Sketches from a Hunter's Album (16 page)

I have, unfortunately, to add that in that same year Pavlusha died. He did not drown; he was killed in falling from a horse. A pity, for he was a fine lad!

It was a funeral. At the front, in a cart drawn only by one small horse, the priest was riding at walking pace; the deacon sat next to him and was driving; behind the cart, four peasants with bared heads were carrying the coffin, draped in a white cloth; two women were walking behind the coffin. The fragile, plaintive voice of one of the women suddenly reached my ears; I listened: she was singing a lament. Pitifully this ululant, monotonous and helplessly grieving
melody floated in the emptiness of the fields. My driver whipped up the horses in the desire to forestall the procession. It is a bad omen to meet up with a corpse on the road. He did, in fact, succeed in galloping along the track just in time before the procession reached it. But we had hardly gone a hundred yards farther on when our cart gave a severe lurch, keeled over and almost capsized. The driver stopped the wildly racing horses, leaned over from his seat to see what had happened, gave a wave of the hand and spat.

‘What's wrong there?' I asked.

The driver got down without answering and with no sign of hurry.

‘Well, what is it?'

‘The axle's broken… burned through,' he answered gloomily, and, in a sudden fit of temper, tugged so sharply at the breech-band of the trace-horse that the animal almost toppled over on her side. However, she regained her balance, snorted, shook her mane and proceeded with the utmost calmness to scratch the lower part of her front leg with her teeth.

I got down and stood for a short while on the road, resigning myself to a vague and unpleasant sense of bewilderment. The right wheel had almost completely turned inwards under the cart and seemed to lift its hub in the air in dumb resignation.

‘What's to be done now?' I asked eventually.

‘That's to blame!' said my driver, directing his whip towards the procession which by this time succeeded in turning on to the track and was beginning to approach us. ‘I've always noticed it,' he continued. ‘It's always a bad omen to meet up with a corpse, that's for sure.'

Again he took it out on the trace-horse who, seeing how irritable and severe he was, decided to stand stock-still and only occasionally gave a few modest flicks with her tail. I took a few steps to and fro along the track and stopped again in front of the wheel.

In the meantime, the procession had caught up with us. Turning aside from the track on to the grass, the sad cortège passed by our cart. My driver and I removed our caps, exchanged bows with the priest and looks with the pall-bearers. They progressed with difficulty, their broad chests heaving under the weight. Of the two women who walked behind the coffin, one was extremely old and
pale of face; her motionless features, cruelly contorted with grief, preserved an expression of stern and solemn dignity. She walked in silence, now and then raising a frail hand to her thin, sunken lips. The other woman, of about twenty-five, had eyes that were red and moist with tears, and her whole face had become swollen from crying. As she drew level with us, she ceased her lament and covered her face with her sleeve. Then the procession went past us, turning back on to the track once more, and her piteous, heart-rending lament was resumed. After following with his eyes the regular to-and-fro motion of the coffin without uttering a sound, my driver turned to me.

‘It's Martin, the carpenter, the one from Ryabovo, that they're taking to be buried,' he said.

‘How do you know that?'

‘I could tell from the women. The old one's his mother and the young one's his wife.'

‘Had he been ill, then?'

‘Aye… the fever… The manager sent for the doctor three days back, but the doctor wasn't home. He was a good carpenter, he was. Liked his drink a bit, but he was a real good carpenter. You see how his wife's grieving for him. It's like they say, though – a woman's tears don't cost nothin', they just flow like water, that's for sure.'

And he bent down, crawled under the rein of the trace-horse and seized hold of the shaft with both hands.

‘Well,' I remarked, ‘what can we do now?'

My driver first of all leaned his knees against the shoulder of the other horse and giving the shaft a couple of shakes, set the shaft-pad back in its place, crawled back once again under the rein of the trace-horse and, after giving her a shove on the nose while doing so, walked up to the wheel – walked up to it and, without taking his eyes off it, slowly extracted a snuff-box from beneath the skirt of his long tunic, slowly pulled open the lid by a little strap, slowly inserted two thick fingers (the tips of them could hardly fit into the snuff-box at once), kneaded the tobacco, wrinkled up his nose in readiness, gave several measured sniffs, accompanied at each inhalation of the snuff with prolonged snorting and grunting, and, after painfully screwing up and blinking his tear-filled eyes, settled into deep thought-fulness.

‘So, what do you think?' I asked when all this was over.

My driver carefully replaced the snuff-box in his pocket, brought his hat down over his brows without touching it, simply by a movement of his head, and climbed thoughtfully up on to the seat.

‘Where are you off to?' I asked, not a little amazed.

‘Please be seated,' he answered calmly and picked up the reins.

‘But how are we going to go?'

‘We'll go all right.'

‘But the axle…'

‘Please be seated.'

‘But the axle's broken…'

‘It's broken, yes, it's broken all right, but we'll make it to the new village – at walking pace, that is. It's over there to the right, beyond the wood, that's where the new village is, what they call the Yudin village.'

‘But d'you think we'll get there?'

My driver did not even deign to answer me.

‘I'd better go on foot,' I said.

‘As you please…'

He waved his whip and the horses set off.

We did, in fact, reach the new village, even though the right front wheel hardly held in place and wobbled in a most unusual fashion. It almost flew off as we negotiated a small knoll, but my driver shouted at it angrily and we successfully descended the far slope.

Yudin village consisted of six small, low-roofed huts which had already begun to lean to one side or the other despite the fact that they had no doubt been put up quite recently, and not even all the yards had wattle fencing. As we entered the village, we did not meet a living soul; there were not even any chickens to be seen in the village street; there were not even any dogs, save for one black, stubby-tailed animal that jumped hastily from a completely dried-up ditch, where it must have been driven by thirst, only to dash headlong under a gate without so much as giving a bark. I turned into the first hut, opened the porch door and called for the owners: no one answered me. I called again: a hungry miaowing came from behind the inner door. I shoved it with my foot and an emaciated cat flashed past me, its green eyes glittering in the dark. I stuck my head into the room and looked around: it was dark, smoky and
empty. I went into the backyard and there was no one there. A calf gave a plaintive moo in the enclosure, and a crippled grey goose took a few waddling steps off to one side. I crossed to the second hut – and there was no one there either. So I went out into the backyard.

In the very middle of the brilliantly lit yard, right out in the middle of the sun, as they say, there was lying, face downward and with his head covered with a cloth coat, someone I took to be a boy. A few paces from him, beside a wretched little cart, a miserable little horse, all skin and bones, stood in a tattered harness under a straw overhang. Its thick reddish-brown coat was dappled with small bright splashes of sunlight that streamed through narrow openings in the dilapidated thatchwork. There also, high up in their little bird-houses, starlings chattered, looking down upon the world with placid inquisitiveness from their airy home. I walked up to the sleeping figure and began to rouse it.

The sleeper raised his head, saw me and at once jumped to his feet.

‘What is it? What's happened?' he started muttering in bewilderment.

I did not answer him at once because I was so astonished by his appearance. Imagine, if you please, a dwarf of about fifty years old, with a small, swarthy, wrinkled face, a little pointed nose, barely discernible little brown eyes and abundant curly black hair which sat upon his tiny head just as broadly as the cap sits on the stalk of a mushroom. His entire body was extraordinarily frail and thin, and it is quite impossible to convey in words how unusual and strange was the look in his eyes.

‘What is it?' he asked me again.

I explained the position to him and he listened to me without lowering his slowly blinking eyes.

‘Is it not possible then for us to obtain a new axle?' I asked finally. ‘I would gladly pay.'

‘But who are you? Are you out hunting?' he asked, encompassing me with his glance from head to foot.

‘I'm out hunting.'

‘You shoot the birds of the air, eh?… And the wild animals of the forest?… Isn't it sinful you are to be killing God's own wee birds and spilling innocent blood?'

The strange little old man spoke with a very pronounced dwelling
on each word. The sound of his voice also astonished me. Not only was there nothing decrepit about it but it was surprisingly sweet, youthful and almost feminine in its gentleness.

‘I have no axle,' he added after a short interval of silence. ‘This one won't do' – he pointed to his own little cart – ‘because, after all, yours is a big cart.'

‘But would it be possible to find one in the village?'

‘What sort of village is it we have here! Here, there's not anyone of us has a single thing. And there's no one at home – aren't they all out at work for sure. Be off with you!' he said, suddenly, and lay down again on the ground.

I had certainly not expected an outcome of this kind.

‘Listen, old man,' I started to say, touching him on the shoulder, ‘have a heart, help me.'

‘Be off with you in the name o' God! It's tired out I am, an' me having gone into town and back,' he told me and pulled his cloth coat over his head.

‘Please do me a favour,' I went on, ‘I… I'll pay you…'

‘I'm not needin' your money.'

‘Please, old man…'

He raised himself half-way and sat himself upright, crossing his delicate, spindly legs.

‘It's takin' you I might be to where they've been cutting down the trees. 'Tis a place where some local merchants have bought a piece o' woodland, the Lord be the judge of 'em, an' they're getting rid of all the trees and putting up an office they are, the Lord judge 'em for it. That's where you might order an axle from 'em. or buy one ready-made.'

‘Excellent!' I exclaimed delightedly. ‘Excellent! Let's go.'

‘An oak axle, mind you, a good one,' he continued without rising from where he was sitting.

‘Is it far to where they're cutting down the trees?'

‘A couple o' miles.'

‘Well, then, we can get there on your little cart.'

‘Oh, but wait a moment…'

‘Now come along,' I said. ‘Come on, old man! My driver's waiting for us in the street.'

The old man got up reluctantly and followed me out into the
street. My driver was in a thoroughly vexed state of mind: he had wanted to water the horses, but it had turned out that there was very little water in the well and what there was had an unpleasant taste; and that was putting first things first, as drivers are accustomed to say… However, as soon as he saw the old man he grinned broadly, nodded his head and cried out:

‘If it's not little Kasyan! Good to see you!'

‘ 'Tis good to see you, Yerofey, righteous man that you are!' answered Kasyan in a despondent voice.

I at once told my driver about the old man's suggestion; Yerofey expressed his assent and drove into the yard. While Yerofey was quite deliberately making a great display of briskness in unharnessing the horses, the old man stood with one shoulder leaning against the gates and glanced unhappily either at him or me. He appeared to be at a loss and, so far as I could see, he was not unduly delighted by our sudden visit.

‘Have they resettled you as well?' Yerofey suddenly asked him as he removed the shaft-bow.

‘Me as well.'

‘Yuck!' said my driver through his teeth. ‘You know Martin, the carpenter… Martin of Ryabovo, don't you?'

‘That I do.'

‘Well, he's dead. We just met up with his coffin.'

Kasyan gave a shudder.

‘Dead?' he muttered, and stared at the ground.

‘Yes, he's dead. Why didn't you cure him, eh? People say you do cures, that you've got the power of healing.'

My driver was obviously taunting and making fun of the old man.

‘And that's your cart, is it?' he added, shrugging a shoulder in its direction.

‘ 'Tis mine.'

‘A cart, is it, a cart!' he repeated and, taking it by the shafts, almost turned it upside down. ‘A cart, indeed! But what'll you be using to get to the clearings? You won't be able to harness our horse into those shafts. Our horses are big, but what's this meant to be?'

‘I wouldn't be knowing,' answered Kasyan, ‘what you'll be using. For sure there's that poor creature,' he added with a sigh.

‘D'you mean this?' asked Yerofey, seizing on what Kasyan had
been saying, and, going up to Kasyan's miserable little horse, contemptuously stuck the third finger of his right hand in its neck. ‘See,' he added reproachfully, ‘gone to sleep, it has, the useless thing!'

I asked Yerofey to harness it up as quickly as possible. I wanted to go myself with Kasyan to the place where they were clearing the woodland, for those are the places where grouse are often found. When the little cart was finally ready, I somehow or other settled myself along with my dog on its warped, bast floor, and Kasyan, hunching himself up into a ball, also sat on the front support with the same despondent expression on his face – then it was that Yerofey approached me and, giving me a mysterious look, whispered: