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

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,46 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 I

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 eyebrows, 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