King Stakh's Wild Hunt

Through the window-pane the face of a human being was looking at me. He was very small (I could see him almost down to his belt, dressed in a caftan with a waist girdle round it, and with a wide collar). It was a man, but there was in him something inhuman. His little head was compressed at the sides and unnaturally drawn out in length, his hair was long and thinned and was hanging down. But the most surprising thing about this Little Man was his face. It was as green as his clothes, his mouth big and toothless, his nose small, while the lower eyelids were excessively large, like a frog's. I compared him to a monkey, but he looked more like a real frog. And his eyes, wide and dark, looked at me in stupid anger. Then an unnaturally long green hand appeared. The being groaned a hollow groan, and that saved me from freezing with fear. I rushed to the window, stared through the window, but there was no Little Man there. He had disappeared.

I thrust the window open noisily — the cold air rushed into the room. I put my head out and looked from all sides — nobody anywhere. As if he had evaporated into space. He could not have jumped down, in this place there was yet a third storey (the house stood partly on a slope), the windows to the right and left were shut, and the ledge was such a narrow one that even a mouse could not have run along it. I shut the window and fell to thinking, for the first time doubting whether I was in my right mind.

What could it have been? I believe neither in God nor in ghosts, however, this creature could not have been a living being. And moreover, from where could it have appeared, where had it disappeared to? Where could it exist? There was something mysterious in this house. But what? Is it possible that it really was a ghost? My entire upbringing rebelled against that. But perhaps I was drunk? No, I had drunk almost nothing. But where had the steps come from, those steps that are even now sounding in the corridor? Did they sound then or didn't they when I saw the face of that monster in the window?

My curiosity reached the limits of feasibility. No, I would not leave this place the next day, as I had thought. I had to unravel all this. The girl who had today given me yet another fine memory to keep, will go mad with fright, something not in accordance with the laws of nature was going on there and I wouldn't leave. But who would help me in my search? Who? And I recalled Śvieciłovič's words: “I would crawl up to her feet and breathe my last.” Yes, it was with him that I had to meet. We would catch this abominable thing, and if not — I would begin to believe in the existence of green ghosts and God's angels.

Chapter The Fifth

Two days later I was approaching Dubatoŭk's house. I did not want to go there, but my hostess had said: “You must go! It's my order. I won't be afraid here.”

I was to follow a grass-covered lane in a south-west direction from the house. Along both sides of this path stood a park as gloomy as a forest. The lane led to a fence where at one place an iron rod was missing and I could creep through it (this was Janoŭskaja's secret which she had confided to me). Therefore I didn't have to go north along the lane I had arrived on and walk round the whole park to reach the road leading to Dubatoŭk's house. I crept through the hole and came out onto level land. To the left and straight ahead of me there was boundless heather waste land with sparse groups of trees, to the right some undergrowth, behind it a full little river like an eye, then a swampy forest, and farther on, hopeless quagmire. Somewhere very far from the heather waste land, tree-tops could be seen, probably Dubatoŭk's estate.

I walked slowly through the waste land, only from time to time guessing where my path lay. And though the autumn field was a gloomy one and not inviting, though an enormous raven twice flew overhead — after Marsh Firs it was pleasant here. Everything all around was familiar: the moss on the marsh mounds, the dry heather among the tiny mouse dragging white down from a tall thistle to the nest it was preparing for winter.

I reached Dubatoŭk's estate only towards dusk, the windows of his house were already brightly lit. It was a most ordinary house, the usual thing among the gentry: an old, low building with small windows. It was shingle-roofed, freshly whitewashed, had a porch, with four columns. The provincial architect had very likely been unaware of the well-known secret and therefore the columns seemed to bulge in the middle and looked like little barrels. The house was surrounded by old, enormous, almost leafless lindens. Behind the house there was a large orchard, and behind it a wide piece of ploughed land.

I was late apparently, for noisy voices were already thundering throughout the house. I was met warmly, even ardently.