IN the low-pitched, crooked little hut of Artyom, the forester, two
men were sitting under the big dark ikon--Artyom himself, a short
and lean peasant with a wrinkled, aged-looking face and a little
beard that grew out of his neck, and a well-grown young man in a
new crimson shirt and big wading boots, who had been out hunting
and come in for the night. They were sitting on a bench at a little
three-legged table on which a tallow candle stuck into a bottle was
lazily burning.
Outside the window the darkness of the night was full of the noisy
uproar into which nature usually breaks out before a thunderstorm.
The wind howled angrily and the bowed trees moaned miserably. One
pane of the window had been pasted up with paper, and leaves torn
off by the wind could be heard pattering against the paper.
"I tell you what, good Christian," said Artyom in a hoarse little
tenor half-whisper, staring with unblinking, scared-looking eyes
at the hunter. "I am not afraid of wolves or bears, or wild beasts
of any sort, but I am afraid of man. You can save yourself from
beasts with a gun or some other weapon, but you have no means of
saving yourself from a wicked man."
"To be sure, you can fire at a beast, but if you shoot at a robber
you will have to answer for it: you will go to Siberia."
"I've been forester, my lad, for thirty years, and I couldn't tell
you what I have had to put up with from wicked men. There have been
lots and lots of them here. The hut's on a track, it's a cart-road,
and that brings them, the devils. Every sort of ruffian turns up,
and without taking off his cap or making the sign of the cross,
bursts straight in upon one with: 'Give us some bread, you old
so-and-so.' And where am I to get bread for him? What claim has he?
Am I a millionaire to feed every drunkard that passes? They are
half-blind with spite. . . . They have no cross on them, the devils
. . . . They'll give you a clout on the ear and not think twice about
it: 'Give us bread!' Well, one gives it. . . . One is not going to
fight with them, the idols! Some of them are two yards across the
shoulders, and a great fist as big as your boot, and you see the
sort of figure I am. One of them could smash me with his little
finger. . . . Well, one gives him bread and he gobbles it up, and
stretches out full length across the hut with not a word of thanks.
And there are some that ask for money. 'Tell me, where is your
money?' As though I had money! How should I come by it?"
"A forester and no money!" laughed the hunter. "You get wages every
month, and I'll be bound you sell timber on the sly."
Artyom took a timid sideway glance at his visitor and twitched his
beard as a magpie twitches her tail.
"You are still young to say a thing like that to me," he said. "You
will have to answer to God for those words. Whom may your people
be? Where do you come from?"
"I am from Vyazovka. I am the son of Nefed the village elder."
"You have gone out for sport with your gun. I used to like sport,
too, when I was young. H'm! Ah, our sins are grievous," said Artyom,
with a yawn. "It's a sad thing! There are few good folks, but
villains and murderers no end--God have mercy upon us."
"You seem to be frightened of me, too. . . ."
"Come, what next! What should I be afraid of you for? I see. . . .
I understand. . . . You came in, and not just anyhow, but you made
the sign of the cross, you bowed, all decent and proper. . . . I
understand. . . . One can give you bread. . . . I am a widower, I
don't heat the stove, I sold the samovar. . . . I am too poor to
keep meat or anything else, but bread you are welcome to."
At that moment something began growling under the bench: the growl
was followed by a hiss. Artyom started, drew up his legs, and looked
enquiringly at the hunter.
"It's my dog worrying your cat," said the hunter. "You devils!" he
shouted under the bench. "Lie down. You'll be beaten. I say, your
cat's thin, mate! She is nothing but skin and bone."
"She is old, it is time she was dead. . . . So you say you are from
Vyazovka?"
"I see you don't feed her. Though she's a cat she's a creature . . .
every breathing thing. You should have pity on her!"
"You are a queer lot in Vyazovka," Artyom went on, as though not
listening. "The church has been robbed twice in one year. . . To
think that there are such wicked men! So they fear neither man nor
God! To steal what is the Lord's! Hanging's too good for them! In
old days the governors used to have such rogues flogged."
"However you punish, whether it is with flogging or anything else,
it will be no good, you will not knock the wickedness out of a
wicked man."
"Save and preserve us, Queen of Heaven!" The forester sighed abruptly.
"Save us from all enemies and evildoers. Last week at Volovy
Zaimishtchy, a mower struck another on the chest with his scythe
. . . he killed him outright! And what was it all about, God bless
me! One mower came out of the tavern . . . drunk. The other met
him, drunk too."
The young man, who had been listening attentively, suddenly started,
and his face grew tense as he listened.
"Stay," he said, interrupting the forester. "I fancy someone is
shouting."
The hunter and the forester fell to listening with their eyes fixed
on the window. Through the noise of the forest they could hear
sounds such as the strained ear can always distinguish in every
storm, so that it was difficult to make out whether people were
calling for help or whether the wind was wailing in the chimney.
But the wind tore at the roof, tapped at the paper on the window,
and brought a distinct shout of "Help!"
"Talk of your murderers," said the hunter, turning pale and getting
up. "Someone is being robbed!"
"Lord have mercy on us," whispered the forester, and he, too, turned
pale and got up.
The hunter looked aimlessly out of window and walked up and down
the hut.
"What a night, what a night!" he muttered. "You can't see your hand
before your face! The very time for a robbery. Do you hear? There
is a shout again."
The forester looked at the ikon and from the ikon turned his eyes
upon the hunter, and sank on to the bench, collapsing like a man
terrified by sudden bad news.
"Good Christian," he said in a tearful voice, "you might go into
the passage and bolt the door. And we must put out the light."
"What for?"
"By ill-luck they may find their way here. . . . Oh, our sins!"
"We ought to be going, and you talk of bolting the door! You are a
clever one! Are you coming?"
The hunter threw his gun over his shoulder and picked up his cap.
"Get ready, take your gun. Hey, Flerka, here," he called to his
dog. "Flerka!"
A dog with long frayed ears, a mongrel between a setter and a
house-dog, came out from under the bench. He stretched himself by
his master's feet and wagged his tail.
"Why are you sitting there?" cried the hunter to the forester. "You
mean to say you are not going?"
"Where?"
"To help!"
"How can I?" said the forester with a wave of his hand, shuddering
all over. "I can't bother about it!"
"Why won't you come?"
"After talking of such dreadful things I won't stir a step into the
darkness. Bless them! And what should I go for?"
"What are you afraid of? Haven't you got a gun? Let us go, please
do. It's scaring to go alone; it will be more cheerful, the two of
us. Do you hear? There was a shout again. Get up!"
"Whatever do you think of me, lad?" wailed the forester. "Do you
think I am such a fool to go straight to my undoing?"
"So you are not coming?"
The forester did not answer. The dog, probably hearing a human cry,
gave a plaintive whine.
"Are you coming, I ask you?" cried the hunter, rolling his eyes
angrily.
"You do keep on, upon my word," said the forester with annoyance.
"Go yourself."
"Ugh! . . . low cur," growled the hunter, turning towards the door.
"Flerka, here!"
He went out and left the door open. The wind flew into the hut. The
flame of the candle flickered uneasily, flared up, and went out.
As he bolted the door after the hunter, the forester saw the puddles
in the track, the nearest pine-trees, and the retreating figure of
his guest lighted up by a flash of lightning. Far away he heard the
rumble of thunder.
"Holy, holy, holy," whispered the forester, making haste to thrust
the thick bolt into the great iron rings. "What weather the Lord
has sent us!"
Going back into the room, he felt his way to the stove, lay down,
and covered himself from head to foot. Lying under the sheepskin
and listening intently, he could no longer hear the human cry, but
the peals of thunder kept growing louder and more prolonged. He
could hear the big wind-lashed raindrops pattering angrily on the
panes and on the paper of the window.
"He's gone on a fool's errand," he thought, picturing the hunter
soaked with rain and stumbling over the tree-stumps. "I bet his
teeth are chattering with terror!"
Not more than ten minutes later there was a sound of footsteps,
followed by a loud knock at the door.
"Who's there?" cried the forester.
"It's I," he heard the young man's voice. "Unfasten the door."
The forester clambered down from the stove, felt for the candle,
and, lighting it, went to the door. The hunter and his dog were
drenched to the skin. They had come in for the heaviest of the
downpour, and now the water ran from them as from washed clothes
before they have been wrung out.
"What was it?" asked the forester.
"A peasant woman driving in a cart; she had got off the road . . ."
answered the young man, struggling with his breathlessness. "She
was caught in a thicket."
"Ah, the silly thing! She was frightened, then. . . . Well, did you
put her on the road?"
"I don't care to talk to a scoundrel like you."
The young man flung his wet cap on the bench and went on:
"I know now that you are a scoundrel and the lowest of men. And you
a keeper, too, getting a salary! You blackguard!"
The forester slunk with a guilty step to the stove, cleared his
throat, and lay down. The young man sat on the bench, thought a
little, and lay down on it full length. Not long afterwards he got
up, put out the candle, and lay down again. During a particularly
loud clap of thunder he turned over, spat on the floor, and growled
out:
"He's afraid. . . . And what if the woman were being murdered? Whose
business is it to defend her? And he an old man, too, and a Christian
. . . . He's a pig and nothing else."
The forester cleared his throat and heaved a deep sigh. Somewhere
in the darkness Flerka shook his wet coat vigorously, which sent
drops of water flying about all over the room.
"So you wouldn't care if the woman were murdered?" the hunter went
on. "Well--strike me, God--I had no notion you were that sort of
man. . . ."
A silence followed. The thunderstorm was by now over and the thunder
came from far away, but it was still raining.
"And suppose it hadn't been a woman but you shouting 'Help!'?" said
the hunter, breaking the silence. "How would you feel, you beast,
if no one ran to your aid? You have upset me with your meanness,
plague take you!"
After another long interval the hunter said:
"You must have money to be afraid of people! A man who is poor is
not likely to be afraid. . . ."
"For those words you will answer before God," Artyom said hoarsely
from the stove. "I have no money."
"I dare say! Scoundrels always have money. . . . Why are you afraid
of people, then? So you must have! I'd like to take and rob you for
spite, to teach you a lesson! . . ."
Artyom slipped noiselessly from the stove, lighted a candle, and
sat down under the holy image. He was pale and did not take his
eyes off the hunter.
"Here, I'll rob you," said the hunter, getting up. "What do you
think about it? Fellows like you want a lesson. Tell me, where is
your money hidden?"
Artyom drew his legs up under him and blinked. "What are you wriggling
for? Where is your money hidden? Have you lost your tongue, you
fool? Why don't you answer?"
The young man jumped up and went up to the forester.
"He is blinking like an owl! Well? Give me your money, or I will
shoot you with my gun."
"Why do you keep on at me?" squealed the forester, and big tears
rolled from his eyes. "What's the reason of it? God sees all! You
will have to answer, for every word you say, to God. You have no
right whatever to ask for my money."
The young man looked at Artyom's tearful face, frowned, and walked
up and down the hut, then angrily clapped his cap on his head and
picked up his gun.
"Ugh! . . . ugh! . . . it makes me sick to look at you," he filtered
through his teeth. "I can't bear the sight of you. I won't sleep
in your house, anyway. Good-bye! Hey, Flerka!"
The door slammed and the troublesome visitor went out with his dog.
. . . Artyom bolted the door after him, crossed himself, and lay
down.