‘Ah, a splendid spot!’ said the philosopher, ‘this would be the place to live, fishing in the Dnieper and the ponds, bird-catching with nets, or shooting king-snipe and little bustard. Though I do believe there would be a few great bustards too in those meadows! One could dry lots of fruit, too, and sell it in the town, or, better still, make vodka of it, for there’s no drink to compare with fruit-vodka. But it would be just as well to consider how to slip away from here.’
He noticed outside the fence a little path completely overgrown with weeds; he was mechanically setting his foot on it with the idea of simply going first out for a walk, and then stealthily passing between the cottages and dashing out into the open country, when he suddenly felt a rather strong hand on his shoulder.
Behind him stood the old Cossack who had on the previous evening so bitterly bewailed the death of his father and mother and his own solitary state.
‘It’s no good your thinking of making off, Mr Philosopher!’ he said: ‘this isn’t the sort of establishment you can run away from; and the roads are bad, too, for anyone on foot; you had better come to the master: he’s been expecting you this long time in the parlour.’
‘Let us go! To be sure … I’m delighted,’ said the philosopher, and he followed the Cossack.
The sotnik, an elderly man with grey moustaches and an expression of gloomy sadness, was sitting at a table in the parlour, his head propped on his hands. He was about fifty; but the deep despondency on his face and its wan pallor showed that his soul had been crushed and shattered at one blow, and all his old gaiety and noisy merrymaking had gone for ever. When Homa went in with the old Cossack, he removed one hand from his face and gave a slight nod in response to their low bows.
Homa and the Cossack stood respectfully at the door.
‘Who are you, where do you come from, and what is your calling, good man?’ said the sotnik, in a voice neither friendly nor ill-humoured.
‘A bursar, student in philosophy, Homa Brut …’
‘Who was your father?’
‘I don’t know, honoured sir.’
‘Your mother?’
‘I don’t know my mother either. It is reasonable to suppose, of course, that I had a mother; but who she was and where she came from, and when she lived – upon my soul, good sir, I don’t know.’
The old man paused and seemed to sink into a reverie for a minute.
‘How did you come to know my daughter?’
‘I didn’t know her, honoured sir, upon my word, I didn’t. I have never had anything to do with young ladies, never in my life. Bless them, saving your presence!’
‘Why did she fix on you and no other to read the psalms over her?’
The philosopher shrugged his shoulders. ‘God knows how to make that out. It’s a well-known thing, the gentry are for ever taking fancies that the most learned man couldn’t explain, and the proverb says: “The devil himself must dance at the master’s bidding.”’
‘Are you telling the truth, philosopher?’
‘May I be struck down by thunder on the spot if I’m not.’
‘If she had but lived one brief moment longer,’ the sotnik said to himself mournfully, ‘I should have learned all about it. “Let no one else read over me, but send, father, at once to the Kiev Seminary and fetch the bursar, Homa Brut; let him pray three nights for my sinful soul. He knows …!” But what he knows, I did not hear: she, poor darling, could say no more before she died. You, good man, are no doubt well known for your holy life and pious works, and she, maybe, heard tell of you.’
‘Who? I?’ said the philosopher, stepping back in amazement. ‘I – holy life!’ he articulated, looking straight in the sotnik’s face. ‘God be with you, sir! What are you talking about! Why – though it’s not a seemly thing to speak of – I paid the baker’s wife a visit on Maundy Thursday.’
‘Well … I suppose there must be some reason for fixing on you. You must begin your duties this very day.’
‘As to that, I would tell your honour … Of course, any man versed in holy scripture may, as far as in him lies … but a deacon or a sacristan would be better fitted for it. They are men of understanding, and know how it is all done; while I … Besides I haven’t the right voice for it, and I myself am good for nothing. I’m not the figure for it.’
‘Well, say what you like, I shall carry out all my darling’s wishes, I will spare nothing. And if for three nights from today you duly recite the prayers over her, I will reward you, if not … I don’t advise the devil himself to anger me.’
The last words were uttered by the sotnik so vigorously that the philosopher fully grasped their significance.
‘Follow me!’ said the sotnik.
They went out into the hall. The sotnik opened the door into another room, opposite the first. The philosopher paused a minute in the hall to blow his nose and crossed the threshold with unaccountable apprehension.
The whole floor was covered with red cotton stuff. On a high table in the corner under the holy images lay the body of the dead girl on a coverlet of dark blue velvet adorned with gold fringe and tassels. Tall wax candles, entwined with sprigs of guelder rose, stood at her feet and head, shedding a dim light that was lost in the brightness of daylight. The dead girl’s face was hidden from him by the inconsolable father, who sat down facing her with his back to the door. The philosopher was impressed by the words he heard:
‘I am grieving, my dearly beloved daughter, not that in the flower of your age you have left the earth, to my sorrow and mourning, without living your allotted span; I grieve, my darling, that I know not him, my bitter foe, who was the cause of your death. And if I knew the man who could but dream of hurting you, or even saying anything unkind of you, I swear to God he should not see his children again, if he be old as I, nor his father and mother, if he be of that time of life, and his body should be cast out to be devoured by the birds and beasts of the steppe! But my grief it is, my wild marigold, my birdie, light of my eyes, that I must live out my days without comfort, wiping with the skirt of my coat the trickling tears that flow from my old eyes, while my enemy will be making merry and secretly mocking at the feeble old man …’
He came to a standstill, due to an outburst of sorrow, which found vent in a flood of tears.
The philosopher was touched by such inconsolable sadness; he coughed, uttering a hollow sound in the effort to clear his throat. The sotnik turned round and pointed him to a place at the dead girl’s head, before a small lectern with books on it.
‘I shall get through three nights somehow,’ thought the philosopher: ‘and the old man will stuff both my pockets with gold pieces for it.’
He drew near, and clearing his throat once more, began reading, paying no attention to anything else and not venturing to glance at the face of the dead girl. A profound stillness reigned in the apartment. He noticed that the sotnik had withdrawn. Slowly, he turned his head to look at the dead, and …
A shudder ran through his veins: before him lay a beauty whose like had surely never been on earth before. Never, it seemed, could features have been formed in such striking yet harmonious beauty. She lay as though living: the lovely forehead, fair as snow, as silver, looked deep in thought; the even brows – dark as night in the midst of sunshine – rose proudly above the closed eyes; the eyelashes, that fell like arrows