The wind swept in white snowstorms, the fields were covered with white powder, snowdrifts, the cottages emitted a gray smoke. That spring was already long since passed, when, with a prayer, with their families on carts, the peasants rode for three days to plunder the gentry estates–during that spring gentry’s nests flared up like red roosters, and were completely burned down forever. Then kerosene, match- es, tea, sugar, salt, provisions, town foot- and body-wear vanished–in death throes the trains jerked; dying in the agony of death the multicolored monies began to dance–the lane to the station was overgrown with plantain.
The snow fell for two days, there was a hard frost, the wood turned gray, the fields turned white, the magpies began to chatter–with the frosts, winds, snow, Zlatopoyas Dobrynya went bald–the road after the first fall of snow lay soft, smooth. In that winter contagion swept persistently like a black shroud through the cottages, it poured out–typhus, smallpox, colds–and when the road was ready for sleighing, the coffinmakers came, they brought the coffins. The day was on its way towards dusk, gray, the coffins were of pine, of all sizes, they lay on the sleighs, in heaps, one on top of the other. At Chornye Rechki they saw the coffinmakers from the outskirts, by the outskirts women met them. The coffins were all bought up within a single hour. The coffinmakers measured the women with a sazhen-long stick, and allowed a quarter extra. First to come up and talk business was the old man Kononov-Knyazhkov.
“What’s the price, then, roughly?” he said. “Coffins, y’see, got to be bought…got to be bought–there’s a scarcity of them in the town now. I need one, for the old girl, so, y’see…whoever’ll need one.”
Then Nikon’s wife interrupted old Kononov, began to wave her elbows about, began talking with her elbows:
“Well, the price, then, what’s the price?”
“The price–you know, it’s ’taters we’re after,” answered the coffinmaker.
“We knows you’re not after money. I’ll take three coffins. Otherwise, if you die, there’s trouble. You feel easier.”
“It’s one thing to talk about feeling easier,” interrupted Kononov. “You wait, woman, I’m a bit older… Well then, m’dear, measure me–see what size I am, measure me. Dying–everything’s in God’s bosom, y’see, when it comes to dying.”
The women ran about after taters, the coffinmaker measured up, the lads swung the coffins over their heads–carried them proudly around the cottages, in the cottages the people examined at length the excellence of their coffins, measured themselves against the coffins and stood them on their porches, where it could easily be seen that–some had two, some had three. They turned winterishly blue–deathly, in the frost–snows, the cottages were lit up with tapers, at the backs the gate creaked and women’s footsteps–footsteps to the barn for hay for the cattle in the night. Nikon’s wife invited the coffinmakers to her place. Cautiously, without chattering, the coffinmakers sold the coffins–in the cottage, having stabled the horses, over tea, shoes off, belts loosened–the guests turned out to be gay dogs, talkative, game for anything. Nikon Borisych, the master, the village chairman, bearded from the eyes down, was sitting by the lamp, splitting tapers, placing them one after another into a horn over the washtub, entertaining his aimiable guests and talking away:
“Now, all the same, ourselves, alone–You die, and the coffin–there it is, to go on a hunt, not to feed the dogs–Rebellion, all the same, troubled times. Soviet power–means that’s it for towns. Why our people gather at Sol-Vychegodskaya for salt.
Nikon’s wife, in a velveteen sleeveless jacket and homespun skirt with lilac spots, horned the old-fashioned way, with breasts bulging like udders, and a plump, cow-like face, was sitting behind the loom, banging away at her weaving. The torch burned smokily, it lit up the bearded peasant faces, set out in a circle in the semi-darkness and smoke (their eyes shone with the red glow of the torch red light). On the stove, a dozen, one of top of the other, lay the women. In a corner behind the stove, in a pen, a calf was lazily ruminating. Different people kept on coming in–to have a look at the coffinmakers, the others went away–the door was all steamed up, it reeked of the cold.
“The Rail-w-a-y!” says Nikon Borisych with great scorn. “The rail-w-a-y, all t’same! I wisht it was scrapped!”
“It’s just hard labor,” answered Klimanov.
“We’ve no need of it, f’r example,” asserted Grandfather Kononov. “The masters, y’see, need it to travel about to their government departments, or just for visiting. But we, y’see, are out on our own, without any bourgeoisse, I mean to say.”
“The rail-w-a-y!” said Nikon Borisych. “The rail-w-a-y, all t’same, …We lived without it before and survived. Wh-y-y-y-y! …Once a year I used to make the trip to town, all t’same! …I’d loaf about a whole day on the platform, I’d have to untie my bundle about five times: ‘What sort of goods you got, or it’s the butt-end for you!’ Well, we used to climb onto the roof, …and away we’d go…Stop! –‘What sort of warrant have you got, show me!’ D’you think I’m an old woman or something? –He would show his pass. I got angry. Such and such your mother, I say, I’m taking my lads to the Red Army to have a crack at the bourgeoisie, all t’same. I, I say–We’re for the Bolsheviks, for the Soviets, and you, obv’ously, are Kom’nists? … He takes off…… all t’same it’s annoying…”
Night. The torch burns dimly, the windows of Nikon’s hut become dim, the village sleeps its nightly sleep, the white snowstorm whips up its white snows, the sky is dismal. In the hut, in the semi-dark, in a circle by the torch, in shag-tobacco smoke, sit the peasants, with beards from their eyes down (their eyes shine with a red glow). The shag-tobacco smokes, red little fires become dim in the corners, the roof rafters crawl about in the smoke. It’s stuffy, steamy for the stove-fleas on the women’s bodies on the stove. And Nikon Borisych says with great severity:
“Kom’nists!” and with an energetic gesture (his eyes flashing in the torch light): –“We’re for the Bolsheviks! for the Soviets! We want it our way, the Roossian way. We’ve been under the masters–and that’s enough! The Roossian way, our way! Ourselves!
“One thing, f’r example,” says Grandfather Kononov, “we’ve nothing against him. Let him go. And the factory lads–We’ve nothing against them–let them stuff the girls, f’r example, and get married, those who have a trade. But the gentry–they’s at the end of the line, f’r example.”