“Always. She's been this way for two years already.”
“But why don't you take her to the district centre for treatment?”
“I pity her. Guests would come when she was in good health, but now not a single dog. The gentry! Our young ladies, to the devil with them…”
“But isn't it difficult for you?”
“No, not at all. If I'm a-hunting, then Zosia looks after her. Nor does she often play pranks. And demands nothing. Only bread, a lot of bread. She wants nothing else.”
He took out an apple from his pocket and offered it to the old woman.
“Highly respected lady, take this.”
“Don't want it,” eating her bread with gusto. “Everywhere poison, bread alone is pure, godly.”
“You see,” Ryhor said gloomily. “Once a day we force her to eat something cooked. Sometimes she bites my fingers: when we give her food — she grabs it… But she wasn't bad when young. Even if she were bad, we couldn't leave her to herself.”
And he smiled such a guilty, childish smile that I was surprised.
“But why is she like that?”
“Got frightened after Raman's death. They all live in fear, and I can tell you, for most of them it's what they deserve.”
“But how about Janoŭskaja?”
“It would be evil to speak badly about her. A kind woman. I'm sorry for her.”
I became bolder now, for I understood — this was not a traitor.
“Listen, Ryhor, I came here to ask you about something.”
“Ask away,” he said.
“I have decided to unravel this Wild Hunt of King Stach's. You understand. I've never seen a ghost, want to feel it with my own hands.”
“Ghosts… spooks,” he grumbled. “Fine ghosts they are, if their horses leave very real excrement along the road! However, sir, why do you want to do that? What reasons have you?”
Now I did not like the way he addressed me.
“Don't call me ‘sir!’ I'm no more a ‘sir’ than you. While as to my reason why… well… it is interesting, that's all. And I feel sorry for the lady and many other people.”
“We understand such things. Like Zosia is for me… But why don't you say that you are angry with them, that you want to take revenge? You see, I know how you escaped from the Wild Hunt near the river.” I was astonished.
“You know about that, do you? How?”
“Every person has eyes, and every person leaves footprints in the earth. You ran away like a sensible man. What's bad is that I always lose their footprints. And they begin and end on the highway.”
I told him about everything from the very beginning. Ryhor listened, sitting motionless, his large rough hands on his knees.
“I've listened attentively,” he said, when I had finished. “I like you, sir. From the peasantry, aren't you? From mužyks, I think; yes, and if not from mužyks, you're not far from them. I, too, have long wanted to get at these spooks, crush them, and make their feathers fly, but I've had no comrade. If you're not joking, then let's get together. However, I see that this idea has only just now come to you: to turn to me. So why suddenly now? And what did you have in mind before?”
“I don't know, why I decided to. People speak well of you: when Janoŭskaja became an orphan, you took pity on her. She told me that you even wanted to come to Marsh Firs to work as watchman, but something interfered. Well, and then I like your being independent, and that you take care of the sick woman, and pity her. But previously I simply wanted to ask you how it had come about that Janoŭskaja was delayed at the Kulša's that evening when Raman was killed.”
“Why she was delayed I, myself, don't know. That day a number of girls had gathered from neighbouring estates at the house of my mistress. They were having a good time there. And why Janoŭskaja was invited — that, too, I don't know. She hadn't been there, you see, many years. And you see for yourself what this woman is like now, she won't tell…”
“Why won't she tell?” the old woman suddenly smiled almost quite sensibly. “I will tell. I'm not mad, it's simply more convenient this way and safer. It was Haraburda who asked that poor Nadzieja should be invited. And his niece was in my house then. You are such a knight, Mr. Fieldmarshal, that I shall tell you everything. Yes, yes, it was Haraburda who advised us then to take the child. Our people are all very kind. Mr. Dubatoŭk had our promissory notes — he didn't begin proceedings against us for their recovery. That's so to speak, a guarantee that you will come to visit me more often and drink wine. Now I can force you to drink even vodka.' Yes, everybody invited Nadzieja. Haraburda, and Fieldmarshal Kamienski, and Dubatoŭk, and Raman, and King Stach, this one here. But your poor little head, Nadzieja, and your golden braids, lie together with your father's bones!”
These lamentations for a living person were distasteful to me and made me wince.
“You see, you've learned something,” Ryhor said gloomily.
When we left, the old woman's wailing quieted down.
“Well then,” Ryhor said, “all right, let's look for them together. I want to see this suprising marvel. I'll try to find out something among the common people, while you'll look among papers and ask the gentry. And maybe we'll learn something…”
His eyes suddenly became bitter, the corners of his eyebrows meeting at the bridge of his
nose.
“Girls were invented by the devil. All of them should be strangled to death, and the boys fighting among themselves for the few remaining ones, will kill themselves out. But nothing can be done…” Unexpectedly he ended up with: “Take me, for instance. Although my forest freedom is dear to me, still I sometimes think about Zosia, who also lives here. Maybe I'll live alone all my life in the forest. That's why I believed you, because I sometimes begin to go mad for those devilish female eyes…” (I didn't think so at all, but didn't consider it necessary to convince this bear that he was wrong.) “But, my friend, remember this well. If you have come to stir me up and then to betray me — there are many who have a grudge against me here — so know this — your stay will not be long on this earth. Ryhor is not afraid of anybody. Quite the opposite, everybody is afraid of Ryhor. And Ryhor has friends. It's impossible to live here otherwise. And his hand shoots accurately. In a word, you must know this, I'll kill!”
I looked at him reproachfully, and he, glancing at my eyes, burst out laughing loudly, and his tone, as he ended up, was quite a different one:
“And anyway, I've been waiting for you a long time. For some reason or other it seemed to me that you wouldn't leave things alone, and if you took to clearing them up, you wouldn't pass me by. So well then, why not help each other?”
We parted at the edge of the forest near the Giant's Gap, arranging to meet in the future. I went home straight through the park.
When I returned to Marsh Firs, twilight had already descended on the park, the woman and her child were sleeping in one of the rooms on the first floor, but the mistress was not in the house. I waited about an hour, and when it was quite dark, I could not bear it any longer and went out in search of her. I hadn't walked far along the dark lane when I saw a white figure moving towards me in fright.
“Miss Nadzieja!”
“Oh! Oh, it's you? Thank God! I was so worried! You came straight here?”
Bashfully she looked down at the ground. When we came up to the castle, I said to her quietly:
“Miss Nadzieja, never leave this house in the evening. Promise me that.”
She promised, but only reluctantly.
Chapter The Ninth
This night gave me a clue to the solution of a question that interested me, a question that turned out to be an entirely uninteresting one, save perhaps only in that I once again became convinced of the fact that stupid people, otherwise generally kind-hearted souls, can be contemptible.
On hearing steps again in the night, I went out and saw the housekeeper with a candle in her hand. I followed her as she went into the room with the closet, but this tim
e I decided not to retreat. The room was again empty, the closet also, but I tried all the boards of the back wall (the closet stood in a niche), then I tried to raise them and became convinced that they were removable. The old woman was probably deaf, otherwise she would have heard me. With great difficulty I managed to push myself through the cracks I had made, and I saw a vaulted passage that led sharply downstairs. The steps worn by time were slippery and the passage so narrow that my shoulders rubbed against the walls. I went down the steps and saw a small room also vaulted. There were two closets there, and along the walls of the room stood trunks bound with iron. Everything was open and everywhere paper and leaves of parchment were lying thrown about. A table stood in the middle, beside it a stool roughly knocked together, and sitting on it the housekeeper was examinig a sheet quite yellowed with time. The greedy expression on her face was shocking.
When I entered she screamed with fright, made an attempt to hide the sheet. I managed to grab her hand.
“Miss housekeeper, give that to me. And be kind enough to tell me why you come here every night to this secret archive, what you are doing here, why you frighten people with your footsteps.”
“Ugh! My God! How fast you are!” she exclaimed, collecting herself quickly. “He's got to know everything…”
And, evidently, because she was on the first floor and did not consider it necessary to stand on ceremony with me, she began to speak with that expressive intonation of the common folk. “And teal and poppy you don't want? Just see what he needs! And he has hidden the paper. May your children grab your bread from you in your old age as you have grabbed this paper from me. Perhaps I have more right to be here than you. But he, just look, sits there, asking, asking. Damn him!”
This had become boring, and I said: “What is it you want? Prison? Why are you here? Or perhaps it's from here you send signals to the Wild Hunt?”
The housekeeper was offended. Wrinkles gathered on her face.
“Sinful, sir!” she quietly muttered. “I'm an honest woman, I've come here to get what's mine. There it is, in your hand. It belongs to me.” I looked at the piece of paper. It was an extract from a resolution passed by a smallholder claims committee:
“And although the above-mentioned Zakreŭski declares to this very day that he and not Haraburda is heir to the Janoŭskis, this case which has lasted over a period of 20 years, is now closed, as not having been proven, and Mr. Isidore Zarkevsky is deprived of his rights to aristocratic rank for the lack of proof.”
“So what?” I asked.
“This is what, my dear fellow,” the housekeeper came back bitingly, “I am Zakreŭskaja, that's what. And it was my father who went to court with the great and the powerful. I didn't know about it, but my thanks to some good people. They told me what to do. The district judge took ten little red ones, but he gave me good advice. Give me that paper.”
“It won't help you,” I said. “It isn't really a document. Here the court refuses your father his request, even his right to the gentry is not established. I know about this examination of the petty gentry very well. If your father had had papers to prove his right for substitution after the Janoŭskis — that would be another matter. But he did not hand in any papers — and that means that he did not have them.”
The housekeeper's face reflected a piteous attempt to understand these complicated things.
Then, not believing me, she asked:
“But perhaps the Janoŭskis bribed them? These people who raise trifling objections, just you give them some money! I know. They took the papers away from my father and hid them here.”
“And can you sue them 20 years running?” I asked. “Twenty more years?”
“My dear fellow, by that time I'll have gone to wash God's portals for him.”
“Well, so you see. And you have no papers. You have searched everything here, haven't you?”
“Everything, young man, everything. But it's a shame to lose what's mine.”
“But they are all only vague rumours.”
“But the money — those red ones and the blue ones — mine.”
“And it is very bad to rummage nights among papers not belonging to you.”
“My dear fellow, the money is mine,” she drawled dully.
“The court will not grant you it, even if there were any papers to prove it. This entailed estate has belonged to the Janoŭskis over a period of 300 years or even longer.”
“But it's mine, my dear fellow,” almost in tears, and the greed on her face was loathsome to see. “I would have stuffed them, the dear ones, here, right here in my stockings. I would have eaten money, slept on money.”
“There aren't any papers,” losing all patience. “There is a lawful heir.”
And at this moment something awful occurred. The old woman stretched her neck, — it became a long-long one — and with her face close to mine, hissed:
“So perhaps… perhaps… she will die soon.”
Her face even brightened at this hope.
“She will die, and that's all. She's weak, sleeps badly, almost no blood in her veins, coughs. It won't cost her anything to die. The curse will be fulfilled. Why must Haraburda get this castle when I could live in it? It won't make any difference to her, her sufferings will be over — and off with her to the holy spirits. While I here would…”
The expression on my face probably changed, for I was furious. She suddenly pulled her head into her shoulders.
“You crow! Come flying to carrion? But it's not carrion here, it's a living person. And such a person who is worth dozens of you, who has a greater right than you to live on this earth, you foolish, empty thing.”
“My dear fellow…” she whined.
“Shut up, you witch! And you wish to send her to her grave? You are all alike here, vipers! You are all ready to murder a person for the sake of money. All of you — spiders. For the sake of those blue little papers. And do you know what life is, that it is so easy for you to speak of another person's death? I wouldn't scatter pearls at your feet, but listen to me, you want her to exchange the sunlight, joy, good people, the long life awaiting her, for the worms in the earth? Is that what you want? So that you can sleep on money? The money that the Wild Hunt is seeking here? Maybe it's you who lets the Lady-in-Blue in? Why did you open the window in the corridor yesterday?”
“Oh, my God! I didn't open it! It was so cold then. I was even surprised at its being open.” She was almost wailing.
Her face expressed such fear that I could no longer keep silent. I lost all prudence.
“You want her death! You evil dog, you crow! Get out! She's a noble lady, your mistress. Perhaps she'll not drive you out, but I promise you, that if you do not leave this house that your stinking breath has polluted, I'll have all of you put in prison.”
She went over to the staircase crying bitterly. I followed after her. We went upstairs to the room where that closet was, and I stopped in surprise. Janoŭskaja in a white dress with a candle in her hand was standing before us. Her face was sad, and she looked at the housekeeper with disgust.
“Mr. Biełarecki, I heard your talk accidentally, heard it from the very beginning. I had followed in your footsteps. At last I've learned the meaning of low-down actions and the depth of one's conscience. And you…” she turned to Zakreŭskaja, standing aside with head lowered, “you can remain here. I forgive you. With difficulty, but I forgive you. And you, Biełarecki, forgive her. Stupid people should sometimes be forgiven. Because… Where will she go from here? Nobody needs her, a foolish old woman.”
A tear rolled down from her eyelashes. She turned round and left. I went after her. Janoŭskaja stopped at the end of the corridor and said quietly:
“For the sake of these papers people cripple their souls. If my ancestors hadn't forbidden it, how gladly I should have given this mouldy old house to somebody. This house, and also my name, are a torture for me. If only I could die soon. Then I'd leave it to this woman with a heart of stone and a stupid he
ad. Let her be happy if she is able to creep on her belly for the sake of this junk.”
In silence we went down into the room on the lower floor and over to the fireplace. We stood there looking at the fire, and its crimson reflections fell on Janoŭskaja's face. In the last few days she had changed noticeably, perhaps she had grown up, perhaps she was simply coming into womanhood. I hope no one besides myself had noticed this. I was the only one to see that life was warming up as yet unotice-ably in this pale sprout growing underground. Her look had become more meaningful and inquisitive, although a chronic fear lay on her face like a mask as formerly. She had become a little livelier. For some reason the pale sprout had come to life.
“It's good to stand like this, Miss Nadzieja,” I said pensively. “A fire burning…”
“A fire… It's good when it is made, when it burns. It is good when people don't lie.”
A wild cry, an inhuman cry, reached us from the yard — it seemed that a demon screamed and sobbed, not a human being. And immediately following this cry, we heard a steady, mighty thundering of hoofs near the porch. And the voice sobbed and screamed so terrifyingly that it could not have come from out of the breast of a human being.
“Raman of the last generation — come out! It's revenge! The last revenge!”
And something else screamed, something nameless. I could have run out onto the porch, could have shot at these dirty, wild swine and laid down on the spot at least one of them, but in my arms lay Nadzieja, and I felt the beating of her frightened litte heart through her dress, felt how it was gradually dying out, beating perceptibly less and less often. Frightened for her life, I began to stroke her hair timidly. Slowly she regained consciousness and her eyelashes imperceptibly began to quiver at the touch of my hand on her head. In such a way a frightened puppy accepts the caress of a person who pats it for the first time: its eyebrows quiver, expecting a blow each time the hand is raised.
The thunder was already retreating and my entire being was ready to jump out on the porch together with her, shoot at those bats, and fall down on the steps together with her and die, feeling her at my side, all of her here at my side. In any case, to go on living like this was impossible.
King Stakh's Wild Hunt Page 14
