CHAPTER V

The father and son were seated in the hut opposite each other, and were drinking vodka, which the son had brought to conciliate the elder man, and to prevent them being bored in each other's company.

Sereja had told Jakoff that his father was angry with him because of Malva, and that he had threatened to beat Malva till she was half dead. The young woman had been told of this threat, and that was why she had not yielded to Jakoff. Sereja had mischievously misled him.

"He'll punish you for your larks. He'll pull your ears till they are half-a-yard long. You had better not get in his way!"

This red-headed, disagreeable fellow's chaff provoked in Jakoff a sharp feeling of resentment against his father ... and against Malva, with whom he could not get a bit further. Sometimes her eyes seemed to lead him on, sometimes they looked sad, and then the desire within him pained him to an extent that became exasperation.

Jakoff went to see his father. He looked upon him as an obstacle in his path, which it was impossible to get over, or to push on one side. But feeling himself as strong as his adversary, Jakoff met his eyes with a look which seemed to say—"Touch me if you dare!"

They had each already taken two glasses, without having exchanged a word, excepting some ordinary remarks about the life at the fisheries. Alone, in the midst of the sea, they were accumulating within themselves hatred, and both of them knew that very soon this hatred would burst out and flame forth.

The matting of the hut swayed in the wind, the bark of which it was built creaked, the red rag at the top of the mast was murmuring something. All these sounds were like a timid, endless, and uncertain lisping of a prayer. But the waves murmured—free and unmoved.

"And Sereja, does he still get drunk?" asked Vassili in a harsh voice.

"He is drunk every evening," replied Jakoff, pouring out some more vodka for his father.

"He'll come to no good! This is what a free and easy life leads to.... And you also, you will become like him."

Jakoff did not like Sereja, and he replied there-fore—

"I shall never become like him."

"No?" said Vassili, frowning. "I know what I am talking about ... How long have you been here? Already two months! You must soon be thinking of going back. And how much money have you saved?"

He swallowed with a look of discontent the vodka which his son had poured out for him, and taking his beard in his hand he tugged at it so hard that his head shook.

"I have not been able to save money in such a short time!" Jakoff argued with reason.

"If that's the case, you had better not stay here; go back to the village!"

Jakoff smiled.

"Why these grimaces?" cried Vassili in a threatening voice, vexed with the calmness shown by his son. "Your father is talking to you, and you laugh. You are in too much of a hurry to think yourself free! You will have to get back into harness."

Jakoff poured himself out some vodka, and drank it These coarse remarks of his father offended him; but he kept his temper, hiding his thought and not wishing to drive his father to fury. He began to feel frightened before this harsh, severe presence.

And Vassili, noticing that his son had drunk alone without filling his father's glass, grew angrier still, though he retained an appearance of calmness.

"Your father tells you to go home, and you laugh in his face! All right!... I'll speak to you in a different tone.... Ask for your money on Saturday and ... be off ... back to the village! Do you hear?"

"I shall not go," said Jakoff firmly.

"What?" howled Vassili; and leaning his two hands on the barrel, he got up. "Am I talking to you, or not? Dog that you are I howling against your father!... You have forgotten that I can do what I like with you; you have forgotten that? Eh?"

His lips trembled, his face was convulsed; two great veins swelled out on his temples. "I have forgotten nothing," said Jakoff in a low voice, without looking at his father. "And you, have you forgotten nothing?"

"It's not your place to preach morality to me; I will break you in pieces!..."

Jakoff dodged his father's threatening hand, and feeling a savage hatred rising within him, he said with clinched teeth—

"Don't touch me! We are not in the village...."

"Silence! I am your father, wherever you are...."

"Here you can't have me beaten with birch-rods. Here it is different!" Jakoff spoke sneeringly, his face close to his father's.

And he rose slowly.

They stood there opposite each other. Vassili with bloodshot eyes, his head stretched forward, his hands clinched, breathed heavily into his son's face his vodka-laden breath; and Jakoff crouched back, was watching his father's movements, ready to parry his blows, apparently calm, but inwardly raging and sweating. Between them was the barrel which served as table.

"You think I won't strike you?" cried Vassili in a hoarse voice, arching his back like a cat prepared to spring.

"Here we are all equals; you are a workman, and so am I."

"That's all you know."

"Yes, that's what I know. Why do you attack me? You think that I don't understand?... It's you who began...."

Vassili shouted and raised his arm so rapidly that Jakoff had not time to fall back. The blow fell on his head; he staggered, ground his teeth in the furious face of his father, who was again threatening him.

"Wait a moment!" he cried, clinching his fists.

"Wait yourself!"

"Leave me alone, I tell you."

"Ah! that's the way you speak to your father? ... your father?... your father?..."

They were close together, and their legs were entangled in the empty bags, the log, and the overturned barrel Protecting himself as best he could against his father's blows, Jakoff, pale and sweating, his face darkened, his teeth set firm, his eyes flashing like a wolfs, retired slowly, whilst his father pressed forward towards him, gesticulating ferociously, blind with rage, wildly distorted; in his anger his hair stood up like that of a wild boar.

"Stop now ... That's enough ... leave off," cried Jakoff, cold and terrible, as he emerged from the hut.

His father yelled and came on again, but his blows only met Jakoff's fists.

"Take that, and that!"

Jakoff, who knew himself now to be the stronger and the more agile, led his father on.

"Just wait a moment!"

But Jakoff jumped on one side and ran towards the sea.

Vassili rushed after him with head down, and arms stretched out, but he stumbled over some obstacle, and fell, with his chest on the ground. He rose rapidly to his knees, and then sat down, resting his hands on the sand. He was completely exhausted by the struggle, and he howled piteously with unappeased rage, and with the bitter consciousness of his feebleness.

"Curse you!" he cried, stretching his neck out in Jakoff's direction, and shaking the froth from his trembling lips.

Jakoff was leaning against a boat, and watching him narrowly. With one hand he was rubbing his injured head. One of his shirt-sleeves hung by a thread, his collar also was in rags, and his white moist chest shone in the sun as if he had been rubbed with oil. He was feeling contempt for his father; he had thought him so strong, and now he saw him overcome and in a deplorable state, seated on the sand, shaking his fists, and Jakoff smiled condescendingly with the wounding smile of the strong over the weak.

"May the lightning strike you!... Curse you again and again!" Vassili shouted his curses so loud that Jakoff turned involuntarily towards the fisheries, as if he thought that the desperate shouting could be heard there. But over there was nothing but waves and sunlight He spat, and remarked—

"Call, call louder! Who are you going to frighten?... And if there has been something between us I'll tell you at once and make an end of it...."

"Hold your tongue! Don't let me see you any more! Go away!" cried Vassili.

"I shall not go to the village.... I shall spend the winter here," said Jakoff, without paying any attention to his father's shouts, though he watched his every movement "One is better here.... I quite understand that.... I am not a fool. Work is less hard here, and there is more liberty.... There you would be always ordering me about but here, just try it on!"

He put his thumb to his nose, and laughed a quiet laugh, but in such a way that Vassili once more seized with fury bounded to his feet, and seizing hold of an oar shouted—

"That's the way you treat your father?... Ah! I will kill you!" But when, mad with rage, he reached the boat, Jakoff was already far away. He ran on, and the tom sleeve of his shirt floated in the breeze behind him.

Vassili threw the oar after his son, but did not succeed in hitting him. Having exhausted his strength he let himself fall at the side of the boat, and tore the wood with his nails, whilst his son called out to him in the distance—

"What, arn't you ashamed of yourself? You are getting old, and you put yourself into this state for a woman!... I'm not going back to the village.... I've had enough of it ... Go back yourself! ... You've nothing to do here!"

"Jakoff, hold your tongue!" shouted Vassili; and his voice rose above that of Jakoff's. "I shall kill you.... Get away with you!"

But Jakoff was walking away now, and laughing. Vassili watched him with furious eyes. Now he was getting smaller; his legs seemed to be hidden in the sand ... half his body had disappeared ... now his shoulders ... and now his head.... He was no longer to be seen. But some minutes afterwards, at a few paces from the spot where he had disappeared, his head showed once more, then his shoulders, then all his body.... He looked quite small. He was turning round and saying some-thing—

"Curse you!... Curse you!" cried Vassili.

The son made a gesture with his hand, and continued to walk away till he was hidden by a sandhill.

Vassili looked out in that same direction for a long time, till his back hurt him from sitting in such an uncomfortable attitude—half crouched down against the boat, the palms of his hands resting on the sand. Cramped and aching all over, he rose and staggered, for his limbs pained him. His belt had got pushed up under his arms, he unfastened it with his stiff fingers, looked at it and threw it on the sand. Then he went towards his hut, but stopped as he reached a hollow in the ground, remembering that it was there that he had fallen, and that if it had not been for that he might have caught his son.

In the hut everything was in disorder. Vassili looked round for the bottle of vodka, and finding it among the sacks, he picked it up, with difficulty withdrew the cork, and placing the neck of the bottle in his mouth he tried to drink.... But the bottle knocked against his teeth, and the liquid ran out over his beard and his chest The alcohol tasted as flat as water. Everything seemed to turn round in Vassili's head; his heart felt heavy, his back hurt him.

"I am old.... That's what's the matter!" he said out loud. And he threw himself on the sand at the door of the hut. Before him lay the vast sea, sighing idly, full of strength and of beauty. The waves were laughing as they always did noisily and light-heartedly. Vassili contemplated the water for a long time, and recalled the covetous words of his son—

"If only that were all land, rich black land that could be ploughed!" An acute feeling of weariness invaded the peasant's soul. He rubbed his chest hard, and sighed deeply. His head fell forward, and his back bent as if an immense weight were crushing him. A spasm seemed to seize his throat He coughed and made the sign of the cross, looking up to the sky. Some terrible thought seemed to overwhelm him.

Because for a lost girl he had abandoned his wife with whom he had lived honestly for more than fifteen years, the Lord had punished him through the revolt of his son. Yes, Lord!...

His son had mocked him, and had tom his heart Killing was too good for him after what he had done against the soul of his father.... And all that for a light woman! And he, old already, had become entangled with her! In his sin he had forgotten his wife and his son....

And now the Lord in His just anger reminded him of his sin, making use of his son to strike the father's heart with a well-deserved punishment. Yes, Lord!...

Vassili remained seated, making the sign of the cross, and blinking his eyes to get rid of the tears which blinded him.

And the sun sank Into the sea, and the red twilight faded out of the sky. A cool wind came to caress the peasant's face, which was bathed In tears. Plunged in thoughts of repentance, he remained there till he fell asleep a short time before dawn.