This dream was dreamed by poor Makar, who herded his calves in a stern
and distant land, by that same Makar upon whose head all troubles are
said to fall.
Makar’s birth place was the lonely village of Chalgan, lost in the far
forests of Yakutsk. His parents and grandparents had wrested a strip of
land from the forest, and their courage had not failed even when the
dark thickets still stood about them like a hostile wall. Rail fences
began to stretch across the clearing; small, smoky huts began to crowd
thickly upon it; hay and straw stacks sprang up; and at last, from a
knoll in the centre of the encampment, a church spire had shot toward
heaven like a banner of victory.
Chalgan had become a village.
But while Makar’s forbears had been striving with the forest, burning
it with fire and hewing it with steel, they themselves had slowly
become savage in their turn. They married Yakut women, spoke the
language of the Yakuts, adopted their customs, and gradually in them
the characteristics of the Great Russian race had been obliterated and
lost.
Nevertheless, my Makar firmly believed that he was a Russian peasant of
Chalgan, and not a nomad Yakut. In Chalgan he had been born, there he
had lived and there he meant to die. He was very proud of his birth and
station, and when he wished to vilify his fellow-townsmen would call
them “heathen Yakuts,” though if the truth must be told, he differed
from them neither in habits nor manner of living. He seldom spoke
Russian and, when he did, spoke it badly. He dressed in skins, wore
“torbas” on his feet, ate dough-cakes and drank brick-tea, supplemented
on holidays and special occasions with as much cooked butter as
happened to be on the table before him. He could ride very skilfully
on an ox, and when he fell ill he always summoned a wizard, who would
go mad and spring at him, gnashing his teeth, hoping to frighten the
malady out of his patient and so drive it away.
Makar worked desperately hard, lived in poverty, and suffered from
hunger and cold. Had he a thought beyond his unceasing anxiety to
obtain his dough-cakes and brick-tea? Yes, he had.
When he was drunk, he would weep and cry: “Oh, Lord my God, what a
life!” sometimes adding that he would like to give it all up and go
up on to the “mountain.” There he need neither sow nor reap, nor cut
and haul wood, nor even grind grain on a hand millstone. He would
“be saved,” that was all. He did not know exactly where the mountain
was, nor what it was like, he only knew that there was such a place,
and that it was somewhere far away, so far that there not even the
District Policeman could find him. Of course there he would pay no
taxes.
When sober he abandoned these thoughts, realising perchance the
impossibility of finding that beautiful mountain, but when drunk he
grew bolder. Admitting that he might not find that particular mountain,
but some other, he would say: “In that case I should die.” But he was
prepared to start, nevertheless. If he did not carry out his intention,
it was because the Tartars in the village always sold him vile vodka
with an infusion of mahorka[A] for strength, and this quickly made him
ill and laid him by the heels.
It was Christmas Eve, and Makar knew that to-morrow would be a great
holiday. This being the case, he was overpowered with a longing for
drink, but to drink there was nothing. His resources were at an end.
His flour was all gone, he was already in debt to the village merchants
and Tartars, yet to-morrow was a great holiday, he would not be able to
work, what could he do if he did not get drunk? This reflection made
him unhappy. What a life it was! He had not even one bottle of vodka to
drink on the great winter holiday.
Then a happy thought came to him. He got up and put on his ragged fur
coat. His wife, a sturdy, sinewy woman, remarkably strong and equally
remarkably ugly, who saw through all his simple wiles, guessed his
intentions as usual.
“Where are you going, you wretch? To drink vodka alone?”
“Be quiet. I’m going to buy one bottle. We’ll drink it together
to-morrow.”
He gave her a sly wink and clapped her on the shoulder with such force
that she staggered. A woman’s heart is like that; though she knew that
Makar was deceiving her, she surrendered to the charms of that conjugal
caress.
He went out of the house, caught his old piebald pony in the courtyard,
led him by the mane to the sleigh, and put him in harness. The piebald
soon carried Makar through the gates and then stopped and looked
enquiringly at his Master, who was sitting plunged in thought. At this
Makar pulled the left rein, and drove away to the outskirts of the
village.
On the edge of the village stood a little hut out of which, as out of
the other huts, the smoke of a little fire rose high, high into the
air, veiling the bright moon and the white, glittering hosts of stars.
The flames crackled merrily and sparkled through the dim icicles that
hung about the doorway. All was quiet inside the courtyard gates.
Strangers from a foreign land lived here. How they had come, what
tempest had cast them up in that lonely clearing, Makar knew not,
neither cared to know, but he liked to trade with them, for they
neither pressed him too hard nor insisted upon payment.
On entering the hut, Makar went straight to the fireplace and stretched
out his frozen hands over the blaze, crying “Tcha” to explain how the
frost had nipped him.
The foreigners were at home; a candle was burning on the table although
no work was being done. One man was lying on the bed blowing rings of
smoke, pensively following their winding curves with his eyes, and
intertwining with them the long threads of his thoughts.
The other was sitting over the fire thoughtfully watching the sparks
that crept across the burning wood.
“Hello!” said Makar, to break the oppressive silence.
He did not know--how should he--the sadness that filled the hearts of
the two strangers, the memories that crowded their brains that evening,
the visions they saw in the fantastic play of fire and smoke. Besides,
he had troubles of his own.
The young man who sat by the chimney raised his head and looked at
Makar with puzzled eyes, as if not recognising him. Then, with a shake
of his head, he quickly got up from his chair.
“Ah, good evening, good evening, Makar. Good. Will you have tea with
us?”
“Tea?” Makar repeated after him. “That’s good. That’s good, brother;
that’s fine.”
He began quickly to take off his things. Once free of his fur coat and
cap he felt more at his ease, and, seeing the red coals already glowing
in the samovar, he turned to the young man with exaggerated enthusiasm.
“I like you, that is the truth. I like you so, so very much; at night I
don’t sleep----”
The stranger turned, and a bitter smile crept over his face.
“You like me, do you?” he asked. “What do you want?”
“Business,” Makar answered. “But how did you know?”
“All right. When I’ve had tea I’ll tell you.”
As his hosts themselves had offered him tea, Makar thought the moment
opportune to press the point farther.
“Have you any roast meat?” he asked. “I like it.”
“No, we haven’t.”
“Well, never mind,” replied Makar soothingly. “We’ll have that some
other time, won’t we?” And he repeated his question: “We’ll have that
some other time?”
“Very well.”
Makar now considered that the strangers owed him a piece of roast
meat, and he never failed to collect a debt of this kind.
Another hour found him seated once more in his sled, having made
one whole rouble by selling five loads of wood in advance on fairly
good terms. Now, although he had vowed and sworn not to drink up the
money until to-morrow, he nevertheless made up his mind to do so
without delay. What odds? The pleasure ahead silenced the voice of his
conscience; he even forgot the cruel drubbing in store for his drunken
self from his wife, the faithful and the deceived.
“Where are you going, Makar?” called the stranger laughing, as Makar’s
horse, instead of going straight ahead, turned off to the left in the
direction of the Tartar settlement.
“Whoa! Whoa! Will you look where the brute is going?” cried Makar to
exculpate himself, tugging hard at the left rein nevertheless and slyly
slapping his pony’s side with the right.
The clever little horse stumbled patiently away in the direction
required by his master, and the scraping of the runners soon stopped in
front of a Tartar house.
* * * * *
At the gate stood several horses with high-peaked Yakut saddles on
their backs.
The air in the crowded hut was stifling and hot; a dense cloud of acrid
mahorka smoke hung in the air and wound slowly up the chimney. Yakut
visitors were sitting on benches about the room or had clustered around
the tables set with mugs full of vodka. Here and there little groups
were gathered over a game of cards. The faces of all were flushed and
shining with sweat. The eyes of the gamblers were fiercely intent on
their play, and the money came and went in a flash from pocket to
pocket. On a pile of straw in a corner sat a drunken Yakut, rocking his
body to and fro and droning an endless song. He drew the wild, rasping
sounds from his throat in every possible key, repeating always that
to-morrow was a great holiday and that to-day he was drunk.
Makar paid his rouble and received in return a bottle of vodka. He
slipped it into the breast of his coat and retired unnoticed into a
corner. There he filled mug after mug in rapid succession and gulped
them down one after another. The liquor was vile, diluted for the
holiday with more than three quarters of water, but if the dole of
vodka was scant, the mahorka had not been stinted. Makar caught his
breath after each draught, and purple spots circled before his eyes.
The liquor soon overpowered him; he also sank down on the straw, folded
his arms around his knees, and laid his heavy head upon them. The same
dreary, rasping sounds burst of their own accord from his throat; he
sang that to-morrow was a great holiday and that he had drunk up five
loads of wood.
Meanwhile the hut was filling with other Yakuts who had come to town
to go to church and to drink Tartar vodka, and the host saw that soon
there would be no room for more. He rose from the table and looked at
the company, and, as he did so, his eye fell upon Makar and the Yakut
sitting in their dark corner. He made his way to the Yakut, seized him
by the coat collar, and flung him out of the hut. Then he approached
Makar.
As a citizen of Chalgan, the Tartar showed him greater respect;
he threw the door open wide and gave the poor fellow such a kick
from behind that Makar shot out of the hut and buried his nose in a
snow-drift.
It would be difficult to say whether Makar was offended by this
treatment or not. He felt snow up his sleeves and on his face, picked
himself up somehow out of the drift, and staggered to where his piebald
was standing.
The moon had by now risen high in the heavens and the tail of the Great
Bear was dipping toward the horizon. The cold was tightening its grasp.
The first fiery shafts of the Aurora were flaring up fitfully out of a
dark, semicircular cloud in the north and playing softly across the sky.
The piebald, realising, it seemed, his master’s condition, trudged
carefully and soberly homeward. Makar sat in his sled, swaying from
side to side, and continued his song. He sang that he had drunk away
five loads of wood, and that his old woman would kill him when he got
home.
The sounds that burst from his throat rasped and groaned so dismally
through the evening air that his friend the foreigner, who had climbed
up on to his roof to close the mouth of the chimney, felt more than
ever unhappy at the sound of Makar’s song.
Meanwhile the piebald had drawn the sled to the top of a little hill
from where the surrounding country could be distinctly seen. The snowy
expanse lay shining brightly, bathed in the rays of the moon, but from
time to time the moonlight faded and the white fields grew dark until,
with a sudden flash, the radiance of the Northern Lights streamed
across them. Then it seemed as if the snowy hills and the forest that
clothed them were coming very close, to withdraw once again into the
distant shadow. Makar spied plainly through the trees the silvery bald
crown of the little knoll behind which his traps were waiting for all
the wild dwellers of the forest. The sight of this hill changed the
tenor of his thoughts. He sang that a fox had been caught in one of his
snares; he would sell the pelt in the morning, and so his wife would
not kill him.
The first chimes of the church bells were ringing through the frosty
air as Makar re-entered his hut. His first words were to tell his
wife that a fox had been caught in one of his traps, and as he had
forgotten entirely that the old woman had not shared his vodka, he was
violently surprised when she gave him a cruel kick, without paying any
attention to his good news.
Later, as he lay prostrate on the bed, she managed to give him another
blow in the back with her fist.
Meanwhile the solemn, festal chiming of the bells broke over Chalgan
and floated far, far away into the distance.
* * * * *
He lay on his bed with his head burning and his vitals on fire. The
strong mixture of vodka and mahorka was coursing through his veins, and
trickles of melted snow were running down his face and back.
His wife thought him asleep, but he was not sleeping. He could not get
the idea of that fox out of his head. He had succeeded in convincing
himself absolutely that a fox had been caught in one of his traps,
and he even knew which trap it was. He saw the fox pinned under the
heavy log, saw it tearing at the snow with its claws and struggling to
be free, while the moonbeams stole into the thicket and played over
its red-gold fur. The eyes of the wild creature were glowing at his
approach.
He could stand it no longer. He rose from his bed, and started to find
his faithful pony who was to carry him into the forest.
But what was this? Had the strong arms of his wife really seized him
by the collar of his fur coat and thrown him back on the bed?
No, here he was, already beyond the village. The runners of his sleigh
were creaking smoothly over the hard snow. Chalgan had been left
behind. The solemn tones of the church bells came floating along his
trail, and on the black line of the horizon bands of dark horsemen in
tall, pointed hats were silhouetted against the bright sky. The Yakuts
were hurrying to church.
The moon went down, and a small, whitish cloud appeared in the zenith,
shining with suffused, phosphorescent lustre. It gathered size, it
broke, it flickered, and rays of iridescent light spread swiftly from
it in all directions, while the dark, semicircular cloud in the north
grew blacker and blacker, more sombre than the forest which Makar was
approaching.
The road wound through a dense, low thicket with little hills rising on
either hand; the farther it advanced, the higher grew the trees, until
at last the taiga[B] closed about it, mute and pregnant with mystery.
The naked branches of the larches drooped under their loads of silvery
rime. The soft radiance of the Aurora filtered through the tree-tops,
and strayed across the frosty earth, unveiling now an icy glade, now
the fallen trunk of some giant of the forest half buried in the snow.
Another moment, and again all was sunk in murky darkness, full-fraught
with secrecy and silence. Makar stopped. Here, almost at the side of
the road, were set the first units of an elaborate system of traps.
He could see clearly in the phosphorescent light the low stockade of
fallen timber and the first trap--three long, heavy logs resting upon
an upright post, and held in place by a complicated arrangement of
levers and horse-hair ropes.
To be sure, these traps were not his, but might not a fox have been
caught in them, too? Makar quickly got out of his sled, left the clever
piebald standing in the road, and listened attentively.
Not a sound in the forest! Only the solemn ringing of the church bells
came floating as before from the distant, invisible village.
There was nothing to fear. Aliosha, the owner of the traps and Makar’s
neighbour and bitter enemy, was no doubt in church. Not a track could
be seen on the smooth breast of the new-fallen snow.
Makar struck into the thicket--no one was there.
The snow creaked under foot. The log traps lay side by side like a row
of cannon with gaping jaws, in silent expectation.
Makar walked up and down the line without finding anything, and turned
back to the road.
But what was that? A faint rustle! The gleam of red fur near at hand in
a spot of light! Makar saw clearly the pointed ears of a fox; it waved
its bushy tail from side to side as if to beckon him into the forest,
and vanished among the tree-trunks in the direction of his traps. Next
moment a dull, heavy thud resounded through the forest, ringing out
clearly at first, and then echoing more faintly under the canopy of
trees, until it died softly away in the dark abysses of the taiga.
Makar’s heart leapt--a trap had fallen!
He sprang toward the sound, pushing his way through the undergrowth.
The icy twigs whipped his eyes and showered snow in his face; he
stumbled and lost his breath.
At last he ran into a clearing that he himself had made. Hoary white
trees surrounded the little glade, and a shrinking path crept across
it, with the mouth of a large trap guarding its farther end. A few
steps more and----
Suddenly, the figure of a man appeared on the path near the
trap--appeared and vanished. Makar recognised Aliosha. He saw
distinctly his short, massive, stooping form and his walk like a
bear’s. His dark face looked blacker than he had ever seen it, Makar
thought, and his large teeth showed in a wider grin than ever.
Makar was seized with genuine anger. “The scoundrel! He has been at my
traps!” It was true that Makar had just made the round of Aliosha’s
traps, but that was a different matter. The difference was that when he
visited other men’s traps he felt afraid of being discovered, but when
others came to his traps, he felt indignation and a longing to lay
hands on the man who had violated his rights.
He darted toward the fallen trap. There was the fox! Aliosha, too, was
approaching with his shuffling bear’s walk; Makar must reach the trap
first!
There lay the fallen log and under it glistened the ruddy coat of the
captive creature. The fox was scratching at the snow with its paws
exactly as Makar had seen it scratch in his dream, and was watching his
approach with bright, burning eyes, just as he had dreamt that it would.
“Titima! (Don’t touch it!) It is mine!” cried Makar to Aliosha.
“Titima!” came Aliosha’s voice like an echo. “It is mine!”
Both men ran up at the same moment, and both began quickly to raise the
log, freeing the animal beneath it. As the log was lifted the fox rose
too. It gave a little jump, stopped, looked at the two men with mocking
eyes, and then, lowering its nose, licked the place that had been
caught under the log. This done it hopped gaily away with a farewell
flirt of its tail.
Aliosha would have thrown himself after it, but Makar caught him by the
coat tails.
“Titima!” he cried. “It is mine!” And he started after the fox.
“Titima!” echoed Aliosha’s voice again, and Makar felt himself seized,
in turn, by the tails of his coat, and saw Aliosha dart forward.
Makar was furious. He forgot the fox and rushed after Aliosha, who now
turned to flee.
They ran faster and faster. The twigs of the larches knocked the cap
from Aliosha’s head, but he could not stop to regain it. Makar was
already upon him with a fierce cry. But Aliosha had always been more
crafty than poor Makar. He suddenly stopped, turned round, and lowered
his head; Makar ran straight into it with his stomach and turned head
over heels in the snow. As he fell, that infernal Aliosha snatched the
cap from his head and vanished into the forest.
Makar rose slowly to his feet. He felt thoroughly beaten and miserable.
The state of his mind was pitiful. The fox had been in his hands and
now--he thought he saw it again in the darkening forest wave its tail
gaily once more and vanish forever.
Darkness was falling. The little white cloud in the zenith could barely
be seen, and beams of fading light were flowing wearily and languidly
from it as it gently melted away.
Sharp rivulets of icy water were running in streams over Makar’s heated
body; the snow had gone up his sleeves and was trickling down his back
and into his boots. That infernal Aliosha had taken away his cap and
Makar well knew that the pitiless cold does not jest with men who go
into the taiga without gloves and without a hat.
He had already walked far. According to his calculations he should long
since have been in sight of the church steeple, but here he was still
in the forest. The taiga held him in its embrace like a witch. The same
solemn ringing came to his ears from afar; he thought he was walking
toward it, but the sound kept growing more and more distant, and a dull
despair crept into Makar’s heart as its echoes came ever more faintly
to his ears.
He was tired; he was choking; his legs were shaking under him. His
bruised body ached miserably, his breathing strangled him, his feet and
hands were growing numb, and red-hot bands seemed tightening around his
bare head.
“I shall die!” came more and more frequently into his mind, but still
he walked on.
The taiga held its peace. It closed about him with obdurate hostility
and gave him no light and no hope.
“I shall die!” Makar kept thinking.
His strength left him altogether. The saplings now beat him squarely in
the face without the least shame, in derision at his helpless plight.
As he crossed one little glade a white hare ran out, sat up on its hind
legs, waved its long, black-tipped ears, and began to wash its face,
making the rudest grimaces at Makar. It gave him to understand that it
knew him well, knew him to be the same Makar who had devised cunning
means of destruction for it in the forest; but now it was its turn to
jeer.
Makar felt bitterly sad. The taiga grew more animated, but with a
malign activity. Even the distant trees now threw their long branches
across his way, snatched at his hair, and beat his face and eyes. The
ptarmigans came out of their secret coverts and fixed their round,
curious eyes upon him, and the wood-grouse ran in and out among them
with drooping tails and angry, spreading wings, loudly telling their
mates of him, Makar, and of his snares. Finally, a thousand fox-faces
glanced from the distant thickets; they sniffed the air and looked
derisively at him, pricking their sharp ears. Then the hares came and
stood on their hind legs before him and shouted with laughter as they
told of Makar’s misfortune.
That was too much.
“I shall die!” thought Makar, and he decided to do so as quickly as
possible.
He lay down on the snow.
The cold increased. The last rays of the Aurora flickered faintly and
stretched across the sky to peep at Makar through the tree-tops. The
last echoes of the church bells came floating to him from far-away
Chalgan.
The Northern Lights flared up and went out. The bells ceased ringing.
Makar died.
* * * * *
He did not notice how this came to pass. He knew that something should
come out of him, and waited, thinking every moment it would come, but
nothing appeared.
Nevertheless, he realised that he was now dead, and he therefore lay
very still; he lay so long that he grew tired.
The night was dark when Makar felt someone push him with his foot. He
turned his head and opened his eyes.
The larches were now standing meekly and quietly over him, as if
ashamed of their former pranks. The shaggy spruces stretched out their
long snow-covered arms and rocked themselves gently, gently, and the
starry snowflakes settled softly through the air.
The kind, bright stars looked down through the branches from the dark
blue sky, and seemed to be saying: “See, a poor man has died!”
Over Makar’s prostrate form and prodding him with his foot stood the
old priest Ivan. His long cassock was white with snow; snow lay upon
his fur hat, his shoulders, and his beard. Most surprising of all was
the fact that this was the same Father Ivan who had died five years ago.
He had been a good priest. He had never pressed Makar for his tithes
and had not even asked to be paid for the services of the church; Makar
had always fixed the price of his own christenings and requiems, and
he now remembered with confusion that it had sometimes been extremely
low and that sometimes he had not even paid it at all. Father Ivan had
never resented this, he had only required one thing: a bottle of vodka
on every occasion. If Makar had no money, Father Ivan would send him
for the bottle himself, and they would drink it together. The good
priest always grew as drunk as a lord, but he fought neither fiercely
nor often. Makar would see him home, and hand him over, helpless and
defenseless, to the care of the Mother Priestess, his wife.
Yes, he had been a good priest, but his end had been bad.
One day, when there was no one else at home, the fuddled Father, who
was lying alone on the bed, had taken it into his head to smoke. He got
up and staggered toward the great, fiercely heated fireplace to light
his pipe at the blaze. But he was too drunk, he swayed and fell into
the fire. When his family returned, all that remained of the little
Father were his feet.
Every one regretted good Father Ivan, but no doctor on earth could have
saved him, as only his feet remained. So they buried the feet, and a
new priest was appointed to fill the place of Father Ivan.
And now Ivan himself, sound and whole, was standing over Makar,
prodding him with his foot.
“Get up, Makar, old man!” he was saying, “and let us be going.”
“Where must I go?” asked Makar with displeasure. He supposed that once
dead he ought to lie still, and that there was no need for him now to
be wandering about the forest, losing his way. If he had to do that,
then why had he died?
“Let us go to the great Toyon.”[C]
“Why should I go to him?” Makar asked.
“He is going to judge you,” answered the priest in a sorrowful,
compassionate voice.
Makar recollected that, in fact, one did have to appear at some
judgment after one died. He had heard that at church. The priest was
right after all; he would have to get up.
So Makar rose, muttering under his breath that they couldn’t even let a
man alone after he was dead.
The priest walked before and Makar followed. They went always straight
ahead, and the larches stood meekly aside and allowed them to pass;
they were going eastward.
Makar noted with surprise that Father Ivan left no tracks in the snow
behind him; he looked under his own feet and saw no tracks either; the
snow lay as fresh and smooth as a table cloth.
How easy it would be now, he reflected, to rob other men’s traps, as
no one could find him out! But the priest must have read his secret
thought, for he turned and said: “Kabis! (stop that!). You don’t know
what you will get for thoughts like that.”
“Well, I declare!” exclaimed the disgusted Makar. “Can’t I even think
what I please? What makes you so strict these days? Hold your tongue!”
The priest shook his head and walked on.
“Have we far to go?” asked Makar.
“Yes, a long way,” answered the priest sadly.
“And what shall we have to eat?” Makar inquired with anxiety.
“You have forgotten that you are dead,” the priest answered turning
toward him. “You won’t have to eat or drink now.”
Makar did not like that idea in the least. Of course it would be all
right in case there were nothing to eat, but then one ought to lie
still, as he did at first after his death. But to walk, and to walk
a long way, and to eat nothing, that seemed to him to be absolutely
outrageous. He began muttering again.
“Don’t grumble!”
“All right!” he answered in an injured voice and went on complaining
and growling to himself about such a stupid arrangement.
“They make a man walk and yet he needn’t eat! Who ever heard of such a
thing?”
He was extremely discontented as he followed the priest. And they
walked a long way. Though Makar could not see the dawn, they seemed, by
the distance they had covered, to have been walking a week. They had
left so many ravines and hills behind them, so many rivers and lakes,
so many forests and plains! Whenever Makar looked back, the dark taiga
seemed to be running away behind them and the high, snowclad mountains
seemed to be melting into the murky night and hiding swiftly behind the
horizon.
They appeared to be climbing higher and higher. The stars grew larger
and brighter; from the crest of the height to which they had risen
they could see the rim of the setting moon. It seemed to have been in
haste to escape, but Makar and the priest had overtaken it. Then it
rose again over the horizon, and the travellers found themselves on a
level, very high plain. It was light now, much lighter than early in
the night, and this was due, of course, to the fact that they were much
nearer the stars than they had been before. Each one of these, in size
like an apple, glittered with ineffable brightness; the moon, as large
as a huge barrel-head, blazed with the brilliance of the sun, lighting
up the vast expanse from one edge to the other.
Every snowflake on the plain was sharply discernible, and countless
paths stretched across it, all converging toward the same point in the
east. Men of various aspects and in many different garbs were walking
and riding along these roads.
Makar looked sharply at one horseman, and then suddenly turned off the
road and pursued him.
“Stop! Stop!” cried the priest, but Makar did not even hear him. He
had recognised a Tartar, an old acquaintance of his, who had stolen a
piebald horse from him once, and who had died five years ago. There
was that same Tartar now, riding along on the very same horse! The
animal was skimming over the ground, clouds of snowy dust were rising
from under its hoofs, glittering with the rainbow colours of twinkling
stars. Makar was surprised that he should be able, on foot, to overtake
the Tartar so easily in his mad gallop. Besides, when he perceived
Makar a few steps behind him, he stopped with great readiness. Makar
fell upon him with passion.
“Come to the sheriff with me!” he cried. “That is my horse; he has a
split in his right ear. Look at the man, how smart he is, riding along
on a stolen horse while the owner follows on foot like a beggar!”
“Gently,” said the Tartar. “No need to go for the sheriff! You say this
is your horse, take him and be damned to the brute! This is the fifth
year I have been riding him up and down on one and the same spot! Every
foot-passenger overtakes me. It is humiliating for a good Tartar, it is
indeed!”
He threw his leg over the saddle in act to alight, but at that moment
the panting priest came running up and seized Makar by the arm.
“Unfortunate man!” he cried. “What are you about? Can’t you see that
the Tartar is fooling you?”
“Of course he is fooling me!” shouted Makar waving his arms. “That was
a lovely horse, a real gentleman’s horse; I was offered forty roubles
for him before his third spring. Never you mind, brother! If you have
spoilt that horse for me I shall cut him up for meat, and you shall pay
me his full value in money! Do you think, because you are a Tartar,
there are no laws for you?”
Makar was flying into a passion and shouting in order to draw a crowd
about him, for he was afraid of Tartars from habit, but the priest
broke in on his outburst.
“Gently, gently, Makar, you keep forgetting that you are dead! What do
you want with a horse? Can’t you see that you travel much faster on
foot than the Tartar does on horseback? Would you like to be forced to
ride for a whole thousand years?”
Makar now understood why the Tartar had been so willing to give up his
horse.
“They’re a crooked lot!” he thought, and he turned to the Tartar.
“Very well then,” he said. “Take the horse, brother; I forgive you!”
The Tartar angrily pulled his fur cap over his ears and lashed his
horse. The pony galloped madly, and clouds of snow flew from under its
hoofs, but long as Makar and the priest stood still, the Tartar did
not budge an inch from their side.
He spat angrily and turned to Makar.
“Listen, friend, haven’t you a bit of mahorka with you? I do want to
smoke so badly, and I finished all mine five years ago.”
“You’re a friend of dogs but no friend of mine,” retorted Makar in a
rage. “You have stolen my horse and now you ask for mahorka! Confound
you altogether, I’m not sorry for you one bit!”
With these words Makar moved on.
“You made a mistake not to give him a little mahorka,” said Father
Ivan. “The Toyon would have forgiven you at least one hundred sins for
that at the Judgment.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me that before?” snapped Makar.
“Ah, it is too late to teach you anything now. You should have learnt
it from your priest while you were alive.”
Makar was furious. He saw no sense in priests who took their tithes and
did not even teach a man when to give a leaf of mahorka to a Tartar in
order to gain forgiveness for his sins. One hundred sins were no joke!
And all for a leaf of tobacco! The mistake had cost him dear.
“Wait a moment!” he exclaimed. “One leaf will do very well for us two.
Let me give the other four to the Tartar this minute, that will mean
four hundred sins!”
“Look behind you,” answered the priest.
Makar looked round. The white, empty plain lay stretched out far behind
them; the Tartar appeared for a second upon it, a tiny, distant dot.
Makar thought he could distinguish the white cloud rising from under
the hoofs of his piebald, but next moment the dot, too, had vanished.
“Well, well, the Tartar will manage all right without his mahorka. You
see how he has ruined my horse, the scoundrel!”
“No, he has not ruined your horse,” answered the priest. “That horse
was stolen. Have you not heard the old men say that a stolen horse will
never go far?”
Makar had certainly heard this from the old men, but as he had often
seen Tartars ride all the way to the city on horses that they had
stolen, he had never put much belief in the saying. He now concluded
that old men were sometimes right.
They now began to pass many other horsemen on the plain. All were
hurrying along as fast as the first; the horses were flying like
birds, the riders dripping with sweat, yet Makar and the priest kept
overtaking them and leaving them behind.
Most of these horsemen were Tartars, but a few were natives of Chalgan;
some of the latter were astride stolen oxen and were goading them on
with lumps of ice.
Makar looked with hatred at the Tartars, and muttered every time he
passed one that the fellow had deserved much worse than this, but when
he met a peasant from Chalgan he would stop and chat amicably with him,
as they were friends, after all, even if they were thieves! Sometimes
he would even show his fellow-feeling by picking up a lump of ice and
diligently beating the ox or horse from behind, but let him take so
much as one step forward himself, and horse and rider would be left far
in the rear, a scarcely visible dot.
The plain seemed to be boundless. Though Makar and his companion
occasionally overtook these riders and pedestrians, the country around
was deserted, and the travellers seemed to be separated by hundreds of
thousands of miles.
Among others, Makar fell in with an old man unknown to him, who
plainly hailed from Chalgan; this could be discerned from his face,
his clothes, and even from his walk, but Makar could not remember
ever having seen him before. The old man wore a ragged fur coat, a
great shaggy hat, tattered and worn leather breeches, and still older
calf-skin boots. Worst of all, he was carrying on his shoulders, in
spite of his old age, a crone still more ancient than himself, whose
feet trailed on the ground. The old man was wheezing and staggering
along, leaning heavily on his stick. Makar felt sorry for him. He
stopped and the old man stopped too.
“Kansi! (Speak!)” said Makar pleasantly.
“No,” answered the greybeard.
“What have you seen?”
“Nothing.”
“What have you heard?”
“Nothing.”
Makar was silent for a while, and then thought he might ask the old man
who he was and whence he had crawled.
The old man told his name. Long since, he said--he did not know himself
how many years ago--he had left Chalgan and gone up to the “mountain”
to save himself. There he had done no work, had lived on roots and
berries, and had neither ploughed nor sowed nor ground wheat nor paid
taxes. When he died he went to the Judgment of the Toyon. The Toyon
asked him who he was, and what he had done. He answered he had gone
up on the “mountain” and had saved himself. “Very well,” the Toyon
answered, “but where is your wife? Go and fetch her here.” So he went
back for his old woman. But she had been forced to beg before she died,
as there had been no one to support her, and she had had neither house,
nor cow, nor bread. Her strength had failed, and now finally she was
not able to move her legs. So he was obliged to carry her to the Toyon
on his back.
As he said this, the old man burst into tears, but the old woman kicked
him with her heels as if he had been an ox, and cried in a weak, cross
voice:
“Go on!”
Makar felt more sorry than ever for the old man, and heartily thanked
his stars that he had not succeeded in going to the “mountain” himself.
His wife was large and lusty, and his burden would have been even
heavier than that of the old man; if, in addition to this, she had
begun to kick him as if he were an ox, he would certainly have died a
second death.
He tried to hold the old woman’s feet out of pity for his friend, but
he had scarcely taken three steps before he was forced to drop them
hastily, or they would certainly have remained in his hands; another
minute, and the old man and his burden were left far out of sight.
For the remainder of his journey Makar met no more travellers whom he
honoured with marked attention. Here were thieves crawling along step
by step, laden like beasts of burden with stolen goods; here rode fat
Yakut chieftains towering in their high saddles, their peaked hats
brushing the clouds; here, skipping beside them, ran poor workmen, as
lean and light as hares; here strode a gloomy murderer, blood-drenched,
with haggard, furtive eyes. He kept casting himself in vain into the
pure snow, hoping to wash out the crimson stains; the snow around him
was instantly dyed red, but the blood upon the murderer started out
more vividly than ever, and in his eyes there gleamed wild horror and
despair. So he ran on, shunning the frightened gaze of all men.
From time to time the little souls of children came flying through
the air like birds, winging their way in great flocks, and this was
no surprise to Makar. Bad, coarse food, dirt, the heat from the
fireplaces, and the cold draughts in the huts drove them from Chalgan
alone in hundreds. As they overtook the murderer, the startled flocks
wheeled swiftly aside, and long after their passage the air was filled
with the quick, anxious whirring of their little pinions.
Makar could not help remarking that, in comparison with the other
travellers, he was moving at a fairly swift pace, and he hastened to
ascribe this to his own virtue.
“Listen Asabit! (Father!)” he said. “What do you think, even if I was
fond of drinking I was a good man, wasn’t I? God loves me, doesn’t he?”
He looked inquiringly at Father Ivan. He had a secret motive for asking
this question, he wanted to find out something from the old priest, but
the latter answered curtly:
“Don’t be conceited! We are near the end now. You will soon find that
out for yourself.”
Makar had not noticed until then that a light seemed to be breaking
over the plain. First a few lambent rays flashed up over the horizon,
spreading swiftly across the sky and extinguishing the bright stars.
They went out, the moon set, and the plain lay in darkness.
Then mists arose on the plain and stood round about it like a guard of
honour.
And at a certain point in the east the mists grew bright like a legion
of warriors in golden armour.
And then the mists stirred, and the warriors prostrated themselves upon
the ground.
And the sun rose from their midst, and rested upon their golden ranks,
and looked across the plain.
And the whole plain shone with a wonderful, dazzling radiance.
And the mists rose triumphantly in a mighty host, parted in the south,
swayed, and swept upwards.
And Makar seemed to hear a most enchanting melody, the immemorial pæan
with which the earth daily greets the rising sun. He had never before
given it due attention, and only now felt for the first time the beauty
of the song.
He stood and hearkened and would not go any farther; he wanted to stand
there forever and listen.
* * * * *
But Father Ivan touched him on the arm.
“We have arrived,” he said. “Let us go in.”
Thereupon Makar noticed that they were standing before a large door
which had previously been hidden by the mist.
He was very loath to proceed, but could not fail to comply.
* * * * *
They entered a large and spacious hut, and not until then did Makar
reflect that it had been very cold outside. In the middle of the hut
was a chimney of pure silver marvellously engraved, and in it blazed
logs of gold, radiating such an even heat that one’s whole body was
penetrated by it in an instant. The flames in this beautiful fireplace
neither scorched nor dazzled the eyes, they only warmed, and once more
Makar wanted to stand there and toast himself forever. Father Ivan,
too, came and stood before the fire, stretching out his frozen hands to
the blaze.
Four doors opened out of the room, and of these only one led into the
open air; through the other three young men in long white gowns were
coming and going. Makar imagined that they must be the servants of this
Toyon. He seemed to remember having seen them somewhere before, but
could not recollect exactly where. He was not a little surprised to
note that each servant wore a pair of large white wings upon his back,
and decided that the Toyon must have other workmen beside these, for
surely they, encumbered with their wings, could never make their way
through the forest thickets when they went to cut wood or poles.
One of the servants approached the fire, and, turning his back to the
blaze, addressed Father Ivan.
“Speak!”
“There is nought to say.”
“What did you hear in the world?”
“Nothing.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing.”
Both were silent, and then the priest said:
“I have brought this one.”
“Is he from Chalgan?” asked the servant.
“Yes, from Chalgan.”
“Then we must get ready the big scales.”
He left the room to make his preparations, and Makar asked the priest
why scales were needed, and why they must be large.
“You see,” answered the priest a trifle embarrassed, “the scales are
needed to weigh the good and evil you did when you were alive. With
all other people the good and evil almost balance one another, but the
inhabitants of Chalgan bring so many sins with them that the Toyon had
to have special scales made with one of the bowls extra large in order
to contain them all.”
At these words Makar quailed, and felt his heart-strings tighten.
The servant brought in and set up the big scales. One bowl was small
and of gold, the other was wooden and of huge proportions. A deep black
pit suddenly opened under the wooden bowl.
Makar approached the scales, and carefully inspected them to make
sure they were not false. They proved to be correct; the bowls hung
motionless, without movement up or down.
To tell the truth, he did not exactly understand their mechanism, and
would have preferred to have done business with the simple balances by
whose aid he had learned to buy and sell with great profit to himself
during the course of his long life.
“The Toyon is coming!” cried Father Ivan suddenly, and hastily began to
pull his cassock straight.
The central door opened and in came an ancient, venerable Toyon, his
long silvery beard hanging below his waist. He was dressed in rich furs
and tissues unknown to Makar, and on his feet he wore warm velvet-lined
boots, such as Makar had seen depicted on antique ikons.
Makar recognised him at a glance as the same old greybeard whose
picture he had seen in church, only here he was unattended by his son.
Makar decided that the latter must have gone out on business. The dove
flew into the room, however, and after circling about the old man’s
head, settled upon his knee. The old Toyon stroked the dove with his
hand as he sat on the seat that had been especially prepared for him.
The Toyon’s face was kind, and when Makar became too downcast he looked
at it and felt better.
His heart was heavy because he was suddenly remembering all his past
life down to the smallest detail; he remembered every step he had
taken, every blow of his axe, every tree he had felled, every deceit he
had practiced, every glass of vodka he had drunk.
He grew frightened and ashamed, but he took heart as he looked at the
face of the old Toyon.
And as he took heart it occurred to him that there might be some things
he could manage to conceal.
The old Toyon looked searchingly at him and asked him who he was and
whence he had come, what his name was and what his age might be.
When Makar had replied to his questions, the old Toyon asked:
“What have you done in your life?”
“You know that yourself,” answered Makar. “Surely it is written in your
book!”
Makar wanted to test the Toyon and find out whether everything was
really inscribed there or no.
“Tell me yourself,” answered the old Toyon.
Makar took courage.
He began enumerating all his works, and although he remembered every
blow he had struck with his axe, every pole he had cut, and every
furrow he had ploughed, he added to his reckoning thousands of poles
and hundreds of loads of wood and hundreds of logs and hundreds of
pounds of sown seed.
When all had been told, the old Toyon turned to Father Ivan and said:
“Bring hither the book.”
Makar saw from this that Father Ivan was secretary to the Toyon, and
was annoyed that the other had given him no friendly hint of the fact.
Father Ivan brought the great book, opened it, and began to read.
“Just look and see how many poles are inscribed there,” said the old
Toyon.
Father Ivan looked and answered sorrowfully:
“He added a round three thousand to his reckoning.”
“It’s a lie!” shouted Makar vehemently. “He must be wrong because he
was a drunkard and died a wicked death!”
“Be quiet!” commanded the Toyon. “Did he charge you more than was fair
for christenings and weddings? Did he ever press you for tithes?”
“Why waste words?” answered Makar.
“You see,” the Toyon said, “I know without assistance from you that he
was fond of drink----”
And the old Toyon lost his temper. “Read his sins from the book now; he
is a cheat, and I can’t believe his words!” he cried to Father Ivan.
Meanwhile the servants were heaping into the golden bowl all Makar’s
poles, and his wood, and his ploughing, and all his work. And there
proved to be so much that the golden bowl sank, and the wooden bowl
rose out of reach, high, high into the air. So the young servants of
God flew up to it on their pinions and hundreds of them pulled it to
the floor with ropes.
Heavy is the labour of a native of Chalgan!
Then Father Ivan began adding up the number of frauds that Makar had
committed, and there proved to be twenty-one thousand, three hundred
and three. Then he added up the number of bottles of vodka he had
drunk, and there proved to be four hundred. And the priest read on and
Makar saw that the wooden bowl was pulling on the gold one; it sank
into the hole, and, as the priest read, it descended ever deeper and
deeper.
Makar realised then that things were going badly for him; he stepped up
to the scales and furtively tried to block them with his foot.
But one of the servants saw it, and a clamour arose amongst them.
“What is the matter there?” asked the old Toyon.
“Why, he was trying to block the scales with his foot!” cried the
servant.
At that the Toyon turned wrathfully to Makar, exclaiming:
“I see that you are a cheat, a sluggard, and a drunkard. You have left
your arrears unpaid behind you, you owe tithes to the priest, and the
policeman is steadily sinning on your account by swearing every time he
speaks your name.”
Then, turning to Father Ivan, the old Toyon asked:
“Who in Chalgan gives the heaviest loads to his horses to pull, and who
works them the hardest?”
Father Ivan answered:
“The church warden. He carries the mail and drives the district
policeman.”
To that the Toyon answered:
“Hand over this sluggard to the church warden for a horse and let him
pull the policeman until he drops--we shall see what will happen next.”
Just as the Toyon was saying these words, the door opened; his son
entered the hut and sat down at his right hand.
And the son said:
“I have heard the sentence pronounced by you. I have lived long on the
earth, and I know the ways of the world. It will be hard for the poor
man to take the place of the district policeman’s horse. However, so be
it, only mayhap he still has something to say: speak baraksan! (poor
fellow!)”
Then there happened a strange thing. Makar, the Makar who had never
before in his life uttered more than ten words at a time, suddenly felt
himself possessed of the gift of eloquence. He began speaking, and
wondered at himself. There seemed to be two Makars, the one talking,
the other listening and marvelling. He could scarcely believe his ears.
His discourse flowed from his lips with fluency and passion; the words
pursued one another swiftly, and ranged themselves in long and graceful
rows. He did not hesitate. If by any chance he became confused, he
corrected himself and shouted twice louder than before. But above all
he felt that his words were carrying conviction.
The ancient Toyon, who had at first been a little annoyed by his
boldness, began listening with rapt attention, as if he were being
persuaded that Makar was not the fool that he seemed to be. Father
Ivan had been frightened for an instant and had plucked Makar by the
coat-tails, but Makar had pushed him aside and continued his speech.
The fears of the old priest were quickly allayed; he even beamed at
Makar as he heard his old parishioner boldly declaring the truth, and
saw that that truth was pleasing to the heart of the ancient Toyon.
Even the young servants of the Toyon with their long gowns and their
white wings came out of their quarters and stood in the doorways
listening with wonder to Makar’s words, nudging one another with their
elbows.
Makar commenced his plea by saying that he did not want to take the
place of the church warden’s horse. Not because he was afraid of hard
work, but because the sentence was unjust. And because the sentence was
unjust, he would not submit to it; he would not do a stroke of work nor
move one single foot. Let them do what they would with him! Let them
hand him over to the devils forever, he would not haul the policeman,
because to condemn him to do so was an injustice. And let them not
imagine that he was afraid of being a horse. Although the church warden
drove his horse hard, he fed him with oats, but he, Makar, had been
goaded all his life, and no one had ever fed him.
“Who has goaded you?” asked the Toyon.
Yes, all his life long he had been goaded. The bailiff had goaded him;
the tax assessor and the policeman had goaded him, demanding taxes
and tallage; hunger and want had goaded him; cold and heat, rain and
drought had goaded him; the frozen earth and the ruthless forest had
goaded him. The horse had trudged on with its eyes on the ground,
ignorant of its journey’s end; so had he trudged through life. Had he
known the meaning of what the priest read in church or for what his
tithes were demanded? Had he known why his eldest son had been taken
away as a soldier and whither he had gone? Had he known where he had
died and where his poor bones had been laid?
He had drunk, it was charged, too much vodka; so he had, for his heart
had craved it.
“How many bottles did you say that he drank?” the Toyon asked.
“Four hundred,” answered Father Ivan, with a glance at the book.
That might be so, pleaded Makar, but was it really all vodka? Three
quarters of it was water; only one quarter was vodka, and that was
stiffened with vile mahorka. Three hundred bottles might well be
deducted from his account.
“Is what he says true?” asked the ancient Toyon of Father Ivan, and it
was plain that his anger was not yet appeased.
“Absolutely true,” the priest answered quickly, and Makar continued his
tale.
It was true that he had added three thousand poles to his account, but
what if he had? What if he had only cut sixteen thousand? Was that so
small a number? Besides, while he had cut two thousand his first wife
had been ill. His heart had been aching, he had longed to sit by her
bedside, but want had driven him into the forest, and in the forest he
had wept, and the tears had frozen on his eye-lashes, and because of
his grief, the cold had struck into his very heart, and still he had
chopped.
And then his old woman had died. He had to bury her, but he had no
money to pay for the burial. So he had hired himself out to chop wood
to pay for his wife’s abode in the world beyond. The merchant had seen
how great was his need, and had only paid him ten kopecks--and his old
woman had lain all alone in the icy hut while he had once more chopped
wood and wept. Surely each one of those loads should be counted as four
or even more!
Tears rose in the eyes of the old Toyon, and Makar saw the scales
trembling and the wooden bowl rising as the golden one sank.
And still he talked on.
Everything was written down in their book, he said, let them look and
see if any one had ever done him a kindness or brought him happiness
and joy! Where were his children? If they had died his heart had been
heavy and sad; if they had lived to grow up they had left him, to carry
on their fight alone with their own grinding needs. So he had remained
to grow old with his second wife, and had felt his strength failing and
had seen that a pitiless, homeless old age was creeping upon him. They
two had stood solitary as two lorn fir-trees on the steppe, buffeted on
every hand by the merciless winds.
“Is that true?” asked the Toyon again, and the priest hastened to
answer:
“Absolutely true.”
And the scales trembled once more--but the old Toyon pondered.
“How is this?” he asked. “Have I not many on earth who are truly
righteous? Their eyes are clear, their faces are bright, and their
garments are without a stain. Their hearts are mellow as well tilled
soil in which flourishes good seed, sending up strong and fragrant
shoots whose odour is pleasant to my nostrils. But you--look at
yourself!”
All eyes were now turned on Makar, and he felt ashamed. He knew that
his eyes were dim, that his face was dull, that his hair and beard
were unkempt, that his raiment was torn. And though for some time
before his death he had intended to buy a pair of new boots in which
to appear at the Judgment, he somehow had always managed to drink up
the money, and now stood before the Toyon in wretched fur shoes like a
Yakut.
“Your face is dull,” the Toyon went on. “Your eyes are bleared and your
clothes are torn. Your heart is choked with weeds and thistles and
bitter wormwood. That is why I love my righteous and turn my face from
the ungodly such as you.”
Makar’s heart contracted and he blushed for his own existence. He hung
his head for a moment and then suddenly raised it and took up his tale
once more.
Which righteous men did the Toyon mean? he asked. If he meant those
that lived on earth in rich houses at the same time that Makar was
there, then he knew all about them! Their eyes were clear because they
had not shed the tears he had shed; their faces were bright because
they were bathed in perfume, and their spotless garments were sewn by
other hands than their own.
Again Makar hung his head, and again raised it.
And did not the Toyon know that he too had come into the world as they
had with clear, candid eyes in which heaven and earth lay reflected?
That he had been born with a pure heart, ready to expand to all the
beauty of the world? Whose fault was it if he now longed to hide his
besmirched and dishonoured head under the ground? He could not say. But
this he did know, that the patience of his soul was exhausted!
* * * * *
Of course Makar would have been calmer could he have seen the effect
that his speech was having on the Toyon, or how each of his wrathful
words fell into the golden bowl like a plummet of lead. But he saw
nothing of this because his heart was overwhelmed with blind despair.
He had gone over again the whole of his bitter existence. How had
he managed to bear the terrible burden until now? He had borne it
because the star of hope had still beckoned him onward, shining like a
watch-fire through mists of toil and doubt. He was alive, therefore he
might, he would, know a happier fate. But now he stood at the end, and
the star had gone out.
Darkness fell on his soul, and rage broke over it as a tempest breaks
over the steppe in the night. He forgot who he was and before whose
face he stood; he forgot all but his wrath.
But the old Toyon said to him:
“Wait a moment, baraksan! You are not on earth. There is justice here
for you, also.”
At that Makar trembled. The idea that some one pitied him dawned upon
his mind and filled and softened his heart, but because his whole
miserable existence now lay exposed before him from his first day to
his last, unbearable self-pity overwhelmed him and he burst into tears.
And the ancient Toyon wept with him. And old Father Ivan wept, and the
young servants of God shed tears and wiped them away with their wide
sleeves.
And the scales wavered, and the wooden bowl rose ever higher and
higher!