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Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Notes of a Hunter

Book: I.S. Turgenev. "Notes of a Hunter" Published by "Narodnaya Asveta," Minsk, 1977 OCR & SpellCheck: Zmiy (zpdd@chat.ru), December 25, 2001

Bezhin Meadow

(From the cycle "Notes of a Hunter")

It was a beautiful July day, one of those days that occur only when the weather has settled in for a long time. From earliest morning the sky is clear; the morning glow does not blaze like a fire: it spreads with a gentle blush. The sun—not fiery, not incandescent, as during a scorching drought, not dull crimson, as before a storm, but bright and welcomingly radiant—peacefully rises beneath a narrow, elongated cloud, shines freshly and plunges into its lilac mist. The upper, thin edge of the stretched cloud sparkles like little snakes; their gleam is like that of hammered silver... But now the playful rays burst forth again—and cheerfully and majestically, as if soaring upward, rises the mighty luminary. Around midday there usually appear many round, high clouds, golden-gray, with delicate white edges. Like islands scattered across an infinitely overflowing river, encircled by its deeply transparent channels of even blueness, they scarcely move from their place; farther, toward the horizon, they draw together, crowd close, and the blue between them is no longer visible; but they themselves are as azure as the sky: they are thoroughly permeated with light and warmth. The color of the horizon, light, pale lilac, does not change all 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 noticeable rain is falling. Toward evening these clouds disappear; the last of them, blackish and indefinite as smoke, lie in pink billows opposite the setting sun; at the place where it has set as calmly as it rose calmly into the sky, a scarlet glow stands for a brief time over the darkened earth, and, quietly flickering, as if carefully carried like a candle, the evening star kindles upon it. On such days all colors are softened; bright, but not vivid; everything bears the stamp of some touching gentleness. On such days the heat is sometimes very strong, sometimes it even "steams" along the slopes of the fields; but the wind disperses and pushes aside the accumulated heat, and whirlwinds—an unmistakable sign of constant weather—walk in tall white columns along the roads across the plowed land. In the dry and clean air there is a smell of wormwood, cut rye, buckwheat; even an hour before nightfall you do not feel dampness. The farmer desires such weather for harvesting grain...

On just such a day I was once hunting for black grouse in Chernsky district, Tula province. I found and shot a fair amount of game; my filled hunting 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 decided to return home. With quick 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 steep wall rose up of dense aspens. I stopped in bewilderment, looked around... "Hey!" I thought, "but I've gone completely the wrong way: I've gone too far to the right,"—and, myself marveling at my mistake, 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 up the other side and walked on, bearing to the left, along the aspen grove. Bats were already flitting above its sleeping tops, mysteriously circling and trembling against the dimly clear sky; a belated hawk flew swiftly and directly in the heights, hurrying to its nest. "As soon as I reach that corner," I thought to myself, "the road will be right there, but I've made a detour of about a verst!"

I finally reached the corner of the forest, 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! but these are the Parakhin bushes!" I exclaimed at last, "exactly! that must be Sindeyev grove... But how did I get here? So far?.. Strange! Now I need to go to the right again."

I went to the right, through the bushes. Meanwhile night was approaching and growing, like a thundercloud; it seemed that along with the evening vapors, darkness was rising from everywhere and even pouring down from above. I came upon some overgrown, little-used path; I set off along it, looking carefully ahead. Everything around quickly blackened and grew quiet—only the quails cried out from time to time. A small night bird, soundlessly and low rushing on its soft wings, almost collided with me and fearfully dove to the side. I came out to the edge of the bushes and trudged along the field by a boundary strip. Already I could barely distinguish distant objects; the field showed white indistinctly around; beyond it, advancing with every moment, gloomy darkness heaved up in enormous billows. My steps resounded dully in the stiffening air. The sky that had grown pale began to turn blue again—but now it was 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 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 offered me no sensible advice. I felt ashamed before her, and I 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 its bottom several large, white stones stood upright—it seemed they had crawled 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 out again 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—on a venture... 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 flicker, no sound was heard. One sloping hill gave way to another, fields stretched endlessly beyond fields, bushes seemed to rise suddenly from the earth right before my very nose. I kept walking and was about to lie down somewhere until morning, when suddenly I found myself above a terrible abyss.

I quickly drew 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 receding semicircle away from me; steely reflections of water, flickering rarely and dimly, marked its course. The hill on which I stood descended suddenly in an almost sheer precipice; its huge outlines stood out, blackening, from 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 as a motionless, dark mirror, under the very cliff of the hill, two fires burned and smoked side by side with red flame. People bustled around them, shadows wavered, 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 nighttime; my legs were giving way beneath 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 successfully descended, but had not yet let go of 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, 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, who were watching over a herd. In the hot summer season, horses are driven out at night to feed in the field with us: during the day flies and horseflies would give them no peace. Driving out before evening and driving in at dawn the herd—is a great holiday for peasant boys. Sitting without caps and in old sheepskins on the liveliest nags, they rush about with merry whooping and shouting, waving their arms and legs, bouncing high, laughing resonantly. Light dust rises in a yellow column and rushes along the road; the friendly tramping carries far, the horses run with pricked ears; at the very front, tail raised and constantly changing legs, gallops some reddish 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, were silent, moved aside. We talked a little. I lay down under a gnawed-at little bush and began to look around. The picture was wonderful: around the fires there trembled and as if faded away, resting against the darkness, a round reddish reflection; the flame, flaring up, occasionally cast beyond the boundary of that circle quick reflections; a thin tongue of light would lick the bare branches of the 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 wavy blaze, or all white, looking attentively and dully at us, quickly chewing the long grass, and, lowering again, would immediately hide. One could only hear how it continued to chew and snort. From the lighted place it is difficult to make out what is happening in the darkness, and therefore everything close by seemed draped with an almost black curtain; but farther toward the horizon, hills and forests 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 sound was heard around... Only occasionally in the nearby river a large fish would splash with sudden resonance and the shoreline reeds would rustle faintly, barely stirred by the approaching wave... Only the little fires crackled quietly.

The boys sat around them; the two dogs who had so wanted to eat me also sat there. They could not reconcile themselves to my presence for a long time and, sleepily squinting and looking sideways at the fire, occasionally growled with an extraordinary sense of their own dignity; first they would growl, and then whimper 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, curly blond 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 need, but just for fun. He wore a colorful calico shirt with a yellow border; a small new peasant coat, thrown on carelessly, 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, wide cheekbones, a pale, pockmarked face, a large but regular mouth, a whole head enormous, as they say, like a beer kettle, and a squat, awkward body. The lad was homely—what can you say!—but still I liked him: he looked very intelligent and direct, and there was strength sounding in his voice. He could not show off with his clothes: they consisted entirely of a simple homespun shirt and patched trousers. The face of the third, Ilyusha, was rather insignificant: hook-nosed, elongated, weak-sighted, it expressed some dull, sickly solicitude; his compressed lips did not move, his drawn brows did not part—he seemed to be constantly squinting from 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 leggings; a thick rope, wound three times around his waist, carefully tightened his neat black coat. Both he and Pavlusha appeared to be no more than twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya, a boy of about ten, aroused my curiosity with his thoughtful and 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 say 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, quietly nestled under a square mat, and only occasionally stuck out his fair curly head from under it. This boy was only about seven years old.

So, I lay under the little bush to the side and glanced at the boys. A small pot hung over one of the fires; in it "potatoes" were cooking. Pavlusha was watching over it and, standing on his knees, was poking 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 just as tensely. Kostya lowered 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 horses; but suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha and, as if renewing an interrupted conversation, asked him:

"Well, and so you actually saw 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 not only me."

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

"In the old rolling room." ("Rolling room" or "dipping room" at paper factories is what they call the building where they dip paper 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 finishers." ("Finishers" 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, and Fyodor Mikheyevsky, and Ivashka the Cross-eyed, and another Ivashka from Red Hills, and also Ivashka Sukhorukov, and there were other little boys there too; there were about ten of us boys altogether—the whole shift; but we had to spend the night in the rolling room, that is, not that it just happened, but the overseer Nazarov forbade it; he says: 'Why,' he says, 'should you boys trudge home; there's a lot of work tomorrow, so you boys don't go home.' So we stayed and were all lying together, and Avdyushka started saying, 'Well, boys, what if the house spirit comes?'... And no sooner had he, Avdey, said this, than suddenly someone above our heads started walking; but we were lying downstairs, and he was walking upstairs, by the wheel. We hear: he's walking, the boards under him are bending and creaking; then he passed over our heads; the water suddenly started rushing, rushing over the wheel; the wheel started knocking, knocking, turning; but the sluice gates at the race" ("Race" is what we call the place where the water runs onto the wheel. (Note by I.S. Turgenev.)) "are lowered. We wonder: who raised them so that the water started flowing; however, the wheel turned and turned, and stopped. Then that one went again to the door upstairs and started coming down the stairs, and comes down like this, as if not hurrying; the steps under him are even groaning... Well, that one came to our door, waited, waited—the door suddenly flung wide open. We got scared, we look—nothing... Suddenly, look, at one vat the form" (The screen with which they dip paper. (Note by I.S. Turgenev.)) "started moving, rose, dipped, walked, walked through the air, as if someone was rinsing with 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 tumbled in a heap, crawled under each other... Oh, how frightened we were at that time!"

"Well, I never!" said Pavel. "Why did he start coughing?"

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

Everyone fell silent.

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

Pavlusha felt them.

"No, still raw... Listen, it splashed," he added, turning his face toward the river, "must be a pike... And there a little star rolled down."

"No, I'll tell you what, brothers," Kostya began in a thin voice, "listen, just the other day my father told me this 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 gloomy, always silent, do you know? Here's why he's so gloomy. 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; he wandered—God knows where he wandered. He walked and walked, brothers—no! he can't find the road; and night has come. So he sat down under a tree; 'I'll wait,' he says, 'until morning,'—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, looks again: and before him on a branch a rusalka is sitting, swaying and calling him to her, and she herself is dying with laughter, laughing... And the moon is shining strongly, so strongly, clearly the moon is shining—everything, my brothers, is visible. So she's calling him, and she herself is all so bright, so white sitting on the branch, like some roach or minnow—or there's also carp that's so whitish, silvery... Gavrila the carpenter just froze, my brothers, but she just keeps laughing and calling him to her with her hand like this. Gavrila was about to get up, was about to obey the rusalka, my brothers, but—it must be 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... Oh you!.. So when he made the cross, my brothers, the rusalka stopped laughing, and suddenly started crying... She cries, my brothers, wipes 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, crying?' And the rusalka speaks to him: 'If you hadn't crossed yourself,' she says, 'you man, you would have lived with me in merriment to the end of your days; and I'm crying, I'm grieving because you crossed yourself; but not I alone will grieve: grieve you too to the end of your days.' Then she, my brothers, disappeared, and it immediately became clear to Gavrila how to get out of the forest, that is... But since then he always walks gloomy."

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

"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 gloomy?.. But it must be he pleased her, since she called him."

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

"And I suppose there must be rusalkas here too," remarked Fedya.

"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, 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!" Pavel shouted. "What are you scared of? Look, the potatoes are cooked." (Everyone moved toward 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 did you hear, boys," Ilyusha began, "what happened the other day at our place in Varnavitsy?"

"At the dam?" asked Fedya.

"Yes, yes, at the dam, at the broken one. That's really an unclean place, so unclean, and so desolate. All around are ravines, gullies, and in the gullies snakes" (In Oryol dialect: snakes. (Note by I.S. Turgenev.)) "live."

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

"Here's what happened. Maybe you don't know, Fedya, but there's a drowned man buried there; and he drowned long, long ago, when the pond was still deep; but his grave is still visible, though barely visible: just—a little mound... So, the other day, the steward calls the huntsman Ermil; he says: 'Go,' he says, 'Ermil, to the post office.' Ermil always goes to the post office for us; he's killed all his dogs: they don't live with him for some reason, never have lived, but he's a good huntsman, got everything it takes. So Ermil went for the mail, but he lingered in town, and when he rode back he was already drunk. And it was night, and a bright night: the moon was shining... So Ermil is riding across the dam: that's the way his road went. So he's riding like this, the huntsman Ermil, and he sees: at the drowned man's grave a little lamb, white, curly, pretty, is walking. So Ermil thinks: 'I'll take it,—why should it go to waste,' and he got down and picked it up... But the little lamb—nothing. So Ermil goes to his horse, and the horse shies away from him, snorts, shakes its head; however he calmed it down, sat on it with the lamb and rode again: holding the lamb in front of him. He looks at it, and the lamb looks him right in the eyes. Ermil the huntsman got scared: 'I don't remember,' he thinks, 'rams looking people 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!'"

No sooner had the storyteller uttered this last word than suddenly both dogs rose at once, rushed away from the fire with convulsive barking and disappeared into the darkness. All the boys were frightened. Vanya jumped out from under his mat. Pavlusha rushed after the dogs with a shout. Their barking quickly receded... The anxious running of the disturbed herd was heard. Pavlusha was shouting loudly: "Gray! Beetle!.." In a few moments the barking ceased; 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 abruptly right at the fire, and, clutching the mane, Pavlusha nimbly jumped off it. Both dogs also jumped into the circle of light and immediately sat down, sticking out their red tongues.

"What is 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 good at that moment. His homely face, animated by the quick ride, glowed with bold daring and firm resolution. Without a stick in his hand, at night, he had galloped alone after a wolf without the slightest hesitation... "What a splendid boy!" I thought, looking at him.

"Did you see them, the wolves?" asked the timid Kostya.

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

He settled down again by 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 burrowed under the mat again.

"What terrible things you were telling us, Ilyushka," Fedya began, to whom, as the son of a wealthy peasant, it fell to be the leader (though he himself spoke little, as if afraid of lowering his dignity). "And the unclean one made the dogs start barking... But it's true, I've heard, this place with you 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. 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 astonished Fedya.

"Yes, he asked."

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

"'Razryv grass,' he says, 'I'm looking for.' And he says it in such a muffled voice, so muffled: 'Razryv grass.' 'And what do you need razryv grass for, father Ivan Ivanych?' 'The grave is pressing,' he says, 'Trofimych: I want out, I want 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 hour," Ilyusha picked up with confidence, who, as far as I could notice, knew all the village superstitions best of all... "But on Parents' Saturday you can see the living too, those, 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 who are to die that year will walk past you on the road. Last year at our place the woman Ulyana went to the porch."

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

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

"The 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 peers and peers—oh, Lord!—she herself is walking on the road, Ulyana herself."

"Really herself?" asked Fedya.

"By God, herself."

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

"But the year hasn't passed yet. And you look at her: her soul is barely holding on."

Everyone fell silent again. Pavel threw a handful of dry twigs on the fire. They turned sharply black against the suddenly flaring flame, crackled, began to smoke and curled up, raising their burned ends. The reflection of light struck out, trembling jerkily, in all directions, especially upward. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a white dove flew in—right into this reflection, circled fearfully in one place, all bathed in the hot glow, and disappeared, its wings ringing.

"Must have strayed from home," remarked Pavel. "Now it'll fly until it bumps into something, and wherever it bumps, there it'll spend the night until 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 in Shalamovo?" (This 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?"

"Well, not just us. Our master, even though he explained to us beforehand that there would be a portent for you, when it got dark, they say he got so frightened himself, you wouldn't believe it. And in the servants' cottage the cook woman, as soon as it got dark, listen to this, she took and smashed all the pots in the oven 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 at our village, brother, such rumors were going around that white wolves would run across the earth, would eat people, a bird of prey would fly, or even Trishka himself would be seen." (The legend about "Trishka" probably echoes the tale of the Antichrist. (Note by I.S. Turgenev.))

"What Trishka is that?" asked Kostya.

"You don't know?" Ilyusha eagerly picked up. "Well, brother, where are you from that you don't know Trishka? Real stay-at-homes you have in your village, really stay-at-homes! Trishka—this will be such a remarkable man who will come; and he'll come when the last times arrive. And he'll be such a remarkable man that you won't be able to catch him, and nothing can be done to him: he'll be such a remarkable man. The peasants will want to catch him, for example; they'll come out against him with clubs, surround him, but he'll pull the wool over their eyes—pull the wool over their eyes so they'll beat each other up. They'll put him in jail, for example—he'll ask for some water to drink in a dipper: they'll bring him a dipper, and he'll dive into it and vanish without a trace. They'll put chains on him, but he'll just clap his hands—and they'll fall right off him. Well, and this Trishka will walk through villages and towns; and this Trishka, the cunning man, will tempt the Christian people... well, and nothing can be done to him... He'll be such a remarkable, cunning man."

"Well yes," Pavel continued in his unhurried voice, "that's the one. So they were waiting for him at our place. The old people said that as soon as the heavenly portent begins, Trishka will come. So the portent began. All the people poured out into the street, into the field, waiting to see what would happen. And our place, you know, is high ground, open. They look—suddenly from the village, down the hill, some kind of man is walking, such a strange one, a head so remarkable... Everyone started shouting: 'Oh, Trishka is coming! Oh, Trishka is coming!'—and everyone scattered! Our elder crawled into a ditch; his wife got stuck in the gateway, screaming bloody murder, frightened her own yard dog so much that it broke off the chain, over the fence, and into the forest; and Kuzka's father, Dorofeich, jumped into the oats, crouched down, and started crying like a quail: 'Maybe,' he says, 'the enemy, the soul-destroyer, will spare a bird at least.' That's how frightened everyone got!.. But the man walking there was our cooper, Vavila: he'd bought himself a new tub and