THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND OTHER STORIES(女校长)

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THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND OTHER STORIES

THE

SCHOOLMISTRESS

AND OTHER STORIES

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND OTHER STORIES

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS

AT half-past eight they drove out of the town.

The highroad was dry, a lovely April sun was shining warmly, but the

snow was still lying in the ditches and in the woods. Winter, dark, long,

and spiteful, was hardly over; spring had come all of a sudden. But neither

the warmth nor the languid transparent woods, warmed by the breath of

spring, nor the black flocks of birds flying over the huge puddles that were

like lakes, nor the marvelous fathomless sky, into which it seemed one

would have gone away so joyfully, presented anything new or interesting

to Marya Vassilyevna who was sitting in the cart. For thirteen years she

had been schoolmistress, and there was no reckoning how many times

during all those years she had been to the town for her salary; and whether

it were spring as now, or a rainy autumn evening, or winter, it was all the

same to her, and she always -- invariably -- longed for one thing only, to

get to the end of her journey as quickly as could be.

She felt as though she had been living in that part of the country for

ages and ages, for a hundred years, and it seemed to her that she knew

every stone, every tree on the road from the town to her school. Her past

was here, her present was here, and she could imagine no other future than

the school, the road to the town and back again, and again the school and

again the road. . . .

She had got out of the habit of thinking of her past before she became

a schoolmistress, and had almost forgotten it. She had once had a father

and mother; they had lived in Moscow in a big flat near the Red Gate, but

of all that life there was left in her memory only something vague and

fluid like a dream. Her father had died when she was ten years old, and her

mother had died soon after. . . . She had a brother, an officer; at first they

used to write to each other, then her brother had given up answering her

letters, he had got out of the way of writing. Of her old belongings, all that

was left was a photograph of her mother, but it had grown dim from the

dampness of the school, and now nothing could be seen but the hair and

the eyebrows.

When they had driven a couple of miles, old Semyon, who was driving,

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND OTHER STORIES

turned round and said:

"They have caught a government clerk in the town. They have taken

him away. The story is that with some Germans he killed Alexeyev, the

Mayor, in Moscow."

"Who told you that?"

"They were reading it in the paper, in Ivan Ionov's tavern."

And again they were silent for a long time. Marya Vassilyevna thought

of her school, of the examination that was coming soon, and of the girl and

four boys she was sending up for it. And just as she was thinking about the

examination, she was overtaken by a neighboring landowner called Hanov

in a carriage with four horses, the very man who had been examiner in her

school the year before. When he came up to her he recognized her and

bowed.

"Good-morning," he said to her. "You are driving home, I suppose."

This Hanov, a man of forty with a listless expression and a face that

showed signs of wear, was beginning to look old, but was still handsome

and admired by women. He lived in his big homestead alone, and was not

in the service; and people used to say of him that he did nothing at home

but walk up and down the room whistling, or play chess with his old

footman. People said, too, that he drank heavily. And indeed at the

examination the year before the very papers he brought with him smelt of

wine and scent. He had been dressed all in new clothes on that occasion,

and Marya Vassilyevna thought him very attractive, and all the while she

sat beside him she had felt embarrassed. She was accustomed to see frigid

and sensible examiners at the school, while this one did not remember a

single prayer, or know what to ask questions about, and was exceedingly

courteous and delicate, giving nothing but the highest marks.

"I am going to visit Bakvist," he went on, addressing Marya

Vassilyevna, "but I am told he is not at home."

They turned off the highroad into a by-road to the village, Hanov

leading the way and Semyon following. The four horses moved at a

walking pace, with effort dragging the heavy carriage through the mud.

Semyon tacked from side to side, keeping to the edge of the road, at one

time through a snowdrift, at another through a pool, often jumping out of

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND OTHER STORIES

the cart and helping the horse. Marya Vassilyevna was still thinking about

the school, wondering whether the arithmetic questions at the examination

would be difficult or easy. And she felt annoyed with the Zemstvo board at

which she had found no one the day before. How unbusiness-like! Here

she had been asking them for the last two years to dismiss the watchman,

who did nothing, was rude to her, and hit the schoolboys; but no one paid

any attention. It was hard to find the president at the office, and when one

did find him he would say with tears in his eyes that he hadn't a moment to

spare; the inspector visited the school at most once in three years, and

knew nothing whatever about his work, as he had been in the Excise

Duties Department, and had received the post of school inspector through

influence. The School Council met very rarely, and there was no knowing

where it met; the school guardian was an almost illiterate peasant, the head

of a tanning business, unintelligent, rude, and a great friend of the

watchman's -- and goodness knows to whom she could appeal with

complaints or inquiries . . . .

"He really is handsome," she thought, glancing at Hanov.

The road grew worse and worse. . . . They drove into the wood. Here

there was no room to turn round, the wheels sank deeply in, water

splashed and gurgled through them, and sharp twigs struck them in the

face.

"What a road!" said Hanov, and he laughed.

The schoolmistress looked at him and could not understand why this

queer man lived here. What could his money, his interesting appearance,

his refined bearing do for him here, in this mud, in this God-forsaken,

dreary place? He got no special advantages out of life, and here, like

Semyon, was driving at a jog-trot on an appalling road and enduring the

same discomforts. Why live here if one could live in Petersburg or abroad?

And one would have thought it would be nothing for a rich man like him

to make a good road instead of this bad one, to avoid enduring this misery

and seeing the despair on the faces of his coachman and Semyon; but he

only laughed, and apparently did not mind, and wanted no better life. He

was kind, soft, naive, and he did not understand this coarse life, just as at

the examination he did not know the prayers. He subscribed nothing to the

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND OTHER STORIES

schools but globes, and genuinely regarded himself as a useful person and

a prominent worker in the cause of popular education. And what use were

his globes here?

"Hold on, Vassilyevna!" said Semyon.

The cart lurched violently and was on the point of upsetting;

something heavy rolled on to Marya Vassilyevna's feet -- it was her parcel

of purchases. There was a steep ascent uphill through the clay; here in the

winding ditches rivulets were gurgling. The water seemed to have gnawed

away the road; and how could one get along here! The horses breathed

hard. Hanov got out of his carriage and walked at the side of the road in

his long overcoat. He was hot.

"What a road!" he said, and laughed again. "It would soon smash up

one's carriage."

"Nobody obliges you to drive about in such weather," said Semyon

surlily. "You should stay at home."

"I am dull at home, grandfather. I don't like staying at home."

Beside old Semyon he looked graceful and vigorous, but yet in his

walk there was something just perceptible which betrayed in him a being

already touched by decay, weak, and on the road to ruin. And all at once

there was a whiff of spirits in the wood. Marya Vassilyevna was filled with

dread and pity for this man going to his ruin for no visible cause or reason,

and it came into her mind that if she had been his wife or sister she would

have devoted her wh ole life to saving him from ruin. His wife! Life was

so ordered that here he was living in his great house alone, and she was

living in a God-forsaken village alone, and yet for some reason the mere

thought that he and she might be close to one another and equals seemed

impossible and absurd. In reality, life was arranged and human relations

were complicated so utterly beyond all understanding that when one

thought about it one felt uncanny and one's heart sank.

"And it is beyond all understanding," she thought, "why God gives

beauty, this graciousness, and sad, sweet eyes to weak, unlucky, useless

people -- why they are so charming."

"Here we must turn off to the right," said Hanov, getting into his

carriage. "Good-by! I wish you all things good!"

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND OTHER STORIES

And again she thought of her pupils, of the examination, of the

watchman, of the School Council; and when the wind brought the sound

of the retreating carriage these thoughts were mingled with others. She

longed to think of beautiful eyes, of love, of the happiness which would

never be. . . .

His wife? It was cold in the morning, there was no one to heat the

stove, the watchman disappeared; the children came in as soon as it was

light, bringing in snow and mud and making a noise: it was all so

inconvenient, so comfortless. Her abode consisted of one little room and

the kitchen close by. Her head ached every day after her work, and after

dinner she had heart-burn. She had to collect money from the school-

children for wood and for the watchman, and to give it to the school

guardian, and then to entreat him -- that overfed, insolent peasant -- for

God's sake to send her wood. And at night she dreamed of examinations,

peasants, snowdrifts. And this life was making her grow old and coarse,

making her ugly, angular, and awkward, as though she were made of lead.

She was always afraid, and she would get up from her seat and not venture

to sit down in the presence of a member of the Zemstvo or the school

guardian. And she used formal, deferential expressions when she spoke of

any one of them. And no one thought her attractive, and life was passing

drearily, without affection, without friendly sympathy, without interesting

acquaintances. How awful it would have been in her position if she had

fallen in love!

"Hold on, Vassilyevna!"

Again a sharp ascent uphill. . . .

She had become a schoolmistress from necessity, without feeling any

vocation for it; and she had never thought of a vocation, of serving the

cause of enlightenment; and it always seemed to her that what was most

important in her work was not the children, nor enlightenment, but the

examinations. And what time had she for thinking of vocation, of serving

the cause of enlightenment? Teachers, badly paid doctors, and their

assistants, with their terribly hard work, have not even the comfort of

thinking that they are serving an idea or the people, as their heads are

always stuffed with thoughts of their daily bread, of wood for the fire, of

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND OTHER STORIES

bad roads, of illnesses. It is a hard-working, an uninteresting life, and only

silent, patient cart-horses like Mary Vassilyevna could put up with it for

long; the lively, nervous, impressionable people who talked about vocation

and serving the idea were soon weary of it and gave up the work.

Semyon kept picking out the driest and shortest way, first by a

meadow, then by the backs of the village huts; but in one place the

peasants would not let them pass, in another it was the priest's land and

they could not cross it, in another Ivan Ionov had bought a plot from the

landowner and had dug a ditch round it. They kept having to turn back.

They reached Nizhneye Gorodistche. Near the tavern on the dung-

strewn earth, where the snow was still lying, there stood wagons that had

brought great bottles of crude sulphuric acid. 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

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND OTHER STORIES

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 SCHOOLMISTRESS AND OTHER STORIES

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, I think."

"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

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND OTHER STORIES

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. On the little

platform between two first-class carriages a lady was standing, and Marya

Vassilyevna glanced at her as she passed. Her mother! What a resemblance!

Her mother had had just such luxuriant hair, just such a brow and bend of

the head. And with amazing distinctness, for the first time in those thirteen

years, there rose before her mind a vivid picture of her mother, her father,

her brother, their flat in Moscow, the aquarium with little fish, everything

to the tiniest detail; she heard the sound of the piano, her father's voice;

she felt as she had been then, young, good-looking, well-dressed, in a

bright warm room among her own people. A feeling of joy and happiness

suddenly came over her, she pressed her hands to her temples in an

ecstacy, and called softly, beseechingly:

"Mother!"

And she began crying, she did not know why. Just at that instant

Hanov drove up with his team of four horses, and seeing him she imagined

happiness such as she had never had, and smiled and nodded to him as an

equal and a friend, and it seemed to her that her happiness, her triumph,

was glowing in the sky and on all sides, in the windows and on the trees.

Her father and mother had never died, she had never been a schoolmistress,

it was a long, tedious, strange dream, and now she had awakened. . . .

"Vassilyevna, get in!"

And at once it all vanished. The barrier was slowly raised. Marya

Vassilyevna, shivering and numb with cold, got into the cart. The carriage

with the four horses crossed the railway line; Semyon followed it. The

signalman took off his cap.

"And here is Vyazovye. Here we are."

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