Tales of the Wilderness Part 9

There was a faint rustling through last year's wormwood. The air arose from the plains in a crescendo of quivering chords, gushing upward like a welling spring. There was the scent of decaying foliage. The sky beyond had darkened, charged to the brim with mystery. The atmosphere became moist and cold; the valley lay beneath--empty, boundless, a region of illimitable s.p.a.ce.

"Do you hear?" Constantine asked.

"Hear what?"

"The earth's groans."

"Yes, it is waking. Do you hear the soft stir and shudder among the roots of the flowers and gra.s.s? The whisper of the trees, the tremor of leaves and fronds? It is the earth's joyful welcome to the Spring."

Constantine shook his head: "Not joy ... sorrow. The air is permeated with the scent of decay. To-morrow will see the Annunciation, a great festival, little brother, and that recollection has set me thinking.

Look round you! Everywhere are savages--men gone mad with blood and terror. Death, famine, barbarity ride the world! Idolatry is still rampant: to this day men believe in wood-spirits, witches and the devil--and G.o.d, oh yes, men still believe in G.o.d! They bury their dead when the bodies should be burnt. They seek to drive away typhus by religious processions!"

He laughed mockingly.

"I stood the whole time in the train to avoid infection. But the people do not even think of that: their one thought is bread. I wanted to sleep through the journey; but a wretched woman, starving before my very eyes, prevented me. She said she was going to a sister so as to get milk to drink. She made me feel sick; she could not say bread, meat, milk, and b.u.t.ter, but called them 'brud,' 'mate,'

'mulk,' and 'buzzer'. 'Ah, for a bit of buzzer--how I will ate it and enjoy it!' she kept muttering.

"I tell you, Vilyashev, the people are bewildered. The world is returning to savagery. Remember the history of all times and of all peoples--an endless repet.i.tion of schisms, deceptions, stupidity, superst.i.tion and cannibalism--not so long ago--as late as the Thirty Years War--there was cannibalism in Europe; human flesh was cooked and eaten.... Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! How fine they sound! But better for Fraternity ever to remain a mere ideal than to be introduced by the b.u.t.t-end of a rifle."

Constantine took off his cap, and his bony forehead seemed pale and green in the ghostly darkness of the night. His eyes were deep sunken, and for an instant his face resembled a skull.

"I am bewildered, brother; I feel so utterly alone! I am wretched and disillusioned. In what does man transcend the beast?..." He turned towards the west, and a cruel, rapacious, predatory look flitted over his face; he took a piece of bread from his overcoat pocket and handed it to Vilyashev:

"Eat, brother; you are hungry."

From the valley uprose the m.u.f.fled chime of a church bell, and a low baying of dogs could be heard round the village settlements. Great gusts of wind swept over the earth, which shook and trembled beneath their rush. In thin, high, piercing notes it ascended--the song of the winds to the setting sun.

"Listen," continued Constantine; "I was thinking of the Annunciation ...

and I had a dream.

"The red glow of sunset was slowly fading. Around stretched huge, slumbering, primeval forests, shadow-filled bogs, and wide green marshes. Wolves howled mournfully through the woods and the valleys.

Carts were creaking; horses were neighing; men were shouting--this wild race of the Ancient Russians was marching to collect tribute.

Down a forest roadway they went, from the Oka to the rivers Sozh and Desna.

"A Prince pitched his camp on a hill: his son lay dying with the slowly-sinking sunlight. They prayed to the G.o.ds to spare the princeling. They burned youths and maidens at the stake. They cast men into the river to appease the water-spirit. They invoked the ancient Slavic G.o.d Perun. They called on Jesus and the Mother of G.o.d.

In vain! In the terrible, lurid light of that vernal evening the princeling died.

"Then they slew his horse and his wife, and raised the tumulus.

"In the Prince's suite was an Arab scholar named Ibn-Sadif. He was as thin as an arrow, pliant as a bow, as dark as pitch, with the eyes and nose of an eagle under his white turban. He was a wanderer over the earth, for, learned in all else, he still sought knowledge of men and of countries. He had gone up by the Volga to the Kama and to the Bulgarians. Now he was wending his way with the Russians to Kiev and Tsargrad.

"Ibn-Sadif ascended the hill, and beheld a blazing pile. On a log of wood lay a maiden with her left breast ripped open; flames licked her feet. Around were sombre, bearded men with swords in their hands. An ancient Shaman priest was circling in front of the funeral pyre and shouting furiously.

"Ibn-Sadif turned aside from the fire, and descended the forest pathway to the river.

"The sky was thickly studded with stars that shone like points of living gold in the warm deeps of the night; the water gave back a glittering reflection. The Arab gazed up at that vast s.p.a.ce where the shining constellations swam towards the bosom of the Infinite, then down at their fantastically mirrored image in the river's depths--and cried aloud:

"'Woe! Woe!'"

"In the far distance beyond the water the wolves howled.

"At nightfall Ibn-Sadif joined the Prince who was directing the ancient funeral rites. The Arab raised his hands to the sky; his white garments flew round him like the wings of a bird; in a shrill, eerie voice like an eagle's he cried to the fierce bearded men gathered around:

"'This night just a thousand years ago, the Archangel told the Mother of G.o.d in Nazareth of the coming of your G.o.d, Jesus. Woe! A thousand years ago! Can it be?'

"Thus spoke Ibn-Sadif. None in the camp knew of the Annunciation, of that fair, sacred day when the birds will not even build their nests lest their labour desecrate its holiness."

Constantine paused; then lifted his head and listened.

"Do you hear, brother? Bells are tolling! Do you hear how the dogs are barking?... And, just as of yore, death, famine, barbarity, cannibalism shadow the earth. I am heart stricken!"

The night deepened to an intense blue; a faint chill stole through the air. Prince Constantine sat down resting his head on his stick.

Suddenly he rose:

"It is late and cold; let us go. I am miserable, for I have lost my faith. This reversion to savagery is horrible and bewildering. What are we? What can we do when barbarians surround us? The loneliness and desolation of our plight! I feel utterly lost, Vilyashev. We are no good to anyone. Not so long ago our ancestors used to flog peasants in the stables and abduct maidens on their wedding-nights.

How I curse them! They were wild beasts! Ibn-Sadif spoke the truth ...

a thousand years--and still the Mark of the Beast!"

The Prince's cry was low; but deep, and wild. Vilyashev answered quietly:

"I have the strength of a mailed knight, Constantine. I could smash, rend, and trample the peasants underfoot as my forebears did, but they have wound themselves round my heart; they are like little children!"

They went along by the hill; the tumulus was left behind. A light sparkling frost powdered the rich loamy earth. Through the darkness, swimming with purple shadows, came a great continuous murmur from the ancient forests. A pair of cranes cried softly as they roosted for the night, and a pearl grey mist rolled down to the meadows and enveloped them in innumerable murkyscarves. The brothers entered a village as still as the grave. Somewhere beyond, a dog barked. Not a sound broke the utter, solemn silence as they walked along.

"There is typhus and barbarity in every peasant's hut," Constantine muttered. Then he, too, lapsed into silence, listening.

Beyond some huts on a village by-path girls' voices could be heard singing an Annunciation hymn. In the vasts depths of silence it sounded solemn, simple, sane. The two princes felt it to be as immutable as the Spring with its law of birth. They remained standing there a long while, resting first on one foot, then on the other.

Each felt that mankind's blood and energy still flowed bright and unsullied despite the world upheaval.

"Good! That is infinitely touching. That will not die," declared Vilyashev. "It has come down to us through the Ages."

"Aye," replied Prince Constantine bitterly, "wonderfully good.

Pathetically good. Abominably good!"

From the bend in the road the girls appeared in their coloured ap.r.o.ns; they pa.s.sed decorously in pairs, singing:

"Rejoice, O Virgin Mother! Blessed art Thou amongst women"....

The earth was moist and exhaled a sweet, delicate odour of rich, fresh vegetation. Reluctantly, at last, the two brothers resumed their way. They heard the weird midnight-crowing of the c.o.c.k. A pale silvery moon--the last before Easter Day--rose gently in the East, letting down its luminous web from the sky, flinging back the dark shadows of the night.

On reaching home, the cabin seemed damp and cold and inexpressibly dreary--as on the day Natalya died; when the door had slammed incessantly. The brothers went hastily to their rooms without speaking or lighting up. Constantine lay on Natalya's bed.

At dawn he awoke Vilyashev.

"I am going. Goodbye! It is ended! I am going out of Russia, out of Europe. Here, where were we born, they have called us their masters, their fathers--carrion crows, vultures! Like the fierce Russian tribes of old, they have let loose the hounds of destruction on wolves and hares and men alike! Woe!... Ibn-Sadif!"

Constantine lighted a candle on a table, and crossed the room. In the strange blue light of dawn his livid shadow fell on the whitewashed wall. Vilyashev was amazed; the shadow was so extraordinarily blue and ghastly--it seemed as if his brother were dead.