Part 4

At last she gained confidence to enter into an open contest; and one evening a strange combat went on between the manor and the stable. From the shaded barn with its overhanging thatch, gently quivering, came the trills of the pipe, while advancing to the encounter from the open windows of the mansion, glittering in the moonlight through the leaves of the beech-trees, echoed the full ringing chords of the piano. At first neither the boy nor Joachim, prejudiced as they were, deigned to pay any attention to the “learned” music of the mansion. The boy even frowned when Joachim paused, and impatiently urged him on, saying,—

“Come, play! Go on playing!”

Three days had not gone by when these pauses grew more and more frequent. Joachim often laid his pipe aside to listen, and the boy, forgetting to urge his friend, listened also. Finally Joachim said in a dreamy sort of way, “That is fine! Listen! that is a fine thing!” And then in his dreamy, absent-minded way he took the boy in his arms and carried him through the garden to the open window of the drawing-room.

Joachim supposed that the “gracious Pani” was playing for her own amusement, and would take no notice of them. But Anna Michàilovna had become aware that her rival, the pipe, had been silenced; she realized her victory, and her heart beat with pride and joy. Moreover, her displeasure with Joachim had entirely vanished. She knew that she owed her present happiness to him,—he had shown her how to regain the devotion of her child; and if her boy were now to receive from her new and valuable impressions, they would both owe a debt of gratitude to their teacher, the peasant piper.

IX.

The ice was broken. On the following day the boy with timid curiosity came into the drawing-room, where he had not been since the new city guest—that angry, loud-voiced creature—had taken possession of the room. But yesterday he heard the guest sing a song that pleased his ear, and gave him cause to change his opinion of the instrument. With the last lingering traces of his former timidity he drew near the spot where the piano stood, and stopping at a short distance from it, he listened. There was no one in the drawing-room. His mother sat on a sofa in the adjoining room, sewing; she held her breath as she watched him, admiring every movement, every change of expression on his sensitive face.

Putting out his hand, the blind boy touched the polished surface of the piano; then overcome by bashfulness, he immediately withdrew it. Having twice repeated this experiment he drew nearer, and began a careful examination of the instrument, stooping to the floor to pass his hand over the legs, and feeling his way as far around its sides as he could go. At last his hand touched the smooth key-board: the soft reverberation of the string vibrated uncertainly on the air. The boy listened to this vibration long after it had ceased to be audible to his mother; then with a look of intense interest he touched another key. Presently, as he drew his hand along the key-board, he happened to touch a note of the upper register; then he touched every note, one after the other, and paused to listen as they vibrated in trembling cadence and were lost in the air. The face of the blind boy wore an expression of mingled attention and delight; he evidently enjoyed every separate tone, and by this sensitive observation of each elementary sound as component parts of melodies yet unborn, the future artist might be divined.

But it seemed as if each note possessed for the blind boy an attribute peculiar to itself. When beneath the pressure of his finger a brilliant note of the upper register rang out, a glow would come upon his face, uplifted as if to follow the ringing note in its upward flight; but when he touched a deep bass-note, he stooped to listen,—seeming to feel sure that the heavy note must be rolling along the ground, scattering itself all over the floor, to be finally lost in the corners.

X.

Uncle Maxim simply tolerated all these musical experiments. Strange though it may seem, the inclinations which had so unmistakably manifested themselves in the boy excited mingled emotions in the breast of the old soldier. On the one hand, this intense passion for music indicated the boy’s inherent musical talent, and foreshadowed a possible career; but in spite of this, a vague sense of disappointment filled Uncle Maxim’s heart.

“It cannot be denied,” thus ran Maxim’s thoughts, “that music is a power by which a man may sway the hearts of the multitude. He, the blind man, will attract dandies and fashionable women by the hundreds, will play a valse or a nocturne,”—here Uncle Maxim’s musical vocabulary came suddenly to an end,—“and they will wipe away their tears with their delicate handkerchiefs. Ah, the deuce take it! that is not what I could have wished for him. But what’s to be done about it? The fellow is blind; he must do what he can with his life. But if it had only been singing! A song speaks not alone to the fastidious ear,—it excites fancies, arouses thoughts in the mind, and kindles courage in the heart.”

“Look here, Joachim,” Uncle Maxim said one evening, as he followed the blind boy into the stable, “do for once stop that whistling! It might do well enough for a street urchin, or for the shepherd boy in the field; but you are a grown-up peasant, although that silly Màrya has made a calf of you. Fie! I am really ashamed of you! The lass proved hard-hearted, and that has made you so soft that you whistle like a quail caught in a net.”

As he listened in the darkness to this sharp tirade from the Pan, Joachim smiled at his unnecessary indignation. But he did feel somewhat wounded by his allusion to the street urchin and the shepherd boy, and replied,—

“Don’t say that, Pan! Not a shepherd in the Ukraine has a pipe like that, let alone the shepherd boy. Theirs are nothing but whistles; but mine—just listen!” He closed all the openings with his fingers, and struck the two notes of the octave, drinking in as he did so the fullness of the tones.

Maxim spat. “The Lord have mercy on us, the lad has lost his wits! What do I care for your pipe? They are all alike, both pipes and women, with your Màrya into the bargain! You had better sing us a song, if you know how,—a good song of our fathers’ or grandfathers’.”

Maxim Yatzènko, a Little Russian himself, was simple and unassuming in his manners toward peasants and servants. Although he often scolded and shouted at them, he never hurt any man’s feelings; and while his inferiors were on familiar terms with him, they never failed to treat him with respect. Hence to the Pan’s request, Joachim replied,—

“Why not? I used to sing as well as the next man. But, Pan, do you think our peasant songs are likely to please you?” he asked, slightly sarcastic.

“Eh, what nonsense, fellow!” replied Maxim. “A pipe cannot be compared with a good song, if only a man can sing well. Let us listen to Joachim’s song, Petrùsya. But only you may not understand it, my boy.”

“Is it to be a peasant’s song?” inquired the boy. “I understand their language.”

Maxim heaved a sigh. “Ah, my dear boy, these are not slave songs; they are the songs of a strong and free people. Your mother’s ancestors sang them on the steppes of the Dnièper, the Danube, and the Black Sea. Well, you will understand them sooner or later, but just now I am anxious about something else.”

In point of fact, what Maxim really feared was that the picturesque language of the folk-songs would not appeal to the vaguely obscure mind of the child; he felt that the animated music of epic song must be interpreted to the heart by familiar images. He forgot that the old bards, the singers and bandur-players of the Ukraine, were for the most part blind men, who had been driven by misfortune or physical incapacity to the lyre, or bandur, to gain their daily bread. It is true that these men were but beggars and artisans with harsh voices, some of whom had not become blind until they were old men. Blindness wraps the outer world about with a dark veil, which likewise envelops the brain, entangling and impeding its processes; and yet by the aid of inherited conceptions and impressions gained from other sources, the brain creates in this darkness a world of its own, sad, gloomy, and sombre, but not devoid of a vague poetry peculiar to itself.

Maxim and the blind boy seated themselves on the hay, while Joachim reclined on his bench,—a position which seemed especially conducive to his artistic efforts,—and after musing for a moment he began to sing. Whether by chance or by instinct, his choice was a happy one. He selected a historical picture,—

“Over yonder on the hill the reapers are reaping.”

No one who has heard this beautiful song well rendered can ever forget its strange melody,—high-pitched and plaintive, as though oppressed by the sadness of historical reminiscence. It contains no stirring incidents, no bloody battles or exploits; neither is it the farewell of a Cossack to his beloved, nor a daring invasion, nor a naval expedition on the blue sea or the Danube. It is but a fleeting picture that comes uppermost in the memory of a Little Russian, like a vague revery, like the fragment of a dream from an historic past. In the midst of his monotonous, every-day life that picture rises before his imagination, its outlines dim and indistinct, steeped in the strange melancholy that breathes from bygone days,—days that have left their impress on the memory of man. The lofty burial-mounds beneath which lie the bones of the Cossacks, where fires are seen burning at midnight, where groans are sometimes heard, still remind us of the past. The popular legends as well as the folk-songs, now fast dying out, also tell us of the past.

“Over yonder on the hill the reapers are reaping, And beneath the hill, the green hill, Cossacks are passing, Cossacks are passing! They are reaping on the hill, while below the troops are marching.”

Maxim Yatzènko was lost in admiration of the sad song. That charming melody, so well suited to the words, called up before his fancy a scene illumined by the melancholy rays of sunset. Along the peaceful slopes of the hill-sides he seemed to see the bowed and silent figures of the reapers, and below moving noiselessly, one after the other, the ranks of the army, blending with the shades of evening in the valley.

“Doroshenko[10] at the head, Leading his army, his Zaporòg army Gallantly.”

And the prolonged note of the epic song resounds, vibrates, and dies away upon the air, only to start forth anew, evoking fresh images from the dim twilight. These were the pictures which at the bidding of the song took form in Uncle Maxim’s mind; and the blind boy, who had listened with a sad and clouded face, was also impressed by it after his own fashion.

When the singer sang of the hill where the reapers were reaping, Petrùsya was straightway transported in his imagination to the summit of the familiar cliff. He recognizes it by the faint plashing of the river against the stones below. He knows very well what reapers are,—he has heard the ringing sound of the sickles and the rustle of the falling ears. But when the song went on to describe the action under the hill, the imagination of the blind listener at once transported him into the valley below. Though he no longer hears the sound of the sickles, the boy knows that the reapers are still up there on the hill, and he knows that the sound has died away, because they are so high above him,—as high as the pine-trees, whose rustling he hears when he stands on the cliff; and below, over the river, echoes the rapid monotonous tramp of the horses’ hoofs. There are many of them, and an indistinct murmur rises through the darkness from under the hill. Those are the Cossacks “on the march.”

Petrùsya also knows what “Cossacks” means. The Cossack Hvèydka,[11] who sometimes stops at the house, is called by everybody “the old Cossack.” Many a time has he lifted Petrùsya to his lap and smoothed his hair with his trembling hand. When the boy according to his custom felt of his face, he found deep wrinkles under his sensitive fingers, a long, drooping mustache and sunken cheeks, and on those cheeks the tears of old age. It was such Cossacks as he that the boy pictured to himself marching below the hill. They are on horseback, and like Hvèydka they wear long mustaches, and are old and wrinkled too. These vague forms advance slowly amid the darkness, and like Hvèydka are weeping for grief. It may be that the echo of Joachim’s song suggests the lament of the unfortunate Cossack who exchanged his young wife for a camp-bed and the hardships of a campaign, as it rings over hill and valley.

One glance was enough for Maxim to discover that despite the boy’s blindness the poetic images of the song appealed to his sensitive nature.

III.

The First Friendship.

In pursuance of the system which by Maxim’s influence had been established, the blind boy had as far as possible been left to his own resources; and from this system the best results had ensued. In the house he showed no signs of helplessness, but moved from place to place without faltering; took care of his own room, and kept his belongings and his toys in order. Neither did Maxim by any means neglect physical exercises; the boy had his regular gymnastics, and in his sixth year Maxim presented his nephew with a gentle little horse. At first the mother could not believe it possible that her blind child could ride on horseback, and she called her brother’s scheme “perfect madness.” But the old soldier exerted his utmost influence and in two or three months the boy was galloping merrily side by side with Joachim, who directed him only at turnings.

Thus blindness proved no drawback to systematic physical development, while its influence over the moral nature of the child was reduced to its minimum. He was tall for his age and well built; his face was somewhat pale, his features fine and expressive. His dark hair enhanced the pallid hue of his complexion, while his eyes—large, dark, and almost motionless—gave him a peculiar aspect that at once attracted attention. A slight wrinkle between his eye-brows, a habit of inclining his head slightly forward, and the expression of sadness that sometimes overcast his handsome face,—these were the outward tokens of his blindness. When surrounded by familiar objects he moved readily and without restraint; but still it was evident that his instinctive vivacity was repressed, and it was only by certain fitful outbursts of nervous excitement that it was ever manifested.

II.

The impressions received through the channels of sound outweighed all others in their influence over the life of the blind boy; his ideas shaped themselves according to sounds, his sense of hearing became the centre of his mental activity. The enchanting melodies of the songs he heard conveyed to him a true sense of the words, coloring them with sadness or joy according to the lights and shades of the melody. With still closer attention he listened to the voices of Nature; and by uniting these confused impressions with the familiar melodies, he sometimes produced a free improvisation, in which it was difficult to distinguish just where the national and familiar air ended and the work of the composer began. He himself was unable to distinguish these two elements in his songs, so inseparably were the two united within him. He quickly learned all his mother taught him on the piano, and yet he still loved Joachim’s pipe. The tones of the piano were richer, deeper, and more brilliant; but the instrument was stationary, whereas the pipe he could carry with him into the fields; and its modulations were so indistinguishably blended with the gentle sighs of the steppe, that at times Petrùsya could not tell whether those vague fancies were wafted on the wind, or whether it was he himself who drew them from his pipe.

Petrùsya’s enthusiasm for music became the centre of his mental growth; it absorbed his mind, and lent variety to his quiet life. Maxim availed himself of it to make the boy acquainted with the history of his native land; and like a vast network of sounds, the procession filed before the imagination of the blind boy. Touched by the song, he learned to know the heroes of whom it sung, and to feel a concern for their fate and for the destiny of his country. This was the beginning of his interest in literature; and when he was nine years old, Maxim began his first lessons. He had been studying the methods used in the instruction of the blind, and the boy showed great delight in the lessons. They introduced into his nature the new elements of precision and clearness, which served to counterbalance the undefined sensations excited by music.

Thus the boy’s day was filled; he could not complain of the lack of new impressions. He seemed to be living as full a life as any child could possibly live; in fact he really seemed unconscious of his blindness. Nevertheless, a certain premature sadness was still perceptible in his character, which Maxim ascribed to the fact that he had never mingled with other children, and endeavored to atone for this omission.

The village boys who were invited to the mansion were timid and constrained. Not only the unusual surroundings, but the blindness of the little Pan intimidated them. They would glance timidly at him, and then crowding together would whisper to one another. When the children were left alone, either in the garden or in the field, they grew bolder and began to play games; but somehow it always ended in the blind boy being left out, listening sadly to the merry shouts of his playmates. Now and then Joachim would gather the children about him and repeat comical old proverbs and tell them fairy tales. The village children, perfectly familiar with the somewhat stupid Hohòl devil and the roguish witches, supplemented Joachim’s tales from the stores of their own knowledge; and the conversations ensuing were generally quite lively. The blind boy listened to them with great interest and attention, but rarely laughed. He seemed incapable of comprehending the humor in the speeches and stories he heard; and this was not surprising, since he could neither see the merry twinkle in the eyes of the speakers, nor the comical wrinkles, nor the twitching of the long mustaches.

III.

Not long before the period to which our story relates, the “possessor”[12] of the neighboring estate had been changed. The former neighbor, who had managed to engage in a lawsuit even with the taciturn Pan Popèlski, in consequence of some damage caused to the fields, had been replaced by the old man Yaskùlski and his wife. Although the united ages of this couple amounted to one hundred years, their marriage had been celebrated but recently, because Yakùb was for a long time unable to procure the sum required for hiring an estate, and thus was forced to act as overseer of one estate after another, while Pani Agnyèshka spent her period of waiting as a sort of companion in the family of the Countess N. When at last the happy moment arrived, and the bride and bridegroom stood hand in hand in the church, the hair of the handsome bridegroom was fairly gray, and the timid, blushing face of the bride was likewise framed in silvery locks.

This circumstance, however, by no means marred the married happiness of the somewhat late-wedded pair, and the fruit of their love was an only daughter about the age of the blind boy. Having won for themselves a domestic shelter, where under certain conditions they had a right to full control, this elderly couple began a peaceful and quiet existence, which seemed like a compensation for the hard years of toil and anxiety which they had passed in other folks’ houses. Their first lease was a failure, and they had started anew on a somewhat smaller scale. But in this new abode they had at once arranged things to suit themselves. In the corner occupied by the images, decorated with ivy, sacred palm, and a wax taper,[13] the old lady kept bags filled with herbs and roots, by whose aid she doctored her husband as well as the peasants who came to consult her. These herbs would fill the hut with a peculiarly characteristic fragrance, associated in the minds of the villagers with their memory of that neat and quiet little house, with the two old persons who dwelt therein, and whose placid existence offered so unusual a spectacle in times like these.

Meanwhile the only daughter of this elderly pair was growing up in their companionship,—a girl with long brown tresses and blue eyes, who straightway impressed every one that saw her with the uncommon maturity of her face. It seemed as if the calm love of the parents, finding fruition so late in life, had been reflected in their daughter’s nature by a mature judgment, a quiet deliberation in all her movements, and a certain pensive expression in the depths of her blue eyes. She was never shy with strangers, willingly made the acquaintance of children and took part in their games,—which was done however with an air of condescension, as if she herself really felt no interest in the matter. She was in fact quite happy in her own society, walking, gathering flowers, talking to her doll,—and all so demurely that one felt as if in the presence of a grown-up woman rather than in that of a child.

IV.

One evening Petrùsya was sitting alone on the hillock above the river. The sun was setting, the air was still, and only the tranquil, far-away sound of the lowing herds returning to the village reached his ear. The boy had but just ceased playing and had thrown himself on the grass, yielding to the half dreamy languor of a summer evening. He had been dozing for a minute, when he was roused by a light footstep. With a look of annoyance he rose on his elbow, and listened. At the foot of the hill the unfamiliar steps paused. He did not recognize them.

“Boy!” he heard a child’s voice exclaim, “do you know who it was that was playing here just now?”

The blind boy disliked to have his solitude disturbed. Therefore his answer to the question was given in no amiable tone,—“It was I.”

A slight exclamation of surprise greeted this statement; and directly the girl’s voice added with the utmost simplicity and in tones of approval,—“How well you play!”

The blind boy made no reply. “Why don’t you go away?” he asked presently, when he perceived that his unwelcome visitor had not left the spot.

“Why do you drive me away?” asked the girl, and her clear tones expressed genuine surprise.

The tranquil sound of the child’s voice was grateful to the blind boy’s ear; nevertheless he answered in his former tone,—“I don’t like to have people come here.”

The girl burst into a peal of laughter. “Really? What a strange idea! Is this all your land, and have you the right to forbid other people to walk upon it?”

“Mamma has given orders that no one shall come here.”

“Your mamma?” asked the girl, thoughtfully; “but my mamma allowed me to walk over the river.”

The boy, somewhat spoiled by the universal submission to his wishes, was not used to such persistency. An angry flush swept like a wave over his face, and half rising he exclaimed rapidly and excitedly,—“Go away! go away! go away!”

It is impossible to tell how this scene would have ended, for just then Joachim’s voice sounded from the direction of the mansion, calling the boy to tea, and he ran quickly down the hill.

“Ah, what a hateful boy!” was the indignant exclamation he heard follow him.