A Reckless Character, and Other Stories Part 27

Large inflated beads in three rows encircle her thin, swarthy neck; her grey hair is bound about with a yellow kerchief with red dots; it droops low over her dimmed eyes.

But her aged eyes smile in cordial wise; her whole wrinkled face smiles.

The old woman must be in her seventh decade ... and even now it can be seen that she was a beauty in her day!

With the sunburned fingers of her right hand widely spread apart, she holds a pot of cool, unskimmed milk, straight from the cellar; the sides of the pot are covered with dewdrops, like small pearl beads. On the palm of her left hand the old woman offers me a big slice of bread still warm from the oven. As much as to say: "Eat, and may health be thine, thou pa.s.sing guest!"

A c.o.c.k suddenly crows and busily flaps his wings; an imprisoned calf lows without haste, in reply.

"Hey, what fine oats!" the voice of my coachman makes itself heard....

O Russian contentment, repose, plenty! O free village! O tranquillity and abundance!

And I thought to myself: "What care we for the cross on the dome of Saint Sophia in Constantinople, and all the other things for which we strive, we people of the town?"

February, 1878.

A CONVERSATION

"Never yet has human foot trod either the Jungfrau or the Finsteraarhorn."

The summits of the Alps.... A whole chain of steep cliffs.... The very heart of the mountains.

Overhead a bright, mute, pale-green sky. A hard, cruel frost; firm, sparkling snow; from beneath the snow project grim blocks of ice-bound, wind-worn cliffs.

Two huge ma.s.ses, two giants rise aloft, one on each side of the horizon: the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn.

And the Jungfrau says to its neighbour: "What news hast thou to tell?

Thou canst see better.--What is going on there below?"

Several thousand years pa.s.s by like one minute. And the Finsteraarhorn rumbles in reply: "Dense clouds veil the earth.... Wait!"

More thousands of years elapse, as it were one minute.

"Well, what now?" inquires the Jungfrau.

"Now I can see; down yonder, below, everything is still the same: party-coloured, tiny. The waters gleam blue; the forests are black; heaps of stones piled up s.h.i.+ne grey. Around them small beetles are still bustling,--thou knowest, those two-legged beetles who have as yet been unable to defile either thou or me."

"Men?"

"Yes, men."

Thousands of years pa.s.s, as it were one minute.

"Well, and what now?" asks the Jungfrau.

"I seem to see fewer of the little beetles," thunders the Finsteraarhorn. "Things have become clearer down below; the waters have contracted; the forests have grown thinner."

More thousands of years pa.s.s, as it were one minute.

"What dost thou see?" says the Jungfrau.

"Things seem to have grown clearer round us, close at hand," replies the Finsteraarhorn; "well, and yonder, far away, in the valleys there is still a spot, and something is moving."

"And now?" inquires the Jungfrau, after other thousands of years, which are as one minute.

"Now it is well," replies the Finsteraarhorn; "it is clean everywhere, quite white, wherever one looks.... Everywhere is our snow, level snow and ice. Everything is congealed. It is well now, and calm."

"Good," said the Jungfrau.--"But thou and I have chattered enough, old fellow. It is time to sleep."

"It is time!"

The huge mountains slumber; the green, clear heaven slumbers over the earth which has grown dumb forever.

February, 1878.

THE OLD WOMAN

I was walking across a s.p.a.cious field, alone.

And suddenly I thought I heard light, cautious footsteps behind my back.... Some one was following me.

I glanced round and beheld a tiny, bent old woman, all enveloped in grey rags. The old woman's face was visible from beneath them: a yellow, wrinkled, sharp-nosed, toothless face.

I stepped up to her.... She halted.

"Who art thou? What dost thou want? Art thou a beggar? Dost thou expect alms?"

The old woman made no answer. I bent down to her and perceived that both her eyes were veiled with a semi-transparent, whitish membrane or film, such as some birds have; therewith they protect their eyes from too brilliant a light.

But in the old woman's case that film did not move and reveal the pupils ... from which I inferred that she was blind.

"Dost thou want alms?" I repeated my question.--"Why art thou following me?"--But, as before, the old woman did not answer, and merely shrank back almost imperceptibly.

I turned from her and went my way.

And lo! again I hear behind me those same light, measured footsteps which seem to be creeping stealthily up.

"There's that woman again!" I said to myself.--"Why has she attached herself to me?"--But at this point I mentally added: "Probably, owing to her blindness, she has lost her way, and now she is guiding herself by the sound of my steps, in order to come out, in company with me, at some inhabited place. Yes, yes; that is it."

But a strange uneasiness gradually gained possession of my thoughts: it began to seem to me as though that old woman were not only following me, but were guiding me,--that she was thrusting me now to the right, now to the left, and that I was involuntarily obeying her.