The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

They all thought only of what fun it would be to wander about in the forest, where everybody was afraid to go, but they were not. They reflected on how we would go through the whole dangerous forest, hallooing and calling to each other, and leaping over holes and gullies where the last snow was crumbling away, and never thought whether all this would be approved of when our higher authorities returned. On the other hand, however, we did have in mind making two big bouquets of the best lily of the valley for mama’s dressing table, and using the rest to make a fragrant extract, which would serve for the whole coming summer as an excellent lotion against sunburn.

IX

The impatiently awaited Sunday came, we left Dementievna, the headman’s wife, to look after the house, and set out for Selivan’s forest. The whole public went on foot, keeping to the raised shoulders, which were already dry and where the first emerald-green grass was sprouting, while the train, which consisted of a cart hitched to an old dun horse, followed on the road. In the cart lay Apollinary’s guitar and the girls’ jackets, taken along in case of bad weather. I was the driver, and behind me, in the quality of passengers, sat Roska and the other little girls, one of whom carefully cradled a bag of eggs on her knees, while the other had general charge of various objects, but mainly supported with her hand my huge dagger, which I had slung over my shoulder on an old hussar cord from my uncle’s saber, and which dangled from side to side, interfering considerably with my movements and distracting my attention from guiding the horse.

The girls, walking along the shoulder, sang: “I plough the field, I sow the hemp,” and the rhetorician doubled them in the bass. Some muzhiks we met on the way bowed and asked:

“What’s up?”

The Annushkas replied:

“We’re going to take Selivan prisoner.”

The muzhiks wagged their heads and said:

“Besotted fools!”

We were indeed in some sort of daze, overcome by an irrepressible, half-childish need to run, sing, laugh, and do everything recklessly.

But meanwhile an hour’s driving on a bad road began to have an adverse effect on me—I was sick of the old horse, and the eagerness to hold the rope reins in my hands had gone cold in me; but nearby, on the horizon, Selivan’s forest showed blue, and everything livened up again. My heart pounded and ached as Varus’s had when he entered the forest of Teutoburg.⁷ And just then a hare leaped out from under the melting snow on the shoulder and, crossing the road, took off over the field.

“Phooey on you!” the Annushkas shouted after him.

They all knew that meeting a hare never portends anything good. I also turned coward and seized my dagger, but, in the effort of drawing it from the rusty scabbard, I didn’t notice that I had let go of the reins, and I quite unexpectedly found myself under the overturned cart, which the horse, who pulled towards the shoulder to get some grass, turned over in the most proper fashion, so that all four wheels were up, and Roska and I and all our provisions were underneath.

This misfortune befell us in a moment, but its consequences were countless: Apollinary’s guitar was smashed to bits, and the broken eggs ran down and plastered our eyes with their sticky content. What’s more, Roska was howling.

I was utterly overwhelmed and abashed, and so much at a loss that I even wished they would rather not free us at all, but I already heard the voices of all the Annushkas, who, while working to free us, explained the reason for our fall very much to my advantage. Neither I nor the horse was the reason: it was all Selivan’s doing.

This was his first ruse to keep us from coming to his forest, but it didn’t frighten anyone very much; on the contrary, it filled us all with great indignation and increased our resolve to carry out at all costs the whole program we had conceived.

It was only necessary to lift the cart and turn it right side up, wash off the unpleasant egg slime in some brook, and see what remained after the catastrophe of the things we had brought as the day’s provisions for our numerous group.