Short Fiction by Ivan Bunin (chrysanthemum read aloud txt) 📕

Pakhomka kept on scaring her on toward me. I waited and waited, until finally she came under the very shed⁠—and then I made a grab for her horns! And then she starts in bleating. I even got scared! I fall off the shed; I dig my feet in, holding on to the horns, while she dashes with me all over the yard, drags me up to a pit; then she squirms out, scraping me with her horn over the beard, over the nose⁠—till everything turned black.⁠ ⁠… When I look up, she’s already up on the roof: she’d jumped up on the pile of manure, from the manure on to the roof, from the roof into the tall grass.⁠ ⁠… We could hear the dogs getting noisy in the yard; the other dogs picked it up, raising a racket in the village. We, of course, jumped out after her. But she’s flying along with all her might, and straight for the last hut: there was a new hut being built there; the windows was still boarded up and there was no entry yet, while there was just bare poles laid aslant for the roof. So she clambered up them up to the very ridge⁠—a power like a whirlwind must have carried her up there! We ran up as fast as we could; as for her, she must have felt her death coming⁠—she was bleating for all she was worth, all scared. I picked up a hefty brick, took aim⁠—and caught her so neat that she just jumped up in the air, and then started with a swish down the roof! We ran up, but she was just lying there, her tongue jerking in the dust.⁠ ⁠… She’d take a breath and then rattle, take a breath and rattle again⁠—till the dust rose up near her nose. And her tongue was long, just like a snake.⁠ ⁠… Well, of course, after half an hour or so, she had croaked.” V

There was a silence. Theodot raised himself up to a sitting posture, and, bending down, spreading his hands, began slowly to unwind the cords with which his old, constantly falling foot-cloths were tied up. And a minute later the schoolboy with horror and repulsion saw that which he had seen so many times before with perfect calmness: a muzhik’s bare foot, dead-white, enormous, flat, with a monstrously grown great toe lying crookedly on top of the others, and the thin, hairy skin, which Theodot, having unwound and dropped the footcloth, began to scratch hard in a delectable fury, tearing it with his nails, as strong as those of a beast. Having scratched his fill and wriggled his toes, he took the foot-cloth with both hands⁠—it was hardened, bent, and blackened at the heel and sole, just as though it had been rubbed with black wax⁠—and shook it out, spreading an unbearable stench upon the fresh breeze. “Yes, murder means nothing to him!” reflected the student, shivering. “That is the foot of a real murderer! How horribly he killed this beautiful she-goat! And the man that he killed with a whetstone⁠ ⁠… he must have been sharpening a scythe⁠ ⁠… and must have struck him straight in the temple, killing him on the stop.⁠ ⁠… But Pashka!⁠ ⁠… Pashka!⁠ ⁠… How could he tell about it so gaily and with such enjoyment, too! ‘It came right out at his back!’ ”

Suddenly, without raising his head, Ivan began speaking morosely:

“Fools are beaten even at the altar. Why, Postnii, it wouldn’t be half-enough to beat you to death for this here she-goat. What did you go and kill her for? You should have sold it. What sort of a husbandman do you call yourself after that, you durn ninny, when you don’t understand that a muzhik can’t get along without livestock? It should be valued. If I only had a she-goat, now.⁠ ⁠…”

He didn’t finish his sentence, was silent for a while, then suddenly grinned.

“There was an affair in Stanova, now; well that really was something.⁠ ⁠… It wasn’t worse than your goat, now; a landowner by the name of Mussin was keeping a wild bull. This bull just wouldn’t let anybody pass; he gored two young cowherds to death. They’d fasten him up with a chain, but still he’d tear loose and go off. Just the very same way, too, like your goat, he’d trample the peasants’ grain; but no one dared to chase him off: they were afraid, and would walk a mile around him. Well, of course, they sawed off his horns, gelded him.⁠ ⁠… He quieted down a bit. Only the muzhiks scored up everything against him. When these here riots began, here’s what they did: they caught him in the field, tied him up with ropes, threw him off his feet.⁠ ⁠… They didn’t beat him at all, but just took and stripped him to the last hair. So, all bare, he dashed into the owner’s yard⁠—he ran in at full speed, fell all in a heap, and died right on the spot⁠—losing all his blood.”

“How?” asked the schoolboy; “they took his hide off? While he was alive?”

“No, while he was cooked,” mumbled Ivan. “Oh you Moscow city feller!”

Everybody started laughing; while Pashka, laughing more than all of them, quickly picked up the conversation.

“Well, there’s a lot of murderers for you! And you was saying, just like that, that we ought to be treated kindly. No brother, guess you can’t get along here without us marching soldiers! When after the Seniyaks we was stationed at Kursk, now, we was also restoring order in a certain settlement. The muzhiks had gotten it into their head to ruinate an owner.⁠ ⁠… And the owner, they do say, was a good sort, at that.⁠ ⁠… Well, the whole settlement went for him, and, naturally, the women tagged along. The watchmen came out to meet the villagers. The peasants went for them with stakes and scythes. The guards fired one volley, and then, of course, took to their heels: what the devil sort of strength can you