Part 27 (1/2)

In all three cottages dwelt Kononovs: they were not kinsfolk, though they bore that name, closer linked through their common life than kinsmen ever were. Kononov-Yonov, the One-Eyed, was the village elder: he no longer remembered his grandfather's name, but knew the olden times well, and remembered how his great-grandfathers and his great-great-grandfathers had lived and how it was good for men to live.

From the oldest to the youngest they toiled with all their strength from spring to autumn, from autumn to spring, and from sunrise to sundown, growing grey like their hen-coops from smoke, scorching in the heat and steaming sweat like boiling tar.

The kinsfolk of Yonov the One-eyed made tar besides tilling the land, while Yonov himself kept bee-hives in the forest. The sisters Yonov barked lime-trees and made bast shoes. It was a hard, stern life, with its smoke, heat, frosts, and languour; but they loved it profoundly.

The Kononovs lived alone in friends.h.i.+p with the woods, the fields, and the sky; yet ever engaged in stubborn struggle against them. They had to remember the rise and set of the sun, the nights and the dung- mounds. They had to look into putrid corners, watch for cold blasts from the north, and give ear to the rumbling and gabbling of the forest.

They knew:

With January, mid-winter time, Starts the year its frosty prime, Blows wild the wind e'er yet'tis still, Crackles the ice in the frozen rill; Epiphany betimes is past, Approaches now the Lenten Fast.

In February there's a breath of heat, Summer and winter at Candlemas meet.

In April the year grows moist and warm the air, The old folks' lives without their doors bids fair; The woodc.o.c.k then comes flying from the sea, Brings back the Spring from its captivity.

Under a showery sky, Bloom wide the fields of rye, Ever blue and chill May will the granaries fill.

It was necessary to work stubbornly, sternly, in harmony with the earth, to fight hand-to-hand with the forest, the axe, the plough and the scythe. They had learnt to keep their eyes wide open, for each had to hold his own against the wood-spirit, the rumbling forest, famine, and the marshes. They had learnt to know their Mother-Earth by the birds, sky, wind, and stars, like those men of whom Yonov the One-Eyed told them--those who of old wended their way to Chuvsh tribes and the Murman Forest.

All the Kononovs were built alike, strong, rugged, with short legs and broad, heavy feet like juniper-roots, long backs, arms that hung down to their knees, shoulder-blades protruding as though made for harness, mossy green eyes that gazed with a slow stubborn look, and noses like earthen whistles.

They lived with the rye, horses, cows, the sheep, the woods, and the gra.s.s. They knew that as the rye dropped seeds to the ground and reproduced in abundance so also bred beast and bird, counteracting death with birth. They knew too that to breed was also man's lot.

Ulyanka reached her seventeenth year, Ivan his eighteenth: they bowed to the winds and went to the altar.

Ivan Kononov did not think of death when he went to the war, for what was death when through it came birth? Were there not heat-waves and drought in summer? Did not the winter sweep the earth by blizzards?

Yet in spring all began to pulsate again with life.

The War came: Ivan Kononov went without understanding, without reason--what concern was it of Poc.h.i.n.ki? He was dragged through towns, he pined in spittle-stained barracks; and then he was sent to the Carpathians. He fired. He fought hand-to-hand: he fled; he retreated forty versts a day, resting in the woods singing his peasant-songs with the soldiers--and yearning for Poc.h.i.n.ki. He found all spoke like Grandfather Yonov the One-Eyed; he learnt of the land in the olden time order, of the people's Rising. At its approach he went on furlough to Poc.h.i.n.ki, met it there, and there remained.

The Rising came like happy tidings, like the cool breath of dawn, like a May-time shower:

Under a showery sky Bloom wide the fields of rye, Ever blue and chill May will the granaries fill.

Formerly there were the village constable, the district clerk, trumperies, requisitions, and taxations; for then it was the gentry who were the guardians. But now, Yonov the One-Eyed croaked exultantly:

”Now it's ourselves! We ourselves! In our own way! In our own world!

The land is ours! We are the masters: it is the Rising! _Our_ Rising!”

There were no storms that winter; it was cold and dark, and the wolf- packs were astir. One after another the inhabitants were stricken down with typhoid--it was with typhoid that they paid for the Rising!

Half the village succ.u.mbed and was borne on the peasants' sleighs to the churchyard.

By Candlemas, when winter and summer meet, all the provisions were exhausted, and the villagers drove to the station. But even that had changed. New people congregated there, some shouting, others hurrying to and fro with sacks. The villagers returned with nothing and sat down to their potatoes.

In the spring prayers were offered up for the dead and a religious procession paraded round the village, the outskirts of which were bestrewn with ashes. Then the villagers started to take tar and bast shoes to the station; they wanted to sell them, and with the proceeds buy ploughshares, harrows, scythes, sickles, and leather straps. But they never reached the station.

Their way led them through fields all lilac-coloured in the glowing sun: there they encountered an honest peasant dressed in a short fur jacket and a cap beneath which his look was calm and grave.

He told them there was nothing at the station, that the townsfolk themselves were running like mice; and he urged them to go to Poriechie, to give Silvester the blacksmith some tar for his ploughshares, and, if he had none, to make them some of his own hand- ploughshares; then to go and sow flax. The towns were dying out. The towns were no more! It was the people's Rising, and they had to live as in the olden days: there were no towns then, and there was no need for them.

They turned back. To Poriechie for tar.... Silvester made them a hand-plough.... Grandfather Yonov the One Eyed stalked round the fields exhorting to sow: ”We have to live by ourselves! Now we ourselves are the Masters! Ourselves alone! It is the Rising!”