The people said the harvest had completely failed the year before. Those who had been rich were ruined and had had to sell all they possessed; those of moderate means were left destitute, and those of the poor who had not left those Parts, wandered about begging, or starved at home in utter want. In the winter they had had to eat husks and goosefoot.
One night the old men stopped in a small village; they bought fifteen pounds of bread, slept there, and started before sunrise, to get well on their way before the heat of the day. When they had gone some eight miles, on coming to a stream they sat down, and, filling a bowl with water, they steeped some bread in it, and ate it. Then they changed their leg-bands, and rested for a while. Elisha took out his snuff-box. Efím shook his head at him.
‘How is it you don’t give up that nasty habit?’ said he.
Elisha waved his hand. ‘The evil habit is stronger than I,’ he said.
Presently they got up and went on. After walking for nearly another eight miles, they came to a large village and passed right through it. It had now grown hot. Elisha was tired out and wanted to rest and have a drink, but Efím did not stop. Efím was the better walker of the two, and Elisha found it hard to keep up with him.
‘If I could only have a drink,’ said he.
‘Well, have a drink,’ said Efím. ‘I don’t want any.’
Elisha stopped.
‘You go on,’ he said, ‘but I’ll just run in to the little hut there. I will catch you up in a moment.’
‘All right,’ said Efím, and he went on along the high road alone, while Elisha turned back to the hut.
It was a small hut plastered with clay, the bottom a dark colour, the top whitewashed; but the clay had crumbled away. Evidently it was long since it had been re-plastered, and the thatch was off the roof on one side.
The entrance to the hut was through the yard. Elisha entered the yard, and saw, lying close to a bank of earth that ran round the hut, a gaunt, beardless man with his shirt tucked into his trousers, as is the custom in Little Russia (In Great Russia the peasants let their shirt hang outside their trousers). The man must have lain down in the shade, but the sun had come round and now shone full on him. Though not asleep, he still lay there. Elisha called to him, and asked for a drink, but the man gave no answer.
‘He is either ill or unfriendly,’ thought Elisha; and going to the door he heard a child crying in the hut. He took hold of the ring that served as a door-handle, and knocked with it.
‘Hey, masters!’ he called. No answer. He knocked again with his staff.
‘Hey, Christians!’ Nothing stirred.
‘Hey, servants of God!’ Still no reply.
Elisha was about to turn away, when he thought ho heard a groan the other side of the door.
‘Dear me, some misfortune must have happened to the people? I had better have a look.’
And Elisha entered the hut.
IV
Elisha turned the ring; the door was not fastened. He opened it and went along up the narrow passage. The door into the dwelling-room was open. To the left was a brick oven; in front against the wall was an icon-stand (An icon (properly ikón) is a representation of God, Christ, an angel, or a saint, usually painted, enamelled, or embossed) and a table before it, by the table was a bench on which sat an old woman, bareheaded and wearing only a single garment. There she sat with her head resting on the table, and near her was a thin, wax-coloured boy, with a protruding stomach.
He was asking for something, pulling at her sleeve, and crying bitterly. Elisha entered. The air in the hut was very foul. He looked round, and saw a woman lying on the floor behind the oven: she lay flat on the ground with her eyes closed and her throat rattling, now stretching out a leg, now dragging it in, tossing from side to side; and the foul smell came from her. Evidently she could do nothing for herself and no one had been attending to her needs. The old woman lifted her head, and saw the stranger.
‘What do you want?’ said she.’ What do you want man? We have nothing.’
Elisha understood her, though she spoke in the Little-Russian dialect.
‘I came in for a drink of water, servant of God,’ he said.
‘There’s no one — no one — we have nothing to fetch it in. Go your way.’
Then Elisha asked:
‘Is there no one among you, then, well enough to attend to that woman?’
‘No, we have no one. My son is dying outside, and we are dying in here.’
The little boy had ceased crying when he saw the stranger, but when the old woman began to speak, he began again, and clutching hold of her sleeve cried:
‘Bread, Granny, bread.’
Elisha was about to question the old woman, when the man staggered into the hut. He came along the passage, clinging to the wall, but as he was entering the dwelling-room he fell in the corner near the threshold, and without trying to get up again to reach the bench, he began to speak in broken words. He brought out a word at a time, stopping to draw breath, and gasping.
‘Illness has seized us . . . ,’ said he, ‘and famine. He is dying . . . of hunger.’
And he motioned towards the boy, and began to sob.
Elisha jerked up the sack behind his shoulder and pulling the straps off his arms, put it on the floor. Then he lifted it on to the bench, and untied the strings. Having opened the sack, he took out a loaf of bread, and, cutting off a piece with his knife, handed it to the man. The man would not take it, but pointed to the little boy and to a little girl crouching behind the oven, as if to say:
‘Give it to them.’
Elisha held it out to the boy. When the boy smelt bread, he stretched out his arms, and seizing the slice with both his little hands, bit into it so that his nose disappeared in the chunk. The little girl came out from behind the oven and fixed her eyes on the bread. Elisha gave her also a slice. Then he cut off another piece and gave it to the old woman, and she too began munching it.
‘If only some water could be brought,’ she said, ‘their mouths are parched. I tried to fetch some water yesterday — or was it to-day — I can’t remember, but I fell down and could go no further, and the pail has remained there, unless some one has taken it.’
Elisha asked where the well was. The old woman told him. Elisha went out, found the pail, brought some water, and gave the people a drink. The children and the old woman ate some more bread with the water, but the man would not eat.
‘I cannot eat,’ he said.
All this time the younger woman did not show any consciousness, but continued to toss from side to side. Presently Elisha went to the village shop and bought some millet, salt, flour, and oil. He found an axe, chopped some wood, and made a fire. The little girl came and helped him. Then he boiled some soup, and gave the starving people a meal.
The man ate a little, the old woman had some too, and the little girl and boy licked the bowl clean, and then curled up and fell fast asleep in one another’s arms.
The man and the old woman then began telling Elisha how they had sunk to their present state.
‘We were poor enough before?’ said they, ‘but when the crops failed, what we gathered hardly lasted us through the autumn. We had nothing left by the time winter came, and had to beg from the neighbours and from any one we could. At first they gave, then they began to refuse. Some would have been glad enough to help us, but had nothing to give. And we were ashamed of asking: we were in debt all round, and owed money, and flour, and bread.’
‘I went to look for work,’ the man said, ‘but could find none. Everywhere people were offering to work merely for their own keep. One day you’d get a short job, and then you might spend two days looking for work.
Then the old woman and the girl went begging, further away. But they got very little; bread was so scarce. Still we scraped food together somehow, and hoped to struggle through till next harvest, but towards spring people ceased to give anything. And then this illness seized us. Things became worse and worse. One day we might have something to eat, and then nothing for two days. We began eating grass. Whether it was the grass, or what, made my wife ill, I don’t know. She could not keep on her legs, and I had no strength left, and there was nothing to help us to recovery.’
‘I struggled on alone for a while,’ said the old woman, ‘but at last I broke down too for want of food, and grew quite
