I was standing on the bank of the River Goltva, waiting for the
ferry-boat from the other side. At ordinary times the Goltva is a
humble stream of moderate size, silent and pensive, gently glimmering
from behind thick reeds; but now a regular lake lay stretched out
before me. The waters of spring, running riot, had overflowed both
banks and flooded both sides of the river for a long distance,
submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so that it was
no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above the
surface of the water and looking in the darkness like grim solitary
crags.
The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was dark, yet I could see
the trees, the water and the people. . . . The world was lighted
by the stars, which were scattered thickly all over the sky. I don't
remember ever seeing so many stars. Literally one could not have
put a finger in between them. There were some as big as a goose's
egg, others tiny as hempseed. . . . They had come out for the
festival procession, every one of them, little and big, washed,
renewed and joyful, and everyone of them was softly twinkling its
beams. The sky was reflected in the water; the stars were bathing
in its dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies. The air
was warm and still. . . . Here and there, far away on the further
bank in the impenetrable darkness, several bright red lights were
gleaming. . . .
A couple of paces from me I saw the dark silhouette of a peasant
in a high hat, with a thick knotted stick in his hand.
"How long the ferry-boat is in coming!" I said.
"It is time it was here," the silhouette answered.
"You are waiting for the ferry-boat, too?"
"No I am not," yawned the peasant--"I am waiting for the illumination.
I should have gone, but to tell you the truth, I haven't the five
kopecks for the ferry."
"I'll give you the five kopecks."
"No; I humbly thank you. . . . With that five kopecks put up a
candle for me over there in the monastery. . . . That will be more
interesting, and I will stand here. What can it mean, no ferry-boat,
as though it had sunk in the water!"
The peasant went up to the water's edge, took the rope in his hands,
and shouted; "Ieronim! Ieron--im!"
As though in answer to his shout, the slow peal of a great bell
floated across from the further bank. The note was deep and low,
as from the thickest string of a double bass; it seemed as though
the darkness itself had hoarsely uttered it. At once there was the
sound of a cannon shot. It rolled away in the darkness and ended
somewhere in the far distance behind me. The peasant took off his
hat and crossed himself.
'"Christ is risen," he said.
Before the vibrations of the first peal of the bell had time to die
away in the air a second sounded, after it at once a third, and the
darkness was filled with an unbroken quivering clamour. Near the
red lights fresh lights flashed, and all began moving together and
twinkling restlessly.
"Ieron--im!" we heard a hollow prolonged shout.
"They are shouting from the other bank," said the peasant, "so there
is no ferry there either. Our Ieronim has gone to sleep."
The lights and the velvety chimes of the bell drew one towards them.
. . . I was already beginning to lose patience and grow anxious,
but behold at last, staring into the dark distance, I saw the outline
of something very much like a gibbet. It was the long-expected
ferry. It moved towards us with such deliberation that if it had
not been that its lines grew gradually more definite, one might
have supposed that it was standing still or moving to the other
bank.
"Make haste! Ieronim!" shouted my peasant. "The gentleman's tired
of waiting!"
The ferry crawled to the bank, gave a lurch and stopped with a
creak. A tall man in a monk's cassock and a conical cap stood on
it, holding the rope.
"Why have you been so long?" I asked jumping upon the ferry.
"Forgive me, for Christ's sake," Ieronim answered gently. "Is there
no one else?"
"No one. . . ."
Ieronim took hold of the rope in both hands, bent himself to the
figure of a mark of interrogation, and gasped. The ferry-boat creaked
and gave a lurch. The outline of the peasant in the high hat began
slowly retreating from me--so the ferry was moving off. Ieronim
soon drew himself up and began working with one hand only. We were
silent, gazing towards the bank to which we were floating. There
the illumination for which the peasant was waiting had begun. At
the water's edge barrels of tar were flaring like huge camp fires.
Their reflections, crimson as the rising moon, crept to meet us in
long broad streaks. The burning barrels lighted up their own smoke
and the long shadows of men flitting about the fire; but further
to one side and behind them from where the velvety chime floated
there was still the same unbroken black gloom. All at once, cleaving
the darkness, a rocket zigzagged in a golden ribbon up the sky; it
described an arc and, as though broken to pieces against the sky,
was scattered crackling into sparks. There was a roar from the bank
like a far-away hurrah.
"How beautiful!" I said.
"Beautiful beyond words!" sighed Ieronim. "Such a night, sir! Another
time one would pay no attention to the fireworks, but to-day one
rejoices in every vanity. Where do you come from?"