'The Election! The Election!'
Countess Marya Jarzynski's head was full of it, and she thought,
talked and dreamt of nothing else.
'You are a great politician,' an aristocratic neighbour said to her,
kissing her small hands in a snake-like way. But the 'great
politician' blushed like a cherry, and answered with a beautiful
smile:--
'Oh, we only do what we can!'
'Count Józef will be elected,' the nobleman said with conviction, and
the 'great politician' answered:--
'I should wish it very much, though not alone for Józef's sake, but'
(here the 'great politician' dropped her imprudent hands again), 'for
the common cause...'
'By God! Bismarck is in the right!' cried the nobleman, kissing the
tiny hands once more. After which they proceeded to discuss the
canvassing. The nobleman himself undertook Krzywda Dolna and Mizerów,
(Great Krzywda was lost, for Herr Schulberg owned all the property
there), and Countess Marya was to occupy herself specially with
Pognebin. She was all aglow with the _rôle_ she was to fill, and she
certainly lost no time. She was daily to be seen at the cottages on
the main road, holding her skirt with one hand, her parasol with the
other, while from under her skirt peeped her tiny feet, tripping
enthusiastically in the great political cause. She went into the
cottages, she said to the people working on the road, 'The Lord help
you!' She visited the sick, made herself agreeable to the people, and
helped where she could. She would have done the same without politics,
for she had a kind heart, but she did it all the more on this account.
Why should not she also contribute her share to the political cause?
But she did not dare confess to her husband that she had an
irresistible desire to attend the village meeting. In imagination she
had even planned the speech she would make at the meeting. And what a
speech it would be! What a speech! True, she would certainly never
dare to make it, but if she dared--why then! Consequently when the
news reached Pognebin that the Authorities had prohibited the meeting,
the 'great politician' burst into a fit of anger, tore one
handkerchief up completely, and had red eyes all day. In vain her
husband begged her not to 'demean' herself to such a degree; next day
the canvassing was carried on with still greater fervour. Nothing
stopped Countess Marya now. She visited thirteen cottages in one day,
and talked so loudly against the Germans that her husband was obliged
to check her. But there was no danger. The people welcomed her gladly,
they kissed her hands and smiled at her, for she was so pretty and her
cheeks were so rosy that wherever she went she brought brightness with
her. Thus she came to Bartek's cottage also. Although Lysek did not
bark at her, Magda in her excitement hit him on the head with a stick.
'Oh lady, my beautiful lady, my dear lady!' cried Magda, seizing her
hands.
In accordance with his resolve, Bartek threw himself at her feet,
while little Franek first kissed her hand, then stuck his thumb into
his mouth and lost himself in whole-hearted admiration.
'I hope'--the young lady said after the first greetings were over,--'I
hope, my friend Bartek, that you will vote for my husband, and not for
Herr Schulberg.'
'Oh my dear lady!' Magda exclaimed, 'who would vote for
Schulberg?--Give him the ten plagues! The lady must excuse me, but
when one gets talking about the Germans, one can't help what one
says.'
'My husband has just told me that he has repaid Just.'
'May God bless him!' Here Magda turned to Bartek. 'Why do you stand
there like a post? I must beg the lady's pardon, but he's wonderfully
dumb.'
'You will vote for my husband, won't you?' the lady asked. 'You are
Poles, and we are Poles, so we will hold to one another.'
'I should throttle him if he didn't vote for him,' Magda said. 'Why do
you stand there like a post? He's wonderfully dumb. Bestir yourself a
bit!'
Bartek again kissed the lady's hand, but he remained silent, and
looked as black as night. The Magistrate was in his mind.
The day of the Election drew near, and arrived. Count Jarzynski was
certain of victory. All the neighbourhood assembled at Pognebin. After
voting the gentlemen returned there from the town to wait for the
priest, who was to bring the news. Afterwards there was to be a
dinner, but in the evening the noble couple were going to Posen, and
subsequently to Berlin also. Several villages in the Electoral
Division had already polled the day beforehand. The result would be
made known on this day. The company was in a cheerful frame of mind.
The young lady was slightly nervous, yet full of hope and smiles, and
made such a charming hostess that everyone agreed Count Józef had
found a real treasure in Prussia. This treasure was quite unable at
present to keep quiet in one place, and ran from guest to guest,
asking each for the hundredth time to assure her that 'Józio would be
elected.' She was not actually ambitious, and it was not out of vanity
that she wished to be the wife of a Member, but she was dreaming in
her young mind that she and her husband together had a real mission to
accomplish. So her heart beat as quickly as at the moment of her
wedding, and her pretty little face was lighted up with joy. Skilfully
manoeuvering amidst her guests, she approached her husband, drew him
by the hand, and whispered in his ear, like a child, nicknaming
someone, 'The Hon. Member!' He smiled, and both were happy at the most
trifling word. They both felt a great wish to give one another a warm
embrace, but owing to the presence of their guests, this could not be.
Everyone, however, was looking out of the window every moment, for the
question was a really important one. The former Member, who had died,
was a Pole, and this was the first time in this Division that the
Germans had put up a candidate of their own. Their military success
had evidently given them courage, but just for that reason it the more
concerned those assembled at the manor house at Pognebin to secure the
election of their candidate. Before dinner there was no lack of
patriotic speeches, which especially moved the young hostess who was
unaccustomed to them. Now and then she suffered an access of fear.
Supposing there should be a mistake in counting the votes? But there
would surely not only be Germans serving on the Committee! The
principal landowners would simply flock to her husband, so that it
would be possible to dispense with counting the votes. She had heard
this a hundred times, but she still wished to hear it! Ah! and would
it not make all the difference whether the local population had an
enemy in Parliament, or someone to champion their cause? It would soon
be decided,--in a short moment, in fact,--for a cloud of dust was
rising from the road.
'The priest is coming! The priest is coming!' reiterated those
present. The lady grew pale. Excitement was visible on every face.
They were certain of victory, all the same this final moment made
their hearts beat more rapidly. But it was not the priest, it was the
steward returning from the town on horseback. Perhaps he might know
something? He tied his horse to the gate post, and hurried to the
house. The guests and the hostess rushed into the hall.
'Is there any news?--Is there any? Has our friend been
elected?--What?--Come here!--Do you know for certain?--Has the result
been declared?'
The questions rose and fell like rockets, but the man threw his cap
into the air.
'The Count is elected!'
The lady sat down on a bench abruptly, and pressed her hand to her
fast beating heart.
'Hurrah! Hurrah!' the neighbours shouted, 'Hurrah!'
The servants rushed out from the kitchen.
'Hurrah! Down with the Germans! Long live the Member! And my lady the
Member's wife!'
'But the priest?' someone asked.
'He will be here directly;' the steward answered, 'they are still
counting....'
'Let us have dinner!' the Hon. Member cried.
'Hurrah!' several people repeated.
They all walked back again from the hall to the drawing room.
Congratulations to the host and hostess were now offered more calmly;
the lady herself, however, did not know how to restrain her joy, and
disregarding the presence of others, threw her arm round her husband's
neck. But they thought none the worse of her for this; on the
contrary, they were all much touched.
'Well, we still survive!' the neighbour from Mizerów said.
At this moment there was a clatter along the corridor, and the priest
entered the drawing room, followed by old Maciej, of Pognebin.
'Welcome! Welcome!' they all cried. 'Well,--how great?'
The priest was silent a moment; then as it were into the very face of
this universal joy he suddenly hurled the two harsh, brief words:
'Schulberg--elected!'
A moment of astonishment followed, a volley of hurried and anxious
questions, to which the priest again replied:
'Schulberg is elected!'
'How?--What has happened?--By what means?--The steward said it was not
so.--What has happened?'
Meanwhile Count Jarzynski was leading poor Countess Marya out of the
room, who was biting her hankerchief, not to burst into tears or to
faint.
'Oh what a misfortune, what a misfortune!' the assembled guests
repeated, striking their foreheads.
A dull sound like people shouting for joy rose at that moment from the
direction of the village. The Germans of Pognebin were thus gleefully
celebrating their victory.
Count and Countess Jarzynski returned to the drawing room. He could be
heard saying to his wife at the door, 'Il faut faire bonne mine,' and
she had stopped crying already. Her eyes were dry and very red.
'Will you tell us how it was?' the host asked quietly.
'How could it be otherwise, Sir,' old Maciej said, 'seeing that even
the Pognebin peasants voted for Schulberg?'
'Who did so?'
'What? Those here?'
'Why, yes; I myself and everyone saw Bartek Slowik vote for
Schulberg.'
'Bartek Slowik?' the lady said.
'Why, yes. The others are at him now for it. The man is rolling on the
ground, howling, and his wife is scolding him. But I myself saw how he
voted.'
'From such an enlightened village!' the neighbour from Mizerów said.
'You see, Sir,' Maciej said, 'others who were in the war also voted as
he did. They say that they were ordered--'
'That's cheating, pure cheating!--The election is
void--Compulsion!--Swindling!' cried different voices.
The dinner at the Pognebin manor house was not cheerful that day.
The host and hostess left in the evening, but not as yet for Berlin,
only for Dresden.
Meanwhile Bartek sat in his cottage, miserable, sworn at, ill-treated
and hated, a stranger even to his own wife, for even she had not
spoken a word to him all day.
In the autumn God granted a crop, and Herr Just, who had just come
into possession of Bartek's farm, felt pleased, for he had not done at
all a bad stroke of business.
Some months later three people walked out of Pognebin to the town, a
peasant, his wife, and child. The peasant was very bent, more like an
old man than an able-bodied one. They were going to the town because
they could not find work at Pognebin. It was raining. The woman was
sobbing bitterly at losing her cottage, and her native place. The
peasant was silent. The road was empty, there was not a carriage, not
a human being to be seen; the cross alone, wet from the rain,
stretched its arms above them.--The rain fell more and more heavily,
dimming the light.
Bartek, Magda and Franek were going to the town because the victor of
Gravelotte and Sedan had to serve his term of imprisonment during the
winter, on account of the affair with Boege.
Count and Countess Jarzynski continued to enjoy themselves in Dresden.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Nightingale.
[2] 'Czlowiek' and 'Slowik.'
[3] 'Czlowiek' (man).
[4] A popular song. Skrzynecki was a well-known leader in the Polish
Revolution of 1863.
[5] 'They are going.' 'Jadom' and 'jada' are pronounced similarly.
[6] 'Macki' = 'Tommies.'
[7] Polish 'picie' = a drink.
[8] Polish e = French _in_.
TWILIGHT
STEFAN ZEROMSKI
The sun was gliding into a lustrous copper haze, drawn in wide
streaks, like transparent dust, across the distant scene. It sank
behind some thick red firs left standing at the edge of a clearing and
behind the dark trunks which lay rotting on the hillside. Its beams
still lighted the corners of a cottage, gilding it and colouring it
scarlet; they penetrated the folds of grey clouds, and glittered on
the water.
A recent storm had laid the marshy plains and newly cultivated
woodlands partly under water. Here and on the furrows of the
stubble-fields and the fresh autumn ploughing the puddles turned red
and their irridescent surface became like molten glass, while
entrancing violet shadows, dazzling to the sight, fell on the grey,
beaten-down clods; the sand hills turned yellow; the weeds growing on
the banks, the bushes at the edge of the field paths, all borrowed
some unwonted momentary colour.
In a deep hollow surrounded by sparsely wooded hills to the east, west
and south ran a little brook, which overflowed into bays, swamps,
shallows and creeks. Tangles of reeds grew at the water's edge, lank
bulrushes, sweet-flags, and clumps of willows. The still, red water
was now shining in formless pale-green patches from under the large
leaves of the water-lilies and coarse water-weeds.
A flight of teals was hovering above with outstretched necks, and
broke in upon the silence with the swish of their wings. Otherwise
everything was still. Even the glassy blue dragon-flies, which had
been hovering ceaselessly on their gossamer wings round the stems of
the bulrushes, had disappeared. The untiring water-flies alone yet
strayed over the illuminated surface of the swamps on their stilt-like
legs.... And there were two human beings at work.
The marshes belonged to the manor house. Formerly the young owner,
accompanied by his spaniel, had floundered through them, shooting
ducks and snipe, which were to be found there before he cut down all
the woods. He left quite half of the land uncultivated, and having
very quickly run through his property, he found no means of supporting
himself until he went to Warsaw, where he was now selling soda-water
at a stall.
When a new and prudent owner appeared, he inspected the fields, stick
in hand, and frequently stood still on the marshes, rubbing his nose.
He fumbled with his hands in the swamp, dug holes, measured,
sniffed,--till he invented a strange thing. He ordered the bailiff to
hire labourers daily to dig peat, to heap barrow-loads of the mud on
to the fields, and to go on digging a hole until it was large enough
for a pond. He was to make a dyke, and to choose a lower position for
a second pond, till there were some thirteen in all; then to cut
trenches; to let the water down, build water-gates, and set fish in
the ponds.
Walek Gibala, a day labourer without any land of his own, who was
working for wages in the neighbouring village, was hired to cart away
the peat. Gibala had been groom to the former landlord, but had not
stayed on with the new one. In the first place, the new landlord and
the new steward had lowered the wages and allowances, and, in the
second place, they made an enquiry into everything that was stolen. In
the time of the former landlord each groom used half a bushel of oats
for a pair of horses, and took the rest in the evening to the 'Berlin'
Inn, in exchange for tobacco or a drop of brandy. However, this
business had come to an end at once when the new steward appeared, and
since he justly laid the blame of it on Walek, he had boxed his ears,
and dismissed him from his service.
So from that time Walek and his wife had lived on their daily
earnings in the village, because he could not find a situation; he was
not likely even to apply for one, so thoroughly had the steward taken
his character away. At harvest time they both earned something here
and there from the peasants, but in winter and early spring they
suffered terribly,--indescribably, from hunger. Large and bony, with
iron muscles, the man was as thin as a board, with an ashen look,
round-shouldered and weakened by privation. The woman--like a
woman--supported herself by her neighbours; she sold mushrooms,
raspberries and strawberries to the manor house, or to the Jews, and
at least thus earned a loaf of wheat-bread. But, without food, she was
no match for the man at threshing. When the bailiff gave the order for
digging in the meadows, the eyes of both sparkled. The steward himself
promised thirty kopeks for digging two cubic yards.
Walek kept his wife occupied with the digging every day and all day.
She loaded the wheelbarrow, and he wheeled the mud on to the field
along planks thrown across the swamp. They worked feverishly. They had
two large, deep wheelbarrows, and before Walek had brought back the
empty one, the second was already full; then he threw the strap round
his shoulder and pushed the barrow up the hill. The iron wheel creaked
horribly. The liquid, dark, rank slime, thick with marsh-weeds,
overflowed and trickled down on to the man's bare knees, as the
wheelbarrows were tilted from plank to plank; it penetrated to his
neck and shoulders, marking his shirt with a dark, evil-smelling
streak. His arms ached at the elbows, his feet were painful and stiff
from being continually plunged into the mud, but--with a hard day's
work, they dug out four cubic yards:--and he knew that he had sixty
kopeks in his pocket.
They were hopeful, for they had earned thirty roubles by the end of
the autumn. They paid their rent, bought a cask of pickled cabbage,
five bushels of potatoes, a 'sukmana,'[9] boots, some aprons and
homespun for the woman, and linen for shirts. Thus they could last
till the spring, when they would be able to earn by threshing and
weaving at other people's houses.
All of a sudden the steward considered it excessive to give thirty
kopeks for two cubic yards. It struck him that no one would be tempted
to patter about in a swamp from daybreak to nightfall unless on the
verge of starvation, and these people had undertaken it without
hesitation. 'Twenty kopeks is enough,' he said, 'if not,--well, go
without.'
There was nothing to be earned at this time of year, and the manor
house had enough of its own people to attend to the threshing and
machinery;--it was no use being fastidious in the matter. After this
announcement Walek went to the inn, and made a beast of himself. Next
day he beat his wife, and dragged her out to work for him.
From that time forward--beginning when it grew light--they dug out the
four cubic yards, never stopping work from daybreak until night.
And now, indeed, night was drawing on from afar. The distant
light-blue woods were growing dark, and melting into grey gloom. The
radiance on the waters was extinguished. Immense shadows from the red
firs standing towards the north fell on the summits of the hills, and
along the clearings. The tree trunks alone remained crimson here and
there, and then the stones. Small, fugitive rays were reflected from
these points of light, and, falling into the deep wastes created among
objects by the half-darkness, were refracted, quivered for an instant,
and went out in turn. The trees and bushes lost their convexity and
brilliance, their natural colours mingled with the grey distance, and
they appeared only as flat and completely black forms with weird
contours.
A thick mist was already gathering in the low-lying country, chilling
the man through as he worked. The darkness was coming on in unseen
waves, creeping along the slopes of the hills, gathering to itself the
dreary colours of the stubble-fields, the water-courses, the clefts
in the hills, and the rocks.
As the waves of mist met, others--white, transparent, and scarcely
visible--which rose from the marshes, crept along in streaks, winding
in balls round the undergrowth, trembling and curling over the surface
of the water. The cold, damp wind drove the mist along the bottom of
the valley, till it was stretched out flat like a face on the canvas
of a picture.
'The mist is coming on,' Walkowa murmured. It was that moment of
twilight, when every form seems to be visibly reducing itself to dust
and nothingness, when a grey emptiness spreads over the surface of the
earth, looks into the eyes, and oppresses the heart with unconscious
sorrow. Terror seized Walkowa. Her hair stood on end, and a shudder
passed through her body. The mists rose like a living thing,
stealthily crawling over towards her; they came up from behind,
retreated, lay in wait, and again crept forward in more impetuous
pursuit. Her hands were clammy with the damp, it soaked through her
skin to the bone, it irritated her throat, and tickled her chest. Then
she remembered her child, whom she had not seen since noon. He was
lying asleep,--locked up in a room quite alone,--in a cradle of lime
wood, suspended from the beams of the ceiling by birch-twigs. Surely
he was crying now,--choking,--sobbing? The mother heard that cry, as
wailing and pitiful as that of a solitary bird in a desert place. It
rang in her ears, it tormented a particular spot in her brain, it tore
at her heart. She had not thought about him all day, for her hard work
had scattered all her thoughts, in fact, it had drained and
annihilated her power of thinking; but now the uncanny sensations
caused by the twilight compelled her to concentrate herself and fasten
her mind upon this small morsel of humanity.
'Walek' she said timidly, when the man brought up the barrow, 'shall I
be off to the cottage and finish scraping the potatoes?'
Gibala did not answer, as though he had not heard. He seized the
barrow and set forth. When he returned, the woman implored again:
'Walek, shall I be off?'
'Eh?' he grumbled carelessly.
She knew what his anger meant; she knew that he could catch a man
under the ribs, gather up his skin in handfuls, and, having shaken him
once or twice, throw him down like a stone among the rushes. She knew
he was capable of tearing the handkerchief from her head, twisting her
hair in a knot round his fist and dragging her in terror along the
road; or, in a fit of absent-mindedness, of pulling his spade out of
the swamp quickly, and cutting her across the head without
considering--whether it had hit, or not hit her.
But impatient anxiety, kindled to the point of pain, rose above the
fear of punishment. At moments the woman thought of running away; it
only meant creeping into the little ravine, leaping across the
brooklet, and then making straight through the fields and plantations.
As she stooped and filled her barrow, she was already escaping in
thought, leaping like a marten, scarcely feeling the pain of running
barefoot across the stubble, overgrown with thick blackthorn and
blackberries. The sharp clods would sting not only her feet but her
heart. She would come running to the cottage, and open the bolt with
the wooden key; the warmth and close air of the room would meet her
face; she would clasp the cradle ... Walek would kill her when he
returned to the cottage,--beat her to death:--but what then? That
would be for later....
As soon, however, as Walek emerged from the mist, she was seized
afresh by a dread of his fists. Again she humbly begged him, although
she knew that her tormentor would not set her free:
'Perhaps the baby is dead in there.'
He answered nothing, threw down the strap of the barrow from his
shoulder, approached his wife, and, by a movement of the head,
pointed to the stakes up to which they must dig that day. Then he
seized the spade, and began to throw mud into his barrow, time after
time. He worked without thinking, quickly,--as fast as he could
breathe. When he had filled the barrow he pushed it forward, running
at top speed, and said as he left:
'Push yours too, you lazy brute....'
She took this mild concession to the object of her love, this brutal
goodness, this hardness and severity as if it had been a caress. For
it would be possible to finish the work far sooner if they both
wheeled the mud. Rapidly and impetuously she now imitated his
movements, like a monkey, and shovelled up the mud four times more
quickly, no longer drawing on her muscular peasant's strength, but on
her nervous power. Her chest rattled, dazzling colours passed under
her eyelids, she felt faint, and large burning tears fell from her
eyes into that cold, evil-smelling filth,--tears of unheeded pain.
Every time she struck the spade into the ground she looked to see if
it was still far to the stakes; her barrow ready, she seized it, and
ran at full tilt after the man.
The mists rose high; they drew past the rushes and stood over the tops
of the alders in an unmoving wall. The trees loomed through them as
patches of indefinite colour, astonishingly large, but imperfect
forms, which ran across the deep gorge like monstrous, terrible
apparitions.
Their heads fell forward; their hands executed a uniform movement;
their bodies were bowed to the ground....
The wheels of the barrows clattered and whined. Waves of mist like
milk when poured into water, swayed amid the darkening hills.
The evening star shone low in the sky, and tremblingly threw its
feeble light across the darkness.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Peasant's dress.
TEMPTATION
STEFAN ZEROMSKI
Countess Anna Krzywosad--Naslawska's youngest son had decided to take
Holy Orders. From boyhood he had shown an unusual fondness for prayer,
had been silent and obedient, and worn an earnest, pious expression.
He had been educated in Rome under the eye of a distant cousin--a
Cardinal--and completed his course at the seminary there with
distinction, when barely twenty. Having not yet attained the proper
age to hold any spiritual office, he went back to his own country for
the first time for many years, and stayed at his mother's house.
He occupied a corner room in the mansion, as cold and damp as any
monastic cell; he slept on the ground, fasted unceasingly, read Latin
books, very probably scourged himself at nights, and wore a hair shirt
under his shabby cassock. He was unspeakably good and gentle, forgave
injuries, and was over-modest.
When he sat down, it was on the very edge of the chair, as if anxious
that when he rose quickly his cassock should hinder him and make him
move like a priest; he walked on tiptoe as if a mystic heel protected
him from the dust of the earth; he shunned society, he murmured a
prayer at the sight of a village girl.
Every day at dawn he left the house, and went into the fields. He felt
that there he could be in closest communication with his Creator,
there ecstatic visions came to him most clearly. He followed the
beaten track through numberless rye-fields to the upland, where a
half-ruined little chapel lay hidden in the shade of the pine forest.
One morning he went there as usual. The landscape was still buried in
the night-mist, but a violet streak of daybreak had begun to spread on
the horizon. The bearded rye brushed against his knees and scattered
large dewdrops, yet the pathway was not damp, being sheltered by the
full drooping ears. The corn, feebly illumined by the early morning
light, rose in great waves along the hill, where the undulating line
of the fields showed against the wood. The scent of earth and ripening
corn hung on the breeze, bringing a sense of health, strength, and
youth. From the dark gloom of the huge trees, whose tops were
beginning to break up the expanse of dawning blue, came the keen, damp
breath of the forest. The seminarist walked along slowly and lazily,
passing his hand over the surface of the rye. Sky larks and crested
larks rose at his feet, and dropped again like stones into the
thickly-growing corn.
The dawn was now tinging the horizon with a rosy light; it burst forth
like a wide flash of lightning, illuminating the rifts and curves in
the dark clouds which lay idly over the wood. Unexpectedly hundreds of
red firs, crowning the summit of the hill, emerged tall and grand from
the night, their boughs standing out prominently against the
transparent background of blue, as if stretching out their arms to the
approaching sun.
Suddenly a thrill passed through the earth. The next moment a puff of
wind, the forerunner of daybreak, stirred the boughs of the firs, and
announced alike to plant, to grass, and corn--the coming of the sun.
It seemed as if the earth were quivering, as if her heart began to
beat. Then the wind spread its wings, and hovered over the scented
trunks, over the osiers and corn in the distance. A long, soothing
moment of death-like silence followed, and then that mysterious moment
of early dawn, when each living plant glows in its every part as if on
fire.
The student walked with his face turned eastwards. Words of prayer
rose from his heart to his lips as the sap rises to the bark of the
pines when Spring comes. He went up to the little chapel, opened the
grey wooden door, studded with nails, and fell on his face with
outstretched hands before the picture of Christ, clumsily drawn by a
rustic hand.
He felt as if his soul had fled from earth to the very Throne of God.
The scales had fallen from his eyes in a moment: he was gazing on the
face of the Eternal.
All at once a rough, coarse peasant's song was heard:
'It was then that I liked you best, Hanka,
When you bleached yourself in the fields, in the fields,
like a gosling.'
This was answered by a woman's voice, approaching from a distance:
'I did not bleach myself, I bleached a linen shirt,
But you, Kaska, thought that I was painted.'
The young man rose from the ground, and stood at the door of the
chapel. He saw a sturdy farmer's lad in shirt sleeves, bare-foot, in a
straw hat, and loaded like a horse, with juniper wood. This strapping
fellow was taking up a kilo of roots--digging out bushes with the
clods, and moistening his hands in the branches. A girl was going
along the path, carrying a load of weeds on her back. The corners of
her petticoat were turned up and tucked into her belt, her broad
shoulders were bent together under the heavy burden, only her head,
tied round with a red handkerchief, was raised towards the hill where
the lad was working. When she reached the turn of the path, he stopped
her, pulled down the hem of her skirt from her waist, and laid her
bundle on the ground. She pushed him away with her hands, laughing.
The student shaded his eyes with his hand, but dropped it again the
next minute, as the sound of the two singing a fresh song echoed
through the glade. It was strange music. The wood, like a tuned
string, seemed to quiver in harmony with the sound of those two
voices:
'In the garden is a cherry tree,
In the orchard there are two;
I have loved you, Hanus, since you were small,
Nobody else but you.'
They went down into the hollow through the corn, which reached up to
their heads, bent towards one another. Those two heads stood out in
sharp relief against the dark rye, while the giant, brazen shield of
the sun was rising over the ridge. They walked thus for a long time,
never completely hidden by the corn.
Tears flowed from under the young man's closed eyes, and he clenched
his hands convulsively. Words unknown to him, words known as longing
and the desire for love, forced themselves unnoticed to his lips.
In a vision he saw moist eyes and a girl's long braided hair rising
and sinking in some sea cavern. An unknown force, inexpressibly sweet,
a force which could be neither expelled nor conquered, rose within
him, carrying him far away into space. His soul threw off its fetters,
and rushed forth in its wild freedom, as a colt starts for a mad
gallop....
SRUL--FROM LUBARTÓW
ADAM SZYMANSKI
I
It happened in the year,...; but no matter what year. Suffice it to
say that it happened, and that it happened at Yakutsk in the beginning
of November, about a month after my arrival at that citadel of frosts.
The thermometer was down to 35 degrees Réamur. I was therefore
thinking anxiously of the coming fate of my nose and ears, which,
fresh from the West, had been making silent but perceptible protests
against their compulsory acclimatization, and to-day were to be
submitted to yet further trials. These latest trials were due to the
fact that one of the men in our colony, Peter Kurp, nicknamed
Baldyga,[10] had died in the local hospital two days before, and early
that morning we were going to do him a last service, by laying his
wasted body in the half-frozen ground.
I was only waiting for an acquaintance, who was to tell me the hour of
the funeral, and I had not long to wait. Having wrapped up my nose and
ears with the utmost care, I set out with the others to the hospital.
The hospital was outside the town. In the courtyard, and at some
distance from the other buildings, stood a small shed--the mortuary.
In this mortuary lay Baldyga's body.
When the doors were opened, we entered, and the scene within made a
painful impression on the few of us present. We were about ten people,
possibly a few more, and we all involuntarily looked at one another:
we were standing opposite a cold and bare reality, not veiled by any
vestige of pretence....
In the shed,--which possessed neither table nor stool, nothing but
walls white with hoarfrost and a floor covered with snow,--lay a large
bearded corpse, equally white, and tied up in some kind of sheet or
shirt. This was Baldyga.
The body, which was completely frozen, had been brought near the light
to the door, where the coffin was standing ready.
Never shall I forget Baldyga's face as I saw it then with the light
full upon it, and washed by the snow. There was something strange and
indescribably sad in the rough, strongly marked countenance; the large
pupils and projecting eyeballs seemed to look far away into the
distance towards the stern frosty sky.
'That man,--he was a good sort,' one of those present said to me,
noticing the impression which the sight of Baldyga made on me. 'He was
always steady and industrious; people who were hard up used to go to
him and he would help them. But there never was anyone so obstinate as
Kurp: he believed to the last that he would go back to the Narev.[11]
Yet before the end came it was plain that he knew he would never get
there.'
Meanwhile the petrified body had been laid in the coffin, and placed
upon the small one-horse Yakut sledge.
Then the tailor's wife--a person versed in religious
practices,--undertook the office of priest for such time as we could
give her, and began to sing 'Ave Maria,' while we joined in with
voices broken with emotion. After this we proceeded to the cemetery.
We walked quickly; the frost was invigorating, and made us hasten our
steps. At last we reached the cemetery. We each threw a handful of
frozen earth on to the coffin.... A few deft strokes of the spade ...
and in a moment only a small freshly turned mound of earth remained to
bear witness to Baldyga's yet recent existence in this world. This
witness would not last long, however,--scarcely a few months. The
spring would come, and, thawed by the sun, the mound on the grave
would sink and become even with the rest of the ground, and grass and
weeds would grow upon it. After a year or two the witnesses of the
funeral would die, or be dispersed throughout the wide world, and if
even the mother who bore him were to search for him, she would no
longer find a trace on the earth. But, indeed, none would seek for the
dead man, nor even a dog ask for him.
Baldyga had known this; we knew it too: and we dispersed to our houses
in silence.
The day following the funeral the frost was yet more severe. There was
not a single building to be seen on the opposite side of the fairly
narrow street in which I lived, for a thick mist of snow crystals
overspread the earth, like a cloud. The sun could not penetrate this
mist, and although there was not a living soul in the street, the air
was so highly condensed through the extreme cold that I continually
heard the metallic sound of creaking snow, the sharp reports of the
walls and ground cracking in the frost, or the moaning song of a
Yakut. Evidently those Yakut frosts were beginning, which reduce the
most terrible Arctic cold to insignificance. They fill human beings
with unspeakable dread. Every living thing feels its utter
helplessness, and although it cowers down and shrinks into itself for
protection, knows quite well--like the cur worried by fierce
mastiffs,--that all is in vain, for sooner or later the inexorable foe
is bound to be victorious.
And Baldyga was continually in my mind, as if he were alive. I had sat
for hours at my half-finished task. Somehow I could not stick to work;
the pen fell from my hand, and my unruly thoughts ranged far away
beyond the snowy frontier and frosty ground. In vain I appealed to my
reason, in vain I repeated wholesome advice to myself for the tenth
time. Hitherto I had offered some resistance to the sickness which had
consumed me for several weeks; to-day I felt completely overcome and
helpless. Homesickness was devouring and making pitiless havoc of me.
I had been unable to resist dreaming so many times already; was it
likely I should withstand the temptation to-day? The temptation was
stronger, and I was weaker than usual.
So begone frost and snow, begone the existence of Yakutsk! I threw
down my pen, and surrounding myself with clouds of tobacco smoke,
plunged into the waters of feverish imagination.
And how it carried me away!... My thoughts fled rapidly to the far
West, across morasses and steppes, mountains and rivers, across
countless lands and cities, and spread a scene of true enchantment
before me. There on the Vistula lay my native plains, free from misery
and human passions, beautiful and harmonious. My lips cannot utter,
nor my pen describe their charm!
I saw the golden fields, the emerald meadows; the dense forests
murmured their old legends to me.
I heard the rustle of the waving corn; the chirping of the feathered
poets; the sound of the giant oaks as they haughtily bid defiance to
the gale.
And the air seemed permeated by the scent of those aromatic forests,
and those blossoming fields, adorned in virgin freshness by the blue
cornflowers and that sweetest beauty of Spring,--the innocent violet.
... Every single nerve felt the caress of my native air.... I was
touched by the life-giving power of the sun's rays; and although the
frost outside creaked more fiercely, and showed its teeth at me on the
window panes more menacingly, yet the blood circulated in my veins
more rapidly, my head burnt, and I sat as if spellbound, deaf, no
longer seeing or hearing anything round me....
II
I did not notice that the door opened and someone entered my room,
neither did I see the circles of vapour, which form in such numbers
every time a door is opened that they obscure the face of the person
entering. I did not feel the cold: it penetrates human dwellings here
with a sort of shameless, premeditated violence. In fact, I had seen
or heard nothing until suddenly I felt a man close to me, and even
before catching sight of him, found myself involuntarily putting him
the usual Yakut question:
'Toch nado?' ('What do you want?')
'If you please, Sir, I am a hawker,' was the answer.
I looked up. Although he was dressed in ox and stag's hide, I had no
doubt that a typical Polish Jew from a small town stood before me.
Anyone who had seen him at Lossitz or Sarnak would have recognized him
as easily in Yakut as in Patagonian costume. I knew him at once. And
since, as I have said, I was as yet only semi-conscious, and had asked
the question almost mechanically, the Jew now standing before me did
not interrupt my train of thought too harshly; the contrast was,
therefore, not too disagreeable. Quite the reverse. I gazed into the
well-known features with a certain degree of pleasure; the Jew's
appearance at that moment seemed quite natural, since it carried me in
thought and feeling to my native land, and the few Polish words
sounded dear to my ear. Half dreaming still, I looked at him kindly.
The Jew stood still for a moment, then turned, and retreating to the
door, began to pull off his multifarious coverings.
Then I came to myself, and realized that I had not yet answered him,
and that my sagacious countryman, quite misinterpreting my silence,
was anxious to dispose of his wares to me. I hastened to undeceive
him.
'In heaven's name, man, what are you doing?' I cried quickly, 'I do
not want to buy anything; I am not wanting anything. Do not unload
yourself in vain, and go away with God's blessing!'
The Jew stopped undoing his things, and after a moment's
consideration, came towards me with his long fur coat[12] half
trailing behind him, and began to mumble quickly in broken sentences:
'It's all right; I know you won't buy anything, Sir. I saw you, for I
have been here a long time, a very long time.... I didn't know before
that you had come.... You come from Warsaw, don't you, Sir? They only
told me yesterday evening that you had been here four months already;
what a pity it was such a time before I heard of it! I should have
come at once. I have been searching for you to-day for an hour, Sir. I
went quite to the end of the town,--and there's such a frost
here,--confound it!... If you will allow me Sir,--I won't interrupt
for long?... Only just a few words....'
'What do you want of me?'
'I should only like to have a little chat with you, Sir.'
This answer did not greatly surprise me. I had already come across not
a few people, Jews among them, who had called solely for the purpose
of 'having a little chat' with a man recently arrived from their
country. Those who came were interested in the most varied topics
imaginable; there were the inquisitive gossipers pure and simple,
there were the people who only enquired after their relations, and
there were the politicians, including those whose heads had been
turned. Among those who came, however, politics always played a
specially important part. So it did not surprise me, I repeat, to hear
the wish expressed by a fresh stranger, and although I should have
been glad to rid my cottage as quickly as possible of the unpleasant
odour of the ox-hide coat,--badly tanned, as usual--I begged him in a
friendly way to take it off and sit down.
The Jew was evidently pleased. He took a seat beside me at once and I
could now observe him closely.
All the usual features of the Jewish race were united in the face
beside me: the large, slightly crooked nose and penetrating hawk's
eyes, the pointed beard of the colour of a well-ripened pumpkin, the
low forehead, surrounded by thick hair; all these my guest possessed.
And yet, strange to say, the haggard face expressed a certain frank
sincerity, and did not make a disagreeable impression on me.
'Tell me where you come from, what your name is, what you are doing
here, and why you wish to see me?'
'Please, Sir, I am Srul, from Lubartów. Perhaps you know it,--just a
stone's throw from Lublin?--Well, at home everyone thinks it a long
way from there, and formerly I thought so too. But now,' he added with
emphasis, 'we know that Lubartów is quite close to Lublin, a mere
stone's throw.'
'And have you been here long?'
'Very long; three good years.'
'That is not so very long; there are people who have lived here for
over 20 years, and I met an old man from Vilna in the road, who had
been here close upon 50 years. Those have really been a long time.'
But the Jew snubbed me. 'As to them, I can't say. I only know that I
have been here a long time.'
'You must certainly live quite alone, if the time seems so long to
you?'
'With my wife and child--my daughter. I had four children when I set
out, but, may the Lord preserve us, it was such a long way, we were
travelling a whole year. Do you know what such a journey means,
Sir?... Three children died in one week--died of travelling, as it
were. Three children!... An easy thing to say!... There was nowhere
even to bury them, for there was no cemetery of ours there.... I am a
Husyt,' he added more quietly. 'You know what that means Sir?... I
keep the Law strictly ... and yet God punishes me like this....' He
grew silent with emotion.
'My friend,' I tried to say to console him a little,--'no doubt under
such circumstances it is difficult to remember that it makes no
difference; but all earth is hallowed.'
But the Jew jumped as if he had been scalded.
'Hallowed! how hallowed! In what way is it hallowed! What are you
saying, Sir? It's unclean! It's damned!... Hallowed earth?... You must
not talk like that, Sir, you ought to be ashamed! Is earth hallowed,
which never thaws? This earth is cursed! God doesn't wish human beings
to live here; it wouldn't have been like this, if He had wished it.
Cursed! Bad! Damned! Damned!'
And he began to spit about him, and stamp his feet, threatening the
innocent Yakut earth with tightened lips and his shrivelled hands, and
muttering Jewish maledictions. At last, exhausted by the effort, he
fell rather than sat down at the table beside me.
All exiles, without regard to religion or race, dislike Siberia:
evidently a fanatic does not learn to hate it half-heartedly. I paused
until he had calmed himself. Educated in a severe school, the Jew
quickly regained his self-possession and mastered his emotion, and
when I gazed questioningly into his eyes the next moment, he
immediately answered me:
'You must pardon me; I do not speak of this to anyone, for to whom
should I speak here?'
'Then are there very few Jews here?'
'Those here? Do you call them Jews, Sir? They're such low fellows, not
one of them keeps the Law strictly.'
Fearing another outburst, I would not, however, allow him to finish,
and decided to change the conversation by asking him straight out what
he wanted to talk to me about now.
'I should like to know the news from there, Sir. I have been here so
many years, and I have never yet heard what is going on there.'
'You are asking a good deal, for I can't exactly tell you everything.
I don't know what interests you,--politics perhaps?'
The Jew was silent.
I concluded that my present guest, like many of the others, was
interested in politics; but as I myself did not understand the very
elements of the subject, I began to give the stereotyped account I had
already composed with a view to frequent repetition of the situation
of European politics, our own,[13] and so forth. But the Jew fidgeted
impatiently.
'Then this does not interest you?' I asked.
'I have never thought about it,' he answered candidly.
'Ah, now I know why you have come! I am sure you wish to know how the
Jews are doing, and how trade is going?'
'They are better off than I am.'
'Exactly. I am sure, under the circumstances, you will wish to know if
living is dear with us, what the market prices are, how much for
butter, meat, etc.'
'What does it concern me if it is ever so cheap there, if I can get
nothing here?'
'Quite right again; but what the devil did you actually come here
for?'
'Since I don't know myself, I ask you, Sir, how I am to tell you? You
see, Sir, I often get thinking ... I think so much ... that Ryfka
(that's my wife) asks, "Srul, what's the matter with you?" And what
can I tell her, for I don't know myself what it is. Perhaps some
people would laugh at me?' he added, as if fearing I were amongst
them.
But I did not laugh; I was interested. Something, the cause of which
he himself could not explain or express in words, was evidently
weighing on him, and his unusually poor command of language added to
this difficulty. In order to help him I re-assured him by telling him
that I was in no hurry, as my work was not urgent and there would
therefore be no harm in our having an hour's talk, and so on.--The Jew
thanked me with a glance, and after a moment's thought opened the
conversation thus:
'When did you leave Warsaw, Sir?'
'According to the Russian calendar, at the end of April.'
'Was it cold there then or warm?'
'Quite warm. I travelled in a summer suit at first.'
'Well, just fancy, Sir! Here it was freezing!'
'Then you have forgotten, is that it? Anyway, with us the fields are
sown in April, and all the trees are green.'
'Green?' Joy shone in Srul's eyes. 'Why, yes, yes--green:--and here it
was freezing!'
Now at last I knew why he had come to me. Wishing to make certain,
however, I was silent: the Jew was evidently getting animated.
'Well, Sir, you might tell me if there is any--with us now ... but you
see, I don't know what it's called; I have already forgotten Polish,'
he apologized shyly, as if he had ever known it--'it's white like a
pea blossom, yet it's not a pea, and in summer it grows in gardens
round houses, on those tall stalks?'
'Kidney beans?'
'That's just it! Kidney beans! Kidney beans!' he repeated to himself
several times, as if wishing to impress those words on his memory for
ever.
'Of course there are plenty of those. But are there none here?'
'Here! I have never seen a single pod all these past three years. Here
the peas are what at home we should not expect the ... the....'
'The pigs to eat,' I suggested.
'Well, yes! Here they sell them by the pound, and it's not always
possible to get them.'
'Are you so fond of kidney beans?'
'It's not that I am so fond of them, but they are so beautiful
that ... I don't know why ... I often get thinking and thinking how
they may be growing round my house. Here there's nothing!'
'And now, Sir,' he recommenced, 'will you tell me, if those small grey
birds are still there in the winter,--like this--' and he measured
with his hand. 'I have forgotten their names too. Formerly there were
a great many, when I used to pray by the window. They used to swarm
round! Well, whoever even looked at them there? Do you know, Sir, I
could never have believed that I should ever think about them! But
here, where it's so cold that even the crows won't stop, you can't
expect to see little things like that. But they are sure to be there
with us? They are there, aren't they, Sir?...'
But I did not answer him now. I no longer doubted that this old
fanatical Jew was pining for his country just as much as I was, and
that we were both sick with the same sickness. This unexpected
discovery moved me deeply, and I seized him by the hand, and asked in
my turn:
'Then that was what you wished to talk to me about? Then you are not
thinking of the people, of your heavy lot, of the poverty which is
pinching you; but you are longing for the sun, for the air of your
native country!... You are thinking of the fields and meadows and
woods; of the little songsters, for whom you could not spare a
moment's attention there when you were busy, and now that these
beautiful pictures are fading from your recollection, you fear the
solitude surrounding you, the vast emptiness which meets you and
effaces the memories you value? You wish me to recall them to you, to
revive them; you wish me to tell you what our country is like?...'
'Oh yes, Sir, yes, Sir! That was why I came here,' and he clasped my
hands, and laughed joyfully, like a child.
'Listen, brother....'
And my friend, Srul, listened, all transformed by listening, his lips
parted, his look rivetted to mine; he kindled, he inspired me by that
look; he wrested the words from me, drank them in thirstily, and laid
them in the very depth of his burning heart.... I do not doubt that he
laid them there, for when I had finished my tale he began to moan
bitterly, 'O weh mir! weh mir!' He struck his red beard, and in his
misery tears like a child's rolled fast down his face.... And the old
fanatic sat there a long time sobbing, and I cried with him....
Much water has flowed down the cold Lena since that day, and not a few
human tears have rolled down suffering cheeks. All this happened long
ago. Yet in the silence of the night, at times of sleeplessness, the
statuesque face of Baldyga, bearing the stigma of great sorrow, often
rises before me, and invariably beside it Srul's yellow, drawn face,
wet with tears. And when I gaze longer at that night-vision, many a
time I seem to see the Jew's trembling, pale lips move, and I hear his
low voice whisper:
'Oh Jehovah, why art thou so unmerciful to one of Thy most faithful
sons?...'
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Baldyga means 'lump' or 'clumsy lout.'
[11] The river near his home.
[12] 'Docha.'
[13] _i.e._ Polish.
IN AUTUMN
WACLAW SIEROSZEWSKI
The rain and bad weather, which had continued without interruption
for several days, had kept the inhabitants of the hut, 'Talaki,'[14]
prisoners indoors, and condemned them to idleness. They constantly
went out of the room to gaze long and sadly at the weeping sky, for
the hay was rotting in the fields;--but alas! a grey film of rain hung
over all the surrounding country, and in vain their eyes sought
longingly for the smallest chink of blue in the heavy, dark clouds.
To add to the misfortune, the rain, not content with the holes left in
the roof from the year before, made a number of fresh ones. It thus
poured into the room from all sides on to people's heads and
shoulders, and formed quite a deep and ever-growing pool underfoot.
Various forms of filth, remains of food, refuse of fish and game, the
dung in the corner where the calves were kept, which had been trodden
down and had dried in the course of the year, became moist, and filled
the interior of the 'yurta'[15] with an unbearable smell. It was
therefore stuffy, cold, and damp there. The fire, burning rather
slowly, was choked by balls of grey smoke, which went across the room.
The hut was tiny; it occupied no more than twenty-four square yards of
the solitude surrounding it. The slanting walls, made of barked larch
trees placed perpendicularly, and narrowing towards the top,
diminished its size still more. The flat roof was built of rafters of
the same wood, and came down so close to the inhabitants' heads that
one of them, Michawio, a big lad, while unwinding a bundle of nets at
the little window, hit his curly shock head against it.
A plank partition, hewn out with a hatchet, ran through the centre of
the room, and divided it into equal parts, the right being for the
men, the left for the women. By a post at the end of the room, with
his face turned towards the fire, his hands on his right knee, and
smoking a pipe, sat my host, Kyrsa,[16] a Yakut. Still hale, though no
longer young, he was the wealthy and independent master of field
labourers, and the owner of the house, of many nets, animals, and
implements, as well as of three women:--a wife, and two daughters. The
youngest was sold already, but she was living with her father, as the
sum agreed upon for her had not yet been paid in full by the buyer.
There was deep silence in the room,--a rather unusual thing in a place
where several Yakut people are together. The fire roared and hissed in
the chimney, and behind the partition the girls made a squeaking sound
as they rubbed the skins together. I had a foreboding that this
silence would end badly; indeed, the storm soon broke out. The lad
nicknamed 'Shmata' brought it on by his incompetence. After wandering
from corner to corner all day, he now upset a bucket and spilt the
water. This was the last straw. All eyes flashed, and faces grew pale.
The frightened Shmata tried to lay the blame on Michawio, who had been
stooping down near him to look for a strap. Michawio in revenge
reminded Shmata of what had happened about the rake the year before.
The quarrel had begun in earnest. Their tongues, moving with the speed
of a windmill, and throwing out invectives and sneers, formed an
accompaniment to the host's threatening shouts, which rang out like
the trump of the Archangel. Nor did our hostess fail to leave her
seclusion to take part in the skirmish with the excitement peculiar to
women all the world over. The yurta suddenly became like a disturbed
beehive. The host affirmed, the hostess denied, the labourers hurled
abuses at one another, the girls uttered war cries, the baby woke up
and screamed in its cradle, and the calves lowed in answer to the loud
mooing of the cows, whom evening had driven near the house door. This
last occurence had a perceptible influence in diminishing the noise,
for it caused the female element to withdraw from the fight; in fact,
the disturbance might have been conjured away completely, if the happy
thought of adding something at the very moment when everyone else was
quieting down, had not entered our host's head.
This remark burst out unexpectedly, like a belated bomb after a
battle, and produced such a din that the cows and calves were silent,
the wind abated in fright, the clouds fled, and I became aware of a
golden sunbeam penetrating the holes in the bladder at the window, and
falling suddenly into the interior of our dark, dirty, noisy hovel.
Merrily and brightly it rested in a shining circle on the closely
cropped grey head of my host, before whose nose his wife's large
closed fist was hovering at that moment. 'That's for you! Take that!
Go on!' Kuimis cried, still beautiful in her anger. The fist came
closer and closer to the unfortunate man's mouth.
What happened further? Did Kyrsa avenge himself like a man for that
greatest of all insults possible to a Yakut from a woman? Or did he
show himself to be the 'wife of his wife,' an old woman and a
simpleton, as the neighbours called him, and refrain from knocking out
the teeth or breaking the ribs of the active woman by whose work he
lived and had grown rich? I do not know, because, foreseeing the
overthrow of my friend, in whom love for his wife was always
struggling against a sense of duty, and not wishing to be a witness of
his defeat, I shouldered my gun and went out of the cottage.
The wind had dropped, the covering of clouds was torn open, and bits
of pale blue sky were unveiled here and there. The sun peeped out
suddenly through one of these little gaps, and the landscape, which
had been dreary and joyless a moment before, brightened into a golden
splendour. A light shadow, half cheerful, half sombre, fell across its
faded autumn foliage, and in this half smile it resembled a forsaken
woman, to whom the caprice of a lover, who has already grown cold,
offers a moment of tenderness and happiness again. Drops of rain
glistened like brilliants on the dark branches of the trees and
bushes; the sky was coloured in shades of carmine, and the pearly
tears of the passing storm trembled on the willows, still swaying from
it.
Before me, between two high promontories overgrown by woods which ran
in opposite directions, sparkled the surface of the lake. In
proportion as it stretched into the distance, its bank became more
winding, lower, and mistier, until it disappeared at the outlet of a
gorge. Owing to the distance, the tall, thin larches, the thick
willows, bushes, and grass growing there looked quite small, but the
rays of the sunset, falling on them from behind, produced a wonderful
lace-work of dark branches and leaves against a pale-rose sky. Grey
clouds hung above them, heavily embroidered with gold and purple. The
waves sported and chased one another below on the foam-splashed banks
of the lake, which was painted with colours from the sky.
I walked towards the gorge, by the footpath leading through a meadow
which was now turning yellow.
That 'demons' forest'[17] looked dark and horrible close at hand. The
flat hills, uniformly covered with soft moss of a dirty green, and
with cranberry leaves, undulated gently westwards towards the sinking
sun. The wood covering these hills was sparse and stunted, and
disfigured them rather than otherwise, for single trees stood out here
and there like the remaining hair on a bald man's head. Silence, and
the gloom of oncoming night already filled the interior of the forest.
Only here and there a forgotten ray of sunshine was burning itself out
above in the bare, wind-twisted summits of the larches.
I stood for a moment, looking at that wild spot, which no native would
have dared to approach. A deep stillness lay upon it; the waves beat
more and more gently and noiselessly; the sunset was fading away, and
only where the network of bushes was less close a transient gleam
lighted the surface of some lakes, which had hitherto been unknown to
me. I walked on towards them, impelled by curiosity and a feeling of
longing.
The way proved more difficult than I had expected. At every moment I
was obliged to jump or climb over bushes and avoid the deep, narrow
wells, boarded round with tree-trunks felled a hundred years before
and perfidiously concealed by the mosses and plants overgrowing them.
As these wells were full of water, with bottoms as slippery as ice, an
unwary pedestrian could easily break his neck or fracture a leg by
falling into them. In many places swampy streams trickled along
undefined channels, and though their banks were shallow, they were
boggy and difficult to cross on account of the trunks and branches
lying in them. The wood was full of trees with projecting, mud-covered
roots, which now, when everything was assuming an indefinite shape in
the twilight, looked twisted and monstrous. The white patches of
lichen shining in the darkness at the foot of the trees like the
immense shreds of a pall, emphasized and doubled their weird
appearance. It is, therefore, no wonder that in the purple light of
dawn, or in the moonlight, the natives should here see the tall
wood-demon's pale face,--the Slav hunter who came from the South and
now roams near the Yakut cottages, injuring cattle.
Woe to the district where his shadow passes! Often from fifty to two
hundred beasts fall dead at one shot from those terrible Southern
arms.
That evening, however, I met none of these inhabitants of the wood. I
also did not see the 'demons,'--the dry Tungus corpses. At one time
they were to be found here quite frequently, and the forest takes its
name from them. Shrivelled and horrible, they usually sit somewhere
under a tree or cleft in a rock, gazing eastwards with eye-sockets
pecked by the birds. On their knees they hold a wooden bow, or a
rifle, at their feet lies a hatchet with a broken handle, and at their
belt, inlaid with silver and beads, hangs a broken knife in its
sheath,--also broken, in order to prevent the dead man from doing any
mischief after death. A little to one side lie scattered the bones of
the reindeer, killed on his grave, the harness, and the small Tungus
sledge. No one ever dares to possess himself of any of these
considerably valuable articles, for punishment threatens the
foolhardy, inasmuch as he loses his way all day long until he returns
to the same place and restores the stolen object. Until they give
ample satisfaction, and atone to the angered owner by a gift,
obstinate people return some thirty, even a hundred times without
being able to escape from the magic circle. It is dangerous even to
touch any of the things belonging to the dead man, since that evokes a
storm, or, at best, a high wind. Although the kindly natives had
advised me to avoid meeting with the 'demon,' since it brings early,
and sometimes immediate death, I was very sorry not to have seized him
red-handed that evening. However, I came to be severely punished for
this sinful wish.
The twilight deepened. The last purple resplendance had already faded
from the sunset, when tired and tattered, I at last succeeded in
pushing my way through the bushes of the 'demon's forest.' The sky was
dark, and twinkling with myriads of stars. My expedition had failed in
every respect. To complete the misfortune, the white mists hung like
muslin over the valley, and entirely prevented me from satisfying my
curiosity. I was therefore only able to take pleasure in the play of
the moonlight.
It was really a beautiful view, although rather wild and gloomy.
Nearly the whole of the broad valley, to the very edge of the wood
where the dark, bare tree-tops projected beyond the border of mist,
was filled by white balls of vapour; the moon was moving slowly above
them. Looking for a moment into the depths of the valley, she drew
aside the floating veil, and touched the sleeping lake below with her
silvery kiss. I stood a long while to gaze and to rest. The deep
silence, the stillness which always reigns in these woods, the
knowledge that no one but myself was to be found in that solitude for
twenty versts round, filled me with a strange feeling of anxiety and
longing. I roused myself in order to dispel this. It was unfortunately
time to think of returning;--no easy matter, however, for in making my
way through the wood, I had lost a clear conception of the right
track. At last I hit on a small footpath, and decided to follow it in
the hope that it would lead me to some inhabited spot. I had scarcely
gone twenty steps before becoming persuaded that I was not walking on
a path, but on one of the numerous tracks made in the wood by water or
animals. It was therefore necessary to return to the place from which
I had started, for only thence could I more or less trace the way
leading in a bee-line through the wood. But the place had disappeared;
the night had shrouded it in new and different shadows, and the mist
had drawn its silver web across it. I walked for some time, searching
in vain, and haunted by the thought of forest madness. I had seen
people brought home from the 'taiga'[18] no longer in possession of
their faculties, pale and miserable, and with the traces of terror and
madness in their eyes. These unhappy men had often lost their way
quite near houses, without seeing them or being able to recognize the
points of the compass, although the sun was shining, and they had
wandered about, crying and howling like wild animals. After
recovering, they said that they had seen the demon. One of the causes
of this illness is the fatigue brought on by the strain of the vain
search. So I sat down on a felled trunk, resolving to wait for
daybreak.
The air was cool. My clothes were wet with the mist and rain, besides
being too thin for spending the night in the wood, so that I soon
began to suffer from the cold. I tried to light a fire, but the
matches were damp, and the only one which burnt could not set fire to
the moist brushwood and logs. Having, therefore, gathered some grass,
I hid my feet in it, as they were suffering the most from the cold; I
examined my gun, and loaded it, and then, crouching against a tree, I
tried to go to sleep.