The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

All this got done somehow. Roska and I were washed in a brook that ran just at the edge of Selivan’s forest, and when my eyes opened, the world seemed very unsightly to me. The girls’ pink dresses and my new blue cashmere jacket were good for nothing: the dirt and egg that covered them ruined them completely and couldn’t be washed off without soap, which we had not brought with us. The pot and the skillet were cracked, the trivet’s legs were broken off and lay about, and all that was left of Apollinary’s guitar was the neck with strings twined around it. The bread and other dry goods were covered with mud. At the very least, we were threatened with a whole day of hunger, to say nothing of the other horrors that could be felt in everything around us. The wind whistled over the stream in the valley, and the black forest, not yet covered with green, rustled and ominously waved its branches at us.

Our spirits sank considerably—especially in Roska, who was cold and wept. But still we decided to enter Selivan’s kingdom, and let come what might.

In any case, the same adventure could not repeat itself without some sort of change.

X

We all crossed ourselves and began to enter the forest. We entered timidly and hesitantly, but each of us concealed his timidity from the others. We all simply agreed to call out to each other as often as we could. However, there was no great need for that, because nobody went very far in, and, as if by chance, we all kept crowding towards the edge and strung ourselves out along it. Only Apollinary proved braver than the rest and went a little further into the depths; he was concerned with finding the most remote and frightening spot, where his declaiming could produce the most terrible impression on the listening girls. But Apollinary had no sooner disappeared from sight than the forest resounded with his piercing, frenzied cry. No one could imagine what danger Apollinary had met with, but everybody abandoned him and ran headlong out of the forest to the clearing, and then, without looking back, ran further down the road home. All the Annushkas fled, and all the Moskas, and after them, still crying out from fear, sped our pedagogue himself; and my little brother and I were left alone.

There was no one left of all our company: not only the people, but even the horse, following the inhuman example of the people, abandoned us. Frightened by their cries, it tossed its head and, turning away from the forest, raced home, scattering over the potholes and bumps whatever was still left in the cart.

This was not a retreat, it was a full and most shameful rout, because it was accompanied by the loss not only of the train, but of all good sense, and we children were thrown on the mercy of fate.

God knows what we would have to endure in our helplessly orphaned condition, which was the more dangerous because we couldn’t find the way home by ourselves, and our footgear consisted of soft goatskin boots with thin soles, not at all convenient for walking three miles over sodden paths, on which there were still cold puddles in many places. To complete the disaster, before my brother and I had time to fully realize all the horror of our situation, something rumbled through the forest and then a breath of cold dampness blew from the direction of the stream.

We looked across the hollow and saw, racing through the sky from the direction where our road lay and where our retinue had shamefully fled, a huge cloud laden with spring rain and the first spring thunder, when young girls wash themselves from silver spoons, so as to become whiter than silver themselves.

Seeing myself in this desperate situation, I was ready to burst into tears, and my little brother was already crying. He was all blue and trembling from fear and cold, and, with his head bent under a little bush, was fervently praying to God.

It seems God heeded his childish prayer and invisible salvation was sent to us. At the same moment when the thunder rumbled and we were losing our last courage, we heard a crunching in the forest behind the bushes, and from the thick branches of a tall hazel the broad face of a muzhik unknown to us peeked out. That face seemed so frightening that we cried out and rushed headlong towards the stream.

Beside ourselves, we crossed the hollow, tumbled down the wet, crumbling bank, and straightaway found ourselves up to the waist in the turbid water, our legs sunk knee-deep in mire.

It was impossible to run any further. The stream further on was too deep for our small size; we couldn’t hope to cross it, and, besides, zigzags of lightning were now flashing terribly on its water—they quivered and meandered like fiery serpents, as if hiding among last year’s reeds.