第21章 共80章

I turned right, through the bushes. Meanwhile, night was approaching and growing like a thundercloud; it seemed that darkness was rising from everywhere with the evening vapors and even pouring down from above. I came upon some unmarked, overgrown path; I set off along it, looking ahead attentively. Everything around was rapidly darkening and growing quiet—only the quails cried out occasionally. A small night bird, rushing silently and low on its soft wings, almost collided with me and dove timidly to the side. I emerged at the edge of the bushes and trudged across the field along a boundary strip. Already I could barely make out distant objects; the field showed white indistinctly all around; beyond it, advancing with each moment, gloomy darkness rose in enormous billows. My footsteps echoed dully in the stiffening air. The paling sky began to turn blue again—but this was already the blue of night. Little stars began to flicker and stir upon it. What I had taken for a grove turned out to be a dark, round hillock. "Where on earth am I?" I repeated again aloud, stopped for the third time, and looked questioningly at my English yellow-spotted dog Diana, decidedly the cleverest of all four-legged creatures. But the cleverest of four-legged creatures only wagged her tail, blinked her tired eyes sadly, and offered me no sensible advice. I felt ashamed before her, and desperately rushed forward, as if I had suddenly guessed which way to go, circled the hillock and found myself in a shallow, plowed-all-around hollow. A strange feeling immediately took hold of me. This hollow had the appearance of an almost regular cauldron with sloping sides; at the bottom of it several large white stones stood upright—it seemed they had crawled together there for a secret council—and it was so silent and muffled there, the sky hung so flatly, so drearily above it, that my heart contracted. Some small animal squeaked weakly and pitifully among the stones. I hastened to climb back out onto the hillock. Until now I had still not lost hope of finding the way home; but here I finally became convinced that I was completely lost, and, no longer trying at all to recognize the surrounding places, almost entirely drowned in gloom, I went straight ahead, by the stars—trusting to luck... For about half an hour I walked thus, moving my feet with difficulty. It seemed I had never been in such desolate places: nowhere did a light glimmer, no sound was heard. One gentle slope succeeded another, fields stretched endlessly beyond fields, bushes seemed to rise suddenly from the earth right before my nose. I kept walking and was just about to lie down somewhere until morning, when suddenly I found myself above a terrible abyss.

I quickly drew back my extended foot and, through the barely transparent twilight of night, saw far below me an enormous plain. A wide river curved around it in a semicircle receding from me; steely reflections of water, glimmering rarely and dimly, marked its course. The hill on which I stood descended suddenly in an almost sheer precipice; its huge outlines separated, blackening, from the bluish aerial void, and directly below me, in the corner formed by that precipice and the plain, beside the river, which stood in this place like a motionless, dark mirror, beneath the very cliff of the hill, two bonfires burned and smoked side by side with red flame. Around them people bustled about, shadows swayed, sometimes the front half of a small curly head was brightly illuminated...

I recognized at last where I had wandered. This meadow is famous in our parts under the name of Bezhin Meadow... But there was no possibility of returning home, especially at night; my legs were giving way beneath me from fatigue. I decided to approach the bonfires and in the company of those people, whom I took to be drovers, to wait for dawn. I descended successfully, but before I could release from my hands the last branch I had grasped, two large, white, shaggy dogs suddenly rushed at me with vicious barking. Children's ringing voices rang out around the fires; two or three boys quickly rose from the ground. I responded to their questioning cries. They ran up to me, immediately called off the dogs, who were especially struck by the appearance of my Diana, and I approached them.

I was mistaken in taking the people sitting around those fires for drovers. They were simply peasant children from neighboring villages, watching over a herd. In the hot summer season, horses are driven out to graze in the fields at night with us: during the day, flies and gadflies would give them no peace. Driving out the herd before evening and bringing it back at early dawn is a great holiday for peasant boys. Sitting without caps and in old sheepskin coats on the most spirited nags, they race along with merry whooping and shouting, waving their arms and legs, bouncing high, laughing loudly. Light dust rises in a yellow column and rushes along the road; the friendly tramping carries far; the horses run with ears pricked; ahead of them all, tail raised and constantly changing legs, gallops some red-haired shaggy horse with burrs in its tangled mane.

I told the boys that I had gotten lost and sat down beside them. They asked me where I was from, fell silent, made room. We talked a little. I lay down under a gnawed bush and began to look around. The picture was wonderful: around the fires trembled and seemed to freeze, resting against the darkness, a round reddish reflection; the flame, flaring up, occasionally cast beyond the border of that circle quick gleams; a thin tongue of light would lick the bare branches of the willows and instantly disappear; sharp, long shadows, bursting in for a moment, in their turn ran right up to the little fires: darkness struggled with light. Sometimes, when the flame burned weaker and the circle of light narrowed, from the advancing gloom a horse's head would suddenly emerge—bay, with a winding blaze, or completely white—would look at us attentively and dully, chewing long grass briskly, and, lowering again, would immediately hide. One could only hear it continuing to chew and snort. From the lighted place it was difficult to make out what was happening in the darkness, and therefore nearby everything seemed draped with an almost black curtain; but farther toward the horizon, hills and forests showed dimly in long patches. The dark, clear sky stood solemnly and immeasurably high above us with all its mysterious magnificence. The chest constricted sweetly, breathing that special, languorous and fresh smell—the smell of a Russian summer night. Almost no noise was heard around... Only occasionally in the nearby river a large fish would splash with sudden resonance and the shoreline reeds would rustle faintly, barely stirred by the incoming wave... The little fires alone crackled quietly.

The boys sat around them; the two dogs who had so wanted to eat me also sat there. They could not reconcile themselves to my presence for a long time and, squinting sleepily and glancing sideways at the fire, occasionally growled with an extraordinary sense of their own dignity; first they growled, and then whimpered 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 intend now to introduce them to the reader.)

The first, the eldest of them all, Fedya, you would have given fourteen years. He was a slender boy with handsome and delicate, somewhat small features, curly blond hair, bright eyes, and a constant half-cheerful, half-absent smile. He belonged, by all signs, to a wealthy family and had ridden out to the field not from necessity, but just for amusement. He wore a colorful cotton shirt with a yellow border; a small new peasant coat, thrown on carelessly, 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, wide cheekbones, a pale, pockmarked face, a large but regular mouth, an enormous head, as they say, like a beer cauldron, and a stocky, awkward body. The lad was plain—what can you say!—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, Ilyusha, was rather insignificant: hook-nosed, elongated, half-blind, it expressed some dull, sickly preoccupation; his compressed lips did not move, his drawn brows did not separate—he seemed to be constantly squinting from the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck out in sharp wisps from under a low felt cap, which he kept pushing 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 coat. 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 sorrowful gaze. His whole face was small, thin, freckled, pointed at the bottom like a squirrel's; his lips could barely be distinguished; but his large black eyes, shining with a liquid gleam, made a strange impression: they seemed to want to express something for which there were no words in language—in his language at least. He was of small stature, frail build, and dressed rather poorly. The last, Vanya, I did not notice at first: he lay on the ground, very quietly huddled under an angular mat, and only occasionally stuck out his light-brown curly head from under it. This boy was only about seven years old.

So I lay under the bush to the side and glanced at the boys. A small pot hung over one of the fires; in it "potatoes" were cooking. Pavlusha watched over it and, standing on his knees, poked a stick into the boiling water. Fedya lay propped on his elbow with the skirts of his coat spread out. Ilyusha sat beside Kostya and still squinted intently. Kostya lowered his head slightly and looked somewhere into the distance. Vanya did not stir under his mat. I pretended to be sleeping. Gradually the boys began talking again.

At first they chattered 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, and did you actually 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'm not the only one."

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

"In the old rolling room."

"Do you work at the factory?"

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

"Look at that—factory workers!..."

"Well, so how did you hear him?" asked Fedya.

"Well, this is 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; but we had to spend the night in the rolling room, that is, not exactly that we had to, but Nazarov, the overseer, forbade us; he says: 'Why,' he says, 'should you boys trudge home; there's a lot of work tomorrow, so you boys don't go home.' So we stayed and were all lying 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 below, and he was walking above, by the wheel. We hear: he's walking, the boards under him bending and creaking; then he passed over our heads; the water suddenly started rushing, rushing over the wheel; the wheel started knocking, knocking, turning; but the sluice gates at the race were down. We wondered: who raised them so the water started flowing; but the wheel turned, turned, and then stopped. Then he went to the door above and started coming down the stairs, and you could hear he wasn't hurrying; the steps under him positively groaned... Well, he came to our door, waited, waited—the door suddenly flew wide open. We got scared, we look—nothing... Suddenly, look, at one vat the mold started moving, lifted up, dipped down, moved around, moved around in the air, as if someone was rinsing it, and then back in its place. Then at another vat a hook came off the nail and went back on the nail; then it was like someone went to the door and suddenly started coughing, choking, like some sheep, and so loudly... We all fell in a heap, crawling under each other... How frightened we were at that moment!"

"Look at that!" said Pavel. "Why did he start coughing?"

"I don't know; maybe from the dampness."

Everyone fell silent.

"Well," asked Fedya, "are the potatoes cooked?"

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 shooting."

"No, I'll tell you what, 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 cheerless, always silent, you know? This is why he's so cheerless. He went once, my father was saying—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, brothers—no! he can't find the road; and night has fallen. 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, looks: and before him on a branch a rusalka sits, swaying and calling him to her, and she's dying of laughter, laughing... And the moon is shining strongly, so strongly, the moon is shining clearly—everything, my brothers, is visible. So she's calling him, and she herself is all bright, whitish sitting on the branch, like some roach or gudgeon—or else there's carp that are so pale, silvery... Gavrila the carpenter went numb, my brothers, but she just kept laughing and kept beckoning him to her with her hand. Gavrila was about to get up, was about to obey the rusalka, my brothers, but—you see—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 the cross, my brothers; he says his hand was just like stone, it wouldn't move... Oh, you devil!... So when he made the cross, my brothers, the rusalka stopped laughing, and suddenly she 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, 'human, you would have lived with me in merriment till the end of your days; but 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 it immediately became clear to Gavrila how to get out of the forest... But since then he always goes around cheerless."

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

"There you are!" said Kostya. "And Gavrila said that her voice, he says, was so thin, plaintive, like a toad's."

"Did your father tell this himself?" continued Fedya.

"Himself. I was lying on the sleeping platform, I heard everything."

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

"Yes, liked him!" picked up Ilyusha. "I should say! She wanted to tickle him to death, that's what she wanted. That's their business, those rusalkas."

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

"No," answered Kostya, "this is a clean place, open. Only thing—the river is 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 in the midst of deep silence, rise up, stand 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 someone had cried out for a long, long time under the very horizon, someone else seemed to have answered him in the forest with thin, sharp laughter, and a weak, hissing whistle rushed along the river. The boys exchanged glances, shuddered...

"The sign of the cross be with us!" whispered Ilya.

"Eh, you crows!" shouted Pavel. "What did you get 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 emptied.

"Have you heard, boys," began Ilyusha, "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 are ravines, gullies, and in the gullies all sorts of snakes live."

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

"Well, this is 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 huntsman 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 huntsman, has everything it takes. So Ermil went for the post and lingered in town, but when he's riding 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. He's riding along, this huntsman Ermil, and he sees: on the drowned man's grave a little lamb, white, curly, pretty, is walking about. 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, but the horse shies away from him, snorts, shakes its head; but 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 straight in the eyes. Ermil the huntsman felt uneasy: 'I don't remember,' he thinks, 'that rams look people in the eyes like that'; but never mind; he started stroking it like this on the wool—says: 'Baa-aa, baa-aa!' And the ram suddenly bares its teeth and says back to him: 'Baa-aa, baa-aa!'"

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 rushed after the dogs with a shout. Their barking quickly receded... The anxious running of the alarmed herd was heard. Pavlusha shouted loudly: "Gray! Zhuchka!..." In a few moments the barking ceased; Pavel's voice was already heard from far away... A little more time passed; the boys exchanged puzzled looks, as if waiting for what would happen... Suddenly the tramping of a galloping horse was heard; it stopped sharply right at the fire, and, clutching the mane, Pavlusha jumped off nimbly. Both dogs also leaped into the circle of light and immediately sat down, sticking out their red tongues.

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

"Nothing," answered Pavel, waving his hand at the horse, "the dogs just scented something. I thought it was a wolf," he added in an indifferent voice, breathing rapidly 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 cowardly Kostya.

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

He settled down again by the fire. Sitting on the ground, he put his hand on the shaggy nape 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 buried himself under the mat again.

"What scary stories you were telling us, Ilyushka," began Fedya, 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 devils made the dogs start barking... But it's true, I've heard that place is unclean at your village."

"Varnavitsy?... I should say so! Very unclean! They say the old master has been seen there more than once—the late master. He walks, they say, in a long-skirted caftan and keeps moaning like this, 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?" interrupted the astonished Fedya.

"Yes, he asked."

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

"'I'm looking for rupture-grass,' he says. And he spoke so hollowly, hollowly: 'Rupture-grass.' 'And what do you need rupture-grass for, sir Ivan Ivanovich?' 'The grave,' he says, 'presses, Trofimych: I want out, want out...'"

"Look at that!" remarked Fedya, "he must not have lived long enough."

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

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

"Well, 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 was all like a little dog barking, barking somewhere... Suddenly she looks: a boy is walking along the path in just a shirt. She looked closely—Ivashka Fedoseyev is walking..."

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

"The very same. He's walking and doesn't lift his little head... And Ulyana recognized him... But then she looks: a woman is walking. She peers and peers—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, has she?"

"But the year hasn't passed yet. But you look at her: what's keeping her soul in her body."

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 scorched ends. The reflection of the light struck out, trembling jerkily, in all directions, especially upward. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a white dove flew in—flew straight into this reflection, whirled around fearfully in one spot, all bathed in hot radiance, and disappeared, its wings ringing.

"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.

"But tell me, please, Pavlusha," began Fedya, "did you also see the heavenly portent in Shalamovo?"

"When the sun disappeared? Sure."

"Were you frightened too?"

"We weren't the only ones. Our master, though he explained to us beforehand that there would be a portent for you, when it got dark, they say he got so scared himself, goodness me. And in the servants' cottage the cook woman, as soon as it got dark, do you hear, she took the oven fork and broke all the pots in the stove: 'Who's going to eat now,' she says, 'the end of the world has come.' So the cabbage soup just poured out. And in our village, brother, such rumors were going around that white wolves would run over the earth, would eat people, a bird of prey would fly, and they would even see Trishka himself."

"What Trishka is that?" asked Kostya.

"Don't you know?" Ilyusha picked up eagerly. "Well, brother, where are you from that you don't know Trishka? You really are stay-at-homes in your village, real stay-at-homes! Trishka—this will be such an amazing man who will come; and he will come when the last times arrive. And he will be such an amazing man that it will be impossible to catch him, and it will be impossible to do anything to him: he'll be such an amazing man. The peasants will want, for instance, to catch him; they'll come out after him with clubs, surround him, but he'll fool their eyes—fool their eyes so that they'll beat each other instead. They'll put him in prison, 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 people... well, but it will be impossible to do anything to him... He'll be such an amazing, cunning man."

"Well yes," Pavel continued in his unhurried voice, "that's the one. So they were waiting for him at our place. The old people said that 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 for what would happen. And at our place, you know, it's a visible spot, open. 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, 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 upset everyone got!... But the person walking there was our cooper, Vavila: he'd bought himself a new tub and put the empty tub on his head."

All the boys laughed and again fell silent 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 midnight dry warmth, and it would lie as a soft blanket on the sleeping fields for a long time yet; much time remained until the first babbling, until the first rustles and whispers of morning, until 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 in their twinkling, in the direction of the Milky Way, and truly, looking at them, you seemed to feel dimly yourself the impetuous, ceaseless movement of the earth...

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

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 pause, "you might know..."

"What did you hear?"

"This is what I heard. I was walking from Stone Ridge to Shashkino; and I walked first all along our hazel grove, then I went through the meadow—you know, where it comes out at the gully—there's a deep hole there, you know; it's still all overgrown with reeds; so I was walking past this hole, brothers, and suddenly from that very hole someone started moaning, and so pitifully, pitifully: oo-oo... oo-oo... oo-oo! Such fear took hold of me, brothers: it was late, and the voice was so sickly. It seemed I would start crying myself... What could that have been? Eh?"

"In that hole, the year before last, thieves drowned Akim the forester," remarked Pavlusha, "so maybe his soul is complaining."

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

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

"Frogs? Well, no, it wasn't frogs... what frogs..." (The heron cried out again over the river.) "Damn it!" Kostya said involuntarily, "screaming like a wood goblin."

"A wood goblin doesn't scream, he's mute," Ilyusha picked up, "he only claps his hands and rattles..."

"Did you see him, the wood goblin?" Fedya interrupted him mockingly.

"No, I didn't see 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, kept circling around one clearing... He barely made it home by daybreak."

"Well, did he see him?"

"He saw him. Says he was standing there big, big, dark, muffled up, sort of like behind a tree, you can't make him out properly, like he's hiding from the moon, and he stares, stares with those huge eyes, blinks them, blinks..."

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

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

"Don't curse, watch out, he'll hear you," remarked 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 little fist, and slowly raised upward his large quiet eyes. The eyes of all the boys rose to the sky and didn't lower soon.

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

"She's well," answered Vanya with a slight lisp.

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

"I 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, our girl."

And Vanya laid his head on the ground again. Pavel stood up and picked up the empty pot.

"Where are you going?" Fedya asked him.

"To the river, to scoop 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 would he fall in?" said Fedya, "he'll be careful."

"Yes, he'll be careful. But anything can happen: he'll bend over, start scooping water, and the water spirit will grab him by the hand