Chapter IV: Introduction (2)

Now, Joachim in love with his pipe was celebrating his honey-moon. In the daytime he conscientiously fulfilled his duties as a stable-boy,—watered the horses, harnessed them, and drove with the Pani or with Maxim. Sometimes, when he looked over toward the neighboring village where the cruel Màrya lived, his heart was conscious of a pang. But as evening drew on, all his woes were forgotten; even the image of the dark-browed maiden lost distinctness, as it stood before him enveloped in mist, faintly outlined against a pale background, serving but to lend a certain pensive melancholy to his melodious pipe.

As he lay in the stable that evening, Joachim’s musical ecstasy found vent in tremulous melodies. The musician had not only forgotten the cruel beauty, but had even lost all consciousness of his own existence, when suddenly he started and sprang up in bed, leaning on his elbow. Just when his notes were growing most pathetic, he felt a tiny hand pass swiftly and lightly over his face and hands, and then with equal swiftness over the pipe. At the same time he heard by his side the rapid panting of one whose breathing is quickened by agitation. “Begone, away with you!” he uttered the usual exhortation, and immediately added the question: “Are you the good or the evil spirit?” that he might know if it were the Evil with whom he had to deal. But a moonbeam that had just crept into the stable showed him his mistake. Beside him stood the small Pan, wistfully stretching forth his little hands.

An hour later, the mother on going to take a look at her sleeping Petrùsya did not find him in bed. For a moment she was startled, but the maternal instinct directly told her where to look for the lost boy. Joachim, pausing for a moment, was quite abashed at the unexpected sight of the “gracious Pani” standing in the doorway of the stable. It appeared that she had been there for several moments before he ceased playing, watching her boy, who sat on the cot wrapped in Joachim’s sheepskin coat, listening intently for the interrupted melody.

VI.

From that evening the boy came to Joachim in the stable every night. It never occurred to him to ask Joachim to play for him during the daytime; he seemed to fancy that the stir and bustle of the day precluded all possibility of these sweet melodies. But as soon as the shades of evening began to fall, Petrùsya was seized with a feverish impatience. The evening tea and supper served but as signs of the approach of the longed-for moment; and the mother, although she felt an instinctive aversion for those musical séances, still could not forbid her darling to seek the company of the piper and spend two hours with him in the stable before bedtime. Those hours became for the boy the happiest of his life; and the mother saw with painful jealousy that the impressions of the previous evening held entire possession of the child; that during the day he no longer responded to her caresses with his former ardor; that while sitting in her lap with his arms about her, his thoughts would revert to Joachim’s song of the previous evening.

It suddenly occurred to the mother that while she was in the _pension_ of Pani Radètzka, several years ago, she had among other “delightful accomplishments” pursued the study of music. This reminiscence was not in itself a source of delight, because it was connected with the memory of her teacher,—one Klapps; a lean, prosy, and irritable old German Fräulein. This bilious maiden, who in order to impart to the fingers of her pupils the required flexibility, had trained them most skilfully, succeeded at the same time in destroying every vestige of poetical and musical feeling. The very presence of Pani Klapps, not to mention her pedantic method, was well calculated to abash so sensitive an emotion. Therefore after leaving school, and even since her marriage, Anna Michàilovna had felt no inclination to renew her musical studies. But now, as she listened to the piper, she was conscious that in addition to the emotion of jealousy a sense of appreciation and feeling for the living melody had sprung up in her soul, and the image of the German Fräulein was almost forgotten. The result of this was that Pani Popèlska requested her husband to send to town for an upright piano.

“If you wish it, my dove,” replied the exemplary husband. “I thought you did not care much about music.”

That same day a letter was sent to town; but several weeks must elapse before the instrument could arrive in the country.

Meanwhile the same harmonious strains proceeded from the stable evening after evening; and the boy, who had ceased to ask his mother’s permission, hurried eagerly thither at the proper time. With the customary odor of the stable was mingled the fragrance of the hay and the pungent smell of the leather harnesses; and whenever the piper paused for a moment one could hear the faint rustling of the wisps of hay which the horses, quietly munching, pulled through the bars, and also the whispering of the green beeches in the garden. In the midst of all this Pètrik[8] sat listening like one enchanted. He never interrupted the musician; but once when the latter had been resting, and several minutes had passed in absolute silence, the charmèd influence that possessed the boy gave way to a passionate yearning. He reached to grasp the pipe, took it in his trembling hands, and carried it to his lips. Gasping for breath, his first notes were faint and tremulous, but by slow degrees he gained a certain mastery over the simple instrument. Joachim placed the boy’s fingers on the holes, and although the tiny hand could hardly grasp them, he had very soon mastered the notes of the scale. Every note possessed to him an individuality of its own; he knew in which opening he should find each of these tones, whence to bring it forth; and at times when Joachim was quietly and slowly playing some simple melody, the blind boy’s fingers would imitate his movements. As tone followed tone, he seemed to know exactly from which hole each one came.

VII.

At last, after three weeks had gone by, the piano was brought from town. Pétya[9] stood in the yard and listened attentively, in order to discover how the workmen hurrying to and fro would carry “the music” into the rooms. Surely it must be very heavy, for when they lifted it down from the cart there was a creaking noise, and also much groaning and puffing among the men. And now he could hear their heavy, measured tread; and at every step there was a jarring, a rumbling, and a ringing above their heads. When this strange music was placed on the drawing-room floor, it again sent forth a dull rumbling sound like the threatening tones of an angry voice.

All this alarmed the boy and by no means attracted him toward this new guest, at once inanimate and wrathful. He went into the garden, and thus he missed hearing them set up the instrument; neither did he know when the tuner, who had arrived from town, tuned it with his tuning-hammer, tried the key-board, and tightened the wires. It was not until all was in readiness that the mother ordered Pétya to be brought into the room.

With the best Vienna instrument as an auxiliary, Anna Michàilovna felt confident of victory over the simple rustic pipe. Now her Pétya is to forget the stable and the piper, and she will once more become the source of all his joys. She glanced merrily at her boy as he timidly entered the room, accompanied by Uncle Maxim and Joachim; the latter, having asked leave to listen to the foreign music, with down-cast eyes and overhanging forelock now stood bashfully in the doorway. Just as Uncle Maxim and Pétya seated themselves on the lounge Anna suddenly struck the keys of the piano. She played the piece that she had learned to perfection at the _pension_ of Pani Radètzka, under the instruction of Fräulein Klapps. It was not a particularly brilliant piece, but quite complicated, and one that required a certain amount of dextrous fingering; at the public examination Anna Michàilovna gained much praise, both for herself and her teacher, by the playing of this piece. No one positively knew, but many surmised, that the silent Pan Popèlski was first charmed with Pani Yatzènko during the identical quarter of an hour required for the performance of her difficult music. _Now_ the young woman played it with the view of winning a second victory: she wished to bind still more closely to herself her son’s young heart, enticed away from her by the pipe of the Hohòl.

But the fond mother’s hope was doomed to disappointment; the Vienna instrument proved no match for the willow twig of Ukraine. True, the piano from Vienna was rich in resources,—expensive wood, fine strings, the skilled workmanship of a Vienna artisan, and all the wealth of its wide musical range; but the pipe of the Ukraine had allies of its own,—it was in its native haunts, surrounded by its own Ukraine nature. Before Joachim had cut it with his knife and burned out its heart with red-hot iron, it had swung to and fro above the river, so dear to the boy’s heart; it had been caressed by the sun of the Ukraine, and fanned by its breezes until the keen eye of the piper had caught sight of it overhanging the precipice. The foreign visitor had but a slender chance against the simple native pipe, whose tones had first been heard by the boy at the peaceful hour of bedtime, through the mysterious rustling of the night and the murmuring of the green beech-trees, with all the well-known voices of Nature in the Ukraine that found an echo within his soul.

There could, moreover, be no fair comparison between Pani Popèlska and Joachim. Her fingers, it is true, were more dextrous and flexible; the melody she played was richer and more complex; and Fräulein Klapps had labored diligently to make her pupil mistress of this difficult instrument. But Joachim had the true musical instinct. He had loved also, and sorrowed; and animated by these emotions, he sought his themes in the surrounding Nature, and there he found his simple melodies,—the soughing of the forest, the gentle whisper of the grass upon the steppes, the sad, old, national melodies that he had heard sung over his crib when he was an infant.

The instrument from Vienna had truly but a slender chance against the magic of the Hohòl’s pipe. Not more than a minute had passed before Uncle Maxim with sudden energy rapped on the floor with his crutch. When Anna Michàilovna turned toward him, she saw on Pètrik’s pale face the same expression it had worn as he lay upon the grass on the memorable day of their first spring walk. Joachim in his turn looked sympathetically at the boy, then with one disdainful glance at the German music he left the room, his heavy boots resounding across the drawing-room floor.

VIII.

Many a tear and no slight mortification did this failure cost the poor mother. She, “the gracious Pani Popèlska,” who had been applauded by a “select audience,” to find herself so utterly defeated,—and by whom? By a common stable-boy, Joachim, with his absurd pipe! As she remembered the disdainful glance of the Hohòl when her unsuccessful concert came to an end, an angry blush overspread her face, and she felt an actual hatred for the “detestable fellow.” But every evening when her boy hastened to the stable, she would open the window, rest her elbows on the sill, and listen intently. At first it was with a feeling of angry disdain that she sought to catch that “stupid squeaking;” but gradually,—she knew not how it came to pass,—the “stupid squeaking” had taken possession of her soul, and she found herself eagerly devouring those mournful and pathetic strains. When she woke to a realizing sense of this, she began to wonder whence came their fascination, their enchanting mystery; and by degrees, the bluish dusk of evening, the vague shadows of the night, and the harmony existing between those melodies and Nature revealed the secret. No longer resisting the attraction, she confessed to herself,—

“Yes, I must admit that this humble music does possess a rare and genuine feeling,—a bewitching poetry not to be acquired by notes.”

This was indeed true. The secret of this poetry might be found in the intimate relation between Nature and those memories of the past of which it was ever whispering to the human heart. Joachim, the rude peasant, with his greasy boots and calloused hands, possessed that harmonious, that keen feeling for Nature.

Then the mother became aware that her haughty spirit had succumbed before the stable-boy. She no longer remembered his coarse garments, redolent of tar; but the pleasing modulations of the songs recalled to mind his kind face, the mild expression of his gray eyes, and the bashful, humorous smile that lurked under the long mustache. Yet again the angry color rose, overspreading the face and temples of the young woman: she was conscious that in this struggle for her child’s admiration she had placed herself on a level with this “varlet,” and that he, “the varlet,” had conquered. The whispering trees in the garden high above her head, the light of the stars in the dark-blue sky, the violet mist that shrouded the earth, together with Joachim’s melodies, all contributed to fill the mother’s soul with gentle melancholy. Her spirit yielded itself in meek submission, and entered more and more deeply into the mystery of that pure, direct, and simple poetry of Nature.

Yes, the peasant Joachim had the true, living feeling! And how was it with the mother herself? Was she entirely devoid of that feeling? Why then did her heart beat so wildly, and why did the tears rise to her eyes? Did not her emotion spring from her devoted love for her unfortunate blind child, who left her for Joachim because she failed to give him as keen a pleasure as the latter? She remembered the expression of distress on the boy’s face caused by her playing, and hot tears gushed from her eyes; it was with difficulty that she controlled her suffocating sobs.

The poor mother! It seemed as if an incurable malady had settled upon her, revealing its presence by an exaggerated tenderness at every manifestation of suffering on the part of the child, and a mysterious sympathy which by a thousand invisible chords bound her aching heart to his. For this reason, the strange rivalry between herself and the Hohòl piper, which in a woman of different nature would merely have stirred a feeling of annoyance, became for her a source of bitter, exaggerated suffering.

Thus time went on, without bringing the fond mother any apparent relief; and yet she was gradually gaining a certain advantage. She began to feel within her own breast an influx of melody and poetry, not unlike that which had attracted her in the playing of the Hohòl. Hope, too, sprang up in her heart. Under the influence of this sudden access of confidence she approached the piano several times, and opened it, intending to overpower the low-voiced pipe by harmonious chords. But every time a sense of irresolution and timidity restrained her. She remembered her boy’s distressed face, and the disdainful glance of the Hohòl; and dark as it was, her cheeks flushed with shame, while with timid wistfulness she let her hands flutter over the keys.

Still, day by day an inner consciousness of her own power grew within the woman’s heart; and choosing the time when her boy was playing in the evening in some remote garden-path, or perhaps out for a walk, she would seat herself at the piano. At first her attempts were unsatisfactory; her hands seemed powerless to evoke a response to her conception, and the tones of the instrument failed to interpret her emotions. But soon she perceived that the ease and freedom with which she could express her feelings through the medium of those tones were gradually increasing. The Hohòl’s lessons had not been without avail; while the mother’s love, and an intuitive perception of the potent charm that swayed the heart of her boy helped her to profit by them. Her difficult and brilliant themes had given place to pensive songs; the sad Ukraine “meditation” echoed in plaintive tones through the dimly lighted rooms, adding a tenderness to the mother’s heart.

At last she gained confidence to enter into an open contest; and one evening a strange combat went on between the manor and the stable. From the shaded barn with its overhanging thatch, gently quivering, came the trills of the pipe, while advancing to the encounter from the open windows of the mansion, glittering in the moonlight through the leaves of the beech-trees, echoed the full ringing chords of the piano. At first neither the boy nor Joachim, prejudiced as they were, deigned to pay any attention to the “learned” music of the mansion. The boy even frowned when Joachim paused, and impatiently urged him on, saying,—

“Come, play! Go on playing!”

Three days had not gone by when these pauses grew more and more frequent. Joachim often laid his pipe aside to listen, and the boy, forgetting to urge his friend, listened also. Finally Joachim said in a dreamy sort of way, “That is fine! Listen! that is a fine thing!” And then in his dreamy, absent-minded way he took the boy in his arms and carried him through the garden to the open window of the drawing-room.

Joachim supposed that the “gracious Pani” was playing for her own amusement, and would take no notice of them. But Anna Michàilovna had become aware that her rival, the pipe, had been silenced; she realized her victory, and her heart beat with pride and joy. Moreover, her displeasure with Joachim had entirely vanished. She knew that she owed her present happiness to him,—he had shown her how to regain the devotion of her child; and if her boy were now to receive from her new and valuable impressions, they would both owe a debt of gratitude to their teacher, the peasant piper.

IX.

The ice was broken. On the following day the boy with timid curiosity came into the drawing-room, where he had not been since the new city guest—that angry, loud-voiced creature—had taken possession of the room. But yesterday he heard the guest sing a song that pleased his ear, and gave him cause to change his opinion of the instrument. With the last lingering traces of his former timidity he drew near the spot where the piano stood, and stopping at a short distance from it, he listened. There was no one in the drawing-room. His mother sat on a sofa in the adjoining room, sewing; she held her breath as she watched him, admiring every movement, every change of expression on his sensitive face.

Putting out his hand, the blind boy touched the polished surface of the piano; then overcome by bashfulness, he immediately withdrew it. Having twice repeated this experiment he drew nearer, and began a careful examination of the instrument, stooping to the floor to pass his hand over the legs, and feeling his way as far around its sides as he could go. At last his hand touched the smooth key-board: the soft reverberation of the string vibrated uncertainly on the air. The boy listened to this vibration long after it had ceased to be audible to his mother; then with a look of intense interest he touched another key. Presently, as he drew his hand along the key-board, he happened to touch a note of the upper register; then he touched every note, one after the other, and paused to listen as they vibrated in trembling cadence and were lost in the air. The face of the blind boy wore an expression of mingled attention and delight; he evidently enjoyed every separate tone, and by this sensitive observation of each elementary sound as component parts of melodies yet unborn, the future artist might be divined.

But it seemed as if each note possessed for the blind boy an attribute peculiar to itself. When beneath the pressure of his finger a brilliant note of the upper register rang out, a glow would come upon his face, uplifted as if to follow the ringing note in its upward flight; but when he touched a deep bass-note, he stooped to listen,—seeming to feel sure that the heavy note must be rolling along the ground, scattering itself all over the floor, to be finally lost in the corners.

X.

Uncle Maxim simply tolerated all these musical experiments. Strange though it may seem, the inclinations which had so unmistakably manifested themselves in the boy excited mingled emotions in the breast of the old soldier. On the one hand, this intense passion for music indicated the boy’s inherent musical talent, and foreshadowed a possible career; but in spite of this, a vague sense of disappointment filled Uncle Maxim’s heart.

“It cannot be denied,” thus ran Maxim’s thoughts, “that music is a power by which a man may sway the hearts of the multitude. He, the blind man, will attract dandies and fashionable women by the hundreds, will play a valse or a nocturne,”—here Uncle Maxim’s musical vocabulary came suddenly to an end,—“and they will wipe away their tears with their delicate handkerchiefs. Ah, the deuce take it! that is not what I could have wished for him. But what’s to be done about it? The fellow is blind; he must do what he can with his life. But if it had only been singing! A song speaks not alone to the fastidious ear,—it excites fancies, arouses thoughts in the mind, and kindles courage in the heart.”

“Look here, Joachim,” Uncle Maxim said one evening, as he followed the blind boy into the stable, “do for once stop that whistling! It might do well enough for a street urchin, or for the shepherd boy in the field; but you are a grown-up peasant, although that silly Màrya has made a calf of you. Fie! I am really ashamed of you! The lass proved hard-hearted, and that has made you so soft that you whistle like a quail caught in a net.”

As he listened in the darkness to this sharp tirade from the Pan, Joachim smiled at his unnecessary indignation. But he did feel somewhat wounded by his allusion to the street urchin and the shepherd boy, and replied,—

“Don’t say that, Pan! Not a shepherd in the Ukraine has a pipe like that, let alone the shepherd boy. Theirs are nothing but whistles; but mine—just listen!” He closed all the openings with his fingers, and struck the two notes of the octave, drinking in as he did so the fullness of the tones.

Maxim spat. “The Lord have mercy on us, the lad has lost his wits! What do I care for your pipe? They are all alike, both pipes and women, with your Màrya into the bargain! You had better sing us a song, if you know how,—a good song of our fathers’ or grandfathers’.”

Maxim Yatzènko, a Little Russian himself, was simple and unassuming in his manners toward peasants and servants. Although he often scolded and shouted at them, he never hurt any man’s feelings; and while his inferiors were on familiar terms with him, they never failed to treat him with respect. Hence to the Pan’s request, Joachim replied,—

“Why not? I used to sing as well as the next man. But, Pan, do you think our peasant songs are likely to please you?” he asked, slightly sarcastic.

“Eh, what nonsense, fellow!” replied Maxim. “A pipe cannot be compared with a good song, if only a man can sing well. Let us listen to Joachim’s song, Petrùsya. But only you may not understand it, my boy.”

“Is it to be a peasant’s song?” inquired the boy. “I understand their language.”

Maxim heaved a sigh. “Ah, my dear boy, these are not slave songs; they are the songs of a strong and free people. Your mother’s ancestors sang them on the steppes of the Dnièper, the Danube, and the Black Sea. Well, you will understand them sooner or later, but just now I am anxious about something else.”

In point of fact, what Maxim really feared was that the picturesque language of the folk-songs would not appeal to the vaguely obscure mind of the child; he felt that the animated music of epic song must be interpreted to the heart by familiar images. He forgot that the old bards, the singers and bandur-players of the Ukraine, were for the most part blind men, who had been driven by misfortune or physical incapacity to the lyre, or bandur, to gain their daily bread. It is true that these men were but beggars and artisans with harsh voices, some of whom had not become blind until they were old men. Blindness wraps the outer world about with a dark veil, which likewise envelops the brain, entangling and impeding its processes; and yet by the aid of inherited conceptions and impressions gained from other sources, the brain creates in this darkness a world of its own, sad, gloomy, and sombre, but not devoid of a vague poetry peculiar to itself.

Maxim and the blind boy seated themselves on the hay, while Joachim reclined on his bench,—a position which seemed especially conducive to his artistic efforts,—and after musing for a moment he began to sing. Whether by chance or by instinct, his choice was a happy one. He selected a historical picture,—

“Over yonder on the hill the reapers are reaping.”

No one who has heard this beautiful song well rendered can ever forget its strange melody,—high-pitched and plaintive, as though oppressed by the sadness of historical reminiscence. It contains no stirring incidents, no bloody battles or exploits; neither is it the farewell of a Cossack to his beloved, nor a daring invasion, nor a naval expedition on the blue sea or the Danube. It is but a fleeting picture that comes uppermost in the memory of a Little Russian, like a vague revery, like the fragment of a dream from an historic past. In the midst of his monotonous, every-day life that picture rises before his imagination, its outlines dim and indistinct, steeped in the strange melancholy that breathes from bygone days,—days that have left their impress on the memory of man. The lofty burial-mounds beneath which lie the bones of the Cossacks, where fires are seen burning at midnight, where groans are sometimes heard, still remind us of the past. The popular legends as well as the folk-songs, now fast dying out, also tell us of the past.

“Over yonder on the hill the reapers are reaping,
And beneath the hill, the green hill,
Cossacks are passing,
Cossacks are passing!
They are reaping on the hill, while below the troops are marching.”

Maxim Yatzènko was lost in admiration of the sad song. That charming melody, so well suited to the words, called up before his fancy a scene illumined by the melancholy rays of sunset. Along the peaceful slopes of the hill-sides he seemed to see the bowed and silent figures of the reapers, and below moving noiselessly, one after the other, the ranks of the army, blending with the shades of evening in the valley.

“Doroshenko[10] at the head,
Leading his army, his Zaporòg army
Gallantly.”

And the prolonged note of the epic song resounds, vibrates, and dies away upon the air, only to start forth anew, evoking fresh images from the dim twilight. These were the pictures which at the bidding of the song took form in Uncle Maxim’s mind; and the blind boy, who had listened with a sad and clouded face, was also impressed by it after his own fashion.

When the singer sang of the hill where the reapers were reaping, Petrùsya was straightway transported in his imagination to the summit of the familiar cliff. He recognizes it by the faint plashing of the river against the stones below. He knows very well what reapers are,—he has heard the ringing sound of the sickles and the rustle of the falling ears. But when the song went on to describe the action under the hill, the imagination of the blind listener at once transported him into the valley below. Though he no longer hears the sound of the sickles, the boy knows that the reapers are still up there on the hill, and he knows that the sound has died away, because they are so high above him,—as high as the pine-trees, whose rustling he hears when he stands on the cliff; and below, over the river, echoes the rapid monotonous tramp of the horses’ hoofs. There are many of them, and an indistinct murmur rises through the darkness from under the hill. Those are the Cossacks “on the march.”

Petrùsya also knows what “Cossacks” means. The Cossack Hvèydka,[11] who sometimes stops at the house, is called by everybody “the old Cossack.” Many a time has he lifted Petrùsya to his lap and smoothed his hair with his trembling hand. When the boy according to his custom felt of his face, he found deep wrinkles under his sensitive fingers, a long, drooping mustache and sunken cheeks, and on those cheeks the tears of old age. It was such Cossacks as he that the boy pictured to himself marching below the hill. They are on horseback, and like Hvèydka they wear long mustaches, and are old and wrinkled too. These vague forms advance slowly amid the darkness, and like Hvèydka are weeping for grief. It may be that the echo of Joachim’s song suggests the lament of the unfortunate Cossack who exchanged his young wife for a camp-bed and the hardships of a campaign, as it rings over hill and valley.

One glance was enough for Maxim to discover that despite the boy’s blindness the poetic images of the song appealed to his sensitive nature.

III.

The First Friendship.

In pursuance of the system which by Maxim’s influence had been established, the blind boy had as far as possible been left to his own resources; and from this system the best results had ensued. In the house he showed no signs of helplessness, but moved from place to place without faltering; took care of his own room, and kept his belongings and his toys in order. Neither did Maxim by any means neglect physical exercises; the boy had his regular gymnastics, and in his sixth year Maxim presented his nephew with a gentle little horse. At first the mother could not believe it possible that her blind child could ride on horseback, and she called her brother’s scheme “perfect madness.” But the old soldier exerted his utmost influence and in two or three months the boy was galloping merrily side by side with Joachim, who directed him only at turnings.

Thus blindness proved no drawback to systematic physical development, while its influence over the moral nature of the child was reduced to its minimum. He was tall for his age and well built; his face was somewhat pale, his features fine and expressive. His dark hair enhanced the pallid hue of his complexion, while his eyes—large, dark, and almost motionless—gave him a peculiar aspect that at once attracted attention. A slight wrinkle between his eye-brows, a habit of inclining his head slightly forward, and the expression of sadness that sometimes overcast his handsome face,—these were the outward tokens of his blindness. When surrounded by familiar objects he moved readily and without restraint; but still it was evident that his instinctive vivacity was repressed, and it was only by certain fitful outbursts of nervous excitement that it was ever manifested.

II.

The impressions received through the channels of sound outweighed all others in their influence over the life of the blind boy; his ideas shaped themselves according to sounds, his sense of hearing became the centre of his mental activity. The enchanting melodies of the songs he heard conveyed to him a true sense of the words, coloring them with sadness or joy according to the lights and shades of the melody. With still closer attention he listened to the voices of Nature; and by uniting these confused impressions with the familiar melodies, he sometimes produced a free improvisation, in which it was difficult to distinguish just where the national and familiar air ended and the work of the composer began. He himself was unable to distinguish these two elements in his songs, so inseparably were the two united within him. He quickly learned all his mother taught him on the piano, and yet he still loved Joachim’s pipe. The tones of the piano were richer, deeper, and more brilliant; but the instrument was stationary, whereas the pipe he could carry with him into the fields; and its modulations were so indistinguishably blended with the gentle sighs of the steppe, that at times Petrùsya could not tell whether those vague fancies were wafted on the wind, or whether it was he himself who drew them from his pipe.

Petrùsya’s enthusiasm for music became the centre of his mental growth; it absorbed his mind, and lent variety to his quiet life. Maxim availed himself of it to make the boy acquainted with the history of his native land; and like a vast network of sounds, the procession filed before the imagination of the blind boy. Touched by the song, he learned to know the heroes of whom it sung, and to feel a concern for their fate and for the destiny of his country. This was the beginning of his interest in literature; and when he was nine years old, Maxim began his first lessons. He had been studying the methods used in the instruction of the blind, and the boy showed great delight in the lessons. They introduced into his nature the new elements of precision and clearness, which served to counterbalance the undefined sensations excited by music.

Thus the boy’s day was filled; he could not complain of the lack of new impressions. He seemed to be living as full a life as any child could possibly live; in fact he really seemed unconscious of his blindness. Nevertheless, a certain premature sadness was still perceptible in his character, which Maxim ascribed to the fact that he had never mingled with other children, and endeavored to atone for this omission.

The village boys who were invited to the mansion were timid and constrained. Not only the unusual surroundings, but the blindness of the little Pan intimidated them. They would glance timidly at him, and then crowding together would whisper to one another. When the children were left alone, either in the garden or in the field, they grew bolder and began to play games; but somehow it always ended in the blind boy being left out, listening sadly to the merry shouts of his playmates. Now and then Joachim would gather the children about him and repeat comical old proverbs and tell them fairy tales. The village children, perfectly familiar with the somewhat stupid Hohòl devil and the roguish witches, supplemented Joachim’s tales from the stores of their own knowledge; and the conversations ensuing were generally quite lively. The blind boy listened to them with great interest and attention, but rarely laughed. He seemed incapable of comprehending the humor in the speeches and stories he heard; and this was not surprising, since he could neither see the merry twinkle in the eyes of the speakers, nor the comical wrinkles, nor the twitching of the long mustaches.

III.

Not long before the period to which our story relates, the “possessor”[12] of the neighboring estate had been changed. The former neighbor, who had managed to engage in a lawsuit even with the taciturn Pan Popèlski, in consequence of some damage caused to the fields, had been replaced by the old man Yaskùlski and his wife. Although the united ages of this couple amounted to one hundred years, their marriage had been celebrated but recently, because Yakùb was for a long time unable to procure the sum required for hiring an estate, and thus was forced to act as overseer of one estate after another, while Pani Agnyèshka spent her period of waiting as a sort of companion in the family of the Countess N. When at last the happy moment arrived, and the bride and bridegroom stood hand in hand in the church, the hair of the handsome bridegroom was fairly gray, and the timid, blushing face of the bride was likewise framed in silvery locks.

This circumstance, however, by no means marred the married happiness of the somewhat late-wedded pair, and the fruit of their love was an only daughter about the age of the blind boy. Having won for themselves a domestic shelter, where under certain conditions they had a right to full control, this elderly couple began a peaceful and quiet existence, which seemed like a compensation for the hard years of toil and anxiety which they had passed in other folks’ houses. Their first lease was a failure, and they had started anew on a somewhat smaller scale. But in this new abode they had at once arranged things to suit themselves. In the corner occupied by the images, decorated with ivy, sacred palm, and a wax taper,[13] the old lady kept bags filled with herbs and roots, by whose aid she doctored her husband as well as the peasants who came to consult her. These herbs would fill the hut with a peculiarly characteristic fragrance, associated in the minds of the villagers with their memory of that neat and quiet little house, with the two old persons who dwelt therein, and whose placid existence offered so unusual a spectacle in times like these.

Meanwhile the only daughter of this elderly pair was growing up in their companionship,—a girl with long brown tresses and blue eyes, who straightway impressed every one that saw her with the uncommon maturity of her face. It seemed as if the calm love of the parents, finding fruition so late in life, had been reflected in their daughter’s nature by a mature judgment, a quiet deliberation in all her movements, and a certain pensive expression in the depths of her blue eyes. She was never shy with strangers, willingly made the acquaintance of children and took part in their games,—which was done however with an air of condescension, as if she herself really felt no interest in the matter. She was in fact quite happy in her own society, walking, gathering flowers, talking to her doll,—and all so demurely that one felt as if in the presence of a grown-up woman rather than in that of a child.

IV.

One evening Petrùsya was sitting alone on the hillock above the river. The sun was setting, the air was still, and only the tranquil, far-away sound of the lowing herds returning to the village reached his ear. The boy had but just ceased playing and had thrown himself on the grass, yielding to the half dreamy languor of a summer evening. He had been dozing for a minute, when he was roused by a light footstep. With a look of annoyance he rose on his elbow, and listened. At the foot of the hill the unfamiliar steps paused. He did not recognize them.

“Boy!” he heard a child’s voice exclaim, “do you know who it was that was playing here just now?”

The blind boy disliked to have his solitude disturbed. Therefore his answer to the question was given in no amiable tone,—“It was I.”

A slight exclamation of surprise greeted this statement; and directly the girl’s voice added with the utmost simplicity and in tones of approval,—“How well you play!”

The blind boy made no reply. “Why don’t you go away?” he asked presently, when he perceived that his unwelcome visitor had not left the spot.

“Why do you drive me away?” asked the girl, and her clear tones expressed genuine surprise.

The tranquil sound of the child’s voice was grateful to the blind boy’s ear; nevertheless he answered in his former tone,—“I don’t like to have people come here.”

The girl burst into a peal of laughter. “Really? What a strange idea! Is this all your land, and have you the right to forbid other people to walk upon it?”

“Mamma has given orders that no one shall come here.”

“Your mamma?” asked the girl, thoughtfully; “but my mamma allowed me to walk over the river.”

The boy, somewhat spoiled by the universal submission to his wishes, was not used to such persistency. An angry flush swept like a wave over his face, and half rising he exclaimed rapidly and excitedly,—“Go away! go away! go away!”

It is impossible to tell how this scene would have ended, for just then Joachim’s voice sounded from the direction of the mansion, calling the boy to tea, and he ran quickly down the hill.

“Ah, what a hateful boy!” was the indignant exclamation he heard follow him.

The next day while he was sitting on the very same spot, yesterday’s adventure came to his mind. Now, this memory excited no vexation; on the contrary, he wished that the girl with the quiet, tranquil voice, such as he had never heard before, would come back again. All the children that he knew shouted, laughed, fought, and cried noisily; not one had such a pleasant voice. He felt sorry to have offended the stranger, who probably would never return.

The girl indeed did not return for three whole days. But on the fourth day Petrùsya heard her steps below on the river’s bank. She was walking slowly, humming something to herself in a low voice, and apparently paying no attention to him.

“Wait a moment!” he called out, when he perceived that she was going past; “is that you again?”

The girl at first made no reply, for her feelings had been hurt by her former reception; but suddenly it seemed to occur to her that there was something strange in the boy’s question, and she paused. “Can’t you see that it is I?” she asked with much dignity, as she went on arranging a nosegay of wild flowers which she held in her hand.

This simple question sent a thrill of pain through the heart of the blind boy. He threw himself back on the grass and made no reply.

But the conversation had been started, and the girl still standing on the same spot and busying herself with her flowers, asked again: “Who taught you to play so well on the pipe?”

“Joachim taught me,” replied Petrùsya.

“You do play very well. Only why are you so cross?”

“I—am not cross with you,” replied the boy gently.

“Well, then, neither am I. Let us play together.”

“I don’t know how to play with you,” he replied, hanging his head.

“Don’t know how to play? Why not?”

“Because.”

“Tell me why.”

“Because,” he replied scarce audibly, and dropped his head still lower. Never before had he been obliged to speak of his blindness, and the innocent tone of the voice of the girl, who asked this question with such artless persistency, produced a painful impression upon him.

“How odd you are!” she said with compassionate condescension, seating herself beside him on the grass. “It must be because you are not acquainted with me. When you know me better, you will no longer be afraid of me. Now, _I_ am not afraid of anybody.”

She said this with careless simplicity, as she played with her corn-flowers and violets. Meanwhile the blind boy had accepted her challenge to more intimate acquaintance, and as he knew but one way of learning to know a person’s face, he naturally had recourse to his usual method. Grasping the girl’s shoulder with one hand he began with the other to feel of her hair and her eye-lashes; he passed his fingers swiftly over her face, pausing occasionally to study the unfamiliar features with deep attention. All this was so unexpected, and done with such rapidity, that the girl in her utter amazement never opened her lips; she only looked at him with wide-open eyes in which could be seen a feeling akin to horror. Not until now had she noticed anything unusual in the face of her new acquaintance. The pale and delicately cut features of the boy were rigid with a look of constrained attention, which seemed in some way incongruous with his fixed gaze. His eyes looked straight ahead, without any apparent relation to what he was doing, and in them shone a strange reflection from the setting sun. For a moment the girl felt as if it were some dreadful nightmare.

Releasing her shoulder from the boy’s hand, she suddenly sprang to her feet and burst into a flood of tears. “What are you doing to me, you naughty boy?” she exclaimed angrily through her tears. “Why do you touch me? What have I done to you? Why?”

Confused as he was, he remained sitting on the same spot with drooping head, while a strange feeling of mingled anger and vexation filled his heart with burning pain. Now for the first time he felt the degradation of a cripple; for the first time he learned that his physical defect might inspire alarm as well as pity. Although he had no power to formulate the sense of heaviness that oppressed him, he suffered none the less because this feeling was dim and confused. A sense of burning pain and bitter resentment swelled the boy’s throat; he threw himself down on the grass and wept. As the weeping increased, convulsive sobs shook his little frame,—the more violently, because his innate pride made him struggle to repress this outburst.

The girl, who had scarcely reached the foot of the hill, hearing those stifled sobs turned in amazement. When she saw that odd new acquaintance of hers lying face downward on the ground, crying so bitterly, she felt a sympathy for him, and climbing the hill again she stood over the weeping boy.

“What is it?” she said. “Why are you crying? Perhaps you think that I shall complain? Don’t cry! I shall not say a word to any one.”

These words of sympathy and the caressing voice excited a still more violent fit of sobbing. Then the girl sitting down beside the boy, devoted herself to the task of comforting him.

Passing her hand gently over his hair, with an instinct purely feminine, and a gentle persistency, she raised his head and wiped the tears from his eyes, like a mother who tries to comfort her grieving child.

“There, there, I am no longer vexed,” she said in the soothing tone of a grown-up woman. “I see you are sorry to have frightened me.”

“I did not mean to frighten you,” he replied, drawing a long breath in his efforts to repress his nervous sobs.

“Well, it is all right now. I am no longer angry. You will never do it again,” she added, raising him from the ground and trying to make him sit down beside her.

Petrùsya yielded. Again he sat facing the sunset, and when the girl saw his face lighted by the crimson rays, she was impressed by its unusual expression. The tears were still standing in the boy’s eyes, which were as before immovable, while his features were twitching convulsively with childlike sobs,—all the signs of a deep sorrow, such as a mature nature might feel, were evident.

“How queer you are—really!” she said with thoughtful sympathy.

“I am not queer,” replied the boy with a pitiful look. “No, I am not queer! I am—blind!”

“Bli—nd?” she repeated, prolonging the word in her surprise, while her voice trembled, as though that sad word, softly uttered by the boy, had given a heavy blow to her womanly little heart. “Blind?” she repeated again; her voice trembled still more, and then as though seeking a refuge from the uncontrollable sense of misery that had come over her, she suddenly threw her arms around the boy’s neck and hid her face on his breast.

This sad discovery taking her entirely by surprise, had instantly changed the self-composed little woman to a grieved and helpless child, who in her turn wept bitterly and inconsolably.

V.

Meanwhile the sun, revolving as it were in the glowing atmosphere, vanished below the dark line of the horizon. For a moment the golden rim of the fiery ball had lingered on the edge, leaving two or three burning sparks behind, and then the dark outlines of the distant forest became at once defined by an uninterrupted blue line. The wind blew fresh from the river.

The girl had ceased crying; only now and then a sob would break forth in spite of her. Petrùsya sat with bowed head as if hardly able to comprehend so lively an expression of sympathy.

“I am—sorry,” she said at last, by way of explaining her weakness, but her voice was still broken by sobs. Then after a short silence, having partially regained her self-control, she made an attempt to change the conversation to some topic of which they could both speak with composure. “The sun has set,” she said thoughtfully.

“I don’t know how it looks,” was the mournful reply. “I only—feel it.”

“You don’t know the sun?”

“No.”

“And you don’t know your mamma, either?”

“Yes, I know mamma. I can tell her step from a distance.”

“Yes, of course you can. I can tell my mother when my eyes are shut.”

The conversation had assumed a less agitating tone.

“I can feel the sun,” said the blind boy, growing more animated, “and I can tell when it has set.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because—don’t you see?—I can’t tell why myself.”

“Yes,” said the girl, and she seemed quite satisfied with this reply, and both were silent.

“I can read,” Petrùsya was the first to break the silence, “and I shall soon begin to learn to write with a pen.”

“How do you manage?” she inquired, and suddenly paused abashed, reluctant to pursue the delicate subject.

But he understood her. “I read from my own book, with my fingers,” he explained.

“With your fingers? I could never learn to read with my fingers. I read poorly enough with my eyes. My father says that it is difficult for women to learn.”

“And I can even read French.”

“How clever you are!” she exclaimed admiringly. “But I am afraid that you will take cold,” she added; “see how the fog is rising over the river.”

“And you yourself?”

“I am not afraid. What harm can it do me?”

“Neither am I afraid. Could a man possibly take cold more easily than a woman? Uncle Maxim says a man must never fear anything, neither cold nor hunger, nor the thunderbolt, nor the hurricane.”

“Maxim,—the one on crutches? I have seen him. He is terrible.”

“No, indeed. He is very kind.”

“No, he is terrible,” she persisted. “You cannot know, because you never saw him.”

“I do know him. He teaches me everything.”

“Does he beat you?”

“Never. He never beats me or screams at me,—never.”

“Well, I am glad of that. How could anybody strike a blind boy? It would be a sin.”

“He never strikes any one,” said Petrùsya, in an abstracted tone of voice, for his sensitive ear had caught the sound of Joachim’s steps.

In fact the tall figure of the Hohòl appeared a moment later on the summit of the rising ground that separated the estate from the shore, and his voice resounded through the tranquil evening air,—“Panitch!”

“They are calling you,” said the girl, rising.

“I know it; but I don’t want to go.”

“Oh, yes, do go. I will come to see you to-morrow. They are waiting for you now, and for me too.”

The girl was faithful to her promise, and appeared even earlier than Petrùsya could have expected her. The next day as he was sitting in his room at his daily lesson with Maxim, he suddenly raised his head, listened, and exclaimed eagerly, “May I go for a minute? The girl has come.”

“What girl do you mean?” inquired Maxim, as he followed the boy out of the door.

Petrùsya’s acquaintance of yesterday had in fact entered the yard of the mansion at that very moment, and on seeing Anna Michàilovna who was in the act of crossing it, deliberately went up to her.

“What do you wish, dear child?” asked the former, supposing that she had been sent on some errand.

The little woman offered her hand, as she demurely inquired, “Are you the mother of the blind boy? Yes?”

“Yes, my dear,” replied Pani Popèlska, admiring the girl’s clear eyes and the ease of her manners.

“Well, Mamma gave me permission to come to see him. May I see him?”

At that moment Petrùsya himself ran up to her, and behind him in the vestibule appeared Maxim.

“That’s yesterday’s girl, Mamma,—the one I told you of,” exclaimed the boy, as he greeted the child. “But I am taking my lesson now.”

“Well, Uncle Maxim will excuse you this time,” said Anna Michàilovna. “I will ask him.”