I had almost reached Perebrod when a sudden whirlwind rose, driving
columns of dust before it on the road. The first heavy, scattered drops
of rain began to fall.
Manuilikha was not mistaken. The storm which had been gathering all
through the insufferable heat of the day burst with extraordinary force
over Perebrod. The lightning flashed almost without intermission, and
the window panes of my room trembled and rang with the roll of the
thunder. At about eight o’clock in the evening the storm abated for
some minutes, but only to begin again with new exasperation. Suddenly
something poured down on to the roof with a deafening crash, and on to
the walls of the old house. I rushed to the window. Huge hailstones, as
big as a walnut, were falling furiously on to the earth and bouncing
high in the air again. I glanced at the mulberry bush which grew
against the house. It stood quite bare; every leaf had been beaten off
by the blows of the awful hail. Beneath the window appeared Yarmola’s
figure, hardly visible in the darkness. He had covered his head in his
sheepskin and run out of the kitchen to close the shutters. But he was
too late. A huge piece of ice suddenly struck one of the windows with
such force that it was smashed, and the tinkling splinters of glass
were scattered over the floor of the room.
A fatigue came over me, and I lay down on the bed in my clothes. I
thought I would never be able to sleep at all that night, but would
toss from side to side in impotent anguish until the morning. So I
decided it would be better not to undress; later I might be able to
tire myself if only a little by walking up and down the room, over and
over again. But a strange thing happened to me. It seemed to me that I
had shut my eyes only a second; but when I opened them, long, bright
sunbeams were already stretching through the chinks of the shutters,
and innumerable motes of golden dust were turning round and round
within them.
Yarmola was standing over my bed. On his face was written stern anxiety
and impatient expectation. Probably he had been waiting long for me to
wake.
‘Sir,’ he said in a dull voice, in which one could distinguish his
uneasiness. ‘You’d better go away from here, sir.’
I put my feet out of bed and looked at Yarmola with amazement. ‘Better
go away? Where to? Why? You’re mad, surely.’
‘No, I’m not mad,’ Yarmola snarled. ‘You didn’t hear what happened
through yesterday’s hail? Half the corn of the village is like as
though it had been trodden underfoot--cripple Maxim’s, the Goat’s, old
Addlepate’s, the brothers Prokopchuk’s, Gordi Olefir’s.... She put the
mischief on us, the devilish witch.... May she rot in hell!’
In an instant I remember what had happened yesterday, the threat
Olyessia had made by the church, and her apprehensions.
‘And all the village is in a riot now,’ Yarmola continued. ‘They got
drunk first thing in the morning, and now they’re fighting.... They’ve
got something bad to say of you, too, sir.... You know what our people
are like?... If they do something to the witches, that won’t matter,
it’ll serve ’em to rights; but you, sir--I’ll just say this one word of
warning, you get out of here as quick as you can.’
So Olyessia’s fears had come true. I must let her know at once of the
danger that threatened her and Manuilikha. I got up hurriedly, rinsed
my face without ever standing still, and in half an hour I was riding
full gallop towards the Devil’s Corner.
The nearer I came to the chicken-legged hut the stronger grew the vague
melancholy anxiety within me. I said to myself that in a moment a new,
unexpected misfortune would certainly befall me.
I almost galloped over the narrow footpath that wound up the sandy
hill. The windows of the hut were open, the door wide.
‘My God, what has happened?’ I whispered, and my heart sank as I
entered the passage.
The hut was empty. Over it all reigned the sad, dirty disorder that
always remains after a hurried departure. Heaps of dust and rags lay
about the floor, and the wooden frame of a bed stood in the corner.
My heart was utterly sad, overflowing with tears; I wanted to get out
of the hut already, when my eye was caught by something bright, hung,
as if on purpose, in a corner of the window-frame. It was a string
of the cheap red beads which they call ‘corals’ in Polyessie--the
only thing that remained to me in memory of Olyessia and her tender,
great-hearted love.
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press, Scotland