Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  But could that sachem remember? He was reared from years of childhood in the troupe of Hon. M. Dean, composed mainly of Germans. Had he not forgotten everything? This seemed probable. His environment and fifteen years of a circus career, the exhibition of his art, the winning of applause, must have exerted their influence.

  Chiavatta, Chiavatta! But they are Germans, they are on their own soil, and think no more of the fatherland than business permits. Above all, man must eat and drink. This truth every Philistine must keep in mind, as well as the last of the Black Snakes.

  These meditations are interrupted suddenly by a certain wild whistle in the stables, and on the arena appears the sachem expected so anxiously. A brief murmur of the crowd is heard: “That is he, that is he!” — and then silence. But there is hissing from Bengal lights, which burn continually at the passage. All eyes are turned toward the chief, who in the circus will appear on the graves of his fathers. The Indian deserves really that men should look at him. He seems as haughty as a king. A mantle of white ermine — the mark of his chieftainship — covers his figure, which is lofty, and so wild that it brings to mind a badly tamed jaguar. He has a face as it were forged out of bronze, like the head of an eagle, and in his face there is a cold gleam; his eyes are genuinely Indian, calm, indifferent as it were, — and ominous. He glances around on the assembly, as if wishing to choose a victim. Moreover, he is armed from head to foot. On his head plumes are waving, at his girdle he has an ax and a knife for scalping; but in his hand, instead of a bow, he holds a long staff to preserve his balance when walking on the wire. Standing in the middle of the arena he gives forth on a sudden a war cry. Herr Gott! That is the cry of the Black Snakes. Those who massacred Chiavatta remember clearly that terrible howl, — and what is most wonderful, those who fifteen years before had no fear of one thousand such warriors are sweating now before one. But behold! the director approaches the chief and says something to him, as if to pacify and calm him. The wild beast feels the bit; the words have their influence, for after a time the sachem is swaying on the wire. With eyes fixed on the kerosene chandelier he advances. The wire bends much; at moments it is not visible, and then the Indian seems suspended in space. He is walking as it were upward; he advances, retreats, and again he advances, maintaining his balance. His extended arms covered with the mantle seem like great wings. He totters! he is falling! — No. A short interrupted bravo begins like a storm and stops. The face of the chief becomes more and more threatening. In his gaze fixed on the kerosene lamps is gleaming some terrible light. There is alarm in the circus, but no one breaks the silence. Meanwhile the sachem approaches the end of the wire, stops; all at once a war-song bursts forth from his lips.

  A strange thing! The chief sings in German. But that is easy to understand. Surely he has forgotten the tongue of the Black Snakes. Moreover, no one notices that. All listen to the song, which rises and grows in volume. It is a half chant, a kind of half call, immeasurably plaintive, wild, and hoarse, full of sounds of attack.

  The following words were heard: “After the great yearly rains, five hundred warriors went from Chiavatta on the war-path or to the spring hunts; when they came back from war they brought scalps, when they came back from the hunt they brought flesh and the skins of buffaloes; their wives met them with gladness, and they danced in honor of the Great Spirit.

  “Chiavatta was happy. The women worked in the wigwams, the children grew up to be beautiful maidens, to be brave, fearless warriors. The warriors died on the field of glory, and went to the silver mountains to hunt with the ghosts of their fathers. Their axes were never dipped in the blood of women and children, for the warriors of Chiavatta were high-minded. Chiavatta was powerful; but pale-faces came from beyond distant waters and set fire to Chiavatta. The white warriors did not destroy the Black Snakes in battle, but they stole in as do jackals at night, they buried their knives in the bosoms of sleeping men, women, and children.

  “Now there is no Chiavatta. In place of it the white men have raised their stone wigwams. The murdered nation and ruined Chiavatta cry out for vengeance.”

  The voice of the chief became hoarse. Standing on the wire, he seemed a red archangel of vengeance floating above the heads of that throng of people. Evidently the director himself was afraid. A silence as of death settled down in the circus. The chief howled on, —

  “Of the whole nation there remained only one little child. He was weak and small, but he swore to the spirit of the earth that he would have vengeance, — that he would see the corpses of white men, women, and children, that he would see fire and blood.”

  The last words were changed into a bellow of fury. In the circus murmurs were heard like the sudden puffs of a whirlwind. Thousands of questions without answer came to men’s minds. What will he do, that mad tiger? What is he announcing? How will he accomplish his vengeance, — he alone? Will he stay here or flee? Will he defend himself, and how? “Was ist das, was ist das?” is heard in the terrified accents of women.

  All at once an unearthly howl was rent from the breast of the chief. The wire swayed violently, he sprang to the wooden trestle, standing at the chandelier, and raised his staff. A terrible thought flew like a flash through all heads. He will hurl around the lamps and fill the circus with torrents of flaming kerosene. From the breasts of the spectators one shout was just rising; but what do they see? From the arena the cry comes, “Stop! stop!” The chief is gone! Has he jumped down? He has gone through the entrance without firing the circus! Where is he? See, he is coming, coming a second time, panting, tired, terrible. In his hand is a pewter plate, and extending it to the spectators, he calls in a voice of entreaty: “Was gefällig für den letzten der Schwarzen Schlangen?” (What will you give to the last of the Black Snakes?)

  A stone falls from the breasts of the spectators. You see that was all in the programme, it was a trick of the director for effect. The dollars and half dollars came down in a shower. How could they say “No” to the last of the Black Snakes, in Antelope reared on the ruins of Chiavatta? People have hearts.

  After the exhibition, the sachem drank beer and ate dumplings at the “Golden Sun.” His environment had exerted its influence, evidently. He found great popularity in Antelope, especially with the women, — there was even scandal about him.

  YAMYOL

  IN the little town of Lupiskory, after the funeral of widow Kaliksta, there were vespers, and after vespers old women, between ten and twenty in number, remained in the church to finish the hymn. It was four o’clock in the afternoon; but, since twilight comes in winter about that hour, it was dark in the church. The great altar, especially, was sunk in deep shade. Only two candles were burning at the ciborium; their flickering flames barely lighted a little the gilding of the doors, and the feet of Christ, hanging on a cross higher up. Those feet were pierced with an enormous nail, and the head of that nail seemed a great point gleaming on the altar.

  From other candles, just quenched, streaks of smoke were waving, filling the places behind the stalls with a purely church odor of wax.

  An old man and a small boy were busied before the steps of the altar. One was sweeping; the other was stretching the carpet on the steps. At moments, when the women ceased their singing, either the angry whisper of the old man was heard scolding the boy, or the hammering on the snow-covered windows of sparrows that were cold and hungry outside.

  The women were sitting on benches nearer the door. It would have been still darker had it not been for a few tallow candles, by the light of which those who had prayer-books were reading. One of those candles lighted well enough a banner fastened to the seat just beyond; the banner represented sinners surrounded by devils and flames. It was impossible to see what was painted on the other banners.

  The women were not singing; they were, rather, muttering with sleepy and tired voices a hymn in which these words were repeated continually, —

  “And when the hour of death comes,

  Gain for us, gain from Thy Son.”r />
  That church buried in shadow, the banners standing at the seats, the old women with their yellow faces, the lights flickering as if oppressed by the gloom, — all that was dismal beyond expression; nay, it was simply terrible. The mournful words of the song about death found there a fitting background.

  After a time the singing stopped. One of the women stood up at the seat, and began to say, with a trembling voice, “Hail, Mary, full of grace!” And others responded, “The Lord is with Thee,” etc.; but since it was the day of Kaliksta’s funeral, each “Hail, Mary,” concluded with the words, “Lord, grant her eternal rest, and may endless light shine on her!”

  Marysia, the dead woman’s daughter, was sitting on a bench at the side of one of the old women. Just then the snow, soft and noiseless, was falling on the fresh grave of her mother; but the little girl was not ten years old yet, and seemed not to understand either her loss, or the pity which it might rouse in another. Her face, with large blue eyes, had in it the calmness of childhood, and even a certain careless repose. A little curiosity was evident, — nothing beyond that. Opening her mouth, she looked with great attention at the banner on which was painted hell with sinners; then she looked into the depth of the church, and afterward on the window at which the sparrows were hammering.

  Her eyes remained without thought. Meanwhile, the women began to mutter, sleepily, for the tenth time, —

  “And when the hour of death comes.”

  The little girl twisted the tresses of her light-colored hair, woven into two tiny braids not thicker than mice tails. She seemed tired; but now the old man occupied her attention. He went to the middle of the church, and began to pull a knotty rope hanging from the ceiling. He was ringing for the soul of Kaliksta, but he did this in a purely mechanical manner; he was thinking, evidently, of something else.

  That ringing was also a sign that vespers were ended. The women, after repeating for the last time the prayer for a happy death, went out on the square. One of them led Marysia by the hand.

  “But, Kulik,” asked another, “what will you do with the girl?”

  “What will I do? She will go to Leschyntsi. Voytek Margula will take her. But why do you ask me?”

  “What will she do in Leschyntsi?”

  “My dears, the same as here. Let her go to where she came from. Even at the mansion they will take in the orphan, and let her sleep in the kitchen.”

  Thus conversing, they passed through the square to the inn. Darkness was increasing every moment. It was wintry, calm; the sky was covered with clouds, the air filled with moisture and wet snow. Water was dropping from the roofs; on the square lay slush formed of snow and straw. The village, with wretched and tattered houses, looked as gloomy as the church. A few windows were gleaming with light; movement had ceased, but in the inn an organ was playing.

  It was playing to entice, for there was no one inside. The women entered, drank vodka; Kulik gave Marysia half a glass, saying, —

  “Drink! Thou art an orphan; thou wilt not meet kindness.”

  The word “orphan” brought the death of Kaliksta to the minds of the women. One of them said, —

  “To you, Kulik, drink! Oh, my dears, how that paralus [paralysis] took her so that she couldn’t stir! She was cold before the priest came to hear her confession.”

  “I told her long ago,” said Kulik, “that she was spinning fine [near her end]. Last week she came to me. Said I, ‘Ah, better give Marysia to the mansion!’ But she said, ‘I have one little daughter, and I’ll not give her to any one.’ But she grew sorry, and began to sob, and then she went to the mayor to put her papers in order. She paid four zloty and six groshes. ‘But I do not begrudge it for my child,’ said she. My dears, but her eyes were staring, and after death they were staring still more. People wanted to close them, but could not. They say that after death, even, she was looking at her child.”

  “Let us drink half a quarter over this sorrow!”

  The organ was playing continually. The women began to be somewhat tender. Kulik repeated, with a voice of compassion, “Poor little thing! poor little thing!” and the second old woman called to mind the death of her late husband.

  “When he was dying,” said she, “he sighed so, oh, he sighed so, he sighed so!—” and drawling still more, her voice passed into a chant, from a chant into the tone of the organ, till at last she bent to one side, and in following the organ began to sing, —

  “He sighed, he sighed, he sighed,

  On that day he sighed.”

  All at once she fell to shedding hot tears, gave the organist six groshes, and drank some more vodka. Kulik, too, was excited by tenderness, but she turned it on Marysia, —

  “Remember, little orphan,” said she, “what the priest said when they were covering thy mother with snow, that there is a yamyol [an angel] above thee—” Here she stopped, looked around as if astonished, and then added, with unusual energy, “When I say that there is a yamyol, there is a yamyol!”

  No one contradicted her. Marysia, blinking with her poor, simple eyes, looked attentively at the woman. Kulik spoke on, —

  “Thou art a little orphan, that is bad for thee! Over orphans there is a yamyol. He is good. Here are ten groshes for thee. Even if thou wert to start on foot to Leschyntsi, thou couldst go there, for he would guide thee.”

  The second old woman began to sing:

  “In the shade of his wings he will keep thee eternally,

  Under his pinions thou wilt lie without danger.”

  “Be quiet!” said Kulik. And then she turned again to the child, —

  “Knowest thou, stupid, who is above thee?”

  “A yamyol,” said, with a thin voice, the little girl.

  “Oh, thou little orphan, thou precious berry, thou little worm of the Lord! A yamyol with wings,” said she, with perfect tenderness, and seizing the child she pressed her to her honest, though tipsy, bosom.

  Marysia burst into weeping at once. Perhaps in her dark little head and in her heart, which knew not yet how to distinguish, there was roused some sort of perception at that moment.

  The innkeeper was sleeping most soundly behind the counter; on the candle-wicks mushrooms had grown; the man at the organ ceased to play, for what he saw amused him.

  Then there was silence, which was broken by the sudden plashing of horses’ feet before the door, and a voice calling to the horses, —

  “Prrr!”

  Voytek Margula walked into the inn with a lighted lantern in his hand. He put down the lantern, began to slap his arms to warm them, and at last said to the innkeeper, —

  “Give half a quarter.”

  “Margula, thou chestnut,” cried Kulik, “thou wilt take the little girl to Leschyntsi.”

  “I’ll take her, for they told me to take her,” replied Margula.

  Then looking closely to the two women he added, —

  “But ye are as drunk as—”

  “May the plague choke thee,” retorted Kulik. “When I tell thee to be careful with the child, be careful. She is an orphan. Knowest thou, fool, who is above her?”

  Voytek did not see fit to answer that question, but determined evidently to raise another subject, and began, —

  “To all of you—”

  But he didn’t finish, for he drank the vodka, made a wry face, and putting down the glass with dissatisfaction, said, —

  “That’s pure water. Give me a second from another bottle.”

  The innkeeper poured from another. Margula twisted his face still more:

  “Ai! haven’t you arrack?”

  Evidently the same danger threatened Margula that threatened the women; but at that very time, in the mansion at Lupiskory, the landowner was preparing for one of the journals a long and exhaustive article, “On the right of landowners to sell liquor, this right being considered as the basis of society.” But Voytek co-operated only involuntarily to strengthen the basis of society, and that all the more because the sale here, though in a village, was
really by the landowner.

  When he had co-operated five times in succession he forgot, it is true, his lantern, in which the light had gone out, but he took the half-sleeping little girl by the hand, and said, —

  “But come on, thou nightmare!”

  The women had fallen asleep in a corner, no one bade farewell to Marysia. The whole story was this: Her mother was in the graveyard and she was going to Leschyntsi.

  Voytek and the girl went out, sat in the sleigh. Voytek cried to the horses, and they moved on. At first the sleigh dragged heavily enough through the slush of the town, but they came out very soon to fields which were broad and white. Movement was easy then; the snow barely made a noise under the sleigh-runners. The horses snorted at times, at times came the barking of dogs from a distance.

  They went on and on. Voytek urged the horses, and sang through his nose, “Dog ear, remember thy promise.” But soon he grew silent, and began to “carry Jews” (nod). He nodded to the right, to the left. He dreamt that they were pounding him on the shoulders in Leschyntsi, because he had lost a basket of letters; so, from time to time, he was half awake, and repeated: “To all!” Marysia did not sleep, for she was cold. She looked with widely opened eyes on the white fields, hidden from moment to moment by the dark shoulders of Margula. She thought also that her “mother was dead;” and thinking thus, she pictured to herself perfectly the pale and thin face of her mother with its staring eyes, — and she felt half consciously that that face was greatly beloved, that it was no longer in the world, and would never be in Leschyntsi again. She had seen with her own eyes how they covered it up in Lupiskory. Remembering this, she would have cried from grief; but as her knees and feet were chilled, she began to cry from cold.