Do you hear?’
But I did think of it.
How offensive and revolting death was!
How odious!
I felt very badly about it
When we reached home grandfather had already prepared the samovar and laid the table.
“Come and have some tea. I expect you are hot,” he said.
“I have put in my own tea as well.
This is for us all.”
He went to grandmother and patted her on the shoulder.
“Well, Mother, well?”
Grandmother held up her hands.
“Whatever does it all mean?”
“This is what it means: God is angry with us; He is tearing everything away from us bit by bit.
If families lived together in unity, like fingers on a hand —”
It was long since he had spoken so gently and peaceably.
I listened, hoping that the old man would extinguish my sense of injury, and help me to forget the yellow pit and the black moist boards in protuberance in its side.
But grandmother cut him short harshly:
“Leave off, Father!
You have been uttering words like that all your life, and I should like to know who is the better for them?
All your life you have eaten into every one as rust corrodes iron.”
Grandfather muttered, looked at her, and held his tongue.
In the evening, at the gate, I told Ludmilla sorrowfully about what I had seen in the morning, but it did not seem to make much impression on her.
“Orphans are better off.
If my father and mother were to die, I should leave my sister to look after my brother, and I myself would go into a convent for the rest of my life.
Where else should I go?
I don’t expect to get married, being lame and unable to work.
Besides, I might bring crippled children into the world.”
She spoke wisely, like all the women of our street, and it must have been from that evening that I lost interest in her. In fact, my life took a turn which caused me to see her very seldom.
A few days after the death of my brother, grandfather said to me:
“Go to bed early this evening, while it is still light, and I will call you. We will go into the forest and get some logs.”
“And I will come and gather herbs,” declared grandmother.
The forest of fir — and birch — trees stood on a marsh about three versts distant from the village.
Abounding in withered and fallen trees, it stretched in one direction to the Oka, and in the other to the high road to Moscow.
Beyond it, with its soft, black bristles looking like a black tent, rose the fir-thicket on the
“Ridge of Savelov.”
All this property belonged to Count Shuvalov, and was badly guarded. The inhabitants of Kunavin regarded it as their own, carried away the fallen trees and cut off the dried wood, and on occasion were not squeamish about cutting down living trees.
In the autumn, when they were laying in a stock of wood for the winter, people used to steal out here by the dozen, with hatchets and ropes on their backs.
And so we three went out at dawn over the silver-green, dewy fields. On our left, beyond the Oka, above the ruddy sides of the Hill of Dyatlov, above white Nijni–Novgorod, on the hillocks in the gardens, on the golden domes of churches, rose the lazy Russian sun in its leisurely manner.
A gentle wind blew sleepily from the turbid Oka; the golden buttercups, bowed down by the dew, sway to and fro; lilac-colored bells bowed dumbly to the earth; everlasting flowers of different colors stuck up dryly in the barren turf; the blood-red blossoms of the flower called “night beauty” opened like stars.
The woods came to meet us like a dark army; the fir-trees spread out their wings like large birds; the birches looked like maidens.
The acrid smell of the marshes flowed over the fields.
My dog ran beside me with his pink tongue hanging out, often halting and snuffing the air, and shaking his fox-like head, as if in perplexity.
Grandfather, in grand — mother’s short coat and an old peakless cap, blinking and smiling at something or other, walked as cautiously as if he were bent on stealing.
Grandmother, wearing a blue blouse, a black skirt, and a white handkerchief about her head, waddled comfortably. It was difficult to hurry when walking behind her.
The nearer we came to the forest, the more animated grandfather became. Walking with his nose in the air and muttering, he began to speak, at first disjointedly and inarticulately, and afterward happily and beautifully, almost as if he had been drinking.
“The forests are the Lord’s gardens.
No one planted them save the wind of God and the holy breath of His mouth.
When I was working on the boats in my youth I went to Jegoulya.
Oh, Lexei, you will never have the experiences I have had!