The Witch | Page 6

on the
feather mattress, and sniffing angrily, turned with his face to the wall.
Soon he felt a draught of cold air on his back. The door creaked and the
tall figure of a man, plastered over with snow from head to foot,
appeared in the doorway. Behind him could be seen a second figure as
white.
"Am I to bring in the bags?" asked the second in a hoarse bass voice.
"You can't leave them there." Saying this, the first figure began untying
his hood, but gave it up, and pulling it off impatiently with his cap,
angrily flung it near the stove. Then taking off his greatcoat, he threw
that down beside it, and, without saying good-evening, began pacing up
and down the hut.
He was a fair-haired, young postman wearing a shabby uniform and
black rusty-looking high boots. After warming himself by walking to
and fro, he sat down at the table, stretched out his muddy feet towards
the sacks and leaned his chin on his fist. His pale face, reddened in
places by the cold, still bore vivid traces of the pain and terror he had
just been through. Though distorted by anger and bearing traces of
recent suffering, physical and moral, it was handsome in spite of the
melting snow on the eyebrows, moustaches, and short beard.
"It's a dog's life!" muttered the postman, looking round the walls and
seeming hardly able to believe that he was in the warmth. "We were
nearly lost! If it had not been for your light, I don't know what would
have happened. Goodness only knows when it will all be over! There's
no end to this dog's life! Where have we come?" he asked, dropping his
voice and raising his eyes to the sexton's wife.
"To the Gulyaevsky Hill on General Kalinovsky's estate," she answered,
startled and blushing.
"Do you hear, Stepan?" The postman turned to the driver, who was
wedged in the doorway with a huge mail-bag on his shoulders. "We've
got to Gulyaevsky Hill."
"Yes . . . we're a long way out." Jerking out these words like a hoarse
sigh, the driver went out and soon after returned with another bag, then
went out once more and this time brought the postman's sword on a big

belt, of the pattern of that long flat blade with which Judith is portrayed
by the bedside of Holofernes in cheap woodcuts. Laying the bags along
the wall, he went out into the outer room, sat down there and lighted his
pipe.
"Perhaps you'd like some tea after your journey?" Raissa inquired.
"How can we sit drinking tea?" said the postman, frowning. "We must
make haste and get warm, and then set off, or we shall be late for the
mail train. We'll stay ten minutes and then get on our way. Only be so
good as to show us the way."
"What an infliction it is, this weather!" sighed Raissa.
"H'm, yes. . . . Who may you be?"
"We? We live here, by the church. . . . We belong to the clergy. . . .
There lies my husband. Savely, get up and say good-evening! This used
to be a separate parish till eighteen months ago. Of course, when the
gentry lived here there were more people, and it was worth while to
have the services. But now the gentry have gone, and I need not tell
you there's nothing for the clergy to live on. The nearest village is
Markovka, and that's over three miles away. Savely is on the retired list
now, and has got the watchman's job; he has to look after the
church. . . ."
And the postman was immediately informed that if Savely were to go
to the General's lady and ask her for a letter to the bishop, he would be
given a good berth. "But he doesn't go to the General's lady because he
is lazy and afraid of people. We belong to the clergy all the same . . ."
added Raissa.
"What do you live on?" asked the postman.
"There's a kitchen garden and a meadow belonging to the church. Only
we don't get much from that," sighed Raissa. "The old skinflint, Father
Nikodim, from the next village celebrates here on St. Nicolas' Day in
the winter and on St. Nicolas' Day in the summer, and for that he takes
almost all the crops for himself. There's no one to stick up for us!"
"You are lying," Savely growled hoarsely. "Father Nikodim is a saintly
soul, a luminary of the Church; and if he does take it, it's the
regulation!"
"You've a cross one!" said the postman, with a grin. "Have you been
married long?"
"It was three years ago the last Sunday before Lent. My father