Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

tramped thousands of versts through the Siberian forests and mountains, had suffered countless dangers and privations, always urged onward by a consuming homesickness, and sustained by one hope⁠—that he might live to see his native place, and be once more with his own people, if it were but for a month, or even a week. Then he would be resigned, even if he had to go back again. But it chanced that when only a few hundred versts from his native village he had been recaptured, and confined in this prison. Suddenly his mutterings ceased. His eyes dilated, and his breathing became more even.⁠ ⁠… Brighter dreams flitted across his fevered brain.⁠ ⁠… The forest soughs.⁠ ⁠… He knows it well, that soughing; monotonous, musical, and powerful.⁠ ⁠… He can distinguish its various tones; the language of each tree⁠—the majestic pine, dusky green, rustling high overhead,⁠ ⁠… the whispering cedars,⁠ ⁠… the bright, merry birch, tossing its flexible branches,⁠ ⁠… the trembling aspen, fluttering its timid, sensitive leaves.⁠ ⁠… The free birds sing; the stream rushes across the stony chasm; and a swarm of gibbering magpies, detectives of the forest, are soaring in the air over the path followed by the vagrant through this almost impenetrable thicket.

It seemed as if a breeze from the free forest were wafted through the prison-cell. The invalid sat up and drew a long breath, gazing intently before him, while a sudden gleam of consciousness flashed into his eyes.⁠ ⁠… The vagrant, the habitual fugitive, beheld before him an unaccustomed sight,⁠ ⁠… an open door!⁠ ⁠…

In his frame, enfeebled by disease, a powerful instinct sprang to life. His delirium either disappeared, or centred itself on one idea, which, like a ray of sunlight, illumined the chaos of his thoughts. Alone! and with an open door! In a moment he was on his feet. It seemed as if the fever had left his brain, and was only perceptible in his eyes, which had a fixed and menacing expression.

Someone had just come out from the church, leaving the door ajar.

The strains of the harmonious singing, subdued by the distance, reached the ear of the vagrant, and then died away. His face softened, his eyes grew dim, and his imagination reproduced a long cherished scene: A mild night, the whisper of the pines, their branches swaying above the old church of his native village;⁠ ⁠… a throng of countrymen; the lights reflected in the river, and this same chant.⁠ ⁠… He must make haste with his journey, that he may hear this at home, with his family!⁠ ⁠…

All this time, in the corridor, near the church-door, the overseer prayed devoutly, kneeling, and touching his forehead to the ground.⁠ ⁠…

Meanwhile, the young recruit paced to and fro on his beat along the prison wall, which glowed with a phosphorescent light. A broad, level field, recently freed from snow, lay before him.

A light wind rustled through the tall grass, inclining him to a sad and pensive mood.

The moon hung high above the horizon; the expression of anxiety had vanished from Fadéyef’s face. He stopped by the wall, and, setting his musket on the ground, rested his hand on the muzzle, on which he leaned his head, falling into a deep reverie. He could not yet wholly grasp the idea of his presence in this place, on this solemn Easter night, beside the wall, with a musket in his hand, and opposite the vacant field. He had by no means ceased to be a peasant; many things clear to a soldier were to him incomprehensible; and he was often teased by being called “a rustic.” But a short time ago he was a free man, had the care of a household, owned a field, and was at liberty to labor when and where he pleased. Now, an indefinite, inexplicable fear beset his every step and movement, forcing the awkward young rustic into the groove of strict discipline. At this moment he was alone⁠ ⁠… the bleak landscape before him, and the wind whistling through the dry grass, made him dreamy; and memories of familiar scenes passed through his mind. He seemed to see his native village! The same moon shone above it, the same breeze blew over it; he saw the lighted church, and the dark pines tossing their green heads.⁠ ⁠…

Suddenly he became conscious of his present surroundings, and surprise kindled his blue eyes, as though he were questioning: “What are these? this field, this wall and musket?” For an instant he realized where he was, but in another moment the whistling breeze wafted him back to familiar scenes; and again the soldier dreamt, leaning on his musket.⁠ ⁠…

All at once, close beside him, appeared a head over the top of the wall⁠ ⁠… the eyes glimmering like two coals.⁠ ⁠… The vagrant peered into the open field, and beyond it to the shadowy line of the distant forest⁠ ⁠… his chest expanded as he greedily inhaled the refreshing breath of “mother night.” He let himself down by his hands, gently gliding along the wall.

The joyful ringing had awakened the slumbering night. The door of the prison-church was opened, and the procession moved into the yard.2 In waves of melody the singing poured forth from the church. The soldier started, lifted his cap, and was about to make the sign of the cross⁠ ⁠… when he suddenly stopped, with his hand raised in the act of prayer, while the vagrant, having reached the ground, swiftly started on a run towards the tall grass.

“Stop, pray, stop, my dearest fellow!” exclaimed the soldier, in a terrified voice, as he raised his musket. At the sight of this gray figure fleeing from pursuit, all his shapeless and terrible fears took a definite form. “Duty⁠—responsibility!” flashed across his mind, and, raising his musket, he aimed at the fugitive. But before pulling the trigger he pitifully shut his eyes.⁠ ⁠…

Meanwhile, above the town there rose, hovering in the ether, a harmonious and prolonged chime, marred only by the prison-bell, that trembled and fluttered like a wounded bird; and from beyond the wall the sounds of