The small house on the outskirts of the settlement was catching people’s attention; its walls had already been probed by dozens of suspicious looks. Fluttering restlessly above it were the mottled wings of rumour – people were trying to excite fear, to reveal something concealed behind the walls of the house above the gully. They would look in at the windows at night, and sometimes someone would knock on a window pane and quickly, fearfully run away.
One day, Vlasova was stopped on the street by the innkeeper Beguntsov, a little old man of good appearance, who always wore a black silk kerchief on his flabby red neck and a lilac-coloured thick plush waistcoat on his chest. On his nose, sharp and shiny, sat a pair of tortoiseshell glasses, and for that reason he was known as Bone Eyes.
Having stopped Vlasova, in a single breath and without waiting for any replies, he showered her with dry, highfalutin words:
“Pelageya Nilovna, how are you faring? How’s the son? You don’t mean to marry him off, eh? A youth in his absolute prime for marriage. Marrying a son off early renders parents’ lives more restful. Within a family, a man is better kept in both spirit and flesh, within a family he’s like a mushroom in vinegar! In your place I should marry him off. Our times demand the strict surveillance of a man’s being, or else people start living out of their own heads. Disorder gets underway in their thoughts, and their deeds are worthy of censure. Youngsters pass God’s church by, shun public places and, gathering in secret, in corners, they whisper. Why do they whisper, permit me to enquire? Why do they avoid other people? All that a man dare not say in front of others – in an inn, for example – what is that? A mystery! And the place for a mystery is our holy church of apostolic zeal. And all other secret things, done in corners, result from mental delusion! I wish you good health!”
With a fancifully crooked arm he doffed his cap, waved it in the air and went away, leaving the mother bewildered.
The Vlasovs’ neighbour, too, Maria Korsunova, a smith’s widow who sold food at the factory gates, upon meeting the mother at the market, said:
“Keep an eye on your son, Pelageya!”
“What is it?” asked the mother.
“There’s a rumour going round!” Maria informed her mysteriously. “A bad one, mother dear! About him organizing a sort of artel, like the flagellants.* Sects is what they call it. They’ll be whipping each other, like the flagellants…”
“Stop spreading silly gossip, Maria!”
“It’s not the gossip that’s the liar, but the denier!” responded the street trader.
The mother relayed all these conversations to her son, and he shrugged his shoulders in silence, while the Ukrainian laughed his rich, soft laugh.
“The unmarried girls are very upset with you too!” she said. “You’re desirable young men for any girl, all good workers and sober, yet you pay no attention to the unmarried girls! They say young ladies of shameless conduct come from town to call on you…”
“Well, of course!” exclaimed Pavel, pulling a fastidious face.
“Everything smells rotten in a marsh!” said the Ukrainian with a sigh. “Nenko, you should explain to them, the little fools, what it means to be a wife, so they’re in no hurry to break their bones…”
“Oh, my dear man,” said the mother. “They see the woe, they understand, but there’s nothing they can do – is there? – other than that!”
“They don’t understand very well, or else they’d find a way!” remarked Pavel.
The mother glanced at his stern face.
“Well, you teach them! You could invite the cleverer ones here…”
“It’s not convenient!” her son responded drily.
“But if we try?” asked the Ukrainian.
Pavel paused and then replied:
“Couples will start going for walks, then some will get married, and that’ll be that!”
His mother fell into thought. Pavel’s monastic strictness troubled her. She could see that his advice was heeded even by those comrades who, like the Ukrainian, were his senior in years, but it seemed to her that everyone was afraid of him, and nobody loved him because of this dryness.
Once, when she had gone to bed and her son and the Ukrainian were still reading, she eavesdropped through the thin partition on their quiet conversation.
“I like Natasha – do you know that?” the Ukrainian exclaimed quietly all of a sudden.
“I do!” Pavel answered, though not at once.
The Ukrainian could be heard slowly getting up and starting to walk around. His bare feet shuffled across the floor. And a quiet, doleful whistling rang out. Then the drone of his voice began again:
“But does she notice it?”
Pavel was silent.
“What do you think?” the Ukrainian asked, lowering his voice.
“She does!” Pavel replied. “And that’s why she’s refused to study here with us…”
The Ukrainian drew his feet heavily over the floor, and again his quiet whistling quavered in the room. Then he asked:
“And what if I tell her…”
“What?”
“That I, well…” the Ukrainian began quietly.
“Why?” Pavel interrupted him.
The mother could hear that the Ukrainian had come to a halt and sensed that he was grinning.
“Well, I reckon, you see, that if you love a girl, then you do need to tell her about it, otherwise there’ll be no sense whatsoever!”
Pavel shut his book with a bang. His question was heard:
“And what sense do you expect?”
Both were silent for a long time.
“Well?” asked the Ukrainian.
“Andrei, you need to have a clear idea of what you want,” Pavel began slowly. “Let’s suppose she loves you too – I don’t think she does, but let’s suppose so, right? – and you get married. An interesting marriage, a girl from the intelligentsia and a worker! There’ll be children, you’ll have to work on your own… and work a lot. Your life will become a life for a crust of bread, for the children, for housing – for the cause you’re no more. Neither of you!”
It became quiet. Then Pavel began, seemingly more softly:
“Better if you drop all this, Andrei. And don’t trouble her…”
All is quiet. The pendulum of the clock taps distinctly, rhythmically severing the seconds.
The Ukrainian said:
“Half the heart loves and half of it hates – is that really a heart, eh?”
The pages of a book began rustling – Pavel must have started reading again. His mother lay with her eyes closed, afraid to stir. She felt sorry to the point of tears for the Ukrainian, but even more so for her son. She thought about him:
“My dear one…”
Suddenly the Ukrainian asked:
“So I should say nothing?”
“It’s more honest,” said Pavel quietly.
“Then that’s the path we’ll take!” said the Ukrainian. And a few seconds later he went on, sadly and quietly: “It’ll be hard for you, Pasha, when you’re like this yourself…”
“It’s hard already…”
The wind was beating against the walls of the house. The pendulum of the clock counted the time precisely as it passed away.
“It’s no laughing matter, this!” the Ukrainian said slowly.
The mother buried her face in her pillow and began silently crying.
In the morning, Andrei seemed to the mother reduced in height and nicer than ever. And her son was, as always, thin, upright and taciturn. The mother had called the Ukrainian Andrei Onisimovich before, but today, without noticing it, she said to him:
“You need to get your boots repaired, Andryusha – you’ll get cold feet like that!”
“I’m going to buy new ones on payday!” he replied, laughing, then, suddenly, putting his long arm on her shoulder, he asked: “Maybe you’re my real mother? Only you don’t want to admit it to anyone, as I’m very ugly, eh?”
She slapped him on the hand in silence. She wanted to say a lot of affectionate words to him, but her heart was gripped tight by pity, and the words would not leave her tongue.