THE OLD BELL-RINGER
By Vladimir Korolenko
It had grown dark.
The tiny village, resting on the ledge of a remote stream, in a pine forest, had become enveloped in that twilight which is peculiar to starry spring nights, when the thin mist, rising from the earth, deepens the shadows of the woods and fills the open spaces with a silvery blue vapor.... How still was everything, and pensive and sad!
The village was quietly dreaming.
The dark outlines of the wretched huts were but vaguely visible; here and there lights were aglimmer; now and then you could hear a gate creak; a dog’s bark would start suddenly and die away; occasionally out of the dark woods the figure of a pedestrian would emerge, or that of a horseman; or a cart would pass by with a jolting noise. These were the inhabitants of lone forest settlements, gathering to their church to greet the great spring holiday.
The church stood on a little hill, in the very middle of the village. Its windows were all alight. Its belfry—an old, tall, and dark structure—pierced the blue sky.
The steps of the staircase creaked as the old bell-ringer ascended the belfry, and soon his little lantern looked like a star suddenly sprung into space.
It was hard for the old man to mount the steep staircase. His old legs had already served their time, and his eyesight had grown dim.... It was time an old man had rest, but God seemed slow in sending deliverance. The old bell-ringer had buried sons and grandsons; he had escorted both young and old to their final resting-place; but he himself was still alive. It was hard!... So many times had he greeted Easter that he had lost count—he could not even remember how many times he had awaited here his last hour. And now once more God had willed that he should be here.
Having reached the top, he leaned his elbow on the railing.
Below, around the church, he could discern the wretchedly kept graves of the village burial-place; as if to protect, old crosses stood over them with outstretched arms. Here and there a young birch-tree inclined over them its branches, as yet leafless.... The aromatic odor of young buds ascended from below towards Mikheyich, and with it came a feeling of the sad tranquillity of eternal sleep.
And what would he be doing a year hence? Would he once more climb this height, under this bronze bell, to arouse with a resounding peal the lightly-slumbering night, or would he be resting ... down there, in some dark corner of the graveyard, under a cross? God knows!... He was ready, but in the meantime the Lord called him once more to greet the holiday.
“All glory be to God!” whispered his lips, accustomed to the old formula. Mikheyich raised his eyes towards the sky, dense with millions of stars, and crossed himself.
“Mikheyich, Mikheyich!” a trembling voice, also that of an old man, suddenly called him from below. The aged sexton looked up towards the belfry, even fixed his palm over his blinking, tear-wet eyes, and still could not see Mikheyich.
“What do you want? I am here,” answered the bell-ringer, leaning out from the belfry. “Can’t you see me?”
“No, I can’t see. Isn’t it time to strike? What do you think?”
Both of them glanced at the stars. Thousands of God’s lights twinkled on high. The fiery “Wagoner” was already far above the horizon. Mikheyich pondered.
“No, not yet; wait just a little longer.... I know when to ...”
He knew. He had no need of a timepiece. God’s stars always told him when the time came. The earth and the sky, the white cloud floating silently across the expanse of blue, the indistinct murmur of dark pines below, and the rippling of the stream concealed by the dark—all were familiar to him, near to him.... Not in vain had he spent his life here.
For the moment his entire long past unrolled before him.... He recalled how he ascended the belfry with his father for the first time.... Good Lord! how long ago it was!—and what a short time it seemed!... He saw himself once more a fair-haired lad; his eyes were kindled; the wind—not the sort that raises the dust of the street, but rather a more rare wind, flapping, as it were, its noiseless wings high above the earth—played with his hair.... There below, so far, so far away, he saw some sort of little people; and the houses of the village also seemed small, and the forest receded into the distance, and the round-shaped meadow, upon which stood the village, seemed immense, almost boundless.
“Well, here it is, all here!” smiled the old man, glancing at the small spot of earth.
“So life, too, is like that,” he reflected. “When one is young, one sees neither its end nor its edge.” ... And yet here it was, as if in the palm of one’s hand, from the very beginning to the very grave he had just been contemplating in the corner of the burial-ground.... What of that? Glory be to the Lord!—It was time for rest. It was a hard road, and he had traversed it an honest man; and the damp earth was his mother.... Soon—if only soon!...
Well, the time had come. Mikheyich glanced once more at the stars, removed his cap, crossed himself, and began to gather up the ropes of the bells.... A few more moments, and the nocturnal air trembled from the resounding stroke.... Another, a third, a fourth ... one after the other, filling the lightly-slumbering pre-festal night with an outpouring of powerful, lingering, resonant, singing tones.
The bell grew silent. The service in church had begun. It was the habit of Mikheyich in former years to go down and to stop in a corner near the door in order to pray and listen to the chanting. This time, however, he remained inthe tower. It was difficult for him; aside from that, he felt intensely fatigued. He sat down on a little bench, and as he listened to the dying tones of the agitated bronze he grew deeply pensive. What were his thoughts? He himself could hardly have answered the question.... The bell-tower was but dimly lighted by his lantern. The still vibrating bells were lost in the darkness; faint murmurs of the chant reached him occasionally from below, and the nocturnal wind stirred the ropes fastened to the iron hearts of the bells.
The old fellow let fall his gray head upon his breast. His mind was in a state of delirious fancy. “Now they are singing a hymn,” he thought, and he imagined himself among the others in church. He heard an outpouring of children’s voices in a choir; he saw the figure of the long-since-departed priest Nahum exhorting the congregation to prayer; he saw hundreds of peasants’ heads, like ripe corn before the wind, bend low and stand erect again.... The peasants were crossing themselves.... Familiar faces, all of them, and all faces of the dead. Here was the stern face of his father; here, beside his father, his older brother, crossing himself and sighing. And he himself stood here, in the bloom of health and strength and full of theunconscious yearning for happiness and the joy of life.... Where, oh, where, was this happiness?... The old man’s mind flared up for a moment, like a dying flame, flashing with a bright, quick movement and illuminating for the moment all the passages of his past life.... Hard work, sorrow, care.... Oh, where was this happiness? A hard fate can bring furrows to a young face, give a stoop to a strong back, and cause one to sigh like an older man.
There, on the left, among the women of the village, humbly inclining her head, stood his sweetheart. A good woman, hers be the Kingdom of God! How much had she not suffered, that fine soul!... Constant need and labor and the inevitable womanly sorrow will cause a handsome woman to wither; her eyes will lose their sparkle; and the expression of perpetual, dull-like fright before each unawaited blow of life will change the most superbly beautiful creature.... Yes, and where was her happiness?... One son remained to them, their one hope and joy, and he fell a victim to human weakness.
And he too was here, his rich enemy, bending low time and again, seeking to pray away the bitter tears of orphans he had wronged; repeatedly he was performing upon himself thesign of the cross, falling on his knees and touching the ground with his forehead.... And Mikheyich’s heart boiled over within him, while the dark faces of the ikons looked down severely from their walls upon human sorrow and human iniquity.
All that was past, all that behind him.... Now the entire world seemed to him like a dark bell-tower, where the wind blew in the dusk, stirring the bell-ropes.... “Let the Lord judge you!” whispered the old man, shaking his gray head, while tears silently ran down his cheeks.
“Mikheyich! Mikheyich!... You haven’t fallen asleep?” someone shouted up to him from below.
“Eh?” returned the old man, and quickly jumped to his feet. “Lord! Have I in truth fallen asleep? That never happened before!”
With an accustomed hand, Mikheyich quickly caught the ropes. Below him moved the peasant throng, a veritable ant-hill; the holy banners aglimmer with gold brocade fluttered in the wind.... The procession made a circuit of the church, and presently Mikheyich heard the joyous cry, “Christ has risen from the dead!”
Coming like a mighty wave, the cry whelmedthe old man’s heart.... And it seemed to Mikheyich that brighter flared the lights of the waxen candles, and that stronger grew the agitation of the people; the holy banners seemed to become more alive; and the suddenly awakened wind caught up the waves of sound and with broad sweeps lifted them high, where they became one with the loud triumphant music of the bell.
Never before had old Mikheyich rung so well!
It was as if the old man’s brimming-over heart had passed into the inanimate bronze; and it seemed as if the reverberations at the same time sang and throbbed, laughed and wept, and, uniting in a rare harmony, rose higher and higher unto the starry sky. The stars themselves seemed to him to take on a new sparkle, to burst into flame, while the sounds trembled and flowed, and again came down to earth with a loving embrace.
A powerful bass loudly proclaimed: “Christ has risen!”
While two tenor voices, constantly atremble from the repeated blows of the iron hearts, mingled with the bass joyously and resonantly: “Christ has risen!”
And, again, two most slender soprano voices,seemingly in haste not to be left behind, stole in among the more powerful ones, little children, as it were, and sang in emulation: “Christ has risen!”
The entire belfry seemed to tremble and to shake; and the wind blowing in the face of the bell-ringer appeared to flap its mighty wings and to repeat: “Christ has risen!”
The old heart forgot about life, full of cares and wrongs. The old bell-ringer forgot that life for him had become a thing shut up in a melancholy and crowded tower; he forgot that he was alone in the world—like an old stump, weather-beaten and broken.... He intercepted these singing and weeping sounds, fleeting higher towards the skies and falling again to the poor earth, and it seemed to him that he was surrounded by his sons and his grandsons; that these joyous voices, of old and young, had flowed together into one great chorus, and that they sang to him of happiness and joyousness, which he had not tasted in his life.... And the old man continued to tug at the ropes, while tears ran down his face, and his heart beat tremulously with the illusion of happiness.
And below the people were listening and saying to each other that never had old Mikheyich rung so marvellously.
Then all of a sudden the large bell trembled violently and grew silent.... The smaller ones, as if confused, rang an unfinished tone; and then too stopped, as if to drink in the prolonged, sadly droning note, which trembled and flowed and wept, gradually dying away in the air....
The old bell-ringer fell back exhausted on the bench, and his last two tears trickled silently down his pale face.
“Quick! Send a substitute! The old bell-ringer has rung his last stroke.”