Nikita

“ But very soon, and indeed sooner than that, I will settle with you.”
“Hold the wicked old witch, Timothy,” cried Nikita, and the blind man caught her in his arms and squeezed her very hard. Then Nikita seized [286] her by the hair, and she was ready enough to make all kinds of promises to win her freedom.
“We want nothing,” said Nikita, who had still more ideas in his head, “but your whistle and healing and living water. I have the whistle already, and if you will give us the water, you shall go free once more into the white world.”
“That I can, and will since I must,” said the Baba-Yaga. ”

“ Nikita kept him warm from below and his fur coats from above. Only his hands, with which he kept his coat-skirts down round Nikita's sides, and his legs which the wind kept uncovering, began to freeze, especially his right hand which had no glove. But he did not think of his legs or of his hands but only of how to warm the peasant who was lying under him. ”

“ Tchartkoff entered his ante-room, which was intolerably cold, as painters' rooms always are, which fact, however, they do not notice. Without giving Nikita his coat, he went on into his studio, a large room, but low, fitted up with all sorts of artistic rubbish--plaster hands, canvases, sketches begun and discarded, and draperies thrown over chairs. Feeling very tired, he took off his cloak, placed the portrait abstractedly between two small canvasses, and threw himself on the narrow divan. Having stretched himself out, he finally called for a light.
"There are no candles," said Nikita. ”

“ He knew nothing of pain, had no conception of it, so he was not to blame, but his conscience, as inexorable and as rough as Nikita, made him turn cold from the crown of his head to his heels. He leaped up, tried to cry out with all his might, and to run in haste to kill Nikita, and then Hobotov, the superintendent and the assistant, and then himself; but no sound came from his chest, and his legs would not obey him. Gasping for breath, he tore at the dressing-gown and the shirt on his breast, rent them, and fell senseless on the bed. ”

“ When you've had a bite you'll feel more cheerful.'
But Mukhorty was restless and evidently not comforted by Nikita's remarks. He stepped now on one foot and now on another, and pressed close against the sledge, turning his back to the wind and rubbing his head on Nikita's sleeve. Then, as if not to pain Nikita by refusing his offer of the straw he put before him, he hurriedly snatched a wisp out of the sledge, but immediately decided that it was now no time to think of straw and threw it down, and the wind instantly scattered it, carried it away, and covered it with snow. ”

“ Nikita again climbed out and again trudged about in the snow. He did this for a considerable time and at last appeared from the opposite side to that from which he had started.
‘Vasili Andreevich, are you alive?’ he called out.
‘Here!’ replied Vasili Andreevich. ‘Well, what now?’
‘I can’t make anything out. It’s too dark. There’s nothing but ravines. We must drive against the wind again.’
They set off once more. Again Nikita went stumbling through the snow, again he fell in, again climbed out and trudged about, and at last quite out of breath he sat down beside the sledge. ”

“ Meanwhile the would-be bridegroom and his young men slept on.
"Go back," cried Nikita to the first hero, who had kept well out of reach of that terrible staff. "Go back to Yelena the Haughty Beauty and tell her not to resist us further. See how I have dealt with your men alone and all by myself! What will it be when the Terrible Tsar and his young men awake from sleep? We shall not leave one stone of your castle upon another. You would do well to go back and tell the bride to prepare for her wedding." ”

“ Open the hall-door and enter the hall. Here, against the walls and around the stove, are heaped whole mountains of rubbish. Mattresses, old tattered dressing-gowns, trousers, blue-striped shills, worn-out footgear, all good-for-nothing, lie in tangled and crushed heaps, rot, and exhale a suffocating smell.
On the top of this rubbish heap, pipe eternally in mouth, lies the watchman Nikita, an old soldier. His face is coarse and drink-sodden, his hanging eye-brows give him the appearance of a sheep-dog, he is small and sinewy, but his carriage is impressive and his fists are strong. ”

“ At the very moment when Nikita drove out and brought the horse up at the foot of the flight of steps, Vasily Andreich, with a cigarette in his mouth, and wearing a sheep-skin mantle girded tightly and low down by a stout girdle, came out of the vestibule on to the steps, the snow upon which crackled beneath the tread of his felt shoes, and stood still, smoothing away from both sides of his ruddy face — clean shaved, too, with the exception of a moustache — the corners of the collar of his sheep-skin mantle, lined inwardly with fur, lest the fur should be made wet and moist by his breathing. ”

“ The staff fell into his outstretched hand, which never shook, and remained there firmly held.
"This will do," said Nikita. Thereupon he paid the men for their work, and rode off quickly after his companions. But as he rode onward he heard some one behind him lustily calling out his name, and turning in his saddle he saw the old man running quickly after him.
"Thanks, thanks, many thanks and more thanks again for your help," said the old man. "For thirty years I lay upon that anvil and was tortured by those fifty fiends. ”

“ His grimaces are strange and abnormal, but the delicate lines traced on his face by profound, genuine suffering show intelligence and sense, and there is a warm and healthy light in his eyes. I like the man himself, courteous, anxious to be of use, and extraordinarily gentle to everyone except Nikita. When anyone drops a button or a spoon, he jumps up from his bed quickly and picks it up ”

“ Nikita was not in his former place, but something, already covered with snow, was lying in the sledge and Vasili Andreevich concluded that this was Nikita. His terror had now quite left him, and if he felt any fear it was lest the dreadful terror should return that he had experienced when on the horse and especially when he was left alone in the snow-drift. At any cost he had to avoid that terror, and to keep it away he must do something—occupy himself with something. And the first thing he did was to turn his back to the wind and open his fur coat. ”

“ Your boots are very bad.'
Nikita stopped as if he had suddenly realized this.
'Yes, I ought to. . . . But they'll do like this. It isn't far!' and he ran out into the yard.
'Won't you be cold, Nikita?' said the mistress as he came up to the sledge.
'Cold? No, I'm quite warm,' answered Nikita as he pushed some straw up to the forepart of the sledge so that it should cover his feet, and stowed away the whip, which the good horse would not need, at the bottom of the sledge. ”

“ The wind was still whistling through the shafts, and the snow was still sweeping down; but with this difference, that it was no longer smiting against them, but was noiselessly enveloping the sledge and the horse, rising ever higher and higher, and the movements and breathing of the horse were no longer audible. "He too must have frozen to death," thought Nikita of Brownie. And indeed those hoof-kicks against the sledge which had awakened Nikita had been the last dying efforts of the already half-frozen Brownie to keep his legs. ”

“ Nikita went thither also, he went right up to the black thing in front — it was the ground that was black there, sprinkled over with bare-lying winter seed, which had coloured the snow black. After turning to the right also, Nikita returned to the sledge, brushed off the snow from his clothes, shook it out of his boots, and sat down in the sledge again.
"We must go to the right," said he decisively. "The wind was blowing upon my left side, and now it is right on my nose. Go to the right," said he in a decided tone.
Vasily Andreich listened to him, and turned to the right. ”

“ Look at him, poor old fellow! he is not himself," said Nikita, pointing at the horse standing patiently there, ready for anything, but well-nigh spent and with his flanks all wet and strained. "We must pass the night here," continued he, as if making up his mind to fix his night-quarters at some regular place of call, and he set about unloosening the strings of the horse-collar.
"But surely we shall be frozen?" cried Vasily Andreich. ”

“ Then she went off to her cottage and the restored men took their way to the city of the Terrible Tsar for Nikita had another bright idea. In a field outside the palace they found the Terrible Tsar herding pigs, whereupon Nikita began to blow on the whistle and the pigs began to dance, for their ancestors had come from the herd of the wicked Baba-Yaga. Yelena the Haughty Beauty saw what was happening from the window, but she did not laugh, for she was not a woman of that kind. ”

“ By that time Nikita had put the collar and brass-studded belly-band on Mukhorty and, carrying a light, painted shaft-bow in one hand, was leading the horse with the other up to two sledges that stood in the shed.
‘All right, let it be the little one!’ he said, backing the intelligent horse, which all the time kept pretending to bite him, into the shafts, and with the aid of the cook’s husband he proceeded to harness. When everything was nearly ready and only the reins had to be adjusted, Nikita sent the other man to the shed for some straw and to the barn for a drugget. ”

“ Nikíta (taken aback) . What will you tell?
Anísya. What? Everything! Who took the money? You! (NIKÍTA is silent.) And who gave the poison? I did! But you knew! You knew! You knew! We were in agreement!
Matryóna. That's enough now. Nikíta dear, why are you obstinate? What's to be done now? One must take some trouble. Go, honey.
Anísya. See the fine gentleman! He doesn't like it! You've put upon me long enough! You've trampled me under foot! Now it's my turn! Go, I tell you, or else I'll do what I said.... There, take the spade; there, now go!
Nikíta. Drat you! Can't you leave a fellow alone! ”

“ When her husband dies, Anisya marries Nikita and turns the money over to him. Nikita becomes the head of the house, and soon proves himself a rake and a tyrant. Idleness and affluence undermine whatever good is latent in him. Money, the destroyer of souls, together with the consciousness that he has been indirectly a party to Anisya's crime, turn Nikita's love for the woman into bitter hatred. He takes for his mistress Akulina, Peter's oldest daughter, a girl of sixteen, deaf and silly, and forces Anisya to serve them. ”

“ He strained his hearing, and could hear the faint breathing of Nikita. "Nikita is alive, and that is the same as my being alive!" he said to himself triumphantly. And a feeling quite new to him, a feeling he had never felt all his life long before, now came over him.
And he bethought him of his money, and his shop, and of his buying and selling, and of the millions of the Mironovs, and it was hard for him to understand why that man whom they called Vasily Brekhunov [9] had occupied himself with all those things which he had occupied himself with. ”

“ Nikíta. Where's the good of making plans? What do I care? I work as hard as if I were doing it for myself. My master loves me, and his missus loves me. And if the wenches run after me, it's not my fault, that's flat.
Anísya. And you'll love me?
Nikíta (embracing her) . There, as you have ever been in my heart....
Matryóna (enters and crosses herself a long time before the icón. Nikíta and Anísya step apart) . What I saw I didn't perceive, what I heard, I didn't hearken to. Playing with the lass, eh? Well,—even a calf will play. Why shouldn't one have some fun when one's young? ”

“ The Law does not trouble people nowadays, my friend. All they think about is how to dean out a fellow. That's what!
As long as Akulina's condition is not noticeable, the relation of Nikita with his dead master's daughter remains hidden from the neighbors. But the time comes when she is to give birth to a child. It is then that Anisya becomes mistress of the situation again. Her hatred for Akulina, her outraged love for Nikita and the evil spirit of Nikita's mother all combine to turn her into a fiend. ”

“ While Nikita is digging the grave, he discovers the deception. The child is alive! The terrible shock unnerves the man, and in temporary madness he presses a board over the little body till its bones crunch. Superstition, horror and the perfidy of the women drive Nikita to drink in an attempt to drown the baby's cries constantly ringing in his ears.
The last act deals with Akulina's wedding to the son of a neighbor. She is forced into the marriage because of her misfortune. ”

“ Vasili Andreevich did not pay Nikita the eighty rubles a year such a man was worth, but only about forty, which he gave him haphazard, in small sums, and even that mostly not in cash but in goods from his own shop and at high prices.
Nikita’s wife Martha, who had once been a handsome vigorous woman, managed the homestead with the help of her son and two daughters, and did not urge Nikita to live at home: first because she had been living for some twenty years already with a cooper, a peasant from another village who lodged in their house ”

“ When she becomes pregnant, she appeals to Nikita's father, Akim, a simple and honest peasant. He urges his son to marry the girl, because "it is a sin to wrong an orphan. Look out, Nikita! A tear of offense does not flow past, but upon a man's head. Look out, or the same will happen with you."
Akim's kindness and simplicity are opposed by the viciousness and greed of his wife Matrena. Nikita remains on the farm, and Anisya, urged and influenced by his mother, poisons old Peter and steals his money. ”