The old man spoke the last words as if he were tired. His excitement
had died out, his tongue was tripping, his head was shaking, and his
eyes were full of tears.
Night had fallen; the forest was wrapped in darkness. The wind was
thundering against the but like a rising tide. The black tree-tops were
tossing like the crests of waves in a fierce gale.
Soon a merry barking announced the approach of the dogs and their
masters. Both foresters appeared striding swiftly toward the hut, and
behind them came the panting Motria, driving in her lost cow. Our
company was now complete.
A few minutes later we were sitting in the hut. A cheerful fire was
crackling in the stove; Motria was preparing our supper.
Although I had seen Zakhar and Maksim many times before, I now looked
at them with especial interest. Zakhar’s face was dark. His eyebrows
grew out from under a straight, low forehead, and his eyes were sombre,
although a natural kindness and an inherent strength could also be
read in his features. Maksim’s glance was frank and his grey eyes were
caressing; he ruffled his fair curls now and then, and his laugh was
peculiarly ringing and merry.
“And what has the old man been telling you?” asked Maksim. “That old
legend about our grandfather?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“There now, he always does that! When the forest begins to murmur
loudly he always remembers the past. Now he won’t be able to sleep all
night.”
“He is like a little child,” added Motria, pouring out the old man’s
tea.
The old man seemed not to know that they were talking of him. He had
entirely collapsed, and was smiling vacantly from time to time and
nodding his head. Only when the storm that was blustering through the
forest shook the hut did he seem to grow anxious; then he would lend an
ear to the noise, harkening to it with a frightened look on his face.
Soon all grew quiet in the hut. A tallow-dip flickered dimly and a
cricket was chirping its monotonous song. In the forest a thousand
mighty but muffled voices were talking together and calling fiercely to
one another through the night. Terrible powers seemed to be holding a
noisy conclave in the outer darkness. From time to time the tumultuous
thunder would rise and swell and the door of the hut would quiver as if
some one were leaning against it from the outside, hissing with rage,
while the nocturnal tempest piped a piteous, heart-breaking note in the
chimney. At moments the fury of the storm would abate and an ominous
silence would fall and oppress the heart, until once more the thunder
would rise, as if the ancient pines had plotted to suddenly tear
themselves from their roots and fly away into an unknown land in the
arms of the blast.
I lost myself for a few moments in a confused slumber, but it could
not have been for long. The gale was howling through the forest in
many tones and keys. The tallow-dip flared and lit up the hut. The old
man was sitting on his bench feeling about him with his arms as if
he expected to find somebody near him. A look of fear and almost of
childish helplessness distorted the face of the poor old man.
“Aksana!” I heard his piteous whisper. “Dear Aksana, who is that
groaning in the forest?”
His hands fluttered anxiously and he seemed to be listening for a reply.
“Eh, hey,” he spoke again. “No one is groaning; it is the noise of
the storm in the forest. That is all; it is the forest murmuring,
murmuring----”
A few minutes passed. Bluish flashes of lightning stared every second
or two into the little window, and the tall, fantastic forms of the
pines kept springing out of the darkness and vanishing again into the
angry heart of the storm. Suddenly a brilliant light dimmed the pale
flame of the tallow-dip and a sharp, near-by peal of thunder crashed
over the forest.
The old man again moved anxiously on his bench.
“Aksana, dear Aksana, who is that shooting with a gun?”
“Go to sleep, grandfather, go to sleep,” I heard Motria’s quiet voice
answer from her place on the stove. “It’s always like this. He always
calls Aksana if there’s a storm at night. He forgets that Aksana has
long been dead. Okh--ho!”
Motria yawned, whispered a prayer, and silence fell once more in the
hut, broken only by the noise of the forest and the old man’s anxious
whispering:
“The forest is murmuring, the forest is murmuring--dear Aksana----”
Soon a heavy rain began to fall, drowning with its descending torrents
the groans of the pines.