Chapter 3 "Farmer" III

three People in the village heard that there were guests, and many people came to their house after the prayer.The Leonyitchevs, the Matveitchevs, and the Ilyichos came to inquire about their relatives in Moscow.All the young people in the village of Zhukovo, who could read and write, were sent to Moscow, and only as apprentices in restaurants and inns (just as the young people in the village on the other side of the river were only sent to bakeries. ).This trend has a long history, and it was like this in the era of serfdom.At that time there was a peasant Luka Ivanitch from Zhukovo, now a legend, who worked as a shopkeeper in a club in Moscow, accepting only fellow villagers, who had established themselves, He also called his relatives and arranged for them to work in restaurants and hotels.Since then, the surrounding villagers have changed the name of the village of Zhukovo, calling it "the village of servants" or "the village of slaves".Nikolay was sent to Moscow at the age of eleven, and Ivan Makaritch of the Matvejcie family found him a job.Ivan Makaritch was working as an usher in the theater in the garden of the Hermitage.Now, Nikolay said to the Matveitchevs clearly:

"Ivan Maceridge is my benefactor, and I have to pray to God day and night for him, because thanks to him I am a respectable man." "My God," said a tall old woman, Ivan Makaritch's sister, through tears, "there is no news of him, my relatives." "Last winter he worked at Master Aumont's house, and this season I heard that he went to work in the garden outside the city... He's old! In the past, he could bring home ten rubles a day for a summer, but now he's everywhere The business is slow, and this is a hard time for the old man." The old women and women looked at his felt shoes and his pale face and said sadly:

"You're not a earner, Nikolai Ossipecchi, you're not a earner! How can you?" Everyone loves Sasha.She was already ten years old, but she was very thin, and she looked no more than seven years old.The other little girls had tanned faces, their hair was cut short randomly, and they wore faded long gowns.She, with her pale face, big black eyes, and red ribbons in her hair, looked a little funny among them, as if she were a little beast just caught from the wild. "She can read!" Olga praised, looking tenderly at her daughter. "Read aloud, my dear child!" she said, taking a copy of the Gospel from her parcel. "Read aloud, and read it to the Orthodox."

The Gospel is old and heavy, with a sheepskin cover and dirty edges.The books smelled like that, as if a monk had come into the house.Sasha raised her eyebrows and began to chant loudly and sungly: "'An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, and said, Arise, and take the little child and his mother...'" "With the child and his mother," repeated Olga, flushed with excitement. "'Flee to Egypt and live there until I tell you...①'" ① See the thirteenth chapter of the second chapter of the "Bible Gospel of Martha". Hearing the word "wait", Olga couldn't bear it anymore and burst into tears.Maria looked at her and sobbed too, and then Ivan Makaritch's sister wept.The old man couldn't stop coughing, looking around to find a small gift for his granddaughter, but he couldn't find anything, so he just waved his hand.After reading the scriptures, the neighbors scattered back home, deeply moved and very satisfied with Olga and Sasha.

Because it is a holiday, the whole family stays at home all day.The old woman, whom husbands, daughters-in-law, grandsons and granddaughters called her grandmother, had to do everything by herself, light the stove, light the samovar, and even milk the cows at noon, and then she kept complaining that she had done nothing. Gotta be exhausted.She is always worried that the family eats too much, and that the old man and his daughters-in-law are idle and not working.From time to time, she heard that a flock of geese from the shop owner's house seemed to be sneaking into her vegetable garden from behind, so she took a long pole and ran out of the house to guard the shriveled and shriveled cabbage like hers, He yelled for half an hour without stopping.Sometimes it seemed to her that the crow was trying to get her chick, and she swore at the crow.She was angry from morning to night, chattering, and yelling and cursing at the top of her voice at every turn, which made passers-by on the street stop.

She was very nasty to her old man, calling him lazy or a nuisance.He was an unreliable and unreliable farmer, and if she hadn't been constantly pushing him away, I'm afraid he really wouldn't be doing any work, just sitting on the stove and gossiping all day long.He talked endlessly to his son about his many enemies, complained that he was bullied by his neighbors every day, and it was boring to listen to him. "Yes," he began, with his hands on his hips, "yes... a week after the Feast of the Cross I sold the hay, thirty kopecks a load, voluntarily... yes... very good... ...But one morning I pushed out the hay, I sold it voluntarily, and I didn't offend anyone, but by bad luck, I saw that the mayor, Antip Sedelnikov, just came out of the tavern.'You Where are you sending it? Useless stuff!' He said and slapped me on the face."

①The Orthodox holiday falls on September 14th in the Russian lunar calendar. Kiryar, who was drunk and had a splitting headache, was ashamed in front of his brother. "Vodka sucks. Oh, my God!" he muttered, shaking his sore head, "for Christ's sake, brothers and sisters, forgive me, I'm not happy myself ah." Because it was a holiday, they bought a herring from the tavern and made a pot of fish head soup.At noon, everyone drank tea first, and drank it for a long time until their heads were sweating. It seemed that the tea had stretched their stomachs.After that, we started to drink fish soup, and everyone drank it from an earthen pot.As for the body of the fish, the grandmother hid it.

In the evening, a potter was firing a kiln on the slope.On the meadow downhill, the girls sang and danced in a circle.Someone is playing the accordion.On the other side of the river, there were also people firing kilns and girls singing, and the singing in the distance was melodious and beautiful.Many peasants inside and outside the tavern were making noise. They were drunk and sang different tunes, swearing at each other, which made Olga tremble and groan repeatedly: "Oh my god..." What surprised her was that the swearing words could go on and on, and it was the old men who were about to swear the loudest and loudest.But the children and the girls paid no heed to it, for they had evidently been used to it in their cradles.

After midnight, the kiln fires on both sides of the bank had been extinguished, but people were still having fun in the meadows and taverns below.Both the Don and Kiriak were drunk.Arm in arm, shoulders bumping shoulders, they stumbled to the barn where Olga and Maria slept. "Forget it," the old man advised him, "forget it... This woman is quite honest... It's a crime..." "Ma-mar-ya!" cried Kyriak. "Forget it... It's a sin... This woman is not bad." The two stood in front of the shed for a while, then walked away. "I-I love-wildflowers!" the old man suddenly sang in a piercing tenor voice, "I-I love-go into the wild-picking flowers!"

Then he spat, cursed, and went into the house.