Sketches from a Hunter's Album (14 page)

‘Cor!' said Pavlusha. ‘And why did he cough like that?'

‘Search me. Maybe it was the damp.'

They all fell silent.

‘Are them 'taters done yet?' Fedya asked.

Pavlusha felt them.

‘Nope, they're not done yet… Cor, that one splashed,' he added, turning his face towards the river, ‘likely it was a pike… And see that little falling star up there.'

‘Now, mates, I've really got something to tell you,' Kostya began in a reedy voice. ‘Just you listen to what my dad was talkin' about when I was there.'

‘Well, so we're listening,' said Fedya with a condescending air.

‘You know that Gavrila, the carpenter in the settlement?'

‘Sure we know him.'

‘But d'you know why he's always so gloomy, why he never says nothing, d'you know that? Well, here's why. He went out once, my dad said – he went out, mates, into the forest to find some nuts. So he'd gone into the forest after nuts and he lost his way. He got somewhere, but God knows where it was. He'd been walkin', mates, and no! he couldn't find a road of any kind, and already it was night all around. So he sat down under a tree and said to himself he'd wait there till mornin' – and he sat down and started to snooze. So he was snoozin' and suddenly he hears someone callin' him. He looks around – there's no one there. Again he snoozes off– and again they're callin' him. So he looks and looks, and then he sees right in front of him a water-fairy sittin' on a branch, swingin' on it she is and callin' to him, and she's just killin' herself laughin'… Then that moon shines real strong, so strong and obvious the moon shines it shows up everythin', mates. So there she is callin' his name, and she herself's all shiny, sittin' there all white on the branch, like she was some little minnow or gudgeon, or maybe like a carp that's all whitish all over, all silver… And Gavrila the carpenter was just frightened to death, mates, and she went on laughin' at him, you know, and wavin' to him to come closer. Gavrila was just goin' to get up and obey the water-fairy,
when, mates, the Lord God gave him the idea to cross his-self… An' it was terrible difficult, mates, he said it was terrible difficult to make the sign of the cross 'cos his arm was like stone, he said, and wouldn't move, the darned thing wouldn't! But soon as he'd managed to cross hisself, mates, that water-fairy stopped laughin' and started in to cry… An' she cried, mates, an' wiped her eyes with her hair that was green and heavy as hemp. So Gavrila kept on lookin' and lookin' at her, and then he started askin' her, “What's it you're cryin' for, you forest hussy, you?” And that water-fairy starts sayin' to him, “If you hadn't crossed yourself, human being that you are, you could've lived with me in joy and happiness to the end of your days, an' I'm cryin' and dyin' of grief over what that you crossed yourself, an' it isn't only me that'll be dyin' of grief, but you'll also waste away with grievin' till the end of your born days.” Then, mates, she vanished, and Gavrila at once comprehended-like – how to get out of the wood, that is; but from that day on he goes around everywhere all gloomy.'

‘Phew!' exclaimed Fedya after a short silence. ‘But how could that evil forest spirit infect a Christian soul – you said he didn't obey her, didn't you?'

‘You wouldn't believe it, but that's how it was!' said Kostya. ‘Gavrila claimed she had a tiny, tiny, voice, thin and croaky like a toad's.'

‘Your father told that himself?' Fedya continued.

‘He did. I was lyin' on my bunk an' I heard it all.'

‘What a fantastic business! But why's he got to be gloomy? She must've liked him, because she called to him.'

‘Of course she liked him!' Ilyusha interrupted. ‘Why not? She wanted to start tickling him, that's what she wanted. That's what they do, those water-fairies.'

‘Surely there'll be water-fairies here,' Fedya remarked.

‘No,' Kostya answered, ‘this is a clean place here, it's free. 'Cept the river's close.'

They all grew quiet. Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, a protracted, resonant, almost wailing sound broke the silence – one of those incomprehensible nocturnal sounds which arise in the deep surrounding hush, fly up, hang in the air and slowly disperse at last as
if dying away. You listen intently – it's as though there's nothing there, but it still goes on ringing. This time it seemed that someone gave a series of long, loud shouts on the very horizon and someone else answered him from the forest with sharp high-pitched laughter and a thin, hissing whistle which sped across the river. The boys looked at each other and shuddered.

‘The power of the holy cross be with us!' whispered Ilyusha.

‘Oh, you idiots!' Pavlusha cried. ‘What's got into you? Look, the ‘taters are done.' (They all drew close to the little pot and began to eat the steaming potatoes; Vanya was the only one who made no move.) ‘What's wrong with you?' Pavlusha asked.

But Vanya did not crawl out from beneath his matting. The little pot was soon completely empty.

‘Boys, have you heard,' Ilyusha began saying, ‘what happened to us in Varnavitsy just recently?'

‘On that dam, you mean?' Fedya asked.

‘Ay, on that dam, the one that's broken. That's a real unclean place, real nasty and empty it is. Round there is all them gullies and ravines, and in the ravines there's masses of snakes.'

‘Well, what happened? Let's hear.'

‘This is what happened. Maybe you don't know it, Fedya, but that's the place where one of our drowned men is buried. And he drowned a long time back when the pond was still deep. Now only his gravestone can be seen, only there's not much of it – it's just a small mound… Anyhow, a day or so ago, the bailiff calls Yermil the dog-keeper and says to him: “Off with you and fetch the mail.” Yermil's always the one who goes to fetch the mail ‘cos he's done all his dogs in – they just don't somehow seem to live when he's around, and never did have much of a life no-how, though he's a good man with dogs and took to it in every way. Anyhow, Yermil went for the mail, and then he mucked about in the town and set off home real drunk. And it's night-time, a bright night, with the moon shining… So he's riding back across the dam, ‘cos that's where his route came out. And he's riding along, this dog-keeper Yermil, and he sees a little lamb on the drowned man's grave, all white and curly and pretty, and it's walking about, and Yermil thinks: “I'll pick it up, I will, ‘cos there's no point in letting it get lost here,” and so he gets off his horse and picks it
up in his arms – and the lamb doesn't turn a hair. So Yermil walks back to the horse, but the horse backs away from him, snorts and shakes its head. So when he's quieted it, he sits on it with the lamb and starts off again holding the lamb in front of him. He looks at the lamb, he does, and the lamb looks right back at him right in the eyes. Then that Yermil the dog-keeper got frightened: “I don't recall,” he thought, “no lambs looking me in the eye like that afore.” Anyhow, it didn't seem nothing, so he starts stroking its wool and saying “Sssh, there, sssh!” And that lamb bares its teeth at him sudden-like and says back to him: “Sssh, there, sssh!…”'

The narrator had hardly uttered this last sound when the dogs sprang up and with convulsive barks dashed from the fire, disappearing into the night. The boys were terrified. Vanya even jumped out from beneath his mat. Shouting, Pavlusha followed in hot pursuit of the dogs. Their barking quickly retreated into the distance. There was a noisy and restless scurrying of hoofs among the startled horses. Pavlusha gave loud calls: ‘Gray! Beetle!' After a few seconds the barking ceased and Pavlusha's voice sounded far away. There followed another short pause, while the boys exchanged puzzled looks as if anticipating something new. Suddenly a horse could be heard racing towards them: it stopped sharply at the very edge of the fire and Pavlusha, clutching hold by the reins, sprang agilely from its back. Both dogs also leapt into the circle of light and at once sat down, their red tongues hanging out.

‘What's there? What is it?' the boys asked.

‘Nothing,' Pavlusha answered waving away the horse. ‘The dogs caught a scent. I thought,' he added in a casual tone of voice, his chest heaving rapidly, ‘it might have been a wolf.'

I found myself full of admiration for Pavlusha. He was very fine at that moment. His very ordinary face, enlivened by the swift ride, shone with bold courageousness and a resolute firmness. Without a stick in his hand to control the horse and in total darkness, without even so much as blinking an eye, he had galloped all by himself after a wolf… ‘What a marvellous boy!' was my thought, as I looked at him.

‘And you saw them, did you, those wolves?' asked the cowardly Kostya.

‘There's plenty of them round here,' answered Pavlusha, ‘but they're only on the prowl in the winter.'

He again settled himself in front of the fire. As he sat down he let a hand fall on the shaggy neck of one of the dogs and the delighted animal kept its head still for a long while as it directed sideward looks of grateful pride at Pavlusha.

Vanya once again disappeared under his mat.

‘What a lot of horrible things you've been telling us, Ilyusha,' Fedya began. As the son of a rich peasant, it was incumbent upon him to play the role of leader (though for his own part he talked little, as if for fear of losing face). ‘And it could've been some darned thing of the sort that started the dogs barking… But it's true, so I've heard, that you've got unclean spirits where you live.'

‘In Varnavitsy, you mean? That's for sure! It's a really creepy place! More than once they say they've seen there the old squire, the one who's dead. They say he goes about in a coat hanging down to his heels, and all the time he makes a groaning sound, like he's searching for something on the earth. Once grandfather Trofimych met him and asked him: “What's it you are searching for on the earth, good master Ivan Ivanych?” '

‘He actually asked him that?' broke in the astonished Fedya.

‘He asked him that.'

‘Well, good for Trofimych after that! So what did the other say?'

‘ ”Split-grass,” he says. “That's what I'm looking for.” And he talks in such a hollow, hoarse voice: “Split-grass. And what, good master Ivan Ivanych, do you want split-grass for?” “Oh, my grave weighs so heavy,” he says, “weighs so heavy on me, Trofimych, and I want to get out, I want to get away…” '

‘So that's what it was!' Fedya said. ‘He'd had too short a life, that means.'

‘Cor, stone me!' Kostya pronounced. ‘I thought you could only see dead people on Parents' Sunday.'

‘You can see dead people at any time,' Ilyusha declared with confidence. So far as I could judge, he was better versed in village lore than the others. ‘But on Parents' Sunday you can also see the people who're going to die that year. All you've got to do is to sit down at night in the porch of the church and keep your eyes on the road. They'll all go past you along the road – them who're going to die that year, I mean. Last year, grandma Ulyana went to the church porch in our village.'

‘Well, did she see anyone?' Kostya asked him with curiosity.

‘Sure she did. To start with she just sat there a long, long time, and didn't see no one and didn't hear nothing. Only there was all the time a sound like a dog starting to bark somewhere. Then suddenly she sees there's someone coming along the road – it's a little boy in nothing but a shirt. She looked close and she saw it was Ivashka Fedoseyev walking along.'

‘Is that the boy who died in the spring!' Fedya broke in.

‘That's the one. He walks along and doesn't even raise his head. But Ulyana recognized him. But then she looks again and sees a woman walking along, and she peers and peers and – God help us! – it's she herself, Ulyana herself, walking along.'

‘Was it really her?' asked Fedya.

‘God's truth. It was her.'

‘But she hasn't died yet, has she?'

‘No, but the year's not over yet either. You take a close look at her and then ask yourself what sort of body she's got to carry her soul around in.'

Again they all grew quiet. Pavlusha threw a handful of dry sticks on the fire. They blackened in sharp outline against the instantly leaping flames, and began to crackle and smoke and bend, curling up their burned tips. The reflections from the light, shuddering convulsively, struck out in all directions, but particularly upwards. Suddenly, from God knows where, a small white pigeon flew directly into the reflections, fluttered around in terror, bathed by the fierce light, and then vanished with a clapping of its wings.

‘Likely it's lost its way home,' Pavlusha remarked. ‘Now it'll fly until it meets up with something, and when it finds it, that's where it'll spend the night till dawn.'

‘Look, Pavlusha,' said Kostya, ‘mightn't that be the soul of some good person flying up to heaven, eh?'

Pavlusha threw another handful of sticks on the fire.

‘Maybe,' he said after a pause.

‘Pavlusha, tell us, will you,' Fedya began, ‘were you able to see that heavenly foreboding
*
in Shalamavo?'

‘You mean, when you couldn't see the sun that time? Sure.'

‘Didn't you get frightened then?'

‘Sure, and we weren't the only ones. Our squire, tho' he lets us know beforehand that “Well, there'll be a foreboding for you,” but soon as it gets dark they say he got real scared. And in the servants' hut, that old granny, the cook, well – soon as it's dark, listen, she ups and smashes all the pots in the oven with a pair of tongs. “Who's going to need to eat now it's the end of the world,” she says. The cabbage soup ran out all over everywhere. And, boy! What rumours there were going about in our village, such as there'd be white wolves and birds of prey coming to eat people, and there'd be Trishka
*
himself for all to see.'