Peasant Tales of Russia

IX

St. Martin's summer came and went. In the forest it became so cold, that Ivan thought of giving Anjuta into the charge of one of the villagers for the winter. But none of them could afford to take care of her. They were already beginning to mix the meal, which was their food during the winter, with pieces of pine-bark and chaff. Moreover, the old man would have sorely missed the clear, eager childish eyes, which looked so confidingly into his, and the merry laughter which relieved the monotony of his dark life. The forest became more and more silent in preparation for its winter sleep; and winter came stealing on with muffled footsteps.

"It is time, Anjuta, to dig our hole for the winter. To-morrow, with Gods help, I will begin. There the frost cannot pinch us, when we sit together and gossip."

"Do you know how to sing, too, Grandfather?"

"Never mind that. The songs which I sing are not for you. But I will tell you many things, for you are still stupid, and must learn how things go in life, so that you may get on well, and not be a burden to others. The world, Anjuta, is like a bottomless pit. It is easy to go down, but one never finds the way up again, and nobody helps one. The Pope2 told me once that there used to be good people who loved all men alike and did good alike to all. Even for lepers they did something."

"What does that mean – 'lepers'?"

"Lepers?" He hesitated. "It is a pity I never thought of asking the Pope what it meant. Every one had a horror of them. They were not allowed to go about as they liked." He thought for a moment. "Yes, Anjuta, I remember now. Lepers are those who sit behind iron bars. Men fasten fetters on them and march them up the streets with soldiers on both sides. You see, good people in their great kindness have helped the lepers, that is the convicts. They have done no end of good to all men, but wicked men and scoundrels who ought to have honoured and loved them, like fathers, have tortured and crucified them."

"What does 'crucified' mean?"

"They drove nails through their hands and feet. So… Do you see?"

"Just like you nailed the raven to the tree with nails in its wings and feet."

"Yes. But the raven does harm, but those men were good and kind to people like us. That is all I know about the good folk. To-morrow we will begin our work."

But the hole was not destined to be dug. The night was bitterly cold. The howling of the wolves sounded so wild and terrible that Anjuta awoke suddenly out of her sleep, crying loudly, and still lay awake listening long after the old man by her side was comfortably snoring. The wind had risen and drove the dry leaves round the hut. Suddenly the child thought she heard a distant growling, and soon she was sure of it; heavy footsteps were stamping outside the hut.

"Grandfather, Grandfather, listen!" cried Anjuta, and shook him by the arm. "Wake up! I am so frightened!"

An enormous bear, whom the huntsmen had probably roused from his winter lair, was coming straight towards Ivan's hut. He went round the shapeless edifice on all sides, sniffing cautiously, as though he meant to choose it as a new dwelling. Under his heavy tread the pine-needles crackled, and dry branches snapped. At last he stood still, rubbing his mighty back against a tree. His every movement was distinctly audible in the hut.

"Of course it's a bear!" exclaimed Ivan, who had held his breath to listen. "Well, the fellow shall give us his fur for winter wear. Meanwhile light the pine-chips, Anjuta."

The old man seized his gun, which was always loaded, and pushed open the rude door, which was made fast with a stone. Through the mist which hung thickly round the trees he saw a dark shape retreating slowly into the forest. That did not suit Ivan's plans; he aimed hastily and fired. The bear was only grazed, for he attacked the old man, and enveloped him with his hot evil-smelling breath, hardly giving him time to reload his gun. The old man started back; the bear rose on its hind-legs and towered over him like an indistinct, gigantic shadow.

"Where are you going, you blockhead? Stop, I have an account to settle with you," cried Ivan, and fired right under the beast's jaw. The shot missed, and suddenly the convict found himself crushed under the terrible weight of his enraged enemy. He tried to raise himself on his elbow, but the bear understood his business, pushed his paw under his body, and pressed him in his close embrace till all his bones cracked.

"Jesus and all the saints," gasped the old man. "Help my Anjuta." And his eyes closed.

Then something quite unexpected happened. The beast was already preparing to flay his victim in the most approved bear-fashion from the skull downwards, when a bright light flared in his eyes. Master Bruin's mind became suddenly confused. He did not pause to investigate, but rose at once and trotted away as fast as his feet could carry him.

"Grandfather! O Grandfather!" cried the child, lamenting as she threw herself on his prostrate body. Driven by fear for him, she had appeared with the burning pine-torch just in time to save her benefactor.

Ivan awoke from his swoon. "Water! Water!" he gasped hoarsely. Before his eyes there danced fiery sparks: his breast felt terribly constricted. He eagerly drained the cup which the child reached to him; then he rose painfully and limped, leaning on his gun, to the hut, where, covered up warmly by Anjuta, he fell into a death-like slumber. He awoke, feeling tired and sick. There was a buzzing in his head; one leg was badly injured, and the bear's claw had left deep marks on his back.

"We can't do anything to-day with the hole, Anjuta! If I remain quiet to-day, perhaps we can to-morrow."

But the next day came, and a second, and a third, and there was no possibility of thinking of work. Not till a week had passed could he rise from his bed. When he came out of the hurt, he uttered a cry of surprise. The red and yellow leaves still hung on the trees, but a thin coverlet of snow lay over the whole face of the clearing. In the air the snow-flakes crossed and whirled in white confusion. Winter had brought out its corpse-cloth overnight.

X

All that remained to the convict of his brief summer happiness was Anjuta. As he lay on his bed of soft skins his burning eyes never left the child. The unfortunate man suffered severely. In the first shock he had not been able to judge distinctly how seriously the bear had injured him. The deep wound in his shoulder would not heal, although Anjuta had learnt how to wash and bandage it daily. It was soon accompanied by a fever. Meanwhile, time went on remorselessly; the winter regularly settled in, and the rude hut no longer afforded sufficient shelter. One day Ivan dragged himself on all fours into the open, and with endless trouble began to plaster the hut outside with earth. Within, he dug a hollow in the ground, and with the help of a pole made a hole in the roof, which could be closed with a small board. The fire-place was then ready.

"Listen, little girl." In his illness the old man had become especially gentle towards the orphan. "Now you must look after me. Be my little housekeeper. Light the fire and boil the water. Thank God we have enough bread and wood and meal. Put a couple of handfuls into the soup with sliced potatoes; it will be quite tasty. Later on we will catch hares. Peasants are not allowed to eat hares, but we are foresters, and that has nothing to do with us."

So Anjuta lit the fire, cooked the soup, brought fresh wood from the wood-pile. When the fire had burnt out, she clambered on the roof and closed the opening – the "chimney," as Ivan called it – so that it remained comfortably warm in the hut.

"Is that right, Grandfather?" she laughed.

"You are my treasure, my little dove," the old man said as he lay on his skins. "Without you it would be all over with me."

Ivan was glad that he had taken care in the summer that the little girl should know the way to the village thoroughly well. If his sickness lasted, she would have to go many errands for him. But he did not like sending the little creature out when all the paths were covered with snow.

"Anjuta," he asked by way of precaution, "how will you recognize the way to the village?"

"By the axe-cuts on the trunks as far as the pine which was struck by lightning."

"You are a sharp little girl."

"And then by the ravine to the birch-tree where you have made the sign of the cross. Then following the notches to the river, and from there one can see the village."

Ivan became easier in mind. His protégée would not be lost, but in case of need could fetch help by herself. But he continued in a weak state. One day, when he felt he could no longer bear doing nothing, he dragged himself, gun in hand, as far as the edge of the clearing, only to sink down exhausted. Shaking with fever, after some time he returned home. Anjuta, who ran to help him, was frightened and saw that all was not right with him. He threw off his fur coat and talked to her excitedly, with delirious eyes. "I will not go back behind the iron bars, do you hear? I will not. I am innocent, your honour. Why do you torment the old man? You might sentence a younger man to be knouted, but it will be the death of me. Have pity, kind sirs, I must look after Anjuta." His voice sank to a hardly intelligible whisper. "You have made a bad beginning, comrade. When the hour comes, everything must be ready. Take out the plank and lower it. Do you see the sentry. Spring on his shoulder and throttle him so that he does not stir … it serves him right. Don't sentence me, kind sirs; I have not killed Anjuta. Ask her herself."

At last he fell into a light slumber, and when he awoke he was calmer. "Have I frightened you, my dovelet? Ah, I am very ill, Anjuta; you have much trouble. But wait; when I am well again we will have a jolly life."

But weeks passed, and Ivan did not get up. He was quite emaciated, and his dark eyes were sunken still more deeply in their sockets, under his bushy white eye-brows. Fortunately the winter was mild, and there was not much snow.

"Anjuta, have we still bread and meal?"

"There is only a hard crust left for you to-morrow, and the meal too is nearly finished."

"I will go to-morrow to the village," said the old man. "I will send Andryushka Lasaref for the skins which are lying ready; the sledge can go all the way."

The next day he took a tender adieu of the child and started; but half an hour afterwards he knocked at the door and threw himself on the bed in a state of complete exhaustion.

"I can't do it, Anjuta, really I can't," he said as though in apology. "There is no more marrow in my bones. If I can't stand up to-morrow, you must go. You are not afraid?"

"No, Grandfather … only a little of the bears."

"The bears are now asleep in their holes, you little stupid, and suck their paws. And there are no wolves to be heard just now. There is nothing more for them here; therefore they are gone near the villages; otherwise we would hear them howling every night."

The old man had tears in his eyes when Anjuta got herself ready next morning for the journey.

"Such a tiny thing, quite alone in the deep forest!" he murmured to himself.

"Tell Lasaref to bring a sack of meal, two large loaves of bread, and some barley, and say that Grandfather has all kinds of fine things ready for him. But mind you don't try to come home by night, Anjuta. Stay with Andryushka for the night, and he will bring you in the sledge in the morning. Tell him I am ill – the bear has badly mauled Ivan the Runaway. Do you understand?"

"Yes; but why do you cry, Grandfather?"

"It is only foolishness… I have grown quite weak. Now go, and God preserve you! And listen, Anjuta; whenever you feel frightened, you must sing."

The child started and the old man, creeping out of the hut, followed her with his eyes. She soon reached the edge of the clearing. How nimbly her young feet moved! Under the gigantic trees she moved like a little beetle. Now she turned and laughed at him, and his eyes, misty with tears, could see nothing more.

XI

The forest was brilliant in white apparel. Under the wintry veil its creative forces slumbered. Not a tree-top swayed, nor a branch stirred. The sky was covered with grey clouds and the earth with snow, which in the stillness gave out a light crackling sound under Anjuta's feet. She tried once or twice to sing, but the grim silence of the primeval pines sobered her with a sense of weird mystery. She tried to tread as lightly as possible in order not to awake the gloomy trees on the right and left out of their slumbers.

What might not be hidden under these snow-laden branches which almost touched the ground? How terrible it would be if "it" suddenly crept out without a sound. The fact that she could not define to herself what the "it" was, made it all the more formidable.

And now she heard a low moaning at the bottom of the ravine. Perhaps it was the brook, but if…? She did not think the thought out, but hastened forward, stumbling and gliding. She looked attentively for the axe-notches in the tree-trunks in order not to lose her way. She also saw the sign of the cross on the birch half obliterated with snow.

The child sat on a snow-heap, and looked at the cross for the first time attentively. Round about were visible what looked like footprints in the snow. Were they caused by the wind, or – ? An icy shudder ran through her; fortunately it occurred to her that "they" had no power by day, and only went about in the darkness. Yes, of course it was "they."

How often had her mother, whom her Grandfather had buried in the forest, told her that the souls of unbaptized children roamed about by night. When such a child dies, the Lord does not take it to Himself. "You do not belong to Me," He says. Woe betide the unlucky person who meets one of "them." It weeps and sobs pitiably, but if one takes it up, it seizes one's throat with its teeth.

Anjuta sprang up and went quickly on. Again the enchanted silence surrounded her, again the lofty motionless trees looked at her as though they were astonished at the little intruder who disturbed their icy winter sleep. Anjuta became hungry and gnawed at a dry crust of bread as she went along; at the same time she was so absorbed in her thoughts that she stumbled. She looked around; there before her spread a white plain with the chimneys of the poverty-stricken little village in the background. Behind her rose the dark stiff wall of the wood. The main road ran close up to it and then, as though in sudden alarm, turned sharply to one side.

Anjuta felt that for nothing in the world would she go back alone. The wood from which she had happily emerged inspired her afterwards with such fear, that she began to run, and sped over the snowy plain like an arrow. A strange sight brought her to a standstill. Four riders with long lances in their hands and guns slung across their backs rode by the side of a sledge, in which sat a stout man. He looked very grand, with his high turned-up fur collar and a cap with a red band round it. She had only once seen such a fine gentleman before, when she was begging with her mother in the town. The joyful consciousness of having the wood happily behind her so braced her up, that she felt no embarrassment before the stranger.

"Listen, child!" the stout gentleman said to her. "Where have you come from?"

"From the wood, Uncle."

"How is that possible? Do people live there?"

"Only Grandfather and I."

"Do you belong to the village?"

"No. Grandfather has come from far away, and he found me in the wood, when my mother had died."

"Wait, wait," exclaimed the man in the sledge, who seemed struck with a new idea. "They said there," he pointed to the village, "that he had not been seen in this neighbourhood. Of course, you don't know your grandfather's name; how should you?"

"Yes, I know it quite well," she laughed. "It is Ivan."

"Ah, but he did not tell you what other name he had. That ought to have occurred to him."

"Yes, but he did," said the child merrily. "And I remember it well."

"You are joking."

"He is called Ivan the Runaway. That's it. And my name is Anjuta."

"That's just the man we want," laughed the official with great satisfaction. "Look out, you rascals" – he made a threatening gesture towards the village – "you shelter escaped convicts. Where is your grandfather?"

"He is in bed."

"What? Out there in the wood?"

"Yes; he is ill since the bear attacked him. He can hardly crawl round our hut."

"Ah! then he can't run away."

"Why should he run away?" laughed Anjuta. "He is waiting for me. I am going to the village," she added with an air of importance, "to buy bread and meal."

"Well, listen now. Sit here by my side. Would you like to help your grandfather? We will make him well and give him bread and money, so that he can live without anxiety."

"Yes, but Grandfather wanted to make a hole under the earth for us both, because it is so terribly cold in the forest."

"Very well; we will build him a strong hut."

"With a real fire-place like Lasaref has?"

"Yes, just like that."

The little girl clapped her hands in glee. "And I will always cook him good broth. That is just what Grandfather has always told me, that one should help the other, and then God helps all."

"Yes, certainly. We will help him too."

Anjuta clambered up on the box-seat. The peasant who held the reins gave her a violent dig in the side and angrily hissed between his teeth, "Stupid goose!"

"Stephan," said the stout official, "can the sledge go through the wood?"

"No," was the sulky reply.

"Ah, but when you get something on your obstinate neck it can. Turn round, rascal! In winter one can go everywhere."

Anjuta had become quite silent. Why was the kind gentleman so angry all of a sudden? The sledge had already reached the wood.

"How pleased Grandfather will be!" she thought, and smiled again her happy childish smile.

XII

Ivan the Runaway's heart sank when Anjuta had gone. "Not even can I pray for her, sinner that I am!" he thought. "I would only bring down misfortune on her."

Suppose a stray wolf attacked her, or she lost her way? There would be no one to help her. His imagination continued to conjure up ever darker and darker images. He saw her little body writhing under the claws of a hungry wild beast, or sinking in the treacherous snow of a deep ravine; he saw her wandering blindly in the thickets of the forest and heard her childish voice crying, "Grandfather, Grandfather, I am frightened!"

Hour after hour passed. The hut seemed too narrow for him. He knew that she would spend the night in the village, and yet he ventured out in the cold, drawn by the hope that he would see her suddenly standing before him laughing and happy with radiant eyes.

Over the white-clothed forest there brooded a foreboding silence; the sky was overcast by dark clouds and the pine-trees towered gaunt and forbidding. A feeling of terror slowly stole over him. Formerly he had never known it in his solitude, but Anjuta had accustomed him to human companionship. Was not somebody creeping near, just as he himself had often crept when on a thievish expedition? His heart beat violently as though it would burst; he stuffed a handful of snow in his mouth in order to quench the burning sensations within him.

There! Were those not voices? Did Andryushka Lasaref wish to take the skins at once, and had he brought the child with him? But there seemed to be several people, and he heard distinctly the beat of the horses' hoofs.

He ought to have been glad perhaps, but his heart felt painfully contracted. What a wolf's life his was, spent in perpetual mistrust and fear! Now he could distinguish Anjuta's merry tones … and now something came forward from between the trees.