Her whole soul rushed to the eyes of that mother, and she asked the wayfarer straightway:
"Dost thou know of my Yasko?"
"Dost thou love that son most that thou askest first about him? Well, one son of thine is in forests, he works with his axe, he spreads his net in lakes; another herds horses in the steppe, he sings plaintive songs and looks at the stars; the third son climbs mountains, pa.s.ses over naked rocks and high pastures, spends the night with sheep and shouts at the eagles. All bend down before thy knees and send thee greeting."
"But Yasko?" asked the mother with an anxious face.
"I keep sad news for the last. Life is going ill with Yasko: the field does not give its fruit to him, poverty and hunger torment the man, his days and months pa.s.s in suffering. Amid strangers and misery he has even forgotten thy language; forget him, since he has no thought for thee."
When he had finished, the woman took the man"s hand, led him to her pantry in the cottage, and, seizing a loaf from the shelf, she said:
"Give this bread, O wayfarer, to Yasko!"
Then she untied a small kerchief, took a bright silver coin from it, and with trembling voice added:
"I am not rich, but this too is for Yasko."
"Woman!" said the wayfarer now with astonishment, "thou hast many sons, but thou sendest gifts to only one of them. Dost thou love him more than the others? Is he the dearest one?"
She raised her great sad eyes, filled with tears, and answered:
"My blessing is for them all, but my gifts are to Yasko, for I am a mother, and he is my poorest son."
A LEGEND OF THE SEA
III
A LEGEND OF THE SEA
There was a ship named "The Purple," so strong and so great that she feared neither winds nor waves, even when they were raging most terribly.
"The Purple" swept on, with every sail set, she rose upon each swelling wave and crushed with her conquering prow hidden rocks on which other ships foundered. She moved ever forward with sails which were gleaming in sunlight, and moved with such swiftness that foam roared at her sides and stretched out behind in a broad, endless road-streak.
"That is a glorious craft," cried out crews on all other ships; "a man might think that she sails just to punish the ocean."
From time to time they called out to the crew of "The Purple":
"Hei, men, to what port are ye sailing?"
"To that port to which wind blows," said the men on "The Purple."
"Have a care, there are rocks ahead! There are whirlpools!"
In reply to this warning came back a song as loud as the wind was:
"Let us sail on, let us sail ever joyously."
Men on "The Purple" were gladsome. The crew, confiding in the strength of their ship and the size of it, jeered at all perils. On other ships stern discipline ruled, but on "The Purple" each man did what seemed good to him.
Life on that ship was one ceaseless holiday. The storms which she had pa.s.sed, the rocks which she had crushed, increased the crew"s confidence.
"There are no reefs, there are no winds to wreck this ship," roared the sailors. "Let a hurricane shiver the ocean, "The Purple" will always sail forward."
And "The Purple" sailed; she was proud, she was splendid.
Whole years pa.s.sed--she was to all seeming invincible, she helped other ships and took in on her deck drowning pa.s.sengers.
Blind faith increased every day in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the crew on "The Purple." They grew slothful in good fortune and forgot their own art, they forgot how to navigate. "Our "Purple" will sail herself," said they. "Why toil, why watch the ship, why pull at rudder, masts, sails, and ropes? Why live by hard work and the sweat of our brows, when our ship is divine, indestructible? Let us sail on, let us sail joyously."
And they sailed for a very long period. At last, after years, the crew became utterly effeminate, they forgot every duty, and no man of them knew that that ship was decaying. Bitter water had weakened the spars, the strong rigging had loosened, waves without number had shattered the gunwales, dry rot was at work in the mainmast, the sails had grown weak through exposure.
The voice of sound sense was heard now despite every madness:
"Be careful!" cried some of the sailors.
"Never mind! We will sail with the current," cried out the majority. But once such a storm came that to that hour its like had not been on the water. The wind whirled ocean and clouds into one h.e.l.lish chaos. Pillars of water rose up and flew then with roars at "The Purple"; they were raging and bellowing dreadfully. They fell on the ship, they drove her down to the bottom, they hurled her up to the clouds, then cast her down again. The weak rigging snapped, and now a quick cry of despair was heard on the deck of that vessel.
""The Purple" is sinking!"
"The Purple" was really sinking, while the crew, unaccustomed to work and to navigate, knew not how to save her.
But when the first moment of terror had pa.s.sed, rage boiled up in their hearts, for those mariners still loved that ship of theirs.
All sprang up speedily, some rushed to fire cannon-b.a.l.l.s at the winds and foaming water, others seized what each man could find near him and flogged that sea which was drowning "The Purple."
Great was that fight of despair against the elements. But the waves had more strength than the mariners. The guns filled with water and then they were silent. Gigantic whirls seized struggling sailors and swept them out into watery chaos.
The crew decreased every minute, but they struggled on yet. Covered with water, half-blinded, concealed by a mountain of foam, they fought till they dropped in the battle.
Strength left them, but after brief rest they sprang again to the struggle.
At last their hands fell. They felt that death was approaching. Dull despair seized them. Those sailors looked at one another as if demented.
Now those same voices which had warned previously of danger were raised again, and more powerfully, so powerfully this time that the roar of the waves could not drown them.
Those voices said:
"O blind men! How can ye cannonade wind, or flog waves? Mend your vessel!
Go to the hold. Work there. The ship "Purple" is afloat yet."
At these words those mariners, half-dead already, recovered, all rushed to the hold and began then to work in it. And they worked from morning till night in the sweat of their brows and with effort, seeking thus to retrieve their past sloth and their blindness.