Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak [284]
“After a time, maybe long, maybe short, Auntie Marfusha and I went to bed, we hear Udaloy neighing under the window and our own cart driving into the yard. It was a bit early for that. So. Auntie Marfusha lit a lamp, threw on a bed jacket, and, not waiting for daddy to knock, lifted the latch.
“She lifts the latch, and there’s no daddy on the doorstep, but a stranger, a dark and scary muzhik, and he says: ‘Show me,’ he says, ‘where the money for the cow is. I took care of your husband in the forest,’ he says, ‘but I’ll spare you, woman, if you tell me where the money is. And if you don’t tell, you know what’ll happen, don’t blame me. You’d better not dawdle. I’ve got no time to hang around.’
“Oh, saints alive, dear comrades, what a state we were in, put yourselves in our position! We tremble, more dead than alive, can’t speak from fright, such a horror! First of all, he’s murdered Vassily Afanasievich, he says so, cut him down with an axe. Secondly, we’re alone in the house with a robber, we’ve got a robber here, it’s clear he’s a robber.
“Here, obviously, Auntie Marfusha went right off her head, her heart broke for her husband. But we had to hold out, not show anything.
“Auntie Marfusha started by throwing herself at his feet. Have mercy, she says, don’t destroy us, I have no idea about this money, what are you talking about, it’s the first I hear of it. But the cursed fellow wasn’t so simple as to be handled just by talk. And suddenly the thought popped into her head how to outwit him. ‘Well, all right,’ she says, ‘have it your way. The cash,’ she says, ‘is down below. I’ll open the trapdoor, and you,’ she says, ‘can go down.’ But the devil sees through her cleverness. ‘No,’ he says, ‘it’s your house, you hunt it up. Go yourself,’ he says. ‘Whether it’s down below or on the roof, as long as I get the money. Only,’ he says, ‘remember, don’t try to cheat me, tricks go down bad with me.’
“And she to him: ‘Good heavens, don’t be so suspicious. I’d gladly go, but I’m too clumsy. Better,’ she says, ‘if I stand on the top step and hold the light for you. Don’t be afraid, for your assurance I’ll send my daughter down with you’—me, that is.
“Oh, saints alive, dear comrades, think for yourselves what I felt when I heard that! Well, I thought, that’s it. My eyes went dim, I felt I was falling, my legs gave way under me.
“But again the villain wouldn’t be played for a fool, he looked at the two of us out of the corner of his eye, squinted, twisted his whole mouth and bared his teeth, meaning, there’s no way you’re going to trick me. He saw she didn’t care about me, so I wasn’t her own blood, and he grabbed Petenka with one hand, and with the other opened the trapdoor—‘give me light,’ he says, and with Petenka he goes down the ladder into the cellar.
“And I think Auntie Marfusha was already balmy then, didn’t understand anything, was already touched in the head. As soon as the villain went down below with Petenka, she slammed the lid, that is, the trapdoor, back in place and locked it, and started moving a heavy trunk onto it, nodding to me, help, I can’t do it, it’s too heavy. She moved it, and sat herself down on the trunk, overjoyed, fool that she was. Just as she sat down on the trunk, the robber started shouting from inside, and there was a bang-bang under the floor, meaning you’d better let me out, or I’ll finish off your Petenka right now. We couldn’t make out the words through the thick boards, but the sense wasn’t in the words. He roared worse than a beast of the forest, to put fear into us with his big voice. Yes, he shouts, now it’ll be the end of your Petenka. But she doesn’t understand a thing. She sits and laughs and winks at me. Shout away, every dog has his day, but I’m sitting on the trunk and the key’s clutched in my fist. I try to get at Auntie Marfusha this way and that. I shout in her ear, push her, want to dump her off the trunk. We must open the trapdoor and save Petenka. Too much for me! Could