Capítulo 15 de 80

It was a beautiful July day, one of those days that occur only when the weather has settled for a long time. From the earliest morning the sky is clear; the morning glow does not blaze like fire: it spreads with a gentle blush. The sun—not fiery, not incandescent as during scorching drought, not dull-crimson as before a storm, but bright and welcomingly radiant—peacefully rises beneath a narrow, long cloud, shines out freshly and plunges into its lilac mist. The upper, thin edge of the stretched cloud sparkles like little snakes; their gleam resembles the gleam of wrought silver... But now the playful rays gush forth again—and cheerfully and majestically, as if soaring, the mighty luminary rises. Around midday there usually appear a multitude of round, high clouds, golden-gray, with delicate white edges. Like islands scattered across an infinitely spreading river, flowing around them in deeply transparent channels of even blueness, they scarcely move from their place; farther, toward the horizon, they draw together, crowd close, the blueness between them is no longer visible; but they themselves are as azure as the sky: they are all permeated through and through 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, nowhere does a storm gather; 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 vague as smoke, lie in pink billows opposite the setting sun; where it has set as peacefully as it peacefully rose to 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 begins to glow upon it. On such days all colors are softened; bright, but not vivid; everything bears the imprint of some touching meekness. On such days the heat is sometimes very strong, sometimes even "steams" along the slopes of fields; but the wind disperses, pushes apart the accumulated heat, and whirlwinds—an unmistakable sign of settled weather—walk in tall white columns across the roads through the plowed land. In the dry and clean air there is a smell of wormwood, harvested rye, buckwheat; even an hour before nightfall you do not feel dampness. The farmer desires such weather for gathering the grain...

It was on just such a day that I was once hunting black grouse in Chern district, Tula province. I found and shot quite a lot of game; my filled game bag was mercilessly cutting 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 resolved 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 grove rose like a steep wall. I stopped in bewilderment, looked around... "Aha!" I thought, "I've ended up in 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, gleamed white like an even tablecloth; to walk on it was somehow eerie. I quickly scrambled up the other side and walked, bearing to the left, along the aspen grove. Bats were already flitting above its sleeping treetops, mysteriously circling and trembling against the dimly-clear sky; a belated hawk flew briskly and straight in the heights, hurrying to its nest. "As soon as I reach 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 woods, but there was no road there: some unmowed, low bushes spread widely before me, and beyond them, far, far away, a deserted field was visible. I stopped again. "What's this?... Where am I?" I began to recall how and where I had walked during the day... "Ah! These are the Parakhin bushes!" I exclaimed at last, "exactly! And that must be Sindeev grove... But how did I get here? So far?... Strange!" Now I must turn 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 from above, along with the evening vapors. I came upon some trackless, overgrown path; I set off along it, looking ahead attentively. Everything around quickly blackened and grew quiet—only the quails cried occasionally. A small night bird, soundlessly and low rushing on its soft wings, almost collided with me and fearfully dove aside. I emerged at the edge of the bushes and trudged across the field along a boundary strip. Already I could distinguish distant objects with difficulty; the field gleamed white indistinctly around; beyond it, advancing with each moment, somber darkness swelled in enormous billows. My steps echoed dully in the stiffening air. The paling sky began to turn blue again—but that was already the blue of night. Little stars flickered, stirred upon it.

What I had taken for a grove turned out to be a dark, round hillock. "But where am I?" I repeated again aloud, stopped for the third time and looked questioningly at my English yellow-piebald dog Diana, decidedly the most intelligent of all four-legged creatures. But the most intelligent of four-legged creatures only wagged her tail, blinked her tired eyes sadly and gave me no sensible advice. I became ashamed before her, and desperately rushed forward, as if I had suddenly guessed where I should go, went around 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 crept together there for a secret council—and it was so mute and deaf 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 road 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 darkness, I walked straight ahead, by the stars—at random... 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 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 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 extended foot and, through the barely transparent dusk of night, saw far below me an enormous plain. A wide river encircled it in a semicircle receding from me; steely reflections of water, occasionally and dimly glimmering, marked its course. The hill on which I stood descended suddenly in an almost sheer precipice; its massive outlines stood out, blackening, against the bluish aerial void, 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 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 under me from fatigue. I decided to approach the fires and in the company of those people, whom I took for drovers, to await dawn. I descended safely, but had not yet released 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 back 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 boys from neighboring villages, watching over the herd. In the hot summer season, horses are driven out to feed in the fields at night with us: during the day flies and horseflies would give them no peace. To drive out before evening and drive in at the morning dawn the herd—is a great holiday for peasant boys. Sitting without caps and in old sheepskin coats on the liveliest little nags, they race with merry whooping and shouting, flailing their arms and legs, bouncing high, laughing ringingly. Light dust rises in a yellow column and rushes along the road; the friendly tramping carries far; the horses run with ears pricked; in front of all, having raised its tail and constantly changing legs, gallops some red shaggy horse with a 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, were silent, moved aside. We talked a little. I lay down under a gnawed-at bush and began to look around. The picture was wonderful: around the fires trembled and seemed to fade, pressing against the darkness, a round reddish reflection; the flame, flaring up, occasionally cast beyond the line of that circle quick reflections; a thin tongue of light would lick the bare branches of the 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, from the advancing darkness a horse's head would suddenly emerge, bay, with a sinuous blaze, or all white, would look at us attentively and dully, chewing long grass briskly, and, lowering again, would immediately hide. Only it was audible how it continued chewing and snorting. From the illuminated place it was difficult to make out what was happening in the darkness, and therefore close by everything seemed drawn with an almost black curtain; but farther toward the horizon, hills and woods were dimly visible in long patches. The dark, clear sky stood solemnly and immeasurably high above us with all its mysterious magnificence. The chest contracted sweetly, breathing in 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 shore reeds would rustle weakly, barely swayed by the running wave... Only the little fires crackled quietly.

The boys sat around them; the two dogs that had so wanted to eat me also sat there. For a long time they could not reconcile themselves to my presence and, squinting sleepily and glancing 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 oldest of all, Fedya, you would have given fourteen years. He was a slender boy, with handsome and delicate, somewhat small features of face, 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 fun. On him was a colorful calico shirt with a yellow border; a small new peasant coat, thrown on loosely, barely held on his narrow little shoulders; on his light-blue belt hung a comb. His boots with low tops were truly 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, a huge head, as they say, like a beer cauldron, a squat, ungainly body. The lad was unprepossessing—what can you say!—but still I liked him: he looked very intelligently and directly, and there was strength resonant in his voice. He could not boast of his clothing: it all consisted of a simple homespun shirt and patched trousers. The face of the third, Ilyusha, was rather insignificant: hook-nosed, elongated, weak-sighted, it expressed a kind of dull, sickly concern; his compressed lips did not move, his drawn brows did not part—he seemed to squint constantly from the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck up in sharp tufts from under a low felt cap, which he kept pushing onto his ears with both hands. On him were new bast shoes and foot-cloths; 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 pensive 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 of small stature, of puny build and dressed rather poorly. The last, Vanya, I did not notice at first: he lay on the ground, quietly tucked under an angular mat, and only occasionally stuck out from under it his fair curly head. 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 peasant coat spread out. Ilyusha sat beside Kostya and still squinted tensely. Kostya had lowered his head a little and was looking 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 chatted about this and that, about tomorrow's work, about horses; but suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha and, as if resuming an interrupted conversation, asked him:

"Well, and so you actually saw the house-spirit?"

"No, I didn't see him, and it's impossible to see him," answered Ilyusha in a hoarse and weak voice, the sound of which corresponded as well as possible to the expression of his face, "but I heard him... And I wasn't the only one."

"And where does he live at your place?" asked Pavlusha.

"In the old rolling room." ["Rolling room" or "scooping room" at paper mills is called the building where paper is scooped out 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 and I, Avdyushka, work as glazers." ["Glazers" smooth and scrape paper. (Note by I.S. Turgenev)]

"Well, well—factory workers!..."

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

"Well, here's how. My brother Avdyushka and I, and Fyodor Mikheyevsky, and Ivashka Kosoy, and another Ivashka, the one from Krasnye Kholmy, and Ivashka Sukhorukov too, and there were other kids there; there were about ten of us kids in all—the whole shift, you know; but we had to spend the night in the rolling room, that is, it wasn't exactly that we had to, but Nazarov, the overseer, forbade us; he says: 'What,' he says, 'you kids, should drag yourselves home; there's lots of work tomorrow, so you, kids, don't go home.' So we stayed and lay all together, and Avdyushka started saying: 'Well, kids, what if the house-spirit comes?'... And he, Avdey, had barely spoken these words, when suddenly someone above our heads started walking; but we were lying below, and he was walking above, by the wheel. We hear: he walks, 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 mill-race" ["Mill-race" is what we call the place where water runs onto the wheel. (Note by I.S. Turgenev)] "were down. We wonder: who raised them, that the water started; however, the wheel turned and turned, and stopped. Then that one went again to the door above and started going down the stairs, and you could hear him, as if he wasn't hurrying; the steps under him even groaned... Well, that one approached our door, waited, waited—the door suddenly flung wide open. We were frightened, we look—nothing... Suddenly, look, at one vat the mold" [The screen with which paper is scooped. (Note by I.S. Turgenev)] "stirred, rose, dipped, walked, walked through the air, as if someone was rinsing it, and 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 some sheep, and so loudly... We all fell in a heap, crawled under each other... How frightened we were at that time!"

"Well, well!" 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 raw... Look, it splashed," he added, turning his face toward the river, "must be a pike... And there a little star rolled."

"No, I'll tell you something, brothers," Kostya began in a thin voice, "listen, the other day what my dad 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."

"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 dad was saying,—he went, my brothers, into the forest for nuts. So he went into the forest for nuts and got lost; he went—God knows where he went. He walked and walked, brothers—no! can't find the road; and night is already upon him. So he sat down under a tree; 'I'll wait,' he says, 'for 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, swinging and calling him to herself, and she's dying of laughter, laughing... And the moon is shining strongly, so strongly, clearly the moon is shining—everything, brothers, is visible. So she's calling him, and she herself is all bright, whitish sitting on the branch, like some bleak or minnow,—or else there's carp that's such a whitish, silvery one... Gavrila the carpenter just froze, brothers, and she keeps laughing and calling him to herself with her hand. Gavrila was about to get up, was about to obey the rusalka, brothers, but, you know, the Lord put it into his mind: he made the sign of the cross on himself... And how hard it was for him to make the cross, brothers; he says, his hand was simply like stone, wouldn't turn... Ah, you devil!.. So when he made the cross, brothers, the little rusalka stopped laughing, and suddenly how she started crying... She's crying, 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 to the end of your days; and I'm crying, grieving because you crossed yourself; but not I alone will grieve: grieve you too to the end of your days.' Then she, brothers, vanished, 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?"

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

"Your father told this himself?" continued Fedya.

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

"A strange thing! Why should he be cheerless?... Well, evidently, he pleased her, since she called him."

"Yes, pleased her!" Ilyusha picked up. "Of course! She wanted to tickle him to death, that's what she wanted. That's their business, these rusalkas."

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

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

Everyone fell silent. Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, rang out a prolonged, resonant, almost moaning sound, one of those incomprehensible night sounds that sometimes arise amid deep silence, rise, 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 exchanged glances, shuddered...

"The cross be with us!" whispered Ilya.

"Eh, you crows!" shouted Pavel. "What are you frightened 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 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 are such ravines, gullies, and in the gullies all kinds of serpents" [In Orel dialect: snakes. (Note by I.S. Turgenev)] "live."

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

"Well, here's what happened. You, Fedya, maybe don't know, but there at our place a drowned man is buried; 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 killed all his dogs: they don't live with him for some reason, just never lived, but he's a good dog-keeper, everyone admits. So Ermil went for the post, but he 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. Riding along like this, the dog-keeper Ermil, and he sees: on the drowned man's grave a little lamb, white, curly, pretty, is walking. So Ermil thinks: 'I'll take him,—why should he perish like that,' and he got down and took him in his arms... But the lamb—nothing. So Ermil goes to the 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 off again: holding the lamb in front of himself. He looks at it, and the lamb looks him straight in the eyes. Ermil the dog-keeper felt eerie: 'I don't remember,' he thinks, 'rams looking people in the eye like that'; however, nothing; he started stroking it like this on the wool,—he says: 'Baa, baa!' And the ram suddenly bares its teeth and says back to him: '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 darkness. All the boys were frightened. Vanya jumped out from under his mat. Pavlusha with a shout rushed after the dogs. 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 came already from afar... 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 fire, and, clutching the mane, Pavlusha nimbly jumped off it. 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, "just, the dogs scented something. I thought, wolf," he added in an indifferent voice, breathing quickly with his whole chest.

I involuntarily admired Pavlusha. He was very good 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 at 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 lots of them here," answered Pavel, "but they're troublesome only 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 didn't turn its head, looking sideways at Pavlusha with grateful pride.

Vanya hid again under the mat.

"What scary 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 place at your place is unclean."

"Varnavitsy?... I should say so! Really 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. Grandfather Trofimych met him once: '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 one after that... Well, and what did that one say?"

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

"Well, well!" remarked Fedya, "he must not have lived 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 best... "But on Parents' Saturday you can see even the living one 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 pass you by on the road who are to die that year. Last year old woman Ulyana went to the porch."

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

"Of course. First she sat for a long, long time, didn't see or hear anyone... only it was as if a little dog kept 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?" Fedya interrupted.

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

"Really herself?" asked Fedya.

"By God, herself."

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

"But the year hasn't passed. And you look at her: her soul is barely clinging to 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 light struck out, trembling fitfully, in all directions, especially upward. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a white dove—flew right into this reflection, fearfully whirled in one spot, all bathed in the hot glow, and disappeared, ringing its wings.

"Must have strayed from home," Pavel remarked. "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.

"And tell me, please, Pavlusha," Fedya began, "did you also see the heavenly portent in Shalamovo?" [This is what peasants call a solar eclipse in our region. (Note by I.S. Turgenev)]

"When the sun disappeared? Of course."

"Were you frightened too?"

"Well, not just us. Our master, though he explained to us beforehand that, you know, there will be a portent for you, but when it got dark, he himself, they say, got so frightened, you wouldn't believe it. And in the servants' quarters the cook woman, as soon as it got dark, you hear, she up and smashed all the pots in the stove with the poker: '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 would even see Trishka himself." [In the belief about "Trishka," the legend about the antichrist probably echoes. (Note by I.S. Turgenev)]

"What Trishka is that?" asked Kostya.

"Don't you know?" Ilyusha picked up with heat. "Well, brother, where are you from, that you don't know Trishka? Real stay-at-homes sit 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 they won't be able to catch him, and they won't be able to do anything to him: he will be such an amazing man. For example, peasants will want to catch him; they'll come out at him with clubs, surround him, but he'll pull the wool over their eyes—pull it over 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 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, a crafty man, will tempt the Christian people... well, but they won't be able to do anything to him... He will be such an amazing, crafty man."

"Well yes," Pavel continued in his unhurried voice, "that's him. That's who they were waiting for at our place. The old folks 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 place is visible, open. They look—suddenly from the settlement down the hill comes some kind of man, so strange, head so amazing... Everyone started yelling: '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, frightened her own yard dog so much that it broke off the chain, over the wattle fence, and into the forest; and Kuzka's father, Dorofeich, jumped into the oats, crouched down, and started crying like a quail: 'Maybe,' he says, 'the enemy, the murderer, will at least spare a bird.' That's how frightened everyone was!.. And 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 silent again for a moment, as often happens with people conversing in the open air. I looked around: night stood solemnly and majestically; the damp freshness of late