The chamber is large, low-ceiled, with three windows; the walls are smeared with white paint; there is no furniture. In front of the house is a bare plain; gradually descending, it recedes into the distance; the grey, monotoned sky hangs over it like a canopy.
I am not alone; half a score of men are with me in the room. All plain folk, plainly clad; they are pacing up and down in silence, as though by stealth. They avoid one another, and yet they are incessantly exchanging uneasy glances.
Not one of them knows why he has got into this house, or who the men are with him. On all faces there is disquiet and melancholy ... all, in turn, approach the windows and gaze attentively about them, as though expecting something from without.
Then again they set to roaming up and down. Among us a lad of short stature is running about; from time to time he screams in a shrill, monotonous voice: "Daddy, I"m afraid!"--This shrill cry makes me sick at heart--and I also begin to be afraid.... Of what? I myself do not know.
Only I feel that a great, great calamity is on its way, and is drawing near.
And the little lad keeps screaming. Akh, if I could only get away from here! How stifling it is! How oppressive!... But it is impossible to escape.
That sky is like a shroud. And there is no wind.... Is the air dead?
Suddenly the boy ran to the window and began to scream with the same plaintive voice as usual: "Look! Look! The earth has fallen in!"
"What? Fallen in?"--In fact: there had been a plain in front of the house, but now the house is standing on the crest of a frightful mountain!--The horizon has fallen, has gone down, and from the very house itself a black, almost perpendicular declivity descends.
We have all thronged to the window.... Horror freezes our hearts.--"There it is ... there it is!" whispers my neighbour.
And lo! along the whole distant boundary of the earth something has begun to stir, some small, round hillocks have begun to rise and fall.
"It is the sea!" occurs to us all at one and the same moment.--"It will drown us all directly.... Only, how can it wax and rise up? On that precipice?"
And nevertheless it does wax, and wax hugely.... It is no longer separate hillocks which are tumbling in the distance.... A dense, monstrous wave engulfs the entire circle of the horizon.
It is flying, flying upon us!--Like an icy hurricane it sweeps on, swirling with the outer darkness. Everything round about has begun to quiver,--and yonder, in that oncoming ma.s.s,--there are crashing and thunder, and a thousand-throated, iron barking....
Ha! What a roaring and howling! It is the earth roaring with terror....
It is the end of it! The end of all things!
The boy screamed once more.... I tried to seize hold of my comrades, but we, all of us, were already crushed, buried, drowned, swept away by that icy, rumbling flood, as black as ink.
Darkness ... eternal darkness!
Gasping for breath, I awoke.
March, 1878.
MASHA
When I was living in Petersburg,--many years ago,--whenever I had occasion to hire a public cabman I entered into conversation with him.
I was specially fond of conversing with the night cabmen,--poor peasants of the suburbs, who have come to town with their ochre-tinted little sledges and miserable little nags in the hope of supporting themselves and collecting enough money to pay their quit-rent to their owners.
So, then, one day I hired such a cabman.... He was a youth of twenty years, tall, well-built, a fine, dashing young fellow; he had blue eyes and rosy cheeks; his red-gold hair curled in rings beneath a wretched little patched cap, which was pulled down over his very eyebrows. And how in the world was that tattered little coat ever got upon those shoulders of heroic mould!
But the cabman"s handsome, beardless face seemed sad and lowering.
I entered into conversation with him. Sadness was discernible in his voice also.
"What is it, brother?" I asked him.--"Why art not thou cheerful? Hast thou any grief?"
The young fellow did not reply to me at once.
"I have, master, I have," he said at last.--"And such a grief that it would be better if I were not alive. My wife is dead."
"Didst thou love her ... thy wife?"
The young fellow turned toward me; only he bent his head a little.
"I did, master. This is the eighth month since ... but I cannot forget.
It is eating away my heart ... so it is! And why must she die? She was young! Healthy!... In one day the cholera settled her."
"And was she of a good disposition?"
"Akh, master!" sighed the poor fellow, heavily.--"And on what friendly terms she and I lived together! She died in my absence. When I heard here that they had already buried her, I hurried immediately to the village, home. It was already after midnight when I arrived. I entered my cottage, stopped short in the middle of it, and said so softly: "Masha! hey, Masha!" Only a cricket shrilled.--Then I fell to weeping, and sat down on the cottage floor, and how I did beat my palm against the ground!--"Thy bowels are insatiable!" I said.... "Thou hast devoured her ... devour me also!"--Akh, Masha!"
"Masha," he added in a suddenly lowered voice. And without letting his rope reins out of his hands, he squeezed a tear out of his eye with his mitten, shook it off, flung it to one side, shrugged his shoulders--and did not utter another word.
As I alighted from the sledge I gave him an extra fifteen kopeks. He made me a low obeisance, grasping his cap in both hands, and drove off at a foot-pace over the snowy expanse of empty street, flooded with the grey mist of the January frost.
April, 1878.
THE FOOL
Once upon a time a fool lived in the world.
For a long time he lived in clover; but gradually rumours began to reach him to the effect that he bore the reputation everywhere of a brainless ninny.
The fool was disconcerted and began to fret over the question how he was to put an end to those unpleasant rumours.
A sudden idea at last illumined his dark little brain.... And without the slightest delay he put it into execution.
An acquaintance met him on the street and began to praise a well-known artist.... "Good gracious!" exclaimed the fool, "that artist was relegated to the archives long ago.... Don"t you know that?--I did not expect that of you.... You are behind the times."
The acquaintance was frightened, and immediately agreed with the fool.
"What a fine book I have read to-day!" said another acquaintance to him.
"Good gracious!" cried the fool.--"Aren"t you ashamed of yourself? That book is good for nothing; everybody dropped it in disgust long ago.--Don"t you know that?--You are behind the times."