Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Leo Tolstoy – What Men Live By – Contents
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III.
Semén’s wife got things done early. She chopped the wood, brought the water, fed the children, herself took a bite of something, and fell to musing. She was thinking about when to set the bread, whether to-day or to-morrow. There was a big slice of it left.
“If Semén has his dinner there,” she thought, “and does not eat much for supper, the bread will last until to-morrow.”
Matréna turned the slice around and a second time, and thought:
“I will not set any bread to-day. I have enough meal for just one setting. We shall somehow hold out until Friday.”
Matréna put the bread away, and seated herself at the table to put a patch in her husband’s shirt. She was sewing and thinking of how he would buy a sheepskin for a fur coat.
“If only the furrier does not cheat him, for my man is too simple for anything. He himself will not cheat a soul, but a little child can deceive him. Eight roubles is no small sum. One can pickup a good fur coat for it. It will not be tanned, still it will be a fur coat. How we suffered last winter without a fur coat! We could not get down to the river, or anywhere. And there he has gone out, putting everything on him, and I have nothing to dress in. He went away early; it is time for him to be back. If only my dear one has not gone on a spree!”
Just as Matréna was thinking this, the steps creaked on the porch, and somebody entered. Matréna stuck the needle in the cloth, and went out into the vestibule. She saw two coming in: Semén, and with him a man without a cap and in felt boots.
Matréna at once smelt the liquor in her husband’s breath. “Well,” she thought, “so it is: he has been on a spree.” And when she saw that he was without his caftan, in nothing but the jacket, and that he was not bringing anything, but only keeping silent and crouching, something broke in Matréna’s heart. “He has spent all the money in drinks,” she thought, “and has been on a spree with some tramp, and has even brought him along.”
Matréna let them pass into the hut, and then stepped in herself. She saw the lean young man, and he had on him their caftan. No shirt was to be seen under the caftan, and he had no hat on his head. When he entered, he stood still, and did not stir, and did not raise his eyes. And Matréna thought: “He is not a good man,—he is afraid.”
Matréna scowled and went to the oven, waiting to see what would happen.
Semén took off his cap and sat down on the bench like a good man.
“Well, Matréna, will you let us have something for supper, will you?” he said.
Matréna growled something under her breath. She stood at the oven, and did not stir: she looked now at the one, and now at the other, and shook her head. Semén saw that his wife was not in a good humour, but there was nothing to be done, and he acted as though he did not see it. He took the stranger by the arm:
“Sit down, my friend,” he said, “we shall have our supper.”
The stranger sat down on the bench.
“Well, have you not cooked anything?”
That simply roiled Matréna.
“I have cooked, but not for you. You seem to have drunk away your senses, I see. You went to get a fur coat, and come back without your caftan, and have even brought some kind of a naked tramp with you. I have no supper for you drunkards.”
“Stop, Matréna! What is the use of wagging your tongue without any sense? First ask what kind of a man it is—”
“Tell me what you did with the money.”
Semén stuck his hand into the caftan, took out the bill, and opened it before her.
“Here is the money. Trifónov has not paid me,—he promised to give it to me to-morrow.”
That enraged Matréna even more: he had bought no fur coat, and the only caftan they had he had put on a naked fellow, and had even brought him along.
She grabbed the bill from the table, and ran to put it away, and said:
“I have no supper. One cannot feed all the drunkards.”
“Oh, Matréna, hold your tongue. First hear what I have to say—”
“Much sense shall I hear from a drunken fool. With good reason did I object to marrying you, a drunkard. My mother gave me some linen, and you spent it on drinks; you went to buy a fur coat, and spent that, too.”
Semén wanted to explain to his wife that he had spent twenty kopeks only, and wanted to tell her that he had found the man; but Matréna began to break in with anything she could think of, and to speak two words at once. Even what had happened ten years before, she brought up to him now.
Matréna talked and talked, and jumped at Semén, and grabbed him by the sleeve.
“Give me my jacket. That is all I have left, and you have taken it from me and put it on yourself. Give it to me, you freckled dog,—may the apoplexy strike you!”
Semén began to take off the bodice; as he turned back his arm, his wife gave the bodice a jerk, and it ripped at the seam. Matréna grabbed the jacket, threw it over her head, and made for the door. She wanted to go out, but stopped: her heart was doubled, for she wanted to have her revenge, and also to find out what kind of a man he was.
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Leo Tolstoy – What Men Live By – Contents
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