It was a calm summer evening. Uncle Maxim was sitting in the garden. The
father as usual was occupied in some distant field. Everything was quiet
in the yard and around the house; the hamlet was to all appearances going
to sleep, and the hum of the servants’ and workmen’s voices had likewise
ceased.
The boy had already been in bed for half an hour. He lay between sleeping
and waking. For a certain length of time this peaceful hour had seemed
to arouse strange memories within him. Of course he could see neither
the dusky blue sky, nor the dark waving tree-tops, outlined sharp and
clear against the starry heavens, nor the frowning peaks of the courtyard
buildings, nor the blue haze overspreading the ground, mingling with the
pale golden light of the moon and the stars. For several days he had
fallen asleep under the charm of a spell of which he could render no
account the following day. When drowsiness had benumbed his senses, when
he could no longer hear the rustle of the beech-trees, or the distant
barking of the village dogs, or the voice of the nightingale beyond the
river, or the melancholy tinkling of the bells attached to the colt
browsing in the neighboring field,—when all these varied sounds grew
faint and indistinct, it seemed to the blind boy that they were all
merged in one harmonious melody, which made its way quietly into the
room, and hovering over his bed brought in its train vague but enticing
dreams. The next morning when he woke he still felt their influence, and
asked his mother: “What was that—yesterday? What was it?”
The mother did not know what her child meant; she thought he was probably
excited by some dream. That night she put him to bed herself, and when
she saw that he was on the point of falling asleep, she left him without
observing anything unusual. But on the following day the boy again spoke
to her of something he had heard the previous evening which had made him
feel so happy. “It was lovely, mamma,—so lovely! What was it?”
That night the mother decided to remain longer by her child’s bedside,
to discover if possible the solution to this strange riddle. She sat in
a chair beside the crib, knitting mechanically, listening meanwhile to
the even breathing of her Petrùsya.[6] She thought he was asleep, when
suddenly his gentle voice was heard in the darkness:
“Mamma, are you there?”
“Yes, yes, my boy!”
“Please go away; _it_ must be afraid of you; _it_ has not come. I had
almost dropped to sleep, and still _it_ has not come.”
The astonished mother heard the child’s drowsy and plaintive whisper
with a strange sensation. He spoke of his dreams in the most perfect
good faith, as though they were reality. Nevertheless the mother
rose, bent down to kiss him, and then quietly left the room; but she
determined to creep cautiously round to the open window that looked
out into the garden. Before she succeeded in carrying her plan into
execution, the riddle was solved. Suddenly from the stable came the soft
musical tones of a shepherd’s pipe, blending with the gentle rustling
sounds of the southern evening. She had no difficulty in divining the
pleasing influence which these simple modulations of an artless melody,
harmonizing with the witching hour of dreams, would naturally possess
over the imagination of her boy. She herself paused, and stood for a
moment listening to the tender strains of a song of Little Russia, and
with a sense of relief entered the dusky garden in search of Uncle Maxim.
“Joachim plays well,” the mother thought. “It is strange that this fellow
who seems so rough should possess such an amount of feeling.”