Selected Polish Tales Part 49

One of the many yurtas had taken my fancy, for it was charmingly situated close to the woods in a corner of the raised banks of a long stretch of lake. It belonged to an aged Yakut, well deserving of the honourable designation 'ohonior', given to all the Yakut elders.

The old man was living there with his equally aged wife and a young fellow, a distant relation of his. Two cows and a calf, a few mares and a foal const.i.tuted all their wealth.

All the Yakuts are very inquisitive and loquacious. But my friend, the honourable 'ohonior ', possessed these qualities in an unusually high degree, and as he was able to speak broken Russian, I often took occasion to call in for a little talk.

First of all he wished to know who I was, where I came from and what was my business here. Towards the Russians, whether strangers or natives of Siberia, the Yakuts are always on their guard and excessively obsequious. Every Russian, however poorly dressed, is always the 'tojan', the master. Their behaviour towards the Poles, on the other hand, is very friendly. No Yakut ever took the information that I was not a Russian but a 'Bilak'--Polak--with indifference.

'Bilak? Bilak? Excellent brother!' exclaimed even the most reticent among them. The 'ohonior' and I therefore soon became friends, and when he learned that in addition I was versed in the art of writing and might be employed as secretary to the community and draw up pet.i.tions to the 'great master'--the 'gubernator'--my value was immensely increased, and this respect saved me from too great an intimacy. Owing to this consideration I was always offered the best milk and k.u.mis, and when the old woman handed me a jug she carefully wiped it with her fingers first, or removed every trace of dirt with her tongue.

One day when I called in pa.s.sing to drink my k.u.mis, I found the 'ohonior' unusually excited; he was not only talkative, but also in very great spirits. His tongue was a little heavy, although he showed no sign of old age. It turned out that my honourable host had just returned from the town, where he had indulged in vodka to warm his feeble frame.

'The Bilaks are good, are all good,' he stammered, while he crammed his little pipe with tobacco, 'every Bilak is a clerk, or at least a doctor, or even a smith, as good as a Yakut one. You are a good man too, and you must be a good clerk; we all love the Bilaks, a Sacha[1]

never forgets that the Bilak is his brother. But will you believe it, brother, it is not long since this is so? I myself was afraid of the Bilaks as of evil spirits until about fifteen years ago, and yet I am so old that the calves have grazed off the meadows seventy times before my eyes. When I saw a Bilak, I would run like a hare wherever my feet would carry me--into the wood or into the bushes, never mind where, so long as I could escape from him. And not only I but everybody dreaded the Bilaks, for, you see, people told each other dreadful things about them, that they had horns and slew everybody, and so on.'

[Footnote 1: The name by which the Yakuts call themselves.]

I ascertained that these fairy-tales had had their origin in the town, and reproached the old man for his credulity, but he bridled up at once.

'Goodness gracious! do you think we believed all that on hearsay? I don't know about other people, but I and all my neighbours believed it because our forefathers knew for certain that every Bilak was terrible and dangerous.'

The old man refreshed himself from the jug and continued:

'Do you see, it was like this. My father was not yet born, my grandfather was a little fellow for whom they were still collecting the "Kalym"[1] when there came to this neighbourhood a Bilak with eyes of ice,[2] a long beard and long moustaches; he settled here, not in the valley but up on yonder mountainside in the taiga. That was not taiga, as you see it now, but thick and wild, untouched by any axe. There the Bilak found an empty yurta and settled in it.'

[Footnote 1: The price for the future wife which is paid in cattle and horses; it is collected early in the boy's life.]

[Footnote 2: The black-eyed Yakuts speak thus of the blue-eyed races.]

'But he had no sooner gone to live there than the taiga became impa.s.sable at a distance of ten versts round the cottage. The Bilak ran about with his gun in his hand, and when he caught sight of anyone he covered him with his gun, and unless the man ran away he would pop at him--but not for fun, he didn't mind whom he shot, even if it were a Cossack. What he lived on? The G.o.ds of the taiga know! n.o.body else did.

Every living thing shunned him like the plague. Those who caught sight of him in the forest when he ran about like a devil said that at first he wore clothes such as the Russian gentlemen wear who know how to write, but later on he was dressed in skins which he must have tanned himself. People said he got to look more and more terrible and wild.

His beard grew down to his waist, his face got paler and paler and his eyes burnt like flames. Some years pa.s.sed. Then one winter, at the time of the worst frosts, when a murderous "chijus" broke,[1] he was not seen for several days. As a rule he had been observed from a distance, so the people gave notice in the town that someone should come and ascertain what had happened to him.

[Footnote 1: A column of frozen air, moving southwards. After a chijus, corpses of frozen people are generally found.]

'They came and closed in upon the cottage carefully. There was the Bilak on the bed in his furs, all covered with snow, and in his hand he held a cross. The Bilak was dead; perhaps hunger had killed him, perhaps the frost, or maybe the devil had taken him. Now tell me, was there no reason for us to be afraid of the Bilaks? Here was only a single one who drove all the neighbourhood to flight, and now all of a sudden a great many of you arrived? He! he! he! You know how to write, brother, but you are yet very young! So you thought people had no good reasons for their fears? Well, you see, you were mistaken. A Sacha is cleverer than he looks!'

This legend of a Pole who could not bear to look upon human beings--a legend I repeatedly heard again later--made a deep impression upon me.

These woods, these fields where I was walking now had perhaps been haunted by the unfortunate man, driven mad and wild with excess of sorrow.

Had his troubles been beyond endurance or had he been unable to bear the sight of human wickedness and human misery? Or was it the separation from his home, from those dear to him, that had broken him?

Dominated altogether by these thoughts, I returned to the town without paying heed to anything around me. I was walking fast, almost at a run, when a long-drawn call coming from somewhere close by struck upon my ear:

'Kallarra! Kallarra!'

At first I neither understood the call nor whence it came, but on frequent repet.i.tion it dawned upon me that it proceeded from the bushes at a little distance in front of me, and that it was meant to be the Yakut call 'Come here, come here, brother!' I even divined, as I came nearer, what manner of man it was that was calling. No Yakut, no Russian, be he a native or a settler, could have misp.r.o.nounced this Yakut word so badly; it should have been 'Kelere!'

Only my countrymen, the Masurs, could do such violence to the beautiful, sonorous Yakut language. During my long sojourn in Yakutsk I have never met a Masurian peasant who p.r.o.nounced this word otherwise than 'Kallarra'.

Indeed, there he was, behind the bushes beyond a bridge spanning the marsh or dried-up arm of the Lena--a man in the ordinary clothes of deported criminals; he agitated his arms violently, and continually repeated his call 'Kallarra'!

This was addressed to a Yakut who became visible on the outskirts of the brushwood, but it was in vain, for the wary Yakut had no intention of drawing nearer. The caller must have realized this, for when he arrived at the bridge he called once more 'Kalare! you dog!' Then he ceased and only swore to himself: 'May you burst, may you swell, you son of a dog!'

When he noticed me, he stood still. I came up to him and greeted him in Polish, 'Praised be Jesus Christ!'

The peasant could not get over his amazement.

'Oh Jesus! where do you come from, sir?' he cried.

We soon made friends. He lived somewhere in an uluse,[1] and had gone into the town to hire himself out for work in the gold mines; he had secured work and was to start at once, driving a herd of cattle to his new abode. He was grazing them when I met him, and as some of them had gone astray, and he was unable to drive them all across the bridge singlehanded, he was waiting for someone to come along and help him. I gladly lent him a hand, and when the herd had been got across the bridge and was quietly going along, we began to talk. I asked him with whom he was lodging.

[Footnote 1: A settlement consisting of several yurtas.]

'With Kowalski,' he said.

I knew all the Poles in Yakutsk, but I had never heard of Kowalski.

'Well, I mean Kowalski the carpenter.'

Still I did not know whom he meant.

'Who are his friends? whom does he go to see?' I inquired.

'He is peculiar. They all know him, but he does not go to see them.'

'How do you mean: he does not go to see them?'

'How should he go to see them? He has got clump feet, he has lost his toes with frostbite. When the wounds are closed he can just manage, but when they are open he cannot even move about in his room.'

'How does he manage to live?'

'He does a little carpentering; he has a beautiful workshop and all sorts of tools, but I tell you when he can't stand on his feet he can't do carpentering. Then he is glad when people come and give him orders for brushes--he can make beautiful brushes as well--for sweeping rooms or for brushing clothes. But the rooms here are not swept much, and people rarely brush their clothes either. Now he is ill again.'

'Where does he come from? How long has he been here?'

'He has been here a long time, there were only a few like us when he came. But where he comes from, who he is--I see you don't know Kowalski, or else you wouldn't ask. For you see, when I ask him, or one of the gentlemen, or even the priest, who comes from Irkutsk, he only answers: "Brother, G.o.d knows very well who I am and where I come from, but it serves no purpose and is quite unnecessary that you should know it too!" There you are! That's like him. So n.o.body asks him.'

I inquired very particularly all the same where Kowalski lived. In my imagination the 'Bilak' of the legend who fled from men and this lonely carpenter were blended into one personality, I could not say why. I felt that there must be a mysterious connexion as between all things repeating themselves in the circle of time. Perhaps the great sorrow which--I imagined--had died at the death of the Bilak was still living on quite close to me, in a different shape, but just as great, no less unbearable and fateful to him in whom it now dwelt.

Since that day I had often guided my steps in the direction of Kowalski's yurta. No fresh shavings were added to the old ones lying about near the door and the little windows. They grew drier and blacker every day; perhaps the man who had thrown them there.... I had not the courage to enter. I kept on waiting for another day when perhaps fresh shavings would be added, but none appeared and no noises of work were audible.

At last I made up my mind not to put it off any longer. I left my home with this decision and had already reached a corner of his yurta, when I heard a trembling, weak but pleasant voice singing.

I sat down on the bench in front of the yurta, and I could distinctly hear every word of a sentimental, gently melancholy little ditty which had once been very popular in Poland: