Tales of the Wilderness Part 8

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 G.o.ds. 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 cl.u.s.tered p.r.i.c.kly 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 c.o.c.ks 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 sh.o.r.es 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 woodc.o.c.ks. 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 G.o.d.

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 G.o.d. 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 fields; it covered everything with the softest of warmly tinted light. There was a morning frost, and thin sheets of ice crackled in the d.y.k.es. An invigorating breeze stirred gently, as if but half- awakened, and tenderly ruffled fronds of bracken, sliding softly upward from moss and roots, tremulously caressing the sweet-smelling gra.s.s, to sweep grandly over the hill-crest in ripples and eddies, increasing in volume as it sped.

The earth was throbbing: it panted like a thirsty wood-spirit. Cranes sent their weird, mournful cries echoing over the undulating plains and valleys; birds of pa.s.sage were a-wing. It was the advent of teeming, tumultuous, perennial spring.

Bells tolled mournfully over the fragrant earth. Typhus, famine, death spread like a poisonous vapour through the villages, through the peasants' tiny cabins. The windowless huts waved the rotting straw of their thatch in the wind as they had done five hundred years ago, when they had been taken down every spring to be carried further into the forests--ever eastward--to the Chuvash tribe.

In every hut there was hunger. In every hut there was death. In every one the fever-stricken lay under holy ikons, surrendering their souls to the Lord in the same calm, stoical and wise spirit in which they had lived.

Those who survived bore the dead to the churches, and went in consternation and dread through the fields carrying crosses and banners. They dug trenches round the villages and sprinkled the d.y.k.es with Holy Water; they prayed for bread and for preservation from death, while the air resounded with the tolling of bells.

Nevertheless, at eventide the maidens came to the tumulus arrayed in their home-woven dresses, and sang their old, old songs, for it was spring and the mating season for all living things. Yet they sang alone, for their youths had been given to the Moloch of war: they had gone to Uralsk, to Ufa, and to Archangel. Only old men were left to plough the fields in the spring.

Vilyashev stood dejectedly on the crest of the hill, a solitary, lonely figure outlined darkly against the clear blue background of sky and distance. He gazed unseeingly into s.p.a.ce; thought and movement alike were suspended. He was only conscious of pain. He knew all was ended. Thus his errant forbear from the north may have stood five hundred years ago, leaning upon his lance, a sword in his chain girdle.

Vilyashev pictured him with a beard like Constantine's. He had had glory and conquest awaiting him; he strode the world a victorious warrior! But now--little Natalya who had died of famine-typhus had realized that they were no longer needed, neither she, nor Constantine, nor himself! She was calling to him across the great gulf; it was as if her words were trembling on the air, telling him the hour had struck. The Vilyashev's power had been great; it had been achieved by force; by force it had been overthrown, the vulture- nest was torn to pieces. Men had become ravenous.

The Prince descended and made his way to the river Oka, ten miles distant, wandering all day through the fields and dales--a giant full seven feet high, with a beard to his waist. The heavy earth clung to his boots. At last he flung himself on to the ground, burying his face in his hands, and lay motionless, abandoning himself to an anxious, sorrowful reverie.

Snow still lay on the lowlands, but the sky was warm, pellucid, expansive. The Oka broadened out rushing in a mighty, irresistible torrent towards its outlet, and inundating its banks. Purling brooks danced and sang their way through the valleys. The wind breathed a feeling of expectancy--sweet, tender, evanescent, like the day-dream of a Russian maiden who has not yet known the secrets of love. With delicate gossamer fingers it gently caressed the barren hill that frowned above the Oka, uttering its gentle poignantly-stirring song at the same time.

Larks warbled. From all around echoed the happy cries of birds; the vernal air thrilled and vibrated in great running arpeggios to the wonder-music of the winds. The river alone preserved a rigid silence.

Vilyashev brooded a long while beside the swiftly running waters; but at sunset's approach he rose hastily, and returned to the tumulus.

The sky was wrapped in its evening shroud of deep, mysterious darkness. Set brightly against the sombre background of the tumulus- crowned hill stood shining silver birch trees and dark s.h.a.ggy firs: they now looked wan and spectral in the fading light. For a fleeting moment the world glowed like a huge golden ball; then the whole countryside was one vast vista of green, finally merging into a deep illimitable purple. Down the valley crept the mist, trailing its filmy veils over point and peak and ridge. The air throbbed with the cries of geese and bitterns. The hush of the spring-time night set in and covered the world--that hush that is more vibrant than thunder, that gathers the forest sounds and murmurs to itself, and weaves them all into a tense, vernal harmony.

Prince Constantine's gaunt form struck a sharp note of discord as he walked straight up to the tumulus. His presence breathed conflict and stress that accorded ill with the universal peace of nature.

He greeted his brother, and began to smoke; the light from his cigarette illumined his eagle nose and bony brow; his quiet grey eyes gleamed with a wintry look.

"One longs to fly away like a bird in the spring," he murmured; then added with a sharp change of tone; "How did Natalya die?"

"In her right mind, thank G.o.d! But, she had lived torn by a madness of hatred and contempt, loathing all, despising all."

"What wonder, look around you!" cried Constantine. He hesitated a moment then said softly: "To-morrow is the Annunciation--the recollection of that festival made me think. Look around!"

The tumulus stood out sheer and stark, a grim relic of a bygone age.