King Stakh's Wild Hunt

The word which I had given myself did not waver, the memory of my dead friend even strengthened this word, and nevertheless for a few minutes I felt a triumphant rapture at the thought that I could have held in my arms this dear slim figure and pressed her to my breast. But bitterly did my heart beat, for I knew that this would never be.

However, I went out to her from behind the trees almost quite calm.

Here she lifted her head, saw me, and how sweetly, how warmly did her radiant eyes begin to shine.

“It's you, Mr. Biełarecki. Sit down here beside me.”

She was silent for a while, then she said with surprising firmness:

“I'm not asking you why you beat a person so hard. I know that if you did do such a thing, it means it was impossible to have done otherwise. But I am very uneasy about you. You must know: there is no justice here. These pettifoggers, these liars, these — terrible and thoroughly corrupt people can condemn you. And although it isn't a crime for an aristocrat to beat a policeman, they can exile you from here. All of them together with the criminals form one large union. It will be in vain to beg justice of them: this noble and unfortunate people will perhaps never see it. But why didn't you control yourself?”

“I took the part of a woman, Miss Nadzieja. You know, there is such a custom with us.”

And she looked me in the eyes so piercingly that it made me feel cold. How could this child have learned to read hearts, what had given her such strength?

“This woman, believe me, could have endured it. If you are exiled this woman will pay too high a price for the pleasure you received in venting your feelings on some vulgar fool.”

“I'll return, don't worry. And Ryhor will guard your peace during my absence.”

Without saying a word, she closed her eyes. After a while she said:

“Ah! You haven't understood anything… As if it is this defence that matters. You should not go to the district town. Stay here for another day or two, and then leave Marsh Firs forever.”

Her hands, their fingers trembling, lay on my sleeve.

“Do you hear, I beg you, beg you very sincerely.”

I was too much taken up with my own thoughts and therefore didn't quite grasp the meaning of her words, and said:

“At the end of the letter to Śvieciłovič the signature is ‘Likol’. Is there any such gentleman here in this region whose given name or surname begins like that?”

Her face immediately darkened as the day darkens when the sun disappears.

“No,” she answered, her voice trembling as if offended. “Unless it's Likolovich… This is the second part of the surname of the Kulšas.”

“Well, it can hardly be that,” I answered indifferently.

And having looked at her attentively, only then did I realize what a brute I was. From under her palms with which she had covered her eyes, I saw a heavy, superhuman lonely tear rolling out and creeping down, a tear that would break down a man in despair, not to speak of a young girl, almost a child.

I am always at a loss and become a cry-baby on seeing women's or children's tears, while this tear was such a tear, God forbid anyone should see in his life, the tear in addition of a woman for whose sake I'd willingly be turned into ashes, be smashed into pieces, if that would help to stave off sadness from her.

“Miss Nadzieja, what's the matter?” I muttered, and involuntarily my lips formed into a smile, the like of which one can see on the face of an idiot attending a funeral.

“Nothing,” she answered almost calmly. “It's simply that I shall never be… a real person. I am crying for Śvieciłovič, for you, for myself. It's not even for him that I am crying, but for his ruined youth, — I understand that well! — for the happiness predestined for us, the sincerity we lack. The best, the most worthy are destroyed. Remember how once you said: ‘We have no princes, no leaders and prophets, and like leaves are we tossed about on this sinful earth.’ We must not hope for anything better, lonely are the heart and the soul, and nobody responds to their call. And life burns out.”

She stood up, with a convulsive movement broke a twig that she was holding in her hands.

“Farewell, my dear Mr. Biełarecki. Perhaps we shall not see each other any more. But to the end of my life I shall be grateful to you… And this is all.”

And here something broke within me. Without realizing it, I blurted out, repeating Śvieciłovič's words:

“Let them kill me — and as a dead man I shall drag myself here!”

She did not answer me, she only touched my hand, silently looked me in the eyes and left.

Chapter The Fourteenth