wide over all the sky, long like a sea-gull's--and I after Him! And my dog had to stay behind. Then only I understood that that dog was my illness, and that in the heavenly kingdom there was no place for it.'
Lukerya paused a minute.
'And I had another dream, too,' she began again; 'but may be it was a vision. I really don't know. It seemed to me I was lying in this very shanty, and my dead parents, father and mother, come to me and bow low to me, but say nothing. And I asked them, 'Why do you bow down to me, father and mother?' 'Because,' they said, 'you suffer much in this world, so that you have not only set free your own soul, but have taken a great burden from off us too. And for us in the other world it is much easier. You have made an end of your own sins; now you are expiating our sins.' And having said this, my parents bowed down to me again, and I could not see them; there was nothing but the walls to be seen. I was in great doubt afterwards what had happened with me. I even told the priest of it in confession. Only he thinks it was not a vision, because visions come only to the clerical gentry.'
'And I'll tell you another dream,' Lukerya went on. 'I dreamt I was sitting on the high-road, under a willow; I had a stick, had a wallet on my shoulders, and my head tied up in a kerchief, just like a pilgrim woman! And I had to go somewhere, a long, long way off, on a pilgrimage. And pilgrims kept coming past me; they came along slowly, all going one way; their faces were weary, and all very much like one another. And I dreamt that moving about among them was a woman, a head taller than the rest, and wearing a peculiar dress, not like ours--not Russian. And her face too was peculiar--a worn face and severe. And all the others moved away from her; but she suddenly turns, and comes straight to me. She stood still, and looked at me; and her eyes were yellow, large, and clear as a falcon's. And I ask her, 'Who are you?' And she says to me, 'I'm your death.' Instead of being frightened, it was quite the other way. I was as pleased as could be; I crossed myself! And the woman, my death, says to me: 'I'm sorry for you, Lukerya, but I can't take you with me. Farewell!' Good God! how sad I was then!... 'Take me,' said I, 'good mother, take me, darling!' And my death turned to me, and began speaking to me.... I knew that she was appointing me my hour, but indistinctly, incomprehensibly. 'After St. Peter's day,' said she.... With that I awoke.... Yes, I have such wonderful dreams!'
Lukerya turned her eyes upwards... and sank into thought....
'Only the sad thing is, sometimes a whole week will go by without my getting to sleep once. Last year a lady came to see me, and she gave me a little bottle of medicine against sleeplessness; she told me to take ten drops at a time. It did me so much good, and I used to sleep; only the bottle was all finished long ago. Do you know what medicine that was, and how to get it?'
The lady had obviously given Lukerya opium. I promised to get her another bottle like it, and could not refrain from again wondering aloud at her patience.
'Ah, master!' she answered, 'why do you say so? What do you mean by patience? There, Simeon Stylites now had patience certainly, great patience; for thirty years he stood on a pillar! And another saint had himself buried in the earth, right up to his breast, and the ants ate his face.... And I'll tell you what I was told by a good scholar: there was once a country, and the Ishmaelites made war on it, and they tortured and killed all the inhabitants; and do what they would, the people could not get rid of them. And there appeared among these people a holy virgin; she took a great sword, put on armour weighing eighty pounds, went out against the Ishmaelites and drove them all beyond the sea. Only when she had driven them out, she said to them: 'Now burn me, for that was my vow, that I would die a death by fire for my people.' And the Ishmaelites took her and burnt her, and the people have been free ever since then! That was a noble deed, now! But what am I!'
I wondered to myself whence and in what shape the legend of Joan of Arc had reached her, and after a brief silence, I asked Lukerya how old she was.
'Twenty-eight... or nine.... It won't be thirty. But why count the years! I've something else to tell you....'
Lukerya suddenly gave a sort of choked cough, and groaned....
'You are talking a great deal,' I observed to her; 'it may be bad for you.'
'It's true,' she whispered, hardly audibly; 'it's time to end our talk; but what does it matter! Now, when you leave me, I can be silent as long as I like. Any way, I've opened my heart....'
I began bidding her good-bye. I repeated my promise to send her the medicine, and asked her once more to think well and tell me--if there wasn't anything she wanted?'
'I want nothing; I am content with all, thank God!' she articulated with very great effort, but with emotion; 'God give good health to all! But there, master, you might speak a word to your mamma--the peasants here are poor--if she could take the least bit off their rent! They've not land enough, and no advantages.... They would pray to God for you.... But I want nothing; I'm quite contented with all.'
I gave Lukerya my word that I would carry out her request, and had already walked to the door.... She called me back again.
'Do you remember, master,' she said, and there was a gleam of something wonderful in her eyes and on her lips, 'what hair I used to have? Do you remember, right down to my knees! It was long before I could make up my mind to it.... Such hair as it was! But how could it be kept combed? In my state!... So I had it cut off.... Yes.... Well, good-bye, master! I can't talk any more.'...
That day, before setting off to shoot, I had a conversation with the village constable about Lukerya. I learnt from him that in the village they called Lukerya the 'Living Relic'; that she gave them no trouble, however; they never heard complaint or repining from her. 'She asks nothing, but, on the contrary, she's grateful for everything; a gentle soul, one must say, if any there be. Stricken of God,' so the constable concluded, 'for her sins, one must suppose; but we do not go into that. And as for judging her, no--no, we do not judge her. Let her be!'
* * * * *
A few weeks later I heard that Lukerya was dead. So her death had come for her... and 'after St. Peter's day.' They told me that on the day of her death she kept hearing the sound of bells, though it was reckoned over five miles from Aleksyevka to the church, and it was a week-day. Lukerya, however, had said that the sounds came not from the church, but from above! Probably she did not dare to say--from heaven.
XXIV
THE RATTLING OF WHEELS
'I've something to tell you,' observed Yermolai, coming into the hut to see me. I had just had dinner, and was lying down on a travelling bed to rest a little after a fairly successful but fatiguing day of grouse-shooting--it was somewhere about the 10th of July, and the heat was terrific.... 'I've something to tell you: all our shot's gone.'
I jumped off the bed.
'All gone? How's that? Why, we took pretty nearly thirty pounds with us from the village--a whole bag!'
'That's so; and a big bag it was: enough for a fortnight. But there's no knowing! There must have been a hole come in it, or something; anyway, there's no shot... that's to say, there's enough for ten charges left.'
'What are we to do now? The very best places are before us--we're promised six coveys for to- morrow....'
'Well, send me to Tula. It's not so far from here; only forty miles. I'll fly like the wind, and bring forty pounds of shot if you say the word.'
'But when would you go?'
'Why, directly. Why put it off? Only, I say, we shall have to hire horses.'
'Why hire horses? Why not our own?'
'We can't drive there with our own. The shaft horse has gone lame... terribly!'
'Since when's that?'
'Well, the other day, the coachman took him to be shod. So he was shod, and the blacksmith, I suppose, was clumsy. Now, he can't even step on the hoof. It's a front leg. He lifts it up... like a dog.'
'Well? they've taken the shoe off, I suppose, at least?'
'No, they've not; but, of course, they ought to take it off. A nail's been driven right into the flesh, I should say.'
I ordered the coachman to be summoned. It turned out that Yermolai had spoken the truth: the shaft-horse really could not put its hoof to the ground. I promptly gave orders for it to have the shoe taken off, and to be stood on damp clay.
'Then do you wish me to hire horses to go to Tula?' Yermolai persisted.
