Part 5

The next day while he was sitting on the very same spot, yesterday’s adventure came to his mind. Now, this memory excited no vexation; on the contrary, he wished that the girl with the quiet, tranquil voice, such as he had never heard before, would come back again. All the children that he knew shouted, laughed, fought, and cried noisily; not one had such a pleasant voice. He felt sorry to have offended the stranger, who probably would never return.

The girl indeed did not return for three whole days. But on the fourth day Petrùsya heard her steps below on the river’s bank. She was walking slowly, humming something to herself in a low voice, and apparently paying no attention to him.

“Wait a moment!” he called out, when he perceived that she was going past; “is that you again?”

The girl at first made no reply, for her feelings had been hurt by her former reception; but suddenly it seemed to occur to her that there was something strange in the boy’s question, and she paused. “Can’t you see that it is I?” she asked with much dignity, as she went on arranging a nosegay of wild flowers which she held in her hand.

This simple question sent a thrill of pain through the heart of the blind boy. He threw himself back on the grass and made no reply.

But the conversation had been started, and the girl still standing on the same spot and busying herself with her flowers, asked again: “Who taught you to play so well on the pipe?”

“Joachim taught me,” replied Petrùsya.

“You do play very well. Only why are you so cross?”

“I—am not cross with you,” replied the boy gently.

“Well, then, neither am I. Let us play together.”

“I don’t know how to play with you,” he replied, hanging his head.

“Don’t know how to play? Why not?”

“Because.”

“Tell me why.”

“Because,” he replied scarce audibly, and dropped his head still lower. Never before had he been obliged to speak of his blindness, and the innocent tone of the voice of the girl, who asked this question with such artless persistency, produced a painful impression upon him.

“How odd you are!” she said with compassionate condescension, seating herself beside him on the grass. “It must be because you are not acquainted with me. When you know me better, you will no longer be afraid of me. Now, _I_ am not afraid of anybody.”

She said this with careless simplicity, as she played with her corn-flowers and violets. Meanwhile the blind boy had accepted her challenge to more intimate acquaintance, and as he knew but one way of learning to know a person’s face, he naturally had recourse to his usual method. Grasping the girl’s shoulder with one hand he began with the other to feel of her hair and her eye-lashes; he passed his fingers swiftly over her face, pausing occasionally to study the unfamiliar features with deep attention. All this was so unexpected, and done with such rapidity, that the girl in her utter amazement never opened her lips; she only looked at him with wide-open eyes in which could be seen a feeling akin to horror. Not until now had she noticed anything unusual in the face of her new acquaintance. The pale and delicately cut features of the boy were rigid with a look of constrained attention, which seemed in some way incongruous with his fixed gaze. His eyes looked straight ahead, without any apparent relation to what he was doing, and in them shone a strange reflection from the setting sun. For a moment the girl felt as if it were some dreadful nightmare.

Releasing her shoulder from the boy’s hand, she suddenly sprang to her feet and burst into a flood of tears. “What are you doing to me, you naughty boy?” she exclaimed angrily through her tears. “Why do you touch me? What have I done to you? Why?”

Confused as he was, he remained sitting on the same spot with drooping head, while a strange feeling of mingled anger and vexation filled his heart with burning pain. Now for the first time he felt the degradation of a cripple; for the first time he learned that his physical defect might inspire alarm as well as pity. Although he had no power to formulate the sense of heaviness that oppressed him, he suffered none the less because this feeling was dim and confused. A sense of burning pain and bitter resentment swelled the boy’s throat; he threw himself down on the grass and wept. As the weeping increased, convulsive sobs shook his little frame,—the more violently, because his innate pride made him struggle to repress this outburst.

The girl, who had scarcely reached the foot of the hill, hearing those stifled sobs turned in amazement. When she saw that odd new acquaintance of hers lying face downward on the ground, crying so bitterly, she felt a sympathy for him, and climbing the hill again she stood over the weeping boy.

“What is it?” she said. “Why are you crying? Perhaps you think that I shall complain? Don’t cry! I shall not say a word to any one.”

These words of sympathy and the caressing voice excited a still more violent fit of sobbing. Then the girl sitting down beside the boy, devoted herself to the task of comforting him.

Passing her hand gently over his hair, with an instinct purely feminine, and a gentle persistency, she raised his head and wiped the tears from his eyes, like a mother who tries to comfort her grieving child.

“There, there, I am no longer vexed,” she said in the soothing tone of a grown-up woman. “I see you are sorry to have frightened me.”

“I did not mean to frighten you,” he replied, drawing a long breath in his efforts to repress his nervous sobs.

“Well, it is all right now. I am no longer angry. You will never do it again,” she added, raising him from the ground and trying to make him sit down beside her.

Petrùsya yielded. Again he sat facing the sunset, and when the girl saw his face lighted by the crimson rays, she was impressed by its unusual expression. The tears were still standing in the boy’s eyes, which were as before immovable, while his features were twitching convulsively with childlike sobs,—all the signs of a deep sorrow, such as a mature nature might feel, were evident.

“How queer you are—really!” she said with thoughtful sympathy.

“I am not queer,” replied the boy with a pitiful look. “No, I am not queer! I am—blind!”

“Bli—nd?” she repeated, prolonging the word in her surprise, while her voice trembled, as though that sad word, softly uttered by the boy, had given a heavy blow to her womanly little heart. “Blind?” she repeated again; her voice trembled still more, and then as though seeking a refuge from the uncontrollable sense of misery that had come over her, she suddenly threw her arms around the boy’s neck and hid her face on his breast.

This sad discovery taking her entirely by surprise, had instantly changed the self-composed little woman to a grieved and helpless child, who in her turn wept bitterly and inconsolably.

V.

Meanwhile the sun, revolving as it were in the glowing atmosphere, vanished below the dark line of the horizon. For a moment the golden rim of the fiery ball had lingered on the edge, leaving two or three burning sparks behind, and then the dark outlines of the distant forest became at once defined by an uninterrupted blue line. The wind blew fresh from the river.

The girl had ceased crying; only now and then a sob would break forth in spite of her. Petrùsya sat with bowed head as if hardly able to comprehend so lively an expression of sympathy.

“I am—sorry,” she said at last, by way of explaining her weakness, but her voice was still broken by sobs. Then after a short silence, having partially regained her self-control, she made an attempt to change the conversation to some topic of which they could both speak with composure. “The sun has set,” she said thoughtfully.

“I don’t know how it looks,” was the mournful reply. “I only—feel it.”

“You don’t know the sun?”

“No.”

“And you don’t know your mamma, either?”

“Yes, I know mamma. I can tell her step from a distance.”

“Yes, of course you can. I can tell my mother when my eyes are shut.”

The conversation had assumed a less agitating tone.

“I can feel the sun,” said the blind boy, growing more animated, “and I can tell when it has set.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because—don’t you see?—I can’t tell why myself.”

“Yes,” said the girl, and she seemed quite satisfied with this reply, and both were silent.

“I can read,” Petrùsya was the first to break the silence, “and I shall soon begin to learn to write with a pen.”

“How do you manage?” she inquired, and suddenly paused abashed, reluctant to pursue the delicate subject.

But he understood her. “I read from my own book, with my fingers,” he explained.

“With your fingers? I could never learn to read with my fingers. I read poorly enough with my eyes. My father says that it is difficult for women to learn.”

“And I can even read French.”

“How clever you are!” she exclaimed admiringly. “But I am afraid that you will take cold,” she added; “see how the fog is rising over the river.”

“And you yourself?”

“I am not afraid. What harm can it do me?”

“Neither am I afraid. Could a man possibly take cold more easily than a woman? Uncle Maxim says a man must never fear anything, neither cold nor hunger, nor the thunderbolt, nor the hurricane.”

“Maxim,—the one on crutches? I have seen him. He is terrible.”

“No, indeed. He is very kind.”

“No, he is terrible,” she persisted. “You cannot know, because you never saw him.”

“I do know him. He teaches me everything.”

“Does he beat you?”

“Never. He never beats me or screams at me,—never.”

“Well, I am glad of that. How could anybody strike a blind boy? It would be a sin.”

“He never strikes any one,” said Petrùsya, in an abstracted tone of voice, for his sensitive ear had caught the sound of Joachim’s steps.

In fact the tall figure of the Hohòl appeared a moment later on the summit of the rising ground that separated the estate from the shore, and his voice resounded through the tranquil evening air,—“Panitch!”

“They are calling you,” said the girl, rising.

“I know it; but I don’t want to go.”

“Oh, yes, do go. I will come to see you to-morrow. They are waiting for you now, and for me too.”

The girl was faithful to her promise, and appeared even earlier than Petrùsya could have expected her. The next day as he was sitting in his room at his daily lesson with Maxim, he suddenly raised his head, listened, and exclaimed eagerly, “May I go for a minute? The girl has come.”

“What girl do you mean?” inquired Maxim, as he followed the boy out of the door.

Petrùsya’s acquaintance of yesterday had in fact entered the yard of the mansion at that very moment, and on seeing Anna Michàilovna who was in the act of crossing it, deliberately went up to her.

“What do you wish, dear child?” asked the former, supposing that she had been sent on some errand.

The little woman offered her hand, as she demurely inquired, “Are you the mother of the blind boy? Yes?”

“Yes, my dear,” replied Pani Popèlska, admiring the girl’s clear eyes and the ease of her manners.

“Well, Mamma gave me permission to come to see him. May I see him?”

At that moment Petrùsya himself ran up to her, and behind him in the vestibule appeared Maxim.

“That’s yesterday’s girl, Mamma,—the one I told you of,” exclaimed the boy, as he greeted the child. “But I am taking my lesson now.”

“Well, Uncle Maxim will excuse you this time,” said Anna Michàilovna. “I will ask him.”

Meanwhile the little woman, perfectly at home, approached Maxim, who was advancing toward her with his crutch and cane, and extending her hand, remarked with the most gracious condescension, “It is very good of you not to strike a blind boy. He has told me of it.”

“Indeed, my young lady!” exclaimed Maxim, with a comical affectation of gravity, clasping between his own broad palms the girl’s tiny hand. “How grateful I ought to be to my pupil that he won your good-will in my behalf!” And Maxim laughed, as he patted the hand he retained in his own. Meanwhile the girl stood looking at him with her clear, open gaze, which completely subjugated his woman-hating heart.

“Well, Annùsya,” said Maxim to his sister with a quizzical smile, “it seems that our Peter is beginning to choose his own friends. And you cannot deny, Annya, that he has made a good choice, even though he is blind. Has he not?”

“What do you mean, Max?” asked the young woman, gravely, as the color mounted to her cheeks.

“I was only joking,” replied the brother, briefly, perceiving that his sally had touched a sensitive chord, which responding revealed a hidden thought in the maternal heart.

Anna Michàilovna blushed still more deeply; she stooped hastily, and with a sudden passionate tenderness embraced the girl, who received this unexpected and impulsive caress with her usual serene though slightly surprised expression.

VI.

From that day the closest intimacy was established between the Popèlski mansion and the home of the Possessor. The girl, whose name was Evelyn, came every day to the mansion, and in a short time she too became Uncle Maxim’s pupil.

At first this plan of companionship in study did not meet with Pan Yaskùlski’s approval. In the first place he thought that a woman needed no more education than would enable her to keep a memorandum of the soiled linen, and an account of her own expenses; in the second place he was a good Catholic, and believed that Maxim had committed a sin in fighting the Austrians in defiance of the clearly expressed admonition of the “father-pope.” Finally he firmly believed that there was a God in heaven, and that Voltaire and his followers were plunged in fiery pitch,—a fate which also, as many believed, was in waiting for Pan Maxim. However, as he grew to know him more intimately, he was obliged to admit that this heretic and fighter was a very good-natured and clever man, and so the Possessor compromised the matter.

“Let me tell you this, Vèlya,” he said, addressing his daughter, as he was on the point of leaving her to take her first lesson from Maxim, “never forget that there is a God in heaven and a Holy Father in Rome. I, Valentine Yaskùlski, say this to you; and you must believe me, because I am your father. That for _primo_. _Secundo_, I am a Polish nobleman, and on my coat-of-arms, together with the hay-rick and the crow, is a cross on an azure field. The Yaskùlskis were ever good knights, and at the same time they were not ignorant concerning religious matters; and for that reason also you must believe me. But in regard to all subjects relating to _orbis terrarum_ you are to respect what Pan Maxim Yatzènko tells you, and study faithfully.”

“Do not fear, Pan Valentine,” retorted Maxim, smiling, “we do not draft little Panis into Garibaldi’s regiment.”

VII.

Both children profited by this companionship in study. Although Petrùsya was farther advanced, there was still an opportunity for competition. Moreover, he could often help his new friend about her lessons, and she was very successful in devising methods of explanation in regard to subjects which were naturally difficult for a blind boy to comprehend. Her society had introduced a new element into his studies, contributing a pleasing excitement to his mental labors.

Taking it all in all, fate had certainly proved propitious in this gift of friendship. The boy no longer sought solitude; he had found that congenial companionship which the love of older people had not afforded, and in moments when his little soul was most peaceful he was glad to have his friend near him. They always went together to the cliff or to the river-bank. When he played, she listened with genuine delight; and after he had laid his pipe aside, she would describe in her vivid childlike way the various objects in Nature that surrounded them. She could not of course picture them with absolute fidelity, but from her simple description the boy gained a very clear idea of the characteristic coloring of every phenomenon which she described. Thus, for instance, when she spoke of the darkness with which the black and misty night shrouded the earth, he formed a conception of this same darkness from the low tones of her timid voice. Then again, as she raised her serious face and said to him, “Ah, what a cloud is coming toward us!—a very dark cloud!” he seemed directly to feel its cold blast, and in her voice he fancied the rustling sound of the creeping monster advancing threateningly upon him far above his head.

IV.

Blindness. Vague Questions.

There are natures that seem predestined for the gentle task of love, as well as for the anxieties of sorrow,—natures in whom a sympathy for the cares or griefs of others is a necessity as imperative as the air they breathe. They have been endowed with that calmness so essential for the fulfilment of every-day duties; all the natural longings for personal happiness seem to have been restrained and held in subserviency to the ruling characteristic of their temperaments. Such beings often appear too placid, too reasonable, and devoid of sentiment. They are insensible to the passionate longings of a life of pleasure, and follow the stern path of duty with as much contentment as if it were yielding them the most glowing joys. They seem as frigid and majestic as the mountain-tops. Commonplace human life abases itself at their feet; even gossip and calumny glide from their snowy white garments like spatters of mud from the wings of a swan.

Peter’s little friend presented all the traits of this type, which as the product of education or experience is but rarely seen. Like genius, it falls to the lot of the chosen few, and generally manifests itself early in life. The mother of the blind boy realized what good fortune had befallen her son in winning the friendship of this child. Old Maxim likewise appreciated this, and felt confident that since his pupil now enjoyed the benefit of an influence heretofore wanting, his moral development would make tranquil and continuous progress. But this proved a sad mistake.

II.

During the first few years of the child’s life Maxim had believed the boy’s mental growth to be under his entire control, and its processes, if not directly guided by his influence, at least so far affected by it that no new intellectual manifestation or acquisition could evade his vigilance. But when the boy reached that period of his life which forms the boundary between childhood and youth, Maxim realized how vain had been his audacious dreams of education. Nearly every week revealed something new, oftentimes something he had never anticipated; and in his efforts to discover the sources of the new idea, or representation thereof, Maxim was invariably baffled. A certain unknown influence, either organic growth or hereditary development, was evidently participating in Maxim’s educational plans; and he often paused reverently to contemplate the mysterious operations of Nature. In these outbreaks by which Nature effects her gratuitous revelations, disturbing, so to speak, the equilibrium between the supply of acquired knowledge on the one hand and that of personal experience on the other, Maxim had no trouble in following the connecting links of the phenomena of universal life, which diverging into thousands of channels enter into separate and “individual” lives.

This discovery was at first startling to Maxim, inasmuch as it revealed the fact that the mental growth of the child was subject to other influences beside his own. He became anxious for the fate of his ward, alarmed at the possibility of influences which could bring the blind man nothing but irremediable suffering. Then he tried to trace to their sources those mysterious springs which had leaped to the surface, hoping to obstruct their passage and check their influence over the blind child.

Nor had the mother failed to observe these things. One morning Pètrik ran up to her in an unusual state of excitement.

“Mamma, Mamma,” he exclaimed, “I saw a dream!”

“What did you see, my boy?” she asked; and in her voice there was a pathetic intonation as of doubt.

“I dreamed that I saw you and Uncle Maxim; and—”

“What else?”

“I don’t remember.”

“And do you remember me?”

“No,” replied the boy, thoughtfully, “I have forgotten everything.”

This was repeated several times; and each time the boy grew sadder and more restless.

III.

Once, as he was crossing the yard, Maxim heard from the drawing-room, where the music-lessons usually took place, some very queer exercises. They consisted of two notes. First, the highest key of the upper register was struck incessantly, in swift repetition; then the low reverberation of a bass note jarred upon the ear. Curious to discover what might be the meaning of these strange musical exercises, Maxim hobbled across the yard, and a minute later entered the drawing-room. He paused, and stood motionless in the doorway, contemplating the scene before him.

The boy, who was now ten years old, sat on a low stool at his mother’s feet. Beside him, craning his neck and turning his long beak from side to side, stood a tame stork which Joachim had presented to the “Panitch.” The boy fed him every morning from his own hands, and the bird followed his new friend and master from morning till night. At this moment Petrùsya was holding him by one hand, and slowly stroking his neck and back with the other, while an expression of deep thought and absorption rested on his face. The mother meanwhile, evidently excited and at the same time with a look of sadness, was striking with her finger the key that sent forth that sharp resonant note. At the same time, slightly bending forward from her seat, she watched the boy’s face with a painful scrutiny. When his hand, gliding along the brilliant white plumage, reached the tips of the wings, where the white plumes were suddenly replaced by black ones, Anna Michàilovna instantly moved her hand to the other key, and the low bass note, with its deep reverberations, echoed through the room.

Both mother and son were so much engrossed in their occupation that they had not observed Maxim’s entrance, until, recovering from his astonishment, he interrupted this performance: “Annùsya, what does this mean?”

Meeting Maxim’s searching glance, the young woman was as much confused as if a severe tutor had detected her in the commission of some fault. “You see,” she said in confusion, “he tells me that he can distinguish a certain difference between the colors of the stork, but he cannot understand wherein this difference consists. Truly he was the first one to mention it, and I believe he is right.”

“Well, what of it?”

“Well, I was trying, after a fashion, to explain this difference to him by sounds. Don’t be vexed, Max, but I really think that there is a correspondence.”

This unexpected idea took Maxim so entirely by surprise that at first he was at a loss for an answer. He asked her to repeat her experiments, and as he watched the rigid concentration of the boy’s expression he shook his head. “Believe me, Anna,” he said when he was alone with her, “it is better not to arouse thoughts in the boy’s mind, to which you can give no satisfactory solution. He must resign himself to his blindness,—there is no help for it; and it is our duty to keep him from trying to comprehend the light. For my part, I make every effort to avert each question, and if it were but possible to keep him removed from all objects likely to suggest them, he would no more realize that a sense is missing than we who possess five deplore the want of a sixth.”

The sister yielded as usual to her brother’s persuasive arguments; but this time both were mistaken. While overrating the influence of outside impressions, Maxim forgot the powerful stimulus which Nature communicates to a child’s soul.

IV.