Capítulo 31 de 80

I told the boys that I had gotten lost, and sat down beside them. They asked me where I was from, fell silent for a moment, and moved aside. We talked a little. I lay down under a gnawed bush and began to look around. The picture was wonderful: near the fires trembled and seemed to fade, pressing into the darkness, a round reddish reflection; the flame, flaring up, occasionally cast beyond the boundary of that circle quick gleams; a thin tongue of light would lick the bare branches of the osier and instantly disappear; sharp, long shadows, bursting in for a moment, in turn, would run all the way to the little fires: darkness struggled with light. Sometimes, when the flame burned weaker and the circle of light narrowed, from the advancing darkness there would suddenly appear a horse's head, bay-colored, with a winding blaze, or entirely white, looking at us attentively and dully, quickly chewing long grass, and, lowering again, would immediately hide. One could only hear how it continued to chew and snorted. From the illuminated place it was difficult to make out what was happening in the darkness, and therefore everything nearby seemed draped with an almost black curtain; but farther toward the horizon, in long patches, hills and forests were dimly visible. The dark clear sky stood solemnly and immeasurably high above us with all its mysterious magnificence. One's chest felt sweetly constricted, breathing in that special, languid and fresh smell—the smell of a Russian summer night. Around, almost no sound was heard... Only occasionally in the nearby river a large fish would splash with sudden resonance and the coastal reeds would rustle weakly, barely stirred by the running wave... Only the little fires crackled quietly.

The boys sat around them; there also sat those two dogs that had so wanted to eat me. For a long time they could not reconcile themselves to my presence and, sleepily squinting and glancing sideways at the fire, occasionally growled with an extraordinary sense of their own dignity; first they would growl, and then whine slightly, as if regretting the impossibility of fulfilling their desire. There were five boys in all: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya, and Vanya. (From their conversations I learned their names and now intend to acquaint the reader with them.)

The eldest of all, Fedya, you would have given fourteen years. This was a slender boy, with handsome and delicate, somewhat small features, curly blond hair, bright eyes and a constant half-cheerful, half-distracted smile. He belonged, by all signs, to a wealthy family and had ridden out into the field not from necessity, but just for fun. He wore a colorful calico shirt with a yellow border; a small new peasant coat, thrown on loosely, barely held on his narrow little shoulders; a comb hung on his light blue belt. His boots with low tops were certainly his boots—not his father's. The second boy, Pavlusha, had tousled black hair, gray eyes, broad cheekbones, a pale, pockmarked face, a large but regular mouth, an enormous head, as they say, like a beer pot, a squat, ungainly body. The lad was plain, there's no denying it!—but still I liked him: he looked very intelligent and direct, and there was strength in his voice. He could not boast of his clothing: it consisted entirely of a simple hempen shirt and patched trousers. The face of the third boy, Ilyusha, was rather insignificant: hook-nosed, elongated, half-blind, it expressed a kind of dull, sickly anxiety; his compressed lips did not move, his drawn brows did not part—he seemed to squint constantly at the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck out in sharp tufts from under a low felt cap, which he kept pulling down over his ears with both hands. He wore new bast shoes and leg wrappings; a thick rope, wound three times around his waist, carefully tightened his neat black jacket. Both he and Pavlusha appeared to be no more than twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya, a boy of about ten, aroused my curiosity with his thoughtful and sad gaze. His whole face was small, thin, freckled, pointed at the bottom, like a squirrel's; his lips could barely be distinguished; but a strange impression was made by his large, black eyes, glistening with a liquid shine: they seemed to want to express something for which there were no words in language—in his language at least. He was small in stature, of frail build, and dressed rather poorly. The last, Vanya, I did not notice at first: he lay on the ground, very quietly tucked under an angular mat, and only occasionally stuck out his fair curly head from under it. This boy was only about seven years old.

So I lay under the bush to one side and glanced at the boys. A small pot hung over one of the fires; potatoes were boiling in it. Pavlusha watched over it and, kneeling, poked at the boiling water with a stick. Fedya lay propped on his elbow with the flaps of his coat spread out. Ilyusha sat next to Kostya and still squinted tensely. Kostya lowered his head slightly and looked somewhere into the distance. Vanya did not stir under his mat. I pretended to be asleep. Gradually the boys began to talk 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 an interrupted conversation, asked him:

"Well, so did you see the house spirit?"

"No, I didn't see him, and you can't see him," answered Ilyusha in a hoarse and weak voice, the sound of which corresponded perfectly to the expression of his face, "but I heard him... And I wasn't the only one."

"Where does he live at your place?" asked Pavlusha.

"In the old rolling room."

"Do you go to the factory?"

"Of course we do. My brother and I, Avdyushka, work as polishers."

"Well, well—factory workers!..."

"So how did you hear him?" asked Fedya.

"Well, here's how. My brother Avdyushka and I had to stay, along with Fyodor Mikheyevsky, and Ivashka the Cross-eyed, and another Ivashka from Red Hills, and Ivashka Sukhorukov, and there were other boys there too; there were about ten of us boys in all—the whole shift; and we had to spend the night in the rolling room, that is, not that we had to exactly, but Nazarov, the overseer, forbade us; he says: 'Why should you boys trudge home; there's a lot of work tomorrow, so you boys don't go home.' So we stayed and all lay down together, and Avdyushka started saying, 'Well, boys, what if the house spirit comes?'... And no sooner had he, Avdey, said this, than suddenly someone started walking above our heads; but we were lying down below, and he was walking up above, by the wheel. We hear: he's walking, the boards under him are bending and creaking; then he passed over our heads; the water at the wheel suddenly started rushing and rushing; the wheel started knocking and knocking, started turning; but the sluice gates at the mill race were lowered. We're amazed: who raised them, so the water went through; but the wheel turned and turned, and then stopped. That one went to the door upstairs again and started coming down the stairs, and you could hear he wasn't hurrying; the steps under him were even groaning... Well, that one came to our door, waited, waited—the door suddenly flung wide open. We were startled, we look—nothing... Suddenly, look, at one vat the mold started moving, rose up, dipped down, walked and walked through the air, as if someone was rinsing it, and then back in place. Then at another vat a hook came off the nail and back on the nail; then it was as if someone went to the door and suddenly started coughing, choking, like a sheep, but loudly... We all fell in a heap, crawled under each other... Oh, how frightened we were at that time!"

"Well, imagine that!" said Pavel. "Why did he start coughing?"

"Don't know; maybe from the dampness."

Everyone fell silent.

"What, are the potatoes cooked?" asked Fedya.

Pavlusha felt them.

"No, still raw... Look, it splashed," he added, turning his face toward the river, "must be a pike... And there's a little star rolling."

"No, I'll tell you something, brothers," Kostya began in a thin voice, "listen, the other day what my father told me when I was there."

"Well, we're listening," said Fedya with a patronizing air.

"You know Gavrila, the village carpenter?"

"Well yes; we know him."

"And do you know why he's always so gloomy, always silent, you know? Here's why he's so gloomy. He went once, my father said—he went, my brothers, into the forest for nuts. So he went into the forest for nuts, and got lost; he wandered—God knows where he wandered. Well, he walked and walked, brothers—no! he can't find the road; and it's already night. So he sat down under a tree; 'I'll wait,' he says, 'till morning,'—he sat down and dozed off. So he dozed off and suddenly hears someone calling him. He looks—nobody. He dozed off again—they call again. He looks again, and looks: and before him on a branch a rusalka is sitting, swinging and calling him to her, and she's dying with laughter, laughing... And the moon is shining strongly, so strongly, clearly the moon is shining—everything, my brothers, is visible. So she's calling him, and she herself is all bright, whitish, sitting on the branch, like a roach or a gudgeon—or there's also carp that are whitish like that, silvery... Gavrila the carpenter froze, my brothers, and she just keeps laughing and keeps beckoning him to her with her hand. Well, Gavrila was about to get up, was about to obey the rusalka, my brothers, but, you know, the Lord put it in his mind: he made the sign of the cross over himself... And how hard it was for him to make that sign, my brothers; he says, his hand was just like stone, wouldn't move... Oh, the devil!.. So when he made the sign of the cross, my brothers, the rusalka stopped laughing, and suddenly started crying... She's crying, my brothers, wiping her eyes with her hair, and her hair is green, like hemp. So Gavrila looked and looked at her, and started asking her: 'Why are you crying, forest evil?' And the rusalka speaks to him: 'If you hadn't crossed yourself,' she says, 'man, you would have lived with me in merriment till the end of your days; and I'm crying, I'm grieving because you crossed yourself; but it's not only I who will grieve: grieve you too till the end of your days.' Then she, my brothers, disappeared, and Gavrila immediately understood how to get out of the forest, that is... But since then he always goes about gloomy."

"Well, imagine!" said Fedya after a short silence, "but how can such forest uncleanness spoil a Christian soul—he didn't obey her after all?"

"And there you have it!" said Kostya. "And Gavrila said that her voice, you see, was so thin, plaintive, like a toad's."

"Your father told this himself?" continued Fedya.

"Himself. I was lying on the shelf, heard everything."

"A strange thing! Why should he be gloomy?... Well, she must have liked him, if she called him."

"Yes, liked him!" picked up Ilyusha. "How so! She wanted to tickle him to death, that's what she wanted. That's their business, these rusalkas."

"Well, and here there must be rusalkas too," remarked Fedya.

"No," answered Kostya, "this is a clean place, open. Only—the river is near."

Everyone fell silent. Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, there rang out a long, resonant, almost moaning sound, one of those incomprehensible night sounds that sometimes arise amid deep silence, rise up, hang in the air, and slowly spread at last, as if dying away. You listen—and it's as if there's nothing, but it rings. It seemed as if someone had cried out for a long, long time under the very horizon, someone else seemed to answer him in the forest with thin, sharp laughter, and a weak, hissing whistle rushed along the river. The boys exchanged glances, shuddered...

"The cross be with us!" whispered Ilya.

"Oh, you crows!" cried Pavel. "What are you startled about? Look, the potatoes are cooked." (Everyone moved up to the pot and began eating the steaming potatoes; only Vanya didn't stir.) "What about you?" said Pavel.

But he didn't come out from under his mat. The pot was soon completely emptied.

"Have you heard, boys," Ilyusha began, "what happened the other day at our Varnavitsy?"

"At the dam?" asked Fedya.

"Yes, yes, at the dam, at the broken one. That's really an unclean place, so unclean, and so desolate. All around there are ravines, gullies, and in the gullies all kinds of snakes live."

"Well, what happened? Tell us..."

"Well, here's what happened. Maybe you don't know, Fedya, but there's a drowned man buried there; and he drowned a long, long time ago, when the pond was still deep; but his grave is still visible, though barely visible: just a little mound... So, the other day, the steward calls the dog-keeper Ermil; he says: 'Go,' he says, 'Ermil, to the post office.' Ermil always goes to the post office for us; he's killed all his dogs somehow: they don't live with him for some reason, never have lived, but he's a good dog-keeper, has everything. So Ermil went for the mail, and lingered in town, and was coming back already drunk. And it's night, and a bright night: the moon is shining... So Ermil is riding across the dam: that's the way his road went. He's riding along like this, Ermil the dog-keeper, and he sees: on the drowned man's grave a little lamb, white, curly, pretty, is walking. So Ermil thinks: 'I'll take it—why should it go to waste,' and he got down and took it in his arms... But the lamb—nothing. So Ermil goes to his horse, and the horse shies away from him, snorts, shakes its head; however, he calmed it down, got on it with the lamb and rode on again: holding the lamb in front of him. He looks at it, and the lamb looks him right in the eyes. Ermil the dog-keeper got scared: 'I don't remember,' he thinks, 'that rams look people in the eyes like this'; however, nothing; he started stroking its wool like this—says: 'Baa, baa!' And the ram suddenly bares its teeth, and says to him too: 'Baa, baa!...'

No sooner had the storyteller uttered this last word than suddenly both dogs rose at once, with convulsive barking rushed away from the fire and disappeared into the darkness. All the boys were frightened. Vanya jumped out from under his mat. Pavlusha with a cry rushed after the dogs. Their barking quickly receded... The anxious running of the startled herd was heard. Pavlusha was shouting loudly: "Grey! Zhuchka!..." In a few moments the barking stopped; Pavel's voice was already coming from far away... A little more time passed; the boys exchanged puzzled glances, as if waiting to see what would happen... Suddenly the thud of a galloping horse was heard; it stopped short right at the fire, and, clutching the mane, Pavlusha nimbly jumped off it. Both dogs also jumped into the circle of light and immediately sat down, sticking out their red tongues.

"What was it? What?" asked the boys.

"Nothing," answered Pavel, waving his hand at the horse, "just, the dogs scented something. I thought, a wolf," he added in an indifferent voice, breathing quickly with his whole chest.

I involuntarily admired Pavlusha. He was very fine at that moment. His plain face, animated by the quick ride, glowed with bold daring and firm resolve. Without a stick in his hand, at night, he had galloped alone after a wolf without the slightest hesitation... "What a splendid boy!" I thought, looking at him.

"Did you see them, the wolves?" asked the coward Kostya.

"There are always many of them here," answered Pavel, "but they're only troublesome in winter."

He settled down again before the fire. Sitting down on the ground, he let his hand fall on the shaggy neck of one of the dogs, and for a long time the delighted animal didn't turn its head, looking sideways at Pavlusha with grateful pride.

Vanya burrowed under the mat again.

"What terrible things you were telling us, Ilyushka," Fedya began, who, as the son of a wealthy peasant, had to be the leader (though he himself spoke little, as if afraid of lowering his dignity). "And the devil made the dogs start barking... But it's true, I've heard, that's an unclean place at your place."

"Varnavitsy?... Of course! what an unclean place! They say the old master has been seen there more than once—the late master. They say he walks in a long-skirted caftan and keeps groaning like this, looking for something on the ground. Once grandfather Trofimych met him: 'What,' he says, 'father, Ivan Ivanych, are you pleased to be looking for on the ground?'"

"He asked him?" interrupted the astonished Fedya.

"Yes, he asked."

"Well, Trofimych is brave after that... Well, and what did he say?"

"'I'm looking for tear-grass,' he says. And he speaks so hollowly, hollowly: 'Tear-grass.' 'And what do you need tear-grass for, father Ivan Ivanych?' 'The grave is pressing,' he says, 'Trofimych: I want to get out, get out...'"

"Imagine that!" remarked Fedya, "didn't live enough, it seems."

"What a marvel!" said Kostya. "I thought you could only see the dead on Ancestors' Saturday."

"You can see the dead at any time," Ilyusha picked up with assurance, who, as far as I could observe, knew all the village superstitions best... "But on Ancestors' Saturday you can see the living too, those, that is, whose turn it is to die that year. You just have to sit on the church porch at night and keep looking at the road. Those who are to die that year will walk past you on the road. Last year our woman Ulyana went to the porch."

"Well, and did she see anyone?" asked Kostya with curiosity.

"Of course. First of all she sat for a long, long time, didn't see or hear anyone... only it seemed like a little dog was barking somewhere... Suddenly, she looks: a boy is walking along the path in just a shirt. She looked closely—Ivashka Fedoseyev was walking..."

"The one who died in spring?" interrupted Fedya.

"The very one. He's walking and doesn't raise his head... And Ulyana recognized him... But then she looks: a woman is walking. She peered and peered—oh Lord!—she herself is walking along the road, Ulyana herself."

"Really herself?" asked Fedya.

"By God, herself."

"Well what of it, she hasn't died yet?"

"But the year hasn't passed yet. And you look at her: she's barely alive."

Everyone fell silent again. Pavel threw a handful of dry twigs on the fire. They turned sharply black against the suddenly flaring flame, crackled, began to smoke and curl, raising their charred ends. The reflection of light struck out, trembling jerkily, in all directions, especially upward. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a white dove flew in—right into this reflection, circled fearfully in one place, bathed all over in the hot gleam, and disappeared, whirring its wings.

"Must have strayed from home," remarked Pavel. "Now it will fly until it bumps into something, and where it bumps, there it will spend the night till dawn."

"Well, Pavlusha," said Kostya, "wasn't that a righteous soul flying to heaven, eh?"

Pavel threw another handful of twigs on the fire.

"Maybe," he said at last.

"Tell me, please, Pavlusha," Fedya began, "was the heavenly portent seen at your Shalamovo too?"

"When the sun disappeared? Of course."

"I suppose you were frightened too?"

"Not just us. Our master, even though he explained to us beforehand that, they say, there will be a portent for you, but when it got dark, he himself, they say, got so scared he couldn't move. And in the servants' quarters the cook woman, as soon as it got dark, you hear, she took and smashed all the pots in the stove with the poker: 'Who needs to eat now,' she says, 'the end of the world has come.' So the cabbage soup just flowed. And in our village such rumors went around, brother, that, they say, white wolves will run over the earth, will eat people, a bird of prey will fly, and they'll even see Trishka himself."

"What is this Trishka?" asked Kostya.

"You don't know?" Ilyusha picked up eagerly. "Well, brother, where are you from that you don't know about Trishka? They're real stay-at-homes in your village, real stay-at-homes! Trishka—this will be such an amazing person who will come; and he'll come when the last times arrive. And he'll be such an amazing person that they won't be able to catch him, and nothing can be done to him: he'll be such an amazing person. The peasants will want to catch him, for example; they'll go out after him with clubs, surround him, but he'll deceive their eyes—he'll deceive their eyes so that they'll beat each other. They'll put him in jail, for example—he'll ask for water to drink in a dipper: they'll bring him a dipper, and he'll dive into it and disappear without a trace. They'll put chains on him, but he'll just clap his hands—and they'll fall right off him. Well, and this Trishka will walk through villages and towns; and this Trishka, a crafty man, will tempt the Christian people... well, but nothing can be done to him... He'll be such an amazing, crafty man."

"Well yes," Pavel continued in his unhurried voice, "that's him. So they were expecting him at our place. The old people said that, see, as soon as the heavenly portent begins, Trishka will come. So the portent began. All the people poured out into the street, into the field, waiting to see what would happen. And at our place, you know, it's open country, spacious. They look—suddenly from the settlement down the hill comes some person, so strange, such an amazing head... Everyone screamed: 'Oh, Trishka's coming! Oh, Trishka's coming!'—and everyone scattered! Our elder crawled into a ditch; the elder's wife got stuck in the gateway, screaming her head off, scared her own yard dog so badly that it broke off the chain and over the fence and into the forest; and Kuzka's father, Dorofeich, jumped into the oats, crouched down, and started calling like a quail: 'Maybe,' he says, 'the enemy, the soul-destroyer, will at least spare a bird.' That's how frightened everyone was!.. And the person was our cooper, Vavila: he'd bought himself a new tub and put the empty tub on his head."

All the boys laughed and fell silent again for a moment, as often happens with people conversing in the open air. I looked around: night stood solemn and majestic; the damp freshness of late evening had been replaced by the dry warmth of midnight, and it would lie for a long time yet as a soft canopy over the sleeping fields; much time remained before the first babbling, before the first rustlings and whisperings of morning, before the first dewdrops of dawn. There was no moon in the sky: it rose late at that time. Countless golden stars seemed to flow quietly, all vying with each other in twinkling, in the direction of the Milky Way, and truly, looking at them, you seemed to feel dimly yourself the impetuous, unceasing running of the earth...

A strange, harsh, painful cry rang out suddenly twice in succession over the river and, after a few moments, repeated farther away...

Kostya shuddered. "What was that?"

"That's a heron crying," Pavel answered calmly.

"A heron," Kostya repeated... "But what was it, Pavlusha, that I heard yesterday evening," he added, after a brief silence, "maybe you know..."

"What did you hear?"

"Well, here's what I heard. I was walking from Stone Ridge to Shashkino; and I walked first all through our hazel grove, and then I went through a meadow—you know, where it comes out at the sharp bend—there's a spring hole there; you know, it's all overgrown with reeds; so I was walking past this spring hole, my brothers, and suddenly from that spring hole someone groaned, and so pitifully, pitifully: ooh... ooh... ooh! Such fear came over me, my brothers: it was late, and the voice was so sickly. I felt I could cry myself... What could that have been? Eh?"

"In that spring hole thieves drowned the forester Akim last year," remarked Pavel, "so maybe it was his soul complaining."

"Well, that could be it too, my brothers," Kostya replied, widening his already huge eyes... "I didn't know that Akim was drowned in that spring hole: I would have been even more frightened."

"And then, they say, there are such tiny frogs," Pavel continued, "that cry so pitifully."

"Frogs? Well, no, those weren't frogs... what kind of... (The heron cried out again over the river.) There it is!" Kostya involuntarily exclaimed, "just like a wood spirit crying."

"The wood spirit doesn't cry, he's mute," Ilyusha picked up, "he only claps his hands and rattles..."

"And have you seen him, the wood spirit?" Fedya interrupted him mockingly.

"No, I haven't seen him, and God save me from seeing him; but others have seen him. Just the other day he led one of our peasants around: led him and led him through the forest, all around one clearing... He barely made it home by dawn."

"Well, and did he see him?"

"He saw him. He says he stood so big, big, dark, wrapped up, like he was behind a tree, you couldn't make him out clearly, like he was hiding from the moon, and he looks, looks with those huge eyes, blinks them, blinks..."

"Oh!" exclaimed Fedya, shuddering slightly and twitching his shoulders, "ugh!.."

"And why has this filth bred in the world?" remarked Pavel. "I really don't understand!"

"Don't curse, watch out, he'll hear," remarked Ilya.

Silence fell again.

"Look, look, boys," Vanya's childish voice suddenly rang out, "look at God's little stars—like bees swarming!"

He stuck out his fresh little face from under the mat, propped himself on his little fist and slowly raised his large quiet eyes upward. The eyes of all the boys rose to the sky and didn't lower for a long time.

"Well, Vanya," Fedya began affectionately, "is your sister Anyutka well?"

"She's well," answered Vanya, lisping slightly.

"Tell her—why doesn't she come to us?..."

"Don't know."

"You tell her she should come."

"I'll tell her."

"You tell her I'll give her a present."

"Will you give me one too?"

"I'll give you one too."

Vanya sighed.

"Well, no, I don't need one. Give it to her instead: she's so kind, our girl."

And Vanya laid his head on the ground again. Pavel got up and took the empty pot in his hand.

"Where are you going?" Fedya asked him.

"To the river, to get some water: I want a drink."

The dogs got up and followed him.

"Watch you don't fall in the river!" Ilyusha called after him.

"Why should he fall?" said Fedya, "he'll be careful."

"Yes, he'll be careful. But anything can happen: he'll bend down, start scooping water, and the water spirit will grab his hand and pull him in. Then they'll say: the boy fell, they say, into the water... What kind of fell?.. There, he's climbed into the reeds," he added, listening.

The reeds indeed were rustling, "shurshing," as we say.

"Is it true," asked Kostya, "that Akulina the fool has been mad ever since she was in the water?"

"Ever since then... What she's like now! But they say she used to be a beauty. The water spirit spoiled her. Must not have expected them to pull her out so soon. So he spoiled her there, at the bottom."

(I myself had met this Akulina more than once. Covered in rags, terribly thin, with a face black as coal, a clouded gaze and eternally bared teeth, she would stamp for hours in one place, somewhere on the road, pressing her bony hands tightly to her chest and slowly swaying from foot to foot, like a wild animal in a cage. She understood nothing, whatever anyone said to her, and only occasionally laughed convulsively.)

"But they say," Kostya continued, "that Akulina threw herself in the river because her lover deceived her."

"That's exactly why."

"And do you remember Vasya?" Kostya added sadly.

"What Vasya?" asked Fedya.

"The one who drowned," answered Kostya, "in this very river. Oh, what a boy he was! what a boy! His mother, Feklista, how she loved him, her Vasya! And it was like she sensed it, Feklista, that he would perish from water. Sometimes Vasya would go with us, with the boys, to swim in the river in summer—she would be all in a flutter. The other women don't care, they walk past with their tubs, waddling, but Feklista would put her tub on the ground and start calling him: 'Come back,' she'd say, 'come back, my bright one! oh, come back, my falcon!' And how he drowned, God only knows. He was playing on the bank, and his mother was right there, raking hay; suddenly she hears, like someone's blowing bubbles in the water—she looks, and only Vasya's little cap is floating on the water. And since then Feklista hasn't been in her right mind: she'll come and lie down on the spot where he drowned; she'll lie down, my brothers, and start singing a song—remember, Vasya always sang such a song—so she'll start singing it, and she cries, cries, bitterly complains to God..."

"Here comes Pavlusha," said Fedya.

Pavel approached the fire with the full pot in his hand.

"Well, boys," he began, after a pause, "something's not right."

"What?" Kostya asked hastily.

"I heard Vasya's voice."

Everyone shuddered.

"What are you saying, what?" Kostya stammered.

"By God. I'd just bent down to the water, when I suddenly hear someone calling me in Vasya's voice and like from under the water: 'Pavlusha, oh Pavlusha!' I listen; and he calls again: 'Pavlusha, come here.' I stepped away. But I got the water."

"Oh Lord! Oh Lord!" the boys said, crossing themselves.

"That was the water spirit calling you, Pavel," added Fedya... "And we were just talking about him, about Vasya."

"Oh, that's a bad omen," Ilyusha said deliberately.

"Well, never mind, so be it!" Pavel said decisively and sat down again, "you can't escape your fate."

The boys quieted down. It was clear that Pavel's words had made a deep impression on them. They began to settle down before the fire, as if preparing to sleep.

"What's that?" Kostya suddenly asked, raising his head.

Pavel listened.

"Those are sandpipers flying, whistling."

"Where are they flying?"

"To where, they say, there's no winter."

"Is there really such a land?"

"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 joined the boys. The moon finally rose; I didn't notice it at first: it was so small and narrow. This moonless night still seemed as magnificent as before... But already many stars, still recently standing high in the sky, were inclining toward the dark edge of the earth; everything around had completely quieted down, as everything usually quiets down only toward morning: everything slept a deep, motionless, pre-dawn sleep. The air no longer smelled so strongly—dampness seemed to spread through it again... The summer nights are short!.. The boys' conversation was dying out along with the fires... Even the dogs were dozing; the horses, as far as I could make out in the faintly gleaming, weakly flowing starlight, also lay with lowered heads... Sweet oblivion came over me; it passed into drowsiness.

A fresh stream ran across my face. I opened my eyes: morning was beginning. The dawn was not yet flushing anywhere, but it was already whitening in the east. Everything became visible, though dimly visible, around. The pale gray sky was brightening, growing cold, turning blue; the stars now blinked with weak light, now disappeared; the earth grew damp, leaves became covered with dew, here and there living sounds and voices began to be heard, and the thin, early breeze was already wandering and fluttering over the earth. My body answered it with a light, cheerful tremor. I quickly got up and approached the boys. They were all sleeping like the dead around the smoldering fire.