Tales of the Wilderness online

slow, measured accents vibrating with malice:

"Well, pious one! Everything here is mine. I asked you to-day to give
me a baby, because I am merely a woman and so desire motherhood.... I
asked you to take wine... You refused. The nearer to death the
further from birth, you say? Well then, begone!"

She broke into tears, sobbing loudly and plaintively, covering her
face with her hands; then leant against the wall, still sobbing. The
Arkhipovs ran to her; Polunin stood at the table dumbfounded, then
left the room.

"I didn't ask him for passion or caresses. ... I have no husband!"
Kseniya cried, sobbing and shrieking like a hysterical girl. They
calmed her after a time, and she spoke to them in snatches between
her sobs, which were less violent for a while. Then she broke out
weeping afresh, and sank into an armchair.

The dawn had now brightened; the room was filled with a faint,
flickering light. Misty, vaporous, tormenting shadows danced and
twisted oddly in the shifting glimmer: in the tenebrous half-light
the occupants looked grey, weary, and haggard, their faces strangely
distorted by the alternate rise and fall of the shadows. Arkhipov's
bald head with its tightly stretched skin resembled a greatly
elongated skull.

"Listen to me, you Arkhipovs," Kseniya cried brokenly. "Supposing a
distracted woman who desired to be pure were to come and ask you for
a baby - would you give her the same answer as Polunin? He said it was
impossible, that it was sin, that he loved someone else. Would you
answer like that, Arkhipov, knowing it was the woman's last - her
only - chance of salvation - her only love?" She looked eagerly from
one to the other.

"No, certainly not - I should answer in a different way," Arkhipov
replied quietly.

"And you, Vera Lvovna, a wife ... do you hear? I speak in front of
you?"

Vera Lvovna nodded, laid her hand gently on Kseniya's forehead, and
answered softly and tenderly:

"I understand you perfectly."

Again Kseniya wept.

* * * * * * *

The dawn trod gently down the lanes of darkness. The light grew
clearer and the candles became dim and useless. The outlines of the
furniture crept out of the net of shadows. Through the blue mist
outside the snow, valley, forest, and fields were faintly visible.
From the right of the horizon dawn's red light flushed the heavens
with a cold purple.

Polunin drove along by the fields, trotting smoothly behind his
stallion. The earth was blue and cold and ghostly, a land carved out
of dreams, seemingly unsubstantial and unreal. A harsh, bitter wind
blew from the north, stirring the telegraph-wires by the roadside to
a loud, humming refrain. A silence as of death reigned over the land,
yet life thrilled through it; and now and then piping goldfinches
appeared from their winter nests in the moist green ditches, and flew
ahead of Polunin; then suddenly turned aside and perched lightly on
the wayside brambles.

Night still lingered amid the calm splendour of the vast, primeval
forest. As he drove through the shadowed glades the huge trees gently
swayed their giant boughs, softly brushing aside the shroud of
encompassing darkness.

A golden eagle darted from its mist-wreathed eyrie and flew over the
fields; then soared upwards in ever-widening circles towards the
east - where, like a pale rose ribbon stretched across the sky, the
light from the rising sun shed a delicate opalescent glow on the
snow, which it transformed to an exquisite lilac, and the shadows, to
which it lent a wonderful, mysterious, quivering blue tint.

Polunin sat in his seat, huddled together, brooding morosely,
deriving a grim satisfaction from the fact that - all the same - he had
not broken the law. Henceforth, he never could break it; the thought
of Kseniya Ippolytovna brought pain, but he would not condemn her.

At home, Alena was already up and about; he embraced her fondly,
clasped her in his arms, kissed her forehead; then he took up the
infant and gazed lingeringly, with infinite tenderness, upon her
innocent little face.

The day was glorious; the golden sunlight streamed in through the
windows in a shining cataract, betokening the advent of spring, and
made pools of molten gold upon the floor. But the snow still lay in
all its virgin whiteness over the earth.




A YEAR OF THEIR LIVES

I


To the north, south, east, and west - in all directions for hundreds
of miles - stretched forests and bogs enveloped in a wide-spread veil
of lichen. Brown-trunked cedars and pines towered on high. Beneath
there was a thick, impenetrable jungle of firs, alders, wild-berries,
junipers, and low-hanging birches. Pungent, deep-sunken, lichen-
covered springs of reddish water were hidden amidst undergrowth in
little glades, couched in layers of turf bordered by red bilberries
and huckleberries.

With September came the frosts - fifty degrees below zero. The snow
lay everywhere - crisp and dazzling. There was daylight for three or
four hours only; the remainder of the time it was night. The sky was
lowering, and brooded darkly over the earth. There was a tense hush
and stillness, only broken in September by the lowing of mating elks.
In December came the mournful, sinister howling of the wolves; for
the rest of the time - a deep, dreadful, overpowering silence! A
silence that can be found only in the wastelands of the world.

A village stood on the hill by the river.

The bare slope descended to the water's edge, a grey-brown granite,
and white slatey clay, steep, beaten by wind and rain. Clumsy
discoloured boats were anchored to the bank. The river was broad,
dark, and cold, its surface broken by sombre, choppy, bluish waves.
Here and there the grey silhouettes of huts were visible; their high,
projecting, boarded roofs were covered by greenish lichen. The
windows were shuttered. Nets dried close by. It was the abode of
hunters who went long excursions into the forests in winter, to fight
the wild beasts.

II

In the spring the rivers - now broad, free and mighty - overflowed
their banks. Heavy waves broke up the face of the waters, which sent
forth a deep, hoarse, subdued murmur, as restless and disquieting as
the season itself. The snow thawed. The pine-trees showed resinous
lights, and exhaled a strong, pungent odour.

In the day-time the sky was a broad expanse of blue; at dusk it had a
soft murky hue and a melancholy attraction. In the heart of the
woods, now that winter was over, the first deed of the beasts was
being accomplished - birth. Eider-ducks, swans, and geese were crying
noisily on the river.

At dusk the sky became greenish and murky, merging into a vast tent
of deepest blue studded with a myriad of shining golden stars. Then
the eider-ducks and swans grew silent and went to roost for the
night, and the soft warm air was thrilled by the whines of bear-cubs
and the cries of land-rails. It was then that the maidens assembled
on the slope to sing of Lada and to dance their ancient dances, while
strapping youths came forth from their winter dwellings in the woods
and listened.

The slope down to the river was steep; below was the rustling sound
of water among the reeds. Everything was wrapt in stillness, yet
everywhere the throb and flow of life could be heard. The maidens sat
huddled together on the top of the slope, where the granite and slate
were covered with scanty moss and yellow grass.

They were dressed in gaily-coloured dresses: all of them strong and
robust; they sang their love-songs - old and sad and free - and gazed
into the gathering opalescent mists. Their songs seemed to overflow
from their hearts, and were sung to the youths who stood around them
like sombre, restive shadows, ogling and lustful, like the beasts in
their forest-haunts.

This festive coupling-time had its law.

The youths came here to choose their wives; they quarrelled and
fought, while the maidens remained listless, yielding to them in all.
The young men ogled and fought and he who triumphed first chose his
wife. Then he and she together retired from the festival.

III

Marina was twenty when she proceeded to the river-bank.

Her tall, somewhat heavy body was wonderfully moulded, with strong
muscles and snowy skin. Her chest, back, hips, and limbs were sharply
outlined; she was strong, supple, and well developed. Her round,
broad breast rose high; her hair, eye-brows and eye-lashes were thick
and dark. The pupils of her eyes were deep and liquid; her cheeks
showed a flush of red. Her lips were soft - like a beast's - large,
sensuous and rosy. She walked slowly, moving her long straight legs
evenly, and slightly swaying from her hips....

She joined the maidens on the river slope.

They were singing their mysterious, alluring and illusive songs.

Marina mingled among the crowd of maidens, lay down upon her back,
closed her dreamy eyes, and joined in the festive chorus. The
maidens' souls became absorbed in the singing, and their song spread
far and wide through all the shadowy recesses of the woods, like
shining rays of sunlight. Their eyes closed in langour, their full-
blooded bodies ached with a delicious sensation. Their hearts seemed
to grow benumbed, the numbness spreading through their blood to their
limbs; it deprived them of strength, and their thoughts became
chaotic.

Marina stretched her limbs sensuously; then became absorbed in the
singing, and she also sang. She felt strangely inert; only quivering
at the sound of the lusty, excited voices of the youths.

Afterwards she lay on a couch in her suffocatingly close room; her
hands were clasped behind her head; her bosom swelled. She stretched,
opened her dark pensive eyes wide, compressed her lips, then sank
again into the drowsy langour, lying thus for many hours.

She was twenty, and had grown up free and solitary - with the hunters,
the woods, and the steep and the river - from her birth.

IV

Demid lived on his own plot of ground, which, like the village, stood
on a hill above the river. But here the hill was higher and steeper,
sweeping the edge of the horizon. The wood was nearer, and its grey-
trunked cedars and pines rose from their beds of golden moss to shake
their crests to the stars and stretch their dark-green forest hands
right up to the house. The view was wide and sweeping from here: the
dark, turbulent river, the marsh beyond, the deep-blue billowing
woods fringing the horizon, the heavy lowering sky - all were clearly
visible.

The house, made of huge pines, with timbered walls, plain white-
washed ceilings and floors, was bestrewn with pelts of bears, elks,
wolves, foxes, and ermines. Gunpowder and grape-shot lay on the
tables. In the corners was a medley of lassoes, snares, and
wolftraps. Some rifles hung round the walls. There was a strong
pungent odour, as though all the perfumes of the woods were collected
here. The house contained two rooms and a kitchen.

In the centre of one of the rooms stood a large, rough-hewn table;
round it were some low wooden stools covered with bear-skin. This was
Demid's own room; in the other was the young bear, Makar.

Demid lay motionless for a long time on his bear-skin bed, listening
to the vibrations of his great body - how it lived and throbbed, how
the rich blood coursed through its veins. Makar, the bear,
approached, laid his heavy paws on his chest, and amicably sniffed at
his body. Demid stroked the beast on its ear, and it seemed as if the
man and animal understood each other. Outside the window loomed the
wood.

Demid was rugged and broad-shouldered, a large, quiet, dark-eyed,
good man. He smelt of the woods, and was strong and healthy. Like all
the hunters, he dressed in furs and a rough, home-woven fabric
streaked with red. He wore high, heavy boots made of reindeer hide,
and his coarse, broad hands were covered with broken chilblains.

Makar was young, and, like all young things, he was foolish. He liked
to roll about, and was often destructive - he would gnaw the nets and
skins, break the traps, and lick up the gunpowder. Then Demid
punished him, whereupon Makar would turn on his heel, make foolish
grimaces, and whine plaintively.

V

Demid went to the maidens on the slope and took Marina to his plot of
land. She became his wife.

VI

The dark-green, wind-swept grass grew sweet and succulent in summer.
The sun seemed to shine from out a deep blue ocean of light. The
nights were silvery, the sky seemed dissolved into a pale, pellucid
mist; sunset and dawn co-mingled, and a white wavering haze crept
over the earth. Here life was strong and swift, for it knew that its
days were brief.

Marina was installed in Makar's room, and he was transferred to
Demid's.

Makar greeted Marina with an inhospitable snarl when he saw her for
the first time; then, showing his teeth, he struck her with his paw.
Demid beat him for this behaviour, and he quieted down. Then Marina
made friends with him.

Demid went into the woods in the daytime, and Marina was left alone.

She decorated her room in her own fashion, with a crude, somewhat
exaggerated, yet graceful, taste. She hung round in symmetrical order
the skins and cloth hangings, brightly embroidered with red and blue
cocks and reindeers. She placed an image of the God-Mother in the
corner; she washed the floor; and her multi-coloured room - smelling
as before of the woods - began to resemble a forest-chapel, where the
forest folk pray to their gods.

In the pale-greenish twilight of the illimitable night, when only
horn-owls cried in the woods and bear-cubs snarled by the river,
Demid went in to Marina. She could not think - her mind moved slowly
and awkwardly like a great lumbering animal - she could only feel, and
in those warm, voluptuous, star-drenched nights she yielded herself
to Demid, desiring to become one with him, his strength, and his
passion.

The nights were pale, tremulous, and mysterious. There was a deep,
heavy, nocturnal stillness. White spirals of mist drifted along the
ground. Night-owls and wood spirits hooted. In the morning was a red
blaze of glory as the great orb of day rose from the east into the
azure vault of heaven.

The days flew by and summer passed.

VII

It snowed in September.

It had been noticeable, even in August, how the days drew in and
darkened, how the nights lengthened and deepened. The wood all at
once grew still and dumb; it seemed as though it were deserted. The
air grew cold, and the river became locked in ice. The twilight was
slow and lingering, its deepening shadows turning the snow and ice on
the river to a keen, frosty blue.

Through the nights rang the loud, strange, fierce bellowing of the
elks as they mated; the walls shook, and the hills re-echoed with
their terrible roar.

Marina was with child in the autumn.

One night she woke before dawn. The room was stifling from the heat
of the stove, and she could smell the bear. There was a faint glimmer
of dawn, and the dark walls showed the window frames in a wan blue
outline. Somewhere close by an old elk was bellowing: you could tell
it was old by the hoarse, hissing notes of its hollow cries.

Marina sat up in bed. Her head swam, and she felt nauseated. The bear
lay beside her; he was already awake and was watching her. His eyes
shone with quiet, greenish lights; from outside, the thin crepuscular
light crept into the room through little crevices.

Again Marina felt the nausea, and her head swam; the lights in
Makar's eyes were re-enkindled in Marina's soul into a great,
overwhelming joy that made her body quiver with emotion . . . Her
heart beat like a snared bird - all was wavering and misty, like a
summer morn.

She rose from her bed of bear-skin furs, and naked, with swift,
awkward, uncertain steps, went in to Demid. He was still asleep - she
put her burning arms about him and drew his head to her deep bosom,
whispering to him softly:

"A child ... it is the child...."

Little by little, the night lifted and in through the windows came
the daylight. The elk ceased his bellowing The room filled with
glancing morning shadows. Makar approached, sniffed, and laid his
paws on the bed. Demid seized his collar with his free hand and
patting him fondly said:

"That is right, Makar Ivanych - you know, don't you?" Then turning to
Marina, he added: "What do you think, Marinka? Doesn't he know?
Doesn't the old bear know, Marinka?"

Makar licked Demid's hand, and laid his head knowingly on his
forepaws. The night had gone; rays of lilac-coloured light illumined
the snow and entered the house. Round, red, and distant rose the sun.
Below the hill lay the blue, ice-bound river, and away beyond it
stretched the ribbed outline of the vast, marshy Siberian forest.
Demid did not enter it that day, nor on many of the following days.

VIII

The winter descended.

The snow lay in deep layers, blue by day and night, lilac in the
brief intervals of sunrise and sunset. The pale, powerless sun seemed
far away and strange during the three short hours that it showed over
the horizon. The rest of the time it was night. The northern lights
flashed like quivering arrows across the sky, in their sublime and
awful majesty. The frost lay like a veil over the earth, enveloping
all in a dazzling whiteness in which was imprisoned every shade of
colour under the sun. Crimsons, purples, softest yellows, tenderest
greens, and exquisite blues and pinks flashed and quivered fiercely
under the morning rays, shimmering in the brilliance. Over all hung
the hush of the trackless desert, the stillness that betokened death!

Marina's eyes had changed - they were no longer dark, limpid, full of
intoxication; they were wonderfully bright and clear. Her hips had
widened, her body had increased, adding a new grace to her stature.
She seldom went out, sitting for the most part in her room, which
resembled a forest-chapel where men prayed to the gods. In the
daytime she did her simple houskeeping - chopped wood, heated the
stove, cooked meat and fish, helped Demid to skin the beasts he had
slain, and to weed their plot of land. During the long evenings she
spun and wove clothes for the coming babe. As she sewed she thought
of the child, and sung and smiled softly.

An overwhelming joy possessed Marina when she thought of her
approaching motherhood. Her heart beat faster and her happiness
increased. Her own possible sufferings held no place in her thoughts.

In the lilac glow of dawn, when a round moon, solemn and immense,
glowed in the south-western sky, Demid took his rifle and Finnish
knife, and went on his sleigh into the forest.

The pine-trees and cedars stood starkly under their raiment of snow -
mighty forest giants - beneath them clustered prickly firs, junipers
and alders. The stillness was profound. Demid sped from trap to trap,
from snare to snare, over the silent soundless snow. He strangled the
beasts; he fired, and the crack of his gun resounded through the
empty space. He sought for the trail of the elks and wolf-packs. He
descended to the river and watched for otters, caught bewildered fish
amidst the broken ice, and set his nets afresh. The scenes all round
him were old and familiar. The majesty of day died down in the west
on a flaming pyre of vivid clouds, and the quivering, luminous
streamers of the north re-appeared.

Standing in his plot of ground in the evening, he cut up the fish and
meat, hung it up to freeze, threw pieces to the bear, ate some
himself, washed his hands in ice-cold water, and sat down beside
Marina - big and rugged, his powerful legs wide apart, his hands
resting heavily on his knees. The room became stifling with his
presence. He smiled down quietly and good-naturedly at Marina.

The lamp shone cheerfully. Outside was snow, frost, and peace. Makar
approached and lounged on the floor. There was an atmosphere of quiet
joy and comfort in the chapel-like room. The walls cracked in the
frost; some towels embroidered in red and blue with reindeer and
cocks hung over them. Outside the frozen windows was darkness, cold,
and night.

Demid rose from his bench, took Marina tenderly and firmly in his
arms, and led her to the bed. The lamp flickered, and in the half-
light Makar's eyes glowed. He had grown up during the winter and he
was now an adult bear - with a sombre, solemn air and a kind of clumsy
skill. He had a large flat nose and grave, good-natured eyes.

IX

It was the last days of December. There had been a merry Christmas
festival and the snow had lain thick on house and slope. Wolves were
now on the trail. Then Marina felt the first stirring of her child;
soft, gentle movements, like the touch of eiderdown upon her body.
She was filled with a triumphant joy, and pressed her hands softly
and tenderly to her side; then sang a lullaby of how her son should
become a great hunter and slay a thousand and three hundred elks, a
thousand and three hundred bears, a thousand and three hundred
ermines, and take the chief village beauty as his wife!

There was misty frost, the night, and stillness outside - the
stillness that whispers of death. Wolves crept up to the plot of
land, sat on their hind-legs and howled long and dismally at the sky.

In the spring the shores of the river were strewn with wild flocks of
swans, geese, and eider-ducks. The forest resounded with the stir of
the beasts. Its woody depths echoed with the noise of bears, elks,
wolves, foxes, owls, and woodcocks. The herbage began to sprout and
flourish. The nights now drew in, and the days were longer. Dawn and
sunset were lilac and lingering. The twilight fell in pale green,
shimmering floods of light, and as it deepened and spread the village
maidens gathered again on the river slope and sang their songs of
Lada, the Spring God.

In the morning the sun rose in a glory of golden splendour and swam
into the limpid blue heavens. There, enthroned, it spent the many
hours of spring. Then came the Easter Festival when, according to the
legend, the sun smiled and the people exchanged red eggs as its
symbol.

X

On this Festival, Marina became a mother.

That night the bear left Demid. He must surely have scented the
spring and gone into the forest to find himself a mate.

He left late at night, after breaking down the door. It was dark. A
scarcely noticeable streak of light lay over the eastern horizon.
Somewhere afar the village maidens were singing their songs of Lada.




_A THOUSAND YEARS_

"LET THE DEAD BURY THE DEAD." - _Matthew_, ch. vii.


It was night time when Prince Constantine arrived at his brother's
little cabin. Young Vilyashev himself opened the door, and throughout
the brief conversation that ensued they remained in darkness - not
even a candle was lighted. Tall, lean, cadaverous, dressed in a much-
worn day suit, his cap under his arm, Constantine stonily listened to
Vilyashev's terse account of their sister's last moments.

"She died peacefully," the young man told his brother, "and she was
quite calm to the end, for she believed in God. But she could not rid
herself of memories of the past. How could she when the present shows
such an awful contrast? Famine, scurvy, typhus, sorrow brood over the
countryside. Our old home is the hands of strangers: we ourselves are
outcasts living in a peasant's cabin. Imagine what this meant to a
delicately nurtured woman! Men are wild beasts, brother."

"There were three of us," Constantine said with quiet bitterness -
"you, Natalia, and myself. It is ended! I travelled here in a cattle-
truck, walking from the station on foot - and was too late for the
funeral."

"She was buried yesterday. She knew from the first she was dying, and
would not stir a step from here."

"Poor girl," sighed Constantine. "She had lived here all her life."

He left abruptly without a word of farewell, and they did not meet
again until the next evening: both had spent the day wandering about
the valleys.

At dawn the following morning Vilyashev ascended a steep hill; on the
flat summit of a tumulus that crowned it he observed an eagle tearing
a pigeon to pieces. At his approach the bird flew up into the clear,
empty sky, towards the east, emitting a low, deep, unforgettable cry
that echoed dolefully over the fragrant fields.

From the hill and tumulus could be seen a vast panorama of meadows,
thickets, villages, and white steeples of churches. A golden sun rose
and swung slowly above the hill, gilding the horizon, the clouds,
hill-ridges, and the tumulus; steeping them in wave upon wave of
shimmering yellow light.

Below, in wisps and long slender ribbons, a rosy mist crept over the