The Last and the First

CHAPTER ONE
On the morning of 20th September 1928,
between nine and ten, three events occurred
that set the stage for this tale. Alexei Ivanovich Shaibin,
one of its many heroes, turned up at the Gorbatovs’;
Vasya, the Gorbatov son, off spring of Stepan
Vasilievich and Vera Kirillovna and stepbrother of
Ilya Stepanovich, received a letter from Paris, from his
friend Adolf Kellerman, with important news about
Vasya’s father; and fi nally, a poor wayfarer and his
guide arrived at the Gorbatovs’ farm in a broad valley
of the Vaucluse.
No one knew this man’s name. Who was he? What
road had led him to his present wanderings? He had
passed through here the previous year, in the spring,
and he was already known in the surrounding area; at
that time he was still sighted and walked alone, an old
Astrakhan cap pulled to his eyes, sending up white
dust and bowing to those he met. He had spoken with
Ilya and with Vera Kirillovna herself for a long time;
he’d drunk, had dinner, and spent the night. But
neither Vasya nor his sister Marianna saw the wayfarer
the next morning. He had left at dawn, blessing the
house, the orchard, and the cowshed where the oxen
slept, and the attic where Ilya slept. Later, people said
he’d gone west, but more likely he’d gone southwest,
past Toulouse, to see the Cossacks who had settled in
those parts.
Now he was blind, and that same Astrakhan cap
had slipped over his shaggy eyebrows. A dark blue scar
ran across his face, and he had no beard growing on
his cheeks; you could tell a regimental doctor had once
mended his face in haste, slapping together the torn
pieces of his no longer young, swarthy skin. He was
tall and ominously thin, and his military trousers
sported red patches in many places—possibly scraps
from someone else’s service trousers, but French, trousers
that had once known the defense of Verdun. The
wayfarer walked with his harsh withered hand resting
on the shoulder of his guide, a black-eyed girl of about
twelve whose name was Anyuta.
They stopped at the gate and the old man took off
his cap. The girl looked over the low stone wall. There
she saw an orchard, a vegetable plot, and a house with
outbuildings partially hidden by stocky willows. In the
silence and cool of the morning, the house stood low,
burned by the sun over the long summer, with a northfacing
porch and squat asparagus shoots, while farther
away, past the dark blue shadow of moribund cypresses,
plowed fi elds spread out, ready for winter crops.
This was a human habitation created not in
struggle with nature but at one with it. The sun was
already high in the untroubled sky, and birds fl ew
swiftly in its gleam, like short, darting needles sewing
through it.
Vasya and Marianna went over to the gate, even
though they were up to their ears in work; they pushed
back their round straw hats, which were as hard as tin,
and their hands were covered in dirt.
“You could have sung something,” Marianna said.
“Where have you come from?” She began examining
Anyuta, her long colorful skirt and the narrow ribbon
tied around her head.
The wayfarer made a low, unhurried bow.
“From the Dordogne, gentle lady,” he said. “We
are on our way south, from the Dordogne to the
Siagne River, to hot climes, to see good people, and in
the spring back to our own people, for the summer.
And there—God will provide. People know us.”
Vasya came closer, his face bathed in sweat.
“But what are you going there for?” he asked.
Anyuta gave him a frightened look. Her heart
started pounding for fear they would have to leave
without seeing the person they’d come to see, for the
sake of whom they’d made a detour from the highway,
past the river and mill. How can these people ask!
How dare they! she thought.
“We walk, my dear boy,” the wayfarer replied,
“because we’re too old and blind to work. We go to
good people’s homes to eat and have conversations
with good people, and we do not complain of our
Lord God.”
Marianna shrugged lightly and grinned.
“Why do you speak so oddly? We were told you
were an educated man, or else a priest.”
Anyuta rushed to the old man in despair.
“Granddad, can we go? Granddad?” she whispered,
tugging on his sleeve. “Let’s go, dear Granddad.
We can come some other time!”
The beggar put his hand on her shoulder but did
not go where she was pulling him. He took two steps
toward the wall, making a deep rut in the road dust
with his staff .
“They told you wrong, my good lady,” he replied,
and his micaceous eyes fl ashed. “I am no priest. Nor
was I a doctor or an engineer. Allow us to sit on your
little porch. I know in your part of the world porches
always look into the shade, and if Vera Kirillovna can
fi nd a little water for us, Anyuta and I would be very
grateful.”
And he bowed abruptly at the waist.
Marianna opened the gate, and the wayfarer
passed between her and Vasya, Anyuta leading him.
He walked majestically, without that grim fussiness so
often characteristic of the blind. They passed slowly
between the vegetable beds toward the house; from
time to time the beggar lifted his right hand from
Anyuta’s thin shoulder and made a fl uid cross over the
beds, and the house, and the bent pear trees’ smeared
trunks. A sack hung motionlessly from his shoulder;
the sack was military, like his trousers. No one knew
this man’s name.
Marianna watched him go, grinned again, and
leaned over the shoots poking out of the earth.
“Come on, let’s go, let’s listen,” Vasya said, “or
does nothing have anything to do with you anymore?”
He wiped his wet face with his sleeve and looked at
her expectantly.
“No, it doesn’t,” Marianna replied reluctantly.
“There’s nothing for me to hear. But you go on.”
Something stirred in Vasya’s sleepy face; his gaze
slid down Marianna’s back, her black gathered skirt,
her wooden shoes.
“I’ve just had a letter from Adolf,” he said sullenly.
“Has that nothing to do with you?”
Marianna turned her merry, high-cheekboned face
toward him.
“You mean he’s summoning you?”
“Yes. He writes about Father. Old Kellerman has
come and wants a meeting with me. Father’s been
found, and he has an important post.”
Marianna clapped her hands and gave her brother
a frightened look.
“Ah, that Gorbatov!” she exclaimed. “He lets us
know through Kellerman. He wants to lure you there!”
Vasya sat down beside her and put an arm around
his knees.
“It’s time for me to go,” he said fi rmly. “Father is
calling, demanding that at least one of us return. At
fi rst old Kellerman was going to demand Adolf get
Ilya, but Adolf told him fl at out that was impossible.
Whereas I . . . I’ve been wanting to go there for a
whole year, and Adolf has summoned me. He writes
that my papers can be in order in two days.”
“A whole year!” Marianna said slowly.
“I never tried to pretend otherwise. Mama knows
it, and so does Ilya. I just can’t here. My path takes me
home, to Father, and this is the goal Kellerman and I
share.” He dropped his head. “I know that Kellerman
is trying to get in Father’s good graces, but does that
matter, Marianna? I might have gone even without
this.”
“No, you wouldn’t!”
“I don’t know. It’s impossible for me here. Father’s
working with Kellerman there and despises our settling
here. I’m going. I’ll have money, I’ll have the life I
want. I didn’t choose this one. And you know, it’s
essential to me—I mean, roots are absolutely
essential.”
“Ilya says we should have roots in the air.”
“Ilya’s always going to say something you don’t
know how to answer. But there, Father’s a big shot. He
sent Kellerman to Paris on business and he’s going
back in a month. You have to understand. I’ve been
waiting a whole year for this, waiting for Gorbatov to
turn up and summon me. Adolf has worn me down!”
“He’s the one who won you over, and he’s the one
sending you after your roots. He’s a scoundrel, your
Adolf, and Gorbatov’s a fi ne one! To lure you away, to
tempt you . . . Oh, Vasya, dear Vasya, what an automaton
you are, my God! If I were Ilya I would lock you
in the attic and go to Paris myself and demand that
Kellerman back off . If they don’t leave you in peace—
someone should lodge a complaint. There’s manure to
shovel here and you’re leaving!”