill! In that joy there’s strength!”

  They drank tea and sat at the table until midnight, having a heart-to-heart conversation about life, about people, about the future.

  And whenever an idea was clear to her, the mother would sigh and take something from her past, always something difficult and harsh, and reinforce the idea with this stone from her heart.

  In the warm flow of the conversation her fear melted, and now she felt as she had on the day when her father had said to her severely:

  “It’s no good pulling a face! A fool’s turned up who’ll take you in marriage – go! All girls get married, all women have children, and the children bring their parents woe! What, are you not a person too?”

  After those words she had seen before her an inevitable path, stretching acquiescently around an empty, dark place. And the inevitability of taking that path had filled her breast with blind peace. And so i
t was now. But sensing the advent of a new woe, she said to someone within herself:

  “Here, take this!”

  And this eased the faint pain in her heart, which quivered and sang in her breast like a taut string.

  And in the depths of her soul, agitated by the sorrow of expectation, there was a glimmer, not strong, yet undying, of hope that not all would be taken and torn away from her. Something would remain…

  XXIV

  Early in the morning, barely had Pavel and Andrei left when Korsunova knocked in alarm at the window and cried out hurriedly:

  “Isai’s been murdered! Let’s go and have a look…”

  The mother gave a start, and the name of the murderer flashed through her mind like a spark.

  “Who was it?” she asked tersely, throwing a shawl over her shoulders.

  “He’s not there sitting over Isai, he bumped him off and left,” Maria replied.

  Outside she said: “They’ll start digging around again now, looking for the culprit. It’s a good thing your two were at home last night – I’m a witness to that. I was walking past after midnight and looked in at your window, and you were all sitting at the table…”

  “What do you mean, Maria? How could anyone possibly think it was them?” the mother exclaimed in fright.

  “Who did murder him, then? It was sure to be your lot!” said Korsunova with conviction. “Everyone knows he was shadowing them…”

  The mother stopped, gasping for breath, and put a hand to her breast.

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you be afraid! A villain gets his just deserts! Let’s go quick, or else they’ll have taken him away!…”

  The mother continued to be rocked by the troubling thought of Vesovshchikov.

  “So this is what he’s come to!” she thought dully.

  Not far from the walls of the factory, on the site of a house that had recently burnt down, stood a crowd of people, trampling on coals, kicking up ash and buzzing like a swarm of bumblebees. There were a lot of women and even more children, shopkeepers, waiters from the inn, policemen and Petlin the gendarme, a tall old man with a fluffy silver beard and medals on his chest.

  Isai was half-lying on the ground with his back leaning against some charred logs and his bare head dangling onto his right shoulder. His right hand was thrust into the pocket of his trousers, and the fingers of his left one had grabbed hold of some loose soil.

  The mother glanced into Isai’s face: one of his eyes was looking dimly at the hat that lay between his wearily spread legs, his mouth was half open in astonishment and his little ginger beard stuck out to one side. The thin body with a sharp head and bony, freckled face had become even smaller, squashed by death. The mother crossed herself with a sigh. Alive he had been repellent to her; now he aroused quiet pity.

  “There’s no blood!” someone remarked in a low voice. “Someone must have punched him…”

  A malevolent voice pronounced loudly:

  “The informer’s had his mouth shut…”

  The gendarme roused himself and, pushing some women aside, asked threateningly:

  “Who’s that discussing things, eh?”

  People scattered as he shoved them. Some quickly ran away. Someone burst into malicious laughter.

  The mother went home.

  “No one feels any pity!” she thought.

  And before her, like a shadow, stood the broad figure of Nikolai; the look of his narrow eyes was cold and cruel, and his right hand was swinging, as though he had hurt it…

  When her son and Andrei came back for dinner, she asked them first of all:

  “Well? Has anybody been arrested – for Isai?”

  “Nothing’s been heard!” the Ukrainian responded.

  She could see they were both dispirited.

  “Are people saying anything about Nikolai?” the mother enquired quietly.

  Her son’s stern eyes settled on her face, and he said distinctly:

  “They aren’t. And they’re scarcely thinking about him either. He’s not here. He left for the river at midday yesterday and hasn’t returned yet. I asked about him…”

  “Well, thank God!” said the mother with a sigh of relief. “Thank God!”

  The Ukrainian glanced at her and lowered his head.

  “He’s lying there,” the mother told them pensively, “and it’s as if he’s surprised – that’s how his face is. And no one feels any pity for him, no one had a good word to say for him. He’s so small, so insignificant. Like a fragment of something, he’s broken off, fallen down, and there he lies…”

  During dinner Pavel suddenly threw down his spoon and exclaimed:

  “I don’t understand it!”

  “What?” asked the Ukrainian.

  “Killing an animal just because you need to eat – even that’s unpleasant. Killing a wild beast, a predator… that’s understandable! I myself could kill a man who’d become a wild beast to other people. But killing someone so pathetic – how could the arm swing?…”

  The Ukrainian shrugged his shoulders. Then he said:

  “He was no less harmful than a wild beast. And if a mosquito drinks a little of our blood,” he added, “we kill it!”

  “Well, yes! That’s not what I’m talking about… I’m saying it’s repellent!”

  “What can you do?” Andrei responded, shrugging his shoulders again.

  “Could you kill a man like that?” Pavel asked pensively after a long silence.

  The Ukrainian looked at him with his round eyes, cast a fleeting glance at the mother and replied with sadness, yet firmly:

  “For comrades, for the cause, I can do anything! I’ll kill as well. Even my own son…”

  “Oh, Andryusha!” the mother exclaimed quietly.

  He smiled at her and said:

  “It can’t be otherwise! That’s the way life is!…”

  “Ye-es!…” drawled Pavel slowly. “That’s the way life is…”

  Excited all of a sudden, obeying some impulse from within, Andrei stood up, waving his arms, and began:

  “What can you do? You’ve got to hate a man so that the time when you can just admire people comes more quickly. You have to destroy anyone who hinders the march of life, who sells people for money to spend on a peaceful life for himself or esteem. If a Judas is standing in the path of honest men, waiting to betray them, I’ll be a Judas myself if I don’t destroy him! I don’t have the right? What about them, our masters – do they have the right to have soldiers and executioners, brothels and prisons, penal servitude and all those foul things that protect their peaceful life, their comfort? I’ve got to take their stick in my hands at times – what’s to be done? I’ll take it, I won’t refuse. They kill us in our dozens and hundreds – and that gives me the right to raise my hand and bring it down upon one of the enemy’s heads, upon an enemy who’s come closer to me than the others and is more harmful than the others to my life’s work. That’s the way life is. And I’m going against it, I don’t want it. I know nothing is created with their blood – it’s not fruitful!… The truth grows well when the hard rain of our blood besprinkles the earth, but their rotten blood disappears without trace – I know it! But I will take the sin upon myself, I’ll kill, if I see it’s necessary! I’m speaking only for myself, though. My sin will die with me; it won’t be left as a stain on the future; it’ll disgrace no one but me, no one!”

  He walked around the room, waving a hand about in front of his face as if he were chopping something in the air, severing it from himself. The mother looked at him with sadness and alarm, sensing that something had cracked inside him, that he was in pain. Her dark, dangerous thoughts about the murder left her. “If it wasn’t Vesovshchikov that killed him, then none of Pavel’s comrades could have done it,” she thought. Pavel listened to the Ukrainian with his head bowed, and the latter said insi
stently and powerfully:

  “You have to go on down the road ahead and against yourself. You need to know how to give everything, your whole heart. Giving your life, dying for the cause – that’s easy! Give more, including what’s dearer to you than your life, give, and then the thing that’s dearest to you will grow strongly too – your truth!…”

  He stopped in the middle of the room, pale and with eyes half-shut, and, making a solemn promise, pronounced with his hand raised:

  “I know there will be a time when people will come to admire one another, when everyone will be like a star before another! Free people will walk the earth, great in their freedom; all will set off with open hearts; everyone’s heart will be innocent of envy; and all will be without malice. It won’t be mere life then, but the service of man; his image will rise high; all heights are achievable for the free! People then will live for beauty in truth and freedom, and the best will be considered those who embrace the world more fully with their hearts, who love it more deeply; the best will be the freest – in them there is the most beauty! Great will be the people of that life…”

  He fell silent, drew himself up and said in a booming voice, using the whole of his chest:

  “So – for the sake of that life I’ll do anything…”

  His face was convulsed, and tears flowed one after another from his eyes, big and heavy.

  Pavel raised his head and, pale, looked at him with wide-open eyes; the mother half-rose from her chair, sensing that dark anxiety was growing and advancing upon her.

  “What’s the matter with you, Andrei?” Pavel asked quietly.

  The Ukrainian tossed his head, stretched out like a string and, gazing at the mother, said:

  “I saw… I know…”

  She stood up, went over to him quickly, took hold of his hands; he tried to pull the right one away, but she held on to it tenaciously and whispered in an ardent whisper:

  “Quiet, my sweet! My dear one…”

  “Wait!” muttered the Ukrainian in a muffled voice. “I’ll tell you how it happened…”