Yasha

“ Our guests talked a little about Yasha’s idiosyncrasies and then soon forgot about the little incident. Next day, about eight o’clock in the evening, Yasha went up to my little sister in the nursery and kissed her.
“Good-bye, missy.”
“Good-bye, Yasha,” answered the little one, not looking up from her doll.
Half an hour later Yevka, the housemaid, ran into my father’s study, pale and trembling.
“Oh, sir ... there ... in the attic ... he’s hanged himself ... Yasha....” ”

“ There was peace everywhere but in my heart; there, the elements were raging, and life grappled with death for supremacy. “What shall I say to Yasha? What will our friends think of me? A prostitute!” pierced my mind poignantly. “No, that must never happen. Death is my only escape.”
I wandered about the streets for a while, until I found a grocer’s shop open, and I purchased there thirty kopek’s worth of essence of vinegar. ”

“ The news was a terrible shock to us. To be buried alive in some snow-bound hut! What for? To live like beasts in that uninhabitable region from which only few ever emerge alive!
There was still one ray of hope. Governor Kraft, of Yakutsk, had the reputation of being a very kind man, and he might reassign Yasha if I begged him to do so. Yasha had been advised to appeal to the Governor, and he sent me on this mission. ”

“ To judge from the swaying of the van and the rattle of the wheels the train is moving rapidly and unevenly. The engine breathes heavily, snorting out of time with the pulsation of the train, and altogether there is a medley of sounds. The bullocks huddle together uneasily and knock their horns against the walls.
When the old man wakes up, the deep blue sky of early morning is peeping in at the cracks and at the little uncovered window. He feels unbearably cold, especially in the back and the feet. The train is standing still; Yasha, sleepy and morose, is busy with the cattle. ”

“ Fall on your knees before him, and beg harder. He is said to be such a kind man [Pg 51] that he will surely have mercy. Otherwise, we are lost. Think of our destination, a land without sun, a colony of three or four huts, spread over a space of about ten miles, that is Kolymsk. No horses, no business, no trades! It is not a land for the living. Go and implore the Governor, and he may take pity.”
I looked at Yasha, and my heart was filled with anguish. He was only twenty-seven, but his hair was already turning grey. He looked pale and exhausted. I could not keep myself from breaking into sobs. ”

“ I planted a garden, and sowed some grain, as land was given by the community for the asking, there being few settlers in spite of the natural riches of the district. The rivers in Northern Siberia are full of fish, and there is no end to the wealth of timber. Less than 150 miles from us gold mines were being worked. On the strength of our having owned the butcher’s shop in Yakutsk we were able to buy a horse on credit and also to borrow some money.
My popularity with the politicals irritated Yasha. He grew jealous of their kindness, now suspecting one man of courting me and now another. ”

“ Above all, I kept thinking of Yasma, kept remembering her in hope that alternated with dejection. Could it be true, as Karem had said, that I was to see her soon? Surely, she must know how impatiently I was waiting! She would not be the last of her tribe to reappear!
That night I had but little sleep; excited visions of Yasma permitted me to doze away only by brief dream-broken snatches. But when the gray of dawn began to creep in through the open window, sheer weariness forced an hour's slumber; and I slept beyond my usual time, and awoke to find the room bright with sunlight. ”

“ You could live with me here in a cabin in Sobul, or maybe I could take you with me to see the world I come from, and you would then know where the clouds go, and see strange cities with houses as tall as precipices and people many as the leaves of a tree. What do you say, Yasma? Don't you want to make us both happy?"
Yasma stared at me with wide-lidded eyes in which I seemed to read infinite longing.
"You know I would!" she cried. "You know I would—if I could! But ours is a strange people, and our ways are not your ways. ”

“ And once again Yasma and I were happy. The glamour of our first few wedded months was revived; we had almost forgotten that the glow could ever fade, scarcely remembered the old omens and predictions; and if any of the villagers ever muttered their secret fears, they made sure that we were well out of hearing. Yet all the while I realized that we were living in a house of glass, and Yasma must have realized it too; and in bad dreams at times I heard the rumbling of approaching storms, and saw the fragile walls of paradise come clattering about our feet in ruins. ”

“ Even when evening was approaching and Yasma's eyes began to glitter as with some secret ecstasy, I did not realize that the present moment might dominate all other moments in my life; and when sunset was setting fire to the west and the stray clouds wore vermilion and purple, I was still unprepared for what the night had in store.
Dusk was falling over the world and in our cabin a lively blaze was beaming, when I was surprised to see Yasma draw herself up to a sitting posture and throw out her hands as though invoking some unseen power. ”

“ One thing at this time seemed particularly remarkable; a drum was heard to beat in the house where Fasil was; whereas it is an invariable rule, that no drum is suffered to beat in the capital any where but in the house where the king resides. It was said that king Yasous, second son to the Iteghé, or queen-mother, and father to Joas, had left two sons by a slave of the queen; indeed he had so many by low people, that very little care was taken of them, not even that of sending them to the mountain Wechné. ”

“ Now after the death of Jehoahaz, his son Joash took the kingdom, in the thirty-seventh year of Jehoash, the king of the tribe of Judah. This Joash then took the kingdom of Israel in Samaria, for he had the same name with the king of Jerusalem, and he retained the kingdom sixteen years. He was a good man, 17 and in his disposition was not at all like his father. Now at this time it was that when Elisha the prophet, who was already very old, and was now fallen into a disease, the king of Israel came to visit him ”

“ Then the Yaksha her husband said to her; “What have you seen?” Then she told the following invented story; “When you struck me with the garland, I saw a black man come, with a noose in his hand, with flaming eyes, tall, with upstanding hair, terrible, darkening the whole horizon with his shadow. The ruffian took me to the abode of Yama, but his officers there turned him back, and made him let me go.” When the Yakshiṇí said this, the Yaksha laughed, and said to her, “O dear! women cannot be free from deception in any thing that they do. Who ever died from being struck with flowers? ”

“ We sacrifice to Haoma, that driveth death afar, and to the flood streams of the waters, and to the great flight of the birds, and to the approach of the Fire-priests as they approach us from afar, [183] and seek to gain the provinces and spread the ritual law.” [184]
The Yasna also includes several Yaśts, or hymns of praise, some of which contain poetry as well as praise. As Sraosha is the only divinity of the later groups mentioned in the first four Gāthas, the Yaśt which is dedicated to him appears to rank in antiquity next to those fragments which are found in the Gāthic dialect. ”

“ Twenty-six thousand men are said to have perished by thirst when the king took possession of the water at Tzaada Amba. And yet, notwithstanding the small-pox 459 which, in some places, exterminated whole tribes, the Dobenah have not lost an inch of territory, but seem rather to be gaining upon Siré.
Yasous arrived at Dancaz on the 8th of March 1692, having dismissed his army as he passed Gondar. From Dancaz he went to Lasta, and after a short stay there, came to Arringo in Begemder. At this place the king received accounts that far exceeded his expectations, and gratified his warmest wishes. ”

“ A cloud for a few moments darkened the face of the moon, but through the shadow he could see the stately dark figure of Hadassah as she crossed over the javelin, and the flutter of Zarah's white veil. As the silver orb emerged from the cloud, the women were followed by the two Hebrews who had once been servants to Hadassah.
"Four on that side—five on this—he dies!" cried Abishai eagerly; but even as the exclamation was on his lips, Judas with a bound sprang over the javelin, and stood at the side of Zarah.
"He lives—the Merciful be praised!" cried Hadassah. ”

“ Possibly it is that the girls of the Ibandru come early to maturity; or possibly they do not labor under civilized repressions, and are seldom other than their natural selves. At all events, Yasma suffered from few of those inhibitions which would have hampered her western sisters. Finding something in me to interest her, she was at no pains to conceal her interest, but would act as unhesitatingly as if she had been the man and I the woman. ”

“ No sooner were we within touching distance than the soothsayer, with a wide sweep of his arms, enfolded Yasma in a close embrace. Of course, I realized that this was held essential to the ceremony; but it did seem to me that Hamul-Kammesh was unnecessarily long about releasing Yasma. I was about to cough tactfully when he at length freed her, and, to my disgust, flung his arms in my direction, and for an instant I felt his bristly white beard against my face. ”

“ But it is wrong to love you! wrong even to encourage you! Only evil can come of it! Oh, why did you ever, ever have to come among our tribe?"
Having delivered herself of this outburst, Yasma paced back and forth, back and forth amid the dense grass, with fists clenched and head upraised to the heavens, like one in an extremity of distress. ”

“ I was particularly interested in Yasma's brothers and sisters, all of whom I met in quick succession. They were all older than she, and all had something of her naïvety and vivaciousness without her own peculiar charm. Her three sisters had found husbands among the men of the tribe, and two were already the mothers of vigorous toddling little sons and daughters; while her brothers, Karem and Barkodu, were tall, proud, and dignified of demeanor like their father.
With Karem, the elder, I struck up a friendship that was to prove my closest masculine attachment in Sobul. ”

“ Amha Yasous did not come to take part in the war, he only brought, in imitation of old times, a tribute to the king as a testimony of the loyalty of the faithful province of Shoa; but he was so interested for the king, after being admitted into intimacy with him, and so pleased with the society of the young noblemen at court, that he determined to come back with the command of the troops of his father, and in his way force Gusho to return to his duty, if he was not already determined. ”

“ In the one and twentieth year of the reign of Jehoash, Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, took the government of the Israelites in Samaria, and held it seventeen years. He did not [properly] imitate his father, but was guilty of as wicked practices as hose that first had God in contempt: but the king of Syria brought him low, and by an expedition against him did so greatly reduce his forces, that there remained no more of so great an army than ten thousand armed men, and fifty horsemen. He also took away from him his great cities, and many of them also, and destroyed his army. ”

“ From your early childhood both Mattathias, our revered kinsman—on whose grave be peace!—and myself have looked forward to the future espousals of my loved Zarah and Judas."
"Judas! Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Zarah, suddenly withdrawing her trembling hand from that of her grandmother, in which it had been clasped. "He is wedded to his country; he will never think of taking a wife." She spoke rapidly, and with some emotion.
"His toils and triumphs may, and I trust will, lead to future peace," said Hadassah. "Then may he enjoy the happiness which he has earned so well. ”

“ Then Jehoiada made a covenant with the King and all the people, that they should be the Lord's people, and not idolaters any more; and they went into the house of the idol Baal, and broke it down; and they broke up the altars of Baal, and his images into small pieces, and killed the priest of Baal.
So all the people rejoiced greatly, and they brought the King to the King's house, and he sat on the Throne of Judah.
As long as the faithful High Priest lived, Joash was a good King. Jehoiada was his counsellor and friend, and under his advice Joash did much to repair the Temple of God. ”

“ Ahura-Mazda, indeed, still retains his supremacy, and every Yasht begins with a formula, of which the first words are "In the name of the God Ormazd," while the first Yasht is devoted exclusively to his praise. Subject to this recognition, however, the inferior potentates are each in turn the object of panegyrics in that exaggerated style in which Oriental literature delights. We need not stop to recount the particular honors rendered to each. One Yasht, however, is sufficiently curious to merit our attention, the more so as we possess a translation of it by Burnouf. ”

“ Only three men, within living memory, have ever defied the warning; and all have learned the way of bitter wisdom. One fell to his death in a crevasse of the mountain, and one was bitten by a serpent and perished in agony, and one lost his wife and first-born son, and passed the rest of his days in loneliness and despair."
Yasma paused again, sadly as though brooding on some personal grief; then passionately demanded, "Promise me, promise that whatever happens, you will never, never go up to Yulada!" ”