The forest was turning a golden yellow. The ripened reeds bent warily over the Don side marshes. Blending with the dusk, an early autumnal, drowsy, azure haze enwrapped the village. He gazed at the Don, the chalky ridge of hills, the forest lurking in a lilac haze beyond the river, and the steppe. At the turn beyond the cross-roads the fine outline of the wayside shrine was silhouetted against the sky
Pantaleimon’s ears caught the hardly audible sound of the wheels and the yapping of dogs. Two wagonettes turned out of the square into the street. In the first sat Miron with his wife at his side: opposite them was granddad Grishaka in a new uniform, wearing his cross of Saint George and his medals. Mitka drove, sitting carelessly on the box, and not troubling to show the foaming horses his whip.
Pantaleimon’s threw open the gate, and the two wagonettes drove into the yard. Illinichna sailed down the porch, the hem of her dress trailing in the dust.
‘Of your kindness, dear friends! Do our poor hut the honour of entering.’ She bent her corpulent waist in a bow.
His head on one side, Pantaleimon flung open his arms and welcomed them: ‘We humbly invite you to come in !
He called for the horses to be unharnessed and went towards the newcomers. After exchanging greetings they followed their host and hostess into the best room, were a crowd of already half-intoxicated guests was sitting around the table. Soon after their arrival the newly married couple returned from the church. As they entered Pantaleimon poured out a glass of vodka, tears standing in hi eyes.
“Well, Miron Gregorievitch, here’s to our children ! May their life be filled with good, as ours has been. May they live happily, and enjoy the best of health.’
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry
Monday, August 31, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Melekho farm was right at the end of Tantak village.
The Melekho farm was right at the end of Tantak village.
The gate of the cattle yard opened northward towards the Don. A steep, sixty foot slope between chalky, grass grown banks, and there was the shore. A pearly drift of mussels shells, a grey, broken edging of a shingle, and then - the steely blue rippling surface of the Don, seething beneath the wind. To the east, beyond the willow wattle fence of the threshing floor, was the Hetman’s high way, greyish, wormwood scrub, vivid brown, hoof trodden knotgrass, a shrine standing at the fork of the road, and then the steppe, enveloped in a shifting mirage. To the south a chalky range of hills. On the west the street, crossing the square and running towards the leas.
The Cossack Prokoffey Melekhov returned to the village during the last war with Turkey. He brought back a wife – a little woman wrapped from head to foot in a shawl. She kept her face covered, and rarely revealed her yearning eyes. The silken shawl was redolent of strange, aromatic perfumes; its rainbow hued patterns aroused the jealousy of the peasant women. The captive Turkish woman did not get on well with Prokoffey’s relations and ere long old Melekov gave his son his portion, The old man never got over the disgrace of the separation, and all his life he refused to set foot inside his son’s hut.
Prokpffey speedily made shift for himself; carpenters built him a hut, he himself fenced in the cattle yard, and in the early autumn he took his bowed , foreign wife to her new home. He walked with her through the village, behind the cart laden with their wordly goods. Everybody from the oldest to the youngest rushed into the street. The Cossacks laughed discreetly into their beards, the women passed vociferous remarks to one another, a swarm of unwashed Cossack lads called after Prokoffey. But with overcoat unbuttoned he walked slowly along as though over newly ploughed furrows, squeezing his wife’s fragile wrist in his own enormous swarthy palm, defiantly bearing his lint white, unkempt head. Only the wens below his cheekbones swelled and quivered and the sweat stood out between his stony brows.
Thence forth he went but rarely into the village, and was never to be seen even at the market. He lived a secluded life in his solitary hut by the Don. Strange stories began to be told of him in the village. The boys who pastured the calves beyond the meadow road declared that of an evening, as the light was dying, they had seen Prokoffey carrying his wife in his arms as far as the Tartar mound. He would seat her, with her back to an ancient weather beaten, porous rock, on the crest of the mound, he would sit down at her side, and they would gaze fixedly across the steppe. They would gaze until the sunset had faded and then Prokoffey would wrap his wife in his coat and carry her back to home. The village was lost in conjecture, seeking an explanation for such astonishing behaviour. The women gossiped so much that they had not time to hunt for their fleas. Rumour was rife about Prokoffey’ wife also; some declared that she was of an entrancing beauty; others maintained the contrary. The matter was set at rest when one of the most venturesome of the women, the soldier’s wife Maura, ran along to Prokoffey on the pretext of getting some leaven: Prokoffey crawled into the cellar for the leaven, and Maura had time to notice that Prokoffey’s Turkish conquest was a perfect fright.
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry
The gate of the cattle yard opened northward towards the Don. A steep, sixty foot slope between chalky, grass grown banks, and there was the shore. A pearly drift of mussels shells, a grey, broken edging of a shingle, and then - the steely blue rippling surface of the Don, seething beneath the wind. To the east, beyond the willow wattle fence of the threshing floor, was the Hetman’s high way, greyish, wormwood scrub, vivid brown, hoof trodden knotgrass, a shrine standing at the fork of the road, and then the steppe, enveloped in a shifting mirage. To the south a chalky range of hills. On the west the street, crossing the square and running towards the leas.
The Cossack Prokoffey Melekhov returned to the village during the last war with Turkey. He brought back a wife – a little woman wrapped from head to foot in a shawl. She kept her face covered, and rarely revealed her yearning eyes. The silken shawl was redolent of strange, aromatic perfumes; its rainbow hued patterns aroused the jealousy of the peasant women. The captive Turkish woman did not get on well with Prokoffey’s relations and ere long old Melekov gave his son his portion, The old man never got over the disgrace of the separation, and all his life he refused to set foot inside his son’s hut.
Prokpffey speedily made shift for himself; carpenters built him a hut, he himself fenced in the cattle yard, and in the early autumn he took his bowed , foreign wife to her new home. He walked with her through the village, behind the cart laden with their wordly goods. Everybody from the oldest to the youngest rushed into the street. The Cossacks laughed discreetly into their beards, the women passed vociferous remarks to one another, a swarm of unwashed Cossack lads called after Prokoffey. But with overcoat unbuttoned he walked slowly along as though over newly ploughed furrows, squeezing his wife’s fragile wrist in his own enormous swarthy palm, defiantly bearing his lint white, unkempt head. Only the wens below his cheekbones swelled and quivered and the sweat stood out between his stony brows.
Thence forth he went but rarely into the village, and was never to be seen even at the market. He lived a secluded life in his solitary hut by the Don. Strange stories began to be told of him in the village. The boys who pastured the calves beyond the meadow road declared that of an evening, as the light was dying, they had seen Prokoffey carrying his wife in his arms as far as the Tartar mound. He would seat her, with her back to an ancient weather beaten, porous rock, on the crest of the mound, he would sit down at her side, and they would gaze fixedly across the steppe. They would gaze until the sunset had faded and then Prokoffey would wrap his wife in his coat and carry her back to home. The village was lost in conjecture, seeking an explanation for such astonishing behaviour. The women gossiped so much that they had not time to hunt for their fleas. Rumour was rife about Prokoffey’ wife also; some declared that she was of an entrancing beauty; others maintained the contrary. The matter was set at rest when one of the most venturesome of the women, the soldier’s wife Maura, ran along to Prokoffey on the pretext of getting some leaven: Prokoffey crawled into the cellar for the leaven, and Maura had time to notice that Prokoffey’s Turkish conquest was a perfect fright.
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry
Saturday, August 15, 2009
The smith thrust himself away from the sill
Clearing his throat, the smith thrust himself away from the sill with his shoulders the villagers opened a path for him, and with a deliberate rolling gate he went up to the chairman’s table, saying as he went.
‘I haven’t joined so far, it’s true, but I’ll join now. Seeing that you’re not joining. Yakov Lurich. I’ve got to join. But if you’d put in an application today I’d have mine back. There isn’t room for you and me in the one party. You and I belong to different parties…
Ostronov made no comment , an uncertain smile hovered on his lips. But Shaly went up to the table, met Davidod’s beaming welcoming gaze and, holding out application scribbled on a small sheet of old paper, said.
I’ve got no one to recommend me. I’ll have to get myself out of that somehow. Which of you will support, me lads? Write it down for me.
But Davidod was already writing his recommendation in a hurried ,sprawling hand. Then Nagulnov took over the pen..
So Ippolit Shaly also was accepted unanimously as a candidate for party membership. After the vote had been taken the members of the Gremyachy Communist Group stood up and clapped, and everybody in the meeting also stood up and clapped raggedly, awkwardly, with their work worn calloused hands.
Shaly stood blinking, struggling with his feelings. But when Ramiotznov whispered into his ear.: ‘You ought to say something, something that move the people, Ippolit,’ the old man obstinately shook his head.
‘There is no point in wasting words. And besides, I haven’t any words of that kind inmy pocket. Look how they’re clapping. It strikes me they understand already without any words from me.
From the book “Harvest on the Don” by Mikhail Sholokhov (translated from the Russian by H.C.Stevens)
‘I haven’t joined so far, it’s true, but I’ll join now. Seeing that you’re not joining. Yakov Lurich. I’ve got to join. But if you’d put in an application today I’d have mine back. There isn’t room for you and me in the one party. You and I belong to different parties…
Ostronov made no comment , an uncertain smile hovered on his lips. But Shaly went up to the table, met Davidod’s beaming welcoming gaze and, holding out application scribbled on a small sheet of old paper, said.
I’ve got no one to recommend me. I’ll have to get myself out of that somehow. Which of you will support, me lads? Write it down for me.
But Davidod was already writing his recommendation in a hurried ,sprawling hand. Then Nagulnov took over the pen..
So Ippolit Shaly also was accepted unanimously as a candidate for party membership. After the vote had been taken the members of the Gremyachy Communist Group stood up and clapped, and everybody in the meeting also stood up and clapped raggedly, awkwardly, with their work worn calloused hands.
Shaly stood blinking, struggling with his feelings. But when Ramiotznov whispered into his ear.: ‘You ought to say something, something that move the people, Ippolit,’ the old man obstinately shook his head.
‘There is no point in wasting words. And besides, I haven’t any words of that kind inmy pocket. Look how they’re clapping. It strikes me they understand already without any words from me.
From the book “Harvest on the Don” by Mikhail Sholokhov (translated from the Russian by H.C.Stevens)
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
At sunset, when he reached the end of the furrow
At sunset, when he reached the end of the furrow Davidod unharnessed the oxen
And untied the reins from their horns. He sat down on the grass edging the furrows, wiped the sweat from his brow with his jacket sleeve, rolled a cigarette with trembling hands and only then he realized how terribly tired he was . His back was aching, he had a queer, twitching sensation behind his knees and his hands shook as if he were an old man.
‘Shall we find the oxen again at dawn ? ‘he asked Varvara.
She stood facing him on the upturned soil. Her small feet in worn, overlarge shoes were sunk up to the ankle in the crumbling earth. Pushing the dusty grey kerchief back from her face, she answered.
‘Oh, we’ll find them: they won’t go far at night.
Davidod closed his eyes and smoked greedily. He wanted to avoid looking at the girl. But she stood ’beaming with a happy and weary smile, and said quietly.
‘You’ve worm me out and the oxen too. You don’t rest enough’
‘I’ve worn myself right out,’ he said grumpily.
‘You should take more rests. Daddy Kondrat seems to rest quite a lot, he gives the oxen a chance to breathe, yet he always ploughs more land than anyone else. You’ve worn yourself out because you’re not used to it…’She wanted to add,’ my dear, ’but took alarm at the thought and pressed her lips firmly together.
‘That’s true; I haven’t got used to it yet, ’he agreed.
From the book “Harvest on the Don” by Mikhail Sholokhov (translated from the Russian by H.C.Stevens)
And untied the reins from their horns. He sat down on the grass edging the furrows, wiped the sweat from his brow with his jacket sleeve, rolled a cigarette with trembling hands and only then he realized how terribly tired he was . His back was aching, he had a queer, twitching sensation behind his knees and his hands shook as if he were an old man.
‘Shall we find the oxen again at dawn ? ‘he asked Varvara.
She stood facing him on the upturned soil. Her small feet in worn, overlarge shoes were sunk up to the ankle in the crumbling earth. Pushing the dusty grey kerchief back from her face, she answered.
‘Oh, we’ll find them: they won’t go far at night.
Davidod closed his eyes and smoked greedily. He wanted to avoid looking at the girl. But she stood ’beaming with a happy and weary smile, and said quietly.
‘You’ve worm me out and the oxen too. You don’t rest enough’
‘I’ve worn myself right out,’ he said grumpily.
‘You should take more rests. Daddy Kondrat seems to rest quite a lot, he gives the oxen a chance to breathe, yet he always ploughs more land than anyone else. You’ve worn yourself out because you’re not used to it…’She wanted to add,’ my dear, ’but took alarm at the thought and pressed her lips firmly together.
‘That’s true; I haven’t got used to it yet, ’he agreed.
From the book “Harvest on the Don” by Mikhail Sholokhov (translated from the Russian by H.C.Stevens)
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