Fifty-Two Stories

“The forests as well…,” the shepherd repeated. “They get cut down, they burn, they dry up, and new ones don’t grow. What does grow gets cut down at once; today it’s there, and tomorrow, you’ll see, people cut it down—and it goes on endlessly, till there’s nothing left. I, my good man, have been tending the communal flock since the freedom,³ and before that I was a shepherd for my masters, tended in this same place, and in all my life I don’t remember a summer day when I wasn’t here. And all this while I’ve been observing God’s works. I’ve kept an eye out in my time, brother, and so now I understand that all plants are in decline. Take rye, or some vegetable, or some flower, it’s all headed the same way.”

“But people have become better,” the manager observed.

“Better how?”

“Smarter.”

“Smarter, maybe so, man, but what’s the good of it? What use is intelligence to people who are doomed? You can perish without any intelligence. What’s intelligence to a hunter if there’s no game? The way I reason, God gave man intelligence, but took away his strength. Folk have become weak, extremely weak. Take me, for instance…I’m barely worth a penny, I’m the lowest peasant in the whole village, but even so, man, I’ve got strength. Look, I’m past sixty, and I tend all day long, and I also look after horses during the night for twenty kopecks, and I don’t sleep and I don’t get cold. My son’s smarter than me, but put him in my place and tomorrow he’ll ask for a raise or go to the doctor. So there. I eat nothing but bread, because give us this day our daily bread, and my father ate nothing but bread, and the same with my grandfather, but today’s peasant wants tea, and vodka, and white rolls, and to sleep all night, and to go to the doctor, and all sorts of indulgence. And why? He’s grown weak, he’s got no strength to bear up. He’d be glad not to sleep, but his eyes stick shut—nothing to be done.”

“True enough,” Meliton agreed. “Today’s peasant is worthless.”

“Let’s say it straight out, it’s getting worse year by year. If we consider masters now, they’ve weakened worse than the peasants. The masters nowadays are ahead in everything, they know things that shouldn’t even be known, but what’s the good of it? You look at him and feel such pity…Skinny, puny, like some Hungarian or Frenchman, no importance in him, no look—a master in name only. The poor dear has no position, no work, and there’s no telling what he wants. Either it’s sitting with a rod fishing, or lying belly-up reading a book, or hanging around with peasants and saying all sorts of things, and then going hungry and getting hired as a clerk. So he lives a piddling life, and it doesn’t occur to him to set himself up in some real work. In the old days the masters were half of them generals, but nowadays—sheer trash!”

“They’ve grown really poor,” said Meliton.

“They’ve grown poor because God took their strength away. You can’t go against God.”

Meliton again fixed his eyes on one spot. Having thought a little, he sighed, the way staid, reasonable people sigh, shook his head, and said:

“And why so? We’ve sinned a lot, we’ve forgotten God…and it means the time has come for everything to end. That is to say, the world can’t last forever—enough’s enough.”

The shepherd sighed and, as if wishing to break off the unpleasant conversation, stepped away from the birch and began to count the cows with his eyes.

“Hyah-yah-yah!” he shouted. “Hyah-yah-yah! Ah, there’s no keeping you back! The fiend’s driven you into the gorse! Hoo-loo-loo!”

He made an angry face and went into the bushes to gather the herd. Meliton got up and walked slowly along the edge of the forest. He looked under his feet and thought; he still wanted to recall at least something that had not been touched by death. Bright patches again glided along the slanted streaks of rain; they leaped up to the treetops and faded among the wet leaves. Damka found a hedgehog under a bush and, wishing to draw her master’s attention, raised a whiny barking.

“Did you have the eclipse or not?” the shepherd cried from the bushes.

“We did!” replied Meliton.

“So. Folk everywhere are complaining that it happened. Meaning, dear brother, that there’s disorder in the heavens, too! It’s not for nothing…Hyah-yah-yah! Hyah!”