feet. He was not more than thirty yards distant, when he saw them, and
stopped. Both kept their eyes fixed upon his head, but did not move.
Then he came a few paces nearer, and Sasha tried hard not to show that
he was trembling inwardly, more from excitement than fear. The bear
gazed steadily at them for what seemed a long time: there was an
expression of anger, but also of stupid bewilderment, in his eyes.
Finally he gave a sniff and a grunt, tossed up his nose, and slowly
walked on, stopping once or twice to turn and look back, before he
disappeared from view. Sasha lifted his stick and shook it towards him;
he felt that he should never again be much afraid of bears.
“Now, boy,” said Gregor, “you have learned how to face danger. I have
been as near to a loaded cannon as to that bear, and the wind of the
ball threw me on my face; but I was up the next minute, and then the
gunner went down! Our colonel saw it, and I remember what he said—ay,
every word! He would have kept his promise, but we carried him from the
field the next day, and that was the end of the matter. It was in
France.”
“Grandfather,” Sasha suddenly asked, “are there forests in France?—and
do they belong to the barons?”
“Pick up your fagot, boy, and come along! It will be dark before we get
to the village and the potatoes are cooked by this time.”
The mention of the potatoes revived all Sasha’s forgotten hunger, and he
obeyed in silence. After walking for a mile as rapidly as their loads
would permit, they issued from the forest, and saw the wooden houses of
the village on a green knoll, in the last gleams of sunset. The church,
with its three little copper-covered domes, stood on the highest point;
next to it the priest’s house and garden; then began the broad street,
lined with square log-cabins and adjoining stables, sloping down to a
large pond, at the foot of which was a mill. Beyond the water there was
a great stretch of grazing meadow, then long, rolling fields of rye and
barley, extending to the woods which bounded the view in every
direction. The village was situated within a few miles of the great main
highway running from Warsaw to Moscow, and the waters of the pond fed
the stream which flowed into one of the branches of the river Dnieper.
The whole region including the village and nearly all the people in it,
belonged to the estate of Baron Popoff, the roofs of whose residence
were just visible to the southward, on a hill overlooking the road to
Moscow. The former castle had been entirely destroyed during the retreat
of Napoleon’s army, and the Baron’s grandfather suffered so many losses
at the time that he was only able to build a large and very plain modern
house; but the people always called it “the Castle,” or “the Palace,”
just as before. Although the Baron sold every year great quantities of
timber, grain, hemp, and wool from his estates, he always seemed to be
in want of money. The servants who went with him every winter to St.
Petersburg were very discreet, and said little about their master’s
habits of life; but the people understood, somehow, that he often lost
large sums by gambling. This gave them a good deal of uneasiness, for if
he should be obliged to part with the estate, they would all be
transferred with it to a new owner—and this might be one who had other
estates in other parts of Russia, to which he could send them if he were
so minded.
At the time of which I am writing, twenty-two millions of the Russian
people were _serfs_. Their labor, even their property, belonged to the
owner of the land upon which they lived. The latter had not the power to
sell them to another, as was formerly the case with slaves in the South,
but he could remove them from one estate to another if he had several.
Baron Popoff was a haughty and indifferent master, but not a cruel one;
the people of the village had belonged to his family for several
generations, and were accustomed to their condition. At least, they saw
no way of changing it, except by a change of masters, which was more
likely to be a misfortune than a benefit.
It was nearly dark when old Gregor and Sasha threw down their loads, and
entered the house. Their supper was already waiting, for Sasha’s sister,
little Minka, had been up to the church door to see whether they were
coming. In one corner of the room a tiny lamp was burning before a
picture of the Virgin Mary and Child Jesus, all covered with gilded
brass except the hands and faces, which were nearly black, partly from
the smoke, and partly because the common Russian people imagine that the
Hebrews were a very dark-skinned race. Sasha’s father, Ivan, had also
lighted a long pine-splint, and the room looked very cheerful. The
boiled potatoes were smoking in a great wooden bowl, beside which stood
a dish of salt, another of melted fat, and a loaf of black bread. They
had neither plates, knives nor forks; only some coarse wooden spoons,
and all ate out of the bowl, after the salt had been sprinkled and the
fat poured over the potatoes. For drink there was an earthen pitcher of
_quass_, a kind of thin and rather sour beer.
Old Gregor sat on one side of the table, and his son Ivan with Anna, his
wife, opposite. There were five children, the oldest being Alexander
(whom we know by his nickname “Sasha,” which is the Russian for “Aleck”
or “Sandy”), then Minka, Peter, Waska, and Sergius. Sasha was about
thirteen years old, rather small for his age, and hardly to be called a
handsome boy. Only there was something very pleasant in his large gray
eyes, and his long, thick, flaxen hair shone almost like silver when the
sun fell upon it. However, he never thought about his looks. When he
went to the village bath-house, on a Saturday evening, to take his
steam-bath with the rest, the men would sometimes say, after examining
his joints and muscles, “You are going to be strong, Sasha!”—and that
was as much as he cared to know about himself.
The boy was burning with desire to tell the adventure with the bear, but
he did not like to speak before his grandfather, and there was something
in the latter’s eye which made him feel that he was watching him. Gregor
first lighted his pipe, and then, in the coolest possible manner—as if
it were something that happened every day—related the story. “Pity I
hadn’t your gun with me, Ivan,” he said at the close; “what with the
meat, the fat and the skin, we should have had thirty roubles.”
The children were quite noisy with excitement. Little Peter said: “What
for did you let him go, Sasha? _I’d_ have killed him and carried him
home!” Then all laughed so heartily that Peter began to cry and was soon
packed into a box in the corner, where he slept with Waska and Sergius.
“Take the gun with you to-morrow, father,” said Ivan.
“It’s too much, with my load of wood,” Gregor answered; “the old
hunting-knife is all I want. Sasha will stand by me with a club; he’ll
not be afraid, the next time.”
Sasha was about to exclaim: “I wasn’t afraid the first time!” but before
he spoke, it flashed across his mind that he _did_ tremble a little—just
a very little.
By this time it was dark outside. Two pine-splints had burned out, one
after the other, and only the little lamp before the shrine enabled them
dimly to see each other. The older people went to bed in their narrow
rooms, which were hardly better than closets; and Sasha, spreading a
coarse sack of straw on the floor, lay down, covered himself with his
sheep-skin coat, and in five minutes was so sound asleep that he might
have been dragged about by the heels without being awakened.
II
The next day, in the forest, old Gregor worked more rapidly than usual.
He spoke very little, in spite of Sasha’s eagerness to talk, and kept
the boy so busy that all the wood was gathered together and the bundles
made up two or three hours before the usual time.
They were in a partially cleared spot, near the top of some rising
ground. The old man looked at the sky, nodded his head, and said with a
satisfied air: “We have plenty of time left for ourselves, Sasha; come
with me, and I’ll show you something.”
He set out in a direction opposite from home, and the boy, who expected
nothing less than the finding of another bear, seized a tough, straight
club, and followed him. They went for nearly a mile over rolling ground,
through the forest, and then descended into a narrow glen, at the foot
of which ran a rapid stream. Very soon, rocks began to appear on either
side, and the glen became a chasm where there was barely room to walk.
It was a cold, gloomy, strange place; Sasha had never seen anything like
it. He felt a singular creeping of the flesh, but not for the world
would he have turned back.
The path ceased, and there was a waterfall in front, filling up the
whole chasm. Gregor pulled off his boots and stepped into the stream,
which reached nearly to his knees: he gave his hand to Sasha, who could
hardly have walked alone against the force of the current. They reached
the foot of the fall, the spray of which was whirled into their faces.
Then Gregor turned suddenly to the left, passed through the thin edge of
the falling water, and Sasha, pulled after him, found himself in a low,
arched vault of rock, into which the light shone down from another
opening. They crawled upwards on hands and feet, and came out into a
great, circular hole, like a kettle, through the middle of which ran the
stream. There was no other way of getting into it, for the rocks leaned
inward as they rose, making the bottom considerably broader than the
top.
On one side, under the middle of the rocky arch, stood a square black
stone, about five feet high, with a circle of seven smaller stones
resembling seats around it. Sasha was dumb with surprise at finding
himself in such a wonderful spot.
But old Gregor made the sign of the cross, and muttered something which
seemed to be a prayer. Then he went to the black stone, and put his hand
upon it.
“Sasha,” he said, “this is one of the places where the old Russian
people came, many thousand years ago, before ever the name of Christ was
heard of. They were dreadful heathen in those days, and this was what
they had in place of a church. A black stone had to be the altar,
because they had a black god, who was never satisfied unless they fed
him with human blood.”
“Where is he now?” Sasha asked.
“They say he turned into an evil spirit, and is hiding somewhere in the
wilderness; but I don’t know whether it’s true. His name was Perun. Most
men do not dare to say it, but I have the courage, because I’ve been a
soldier and have an honest conscience. Are you afraid to stand here?”
“Not if you are not, grandfather,” said Sasha.
“If your heart were bad and false, you might well be afraid. Come here
to me.”
Sasha obeyed. The old man opened the boy’s coarse shirt and laid his
hand upon his heart; then he made him do the same to himself, so that
the heart of each beat directly against the hand of the other.
“Now, boy,” he then said, “I am going to trust you, and if you say a
word you do not mean, or think otherwise than you speak, I shall feel it
in the motion of your heart. Do you know the difference between a serf
and a free man? Would you rather live like your father, without anything
he can call his own, or like the Baron, with houses and forests that
nobody could take away from you—unless it might be the Emperor?”
Sasha’s heart gave a great thump, before he opened his mouth. The old
man smiled, and he said to himself: “I was right.” Then he continued: “I
should be a free man now, if our colonel had lived. Your father had not
wit and courage enough to try, but _you_ can do it, Sasha, if you think
of nothing else and work for nothing else. I will help you all I can;
but you must begin at once. Will you?”
“Yes! yes!” cried Sasha, eagerly.
“Promise me that you will say nothing to any living soul; that you will
obey me and remember all I say to you while I live, and be none the less
faithful to the purpose when I am dead!”
Sasha promised everything, at once. After a moment’s silence, Gregor
took his hand from the boy’s breast, and said: “Yes, you truly mean it.
The old people used to say that if anybody broke a promise made before
this stone, the black heathen god would have power over him.”
“Perhaps the bear was the black god,” Sasha suggested.
“Perhaps he was. Look him in the face, as you did yesterday, remember
your promise, and he can’t harm you.”
As they walked slowly back through the forest, Gregor began to talk, and
the boy kept close beside him, listening eagerly to every word.
“The first thing,” he said, “is to get knowledge. You must learn,
somehow, to read and write, and count figures. I must tell you all I
know, about everything in the world, but that’s very little; and it’s so
mixed up in my head, that I don’t rightly know where to begin. It’s a
blessing that I’ve not forgotten much; what I picked up I held on to,
and now I see the reason why. There’s nothing you can’t use, if you wait
long enough.”
“Tell me about France!” Sasha cried.
“France and Germany, too! I was two or three years, off and on, in those
foreign parts, and I could talk smartly in the speech of both—_Allez!
Sortez! Donnez-moi du vin!_”
Gregor stopped and straightened his bent back, his eyes flashed, and he
laughed long and heartily.
“_Allez! Sortez! Donnez-moi du vin!_” repeated Sasha.
Gregor caught up the boy in his arms, and kissed him. “The very thing!”
he cried: “I’ll teach you both tongues,—and all about the strange habits
of the people, and their houses and churches, and which way the battle
went, and what queer harness they have on their horses, and a talking
bird I once saw, and a man that kept a bottle full of lightning in his
room——.”
So his tongue ran on. It was a great delight to him to recall his
memories of more than thirty years and he was constantly surprised to
find how many little things that seemed forgotten came back to his mind.
Sasha’s breath came quick, as he listened; his whole body felt warm and
nimble, and it suddenly seemed to him possible to learn anything and
everything. Before reaching home, he had fixed twenty or thirty French
words in his memory. There they were, hard and tight; he knew he should
never forget them.
From that day began a new life for both. Old Gregor’s method of
instruction would simply have confused a pupil less ignorant and less
eager to be taught; but Sasha was so sure that knowledge would in some
way help him to become a free man that he seized upon everything he
heard. In a few months he knew as much German and French as his
grandfather, and when they were alone they always spoke, as much as
possible, in one or the other language. But the boy’s greatest desire
was to learn how to read. During the following winter he made himself
useful to the priest in various ways, and finally succeeded in getting
from him the letters of the alphabet and learning how to put them
together. Of course, he could not keep secret all that he did; it was
enough that no one guessed his object in doing it.
One day, in the spring, just after the Baron had returned with his wife
from St. Petersburg, Sasha was sent on an errand to the castle. He was
bareheaded and barefooted; his shirt and wide trousers were very coarse,
but clean, and his hair floated over his shoulders like a mass of
shining silk. When he reached the castle, the Baron and Baroness, with a
strange lady, were sitting on the balcony. The latter said, in French,
“There’s a nice-looking boy!”
Sasha was so glad to find that he understood, and so delighted with the
remark, that he looked up suddenly and blushed.
“I really believe he understands what I said,” the lady exclaimed.
The Baron laughed. “Do you suppose my young serfs are educated like
princes?” he asked. “If he were so intelligent as that, how long could I
keep him?”
Sasha bent down his head, and kicked the loose pebbles with his feet, to
hide his excitement. The blood was humming in his ears; the Baron had
said the same thing as his grandfather—to get knowledge was the only way
to get freedom!
III
The summer passed away, and the second autumn came. Gregor had told all
he knew; told it twice, three times; and Sasha, more eager than ever,
began to grow impatient for something more. He had secured a little
reading-book, such as is used for children, and studied it until he knew
the exact place of every letter in it, but there was none to give the
poor boy another volume, or to teach him anything further.
One afternoon, as he was returning alone from a neighboring village by a
country road which branched off from the main highway, he saw three men
sitting on the bank, under the edge of a thicket. They were strangers,
and they seemed to him to be foreigners. Two were of middle age, with
harsh, evil faces; the third was young, and had an anxious, frightened
look. They were talking earnestly, but before he could distinguish the
words, one of them saw him, made a sign to the others, and then he was
very sure that they suddenly changed their language; for it was German
he now heard.
He felt proud of his own knowledge, and his first thought was to say
“Good-day!” in German. Then he remembered his grandfather’s command,
“Never show your knowledge until there’s good reason for it!” and gave
his greeting in Russian. The young man nodded in return; the others took
no notice of him. But in passing he understood these sentences:
“He will bring a great deal of money.... There’s no danger—he will be
alone.... Grain and hemp both sold to-day.... It will be already dark.”
[Illustration:
“Sasha never afterwards could explain the impulse which led him to
dart under the trees as soon as he was out of sight, to get in the
rear of the thicket, crawl silently nearer on his hands and knees,
and then lie down flat within hearing of the men’s voices.”
Drawing by F. S. Coburn
]
Just beyond the thicket the road made a sharp turn and entered the
woods. Sasha never afterwards could explain the impulse which led him to
dart under the trees as soon as he was out of sight, to get in the rear
of the thicket, crawl silently nearer on his hands and knees, and then
lie down flat within hearing of the men’s voices. For a moment, he was
overcome with a horrible fear. They were silent, and his heart beat so
loudly that he thought they could no more help noticing it than a
blacksmith’s hammer.
Presently one of them spoke,—this time in Russian. “There’s a hill from
which you can see both roads,” he said; “but he’ll hardly take the
highway.”
“Are you sure his groom was not in the town?” asked another.
“It’s all as I say—rely upon that!” was the answer. “For all his title
he’s no more than another man, and we are three!”
In talking further, they mentioned the name of the town; it was the
place only a few miles distant, where the grain, hemp, and other
products of the estate were sold to traders—and this was the day of the
sale! The plot of the robbers flashed into Sasha’s mind; and if he had
had any remaining doubts they were soon dissipated by his hearing the
Baron’s name. The latter was to be waylaid—plundered—killed, if he
resisted. Then the oldest of the three men said, as he got up from the
bank where they were sitting:
“We must be on our way. Better be too early than too late.”
“But it’s a terrible thing,” the youngest remarked.
“You can’t turn back now!” the other cried.
Sasha waited until he could no longer hear their footsteps. Then he
started up, and keeping away from the road they had taken, ran through
the woods and thicket in the direction of the town. His only thought was
to reach the hill the robbers had mentioned, from which both roads could
be seen. He knew it well; there was a bridle-path, shorter than the main
highway, and the Baron would probably take it, as he was on horseback.
The hill divided the two roads; it was covered with young birch trees,
which grew very thickly on the summit and almost choked up the path. But
there was a long spur of thicket, he remembered, running out on the
ridge, and whoever stood at the end of it could almost look into the
town.
Sasha was so excited that he took a track almost as short as a bird
flies. He tore through bushes and brambles without thinking of the
scratches they gave him; he jumped across gullies and ran at full speed
over open fields; he was faint, and bruised, and breathless, but he
never paused until the farthest point of the thicket on the hill was
reached. It was then about an hour before sunset, and only one or two
foot-travellers were to be seen upon the highway. The town was half a
mile off, but he could plainly see where the bridle-path issued from a
little lane between the houses. Carefully concealing himself under a
thick alder-bush, he kept his eyes fixed upon that point.
He was obliged to wait for what seemed a long, long while. The sun was
just setting when, finally, a horseman made his appearance, and Sasha
knew by the large white horse that it must be the Baron. The rider
looked at his watch, and then began to canter along the level towards
the hill. There was no time to lose; so, without pausing a moment to
think, Sasha sprang out of his hiding-place, and darted down the grassy
slope at full speed, crying “Lord Baron! Lord Baron!”
The rider, at first, did not seem to heed. He cantered on, and it
required all Sasha’s remaining strength to reach the path in advance of
him. Then he dropped upon his knees, lifted up his hands, and cried once
more, “Stop, Lord Baron!”
The Baron reined up his horse just in time to avoid trampling on the
boy. Sasha sprang to his feet, seized the bridle, and gasped, “The
robbers!”
“Who are you?—and what does this mean?” the Baron asked in a stern
voice.
But Sasha was too much in earnest to feel afraid of the great lord. “I
am Sasha, the son of Ivan, the son of Gregor,” he said; and then
related, as rapidly as he could, all that he had seen and heard.
The Baron looked at his pistols. “Ha!” he cried, “the caps are taken
off! You may have done me good service, boy. Wait here; it’s not enough
to escape the rascals; we must capture them!”
He turned his horse, and galloped back at full speed towards the town.
Sasha watched him, thinking only that he was saved at last. It was
growing dark, when the boy’s quick ear caught the sound of steps in the
opposite direction. He turned and saw the three men approaching rapidly.
With a deadly sense of terror he started and ran towards the town.
“Kill the little spy!” shouted, behind him, a voice which he well knew.
Sasha cried aloud for help as he ran; but no help came. He was already
weak and exhausted from the exertion he had made, and he heard the
robbers coming nearer and nearer. All at once it seemed to him that his
cries were answered; but at the same moment a heavy blow came down upon
his head and shoulder. He fell to the ground and knew no more.
IV
When Sasha came to his senses, it seemed to him that he must have been
dead for a long time. First of all, he had to think who he was; and this
was not so easy as you may suppose, for he found himself lying in a bed,
in a room he had never seen before. It was broad daylight, and the sun
shone upon one of his hands, which was so white and thin that it did not
seem to belong to him. Then he lifted it, and was amazed to find how
little strength there was in his arm. But he brought it to his head at
last,—and there was another surprise. All his long, silken hair was
gone! He was so weak and bewildered that he groaned aloud, and the tears
ran down his cheeks.
There was a noise in the room, and presently old Gregor bent over the
bed.
“Grandad,” said the boy—and how feeble his voice sounded!—“am I your
Sasha still?”
The old man, crying for joy, dropped on his knees and said a prayer.
“Now you will get well!” he cried; “but you mustn’t talk; the doctor
said you were not to talk!”
“Where am I?” Sasha asked.
“At the palace! And the Baron’s own doctor comes every day to see you;
and they let me stay here to nurse you—it will be a week to-morrow!”
“What’s the matter?”—“what has happened?”
“Don’t talk, for the love of Heaven,” said Gregor; “you saved the Baron
from being robbed and killed; and the head robber struck your head and
broke your arm; and the Baron and the people came just at the right
time; and one of them was shot, and the other two are in jail. O my boy,
remember the altar of the black god, Perun; be obedient to me; shut your
eyes and keep quiet!”
[Illustration:
“The old man, crying for joy, dropped on his knees and said a prayer.”
Drawing by F. S. Coburn
]