Chapter II: Part 2

Polunin accompanied her. The snow-wind blew violently, whistling and cutting at them viciously. The moon seemed to be leaping among the clouds; around them the green, snowy twilight hung like a thick curtain. The horses jogged along slowly. Darkness lay over the land.

Polunin returned alone over a tractless road-way; the gale blew in his face; the snow blinded him. He stabled his horses; then found Alena waiting up for him in the kitchen, her expression was composed but sad. Polunin took her in his arms and kissed her.

"Do not be anxious or afraid; I love only you, no one else. I know why you are unhappy."

Alena looked up at him in loving gratitude, and shyly smiled.

"You do not understand that it is possible to love one only. Other men are not able to do that," Polunin told her tenderly.

The hurricane raged over the house, but within reigned peace. Polunin went into his study and sat down at his desk; Natasha began to cry; he rose, took a candle, and brought her to Alena, who nursed her. The infant looked so small, fragile, and red that Polunin's heart overflowed with tenderness towards her. One solitary, flickering candle illumined the room.

There was a call on the telephone at daybreak. Polunin was already up. The day slowly broke in shades of blue; there was a murky, bluish light inside the rooms and outside the windows, the panes of which were coated with snow. The storm had subsided.

"Have I aroused you? Were you still in bed?" called Kseniya.

"No, I was already up."

"On the watch?"

"Yes."

"I have only just arrived home. The storm whirled madly round us in the fields, and the roads were invisible, frozen under snow ... I drove on thinking, and thinking--of the snow, you, myself, Arkhipov, Paris ... oh, Paris...! You are not angry with me for ringing you up, are you, my ascetic?... I was thinking of our conversation."

"What were you thinking?"

"This.... We were speaking together, you see.... Forgive me, but you could not speak like that to Alena. She would not understand ... how could she?"

"One need not speak a word, yet understand everything. There is something that unites--without the aid of speech--not only Alena and me, but the world and me. That is a law of God."

"So it is," murmured Kseniya. "Forgive me ... poor old Alena."

"I love her, and she has given me a daughter...."

"Yes, that is true. And we ... we love, but are childless... We rise in the morning feeling dull and depressed from our revels of overnight, while you were wisely sleeping." Kseniya Ippolytovna's voice rose higher. "'We are the heisha-girls of lantern-light,' you remember Annensky? At night we sit in restaurants, drinking wine and listening to garish music. We love--but are childless.... And you? You live a sober, righteous and sensible life, seeking the truth.... Isn't that so?' Truth!" Her cry was malignant and full of derision.

"That is unjust, Kseniya," answered Polunin in a low voice, hanging his head.

"No, wait," continued the mocking voice at the other end of the line; "here is something more from Annensky: 'We are the heisha-girls of lantern-light!'... 'And what seemed to them music brought them torment'; and again: 'But Cypris has nothing more sacred than the words _I love_, unuttered by us' ..."

"That is unjust, Kseniya."

"Unjust!" She laughed stridently; then suddenly was silent. She began to speak in a sad, scarcely audible whisper: "But Cypris has nothing more sacred than the words _I love_, unuttered by us.... I love ... love.... Oh, darling, at that time, in that June, I looked upon you as a mere lad. But now I seem small and little myself, and you a big man, who defends me. How miserable I was alone in the fields last night! But that is expiation.... You are the only one who has loved me devotedly. Thank you, but I have no faith now."

The dawn was grey, lingering, cold; the East grew red.

III

Kseniya Ippolytovna's ancestral home had reared its columns for fully a century. It was of classic architecture, with pediment, balconied hall, echoing corridors, and furniture that seemed never to have been moved from the place it had occupied in her forefathers' time.

The old mansion greeted her--the last descendant of the ancient name-- with gloomy indifference; with cold, sombre apartments that were terrible by night, and thickly covered with the accumulated dust of many years. An ancient butler remained who recalled the former times and masters, the former baronial pomp and splendour. The housemaid, who spoke no Russian, was brought by Kseniya.

Kseniya Ippolytovna established herself in her mother's rooms. She told the one ancient retainer that the household should be conducted as in her parents' day, with all the old rules and regulations. He thereupon informed her that it was customary in the times of the old masters for relatives and friends to gather together on Christmas Eve, while for the New Year all the gentry of the district considered it their duty to come, even those who were uninvited. Therefore it was necessary for her to order in the provisions at once.

The old butler called Kseniya Ippolytovna at eight; then served her with coffee. After she had taken it, he said austerely:

"You will have to go round the house and arrange things, Barina; then go into the study to read books and work out the expenses and write out recipes for your house-party. The old gentry always did that."

She carried out all her instructions, adhering rigorously to former rules. She was wonderfully quiet, submissive, and sad. She read thick, simply-written books--those in which the old script for _sh_ is confused with that for _t_. Now and then, however, she rang up Polunin behind the old man's back, talking to him long and fretfully, with mingled love, grief, and hatred.

In the holidays they drove about together in droskies, and told fortunes: Kseniya Ippolytovna was presented with a waxen cradle. They drove to town with some mummers, and attended an amateur performance in a club. Polunin dressed up as a wood-spirit, Kseniya as a wood- spirit's daughter--out of a birch-grove. Then they visited the neighbouring landowners.

The Christmas holidays were bright and frosty, with a red morning glow from the east, the daylight waxy in the sun, and with long blue, crepuscular evenings.

IV

The old butler made a great ado in the house at the approach of the New Year. In preparation for a great ball, he cleared the inlaid floors, spread carpets, filled the lamps; placed new candles here and there; took the silver and the dinner-services out of their chests, and procured all the requisites for fortune-telling. By New Year's Eve the house was in order, the stately rooms glittering with lights, and uniformed village-lads stood by the doors.

Kseniya Ippolytovna awoke late on that day and did not get up, lying without stirring in bed until dinner time, her hands behind her head. It was a clear, bright day and the sun's golden rays streamed in through the windows, and were reflected on the polished floor, casting wavy shadows over the dark heavy tapestry on the walls. Outside was the cold blue glare of the snow, which was marked with the imprints of birds' feet, and a vast stretch of clear turquoise sky.

The bedroom was large and gloomy; the polished floor was covered with rugs; a canopied double bedstead stood against the further wall; a large wardrobe was placed in a corner.

Kseniya Ippolytovna looked haggard and unhappy. She took a bath before dinner; then had her meal--alone, in solitary state, drowsing lingeringly over it with a book.

Crows, the birds of destruction, were cawing and gossiping outside in the park. At dusk the fragile new moon rose for a brief while. The frosty night was crisp and sparkling. The stars shone diamond-bright in the vast, all-embracing vault of blue; the snow was a soft, velvety green.

Polunin arrived early. Kseniya Ippolytovna greeted him in the drawing-room. A bright fire burnt on the hearth; beside it were two deep armchairs. No lamps were alight, but the fire-flames cast warm, orange reflections; the round-topped windows seemed silvery in the hoar-frost.

Kseniya Ippolytovna wore a dark evening dress and had plaited her hair; she shook hands with Polunin.

"I am feeling sad to-day, Polunin," she said in a melancholy voice. They sat down in the armchairs.

"I expected you at five. It is now six. But you are always churlish and inconsiderate towards women. You haven't once wanted to be alone with me--or guessed that I desired it!" She spoke calmly, rather coldly, gazing obstinately into the fire, her cheeks cupped between her narrow palms. "You are so very silent, a perfect diplomat.... What is it like in the fields to-day? Cold? Warm? Tea will be served in a moment."

There was a pause.

At last Polunin broke the silence.

"Yes, it was bitterly cold, but fine." After a further pause he added: "When we last talked together you did not say all that was in your mind. Say it now."

Kseniya Ippolytovna laughed:

"I have already said everything! Isn't it cold? I have not been out to-day. I have been thinking about Paris and of that ... that June.... Tea should be ready by this time!"

She rose and rung the bell, and the old butler came in.

"Will tea be long?"

"I will bring it now, Barina."

He went out and returned with a tray on which were two glasses of tea, a decanter of rum, some pastries, figs, and honey, and laid them on the little table beside the armchairs.

"Will you have the lamps lighted, Barina?" he inquired, respectfully.

"No. You may go. Close the door."

The old butler looked at them knowingly; then withdrew. Kseniya turned at once to Polunin.

"I have told you everything. How is it you have not understood? Drink up your tea."

"Tell me again," he pleaded.

"Take your tea first; pour out the rum. I repeat I have already told you all. You remember about the mice? Did you not understand that?" Kseniya Ippolytovna sat erect in her chair; she spoke coldly, in the same distant tone in which she had addressed the butler.

Polunin shook his head: "No, I haven't understood."

"Dear me, dear me!" she mocked, "and you used to be so quick-witted, my ascetic. Still, health and happiness do not always sharpen the wits. You are healthy and happy, aren't you?"

"You are being unjust again," Polunin protested. "You know very well that I love you."

Kseniya Ippolytovna gave a short laugh: "Oh, come, come! None of that!" She drank her glass of tea feverishly, threw herself back in the chair, and was silent.

Polunin also took his, warming himself after his cold drive.

She spoke again after a while in a quiet dreamy tone: "In this stove, flames will suddenly flare up, then die away, and it will become cold. You and I have always had broken conversations. Perhaps the Arkhipovs are right--when it seems expedient, kill! When it seems expedient, breed! That is wise, prudent, honest...." Suddenly she sat erect, pouring out quick, passionate, uneven words:

"Do you love me? Do you desire me ... as a woman?... to kiss, to caress?... You understand? No, be silent! I am purged.... I come to you as you came to me that June.... You didn't understand about the mice?... Or perhaps you did.

"Have you noticed, have you ever reflected on that which does not change in man's life, but for ever remains the same? No, no, wait!... There have been hundreds of religions, ethics, aesthetics, sciences, philosophical systems: they have all changed and are still changing-- only one law remains unaltered, that all living things--whether men, mice, or rye--are born, breed, and die.

"I was packing up for Nice, where a lover expected me, when suddenly I felt an overwhelming desire for a babe, a dear, sweet, little babe of my own, and I remembered you .... Then I travelled here, to Russia so as to bear it in reverence.... I am able to do so now!..."

Polunin rose and stood close to Kseniya Ippolytovna: his expression was serious and alarmed.

"Don't beat me," she murmured.

"You are innocent, Kseniya," he replied.

"Oh, there you go again!" she cried impatiently. "Always sin and innocence! I am a stupid woman, full of beliefs and superstitions-- nothing more--like all women. I want to conceive here, to breed and bear a child here. Do you wish to be the father?"

She stood up, looking intently into Polunin's eyes.

"What are you saying, Kseniya?" he asked in a low, grave, pained tone.

"I have told you what I want. Give me a child and then go--anywhere-- back to your Alena! I have not forgotten that June and July."

"I cannot," Polunin replied firmly; "I love Alena."

"I do not want love," she persisted; "I have no need of it. Indeed I have not, for I do not even love you!" She spoke in a low, faint voice, and passed her hand over her face.

"I must go," the man said at last.

She looked at him sharply. "Where to?"

"How do you mean 'where to'? I must go away altogether!"

"Ah, those tragedies, duties, and sins again!" she cried, her eyes burning into his with hatred and contempt. "Isn't it all perfectly simple? Didn't you make a contract with me?"

"I have never made one without love. And I love only Alena. I must go."

"Oh, what cruel, ascetical egoism!" she cried violently. Then suddenly all her rage died down, and she sat quietly in the chair, covering her face with her hands.

Polunin stood by, his shoulders bowed, his arms hanging limply. His face betrayed grief and anxiety.

Kseniya looked up at him with a wan smile: "It is all right--there is no need to go... It was only my nonsense.... I was merely venting my anger.... Don't mind me .... I am tired and harassed. Of course I have not been purged. I know that is impossible... We are the 'heisha-girls of lantern-light'.... You remember Annensky? ... Give me your hand."

Polunin stretched out his large hand, took her yielding one in his and pressed its delicate fingers.

"You have forgiven me?" she murmured.

He looked at her helplessly, then muttered: "I cannot either forgive or not forgive. But ... I cannot!"

"Never mind; we shall forget. We shall be cheerful and happy. You remember: 'Where beauty shines amidst mire and baseness there is only torment'.... You need not mind, it is all over!"

She uttered the last few words with a cry, raised herself erect, and laughed aloud with forced gaiety.

"We shall tell fortunes, jest, drink, be merry--like our grandfathers ... you remember! ...Had not our grandmothers their coachmen friends?"

She rang the bell and the butler came in.

"Bring in more tea. Light the fire and the lamps."

The fire burnt brightly and illuminated the leather-covered chairs. The portrait frames on the walls shone golden through the darkness. Polunin paced up and down the room, his hands behind his back; his footsteps were muffled in the thick carpet.

Sleigh bells began to ring outside.

It was just ten o'clock as the guests assembled from the town and the neighbouring estates. They were received in the drawing-room.

Taper, the priest's son, commenced playing a polka, and the ladies went into the ballroom; the old butler and two footmen brought wax candles and basins of water, and the old ladies began to tell fortunes. A troupe of mummers tumbled in, a bear performed tricks, a Little Russian dulcimer-player sang songs.

The mummers brought in with them the smell of frost, furs, and napthaline. One of them emitted a cock's crow, and they danced a Russian dance. It was all merry and bright, a tumultuous, boisterous revel, as in the old Russian aristocracy days. There was a smell of burning wax, candle-grease, and burning paper.

Kseniya Ippolytovna was the soul of gaiety; she laughed and jested cheerfully as she waltzed with a Lyceum student, a General's son. She had re-dressed her hair gorgeously, and wore a pearl necklace round her throat. The old men sat round card-tables in the lounge, talking on local topics.

At half past eleven a footman opened the door leading into the dining-room and solemnly announced that supper was served. They supped and toasted, ate and drank amid the clatter of knives, forks, dishes, and spoons. Kseniya made Arkhipov, Polunin, a General and a Magistrate sit beside her.

At midnight, just as they were expecting the clock to chime, Kseniya Ippolytovna rose to propose a toast; in her right hand was a glass; her left was flung back behind her plaited hair; she held her head high. All the guests at once rose to their feet.

"I am a woman," she cried aloud. "I drink to ourselves, to women, to the gentle, to the homely, to happiness and purity! To motherhood! I drink to the sacred--" she broke off abruptly, sat down and hung her head.

Somebody cried: "Hurrah!" To someone else it seemed that Kseniya was weeping. The clock began to chime, the guests shouted "Hurrah!" clinked glasses, and drank.

Then they sang, while some rose and carried round glasses to those of the guests who were still sober and those who were only partially intoxicated. They bowed. They sang _The Goblets_, and the basses thundered:

"Drink to the dregs! Drink to the dregs!" Kseniya Ippolytovna offered her first glass to Polunin. She stood in front of him with a tray, curtseyed without lifting her eyes and sang. Polunin rose, colouring with embarrassment:

"I never drink wine," he protested.

But the basses thundered: "Drink to the dregs! Drink to the dregs!"

His face darkened, he raised a silencing arm, and firmly repeated:

"I never drink wine, and I do not intend to."

Kseniya gazed into the depths of his eyes and said softly:

"I want you to, I beg you.... Do you hear?"

"I will not," Polunin whispered back.

Then she cried out:

"He doesn't want to! We mustn't make him against his will!" She turned away, offered her glass to the Magistrate, and after him to the Lyceum student; then excused herself and withdrew, quietly returning later looking sad and as if she had suddenly aged.

They lingered a long while over supper; then went into the ball-room to dance, and sing, and play old fashioned games. The men went to the buffets to drink, the older ones then sat in the drawing-room playing whist, and talked.

It was nearly five o'clock when the guests departed. Only the Arkhipovs and Polunin remained. Kseniya Ippolytovna ordered coffee, and all four sat down at a small table feeling worn out. The house was now wrapt in silence. The dawn had just broken.

Kseniya was tired to death, but endeavoured to appear fresh and cheerful. She passed the coffee round, and then fetched a bottle of liqueur. They sat almost in silence; what talk they exchanged was desultory.

"One more year dropped into Eternity," Arkhipov said, sombrely.

"Yes, a year nearer to death, a year further from birth," rejoined Polunin.

Kseniya Ippolytovna was seated opposite him. Her eyes were veiled. She rose now to her feet, leaned over the table and spoke to him in slow, measured accents vibrating with malice:

"Well, pious one! Everything here is mine. I asked you to-day to give me a baby, because I am merely a woman and so desire motherhood.... I asked you to take wine... You refused. The nearer to death the further from birth, you say? Well then, begone!"

She broke into tears, sobbing loudly and plaintively, covering her face with her hands; then leant against the wall, still sobbing. The Arkhipovs ran to her; Polunin stood at the table dumbfounded, then left the room.

"I didn't ask him for passion or caresses. ... I have no husband!" Kseniya cried, sobbing and shrieking like a hysterical girl. They calmed her after a time, and she spoke to them in snatches between her sobs, which were less violent for a while. Then she broke out weeping afresh, and sank into an armchair.

The dawn had now brightened; the room was filled with a faint, flickering light. Misty, vaporous, tormenting shadows danced and twisted oddly in the shifting glimmer: in the tenebrous half-light the occupants looked grey, weary, and haggard, their faces strangely distorted by the alternate rise and fall of the shadows. Arkhipov's bald head with its tightly stretched skin resembled a greatly elongated skull.

"Listen to me, you Arkhipovs," Kseniya cried brokenly. "Supposing a distracted woman who desired to be pure were to come and ask you for a baby--would you give her the same answer as Polunin? He said it was impossible, that it was sin, that he loved someone else. Would you answer like that, Arkhipov, knowing it was the woman's last--her only--chance of salvation--her only love?" She looked eagerly from one to the other.

"No, certainly not--I should answer in a different way," Arkhipov replied quietly.

"And you, Vera Lvovna, a wife ... do you hear? I speak in front of you?"

Vera Lvovna nodded, laid her hand gently on Kseniya's forehead, and answered softly and tenderly:

"I understand you perfectly."

Again Kseniya wept.

* * * * * * *

The dawn trod gently down the lanes of darkness. The light grew clearer and the candles became dim and useless. The outlines of the furniture crept out of the net of shadows. Through the blue mist outside the snow, valley, forest, and fields were faintly visible. From the right of the horizon dawn's red light flushed the heavens with a cold purple.

Polunin drove along by the fields, trotting smoothly behind his stallion. The earth was blue and cold and ghostly, a land carved out of dreams, seemingly unsubstantial and unreal. A harsh, bitter wind blew from the north, stirring the telegraph-wires by the roadside to a loud, humming refrain. A silence as of death reigned over the land, yet life thrilled through it; and now and then piping goldfinches appeared from their winter nests in the moist green ditches, and flew ahead of Polunin; then suddenly turned aside and perched lightly on the wayside brambles.

Night still lingered amid the calm splendour of the vast, primeval forest. As he drove through the shadowed glades the huge trees gently swayed their giant boughs, softly brushing aside the shroud of encompassing darkness.

A golden eagle darted from its mist-wreathed eyrie and flew over the fields; then soared upwards in ever-widening circles towards the east--where, like a pale rose ribbon stretched across the sky, the light from the rising sun shed a delicate opalescent glow on the snow, which it transformed to an exquisite lilac, and the shadows, to which it lent a wonderful, mysterious, quivering blue tint.

Polunin sat in his seat, huddled together, brooding morosely, deriving a grim satisfaction from the fact that--all the same--he had not broken the law. Henceforth, he never could break it; the thought of Kseniya Ippolytovna brought pain, but he would not condemn her.

At home, Alena was already up and about; he embraced her fondly, clasped her in his arms, kissed her forehead; then he took up the infant and gazed lingeringly, with infinite tenderness, upon her innocent little face.

The day was glorious; the golden sunlight streamed in through the windows in a shining cataract, betokening the advent of spring, and made pools of molten gold upon the floor. But the snow still lay in all its virgin whiteness over the earth.

A YEAR OF THEIR LIVES

I

To the north, south, east, and west--in all directions for hundreds of miles--stretched forests and bogs enveloped in a wide-spread veil of lichen. Brown-trunked cedars and pines towered on high. Beneath there was a thick, impenetrable jungle of firs, alders, wild-berries, junipers, and low-hanging birches. Pungent, deep-sunken, lichen- covered springs of reddish water were hidden amidst undergrowth in little glades, couched in layers of turf bordered by red bilberries and huckleberries.

With September came the frosts--fifty degrees below zero. The snow lay everywhere--crisp and dazzling. There was daylight for three or four hours only; the remainder of the time it was night. The sky was lowering, and brooded darkly over the earth. There was a tense hush and stillness, only broken in September by the lowing of mating elks. In December came the mournful, sinister howling of the wolves; for the rest of the time--a deep, dreadful, overpowering silence! A silence that can be found only in the wastelands of the world.

A village stood on the hill by the river.

The bare slope descended to the water's edge, a grey-brown granite, and white slatey clay, steep, beaten by wind and rain. Clumsy discoloured boats were anchored to the bank. The river was broad, dark, and cold, its surface broken by sombre, choppy, bluish waves. Here and there the grey silhouettes of huts were visible; their high, projecting, boarded roofs were covered by greenish lichen. The windows were shuttered. Nets dried close by. It was the abode of hunters who went long excursions into the forests in winter, to fight the wild beasts.

II

In the spring the rivers--now broad, free and mighty--overflowed their banks. Heavy waves broke up the face of the waters, which sent forth a deep, hoarse, subdued murmur, as restless and disquieting as the season itself. The snow thawed. The pine-trees showed resinous lights, and exhaled a strong, pungent odour.

In the day-time the sky was a broad expanse of blue; at dusk it had a soft murky hue and a melancholy attraction. In the heart of the woods, now that winter was over, the first deed of the beasts was being accomplished--birth. Eider-ducks, swans, and geese were crying noisily on the river.

At dusk the sky became greenish and murky, merging into a vast tent of deepest blue studded with a myriad of shining golden stars. Then the eider-ducks and swans grew silent and went to roost for the night, and the soft warm air was thrilled by the whines of bear-cubs and the cries of land-rails. It was then that the maidens assembled on the slope to sing of Lada and to dance their ancient dances, while strapping youths came forth from their winter dwellings in the woods and listened.

The slope down to the river was steep; below was the rustling sound of water among the reeds. Everything was wrapt in stillness, yet everywhere the throb and flow of life could be heard. The maidens sat huddled together on the top of the slope, where the granite and slate were covered with scanty moss and yellow grass.

They were dressed in gaily-coloured dresses: all of them strong and robust; they sang their love-songs--old and sad and free--and gazed into the gathering opalescent mists. Their songs seemed to overflow from their hearts, and were sung to the youths who stood around them like sombre, restive shadows, ogling and lustful, like the beasts in their forest-haunts.

This festive coupling-time had its law.

The youths came here to choose their wives; they quarrelled and fought, while the maidens remained listless, yielding to them in all. The young men ogled and fought and he who triumphed first chose his wife. Then he and she together retired from the festival.

III

Marina was twenty when she proceeded to the river-bank.

Her tall, somewhat heavy body was wonderfully moulded, with strong muscles and snowy skin. Her chest, back, hips, and limbs were sharply outlined; she was strong, supple, and well developed. Her round, broad breast rose high; her hair, eye-brows and eye-lashes were thick and dark. The pupils of her eyes were deep and liquid; her cheeks showed a flush of red. Her lips were soft--like a beast's--large, sensuous and rosy. She walked slowly, moving her long straight legs evenly, and slightly swaying from her hips....

She joined the maidens on the river slope.

They were singing their mysterious, alluring and illusive songs.

Marina mingled among the crowd of maidens, lay down upon her back, closed her dreamy eyes, and joined in the festive chorus. The maidens' souls became absorbed in the singing, and their song spread far and wide through all the shadowy recesses of the woods, like shining rays of sunlight. Their eyes closed in langour, their full- blooded bodies ached with a delicious sensation. Their hearts seemed to grow benumbed, the numbness spreading through their blood to their limbs; it deprived them of strength, and their thoughts became chaotic.

Marina stretched her limbs sensuously; then became absorbed in the singing, and she also sang. She felt strangely inert; only quivering at the sound of the lusty, excited voices of the youths.

Afterwards she lay on a couch in her suffocatingly close room; her hands were clasped behind her head; her bosom swelled. She stretched, opened her dark pensive eyes wide, compressed her lips, then sank again into the drowsy langour, lying thus for many hours.

She was twenty, and had grown up free and solitary--with the hunters, the woods, and the steep and the river--from her birth.

IV

Demid lived on his own plot of ground, which, like the village, stood on a hill above the river. But here the hill was higher and steeper, sweeping the edge of the horizon. The wood was nearer, and its grey- trunked cedars and pines rose from their beds of golden moss to shake their crests to the stars and stretch their dark-green forest hands right up to the house. The view was wide and sweeping from here: the dark, turbulent river, the marsh beyond, the deep-blue billowing woods fringing the horizon, the heavy lowering sky--all were clearly visible.

The house, made of huge pines, with timbered walls, plain white- washed ceilings and floors, was bestrewn with pelts of bears, elks, wolves, foxes, and ermines. Gunpowder and grape-shot lay on the tables. In the corners was a medley of lassoes, snares, and wolftraps. Some rifles hung round the walls. There was a strong pungent odour, as though all the perfumes of the woods were collected here. The house contained two rooms and a kitchen.

In the centre of one of the rooms stood a large, rough-hewn table; round it were some low wooden stools covered with bear-skin. This was Demid's own room; in the other was the young bear, Makar.

Demid lay motionless for a long time on his bear-skin bed, listening to the vibrations of his great body--how it lived and throbbed, how the rich blood coursed through its veins. Makar, the bear, approached, laid his heavy paws on his chest, and amicably sniffed at his body. Demid stroked the beast on its ear, and it seemed as if the man and animal understood each other. Outside the window loomed the wood.

Demid was rugged and broad-shouldered, a large, quiet, dark-eyed, good man. He smelt of the woods, and was strong and healthy. Like all the hunters, he dressed in furs and a rough, home-woven fabric streaked with red. He wore high, heavy boots made of reindeer hide, and his coarse, broad hands were covered with broken chilblains.

Makar was young, and, like all young things, he was foolish. He liked to roll about, and was often destructive--he would gnaw the nets and skins, break the traps, and lick up the gunpowder. Then Demid punished him, whereupon Makar would turn on his heel, make foolish grimaces, and whine plaintively.

V

Demid went to the maidens on the slope and took Marina to his plot of land. She became his wife.

VI

The dark-green, wind-swept grass grew sweet and succulent in summer. The sun seemed to shine from out a deep blue ocean of light. The nights were silvery, the sky seemed dissolved into a pale, pellucid mist; sunset and dawn co-mingled, and a white wavering haze crept over the earth. Here life was strong and swift, for it knew that its days were brief.

Marina was installed in Makar's room, and he was transferred to Demid's.

Makar greeted Marina with an inhospitable snarl when he saw her for the first time; then, showing his teeth, he struck her with his paw. Demid beat him for this behaviour, and he quieted down. Then Marina made friends with him.

Demid went into the woods in the daytime, and Marina was left alone.

She decorated her room in her own fashion, with a crude, somewhat exaggerated, yet graceful, taste. She hung round in symmetrical order the skins and cloth hangings, brightly embroidered with red and blue cocks and reindeers. She placed an image of the God-Mother in the corner; she washed the floor; and her multi-coloured room--smelling as before of the woods--began to resemble a forest-chapel, where the forest folk pray to their gods.

In the pale-greenish twilight of the illimitable night, when only horn-owls cried in the woods and bear-cubs snarled by the river, Demid went in to Marina. She could not think--her mind moved slowly and awkwardly like a great lumbering animal--she could only feel, and in those warm, voluptuous, star-drenched nights she yielded herself to Demid, desiring to become one with him, his strength, and his passion.

The nights were pale, tremulous, and mysterious. There was a deep, heavy, nocturnal stillness. White spirals of mist drifted along the ground. Night-owls and wood spirits hooted. In the morning was a red blaze of glory as the great orb of day rose from the east into the azure vault of heaven.

The days flew by and summer passed.

VII

It snowed in September.

It had been noticeable, even in August, how the days drew in and darkened, how the nights lengthened and deepened. The wood all at once grew still and dumb; it seemed as though it were deserted. The air grew cold, and the river became locked in ice. The twilight was slow and lingering, its deepening shadows turning the snow and ice on the river to a keen, frosty blue.

Through the nights rang the loud, strange, fierce bellowing of the elks as they mated; the walls shook, and the hills re-echoed with their terrible roar.

Marina was with child in the autumn.

One night she woke before dawn. The room was stifling from the heat of the stove, and she could smell the bear. There was a faint glimmer of dawn, and the dark walls showed the window frames in a wan blue outline. Somewhere close by an old elk was bellowing: you could tell it was old by the hoarse, hissing notes of its hollow cries.

Marina sat up in bed. Her head swam, and she felt nauseated. The bear lay beside her; he was already awake and was watching her. His eyes shone with quiet, greenish lights; from outside, the thin crepuscular light crept into the room through little crevices.

Again Marina felt the nausea, and her head swam; the lights in Makar's eyes were re-enkindled in Marina's soul into a great, overwhelming joy that made her body quiver with emotion . . . Her heart beat like a snared bird--all was wavering and misty, like a summer morn.

She rose from her bed of bear-skin furs, and naked, with swift, awkward, uncertain steps, went in to Demid. He was still asleep--she put her burning arms about him and drew his head to her deep bosom, whispering to him softly:

"A child ... it is the child...."

Little by little, the night lifted and in through the windows came the daylight. The elk ceased his bellowing The room filled with glancing morning shadows. Makar approached, sniffed, and laid his paws on the bed. Demid seized his collar with his free hand and patting him fondly said:

"That is right, Makar Ivanych--you know, don't you?" Then turning to Marina, he added: "What do you think, Marinka? Doesn't he know? Doesn't the old bear know, Marinka?"

Makar licked Demid's hand, and laid his head knowingly on his forepaws. The night had gone; rays of lilac-coloured light illumined the snow and entered the house. Round, red, and distant rose the sun. Below the hill lay the blue, ice-bound river, and away beyond it stretched the ribbed outline of the vast, marshy Siberian forest. Demid did not enter it that day, nor on many of the following days.

VIII

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.

IX

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.

X

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.