Soon the chaotic sounds of spring-time died away. Encouraged by the
burning rays of the sun, Nature fell into her ancient grooves, and
gradually settled down to work. The newly springing life did its utmost;
its rate of speed increased like a swiftly rushing steam-train. The
tender grass was springing in the fields, and the odor of the birch-buds
filled the air.
It was proposed to take the boy out into the meadows to the bank of the
nearest river. The mother led him by the hand, Uncle Maxim, leaning on
his crutch and cane, walked by her side, and thus the three started for
the little hill near the river, where the sun and the wind had already
dried the ground. It was thickly carpeted with green grass, and its
summit commanded quite a broad view. The brilliant daylight dazzled the
eyes of Maxim and the mother; and when the sunbeams burned their faces,
the spring breeze came with its invisible wings, dispelling the warmth by
a refreshing coolness. There was a sense of enchantment, of intoxication,
in the air.
The mother felt the child’s tiny hand clinging fast to her own, but so
transported was she by the exhilarating influence of the spring-time
that she was less keenly observant than usual of this sign of childish
alarm. She breathed in long and full respirations, and walked along
without once turning her head. Had she looked down at her boy, she would
have discovered a strange expression on his face. He turned his wide-open
eyes toward the sun with a sense of surprise. His lips were parted;
inhaling the air, he gasped like a fish that has just been taken out of
the water; an expression of mingled pain and delight was depicted on his
bewildered face, which passing over it like a nerve-wave illumined the
face for a moment, yielding directly however to the former expression of
surprise, that might almost be called alarm. The eyes alone constantly
preserved their steady, unchanging, and sightless gaze.
Having reached the hill, all three seated themselves. As the mother was
lifting the boy to place him in a more comfortable position, he caught
nervously at her dress like one who is on the point of falling, almost
as if he no longer felt the ground beneath his feet. Again the mother
took no heed of his alarm, because both her own eyes and attention were
absorbed in the charming spring landscape.
It was noonday. Slowly the sun sailed across the blue sky. From the
elevation where they sat could be seen the wide-spreading river. Its ice
had already floated down the current, save a few occasional fragments
dotting the surface here and there, which were fast melting away. On
the low meadows the water was still standing in broad lagoons, which
reflected the blue dome of the heavens and the snowy clouds that slowly
passed and vanished like the melting ice. A gentle breeze rippled the
glistening surface of the river. Looking across to the opposite shore one
could see the dark grain-fields, whose steaming vapor rising wave after
wave veiled the thatched huts far away in the distance, and obscured the
vague blue outline of the forest. It was as if the earth sent up its
clouds of incense to the sky.
All this, however, was visible only to those who had eyes. The boy
saw nothing of this picture; he could not look upon that festival of
Nature, nor on her marvellous temple; his sensations were vague and
broken; his childish heart was troubled. When he had first started,
with the sun’s rays falling full upon his face, warming his delicate
skin, he instinctively turned his sightless eyes in its direction, as
if he realized the central force in the invisible picture before him.
The transparent distance, the blue dome overhead, the wide horizon, had
no existence so far as he was concerned. The sole effect produced on
him was a sense of some material substance, warming his face with its
soft caress. Then something both cool and light, although less tangible
than the warmth of the sun, lifted from his face this sensation of
tender caressing languor, and left behind a delicious coolness. Within
the house the boy had become accustomed to move freely, conscious of
the space surrounding him. Here he was encompassed by pursuing waves,
which now caressed and now excited and intoxicated him. The sun’s
warm touch was suddenly brushed away; a gust of wind began to ring in
his ears and to blow about his face and temples,—indeed all over his
head, down to the very nape of his neck, whirling around him as though
it were trying to bear him away, or to entice him somewhere into the
invisible space, benumbing his consciousness, and lulling him into a
languor of forgetfulness. Then the boy’s hand would cling more closely
to his mother’s, and it seemed to him as though his heart must cease to
beat. However, after he was seated he appeared to grow calmer. Already,
notwithstanding the strange sensation that pervaded his whole being,
he had begun to distinguish the separate sounds. The atmospheric waves
were still dashing tumultuously about him; and as the throbbings of his
quickened pulse beat time to the music of these waves, it seemed to him
that they were entering his very body. From time to time they brought
to him the lark’s sharp trill, the soft whisper of the budding birch,
or the gentle splash of the flowing river. The lark, whizzing by on its
light wings, paused just overhead to describe its capricious circles; the
gnats buzzed; and over all, sad and prolonged, rose the occasional cry of
the ploughman, urging his horses over a half-ploughed strip of land.
The boy failed to grasp these sounds in their entirety; he could neither
unite them nor group them in any satisfactory sequence. One by one
they seemed to project themselves into his dark little head, now soft
and vague; now loud, sharp, and deafening. At times they came crowding
confusedly on each other, jumbled in meaningless discord. Faster and
faster ran the waves; now it seemed to the boy as if above all this
tumult of sounds he could hear muffled echoes, like memories of the
past, coming to him from another world. When the sounds grew fainter, a
sense of dreamy languor came over him; a convulsive twitching betrayed
the successive waves of feeling that swept across his face; he closed
his eyes, then opened them, and every feature seemed to ask a question,
striving to grasp the situation. His childish sense of appreciation, as
yet but feeble,—overwhelmed as it was with new impressions, although it
still struggled against the tide, making an effort to hold its own, to
combine them into something like unity, and thus to gain the victory over
them,—showed signs of giving away. The task was too great for the brain
of a blind child, destitute of the necessary images by means of which he
might have achieved it.
All these sounds rose into the air, flying to and fro, and falling one by
one, all too varied, too resonant. The waves that had taken possession
of the boy rose with greater force from the darkness that encompassed
him with its reverberating echoes, and were again resolved into the same
darkness, only to be replaced by other waves and other sounds more and
more hurried, soaring above him, filling his soul with anguish; again
they seemed to lift him up, as if lulling him to repose with gentle
rocking motion. Suddenly above this vague confusion arose the long-drawn
note of a human call; then all at once everything became still. With a
faint moan the boy rolled over backward on the grass. The mother turned
instantly, and she in her turn uttered a cry: he was lying on the grass
in a deep swoon.