Part 9

Valek, who was very serious, and whose grown-up ways inspired me with respect, would quietly accept these gifts and generally put them aside for his sister, but Marusia would clap her hands and her eyes would sparkle with unaffected pleasure. The child’s pale cheeks would glow with rosy colour and she would laugh, and this laugh of our little friend’s always went straight to our hearts and rewarded us for the sweets we had sacrificed for her sake.

This pale, diminutive little creature reminded one of a flower that had blossomed without seeing the life-giving rays of the sun. Although she was four years old, she still walked weakly on her crooked little legs, swaying like a grass-blade as she moved. Her hands were transparent and thin, and her head nodded on her neck like a bluebell on its stalk, but her glance was, at times, so unchildlike and sad, and her smile reminded me so of my mother’s during her last days as she had sat at her open window with the breeze stirring her hair, that I would often grow sad myself at the sight of her little babyish face, and the tears would rise in my eyes.

I could not help comparing her to my sister who was the same age; the latter was as round as a dumpling and as buoyant as a rubber ball. Sonia ran so merrily when she was playing and laughed so ringingly, she wore such pretty dresses, and every day her nurse would braid a crimson ribbon into her dark hair.

But my little friend hardly ever ran and very seldom laughed; when she did her laughter sounded like the tiniest of silver bells that ten steps away is scarcely audible. Her dress was dirty and old, no ribbon decked her hair, which was much longer and thicker than Sonia’s. To my surprise, Valek knew how to braid it very cleverly, and this he would do every morning.

I was a great madcap. People used to say of me: “That boy’s hands and feet are full of quicksilver.” I believed this myself, although I could not understand how and by whom the quicksilver could have been inserted. During the first days of our friendship I brought my high spirits into the company of my new companions, and I doubt if the echoes of the old chapel had ever repeated such deafening shrieks as they did whilst I was trying to rouse and amuse Valek and Marusia with my pranks. But in spite of them all I did not succeed. Valek would gaze seriously first at me and then at the little girl, and once when I was making her run a race with me, he said:

“Don’t do that, you’ll make her cry.”

And in fact, when I had teased Marusia into running, and when she heard my steps behind her, she suddenly turned round, raised her arms above her head as if to protect herself, looked at me with the helpless eyes of a trapped bird, and burst into tears. I was touched to the quick.

“There, you see,” said Valek. “She doesn’t like to play.”

He seated her on the grass and began picking flowers and tossing them to her. She stopped crying and began quietly to pick up the blossoms, whispering something to the golden butter-cups and raising the blue-bells to her lips. I grew quiet too, and lay down beside Valek and the little girl.

“Why is she like that?” I finally asked, motioning with my eyes toward Marusia.

“Why is she so quiet, you mean?” asked Valek. And then in a tone of absolute conviction, he continued: “You see, it is the grey stone.”

“Yes,” the child repeated like a feeble echo. “It is the grey stone.”

“Which grey stone?” I asked, not understanding what they meant.

“The grey stone has sucked her life away,” Valek explained, gazing at the sky as before. “Tiburtsi says so. Tiburtsi knows.”

“Yes,” the child once more echoed softly. “Tiburtsi knows everything.”

I understood nothing of the puzzling words which Valek had repeated after Tiburtsi, but the argument that Tiburtsi knew everything had its effect on me. I raised myself on one elbow and looked at Marusia. She was sitting in the same position in which Valek had placed her, and was still picking up the scattered flowers. The movements of her thin hands were slow, her eyes were like blue bruises in her pale face, and her long lashes were downcast. As I looked at that wee, pathetic figure I realised that in Tiburtsi’s words, although I could not understand them, there lay a bitter truth. Something was surely sucking away the life of this strange child that wept when other children would have laughed. But how could a grey stone do this thing?

There was a riddle more dreadful to me than all the ghosts in the old castle. Let the Turks pining under ground be never so terrible and the old count never so cruel, they all smacked of the fantastic horror of ancient legends. But here was something incredibly dreadful taking place under my very eyes. Something formless, pitiless, cruel, and heavy as a stone was hanging over this little being’s head, draining the colour from her cheeks, the brightness from her eyes, and the life out of her limbs. “It must be done at night,” I thought, and something wrung my heart until it ached.

I, too, subdued my boisterous ways under the influence of this feeling. Suiting our actions to our little lady’s quiet gravity, Valek and I would put her down somewhere upon the grass and collect flowers and little bright-hued pebbles for her, or else we would catch butterflies, or make her sparrow traps of bricks. Sometimes, stretched beside her on the grass, we would lie gazing at the sky and, as we watched the clouds sailing high above the chapel’s crumbling roof, we would tell Marusia stories or talk with one another.

These conversations cemented the friendship between Valek and me more firmly every day, and it grew steadily in spite of the sharp contrast that our characters presented. He opposed a sorrowful gravity to my impulsive high spirits and won my respect by the masterly, independent way in which he spoke of grown-up people. He also told me much that was new to me, things of which I had never thought before. Noticing that he spoke of Tiburtsi as of a comrade I asked:

“Is Tiburtsi your father?”

“He must be,” he answered thoughtfully, as if the question had never before occurred to him.

“Does he love you?”

“Yes,” he answered much more decidedly this time. “He is always doing things for me, and sometimes, you know, he kisses me and cries.”

“He loves me and cries too!” Marusia chimed in, with a look of childish pride.

“My father doesn’t love me,” I said sadly. “He never kisses me. He is a horrid man.”

“No, no,” Valek objected. “You don’t understand. Tiburtsi says he isn’t. He says the Judge is the best man in the town, and that the town would have been ruined long ago if it had not been for your father and the Priest who has just gone into a monastery, and the Jewish Rabbi. Those three--”

“What have those three done?”

“The town hasn’t been ruined because they were there, so Tiburtsi says, because they look after the poor people. Your father, you know, once sentenced a count to punishment.”

“Yes, that’s so. The count was very angry.”

“There, you see! It’s no joke to sentence a count.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Valek repeated. “Because a count isn’t an ordinary person. A count does what he pleases and drives in a coach, and then _that_ count had money. He would have given money to any other judge, and the judge would have let him go and condemned a poor man.”

“Yes, that’s true. I heard the count shouting in our house: ‘I can buy and sell every one of you!’”

“And what did the Judge say?”

“My father said: ‘Get out of my sight!’”

“There, now, you see! And Tiburtsi says he isn’t afraid to drive a rich man away, but when old Ivanovna came to him with her rheumatism he had a chair brought for her. He’s like that! Even Turkevich has never raised a rumpus under his windows.”

That was true; when he was on his denunciatory expeditions Turkevich always passed by our windows in silence, and sometimes even took off his cap.

All this set me thinking deeply. Valek was showing me my father in a light in which I had never before seen him, and the boy’s words touched chords of filial pride in my heart. I was pleased to hear these praises of my father coming from Tiburtsi who “knew everything,” but there still quivered in my breast, with a pang of aching love, the bitter certainty that this man never could and never would love me as Tiburtsi loved his children.

VI

AMONG THE “GREY STONES”

Several days passed. The “bad company” ceased to appear in town, and I wandered through the streets in vain, feeling sad and lonely, waiting for them to return so that I might hasten to the hill.

Only the Professor came down once with his sleepy walk; neither Tiburtsi nor Turkevich appeared. I was thoroughly unhappy, for not to see Valek and Marusia had come to be a great loss to me. But one day as I was walking down the street with hanging head Valek suddenly laid his hand upon my shoulder.

“Why don’t you come to see us any more?” he asked.

“I’m afraid to--I haven’t seen your people in town.”

“O--oh--and I never thought of telling you! Our people aren’t at home; you can come. And I thought it was something else!”

“What?”

“I thought you were tired of coming.”

“No, no! I’m coming at once; I even have the apples here with me.”

At mention of the apples Valek suddenly turned toward me as if he wanted to say something, but nothing came, and he only gave me an odd look.

“No matter, no matter,” he dismissed the question, seeing that I was looking expectantly at him. “Go along up the hill; I have something to do; I’ll catch you up on the way.”

I walked along, glancing back frequently, expecting to be overtaken by Valek, but I had climbed the hill and reached the chapel before he had appeared. I stopped in doubt as to what I ought to do. Before me lay the graveyard, desolate and hushed, without the faintest sign of human habitation. Only sparrows were twittering in the sunshine, and a thicket of wild cherry trees, honeysuckle, and lilac bushes that nestled close up under the southern wall of the chapel was softly whispering something with its dark, dense foliage.

I looked about. Where should I go next? Clearly, the only thing to do was to wait for Valek. So I began to wander among the graves, idly trying to decipher the epitaphs on the mossy tombstones. As I was roaming thus from grave to grave, I suddenly stumbled upon a large, half-ruined vault. The roof of this vault had been taken off or else had been torn away by storms, and was lying close at hand. The door was boarded up. Out of curiosity I propped an old cross against the wall, climbed up, and peered into the vault. It was empty, but a window with glass panes had been let into the centre of the floor, and under these panes there gaped the black void of a subterranean chamber.

While I was looking into this tomb and marvelling at the strange situation of the window, Valek came running, panting and tired, to the top of the hill. He was carrying a large loaf of Jewish bread in his arms, something was sticking out from under his coat, and the perspiration was streaming down his face.

“Oh!” he cried at sight of me. “There you are! If Tiburtsi should find you here, how angry he would be! But it’s too late to do anything now. I know you’re all right and won’t tell any one where we live. Let’s go in!”

“Go in where? Is it far?”

“You’ll see. Follow me.”

He pushed aside the twigs of the honeysuckle and lilac bushes and disappeared into the thicket beneath the chapel wall. I followed him, and found myself on a small trampled patch of earth which had been entirely concealed from me before by foliage. Between the stems of the cherry trees I saw a fairly large opening from which a flight of earthen steps led downward. Valek started down, bidding me follow him, and in a few seconds we found ourselves in darkness underground. Valek took my hand and led me through a narrow, damp passage, until, turning sharply to the right, we emerged into a spacious crypt.

I stopped at the entrance, amazed at this unexpected sight. Two beams of light fell sharply from overhead, painting two luminous bands across the darkness of the crypt. This light came from a couple of windows, one of which I had seen in the floor of the vault, and another, which lay beyond and which had evidently been constructed in the same way as the first. The rays of the sun did not fall directly upon these windows, but were reflected into them from the walls of the two old vaults. This light was diffused in the grey air underground, and fell upon the flag-stone floor, from which it was reflected once more, filling the crypt with a dusky shimmer. The walls were also of stone, and massive, thick columns, rising ponderously from the floor, spread their stone arches in all directions and at last firmly clasped the vaulted roof above.

Two figures were sitting in a patch of light on the floor. The old Professor, with bowed head and muttering something to himself, was cobbling his rags together with a needle. He did not even look up as we entered the crypt, and had it not been for the slight movement of his hands, his grey figure might easily have been mistaken for some grotesque piece of stone carving.

Under the other window sat Marusia by a little heap of flowers, sorting them over, as her custom was. A beam of light fell on her fair curls, bathing her in radiance from head to foot, but in spite of this she stood out a strange little misty speck against the grey stone background, looking as if she might melt and vanish at any moment. Whenever a cloud passed over the earth, dimming the sun’s brightness, this background seemed to slip away and disappear, swallowed up in darkness, but when the sun shone out anew, the cold, cruel stones stood out once more, clasping each other above the tiny figure of the child in an indissoluble embrace. I involuntarily remembered Valek’s saying about the “grey stone” that was draining Marusia’s merriment away, and a feeling of superstitious fear came stealing into my heart. I seemed to be aware of an invisible but terrible stony stare directed at her, rapacious and intent; I felt that the crypt was keenly eyeing its prey.

“Valek!” lisped Marusia gaily, as she caught sight of her brother. When she saw me with him a faint light shone in her eyes.

I gave her the apples I had brought, and Valek, breaking the loaf in two, gave her a piece and handed the rest to the Professor. That unhappy man of learning accepted the gift indifferently, and began munching without tearing himself away from his occupation. I shivered and moved uneasily, stifled, as it were, by the oppressive “stare” of those grey stones.

“Come! Come away from here----” I insisted, plucking at Valek’s sleeve. “Take her away!”

“Come, Marusia, let’s go upstairs,” Valek called to his sister.

And the three of us climbed up out of the crypt, but even out of doors I felt a sense of restlessness and strain. Valek was sadder and more silent than usual.

“Did you stay in town to buy that bread?” I asked.

“To buy it?” laughed Valek. “Where would I find the money?”

“How did you get it then? Did you ask for it?”

“Yes, that’s likely! Who would give it to me? No, brother, I nabbed it from Sarah the Jewess’ bread-tray at the bazaar. She didn’t see me.”

He said this in a matter-of-fact voice, sprawling on the grass with his hands under his head. I raised myself on my elbow and stared at him.

“So you stole it?”

“Yes, I did.”

I threw myself back on the grass and we lay for a minute in silence.

“It’s wicked to steal!” I burst out, full of the saddest perplexity.

“Our people were all away. Marusia was crying because she was hungry.”

“Yes, I was hungry,” repeated the child with pitiful simplicity.

I had not yet discovered what hunger was, but at the little one’s last words my breast heaved and I stared at my friends as if I were seeing them for the first time. Valek was lying on the grass as before, pensively watching a soaring sparrow-hawk, but he now no longer looked impressive. At the sight of Marusia holding her piece of bread in both hands my heart absolutely stopped beating.

“Why”--I asked with an effort--“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I wanted to tell you, and then I changed my mind. You have no money of your own.”

“Well, what difference does that make? I should have brought a loaf from home.”

“What, on the sly?”

“Yes-es----”

“Then you would have stolen it too.”

“I--it would have been from my father.”

“That’s worse!” said Valek decidedly. “I never rob my father.”

“Well, then, I should have asked for it. He would have given it to me.”

“Oh, he might have given it to you once--but how could he provide for all the beggars in town?”

“Are you--beggars?” I asked in a low voice.

“Yes, we are beggars,” answered Valek bluntly and gruffly.

I said nothing, and in a few minutes I rose to go.

“Are you going away already?” asked Valek.

“Yes.”

I was going because I could not, that day, play tranquilly with my friends as before. The pure, childish affection I had felt for them was sullied. Although the love I bore Valek and Marusia was not diminished, there was now mingled with it a sharp current of pity that turned it to a burning heartache. On reaching home I went to bed early because I did not know where to lay this new feeling of pain with which my whole soul was burning. I buried my head under my pillow and wept bitterly until kindly sleep at last came with her soft breath to blow away my grief.

VII

TIBURTSI APPEARS ON THE SCENE

“Good morning! I thought you weren’t coming back any more!” this was Valek’s greeting to me when I appeared on the hill next day.

I understood why he had said this.

“No, I--I shall always come here,” I answered firmly, to put an end to that question forever.

Valek’s spirits rose perceptibly at this answer and we both felt more at ease.

“Well, and where are your people?” I asked. “Haven’t they come back yet?”

“Not yet. The Lord knows what has become of them.”

We went gaily to work to manufacture a cunning sparrow trap for which I had brought the string. This string we put into Marusia’s hand, and whenever a thoughtless sparrow came hopping carelessly into the snare, Marusia would pull the string, and the cover would slam down over the bird, which we would afterwards release.

Meanwhile, at noon, the sky had grown overcast. Dark clouds soon came rolling up, and we could hear the storm roaring between merry claps of thunder. I was very unwilling, at first, to go down into the crypt, but remembering that Valek and Marusia lived there always I overcame the unpleasant sensation, and went with them. All was dark and quiet there, but we could hear the muffled din of the thunder overhead rumbling exactly as if some one were driving an enormous wagon over a monstrous bridge. I soon grew more accustomed to the crypt, and we stood listening happily to the broad sheets of rain descending upon the earth, while the roar and crash of the incessant thunder-claps keyed up our nerves and woke in us an animation that demanded an outlet.

“Come, let’s play blind-man’s buff!” I suggested.

They tied a bandage over my eyes. Marusia’s pitiful little laughter rang out as her languid feet stumbled across the stone floor, while I ran in pursuit, until I suddenly found myself bending over a wet form, and at the same moment felt some one seize my leg. A powerful arm raised me off the floor and held me upside down in the air. The bandage fell from my eyes.

Tiburtsi, angry and wet and more terrible than ever from being seen upside down, was holding me by the leg and wildly rolling his eyes.

“What is this, hey?” he asked sternly, glaring at Valek. “So you are passing the time gaily here! You have pleasant company, I see.”

“Let me go!” I cried, surprised that I was able to speak at all in such an unusual position, but Tiburtsi only held my leg the tighter.

“_Responde!_ Answer!” he sternly commanded Valek, who was standing under these difficult circumstances with two fingers thrust into his mouth, as if to proclaim that he had absolutely nothing to say.

I could see, though, that he was watching my unhappy person swinging in space like a pendulum with sympathetic eyes and a great deal of compassion.

Tiburtsi raised me and looked into my face.

“Aha, this is little master Judge unless my eyes deceive me! Why does his honour favour us with a visit?”

“Let me go!” I cried stubbornly. “Let me go at once!”

And at this I instinctively made a movement as if I were stamping my foot on the ground, but the only result was the quivering of my body in mid-air.

Tiburtsi roared with laughter.

“Ha, ha, ha! My Lord the Judge is pleased to be annoyed! But come, you don’t know me yet. _Ego Tiburtsi sum._ And I am going to hold you over a fire, like this, and roast you like a little pig.”

I began to think that this would inevitably be my fate, especially as Valek’s despairing face seemed to foretell the possibility of such a sad ending, but fortunately Marusia came to my rescue.

“Don’t be frightened, Vasia! Don’t be frightened!” she admonished me, going right up to Tiburtsi’s legs. “He never roasts little boys over a fire. That isn’t true!”

Tiburtsi turned me right side up with a swift movement, and set me on my feet; at this I nearly fell down, for my head was swimming, but he supported me with his hand and then, sitting down on a log, stood me between his knees.

“And how did you get here?” he asked. “Have you been coming here long? You tell me!” he commanded, turning to Valek when he saw that I would not answer.

“A long time,” answered the boy.

“How long?”

“Six days.”

This answer seemed to please Tiburtsi.

“Aha, six days!” he said, turning me round so that I faced him. “Six days is a long time. And have you babbled to any one yet where you have been?”

“No, not to any one.”

“Is that true?”

“Not to any one.”

“_Bene_, that is excellent. The chances are that you will not henceforth babble. I always did think you were a decent little fellow from meeting you on the street. You’re a real little guttersnipe, even if you are a judge. Have you come here to try us, eh?”

He spoke kindly enough, but my feelings were deeply hurt, therefore I answered crossly:

“I’m not a judge. I’m Vasia.”

“The one doesn’t interfere with the other, and Vasia can be a judge too--not now, but later on. It’s an old story. For instance, I am Tiburtsi, he is Valek; I am a beggar, he is a beggar. In fact, to speak frankly, I steal and he will steal too. Your father tries me now; very well then, some day you will try Valek. There you have it!”

“I shan’t try Valek,” I answered gloomily. “That isn’t true.”

“He won’t try Valek,” Marusia spoke up for me, confidently dismissing such an atrocious supposition.

The little girl nestled confidingly against the legs of this monster, and he tenderly stroked her curls with his sinewy hand.

“Don’t say that too soon,” said the strange fellow pensively, turning to me and speaking as if I were a grown man. “Don’t say that, _amice_! It’s an old story; every man to his own, _suum cuique_; every one must go his own way, and who knows, perhaps it’s a good thing that your path has crossed ours. It’s a good thing for you, _amice_, because it’s a good thing to have a human heart in one’s breast and not a cold stone--do you understand?”

I understood nothing, but nevertheless I fixed my gaze on this queer person’s face. Tiburtsi’s eyes were looking deeply into mine, and there gleamed dimly in them something that seemed to pierce into my very soul.