Through Russia Read online

  Faster and faster the southern night went on descending, and wiping the land clean of heat, as though that heat had been dust. Upon me there came a feeling that I should like to go and bury myself in some sweet-smelling hay, and sleep there until sunrise.

  "Maybe Panek has one of those things?" hazarded Ufim after a long pause. "At any rate he has dealings with the Molokans."

  After that, the company held further converse in whispers. Then all save the more rotund of the old women left the forecourt, while its remaining occupant said to me with a sigh:

  "You may come and look at him if you wish."

  Small and gentle looked the woman's meekly lowered head as, folding her hands across her breast, she added in a whisper:

  "Oh purest Mother of God! Oh Thou of spotless chastity!"

  In contrast to her expression, that on the face of the dead man was stem and, as it were, fraught with importance where thick grey eyebrows lay parted over a large nose, and the latter curved downwards towards a moustache which divided introspective, partially closed eyes from a mouth that was set half-open. Indeed, it was as though the man were pondering something of annoyance, so that presently he would make shift to deliver himself of a final and urgent injunction. The blue smoke of a meagre candle quivered meanwhile, over his head, though the wick diffused so feeble a light that the death blurs under the eyes and in the cheek furrows lay uneffaced, and the dark hands and wrists, disposed, lumplike, on the front of the greyish-blue shroud, seemed to have had their fingers twisted in a manner which even death had failed to rectify. And ever and anon, streaming from door to window, came a draught variously fraught with the odours of wormwood, mint, and corruption.

  Presently the old woman's whispering grew more animated and intelligible, while constantly, amid the wheezed mutterings, sheet lightning cut the black square of the window space with menacing flashes, and seemed, with their blue glare, as it shot through the tomblike hut, to cause the candle's flickering flame to undergo a temporary extinction, a temporary withdrawal, and the grey bristles on the dead man's face to gleam like the scales of a fish, and his features to gather themselves into a grim frown. Meanwhile, like a stream of cold, bitter water dripping upon my breast, the old woman's whispered soliloquy maintained its uninterrupted flow.

  At length there recurred, somehow, to my mind the words which, impressive though they be, never can assuage sorrow—the words:

  "Weep not for me, Martha, nor gaze into the tomb, for, lo, I am risen!"

  Nay, and never would THIS man rise again....

  Presently the bony old woman returned with a report that nowhere among the huts could a Psalter be found, but only a book of another kind. Would it do?

  The other book turned out to be a grammar of the Church Slavonic dialect, with the first pages torn out, and beginning with the words, "Drug, drugi, druzhe." ["A friend, of a friend, O friend."]

  "What, then, are we to do?" vexedly asked the smaller of the dames when I had explained to her that a grammar could work no benefit to a corpse. As she put the query, her small, childlike face quivered with disappointment, and her eyes swelled and overflowed with tears.

  "My man has lived his life," she said with a sob, "and now he cannot even be given proper burial!"

  And, similarly, when next I offered to recite over her husband each and every prayer and psalm that I could contrive to recall to my recollection, on condition that all present should meanwhile leave the hut (for I felt that, since the task would be one novel to me, the attendance of auditors might hinder me from mustering my entire stock of petitions), she so disbelieved me, or failed to understand me, that for long enough she could only stand tottering in the doorway as, with twitching nose, she drew her sleeve across her worn, diminutive features.

  Nevertheless she did, at last, take her departure.

  * * *

  Low over the steppe, stray flashes of summer lightning still gleamed against the jet black sky as they flooded the hut with their lurid shimmer; and each time that the darkness of the sultry night swept back into the room, the candle flickered, and the corpse's prone figure seemed to open its half-closed eyes and glance at the shadows which palpitated on its breast, and danced over the white walls and ceiling.

  Similarly did I glance from time to time at HIM, yet glance with a guarded eye, and with a feeling in me that when a corpse is present anything may happen; until finally I rallied conscience to my aid, and recited under my breath:

  "Pardon Thou all who have sinned, whether they be men, or whether they, being not men, do yet stand higher than the beasts of the field."

  However, the only result of the recitation was to bring to my mind a thought directly at variance with the import of the words, the thought that "it is not sin that is hard and bitter to ensue, but righteousness."

  "Sins wilful and of ignorance," I continued. "Sins known and unknown. Sins committed through imprudence and evil example. Sins committed through forwardness and sloth."

  "Though to YOU, brother," mentally I added to the corpse, "none of this, of course, applies."

  Again, glancing at the blue stars, where they hung glittering in the fathomless obscurity of the sky, I reflected:

  "Who in this house is looking at them save myself?"

  Presently, with a pattering of claws over the beaten clay of the floor, there entered the dog. Once or twice it paced the length of the room. Then, with a sniff at my legs, and a grumble to itself, it departed as it had come. Perhaps the creature felt too old to bay a dirge to its master after the manner of its kind. In any case, as it vanished through the doorway, the shadows—so I fancied—sought to slip out after it, and, floating in that direction, fanned my face with a breath as of ice, while the flame of the candle flickered the more—as though it too were seeking to wrest itself from the candlestick, and go floating upwards to join the band of stars—a band of luminaries which it might well have deemed to be of a brilliance as small and as pitiful as its own. And I, for my part, since I had no wish to see what light there was disappear, followed the struggles of the tiny flame with a tense anxiety which made my eyes ache. Oppressed and uneasy all over as I stood by the dead man's shoulder, I strained my ears and listened, listened ever, to the silence encompassing the hut.

  Eventually, drowsiness began to steal over me, and proved a feeling hard to resist. Yet still with an effort did I contrive to recall the beautiful prayers of Saints Makari Veliki, Chrysostom, and Damarkin, while at the same time something resembling a swarm of mosquitos started to hum in my head, the words wherein the Sixth Precept issues its injunction to: "all persons about to withdraw to a couch of rest."

  And next, to escape falling asleep, I fell to reciting the kondak [Hymn for the end of the day] which begins:

  "Oh Lord, refresh my soul thus grievously made feeble with wrong doing."

  Still engaged in this manner, suddenly I heard something rustle outside the door. Then a dry whisper articulated:

  "Oh God of Mercy, receive unto Thyself also my soul!"

  Upon that, the fancy occurred to me that probably the old woman's soul was as grey and timid as a linnet, and that when it should fly up to the throne of the Mother of God, and the Mother should extend to that little soul her tender, white, and gracious hand, the newcomer would tremble all over, and flutter her gentle wings until well nigh death should supervene.

  And then the Mother of God would say to Her Son:

  "Son, pray see the fearfulness of Thy people on earth, and their estrangement from joy! Oh Son, is that well?"

  And He would make answer to Her—

  He would make answer to Her, and say I know not what.

  * * *

  And suddenly, so I fancied, a voice answered mine out of the brooding hush, as though it too were reciting a prayer. Yet so complete, so profound, was the stillness, that the voice seemed far away, submerged, unreal—a mere phantom of an echo, of the echo of my own voice. Until, on my desisting from my recital, and straining my cars yet more, the sound se
emed to approach and grow clearer as shuffling footsteps also advanced in my direction, and there came a mutter of:

  "Nay, it CANNOT be so!"

  "Why is it that the dogs have failed to bark?" I reflected, rubbing my eyes, and fancying as I did so that the dead man's eyebrows twitched, and his moustache stirred in a grim smile.

  Presently a deep, hoarse, rasping voice vociferated in the forecourt:

  "What do you say, old woman? Yes, that he must die—I knew all along,—so you can cease your chattering? Men like him keep up to the last, then lay them down to rise to more... WHO is with him? A stranger? A-ah!"

  And, the next moment, a bulk so large and shapeless that it might well have been the darkness of the night embodied, stumbled against the outer side of the door, grunted, hiccuped, and lurching head foremost into the hut, grew wellnigh to the ceiling. Then it waved a gigantic hand, crossed itself in the direction of the candle, and, bending forward until its forehead almost touched the feet of the corpse, queried under its breath:

  "How now, Vasil?"

  Thereafter, the figure vented a sob whilst a strong smell of vodka arose in the room, and from the doorway the old woman said in an appealing voice:

  "Pray give HIM the book, Father Demid."

  "No indeed! Why should I? I intend to do the reading myself."

  And a heavy hand laid itself upon my shoulder, while a great hairy face bent over mine, and inquired:

  "A young man, are you not? A member of the clergy, too, I suppose?"

  So covered with tufts of auburn hair was the enormous head above me—tufts the sheen of which even the semi-obscurity of the pale candlelight failed to render inconspicuous—that the mass, as a whole, resembled a mop. And as its owner lurched to and fro, he made me lurch responsively by now drawing me towards himself, now thrusting me away. Meanwhile he continued to suffuse my face with the hot, thick odour of spirituous liquor.

  "Father Demid!" again essayed the old woman with an imploring wail, but he cut her short with the menacing admonition:

  "How often have I told you that you must not address a deacon as 'Father'? Go to bed! Yes, be off with you, and let me mind my affairs myself! GO, I say! But first light me another candle, for I cannot see a single thing in front of me."

  With which, throwing himself upon a bench, the deacon slapped his knee with a book which he had in his hands, and put to me the query:

  "Should you care to have a dram of gorielka? [Another name for vodka.]

  "No," I replied. "At all events, not here."

  "Indeed?" the deacon cried, unabashed. "But come, a bottle of the stuff is here, in my very pocket."

  "This is no place in which to be drinking."

  For a moment the deacon said nothing. Then he muttered:

  "True, true. So let us adjourn to the forecourt.... Yes, what you say is no more than the truth."

  "Had you not better remain seated where you are, and begin the reading?"

  "No, I am going to do no such thing. YOU shall do the reading. Tonight I, I—well I am not very well, for I have been drinking a little."

  And, thrusting the book into my stomach, he sank his head upon his breast, and fell to swaying it ponderously up and down.

  "Folk die," was his next utterance, "and the world remains as full of grief as ever. Yes, folk die even before they have seen a little good accrue to themselves."

  "I see that your book is not a Psalter," here I interposed after an inspection of the volume.

  "You are wrong."

  "Then look for yourself."

  He grabbed the book by its cover, and, by dint of holding the candle close to its pages, discovered, eventually, that matters were as I had stated.

  This took him aback completely.

  "What can the fact mean?" he exclaimed. "Oh, I know what has happened. The mistake has come of my being in such a hurry. The other book, the true Psalter, is a fat, heavy volume, whereas this one is—"

  For a moment he seemed sobered by the shock. At all events, he rose and, approaching the corpse, said, as he bent over the bed with his beard held back:

  "Pardon me, Vasil, but what is to be done?"

  Then he straightened himself again, threw back his curls, and, drawing a bottle from his pocket, and thrusting the neck of the bottle into his mouth, took a long draught, with a whistling of his nostrils as he did so.

  "Well?" I said.

  "Well, I intend to go to bed—my idea is to drink and enjoy myself awhile."

  "Go, then."

  "And what of the reading?"

  "Who would wish you to mumble words which you would not be comprehending as you uttered them?"

  The deacon reseated himself upon the bench, leaned forward, buried his face in his hands and remained silent.

  Fast the July night was waning. Fast its shadows were dissolving into corners, and allowing a whiff of fresh dewy morningtide to enter at the window. Already was the combined light of the two candles growing paler, with their flames looking like the eyes of a frightened child.

  "You have lived your life, Vasi," at length the deacon muttered, "and though once I had a place to which to resort, now I shall have none. Yes, my last friend is dead. Oh Lord—where is Thy justice?"

  For myself, I went and took a seat by the window, and, thrusting my head into the open air, lit a pipe, and continued to listen with a shiver to the deacon's wailings.

  "Folk used to gird at my wife," he went on, "and now they are gnawing at me as pigs might gnaw at a cabbage. That is so, Vasil. Yes that is so."

  Again the bottle made its appearance. Again the deacon took a draught. Again he wiped his beard. Then he bent over the dead man once more, and kissed the corpse's forehead.

  "Good-bye, friend of mine!" he said. Then to myself he added with unlooked-for clarity and vigour:

  "My friend here was but a plain man—a man as inconspicuous among his fellows as a rook among a flock of rooks. Yet no rook was he. Rather, he was a snow-white dove, though none but I realised the fact. And now he has been withdrawn from the 'grievous bondage of Pharaoh.' Only I am left. Verily, after my passing, shall my soul torment and vomit spittle upon his adversaries!"

  "Have you known much sorrow?"

  The deacon did not reply at once. When he did so he said dully:

  "All of us have known much sorrow. In some cases we have known more than was rightfully our due. I certainly, have known much. But go to sleep, for only in sleep do we recover what is ours."

  And he added as he tripped over his own feet, and lurched heavily against me:

  "I have a longing to sing something. Yet I feel that I had best not, for song at such an hour awakens folk, and starts them bawling... But beyond all things would I gladly sing."

  With which he buzzed into my ear:

  "To whom shall I sing of my grief?

  To whom resort for relief?

  To the One in whose ha-a-and—"

  At this point the sharp bristles of his beard so tickled my neck as to cause me to edge further away.

  "You do not like me?" he queried. "Then go to sleep, and to the devil too!"

  "It was your beard that was tickling me."

  "Indeed? Ought I to have shaved for your benefit before I came?"

  He reflected awhile—then subsided on to the floor with a sniff and an angry exclamation of:

  "Read, you, whilst I sleep. And see to it that you do not make off with the book, for it belongs to the church, and is very valuable. Yes. I know you hard-ups! Why do you go roaming about as you do—what is it you hope to gain by your tramping?... However, tramp as much as you like. Yes, be off, and tell people that a deacon has come by misfortune, and is in need of some good person to take pity upon his plight.... Diomid Kubasov my name is—that of a man lost beyond recall."

  With which he fell asleep. Opening the book at random, I read the words:

  "A land unapportioned that shall produce a nourisher of humanity, a being that shall put forth the bounty of his hand to feed every creature.
"

  "A nourisher of humanity." Before my eyes that "nourisher" lay outspread, a nourisher overlaid with dry and fragrant herbage. And as I gazed, in the haze of a vision, upon that nourisher's dark and enigmatical face, I saw also the thousands of men who have seamed this earth with furrows, to the end that dead things should become things of life. And in particular, there uprose before me a picture strange indeed. In that picture I saw marching over the steppe, where the expanse lay bare and void—yes, marching in circles that increasingly embraced a widening area—a gigantic, thousand-handed being in whose train the dead steppe gathered unto itself vitality, and became swathed in juicy, waving verdure, and studded with towns and villages. And ever, as the being receded further and further into the distance, could I see him sowing with tireless hands that which had in it life, and was part of himself, and human as, with thoughts intent upon the benefiting of humanity, he summoned all men to put forth the mysterious force that is in them, and thus to conquer death, and eternally and invincibly to convert, dead things into things of life, while traversing in company the road of death towards that which has no knowledge of death, and ensuring that, in swallowing up mankind, the jaws of death should not close upon death's victims.

  And this caused my heart to beat with emotions the pulsing wings of which at once gladdened me, and cooled my fervour... And how greatly, at that moment, did I feel the need of someone able to respond to my questions without passion, yet with truth, and in the language of simplicity! For beside me there lay but a man dead and a man drunken, while without the threshold there was stationed one who had far outlived her span of years. No matter, however. If not today, then tomorrow, should I find a fellow-creature with whom my soul might commune.

  Mentally I left the hut, and passed on to the steppe, that I might contemplate thence the little dwelling in which alone, though lost amid the earth's immensity, the windows were not blind and black as in its fellow huts, but showed, burning over the head of a dead human being, the fire which humanity had conquered for humanity's benefit.

  And that heart which had ceased to beat in the dead man—had everything conceived in life by that heart found due expression in a world poverty, stricken of heart-conceived ideas? I knew that the man just passed away had been but a plain and insignificant mortal, yet as I reflected upon even the little that he had done, his labour loomed before me as greater than prowess of larger magnitude. Yes, to my mind there recurred the immature, battered ears of corn lying in the ruts of the steppe track, the swallows traversing the blue sky above the golden, brocaded grain, the kite hovering in the void over the landscape's vast periphery.....