De: A Sportsman's Sketches
"No, I haven't seen him, and one cannot see him," answered Ilyusha in a hoarse and weak voice, the sound of which corresponded perfectly to the expression on his face, "but I heard him... And not just me."
"And where does he live at your place?" asked Pavlusha.
"In the old rolling room." (The "rolling room" or "scooping room" at paper mills is the building where paper is scooped out in vats. It is located right by the dam, under the wheel. - I.S. Turgenev's note)
"So you go to the factory?"
"Of course we do. My brother Avdyushka and I work as glazers." (Glazers smooth and scrape the paper. - I.S. Turgenev's note)
"Well, well—factory workers!.."
"So how did you hear him?" asked Fedya.
"This is how. My brother Avdyushka and I had to go there, along with Fyodor Mikheevsky, and Ivashka the Cross-Eyed, and another Ivashka from Red Hills, and Ivashka Sukhorukov, and there were other boys there too; altogether there were about ten of us boys—the whole shift, that is. We had to spend the night in the rolling room, not that we really had to, but Nazarov, the overseer, forbade us; he says: 'Why should you boys trudge home; there's lots of work tomorrow, so you boys don't go home.' So we stayed and were all lying together, and Avdyushka started saying: 'What if the house spirit comes, boys?'... And no sooner had he, Avdey that is, spoken those words, when suddenly someone started walking above our heads; but we were lying downstairs, and he was walking upstairs, by the wheel. We hear him walking, the boards under him bending and creaking; then he walked right over our heads; the water suddenly started rushing and rushing over the wheel; the wheel started knocking and knocking and turning; but the sluice gates at the flume" (The "flume" is what we call the place where the water runs onto the wheel. - I.S. Turgenev's note) "were down. We're amazed: who raised them so the water started flowing? But the wheel turned and turned, and then stopped. Then that one went back to the door upstairs and started coming down the stairs, and you could hear he wasn't hurrying; the steps under him were practically groaning... Well, he came to our door, waited, waited—the door suddenly flew wide open. We were terrified, we look—nothing... Suddenly, look, at one vat a mold" (The screen used to scoop the paper. - I.S. Turgenev's note) "started moving, rose up, dipped down, walked and walked through the air, as if someone was rinsing it, and then went back in place. Then at another vat a hook came off a nail and went back on the nail; then it's as if someone went to the door and suddenly started coughing and choking, like some sheep, but loudly... We all just piled up in a heap, climbed under each other... We were so frightened at that moment!"
"Well, well!" said Pavel. "What did he cough for?"
"Don't know; maybe from the dampness."
Everyone fell silent.
"What," asked Fedya, "are the potatoes cooked?"
Pavlusha felt them.
"No, still raw... Listen, it splashed," he added, turning his face toward the river, "must be a pike... And there's a little star falling."
"No, I'll tell you something, brothers," Kostya began in a thin voice, "listen to what my father told me the other day."
"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? This is why he's so gloomy. He went once, my father said,—he went, my brothers, to the forest for nuts. So he went to the forest for nuts and got lost; he wandered—God knows where he wandered. He walked and walked, my brothers—no! can't find the road; and night had already fallen. So he sat down under a tree; 'I'll wait till morning,' he says—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 and looks again: and there before him on a branch sits a water nymph, swaying and calling him to her, and she's dying of laughter, laughing... And the moon is shining brightly, so brightly, clearly the moon is shining—everything, my brothers, is visible. So she's calling him, and she herself is all so pale and white sitting on the branch, like some dace or minnow,—or else there's carp like that, whitish, silvery... Gavrila the carpenter just froze, my brothers, but she just keeps laughing and keeps beckoning him to her with her hand. Gavrila was about to get up, was about to obey the water nymph, my brothers, but, you see, the Lord put sense in him: he managed to make the sign of the cross over himself... And how hard it was for him to make that cross, my brothers; he says his hand was just like stone, wouldn't move... Oh, what a thing!.. So when he made the cross, my brothers, the water nymph 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 creature?' And the water nymph says to him: 'If you hadn't crossed yourself, man, you would have lived with me in merriment till the end of your days; and I'm crying and grieving because you crossed yourself; but I won't be the only one grieving: grieve you too till the end of your days.' Then she, my brothers, vanished, and Gavrila immediately understood how to get out of the forest... But since then he always goes around gloomy."
"Well!" said Fedya after a short silence, "but how can such a forest evil spirit ruin a Christian soul—he didn't obey her, after all?"
"And there you have it!" said Kostya. "And Gavrila said that her voice, he says, was so thin, pitiful, like a frog's."
"Your father told this himself?" continued Fedya.
"Himself. I was lying on the sleeping shelf, heard everything."
"Strange business! Why should he be gloomy?... Well, she must have liked him, since she called him."
"Yes, liked him!" picked up Ilyusha. "Of course! She wanted to tickle him to death, that's what she wanted. That's their business, those water nymphs."
"And there must be water nymphs here too," noted Fedya.
"No," answered Kostya, "this is a clean place, open. Only—the river's close."
Everyone fell silent. Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, a long, ringing, almost moaning sound rang out, 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, as if someone else had responded to him in the forest with thin, sharp laughter, and a weak, hissing whistle rushed along the river. The boys exchanged glances, shuddered...
"The power of the cross be with us!" whispered Ilya.
"Oh, you crows!" shouted Pavel. "What are you scared of? Look, the potatoes are cooked." (Everyone moved closer 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 empty.
"Have you heard, boys," Ilyusha began, "what happened the other day at our Varnavitsy?"
"At the dam?" asked Fedya.
"Yes, yes, at the dam, the broken one. That's a wicked place, so wicked, and so desolate. All around are ravines, gullies, and in the gullies all sorts of vipers" (In Oryol dialect: snakes. - I.S. Turgenev's note) "live."
"Well, what happened? Tell us..."
"Here's what happened. Maybe you don't know, Fedya, but there's a drowned man buried there; and he drowned long, long 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: they don't live with him for some reason, just never lived, and he's a good dog-keeper, got everything right. So Ermil went for the post, and lingered in town, and when he rides back he's 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. So he's riding like this, the dog-keeper Ermil, and he sees: on the drowned man's grave a lamb, white, curly, pretty, is walking about. So Ermil thinks: 'I'll take him,—why should he go to waste,' and he got down and took him in his arms... But the lamb—nothing. So Ermil goes to his horse, but the horse shies away from him, snorts, shakes her head; but he calmed her down, got on her with the lamb and rode on again: holding the lamb in front of him. He looks at it, and the lamb just stares him right in the eyes. Ermil the dog-keeper got uneasy: 'I don't remember, he says, sheep ever staring people in the eyes like this'; but never mind; he started stroking its wool,—he 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, rushed away from the fire with convulsive barking and disappeared into the darkness. All the boys were frightened. Vanya jumped out from under his mat. Pavlusha with a shout rushed after the dogs. Their barking quickly faded... The anxious running of the startled herd could be heard. Pavlusha shouted loudly: "Grey! Beetle!.." In a few moments the barking fell silent; Pavel's voice came from far away now... A little more time passed; the boys exchanged puzzled looks, as if waiting to see what would happen... Suddenly the hoofbeats of a galloping horse rang out; it stopped abruptly right by the fire, and, clutching the mane, Pavlusha nimbly jumped off it. Both dogs also jumped into the circle of light and immediately sat down, tongues hanging out red.
"What was it? What happened?" asked the boys.
"Nothing," answered Pavel, waving his hand at the horse, "just, the dogs caught scent of something. I thought it was 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 swift ride, glowed with bold daring and firm resolve. Without even 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 timid Kostya.
"There's always lots of them here," answered Pavel, "but they only bother us in winter."
He settled down again by the fire. Sitting down on the ground, he put his hand on the shaggy neck of one of the dogs, and for a long time the delighted animal didn't turn its head, glancing sideways at Pavlusha with grateful pride.
Vanya hid under his mat again.
"What scary stories you were telling us, Ilyushka," said Fedya, who, as the son of a well-off peasant, had to act as ringleader (though he himself spoke little, as if afraid of lowering his dignity). "And the devil made the dogs start barking here... But it's true, I've heard that place of yours is wicked."
"Varnavitsy?.. I should say so! really wicked! They say they've seen the old master there many times—the late master. They say he walks around in a long-skirted coat and keeps moaning, looking for something on the ground. Once grandfather Trofimych met him: 'What, he says, sir, Ivan Ivanovich, are you pleased to be looking for on the ground?'"
"He asked him that?" interrupted the astonished Fedya.
"Yes, he asked."
"Well, Trofimych is brave after that... Well, and what did he say?"
"'Looking for rupture-grass,' he says. And he spoke in such a muffled voice, muffled:—'Rupture-grass.' 'And what do you need rupture-grass for, sir Ivan Ivanovich?'—'The grave is pressing, Trofimych: it's pressing, I want to get out, out...'"
"Well, well!" noted Fedya, "he must not have lived enough."
"What a wonder!" said Kostya. "I thought you could only see the dead on Ancestors' Saturday."
"You can see the dead at any time," Ilyusha picked up confidently, and as far as I could tell, he knew all the village superstitions better than the others... "But on Ancestors' Saturday you can also see the living person 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 she sat for a long, long time, didn't see or hear anyone... only it seemed like a dog was barking somewhere... Suddenly she looks: a boy is walking along the path in just a shirt. She looked closer—Ivashka Fedoseev is walking..."
"The one who died in spring?" interrupted Fedya.
"The very same. Walking and not raising his head... And Ulyana recognized him... But then she looks: a woman is walking. She peers and peers,—oh Lord!—it's herself walking on the road, herself Ulyana."
"Really herself?" asked Fedya.
"By God, herself."
"Well what of it, she hasn't died yet, has she?"
"But the year hasn't passed yet. And you look at her: she's barely hanging on."
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, lifting their charred ends. The reflection of the light struck out in all directions, trembling fitfully, especially upward. Suddenly out of nowhere a white dove—flew right into this reflection, fluttered fearfully in one spot, all bathed in hot brilliance, and disappeared, its wings ringing.
"Must have strayed from home," noted Pavel. "Now it'll fly until it bumps into something, and where it bumps, there it'll spend the night till dawn."
"What, 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," began Fedya, "did you also see the heavenly presentiment in Shalamovo?" (This is what our peasants call a solar eclipse. - I.S. Turgenev's note)
"When the sun disappeared? Of course."
"I expect you were frightened too?"
"Not just us. Our master, though he explained to us beforehand that, he says, there'll be a presentiment for you, but when it got dark, he, they say, got so scared himself that—just imagine. And in the servants' hut the cook woman, as soon as it got dark, listen to this, took the oven fork and smashed all the pots in the oven: 'Who's going 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, birds of prey will fly, or they'll even see Trishka himself." (The belief in "Trishka" probably echoes the legend of the antichrist. - I.S. Turgenev's note)
"What's 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? Real stay-at-homes in your village, real stay-at-homes! Trishka—he'll be such an amazing man, who will come; and he'll come when the last times arrive. And he'll be such an amazing man that you won't be able to catch him, and you won't be able to do anything to him: such an amazing man he'll be. The peasants will want to catch him, for instance; they'll go out against him with clubs, surround him, but he'll deceive their eyes—deceive their eyes so that they'll beat each other instead. They'll put him in jail, for instance—he'll ask for some water to drink in a dipper: they'll bring him a dipper, and he'll dive into it and vanish 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, the cunning man, will tempt the Christian folk... well, but you won't be able to do anything to him... Such an amazing, cunning man he'll be."
"Well yes," Pavel continued in his unhurried voice, "that's him. So they were waiting for him at our place. The old folks said that as soon as the heavenly presentiment begins, Trishka will come. So the presentiment began. All the people poured out into the street, into the field, waiting for what would happen. And our place, you know, is wide open, spacious. They look—suddenly from the settlement, from the hill, some person is coming, such a strange one, with such an amazing head... Everyone screamed: 'Oh, Trishka's coming! Oh, Trishka's coming!'—and scattered every which way! Our elder crawled into a ditch; the elder's wife got stuck in the gateway, screaming bloody murder, scared her own yard dog so much that it broke off the chain, over the fence, and into the forest; and Kuzka's father, Dorofeich, jumped into the oats, squatted down, and started crying like a quail: 'Maybe, he says, the enemy, the soul-destroyer, will at least spare a bird.' That's how panicked everyone got!.. But the person walking 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 talking in the open air. I looked around: the night stood solemn and majestic; the damp freshness of late evening had been replaced by the dry warmth of midnight, and it would lie like a soft canopy over the sleeping fields for a long time yet; much time remained before the first babbling, before the first rustlings and whispers 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 twinkling in rivalry, in the direction of the Milky Way, and truly, looking at them, you seemed to feel dimly yourself the headlong, ceaseless run of the earth...
A strange, sharp, painful cry rang out suddenly twice in succession over the river and, after a few moments, was repeated farther away...
Kostya shuddered. "What was that?"
"That's a heron crying," Pavel calmly replied.
"A heron," repeated Kostya... "But what was it, Pavlusha, that I heard yesterday evening," he added, after a short silence, "maybe you know..."
"What did you hear?"
"This is what I heard. I was walking from Stone Ridge to Shashkino; and I walked first through our hazel grove, and then went across a meadow—you know, where it comes out at the steep bend" (A steep bend is a sharp turn in a ravine. - I.S. Turgenev's note) "—there's a deep hole there" (A deep hole is a deep pit with spring water left from the flood, which doesn't dry up even in summer. - I.S. Turgenev's note) "you know, it's all overgrown with reeds; so I was walking past this deep hole, my brothers, and suddenly from that deep hole someone starts moaning, and so pitifully, pitifully: oo-oo... oo-oo... oo-oo! Such fear came over me, my brothers: it was late, and the voice was so sickly. I felt like crying myself... What could it have been? Eh?"
"In that hole thieves drowned Akim the forester the year before last," noted Pavel, "so maybe it's his soul complaining."
"Well, that could be it, my brothers," Kostya replied, widening his already enormous eyes... "I didn't know that Akim was drowned in that 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.) "Damn it!" Kostya involuntarily exclaimed, "it cries like a wood goblin."
"The wood goblin doesn't cry, he's mute," Ilyusha picked up, "he only claps his hands and rattles..."
"Have you seen him, the wood goblin?" Fedya mockingly interrupted.
"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 astray: led him, led him through the forest, in circles around one clearing... He barely made it home by daylight."
"Well, and did he see him?"
"He saw him. He says he stood there big, big, dark, wrapped up, sort of behind a tree, you can't make him out clearly, as if hiding from the moon, and he looks, looks with those huge eyes, blinking them, blinking..."
"Oh!" exclaimed Fedya, shuddering slightly and twitching his shoulders, "ugh!.."
"And why has this filth bred in the world?" noted Pavel. "I don't understand, really!"
"Don't curse, watch out, he'll hear," noted Ilya.
Silence fell again.
"Look, look, boys," Vanya's childish voice suddenly rang out, "look at God's little stars—swarming like bees!"
He stuck his fresh little face out from under the mat, propped himself on his fist and slowly raised his big 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 tenderly, "is your sister Anyutka well?"
"She's well," answered Vanya, lisping slightly.
"You tell her—why doesn't she come visit us?..."
"Don't know."
"You tell her she should come."
"I'll tell her."
"You tell her I'll give her a present."
"And will you give me one?"
"I'll give you one too."
Vanya sighed.
"Well, no, I don't need one. Better give it to her: she's so kind, ours is."
And Vanya laid his head on the ground again. Pavel stood 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 to drink some water."
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. Anything can happen: he'll bend down, start scooping water, and the water spirit will grab him by the hand and pull him in. Then they'll say: the boy fell, they'll say, into the water... What kind of fell?.. There, he's gotten into the reeds," he added, listening.
The reeds were indeed "rustling," as we say, parting.
"Is it true," asked Kostya, "that Akulina the fool has been crazy 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 ruined her. Must not have expected them to pull her out so soon. So he ruined her there, at his place on the bottom."
(I myself have 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 stamps for hours in one place, somewhere on the road, pressing her bony hands firmly to her chest and slowly swaying from foot to foot, like a wild beast in a cage. She understands nothing, whatever anyone says to her, and only occasionally laughs 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. What a boy he was! oh, what a boy he was! His mother, Feklista, how she loved him, Vasya! And it's as if she sensed it, Feklista, that he would perish from water. Sometimes Vasya would go with us, with the boys, in summer to swim in the river,—and she'd be all in a flutter. The other women don't care, they walk past with their tubs, waddling along, but Feklista would put her tub on the ground and start calling him: 'Come back, she'd say, come back, my dear! oh, come back, my falcon!' And how he drowned, the Lord knows. He was playing on the bank, and his mother was right there, raking hay; suddenly she hears, as if someone's blowing bubbles on the water,—she looks, and only Vasya's little cap is floating on the water. Well, since then Feklista hasn't been in her right mind: she comes and lies down in the place where he drowned; she lies down, my brothers, and starts singing a song,—remember, Vasya always sang such a song,—so she starts singing it, and she cries, cries, bitterly complains to God..."
"Here comes Pavlusha," said Fedya.
Pavel approached the fire with a full pot in his hand.
"Well, boys," he began, after a pause, "things are bad."
"Why?" Kostya asked hurriedly.
"I heard Vasya's voice."
Everyone shuddered.
"What are you saying, what are you saying?" stammered Kostya.
"By God. As soon as I bent down to the water, I suddenly hear someone calling me in Vasya's voice and as if from under the water: 'Pavlusha, oh Pavlusha!' I listen; and he calls again: 'Pavlusha, come here.' I stepped back. But I got the water anyway."
"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, let it be!" Pavel said decisively and sat down again, "you can't escape your fate."
The boys quieted down. It was evident 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 joined the boys. The moon finally rose; I didn't notice it right away: it was so small and narrow. This moonless night seemed still as magnificent as before... But already many stars that had recently stood high in the sky had inclined toward the dark edge of the earth; everything had completely quieted down all around, as everything usually quiets down only toward morning: everything slept a deep, motionless, pre-dawn sleep. The air no longer smelled as strong,—dampness seemed to spread through it again... The summer nights are short!.. The boys' conversation died away along with the fires... The dogs even dozed; the horses, as far as I could make out in the faintly glimmering, weakly flowing light of the stars, also lay with lowered heads... Sweet oblivion fell upon me; it passed into drowsiness.
A fresh stream ran across my face. I opened my eyes: morning was beginning. Dawn wasn't blushing anywhere yet, but the east was already whitening. Everything became visible, though dimly visible, all around. The pale gray sky was brightening, growing cold, turning blue; the stars now flickered with weak light, now disappeared; the earth grew damp, leaves became covered with dew, here and there living sounds, voices began to be heard, and a 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; only Pavel raised himself halfway and looked at me intently.
I nodded to him and walked away along the smoking river. I hadn't gone two versts when around me, across the wide wet meadow, and ahead, over the greening hills, from forest to forest, and behind along the long dusty road, over the sparkling, crimsoned bushes, and over the river, shyly turning blue through the thinning mist—there poured first scarlet, then red, golden streams of young, hot light... Everything began to stir, awaken, sing, rustle, speak. Everywhere radiant diamonds glowed in the large drops of dew; clean and clear, as if also washed by the morning coolness, the sounds of a bell came toward me, and suddenly past me, driven by the familiar boys, rushed the rested herd...
I must add with regret that Pavel died that same year. He didn't drown: he was killed falling from a horse. A pity, he was a splendid lad!
Biryuk
(From the cycle "A Sportsman's Sketches")