Thoughts
And so it went on every night!As soon as a little peace descended on the village and people began to fall asleep-he started. Off he would go, the parasite, right from the edge of the village, playing that accordion. And it seemed to be a special kind of accordion-the bawling kind. It didn't sing, it bawled.
People advised Ninka Krechetova, "For goodness sake, get married to him soon! Or he'll make life hell for us."
Ninka would smile mysteriously.
"You don't have to listen to him. Go to sleep."
"How can we sleep with that thing bellowing under our windows? If he'd only go down to the river, the blessed fool, but he will stay up here. He must be doing it on purpose."
Kolka Malashkin himself, a thick-lipped giant of a fellow, only narrowed his little eyes impudently and declared, "I have the right. There's no law against it."
The house of Matvei Ryazantsev, the local collective-farm chairman, stood just at the spot where Kolka came out of a side-lane into the village street. So the bellowing of the accordion could be heard all down the lane, then rounded the house and continued to be heard long afterwards.
As soon as the first notes floated down the lane, Matvei would sit up in bed, lower his feet to the cool floor and say, 'That's that. Tomorrow I'll expel him from the collective farm. I'll pick on something and set him expelled."
Every night he said the same thing. But no expulsion followed. Only if he happened to meet Kolka during the day, he would ask, "How much longer are you going to be roaming around in the middle of the night? People need rest after their day's work, and you wake them up, you bell-ringer!"
"I have the right," Kolka would reply as usual.
"I'll show you your rights!"
And that was all. That ended the conversation.
But every night Matvel, sitting on his bed, vowed, "I'll expel him tomorrow."
And after that he would sit for a long time, thinking. He would stilt be sitting there long after the sounds of the accordion had died away down the street. He would grope for his trousers on the chair, take the cigarettes out of the pocket and light up.
"Haven't you burnt enough tar for one day!" came his wife's sleepy voice.
"Go to sleep," Matvei would reply shortly.
What were all these thoughts about? Nothing much really. Just the old days coming back. Nothing definite, just a few hazy memories. But one night, when the moon was high and the accordion was playing and the pungent smell of wormwood was floating in through the window together with the cool night air, he alearly recalled a very different night. That night had been dark as pitch. He and his father and younger brother Kuzma had been out mowing about fifteen kilometres from the village, in the foothills. And during the night little Kuzma had begun to wheeze; when he had been all sweaty during the heat of the day he had drunk some ice-cold water from a spring, and at night his throat had got "choked up". Father wakened Matvei, told him to catch lgrenka (the fastest of the horses) and gallop as quick as he could to the village for some milk.
"I'll get a fire going here and we'll boil the milk when you bring it. We'll have to do something for that throat or we might lose him altogether," said his father.
Matvei listened for the sound of the horses grazing, caught lgrenka and bridled him and, lashing his flanks with the hobble rope, galloped him to the village. And then... Now Matvei would soon be sixty, but then he was only twelve or thirteen and yet he could still remember that night. Horse and boy were one as they rushed through the black darkness. The night came at them, striking them in the face with the heavy cent of dew-damp grass. Young Matvei felt himself swept up in a surge of wild exultation; the blood was throbbing at his temples. It was like being in flight, as though he had left the ground and was flying. Nothing was visible. No sky, no earth, not even the horse's head. All he could feel was the rushing sound in his ears and the huge presence of the night moving towards him. He was not thinking about his sick brother. He was not thinking at alt. He was rejoicing; every fibre in his body was vibrant. It was a rare moment of overwhelming joy.
Then came grief. He arrived back with the milk and his father with the tittle boy clasped to his chest was running round the fire and seemed to be nursing him.
"Come on, son ... what's the matter, eh? Hold out a bit longer. Wait for the milk. We'll boil up some milk right away and you'll soon be able to breathe again. Hold on, old chap... Here's Matvei coming with the milk..."
But little Kuzma was choking. When mother arrived after Matvei, Kuzma was dead. Father sat with his head clasped between his arms, swaying from side to side and uttering long, muffled moans. Matvei stared at his brother with surprise and a strange curiosity. Only yesterday they had been playing together in the hay, and now there was this strange bluish-white boy lying there.
...How queer that this damned accordion should have stirred up such memories. Why that night of all nights? He had lived a whole lifetime since then-marriage, collectivisation, the war. There had been all kinds of nights! But they had faded, dissolved into the past. All his life Matvei had clone things that had to be done. When they told him he ought to join the collective farm, he had joined.
When the time to marry had come round, he had married, and he and Alyona had brought children into the world. The children started to grow up... The war had come; he had gone off to fight. A wound had brought him back before the other men. Then it was "You've got to be chairman, Matvei, there's no one else." So he had become chairman of the farm. And somehow he had got into the way of 'it and people had got used to him too, so here he was, still slogging away at the job. It had been work, work, work all his life. The war had been the same-work. AH his cares, all his joys, all his sorrows had been connected with work. When he heard people around him talking about "love", for instance, he was rather at a loss. He realised there was such a thing as love in the work). He himself must have loved Aiyona (she had been lovely as a girt), but as for saying he knew anything more about it than that-no. He even suspected others of putting it on. Singing songs about love, sighing and sobbing; even shooting themselves, so he had heard. It wasn't so much pretending as a kind of habit; people felt they had to talk about love, so they talked about it. But it was just because the time had come to get married) Take Kolka, for instance. Was he in love? Ninka, of course, had taken his fancy, a nice buxom girl like her. And it was time for him to get married, so he roamed about at night "serenading". Why shouldn't he? He was young, bursting with strength... It had always been the same. At least the lads didn't fight nowadays because of the girls. They wed to before. Matvei himself had fought many a time. It was all part of the same thing-itching fists and energy to spare. You had to use it up somehow.
One night, when Matvei was sitting on the edge of the bed thinking like this, he could not help giving his wife a nudge.
"Here-wake up, t want to ask you something."
"What's the matter?"
"Were you ever in love? With me or anyone?"
Alyona lay very still, in complete astonishment.
"Are you drunk?"
"Certainty not!.. Did you love me or what was it-habit that made you marry me? I'm asking you seriously."
Alyona realised that her husband was not "loaded", but she took her time answering him; she didn't know either, she had forgotten.
"What's been putting these ideas into your head?"
"There's something I'm trying to get to the bottom of, dam it. Something's upsetting me ... like some kind of sickness."
"Of course, I loved you," Alyona said with conviction.
"I wouldn't have married you otherwise. Look how Minka Korolyov ran after me. I didn't marry him though. But what's set you thinking about love in the middle of the night? Are you going soft in the head?"
"Go along!" Matvei was offended. "Go to sleep!"
"Mind you let the cow out with the herd tomorrow. I quite forgot to tell you. I'm going berrying with the women in the morning."
"Where?" Matvei pricked up his ears.
"Not on your mowing patches, don't worry."
"If I catch you trampling the grass down, it'll be a tenruble fine from each of you."
"We know a spot where they don't do any mowing, and it's red with berries. So mind you let the cow out."
"All right."
Well, what exactly had happened that night, when he had ridden to fetch milk for his brother? Why had it suddenly come back into his mind like this? I'm getting stupid in my old age, Matvei reflected. Everyone does.
But the sickness in his heart would not be appeased. He would catch himself waiting for Kolka with that bawling "squeeze-box" of his. If he was not to be heard for longer than usual, he would grow worried. And he would get cross with Ninka. "Drat that young filly ... she must be keeping him!"
And he would sit waiting and smoking.
Then far away down the lane the accordion would begin to play and the sickness would break out in his heart. But it was a strange kind of sickness, it was a pleasant one. Something was lacking without it.
And the memory of certain mornings also came back to him. He would be walking barefoot through the grass and it would be all beaded with dew. And the trait behind him would be a vivid green. And the dew would sting his feet. Even now the chill of it made him shiver.
Or else he would find himself thinking of death, that soon it would all be over. Not the fear, not the pain, but the surprise of it. Life would go on as usual, but he would be carried off to the cemetery and buried in the ground. Somehow it was hard to understand how everything could still be quite the same. Well, of course, the sun would still rise and set, as it always does. But there would be other people in the village, people he would never know. That was just beyond his understanding. Perhaps for another ten or fifteen years some people would remember a man called Matvei Ryazantsev, but after that... Yet he'd have liked to know how they'd be faring. It wasn't a feeling of loss though. He'd seen the sun up plenty of times and he'd had his fling on holidays. He'd had some good times. No, he wasn't regretting anything. He had seen plenty. But just that thought that he'd be gone and others would still be around, and he'd be gone forever. Surely they'd find life emptier without him. Or wouldn't it matter?
"Bah!.. I really must be getting old."
His thoughts actually tired him out.
"Here-wake up," Matvei would nudge his wife. "Are you afraid of death?"
'The man's crazy!" Alyona grumbled. "Who's not afraid of the old Mower!"
"Well, I'm not."
'Then go to sleep. Why think about it?"
"Go to steep yourself."
But as soon as he remembered that black overpowering night, when he was flying along on horseback, his heart would ache with such a poignant sweetness. No, there was something in life, something he would be terribly sorry to lose. Sorry to the point of tears.
Then one night he waited in vain for Kolka's accordion. He sat there smoking, but there was not a sound. He waited and waited, all for nothing... That night really took it out of him.
When it grew light, Matvei wakened his wife.
"What's become of our bell-ringer? I never heard him."
"He's getting married. The wedding will be on Sunday."
Matvei felt depressed at the news. He got into bed and tried to sleep, but it was no use. He just lay staring at the ceiling until sun up. He tried to remember something else from his past life, but nothing would come into his head. The worries of the collective farm took over again. Soon it would be mowing time and half the mowers were standing by the forge with their shafts up. And that squint-eyed devil, Filya the blacksmith, was out on the booze. Now he'd get topped up at the wedding, and that'd be a whole week wasted.
I'll have to have a word with him tomorrow. The next day, on meeting Kolka, the thick-lipped accordionist, Matvei eyed him sardonically.
"Well, my lad, so you've done your playing?"
Kolka grinned widely-from ear to ear.
"Yes, I've done it. I shan't be waking you any more of night now. It's all over. I've cast anchor."
"Right you are then," Matvei said, and went on his way. What are you so glad about, you young bullock? he thought to himself. She'll soon take you by the horns, your Ninka. All the Krechetovs are that kind.
A week passed.
Still the moonlight flooded in through the windows and the air was pungent with the scent of wormwood and young potato leaves from the vegetable patch. And it was quiet.
Matvei slept badly. He kept waking up and smoking. Sometimes he would go out into the porch for a drink of kvass. He would walk out on to the front steps, sit down on one of them and smoke. The whole village was flooded with moonlight. And it was terribly quiet.
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