Forty Stories

A Dead Body

A CALM August night. The mist rose slowly from the fields, covering everything within view with a dull-colored winding sheet. When lit by the moon, the mist gave the impression of a quiet and limitless expanse of ocean, and at another time it resembled an immense white wall. The air was damp and chilly, and the morning still far away. There was a fire blazing a step or two beyond the pathway running along the edge of the forest. Near the small fire, under a young oak, lay a dead body covered from head to foot with a clean white linen sheet, and there was a small wooden icon lying on the dead man’s chest. Beside the dead body, almost sitting in the pathway, were “the watchers,” two peasants who were performing one of the most disagreeable and uninviting tasks ever given to peasants. One was a tall youngster with a faint mustache and thick black bushy eyebrows, wearing bast shoes and a tattered sheepskin jacket, his feet stretched out in front of him, as he sat in the damp grass. He was trying to make time go faster by getting down to work. His long neck was bent, and he wheezed loudly while he whittled a spoon from a big curved chunk of wood. The other was a small, thin pock-marked peasant with an ancient face, a scant mustache, and a little goatee beard. His hands had fallen on his knees, and he gazed listlessly and motionlessly into the flames.

The small pile of faggots that lay between them blazed up and threw a red glare on their faces. It was very quiet. The only sound came from the scraping of the knife on the wood and the crackling of the damp faggots in the flames.

“Don’t fall asleep, Syoma,” the young man said.

“Me? No, I’m not falling asleep,” stammered the man with a goatee.

“That’s good. It’s hard sitting here alone, I’d get frightened. Talk to me, Syoma.”

“I wouldn’t know …”

“Oh, you’re a strange fellow, Syomushka! Some people laugh, invent stories, and sing songs, but you—God knows what to make of you. You sit there like a scarecrow in a potato field and stare at the flames. You don’t know how to put words together.… You’re plain scared of talking. You must be getting on for fifty, but you’ve no more sense than a baby. Aren’t you sorry you are such a fool?”

“Reckon so,” said the man with a goatee gloomily.

“Well, we’re sorry too. Wouldn’t you say so? There you are, a good solid fellow, don’t drink too much, and the only trouble is that you haven’t a brain in your head. Still, if the good Lord afflicted you by making you witless, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t try to pick up some glimmerings of intelligence, is there? Make an effort, Syoma.… If someone speaks a good word and you don’t understand it, you ought to try to fathom it, get the sense of it somehow, keep on thinking and concentrating. If there’s anything you don’t understand, you should make an effort and think over exactly what it means. Do you understand me? Just make an effort! If you don’t get some sense into your head, you’ll die an idiot, you’ll be the least important man in the world.”

Suddenly a long-drawn-out moaning sound was heard from the direction of the forest. There was the sound of something being torn from the top of a tree, slithering down and rustling among the leaves, and falling to the ground, followed by a dull echo. The young man shuddered and looked searchingly at his companion.

“It’s only an owl running after little birds,” Syoma said gloomily.

“I’d have thought it was time for the birds to be flying to warm countries now.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“And the dawns are getting cold now—there’s a chill in the air. Birds, too—cranes, for example—they feel the cold, they’re delicate things. When it’s cold like this, they die. Me, I’m not a crane, but I’m frozen. Put some more wood on!”

Syoma rose and vanished in the dark undergrowth. While he was wandering through the undergrowth, snapping off dry twigs, his companion shielded his eyes with his hands, shivering at every sound. Syoma brought back an armful of wood and threw it on the fire. Little tongues of flame licked the black twigs uncertainly, and then suddenly, as though at a word of command, the flames leapt up and enveloped their faces in a deep purple glow; and the pathway, and the white linen sheet which showed the dead man’s hands and feet in relief, and the icon, all these shone with the same deep purple glow. The watchers remained silent. The young man bent his neck still lower and went back to work more nervously than ever. Meanwhile the old man with the goatee sat motionless, never taking his eyes from the fire.

“Oh, ye that love not Zion shall be ashamed in the face of the Lord!”—the silence of the night was suddenly broken by a high falsetto voice, and soft footsteps.

Into the purple firelight there emerged the dark figure of a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat and the short cassock of a monk, carrying a birch-bark sack on his shoulders.

“Thy will be done, O Lord! O Holy Mother!” he sang in a voice grown hoarse. “I saw the fire in the depths of night, and my soul leapt for joy! At first, I told myself they were keeping watch over horses, and then I told myself, it cannot be so, for there are no horses. Then, said I, they were thieves waiting to pounce upon some rich Lazarus, and then it crossed my mind they were gypsies preparing to sacrifice victims to their idols. My soul again leapt for joy! I said to myself: Go then, Theodosy, thou servant of God, receive a martyr’s crown! So I flew to the fire on the gentle wings of a moth. Now I stand before you, and examine your physiognomies, and judge your souls, and I conclude you are neither thieves nor heathens! Peace be upon you!”

“Good evening to you.”

“Dear brethren in God, pray tell me where I can find Makukhinsky’s brickyard?”

“It’s not far. Straight down the road, and after a mile and a half you’ll come to Ananova, which is our village. Turn right at the village, Father, follow the riverbank, and keep on going till you reach the brickyard. It’s two miles from Ananova.”

“God give you health!… Tell me, why are you sitting here?”

“We are keeping watch. Look over there—there’s a dead body.”

“Eh, what’s that? A dead body! Holy Mother!”

When the stranger saw the white sheet and the icon, he shivered so violently that his legs involuntarily made little hopping motions. This unexpected sight produced an overwhelming effect. He shrank within himself and was rooted to the spot, his eyes glazed, his mouth wide open. For three minutes he remained completely silent, as though he could not believe his eyes, and then he muttered: “O Lord, O Holy Mother! I was wandering abroad and giving offense to none, and now am I consigned to punishment.…”

“What are you?” the young man asked. “Are you a member of the clergy?”

“No, no … I wander from one monastery to another. Do you know by chance Mikhail Polikarpich? He runs the brickyard, and I’m his nephew.… Thy will be done, O Lord!… What are you doing here?”

“We are the watchers. They told us to watch him.”

“Yes, yes,” muttered the man in the cassock, running his hands over his eyes. “Tell me—the dead man—where did he come from?”

“He was passing by.”

“Well, such is life! So it is, dear brethren, and now I must go on my way. I’m all confused. I tell you, I’m more frightened of the dead than of anything else. And it comes to me that when he was living, no one paid any attention to him, and now that he is dead and delivered over to corruption, we tremble before him as though he were a great conqueror or a high official of the Church.… Such is life!… Tell me, was he murdered?”

“Christ knows! Maybe he was murdered, maybe he just died.”

“Yes, yes. So it is! And who knows, dear brethren, even now his soul may be tasting the delights of Paradise.”

“No, his soul is still clinging close to his body,” the young man said. “It doesn’t leave the body for three days.”

“Hm, yes! How cold it is, eh? My teeth are chattering.… How do I go? Straight ahead, eh?”

“Till you reach the village, and then you turn to the right, by the river.”

“By the river, eh? Why am I standing here? I must get going. Good-by, dear brethren!”

The man in the cassock took four or five steps along the path, and then stood still.

“I forgot to give a kopeck for the funeral,” he said. “You are good religious people. May I—is it right for me to leave the money?”

“You should know best, since you go about from one monastery to another. Suppose he died a natural death—then it will go for the good of his soul. If he didn’t, then it’s a sin.”

“That’s true. Maybe he killed himself, and so I had better keep the money. Oh, so much evil in the world! Even if you gave me a thousand rubles, I wouldn’t stay here.… Farewell, brothers!”

Slowly the man in the cassock moved away, and again he stood still.

“I don’t know what to do,” he muttered. “It’s terrible to be staying here by the fire and waiting for daybreak, and it’s terrible to be going along the road. I’ll be haunted by him—he’ll come out of the shadows! God is punishing me! I’ve walked for four hundred miles, and nothing ever happened to me, and now I am close to home, and there’s all this misery. I can’t go on.…”

“You’re right. It’s terrible.”

“I’m not afraid of wolves. I’m not afraid of robbers, or the dark, but I’m afraid of the dead. I’m terrified, and that’s the truth! Dear good religious brethren, I beg you on my knees to see me to the village.”

“We have to stay with the body.”

“Dear brethren, no one will ever know. Truly, no one will see you coming with me. God will reward you a hundredfold. You with a beard—come with me! Do me that kindness! Why doesn’t he talk?”

“He hasn’t got much sense,” the young man said.

“Come with me, friend. I’ll give you five kopecks!”

“I might, for five kopecks,” the young man said, scratching the back of his head. “It’s against orders, though. If Syoma, the poor fool, will stay here, then I’ll come. Syoma, do you mind staying here alone?”

“I don’t mind,” the fool said.

“All right. Let’s go.”

So the young man rose and went with the man wearing a cassock, and soon the sound of their steps and the talk died away into the night.

Syoma closed his eyes and fell into a gentle sleep. The fire gradually went out, and soon the dead body was lost among great shadows.

September 1885