The 8th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories

BEZHIN LEA Ivan Sergeivitch Turgenev

It was a beautiful July day, one of those days which occur only when the weather has been unchanged for a long time. From early morning the sky is clear and the sunrise does not so much flare up like a fire as spread like a mild pinkness. The sun – not fiery, not molten, as it is during a period of torrid drought, not murkily crimson as it is before a storm, but bright and invitingly radiant – peacefully drifts up beneath a long thin cloud, sends fresh gleams through it and is immersed in its lilac haze. The delicate upper edge of the long line of cloud erupts in snaky glints of light: their gleam resembles the gleam of beaten silver. But then again the playful rays break out – and as if taking wing the mighty sun rises gaily and magnificently. About midday a mass of high round clouds appear, golden-grey, with soft white edges. They move hardly at all, like islands cast down on the infinite expanses of a flooding river which flows round them in deeply pellucid streams of level blue; away towards the horizon they cluster together and merge so that there is no blue sky to be seen between them; but they have themselves become as azure-coloured as the sky and are pervaded through and through with light and warmth. The light, pale-lilac colour of the heavens remains the same throughout the day and in all parts of the sky; there is no darkening anywhere, no thickenings as for a storm, though here and there pale-blue columns may stretch downwards, bringing a hardly noticeable sprinkling of rain. Towards evening these clouds disappear. The last of them, darkling and vague as smoke, lie down in rosy mistiness before the sinking sun. At the point where the sun has set just as calmly as it rose into the sky, a crimson glow lingers for a short time over the darkened earth, and, softly winking, the evening star burns upon the glow like a carefully carried candle. On such days all the colours are softened; they are bright without being gaudy; everything bears the mark of some poignant timidity. On such days the heat is sometimes very strong and occasionally even ‘simmers’ along the slopes of the fields. But the wind drives away and disperses the accumulated heat, and whirling dust storms – a sure sign of settled weather – travel in tall white columns along roads through the ploughland. The dry pure air is scented with wormwood, harvested rye and buckwheat. Even an hour before nightfall you can feel no dampness. It is just such weather that the farmer wants for harvesting his grain.

It was on precisely such a day that I once went out grouse shooting in Chernsk county in the province of Tula. I found, and bagged, a fair number of birds. My full game-pouch cut mercilessly at my shoulder. But I did not finally decide to make my way home until the evening glow had already died away and chill shadows began to thicken and proliferate in air that was still bright, though no longer illuminated by the rays of the sunset. With brisk steps I crossed a long ‘plaza’ of bushy undergrowth, clambered up a hillock and, instead of the expected familiar moor with a little oak wood to the right of it and a low-walled white church in the distance, I saw completely different places which were unknown to me. At my feet there stretched a narrow valley; directly ahead of me rose, like a steep wall, a dense aspen wood. I stopped in bewilderment and looked around. ‘Ah-ha!’ I thought. ‘I’m certainly not where I should be: I’ve swerved too much to the right’ – and, surprised at my mistake, I quickly descended from the hillock. I was at once surrounded by an unpleasant, motionless damp, just as if I had entered a cellar. The tall, thick grass on the floor of the valley was all wet and shone white like a smooth tablecloth; it felt clammy and horrible to walk through. As quickly as possible I scrambled across to the other side, and, keeping to the left, made my way along beside the aspen wood. Bats already flitted above its sleeping treetops, mysteriously circling and quivering against the dull paleness of the sky; a young hawk, out late, flew by high up, taking a direct keen course in hurrying back to its nest. ‘Now then, as soon as I reach that corner,’ I said to myself, ‘that’s where the road’ll be, so what I’ve done is to make a detour of about three-quarters of a mile!’

I made my way finally to the corner of the wood, but there was no road there, only some low, unkempt bushes spread out widely in front of me and beyond them, in the far distance, an expanse of deserted field. Again I stopped.

‘What’s all this about? Where am I?’ I tried to recall where I had been during the day. ‘Ah, these must be the Parakhin bushes!’ I exclaimed eventually. That’s it! And that must be the Sindeyev wood . . . How on earth did I get as far as this? Ifs very odd! Now I must go to the right again.’

I turned to the right, through the bushes. Meanwhile, night was approaching and rose around me like a thunder cloud; it was as if, in company with the evening mists, darkness rose on every side and even poured down from the sky. I discovered a rough, overgrown track and followed it, carefully peering ahead of me. Everything quickly grew silent and dark; only quail gave occasional cries. A small night bird, which hurried low and soundlessly along on its soft wings, almost collided with me and plunged off in terror. I emerged from the bushes and wandered along the boundary of a field. It was only with difficulty that I could make out distant objects. All around me the field glimmered faintly; beyond it, coming closer each moment, the sullen murk loomed in huge clouds. My footsteps sounded muffled in the thickening air. The sky, which had earlier grown pale, once again began to shine blue, but it was the blue of the night. Tiny stars began to flicker and shimmer.

What I thought was a wood turned out to be a dark, round knoll. ‘Where on earth am I?’ I repeated again out loud, stopping for a third time and looking questioningly at my yellow English piebald, Diana, who was by far the most intelligent of all four-legged creatures. But this most intelligent of four-legged creatures only wagged her small tail, dejectedly blinked her tired little eyes and offered me no practical help. I felt ill at ease in front of her and strode wildly forward, as if I had suddenly realized which way to go, circled the knoll and found myself in a shallow hollow which had been ploughed over. A strange feeling took possession of me. The hollow had the almost exact appearance of a cauldron with sloping sides. Several large upright stones stood in the floor of the hollow – it seemed as if they had crept down to that spot for some mysterious consultation – and the hollow itself was so still and silent, the sky above it so flat and dismal, that my heart shrank within me. A small animal of some kind or other squeaked weakly and piteously among the stones. I hurried to climb back on to the knoll. Up to that point I had not given up hope of finding a way home, but now I was at last convinced that I had completely lost my way and, no longer making any effort to recognize my surroundings, which were almost totally obliterated by the darkness, I walked straight ahead of me, following the stars and hoping for the best . . . For about half an hour I walked on in this way, with difficulty, dragging one foot after another. Never in my life, it seemed, had I been in such waste places: not a single light burned anywhere, not a single sound could be heard: one low hillock followed another, field stretched after endless field, and bushes suddenly rose out of the earth under my very nose.

I went on walking and was on the point of finding a place to lie down until morning, when suddenly I reached the edge of a fearful abyss.

I hastily drew back my outstretched leg and, through the barely transparent night-time murk, saw far below me an enormous plain. A broad river skirted it, curving away from me in a semicircle; steely gleams of water, sparkling with occasional faint flashes, denoted its course. The hill on which I was standing fell away sharply like an almost vertical precipice. Its vast outlines could be distinguished by their blackness from the blue emptiness of the air and directly below me, in the angle formed by the precipice and the plain, beside the river, which at that point was a dark, unmoving mirror, under the steep rise of the hill, two fires smoked and flared redly side by side. Figures clustered round them, shadows flickered, and now and then the front half of a small curly head would appear in the bright light. At last I knew the place I had reached. This meadowland is known in our region as Bezhin Lea. There was now no chance of returning home, especially at night; moreover, my legs were collapsing under me from fatigue. I decided to make my way down to the fires and wait the dawn in the company of the people below me, whom I took to be drovers. I made my descent safely, but had hardly let go of my last handhold when suddenly two large, ragged, white dogs hurled themselves at me with angry barks. Shrill childish voices came from the fires and two or three boys jumped up. I answered their shouted questions. They ran towards me, at once calling off the dogs who had been astonished by the appearance of my Diana, and I walked towards them.

I had been mistaken in assuming that the people sitting round the fires were drovers. They were simply peasant boys from the neighbouring villages keeping guard over the horses. During hot summer weather it is customary in our region to drive the horses out at night to graze in the field, for by day the flies would give them no peace. Driving the horses out before nightfall and back again at first light is a great treat for the peasant boys. Bareheaded, dressed in tattered sheepskin jackets and riding the friskiest ponies, they race out with gay whoops and shouts, their arms and legs flapping as they bob up and down on the horses’ backs and roar with laughter. Clouds of fine sandy dust are churned up along the roadway; a steady beating of hooves spreads far and wide as the horses prick up their ears and start running; and in front of them all, with tail high and continuously changing his pace, gallops a shaggy chestnut stallion with burrs in his untidy mane.

I told the boys that I had lost my way and sat down among them. They asked me where I was from and fell silent for a while in awe of me. We talked a little about this and that I lay down beside a bush from which all the foliage had been nibbled and looked around me. It was a marvellous sight: a reddish circular reflection throbbed round the fires and seemed to fade as it leaned against the darkness; a flame, in flaring up, would occasionally cast rapid flashes of light beyond the limit of the reflection; a fine tongue of light would lick the bare boughs of willows and instantly vanish; and long sharp shadows, momentarily breaking in, would rush right up to the fires as if the darkness were at war with the light. Sometimes, when the flames grew weaker and the circle of light contracted, there would suddenly emerge from the encroaching dark the head of a horse, reddish brown, with sinuous markings, or completely white, and regard us attentively and gravely, while rapidly chewing some long grass, and then would at once disappear. All that was left was the sound as it continued to chew and snort. From the area of the light it was difficult to discern what was happening in the outer darkness, and therefore at close quarters, everything seemed to be screened from view by an almost totally black curtain; but off towards the horizon, hills and woods were faintly visible, like long blurs. The immaculate dark sky rose solemnly and endlessly high above us in all its mysterious magnificence. My lungs melted with the sweet pleasure of inhaling that special, languorous and fresh perfume which is the scent of a Russian night. Hardly a sound was audible around us . . . Now and then a large fish would make a resounding splash in the nearby river and the reeds by the bank would faintly echo the noise as they were stirred by the outspreading waves . . . Now and then the fires would emit a soft crackling.

Around the fires sat the boys, as did the two dogs who had been so keen to eat me. They were still unreconciled to my presence and, while sleepily narrowing their eyes and glancing towards the fire, would sometimes growl with a special sense of their personal dignity; to start with, these were only growls, but later they became faint yelps, as if the dogs regretted their inability to satisfy their appetite for me. There were five boys in all: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya and Vanya. (I learned their names from their conversation and I now intend to acquaint the reader with each of them.)

The first of them, Fedya, the eldest, would probably have been fourteen. He was a sturdy boy, with handsome and delicate, slightly shallow features, curly fair hair, bright eyes and a permanent smile which was a mixture of gaiety and absent-mindedness. To judge from his appearance, he belonged to a well-off family and had ridden out into the fields not from necessity but simply for the fun of it. He was dressed in a colourful cotton shirt with yellow edging; a small cloth overcoat, recently made, hung open somewhat precariously on his small narrow shoulders and a comb hung from his pale-blue belt. His ankle-high boots were his own, not his father’s. The second boy, Pavlusha, had dishevelled black hair, grey eyes, broad cheekbones, a pale, pock-marked complexion, a large but well-formed mouth, an enormous head – as big as a barrel, as they say – and a thick-set, ungainly body. Hardly a prepossessing figure – there’s no denying that! – but I nonetheless took a liking to him: he had direct, very intelligent eyes and a voice with the ring of strength in it. His clothes gave him no chance of showing off: they consisted of no more than a simple linen shirt and much-patched trousers. The face of the third boy, Ilyusha, was not very striking: hook-nosed long, myopic, it wore an expression of obtuse, morbid anxiety. His tightly closed lips never moved, his frowning brows never relaxed; all the while he screwed up his eyes at the fire. His yellow, almost white, hair stuck out in sharp little tufts from under the small felt cap which he was continually pressing down about his ears with both hands. He had new bast shoes and foot cloths; a thick rope wound three times around his waist drew smartly tight his neat black top-coat. Both he and Pavlusha appeared to be no more than twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya, a boy of about ten, aroused my curiosity by his sad and meditative gaze. His face was small, thin and freckled, and pointed like a squirrel’s; one could hardly see his lips. His large, dark, moistly glittering eyes produced a strange impression, as if they wanted to convey something which no tongue – at least not his tongue – had the power to express. He was small in stature, of puny build and rather badly dressed. The last boy, Vanya, I hardly noticed at first: he lay on the ground quietly curled up under some angular matting and only rarely poked out from under it his head of curly brown hair. This boy was only seven.

So it was that I lay down apart from them, beside the bush, and from time to time looked in their direction. A small pot hung over one of the fires, in which ‘taters’ were being cooked. Pavlusha looked after them and, kneeling down, poked the bubbling water with a small sliver of wood. Fedya lay, leaning on one elbow, his sheepskin spread round him. Ilyusha sat next to Kostya and continually, in his tense way, screwed up his eyes. Kostya, with his head slightly lowered, stared off somewhere into the distance. Vanya did not stir beneath his matting. I pretended to be asleep. After a short while the boys renewed their talk.

To start with, they gossiped about this and that – tomorrow’s work or the horses. But suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha and, as if taking up from where they had left off their interrupted conversation, asked him:

‘So you actually did see one of them little people, did you?’

‘No, I didn’t see him, and you can’t really see him at all,’ answered Ilyusha in a weak, croaky voice which exactly suited the expression on his face, ‘but I heard him, I did. And I wasn’t the only one.’

‘Then where does he live around your parts?’ asked Pavlusha.

‘In the old rolling-room.’[1]

‘Do you mean you work in the factory?’

‘Of course we do. Me and Avdyushka, my brother, we work as glazers.’

‘Cor! So you’re factory workers!’

‘Well, so how did you hear him?’ asked Fedya.

‘It was this way. My brother, see, Avdyushka, and Fyodor Mikheyevsky, and Ivashka Kosoy, and the other Ivashka from Redwold, and Ivashka Sukhorukov as well, and there were some other kids as well, about ten of us in all, the whole shift, see – well, so we had to spend the whole night in the rolling-room, or it wasn’t that we had to, but the Nazarov, the overseer, he wouldn’t let us off, he said: “Seeing as you’ve got a lot of work here tomorrow, my lads, you’d best stay here; there’s no point in the lot o’you traipsing off home.”

‘Well, so we stayed and all lay down together, and then Avdyushka started up saying something about, “Well, boys, suppose that goblin comes?” and he didn’t have a chance, Avdey didn’t, to go on saying anything when all of a sudden over our heads someone comes in, but we were lying down below, see, and he was up there, by the wheel. We listen, and there he goes walking about, and the floorboards really bending under him and really creaking. Then he walks right over our heads and the water all of a sudden starts rushing, rushing through the wheel, and the wheel goes clatter, clatter and starts turning, but them gates of the Keep[2] are all lowered. So we start wondering who’d raise them so as to let the water through. Yet the wheel turned and turned, and then stopped.

‘Whoever he was, he went back to the door upstairs and began coming down the stairway, and down he came, taking his time about it, and the stairs under him really groaning from his weight . . . Well, so he came right up to our door, and then waited, and then waited a bit more – and then that door suddenly burst open it did. Our eyes were poppin’ out of our heads, and we watch – and there’s nothing there . . . And suddenly at one of the tubs the form[3] started moving, rose, dipped itself and went to and fro just like that in the air like someone was using it for swilling, and then back again it went to its place. Then at another tube the hook was lifted from its nail and put back on the nail again. Then it was as if someone moved to the door and started to cough all sudden-like, like he’d got a tickle, and it sounded just like a sheep bleating . . . We all fell flat on the floor at that and tried to climb under each other – bloody terrified we were at that moment!’

‘Cor!’ said Pavlusha. ‘And why did he cough like that?’

‘Search me. Maybe it was the damp.’

They all fell silent.

‘Are them ’taters done yet?’ Fedya asked.

Pavlusha felt them.

‘Nope, they’re not done yet . . . Cor, that one splashed,’ he added, turning his face towards the river, likely it was a pike . . . And see that little falling star up there.’

‘Now, mates, I’ve really got something to tell you.’ Kostya began in a reedy voice. ‘Just you listen to what my dad was talkin’ about when I was there.’

‘Well, so we’re listening,’ said Fedya with a condescending air.

‘You know that Gavrila, the carpenter in the settlement?’

‘Sure we know him.’

‘But do you know why he’s always so gloomy, why he never says nothing, do you know that? Well, here’s why. He went out once, my dad said – he went out, mates, into the forest to find some nuts. So he’d gone into the forest after nuts and he lost his way. He got somewhere, but God knows where it was. He’d been walkin’, mates, and no! he couldn’t find a road of any kind, and already it was night all around. So he sat down under a tree and said to himself he’d wait there till mornin’ – and he sat down and started to snooze. So he was snoozin’ and suddenly he heard someone callin’ him. He looked around – there’s no one there. Again he snoozes off – and again they’re callin’ him. So he looks and looks, and then he sees right in front of him a water-fairy sittin’ on a branch, swingin’ on it she is and callin’ to him, and she’s just killin’ herself laughin’ . . . Then that moon shines real strong, so strong and obvious the moon shines, it shows up everythin’, mates.

‘So there she is callin’ his name, and she hersel’s all shiny, sittin’ there all white on the branch, like she was some little minnow or gudgeon, or maybe like a carp that’s all whitish all over, all silver . . . And Gavrila the carpenter was just frightened to death, mates, and she went on laughin’ at him, you know, and wavin’ to him to come closer. Gavrila was just goin’ to get up and obey the water-fairy, when, mates, the Lord God gave him the idea to cross hisself . . . An’ it was terrible difficult, mates, he said it was terrible difficult to make the sign of the cross ’cos his arm was like stone, he said, and wouldn’t move, the darned thing wouldn’t! But as soon as he’d managed to cross hisself, mates, that water-fairy stopped laughin’ and started to cry . . . An’ she cried, mates, an’ wiped her eyes with her hair that was green and heavy as hemp. So Gavrila kept on lookin’ and lookin’ at her, and then he started askin’ her, “What’s it you’re cryin’ for, you forest hussy, you?” And that water-fairy starts sayin’ to him, “If you hadn’t crossed yourself, human being that you are, you could’ve lived with me in joy and happiness to the end of your days, an’ I’m cryin’ and dyin’ of grief over what that you crossed yourself, an’ it isn’t only me that’ll be dyin’ of grief, but you’ll also waste away with grievin’ till the end of your born days.” Then, mates, she vanished, and Gavrila at once comprehended-like – how to get out of the wood, that is; but from that day on he goes around everywhere all gloomy.’

‘Phew!’ exclaimed Fedya after a short silence. ‘But how could that evil forest spirit infect a Christian soul – you said he didn’t obey her, didn’t you?’

‘You wouldn’t believe it, but that’s how it was!’ said Kostya. ‘Gavrila claimed she had a tiny, tiny, voice, thin and croaky like a toad’s.’

‘Your father told you that himself?’ Fedya continued.

‘He did. I was lyin’ on my bunk an’ I heard it all.’

‘What a fantastic business! But why’s he got to be gloomy? She must’ve liked him, because she called to him.’

‘Of course she liked him!’ Ilyusha interrupted. ‘Why not? She wanted to start tickling him, that’s what she wanted. That’s what they do, those water-fairies.’

‘Surely there’ll be water-fairies here,’ Fedya remarked.

‘No,’ Kostya answered, ‘this is a clean place here, it’s free. ’Cept the river’s close.’

They all grew quiet. Suddenly, somewhere in the distance a protracted, resonant, almost wailing sound broke the silence – one of those incomprehensible sounds which arise in the deep surrounding hush, fly up, hang in the air and slowly disperse at last as if dying away. You listen intently – it’s as though there’s nothing there, but it still goes on ringing. This time it seemed that someone gave a series of long, loud shouts on the very horizon and someone else answered him from the forest with sharp high-pitched laughter and a thin, hissing whistle which sped across the river. The boys looked at each other and shuddered.

‘The power of the holy cross be with us!’ whispered Ilyusha.

‘Oh, you idiots!’ Pavlusha cried. ‘What’s got into you? Look, the ’taters are done.’ (They all drew close to the little pot and began to eat the steaming potatoes; Vanya was the only one who made no move.) ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Pavlusha asked.

But Vanya did not crawl out from beneath his matting. The little pot was soon completely empty.

‘Boys, have you heard,’ Ilyusha began saying, ‘what happened to us in Varnavitsy just recently?’

‘On that dam, you mean?’ Fedya asked.

‘Ay, on that dam, the one that’s broken. That’s a real unclean place, real nasty and empty it is. Round there is all them gullies and ravines, and in the ravines there’s masses of snakes.’

‘Well, what happened? Let’s hear.’

‘This is what happened. Maybe you don’t know it, Fedya, but that’s the place where one of our drowned men is buried. And he drowned a long time back when the pond was still deep. Now only his gravestone can be seen, only there’s not much of it – it’s just a small mound . . . Anyhow, a day or so ago, the bailiff calls Yermil the dog-keeper and says to him: “Off with you and fetch the mail.” Yermil’s always the one who goes to fetch the mail ’cos he’s done all his dogs in – they just don’t somehow seem to live when he’s around, and never did have much of a life no-how, though he’s a good man with dogs and took to it in every way. Anyhow, Yermil went off for the mail, and then he mucked about in the town and set off home real drunk. And it’s night-time, a bright night, with the moon shining . . . So he’s riding back across the dam, ’cos that’s where the route came out. And he’s riding along, this dog-keeper Yermil, and he sees a little lamb on the drowned man’s grave, all white and curly and pretty, and it’s walking about, and Yermil thinks: “I’ll pick it up, I will, ’cos there’s no point in letting it get lost here,” and so he gets off his horse and picks it up in his arms – and the lamb doesn’t turn a hair. So Yermil walks back to the horse, but the horse backs away from him, snorts and shakes its head. So when he’s quieted it, he sits on it with the lamb and starts off again holding the lamb in front of him. He looks at the lamb, he does, and the lamb looks right back at him right in the eyes. Then that Yermil the dog-keeper got frightened: “I don’t recall,” he thought, “no lambs looking at me in the eye like that afore.” Anyhow, it didn’t see nothing, so he starts stroking its wool and saying “Sssh, there, sssh!” And that lamb bares its teeth at him sudden-like and says back to him: “Sssh, there, sssh! . . .” ’

The narrator had hardly uttered this last sound when the dogs sprang up and with convulsive barks dashed from the fire, disappearing into the night. The boys were terrified. Vanya even jumped out from beneath his mat. Shouting, Pavlusha followed in hot pursuit of the dogs. Their barking quickly retreated into the distance. There was a noisy and restless scurrying of hooves among the startled horses. Pavlusha gave loud calls: ‘Gray! Beetle!’ After a few seconds the barking ceased and Pavlusha’s voice sounded far away. There followed another pause, while the boys exchanged puzzled looks as if anticipating something new. Suddenly a horse could be heard racing towards them: it stopped sharply at the very edge of the fire and Pavlusha, clutching hold by the reins, sprang agilely from its back. Both dogs also leapt into the circle of light and at once sat down, their red tongues hanging out.

‘What’s there? What is it?’ the boys asked.

‘Nothing,’ Pavlusha answered waving away the horse.

‘The dogs caught a scent. I thought,’ he added in a casual tone of voice, his chest heaving rapidly, ‘it might have been a wolf.’

I found myself full of admiration for Pavlusha. He was very fine at that moment. His very ordinary face, enlivened by the swift ride, shone with bold courageousness and a resolute firmness. Without a stick in his hand to control the horse and in total darkness, without even so much as blinking an eye, he had galloped all by himself after a wolf . . . ‘What a marvellous boy!’ was my thought, as I looked at him.

‘And you saw them, did you, those wolves?’ asked the cowardly Kostya.

‘There’s plenty of them round here,’ answered Pavlusha, ‘but they’re only on the prowl in the winter.’

He again settled himself in front of the fire. As he sat down he let a hand fall on the shaggy neck of one of the dogs and the delighted animal kept its head still for a long time as it directed sideward looks of grateful pride at Pavlusha.

Vanya once again disappeared under his mat.

‘What a lot of horrible things you’ve been telling us, Ilyusha,’ Fedya began. As the son of a rich peasant, it was incumbent upon him to play the role of leader (though for his own part he talked little, as if for fear of losing face). ‘And it could’ve been some darn thing of the sort that started the dogs barking . . . But it’s true, so I’ve heard, that you’ve got unclean spirits where you live.’

‘In Varnavitsy, you mean? That’s for sure! It’s a really creepy place! More than once they say they’ve seen there the old squire, the one who’s dead. They say he goes about in a coat hanging down to his heels, and all the time he makes a groaning sound, like he’s searching for something on the earth. Once grandfather Trofimych met him and asked him: “What’s it you are searching for on the earth, good master Ivan Ivanych?” ’

‘He actually asked him that?’ broke in the astonished Fedya.

‘He asked him that.’

‘Well, good for Trofimych after that! So what did the other say?’

‘ “Split-grass,” he says, “that’s what I’m looking for.” And he talks in such a hollow, hoarse voice: “Split-grass.” “And what, good master Ivan Ivanych, do you want split-grass for?” “Oh, my grave weighs so heavy,” he says, “weighs so heavy on me, Trofimych, and I want to get out, I want to get away . . .” ’

‘So that’s what it was!’ Fedya said. ‘He’d had too short a life, that means.’

‘Cor, stone me!’ Kostya pronounced. ‘I thought you could only see dead people on Parents’ Sunday.’

‘You can see dead people at any time,’ Ilyusha declared with confidence. So far as I could judge, he was better versed in village lore than the others. ‘But on Parents’ Sunday you can also see the people who’re going to die that year. All you’ve got to do is to sit down at night in the porch of the church and keep your eyes on the road. They’ll all go past you along the road – them who’re going to die that year I mean. Last year, grandma Ulyana went to the church porch in our village.’

‘Well, did she see anyone?’ Kostya asked him with curiosity.

‘Sure she did. To start with she just sat there a long, long time, and didn’t see no one and didn’t hear nothing. Only there was all the time a sound like a dog starting to bark somewhere. Then suddenly she see there’s someone coming along the road – it’s a little boy in nothing but a shirt. She looked close and she saw it was Ivashka Fedoseyev walking along.’

‘Is that the boy who died in the spring?’ Fedya broke in.

‘That’s the one. He walks along and doesn’t even raise his head. But Ulyana recognized him. But then she looks again and sees a woman walking along, and she peers and peers and – God help us I – it’s she herself, Ulyana herself, walking along.’

‘Was it really her?’ asked Fedya.

‘God’s truth. It was her.’

‘But she hasn’t died yet, has she?’

‘No, but the year’s not over yet either. You take a close look at her and then ask yourself what sort of a body she’s got to carry her soul around in.’

Again they all grew quiet. Pavlusha threw a handful of dry sticks on the fire. They blackened in sharp outline against the instantly leaping flames and began to crackle and smoke and bend, curling up their burned tips. The reflections from the light, shuddering convulsively, struck out in all directions, but particularly upwards. Suddenly, from God knows where, a small white pigeon flew directly into the reflections, fluttered around in terror, bathed by the fierce light, and then vanished with a clapping of its wings.

‘Likely it’s lost its way home,’ Pavlusha remarked. ‘Now it’ll fly until it meets up with something, and when it finds it, that’s where it’ll spend the night till dawn.’

‘Look, Pavlusha,’ said Kostya, ‘mightn’t that be the soul of some good person flying up to heaven, eh?’

Pavlusha threw another handful of sticks on the fire.

‘Maybe,’ he said after a pause.

‘Pavlusha, tell us, will you,’ Fedya began, ‘were you able to see the heavenly foreboding[4] in Shalamavo?’

‘You mean, when you couldn’t see the sun that time? Sure.’

‘Didn’t you get frightened, then?’

‘Sure, and we weren’t the only ones. Our squire lets us know beforehand that “Well, there’ll be a foreboding for you,” but soon as it gets dark they say he got real scared. And in the servant’s hut, that old granny, the cook, well – soon as it’s dark, listen, she ups and smashes all the pots in the oven with a pair of tongs. “Who’s going to need to eat now it’s the end of the world,” she says. The cabbage soup ran out all over everywhere. And, boy! What rumours there were going about in our village, such as there’d be white wolves and birds of prey coming to eat people, and there’d be Trishka[5] himself for all to see.”

‘What’s this Trishka?’ asked Kostya.

‘Don’t you know about Trishka?’ Ilyusha started up heatedly. ‘You’re a dumb cluck, mate, if you don’t know who Trishka is. It’s just dunces you’ve got in your village, nothing but dunces! Trishka – he’ll be a real astonishing person, who’ll be coming, and he’ll be coming when the last times are near. And he’ll be the sort of astonishing person you won’t be able to catch hold of, you won’t be able to do nothing to him: that’s the sort of astonishing person he’ll be. The peasants, say, will want to try to catch him, and they’ll go out after him with sticks and surround him, but what he’ll do is lead their eyes astray – he’ll lead their eyes astray so that they start beating each other. Say they put him in prison and he asks for some water in a ladle; they’ll bring him the ladle and he’ll jump right into it and vanish clean away, all trace of him. Say they put chains on him, he’ll just clap his palms together and they’ll fall right off him. So then this Trishka’ll go walking through the villages and towns; and this smart fellow, this Trishka, he’ll tempt all Christian folk . . . but there won’t be a thing you can do to him . . . That’s the sort of astonishing, real cunning person he’ll be.’

‘Yes, that’s the one,’ Pavlusha continued in his unhurried way. ‘He was the one that we were all waiting for. The old men said that soon as the heavenly foreboding begins, Trishka’ll be coming. So the foreboding began, and everyone poured out into the street and into the field to see what’ll happen. As you know, our place is high up and open so you can see all around. Everyone’s looking – and suddenly down from the settlement on the mountain there’s a man coming, strange-looking, with an astonishing big head . . . Everyone starts shouting: “Oy, oy, it’s Trishka coming! Oy, oy, it’s Trishka!” and they all raced for hiding, this way and that! The elder of our village he crawled into a ditch and his wife got stuck in a gate and let out such a howling noise that she fair terrified her own watch-dog, and it broke its chain, rushed through the fence and into the wood. And Kuzka’s father, Dorofeyich, jumped in among the oats, squatted down there and began to make cries like a quail, all ’cos he thought to himself: “For sure that soul-destroying enemy of mankind’ll spare a poor wee birdie!” Such a commotion they were all in! . . . But all the time that man who was coming was simply our barrel-maker Vavila, who’d bought himself a new can and was walking along with that empty can perched on his head.’

All the boys burst out laughing and then once again fell quiet for an instant, as people talking out in the open air frequently do. I looked around me: the night stood guard in solemn majesty; the raw freshness of late evening had been replaced by midnight’s dry mildness, and it still had a long time to lie like a soft quilt over the dreaming fields; there was still a long time to wait until the first murmur, the first rustlings and stirrings of morning, the first dew-beads of dawn. There was no moon in the sky: at that season it rose late. Myriads of golden stars, it seemed, were all quietly flowing in glittering rivalry along the Milky Way, and in truth, while looking at them, one sensed vaguely the unwavering, unstoppable racing of the earth beneath . . .

A strange, sharp, sickening cry resounded twice in quick succession across the river, and, after a few moments, was repeated farther off . . .

Kostya shuddered: ‘What was that?’

‘That was a heron’s cry,’ Pavlusha answered calmly.

‘A heron,’ Kostya repeated. ‘Then what was it, Pavlusha, I heard yesterday evening?’ he added after a brief pause. ‘Perhaps you know.’

‘What did you hear?’

‘This is what I heard. I was walkin’ from Stone Ridge to Shashkino, and at first I went all the way along by our nut trees, but afterwards I went through that meadow – you know, by the place where it comes out like a narrow file,[6] where there’s a tarn.[7] You know it, the one that’s all overgrown with reeds. So, mates, I walked past this tarn an’ suddenly someone starts makin’ a groanin’ sound from right inside it, so piteous, piteous, like: “Oooh – oooh . . . OOOh – oooh!” I was terrified, mates. It was late an’ that voice sounded like somebody really sick. It was like I was goin’ to start cryin’ myself . . . What would that have been, eh?’

‘In the summer before last, thieves drowned Akim the forester in that tarn,’ Pavlusha remarked. ‘So it may have been his soul complaining.’

‘Well, it might be that, mates,’ rejoined Kostya, widening his already enormous eyes. ‘I didn’t know that Akim had been drowned in that tarn. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have got so terrified.’

‘But they do say,’ continued Pavlusha, ‘there’s a kind of little frog makes a piteous noise like that.’

‘Frogs? No, that wasn’t frogs . . . what sort of . . .’ (The heron again gave its cry over the river.) ‘Listen to it!’ Kostya could not refrain from saying. ‘It makes a noise like a wood-demon.’

‘Wood-demons don’t make a cry, they’re dumb,’ Ilyusha inserted. ‘They just clap their hands and chatter . . .’

‘So you’ve seen one of them, a wood-demon, have you?’ Fedya interrupted him scornfully.

‘No, I haven’t, and God preserve that I should see one. But other people have seen one. Just a few days ago one such overtook one of our peasants and was leading him all over the place through the wood and round and round some clearing of other . . . He only just managed to get home before it was light.’

‘Well, did he see him?’

‘He saw him. Big as big he was, he said, and dark, all wrapped up, just like he was behind a tree so you couldn’t see him clearly, or like he was hiding from the moon, and looking all the time, peering with his wicked eyes, and winking them, winking . . .’

‘That’s enough!’ exclaimed Fedya, shuddering slightly and convulsively hunching his shoulders. ‘Phew!’

‘Why should this devilish thing be around in the world?’ commented Pavlusha, ‘I don’t understand it at all!’

‘Don’t you scold it! It’ll hear you, you’ll see,’ Ilyusha said. Again a silence ensued.

‘Look up there, look up there, all of you!’ the childish voice of Vanya suddenly cried. ‘Look at the little stars of God, all swarming like bees!’ He had stuck his small, fresh-complexioned face out from beneath the matting, was leaning on one little fist and slowly looking up with his large, placid eyes. The boys all raised their eyes to the sky, and did not lower them until quite a while had passed.

‘Tell me, Vanya,’ Fedya began to say in a gentle voice, ‘is your sister Anyurka well?’

‘She’s well,’ Vanya answered, with a faint lisp.

‘You tell her she ought to come and see us. Why doesn’t she?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Tell her that she ought to come.’

‘I’ll tell her.’

‘Tell her that I’ll give her a present.’

‘And you’ll give one to me, too?’

‘I’ll give one to you, too.’

Vanya sighed. ‘No, there’s no need to give me one. Better you give it to her, she’s so good to us.’

And once more Vanya laid his head on the ground. Pavlusha rose and picked up the little pot, now empty.

‘Where are you going?’ Fedya asked him.

‘To the river, to get some water. I’d like a drink.’

The dogs got up and followed him.

‘See you don’t fall in the river!’ Ilyusha called after him.

‘Why should he fall?’ asked Fedya. ‘He’ll be careful.’

‘All right, so he’ll be careful. Anything can happen, though. Say he bends down, starting to dip up the water, and then a water-sprite grabs him by the hand and pulls him down below. They’ll start saying afterwards that, poor boy, he fell in the water . . . But what sort of a fall is that? Listen listen, he’s in the reeds,’ he added, pricking up his ears.

The reeds were in fact moving, ‘hushing’, as they say in our parts.

‘Is it true,’ asked Kostya, ‘that that ugly woman, Akulina, has been wrong in the head ever since she went in the water?’

‘Ever since then . . . And look at her now! They say she used to be real good-looking before. The water-sprite did for her. Likely he didn’t expect they’d drag her out so soon. He corrupted her down there, down in his own place at the bottom of the water.’

I had come across this Akulina more than once. Covered with tatters, fearsomely thin, with a face as black as coal, a vacant gaze and permanently bared teeth, she used to stamp about on the same spot for hours at a time, at some point on the road, firmly hugging her bony hands to her breast and slowly shifting her weight from one foot to the other just like a wild animal in a cage. She would give no sign of understanding, no matter what was said to her, save that from time to time she would break into convulsions of laughter.

‘They do say,’ Kostya went on, ‘that Akulina threw herself in the river because her lover deceived her.’

‘Because of that very thing.’

‘But do you remember Vasya?’ Kostya added sadly.

‘What Vasya?’ asked Fedya.

‘The one who drowned,’ Kostya answered, ‘in this very river. He was a grand lad, a really grand lad! That mother of his, Feklista, how she loved him, how she used to love Vasya! And she sort of sensed, Feklista did, that ruin would come to him on account of water. That Vasya used to come with us boys in the summer when we went down to the river to bathe – and she’d be all bothered, his mother would. The other women wouldn’t care, going waddling by with their washtubs, but Feklista would put her tub down on the ground and start calling to him: “Come back, come back, light of my life! O come back, my little falcon!” And how he came to drown, God alone knows. He was playing on the bank, and his mother was there, raking hay, and suddenly she heard a sound like someone blowing bubbles in the water – she looks, and there’s nothing there ’cept Vasya’s little cap floating on the water. From then on, you know, Feklista’s been out of her mind: she goes and lies down at that place where he drowned, and she lies down, mates, and starts singing this song – you remember the song Vasya used to sing all the time – that’s the one she sings, plaintive-like, and she cries and cries, and complains bitterly to God . . .’

‘Here’s Pavlusha coming,’ Fedya said.

Pavlusha came up to the fire with a full pot in his hand.

‘Well, boys,’ he began after a pause, ‘things aren’t good’

‘What’s happened?’ Kostya quickly asked.

‘I heard Vasya’s voice.’

They all shuddered.

‘What’s that you’re saying? What’s it all about?’ Kostya babbled.

‘It’s God truth. I was just bending down to the water and suddenly I hear someone calling me in Vasya’s voice, and it was just like it was coming from under the water: “Pavlusha, hey Pavlusha!” I listen, and again it calls: “Pavlusha, come down here!” I came away. But I managed to get some water.’

‘God preserve us! God preserve us!’ the boys said, crossing themselves.

‘It was a water-sprite for sure calling you, Pavlusha,’ Fedya added. ‘And we were only just talking about him, about that Vasya.’

‘Oh, it’s a real, bad omen,’ said Ilyusha, giving due weight to each word.

‘It’s nothing, forget it!’ Pavlusha declared resolutely and again sat down. ‘Your own fate you can’t escape.’

The boys grew quiet. It was clear that Pavlusha’s words had made a profound impression on them. They began to lie down before the fire, as if preparing to go to sleep.

‘What was that?’ Kostya suddenly asked, raising his head. Pavlusha listened.

‘It’s some snipe in flight, whistling as they fly.’

‘Where would they be flying?’

‘To a place where there’s never any winter, that’s what they say.’

‘There isn’t such a land, is there?’

‘There is.’

‘Is it far away?’

‘Far, far away, on the other side of the warm seas.’

Kostya sighed and closed his eyes.

More than three hours had already flowed by since I joined the boys. Eventually the moon rose. I failed to notice it immediately because it was so small and thin. This faintly moonlit night, it seemed, was just as magnificent as it had been previously. But many stars which had only recently stood high in the sky were beginning to tilt towards its dark edge; all around absolute quiet descended, as usually happens only just before morning: everything slept the deep, still sleep of the pre-dawn hours. The air was not so strongly scented, and once again it seemed to be permeated with a raw dampness. O brief summer nights! The boys’ talk died away along with the dying of the fires. Even the dogs dozed: and the horses, so far as I could make out by the vaguely glittering, feeble flux of the starlight, were also lying down with their heads bowed. A sweet oblivion descended on me and I fell into a doze.

A current of fresh air brushed my face. I opened my eyes to see that morning was beginning. As yet there was no sign of dawn’s pinkness, but in the east it had begun to grow light. The surrounding scene became visible, if only dimly. The pale-grey sky shone bright and cold and tinged with blue; stars either winked their faint light or faded; the ground was damp and leaves were covered with the sweat of dew, here and there sounds of life, voices could be heard, and a faint light wind of early morning began its wandering and fleet-footed journey across the earth. My body responded to it with a mild, joyful shivering. I got briskly to my feet and walked over to the boys. They slept the sleep of the dead about the embers of the fire; only Pavlusha raised himself half-way and glanced intently at me.

I nodded my head at him and set off to find my way home along the bank of the river, shrouded with smoky mist. I had hardly gone more than a mile when sunlight streamed all around me down the length of the wide damp lea, and ahead of me on the freshly green hills, from forest to woodland, and behind me along the far, dusty track, over the glistening blood-red bushes and across the river which now shone a modest blue under the thinning mist – flowed torrents of young, hot sunlight, crimson at first and later brilliantly red, brilliantly golden. Everything began quivering into life, awakening, singing, resounding, chattering. Everywhere, large drops of dew began to glow like radiant diamonds. There carried to me, pure and crystal-clear as if also washed clean by the freshness of the morning’s atmosphere, the sound of a bell. And suddenly I was overtaken by the racing drove of horses, refreshed after the night, and chased along by my acquaintances, the boys.

I have, unfortunately, to add that in that same year Pavlusha died. He did not drown; he was killed in falling from a horse. A pity, for he was a fine lad!