“In our town there was no opportunity to learn the necessary profession, and I went to another town. Passed the entrance exams, was assigned to the hostel. But I lived there for only 2 months, since it was virtually impossible to live there. The very next day all my best things were stolen from me, and of course, no one found anything. There were 5 people living in one room, and the food I bought was eaten by someone who and when. The last ones were impossible to find. There was no order, there were always absolutely strangers in the room, that is, those who came to the girls from our room. Cigarette smoke stood in a column in the air, laughter, music or quarrels. All this made me nervous and did not allow me to study. There was no rest at night either. Guys whistled under the windows not only to us, but also to our neighbors.
In a word, when my mother arrived with groceries and saw how I live, we decided with her that if I really want to get an education, then we need to find private housing or an apartment. We were unable to rent an apartment even for a high fee, but we managed to find a room in a private house. Although it took a whole hour to get to it by train, I was glad of that, just to get rid of the hated hostel.
The private room was inexpensive, clean, and the hostess was a neat and calm grandmother. In the evenings she offered me tea, apparently, she was bored alone in her, in general, not small, two-story house. At tea I politely answered her questions, and soon she learned that I was the only daughter of my parents. My mother worked as a school director, and my father worked as a manager.
To please the caring hostess, I several times offered her to do a general cleaning, and I will say, I did it with pleasure. I liked cleaning the wooden floor, dusting old dressers, wiping huge gilded and silver icons, near which blue and red glass lamps were always burning. It was clear that Grandmother Daria was a deeply religious person, as I often found her kneeling in front of the icons. She had so many icons that one wall of the house looked like a carpet woven from the most beautiful icons in silver and gold.
Although I was pampered at home, I knew from childhood that you shouldn't make noise when my mother checks the students' homework and prepares for tomorrow's lessons (she was still a teacher then). As a rule, at such times I would sit quietly and play with dolls or leaf through picture books. This respectful attitude to other people's work and to silence from childhood has forever remained in my character, that's why I tried not to make noise when Grandmother Daria prayed. All this she noticed and appreciated in her own way. Over time, she became very attached to me as the only close person.
Time passed, I studied and lived with Darya's grandmother for 3 years, and it just so happened that in the evening over tea I told her what happened during the day. That's how she found out that the first love had settled in my soul. Of course, I didn't tell her everything, because there are things that you don't tell anyone. I did not tell her that sometimes my beloved took the keys to his friend's apartment and that therefore I was expecting a child. I did not tell her about my grief either - upon learning that I was pregnant, Victor began to avoid me. But my suffering look did not escape the attentive gaze of my mistress. Trying once again to find out from me what is the reason for my worries, and realizing that I did not want to talk on this topic, Baba Dasha said:
- Of course, who am I to you, not my own mother, in order to reveal my secrets to me, but I'm not blind and I see how you are tormented. Look at yourself, only bones and bruises under the eyes. You would have told me, maybe I would have helped, otherwise you roar at night, you think I can't hear or see. After all, Lena, I have no one but you, I have survived everyone. I got used to you with my heart. Look, I wrote a will on you. Today the houses are dear, when you need to, you will sell my house, so my will will help you out. I picked up a copy of the will, saw my last name and first name and burst into tears, no longer hiding my girlish grief. Everything that tormented me threw everything out, lamenting like a simple woman.
- How can I be with pregnancy now? It's a shame to tell your parents. I left for a diploma, and I will bring a child instead of a diploma. Let my mother let her down, what it will be like for her - the headmaster, and at the very house, God knows what is happening: the child's daughter has walked up!
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After listening to me, grandmother Daria suddenly said:
- Everything is clear … no need to cry. Tomorrow he will come to you and call you in marriage. But only I have a condition, you will live with me. Don't leave me, baby, I'm so used to you. Promise me this, my little berry, and he will come to you tomorrow.
I stared at Baba Dasha: I was not moved by old age - flashed in my head. After all, I just told her that Viktor left me and that a week later he was having a wedding with Berestova Galka, that he could not see me and even hit me on the cheek for the last time when I clung to him, not letting go of me, begging to start all over again for the sake of the child that I will soon have!
But Baba Daria was already carrying the Bible and repeated:
- Swear, baby, that until I die, you will not leave me alone to die, and for that I will return your Vitka to you. If you have a husband and a father for a child, I will leave you a house, and money in Sberbank, and values that I have. Just wait a year, don't quit, I know how much I have left. After all, 79 years are measured out for me. Although, I could beg myself to live for another 20 years, but I don't want to smoke the sky and I don't want to disturb the saints with my requests for myself. After all, all my life I asked only for strangers. After all, my dear, I am a witch, in the present day a sorceress, and therefore I know everything and can do a lot. For 8 years I have been denying people their requests to prepare my soul and take a break from the hard work that I have had all my life. And I will help you. Swear, baby, on the Bible, and tomorrow he will call you to marry!
I can't say now: whether I was convinced by the confident tone of Baba Daria, which inspired in me the longed-for hope, the one that I had already completely lost, but I, like the last straw, grabbed the old Bible with both hands and began to kiss it and say, what if As soon as Victor marries me, I will not leave Darya until the last hour of my life!
Then she washed me with her own hand and wiped me with her hem. I don't know what exactly happened at that moment, but I became like a somnambulist. I moved as if in a dream, heard, understood, saw, but I was in someone's invisible will and power; there was a feeling that I was looking at myself from somewhere from the side: here I am following Baba Daria up the stairs into a room in which there are many candles and icons, now my hair is unraveling, my hair tickles on my bare back. I feel all this, but I am not ashamed of my nakedness; a state of complete peace and tranquility has come.
A heavy hand on the back of my head pushed me toward the mirror. I hear and make out the awkward, folding, and sometimes awkward words that Baba Dasha says in a quick half-whisper. Some of the words I remember: "Meet him who is walking or standing, take out his soul, pour out the blood from him, push him in his back, accompany everything to God's servant Elena."
Of course, this is not accurate. I do not fully remember what Baba Daria was saying behind my back. I only remember that then I was so embarrassed that I could not leave this room - there was no strength to go downstairs to my room, and Baba Darya laid me down on a small old-fashioned sofa.
In the morning I was fresh and full of energy, having breakfast, I went to college. Still approaching a familiar building, I saw Victor. He twisted his head, looking for me with his eyes. Having caught up with him, I stopped, and Victor, grabbing my hand, began to say that he realized that he loved only me, and if I did not forgive him, then everything would be over for him, since he cannot imagine his life without me. He persuaded me not to go to the institute that day, and by the evening we submitted an application to the registry office. I persuaded him that we would live with Baba Daria.
From that day on, a new stage began in my life. I was happy. One thing that hindered my happiness was nausea due to my pregnancy.
A month passed after the wedding, and my mother-in-law (we visited her about 2 times a week) began to persuade us to move to their apartment. Her arguments were reasonable: a baby will be born soon, there is always hot water in the apartment, there is no need to run to the toilet outside, which means that there will be less chance of getting cold in the cold chest. Again, the baby needs a constant temperature, and overnight the house cools down, and the like. In response to her words, I had nothing to argue, and my refusal looked like an obvious unwillingness to live with my mother-in-law, and this, you see, is insulting for her and for my husband. Everybody tried to persuade me: mother-in-law, father-in-law, husband, but I stubbornly refused. I could not tell them that I had sworn on the Bible to live with a woman I didn’t know. Probably no one would understand this!
Once, having come from the institute, I found my mother-in-law at my house. She was in the kitchen with Baba Daria. From her words, I understood that she had come to pick up my things and Viktor's things in a truck. And in fact, there was a truck on the street outside the house. Baba Daria called me into the room and began to whisper furiously that I must remember my oath given in the Bible. She said that because of me she broke her promise to God to pray for 9 years for the forgiveness of her sins, that she became an oath-apostate before the Lord, because she had pity on me, and now I must keep my word.
But I began to be annoyed by what Baba Daria was saying at that moment. My husband was with me, I am married. Why should I quarrel with my mother-in-law because of some kind of oath? After all, Daria herself did not keep her word either, it is true, because of me, but still she did not keep it!
I said words to Baba Daria that I probably shouldn't have said. I saw her clutching her heart with her hand after the words I said, but I did not want to give up, I had already decided to leave her house. Everything I said to her was said in an icy tone. I chose the words more painfully, so as to break off our relationship with her once and for all:
“What makes you think, old witch, that I have to guard you in this spider's nest? The stench in this filthy house makes me sick. I have to take the train here every day, so that you fucking queen can enjoy being not alone. If she were kind, I wouldn't be sitting alone now. Don't count on me, I'm not going to watch you, wait for you to bend. Maybe you will live another 10 years, and I have to freeze my ass in the cold here with the child?
Something like this, or rather, much more sharply, I said to Baba Daria. She did not interrupt me, she listened with a kind of horror on her face, as if she saw something terrible. Then she raised her palms, brought them to her face and closed her eyes:
- God, you defiled an immortal soul for the sake of this ungrateful one.
Having said this, she changed at once. From a soft, smiling old woman, she reincarnated into some kind of steadfast. Even her voice changed:
- Well, look, I can not only feel sorry for, but I can punish. As you are with me, so I am with you!
Saying that, she turned around and walked away. I began to collect things, my mother-in-law came in and began to help. We got into the car, no one came out to see us off. The loaded truck was not going very fast. My mother-in-law and I were sitting in the cockpit. She took out a knot and began to untie it.
“Daria gave it to the track,” she said. - Let's see what's in there. She was offended, she probably did not come out to us. Well, okay, buy a cake with Vitya, go to her, talk, she softens.
Saying this, the mother-in-law untied the ends of the knot on the scarf that Baba Daria had given us for the journey.
A vague anxiety gradually began to seize me. I didn’t take my eyes off my mother-in-law’s fingers, watching her untie the knot. Finally she untied her handkerchief and we both screamed. The bundle contained a nest and a huge shaggy spider. For no apparent reason, the car shook and spun along the road. I woke up in the hospital a month later. During this time, my mother-in-law has already been buried. The driver survived. I lost my child too. After being discharged from the hospital, I went to Victor's apartment. For all the time he never visited me in the hospital. I found an excuse for him that he buried his mother, lost a child and this reason does not allow him to get out of depression. Perhaps he even got sick, I thought. But when I arrived, the door was opened for me by Galina Berestova, the one with whom he then wanted to marry, but Baba Daria and I prevented this.
You may not believe it, but it's true. I had absolutely no idea how I got back to Baba Darya. I don't remember how I rode in the train, I don't remember how long I stood at the gate of the house, but still I made up my mind and entered. There was no lock on the door. There was a note on the table:
“I knew you would come. I leave you an inheritance, everything I promised. I always keep my word. Only once in my life did I not hold back, and even then because of you, because I pitied you more than my immortal soul. I'm leaving for a monastery. The Lord is merciful, and I hope that in the last months of my life I will forgive my grave sin. And you live and know what I have done in my hearts "for the spider's nest." You will run back and forth through the rooms like a spider runs along its web. In every room you will find my reflection. It will remind you of the one who, for your sake, did not keep the word given to God. This corruption will last twenty-five years. You will grow old here without leaving your home, and if you do, it will not be long. The spider always returns to its nest and runs endlessly on the web. Wish I could see this and thathow will you then die alone in this spider's nest. But I am comforted by the thought that no master will want to help you, because it can cost him dearly. You will only find a crowned one, but there are very few like me. Goodbye and remember my lesson forever. Daria in the world."
After reading this note, I began to reread Daria's will. Then it suddenly seemed to me that there was someone in the room upstairs. I was not surprised that the door was not locked. Daria always said that if she didn’t want, no one would enter her house. Now, when I was alone in the house, I felt creepy, and I shouted:
- Who's there?
And I myself do not know why I began to go up to the upper room. When I got up, I realized that there was no one in the house. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a moving shadow, turned around and was stunned. Two Daria passed me. Then I heard how they called me from the next room, went there, but it was also empty there. Suddenly, two Daria rose from their knees from the wall with icons and walked past me. This went on for at least an hour.
I ran up and down the rooms and ran into her doubles everywhere. Why didn't I leave? I approached the door, but I could not leave: I was immediately called from any room, I was in a hurry for the call and again saw the silent doubles of Daria passing by me! And only when I had absolutely no food left, I could go out to buy groceries. As if someone knew about my needs. Then I, taking money from the chest, went to the store and, having bought food, almost ran back. I really became like a spider. I ran up and down the floors until exhaustion, then fell and fell asleep. The exception was those days that were considered the main church holidays. I realized this for the first time on Easter. I lay quietly, no one disturbed me. I learned that it was Easter day when I went to the store to buy bread. They sold baked cakes and eggs,and it was clear from the conversations. And on Trinity I also rested, my thoughts were clear, clear, as once.
“What if I go to church now, while Daria’s spell has released me? Maybe I will beg for God's help there,”I thought for the first time.
In the church I stood by the icon of the Savior, a woman came up to me and said:
- The Lord pointed me to you. You are heard. Until you have to return home, otherwise the web of cobwebs will not let you go for many years. For three days of Trinity I will read for you, and you live at the church. I will agree on this with the rector of the church. You will clean up, pray, but only do not go out for three days, and then your torment will stop.
For three days I lived at the church and only on the last day in the crowd of worshipers I saw two completely identical women, I saw them then for the last time.
I returned to my parents, everything is fine with me. She met a good man and got married. I gave birth to a daughter, and I named her Natasha, in honor of the one who helped me get out of the spider web.
E. Bondarchuk's story
N. Stepanova