Vasilii Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko

“ 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. ”

“ Stay with Andryushka for the night, and he will bring you in the sledge in the morning. Tell him I am ill—the bear has badly mauled Ivan the Runaway. Do you understand?"
"Yes; but why do you cry, Grandfather?"
"It is only foolishness.... I have grown quite weak. Now go, and God preserve you! And listen, Anjuta; whenever you feel frightened, you must sing."
The child started and the old man, creeping out of the hut, followed her with his eyes. She soon reached the edge of the clearing. How nimbly her young feet moved! Under the gigantic trees she moved like a little beetle. ”

“ Jesus is everywhere at once; He has thousands of eyes at His disposal; He sees and knows the slightest movements of men's hearts.
One day when the child was sitting on the old miner's knees, they heard far off in the direction where Ivan's mother was working a dull shock—a noise like a sigh escaping from the breast of Mother Earth herself. The shock re-echoed in all the mine-shafts and smallest recesses of all the galleries. The earth fell in in several places.
"Save us, Lord!" cried the old man, rising quickly. "Pray to God, little one. A child's prayer avails much with Him." ”

“ Keeping closely together, the miners began to climb up the steep incline, stopping at moments, sometimes to see if they would be able to advance, sometimes to listen whether there was not a noise behind them, and whether the gallery they had just quitted had not fallen in. Before and behind them there was nothing but darkness, the only light being the flame of the torch. The miners walked in this dim light while the darkness seemed to follow them and dog their footsteps. They thus climbed upwards for twenty minutes, sometimes stooping when the roof came low, then walking erect when possible. ”

“ The miners listened in silence to the words of the overseer, whose words sounded hollowly. The flame of the torch quivered, agitated by currents of air coming from all sides.
"Shall we wait here?" suggested a miner timidly.
"Wait for what?"
"Perhaps help will come from outside."
"What help can one hope for, when the mine has entirely collapsed? This gallery, moreover, affords no safety. When the one we have just left falls in, this will not resist long." ”

“ It seemed as though the springs imprisoned in the mountain had found out the existence of this shaft and had united to flow into it.
"They will certainly end by flooding the shaft," thought the old man. "What is to be done? One can only hope in God. As long as He wills, the shaft will exist, but as soon as He does not will it, it will be destroyed from top to bottom." ”

“ Other miners ran up. Each pushed his way to the front, eager to see, then having contemplated the huge mass, retired with his face working. One of them put his hand over his eyes in order not to see the terrible sight. Others stood motionless, their faces turned to the wall, as though petrified, and seemed unable to turn their heads. One young workman, pale with fear, had seized hold of another, who as though rendered temporarily idiotic, kept on passing his finger over the damp black wall of the rock.
"There are perhaps still living men below," stammered the overseer in a low voice. ”

“ How excited the Evil One is! Whose soul is he coming to seek? Can it be Sister Elizabeth's? To-day a fine aroma of coffee came from her cell. What a temptation!"
Sister Seraphine's cell was occupied almost entirely by a bed of rough planks; a mattress, a white pillow, a sheepskin coverlet constituted all her luxuries. On the narrow sill of the little window—almost a loop-hole—were placed a piece of bread, some black radishes, salt and kvass; high up in a corner a lamp burned before the icon. ”

“ God be with you."
"Where are you going?" exclaimed the general's wife. "What! Without taking tea. I won't let you go. After tea they will put up for you a basket of preserves to take to the abbess, that good soul. She prefers quince-preserve. As for you, I don't offer you any; you have renounced all these luxuries; you no longer belong to this world!"
And once more her cheeks began to quiver and her green eyes grew moist.
"How charming you were at school! Tall, well-shaped, like a figure in Dresden china. Do you ever remember the school, Sister Helene?" ”

“ Then a cloud came before Ivan's eyes; he rushed at the stranger and tore him down. His breath was soon choked out of him, and no one knew how long his body lay in the forest before the wolves devoured it. He had brought his death on himself. The fugitive was glad to get rid of his convict's garb and now wore a coat of sheepskin. He also had a gun to protect himself from wild beasts. If his hair had only been longer, he had no need to go out of people's way. ”

“ Now he felt at home here in this darkness where it was so warm and so comfort [Pg 18] able, that, but for the dampness, one would like to remain there always!
The water kept on coming down in resonant cascades. But in spite of this, the old man distinctly heard not far off the blows of the miners' innumerable pickaxes, the dull echoes of explosions in distant galleries, and vague human noises. Here and there in the walls of the shaft one saw black holes, once the entrances to ancient galleries which had long ago been exhausted of their ore and abandoned. ”

“ The wooden lining had come to an end, and the walls were formed of strata of different metals. On one hand the sides and sharp edges of a great black stone projected, on the other was damp mud encrusted with fragments of rock. Then the pale light of the little lamp glided windingly over the rounded outlines of flint fossils. It then zigzagged over a layer of brilliant white mineral, which was soon succeeded by another of mud.
Through all—the earth, the flints, the edges of rent rocks—there trickled innumerable water-drops. ”

“ Shortly after her sister's avowal, Helene went to pay a visit to some relatives, where she remained several days, considering what she should do. One moment she believed that he hesitated between her and Nina. But Nina had been entrusted to her care by her dying mother; could she ever come between her and her happiness? Never! Should she bring tears to those clear eyes? Should she ruin by her egotism "her child's" future? He might hesitate, but she must not! ”

“ Anjuta started back in wild terror; even the baby bear was alarmed and slunk into the hut with its tail between its legs.
Ivan stood for a long while motionless, then he sat down silently by the fire and stirred it up.
"Cursed—cursed," he murmured to himself. [Pg 161] "Who has cursed them. God pardons sinners, they say. Come!" he said gloomily to the little one. "Sit down here. It is all right."
"I am frightened."
Ivan bent lower over the fire. "The past will not let itself be buried," he thought. "Why must I frighten an innocent creature too?" ”

“ The miners would have gladly halted, but what would happen then? To go back was to go to certain destruction. As long as they followed Ivan, they had a vague hope of some mysterious aid, reckoning on the unknown power which supported him and had restored to him for some hours a little of his former vigour for the deliverance of his comrades perhaps. Those who had no belief in this hesitated nevertheless to separate from the rest, knowing not what to do in this silence and darkness. If they had to die, they would die together. ”

“ Fragments of earth fell from the roof and a great rock suddenly projected just above old Ivan's head, while the wall on the right hand bulged out. The miners rushed forward terrified, but Ivan stopped them and made them go more slowly. Some cowards flung themselves on their stomachs and hid their faces, but they were lifted up and obliged to proceed. The gallery they were now in became narrower and narrower. ”

“ It was true that his hair had not grown again the normal length, but he could tie a piece of cloth round his half-shorn skull; and need not take it off when he entered a shop. "One buys what one wants, and goes one's way, that is all," he said to re-assure himself, for he felt a nervous antipathy to meeting any one, just as a wolf fears every yelping cur as soon as he wanders by mistake into a village.
At last he determined to go on quite slowly so as to reach the village under cover of the approaching darkness. ”

“ The first thunderstorm, the harbinger of spring, has aroused the earth from her light slumber. At day-break, the convicts were mustered outside the prison walls. "Ivan the Forgetful," called out the warder, with the list in his hand. The old convict sulkily took his place in the row. He scanned with a searching glance the weak-looking undergrown soldiers of the escort, who in their ill-fitting grey cloaks looked almost deformed. Their bayonets gleamed in the sun, their musket-barrels were stopped with wads of cloth. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ Then the roll of names was called and seven miners were found to be missing. They had been buried alive and there was no hope of finding them.
"Now, listen to me, comrades," said the overseer. "I mean to be obeyed. Above all, no quarrelling; this is not the time for it. If we begin that, we are all lost. I think that if we try by the old gallery above we shall reach the shaft, which is possibly only flooded below, and may still be practicable above. You, Ivan, lean on somebody. Support the old man, comrades. We must not leave him here. You are the strongest of all, Terenti, help him. ”

“ He would lay his wrinkled hand, hard as iron, tenderly on the head of the little one, and, as he rested, tell him how one day our Lord Jesus Christ had descended to the depths of this subterranean kingdom, and since then remained there with the miners. "Jesus is in the midst of us, I tell you," the old man would say dreamily, peering intently into the darkness, as though his half-blind eyes could [Pg 8] really distinguish the divine Saviour there. As long as he was a child, Ivan saw Him also, and seeing Him feared Him, because he knew that Jesus does not love evil deeds and dark thoughts. ”