The village. [Translation from the original Russian text by Isabel Hapgood] Read Online Free PDF Page A

which one believes only here; and of that equality which death alone confers—of those moments when folk bestow the last kiss upon the lips of the dead beggar as on a brother's, compare him with kings and prelates, say over him the loftiest and most solemn words.
    And there in a distant corner of the enclosure, among bushes of elder which dozed in the parching heat—there where formerly had been graves, but now were only mounds and hollows, overgrown with grass and white flowers 1 —Tikhon Hitch saw a fresh little grave, the grave of a child, and on the cross a couplet:

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    "Softly, leaves: do not rustle, Do not wake my Kostya dear."
    And as he recalled his own child, crushed in its sleep by the dumb cook, he began to blink back the welling tears.
    VI
    NO one ever drove on the highway which ran past the cemetery and lost itself among "he rolling fields. Now and then some light-footed tramp straggled along it—some young fellow in a faded pink shirt and drawers of parti-coloured patches. But people drove on the country road alongside. Along that country road drove Tikhon Hitch also. His first encounter was with a dilapidated public carriage which approached at racing speed—provincial cabmen drive wildly!—and in which sat a huntsman, an official of the bank. At his feet lay a spotted setter dog; on his knees rested a gun in its cover; his legs were encased in tall wading-boots, though there had never been any marshes in the county. Next, diving across the dusty hummocks, came a young postman mounted on a bicycle of an ancient model, with an enormous front wheel and a tiny rear one. He frightened the horse, and Tikhon Hitch gritted his teeth with rage; the rascal ought to be degraded to the ranks of the

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    workingmen! The mid-day sun scorched; a hot breeze was blowing; the cloudless sky became slate-coloured. And, as he meditated upon the brevity and senselessness of life, Tikhon Hitch turned away with ever-increasing irritation from the dust which whirled along the road, and with ever-increasing anxiety cast sidelong glances at the spindling, prematurely drying stalks of the grain.
    Throngs of pilgrims armed with long staffs, tortured by fatigue and the heat, tramped on at a peaceful gait. They made low, meek reverences to Tikhon Hitch; but their obeisances struck him as shams. "Those fellows meek! I'll bet they fight among themselves like cats and dogs at their halting-places!" he muttered. Drunken peasants returning from the Fair—redheaded, black-haired, flaxen-haired, but all alike hideous and tattered, and with about ten crowded into each cart—raised clouds of dust as they whipped up their wretched little horses. As he overtook their rattling carts Tikhon Hitch shook his head. "Ugh, you roving beggars, may the devil fly away with you."
    One of them, in a print shirt torn to ribbons, lay fast asleep and was bumped about like a corpse, stretched supine with his head thrown back, his beard blood-stained, his nose swollen and clotted with dried blood. Another stumbled as he ran after his cap, which had been blown off by the wind; and Tikhon Hitch, with malicious delight, lashed him with his whip. Then came a cart filled with sieves, shovels, and peasant women. They sat with their backs to the horses, rattling and bumping about. One had a new child's

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    cap on her head, worn wrong side before; another was singing with her mouth full of bread; a third flourished her arms and, laughing, shouted after Tikhon Hitch: "Hey there, uncle, you've lost your linch-pin!" And Tikhon Hitch reined in his horse, let them catch up with him, and lashed this woman, too, with his whip.
    Beyond the toll-gate, where the highway turned off to one side, and where the rattling peasant carts fell to the rear, and silence, the wide space and sultriness of the steppe reigned, he felt once more that, in spite of everything, the chief item in the world was Business. He thought with supreme scorn of the landed