by Leo Tolstoy
‘And her mother is here!’ said the husband almost in despair. ‘She won’t be able to bear it. You see, loving her as she does … I don’t know! If you would only try to comfort her, Father, and persuade her to go away.’
The priest got up and went to the old woman.
‘It is true, no one can appreciate a mother’s heart,’ he said – ‘but God is merciful.’
The old woman’s face suddenly twitched all over, and she began to hiccup hysterically.
‘God is merciful,’ the priest continued when she grew a little calmer. ‘Let me tell you of a patient in my parish who was much worse than Mary Dmítrievna, and a simple tradesman cured her in a short time with various herbs. That tradesman is even now in Moscow. I told Vasíli Dmítrich – we might try him.… It would at any rate comfort the invalid. To God all is possible.’
‘No, she will not live,’ said the old woman. ‘God is taking her instead of me,’ and the hysterical hiccuping grew so violent that she fainted.
The sick woman’s husband hid his face in his hands and ran out of the room.
In the passage the first person he met was his six-year-old son, who was running full speed after his younger sister.
‘Won’t you order the children to be taken to their mamma?’ asked the nurse.
‘No, she doesn’t want to see them – it would upset her.’
The boy stopped a moment, looked intently into his father’s face, then gave a kick and ran on, shouting merrily.
‘She pretends to be the black horse, Papa!’ he shouted, pointing to his sister.
Meanwhile in the other room the cousin sat down beside the invalid, and tried by skilful conversation to prepare her for the thought of death. The doctor was mixing a draught at another window.
The patient, in a white dressing-gown, sat up in bed supported all round by pillows, and looked at her cousin in silence.
‘Ah, my dear friend,’ she said, unexpectedly interrupting her, ‘don’t prepare me! Don’t treat me like a child. I am a Christian. I know it all. I know I have not long to live, and know that if my husband had listened to me sooner I should now have been in Italy and perhaps – no, certainly – should have been well. Everybody told him so. But what is to be done? Evidently this is God’s wish. We have all sinned heavily. I know that, but I trust in God’s mercy everybody will be forgiven, probably all will be forgiven. I try to understand myself. I have many sins to answer for, dear friend, but then how much I have had to suffer! I try to bear my sufferings patiently …’
‘Then shall I call the priest, my dear? You will feel still more comfortable after receiving Communion,’ said her cousin.
The sick woman bent her head in assent.
‘God forgive me, sinner that I am!’ she whispered.
The cousin went out and signalled with her eyes to the priest.
‘She is an angel!’ she said to the husband, with tears in her eyes. The husband burst into tears; the priest went into the next room; the invalid’s mother was still unconscious, and all was silent there. Five minutes later he came out again, and after taking off his stole, straightened out his hair.
‘Thank God she is calmer now,’ she said, ‘and wishes to see you.’
The cousin and the husband went into the sick-room. The invalid was silently weeping, gazing at an icon.
‘I congratulate you, my dear,’1 said her husband.
‘Thank you! How well I feel now, what inexpressible sweetness I feel!’ said the sick woman, and a soft smile played on her thin lips. ‘How merciful God is! Is He not? Merciful and all powerful!’ and again she looked at the icon with eager entreaty and her eyes full of tears.
Then suddenly, as if she remembered something, she beckoned to her husband to come closer.
‘You never want to do what I ask …’ she said in a feeble and dissatisfied voice.
The husband, craning his neck, listened to her humbly.
‘What is it, my dear?’
‘How many times have I not said that these doctors don’t know anything; there are simple women who can heal, and who do cure. The priest told me … there is also a tradesman … Send!’
‘For whom, my dear?’
‘O God, you don’t want to understand anything!’ … And the sick woman’s face puckered and she closed her eyes.
The doctor came up and took her hand. Her pulse was beating more and more feebly. He glanced at the husband. The invalid noticed that gesture and looked round in affright. The cousin turned away and began to cry.
‘Don’t cry, don’t torture yourself and me,’ said the patient. ‘Don’t take from me the last of my tranquillity.’
‘You are an angel,’ said the cousin, kissing her hand.
‘No, kiss me here! Only dead people are kissed on the hand. My God, my God!’
That same evening the patient was a corpse, and the body lay in a coffin in the music-room of the large house. A deacon sat alone in that big room reading the psalms of David through his nose in a monotonous voice. A bright light from the wax candles in their tall silver candlesticks fell on the pale brow of the dead woman, on her heavy wax-like hands, on the stiff folds of the pall which brought out in awesome relief the knees and the toes. The deacon without understanding the words read on monotonously, and in the quiet room the words sounded strangely and died away. Now and then from a distant room came the sounds of children’s voices and the patter of their feet.
‘Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled,’ said the psalter. ‘Thou takest away their breath, they die and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever.’
The dead woman’s face looked stern and majestic. Neither in the clear cold brow nor in the firmly closed lips was there any movement. She seemed all attention. But had she even now understood those solemn words?
IV
A MONTH later a stone chapel was being erected over the grave of the deceased woman. Over the driver’s tomb there was still no stone, and only the light green grass sprouted on the mound which served as the only token of the past existence of a man.
‘It will be a sin, Sergéy,’ said the cook at the station-house one day, ‘if you don’t buy a stone for Theodore. You kept saying “It’s winter, it’s winter!” but why don’t you keep your word now? You know I witnessed it. He has already come back once to ask you to do it; if you don’t buy him one, he’ll come again and choke you.’
‘But why? I’m not backing out of it,’ replied Sergéy. ‘I’ll buy a stone as I said I would, and give a ruble and a half for it. I haven’t forgotten it, but it has to be fetched. When I happen to be in town I’ll buy one.’
‘You might at least put up a cross – you ought to – else it’s really wrong,’ interposed an old driver. ‘You know you are wearing his boots.’
‘Where can I get a cross? I can’t cut one out of a log.’
‘What do you mean, can’t cut one out of a log? You take an axe and go into the forest early, and you can cut one there. Cut down a young ash or something like that, and you can make a cross of it … you may have to treat the forester to vodka; but one can’t afford to treat him for every trifle. There now, I broke my splinter-bar and went and cut a new one, and nobody said a word.’
Early in the morning, as soon as it was daybreak, Sergéy took an axe and went into the wood.
A cold white cover of dew, which was still falling untouched by the sun, lay on everything. The east was imperceptibly growing brighter, reflecting its pale light on the vault of heaven still veiled by a covering of clouds. Not a blade of grass below, nor a leaf on the topmost branches of the trees, stirred. Only occasionally a sound of wings amid the brushwood, or a rustling on the ground, broke the silence of the forest. Suddenly a strange sound, foreign to Nature, resounded and died away at the outskirts of the forest. Again the sound was heard, and was rhythmically repeated at the foot of the trunk of one of the motionless trees. A tree-to
p began to tremble in an unwonted manner, its juicy leaves whispered something, and the robin who had been sitting in one of its branches fluttered twice from place to place with a whistle, and jerking its tail sat down on another tree.
The axe at the bottom gave off a more and more muffled sound, sappy white chips were scattered on the dewy grass and a slight creaking was heard above the sound of the blows. The tree, shuddering in its whole body, bent down and quickly rose again, vibrating with fear on its roots. For an instant all was still, but the tree bent again, a crashing sound came from its trunk, and with its branches breaking and its boughs hanging down it fell with its crown on the damp earth.
The sounds of the axe and of the footsteps were silenced. The robin whistled and flitted higher. A twig which it brushed with its wings shook a little and then with all its foliage grew still like the rest. The trees flaunted the beauty of their motionless branches still more joyously in the newly cleared space.
The first sunbeams, piercing the translucent cloud, shone out and spread over earth and sky. The mist began to quiver like waves in the hollows, the dew sparkled and played on the verdure, the transparent cloudlets grew whiter, and hurriedly dispersed over the deepening azure vault of the sky. The birds stirred in the thicket and, as though bewildered, twittered joyfully about something; the sappy leaves whispered gladly and peacefully on the tree-tops, and the branches of those that were living began to rustle slowly and majestically over the dead and prostrate tree.
1 It was customary in Russia to congratulate people who had received Communion.
STRIDER: THE STORY OF A HORSE
I
HIGHER and higher receded the sky, wider and wider spread the streak of dawn, whiter grew the pallid silver of the dew, more lifeless the sickle of the moon, and more vocal the forest. People began to get up, and in the owner’s stable-yard the sounds of snorting, the rustling of litter, and even the shrill angry neighing of horses crowded together and at variance about something, grew more and more frequent.
‘Hold on! Plenty of time! Hungry?’ said the old huntsman, quickly opening the creaking gate. ‘Where are you going?’ he shouted, threateningly raising his arm at a mare that was pushing through the gate.
The keeper, Nester, wore a short Cossack coat with an ornamental leather girdle, had a whip slung over his shoulder, and a hunk of bread wrapped in a cloth stuck in his girdle. He carried a saddle and bridle in his arms.
The horses were not at all frightened or offended at the horseman’s sarcastic tone: they pretended that it was all the same to them and moved leisurely away from the gate; only one old brown mare, with a thick mane, laid back an ear and quickly turned her back on him. A small filly standing behind her and not at all concerned in the matter took this opportunity to whinny and kick out at a horse that happened to be near.
‘Now then!’ shouted the keeper still louder and more sternly, and he went to the opposite corner of the yard.
Of all the horses in the enclosure (there were about a hundred of them) a piebald gelding, standing by himself in a corner under the penthouse and licking an oak post with half-closed eyes, displayed least impatience.
It is impossible to say what flavour the piebald gelding found in the post, but his expression was serious and thoughtful while he licked.
‘Stop that!’ shouted the groom, drawing nearer to him and putting the saddle and a glossy saddle-cloth on the manure heap beside him.
The piebald gelding stopped licking, and without moving gave Nester a long look. The gelding did not laugh, nor grow angry, nor frown, but his whole belly heaved with a profound sigh and he turned away. The horseman put his arm round the gelding’s neck and placed the bridle on him.
‘What are you sighing for?’ said Nester.
The gelding switched his tail as if to say, ‘Nothing in particular, Nester!’ Nester put the saddle-cloth and saddle on him, and this caused the gelding to lay back his ears, probably to express dissatisfaction, but he was only called a ‘good-for-nothing’ for it and his saddle-girth was tightened.
At this the gelding blew himself out, but a finger was thrust into his mouth and a knee hit him in the stomach, so that he had to let out his breath. In spite of this, when the saddle-cloth was being buckled on he again laid back his ears and even looked round. Though he knew it would do no good he considered it necessary to show that it was disagreeable to him and that he would always express his dissatisfaction with it. When he was saddled he thrust forward his swollen off foot and began champing his bit, this too for some reason of his own, for he ought to have known by that time that a bit cannot have any flavour at all.
Nester mounted the gelding by the short stirrup, unwound his long whip, straightened his coat out from under his knee, seated himself in the manner peculiar to coachmen, huntsmen, and horsemen, and jerked the reins. The gelding lifted his head to show his readiness to go where ordered, but did not move. He knew that before starting there would be much shouting, and that Nester, from the seat on his back, would give many orders to Váska, the other groom, and to the horses. And Nester did shout: ‘Váska! Hullo, Váska. Have you let out the brood mares? Where are you going, you devil? Now then! Are you asleep … Open the gate! Let the brood mares get out first!’ – and so on.
The gate creaked. Váska, cross and sleepy, stood at the gatepost holding his horse by the bridle and letting the other horses pass out. The horses followed one another and stepped carefully over the straw, smelling at it: fillies, yearling colts with their manes and tails cut, suckling foals, and mares in foal carrying their burden heedfully, passed one by one through the gateway. The fillies sometimes crowded together in twos and threes, throwing their heads across one another’s backs and hitting their hoofs against the gate, for which they received a rebuke from the grooms every time. The foals sometimes darted under the legs of the wrong mares and neighed loudly in response to the short whinny of their own mothers.
A playful filly, directly she had got out at the gate, bent her head sideways, kicked up her hind legs, and squealed, but all the same she did not dare to run ahead of old dappled Zhuldýba who at a slow and heavy pace, swinging her belly from side to side, marched as usual ahead of all the other horses.
In a few minutes the enclosure that had been so animated became deserted, the posts stood gloomily under the empty penthouse, and only trampled straw mixed with manure was to be seen. Used as he was to that desolate sight it probably depressed the piebald gelding. As if making a bow he slowly lowered his head and raised it again, sighed as deeply as the tightly drawn girth would allow, and hobbling along on his stiff and crooked legs shambled after the herd, bearing old Nester on his bony back.
‘I know that as soon as we get out on the road he will begin to strike a light and smoke his wooden pipe with its brass mountings and little chain,’ thought the gelding. ‘I am glad of it because early in the morning when it is dewy I like that smell, it reminds me of much that was pleasant; but it’s annoying that when his pipe is between his teeth the old man always begins to swagger and thinks himself somebody and sits sideways, always sideways – and that side hurts. However, it can’t be helped! Suffering for the pleasure of others is nothing new to me. I have even begun to find a certain equine pleasure in it. Let him swagger, poor fellow! Of course he can only do that when he is alone and no one sees him – let him sit sideways!’ thought the gelding, and stepping carefully on his crooked legs he went along the middle of the road.
II
HAVING driven the horses to the riverside where they were to graze, Nester dismounted and unsaddled. Meanwhile the herd had begun gradually to spread over the untrampled meadow, covered with dew and by the mist that rose from it and the encircling river.
When he had taken the bridle off the piebald gelding, Nester scratched him under the neck, in response to which the gelding expressed his gratitude and satisfaction by closing his eyes. ‘He likes it, the old dog!’ muttered Nester. The gelding however did not really care for the scratching at
all, and pretended that it was agreeable merely out of courtesy. He nodded his head in assent to Nester’s words; but suddenly Nester quite unexpectedly and without any reason, perhaps imagining that too much familiarity might give the gelding a wrong idea of his importance, pushed the gelding’s head away from himself without any warning and, swinging the bridle, struck him painfully with the buckle on his lean leg, and then without saying a word went up the hillock to a tree-stump beside which he generally seated himself.
Though this action grieved the piebald gelding he gave no indication of it, but leisurely switching his scanty tail, sniffed at something and, biting off some wisps of grass merely to divert his mind, walked to the river. He took no notice whatever of the antics of the young mares, colts, and foals around him, who were filled with the joy of the morning; and knowing that, especially at his age, it is healthier to have a good drink on an empty stomach and to eat afterwards, he chose a spot where the bank was widest and least steep, and wetting his hoofs and fetlocks, dipped his muzzle in the water and began to suck it up through his torn lips, to expand his filling sides, and from pleasure to switch his scanty tail with its half bald stump.
An aggressive chestnut filly, who always teased the old fellow and did all kinds of unpleasant things to him, now came up to him in the water as if attending to some business of her own, but in reality merely to foul the water before his nose. But the piebald gelding, who had already had his fill, as though not noticing the filly’s intention quietly drew one foot after the other out of the mud in which they had sunk, jerked his head, and stepping aside from the youthful crowd started grazing. Sprawling his feet apart in different ways and not trampling the grass needlessly, he went on eating without unbending himself for exactly three hours. Having eaten till his belly hung down from his steep skinny ribs like a sack, he balanced himself equally on his four sore legs so as to have as little pain as possible, especially in his off foreleg which was the weakest, and fell asleep.