Part 10
“_Boshi Moi!_” Katherina’s eyes went out to it in a dumb appeal, “_Boshi Moi!_” Wearily she sat down after a moment on the lower step of the ladder. Voices came from the road. Presently she saw, from her seclusion, Natalka and Simyonka enter through the gate. Their young forms stood out clean, clear, in the soft light. This was Simyonka’s market day, she remembered. He had evidently met Natalka at the lake on his way from market. They were talking heatedly. The little chit Natalka was arguing, smiling, coquetting. The youth seemed to be entreating her, begging earnestly. Simyonka was not much older than Natalka. He was tall and lean and brown, clean-featured, clean-looking in his coarse, home-spun linen. Katherina watched, and her soul filled with gratitude that he was so beautiful, for Natalka.
They came a few steps nearer on the garden path and she caught their words.
“Just one! Just one, Natalka!” His face was lifted. His eyes were beseeching her. And Natalka, laughing, radiant, mischievous, turned and was backing away from him toward the house, her hand raised between them.
“_Lublue ya tibya._” (I love thee.)
With the palm of her hand against his mouth, she pressed him away. He was murmuring, “You are like a little flower, Natalka. You are like a little birch-tree, a little white birch growing in the field.”
Katherina’s own face was radiant. “_Ya tibya lublue._” He loves her! Yes, he loves her. She herself had never known such love. “Simyonka loves Natalka!” The words filled her with dizzy joy.
Then her face twisted with agony. But soon, very soon, he would look upon her with shame! At once! At her wedding! His father will ask Gavrelo, “What is your daughter’s portion?” And Gavrelo will say, “Nothing!” And the whole village will laugh and jeer. And little Natalka will bend her head with shame. And later, again, when he brings her home and the villagers and relatives gather about him, and he has nothing of hers that he could tell them she brought, that he could show--
She rose. Carried away by this thought, she no longer saw nor heard them outside, and she went staggering into the living room of the hut and fell upon her knees before the icon.
“Gracious Mother Maria!” Her clumsy little body crumpled to the hard-trodden earth.
“Blessed Mother Maria, can you hear me?” she pleaded in the crude way of Sabinka people. “Can you hear me? I have come to beg of you for Natalka. You know, Mother, I have never come to you for myself. But now I come for her. Mother,” her voice rose brokenly, “you know how hard my life has been. At home when I was young we were so poor. Often I was hungry for just bread. In marriage--Gavrelo is a strange person.” She fell silent a moment, her tears choking her.
“The children were all I had. And when little Zacharka died I felt as if my heart would break, Mother. He was so sweet to look at with his golden hair and blue eyes. He would have been fifteen years old now. Oh, Mother! It is hard; it has been hard to see other little lads in the village and not see Zacharka. In the spring, when the sky is blue, and the fields are covered with grass, I miss little Zacharka. I miss him when from each home in the village a little lad goes forth with his father’s herd. The mothers wait for them all day, and in the evening they meet them at the gate. I, too, wait all day, but it is a strange little lad that brings our cattle home.” She lay still, sobbing brokenly.
“It has been hard, Mother Maria. Yet, have I complained? But now I beg pity for Natalka.” Her hands clasped, her forehead pressed to the earth. “Pity, Mother, pity for Natalka!”
The trees were in full leaf. The meadows were dotted with the first flowers. The wheat in the great field stood a foot high. It was Saturday at dusk. The cattle had long passed, and the dust they had stirred was laid. Swarms of tiny insects danced in the open spaces of the road. Far out frogs croaked at regular intervals. The air was warm and sweet with the breath of the flowers and the dew. The village seemed quietly at rest. Yet there was a silent stir--preparation for the morrow, the first wedding in Sabinka this spring.
The fence enclosing Gavrelo’s hut was strung with branches of green foliage. High over the gate a wreath of orange-colored flowers hung to mark the bride’s dwelling. Inside the yard was swept clean and sprinkled with yellow sand, and long benches stood along the walls. On the doorstep of the outhouse Natalka sat with her two bridesmaids trimming her veil. Natalka herself was making the little rosettes of red or green ribbon, and the maids stitched them on all over the long strip of white muslin. The maids were talking and giggling, their heads bent over their work. Natalka was quiet and solemn.
In the deep interior of the outhouse Katherina was giving the last touches to the _kubial_. She lifted and replaced and folded and finally fitted the cover and slipped in the bar. It was done! Her hands fell at her sides. Katherina had grown thinner, paler, more pinched. Since she prayed before the icon she had spent the time from day to day, from hour to hour, waiting. But nothing--nothing had happened to save Natalka. Since that hour at dusk, she, Katherina, had spent morning and night kneeling before the icon. She had been to the cemetery many times, where her dead were laid, and hung their moldy wooden crosses with new little aprons of many colors. She had watched Gavrelo from day to day, hoping for a sign of relenting, of softening. But none had come. Sullen, stolid, he went about as usual, working early and late in the fields and at the barns, only coming in to eat his three meals of black bread and cabbage soup, and to sleep the few hours between the extreme dark and early dawn. Standing there, she could hear him now at the barns, still working--still working--while others were long at rest.
“Ach, Gavrelo!” she cried to him silently, “what is it all for? What are you doing it for, Gavrelo?” She lifted her coarse apron and wiped away stinging tears.
The shadow before the door had just fallen on the threshold. By clock time it would have been perhaps ten in the morning. A wagon lined with green leaves and buttercups, harnessed to four pair, stood at the gate in the road. The horses were snorting and beating the ground impatiently, and a sturdy youth sat holding the reins mightily. Within, the yard flashed with color--red, short, wide skirts, blue and green streamers, red bandannas, white shirts, patent-leather boots, sparkling black or green beads, shining brass buttons.
The guests sat primly on the benches along the walls, chanting solemnly. Katherina and Gavrelo sat among the elders of the village. Gavrelo looked browner in a well-bleached shirt, and he was the only man who wore birch sandals instead of boots. Katherina sat beside him, her head swathed in a white linen scarf decorated with little red crosses. Her head was bowed, her hands were folded in her lap, her face as white as her scarf. Simyonka, in patent leather boots and white shirt, looked solemn. Natalka was tearful. Natalka looked like some strange wild-flower, a poppy perhaps, with all the red and green, and her loose brown hair. Her scarf flashed with every possible color. Her skirt was red; her breast was covered with many strings of beads.
Suddenly the chanting stopped. A hush fell. Solemnly, between her two maids, the bride rose to ask a blessing of her parents before starting for church. She walked with studied and becoming dignity, her head bowed, her hands clasped in front of her. She reached her parents. And here she forgot her rôle. Overcome by emotion, she fell upon her knees rather clumsily, humanly, and a low cry, half song, half wail of the braid song, pierced the air.
“_Boshi Moi_----”
“My braids--my beautiful brown braids.”
Blindly and convulsed, Katherina rose and made the sign of the cross over her. Gavrelo did the same. Katherina watched, still watched and hoped for a sign of relenting. But his face looked more stubborn than ever. And Katherina now suddenly knew that she must not expect him to relent. When had Gavrelo ever relented that she should have expected it? Fool that she was! It had always been just the contrary even when it was to his own disadvantage. His word given became law. Fool that she was to have expected Gavrelo to change his word!
Meanwhile, Natalka, kneeling before each guest for a blessing, reached the gate. There was a burst of song. All pressed forward. The horses pranced, a whip cracked and a cloud of dust rose before the gate, and the bride was gone. Katherina and Gavrelo followed in a vehicle. Dazed and crushed, she was sped along. What could now happen? The beginning of Natalka’s shame a mere few hours off.
Noise and confusion filled the yard. There was a babble of voices, thick voices, incoherent, affectionate, querulous, crying of children, snatches of song, the strains of a fiddle rising a moment over the clamor, a rhythmic thomp, thomp of dancing feet.
It was late in the afternoon. The bridal pair had long returned from church. The yard was now divided in two parts. One-half was occupied by the dancers, and in the other half two long tables stood spread with food--roast pork, dishes heaped with sour pickles glistening in juice, salt herring, thick slices of black bread, tall green bottles of vodka, white and stinging.
The guests sat about the tables, while the children clamored at their elders’ elbows. The feast was at its height. Among the men several of the guests already lay under the table. Of the women most were intoxicated. Some sat wagging their heads. Others were awakened now and then to shrill merriment. Still others drank little and sat chanting solemnly, keeping up dutifully the burden of the rites.
In the dancers’ corner several couples whirled in a quadrille. In one of these Natalka flashed in and out. Natalka’s face was still solemn and dignified. But a twinkle of mischief and coquettishness was in her eyes. Her husband was dancing in the same quadrille. Whenever they had to dance opposite each other her eyes teased him; her little red hand extended and withdrew half-way, and Simyonka was tantalized and radiant.
Further a circle of young folk surrounded the great-grandfather of the village, dancing a jig.
His hands on his hips, his white beard flowing, his head high, a smile on his lips, his aged limbs performed with wonderful agility. He toed to the right, he toed to the left, here he crossed, there he kneeled. And the fiddlers fiddled with all their might, and the women clapped, and the men cheered and stamped.
“Trala-lala-lala.”
At one table Katherina sat among her guests. Leaning to this one and that one, she urged:
“Another piece of pork? Some more _kvass_?” She herself neither ate nor drank. Her face was ashen white. Her eyes were fastened on Gavrelo, who sat at the side of Simyonka’s father. At the other table Gavrelo, urged by Simyonka’s father, had drunk deeply. This was the second time in his life he had drunk. His face was purple, he talked incoherently, and he sat gazing about him helplessly, as if he could not make out what had happened to him. Simyonka’s father was leaning on the table to keep his balance; but being accustomed to vodka he had not quite lost his wits.
“You--you half a fine stock of cattle,” he told Gavrelo, dealing him a complimentary blow on the back. “You half fine cowsh!”
Gavrelo threw his head back to drain a glassful, and drew it back with difficulty, then sat swaying.
“Fine cowsh,” mumbled Simyonka’s father. Gavrelo turned his head and eyed his new relative with a vacant stare. Then came the dreaded question. Katherina, watching from her table, sat as still as if cut from stone.
“What--what ish Natalka’s portion, Gavrelo?” Many bleared eyes were turned on Gavrelo. This would be the first time Gavrelo had given anything in his life. Some of the villagers actually sobered for a moment and stared.
“Natalka’s portion?” Simyonka’s father insisted with drunken stubbornness.
Suddenly Katherina’s face turned from its ashen pallor to a live red. Oh, yes! Yes! She would! Why not? She would do it, yes, she would! Or why would it have come into her head? Could it be that the Sacred Mother had not forgotten her? She sat a moment staring stupidly, then rose quickly, elbowed her way to her husband and stood at his side.
“Natalka’s portion?” Simyonka’s father clamored with piggish persistence. His voice rose to a squeal. Katherina bent over Gavrelo and whispered.
“Say Parshuchuck.”
“Parshuchuck,” Gavrelo repeated, and looked up at her as though he were trying to recognize her.
“Natalka’s portion a pig!” the father-in-law called out to the guests.
“And Chulka,” Katherina again whispered to her husband. Gavrelo stared at her doubtfully, but repeated “Chulka.”
“And the large field of wheat,” Katherina urged hoarsely.
“Wheat!” repeated Gavrelo. His head fell forward and his mouth dripped water.
“Three pishes!” Simyonka’s father bawled out.
“Three pieces!” It was repeated around the yard.
“Simyonka! You lucky hound!” a young man shrieked. All were now staring, eyes bleared, at the three. Natalka came over to her mother. Her face looked white and scared.
“_Matushka!_” she exclaimed, “what have you done?” And Katherina suddenly realized that Natalka had known all along that her father would give her nothing.
“It is all right,” Katherina said. “Go dance. Go. But tell Simyonka to come and fetch his father-in-law to a cool place. And Natalka--you better tell Simyonka to take the pig and the heifer tonight. The wheat you will get in the fall.”
“But, _Matushka_----”
“It is all right, Natalka. You know your father is a man of his word. Go dance.”
A few minutes later Gavrelo lay stretched on a bench in the cool, dim outhouse. Natalka and Simyonka were congratulated on their generous portion. New quadrilles were formed, a new jig was being danced. Katherina went back and sat among her guests. And as she clapped her hands for the dancers she wondered, “And what about the morrow? Will he think he did it of his own accord, or will he remember?” But what mattered the morrow? Just now Anulia Addom was screaming into her grandmother’s deaf ear:
“Natalka received three things, _Babushka_; you hear me, three things!” And Katherina clapped.
“Trala-lala-lala-lala.”
“Ach, they were wise after all, those men,” she thought; “they were wise who said that it is better to have a relative rich though a miser than one who is poor and generous. The miser, sooner or later, in one way or another, you may overcome. It is poverty that is like unto death.”
[8] Copyright, 1922, by The Pictorial Review Company. Copyright, 1923, by Rose Gollup Cohen.
THE SHAME OF GOLD[9]
By CHARLES J. FINGER
(From _The Century_)
“L’Intransigeant” recently printed a short account of the failure of the Franco-Brazilian ornithological expedition. Reading, you may have caught a hint of tragedy in it; but it may have escaped you, because our papers barely noticed the matter. I was specially interested because of a conversation I had had with a stranger who knew Brazil in a peculiar way.
Knowing Columbus, Ohio, you cannot fail to remember the place where the C. D. & M. Traction crosses the main business street. It is crowded at the corner, for a newspaper office is there, and bulletins of the world happenings are posted every hour or so. On the day that I have in mind, Hall and I paused there for a moment. A new bulletin was being put up, which read:
_Franco-Brazilian expedition formed to explore upper Amazon territory._
Hall made a remark laughingly as to new markets to exploit, and hurried on his way to meet his investment broker; but I, gazing upward, unaware of his disappearance, said:
“Yes, there are still spots on this little world untrodden by the foot of man.”
Turning, I discovered his absence, while from another man who stood where he had been came the words, very decidedly:
“I doubt it.”
“But why?” I asked, mildly interested.
“Good reason,” he replied, with a little shrug of his shoulders. There was a moment of hesitation, then, simultaneously, we both started off in the same direction, and for half a block walked almost side by side. At a word it transpired that we were both bound for the depot, for the Cincinnati train.
Later, on the train, he resumed the subject. “I know Brazil a little,” he said, “and far out of the beaten track, but I know it superficially. Others have been there--many others, and their lines are crossed and crisscrossed.”
“White men?” I asked.
“Certainly, white men. That’s how I was surprised into the remark I made there at the bulletin-board. Men poke everywhere about the world.” The man sketched out roughly on the palm of his hand, and with his pipe-stem, an imaginary map. “You recall the outline of South America,” he went on, “nearly pear-shaped, an elongated pear. Now, here is Peru, a little above the base of my thumb. Over here, under the little finger, is Cape St. Roque. I have been here. Cut across like this.” He drew a bold stroke entirely across his hand. “That means Callao, into the Andes, and so north. North to strike the head-waters of the Amazon, and then trouble, fever and hunger. Wealth, too, in a way.”
“Love of adventure?” I hazarded.
He regarded me intently for a moment. I noticed his iron-gray hair and queerly wrinkled face. He was not yet middle-aged.
“No. I never tried to analyze. I don’t know. I’m not really adventurous. I like to be alone. Also, I drift, perhaps. When in a crowd, nothing seems to be worth while, and one is an ant in a hurrying mass. Alone, thoughts come with force. They strike one as bluntly as seen things impress themselves. I can’t explain.”
I was unwilling to press him with questions. He was not the kind of man that could be drawn out. When he spoke again there was a note of quiet, pleasant excitement.
“By the way, in Prescott’s ‘Peru’ there is a passage somewhere telling of one party of Spaniards crossing the Andes and discovering silver. Then, being unable to get back, they built a boat and floated down the Amazon, and presently turned up in Cuba again. It’s there somewhere. Or in Irving. In Prescott, I think.”
I told him that I had a faint recollection of something like that.
“Well,” he continued, paying little heed, “that was, roughly, four hundred years ago. No modern things to use, no chart, no map, no compass, no tools, or camp paraphernalia; just plain, dogged go-at-it and keep on. Keep in one direction, and you get somewhere. That’s how Magellan felt his way, and Columbus his. Then the old Norsemen in open boats. It excites me thinking of that. It was always that way, one man pushing on.”
Again he lapsed into one of his ruminating moods.
“But about Prescott-- Once I was nearly all in. Over the Andes I’d gone, and if I didn’t hit the trail of the Pizarro men, I’m crazy. I never saw a helmet in my life until then, and I came across one under an overhanging rock. A mighty thing it was--the rock I mean--a kind of excavation under it that formed a cave.
“The helmet was there, and a few pieces of steel--short pieces; a broken sword, perhaps. I took the helmet and carried it for days, then threw it away. A man can’t be burdened with plunder like that.
“You see, I’d been on the trail for more than three months that time. Now and then I caught sight of an Indian, and once I got an arrow through my left shoulder. There were days and weeks in which I saw no sign of human life, but, by George! there was plenty of good company. Insects, you know, great glorious things. Butterflies, too--butterflies that run and make a little noise like a rattle when they fly away. It’s laughable. Living things are great fun to watch. And then the concerts at evening at sunset, crickets and things. I don’t know their names. Magnify insects, and I reckon you’d have a fantastic world.
“When I did see a human face again, it gave me a start. I’d found a good spot in the jungle to rest in. The stream ran clear there, this stream I’d been following, and the bottom of it was sandy. One does not often find a place like that. Thinking of an ideal spot, you imagine a stream in the shade of a tree, with grass all about. But when you get your stream, there is often mud, and where there is shade there is no grass. Here there was everything; a pleasant kind of spot, and I didn’t move all day. I just rested and smoked and bathed my feet and watched the insects. It was quiet, too, still as midnight, and the sun never pierced the leafy roof. It was just a great, green arch like a cathedral, with smooth, lofty tree-trunks, chamber after chamber of green, and, what was specially fine, the place was clear of lianas. So I rested there and read an old newspaper I had picked up in Callao and brought along. I’d read it before dozens of times. Then my eyes would tire of the print, and I’d doze off. I did that dozens of times. The peace of the place was too much for me--too much both ways. The perfectness of it overcame me, and drove me to the little thing, the silly newspaper.
“Once I woke with the notion that some one was watching me. What I saw gave me a shiver. There was a big flowering-bush not ten yards away. They were great red flowers, meat color, like raw beef, and right between two of the flowers, as if it was stuck in a cleft, was a man’s face, snag-toothed, red-bearded, shock-haired. It might have been a great ape. The eyes stared straight at me. Remember, I’d seen no natives for a long while, nor was there a settlement near, and it was a region as big as the State of Illinois, and no white man, I thought, had ever set foot there. Yet here was a face, and it was not the face of a native. I knew enough to keep still, and only peered through the narrowest slits I could make with my eyelids, so I judged that the face in the flower would think I slept. Believe me, I watched closely.
“It moved my way, but cautiously as a snake, and I saw a hairy chest, a hairy human being, and stark. He came on hands and toes, and I knew that he was a fellow used to the jungle and no native. Noiselessly he came, not stirring leaf or blade, hardly. The smell of his body assailed me unpleasantly, for there were sweetly smelling spice-trees, and the human smell was rank as poison.