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 very earliest morning the sky is clear; the morning dawn does not blaze like fire: it spreads with a gentle blush. The sun—not fiery, not red-hot as during scorching drought, not dull crimson as before a storm, but bright and welcomingly radiant—peacefully rises beneath a narrow, long cloud, shines out freshly and plunges into its lilac mist. The upper, thin edge of the stretched cloud sparkles like little snakes; their gleam is like the gleam of forged silver... But then the playful rays pour forth again—and cheerfully and majestically, as if soaring upward, the mighty luminary rises. Around midday there usually appears a multitude of round, high clouds, golden-gray, with delicate white edges. Like islands scattered across an infinitely spreading river, flowing around them in deeply transparent channels of even blueness, they scarcely move from their place; farther on, toward the horizon, they draw together, crowd close, and the blueness between them is no longer visible; but they themselves are as azure as the sky: they are all permeated through and through with light and warmth. The color of the horizon, light, pale lilac, does not change all day and is the same all around; nowhere does it darken or thicken into storm; 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 undefined as smoke, lie in rosy wisps opposite the setting sun; at the place where it has set as calmly as it rose calmly to the sky, a scarlet radiance stands for a brief time over the darkened earth, and, quietly twinkling like a carefully carried candle, the evening star kindles upon it. On such days all colors are softened; bright, but not vivid; everything bears the imprint of some touching gentleness. On such days the heat is sometimes very strong, sometimes even "steams" along the slopes of fields; but the wind disperses and pushes apart the accumulated sultriness, and whirlwinds—an unmistakable sign of settled weather—walk in tall white columns along the roads through the plowed land. In the dry and clean air there is a smell of wormwood, harvested rye, buckwheat; even an hour before nightfall you do not feel dampness. The farmer desires such weather for gathering his grain... On just such a day I was once hunting grouse in Chern District, Tula Province. I had found and shot quite a lot 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 resolved to return home. With quick steps I passed through a long "clearing" of bushes, climbed a hill and, instead of the expected familiar plain with an oak grove on the right and a low white church in the distance, saw completely different, unknown places. At my feet stretched a narrow valley; directly opposite, a dense aspen grove rose like a steep wall. I stopped in bewilderment, looked around... "Well!" I thought, "I've come to the wrong place entirely: I've gone too far to the right"—and, myself marveling at my mistake, I quickly descended the hill. An unpleasant, motionless dampness immediately enveloped me, as if I had entered a cellar; the thick, tall grass at the bottom of the valley, all wet, showed white like a level tablecloth; walking on it was somehow eerie. I quickly scrambled out the other side and walked on, bearing to the left, along the aspen grove. Bats were already darting above its sleeping treetops, mysteriously circling and trembling against the dimly clear sky; a belated hawk flew swiftly and directly high above, 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 is this?.. Where am I?" I began to recall how and where I had walked during the day... "Eh! These are the Parakhin bushes!"—I exclaimed at last—"Exactly! That must be Sindeev Grove... But how did I get here? So far?.. Strange!" Now I need to bear right again." I went to the right, through the bushes. Meanwhile night was approaching and growing like a storm cloud; it seemed that darkness was rising from everywhere, even pouring down from on high, together with the evening vapors. I came upon some sort of untrodden, overgrown path; I set off along it, looking carefully ahead. Everything around was quickly darkening and falling silent—only 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 aside. I came out at the edge of the bushes and trudged along a field boundary. Already I could hardly make out distant objects; the field showed white indistinctly all around; beyond it, advancing with each moment, gloomy darkness rose in enormous clouds. My steps echoed dully in the stiffening air. The paling sky began to turn blue again—but that was already the blue of night. Little stars flickered and stirred upon it. What I had taken for a grove turned out to be a dark, round mound. "Where am I?"—I repeated aloud, stopped for the third time and looked questioningly at my English yellow-piebald dog Diana, decidedly the cleverest of all four-legged creatures. But the cleverest of four-legged creatures only wagged her tail, blinked her tired eyes sadly and offered me no 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 mound and found myself in a shallow, plowed hollow all around. 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 together there for a secret council—and it was so mute and hollow in it, the sky hung so flatly, so drearily over it, that my heart contracted. Some little beast squeaked weakly and pitifully 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 convinced that I was completely lost, and, no longer trying at all to recognize the surrounding places, almost completely drowned in the gloom, I went straight ahead, by the stars—at random... For about half an hour I walked thus, barely moving my legs. It seemed I had never in my life been in such empty places: nowhere did a light glimmer, no sound was heard. One gentle slope succeeded another, fields stretched endlessly after fields, bushes seemed to rise suddenly from the earth right before my nose. I kept walking and was just about to lie down somewhere until morning, when suddenly I found myself above a terrible abyss. I quickly drew back my extended foot and, through the barely transparent twilight of night, saw far below me an enormous plain. A wide river curved around it in a semicircle receding 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 were outlined, darkening, 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, beneath the very cliff of the hill, two fires burned and smoked side by side with red flame. Around them people were bustling about, shadows swayed, sometimes the front half of a small curly head was brightly illuminated... I finally recognized where I had wandered. This meadow is famous in our parts under the name of Bezhin Meadow... But there was no possibility of returning home, especially at night; my legs were giving way under me from fatigue. I decided to approach the fires and in the company of those people, whom I took for drovers, to wait for dawn. I descended successfully, but had not yet managed to release from my hands the last branch I had grasped, when suddenly two large, white, shaggy dogs threw themselves at me with vicious barking. Clear children's voices rang out around the fires; two or three boys quickly rose from the ground. I responded to their questioning cries. They ran up to me, immediately called off the dogs, which were especially struck by the appearance of my Diana, and I approached them. I was mistaken in taking the people sitting around those fires for drovers. These were simply peasant boys from neighboring villages, watching over a herd. In the hot summer season horses are driven out to feed in the fields at night with us: during the day flies and gadflies would give them no peace. Driving out the herd before evening and bringing it in at the morning dawn is a great holiday for peasant boys. Sitting without caps and in old sheepskin coats on the liveliest nags, they race along with merry whooping and shouting, waving their arms and legs, jumping high, laughing ringingly. Light dust rises and rushes along the road in a yellow column; the friendly tramping carries far, the horses run with ears pricked; ahead of them all, having raised its tail and constantly changing legs, gallops some red shaggy horse with burdock in its tangled mane. I told the boys that I had lost my way 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-at 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 gleams; a thin tongue of light would lick the bare branches of a willow and immediately vanish; sharp, long shadows, bursting in for a moment, in their turn ran right up to the little fires: darkness struggled with light. Sometimes, when the flame burned weaker 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—looking attentively and dully at us, briskly chewing long grass, and, lowering again, would immediately hide. One could only hear how it continued to chew and snorted. From an illuminated place it is difficult to make out what is happening in the darkness, and therefore nearby everything seemed draped with an almost black curtain; but farther on 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. One's chest contracted sweetly, breathing in that special, languid and fresh smell—the smell of a Russian summer night. Almost no noise was heard around... Only occasionally in the nearby river a large fish would splash with sudden resonance and the 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 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 unusual sense of their own dignity; first they growled, 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 acquaint the reader with them.) The first, the eldest of all, Fedya, you would have given fourteen years. This was a slender boy, with handsome and delicate, somewhat small features, curly blond hair, bright eyes and a constant half-cheerful, half-absent smile. He belonged, by all signs, to a wealthy family and had ridden out into the field not from necessity, but just for amusement. He wore a colorful cotton shirt with a yellow border; a small new peasant coat, thrown over his shoulders, barely held on his narrow little shoulders; a comb hung from his pale blue belt. His boots with low tops were certainly his boots—not his father's. The second boy, Pavlusha, had disheveled black hair, gray eyes, broad cheekbones, a pale, pockmarked face, a large but regular mouth, an enormous head, as they say, like a beer cauldron, a stocky, awkward body. The lad was homely—what's there to say!—but all the same I liked him: he looked very intelligent and direct, and there was strength in his voice. He could not boast of his clothing: it all consisted of a simple homespun shirt and patched trousers. The face of the third, Ilyusha, was rather insignificant: hook-nosed, drawn out, half-blind, it expressed a kind of dull, sickly concern; his compressed lips did not move, his knitted brows did not part—he seemed to squint constantly at the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck up in sharp tufts from under a low felt cap, which he kept pushing 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 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, made 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 of small stature, puny build and dressed rather poorly. The last, Vanya, I did not notice at first: he lay on the ground, quietly nestled under an angular mat, and only occasionally stuck out his light brown curly head from under it. This boy was only about seven years old. So, I lay under the bush to one side and glanced at the boys. A small pot hung over one of the fires; in it "potatoes" were boiling. Pavlusha was watching 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 next to Kostya and still squinted 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 to talk 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 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 I wasn't the only one." "Where does he live at your place?"—asked Pavlusha. "In the old rolling room." [Note: "Rolling room" or "scooping room" at paper mills is what they call the building where they scoop paper in vats. It is located right at the dam, under the wheel.] "Do you go to the factory?" "Of course we do. My brother and I, Avdyushka and I, work as finishers." [Note: "Finishers" smooth and scrape paper.] "Well, well—factory workers!.." "Well, so how did you hear him?"—asked Fedya. "This is 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 Ivashka Sukhorukov, and there were other boys there too; there were about ten of us boys in all—the whole shift, as it were; but we had to spend the night in the rolling room, that is, not exactly that we had to, but Nazarov, the overseer, forbade it; he says: 'What,' he says, 'you boys, dragging yourselves home; there's a lot of work tomorrow, so you boys don't go home.' So we stayed and lay all together, and Avdyushka started saying, what if, boys, the house spirit comes?... And no sooner had he, Avdey, said this, than suddenly someone above our heads started walking; but we were lying below, and he was walking above, by the wheel. We hear: he's walking, the boards under him bending and creaking; so 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 down." [Note: "Race" is what we call the place along which water runs onto the wheel.] "We wonder: who raised them, that the water started flowing; but the wheel turned, turned, and stopped. The one walking went again to the door above and started coming down the stairs, and you could hear he wasn't hurrying; the steps under him even groaning... Well, he approached our door, waited, waited—the door suddenly swung wide open. We were frightened, we looked—nothing... Suddenly, look, at one vat the form started moving, rose, dipped, walked, walked through the air, as if someone was rinsing it, and back in place. Then at another vat a hook came off a nail and back on the nail; then it was like someone went to the door and suddenly started coughing, choking, like some sheep, and so loudly... We all just fell in a heap, crawled under each other... How frightened we were at that time!" "Well, well!"—said Pavel. "Why did he cough?" "I don't know; maybe from the dampness." Everyone fell silent. "Well,"—asked Fedya—"are the potatoes cooked?" Pavlusha felt them. "No, still raw... Look, it splashed,"—he added, turning his face toward the river—"must be a pike... And there a little star rolled." "No, I'll tell you something, brothers,"—began Kostya in a thin voice—"listen, the other day what my father told in front of me." "Well, we're listening,"—said Fedya with a patronizing air. "You know Gavrila, the village carpenter?" "Well yes; we know." "And do you know why he's always so gloomy, always silent, do you know? Here's why he's so gloomy. He went once, father said—he went, my brothers, into the forest for nuts. So he went into the forest for nuts and got lost; went—God knows where he went. He walked and walked, brothers—no! can't find the road; and night was already upon him. So he sat down under a tree; let me, he says, wait till morning—he 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: and before him on a branch a mermaid is sitting, swaying and calling him to her, and herself dying of laughter, laughing... And the moon is shining strongly, so strongly, the moon is shining clearly—everything, my brothers, is visible. So she's calling him, and she herself is all so bright, whitish sitting on the branch, like some dace or minnow—or else there's a kind of carp that's whitish, silvery... Gavrila the carpenter just froze, my brothers, and she keeps laughing and calling him to her with her hand like this. Gavrila was about to get up, was about to obey the mermaid, my brothers, but, you know, the Lord put sense into him: he made the sign of the cross over himself... And how hard it was for him to make the cross, my brothers; he says his hand was just like stone, wouldn't move... Oh you such and such!.. So when he made the cross, my brothers, the mermaid stopped laughing and suddenly started crying... She's crying, my brothers, wiping her eyes with her hair, and her hair is green, like hemp. So Gavrila looked, looked at her and started asking her: 'Why are you crying, forest creature?' And the mermaid says to him: 'If you hadn't crossed yourself,' she says, 'man, you would have lived with me in merriment till the end of your days; and I'm crying, I'm 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 always goes about gloomy." "Well!"—said Fedya after a short silence—"but how can such a forest unclean spirit spoil a Christian soul—he didn't obey her after all?" "But there you are!"—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, I guess she liked him, since she called him." "Yes, liked him!"—picked up Ilyusha. "Of course! She wanted to tickle him to death, that's what she wanted. That's their business, those mermaids." "But there should be mermaids here too,"—remarked Fedya. "No,"—answered Kostya—"this is a clean place, open. Only thing—the river's nearby." Everyone fell silent. Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, there rang out a drawn-out, ringing, almost moaning sound, one of those incomprehensible night sounds that sometimes arise in the midst of 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 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 power of the cross be with us!"—whispered Ilya. "Eh, you crows!"—shouted Pavel. "What are you scared of? 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, boys,"—began Ilyusha—"what happened the other day at our Varnavitsy?" "At the dam?"—asked Fedya. "Yes, yes, at the dam, at the broken one. That's an unclean place, so unclean, and so desolate. All around there 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 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 office.' Ermil always goes to the post office for us; he killed all his dogs—they don't live with him for some reason, they just never lived, and he's a good dog-keeper, took to everything. So Ermil went for the post and lingered in town, but he's riding back already tipsy. And it's night, and a bright night: the moon is shining... So Ermil is riding across the dam: such was his road. Riding along like this, dog-keeper Ermil, and he sees: on the drowned man's grave a lamb, white, curly, pretty, is walking about. So Ermil thinks: 'I'll take him—why should he perish like that,' and he got down and took him in his arms... But the lamb—nothing. So Ermil goes to his horse, but the horse shies away from him, snorts, shakes her head; however he calmed her down, got on her with the lamb and rode on again: holding the lamb in front of him. He looks at it, and the lamb looks him straight in the eyes. Ermil the dog-keeper got scared: what, he says, I don't remember that rams look people in the eyes like this; but never mind; he started stroking it like this on its 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, with convulsive barking rushed away from the fire and disappeared into the darkness. All the boys were frightened. Vanya jumped out from under his mat. Pavlusha with a shout rushed after the dogs. Their barking quickly receded... The anxious running of the startled herd was heard. Pavlusha was shouting loudly: "Gray! Zhuchka!.." In a few moments the barking fell silent; Pavel's voice came already 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, grasping the mane, Pavlusha nimbly jumped off it. Both dogs also jumped into the circle of light and immediately sat down, tongues hanging out. "What's there? What is it?"—the boys asked. "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 fast ride, glowed 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 cowardly Kostya. "There are always many of them here,"—answered Pavel—"but they're only troublesome in winter." He settled down again before the fire. Sitting down on the ground, he dropped his hand on the shaggy nape of one of the dogs, and for a long time the delighted animal did not turn its head, looking sideways at Pavlusha with grateful pride. Vanya buried himself under the mat again. "What terrors you were telling us, Ilyushka,"—began Fedya, 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 there... But it's true, I've heard, that place is unclean at your parts." "Varnavitsy?.. I should say! What an unclean place! 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 the other one say?" "'Bursting-grass,' he says, 'I'm looking for.' And speaking so hollowly, hollowly: 'Bursting-grass.' 'And what do you need, father Ivan Ivanych, bursting-grass for?' 'The grave,' he says, 'is pressing, Trofimych: I want to get out, to get out...'" "Well, well!"—remarked Fedya—"didn't live long enough, I guess." "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 tell, knew all the village superstitions best... "But on Parents' Saturday you can also see the living, whose turn it is to die that year, that is. You just have to sit at night on the church porch and keep looking at the road. Those will pass you by on the road who are to die that year, 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: a boy is walking along the path in just a shirt. She looked closely—Ivashka Fedoseev is walking..." "The one who died in spring?"—interrupted Fedya. "The very one. Walking and doesn't raise his little head... And Ulyana recognized him... But then she looks: a woman is walking. She's peering, peering—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 yet. And you look at her: what's her soul hanging by." Everyone quieted down again. Pavel threw a handful of dry branches on the fire. They were sharply outlined in black against the suddenly flaring flame, crackled, began to smoke and curl, raising their scorched ends. The reflection of light struck, trembling convulsively, in all directions, especially upward. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a white dove—flew straight into this reflection, fearfully whirled in one place, all bathed in hot radiance, and disappeared, wings ringing. "Must have strayed from home,"—remarked Pavel. "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 branches on the fire. "Maybe,"—he said finally. "And tell me, please, Pavlusha,"—began Fedya—"what, did you also see the heavenly portent at your Shalamovo?" [Note: This is what peasants call a solar eclipse with us.] "When the sun disappeared? Of course." "I bet you were scared too?" "We weren't the only ones. Our master, even though he explained to us beforehand that, they say, there will be a portent for you, but when it got dark, he himself, they say, got so scared that—just you wait. And in the servants' hut the cook woman, so she, as soon as it got dark, hear, took the oven fork and broke all the pots in the stove: 'Who,' she says, 'is going to eat now, the end of the world has come.' So the cabbage soup just flowed. And in our village, brother, such rumors were going around 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." [Note: In the belief about "Trishka," the legend of the antichrist probably echoes.] "What's this Trishka?"—asked Kostya. "Don't you know?"—Ilyusha picked up with heat. "Well, brother, where are you from that you don't know Trishka? Stay-at-homes in your village, real stay-at-homes! Trishka—this will be such an amazing person who will come; and he will come when the last times arrive. And he will be such an amazing person that they won't be able to catch him, and nothing can be done to him: he will be such an amazing person. The Christians will want, for example, to catch him; they'll come out at him with cudgels, surround him, but he'll deceive their eyes—deceive their eyes so that they'll beat each other up. 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 in there and you'll never see him again. They'll put chains on him, and he'll just clap his hands—and they'll just fall off him. Well, and this Trishka will walk through villages and towns; and this Trishka, the crafty man, will tempt the Christian people... well, but nothing can be done to him... He will be such an amazing, crafty person." "Well yes,"—Pavel continued in his unhurried voice—"that's the one. So they were waiting for him at our place. The old folks said that now, they say, when the heavenly portent begins, Trishka will come. So the portent began. All the people poured out into the street, into the field, waiting for what would happen. And our place, you know, is visible, open. They look—suddenly from the settlement down the hill comes some person, such a strange one, head so amazing... Everyone screamed: 'Oh, Trishka's coming! Oh, Trishka's coming!'—and scattered! Our headman crawled into a ditch; the headman's wife got stuck in the gateway, screaming bloody murder, scared 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, squatted down and started crying like a quail: 'Maybe,' he says, 'the enemy, the soul-destroyer, will spare at least a bird.' That's how upset everyone got!.. But the person 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: night stood solemnly and regally; the damp freshness of late