Andrii could hardly move in the dark and narrow earthen burrow, as he
followed the Tatar, dragging after him his sacks of bread. “It will soon
be light,” said his guide: “we are approaching the spot where I placed a
light.” And in fact the dark earthen walls began to be gradually lit up.
They reached a widening in the passage where, it seemed, there had once
been a chapel; at least, there was a small table against the wall, like
an altar, and above, the faded, almost entirely obliterated picture of a
Catholic Madonna. A small silver lamp hanging before it barely illumined
it. The Tatar stooped and picked up from the ground a copper candlestick
which she had left there, a candlestick with a tall, slender stem, and
snuffers, pin, and extinguisher hanging about it on chains. She lighted
it at the silver lamp. The light grew stronger; and as they went on, now
illumined by it, and again enveloped in pitchy shadow, they suggested a
picture by Gerard Dow.
The warrior’s fresh, handsome countenance, overflowing with health and
youth, presented a strong contrast to the pale, emaciated face of his
companion. The passage grew a little higher, so that Andrii could hold
himself erect. He gazed with curiosity at the earthen walls. Here and
there, as in the catacombs at Kief, were niches in the walls; and in
some places coffins were standing. Sometimes they came across human
bones which had become softened with the dampness and were crumbling
into dust. It was evident that pious folk had taken refuge here from the
storms, sorrows, and seductions of the world. It was extremely damp
in some places; indeed there was water under their feet at intervals.
Andrii was forced to halt frequently to allow his companion to rest, for
her fatigue kept increasing. The small piece of bread she had swallowed
only caused a pain in her stomach, of late unused to food; and she often
stood motionless for minutes together in one spot.
At length a small iron door appeared before them. “Glory be to God, we
have arrived!” said the Tatar in a faint voice, and tried to lift her
hand to knock, but had no strength to do so. Andrii knocked hard at the
door in her stead. There was an echo as though a large space lay beyond
the door; then the echo changed as if resounding through lofty arches.
In a couple of minutes, keys rattled, and steps were heard descending
some stairs. At length the door opened, and a monk, standing on the
narrow stairs with the key and a light in his hands, admitted them.
Andrii involuntarily halted at the sight of a Catholic monk--one of
those who had aroused such hate and disdain among the Cossacks that they
treated them even more inhumanly than they treated the Jews.
The monk, on his part, started back on perceiving a Zaporovian Cossack,
but a whisper from the Tatar reassured him. He lighted them in, fastened
the door behind them, and led them up the stairs. They found themselves
beneath the dark and lofty arches of the monastery church. Before one of
the altars, adorned with tall candlesticks and candles, knelt a priest
praying quietly. Near him on each side knelt two young choristers in
lilac cassocks and white lace stoles, with censers in their hands. He
prayed for the performance of a miracle, that the city might be saved;
that their souls might be strengthened; that patience might be given
them; that doubt and timid, weak-spirited mourning over earthly
misfortunes might be banished. A few women, resembling shadows, knelt
supporting themselves against the backs of the chairs and dark wooden
benches before them, and laying their exhausted heads upon them. A few
men stood sadly, leaning against the columns upon which the wide arches
rested. The stained-glass window above the altar suddenly glowed with
the rosy light of dawn; and from it, on the floor, fell circles of blue,
yellow, and other colours, illuminating the dim church. The whole altar
was lighted up; the smoke from the censers hung a cloudy rainbow in the
air. Andrii gazed from his dark corner, not without surprise, at the
wonders worked by the light. At that moment the magnificent swell of
the organ filled the whole church. It grew deeper and deeper, expanded,
swelled into heavy bursts of thunder; and then all at once, turning into
heavenly music, its ringing tones floated high among the arches, like
clear maiden voices, and again descended into a deep roar and thunder,
and then ceased. The thunderous pulsations echoed long and tremulously
among the arches; and Andrii, with half-open mouth, admired the wondrous
music.
Then he felt some one plucking the shirt of his caftan. “It is time,”
said the Tatar. They traversed the church unperceived, and emerged upon
the square in front. Dawn had long flushed the heavens; all announced
sunrise. The square was empty: in the middle of it still stood wooden
pillars, showing that, perhaps only a week before, there had been a
market here stocked with provisions. The streets, which were unpaved,
were simply a mass of dried mud. The square was surrounded by small,
one-storied stone or mud houses, in the walls of which were visible
wooden stakes and posts obliquely crossed by carved wooden beams, as was
the manner of building in those days. Specimens of it can still be
seen in some parts of Lithuania and Poland. They were all covered with
enormously high roofs, with a multitude of windows and air-holes. On
one side, close to the church, rose a building quite detached from and
taller than the rest, probably the town-hall or some official structure.
It was two stories high, and above it, on two arches, rose a belvedere
where a watchman stood; a huge clock-face was let into the roof.
The square seemed deserted, but Andrii thought he heard a feeble groan.
Looking about him, he perceived, on the farther side, a group of two
or three men lying motionless upon the ground. He fixed his eyes more
intently on them, to see whether they were asleep or dead; and, at the
same moment, stumbled over something lying at his feet. It was the dead
body of a woman, a Jewess apparently. She appeared to be young, though
it was scarcely discernible in her distorted and emaciated features.
Upon her head was a red silk kerchief; two rows of pearls or pearl beads
adorned the beads of her head-dress, from beneath which two long curls
hung down upon her shrivelled neck, with its tightly drawn veins. Beside
her lay a child, grasping convulsively at her shrunken breast, and
squeezing it with involuntary ferocity at finding no milk there. He
neither wept nor screamed, and only his gently rising and falling body
would have led one to guess that he was not dead, or at least on
the point of breathing his last. They turned into a street, and were
suddenly stopped by a madman, who, catching sight of Andrii’s precious
burden, sprang upon him like a tiger, and clutched him, yelling,
“Bread!” But his strength was not equal to his madness. Andrii repulsed
him and he fell to the ground. Moved with pity, the young Cossack flung
him a loaf, which he seized like a mad dog, gnawing and biting it; but
nevertheless he shortly expired in horrible suffering, there in the
street, from the effect of long abstinence. The ghastly victims of
hunger startled them at every step. Many, apparently unable to endure
their torments in their houses, seemed to run into the streets to see
whether some nourishing power might not possibly descend from the air.
At the gate of one house sat an old woman, and it was impossible to say
whether she was asleep or dead, or only unconscious; at all events, she
no longer saw or heard anything, and sat immovable in one spot, her head
drooping on her breast. From the roof of another house hung a worn
and wasted body in a rope noose. The poor fellow could not endure the
tortures of hunger to the last, and had preferred to hasten his end by a
voluntary death.
At the sight of such terrible proofs of famine, Andrii could not refrain
from saying to the Tatar, “Is there really nothing with which they can
prolong life? If a man is driven to extremities, he must feed on what he
has hitherto despised; he can sustain himself with creatures which are
forbidden by the law. Anything can be eaten under such circumstances.”
“They have eaten everything,” said the Tatar, “all the animals. Not a
horse, nor a dog, nor even a mouse is to be found in the whole city.
We never had any store of provisions in the town: they were all brought
from the villages.”
“But how can you, while dying such a fearful death, still dream of
defending the city?”
“Possibly the Waiwode might have surrendered; but yesterday morning the
commander of the troops at Buzhana sent a hawk into the city with a note
saying that it was not to be given up; that he was coming to its rescue
with his forces, and was only waiting for another leader, that they
might march together. And now they are expected every moment. But we
have reached the house.”
Andrii had already noticed from a distance this house, unlike the
others, and built apparently by some Italian architect. It was
constructed of thin red bricks, and had two stories. The windows of the
lower story were sheltered under lofty, projecting granite cornices.
The upper story consisted entirely of small arches, forming a gallery;
between the arches were iron gratings enriched with escutcheons; whilst
upon the gables of the house more coats-of-arms were displayed. The
broad external staircase, of tinted bricks, abutted on the square.
At the foot of it sat guards, who with one hand held their halberds
upright, and with the other supported their drooping heads, and in this
attitude more resembled apparitions than living beings. They neither
slept nor dreamed, but seemed quite insensible to everything; they even
paid no attention to who went up the stairs. At the head of the stairs,
they found a richly-dressed warrior, armed cap-a-pie, and holding a
breviary in his hand. He turned his dim eyes upon them; but the Tatar
spoke a word to him, and he dropped them again upon the open pages
of his breviary. They entered the first chamber, a large one, serving
either as a reception-room, or simply as an ante-room; it was filled
with soldiers, servants, secretaries, huntsmen, cup-bearers, and the
other servitors indispensable to the support of a Polish magnate’s
estate, all seated along the walls. The reek of extinguished candles was
perceptible; and two were still burning in two huge candlesticks, nearly
as tall as a man, standing in the middle of the room, although morning
had long since peeped through the wide grated window. Andrii wanted to
go straight on to the large oaken door adorned with a coat-of-arms and
a profusion of carved ornaments, but the Tatar pulled his sleeve and
pointed to a small door in the side wall. Through this they gained a
corridor, and then a room, which he began to examine attentively. The
light which filtered through a crack in the shutter fell upon several
objects--a crimson curtain, a gilded cornice, and a painting on the
wall. Here the Tatar motioned to Andrii to wait, and opened the door
into another room from which flashed the light of a fire. He heard a
whispering, and a soft voice which made him quiver all over. Through
the open door he saw flit rapidly past a tall female figure, with a long
thick braid of hair falling over her uplifted hands. The Tatar returned
and told him to go in.
He could never understand how he entered and how the door was shut
behind him. Two candles burned in the room and a lamp glowed before the
images: beneath the lamp stood a tall table with steps to kneel upon
during prayer, after the Catholic fashion. But his eye did not seek
this. He turned to the other side and perceived a woman, who appeared to
have been frozen or turned to stone in the midst of some quick movement.
It seemed as though her whole body had sought to spring towards him, and
had suddenly paused. And he stood in like manner amazed before her. Not
thus had he pictured to himself that he should find her. This was not
the same being he had formerly known; nothing about her resembled her
former self; but she was twice as beautiful, twice as enchanting,
now than she had been then. Then there had been something unfinished,
incomplete, about her; now here was a production to which the artist
had given the finishing stroke of his brush. That was a charming, giddy
girl; this was a woman in the full development of her charms. As
she raised her eyes, they were full of feeling, not of mere hints
of feeling. The tears were not yet dry in them, and framed them in a
shining dew which penetrated the very soul. Her bosom, neck, and arms
were moulded in the proportions which mark fully developed loveliness.
Her hair, which had in former days waved in light ringlets about her
face, had become a heavy, luxuriant mass, a part of which was caught
up, while part fell in long, slender curls upon her arms and breast. It
seemed as though her every feature had changed. In vain did he seek
to discover in them a single one of those which were engraved in his
memory--a single one. Even her great pallor did not lessen her
wonderful beauty; on the contrary, it conferred upon it an irresistible,
inexpressible charm. Andrii felt in his heart a noble timidity,
and stood motionless before her. She, too, seemed surprised at the
appearance of the Cossack, as he stood before her in all the beauty and
might of his young manhood, and in the very immovability of his limbs
personified the utmost freedom of movement. His eyes beamed with clear
decision; his velvet brows curved in a bold arch; his sunburnt cheeks
glowed with all the ardour of youthful fire; and his downy black
moustache shone like silk.
“No, I have no power to thank you, noble sir,” she said, her silvery
voice all in a tremble. “God alone can reward you, not I, a weak woman.”
She dropped her eyes, her lids fell over them in beautiful, snowy
semicircles, guarded by lashes long as arrows; her wondrous face bowed
forward, and a delicate flush overspread it from within. Andrii knew not
what to say; he wanted to say everything. He had in his mind to say it
all ardently as it glowed in his heart--and could not. He felt something
confining his mouth; voice and words were lacking; he felt that it was
not for him, bred in the seminary and in the tumult of a roaming life,
to reply fitly to such language, and was angry with his Cossack nature.
At that moment the Tatar entered the room. She had cut up the bread
which the warrior had brought into small pieces on a golden plate, which
she placed before her mistress. The lady glanced at her, at the bread,
at her again, and then turned her eyes towards Andrii. There was a great
deal in those eyes. That gentle glance, expressive of her weakness and
her inability to give words to the feeling which overpowered her, was
far more comprehensible to Andrii than any words. His heart suddenly
grew light within him, all seemed made smooth. The mental emotions and
the feelings which up to that moment he had restrained with a heavy
curb, as it were, now felt themselves released, at liberty, and anxious
to pour themselves out in a resistless torrent of words. Suddenly the
lady turned to the Tatar, and said anxiously, “But my mother? you took
her some?”
“She is asleep.”
“And my father?”
“I carried him some; he said that he would come to thank the young lord
in person.”
She took the bread and raised it to her mouth. With inexpressible
delight Andrii watched her break it with her shining fingers and eat
it; but all at once he recalled the man mad with hunger, who had expired
before his eyes on swallowing a morsel of bread. He turned pale and,
seizing her hand, cried, “Enough! eat no more! you have not eaten for
so long that too much bread will be poison to you now.” And she at once
dropped her hand, laid her bread upon the plate, and gazed into his eyes
like a submissive child. And if any words could express--But neither
chisel, nor brush, nor mighty speech is capable of expressing what is
sometimes seen in glances of maidens, nor the tender feeling which takes
possession of him who receives such maiden glances.
“My queen!” exclaimed Andrii, his heart and soul filled with emotion,
“what do you need? what do you wish? command me! Impose on me the most
impossible task in all the world: I fly to fulfil it! Tell me to do that
which it is beyond the power of man to do: I will fulfil it if I destroy
myself. I will ruin myself. And I swear by the holy cross that ruin for
your sake is as sweet--but no, it is impossible to say how sweet! I have
three farms; half my father’s droves of horses are mine; all that my
mother brought my father, and which she still conceals from him--all
this is mine! Not one of the Cossacks owns such weapons as I; for the
pommel of my sword alone they would give their best drove of horses and
three thousand sheep. And I renounce all this, I discard it, I throw it
aside, I will burn and drown it, if you will but say the word, or even
move your delicate black brows! But I know that I am talking madly and
wide of the mark; that all this is not fitting here; that it is not for
me, who have passed my life in the seminary and among the Zaporozhtzi,
to speak as they speak where kings, princes, and all the best of noble
knighthood have been. I can see that you are a different being from the
rest of us, and far above all other boyars’ wives and maiden daughters.”
With growing amazement the maiden listened, losing no single word, to
the frank, sincere language in which, as in a mirror, the young, strong
spirit reflected itself. Each simple word of this speech, uttered in a
voice which penetrated straight to the depths of her heart, was clothed
in power. She advanced her beautiful face, pushed back her troublesome
hair, opened her mouth, and gazed long, with parted lips. Then she tried
to say something and suddenly stopped, remembering that the warrior
was known by a different name; that his father, brothers, country, lay
beyond, grim avengers; that the Zaporozhtzi besieging the city were
terrible, and that the cruel death awaited all who were within its
walls, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She seized a silk
embroidered handkerchief and threw it over her face. In a moment it was
all wet; and she sat for some time with her beautiful head thrown back,
and her snowy teeth set on her lovely under-lip, as though she suddenly
felt the sting of a poisonous serpent, without removing the handkerchief
from her face, lest he should see her shaken with grief.
“Speak but one word to me,” said Andrii, and he took her satin-skinned
hand. A sparkling fire coursed through his veins at the touch, and he
pressed the hand lying motionless in his.
But she still kept silence, never taking the kerchief from her face, and
remaining motionless.
“Why are you so sad? Tell me, why are you so sad?”
She cast away the handkerchief, pushed aside the long hair which fell
over her eyes, and poured out her heart in sad speech, in a quiet voice,
like the breeze which, rising on a beautiful evening, blows through the
thick growth of reeds beside the stream. They rustle, murmur, and
give forth delicately mournful sounds, and the traveller, pausing in
inexplicable sadness, hears them, and heeds not the fading light, nor
the gay songs of the peasants which float in the air as they return from
their labours in meadow and stubble-field, nor the distant rumble of the
passing waggon.
“Am not I worthy of eternal pity? Is not the mother that bore me
unhappy? Is it not a bitter lot which has befallen me? Art not thou a
cruel executioner, fate? Thou has brought all to my feet--the highest
nobles in the land, the richest gentlemen, counts, foreign barons, all
the flower of our knighthood. All loved me, and any one of them would
have counted my love the greatest boon. I had but to beckon, and the
best of them, the handsomest, the first in beauty and birth would have
become my husband. And to none of them didst thou incline my heart, O
bitter fate; but thou didst turn it against the noblest heroes of our
land, and towards a stranger, towards our enemy. O most holy mother of
God! for what sin dost thou so pitilessly, mercilessly, persecute me?
In abundance and superfluity of luxury my days were passed, the richest
dishes and the sweetest wine were my food. And to what end was it all?
What was it all for? In order that I might at last die a death more
cruel than that of the meanest beggar in the kingdom? And it was not
enough that I should be condemned to so horrible a fate; not enough
that before my own end I should behold my father and mother perish
in intolerable torment, when I would have willingly given my own life
twenty times over to save them; all this was not enough, but before my
own death I must hear words of love such as I had never before dreamed
of. It was necessary that he should break my heart with his words; that
my bitter lot should be rendered still more bitter; that my young
life should be made yet more sad; that my death should seem even more
terrible; and that, dying, I should reproach thee still more, O cruel
fate! and thee--forgive my sin--O holy mother of God!”
As she ceased in despair, her feelings were plainly expressed in her
face. Every feature spoke of gnawing sorrow and, from the sadly bowed
brow and downcast eyes to the tears trickling down and drying on her
softly burning cheeks, seemed to say, “There is no happiness in this
face.”
“Such a thing was never heard of since the world began. It cannot be,”
said Andrii, “that the best and most beautiful of women should suffer so
bitter a fate, when she was born that all the best there is in the world
should bow before her as before a saint. No, you will not die, you shall
not die! I swear by my birth and by all there is dear to me in the
world that you shall not die. But if it must be so; if nothing, neither
strength, nor prayer, nor heroism, will avail to avert this cruel
fate--then we will die together, and I will die first. I will die before
you, at your beauteous knees, and even in death they shall not divide
us.”
“Deceive not yourself and me, noble sir,” she said, gently shaking her
beautiful head; “I know, and to my great sorrow I know but too well,
that it is impossible for you to love me. I know what your duty is, and
your faith. Your father calls you, your comrades, your country, and we
are your enemies.”
“And what are my father, my comrades, my country to me?” said Andrii,
with a quick movement of his head, and straightening up his figure like
a poplar beside the river. “Be that as it may, I have no one, no one!”
he repeated, with that movement of the hand with which the Cossack
expresses his determination to do some unheard-of deed, impossible to
any other man. “Who says that the Ukraine is my country? Who gave it to
me for my country? Our country is the one our soul longs for, the one
which is dearest of all to us. My country is--you! That is my native
land, and I bear that country in my heart. I will bear it there all my
life, and I will see whether any of the Cossacks can tear it thence. And
I will give everything, barter everything, I will destroy myself, for
that country!”
Astounded, she gazed in his eyes for a space, like a beautiful statue,
and then suddenly burst out sobbing; and with the wonderful feminine
impetuosity which only grand-souled, uncalculating women, created for
fine impulses of the heart, are capable of, threw herself upon his neck,
encircling it with her wondrous snowy arms, and wept. At that moment
indistinct shouts rang through the street, accompanied by the sound of
trumpets and kettledrums; but he heard them not. He was only conscious
of the beauteous mouth bathing him with its warm, sweet breath, of the
tears streaming down his face, and of her long, unbound perfumed hair,
veiling him completely in its dark and shining silk.
At that moment the Tatar ran in with a cry of joy. “Saved, saved!” she
cried, beside herself. “Our troops have entered the city. They have
brought corn, millet, flour, and Zaporozhtzi in chains!” But no one
heard that “our troops” had arrived in the city, or what they had
brought with them, or how they had bound the Zaporozhtzi. Filled with
feelings untasted as yet upon earth, Andrii kissed the sweet mouth which
pressed his cheek, and the sweet mouth did not remain unresponsive. In
this union of kisses they experienced that which it is given to a man to
feel but once on earth.
And the Cossack was ruined. He was lost to Cossack chivalry. Never again
will Zaporozhe, nor his father’s house, nor the Church of God, behold
him. The Ukraine will never more see the bravest of the children who
have undertaken to defend her. Old Taras may tear the grey hair from his
scalp-lock, and curse the day and hour in which such a son was born to
dishonour him.