Korney VasilyevКорней Васильев

Korney Vasilyev was fifty-four years old when he came to the village for the last time. In his thick, curly hair there was not yet a single gray hair, and only in his black beard, by the cheekbones, was gray beginning to show. His face was smooth and ruddy, the back of his neck broad and strong, and his whole powerful body had put on fat from the well-fed life of the town.

Twenty years before, he had finished his military service and come home from the army with money. At first he set up a shop; then he gave up the shop and began dealing in cattle. He would go to Cherkassy for “goods” (cattle) and drive them to Moscow.

In the village of Gai, in his stone house with its iron roof, lived his old mother, his wife with two children (a girl and a boy), an orphaned nephew besides — a mute lad of 15 — and a hired man. Korney had been married twice. His first wife had been a weak, sickly woman and had died childless, and as a widower no longer young he married a second time, a healthy, pretty girl, the daughter of a poor widow from a neighboring village. The children were by the second wife.

Korney had sold his last “goods” in Moscow so profitably that he had put together about three thousand in money. Learning from a man from his own parts that not far from his village a ruined landowner was selling a wood at a good price, he took it into his head to go into timber as well. He knew the business: even before his service he had worked at a wood as assistant to a merchant’s agent.

At the railway station where the road turned off for Gai, Korney met a man from his village, one-eyed Kuzma of Gai. Kuzma drove out from Gai to meet every train, for fares, with his pair of wretched, shaggy little horses. Kuzma was poor and so disliked all the rich, and most of all the rich Korney, whom he had known as Kornyushka.

Korney, in a short sheepskin coat with a long one over it, a small suitcase in his hand, came out onto the station steps and, thrusting out his belly, stopped, puffing and looking around. It was morning. The weather was still and overcast, with a light frost.

“What, couldn’t you find any fares, Uncle Kuzma?” he said. “Will you take me, then?”

“All right, give me a ruble. I’ll take you.”

“Come now, seventy kopecks is plenty.”

“Grown yourself a fat belly, and still you want to squeeze thirty kopecks out of a poor man.”

“Oh, all right, have it your way,” said Korney. And, stowing the suitcase and a bundle in the little sledge, he settled himself broadly on the back seat.

Kuzma stayed on the box.

“Right. Drive on.”

They drove out of the potholes by the station onto the smooth road.

“Well, and how are things with you — not with us, I mean, but with you in the village?” asked Korney.

“Not much good.”

“Why’s that? Is my old mother alive?”

“The old woman’s alive. She was at church the other day. Your old woman’s alive. And your young missus is alive too. Nothing ever happens to her. She’s taken on a new hired man.”

And Kuzma gave a laugh that seemed somehow odd to Korney.

“What hired man? What about Pyotr?”

“Pyotr’s fallen sick. She’s taken on Yevstigney Bely from Kamenka,” said Kuzma, “from her own village, that is.”

“Is that so?” said Korney.

Even back when Korney was courting Marfa, there had been some gossip among the women about Yevstigney.

“That’s how it is, Korney Vasilyich,” said Kuzma. “The women have got far too free these days.”

“True enough!” said Korney. “And your gray’s grown old,” he added, wishing to end the conversation.

“I’m not young myself. Takes after its master,” Kuzma said in answer to Korney’s words, flicking his whip at the shaggy, bandy-legged gelding.

Halfway there was a wayside inn. Korney told him to stop and went into the house. Kuzma turned the horse in to an empty trough and set the breeching straight, not looking at Korney and waiting for him to call him.

“Come on in, Uncle Kuzma,” said Korney, coming out onto the steps. “You’ll have a glass.”

“Well, why not,” answered Kuzma, making a show of being in no hurry.

Korney called for a bottle of vodka and offered Kuzma some. Kuzma, who had eaten nothing since morning, was drunk at once. And as soon as he was drunk, he began, in a whisper, leaning close to Korney, to tell him what they were saying in the village. And what they were saying was that Marfa, his wife, had taken on her old lover as hired man and was living with him.

“What’s it to me? I’m sorry for you,” the drunken Kuzma was saying. “Only it’s not right; people are laughing. She’s not afraid of sin, that’s plain. Well, just you wait, I say. Give it time, he’ll come home himself. That’s how it is, brother, Korney Vasilyich.”

Korney listened in silence to what Kuzma was saying, and his thick brows sank lower and lower over his shining eyes, black as coal.

“Well, are you going to water the horse?” was all he said, when the bottle was finished. “If not, let’s be off.”

He paid the innkeeper and went out.

He reached home at dusk. The first to meet him was that very Yevstigney Bely whom he had not been able to stop thinking about the whole way. Korney greeted him. Seeing the thin, towheaded face of Yevstigney, who was all in a bustle, Korney only shook his head in perplexity. “He lied, the old dog,” he thought of Kuzma’s words. “But who knows with them. Well, I’ll find out.”

Kuzma stood by the horse, winking his one eye toward Yevstigney.

“So you’re living at our place, then?” asked Korney.

“Well, a man’s got to work somewhere,” answered Yevstigney.

“Is the best room heated?”

“Sure it is. Matveyevna’s in there,” answered Yevstigney.

Korney went up onto the porch. Marfa, hearing voices, came out into the entry and, seeing her husband, flushed and greeted him hurriedly and with particular warmth.

“Mother and I had quite given up expecting you,” she said, and followed Korney into the best room.

“Well, how have you been getting on without me?”

“Getting on the same as ever,” she said, and, catching up in her arms her two-year-old daughter, who was pulling at her skirt and asking for milk, she went out into the entry with big, resolute strides.

Korney’s mother, with the same black eyes as Korney, dragging her feet in their felt boots with difficulty, came into the best room.

“Thank you for coming to see us,” she said, shaking her trembling head.

Korney told his mother what business had brought him and, remembering Kuzma, went to take his money out to him. He had barely opened the door into the entry when right in front of him, by the door to the yard, he saw Marfa and Yevstigney. They were standing close together, and she was saying something. Seeing Korney, Yevstigney slipped out into the yard, and Marfa went to the samovar, straightening the pipe that was humming above it.

Korney passed her bent back in silence and, taking his bundle, invited Kuzma into the main room for tea. Before tea Korney handed out the presents from Moscow to the household: a woolen shawl for his mother, a picture book for Fedka, a vest for the mute nephew, and calico for a dress for his wife.

At tea Korney sat scowling and said nothing. Only now and then did he smile reluctantly, looking at the mute, who amused everyone with his joy. He could not get enough of the vest. He folded it up and unfolded it, put it on and kissed his own hand, looking at Korney, and smiled.

After tea and supper Korney went off at once to the best room, where he slept with Marfa and the little daughter. Marfa stayed in the main room to clear away the dishes. Korney sat alone at the table, his head propped on his hand, and waited. His rage against his wife stirred in him more and more. He took the abacus down from the wall, took his notebook out of his pocket and, to take his mind off things, began to reckon. He reckoned, glancing at the door and listening to the voices in the main room.

Several times he heard the door to the main room open and someone come out into the entry, but it was never she. At last her steps were heard; the door jerked and came unstuck, and she came in, rosy and beautiful, in a red kerchief, with the little girl in her arms.

“You must be worn out from the road,” she said, smiling, as though she did not notice his sullen look.

Korney looked at her and began reckoning again, though there was nothing left to reckon.

“It’s getting late,” she said, and, setting the little girl down, went behind the partition.

He heard her making the bed and putting her daughter to sleep.

“People are laughing,” he remembered Kuzma’s words. “Just you wait…” he thought, breathing with difficulty, and with a slow movement he got up, put the chewed stub of pencil in his vest pocket, hung the abacus on its nail, took off his jacket, and went to the doorway in the partition. She was standing with her face to the icons, praying. He stopped, waiting. For a long time she crossed herself, bowed, and whispered her prayers. It seemed to him that she had long since gone through all the prayers and was repeating them several times over on purpose. But now she made a bow to the ground, straightened up, whispered some words of prayer to herself, and turned her face to him.

“Agashka’s asleep already,” she said, pointing to the little girl, and, smiling, sat down on the bed, which creaked.

“Has Yevstigney been here long?” said Korney, coming in through the doorway.

With a calm movement she threw one thick braid over her shoulder onto her breast and began unplaiting it with quick fingers. She looked straight at him, and her eyes were laughing.

“Yevstigney? Who knows, two weeks or three.”

“Are you living with him?” said Korney.

She let go of the braid, but at once caught her thick, coarse hair again and went back to plaiting it.

“The things they make up! Me living with Yevstigney?” she said, saying the name Yevstigney with a particular ring. “The things they’ll think of! Who told you?”

“Tell me: is it true or not?” said Korney, and clenched his mighty hands into fists in his pockets.

“Enough of this idle talk. Shall I take off your boots?”

“I’m asking you,” he repeated.

“Some prize! As if I’d fall for Yevstigney,” she said. “And who on earth has been telling you lies?”

“What were you talking to him about in the entry?”

“What about? I said the barrel needs a new hoop. What are you pestering me for?”

“I’m telling you: speak the truth. I’ll kill you, you filthy scum.”

He seized her by the braid.

She tore the braid out of his hand; her face twisted with pain.

“Fighting’s all you’re good for. What good have I ever had from you? A life like this, there’s no telling what you’ll do.”

“What will you do?” he said, advancing on her.

“What did you pull out half my braid for? Look, it’s coming out in hanks. Why do you keep at me? And it’s true that…”

She did not finish. He seized her by the arm, dragged her off the bed, and began beating her on the head, on the sides, on the breast. The more he beat her, the more the rage blazed up in him. She screamed, shielded herself, tried to get away, but he would not let her go. The little girl woke up and rushed to her mother.

“Mama!” she howled.

Korney caught the little girl by the arm, tore her away from her mother, and flung her into the corner like a kitten. The little girl gave a squeal, and for a few seconds nothing was heard from her.

“Murderer! You’ve killed the child!” screamed Marfa, and tried to get up and go to her daughter.

But he seized her again and struck her in the chest so hard that she fell over backward and stopped screaming too. Only the little girl screamed, desperately, without stopping for breath.

The old woman, without her kerchief, her gray hair disheveled and her head trembling, came tottering into the little room and, looking neither at Korney nor at Marfa, went to her granddaughter, who was sobbing desperately, and picked her up.

Korney stood breathing heavily and looking about him as if just roused from sleep, not understanding where he was or who was there with him.

Marfa raised her head and, groaning, was wiping her bloodied face with her shift.

“Hateful villain!” she said. “I do live with Yevstigney, and I did before. Go on, kill me dead. And Agashka’s not your daughter; I had her by him,” she rattled off, and covered her face with her elbow, waiting for a blow.

But Korney seemed to understand nothing, and only snuffled and looked around.

“Just look what you’ve done to the girl: you’ve put her arm out,” said the old woman, showing him the twisted, dangling little arm of the child, who would not stop screaming. Korney turned and went out in silence into the entry and onto the porch.

Outside it was as frosty and overcast as before. Flakes of rime fell on his burning cheeks and forehead. He sat down on the steps and ate snow by the handful, scooping it from the railing. From behind the door he could hear Marfa groaning and the little girl crying piteously; then the door into the entry opened, and he heard his mother come out of the best room with the little girl and cross the entry into the main room. He got up and went into the best room. The lamp, turned down, burned low on the table. From behind the partition came Marfa’s groans, which grew louder as soon as he came in. He dressed in silence, took his suitcase out from under the bench, packed his things in it, and tied it up with a rope.

“What did you kill me for? What for? What did I ever do to you?” Marfa began in a piteous voice. Korney, not answering, picked up the suitcase and carried it to the door. “Convict. Murderer! You just wait. Or is there no court for the likes of you?” she said spitefully, in quite another voice.

Korney, not answering, pushed the door open with his foot and slammed it so hard that the walls shook.

Going into the main room, Korney woke the mute and told him to harness the horse. The mute, not fully awake at first, kept looking at his uncle in surprise and inquiry and scratching his head with both hands. Understanding at last what was wanted of him, he jumped up, put on his felt boots and his torn sheepskin coat, took a lantern, and went out into the yard.

It was already quite light when Korney drove out through the gate with the mute in the little low sledge and went back along the same road by which he had come with Kuzma the evening before.

He reached the station five minutes before the train left. The mute saw him buy a ticket, pick up his suitcase, and get into the car, nodding to him, and saw the car roll out of sight.

Besides the bruises on her face, Marfa had two broken ribs and a gash in her head. But, being a strong, healthy young woman, she recovered within half a year, so that no trace of the beating was left. The little girl, though, was left half crippled for life. Two bones of her arm had been broken, and the arm stayed crooked.

As for Korney, from the time he went away no one knew anything of him. They did not know whether he was alive or had died.

Seventeen years went by. It was late autumn. The sun traveled low, and soon after three in the afternoon it was already getting dark. The Andreyevka herd was coming home to the village. The herdsman, his term served, had left before the eve of the fast, and the cattle were driven by the women and children in turn.

The herd had just come off the oat stubble onto the big dirt road, muddy, black-earthed, cut up by ruts, and dotted all over with the prints of cloven hooves, and, lowing and bleating without cease, was moving toward the village. Along the road ahead of the herd walked a tall old man with a gray beard and curly gray hair, in a patched peasant coat darkened by the rain, in a big cap, with a leather bag on his stooping back; only his thick brows were black. He walked, moving heavily through the mud in wet, broken-down, coarse Ukrainian boots, and at every other step he leaned, evenly, on an oak staff. When the herd caught up with him, he stopped, leaning on his staff. The young woman driving the herd, a piece of sacking over her head, her skirt tucked up, and in men’s boots, ran quickly now to one side of the road, now to the other, hurrying on the sheep and pigs that lagged behind. Coming level with the old man, she stopped and looked him over.

“Good day, granddad,” she said in a ringing, tender, young voice.

“Good day, my girl,” said the old man.

“What, are you looking to stay the night?”

“Looks that way. I’m worn out,” the old man said hoarsely.

“Don’t you go to the constable, granddad,” the young woman said kindly. “Come straight to us, the third house from the end. My mother-in-law takes in wanderers of her own accord.”

“The third house. Zinoveyev’s, then?” said the old man, moving his black brows somehow meaningfully.

“Why, do you know it?”

“I’ve been there.”

“Fedyushka, what are you standing there gaping for? The lame one’s dropped right behind,” shouted the young woman, pointing at a sheep hobbling on three legs behind the herd, and, waving the switch in her right hand and catching at the sacking on her head with her crooked left hand, oddly, from below, she ran back after the lame, wet black sheep that had fallen behind.

The old man was Korney. And the young woman was that same Agashka whose arm he had broken seventeen years before. She had been married into a rich family in Andreyevka, four versts from Gai.

From a strong, rich, proud man, Korney Vasilyev had become what he was now: an old beggar who had nothing but the worn-out clothes on his back, his soldier’s papers, and two shirts in his bag. The whole change had come about so gradually that he could not have said when it began or when it was complete. The one thing he knew, the thing he was firmly sure of, was that the cause of his misfortune was his villain of a wife. It was strange and painful for him to remember what he had been before. And when he remembered it, he remembered with hatred the woman he held to be the cause of all the evil he had suffered in those seventeen years.

On the night he beat his wife, he drove to the landowner who was selling the wood. He did not get to buy it. It had already been bought, and he went back to Moscow and there took to drink. He had liked a drink before, but now he drank for two weeks without sobering up, and when he came to himself he went down south for cattle. The purchase turned out badly, and he took a loss. He went a second time. And the second purchase did not come off either. And within a year, of the three thousand he had twenty-five rubles left, and he had to hire himself out to masters. He had drunk before, and now he began to drink more and more often.

At first he spent a year as agent to a cattle dealer, but on the road he went on a spree, and the merchant paid him off. Then, through acquaintances, he found a post as a liquor seller, but he did not last long there either. He got his accounts in a tangle and was dismissed. He was ashamed to go home, and rage took hold of him. “They’ll get along without me. Maybe the boy isn’t mine either,” he thought.

Things went from bad to worse. He could not live without drink. He began hiring himself out no longer as an agent but as a cattle drover, and then they stopped taking him even for that.

The worse things went for him, the more he blamed her and the more his rage against her blazed up.

The last time, Korney hired on as a drover to a master he did not know. The cattle fell sick. Korney was not to blame, but the master got angry and dismissed both the agent and him. There was nowhere to hire on, and Korney decided to go wandering. He had good boots and a bag made for himself, took tea and sugar and eight rubles in money, and set off for Kiev. He did not like Kiev, and he went on to the Caucasus, to New Athos. Before he reached New Athos he was seized by a fever. All at once he grew weak. He had a ruble seventy kopecks left, he knew no one, and he decided to go home to his son. “Maybe she’s dead by now, that villain of mine,” he thought. “And if she’s alive, at least I’ll tell her everything before I die, so she knows, the vile creature, what she’s done to me,” he thought, and set off for home.

The fever shook him every other day. He grew weaker and weaker, so that he could not walk more than 10 or 15 versts a day. When he was still 200 versts from home, all his money was gone, and he went on in Christ’s name and spent his nights wherever the village constable sent him. “Rejoice, see what you’ve brought me to!” he thought of his wife, and from old habit his old, weak hands clenched into fists. But there was no one to beat, and there was no strength left in his fists either.

For two weeks he walked those two hundred versts, and, quite sick and weak, he made his way to that spot four versts from home where he met, without recognizing her and without being recognized, that Agashka who was counted his daughter but was not, and whose arm he had broken.

He did as Agafya had told him. Coming to the Zinoveyevs’ yard, he asked to stay the night. They let him in.

Going into the house, he crossed himself before the icons, as he always did, and greeted the family.

“You’re frozen, granddad! Go on, up on the stove with you,” said the wrinkled, cheerful little old woman of the house, who was tidying up by the table.

Agafya’s husband, a young-looking peasant, was sitting on the bench by the table, trimming the lamp.

“My, but you’re wet, granddad!” he said. “Well, what can you do. Get yourself dry!”

Korney undressed, took off his boots, hung his footcloths in front of the stove, and climbed up onto it.

Agafya came into the house too, with a jug. She had already brought the herd in and seen to the cattle.

“Hasn’t an old wanderer been by?” she asked. “I told him to come to us.”

“There he is,” said the master of the house, pointing to the stove, where Korney sat rubbing his hairy, bony legs.

The family called Korney to tea too. He climbed down and sat at the end of the bench. They gave him a cup and a lump of sugar.

The talk was of the weather, of the harvest. The grain just won’t come to hand. On the landowners’ fields the shocks have sprouted. No sooner do they start carting than it rains again. The peasants have got theirs in. But at the gentry’s it’s just rotting away for nothing. And the mice in the sheaves — something terrible.

Korney told them that along the road he had seen a whole field full of shocks. — The young woman poured him a fifth cup of weak, barely yellow tea and handed it to him.

“That’s all right. Drink it, granddad, and good health to you,” she said when he refused.

“How is it your arm’s not right?” he asked her, carefully taking the full cup from her and working his brows.

“It was broken when she was a little one,” said the talkative old mother-in-law. “It was her father wanted to kill our Agasha.”

“Why was that?” asked Korney. And as he looked at the young woman’s face, Yevstigney Bely with his blue eyes suddenly came back to him, and the hand holding the cup shook so that he spilled half the tea before he got it to the table.

“Well, there was a man in Gai, in our parts, her father, Korney Vasilyev they called him. A rich man, he was. Got so high and mighty with his wife. Beat her, and crippled this one here.”

Korney said nothing, glancing from under his black brows, which never stopped moving, now at the master of the house, now at Agasha.

“What for, though?” he asked, biting off a bit of sugar.

“Who knows with them. They’ll say any old thing about us women, and we’re the ones who answer for it,” said the old woman. “Something happened between them over a hired man. The hired man was a good lad, from our village. He died in their house, too.”

“Died?” Korney asked again, and cleared his throat.

“Died long ago… It’s from them we took our young woman. They lived well. They were the first in the village. While the master was alive.”

“And what about him?” asked Korney.

“Dead too, must be. He went missing after that time. It’ll be fifteen years or so.”

“More than that, surely; Mama told me she had only just weaned me.”

“How is it you don’t hold it against him, that he… your arm…” Korney started to say, and suddenly began to blubber.

“Why, he’s no stranger — he’s my father, after all. Come, have some more, after the cold. Shall I pour you some?”

Korney did not answer, and wept, sobbing.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing, it’s nothing. Christ save you.”

And with trembling hands Korney caught hold of the post and the sleeping shelf, and climbed up onto the stove on his big, thin legs.

“Look at that!” said the old woman to her son, winking toward the old man.

The next day Korney got up before anyone. He climbed down from the stove, worked his dried foot wrappings soft, with difficulty pulled on his stiffened boots, and put on his bag.

“What, granddad, won’t you have some breakfast?” said the old woman.

“God save you. I’ll be going.”

“Then at least take some of yesterday’s flatcakes. I’ll put them in your bag.”

Korney thanked her and took his leave.

“Come by when you’re on your way back, if we’re still alive…”

Outside there was a heavy autumn fog that hid everything. But Korney knew the road well, knew every dip and rise, and every bush, and all the willows along the road, and the woods to the right and left, though in seventeen years some had been cut down and from old had become young, and others from young had become old.

The village of Gai was just the same, only new houses had been built at the end, such as there had not been before. And wooden houses had turned into brick ones. His stone house was the same, only it had aged. The roof had not been painted for a long time, there were bricks knocked out at the corner, and the porch had gone crooked.

Just as he was coming up to his former house, out of the creaking gate came a mare with a foal, an old roan gelding, and a three-year-old. The old roan was the very image of the mare Korney had brought home from the fair a year before he left.

“That must be the very one she was carrying then. The same sloping rump, and the same broad chest and shaggy legs,” he thought.

A black-eyed boy in new bast shoes was driving the horses to water. “Must be a grandson, Fedka’s son, then; he takes after him, black-eyed,” thought Korney.

The boy looked at the strange old man and ran after the yearling, which had started frisking in the mud. Behind the boy ran a dog, as black as Volchok had been.

“Can it be Volchok?” he thought. And he remembered that Volchok would be twenty years old.

He went up to the porch, climbed with difficulty those same steps on which he had sat that time, swallowing snow from the railing, and opened the door into the entry.

“What are you barging in for without asking?” a woman’s voice called to him from the main room. He knew her voice. And there she was herself, a lean, sinewy, wrinkled old woman, leaning out of the door. Korney had been expecting the young, beautiful Marfa who had wronged him. He hated her and wanted to reproach her, and suddenly in her place there stood before him some old woman. “If it’s alms you want, ask under the window,” she said in a shrill, grating voice.

“I’m not after alms,” said Korney.

“Then what do you want? What else?”

She suddenly stopped. And he saw by her face that she had recognized him.

“There’s plenty of your sort tramping about. Go on, go on. Go with God.”

Korney leaned his back against the wall and, propped on his staff, gazed at her intently, and felt with surprise that there was in his soul none of the rage against her that he had carried in him so many years, but that a kind of tender weakness had suddenly taken hold of him.

“Marfa! We’ll be dying soon.”

“Go on, go with God,” she said, quickly and spitefully.

“Have you nothing more to say?”

“I’ve nothing to say to you,” she said. “Go with God. Go on, go on. There’s plenty of you devils, you spongers, tramping about.”

She went quickly back into the main room and slammed the door.

“What are you scolding him for?” said a man’s voice, and in through the door came a swarthy peasant with an ax in his belt, just as Korney had been forty years before, only smaller and thinner, but with the same black, shining eyes.

This was that same Fedka to whom, seventeen years before, he had given the picture book. It was he who had reproached his mother for not taking pity on the beggar. With him came the mute nephew, also with an ax in his belt. He was a grown man now, with a sparse beard, wrinkled and sinewy, with a long neck and a resolute, attentive, piercing gaze. Both men had just had breakfast and were on their way to the woods.

“Just a minute, granddad,” said Fyodor, and pointed the mute first to the old man and then to the best room, and showed with his hand how bread is cut.

Fyodor went out into the street, and the mute went back into the main room. Korney still stood with his head bowed, leaning against the wall and propped on his staff. He felt a great weakness and could barely hold back his sobs. The mute came out of the main room with a big, fragrant slice of fresh black bread and, crossing himself, gave it to Korney. When Korney, having taken the bread, crossed himself too, the mute turned to the door of the main room, passed both hands down his face, and began making as if to spit. By this he was showing his disapproval of his aunt. Suddenly he froze and, his mouth open, stared at Korney as if recognizing him. Korney could no longer hold back his tears and, wiping his eyes, nose, and gray beard with the skirt of his kaftan, turned away from the mute and went out onto the porch. He felt a peculiar, tender, rapturous feeling of humility, of abasement before people, before her, before his son, before all people, and this feeling tore at his soul with joy and with pain.

Marfa watched from the window, and she breathed easily only when she saw the old man disappear around the corner of the house.

When Marfa was sure the old man had gone, she sat down at the loom and began to weave. She beat the weft some ten times with the reed, but her hands would not work; she stopped and began to think and to recall how Korney had looked just now — she knew it was he — the same man who had all but killed her and before that had loved her, and she was frightened by what she had just done. What she had done was not what she should have done. But how should she have dealt with him? He had not said, after all, that he was Korney, or that he had come home.

And she took up the shuttle again and went on weaving until evening.

Toward evening Korney made his way with difficulty to Andreyevka and again asked the Zinoveyevs to let him stay the night. They took him in.

“What, granddad, didn’t you go on?”

“I didn’t. I’ve grown weak. Looks like I’ll go back. Will you let me stay the night?”

“You won’t wear the place out lying on it. Go and get dry.”

All night Korney was shaken by fever. Toward morning he sank into a doze, and when he woke the household had all gone off about their work, and only Agafya was left in the house.

He lay on the sleeping shelf, on a dry kaftan the old woman had spread under him. Agafya was taking the loaves out of the oven.

“My girl,” he called her in a weak voice, “come here to me.”

“In a minute, granddad,” she answered, taking out the loaves. “Want a drink? Some kvass?”

He did not answer.

When she had taken out the last loaf she came to him with a dipper of kvass. He did not turn toward her and did not drink, but lying as he was, face up, he began to speak without turning.

“Gasha,” he said in a low voice, “my time has come. I’m going to die. So forgive me, for Christ’s sake.”

“God will forgive. Why, you never did me any harm…”

He was silent a while.

“And there’s this too: go, my girl, to your mother, tell her… the wanderer, say… yesterday’s wanderer, tell her…”

He began to sob.

“Why, have you been to my folks?”

“I have. Tell her, yesterday’s wanderer… the wanderer, tell her…” Again sobs stopped him, and at last, gathering his strength, he finished: “came to say goodbye to her,” he said, and began fumbling at his chest.

“I’ll tell her, granddad, I’ll tell her. What are you looking for?” said Agafya.

Without answering, his face puckered with the effort, the old man drew a paper out of his shirt front with his thin, hairy hand and gave it to her.

“And give this to whoever asks. My soldier’s papers. Thank God, all the sins are untied,” and his face settled into a solemn expression. His brows rose, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and he grew still.

“A candle,” he said, without moving his lips.

Agafya understood. She took a burned-down wax candle from before the icons, lit it, and gave it to him. He caught hold of it with his thumb.

Agafya stepped away to put his papers in her little chest, and when she came back to him the candle was falling from his hand, and his fixed eyes no longer saw, and his chest no longer breathed. Agafya crossed herself, blew out the candle, took out a clean towel, and covered his face.

All that night Marfa could not sleep and kept thinking about Korney. In the morning she put on her peasant coat, covered her head with a kerchief, and went to find out where yesterday’s old man was. Very soon she learned that the old man was in Andreyevka. Marfa took a stick from the wattle fence and set off for Andreyevka. The farther she went, the more and more frightened she became. “We’ll say goodbye to him, take him home, untie the sin. Let him at least die at home, with his son by him,” she thought.

As Marfa was coming near her daughter’s place, she saw a big crowd of people by the house. Some stood in the entry, others under the windows. Everyone knew by now that the famous rich man Korney Vasilyev, whose name had rung through the district twenty years before, had died a poor wanderer in his daughter’s house. The house too was full of people. The women whispered together, sighed, and lamented.

When Marfa went into the house and the people stood aside to let her through, she saw beneath the icons the dead body, washed, laid out, and covered with linen, over which Filipp Kononych, who could read, was chanting the Slavonic words of the Psalter in imitation of the parish clerks.

It was no longer possible either to forgive or to ask forgiveness. And from Korney’s stern, beautiful old face there was no telling whether he forgave or was still angry.