Through Russia Part 53

As though unable any longer to brave the a.s.sault of the billows, the path suddenly swerved towards the bushes on our right, and, in doing so, caused the cloud-wrapped mountains to s.h.i.+ft correspondingly to our immediate front, where the ma.s.ses of vapour were darkening as though rain were probable.

Kalinin's discourse proved instructive as with his stick he from time to time knocked the track clear of clinging tendrils.

"The locality is not without its perils," once he remarked. "For hereabouts there lurks malaria. It does so because long ago Maliar of Kostroma banished his evil sister, Fever, to these parts. Probably he was paid to do so, but the exact circ.u.mstances escape my memory."

So thickly was the surface of the sea streaked with cloud-shadows that it bore the appearance of being in mourning, of being decked in the funeral colours of black and white. Afar off, Gudaout lay lashed with foam, while constantly objects like snowdrifts kept gliding towards it.

"Tell me more about those devils," I said at length.

"Well, if you wish. But what exactly am I to tell you about them?"

"All that you may happen to know."

"Oh, I know EVERYTHING about them."

To this my companion added a wink. Then he continued:

"I say that I know everything about those devils for the reason that for my mother I had a most remarkable woman, a woman cognisant of each and every species of proverb, anathema, and item of hagiology. You must know that, after spreading my bed beside the kitchen stove each night, and her own bed on the top of the stove (for, after her wet-nursing of three of the General's children, she lived a life of absolute ease, and did no work at all)--"

Here Kalinin halted, and, driving his stick into the ground, glanced back along the path before resuming his way with firm, lengthy strides.

"I may tell you that the General had a niece named Valentina Ignatievna. And she too was a most remarkable woman."

"Remarkable for what?"

"Remarkable for EVERYTHING."

At this moment there came floating over our heads through the damp-saturated air a cormorant--one of those voracious birds which so markedly lack intelligence. And somehow the whistling of its powerful pinions awoke in me an unpleasant reminiscent thought.

"Pray continue," I said to my fellow traveller.

"And each night, as I lay on the floor (I may mention that never did I climb on to the stove, and to this day I dislike the heat of one), it was her custom to sit with her legs dangling over the edge of the top, and tell me stories. And though the room would be too dark for me to see her face, I could yet see the things of which she would be speaking. And at times, as these tales came floating down to me, I would find them so horrible as to be forced to cry out, 'Oh, Mamka, Mamka, DON'T!...' To this hour I have no love for the bizarre, and am but a poor hand at remembering it. And as strange as her stories was my mother. Eventually she died of an attack of blood-poisoning and, though but forty, had become grey-headed. Yes, and so terribly did she smell after her death that everyone in the kitchen was constrained to exclaim at the odour."

"Yes, but what of the devils?"

"You must wait a minute or two."

Ever as we proceeded, clinging, fantastic branches kept closing in upon the path, so that we appeared to be walking through a sea of murmuring verdure. And from time to time a bough would flick us as though to say: "Speed, speed, or the rain will be upon you!"

If anything, however, my companion slackened his pace as in measured, sing-song accents he continued:

"When Jesus Christ, G.o.d's Son, went forth into the wilderness to collect His thoughts, Satan sent devils to subject Him to temptation.

Christ was then young; and as He sat on the burning sand in the middle of the desert, He pondered upon one thing and another, and played with a handful of pebbles which He had collected. Until presently from afar, there descried Him the devils Hymen, Demon, Igamon, and Zmiulan--devils of equal age with the Saviour.

"Drawing near unto Him, they said, 'Pray suffer us to sport with Thee.'

Whereupon Christ answered with a smile: 'Pray be seated.' Then all of them did sit down in a circle, and proceed to business, which business was to see whether or not any member of the party could so throw a stone into the air as to prevent it from falling back upon the burning sand.

[In the original Russian this hiatus occurs as given.]

"Christ Himself was the first to throw a stone; whereupon His stone became changed into a six-winged dove, and fluttered away towards the Temple of Jerusalem. And, next, the impotent devils strove to do the same; until at length, when they saw that Christ could not in any wise be tempted, Zmiulan, the senior of the devils, cried:

"'Oh Lord, we will tempt Thee no more; for of a surety do we avail not, and, though we be devils, never shall do so!'

"'Aye, never shall ye!' Christ did agree. 'And, therefore, I will now fulfil that which from the first I did conceive. That ye be devils I know right well. And that, while yet afar off, ye did, on beholding me, have compa.s.sion upon me I know right well. While also ye did not in any wise seek to conceal from me the truth as concerning yourselves. Hence shall ye, for the remainder of your lives, be GOOD devils; so that at the last shall matters be rendered easier for you. Do thou, Zmiulan, become King of the Ocean, and send the winds of the sea to cleanse the land of foul air. And do thou, Demon, see to it that the cattle shall eat of no poisonous herb, but that all herbs of the sort be covered with p.r.i.c.kles. Do thou, Igamon, comfort, by night, all comfortless widows who shall be blaming G.o.d for the death of their husbands? And do thou, Hymen, as the youngest devil of the band, choose for thyself wherein shall lie thy charge.'

"'Oh Lord,' replied Hymen, 'I do love but to laugh.'

"And the Saviour replied:

"'Then cause thou folk to laugh. Only, mark thou, see to it that they laugh not IN CHURCH.'

"'Yet even in church would I laugh, Oh Lord,' the devil objected.

"'Jesus Christ Himself laughed.

"'G.o.d go with you!' at length He said. 'Then let folk laugh even in church--but QUIETLY.'

"In such wise did Christ convert those four evil devils into devils of goodness."

Soaring over the green, bushy sea were a number of old oaks. On them the yellow leaves were trembling as though chilled; here and there a st.u.r.dy hazel was doffing its withered garments, and elsewhere a wild cherry was quivering, and elsewhere an almost naked chestnut was politely rendering obeisance to the earth.

"Did you find that story of mine a good one?" my companion inquired.

"I did, for Christ was so good in it."

"Always and everywhere He is so," Kalinin proudly rejoined. "But do you also know what an old woman of Smolensk used to sing concerning Him?"

"I do not."

Halting, my strange traveller chanted in a feignedly senile and tremulous voice, as he beat time with his foot:

In the heavens a flow'r doth blow, It is the Son of G.o.d.

From it all our joys do flow, It is the Son of G.o.d.

In the sun's red rays He dwells He, the Son of G.o.d.

His light our every ill dispels.

Praised be the Son of G.o.d!

Each successive line seemed to inspire Kalinin's voice with added youthfulness, until, indeed, the concluding words--"The One and Only G.o.d"--issued in a high, agreeable tenor.

Suddenly a flash of lightning blazed before us, while dull thunder crashed among the mountains, and sent its hundred-voiced echoes rolling over land and sea. In his consternation, Kalinin opened his mouth until a set of fine, even teeth became bared to view. Then, with repeated crossings of himself, he muttered.

"Oh dread G.o.d, Oh beneficent G.o.d, Oh G.o.d who sittest on high, and on a golden throne, and under a gilded canopy, do Thou now punish Satan, lest he overwhelm me in the midst of my sins!"