来自：A Sportsman's Sketches
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 was clear; the dawn did not blaze like a fire: it spread in 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 rose beneath a narrow and long cloud, freshly shone and sank into its violet mist. The upper, thin edge of the stretched cloud sparkled like serpents; their gleam resembled the gleam of forged silver... But then again the playful rays poured forth—and cheerfully and majestically, as if soaring upward, the mighty luminary rose. Around midday there usually appeared a multitude of 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 almost did not move from their place; farther, toward the horizon, they drew together, crowded, the blue between them no longer visible; but they themselves were as azure as the sky: they were all thoroughly permeated with light and warmth. The color of the horizon, light, pale-violet, did not change all day and was the same all around; nowhere did it darken, nowhere did a storm gather; only here and there bluish stripes stretched from top to bottom: barely perceptible rain was falling. Toward evening these clouds disappeared; the last of them, blackish and indistinct as smoke, lay in rosy billows opposite the setting sun; at the place where it set as calmly as it had calmly risen in the sky, a crimson radiance stood for a brief time over the darkened earth, and, quietly twinkling like a carefully carried candle, the evening star began to glow 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 even "steaming" along the slopes of the fields; but the wind disperses and parts 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 pure air there is a smell of wormwood, harvested rye, buckwheat; even an hour before night you do not feel dampness. Such weather is what the farmer desires for harvesting grain... On just such a day I was once hunting black grouse in Chern district, Tula province. I had found and shot quite a lot of game; my filled game bag mercilessly cut into my shoulder; but already the evening glow had faded, and in the air, still light, though no longer illuminated by the rays of the set sun, cold shadows began to thicken and spread, when I finally decided to return home. With rapid steps I passed through a long "expanse" 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, I 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 and 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. I was immediately enveloped by an unpleasant, motionless dampness, as if I had entered a cellar; the thick, tall grass at the bottom of the valley, all wet, showed white like an even tablecloth; walking on it was somehow eerie. I quickly scrambled to the other side and walked, bearing to the left, along the aspen grove. Bats were already flitting above its sleeping tops, mysteriously circling and trembling against the vaguely clear sky; a belated hawk flew swiftly and directly overhead, 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 unmown, low bushes spread widely before me, and beyond them, far, far away, a deserted field was visible. I stopped again. "What on earth?.. Where am I?" I began to recall how and where I had walked during the day... "Eh! These are the Parakhin bushes!"—I finally exclaimed—"Exactly! That must be Sindeev grove... But how did I get here? So far?.. Strange!" Now I needed to 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 down from above, along with the evening vapors. I came upon some unused, overgrown path; I set off along it, looking carefully ahead. Everything around quickly darkened and fell silent—only quails cried out occasionally. A small night bird, flying 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 a field along a boundary strip. Already I could barely distinguish distant objects; the field showed white unclearly all around; beyond it, with each moment advancing, gloomy darkness heaved up in enormous billows. My steps echoed dully in the congealing air. The pale 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 mound. "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, sadly blinked her tired eyes and offered me no sensible advice. I felt ashamed before her, and I desperately rushed forward, as if I had suddenly guessed which way I should go, circled the mound 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 stood upright—it seemed they had crawled there for a secret council—and it was so mute and dead in it, the sky hung so flatly, so dismally over it, that my heart contracted. Some small animal weakly and pitifully squeaked among the stones. I hastened to get back out onto the mound. Until now I had still not lost hope of finding the road home; but here I finally became completely certain that I was utterly lost, and, no longer trying at all to recognize the surrounding places, almost completely drowned in the gloom, I walked straight ahead, by the stars—at random... For about half an hour I walked thus, barely moving my legs. 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 ground right before my nose. I kept walking and was already preparing to lie down somewhere until morning, when I suddenly 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 semicircle receding from me; steely reflections of water, occasionally and dimly glimmering, marked its current. The hill on which I stood descended suddenly in an almost sheer precipice; its huge outlines stood out, blackening, against the bluish aerial void, and directly below me, in the angle formed by that precipice and the plain, beside the river, which in this place stood like a motionless, dark mirror, beneath the very cliff of the hill, two fires burned and smoked side by side with a red flame. People bustled around them, 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 buckling under me from fatigue. I decided to approach the fires and in the company of those people, whom I took to be 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 cries. They ran up to me, immediately called back the dogs, which were especially struck by the appearance of my Diana, and I approached them. I had been mistaken in taking the people sitting around those fires for drovers. These were simply peasant children from neighboring villages who were watching the herd. In the hot summer season horses are driven out to graze in the fields at night 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 sheepskin coats on the liveliest nags, they rush with merry whooping and shouting, waving 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 pricked ears; ahead of them all, tail raised and constantly changing legs, gallops some red shaggy horse with burdock in its tangled mane. I told the boys that I had gotten lost and sat down beside them. They asked me where I was from, fell silent, made room. We talked a little. I lay down under a gnawed bush and began to look around. The picture was wonderful: around the fires trembled and seemed to freeze, resting against the darkness, a round reddish reflection; the flame, flaring up, occasionally cast beyond the boundary of that circle quick glints; 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 turn ran right up to the fires: darkness struggled with light. Sometimes, when the flame burned weaker and the circle of light narrowed, from the advancing darkness a horse's head would suddenly appear, bay with a winding blaze, or all white, attentively and dully looking at us, briskly chewing long grass, and, lowering again, would immediately hide. Only the sound of its continued chewing and snorting could be heard. From an illuminated place it was difficult to make out what was happening in the darkness, and therefore nearby everything seemed draped with an almost black curtain; but farther toward the horizon hills and forests were vaguely visible in long patches. The dark clear sky stood solemnly and immeasurably high above us with all its mysterious magnificence. The chest contracted sweetly, inhaling that special, languorous and fresh smell—the smell of a Russian summer night. Almost no sound was heard all around... Only occasionally in the nearby river a large fish would splash with sudden resonance and the shore reeds would rustle weakly, barely stirred by the running wave... Only the fires crackled quietly. The boys sat around them; the two dogs that 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 glancing sideways at the fire, occasionally growled with an extraordinary sense of their own dignity; first they would growl, 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. This was a slender boy, with handsome and delicate, somewhat small features, curly blond hair, light eyes and a constant half-cheerful, half-distracted smile. He belonged, by all signs, to a wealthy family and had ridden out to the field not from necessity, but just for amusement. He wore a colorful calico shirt with a yellow border; a small new coat, thrown on carelessly, barely held on his narrow little shoulders; a comb hung on his light-blue belt. His boots with low tops were precisely 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 cauldron, 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 in his voice. He could not boast of his clothing: it consisted entirely of a simple homespun shirt and patched trousers. The face of the third, Ilyusha, was rather insignificant: hook-nosed, drawn out, nearsighted, it expressed some dull, sickly anxiety; his compressed lips did not move, his drawn brows did not part—he seemed to squint constantly at the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck out in sharp tufts from under a low felt cap, which he kept pulling down over his ears with both hands. He wore new bast shoes and leg wrappings; a thick rope, wound three times around his waist, carefully cinched 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 small in stature, of puny build and dressed rather poorly. The last, Vanya, I did not notice at first: he lay on the ground, quietly huddled 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 "potatoes" were cooking. Pavlusha watched over it and, kneeling, poked a stick into the boiling water. Fedya lay propped on his elbow with the flaps of his coat spread out. Ilyusha sat beside Kostya and still squinted tensely. Kostya lowered his head slightly and looked somewhere into the distance. Vanya did not stir under his mat. I pretended to be sleeping. Little by little 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 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 I wasn't the only one." "And where does he live at your place?"—asked Pavlusha. "In the old rolling room." (On paper mills the building where they scoop paper in vats is called a "rolling room" or "scooping room." It is located right at the dam, under the wheel. Author's note.) "Do you work at the factory?" "Of course. My brother Avdyushka and I are employed as finishers." (Finishers smooth and scrape paper. Author's note.) "Well, well—factory workers!.." "Well, so how did you hear him?"—asked Fedya. "Well, here's how. My brother Avdyushka and I had to stay, along with Fyodor Mikheevsky, and Ivashka the Cross-eyed, and another Ivashka from Red Hills, and also Ivashka Sukhorukov, and there were other boys there too; there were about ten of us boys altogether—the whole shift, that is; but we had to spend the night in the rolling room, that is, not exactly had to, but Nazarov, the overseer, forbade it; he says: 'What,' he says, 'you boys going home; there's a lot of work tomorrow, so you boys don't go home.' So we stayed and lay all together, and Avdyushka began to say, like, 'Well, boys, what if the house spirit comes?'... And no sooner had he, Avdey, said this, than suddenly someone started walking above our heads; but we were lying below, and he was walking above, by the wheel. We hear: he's walking, the boards under him bending and creaking; then he passed over our heads; the water suddenly started rushing, rushing over the wheel; the wheel started knocking, knocking, turning; but the sluice gates at the race were 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 wasn't hurrying; the steps under him actually groaning... Well, that one approached our door, waited, waited—the door suddenly flung wide open. We panicked, we look—nothing... Suddenly, look, at one vat the form started moving, lifted, dipped, walked, walked through the air like 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... How we all piled up 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... Listen, it splashed,"—he added, turning his face toward the river—"must be a pike... And there a little star fell." "No, let me tell you something, brothers,"—Kostya began speaking in a thin voice—"listen, the other day what my father told me when I was there." "Well, we're listening,"—said Fedya with a patronizing air. "You know Gavrila, the village carpenter?" "Well yes; we know him." "And do you know why he's always so unhappy, always silent, you know? Here's why he's so unhappy. He went once, my father was saying—he went, my brothers, to the forest for nuts. So he went to the forest for nuts, and got lost; went—God knows where he went. He walked and walked, brothers—no! can't find the road; and already it was 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 water nymph, swaying and calling him to her, and she's dying of 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 are so whitish, silvery... Gavrila the carpenter was petrified, my brothers, but she just keeps laughing and beckoning him to her with her hand. Gavrila was about to get up, was about to obey the water nymph, my brothers, but, you see, the Lord put it in his mind: he made the sign of the cross on himself... And how hard it was for him to make that sign, my brothers; he says his hand was just like stone, wouldn't move... Ah, you devil!.. So when he made the sign of the cross, my brothers, the little water nymph stopped laughing, and suddenly started crying... She's crying, my brothers, wiping her eyes with her hair, and her hair is green as hemp. So Gavrila looked, looked at her, and started asking her: 'Why are you crying, forest weed?' And the water nymph says 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; but I'm crying, grieving because you crossed yourself; but I won't be the only one grieving: grieve you too till the end of your days.' Then she, my brothers, disappeared, and Gavrila immediately understood how to get out of the forest, that is... But since then he's always been unhappy." "Well!"—said Fedya after a short silence—"but how can such forest evil spoil a Christian soul—he didn't obey her?" "That's just it!"—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 shelf, heard everything." "Strange business! Why should he be unhappy?.. Well, she must have liked him, that she called him." "Yes, liked him!"—Ilyusha picked up—"As if! She wanted to tickle him to death, that's what she wanted. That's their business, those water nymphs." "Well, there must be water nymphs here too,"—Fedya remarked. "No,"—answered Kostya—"this is a clean place, free. Only—the river's nearby." Everyone fell silent. Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, there rang out a long, resonant, almost moaning sound, one of those incomprehensible night sounds that sometimes arise amid deep silence, rise up, hang in the air and slowly spread at last, as if dying away. You listen—and it's as if there's nothing, but it rings. It seemed someone had cried out for a long, long time under the very horizon, someone else seemed to have answered him in the forest with thin, sharp laughter, and a weak, hissing whistle rushed along the river. The boys exchanged glances, shuddered... "The cross be with us!"—whispered Ilya. "Eh, you crows!"—shouted Pavel—"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. "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 breached one. That's really an unclean place, so unclean, and so desolate. All around are ravines, gullies, and in the gullies all kinds of vipers live." "Well, what happened? Tell us..." "Well, here's what happened. Maybe, Fedya, you don't know, but there's a drowned man 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; he says: 'Go,' he says, 'Ermil, to the post.' Ermil always goes to the post for us; he's killed all his dogs—they don't live with him for some reason, just never have lived, but he's a good dog-keeper, got everything. So Ermil went for the post, and dawdled in town, but was riding back already drunk. And it was night, and a bright night: the moon was shining... So Ermil is riding across the dam: that was his route. He's riding like this, the dog-keeper Ermil, and he sees: at the drowned man's grave a little lamb, a white one, curly, pretty, is walking about. So Ermil thinks: 'I'll take it—why should it perish like that,' and he got down and took it in his arms... 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, 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 felt uneasy: 'I don't remember,' he thinks, 'that rams look people in the eyes like that'; however, nothing; he started stroking its wool like this—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 jumped up 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 could be heard. Pavlusha was shouting 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 for what would happen... Suddenly the tramping of a galloping horse was heard; it stopped abruptly right at the fire, and, grabbing 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 happened?"—the boys asked. "Nothing,"—Pavel answered, waving his hand at the horse—"just something the dogs scented. I thought it was a wolf,"—he added in an indifferent voice, breathing rapidly with his whole chest. I involuntarily admired Pavlusha. He was very fine at that moment. His homely face, animated by the fast ride, burned with bold daring and firm resolve. Without a switch 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 timid Kostya. "There's always plenty of them here,"—Pavel answered—"but they're only troublesome in winter." He settled down again by the fire. Sitting down on the ground, he rested his hand on the shaggy nape of one of the dogs, and for a long time the delighted animal didn't turn its head, gazing sideways at Pavlusha with grateful pride. Vanya buried himself under the mat again. "What scary stories you were telling us, Ilyushka,"—Fedya began, who, as the son of a wealthy peasant, had to be the leader (though he himself spoke little, as if afraid of lowering his dignity)—"And the devil made the dogs start barking... But it's true, I've heard this place is unclean at your place." "Varnavitsy?.. You bet! Really unclean! They say the old master has been seen there many times—the deceased master. They say he walks in a long-skirted coat and keeps groaning like this, looking for something on the ground. Once grandfather Trofimych met him: 'What,' he says, 'sir, Ivan Ivanych, are you looking for on the ground?'" "He asked him?"—interrupted the amazed Fedya. "Yes, he asked." "Well, Trofimych is brave after that... Well, and what did he say?" "'Rupture-grass,' he says, 'I'm looking for.'—And so hollowly he speaks, hollowly:—'Rupture-grass.'—'And what do you need, sir Ivan Ivanych, rupture-grass for?'—'The grave is pressing,' he says, 'Trofimych: I want out, out...'" "Well, well!"—Fedya remarked—"didn't live long enough, clearly." "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 confidence, who, as far as I could observe, knew all the village beliefs better than the others...—"But on Parents' Saturday you can see even the living one whose turn it is to die that year. You just have to sit on the church porch at night and keep looking at the road. Those will walk past you on the road who are to die that year. Last year our woman Ulyana went to the porch." "Well, and did she see anyone?"—Kostya asked with curiosity. "Of course. First of all she sat for a long, long time, didn't see or hear anyone... only it was 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 Fedoseev is walking..." "The one who died in spring?"—Fedya interrupted. "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 peers, peers—oh, Lord!—she herself is walking along the road, Ulyana herself." "Really herself?"—asked Fedya. "By God, herself." "Well what, she hasn't died yet?" "But the year hasn't passed. And you look at her: what's keeping her soul in her body." Everyone fell silent again. Pavel threw a handful of dry twigs on the fire. They were sharply outlined in black against the suddenly flaring flame, crackled, smoked and began to curl, lifting their burned 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 place, all bathed in hot radiance, and disappeared, its wings ringing. "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. "But tell me, please, Pavlusha,"—Fedya began—"what, was the heavenly portent seen at your Shalamovo too?" "When the sun disappeared? Of course." "Were you scared too?" "We weren't the only ones. Our master, though he explained to us beforehand that, he says, there will be a portent for you, but when it got dark, he himself, they say, was so frightened, my goodness. And in the servants' quarters the cook woman, as soon as it got dark, listen, she took the oven fork and broke all the pots in the stove: 'Who's going to eat now,' she says, 'the end of the world has come.' So the cabbage soup just flowed. And in our village such rumors were going around, brother, that, they say, white wolves will run across the earth, will eat people, a bird of prey will fly, or they'll even see Trishka himself." "What Trishka?"—asked Kostya. "Don't you know?"—Ilyusha picked up eagerly—"Well, brother, where are you from, that you don't know about Trishka? Shut-ins they must be in your village, real shut-ins! Trishka—that 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 nothing will be possible to do to him: he'll be such an amazing man. The peasants will want, for example, to catch him; they'll come out at him with clubs, surround him, but he'll pull the wool over their eyes—he'll pull the wool over their eyes so that they'll beat each other. 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, and he'll just clap his hands—and they'll fall right off him. Well, and this Trishka will walk through villages and towns; and this Trishka, the cunning man, will tempt the Christian people... well, but they 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—"such a one. That's who they were expecting at our place. The old people said that as soon as, they say, the heavenly portent begins, Trishka will come. So it began. All the people poured out into the street, into the field, waiting for what would happen. And at our place, you know, the spot is open, spacious. They look—suddenly from the settlement down the hill comes some person, so strange, with such an amazing head... Everyone shouts: 'Oh, Trishka's coming! Oh, Trishka's coming!'—and everyone scatters! 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 its chain and over the fence into the forest; and Kuzka's father, Dorofeich, jumped into the oats, crouched down and started calling like a quail: 'Maybe,' he says, 'the enemy, the soul-destroyer, will at least spare a bird.' That's how panicked everyone got!.. But that person 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 talking in the open air. I looked around: the night stood solemnly and regally; the damp freshness of late