The Dark Forest

farther wall, an old Galician woman, her head bound up in a red handkerchief, knelt all night and prayed aloud. Her daughter crouched against the wall, sleeping, perhaps, but nevertheless rocking ceaselessly a wooden cradle that hung from a black bar in the ceiling. In this cradle lay her son, aged one or two, and once and again he cried for half an hour or so, protesting, I suppose, against our invasion. There was a smell in the kitchen of sour bread, mice, and bad water. The heat was terrible but the old lady told us that the grandchild was ill and would certainly die were the window opened. The candle we blew out but there remained a little burning lamp under the picture of the Virgin immediately over the old lady’s bed. I slept, but for how long I do not know. I was only aware that suddenly I was awake, staring through the tiny diamond-paned window, at the faint white light now breaking in the sky. I could see from my mattress only a thin strip of this light above the heavy mass of dark forest on the mountainside.

I must have been still only half-awake because I could not clearly divide, before my eyes, the true from the false. I could see quite plainly in the dim white shadow the face of Trenchard; he was not asleep, but was leaning on his elbow staring in front of him. I could see the old woman with her red handkerchief kneeling in front of her lamp and her prayer came like the turning of a wheel, harsh and incessant. The cradle creaked, in the air was the heavy smell, and suddenly, beyond the window, a cock crowed. These things were real. But also I seemed to be in some place much vaster than the stuffy kitchen of the night before. Under the light that was with every minute growing stronger, I could fancy that many figures were moving in the shadows; it seemed to me as though I were in some place where great preparations were being made. I fancied then that I could discern Marie Ivanovna’s figure, then Nikitin, then Semyonov, then Molozov.⁠ ⁠… There was a great silence but I felt that everyone was busily occupied in making ready for some affair. This was with half my consciousness⁠—with the other half I was perfectly aware of the actual room, of Trenchard, the creaking cradle and the rest.

Then the forest that had been on the hills seemed to draw closer to the house. I felt that it had invaded the garden and that its very branches were rubbing against the windows. With all of this I was aware that I was imagining some occurrence that I had already seen, that was not, in any way, new to me, I was assured of the next event. When we, all of us, Marie Ivanovna, Semyonov, Nikitin and the rest, were ready we should move out into the forest, would stand, a vast company, with our dogs and horses.⁠ ⁠…

Why, it was Trenchard’s dream that I was seeing! I was merely repeating to myself his own imaginations⁠—and with that I had suddenly, as though someone had hypnotised me, fallen back into a heavy dreamless sleep. It was already midday when I was wakened by little Andrey Vassilievitch, who, sitting on my bed and evidently in a state of the very greatest excitement, informed me that Dr. Semyonov and the Sisters Marie Ivanovna and Anna Petrovna had arrived from ⸻, and that we might be off at any moment. I was aware, as he spoke, of a great stir beyond the window and saw, passing up through the valley, a flood of soldiers, infantry, cavalry, kitchens with clumsy black funnels bobbing on their unsteady wheels, cannon, hundreds of carts; the soldiers came up through our own garden treading down the cabbages, stopping at the well near our door and filling their tin kettles, tramping up the road, spreading, like smoke, in the far distance, up the high road that led into the furthest forest.

“They say⁠—tonight⁠—for certain,” said Andrey Vassilievitch, his fat hand trembling on my bed. He began to talk, his voice shaking with excitement. “Do you know, Ivan Andreievitch, I am continually surprised at myself: ‘Here you are, Andrey Vassilievitch, here, at the war. What do you make of it? I say to myself. Just consider.⁠ ⁠… No, but seriously, Ivan Andreievitch, of course I must seem to all of you something of a comic figure. When my wife was alive⁠—how I wish that you could have known her! Such a remarkable woman; everyone who met her was struck by her fine character⁠—when my wife was alive I had my position to support. That I should have been a comic figure would have distressed her. But now, who cares? Nobody, you may very truly say.⁠ ⁠… Well, well. But the point is that this evening we shall really be in the thick of it. And⁠—may I tell you something, Ivan Andreievitch? Only for yourself, because you are an Englishman and can be trusted: to speak quite truthfully I’m frightened. I say to myself that one is at the war and that one must be frightened at nothing, and still I remain frightened.⁠ ⁠… Frightened of what?⁠ ⁠… I really cannot tell you. Death, perhaps? But no, I should not be sorry to die⁠—there are reasons.⁠ ⁠…

“And yet although I should not be sorry to die, I remain frightened⁠—all night I was awake⁠—I do my utmost to control it, but there is something stronger than I⁠—something. I feel as though if I once discovered what that something was I should not be frightened any longer. Something definite that you could meet and say to yourself: ‘There, Andrey Vassilievitch, you’re not frightened of that, are you? What is there to be frightened of?⁠ ⁠… Why then, you know, I don’t believe I should be frightened any more!’ ”

I remember that he then explained to me that he wished Nikitin had been sent instead