Peasant Tales of Russia — 21 - The Luck of Ivan the Forgetful - Part 8 - 9
VIII
Such fits of excitement grew ever rarer with Ivan.
As the summer advanced, the convict became quieter.
Whenever he watched Anjuta playing with her mischievous playfellow, or listened to the melancholy call of the birds, or sat by the blazing fire, the furrows on his brow became smoother and a comfortable drowsiness lulled his wild instincts to rest.
He had become quite a different man from what he was when he first escaped.
But his dreams at night often transported him back to the damp prison-cell, or he saw himself again walking in the file of the prisoners on the apparently endless high road, heard the familiar calls of the warders through the cold winter air, and felt the heavy butt end of the musket fall on his bowed back.
On such occasions when he awoke, it was a long time before the quiet breathing of Anjuta and the bear's peaceful snoring restored him to a sense of reality.
He generally spent the remainder of such a night on his bear-skin outside the narrow hut, enjoying the consciousness of freedom that came with the balmy coolness of the forest and the distant murmur of the stream.
The next day he was generally in a specially good humour, played with Anjuta, and listened to the thousand voices in which the primeval forest revealed to him its secrets.
He never thought of the morrow; his adventurous and uncertain gipsy life had taught him to prize to-day.
So long as the sun shone, the pot boiled merrily on the fire, and his child laughed and clapped her hands--what more did he need?
And what could the obscure future bring him, but at the best a succession of similar days, and at the worst the dungeon and the knout.
But in August there came a bad time.
The clouds almost touched the tops of the forest-giants, from whose bark the rain trickled down in large cold drops; the birds were silent and the beasts crept into their lairs.
The little bear rolled himself up in his skin and growled discontentedly.
The old man and the child sat, huddling close together in the dry hut and whispered to the accompaniment of the howling of the wind and the pouring of the rain.
"When the black-berries are ripe, the thrushes will come from everywhere, and I will catch you a pair," he promised the delighted child.
"But what will you do with them?"
"I will have fine games with them--but then I will let them fly;
thrushes do not like cages, do they, Grandfather?"
"Who would like a cage?
Listen, Anjuta; you are a good child.
Will you come to Grandfather, if he is ever put in a cage?"
The child laughed aloud and clapped her hands.
"But, Grandfather, you are not a bird."
"There is another kind of cage which is not for birds----Ah, what do you understand about it?"
Presently the sun shone again and it was cheerful in the forest.
The days passed monotonously but happily.
Gradually the nights began to grow cold.
In the evenings the sun no longer sank in a golden mist, but glowed with an angry red, and descended constantly more often surrounded by thick clouds, through which it looked out like a blood-stained eye.
Ivan enlarged the hut; in the evening he lit the fire in it, and closed the door carefully that the warmth should not be too quickly dissipated.
But in spite of all, the three--the old man, the child and the bear--had, towards morning, to nestle close together in order not to be frozen.
Anjuta was much alone and became tired of solitude, when Ivan spent whole days hunting.
"Mischka, do you hear Grandfather shooting?"
she would ask the bear when the dull sound of a distant shot came to their ears.
A great change had taken place in Mischka.
His fur had become thicker and shaggier, he had grown considerably and often disappeared in the forest in order to hunt on his own account.
When he came home, gorged and unwieldy, he showed no inclination to play, but lay down to sleep.
Once the little girl wished to rouse him from his slumber, and seized him somewhat roughly by the ears.
The creature uttered a loud roar, reared on his hind-legs, showing his teeth, and when the unsuspecting child stretched out her hand, laughing to her refractory playfellow, she was suddenly struck down by a blow from one of its paws.
In the evening Ivan found his pet with a scratched and much-swollen cheek.
He chastised the snapping bear severely in spite of Anjuta's supplications and tears, and tied it up for the night.
The next morning the rope was found broken and the bear had vanished.
It was not till two days afterwards that Mischka appeared again between the pine-trunks and approached the hut hesitatingly; but when he saw his master standing on the threshold, he sat down and sucked his paw in an embarrassed manner.
"Come along, you tramp!"
Ivan called to him.
"Has hunger driven you home at last, you rascal!"
Mischka, feeling deeply injured, turned round and trotted away without heeding the cajoling calls of his little companion.
"One who is born a tramp, remains a tramp," said Ivan.
"Let him run!
Don't cry, Anjuta; you will get a better playfellow."
The leaves of the birch turned yellow and the maples looked as if splashed with blood.
Their leaves trembled as though with cold.
Light as feathers and quite dry, they eddied long in the air before they sank to their funeral in the colourless grass.
"How cold it is, Grandfather!
Will it never be warm again?"
"Wait a little; soon there will come St. Martin's summer which will bring us warmth.
Before it is really winter, I will dig for us both a hole deep in the ground, so that we can pass it there."
"Just like moles!
But it will be pitch-dark, Grandfather."
"Well, we will light some pine-chips.
Don't worry about that.
All you have to do is to grow and get strong, so as to look after me, if I am not first----" "What, Grandfather?
If you are not first----" But instead of answering, Ivan shook his head, and went to one side.
IX
St. Martin's summer came and went.
In the forest it became so cold, that Ivan thought of giving Anjuta into the charge of one of the villagers for the winter.
But none of them could afford to take care of her.
They were already beginning to mix the meal, which was their food during the winter, with pieces of pine-bark and chaff.
Moreover, the old man would have sorely missed the clear, eager childish eyes, which looked so confidingly into his, and the merry laughter which relieved the monotony of his dark life.
The forest became more and more silent in preparation for its winter sleep; and winter came stealing on with muffled footsteps.
"It is time, Anjuta, to dig our hole for the winter.
To-morrow, with Gods help, I will begin.
There the frost cannot pinch us, when we sit together and gossip."
"Do you know how to sing, too, Grandfather?"
"Never mind that.
The songs which I sing are not for you.
But I will tell you many things, for you are still stupid, and must learn how things go in life, so that you may get on well, and not be a burden to others.
The world, Anjuta, is like a bottomless pit.
It is easy to go down, but one never finds the way up again, and nobody helps one.
The Pope[2] told me once that there used to be good people who loved all men alike and did good alike to all.
Even for lepers they did something."
[Footnote 2: Village priest.
] "What does that mean--'lepers'?"
"Lepers?"
He hesitated.
"It is a pity I never thought of asking the Pope what it meant.
Every one had a horror of them.
They were not allowed to go about as they liked."
He thought for a moment.
"Yes, Anjuta, I remember now.
Lepers are those who sit behind iron bars.
Men fasten fetters on them and march them up the streets with soldiers on both sides.
You see, good people in their great kindness have helped the lepers, that is the convicts.
They have done no end of good to all men, but wicked men and scoundrels who ought to have honoured and loved them, like fathers, have tortured and crucified them."
"What does 'crucified' mean?"
"They drove nails through their hands and feet.
So....
Do you see?"
"Just like you nailed the raven to the tree with nails in its wings and feet."
"Yes.
But the raven does harm, but those men were good and kind to people like us.
That is all I know about the good folk.
To-morrow we will begin our work."
But the hole was not destined to be dug.
The night was bitterly cold.
The howling of the wolves sounded so wild and terrible that Anjuta awoke suddenly out of her sleep, crying loudly, and still lay awake listening long after the old man by her side was comfortably snoring.
The wind had risen and drove the dry leaves round the hut.
Suddenly the child thought she heard a distant growling, and soon she was sure of it; heavy footsteps were stamping outside the hut.
"Grandfather, Grandfather, listen!"
cried Anjuta, and shook him by the arm.
"Wake up!
I am so frightened!"
An enormous bear, whom the huntsmen had probably roused from his winter lair, was coming straight towards Ivan's hut.
He went round the shapeless edifice on all sides, sniffing cautiously, as though he meant to choose it as a new dwelling.
Under his heavy tread the pine-needles crackled, and dry branches snapped.
At last he stood still, rubbing his mighty back against a tree.
His every movement was distinctly audible in the hut.
"Of course it's a bear!"
exclaimed Ivan, who had held his breath to listen.
"Well, the fellow shall give us his fur for winter wear.
Meanwhile light the pine-chips, Anjuta."
The old man seized his gun, which was always loaded, and pushed open the rude door, which was made fast with a stone.
Through the mist which hung thickly round the trees he saw a dark shape retreating slowly into the forest.
That did not suit Ivan's plans; he aimed hastily and fired.
The bear was only grazed, for he attacked the old man, and enveloped him with his hot evil-smelling breath, hardly giving him time to reload his gun.
The old man started back; the bear rose on its hind-legs and towered over him like an indistinct, gigantic shadow.
"Where are you going, you blockhead?
Stop, I have an account to settle with you," cried Ivan, and fired right under the beast's jaw.
The shot missed, and suddenly the convict found himself crushed under the terrible weight of his enraged enemy.
He tried to raise himself on his elbow, but the bear understood his business, pushed his paw under his body, and pressed him in his close embrace till all his bones cracked.
"Jesus and all the saints," gasped the old man.
"Help my Anjuta."
And his eyes closed.
Then something quite unexpected happened.
The beast was already preparing to flay his victim in the most approved bear-fashion from the skull downwards, when a bright light flared in his eyes.
Master Bruin's mind became suddenly confused.
He did not pause to investigate, but rose at once and trotted away as fast as his feet could carry him.
"Grandfather!
O Grandfather!"
cried the child, lamenting as she threw herself on his prostrate body.
Driven by fear for him, she had appeared with the burning pine-torch just in time to save her benefactor.
Ivan awoke from his swoon.
"Water!
Water!"
he gasped hoarsely.
Before his eyes there danced fiery sparks: his breast felt terribly constricted.
He eagerly drained the cup which the child reached to him;
then he rose painfully and limped, leaning on his gun, to the hut, where, covered up warmly by Anjuta, he fell into a death-like slumber.
He awoke, feeling tired and sick.
There was a buzzing in his head; one leg was badly injured, and the bear's claw had left deep marks on his back.
"We can't do anything to-day with the hole, Anjuta!
If I remain quiet to-day, perhaps we can to-morrow."
But the next day came, and a second, and a third, and there was no possibility of thinking of work.
Not till a week had passed could he rise from his bed.
When he came out of the hurt, he uttered a cry of surprise.
The red and yellow leaves still hung on the trees, but a thin coverlet of snow lay over the whole face of the clearing.
In the air the snow-flakes crossed and whirled in white confusion.
Winter had brought out its corpse-cloth overnight.
