The Village / Деревня
“As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God!” Ivan Bunin.
– Ветчинкой я, брат, нонешний год, благодаря Богу, так обеспечен, так обеспечен!
[13] PART ONE [14] [15] I THE great-grandfather of the Krasoffs, known by the manor-house servants under the nickname of “The Gipsy,” was hunted with wolf-hounds by Cavalry Captain Durnovo.
Прадеда Красовых, прозванного на дворне Цыганом, затравил борзыми барин Дурново.
The Gipsy had lured his lord-and-master’s mistress away from him.
Цыган отбил у него, своего господина, любовницу.
Durnovo gave orders that The Gipsy should be taken out into the fields and placed on a hillock.
Дурново приказал вывести Цыгана в поле, за Дурновку, и посадить на бугре.
Then he himself went out there with a pack of hounds and shouted “Tallyho! Go for him!” The Gipsy, who was sitting there in a state of stupor, started to run.
Сам же выехал со сворой и крикнул: «Ату его!» Цыган, сидевший в оцепенении, кинулся бежать.
But there is no use in running away from wolf-hounds.
А бегать от борзых не следует.
The grandfather of the Krasoffs, for some reason or other, was given a letter of enfranchisement.
Деду Красовых удалось получить вольную.
He went off with his family to the town—and soon distinguished himself by becoming a famous thief.
Он ушел с семьей в город – и скоро прославился: стал знаменитым вором.
He hired a tiny hovel in the Black Suburb for his wife and set her to weaving lace for sale, while he, in company with a petty burgher named Byelokopytoff, roamed about the province robbing churches.
Нанял в Черной Слободе хибарку для жены, посадил ее плести на продажу кружево, а сам, с каким-то мещанином Белокопытовым, поехал по губернии грабить церкви.
At the end of a couple of years he was caught.
Когда его поймали, он вел себя так, что им долго восхищались по всему уезду: стоит себе будто бы в плисовом кафтане и в козловых сапожках, нахально играет скулами, глазами и почтительнейше сознается даже в самом малейшем из своих несметных дел:.
But at his trial he bore himself in such fashion that his replies to the judges were current for a long time thereafter.
– Так точно-с.
He stood before them, it appears, in a velveteen kaftan, with a silver watch and goat-hide boots, making insolent [16] play with his cheek-bones and his eyes and, in the most respectful manner, confessing every one of his innumerable crimes, even the most insignificant: “Yes, sir.
Так точно-с.
Just so, sir.” The father of the Krasoffs was a petty huckster.
А родитель Красовых был мелким шибаем.
He roved about the county, lived for a time in Durnovka, set up a pot-house and a little shop, failed, took to drink, returned to the town, and soon died.
Ездил по уезду, жил одно время в родной Дурновке, завел было там лавочку, но прогорел, запил, воротился в город и помер.
After serving for a while in shops his sons, Tikhon and Kuzma, who were almost of an age, also took to peddling.
Послужив по лавкам, торгашили и сыновья его, Тихон и Кузьма.
They drove about in a peasant cart which had a carved front and a roofed, shop-like arrangement in the middle, and shouted in doleful tones: “Wo-omen, here’s merchandise!
Тянутся, бывало, в телеге с рундуком посередке и заунывно орут:. – Ба-абы, това-ару! Ба-абы, това-ару!
Wo-omen, here’s merchandise!” The merchandise consisted of small mirrors, cheap soap, rings, thread, kerchiefs, needles, cracknels—these in the covered shop.
Товар – зеркальца, мыльца, перстни, нитки, платки, иголки, крендели – в рундуке.
The open-body cart contained everything they gathered in: dead cats, eggs, heavy linen, crash, rags.
А в телеге все, что добыто в обмен на товар: дохлые кошки, яйца, холсты, тряпки….
But one day, after having thus travelled about for the space of several years, the brothers came near cutting each other’s throats—in a dispute over the division of the profits, rumour averred—and separated to avoid a catastrophe.
Но, проездив несколько лет, братья однажды чуть ножами не порезались – и разошлись от греха.
Kuzma hired himself to a drover. Tikhon took over a small posting-house on the metalled highway of Vorgol, five versts [1] from Durnovka, and opened a dram-shop and a tiny “popular” shop.—“I deal in small wears tea shugar tubako sigars and so furth.” [17] II BY the time Tikhon Hitch was about forty years of age his beard resembled silver with patterns of black enamel.
Кузьма нанялся к гуртовщику, Тихон снял постоялый дворишко на шоссе при станции Воргол, верстах в пяти от Дурновки, и открыл кабак и «черную» лавочку: «торговля мелочного товару чаю сахору тобаку сигар и прот-чего».
But he was handsome and tall, with a fine figure, as before.
Годам к сорока борода Тихона уже кое-где серебрилась.
He was austere and swarthy of face, slightly pock-marked, with broad, lean shoulders; authoritative and abrupt of speech, quick and supple in his movements.
Но красив, высок, строен был он по-прежнему; лицом строг, смугл, чуть-чуть ряб, в плечах широк и сух, в говоре властен и резок, в движениях быстр и ловок.
Only—his eyebrows had begun to come closer together and his eyes to flash more frequently and more sharply than before.
Только брови стали сдвигаться все чаще да глаза блестеть еще острей, чем прежде.
Business demanded it! Indefatigably he followed up the rural police on those dull autumnal days when taxes are collected and forced sale follows forced sale.
Неутомимо гонял он за становыми – в те глухие осенние поры, когда взыскивают подати и идут по деревне торги за торгами.
Unweariedly he bought standing grain on the stalk from the landed proprietors and took land from them and from the peasants, in small parcels, not scorning even half a meadow. He lived for a long time with his dumb cook—“A dumb woman can’t betray anything with her chatter!”—and had by her one child, whom she overlay and crushed in her sleep, after which he married an elderly waiting-maid of old Princess Schakhovoy.
Неутомимо скупал у помещиков хлеб на корню, снимал за бесценок землю… Жил он долго с немой кухаркой, – «неплохо, ничего не разбрешет!» – имел от нее ребенка, которого она приспала, задавила во сне, потом женился на пожилой горничной старухи-княжны Шаховой.
And on marrying and receiving the dowry he “finished off” the last scion of the impoverished Durnovo family, a fat, affable young nobleman, bald at twenty-five, but possessed of a magnificent chestnut beard.
А женившись, взяв приданого, «доконал» потомка обнищавших Дурново, полного, ласкового барчука, лысого на двадцать пятом году, но с великолепной каштановой бородой.
And the peasants fairly grunted with pride when Tikhon took possession of the [18] Durnovo estate—for almost the whole of Durnovka consisted of Krasoffs!
И мужики так и ахнули от гордости, когда взял он дурновское именьице: ведь чуть не вся Дурновка состоит из Красовых!
They sh -ed and oh -ed, also, over the way in which he had cunningly contrived not to ruin himself. He bargained and bought, went to the estate almost every day, kept watch with the eye of a vulture over every hand’s breadth of the land.
Ахали они и на то, как это ухитрялся он не разорваться: торговать, покупать, чуть не каждый день бывать в именье, ястребом следить за каждой пядью земли… Ахали и говорили:.
They uttered admiring exclamations and said: “Yes, there’s nothing to be done with us devils by kindness, you know!
– Лют!
There’s a master for you!
Зато и хозяин!
You couldn’t have one more just!” And Tikhon Ilitch dealt with them in the same spirit.
Убеждал их в этом и сам Тихон Ильич.
When he was in an amiable mood he read them their lesson thus: “It’s all right to live—but not to squander. I shall pluck you if I get the chance! I shall bring you back.
Часто наставлял: – Живем – не мотаем, попадешься – обротаем.
But I shall be just.
Но – по справедливости.
I’m a Russian man, brother.” When in an evil mood, he would say curtly, with eyes blazing: “Pigs! There is not a juster man in the world than I am!” “Pigs, all right—but that’s not me,” the peasant would think, averting his eyes from that gaze. And he would mumble submissively: “Oh, Lord, don’t we know it?” “Yes, you know it, but you have forgotten.
Я, брат, человек русский.
I don’t want your property gratis, but bear this in mind: I won’t give you a scrap of what’s mine! There’s that brother of mine: he’s a rascal, a toper, but I would help him if he came and implored me. I call God as my witness that I would help him! But coddle him—!
Мне твоего даром не надо, но имей в виду: своего я тебе трынки не отдам!
No, take note of that: I do no coddling.
Баловать – нет, заметь, не побалую!
I’m no brainless Little Russian, brother!” And Nastasya Petrovna, who walked like a duck, with her toes turned inward, and waddled, thanks to her [19] incessant pregnancies which always ended up with dead girl-babies—Nastasya Petrovna, a yellow, puffy woman with scanty whitish-blond hair, would groan and back him up: “Okh, you are a simpleton, in my opinion!
А Настасья Петровна (ходившая по-утиному, носками внутрь, переваливаясь, – от постоянной беременности, все кончавшейся мертвыми девочками, – желтая, опухшая, с редкими белесыми волосами) стонала, слушая:.
Why do you bother with him, with that stupid man?
– Ох, и прост же ты, посмотрю я на тебя!
Is he a fit associate for you?
Что ты с ним, глупым, трудишься?
You just knock some sense into him; ’twill do him no harm.
Ты его уму-разуму учишь, а ему и горя мало.
Look at the way he’s straddling with his legs—as if he were a bokhar of emir!” [2] She was “terribly fond” of pigs and fowls, and Tikhon Ilitch began to fatten sucking pigs, turkey chicks, hens, and geese.
Пестренький цыпленок, попискивая, бродил по подоконнику, стучал клювом в стекла, ловя мух, а она сидела на нарах, качала люльку и жалким, дрожащим голосом пела старинную колыбельную песню:.
But his ruling passion was amassing grain.
Но борода седела, редела, путалась….
In autumn, alongside his house, which stood with one side turned toward the highway and the other toward the posting-station, the creaking of wheels arose in a groan; the wagon trains turned in from above and below.
Осенью возле постоялого двора, стоявшего одним боком к шоссе, другим к станции и элеватору, стоном стонал скрип колес: обозы с хлебом сворачивали и сверху и снизу.
And in the farmyard horse-traders, peddlers, chicken-vendors, cracknel peddlers, scythe-vendors, and pilgrims passed the night.
Говорливая толпа мужиков и баб валом валила с утра до вечеру по пыльным, унавоженным переулкам между телегами и палатками, лошадьми и коровами, балаганами и съестными, откуда несло вонючим чадом сальных жаровен.
Every moment a pulley was squeaking—now on the door of the dram-shop, where Nastasya Petrovna bustled about; now on the approach to the shop, a dark, dirty place, reeking of soap, herrings, rank tobacco, gingerbread flavoured with peppermint, horse-collars, and kerosene.
И поминутно визжал блок то на двери в кабак, где отпускала Настасья Петровна, то на двери в лавку, темную, грязную, крепко пахнущую мылом, сельдями, махоркой, мятным пряником, керосином.
And incessantly there rang out in the dram-shop: “U-ukh!
И опять, еще резче чеканя слова, обращался к покупателю: – И ржица-с радует!
Your vodka is strong, Petrovna!
И здорова же водка у тебя, Петровна!
It has knocked me in the head, devil take it!” [20] “’Twill make your mouth water, my dear man!” “Is there snuff in your vodka?” “Well, now, you fool yourself!” In the shop the crowd was even more dense.
Тогда Тихон Ильич говорил: – Дай-ка я кину… И загадывал: – «Затевать ли мне тяжбу с известною мне особою?» Но и ему выходила чепуха: «Считай во рту зубы».
“Ilitch, weigh me out a pound of ham.” “This year, brother, I’m so well stocked with ham—so well stocked, thank God!” “What’s the price?” “’Tis cheap!” “Hey, proprietor, have you good tar?” “Better tar than your grandfather had at his wedding, my good man!” [3] “What’s the price?” And it seemed as if, at the Krasoffs’, there were never any other conversation than that about the prices of things: What’s the price of ham, what’s the price of boards, what’s the price of groats, what’s the price of tar?
– Такого дегтю, любезный, у твоего деда на свадьбе не было!
III THE abandonment of his hope of having children and the closing of the dram-shops by the government were great events.
Потеря надежды на детей и закрытие кабаков были крупными событиями в жизни Тихона Ильича.