It was a beautiful July day, one of those days that come only when the weather has been settled for some time. The sky is clear from earliest morning; the sunrise does not blaze like a fire but spreads a gentle blush. The sun is not ignescent or scorching hot as it is during a sultry drought, nor is it a murky crimson as before a storm, but it is bright and affably radiant-peacefully arising beneath a long narrow cloud, freshly gleaming through it and submerged in its lilac mist. The delicate upper border of the long line of clouds gleams like a serpent; the gleam is like the gleam of forged silver ... But then again the playful beams pour forth-cheerfully and majestically, as if flying up, radiating a more powerful light. Toward midday a mass of round high clouds usually appears, golden-gray, with delicate white borders. They are almost motionless, like islands washed by an endlessly flowing river that spills over them in deeply transparent streams of flat blue; further toward the horizon, they begin to merge and cluster and the blue between them can no longer be seen, while they are themselves just like the azure of the sky: they are all imbued through and through with light and warmth.
The color of the horizon is light, a pale lilac; in a whole day it does not change and is the same all around; it does not darken anywhere, there is no thickening thunderstorm; perhaps here and there a barely noticeable rain drizzles from pale blue columns that stretch downward. Toward evening these clouds disappear; the last of them, blackish and vague like smoke, settle in pinkish puffs before the setting sun; in the place where it has descended just as peacefully as it arose in the sky, the crimson glow lingers for a short time above the darkening earth and twinkling softly, like a cautiously carried candle, the evening star glows. On such days the tints are all subdued, bright but not dazzling; everything somehow bears the stamp of a touching humility. On such days the heat is sometimes very strong, sometimes even "steams" across the sloping fields; but the wind blows away and disperses the accumulated heat and swirling dust-a sure sign of constant weather-moves high white columns along the road through the plowed fields. The scent of absinthe, cut rye, and buckwheat is in the pure, dry air; even an hour before nightfall you can feel no dampness. It is this kind of weather the fanner wants for harvesting his grain ... Once, on just such a day, I went hunting for black grouse in the Chemsk District in the province of Tula. I found and bagged quite a few birds; my full hunting bag cut unmercifully into my shoulder; but the evening glow was already dying away, still bright but no longer lit by the rays of the setting sun, and cold shadows had begun to thicken and spread in the air when I finally decided to return home. With swift steps I crossed a long "square" of bushes, ascended a hill, and instead of the usual familiar plains with a little oak wood on the right and a humble white church in the distance, I saw a completely different place unknown to me. A narrow valley stretched out at my feet; ahead of me, a dense aspen grove towered like a steep wall. I stopped in bewilderment and looked around ... "Really!" I thought, "but I haven't been here before at all. I must have turned too far to the right." And amazed at my own mistake, I swiftly descended the hill. I was immediately enveloped by an unpleasant motionless dampness, as if I had walked into a cellar; the thick tall grass at the bottom of the valley, soaking wet, shone white as a smooth tablecloth; to walk through it was somehow terrifying. I quickly scrambled across to the other side and keeping to the left walked parallel to the aspen wood. In the air above its sleeping treetops the bats were already flitting, circling mysteriously and quivering in the dimly pale sky; a small hawk out late flew by swiftly and directly in the distant heights, rushing to its nest. "Now as soon as I get to that comer," I thought to myself, "the road will be right there and I'll have made a detour of about three-quarters of a mile!" I finally reached the comer of the woods, but there was no road there at all: some sort of unkempt low bushes stretched out broadly before me and beyond them, far, far off, an empty field was visible. I stopped again. "What is this? ... And where am I?" I began to recall how and where I had walked during the course of the day ... "Aha! This must be the Parakhin Brush!" I exclaimed at last. "Precisely! Over there must be the Sindeev Grove ... But how did I get all the way over here? How did I go so far? ... It's strange! Now I'll have to go to the right again." I went to the right, through the bushes. Meanwhile, night was closing in and thickening like a thundercloud; it seemed that along with the evening mist, darkness was rising up all around and even pouring down from the heights. I found some kind of uneven, overgrown path and started out along it, looking ahead attentively. It had quickly become black and quiet all around-only some quail cried out occasionally. A small night bird, rushing along inaudibly and low on its soft wings, almost collided with me and fearfully dove to the side. I came out to the edge of the bushes and plodded along the boundary of a field. It was already difficult to make out distant objects; all around the field glimmered vaguely; beyond it, coming closer with every minute, a gloomy darkness loomed in huge puffs. My steps reverberated hollowly in the thickening air. The whitening sky began to tum blue again-but it was already the blue of night. In it the small stars began to twinkle and stir. What I had taken for a grove turned out to be a dark, round knoll. "But where on earth am I?" I repeated again aloud, stopping for the third time and looking inquiringly at my yellow English skewbald dog Dianka, absolutely the most intelligent of all four-legged creatures. But the most intelligent of all four-legged creatures only wagged her little tail, blinked her dejected, tired small eyes and did not offer me any useful advice. She made me feel ashamed and, in despair, I pushed forward as if I had suddenly guessed where I had to go, went around the knoll, and found myself in a shallow hollow that had been plowed all around. A strange feeling immediately came over me. This hollow had the appearance of an almost perfect caldron with gently sloping sides; on its bottom several large white rocks were sticking up-it appeared as if they had crept down for a mysterious conference-and it was so silent and deserted there, and the sky hung so flat and cheerlessly up above, that my heart sank. Some sort of small animal squeaked weakly and plaintively among the rocks. I rushed to get back on to the knoll. Up to now I had not lost hope of finding the way home; but fmally I was convinced I was completely lost, and I no longer in the least tried to recognize my surroundings, which were almost totally submerged in the gloom. I walked straight, by the stars-recklessly ... I walked nearly a half hour so that putting one foot in front of the other was difficult. It seemed I had never in my life been in such empty spaces: nowhere did a flame flicker, not a single sound was heard. One gently sloping hill merged into another; fields stretched endlessly past fields; bushes arose suddenly from the earth under my very nose. I kept walking and was already preparing to lie down somewhere until morning when suddenly I found myself above a terrible abyss. I quickly drew back my outstretched leg and through the barely transparent dusk of night I saw an enormous plain far below me. A wide river skirted around it, curving away from me in a half-circle; steely reflections of water occasionally flickered dimly and marked its course. The hill on which I was standing descended suddenly into an almost vertical precipice; its huge outline could be distinguished from the bluish airy void by its blackness, and directly under me, in the angle formed by the precipice and the plain, beside the river, which in this place stood like a motionless, dark mirror under the steep slope of the hill itself, two fires burned red and smoked, one beside the other. Around them people were swarming, shadows were swaying to and fro, sometimes brightly revealing the front half of a small curly head ...
I realized at last where I was. This meadow is known in our region as the
Bezhin Meadow ... Now there was no possibility of returning home, especially at night; my legs were collapsing under me with fatigue. I decided to head toward the fires and wait for daybreak in the company of those people, whom I took to be herdsmen. I safely went down but had not yet managed to let go of the last branch I had grasped when suddenly two large white shaggy dogs rushed at me barking furiously. The sound of children's voices rang out around the fires; two or three little boys quickly got up from the ground. I answered their inquiring cries. They ran up to me, immediately calling off the dogs, who had been particularly startled by the appearance of my Dianka, and I walked toward them.
I had made a mistake in taking the people sitting around the fires for herdsmen. They were simply peasant boys from a neighboring village who were watching over horses. In the hot summertime, they drive the horses out at night to graze in the field: during the day flies and gadflies give them no peace. To drive the herd out before evening and to drive it back at dawn is a big treat for the peasant boys. Sitting without hats in old sheepskin coats, riding the most lively nags, they race along with cheerful whooping and shouting, dangling their arms and legs, bobbing high up and down, laughing loudly. Delicate yellow clouds of dust rise up and swirl along the road; far off the steady beat of hooves is heard as the horses prick up their ears and start running; in front of them all, pulling up his tail and changing pace incessantly, gallops a kind of shaggy chestnut with burdock in its loose mane.
I told the boys I was lost and took a seat near them. They asked me where I was from and were silent for a bit and avoided me. We talked for a while. I lay down under a bush and began looking around. It was a beautiful picture: a round reddish reflection quivered around the fires and seemed to die out as it came up against the darkness; flaring up, the flame occasionally cast fast sparks beyond the line of that circle; a delicate tongue of light licked the naked twigs of the wiilow and at once disappeared; sharp, long shadows, breaking in for a moment, in their tum reached out to the very fires: darkness was warring with light. Sometimes when the flames were burning weakly and the circle of light was narrowing, the head of a horse would emerge suddenly from the approaching dark, a bay, with sinuous markings or entirely white, would look at us attentively and vacantly, adeptly chew the long grass and again lowering would immediately vanish.
One could only hear it continue to chew and snort. From the illuminated place, it was difficult to see what was going on in the darkness and therefore nearly everything seemed to be covered by an almost black curtain; but in the distance toward the horizon, hills and woods were vaguely visible in long patches. The dark pure sky stood solemnly and immensely high above us in all of its mysterious splendor. My chest sweetly tightened inhaling that special languorous and fresh scent-the scent of a Russian summer night.
Almost no sound could be heard around us .... Occasionally in the nearby river a large fish would splash with a sudden sound, and reeds on the bank would make a gentle noise, barely stirring in waves that rippled up ... Only the fires crackled quietly.
The boys were sitting around them; and those two dogs that would have liked to devour me were sitting in the same place. For a long time now they bad not been able to reconcile themselves to my presence and narrowing their eyes sleepily, squinting at the fire, occasionally they growled out of a special feeling of their own worth; first they growled and then they yelped gently as if complaining about the impossibility of fulfilling their desire.
There were five boys in all: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya, and Vanya.
(I found out their names from their conversation, and now I intend to acquaint the readers with them.)
The first of them, the oldest, Fedya, seemed to be about fourteen. He was a well-built boy with handsome, delicate, somewhat shallow features, curly blond hair, light eyes, and a constant half-cheerful, half-distracted smile. By all indications, he belonged to a well-off family and had somehow ridden out to the field not out of necessity but just for fun. He wore a multicolored cotton shirt with a small yellow border; a small new peasant's coat thrown over his shoulders was scarcely supported by his narrow frame; on his pale blue belt hung a small comb. His boots with narrow tops were precisely that-his boots, not his father's. The second boy, Pavlusha, had tousled black hair, gray eyes, broad cheekbones, a pale, pockmarked face, a large, straight mouth, and an enormous head-as they say, big as a beer barrel; his body was stocky and clumsy. It cannot be denied !-the boy was not much to look at-but just the same I liked him: his gaze was very intelligent and direct and what's more his voice sounded strong. He could not boast of his clothes: in their entirety they consisted of a simple shirt and patched trousers.
The face of the third boy, Ilyusha, was quite ordinary: long, hooknosed, weak-sighted, it expressed a kind of dull, sickly thoughtfulness; his compressed lips did not move and his knit brows never relaxed, as if he were always squinting from the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck out in sharp angles from underneath a narrow felt cap he kept pulling down around his ears with both hands. He was wearing new sandals and socks; a thick rope wound carefully three times around his waist held his neat black cloth coat closed. Both he and Pavlusha appeared to be no more than twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya, a boy of about ten, piqued my curiosity with his pensive and mournful look. His whole face was small, thick, freckled, and pointed downward like a squirrel's; his lips could barely be· discerned, but a strange impression was made by his large, black shining eyes, which glittered moistly: it seemed they wanted to say something for which there were no words in language-at least his language. He was short, of frail build, and dressed quite poorly. The last boy, Vanya, I had not even noticed at first: he was lying on the ground, having curled up very quietly under some bent matting and only occasionally poking out his curly brown head from under it. This boy was about seven.
So I lay under a bush to the side and looked over the boys. A small pot hung above one of the fires; in it some taters were being cooked. Pavlusha was looking after them and kneeling down he poked the boiling water with some kindling. Fedya was lying propped on his elbow with his coat spread around him. llyusha was sitting next to Kostya and all the while still squinting tensely. Kostya hung his head a little and gazed off somewhere into the distance. Vanya did not stir from under his matting. I pretended to be asleep. Little by little the boys started talking again.
At first they chatted about this and that, about tomorrow's work, about the horses; but suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha and, as if resuming a previous conversation, asked him:
"Well now, did you really see the house spirit?"
"No, I didn't see him and it's not even possible to see him," answered
Ilyusha in a hoarse, weak voice, the sound of which matched the expression on his face exactly, "but I heard him ... And it wasn't only me."
"Where did you see him?" asked Pavlusha.
"In the old rollin' -room. " 1
"D'ya really work in the factory?"
"Sure we do. My brother Avdyushka and me are pressers."2
"No kiddin'-so you're factory workers! ... "
"Well, so how'd ya hear him?" asked Fedya.
"Here's how. My brother Avdyushka and me and Fyodor Mikheevsky and Ivashka Kosoy and another Ivashka from Red Hills, and another lvashka Sikhorukov and still more kids were there; so there was about ten of us kids-the whole shift, see, and we had to spend the night in the rollin'-room, that is, not exactly had to, but Nazarov, our boss, wouldn't let us go; he said, 'What d'you kids,' he said, 'gotta hang around at home for; tomorrow there's lots of work, so don't you kids go home.' So we stayed, we did, and lay down all together and Avdyushka starts to speakin': 'Guys, what if,' he said, 'well, what if that house spirit comes? ... ' And he, Avdey, hardly finished speakin' when all of a sudden someone comes in over our heads; but we're lyin' down below and he's walkin' upstairs by the wheel. We listen: He walks, the planks underneath him are really bendin' and really creakin'; then he passes by right over our heads; suddenly the water starts to rushin' and rushin' against the wheel; the wheel starts to knockin' and knockin' and turnin' around; but the gates of the keep3 were down. We're surprised: who could've raised'm that the water was runnin' through; but the wheel turned and turned, see, and then it stopped. Again he walks to the door upstairs and starts comin' down the stairs and so he comes like he wasn't in no hurry; the steps under him was even groanin' ...
Well, so he comes up to our door, waits and waits-the door all of a sudden gets throw'd wide open. We're scared to death, we look-nothin's there ...
All of a sudden, lo and behold, near one of the vats, the form4 began to stir, got up, dipped itself, walked and walked like through the air, like someone rinsed it, and then went back to its place again. Then near another vat a hook came off its peg and then back again; then it was like someone came to the door and started coughin' like anything, clearin' his throat, like a sort of sheep and shrill like ... We all jumped into a heap trying to hide one under the other ... Boy! were we scared that time!"
"No kiddin' !"said Pavel. "Why did he have that fit of coughin'?"
"I don't know; mighta been from the dampness."
They all became silent for a while.
"How about the taters, are they done?" asked Fedya.
Pavlusha felt them.
"Nope, still raw ... Listen, a splash," he added, turning his face in the direction of the river. "Must be a pike ... And over there a little star's fallin' ."
"I'll tell you something guys," Kostya said in a soft voice. "Listen to what I heard my dad saying the other day."
"Okay, we're listening," said Fedya in a patronizing way.
"Y'know Gavrila, the village carpenter?"
"Sure we know him."
"But d'ya know why he's always so unhappy and always quiet, do you?
Here's why he's so unhappy: Once he went, Dad told me he went out into the forest for nuts, you see. So he went into the forest for nuts and he got lost. So he sat down under a tree; 'I'll wait' he said, 'til mornin' '-he sat down and began to doze off. He dozed off and all of a sudden he hears someone calling him. He looks-there's no one there. He dozes off againagain someone calls. Again he looks and looks: and before him a mermaid's sittin' on a branch, swingin' and callin' to him, but dyin of laughter herself, she is . . . and the moon is shinin' strong. so strong, the moon is shinin' clear-everything was clear, guys. So she calls him and like she herself was all light and white sittin' on the branch like a kind of minnow or gudgeonor another carp like that, whitish, silver ... Gavrila the carpenter jus' about fainted, guys, but she was laughin' away and kept beckoning to him, see, with her hand. So Gavrila was about to get up and would've obeyed the mermaid, guys, but you know, the Lord give him an idea: to cross himself ...
But it really was hard for him to cross hisself, guys; he said his hand was simply like a rock, wouldn't budge, it wouldn't ... So when he crossed himself, guys, the mermaid stops laughin' and suddenly starts cryin' ...
She cried, guys, wipin' her eyes with her hair and her hair was green, like your hemp it was. Then Gavrila looked and looked at her and starts to askin' her: 'Why're you crying, you sly forest thing?' And the mermaid said to him, 'If you hadn't crossed yourself, little man,' she said, 'you could have lived with me in joy to your dyin' day; and I'm cryin' and grievin' because you crossed yourself; and now not only will I grieve by myself: you, too, may you grieve to the end of your days.' Then, guys, she vanished and Gavrila right away understood how to get out, out of the forest, that is ...
And jus' since that time he's always been unhappy."
"Gosh!" said Fedya after a short silence. "But how is it such an evil forest spirit can ruin a Christian soul-he didn't obey her, after all, did he?"
"Yes, it's true!" said Kostya. "And Gavrila said that her voice, he said, was so thin and mournful like a toad."
"Your dad himself said all this?" Fedya went on.
"Himself. I was lyin' down in the tent and heard the whole thing."
"What an amazin' thing! Why would he be unhappy? ... And you know that she liked him 'cause she called to him."
"Sure she liked him!" Dyusha chimed in.
"Why not! She wanted to start ticklin' him; that's what she wanted.
That's their thing, these mermaids."
"And right here and now there's probably mermaids around," observed
Fedya.
"No," Kostya answered, "this here's a clean place, it's in the open.
Only-the river is close by."
They all fell silent. Suddenly somewhere in the distance a prolonged ringing, an almost groaning sound was heard, one of those mysterious night sounds that rise up sometimes out of the deep silence; they rise, linger in the air, and at last they slowly disperse as if dying away. You listen intently to the sound and it's as if nothing were there, but it goes on ringing. It seemed as though someone had cried out next to the very horizon for a long, long time and someone else had answered from the forest with reedy, shrill laughter and a weak, hissing whistle that swept over the river. The boys looked at each other and shuddered ... "The power of the cross be with us!" whispered Dya.
"Aw, you chickens!" Pavel cried. "What're you scared of? Look, the taters are done." (They all moved up to the little pot and began eating the steaming potatoes; only Vanya didn't stir.) "What's the matter with you?" asked Pavel.
But he didn't crawl out from under his matting. The little pot was soon emptied. "Did you hear, guys," began Dyusha, "what happened not long ago near here in Varnavitsy?"
"At the dam?" asked Fedya.
"Yeah, that's it, at the dam, where it's burst. Now that's an unclean place, so haunted it is, and so deserted. There's gullies and ravines around everything and in the ravines there's lots of snakes."
"Well, what happened? Tell us . . . "
"Here's what happened. Fedya, maybe you don't know it, but we have a drowned man's buried there; and he drowned a long time ago when the pond was still deep; you can still see his grave, but only jus' barely: like a little mound ... The other day the steward calls the dog keeper Yermil; he says: 'Yermil,' he says, 'to the post office!' Our Yermil always rode after the mail; he did in all his dogs, for some reason his dogs never survive, that is they never survive anyways, and he's a good dog keeper who did everything.
So Y ermil rides to the post office but he hangs around in town and he's already tipsy on the ride back. And the night's a bright one: the moon's shinin' ... So Yermil rides across the dam 'cause that's where the road took him. He rides that way, the dog keeper Yermil, and sees a lamb, kind of white, curly haired and pretty walkin' around near the drowned man's grave. And so Y ermil thinks: 'I'll take him-why should he go to waste.'
He climbs down and takes it in his arms ... And the lamb doesn't flinch. So
Yermil walks to his horse, but the horse backs away from him, snorts and shakes its head; but he calms it down, climbs up on it with the lamb and rides off again, holdin' the lamb in front of him. He looks at it and the lamb stares straight into his eyes. Yermil the dog keeper gets terrified: 'I don't remember,' he said, 'that a lamb ever looked someone in the eye like that,' but so be it So he starts strokin' its fur and says: 'Baa, baa!' And the ram all of a sudden bares its teeth and says right back to him: 'Baa, baa ... ' "
The narrator had barely gotten out this last word when suddenly both dogs got up at once and barking convulsively darted back from the fire and disappeared into the darkness. All the boys were frightened. Vanya jumped out from under his mat Pavlusha ran after the dogs with a shout Their barking quickly moved away . . . The restless running of the disturbed horses could be heard. Pavlusha cried loudly: "Gray! Zhuchka! ... "After a few moments the barking ceased; Pavel's voice already sounded far away ...
A little more time passed; the boys looked around in bewilderment as if waiting to see what would happen . .'. Suddenly a horse's hoofbeats rang out; the horse stopped abruptly right near the edge of the campfire, and clutching at the mane, Pavlusha jumped from it. Both dogs also leapt up to the circle of light and immediately sat down, their red tongues sticking out.
"What's there? What is it?" the boys asked.
"Nothin' ,"replied Pavel, waving the horse off, ')us' somethin' the dogs smelled. I thought it was a wolf," he added in an indifferent voice, his chest heaving rapidly.
My instinctive response was to admire Pavlusha. He was very appealing at that moment. His unattractive face, animated from the fast ride, burned with bold daring and strong determination. Without a switch in his hand and at night he had not hesitated at all and had galloped off alone after a wolf ...
"What a splendid boy!" I thought, gazing at him.
"And did you see 'em, those wolves, did you?" asked the little coward
Kostya.
''There's always lots of 'em here," answered Pavel, "but they're only restless in winter." Again he settled himself in front of the fire. Sitting on the ground he let his hand fall on the shaggy head of one of the dogs and for a long time the happy animal didn't tum his head but only looked to the side at Pavlusha with grateful pride.
V any a again took refuge under his mat.
"But what scary things you been tellin' us Ilyushka," said Fedya, who as the son of a rich peasant had to be the leader; just the same he spoke very little himself, as if he were afraid of losing face. ''That could be why the dogs was twitchin' uneasily and barkin' ... And it's true, I heard that place of yours is unclean."
"V amavitsy? ... Course! It's real unclean! They say, people used to see an old landowner there, a dead landowner. He walks around, they say, in a long caftan and he's always sorta moanin', searchin' for somethin' on the ground. Grandfather Trofimych met him once. 'What are you searchin' for on the ground, Ivan lvanych, sir?' he said."
"Did he ask him?" interrupted the amazed Fedya.
"Yeah, he asked."
"Well, good for Trofimych after that ... Well, so what'd he say?''
"'Split-grass,'5 he said. 'That's what I'm searchin' for.' And in such a hollow voice, so hollow: 'split-grass.' 'And what do you want the splitgrass for, Ivan Ivanycb, sir?' 'The grave,' he said, 'the grave is crushing me, Trofimych; I want to get out, to get out ... ' "
"So that's it!" Fedya said. "It means he didn't live enough."
BEZHIN MEADOW 295
"Well, I'll be!" said Kostya. "I thought you could only see dead people on Parents' Saturday. "6
"Dead people can be seen any time," confidently put in Ilyusha, who as far as I could tell knew all the village superstitions better than the others ...
"But on Parents' Saturday you can also see the livin', that is, the ones who'll be dyin' in that year. You only have to sit at night on the church porch and you'll see everything on the road. They'll go past you on the road, the ones, that is, who'll die that year. Last year our Granny Yuliana went to the church porch."
"Well, and did she see anyone?" asked Kostya with curiosity.
"Why, 'course she did. First of all, she sat a long, long time and didn't see or hear no one ... only all the while it was like as if a dog was barkin' and barkin' somewhere ... All of a sudden she sees: a boy wearing nothing but a tattered shirt is walkin' along the road. She peers close and its Ivashka
Fedoseev walkin' ... "
''The one who died in the spring?" interrupted Fedya.
"The very one. He walks along and he doesn't raise his little head ...
But Yuliana recognized him ... But then she looks: a woman's walkin' along. She looks and looks-oh my gosh!-she herselfs walkin' along the road, Yuliana herself."
"Not really her?" asked Fedya.
"You bet it was."
"Well, after all, she ain't dead yet, right?"
"No, a year ain't passed yet. But look at her: what her soul is holding on to." Again they all became quiet. Pavel threw a handful of dried out twigs into the fire. They turned black abruptly in the sudqenly sputtering flames, crackled, smoked, and buckled, their burnt ends curling slightly. The reflection of light burst out on all sides quivering fitfully, especially upward.
Suddenly, out of the blue, a white pigeon flew directly into the reflected light, fluttered around fearfully in one place entirely surrounded by hot sparks, and disappeared beating its wings.
"He probably strayed from home," noted Pavel.
"Now it'll fly, come across something in a while, and wherever it lands it'll spend the night 'til dawn."
"What do you think, Pavel?" said Kostya. "Maybe that's a righteous soul flyin' to heaven, eh?"
Pavel threw another handful of twigs into the fire.
"Maybe," he said at last.
"But please tell us, Pavlusha," began Fedya, "did you see the heavenly apparition' in Shalamov, too?"
"That time you couldn't see the sun? Yeah, sure we did."
"I bet you got scared as well?"
Ivan Turgenev
"Yeah, but not only us. Our master, even though he told us beforehand, he said, 'You'll have an apparition and it'll get dark,' and when it got dark he himself was such a coward that you wouldn't believe it. But listen, in the yard hut granny cook, as soon as it got dark, went and smashed all the pots in the oven:
"'There's no eatin' for anyone now,' she said, 'it's the end of the world.'
The cabbage soup spilled all over the place. In our village there was such rumors gain' around, brother, that white wolves would be running around all over, eatin' people, that birds of prey'll take wing, and Trishka8 himself would show up."
"Who's this Trishka ?" asked Kostya.
"Don'tcha know?" put in Ilyusha fervently. "Well, brother, how's it possible you don't know Trishka? It's dimwits you have in your village, real dimwits! Trishka will be an amazing person who'll come; and he'll be such an amazin' person that it'll be impossible to catch a hold of him and it'll be impossible to do nothin' to him: that's how amazin' he'll be. Say the peasants, for example, go and try to catch him, they'll go at him with cudgels and surround him, but he'll distract them-he'll distract them so they'll beat each other. They'll put him in the stockade and, say, he'll ask for a little water to drink in a bucket; they'll bring him the ladle and he'll dive in and totally vanish, every trace of him. If they put chains on him, he'll just clap his hands and they'll fall off. Well, and this Trishka will walk through the villages and towns; and this Trishka, the Sly One, he'll seduce the Christian folk ... well, and it'll be impossible to do anything to him ...
That's how amazin' he'll be, the Sly One."
"Well, sure," Pavel went on in his unhurried voice, "that's who he is.
He's the one we've been waitin' for. The old people used to say that when the heavenly apparition starts, 'Trishka will come,' they'd say. And then the apparition began. All the people spilled out into the streets, into the field, and waited to see what'd happen. We have a big, open space there, you know. They look-suddenly from the settlement on the hill they see some sort of man comin', so strange lookin', with such an amazin' head ... They all start to shoutin': 'Ooh! Trishka's comin'! Ooh! Trishka's comin' !'And everyone hides where they can! Our elder crawled into a ditch; his wife got stuck under the gate and began shouting at the top of her lungs and frightened her own dog so much that it broke loose from its chain, jumped through the fence, and ran into the forest; and Kuzka's father, Dorofeich, jumped into the grain field, squatted down, and started making quail sounds: 'Maybe,' he said, 'the villain, the murderer'll spare birds at least. That's how scared they all got! ... But the man who was comin' was our cooper, Vavila; he'd bought himself a new wooden bowl and had put the empty bowl on his head."
All the boys started laughing and again grew silent for a moment, as often happens with people who are having a conversation in the open air. I glanced around: the night was solemn and regal; the damp freshness of late evening had turned into the dry mildness of midnight, and it would lie like a cover on the sleeping fields for a while yet; there was still much time remaining until the first faint noises, until the first rustles and stirrings of morning, and the first dewdrops of dawn. There was no moon in the sky; it was that season of the year when it rose late. Countless golden stars seemed to flow quietly, all vying with one another, twinkling, in the direction of the
Milky Way, and truly, in gazing at them, you could vaguely feel the headlong, nonstop movement of the earth yourself ...
A strange, shrill, sickly cry suddenly rang out twice over the river, and after a few moments it was repeated even further away ...
Kostya shuddered. "What is it?"
"A heron's cry," answered Pavel calmly.
"A heron," Kostya repeated ... "Then what was it I heard last night,
Pavlusha?" he added after a brief pause. "Maybe you know ... "
"What'd you hear?"
"Here's what: I was gain' from the Stone Ridge to Shashkino; and first I went 'cross our whole hazel grove and then I went 'cross the meadowy'know the place where it comes out like a narrow bend-the place where there's a deep hole with water; y'know, it's the one that's all overgrown with reeds; so I went past this hole, guys, and suddenly out of that hole someone starts groanin', and pitiful, so pitiful it was; 'oooh-oooh . . . ooh-oooh ... oooh-oooh!' I got so scared, guys: it was late and that voice was so sickly. So that I thought I'd start to cryin' myself ... What could that have been? Eh?"
"Last summer thieves drowned Akima the forester in that hole,"
Pavlusha said, "so maybe it was his soul complainin' ."
"But, guys," Kostya said, opening his already enormous eyes even wider
... "I didn't know Akima was drowned in that hole: I would have been scared even more."
"They also say there's these small frogs," Pavel went on, "that'll cry so mournful." "Frogs? Well, no, this wasn't frogs ... What frogs ... "The heron cried again over the river. "Darn it!" Kostya said involuntarily. "It cries like a wood-goblin." ''The wood-goblin don't cry, it's mute," put in Ilyusha. "It only claps its hands and crackles . . . "
"So you've seen the wood-goblin, have you?" Fedya interrupted him sarcastically. "No, I ain't seen him and hope to God I don't; but others have. Why, not long ago one lured a muzhik from our village: he led him and led him through the forest and all around one meadow ... He barely made it home by dawn."
"Well, did he see him 7"
"Yeah. He said he was big, really big, dark, all covered up, since he was behind a tree you couldn't make him out too good, like he was hidin' from the moon, and he looked and looked, blinkin' and blinkin' his eyes ... "
"Oh you!" exclaimed Fedya, trembling slightly and shrugging his shoulders.
"Phooey! ... "
"And why's this filth roamin' the world?" Pavel asked. "I don't understand, really!" "Don't curse. Watch out, he'll hear," said Ilya.
Silence again ensued.
"Look, guys," the childlike voice of Vanya suddenly rang out. "Look at
God's little stars-like bees swarmin'
He poked his fresh face out from under the mat, slowly raising his big quiet eyes upward and leaning on his little fist. The eyes of all the boys looked up to the sky and did not lower for a long time.
''Tell me, Vanya," Fedya started tenderly. "Tell me, how's your sister
Anyutka, okay?"
"She's fine," replied Vanya, burring slightly.
"Tell her-she should come see us ... Why doesn't she?"
"I dunno."
"Tell her she should come."
"I'll tell her."
"Tell her I'll give her a present."
"But will you give me one?"
"I'll give you one, too."
Vanya sighed:
"Well, no, I don't need one. It's better if you give her one: she's so kind." And Vanya put his head on the ground again. Pavel got up and took the empty pot in his hands.
"Where are you going?" Fedya asked him.
"To the river, to ladle some water. I want some water to drink."
The dogs got up and followed him.
"Watch out, don't fall into the river," Ilyusha shouted after him.
"Why would he fall?" said Fedya. "He's careful."
"Yes, he's careful. But anything can happen. He might be bendin' down startin' to ladle the water, and the water ghost'll grab him by the hand and pull him down below. Then they'd say: 'He fell, he did, the little one fell into the water ... ' But what kind of fall is that? Over there, he's climbed into the reeds," he added, listening.
The reeds were, indeed, moving, "swooshing," as they say here.
"But is it true," asked Kostya, "that the fool Akulina went off her head after she went into the water?"
"Yes, after that ... And now look at her! They say she used to be a real beauty. The water ghost ruined her. Probably he didn't expect that she'd be dragged out so quickly. So right there in his place at the bottom he ruined her." (I had met this Akulina myself a number of times. Covered in rags, terribly thin, with a face black as coal, a tormented look, and forever baring her teeth, she stomped for ,hours on end in one place somewhere on the road, rigidly pressing her bony hands to her chest and slowly shifting from one leg to the other like a wild animal in a cage. She did not understand anything said to her and only occasionally laughed convulsively.)
"But they say," Kostya went on, "Akulina jumped into the river 'cause her lover deceived her."
'That's exactly it."
"D'you remember Vasya?" Kostya added sadly.
"What Vasya?" asked Fedya.
'The one who drowned," replied Kostya, "in this very river here. What a lad he was! My, what a lad he wast His mother, Feklista, how she loved her
Vasya! And it was like she sensed it, Feklista, that he would die from water.
Vasya used to come with us kids in the summer to swim in the river-she was always so afraid. The other women didn't worry goin' past with their wash tubs, back and forth, but Feklista would put the wash tub down on the ground and start callin' him: 'Come back,' she'd say, 'come back, darling!
Ay, come back my little falcon!' And how he drowned, Lord alone knows.
He was playin' there on the bank and his mother was there, too, rakin' up the hay. All of a sudden she hears a sound like somebody blowin' bubbles in the water-she looks and sees only Vasya's little cap's floatin' in the water. And ever since then Feklista too has been out of her mind: she comes and lies in that place where he drowned, she lies there, guys, and strikes up a song-remember, Vasya was always singin' some song-so now she sings it, too, and cries and cries, complainin' bitterly to God ... "
"Here comes Pavlusha," said Fedya.
Pavel came up to the flre with a full pot in his hand.
"So, guys," he began, after a pause, "it's a bad business."
"What?" Kostya asked in a hurry.
"I heard Vasya' s voice."
Everyone shuddered.
"What d'you mean, what d'you mean?" babbled Kostya.
"Swear to God. I was just startin' to bend down to the water and all of a sudden I hear a voice like Vasya's catlin' to me like it's cornin' from under the water: 'Pavlusha, hey Pavlusha!' I listen: and it calls again: 'Pavlusha, come here!' I moved away. But I got some water."
"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" said the boys crossing themselves.
"Why, it was that water ghost catlin' to you Pavel," added Fedya. "And we was only jus' talkin' about him, about Vasya."
"Oh, this is a bad omen," Ilyusha said slowly.
"Well, it's nothin', never mind!" declared Pavel resolutely and sat down again. "You can't change your fate."
The boys fell silent. It was obvious that Pavel's words had made a deep impression on them. They began settling down in front of the fire as if they were getting ready to go to sleep.
"What's that?" Kostya asked suddenly, raising his head up.
Pavel listened:
"It's sandpipers flyin', they're whistlin' ."
"Where they flyin' to?"
''To a place where they say there's no winter."
"Is there really such a place?"
''There is."
"Far away?"
"Far, far away, beyond the warm seas."
Kostya sighed and closed his eyes.
More than three hours had passed since I had sat down near the boys.
The moon had risen at last; I did not notice it right away: it was so small and thin. This moonless night, it seemed, was just as magnificent as before ...
But many stars, which not long before had been high in the sky, were already descending to the dark edge of the earth; as usually happens only toward morning, it was perfectly quiet everywhere: everything was in a solid, motionless, predawn sleep. The air no longer carried such a strong scent-and again it seemed as if dampness were pouring out of it ... These short summer nights! ... The boys' conversations died out with the fires ...
The dogs dozed off as well; the horses, as far as I could make out by the light streaming weakly down from the stars, were also lying down with their heads bowed ... A slight drowsiness came over me and passed over into sleep.
A fresh current blew against my face. I opened my eyes: morning had broken. The dawn was not glowing pink yet but it was already beginning to turn light in the east. Everything came into view, although in vague outline. The pale gray sky shone bright, turned cold and blue; the stars either twinkled with a weak glow or disappeared; the earth was damp, the leaves were dew covered, here and there sounds of life began to emerge, voices could be heard, and a faint early breeze already wandered and fluttered above the earth. My body responded with a slight, cheerful shiver. I got up quickly and walked over to the boys. They were all dead asleep around the smoldering campfire; only Pavel raised himself up halfway and gazed at me intently.
I nodded my head to him and went home along the river, which was enveloped in a smoky mist. I had not gone a mile and a half when sunlight began to flow around me--over the wide wet meadow, and ahead along the hills, which were starting to tum green from forest to forest, and behind along the far dusty road over the sparkling crimson bushes, and across the river turning a bashful blue under the thinning mist-golden streams of young, hot sunlight, first flowing white, then red ... Everything began to stir. to wake up, to sing, to resound, to speak. Everywhere large drops of dew glowed like radiant diamonds. The pure and clear sounds of bells rushed toward me as if they too were washed in the morning coolness. and suddenly, driven by my young friends, the refreshed herd raced past me ...
Unfortunately, I have to add, Pavel died that same year. He did not drown: he was killed when he fell from his horse. What a shame, he was a splendid lad!