来自：A Sportsman's Sketches
It was a beautiful July day, one of those days that occur only when the weather has settled in for a long spell. From earliest morning the sky is clear; the morning dawn does not blaze like fire: it spreads with a gentle blush. The sun—not fiery, not glowing hot as during a scorching drought, not dull crimson as before a storm, but bright and welcomingly radiant—rises peacefully beneath a narrow, elongated cloud, shines forth freshly and plunges into its violet mist. The thin upper edge of the stretched cloud sparkles with little serpents; their gleam is like that of wrought silver... But now again the playful rays pour forth—and cheerfully and majestically, as if soaring upward, the mighty luminary rises. Around midday, a multitude of round, high clouds usually appear, golden-gray, with delicate white edges. Like islands scattered across an endlessly spreading river, flowing around them in deeply transparent channels of even blueness, they scarcely move from their place; farther on, toward the horizon, they draw together, crowd in, and the blue between them is no longer visible; but they themselves are as azure as the sky: they are all thoroughly permeated with light and warmth. The color of the horizon, light, pale lilac, does not change throughout the day and is the same all around; nowhere does it darken or gather with storm clouds; only here and there bluish streaks stretch from top to bottom: barely perceptible rain is falling. Toward evening these clouds disappear; the last of them, blackish and indistinct as smoke, lie in rosy billows opposite the setting sun; at the place where it has set as peacefully as it rose peacefully in the sky, a scarlet glow stands for a brief time over the darkened earth, and, quietly twinkling like a carefully carried candle, the evening star kindles upon it. On such days all colors are softened; bright, but not garish; everything bears the imprint of some touching gentleness. On such days the heat is sometimes quite strong, sometimes even "steaming" along the slopes of the fields; but the wind disperses and parts the accumulated sultriness, and whirlwinds—an unmistakable sign of settled weather—walk in tall white columns along the roads across the plowland. In the dry, pure air there is a scent of wormwood, harvested rye, buckwheat; even an hour before nightfall you feel no dampness. Such weather the farmer desires for gathering the grain...
On just such a day I was once hunting black grouse in Chern district, Tula province. I had found and shot a fair amount of game; my filled gamebag was cutting mercilessly into my shoulder; but the evening glow had already faded, and in the air, still light though no longer illuminated by the rays of the set sun, cold shadows were beginning to thicken and spread, when I finally decided to return home. With rapid steps I passed through a long "square" of bushes, climbed a hill and, instead of the expected familiar plain with an oak grove to the right and a low white church in the distance, saw completely different places unknown to me. At my feet stretched a narrow valley; directly opposite, a dense aspen wood rose like a steep wall. I stopped in bewilderment and looked around... "Aha!" I thought, "I've come to the wrong place entirely: I've gone too far to the right"—and, myself marveling at my mistake, I quickly descended the hill. An unpleasant, motionless dampness immediately enveloped me, as if I had entered a cellar; the thick, tall grass at the bottom of the valley, all wet, showed white like a smooth tablecloth; it was somehow eerie to walk on it. I quickly scrambled out on the other side and walked on, bearing to the left, along the aspen wood. Bats were already flitting above its slumbering treetops, mysteriously circling and quivering against the dimly clear sky; a belated hawk flew swiftly and directly overhead, hurrying to its nest. "As soon as I come out at that corner," I thought to myself, "the road will be right there, and I've made a detour of about a verst!"
I finally reached the corner of the forest, but there was no road there: some unmown, low bushes spread widely before me, and beyond them, far, far away, a deserted field was visible. I stopped again. "What is this?.. Where am I?" I began to recall how and where I had walked during the day... "Ah! These must be Parakhin bushes!" I exclaimed at last. "Exactly! That must be Sindeev grove over there... But how did I get here? So far?.. Strange!" Now I must bear to the right again."
I went to the right, through the bushes. Meanwhile night was approaching and growing like a thundercloud; it seemed that darkness was rising from everywhere, even pouring down from above, together with the evening vapors. I came upon some unused, overgrown path; I set off along it, looking carefully ahead. Everything around was rapidly darkening and growing quiet—only the quails cried occasionally. A small night bird, rushing silently and low on its soft wings, almost collided with me and timidly dove to one side. I emerged at the edge of the bushes and trudged along a field boundary. Already I could barely make out distant objects; the field showed white indistinctly around me; beyond it, advancing with every moment, gloomy darkness heaved up in enormous billows. My footsteps resounded hollowly in the congealing air. The pallid sky began to turn blue again—but this was already the blue of night. Little stars twinkled and stirred upon it.
What I had taken for a grove turned out to be a dark, round hillock. "But where am I?" I repeated 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 useful advice. I felt ashamed before her, and desperately rushed forward, as if suddenly guessing where I should 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 there for a secret council—and it was so mute and dull there, the sky hung so flatly, so drearily over it, that my heart contracted. Some little animal squeaked weakly and pitifully among the stones. I hastened to get 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 completely drowned in gloom, I walked straight ahead, by the stars—trusting to luck... For about half an hour I walked thus, moving my legs with difficulty. It seemed I had never been in such empty places: nowhere did a little light flicker, no sound was heard. One gentle slope gave way to another, fields stretched endlessly beyond fields, bushes seemed to spring up suddenly from the earth right before my very 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 outstretched foot and, through the barely transparent twilight of night, saw far below me an enormous plain. A broad river curved around it in a semicircle receding from me; steel reflections of water, gleaming rarely and dimly, marked its current. The hill on which I stood descended suddenly in an almost sheer precipice; its huge outlines stood out, blackening, against the bluish aerial emptiness, and directly below me, in the corner formed by that precipice and the plain, beside the river, which in this place stood like a motionless, dark mirror, under the very cliff of the hill, two fires burned and smoked side by side with red flame. People were bustling around them, shadows swayed, sometimes the front half of a small curly head was brightly illuminated...
I finally recognized 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 under me from fatigue. I decided to approach the fires and, in the company of those people whom I had taken for drovers, to await the dawn. I descended successfully, but had not yet managed to release from my hands the last branch I had grasped when suddenly two large, white, shaggy dogs 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, which were especially struck by the appearance of my Diana, and I approached them.
I had been mistaken in taking the people sitting around those fires for drovers. These were simply peasant children from neighboring villages, watching over a herd. In the hot summer season horses are driven out at night to feed in the fields: during the day flies and horseflies would give them no peace. Driving out before evening and driving in at morning dawn the herd—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 ringingly. Light dust rises and rushes along the road in a yellow column; the friendly tramping carries far; the horses run with pricked ears; at the very front, tail raised and constantly changing legs, gallops some red shaggy horse with burdock in its tangled mane.
I told the boys that I was lost and sat down with them. They asked me where I was from, fell silent, made room. We talked a little. I lay down under a gnawed-bare bush and began to look around. The picture was wonderful: a round reddish reflection trembled and seemed to freeze around the fires, butting against the darkness; the flame, flaring up, occasionally cast quick gleams beyond the boundary of that circle; a thin tongue of light would lick the bare branches of willow 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 more weakly and the circle of light narrowed, a horse's head suddenly emerged from the encroaching gloom—bay, with a winding blaze, or all white—looked at us attentively and dully, chewing long grass briskly, and, lowering again, immediately hid. Only one could hear how it continued chewing and snorting. From an illuminated spot it is difficult to make out what is happening in the darkness, and therefore nearby everything seemed curtained with an almost black veil; but farther toward the horizon hills and forests were dimly visible in long patches. The dark, pure sky stood solemnly and immeasurably high above us with all its mysterious magnificence. One's chest contracted sweetly, breathing in that special, languid and fresh scent—the scent 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 shore reeds would rustle weakly, barely stirred by the running wave... The little fires alone crackled quietly.
The boys sat around them; the two dogs who had so wanted to eat me sat there too. They could not reconcile themselves to my presence for a long time and, sleepily squinting and looking sideways at the fire, occasionally growled with an unusual sense of their own dignity; first they growled, and then whined 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 acquaint the reader with them.)
The first, the eldest of all, Fedya, you would have given fourteen years. He was a well-built boy, with handsome and delicate, somewhat small features, curly fair hair, bright eyes and a constant half-cheerful, half-distracted 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 calico shirt with a yellow border; a small new 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 own 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, a huge head, as they say, like a beer kettle, and a stocky, awkward body. The lad was not comely—what can you say!—but all the same 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 homespun shirt and patched trousers. The face of the third, Ilyusha, was rather insignificant: hook-nosed, drawn-out, weak-sighted, 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 pushing down on his ears with both hands. He wore new bast shoes and onuchi; a thick rope, wound three times around his waist, carefully tightened his neat black jacket. Both he and Pavlusha appeared 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 his large, black eyes, gleaming with a liquid shine, produced 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 small in stature, of puny build and dressed rather poorly. The last, Vanya, I did not notice at first: he was lying on the ground, meekly huddled under an angular piece of matting, 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 one side and glanced at the boys. A small pot hung over one of the fires; potatoes were cooking in it. Pavlusha watched over it and, kneeling, poked a splinter into the boiling water. Fedya lay propped on his elbow with the skirts of his coat spread out. Ilyusha sat next to Kostya and still squinted just as tensely. Kostya bowed his head slightly and looked somewhere into the distance. Vanya did not stir under his matting. I pretended to be sleeping. Gradually the boys began talking again.
At first they chatted about this and that, about tomorrow's work, about the horses; but suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha and, as if resuming 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 wasn't the only one."
"Where does he live at your place?" asked Pavlusha.
"In the old rolling room." ("Rolling room" or "scooping room" at paper factories is the name for the building where they scoop paper in vats. It is located right at the dam, under the wheel. [Note by I.S. Turgenev])
"Do you go to the factory?"
"Of course we do. My brother Avdyushka and I work as calenderers." ("Calenderers" smooth and scrape paper. [Note by I.S. Turgenev])
"Well now—factory workers!.."
"Well, so how did you hear him?" asked Fedya.
"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 too, and there were other boys there; 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, we didn't exactly have to, but Nazarov, the overseer, forbade us; he says: 'Why should you boys drag yourselves 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, like, 'Well, boys, what if the house spirit comes?'... And no sooner had he, Avdey, said this, than suddenly someone above our heads started walking; but we were lying below, and he was walking above, by the wheel. We hear him: walking, and the boards under him bending and creaking; then he passed over our heads; the water suddenly began to rush, rush over the wheel; the wheel started knocking, knocking, turning; but the sluice gates at the race (At our place, 'race' is the name for the place along which water runs to the wheel. [Note by I.S. Turgenev]) were lowered. We're amazed: who raised them so the water started flowing; however, the wheel turned, turned, and stopped. Then that one went again to the door upstairs and started coming down the stairs, and you could hear him as if he wasn't hurrying; the steps under him even groaning... Well, that one approached our door, waited, waited—the door suddenly swung wide open. We all got scared, we look—nothing... Suddenly, look, at one vat the mold (The sieve with which they scoop paper. [Note by I.S. Turgenev]) started moving, rose up, dipped, walked, walked through the air like this, as if someone was rinsing it, and then back in place. Then at another vat a hook came off a nail and 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 just fell in a heap, crawling under each other... How scared we were at that time!"
"Well now!" said Pavel. "Why did he start coughing?"
"Don't know; maybe from the dampness."
Everyone fell silent.
"Well," asked Fedya, "are the potatoes cooked?"
Pavlusha felt them.
"No, still hard... Look, it splashed," he added, turning his face toward the river, "must be a pike... And there a little star fell."
"No, I'll tell you something, brothers," Kostya began speaking in a thin voice, "listen, the other day what my father told in my presence."
"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? Here's why he's so cheerless. 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; went—God knows where he went. He walked and walked, my brothers—no! can't find the way; and night had already come. 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 again: and before him on a branch a rusalka sits, swinging and calling him to her, and she herself is dying of laughter, laughing... And the moon was shining strongly, so strongly, clearly the moon was shining—everything, my brothers, was visible. So she's calling him, and she herself is all so bright, whitish sitting on the branch, like some roach or gudgeon—or else there's carp that are so whitish, silvery... Gavrila the carpenter just froze, my brothers, and she kept laughing and calling 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 that sign, my brothers; he says his hand was just like stone, wouldn't move... Ah, you 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 weed?' And the rusalka speaks to him like this: 'If you hadn't crossed yourself,' she says, 'man, you would have lived with me in merriment till the end of days; and I'm crying, I'm grieving because you crossed yourself; but I won't be the only one grieving: grieve yourself till the end of 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 cheerless."
"Well!" said Fedya after a brief silence, "but how can such forest uncleanness spoil a Christian soul—he didn't obey her after all?"
"There you have it!" said Kostya. "And Gavrila said that her voice, like, was so thin, plaintive, like a toad's."
"Did your father tell this himself?" Fedya continued.
"Himself. I was lying on the shelf bed, heard everything."
"A strange thing! Why should he be cheerless?.. Well, she must have liked him, since she called him."
"Yes, liked him!" Ilyusha picked up. "Of course! She wanted to tickle him to death, that's what she wanted. That's their business, those rusalkas."
"And there must be rusalkas here too," Fedya remarked.
"No," answered Kostya, "this is a clean place, open. Only—the river is near."
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 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 glanced at each other, shuddered...
"The cross be with us!" whispered Ilya.
"Eh, you crows!" cried Pavel. "What are you scared of? 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 matting. 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, the breached one. That's really an unclean place, so unclean, and so gloomy. All around are ravines, gullies, and in the gullies all kinds of snakes (In Oryol dialect: serpents. [Note by I.S. Turgenev]) live."
"Well, what happened? Tell us..."
"Here's what happened. You may not know, Fedya, but there's a drowned man buried there; and he drowned a long, long time ago, when the pond was still deep; only his grave is still visible, and even that barely visible: just—a little mound... So, the other day, the steward calls the dog-keeper Ermil; says: 'Go,' he says, 'Ermil, to the post office.' Ermil always rides to the post office for us; he killed all his dogs: they don't live with him for some reason, never have lived, and he's a good dog-keeper, took it all in. So Ermil went for the post and delayed in town, but was riding back already tipsy. And it was night, and a bright night: the moon was shining... So Ermil is riding across the dam: such was his road. Riding along like this, dog-keeper Ermil, and he sees: at the drowned man's grave a little lamb, white, curly, pretty, is walking about. So Ermil thinks: 'I'll take him—why should he go to waste,' and got down and took him 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 straight in the eyes. Ermil the dog-keeper felt uneasy: 'I don't remember,' he says, 'that rams look people in the eyes like this'; however, never mind; he started stroking it along the wool—says: 'Baa, baa!' And the ram suddenly bares its teeth and says to him too: 'Baa, baa!'"
The storyteller had barely uttered this last word when suddenly both dogs rose at once, rushed away from the fire with convulsive barking and disappeared into the gloom. All the boys were frightened. Vanya jumped out from under his matting. 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 died down; Pavel's voice already came from far away... A little more time passed; the boys exchanged puzzled glances, as if waiting to see what would happen... Suddenly the tramping of a galloping horse rang out; it stopped short right at the campfire, and, clutching the mane, Pavlusha jumped off it nimbly. Both dogs also leaped into the circle of light and immediately sat down, tongues hanging out red.
"What was it? What?" 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 fast ride, glowed with bold daring and firm resolve. Without even a switch 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 here," answered Pavel, "but they're only troublesome in winter."
He settled down again before the fire. Sitting on the ground, he dropped his hand on the shaggy nape of one of the dogs, and for a long time the delighted animal did not turn its head, gazing sideways at Pavlusha with grateful pride.
Vanya huddled under his matting again.
"What scary stories 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 bark... But it's true, I've heard this place is unclean at your place."
"Varnavitsy?.. I should say! Really unclean! They say they've seen the old master many times there—the deceased master. He walks, they say, in a long-skirted coat 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 amazed Fedya.
"Yes, asked."
"Well, Trofimych is quite a fellow after that... Well, and what did he say?"
"'I'm looking for burst-grass,' he says. And speaking so hollowly, hollowly: 'Burst-grass.' 'And what do you need burst-grass for, father Ivan Ivanych?' 'The grave is pressing,' he says, 'Trofimych: it presses me. I want to get out, to get out...'"
"Well now!" 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 conviction, who, as far as I could tell, knew all the village superstitions best of all... "But on Parents' Saturday you can see a living person too, 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 watching the road. Those will pass by you on the road who, that is, are to die that year. Last year our woman Ulyana went to the porch."
"Well, and did she see anyone?" Kostya asked with curiosity.
"Of course. First of all she sat for a long, long time, didn't see or hear anyone... only it was like a little dog kept barking, barking somewhere... Suddenly, she looks: a boy is walking along the path in just a shirt. She looked closer—Ivashka Fedoseyev is walking..."
"The one who died in spring?" Fedya interrupted.
"That very one. Walking and not raising 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. And you look at her: barely holding body and soul together."
Everyone fell quiet again. Pavel threw a handful of dry twigs on the fire. They turned sharply black against the suddenly flaring flame, crackled, began smoking and curling, lifting their scorched ends. The reflection of light struck out, quivering fitfully in all directions, especially upward. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a white dove flew in—right into this reflection, wheeled fearfully in one place, all bathed in the hot glow, and disappeared, wings ringing.
"Must have strayed from home," Pavel remarked. "Now it'll fly until it bumps into something, and wherever it bumps, that's where it'll 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," Fedya began, "did you also see the heavenly portent at your Shalamovo?" (This is what our peasants call a solar eclipse. [Note by I.S. Turgenev])
"When the sun disappeared? Of course."
"I expect you were frightened too?"
"Not just us. Our master, though he explained to us beforehand that there would be, you know, a portent, but when it got dark, he himself, they say, got so scared—goodness me. And in the servants' cottage the cook woman, as soon as it got dark, you hear, took the oven fork and smashed 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 such rumors were going around, brother, that white wolves would run across the earth, would eat people, a bird of prey would fly, or they'd even see Trishka himself." (The belief about "Trishka" probably echoes the legend of the Antichrist. [Note by I.S. Turgenev])
"What Trishka is this?" asked Kostya.
"You don't know?" Ilyusha picked up with fervor. "Well, brother, where are you from that you don't know about 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'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 nothing can be done to him: he'll be such an amazing man. For example, the peasants will want to catch him; they'll come 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 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 go around the villages and towns; and this Trishka, a cunning man, will tempt the Christian people... well, but nothing can be done to him... Such an amazing, cunning man he'll be."
"Well yes," Pavel continued in his unhurried voice, "that's the one. That's who they were expecting at our place. The old people said that as soon as the heavenly portent begins, Trishka will come. So it began. All the people poured out into the street, into the field, waiting for what would happen. And at our place, you know, the spot is open, spacious. They look—suddenly from the settlement, from the hill, some man is walking, so strange, his head so amazing... Everyone shouts: 'Oh, Trishka's coming! Oh, Trishka's coming!'—and scatters in all directions! Our elder crawled into a ditch; the elder's wife got stuck in the gateway, screaming at the top of her lungs, scared her own yard dog so much that it broke off the chain and over the fence 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 frightened everyone got!.. But the man who was 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 quiet again for a moment, as often happens with people conversing in the open air. I looked around: the night stood solemnly and regally; the damp freshness of late