Short Fiction - Vladimir Korolenko (easy books to read in english txt) 📗

the joyous chant, “Christ is arisen,” reached far into the field. Suddenly, above all other sounds, came the report of a musket, followed by a faint, helpless groan, like a plaintive and dying protest. Then for a moment all was still; and only the distant echoes of the vacant field repeated with a sad murmur the last reverberation of the shot amid the silence of the terror-stricken night. A Saghálinian The Tale of a Vagrant I

My comrade had gone, and I was to spend the night alone in our yourt.3

Not feeling in the mood for working, I did not light the fire, and, as I reclined on my bed, I fell by degrees under the dismal spell of the gathering gloom and silence, while the waning daylight merged itself into the cold night-mist. Little by little, the last rays of light disappeared from the ice windows, and profound darkness crept out from the corners, veiling the sloping walls of the yourt, which seemed gradually contracting more and more over my head. For a while, the outlines of the fireplace remained dimly visible, like some ugly Penate of a Yakút dwelling, who, with outstretched arms, meets the invading darkness, as if invoking it in silent prayer. But at last even these faint outlines were lost in the utter darkness. Only in three spots shone a soft phosphorescent light like a gleam from the dark eyes of the Yakút Frost peering in at the windows. Minutes and hours passed in silence, and I was not aware how imperceptibly had crept upon me that fatal hour when a longing for home fully takes possession of one’s soul⁠—the hour when, conjured up by a fevered imagination, all those hills, forests, and interminable steppes that lie between one’s self and all that life holds dear rise threateningly in their measureless and unconquered distance. All so far away and so utterly lost, now beckoning, now seeming to fade from sight, and flickering in the dim distance like the glimmer of a dying hope. The suppressed yet ever present grief, buried deeply in the recesses of one’s heart, now boldly raises its ill-omened head, and, amid the universal stillness and darkness, plainly whispers the terrible words: “Forever in this grave,⁠ ⁠… forever!”

A gentle whining, coming from the flat roof, through the chimney, reached my ears, and roused me from my stupor.

It was my intelligent friend, my faithful dog, who, chilled at his post, was asking what troubled me, and why, when the cold was so severe, I did not light the fire. I rose, conscious that I was playing a losing game in this struggle with silence and darkness, and decided to have recourse to the means at hand⁠—the Spirit of the yourt⁠—Fire.

In winter the Yakút never allows his fire to go out, and has, therefore, no way of closing the chimney. We had contrived some rude appliances so that our chimney could be closed from the outside; but, in order to do so, it was necessary to climb up on the flat roof of the yourt.

I went up on to the roof by means of steps which had been cut in the snow that protected the yourt. Our dwelling stood on the outer edge of the settlement.

Generally, from the roof we could see the narrow valley and the hills that enclosed it, as well as the fires of the yourts of exiled Tartars and of those occupied by the descendants of Russian settlers, who in the course of years had become Yakút. Now, all was enveloped in a cold, gray, impenetrable mist, which hung immovable, condensed by a cold of forty degrees, and pressing the silent earth with increasing weight.

Everywhere, a dull gray expanse of fog met the eye, save where, high overhead, twinkled a solitary star, piercing the cold shroud with its sharp rays.

Around all was still.⁠ ⁠… The high bank of the river, the miserable yourts of the settlement, the small church, the smooth and snowy valley, the dark strip of forest⁠—all became merged in this shoreless sea of fog. The roof of the yourt, with its rude clay chimney, where I was standing, with the dog crouching at my feet, seemed like an island in an illimitable gray ocean.

All was cold, bleak, and still. The night was the embodiment of terror⁠—constrained and watchful⁠—like one who strives to hide himself. The dog whined gently and pitifully, evidently in terror of the benumbing frost. Crouching at my feet, and plaintively stretching out his sharp nose and pricking up his ears, he gazed intently into the thick, gathering dusk.

Suddenly he growled. I listened. At first, I could distinguish nothing; then, in that strained silence, a sound was heard, another and still another⁠—as of a horse galloping far away on the meadows. Thinking of the lonely rider, who, judging by the sound, was as yet some two or three miles away from the hamlet, I hastily ran down from the roof and entered the yourt. An unprotected face, exposed to the air, might result in a frostbitten nose or cheek. The dog, giving one loud and hasty bark in the direction of the galloping, followed me.

Soon in the wide, open mouth of the fireplace, in the middle of the yourt, a bright fire of chips was lighted. I added to it some dry logs of pitchy birch, and in a few moments my dwelling was totally changed. Now the silent yourt was filled with noise and talking. The fire, with a hundred tongues, played among the logs, enveloping them, jumping, snarling, hissing, and snapping. Something bright and living, wide-awake and talkative, filled the yourt, peeping into all its nooks and corners. When, at times, the crackling of the flames ceased, I could hear the hot sparks fly up the short, straight chimney, snapping in the frosty air. But soon the fire renewed its play with redoubled energy, while frequent and loud reports, like pistol-shots, echoed through the yourt.

Now that