The Romance of the Woods

A meeting of the Mir was convened without further delay, and it was determined to allow the wise woman to proceed with her preparations. On the morrow, early in the morning, the ceremony should be performed. On this particular day the cows remained at home. Radion could not think of risking his life a third time, and as for the owners of the cows, there was hardly one who would have been foolhardy enough to allow his cattle to wander through the woods under present circumstances.

When the morrow came the znaharka was at hand as the herd moved down the street in order to watch which of the cows took the lead, for her first ceremony was dependent upon that circumstance. Having fixed upon the leader she tied a bit of red wool round its neck. This was a symbol that thus henceforth were the throats of the wild beasts bound, lest they should swallow the cows. Next the znaharka walked solemnly three times round the entire herd, locking and unlocking a padlock the while, in token that thus were the jaws of the grey wolves locked, lest they should rend the cattle. After the third time the padlock was finally locked and buried.

Then came a sort of liturgy which the wise woman pronounced standing in front of the herd, the meek animals being much surprised at the proceedings, and at the unusual delay in allowing them to get away to their pasture.

"Deaf man, canst thou hear us? No. Then pray God the grey wolf may not hear our cattle in the forest.

"Lame man, canst thou overtake us? Nay, I cannot. Then pray God that the grey wolves overtake not these cows.

"Blind man, canst thou see us? No. Then pray God the grey wolf may not perceive our cattle in the woods."

This was the end of the function, and the poor cows, who had been somewhat impatiently whisking away the mosquitoes and horseflies for the last half hour, were at length allowed to proceed. Radion expressed himself satisfied and went after them; he was no longer afraid of the wood-spirits, he declared; they were now powerless to harm him.

After this, matters went quietly enough at Kushlefka. Nothing happened to the herd or to the pastuch himself, for both were protected by the solemnities conducted as above by the znaharka. But the bull which had formed a meal for the two demon wolves on the occasion of their second attack upon the herd was still unreplaced, and it was necessary to buy one somewhere. The starost, therefore, allowed it to be known far and wide that Kushlefka was in need of a bull and open to offers.

In a few days bulls began to come in, bulls of every kind; but for some little while the right bull could not be found: one was too savage, another too big, a third too small. A week went by and still Kushlefka remained without the head and ornament to its herd of cows. Then a most curious and astonishing circumstance happened. One morning, not long after the pastuch had set out with his cattle for the day's wandering over moor and grass-land, a man arrived from a village distant some seven or eight miles through the forest, accompanied by a bull whose appearance filled the minds of those who witnessed its arrival with astonishment and some awe. If they had not already known that old Vasilice, the late lord of the herd, was in his grave, or rather in the stomachs of two grey demon-wolves of the forest, they would have said that this new bull was Vasilice redivivus. He was strangely like. From the brown stocking on his off hind-leg to the one black ear and browny-black patch on his nose—big white body and all—he was the very image of Vasilice. What made it the more astonishing was that no sooner did the animal arrive in the village street than he walked straight to the lodgings of the late lamented Vasilice, and would take no denial, but must needs be let into the yard, and thence to the cowshed, where he immediately sniffed about as one who knows the lie of the land, helping himself, presently, to hay and other delicacies which he found to hand, as though it were his own of right. In vain his owner tried to turn him out of shed and yard; he would not budge; indeed, he surveyed the man with a look of mild surprise, as who should say, "What on earth is the matter with you? Go back to Drevnik if you like, but as for me, I stay here!"

Deep was the astonishment of Kushlefka. This thing was a mystery. Could the bull be the spirit of the departed Vasilice? Some of the spectators spat on the ground, some crossed themselves; it depended upon how the thing suggested took them.

But stay; the starost has an idea. Vasilice used to have a faint mark of an old brand, a mere scar on the off hindquarter. Ivan Ivanich entered the shed and made a close inspection of the animal.

When he came out his face was grave; but his glance was serene and high, as of one who has triumphed over mysteries, and has discerned light through the darkness.

"It is Vasilice," he said. "Where did you buy him, brother?"

"At Drevnik, your mercifulness," replied the seller.

"And from whom?"

"From a stranger, a pastuch, who drove him, with a fine cow, into Drevnik—oh—a fortnight ago nearly; he said he had been commissioned to sell the pair by a moujik in Koltusha, which your mercifulness knows is twenty miles away, and that–"

"Should you know the man again?" interrupted the starost.

"Certainly, for we drank together for half an hour at the kabak, after the bargain for the bull and cow. A ragged pastuch—lantern-jawed, and red-hair—and with a scrag beard–"

"Good," said the starost. "You shall have back the money you paid for Vasilice, and a three-rouble note for your trouble! Now leave him here and come back to-morrow with the cow. Brothers," he continued, "not a word to Radion about the bull Vasilice when he returns! I will settle with Radion to-morrow."

Then the starost paid a long visit to Yegor, the ochotnik (sportsman) of the village, and made certain arrangements. Yegor was a great hunter and had slain many bears and wolves, making a good living by the sale of their skins.

On the following day, while Radion was loafing the morning away amid his cows, counting his ill-gotten gains and meditating as to how he should spend them as soon as he got safely out of Kushlefka and back home again, he suddenly perceived something which sent his lazy blood, for once, coursing through his veins at a speed which made the beating of his heart a painful function. Issuing from the dark fringe of the forest, which lay but a short fifty yards away, came a procession alarming enough to frighten, out of his very wits, a man with five times the courage of Radion; first a bear—a big one—and at his heels two wolves. Behind the wolves came a wild shape—half human, but with the head of a bear. The procession moved slowly in Radion's direction, who, his limbs being fixed and rigid with terror, was entirely unable to move. Not so the herd. Snorting and bellowing, with tails up and heads down, every cow was instantly in motion, and galloping for dear life across the moor. Radion would have shrieked in the anguish of his fright, but his tongue clave to his palate, and he could utter no sound but a hoarse rattle. He tried to pray and to cross himself, but could not raise his arm.

By this time the awful procession had reached him and stood motionless around him. If Radion had not been half dead with fear he must have noticed something strange about the style of locomotion of the terrible beasts, as well as a certain fixedness of expression about the eyes of all four. But he was too far gone to observe anything. At last the figure, half man and half beast, spoke:

"Radion—Radion," it said sepulchrally, "liar! Where are the bull Vasilice and the cows Masha and Katia?"

Radion's dry lips moved, but he could utter never a word.

"Radion—liar!" the voice continued, "you have lied in the village to the dishonour of the liéshuie, of whom I am king. Where is the money you received for Vasilice and the two cows?" Radion's hand made a movement towards his wallet, but had not strength to carry itself so far.

"Radion—liar and thief," continued the king of the liéshuie "you are doomed—you must die! Advance wolves, tear and destroy; rend, bear!"

But before the terrific animals could obey the injunctions of their leader, Radion's tongue had freed itself, and with a fearful yell the unfortunate pastuch fell senseless upon the heather.

Then that mercenary liéshui king relieved Radion of his wallet, after which he retired quickly into the forest followed by his three slaves, carrying their heads under their arms, the weather being hot.

When Radion returned to the village at night, his face was as the countenance of those who have been through great tribulation; and when the herd awaited the sound of his horn next morning, and wandered aimlessly about the village street, headed by Vasilice redivivus (whom they were very glad to see back again among them), they were doomed to a sad disappointment; for it was discovered that their faithful pastuch had departed, leaving no address.

CHAPTER X

AN UNBAPTIZED SPIRIT

I have already referred to a pretty tradition still existing among the peasantry of the Slavonic families that the soul of a child who dies unbaptized must wander for seven years, beseeching, at the hands of each Christian person it sees, that precious privilege of which it has been deprived. If the little soul should fail, during its term of seven years, to find a Christian man or woman who will hear its cry and give it the baptism it craves, that soul must forfeit its soulship, and the being becomes a member of a lower race, assuming thenceforth the form and character of a river-spirit, and taking up its abode among the members of that frivolous and somewhat mischievous family.

There was grief in the house of Pavel Shirkof, a peasant of the village of Chudyesin, near Perm, beneath the shadow of the dark Urals. Pavel was unlike most of his kind, for his ideas of happiness were not as theirs, bounded by the narrow limits of the interior of the kabak or drinking-shop. Pavel was gifted with an earnestness of disposition rare enough among men of his standing; he took life seriously, and had been a good husband to his wife. He had married but a short year ago, and now, alas! the buxom girl of twelve months since lay, a young mother, sighing out the last moments of her stricken life. Unattended by doctor or nurse, far from all skilled assistance, and watched only by her terrified and ignorant though loving husband, the poor wife tossed upon her so-called bed, while her tiny child lay helpless and neglected upon a nest of old potato-sacks and coats and rags in the corner by the stove—a thing of feeble, struggling existence as near to its end had Pavel known it, as it was to its beginning, and this was but a matter of half-an-hour or so. The baby lay and wailed unnoticed, for her poor father had his dying wife to attend to, and the sick woman, but half conscious, had not as yet caught that sound so dear to every mother's ear—her own child's voice. But suddenly she paused in the restless side-to-side movements of her head upon the pillow, and appeared to listen.

"Pavel," she said, and her pale cheek flushed, "it is the child. Let me see it before I die. Hold it near me. Let me take it in my arms!" Pavel brought the little wailing thing and laid it in the mother's arms, which scarcely had strength to clasp themselves round their precious burden.

A beautiful smile went, like a sunset, over poor dying Doonya's face—the last gleam before nightfall; then she looked anxiously at the tiny bundle at her breast. "Pavel, my poor man," she said, "the child has death in its face; it will accompany me into the Unknown; we shall both leave you together, my soul. God comfort you at this time of tribulation! But now you shall do her the only service you can ever render her. Fetch the good priest from Volkova; take Shoora, the best horse, and the lightest cart, and fetch him quickly, my Pavel, for the child must be baptized."

But Pavel refused to leave his wife in her present condition. The child must wait, he said; and in case of emergency any one could pronounce the baptismal formula. He would do it himself. Meanwhile, what was the child to him, body or soul, in comparison with his beloved Doonya?

A very few minutes after this the soul of Doonya passed peacefully away, and poor Pavel was a widower. In his anguish of mind during that saddest hour, he had no thought for the tiny bundle of sickly humanity lying neglected upon its bed of rags and sacking. No neighbours were at hand. All were at work in the fields. For none had known of poor Doonya's sudden and immediate need of their services. When at length Pavel remembered to look at the child, therefore, it was cold and dead, and might have been so for an hour for all he knew. Pavel was not so ignorant as to be unaware that the fate of a child dying unbaptized is most melancholy. He knew, as every Slavonic peasant knows, that the unbaptized soul, whether of child or grown person, is doomed to wander over earth and sea and air for seven long years, seeking for some one sufficiently pure of spirit to hear its spirit-voice appealing to be baptized. If such an one should hear it and pronounce the orthodox formula, all would be well with the soul, and it might depart in peace into those blessed realms where waiting souls, as Christians believe, rest until the great day of their resurrection. If, however, none should hear the wanderer (and, alas! how few are those qualified to catch the tone of a spirit-voice!), and the seven years should expire, then that poor unbaptized soul must lose its soulship, and descend among the mortal rusalki, or water nymphs, to be a rusalka for the remainder of her life, cut off for ever from the blessed privileges of Christianity. Then Pavel was overcome with sudden remorse, and, in the hope that the soul of little Liuba (for so the parents had agreed to call her) was still within hearing, he pronounced aloud the words, "Liuba, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." But, alas! it was too late. The little neglected soul had fled away in its distress and despair, and was already far from the place of its birth, wandering over sea and land, and crying aloud to every human being whom it saw: "Have pity, Christian brother (or sister). Hear my cry and baptize me, or my soulship is lost, lost!"

When the spirit of little Liuba first left the tiny body in which it had commenced its career, and fled away, it knew not whither to direct its flight. One central idea was all the consciousness it possessed as yet, and this was the knowledge—half hope and half despair—which is given to each infant unbaptized soul for its heritage, namely, that it has been deprived by misfortune of something which should have been its dearest possession, the sweet privilege of Christian baptism, and that it must wander and weep and entreat until such time as it shall find a baptized Christian into whose own pure soul the cry of the wandering spirit may enter; from him it may then receive the precious gift which is its own by right, but of which it had been unfortunately deprived.

So Liuba's infant soul fled wailing over valley and hill and sea, and was far away when her widowed father pronounced the baptismal formula over the poor little wasted body which had once been her earthly tenement. Liuba knew nothing of the fate predestinated for those whose seven years expire and find them still without the pale of blessedness; all this she should learn in good time; at present she only knew that she must wander and chant her monotonous sorrowful prayer that she might be heard and baptized.

Red-shirted peasants were busy at work in the fields, together with gaily-clad women and a few children. It was the time of the cutting of the corn, and there was much laughter and merriness, while each peasant did as much work as he felt was good for him, which was not much; the women worked harder than the men and sang in a light-hearted manner as they laboured. The men were glad to allow the women to work as hard as they were willing to; it saved them much trouble.

"Brothers and sisters—Christian people," wailed the child-spirit, "baptize me and save my soul alive!" But not one of all the chattering, toiling throng could hear the spirit-voice, for the sounds of the world were loud in their ears and no other voice could reach them by reason of the noises which deafened them. So Liuba left them and fled away over hill and dale, wailing and weeping, for she had experienced her first taste of failure and disappointment; and by-and-by she came to the banks of a large river, and here she rested herself upon the shore, strange and lost and lonely. It was a beautiful sunny morning in August, and little Liuba could not resist the charm of the sunshine and the sparkle of the clear water about her; she saw it with delight, and the rustle of the leaves and the songs and twittering of the happy birds amid the leaflets overhead filled her with wondrous joy and content. "How beautiful it all is," she cried; "if only it were to be always like this I should not so much mind my misfortune."

To Liuba's surprise, at the sound of her voice a very beautiful form suddenly appeared rising out of the water. The shape was that of a human girl, but indistinct, and with wavy outlines that quivered and shifted, instead of the fixed lines of a human body. Masses of golden flowing hair fell over bosom and shoulders and lay floating upon the ripples of the water, of which it seemed to form a part; and though it had proceeded from the stream and still lay upon the surface of the river, yet the hair was not wet and draggled but wavy and dry and lovely to look upon. Liuba looked at the new-comer with admiration and joy. "How beautiful you are!" she cried, "and you have heard my voice and will baptize me!"

The beautiful creature laughed aloud, and the sound of her voice was like the flowing of shallow waters over the rapids.

"Oh, no!" she cried, "I cannot baptize you, and I would not if I could! You must be very young or you would know that I am a river-spirit, a rusalka, such as you yourself will be one day, unless you find some one to baptize you, which is very unlikely. I can hear your voice for I am a spirit, but mortal men cannot distinguish your speech, and if they hear anything they say, 'Listen to the whispering of the wind in the tree-top!' or, 'Do you hear how the breeze sighs this evening among the reeds in the stream?' Do you not know that you have but seven years in which to perform your hopeless task, and that after that you are at liberty to come down among us here in the cool waters? It were far better to save yourself these years of disappointment and toiling and to become one of us at once."

But the soul of Liuba thirsted for baptism as the new-born plant longs for the touch of the sun-god, and she was not satisfied with the words of the rusalka.

"But who are you? and are you baptized? and what do you do down there in the cool waters?" she asked. The rusalka looked grave for an instant, and then quickly laughed once more.

"No," she said, "we are not baptized; we are spirits now, but when the world comes to an end and the rivers are poured out and dried up, we shall exist no longer. We are the Water Folk, and our ancestors fell with Lucifer from heaven; at which time we took up our abode here, instead of following our captain to his home. As for what we do, we dance and sport amid the shining stones and caves, and chase the brilliant fishes, and scare the greedy otters; we fascinate silly humans, and when they follow us into the waves we strangle them or torture them to death because we hate them."

"Why do you hate them?" asked Liuba.

"Because they have souls and we have none; you will know why in seven years. And now, good-bye till then, for my sisters await me yonder; they are ready for the dance, while I tarry chattering here." With these words the beautiful nymph seemed to fade from the sight, growing every instant more and more indistinct. Liuba saw her wave her arms and heard her silvery laugh, and then she quite disappeared. From the spot where she had stood upon the bank a tiny stream of crystal water trickled through the grass and flowers and found its way back to the parent river.

"How terrible!" said Liuba. "Oh, how I hope I shall never be a rusalka!" and a great rush of longing came over the little bankrupt soul for that baptism of which it knew nothing save its own great need and desire for the gift, and away she floated once more over woods, meadows, and rivers, wailing and crying, "Oh, who will baptize me, baptize me! Christian men, have pity upon a soul that wanders and weeps, and baptize me!"