EVILA
It was the anniversary of the great pit fire. Old Paul had gone to
look for Ivan at his house in the principal colony, but Ivan had
already started for the smaller colliery. He saw Paul on the road,
and, stopping his carriage, took the miner up.
"This day last year was a memorable day," said Paul.
"I recollect it well," returned Ivan; "but to-day we have to give the
prize for virtue. Have the jury settled to whom it is to be given?"
"They are agreed. A girl who has been little less than a year in the
colliery."
"And she has fulfilled all conditions?"
"In every way. The child is most industrious. She is every morning the
first to come and the last to leave. She never complains of the work,
as many of them do; she treats it as if it were a pleasure to her. If
her wheelbarrow is overloaded, she encourages the digger to put on
still more; then she runs away gayly with her burden, and comes back
singing as if she had been amusing herself. At the end of the
recreation she drives the other girls back to their work."
"Is she vain?"
"No; she wears the same holiday clothes in which she was dressed when
she came a year ago; naturally they are not quite as fresh as they
were. She has a little string of beads round her throat, and in her
hair a narrow ribbon. At night she washes her clothes in the stream,
for she has one peculiarity--she wears fresh linen every day; but she
makes it up herself, so she alone has the trouble."
"Is she saving?"
"She has more in our savings-bank than any one of the girls. She would
have still more, only that on Sundays she gives a whole day's wages to
the beggar who sits at the church door."
"Does she go to church regularly?"
"Every Sunday she comes with us, but she never sits with the other
girls; she kneels before a side-altar, covers her face with her hands,
and prays all through mass."
"Is she good-tempered?"
"She has offended no one and has never been angry. Once a woman said
something very offensive to her, for which we gave her a heavy fine.
The woman was ready to pay it, but the girl denied that she had been
offended. Soon after the woman got ill; she had no one to nurse her,
because she is a solitary widow, and this girl nursed her every night,
and fetched the medicine from the apothecary for her."
"Do you think she is a hypocrite?"
"She is too merry for that, and ready for a joke. Hypocrites are
gloomy folk. Our people would soon find her out if she wasn't on the
square; but she is a prime favorite with every one. We don't choose
our words exactly, but we can make a fair guess at the girl who
respects herself. We like one that gives a good box on the ear to a
fellow who would make too free. Sharp with the hand, but soft with her
tongue; that's our sort. And still, sometimes I have watched her when
she was in quite another mood; for instance, on Sunday afternoons,
when we sit under the mulberry-trees, they all get round me and make
me tell them--God knows how often!--the story of how you carried the
pipe of the air-pump into the gallery of the Bondavara mine, and how
we all thought you were a dead man. Women and children hold their
breath while I tell it. I believe I do tell that story well, for they
know it by heart, and yet they cannot but listen. They take it in
different ways; but this girl, I have noticed her, she covers up her
face and cries the whole time."
"And is she a modest girl?"
"To ascertain this point we had to call a jury of married women. They
couldn't bring forward a single charge against her. Then we got the
girls together, and we pressed them very close, if there was anything
with the young men, but they all said--no. And there was no need for
them to deny, for a peasant girl is fitly mated with a miner, and if
he wants her he can have her."
They had now reached the colliery, and went into the station-house,
which stood at the corner of the branch railroad. There was now
another line, which ran underground and connected the two collieries.
Here Ivan found a great many of the miners. He sent for the rest, and
told them work was over for the day. Men and women assembled by
degrees, and only one group of girls still remained working. These had
agreed not to leave off until they had driven their load of coals to
the coal-hill, which lay between the entrance to the quarry gallery
and the station-house where Ivan sat waiting. He could not see the
girls; he could only hear their clear voices as they called to one
another to make haste and get the work finished.
Some one began to sing. The melody was familiar to Ivan--one of those
sad Slav airs in which the singer seems on the brink of tears; and the
voice was sweet and tuneful as a bell, full, too, of feeling.
"Say when I smoothed thy hair,
Showed I not tender care?
Say when I dressed my child,
Was I not fond and mild?"
Ivan's face clouded. "Why do they sing that air? Why should it be on
the lips of any one? Why not let it fall into oblivion?"
"The girl is coming," said old Paul. "I hear her singing; she is now
coming down the hill with her wheelbarrow."
The next moment the girl appeared upon the summit of the coal-hill.
With a run she had shoved her wheelbarrow forward and emptied the
contents with extraordinary dexterity; the big lumps of coal rolled
down the hill. She was a young, well-developed girl in a blue jacket
and a short petticoat; but this red petticoat was not tucked up--it
fell over her ankles, and only showed her feet. The colored
handkerchief on her head had fallen backward, and the rich plaits
wound round her small head could be seen. Her face was smudged with
coal-dust and was beaming with good-humor--earthly dirt, supernatural
glory. But what the coal-dust could not conceal were the two large
black eyes shining like two brilliants--the darkness illumined by
dazzling stars.
The girl stood immovable on the summit of the coal-hill, then looked
down with some surprise on the crowd gathered in and around the
station-house.
The next moment Ivan was beside her. In his joy he had made one bound
from the station-house across the rails and had rushed up the
coal-hill.
"Eveline!" he cried, clasping the girl's hand in his.
She shook her head, smiling at him. "No, sir," she said, "Evila."
"You here! You have come back here!"
"I have been in your colliery, sir, for a year, and if you will keep
me on I should like to stay."
"You shall stay only on one condition--as my wife," cried Ivan,
pressing her hand to his heart.
All who were at the foot of the hill saw this action; they could
almost hear his words.
Evila shook her head and drew away her hand. "No, no. Allow me to be
your servant, a maid in your house, the maid of your wife. I shall be
quite happy; I expect nothing more."
"But I wish it. You have come back to me; you are mine. How could you
be so cruel as to be a year so near me and never to tell me?"
"Oh, sir, you cannot raise me to your position!" said Evila, with a
sad yet dignified expression. "If you knew all you would never forgive
me."
"I know everything, and forgive everything."
These words proved that Ivan knew nothing. If he had known the truth
he would have been aware there was absolutely nothing to forgive. As
it was, he pressed his young love close to his heart, while she
murmured:
"You may forgive me, but the world will never pardon _you_."
"The world!" cried Ivan, raising his head proudly. "My world is
_here_"--laying his hand on his breast. "The world! Look round you
from this hill. Everything that lives in this valley owes its breath
to me; every blade of grass has to thank _me_ that it is now green.
Hill and valley know that, under God, I have saved them from
destruction. I have acquired a million, and I have not despoiled any
one. With every penny I receive a blessing. In the palace of the
prince and in the cottage of the widow I have dried the tears of
despair; I have delivered my enemies from a living grave, and I have
saved their wives and children from the misfortune of being widows and
orphans. My name is spoken of with admiration all over the globe, and
yet I have hid myself _here_, not to be troubled with their praises; I
do not care for praise. The most lovely of women has smiled on me and
loved me, but she was not of _my_ world. She is dead, and the key of
her coffin is a perpetual reminder to me that her world has passed
away. My world is within me, and into that inner world of mine no one
has ever entered, no one _will_ ever enter, _but you_! Speak, Evila;
answer me. Will you try to love me?"
The girl's eyes sank before the ardent gaze of her lover. Many men had
made love to her, but none like this man, whose face shone like
Jupiter's when, with a look, he killed Semele.
"Oh, sir," she murmured, "if I do not die I shall love you always; but
my mind misgives me that I shall die."
As she spoke she fell back fainting, her brilliant color faded to a
waxen pallor, the flashing eyes closed; her body, which a moment
before was like a blooming rose, was now as lifeless as a withered
leaf.
Ivan held her motionless form in his arms. The woman whom he had so
loved, for whom he had suffered so much, was his, just as her pulse
ceased to beat, just as she had said, "I shall love you always, but I
know that I shall die."
* * * * *
But she did not die.