Between eight and nine o'clock in the morning.
A dark leaden-coloured mass is creeping over
the sky towards the sun. Red zigzags of lightning gleam here and there across
it. There is a sound of far-away rumbling. A warm wind frolics over the grass,
bends the trees, and stirs up the dust. In a minute there will be a spurt of
May rain and a real storm will begin.
Fyokla, a little beggar-girl of six, is
running through the village, looking for Terenty the cobbler. The white-haired,
barefoot child is pale. Her eyes are wide-open, her lips are trembling.
"Uncle, where is Terenty?" she asks
every one she meets. No one answers. They are all preoccupied with the
approaching storm and take refuge in their huts. At last she meets Silanty
Silitch, the sacristan, Terenty's bosom friend. He is coming along, staggering
from the wind.
"Uncle, where is Terenty?"
"At the kitchen-gardens," answers
Silanty.
The beggar-girl runs behind the huts to the
kitchen-gardens and there finds Terenty; the tall old man with a thin,
pock-marked face, very long legs, and bare feet, dressed in a woman's tattered
jacket, is standing near the vegetable plots, looking with drowsy, drunken eyes
at the dark storm-cloud. On his long crane-like legs he sways in the wind like
a starling-cote.
"Uncle Terenty!" the white-headed
beggar-girl addresses him. "Uncle, darling!"
Terenty bends down to Fyokla, and his grim,
drunken face is overspread with a smile, such as come into people's faces when
they look at something little, foolish, and absurd, but warmly loved.
"Ah! servant of God, Fyokia," he
says, lisping tenderly, "where have you come from?"
"Uncle Terenty," says Fyokia, with a
sob, tugging at the lapel of the cobbler's coat. "Brother Danilka has had
an accident! Come along!"
"What sort of accident? Ough, what
thunder! Holy, holy, holy. . . . What sort of accident?"
"In the count's copse Danilka stuck his
hand into a hole in a tree, and he can't get it out. Come along, uncle, do be
kind and pull his hand out!"
"How was it he put his hand in? What
for?"
"He wanted to get a cuckoo's egg out of
the hole for me."
"The day has hardly begun and already you
are in trouble. . . ." Terenty shook his head and spat deliberately.
"Well, what am I to do with you now? I must come . . . I must, may the
wolf gobble you up, you naughty children! Come, little orphan!"
Terenty comes out of the kitchen-garden and,
lifting high his long legs, begins striding down the village street. He walks
quickly without stopping or looking from side to side, as though he were shoved
from behind or afraid of pursuit. Fyokla can hardly keep up with him.
They come out of the village and turn along
the dusty road towards the count's copse that lies dark blue in the distance. It
is about a mile and a half away. The clouds have by now covered the sun, and
soon afterwards there is not a speck of blue left in the sky. It grows dark.
"Holy, holy, holy . . ." whispers
Fyokla, hurrying after Terenty. The first rain-drops, big and heavy, lie, dark
dots on the dusty road. A big drop falls on Fyokla's cheek and glides like a
tear down her chin.
"The rain has begun," mutters the
cobbler, kicking up the dust with his bare, bony feet. "That's fine,
Fyokla, old girl. The grass and the trees are fed by the rain, as we are by
bread. And as for the thunder, don't you be frightened, little orphan. Why
should it kill a little thing like you?"
As soon as the rain begins, the wind drops.
The only sound is the patter of rain dropping like fine shot on the young rye
and the parched road.
"We shall get soaked, Fyolka,"
mutters Terenty. "There won't be a dry spot left on us. . . . Ho-ho, my
girl! It's run down my neck! But don't be frightened, silly. . . . The grass
will be dry again, the earth will be dry again, and we shall be dry again.
There is the same sun for us all."
A flash of lightning, some fourteen feet long,
gleams above their heads. There is a loud peal of thunder, and it seems to
Fyokla that something big, heavy, and round is rolling over the sky and tearing
it open, exactly over her head.
"Holy, holy, holy . . ." says
Terenty, crossing himself. "Don't be afraid, little orphan! It is not from
spite that it thunders."
Terenty's and Fyokla's feet are covered with
lumps of heavy, wet clay. It is slippery and difficult to walk, but Terenty
strides on more and more rapidly. The weak little beggar-girl is breathless and
ready to drop.
But at last they go into the count's copse.
The washed trees, stirred by a gust of wind, drop a perfect waterfall upon
them. Terenty stumbles over stumps and begins to slacken his pace.
"Whereabouts is Danilka?" he asks.
"Lead me to him."
Fyokla leads him into a thicket, and, after
going a quarter of a mile, points to Danilka. Her brother, a little fellow of
eight, with hair as red as ochre and a pale sickly face, stands leaning against
a tree, and, with his head on one side, looking sideways at the sky. In one
hand he holds his shabby old cap, the other is hidden in an old lime tree. The
boy is gazing at the stormy sky, and apparently not thinking of his trouble.
Hearing footsteps and seeing the cobbler he gives a sickly smile and says:
"A terrible lot of thunder, Terenty. . .
. I've never heard so much thunder in all my life."
"And where is your hand?"
"In the hole. . . . Pull it out, please,
Terenty!"
The wood had broken at the edge of the hole
and jammed Danilka's hand: he could push it farther in, but could not pull it
out. Terenty snaps off the broken piece, and the boy's hand, red and crushed,
is released.
"It's terrible how it's thundering,"
the boy says again, rubbing his hand. "What makes it thunder,
Terenty?"
"One cloud runs against the other,"
answers the cobbler. The party come out of the copse, and walk along the edge
of it towards the darkened road. The thunder gradually abates, and its rumbling
is heard far away beyond the village.
"The ducks flew by here the other day,
Terenty," says Danilka, still rubbing his hand. "They must be nesting
in the Gniliya Zaimishtcha marshes. . . . Fyolka, would you like me to show you
a nightingale's nest?"
"Don't touch it, you might disturb them,"
says Terenty, wringing the water out of his cap. "The nightingale is a
singing-bird, without sin. He has had a voice given him in his throat, to
praise God and gladden the heart of man. It's a sin to disturb him."
"What about the sparrow?"
"The sparrow doesn't matter, he's a bad,
spiteful bird. He is like a pickpocket in his ways. He doesn't like man to be
happy. When Christ was crucified it was the sparrow brought nails to the Jews,
and called 'alive! alive!' "
A bright patch of blue appears in the sky.
"Look!" says Terenty. "An
ant-heap burst open by the rain! They've been flooded, the rogues!"
They bend over the ant-heap. The downpour has
damaged it; the insects are scurrying to and fro in the mud, agitated, and
busily trying to carry away their drowned companions.
"You needn't be in such a taking, you
won't die of it!" says Terenty, grinning. "As soon as the sun warms
you, you'll come to your senses again. . . . It's a lesson to you, you stupids.
You won't settle on low ground another time."
They go on.
"And here are some bees," cries
Danilka, pointing to the branch of a young oak tree.
The drenched and chilled bees are huddled
together on the branch. There are so many of them that neither bark nor leaf
can be seen. Many of them are settled on one another.
"That's a swarm of bees," Terenty
informs them. "They were flying looking for a home, and when the rain came
down upon them they settled. If a swarm is flying, you need only sprinkle water
on them to make them settle. Now if, say, you wanted to take the swarm, you
would bend the branch with them into a sack and shake it, and they all fall
in."
Little Fyokla suddenly frowns and rubs her
neck vigorously. Her brother looks at her neck, and sees a big swelling on it.
"Hey-hey!" laughs the cobbler.
"Do you know where you got that from, Fyokia, old girl? There are Spanish
flies on some tree in the wood. The rain has trickled off them, and a drop has
fallen on your neck -- that's what has made the swelling."
The sun appears from behind the clouds and
floods the wood, the fields, and the three friends with its warm light. The
dark menacing cloud has gone far away and taken the storm with it. The air is
warm and fragrant. There is a scent of bird-cherry, meadowsweet, and
lilies-of-the-valley.
"That herb is given when your nose
bleeds," says Terenty, pointing to a woolly-looking flower. "It does
good."
They hear a whistle and a rumble, but not such
a rumble as the storm-clouds carried away. A goods train races by before the
eyes of Terenty, Danilka, and Fyokla. The engine, panting and puffing out black
smoke, drags more than twenty vans after it. Its power is tremendous. The
children are interested to know how an engine, not alive and without the help
of horses, can move and drag such weights, and Terenty undertakes to explain it
to them:
"It's all the steam's doing, children. .
. . The steam does the work. . . . You see, it shoves under that thing near the
wheels, and it . . . you see . . . it works. . . ."
They cross the railway line, and, going down
from the embankment, walk towards the river. They walk not with any object, but
just at random, and talk all the way. . . . Danilka asks questions, Terenty
answers them. . . .
Terenty answers all his questions, and there
is no secret in Nature which baffles him. He knows everything. Thus, for
example, he knows the names of all the wild flowers, animals, and stones. He
knows what herbs cure diseases, he has no difficulty in telling the age of a
horse or a cow. Looking at the sunset, at the moon, or the birds, he can tell
what sort of weather it will be next day. And indeed, it is not only Terenty
who is so wise. Silanty Silitch, the innkeeper, the market-gardener, the
shepherd, and all the villagers, generally speaking, know as much as he does.
These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on
the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang
to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very
trees, and wild herbs.
Danilka looks at Terenty and greedily drinks
in every word. In spring, before one is weary of the warmth and the monotonous
green of the fields, when everything is fresh and full of fragrance, who would
not want to hear about the golden may-beetles, about the cranes, about the
gurgling streams, and the corn mounting into ear?
The two of them, the cobbler and the orphan, walk
about the fields, talk unceasingly, and are not weary. They could wander about
the world endlessly. They walk, and in their talk of the beauty of the earth do
not notice the frail little beggar-girl tripping after them. She is breathless
and moves with a lagging step. There are tears in her eyes; she would be glad
to stop these inexhaustible wanderers, but to whom and where can she go? She
has no home or people of her own; whether she likes it or not, she must walk
and listen to their talk.
Towards midday, all three sit down on the
river bank. Danilka takes out of his bag a piece of bread, soaked and reduced
to a mash, and they begin to eat. Terenty says a prayer when he has eaten the
bread, then stretches himself on the sandy bank and falls asleep. While he is
asleep, the boy gazes at the water, pondering. He has many different things to
think of. He has just seen the storm, the bees, the ants, the train. Now,
before his eyes, fishes are whisking about. Some are two inches long and more,
others are no bigger than one's nail. A viper, with its head held high, is
swimming from one bank to the other.
Only towards the evening our wanderers return
to the village. The children go for the night to a deserted barn, where the
corn of the commune used to be kept, while Terenty, leaving them, goes to the
tavern. The children lie huddled together on the straw, dozing.
The boy does not sleep. He gazes into the
darkness, and it seems to him that he is seeing all that he has seen in the
day: the storm-clouds, the bright sunshine, the birds, the fish, lanky Terenty.
The number of his impressions, together with exhaustion and hunger, are too
much for him; he is as hot as though he were on fire, and tosses from, side to
side. He longs to tell someone all that is haunting him now in the darkness and
agitating his soul, but there is no one to tell. Fyokla is too little and could
not understand.
"I'll tell Terenty to-morrow,"
thinks the boy.
The children fall asleep thinking of the
homeless cobbler, and, in the night, Terenty comes to them, makes the sign of
the cross over them, and puts bread under their heads. And no one sees his
love. It is seen only by the moon which floats in the sky and peeps caressingly
through the holes in the wall of the deserted barn.
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