In the country he led just as nervous and restless a life as in town. He
read and wrote a great deal, he studied Italian, and when he was out for
a walk, thought with pleasure that he would soon sit down to work again.
He slept so little that every one wondered at him; if he accidentally
dozed for half an hour in the daytime, he would lie awake all night,
and, after a sleepless night, would feel cheerful and vigorous as though
nothing had happened.
He talked a great deal, drank wine, and smoked expensive cigars. Very
often, almost every day, young ladies of neighbouring families would
come to the Pesotskys', and would sing and play the piano with Tanya;
sometimes a young neighbour who was a good violinist would come, too.
Kovrin listened with eagerness to the music and singing, and was
exhausted by it, and this showed itself by his eyes closing and his head
falling to one side.
One day he was sitting on the balcony after evening tea, reading. At the
same time, in the drawing-room, Tanya taking soprano, one of the young
ladies a contralto, and the young man with his violin, were practising a
well-known serenade of Braga's. Kovrin listened to the words--they were
Russian--and could not understand their meaning. At last, leaving his
book and listening attentively, he understood: a maiden, full of sick
fancies, heard one night in her garden mysterious sounds, so strange and
lovely that she was obliged to recognise them as a holy harmony which is
unintelligible to us mortals, and so flies back to heaven. Kovrin's eyes
began to close. He got up, and in exhaustion walked up and down the
drawing-room, and then the dining-room. When the singing was over he
took Tanya's arm, and with her went out on the balcony.
"I have been all day thinking of a legend," he said. "I don't remember
whether I have read it somewhere or heard it, but it is a strange and
almost grotesque legend. To begin with, it is somewhat obscure. A
thousand years ago a monk, dressed in black, wandered about the desert,
somewhere in Syria or Arabia.... Some miles from where he was, some
fisherman saw another black monk, who was moving slowly over the surface
of a lake. This second monk was a mirage. Now forget all the laws of
optics, which the legend does not recognise, and listen to the rest.
From that mirage there was cast another mirage, then from that other a
third, so that the image of the black monk began to be repeated
endlessly from one layer of the atmosphere to another. So that he was
seen at one time in Africa, at another in Spain, then in Italy, then in
the Far North.... Then he passed out of the atmosphere of the earth, and
now he is wandering all over the universe, still never coming into
conditions in which he might disappear. Possibly he may be seen now in
Mars or in some star of the Southern Cross. But, my dear, the real point
on which the whole legend hangs lies in the fact that, exactly a
thousand years from the day when the monk walked in the desert, the
mirage will return to the atmosphere of the earth again and will appear
to men. And it seems that the thousand years is almost up.... According
to the legend, we may look out for the black monk to-day or to-morrow."
"A queer mirage," said Tanya, who did not like the legend.
"But the most wonderful part of it all," laughed Kovrin, "is that I
simply cannot recall where I got this legend from. Have I read it
somewhere? Have I heard it? Or perhaps I dreamed of the black monk. I
swear I don't remember. But the legend interests me. I have been
thinking about it all day."
Letting Tanya go back to her visitors, he went out of the house, and,
lost in meditation, walked by the flower-beds. The sun was already
setting. The flowers, having just been watered, gave forth a damp,
irritating fragrance. Indoors they began singing again, and in the
distance the violin had the effect of a human voice. Kovrin, racking his
brains to remember where he had read or heard the legend, turned slowly
towards the park, and unconsciously went as far as the river. By a
little path that ran along the steep bank, between the bare roots, he
went down to the water, disturbed the peewits there and frightened two
ducks. The last rays of the setting sun still threw light here and there
on the gloomy pines, but it was quite dark on the surface of the river.
Kovrin crossed to the other side by the narrow bridge. Before him lay a
wide field covered with young rye not yet in blossom. There was no
living habitation, no living soul in the distance, and it seemed as
though the little path, if one went along it, would take one to the
unknown, mysterious place where the sun had just gone down, and where
the evening glow was flaming in immensity and splendour.
"How open, how free, how still it is here!" thought Kovrin, walking
along the path. "And it feels as though all the world were watching me,
hiding and waiting for me to understand it...."
But then waves began running across the rye, and a light evening breeze
softly touched his uncovered head. A minute later there was another gust
of wind, but stronger--the rye began rustling, and he heard behind him
the hollow murmur of the pines. Kovrin stood still in amazement. From
the horizon there rose up to the sky, like a whirlwind or a waterspout,
a tall black column. Its outline was indistinct, but from the first
instant it could be seen that it was not standing still, but moving with
fearful rapidity, moving straight towards Kovrin, and the nearer it came
the smaller and the more distinct it was. Kovrin moved aside into the
rye to make way for it, and only just had time to do so.
A monk, dressed in black, with a grey head and black eyebrows, his arms
crossed over his breast, floated by him.... His bare feet did not touch
the earth. After he had floated twenty feet beyond him, he looked round
at Kovrin, and nodded to him with a friendly but sly smile. But what a
pale, fearfully pale, thin face! Beginning to grow larger again, he flew
across the river, collided noiselessly with the clay bank and pines, and
passing through them, vanished like smoke.
"Why, you see," muttered Kovrin, "there must be truth in the legend."
Without trying to explain to himself the strange apparition, glad that
he had succeeded in seeing so near and so distinctly, not only the
monk's black garments, but even his face and eyes, agreeably excited, he
went back to the house.
In the park and in the garden people were moving about quietly, in the
house they were playing--so he alone had seen the monk. He had an
intense desire to tell Tanya and Yegor Semyonitch, but he reflected that
they would certainly think his words the ravings of delirium, and that
would frighten them; he had better say nothing.
He laughed aloud, sang, and danced the mazurka; he was in high spirits,
and all of them, the visitors and Tanya, thought he had a peculiar look,
radiant and inspired, and that he was very interesting.