The winter descended.
The snow lay in deep layers, blue by day and night, lilac in the brief intervals of sunrise and sunset. The pale, powerless sun seemed far away and strange during the three short hours that it showed over the horizon. The rest of the time it was night. The northern lights flashed like quivering arrows across the sky, in their sublime and awful majesty. The frost lay like a veil over the earth, enveloping all in a dazzling whiteness in which was imprisoned every shade of colour under the sun. Crimsons, purples, softest yellows, tenderest greens, and exquisite blues and pinks flashed and quivered fiercely under the morning rays, shimmering in the brilliance. Over all hung the hush of the trackless desert, the stillness that betokened death!
Marina's eyes had changed—they were no longer dark, limpid, full of intoxication; they were wonderfully bright and clear. Her hips had widened, her body had increased, adding a new grace to her stature. She seldom went out, sitting for the most part in her room, which resembled a forest-chapel where men prayed to the gods. In the daytime she did her simple houskeeping—chopped wood, heated the stove, cooked meat and fish, helped Demid to skin the beasts he had slain, and to weed their plot of land. During the long evenings she spun and wove clothes for the coming babe. As she sewed she thought of the child, and sung and smiled softly.
An overwhelming joy possessed Marina when she thought of her approaching motherhood. Her heart beat faster and her happiness increased. Her own possible sufferings held no place in her thoughts.
In the lilac glow of dawn, when a round moon, solemn and immense, glowed in the south-western sky, Demid took his rifle and Finnish knife, and went on his sleigh into the forest.
The pine-trees and cedars stood starkly under their raiment of snow— mighty forest giants—beneath them clustered prickly firs, junipers and alders. The stillness was profound. Demid sped from trap to trap, from snare to snare, over the silent soundless snow. He strangled the beasts; he fired, and the crack of his gun resounded through the empty space. He sought for the trail of the elks and wolf-packs. He descended to the river and watched for otters, caught bewildered fish amidst the broken ice, and set his nets afresh. The scenes all round him were old and familiar. The majesty of day died down in the west on a flaming pyre of vivid clouds, and the quivering, luminous streamers of the north re-appeared.
Standing in his plot of ground in the evening, he cut up the fish and meat, hung it up to freeze, threw pieces to the bear, ate some himself, washed his hands in ice-cold water, and sat down beside Marina—big and rugged, his powerful legs wide apart, his hands resting heavily on his knees. The room became stifling with his presence. He smiled down quietly and good-naturedly at Marina.
The lamp shone cheerfully. Outside was snow, frost, and peace. Makar approached and lounged on the floor. There was an atmosphere of quiet joy and comfort in the chapel-like room. The walls cracked in the frost; some towels embroidered in red and blue with reindeer and cocks hung over them. Outside the frozen windows was darkness, cold, and night.
Demid rose from his bench, took Marina tenderly and firmly in his arms, and led her to the bed. The lamp flickered, and in the half- light Makar's eyes glowed. He had grown up during the winter and he was now an adult bear—with a sombre, solemn air and a kind of clumsy skill. He had a large flat nose and grave, good-natured eyes.
It was the last days of December. There had been a merry Christmas festival and the snow had lain thick on house and slope. Wolves were now on the trail. Then Marina felt the first stirring of her child; soft, gentle movements, like the touch of eiderdown upon her body. She was filled with a triumphant joy, and pressed her hands softly and tenderly to her side; then sang a lullaby of how her son should become a great hunter and slay a thousand and three hundred elks, a thousand and three hundred bears, a thousand and three hundred ermines, and take the chief village beauty as his wife!
There was misty frost, the night, and stillness outside—the stillness that whispers of death. Wolves crept up to the plot of land, sat on their hind-legs and howled long and dismally at the sky.
In the spring the shores of the river were strewn with wild flocks of swans, geese, and eider-ducks. The forest resounded with the stir of the beasts. Its woody depths echoed with the noise of bears, elks, wolves, foxes, owls, and woodcocks. The herbage began to sprout and flourish. The nights now drew in, and the days were longer. Dawn and sunset were lilac and lingering. The twilight fell in pale green, shimmering floods of light, and as it deepened and spread the village maidens gathered again on the river slope and sang their songs of Lada, the Spring God.
In the morning the sun rose in a glory of golden splendour and swam into the limpid blue heavens. There, enthroned, it spent the many hours of spring. Then came the Easter Festival when, according to the legend, the sun smiled and the people exchanged red eggs as its symbol.
On this Festival, Marina became a mother.
That night the bear left Demid. He must surely have scented the spring and gone into the forest to find himself a mate.
He left late at night, after breaking down the door. It was dark. A scarcely noticeable streak of light lay over the eastern horizon. Somewhere afar the village maidens were singing their songs of Lada.
A THOUSAND YEARS
"LET THE DEAD BURY THE DEAD."—Matthew, ch. vii.
It was night time when Prince Constantine arrived at his brother's little cabin. Young Vilyashev himself opened the door, and throughout the brief conversation that ensued they remained in darkness—not even a candle was lighted. Tall, lean, cadaverous, dressed in a much- worn day suit, his cap under his arm, Constantine stonily listened to Vilyashev's terse account of their sister's last moments.
She died peacefully, the young man told his brother, "and she was quite calm to the end, for she believed in God. But she could not rid herself of memories of the past. How could she when the present shows such an awful contrast? Famine, scurvy, typhus, sorrow brood over the countryside. Our old home is the hands of strangers: we ourselves are outcasts living in a peasant's cabin. Imagine what this meant to a delicately nurtured woman! Men are wild beasts, brother."
There were three of us, Constantine said with quiet bitterness— "you, Natalia, and myself. It is ended! I travelled here in a cattle- truck, walking from the station on foot—and was too late for the funeral."
She was buried yesterday. She knew from the first she was dying, and would not stir a step from here.
Poor girl, sighed Constantine. "She had lived here all her life."
He left abruptly without a word of farewell, and they did not meet again until the next evening: both had spent the day wandering about the valleys.
At dawn the following morning Vilyashev ascended a steep hill; on the flat summit of a tumulus that crowned it he observed an eagle tearing a pigeon to pieces. At his approach the bird flew up into the clear, empty sky, towards the east, emitting a low, deep, unforgettable cry that echoed dolefully over the fragrant fields.
From the hill and tumulus could be seen a vast panorama of meadows, thickets, villages, and white steeples of churches. A golden sun rose and swung slowly above the hill, gilding the horizon, the clouds, hill-ridges, and the tumulus; steeping them in wave upon wave of shimmering yellow light.
Below, in wisps and long slender ribbons, a rosy mist crept over the fields; it covered everything with the softest of warmly tinted light. There was a morning frost, and thin sheets of ice crackled in the dykes. An invigorating breeze stirred gently, as if but half- awakened, and tenderly ruffled fronds of bracken, sliding softly upward from moss and roots, tremulously caressing the sweet-smelling grass, to sweep grandly over the hill-crest in ripples and eddies, increasing in volume as it sped.
The earth was throbbing: it panted like a thirsty wood-spirit. Cranes sent their weird, mournful cries echoing over the undulating plains and valleys; birds of passage were a-wing. It was the advent of teeming, tumultuous, perennial spring.
Bells tolled mournfully over the fragrant earth. Typhus, famine, death spread like a poisonous vapour through the villages, through the peasants' tiny cabins. The windowless huts waved the rotting straw of their thatch in the wind as they had done five hundred years ago, when they had been taken down every spring to be carried further into the forests—ever eastward—to the Chuvash tribe.
In every hut there was hunger. In every hut there was death. In every one the fever-stricken lay under holy ikons, surrendering their souls to the Lord in the same calm, stoical and wise spirit in which they had lived.
Those who survived bore the dead to the churches, and went in consternation and dread through the fields carrying crosses and banners. They dug trenches round the villages and sprinkled the dykes with Holy Water; they prayed for bread and for preservation from death, while the air resounded with the tolling of bells.
Nevertheless, at eventide the maidens came to the tumulus arrayed in their home-woven dresses, and sang their old, old songs, for it was spring and the mating season for all living things. Yet they sang alone, for their youths had been given to the Moloch of war: they had gone to Uralsk, to Ufa, and to Archangel. Only old men were left to plough the fields in the spring.
Vilyashev stood dejectedly on the crest of the hill, a solitary, lonely figure outlined darkly against the clear blue background of sky and distance. He gazed unseeingly into space; thought and movement alike were suspended. He was only conscious of pain. He knew all was ended. Thus his errant forbear from the north may have stood five hundred years ago, leaning upon his lance, a sword in his chain girdle.
Vilyashev pictured him with a beard like Constantine's. He had had glory and conquest awaiting him; he strode the world a victorious warrior! But now—little Natalya who had died of famine-typhus had realized that they were no longer needed, neither she, nor Constantine, nor himself! She was calling to him across the great gulf; it was as if her words were trembling on the air, telling him the hour had struck. The Vilyashev's power had been great; it had been achieved by force; by force it had been overthrown, the vulture- nest was torn to pieces. Men had become ravenous.
The Prince descended and made his way to the river Oka, ten miles distant, wandering all day through the fields and dales—a giant full seven feet high, with a beard to his waist. The heavy earth clung to his boots. At last he flung himself on to the ground, burying his face in his hands, and lay motionless, abandoning himself to an anxious, sorrowful reverie.
Snow still lay on the lowlands, but the sky was warm, pellucid, expansive. The Oka broadened out rushing in a mighty, irresistible torrent towards its outlet, and inundating its banks. Purling brooks danced and sang their way through the valleys. The wind breathed a feeling of expectancy—sweet, tender, evanescent, like the day-dream of a Russian maiden who has not yet known the secrets of love. With delicate gossamer fingers it gently caressed the barren hill that frowned above the Oka, uttering its gentle poignantly-stirring song at the same time.
Larks warbled. From all around echoed the happy cries of birds; the vernal air thrilled and vibrated in great running arpeggios to the wonder-music of the winds. The river alone preserved a rigid silence.
Vilyashev brooded a long while beside the swiftly running waters; but at sunset's approach he rose hastily, and returned to the tumulus. The sky was wrapped in its evening shroud of deep, mysterious darkness. Set brightly against the sombre background of the tumulus- crowned hill stood shining silver birch trees and dark shaggy firs: they now looked wan and spectral in the fading light. For a fleeting moment the world glowed like a huge golden ball; then the whole countryside was one vast vista of green, finally merging into a deep illimitable purple. Down the valley crept the mist, trailing its filmy veils over point and peak and ridge. The air throbbed with the cries of geese and bitterns. The hush of the spring-time night set in and covered the world—that hush that is more vibrant than thunder, that gathers the forest sounds and murmurs to itself, and weaves them all into a tense, vernal harmony.
Prince Constantine's gaunt form struck a sharp note of discord as he walked straight up to the tumulus. His presence breathed conflict and stress that accorded ill with the universal peace of nature.
He greeted his brother, and began to smoke; the light from his cigarette illumined his eagle nose and bony brow; his quiet grey eyes gleamed with a wintry look.
One longs to fly away like a bird in the spring, he murmured; then added with a sharp change of tone; "How did Natalya die?"
In her right mind, thank God! But, she had lived torn by a madness of hatred and contempt, loathing all, despising all.
What wonder, look around you! cried Constantine. He hesitated a moment then said softly: "To-morrow is the Annunciation—the recollection of that festival made me think. Look around!"
The tumulus stood out sheer and stark, a grim relic of a bygone age. There was a faint rustling through last year's wormwood. The air arose from the plains in a crescendo of quivering chords, gushing upward like a welling spring. There was the scent of decaying foliage. The sky beyond had darkened, charged to the brim with mystery. The atmosphere became moist and cold; the valley lay beneath—empty, boundless, a region of illimitable space.
Do you hear? Constantine asked.
Hear what?
The earth's groans.
Yes, it is waking. Do you hear the soft stir and shudder among the roots of the flowers and grass? The whisper of the trees, the tremor of leaves and fronds? It is the earth's joyful welcome to the Spring.
Constantine shook his head: "Not joy … sorrow. The air is permeated with the scent of decay. To-morrow will see the Annunciation, a great festival, little brother, and that recollection has set me thinking. Look round you! Everywhere are savages—men gone mad with blood and terror. Death, famine, barbarity ride the world! Idolatry is still rampant: to this day men believe in wood-spirits, witches and the devil—and God, oh yes, men still believe in God! They bury their dead when the bodies should be burnt. They seek to drive away typhus by religious processions!"
He laughed mockingly.
"
I stood the whole time in the train to avoid infection. But the people do not even think of that: their one thought is bread. I wanted to sleep through the journey; but a wretched woman, starving before my very eyes, prevented me. She said she was going to a sister so as to get milk to drink. She made me feel sick; she could not say bread, meat, milk, and butter, but called them 'brud,' 'mate,' 'mulk,' and 'buzzer'. 'Ah, for a bit of buzzer—how I will ate it and enjoy it!' she kept muttering. I tell you, Vilyashev, the people are bewildered. The world is returning to savagery. Remember the history of all times and of all peoples—an endless repetition of schisms, deceptions, stupidity, superstition and cannibalism—not so long ago—as late as the Thirty Years War—there was cannibalism in Europe; human flesh was cooked and eaten…. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! How fine they sound! But better for Fraternity ever to remain a mere ideal than to be introduced by the butt-end of a rifle.""
"
Constantine took off his cap, and his bony forehead seemed pale and green in the ghostly darkness of the night. His eyes were deep sunken, and for an instant his face resembled a skull.
I am bewildered, brother; I feel so utterly alone! I am wretched and disillusioned. In what does man transcend the beast?… He turned towards the west, and a cruel, rapacious, predatory look flitted over his face; he took a piece of bread from his overcoat pocket and handed it to Vilyashev:
Eat, brother; you are hungry.
From the valley uprose the muffled chime of a church bell, and a low baying of dogs could be heard round the village settlements. Great gusts of wind swept over the earth, which shook and trembled beneath their rush. In thin, high, piercing notes it ascended—the song of the winds to the setting sun.
Listen, continued Constantine; "I was thinking of the Annunciation … and I had a dream.
"
The red glow of sunset was slowly fading. Around stretched huge, slumbering, primeval forests, shadow-filled bogs, and wide green marshes. Wolves howled mournfully through the woods and the valleys. Carts were creaking; horses were neighing; men were shouting—this wild race of the Ancient Russians was marching to collect tribute. Down a forest roadway they went, from the Oka to the rivers Sozh and Desna. A Prince pitched his camp on a hill: his son lay dying with the slowly-sinking sunlight. They prayed to the gods to spare the princeling. They burned youths and maidens at the stake. They cast men into the river to appease the water-spirit. They invoked the ancient Slavic god Perun. They called on Jesus and the Mother of God. In vain! In the terrible, lurid light of that vernal evening the princeling died.
""
Then they slew his horse and his wife, and raised the tumulus. In the Prince's suite was an Arab scholar named Ibn-Sadif. He was as thin as an arrow, pliant as a bow, as dark as pitch, with the eyes and nose of an eagle under his white turban. He was a wanderer over the earth, for, learned in all else, he still sought knowledge of men and of countries. He had gone up by the Volga to the Kama and to the Bulgarians. Now he was wending his way with the Russians to Kiev and Tsargrad.
""
Ibn-Sadif ascended the hill, and beheld a blazing pile. On a log of wood lay a maiden with her left breast ripped open; flames licked her feet. Around were sombre, bearded men with swords in their hands. An ancient Shaman priest was circling in front of the funeral pyre and shouting furiously. Ibn-Sadif turned aside from the fire, and descended the forest pathway to the river.
""
The sky was thickly studded with stars that shone like points of living gold in the warm deeps of the night; the water gave back a glittering reflection. The Arab gazed up at that vast space where the shining constellations swam towards the bosom of the Infinite, then down at their fantastically mirrored image in the river's depths—and cried aloud: 'Woe! Woe!'""
""
In the far distance beyond the water the wolves howled. At nightfall Ibn-Sadif joined the Prince who was directing the ancient funeral rites. The Arab raised his hands to the sky; his white garments flew round him like the wings of a bird; in a shrill, eerie voice like an eagle's he cried to the fierce bearded men gathered around:
""
'This night just a thousand years ago, the Archangel told the Mother of God in Nazareth of the coming of your God, Jesus. Woe! A thousand years ago! Can it be?' Thus spoke Ibn-Sadif. None in the camp knew of the Annunciation, of that fair, sacred day when the birds will not even build their nests lest their labour desecrate its holiness.""
"
Constantine paused; then lifted his head and listened.
Do you hear, brother? Bells are tolling! Do you hear how the dogs are barking?… And, just as of yore, death, famine, barbarity, cannibalism shadow the earth. I am heart stricken!
The night deepened to an intense blue; a faint chill stole through the air. Prince Constantine sat down resting his head on his stick. Suddenly he rose:
It is late and cold; let us go. I am miserable, for I have lost my faith. This reversion to savagery is horrible and bewildering. What are we? What can we do when barbarians surround us? The loneliness and desolation of our plight! I feel utterly lost, Vilyashev. We are no good to anyone. Not so long ago our ancestors used to flog peasants in the stables and abduct maidens on their wedding-nights. How I curse them! They were wild beasts! Ibn-Sadif spoke the truth … a thousand years—and still the Mark of the Beast!
The Prince's cry was low; but deep, and wild. Vilyashev answered quietly:
I have the strength of a mailed knight, Constantine. I could smash, rend, and trample the peasants underfoot as my forebears did, but they have wound themselves round my heart; they are like little children!
They went along by the hill; the tumulus was left behind. A light sparkling frost powdered the rich loamy earth. Through the darkness, swimming with purple shadows, came a great continuous murmur from the ancient forests. A pair of cranes cried softly as they roosted for the night, and a pearl grey mist rolled down to the meadows and enveloped them in innumerable murkyscarves. The brothers entered a village as still as the grave. Somewhere beyond, a dog barked. Not a sound broke the utter, solemn silence as they walked along.
There is typhus and barbarity in every peasant's hut, Constantine muttered. Then he, too, lapsed into silence, listening.
Beyond some huts on a village by-path girls' voices could be heard singing an Annunciation hymn. In the vasts depths of silence it sounded solemn, simple, sane. The two princes felt it to be as immutable as the Spring with its law of birth. They remained standing there a long while, resting first on one foot, then on the other. Each felt that mankind's blood and energy still flowed bright and unsullied despite the world upheaval.
Good! That is infinitely touching. That will not die, declared
Vilyashev. "It has come down to us through the Ages."
Aye, replied Prince Constantine bitterly, "wonderfully good.
Pathetically good. Abominably good!"
From the bend in the road the girls appeared in their coloured aprons; they passed decorously in pairs, singing:
Rejoice, O Virgin Mother! Blessed art Thou amongst women….
The earth was moist and exhaled a sweet, delicate odour of rich, fresh vegetation. Reluctantly, at last, the two brothers resumed their way. They heard the weird midnight-crowing of the cock. A pale silvery moon—the last before Easter Day—rose gently in the East, letting down its luminous web from the sky, flinging back the dark shadows of the night.
On reaching home, the cabin seemed damp and cold and inexpressibly dreary—as on the day Natalya died; when the door had slammed incessantly. The brothers went hastily to their rooms without speaking or lighting up. Constantine lay on Natalya's bed.
At dawn he awoke Vilyashev.
I am going. Goodbye! It is ended! I am going out of Russia, out of Europe. Here, where were we born, they have called us their masters, their fathers—carrion crows, vultures! Like the fierce Russian tribes of old, they have let loose the hounds of destruction on wolves and hares and men alike! Woe!… Ibn-Sadif!
Constantine lighted a candle on a table, and crossed the room. In the strange blue light of dawn his livid shadow fell on the whitewashed wall. Vilyashev was amazed; the shadow was so extraordinarily blue and ghastly—it seemed as if his brother were dead.
OVER THE RAVINE I
The ravine was deep and dark.
Its yellow clay slopes, overgrown with red-trunked pines, presented craggy ridges; at the bottom flowed a brook. Above, right and left, grew a pine forest—dark, ancient, covered with lichen and shubbery. Overhead was a grey, heavy, low-hanging sky.
Man seldom came to this wild and savage spot.
The trees had in the course of time been uprooted by storms of wind and rain, and had fallen just where they stood, strewing the earth, rotting, emitting thick pungent odours of decaying pinewood. Thistles, chicory, milfoil, and wormwood had flourished there for years undisturbed, and they now covered the ground with thorny bristles. There was a den of bears at the bottom of the ravine; many wolves prowled through the forest.
Over the edge of the steep, yellow slope hung a fallen pine, and for many years its roots were exposed, raised on high in the air. They looked like some petrified octopus stretching up its hideous tentacles to the elements, and were already covered with lichen and juniper.
In the midst of these roots two great grey birds—a male and a female—had built themselves a nest.
They were large and grey, thickly covered by yellowish-grey and cinnamon-coloured feathers. Their wings were short, broad, and strong; their feet, armed with great claws, were covered with black down. Surmounting their short, thick necks were large quadratic heads with yellow, rapaciously curved beaks and round, fierce, heavy looking eyes.
The female was the smaller. Her legs were more slender and handsome, and there was a kind of rough, heavy gracefulness in the curves of her neck. The male was fierce and stiff; his left wing did not fold properly; he had injured it at the time he had fought other males for his mate.
There was steepness on three sides of their nest. Above it was the wide expanse of the sky. Around, about, and beneath it lay bones washed and whitened by the rain. The nest itself was made of stones and mud, and overspread with down.
The female always sat in the nest.
The male hummed to himself on the end of a root that was suspended over the steep, alone, peering far into the distance around and below him with his heavy, pensive eyes; perched with his head sunk deep into his shoulders and his wings hanging heavily down.
These two great birds had met here, not far from the ravine, one evening at twilight.
It was spring; the snow was thawing on the slopes, whilst in the forest and valleys it became grey and mellow; the pine-trees exhaled a pungent odour; and the brook at the bottom of the ravine had awakened.
The sun already gave warmth in the daytime. The twilight was verdurous, lingering, and resonant with life. Wolf-packs were astir, and the males fought each other for the females.
This spring, with the sun and the soft breeze, an unwonted heaviness pervaded the male-bird's body. Formerly he used to fly or roost, croak or sit silent, fly swiftly or slowly, because there were causes both around and within him: when hungry he would find a hare, kill, and devour it; when the sun was too hot or the wind too keen, he would shelter from them; when he saw a crouching wolf, he would hastily fly away from it.
Now it was no longer so.
It was not a sense of hunger or self-preservation now that induced him to fly, to roost, cry, or be silent: something outside of him and his feelings now possessed him.
When the twilight came, as though befogged, not knowing why, he rose from the spot on which he had perched all day and flew from glade to glade, from crag to crag, moving his great wings softly and peering hard into the dense, verdurous darkness. In one of the glades he saw birds similar to himself, a female among them. Without knowing why, he threw himself amidst them, feeling an inordinate strength within him and a great hatred for all the other males.
He walked slowly round the female, treading hard on the ground, spreading out his wings, tossing back his head to look askance at the males. One, he who until now had been victor, tried to impede him— then flew at him with beak prepared to strike, and a long silent, cruel fight began. They flew at each other, beating with their bills, chests, wings, and claws, blindly rumpling and tearing each others' feathers and body.
His opponent proved the weaker and drew off; then again he threw himself towards the female and walked round her, limping a little now, and trailing his blood-stained left wing along the ground.
Pine-trees surrounded the glade; the earth was bestrewn with dry, withered leaves; the night sky was blue.
The female was indifferent to him and to all; she strode calmly about the glade, pecked at the ground, caught a mouse and quietly swallowed it. She appeared to pay no attention to the males.
It was thus all night long.
But when the night began to pale and over the east lay the greenish- blue outline of dawn, she moved close to him who had conquered the rest, leaned her back against his breast, tipped his injured wing tenderly with her bill—as though she would nurse and dress it; then slowly rising from the ground, she flew towards the ravine.
And he, moving his injured wing painfully but without heeding it, emitting shrill cries of joy, flew after her.
She came down just by the roots of that pine where afterwards they built their nest.
The male perched beside her. He was irresolute and apparently abashed.
The female strutted several times round him, scenting him again. Then, pressing her breast to the ground, tail uplifted, her eyes half-closed—she waited. The male threw himself towards her, seized her comb with his bill, clapping the ground with his heavy wings; and through his veins there coursed such a wonderful ecstasy, such invigorating joy, that he was dazzled, feeling nothing else save this delicious rapture, croaking hoarsely and making the ravine reverberate with a dull echo that ruffled the stillness of the early morn.
The female was submissive.
In the winter the pines stood motionless and their trunks were a greyish brown. The snow lay deep, swept into great drifts which reared in a dark pile towards the ravine. The sky was a grey stretch; the days short and almost dim.
At night the tree-boles cracked in the frost and their branches broke. The pale moon shone calmly in the stillness, and seemed to make the frost still harder.
The nights were weirdly horrible with the frost and the phosphorescent light of the moon; the birds sat tucked in their nest, pressing close together to keep themselves warm. Yet still the frost penetrated their feathers, got into their skin and made their feet, bills, and backs feel cold. The errant light of the moon was also disquieting; it made the whole earth appear to be a great wolfish eye—that was why it shone so terribly!
The birds had no sleep.
They turned painfully in their nest, changing their position; their large green eyes emitted a greenish light. Had they possessed the power of thought, they would certainly have longed for the advent of morning.
While it was still an hour before dawn, as the moon was fading and the first faint glimmer of daylight approaching, they began to feel hungry; in their mouths there was a disagreeable, bitterish taste, and from time to time their craws painfully contracted.
When the grey morning had at last come, the male bird flew off for his prey; he flew slowly, spreading his wings wide and rarely flapping them, vigilantly eying the ground beneath him. He usually hunted for hares. It was sometimes a long while before he found one; then he rose high over the ravine and set out on a distant flight from his nest, far away from the ravine into the vast white expanse of snow.
When there were no hares about, he seized young foxes and magpies, although their flesh was unsavoury. The foxes would defend themselves long and stubbornly, biting viciously, and they had to be attacked cautiously and skilfully. It was necessary to strike the bill at once into the animal's neck near its head, and, immediately clutching its back with the talons, to rise into the air—for there the fox ceased all resistance.
With his prey the bird flew back to his nest by the ravine, and here he and his mate at once devoured it. They ate but once in the day, and so satiated themselves that they could move only with difficulty afterwards, and their crops hung low. They even ate up the snow which had become soaked with blood. The female threw the bones that remained down the side of the steep.
The male perched himself on the end of a root, ruffling his feathers in an effort to make himself more comfortable; and the blood coursed warmly through his veins after his meal.
The female was sitting in the nest.
Towards evening the male, for some unknown reason, began to croak.
Oo-hoo-hoo-oo! he cried in guttural tones, as though the sound in his throat came from across the water.
Sometimes as he sat solitary on his height, the wolves would observe him, and one of the famished beasts would begin clambering up the precipitous side of the ravine.
The female would then take fright, and flap her wings; but the male would look down calmly with his big, glistening eyes, watching the wolf slowly clamber, slip and fall headlong downwards, bringing a heap of snow with it, tumbling over and over and yelping in fright.
The twilight crept on.
In March, as the days lengthened, the sun grew warmer; the snow darkened and thawed; the twilight grew balmy; and the wolf-packs stirred, while prey became more abundant, for now all the forest denizens felt the overwhelming, entrancing throb of Spring, and wandered through the glades, down the ravines and into the woods, powerless under the sway of the early Spring-time langour; and it was easy to catch them.
The male-bird brought all his kill to his mate—he ate little himself: only what she left him, usually the entrails, the flesh of the thoracic muscles, the skin and the head, although she usually pecked out the eyes as the most savoury portion.
The sun was bright. There was a soft, gentle breeze. At the bottom of the ravine the dark, turbulent brook rushed gurgling between the sharp outlines of its snow-laden banks.
It was cool. The male-bird sat roosting with his eyes closed, his head sunk deep into his shoulders. Outwardly he bore a look of great humility, of languishing expectation, and a droll look of guiltiness wholly unbecoming to his natural severity.
At dusk he grew restless. He stood up on his feet, stretched his neck, opened wide his round eyes, spread out his wings, beating the air with them: then closed them again. Curling up into a ball, drawing his head into his shoulders and blinking, he croaked:
Oo-hoo-hoo-hoo! The rueful cry scared the forest denizens.
And the echo in the ravine answered back:
Oo-oo…
The twilight was green, merging into blue. The sky was spangled with great glowing stars. The pine-trees exhaled an oily odour. In the night-frost, the brook at the bottom of the ravine grew still. Somewhere, caught in its current, birds were crying. Yet all was in a state of watchful calm.
When at length the night set in, the male stealthily and guiltily approached the female in the nest, cautiously spreading his big, awkward feet, which were so clumsy on the ground . . . A great and beautiful passion urged him to the side of his mate.
He perched beside her, smoothing her feathers with his bill, still with that droll absurd look of guilt. The female responded to his caresses; she was very soft and tender; but behind this tenderness could be detected her great strength and power over the male: perhaps she realized it herself.
In the language of instinct, she said to her mate:
Yes, you may.
The male succumbed to his passion, and she yielded to him.
It was thus for a week or ten days.
Then at last, when the male came to her one night-time, she said:
No! Enough!
She spoke instinctively, for another time had come—the time for the birth of her children.
The male-bird, abashed, as though conscience-stricken at not having divined the bidding of his mate earlier, went away from her only to return at the end of a year.
From Spring-time, all through the Summer until September, the male and female were absorbed in the great, beautiful, indispensable task of breeding their young. In September the fledgelings took wing.
The Spring and Summer developed in their multi-coloured glory: they burned with fiery splendour; the pine-trees glowed with a resinous phosphorescence. There was the fragrance of wormwood. Chicory, blue- bells, buttercups, milfoil, and cowslip blossomed and faded; prickly thistles abounded.
In May the nights were deeply blue.
In June they were pale green.
The dawn broke in a blood-red flare like a great conflagration, and at night pale silvery mists moved along the bottom of the ravine, washing the tops of the pines.
At first the nest contained five grey eggs with green speckles. Then came the little birds, big-headed, with disproportionately large yellow mouths, their bodies covered with down. They chirruped plaintively, stretching their long necks out from the nest, and they ate voraciously.
They flew in June, though as yet clumsily, piping, and awkwardly fluttering their immature wings.
The female was with them all the time, ruffling her feathers, solicitous and petulant.
The male had no power of thought and hardly any of feeling, but within him was a sense of pride in his own work, which he carried on with joy. His whole life was dominated with an instinct which subjugated his will and his desires to the care of his young.
He hunted for prey.
He had to obtain a great deal, because both his fledglings and his mate were voracious. He had to fly sometimes as far as the river Kama, in order to catch seagulls, which hovered over the huge, white, unfamiliar, many-eyed monsters that floated over the water, puffing, and smelling strangely like forest fires—the steamers!
He fed his fledgelings himself, tearing the meat into pieces. And he watched attentively how, with wide open beaks, they seized the little lumps of meat and, rolling their eyes and almost choking in the effort, swallowed them.
Sometimes one of the fledgelings awkwardly fell out of the nest and rolled down the steep. Then he hastily and anxiously flew after it, bustling and croaking as though he were grumbling; he would take it cautiously and clumsily in his talons and carry it, a frightened flustered atom, back to the nest. There he would smooth its feathers with his great beak for a long time, strutting round it, standing high on his legs, and continuing his anxious croaks.
He dared not sleep at nights.
He perched on the end of a root, vigilantly peering into the darkness, guarding his nestlings and their mother from danger. The stars were above him. At times, as though scenting the fullness and beauty of life, he fiercely and ruefully uttered his croak—scaring the night.
He lived through the Winter in order to live. Through the Spring and Summer he lived to breed. He was unable to think. He acted instinctively, because God had so ordained it. Instinct alone guided him.
He lived to eat in the Winter so that he should not die. The Winters were cold and cruel.
In the Spring he bred. Then the blood coursed warmly through his veins. It was calm; the sun was bright; the stars glittered; and all the time he longed to stretch himself, to close his eyes, to smite the air with his wings, and to croak with an unreasoning joy.
The birdlings flew away in the autumn. The old birds and the young bade adieu for ever with indifference. Rain came, mists swept by, the sky hung lowering over the earth. The nights were dreary, damp and dark. The old couple sat together in their nest, trying to cover themselves and sleep. They froze and tossed about in discomfort. Their eyes gleamed with greenish-yellow lights.
Thus passed the thirteen years of their life together.
* * * * * * * X
Then the male-bird died.
His wing had been injured in youth, at the time he fought for his mate. As the years rolled on, he found it more and more difficult to hunt his prey: he had to fly ever farther and farther for it, and in the nights he could get no rest because of the overwhelming pain that shot right through the whole of his wing, and tormented him terribly. Formerly he had not heeded the injury; now he found it grew exceedingly grave and painful.
He did not sleep, but let his wing hang down as though he were thrusting it from him. And in the morning he was hardly able to use it when he flew off after his prey.
His mate forsook him.
She flew away from the nest at dusk one evening in early spring.
He sought for her all through the night—at dawn he found her with another male, young and strong, who croaked tenderly round her. Then the old bird felt life was over: he had lost all that made it beautiful. He flew to fight his younger rival, but his attack was weak and wavering. The young one rushed at him violently and passionately, tore his body, and croaked menacingly. The female watched the fray with indifference, as she had done many years before.
The old bird was beaten.
Fluttered, blood-stained, with one eye swollen, he flew back to his nest and painfully perched himself on the end of a root. Something within him told him his life was at an end. He had lived in order to eat and to breed. Now he had only to die. Instinct told him that. For two days he sat perched above the steep, quiet, immovable, his head sunk deep into his shoulders.
Then, calmly, unperceivingly, he died. He fell down from the steep and lay with his legs crooked and turned upward.
This was during the night. The stars were brilliant. Birds were crying in the woods and over the river. Somewhere owls hooted.
The male-bird lay at the bottom of the ravine for five days. His body was already decaying, and emitted a bitter, offensive odour.
A wolf came and devoured it.
ALWAYS ON DETACHMENT
Alexander Alexandrovitch Agrenev, engineer, spent all day in the quarry, laying and exploding dynamite. In the village below was a factory, its chimneys belching smoke; and creaking wagonettes sped backwards and forwards from the parapet. Above on the cliff stood huge sappy pines. All day the sky was grey and cloudy, and the smoke from the chimneys spread like a low pall over the earth. The dynamite exploded with a great detonation and expulsion of smoke.
The autumn darkness, with its sharp, acid, sweet tang, was already falling as Agrenev proceeded homeward with the head-miner, Eduardovich Bitska, a Lithuanian, and the lights from the engine- house shone brightly in the distance.
The engineer's quarters lay in a forest-clearing on the further side of the valley; the cement structures of its small buildings stood out in monotonous uniformity; the blue light of its torches flared and hissed, throwing back dark shadows from the trunks and branches of the pine-trees, which laced, interlaced, and glided dusky and intangible between the tall straight stems, finally melting amidst the foliage.
His skin jacket was sticking to Agrenev's back, as, no doubt,
Bitska's was also.
My missus will soon be home, Bitska said cheerfully—he had recently been married. He spoke in broken Russian, with a foreign accent.
In Agrenev's house it was dark. The warm glow from the torches outside fell on the window-ledges and illuminated them, but inside the only light was that visible through the crevices of his wife's tightly closed door: his beloved wife—so aloof—so strange. The rain had started, and its drip on the roof was like the sound of water- falls: he changed, washed, took up a newspaper. The maid entered and announced that tea was ready.
His wife—tall, slim, beautiful, and strange—was standing by the window, her back to him, a book in her hand; a tumbler was on the window-sill close beside her. She did not turn round as he entered, merely murmuring: "Have some tea."
The electric light gave a brilliant glow. The freshly varnished woodwork smelt of polish. She did not say another word, but returned to her book, her delicate fingers turning over the leaves as, standing with bent head, she read.
Are you going out this evening, Anna? he asked.
Eh? No, I am staying in.
Is there anyone coming?
Eh? No, nobody. Are you going out?
I am not sure. I am going to-morrow on Detachment duty for a week.
Eh? Oh yes, on Detachment.
Always the same! No interest in him; indifferent, absorbed in other things. How he longed to stay and talk to her, on and on, of everything; of the utter impossibility of life without love or sympathy, of the intensity of his own love, and the melancholy of his evenings. But he was silent.
Is Asya asleep? he inquired at last.
Yes, she is asleep.
A nickel tea-pot and a solitary tumbler stood on the table with its white cloth falling in straight folds. The ticking of the clock sounded monotonously.
She does not deceive, nor betray, nor leave me, he thought; "but she is strange, strange—and a mother!"
At last the earth was cloaked in darkness, the torches hung like gleaming balls of fire, the pattering of the rain echoed dismally, and above it, drowning all other sounds, was the dreary roar of the factory.
He sauntered through the straight-cut avenues of the park towards his club, but near the school turned aside and went in to see Nina. They had known each other from childhood, attending the same school, Nina his faithful comrade and devoted slave—and ever since he had remained for her the one and only man, for she was of those who love but once. Since then she had been flung about Russia, striven to retain her honour, vainly tilting against the windmills of poverty and temptation—had failed, been broken, and now had crept back that she might live near him.
He walked through the school's dark corridors and knocked.
Come in.
Alone, in a grey dress, plain-featured, her cheek red where it had rested against the palm of her hand, she sat beside a little table in the bare, simple room, a book on her lap. With a pang, Agrenev noted her sunken eyes. But at sight of him they brightened instantly, and she rose from her seat, putting the book aside.
You darling? Welcome! Is it raining?
Greeting! Nina. I have just come in for a moment.
Take off your coat, she urged. "You will have some tea?" Her eyes and outstretched hands both said: "Thank you, thank you." "How are you doing?" she asked him anxiously.
I am bored. I can do nothing. I am utterly bored.
She placed the tea-urn on the table in her tiny kitchen, laid some pots of jam by her copy-book, seated him in the solitary armchair, and bustled round, all smiles, her cheeks flushing—the spot where she had rested her hand all the long evening still showing red,—all- loving, all-surrendering, yet undesired.
You musn't wait on me like this, Nina, Agrenev protested;"… Sit down and let us talk."
Their hands touched caressingly, and she sat down beside him.
What is it, my dear? She stroked his hand and its touch warmed her!
What is it?
At times indignation overcame her at the thought of life; she wrung her hands, spoke with hatred, and her eyes darkened in anger. At times she fell on her knees in tears and supplication; but with Alexander Alexandrovitch she was always tender, with the tenderness of unrequited love.
What is it, darling?
I am bored, Nina. She … Anna … does not love me; she does not leave me, nor deceive me, but neither does she love me. I know you love …
At home four walls … Coldness … The miner, Bitska, making jokes all day in the rain … the fuse to be lighted in the quarry, the slow igniting to be watched. Thirty years had been lived … five- tenths of his life … a half … ten-twentieths. It was like a blank cartridge … no kindness … a life without feeling … all blank …
The lamp seemed to go out and something warm lay over his eyes. The palm of a hand. Nina's words were calm at first; then they grew frantic.
Leave her, leave her, darling! Come to me, to me who wants you! What if she doesn't love you? I do, I love you …
He was silent.
You say nothing? I will give you all; you shall have everything! Come to me, to me who will give to you so gladly! She is as dead; she needs nothing! Do you hear? You have me … I will take all the suffering on myself …
The lamp streamed forth clearly again. A little grey clod of humanity fell on to the maiden's narrow bed.
It was so intensely dark that the blackness seemed to close in on one like a great wall, and it was difficult to see two paces ahead. Close to the barracks some men were bawling to the music of a mouth-organ. Under cover of the gloom someone whistled between his fingers, babbling insolence and nonsense. The torches glowed through the tangled network of branches and leaves like globes of fire.
Agrenev walked along, carrying a lantern, by the light of which he mechanically picked his steps; close to his heels, Nina hurried through the darkness and puddles. On every side there was the rustling of pines, hundreds of them, their immense stems towering upwards into obscurity. Although invisible, their presence could be felt. The place was wild and dreary, odours of earth, moss, and pine- sap mingled together in an overpowering perfume; it was the heart of a vast primeval forest. Agrenev murmured as if to himself:
No, Nina, I do not love you. I want nothing from you…. Anna … her father ordered her to marry me…. Ancient blood…. Anna told me she would never love…. Asya is growing up under her influence…. I love my little daughter … yet she is strange too … she looks at me with vacant eyes … my daughter! I stole her mother out of a void! I go home and lie down alone … or I go to Anna and she receives me with compressed lips. I do not want a daughter from you, Nina … Why should I? To-morrow will … be the same as yesterday.
By the door of his house in the engineer's quarters, he remembered
Nina, and all at once became solicitous:
You will catch cold, my dear. It will be terrible for you getting back …
He stood before her a moment silently; then stretched out his hand:
Well, the best of luck, my dear!
A band of youths strolled by. One of them flashed a lantern-light on the doorway.
Aha! Sky-larking with the engineers! Ha! Ha! Ha!
They began chattering among themselves and sang in chorus a ribald doggerel:
"Once upon a time a wench
Appeared before a judge's bench.."