King Stakh's Wild Hunt

And something else screamed, something nameless. I could have run out onto the porch, could have shot at these dirty, wild swine and laid down on the spot at least one of them, but in my arms lay Nadzieja, and I felt the beating of her frightened litte heart through her dress, felt how it was gradually dying out, beating perceptibly less and less often. Frightened for her life, I began to stroke her hair timidly. Slowly she regained consciousness and her eyelashes imperceptibly began to quiver at the touch of my hand on her head. In such a way a frightened puppy accepts the caress of a person who pats it for the first time: its eyebrows quiver, expecting a blow each time the hand is raised.

The thunder was already retreating and my entire being was ready to jump out on the porch together with her, shoot at those bats, and fall down on the steps together with her and die, feeling her at my side, all of her here at my side. In any case, to go on living like this was impossible.

And the voice was sobbing already from far away in the distance:

“Raman! Raman! Come out! Under the horses' hoofs with you! Not now, not yet! Afterwards! Tomorrow! Afterwards! But come we will! We'll come!”

And silence. She lay in my arms. It seemed as if quiet music had begun playing somewhere, perhaps in my own soul. Quietly, so quietly, far, far away, gently: about sunshine, about raspberry-coloured meadows under glistening dew, about nightingales' merry songs in the tree-tops of far-away lindens. Her face was calm, like that of a sleeping child. Here a sigh broke out, her eyes opened, she looked around in surprise, became severe.

“I beg your pardon, I'll leave.”

And she made her way to the staircase leading to the second floor — a white little figure.

It was only now, trembling with excitement, that I understood how courageous, how strong was her soul, if after such nerve-wracking experiences she had gone out to meet me and twice opened the doors: once when I, a stranger, arrived here, and once when I ran up to her doors, alarmed by the thundering hoofs of the Wild Hunt under her very windows. Most likely it was the Hunt and the dark autumn nights that had impelled her to do that, as does a trustful feeling compel a hare hunted down by dogs, to press itself against the feet of an accidental passerby. This girl had very good nerves if she had endured this life here for two years.

I sat down at the fireplace and began looking at the flames. Yes, the danger was a terrible one. Three persons against all those dark forces, against the unknown. But enough of sentimentality! It was near the Giant's Gap that they came into the park. Tomorrow I would be lying in wait for them there. My hands were shaking: my nerves were strung to the utmost. And in general my state was worse than a dog's.

“Perhaps I should leave this place?” — stirred a belated thought, an echo of that night of mine, that “night of frights”, and it died under the pressure of despair, under an iron determination and the desire to fight.

Enough! Victory or the Giant's Gap — it's all the same.

Leave? Certainly not! I could not leave this loathsome, cold house, because she lived here, she whom I had fallen in love with. Yes, fallen in love with. Nor was I ashamed of it. Up till now, in my relations with women, there were equality and comradeship, sometimes there was an admixture of some incomprehensible aversion, as is the case with any man, morally uncorrupted, lacking excessive sensuality. That's how it is with many men, probably until the real thing comes. It had come. Go away? Here I was at her side, big and strong (my inner hesitation did not concern her), she depended on me, she was sleeping peacefully now, probably for the first time.

This time when I held her in my arms, was a decisive one. It decided everything for me that had been accumulating in my heart ever since the time when she rose in defence of the poor, there on the upper floor, at the fireplace. With what joy would I take her away from here, take her somewhere far away, kiss these eyes which were red with weeping, these little hands, take her under my warm, dependable wing, forgive the world its lack of shelter.