King Stakh's Wild Hunt

I am a healthy man. And I had not yet known then that something similar sometimes happens to nervous people with a very keen perception. The connection between primary conceptions, and subsequent notions is somehow disturbed in the memory, and things very much alike seem identical to them; in objects entirely unknown to them they reveal something long known to them. Whereas the consciousness — ever a realist — resists this. And so it happens that an object is simultaneously unfamiliar and mysteriously familiar.

I repeat I had not known that. And even so it never for a moment entered my head that this girl could tell a lie, such sincerity and indifference were felt in her words.

“I have seen you,” she repeated. “But who are you? I do not know you.”

“My name is Andrej Biełarecki, Miss Janoŭskaja. I am an ethnographer.”

She wasn't at all surprised. On the contrary, on learning that she knew this word, it was I who was surprised.

“Well, that is very curious. And what interests you? Songs? Sayings? Proverbs?”

“Legends, Miss Janoŭskaja, old local legends.”

I got terribly frightened. It was no laughing matter: she suddenly straightened up as if an electric current had been passed through her, torturing her. Her face became pale, her eyelids closed.

I rushed over to her, supported her head, and put a glass of water to her lips, but she had already come to. And her eyes sparkled with such indignation, with such an inexplicable reproach in them, that I felt as if I were the worst scoundrel on earth, although I had not the faintest idea why I should not speak about my profession. A vague idea flashed through my mind that something was connected with the old rule: “never speak of woe in the house whose master has been hanged.”

In a broken voice she said:

“And you… And you, too… why do you torture me, why does everybody?…”

“My dear lady! Upon my word of honour, I had nothing harmful in mind, I don't know anything… Look, here is my certificate from the Academy. Here is a letter from the governor. I've never been here before. Please forgive me, for heaven's sake, if I have caused you any pain.”

“Never mind,” she said. “Never mind, calm yourself, Mr. Biełarecki… It's simply that I hate what savages can create in the minds of savages. Perhaps you, too, will some day understand what it is… this gloom. Whereas I understood what it is long ago. But I'll be dead long before everything will have become clear to me.”

I realized it would be tactless to question her any further, and I kept silent. It was only after a while, when she had calmed down that I said:.

“I beg your pardon for having disturbed you, Miss Janoŭskaja, I see that I have immediately become an unpleasant person for you. When must I leave? It seems to me the sooner the better.”

Again that distorted face!

“Ah! As if that were the trouble! Don't leave us. You will offend me deeply if you leave now. And besides,” her voice began to tremble, “what would you say if I asked you to remain here, in this house, for at least two or three weeks? Until the time when the dark autumn nights are over?”

Her look began to wander. On her lips a pitiful smile appeared.

“Afterwards there will be snow… And footprints in the snow. Of course, you will do as you see fit. However, it would be unpleasant for me were it to be said of the last of the Janoŭskis that she had forgotten the custom of hospitality.”

She said “the last of the Janoŭskis” in such a way, this eighteen-year-old girl, that my heart was wrung with pain.

“Well then,” she continued, “if this awful stuff interests you, how can I possibly object? Some people collect snakes. We here have more spectres and ghosts than living people. Peasants, shaken with fever, tell amazing and fearful stories. They live on potatoes, bread made of grasses, porridge without butter, and on fantasy. You mustn't sleep in their huts: it's dirty there and congested, and all is evilly neglected. Go about the neighbouring farmsteads, there for money that will go to buy bread or vodka, warming up for a moment the blood that is everlastingly cold from malaria, they will tell you everything. And in the evening return here. Dinner will be ready, awaiting you here, and a place to sleep in, and a fire in the fireplace. Remember this — I am the mistress here, and the peasants obey me. Agreed?”

By this time I was already quite certain that nobody obeyed this child, nobody was afraid of her, and nobody depended on her. Perhaps, had it been anybody else, I might have smiled into her eyes, but in this “command” of hers there was so much entreaty that I did not yet quite understand, and I said with my eyes lowered:

“Alright. I agree to your wish.”

She did not notice the ironic gleam in my eyes and for a moment even blushed, apparent-ly because somebody had obeyed her.