"Yes, of course, but you mustn't throw money away. These priests--it's

a shame! But wait: I'll be there. Are you going? I'll be there soon.

Good-bye, little dove!"

"Good-bye, brother, dear heart!"

"And don't cry."

"Cry? Cook or cry, one of the two."

"What! does she do the cooking?" I asked of David when Raissa had

gone. "Does she do the cooking herself?"

"You heard what she said: the cook has gone out to buy the coffin."

She cooks, I thought to myself, and she always has such clean hands

and dresses so neatly! I should like to see her in the kitchen. She's

a strange girl.

I remember another conversation by the hedge. This time Raissa had

her little deaf-and-dumb sister with her. She was a pretty child,

with great, startled eyes, and a wilderness of short, dark hair on her

little head: Raissa had also dark, lustreless hair. It was soon after

Latkin's attack of paralysis.

"I don't know what to do," began Raissa: "the doctor has prescribed

something for father, and I must go to the apothecary's'; and our

serf" (Latkin had still one serf left) "has brought us some wood from

the village, and also a goose. But the landlord has taken it away.

'You are in my debt,' he said."

"Did he take the goose?" asked David.

"No, he did not take the goose. 'It's too old,' he said, 'and it's

worth nothing: that's the reason the man brought it to you.'"

"But he had no right to it," cried David.

"He had no right to it, but he took it all the same. I went into the

garret--we have an old chest there--and I hunted through it; and see

what I found." She took out from under her shawl a great spy-glass,

finished in copper and yellow morocco.

David, as an amateur and connoisseur of every kind of instrument,

seized it at once. "An English glass," he said, holding it first at

one eye and then at the other--"a marine telescope."

"And the glasses are whole," continued Raissa. "I showed it to father,

and he said, 'Take it to the jeweler.' What do you think? Will they

give me money for it? Of what use is a telescope to us? If we could

see in the glass how beautiful we are! but we have no looking-glass,

unfortunately."

And when she had said these words she suddenly laughed aloud. Her

little sister could not have heard her, but probably she felt the

shaking of her body: she had hold of Raissa's hand, and raising her

great eyes, she made up a frightened face and began to cry.

"She's always like that," said Raissa: "she doesn't like to have

people laugh.--Here, then, darling, I won't," she added, stooping

down to the child and running, her fingers through its hair. "Do you

see?"

The laughter died away from Raissa's face, and her lips, with the

corners prettily turned up, again became immovable: the child was

quiet.

Raissa stood up: "Here, David, take care of the telescope: it's too

bad about the wood, and the goose, if it is too old."

"We shall certainly get ten rubles for it," said David, turning the

telescope over. "I will buy it of you; and here are fifteen kopecks

for the apothecary: is it enough?"

"I will borrow them of you," whispered Raissa, taking the fifteen

kopecks.

"Yes, indeed; with interest, perhaps? I have a pledge--a very heavy

one. These English are a great people."

"And yet people say we are going to war with them."

"No," answered David: "now we are threatening the French."

"Well, you know best. Don't forget. Good-bye!"

XIV.

One more conversation which I heard at the hedge. Raissa seemed more

than usually troubled. "Five kopecks for the very smallest head of

cabbage!" she said, supporting her head on her hand. "Oh, how dear!

and I have no money from my sewing!"

"Who owes you any?" asked David.

"The shopkeeper's wife, who lives behind the city wall."

"That fat woman who always wears a green sontag?"

"Yes."

"How fat she is!--too fat to breathe. She lights plenty of candles in

church, but she won't pay her debts."

"Oh, she'll pay them--but when? And then, David, I have other

troubles. My father has begun to narrate his dreams; and you know

what trouble he had with his tongue--how he tried to say one word and

uttered another. About his food and things around the house we have

got used to understanding him, but even ordinary people's dreams can't

be understood; and you may judge what his are. He said, 'I am very

glad. I was walking to-day with the white birds, and the Lord

handed me a bouquet, and in the bouquet was Andruscha with a little

knife.'--He always calls my little sister Andruscha.--'Now we shall

both get well: we only need a little knife, and just one cut. That's

the way.' And he pointed to his own throat. I didn't understand

him, but I said, 'All right, father!' but he grew angry and tried to

explain what he meant. At last he burst into tears."

"Yes, but you ought to have made up something--told him some trifling

lie," I interrupted.

"I can't lie," answered Raissa, raising her hands.

True, thought I to myself, _she_ cannot lie.

"There's no need of lying," said David, "nor is there any need of your

killing yourself in this way. Do you suppose any one will thank you

for it?"

Raissa looked at him: "What I wanted to ask you, David, was how do you

spell _should_?"

"What?--_should_?"

"Yes, for instance, 'Should you like to live?'"

"Oh!---_s-h-o-u-d_?"

"No," I interrupted again, "that's not right: not _o-u-d_, but

_o-u-l-d_"

"Well, it's all the same," said David: "spell it with an _l_. The most

important thing is that you should live yourself."

"I wish I knew how to spell and write properly," said Raissa, blushing

slightly.

When she blushed she became at once amazingly pretty.

"It may be of use. Father in his time wrote a beautiful hand: he

taught me it, too. Now he can hardly scrawl the letters."

"You must live for me," answered David, lowering his voice and gazing

at her steadily. Raissa looked up quickly and blushed more deeply.

"Live and spell as you please.--The devil! here's that old witch

coming." (By the witch David meant my aunt.) "What brings her this

way? Run off, my dear."

With one more look at David, Raissa hastened away.

It was only seldom and with great reluctance that David used to talk

with me about Raissa and her family, especially since he had begun to

expect his father's return. He could think of nothing but him, and how

we should then live. He remembered him clearly, and used to describe

him to me with great satisfaction: "Tall, strong: with one hand he

could lift two hundred pounds. If he called, 'I say, boy!' the whole

house could hear him. And such a man as he is--good and brave! I don't

believe there's anything he's afraid of. We lived pleasantly until our

misfortunes came upon us. They say his hair is become perfectly gray,

but it used to be light red like mine. He's a powerful man."

David would never agree that we were going to live in Riasan.

"You'll go away," I used to say, "but I shall stay here."

"Nonsense! we'll take you with us."

"And what'll become of my father?"

"You'll leave him. If you don't, it will be the worse for you."

"How so?"

David merely frowned and made no answer.

"See here: if we go with my father," he resumed, "he will get some

good position: I shall marry--"

"Not so soon as that?" I interrupted.

"Why not? I shall marry soon."

"You?"

"Yes, I; and why not?"

"Have you chosen your wife yet?"

"Of course."

"And who is it?"

David smiled: "How stupid you are! Who but Raissa?"

"Raissa?" I repeated in my amazement. "You're joking."

"I never make jokes: I don't know how to."

"But she's a year older than you?"

"What difference does that make? But we won't talk any more about it."

"Just one question," I persisted. "Does she know that you want to

marry her?"

"Probably."

"But you haven't told her?"

"What is there to tell her? When the time comes I'll tell her. Now,

that's enough." David rose and left the room.

When I was alone I thought it over, and, at last came to the

conclusion that David was acting like a wise and practical man, and I

felt a glow of pride at being the friend of such a practical man.

And Raissa in her eternal black woolen dress suddenly seemed to me

charming and deserving of the most devoted affection.

XV.

But still David's father neither came nor wrote. The year advanced; we

were well into the summer; it was near the end of June. We grew tired

of waiting. Meanwhile, rumors grew thick that Latkin was growing

worse, and that his family, as might have been expected, were

starving, and that their hovel might at anytime fall to pieces and

bury them all in its ruins. David's expression altered, and grew so

fierce and gloomy that every one kept away from him. He also began to

go out more frequently. I no longer met Raissa. At times I saw her in

the distance, hastily walking in the street with light, graceful step,

straight as an arrow, her hands folded, with a sad, thoughtful look in

her eyes, and an expression on her pale face--that was all. My aunt,

with Trankwillitatin for an ally, still kept tormenting me, and

perpetually whispered tauntingly in my ear, "Thief! thief!" But I paid

no attention to her, and my father was very busy and kept traveling in

every direction, without knowing what was going on at home.

Once, as I was going by the well-known apple tree, and more from habit

than intentionally happened to glance at the familiar spot, it seemed

to me suddenly as if the surface of the earth above our treasure

looked different from usual I--as if there were a mound where there

had been a hollow, and as if the place had been disturbed. "What's

the meaning of this?" thought I to myself. "Has any one discovered our

secret and taken the watch?"

I wanted to make sure with my own eyes. I did not care for the watch,

which was rusting in the damp earth, but I didn't want any one else to

have it. So the next day I got up early, went into the garden equipped

with a knife, found the place beneath the apple tree, and began to

dig. I dug a hole almost a yard deep, when I was convinced that the

watch was gone--that some one had found it, taken it, stolen it.

But who could have taken it except David? Who else knew where it was?

I put back the earth and went into the house. I felt aggrieved.

Supposing, I thought, David needs the watch to save his future wife or

her father from starvation--for, say what you will, the watch has some

value--ought he not to have come to me and said, "Brother" (in David's

place I should have certainly said "Brother")--"Brother, I'm in need

of money: you have none, I know, but give me leave to make use of the

watch which we both hid beneath the old apple tree. It's of no use to

any one. I shall be so grateful to you, brother," how gladly I should

have agreed! But to act in this secret, treacherous way, to have no

confidence in one's friend--no passion, no necessity could excuse it.

I repeat it, I was aggrieved. I began to show a coolness, to sulk; but

David was not one to notice anything of that sort and be disturbed

by it. I began to make references to it, but David did not seem to

understand them. I said in his presence, "How contemptible in my

eyes is the human being who has a friend, and who comprehends all

the significance of that sacred feeling, friendship, and yet is not

magnanimous enough to hold himself aloof from slyness! As if anything

could be hidden!" As I said these last words I smiled contemptuously.

But David paid no attention. At last I asked him directly whether our

watch had run long after we buried it, or whether it had stopped at

once. He answered, "How the deuce should I know? Shall I think the

matter over?"

I did not know what to think. David doubtless had something on his

mind, but not the theft of the watch. An unexpected incident convinced

me of his innocence.

XVI.

I was once coming home through a narrow little street which I

generally avoided, because on it was the wing of; a building in which

my enemy Trankwillitatin lived, but this time Fate led me that way. As

I was passing beneath the open window of a drinking-house I suddenly

heard the voice of our servant Wassily, a young, careless fellow, a

big good-for-nothing and a rascal, as my father used to call him, but

also a great conqueror of female hearts, which he attacked by his wit,

his skill in dancing and his music.

"Just hear what they planned between them!" said Wassily, whom I

could not see, though I heard him distinctly: he was probably sitting

drinking tea with a friend close by the window, and, as people in

a closed room often do, spoke loud, without thinking that every

passer-by could hear each word. "What did they plan? They buried it in

the earth."

"You lie!" said the other voice.

"I tell you, that's the sort of boy they are, especially that David.

He's a sharp one. At daybreak I rose and went to the window, and I saw

our two little doves go into the garden, carrying the watch, and under

the apple tree they dug a hole, and there they laid it like a baby;

and then they smoothed the earth, the crazy fellows!"

"The deuce take 'em!" said Wassily's comrade. "Well, what else? You

dug up the watch?"

"Of course I dug it up: I have it now. Only, I can't show it to you.

There was a dreadful row about it. David had taken it that very night

from his aunt's bed. I tell you, he's a great fellow. So I can't show

it to you. But stop: the officers will soon be back. I'll sell it to

one of them, and lose the money at cards."

I listened no longer: at full speed I rushed home and went straight

to David. "Brother," I began--"Brother, forgive me! I have done you

a wrong. I have suspected you: I have blamed you. You see how moved I

am: forgive me."

"What's the matter with you?" asked David: "explain yourself."

"I suspected that you had dug up our watch from under the apple tree."

"That watch again! Isn't it there?"

"It is not there. I thought you'd taken it to help your friends, and

it was that Wassily."

I told David what I had heard beneath the window. But how describe

my astonishment? I thought David would be vexed, but I could not have

expected what really happened, I had hardly finished my story when

he burst into the most ungovernable rage. David, who held this whole

miserable affair, as he called it, of the watch in utter contempt--the

same David who had assured me more than once that it was not worth an

empty egg-shell--he suddenly sprang up, his face aflame, grinding

his teeth and clenching his fist. "That can't be allowed," he said at

last. "How does he dare to take another's property? I'll give him a

lesson. Only wait: I never forgive a rascal."

To this day I don't see what made David so angry. Was he already full

of wrath, and had Wassily's conduct only thrown oil on the flame? Was

he vexed at my suspecting him? I cannot say, but I never saw him so

aroused. I stood before him open-mouthed, and only wondered why he

breathed so hard and heavily.

"What have you decided to do?" I asked finally.

"You'll see after dinner. I'll find that fellow and I'll have a talk

with him."

"Well," thought I, "I should not like to be in that fellow's shoes.

What in the world is going to happen?"

The following happened. As soon as that sleepy, heavy quiet came which

even now falls like a hot feather comforter on a Russian house after

dinner, David went, I following him with a beating heart, into the

servants' hall and called Wassily out. At first he did not want to

come, but finally he concluded to obey and to follow us into the

garden. David stood squarely before him: Wassily was a whole head the

taller.

"Wassily Tarentiev," began my comrade with a firm voice, "six weeks

ago you took from under this apple tree a watch which we had placed

there. You had no right to do that: it was not yours. Give it to me at

once."

Wassily was somewhat amazed, but he soon collected himself: "What

watch? What are you talking about? God knows I haven't any watch."

"I know what I'm saying: don't lie. You have the watch: give it to

me."

"No. I haven't got your watch."

"And in the drinking-house you--" I began, but David held me back.

"Wassily Tarentiev," he said in a low, threatening voice, "we know for

certain that you have the watch. I am in earnest. Give me the watch,

and if you don't give it to me--"

Wassily sniffed insolently: "And what will you do with me, then?"

"What? We will both fight with you until you beat us or we beat you."

Wassily laughed: "Fight? It's not the thing for young gentlemen to

fight with a servant."

David quickly took hold of Wassily's waistcoat. "True, we are not

going to fight with our fists," he said, grinding his teeth. "Listen!

I shall give you a knife and take one myself, and we shall see

who--Alexis!" he called to me, "go and bring me my large knife: you

know--the one with the bone handle: it is lying on the table. I have

the other in my pocket."

Wassily nearly fell to the ground. David still held him by the

waistcoat. "Have mercy on me, David," he stammered forth, the tears

coming into his eyes. "What does this mean? What are you doing? Oh,

let me go!"

"I sha'n't let you go, and you need not expect any mercy. If you're

afraid to-day, we'll try again to-morrow.--Alexis, where's the knife?"

"David," roared Wassily, "don't commit a murder. What do you mean? And

the watch! Well, I was joking. I--I'll fetch it this minute. What a

fellow you are! First you want to cut open Chrisauf Lukitsch; then me.

Leave me, David. Be good enough to take the watch; only say nothing

about it."

David let go of Wassily's waistcoat. I looked at his face. Really,

any one would have been frightened, he looked so fierce and cold and

angry. Wassily ran into the house, and at once returned, bringing the

watch. Without a word he gave it to David, and only when he had got

back again to the house he shouted out from the threshold, "Fie!

what a row!" David shook his head and went into our chamber. I still

followed him. "Suwarow, just like Suwarow," I thought to myself. At

that time, in the year 1801, Suwarow was our first national hero.

XVIII.

David closed the door behind him, laid the watch down on the table,

folded his hands, and, strange to say, burst out laughing. I looked at

him and laughed too. "It's a most extraordinary thing," he began: "we

can't get rid of this watch in any way. It's really bewitched. And why

did I suddenly get so angry?"

"Yes, why?" I repeated. "If you'd left it with Wassily---"

"No, no," interrupted David: "that would have been foolish. But what

shall we do with it now?"

"Yes, what shall we?"

We both looked at the watch and considered, Adorned with a blue string

of pearls (the unhappy Wassily in his terror had not been able to

remove this decoration, which belonged to him), it was going quietly.

It ticked--to be sure somewhat unevenly--and the minute-hand was

slowly advancing.

"Shall we bury it again, or throw it into the river?" I asked at last.

"Or shall we not give it to Latkin?"

"No," answered David, "none of those things. But do you know? At

the governor's office there is a committee to receive gifts for the

benefit of those who were burnt out at Kassimow. They say that the

town of Kassimow, with all its churches, has been burned to the

ground; and I hear they receive everything--not merely bread and

money, but all sorts of things. We'll give the watch, eh?"

"Yes, indeed," I assented. "A capital idea! But I thought since your

friend's family was in need---"

"No, no--to the committee! The Latkins will pull through without that.

To the committee!"

"Well, to the committee--yes, to the committee. Only, I suppose we

must write a line to the governor."

David looked at me: "You suppose?"

"Yes, of course we must write something. Just a few words."

"For example?"

"Well, for example, we might begin, 'Sympathizing,' or, 'Moved by'---"

"'Moved by' will do very well."

"And we must add, 'this mite of ours.'"

"'Mite' is good, too. Now take your pen and sit down and write."

"First a rough draft," I suggested.

"Well, first a rough draft; only write. Meanwhile, I'll polish it up a

little with chalk."

I took a sheet of paper, cut a pen, but had not yet written at the

head of the page, "To his Excellency, to his Highness Prince" (Prince

X---- was the governor of our district), when I started, alarmed by a

strange uproar which suddenly arose in the house. David also noticed

the noise and started, holding the watch in his left hand and the rag

covered with chalk in his right. What was that shrill shriek? It was

my aunt screaming. And that? That is my father's voice, hoarse

with anger. "The watch! the watch!" some one cries, probably

Trankwillitatin. The stamping of feet, the creaking of the stairs, the

rush of the crowd, are all coming straight toward us. I am nearly dead

with fright, and even David is as pale as a sheet, but his eye is as

bold as an eagle's. "That wretched Wassily has betrayed us," he

hisses between his teeth. The door opens wide, and my father in

his dressing-gown, without a cravat, my aunt in a dressing-sack,

Trankwillitatin, Wassily, Juschka, another young fellow, Agapit the

cook, all hustle into the room.

"You fiends!" cries my father almost breathless, "at last we have

found you out!" And, catching a glimpse of the watch in David's hand,

he cries out, "Give me the watch--give it to me!"

But David without a word springs to the open window, from that into

the yard, and thence into the street. Since I always, in everything I

do, follow my model, also jump from the window and run after David.

"Stop them! hold them!" confused voices cry after us.

But we tear along the street, bareheaded, David in front, I a few

steps behind, and in the distance we hear the clatter of their feet

and their cries.

XIX.

Many years have passed since this happened, and I have often thought

it over, and to this day I cannot comprehend the fury which possessed

my father, who not long before had forbidden any one's speaking about

the watch because it bored him, any more than I can David's wrath when

he heard that Wassily had taken it. I can't help thinking it had some

mysterious power. Wassily had not told about us, as David supposed--he

did not want to do that, he had been too badly frightened--but one

of the servant-girls had seen the watch in his hands and had told my

aunt. Then all the fat was in the fire.

So we ran along the street in the carriage-way. The people who met us

stood still or got out of our way, without knowing what was going

on. I remember an old retired major, who was a great hunter, suddenly

appeared at his window, and, his face crimson, leaning halfway out, he

cried aloud, "Tally ho!" as if he were at a chase. "Stop them!" they

kept crying behind us. David ran, swinging the watch over his head,

only seldom jumping: I also jumped at the same places.

"Where?" I cried to David, seeing him turn from the street into a

little lane, into which I also turned.

"To the Oka," he answered. "Into the water with it! into the river!"

"Stop! stop!" they roared behind us. But we were already running along

the lane. A puff of cool air meets us, and there is the river, and the

dirty steep bank, and the wooden bridge with a long train of wagons,

and the sentinel armed with a pike stands at the toll-gate. In those

days the soldiers used to carry pikes. David is already on the bridge:

he dashes by the sentinel, who tries to trip him up with his pike,

and instead hits a calf coming the other way. David jumps on the rail,

utters a great cry, and something white and something blue flash and

sparkle through the air: they are the silver watch and Wassily's

row of pearls flying into the water. But then something incredible

happens. After the watch fly David's feet and his whole body, head

downward, hands foremost: his coat, flying in the air, describes a

curve through the air--in hot days frightened frogs jump just that way

from a height into the water--and disappears over the railing of the

bridge, and then, flash! and a great shower of water is dashed up from

below. What I did I am sure I do not know. I was only a few steps from

David when he sprang from the railing, but I can't remember whether

I cried out. I don't think I was even frightened: it was as if I had

been struck by lightning. I lost all consciousness: my hands and feet

were powerless. People ran and pushed by me: some of them it seemed as

if I knew. Suddenly Trofimytsch appeared. The sentinel ran off to one

side: the horses walked hastily over the bridge, their heads in the

air. Then everything grew green, and some one was beating my neck

and down my back. I had fainted. I remember that I rose, and when

I noticed that no one was paying any attention to me, I went to the

railing, but not on the side from which David had jumped--to go there

seemed to me terrible--but to the other side, and looked down into the

blue, swollen stream. I remember noticing by the shore, not far from

the bridge, a boat was lying, and in the boat were some people, and

one of them, all wet and glistening in the sun, leaned over the side

of the boat and pulled something out of the water--something not very

large--a long, dark thing, which I at first took for a trunk or a

basket; but on looking more carefully I made out that this thing was

David. Then I began to tremble: I cried out as loud as I could, and

ran toward the boat, forcing my way through the crowd. But as I came

near I lost my courage and began to look behind me. Among the people

standing about I recognized Trankwillitatin, the cook Agapit with a

boot in his hand, Juschka, Wassily. The wet man was lifting David out

of the boat. Both of David's hands were raised as high as his face, as

if he wanted to protect himself from strangers' eyes. He was laid on

his back in the mud on the shore. He did not move. Perfectly straight,

like a soldier on parade, with his heels together and his chest out.

His face had a greenish hue, his eyes were closed, and the water was

dripping from his hair. The man who had pulled him out was, judging

from his dress, a mill-hand: shivering with cold and perpetually

brushing his hair from his brow, he began to tell us how he had

succeeded. He spoke slowly and clearly: "You see, gentlemen, how it

was. As this young man falls from the bridge, well, I run down stream,

for I know if he has fallen into the current it will carry him under

the bridge; and then I see something--what is it?--something like a

rough cap is floating down: it's his head. Well, I jump into the water

and take hold of him: there's nothing remarkable in that."

I could hear scattered remarks of the crowd. "You must warm yourself:

we'll take something hot together," said some one.

Then some one forces his way to the front--it is Wassily. "What are

you all doing here?" he cries piteously. "We must bring him to life.

He's our young master."

"Bring him to life! bring him to life!" is heard in the ever-growing

crowd.

"We must hold him up by the feet."

"Hold him up by the feet! That's the best thing."

"And roll him up and down on a barrel until---Here, take hold of him."

"Don't touch him," the sentinel interrupts: "he must go to the

guard-house."

"Nonsense!" is heard in Trofimytsch's deep bass, no one knows whence.

"But he's alive!" I cried suddenly, almost alarmed.

I had put my face near his. I was thinking, "That's the way drowned

people look," and my heart was near breaking, when all at once I saw

David's lips quiver and some water flowing from them. Immediately I

was shoved away and everybody crowded about him. "Swing him I swing

him!" some cry.

"No, no, don't!" cried Wassily: "take him home."

"Take him home," even Trankwillitatin cried.

"He'll be there in a moment: then he'll be better," continued Wassily.

(I loved him from that day.) "Friends, is there no mat there? If not,

I'll take him by the head and some one else by the heels."

"Hold on! here's a mat: lay him on it. All right: it's as comfortable

as a carriage."

And a few minutes later, David, lying on a litter, made his entrance

into the house.

XX.

He was undressed and put into bed. Already, while carried through the

street, he had given signs of life, sighing and moving his hands: in

his chamber he came to full consciousness. But as soon as he was out

of danger and was no longer in need of their care, dissatisfaction

asserted itself. Every one withdrew from him as from a leper. "May

Heaven punish him, the red-headed devil!" roared my aunt through the

whole house. "Send him away somewhere, Porphyr Petrovitch, or he'll be

the ruin of you yet."

"He is indeed a viper, and the devil is in him," added Trankwillitatin

sympathetically.

"And such viciousness!" shouted my aunt, passing close by our door, so

that David could not help hearing her. "First he stole the watch, and

then into the water with it, so that no one should have it. Yes, yes,

redhead!"

"David," asked I as soon as we were alone, "why did you do that?"

"And you too!" he answered, still with a feeble voice. His lips were

blue, and he looked all puffed up. "What did I do?"

"Why did you jump into the water?"

"Jump? I couldn't stand on the railing, that's all. If I had known how

to swim--if I had jumped on purpose--I shall learn at once. But the

watch is gone."

But my father entered the room with a solemn step. "As for you, my

young sir," he said to me, "you can expect a sound thrashing, even if

you are too big for me to take you across my knee." Then he walked up

to the bed on which David lay, "In Siberia," he began in an earnest

and serious tone--"in Siberia, in the house of correction, in the

mines, live and die people who are less guilty, who are less criminal,

than you. Are you a suicide, or only a thief, or a perfect fool? Just

tell me that, if you please."

"I am neither a suicide nor a thief," answered David, "but what is

true is true: in Siberia there are good people, better than you and I.

Who knows that better than you do?"

My father uttered a little cry, took a step back, looked at David,

spat on the floor, crossed himself and went out.

"Didn't you like that?" asked David, sticking out his tongue. Then he

tried to rise, but he was still too weak. "I must have hit something,"

he said, groaning and frowning. "I remember the current carried me

against a pier.--Have you seen Raissa?" he asked suddenly.

"No I have not seen her. Stop! I remember now. Wasn't she standing on

the shore near the bridge? Yes--a black dress, a yellow handkerchief

on her head--that was she."

"Well, you did see her?"

"I don't know. After that--I--you jumped in then."

David became restless: "Alexis, my dear friend, go to her at once:

tell her I'm well--that there's nothing the matter. To-morrow I'll go

and see hen Go at once, please, to oblige me." He stretched out

both arms toward me. His red hair had dried into all sorts of funny

ringlets, but his look of entreaty was only the more genuine. I took

my hat and left the house, trying to avoid my father's eye lest I

should remind him of his promise.

XXI.

And indeed I thought on my way to the Latkins how it was possible that

I did not notice Raissa. Where had she disappeared to? She must have

seen--Suddenly I remembered that at the very moment David was falling

a heartrending shriek had sounded in my ears. Was it not she? But

in that case why did I not see her? Before the hovel in which Latkin

lived was an empty space covered with nettles and surrounded by a

broken, tottering fence. I had hardly got over this fence--for there

was no gate or entrance--before my eyes were greeted with this sight:

On the lowest step in front of the house sat Raissa, her elbows on

her knees and holding her chin in her folded hands: she was looking

straight out into vacancy. Near her stood her little dumb sister,

playing quietly with a whip, and before the steps, with his back to

me, was Latkin in a shabby, torn jacket, his feet in felt slippers,

bending over her and brandishing his elbows and stalking about. When

he heard my steps he turned round, leant down on the tips of his toes,

and then suddenly sprang at me and began to speak with unusual speed

in a quivering voice and with an incessant "Choo, choo, choo!" I was

amazed. It was long since I had seen him, and I should scarcely

have known him if I had met him anywhere else. This wrinkled, red,

toothless face, these small, round, dull eyes, this tangled gray hair,

these contortions and motions, this senseless, wandering talk,--what

does it all mean? What cruel suffering torments this unhappy being?

What a dance of death is this!

"Choo, choo, choo," he muttered, bending over continually: "see them,

the Wassilievna--she's just come, with a trou--a trough on the roof"

(he struck his head with his hand), "and she sits there like a shovel,

and cross, cross as Andruscha, the cross Wassilievna" (he meant,

probably, "mute"). "Choo; my cross Wassilievna! Now they are both on

one last--just see her! I have only these two doctors."

Latkin was evidently aware that he was not saying what he meant, and

he made every effort to explain matters to me. Raissa, apparently, did

not hear what he was saying, and her little sister went on snapping

her whip. My head grew confused. "What does it all mean?" I asked of

an old woman who was looking out of the window of the house.

"What does it mean, sir?" answered she in a sing-song voice. "They say

some one--Heaven knows who it was--tried to drown himself, and she saw

him. That frightened her, but she managed to get home: no one noticed

anything strange, and she sat down there on the threshold, and since

then she's sat there like an image, whether one speaks to her or not.

It's as if she had no tongue."

"Good-bye! good-bye!" repeated Latkin, still with the same gestures.

I walked to Raissa and stood just before her. "Raissa," I cried, "what

is the matter?"

She made no answer: it was as if she had not heard me. Her face was no

paler, nor in any way different, except that it had a stony look and

an expression of slight fatigue.

"She is cross too," Latkin whispered to me.

I took Raissa by the hand. "David is alive." I cried louder than

before--"alive and unhurt. David is alive: do you understand? They

have taken him out of the water, he is now at home, and he has sent

word that he will come to-morrow to see you. He is alive."

Raissa turned her eyes toward me slowly, as if it hurt her: she winked

them two or three times, opened them wider: then she turned her head

to one side, flushed suddenly, parted her lips, drew a full breath,

frowned as if from pain and with great effort, bringing out the words,

"Da--Dav--is--al--alive," and rose hastily from the steps and rushed

away.

"Where are you going?" I inquired.

But, laughing gently, she flew over the ground. I of course hastened

after her, while behind us was a sound of voices--the aged one that

of Latkin, and the childish cry that of the deaf mute. Raissa went

straight to our house.

"What a day this has been!" I thought to myself as I tried to keep up

with the black dress that flew along in front of me.

Raissa ran past Wassily, my aunt, and even Trankwilhtatin, into the

room in which David was lying, and threw herself on his breast. "Oh,

oh, David!" came her voice forth from under her loosened hair.

And raising his arms he embraced her and let his head rest on her

shoulder.

"Forgive me, dear," I heard him say, and both nearly died with joy.

"But why did you go home, Raissa? Why didn't you wait?" I asked. She

still did not raise her head. "You might have seen that he was saved."

"Oh, I don't know, I don't know: don't ask me. I don't know: I can't

recall how I got home. I only remember I was looking into the air, and

a blow hit me; but that was--"

"A blow?" repeated David, and we all three burst out laughing, for we

were very happy.

"But what's going on here?" roared a threatening voice behind us,

the voice of my father. He was standing in the doorway. "Will these

monkey-tricks come to an end or not? Where are we living? In the

Russian empire or in the French republic?" He came into the room. "Let

any one who is turbulent and vicious begone to France.--And how do

you dare to enter here?" he asked of Raissa, who, rising a little

and turning her face toward him, was evidently alarmed, although she

continued to smile gently. "The daughter of my sworn enemy! How have

you dared? And to embrace him too! Away with you at once, or--"

"Uncle," said David, raising himself in bed, "don't insult Raissa: she

will go, but don't insult her."

"Will you order me about? I am not insulting her, I'm not _insulting_

her: I merely order her out of the house. I shall yet call you to

account. You have made away with another's property: you have laid

violent hands upon yourself; you have damaged--"

"What have I damaged?" interrupted David.

"What have you damaged? You have ruined your clothes: do you consider

that nothing? I had to give money to the people who brought you here.

You frightened the whole family, and you still put on your airs. And

this girl, who has lost all sense of shame and honor--"

David tried to spring from the bed: "Don't you insult her, I tell

you."

"Silence!"

"Don't you dare--"

"Silence!"

"Don't you dare to insult the woman I am going to marry, my future

wife," cried David with all his might.

"Going to marry! your wife!" repeated my father, his eyes rolling.

"Your wife! ho! ho! ho!" ("Ha! ha! ha!" echoed my aunt outside the

door.) "How old are you? A year less one week has he been in this

world--he's hardly weaned yet--and he wants to get married! I shall--"

"Let me go! let me go!" whispered Raissa, turning to the door.

"I shall not ask your permission," shouted David, supporting himself

on his hands, "but my own father's, who will be back to-day or

to-morrow. He can command me, not you; and as for my age, both Raissa

and I can wait. You can say what you please: we shall wait."

"David, think a moment," interrupted my father: "take care what you

say. You are beside yourself: you have forgotten all respect."

David grasped his shirt where it lay across his breast. "Whatever you

may say," he repeated.

"Stop his mouth, Porphyr Petrovitch--silence him!" hissed my aunt from

the door; "and as for this baggage, this--"

But something strange cut my aunt's eloquence short: her voice became

suddenly silent, and in its place was heard another, weak and hoarse

from age. "Brother!" exclaimed this weak voice--"Christian souls!"

XXIII.

We all turned round. Before us, in the same dress in which I had just

seen him, stood Latkin, looking like a ghost, thin, haggard and sad.

"God," he said in a somewhat childish way, raising his trembling, bent

figure and gazing feebly at my father--"God has punished, and I have

come for Wa--for Ra--yes, yes, for Raissa. What--choo--what ails

me? Soon I shall be laid--what do you call that thing? a

staff--straight--and that other thing?--a prop. That's all I need, and

you, brother jeweler, see: I too am a man."

Raissa crossed the room without a word, and while she supported her

father she buttoned his jacket.

"Let us go, Wassilievna," he said. "All here are saints: don't go near

them; and he who lies there in a case," pointing to David, "is also

a saint. But we, brother, you and I, are sinners. Choo, gentlemen:

excuse an old, broken-down man. We have stolen together," he cried

suddenly--"stolen together, stolen together," he repeated with evident

joy: at last he had control of his tongue.

All of us in the room were silent. "But where is your picture of the

saints?" he inquired, gazing about: "we must cleanse ourselves."

In one corner he began to pray, crossing himself humbly, so that he

touched first one shoulder, then another. "Have mercy, Lord! on my,

on my--" My father, who had watched closely without speaking a word,

suddenly started, came near him, and began to cross himself. Then he

turned and bowed so low that his hand nearly touched the floor, and

said, "Do you also forgive me, Martinian Gavrilitsch," and he kissed

his shoulder. Latkin answered by kissing in the air and winking his

eyes: he evidently hardly knew what he was doing. Then my father

turned to all who were in the room--to David, Raissa and me. "Do what

you please, do whatever you think you may," he said in a low, sad

voice, and he left the room, completely broken down.

"Lord my! Lord my! have mercy on me!" repeated Latkin. "I am a man."

"Good-bye, David," said Raissa, leaving the room with her father.

"I'll be with you to-morrow," shouted David after her; and turning his

face to the wall he muttered, "I am very tired: I should like to go to

sleep;" and he became quiet.

For a long time I lingered there. I could not forget my father's

threat. But my fears proved groundless. He met me, but he uttered no

word. He too seemed uncomfortable. Besides, it soon was night and all

in the house went to rest.

XXIV.

The next day David got up as if nothing had happened, and not long

afterward, on one and the same day, two important events took place:

in the morning died the old Latkin, Raissa's father, and in the

evening Jegor, David's father, arrived. Since he had not sent any

letter or told any one, he took us all by surprise. My father exerted

himself actively to give him a warm reception. He flew about as if he

were crazy, and was as attentive as if he owed him money. But all his

brother's efforts seemed to leave my uncle cold: he kept saying, "Why

do you do that?" or, "I don't need anything." He was even cooler with

my aunt; besides, he paid very little attention to her. In her eyes

he was an atheist, a heretic, a Voltairian (in fact, he had learned

French in order to read Voltaire in the original). I found Uncle Jegor

as David had described him. He was a large, heavy man, with a broad,

pock-marked face, grave and serious. He always wore a hat with a

feather in it, frills and ruffles, and a tobacco-colored jacket, with

a steel sword by his side. David took a great deal of pleasure in him:

he even grew more cheerful and better-looking, and his eyes changed:

they became merry, quick and brilliant. But he always tried to

moderate his joy and not to give it expression: he was afraid of

appearing weak. The first evening after my uncle's return they two,

father and son, shut themselves! up in a separate room and talked

together in a low voice for a long time. The next morning I noticed

that my uncle looked at David with great confidence and affection: he

appeared very well pleased with him. David carried; him to Latkin's

funeral services at the church. I also went: my father made no

objection, but he remained at home. Raissa's calm surprised me: she

had grown pale and thin, but she shed no tears, and her words and

actions were very simple. In everything she did I noticed, strangely

enough, a certain majesty--the majesty of grief, which forgets itself.

At the entrance of the church Uncle Jegor was introduced to her. It

was evident from his manner that David had spoken to him of her. She

pleased him as much as did his son. I could see that in David's face

when I next looked at it. I remember how it glowed when his father

said of her in his presence, "She's an intelligent girl: she will be

a good housewife." At Latkin's house they told me that the old man

had gone quietly, like a burned-out taper, and that so long as he had

strength and consciousness he had stroked his daughter's hair,

had said something unintelligible, but not sad, and had smiled

continually. At the burial my father went to the church and to the

graveyard.

Even Trankwillitatin sang in the choir. At the grave' Raissa burst

suddenly into sobs and threw herself, face downward, on the ground,

but she rose immediately. Her little sister, the deaf mute, looked at

everything with great, bright, somewhat dull eyes: from time to time

she drew near Raissa, but she did not seem at all afraid. The second

day after the funeral, Uncle Jegor, who, apparently, had not come back

from Siberia empty-handed (he had paid all the funeral expenses and

given David's preserver a generous reward)--who had said nothing of

his life there nor of his plans for the future--Uncle Jegor, I say,

said to my father that he had determined not to stay in Riasan, but

to go with his son to Moscow. My father politely expressed his regret,

and even tried, though very gently, to alter my uncle's decision, but

in the depths of his soul I fancy he was very glad. The presence

of his brother--with whom he had too little in common, who had not

honored him with even a single reproach, who did not even despise him,

who simply took no pleasure in him--was wearisome to him, and parting

from David gave him no especial uneasiness. This separation, of

course, nearly broke my heart: at first I was really bereaved, and I

felt as if I had lost every comfort and joy in life.

So my uncle went off and took with him not only David, but, to our

great surprise, and even to the great dissatisfaction of our street,

Raissa and her little sister. When my aunt heard of this she called

him a Turk, and a Turk she called him till her death.

And I was left alone, alone, but it makes no difference about me.

XXV.

That is the end of my story about the watch. What shall I add to it?

Five years later David married "Little Black-lip," and in the year

1812 he died, a lieutenant in the artillery, the death of a hero at

the battle of Borodino, defending the redoubt of Schewardino. Since

then a great deal of water has run into the sea, and I have had many

watches: I have even been so magnificent as to have a real Breguet

repeater with second-hand and the day of the month. But in the secret

drawer of my desk lies an old silver watch with a rose on the case: I

bought it of a Jew peddler, struck by its resemblance to the watch my

godfather gave me. From time to time, when I am alone and expect no

visitor, I take it out of its case, and when I look at it I think

of my youth and the companions of those days which are gone never to

return.

TRANSLATIONS FROM HEINE.

I.--CHILDE HAROLD.

Lo, a large, black-shrouded barge

Sadly moves with sails outspread,

And mute creatures' muffled features

Hold grim watch above the dead.

Calm below it lies the poet,

With his fair face bare and white,

Still with yearning ever turning

Azure eyes toward heaven's light.

As he saileth, sadly waileth

Some bereaven Undine bride:

O'er the springing waves outringing,

Hark! a dirge floats far and wide.

II.--SPRING FESTIVAL.

This is the springtide's mournful feast:

The frantic troops of blooming girls

Are rushing hither with flying curls:

Moaning they smite their bare white breast,

Adonis! Adonis!

The night hath come. By the torches' gleams

They search the forest on every side,

That echoes with anguish far and wide,

With tears, mad laughter, and sobs and screams,

Adonis! Adonis!

The mortal youth, so strangely fair,

Lies on the cold turf pale and dead:

His heart's blood staineth the flowers red,

And a wild lament fulfills the air,

Adonis! Adonis!

EMMA LAZARUS.

LETTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA.

BY LADY BARKER.

D'URBAN, January 3, 1876.

I must certainly begin this letter by setting aside every other

topic for the moment and telling you of our grand event, our national

celebration, our historical New Year's Day. We have "turned the first

sod" of our first inland railway, and, if I am correctly informed, at

least a dozen sods more, but you must remember, if you please, that

our navvies are Kafirs, and that they do _not_ understand what Mr.

Carlyle calls the beauty and dignity of labor in the least. It is

all very well for you conceited dwellers in the Old and New Worlds to

laugh at us for making such a fuss about a projected hundred miles of

railway--you whose countries are made into dissected maps by the magic

iron lines--but for poor us, who have to drag every pound of sugar and

reel of sewing-cotton over some sixty miles of vile road between this

and Maritzburg, such a line, if it be ever finished, will be a boon

and a blessing indeed.

I think I can better make you understand _how_ great a blessing if

I describe my journeys up and down--journeys made, too, under

exceptionally favorable circumstances. The first thing which had to

be done, some three weeks before the day of our departure, was to

pack and send down by wagon a couple of portmanteaus with our smart

clothes. I may as well mention here that the cost of the transit

came to fourteen shillings each way for three or four small, light

packages, and that on each occasion we were separated from our

possessions for a fortnight or more. The next step to be taken was to

secure places in the daily post-cart, and it required as much mingled

firmness and persuasion to do this as though it had reference to

a political crisis. But then there were some hundreds of us

Maritzburgians all wanting to be taken down to D'Urban within the

space of a few days, and there was nothing to take us except the open

post-cart, which occupied six hours on the journey, and an omnibus,

which took ten hours, but afforded more shelter from possible rain and

probable sun. Within the two vehicles some twenty people might, at a

pinch, find places, and at least a hundred wanted to go every day of

that last week of the old year. I don't know how the others managed:

they must have got down somehow, for there they were in great force

when the eventful day had arrived.

This first journey was prosperous, deceitfully prosperous, as though

it would fain try to persuade us that after all there was a great deal

to be said in favor of a mode of traveling which reminded one of the

legends of the glories of the old coaching days. No dust--for there

had been heavy rain a few days before--a perfect summer's day, hot

enough in the sun, but not disagreeably hot as we bowled along, fast

as four horses could go, in the face of a soft, balmy summer breeze.

We were packed as tightly as we could fit--two of us on the coach-box,

with the mail-bags under our feet and the driver's elbows in our ribs.

The ordinary light dog-cart which daily runs between Maritzburg and

D'Urban was exchanged for a sort of open break, strong indeed, but

very heavy, one would fancy, for the poor horses, who had to scamper

along up and down veldt and berg, over bog and spruit, with this

lumbering conveyance at their heels. Not for long, though: every seven

miles, or even less, we pulled up--sometimes at a tidy inn, where a

long table would be set in the open verandah laden with eatables

(for driving fast through the air sharpens even the sturdy colonial

appetite), sometimes at a lonely shanty by the roadside, from whence

a couple of Kafir lads emerged tugging at the bridles of the fresh

horses. But I am bound to say that although each of these teams did

a stage twice a day, although they were ill-favored and ill-groomed,

their harness shabby beyond description, and their general appearance

most forlorn, they were one and all in good condition and did their

work in first-rate style. The wheelers were generally large, gaunt and

most hideous animals, but the leaders often were ponies who, one could

imagine, under happier circumstances might be handsome little horses

enough, staunch and willing to the last degree. They knew their

driver's cheery voice as well as possible, and answered to every cry

and shout of encouragement he gave them as we scampered along. Of

course, each horse had its name, and equally of course "Sir Garnet"

was there in a team with "Lord Gifford" and "Lord Carnarvon" for

leaders. Did we come to a steep hillside, up which any respectable

English horse would certainly expect to walk in a leisurely, sober

fashion, then our driver shook out his reins, blew a ringing blast

on his bugle, and cried, "Walk along, Lord Gifford! think as you've

another Victoriar Cross to get top o' this hill! Walk along, Lord

Carnarvon! you ain't sitting in a cab'net council _here_, you know.

Don't leave Sir Garnet do all the work, you know. Forward, my lucky

lads! creep up it!" and by the time he had shrieked out this and a

lot more patter, behold! we were at the top of the hill, and a fresh,

lovely landscape was lying smiling in the sunshine below us. It was

a beautiful country we passed through, but, except for a scattered

homestead here and there by the roadside, not a sign of a human

dwelling on all its green and fertile slopes. How the railway is to

drag itself up and round all those thousand and one spurs running into

each other, with no distinct valley or flat between, is best known to

the engineers and surveyors, who have declared it practicable. To the

non-professional eye it seems not only difficult, but impossible. But

oh how it is wanted! All along the road shrill bugle-blasts warned the

slow, trailing ox-wagons, with their naked "forelooper" at their head,

to creep aside out of our way, I counted one hundred and twenty wagons

that day on fifty miles of road. Now, if one considers that each of

these wagons is drawn by a span of some thirty or forty oxen, one has

some faint idea of how such a method of transport must waste and use

up the material of the country. Something like ten thousand oxen toil

over this one road summer and winter, and what wonder is it not only

that merchandise costs more to fetch up from D'Urban to Maritzburg

than it does to bring it out from England, but that beef is dear and

bad! As transport pays better than farming, we hear on all sides of

farms thrown out of cultivation, and as a necessary consequence milk,

butter, and so forth are scarce and poor, and in the neighborhood of

Maritzburg, at least, it is esteemed a favor to let you have either at

exorbitant prices and of most inferior quality. When one looks round

at these countless acres of splendid grazing-land, making a sort of

natural park on either hand, it seems like a bad dream to know that we

have constantly to use preserved milk and potted meat as being cheaper

and easier to procure than fresh.

No one was in any mood, however, to discuss political economy that

beautiful day, and we laughed and chatted, and ate a great many

luncheons, chiefly of tea and peaches, all the way along. Our driver

enlivened the route by pointing out various spots where frightful

accidents had occurred to the post-cart on former occasions: "You see

that big stone? Well, it war jest there that Langabilile and Colenso,

they takes the bits in their teeth, those 'osses do, and they sets off

their own pace and their own way. Jim Stanway, he puts his brake down

hard and his foot upon the reins, but, Lord love you! them beasts

would ha' pulled his arms and legs both off afore they'd give in. So

they runs poor Jim's near wheel right up agin that bank and upsets the

whole concern, as neat as needs be, over agin that bit o' bog. Anybody

hurt? Well, yes: they was all what you might call shook. Mr. Bell, he

had his arm broke, and a foreign chap from the diamond-fields, he gets

killed outright, and Jim himself had his head cut open. It was a bad

business, you bet, and rough upon Jim. Ja!"

All the driver's conversation is interlarded with "Ja," but he never

says a worse word than that, and he drinks nothing but tea. As for

a pipe, or a cigar even, when it is offered to him he screws up his

queer face into a droll grimace and says, "No--thanks. I want all

my nerves, I do, on this bit of road.--Walk along, Lady Barker: I'm

ashamed of you, I am, hanging your head like that at a bit of a hill!"

It was rather startling to hear this apostrophe all of a sudden, but

as my namesake was a very hard-working little brown mare, I could only

laugh and declare myself much flattered.

Here we are at last, amid the tropical vegetation which makes a green

and tangled girdle around D'Urban for a dozen miles inland: yonder is

the white and foaming line of breakers which marks where the strong

current, sweeping down the east coast, brings along with it all the

sand and silt it can collect, especially from the mouth of the Umgeni

River close by, and so forms the dreaded bar, which divides the

outer from the inner harbor. Beyond this crisp and sparkling line of

heaving, tossing snow stretches the deep indigo-blue of the Indian

Ocean, whilst over all wonderful sunset tints of opal and flame-color

are hovering and changing with the changing, wind-driven clouds.

Beneath our wheels are many inches of thick white sand, but the

streets are gay and busy, with picturesque coolies in their bright

cotton draperies and swiftly-passing Cape carts and vehicles of all

sorts. We are in D'Urban indeed--D'Urban in unwonted holiday dress and

on the tippest tiptoe of expectation and excitement. A Cape cart, with

a Chinese coolie driver, and four horses apparently put in harness

together for the first time, was waiting for us and our luggage at the

post-office. We got into it, and straight-way began to plunge through

the sandy streets once more, turning off the high-road and beginning

almost immediately to climb with pain and difficulty the red sandy

slopes of the Berea, a beautiful wooded upland dotted with villas. The

road is terrible for man and beast, and we had to stop every few yards

to breathe the horses. At last our destination is reached, through

fields of sugar-cane and plantations of coffee, past luxuriant fruit

trees, rustling, broad-leafed bananas and encroaching greenery of

all sorts, to a clearing where a really handsome house stands, with

hospitable, wide-open doors, awaiting us. Yes, a good big bath first,

then a cup of tea, and now we are ready for a saunter in the twilight

on the wide level terrace (called by the ugly Dutch name "stoop")

which runs round three sides of the house. How green and fragrant and

still it all is! Straight-way the glare of the long sunny day, the

rattle and jolting of the post-cart, the toil through the sand, all

slip away from mind and memory, and the tranquil delicious present,

"with its-odors of rest and of love," slips in to soothe and calm our

jaded senses. Certainly, it is hotter here than in Maritzburg--that

assertion we are prepared to die in defence of--but we acknowledge

that the heat at this hour is _not_ oppressive, and the tropical

luxuriance of leaf and flower all around is worth a few extra degrees

of temperature. Of course, our talk is of to-morrow, and we look

anxiously at the purpling clouds to the west.

"A fine day," says our host; and so it ought to be with five thousand

people come from far and wide to see the sight. Why, that is more

than a quarter of the entire white population of Natal! Bed and sleep

become very attractive suggestions, though made indecently soon after

dinner, and it is somewhere about ten o'clock when they are carried

out, and, like Lord Houghton's famous "fair little girl," we

Know nothing more till again it is day.

A fine day, too, is this same New Year's Day of 1876--a glorious

day--sunny of course, but with a delicious breeze stealing among the

flowers and shrubs in capricious puffs, and snatching a differing

scent from each heavy cluster of blossom it visits. By mid-day F----

has got himself into his gold-laced coat and has lined the inside of

his cocked hat with plaintain-leaves.

He has also groaned much at the idea of substituting this futile

head-gear for his hideous but convenient pith helmet. I too have

donned my best gown, and am horrified to find how much a smart bonnet

(the first time I have needed to wear one since I left England) sets

off and brings out the shades of tan in a sun-browned face; and for

a moment I too entertain the idea of retreating once more to the

protecting depths of my old shady hat. But a strong conviction of the

duty one owes to a "first sod," and the consoling reflection that,

after all, everybody will be equally brown (a fallacy, by the way:

the D'Urban beauties looked very blanched by this summer weather),

supported me, and I followed F---- and his cocked hat into the waiting

carriage.

No need to ask, "Where are we to go?" All roads lead to the first

sod to-day. We are just a moment late: F---- has to get out of the

carriage and plunge into the sand, madly rushing off to find and fall

into his place in the procession, and we turn off to secure our seats

in the grand stand. But before we take them I must go and look at

the wheelbarrow and spade, and above all at the "first sod." For some

weeks past it has been a favorite chaff with us Maritzburgians to

offer to bring a nice fresh, lively sod down with us, but we were

assured D'Urban could furnish one. Here it is exactly under the

triumphal arch, looking very faded and depressed, with a little

sunburned grass growing feebly on it, but still a genuine sod and no

mistake. The wheelbarrow was really beautiful, made of native woods

with their astounding names. All three specimens of the hardest and

handsomest yellow woods were there, and they were described to me as,

"stink-wood, breeze-wood and sneeze-wood." The rich yellow of the wood

is veined by handsome dark streaks, with "1876" inlaid in large black

figures in the centre. The spade was just a common spade, and could

not by any possibility be called anything else. But there is no time

to linger and laugh any longer beneath all these fluttering streamers

and waving boughs, for here are the Natal Carbineers, a plucky little

handful of light horse clad in blue and silver, who have marched, at

their own charges, all the way down from Maritzburg to help keep the

ground this fine New Year's Day. Next come a strong body of Kafir

police, trudging along through the dust with odd shuffling gait,

bended knees, bare legs, bodies leaning forward, and keeping step and

time by means of a queer sort of barbaric hum and grunt. Policemen

are no more necessary than my best bonnet: they are only there for the

same reason--for the honor and glory of the thing. The crowd is kept

in order by somebody here and there with a ribboned wand, for it is

the most orderly and respectable crowd you ever saw. In fact, such

a crowd would be an impossibility in England or any highly-civilized

country. There are no dodging vagrants, no slatternly women, no

squalid, starving babies. In fact, our civilization has not yet

mounted to effervescence, so we have no dregs. Every white person on

the ground was well clad, well fed, and apparently well-to-do. The

"lower orders" were represented by a bright fringe of coolies and

Kafirs, sleek, grinning and as fat as ortolans, especially the babies.

Most of the Kafirs were dressed in snow-white knickerbockers and

shirts bordered by gay bands of color, with fillets of scarlet ribbon

tied round their heads, while as for the coolies, they shone out like

a shifting bed of tulips, so bright were the women's _chuddahs_ and

the men's jackets. All looked smiling, healthy and happy, and the

public enthusiasm rose to its height when to the sound of a vigorous

band (it is early yet in the day, remember, O flute and trombone!) a

perfect liliputian mob of toddling children came on the ground. These

little people were all in their cleanest white frocks and prettiest

hats: they clung to each other and to their garlands and staves of

flowers until the tangled mob reminded one of a May-Day fete. Not that

any English May Day of my acquaintance could produce such a lavish

profusion of roses and buds and blossoms of every hue and tint, to

say nothing of such a sun and sky. The children's corner was literally

like a garden, and nothing could be prettier than the effect of their

little voices shrilling up through the summer air, as, obedient to a

lifted wand, they burst into the chorus of the national anthem when

the governor and mayor drove up. Cheers from white throats; gruff,

loud shouts all together of _Bayete!_ (the royal salute) and _Inkosi!_

("chieftain") from black throats; yells, expressive of excitement and

general good-fellowship, from throats of all colors. Then a moment's

solemn pause, a hushed silence, bared heads, and the loud, clear tones

of a very old pastor in the land were heard imploring the blessing of

Almighty God on this our undertaking, Again the sweet childish trebles

rose into the sunshine in a chanted Amen, and then there were salutes

from cannon, feux-de-joie from carbines, and more shoutings, and all

the cocked hats were to be seen bowing; and then one more tremendous

burst of cheering told that _the_ sod was cut and turned and trundled,

and finally pitched out of the new barrow back again upon the dusty

soil--all in the most artistic and satisfactory fashion. "There are

the Kafir navvies: they are _really_ going to work now." (This latter

with great surprise, for a Kafir _really_ working, now or ever,

would indeed have been the raree-show of the day.) But this natural

phenomenon was left to develop itself in solitude, for the crowd began

to reassemble into processions, and generally to find its way under

shelter from sun and dust. The five hundred children were heralded

and marched off to the tune of one of their own pretty hymns to where

unlimited buns and tea awaited them, and we elders betook ourselves to

the grateful shade and coolness of the flower-decked new market-hall,

open to-day for the first time, and turned by flags and ferns and

lavish wealth of what in England are costliest hot-house flowers into

a charming banqueting-hall. All these exquisite ferns and blossoms

cost far less than the string and nails which fastened them against

the walls, and their fresh fragrance and greenery struck gratefully on

our sun-baked eyes as we found our way into the big room.

Nothing could be more creditable to a young colony than the way

everything was arranged, for the difficulties in one's culinary path

in Natal are hardly to be appreciated by English housekeepers. At one

time there threatened to be almost a famine in D'Urban, for besides

the pressure of all these extra mouths of visitors to feed, there was

this enormous luncheon, with some five hundred hungry people to be

provided for. It seems so strange that with every facility for rearing

poultry all around it should be scarce and dear, and when brought to

market as thin as possible. The same may be said of vegetables: they

need no culture beyond being put in the ground, and yet unless you

have a garden of your own it is very difficult to get anything like a

proper supply. I heard nothing but wails from distracted housekeepers

about the price and scarcity of food that week. However, _the_

luncheon showed no sign of scarcity, and I was much amused at the

substantial and homely character of the _menu_, which included cold

baked sucking pig among its delicacies. A favorite specimen of the

confectioner's art that day consisted of a sort of solid brick of plum

pudding, with, for legend, "The First Sod" tastefully picked out in

white almonds on its dark surface. But it was a capital luncheon, and

so soon as the mayor had succeeded in impressing on the band that they

were not expected to play all the time the speeches were being made,

everything went on very well. Some of the speeches were short, but oh!

far, far too many were long, terribly long, and the whole affair was

not over before five o'clock. The only real want of the entertainment

was ice. It seems so hard not to have it in a climate which

can produce such burning days, for those tiresome cheap little

ice-machines with crystals are of no use whatever. I got one which

made ice (under pressure of much turning) in the ship, but it has

never made any here, and my experience is that of everybody else. Why

there should not be an ice-making or an ice-importing company no one

knows, except that there is so little energy or enterprise here that

everything is dawdly and uncomfortable because it seems too much

trouble to take pains to supply wants. It is the same everywhere

throughout the colony: sandy roads with plenty of excellent materials

for hardening them close by; no fish to be bought because no one will

take the trouble of going out to catch them. But I had better stop

scribbling, for I am evidently getting tired after my long day of

unwonted festivity. It is partly the oppression of my best bonnet,

and partly the length of the speeches, which have wearied me out so

thoroughly.

MARITZBURG, January 6.

Nothing could afford a greater contrast than our return journey. It

was the other extreme of discomfort and misery, and must surely have

been sent to make us appreciate and long for the completion of this

very railway. We waited a day beyond that fixed for our return, in

order to give the effects of a most terrific thunderstorm time to pass

away, but it was succeeded by a perfect deluge of rain. Rain is not

supposed to last long at this season of the year, but all I can say is

that this rain did last. When the third day came and brought no sign

of clearing up with it, and very little down to speak of, we agreed to

delay no longer; besides which our places in the post-cart could not

be again exchanged, as had previously been done, for the stream of

returning visitors was setting strongly toward Maritzburg, and

we might be detained for a week longer if we did not go at once.

Accordingly, we presented ourselves at the D'Urban post-office a few

minutes before noon and took our places in the post-cart. My seat was

on the box, and as I flattered myself that I was well wrapped up, I

did not feel at all alarmed at the prospect of a cold, wet drive. Who

would believe that twenty-four hours ago one could hardly endure a

white muslin dressing-gown? Who would believe that twenty-four hours

ago a lace shawl was an oppressive wrap, and that the serious object

of my envy and admiration all these hot days on the Berea has been a

fat Abyssinian baby, as black as a coal, and the strongest and

biggest child one ever saw. That sleek and grinning infant's toilette

consisted of a string of blue beads round its neck, and in this cool

and airy costume it used to pervade the house, walking about on all

fours exactly like a monkey, for of course it could not stand. Yet,

how cold that baby must be to-day! But if it is, its mother has

probably tied it behind her in an old shawl, and it is nestling close

to her fat broad back fast asleep.

But the baby is certainly a most unwarrantable digression, and we

must return to our post-cart. The discouraging part of it was that

the vehicle itself had been in all the storm and rain of yesterday. Of

course no one had dreamed of washing or wiping it out in any fashion,

so we had to sit upon wet cushions and put our feet into a pool of red

mud and water. Now, if I must confess the truth, I, an old traveler,

had done a very stupid thing. I had been lured by the deceitful beauty

of the weather when we started into leaving behind me everything

except the thinnest and coolest garments I possessed, and I therefore

had to set out on this journey in the teeth of a cold wind and driving

rain clad in a white gown. It is true, I had my beloved and most

useful ulster, but it was a light waterproof one, and just about

half enough in the way of warmth. Still, as I had another wrap, a big

Scotch plaid, I should have got along very well if it had not been for

the still greater stupidity of the only other female fellow-passenger,

who calmly took her place in the open post-cart behind me in a brown

holland gown, without scarf or wrap or anything whatever to shelter

her from the weather, except a white calico sunshade. She was a

Frenchwoman too, and looked so piteous and forlorn in her neat

toilette, already drenched through, that of course I could do nothing

less than lend her my Scotch shawl, and trust to the driver's friendly

promises of empty corn-bags at some future stage. By the time the bags

came--or rather by the time we got to the bags--I was indeed wet and

cold. The ulster, did its best, and all that could be expected of it,

but no garment manufactured in a London shop could possibly cope with

such wild weather, tropical in the vehemence of its pouring rain,

wintry in its cutting blasts. The wind seemed to blow from every

quarter of the heavens at once, the rain came down in sheets, but

I minded the mud more than either wind or rain: it was more

demoralizing. On the box-seat I got my full share and more, but yet

I was better off there than inside, where twelve people were squeezed

into the places of eight. The horses' feet got balled with the stiff

red clay exactly as though it had been snow, and from time to time as

they galloped along, six fresh ones at every stage, I received a good

lump of clay, as big and nearly as solid as a croquet-ball, full in my

face. It was bitterly cold, and the night was closing in when we drove

up to the door of the best hotel in Maritzburg, at long past eight

instead of six o'clock. It was impossible to get out to our own place

that night, so there was nothing for it but to stay where we were, and

get what food and rest could be coaxed out of an indifferent bill

of fare and a bed of stony hardness, to say nothing of the bites of

numerous mosquitoes. The morning light revealed the melancholy state

of my unhappy white gown in its full horror. All the rivers of Natal

will never make it white again, I fear. Certainly there is much to

be said in favor of railway-traveling, after all, especially in wet

weather.

JANUARY 10.

Surely, I have been doing something else lately besides turning this

first sod? Well, not much. You see, no one can undertake anything in

the way of expeditions or excursions, or even sight-seeing, in

summer, partly on account of the heat, and partly because of the

thunderstorms. We have had a few very severe ones lately, but we hail

them with joy on account of the cool clear atmosphere which succeeds

to a display of electrical vehemence. We walked home from church a few

evenings ago on a very wild and threatening night, and I never shall

forget the weird beauty of the scene. We had started to go to church

about six o'clock: the walk was only two miles, and the afternoon was

calm and cloudless. The day had been oppressively hot, but there were

no immediate signs of a storm. While we were in church, however, a

fresh breeze sprang up and drove the clouds rapidly before it. The

glare of the lightning made every corner of the church as bright

as day, and the crash of the thunder shook the wooden roof over our

heads. But there was no rain yet, and when we came out--in fear and

trembling, I confess, as to how we were to get home--we could see that

the violence of the storm had either passed over or not yet reached

the valley in which Maritzburg nestles, and was expending itself

somewhere else. So F---- decided that we might venture. As for

vehicles to be hired in the streets, there are no such things, and

by the time we could have persuaded one to turn out for us--a very

doubtful contingency, and only to be procured at the cost of a

sovereign or so--the full fury of the storm would probably be upon us.

There was nothing for it, therefore, but to walk, and so we set out

as soon as possible to climb our very steep hill. Instead of the

soft, balmy twilight on which we had counted, the sky was of an inky

blackness, but for all that we had light enough and to spare. I never

saw such lightning. The flashes came literally every second, and lit

up the whole heavens and earth with a blinding glare far brighter than

any sunshine. So great was the contrast, and so much more intense

the darkness after each flash of dazzling light, that we could only

venture to walk on _during_ the flashes, though one's instinct was

rather to stand still, awestricken and mute. The thunder growled and

cracked incessantly, but far away, toward the Inchanga Valley. If the

wind had shifted ever so little and brought the storm back again, our

plight would have been poor indeed; and with this dread upon us we

trudged bravely on and breasted the hillside with what haste and

courage we could. During the rare momentary intervals of darkness we

could perceive that the whole place was ablaze with fireflies. Every

blade of grass held a tiny sparkle of its own, but when the lightning

shone out with its yellow and violet glare the modest light of the

poor little fireflies seemed to be quite extinguished. As for the

frogs, the clamorous noise they kept up sounded absolutely deafening,

and so did the shrill, incessant cry of the cicalas. We reached home

safely and before the rain fell, but found all our servants in the

verandah in the last stage of dismay and uncertainty what to do for

the best. They had collected waterproofs, umbrellas and lanterns; but

as it was not actually raining yet, and we certainly did not require

light on our path--for they said that each flash showed them our

climbing, trudging figures as plainly as possible--it was difficult

to know what to do, especially as the Kafirs have, very naturally, an

intense horror and dislike to going out in a thunderstorm. This storm

was not really overhead at all, and scarcely deserves mention except

as the precursor of a severe one of which our valley got the full

benefit. It was quite curious to see the numbers of dead butterflies

on the garden-paths after that second storm. Their beautiful plumage

was not dimmed or smirched nor their wings broken: they would have

been in perfect order for a naturalist's collection; yet they were

quite dead and stiff. The natives declare it is the lightning which

kills them thus.

My own private dread--to return to that walk home for a moment--was of

stepping on a snake, as there are a great many about, and one especial

variety, a small poisonous brown adder, is of so torpid and lazy a

nature that it will not glide out of your way, as other snakes do,

but lets you tread on it and then bites you. It is very marvelous,

considering how many snakes there are, that one hears of so few bad

accidents. G---- is always poking about in likely places for them, as

his supreme ambition is to see one. I fully expect a catastrophe some

day, and keep stores of ammonia and brandy handy. Never was such

a fearless little monkey. He is always scampering about on his old

Basuto pony, and of course tumbles off now and then; but he does not

mind it in the least. When he is not trying to break his neck in this

fashion he is down by himself at the river fishing, or he is climbing

trees, or down a well which is being dug here, or in some piece of

mischief or other. The sun and the fruit are my _bêtes noires_, but

neither seems to hurt him, though I really don't believe that any

other child in the world has ever eaten so many apricots at one time

as he has been doing lately. This temptation has just been removed,

however, for during our short absence at D'Urban every fruit tree

has been stripped to the bark--every peach and plum, every apple and

apricot, clean gone. Of course, no one has done it, but it is very

provoking all the same, for it used to be so nice to take the baby out

very early, and pick up the fallen apricots for breakfast. The

peaches are nearly all pale and rather tasteless, but the apricots are

excellent in flavor, of a large size and in extraordinary abundance.

There was also a large and promising crop of apples, but they have

all been taken in their unripe state. As a rule, the Kafirs are

scrupulously honest, and we left plate and jewelry in the house under

Charlie's care whilst we were away, without the least risk, for such

things they would never touch; but fruit or mealies they cannot be

brought to regard as personal property, and they gather the former

and waste the latter without scruple. It is a great objection to the

imported coolies, who make very clean and capital servants, that they

have inveterate habits of pilfering and are hopelessly dishonest about

trifles. For this reason they are sure to get on badly with Kafir

fellow-servants, who are generally quite above any temptation of that

kind.

JANUARY 14.

A few days ago we took G---- to see the annual swimming sports in the

small river which runs through the park. It was a beautiful afternoon,

for a wonder, with no lowering thunder-clouds over the hills, so

the banks of the river were thronged for half a mile and more with

spectators. It made a very pretty picture, the large willow trees

drooping into the water on either shore, the gay concourse of people,

the bright patch of color made by the red coats of the band of the

regiment stationed across the stream, the tents for the competitors to

change in, the dark wondering faces of Kafirs and coolies, who cannot

comprehend _why_ white people should take so much trouble and run so

much risk to amuse themselves. We certainly must appear to them to

be possessed by a restless demon of energy, both in our work and our

play, and never more so than on this hot afternoon, when, amid

much shouting and laughing, the various water-races came off. The

steeplechase amused us a great deal, where the competitors had to swim

over and under various barriers across the river; and so did the race

for very little boys, which was a full and excellent one. The monkeys

took to the water as naturally as fishes, and evidently enjoyed the

fun more than any one. Indeed, the difficulty was to get them out of

the water and into the tents to change their swimming costume after

the race was over. But the most interesting event was one meant to

teach volunteers how to swim rivers in case of field service, and

the palm lay between the Natal Carbineers and a smart body of mounted

police. At a given signal they all plunged on horseback into the muddy

water, and from a very difficult part of the bank too, and swam, fully

accoutred and carrying their carbines, across the river. It was very

interesting to watch how clever the horses were, and how some of their

riders slipped off their backs the moment they had fairly entered the

stream and swam side by side with their steeds until the opposite bank

was reached; and then how the horses paused to allow their dripping

masters to mount again--no easy task in heavy boots and saturated

clothes, with a carbine in the left hand which had to be kept dry at

all risks and hazards. When I asked little G---- which part he liked

best, he answered without hesitation, "The assidents" (angliçè,

accidents), and I am not sure that he was not right; for, as no one

was hurt, the crowd mightily enjoyed seeing some stalwart citizen

in his best clothes suddenly topple from his place of vantage on the

deceitfully secure-looking but rotten branch of a tree and take an

involuntary bath in his own despite. When that citizen further chanced

to be clad in a suit of bright-colored velveteen the effect was

much enhanced. It is my private opinion that G---- was longing to

distinguish himself in a similar fashion, for I constantly saw him

"lying out" on most frail branches, but try as he might, he could not

accomplish a tumble.

JANUARY 17.