Despite the cold of an autumn night, scarcely had Helene entered her room than she opened her window and inhaled deep breaths of thedamp frosty air which poured into her chamber. She was afraid of the coming night. She felt that she would not sleep and be sleepless till the morning. She took a strong dose of a composing draught, but her nerves were too much disturbed to feel the effect of it.
Just then Olia ran into her room. "How cold it is here," she said.
"For my part I am stifling and feel the want of air," said Helene, attempting to smile.
"Take care; you will make yourself ill."
"What does that matter," answered Helene with indifference.
"Stop, Olia, see what the general's wife has sent you."
"I am glad to have it," said the novice joyfully, "although they say it is a sin; I do not hear with that ear." Smiling she opened the packet. "Bonbons and sweetmeats—hurrah!"
"Take them all away; I do not like sweets; and now, my child, go down and go to sleep; I want to be alone; I have not prayed to-day."
Helene closed the door and entered her tiny bedroom, a great space in which was occupied by a screen with sacred pictures. The whitewashed walls were bare, and so was the floor. The general's wife had sent her a carpet, but Helene had at once given it to the church. In onecorner was a narrow bed, on a little table a Gospel richly bound, theLife of Jesus Christby Ferrara, and some devotional books. Under the table was a box containing all her property, old letters and portraits. This she called her "cemetery." She lit the wax candles before the sacred images and amid the surrounding darkness, the gold frames, and bright haloes cast their reflections on the austere faces of the saints who could scarcely be distinguished against their black background. Helene remembered the nights of prayer which her mother and grandmother had passed, prostrate at the foot of these same icons, and her sad heart was penetrated by a warm feeling of devotion. When she left her home these relics were the only things she had taken with her as they constituted a link with her past; they afforded her a refuge from her sad thoughts. But to-day, how could she get rid of them? She was incapable of praying; her lips murmured the familiar words, her hands made the sign of the cross, but there was no peace nor humility in her heart. She knelt down and closed her eyes, but prayer did not come. In spite of years and of distance, familiar faces surrounded her, and loved voices whispered in her ear, "How pale you are!" "Why did you leave us to go so far?"
As though she feared insulting the sanctity of the icons she put out the candles and went into the next room. She tried to tire herself out by walking up and down her cell, but in vain; the vision followed her. She did not struggle any more; like a swimmer at the end of his strength, she yielded to the rising waves which were carrying her far away to the land of memories.
The five years of struggles through which she had passed, those years of prayers and struggles, all disappeared; she no longer saw her black garments; even the walls of her cell had fallen; a whole world lay open before her. Yes, it was the past which transported her to its magic circle; she saw her youth again. Her sister Nina, with gentle trusting eyes, came to her and embraced her with her tender arms in order to tell her in broken tones a young girl's secrets. There was five years' difference between the two sisters; the younger one was eighteen. She, the elder, seemed somewhat too serious for her age; that perhaps was owing to the influence of her mother, to her continual visits to convents, and to that atmosphere of incense, prayer and meditation which had surrounded her from her earliest infancy. The younger sister grew up quite different; she was a butterfly who needed the sun, blue sky and flower-beds; her laughter rangclear, contagious and musical. Helene herself who had received the nickname "the nun," yielded to the charm of this child-like gaiety. What she loved best in the world was to sit at her window in the evening, listening to her sister telling her in her gentle voice her great joys and her little sorrows. Why then one day had she suddenly risen and pushed her away? Why had some words of her favourite made her treat harshly, were it only for a moment, this dear little bird who came to seek protection with her? What had the child said that its memory should still burn in her heart to-day?
Nina, with blushing and tears, had confessed to her that for two years she had been in love. When she uttered the name of the man she loved Helene had pushed her away so abruptly that the poor little thing had fallen against a piece of furniture. The "nun" remembered her mad fit of anger; without being touched by her sister's sobs, she shut herself in her room, refusing to open the door each time that Nina came and knocked at it.
On the morrow her anger had cooled and been succeeded by a sad tenderness, a profound remorse for her harshness. She went to her sister's room and found her asleep without having undressed, her cheeks still showing the traces of tears. Shebent over her to embrace her. Nina flung her arms around her, whispering in her ear, with tears of joy this time:
"I knew that you would not long be vexed with me; there was no reason why you should be, I am no longer a child; I am eighteen; I could not hide it from you any longer."
"But he—how does he feel towards you?" interrupted Helene.
As she put this fateful question, she pressed her hand to her heart as though she feared it would betray her by its beating.
"I think ... he also loves me; he is so attentive, so affectionate in his manner."
Helene did not ask any more; she forced herself to smile, and till the hour of her departure, she was constantly with her sister; at the bottom of her heart she wished her to be happy, but in this same heart an icy despair was daily growing more intense.
"He has been affectionate and attentive to me also," she said to herself. Had she not seen his gaze constantly following her? Did not the very tone of his voice change when he spoke to her? She had deceived herself then! And indeed how could she, the taciturn "nun," hope to rival her graceful little sister? She had been blind, and worse than that—ridiculous. Heloved Nina, and naturally had more smiles for her elder sister than for others.
Shortly after her sister's avowal, Helene went to pay a visit to some relatives, where she remained several days, considering what she should do. One moment she believed that he hesitated between her and Nina. But Nina had been entrusted to her care by her dying mother; could she ever come between her and her happiness? Never! Should she bring tears to those clear eyes? Should she ruin by her egotism "her child's" future?Hemight hesitate, but she must not! Only what should she do?
She had not to reflect long. Her mother had taught her to forget herself and accustomed her to the thought of self-sacrifice. Happiness bought at the cost of another's suffering could not be endurable, she said to herself. Even if he did not yet love Nina, she would entrust her to his care, at the moment of her departure, and love would soon follow. Her sister would not miss her; those who are in love do not need a third person. Her life, as far as she was concerned, was finished; she would never love again; natures like hers neither change nor forget. As for being present to witness the spectacle of this youthful happiness, that was beyond her power. Perhaps in course of time, when everything had settled down,she might return. At present she must go where they could not discover her, or even if they did so, not be able to bring her back into the world.
It was then that she recollected the peace that she thought she had seen pervading the convents which she had visited with her mother, and that devotional atmosphere which soothes those whom life has cheated. She recalled to memory the face of Sister Melanie, of whom it was said that she had lived through all the trials that can come upon a woman. How serene her face was and how grand and noble that once passionate heart!
After her absence, Helene, returning one evening to her house, found her sister and him in the garden. A nightingale was singing, and the flowers were exhaling their scents. She thought she saw on the faces of the two young people an expression of happiness. The next day she told her sister that she was leaving for Petrograd, and that their aunt would stay with her during her absence. She took leave of both for "a certain time" as she said, and ignored his melancholy air when she entrusted her little girl to his care. She wrote seldom from Petrograd; Nina's letters showed signs of ennui; Helene explained it to herself by the fact that the younger one had never been without her before. Lateron, she left for a foreign country, and it was from thence that she announced to her family the unexpected news of her entering the convent; she was happy, she said, and wished them the same happiness; she would only write seldom, and perhaps would never return to Russia.
She did return, however, chose at random a small provincial town, entered a convent there as a novice, and disappeared from the world. She never knew if her family had looked for her; it was as though a curtain had dropped between her and her former life.
Since then five long sad years had passed. She hoped she had secured the happiness of those she loved, but she had not gained that sweet quietude, that healing forgetfulness which she had expected. On the contrary, her sadness increased with the lapse of time; memory became more active; through the most of her tears she no longer even saw the great ideal which was to safeguard her from herself. One single thought possessed her: she would never be able to return again to those she loved so well.
Sometimes, as she lay on her bed, her lean arms crossed over her breast, she said to herself, that one day she would be so stretched in her coffin, but then her sufferings would be ended, and death did not alarm her; she smiled at himas a prisoner smiles at the radiant hour of deliverance. But that hour came very slowly.
It was still dark when the bells rang for matins. Helene dressed herself quickly and went out. From all sides black figures were gliding in the shadow towards the lighted portal of the church. Some saluted her, others did not notice her. Silence reigned everywhere.
She went to efface herself in her favourite corner, in the shadow where she loved to stand, leaning her head against the cold wall. She did not succeed in attaining to forgetfulness; on the contrary her memories oppressed her, though she tried to lose herself in the contemplation of the gentle Virgin who seemed to regard her with pity. It would have been a relief if at least she could have shared her sorrow with some sister soul, but Sister Seraphine was the only one who passed and re-passed her, grumbling to herself as she went.
"Why do you stand there, like a statue? Make at any rate on your forehead the penitent's sign of the cross! They are a real sorrow, these young ones! You all have your eyes fixed on the holy pictures, but your hearts are elsewhere. Think of it, Sister Helene! At the hour of death you will be glad to pray, but then your hand will not have the power to make the sign of theholy cross." And the old woman disappeared behind the columns.
Helene went back to her room. It was still dark, and the gloom had invaded her soul also. Why was it that she was suffering to-day more than usual? Was it a presentiment which oppressed her heart? What was going to happen?
Six o'clock had just struck. The grey light of morning broke into the cell in which Helene walked up and down with a nervous step, casting from time to time a sad glance out of the window; she felt that to-day neither sleep nor calm would come to her. Olia, woken by the sound of her footsteps, had come several times to her door; but Helene had always sent her away, begging her not to be anxious about her.
There was nothing in her past with which she had to reproach herself. She had given all that she had. Why then did the consciousness of having acted rightly not bring her the peace for which she longed? Then, catching herself murmuring, she began to pray, but the prayer did not come from her heart. Her exhaustion caused her to feel giddy; she even rejoiced in this,seeing in it a sign of the torpor for which she craved. Passing into her inner room, she lay down on her bed, with her eyes closed, but sleep did not come. Dawn broadened into day, and the austere countenances of the icons seemed to be bent fixedly on poor Helene as she lay, deprived of strength. She made a movement and her hand touched the old newspapers in which the preserves sent by the general's wife had been wrapped. Hardly knowing what she did, she unfolded one of them, and glanced at it carelessly; the paper glided with a light rustle behind her bed; a vague desire to know what was going on in the world seized her; she took another sheet; her eye fell on the not very edifying details of a divorce case; she turned the page and found there, by a strange chance, a correspondent's letter from her native town of which she had heard nothing for so long. She saw that the date of this letter was that of the year in which she had left her country.
Scarcely had she glanced through some lines than her blood turned to ice in her veins and a chill pierced her heart. She uttered such a groan that Olia awoke with a start. As though she could not trust her eyes, poor Helene read the article a second time. Yes, they were there, those cursed lines! a thing more horrible thanmurder. She had not yet taken in the awfulness of it. A fit of frenzy seized her brain. She seized the newspaper and brandished it at the sacred pictures, saying, "There! There!"
What she had read was as follows:
"A tragedy has just disturbed our quiet provincial town. Two young girls of good society fell in love with the same young man; one was twenty-five, the other nineteen. There was an explanation between the two sisters: the elder did not wish to stand in the way of the happiness of the younger; she went away for good, telling her friends that she intended to enter a convent, and would never return. This is where the affair took a dramatic turn. The young man loved the girl who had gone away; he only waited for her return to declare himself. When he heard of the step she had taken, he applied to the authorities to be exchanged into another regiment, and went off without informing any one. This morning the younger of the two sisters was found dead in her room, killed by a pistol-shot. On the table was a short note:
"'Dear Sister,—"'Where are you? Forgive me! I could not, I ought not, I dared not live any longer."'Nina.'"
"'Dear Sister,—"'Where are you? Forgive me! I could not, I ought not, I dared not live any longer."'Nina.'"
"'Dear Sister,—
"'Where are you? Forgive me! I could not, I ought not, I dared not live any longer.
"'Nina.'"
"No! It is impossible! It is false! I am delirious!" exclaimed poor Helene, crushing the paper in her clenched hand. She went near the window in order to read again the fatal lines. They were indeed there; they did not disappear! Nothing took their place. They turned from black to red; they blazed like fire; they burned her heart!
"Dear Sister,—"Where are you? Forgive me! I could not, I ought not, I dared not live any longer."Nina."
"Dear Sister,—"Where are you? Forgive me! I could not, I ought not, I dared not live any longer."Nina."
"Dear Sister,—
"Where are you? Forgive me! I could not, I ought not, I dared not live any longer.
"Nina."
Helene seized her black head-dress and bursting into wild laughter rushed towards the door. She herself had fastened it, but she imagined that some one was holding it from without, and shook it, sobbing and laughing at the same time. Then without hesitation she turned the key, went out, passed Olia who, pale as a sheet, gazed at her without comprehension and ran down the stairs uttering unintelligible sounds.
A moment after she was hammering at the closed door of the church and uttering maledictions to the great alarm of Sister Seraphine, who ran to tell the abbess, making the sign of the cross and crying, "Saints preserve us! It was not for nothing that the wind last night blew so fiercelyagainst the windows. It is a real sin of these young ones."
At the sound of Helene's wild cries the other nuns, frightened and half-dressed, left their cells and ran in the raw cold of the morning to help their unhappy sister.
Alas! she had misunderstood!
"A strange sight brought her to a standstill.""A strange sight brought her to a standstill."
The old convict spent the whole day walking up and down the prison courtyard, wearing a gloomy expression and sunk in deep meditation like a man trying to recollect something which he had long forgotten. He was entered on the roll of prisoners as Ivan the Forgetful, but his fellow-prisoners nicknamed him "Ivan the Runaway," because of his numerous attempts to escape. No one spoke to him, for all knew that nothing could be got from him but words of abuse and gloomy looks. On thisparticular day Ivan the Runaway was in a specially bad humour.
The spring had arrived in the previous night, and the mounds of snow at the corners of the grey towers, which in winter were so hard that the prisoners could amuse themselves by climbing on them, were now as full of holes as a sponge and discharged dirty-looking rivulets into the pools near them.
The sky was so warm and bright, and the wind blew so softly that a strange giddiness seized the old man, and the thick walls with the iron-barred windows seemed to him more hateful than ever. He was taken back to his cell; the key turned creaking in the door; he felt as though something in his heart were turned round with it, and his expression became more gloomy and morose than ever; he looked at the door like a hunted wolf. Ah, if he could only grip the warder's throat!—one squeeze would finish the business! The convict went to the window, and laid his hot face against the cold rusty iron bars. He could not gaze long enough at the deep blue sky behind them, and dreamt of dark forests, wide fields and majestic rivers rolling freely along. Just then a little cloud rose and hung motionless in space; rosy lights passed over it and its edges glowed like fiery gold. "The sunis setting," thought the prisoner, and lingered by the window till the little wandering cloud turned pale and was lost in the darkness, and the first star began to tremble in the sky. Ivan the Runaway went to sleep, but in dreams he heard the tops of the pines whispering, and the fir-cones dropping on the soft soil of the forest; he heard invisible wings beating and the stream fretting against the gnarled roots which barred its way to liberty.
The first thunderstorm, the harbinger of spring, has aroused the earth from her light slumber. At day-break, the convicts were mustered outside the prison walls. "Ivan the Forgetful," called out the warder, with the list in his hand. The old convict sulkily took his place in the row. He scanned with a searching glance the weak-looking undergrown soldiers of the escort, who in their ill-fitting grey cloaks looked almost deformed. Their bayonets gleamed in the sun, their musket-barrels were stopped with wads of cloth. "Loaded," said the old man to himself and smiled significantly. It was on just such a spring morning in the previous year that blindly-fired shots had rung out behind him. He remembered the warm scent of the earth on which hehad then flung himself, as though he wished to be one with it, and then the deep weird silence during which he seemed to hear incessantly soft creeping footsteps behind him ... and finally, for a time, freedom. But now? Would he really have to recommence the hated hard labour with which he had already been so familiar? The dark mine-shaft yawned plainly enough at his feet; like mole-holes the galleries wound through rocks and earth; here and there in the darkness glimmered the miners' lamps, and he heard the melancholy sound of monotonous, ceaseless hammering. The convicts were driven down into the subterranean darkness before sunrise, and only when the sun had sunk behind the blue mountains could they come up again, so that they never saw the cheerful daylight.
Ivan jogged his neighbour with his elbow. "Where do you come from?"
"From a long way off;—farther than you can see."
"I expect you have already run away once?" asked the old man with a peculiar intonation of voice.
"Certainly I did not fly."
"Did you confess it or deny it?"
"You can confess if you choose to."
"What is your name?"
"Ivan the Distant. If you like you can also call me 'The Near'; it's all the same to me."
"Ah well, you suit us." Ivan's good humour increased perceptibly. "And what are you thinking of doing now?"
"That will be seen soon enough. I have got twenty years."
"What? Hard labour?"
"Did you think I meant sentinel duty?"
"Well, that is another point in which we are similar."
Two days had passed. The weary convicts and the no less weary warders had not been long asleep in the prison which stood in the midst of an impenetrable wood, when the sentinel suddenly heard a strange noise. There was the sound of a human body falling on the ground once—twice, and then the clanking of a chain. A dark mass rolled towards the wood. The soldier aimed hastily, a flash cut through the darkness, and the echoes of the shot woke the forest; a cry died away in the distance.
"Ivan the Distant is hit," said Ivan the Forgetful, and darted blindly forwards at random into the mysterious realm of the aged giant trees which towered like shadows in the darkness of the night. Shots and cries echoed behind him. The wood seemed to grow alive; it clutched at himwith hard horny hands, it seized the skirts of his coat and dug sharp claws into his trembling body, it threw obstacles in his way so that he stumbled, it drew the ground from under his feet so that he fell into a depth; wet grass sprinkled his face with dew, and he found that he had fallen down a steep declivity. He recovered from the shock and saw that his fall had been arrested by the projecting stump of a tree. He raised his head and listened. There was deep darkness and silence above him and beneath him; only from time to time he saw the faint reflection of a flash and heard the rolling echo of distant shots. Ivan climbed carefully lower down and crawled farther on, looking round him on all sides like a beast of prey and disregarding the pain of his torn hands and knees. "It is all up with Ivan the Distant," he said to himself. "He had no luck." And he crept on farther and farther, without knowing whither, into the impenetrable darkness of the warm spring night.
O Liberty! With a thousand tongues she spoke to him, with a thousand tones and colours she greeted the fugitive everywhere. For two weeks he saw nothing overhead but the immense expanse of blue sky, against which the brancheswith their reddish opening blossoms showed in delicate relief. It seemed as if there were no such things in the world as gloomy walls and rusty prison bars. Only in his dreams at times the fugitive still heard the clanking of chains and the rattling of locks; then he awoke in terror to see above him the starry sky of night and the waving pine-tops. He would lie for hours without moving, listening to the solemn sound of the wind roaring through the forest. O Liberty!
He did not know how many versts he was from the great high road, along which he had been driven together with the whole herd of prisoners. At first he had come across clearings and settlements in the forest, seen the smoke of chimneys from a distance, and made a wide detour. It was only at night that he ventured into the neighbourhood of human dwellings, and looked about, like a wild animal, to see where he could clamber in, and get some bread without awaking the dogs. On one occasion hunger drove him into a cottage in the window of which he had seen a candle burning. An old woman who was cowering down by the hearth was paralysed by fear and began to tremble all over. What wonder? Who did not know the yellow sign on the convict's back? He tried to speak gently. "Don't fear, mother! Have you anybread?" But the old woman's tongue could not move. So he looked for and found a crust of bread and drank some water. He saw her desperate poverty and asked, "Have you got no more bread?"
Then the old woman recovered herself a little. "Go!" she stammered; "to-morrow I will get some more."
"Shall I take your last piece?" he said, left the crust lying on the table and departed.
Another day he met a hunter in the forest and would probably have passed him with an ordinary greeting, had not the latter pointed his gun at him.
Then a cloud came before Ivan's eyes; he rushed at the stranger and tore him down. His breath was soon choked out of him, and no one knew how long his body lay in the forest before the wolves devoured it. He had brought his death on himself. The fugitive was glad to get rid of his convict's garb and now wore a coat of sheepskin. He also had a gun to protect himself from wild beasts. If his hair had only been longer, he had no need to go out of people's way.
O Liberty! His conscience was silent; no recollection of the blood which he had shed stirred in him, or if it did occur to his mind, ittroubled him as little as it troubles a beast of prey. Men had always been the old vagabond's worst enemies. He had grown up like a hungry, young dog, a mark for missiles and kicks. He received little to eat and many blows, and when hunger drove him to steal, he received more blows. In the house of correction the priest spoke to him of the sufferings of Christ, of repentance and reform. He listened gloomily and returned to his cell. "Christ is gracious to sinners," he thought, "but who has ever been gracious to me?"
After he had shed blood once, his soul seemed to become covered with a hard crust. He became like an animal, escaped from prison when he could, and no longer had a home. Since then his eyebrows were closely contracted over his gloomy eyes, and he was filled with bitter hatred against the whole world. He only longed for one thing, the solitude of field and forest, for liberty and loneliness, where he felt no one near him.
Still farther and farther he roamed between the grey scarred tree-trunks. Through the carpet of pine-needles over which his foot passed, there were springing here and there pointed little leaves and the first grass-blades. The squirrels had already ventured out of their warmnests into the sunshine and sprang briskly and blithely from branch to branch, as though they would make fun of the old vagabond. The sky sent down soft spring showers, or brief thunder-storms, or expanded itself in blue serenity as though it would warm the earth on its bosom. Ivan wandered through dark ravines, where noisy rivulets streamed down on all sides, and in the perpetual shadow the snow still lay white and untouched.
The farther he went, the louder and merrier foamed and bubbled the tides of spring. O Liberty!
When the fugitive was tired, he could find a shelter anywhere. He would fling himself down where he liked, cross his hands under his head, and look up at the sky till his eyes closed of themselves. The wounds on his legs caused by the iron fetters began to heal; no one who met him would have guessed who he was. But the primeval forest seemed quite deserted; no tree bore the mark of an axe, and none had been felled. Here a black scorched pine-tree had been blasted by the lightning; there a half-decayed one, whose top was entangled in its neighbour's branches, had collapsed from sheer old age. This solitude had been profaned by no one's foot; here was real freedom.
Only now and then he encountered wild animals. Once a bear came within gun-shot, but the old man spared his life. "You have nothing to give me now," he thought. "Your skin is no use in summer. Come again in winter." And he shouted at the animal in such a terrible voice, that it trotted off with its tail drawn in.
Sometimes he heard the howling of the wolves in the distance; in the deep silence it sounded weird and terrifying. It filled the old man with a strange feeling, not fear, but in his innermost being something seemed to howl and moan in sympathy with the beasts of prey. Was he not indeed like a wolf among men? Cowering by the fires he made, he would gaze for hours into the red glowing embers. The flames roared and strained towards the dark sky as though they would make themselves free; the fresh brushwood crackled and emitted clouds of blue whirling smoke; the birch-trunk over which the sparks danced, contracted itself as though in a spasm, till it finally flared up in a sheet of fire, and the solitary man felt ever more painfully conscious that he too was every one's enemy, and was only tolerated in this wilderness like those creatures whose howling so strangely thrilled his heart. The darkness which seemed to press from all sides on the fire looked between the grey pine-trunkson the gloomy face of the convict, and listened to his moody murmuring.
Ivan the Runaway wandered farther through dark forests over waste silent stretches of land and wide moors where his step left behind it little cold pools in the spongy ground, and where the wildfowl gathered on the mossy hillocks and chattered cheerfully in the sunshine. At last he came across traces of human existence. It was true that from the pine-tree which he climbed up he could perceive in the grey plain enclosed by woods neither cottage roofs nor smoke, though it was such a clear day that the streamlets which ran between the hillocks shone brightly and dazzled his eyes which were accustomed to the darkness of the forest. But yet the district seemed to be inhabited. A firm yellow road wound in a broad semicircle round the moor. The ruts left by the cart-wheels of the previous year crossed each other distinctly, but no new wheels had ground the dry clods of earth into dust. Probably the road was seldom used; at any rate the fugitive sat for hours in his tree, without hearing in the distance the creaking of the ungreased axle of a peasant's cart.
From the road there branched off a path whichseemed to lead to a distant village. Ivan was heartily tired of his diet of wood-game, and began to consider whether he could venture into a village to buy bread. In the pocket of the murdered huntsman he had found a rouble-note and some silver coins. It was true that his hair had not grown again the normal length, but he could tie a piece of cloth round his half-shorn skull; and need not take it off when he entered a shop. "One buys what one wants, and goes one's way, that is all," he said to re-assure himself, for he felt a nervous antipathy to meeting any one, just as a wolf fears every yelping cur as soon as he wanders by mistake into a village.
At last he determined to go on quite slowly so as to reach the village under cover of the approaching darkness. With this idea he turned into the path which wound in an eccentric fashion through the moor, sometimes diving into ravines, and sometimes emerging into clear sunshine. Here and there stumps of trees bearing the fresh marks of an axe, and black abandoned fire-places whose ashes had not yet been quite blown away, showed that men had worked and rested here. The wanderer also thought he often heard human voices, but when he held his breath to listen, he always found it had been the deceptive cry of a bird.
The day came to an end, the golden radiance of the sun setting behind the distant hills grew pale, and the first stars glimmered in the dusky sky. Ivan strode valiantly forwards through the white rising mists out of which single branches of trees projecting, beckoned to him like long lean arms, till he reached a copse with dry mossy ground which seemed admirably adapted to furnish him with a sleeping-place for the night. He collected a bundle of twigs together and struck a light.
But in the act of raising his hand he stopped. What was that? Was there not a sound from the wood like a child's crying? For a moment a cold thrill passed through him; half-forgotten ghost-stories occurred to him, but he was too intimately familiar with the life of the forest to be seriously alarmed. After a short pause the crying began again.
"Hullo! Who is there? Is there any one?" Ivan shouted as loud as he could. His voice aroused the sleeping wood; squirrels rustled among the branches, and startled birds flapped their wings. Then everything was again perfectly silent, nor could the sound of crying be heard any more. Ivan again turned into the path.
"It must be a woman or a child," he thought, "and quite close too."
He peered with keen eyes through the darkness and moved noiselessly forward, in order not to frighten the weeper. Now he heard the sound of sobbing more distinctly; it was a child. But how had a child got here? The moon had risen and threw an uncertain light on the path; in a ditch by the side of it lay something white—it was the skeleton of a horse which had been devoured by wolves. Near it was rustling some creature which moved off at the convict's approach, first crawling and then at full speed.
Ivan went on and asked in a lower voice, "Who is there?"
A low sob was the only answer, "Oh, I am frightened. Mother! Mother!"
The moon now showed distinctly a little clearing in the wood. At the edge of it lay a woman's figure stretched out at full length. The wide-open eyes stared fixedly at the sky; no breath moved the rags which covered her breast; from under her wretched dress projected the lean way-worn feet. Near her lay a wallet. A little living creature clung to the motionless body and tried to raise it.
"What are you doing there?" asked the old man in a hoarse voice.
"Oh, I am so frightened, so frightened!" sobbed the child. A little ragged girl lifted herpale face to the convict, and then, seized with alarm, tried to hide herself again in her mother's clothing. Ivan touched the woman's ice-cold forehead.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Anjuta," whispered the child without letting go of the body.
"Have you been here long?"
"I do not know. Oh, I am so frightened!"
"Was the sun still high when your mother fell down?"
"Yes, Grandfather."
Ivan stepped to one side, and piled up a heap of dry twigs which he set on fire. The merry flames licked with red tongues at the branches.
"Go and warm yourself," said the old man, speaking as abruptly as before to the child. "Do it quickly."
"And mother?"
"Let mother rest. She is asleep."
The fire-light played on the face of the dead woman and lent it a ghostly semblance of life. The convict sat by the fire, buried in his thoughts. Perhaps he also would soon be somewhere in the forest or by the road-side like this woman. The thought was not a new one to him. How cold-bloodedly he had himself often engaged in a deadly affray with knives and turned his backon his fallen opponent without compunction. And yet he felt moved at the sight of this stranger woman, who lay there in such a pitiable way like an animal which has breathed its last. "It's a pity, a pity!" he growled to himself.
"At the edge of the wood lay a dead woman, with a little living creature sobbing over her.""At the edge of the wood lay a dead woman, with a little living creature sobbing over her."
Anjuta approached the fire timidly and stared straight at him. Perhaps the rapidly increasing darkness alarmed her, for she came nearer, without his observing it; suddenly with her little hand she seized his finger and held it fast.
"Well, little thing, what do you want?" he growled, involuntarily laying his free hand on her head.
"What are we to do?"
Anjuta raised her clear little eyes. For the first time a human being looked at him, the thief and murderer, trustfully.
"It is all right, all right; don't worry!" he said half-embarrassed. And for the first time something strange came into his eyes and rolled in warm drops into his grey bristly beard.
Ivan the Runaway could not bury Anjuta's mother, for he had no spade. He contented himself with collecting twigs, pine-branches, and stones in order to cover the body of the poortramp. The little girl at first wanted to hold his hands, but at his sharp rebuke she crept into a ditch and remained there crying bitterly, while he finished his work.
"Well, why are you crying?" he asked at last to comfort her.
"I am sad about mother."
"Your mother is dead; she won't come back."
"How can she be dead?"
"Have you never seen any one die?"
"Oh yes, Uncle Andron, whom God took to Himself."
"Well, God has taken your mother to Himself. Perhaps He wanted her."
"There was also the grey horse," said the child. "God took him too. When will He take me?"
The old man looked long at the child, and something like pity stirred him.
"For you it is still too early," he said gloomily.
"But what shall I do without mother?" She again held his finger with her little hand.
"Don't be afraid. I will stay with you. No one will touch you; I have a gun."
The old man picked up two slender sticks and tied them together with a strip of birch-bark, so as to make a rude cross. "Now your mother'sgrave is finished. Make a prayer, Anjuta; then we will go."
"I don't know how to pray; mother never taught me. I can only say, 'Give me a piece of bread for Jesus' sake.'"
"Have you never been in church?"
"No; mother and I—we always stood before the church door when people came out and cried, 'Good people, give us bread for Jesus' sake; we have eaten nothing for two days.'"
"Well then, God can ask nothing more of you, poor thing," said Ivan in a more friendly tone and stroked her. "He will be tolerant. Cross yourself and kiss this cross. That's right. And now say, 'Lord, have mercy on her poor soul.'"
"Lord, have mercy on her poor soul," the child repeated.
"Now let us go on. We have no time to loiter."
It was not till evening that Ivan, carrying the tired child on his arm, reached a little village. He waited till it was dark and lights showed in the windows. As though they scented a thief in him, the dogs raised an ear-splitting noise. Anjuta, who had been asleep, nestling against his cheek, started with fright, and began to cry; he told her harshly to be quiet and approached the last cottage in the village which stood near the wood.
"Who is knocking? Is it a Christian?" asked a woman's voice.
"Will you give me a bed for the night? I am tired with carrying her." He pointed to the child, whose little head had again sunk on his shoulder. The woman would hardly have admitted him alone.
"Come in, but don't take it ill that there is nothing to eat; we have nothing ourselves."
"I have money, if there is any chance of buying anything."
"Is the child yours? How tired it is, poor little thing!"
"No, she is not mine. What should a hunter do with children? She came in my way, that is all. Her mother died in the forest and I found her before the wolves ate her. Perhaps some one will adopt her. She is quite healthy and her name is Anjuta."
"Who can adopt her? We ourselves have barely enough to live upon. You must report your finding her at the police office in the nearest town, or go with her to the bailiff of the village."
But Ivan was not at all disposed to go either to the town or to the village bailiff. "Since God has sent me the poor orphan, she can remain with me," he said. "We will not come to grief, we two, in the forest. Will you promise not tobe afraid when you hear howlings and moanings in the wood?"
"If you are with me, Grandfather, I won't be afraid. You have a gun and can shoot all the wolves dead."
As the child chattered, the old man's sulky face assumed a brighter expression.
The forest was silent. An atmosphere of church-like stillness brooded round every branch and leaf. It seemed as if in the azure heights of the sky a solemn mystery was being performed, and the earth lay silent in solemn awe. The birds were hidden in the bushes and not a squirrel could be seen. The heat had penetrated even the shady parts of the wood; it was cool only in the ravines where scanty rivulets trickled over the sandy ground and conjured forth a green cloud of fine perfumed grass. A profusion of flowers—red, yellow, white and blue—grew on the slopes. They arranged themselves in most fantastic patterns, crowded together in gay groups, or climbed the hills singly. Some seemed to stretch themselves as though with curiosity on swaying stems, others hung their heads languidly. The wild rose-bush opened its first blossoms like thirsty red lips which could notbreathe in air enough. From a thousand altars rose incense in this majestic temple; the mysterious Celebration continued in the heights above and the sun glowed and glittered like a golden chalice in the hands of the invisible high-priest.
Only from one corner came the sound of suppressed laughter. It was difficult to recognize Anjuta again. Her pale face had become sunburnt, her eyes glowed, and her mouth smiled continually. Just now the smile would have turned into loud laughter, had not the child feared to awaken Grandfather. The latter had found for himself a cool spot by the edge of the stream and was sleeping with his cap under his head, like an old wolf, after a full meal. Anjuta had just been throwing flowers at him. A tiny beetle had crawled out of one, and the child held her breath as she watched its movements. The beetle balanced itself skilfully on one of the longer hairs of Ivan's beard, then fell among the grey stubble, worked its way laboriously out with its slender wings, and finally settled on the old man's nose. Then the little girl could no longer contain herself; she laughed outright and clapped her hands.
"Good-for-nothing brat!" growled Ivan, awaking. "Can't you be quiet?" He shook off the flowers and tried to seize her.
Anjuta sprang with a joyous shriek among the reeds, rustled about among them, and presently her voice was heard calling from the opposite bank of the stream, "Catch me, Grandfather! Catch me!"
"That beats everything. Go and play with the squirrels! They are just such wind-bags as you are!"
"But I want to play with you."
"Well, you will have to wait long for that," and he crept quietly nearer to her.
"Grandfather, where are you?" she cried in an anxious tone. "Grandfather, I am frightened."
"There, I have caught you," he exclaimed suddenly and held the struggling child fast. "How wet you are, a regular frog!"
The child flung her puny arms round his brown sinewy neck and coaxed him. "Grandfather, listen, Grandfather! Now you be the wolf!"
"You are always wanting something," he grumbled discontentedly.
"Please! Please! You can do it so beautifully. I will be the little hare. Little hare with the long ears."
"Then I must eat you, stupid!" And the old man took the trouble to roll his eyes and growl fiercely.
But it was very difficult to satisfy Anjuta. "But you don't do it properly. Please, please come!" She stooped down and looked pleadingly into his eyes overhung by their shaggy brows.
"Very well, little one! Here goes!"
He placed the child carefully on the ground and crept among the reeds and bushes. The thorns scratched his face and hands, but he had something more important to think about. He lay flat and kept a sharp look-out. Were it not for his eyes, his grey shaggy head might frighten one. In order to heighten the illusion, he gnashed with his teeth. Anjuta played the part of the hare, sprang hither and thither, pulled at the grasses, and waved her hands to and fro above her head, to represent long ears. She pretended not to notice the old man.
"I don't see you. Grandfather, really I don't!"
Then the wolf sprang out of his hiding-place; the hare fled to the stream, crossed over, and climbed the opposite bank. But the wicked wolf came creeping nearer and nearer and seized the poor little animal by the throat with his great jaws.
"Were you very frightened?" the old wolf asked good-humouredly.
"Not a little bit. Grandfather, why does the wolf eat hares?"
"He can't eat grass. He wants flesh—hares, dogs, fowls, little children like you—it is all the same to him. He seizes them so, you see, and tears them in pieces."
"Does it hurt them?" asked Anjuta.
"Oh, you stupid, stupid thing! Of course it hurts them. Death is never pleasant."
Anjuta became very thoughtful. "Do you know, Grandfather," she said after a pause, "we won't play that game any more. You must not be a wolf. Wolves are wicked and you are good." "I—good? Ah, you...." Ivan made a long pause; something seemed to stick in his throat. "For you perhaps I may be good"—he cleared his throat violently—"You see, Anjuta, when I was little like you, no one said a kind word to me. I was thrashed nearly to a jelly, and always black and blue. Otherwise I would have been good; why should I be wicked without a reason? Oh, you stupid little thing, what do you know about it?"
"Take me on your arm," asked Anjuta, standing on tiptoe.
He awoke as out of a dream. "What do you want?"
"Take me on your arm, Grandfather. I am tired."
"First you jump about like a hare; then you want to be carried. No, stay down there."
"Yes, yes, you will take me," she coaxed him. "When I ask, you never say no."
"Look at the little rogue! Shall I break off a switch and whip you? Well, come along then!"
He lifted her up and walked with her deeper into the solemn stillness of the forest. The old man felt his heart grow warmer as the tired child's eyelids gradually drooped, and she began to breathe regularly in his arms. With a kind of pity he looked at the little open mouth and the helpless dusty little legs as they hung down.
"And that, too, is one of God's creatures! Why does such a useless thing come into the world?" he philosophized to himself and took the greatest pains to tread gently and not to move his outstretched arm in order not to wake the child.
In the middle of the forest was a green meadow traversed by a path along which Ivan was now proceeding. It ended before what looked like a pile of earth and dry sticks projecting like those of a raven's nest in all directions. At first sightit was hard to recognize what the object of the structure was; it seemed too large for a mere wood-pile, and too shapeless for a human shelter.
Close by stood a stake with a long rope attached to it, and at the end of the rope, all day long, there ran about a young bear growling and shaking its head. Just then it stood on its hindlegs and sniffed with its snout in the air. Between the trees appeared a dark form, and dry branches lying on the ground cracked under a heavy foot-tread. The animal, out of sheer impatience, ran so rapidly round the stake that it completely entangled itself and could not take another step. Forced to stand still, it watched Ivan's approach with its head on one side and an absurdly serious air.
Ivan came across the meadow with his burden on his arm. He untied the rope; the liberated baby bear threw itself between his legs, embraced him with its paws and signified its intention of climbing up him.
"Ah, you want bread, you hungry rascal," said Ivan. "I know you; as soon as you are satisfied, off you go."
Anjuta awoke and rubbed her eyes with her little fist.
"That is a fine family," growled the grandfather. "Brother and sister both grown on onetree. The right children for a vagabond. Yes, yes, when a man has no cares, he must make himself some."
He had caught the little bear, when he killed its mother, whose skin served Anjuta for a bed. The young animal continued to regard the skin as something alive and related to itself; it always lay close to Anjuta, sucked at the long tufts of hair which it held between its paws, and growled sleepily.
The huge raven's-nest which the little girl now entered discovered itself to be a dwelling. Ivan had burnt off the grass, fixed on the levelled ground a rough platform of thick poles and covered it with twigs, moss and fresh earth out of which already some green shoots, and, to Anjuta's delight, some stunted flowers were springing. Ivan was very proud of the hut which began to display even some traces of luxury. The floor was covered with skins of wolves and bears; on the walls there hung whole rows of squirrel-skins. Every fortnight these were sold to a peasant from the village who did not trouble his head about Ivan's past.
The housekeeping also was on a satisfactory basis. Under the roof hung dried mushrooms from long strings and in a corner stood a sack full of potatoes. In the hollow of an old gnarledtree which threw its shade far over the forest-clearing, some round loaves of black-bread as hard as stones were stored up. In the wood they always had traps and snares ready set which caught abundance of game.
When Anjuta, who had again gone to sleep, put her head out of the hut, the water bubbled merrily in the pot from which the feet of a plucked fowl projected. Ivan was busily engaged in slicing potatoes into the broth.
"It smells good," said the little girl, pursing her mouth in eager expectation.
"But you won't get any," said the old man teasingly.
"Oh yes I will. You will always give me something, even when you remain hungry yourself."
"What a princess you have become! Yesterday you ate your fill, and now there is no more."
"Listen, Grandfather," said the child after a few moments of reflection. "Have you always lived in the forest?"
Ivan wrinkled his brow and was silent.
"It is jolly in the forest," continued she. "There is no one to beat one. But mother was afraid in it. She said there were wicked and cursed men in the forest. Grandfather, what kind of men are they?"
Ivan's face became still gloomier.
"Who has cursed them, Grandfather? Has God done it? Will they burn in hell?"
The old man laid his hand on the child's ruffled hair.
"May God protect you from them. They are worse than wild animals. An animal, when it is satisfied, can be merciful, but they——" He broke off and stared into the fire.
"Well, what do they do?" the child urged him in her keen curiosity. "Grandfather, what do they do? Are they villains?"
"Be off," cried the convict suddenly. "Get away, or I shall beat you. What nonsense are you talking?"
He pushed the child violently to one side. Before her stood all at once a completely altered "grandfather." In his sunken eyes there glowed a lurid spark, his grey hairs bristled, and his face twitched convulsively. His breast heaved with a rattling sound, and his hand was clenched as though to strike. Anjuta started back in wild terror; even the baby bear was alarmed and slunk into the hut with its tail between its legs.
Ivan stood for a long while motionless, then he sat down silently by the fire and stirred it up.
"Cursed—cursed," he murmured to himself."Who has cursed them. God pardons sinners, they say. Come!" he said gloomily to the little one. "Sit down here. It is all right."
"I am frightened."
Ivan bent lower over the fire. "The past will not let itself be buried," he thought. "Why must I frighten an innocent creature too?" Then again his memories stung him and he cried in a new outburst of rage, "Who dares curse us. You hard-hearted——Yes, it is all right," he added, trying to quiet the child who was still trembling. "You say you love Grandfather; so come nearer."
But Anjuta stared hard at him and did not move.
"Look at the nice soup," he said to tempt her and recovered his self-control. "We will take the fowl out by its legs. It shall have a special privilege and lie on the grass till it is cool, else you will burn your mouth." Anjuta approached with visible mistrust.
"Why are you afraid, you simpleton? Bring our spoons. Oh, you stupid thing! Have I ever hurt you?"
"You looked so dreadful—quite like another man."
"Oh, that was only a joke. I wanted to show you what wicked men look like. Youalways ask me to play 'wolf'; just now I played 'bad man.'"
"I am not so frightened at the wolf as at the bad man."
"Ah, child, one must sympathize with them. Do you think it is so easy to be bad? The Lord has made it hard enough for them; they must suffer much. It is not really of their own accord that they seize every one by the throat. They say that God hears children's prayers. Pray then, Anjuta: 'O God, have mercy on the wicked men.' The good need no one to pray for them; they are safe anyhow."
Such fits of excitement grew ever rarer with Ivan. As the summer advanced, the convict became quieter. Whenever he watched Anjuta playing with her mischievous playfellow, or listened to the melancholy call of the birds, or sat by the blazing fire, the furrows on his brow became smoother and a comfortable drowsiness lulled his wild instincts to rest. He had become quite a different man from what he was when he first escaped. But his dreams at night often transported him back to the damp prison-cell, or he saw himself again walking in the file of theprisoners on the apparently endless high road, heard the familiar calls of the warders through the cold winter air, and felt the heavy butt end of the musket fall on his bowed back. On such occasions when he awoke, it was a long time before the quiet breathing of Anjuta and the bear's peaceful snoring restored him to a sense of reality. He generally spent the remainder of such a night on his bear-skin outside the narrow hut, enjoying the consciousness of freedom that came with the balmy coolness of the forest and the distant murmur of the stream. The next day he was generally in a specially good humour, played with Anjuta, and listened to the thousand voices in which the primeval forest revealed to him its secrets.
He never thought of the morrow; his adventurous and uncertain gipsy life had taught him to prize to-day. So long as the sun shone, the pot boiled merrily on the fire, and his child laughed and clapped her hands—what more did he need? And what could the obscure future bring him, but at the best a succession of similar days, and at the worst the dungeon and the knout.
But in August there came a bad time. The clouds almost touched the tops of the forest-giants, from whose bark the rain trickled downin large cold drops; the birds were silent and the beasts crept into their lairs. The little bear rolled himself up in his skin and growled discontentedly. The old man and the child sat, huddling close together in the dry hut and whispered to the accompaniment of the howling of the wind and the pouring of the rain.
"When the black-berries are ripe, the thrushes will come from everywhere, and I will catch you a pair," he promised the delighted child. "But what will you do with them?"
"I will have fine games with them—but then I will let them fly; thrushes do not like cages, do they, Grandfather?"
"Who would like a cage? Listen, Anjuta; you are a good child. Will you come to Grandfather, if he is ever put in a cage?"
The child laughed aloud and clapped her hands. "But, Grandfather, you are not a bird."
"There is another kind of cage which is not for birds——Ah, what do you understand about it?"
Presently the sun shone again and it was cheerful in the forest. The days passed monotonously but happily. Gradually the nights began to grow cold. In the evenings the sun no longer sank in a golden mist, but glowed with an angryred, and descended constantly more often surrounded by thick clouds, through which it looked out like a blood-stained eye. Ivan enlarged the hut; in the evening he lit the fire in it, and closed the door carefully that the warmth should not be too quickly dissipated. But in spite of all, the three—the old man, the child and the bear—had, towards morning, to nestle close together in order not to be frozen.
Anjuta was much alone and became tired of solitude, when Ivan spent whole days hunting. "Mischka, do you hear Grandfather shooting?" she would ask the bear when the dull sound of a distant shot came to their ears.
A great change had taken place in Mischka. His fur had become thicker and shaggier, he had grown considerably and often disappeared in the forest in order to hunt on his own account. When he came home, gorged and unwieldy, he showed no inclination to play, but lay down to sleep. Once the little girl wished to rouse him from his slumber, and seized him somewhat roughly by the ears. The creature uttered a loud roar, reared on his hind-legs, showing his teeth, and when the unsuspecting child stretched out her hand, laughing to her refractory playfellow, she was suddenly struck down by a blow from one of its paws.
In the evening Ivan found his pet with a scratched and much-swollen cheek. He chastised the snapping bear severely in spite of Anjuta's supplications and tears, and tied it up for the night. The next morning the rope was found broken and the bear had vanished. It was not till two days afterwards that Mischka appeared again between the pine-trunks and approached the hut hesitatingly; but when he saw his master standing on the threshold, he sat down and sucked his paw in an embarrassed manner.
"Come along, you tramp!" Ivan called to him. "Has hunger driven you home at last, you rascal!" Mischka, feeling deeply injured, turned round and trotted away without heeding the cajoling calls of his little companion.
"One who is born a tramp, remains a tramp," said Ivan.
"Let him run! Don't cry, Anjuta; you will get a better playfellow."
The leaves of the birch turned yellow and the maples looked as if splashed with blood. Their leaves trembled as though with cold. Light as feathers and quite dry, they eddied long in the air before they sank to their funeral in the colourless grass.
"How cold it is, Grandfather! Will it never be warm again?"
"Wait a little; soon there will come St. Martin's summer which will bring us warmth. Before it is really winter, I will dig for us both a hole deep in the ground, so that we can pass it there."
"Just like moles! But it will be pitch-dark, Grandfather."
"Well, we will light some pine-chips. Don't worry about that. All you have to do is to grow and get strong, so as to look after me, if I am not first——"
"What, Grandfather? If you are not first——"
But instead of answering, Ivan shook his head, and went to one side.
St. Martin's summer came and went. In the forest it became so cold, that Ivan thought of giving Anjuta into the charge of one of the villagers for the winter. But none of them could afford to take care of her. They were already beginning to mix the meal, which was their food during the winter, with pieces of pine-bark and chaff. Moreover, the old man would have sorely missed the clear, eager childish eyes, which looked so confidingly into his, and the merrylaughter which relieved the monotony of his dark life. The forest became more and more silent in preparation for its winter sleep; and winter came stealing on with muffled footsteps.
"It is time, Anjuta, to dig our hole for the winter. To-morrow, with Gods help, I will begin. There the frost cannot pinch us, when we sit together and gossip."
"Do you know how to sing, too, Grandfather?"
"Never mind that. The songs which I sing are not for you. But I will tell you many things, for you are still stupid, and must learn how things go in life, so that you may get on well, and not be a burden to others. The world, Anjuta, is like a bottomless pit. It is easy to go down, but one never finds the way up again, and nobody helps one. The Pope[2]told me once that there used to be good people who loved all men alike and did good alike to all. Even for lepers they did something."
"What does that mean—'lepers'?"
"Lepers?" He hesitated. "It is a pity I never thought of asking the Pope what it meant. Every one had a horror of them. They were not allowed to go about as they liked." He thoughtfor a moment. "Yes, Anjuta, I remember now. Lepers are those who sit behind iron bars. Men fasten fetters on them and march them up the streets with soldiers on both sides. You see, good people in their great kindness have helped the lepers, that is the convicts. They have done no end of good to all men, but wicked men and scoundrels who ought to have honoured and loved them, like fathers, have tortured and crucified them."
"What does 'crucified' mean?"
"They drove nails through their hands and feet. So.... Do you see?"
"Just like you nailed the raven to the tree with nails in its wings and feet."
"Yes. But the raven does harm, but those men were good and kind to people like us. That is all I know about the good folk. To-morrow we will begin our work."
But the hole was not destined to be dug. The night was bitterly cold. The howling of the wolves sounded so wild and terrible that Anjuta awoke suddenly out of her sleep, crying loudly, and still lay awake listening long after the old man by her side was comfortably snoring. The wind had risen and drove the dry leaves round the hut. Suddenly the child thought she heard a distant growling, and soon she was sure of it;heavy footsteps were stamping outside the hut.
"Grandfather, Grandfather, listen!" cried Anjuta, and shook him by the arm. "Wake up! I am so frightened!"
An enormous bear, whom the huntsmen had probably roused from his winter lair, was coming straight towards Ivan's hut. He went round the shapeless edifice on all sides, sniffing cautiously, as though he meant to choose it as a new dwelling. Under his heavy tread the pine-needles crackled, and dry branches snapped. At last he stood still, rubbing his mighty back against a tree. His every movement was distinctly audible in the hut.
"Of course it's a bear!" exclaimed Ivan, who had held his breath to listen. "Well, the fellow shall give us his fur for winter wear. Meanwhile light the pine-chips, Anjuta."
The old man seized his gun, which was always loaded, and pushed open the rude door, which was made fast with a stone. Through the mist which hung thickly round the trees he saw a dark shape retreating slowly into the forest. That did not suit Ivan's plans; he aimed hastily and fired. The bear was only grazed, for he attacked the old man, and enveloped him with his hot evil-smelling breath, hardly giving him time to reload his gun. The old man started back; thebear rose on its hind-legs and towered over him like an indistinct, gigantic shadow.
"Where are you going, you blockhead? Stop, I have an account to settle with you," cried Ivan, and fired right under the beast's jaw. The shot missed, and suddenly the convict found himself crushed under the terrible weight of his enraged enemy. He tried to raise himself on his elbow, but the bear understood his business, pushed his paw under his body, and pressed him in his close embrace till all his bones cracked.