第3章 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS(3)

There were a great many people in the tavern, all drivers, and there was a smell of vodka, tobacco, and sheepskins.There was a loud noise of conversation and the banging of the swing-door.

Through the wall, without ceasing for a moment, came the sound of a concertina being played in the shop.Marya Vassilyevna sat down and drank some tea, while at the next table peasants were drinking vodka and beer, perspiring from the tea they had just swallowed and the stifling fumes of the tavern.

"I say, Kuzma!" voices kept shouting in confusion."What there!""The Lord bless us!" "Ivan Dementyitch, I can tell you that!""Look out, old man!"

A little pock-marked man with a black beard, who was quite drunk, was suddenly surprised by something and began using bad language.

"What are you swearing at, you there?" Semyon, who was sitting some way off, responded angrily."Don't you see the young lady?""The young lady!" someone mimicked in another corner.

"Swinish crow!"

"We meant nothing..." said the little man in confusion."I beg your pardon.We pay with our money and the young lady with hers.

Good-morning!"

"Good-morning," answered the schoolmistress.

"And we thank you most feelingly."

Marya Vassilyevna drank her tea with satisfaction, and she, too, began turning red like the peasants, and fell to thinking again about firewood, about the watchman....

"Stay, old man," she heard from the next table, "it's the schoolmistress from Vyazovye....We know her; she's a good young lady.""She's all right!"

The swing-door was continually banging, some coming in, others going out.Marya Vassilyevna sat on, thinking all the time of the same things, while the concertina went on playing and playing.

The patches of sunshine had been on the floor, then they passed to the counter, to the wall, and disappeared altogether;so by the sun it was past midday.The peasants at the next table were getting ready to go.The little man, somewhat unsteadily, went up to Marya Vassilyevna and held out his hand to her;following his example, the others shook hands, too, at parting, and went out one after another, and the swing-door squeaked and slammed nine times.

"Vassilyevna, get ready," Semyon called to her.

They set off.And again they went at a walking pace.

"A little while back they were building a school here in their Nizhneye Gorodistche," said Semyon, turning round."It was a wicked thing that was done!""Why, what?"

"They say the president put a thousand in his pocket, and the school guardian another thousand in his, and the teacher five hundred.""The whole school only cost a thousand.It's wrong to slander people, grandfather.That's all nonsense.""I don't know,...I only tell you what folks say."But it was clear that Semyon did not believe the schoolmistress.

The peasants did not believe her.They always thought she received too large a salary, twenty-one roubles a month (five would have been enough), and that of the money that she collected from the children for the firewood and the watchman the greater part she kept for herself.The guardian thought the same as the peasants, and he himself made a profit off the firewood and received payments from the peasants for being a guardian --without the knowledge of the authorities.

The forest, thank God! was behind them, and now it would be flat, open ground all the way to Vyazovye, and there was not far to go now.They had to cross the river and then the railway line, and then Vyazovye was in sight.

"Where are you driving?" Marya Vassilyevna asked Semyon."Take the road to the right to the bridge.""Why, we can go this way as well.It's not deep enough to matter.""Mind you don't drown the horse."

"What?"

"Look, Hanov is driving to the bridge," said Marya Vassilyevna, seeing the four horses far away to the right."It is he, Ithink."

"It is.So he didn't find Bakvist at home.What a pig-headed fellow he is.Lord have mercy upon us! He's driven over there, and what for? It's fully two miles nearer this way."They reached the river.In the summer it was a little stream easily crossed by wading.It usually dried up in August, but now, after the spring floods, it was a river forty feet in breadth, rapid, muddy, and cold; on the bank and right up to the water there were fresh tracks of wheels, so it had been crossed here.

"Go on!" shouted Semyon angrily and anxiously, tugging violently at the reins and jerking his elbows as a bird does its wings."Go on!"The horse went on into the water up to his belly and stopped, but at once went on again with an effort, and Marya Vassilyevna was aware of a keen chilliness in her feet.

"Go on!" she, too, shouted, getting up."Go on!"They got out on the bank.

"Nice mess it is, Lord have mercy upon us!" muttered Semyon, setting straight the harness."It's a perfect plague with this Zemstvo...."Her shoes and goloshes were full of water, the lower part of her dress and of her coat and one sleeve were wet and dripping: the sugar and flour had got wet, and that was worst of all, and Marya Vassilyevna could only clasp her hands in despair and say:

Oh, Semyon, Semyon! How tiresome you are really!..."The barrier was down at the railway crossing.A train was coming out of the station.Marya Vassilyevna stood at the crossing waiting till it should pass, and shivering all over with cold.

Vyazovye was in sight now, and the school with the green roof, and the church with its crosses flashing in the evening sun: and the station windows flashed too, and a pink smoke rose from the engine...and it seemed to her that everything was trembling with cold.

Here was the train; the windows reflected the gleaming light like the crosses on the church: it made her eyes ache to look at them.