The village. [Translation from the original Russian text by Isabel Hapgood] by 1870-1953 Ivan Alekseevich Bunin Read Free Book Online Page A

Tikhon Hitch, in a whisper.
    But the Bride seemed turned to stone, and with bowed head went on wielding her rake.
    So he accomplished nothing at all. All of a sudden, Rodka appeared—ahead of his time, and minus an eye. That was soon after the rebellion of the Dur-novka peasants, and Tikhon Hitch immediately hired him and his wife for the Durnovka farm, on the ground that "nowadays it won't do to be without a soldier on the place." About St. Ilya's Day, while Rodka had gone off to the town, the Bride was scrubbing the floors in the house. Picking his way among the puddles, Tikhon Hitch entered the room, cast a glance at the Bride, who was bending over the floor—at her white calves bespattered with dirty water—at the whole of her plump body as it flattened out before him. And, suddenly turning the key in the door, he strode up to the Bride. She straightened up hastily, raised her flushed, agitated face and, clutching in her hand the dripping floor-rag, screamed at him in a strange tone: "I'll give you a soaking, young fellow!"
    An odour of hot soapsuds, heated body, perspiration, pervaded the air. Seizing the Bride by the hand, he squeezed it in a brutal grip, shaking it and making her drop the rag. Tikhon Hitch grasped the Bride by the waist with his right arm—pressed her to him with such force that her bones cracked—and bore

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    her off into another room where there was a bed. And the Bride, with head thrown back and eyes staring wide open, no longer struggled, no longer resisted.
    After that incident it was painful to the point of torment to see his wife, to see Rodka; to know that Rodka slept with the Bride, that he beat her ferociously every day and every night. But before long the situation became alarming as well. Inscrutable are the ways by which a jealous man arrives at the truth. And Rodka found out. Lean, one-eyed, long-armed, and strong as an ape, with a small closely-cropped black head which he always carried bent forward as he shot sidelong glances from his deep-set eyes, he became downright terrifying. During his service as a soldier he had acquired a stock of Little Russian words and an accent. And if the Bride ventured to make any reply to his curt, harsh speeches, he calmly picked up his leather-strap knout, approached her with a vicious grin, and calmly inquired, accenting the "re": "What's that you're remarking?" Thereupon he gave her such a flogging that everything turned black before her eyes.
    On one occasion Tikhon Hitch himself happened upon a thrashing of this sort and, unable to restrain his indignation, shouted: "What are you doing, you damned rascal?" But Rodka quietly seated himself on the bench and merely looked at him. "What's that you're remarking?" he inquired. And Tikhon Hitch made haste to retreat, slamming the door behind him.
    Wild thoughts began to dart through his mind. Should he poison his wife?—with stove-gas, for ex-

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    ample?—or should he arrange matters so that Rodka would be crushed by a falling roof or earth? But one month passed, then another—and hope, that hope which had inspired in him these intoxicating thoughts, was cruelly deceived. The Bride was not pregnant. Every one in Durnovka was convinced that it was Rodka's fault. Tikhon Hitch himself was convinced of it, and cherished strong hopes. But one day in September, when Rodka was absent at the railway station, Tikhon Hitch presented himself and fairly groaned aloud at the sight of the face of the Bride, all its feminine beauty distorted with terror.
    "Are you done for again?" he cried, as he ran up the steps of the porch.
    The Bride's lips turned white, her nose became waxen in hue, and her eyes opened very wide; yet again, it appeared, she was not with child. She expected to receive a deadly blow on the head, and involuntarily recoiled from it. But Tikhon Hitch controlled himself, merely uttering a groan of pain and rage.
    A moment later he took his departure—and from that day forth