King Stakh's Wild Hunt (16 page)

“And do you mean to say that you suspected Dubatowk, too?”

“Why not him?” Svetsilovich said sternly. “I trust nobody now. The question concerns Miss Nadzeya. Then why should Dubatowk be excluded from among the suspects? What reason can there be for that? That he is kind? Well, a person can pretend kindness! I myself... during the duel didn’t approach you, fearing that they might suspect something if they are the criminals. And in future I shall conceal our friendship. I suspected even you. What if ... but I caught myself in time. A well known ethnographer joins a band! Ha! In the same way Dubatowk might pretend being a little lamb. What displeased me most of all was that gift of his, the portrait of Roman the Old. As if he had a definite purpose in view to unsettle the girl...”

“And why not?” I started.” That’s really suspicious. Now she’s even afraid to sit at the fireplace.”

“That’s just it,” gloomily confirmed Svetsilovich. “That means that he is not King Stakh. This gift is the very thing that speaks in his favour. And the events at his house.”

“Listen,” I said. “And why not suppose that you yourself are King Stakh? You left later than I did yesterday. You are jealous of me without any reason. Perhaps you are throwing dust in my eyes, while in fact, no sooner do I leave than you say: ‘To your horses, men!’”

I did not think so, not for an instant, but I didn’t like this young man being so suspicious today, a young man usually so trusting and sincere.

Svetsilovich looked at me as if he had gone out of his mind, understanding nothing, then he suddenly burst out laughing, and immediately he was his good old self again.

“That’s it,” I answered in the same tone. “It’s wrong to sin against such old men as Dubatowk, so don’t. It doesn’t take long to slander a person.”

“Alright, now I no longer suspect him,” he answered still laughing. “I said that they were with me, didn’t I? At daybreak Varona began to feel very ill, his wound began to bleed again, he began to rave. An old quack doctor was sent for, then even a proper doctor was brought over. They weren’t too lazy to ride off to the district centre for a doctor whose verdict was Varona must stay in bed a whole week. The doctor was told it was an accident.”

“So, who else could it have been?”

We turned over in our minds names of everybody in the entire region, but couldn’t settle on anybody. We even thought of Bierman and although we understood that he is a lamb, decided to write a letter to a friend of Svetsilovich’s in the province, to learn how Bierman had lived there formerly and what kind of a man he is. That was necessary, for he was the only one among the people of the Yanovsky district about whom we knew absolutely nothing. We made all kinds of guesses, but could think of nothing.

“Who is the wealthiest person living in the environs of Marsh Firs?” I asked.

Svetsilovich thought awhile:

“Lady Yanovsky, it seems... Although her wealth is dead capital. Then there is Harovich who doesn’t live here, then Mr. Haraburda – by the way he is Yanovsky’s principal heir should she die now. Then there is, certainly, Dubatowk. He has little land; his belongings and his house, you see for yourself, are poor, but he must have money hidden somewhere, for he is always entertaining guests in his house, always plenty of eating and drinking there. The rest are unimportant, small fry.”

“You say that Haraburda is Yanovsky’s heir. Why he and not you, while you are a relative of hers?”

“But I’ve already told you that my father relinquished his rights to any heritage. It’s dangerous, the estate has no income, and according to rumours, some promissory notes are attached to it.”

“And don’t you think that Haraburda...”

“Him? No, I don’t. What has he to gain in earning by crime what will belong to him anyway? Let’s say that Yanovsky gets married – he has the promissory notes, if it isn’t a fable. In addition he’s a coward, not many like him.”

“So,” I meditated, “Then let’s look at things from a different angle. We must learn who had called out Roman from his house that evening. What do we know? That his daughter was visiting some Kulsha. But perhaps it wasn’t even to them that Roman went. We have only Bierman’s word for it. We’ll have to ask Kulsha. And you will make inquiries concerning Bierman’s life in the province.”

I saw him off to the roadway and was going home through the lane. Dusk had already fallen. My feelings were unpleasant. The lane, as a matter of fact, was now but a narrow path, and in one place an enormous lilac bush crossed it, a bush that had grown into a tree. Its wet leaves, resembling hearts, were still green and shone dully, transparent drops falling off from them. The bush was weeping...

I passed round it and had already taken about ten steps, when suddenly I hear a dry crack behind me. I felt a burning pain in my shoulder.

It is shameful to confess, but I was quaking with fear. “This is it,” I thought, “He’ll shoot again and that’ll be the end of me.” I should have shot straight into the bush or simply run away – anything would have been wiser than what I did. Terribly frightened, I rushed off into the bush, my breast open to the bullet. And here I heard something cracking in the bush. I chased after him like a madman, only wondering why he didn’t shoot. While he, evidently, also acted according to instinct – he took to his heels at full speed. And so quickly did he run, I couldn’t even see him, let alone catch up with him.

I turned around and went home. I walked on almost crying with mortification. In my room I examined the wound. A trifle – a muscle of the upper shoulder blade was scratched.
But
why? Why?
It’s too late locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. The excitement had probably brought on a nervous shock, for I lay in bed about two hours literally writhing with fright. I should never have thought that a person could be such a booby.

I recalled the warnings, the steps in the hall, the frightful face in the window, the Lady-in-Blue, the chase along the heather waste, this shot in my back.

They are out to kill me, they will certainly kill me. It seemed to me that the darkness was looking at me with invisible eyes of some monster, that somebody would immediately come creeping over and grab me. It is shameful to confess, but I pulled my blanket over my head as if it could defend me. And involuntarily a mean little thought arose: “I must run away. It’s easy for them to put their hopes on me. Let them make sense of these abominations and this Wild Hunt by themselves. I’ll go mad if I remain here one more week...”

No moral criteria could help. I trembled like an aspen leaf and fell asleep entirely weakened by fear. If the steps of the Little Man were heard that evening, I’d in all probability have hidden under the bed, but luckily that did not happen.

The morning brought me courage. I was calm.

I decided to go to Bierman that day, all the more so that our mistress was still ill. Behind the house grew enormous burdock. It was already taller than a man and drying up. I made my way through it, reached the porch and knocked at the door. Nobody answered. I pulled at the door and it opened. The small anteroom was empty, only Bierman’s coat was hanging there. I coughed. There was a rustling of something in the room. I knocked – Bierman spoke in a broken voice:

“Who, who’s there? Come in!”

I entered. Bierman got up from behind the table, wrapped his dressing gown tighter about him. His face was pale.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Bierman.”

“S-sit down, sit down, please,” he began fussing about to such an extent it made me feel uncomfortable.
Why have I come dragging myself here? A person likes his solitude. Just look how alarmed he is...

But Bierman had already taken himself in hand.

“Take a seat, Honourable Sir. Be seated, please.”

I looked at the armchair and saw a plate on it. Some unfinished food in it and a spoon. Bierman quickly removed everything.

“I beg your pardon, I had decided, how shall I put it? To satisfy my appetite.”

“But, please, go on eating,” I said.

“Oh! Unthinkable! To eat in the presence of a highly respected gentleman. I just... could not.”

The lips of this porcelain doll pleasantly rounded out.

“Have you never noticed what an unpleasant sight is a person eating? Oh! It’s awful! He chews dully, and reminds one of cattle. There is a striking resemblance in all people to some kind of animal. This one guzzles like a lion. That one champs, I beg your pardon, like the animal the prodigal son pastured. No, my dear sir, I never eat in the presence of anybody.”

I took a seat. The room was furnished very modestly. An iron bed, reminding a guillotine, a dinner table, two chairs, another table with books and papers piled on it. Only the table cloth on the first table was unusual, a very heavy one, blue and golden, hanging down to the very floor.

“You are surprised, aren’t you? Oh! Honourable Sir, it’s the only thing that has remained from former times.”

“Mr. Bierman...”

‘I’m listening to you, sir.”

He sat down, bent his doll-like head, opened wide his large grey eyes and raised his eyebrows.

“I want to ask you whether you haven’t any other plans of this house.”

“Not exactly, no. There is one more, made about thirty years ago, but it’s plainly stated there that it is a copy of the one that I gave you, and only some new partitions are indicated. This is it. Take it, please.”

I examined the paper. Bierman was right. “But tell me, isn’t there any hidden room on the second floor near the room with an empty closet?”

Bierman thought awhile. “I don’t know, Respected Sir, I don’t know, Sir. There must be a personal secret archive of the Yanovskys somewhere, but where it is, I do not know.”

His fingers were moving quickly across the table cloth, knocking out some kind of a march that I could not understand.

I stood up, thanked him and left.

“What had frightened him so?” I thought. “His fingers beating away, his pale face... This devil of a bachelor has begun to fear people...”

And, however, an obtrusive thought continued to drill my brain.

“Why? Why? There’s some dirty business going on here. And why does the word ‘hands’ keeps whirling in my brain? Hands, hands. What is connected here with hands? There must be something hidden in this word, if it so persistently repeats itself in my subconscious”.

I left him firmly convinced it was necessary to be very watchful. I didn’t like this doll-like man and especially his fingers, which were twice as long as normal ones and wriggled on the table like snakes.

The day was grey and gloomy, such an indifferent grey day, that I wanted to cry on my way to the estate belonging to the Kulshas. Low grey clouds were creeping over the peat bogs. The landscape lay before me looking like a monotonous barrack. Grey spots were moving about here and there on the smooth brown surface of the plain: a shepherd was grazing sheep there. I walked along the edge of the Giant’s Gap, and there was no place, literally, for the eye to rest on. Something dark lay in the grass. I came up closer. It was an enormous stone cross about three metres long. It was knocked down long ago, for the hole in which it had stood was almost levelled with the ground and was covered with undergrowth. The letters on the cross were hardly visible:

“God’s slave, Roman, died a quick death here. Passers-by, pray for his soul, so that someone should pray for yours, because it is your prayers that are especially to God’s liking.”

I stood long near it. So this is where Roman the Old perished!

“Sir, kind sir,” I heard a voice behind my back.

I turned around. A woman in fantastic rags was standing behind me with a hand outstretched. Young she was and quite pretty, but her face with its yellow skin was so frightful that I lowered my eyes. In her arms lay a child.

I gave her some money.

“Perhaps the gentleman has at least a tiny piece of bread? I’m afraid I won’t be able to reach my place. And baby Yasik is dying...”

“But what’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know,” she answered tonelessly.

I found a sweet in my pocket and gave it to the woman, but the baby remained indifferent to it.

“Then what shall I do with you, my poor one?”

A peasant was riding along the road in a cart driven by a bull. I called to him, took out a rouble and asked him to take the woman to Marsh Firs, she should be fed there and given shelter.

“May God give you health, sir,” the woman whispered, in tears. “Nobody anywhere has given us anything to eat. May God punish those who drive people from the land!”

“And who drove you off?”

“A gentleman.”

“What gentleman?”

“The gentleman, Antos. Such a skinny one he is...”

“But what’s his surname? Where’s your village?”

“I don’t know his surname, but the village is here, behind the forest. A good village. We had some money even, five roubles. But they drove us away.”

Her eyes expressed wonder. Why didn’t the owner take the five roubles, why did he drive them away?

“And where is your husband?”

“They killed him.”

“Who killed him?”

“We screamed, wept, didn’t want to go away. Yazep also screamed. Then they shot him. And at night came the Wild Hunt and drowned those who screamed the loudest. They disappeared... Nobody screamed anymore.”

I hastened to send them off, and myself walked on, desperate beyond description. God, what darkness! What oppression! How to move the mountain? At Dubatowk’s we had guzzled so much it would have been sufficient to save the lives of forty Yasiks. The hungry man is not given any bread; his bread is given to the soldier who’ll shoot at him since he is hungry. State wisdom! And these unfortunates keep silent! For what sins are you, my people, being chastised, why, on your own native land, are you stormily driven here and there like autumn foliage? What forbidden apple did the first Adam of my tribe eat?

Some guzzled more food than they could possibly eat, others died of hunger under their windows. This torn down cross is here over the one who lived on the fat of the land, and here is a child dying of hunger.

This gap between the one and the other has existed for ages, and this is the end, a logical completion, a running wild; throughout the entire state there is gloom, dull fright, hunger, madness. And all Belarus – a common battlefield for the dead over which the wind howls, dung under the hoofs of contented fat cattle.