TO THE MEMORY OF U. P. VREVSKY
On dirt, on stinking wet straw under the shelter of a tumble-down barn, turned in haste into a camp hospital, in a ruined Bulgarian village, for over a fortnight she lay dying of typhus.
She was unconscious, and not one doctor even looked at her; the sick soldiers, whom she had tended as long as she could keep on her legs, in their turn got up from their pestilent litters to lift a few drops of water in the hollow of a broken pot to her parched lips.
She was young and beautiful; the great world knew her; even the highest dignitaries had been interested in her. Ladies had envied her, men had paid her court … two or three had loved her secretly and truly. Life had smiled on her; but there are smiles that are worse than tears.
A soft, tender heart … and such force, such eagerness for sacrifice! To help those who needed help … she knew of no other happiness … knew not of it, and had never once known it. Every other happiness passed her by. But she had long made up her mind to that; and all aglow with the fire of unquenchable faith, she gave herself to the service of her neighbours.
What hidden treasure she buried there in the depth of her heart, in her most secret soul, no one ever knew; and now, of course, no one will ever know.
Ay, and what need? Her sacrifice is made … her work is done.
But grievous it is to think that no one said thanks even to her dead body, though she herself was shy and shrank from all thanks.
May her dear shade pardon this belated blossom, which I make bold to lay upon her grave!
THE LAST MEETING
We had once been close and warm friends…. But an unlucky moment came … and we parted as enemies.
Many years passed by…. And coming to the town where he lived, I learnt that he was helplessly ill, and wished to see me.
I made my way to him, went into his room…. Our eyes met.
I hardly knew him. God! what sickness had done to him!
Yellow, wrinkled, completely bald, with a scanty grey beard, he sat clothed in nothing but a shirt purposely slit open…. He could not bear the weight of even the lightest clothes. Jerkily he stretched out to me his fearfully thin hand that looked as if it were gnawed away, with an effort muttered a few indistinct words—whether of welcome or reproach, who can tell? His emaciated chest heaved, and over the dwindled pupils of his kindling eyes rolled two hard-wrung tears of suffering.
My heart sank…. I sat down on a chair beside him, and involuntarily dropping my eyes before the horror and hideousness of it, I too held out my hand.
But it seemed to me that it was not his hand that took hold of me.
It seemed to me that between us is sitting a tall, still, white woman. A long robe shrouds her from head to foot. Her deep, pale eyes look into vacancy; no sound is uttered by her pale, stern lips.
This woman has joined our hands…. She has reconciled us for ever.
Yes…. Death has reconciled us….
A VISIT
I was sitting at the open window … in the morning, the early morning of the first of May.
The dawn had not yet begun; but already the dark, warm night grew pale and chill at its approach.
No mist had risen, no breeze was astir, all was colourless and still … but the nearness of the awakening could be felt, and the rarer air smelt keen and moist with dew.
Suddenly, at the open window, with a light whirr and rustle, a great bird flew into my room.
I started, looked closely at it…. It was not a bird; it was a tiny winged woman, dressed in a narrow long robe flowing to her feet.
She was grey all over, the colour of mother-of-pearl; only the inner side of her wings glowed with the tender flush of an opening rose; a wreath of valley lilies entwined the scattered curls upon her little round head; and, like a butterfly's feelers, two peacock feathers waved drolly above her lovely rounded brow.
She fluttered twice about the ceiling; her tiny face was laughing; laughing, too, were her great, clear, black eyes.
The gay frolic of her sportive flight set them flashing like diamonds.
She held in her hand the long stalk of a flower of the steppes—'the Tsar's sceptre,' the Russians call it—it is really like a sceptre.
Flying rapidly above me, she touched my head with the flower.
I rushed towards her…. But already she had fluttered out of window, and darted away….
In the garden, in a thicket of lilac bushes, a wood-dove greeted her with its first morning warble … and where she vanished, the milk-white sky flushed a soft pink.
I know thee, Goddess of Fantasy! Thou didst pay me a random visit by the way; thou hast flown on to the young poets.
O Poesy! Youth! Virginal beauty of woman! Thou couldst shine for me but for a moment, in the early dawn of early spring!
A BAS-RELIEF
A tall, bony old woman, with iron face and dull, fixed look, moves with long strides, and, with an arm dry as a stick, pushes before her another woman.
This woman—of huge stature, powerful, thick-set, with the muscles of a Hercules, with a tiny head set on a bull neck, and blind—in her turn pushes before her a small, thin girl.
This girl alone has eyes that see; she resists, turns round, lifts fair, delicate hands; her face, full of life, shows impatience and daring…. She wants not to obey, she wants not to go, where they are driving her … but, still, she has to yield and go.
Who will, may translate.
ALMS
Near a large town, along the broad highroad walked an old sick man.
