Chapter 18 Farmer Malei

All these professions defoi ① do not interest me, so I will tell you an interesting fact, but it is not really interesting, just a reminiscence of a distant past.For some reason, I was tempted to say that about the time and place where I left off writing my essay on the common people.I was only nine at the time... No, it's better to start when I was twenty-nine. It was the day after Easter.The weather was fine, the sky was blue, the sun was shining brightly, "warm" and bright, but my heart was depressed.I wandered behind the cells, looking and counting the cells in the glade surrounded by a strong wooden fence.

In fact, I don't want to count, it's just a habitual action.It has been two days since the "holiday" in the prison.Hard labor prisoners don't have to work, many of them are drunk, shouting and arguing can be heard everywhere; some sing vulgar tunes, play cards and gamble while hiding under the plank bed; He was beaten half to death, and covered with a leather jacket, he lay on a plank bed until he woke up.A few times they even wielded their knives. Everything that happened during the two days of the "holiday" made me extremely miserable.I have never approved of unrestrained group drinking, and I am especially against it in such places.In the past two days, the prison officials did not come to inspect, nor did they come to search for liquor;

The prison should also give these discriminated people a break, otherwise, the situation in the prison will be even worse.A pang of resentment finally ignited in my chest.One of the political prisoners, a Pole named Mi-ski, met me.He looked at me sadly, his eyes twinkled, his lips quivered, and he whispered to me through gritted teeth: "Jehaisces brigands!" ① Then pass by.I went back to the cell, although a quarter of an hour ago I ran out of the house in a frenzy, when six sturdy peasants fell on the drunken Tatar Gazin and tried to overpower him.They beat and beat, and if the beating continued like this, the camel would be killed, but they knew that this strong man was rarely killed, so they didn't hesitate to strike.Now back inside, I find Gazin unconscious and dying on a bunk bed in one corner of the cell.He was covered with a leather jacket, and everyone walked around him without making a sound, although they all believed that he would wake up tomorrow morning, "but if you beat him like this, you might die."I went back to bed, lay down facing the barred window, put my hands behind my head, and closed my eyes.I like to lie like this because people don't disturb a sleeping person, and then I can dream and think.But that time I had no illusions, my heart couldn't calm down, and Mi-Sky's words kept ringing in my ears: "Jehaisces brig A ands!" Actually, why bother to describe those impressions?Now I sometimes dream of that scene at night, and I have never had a more painful dream.It may be noticed that to this day I have hardly ever written about my life in prison. "Notes from the House of the Dead" was written fifteen years ago, and I wrote it in the voice of a fictional wife murderer.I may add, by the way, that since then many people have thought, and even now assert, that I was exiled for the murder of my wife.

Gradually, I really lost my mind, and unconsciously immersed in the memory ①French: I hate these thugs. bingo.During the four years of my penal servitude I kept recalling my whole past, and it seemed that in my remembrance I was reliving my whole old life.These memories appear naturally, and I seldom recall them according to my own wishes. I often start from a little by little—sometimes it is difficult to notice, and then expand little by little to form a complete picture. , forming a distinct and complete impression.I analyze these impressions, give the past a new character, and the important thing is to revise the past, and constantly revise it.This is all my recreation.This time, for some reason, a very ordinary moment in my childhood (I was only nine years old) suddenly appeared in my mind-it seemed to have been completely forgotten by me.At that time, I especially liked to recall my childhood.In my memory, the scene of August in our village is presented in front of my eyes: it was a dry and sunny day, but it was a little bit cool and the breeze was blowing.Summer is passing, and soon I will go to Moscow to study French, and I will be bored to death after a whole winter.I really hate to leave this country.I went through the threshing floor, down into the ravine, and up to Rosk--that's what we call the thick undergrowth on the other side of the ravine that runs down to the grove.I went into the bushes and heard not far away—about thirty paces away—a farmer was plowing in a clearing in the woods.I know that plowing the land on a steep slope requires a lot of hard work for the horse, so I can sometimes hear the farmer yelling: "Drive-drive!" I know almost all the farmers here, but which one is plowing me now? Not sure.

For me it's the same thing anyway.I was preoccupied with my own business, and I was just as busy: breaking walnut boughs and whipping frogs; hazel boughs were pretty but weaker than birch twigs.I'm also fascinated with small insects and beetles and collecting them. They are so beautiful.I also really like the little red and yellow lizards that are nimble with black spots, but I'm terrified of snakes, though there are far fewer snakes than lizards.There are very few mushrooms here, and I am going to go to the birch forest to pick mushrooms.There is nothing in my life I love more than a forest, with its mushrooms, berries, insects, birds, hedgehogs, squirrels, and that damp smell of dead leaves that I love so much.Even now, as I write this, I smell the birches of our country, for it made an impression I will never forget.In the silence, I suddenly heard a cry very clearly: "Wolf is coming!" I was so frightened that I screamed, and then ran to the open field in the forest while shouting, straight to the farmer who was plowing the field.

It turned out to be Malei, a farmer in our village.I don't know if he was called that, but everyone called him Malei—a peasant of about fifty, a solid, heavy build, with a broad, thick, dark brown beard streaked with locks. silver whiskers.I know him, but have never had the chance to speak to him so far.He stopped the horse when he heard me cry, and I ran up quickly, grabbing his plow with one hand, and his coat-sleeve with the other.He saw how frightened I was. "Wolf is coming!" I yelled out of breath. He raised his head, looked around involuntarily, and believed my words for a moment.

"Where is the wolf?" "Someone shouted... just now someone shouted 'Wolf is coming'..." I muttered. "Where, where, where are there wolves? It's your hallucination. Look, where are there wolves?" He murmured encouragingly.But I was trembling all over, clutching his shirt tightly, my face must have turned pale.He looked at me with an uneasy smile, obviously frightened for me. "Look at you, so frightened, alas!" he said, shaking his head. "Come on, my dear. Look at you kid, oh!" He reached out a hand and touched my face suddenly.

"Well, come, God bless you, make the sign of the cross." But I didn't make the sign of the cross, and the corners of my mouth quivered, which seemed to surprise him a lot.He gently stretched out a thick finger with black nails and soil, and lightly touched my trembling lips. "Look at you, oops!" He gave me a long, motherly smile, "My God, what's going on, oops!" I finally understood that there were no wolves, and the cry of "wolf is coming" I heard was a hallucination of mine.Although the cry is so clear, I have heard such a cry (not only about wolves) once or twice before, and it was all my hallucination.I was aware of this phenomenon (later these hallucinations disappeared along with childhood).

"Okay, then I'm leaving." I looked at him hesitantly and shyly and said. "Okay, let's go, I will watch you off, and I will definitely not let the wolf hurt you!" He added, still smiling at me motherly, "Well, God bless you, go." He crossed me and crossed himself.I walked away, looking back almost every ten steps.When I left, Malei and the horse stood there watching me, and every time I turned around, he nodded to me.To be honest, I was afraid of being like that, and I felt a little ashamed in front of him.However, I was still afraid of wolves as I walked, and my fear was not completely relieved until I climbed the slope of the ravine and reached the first hut.My family's guard dog, Walchock, jumped up to me out of nowhere.The presence of Volchok lifted my spirits, and I turned to look back at Malei for the last time. His face was blurred, but I felt that he was still smiling and nodding kindly at me.I waved to him, he waved back to me, and rode forward.

"Drive-drive!" He heard his yelling in the distance again, and the horse pulled the wooden plow and started to walk again. I recalled all this at once, and somehow with exactness and detail.Suddenly, I woke up and sat up from the plank bed. I remember that there was still a smile on my cheek when I remembered it.I continued to think for a while. At that time, after returning home from Malei, I did not talk to anyone about my "adventure", and besides, what kind of adventure was it?At that time, I quickly forgot about Malei.Later, I met him occasionally, and I never had a conversation with him, whether it was about wolves or anything else.Now twenty years later, in Siberia, I suddenly remembered that encounter, so clear and nuanced.That is to say, that encounter was engraved in my heart unconsciously, and it was memorized naturally and independently of my will, and once needed, it would immediately surface.I recalled the tender, motherly smile of a poor serf and his sign of the sign of the sign of the sign of the sign of the sign of the sign of the sign of the cross, nodding: "Look at you, kid, be frightened!"

Especially his thick, muddy fingers, with which he touched my trembling lips softly and shyly.Of course, anyone can give a child encouragement, but what happened when we met alone seemed very different. Even if I were his own flesh and blood, he could not have treated me with a more holy look of love and compassion.Who told him to do this?He is a serf of my family, and I am his young master. No one knows that he has given me caress, and he will not reward him for it.Does he love children very much?There are such people.We met alone in the wilderness, perhaps only God in heaven could see.A rough, illiterate Russian serf who had no expectations, no extravagant expectations of his own freedom, was filled with the depths of the feelings of civilized human beings, with such delicate, almost feminine tenderness!Excuse me, Konstantin Aksakov is talking about the Aksakov of our people (1817-1860): Russian historian and poet. Wasn't that what he meant when he was highly educated? I remember, when I got out of bed and looked around, I suddenly felt that I saw these unfortunate people very differently.All the hatred and resentment in my chest miraculously disappeared in an instant.I walked forward, looking at the oncoming faces.The farmer, with his shaved head and a mark on his face, was drunk and singing drunken songs hoarsely.He may be that Malei, because I have not yet seen the depths of his heart.That same night, I ran into Mi-ski again, an unfortunate man!It is impossible for him to have any memories of people like Malei in his mind, except "Jehaisces brigands!" It was impossible to have any other opinion of them than that sentence.No, these Poles have suffered much more than we have!