Read The village. [Translation from the original Russian text by Isabel Hapgood] for Free Online Page B

breeching which jerked about on them. But he was not considering the colt. Slapping him stoutly with the reins, Tikhon Hitch turned aside from the railway, drove to the right along the road across the fields, and, on coming within sight of Durnovka, was inclined to doubt, for a moment, the correctness of the rumours about a rebellion. Peaceful stillness lay all about, the larks were warbling

    THE VILLAGE
    their evening song in peace, the air was simply and peacefully impregnated with an odour of damp earth and with the fragrance of wild flowers. But all of a sudden his glance fell upon the fallow-field alongside the manor, thickly sown with sweet-clover. On that fallow-field, a drove of horses belonging to the peasants was grazing!
    So it had begun. And, tugging at the reins, Tikhon Hitch flew past the drove, past the barns overgrown with burdocks and nettles, past a low-growing cherry-orchard filled with sparrows, past the stables and the cottages of the domestics, and leaped with a bound into the farmyard.
    Then something incongruous happened. There, in the twilight, in the middle of the field, sat Tikhon Hitch in his runabout, overwhelmed with wrath, mortification, and terror. His heart beat violently, his hands trembled, his face burned, his hearing was as acute as that of a wild animal. There he sat, listening to the shouts which were wafted from Durnovka, and recalled how the crowd, which had seemed to him immense, on catching sight of him from afar had swarmed across the gorge to the manor and filled the yard with uproar and abusive words, had massed themselves on the porch and pinioned him against the door. All the weapon he had had was the whip in his hand. And he brandished it, now retreating, now hurling himself in desperation against the crowd. But the harness-maker, a vicious emaciated fellow with a sunken belly and a sharp nose, wearing tall boots and a lavender print shirt, advanced brandishing his stick even more

    THE VILLAGE
    furiously. On behalf of the whole throng, he screeched that an order had been issued to "make an end of that Outfit"—to make an end on one and the same day and hour throughout the entire government. The hired labourers from outside were to be chased out of all the estates and replaced with local labourers—at a ruble a day!—while the owners were to be expelled neck and crop, in any direction, so that they would never be seen again. And Tikhon Hitch yelled still more frantically, in the endeavour to drown out the harness-maker: "A—a! So that's it! Have you been whetting yourself, you tramp, on the deacon's son? Have you lost your wits?"
    But the harness-maker disputatiously caught his words on the fly: "Tramp yourself!" he yelled until he was hoarse, and his face was suffused with blood. "You're an old fool! Haven't I managed to get along all my life without the deacon's son? Don't I know how much land you own? How much is it, you skinflint? Two hundred desyatini? But I—damn it!— own, in all, about as much ground as is covered by your porch! And why? Who are you? Who are you, anyway, I ask you? What's your brew—any better sort than the rest of us?"
    "Come to your senses, Mitka!" shouted Tikhon Hitch helplessly at last; and, conscious that his wits were getting muddled, he made a dash through the crowd to his runabout. "I'll pay you off for this!"
    But no one was afraid of his threats, and unanimous laughter, yells, and whistling followed him. Then he had made the round of the manor-estate, his heart

    THE VILLAGE
    sinking within him, and listened. He drove out upon the road to the cross-roads and halted with his face to the darkening west, toward the railway station, holding himself in readiness to whip up his horse at any moment. It was very quiet, warm, damp, and dark. The land, which rose toward the horizon, where a faint reddish gleam still smouldered, was as black as the nethermost abyss.
    "Sta-and still, you carrion!" Tikhon Hitch whispered through set teeth to his