Chapter 10 "My Life - A Mainlander's Story" Ten

ten About two days later she sent me to Dubechnya, and I was overjoyed beyond words.On the way to the station, and later on the train, I used to laugh for no reason, and people looked at me for a drunk.It was snowing and it was cold in the morning, but the road was dark and the crows were flying and croaking on it. At first I planned to house the two of us, Masha and I, in the wing opposite Mrs. Cheprakova's, but there were already many pigeons and ducks living there, and it would have been necessary to destroy many nests in order to clean it up.We had no choice but to move into the big house with the shutters down, and live in those uncomfortable rooms.The peasants called this big house a palace.There are more than twenty rooms in it, but there is only a piano and a small armchair for the child, which is now placed in the attic. Even if Masha brought all her furniture from the city, we still This impression of eerie emptiness and coldness cannot be dispelled.I chose three small rooms with windows facing the garden, and worked there from morning to night, putting in new glass, pasting up the wallpaper, and filling up the cracks and holes in the floor.It's lighthearted labor.I often go to the river to see if the ice has melted, and I always feel as if starlings are flying.I thought of Masha at night, and with an indescribably sweet feeling, listened with joy to the noise of the mice, and the wind beating on the roof, and whining on the ceiling, as if some old house god was coughing in the attic. .

The snow was deep, and it fell several times by the end of March; but, as if by magic, it melted quickly, and the spring floods came, so that in early April starlings twittered and yellow butterflies flew. Came into the garden.The weather was fantastic. Every day before dusk, I would head towards the city to meet Masha. What a joy it was to walk barefoot on the dry road that was still weakening!I sat down halfway and looked at the city, unable to make up my mind to go any further.When I saw the city, my heart was flustered.I kept thinking: what will my acquaintances do to me when they hear the news that I am in a relationship?What will father say?What particularly disturbed me was the thought that my life had become complicated, that I had lost all control over it, that it was taking me nowhere like a balloon.I no longer thought about how to earn a living, how to live, but only;—truly, I don't remember what I thought.

Masha came in a carriage.I sat down next to her, and together we went happily and freely to Dubechnya.Or I wait until the sun goes down, and walk home alone bored and unhappy, wondering why Masha did not come; and suddenly, at the gate of the manor house or in the garden, a lovely figure comes to meet me, that is she!It turned out that she came here by train, and came here on foot after getting off the train.This is so exciting!She wore a plain wool dress, a triangular scarf, and an ordinary parasol, but her waist was tight, her figure was slender, and she wore expensive foreign leather boots. She was a talented actress playing a petty bourgeois girl.We just went around our manor, arranged the use of each room, and planned where the boulevards, vegetable gardens, and bee farms should be located.We already have chickens, ducks, geese, and we love these things because they are ours.

We're ready for oats, clover, timothy, buckwheat, vegetable seeds, and we go over them every time, and spend a lot of time discussing what the harvest will be like, whatever Masha told me Come all very smart and wonderful.It was the happiest period of my life. We were married shortly after St. Thomas's Week in our parish church in the village of Kurilovka, three versts from Dubechnya.Masha wanted everything to be kept simple and unadorned; according to her wishes, our bridesmaids were young people from the country, and the only one who sang was the chapel chant.We came back from church in a small, bumpy carriage which she drove herself.The only guests from the city were my sister Kleopatra, and Masha wrote her a note three days before the wedding.The older sister was wearing a white dress and gloves.When we held the wedding, she wept softly out of emotion and joy, with a motherly and infinitely kind expression on her face.Intoxicated by our happiness, she smiled as if breathing in sweet air.I watched her during the wedding, and I realized that there was nothing nobler in the world for her than love, human love, that she longed for love, a longing that was secret, timid, but enduring. And warm.She put her arms around Masha, kissed her, and, not knowing how to express her joy, told her about me: "He's kind! Very kind!"

Before she set out to leave us, she put on her usual clothes and took me into the garden, where she wanted to talk to me alone. "Father was sad because you didn't write to tell him," she said. "You should have asked him to bless you. But in fact he was very pleased. He said that this marriage raised your position in the eyes of the whole society, and that under Marya Viktorovna's influence you would Take life more seriously. Now we talk only about you in the evenings, and yesterday he even said: "Our Misel. 'It really makes me happy.It seems that he has a plan in mind. It seems to me that he wants to show you his generosity and take the initiative to reconcile with you.He will most likely come here to see you in person in a few days. "

Several times she hastily made the sign of the sign of the cross on my breast and said, "Well, God bless you and make you happy. Anyuta Bragovo is a very clever girl, and she talked about your marriage and said: This is a new test God has given you. No! There is not only joy in family life, but also pain. It will not be without pain." Masha and I walked with her for about three versts, and then we walked back slowly, without saying a word, as if in repose.Masha took my hand, and we were so lighthearted that we no longer wanted to talk about love.After the wedding, we loved each other so much that we felt that nothing could ever separate us.

"Your sister is lovely," said Masha, "but she seems to have been suffering for a long time. Your father must have been a terrible man." I told her what kind of education my sister and I grew up under. In fact, our childhood was very painful and unreasonable.When she heard that my father had hit me not long ago, she shuddered and hugged me tightly. "Stop talking," she said. "It's horrible." Now she never leaves me again.We lived in three rooms in the big house, and every evening we closed the door to the empty room, as if there lived someone we didn't know and was afraid of.I got up at dawn and set to work right away.I repaired carts, cut paths in the garden, dug seedbeds, and painted roofs.When it came time to sow the oats, I tried to turn the ground over again, rake it loose, and sow the seeds, as carefully as a hired hand.I was tired from working, drenched in the rain, facing the biting cold wind, my face and legs had a long fever, and every night I dreamed of the plowed land.But field work did not appeal to me.Farming was unfamiliar to me and I didn't like it; it's probably because my ancestors weren't farmers and I have pure city blood running in my veins.I love nature deeply, I love the fields, the meadows, and the vegetable gardens, but I feel that the peasants who plow the fields, yell at the lean horses, are ragged, soaked, and stretch their necks. It is a brutal, savage, and ugly force; whenever I look at their clumsy movements, I can't help but think of the legendary life in the era that has long passed, when humans did not know how to use fire.A ferocious bull walking with a peasant's herd, or horses trotting about the village clattering their hoofs, would frighten me.Anything a little bigger, stronger, and fiercer, whether it be a ram with horns, or a goose, or a dog on a leash, always strikes me as that rough, brutal force. Performance.In bad weather, when heavy clouds hang over the plowed black soil, this prejudice rears its head particularly strongly in my mind.Especially when I was plowing or planting seeds, there were always two or three people standing around watching me work. I didn't realize that this kind of labor was necessary and unavoidable, but felt like I was having fun.I prefer to do yard work and there is no job I enjoy more than painting a roof.

I used to go through the garden, and across the meadow, to our mill.The mill was leased by Stepan, a farmer from the village of Kurilovka.He was handsome, dark-skinned, with a thick black beard, and looked like a strong man.He disliked the flour-milling business, finding it dull and unprofitable; and he lived at the mill only to avoid living at home.He was a saddler, and there was always a pleasant smell of rosin and leather around him.He doesn't like to talk, is listless, and doesn't like to move. He always sits on the bank or on the threshold, humming "wu-liu-liu-liu".Sometimes his wife and mother-in-law came to him from the village of Kurilovka, both of them were pale, thin, and gentle.They bowed low to him and called him "You, Stepan Petrovitch."As for him, he didn't say a word or move to answer them, but hid aside, sat down on the bank, and hummed softly "wu-liu-liu-liu".In this way an hour or two passed in silence.His mother-in-law and wife stood up after whispering something to each other, looked at him for a while, and waited for him to turn around, then they bowed deeply and said in sweet, singing voices: "Good-bye, Stepan Petrovich!"

They left.After this, Stepan packed up their bundles of rolls or shirts, sighed, winked in the direction they were going, and said, "Women!" The two-pan mill worked day and night.I work for Stepan, and I like it.Whenever he goes out for business, I am always willing to stay and work for him. "Notes" ①Christian holidays, the first week after Easter, during which weddings were often held in ancient times.