After you've had your fun, you're tuckered out. Then you're starving, like you hadn't eaten for three years. Well, come on now, what did you cook up, woman? And she says: Oh, Bene-dikt, where oh where are you off to now, leaving me alone? I'm ready for some more frolicking. Can't tire that woman out. She's a firestorm.
No, woman, we've had all our frolicking, give me some food, something pickled, noodles, kvas, rusht, everything. I'll eat and then I'll run, or else my stove will go out.
Don't worry about your stove, I'll give you coals! And it's true, she'll feed you, and wrap up a pie for you to take home, and put some coals in a fire pot for you.
Sometimes Benedikt would read her poems, if Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, had made up something about the woman business. He's a real ladies' man himself, that Fyodor Kuzmich -no doubt about it.
The flame's ablaze, it doesn't smoke,
But will it last for long?
She never ever spares me,
She spends me, spends me gone.
That's right! And there's another one:
I want to be bold, I want to be a scoffer, I want to tear the clothes right off her.
Go ahead and tear them off if you feel like it-who's to stop you? That used to surprise Benedikt: who would ever say a word to Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, the Greatest Murza, Long May He Live? Go on and rip to your heart's content. The master is the boss. But now that he'd seen him in the flesh, well, he might have to think it over: after all, at Fyodor Kuzmich's height you couldn't even jump high enough to reach a woman. So he must be complaining. As if to say, I can't manage on my own, help me out!
But one time these poems screwed everything up. Benedikt copied out a poem, a particularly, how to put it, bawdy, lustful, one.
No, I do not hold that stormy pleasure dear!
That's the way Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, put it. Benedikt was surprised: Why doesn't he hold it dear? Is he under the weather? Is he feeling poorly? But then at the end Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, explained that he'd decided to try the woman business a wild, brand-new sort of way:
You lie in silence, heeding ne'er a sound, You burn so bright, and brighter, brighter still, Until, at last, you share my flame against your will.
Benedikt wanted so bad to find out what it was that the Greatest Murza, Long May He Live, had cooked up, that he committed Freethinking. He copied out an extra scroll for himself, hid it in his sleeve, and later ran off to Marfushka and read her the poem. He made her a proposition: well, let's try it together. You plop down and lie there like a log, not heeding anything, but you have to really do it, just like we agreed… And I'll get all het up over you. And we'll see what these high-falutin ideas are all about. All right? Right.
That's what they decided. But it didn't work. Marfushka did everything just as agreed, just as she was told, not a peep, her arms along her sides, her heels together, her tiptoes apart. She didn't grab Benedikt or tickle him, and she didn't wiggle or wriggle around. But no burning brighter still ever happened the way it said, and there wasn't any flame sharing either-hunh-she just lay there like a sack of potatoes. All evening. And there wasn't really any flame, for that matter. Benedikt fussed and fiddled, but for some reason he wilted, soured, gave up, shrugged his shoulders, found his hat, slammed the door, and went home, and that was the whole story. But Marfushka got mad, she chased him, cussing and shouting. He shouted back. She shouted back again. They fought, tore each other's hair out. A couple of weeks later they made up again, but it wasn't quite the same. That old spark, so to speak, was gone.
So, he went to Kapitolinka for the same business, and to Crooked Vera. Glashka-Kudlashka invited him, and a lot of others. And now here you had Varvara Lukinishna asking around. He could go to see her, but she's awfully scary looking. What if she's got that fringe all over her body?
But all this woman's business-he'd visit and forget about it. It just didn't stay in his head. It's another story when a vision sticks to you, a marvelous image, a luminous mirage-that's how Olenka began to seem to Benedikt… You're lying down on the bed, smoking rusht, and she-there she is, close by, giggling… You reach out-and she's not there! Just air! She's not there-and there she is again. Gracious!
… Maybe he should go and court her. What about that? Court her? Go right up and say: So you see, Olenka sweetie pie, it's this way, my gorgeous beauty. I want you to be my blushing bride, my lawful wedded wife, to say I do right at the altar. Be my missus! To have and to hold. We'll live happily ever after!… What else do people say in this situation?… Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. We'll be happy as the day is long!
Why not! Even though her family are noble bigwigs-they ride in a sleigh. Even though she has a rabbit coat, there don't seem to be any suitors around her. She must be picky. Modest. But she does look at Benedikt. She looks-and blushes.
When Benedikt recovered from his fever and returned to work, Olenka lit up. She shone all over, like a candle; you could just take her, stick her in a holder, and she'd light up any darkness all the way around.
He had to think this thing through.
LIUDI
The February blizzards had passed. The March storms blew in. Heavenly streams poured down, piercing the snow. It looked like someone had punctured it and blackened it with stone nails. The earth showed through in some places. Last year's rubbish surfaced on all the streets, in all the yards. Swift rivers flowed, foamy and murky, carrying the rubbish from the hills to the flats, bringing out the stench from the settlement. Then, suddenly, up high, blue showed through. Clean, cold clouds ran rapidly across it, the wind blew, bare branches swayed, hurrying spring along. It was raw and bright; if you didn't tuck your hands into your sleeves they'd turn all red from the cold. But Benedikt felt fine and happy.
The earth underfoot squelched. The clay was impassable. You can't travel in a sleigh or a cart, but the Murzas still want to ride, don't they? They'd not be caught walking on foot-it doesn't suit their rank. You see the Degenerators kneading the clay mud with their felt boots, hauling the sleighs; they pull with all their might, cussing up a storm, but the sleighs won't budge. The Murza lashes them: Pull! They curse him. Such a hullabaloo. In short: spring!
Then it would freeze up again, there'd be a piercing cold day; a fine snow would fall, and the bladders in the windows would be covered with hoarfrost.
And while Benedikt lay in bed with a fever, Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, wrote a new decree:
DECREE Now hear this. Since I am Fyodor Kuzmich Kablukov, Glory to me, the Greatest Murza, Long May I Live, Seckletary and Academishun and Hero and Ship Captain, and Carpenter, and seeing as how I am constantly worrying about the people, I command:
Oh, and there's something else I remembered, I'd completely forgotten it since I was so busy with state affairs:
The Eighth of March is also a Holiday, International Women's Day.
This Holiday isn't a day off.
That means you have to go to work, but you can take it easy.
Women's Day means like a Woman's Holiday.
On this day you have to honor and respect all women since they are Wife and Mother and Grandmother and Niece and any other Little Girls and respect all of them.
On this Holiday don't give them a thrashing or a licking, they don't have to do all the usual things, but Wife and Mother and Grandmother and Niece and any other Little Girls should get up earlier in the morning and bake pies, pancakes and all sorts of things, wash everything clean, sweep the floors and polish the benches, carry the water from the well, wash out the underwear and outerwear, and whoever has rugs or mats they should beat them all well or else I know you, there'll be so much dust in the izba you'll have to hold your nose. She should chop wood for the bathhouse, light the fire and scrub herself all over. Set the table with bliny and a mountain of all kinds of snacks. Maybe there's some leftovers from New Year's you can put out on the table.