| VIII
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| WHILE THE AUTUMN COLOUR was growing pale on the grass and cornfields,
things went badly with our friends the Russians. Peter told his
troubles to Mr. Shimerda: he was unable to meet a note which fell due
on the first of November; had to pay an exorbitant bonus on renewing it,
and to give a mortgage on his pigs and horses and even his milk cow.
His creditor was Wick Cutter, the merciless Black Hawk money-lender, a man
of evil name throughout the county, of whom I shall have more to say later.
Peter could give no very clear account of his transactions with Cutter.
He only knew that he had first borrowed two hundred dollars,
then another hundred, then fifty--that each time a bonus was added
to the principal, and the debt grew faster than any crop he planted.
Now everything was plastered with mortgages.
| 1 | |
| Soon after Peter renewed his note, Pavel strained himself lifting timbers
for a new barn, and fell over among the shavings with such a gush of blood
from the lungs that his fellow workmen thought he would die on the spot.
They hauled him home and put him into his bed, and there he lay,
very ill indeed. Misfortune seemed to settle like an evil bird on the roof
of the log house, and to flap its wings there, warning human beings away.
The Russians had such bad luck that people were afraid of them and liked
to put them out of mind.
| 2 | |
| One afternoon Antonia and her father came over to our house to
get buttermilk, and lingered, as they usually did, until the sun
was low. just as they were leaving, Russian Peter drove up.
Pavel was very bad, he said, and wanted to talk to Mr. Shimerda
and his daughter; he had come to fetch them. When Antonia
and her father got into the wagon, I entreated grandmother
to let me go with them: I would gladly go without my supper,
I would sleep in the Shimerdas' barn and run home in the morning.
My plan must have seemed very foolish to her, but she was often
large-minded about humouring the desires of other people.
She asked Peter to wait a moment, and when she came back from
the kitchen she brought a bag of sandwiches and doughnuts for us.
| 3 | |
| Mr. Shimerda and Peter were on the front seat; Antonia and I
sat in the straw behind and ate our lunch as we bumped along.
After the sun sank, a cold wind sprang up and moaned over the prairie.
If this turn in the weather had come sooner, I should not have got away.
We burrowed down in the straw and curled up close together,
watching the angry red die out of the west and the stars begin
to shine in the clear, windy sky. Peter kept sighing and groaning.
Tony whispered to me that he was afraid Pavel would never get well. We lay
still and did not talk. Up there the stars grew magnificently bright.
Though we had come from such different parts of the world,
in both of us there was some dusky superstition that those shining
groups have their influence upon what is and what is not to be.
Perhaps Russian Peter, come from farther away than any of us,
had brought from his land, too, some such belief.
| 4 | |
| The little house on the hillside was so much the colour
of the night that we could not see it as we came up the draw.
The ruddy windows guided us--the light from the kitchen stove,
for there was no lamp burning.
| 5 | |
| We entered softly. The man in the wide bed seemed to be asleep.
Tony and I sat down on the bench by the wall and leaned our
arms on the table in front of us. The firelight flickered
on the hewn logs that supported the thatch overhead.
Pavel made a rasping sound when he breathed, and he kept moaning.
We waited. The wind shook the doors and windows impatiently,
then swept on again, singing through the big spaces. Each gust,
as it bore down, rattled the panes, and swelled off like the others.
They made me think of defeated armies, retreating; or of
ghosts who were trying desperately to get in for shelter,
and then went moaning on. Presently, in one of those sobbing
intervals between the blasts, the coyotes tuned up with their
whining howl; one, two, three, then all together--to tell us
that winter was coming. This sound brought an answer from the bed--
a long complaining cry--as if Pavel were having bad dreams or were
waking to some old misery. Peter listened, but did not stir.
He was sitting on the floor by the kitchen stove.
The coyotes broke out again; yap, yap, yap--then the high whine.
Pavel called for something and struggled up on his elbow.
| 6 | |
| `He is scared of the wolves,' Antonia whispered to me.
`In his country there are very many, and they eat men and women.'
We slid closer together along the bench.
| 7 | |
| I could not take my eyes off the man in the bed.
His shirt was hanging open, and his emaciated chest,
covered with yellow bristle, rose and fell horribly.
He began to cough. Peter shuffled to his feet, caught up
the teakettle and mixed him some hot water and whiskey.
The sharp smell of spirits went through the room.
| 8 | |
| Pavel snatched the cup and drank, then made Peter give him
the bottle and slipped it under his pillow, grinning disagreeably,
as if he had outwitted someone. His eyes followed Peter
about the room with a contemptuous, unfriendly expression.
It seemed to me that he despised him for being so simple and docile.
| 9 | |
| Presently Pavel began to talk to Mr. Shimerda, scarcely above
a whisper. He was telling a long story, and as he went on,
Antonia took my hand under the table and held it tight.
She leaned forward and strained her ears to hear him.
He grew more and more excited, and kept pointing all around
his bed, as if there were things there and he wanted Mr. Shimerda
to see them.
| 10 | |
| `It's wolves, Jimmy,' Antonia whispered. `It's awful,
what he says!'
| 11 | |
| The sick man raged and shook his fist. He seemed to be
cursing people who had wronged him. Mr. Shimerda caught
him by the shoulders, but could hardly hold him in bed.
At last he was shut off by a coughing fit which fairly choked him.
He pulled a cloth from under his pillow and held it to his mouth.
Quickly it was covered with bright red spots--I thought I had
never seen any blood so bright. When he lay down and turned
his face to the wall, all the rage had gone out of him.
He lay patiently fighting for breath, like a child with croup.
Antonia's father uncovered one of his long bony legs and rubbed
it rhythmically. From our bench we could see what a hollow case
his body was. His spine and shoulder-blades stood out like
the bones under the hide of a dead steer left in the fields.
That sharp backbone must have hurt him when he lay on it.
| 12 | |
| Gradually, relief came to all of us. Whatever it was, the worst
was over. Mr. Shimerda signed to us that Pavel was asleep.
Without a word Peter got up and lit his lantern. He was going
out to get his team to drive us home. Mr. Shimerda went with him.
We sat and watched the long bowed back under the blue sheet,
scarcely daring to breathe.
| 13 | |
| On the way home, when we were lying in the straw, under the jolting
and rattling Antonia told me as much of the story as she could.
What she did not tell me then, she told later; we talked of nothing
else for days afterward.
| 14 | |
| When Pavel and Peter were young men, living at home in Russia,
they were asked to be groomsmen for a friend who was to marry
the belle of another village. It was in the dead of winter
and the groom's party went over to the wedding in sledges.
Peter and Pavel drove in the groom's sledge, and six sledges
followed with all his relatives and friends.
| 15 | |
| After the ceremony at the church, the party went to a dinner given
by the parents of the bride. The dinner lasted all afternoon;
then it became a supper and continued far into the night.
There was much dancing and drinking. At midnight the parents
of the bride said good-bye to her and blessed her.
The groom took her up in his arms and carried her out to his sledge
and tucked her under the blankets. He sprang in beside her,
and Pavel and Peter (our Pavel and Peter!) took the front seat.
Pavel drove. The party set out with singing and the jingle
of sleigh-bells, the groom's sledge going first.
All the drivers were more or less the worse for merry-making,
and the groom was absorbed in his bride.
| 16 | |
| The wolves were bad that winter, and everyone knew it, yet when they
heard the first wolf-cry, the drivers were not much alarmed.
They had too much good food and drink inside them.
The first howls were taken up and echoed and with
quickening repetitions. The wolves were coming together.
There was no moon, but the starlight was clear on the snow.
A black drove came up over the hill behind the wedding party.
The wolves ran like streaks of shadow; they looked no bigger
than dogs, but there were hundreds of them.
| 17 | |
| Something happened to the hindmost sledge: the driver lost control--
he was probably very drunk--the horses left the road,
the sledge was caught in a clump of trees, and overturned.
The occupants rolled out over the snow, and the fleetest
of the wolves sprang upon them. The shrieks that followed made
everybody sober. The drivers stood up and lashed their horses.
The groom had the best team and his sledge was lightest--
all the others carried from six to a dozen people.
| 18 | |
| Another driver lost control. The screams of the horses were
more terrible to hear than the cries of the men and women.
Nothing seemed to check the wolves. It was hard to tell
what was happening in the rear; the people who were falling
behind shrieked as piteously as those who were already lost.
The little bride hid her face on the groom's shoulder and sobbed.
Pavel sat still and watched his horses. The road was clear
and white, and the groom's three blacks went like the wind.
It was only necessary to be calm and to guide them carefully.
| 19 | |
| At length, as they breasted a long hill, Peter rose cautiously
and looked back. `There are only three sledges left,' he whispered.
| 20 | |
| `And the wolves?' Pavel asked.
| 21 | |
| `Enough! Enough for all of us.'
| 22 | |
| Pavel reached the brow of the hill, but only two sledges followed him
down the other side. In that moment on the hilltop, they saw behind
them a whirling black group on the snow. Presently the groom screamed.
He saw his father's sledge overturned, with his mother and sisters.
He sprang up as if he meant to jump, but the girl shrieked and held him back.
It was even then too late. The black ground-shadows were already
crowding over the heap in the road, and one horse ran out across
the fields, his harness hanging to him, wolves at his heels.
But the groom's movement had given Pavel an idea.
| 23 | |
| They were within a few miles of their village now.
The only sledge left out of six was not very far behind them,
and Pavel's middle horse was failing. Beside a frozen pond
something happened to the other sledge; Peter saw it plainly.
Three big wolves got abreast of the horses, and the horses
went crazy. They tried to jump over each other, got tangled
up in the harness, and overturned the sledge.
| 24 | |
| When the shrieking behind them died away, Pavel realized
that he was alone upon the familiar road. `They still come?'
he asked Peter.
| 25 | |
| `Yes.'
| 26 | |
| `How many?'
| 27 | |
| `Twenty, thirty--enough.'
| 28 | |
| Now his middle horse was being almost dragged by the other two.
Pavel gave Peter the reins and stepped carefully into the back
of the sledge. He called to the groom that they must lighten--
and pointed to the bride. The young man cursed him and held her tighter.
Pavel tried to drag her away. In the struggle, the groom rose.
Pavel knocked him over the side of the sledge and threw the girl
after him. He said he never remembered exactly how he did it,
or what happened afterward. Peter, crouching in the front seat,
saw nothing. The first thing either of them noticed was a new
sound that broke into the clear air, louder than they had ever
heard it before--the bell of the monastery of their own village,
ringing for early prayers.
| 29 | |
| Pavel and Peter drove into the village alone, and they had
been alone ever since. They were run out of their village.
Pavel's own mother would not look at him. They went away
to strange towns, but when people learned where they came from,
they were always asked if they knew the two men who had fed the bride
to the wolves. Wherever they went, the story followed them.
It took them five years to save money enough to come to America.
They worked in Chicago, Des Moines, Fort Wayne, but they
were always unfortunate. When Pavel's health grew so bad,
they decided to try farming.
| 30 | |
| Pavel died a few days after he unburdened his mind to Mr. Shimerda,
and was buried in the Norwegian graveyard. Peter sold off everything,
and left the country--went to be cook in a railway construction camp
where gangs of Russians were employed.
| 31 | |
| At his sale we bought Peter's wheelbarrow and some of his harness.
During the auction he went about with his head down, and never lifted
his eyes. He seemed not to care about anything. The Black Hawk
money-lender who held mortgages on Peter's livestock was there,
and he bought in the sale notes at about fifty cents on the dollar.
Everyone said Peter kissed the cow before she was led away by her new owner.
I did not see him do it, but this I know: after all his furniture and
his cookstove and pots and pans had been hauled off by the purchasers,
when his house was stripped and bare, he sat down on the floor with his
clasp-knife and ate all the melons that he had put away for winter.
When Mr. Shimerda and Krajiek drove up in their wagon to take Peter
to the train, they found him with a dripping beard, surrounded by heaps
of melon rinds.
| 32 | |
| The loss of his two friends had a depressing effect upon old
Mr. Shimerda. When he was out hunting, he used to go into
the empty log house and sit there, brooding. This cabin was
his hermitage until the winter snows penned him in his cave.
For Antonia and me, the story of the wedding party was
never at an end. We did not tell Pavel's secret to anyone,
but guarded it jealously--as if the wolves of the Ukraine
had gathered that night long ago, and the wedding party
been sacrificed, to give us a painful and peculiar pleasure.
At night, before I went to sleep, I often found myself in a sledge
drawn by three horses, dashing through a country that looked
something like Nebraska and something like Virginia.
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