lessen my grief or alter my fate by offending the Lord God? And
moreover, cannot man become accustomed to anything, even to such a life
as mine? That is, if one lives long enough."
So saying, he sighed, shook out his pipe, and taking up his stick,
prepared to depart.
"Good-evening, my child," said he; "are you going to spend the night
here?"
"The Jew asked me to sleep in the cabin; for there are some bags of
flour and barrels of bacon on board, and he is afraid they may be
stolen."
"Even the thought of theft should be unknown to us," answered the old
man; "but God guards what the master takes care of. I must go, my son;
good-evening."
"Good-evening, old father, good-evening."
III.
WHAT THERE WAS AT THE FOOT OF THE OAKS.
Thus they parted,--these men whom chance had brought together, whom an
hour's conversation had made friends, and who were perhaps never to
meet again during their lives. It is strange, but where manners and
social conditions are primitive, friendship and sympathy between men
are easy, and they are unhesitatingly fraternal; and on the other hand,
when men become civilized and polished, they carefully and politely
avoid personal relations and fear and shun each other.
But among the lower classes it is quite the reverse; and I cannot say
that things are any the worse for it. An hour is sufficient to bring
two strangers together, and make them feel almost like brothers; a
hearty speech or a sympathetic look excites ready confidence and prompt
exchange of feeling; friendship is quickly formed, and grows as
vigorously and ardently as hatred. Here at least, men are men.
Good Iermola, as the old man was called, then returned to his own
house, his head still full of his old memories, while the young
boatman, whistling a tune and thinking of the poor and friendless old
man, spread down the bundle of straw upon which he was to stretch
himself in front of the cabin door, content to go to rest; for as soon
as the sun is set, the peasant, no matter what the hour may be, is
always ready to sleep if only he is allowed to do so.
Meantime, Iermola walked slowly toward his lodging, which was but a
short distance away. Between the village and the river, on a sandy bit
of ground strewn with the trunks of old pines and oaks broken down from
old age, mutilated also in many places by the hand of lazy villagers
who were not willing to take the trouble to go to the forest for their
fire-wood, stood an old building curiously constructed, which served as
a shelter for our old servant. It was neither a thatched cottage nor a
_dwor_, but simply a ruin,--an old deserted inn which once had covered
a far larger space, and which had been knocked down and demolished by
some unknown accident. Its roof had disappeared; its bare beams and
rafters crossed one another here and there; and fragments of the straw
thatching were still hanging suspended above the corners of the old
walls. One of these corners, although strangely bent and filled with
long cracks, still remained standing and entire; here might be seen a
window half chinked up with mud, with a few panes of glass still left
at the top, a door which had been freshly patched and nailed together,
and walls which once had been painted white, but which now wore a coat
of doubtful gray.
The rest of the building was all one mass of ugly ruins,--beams and
rotten planks, blackened woodwork, pieces of rubbish all buried
together, covered with mud and overrun with briers and high grass.
By what miracle was the fragment of roof still held in place over the
room which it sheltered? How had this remnant of the building been
preserved? These were questions difficult to answer.
Quite near the old building, a paling of half-rotten laths surrounded a
small garden, shaded at one end by a clump of pines and large oaks.
Above the roof rose the old chimney, black, bare, and cracked, which,
however, still served to warm the sole inhabitant of this poor lodging.
The mouldiness of the beams, which were rotting on the ground, extended
to the walls, which remained standing; the work of destruction might
here be seen in all stages from beginning to completion, and one might
quite certainly foretell the time when these miserable ruins would be
only a vast mass of wood, mud, and useless rubbish. Gazing upon this
wretched dwelling, it seemed cruel to think that a man should be
obliged to find shelter there. Yet Iermola, accustomed to his pile of
trash, approached this den without repugnance; he opened the door and
entered his chamber. Then, as it was very dark inside, he hastened to
kindle the fire and make a blaze of pine wood which he kept ready for
this purpose in the little hearth of his stove.
Gradually every corner of the room was lighted up, and might be seen
distinctly by the blaze of the dry wood. It was a small chamber
situated in an angle of the building, where the roof and walls were
still left, and which must formerly have been used as a bedchamber and
office for the innkeeper.
The doorway opening into the large dining-hall of the inn, now entirely
destroyed and uninhabitable, had a few planks nailed across it which
were chinked with a mixture of chopped straw and mud. The large old
stove, having been patched and mended every year, had lost its
rectangular form and become externally utterly irregular, bulged out,
rounded, dented, and altogether shapeless; and the metal plates which
formerly closed it were now replaced by some tiles. Inside the
fireplace, now stopped up, a few planks served as cupboard shelves, and
the end of the mantel-piece as table and sideboard.
It may be easily imagined that the furniture was not elegant. It was
partly of village manufacture, and had been roughly made with axe and
saw; the rest was composed of a few respectable old pieces brought from
the _dwor_. When the new owners sent Iermola away empty-handed, after
thirty years of service, he was granted, as sole recompense for a long
life of labour and devotion, permission to take with him a few old,
broken, and useless pieces of furniture which otherwise would have been
thrown on the rubbish pile. The poor but worthy and industrious old man
had succeeded in transforming these into almost comfortable
furnishings. The ingenious Iermola knew how to make the most of the
least thing; and so his one apartment was soon quite decked out with
souvenirs of his youth and happy days. He slept on an old sofa with
broken and twisted feet, which was of fine wood, and had once been
painted white and gilded. At his head stood a little round table
supporting a chess-board which had been made and inlaid by the hand of
some old master; two or three old chairs, upon whose seats some boards,
nailed on, took the place of the velvet cushions, were evidently of
Dantzick manufacture, but it was only by the aid of numberless nails
and strings that the different pieces succeeded in holding together.
Near them was a large wooden chest painted green, whose rough
appearance clearly indicated that it had been made in the village. A
bench, rough-hewn with an axe, was near the door; another table of
unplaned plank served to hold all his collection of jugs and plates of
common pottery. In contrast, on the mantel-piece stood a small pitcher
of fine Sevres china, without a handle; egg-cups and mustard-pots with
delicate bright flowers shone there, a tea-pot of Saxon china with
dainty feet, one of which had been broken off fifty years before, a cup
of Wedgwood, and a butter-dish of Russian manufacture in the shape of a
paschal lamb. The general appearance of the good man's chamber was poor
and neat, but sad, because it was filled with mementos of former
comfort striving to conceal present poverty. The drapery which covered
the wall near his bed was a fragment of Turkey carpet, torn and
patched, but still in strong contrast with the coarse bed-coverings.
Broken glasses, porcelain, and bits of china glittered beside pots of
clay, mahogany, and pine. On the wall, not far from a rude picture of
Our Lady of Poczai, was hung a fine engraving by Raphael Morghen,
horribly mouldy and old, with part of one corner torn off; it was "The
Last Supper," after the painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Farther on was
an old picture of the twelve apostles, by Hoffmann, of Prague, and a
small painting on wood of the German school, much injured, and
representing the birth of our Saviour.
The only real adornment of the room, therefore, was the exquisite
neatness and order which reigned in it. There was no litter to be seen
in any part of it, not the smallest crumb or the least speck of dust;
each thing was in its place, and although in this poor apartment all
sorts of things were mingled,--provisions, food, cooking utensils, the
poor man's wardrobe, and all his simple stores,--there was neither
inconvenience nor confusion. Cupboards were made on the walls, shelves
set up in the corners of the room, the large chests rolled under the
table; the hiding-place behind the stove--the fireplace, over which a
piece of cloth was hung--served to shut up and conceal all disorderly
objects. Even the chips and bits of wood used to kindle the fire were
piled up neatly in their own proper corner. It is true that Iermola had
very near at hand, in the ruins of the inn, a sort of cellar surrounded
by walls, where he stored his more cumbrous provisions; but he could
not leave many things in a place which had no fastening, for poverty,
scorning the laws of proprietorship, often dares to share with poverty.
On entering, the old man contented himself with lighting in the stove
his pieces of resinous wood, for candles or oil were luxuries which he
did not allow himself; then he looked around to see if all was in good
order in his dwelling. After that he took one of his pots and proceeded
to warm his supper, which the cossack's widow usually prepared for him
in the village, or which he sometimes cooked himself on his return to
his lodging; and then he seated himself on a stool in the corner of the
fireplace, and began to say his prayers.
The wind sighed fitfully in the branches of the pines and the oaks
close by his little garden; a deep silence reigned all about him; and
Iermola, sad and motionless, was beginning to dream as he prayed, when
in the midst of this profound stillness the cry of a baby was suddenly
heard, at first feeble and indistinct, then loud and shrill.
It was like the cry of a new-born baby; and it seemed very near, as
though it came from the other side of the garden, out of the clump of
pines and oaks.
"What can it be?" said the old man, interrupting his prayers, and
rising from his bench. "It is now so late. Can it be possible that any
silly woman can have crossed the river with her baby to come and ask
for medicine?"
He paused and listened, but the trembling, feeble wailing did not seem
to come nearer nor to recede; evidently the child remained in the same
place. It was impossible to believe that any woman working in the
fields could have left her cradle there; the chilliness of the evening,
the lateness of the hour, the solitude of the secluded place, would not
permit such a thought. And still the wailing cry continued.
"Ah! it is doubtless an owl," thought the old man, as he seated himself
once more. "It is perched on one of the trees at the end of the garden,
singing. But one could swear that it was a baby. How perfectly they can
imitate the human voice!"
He continued to listen; the wailing became more and more distinct and
pitiful.
"No, truly, it cannot be an owl; I must go and see. Perhaps some
accident has happened. But what can it be?"
So saying, Iermola rose quickly, put on his cap, seized his stick, and
rushed to the door, forgetting his pipe, which usually he never left
behind him. When he reached the threshold, he became convinced that
there was no longer any doubt that the cry he heard was not that of an
owl, but the wail of an infant. This frightened the good man, who,
following the sound of the voice, set out to see whence it came. He
went at once to the garden, and thought he saw something white lying at
the foot of one of the nearest oak-trees. The old man's eyes had not
deceived him; on the thickly interwoven roots, padded and made velvety
with mosses, a little baby, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, lay crying.
A baby! A baby here! all alone! deserted and cast off by its parents!
The good man could scarcely conceive such an idea. He trembled with
fright, surprise, sorrow, and pity; and darting forward, scarcely
knowing what he did, he tenderly lifted the poor little creature, who,
feeling perhaps that some one was near, immediately ceased to cry and
be frightened.
Then, bewildered and forgetting his stick, the old man fled back to his
chamber, carrying the baby, trembling, crying, and repeating over and
over to himself, "A baby! A baby! How could this have happened?"
Suddenly it occurred to him that doubtless the little one had only been
left alone for a moment; that the mother would be very anxious if she
should not find it again on the spot where she had just left it.
He then began to shout as loudly as he could, repeating all the calls
known to the Polesian tongue, which brought back to him his shepherd
days; but no one answered.
"At any rate it is impossible to leave this poor baby out on so cold a
night," said he, with emotion; "I shall take it to my room. Any one
will immediately suppose that it is I who have picked it up."
He opened the door of his lodging. The fire had gone out in the stove;
it was pitch dark. He deposited his living bundle on the bed, and again
lighted his chips and twigs, of which this time he was lavish.
But when the light again glimmered through the room, and the old man
returned to the side of the baby, who moaned constantly, his fright and
astonishment knew no bounds. The little creature evidently did not
belong to the peasant class; the clothing in which it was wrapped
sufficed to show that. And in vain did Iermola imagine a thousand
reasons, admit a thousand suppositions; he could not comprehend how a
mother or a father could have been able to decide thus to abandon the
innocent little creature, the very sight of whom caused him to shed
tears of tenderness and emotion. In fact, from the moment when the
baby's first cry had reached his ears and his heart, a strange feeling
had taken possession of this old man hitherto so tranquil. He felt
moved, frightened, but at the same time awakened and enlivened; it
seemed as though he had grown twenty years younger in a few moments. He
therefore examined with curiosity this little unknown being whom
Providence, perhaps in pity for his terrible isolation, had sent him as
a consolation at the very moment when he was sadly longing for some one
tie which might still bind him to life.
The child, swaddled with care, was nevertheless clothed externally in
such a manner as at first sight to conceal his origin. The heartless
mother and unfeeling father, touched by some small feeling of
solicitude, had covered the baby's long clothes entirely with a large
piece of coarse white percale, leaving exposed only a part of the
little suffering, weeping face.
Iermola gazed at the baby with his own sad eyes, and took its little
hands in his.
It was some time before he remembered that there was something else to
do; that a baby who cried so was perhaps hungry; that an unlooked-for
burden had been sent him from heaven; that it would be difficult for
him to take care of it, even with every exertion that he could make.
Then came flashing like lightning before his mind the images of a
cradle, a nurse, smiles, maternal cares, at the same time also his own
poverty, which would not allow him to pay any one to take care of the
little one.
Suddenly he said to himself that hireling hands were not fit to touch
this gift of God,--this frail new-born being whom Providence had
doubtless intrusted to him that he might be its nurse and father. Then
he trembled, as it occurred to him that some one might take this baby
from him; and at this thought he felt ready to faint with terror,
although he had not yet been able to make up his mind what he should do
with it.
"No," he cried aloud, "I will not give it up to any one; it is my
child,--the child whom God has sent me. I will never desert the little
orphan."
But he must hasten; the baby cried and moaned continually. Iermola
again took it in his arms. What should he do? How should he begin?
Whose advice should he ask?
As he was thus carrying the baby up and down the room, his arms filled
and his mind bewildered by this strange adventure, a heavy little
package escaped from the long clothes and dropped on the floor. Iermola
in still greater astonishment picked it up and found about fifty pieces
of gold wrapped in a scrap of paper. His surprise was so great that he
almost let fall his precious burden.
"So they are rich people, who have abandoned their child, at the same
time paying some one to take care of it."
And the old man, simply and deeply overcome, paused a moment,
endeavouring to comprehend the baseness of this world of which he knew
so little. Perhaps in that one moment he intuitively divined all the
misery and woe of human existence.
"My God!" he cried, "there are perhaps men who would rob this little
orphan of this gold! No, no! no one shall know anything about it. I
will keep the money and give it to him some day when he is grown up;
and I, by the fruits of my own labour, will bring him up."
He hastened to throw the gold-pieces into an old casket which was under
his bed, and in which he usually kept the few coppers he happened to
have; then having wrapped himself in his cloak, he determined to go to
the village to ask advice of some of his neighbours.
Then covering up his precious burden warmly, the old man, troubled and
surprised, yet happy, started for the nearest cottage.
IV.
FIRST CARES AND FIRST HAPPINESS.
In this thatched cottage lived the widow of the old cossack Harasym,
with her only and dearly loved daughter, who, having sought for a
husband for several years, had not been able to find one, though she
was young, beautiful, and consequently well worthy of attention.
The cottage which the late landlord had granted to Harasym was situated
at the extremity of the village, not far from the river shore, so that
the old servant of the _dwor_ could say, in the words of the national
proverb, "My cottage is all alone in the world; it has neither
neighbour nor master,"--for from its window could be seen only the
woods, the waters, and the barren plain upon which rose the ruin
inhabited by Iermola. But cordial and friendly communication was kept
up between the two huts, on account of the former relations which had
existed between the two servants. The cossack's widow never refused
Iermola her support and her counsel; he took his meals at her house,
and went there for consolation in his hours of sadness, or distracted
his mind by a few moments of friendly conversation or hearty
interchange of feeling. But the widow's house was far more comfortable
than poor Iermola's lodging. The cottage was well supplied; the good
woman was active, orderly, and somewhat avaricious; she never had
suffered either care or hunger, even just after seedtime or during the
dark days, and she always had laid by a little money or a measure of
wheat for those who were in want.
The cottage, already old-looking, was blackened and wretched outwardly,
although the old cossack had built it himself with his master's
assistance, and consequently neither care nor expense had been spared.
The exterior, therefore, was similar to that of others which a little
way off extended in a long line; but the planks of which the walls were
built were thicker, more solid, and better arranged, and the interior
more convenient, since there was a good stove and a first-rate
fireplace, which furnished plenty of light and did not smoke.
There was one small lot belonging to this hut, which was left to grow
up in grass for hay, and another larger one, which was usually sowed
down in rye or planted in vegetables, and which on the farther side
joined the commons. The cossack's widow owned four cows from whose milk
she made butter and cheese, which she sold to the neighbouring _dwors_
and to the peasants; in addition she had a team of two oxen for
ploughing, which she often rented to her neighbours, or sent now and
then without pay to cultivate the field of the poor,--also ten sheep,
three small calves, and even a horse which she had bought to use in the
harrow, but which had proved useless, as it was spavined. Besides
herself and her daughter, there dwelt in the cottage old Chwedor, her
servant, whose hair had grown gray in the service of others, and who
was also a little deaf, and a great toper. Then there was a little
orphan about ten years old, who drove the cattle to pasture, and a
young servant. It was, in fact, a complete and flourishing household,
skilfully managed by the widow. The comfort in which she lived and her
honest reputation rendered more striking the indifference with which
the young men of the village regarded her daughter, Horpyna, who had
now reached her twentieth year, and was justly considered the greatest
beauty in the village.
She had a tall, erect figure, which she inherited from her father, a
charming bright and healthy complexion, beautiful hair, and fine black
eyebrows. When she dressed herself on Sunday in her ribbon head-dress,
her jacket of gray-blue cloth, and yellow Wolhynian boots with high
heels, she might have been taken for a great lady in disguise. The
young men of the village gazed at her from a distance, sighed, twirled
their caps in their hands, and scratched their heads; but none of them
dared approach her, for Horpyna was as proud as if she had been the
daughter of a great lord. Besides, it had been whispered about for two
years that one of the gentlemen of the lesser nobility who had served
in the capacity of agent in a great land-scheme was suing for her hand,
and made frequent visits to her and her mother. It was this which
frightened and discouraged the village suitors, who took pleasure in
laughing secretly at Horpyna's vanity, her fine-lady airs, and her
liking for the nobility.
But the old mother, apparently expecting no good to come of such a rash
project, used every effort in her power to marry off her daughter. She
went with her to all the fairs and jubilees; she invited the fathers of
families and the young men to suppers and wakes. Every one went gladly
to her house, were entertained, ate and drank heartily, but nothing
came of it all, and Horpyna still had not seen the arrival of her
bottle and napkin.[4]
It happened that Iermola encountered no one on his way to the widow's
cottage; and he reached it all out of breath, holding in his arms the
baby, who still continued to cry. But the light which glimmered from
the window told him that the thrifty housewife was at home. He
therefore hastened with his burden straight into his old friend's
chamber.
The widow was seated on a bench near the table, leaning her head upon
her hands, and seemed in deep thought; Horpyna was standing beside the
fireplace. They were both gloomy and silent; but when they saw Iermola
with his burden, they rose at once, somewhat confused, and uttered a
cry of astonishment.
"What have you got, old man? What is it?" cried the mother, who was the
first to speak.
"See what it is," answered the old man, as he laid upon her lap the
baby, upon which his eyes were fixed. "Look at it; see, it is a baby
which God has given me."
"A baby! to you? How is this?"
"It is a marvel, a miracle; I can scarcely believe it myself. I had
just come from the river shore, where I had been to help the raftsmen
bind up the wood; I had lighted my fire and sat down to say my prayers,
when I heard all at once something moaning under the oaks. Now it
sounded like the voice of an owl, and then like the wail of an infant.
At first I was sure it was an owl, because those hateful birds have
nests in the old trunks, and I went on with my prayers; but suddenly
the voice rose in louder weeping. Then I could not tell what it was,
and I began to be anxious. I ran out hurriedly and looked around; and
what do you think I found? This baby. And now what shall I do with it?
What shall I do?"
The two women, shaking their heads in their extreme astonishment, had
listened to Iermola in profound silence.