Capítulo 19 de 80

I finally reached the edge 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... "Eh! This is Parakhin bushes! -- I finally exclaimed, -- exactly! That over there must be Sindeyev grove... But how did I end up here? So far?.. Strange!" Now I needed to turn right again. I went right, through the bushes. Meanwhile night was approaching and growing like a thundercloud; it seemed that together with the evening vapors, darkness was rising from everywhere and even pouring down from above. I came upon some little-used, overgrown path; I set off along it, looking ahead attentively. Everything around was rapidly blackening and quieting, -- only the quails occasionally cried out. A small night bird, rushing silently and low on its soft wings, almost collided with me and timidly dove aside. I emerged at the edge of the bushes and wandered across the field along a boundary strip. I could already barely distinguish distant objects; the field whitened indistinctly around; beyond it, with each moment advancing, gloomy darkness heaved up 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 and round hillock. "But where am I?" -- I repeated again aloud, stopped for the third time and looked questioningly at my English setter bitch Diana, decidedly the most intelligent of all four-legged creatures. But the most intelligent of four-legged creatures only wagged her tail, blinked sadly with tired eyes and offered me no sensible advice. I felt ashamed before her, and desperately rushed forward, as if I had suddenly guessed which way I should go, went around the hillock and found myself in a shallow, plowed-all-around hollow. A strange feeling immediately seized me. This hollow had the appearance of an almost regular cauldron with sloping sides; at its bottom several large, white stones stuck up -- it seemed they had crawled there for a secret council, -- and it was so mute and dead there, the sky hung over it so flat, so drearily, that my heart contracted. Some little animal squeaked weakly and plaintively 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 gloom, I walked straight ahead, by the stars -- at random... For about half an hour I walked thus, moving my feet with difficulty. It seemed I had never been in such empty places: nowhere did a light glimmer, no sound was heard. One gentle hill succeeded another, fields stretched endlessly beyond fields, bushes seemed to rise suddenly from the earth right before my nose. I kept walking and was already about to lie down somewhere until morning, when suddenly I found myself above a terrible abyss. I quickly pulled back my raised foot and, through the barely transparent twilight of night, saw far below me an enormous plain. A wide river encircled it in a semicircle receding from me; steel reflections of water, rarely and dimly gleaming, marked its course. The hill on which I stood descended suddenly in an almost sheer precipice; its huge 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. Around them people bustled, shadows swayed, sometimes the front half of a small curly head was brightly illuminated... I finally recognized where I had ended up. 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 wait for dawn. I descended successfully, 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 sounded around the fires; two or three boys quickly rose from the ground. I responded to their questioning shouts. 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 boys from neighboring villages, who were watching over a herd. In the hot summer season horses are driven out at night to feed in the field: during the day flies and gadflies would give them no peace. To drive out before evening and bring back at early dawn the herd -- is a great holiday for peasant boys. Sitting without caps and in old sheepskin coats on the liveliest nags, they rush with merry whooping and shouting, waving their arms and legs, bouncing high, laughing loudly. Light dust rises in a yellow column and races along the road; the friendly tramping carries far, horses run with pricked ears; ahead of all, with tail raised and constantly changing legs, gallops some red shaggy horse with burrs 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 bush and began to look around. The picture was wonderful: around the fires a round reddish reflection trembled and seemed to freeze, resting against the darkness; the flame, flaring up, occasionally threw beyond the edge of that circle quick reflections; a thin tongue of light would lick the bare branches of willow and immediately disappear; sharp, long shadows, bursting in for an instant, 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 winding blaze, or all white, would look at us attentively and dully, vigorously chewing long grass, and, lowering again, would immediately hide. One could only hear it continuing to chew and snort. From the illuminated place it was difficult to make out what was happening in the darkness, and therefore close by everything seemed draped with an almost black curtain; 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. The chest contracted sweetly, breathing in that special, languid and fresh smell -- the smell of a Russian summer night. Almost no sound was heard around... Only occasionally in the nearby river a large fish would splash with sudden resonance and the riverside reeds would rustle weakly, barely stirred 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 sat there too. They could not reconcile themselves to my presence for a long time and, sleepily squinting and glancing sidelong at the fire, occasionally growled with unusual self-importance; 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 oldest of all, Fedya, you would have given fourteen years. This was a slender boy, with handsome and delicate, slightly small features, curly blond hair, bright eyes and a constant half-merry, 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. He wore a colorful cotton 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 definitely his boots -- not his father's. The second boy, Pavlusha, had tousled, black hair, gray eyes, broad cheekbones, a pale, pockmarked face, a large but regular mouth, a huge head, as they say, like a beer kettle, a squat, clumsy body. The lad was homely, -- what can you say! -- but still I liked him: he looked very intelligent and direct, and strength sounded in his voice. He could not show off with his clothing: it all consisted 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 some dull, sickly anxiety; his compressed lips did not move, his drawn brows did not separate -- he seemed to squint constantly at the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck out in sharp spikes from under a low felt cap, which he kept pulling down over his ears with both hands. He wore new bast shoes and leg wrappings; a thick rope, wrapped three times around his waist, carefully tightened his neat black jacket. Both he and Pavlusha appeared to be no more than twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya, a boy of about ten, aroused my curiosity with his thoughtful and sad gaze. His whole face was small, thin, freckled, pointed at the bottom, like a squirrel's; his lips could barely be distinguished; but his large, black eyes, shining with a liquid gleam, 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 frail build and dressed rather poorly. The last, Vanya, I did not notice at first: he was lying on the ground, meekly curled up 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 one side and glanced at the boys. A small pot hung over one of the fires; in it "taters" 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 next to Kostya and still squinted tensely. Kostya hung his head a little 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 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 so you really saw the house spirit?" "No, I didn't see him, and he can't be seen," 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 not just me alone." "And 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 paper is scooped out in vats. It is located right at the dam, under the wheel. (Note by I.S. Turgenev.)} "So you go to the factory?" "Of course we go. 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. "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 also Ivashka Sukhorukov, and there were other lads there too; there were about ten of us lads altogether -- the whole shift, that is; but we had to spend the night in the rolling room, that is, not that we had to exactly, but Nazarov, the overseer, forbade us; he says: 'What,' he says, 'are you lads going to drag yourselves home for; there's a lot of work tomorrow, so you lads don't go home.' So we stayed and were all lying together, and Avdyushka started saying that, well, what if the house spirit comes?.. And no sooner had he, Avdey that is, spoken those words, than suddenly someone started walking above our heads; but we were lying below, and he was walking above, by the wheel. We hear: he walks, and the boards under him bend and creak; then he passed over our heads; the water suddenly started rushing and rushing over the wheel; the wheel began knocking, knocking, turning; but the sluice gates at the sluice were lowered. We wonder: who raised them, that the water started flowing; however, the wheel turned, turned, and stopped. That one went again to the door above and started coming down the stairs, and you could hear he was taking his time; the steps under him even groaned... Well, that one came to our door, waited, waited -- the door suddenly flew wide open. We panicked, we look -- nothing... Suddenly, look, at one vat the mold started moving, rose up, dipped, moved around, moved around in the air, as if someone was rinsing with it, and back to its place. Then at another vat a hook came off a nail and back onto the nail; then as if someone went to the door and suddenly started coughing, choking, like some sheep, and so loudly... How frightened we were at that time!" "Well!" remarked Pavel. "Why did he start coughing?" "Don't know; maybe from the dampness." All fell silent. "Well," asked Fedya, "are the potatoes cooked?" Pavlusha felt them. "No, still raw... Look, it splashed," he added, turning his face in the direction of the river, "must be a pike... And there a little star fell." "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 him." "And do you know why he's always so gloomy, always silent, you know? Here's why he's so gloomy. He went once, my dad said, -- he went, my brothers, to the forest for nuts. So he went to the forest for nuts and got lost; he wandered -- God knows where he wandered. He walked and walked, brothers, -- no! can't find the road; and it's already night. So he sat down under a tree; I'll wait, he says, till morning, -- sat down and dozed off. So he dozed off and suddenly hears someone calling him. He looks -- nobody. He dozed off again -- called again. He looks again, looks: and before him on a branch sits a rusalka, swinging and calling him to her, and she's dying of laughter, laughing... And the moon was shining strongly, so strongly, clearly the moon was shining -- everything, brothers, was visible. So she calls him, and she herself is all so bright, so white sitting on the branch, like some roach or gudgeon, -- or else there's carp like that, whitish, silver... Gavrila the carpenter just froze, brothers, but she kept laughing and calling him to her with her hand. Gavrila was about to get up, to obey the rusalka, brothers, but, must be, the Lord put sense into him: he managed to cross himself... And how hard it was for him to make that cross, brothers; he says, his hand was just like stone, wouldn't move... Oh, you devil, eh!.. So when he made the cross, brothers, the rusalka stopped laughing, and suddenly started crying... She cries, brothers, wipes her eyes with her hair, and her hair is green, like hemp. So Gavrila looked, looked at her, and started asking her: 'Why are you crying, forest creature?' And the rusalka spoke to him: 'If you hadn't crossed yourself,' she says, 'you man, you would have lived with me in merriment till the end of your days; but I cry, I grieve because you crossed yourself; but I won't be the only one to grieve: grieve you too till the end of your days.' Then she, brothers, disappeared, and Gavrila immediately understood how to get out of the forest, that is... But since then he goes around always gloomy." "Well!" said Fedya after a short silence, "but how can such forest uncleanness spoil a Christian soul, -- he didn't obey her?" "But 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 shelf, heard everything." "A strange thing! Why should he be gloomy?.. Well, must be, he pleased her, that she called him." "Yes, pleased!" picked up Ilyusha. "How so! She wanted to tickle him to death, that's what she wanted. That's their business, these rusalkas." "But there must be rusalkas here too," remarked Fedya. "No," answered Kostya, "here the place is clean, open. Only -- the river's near." All fell silent. Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, a long, ringing, almost wailing sound rang out, one of those incomprehensible night sounds that sometimes arise amid deep silence, rise, 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 cried out for a long, long time under the very horizon, someone else seemed to answer him in the forest with thin, sharp laughter, and a weak, hissing whistle rushed along the river. The boys exchanged glances, shuddered... "The holy cross be with us!" whispered Ilya. "Eh, you crows!" shouted Pavel. "Why did you panic? 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. "But have you heard, lads," began Ilyusha, "what happened the other day at our Varnavitsy?" "At the dam?" asked Fedya. "Yes, yes, at the dam, at the broken one. Now that's an unclean place, so unclean, and so desolate. All around are ravines, gullies, and in the gullies snakes live." "Well, what happened? tell us..." "Here's what happened. Maybe you don't know, Fedya, but a drowned man is buried there; and he drowned a long, long time ago, when the pond was still deep; but his grave is still visible, though barely visible: just -- a little mound... So, the other day, the steward calls the dog-keeper Ermil; says: 'Go,' he says, 'Ermil, to get the mail.' Ermil always goes for the mail; he killed all his dogs somehow: they don't live with him for some reason, never have lived, but he's a good dog-keeper, got everything. So Ermil went for the mail, 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 was his road. Riding along like this, the 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 perish like that,' 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 right in the eyes. Ermil the dog-keeper got scared: 'I don't remember,' he thinks, 'rams looking anyone in the eyes like that'; however, nothing; he started stroking it like this on the wool, -- says: 'Baa, baa!' And the ram suddenly bares its teeth and says to him too: 'Baa, baa!..'" The storyteller had not yet finished speaking 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 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 stopped; Pavel's voice already came from far away... A little more time passed; the boys exchanged puzzled glances, as if waiting for what would happen... Suddenly the tramping of a galloping horse rang out; it stopped abruptly 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, tongues hanging out. "What's there? what?" asked the boys. "Nothing," answered Pavel, waving his hand at the horse, "just, the dogs scented something. I thought, a wolf," he added in an indifferent voice, breathing rapidly with his whole chest. I involuntarily admired Pavlusha. He was very fine at that moment. His homely face, animated by the quick ride, glowed with bold daring and firm resolve. Without even a stick in his hand, at night, he had galloped alone after a wolf without the slightest hesitation... "What a splendid boy!" I thought, looking at him. "Did you see them, the wolves?" asked the coward Kostya. "There's always a lot of them here," answered Pavel, "but they're only troublesome in winter." He settled down again before the fire. Sitting on the ground, he let his hand fall 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 buried himself under the mat again. "What terrible things you were telling us, Ilyushka," began Fedya, who, as the son of a wealthy peasant, had to be the ringleader (though he himself spoke little, as if afraid of lowering his dignity). "And the devil made the dogs bark... But truly, I've heard, that place of yours is unclean." "Varnavitsy?.. I should say so! very unclean! They say the old master has been seen there many times -- the late master. He walks, they say, in a long-skirted caftan and keeps groaning like this, looking for something on the ground. Once grandfather Trofimych met him: 'What,' he says, 'your honor, 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 he say?" "'Break-grass,' he says, 'I'm looking for. -- And he spoke so hollowly, hollowly: -- Break-grass.' -- 'And what do you need break-grass for, father Ivan Ivanovich?' -- 'The grave,' he says, 'is pressing, Trofimych: I want out, I want out...'" "Well!" remarked Fedya, "must be, he didn't live long enough." "What a wonder!" said Kostya. "I thought you could only see the dead on Ancestor's Saturday." "You can see the dead any time," Ilyusha picked up with confidence, who, as far as I could tell, knew all the village superstitions better than the others... "But on Ancestor's Saturday you can also see the living, 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, that is. Last year our woman Ulyana went to the porch." "Well, and did she see anyone?" asked Kostya with curiosity. "Of course. First she sat for a long, long time, didn't see or hear anyone... only it was as if a little dog kept barking, barking somewhere... Suddenly, she looks: walking along the path is a boy in just a shirt. She looked closer -- it's Ivashka Fedoseyev walking..." "The one who died in spring?" interrupted Fedya. "That very one. He's walking and doesn't raise his little head... And Ulyana recognized him... But then she looks: a woman is walking. She kept looking and looking, -- oh Lord! -- she herself is walking on the road, Ulyana herself." "Really herself?" asked Fedya. "God's truth, herself." "Well what of it, she hasn't died yet?" "But the year hasn't passed yet. And you look at her: what's keeping her soul in her body." All grew quiet again. Pavel threw a handful of dry twigs on the fire. They stood out sharply black against the suddenly flaring flame, crackled, smoked and began to warp, lifting their scorched ends. The reflection of light struck out, trembling convulsively, in all directions, especially upward. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a white dove -- flew right into this reflection, circled fearfully in one spot, bathed all over in the hot radiance, and disappeared, wings ringing. "Must have strayed from home," remarked Pavel. "Now it'll fly until it bumps into something, and where it bumps, there 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 finally said. "But tell me, please, Pavlusha," began Fedya, "did you also see the heavenly foreboding in your Shalamovo?" {"Foreboding" is what our peasants call a solar eclipse. (Note by I.S. Turgenev.)} "When the sun disappeared? Of course." "I bet you were frightened too?" "Not just us. Our master, though he explained to us beforehand that, they say, there'll be a foreboding for you, but when it got dark, he himself, they say, got so scared. And in the servants' cottage the cook woman, as soon as it got dark, listen to this, took the oven fork and smashed all the pots in the oven: 'Who's going to eat now,' she says, 'it's the end of the world.' So the cabbage soup just flowed out. And in our village, brother, such rumors were going around, that, they say, white wolves will run over the earth, will eat people, a bird of prey will fly, or they'll even see Trishka himself." {"Trishka" probably echoes the legend of the antichrist. (Note by I.S. Turgenev.)} "What's this Trishka?" asked Kostya. "Don't you know?" Ilyusha picked up eagerly. "Well, brother, where are you from that you don't know about Trishka? Real stay-at-homes you are in your village, that's for sure! Trishka -- he'll be such an amazing man who will come; and he'll come when the last times arrive. And he'll be such an amazing man that you won't be able to catch him, and you won't be able to do anything to him: he'll be such an amazing man. For instance, peasants will want to catch him; they'll come out after him with clubs, surround him, but he'll trick their eyes -- trick them so they'll beat each other. They'll put him in jail, for instance, -- 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, and he'll just clap his hands -- and they'll fall right off him. Well, and this Trishka will go around villages and towns; and this Trishka, the cunning man, will tempt the Christian people... well, but you won't be able 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 folk said that as soon as, they say, the heavenly foreboding starts, Trishka will come. So the foreboding started. All the people poured out into the street, into the field, waiting to see what would happen. And our place, you know, is visible, spacious. They look -- suddenly from the settlement, down the hill, walks some man, so strange, with such an amazing head... Everyone shouted: 'Oh, Trishka's coming! Oh, Trishka's coming!' -- and scattered in all directions! Our elder crawled into a ditch; the elder's wife got stuck in the gate, screaming bloody murder, scared her own yard dog so much that it broke 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 murderer, will at least spare a bird.' That's how frightened everyone was!.. But that 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 solemn and majestic; the damp freshness of late evening had been replaced by midnight's dry warmth, and it would lie for a long time yet as a soft blanket on the sleeping fields; much time remained before the first chirping, before the first rustlings and whispers of morning, before the first dewdrops of dawn. There was no moon in the sky: it rose late at that time. Countless golden stars seemed to flow quietly, all vying with each other in twinkling, in the direction of the Milky Way, and truly, looking at them, you seemed to feel dimly yourself the swift, unstoppable course of the earth... A strange, sharp, painful cry rang out suddenly twice in succession over the river and, after a few moments, repeated already farther away... Kostya shuddered. "What's that?" "That's a heron crying," Pavel calmly objected. "A heron," repeated Kostya... "But what was it, Pavlusha, that I heard yesterday evening," he added, after a brief silence, "maybe you know..." "What did you hear?" "Here's what I heard. I was walking from Stone Ridge to Shashkino; and I walked first all through our hazel grove, and then I went through a meadow -- you know, where it comes out in a sharp bend, -- there's a pit there, you know; it's still all overgrown with reeds; so I was walking past this pit, brothers, and suddenly from that pit someone starts groaning, and so pitifully, pitifully: oo-oo... oo-oo... oo-oo! Such fear seized me, brothers: it was late, and the voice was so sickly. I felt I could cry myself... What could that have been? eh?" "In that pit last year thieves drowned Akim the forester," remarked Pavel, "so maybe it's his soul complaining." "Well, maybe so, brothers," answered Kostya, widening his already enormous eyes... "I didn't know that Akim was drowned in that pit: I would have been even more frightened." "And then, they say, there are such tiny frogs," Pavel continued, "that cry so pitifully." "Frogs? Well, no, that wasn't frogs... what kind of... (The heron cried out again over the river.) There it goes!" Kostya involuntarily said, "like a wood goblin crying." "A wood goblin doesn't cry, he's mute," Ilyusha picked up, "he only claps his hands and rattles..." "And have you seen him, the wood goblin?" Fedya interrupted him mockingly. "No, haven't seen him, and God preserve 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, and all around one clearing... He barely made it home by daylight." "Well, and did he see him?" "He saw him. Says he stood big, big, dark, wrapped up, like behind a tree, you can't make him out well, like he's hiding from the moon, and stares, stares with those great big 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 don't understand, really!" "Don't curse, watch out, he'll hear," remarked Ilya. Silence fell again. "Look, look, lads," Vanya's childish voice suddenly rang out, "look at God's little stars, -- like bees swarming!" 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 spoke affectionately, "is your sister Anyutka well?" "She's well," answered Vanya, lisping slightly. "You tell her -- why doesn't she come to us?..." "Don't know." "You tell her to come." "I'll tell her." "You tell her I'll give her a treat." "And will you give me one?" "I'll give you one too." Vanya sighed. "Well, no, I don't need one. Give it