Peasant Tales of Russia Part 15

"Yes, yes, you will take me," she coaxed him. "When I ask, you never say no."

"Look at the little rogue! Shall I break off a switch and whip you?

Well, come along then!"

He lifted her up and walked with her deeper into the solemn stillness of the forest. The old man felt his heart grow warmer as the tired child's eyelids gradually drooped, and she began to breathe regularly in his arms. With a kind of pity he looked at the little open mouth and the helpless dusty little legs as they hung down.

"And that, too, is one of G.o.d's creatures! Why does such a useless thing come into the world?" he philosophized to himself and took the greatest pains to tread gently and not to move his outstretched arm in order not to wake the child.

VII

In the middle of the forest was a green meadow traversed by a path along which Ivan was now proceeding. It ended before what looked like a pile of earth and dry sticks projecting like those of a raven's nest in all directions. At first sight it was hard to recognize what the object of the structure was; it seemed too large for a mere wood-pile, and too shapeless for a human shelter.

Close by stood a stake with a long rope attached to it, and at the end of the rope, all day long, there ran about a young bear growling and shaking its head. Just then it stood on its hindlegs and sniffed with its snout in the air. Between the trees appeared a dark form, and dry branches lying on the ground cracked under a heavy foot-tread. The animal, out of sheer impatience, ran so rapidly round the stake that it completely entangled itself and could not take another step. Forced to stand still, it watched Ivan's approach with its head on one side and an absurdly serious air.

Ivan came across the meadow with his burden on his arm. He untied the rope; the liberated baby bear threw itself between his legs, embraced him with its paws and signified its intention of climbing up him.

"Ah, you want bread, you hungry rascal," said Ivan. "I know you; as soon as you are satisfied, off you go."

Anjuta awoke and rubbed her eyes with her little fist.

"That is a fine family," growled the grandfather. "Brother and sister both grown on one tree. The right children for a vagabond. Yes, yes, when a man has no cares, he must make himself some."

He had caught the little bear, when he killed its mother, whose skin served Anjuta for a bed. The young animal continued to regard the skin as something alive and related to itself; it always lay close to Anjuta, sucked at the long tufts of hair which it held between its paws, and growled sleepily.

The huge raven's-nest which the little girl now entered discovered itself to be a dwelling. Ivan had burnt off the gra.s.s, fixed on the levelled ground a rough platform of thick poles and covered it with twigs, moss and fresh earth out of which already some green shoots, and, to Anjuta's delight, some stunted flowers were springing. Ivan was very proud of the hut which began to display even some traces of luxury. The floor was covered with skins of wolves and bears; on the walls there hung whole rows of squirrel-skins. Every fortnight these were sold to a peasant from the village who did not trouble his head about Ivan's past.

The housekeeping also was on a satisfactory basis. Under the roof hung dried mushrooms from long strings and in a corner stood a sack full of potatoes. In the hollow of an old gnarled tree which threw its shade far over the forest-clearing, some round loaves of black-bread as hard as stones were stored up. In the wood they always had traps and snares ready set which caught abundance of game.

When Anjuta, who had again gone to sleep, put her head out of the hut, the water bubbled merrily in the pot from which the feet of a plucked fowl projected. Ivan was busily engaged in slicing potatoes into the broth.

"It smells good," said the little girl, pursing her mouth in eager expectation.

"But you won't get any," said the old man teasingly.

"Oh yes I will. You will always give me something, even when you remain hungry yourself."

"What a princess you have become! Yesterday you ate your fill, and now there is no more."

"Listen, Grandfather," said the child after a few moments of reflection.

"Have you always lived in the forest?"

Ivan wrinkled his brow and was silent.

"It is jolly in the forest," continued she. "There is no one to beat one. But mother was afraid in it. She said there were wicked and cursed men in the forest. Grandfather, what kind of men are they?"

Ivan's face became still gloomier.

"Who has cursed them, Grandfather? Has G.o.d done it? Will they burn in h.e.l.l?"

The old man laid his hand on the child's ruffled hair.

"May G.o.d protect you from them. They are worse than wild animals. An animal, when it is satisfied, can be merciful, but they----" He broke off and stared into the fire.

"Well, what do they do?" the child urged him in her keen curiosity.

"Grandfather, what do they do? Are they villains?"

"Be off," cried the convict suddenly. "Get away, or I shall beat you.

What nonsense are you talking?"

He pushed the child violently to one side. Before her stood all at once a completely altered "grandfather." In his sunken eyes there glowed a lurid spark, his grey hairs bristled, and his face twitched convulsively. His breast heaved with a rattling sound, and his hand was clenched as though to strike. Anjuta started back in wild terror; even the baby bear was alarmed and slunk into the hut with its tail between its legs.

Ivan stood for a long while motionless, then he sat down silently by the fire and stirred it up.

"Cursed--cursed," he murmured to himself. "Who has cursed them. G.o.d pardons sinners, they say. Come!" he said gloomily to the little one.

"Sit down here. It is all right."

"I am frightened."

Ivan bent lower over the fire. "The past will not let itself be buried,"

he thought. "Why must I frighten an innocent creature too?" Then again his memories stung him and he cried in a new outburst of rage, "Who dares curse us. You hard-hearted----Yes, it is all right," he added, trying to quiet the child who was still trembling. "You say you love Grandfather; so come nearer."

But Anjuta stared hard at him and did not move.

"Look at the nice soup," he said to tempt her and recovered his self-control. "We will take the fowl out by its legs. It shall have a special privilege and lie on the gra.s.s till it is cool, else you will burn your mouth." Anjuta approached with visible mistrust.

"Why are you afraid, you simpleton? Bring our spoons. Oh, you stupid thing! Have I ever hurt you?"

"You looked so dreadful--quite like another man."

"Oh, that was only a joke. I wanted to show you what wicked men look like. You always ask me to play 'wolf'; just now I played 'bad man.'"

"I am not so frightened at the wolf as at the bad man."

"Ah, child, one must sympathize with them. Do you think it is so easy to be bad? The Lord has made it hard enough for them; they must suffer much. It is not really of their own accord that they seize every one by the throat. They say that G.o.d hears children's prayers. Pray then, Anjuta: 'O G.o.d, have mercy on the wicked men.' The good need no one to pray for them; they are safe anyhow."

VIII

Such fits of excitement grew ever rarer with Ivan. As the summer advanced, the convict became quieter. Whenever he watched Anjuta playing with her mischievous playfellow, or listened to the melancholy call of the birds, or sat by the blazing fire, the furrows on his brow became smoother and a comfortable drowsiness lulled his wild instincts to rest.

He had become quite a different man from what he was when he first escaped. But his dreams at night often transported him back to the damp prison-cell, or he saw himself again walking in the file of the prisoners on the apparently endless high road, heard the familiar calls of the warders through the cold winter air, and felt the heavy b.u.t.t end of the musket fall on his bowed back. On such occasions when he awoke, it was a long time before the quiet breathing of Anjuta and the bear's peaceful snoring restored him to a sense of reality. He generally spent the remainder of such a night on his bear-skin outside the narrow hut, enjoying the consciousness of freedom that came with the balmy coolness of the forest and the distant murmur of the stream. The next day he was generally in a specially good humour, played with Anjuta, and listened to the thousand voices in which the primeval forest revealed to him its secrets.

He never thought of the morrow; his adventurous and uncertain gipsy life had taught him to prize to-day. So long as the sun shone, the pot boiled merrily on the fire, and his child laughed and clapped her hands--what more did he need? And what could the obscure future bring him, but at the best a succession of similar days, and at the worst the dungeon and the knout.

But in August there came a bad time. The clouds almost touched the tops of the forest-giants, from whose bark the rain trickled down in large cold drops; the birds were silent and the beasts crept into their lairs.

The little bear rolled himself up in his skin and growled discontentedly. The old man and the child sat, huddling close together in the dry hut and whispered to the accompaniment of the howling of the wind and the pouring of the rain.

"When the black-berries are ripe, the thrushes will come from everywhere, and I will catch you a pair," he promised the delighted child. "But what will you do with them?"