Chapter 4 "Farmer" IV

Four The old woman asked Sasha to stay in the vegetable garden and guard the cabbages so that the geese would not come in and cause harm.It was a hot August day.The tavernkeeper's geese used to sneak into the vegetable garden from behind, but now they are doing business: pecking at the oats near the tavern, chatting peacefully, only one gander raised his head high, as if wanting to observe, old woman Did you come running with a pole?Other geese might have come up the slope, but the flock was now feeding on the other side of the river, drawing a long white line across the green pasture.Sasha stood there for a while, feeling quite bored, and ran to the edge of the steep slope after seeing that the geese were not coming.

There she saw Maria's eldest daughter, Motka, standing motionless on a boulder looking at the church.Maria gave birth to thirteen children, but only six children remained, and they were all daughters and no boys.The eldest daughter is only eight years old.Motka, barefoot and wearing a long shirt, was standing in the sun, and the hot sun was baking the top of her head, but she ignored it, as if she had become a fossil.Sasha stood beside her, looked at the church and said: "God lives in the church. People light lamps and candles at night, and God, light the ever-burning lamps. The ever-burning lights are red, green, and blue, like little eyes. At night, God walks around in the church , the Virgin Mary and God's servant Nikolay were with him—do, do, do... The night watchman was terrified, terrified! Oh, never mind, darling,' she said, imitating her mother. , "On the day of the end of the world, all the churches will fly into the sky."

"The bell-tower-does it fly?" Motka asked in a low voice, slurring each word. "The clock tower flies too. On the day of the end of the world, the good will go to heaven, and the wicked will be thrown into the everlasting fire, dear ones. God will say to my mother and Maria, you didn't Bullying. So go to the right and go to heaven. But to Kiriak and the old woman he will say: You go to the left and go into the fire. Whoever eats meat on fasting day will go into the fire too. " She looked up to the sky, opened her eyes wide, and said: "You look at the sky, don't blink, and you can see angels."

Motka also looked up at the sky, and a minute passed in silence. "See?" Sasha asked. "I can't see it," said Motka in a low voice. "I can see it. A group of little angels are flying in the sky, flapping their little wings—twinkling, like little mosquitoes." Motka thought for a while, looked at the ground, and asked: "Will the old woman be burned too?" "Yes, dear." From the big rock they were standing on to the foot of the mountain, there was a flat and gentle slope covered with green grass, which made people want to reach out and touch it, or lie down on it.Sasha lay down and rolled over.Motka, with a serious face, panted, lay down too, rolled over, so that her blouse was rolled up to her shoulders.

"What fun!" Sasha said cheerfully. They went up, trying to play again, but then there was a familiar scream.Ouch, it's terrible!The toothless, skinny, hunchbacked grandmother, with short white hair blowing in the wind, was driving a flock of geese out of the vegetable garden with a long pole, yelling and cursing: "All the cabbages have been mashed, these damn beasts, you should be slaughtered, why don't you die!" Seeing the two little girls, she dropped the pole, picked up a dead twig, grabbed Sasha's neck with her bony, hooked fingers, and began to beat her.Sasha was in pain and frightened, and immediately burst into tears. At this moment, the gander stretched its neck, swayed to the old woman, and roared for a while. Welcome it: quack quack quack!Then the grandmother beat Motka with a tree prick, and Motka's shirt was lifted again.Sasha was heartbroken, and ran back to the house crying, trying to express her grievances.Motka followed her, also weeping loudly, but in a low voice and without wiping away the tears, which were streaming down her face as if she had just soaked her face in water.

"My God!" Olga exclaimed, seeing the two of them running into the house, "Holy Mother!" Sasha started to tell what was going on, and at the same time the old woman came in, screaming and cursing, and Fiocla got annoyed, and there was a commotion in the house. "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter!" Olga was pale and flustered, stroking Sasha's head while comforting her, "She is your grandma, and it is a sin to be angry with grandma. It doesn't matter, good boy." Nicholas had long been exhausted by the constant shouting, hunger, soot and stench, he hated and despised this poor life, and was often ashamed of his parents in front of his wife and daughters—this At that moment, he dropped his legs from the hearth and said angrily to his mother in a weeping voice:

"You can't hit her! You have no right to hit her!" "Come on. You lie on the hearth and die, you sick man!" Fiocla yelled at him viciously. "Damn it, who told you to come back to eat?" Sasha, Motka and all the little girls in the house climbed onto the hearth, hid in a corner behind Nikolay, and listened to these words in silence and trembling, as if they could hear their little ones. heart is beating.Whenever someone in a family dies from a long illness, with no hope of life, there are often moments of great distress when all those around him timidly, secretly, and inwardly wish him dead.Only children are afraid of the death of their loved ones and shudder at the thought of it.At this moment, the little girls held their breath, looked at Nicholas with sad expressions on their faces, and thought that he would soon die, and they couldn't help crying, and wanted to say something kind and pity to him. .

Nicholas leaned towards Olga, as if seeking her protection, and whispered to her in a trembling voice: "Olya, dear, I can't stay here any longer. I'm exhausted. For God's sake, for Christ's sake, give your sister Kravdia Abramoff Let her sell and pawn everything she owns, and let her send the money so we can get out of here. Ah, God," he went on distressedly, "even if I'll take another look at it. Moscow is fine! If only I could dream of Moscow, dear!" ① Olga's nickname. As dusk came, it became darker and darker in the wooden house, and everyone was too worried to speak.The angry grandmother broke the crust of the rye bread, soaked it in a bowl, chewed it slowly, and ate it for a full hour.When Maria finished milking the cows, she came in with the milk pail and put it on the stool.The old grandma poured the milk in the bucket into the earthen pots one by one, and worked for a long time in a calm manner.Evidently she was pleased, because it was the fasting of the Assumption, and no one wanted to drink milk, so the milk was kept.She just poured a little into a small saucer and left it for Fiocla's little doll.Later she and Maria sent the crocks down to the cellar.Suddenly Motka jumped up, got down from the stove, went to the stool, took the saucer, and poured a little milk into the wooden bowl in which the bread crust was soaking.

②The Ascension Day falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month in the Russian calendar, during the half-month fasting period, and no meat (meat and milk) is eaten on the fasting day. The old grandma went back to the house and picked up her own bowl to eat again.Sasha and Motka sat on the stove and looked at the old woman, feeling very happy: now she is off the hook, and then she can only go to hell.They were comforted and lay down to sleep.Sasha was about to fall asleep, but she was still imagining the Last Judgment: a huge furnace like a pottery kiln blazing, a black devil with horns like a cow, holding a long pole to kill the old woman. To drive into the fire, just as she herself had driven the goose.