Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

"A girl like a turnip, I tell you," Maciej continued. "Strong as my fingers are--but no--nothing to be done--you couldn't pinch her, anyhow.

"I courted her, and it seemed to me that she wasn't against it; for she was always looking at me, and danced best with me. So I thought to myself: 'I'll just see how I stand in this.' So one Sunday evening I watched her going off to the dance, and she had to climb over the fence near the Wojciecks' cottage. I stood and waited there. I heard her coming; I heard, because one can always hear one's girl coming a long way off. She came to the fence, lifted her foot, jumped on to the other side, and was just going to hop down, when I, who was watching all this, couldn't stand it any longer; I ran up to the fence and put my arm round her waist. You know, sir, there's a song which ends:

"'Maiden, turn not from me....'

"Well, I sang the song as I held her, and wanted to kiss her. But I hadn't finished the last words before she gave me such a slap between the eyes that it quite blinded me, and before I could take it in--thwack! she went on my jaw, first one side and then another. 'So there's a kiss for you, that's your kiss, you fine fellow! You just keep away from me!' she shouted, and thwacked and thwacked like a tadpole in the water. My word! how she did go for me! I was so taken aback I couldn't come to myself; I could only feel my cheeks swelling from the blows, for she was such a strong girl. At last she stopped and sat down on the fence, and began to cry and say:

"'I never expected a disgrace like this from you, Maciej. Am I just anyone, and not a respectable farmer's daughter, that you should put yourself in my way when I was coming across the fence?'

"When she said this, I understood; still, I wasn't able to come to my senses all at once, and out it slipped: 'But why?' I said. It was just as if I'd covered her with hot coals!

"'Why? Why?' she cried. 'Are you a little boy? Aren't you a farm labourer? You're a clever fellow, to begin courting and not to know how to make up to a respectable girl! Well, if you're such a fool, I'll tell you: the way to do it is through one's parents!'

"Now, that went to my heart so much I was ready to cry like a calf. I asked: 'Will you have me?'

"'Are you cracked? Doesn't my father know you?' she said.

"'And you, Marya?' I said.

"'Well, why not--of course, if father tells me.'

"'Ah!' I thought to myself, 'a girl like that's a good one; I'm lucky if I get her!' And, if I hadn't been careful not to vex her again, I'd have taken her into my arms once more. But someone came along, and down she jumped and ran to the dance; and back home I came, for my cheeks were as swollen as the white loaves father sometimes brought back from the fair at Lomza. I didn't have any supper, I went straight to bed; but the next day I went to my parents and told them all about it, and asked them to arrange the match at once. They were surprised I was in such a hurry; but I was obstinate, and begged for it. The worst was to know how it would be about the master. But it was no use, I couldn't do it without him; so I went and asked him, and he was very kind to me. He set me free from his service, and gave me a field ready sown as a start, and a farm of twenty acres.

"We put in our banns, and had a wedding such as the oldest people in Mocarze didn't remember. For though my parents and her parents weren't so very rich, they were well-to-do farmers; and as to the drink, the master gave that. We did dance and all enjoy ourselves!"

Maciej stopped abruptly.

"Those seven years I lived with my wife were the only ones in which I have really lived," Maciej began again slowly and emphatically, as though weighing each word. "Marya was a wonderful girl, but she was a still better wife.

"A child was born almost every year about Christmas time. But she never had any trouble with it, for she could have nursed three at once. They were all boys, and they are all as like me as peas in a pod."

The sadness we could hear in Maciej's voice, and the way in which he paused, showed that the bright part of the story was now nearly ended.

"The home was clean and tidy, both the food and clothes," Maciej added in a measured tone. "And as to the farm, there's no need to speak of that, either. I was successful all round; I only wanted the moon!"

Maciej became silent, and somehow we felt that with his last words the golden thread of his life had snapped. We felt that as the story went on it would be different, and we longed for it to continue as it had been. Therefore, although knowing it to be vain, we deceived ourselves by the hope that we should still hear a merry laugh, and watch the continuance of that tranquil life, though, maybe, only for a moment longer. But, rocked by memories, Maciej let his head fall on his broad chest, and remained mournfully silent. Possibly he was chasing the last gleams of those brighter days which had disappeared without return, or possibly, as he looked, the days of fear and pain emerged from the twilight of the distant past.

* * * * *

The snowstorm was raging outside, and the wild howling of the wind could be heard distinctly now in the quiet of the little room. Suddenly it gave a louder moan, and shook the shutter as though trying to blow it off its hinges. Maciej must have heard this, for he raised his head, and, as if to put an end to his own thoughts, spoke at last.

"Perhaps everything might have been the same to-day, if it hadn't been for that misfortune.... If it hadn't been for that misfortune," he repeated slowly, as we both instinctively moved closer to him to comfort him.

"But directly the storm[6] broke out life became different in our village. All the strong young fellows went off, and I shouldn't have kept at home either, if the master hadn't said: 'No; what has to be done there can be done without you, and you can be useful here.' Well, he knew better than I did; so I stayed. Yet at first Marya and I both thought: 'Why is he keeping me here?' for I was sitting doing nothing for weeks. But suddenly one night, just before it got light, there was great excitement in the village. Some horsemen came riding up, people began to tear about, and there wasn't time to say two Paternosters before it was all round the village: 'They're coming! They're coming!' How the news spread so quickly, just like a cry, Lord only knows! But as it spread, every single living thing was on its feet at once, and rushing out into the road. Only a few had time to dress, and most people ran out as they were, in their shirts.

"Then the master sent for me. I was always at work from that time, and it was rare for me to spend a night at home. I knew all the country for ten miles round, so, if anything was wanted, it was I who had to go everywhere. With or without a letter, on horseback or on foot, I was on the trot for whole days and nights, taking and bringing messages, or acting as guide to someone. I could scarcely come home and sit down to supper before the master knocked at the window; I put a bit of bread and cheese in my coat pocket, and off I set. Marya cried to herself, and she very rarely missed going to Mass. But God took care of me. I didn't like riding, because horses easily came to grief under my weight; it was better for me to walk.

"So half a year passed. I remember coming back from my last journey. I had been crossing a bog in the wood that only anyone knowing the way could get through. But I came through it, and stayed at home a day--in fact, two--and they didn't send for me from the house. I waited a third, and nobody came.

"'What's the matter? Is he ill, or what's up?' I asked the household servants.

"'No,' they said, 'he's out walking and driving; but he isn't like himself, for he's even stopped shouting.' I asked again: 'Didn't he send for me?' 'No,' they said, 'he didn't send for you.' What had happened? I couldn't get clear about it. Marya was glad--like a silly woman. 'Ah!' she said, 'you've become such a gadabout, you don't like being at home now!' But when I said to her, 'Shut your mouth, Marya, or I'll shut it for you!' she saw there was no joking, and stopped talking. On the fourth day I couldn't stand it; I dressed and went to the master's house. In spite of having been allowed to go to the master's room at any time of day or night all that half-year, I went into the kitchen, and let him know that I had come.

"He called me in, and I went in and bowed, but he was a bit strange. He seemed cross, and was walking about, searching for something among his papers, and didn't look at me when he spoke to me. So far he had always looked straight at me when he said anything, and then I had understood. This time he didn't.

"'Well, well, Maciej,' he said, 'what have you to tell me?'

"I was very much surprised, for what should I have to tell him? But since he asked, I said: 'I've come to see if there are any messages to be taken, sir.'

"'Yes,' he answered the same way as before. 'I was just thinking of sending for you. There's a letter to be taken to Korzeniste.'

"He sat down, wrote it, and gave it to me.

"I wasn't pleased, for I knew there was nothing going on at Korzeniste; but, on the other hand, I thought it was stupid of me, for how should I know everything? So, though this didn't seem to me to be right, I felt cheered up. I took the message quickly, and came back and asked when he wanted me to come again.

"'Oh,' he said, 'there's sure to be nothing urgent now; and if there is, I'll send for you.'

"Again he didn't look at me as he said this, and seemed strange. That hurt me, for I knew that he was sending people on errands whom he never used to send. But I daren't speak; I went and waited.

"And I waited again for several days; no news of the master. I didn't leave my farm during that time, for truth's truth, and through my always being away there was a lot to do at home. I tidied up my clothes and went to see people.

"On Saturday evening I went to the inn. When I passed the Wojciecks' cottage where the fence is, some people were standing at the corner of the house. They didn't see me coming. I came near, and heard them talking quite loud. When I got nearer and they saw me, they looked at each other, and not another word was spoken. I said, 'Christ be blessed!' but only Jedrek mumbled, 'In Eternity!'[7] I thought they were perhaps talking about something among themselves, so I passed on.

"It was the same at the inn. There was a noise going on there, because it was the day before a festival, and, as is usual then, there were a lot of peasants sitting drinking vodka or beer. When I went in, they looked at me and there was silence in a moment, just as if the word had been given for it. I paid no attention, I came in, sat down, and ordered my glass; but I saw that people didn't talk to me as if I belonged to them. 'What's up? Good Lord! is it because I've worked for the master, or what?'

"But they've always known that; and they also know that, though I've served under the master, I was really working for another reason; they've known that a long time, and it's never been like this before. So it must be something else.

"I went home quite upset. When Marya looked at me, she saw in a moment that there was something wrong, and began at once, like a woman does: 'What's the matter, my dear? tell me what it is.' I saw she was thinking--Lord knows what; so I told her: 'People won't speak to me as they used to; why, I don't know.' And I told her about it. Then Marya clasped her hands, and said: 'I know whose fault it is: no one's but that scoundrel Mateus.' Now, Mateus was my elder brother, and though there's a proverb, 'The apple falls near the tree,' this time it wasn't true; for neither my parents nor grandparents were that sort, and he was nothing more nor less than a scoundrel. I asked: 'How is it his fault?' 'It's his fault,' Marya said. 'People speak badly of him; not to my face or to our family, but I and my father have heard them say: "They are always off in different directions." And others say: "Honour among thieves"; what Maciej hears at the house[8] Mateus sells to the German colonists or to the Jewish bailiff; and so on.' I didn't listen to any more; my hair stood on end.

"I asked: 'Why didn't you tell me this before?' and lifted up my hand to strike her. But Marya pulled me up.

"'Are you mad?' she said, 'shouting as if you were possessed! I wanted to speak to you before, but you always told me to shut my mouth. Have you forgotten?'

"I felt quite weak, and my feet trembled as if they were coming off. I couldn't stand.

"'But, good Lord!' I said, 'that can't be true! Even if it were, is one brother to answer for another, or a father for his son?' I couldn't sleep all night; all sorts of thoughts kept coming into my head. I made up my mind I would go to church next day. I prayed, but I could understand nothing. I didn't dare to go up to the house, but hoped God would help me.

"When I went to church I didn't stop or look at people. I prayed all through the Mass, and got calmer, and made up my mind to go to my brother and ask him what he was really doing. However, I noticed people looking at me when church was over, as they'd watch a wolf. As I went across the cemetery near a crowd of boys, I heard such bad things being said that again my feet trembled. 'Oh, my God, save me!' I thought, and daren't look up. I came home. My father was there. I told him all this: Mateus was disgracing us; should I go and speak to him?

"'You ought to have done it long ago,' my father said. 'But be careful, for devil knows what he'll do to you!'

"'He can't do worse than he's done,' I said, and went. I crossed myself with holy water. I really had to shout at Marya, for she clung to me like a tipsy man to a fence. 'Don't go, don't go! may the dogs eat him!' she said. 'If people don't know it already, they'll soon see that you've no dealings with him.' I went, and after saying, 'Christ be blessed!' I said at once:

"'I've business with you, Mateus; I want to talk to you.'

"'All right,' he said.

"'It's business I want to have a good talk to you about privately, and at once.'

"He looked confused, and plainly guessed what it was, for he said:

"'Let's go into the backyard.'

"'Certainly not into the backyard,' I said; 'there are people about there, looking. Let's go into the field.'

"When I said this to him he looked askance at me, and I'm sure he thought something bad was up, for he said:

"'All right, but sit down and wait a moment. I'm going into my neighbour's, and shall be back before long.'

"He really came back at once, and we went behind the stackyard into the field. There was a wood at the edge of the field. As we went through the stackyard, we found Walek standing behind the barn--he was a great friend of my brother's--a disagreeable fellow. When my brother saw him, he smiled to himself in a nasty way. A shudder went through me: 'It's plain that what people say is true,' I thought, and went along depressed, and didn't speak because Walek was with us.

"'Well, Maciej, say what you have to say,' Mateus said, and looked at me as if he were making fun of me and were quite sure of himself.

"That made me feel worse, and I went along with them sadder still. We came like that to the wood, and there my brother began to talk very fast. I remember every word.

"'Ah!' he said, 'you wanted to talk to me; but I see it's I who'll talk to you. Perhaps,' he said, 'it's as well you've come to me; just listen to good advice. It's plain you're not doing yourself much good with all this running about, for I hear you run round the master's house like a dog. Now, I can fix you up in a business which will bring you in more than two years' wages. The German colonist----'

"I didn't hear any more, and it's plain he didn't look at me when he said this; for if he'd looked, the idiot! he'd have run away. The blood rushed to my head, left it, and rushed back again. I roared like a wild beast, and sprang on them. I couldn't speak, but I had terrific strength. I twisted his hands together on to his back with my left hand, as if they were string, took him by the middle, and lifted him up. Walek's hand I squeezed so hard that the bones cracked, and he stood there as lifeless as a stone.

"I let him go, and took my knife, which I always carried in the leg of my boot, and handed it to Walek. 'Hit here!' I shouted, and held Mateus' left side towards him. He had to strike. The knife was sharp, and went in up to the handle. The blood poured out in a stream.

"They took me up the very next day.

"'Was it you?' they asked.

"'Yes.'

"'Why did you do it?' they asked. I told them. They didn't ask any more; I was condemned for life."

I looked at Maciej. He was as pale as a corpse, whiter than the white wall against which he was sitting. He did not move his hands, but his fingers twitched convulsively.

I felt sorry that I had induced him to live through that terrible scene once more, and looked into his eyes, reproaching myself. But as I looked I turned pale myself; his eyes were pure and bright as a spring of water, calm and innocent as the eyes of a child.

* * * * *

The northerly gale raged outside, whirling the snow round impetuously. I had a feeling of horror as I returned through the solitary miserable streets to my empty house on the bank of the Lena, The wild gusts of wind echoed from the taiga and the mountains surrounding it with dreadful groans, and I ran through the snowdrifts pursued by those groans.

But also indoors it was a terrible night for me. The gale howled round the walls with increasing fury, the taiga groaned more and more sadly. And when I sprang from my bed and wearily pressed my burning forehead to the frozen window-pane, listening to that wild voice unconsciously, I heard those groans issue from the taiga as if pursued by the fiercest gusts of the storm, and mingle in one imploring groan: "Oh, Most High, Most Holy, forgive!"

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Primeval forest.

[2] Vodka could only be procured at the stores belonging to the mine-owners, and was dealt out in limited quantities. On this account there was a flourishing contraband trade. A gallon of even inferior quality was sold for a hundred roubles. A strong, sober miner, able to forgo his vodka and sell it, could make a good sum in this way.--_Author's note._

[3] Brodiaga--a criminal deported to Siberia, who has escaped from prison, or who, not having been sentenced to imprisonment, cannot find work, and has become a vagrant or bandit.

[4] The Poles deported to Siberia from Poland in the eighteenth century.

[5] "Juntas"--boots without heels, with soft soles and wide legs.

[6] The Polish Revolution of 1863.

[7] The greeting commonly used by the peasants.

[8] _I.e._, about the Revolutionists' plans. Maciej is accused of being a spy.

TWO PRAYERS

BY ADAM SZYMANSKI

I.

Long ago, very long ago--or so it seems to me, for I see those days now as through a mist--for the first time in my life I heard a fine men's choir singing in unison in one of the largest churches of Podlasia. The church was filled to overflowing with a compact mass of human beings, who joined in the chants which streamed from the choir like burning lava. Loud at first, their voices passed into sobbing until they died into a low and yet lower groan, imploring and scarcely audible.

My small body shivered as with fever. I pressed my burning forehead to the cold floor and folded my hands, stretching them out to God and begging Him to quiet the sorrowful sounds which were tearing my childish heart; I prayed that those people in the choir might sing less sadly, and that they might feel brighter and happier. "Have mercy, have mercy, Lord," I repeated with so much faith and confidence that I held my breath and waited after each appeal for the sound of a voice like thunder, which would smother the prayers and painful groans, so that the joyful Christmas hymn or the triumphant Easter "Allelujah" might flow from the choir with healing balm upon the crowd of praying people. The last sobs were hushed; the last sighs of a thousand breasts fell with a deadened echo from the high vaulting on to the bowed heads praying below, and oppressed the suppliants with a sense of universal pain. Bent to the ground, they humiliated themselves almost to extinction. I was not conscious of those many bent heads, but only of their eyes, which, fixed on the figure of Christ, were addressing a last prayer to Him.

The faintest echo of prayers and sighs was lost in the deep vaulting; dead silence--an awful silence--reigned throughout the church; it seemed as if all the prayers of a thousand faithful worshippers had been brought before a void, were dissolving into nothingness, and perishing--unheard.

The awe of such a moment is terrifying, and the soothing strains of music alone make it endurable. Those tightened lips were silent, and the bruised hearts raised no sigh; but soft tones, resembling human voices, were floating above amid the vaulting, and descended faintly through the heavy atmosphere.

The lifeless organ had become animate under the touch of human fingers, and the crowd of worshippers, hearing their own supplications as if rising from a stronger heart than theirs, were soothed by the musician's skill. Imploring and praying with fresh confidence, they were strengthened by renewed faith, until at length tears came, and in those tears they found relief.

It seemed as if the choir had been waiting for this moment, for scarcely were the tears seen on the people's faces before it sent forth another moving entreaty, and all hearts burnt with fresh ardour.

Once again the people groaned and prostrated themselves, weighed down by the load of sighs drawn from their aching hearts.

I groaned with them. I prayed still more fervently, stretching out my hands more beseechingly to the stern God. I held my breath still longer, always expecting a visible miracle. But God was silent, and my childish hopes were shattered.

The choir led the people in a new and still more ardent prayer.

"O God, my God, when will this dreadful praying end?"

I felt my strength was failing me, and that to pray thus any longer would be impossible. I clung to my dear father, who was praying beside me, hoping he would soothe me, as was his way. But my father did not see me, although he bent down to me, for his eyes were full of tears, and I only heard his heated whisper:

"Pray, my child; pray, dear boy, and never forget this wonderful prayer!"

So I prayed once more, concentrating all my thoughts and feelings in this one prayer. The perspiration stood in large drops on my forehead; I held my breath still longer, and waited--waited in vain! God was silent. But the choir raised a fresh entreaty.

"O God, my God, why art Thou so long in hearing us?"

It was so hot and close; a terrible sensation came over me now. My head seemed on fire; the singing of the choir, the sound of the organ, the human groans and sighs, all mingled in a chaotic whirr in my ears. This whirr passed gradually into a measured peal, commencing slowly, becoming quicker later, at first near, then farther off, resembling the flapping of a large bird's wings. The grey smoke of the incense reddened before my eyes. It flashed into my weary mind that our prayers could not reach God. I looked up and flung myself into my father's arms. There, above--it seemed to me--like birds assembling for their autumn flight, but confined by the high vaulting of the church, the human prayers were circling and clamouring. Streaks of sunlight were penetrating the narrow church windows, and all the bitter human groans and pain and tears were beating their wings against them--pressing towards the sun.

"Father! father! let us go outside to pray--there, in the sunshine! God Almighty will hear us there, and nothing will hinder our prayers."

II.

The winter of 18-- began unusually early in X----, as in all parts of the Yakutsk district. Already by the end of August the night frosts had shrivelled and blackened foliage of every kind, depriving it of its natural beauty. The broad stretch of valley in which the town lay now looked barer than usual; only miserable yurta were to be seen, no large buildings, nothing even distantly approaching the populous villages in Poland, which are so cheerful in autumn. During that early although short autumn I was attacked for the first time by home-sickness in all its dread severity.

Halfway through November the famous "sorokowiki"[9] began, which frequently last without interruption for two months. But the malady to which I had fallen a victim had developed rapidly and completely worn me out a long while before the "sorokowiki" came. Being a novice in such matters, I did a number of things which in themselves are not unwise, and are practised by experienced men, but only to a very limited extent. All who have suffered from nostalgia carefully avoid everything which may bring about a return of the malady; they talk unwillingly of their past, are obstinately silent when their native country is mentioned, and in public show a strange, incomprehensible indifference to all that should be dear to them. Of course, this indifference is assumed. At first I did not understand this strange fact. But later on, when I had been there longer, I realized that people who were seemingly hardened and indifferent were sheltering their suffering hearts beneath a breast-plate of despair, and that they were continuing their existence in the world by a great effort. I understood that this indifference is a form of heroism--an unassuming form, it is true, as heroism shown in misery always is, but heroism nevertheless.

People of all ranks and positions cover themselves here with this shield of indifference and assumed forgetfulness, some with more consciousness of what they are actually doing, and with more perseverance, others with less. But, among the seemingly indifferent, without question those most remarkable for strength of will are the peasants. It needs a long, long time before a spark can be kindled from the deep grief of a peasant; but when the fire has broken out it burns so fiercely that a man either hides from the glare or stares in dismay.

I had struggled with this severe illness for some months already and by the time Christmas Eve came I was straining after everything that recalled home, with the unhappy perversity with which a drunkard's thoughts run on spirits, or the thoughts of a lunatic on his mania. A letter received some days beforehand enclosing the symbol of Christmas, the wafer broken into small pieces,[10] had poured oil on the fire. I had read that letter through countless times, and as I now ran to and fro in my room, like a squirrel shut up in its round cage, I was no longer thinking of the letter alone. I had drunk all the poison of memories which the past sleepless nights had called forth in feverish haste without a moment's respite, and my harassed and exhausted imagination could go no farther. The day which had awakened so many remembrances and brought me so much suffering had come. My only desire was to spend the evening in such a way as to drain the cup of treacherous sweetness to the dregs, and surround myself with an atmosphere which would revive the irrevocable past--if but for a moment and but remotely--and would suggest new and actual pictures to nourish my exhausted imagination; although these might be of the coarsest, they would give it food for new visions, fresh hallucinations.

There were some hospitable Polish houses in X---- at the time, and Christmas was being celebrated in one or two of them. Yet I could not bring myself to go to any of them. It can easily be conjectured that on this day I wished to break away from the oppressive bonds of conventionality, and to spend Christmas Eve beyond the border-line of "society."

* * * * *

Imagine yourself walking in the evening, when there is a hard frost, through the empty streets of X----, and coming to the end of Cossack Street; you would then find yourself at a point whence the smaller part of the town stretches far away before you. The old mud-choked riverbed separates it just at that spot from the principal part. If the frost is very bitter, you will remain there with all the greater pleasure to enjoy the sight in front of you. A number of little lights, bright or pale, strong or flickering, are continually visible here, even through the mist of snow. In an uninhabited and desolate country the sight of any fair-sized colony is so attractive that I never once walked this way without feasting my eyes on so visible a proof of man's strength and vitality. I knew every house there: near at hand the brightly lighted houses of the richer tradesmen and officials; farther off the Cossacks' houses, like yurta; still farther the house of the shoemaker and church clerk, and Jan Pietrzak's forge; still farther, scarcely visible through the frozen panes, the feeble little lights from the Yakut yurta; and beyond them--the end of life, a boundless snowy space.

Oh, how cold it must be there! And how forsaken, how powerless a man feels amid those plains banked up with snow, glistening with ice, darkened by gloomy taiga, and exhaling cold, cold, and only cold!

Well do I remember how I trembled and my heart beat more quickly when I stopped on the hill, as usual, some weeks before Christmas, and noticed for the first time a very small fire shining through the foggy light from the desolate space which commenced beyond the Yakut yurta. It disappeared, and showed again. Good God! was it a phantom? I could not believe my own eyes, and rubbed them once or twice. But there, remote from human dwellings, this lonely fire flickered in the distance more and more distinctly. I stood for a long while before I guessed that this solitary firelight was shining from the horrible, execrated house, the house the inhabitants of the place avoided in fear. People had died from smallpox in it some years before, and to-day any of the local townsmen would sooner die than enter it. I could not guess in the least, therefore, who had dared to light a fire there at night. A Yakut was just passing me, so I stopped him, and, explaining what I wanted as well as I could, I asked if he knew how there came to be a fire in the old hospital. The Yakut listened attentively as long as he did not understand what I was asking. But as soon as he began to take it in he started back several steps, and when at last he thoroughly grasped it he tore off his cap, screamed out in an inhuman voice, "Kabýs abasà!"[11] and fled terrified.

The next day I learned that the plague-stricken house was permanently inhabited by some Poles, people without a roof to shelter them and with nothing to look forward to. From time to time people whose misfortunes deprived them of other shelter also took refuge there for a short time.

In this way a small colony had formed in the desert solitude beyond the town, whose members were of two sorts, permanent and temporary. During the last few weeks I had been a frequent guest in this lonely little colony, and now, after some deliberation, I decided to spend Christmas Eve there.

* * * * *

I set out about five o'clock, relying on the kindness--or unkindness--of the frost, which, if it had sent out its murderous "chijus," could have completely upset my plans by driving me to the nearest acquaintance's house. But, fortunately for me, although the frost was fiendish, it was as silent as the grave. The terrible "chijus" had not yet left its Polar hiding-place, and the air was absolutely still. Thanks to this circumstance, I reached the place unharmed.

The echo of my footsteps, with the creaking snow under my boots, played sharply and shrilly round the two unheated rooms through which I was obliged to pass in order to reach the inhabited part of the house. It seemed to be even colder here than out of doors. The windows were boarded up. But although in the impenetrable darkness I hit against fragments of pots and other useless lumber at every turn, and they tumbled about or broke with a crash, though the door grated on its rusty hinges, none of the people living there even looked out or paid any attention to it. At last I came into the inhabited part of the house.

It was not much lighter in the large room than in those through which I had just passed. A thin tallow candle on a shoemaker's low bench barely lighted one corner of the room. Two people were working at the bench.

The one sitting nearer me, a tall thin man, unmistakably a born shoemaker, was knocking wooden pegs into a sole with an expert and sure hand. He had not been long in the town, but he already had plenty of work, and would be certain not to remain long in this solitude.

The second, sitting farther off, a handsome man, was considerably shorter than Pan Józef. He was planing and polishing a heel, but slowly, without that deftness with which Pan Józef worked. One glance at the short shoemaker's face would have been enough to convince the most ardent opponent of all theories on heredity that this man had not always sat at a cobbler's bench.

As a matter of fact, Pan Jan Horodelski had once been a medical student; later ... but what he was later could not be told in two evenings. He had now been a shoemaker for five years, and, to speak the candid truth, a drunken shoemaker. His bad habit did not allow him even to think of carrying on business for himself; he therefore wandered round to all the local workshops, using other people's tools, and finding life very hard. Each master took a large percentage for the tools, and it is probable that Pan Józef charged him no less than other masters did.

His spirit had once been proud and audacious, but life had bruised it and trodden it into the dust. Some souls emerge thence not only beautiful and noble, but even strong. Horodelski had not that strength which braves all storms, and was now a permanent inhabitant of this solitude. His days were numbered; the intellect and knowledge he once possessed made him now fully conscious of his condition and filled up his cup of bitterness, the depth of which was known only to himself.

It was either the seal of death on his forehead, or possibly other and deeper reasons, which gave his face its particular expression. I said before that it was the face of a very handsome man, and I ought to add that it also expressed that gentleness and tenderness which belongs essentially to feminine beauty, and that it was stamped with indescribable sadness. He varied a good deal in his behaviour; his way of expressing himself and his manners frequently betrayed the influence of the surroundings in which he had been living for long past. Frequently--though not always--he could control himself, however, and then there appeared on his face a new sign of the manhood not yet completely crushed--namely, a blush of shame at his present position.

The shoemakers, as became busy men, did not even move on their stools when I entered. I therefore took off my things and brushed away the hoar-frost in silence, and it was only when I went up nearer to them that they both raised their bent heads, welcoming me with a friendly smile. As he was holding his pegs in his teeth, Pan Józef was able to offer me his hand, dropping it again immediately with a mechanical movement, and murmuring something indistinctly. Horodelski, after giving his greeting, looked at the heel, still unfinished, and, setting the boot on the ground, exclaimed with a sigh: "Well, that's finished!"

This was his favourite expression.

"What's finished?" I asked, however.

"Everything," came the equally stereotyped answer.

"Except the heel," Pan Józef muttered, taking the last peg from his teeth.

"It's possible the heel may get done too--that is, of course, if I don't leave this cursed ruin and go back to the church clerk," Horodelski answered quickly.

"Are you uncomfortable here, or what's up?" chaffed Pan Józef. "The Lord be praised, it's a good workshop, there are enough tools--and rooms, too; if you like, you can dance a quadrille."

But Horodelski did not listen, and continued:

"Yes, it may very possibly be that I shall give up shoemaking, if only for as long as I stay with the clerk. I shall leave it just because this shoemaker has made it as clear as day to me that I am no good at my trade, and can only be assistant to a bungling clerk."

Pan Józef tittered, highly pleased, and was just preparing to answer suitably, when a grave bass voice interrupted him.

"You may go to the clerk or not, but you'll never be a shoemaker."

The bass voice came from a dark corner of the same room. I therefore looked more attentively in that direction.

On a low plank bed, with his head bent forward, and emptying his pipe, sat a stalwart peasant, known as Bartek the Shepherd.

"Why not?" I asked, greeting the speaker.

"Why not?" Bartek answered. "Because no one can escape his destiny. A dog can't become a bitch, nor a woman a man."

"That is quite a different matter."

"So you'd think; but it's really all the same. Take me, for example. No one could say of me that I'm work-shy, yet nothing I have to do with ever comes off. And why?--Why? Because I'm not at my own work. So though I work and don't drink, I'm wasting like sheep in rough weather. I'm already more like a dog at a fair than a man,--only there's no fair. I saw that from the moment I came here. For isn't it a queer thing that a land like this, with rivers like the sea, mountains as big as the Lysia Góra at home, meadows with grass up to your middle, should have no sheep! Our shepherds are wise men; they can bewitch you and free you from spells, and have remedies for this and that; yet if you told them that in all this big country there are no sheep, they wouldn't believe you."

Bartek was a temporary inhabitant of this desert solitude. He was a very respectable man, but a kind of fatality hung over him; he was industrious and honest, yet he had never been able to find an occupation in which he could display his qualities and draw attention to himself. He had come here not long beforehand, attracted by the promises of some emigration agents. The promises had not been fulfilled, and Bartek, taking advantage in the meantime of this shelter, was only waiting for the frosts to abate a little before setting out on his return journey. He was a grave man--in fact, almost too serious. He did not care for idle talk, and rarely started a conversation; but when he did speak, it was always laconically and with decision, brooking no contradiction. As the representative of a class which for long ages had been fairly privileged, he was an ardent Conservative, and did not admit the desirability of social reform. "A dog is a dog, and a sheep is a sheep," was his maxim. He raised the authority of his moral leaders almost to a religious cult, and it was not always safe to express an opinion before him, which even remotely reflected on the authority he acknowledged.

"Who says so?" Bartek would ask threateningly on such occasions. And when he was not too much irritated, and able to control himself, he would shake his thick fist in the speaker's face, and solemnly announce:

"Only fools talk like that!"

In the other equally large room two more permanent inhabitants of this solitude were to be found: the locksmith, Porankiewicz, and the ex-landowner, once Pan Feliks Babinski.

If Horodelski was a man standing on the edge of a precipice, Porankiewicz had rolled to the very bottom long ago. When I went into the room, he was scraping together something near the little table which he called his bench. He was pale, thin, and very small, and appeared still smaller owing to his stoop; few quite old men would walk more bent.

"Do hold yourself straight just for once," I often used to say to him.

"Hah, hah, hah!" Porankiewicz would laugh good-naturedly; "only the ground, the ground, my dear sir, will straighten me. I have sat working from morning till night since I was ten years old, and even steel gets bent at last."

This man's life was a real Odyssey--only he, poor wretch! was no Odysseus. Ill-fortune had driven him through all parts of Siberia, and it was his lot to breathe his last in the worst of them.

Babinski was asleep when I went in, but our conversation woke him, and he got up. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had a strong physique, and his dark face with large projecting eyebrows and surrounded by a beard as black as coal, always had a stern expression. I never saw him moved to tears; when something touched him very deeply, he would only blink hard and stretch out his hand for the vodka. He was indefatigable and competent and knew how to work and had worked like an ox until two years previously, when he had begun to drink desperately. "He has either been 'overlooked' or he has a screw loose," Bartek used to say of him. So now he seemed to be lost irretrievably, although under favourable circumstances he might perhaps yet draw himself out of the abyss into which he had rolled; for he was a man of exceptionally strong character.

There are black cart-horses in Russia, called "bitiugs," which are bad-tempered, tall, and uncommonly strong. These animals walk with an even, measured step, and without the least effort. When you inquire what weight they are drawing, you will find that it is at least sixty poods, and they frequently draw a hundred.

Babinski was like a "bitiug"; he even walked with a "bitiug's" step. When he slouched along with his big strides, it was never possible to keep pace with him. He always did the shopping in the town--bread, meat, and vodka--for no one walked as quickly as he, and no one could stand frost, however severe, as he could.

He was a very hard man, and however much there might be weighing upon him, no one would have guessed it;--he was a real "bitiug." He also possessed a certain shrewdness, which often saved him from sinking altogether. It was he who had occupied this solitary house, and was the host _de jure_; but what was still more remarkable was that he had succeeded in finding a Yakut woman, as hideous as hell, who had consented to be cook in the colony, and was as honest as only savage people can be. Eudoxia was thus the sixth soul in this lonely place.

Not all the inhabitants agreed to the festive celebration of Christmas. Bartek, and, stranger still, Horodelski, were most strongly opposed to it. "No, never!" Horodelski persisted. "I will drink as much vodka as you like, and eat what you give me--but Christmas? No!" And he only gave way after Bartek's refractoriness also had been softened by unusual eloquence on Porankiewicz's part.

The usual order of these social gatherings was that first of all Babinski rushed off without delay for provisions, and quickly returned with flour, butter, "pepki,"[12] and a large bottle of wine. Having stilled our hunger a little, and refreshed ourselves by a good glass of wine, we went out into the front room in order not to hinder the preparations which Eudoxia was making under Porankiewicz's direction. He was immensely proud of the honour shown him, and threw his head back, as he always did when trying to hold himself straighter, assuming an air of extreme gravity. He was so deeply moved he was almost unable to speak, and instead of words gave indistinct grunts which, especially at first, nearly choked him. Ultimately the grunts ceased, and the sounds proceeding from the kitchen, of hissing butter, logs being split, and dough kneaded, told us that, having overcome his emotion, Porankiewicz was directing culinary affairs in his own way.

Things were now becoming noisier in the front room. Bartek and Horodelski, relaxing their restraint, were already growing boisterous. They began to recall and count up how many years it was since they had last kept Christmas Eve; and when Bartek remarked that it would be worth while "getting a little clean to sit down to such a great festivity," a public washing and changing began, as though everyone were preparing for a ball.

Pan Józef produced a very fetching collar, reaching halfway up his cheek, and ornamented his throat with a fascinating tie, made out of a checked handkerchief. Bartek pulled a small bag out of the cupboard, and, after rummaging in it for a long time, took out a threadbare piece of cheap ribbon, which he tried unsuccessfully to tie round his neck. His clumsy, unaccustomed hands quite refused to obey him, and the ribbon slipped through his fingers. But attracted by the sight of the shoemaker's tie, Bartek turned to him with the request: "Help me with this, will you?" The shoemaker set himself to the task, yet he either undertook it carelessly or murmured something about the shabbiness of the ribbon; for only when Bartek had said in a low voice, "But it comes from home," the shoemaker answered "A-ah!" in a different tone, and, leading Bartek to the light, arranged a tie for him with which "one might dare to go courting." Bartek walked about with this as if he had swallowed a poker. Then, when Babinski also pinned on a freshly starched collar, and Horodelski sported an antiquated jacket, on which he had been working for the last half-hour to get out the stains, the external appearance of our whole party harmonized with its inner sense of festivity.

Of the whole party, I repeat; for, when the door of the next room opened wide, Porankiewicz appeared dressed equally smartly in a long, threadbare coat, and although his collar was smaller, his tie was by no means inferior to the shoemaker's.

* * * * *

Porankiewicz cleared his throat once or twice--indeed, he cleared it a third time. Holding the door with one hand, and waving the other towards us, he said with a solemn bow:

"Dinner is ready!"

The sight which met us on entering was so unexpected that we stood thunderstruck.

By the inner wall of the room stood a fair-sized table, covered, as it should be, with a white cloth. The hay spread on the table[13] underneath the cloth was peeping through the holes. The table was lighted with two candles in very battered candlesticks. At one end stood a large dish heaped with temptingly smoking and savoury "oladis,"[14] at the other end a dish of pepki, prepared with vinegar and pepper. Round the dish lay bread, and a bottle of wine stood near it, surrounded by small drinking vessels of various kinds. But in the very centre of the table, on the only plate--once white, now yellow and chipped--lay the fragments of the wafer which had been sent to me from home.

No one had expected either the tablecloth, the hay, or the wafer; the impression produced by so many unexpected accessories was therefore very great.

Highly pleased with the effect, Porankiewicz now went to the table and carefully took up the plate with the wafer. Straightening himself until his back almost cracked, he cleared his throat, opened his mouth, and when everyone was on tiptoe of expectation, awaiting a speech, he said in a trembling voice:

"H'm-h'm! Gentlemen, the wafer comes straight from Warsaw!"

Chrysostom himself could not have spoken more powerfully.

We had been impatient to sit down to table beforehand, for the inviting smell of the oladis had begun to gain ascendancy over the solemnity of the moment. But these few words threw a dead silence round the room, and somehow we all involuntarily drew ourselves up into a row, and our five heads turned to the plate alone.

Porankiewicz straightened himself once more.

"H'm-h'm! Gentlemen, this is such a sacred----"

"Has it been blessed by the priest?" Bartek interrupted anxiously, full of joyful admiration.

"I should hope so! They would not otherwise have sent it," Porankiewicz answered, with deep conviction. "But," he continued, "h'm--I should like to say, as it is such a sacred thing, shall we not break it?"

"Let us break it! Of course we must break it!" came from five mouths as though from one.

Porankiewicz made a fresh effort to hold himself straighter.

"But since--that is--I should like to say--without offence to our dear Pan Babinski"--and he bowed to him respectfully--"we are all hosts of this palace, I therefore hope--that is, I think--it will be best if this gentleman, who is our guest, takes it round...."

As crimson and perspiring as after the hardest piece of work, he handed me the plate with a bow.

And now, when it was my own turn to speak, I understood the difficulty my predecessor had had in making his short speech. My hands trembled, and I could not utter a word. Babinski became as white as a sheet, and when I went up to him his stern face was as still as if it had been cut out of marble. Had it not been that his eyelids quivered, I might have thought that it was a corpse and not a living man before me. He was a long time in gathering the crumbs; they fell from his hands, and I doubt if he ate even one.

It was the same with all the rest.