Leo Tolstoy Archive
Written: 1862
Source: From RevoltLib.com
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
We returned to the village. Fedka had not once let go of my hand. It seemed to me that he held it now out of gratefulness. We were all brought so close together that night! as we had not been for a long time. Pronka walked abreast with us, along the wide village street.
"See, there 's a light at the Mazanofs' yet!" said he. "As I was going to school to-day, Gavriukha [11] was coming out of the tavern dr-u-u-unk!" he added, "blind drunk; his horse was all of a lather, and he was beating her like everything. I feel sorry even now! Indeed, I do! Why should he beat her? And lately, father," [12] said Semka, "he drove his horse from Tula, and she ran him into a snowdrift, but he was asleep, he was so drunk!"
"But Gavriukha was beating his horse right across the eyes, and I was so sorry to see him," said Pronka, for the second time. "Why did he beat her? and even when he got down he beat her!"
Semka suddenly stopped.
"Our folks are all asleep," said he, looking at the windows of his crooked black cottage. "Won't you come in?"
"No."
"Goooo-d-by, [13] Lyof Nikolayevitch," he cried suddenly; and, as if using all the force of his will, he tore himself away from us, and trotted off to the house, lifted the latch, and disappeared.
"Will you take us all home this way; first one, and then the other?" suggested Fedka.
We went farther.
At Pronka's there was a light; we peered through the window; his mother, a tall, handsome, but careworn woman, with black brows and eyes, was sitting at the table peeling potatoes; in the middle a cradle was hung; the mathematician of the second class, Pronka's other brother, was standing by the table, eating potato and salt. The cottage was black, narrow, and dirty.
"There is n't much for you!" cried Pronka's mother. "Where have you been?"
Pronka smiled a sweet and sickly smile, as he glanced at the window. His mother discovered that he was not alone, and immediately her expression changed and became unbeautiful and hypocritical.
Fedka was now the only one left.
"The tailors are at our house, so we have a light," said he, in his gentle voice of the evening. "Good-by,[14] Lyof Nikolayevitch," he added gently and affectionately, as he began to rap with the knocker on the closed door. "Let me in!" rang his clear voice through the wintry quiet of the village street. It was long before there was any answer.
I looked through the window; the cottage was large; legs were seen hanging down from the oven and benches; the father was playing cards with the tailors; a few copper coins were lying on the table. A peasant woman, Fedka's stepmother, was sitting by the cresset and looking eagerly at the money. One tailor, a dissipated-looking young peasant, 3 was holding the cards on the table, and was looking triumphantly at his partner. Fedka's father, with his collar thrown open, his face screwed into a scowl of mental excitement and vexation, was shuffling his cards, and irresolutely waving his toil-hardened hand above them.
"Let me in!"
The woman got up and opened the door.
"Good-by!" said Fedka, once more; "let us always walk that way!"