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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales by Polish Authors, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Tales by Polish Authors
+
+Author: Various
+
+Translator: Else C. M. Benecke
+
+Release Date: March 2, 2011 [EBook #35456]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES BY POLISH AUTHORS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, JoAnn Greenwood and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       TALES BY POLISH AUTHORS
+
+
+               London
+    SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & Co., LTD.
+
+
+              New York
+        LONGMANS, GREEN & Co.
+    FOURTH AVENUE AND 30TH STREET
+
+
+
+
+                TALES
+
+                  BY
+
+            POLISH AUTHORS
+
+
+          HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ
+    STEFAN ZEROMSKI  ADAM SZYMANSKI
+          WACLAW SIEROSZEWSKI
+
+
+            TRANSLATED BY
+          ELSE C. M. BENECKE
+
+
+               Oxford
+
+     B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET
+
+                1915
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
+
+
+Of the contemporary Polish authors represented in this volume only
+Henryk Sienkiewicz is well known in England. Although the works of
+Stefan Zeromski, Adam Szymanski, and Waclaw Sieroszewski are widely
+read in Poland, none have as yet appeared in English, so far as the
+present translator is aware. 'Srul--from Lubartow' is generally
+considered one of the most striking of Adam Szymanski's Siberian
+'Sketches.' The author writes from personal experience, having himself
+been banished to Siberia for a number of years. The same can be said
+of Waclaw Sieroszewski; during the fifteen years spent in Siberia as a
+political exile, he made a study of some of the native tribes,
+especially the Yakut and Tungus, and has written a great deal on this
+subject. Stefan Zeromski is also one of the most distinguished modern
+Polish novelists; several of his books have been translated into
+French and German.
+
+The translator is under a deep obligation to the authors, MM.
+Sienkiewicz, Szymanski, and Zeromski, for kindly allowing her to
+publish these tales in English, and to Mr. J. H. Retinger, Secretary
+of the Polish Bureau in London, for authorising the same on behalf of
+M. Sieroszewski.
+
+         E. C. M. B.
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+                                                                PAGE
+    Henryk Sienkiewicz: '_Bartek the Conqueror_'                   1
+    Stefan Zeromski: '_Twilight_'                                101
+                     '_Temptation_'                              113
+    Adam Szymanski: '_Srul--from Lubartow_'                      119
+    Waclaw Sieroszewski: '_In Autumn_'                           137
+                         '_In Sacrifice to the Gods_'            163
+
+
+
+
+POLISH PRONUNCIATION:
+
+
+    After k, rz = English sh.
+    sz = English sh
+    cz = English ch
+    l = English w
+    w = English v
+
+
+
+
+BARTEK THE CONQUEROR
+
+HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+My hero's name was Bartek Slowik[1]; but owing to his habit of staring
+when spoken to, the neighbours called him 'Bartek Goggle-Eyes.'
+Indeed, he had little in common with nightingales, and his
+intellectual qualities and truly childish _naivete_ won him the
+further nickname of 'Bartek the Blockhead.' This last was the most
+popular, in fact, the only one handed down to history, though Bartek
+bore yet a fourth,--an official--name. Since the Polish words 'man'
+and 'nightingale'[2] present no difference to a German ear, and the
+Germans love to translate Barbarian Proper names into a more cultured
+language in the cause of civilization, the following conversation took
+place when he was being entered as a recruit.
+
+'What is your name?' the officer asked Bartek.
+
+'Slowik.'
+
+'Szloik[3] _Ach, ja, gut._'
+
+And the officer wrote down 'Man.'
+
+Bartek came from the village of Pognebin, a name given to a great many
+villages in the Province of Posen and in other parts of Poland. First
+of all there was he himself, not to mention his land, his cottage and
+two cows, his own piebald horse, and his wife, Magda. Thanks to this
+combination of circumstances he was able to live comfortably, and
+according to the maxim contained in the verse:
+
+    To him whom God would bless He gives, of course,
+    A wife called Magda and a piebald horse.
+
+In fact, all his life he had taken whatever Providence sent without
+troubling about it. But just now Providence had ordained war, and
+Bartek was not a little upset at this. For news had come that the
+Reserves would be called up, and that it would be necessary to leave
+his cottage and land, and entrust it all to his wife's care. People at
+Pognebin were poor enough already. Bartek usually worked at the
+factory in the winter and helped his household on in this way;--but
+what would happen now? Who could know when the war with the French
+would end?
+
+Magda, when she had read through the papers, began to swear:
+
+'May they be damned and die themselves! May they be blinded!--Though
+you are a fool--yet I am sorry for you. The French give no quarter;
+they will chop off your head, I dare say.'
+
+Bartek felt that his wife spoke the truth. He feared the French like
+fire, and was sorry for himself on this account. What had the French
+done to him? What was he going after there,--why was he going to that
+horrible strange land where not a single friendly soul was to be
+found? He knew what life at Pognebin was like,--well, it was neither
+easy nor difficult, but just such as it was. But now he was being told
+to go away, although he knew that it was better to be here than
+anywhere else. Still, there was no help for it;--such is fate. Bartek
+embraced his wife, and the ten-year old Franek; spat, crossed himself,
+and went out of the cottage, Magda following him. They did not take
+very tender leave of one another. They both sobbed, he repeating,
+'Come, come, hush!' and went out into the road. There they realized
+that the same thing which had happened to them had happened to all
+Pognebin, for the whole village was astir, and the road was obstructed
+by traffic. As they walked to the station, women, children, old men
+and dogs followed them. Everyone's heart was heavy; but a few smoked
+their pipes with an air of indifference, and some were already
+intoxicated. Others were singing with hoarse voices:
+
+    'Skrzynecki[4] died, alas!
+    No more his voice is heard;
+    His hand, bedeckt with rings,
+    No more shall wield the sword,'
+
+while one or two of the Germans from Pognebin sang 'Die Wacht am
+Rhein' out of sheer fright. All that motley and many-coloured
+crowd,--including policemen with glittering bayonets,--moved in file
+towards the end of the village with shouts, bustle, and confusion.
+Women clung to their 'warriors'' necks and wept; one old woman showed
+her yellow teeth and waved her arms in the air; another cried: 'May
+the Lord remember our tears!' There were cries of: 'Franek! Kaska!
+Jozek! good-bye!' Dogs barked, the church bell rang, the priest even
+said the prayers for the dying, since not one of those now going to
+the station would return. The war had claimed them all, but the war
+would not give them back. The plough would grow rusty in the field,
+for Pognebin had declared war against the French. Pognebin could not
+acquiesce in the supremacy of Napoleon III, and took to heart the
+question of the Spanish succession. The last sounds of the bell
+hovered over the crowd, which was already falling out of line. Heads
+were bared as they passed the shrine. The light dust rose up from the
+road, for the day was dry and fine. Along both sides of the road the
+ripening corn, heavy in the ear, rustled and bowed in the gentle gusts
+of wind. The larks were twittering in the blue sky, and each warbled
+as if fearing he might be forgotten.
+
+At the station there was a still greater crowd, and more noise and
+confusion! Here were men called in from Krzywda Gorna, Krzywda Dolna,
+from Wywlaszczyniec, from Niedola, and Mizerow. The station walls were
+covered with proclamations in which war was declared in the Name of
+God and the Fatherland: the 'Landwehr' was setting forth to defend
+menaced parents, wives and children, cottages and fields. It was
+evident that the French bore a special grudge against Pognebin,
+Krzywda Gorna, Krzywda Dolna, Wywlaszczyniec, Niedola, and Mizerow.
+Such, at least, was the impression produced on those who read the
+placards. Fresh crowds were continually assembling in front of the
+station. In the waiting-room the smoke from the men's pipes filled the
+air, and hid the placards. It was difficult to make oneself understood
+in the noise, for everyone was running, shouting, and screaming. On
+the platform orders were given in German. They sounded strangely
+brief, harsh, and decisive.
+
+The bell rang. The powerful breath of the engine was heard in the
+distance coming nearer,--growing more distinct. With it the war itself
+seemed to be coming nearer.
+
+A second bell,--and a shudder ran through every heart. A woman began
+to scream. 'Jadom, Jadom!' She was evidently calling to her Adam, but
+the other women took up the word and cried, 'Jada.'[5] A shrill voice
+among them added: 'The French are coming!' and in the twinkling of an
+eye a panic seized not only the women, but also the future heroes of
+Sedan. The crowd swerved. At that moment the train entered the
+station. Caps and uniforms were seen to be at all the windows.
+Soldiers seemed to swarm like ants. Dark, oblong bodies of cannon
+showed grimly on some of the trucks, on others there was a forest of
+bayonets. The soldiers had, apparently, been ordered to sing, for the
+whole train shook with their strong masculine voices. Strength and
+power seemed in some way to issue from that train, the end of which
+was not even in sight.
+
+The Reservists on the platform began to fall in, but anyone who could
+lingered in taking leave. Bartek swung his arms as if they were the
+sails of a windmill, and stared.
+
+'Well, Magda, good-bye!'
+
+'Oh, my poor fellow!'
+
+'You will never see me again!'
+
+'I shall never see you again!'
+
+'There's no help for it!'
+
+'May the Mother of God protect and shelter you!'
+
+'Good-bye. Take care of the cottage.'
+
+The woman embraced him in tears.
+
+'May God guide you!'
+
+The last moment had come. The whistle and the women's crying and
+sobbing drowned everything else. 'Good-bye! Good-bye!' But the
+soldiers were already separated from the motley crowd, and formed a
+dark, solid mass, moving forward in square columns with the certainty
+and regularity of clockwork. The order was given: 'Take your seats!'
+Columns and squares broke asunder from the centre, marched with heavy
+strides towards the carriages, and jumped into them. The engine, now
+breathing like a dragon and exhaling streams of vapour, sent forth
+wreaths of grey smoke. The women cried and sobbed still louder; some
+of them hid their eyes with their handkerchiefs, others waved their
+hands towards the carriages; sobbing voices repeated the name of
+husband and son.
+
+'Good-bye, Bartek!' Magda cried from amongst them. 'Take care of
+yourself!--May the Mother of God--Good-bye! Oh, God!--'
+
+'And take care of the cottage,' answered Bartek.
+
+The line of trucks suddenly trembled, the carriages knocked against
+one another,--and went forward.
+
+'And remember you have a wife and child,' Magda cried, running after
+the train. 'Good-bye, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
+Ghost! Good-bye----'
+
+On went the train, faster and faster, bearing away the warriors of
+Pognebin, of both Krzywdas, of Niedola, and Mizerow.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Magda, with the crowd of women, returned crying to Pognebin in one
+direction; in the other the train, bristling with bayonets, rushed
+into the grey distance, and Bartek with it. There seemed to be no end
+to the long cloud of smoke; Pognebin was also scarcely visible. Only
+the lime-tree showed faintly, and the church tower, glistening as the
+rays of the sun played upon it. Soon the lime-tree also disappeared,
+and the gilt cross resembled a shining speck. As long as that speck
+continued to shine Bartek kept his eyes fixed upon it, but when that
+vanished too there were no bounds to the poor fellow's grief. A sense
+of great weakness came over him and he felt lost. So he began to look
+at the Sergeant, for, after the Almighty, he already felt there was no
+one greater than he. The Sergeant clearly knew what would become of
+Bartek now; he himself knew nothing, understood nothing. The Sergeant
+sat on the bench, and, supporting his rifle between his knees, he
+lighted his pipe. The smoke rose in clouds, hiding his grave,
+discontented face from time to time. Not Bartek's eyes alone watched
+his face; all the eyes from every corner of the carriage were watching
+it. At Pognebin or Krzywda every Bartek or Wojtek was his own master,
+each had to think about himself, and for himself, but now the Sergeant
+would do this for him. He would command them to look to the right, and
+they would look to the right; he would command them to look to the
+left, and they would look to the left. The question, 'Well, and what
+is to become of us?' stood in each man's eyes, but he knew as much as
+all of them put together, and also what was expected of them. If only
+one were able by glances to draw some command or explanation from him!
+But the men were afraid to ask direct, as war was now drawing near
+with all the chances of being court-martialled. What was permitted and
+was not permitted, and by whom, was unknown. They, at least, did not
+know, and the sound of such a word as 'Kriegsgericht,' though they did
+not understand it, frightened them very much.
+
+They felt that this Sergeant had still more power over them now than
+at the manoeuvres in Posen; he it was who knew everything, and
+without him nothing would be done. He seemed meanwhile to be finding
+his rifle growing heavy, for he pushed it towards Bartek to hold for
+him. Bartek reached out hastily for it, held his breath, stared, and
+looked at the Sergeant as he would at a rainbow, yet derived little
+comfort from that. Ah, there must surely be bad news, for even the
+Sergeant looked worried. At the stations one heard singing and
+shouting; the Sergeant gave orders, bustled about and swore, as if to
+show his importance. But let the train once move on, and everyone,
+including himself, was silent. Owing to him the world now seemed to
+wear two aspects, the one clear and intelligible--that represented by
+home and family--the other dark, yes, absolutely dark--that of France
+and war. He effectually revived the spirits of the Pognebin soldiers,
+not so much by his personality, as that each man carried him at the
+back of his mind. And since each soldier carried his knapsack on his
+shoulder, with his cloak and other warlike accoutrements, the whole
+load was extremely heavy.
+
+All the while the train was shaking, roaring, and rushing along into
+space. Now a station where they added fresh carriages and engines; now
+another where helmets, cannon, horses, bayonets, and companies of
+Lancers were to be seen. The fine evening drew in slowly. The sun sank
+in a deep crimson, and a number of light flying clouds spread from the
+edge of the darkening sky across to the west. The train, stopping
+frequently at the stations to pick up passengers and carriages, shook
+and rushed forward into that crimson brightness, as into a sea of
+blood. From the open carriage, in which Bartek and the Pognebin troops
+were seated, one could see villages, hamlets and little towns, church
+steeples, storks--looking like hooks, as they stood on one leg on
+their nests,--isolated cottages, and cherry orchards. Everything was
+passed rapidly, and everything looked crimson. Meanwhile the soldiers,
+growing bolder, began to whisper to one another, because the Sergeant,
+having laid his kit bag under his head, had fallen asleep, with his
+clay pipe between his teeth. Wojtek Gwizdala, a peasant from Pognebin,
+sitting beside Bartek, jogged his elbow: 'Bartek, listen!'
+
+Bartek turned a face with pensive, wide open eyes towards him.
+
+'Why do you look like a calf going to be slaughtered?' Gwizdala
+whispered. 'True, you, poor beggar, are going to be slaughtered,
+that's certain!'
+
+'Oh, my word!' groaned Bartek.
+
+'Are you afraid?' Gwizdala asked.
+
+'Why shouldn't I be afraid?'
+
+The crimson in the sky was growing deeper still, so Gwizdala pointed
+towards it and went on whispering:
+
+'Do you see that brightness? Do you know, Blockhead, what that is?
+That's blood. Here's Poland,--our frontier, say,--do you understand?
+But there in the distance, where it's so bright, that's France
+itself.'
+
+'And shall we be there soon?'
+
+'Why are you in such a hurry? They say that it's a terribly long way.
+But never fear, the French will come out to meet us.'
+
+Bartek's Pognebin brain began to work laboriously. After some moments
+he asked: 'Wojtek.'
+
+'Yes?'
+
+'What sort of people are these Frenchmen?'
+
+Here Wojtek's wisdom suddenly became aware of a pitfall into which it
+might be easier to tumble headforemost than to come out again. He knew
+that the French were the French. He had heard something about them
+from old people, who had related that they were always fighting with
+everyone; he knew at least that they were very strange people. But how
+could he explain this to Bartek to make him understand how strange
+they were? First of all, therefore, he repeated the question, 'What
+sort of people?'
+
+'Why, yes.'
+
+Now there were three nations known to Wojtek: living in the centre
+were the Poles; on the one side were the Russians, on the other the
+Germans. But there were various kinds of Germans. Preferring,
+therefore, to be clear rather than accurate, he said:
+
+'What sort of people are the French? How can I tell you; they must be
+like the Germans, only worse.'
+
+At which Bartek exclaimed: 'Oh, the low vermin!'
+
+Up to that time he had had one feeling only with regard to the French,
+and that was a feeling of unspeakable fear. Henceforth this Prussian
+Reservist cherished the hatred of a true patriot towards them. But not
+feeling quite clear about it all, he asked again: 'Then Germans will
+be fighting Germans?'
+
+Here Wojtek, like a second Socrates, chose to adopt a simile, and
+answered:
+
+'But doesn't your dog, Lysek, fight with my Burek?'
+
+Bartek opened his mouth and looked at his instructor for a moment:
+'Ah! true.'
+
+'And the Austrians are Germans,' explained Wojtek, 'and haven't they
+fought against us? Old Swierzcz said that when he was in that war
+Steinmetz used to shout: "On, boys, at the Germans!" Only that's not
+so easy with the French.'
+
+'Good God!'
+
+'The French have never been beaten in any war. When they attack you,
+don't be afraid, don't disgrace yourself. Each man is worth two or
+three of us, and they wear beards like Jews. There are some as dark
+as the devil. Now that you know what they are like, commend yourself
+to God!'
+
+'Well, but then why do we run after them?' Bartek asked in
+desperation.
+
+This philosophical remark was possibly not as stupid as it appeared to
+Wojtek, who, evidently influenced by official opinion, quickly had his
+answer ready.
+
+'I would rather not have gone myself, but if we don't run after them,
+they will run after us. There's no help for it. You have read what the
+papers say. It's against us peasants that they bear the chief grudge.
+People say that they have their eyes on Poland, because they want to
+smuggle vodka out of the country, and the Government won't allow it,
+and that's why there's war. Now do you understand?'
+
+'I cannot understand,' Bartek said resignedly.
+
+'They are also as greedy for our women as a dog for a bone,' Wojtek
+continued.
+
+'But surely they would respect Magda, for example?'
+
+'They don't even respect age!'
+
+'Oh!' cried Bartek in a voice implying, 'If that is so then I will
+fight!'
+
+In fact this seemed to him really too much. Let them continue to
+smuggle vodka out of Poland,--but let them dare to touch Magda! Our
+friend Bartek now began to regard the whole war from the standpoint of
+his own interests, and took courage in the thought of how many
+soldiers and cannon were going out in defence of Magda, who was in
+danger of being outraged by the French. He arrived at the conviction
+that there was nothing for it but to go out against them.
+
+Meanwhile the brightness had faded from the sky, and it had grown
+dark. The carriages began to rock violently on the uneven rails, and
+the helmets and bayonets shook from right to left to the rhythm of the
+rocking. Hour after hour passed by. Millions of sparks flew from the
+engine and crossed one another in the darkness, serpentining in long
+golden lines. For a while Bartek could not sleep. Like those sparks in
+the wind, thoughts leapt into his mind about Magda, about Pognebin,
+the French and the Germans. He felt that though he would have liked to
+have lain down on the bench on which he was sitting, he could not do
+so. He fell asleep, it is true, but it was a heavy, unrefreshing
+sleep, and he was at once pursued by dreams. He saw his dog, Lysek,
+fighting with Wojtek's Burek, till all their hair was torn off. He was
+running for a stick to stop them, when suddenly he saw something else:
+sitting with his arm round Magda was a dark Frenchman, as dark as the
+earth; but Magda was smiling contentedly. Some Frenchmen jeered at
+Bartek, and pointed their fingers at him. In reality it was the engine
+screaming, but it seemed to him that the French were calling, 'Magda!
+Magda! Magda!' 'Hold your tongue, thieves,' Bartek shouted, 'leave my
+wife alone!' but they continued calling 'Magda! Magda! Magda!' Lysek
+and Burek started barking, and all Pognebin cried out, 'Don't let your
+wife go!' Was he bound, or what was the matter? No, he rushed forward,
+tore at the cord and broke it, seized the Frenchman by the head,--and
+suddenly--!
+
+Suddenly he was seized with severe pain, as from a heavy blow. Bartek
+awoke and dragged his feet to the ground. The whole carriage awoke,
+and everyone asked, 'What has happened?' In his sleep the unfortunate
+Bartek had seized the Sergeant by the head. He stood up immediately,
+as straight as a fiddle-string, two fingers at his forehead; but the
+Sergeant waved his hand, and shouted like mad:
+
+'Ach, Sie! beast of a Pole! I'll knock all the teeth out of your
+head,--blockhead!'
+
+The Sergeant shouted until he was hoarse with rage, and Bartek stood
+saluting all the while. Some of the soldiers bit their lips in order
+not to laugh, but they were half afraid, too. A parting shot burst
+forth from the Sergeant's lips:
+
+'You Polish Ox! Ox from Podolia!'
+
+Ultimately everything became quiet again. Bartek sat back in his old
+place. He was conscious of nothing but that his cheek was swollen,
+and, as if playing him a trick, the engine kept repeating:
+
+'Magda! Magda! Magda!'
+
+He felt a heavy weight of sorrow upon him.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+It was morning!
+
+The fitful, pale light fell on faces sleepy and worn with a long
+restless night. The soldiers were sleeping in discomfort on the seats,
+some with their heads thrown forward, others with their noses in the
+air. The dawn was rising and flooding all the world with crimson
+light. The air was fresh and keen. The soldiers awoke. The morning
+rays were drawing away shadows and mist into some region unknown.
+Alas! and where was now Pognebin, where Great and Little Kzrywda,
+where Mizerow? Everything was strange and different. The summits of
+the hills were overgrown with trees; in the valleys were houses hidden
+under red roofs, with dark crucifixes on the white walls,--beautiful
+houses like mansions, covered with vines. Here, churches with spires,
+there, factory chimneys with wreaths of purple smoke. There were only
+straight lines, level banks, and fields of corn. The inhabitants
+swarmed like ants. They passed villages and towns, and the train went
+through a number of unimportant stations without stopping. Something
+must have happened, for there were crowds to be seen everywhere. When
+the sun slowly began to appear from behind the hills, one or two of
+the soldiers commenced saying a prayer aloud. Others followed their
+example, and the first rays of splendour fell on the men's earnest,
+devout faces.
+
+Meanwhile the train had stopped at a larger station. A crowd of people
+immediately surrounded it: news had come from the seat of war.
+Victory! Victory! Telegrams had been arriving for several hours.
+Everyone had anticipated defeat, so when roused by the unexpected
+news, their joy knew no bounds. People rushed half-clad from their
+houses and their beds, and ran to the post-office. Flags were waving
+from the roofs, and handkerchiefs from everyone's hands. Beer, tobacco
+and cigars were carried to the carriages. The enthusiasm was
+unspeakable; everyone's face was beaming. 'Die Wacht am Rhein' filled
+the air continuously like a tempest. Not a few were weeping, others
+embraced one another. The enthusiasm animating the crowd imparted
+itself to the gallant soldiers, their courage rose, and they too began
+to sing. The carriages trembled with their strong voices, and the
+crowd listened in wonder to their unintelligible songs. The men from
+Pognebin sang:
+
+    'Bartoszu! Bartoszu! never lose hope!'
+
+'The Poles, the Poles!' repeated the crowd by way of explanation,
+and, gathering round the carriages, admired their soldierly bearing,
+and added to their joy by relating anecdotes of the remarkable courage
+of these Polish Regiments.
+
+Bartek had unshaven cheeks, which, in addition to his yellow
+moustache, goggle-eyes, and large bony face, made him look terrifying.
+They gazed at him as at some wild beast. These, then, were the men who
+were to defend Germany! Such were they who had just disposed of the
+French! Bartek smiled with satisfaction, for he too was pleased that
+they had beaten the French. Now they would not go to Pognebin, they
+would not make off with Magda, nor capture his land. So he smiled, but
+as his cheek hurt him badly, he made a grimace at the same time, and
+did certainly look terrifying. Then, displaying the appetite of a
+Homeric warrior, he caused pea-sausages and pints of beer to disappear
+into his mouth as into a vacuum. People in the crowd gave him cigars
+and pence, and they all drank to one another.
+
+'There's some good in this German nation,' he said to Wojtek, adding
+after a moment, 'and you know they have beaten the French!'
+
+But Wojtek, the sceptic, cast a shadow on his joy. Wojtek had
+forebodings, like Cassandra:
+
+'The French always allow themselves to be beaten at first, in order to
+take you in, and then they set to until they have cut you to pieces!'
+
+Wojtek did not know that the greater part of Europe shared his
+opinion, in general, and in particular now.
+
+They travelled on. All the houses were covered with flags. They
+stopped a long while at several of the stations, because there was a
+block of trains everywhere. Troops were hastening from all sides of
+Germany to reinforce their brothers in arms. The trains were swathed
+in green wreaths, and the Lancers had decorated their lances with the
+bunches of flowers given them on the way. The majority of these
+Lancers also were Poles. More than one conversation and greeting was
+heard passing from carriage to carriage:
+
+'How are you, old fellow, and where is God Almighty leading you?'
+
+Meanwhile to the accompaniment of the train rumbling along the rails,
+the well-known song rang out:--
+
+    'Flirt with us, soldiers! dears!'
+    Cried the girls of Sandomierz.
+
+And soon Bartek and his comrades caught up the refrain:--
+
+    Gaily forth the answer burst:
+    'Bless you, dears! but dinner first!'
+
+As many as had gone out from Pognebin in sorrow were now filled with
+enthusiasm and spirit. A train which had arrived from France with the
+first batch of wounded, damped this feeling of cheerfulness, however.
+It stopped at Deutz, and waited a long time to allow the trains
+hurrying to the seat of war to go by. The men were marched across the
+bridge _en route_ for Cologne. Bartek ran forward with several others
+to look at the sick and wounded. Some lay in closed, others in open
+carriages, and these could be seen well. At the first glance our
+hero's heart was again in his mouth.
+
+'Come here, Wojtek,' he cried in terror. 'See how many of our
+countrymen the Frenchmen have done for!'
+
+It was indeed a sight! Pale, exhausted faces, some darkened by
+gunpowder or by pain, or stained with blood. To the sounds of
+universal rejoicing these men only responded by groans. Some were
+cursing the war, the French and the Germans. Parched lips called every
+moment for water, eyes rolled in delirium. Here and there, amongst the
+wounded, were the rigid faces of the dead, in some cases peaceful,
+with blue lines round their eyes, in others contorted through the
+death struggle, with terrifying eyes and grinning teeth. Bartek saw
+the bloody fruits of war for the first time, and once more confusion
+reigned in his mind. He seemed quite stupefied, as, standing in the
+crowd, with his mouth open, he was elbowed from every side, and
+pomelled on the neck by the police. He sought Wojtek's eyes, nudged
+him, and said,
+
+'Wojtek, may Heaven preserve us! It's horrible!'
+
+'It will be just the same with you.'
+
+'Jesu! Mary! That human beings should murder one another like this!
+When a fellow kills another the police take him off to the magistrate
+and prison!'
+
+'Well, but now whoever kills most human beings is to be praised. What
+were you thinking of, Blockhead: did you think you would use gunpowder
+as in the manoeuvres, and would shoot at targets instead of people?'
+
+Here the difference between theory and practice certainly stood out
+clearly. Notwithstanding that our friend Bartek was a soldier, had
+attended manoeuvres and drill, had practised rifle shooting, had
+known that the object of war was to kill people, now, when he saw
+blood flowing, and all the misery of war, it made him feel so sick and
+miserable he could hardly keep himself upright. He was impressed anew
+with respect for the French; this diminished, however, when they
+arrived at Cologne from Deutz. At the Central Station they saw
+prisoners for the first time. Surrounding them was a number of
+soldiers and people, who gazed at them with interest, but without
+hostility. Bartek elbowed his way through the crowd, and, looking into
+the carriage, was amazed.
+
+A troop of French infantry in ragged cloaks, small, dirty, and
+emaciated, were packed into the carriages like a cask of herrings.
+Many of them stretched out their hands for the trifling gifts
+presented to them by the crowd, if the sentinels did not prevent them.
+Judging from what he had heard from Wojtek, Bartek had had a wholly
+different impression of the French, and this took his breath away. He
+looked to see if Wojtek were anywhere about, and found him standing
+close by.
+
+'What did you say?' asked Bartek. 'By all the Saints! I shouldn't be
+more surprised if I had lost my head!'
+
+'They must have been starved somehow,' answered Wojtek, equally
+disillusioned.
+
+'What are they jabbering?'
+
+'It's certainly not Polish.'
+
+Reassured by this impression, Bartek walked on past the carriages.
+'Miserable wretches!' he said, when he had finished his review of the
+Regulars.
+
+But the last carriages contained Zouaves, and these gave Bartek food
+for further reflection. From the fact that they sat huddled together
+in the carriages, it was impossible to discover whether each man were
+equal to two or three ordinary men; but, through the window, he saw
+the long, martial beards, and grave faces of veteran soldiers with
+dark complexions and alarmingly shining eyes. Again Bartek's heart
+leapt to his mouth.
+
+'These are the worst of all,' he whispered low, as if afraid they
+might hear him.
+
+'You have not yet seen those who have not let themselves be taken
+prisoner,' replied Wojtek.
+
+'Heaven preserve us!'
+
+'Now do you understand?'
+
+Having finished looking at the Zouaves, they walked on. At the last
+carriage Bartek suddenly started back as if he had touched fire.
+
+'Oh, Wojtek, Lord help us!'
+
+There was the dark--nearly black--face of a Turco at the open window,
+rolling his eyes so that the whites showed. He must have been wounded,
+for his face was contorted with pain.
+
+'But what's the matter?' asked Wojtek.
+
+'That must be the Evil One, it's not a soldier. Lord have mercy on my
+sins!'
+
+'Look at his teeth!'
+
+'May he go to perdition! I shan't look at him any longer.'
+
+Bartek was silent, then asked after a moment:
+
+'Wojtek?'
+
+'Yes?'
+
+'Mightn't it be a good thing to cross oneself before anyone like
+that?'
+
+'The heathen don't understand anything about the holy truth.'
+
+The signal was given for taking their seats. In a few moments the
+train was moving. When it grew dusk Bartek continually saw before him
+the Turco's dark face with the terrible white of his eyes. From the
+feeling which at the moment animated this Pognebin soldier, it would
+not have been possible to foretell his future deeds.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The particular share he took at first in the pitched battle of
+Gravelotte, merely convinced Bartek of this fact,--that in war there
+is plenty to look at, but nothing to do. For at the commencement he
+and his regiment were told to order arms and wait at the bottom of a
+hill covered by a vineyard. The guns were booming in the distance,
+squadrons of cavalry charged past near at hand with a clatter which
+shook the earth; then the flags passed, then Cuirassiers with drawn
+swords. The shells on the hill flew hissing across the blue sky in the
+form of small white clouds, then smoke filled the air and hid the
+horizon. The battle seemed like a storm which passes through a
+district without lasting long anywhere.
+
+After the first hours, unusual activity was displayed round Bartek's
+regiment. Other regiments began to be massed round his, and in the
+spaces between them, the guns, drawn by plunging horses, rushed along,
+and, hastily unlimbered, were pointed towards the hill. The whole
+valley became full of troops. Commands were now thundered from all
+sides, the Aides-de-Camps rushed about wildly, and the private
+soldiers said to one another:
+
+'Ah! it will be our turn now! It's coming!' or enquired uneasily of
+one another,
+
+'Isn't it yet time to start?'
+
+'Surely it must be!'
+
+The question of life and death was now beginning to hang in the
+balance. Something in the smoke, which hid the horizon, burst close at
+hand with a terrible explosion. The deep roar of the cannon and the
+crack of the rifle firing was heard ever nearer; it was like an
+indistinct sound coming from a distance,--then the mitrailleuse became
+audible. Suddenly the guns, placed in position, boomed forth until the
+earth and air trembled together. The shells whistled frightfully
+through Bartek's company. Watching they saw something bright red, a
+little cloud, as it might be, and in that cloud something whistled,
+rushed, rattled, roared, and shrieked. The men shouted: 'A shell! A
+shell,' and at the same moment this vulture of war sped forward like a
+gale, came near, fell, and burst! A terrible roar met the ear, a crash
+as if the world had collapsed, followed by a rushing sound, as before
+a puff of wind! Confusion reigned in the lines standing in the
+neighbourhood of the guns, then came the cry and command 'Stand
+ready!' Bartek stood in the front rank, his rifle at his shoulder, his
+head turned towards the hill, his mouth set,--so his teeth were not
+chattering. He was forbidden to tremble, he was forbidden to shoot. He
+had only to stand still and wait! But now another shell burst,--three,
+four, ten. The wind lifted the smoke from the hill: the French had
+already driven the Prussian battery from it, had placed theirs in
+position, and now opened fire on to the valley. Every moment from
+under cover of the vineyard they sent forth long white columns of
+smoke. Protected by the guns, the enemy's infantry continued to
+advance, in order to open fire. They were already half way down the
+hill and could now be seen plainly, for the wind was driving the smoke
+away. Would the vineyard prove an obstacle to them? No, the dark caps
+of the infantry were advancing. Suddenly they disappeared under the
+tall arches of the vines, and there was nothing to be seen but
+tricolour flags waving here and there. The rifle fire began fiercely
+but intermittently, continually starting in fresh and unexpected
+places. Shells burst above it, and crossed one another in the air. Now
+and then cries rang out from the hill, which were answered from below
+by a German 'Hurrah!' The guns from the valley sent forth an
+uninterrupted fire; the regiment stood unflinching.
+
+The line of fire began to embrace it more closely, however. The
+bullets hummed in the distance like gnats and flies, or passed near
+with a terrible whizz. More and more of them came:--hundreds,
+thousands, whistling round their heads, their noses, their eyes, their
+shoulders; it was astonishing there should be a man left standing.
+Suddenly Bartek heard a groan close by: 'Jesu!' then 'Stand ready!'
+then again 'Jesu!' 'Stand ready!' Soon the groans went on without
+intermission, the words of command came faster and faster, the lines
+drew in closer, the whizzing grew more frequent, more uninterrupted,
+more terrible. The dead covered the ground. It was like the Judgment
+Day.
+
+'Are you afraid?' Wojtek asked.
+
+'Why shouldn't I be afraid?' our hero answered, his teeth chattering.
+
+Nevertheless both Bartek and Wojtek still kept their feet, and it did
+not even enter their heads to run away. They had been commanded to
+stand still and receive the enemy's fire. Bartek had not spoken the
+truth; he was not as much afraid as thousands of others would have
+been in his place. Discipline held the mastery over his imagination,
+and his imagination had never painted such a horrible situation as
+this. Nevertheless Bartek felt that he would be killed, and he
+confided this thought to Wojtek.
+
+'There won't be room in Heaven for the numbers they kill,' Wojtek
+answered in an excited voice.
+
+These words comforted Bartek perceptibly. He began to hope that his
+place in Heaven had already been taken. Re-assured with regard to
+this, he stood more patiently, conscious only of the intense heat, and
+with the perspiration running down his face. Meantime the firing
+became so heavy that the ranks were thinning visibly. There was no one
+to carry away the killed and wounded; the death rattle of the dying
+mingled with the whizz of shells and the din of shooting. One could
+see by the movement of the tricolour flags that the infantry hidden by
+the vines was coming closer and closer. The volleys of mitrailleuse
+decimated the ranks; the men were beginning to grow desperate.
+
+But underlying this despair were impatience and rage. Had they been
+commanded to go forward, they would have gone like a whirlwind. It was
+impossible to merely stand still in one spot. A soldier suddenly threw
+down his helmet with his whole force, and exclaimed:
+
+'Curse it! One death is as good as another!'
+
+Bartek again experienced such a feeling of relief from these words
+that he almost entirely ceased to be afraid. For if one death was as
+good as another, what did anything matter? This rustic philosophy was
+calculated to arouse courage more rapidly than any other. Bartek knew
+that one death was as good as another, but it pleased him to hear it,
+especially as the battle was now turning into a defeat. For here was a
+regiment which had never fired a single shot, and was already half
+annihilated. Crowds of soldiers from other regiments which had been
+scattered, ran in amongst and round theirs in disorder; only these
+peasants from Pognebin, Great and Little Krzywda, and Mizerow still
+remained firm, upholding Prussian discipline. But even amongst them a
+certain degree of hesitation now began to be felt. Another moment and
+they would have burst the restraint of discipline. The ground under
+their feet was already soft and slippery with blood, the stench of
+which mingled with the smell of gunpowder. In several places the lines
+could not join up closely, because the dead bodies made gaps in them.
+At the feet of those men yet standing, the other half lay bleeding,
+groaning, struggling, dying, or in the silence of death. There was no
+air to breathe in. They began to grumble:
+
+'They have brought us out to be slaughtered!'
+
+'No one will come out of this!'
+
+'Silence, Polish dogs!' sounded the officer's voice.
+
+'I should just like you to be standing in my shoes!'
+
+'Where is that fellow?'
+
+Suddenly a voice began to repeat:
+
+'Beneath Thy Shadow....'
+
+Bartek instantly took it up:
+
+'We flee, O holy Son of God!'
+
+And soon on that field of carnage a chorus of Polish voices was
+calling to the Defender of their nation:
+
+'Of Thy favour regard our prayers.'
+
+while from beneath their feet there came the accompaniment of groans:
+'Mary! Mary!' She had evidently heard them, for at that moment the
+Aide-de-Camps came galloping up, and the command rang forth: 'Arms to
+the attack! Hurrah! Forward!' The crest of bayonets was suddenly
+lowered, the column stretched out into a long line and sprang towards
+the hill to seek with their bayonets the enemy they could not discover
+with their eyes. The men were, however, still two hundred yards from
+the foot of the hill, and they had to traverse that distance under a
+murderous fire. Would they not perish like the rest? Would they not be
+obliged to retreat? Perish they might, but retreat they could not, for
+the Prussian commander knows what tune will bring Polish soldiers to
+the attack. Amid the roar of cannon, amid the rifle fire and the
+smoke, the confusion and groaning, loudest of all sounded the drums
+and trumpets, playing the hymn at which every single drop of blood
+leapt in their veins. 'Hurrah!' answered the Macki[6] 'as long as we
+live!' Frenzy seized them. The fire met them full in the face. They
+went like a whirlwind over the prostrate bodies of men and horses,
+over the wrecks of cannon. They fell, but they went with a shout and a
+song. They had already reached the vineyard and disappeared into its
+enclosure. Only the song was heard, and at times a bayonet glittered.
+On the hill the firing became increasingly fierce. In the valley the
+trumpets kept on sounding. The French volleys continued faster and
+faster,--still faster,--and suddenly--
+
+Suddenly they were silent.
+
+Down in the valley that old wardog, Steinmetz, lighted his clay pipe,
+and said in a tone of satisfaction:
+
+'You have only to play to them! The daredevils will do it!'
+
+And actually in a few moments one of the proudly waving tricolours was
+suddenly raised aloft, then drooped, and disappeared.
+
+'They are not joking,' said Steinmetz.
+
+Again the trumpets played the hymn, and a second Polish regiment went
+to the help of the first. In the enclosure a pitched battle with
+bayonets was taking place.
+
+And now, oh Muse, sing of our hero, Bartek, that posterity may know
+of his deeds! The fear, impatience, and despair of his heart had
+mingled into the single feeling of rage, and when he heard that music
+each vein stood out in him like cast iron. His hair stood on end, his
+eyes shot fire. He forgot everything that had made up his world; he no
+longer cared whether one death was as good as another. Grasping his
+rifle firmly in his hands, he leapt forward with the others. Reaching
+the hill he fell down for the tenth time, struck his nose, and,
+bespattered with mud and the blood flowing from his nose, ran on madly
+and breathlessly, catching at the air with open mouth. He stared
+round, wishing to find some of the French in the enclosure as quickly
+as possible, and caught sight of three standing together near the
+flags. They were Turcos. Would Bartek retreat? No, indeed; he could
+have seized the horns of Lucifer himself now! He ran towards them at
+once, and they fell on him with a shout; two bayonets, like two deadly
+stings, had actually touched his chest already, but Bartek lowered his
+bayonet. A dreadful cry followed,--a groan, and two dark bodies lay
+writhing convulsively on the ground.
+
+At that moment the third, who carried the flag, ran up to help his two
+comrades. Like a Fury, Bartek leapt on him with his whole strength.
+The firing flashed and roared in the distance, while Bartek's hoarse
+roar rang out through the smoke:
+
+'Go to Hell!'
+
+And again the rifle in his hand described a fearful semi-circle, again
+groans responded to his thrusts. The Turcos retreated in terror at the
+sight of this furious giant, but either Bartek misunderstood, or they
+shouted out something in Arabic, for it seemed to him that their thick
+lips distinctly uttered the cry: 'Magda! Magda!'
+
+'Magda will give it you!' howled Bartek, and with one leap he was in
+the enemy's midst.
+
+Happily at that moment some of his comrades ran up to his assistance.
+A hand to hand fight now took place in the enclosure of the vineyard.
+There was the crack of rifles at close quarters, and the hot breath of
+the combatants sounded through their nostrils. Bartek raged like a
+storm. Blinded by smoke, streaming with blood, more like a wild beast
+than a man, and regardless of everything, he mowed down men at each
+blow, broke rifles, cracked heads. His hands moved with the terrible
+swiftness of a machine sowing destruction. He attacked the Ensign, and
+seized him by the throat with an iron grip. The Ensign's eyes turned
+upwards, his face swelled, his throat rattled, and his hands let the
+pole fall.
+
+'Hurrah!' cried Bartek, and, lifting the flag, he waved it in the air.
+
+This was the flag raised aloft and drooping, which Steinmetz had seen
+from below.
+
+But he could only see it for half a second, for in the next--Bartek
+had trampled it to shreds. Meanwhile his comrades were already rushing
+on ahead.
+
+Bartek remained alone for a moment. He tore off the flag, hid it in
+his breast pocket, and, having seized the pole in both hands, rushed
+after his comrades.
+
+A crowd of Turcos, shouting in a barbarous tongue, now fled towards
+the gun placed on the summit of the hill, the Macki after them,
+shouting, pursuing, striking with butt-end and bayonet.
+
+The Zouaves, who were stationed by the guns, received the first men
+with rifle fire.
+
+'Hurrah!' shouted Bartek.
+
+The men ran up to the guns, and a fresh struggle took place round
+these. At that moment the second Polish regiment came to the aid of
+the first. The flag pole in Bartek's powerful hands was now changed
+into a kind of infernal flail. Each stroke dealt by it opened a free
+passage through the close lines of the French. The Zouaves and Turcos
+began to be seized with panic, and they fled from the place where
+Bartek was fighting. Within a few moments Bartek was sitting astride
+the gun, as he might his Pognebin mare.
+
+But scarcely had the soldiers had time to see him on this, when he was
+already on the second, after killing another Ensign who was standing
+by it with the flag.
+
+'Hurrah, Bartek!' repeatedly exclaimed the soldiers.
+
+The victory was complete. All the ammunition was captured. The
+infantry fled, and after being surrounded by Prussian reinforcements
+on the other side of the hill, laid down their arms.
+
+Bartek captured yet a third flag during the pursuit.
+
+It was worth seeing him, when exhausted, covered with blood, and
+blowing like a blacksmith's bellows, he now descended the hill
+together with the rest, bearing the three flags on his shoulder. The
+French? Why, what had not he alone done to them! By his side went
+Wojtek, scratched and scarred, so he turned to him and said:
+
+'What did you say? Why, they are miserable wretches; there isn't a
+scrap of strength in their bones! They have just scratched you and me
+like kittens, and that's all. But how I have bled them you can see by
+the ground!'
+
+'Who would have known that you could be so brave!' replied Wojtek, who
+had watched Bartek's deeds, and began to look at him in quite a
+different light.
+
+But who has not heard of these deeds? History, all the regiment and
+the greater number of the officers. Everybody now looked with
+astonishment at this country giant with the flaxen moustache and
+goggle eyes. The Major himself said to him, 'Ah, you confounded Pole!'
+and pulled his ear, making Bartek grin to his back teeth with
+pleasure. When the regiment stood once more at the foot of the hill,
+the Major pointed him out to the Colonel, and the Colonel to Steinmetz
+himself.
+
+The latter noticed the flags, and ordered that they should be taken
+charge of; then he began to look at Bartek. Our friend Bartek again
+stood as straight as a fiddle string, presenting arms, and the old
+General looked at him and shook his head with pleasure. Finally he
+began to say something to the Colonel; the words 'non-commissioned
+officer' were plainly audible.
+
+'Too stupid, Your Excellency!' answered the Major.
+
+'Let us try,' said His Excellency, and turning his horse, he
+approached Bartek.
+
+Bartek himself scarcely knew what was happening to him: it was a thing
+unknown in the Prussian Army for the General to talk to a Private! His
+Excellency was the more easily able to do this, because he knew
+Polish. Moreover this Private had captured three flags and two guns.
+
+'Where do you come from?' enquired the General.
+
+'From Pognebin,' answered Bartek.
+
+'Good. Your name?'
+
+'Bartek Slowik.'
+
+'Mensch,' explained the Major.
+
+'Mens!' Bartek tried to repeat.
+
+'Do you know why you are fighting the French?'
+
+'I know, Your Excellency.'
+
+'Tell me.'
+
+Bartek began to stammer, 'Because, because--' Then on a sudden
+Wojtek's words fortunately came into his mind, and he burst out with
+them quickly, so as not to get confused: 'Because they are Germans
+too, only worse villains!'
+
+His Excellency's face began to twitch as if he felt inclined to burst
+out laughing. After a moment, however, His Excellency turned to the
+Major, and said:
+
+'You are right, Sir.'
+
+Our friend Bartek, satisfied with himself, remained standing as
+straight as a fiddle string.
+
+'Who won the battle to-day?' the General asked again.
+
+'I, Your Excellency,' Bartek answered without hesitation.
+
+His Excellency's face again began to twitch.
+
+'Right, very right, it was you! And here you have your reward.'
+
+Here the old soldier unpinned the iron cross from his own breast,
+stooped and pinned it on to Bartek. The General's good humour was
+reflected in a perfectly natural way on the faces of the Colonel, the
+Majors, the Captains, down to the non-commissioned officers. After the
+General's departure the Colonel for his own part presented Bartek with
+ten thalers, the Major with five, and so on. Everyone repeated to him
+smilingly that he had won the battle, with the result that Bartek was
+in the seventh heaven.
+
+It was a strange thing: the only person who was not really satisfied
+with our hero was Wojtek.
+
+In the evening, when they were both sitting round the fire, and when
+Bartek's distinguished face was bulging as much with pea sausage as
+the sausage itself, Wojtek ejaculated in a tone of resignation:
+
+'Oh Bartek, what a blockhead you are, because--'
+
+'But why?' said Bartek, between his bites of sausage.
+
+'Why, man, didn't you tell the General that the French are Germans?'
+
+'You said so yourself.'
+
+'And what of that?--'
+
+Wojtek began to stammer a little--'Well, though they may be Germans,
+you needn't have told him so, because it's always unpleasant--'
+
+'But I said it about the French, not about them....'
+
+'Ah, because when....'
+
+Wojtek stopped short, though evidently wishing to say something
+further; he wished to explain to Bartek that it is not suitable when
+among Germans to speak evil of them, but somehow his tongue became
+entangled.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A little while later the Royal Prussian Mail brought the following
+letter to Pognebin:
+
+     May Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother be praised.
+
+     DEAREST MAGDA! What news of you? It is all right for you to
+     be able to rest quietly in bed at home, but I am fighting
+     horribly hard here. We have been surrounding the great fort
+     of Metz, and there was a battle, and I did for so many of the
+     French that all the Infantry and Artillery were astonished.
+     And the General himself was astonished, and said that I had
+     won the battle, and gave me a cross. And the officers and
+     non-commissioned officers respect me very much now, and
+     rarely box my ears. Afterwards we marched on further, and
+     there was a second battle, but I have forgotten what the town
+     was called; there also I seized and carried off four flags,
+     and knocked down one of the biggest Colonels in the
+     Cuirassiers, and took him prisoner. And as our regiment is
+     going to be sent home, the Sergeant has advised me to ask to
+     be transferred and to stay on here, for in war it is only
+     sleep you do not get, but you may eat as much as you can
+     stand, and in this country there is wine everywhere, for they
+     are a rich nation. We have also burnt a town and we did not
+     spare even women or children, nor did I. The church was burnt
+     on purpose, because they are Catholics, and very wicked
+     people. We are now going on to the Emperor himself, and that
+     will be the end of the war, but you take care of the cottage
+     and Franek, for if you do not take care of it, then I will
+     beat you till you have learnt what sort of a man I am. I
+     commend you to God.
+
+         Bartlomiej Slowik.
+
+Bartek was evidently developing a taste for war, and beginning to
+regard it as his proper trade. He felt greater confidence in himself,
+and now went into battle as he might have gone to his work at
+Pognebin. Medals and crosses covered his breast, and although he did
+not become a non-commissioned officer, he was universally regarded as
+the foremost Private in the regiment. He was always well disciplined,
+as before, and possessed the blind courage of the man who simply takes
+no account of danger. The courage actuating him was no longer of the
+same kind as that which had filled him in his first moments of fury,
+for it now sprang from military experience and faith in himself. Added
+to this his giant strength could endure all kinds of fatigue, marches,
+and overstrain. Men fell at his side, he alone went on unharmed, only
+working all the harder and developing more and more into the stern
+Prussian soldier. He now not only fought the French, but hated them.
+Some of his other ideas also changed. He became a soldier-patriot,
+blindly extolling his leaders. In another letter to Magda he wrote:
+
+     Wojtek is divided in his opinion, and so there is a quarrel
+     between us, do you understand? He is a scoundrel, too,
+     because he says that the French are Germans, but they are
+     French, and we are Germans.
+
+Magda, in her reply to both letters, set about abusing him with the
+first words that came into her head.
+
+     Dearest Bartek (she wrote), married to me before the holy
+     Altar! May God punish you! You yourself are a scoundrel, you
+     heathen, going with those wretches to murder half a nation of
+     Catholics. Do you not understand, then, that those wretches
+     are Lutherans, and that you, a Catholic, are helping them?
+     You like war, you ruffian, because you are able now to do
+     nothing but fight, drink, and illtreat others, and to go
+     without fasting; and you burn churches. But may you burn in
+     Hell for that, because you are even proud of it, and have no
+     thought for old people or children. Remember what has been
+     written in golden letters in the Holy Scriptures about the
+     Polish nation, from the beginning of the world to the
+     Judgment Day,--when God most High will have no regard for
+     sluggards,--and restrain yourself, you Turk, that I may not
+     smash your head to pieces. I have sent you five thalers,
+     although I have need of them here, for I do not know which
+     way to turn, and the household savings are getting short. I
+     embrace you, dearest Bartek.
+
+         MAGDA.
+
+The moral contained in these lines made little impression on Bartek.
+'The wife does not remember her vows,' he thought to himself, 'and is
+meddling.' And he continued to make war on the aged. He distinguished
+himself in every battle so greatly, that finally he again came under
+the honoured notice of Steinmetz. Ultimately when the shattered Polish
+regiment was sent back into the depths of Germany, he took the
+sergeant's advice of applying for leave to be transferred, and stayed
+behind. The result of this was that he found himself outside Paris.
+
+His letters were now full of contempt for the French. 'They run away
+like hares in every battle,' he wrote to Magda, and he wrote the
+truth. But the siege did not prove to his taste. He had to dig or to
+lie in the trenches round Paris for whole days, listening to the roar
+of the guns, and often getting soaked through. Besides, he missed his
+old regiment. In the one to which he had been transferred as a
+volunteer, he was surrounded by Germans. He knew some German, having
+already learnt a little at the factory, but only about five in ten
+words; now he quickly began to grow familiar with it. The regiment
+nicknamed him 'the Polish dog,' however, and it was only his
+decorations and his terrifying fists which shielded him from
+disagreeable jokes. Nevertheless, he earned the respect of his new
+comrades, and began little by little to make friends with them. Since
+he covered the whole regiment with glory, they ultimately came to look
+upon him as one of themselves. Bartek would always have considered
+himself insulted if anyone called him German, but in thinking of
+himself in distinction to the French he called himself 'ein
+Deutscher.' To himself he appeared entirely distinct, but at the same
+time he did not wish to pass for worse than others. An incident
+occurred, nevertheless, which might have given him plenty to reflect
+upon, had reflection come more easily to this hero's mind. Some
+Companies of his regiment had been sent out against some volunteer
+sharpshooters, and laid an ambush for them, into which they fell. But
+the detachment was composed of veteran soldiers, the remains of some
+of the foreign regiments, and this time Bartek did not see the dark
+caps running away after the first shots. They defended themselves
+stubbornly when surrounded, and rushed forward to force their way
+through the encircling Prussian soldiery. They fought so desperately
+that half of them cut their way through, and knowing the fate that
+awaited captured sharpshooters, few allowed themselves to be taken
+alive. The Company in which Bartek was serving therefore only took two
+prisoners. These were lodged overnight in a forester's house, and the
+next day they were to be shot. A small guard of soldiers stood outside
+the door, but Bartek was stationed in the room under the open window
+with the prisoners, who were bound.
+
+One of the prisoners was a man no longer young, with a grey moustache,
+and a face expressing indifference to everything; the other appeared
+to be about twenty-two years of age. With his fair moustache yet
+scarcely showing, his face was more like a woman's that a soldier's.
+
+'Well, this is the end of it,' the young man said after a while, 'a
+bullet through your head--and it's all over!'
+
+Bartek shuddered until the rifle in his hand rattled; the youth talked
+Polish.
+
+'It is all the same to me,' the second answered in a gruff voice, 'as
+I live, all the same! I have lived so long, I have had enough.'
+
+Bartek's heart beat quicker and quicker under his uniform.
+
+'Listen, then,' the older man continued, 'there is no help for it. If
+you are afraid, think about something else, or go to sleep. Enjoy what
+you can. As God loves me, I don't care!'
+
+'My mother will grieve for me,' the youth replied low; and, evidently
+wishing to suppress his emotion, or else to deceive himself, he began
+to whistle. He suddenly interrupted this, and cried in a voice of deep
+despair, 'I did not even say good-bye!'
+
+'Then did you run away from home?'
+
+'Yes. I thought the Germans would be beaten, so there would be better
+things coming for Poland.'
+
+'And I thought the same. But now--'
+
+Waving his hand, the old man finished speaking in a low voice, and his
+last words were overpowered by the roar of the wind. The night was
+dark. Clouds of fine rain swept past from time to time; the wood close
+by was black as a pall. The gale whistled round the corners of the
+room, and howled in the chimney like a dog. The lamp, placed high
+above the window to prevent the wind from extinguishing it, threw a
+flood of bright light into the room. But Bartek, who was standing
+close to it under the window, was plunged in darkness.
+
+And it was perhaps better the prisoners should not see his face, for
+strange things were taking place in this peasant's mind. At first he
+had been filled with astonishment, and had stared hard at the
+prisoners, trying to understand what they were saying. So these men
+had set out to beat the Germans to benefit Poland, and he had beaten
+the French, in order that Poland might benefit! And to-morrow these
+two men would be shot! How was that? What was a poor fellow to think
+about it? But if only he could hint it to them, if only he could tell
+them that he was their man, that he pitied them! He felt a sudden
+catch in his throat. What could he do for them? Could he rescue them?
+Then _he_ would be shot! Good God! what was happening to him? He was
+so overcome by pity that he could not remain in the room.
+
+A strange intense longing suddenly came upon him till he seemed
+somewhere far off at Pognebin. Pity, hitherto an unknown guest in his
+soldier's heart, cried to him from the depth of his soul: 'Bartek,
+save them, they are your brothers!' and his heart, torn as never
+before, cried out for home, for Magda, for Pognebin. He had had
+enough of the French, enough of this war, and of battles! The voice
+sounded clearer and clearer: 'Bartek, save them!' Confound this war!
+The woods showed dark through the open window, moaning like the
+Pognebin pines, and even in that moan something called out, 'Bartek,
+save them!'
+
+What could he do? Should he escape to the wood with them, or what? All
+his Prussian discipline recoiled in aversion at the thought. In the
+Name of the Father and the Son! He need but cross himself at it!
+He,--a soldier, and desert? Never!
+
+All the while the wood was moaning more loudly, the wind whistling
+more mournfully.
+
+The elder prisoner suddenly whispered, 'That wind--like the Spring at
+home.'
+
+'Leave me in peace!' the young man said in a Pognebin voice.
+
+After a moment, however, he repeated several times:
+
+'At home, at home, at home! God! God!'
+
+Deep sighs mingled with the listening wind, and the prisoners lay
+silent once more.
+
+Bartek began to tremble feverishly. There is nothing so bad for a man
+as to be unable to tell what is amiss with him. It seemed to Bartek as
+if he had stolen something, and were afraid of being taken in charge.
+He had a clear conscience, nothing threatened him, but he was
+certainly terribly afraid of something. Indeed, his legs were
+trembling, his rifle had grown dreadfully heavy, and something--like
+bitter sobs--was choking him. Were these for Magda, or for Pognebin?
+For both, but also for that younger prisoner whom it was impossible to
+help.
+
+At times Bartek fancied he must be asleep. All the while the storm
+raged more fiercely round the house, and the cries and voices
+multiplied strangely in the whistling of the wind.
+
+Suddenly every hair of Bartek's head stood on end under his helmet.
+For it seemed as if somewhere from out of the dark, rain-clad depths
+of the forest somebody were groaning, and repeating: 'At home, at
+home, at home!'
+
+Bartek started back, and struck the floor with the butt end of his
+rifle to wake himself. He regained consciousness somehow and looked
+up. The prisoners lay in the corner, the lamp was burning brightly,
+the wind was howling,--all was in order.
+
+The light fell full on to the face of the younger prisoner--a child's
+or girl's face. As he lay there with closed eyes, and straw under his
+head, he looked as if he were already dead.
+
+Never in his life had Bartek been so wrung with pity! Something
+distinctly gripped his throat, and an audible cry was wrung from his
+breast.
+
+At that moment the elder prisoner turned wearily on to his side, and
+said, 'Good-night, Wladek.' Silence followed. An hour passed.
+
+The wind played like the Pognebin organ. The prisoners lay silent.
+Suddenly the younger prisoner, raising himself a little by an effort,
+called, 'Karol?'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Are you asleep?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Listen! I am afraid. Say what you like, but I shall pray.'
+
+'Pray, then.'
+
+'Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom
+come.'
+
+Sobs suddenly interrupted the young prisoner's words, yet the broken
+voice was still heard: 'Thy--will--be--done!'
+
+'Oh Jesu!' something cried in Bartek, 'Oh Jesu!'
+
+Impossible! He could stand it no longer.--Another moment, and
+exclaiming 'Lord, I am only a man!' he had leapt through the window
+into the wood. Let come what may! Suddenly measured steps were heard
+echoing from the direction of the hall: it was the patrol, the
+Sergeant with it. They were changing the guard!
+
+Next day Bartek was drunk all day from early morning. The following
+day likewise....
+
+But fresh advances, fighting, and marches took place during the days
+following, and I am glad to say that our hero regained his
+equilibrium. A certain fondness for the bottle, in which it is always
+possible to find pleasure and at times forgetfulness, remained with
+him after that night, however. For the rest, in battle he was more
+terrible than ever; victory followed in his wake.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+Some months had passed, and the Spring was now well advanced. The
+cherry trees at Pognebin were in blossom and the young corn was
+sprouting abundantly in the fields. One day Magda, seated in front of
+the cottage, was peeling some rotten potatoes for dinner, fitter for
+cattle than for human beings. But it was Spring-time, and poverty had
+visited Pognebin. That could be seen too by the saddened and worried
+look on Magda's face. Possibly in order to distract herself, the
+woman, closing her eyes, sang in a thin, strained voice:
+
+    Alas, my Jasienko has gone to the war! he writes me letters;
+    Alas, and I his wife write to him,--for I cannot see him.
+
+The sparrows twittered in the cherry trees as if they were trying to
+emulate her. She stopped her song and gazed absently at the dog
+sleeping in the sun, at the road passing the cottage, and the path
+leading from the road through the garden and field. Perhaps Magda
+glanced at the path because it led across to the station and, as God
+willed, she did not look in vain that day. A figure appeared in the
+distance, and the woman shaded her eyes with her hand, but she could
+not see clearly, being blinded by the glare. Lysek woke up, however,
+raised his head, and giving a short bark, began to grow excited,
+pricking up his ears and turning his head from side to side. At the
+same moment the words of a song reached Magda indistinctly. Lysek
+sprang up suddenly and ran at full speed towards the newcomer. Then
+Magda turned a little pale.
+
+'Is it Bartek,--or not?'
+
+She jumped up so quickly that the bowl of potatoes rolled on to the
+ground: there was no longer any doubt; Lysek was bounding up to his
+shoulder. The woman rushed forward, shouting in the full strength of
+her joy: 'Bartek! Bartek!'
+
+'Magda, here I am!' Bartek cried, throwing her a kiss, and hurrying
+towards her. He opened the gate, stumbled over the step so that he all
+but fell, recovered himself,--and they were clasped in one anothers'
+arms.
+
+The woman began to speak quickly:
+
+'And I had thought that you would not come back. I thought "they will
+kill him!"--How are you?--Let me see. How good to look at you! You are
+terribly thin! Oh Jesu! Poor fellow!--Oh, my dearest!... He has come
+back, come back!'
+
+For one moment she tore herself from his neck and looked at him, then
+threw herself on to it again.
+
+'Come back! The Lord be praised! Bartek, my darling! How are you? Go
+indoors! Franek is at school being teased by that horrid German! The
+boy is well. He's as dull in the upper storey as you are. Oh, but it
+was time for you to come back! I didn't know any more which way to
+turn. I was miserable, I tell you, miserable! This whole poor house is
+going into ruins. The roof is off the barn. How are you? Oh, Bartek!
+Bartek! That I should actually see you, after all! What trouble I have
+had with the hay!--The neighbours helped me, but they did it to help
+themselves! How are you?--Well? Oh, but I am glad to have you,--glad!
+The Lord watched over you. Go indoors. By God, it's like Bartek, and
+not like Bartek! What's the matter with you? Oh dear! Oh dear!'
+
+At that instant Magda had become aware of a long scar running along
+Bartek's face across his left temple and cheek and down to his beard.
+
+'It's nothing.--A Cuirassier did it for me, but I did the same for
+him. I have been in hospital.'
+
+'Oh Jesu!'
+
+'Why, it's a mere flea-bite.'
+
+'But you are starved to death.'
+
+'Ruhig!' answered Bartek.
+
+He was in truth emaciated, begrimed and in rags:--a true conqueror! He
+swayed too as he stood.
+
+'What's wrong with you? Are you drunk?'
+
+'I--am still weak.'
+
+That he was weak, was certain, but he was tipsy also. For one glass of
+vodka would have been sufficient in his state of exhaustion, and
+Bartek had drunk something like four at the station. The result was
+that he had the bearing of the true conqueror. He had not been like
+this formerly.
+
+'Ruhig!' he repeated. 'We have finished the Krieg. I am a gentleman
+now, do you understand? Look here!' he pointed to his crosses and
+medals. 'Do you know who I am? Eh? Links! Rechts! Heu! Stroh! Halt!'
+
+At the word, 'halt,' he gave such a shrill shout that the woman
+recoiled several steps.
+
+'Are you mad?'
+
+'How are you, Magda? When I say to you "how are you" then how are you?
+Do you know French, stupid? "Musiu, Musiu!" What is "Musiu?" I am a
+"Musiu," do you understand?'
+
+'Man, what's up with you?'
+
+'What's that to you! Was? "Done diner," do you understand?'
+
+A storm began to gather on Magda's brow.
+
+'What rubbish are you jabbering? What's this,--you don't know Polish?
+That's all through those wretches. I said how it would be! What have
+they done to you?'
+
+'Give me something to eat!'
+
+'Be quick indoors.'
+
+Every command made an irresistible impression on Bartek; hearing this
+'Be quick' he drew himself up, held his hand stiffly to his side, and,
+having made a half-turn, marched in the direction indicated. He stood
+still at the threshold, however, and began to look wonderingly at
+Magda.
+
+'Well, what do you want, Magda? What do...?'
+
+'Quick! March!'
+
+He entered the cottage, but fell over the threshold. The vodka was now
+beginning to go to his head. He started singing, and looked round the
+cottage for Franek, even saying 'Morgen, Kerl,' although Franek was
+not there. After that he laughed loudly, staggered, shouted 'Hurrah!'
+and fell full length on the bed. In the evening he awoke sober and
+rested, and welcomed Franek, then, having got some pence out of Magda,
+he took his triumphant way to the inn. The glory of his deeds had
+already preceded him to Pognebin, since more than one of the soldiers
+from other divisions of the same regiment, having returned earlier,
+had related how he had distinguished himself at Gravelotte and Sedan.
+So now when the rumour spread that the conqueror was at the inn, all
+his old comrades hastened there to welcome him.
+
+No one would have recognized our friend Bartek, as he now sat at the
+table. He, formerly so meek, was to be seen striking his fist on the
+table, puffing himself out and gobbling like a turkey-cock.
+
+'Do you remember, you fellows, that time I did for the French, what
+Steinmetz said?'
+
+'How could we forget?'
+
+'People used to talk about the French, and be frightened of them, but
+they are a poor lot--_was_? They run like hares into the lettuce, and
+run away like hares too. They don't drink beer either, nothing but
+strong wine.'
+
+'That's it!'
+
+'When we burnt a town they would wring their hands immediately and cry
+"Pitie, pitie,"[7] as if they meant they would give us a drink if we
+would only leave them alone. But we paid no attention to them.'
+
+'Then can one understand their gibberish?' enquired a young farmer's
+lad.
+
+'You wouldn't understand, because you are stupid, but I understand.
+"Done di pe!"[8] Do you understand?'
+
+'But what did you do?'
+
+'Do you know about Paris? We had one battle after another there, but
+we won them all. They have no good commanders. People say so too. "The
+ground enclosed by the hedge is good," they say, "but it has been
+badly managed." Their officers are bad managers, and their generals
+are bad managers, but on our side they are good.'
+
+Maciej Kierz, the wise old innkeeper of Pognebin, began to shake his
+head.
+
+'Well, the Germans have been victorious in a terrible war; they have
+been victorious--but I always thought they would be. But the Lord
+alone knows what will come out of it for us.'
+
+Bartek stared at him.
+
+'What do you say?'
+
+'The Germans have never cared to consider us much, anyhow, but, now
+they will be as stuck up as if there were no God above them. And they
+will illtreat us still more than they do already.'
+
+'But that's not true!' Bartek said.
+
+Old Kierz was a person of such authority in Pognebin that all the
+village always thought as he did, and it was sheer audacity to
+contradict him. But Bartek was a conqueror now, and an authority
+himself. All the same they gazed at him in astonishment, and even in
+some indignation.
+
+'Who are you, to quarrel with Maciej? Who are you--?'
+
+'What's Maciej to me? It isn't to such as he that I have talked, you
+see! Why, you fellows, I talked, didn't I, to Steinmetz--_was_? But
+let Maciej fancy what he likes. We shall be better off now.'
+
+Maciej looked at the conqueror for a moment.
+
+'You Blockhead!' he said.
+
+Bartek struck his fist on the table, making all the glasses and
+pint-pots start up.
+
+'Still, der Kerl da! Heu! Stroh!'
+
+'Silence, no row! Ask the Priest or the Count, Blockhead.'
+
+'Was the Priest in the war? Or was the Count there? But I was there.
+It's not true, boys. They'll know now how to respect us. Who won the
+battle? We won it, I won it. Now they'll give us anything we ask for.
+If I had wanted to become a land-owner in France, I should have stayed
+there. The Government knows very well who gave the French the best
+beating. And our regiment was the best. They said so in the military
+despatches. So now the Poles will get the upper hand;--do you see?'
+
+Kierz waved his hand, stood up, and went out. Bartek had carried off
+the victory in the field of politics also. The young men remaining
+with him, regarded him as a perfect marvel. He continued:
+
+'As if they wouldn't give me anything I want! If I don't get it, I
+should like to know who would! Old Kierz is a scoundrel, do you see?
+The Government commands you to fight, so you must fight. Who will
+illtreat me? The Germans? Is it likely?'
+
+Here he again displayed his crosses and medals.
+
+'And for whom did I beat the French? Not for the Germans, surely? I am
+a better man now than a German, for there's not one German as strong.
+Bring us some beer! I have talked to Steinmetz, and I have talked to
+Podbielski. Bring us some beer!'
+
+They slowly prepared for their carouse.
+
+Bartek began to sing:
+
+    Drink, drink, drink,
+    As long as in my pocket
+    Still the pennies chink!
+
+Suddenly he took a handful of pence from his pocket.
+
+'Beer! I am a gentleman now.--Won't you? I tell you in France we were
+not so flush of money;--there was little we didn't burn, and few
+people we didn't put a shot into!--God doesn't know which--of the
+French--.'
+
+A tippler's moods are subject to rapid changes. Bartek unexpectedly
+raked together the money from the table, and began to exclaim sadly:
+
+'Lord, have mercy on the sins of my soul!'
+
+Then, propping both elbows on the table, and hiding his head in his
+hands, he was silent.
+
+'What's the matter?' inquired one of the drinkers.
+
+'Why was I to blame for them?' Bartek murmured sadly. 'It was their
+own look-out. I was sorry for them, for they were both in my hands.
+Lord! have mercy! One was as the ruddy dawn! next day he was as white
+as cheese. And even after that I still--Vodka!'
+
+A moment of gloomy silence followed. The men looked at one another in
+astonishment.
+
+'What is he saying?' one asked.
+
+'He is settling something with his conscience.'
+
+'A man must drink in spite of that war.'
+
+He filled up his glass of vodka once or twice, then he spat, and his
+good humour unexpectedly returned.
+
+'Have you ever stood talking to Steinmetz? But I have! Hurrah!--Drink!
+Who pays? I do!'
+
+'You may pay, you drunkard,' sounded Magda's voice, 'but I will repay
+you! Never fear!'
+
+Bartek looked at his wife with glassy eyes.
+
+'Have you talked to Steinmetz? Who are you?'
+
+Instead of replying to him, Magda turned to the interested listeners,
+and began to exclaim:
+
+'Oh, you men, you wretched men, do you see the disgrace and misery I
+am in? He came back, and I was glad to welcome him as a good man, but
+he came back drunk. He has forgotten God, and he has forgotten
+Polish. He went to sleep, he woke up sober, and now he's drinking
+again, and paying for it with my money, which I had earned by my own
+work. And where have you taken that money from? Isn't it what I have
+earned by all my trouble and slavery? I tell you men, he's no longer a
+Catholic, he's not a man any more, he's bewitched by the Germans, he
+jabbers German, and is just waiting to do harm to people. He's
+possessed....'
+
+Here the woman burst into tears; then, raising her voice an octave
+higher:--'He was stupid, but he was good. But now, what have they done
+to him? I looked out for him in the evening, I looked out for him in
+the morning, and I have lived to see him. There is no peace and no
+mercy anywhere. Great God! Merciful God!--If you had only left it
+alone,--if you had only remained German altogether!'
+
+Her last words ended in such a wail, it was almost like a cadence. But
+Bartek merely said:
+
+'Be quiet, or I shall do for you!'
+
+'Strike me, hit my head, hit me now, kill me, murder me!' the woman
+screamed, and stretching her neck forward, she turned to the man.
+
+'And you fellows, watch!--'
+
+But the men were beginning to disperse. The inn was soon deserted, and
+only Bartek and his wife, with her neck stretched forward, remained.
+
+'Why do you stretch out your neck like a goose?' murmured Bartek. 'Go
+home.'
+
+'Hit me!' repeated Magda.
+
+'Well, I shan't hit,' replied Bartek, putting his hands into his
+pockets. Here the innkeeper, wishing to put an end to the quarrel,
+turned out one of the lights. The room became dark and silent. After a
+while Magda's shrill voice sounded through the darkness:
+
+'Hit me!'
+
+'I shan't hit,' replied Bartek's triumphant voice.
+
+Two figures were to be seen going by moonlight from the inn to the
+cottage. One of them, walking in front, was sobbing loudly; that was
+Magda; after her, hanging his head and following humbly enough, went
+the victor of Gravelotte and Sedan.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Bartek went home so tipsy that for some days he was unfit for work.
+This was most unfortunate for all his household affairs, which were in
+need of a strong man to look after them. Magda did her best. She
+worked from morning till night, and the neighbours helped her as well
+as they could, but even so she could not make both ends meet, and the
+household was being ruined little by little. Then there were a few
+small debts to the German Colonist, Just, who, having at a favourable
+moment bought some thirteen acres of waste land at Pognebin, now had
+the best property in the whole village. He had ready money besides,
+which he lent out at sufficiently high interest. He lent it chiefly to
+the owner of the property, Count Jarzynski, who bore the nickname of
+the 'Golden Prince,' but who was obliged to keep up his house in a
+style of befitting splendour for that very reason. Just, however, also
+lent to peasants. For six months Magda had owed him some twenty
+thalers, part of which she had borrowed for her housekeeping, and
+part to send to Bartek during the war. Yet that need not have
+mattered. God had granted a good harvest, and it would have been
+possible to repay the debt out of the incoming crop, provided that the
+hands and the labour were forthcoming. Unluckily Bartek could not
+work. Magda did not quite believe this, and went to the priest for
+help, thinking he might rouse her husband; but this was really
+impossible. When at all tired, Bartek grew short of breath and his
+wounds pained him. So he sat in front of the cottage all day long,
+smoking his clay pipe with the figure of Bismarck in white uniform and
+a Cuirassier's helmet, and gazed at the world with the drowsy eyes of
+a man still feeling the effects of bodily fatigue. He pondered a
+little on the war, a little on his victories, on Magda,--a little on
+everything, a little on nothing.
+
+One day, as he sat thus, he heard Franek crying in the distance on his
+way home from school. He was howling till the echoes rang.
+
+Bartek pulled his pipe out of his mouth.
+
+'Why, Franek, what's the matter with you?'
+
+'What's the matter?' repeated Franek, sobbing.
+
+'Why are you crying?'
+
+'Why shouldn't I cry, when I have had my ears boxed?'
+
+'Who boxed your ears?'
+
+'Who? Why, Herr Boege!'
+
+Herr Boege filled the post of schoolmaster at Pognebin.
+
+'And has he a right to box your ears?'
+
+'I suppose so, as he did it.'
+
+Magda, who had been hoeing in the garden, came through the hedge, and,
+with the hoe in her hand, went up to the child.
+
+'What are you saying?' she asked.
+
+'What am I saying--? If that Boege didn't call me a Polish pig, and
+give me a box on the ears, and say that just as they have beaten the
+French now, so they will trample us underfoot, for they are the
+strongest. And I had done nothing to him, but he had asked me who is
+the greatest person in the world, and I had said it was the Holy
+Father, but he boxed my ears, and I began to cry, and he called me a
+Polish pig, and said that just as they have beaten the French....'
+
+Franek was beginning it all over again,--'and he said, and I
+said,'--but Magda covered his mouth with her hand, and she herself,
+turning to Bartek, exclaimed:--
+
+'Do you hear? Do you hear? Go to the French war, then let a German
+beat your child like a dog!--Curse him! Go to the war, and let this
+Swabian kill your child!--You have your reward!... May....'
+
+Here Magda, moved by her own eloquence, also began to cry to Franek's
+accompaniment. Bartek stared open-mouthed with astonishment, and could
+not bring out a single word, or comprehend in the least what had
+happened. How was this? And what of his victories?--He sat on in
+silence for some moments, then suddenly something leaped into his
+eyes, and the blood rushed to his face. With ignorant people
+astonishment, like terror, often turns to rage. Bartek sprang up
+suddenly, and jerked out through his clenched teeth:--
+
+'I will talk to him!'
+
+And he went out. It was not far to go; the school lay close to the
+church. Herr Boege was just standing in front of the verandah,
+surrounded by a herd of young pigs, to which he was throwing pieces of
+bread.
+
+He was a tall man, about fifty years of age, still as vigorous as an
+oak. He was not particularly stout, but his face was very fat, and he
+had a pair of very protruding eyes which expressed courage and energy.
+
+Bartek went up to him very quickly.
+
+'German, why have you been beating my child? _Was?_' he asked.
+
+Herr Boege took a few steps backwards, measured him with a glance
+without a shade of fear, and said phlegmatically:--
+
+'Begone, Polish prize-fighter!'
+
+'Why have you been beating my child?' repeated Bartek.
+
+'I will beat you too, you low Polish scoundrel! I will show you who is
+master here. Go to the devil, go to the law,--begone!'
+
+Bartek, having seized the schoolmaster by the shoulder, began to shake
+him roughly, crying in a hoarse voice:--
+
+'Do you know who I am? Do you know who did for the French? Do you know
+who talked to Steinmetz? Why do you beat my child, you cursed Swabian
+dog?'
+
+Herr Boege's protruding eyes glared no less than Bartek's, but Boege
+was a strong man, and he resolved to free himself from his assailant
+by a single blow. This blow descended with a loud smack on the face of
+the victor of Gravelotte and Sedan.
+
+At that the man forgot everything. Boege's head was shaken from side
+to side with a swift motion recalling a pendulum, but with this
+difference that the shaking was alarmingly rapid. The formidable
+vanquisher of Turcos and Zouaves awoke in Bartek once more. Boege's
+twelve year old son, Oscar, a lad as strong as his father, ran in vain
+to his assistance. A short, but terrible struggle took place, in which
+the son fell to the ground, and the father felt himself lifted up into
+the air. Bartek, raising his hand, held him there, he himself
+scarcely knew how. Unluckily the tub of dishwater, which Herr Boege
+had been assiduously mixing for the pigs, stood near. Into this tub
+Herr Boege now capsized, and a moment later his feet were to be seen
+projecting from it, and kicking violently. His wife darted out of the
+house:--
+
+'Help, to the rescue!'
+
+The German colonists rushed from the houses near to their neighbour's
+assistance. Some of them fell on Bartek and began to belabour him with
+sticks and stones. In the general confusion which followed it was
+difficult to distinguish Bartek from his adversaries: some thirteen
+bodies were to be seen rolling round in a single mass, and struggling
+convulsively.
+
+Suddenly, however, from out of this fighting mass Bartek burst forth
+like fury, making towards the hedge with all his might.
+
+The Germans ran after him, but an alarming crack was heard in the
+hedge at the same moment, and Bartek's iron hands brandished a stout
+stick.
+
+He returned raging and furious, holding the stick in the air: they all
+fled.
+
+Bartek went after them, but luckily did not overtake anyone. Thus his
+rage cooled, and he began to retreat homewards. Ah! if only it had
+been the French he had been facing! His retreat would then have made
+immortal history.
+
+As it was, he was being attacked by about a dozen people who, when
+they had reassembled, set on him afresh. Bartek retired slowly, like a
+wild boar pursued by dogs. He turned round now and then and stood
+still: then his pursuers stood still too. The stick had earned their
+complete respect.
+
+They threw stones at him, nevertheless, one of which wounded Bartek in
+the forehead. The blood poured into his eyes, and he felt himself
+growing faint. He swayed once or twice, let go the stick, and fell
+down.
+
+'Hurrah!' cried the Germans.
+
+But by the time they reached him, Bartek had got up again: then they
+held back. This wounded wolf was still dangerous. Besides, he was now
+not far from the first cottage, and some labourers could be seen in
+the distance hurrying to the battlefield at full speed. The Germans
+retired to their houses.
+
+'What has happened?' enquired the newcomers.
+
+'I have been trying my hand a bit on the Germans,' Bartek answered.
+And he fainted.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+It proved a serious affair. The German newspapers published flaming
+articles on the persecutions to which the peaceful German population
+was subjected at the hands of the barbarian and ignorant masses, who
+were roused by socialist agitation and religious fanaticism. Boege
+became a hero. He, the quiet, gentle schoolmaster, spreading the light
+of learning on the far borders of the Empire; he, the true missionary
+of culture amid barbarians, had fallen a first victim to the riot. It
+was fortunate that there were a hundred million Germans to stand up
+for him, who would never allow.... And so on.
+
+Bartek did not know what a storm was brewing over his head. On the
+contrary, he was in good spirits; he was certain that he would win at
+the trial. For Boege had beaten his child, and had dealt him the first
+blow, and it had afterwards been he who had been attacked from behind!
+Surely he had a right to defend himself. They had also thrown a stone
+at his head,--actually thrown it at him, who had been mentioned in the
+daily despatches, who had won the battle of Gravelotte, had talked to
+Steinmetz himself, and received so many medals. It is true it never
+entered his head that the Germans did not know all this when they
+wronged him so greatly, any more than it occurred to him that Boege
+could substantiate his threat to Pognebin that the Germans would now
+trample it underfoot in the same way in which they, the Pognebinites,
+had so thoroughly beaten the French whenever they had had an
+opportunity. But as for himself, he was certain that public opinion
+and the Government would be in his favour. They would certainly know
+who he was, and what he had done during the war. If he was not a
+different man to what he thought him, Steinmetz would espouse his
+cause. Since Bartek was the poorer through the war, and his house in
+debt, they were, anyhow, not doing him justice.
+
+All the same, the police from Pognebin rode up to Bartek's house. They
+had expected serious resistance, for as many as five appeared with
+loaded revolvers. They were mistaken; Bartek had not thought of
+offering any resistance. They told him to get into the carriage,--and
+he got in. Magda alone was desperate, persistently repeating:--
+
+'Oh dear, what did you fight those French for? You will catch it now,
+poor fellow, that you will!'
+
+'Be quiet, stupid!' Bartek answered, and smiled quite cheerfully to
+the passers-by as he drove along.
+
+'I'll show them who it is they have offended!' he cried from the
+carriage.
+
+And, covered with his medals, he drove along to the trial like a
+conqueror.
+
+As a matter of fact, the trial went in his favour. The judge decided
+to be lenient under the circumstances: Bartek was only condemned to
+three months' imprisonment.
+
+In addition to this he had to pay a fine of 150 marks to the Boege
+family and 'other injured colonists.'
+
+'Nevertheless the prisoner,' wrote the _Posener Zeitung_ in the
+Criminal Report, 'showed not the slightest sign of contrition when the
+sentence was passed on him, but poured forth such a stream of
+invective, and began to enumerate his so-called services to the State
+in such an impudent manner, that it is surprising these insults to the
+Court and the German nation,' etc., etc.
+
+Meanwhile Bartek in prison quietly recalled his deeds at Gravelotte,
+Sedan, and Paris.
+
+We should, however, be doing an injustice in asserting that Herr
+Boege's action called forth no public censure. Very much the reverse.
+On a certain rainy morning a Polish Member of Parliament pointed out
+with great eloquence that the attitude of the Government towards the
+Poles had altered in Posen; that, considering the courage and
+sacrifice displayed by the Polish regiments during the war, it would
+be fitting to have more regard for justice in the Polish provinces;
+finally, that Herr Boege at Pognebin had abused his position as
+schoolmaster by beating a Polish child, calling it a Polish pig, and
+holding out hopes that after this war the inhabitants would trample
+the native population under foot. The rain fell as the Member was
+speaking, and as such weather makes people sleepy, the Conservatives
+yawned, the National-Liberals yawned, the Centre yawned,--for they
+were still being faced by the 'Kultur-Kampf.'
+
+Following immediately on this 'Polish question' the Chamber proceeded
+to the order of the day.
+
+Meanwhile Bartek sat in prison, or rather, he lay in the prison
+infirmary, for the blow from the stone had re-opened the wound which
+he had received in the war.
+
+When not feverish, he thought and thought, like the turkeycock that
+died of thinking. But Bartek did not die, he merely did not arrive at
+any conclusion.
+
+Now and then, however, during moments, which Science names 'lucida
+intervalla,' it occurred to him that he had perhaps exerted himself
+unnecessarily in 'doing for' the French.
+
+Difficult times followed for Magda. The fine had to be paid, and
+there was nothing with which to pay it. The priest at Pognebin offered
+to help, but it turned out that there were not quite forty marks in
+his money box. The parish of Pognebin was poor; besides, the good old
+man never knew how his money went. Count Jarzynski was not at home. It
+was said that he had gone love-making to some rich lady in Prussia.
+
+Magda did not know where to turn.
+
+An extension of the loan was not to be thought of. What else, then?
+Should she sell the horse or the cows? Meanwhile Winter passed into
+Spring, the hardest time of all. It would soon be harvest, when she
+would need money for extra labour, and even now it was all exhausted.
+The woman wrung her hands in despair. She sent a petition to the
+Magistrate, recalling Bartek's services; she never even received an
+answer. The time for repayment of the loan was drawing near, and the
+sequestration with it.
+
+She prayed and prayed, remembering bitterly the time when they were
+well off, and when Bartek used to earn money at the factory in winter.
+She tried to borrow money from her neighbours; they had none. The war
+had made itself felt all round. She did not dare to go to Just,
+because she was in his debt already, and had not even paid the
+interest. However, Just unexpectedly came to see her himself.
+
+One afternoon she was sitting in the cottage doorway doing nothing,
+for despair had drained her strength. She was gazing before her at two
+golden butterflies chasing one another in the air, and thinking 'how
+happy those creatures are, they live for themselves and needn't
+pay'--and so on. After a while she sighed heavily, and a low cry broke
+from her pale lips: 'Oh God! God!' Suddenly at the gate appeared
+Just's long nose, and his long pipe beneath it. The woman turned pale.
+Just addressed her:--
+
+'Morgen!'
+
+'How are you, Herr Just?'
+
+'What about my money?'
+
+'Oh, my dear Herr Just, have pity! I am very poor, and what am I to
+do? They have taken my man away,--I have to pay the fine for him,--and
+I don't know where to turn. It would be better to die than to be
+worried like this from day to day. Do wait a while longer, dear Herr
+Just!'
+
+She burst out crying, and seizing Herr Just's fat, red hand, she
+kissed it humbly. 'The Count will be back soon, then I will borrow
+from him, and give it back to you.'
+
+'Well, and how will you repay the fine?'
+
+'How can I tell?--I might sell the cow.'
+
+'Then I will lend you some more.'
+
+'May God Almighty repay you, my dear Sir! Although you are a Lutheran,
+you are a good man. I speak the truth! If only other Germans were
+like you, Sir, one might bless them.'
+
+'But I don't lend money without interest.'
+
+'I know, I know.'
+
+'Then write me one receipt for it all.'
+
+'You are a kind gentleman, may God repay you too in the same way.'
+
+'We will draw up the bill when I go into the town.'
+
+He went into the town and drew up the bill, but Magda had gone to the
+priest for advice beforehand. Yet what could he advise? The priest
+said he was very sorry for her; the time given for repayment was
+short, the interest was high, Count Jarzynski was not at home; had he
+been, he might have helped. Magda, however, could not wait until the
+team was sold, and she was obliged to accept Just's terms. She
+contracted a debt of three hundred marks, that is, twice the amount of
+the fine, for it was certainly necessary to have a few pence in the
+house to carry on the housekeeping. On account of the importance of
+the document, Bartek was obliged to sign it, and for this reason Magda
+went to see him in prison. The conqueror was very depressed, dejected,
+and ill. He had wished to forward a petition, setting forth his
+grievances, but petitions were not accepted;--opinion in
+Administrative circles had turned against him since the Articles in
+the _Posener Zeitung_. For were not these very Authorities bound to
+afford protection to the peaceful German population, who, during the
+recent war, had given so many proofs of devotion and sacrifice to the
+Fatherland? They were therefore obliged in fairness to reject Bartek's
+petition. But it is not surprising that this should have depressed him
+at last.
+
+'We are done for all round,' he said to his wife.
+
+'All round,' she repeated.
+
+Bartek began to ruminate deeply on the circumstances.
+
+'It's a cruel injustice to me,' he said.
+
+'That man Boege persecutes one,' Magda replied. 'I went to implore
+him, and he called me names too. Ah! the Germans have the upper hand
+now at Pognebin. They aren't afraid of anyone.'
+
+'Of course, for they are the strongest,' Bartek said sadly.
+
+'As I am a plain woman, I tell you God is the strongest.'
+
+'In Him is our refuge,' added Bartek.
+
+They were both silent a moment, then he asked again:--
+
+'Well, and what of Just?'
+
+'If the Lord Almighty gives us a crop, then perhaps we shall be able
+to repay him. Possibly too the Count will help us, although he
+himself has debts with the German. They said even before the war that
+he would have to sell Pognebin. Let us hope that he will bring home a
+rich wife.'
+
+'But will he be back soon?'
+
+'Who knows? They say at the house that he will soon be coming with his
+wife. And directly he is back the Germans will be upon him. It's
+always those Germans! They are as plentiful as worms! Wherever one
+looks, whichever way one turns, whether in the village or the
+town--Germans for our sins! But where are we to get help from?'
+
+'Perhaps you can decide on something, for you are a clever woman.'
+
+'What can I advise? Should I have borrowed money from Just if I could
+have helped it? I did it for a good reason, but now the cottage in
+which we are settled, and the land also are already his. Just is
+better than other Germans, but he too has an eye to his own profit,
+not other people's. He won't be lenient to us any more than he has
+been lenient to others. I am not so stupid as not to know why he
+sticks his money in here! But what is one to do, what is one to do?'
+she cried, wringing her hands. 'Give some advice yourself, if you are
+clever. You can beat the French, but what will you do without a roof
+over your head, or a crust to eat?'
+
+The victor of Gravelotte bent his head. 'Oh Jesu! Jesu!'
+
+Magda had a kind heart; Bartek's grief touched her, so she said
+quickly:--
+
+'Never mind, dear boy, never mind. Don't worry as long as you are not
+yet well. The rye is so fine, it's bending to the ground; the wheat
+the same. The ground doesn't belong to the Germans; it's as good as
+ever it was. The fields were in a bad state before your quarrel, but
+now they are growing so well, you'll see!'
+
+Magda began to smile through her tears.
+
+'The ground doesn't belong to the Germans,' she repeated once more.
+
+'Magda!' Bartek said, looking at her with wide-open eyes, 'Magda!'
+
+'What?'
+
+'But,--because you are ... if....'
+
+Bartek felt deep gratitude towards her, but he could not express it.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+In truth Magda was worth more than ten other women put together. Her
+manner towards Bartek was rather curt, but she was really attached to
+him. In moments of excitement, as, for example, in the prison, she
+told him to his face that he was stupid; nevertheless, before other
+people she would generally exclaim:--'My Bartek pretends to be stupid,
+but that's his slyness.' She used frequently to say this. As a matter
+of fact, Bartek was about as cunning as his horse, and without Magda
+he would have been unable to manage either his holding or anything
+else. Now, when everything rested on her honest shoulders, she left no
+stone unturned, running hither and thither to beg for help. A week
+after her last visit to the prison infirmary she ran in again to see
+Bartek, breathless, beaming, and happy.
+
+'My word, Bartek, how are you?' she exclaimed gleefully. 'Do you know
+the Count has arrived! He was married in Prussia; the young lady is a
+beauty! But he has done well for himself all round in getting her;
+fancy,--just fancy!'
+
+The owner of Pognebin had really been married and come home with his
+wife, and had actually done very well by himself all round in finding
+her.
+
+'Well, and what of that?' enquired Bartek.
+
+'Be quiet, Blockhead,' Magda replied. 'Oh! how out of breath I am! Oh
+Jesu! I went to pay my respects to the lady. I looked at her: she came
+out to meet me like a queen, as young and charming as a flower, and as
+beautiful as the dawn!--Oh dear, how out of breath I am!--'
+
+Magda took her handkerchief, and began to wipe the perspiration from
+her face. The next instant she started talking again in a gasping
+voice:--
+
+'She had a blue dress like that blue-bottle. I fell at her feet, and
+she gave me her hand;--I kissed it,--and her hands are as sweet and
+tiny as a child's. She is just like a saint in a picture, and she is
+good, and feels for poor people. I began to beg her for help.--May God
+give her health!--And she said, "I will do," she said, "whatever lies
+in my power." And she has such a pretty little voice that when she
+speaks one does feel pleased. So then I began to tell her that there
+are unhappy people in Pognebin, and she said, "Not only in Pognebin,"
+and then I burst into tears, and she too. And then the Count came in,
+and he saw that she was crying, so he would have liked to take her and
+give her a little kiss. Gentlefolk aren't like us! Then she said to
+him, "Do what you can for this woman." And he said, "Anything in the
+world, whatever you wish."--May the Mother of God bless her, that
+lovely creature, may She bless her with children and with health!--The
+Count said at once: "You must be heavily in debt, if you have fallen
+into the hands of the Germans, but," he said, "I will help you, and
+also against Just."'
+
+Bartek began to scratch his neck.
+
+'But the Germans have got hold of him too.'
+
+'What of that? His wife is rich. They could buy all the Germans in
+Pognebin now, so it was easy for him to talk like that. "The
+election," he said, "is coming on before long, and people had better
+take care not to vote for Germans; but I will make short work of Just
+and Boege." And the lady put her arm round his neck,--and the Count
+asked after you, and said, "if he is ill, I will speak to the doctor
+about giving him a certificate to show that he is unfit to be
+imprisoned now. If they don't let him off altogether," he said, "he
+will be imprisoned in the winter, but he is needed now for working the
+crops." Do you hear? The Count was in the town yesterday, and invited
+the doctor to come on a visit to Pognebin to-day. He's not a German.
+He'll write the certificate. In the winter you'll sit in prison like
+a king, you'll be warm, and they'll give you meat to eat; and now you
+are going home to work, and Just will be repaid, and possibly the
+Count won't want any interest, and if we can't give it all back in the
+Autumn, I'll beg it from the lady. May the Mother of God bless her....
+Do you hear?'
+
+'She is a good lady. There are not many such!' Bartek said at once.
+
+'You must fall at her feet, I tell you,--but no, for then that lovely
+head would bend to you! If only God grants us a crop. And do you see
+where the help has come from? Was it from the Germans? Did they give a
+single penny for your stupid head? Well, they gave you as much as it
+was worth! Fall at the lady's feet, I say!'
+
+'I can't do otherwise,' Bartek replied resolutely.
+
+Fortune seemed to smile on the conqueror once more. He was informed
+some days later that for reasons of health he would be released from
+prison until the winter. He was ordered to appear before the
+Magistrate. The man who, bayonet in hand, had seized flags and guns,
+now began to fear a uniform more than death. A deep, unconscious
+feeling was growing in his mind that he was being persecuted, that
+they could do as they liked with him, and that there was some mighty,
+yet malevolent and evil power above him, which, if he resisted, would
+crush him. So there he stood before the Magistrate, as formerly before
+Steinmetz, upright, his body drawn in, his chest thrown forward, not
+daring to breathe. There were some officers present also: they
+represented war and the military prison to Bartek. The officers looked
+at him through their gold eye-glasses with the pride and disdain
+befitting Prussian officers towards a private soldier and Polish
+peasant. He stood holding his breath, and the Magistrate said
+something in a commanding tone. He did not ask or persuade, he
+commanded and threatened. A Member had died in Berlin, and the writs
+for a fresh election had been issued.
+
+'You Polish dog, just you dare to vote for Count Jarzynski, just you
+dare!'
+
+At this the officers knitted their brows into threatening leonine
+wrinkles. One, lighting his cigar, repeated after the Magistrate 'Just
+you dare!' and Bartek the Conqueror's heart died within him. When he
+heard the order given, 'Go!' he made a half turn to the left, went out
+and took breath. They told him to vote for Herr Schulberg of Great
+Krzywda; he paid no attention to the command, but took a deep breath.
+For he was going to Pognebin, he could be at home during harvest time,
+the Count had promised to pay Just. He walked out of the town; the
+ripening cornfields surrounded him on every side, the heavy blades
+hurtling one another in the wind, and murmuring with a sound dear to
+the peasant's ear. Bartek was still weak, but the sun warmed him. 'Ah!
+how beautiful the world is!' this worn-out soldier thought.
+
+It was not much further to Pognebin.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+'The Election! The Election!'
+
+Countess Marya Jarzynski's head was full of it, and she thought,
+talked and dreamt of nothing else.
+
+'You are a great politician,' an aristocratic neighbour said to her,
+kissing her small hands in a snake-like way. But the 'great
+politician' blushed like a cherry, and answered with a beautiful
+smile:--
+
+'Oh, we only do what we can!'
+
+'Count Jozef will be elected,' the nobleman said with conviction, and
+the 'great politician' answered:--
+
+'I should wish it very much, though not alone for Jozef's sake, but'
+(here the 'great politician' dropped her imprudent hands again), 'for
+the common cause...'
+
+'By God! Bismarck is in the right!' cried the nobleman, kissing the
+tiny hands once more. After which they proceeded to discuss the
+canvassing. The nobleman himself undertook Krzywda Dolna and Mizerow,
+(Great Krzywda was lost, for Herr Schulberg owned all the property
+there), and Countess Marya was to occupy herself specially with
+Pognebin. She was all aglow with the _role_ she was to fill, and she
+certainly lost no time. She was daily to be seen at the cottages on
+the main road, holding her skirt with one hand, her parasol with the
+other, while from under her skirt peeped her tiny feet, tripping
+enthusiastically in the great political cause. She went into the
+cottages, she said to the people working on the road, 'The Lord help
+you!' She visited the sick, made herself agreeable to the people, and
+helped where she could. She would have done the same without politics,
+for she had a kind heart, but she did it all the more on this account.
+Why should not she also contribute her share to the political cause?
+But she did not dare confess to her husband that she had an
+irresistible desire to attend the village meeting. In imagination she
+had even planned the speech she would make at the meeting. And what a
+speech it would be! What a speech! True, she would certainly never
+dare to make it, but if she dared--why then! Consequently when the
+news reached Pognebin that the Authorities had prohibited the meeting,
+the 'great politician' burst into a fit of anger, tore one
+handkerchief up completely, and had red eyes all day. In vain her
+husband begged her not to 'demean' herself to such a degree; next day
+the canvassing was carried on with still greater fervour. Nothing
+stopped Countess Marya now. She visited thirteen cottages in one day,
+and talked so loudly against the Germans that her husband was obliged
+to check her. But there was no danger. The people welcomed her gladly,
+they kissed her hands and smiled at her, for she was so pretty and her
+cheeks were so rosy that wherever she went she brought brightness with
+her. Thus she came to Bartek's cottage also. Although Lysek did not
+bark at her, Magda in her excitement hit him on the head with a stick.
+
+'Oh lady, my beautiful lady, my dear lady!' cried Magda, seizing her
+hands.
+
+In accordance with his resolve, Bartek threw himself at her feet,
+while little Franek first kissed her hand, then stuck his thumb into
+his mouth and lost himself in whole-hearted admiration.
+
+'I hope'--the young lady said after the first greetings were over,--'I
+hope, my friend Bartek, that you will vote for my husband, and not for
+Herr Schulberg.'
+
+'Oh my dear lady!' Magda exclaimed, 'who would vote for
+Schulberg?--Give him the ten plagues! The lady must excuse me, but
+when one gets talking about the Germans, one can't help what one
+says.'
+
+'My husband has just told me that he has repaid Just.'
+
+'May God bless him!' Here Magda turned to Bartek. 'Why do you stand
+there like a post? I must beg the lady's pardon, but he's wonderfully
+dumb.'
+
+'You will vote for my husband, won't you?' the lady asked. 'You are
+Poles, and we are Poles, so we will hold to one another.'
+
+'I should throttle him if he didn't vote for him,' Magda said. 'Why do
+you stand there like a post? He's wonderfully dumb. Bestir yourself a
+bit!'
+
+Bartek again kissed the lady's hand, but he remained silent, and
+looked as black as night. The Magistrate was in his mind.
+
+The day of the Election drew near, and arrived. Count Jarzynski was
+certain of victory. All the neighbourhood assembled at Pognebin. After
+voting the gentlemen returned there from the town to wait for the
+priest, who was to bring the news. Afterwards there was to be a
+dinner, but in the evening the noble couple were going to Posen, and
+subsequently to Berlin also. Several villages in the Electoral
+Division had already polled the day beforehand. The result would be
+made known on this day. The company was in a cheerful frame of mind.
+The young lady was slightly nervous, yet full of hope and smiles, and
+made such a charming hostess that everyone agreed Count Jozef had
+found a real treasure in Prussia. This treasure was quite unable at
+present to keep quiet in one place, and ran from guest to guest,
+asking each for the hundredth time to assure her that 'Jozio would be
+elected.' She was not actually ambitious, and it was not out of vanity
+that she wished to be the wife of a Member, but she was dreaming in
+her young mind that she and her husband together had a real mission to
+accomplish. So her heart beat as quickly as at the moment of her
+wedding, and her pretty little face was lighted up with joy. Skilfully
+manoeuvering amidst her guests, she approached her husband, drew him
+by the hand, and whispered in his ear, like a child, nicknaming
+someone, 'The Hon. Member!' He smiled, and both were happy at the most
+trifling word. They both felt a great wish to give one another a warm
+embrace, but owing to the presence of their guests, this could not be.
+Everyone, however, was looking out of the window every moment, for the
+question was a really important one. The former Member, who had died,
+was a Pole, and this was the first time in this Division that the
+Germans had put up a candidate of their own. Their military success
+had evidently given them courage, but just for that reason it the more
+concerned those assembled at the manor house at Pognebin to secure the
+election of their candidate. Before dinner there was no lack of
+patriotic speeches, which especially moved the young hostess who was
+unaccustomed to them. Now and then she suffered an access of fear.
+Supposing there should be a mistake in counting the votes? But there
+would surely not only be Germans serving on the Committee! The
+principal landowners would simply flock to her husband, so that it
+would be possible to dispense with counting the votes. She had heard
+this a hundred times, but she still wished to hear it! Ah! and would
+it not make all the difference whether the local population had an
+enemy in Parliament, or someone to champion their cause? It would soon
+be decided,--in a short moment, in fact,--for a cloud of dust was
+rising from the road.
+
+'The priest is coming! The priest is coming!' reiterated those
+present. The lady grew pale. Excitement was visible on every face.
+They were certain of victory, all the same this final moment made
+their hearts beat more rapidly. But it was not the priest, it was the
+steward returning from the town on horseback. Perhaps he might know
+something? He tied his horse to the gate post, and hurried to the
+house. The guests and the hostess rushed into the hall.
+
+'Is there any news?--Is there any? Has our friend been
+elected?--What?--Come here!--Do you know for certain?--Has the result
+been declared?'
+
+The questions rose and fell like rockets, but the man threw his cap
+into the air.
+
+'The Count is elected!'
+
+The lady sat down on a bench abruptly, and pressed her hand to her
+fast beating heart.
+
+'Hurrah! Hurrah!' the neighbours shouted, 'Hurrah!'
+
+The servants rushed out from the kitchen.
+
+'Hurrah! Down with the Germans! Long live the Member! And my lady the
+Member's wife!'
+
+'But the priest?' someone asked.
+
+'He will be here directly;' the steward answered, 'they are still
+counting....'
+
+'Let us have dinner!' the Hon. Member cried.
+
+'Hurrah!' several people repeated.
+
+They all walked back again from the hall to the drawing room.
+Congratulations to the host and hostess were now offered more calmly;
+the lady herself, however, did not know how to restrain her joy, and
+disregarding the presence of others, threw her arm round her husband's
+neck. But they thought none the worse of her for this; on the
+contrary, they were all much touched.
+
+'Well, we still survive!' the neighbour from Mizerow said.
+
+At this moment there was a clatter along the corridor, and the priest
+entered the drawing room, followed by old Maciej, of Pognebin.
+
+'Welcome! Welcome!' they all cried. 'Well,--how great?'
+
+The priest was silent a moment; then as it were into the very face of
+this universal joy he suddenly hurled the two harsh, brief words:
+
+'Schulberg--elected!'
+
+A moment of astonishment followed, a volley of hurried and anxious
+questions, to which the priest again replied:
+
+'Schulberg is elected!'
+
+'How?--What has happened?--By what means?--The steward said it was not
+so.--What has happened?'
+
+Meanwhile Count Jarzynski was leading poor Countess Marya out of the
+room, who was biting her hankerchief, not to burst into tears or to
+faint.
+
+'Oh what a misfortune, what a misfortune!' the assembled guests
+repeated, striking their foreheads.
+
+A dull sound like people shouting for joy rose at that moment from the
+direction of the village. The Germans of Pognebin were thus gleefully
+celebrating their victory.
+
+Count and Countess Jarzynski returned to the drawing room. He could be
+heard saying to his wife at the door, 'Il faut faire bonne mine,' and
+she had stopped crying already. Her eyes were dry and very red.
+
+'Will you tell us how it was?' the host asked quietly.
+
+'How could it be otherwise, Sir,' old Maciej said, 'seeing that even
+the Pognebin peasants voted for Schulberg?'
+
+'Who did so?'
+
+'What? Those here?'
+
+'Why, yes; I myself and everyone saw Bartek Slowik vote for
+Schulberg.'
+
+'Bartek Slowik?' the lady said.
+
+'Why, yes. The others are at him now for it. The man is rolling on the
+ground, howling, and his wife is scolding him. But I myself saw how he
+voted.'
+
+'From such an enlightened village!' the neighbour from Mizerow said.
+
+'You see, Sir,' Maciej said, 'others who were in the war also voted as
+he did. They say that they were ordered--'
+
+'That's cheating, pure cheating!--The election is
+void--Compulsion!--Swindling!' cried different voices.
+
+The dinner at the Pognebin manor house was not cheerful that day.
+
+The host and hostess left in the evening, but not as yet for Berlin,
+only for Dresden.
+
+Meanwhile Bartek sat in his cottage, miserable, sworn at, ill-treated
+and hated, a stranger even to his own wife, for even she had not
+spoken a word to him all day.
+
+In the autumn God granted a crop, and Herr Just, who had just come
+into possession of Bartek's farm, felt pleased, for he had not done at
+all a bad stroke of business.
+
+Some months later three people walked out of Pognebin to the town, a
+peasant, his wife, and child. The peasant was very bent, more like an
+old man than an able-bodied one. They were going to the town because
+they could not find work at Pognebin. It was raining. The woman was
+sobbing bitterly at losing her cottage, and her native place. The
+peasant was silent. The road was empty, there was not a carriage, not
+a human being to be seen; the cross alone, wet from the rain,
+stretched its arms above them.--The rain fell more and more heavily,
+dimming the light.
+
+Bartek, Magda and Franek were going to the town because the victor of
+Gravelotte and Sedan had to serve his term of imprisonment during the
+winter, on account of the affair with Boege.
+
+Count and Countess Jarzynski continued to enjoy themselves in Dresden.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Nightingale.
+
+[2] 'Czlowiek' and 'Slowik.'
+
+[3] 'Czlowiek' (man).
+
+[4] A popular song. Skrzynecki was a well-known leader in the Polish
+Revolution of 1863.
+
+[5] 'They are going.' 'Jadom' and 'jada' are pronounced similarly.
+
+[6] 'Macki' = 'Tommies.'
+
+[7] Polish 'picie' = a drink.
+
+[8] Polish e = French _in_.
+
+
+
+
+TWILIGHT
+
+STEFAN ZEROMSKI
+
+
+The sun was gliding into a lustrous copper haze, drawn in wide
+streaks, like transparent dust, across the distant scene. It sank
+behind some thick red firs left standing at the edge of a clearing and
+behind the dark trunks which lay rotting on the hillside. Its beams
+still lighted the corners of a cottage, gilding it and colouring it
+scarlet; they penetrated the folds of grey clouds, and glittered on
+the water.
+
+A recent storm had laid the marshy plains and newly cultivated
+woodlands partly under water. Here and on the furrows of the
+stubble-fields and the fresh autumn ploughing the puddles turned red
+and their irridescent surface became like molten glass, while
+entrancing violet shadows, dazzling to the sight, fell on the grey,
+beaten-down clods; the sand hills turned yellow; the weeds growing on
+the banks, the bushes at the edge of the field paths, all borrowed
+some unwonted momentary colour.
+
+In a deep hollow surrounded by sparsely wooded hills to the east, west
+and south ran a little brook, which overflowed into bays, swamps,
+shallows and creeks. Tangles of reeds grew at the water's edge, lank
+bulrushes, sweet-flags, and clumps of willows. The still, red water
+was now shining in formless pale-green patches from under the large
+leaves of the water-lilies and coarse water-weeds.
+
+A flight of teals was hovering above with outstretched necks, and
+broke in upon the silence with the swish of their wings. Otherwise
+everything was still. Even the glassy blue dragon-flies, which had
+been hovering ceaselessly on their gossamer wings round the stems of
+the bulrushes, had disappeared. The untiring water-flies alone yet
+strayed over the illuminated surface of the swamps on their stilt-like
+legs.... And there were two human beings at work.
+
+The marshes belonged to the manor house. Formerly the young owner,
+accompanied by his spaniel, had floundered through them, shooting
+ducks and snipe, which were to be found there before he cut down all
+the woods. He left quite half of the land uncultivated, and having
+very quickly run through his property, he found no means of supporting
+himself until he went to Warsaw, where he was now selling soda-water
+at a stall.
+
+When a new and prudent owner appeared, he inspected the fields, stick
+in hand, and frequently stood still on the marshes, rubbing his nose.
+
+He fumbled with his hands in the swamp, dug holes, measured,
+sniffed,--till he invented a strange thing. He ordered the bailiff to
+hire labourers daily to dig peat, to heap barrow-loads of the mud on
+to the fields, and to go on digging a hole until it was large enough
+for a pond. He was to make a dyke, and to choose a lower position for
+a second pond, till there were some thirteen in all; then to cut
+trenches; to let the water down, build water-gates, and set fish in
+the ponds.
+
+Walek Gibala, a day labourer without any land of his own, who was
+working for wages in the neighbouring village, was hired to cart away
+the peat. Gibala had been groom to the former landlord, but had not
+stayed on with the new one. In the first place, the new landlord and
+the new steward had lowered the wages and allowances, and, in the
+second place, they made an enquiry into everything that was stolen. In
+the time of the former landlord each groom used half a bushel of oats
+for a pair of horses, and took the rest in the evening to the 'Berlin'
+Inn, in exchange for tobacco or a drop of brandy. However, this
+business had come to an end at once when the new steward appeared, and
+since he justly laid the blame of it on Walek, he had boxed his ears,
+and dismissed him from his service.
+
+So from that time Walek and his wife had lived on their daily
+earnings in the village, because he could not find a situation; he was
+not likely even to apply for one, so thoroughly had the steward taken
+his character away. At harvest time they both earned something here
+and there from the peasants, but in winter and early spring they
+suffered terribly,--indescribably, from hunger. Large and bony, with
+iron muscles, the man was as thin as a board, with an ashen look,
+round-shouldered and weakened by privation. The woman--like a
+woman--supported herself by her neighbours; she sold mushrooms,
+raspberries and strawberries to the manor house, or to the Jews, and
+at least thus earned a loaf of wheat-bread. But, without food, she was
+no match for the man at threshing. When the bailiff gave the order for
+digging in the meadows, the eyes of both sparkled. The steward himself
+promised thirty kopeks for digging two cubic yards.
+
+Walek kept his wife occupied with the digging every day and all day.
+She loaded the wheelbarrow, and he wheeled the mud on to the field
+along planks thrown across the swamp. They worked feverishly. They had
+two large, deep wheelbarrows, and before Walek had brought back the
+empty one, the second was already full; then he threw the strap round
+his shoulder and pushed the barrow up the hill. The iron wheel creaked
+horribly. The liquid, dark, rank slime, thick with marsh-weeds,
+overflowed and trickled down on to the man's bare knees, as the
+wheelbarrows were tilted from plank to plank; it penetrated to his
+neck and shoulders, marking his shirt with a dark, evil-smelling
+streak. His arms ached at the elbows, his feet were painful and stiff
+from being continually plunged into the mud, but--with a hard day's
+work, they dug out four cubic yards:--and he knew that he had sixty
+kopeks in his pocket.
+
+They were hopeful, for they had earned thirty roubles by the end of
+the autumn. They paid their rent, bought a cask of pickled cabbage,
+five bushels of potatoes, a 'sukmana,'[9] boots, some aprons and
+homespun for the woman, and linen for shirts. Thus they could last
+till the spring, when they would be able to earn by threshing and
+weaving at other people's houses.
+
+All of a sudden the steward considered it excessive to give thirty
+kopeks for two cubic yards. It struck him that no one would be tempted
+to patter about in a swamp from daybreak to nightfall unless on the
+verge of starvation, and these people had undertaken it without
+hesitation. 'Twenty kopeks is enough,' he said, 'if not,--well, go
+without.'
+
+There was nothing to be earned at this time of year, and the manor
+house had enough of its own people to attend to the threshing and
+machinery;--it was no use being fastidious in the matter. After this
+announcement Walek went to the inn, and made a beast of himself. Next
+day he beat his wife, and dragged her out to work for him.
+
+From that time forward--beginning when it grew light--they dug out the
+four cubic yards, never stopping work from daybreak until night.
+
+And now, indeed, night was drawing on from afar. The distant
+light-blue woods were growing dark, and melting into grey gloom. The
+radiance on the waters was extinguished. Immense shadows from the red
+firs standing towards the north fell on the summits of the hills, and
+along the clearings. The tree trunks alone remained crimson here and
+there, and then the stones. Small, fugitive rays were reflected from
+these points of light, and, falling into the deep wastes created among
+objects by the half-darkness, were refracted, quivered for an instant,
+and went out in turn. The trees and bushes lost their convexity and
+brilliance, their natural colours mingled with the grey distance, and
+they appeared only as flat and completely black forms with weird
+contours.
+
+A thick mist was already gathering in the low-lying country, chilling
+the man through as he worked. The darkness was coming on in unseen
+waves, creeping along the slopes of the hills, gathering to itself the
+dreary colours of the stubble-fields, the water-courses, the clefts
+in the hills, and the rocks.
+
+As the waves of mist met, others--white, transparent, and scarcely
+visible--which rose from the marshes, crept along in streaks, winding
+in balls round the undergrowth, trembling and curling over the surface
+of the water. The cold, damp wind drove the mist along the bottom of
+the valley, till it was stretched out flat like a face on the canvas
+of a picture.
+
+'The mist is coming on,' Walkowa murmured. It was that moment of
+twilight, when every form seems to be visibly reducing itself to dust
+and nothingness, when a grey emptiness spreads over the surface of the
+earth, looks into the eyes, and oppresses the heart with unconscious
+sorrow. Terror seized Walkowa. Her hair stood on end, and a shudder
+passed through her body. The mists rose like a living thing,
+stealthily crawling over towards her; they came up from behind,
+retreated, lay in wait, and again crept forward in more impetuous
+pursuit. Her hands were clammy with the damp, it soaked through her
+skin to the bone, it irritated her throat, and tickled her chest. Then
+she remembered her child, whom she had not seen since noon. He was
+lying asleep,--locked up in a room quite alone,--in a cradle of lime
+wood, suspended from the beams of the ceiling by birch-twigs. Surely
+he was crying now,--choking,--sobbing? The mother heard that cry, as
+wailing and pitiful as that of a solitary bird in a desert place. It
+rang in her ears, it tormented a particular spot in her brain, it tore
+at her heart. She had not thought about him all day, for her hard work
+had scattered all her thoughts, in fact, it had drained and
+annihilated her power of thinking; but now the uncanny sensations
+caused by the twilight compelled her to concentrate herself and fasten
+her mind upon this small morsel of humanity.
+
+'Walek' she said timidly, when the man brought up the barrow, 'shall I
+be off to the cottage and finish scraping the potatoes?'
+
+Gibala did not answer, as though he had not heard. He seized the
+barrow and set forth. When he returned, the woman implored again:
+'Walek, shall I be off?'
+
+'Eh?' he grumbled carelessly.
+
+She knew what his anger meant; she knew that he could catch a man
+under the ribs, gather up his skin in handfuls, and, having shaken him
+once or twice, throw him down like a stone among the rushes. She knew
+he was capable of tearing the handkerchief from her head, twisting her
+hair in a knot round his fist and dragging her in terror along the
+road; or, in a fit of absent-mindedness, of pulling his spade out of
+the swamp quickly, and cutting her across the head without
+considering--whether it had hit, or not hit her.
+
+But impatient anxiety, kindled to the point of pain, rose above the
+fear of punishment. At moments the woman thought of running away; it
+only meant creeping into the little ravine, leaping across the
+brooklet, and then making straight through the fields and plantations.
+As she stooped and filled her barrow, she was already escaping in
+thought, leaping like a marten, scarcely feeling the pain of running
+barefoot across the stubble, overgrown with thick blackthorn and
+blackberries. The sharp clods would sting not only her feet but her
+heart. She would come running to the cottage, and open the bolt with
+the wooden key; the warmth and close air of the room would meet her
+face; she would clasp the cradle ... Walek would kill her when he
+returned to the cottage,--beat her to death:--but what then? That
+would be for later....
+
+As soon, however, as Walek emerged from the mist, she was seized
+afresh by a dread of his fists. Again she humbly begged him, although
+she knew that her tormentor would not set her free:
+
+'Perhaps the baby is dead in there.'
+
+He answered nothing, threw down the strap of the barrow from his
+shoulder, approached his wife, and, by a movement of the head,
+pointed to the stakes up to which they must dig that day. Then he
+seized the spade, and began to throw mud into his barrow, time after
+time. He worked without thinking, quickly,--as fast as he could
+breathe. When he had filled the barrow he pushed it forward, running
+at top speed, and said as he left:
+
+'Push yours too, you lazy brute....'
+
+She took this mild concession to the object of her love, this brutal
+goodness, this hardness and severity as if it had been a caress. For
+it would be possible to finish the work far sooner if they both
+wheeled the mud. Rapidly and impetuously she now imitated his
+movements, like a monkey, and shovelled up the mud four times more
+quickly, no longer drawing on her muscular peasant's strength, but on
+her nervous power. Her chest rattled, dazzling colours passed under
+her eyelids, she felt faint, and large burning tears fell from her
+eyes into that cold, evil-smelling filth,--tears of unheeded pain.
+Every time she struck the spade into the ground she looked to see if
+it was still far to the stakes; her barrow ready, she seized it, and
+ran at full tilt after the man.
+
+The mists rose high; they drew past the rushes and stood over the tops
+of the alders in an unmoving wall. The trees loomed through them as
+patches of indefinite colour, astonishingly large, but imperfect
+forms, which ran across the deep gorge like monstrous, terrible
+apparitions.
+
+Their heads fell forward; their hands executed a uniform movement;
+their bodies were bowed to the ground....
+
+The wheels of the barrows clattered and whined. Waves of mist like
+milk when poured into water, swayed amid the darkening hills.
+
+The evening star shone low in the sky, and tremblingly threw its
+feeble light across the darkness.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[9] Peasant's dress.
+
+
+
+
+TEMPTATION
+
+STEFAN ZEROMSKI
+
+
+Countess Anna Krzywosad--Naslawska's youngest son had decided to take
+Holy Orders. From boyhood he had shown an unusual fondness for prayer,
+had been silent and obedient, and worn an earnest, pious expression.
+He had been educated in Rome under the eye of a distant cousin--a
+Cardinal--and completed his course at the seminary there with
+distinction, when barely twenty. Having not yet attained the proper
+age to hold any spiritual office, he went back to his own country for
+the first time for many years, and stayed at his mother's house.
+
+He occupied a corner room in the mansion, as cold and damp as any
+monastic cell; he slept on the ground, fasted unceasingly, read Latin
+books, very probably scourged himself at nights, and wore a hair shirt
+under his shabby cassock. He was unspeakably good and gentle, forgave
+injuries, and was over-modest.
+
+When he sat down, it was on the very edge of the chair, as if anxious
+that when he rose quickly his cassock should hinder him and make him
+move like a priest; he walked on tiptoe as if a mystic heel protected
+him from the dust of the earth; he shunned society, he murmured a
+prayer at the sight of a village girl.
+
+Every day at dawn he left the house, and went into the fields. He felt
+that there he could be in closest communication with his Creator,
+there ecstatic visions came to him most clearly. He followed the
+beaten track through numberless rye-fields to the upland, where a
+half-ruined little chapel lay hidden in the shade of the pine forest.
+
+One morning he went there as usual. The landscape was still buried in
+the night-mist, but a violet streak of daybreak had begun to spread on
+the horizon. The bearded rye brushed against his knees and scattered
+large dewdrops, yet the pathway was not damp, being sheltered by the
+full drooping ears. The corn, feebly illumined by the early morning
+light, rose in great waves along the hill, where the undulating line
+of the fields showed against the wood. The scent of earth and ripening
+corn hung on the breeze, bringing a sense of health, strength, and
+youth. From the dark gloom of the huge trees, whose tops were
+beginning to break up the expanse of dawning blue, came the keen, damp
+breath of the forest. The seminarist walked along slowly and lazily,
+passing his hand over the surface of the rye. Sky larks and crested
+larks rose at his feet, and dropped again like stones into the
+thickly-growing corn.
+
+The dawn was now tinging the horizon with a rosy light; it burst forth
+like a wide flash of lightning, illuminating the rifts and curves in
+the dark clouds which lay idly over the wood. Unexpectedly hundreds of
+red firs, crowning the summit of the hill, emerged tall and grand from
+the night, their boughs standing out prominently against the
+transparent background of blue, as if stretching out their arms to the
+approaching sun.
+
+Suddenly a thrill passed through the earth. The next moment a puff of
+wind, the forerunner of daybreak, stirred the boughs of the firs, and
+announced alike to plant, to grass, and corn--the coming of the sun.
+
+It seemed as if the earth were quivering, as if her heart began to
+beat. Then the wind spread its wings, and hovered over the scented
+trunks, over the osiers and corn in the distance. A long, soothing
+moment of death-like silence followed, and then that mysterious moment
+of early dawn, when each living plant glows in its every part as if on
+fire.
+
+The student walked with his face turned eastwards. Words of prayer
+rose from his heart to his lips as the sap rises to the bark of the
+pines when Spring comes. He went up to the little chapel, opened the
+grey wooden door, studded with nails, and fell on his face with
+outstretched hands before the picture of Christ, clumsily drawn by a
+rustic hand.
+
+He felt as if his soul had fled from earth to the very Throne of God.
+The scales had fallen from his eyes in a moment: he was gazing on the
+face of the Eternal.
+
+All at once a rough, coarse peasant's song was heard:
+
+    'It was then that I liked you best, Hanka,
+    When you bleached yourself in the fields, in the fields,
+                     like a gosling.'
+
+This was answered by a woman's voice, approaching from a distance:
+
+    'I did not bleach myself, I bleached a linen shirt,
+    But you, Kaska, thought that I was painted.'
+
+The young man rose from the ground, and stood at the door of the
+chapel. He saw a sturdy farmer's lad in shirt sleeves, bare-foot, in a
+straw hat, and loaded like a horse, with juniper wood. This strapping
+fellow was taking up a kilo of roots--digging out bushes with the
+clods, and moistening his hands in the branches. A girl was going
+along the path, carrying a load of weeds on her back. The corners of
+her petticoat were turned up and tucked into her belt, her broad
+shoulders were bent together under the heavy burden, only her head,
+tied round with a red handkerchief, was raised towards the hill where
+the lad was working. When she reached the turn of the path, he stopped
+her, pulled down the hem of her skirt from her waist, and laid her
+bundle on the ground. She pushed him away with her hands, laughing.
+
+The student shaded his eyes with his hand, but dropped it again the
+next minute, as the sound of the two singing a fresh song echoed
+through the glade. It was strange music. The wood, like a tuned
+string, seemed to quiver in harmony with the sound of those two
+voices:
+
+    'In the garden is a cherry tree,
+    In the orchard there are two;
+    I have loved you, Hanus, since you were small,
+    Nobody else but you.'
+
+They went down into the hollow through the corn, which reached up to
+their heads, bent towards one another. Those two heads stood out in
+sharp relief against the dark rye, while the giant, brazen shield of
+the sun was rising over the ridge. They walked thus for a long time,
+never completely hidden by the corn.
+
+Tears flowed from under the young man's closed eyes, and he clenched
+his hands convulsively. Words unknown to him, words known as longing
+and the desire for love, forced themselves unnoticed to his lips.
+
+In a vision he saw moist eyes and a girl's long braided hair rising
+and sinking in some sea cavern. An unknown force, inexpressibly sweet,
+a force which could be neither expelled nor conquered, rose within
+him, carrying him far away into space. His soul threw off its fetters,
+and rushed forth in its wild freedom, as a colt starts for a mad
+gallop....
+
+
+
+
+SRUL--FROM LUBARTOW
+
+ADAM SZYMANSKI
+
+
+I
+
+It happened in the year,...; but no matter what year. Suffice it to
+say that it happened, and that it happened at Yakutsk in the beginning
+of November, about a month after my arrival at that citadel of frosts.
+The thermometer was down to 35 degrees Reamur. I was therefore
+thinking anxiously of the coming fate of my nose and ears, which,
+fresh from the West, had been making silent but perceptible protests
+against their compulsory acclimatization, and to-day were to be
+submitted to yet further trials. These latest trials were due to the
+fact that one of the men in our colony, Peter Kurp, nicknamed
+Baldyga,[10] had died in the local hospital two days before, and early
+that morning we were going to do him a last service, by laying his
+wasted body in the half-frozen ground.
+
+I was only waiting for an acquaintance, who was to tell me the hour of
+the funeral, and I had not long to wait. Having wrapped up my nose and
+ears with the utmost care, I set out with the others to the hospital.
+
+The hospital was outside the town. In the courtyard, and at some
+distance from the other buildings, stood a small shed--the mortuary.
+
+In this mortuary lay Baldyga's body.
+
+When the doors were opened, we entered, and the scene within made a
+painful impression on the few of us present. We were about ten people,
+possibly a few more, and we all involuntarily looked at one another:
+we were standing opposite a cold and bare reality, not veiled by any
+vestige of pretence....
+
+In the shed,--which possessed neither table nor stool, nothing but
+walls white with hoarfrost and a floor covered with snow,--lay a large
+bearded corpse, equally white, and tied up in some kind of sheet or
+shirt. This was Baldyga.
+
+The body, which was completely frozen, had been brought near the light
+to the door, where the coffin was standing ready.
+
+Never shall I forget Baldyga's face as I saw it then with the light
+full upon it, and washed by the snow. There was something strange and
+indescribably sad in the rough, strongly marked countenance; the large
+pupils and projecting eyeballs seemed to look far away into the
+distance towards the stern frosty sky.
+
+'That man,--he was a good sort,' one of those present said to me,
+noticing the impression which the sight of Baldyga made on me. 'He was
+always steady and industrious; people who were hard up used to go to
+him and he would help them. But there never was anyone so obstinate as
+Kurp: he believed to the last that he would go back to the Narev.[11]
+Yet before the end came it was plain that he knew he would never get
+there.'
+
+Meanwhile the petrified body had been laid in the coffin, and placed
+upon the small one-horse Yakut sledge.
+
+Then the tailor's wife--a person versed in religious
+practices,--undertook the office of priest for such time as we could
+give her, and began to sing 'Ave Maria,' while we joined in with
+voices broken with emotion. After this we proceeded to the cemetery.
+
+We walked quickly; the frost was invigorating, and made us hasten our
+steps. At last we reached the cemetery. We each threw a handful of
+frozen earth on to the coffin.... A few deft strokes of the spade ...
+and in a moment only a small freshly turned mound of earth remained to
+bear witness to Baldyga's yet recent existence in this world. This
+witness would not last long, however,--scarcely a few months. The
+spring would come, and, thawed by the sun, the mound on the grave
+would sink and become even with the rest of the ground, and grass and
+weeds would grow upon it. After a year or two the witnesses of the
+funeral would die, or be dispersed throughout the wide world, and if
+even the mother who bore him were to search for him, she would no
+longer find a trace on the earth. But, indeed, none would seek for the
+dead man, nor even a dog ask for him.
+
+Baldyga had known this; we knew it too: and we dispersed to our houses
+in silence.
+
+The day following the funeral the frost was yet more severe. There was
+not a single building to be seen on the opposite side of the fairly
+narrow street in which I lived, for a thick mist of snow crystals
+overspread the earth, like a cloud. The sun could not penetrate this
+mist, and although there was not a living soul in the street, the air
+was so highly condensed through the extreme cold that I continually
+heard the metallic sound of creaking snow, the sharp reports of the
+walls and ground cracking in the frost, or the moaning song of a
+Yakut. Evidently those Yakut frosts were beginning, which reduce the
+most terrible Arctic cold to insignificance. They fill human beings
+with unspeakable dread. Every living thing feels its utter
+helplessness, and although it cowers down and shrinks into itself for
+protection, knows quite well--like the cur worried by fierce
+mastiffs,--that all is in vain, for sooner or later the inexorable foe
+is bound to be victorious.
+
+And Baldyga was continually in my mind, as if he were alive. I had sat
+for hours at my half-finished task. Somehow I could not stick to work;
+the pen fell from my hand, and my unruly thoughts ranged far away
+beyond the snowy frontier and frosty ground. In vain I appealed to my
+reason, in vain I repeated wholesome advice to myself for the tenth
+time. Hitherto I had offered some resistance to the sickness which had
+consumed me for several weeks; to-day I felt completely overcome and
+helpless. Homesickness was devouring and making pitiless havoc of me.
+
+I had been unable to resist dreaming so many times already; was it
+likely I should withstand the temptation to-day? The temptation was
+stronger, and I was weaker than usual.
+
+So begone frost and snow, begone the existence of Yakutsk! I threw
+down my pen, and surrounding myself with clouds of tobacco smoke,
+plunged into the waters of feverish imagination.
+
+And how it carried me away!... My thoughts fled rapidly to the far
+West, across morasses and steppes, mountains and rivers, across
+countless lands and cities, and spread a scene of true enchantment
+before me. There on the Vistula lay my native plains, free from misery
+and human passions, beautiful and harmonious. My lips cannot utter,
+nor my pen describe their charm!
+
+I saw the golden fields, the emerald meadows; the dense forests
+murmured their old legends to me.
+
+I heard the rustle of the waving corn; the chirping of the feathered
+poets; the sound of the giant oaks as they haughtily bid defiance to
+the gale.
+
+And the air seemed permeated by the scent of those aromatic forests,
+and those blossoming fields, adorned in virgin freshness by the blue
+cornflowers and that sweetest beauty of Spring,--the innocent violet.
+
+... Every single nerve felt the caress of my native air.... I was
+touched by the life-giving power of the sun's rays; and although the
+frost outside creaked more fiercely, and showed its teeth at me on the
+window panes more menacingly, yet the blood circulated in my veins
+more rapidly, my head burnt, and I sat as if spellbound, deaf, no
+longer seeing or hearing anything round me....
+
+
+II
+
+I did not notice that the door opened and someone entered my room,
+neither did I see the circles of vapour, which form in such numbers
+every time a door is opened that they obscure the face of the person
+entering. I did not feel the cold: it penetrates human dwellings here
+with a sort of shameless, premeditated violence. In fact, I had seen
+or heard nothing until suddenly I felt a man close to me, and even
+before catching sight of him, found myself involuntarily putting him
+the usual Yakut question:
+
+'Toch nado?' ('What do you want?')
+
+'If you please, Sir, I am a hawker,' was the answer.
+
+I looked up. Although he was dressed in ox and stag's hide, I had no
+doubt that a typical Polish Jew from a small town stood before me.
+Anyone who had seen him at Lossitz or Sarnak would have recognized him
+as easily in Yakut as in Patagonian costume. I knew him at once. And
+since, as I have said, I was as yet only semi-conscious, and had asked
+the question almost mechanically, the Jew now standing before me did
+not interrupt my train of thought too harshly; the contrast was,
+therefore, not too disagreeable. Quite the reverse. I gazed into the
+well-known features with a certain degree of pleasure; the Jew's
+appearance at that moment seemed quite natural, since it carried me in
+thought and feeling to my native land, and the few Polish words
+sounded dear to my ear. Half dreaming still, I looked at him kindly.
+
+The Jew stood still for a moment, then turned, and retreating to the
+door, began to pull off his multifarious coverings.
+
+Then I came to myself, and realized that I had not yet answered him,
+and that my sagacious countryman, quite misinterpreting my silence,
+was anxious to dispose of his wares to me. I hastened to undeceive
+him.
+
+'In heaven's name, man, what are you doing?' I cried quickly, 'I do
+not want to buy anything; I am not wanting anything. Do not unload
+yourself in vain, and go away with God's blessing!'
+
+The Jew stopped undoing his things, and after a moment's
+consideration, came towards me with his long fur coat[12] half
+trailing behind him, and began to mumble quickly in broken sentences:
+'It's all right; I know you won't buy anything, Sir. I saw you, for I
+have been here a long time, a very long time.... I didn't know before
+that you had come.... You come from Warsaw, don't you, Sir? They only
+told me yesterday evening that you had been here four months already;
+what a pity it was such a time before I heard of it! I should have
+come at once. I have been searching for you to-day for an hour, Sir. I
+went quite to the end of the town,--and there's such a frost
+here,--confound it!... If you will allow me Sir,--I won't interrupt
+for long?... Only just a few words....'
+
+'What do you want of me?'
+
+'I should only like to have a little chat with you, Sir.'
+
+This answer did not greatly surprise me. I had already come across not
+a few people, Jews among them, who had called solely for the purpose
+of 'having a little chat' with a man recently arrived from their
+country. Those who came were interested in the most varied topics
+imaginable; there were the inquisitive gossipers pure and simple,
+there were the people who only enquired after their relations, and
+there were the politicians, including those whose heads had been
+turned. Among those who came, however, politics always played a
+specially important part. So it did not surprise me, I repeat, to hear
+the wish expressed by a fresh stranger, and although I should have
+been glad to rid my cottage as quickly as possible of the unpleasant
+odour of the ox-hide coat,--badly tanned, as usual--I begged him in a
+friendly way to take it off and sit down.
+
+The Jew was evidently pleased. He took a seat beside me at once and I
+could now observe him closely.
+
+All the usual features of the Jewish race were united in the face
+beside me: the large, slightly crooked nose and penetrating hawk's
+eyes, the pointed beard of the colour of a well-ripened pumpkin, the
+low forehead, surrounded by thick hair; all these my guest possessed.
+And yet, strange to say, the haggard face expressed a certain frank
+sincerity, and did not make a disagreeable impression on me.
+
+'Tell me where you come from, what your name is, what you are doing
+here, and why you wish to see me?'
+
+'Please, Sir, I am Srul, from Lubartow. Perhaps you know it,--just a
+stone's throw from Lublin?--Well, at home everyone thinks it a long
+way from there, and formerly I thought so too. But now,' he added with
+emphasis, 'we know that Lubartow is quite close to Lublin, a mere
+stone's throw.'
+
+'And have you been here long?'
+
+'Very long; three good years.'
+
+'That is not so very long; there are people who have lived here for
+over 20 years, and I met an old man from Vilna in the road, who had
+been here close upon 50 years. Those have really been a long time.'
+
+But the Jew snubbed me. 'As to them, I can't say. I only know that I
+have been here a long time.'
+
+'You must certainly live quite alone, if the time seems so long to
+you?'
+
+'With my wife and child--my daughter. I had four children when I set
+out, but, may the Lord preserve us, it was such a long way, we were
+travelling a whole year. Do you know what such a journey means,
+Sir?... Three children died in one week--died of travelling, as it
+were. Three children!... An easy thing to say!... There was nowhere
+even to bury them, for there was no cemetery of ours there.... I am a
+Husyt,' he added more quietly. 'You know what that means Sir?... I
+keep the Law strictly ... and yet God punishes me like this....' He
+grew silent with emotion.
+
+'My friend,' I tried to say to console him a little,--'no doubt under
+such circumstances it is difficult to remember that it makes no
+difference; but all earth is hallowed.'
+
+But the Jew jumped as if he had been scalded.
+
+'Hallowed! how hallowed! In what way is it hallowed! What are you
+saying, Sir? It's unclean! It's damned!... Hallowed earth?... You must
+not talk like that, Sir, you ought to be ashamed! Is earth hallowed,
+which never thaws? This earth is cursed! God doesn't wish human beings
+to live here; it wouldn't have been like this, if He had wished it.
+Cursed! Bad! Damned! Damned!'
+
+And he began to spit about him, and stamp his feet, threatening the
+innocent Yakut earth with tightened lips and his shrivelled hands, and
+muttering Jewish maledictions. At last, exhausted by the effort, he
+fell rather than sat down at the table beside me.
+
+All exiles, without regard to religion or race, dislike Siberia:
+evidently a fanatic does not learn to hate it half-heartedly. I paused
+until he had calmed himself. Educated in a severe school, the Jew
+quickly regained his self-possession and mastered his emotion, and
+when I gazed questioningly into his eyes the next moment, he
+immediately answered me:
+
+'You must pardon me; I do not speak of this to anyone, for to whom
+should I speak here?'
+
+'Then are there very few Jews here?'
+
+'Those here? Do you call them Jews, Sir? They're such low fellows, not
+one of them keeps the Law strictly.'
+
+Fearing another outburst, I would not, however, allow him to finish,
+and decided to change the conversation by asking him straight out what
+he wanted to talk to me about now.
+
+'I should like to know the news from there, Sir. I have been here so
+many years, and I have never yet heard what is going on there.'
+
+'You are asking a good deal, for I can't exactly tell you everything.
+I don't know what interests you,--politics perhaps?'
+
+The Jew was silent.
+
+I concluded that my present guest, like many of the others, was
+interested in politics; but as I myself did not understand the very
+elements of the subject, I began to give the stereotyped account I had
+already composed with a view to frequent repetition of the situation
+of European politics, our own,[13] and so forth. But the Jew fidgeted
+impatiently.
+
+'Then this does not interest you?' I asked.
+
+'I have never thought about it,' he answered candidly.
+
+'Ah, now I know why you have come! I am sure you wish to know how the
+Jews are doing, and how trade is going?'
+
+'They are better off than I am.'
+
+'Exactly. I am sure, under the circumstances, you will wish to know if
+living is dear with us, what the market prices are, how much for
+butter, meat, etc.'
+
+'What does it concern me if it is ever so cheap there, if I can get
+nothing here?'
+
+'Quite right again; but what the devil did you actually come here
+for?'
+
+'Since I don't know myself, I ask you, Sir, how I am to tell you? You
+see, Sir, I often get thinking ... I think so much ... that Ryfka
+(that's my wife) asks, "Srul, what's the matter with you?" And what
+can I tell her, for I don't know myself what it is. Perhaps some
+people would laugh at me?' he added, as if fearing I were amongst
+them.
+
+But I did not laugh; I was interested. Something, the cause of which
+he himself could not explain or express in words, was evidently
+weighing on him, and his unusually poor command of language added to
+this difficulty. In order to help him I re-assured him by telling him
+that I was in no hurry, as my work was not urgent and there would
+therefore be no harm in our having an hour's talk, and so on.--The Jew
+thanked me with a glance, and after a moment's thought opened the
+conversation thus:
+
+'When did you leave Warsaw, Sir?'
+
+'According to the Russian calendar, at the end of April.'
+
+'Was it cold there then or warm?'
+
+'Quite warm. I travelled in a summer suit at first.'
+
+'Well, just fancy, Sir! Here it was freezing!'
+
+'Then you have forgotten, is that it? Anyway, with us the fields are
+sown in April, and all the trees are green.'
+
+'Green?' Joy shone in Srul's eyes. 'Why, yes, yes--green:--and here it
+was freezing!'
+
+Now at last I knew why he had come to me. Wishing to make certain,
+however, I was silent: the Jew was evidently getting animated.
+
+'Well, Sir, you might tell me if there is any--with us now ... but you
+see, I don't know what it's called; I have already forgotten Polish,'
+he apologized shyly, as if he had ever known it--'it's white like a
+pea blossom, yet it's not a pea, and in summer it grows in gardens
+round houses, on those tall stalks?'
+
+'Kidney beans?'
+
+'That's just it! Kidney beans! Kidney beans!' he repeated to himself
+several times, as if wishing to impress those words on his memory for
+ever.
+
+'Of course there are plenty of those. But are there none here?'
+
+'Here! I have never seen a single pod all these past three years. Here
+the peas are what at home we should not expect the ... the....'
+
+'The pigs to eat,' I suggested.
+
+'Well, yes! Here they sell them by the pound, and it's not always
+possible to get them.'
+
+'Are you so fond of kidney beans?'
+
+'It's not that I am so fond of them, but they are so beautiful
+that ... I don't know why ... I often get thinking and thinking how
+they may be growing round my house. Here there's nothing!'
+
+'And now, Sir,' he recommenced, 'will you tell me, if those small grey
+birds are still there in the winter,--like this--' and he measured
+with his hand. 'I have forgotten their names too. Formerly there were
+a great many, when I used to pray by the window. They used to swarm
+round! Well, whoever even looked at them there? Do you know, Sir, I
+could never have believed that I should ever think about them! But
+here, where it's so cold that even the crows won't stop, you can't
+expect to see little things like that. But they are sure to be there
+with us? They are there, aren't they, Sir?...'
+
+But I did not answer him now. I no longer doubted that this old
+fanatical Jew was pining for his country just as much as I was, and
+that we were both sick with the same sickness. This unexpected
+discovery moved me deeply, and I seized him by the hand, and asked in
+my turn:
+
+'Then that was what you wished to talk to me about? Then you are not
+thinking of the people, of your heavy lot, of the poverty which is
+pinching you; but you are longing for the sun, for the air of your
+native country!... You are thinking of the fields and meadows and
+woods; of the little songsters, for whom you could not spare a
+moment's attention there when you were busy, and now that these
+beautiful pictures are fading from your recollection, you fear the
+solitude surrounding you, the vast emptiness which meets you and
+effaces the memories you value? You wish me to recall them to you, to
+revive them; you wish me to tell you what our country is like?...'
+
+'Oh yes, Sir, yes, Sir! That was why I came here,' and he clasped my
+hands, and laughed joyfully, like a child.
+
+'Listen, brother....'
+
+And my friend, Srul, listened, all transformed by listening, his lips
+parted, his look rivetted to mine; he kindled, he inspired me by that
+look; he wrested the words from me, drank them in thirstily, and laid
+them in the very depth of his burning heart.... I do not doubt that he
+laid them there, for when I had finished my tale he began to moan
+bitterly, 'O weh mir! weh mir!' He struck his red beard, and in his
+misery tears like a child's rolled fast down his face.... And the old
+fanatic sat there a long time sobbing, and I cried with him....
+
+Much water has flowed down the cold Lena since that day, and not a few
+human tears have rolled down suffering cheeks. All this happened long
+ago. Yet in the silence of the night, at times of sleeplessness, the
+statuesque face of Baldyga, bearing the stigma of great sorrow, often
+rises before me, and invariably beside it Srul's yellow, drawn face,
+wet with tears. And when I gaze longer at that night-vision, many a
+time I seem to see the Jew's trembling, pale lips move, and I hear his
+low voice whisper:
+
+'Oh Jehovah, why art thou so unmerciful to one of Thy most faithful
+sons?...'
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] Baldyga means 'lump' or 'clumsy lout.'
+
+[11] The river near his home.
+
+[12] 'Docha.'
+
+[13] _i.e._ Polish.
+
+
+
+
+IN AUTUMN
+
+WACLAW SIEROSZEWSKI
+
+
+The rain and bad weather, which had continued without interruption
+for several days, had kept the inhabitants of the hut, 'Talaki,'[14]
+prisoners indoors, and condemned them to idleness. They constantly
+went out of the room to gaze long and sadly at the weeping sky, for
+the hay was rotting in the fields;--but alas! a grey film of rain hung
+over all the surrounding country, and in vain their eyes sought
+longingly for the smallest chink of blue in the heavy, dark clouds.
+
+To add to the misfortune, the rain, not content with the holes left in
+the roof from the year before, made a number of fresh ones. It thus
+poured into the room from all sides on to people's heads and
+shoulders, and formed quite a deep and ever-growing pool underfoot.
+Various forms of filth, remains of food, refuse of fish and game, the
+dung in the corner where the calves were kept, which had been trodden
+down and had dried in the course of the year, became moist, and filled
+the interior of the 'yurta'[15] with an unbearable smell. It was
+therefore stuffy, cold, and damp there. The fire, burning rather
+slowly, was choked by balls of grey smoke, which went across the room.
+
+The hut was tiny; it occupied no more than twenty-four square yards of
+the solitude surrounding it. The slanting walls, made of barked larch
+trees placed perpendicularly, and narrowing towards the top,
+diminished its size still more. The flat roof was built of rafters of
+the same wood, and came down so close to the inhabitants' heads that
+one of them, Michawio, a big lad, while unwinding a bundle of nets at
+the little window, hit his curly shock head against it.
+
+A plank partition, hewn out with a hatchet, ran through the centre of
+the room, and divided it into equal parts, the right being for the
+men, the left for the women. By a post at the end of the room, with
+his face turned towards the fire, his hands on his right knee, and
+smoking a pipe, sat my host, Kyrsa,[16] a Yakut. Still hale, though no
+longer young, he was the wealthy and independent master of field
+labourers, and the owner of the house, of many nets, animals, and
+implements, as well as of three women:--a wife, and two daughters. The
+youngest was sold already, but she was living with her father, as the
+sum agreed upon for her had not yet been paid in full by the buyer.
+
+There was deep silence in the room,--a rather unusual thing in a place
+where several Yakut people are together. The fire roared and hissed in
+the chimney, and behind the partition the girls made a squeaking sound
+as they rubbed the skins together. I had a foreboding that this
+silence would end badly; indeed, the storm soon broke out. The lad
+nicknamed 'Shmata' brought it on by his incompetence. After wandering
+from corner to corner all day, he now upset a bucket and spilt the
+water. This was the last straw. All eyes flashed, and faces grew pale.
+
+The frightened Shmata tried to lay the blame on Michawio, who had been
+stooping down near him to look for a strap. Michawio in revenge
+reminded Shmata of what had happened about the rake the year before.
+The quarrel had begun in earnest. Their tongues, moving with the speed
+of a windmill, and throwing out invectives and sneers, formed an
+accompaniment to the host's threatening shouts, which rang out like
+the trump of the Archangel. Nor did our hostess fail to leave her
+seclusion to take part in the skirmish with the excitement peculiar to
+women all the world over. The yurta suddenly became like a disturbed
+beehive. The host affirmed, the hostess denied, the labourers hurled
+abuses at one another, the girls uttered war cries, the baby woke up
+and screamed in its cradle, and the calves lowed in answer to the loud
+mooing of the cows, whom evening had driven near the house door. This
+last occurence had a perceptible influence in diminishing the noise,
+for it caused the female element to withdraw from the fight; in fact,
+the disturbance might have been conjured away completely, if the happy
+thought of adding something at the very moment when everyone else was
+quieting down, had not entered our host's head.
+
+This remark burst out unexpectedly, like a belated bomb after a
+battle, and produced such a din that the cows and calves were silent,
+the wind abated in fright, the clouds fled, and I became aware of a
+golden sunbeam penetrating the holes in the bladder at the window, and
+falling suddenly into the interior of our dark, dirty, noisy hovel.
+Merrily and brightly it rested in a shining circle on the closely
+cropped grey head of my host, before whose nose his wife's large
+closed fist was hovering at that moment. 'That's for you! Take that!
+Go on!' Kuimis cried, still beautiful in her anger. The fist came
+closer and closer to the unfortunate man's mouth.
+
+What happened further? Did Kyrsa avenge himself like a man for that
+greatest of all insults possible to a Yakut from a woman? Or did he
+show himself to be the 'wife of his wife,' an old woman and a
+simpleton, as the neighbours called him, and refrain from knocking out
+the teeth or breaking the ribs of the active woman by whose work he
+lived and had grown rich? I do not know, because, foreseeing the
+overthrow of my friend, in whom love for his wife was always
+struggling against a sense of duty, and not wishing to be a witness of
+his defeat, I shouldered my gun and went out of the cottage.
+
+The wind had dropped, the covering of clouds was torn open, and bits
+of pale blue sky were unveiled here and there. The sun peeped out
+suddenly through one of these little gaps, and the landscape, which
+had been dreary and joyless a moment before, brightened into a golden
+splendour. A light shadow, half cheerful, half sombre, fell across its
+faded autumn foliage, and in this half smile it resembled a forsaken
+woman, to whom the caprice of a lover, who has already grown cold,
+offers a moment of tenderness and happiness again. Drops of rain
+glistened like brilliants on the dark branches of the trees and
+bushes; the sky was coloured in shades of carmine, and the pearly
+tears of the passing storm trembled on the willows, still swaying from
+it.
+
+Before me, between two high promontories overgrown by woods which ran
+in opposite directions, sparkled the surface of the lake. In
+proportion as it stretched into the distance, its bank became more
+winding, lower, and mistier, until it disappeared at the outlet of a
+gorge. Owing to the distance, the tall, thin larches, the thick
+willows, bushes, and grass growing there looked quite small, but the
+rays of the sunset, falling on them from behind, produced a wonderful
+lace-work of dark branches and leaves against a pale-rose sky. Grey
+clouds hung above them, heavily embroidered with gold and purple. The
+waves sported and chased one another below on the foam-splashed banks
+of the lake, which was painted with colours from the sky.
+
+I walked towards the gorge, by the footpath leading through a meadow
+which was now turning yellow.
+
+That 'demons' forest'[17] looked dark and horrible close at hand. The
+flat hills, uniformly covered with soft moss of a dirty green, and
+with cranberry leaves, undulated gently westwards towards the sinking
+sun. The wood covering these hills was sparse and stunted, and
+disfigured them rather than otherwise, for single trees stood out here
+and there like the remaining hair on a bald man's head. Silence, and
+the gloom of oncoming night already filled the interior of the forest.
+Only here and there a forgotten ray of sunshine was burning itself out
+above in the bare, wind-twisted summits of the larches.
+
+I stood for a moment, looking at that wild spot, which no native would
+have dared to approach. A deep stillness lay upon it; the waves beat
+more and more gently and noiselessly; the sunset was fading away, and
+only where the network of bushes was less close a transient gleam
+lighted the surface of some lakes, which had hitherto been unknown to
+me. I walked on towards them, impelled by curiosity and a feeling of
+longing.
+
+The way proved more difficult than I had expected. At every moment I
+was obliged to jump or climb over bushes and avoid the deep, narrow
+wells, boarded round with tree-trunks felled a hundred years before
+and perfidiously concealed by the mosses and plants overgrowing them.
+As these wells were full of water, with bottoms as slippery as ice, an
+unwary pedestrian could easily break his neck or fracture a leg by
+falling into them. In many places swampy streams trickled along
+undefined channels, and though their banks were shallow, they were
+boggy and difficult to cross on account of the trunks and branches
+lying in them. The wood was full of trees with projecting, mud-covered
+roots, which now, when everything was assuming an indefinite shape in
+the twilight, looked twisted and monstrous. The white patches of
+lichen shining in the darkness at the foot of the trees like the
+immense shreds of a pall, emphasized and doubled their weird
+appearance. It is, therefore, no wonder that in the purple light of
+dawn, or in the moonlight, the natives should here see the tall
+wood-demon's pale face,--the Slav hunter who came from the South and
+now roams near the Yakut cottages, injuring cattle.
+
+Woe to the district where his shadow passes! Often from fifty to two
+hundred beasts fall dead at one shot from those terrible Southern
+arms.
+
+That evening, however, I met none of these inhabitants of the wood. I
+also did not see the 'demons,'--the dry Tungus corpses. At one time
+they were to be found here quite frequently, and the forest takes its
+name from them. Shrivelled and horrible, they usually sit somewhere
+under a tree or cleft in a rock, gazing eastwards with eye-sockets
+pecked by the birds. On their knees they hold a wooden bow, or a
+rifle, at their feet lies a hatchet with a broken handle, and at their
+belt, inlaid with silver and beads, hangs a broken knife in its
+sheath,--also broken, in order to prevent the dead man from doing any
+mischief after death. A little to one side lie scattered the bones of
+the reindeer, killed on his grave, the harness, and the small Tungus
+sledge. No one ever dares to possess himself of any of these
+considerably valuable articles, for punishment threatens the
+foolhardy, inasmuch as he loses his way all day long until he returns
+to the same place and restores the stolen object. Until they give
+ample satisfaction, and atone to the angered owner by a gift,
+obstinate people return some thirty, even a hundred times without
+being able to escape from the magic circle. It is dangerous even to
+touch any of the things belonging to the dead man, since that evokes a
+storm, or, at best, a high wind. Although the kindly natives had
+advised me to avoid meeting with the 'demon,' since it brings early,
+and sometimes immediate death, I was very sorry not to have seized him
+red-handed that evening. However, I came to be severely punished for
+this sinful wish.
+
+The twilight deepened. The last purple resplendance had already faded
+from the sunset, when tired and tattered, I at last succeeded in
+pushing my way through the bushes of the 'demon's forest.' The sky was
+dark, and twinkling with myriads of stars. My expedition had failed in
+every respect. To complete the misfortune, the white mists hung like
+muslin over the valley, and entirely prevented me from satisfying my
+curiosity. I was therefore only able to take pleasure in the play of
+the moonlight.
+
+It was really a beautiful view, although rather wild and gloomy.
+Nearly the whole of the broad valley, to the very edge of the wood
+where the dark, bare tree-tops projected beyond the border of mist,
+was filled by white balls of vapour; the moon was moving slowly above
+them. Looking for a moment into the depths of the valley, she drew
+aside the floating veil, and touched the sleeping lake below with her
+silvery kiss. I stood a long while to gaze and to rest. The deep
+silence, the stillness which always reigns in these woods, the
+knowledge that no one but myself was to be found in that solitude for
+twenty versts round, filled me with a strange feeling of anxiety and
+longing. I roused myself in order to dispel this. It was unfortunately
+time to think of returning;--no easy matter, however, for in making my
+way through the wood, I had lost a clear conception of the right
+track. At last I hit on a small footpath, and decided to follow it in
+the hope that it would lead me to some inhabited spot. I had scarcely
+gone twenty steps before becoming persuaded that I was not walking on
+a path, but on one of the numerous tracks made in the wood by water or
+animals. It was therefore necessary to return to the place from which
+I had started, for only thence could I more or less trace the way
+leading in a bee-line through the wood. But the place had disappeared;
+the night had shrouded it in new and different shadows, and the mist
+had drawn its silver web across it. I walked for some time, searching
+in vain, and haunted by the thought of forest madness. I had seen
+people brought home from the 'taiga'[18] no longer in possession of
+their faculties, pale and miserable, and with the traces of terror and
+madness in their eyes. These unhappy men had often lost their way
+quite near houses, without seeing them or being able to recognize the
+points of the compass, although the sun was shining, and they had
+wandered about, crying and howling like wild animals. After
+recovering, they said that they had seen the demon. One of the causes
+of this illness is the fatigue brought on by the strain of the vain
+search. So I sat down on a felled trunk, resolving to wait for
+daybreak.
+
+The air was cool. My clothes were wet with the mist and rain, besides
+being too thin for spending the night in the wood, so that I soon
+began to suffer from the cold. I tried to light a fire, but the
+matches were damp, and the only one which burnt could not set fire to
+the moist brushwood and logs. Having, therefore, gathered some grass,
+I hid my feet in it, as they were suffering the most from the cold; I
+examined my gun, and loaded it, and then, crouching against a tree, I
+tried to go to sleep.
+
+In a situation of this kind every sense is rapidly dulled,--touch,
+smell, even sight; hearing alone becomes exceedingly acute. After only
+a few minutes I could hear my heart beating, the blood pouring
+through my veins, the whisper of the trees, the rustle of the mist, so
+that the dead silence of the wood was broken in upon by sounds, which,
+though scarcely audible, continued to increase. Suddenly a very real
+sound rang out amid these fancied ones, and forced me to open my eyes.
+It came from the further end of the lake, and was like the measured
+strokes of an oar. I fixed my eyes on the spot whence it seemed to
+come. The veil of mist was trembling slightly, and beyond it, in the
+distance, something indistinct appeared low on the water. After a
+moment a small Yakut pirogue emerged from the shadows, and sped along
+the lake. I could perfectly well see the rower squatting in the bottom
+of the boat, and striking first with one, then with the other blade of
+his long oar, from the ends of which the water poured in a shining
+stream, like molten silver.
+
+He soon approached the bank, and drew the boat to land. I crept
+towards him, hiding in order that he should not see me too soon, and
+run away, as I knew he would. He was engaged in taking something out
+of the boat.
+
+'What news?' I greeted him, according to the local custom, coming
+slowly out of the bushes.
+
+He started and exclaimed, but did not run away, for he recognized me,
+and I him. He was a poor Yakut, who lived about five versts from me.
+
+'I know nothing! I have heard nothing! Oh, how you did frighten
+me,--but it's all right!' he said hastily, giving me his hand.
+
+'What did you think it was?'
+
+'Why should one meet a man in the wood at night time?' he answered
+evasively, eyeing me suspiciously from head to foot. 'You often think
+it's a man you know, and you talk to him as if you knew him, and then
+it turns out in the end not to be a man at all.'
+
+'What are you doing here so late?'
+
+'I am going home; it's a holiday to-morrow. I have a long way to go
+from here to Babylon[19] for fishing,--thirty versts. You know we're
+poor folk, we live by fishing,--we haven't any horses; so one is
+always in a boat, always in a boat. As I was dragging it through the
+wood I cut my foot, so I've got behindhand.'
+
+'You have cut your foot?'
+
+'It isn't much, for I've stopped the bleeding.'
+
+'Then perhaps it was you whistling and calling?' I asked, remembering
+a strange sound I had heard a moment before.
+
+'I!--No!' He was silent, and I noticed him lean over the boat, and
+cross himself.
+
+'And what are you doing here?' he asked in his turn.
+
+I hesitated.
+
+'Looking for ducks,' I lied, not wishing to frighten him more.
+
+'Ducks!' he repeated, laughing heartily, and his white teeth shone in
+the darkness like pearls.
+
+'There have never been any ducks here!'
+
+'Never been any? Why?' I asked, as I helped him to draw the boat along
+the edge of the wood towards the lake, which could be seen in the
+distance. The fisherman was limping.
+
+'The lakes are different,' he explained, 'and there are as many lakes
+in our country as stars in the sky, and the stars are only the
+reflection of them. The lakes are as different as the stars:--there
+are large and small ones, and some so deep that you can't reach the
+bottom; or else they are shallow, or marshy. In one there are fine
+fish, in another small, in some the water's bad, and makes a man ill,
+because the cattle go into it, in others again it's as pure as air.'
+
+We halted on the bank, let down the boat into the water, and entered
+it, the fisherman in front, I behind. Leaning lightly against one
+another, back to back, we sailed along like a god with two faces of
+which one was bearded and European, the other flat, clean-shaven, and
+Mongolian.
+
+The Mongolian face continued its conversation, only interrupting it
+now and then to give me a warning not to move when the boat rocked too
+much.
+
+'Everything comes from the water. Even the cow lived in the water
+until she was taken and tamed by man. There are different kinds of
+wild beasts and even people living in the water, as there are on land.
+Now just look!' and he pointed with his oar to the long water-weeds
+swaying under the passage of the pirogue. 'Isn't that a wood?' It was
+indeed a wood, dark and mysterious, visited only by fishes and drowned
+men. Once he had fallen in, no swimmer ever extricated himself from
+its thickets.
+
+'Old people say,' the Yakut continued, 'that formerly everything was
+different,--everything was better, because there was more water, and
+that even the sables used to come up to the farm gates, and there was
+so much fish that it was enough to shoot an arrow into the lake to
+draw it back with a good catch. But now there's nothing; the sables
+have run away, and there isn't much fish. It's only the traders, our
+fathers, who save us, or we should die. They give the money to pay the
+taxes, they give tea, tobacco, and cotton. Eh yes! these traders! I'd
+just like to be a trader!'
+
+The little boat struck the bank. We therefore drew it along to the
+next lake, and continued the rest of our journey in this manner, this
+being the sole means of travelling in summer in that country of lakes,
+marshes, and swampy woods.
+
+After travelling thus for an hour along a narrow stream, overgrown
+with bulrushes, we ultimately arrived at the last lake. The sparks
+from a yurta chimney were glittering on its bank in the distance, like
+tiny red stars.
+
+'I expect you are going to Chachak?' my companion asked, when we
+stopped on the bank. 'I am spending the night there.'
+
+I took up some of the fisherman's things, and walked towards the
+yurta. I had known Chachak for some time past already. He was a queer
+man, who laughed at his own extravagances, and frequently even shocked
+the feeling of the neighbourhood. 'Chachak has made himself a cap of a
+whole wolf skin!' I had been told laughingly. 'Chachak has paid the
+merchants only two roubles for a brick of tea; "they would make too
+much profit by three roubles," he said!'
+
+'What about the merchants? Did they give it to him?'
+
+'Eh, why, his old woman gave it to them on the sly! Why! You don't
+know Chachak! He won't give three roubles;--he won't drink, and he
+won't give that!'
+
+Chachak had been famous in his youth as the best hunter in the
+district, and wonders were related of his prowess and skill. He
+preferred bear hunting to any other, and set out to it summer and
+winter with his spear and gun, killing in the open field or lair,
+just as it happened. He was as ready for such encounters as he was for
+cards. Only let him hear of a bear, and from that moment he had no
+peace until he had tracked and killed it. Many a time he had been
+invited to accompany hunters who had found a den with several bears.
+But burning with the fever for the chase, he had been unable to wait
+until morning, and had slipped away in the grey dawn with his faithful
+dog to hasten to the spot, where he was usually to be found, pale and
+splashed with the blood of the 'forest lords.' There was nothing left
+for his companions to do but for each to eat a portion of the hard
+heart and liver of the vanquished, and to drink a cup of blood,
+shouting the triumphant 'uch!' three times. All eyes would be upon
+Chachak, who would try to appear indifferent, although excited and
+feeling the just pride of a hero. Once, moreover, he had killed a bear
+with a tail, which, as everyone knows, is not a bear, but a devil. Had
+he not killed the 'icy demon,' who tracked people, carried off cattle,
+and whom neither bullet nor spear could touch? Chachak himself never
+spoke or boasted of his victories; he was always modest and reserved,
+as befits a man who possibly knows more than others. Since the
+accident which befell him during his last hunt, however, he had been
+completely changed. He had given up hunting and playing cards, become
+poor, and grown morose and strange:--he had lost his influence.
+
+His yurta stood near the bank, so I quickly found myself at its gate.
+A bright fire was burning within, and voices could be heard talking.
+So they were not asleep yet! I went up to the door, and peeped through
+the chink. Chachak was sitting before the fire, with his face towards
+me, holding a net which he was not winding, for his hand was stretched
+slightly in front of him while he related something to the listeners
+gathered round him. At his feet a small naked child played with the
+brass chain of a knife hanging in a wooden sheath sewn to his leather
+trousers above the right shin. Chachak was very animated; every now
+and then he bent forward towards his listeners, and stamped his
+massive heel on the clay floor of the cottage.
+
+'They have a horror of horseflesh, and eat pigs!' he was saying, 'yet
+a horse is a very clean and sensible animal.'
+
+'Why, yes!' his listeners assented.
+
+'But pigs!--I have seen them! They're disgusting! They've no hair!
+They're bare, dirty, stupid, and bad tempered! They've enormous
+mouths, thin curling tails like snakes, small eyes, and teeth like a
+dog's. They're spiteful too!--When I was at Yakutsk I had an adventure
+with the pigs, and they all but ate me. There're lots of them there.
+I had gone out by myself in the early morning to finish my pipe in the
+passage; everyone was still asleep, and it had only just begun to
+dawn. The pigs were going round the courtyard, squealing. I was young,
+and liked a joke, so when they ran round me I shook my fist at them.
+They rushed at me like mad!' He broke off with a laugh. 'I ran along
+the passage, they after me; I jumped on to a bench, and they came
+grunting round me, while I kept shaking my fist at them. Ha-ha!'
+
+He spat into his hand, and stretched it out before him.
+
+Suddenly the door creaked. The woman exclaimed, the lads jumped up
+from the floor, the children began to cry.
+
+'Who's coming? A Russian, perhaps, and pigs with him!' Chachak stopped
+talking, and drew back his outstretched fist.
+
+The entrance, as is usual in a Yakut yurta, was behind the fireplace,
+the one source of light in the evening; thus a full minute of fear and
+anxious expectation passed before I entered from the darkness. Yes, it
+was a 'Russian,' but a well-known one, a friend, and, into the
+bargain, without pigs!
+
+Their faces brightened, and they stretched out their hands, welcoming
+me warmly and frankly, as guests are always welcomed in the North.
+Chachak laughed, made room for me on the bench before the fire, and
+ordered the kettle to be put on.
+
+'Tell us the news, and what is happening,' they begged me.
+
+I began to relate the local news. They all listened attentively,
+although, as it turned out, they had already long known it. The
+companion of my night journey entered, and the conversation became
+general. The men grouped themselves round the table, on which
+Chachak's wife had set supper for us; freshly made soup, sour milk,
+and a large pile of fish, dried and smoked.
+
+Chachak stood at the fire, warming his back, and did not join in the
+conversation. His daughter, a young and rather pretty girl, placed a
+few white china tea-cups and saucers on the table, and the usual Yakut
+entertainment began: tea with milk and cold refreshments, followed
+later by a hot supper with fish. Although the offer of meat was very
+tempting, and we were rather hungry, we were not equal to tasting all
+the dishes set before us. Chachak noticed this at once, and attacked
+me about it with his wonted brusqueness.
+
+'You aren't eating? You've had enough? What's this new fashion of
+going to pay visits without being hungry? You Slavs eat like birds
+when you go to people's houses, but you go home and call out: "Wife,
+the samovar; put the saucepan on the fire,--I'm hungry." You're
+disgraceful!'
+
+They all began to laugh, the old man no less than the rest.
+
+A general conversation was started, at first about different countries
+and customs, but soon reverting to burning local questions.
+
+'What's wrong with Andshay? He's in trouble. There's no trace of his
+boy.'
+
+'None?'
+
+'A pity! He was a sturdy lad!'
+
+'Have they found nothing?'
+
+'No. All the neighbours have been out to search; they've searched the
+lakes, they've searched the wood, they've been searching for a whole
+week. But there's nothing,--nothing.'
+
+'Ah!--sure to be a bear. They say one appeared in the valley;
+Kecherges saw him,' muttered the fisherman, who had arrived with me.
+
+At the word, 'bear,' Chachak, who was standing by the fire, silently
+playing with his fingers, suddenly looked up. Everyone stopped
+talking, and involuntarily turned towards him. His old wife nervously
+tried to change the subject.
+
+'A bear! Where was he seen?' Chachak asked quickly in a low tone,
+sitting down on the bench.
+
+'Oh! Who can tell? Perhaps it wasn't one either,' the fisherman
+answered hesitatingly.
+
+'A bear,--depend upon it!' Chachak said slowly. 'They have found
+neither flesh nor clothes:--"He" usually buries the remains of his
+prey in the ground,--"He" even scrapes the blood off. That's just what
+"He" does. You say Kecherges saw "Him?"' he again asked the fisherman.
+
+'Lies!' the latter answered evasively.
+
+'Oh! "He"'s clever, "He"'s sly and revengeful! Andshay must have done
+something to "Him" in order to be able to boast of it, or to have
+something to talk about. "He" remembers insults a long time, that's
+why "He" has carried the boy off. Although "He" lives far away, "He"
+hears in the mountains and forest quite well what we are saying here,
+and understands like a man,--better than a man! Who knows what "He"
+is? Skin "Him," and you will see how like a woman "He" is. But "He"'s
+revengeful,--and terribly fierce,' Chachak added, looking down. '"He"
+doesn't forgive!'
+
+'You Russian,'--he turned to me suddenly,--'be ready for "Him" on the
+road. Take care! Take care! Though a bear is big, "He" can go as
+quietly as a shadow when "He" wants to fall upon a man unawares. I
+advise you to stay the night with us; there's no joking with "Him"!
+Once I was not afraid either, but now;--there--look!' He undid his
+shirt sleeve. It was a terrible sight. The left shoulder, which, as I
+had previously noticed, the old man could make little use of, was
+shrunk and thin to the elbow, like a mere bone covered with skin, and
+those veins and muscles which were unscathed, wound round the bone
+close to the surface. There was a mass of white scars, crossing in
+different directions.
+
+'I have killed many,--many!' he continued, 'and now I know that they
+will eat me for it,--eat me because I'm afraid. It happened like this.
+It was rather later in the season than this; it was freezing. I got
+ready my spring-gun for elk-shooting, and God gave me one of these big
+beasts. To have carted its flesh, skin, and inside along a bad road
+would have needed seven or eight horses. So I decided to build a
+larder on the spot, and to lay the elk in it for a time, till the road
+became frozen. I and my boy set out early to work. The lad was
+lingering a little way behind me, and I was walking quite quietly
+along the road, and had just passed the willow which grows on the hill
+not far from here, when "He" came upon me. He ran towards me like a
+dog, and before I could look round "He" was already standing on his
+hind-legs. I reached out for my knife, but tried in vain to drag it
+from the sheath. There was a night frost, and on coming out of the
+house I had not wiped my knife, as I should, after eating, so it had
+frozen to the sheath. It was God's hand!--So the "Black One" knocked
+me down. Finding myself overpowered, I seized him by the throat with
+my right hand, and laid the left on his jaws, and called to the boy to
+run for help. The silly boy jumped on him, and--whack!--went his
+pocket knife into the bear;--he had a little knife that size,' and
+Chachak measured with his finger. '"You want to eat my father!" he
+shouted. The Black One was frightened, and jumped into the bushes. But
+the boy had hit me in the chest with his knife, and I should have been
+killed, had it been able to pierce the stag's hide. They could
+scarcely bring me round again.'
+
+'And you see from that time, when "He," sitting on me, looked into my
+eyes, my mind has been troubled. I am afraid,' he added quietly, 'very
+much afraid.'
+
+Not long after I took leave of my kind hosts, and went home. The moon
+was shining brightly, the mist had disappeared, and the well-known
+foot-path shone white before me. I had gone along it a thousand times
+without fear or thought of evil, but this time when I neared the place
+where Chachak had been attacked I involuntarily fingered my
+knife-handle, and for a moment I seemed to see the monster lying in
+the shadow of the bushes, its shaggy muzzle on its outstretched paws.
+
+A few years later I heard that Chachak had disappeared without trace
+in the wood: the 'forest lords' had doubtless accomplished their
+revenge.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[14] 'Talaki,' Yakut for 'water-willow.'
+
+[15] 'Yurta' = Yakut hut.
+
+[16] 'Kyrsa' = white fox.
+
+[17] Native name for this forest.
+
+[18] 'Taiga' = primeval forest in Siberia.
+
+[19] A large lake to the N.E. of the Kolymsk district.
+
+
+
+
+IN SACRIFICE TO THE GODS
+
+WACLAW SIEROSZEWSKI
+
+
+Close to where the river Sheroka issues from a rocky gorge into a
+broad valley, there is a wooden column, ornamented with carving. At
+this column, which stands in the middle of a small meadow near the
+water, the nomad Tungus assemble annually from the neighbouring
+mountains. Hundreds of reindeer in the midst of a crowd of human
+beings make a charming picture as the caravans travel thither
+together. When the merry crowd enters the valley the splash of the
+river is lost in a ringing echo of voices.
+
+Their camp-fires, scattered in a semi-circle in the wood at the foot
+of the mountains, twinkle against the background of eternal shadows
+like a shining girdle, in which the delicate spring green and the grey
+diaphanous tissue of stems and branches are interlaced.
+
+This is the most agreeable season in the mountain valleys; gnats and
+other insects have not yet begun to be worrying, the air is
+delightfully cool, everything is unfolding and blossoming, and only
+the winter snow on the summits of the mountains lies untouched by the
+warmth. The pale, transparent sky above the snow neither darkens at
+night nor glitters with stars, but shines with the Northern light
+which joins the sunset of the fading day to the sunrise of the next.
+
+The people remain near the column in the clearing for a whole week.
+The family elders, grave old men, meet here and discuss their common
+needs, collect the tribute of hides, and settle all important matters.
+
+But the young men use the time for love and merry-making, dancing and
+races. The valley rings with laughter and shouting, with the strokes
+of the hatchet and the echoes of songs; the ground trembles under the
+cloven hoofs of the furiously driven reindeer; the leather lassoes
+swish through the air as they are thrown on to the antlers of the
+animals destined for slaughter. And where work is most active, where
+life is at its fullest the jingle of the women's glass and silver
+ornaments is sure to be heard.
+
+So it has been time out of mind. But one year it happened differently.
+
+Numbers of people assembled in the valley, as usual, but the noise of
+their talking did not drown the roar of the river. The youths did not
+dance at the meeting place, no reindeer were to be seen racing. There
+was no laughter, no singing.
+
+Nor did the counsels take place in common. The men assembled in small
+groups in separate tents, with a dull look on their sad faces. They
+talked without animation; jokes and laughter, so beloved by the
+Tungus, were checked by a general sense of depression, and only rarely
+indulged in.
+
+However, they did not disperse, but waited impatiently for the coming
+of old Seltichan, without whom they would not have dared to have
+settled any important matters. But the old man did not arrive.
+
+'The old man doesn't come, he doesn't come,--and he won't come,'
+muttered one of the group, sitting among his companions, who were
+circling round the fire. He was a stout man of possibly fifty years of
+age, unlike a Tungus, and dressed like a Yakut, with a silver Yakut
+belt. He had the puffed-up air of a rich man knowing his own
+importance. 'Who cares to visit the dying?' he added, sulkily.
+
+'_You_ didn't try to escape your fate,' gloomily answered a poorly
+dressed old man, as tawny as copper, and as wrinkled as moss, who was
+sitting on the opposite side of the fire.
+
+'That is true!' a third repeated. 'You don't try to escape, you don't
+hide. Didn't I run away, didn't I hide? And what came of it?' and,
+with emotion, he began for the hundredth time to relate the story of
+his misfortune. Each time it was received with equal attention.
+
+'When the news of the disaster came I was on the summit of Bur-Janga,
+and was just getting ready to go down; but I hesitated, and delayed my
+start. For a long while the God had mercy on me;--I know that!--till
+one night I awoke terrified, with a beating heart. I listened:--I
+heard what seemed like a shot, and loud calling. I drew my head from
+under the cover, and again I seemed to hear a noise in the wood, like
+distant shooting. The dogs whined and howled, as if they had noticed a
+bear. I went out of the tent, and looked. The moon was shining, and an
+immense shadow passed into the wood from the bottom of the valley,
+avoiding the hills. The dogs fell at my feet, and I covered my eyes
+with my hand, unable to look. My heart beat in my breast like a
+frightened bird, my feet were rigid with terror.'
+
+'O-oh!' echoed the sighs of the listeners.
+
+'And what happened next?--A hundred reindeer fell dead at once. Not
+waiting for dawn, we pushed on that very night. We fled, not halting
+anywhere, but our herds became smaller every day. So I divided them,
+and sent them in three directions; yet in a few days' time my
+son,--and later my daughter,--returned empty-handed. Then I made up
+my mind to flee to the end of the world, where no one ever goes. But
+is there a place anywhere, to which no one has ever yet been? I took
+nothing belonging to the dying animals, not even the halters; I left
+everything. And when the leader fell I did not even take the figured
+band from his head, which had come down to me from my ancestors.'
+
+'A-ah!' responded the listeners.
+
+'The women burst into tears at that,' he continued, encouraged by the
+sympathy of his audience, 'but the Russian traders had advised it.
+"Take none of His offering, Brother; He seeks out His own, and will
+find it everywhere!" So I obeyed; I left it and fled. At last I had
+gone so far that I grew frightened myself:--may be no one had ever
+been there before me. There were no trees anywhere, not even
+bushes,--only the same rocks and snow everywhere,--and the gale. It
+was impossible to pitch a tent for want of poles, and I was afraid to
+send to the wood for them, so we dug out a hole in the snow under a
+rock, and settled ourselves in it. We were comfortable there, and
+began to be cheerful once more, for the plague ceased. One day
+passed,--a second,--and none of the reindeer had sickened. We waited
+in the silence of fear; we not only avoided talking, but even thinking
+about "Him," for possibly "He" too would forget us! We did not allow
+the reindeer out of our sight, and we went where they led us, spending
+the night among the herd, like the Chukchee. In this way some time
+passed. My wife was already beginning to be cheerful, and I myself
+thought that all would be well, and we should grow richer after a
+while. But again I suddenly awoke in the night, torn by anxiety. The
+moon was shining as on that other night, and everything was bright and
+still all round. The tired reindeer were sleeping in a heap in the
+snow. But a shadow hung in the air, falling independently, and not
+from a rock.'
+
+Again the listeners responded with sighs.
+
+'I slipped out of bed cautiously, took my gun, and without dressing,
+began to steal, naked, towards "Him." "He" did not notice me, for "He"
+was standing on a rock, taking stock of what I possessed. But when I
+made a slight sound as I was hurriedly taking aim, "He" turned and
+fixed "His" great burning eyes on me. I shot between them. What
+happened afterwards I do not know. Did "He" hit me, or cover me with
+"His" breath? I have no idea.
+
+'Something like a storm passed over me; but when I regained
+consciousness I had not a single reindeer left;--Tumara was a poor
+man.'
+
+The speaker was silent, waved his hand, and starting to his feet,
+stood with bowed head, and an expression of pain on his face. The
+young men in the audience also stood up; but the old men did not stir
+from their seats, and fixing their eyes on the speaker, waited for the
+continuation of the story.
+
+'Well,--and then--?'
+
+Tumara raised his head and began to speak, but at that moment his look
+fell beyond the edge of the circle and became absorbed in the
+distance, his face showed astonishment, his lips trembled, and tears
+rolled from his eyes. Everyone at once turned in the same direction.
+
+At some distance from the fire, and leaning against the back of a
+reindeer as white as milk, stood a grey-headed Tungus in the old-time
+national costume. Behind him, holding a riding-reindeer by the bridle,
+was a young boy resembling him in face and dress.
+
+'Seltichan!' they all cried, 'you have come at last,--you!--our
+father! We thought that you had forsaken us, who are dying! What news?
+What have you heard and seen beyond the mountains? How fare the people
+of Memel? Are they living still? Or are they, perhaps, also drawing
+their last breath, as we are? And you, our leader, what do you mean to
+do? Have you come alone, or with all your people? Are you going back
+to the mountains? Or are you going to the coast?' The questions came
+pouring out.
+
+Giving the bridle to his son, Seltichan joined the circle round the
+fire, and greeted everyone singly by a shake of the hand. He sat down
+beside the Kniaz,[20] dressed like a Yakut, who hastily made room for
+him. Then, pulling a small Chinese pipe out of his tobacco-pouch, he
+filled it slowly. The group became silent, and sat down again.
+
+'It is now two months since the plague reached its height,' the old
+man answered in a calm, grave voice. 'The people of Memel have
+dispersed terrified and fled to the coast, but by different ways, in
+order to avoid the dangerous place. You need not expect them here. But
+my camp will arrive this evening.'
+
+'Ah! Seltichan, who would ever doubt that you would come? You are
+wise, you are daring, you, we know, fear nothing!' the Kniaz cried,
+stretching out his hand towards his neighbour's lighted pipe.
+
+A shadow stole over the old man's face.
+
+'No one can escape his fate,' he replied coldly.
+
+'But you were born to happiness, Seltichan! Does not the God love you?
+When whole herds were dying everywhere, did you not merely lose a
+young calf?'
+
+Again a cloud came over the old man's face.
+
+'He loves me because I keep the ancient customs. My welfare does not
+spring from human tears, but the mountains, the rocks, the woods, and
+water bring it me,' the old man remarked drily.
+
+His hearers caught up his words.
+
+'Yes, indeed! Your hand was open; you supported your people in the day
+of disaster, and shared in it.'
+
+'Yet who can help more easily than you?' said the Kniaz. 'What can I
+give, for example, I, who have only goods for sale, and debts? Should
+I distribute my debts in these hard times? It is true, I have nothing
+against that! Yet I too am a Tungus;--what would anyone gain from my
+accursed debts? They don't breed reindeer,' he ended, laughing.
+
+'Yes, indeed! We should die without you, Seltichan! Who supports us?
+Whose herds are larger than yours? Who has a better heart? What family
+is more distinguished and richer? Whose sons are more skilled shots,
+and finer huntsmen? Whose daughters, when grown-up, most attract our
+youths? Are you not the first among us,--you who neither suffer nor
+fear, never lie, and never deceive as we do, and bow to your fate?
+You, Seltichan! And to whom shall we go, if you will not have pity on
+us?' came from all sides.
+
+'The God knows, I will share with you! That is why I am here!' the old
+man answered, touched.
+
+'Tumara! Tumara!' the Kniaz cried, seeking the story-teller, 'finish
+your tale. You will see, Seltichan, what happens later.'
+
+Silence prevailed again. Tumara, who was sitting in the front row of
+the councillors, stroked his right ear with his right hand, and began
+after a moment's pause.
+
+'I have told you already how, having lost the reindeer, we took our
+goods and our children on our backs, and returned to the valley. Our
+children became ill, and soon died from eating bad meat, which made us
+weak too. But what can a hunter find in the wilderness at a time like
+that?'
+
+'What, indeed?'
+
+'Very soon we were entirely without food. We had eaten all our stores,
+leather bags, and old thongs, and the women's greasy scarves; there
+was nothing left that could have a taste. Do not we, who encamp on the
+mountains, know what hunger is? And was Tumara wanting in courage?'
+
+'He was famous for it!' the listeners asseverated.
+
+'But it happened thus, nevertheless;--we had been many, and only four
+were left,--I, my wife, my son, and daughter. We went on, always
+longing for the sight of human faces. We halted at all the known spots
+and ancient resting places, and everywhere found the cold ashes of
+fires:--the people had fled, scattered by the danger. And our
+wanderings took us ever further from them.
+
+'But when, on coming down from the mountains, we saw bare tent poles,
+all our courage forsook us. Notwithstanding, we went on further and
+never stopped searching, for it is not an easy thing for a man to lie
+down and die in the snow without giving any account of himself.--We
+scraped the rubbish, and turned over the wet ashes of the cold fires
+to find a morsel of food, stilling our hunger by knawing the bones
+left by the dogs. At last it came to this that we could not look at
+our own children, full of flesh and warm blood, without trembling.
+"Tumara, let the girl die to save her parents," my wife said at last.
+I was sorry for the child. She looked at us, not understanding.
+"Tala," her mother said to her, "according to the old custom, when the
+family is in danger, the daughter dies first."'
+
+'That is so!' the listeners affirmed.
+
+'"Go, Tala," she said, "wash in the snow, and look at the world for
+the last time." The girl understood and tried to escape, but I held
+her; so she cried and begged: "Wait till the evening, perhaps the God
+will send something, I want to live; I am afraid!" So we waited and
+watched. The girl was continually going out of the tent, and looking
+towards the wood, shading her eyes with her hand. But each time her
+mother was behind her, hiding a knife in her sleeve. It had already
+begun to be dusk. The girl went out oftener and each time stood longer
+on the threshold, while I lay in the shade of the tent, waiting to see
+what would happen. Suddenly I heard a cry outside, which froze my
+heart. My wife came in with the knife in her hand, staggering like a
+drunken woman. "Have you killed her?" "No, the God has had pity," she
+said, "there is a large elk running into the wood close by here!" I
+jumped up and ran out of the door with my son. The girl was sitting by
+the tent with outstretched arms, while not far off in the wood stood a
+large elk.--'
+
+'Stood a large elk!' the listeners repeated.
+
+'Is it difficult for a hunter to kill an animal grazing? But my limbs
+were dried up with hunger, my muscles weak with pain, and as I stole
+towards my prey my hands shook so much I could scarcely keep the gun
+in my hands. But when the animal had been hit, and tried to escape
+into the bushes, we dashed after it like wolves. And thus the God
+helped us;--we remained alive in order to die to-morrow.'
+
+Tumara ceased speaking, and bowed his head, again stroking his right
+ear with his right hand. The listeners were silent. In that moment of
+strained attention they seemed to hear the splash of each individual
+wave in the river, the swish of each branch in the wood, as it rocked
+in the gale. Suddenly another sound rang out distinct from these
+continuous sounds, making all faces brighten, and all heads turn in
+the direction whence it came.
+
+Young Miore, Seltichan's son, bent down to his father, and whispered:
+
+'Father, our people are coming!'
+
+'Yes, they are coming!'
+
+The train was actually approaching.
+
+The old men remained seated, but the young ones slipped out of the
+circle one after another, and assembled in groups at the edge of the
+bushes, whence the whole procession, appearing at the rocky outlet to
+the valley, could be better seen.
+
+A young girl rode in front on a dark yellow reindeer. Her clothes were
+richly ornamented with silver, a fact which at once suggested that she
+was a great favourite in her family. She held a long spear in her
+hand, and wore a band, embroidered with beads, on her loose hair. As
+she rode along, she cleared her path by cutting away the twigs and
+gnarled branches which might catch from behind on the packsaddle or
+her clothing. When she raised her spear the sunbeams played on the
+edge of its steel surface in a fiery gleam, and hovered over her head
+for a moment like a will-o'wisp; then, passing along her shining
+silver scarf, they fell on her right hand, and finally faded away in
+the grass of the river-islands.
+
+'Choka! Chogai!' the charming girl exclaimed. She was accompanied by
+two black dogs, which kept running ahead, and then turning back to
+examine and sniff at everything, leaving nothing unnoticed. Following
+her in a long line came the laden reindeer, some of which were being
+ridden by women, and children who were tied on to the top like tight
+bundles.
+
+At the very end of the caravan two armed huntsmen, aided by dogs,
+drove a herd of unladen reindeer with their calves. The noise,
+clatter, and bustle, the frightened calling of the cows seeking their
+calves which had gone astray in the confusion, the jingle of bells,
+the rattle of clappers hanging from the necks of the animals in front,
+the cries of the men calling to the herd or keeping it in order,--all
+this whirlpool of seething, exuberant life filled the valley with a
+resounding echo, and fell on the ear of the listener as a great
+familiar song of the happiness and well-being of a free nomad
+existence.
+
+The spectators' eyes glistened. Unable to restrain an outburst of
+feeling, they began to describe the impressions made upon them by the
+scenes and faces passing by like fleeting shadows.
+
+'See, there is old Nioren!'
+
+'What an energetic old woman!'
+
+'Formerly all the Tungus women were like that.'
+
+'So they say--'
+
+'Look how cleverly she manages her reindeer.'
+
+'That's one good thing, but they say that she bore a son to Seltichan
+not long ago, and that's better still.'
+
+'There's nothing wonderful in that; Majantylan's wife is older, and
+she also bore--'
+
+'Hush! Look, there is Sala, the old man's daughter-in-law, about whom
+they sing songs.'
+
+'But is she not worthy of them?'
+
+'Yes, indeed!'
+
+'You may chatter away, but if Miore hears you, he will give it you!'
+
+'What can he do to us? I am not afraid of him.'
+
+'Look,--look!--Laubzal!--Zleci!'
+
+'Actually!--What a wild reindeer!--They needn't have put a little boy
+on it!'
+
+'He's a plucky lad! Look!--The old man will be delighted with him!'
+
+'And Chun-Me!'
+
+'Ah! Chun-Me! Chun-Me!' several sighed, their glances seeking the
+girl with the steel-coloured fringe on her head.
+
+'They say that the Kniaz wants to win her for his son.'
+
+'Eh, the old man won't give him his favourite daughter,--not he!'
+
+When Seltichan's eldest son rode by,--a famous hunter, commonly known
+by the name of 'Sparkling Ice,'--conversation was hushed out of
+respect to him.
+
+And when the last reindeer of the caravan had disappeared into the
+bushes, and the branches closed swinging behind it, Seltichan rose
+from his seat and went away, taking leave of the company with a slight
+nod. This was to indicate that he was expecting them all to come to
+him shortly.
+
+That evening there was a crowd round the old man's tent, for nearly
+all the temporary inhabitants of the valley were present. The host
+gave orders for several reindeer to be killed, and welcomed his
+guests. With the light-heartedness of true Tungus, they forgot their
+sufferings in satisfying their hunger after their long fast, and began
+to dance and join in cheerful songs.
+
+The old men sitting by the fire watched the younger ones with
+enjoyment, and beat time with their heads, repeating the refrains.
+
+'What do you think, Oltungaba, will the God withdraw his punishing
+hand, and allow joy to return to the mountains?' Seltichan asked,
+turning to one of the guests, the old man who was as dark as copper,
+and as wrinkled as moss.
+
+'Our life, Seltichan, is a shadow falling upon the water,' Oltungaba
+answered meditatively.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following morning the people in the valley awoke in an unusually
+solemn mood. The day proclaimed itself rich in events. The weather was
+exquisite, the sky clear and blue, without a trace of cloud.
+
+Having assembled at the conference, the older and prominent members of
+families took their places in the front row, the younger ones behind
+them, and the women and children still further off, beyond the edge of
+the circle. Oltungaba, yielding to numerous entreaties, walked into
+the centre, and bowing, said:
+
+'Why do you ask this of me, regardless of my old age?'
+
+'To whom else can we turn?'
+
+'There are distinguished shamans who are younger.'
+
+'Oh, Oltungaba, who would dare to prophesy in your presence?' was
+asked from all sides.
+
+The old man was silent, and looked distrustingly at the excited
+assembly.
+
+'You hesitate,--when, maybe, the last day has come for many?'
+
+'I am not thinking of myself, but calling to mind the ancient customs.
+Who will interpret my language to you? A difficult time demands a
+difficult language, and a painful time a painful language. And why
+arouse danger unnecessarily? If no brave man is found, must I die?'
+
+'Let us all die! Surely, Oltungaba, you wish us well? We are
+resolved.'
+
+'Then let it be so,' he assented, after a short moment's thought.
+
+Two of the most famous shamans offered him a shaman's cloak with the
+long fringe, and a number of metal amulets and musical instruments.
+Then they smoothed out the old man's hair, and placed a horned iron
+crown on his head. An elderly Tungus, in attendance on the shaman, was
+drying a drum at the fire meanwhile. When perfectly dry and taut, he
+tested its elasticity by a blow with a small mallet. The well-known
+mournful sound stirred the echoes of the valley, and interrupted the
+talking. A white reindeer skin, with the head turned towards the
+south, was then spread in the middle of the circle. The old man sat
+down on it, and lighting his pipe, swallowed the smoke, and washed it
+down with water. Then he poured out the rest of the water to the four
+quarters of the globe, and turning his face to the sun, fell into a
+state of complete torpor. He sat thus for a long while with bowed
+head, his hair falling into his eyes, and his look fixed on the
+blinding white of the mountain tops. At length a shiver ran through
+his body, followed by a violent sob. The shivering and sobs increased
+by degrees until they passed into incessant convulsions and groans, in
+part feigned, in part real. The spectators could be heard sobbing
+also.
+
+An old woman dropped down in a fit.
+
+At the same moment a fleeting, dark shadow fell on the ground close to
+the shaman: an eagle was hovering between him and the sun. A piercing
+cry rent the air, and the people bent like grass before the gale.
+
+Who cried? The shaman or the eagle?
+
+No one knew.
+
+'It is bad, it is bad,' the people murmured.
+
+'Hush!'
+
+The drum sounded several times with a deep and mournful echo, as the
+crowd was frightened into silence.--The eagle flew away into the
+distance.
+
+Once more there was stillness, interrupted only by the shaman's
+muttering. After a while isolated sounds, coming, as it seemed, from
+the distant wood and depths of the mountain clefts, began to mingle,
+like the murmur of a swarm of bees, or the twitter of birds calling to
+one another. Then Oltungaba shook his bells. By degrees these sounds
+grew louder, and came nearer, until they passed away in the roar of
+the waterfall and the splash of the rain which was now falling in
+torrents. Yet deep and painful sighs, repeated more and more
+frequently, could be heard above the rush of the water. Oltungaba
+suddenly raised the drum above his head. Trembling violently, and
+covered with the pelting hail, he began to utter frightened sounds,
+like a sheep chased by a wolf. Then, all at once, throwing his hand
+into the soft reindeer skin, he became silent, but continued to
+tremble.
+
+'Oh, Goloron!' the shaman groaned, hiding his face with his hands.
+
+And there was stillness once more. Nothing was heard but the shaman's
+sobs and indistinct mutterings, accompanied by the beating of the
+drum. Above these sounds rose the intermingled cries of eagles, hawks,
+crows, and lapwings, which appeared to be circling in flights round
+the mountain tops. Their shrieking and cawing alternated with the
+shaman's unintelligible incantations. It almost seemed as if they
+foresaw some dreadful event, and were hastening to bring news of it in
+advance to the lords of the aeerial world.
+
+By degrees the incantations became more distinct, the words more
+intelligible, till finally the first strophe of a chant burst from
+the shaman's lips.
+
+'Do ye hear the roar of the sea?'
+
+'Ah yes!' answered the attendant.
+
+'I who am the first in creation--'
+
+'Verily,' the attendant replied.
+
+'I, the first among the chosen--'
+
+'In truth,' the attendant repeated.
+
+'Let them come blazing, like the shield of the sun!'
+
+'Let them come!'
+
+'He himself like the clouds,--the fiery raven precedes him--'
+
+'Riddles for a child!'
+
+'Riddles for a child!'
+
+'I am thy son. I, wretched one, walking the earth, implore thee!'
+
+'I implore!'
+
+'Aid my weak strength in this stony path.'
+
+'Oh, aid!'
+
+'Oh, drum, my herald, and wind, my wings!'
+
+'Aye, verily--'
+
+'I approach you, encircled by winged and restless--'
+
+'Winged and restless--'
+
+'Their claws are open, their throats are extended--'
+
+'Extended--'
+
+'The mountains groan, the earth trembles within--'
+
+'Ah!--'
+
+'And I go ever fearfully, yet unhindered--'
+
+'Protect me, my lord, I cry to thee--'
+
+'For I am from the suffering nation!'
+
+'I am indeed.'
+
+'Mighty helper, angry, threatening saviour, have pity!'
+
+'We pray!--'
+
+'If I err, let me not perish on the pathless track!'
+
+'Let me not!'
+
+'Save the erring, lead me.'
+
+'We go--'
+
+Growing more and more animated, the old man stood up, and began to
+dance.
+
+The dance resembled a march. The shaman described what he met in his
+path in fantastic language, and by gestures. The attendant followed
+him, repeating his words, and, at moments, supporting him by the
+elbow. Thus they came to the edge of the circle. Calmly and solemnly
+the shaman raised his drum towards the sky in silence, and then sang:
+
+'Thou snake-like Etygar, dwelling in regions below the earth, ruling
+over the air, sickness, and death itself.--'
+
+'Oh, Etygar!'
+
+'And thou, Iniany, like to a man with huge wings, thou, who shelterest
+from destruction--'
+
+'Iniany!'
+
+'And thou, Arkunda, endued with the power of second-sight!'
+
+'And thou, Normandai, whose piercing cry turns the heart to ice!'
+
+'And thou, iron-feathered Wavadabaki! And thou, whom we only know by
+thy shadow!--'
+
+'I ask what you may require, and what is the cause of your anger?
+Restrain your ministers, withhold your persecutions. Know ye not that
+we perish, and if we perish, who will prepare your offering?'
+
+'Who will?'
+
+'To you I come defenceless, entangled in a long cloak. My head is bent
+with years, my open eyes cannot see far.'
+
+'It is even so!' chimed in the attendant, who had been silent
+hitherto, not daring to repeat all these awful incantations.
+
+'Going to the sea, and returning to the sea, I am a Nomad--'
+
+'Yea, verily--'
+
+'Ye like dark reindeer, ye like dappled reindeer; have they ceased to
+be pleasing?'
+
+'Have they ceased?'
+
+'Ha! Ha! Ha! When you dance, do you forget us, and being merry, do you
+shun us?'
+
+'Is it, perhaps, rich furs, silver, glass ornaments, coloured dresses,
+sweet cakes, or vodka that you desire?'
+
+'That cannot be!' exclaimed the attendant.
+
+'Fools! Something, were it even everything, must be taken for the
+powerful!'
+
+'Therefore choose a young girl from among us, and we will dedicate
+her.'
+
+There was silence.
+
+'Oh, fiery Goloron, feared on the earth, proclaiming--'
+
+Again there was silence.
+
+Oltungaba beat the drum, and the strokes rolled like thunder between
+the awful words, which, uttered haltingly, seemed to come from a
+distance.
+
+'They give the scraps to the dogs! Let the people humble themselves,
+and an obedient man be found; otherwise they will fade like the
+morning mist.'
+
+'O-oh! How can we possibly give anything, possessing nothing?'
+
+'I will therefore tell you how it was in former days. Let it be he who
+is proud, he who is rich, whose sons are famed for their shooting, and
+daughters for their beauty; whom all love, whose thoughts are kind,
+and counsels wise, whose heart is brave, whose hand is open, whose
+soul seeks good. We wish to see the bewildered terror, the pale face,
+the tears of separation.'
+
+Oltungaba became silent, and let the drum fall.
+
+'No!' he said, after a moment's reflection, 'I will not disclose the
+name; possibly they may say; "Oltungaba is jealous." Yet what is human
+blood to me? A shaman needs nothing but his drum.--I have said
+everything.'
+
+He concluded the rest of the ceremony rapidly, and took his place
+among the spectators, gloomy and exhausted. Tea was offered to him and
+the more honoured guests. The young men began to kill reindeer for the
+others, and to put the cauldron on the fire without delay. Yet none of
+this was accompanied by the gaiety and animation which usually
+prevails among the Tungus on such occasions. Those present talked with
+great restraint, lowering their voices almost to a whisper. They
+behaved with marked politeness to the family of Seltichan, and took
+pains not even to look at their host.
+
+Seltichan was as calm and friendly as usual, as if he had not noticed
+anything, and even tried to start a conversation with Oltungaba. But
+the shaman preserved a gloomy silence. Then Seltichan began to relate
+aloud how he had spent that year beyond the mountains, throwing in
+various hunting anecdotes which he told with so much humour that he
+was soon surrounded by cheered and even smiling faces.
+
+Only his favourite son, Miore, who was standing behind him, looked
+gloomily at everyone.
+
+The frame of mind usual before a meal slowly gained the ascendancy.
+And when the pieces of savoury meat were taken from the cauldron,
+everyone had quite forgotten to be sad. Then Seltichan, forsaken by
+his listeners, became depressed at once, and Miore, watching his
+father attentively, grew gloomier still.
+
+Unable to restrain himself longer, the lad burst forth angrily to
+Oltungaba, as he approached: 'I can see that you really want to make
+away with the old man.'
+
+The latter regarded him with angry surprise.
+
+'You are young and ignorant--'
+
+'But nothing shall come of this,' Miore answered, and withdrew,
+shaking his head.
+
+This short conversation did not escape other people's attention.
+
+By the end of the banquet Seltichan had regained his usual amiability,
+as became a host who was entertaining the second day running without
+regard to his herds. But on returning to his tent he no longer
+concealed his anxiety, and sat meditatively before the fire, paying no
+heed to anything; he did not even see the supper his wife placed
+before him.
+
+'Eat, Seltichan; do not grieve, my lord; I am your faithful servant!'
+she said at last, shaking him by the shoulder and looking at him
+affectionately.
+
+The old man turned enquiringly towards his wife, and smiled. He ate
+heartily and with relish, for, according to Tungus ideas, no event in
+life is great enough to deprive a fat reindeer of its savouriness.
+
+The following morning Seltichan awoke earlier than the rest, and
+possibly for the first time since becoming head of the family, he did
+not stir the half-extinguished fire, but, without waking anyone,
+quietly escaped from the tent.
+
+The sun was shining, although it had not yet risen above the
+mountains. The dawn had disappeared, and it was broad daylight. Here
+and there golden lines bordered the blue shadows of the clefts in the
+snow-clad mountains. But meanwhile in the valleys, man and Nature were
+still asleep:--the wood slept, wreathed in mist; the embers glowed
+faintly on the cool hearths; the reindeer lay on the moss in the
+bushes, chewing the cud. The only sounds were the gurgle of the river,
+and the chuckle of the mountain pheasants, which were leaving their
+hidden roosting places, and flying to the tree tops.
+
+The old man gazed at the familiar valley long and attentively.
+Suddenly he trembled. He could see a man standing before one of the
+tents in the distance; he also seemed to be looking at the surrounding
+country. Seltichan's keen glance recognized Oltungaba, but the tent,
+before which he was standing, belonged to the Kniaz. The old man's
+face clouded, and he went home.
+
+'Get up, children!' he cried. 'Heh! Chun-Me! light the fire! You've
+had enough sleep for a day like this!'
+
+They all sprang up frightened, and began to busy themselves. The old
+man looked on with pleasure while the work was silently shared in the
+order established by centuries. The women put the tea-kettle and
+cauldron on the fire, and carried the bedding out of doors; the men,
+after examining their thongs and arms, prepared to go into the wood to
+call the herd together. The bustle stopped when the tea was ready.
+They all sat down gravely round a plank serving as table, but as the
+host was silent, no one dared to talk, although all, not excepting old
+Nioren, were excited. The young women and girls looked at their father
+in unspeakable fear. Miore was sad and angry, but 'Sparkling Ice'
+regarded the old man with respect, not unmixed with a certain degree
+of curiosity.
+
+After drinking his tea, Seltichan ate something, and lighted his pipe.
+Then he said to his youngest son:
+
+'Go out, boy, and call the people.'
+
+Miore did not stir from his seat.
+
+'Do you hear?'
+
+Not until the command had been repeated threateningly did the lad rise
+and begin to buckle on his things. But, instead of going, he suddenly
+threw himself at his father's feet.
+
+'Are you determined? Are you determined? Oh, father do not leave us!
+The family will never agree to it. I was talking to the young men
+yesterday, and they said: "Rather than that, let all our reindeer die,
+and we will live by industry." But if they do decide on that in the
+end,--let the fat Kniaz be killed!'
+
+'You are foolish, my boy,' the old man said with a smile. 'You do not
+know yet what I shall do. I wish to see the people.--Go, I tell you!'
+
+'Oh, my lord, why do you deceive us with hope?'
+
+'Don't talk nonsense.--I have already told you--'
+
+'They will never let us off; it would be better to escape secretly.'
+
+'I have already told you--' the old man repeated obstinately.
+
+'Oh Father, let us escape, let us escape!' they all begged, stretching
+out their hands towards him. But the old man thrust away Miore, the
+most impetuous of them all, with a kick in the chest, and cried:
+
+'Cursed birds of ill-omen, cease from breaking my heart!'
+
+'I would like to know,' said 'Sparkling Ice,' who had been gloomy and
+silent hitherto, 'why Miore does not obey when our father commands
+him?'
+
+The lad, who was lying as he had fallen, rose, and left the tent in
+silence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once more the people, from small to great, were assembled at the
+column in the valley. The armed men were dressed in their best
+attire,--various kinds of fur, which hung in long fringes. The sun
+shone on their ornaments as they took their seats in small bands
+according to families. They amused themselves, wrestled, and in no way
+betrayed the reason for coming there.
+
+The members of Seltichan's family were distinguished among the rest by
+their choice arms and rich clothing, as well as by their strength,
+skill, and the proud independance of their bearing. Seltichan himself,
+who occupied the seat of honour among them, watched everything that
+took place with great attention.
+
+'The tribe is enfeebled, and dying out,' he said from time to time.
+'Was it not so with the family of Tumara? Where is Leljel, who was no
+less flourishing than we? Where is Nilken?'
+
+'If you leave us, we also shall be enfeebled and dispersed,' his
+family answered him.
+
+'"Sparkling Ice" will remain after me;--he is not my son, but my
+comrade!'
+
+The grief of Seltichan's family on hearing this made the old man
+hesitate as he looked at them.
+
+Meanwhile the excitement prevailing in the assembly increased, and
+strange rumours were whispered abroad. Somehow it came about that the
+members of Seltichan's family became more and more isolated from the
+rest, and were greeted with silence when they approached. Miore and
+some of the other young men were not disconcerted by this, however,
+and continued to mix freely with the crowd.
+
+In the evening they all dispersed, but the excitement did not die
+down, and was only transferred to the tents and the camp fires. People
+sat talking in low voices until late into the night, alarmed when they
+saw anything unusual. Several even sharpened their spears. 'A man like
+that does not die without something happening,' they said.
+
+On the third day they all came fully armed. Many of the young warriors
+brought their spears with them, and stood leaning on them outside the
+circle. The deliberations did not begin, but the excited whispers
+which passed round the crowd showed the passionate, though
+restrained, feeling. All eyes were continually turned towards
+Seltichan, who was sitting splendidly dressed among his sorrowing
+family, he alone calm and cheerful.
+
+'Shall we allow the old man to cheat us?' whispered several.
+
+'Shall we allow the old man to cheat us?' asked the Kniaz, going from
+one to the other.
+
+'Well, and what then?' they asked him at one meeting. 'Perhaps you
+think it will be easier to get hold of the daughter when the old man
+is not there? You need not expect it; "Sparkling Ice" will never give
+her to you. He has not forgotten that little affair.'
+
+'What affair? May all my reindeer die, and may I stay in one place to
+the end of my life, like a Russian in a wooden house, if that is
+true,' swore the Kniaz. 'Oltungaba is not a man of that sort!'
+
+'Oltungaba drinks vodka!'
+
+The Kniaz became confused, and did not know what to answer at once.
+'Idiots!' he finally exclaimed, and stroking both ears, he ran off to
+carry his complaints elsewhere.
+
+All this increased the excitement, and caused a great deal of talk,
+which ultimately reached Miore's ears through Seltichan's kinsmen.
+'Father, they are deceiving you,' the youth exclaimed passionately,
+going up to him. 'You are willing to die, but it is all the doing of
+the Kniaz; he has bribed Oltungaba! He thinks there will be no one to
+equal him when you are not here! Father, I beg you, escape quietly.
+Our tents are struck, the young men are ready, the reindeer saddled;
+we shall be on the mountains before they have noticed anything. And
+even should they do so, are we not your children?'
+
+Seltichan's face clouded.
+
+'Let Oltungaba be summoned,--let him be tried!' he cried, rising.
+
+'Oltungaba! Oltungaba!' exclaimed many of Seltichan's family.
+
+'Oltungaba! Oltungaba!' was heard on all sides.
+
+The grey-haired old man entered the circle reluctantly, looking as
+dark as moss.
+
+'Is it true that you have taken a bribe from the Kniaz? That out of
+regard to him you have deceived us?' they all cried.
+
+'Wait a little; let one speak! Don't you see that I have only two
+ears, so that a hundred voices only bewilder me?'
+
+'Then let one speak!'
+
+The head of one of the most distinguished families, who was very
+highly respected, stepped forward, and sitting down, began to ask
+questions.
+
+'Did you take bribes?'
+
+'Why shouldn't I take them? Don't I live on men's bounty? Haven't both
+you and Seltichan given me some too? The Kniaz also gave one, but he
+didn't ask for anything, and I promised him nothing. Is it not a sin
+to suspect it? How is it possible to say such a thing? The man will
+die! Ask his people.'
+
+Witnesses were summoned, and the Kniaz was summoned. They all stood in
+the centre of the angry circle, looking rather frightened, but the
+enquiry led to nothing. The only thing that was clear was that
+Oltungaba had visited the Kniaz in his tent, as he had visited others,
+and had profitted by his liberality.
+
+Stroking his ears with both hands, and swearing with quite unusual
+fervour, the Kniaz talked at extraordinary length of his
+disinterestedness, his merits, his zeal in safeguarding the interests
+of the tribe with the government, and, above all, of his
+sacrifices--in paying taxes.
+
+Oltungaba spoke scornfully, and in monosyllables.
+
+'You don't believe me, Seltichan,' he said finally, turning to the old
+man. 'Have you forgotten how I loved and taught you when you were a
+boy; how I advised you in difficulties, told you old legends, and
+about distant countries? Was I not your father's comrade,--his friend
+when you were still a little child, crawling on the ground? And
+later, when you grew up, did I not boast of you, and you, did you not
+listen to my advice? Who was the foremost warrior and hunter among us?
+Who spoke wisely and courteously?--You were always a true Tungus,
+Seltichan; we all know that.--Was it the worst who were offered in
+olden times? I swear to you, old man, and to all the tribes that I
+spoke the truth. I said what a voice from heaven commanded me to say!
+May my face be turned round to my back, and my body dried up like
+tobacco leaves, may my eyes fall out, and my muscles grow weak like
+badly dried yarn, and--may my hand burn, as the heart burns from
+unkindness'--here with a rapid movement he put his hand into the
+flame.
+
+They all sprang up, and Seltichan drew the old man away from the fire.
+
+'Oltungaba, forgive me, and all of you, forgive me,' he said with
+emotion. 'It is a sin to suspect evil. I will go,--I had already
+determined to do so. I am summoned, and I will go. If I stayed, you
+would be forced to go,--so would it be worth while? There is always
+one rotten egg in a nest.--Can a man be a man without reindeer? What
+is a Tungus without other Tungus?--I leave you, but you will not
+forget me!--Good-bye!--May your herds increase! May your children grow
+to manhood! May joy not shun your tents! May there be no lack of food
+in your cauldrons, of powder in your horns, and of goodness in your
+hearts!--I go away, but my thoughts are gentle, as the rays of the
+setting sun.--I am going now; I take leave of you, my people!
+--Farewell!'
+
+With a quick movement he tore the figured 'dalys' on his chest, and
+plunged a knife up to the hilt into his heart.
+
+He stood for a moment, his fading glance passing round them all,--then
+staggered, and fell.
+
+A single great sigh burst from the crowd.
+
+Oltungaba hastily knelt down beside the dying man, uncovered his
+breast, and placing his right hand near the wound, stretched his left
+towards the sun, crying:
+
+'Oh, thou God ruling all things, help us,--shield us! We are not the
+last, and not the lowest, if we can send forth hearts like these!'
+
+'Hearts like these!' groaned the crowd.
+
+All, even the stout Kniaz, felt at that moment as if their hearts beat
+with the same readiness for sacrifice as that which was growing cold
+under Oltungaba's hand.
+
+'He was a warrior,' whispered the shaman after a moment, and picking
+up the 'dalys,' he threw it over the face, quivering in its death
+agony.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[20] 'Kniaz': Russian 'Soltys' = village mayor.
+
+
+
+PRINTED AT
+
+THE HOLYWELL PRESS
+
+OXFORD
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
+
+Uncommon spellings in original retained.
+
+Missing and incorrect punctuation fixed.
+
+Hyphenated and non-hyphenated of same words retained as in original.
+
+  P. iii: "Orford" changed to "Oxford"
+  P. 8: pronunciation key ditto marks changed to "English"
+  P. 55: "months had passd" changed to "months had passed".
+  P. 81: "couse" changed to "course"
+  P. 172: "asserverated" changed to "asseverated"
+  P. 180: "Then let is be so" changed to "Then let it be so"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tales by Polish Authors, by Various
+
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