The quiet boy Grisha stood within the enclosure of enchanted sadness
and mystery. His face was pale and reposeful, and there was a keen,
quiet sparkle in his cool, sky-blue eyes.
The early evening sky was growing bluer--a blue reposefulness was
pouring itself out upon the earth and extinguishing the ruby-coloured
flames of the sunset. And silhouetted against the blueness of the
heights birds were flying about. Why should they have wings, these
earthly, preoccupied creatures?
As he stood there in the quiet of the enclosure, Grisha felt himself
drawn by the fragrance of the lilies of the valley, no less innocent
than he, the quiet, blue-eyed Grisha. It was as if some one were
calling him outside the enclosure, towards the poor life which
tormented itself in the blue and mist-enveloped distance, calling him
despairingly and agonizingly--and he both wished and did not wish to
go. Some one’s voice, full of distress, called him wearily to life
outside.
How can calls of distress be resisted? When will the tranquil heart
forget earthly travail wholly and for always?
At last Grisha walked out of the gate. He took a deep breath of the
sharp but delicious outside air. He walked quietly upon the narrow,
dusty path. His light footprints lay behind him, and his white clothes
glimmered brightly, in quiet movement, against the dim verdure and the
grey dust. Before him, barely visible, rose the white, lifeless, clear
moon, powerless to enchant the tedious earthly spaces.
Then the town began--the grey, dull, tiresome town, with its dirty
back yards, consumptive vegetable gardens, broken-down hedges,
bathhouses, and sheds, and all manner of ugly projections and
depressing amorphousness--all of it resembling a hopeless ruin.
Egorka, the eleven-year-old son of a local commoner, stood by the
hedge of one of the vegetable gardens. What had been red calico once
made up his torn shirt; but his face!--it was like that of an angel in
a tawny mask covered with spots of dirt and dust. Wings are for light
feet, but what can the earth do? Only dust and clay cling to light
feet.
Egorka had come out to play. He waited for his companions, but for
some reason none of them was to be seen. He stood alone there, now
listening to this, now looking at that. He suddenly espied on the
other side of the hedge an unknown quiet boy, who--all in white--was
looking at him. Egorka asked in astonishment:
“Where do you come from?”
“You can never know,” said Grisha.
“Don’t be too sure of that!” shouted Egorka gaily. “Maybe I do know.
Now tell me.”
“Would you like to know?” asked Grisha with a smile.
It was a tranquil smile. Egorka was about to stick his tongue out in
response, but changed his mind for some reason. They began to
converse, to exchange whispers.
Everything around them lapsed into deep quiet, and nothing appeared to
give heed to them--it was as if the two little ones went off into
quite another world, behind a thin curtain which no one could rend. So
motionless stood the birches bewitched mysteriously by three fallen
spirits. Grisha asked again:
“Yes, you would like to know?”
“Honest to God, I’d like to; here’s a cross to prove it,” said Egorka
rather quickly, and he crossed himself with an oblique movement of the
joined fingers of his dirty hand.
“Then follow me,” said Grisha.
He turned lightly homewards, and as he walked he did not stop to look
round at the meagre, tiresome objects of this grey life. Egorka
followed the white boy. He walked quietly and marvelled at the other.
He thought for a while, then he asked:
“Are you not one of God’s angels? Why are you so white?”
The quiet boy smiled at these words. He said with a light sigh:
“No, I am a human being.”
“You don’t mean it? An ordinary boy?”
“Just like you--almost like you.”
“How clean you are! I should say you washed yourself seven times a day
with egg-soap! You walk about barefoot, not at all like me, and the
sunburn doesn’t seem to stick to you--there’s only a cover of dust on
your feet.”
The aroma of violets came from somewhere, and it mingled now with the
dry smell of the flying dust, now with the sickly, half-sweet,
half-bitter odour of the smoke of a forest fire.
The two boys avoided the tiresome monotony of the fields and the
roads, and entered the dark silence of the wood. They passed by glades
and copses and quietly purling streams. The boys strode along narrow
footpaths, where the gentle dew clung to their feet. Everything
appeared wonderful in Egorka’s eyes, used only to the raging
turbulence of a malignant yet dull and grey life. The time lingered
on, running and consuming itself, wreathed in a circle of delicious
moments, and it seemed to Egorka that he had come into some fabulous
land. He slept somewhere at night, and he felt intensely happy on
opening his eyes next morning, having been awakened by the twitter of
birds which shook the dew from the pliant tree-limbs; then he played
with the cheerful boys and listened to music.
Sometimes the white Grisha left Egorka all by himself. Then he again
reappeared. Egorka noticed that Grisha kept apart from the others, the
cheerful, noisy children; that he did not play with them, and that he
spoke little--not that he was afraid, or deliberately turned aside,
but simply because it seemed to arrange itself, and it was natural for
him to be alone, radiant and sad.
Once Egorka and Grisha, on being left by themselves, went strolling
together through a little wood which was all permeated with light. The
wood grew denser and denser.
They came to two tall, straight trees. A bronze rod was suspended
between them, and upon the rod, on rings, hung a dark red silk
curtain. The light breeze caused the thin draperies to flutter. The
quiet, blue-eyed Grisha drew the curtain aside. The red folds came
together with a sharp rustle and with a sudden flare as of a flame.
The opening revealed a wooded vista, all permeated with a strangely
bright light, like a vision of a transfigured land. Grisha said:
“Go, Egorushka--it is good there.”
Egorka looked into the clear wooded distance: fear beset his heart,
and he said quietly:
“I am afraid.”
“What are you afraid of, silly boy?” asked Grisha affectionately.
“I don’t know. Something makes me afraid,” said Egorka timidly.
Grisha felt aggrieved. He sighed quietly and then said:
“Well, go home, then, if you are afraid here.”
Egorka recalled his home, his mother, the town he lived in. He did not
have a very happy time of it at home--they lived poorly, and he was
whipped often. Egorka suddenly threw himself at the quiet Grisha,
caught him by his gentle, cool hands, and cried:
“Don’t chase me away, dear Grisha, don’t chase me from you.”
“Am I chasing you away?” retorted Grisha. “You yourself don’t want to
come.”
Egorka got down on his knees and whispered as he kissed Grisha’s feet:
“I pray to you angels with all my strength.”
“Then follow me,” said Grisha.
Light hands descended on Egorka’s shoulders and lifted him from the
grass. Egorka followed Grisha obediently to the blue paradise of his
quiet eyes. A peaceful valley opened before him and the quiet children
played in it. The dew fell on Egorka’s feet, and its kisses gave him
joy. The quiet children surrounded Egorka and Grisha and, all joining
hands in one broad ring, carried the two boys with them in a swiftly
moving dance.
“My dear angels,” shouted Egorka, twirling and rejoicing, “you have
bright little faces, you have clean little eyes, you have white little
hands, you have light little feet! Am I on earth or am I in Paradise?
My dear ones, my little brothers and little sisters, where are your
little wings?”
Some one’s near, sweet-sounding voice answered him:
“You are upon the earth, not in Paradise, and we have no need of
wings--we fly wingless.”
They captivated, bewitched, and caressed him. They showed him all the
wonders of the wood under the tree-stumps, the bushes, the dry
leaves--little wood-sprites with rustling little voices, with
spider-webby hair, straight ones and hunchbacked ones; little old men
of the wood; the shadow-sprites and little companion spirits;
bantering little sprites in green coats, midnight ones and daylight
ones, grey ones and black ones; little jokers-pokers with shaggy
little paws; fabulous birds and animals--everything that is not to be
seen in the gloomy, everyday, earthly world.
Egorka had a splendid time with the quiet children. He did not notice
how a whole week had passed by--from Friday to Friday. And suddenly he
began to long for his mother. He heard her calling him at night, and
as he woke in agitation he called:
“Mamma, where are you?”
There was stillness and silence all around him--it was an altogether
unknown world. Egorka began to cry. The quiet children came to comfort
him. They said to him:
“There’s nothing to cry about. You will return to your mother. And she
will be glad, and she will caress you.”
“She may whip me,” said Egorka, sobbing.
The quiet children smiled and said:
“Fathers and mothers whip their children.”
“They like to do it.”
“It seems wicked to beat any one.”
“But they really mean well.”
“They beat whom they love.”
“People mix everything up shame, love, pain.”
“Don’t you be afraid, Egorushka--she’s a mother.”
“Very well, I’ll not be afraid,” said Egorka, comforted.
When Egorka took leave of the quiet children Grisha said to him:
“You had better not tell your mother where you have passed all this
time.”
“No, I won’t tell,” replied Egorka vigorously, “not for anything.”
“You’ll blab it out,” said one of the girls.
She had dark, infinitely deep eyes; her thin, bare arms were always
folded obstinately across her breast. She spoke even less than the
other quiet children, and of all human words she liked “no” most.
“No, I shan’t blab anything,” asserted Egorka. “I shan’t even tell any
one where I have been; I shall put all these words under lock and
key.”
That same evening when Egorka left with Grisha, his mother suddenly
missed him. She shouted a long time and cursed and threatened; but as
there was no response she became frightened. “Perhaps he’s been
drowned,” she thought. She ran among her neighbours, wailing and
lamenting.
“My boy’s gone. I can’t find him anywhere. I simply don’t know where
else to look. He’s either drowned in the river or fallen into a
well--that’s what comes of mischief-making.”
One neighbour suggested:
“It’s most likely the Jews have caught him and are keeping him in some
out-of-the-way spot, and only waiting to let his Christian blood and
then drink it.”
This guess pleased them. They said with great assurance:
“It’s Jews’ work.”
“They are again at it, that accursed breed.”
“There’s no getting rid of them.”
“What a wretched affair!”
They all believed this. The disturbing rumour that the Jews had stolen
a Christian boy spread about town. Ostrov took a most zealous share in
disseminating the rumour. The markets were filled with noisy
discussions. The tradesmen and dealers, instigated by Ostrov, bellowed
loudly their denunciations. Why did Ostrov do this? He knew, of
course, that it was a lie. But latterly, acting on the instructions of
the local branch of the Black Hundred, he had been engaged in
provocatory work. The new episode came in handily.
The police began an investigation. They looked for the boy, but
without success. In any case, they found a Jew who had been seen by
some one near Egorka’s house. He was arrested.
It was evening again. Egorka’s mother was at home when Egorka
returned. There was a radiant sadness about him as he walked up to his
mother, kissed her and said:
“Hello, mamma!”
Egorka’s mother assailed him with questions:
“Oh, you little wretch! Where have you been? What have you been doing?
What unclean demons have carried you away?”
Egorka remembered his promise. He stood before his mother in obstinate
silence. His mother questioned him angrily:
“Where have you been? tell me! Did the Jews try to crucify you?”
“What Jews?” exclaimed Egorka. “No one has tried to crucify me.”
“You just wait, you young brat,” shouted his mother in a rage, “I’ll
make you talk.”
She caught hold of the besom and began to tear off its twigs. Then she
stripped the boy of his light clothes. Still wrapt in his radiant
sadness, Egorka looked at his mother with astonished eyes. He cried
plaintively:
“Mamma, what are you doing?”
But, already seized by the rough hand, the little body that had been
washed by the still waters began to struggle on the knees of the
harshly crying woman. It was painful, and Egorka sobbed in a shrill
voice. His mother beat him long and painfully, and she accompanied
each blow with an admonition:
“Tell me where you’ve been! Tell me! I won’t stop until you tell me.”
At last she stopped and burst out into violent crying:
“Why has God punished me so? But no, I’ll yet beat a word out of you.
I’ll give it to you worse to-morrow.”
Egorka was shaken less by the physical pain than by the unexpected
harshness of his reception. He had been in touch with another world,
and the quiet children in the enchanted valley had reconstructed his
soul on another plane.
His mother, however, loved him. Of course, she loved him. That was why
she beat him in her anger. Love and cruelty go always together among
humankind. They like to torment, vengeance gives them pleasure. But
later Egorka’s mother took pity on him; she thought she had flogged
him too hard. And now she walked up quietly to him.
Egorka lay on the bench and moaned softly, then he grew silent. His
mother smoothed his back awkwardly with her rough hands and left him.
She thought he had gone to sleep.
In the morning she went to wake him. She found him lying cold and
motionless on the bench, his face downward. And his radiance was gone
from him--he lay there a dark, cold corpse. The horrified mother began
to wail:
“He’s dead! Egorushka, are you really dead? Oh, God--and his little
hands are quite cold!”
She dashed out to her neighbours, she aroused the whole neighbourhood
with her shrill cries. Inquisitive women soon filled the house.
“I struck him ever so lightly with a thin twig,” the mother wailed.
“Then my angel lay down on the bench, cried a little, then grew quiet
and went to sleep, and in the morning he gave up his soul to God.”
Held by a heavy, death-like sleep, Egorka lay there motionless and to
all appearances lifeless, and listened to his mother’s wailing and to
the discordant clamour of voices. And he heard his mother keening over
him:
“Those accursed Jews have sucked out all his blood! It was not the
first time that I beat my little darling! It used to be that I’d beat
him and put a bit of salt on afterwards, and nothing would come of
it--and here I’ve hit him with a little twig and he, my handsome
darling, my little angel....”
Egorka heard her groans and wondered at his fettered helplessness and
immobility. He seemed to hear the noise of some one else’s body--he
realized that it was his own as it was put on the floor to be washed.
He had an intense longing to stir, to rise, but he could not. He
thought:
“I have died: what are they going to do with me now?”
And again he thought:
“Why is it that my soul is not leaving my body? I do not feel that I
have arms or legs, yet I can hear.”
He wondered and waited. Then, with a sudden powerless exertion, he
tried to wake from his death-like sleep, to return to himself, to run
away from the dark grave--and again his helpless will drooped, and
again he waited.
And he heard the sounds of the funeral chant, and noted the blueness
of the little cloud of incense-smoke and the fragrance that was wafted
by the quietly sounding swings of the smoky censer.