Volodia

“ At four o'clock Volodia and his mother drove to the station. The lad's sordid memories, his sleepless night, and the pangs of his conscience aroused in him a feeling of painful and gloomy anger. He looked at his mother's thin profile, at her little nose, and at the rain-coat that had been a gift to her from Nyuta, and muttered:
"Why do you powder your face? It does not become you at all ! You try to look pretty, but you don't pay your debts, and you smoke cigarettes that aren't yours ! ”

“ The upper button of her blouse was undone, so that her neck and throat were visible to the lad.
"Why don't you say something?" asked Nyuta, looking Volodia up and down. "It is rude not to answer when a lady speaks to you. What a stick-in-the-mud you are, Volodia, always sitting and thinking like some stodgy old philosopher, and never opening your mouth ! You have no vim in you, no fire ! You are horrid, really ! A boy of your age ought to live, and frisk, and chatter, and fall in love, and make love to the ladies." ”

“ I want morphine!" explained Nyuta in a whisper. "It is probably written in Latin. Wake Volodia, he will be able to find it ! "
Volodia's mother opened the door, and he caught sight of Nyuta. She was wearing the same blouse she had worn when she came from the bath-house. Her hair was hanging loose, and her face looked sleepy and dusky in the dim light.
"There, Volodia is awake!" she exclaimed. "Volodia, do get me the morphine out of the closet, there's a good boy. What a nuisance Lily is ! She always has something the matter with her." ”

“ The Saints have mercy! All our things will be lost; but it is the will of God—we cannot fight against it." And Volodia crossed himself devoutly with Russian fatalism.
"But mamma! what will happen to her?" cried Elena passionately. "Can nothing be done?"
"To go towards the lake now would be certain death," [Pg 75] replied Volodia brokenly. "No, Elena Andreïevna; we must trust in God. He alone can save her if she is on the water now! Pray Heaven she may not have started!"
As he spoke, a long procession of terrified peasants came winding up the road towards the great house. ”

“ Seeing that he was permitted to hold her arm, Volodia looked into Nyuta's laughing face and awkwardly, uneasily, put both arms around her waist, bringing his wrists together behind her back. As he held her thus, she put her hands behind her head showing the dimples in her elbows, and, arranging her hair under her kerchief, she said in a quiet voice:
"I want you to become bright and agreeable and charming, Volodia, and this you can only accomplish through the influence of women. Why, what a horrid cross face you have ! You ought to laugh and talk. Honestly, Volodia, don't be a stick ! ”

“ Madame Shumikin, his mother, Nyuta, and one of the nieces were sitting on the terrace playing cards. When Volodia told them his story about having missed the train they were uneasy lest he should be late for his examination, and advised him to get up early next morning. Volodia sat down at a little distance from the card-players, and during the whole game kept his eyes fixed on Nyuta. He had already determined on a plan. He would go up to Nyuta in the dark, take her hand, and kiss her. It would not be necessary for either to speak; they would understand one another without words. ”

“ To-morrow he would be as free as a bird. He would leave off his schoolboy's uniform for civilian clothes, smoke in public, and come over here to make love to Nyuta whenever he liked. He would be a young man. As for what people called his career and his future, that was perfectly clear. Volodia would not enter the government service, but would become a telegraph operator or have a drug store, and become a pharmacist. Were there not plenty of careers open to a young man? ”

“ Volodya thought with vexation as he got into bed. "But never mind; I'll wait till to-morrow . . . to-morrow in the arbour. It doesn't matter. . . ."
He did not attempt to go to sleep, but sat in bed, hugging his knees and thinking. All thought of the examination was hateful to him. He had already made up his mind that they would expel him, and that there was nothing terrible about his being expelled. ”

“ The astounding volume of sound, bursting up like flame and lava from a volcano, which rose from every group of boys at play bore witness to the extravagant and superabundant splendor of the intensity with which they lived, a splendor not at all recognized by suffering householders near whose decent and quiet homes a gang of boys settled down to play and yell and shriek and quarrel and run and yell again. ”

“ There were none among us who had not heard stories of the voodoo, of that strange snake worship of the negroes; how at night the devotees came together secretly in the forest; and how they got themselves into a frenzy of excitement with the music of the drum and the drinking of rum, which they mixed with the blood of fowls, or better that of a goat; how at times they were not satisfied with anything less than the blood of a human (the goat without horns) . ”

“ Volle said, "Lift up thine eyes, great Spitfire, and behold the lady moon, how virgin free she walketh the wide fields of heaven, and the glory of the stars of ⁠p. 314 heaven which in their multitudes attend her. And as little as earthly mists and storms do dim her, but though she be hid awhile yet when the tempest is abated and the sky swept bare of clouds there she appeareth again in her steadfast course, mistress of tides and seasons and swayer of the fates of mortal men: even such is the glory of sea-girt Demonland, and the glory of thine house, O Spitfire. ”

“ The sun rose like a white-hot ball in the brazen sky and the men held to the rails, mouths open, and stared ahead into the safe open water, expecting every moment for the Vulcan to spatter skyward in a volcano of fire and steel. ”

“ Here and there were patches bare and coal-black—as if the lava had but recently cooled, after being vomited forth from the volcan above.
Two things greatly delayed us: the darkness, and the necessity of making a noiseless advance. The slightest sound—a word spoken aloud—might frustrate the purpose of our pursuit.
I had given strict orders for no one to speak—even in whispers. In these alone the guide conversed, as he gave his directions. We knew that our voices would be carried upward to the ears of the brigands, while there was not much likelihood of our hearing theirs. ”

“ She is like a rock that cannot be shattered; there is no moving her. But was there no other solution for her, Volodya? Is burying oneself alive the only solution of the problem of life? Why, it's death, not life!"
At the thought of Olga, Volodya's face softened.
"Here, you are a clever man, Volodya," said Sofya Lvovna. "Show me how to do what Olga has done. Of course, I am not a believer and should not go into a nunnery, but one can do something equivalent. Life isn't easy for me," she added after a brief pause. ”

“ When Jupiter, the king of the gods, fared no better than the rest, he declared that she should be punished for her pride and must marry Vulcan, the lame blacksmith god who lived in the volcano, Mount Etna. Vulcan was delighted with her grace and beauty, and made for her a magic girdle, and the wonderful arrows of Cupid.
Joy and mirth always attend the goddess of beauty. Cupid, her son, the roguish god of love, is her constant companion, and he sends his arrows wherever she directs. Venus drives in a chariot drawn by graceful swans. ”

“ But what a wicked, angry face you have! You must talk, laugh. . . . Yes, Volodya, don't be surly; you are young and will have plenty of time for philosophising. Come, let go of me; I am going. Let go."
Without effort she released her waist, and, humming something, walked out of the arbour. Volodya was left alone. He smoothed his hair, smiled, and walked three times to and fro across the arbour, then he sat down on the bench and smiled again. He felt insufferably ashamed, so much so that he wondered that human shame could reach such a pitch of acuteness and intensity. ”

“ And to all the sighs and burden of prayer that has gone up from the valleys these centuries past? Does He hear us at all, our God? or are the places of His dominion too wide for Him to have thought to spare for the narrow shelters where the Vaudois have tried to hide from the spoiler and oppressor? Look there, mother! see where the head of that mountain lifts itself into the skies; it is the same, always the same, silent and cold and cruel, though our forefathers were hunted across its ridges in the past years, and we are now creeping wearily towards its feet. It cares nothing. ”

“ But Volle prevented him with strong hands, saying, "Bethink thee how on thee alone, O glorious Spitfire, and on thy wise heart and valiant soul that delighteth in furious war, resteth all our hope to ward off from our lady wives and dear children and all our good land and fee the fury of the men of Witchland, and to save alive the great name of Demonland. Let not thy proud heart be capable of despair." ”

“ Pasqualino came rushing in from the garden, Seraphina left her kitchen and bundled upstairs, and I collided with Francis as we ran into the studio to close the windows. Never have I known so surprising a pounce of the elemental forces of the world. A volcano bursting in flame and lava at one's feet, a war suddenly springing full-armed in a peaceful country, could not have shattered stillness with so unheralded an uproar. ”

“ Methinks, the breast of the ambitious man is a labyrinth of some such caverns as perforate the bowels of a volcano, in whose depths are lost all the petty details of crime, committed, or meditated,—in which there is no light but that which bubbles up from the lava of the vast passion,—and in which there is even no grandeur, that has not arisen from convulsions the most disorganizing and unnatural. ”

“ Far up above thy head, in the blue sky, have I watched thee, Psyche, and seen thy labours on the mountain-side. Too brave and true art thou to go to thy death. Give me the goblet, and I will fill it. Knowest thou that yonder stream is a jet which springeth up from dark Cocytus, the River of Wailing, which watereth the shores of the dead? No mortal can touch of that water and live, or bear it away in a vessel of earth. But this goblet is the gift of Zeus almighty, and I am his messenger—the [Pg 87] only bird of heaven that can look on the sun in his might. ”

“ Keep down the flames that make thee a volcano.
Let lovely warmth be all their strength. For thou
Art called upon to love and not to hate,
To help and not to punish, as thine eyes
Are far too weak to see the consequence
Of human anger. Even the volcano
Is aimless, powerless, like Fate itself,
And thou canst not be Fate. Ah! Be thou then
A human heart amongst poor human hearts!
{58}
NIGHT
O NIGHT! Thou friend of Thought, of Song, of winged
Inspiration! So gentle is thy tread,
Thy hand so soft, thy look so deep, the sea
Is not so deep as thy mysterious gaze. ”

“ Voluspa Saga (The) , the prophecy of Völa. It contains between 200 and 300 verses, and resembles the Sibylline books of ancient Rome. The Voluspa Saga gives, in verse, a description of chaos, the formation of the world, the creation of all animals (including dwarfs and giants, genii and devils, fairies and goblins) , the final conflagration of the world and its renewal, when it will appear in celestial beauty, like the new Jerusalem described in the book of the Revelation.
Vorst (Peterkin) , the sleeping sentinel at Powys Castle.--Sir W. Scott, The Betrothed (time, Henry II.) . ”

“ For a moment I thought it was the lava-glow from some volcanic action; but this could not be so. Any volcanic action would surely be down in the hollow and not high among the rocks. What, then, was the alternative? It was wonderful, and yet it must surely be. These ruddy spots must be the reflection of fires within the caves—fires which could only be lit by the hand of man. There were human beings, then, upon the plateau. ”

“ You probably ran up against one of the Voodoo gods, and the large stone in front was undoubtedly the sacrificial stone. How you ever got away alive passes my comprehension. They evidently thought that you would try to leave in the day-time, and had things all arranged for taking a shot at you somewhere, but your nocturnal skedaddle knocked their plans galley west. There is one thing dead sure, those Voodoo priests are bad medicine, as we used to say out West, and you want to keep your weather-eye open until you are safe on board a steamer and out of the harbor. ”

“ Why four famished stags feed upon its foliage? You understand? Well!
“But by what sign shall we recognize the approaching end of the gods—that which the Edda calls their twilight?
“The most important among all the sacred books of the North, a volume containing the prophecies of the divine sybil Vola, the Voluspa, will tell you.
“When the fatal moment draws near, their voice will cease to be able to utter the accustomed chants, and the luminous brightness radiating from their bodies will fade away little by little. ”

“ The square was filled with men, as with a sea, and when the fiery flashes of the ordnance lit it up as with a momentary conflagration, the commotion following upon each, made him think of those surges of fire which roll in the crater of a volcano, and of the billows of blood that dash upon the shores of hell. A more infernal spectacle could not, indeed, have been imagined; and when the harsh yells of the pagan myriads were added, the tophet was complete, and man appeared,—as he yet appears,—the destroyer and the demoniac. ”