Part 1 (2/2)
It is a pleasure to see, and a delight to hear, the noise and commotion with which business is carried on. On the square every few moments some of the men conclude a bargain and go off to the inn to confirm the agreement by emptying a pint mug; the old women venders of onions, garlic, tobacco, girdles, and red ribbons pick up as many big coppers as they want. The day after the fair, and even for many succeeding days, unless a good rain storm washes out the numberless traces, one would divine at first glance what had taken place. Possibly the pools of the blood of slaughtered goats and sheep which are drying and blackening on the ground might even suggest that some dark crime had been enacted.
But with the exception of this one day of bustle and gayety, the whole country reposes during the entire year in that state of sweet torpor and melancholy silence which is the normal condition of its daily life.
Man always absorbs, more or less voluntarily, the external influences to which he is exposed. We are, in the scale of universal order, like the caterpillar who clothes himself with a green robe while living on the leaves of a tree, and with gorgeous attire when his food is the heart of its purple fruit.
In a country fast asleep, like Polesia, where the murmur of the venerable trees lulls the thin gra.s.s and the rushes on the marshes, where peace and torpor is inhaled with the heavy air,--damp, and filled with resinous vapours,--the inhabitants, with their growth, feel the blood flow more and more slowly in their veins; thoughts arise more and more slowly in their minds, and man, thus quieted and softened, desires only repose, trembles at the idea of a sterner and more active destiny, and clings like a mushroom to the soft, damp earth.
The peasants at about forty years of age have long beards like old men; the n.o.bles at that age cease to wear coats, wrap themselves in dressing-gowns, allow their mustaches to grow at will, and to the end of their lives, if they have wives and children, never again go out of their houses. As for the old bachelors of the same age, they begin then to consider that the sole result of marriage is inconvenience and useless subjection.
There is but little visiting, although generally there is much cordiality between the land-holders; but in summer it is too warm, in winter it is too cold; in the autumn the mud and wind are disagreeable, and in the spring there are the gnats. If ever one of them determines to overcome his laziness, it is only on the occasion of a feast at the house of an esteemed neighbour or in case of inevitable necessity. As, however, it is not possible to live without some news, and some intellectual intercourse, the Jew who owns the inn of the town undertakes to retail the one and furnish the other. He comes at the slightest call, or naturally in virtue of his ordinary occupations; he stops at the door and begins at once to give an account of what he has heard during the week, either in his excursions through the neighbourhood or from the peasants who come to the mill or to the blacksmith's shop. Generally the amount of his information consists in being able to tell who has sown, who has harvested, who has sold, who has gone on a journey, how much money the one has received and why the other has departed. But this scanty supply of news feeds the curiosity of the n.o.ble for a time, amuses him or wearies him, makes him gloomy, irritates him, and sometimes even suffices to drag him out of his house.
Let us not therefore seek in this country any modern innovations, any enterprise or invention of the day; they would be greeted here only by incredulity, distrust, and dislike. Everything is done in an old-fas.h.i.+oned way; and if one should seek for the living tradition, perfect and entire, of the life of past times, he will find it nowhere in such perfection as here. The n.o.ble has the same respect for old customs as the peasant; and if outwardly he laughs at them, in the bottom of his heart he renders them homage, because with his blood and his milk, with his eyes and his ears, he has absorbed them from his infancy.
Thus it happens that in places where once rose a castle, and where now a new _dwor_ stands in its place, the site of the new edifice retains the old name, and the peasants who haul wood for the proprietor still say that they are taking it to the castle. The spot once occupied by an ancient _cerkiew_ is perhaps now a potato field, but the gardens of the proprietor are none the less called the monastery. At the cross-roads in the forest, where the foot-paths meet, a grave dug ages ago has disappeared under the gra.s.s so that no trace of it remains; the wooden cross has fallen and rotted in the sod, and may be traced in the thick green gra.s.s which alone marks the spot where the soil has been enriched by the decayed body. Still, not a peasant pa.s.ses that way without throwing, according to Pagan custom, a stone or a broken branch upon the spot. Everything that has lived in this country lives there still.
The legend of the founding of a colony whose limits were traced by a pair of black bulls whose privilege it was to preserve the future city from infection and diseases common to cattle; the story of the prince who drowned himself in a pond; the narrative of the Tartar invasion; the sad fate of the two brothers in love with the same young girl, on whose account they killed each other in single combat, and who afterward, in despair, hung herself on their tomb,--all these survive.
The same songs have been sung for a thousand years; the same customs continue to prevail; and all are faithful to them as to an engagement sacredly entered into with their ancestors.
II.
THE BACKGROUND OF THE PICTURE.
Let us now imagine ourselves transported to the banks of the Horyn.
On the sh.o.r.e, close to the water's edge, there was a pretty little _skarborwka_[3] painted a light yellow. Some planks, piled one upon another and closely pressed together, extended so far out into the water that one could not only walk with dry feet up to the little cabin, but almost out into the middle of the river. Every preparation had apparently been made for a voyage; nothing seemed wanting but the signal for departure; the men alone had not arrived. But at this very moment boatmen were being collected, more provisions supplied, and so day by day the hour for setting sail was deferred.
The country along the sh.o.r.es, though sterile and bare, was not devoid of a certain sweetly melancholy attraction. Beyond the broad spreading sheet of water, a little back to the right of the ploughed fields, might be seen a large Polesian village with its gray chimneys and the great clumps of trees which in summer crown it with verdure, its ancient Russian church surrounded by embattled walls and surmounted by a clock-tower, and its cemetery situated in the midst of a pine wood through which gleamed here and there the silver bark of a few birch-trees. On the other side of the river a dark forest stretched like a great wall as far as the eye could reach; upon the plain invaded by the waters, the long rows of damp osiers marked the place where the ponds and marshes usually ended. The village, which stretched in length for a great distance, must have been founded ages ago, and once was of considerable size, as one might see by the height and number of the trees which surrounded it.
The eye which seeks among the huts of the village for the roofs and walls of the _dwor_, which ought to be its crowning ornament, would expect to find it on the top of the hill overlooking the river; but on closer examination it would discover, in the midst of an abandoned orchard and brush-wood scattered over with rubbish and old tree-trunks, only the blackened ruins of an old wooden building which gives to the spot a sad and savage aspect. Three fourths of the dwelling-house had tumbled down; one of the chimneys opened to view its dark depths; and not far off, the farmhouse, very old and miserable looking, but still inhabited, sent up a little gray smoke from its roof. It was easy to see that for a long time the proprietor had not lived there; even the wooden cross which once stood at the courtyard gate had fallen and rotted on the ground. The broken-down hedges gave foot-pa.s.sengers and flocks access to the orchard, while near at hand, the great gate, by an ironical stroke of fate, was still standing as though to defend the entrance.
The broad road which formerly extended between the _dwor_ and the village was now deserted and overgrown with gra.s.s. One could scarcely even distinguish the narrow foot-paths trodden by the cattle which the villagers took there to pasture.
The same neglect was noticeable in those houses in the village depending for repairs entirely upon the proprietor; but in spite of this apparently poverty-stricken condition, the rafting, the work in the forest, and the various small trades of the inhabitants were productive of employment and competence.
At the moment when this story begins, not a single person remained on the rafts which were ready to depart; twilight was coming on; the breeze from the water became brisker and more chilling. On the trunk of a fallen tree, near the river sh.o.r.e, was seated an old man, already bent with age, holding between his lips a small wooden pipe; near him came and went a little boy, who from his dress and exterior seemed to belong to a position between that of peasant and servant in a gentleman's family. It would have been difficult to determine precisely the exact age of the old man. Are there not faces which, having reached a certain age, change so entirely and so rapidly that the years which pa.s.s afterward seem to leave no trace upon them?
He was small in stature, a little bent, his head almost bald and slightly gray, his beard and mustaches short, though allowed to grow at will. His cheeks were wrinkled as an apple withered by the winter's cold, but retaining some fresh and healthy color. His eyes still had much vivacity and some brilliancy; and his features were remarkable for their regularity even under the yellow and furrowed skin which covered them. His face, at once quiet and slightly sad, wore an expression of peace and tranquillity of mind which is rarely met with in the countenances of the poor; one would say on seeing him that he had peaceably settled all his affairs in this world and that henceforth he would await quietly the reward which he might receive in a better one.
It would be equally difficult to form any positive idea of his condition or position from his dress. According to all appearance, he was not a simple peasant, although he wore the costume of one. The threadbare coat which covered him was shorter than the _sukmane_ of the Polesian, and it was gathered about his waist by a leather belt with a metal clasp; he wore besides dark cloth pantaloons, an old neck-handkerchief, and on his head an old brimmed cap considerably faded and worn.
But even in this dress, so simple and so worn, there was something which showed that the old man had still a certain care for his appearance: the coa.r.s.e s.h.i.+rt which showed below his cravat was very white; the _sukmane_ spotless and whole; the shoes of linden bark which covered his feet were tied carefully with narrow strips of linen.
The youth who was standing beside him and who was neither peasant nor servant, but who looked like a boatman's apprentice newly enlisted, had the features of the Polesian race, small, very bright brown eyes, long brown hair falling over his neck, a face almost square, a rather large mouth, a well-shaped turned-up nose, and a low but intelligent brow.
His entire countenance was expressive of cheerful good-humour heightened by the natural gayety of youth and utter carelessness of the future.
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