of the boys looks like which, although they are not the sons but the grandsons of those men. That is what has been done here in this forest, lad, in my memory.
“And the forest is murmuring loudly tonight. There will be rain.”
III
The old man spoke the last words as if he were tired. His excitement had died out, his tongue was tripping, his head was shaking, and his eyes were full of tears.
Night had fallen; the forest was wrapped in darkness. The wind was thundering against the hut like a rising tide. The black treetops were tossing like the crests of waves in a fierce gale.
Soon a merry barking announced the approach of the dogs and their masters. Both foresters appeared striding swiftly toward the hut, and behind them came the panting Motria, driving in her lost cow. Our company was now complete.
A few minutes later we were sitting in the hut. A cheerful fire was crackling in the stove; Motria was preparing our supper.
Although I had seen Zakhar and Maksim many times before, I now looked at them with especial interest. Zakhar’s face was dark. His eyebrows grew out from under a straight, low forehead, and his eyes were sombre, although a natural kindness and an inherent strength could also be read in his features. Maksim’s glance was frank and his grey eyes were caressing; he ruffled his fair curls now and then, and his laugh was peculiarly ringing and merry.
“And what has the old man been telling you?” asked Maksim. “That old legend about our grandfather?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“There now, he always does that! When the forest begins to murmur loudly he always remembers the past. Now he won’t be able to sleep all night.”
“He is like a little child,” added Motria, pouring out the old man’s tea.
The old man seemed not to know that they were talking of him. He had entirely collapsed, and was smiling vacantly from time to time and nodding his head. Only when the storm that was blustering through the forest shook the hut did he seem to grow anxious; then he would lend an ear to the noise, harkening to it with a frightened look on his face.
Soon all grew quiet in the hut. A tallow-dip flickered dimly and a cricket was chirping its monotonous song. In the forest a thousand mighty but muffled voices were talking together and calling fiercely to one another through the night. Terrible powers seemed to be holding a noisy conclave in the outer darkness. From time to time the tumultuous thunder would rise and swell and the door of the hut would quiver as if someone were leaning against it from the outside, hissing with rage, while the nocturnal tempest piped a piteous, heartbreaking note in the chimney. At moments the fury of the storm would abate and an ominous silence would fall and oppress the heart, until once more the thunder would rise, as if the ancient pines had plotted to suddenly tear themselves from their roots and fly away into an unknown land in the arms of the blast.
I lost myself for a few moments in a confused slumber, but it could not have been for long. The gale was howling through the forest in many tones and keys. The tallow-dip flared and lit up the hut. The old man was sitting on his bench feeling about him with his arms as if he expected to find somebody near him. A look of fear and almost of childish helplessness distorted the face of the poor old man.
“Aksana!” I heard his piteous whisper. “Dear Aksana, who is that groaning in the forest?”
His hands fluttered anxiously and he seemed to be listening for a reply.
“Eh, hey,” he spoke again. “No one is groaning; it is the noise of the storm in the forest. That is all; it is the forest murmuring, murmuring—”
A few minutes passed. Bluish flashes of lightning stared every second or two into the little window, and the tall, fantastic forms of the pines kept springing out of the darkness and vanishing again into the angry heart of the storm. Suddenly a brilliant light dimmed the pale flame of the tallow-dip and a sharp, nearby peal of thunder crashed over the forest.
The old man again moved anxiously on his bench.
“Aksana, dear Aksana, who is that shooting with a gun?”
“Go to sleep, grandfather, go to sleep,” I heard Motria’s quiet voice answer from her place on the stove. “It’s always like this. He always calls Aksana if there’s a storm at night. He forgets that Aksana has long been dead. Okh—ho!”
Motria yawned, whispered a prayer, and silence fell once more in the hut, broken only by the noise of the forest and the old man’s anxious whispering:
“The forest is murmuring, the forest is murmuring—dear Aksana—”
Soon a heavy rain began to fall, drowning with its descending torrents the groans of the pines.
