utorak, 16. lipnja 2026.
It was a moonlight night in May, and the nightingales were singing, when the wife of Father Ignatius entered his chamber. Her countenance expressed suffering, and the little lamp she held in her hand trembled. Approaching her husband, she touched his shoulder, and managed to say between her sobs: “Father, let us go to Verochka!” Without turning his head, Father Ignatius glanced severely at his wife over the rims of his spectacles, and looked long and intently, till she waved her unoccupied hand and dropped on a low divan. “That one toward the other should be so pitiless!” she pronounced slowly, with emphasis on the final syllables, and her good plump face was distorted with a grimace of pain and exasperation, as if thus she would express what stern people they were—her husband and daughter. Father Ignatius smiled and arose. Closing his book, he took off his spectacles, put them in the case, and meditated. His long black beard, inwoven[Pg 146] with silver threads, lay dignified on his breast, and slowly heaved at every deep breath. “Well, let us go,” said he. Olga Stepanovna quickly arose and entreated in an appealing, timorous voice: “Only don’t revile her, Father! You know the sort she is.”
Vera’s chamber was in the attic, and the narrow, wooden stair bent and creaked under the heavy tread of Father Ignatius. Tall and ponderous, he bent his head to avoid striking the floor of the upper story, and frowned disdainfully when the white jacket of his wife brushed his face. Well he knew that nothing would come of their talk with Vera
“Why do you come?” asked Vera, raising a bared arm to her eyes. The other arm lay on top of a white summer blanket, hardly distinguishable from the fabric, so white, translucent, and cold was its aspect.
“Verochka——” began her mother, but, sobbing, she grew silent.
“Vera,” said her father, making an effort to soften his dry and hard voice—“Vera, tell us, what troubles you?”
Vera was silent.
“Vera, do not your mother and I deserve your[Pg 147] confidence? Do we not love you? And is there some one nearer to you than we? Tell us about your sorrow, and, take the word of an experienced old man, you’ll feel better for it. And we too. Look at your aged mother, how much she suffers!”
“Verochka!”
“And I——” The dry voice trembled, truly something had broken in it. “And I—do you think I find it easy? As if I did not see that some sorrow is gnawing at you—and what is it? And I, your father, do not know what it is. Do you think that right?”
Vera was silent. Father Ignatius very cautiously stroked his beard, as if afraid that his fingers would enmesh themselves involuntarily in it, and continued:
“Against my wish you went to St. Petersburg—did I pronounce a curse upon you, you who disobeyed me? Or did I deny you money? Or, perhaps, I have not been kind? Well, why, then, are you silent? There, you’ve had your St. Petersburg!”
Father Ignatius became silent, and there loomed before him an image of something huge, granite, and terrible, full of invisible dangers and of strange and indifferent people. And it was there that, alone and weak, his Vera had gone, and it was there they had lost her. An awful hatred[Pg 148] against that terrible and mysterious city arose in the soul of Father Ignatius, and an anger against his daughter, who was silent—obstinately silent.
“St. Petersburg has nothing to do with it,” said Vera morosely, and closed her eyes. “And nothing is the matter with me. Better go to bed, it is late.”
“Verochka, my child,” whimpered her mother, “do tell me!”
“ Akh, Mamma!” Vera impatiently interrupted her.
Father Ignatius sat down on a chair and laughed.
“Well, then, it’s nothing?” he inquired ironically.
“Father,” sharply ejaculated Vera, raising herself from the pillow, “you know that I love you and Mother. Well, I do feel a little weary. But that will pass. Do go to sleep, and I also wish to sleep. And to-morrow, or some other time, we’ll have a chat.”
Father Ignatius arose so impetuously that the chair hit the wall, and he took his wife’s hand.
“Let us go.”
“Verochka!”
“Let us go, I tell you!” shouted Father[Pg 149] Ignatius. “If she has forgotten God, shall we——”
Almost forcibly he led Olga Stepanovna out of the room, and when they descended the stairs, his wife, decreasing her gait, said in a harsh whisper:
“It was you, priest, who have made her such! From you she learned her ways. And you’ll answer for it. Akh, unhappy creature that I am!”
She burst into tears, and, as her vision grew dim, her foot, missing a step, would descend with a sudden jolt, as if she were eager to fall into some abyss which waited below.
From that day Father Ignatius ceased to speak to his daughter, but she seemed not to notice it. As before, she lay in her room, or walked about, continually with the palms of her hands wiping her eyes, as if they contained some irritating foreign substance. And, crushed between these two silent people, the jolly, fun-loving wife of the priest quailed and seemed lost, not knowing what to say or do.
Occasionally Vera took a stroll. A week after the interview she went out in the evening, as was her habit. She was not seen again alive, as that night she threw herself under the train, and it cut her in two.
Father Ignatius himself directed the funeral.[Pg 150] His wife was not present in church, for at the news of Vera’s death she was prostrated by a stroke. She lost control of her feet, hands, and tongue, and when the church bells rang out she lay motionless in the half-darkened room. She heard the people intone the chants as they issued out of church and passed the house, and she made an effort to raise her hand to make the sign of the cross, but her hand refused to obey; she wished to say, “Farewell, Vera!” but the tongue lay in her mouth huge and heavy. And her attitude was so calm that it gave one an impression of restfulness, or of sleep. Only, her eyes remained open.
At the funeral, in church, were many people who knew Father Ignatius, and many strangers. All bewailed Vera’s terrible death, and tried to detect in the movements and voice of Father Ignatius tokens of a deep sorrow. They did not love Father Ignatius, because of his severity and proud manners, his scorn of sinners, his unforgiving spirit, his envy and covetousness, his habit of utilizing every opportunity to extort money from his parishioners. They all wished to see him suffer, to see his spirit broken, to see him conscious in his two-fold guilt for the death of his daughter—as a cruel father and a bad priest—incapable of preserving his own flesh from sin.[Pg 151] They cast searching glances at him, and he, feeling these glances directed toward his back, made efforts to hold erect its broad and strong expanse, and his thoughts were not concerning his dead daughter, but concerning his own dignity.
“A hardened priest!” with a shake of his head said Karzenoff, a carpenter, to whom Father Ignatius owed five rubles for frames.
And thus, hard and erect, Father Ignatius reached the burial-ground; and in the same manner he returned. Only at the door of his wife’s chamber did his backbone relax a little, but this may have been due to the fact that the height of the door was insufficient to admit his tall figure. The change from broad daylight made it hard for him to distinguish the face of his wife, but, after scrutiny, he was astonished at its calmness, and because the eyes showed no tears. And there was neither anger nor sorrow in the eyes—they were dumb, though they kept silent with difficulty, reluctantly, as did the entire round and helpless body that pressed against the feather bedding.
“Well, how do you feel?” inquired Father Ignatius.
But the lips were dumb; the eyes too were silent. Father Ignatius laid his hand on her forehead; it was cold and moist, and Olga Stepanovna did not show in any way that she had[Pg 152] felt the contact of the hand. When Father Ignatius removed his hand there gazed at him, immobile, two deep gray eyes, from the dilated pupils seeming almost entirely dark, and there was neither sadness in them nor anger.
“I am going into my own room,” said Father Ignatius, who began to feel cold and terror.
He passed through the drawing-room, where, as usual, everything appeared neat and in order, and where, attired in white covers, stood tall chairs, like corpses in their shrouds. In one window hung an empty wire cage, with the door open.
“Nastasya,” shouted Father Ignatius. His own voice seemed to him coarse, and he felt ill at ease because he raised it to so high a pitch in these silent rooms, so soon after his daughter’s funeral.
“Nastasya!” he called more softly, “where is the canary?”
“It flew away, to be sure.”
“Why did you let it out?”
Nastasya began to weep, and, wiping her face with the edges of her calico headkerchief, said through her tears:
“It was my young mistress’s soul. Was it right to hold it?”
And it seemed to Father Ignatius that the[Pg 153] happy little yellow canary, always singing with side-tilted head, was actually the soul of Vera, and if it had not flown away it wouldn’t have been possible to say that Vera had died. He became even more incensed at the maid-servant and shouted:
“Off with you!”
And because Nastasya did not vanish on the instant he added:
“Fool!”
II
From the day of the funeral, silence reigned in the little house. It was not stillness, for stillness is merely the absence of sounds; it was silence, because it seemed that they who were silent could speak but would not. So thought Father Ignatius each time he entered his wife’s chamber and met that obstinate gaze, so heavy in its aspect that it seemed to transform the very air into lead, which bore down one’s head and spine. So thought he, examining his daughter’s music-sheets, which bore marks of her voice-work, and also her books and her portrait, which she had brought with her from St. Petersburg. Father Ignatius never deviated from the following order when scrutinizing the portrait: First, he would[Pg 154] gaze on the cheek upon which a strong light had been thrown by the painter; in his fancy he would see upon it a slight wound, which he had noticed on Vera’s cheek in death, and the source of which mystified him. More than once he meditated upon causes, and each time he reasoned that if it had been made by the train the entire skull would have been crushed, whereas the head of Vera remained wholly untouched.
It was possible that some one had done it with his foot when the body was being lifted, or accidentally with a finger-nail.
The details of Vera’s death, contemplated at length, taxed the strength of Father Ignatius, so that he would soon pass on to the eyes. These were dark, handsome, with long lashes that cast deep shadows beneath, causing the whites to seem particularly luminous, both eyes appearing to be inclosed in black mourning frames. A strange expression had been given them by the unknown but talented artist; it seemed as if in the space between the eyes and the object upon which they gazed lay a thin, transparent film. It resembled somewhat the effect made by an imperceptible layer of dust on the black top of a piano, softening the shine of polished wood. And no matter how Father Ignatius placed the portrait, the eyes insistently followed him; but there was no speech[Pg 155] in them, only silence; and this silence was so clear that it seemed it could be heard. Gradually Father Ignatius began to think that he heard silence.
Every morning after breakfast the priest would enter the drawing-room, take in at a rapid glance the empty cage and the other familiar objects, and, seating himself in the arm-chair, would close his eyes and listen to the silence of the house. There was something grotesque about this. The cage kept silence, stilly and tenderly, and in this silence were felt sorrow and tears and distant dead laughter. The silence of his wife, deepened by the walls, continued insistent, heavy as lead, and terrible, so terrible that on the hottest day Father Ignatius would be seized with cold shivers. Continuous and frigid as the grave, and mysterious as death, was the silence of his daughter. The silence itself seemed to share this suffering and struggled, as it were, with the terrible desire to pass into speech; something strong and cumbersome, as a machine, held it motionless, however, and stretched it out as a wire. And somewhere at the distant end, the wire would begin to agitate and resound subduedly, feebly, and plaintively. With joy, yet with terror, Father Ignatius would seize upon this engendered sound, and, resting with his arms upon the arm of the[Pg 156] chair, would lean his head forward, waiting for the sound to reach him. But it would break and pass into silence.
“How stupid!” muttered Father Ignatius angrily, arising from the chair, still erect and tall. Through the window he saw, suffused with sunlight, the street paved with round, even-sized stones, and, directly across, the stone wall of a long, windowless shed. On the corner stood a cab-driver, looking like a clay statue, and it was difficult to understand why he stood there, when for hours there was not a single passer-by.
III
Father Ignatius had occasion for considerable speech outside his house. There was talking to be done with the clergy, with the members of his flock, while officiating at ceremonies, sometimes with acquaintances at social evenings; yet, upon his return, he would feel invariably that the entire day he had been silent. This was due to the fact that with none of those people could he talk upon the matter which concerned him most, and upon which he would reflect each night: Why did Vera die?
Father Ignatius did not seem to realize that now this could not be known, and thought that[Pg 157] it was still possible to know. Each night—all his nights had become sleepless—he would re-experience that moment when he and his wife, at dead midnight, had stood near Vera’s bed, and he had entreated her: “Tell us!” And when in his recollection he would reach these words, the rest appeared to him not as it was in reality. His closed eyes, preserving in their darkness a live, undimmed picture of that night, saw how Vera raised herself in her bed, smiled, and tried to say something. But what was it she had tried to say? That unuttered word of Vera’s, which would have solved all, seemed so near that if one only had bent his ear and suppressed the beats of his heart, one could have heard it—and at the same time it was so infinitely, so hopelessly distant. Father Ignatius would arise from his bed, stretch forth his wringing hands, and cry:
“Vera!”
And he would be answered by silence.
One evening Father Ignatius entered the chamber of Olga Stepanovna, whom he had not come to see for a week, seated himself at her head, and, turning away from that insistent, heavy gaze, said:
“Mother, I wish to talk to you about Vera. Do you hear?”
Her eyes were silent, and Father Ignatius,[Pg 158] raising his voice, spoke sternly and powerfully, as he was accustomed to speak to penitents:
“I am aware that you are under the impression that I have been the cause of Vera’s death. Reflect, however: did I love her less than you loved her? You reason absurdly. I have been stern; did that prevent her from doing as she wished? I forfeited the dignity of a father, I humbly bent my neck, when she defied my malediction and departed—hence. And you—did you not plead with her to remain, did you not weep, old woman, until I commanded you to be silent? Did I beget cruelty in her? Did I not teach her about God, about humility, about love?”
Father Ignatius quickly glanced into the eyes of his wife, and turned away.
“What was there for me to do when she refused to reveal her sorrow? Did I not command her? Did I not entreat her? I suppose, in your opinion, I should have dropped on my knees before the girl, and cried like an old woman! How should I have known what was going on in her head! Cruel, heartless daughter!”
Father Ignatius came down on his knee with his fist.
“There was no love in her—that’s what! As far as I’m concerned, that’s settled, of course—I’m[Pg 159] a tyrant! Perhaps she loved you—you who wept and humbled yourself?”
Father Ignatius gave a hollow laugh.
“There’s love for you! And as a solace for you, what a death she chose! A cruel, ignominious death. She died in the dust, in the dirt—as a d-dog who is kicked in the jaw.”
The voice of Father Ignatius sounded low and hoarse:
“I feel ashamed! Ashamed to go out in the street! Ashamed before the altar! Ashamed before God! Cruel, undeserving daughter! Accurst in thy grave!”
When Father Ignatius glanced at his wife she was unconscious; she came to only after several hours. When she regained consciousness her eyes maintained their silence, and it was impossible to tell whether or not she remembered what Father Ignatius had said.
That very night—it was a moonlit, calm, warm, deathly still night in May—Father Ignatius, proceeding on his tiptoes so as not to be overheard by his wife and the sick-nurse, climbed up the stairs and entered Vera’s room. The window in the attic had remained closed since the death of Vera, and the air was dry and warm, with a light odor of burning that comes from heat generated during the day in the iron roof. Long[Pg 160] unvisited, an atmosphere of lifelessness and forsakenness permeated the apartment, while the timber of the the walls, and other objects gave forth a slight odor of active decay. The moonlight streamed in through the window, and its reflections on the white floor cast a dim light into the corners of the room, while the white, clean bed, with two pillows, one large and one small, seemed phantom-like and aërial. Father Ignatius opened the window, causing a considerable current of fresh air to pour into the room, smelling of dust, of the near-by river, and of the blooming linden. An indistinct sound as of voices in chorus also drifted in occasionally; evidently young people were rowing and singing.
Resembling a white phantom, Father Ignatius made his way noiselessly, in bare feet, to the empty bed, bent his knees, and fell face down on the pillows, embracing them—on that spot where Vera’s face should have been. Long he lay thus; the song grew louder, then died out; but he still lay there, while his long black hair spread over his shoulders and the bed.
The moon had changed its position, and the room grew darker, when Father Ignatius raised his head and murmured, charging his voice with the entire strength of his long-suppressed and unconscious love, and hearkening to his own[Pg 161] words, as if it were not he who was listening, but Vera.
“Vera, my daughter! Do you understand what you are to me, daughter? Little daughter! My heart, my blood, and my life. Your father—your old father—is already gray, and also feeble.”
The shoulders of Father Ignatius shook, and the entire burdened figure became convulsed. Suppressing his agitation, Father Ignatius murmured tenderly, as to an infant:
“Your old father entreats you. No, little Vera, he supplicates. He weeps. He never has wept before. Your sorrow, little child, your sufferings—they are also mine. Greater than mine.”
Father Ignatius shook his head.
“Greater, Verochka. What is death to an old man like me? But you—if you only knew how delicate and weak and timid you are! Do you recall how you bruised your finger once and the blood trickled and you cried a little? My child! I know that you love me, love me intensely. Every morning you kiss my hand. Tell me, do tell me, what grief troubles your little head, and I—with these hands—shall smother your grief. They are still strong, Vera, these hands.”
The hair of Father Ignatius shook.
“Tell me!”
[Pg 162]
Father Ignatius fixed his eyes on the wall, and wrung his hands.
“Tell me!”
Stillness prevailed in the room, and from afar was heard the prolonged, interrupted whistle of a locomotive.
Father Ignatius, gazing out of his dilated eyes, as if there had suddenly arisen before him the frightful phantom of the mutilated corpse, slowly raised himself from his knees, and, making an incredulous motion, reached for his head with his hand, with spread and tensely stiffened fingers. Making a step toward the door, Father Ignatius whispered brokenly:
“Tell me!”
And he was answered by silence.
IV
The next day, after an early and lonely dinner, Father Ignatius went to the graveyard, for the first time since his daughter’s death. It was warm, deserted, and still; it seemed more like a brilliantly clear night. Following habit, Father Ignatius straightened his back with effort, looked severely about him, and thought that he was the same as formerly; he was conscious neither of the new, terrible weakness in his legs, nor that[Pg 163] his long beard had become entirely white, as if a hard frost had hit it. The road to the graveyard led through a long, direct street, slightly on an upward incline, and at its termination loomed the arch of the graveyard gate, resembling a dark, perpetually open mouth, edged with glistening teeth.
Vera’s grave was situated in the depth of the grounds, where the sandy little pathways ended, and for a considerable time Father Ignatius was obliged to blunder along the narrow footpaths which led in a broken line between green mounds, forgotten and abandoned by all. Here and there appeared sloping tombstones, green with age, broken railings, and large, heavy stones planted in the ground, and seemingly crushing it with some cruel, ancient spite.
Near one such stone was the grave of Vera. It was covered with fresh turf, turned yellow; around, however, all was in bloom. The ash embraced the maple tree; and the widely spread hazel bush stretched out over the grave its bending branches with their downy, shaggy foliage. Sitting down on a neighboring grave and catching his breath, Father Ignatius looked around him, throwing a glance toward the cloudless expanse of sky, where in complete immobility hung the glowing sun disk—and here he felt only that deep,[Pg 164] incomparable stillness which reigns in graveyards, when the wind is absent and the slumbering foliage has ceased its rustling. And anew the thought came to Father Ignatius that this was not a stillness, but a silence. It extended to the very brick walls of the graveyard, crept over them, and occupied the town. And it terminated only—in those gray, obstinate, and persistently silent eyes.
Father Ignatius’s shoulders shivered, and he lowered his eyes upon the grave of Vera. He gazed long upon the little tufts of grass uprooted together with the earth from some open, windswept field and not successful in adapting themselves to a strange soil; he could not imagine that here, under this grass, only a few feet from him, lay Vera. And this nearness seemed incomprehensible, and brought confusion into the soul, and a strange agitation. She of whom Father Ignatius was accustomed to think as of one passed away forever into the dark depths of eternity was here, close by—and it was hard to understand that nevertheless she was no more and never again would be. And in the mind’s fancy of Father Ignatius it seemed that if he could only utter some word, which was almost upon his lips, or if he could make some sort of movement, Vera would issue forth from her grave and arise to the[Pg 165] same height and beauty that was once hers. And not alone would she arise, but all the corpses, intensely sensitive in their solemnly-cold silence.
Father Ignatius removed his wide-brimmed black hat, smoothed down his disarranged hair, and whispered:
“Vera!”
The fear that he might be overheard by a stranger made Father Ignatius feel ill at ease and caused him to look carefully around him as he stepped on the grave. No one was present, and this time he repeated loudly:
“Vera!”
It was the voice of an aged man, sharp and demanding, and it was strange that so powerfully expressed a desire should receive no response.
“Vera!”
Loudly and insistently the voice called, and when it relapsed into silence it seemed for a moment that somewhere from underneath came an incoherent answer. And Father Ignatius, clearing his ear of his long hair, pressed it to the rough, prickly turf.
“Vera, tell me!”
With terror, Father Ignatius felt pouring into his ear something cold as of the grave, which froze his marrow; Vera seemed to be speaking—speaking, however, with the same unbroken[Pg 166] silence. This feeling became more racking and terrible, and when Father Ignatius finally forced himself to wrench away his head, his face was as pale as that of a corpse, and he fancied that the entire atmosphere trembled and palpitated from a resounding silence, and that this terrible sea was being swept by a wild hurricane. The silence strangled him; with icy waves it rolled through his head and agitated the hair; it smote against his breast, which groaned under the blows. Trembling from head to foot, casting around him sharp and sudden glances, Father Ignatius slowly raised himself and with a prolonged and torturous effort attempted to straighten his spine and to give proud dignity to his trembling body. He succeeded in this. With measured protractedness, Father Ignatius shook the dirt from his knees, put on his hat, made the sign of the cross three times over the grave, and walked away with an even and firm gait, not recognizing, however, the familiar burial ground and losing his way.
“Well, here I’ve gone astray!” smiled Father Ignatius, halting at the branching of the footpaths.
He stood there for a moment, and, unreflecting, turned to the left, because it was impossible to stand and to wait. The silence drove him on. It arose from the green graves; it was the breath[Pg 167] issuing from the gray, melancholy crosses; in thin, stifling currents it came from all pores of the earth, satiated with the dead. Father Ignatius increased his stride. Dizzy, he circled the same paths, jumped over graves, stumbled across railings, clutching with his hands the prickly, metallic garlands, and turning the soft material of his dress into tatters. His sole thought was to escape. He fled from one place to another, and finally broke into a dead run, seeming very tall and unusual in the flowing cassock, and his hair streaming in the wind. A corpse arisen from the grave could not have frightened a passer-by more than this wild figure of a man, running and leaping, and waving his arms, his face distorted and insane, and the open mouth breathing with a dull, hoarse sound. With one long leap, Father Ignatius landed on a little street, at one end of which appeared the small church attached to the graveyard. At the entrance, on a low bench, dozed an old man, seemingly a distant pilgrim, and near him, assailing each other, were two quarreling old beggar women, filling the air with their oaths.
When Father Ignatius reached his home, it was already dusk, and there was light in Olga Stepanovna’s chamber. Not waiting to undress, or even to remove his hat, Father Ignatius, dusty[Pg 168] and tattered, approached his wife and fell on his knees.
“Mother ... Olga ... have pity on me!” he wept. “I shall go mad.”
He beat his head against the edge of the table and he wept with anguish, as one who was weeping for the first time. Then he raised his head, confident that a miracle would come to pass, that his wife would speak and would pity him.
“My love!”
With his entire big body he drew himself toward his wife—and met the gaze of those gray eyes. There was neither compassion in them, nor anger. It was possible his wife had forgiven him, but in her eyes there was neither pity nor anger. They were dumb and silent.
And silent was the entire dark, deserted house.
ponedjeljak, 15. lipnja 2026.
The forest was murmuring. There was always a murmuring in this forest, long-drawn, monotonous, like the undertones of a distant bell, like a faint song without words, like vague memories of the past. There was always a murmuring in the forest because it was a dense wood of ancient pines, untouched as yet by the axe and saw of the timber merchant. The tall, century-old trees with their mighty red-brown trunks stood in frowning ranks, proudly thrusting their green, interwoven tops aloft. The air under them was still and sweet with resin; bright ferns pierced the carpet of needles with which the ground was clothed, and superbly displayed their motionless, fringed foliage. Tall, green grass-blades had shot upward in the moist places, and there, too, white clover-heads drooped heavily, as if overcome with gentle languor. And always overhead, without a pause and without an end, droned the voice of the forest, the low sighing of the ancient pines.]But now these sighs had grown deeper and louder. I was riding along a woodland path, and although the sky was invisible, I knew, under the darkly frowning trees, that a storm was gathering overhead. The hour was late. A few last rays of sunlight were still filtering in here and there between the tree-trunks, but misty shadows had already begun to gather in the thickets. A thunder-storm was brewing for the night. I was forced to abandon all idea of continuing the chase that day, and could only think of reaching a night’s lodging before the storm broke. My horse struck his hoof against a bare root, snorted, and pricked his ears, harkening to the muffled impacts of the forest echo. Then of his own accord he turned his steps into the well-known path that led to the hut of the forest guard.
A dog barked. White plastered walls gleamed among the thinning tree-trunks, a blue wisp of smoke appeared, curling upward under the overshadowing branches, and a lop-sided cottage with a dilapidated roof stood before me, sheltering under a wall of ruddy tree-trunks. It seemed to have sunk down upon the ground, while the proud graceful pines nodded their heads, high, high above it. In the centre of the clearing stood two oak trees, huddling close to one another.
Here lived the foresters Zakhar and Maksim, the invariable companions of my hunting expeditions. But now they were evidently away from home, for[53] no one came out of the house at the barking of the great collie. Only their old grandfather with his bald head and his grey whiskers was sitting on a bench outside the door, braiding shoes of bast. The old man’s beard swept almost to his belt; his eyes were vague as if he were trying in vain to remember something.
“Good evening, daddy! Is any one at home?”
“Eh, hey,” mumbled the old man, shaking his head; “neither Zakhar nor Maksim is here and Motria has gone into the wood for the cow. The cow has run away; perhaps the bears have eaten her. And so there is no one in the cottage.”
“Well, well, never mind. I’ll sit here with you and wait.”
“Yes, sit down and wait!” the old man nodded, and watched me with dim, watery eyes as I tied my horse to the branch of one of the oaks. The old man was failing fast. He was nearly blind and his hands trembled.
“And who are you, lad?” he asked, as I sat down on the bench.
I was accustomed to hearing this question at every visit.
“Eh, hey; now I know, now I know,” said the old man, resuming his work on the shoe. “My old head is like a sieve; nothing stays in it now. I remember people who died a long time ago, oh, I remember them[54] well! But I forget new people. I have lived in this world a long time.”
“Have you lived in this forest long, daddy?”
“Eh, hey; a long time! When the Frenchmen came into the Tsar’s country I was here.”
“You have seen much in your day. You must have many stories to tell.”
The old man looked at me with surprise.
“And what would I have seen, lad? I have seen the forest. The forest murmurs night and day, winter and summer. One hundred years have I lived in this forest like that tree there without heeding the passage of time. And now I must go to my grave, and sometimes I can’t tell, myself, whether I have lived in this world or not. Eh, hey; yes, yes. Perhaps, after all, I have not lived at all.”
A corner of the dark cloud moved out over the clearing from behind the close-growing tree-tops, and the pines that stood about the clearing rocked in the first gusts of wind. The murmur of the forest swelled into a great resonant chord. The old man raised his head and listened.
“A storm is coming,” he said after a pause. “I know. Oi, oi! A storm will howl to-night, and will break the pines and tear them up by the roots. The Master of the forest will come out.”
“How do you know that, daddy?”
“Eh, hey; I know it! I know what the trees are saying. Trees know what fear is as well as we do.[55] There’s the aspen, a worthless tree that’s always getting broken to pieces. It trembles even when there is no wind. The pines in the forest sing and play, but if the wind rises ever so little they raise their voices and groan. This is nothing yet. There, listen to that! Although my eyes see badly, my ears can hear: that was an oak tree rustling. The oaks have been touched in the clearing. The storm is coming.”
And, as a matter of fact, the pair of low, gnarled oak trees that stood in the centre of the clearing, protected by the high wall of the forest, now waved their strong branches and gave forth a muffled rustling easily distinguishable from the clear, resonant notes of the pines.
“Eh, hey; do you hear that, lad?” asked the old man with a childishly cunning smile. “When the oak trees mutter like that, it means that the Master is coming out at night to break them. But no, he won’t break them! The oak is a strong tree, too strong even for the Master. Yes indeed!”
“What Master, daddy? You say yourself it is the storm that breaks them.”
The old man nodded his head with a crafty look.
“Eh, hey; I know that! They tell me there are some people in the world these days who don’t believe in anything. Yes indeed! But I have seen him as plainly as I see you now, and better, because my eyes are old now, and they were young then. Oi, oi! How well I could see when I was young!”
[56]“When did you see him, daddy? Tell me, do!”
“It was an evening just like this. The pines began to groan in the forest. First they sang and then they groaned: oh-ah-o-oh-a-h! And then they stopped, and then they began again louder and more pitifully than ever. Eh, hey; they groaned because they knew that the Master would throw down many of them that night! And then the oak trees began to talk. And toward evening things grew worse until he came whirling along with the night. He ran through the forest laughing and crying, dancing and spinning, and always swooping down on those oak trees and trying to tear them up by the roots. And once in the Autumn I looked out of the window, and he didn’t like that. He came rushing up to the window and, bang-bang, he broke it with a pine knot. He nearly hit my face, bad luck to him! But I’m no fool. I jumped back. Eh, hey; lad, that’s the sort of a quarrelsome fellow he is!”
“But what does he look like?”
“He looks exactly like an old willow tree in a marsh. Just exactly! His hair is like dry mistletoe on a tree, and his beard too; but his nose is like a big fat pine knot and his mouth is as twisted as if it were all overgrown with lichen. Bah, how ugly he is! God pity any Christian that looks like him! Yes indeed! I saw him once quite close, in a swamp. If you’ll come here in the winter you can see him for yourself. You must go in that direction, up that[57] hill—it is covered with woods—and climb to the very top of the highest tree. He can sometimes be seen from there racing along over the tree-tops, carrying a white staff in his hand, and whirling, whirling until he whirls down the hill into the valley. Then he runs away and disappears into the forest. Eh, hey! And wherever he steps he leaves a foot-print of white snow. If you don’t believe an old man come and see for yourself.”
The old man babbled on; the excited, anxious voices of the forest and the impending storm seemed to have set his old blood racing. The aged gaffer laughed and blinked his faded eyes.
But suddenly a shadow flitted across his high, wrinkled forehead. He nudged me with his elbow and said with a mysterious look:
“Let me tell you something, lad. Of course the Master of the forest is a worthless, good-for-nothing creature, that is true. It disgusts a Christian to see an ugly face like his, but let me tell you the truth about him: he never does any one any harm. He plays jokes on people, of course, but as for hurting them, he never would do that!”
“But you said yourself, daddy, that he tried to hit you with a pine knot.”
“Eh, hey; he tried to! But he was angry then because I was looking at him through the window; yes indeed! But if you don’t go poking your nose into his affairs he’ll never play you a dirty trick.[58] That’s what he’s like. Worse things have been done by men than by him in this forest. Eh, hey; they have indeed!”
The old man’s head dropped forward on to his breast and he sat silent for several minutes. Then he looked at me, and a ray of awakening memory seemed to gleam through the film that fogged his eyes.
“I’ll tell you an old story of our forest, lad. It happened here in this very place, a long, long time ago. Almost always I remember it as in a dream. But when the forest begins to talk more loudly, I remember it well. Shall I tell it to you?”
“Yes, do, daddy! Tell me!”
“Very well, I’ll tell you; eh, hey! Listen!”
II
My father and mother died, you know, a long time ago when I was only a little lad. They left me in the world alone. That’s what happened to me, eh, hey! Well, the village warden looked at me and thought: “What shall we do with this boy?” And the lord of the manor thought the same thing. And at that time Raman, the forest guard, came out of the forest, and he said to the warden: “Let me have that boy to take back to my cottage with me. I’ll take good care of him. It will be company[59] for me in the forest and he will be fed.” That’s what he said, and the warden answered: “Take him!” So he took me. And I have lived in the forest ever since.
Raman brought me up here. God forbid that any one should look as terrible as he did! His eyes were black, his hair was black, and a dark soul looked out of his eyes because the man had lived alone in the forest all his life. The bears, people said, were his brothers and the wolves were his nephews. He knew all the wild animals and was afraid of none, but he kept away from people and wouldn’t even look at them. That’s what he was like. It’s the honest truth. When he looked at me I felt as if a cat were tickling my back with its tail. But he was a good man all the same, and I must say he fed me well. We always had buckwheat porridge with grease, and a duck if he happened to kill one. Yes, he fed me well; it’s the truth and I must say it.
So we two lived together. Raman used to go out into the forest every day and lock me up in the cottage so that the wild animals shouldn’t eat me. Then they gave him a wife called Aksana.
The Count, who was the lord of the manor, gave him his wife. He called Raman to the village and said to him:
“Come, Raman, you must marry.”
“How can I marry? What should I do with a wife[60] in the forest when I already have a boy there? I don’t want to marry!” he said.
He wasn’t used to girls, that’s what the matter was. But the Count was sly. When I remember him, lad, I think to myself: there are no men like him now, they are all gone. Take yourself, for instance. They say you are a Count’s son too. That may be true, but you haven’t got the—well the real thing, in you. You’re a miserable little snip of a boy, that’s all you are.
But he was a real one, just as they used to be. You may think it a funny thing that a hundred men should tremble before one, but look at the falcon, boy, and the chicken! Both are hatched out of an egg, but the falcon longs to soar as soon as his wings are strong. Then, when he screams in the sky, how not only the little chickens but the old cocks run! The noble is a falcon, the peasant is a hen.
I remember when I was a little boy seeing thirty peasants hauling heavy logs out of the forest and the Count riding along alone on his horse, twirling his whiskers. The horse under him was prancing, but he kept looking from side to side. Oi, oi! When the peasants met the Count, how they got out of his way, turning their horses aside into the snow, and how they took off their caps! They had heavy work afterwards pulling the logs out of the snow back on to the road while the Count galloped away. The road had been too narrow for him to pass the peasants[61] of course! Whenever the Count moved an eyebrow the peasants trembled. When he laughed, they laughed; when he frowned, they cried. No one ever opposed the Count; it had never been done.
But Raman had grown up in the forest and did not know the ways of the world, so the Count was not very angry when he refused the girl.
“I want you to marry,” the Count said. “Why I want you to do it is my business. Take Aksana.”
“I don’t want to,” answered Raman. “I don’t want her. Let the Devil marry her, I won’t! There now!”
The Count ordered a knout to be brought. They stretched Raman out, and the Count asked him:
“Will you marry, Raman?”
“No,” he answered, “I won’t.”
“Then give it to him on the back,” commanded the Count, “as hard as you can lay it on.”
They gave it to him good and hard. Raman was a strong man, but he got tired of it at last.
“All right, stop!” he cried. “That’s enough. May all the devils in hell take her! I won’t suffer this torture for any woman! Give her to me; I’ll marry her!”
Now there lived at the Count’s castle a huntsman named Opanas. Opanas came riding in from the fields just as they were persuading Raman to be married. He heard Raman’s trouble and fell at the Count’s feet. He fell down and kissed them.
[62]“What’s the use of thrashing that man, kind master?” he asked. “Better let me marry Aksana with a free will.”
Eh, hey; he wanted to marry her himself. That’s what he wanted, yes indeed!
So Raman was pleased and grew happy again. He got up and tied up his breeches and said:
“That’s splendid!” says he. “But why couldn’t you have come a little sooner, man? And the Count too—that’s how it always is! Wouldn’t it have been better to have found out first who wanted to marry her? Instead of that they grab the first man that comes along and begin flogging him! Do you think that is Christian?” he asked. “Bah!”
Eh, hey; he didn’t have any mercy on the Count, that’s the sort of man Raman was. When he got angry it was safest to keep out of his way, even for a Count. But the Count was sly! You see he was after something. He ordered Raman to be stretched out on the grass.
“I want to make you happy, fool!” he cried. “And you turn up your nose at me! You are living alone now like a bear in his den; it is dull for me when I come to see you. Lay it on to the fool until he says he has had enough! As for you Opanas, go to the devil! You weren’t asked to this party,” he said. “So don’t sit down at the table unless you want to be entertained like Raman.”
But Raman’s anger had gone beyond joking by[63] that time, eh, hey! They tickled him well, and, you know, people in those days could take a man’s hide off beautifully with a knout, but he lay quite still and never said: that’s enough! He endured it a long time, but at last he spat and cried:
“It’s not right to baste a Christian like this for a woman without even counting the stripes! That’s enough! And may your hands shrivel and drop off, you accursed servants! The devil himself must have taught you to use the knout. Do you think I’m a bundle of wheat on a threshing floor that you beat me like this? If that’s your idea, I’m going to get married.”
Then the Count laughed.
“That’s splendid!” he cried. “Though you won’t be able to sit down at your wedding, you will dance all the livelier.”
The Count was a jolly man, indeed he was, eh, hey! Something bad happened to him afterwards though; God forbid that anything like that should ever happen to any Christian! I wouldn’t wish it for any one. It wouldn’t be right to wish it even for a Jew. That’s what I think about it.
Well, they got Raman married. He brought his young wife to this cottage, and at first he did nothing but scold her and blame her for his thrashing.
“You’re not worth a thrashing to any man!” he used to say.
[64]As soon as he came home out of the forest he would chase her out of the house shouting:
“Away with you! I don’t want a woman in my house! Don’t let me see you here again! I don’t like to have a woman sleeping here. I don’t like the smell.”
Eh, hey!
But later he got used to her. Aksana swept out the hut and painted it to look nice and clean, and put the china neatly away, and at last everything shone so brightly that one’s heart grew merry at the sight of it. Raman saw what a good woman she was, and little by little he got used to her. Yes, he not only got used to her, lad, he began to love her. Yes indeed, I am telling you the truth. That’s what happened to Raman. When he found out what the woman was like he said:
“Thanks to the Count I have learnt what a good thing is. What a fool I was! How many stripes I took, and now I see that it isn’t so bad after all! It is even good. That’s the truth!”
And so some time passed, I don’t know exactly how much. Then one day Aksana lay down on a bench and began to groan. That evening she was ill, and when I woke up in the morning I heard a shrill little voice squeaking. Eh, hey, I thought to myself, I know what has happened, a baby has been born! And so it had.
The baby did not stay long in this world. Only[65] from that morning until night. It stopped squeaking in the evening. Aksana cried, but Raman said:
“The child has gone, so now we won’t call in the priest. We can bury it ourselves under a pine tree.”
That’s what Raman said. And he not only said it, he did it. He dug a little grave under a tree and buried the child. There stands the old stump of the tree to this day. It has been split by lightning. Yes, that is the same pine tree under which Raman buried the child. And I’ll tell you something, boy: to this day when the sun goes down and the stars shine out over the forest a little bird comes flying to that tree and cries. It pipes so sadly, poor little bird, that one’s heart aches to hear it. It is the little unchristened soul crying for a cross. A learned man, they say, who knows things out of books, could give it a cross and then it would not fly about any more. But we live here in the forest and don’t know anything. It comes flying up begging for help and all we can say is: “You poor, poor little soul, we can’t do anything for you!” So then it cries and flies away, and next day it comes back again. Ah, boy, I’m sorry for the poor little soul!
Well, when Aksana got well again she was always going to the grave. She would sit on the grave and cry; sometimes she would cry so loudly that her voice could be heard through the whole forest. She was grieving for her baby, but Raman did not grieve for[66] the baby, he grieved for her. He used to come back out of the forest and stand by Aksana and say:
“Be quiet, silly woman! What is there to cry for? One child has died but there may be another. And a better one, perhaps! Because that one may not have been mine, I don’t know whether it was or not, but the next one will be mine!”
Aksana did not like it when he talked like that. She would stop crying and begin to howl at him with bad words. Then Raman would get angry.
“What are you howling for?” he would ask. “I didn’t say anything of the kind. I only said I didn’t know. And the reason I don’t know is because you were living in the world among men then, and not in the forest. So how can I be sure? Now you are living in the forest; now it is all right. Old granny Feodosia said when I went to the village to fetch her: ‘Your baby came very quickly, Raman.’ And I said to the old woman: ‘How do I know whether it came quickly or not?’ But come now, stop bawling or I’ll get angry, and might even beat you.”
Well, Aksana would shout at him for a while and then she would stop. She would scold him and hit him on the back, but when Raman began to get angry himself she would grow quiet. She would be frightened. She used to embrace him then, and kiss him, and look into his eyes. Then my Raman would grow quiet again. Because, you know, lad—but you probably don’t know, though I do, even if I have never[67] married, because I’m an old man—I know that a young woman is so sweet to kiss that she can twist any man around her finger at will no matter how angry he is. Oi, oi, I know what these women are! And Aksana was a tidy young thing; one doesn’t see her like now-a-days. I’ll tell you, lad, women are not what they were.
Well, one day a horn blew in the forest: tara-tara-ta-ta! That’s how it echoed through the forest, clearly and gaily. I was a little fellow then and didn’t know what it was. I saw the birds rising from their nests and flapping their wings and screaming, and I saw the hares skipping over the ground with their ears laid back, as fast as they could scamper. I thought perhaps it was some unknown wild animal making that pretty noise. But it was not a wild animal, it was the Count trotting through the forest on his horse and blowing his horn. Behind him came his huntsmen leading their hounds on the leash. The handsomest of all the huntsmen was Opanas, caracoling behind the Count dressed in a long blue Cossack coat. Opanas’ cap had a peaked golden crown, his horse was capering under him, his carbine was glistening on his back, and his bandura[E] was slung across his shoulder by a strap. The Count liked Opanas because he played well on the bandura and was an expert at singing songs. Ah, this lad Opanas was[68] handsome, terribly handsome! The Count simply didn’t compare with Opanas. The Count was bald and his nose was red and his eyes, though they were merry, were not like those of Opanas! When Opanas looked at me—at me, a little whipper-snapper—I couldn’t help laughing, and I wasn’t a young girl! People said that Opanas’ father was a Cossack from beyond the Dnieper; every one there is handsome and nimble and sleek. And think, boy, the difference there is between flying across the plains like a bird with a horse and a lance, and chopping wood with an axe!
Well, I ran out of the hut and looked, and there came the Count and stopped right in front of the house, and the huntsmen stopped too. Raman ran out of the hut and held the Count’s stirrup and the Count climbed down from his horse. Raman bowed to him.
“Good day!” the Count says to Raman.
“Eh, hey,” answers Raman. “I’m very well, thanks, and how are you?”
You see, Raman didn’t know how to answer the Count as he ought to have done. The attendants all laughed at his words and the Count laughed too.
“I’m very glad you are well,” says the Count. “And where is your wife?”
“Where should my wife be? My wife is in the hut.”
“Then we’ll go into the hut,” says the Count.[69] “And meanwhile light a fire, lads, and prepare something to eat, for we have come to congratulate the young couple.”
So they went into the hut; the Count, and Opanas, and Raman bareheaded behind them with Bogdan, the oldest of the huntsmen and the Count’s faithful servant. There are no servants like him in the world now.
Bogdan was old and ruled the other attendants sternly, but in the Count’s presence he was like that dog there. There was no one in the world for Bogdan except the Count. People said that when Bogdan’s father and mother had died he had asked the old Count for a house and land, for he wanted to marry. But the old Count would not allow it. He made him the young Count’s servant and said: “There are your mother and father and wife!” So Bogdan took the boy and taught him to ride and shoot. And the young Count grew up and began to rule in his father’s place, and old Bogdan still followed him like a dog.
Okh, I’ll tell you the truth. Many people have cursed Bogdan; many tears have fallen because of him, and all on account of the Count. At one word from the Count, Bogdan would have torn his own father to shreds.
Well, I was a little fellow, and I ran into the house behind the Count. I was curious to see what would happen. Wherever he went I went too.
[70]Well, I looked, and there, standing in the middle of the hut, I saw the Count stroking his whiskers and laughing. And there was Raman standing first on one foot and then on another, crushing his hat in his hands, and there, too, was Opanas leaning against the wall, looking, poor fellow, like a young oak in a storm. He was frowning and sad.
All three were turned toward Aksana. Only old Bogdan was sitting on a bench in a corner with his top-knot[F] hanging down, waiting for the Count to give him an order. Aksana was standing in a corner by the stove with her eyes on the floor, as crimson as that poppy there in the barley. Okh, it was plain the witch felt that something wicked was about to happen because of her. Let me tell you something, lad: if three men stand looking at one woman nothing good ever comes of it. Hair is sure to fly, if nothing worse. I know that, because I have seen it happen myself.
“How now, Raman, lad?” laughed the Count. “Did I give you a good wife or not?”
“Not bad,” answered Raman. “The woman will do.”
Here Opanas shrugged his shoulders, raised his eyes to Aksana, and muttered:
“What a woman she is! If only that goose hadn’t got her!”
[71]Raman overheard the words and turned to Opanas and said:
“Why do I seem a goose to you, Lord Opanas? Eh, hey; tell me that!”
“Because you don’t know how to protect your wife; that’s why you’re a goose.”
That’s what Opanas said to him! The Count stamped his foot. Bogdan shook his head, but Raman thought a minute and then raised his head and looked at the Count.
“Why should I protect her?” he asked Opanas, but his eyes were fixed on the Count. “There’s no one here in the forest except wild beasts, unless it is our gracious Count when he comes. Whom should I protect her from? Look out, you misbegotten Cossack you, don’t provoke me, or before you know it I’ll have you by the forelock!”
And perhaps the business would have ended in a thrashing if the Count hadn’t interfered. He stamped his foot, and every one was silent.
“Gently there, you Devil’s spawn,” he said. “You didn’t come here to fight. Congratulate the young people first, and then in the evening we’ll go hunting on the marsh. Here, follow me!”
The Count turned on his heel and left the hut. The attendants had already spread a dinner under the trees. Bogdan followed the Count, but Opanas stayed with Raman in the front entry.
“Don’t be angry with me, brother,” said the Cossack.[72] “Listen to what Opanas has to tell you. You saw how I rolled in the dust at the Count’s feet, and kissed his boots, and begged him to give me Aksana? Well, God bless you, man! The priest has tied you up; it’s your luck, I see, but my heart can’t stand that wicked fellow making sport of you and of her again. Hey ho, no one knows what I have in my heart! It would be well were I to lay him in the cold ground for a bed with the help of my gun!”
Raman stared at the Cossack and asked:
“Have you gone out of your head this hour, Cossack?”
I did not hear what Opanas began whispering to Raman in the front entry in answer to this; I only heard Raman clap him on the back.
“Okh, Opanas, Opanas! How wicked and cunning people are in this world! I knew nothing of this, living in the forest. Eh, hey, Count, Count, what evil you have brought on your head!”
“Come!” Opanas says to him. “Go now, and don’t show anything, especially before Bogdan. You’re a simple man and that hound of the Count’s is crafty. Be sure you don’t drink much of the Count’s wine; and if he sends you out on the marsh with the huntsmen and himself wants to stay behind, lead the huntsmen to the old oak tree, put them on a round-about road, and tell them that you are going to walk straight through the forest. Then come back here as quick as you can.”
[73]“Good,” says Raman. “It’s hunting I shall go, though my gun won’t be loaded with bird-shot for little birds, but with a good stout bullet for a bear.”
Then they went out. The Count was sitting on a carpet on the ground. He ordered a flagon of wine and a goblet to be brought to him, filled a goblet full and passed it to Raman. Eh, hey; the Count’s flagon and goblet were fair to see and his wine was better still. One little goblet, and your heart would be full of happiness; another, and it would leap in your breast; if a man were not used to it he would roll under his seat after the third unless a woman were there to lay him on top of it.
Eh, hey; I tell you, the Count was clever. He wanted to make Raman drunk on his wine, but there was no wine in the world that could overpower Raman. He emptied one goblet from the Count’s hands and then another, and still another, until his eyes glowed like a wolf’s and his black whiskers began to twitch. The Count at last grew angry.
“How sturdily that Devil’s spawn can lap up the wine and never blink an eye! Any other fellow would have been blubbering by now, but look at him, lads; he is laughing still!”
The wicked Count well knew that if a man cried from wine his top-knot would soon be trailing on the table. But this time he had mistaken his man.
“And why should I cry?” asked Raman in return. “That would even be rude. The gracious Count[74] comes to congratulate me on my marriage and I begin to howl like a woman! Thank God I have nothing to cry for yet; let my enemies do the crying!”
“That means you are contented?” asks the Count.
“Eh, hey! And why should I be discontented?”
“Do you remember how I betrothed you with the help of a knout?”
“How should I not remember? I was a foolish man then and didn’t know bitter from sweet. The knout was bitter, but I loved it better than a woman. Thanks to you, gracious Count, this fool has learned to eat honey.”
“All right, all right,” says the Count. “And now I want you to do me a good turn. Go out on the marsh with my huntsmen and shoot as many birds as you can, and especially do I want you to get me a blackcock.”
“And when does the Count send us out on the marsh?” asks Raman.
“When you have had one more drink. Opanas will sing us a song, and then go in God’s name.”
Raman fixes his eyes on the Count and says:
“That will not be easy. It is late, the marsh is far, and, besides, the forest is murmuring in the wind; there will be a storm to-night. How can one kill a shy bird on an evening like this?”
But the Count was drunk, and he was always powerfully bad-tempered in his cups. He heard his attendants whispering among themselves that “surely[75] Raman was right, there would soon be a storm,” and he was very angry. He slammed down his goblet and glared about him. Every man held his tongue.
Only Opanas was not afraid; he stepped out as the Count had told him to do to sing his song with his bandura. He tuned it, glanced sideways at the Count, and said:
“Come to your senses, gracious Lord! When has it ever been known that men went hunting birds at night, in a dark forest, in the midst of a storm?”
That’s how bold he was! The other serfs of the Count were afraid, of course, but he was a free man of Cossack birth. An old Cossack player of the bandura had brought him as a youngster from the Ukraine. There, lad, the people had made trouble in the town of Uman. They had put out this old Cossack’s eyes, cut off his ears, and sent him out like that into the world. So he had walked and walked, from village to town, and wandered into our country with the little lad Opanas as his guide. The old Count took him into his house because he loved beautiful songs. So when the old man died, Opanas grew up in the palace. The young Count grew to like him, and would often endure speeches from him for which he would have flayed three skins off the back of another man.
So it was now. He was angry at first, and the men thought he was going to hit the Cossack, but he soon spoke to Opanas and said:
[76]“Oi, Opanas, Opanas! You’re a clever lad, but it’s plain you don’t understand that no man should put his nose in the crack of a door for fear some one might slam it.”
That’s how he guessed the Cossack’s riddle! And the Cossack saw at once he had guessed it. And he answered the Count in a song. Oi, if the Count had been able to understand a Cossack song, his Countess might not have had to shed tears over him that night! “Thank you, Count, for your wisdom,” said Opanas. “Now in return I am going to sing to you. Listen well.”
Then he raised his head and looked up at the sky; he saw an eagle soaring there and the wind driving the dark clouds along. He listened and heard the tall pines murmuring.
And once more he struck the strings of his bandura.
Eh, lad, you never chanced to hear Opanas play, and now you will never hear it! The bandura is a simple trick, but oh, how well a man who knows it can make it talk! When Opanas ran his hand across the strings it told him everything: how the dark pine forest sings in a storm; how the wind hums through the sedge on the desert steppe; how the dry grass whispers on a high Cossack grave.
No, lad, you won’t hear such playing as that now-a-days!
All kinds of people come here now that have been[77] not only in our Polyesie but in other countries as well: all over the Ukraine, in Chirigin and Poltava and Kiev. They say that players of the bandura are out of fashion now and that you never hear them at fairs and in the bazaars. I still have an old bandura hanging on the wall of the hut. Opanas taught me to play it, but no one has learnt to play it from me. When I die—and that will be soon—who knows, perhaps nobody in the wide world will ever hear the notes of a bandura again. No, indeed!
And Opanas began singing a song in a low voice. Opanas’ voice was not loud; it was brooding and sad, and went straight to the heart. And the song, lad, was made up for the Count by the Cossack himself. I have never heard it again, and when, later, I used to tease Opanas to sing it, he always refused.
“The man for whom that song was sung,” he would say, “is no longer in this world.”
The Cossack told the Count all the truth in that song, and what the Count’s fate would be, and the Count wept; the tears even trickled down his beard, and yet it was plain that not one word did he understand.
Okh, I can’t remember the song; I can only remember a few words. The Cossack sang about Count Ivan:
There, lad! I seem to hear that song at this moment, and to see those men again. There stands the Cossack with his bandura; the Count is sitting on his carpet; his head is bowed, and he is weeping. The Count’s men are gathered about him and are nudging one another with their elbows, and old Bogdan is shaking his head. And the forest is murmuring, just as it is murmuring now, and the bandura is chiming softly, dreamily, while the Cossack sings of how the Countess wept over the grave of Count Ivan:
Okh, the Count did not understand that song. He wiped his eyes and said:
“Come now, Raman! Come, lads, mount your horses! And you, Opanas, ride with them; I’ve had enough of your singing! That was a good song, only you sang of things that never happen in this world.”
But the Cossack’s heart was softened by his song and his eyes were dim.
“Okh, Count, Count,” says Opanas. “In my country the old men say that legends and songs contain[79] the truth. But in legends the truth is like iron that has passed through the world from hand to hand for many years and has grown rusty. But the truth in songs is like gold that rust will never corrode. That’s what the old men say!”
But the Count waved his hand.
“It may be so in your country, but here it is not so. Go, go, Opanas; I am tired of listening to you.”
The Cossack stood still for a moment and then fell at the Count’s feet.
“Do as I beseech you, Count!” he cried. “Mount your horse and ride home to your Countess! My heart foretells disaster.”
At that the Count grew angry in earnest. He kicked the Cossack aside with his boot as if he had been a dog.
“Get out of my sight!” he shouted. “Now I see that you’re not a Cossack but an old woman! Leave me, or evil will befall you! What are you waiting for, hounds? Am I no longer your master? Here, I’ll show you something that your fathers never saw done by my father!”
Opanas rose like a dark thunder-cloud and exchanged glances with Raman. Raman was standing off at one side, leaning on his carbine as if nothing had happened.
The Cossack struck his bandura against a tree; the bandura flew to pieces and the sound of its groan echoed through the forest.
[80]“Very well, then!” he cried. “Let the devils in the next world teach him who will not hear wise counsel in this! I see, Count, you have no need of a faithful servant!”
Before the Count could answer Opanas had jumped into his saddle and ridden away. The other attendants mounted their horses too. Raman shouldered his carbine and walked away; as he passed the hut he called out to Aksana:
“Put the boy to sleep, Aksana; it is time. And prepare a bed for the Count!”
They had soon all ridden away into the wood by that road there, and the Count went into the hut; only the Count’s horse was left standing outside, tied to a tree. Night was already falling; a murmur was going about the forest, and a few drops of rain were falling, just as they are now. Aksana laid me to sleep in the hayloft and made the sign of the cross over me for the night. I could hear my Aksana crying.
Okh, what could a little lad like me understand of all that was going on? I wrapped myself in the hay and lay listening to the storm singing its song in the forest until I began to fall asleep.
Eh, hey! Suddenly I heard footsteps outside the hut. They reached the tree, and some one untied the Count’s horse. The horse snorted and stamped and galloped away into the forest. The sound of its hoofs soon died away in the distance. But before[81] long I heard galloping again; some one was coming down the road. This man rode up post haste, jumped down from his saddle, and rushed to the window of the hut.
“Count! Count!” cried the voice of old Bogdan. “Oi, Count! Open the door quickly! That devil of a Cossack means harm! He has let your horse loose in the forest!”
Before the old man had time to finish his sentence he was seized from behind. I was frightened, for I heard something fall.
The Count tore open the door and jumped out with his carbine in his hand, but Raman caught him in the front entry right by the top-knot as he had done the other, and flung him to the ground as well.
The Count saw that things were going badly for him and he cried:
“Oi, let me go, Raman, lad! Have you forgotten the good turn I did you?”
Raman answered:
“I remember, wicked Count, the good turn you did me and my wife. And now I shall pay you for it.”
But the Count cried again:
“Help me, help me, Opanas, my faithful servant! I have loved you as my own son!”
But Opanas answered:
“You drove your faithful servant away like a dog. You have loved me as a stick loves the back which it beats, and now you love me as the back loves the[82] stick which beats it! I begged and implored you to listen to me. You wouldn’t!”
Then the Count began calling to Aksana for help.
“Intercede for me, Aksana; you have a kind heart!”
Aksana came running out, wringing her hands.
“I begged you on my knees, Count, at your feet I once begged you, to spare my maidenhood, and to-night I besought you not to defile me, a married woman. You would not spare me, and now you are asking mercy for yourself. Okh, do not ask it from me; what can I do?”
“Let me go!” cried the Count once more. “You will all go to Siberia because of me!”
“Do not grieve for us, Count,” answered Opanas. “Raman will be out on the marsh before your men get back, and, as for me, I am alone in the world, thanks to your kindness. I shan’t worry about myself. I shall shoulder my carbine and be off into the forest. I shall gather together a band of lusty lads and we shall roam through the country, coming forth out of the forest onto the highroads at night. When we reach a village we shall make straight for the Count’s domain. Come on, Raman, lad, raise up the Count and let us carry his honour out into the rain.”
Then the Count began to struggle and scream, but Raman only growled under his breath, and Opanas laughed. So they went out.
But I took fright. I rushed into the hut and ran[83] straight to Aksana. My Aksana was sitting on a bench, as white as that plaster wall.
And the storm was raging in earnest through the forest by now; the pines were shouting with many voices, and the wind was howling, while from time to time a clap of thunder would rend the air. Aksana and I sat on a bench, and all at once I heard someone groan in the forest. Okh, he groaned so pitifully that to-day when I remember it my heart grows heavy, and yet it happened many years ago.
“Aksana,” I asked, “dear Aksana, who is that groaning in the forest?”
But she took me in her arms and rocked me and said:
“Go to sleep, little lad, it is nothing! It is only—the forest murmuring.”
And the forest was murmuring indeed! Oh, how loudly it was talking that night!
We sat there together a little while longer and then I heard what I thought was a shot in the forest.
“Aksana,” I asked, “dear Aksana, who is that shooting with a gun?”
But she only rocked me and answered:
“Be quiet, be quiet, little lad; that is God’s lightning striking in the forest.”
But she herself was crying, and holding me close to her breast. She rocked me to sleep, repeating softly:
[84]“The forest is murmuring; the forest is murmuring, little lad.”
So I lay in her arms and went to sleep.
And when morning came, lad, I jumped up, and there was the sun shining and Aksana sitting all dressed in the hut. I remembered what had happened the night before and thought: “It was all a dream!”
But it was not a dream; oi, no, not a dream; it was true. I ran out of the hut into the forest. The birds were singing and the dew was shining on the grass. I ran into the thicket and there I saw the Count and a huntsman lying side by side. The Count was peaceful and pale, but the huntsman was grey, like a dove, and stern as if he had been alive. On the breasts of the Count and of the huntsman were bloody stains.
“Well, and what became of the others?” I asked, seeing that the old man had bowed his head and was silent.
“Eh, hey! That is all there is to the story, as Opanas the Cossack used to say. He lived long in the forest, roaming about the highroads and over the domains of the nobles with his lads. His fate had been written at his birth; his fathers had been robbers and a robber he had to be. He came here to this hut more than once, lad, most often when Raman was away. He would come and sit for a while and[85] sing a song and play upon his bandura. But when he came with his comrades, Aksana and Raman would always be here together to greet him. Okh, to tell you the truth, lad, guilty deeds have been done here. Maksim and Zakhar will soon come back out of the forest—look well at them both. I say nothing to them about it, but any one who knew Raman and Opanas could tell at a glance which one of the boys looks like which, although they are not the sons but the grandsons of those men. That is what has been done here in this forest, lad, in my memory.
“And the forest is murmuring loudly to-night. There will be rain.”
III
The old man spoke the last words as if he were tired. His excitement had died out, his tongue was tripping, his head was shaking, and his eyes were full of tears.
Night had fallen; the forest was wrapped in darkness. The wind was thundering against the but like a rising tide. The black tree-tops were tossing like the crests of waves in a fierce gale.
Soon a merry barking announced the approach of the dogs and their masters. Both foresters appeared striding swiftly toward the hut, and behind them came the panting Motria, driving in her lost cow. Our company was now complete.
[86]A few minutes later we were sitting in the hut. A cheerful fire was crackling in the stove; Motria was preparing our supper.
Although I had seen Zakhar and Maksim many times before, I now looked at them with especial interest. Zakhar’s face was dark. His eyebrows grew out from under a straight, low forehead, and his eyes were sombre, although a natural kindness and an inherent strength could also be read in his features. Maksim’s glance was frank and his grey eyes were caressing; he ruffled his fair curls now and then, and his laugh was peculiarly ringing and merry.
“And what has the old man been telling you?” asked Maksim. “That old legend about our grandfather?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“There now, he always does that! When the forest begins to murmur loudly he always remembers the past. Now he won’t be able to sleep all night.”
“He is like a little child,” added Motria, pouring out the old man’s tea.
The old man seemed not to know that they were talking of him. He had entirely collapsed, and was smiling vacantly from time to time and nodding his head. Only when the storm that was blustering through the forest shook the hut did he seem to grow anxious; then he would lend an ear to the noise, harkening to it with a frightened look on his face.
[87]Soon all grew quiet in the hut. A tallow-dip flickered dimly and a cricket was chirping its monotonous song. In the forest a thousand mighty but muffled voices were talking together and calling fiercely to one another through the night. Terrible powers seemed to be holding a noisy conclave in the outer darkness. From time to time the tumultuous thunder would rise and swell and the door of the hut would quiver as if some one were leaning against it from the outside, hissing with rage, while the nocturnal tempest piped a piteous, heart-breaking note in the chimney. At moments the fury of the storm would abate and an ominous silence would fall and oppress the heart, until once more the thunder would rise, as if the ancient pines had plotted to suddenly tear themselves from their roots and fly away into an unknown land in the arms of the blast.
I lost myself for a few moments in a confused slumber, but it could not have been for long. The gale was howling through the forest in many tones and keys. The tallow-dip flared and lit up the hut. The old man was sitting on his bench feeling about him with his arms as if he expected to find somebody near him. A look of fear and almost of childish helplessness distorted the face of the poor old man.
“Aksana!” I heard his piteous whisper. “Dear Aksana, who is that groaning in the forest?”
[88]His hands fluttered anxiously and he seemed to be listening for a reply.
“Eh, hey,” he spoke again. “No one is groaning; it is the noise of the storm in the forest. That is all; it is the forest murmuring, murmuring——”
A few minutes passed. Bluish flashes of lightning stared every second or two into the little window, and the tall, fantastic forms of the pines kept springing out of the darkness and vanishing again into the angry heart of the storm. Suddenly a brilliant light dimmed the pale flame of the tallow-dip and a sharp, near-by peal of thunder crashed over the forest.
The old man again moved anxiously on his bench.
“Aksana, dear Aksana, who is that shooting with a gun?”
“Go to sleep, grandfather, go to sleep,” I heard Motria’s quiet voice answer from her place on the stove. “It’s always like this. He always calls Aksana if there’s a storm at night. He forgets that Aksana has long been dead. Okh—ho!”
Motria yawned, whispered a prayer, and silence fell once more in the hut, broken only by the noise of the forest and the old man’s anxious whispering:
“The forest is murmuring, the forest is murmuring—dear Aksana——”
Soon a heavy rain began to fall, drowning with its descending torrents the groans of the pines