Peasant Tales of Russia
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"It is for the sake of your family that I question you. You have children?"
The prisoner's head sank still lower. There was silence.
"Have you many children?" added the Major.
"Four," murmured Mahmoud Bey in a low voice.
"Are they grown up?"
"No, all little. The eldest of the little girls is just six."
"Just the age of my rascal," said the Major, as though speaking to himself.
"My girl will be very beautiful when she grows up," said the prisoner in a livelier tone. "She has large eyes, which glow already. It is five months since I saw her; she wept much when I went away. My youngest is not yet a year old; he could not yet walk at the time of my departure. They all live down there just outside Adrianople. I had a house and vineyard … it is so pleasant there. I hoped to see them growing up under my eyes, the little brats. Then this war had to come. A curse on those who provoked it. God is just; He will punish those who have shed our blood and destroyed the happiness of our children."
"Yes, what is the good of war?" exclaimed the Major. "What is the use of it? All my fortune is my officer's pay. If I am killed to-morrow, what will become of my family?"
The examination of the prisoner had changed its character and become a conversation about families. The Major translated everything to the Colonel and the latter felt a keen sympathy with the prisoner's misfortunes.
"Tell him, my friend, that if he really had love for his children, he would have quietly let himself be taken to Russia, instead of trying to escape at the risk of death. On his return, he could have taken up their education again. It would not have been a long interval, only some months."
Mahmoud Bey replied sadly: "If our wives and kinsmen knew what the Russians really are, they would all have quietly remained at home, waiting our return. But no! In a few days from now the whole population will have fled, and soon as your soldiers arrive in sight of Adrianople, the town will be abandoned by the inhabitants. Only the Christians will remain.
"You asked me just now," he continued with a sudden heat, "why I escaped from the generous officer in whose charge I was. Simply on account of my family. I wished to go and save my wife and children. You who talk to me about them, do you know what will become of them? I will tell you. My wife will be panic-struck and begin by abandoning the house, the kitchen-garden and everything. It will all become the prey of some Greek or Armenian. My wife will depart for Constantinople, taking the children with her. When she has arrived there, she will get no help from the Government, for where do you think there will be money enough to satisfy the needs of so many ruined families? There are more than a hundred thousand of them. Then they will be sent over to Asia Minor, to Scutari, where they will be forgotten. What will she do herself alone? There will be only one result. My daughters being beautiful and healthy, she will be able to sell them to harems, where the poor young things will forget the very name of their father. My boys will become slaves, while my daughters will be sold again some day to some rich old man of Aleppo or Damascus. As to my wife, her first grief once over, she also will go into some harem. And after a year, when I return, what shall I find? Nothing, neither house, nor family! I shall not even know where they are gone; people will not be able to give me any information. I shall have lost all that I possess, and my house will have changed its master.
"You asked why I escaped. Because I could not support the mental anguish which tortured me. I wept all the night, previous to taking flight; I knew I was exposing myself to the risk of death. But at such a time, to live or to die – is it not the same thing? If I had succeeded, I would have saved my children; I have not succeeded – well, I shall die. Kismet! It is not that death frightens me. Since the beginning of the war I have been exposed to it every day, and have been accustomed to face it without trembling. What dismays me is to know that my family are deserted, unhappy and dying of hunger – to know that they are quite near me and that I cannot fly to their help…"
The old Turk, burying his head in his hands, began to sob, to the great embarrassment of the officers. The Colonel leaped from his seat, and began to stride up and down the room. He made a gesture with his hand, as though he wished to brush away something which prevented him seeing distinctly; then he got angry with himself.
"The deuce!" he said, "I was nearly becoming a woman." He looked at the Major, who as pale as himself, remained sitting at the table, on which his fingers were tracing strange designs.
"Yes, war is a dreadful thing," he murmured.
The prisoner resumed his talk. "Before this war I had never left my house. I had seen all my children born and watched their growth every day. As they grew, their minds developed; no details escaped me; neither the moment when they recognized me for the first time, nor the moment when they began to stammer their first letters. I remember everything, everything – their little limbs when still weak … their mouths open like nestlings. Who will bring them their daily food now? Their mother? She is in danger herself. Only the other day…"
He could not finish; his strength failed him.
"Just as it is with us at home, my friend. The same thing exactly," said the Colonel, pacing nervously up and down the room.
"What shall we do in the meantime? I think myself we might wait till to-morrow before sending him to the general. What do you say, Colonel?"
"Yes, yes, to-morrow will do."
"Shall he stay with us for the present?"
"Yes, he can stay with us. I will tell Somione to make up a bed for him. Four children! What a story!"
"And if the general has him shot, Colonel?"
"Hm! yes… It all depends on the mood he is in. One cannot talk about children with the general."
"War is a horrible thing, Colonel. Is it not?"
"Yes, it is, if you want my opinion. But duty, you know, and the uniform and the military oath. I'd as soon they all went to the devil. Don't let us think of it any more till to-morrow. It gives me a feeling of constriction at the heart. Ask him if he will take wine. We will have supper together."
III. Dreams
The prisoner's bed was placed in the same room with the Colonel and the Major.
Soon all was silent. From time to time came the noise of single cannon-shots, deadened by the fog. It was the Turks who would not be quiet, but continued to fire at the Russians. But as the latter did not reply, they also finally ceased. Night now reigned alone over the world, wrapping everything in darkness and dampness – both the snow-covered summits of the mountains and their peaceable defiles covered with Turkish villages abandoned by their inhabitants as though a plague had been raging.
In the valley below lay thousands of corpses with fixed eyes widely open gazing at the dark mysterious heavens. Their intent gaze seemed to wish to penetrate the darkness as though obstinately asking heaven whither had passed that something which had animated their bodies that very morning, and what had become of the last sigh which escaped from their bayonet-pierced or bullet-riddled breasts. But the dark inaccessible sky regarded them sadly from above, letting fall now and then cold tears on these disfigured faces.
The Major could not get to sleep. He turned and turned again under the felt cloak which served him as a blanket, throwing it aside and pulling it over himself again, recommencing for the tenth time to read a newspaper and letting it fall, casting furtive glances at the slumbering Turk, and hearing the vague words which escaped him in his uneasy sleep. Weary with his restlessness, the Major tried to oblige himself to think of something else, but his thoughts always returned to the same point.
Even when he had finally closed his eyes and his breath had become more equal, when night had cast its soft spell over the room, his thoughts continued without change to work in the same direction. He dreamt of children, not the prisoner's unfortunate brats, but of his own surrounded by all the care of a mother and sheltered from danger in the midst of the profound quiet of the steppe which surrounded the little Russian town where his family dwelt. His thoughts flew to them over thousands of versts.
All else had vanished; nothing of the present remained, neither the battles, nor the innumerable corpses, nor that ocean of disasters which for a long time had been rolling its blood-stained waves under the Major's eyes.
This is what he saw – a moderately-sized room with a sacred icon1 in one corner. A night-light burns softly before the icon as though intimidated by the constant sight of the saint's austere face, whose expression appears still more sombre in contrast with the silver ornaments of the frame in which it is set. The feeble rays of this pale light show in the shadow the outlines of two little beds with very white curtains from behind which proceeds the sound of equable breathing. The Major lifts one of these curtains; the little girl in this bed is too hot; she has pushed off her coverlet, and all rosy with sleep, she slumbers without dreaming, her little plump legs gathered up close to her body, and her pulpy mouth half-open. The little monkey is tired with running about the whole day. She has rolled down ice-slopes, she has teased her favourite fowls and her cock, she has fed the pigeons, and among other things she has fought with her little brother. Now she slips her little fat hand under her head. She seems about to open her eyes and close them again, smiling at the sight of her father's face as he hangs over her. He takes a long look at her.
"Sleep, my darling, sleep, my angel," he murmurs, making the sign of the cross above her.
Then he turns to the other little bed. Do you see this brat? He is not yet two years old, but he is already covered with scratches because he does nothing but fight, sometimes with the cat, and sometimes with his little sister, whom he torments. Accordingly, his cheek is marked all over by the cat's claws, who, however, appears at present to have made a truce with her enemy, for there she lies rolled up, looking like a ball of grey wool. Isn't he fat and sturdy, the Major's rascal? He is so fat that his pretty hands, his little feet and his neck look as though they were encircled with a thread, as those of quite young infants do. And what red and chubby cheeks, so chubby that they have almost extinguished the nose, which appears between them only like a little button! His round head is covered with hair so blond that it is almost white, and there is a dimple in his elbow. Suppose he were to kiss the dimple? But no – the child might wake up. Good! Good! Let him sleep. And the father makes the sign of the cross over the spoilt child. Then he approaches the night-lamp. Its wick is charred and he turns it up a little, so that the room is better lighted.
In a corner snores the old nurse; it sounds like the purring of a cat. The Major goes on tip-toe towards the next room. His eldest son is there who looks down on his little sister and his brat of a brother with profound disdain. In the absence of his father he sleeps in his mother's bed, where he is rolled up like a ball. The languid light of a lamp covered with a blue shade falls on both of them. By the bed-side is a little round table. The Major's wife must have been reading newspapers before going to sleep, for there are some on the table, open at the page where his detachment is spoken of. On the wall there is a portrait of him, and there are others on the table. His memory seems to pervade the place; he has certainly not been forgotten. Full of gratitude, he leans over the sleepers, he touches softly and carefully the half-open lips of his wife, he kisses gently her forehead and her closed eyes. She seems to him to have grown thinner. Her nightdress is open at her neck, on which the light of the lamp directly falls. It is quite natural that she should have grown thinner through anxiety on account of her husband. She has put one arm round the neck of her boy, who sleeps cosily, his curly head resting on his mother's shoulder, his mouth a little open. What teeth he has! And one eye is blackened!
What peace reigns here! It seems as though a spirit of purity brooded in the atmosphere. Everything here breathes of love, calm and serenity. It is as though an angel's prayer hovered over these two rooms, protecting these dear heads from all evil thoughts, from despair and hatred.
If any one at this moment had watched the face of the Major as he lay asleep, he would have seen a happy smile pass over the lips of this thin tall man – so happy that the old Turk who lay not far from him could not have supported the sight of it.
The latter was, all the night long, tormented by painful thoughts; he turned uneasily on his couch, and now and then a scalding tear rolled down his face. The night herself seemed struck by the contrast. She sent him a mysterious vision, and as soon as the sleeper perceived it, his expression changed immediately. His contracted muscles relaxed, his mouth, almost invisible before under the great nose, showed a smile. The tears on his cheeks dried; the prisoner was evidently dreaming of something happy. The night hung over him, her visage veiled in black; she murmured beloved names in his ear, and sent him only dreams of happiness; then, softly and gently, she glided towards the Major.
What is the matter with him? He seems to be having a trembling-fit. Night hangs over him and covers him with her black veil. Any one who watched him just now would be struck with the sudden change in his expression. His features betray astonishment and terror. He tries to rise, to shake off the heavy chains of sleep, but night holds him in her grasp. She has placed her hand on his chest. He sees a thing so strange and extravagant that his blood turns to ice in his veins. The quiet rooms of his home seem to be filled with a strange murmur. The children rise in their beds and fix their eyes, dilated with terror, on a black menacing cloud which hovers slowly above their heads. The father looks at it. What is there in the cloud which so alarms his children? His heart beats violently.
The cloud continues to descend. The children jump down from their beds. The little boy who was sleeping in the next room runs hither. They call their nurse – she has disappeared; there is nothing but a heap of old rags in the place where she was lying. The children call to their mother, but the black cloud hides her from their eyes. There they are alone, face to face with it. It sinks slowly on the ground as though it were descending into the waves of the ocean. Its vague fluctuating outlines assume distinctness. The Major and his children at last perceive what it contained. What they see is a body of enormous length stretched out; round it are standing four little children with great black eyes full of anguish and distress. The children weep bitterly, and their tears fall on the corpse which they surround. The Major's children approach them and begin to examine the body whose grey head, with its large nose, the scar on the forehead, and the grey bristling moustaches, leave no doubt in the Major's mind as to its identity. The body is that of Mahmoud Bey. Everything is there – the fresh wound on the shoulder, the clotted blood on the ragged cloak, the stiffened feet wrapped in rags.
"But who … who has done that?" asks the Major's little girl, a moment before flushed with sleep, becoming suddenly pale.
"Who has killed him?" asks the little boy of six with the black eye. The youngest of the children is holding him by the shirt-sleeve.
The Turk's children, the black-eyed brats of a tawny tint, turn towards the Major and point at him.
"It is he who has killed our father. Yes, it is he. He has cast us on the street and reduced us to poverty and helplessness."
The Major tries to speak or cry. His heart is nearly bursting with agony; his tongue feels paralysed; his voice is choked in his throat. This father sees his children turn from him with horror. The youngest even lifts her little hand as though to shield herself. He tries to approach her, but she runs away, her features convulsed with terror. She points to his hands and cries, "Blood! Blood!"
The Major looks at his hands; the little girl is right; they are covered with blood. Then he tries to speak, but he cannot articulate a word; he feels as though some one had seized him by the throat, and were trying to choke him. He struggles desperately, makes a final effort and … awakes.
Throwing away the cloak which covers him, he rises. The Turk was not asleep; he was sitting at table with the Colonel.
"Well, Major, it seems to me that you have had a good sleep for the New Year."
"Yes … and I have had a dream."
"You too?" said the Colonel in an embarrassed tone.
"Why do you say, 'You too'?"
"Yes. You can't imagine what absurd dreams I have been having. I had never believed myself so sentimental."
"Had your dream anything to do with the prisoner?"
"Naturally. You remember my Volodia?"
"A curious question, as I am his godfather."
"Indeed you are right. My head is decidedly queer. Well, I have had that rascal at my heels the whole night. He insisted obstinately that I should give the Turk up to him. 'Why?' I asked. And he answered, 'He also has little Volodia's, and I will let him free to go and find them.' Yet, my friend, I don't think we drank more than usual last night."
"Certainly not." The Major looked fixedly at the Colonel.
"But think what I have dreamt; it is much more serious."
"Not really."
"Yes, indeed."
The Major related his dream.
"We are becoming superstitious," said the Colonel. "Come what will, we must make up our minds. I will send this Turk to the General as quickly as possible. May God look after him! The General must decide his fate. If we keep him here, we shall end by going mad."
"In that case I have a favour to ask of you."
"What is it?"
"I wish to go myself to the General."
"You?"
"Yes; allow me to conduct Mahmoud Bey to him."
The Colonel gave a side-glance in order to preserve a serious expression, and finally said, without looking at the Major:
"There is nothing against it. But you will need a horse."
"It is easy to find one. Have we not taken enough from the Turks?"
"True. Very well, there is no obstacle. Hand the prisoner over to the General," added the Colonel, in the tone of a superior officer giving an order.
Walking slowly and accompanied by Mahmoud Bey, who looked as melancholy as ever, the Major arrived at the Russian advance-posts.
A Cossack on horseback emerged from the fog. It was a sentinel. Two other Cossacks lay stretched on the ground. Their horses, attached to pickets, munched a bundle of hay. At the sight of the officer, the Cossacks rose quickly.
"Where does this trench lead, my good fellows?" asked the Major, pointing to a very deep one close to where they stood.
"Straight to the enemy, Major."
"Has any one seen the Turks to-day?"
"Not one has shown himself. They are quieter this morning. Yesterday they raged like madmen, but thank God, they are giving us a respite now."
"They have understood that they were wasting ammunition."
The Major signed to the prisoner to follow him and descended into the trench. A moment after, one of the Cossacks was at his side.
"What do you want?"
"One must take precautions, Major. We never know what may happen. The Turks are not very far away, you know."
"It is unnecessary."
"But, Major, your prisoner may escape."
"No, he won't; he has even promised to point me out the Turkish positions. Return to your post."
The Cossack went back. The two others rode in silence for half an hour. Finally the Major halted.
"Listen to me, Mahmoud Bey. The Turkish army is not very far from here. Escape, and go to Adrianople to find your children. You understand me? I have children also. Well, what are you waiting for? Go, escape, and be quick. There is no time to lose. I might change my mind," he added, half-smiling.
The Turk seemed absolutely petrified. He blinked his eyes. Evidently he understood nothing.
"I tell you to go and find your family. Do you understand?"
Quickly, and before the Major understood what he was going to do, Mahmoud Bey stooped down, seized his hand and kissed it.
"Listen to me, Russian! I can never requite you this kindness. I do not dare to wish for you that you may find yourself one day in my position and chance upon a Turk as good as yourself. But know well there is only one God. Religions are diverse, but God is One. I promise you that I and my children, as long as we are alive, will pray God to preserve you for your children as you have preserved me for mine. May the sun shine on you for many years! Farewell, Russian, farewell!"
Then as though fearing that the Major might change his mind, he whipped up his horse and disappeared.
After waiting some minutes to allow him to get to some distance, the Major returned. When he arrived at the Russian outposts, he met the same Cossack who had wished to accompany him and said, "Your prediction is fulfilled. The Turk has escaped."
The Cossack studied the Major's face and said, "I wish him luck. It is not prisoners we are in want of. We shall soon not know where to put them."
When the Major rejoined the Colonel, he found him walking up and down the room in a state of great agitation.
"Well?"
"Arrest me! I have let the prisoner go!"
The Colonel hastened towards him, and embraced him nervously.
"There! Volodia has his New Year's gift! Let us hope that now he will let me sleep in peace."
"But ought not a report to be made?"
"Why?"
"And the papers dealing with the prisoner's case?"
"The papers? There are their ashes in the stove. I have burnt them. Poor wretch! He will have to hurry – he will have to hurry to find his family."
A MISUNDERSTANDING
I
Vespers were drawing to a close. A young nun, Sister Helene, who had just finished her novitiate and taken the veil, stood in a dark recess, viewed from whence, the old church, with its round columns, seemed to fade away into the mysterious darkness under the cupola. She watched the black outlines of the "Sisters in Jesus" kneeling in the middle of the nave, the gilded "iconostasis" or church-screen with its blackened pictures set in frames sparkling with precious stones, its wax-tapers and lamps burning softly in the heavy incense-laden air. Each time that the deacon passed, waving his censer, they seemed to burn more brightly. But Sister Helene was lost in contemplation of a painting which had just been finished by the nun who shared her cell. The figure of the Holy Virgin seemed to stand out from the dark background; her large eyes were sadly fixed on the heads bent in devotion; the flickering flame seemed to cast light and shadow alternately on the divine features. It seemed sometimes to Helene that the sorrowful eyes of the Mother of God glowed with a misty light. Helene was not praying. Rapt in a self-forgetful reverie, her soul soared higher than the arches of the church; she had not heard the broken voice of the old priest, which sounded like a sob, any more than she heard the beatings of her own heart; she took no account of the flight of time till she felt a hand touch her arm.
"Are you going to stay there till morning?" a little misshapen old woman asked her with a discontented air.
"It is a real sin in you younger ones to stay so, absent-minded, without even making the sign of the cross. See! the wax-tapers have burnt out. You have been thinking long enough in your self-conceit, 'Here I am alone, and all the others have gone.'"
"Pardon, Sister Seraphine," murmured the nun.
"Very well! God will pardon you. Go now, I am closing the church. But make the sign of the cross; that will not break your arm, and then an obeisance. God be with you. All the same, it is a sin in you young ones. Ah, if they would only give us another abbess."
Helene turned once more to look at the church-screen.
The church was now plunged in silence and darkness; the old nun hobbled before the altar, then disappeared behind the columns. Here and there were visible the little flames of the lamps which are never put out. A bunch of keys fell on the flag-stones, sounding like the clash of chains. Sister Seraphine had dropped them.