Zhelihovsky V.P. - Accursed

“THERE are strange and weird events in one’s life, and just such an one has fallen to my lot. ... I propose to tell it without flourish or exaggeration, as its grim features hardly need embellishment.”

Such was the remark made by way of a preface by an old officer while filling his pipe. It was his turn on that night to narrate to us an event from real life, and we prepared eagerly to listen, for he was the Homer of our little club.

. . . In 1854, he began, our regiment was quartered in a poor, out-of-the-way borough in Poland. It was a bad year for all Russia, but a worse one had never fallen to the lot of the province in which we were stationed. Besides the usual war calamities and sufferings, the cholera was raging in the western provinces of that country, and a terrible drought had capped the climax by helping the spread of the epidemic. Famine prepared the victims, and carried off as many of them as the cholera. It was terrible to see the poor people dying as much from unavoidable starvation as from disease. The dead bodies of women and children were daily gathered during that spring from the still bare fields, whither they kept crawling from their wretched huts, in the futile hope of finding some forgotten roots, or a few blades of early grass. Whether the fat, ruddy-cheeked Ksiondz,^[1] who was met by our officers more frequently at dinner in the palazzo of the Countess Sedminska, the magnate of the place, than in the dirty, sandy, and now desolate, streets of the borough, had a hard, or even a busy time of it – I am unable to say. As to the Russian Priest in whose house we were quartered, it is not too much to say that he was fairly knocked off his legs, hurrying incessantly, as he did, from one dying parishioner to another just taken ill, and from patients to funerals. That priest was then still a very young man, and whom the hard school of life and seminary had failed to train to full indifference to the sight of the sufferings of his fellow-men. He felt very wretched before the helplessness of his parish, and did for it what he could, but this was very little. He shared his last remnants of food and money with the still poorer wretches; and more than once his young wife complained loudly of his prodigality. In case of the illness of the one or the other of them, she said, there would be no money for physician or druggist. But Father Vassiliy heeded her not.

“Why should we try to carry the burden of all this alone, when even

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their natural protectors and masters do not mind their misery at all?” she indignantly urged. “Only see the gay life they are leading at the Palazzo, while refusing to take the slightest concern in the misery of their own people. And so rich, too! Surely they might help their poor vassals and save them from starvation, without making too large a hole in their own wealth!”

“Do you mean to say that the proprietors do not help at all their own serfs?” I once asked the pope^[2] and his wife, as I overheard them talking in the yard through my opened window.

“Very little, indeed!” reluctantly replied the priest. “Perchance she may help occasionally her own people” (meaning the Roman Catholics), “but very little care she has, indeed, for the welfare of her orthodox serfs. . . .”

“How is this? The Countess, I was told, is herself a Russian, and belongs to our own orthodox church?” . . .

“A nice kind of a Russian she is!” grumbled the priest. “Methinks she must have forgotten to cross herself from right to left by this time.” And lest he should fall into the sin of condemning his neighbour, the good priest hastened to retire into his rooms.

But his wife was less reticent and more willing to converse about the old Countess, whom she seemed to dislike for many good reasons. It was from her, and later from my personal observations, that I learned that the Countess Sedminska was neither a good woman nor an orthodox Russian. She had evidently been polonized in her husband’s family. But this was the smallest of her sins, however, and concerned only her own conscience. That which was really bad, was that she was an absolutely heartless woman: cruel toward her inferiors, indifferent and unfair toward the whole world. Her whole family was made to suffer from her terrible despotism. Her own daughter had been sacrificed and forced to wed an old magnate, the Prince Tcharterinsky, who had already caused the death of two wives. But nothing could equal the sufferings of her serfs. A good master would take more pity upon a useless cur than the Countess ever felt for a servant or a serf. Besides eternal extortions and fines, and cruel bodily punishments, she and her land-agents killed the miserable vassals with overwork, exiled and sold them, treating them even worse than animals – as inanimate material. It would be useless to attempt to enumerate the endless series of the saddest stories which years ago settled into local legends, with regard to the cruelty of the Countess and those stewards, butlers, secretaries, and confidential servants, who happened to become her favourites of the passing hour. She seemed especially ferocious with regard to her peasants of the Greek orthodox Church. The poor wretches trembled and turned pale at the very mention of her name, or

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that of “Pan” ^[3] Matzevitch, her chief land-agent. I happened to become an eye-witness to the terror and the tears shed by a group of young peasant women, chosen as candidates for wet-nurses for an expected grandson of the Countess. One of them, a young wife, a Pole, who had been to town only a few days before in search of a like situation, almost fainted with fear when forced to take place in the ranks of those who were driven to the Castle, like so many cattle, to be examined by celebrated physicians, invited by the Countess to assist in the selection of a healthy foster-mother. But her fears were groundless. The choice of the medical luminaries fell upon a young peasant woman, from a well-to-do Russian family, who was nursing her first baby. She was born free, being the daughter of a small town tradesman, but had become a serf through her love match with a vassal of the old Countess. Brutally separated from the husband she loved, and her little baby, the poor young thing fretted and wept to such an extent that, notwithstanding her blooming health, the physicians felt scared. They declared unanimously that under such conditions her milk would be like poison to the infant aristocrat, and offered to select another young woman, less attached to her home and child. But the Countess would hear of this no longer. “How, then? Shall this slave, this vile child of Ham, be permitted to withstand her own ladyship’s choice? Nonsense! She should be made to know better. . . . She shall get very soon reconciled to her fate!” . . . .

But the “slave,” the “very vile child of Ham,” did not get so reconciled. One fine morning she escaped her jailors and ran away. She was found in her husband’s cottage, had her son, an infant hardly six weeks old, snatched from her arms, and was brought back to her ladyship’s castle in an almost unconscious condition.

“She had better go, she is unfit, in her present state, to nurse the princely baby. She has a brain fever” . . . argued the physicians.

“Nonsense! I will drive the craze out of her. . . I will conquer the obstinacy of that daughter of Ham!” . . . replied the Countess. And, the better to secure her object, the cruel old patrician ordered the poor little nurse’s baby to be forthwith sent away to a distant village, to be brought up in a half-starving family of serfs, and her husband to be given away as a recruit into the nearest regiment. . . .

Nevertheless, these sage orders brought little luck to the descendant of the glorious house of Tcharterinsky; firstly, his future nurse was taken with a violent brain fever; and secondly, the descendant himself did not choose to adorn the world by his presence; he died without a glance at it, or even uttering a sound at the moment of his birth. The wet-nurse proved useless, and was allowed to go as soon she could stand again on her legs. Unconscious of the time that had passed since she had been taken ill, half insane from the unexpected happiness, she ran

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without stopping from the Castle down to the village, where, reaching her husband’s cottage, trembling with joy and excitement, she almost fell senseless on the threshold. But her strength soon returned with the overpowering idea that she would see in a moment more her husband and darling babe.

“Paul!” she called. “Paul, my beloved one! . . . Where art thou, and where is our son? . . . Where have you hidden?” . . .

But neither – the husband, the poor wretch now marching far away with his regiment, nor the infant son, buried a week before in a strange cemetery and by a stranger’s hand – answered her passionate appeal. Instead of these, two old people, the father and mother of her Paul, came at her call and recognizing her burst into tears, sobbing over her as though they were moaning over her dead body.

And so they were in fact. For upon hearing the sad news, she ran away and could not be found. For a whole fortnight she eluded pursuit. People saw or thought they saw her occasionally; some near the village where her infant son had been starved, others, in the burial ground whither she had wandered, probably in search of his nameless grave. During the third week, however, her dead body was picked up and recognised near a side gate of her cruel Lady’s park. She had evidently passed the whole of that cold autumnal night on the half-frozen sod near the alley, for her poor body was quite stiff; one hand of the unfortunate girl, with bleeding nails and flesh, was stuck deep into the soil she had dug out and scattered around; the other, concealed in her bosom under the chemise, clenched firmly a long sharp knife, as though she had lain in wait for someone, when merciful death came to save her from crime and suffering! . . . She was buried on that spot, as they bury dogs, without coffin or a rag of covering. The place was a lonely spot that neither the Countess nor any of the family ever approached, the gate itself having remained locked for long years before. . . .

Very soon after this, balls and festivals went on in their usual way in the lordly halls. The Countess Sedminska hated a quiet life and sad faces. No sooner had her daughter recovered, than, to please her mother, the poor Princess Tcharterinska, who had hoped to find in motherhood the joys she was denied as a wife, had to show a smiling face and change three times a day her Parisian dresses. A young cousin of hers was getting married. So much the better! It was a legitimate pretext for gaieties. She was aware that her mother hated this Russian girl and that she would have consented to her marrying even a Russian Katzap^[4] if she could only be delivered thereby from her presence. The only duty she recognised was to commemorate the wedding of a kinswoman of hers in a way that should be remembered throughout the whole country. The young girl was getting married to one of our officers, Korzanof, who had left the service after inheriting a rich property in the neigh-

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bourhood of the lands of the Countess. He was beloved by all his regiment. As I was a chum and a school-fellow of his, I could hardly refuse his invitation, and had therefore to submit to the disagreeable necessity of being personally introduced to the Countess Acsenia Cooprianovna Sedminska in utter disregard of my great antipathy to her. This dislike instead of diminishing increased considerably upon our acquaintance.

Notwithstanding her brilliant education and high culture, her graciousness and evident desire to flatter and win certain persons, that woman inspired in nearly all who knew her a dislike bordering upon positive loathing. My friend Korzanof confessed to me that he not only hated but positively dreaded the old woman. . . . Indeed, all her sweet phrases and benevolent smiles notwithstanding, there was in the expression of the face of that tall, black-haired and dark-skinned woman something undeniably cunning and cruel; while the occasional phosphorescent sparkle in her small, coal-black eyes, at once restless, cold and merciless, produced a most weird sensation upon persons whose nerves were not of the strongest.

Whether justly or not, her past life was made the subject of uncanny charges and gossip; of accusations far more serious than that of cruelty in the treatment of her serfs, itself something not infrequent in those days of serfdom. The wicked and at the same time scared expression in her small and disagreeable eyes, the evident hypocrisy of her manners and conversation, had perhaps lent an air of greater probability to such charges. Of defenders she had few. We all knew that the nobility and the smaller fry of proprietors of that province, who ate, drank and danced at her expense from year’s end to year’s end, in the magnificent palatial residence of Rujano Lyass, felt fully convinced that the rich mistress thereof had defrauded her brother of his legitimate inheritance after their father’s death, by means of a forged will. And that she had systematically annihilated a large though illegitimate family of her late husband; the old mother, by exiling her to the cattle-yard, the young daughter, virtually recognised by the Count, brought up from childhood as a lady in his rich palazzo, by forcibly wedding her to a drunken serf. She had even opposed her husband in his charitable determination of liberating his natural sons, two fine young men, who had thus remained legally serfs, and disposed of them in her own way; one was confined in the military prison, the other exiled to Siberia for insolence to the Countess. But this is not all; the nearest neighbours were absolutely convinced that the death of the Count had not been a natural one. It was whispered that the agent Pan Matzevitch, as also the ruddy-cheeked Polish priest – the fast friend, adviser and confidant of the Countess, knew of her participation in the sudden death of her late consort. For why should both of her officials be blessed with such lavish generosity, and so loaded with favours by her that few were the land and

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slave owners around who did not envy the position of these two menials? However it may have been, all these dark deeds remained hidden from the law, and the Countess went on reigning in the Province.

As for myself, the obligation I was under to visit that Polish female magnate of Russian birth, was a great strain on me, and I felt heartily relieved when the wedding was over and the newly married couple had departed for their property. But as if to impress the image of the horrid old woman still deeper into my memory, as fate would have it, I was doomed not to leave the place before I had become once more an eye-witness to a very sad drama indeed.

On the eve of the wedding there was a double festival performed in the Castle: namely, the bride’s and bridegroom’s farewell nights.^[5] The Countess had ordered it to be held simultaneously in opposite wings of her enormous castle. As the clock struck eight, music, choral singing and the petits jeux innocents of the young girls began in the central reception rooms; while in the large wing of the building, where guests had their private apartments, the whole edifice, illuminated a-giorno became one blaze of light, and a lively orgy went on among the men who had assembled in its large hall. The female festival had ended, and the young girls and dames had long ago retired to bed, but the men’s drinking party was still at its height. Just before dawn, tired of the excitement and wine-fumes, I left the banquetting-hall with a fellow officer, and we stepped out on the balcony to smoke a cigar in the fresh air.

The season was well advanced, but notwithstanding the first winter month, the weather was fine and no snow had fallen. My companion soon felt chilly and re-entered the rooms; as for myself, being less susceptible to cold, I remained in the morning twilight, filling, greedily, my lungs with the slightly frosty air, and admiring the clean-cut, capricious outlines of the bare trees on the clear sky, as yet hardly tinted in the east with golden and rosy streaks. To my right extended the main body of the great building. All was dark and quiet in it with the exception of one solitary window, behind which twinkled a feeble light as if from a lamp hung before the ikony (religious image). I recognized it as one of the windows of the apartment of the young Princess Tcharterinska and thought how disturbed must be her sleep on account of the noise over her rooms. . . . “Nigh time,” I thought. “for her princely husband and all of us to be in our beds!” . . . Hardly had the thought crossed my mind, when I heard the sound of a window being cautiously opened, and, at the same moment, a dark shadow, which I had not before observed, emerged from behind the bushes under the trees and approached the house nearer.

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“Hallo!” I thought, “what is this? Thieves or lovers?” Unwilling to be an impediment to the latter, I retired into the shadow, but was greatly surprised by seeing the light in the apartment of the Princess Tcharterinska suddenly extinguished, her window thrown open and herself appearing in it. I knew her by her voice.

“Vanya; is it you?” . . . she asked in a hurried and subdued tone. “Well; has your poor mother received her money? . . . I was expecting you earlier. ... I fear people will be soon waking in the house!” . . .

The shadow approached still nearer, under the very window, looking cautiously about in every direction.

“No, pani (madam),” answered a sad, boyish voice, in the local dialect, “mother has had nothing. Yesterday we both ate nothing the whole day. . . .”

“How? ate nothing! . . . Impossible, Vanya. I asked, particularly, the Ksiondz to help you. My mother gives him plenty of money for the poor. ... He promised to do so, and told me only last night that he had handed over the money to your mother and a warm fur coat for yourself.”

“He gave us nothing!” repeated the boy. “Pan Ksiondz (Mr. Priest) said that he had plenty of his own poor and that we could go for help to our own Russian pope. And what can the pope do? He is himself penniless and without bread. . . . He gave all he had! Mammy knew it and did not go.”

“Oh, God! my God! . . .” repeated the young aristocrat, almost weeping. “Why did you not come to me, Vanya? . . .”

“Why should I?” muttered the boy, shaking sadly the head. “The heydook (footman) Vincentiy hits hard. ... I preferred to wait till dawn, as you had commanded.”

“Yes, yes! . . . You have done well!” whispered in a kind of frightened and helpless way, the princely wife. “I could talk with you at no other hour, and . . . Stop! you had nothing to eat? . . . Wait one moment! . . . I have hidden some food for you . . . Wait, wait! till I get it!”

And disappearing for a second, she reappeared in the window almost immediately, wrapped up in a priceless fur cloak, all trembling, and handing to the beggar boy a package of provisions she had stolen in her own mother’s house.

“Take, take; you see I can give no more; I have no money, my poor Vanya! My husband gives me none and you must let your mother know this, lest she think I have forgotten her, and let her starve! . . . I would gladly give her some of my things . . . but I am afraid! . . . You know when I gave your sister Marianka a ring to sell, what happened . . . and how she was tortured for it! . . . I dare not, now . . . But I got from my maid a warm shawl and a flannel petticoat

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... I will return them to her tenfold. . . . Give this to your mother . . . and, here, one loaf more ... of sweet, nice bread, and some good strong wine that I got from the larder, for your mother ... it will warm and do her good ... I will try and get for you, also, a warm coat, Vanya! . . . I will speak again to the Ksiondz. I will ask my mother to order him to help you . . . She will do it; she will, Vanya! . . . And now, go; go! . . . lest some one should see you and give you a beating. Good-bye! . . . Tell your mother that I will never neglect her . . . that, perhaps, I may be able to get for her some money . . . before I leave this place . . . Tell her . . .”

The window was suddenly closed, and the boy took to his heels. Highly interested in what I had heard, I left the banquet hall unperceived by the half-drunken company, crossed to the servants’ hall, where the exhausted footmen slept, stretched on the floor, found my cloak and cap, and rapidly followed the boy through a short cut to the village. I had calculated rightly, for I saw him running toward the place where I stood, from an opposite direction, when I stopped and cross-examined him. The poor young wretch got so terrified, that, throwing on the ground the bundle, he attempted to run away; but I easily caught him, and soothing him with a few kind words, got into conversation with him. A few minutes later, we had reached my quarters, at Father Vassiliy’s house, and I learnt from him the whole story. This boy was a herdsman, the son of an almost beggared old mother, sick and homeless. A few years before she had been ordered, together with her daughter Marianka, as kitchen-maids, into the Castle, where, as serfs, they received, of course, no wages. The young Countess, then just betrothed to the old prince, took a great fancy to the daughter, who was made over to her, as a serf, together with other articles of her trousseau, but who, very soon after the marriage of her new mistress, died. On her deathbed she implored her lady to help the old mother in case of need, and the Princess pledged her word to do so, and had never broken her promise. But what could the poor young thing do? A millionaire by both mother’s and husband’s sides, she was powerless to give away even a hundred roubles – a sum which would have made the family of Vanya rich for ever. She had not even one rouble in her possession with which to buy them bread. She, that poor, weak, colourless, society doll, the young aristocrat who thrice daily changed her toilettes, even in the country, and her white kid gloves after every quadrille, as they were obsequiously brought to her on a silver salver by a liveried heydook – she had to secretly beg from her maid an old petticoat and shawl if she would give alms, and to actually pilfer wine and sweet cakes from the gorgeous larder, if she would only save from starvation an old Russian beggar, doomed by her cruel, heartless mother, and her worthy confederates, the Roman Catholics to slow death! . . . Such was the position of this young patrician and millionaire!

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“It is lucky,” thought I, “for that helpless and irresponsible victim of her mother’s and husband’s despotism, that she is not doomed to live much longer in this world!” To all who knew her, it was evident that the sickly, delicate and consumptive Princess Tcharterinska could not live long, nor could anyone who knew her life intimately, so full of sorrow and humiliation, feel otherwise than thankful for the prospect of her speedy liberation.

Soon after the wedding of the Korzanofs, our regiment left that province, and I lost sight of all the personages of this country drama. For long years I heard nothing of the old Countess Sedminska and her familiars.

Vera Jelihovsky.

(To be continued.)

November 1888

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Accursed!

II. (Continued from the October Number.)

MANY years had elapsed. After the bombardment of Sevastopol, after all the horrors of the war, the national and personal losses, the tears and sufferings of all Russia, the empire had once more resurrected to life; and shaking off the nightmare of the Past, it had sufficient time to begin a new life, and to realize that this war had been for our greater glory, not for our moral death. The Reform of 1861 had entirely transformed the broad face of the Russian Empire. Nevertheless, the entirely groundless forebodings, utterly unjustified by the course of events, with regard to possible rebellions and dangers arising out of the dissatisfaction of hard-shelled serf-proprietors – had not quite disappeared from the public mind, when I happened to read in the newspapers the account of a bloody act of reprisal resorted to by the peasants belonging to the property of Countess Sedminska, against her land-agent. Our old friend, Pan Matzevitch, it seems, liberation of the serfs notwithstanding, had attempted quand même to pursue his despotic and barbarous rule with the ex-serfs, and had paid dearly for his past crimes. The peasants had executed Lynch-law, murdered him, and reduced to chips the house wherein he had lived and tortured them for over twenty years under the all-powerful command of his high-born châtelaine and protectress.

“And where was she meanwhile?” I involuntarily wondered, after reading the terrible account. “Had not she even attempted to save from death her faithful servant and confederate?” About two years later I learnt that the old Countess was now living abroad, having left her castle some years earlier. She had avoided being present at the event of the emancipation of her peasants, whom she feared – not without good and abundant reasons. Such was my personal conclusion. As to the newspaper reports, which had brought once more to my recollection that antipathetical personality, they said nothing of the true reason of her expatriation; but, on the contrary, praised and glorified the great virtues and generosity of the “Polish Countess and millionaire.” She was now endowing with unstinting hand schools and churches, near Cannes or Meran, or some such foreign resort, so well-beloved by our Russian boyars. “Seeking to atone for her sins!” I thought again; “wants to feed the French and the Italian beggars, as a penance for having starved her own Russian peasants.” . . . Perchance she is now openly converted to Roman Catholicism. But no! The Countess

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Sedminska did not believe so implicitly as all that in God and her own soul, to thus change, for the sake of the salvation of the latter, her faith to the evident detriment of her terrestrial interests. She knew too well for that the value of her Russian income. Secretly, she of course preferred Roman Catholicism. She found it more agreeable for her personal relations with cultured, sweet-spoken ksionds and reverends, who expatiated to her in the choicest French dialect upon the charms and profits of the Pope’s “Indulgences,” than the uncouth Russian confessors, totally unfit for an elegant drawing-room. But, on the whole, she was quite indifferent to any faith or religious question. At any rate, such she remained till a short time before her death; when suddenly and most unexpectedly she threw herself headlong into the wildest bigotry and fanaticism. So much I learnt, at any rate, after her death, when I came quite accidentally across her kinsman and my friend, Korzanof, the officer who had married her niece. That meeting was very original. It struck me forcibly at the time and remained impressed on my memory for many reasons, the least of which was its association with a vivid and beautiful picture.

It was on a lovely and sunny afternoon on the Mediterranean, in Gaëta. He was travelling in Europe en grand seigneur, to satisfy a whim of his wife and his fifteen-year-old daughter – the despot of both her parents; I, as an idle and aimless tourist, attracted less by the gorgeous scenery of the place than by the military fame – still very loud in those days – of the fortifications to which the Neapolitan Queen was indebted for her decoration of our Russian St. George’s Cross. . . .

We met, as I said, quite accidentally on the terrace of an hotel covered, as every respectable Italian trattoria generally is, with a wealth of ivy, vines, and climbing roses, and at first passed each other without either of us recognising an old friend. It was by his voice that I knew him, when I heard him addressing in Russian a tall and very pretty girl, who moved under the marble steps of the terrace among an exuberant jungle of jasmine and tuberoses. On both sides of the terrace the picturesque shores of the gulf, bending in the shape of a horseshoe, stretched out far away decked with pretty vine-covered villas and studded with poor fishermen’s huts. On our right arose the fortress and harbour with its wealth of chimneys, masts and sails. In the distance, behind the fort, an old monastery, and nearer on our side the mass of dark-green bowers, of orange, lemon, and almond trees, laden with their golden fruits, bunches of grapes hanging everywhere, high and low, fastened by their flexible, climbing stalks wherever there was anything to fasten upon. The air was one glowing mass of light and sunbeams, whose waves vibrated in the hot atmosphere, full of colours and perfumes. Right before us stretched the blue expanse of the sea, sparkling and undulating in the southern sun like liquid topazes and sapphires, rolling its golden ripplets further and further away; until meeting on the

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furthest edge of the horizon with the azure, cloudless sky, both finally merged into each other, to form one opalescent vapoury wall, upon the face of which small fishermen’s boats appeared and reappeared, one moment lost in the radiant light, then suddenly emerging on the shining white surface with their white sails and dark masts vigorously marked upon the dazzling screen. ... It was in the midst of such Southern, fairy-like scenery that we two Northerners met; and, once the mutual recognition made, like two genuine Russian bears, we pawed each other, and fell upon each other’s neck, clasped in a warm and tight embrace after almost twenty years’ separation. Korzanof introduced me to his daughter, and made me renew my acquaintance with his wife, still handsome, though rather too fat now for a model beauty. She recognised me immediately, declaring that I was hardly changed at all. I assured her, with the most graceful and innocent smile I could put on, of the same.

“Just as he ever was!” she went on, exclaiming, “The same Ivan Nikolaevitch as sixteen years ago. ... it seems sixteen days hardly. Who would have thought of meeting you here!”

“Yes,” I said, “and a lovely land this is to meet in. . . . plenty of warmth and light. ... a little different from our Northern country. It is not fair, in us, however, to complain of our climate. . . . Have you visited, since your marriage, your aunt, or her castle?”

“O yes! . . . Didn’t you know that both she and my cousin, the Princess Tcherterinska had died? . . . . I have become sole heir to all the property of my aunt Sedminska. . . .”

“Indeed! Receive my best congratulations. ... I am glad for your sake. In that case you must sometimes pass the summer in the palace of Rujano Lyass? . . .”

“Oh no, Heaven forbid! Rujano-Lyass is now sold . . . . for some factory or foundry. We even avoid visiting my husband’s property, as it is too near the dreadful old castle. . . .”

“Hum! ... Yes, friend,” coughed Korzanof, eagerly interrupting his wife; “it is indeed a disagreeable neighbourhood. We would have never approached that terrible house even if we had not had the luck to get rid of it. . . . Hang it! I am glad it was burnt to ashes.”

“Burnt! . . . . That superb palace? Impossible! But you must have lost with it a whole fortune!”

“We do not regret it!” eagerly put in the wife; but her husband interrupted her once more:

“If you only knew what happened there!” . . . . he exclaimed, and suddenly stopped. He had perceived his daughter approaching us with a large bouquet of flowers.

I saw the parents exchange a rapid and suggestive glance, and hastened to chance the conversation.

Very luckily for my curiosity, the daughter had come to remind her

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mother of a projected boat excursion to the monastery. Under the shallow pretext of rheumatism, the father got leave to remain at home, of which I felt very glad.

“Come, mamma, make haste!” exclaimed the petted child. “This gentleman will be kind enough to keep papa company. . . . won’t you?” she asked me with a pretty girlish smile.

I hastened to consent, feeling extremely curious to hear from my friend further particulars about the mysterious burning of the castle.

The two ladies left, and we two men remained alone on the terrace. Here, under the sunny sky of Italy, in the shadow of orange and pomegranate trees, with the accompaniment of a faraway tarantella and laughter, and the songs of the merry children of the South, with glasses of Moscow tea before us, I listened to the narrative of my friend: a narrative so weird and fantastic, that I was at first disinclined to believe in its actuality; until . . . . well, until just such a strange event, as mentioned at the opening of this true tale of mine, came to prove to me its veracity and actual occurrence.

These are the main facts, as briefly given to me by Korzanof.

About three years before, soon after the terrible murder of Matzevitch, the Countess Sedminska was taken ill, and died. She expired in terrible tortures after an unheard-of agony which lasted for over a year. Most of her friends believed she had gone mad. Korzanof and his wife were of this opinion until they got convinced through personal experience that the visions which, as she complained, tormented her night and day were no fictions, but a terrible reality. . . . Long before her last illness, the countess had suddenly become attacked with insomnia; nay, she had entirely lost the power of sleeping. For whole nights she used to walk about her vast rooms like a forlorn shadow, and very soon her servants came to remark that her behaviour was becoming very extraordinary. She seemed to be ever seeing an invisible presence near her. Cautiously moving about, stopping with sudden starts and horror painted in her eyes, she was, moreover, frequently overheard talking loudly to some one, whom no one could perceive but herself. Her monologues were angry, the tones of her voice getting at times full of disgust and fury, while on other occasions they became full of terror and supplication. . . . She had called the best physicians to her help, and tried every remedy, visiting for that purpose every metropolis and watering-place of Europe, but had nowhere found either relief, or even simple rest.

Strange to say, it was not the doctors who believed or insinuated that she was becoming mad, but she herself who tried to persuade the physicians of her growing insanity. During the last months, her eccentricities and violence had reached such a pitch that no hotel or lodging-house would have her, notwithstanding the fabulous rents offered to them, while no servants would remain with her at any price. There came a day, finally, after her physicians had almost concluded to take

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her to a lunatic asylum, when suddenly she became calm and declared that she was going to start on that same day, on her return journey to Russia. On the eve of her departure, her maids had watched and seen her through the keyhole going through a whole pantomime, while quite alone in her bedroom. Hitherto she had almost knocked them off their feet by claiming night and day their incessant presence and attendance upon her, in the hope, perhaps, that a third party might put a stop to her habitual hallucinations. But she became very soon convinced that it was of no use, as she was the only one to perceive certain manifestations. These became only the more menacing for the presence of a third person. Henceforth, the Countess clamoured no more after someone to keep constant watch near her; and then it was that her maids and footmen, who were now watching to gratify their own curiosity, once saw the extraordinary scene that took place in the bedroom of their wretched mistress. They testified that during one of such fits, the countess commenced by becoming angry with some invisible person in her room; then, getting furious, she violently stamped her feet, made threatening gestures, as if she were repelling some unseen assailant; after which a regular fight took place – “with empty air,” as the witnesses expressed it – the proud old lady clutching at space, pushing it off, with every sign of something resisting her, and then falling down as if an invisible opponent had overpowered and conquered her at last! . . . After this she usually went through a whole scene of strangulation, becoming black and blue in the face, with her tongue protruding from the mouth and her eyes starting from their sockets, looking as though she was almost choked. Usually, this weird pantomime concluded by her humbling herself abjectly before her “imagined” adversary. Going down on her knees, she used to begin a scene of supplication, first imploring and then solemnly pledging herself to some promise. This ended by her watching with terror someone leaving the room and finally disappearing. On the morning following one of such performances, she ordered the servants to prepare everything for their departure, and a week later she was back in her castle.

At first she seemed to get relief in Rujano Lyass. Even sleep, which had almost forgotten her, returned during the first days, acting beneficently on the nerves of the miserable old woman. Masses were daily said for the repose of the soul of her murdered land-agent; a marble cross with a crucifix on it was placed over his tomb, and a magnificent railing surrounded his last resting-place. His two children received each 50,000 roubles, and she gave a large sum of money for the local kostiol (Roman Catholic Church) for perpetual masses, so that the name of the victim should be mentioned daily in it during the service, for ever and all times to come. In short, everything that money could do, was done to honour and perpetuate the memory of the infamous Pan Matzevitch; far more was done, in fact, for him than had

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ever been done for her own daughter, when that young and hapless princess died in 1854, soon after leaving Rujano Lyass.

It became plain to all that the chief disturber of her peace and nightly rest was that same ex-confederate of hers. People began to talk openly of this. It was whispered that those most meritorious efforts of the old Countess to quiet and propitiate his sinful soul had been evidently crowned with success, since the high-born Pani Sedminska had now ceased to be troubled at nights. But this happy state did not last very long. Suddenly she began to ail again, took to her bed, and new visions seemed to pursue her. To these were now added hitherto unheard-of phenomenal manifestations.

Before that, she used to be the only one to see and hear the presence and the discourses of her invisible tormentors. But now things changed.

In that enormous empty ancestral castle of hers things so terrible began now to occur daily, and almost hourly, that every man, woman, and child deserted it, leaving her quite alone. Unfortunately for her, the days of serfdom had passed, never to return again; the Countess could not keep servants against their will. The result of this was, that as the large house became gradually emptied of its living inmates, it received tenants of another kind: it became, in short, overcrowded with beings so far visible to herself alone, but audible, on the other hand, to many. Indeed, visitors, servants, and even casual passers-by, gentry as well as peasants, often became terrified eye-witnesses to the most extraordinary and inexplicable manifestations. Illuminations and fires would suddenly light up at the midnight hour in reception-rooms shut up for years, and that were now never entered by anyone. On certain nights the illumination lasted so long, and was so brilliant, that the neighbours remained under the impression that the Countess Sedminska had once more opened her house to visitors, and was giving balls and festivals as in the days of old. At other times, meteor-like flames suddenly appeared in the house and, traversing the long suite of the inhabited rooms, disappeared as suddenly and as mysteriously as they had come. The heavy, securely-locked and bolted gates of the main entrance were often seen flung open, as by some invisible porter; this was followed by the heavy rumbling of wheels on the avenue, of carriages as invisible as the rest, after which the hall and other doors leading to the reception rooms opened of themselves, as if to receive a host of guests. Then, from the modest ground floor where, having entirely abandoned the rest of her splendid domain, the invalid châtelaine had taken up her abode, the inmates began to hear quite plainly the noise of doors opened and shut, the loud clicking of locks, and the moving of the heavy furniture. On such occasions, to the shuffling of numerous footsteps and the noise made over the aching head of the unfortunate invalid, were added such unearthly howlings, sobbing, laughter, cries, and the stamping of hundreds of feet, that the servants fled from her rooms in irrepressible

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terror. They could be prevailed to stop only by being paid fabulous wages; and even then, they had to be changed weekly. Gradually, these manifestations, striking with fear the rare visitors to Rujano Lyass, began to take place not only at a distance, but in their very presence, thus passing from the realm of possible hallucination and superstitious fear, into that of fearful reality – objective and visible to all. For hours all the door-knobs of the apartment occupied by the dying Countess used to turn of themselves with loud grinding noises, threatening to break into pieces without any visible cause; windows were flung open simultaneously; the creaking noise of footsteps and the rustling of clothes was heard, and the audible presence of invisible and numerous somebodies was added to that of the living visitors, during the day, as well as during entire nights. Books were moved and opened, and their pages turned by unseen hands. Then, as a terrible climax to all this, people began to meet daily in the house on their passage – strangers. Mistaken at first for living beings, they were known for what they were, only when they disappeared on the spot, and after several persons had seen one and the same thing over and over again.

It was then that the Countess Sedminska threw herself headlong into the darkest and most fanatical asceticism. It was then only that, deserted by all, and thus left in the power of her mysterious persecutors – harmless even if visible, to everyone else, and endowed only with regard to the lady of the Manor alone, with the terrible power of not only frightening, but actually of bodily torturing her at their own sweet pleasure – it was then, it appears, that she bethought herself of a God, who could, perhaps, protect her. Then the castle was filled with priests, and holy sacraments, and holy water. From morn till night ceremonies of exorcism took place, and masses for the repose of the souls of various individuals, dead and long forgotten, were daily chanted. Nor would the Countess have ever thought of any of them, in truth, had they not themselves forcibly brought their personalities to her recollections. But alas, nothing proved to be of the slightest use! Quite the reverse. For the more the titled victim prayed and fasted, the bolder, as if to spite her, were these weird manifestations. So bold and impudent had this deviltry at last become, that it was with dread and fear that the Russian priest (the same meek Father Wassiliy, whom we all knew) had to start daily from his humble home on the way to the haunted castle. For thither was he now summoned, often twice a day, by her who had all her life deemed it foolish and superstitious to turn to the prayers of the Russian orthodox church. But it was not for himself the good priest feared, but lest the sacred objects he was carrying with him should be desecrated in this doomed abode of sin. He had a right to dread such an emergency; for, to the knowledge of all, and agreeably to her own confessions, such like desecrations had happened She had summoned him, she said, as a last resort, in the hope that his prayers and holy water might keep at bay her tormentors, those who made

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prayer impossible to her, do what she might. No lamp could ever be made to burn before the crucifix and images; hardly lit, the lights were extinguished with ominous sounds – as though water and sand were thrown over them. No sooner did she touch her prayer book or bible, than the pages began turning of themselves with vertiginous rapidity in her hands, a strong current blowing from the four quarters to change into a regular whirlwind, limited, strange to say, to a small area of space around her, and affecting no one and nothing else in the room. The holy volume was usually snatched and torn away from her hands. At other times, a thick mist would arise between her and the pages, if she wanted to read by day; and if in the evening, then no sooner did she stretch out her hand to reach the bible than all the lights in the house would go out as if by magic.

“I cannot pray!” she repeatedly answered in despair, to all the admonitions made by the priest. “I cannot, do you not understand? I want, and I cannot! They do not allow me to. . . . What can I do? Advise me! . . .”

What could the simple-hearted Father Wassiliy advise, or say to her? He felt himself awed and quite helpless amidst this terrible flood of purely demoniacal obsession.

“She was indeed a martyr, during the last few months of her life,” remarked Korzanof in concluding his strange story. “A genuine martyr, indeed! You know, I did not like her. All of us knew she was a wicked woman, with more than one crime on her conscience; but I feel sure that the suffering of the latter part of her life has atoned for many of her great sins. It was impossible to see, without pitying her. ... As ill luck would have it, we had, on that particular and last year of her life, to visit our property, which is near hers, as you know. She sent for us immediately; thus, nolens volens, we had to visit and – stay with her. . . . But such visits, old man, were indeed feats, on our part, to be wondered at; feats, not only Christian, but truly heroic. . . .”

“How so? Have you also seen ghosts and marvels, then?”

“Ask rather what were the marvels we have not seen. Whenever I come to think of it now, all that terrible past seems to me a hallucination, a hideous nightmare. Nor would I have failed to convince myself in the end that it was a dream and no more, had I not witnesses beside me, who saw and heard the same as I did.”

“Your wife? Has she heard and seen things, also?”

“She did, and more; she saw and recognised. . . .”

“Whom? and what can you mean?”

“The truth. Do you recollect the woman found dead at the gate of the park, with a knife in her hand?”

“The young wet-nurse? ... Of course I do. . . . Well, and did your wife see her too?”

“With her own eyes, old man! She met her at the end of the great

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passage near the rooms of the chamber-maids, at twilight; and, needing a servant girl for something, she called her. The woman turned round and stood before my wife the living image of what she had been! Just the same as Sasha had known and remembered her. But after so many years she might have failed to recognise her, had it not been for her face distorted with suffering, and the long knife she was pressing to her breast. . . .”

“The knife? . . . God save us ... a knife beyond the grave! Why, Alexandra Vladimirovna must have surely dreamt it. . . .”

“Dreamt it? No she has not. The woman with the knife was too often seen, and by too many, wandering about the castle before, and after that vision. She was among the most frequent mysterious visitors of our unfortunate aunt . . . and then, why should my wife have dreamt it? She had known her during life, but had not seen her, as you and I did, lying dead under the wall of the park; and she had only heard the legend about the knife she was armed with later, and had never paid attention to it. But meeting her face to face in the passage, she recognised her at a glance and – remembered. . . We had a mass said for her and a fine cross placed over her grave.”

“Well, and how did that work? Has she finally found rest?” I queried, not without some doubt in my mind as to the reasonableness of my query and of the conversation in general.

“I do not know. Perhaps. The “wet nurse” was hardly met with, in the castle after that; but my wife was so frightened that she took to her bed for several days. I was at an utter loss to know what to do. She would not remain in the castle, and she would not leave without me; meanwhile, the old woman was evidently approaching her end, and it was impossible to leave her alone. She implored and adjured us by everything holy to us not to desert her! Lucky it was that our daughter had remained with her uncle at Moscow, so that she knows nothing to this day of the horrors that took place. . . . We told her nothing.”

“Very wise, too. And does this deviltry still go on? Ah, but I remember now, you said that the palace of Rujano Lyass had been burnt down? . . . But how, and why should such a gigantic mass of stone and marble burn down at all?”

“Just so; and there was a new mystery, and another marvel, to boot. Mark well, that after her death the mansion stood uninhabited, every door and window in it being securely closed and nailed. Not a soul within! not even a gate-keeper, as none would stop there for any amount of money. How did it burn? Who could have set fire to the four corners of such an immense stone building? All these questions are so many problems to us to this day. Anyhow, my wife and I felt overjoyed when it did burn down. For, we had been already contemplating either to take it to pieces or to sell it; but so long as it preserved its imposing appearance, and remained the palace of palaces of the whole

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province, we had not the heart to pull it down. We felt ashamed to sell that old family heirloom to the Jews. . . . But once it had become a mass of ruins, and that its walls, burnt to cinders, was all that remained of it, why should any of us regret it? Besides this, we received a very considerable sum of money even for the ruins. Thank God, our daughter is no beggar, anyhow, and she is an heiress, with or without the palace of Rujano Lyass!” concluded Korzanof, with a smile of satisfaction on his blooming face.

We remained silent. My friend was evidently drifted away from the memory of the past by the ambitious pictures rising in his loving fancy with regard to the future of his only and dearly beloved child; I, occupied with reflections about the wonders that I had just heard, and the new and magnificent panorama offered to us just then, by the glory of the setting sun. . . .

Vera Jelihovsky.

(To be concluded in the next Number.)

December 1888

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Accursed!

III.

THE sun was slowly but visibly going down on the horizon, and the lower it descended toward the sea, the more transparent became the far-off scenery. The waters looked of a sombre blue, and the golden ripples that moved over the azure surface were becoming with every moment of a more glowing crimson. Everything around us was gradually tinted with purple hues; the town, the cottages, the bowers and the white terrace of our hotel. All was in a blaze. The sunbeams shot like straight arrows heavenward from beyond a cluster of red and golden clouds which had slightly veiled the face of the dazzling disc. And now they have melted away and disappeared. . . . The enormous red, fiery globe is almost touching the sea, which it has set all ablaze. And now it has touched it. . . . sinking with its lower edge into the billowy depths. The purple hues are gradually fading out to assume an orange tint. But suddenly, as though breaking off, and as the gigantic globe of light sinks and falls into the watery abyss and disappears in the liquid bed, the whole surrounding scenery, the air, and the sea itself are entirely transformed in colour – the heavens and the earth become of a transparent lilac hue. No twilight, but the dark mantle of night suddenly descends upon us. . . . The deep sounds of the convent bell, tolling the Angelus and calling the believers to their evening prayer, reach us across the gulf in solemn and measured rhythm, while high over our heads, on the dark blue ethereal canopy, one twinkling silvery star after the other is lit in sidereal space, and beams its tremulous reflection on the hardly rippled surface of the somnolent waters.

“Here’s an evening for you, and here’s a night!” merrily exclaimed Korzanof, thus putting to flight my thoughts. “No match to this, our colourless northern twilights. There – we have pigmy prose; here, a gorgeous, gigantic poetry, as my wife and daughter Sashoorka say. . .”

“Begging your pardon – even your wife and daughter may err in their enthusiasm ...” I remarked smilingly. “Poems and dramas and all sorts of majestic events, as well as very practical episodes, occur just as often in our cold fatherland. This has been just demonstrated by yourself. What can be more romantic than the mysterious horrors in Rujano-Lyass, that you have just been narrating?”

“That’s so. You are right, but there is no need to chuckle in your sleeve while speaking of them. . . .”

“I, chuckle? I can assure you I do not. On the contrary, for I am highly interested. . . . But you must tell me, old chum, whether all

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this . . . well, this Satanic obsession, suddenly ceased after your aunt’s death?”

Michael Petrovitch, who was then slowly walking up and down the terrace, stopped and stood before me, trying to scrutinize my face, as I spoke. Then, putting his hands in his pockets, he balanced himself on his heels and toes for a few seconds, and gazed very hard at me for a little while. At last, though it was getting quite dark, he seemed to come to the conclusion that my question was offered in dead earnest.

“My dear friend,” he began slowly and even hesitatingly, “I can tell you only one thing, whether you understand me or not. This obsession, as you call it, has, and has not ceased! It has become better, and . . . it has become worse. ... It depends, you see. . . .”

“Depends on what? I understand you still less now. ... I was never famous for unriddling rebuses. Do speak plainly for once! . . .”

“I will try to, though ... it is more difficult than you may think. I had told you that poor Acsenia Cuprianovna Sedminska had a long and terrible agony. Terrible, because of physical sufferings, but chiefly on account of the moral tortures to which she was ceaselessly subjected by her chronic visions: the horror they inspired her with, and, most of all, her great terror of death. I have never witnessed in my life such a fear and such an agony! She was conscious to her last moment; she knew she was dying and that no one could save her life; and, nevertheless, she struggled with death, fighting most desperately, to her last breath; she screamed, implored everyone to save her, to prolong her life if it were for one more day, or even an hour! . . . I have never known a more dreadful feeling than during the last moments of her life. I had, of course, sent away my wife; but the poor wretch clung desperately to me and would not let me go, nor would she let Father Wassiliy leave her. She held our hands, she fastened to our clothes, adjuring us to save her, to ‘pray her off, and not to give her up to torture.’ To give her up – to whom? We put her no questions, but we understood her well; she feared the post-mortem tortures, the reprisals from those whom she had tortured to death during her own sinful life. It was horrible! . . . My nerves were so unstrung that I was fairly knocked off my feet, and feared a brain fever myself. Father Wassiliy, accustomed as he was to death-scenes of agony, cannot, to this day, think of this particular case without a shudder. He becomes pale at the slightest mention of it. . . . It seems to me that at her last confession, she must have revealed something too dreadful, as, while reading over her the absolution, and the last prayer, he looked more like a ghost than a living man himself! And after she had died he used to groan loudly when mentioning her name, declaring more than once in my presence that although he prayed daily for her soul, he could not ... he felt it impossible ... to preserve his usual calm or feel at peace during those prayers for her rest. ‘It is awe and dread I feel, not the reverential

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and hopeful feeling I ought to!’ he often complained to me. Methinks, the late widow of Count Sedminska must have sinned too terribly during her life. . . . may God forgive her and rest her soul!”

My friend Korzanof suddenly interrupted his narrative, and making a reverential sign of the cross, relapsed into silence, picking up the thread of his narrative once more a few minutes later.

“Well!” he sighed, “however it may be, finally and at last she died, the poor, miserable woman. We buried her, at her express and solemn bidding, not in the family vault in the cemetery – she dreaded the latter so terribly that she could not even bear to hear its name mentioned – but in the park, not far from the great alley, near the largest flower-bed. . . . The deceased had chosen the spot herself. ‘Here,’ she used to say, ‘it looks more inhabited. I do not want to remain alone; I want living people to be always with me ... on the spot where on great festivals I used to distribute bread to poor people. . . . Perchance, some one of them may remember, and say a prayer for me!’

“Thus was her last will carried out. However, although the uncanny noises and the rest ceased in the castle after her death, still, when a few months later I returned again to Rujano-Lyass on business, I found once more that all was not as right in the house as it should be. . . . So much so, indeed, that when I was obliged to bring my wife there with me to be legally recognized as the heir thereof, I was but too glad to have Father Wassiliy offer us his house for a few days.”

“Indeed! . . . But what was it that happened?” I enquired, unable to restrain an exclamation of sincere surprise. “What have you seen then or heard during your first visit to the . . . disturbed castle?”

“What have I seen, or heard?” almost howled Korzanof, stopping suddenly and bending his face to mine. And then, bringing himself so near me that I could discern his frowning brow and eyes glaring with wild excitement at the recollection, he whispered hoarsely into my ear: “I saw her, herself . . . yes! Herself, Acsenia Cuprianovna. I saw her and heard her! . . .”

“Heard her? . . . What did you hear? . . . What did she tell you?”

“Not much . . . only these words: ‘No rest for me! . . . No rest, no pardon, no salvation!’ Yes!” shouted once more Korzanof, as though the bare recollection of it made him furious, “I heard that voice again at night . . . and it awoke me. . . . ‘No salvation!’ it shrieked, ‘no rest! . . . No annihilation! ... I want it, I demand annihilation!’ . . . And with this last word the voice died away in the distance and the silence of the night. When I am on my death-bed I will confess it to the priest as I confess it now to you. I saw her! . . . I heard her screaming: ‘Annihilation! oh, for annihilation!’ the scream passing into a most despairing wail which sounded over the whole house, and then . . .”

Becoming calmer, Korzanof lowered his voice and said:

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“And then, just about dawn, I saw her herself, just as she was on that day. . . .”

“Herself? . . . impossible! . . . When or how?”

“No, no, this will do my good fellow! Basta! . . .” and Michael Petrovitch sank into his armchair breathing hard and quickly as if after a long run. “Enough,” said he, “I must end here, lest I should pass another sleepless night. It is no nursery tale, my dear friend, which you may repeat over and over again, and no harm done, but a devilish queer reality. . . . May heaven send rest to her sinful soul, but I shall talk no more of her. ... It is only for your sake that I have made an exception during these long years . . . and I begin to repent of it. But here are my wife and daughter back, I believe. ... So much the better . . . Let us go to meet them.”

Korzanof descended the marble steps of the terrace into the garden, and hastened toward the little landing place, where a boat had just arrived. He had sensed the presence of his idolized child in the darkness of that moonless night, before even her merry laugh and sweet childish voice had reached his ear. Then I heard her crying out:

“Oh papa, the lovely things we have bought for you! a whole basket full of curiosities . . . . Come, come, quick, follow me!”

And the tall graceful figure of the young girl, jumping out of the boat, appeared among the flowers and shrubs. Dragging her father by the hand, she ran up the marble steps, and thence into the lighted hall. She almost upset me in her haste to get into the house.

“Ah! . . . . is it you? . . . . Beg your pardon!” .... she exclaimed laughing. “Well, has papa entertained you? has he been edifying you on the progress of our oats and future harvests?” . . . .

And the “papa” feeling quite happy, laughed merrily with her at his own expense. He seemed to have entirely forgotten the heavy feeling that had just agitated him. . . .

On the next day we parted, and since that day fate has brought us no more together. On the other hand, my destiny led me back quite unexpectedly to Rujano-Lyass. I had some regimental business to settle in the same borough where we had been quartered in 1854. Very naturally my first visit was for Father Wassiliy. I found him as active and as energetic as he had been in his younger days. He looked far younger than his little delicate and shrivelled-up wife, who no sooner had she recognised in me her old acquaintance than she began to fuss about tea and refreshments. While she was going about with her keys, Father Wassiliy kept me company in the little porch near the entrance door. Very naturally, almost from the first words, I led our conversation upon the topics that interested me the most. The priest remained silent, thoughtfully stroking his picturesque beard while listening to questions and the narrative of my meeting with the Korzanofs. But, though he

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denied nothing, he evidently declined to talk about that matter. Thus, to my direct question:

“And how about now? Is it all quiet on the domain, or is it still subject to visitations?”

“No; one hears nothing more, nowadays, thank God. Besides, it is so full of people; there are such crowds of Jews and workmen that there can be no time, nor opportunity for manifestation of power, there, good or evil – except perhaps the power of steam and wheels.” . . . .

He smiled while speaking, but there was no merry twinkle in his serious and thoughtful eye. His reserve goaded my curiosity the more, and I openly showed my surprise at his unwillingness to satisfy it. Why was he so reticent?

“I am not reticent, Ivan Nikolaevitch,” he at last answered, forced into this subject by my persistency, “and why should I be reticent, or try to conceal that which is known to the whole district, nay to the entire province? We had hard and uncanny things happening there, this no one can deny! Every kind of evil doings took place. . . . But is it necessary or becoming to be always talking of them? . . Thanks be to God Almighty that they have now ceased. Human life is a heavy burden and full of dangers and suffering anyhow; but when to its natural course be added such like . . . . evil and unnatural occurrences, then it really becomes too heavy and quite unbearable. Such visitations are more dreadful than any human evil can ever be, because man is so absolutely helpless in the face of them. . . . I cannot recall without a shudder those terrible days. Then why talk of them? . . . . Vain words are things of little use, and sinful, according to my humble understanding.”

“But why should you regard them as vain words, Father Wassiliy? In my opinion such phenomena out of the ordinary run are, on the contrary, very useful, as they can only serve as a corroboration and an affirmation of a life to come and of a retributive law, as . . .”

I did not finish my sentence, for at that moment I caught the priest fixing his eyes on me with an expression in them which quite puzzled me. There was such surprise and irony in his serious gaze, that for several instants I felt very uncomfortable.

“I cannot agree with you,” he calmly remarked. “In Scripture, as in the very lives of men, proofs far more effective in convincing us of our soul’s immortality and an unavoidable punishment for our sins may be found than any such abnormal occurrences can ever afford. On the contrary; the latter so-called supernatural manifestations have a very maleficent effect. To begin with, of whatever religion or views, and however trustworthy the person may be who gives an account of them as an eye-witness, the majority of those who have not put their fingers into the print of the nails and thrust their hand into the side will never believe him. And those who, perchance, may believe are ... as likely

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as not to attribute these manifestations to quite another power than that of God. . . .”

“You think, then, that such phenomena do not occur by the will of God?”

“Not at all; I believe that nothing can happen without the permission of the Almighty; but I still bear in mind that which the wisdom of our common people has very suggestively termed ‘allowances.’ ^[6] I feel convinced that the Supreme Will allows such things to happen because it chooses to remain passive; but I am as sure, that there is not in them what we would call the finger of God, or the direct participation of holy Providence. Of course I may be mistaken in this,” modestly added Father Wassiliy, “but such is my conviction, and this is why I try to obliterate from my memory those terrible days! . . .”

“One word more, Father! Do not enter into the details if you will not, but only answer me yes or no. Have you ever seen or heard anything yourself?”

The priest did not immediately answer, but after a moment of hesitation, clearly denoting his unwillingness to speak on the subject, said very slowly:

“That to which Mr. Korzanof was an eye and an ear-witness, that have I seen and heard too. Did he not inform you that that he and I were the only living persons who remained with the dying Countess to her last moment? Well, I do not deny it; terrible, weird and utterly incomprehensible were the manifestations going on around us. . . . We did not see all that she saw, of course – God be thanked for this – but we sensed very strongly the presence of something quite abnormal and extraordinary. That which appeared the most terrible of all, however, was that state of ceaseless and never-changing horror in which the dying old woman remained during her last days. . . .”

“Could not the hallucinations of a death-bed account for them? Delirium, perhaps? . . .”

The priest remained silent once more, and then answered with still greater hesitation:

“Perhaps; though with respect to everything else she remained certainly fully conscious. ... In any case such a delirium is worse than the most terrible reality. And now let me ask you not to return any more to this subject . . . indeed, indeed, I can hardly bear to speak of it ... it is too horrible! . . .”

Of course I had to give it up. But, notwithstanding the impropriety of going against a desire so firmly stated, I could not help exclaiming:

“Unhappy woman! Could her previsions be indeed verified beyond the grave? Michael Petrovitch assured me that he saw, and heard her voice after her death. . . . Did he tell you that? . . .”

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“He did; and according to his desire, I said the mass and the prayers for the dead on her tomb on the very next morning, and sprinkled her grave with holy water. . . .”

“Let us hope that after that she . . . . or her spirit, has found the needed rest,” I remarked. “Admitting all her cruelty and selfishness, she was not, after all, a predetermined sinner or criminal! There must be people worse than she was, most undeniably . . . . why then, should she alone be so chastised, and made to suffer so terribly and so exclusively? . . . . Why?”

In the uncertain twilight of the evening it seemed to me that Father Wassiliy had become very pale; at any rate, he was strangely agitated, as he answered in low and impressive tones:

“It is not for us to judge . . . . to mete the retribution and the measure . . . . no, it is not for us!”

“Would you doubt?” I again exclaimed. “We must hope that she is forgiven. Don’t you think so?”

“Let us hope so,” he repeated, with still more pronounced hesitation. “The mercy of God is greater than any transgression.”

But there was no ring of conviction in his voice. I felt sure that he knew more about the deceased than any of us did, and I would have given much to draw him out. But under such circumstances, all I could do was to remain silent or to change the subject of our conversation. I preferred the latter, and began talking about the business which had brought me to Rujano-Lyass, or rather to its new foundry. This necessitated my going to the factory that had replaced the rich old mansion, and I would have gone there even on that same day, had not our discussion and the late tea made me forget the time; and so I had to postpone the visit until the next morning, the more so as threatening clouds had appeared over our heads, and a storm was brewing. The spring was sultry that year, and rainless. The population was expecting and praying for rain, and in consequence I had to show pleasure at the coming storm, and welcome the black and threatening thunder-cloud which was rapidly spreading like a funeral pall over the whole sky.

We had hardly finished our first glasses of tea, when a dazzling flash of lightning cut through the blackness of the sky, and a rolling peal of thunder, such as we hardly expected, vibrated through hill and vale. I had prepared to return to the post-house, where I had stopped, but my hospitable hosts would not hear of it. They would not allow me to leave them during such a tempest. Besides, what should I do there alone the whole evening? they said. “Remain with us,” they begged, “have a bit of supper, sleep in the room you occupied years ago, and then go about your business in the morning.” . . . .

“I will send my man at once for your luggage,” said the priest resolutely. “You shall have it here in less than half-an-hour, and to-morrow morning I will go with you to the Park Foundry. I will

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say a mass for the dead on the grave of ... . the Countess; this will be more useful than to pry into her past. In truth, it is a long while since I have visited her tomb myself, for I pray for her generally in the church, during the early mass, and . . .”

A terrific clap of thunder drowned the last sentence. The priest hastened to give orders to his messenger, with regard to my luggage. Meanwhile, his kind little wife accompained me into my old room, “the guest’s chamber” of their small cottage. I had entirely forgotten that the Countess Sedminska was buried near her family mansion, in the park, and said so to the “Mother.”

“Oh yes,” confirmed the talkative old lady, handing me another glass of tea. “Of course she lies there. Oh dear, yes. She could not bear, you see, to be laid in the neighbourhood of her friend and assistant in all her good works, Pan Matzevitch! . . . . Oh no, certainly not. And then, there was also that other fellow. . . . the Ksiondz, with whom, people say, her ladyship had little differences after his death. As rumour has it, all her nocturnal squabbles, her disputes and battles, were mostly due to the visits of these two worthies. Of course, you must have heard of the uncanny performances which took place in her castle? Heaven preserve us from more such. . . . . Every night there were battles fought in the family palazzo, between the dead and the living one!”

“Is the Ksiondz dead also?” I asked, much pleased, and hoping that in the absence of the husband the talkative spouse of Father Wassiliy would have time to give me some more information.

“Oh, yes, indeed. He is dead and buried long ago. ... It was very soon after your regiment left our place that he was taken ill with cholera. Oh, yes. And so amazingly quick too . . . . it left him no time even to repent, I fear. He overfed himself we hear; for the Father’ was dainty-mouthed and rather gluttonous; no mistake about it, may Heaven forgive him. . . . And very few mourners he had indeed, as there never was much love lost between his parish and himself. Quite so; yes. He lies buried in his own Kostiol (R. C. Church), and the land agent – or what people could collect together of the body, which was chopped into the smallest pieces – is buried under the wall of the Kostiol. . . . . Just so! . . . . and thus you see; milady, Acsenia Cuprianovna declined to rest in the company of these two. Her remains lie at the very entrance of her park; under a magnificent monument sent here by Mr. Korzanof from Italy.”

“And how about the mansion when it was burnt down? Did not the fire damage the tomb?”

“No; for it was not placed yet. . . . Only the wooden railing and the cross that were provisionally put there were both, of course, reduced to ashes! . . . entirely pulverized through the heat. . . . The marble monument was brought quite recently, only about two years ago . . . But

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no . . . not even so much! ... It will be two years next autumn only, on the day of the ‘Intercession of the Holy Virgin.’ . . . Just so.”

“Two years for what?” interrupted Father Wassiliy, who, to my great disappointment, had finished business with his messenger a great deal sooner than was desirable for me, and had re-entered the room. When told to what the sentence referred,

“Still about the Countess!” he mildly remarked, while shaking his head at us reproachfully. “She does seem to interest you. Better dismiss her from your thoughts, sir, believe me; and the sooner she is forgotten by men, the better it will be for all parties concerned. May God forgive her her heavy sins, and send rest to her wearied soul . . . Oh, God!...” added the priest, attempting a fervent sign of the cross, “Almighty . . .”

“God help us . . . what’s this! . . .” exclaimed his wife, rapidly crossing herself. “How dreadful!”

The exclamation was wrung from her by the loudest and the most terrific thunderclap I had ever heard in my life, and which blinded and deafened us for a few seconds. In one instant all became incandescent around. Gates and doors were flung open, every window and glass in the house vibrated and cracked, and the very building itself was shaken to its foundations by that fearful commotion of the air.

“The thunderbolt must have fallen somewhere in the neighbourhood.” I remarked. “Let us hope no one was hit, nor any building set on fire by it? . . . And with all this no rain. How unfortunate! . . .”

“Yes, it’s just beginning though, thank goodness,” declared my hostess, who was peeping out into the yard through the violently-opened door, which she now carefully closed and fastened. “But what a rain, the drops so large and so few! . . . Heaven help us, for we are threatened with a most violent storm! . . .”

And so it turned out to be. One deafening peal of thunder followed almost without interruption the other. Dazzling lightning rent asunder, every few seconds, the heavy, ink-black clouds which were slowly drawing nearer and nearer the hushed and silent earth. Every leaf on the trees and shrubs shook without a breath in the air, and wide sheets of ominous, greenish light kept on, almost without an interval, lighting up the Egyptian darkness that had fallen upon the country. Suddenly the clouds burst and a torrential rain – great sheets of water rather – poured upon the parched earth, flooding instantaneously the streets of the village and the surrounding fields as though preparing for a second deluge.

And so it raged, and it was only toward midnight that the thunder ceased, and that the sound of the roaring waters weakened by degrees; when a most terrible hurricane arose, with a wind such as I hardly remember. The violence of the tempest prevented our closing our eyes till after dawn. What with the howling wind, the noise of the creaking doors, gates and windows, and the crash of shutters torn off their hinges, I could

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not go to sleep on that memorable night. My hosts were likewise up till dawn, preparing for possible emergencies, and lamenting loudly and beforehand the too probable damages and mischief which such an unusual hurricane was sure to cause.

Towards early morning, when quite exhausted, I at last fell asleep.

I was awakened by the kind and merry voice of my host, who was trying to arouse me. With an effort I opened my eyes, still much confused and unable to fix my thoughts or remember where I was.

“Get up, Ivan Nikolaevitch; it is high time! . . Noon will be striking very soon. There are people who came to see you on business. I have directed them to the Castle park to wait for you, telling them you would be there in a few minutes. So you have to get up.”

I collected my thoughts in a moment, and jumped out of bed. “And last night’s storm?” I asked. “Has it done you any harm?”

“Thanks to the Lord, it has not; and everything is right so far. Just a few trifles here and there . . . two or three hedges and railings broken, and some straw thatching blown and carried off from the roofs. But this is nothing. We are in summer, and there’s plenty of time to get fresh straw to repair the damage done. No great mischief done anywhere ... I have been driving across the whole village and found no one to complain, thanks to the Almighty God. I felt quite astounded, to tell you the truth. . . .”

He looked surprised, but quite happy, did the good Father Wassiliy.

I was soon ready, and we started out. The wind had dried the traces of the rain, and dry footpaths already crossed the muddy roads in every direction. The morning was glorious. The fields and meadows looked emerald green, the forests were refreshed, and the whole of nature seemed brighter, merrier, and more blooming. All was full of new life and new hopes and new songs. We could hardly hear each other speak while crossing along the outskirts of the forest, in our short cut to the park and the site of the old castle. Such a merry ring and ding in the bright green bowers and grass as made by the birds, such a buzzing of insect life, of songs, of clicking, whistling and joyous chirruping, I have rarely heard in my life.

“What a splendid country, yours,” I said to the priest. “I feel twenty years younger, here, as though I had never left the place.”

“Verily so, it is a fine country. Occasional droughts, however, and loss of crops sometimes on account of the sandy soil. Otherwise the scenery is very beautiful. The forests are splendid here.”

“It is fortunate no one cuts them down.”

“No one can do so, we have too many foresters. All this, you know, belongs to the park, and is the Korzanof property now. That which was actually sold was only the land under the buildings, the out-houses, and what remained of the burned domain: iron work and walls.

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Almost the whole of the factory has been built out of its bricks and stones and broken plaster.”

“What’s this?” I interrupted him. “Is this the tomb of the Countess Sedminska?” We were approaching the park enclosures. Behind an opened gate appeared a white wall, and beyond, surrounded by a wealth of green shrubbery and foliage, arose a tall crucifix.

“Oh, no,” said the priest. “Did you forget the wretched woman who was picked up here with a knife?”

“The wet nurse? . . . . Oh, yes; of course, I remember her well. May heaven have her soul, the poor wretch! . . . . How well her tomb is kept up.” . . . .

Still conversing, we crossed the park to the factory office, where I soon settled my very simple business. Leaving the building, we found ourselves in a spacious court from where, standing in the warm summer sun, we watched the animation and activity that went on inside. From the main building of a heavy, ugly edifice which had replaced the mediæval architecture of the palace of Rujano Lyass, we were greeted by the usual factory noises, the rumbling of the wheels and the whistling of steam engines. Clouds of black smoke issued from tall chimneys, ascending toward the pure blue sky, and disappearing in the atmosphere. I was invited to inspect the works, but declined with thanks.

“Let us hurry on, Father Wassiliy,” I said. “Kindly show me the tomb of the late proprietress, and thence – home, to you, and then for my return journey.”

“Come on. But . . . . do you know, I believe I had better not have the regular prayers said over . . . . her. Every time I have done so, there was something uncanny going on, very unpleasant things. . . . The last time there was such whistling and hissing going on in the trees! . . . . Somebody laughed, in the park, loud peals of laughter . . . . very, very bad and disagreeable it was . . quite blasphemous. I really think it better to simply mention her name in the Church . . . .”

“So, so,” I muttered, pretending to mistake his meaning. “Your population seems to forgive and forget with difficulty . . . .”

“Father!” called a voice behind us.

We turned back, and saw a workman running. The priest stopped,

“What do you want, Ivan?” he asked.

“I . . . . Do you mean to say mass . . . . there?” asked the peasant hesitatingly, in his queer local dialect.

“No; but why do you ask?”

“Too great a crowd of people there, now. They are all coming to see . . . . I warn you, father, lest something again should happen this time, something wrong . . . .”

The priest heaved a sigh, and shook his head reproachfully. . . .

“Just so; ‘something wrong,’” he repeated. . . . “People have no shame nowadays. And yet they ought to. Oh, Ivan, Ivan! Only

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think of it; that owing to your revengeful feelings, even a simple prayer for the rest of a soul should have become impossible!. . . .”

“But surely it is not we, father?” was the astonished reply. “Surely it is not . . . .”

The workman looked terribly embarrassed, and perhaps frightened. He stood silent and irresolute. His face seemed familiar to me.

“Ivan, the brother of Marianka?” I asked, as a sudden recollection struck me. “And your mother – is she alive?”

The peasant gave me one quick glance, and turned aside immediately answering but three short words:

“Alive, but sickly.”

“Do you really remember her?” asked the priest, quite surprised. “Yes, she is still alive, and now gets a living for herself. . . . bakes the unleavened breads for communion in our church. Her son works at the factory. He is a good and honest fellow . . . . Takes care of his old mother . . . . But what does this gathering mean?” he suddenly exclaimed, as he noticed the thick crowds of people emerging from the opposite side. “They seem to be coming from the tomb?” . . . .

I looked and saw a great multitude pressing from behind the trees, where something white and gold shone in the sun.

“Just what I was saying to you,” spoke Ivan, fixing the priest; “all the village is there, on account of the tombstone struck and broken during the hurricane last night.”

“What are you talking about? Struck! How and where?”

And without waiting for an answer, the priest almost ran toward the tomb of the Countess.

“The monument broken?” I asked Ivan. “Is it lightning?”

I remembered last night’s terrible thunder clap, and my conviction that the lightning had fallen somewhere in the neighbourhood.

“It is,” answered Ivan, with his brows sternly knit together. “The thunderbolt fell on it and broke it into chips. . . . Pan Boog (the Lord God) knows that such a tomb is no fit place for a cross on it. It is the second time that the cross is destroyed by God’s fire on that grave!”

He turned away and went back toward the factory, and I hastened to follow Father Wassiliy, while reflecting on this popular survival of bad feelings toward the Countess Sedminska, and the strange coincidence which had brought me back to this village just on the day when the storm had finally destroyed the Christian symbol over that poor grave. “It does seem strange,” I thought, “that the lightning should precisely choose her tomb? It is very, very strange!”

I hurried on. Behind the tender green foliage of early summer, I perceived a bronze enclosure with golden ornamentation, and a majestic white marble monument – a column. A massive bronze cross had crowned the upper pillar, but the thunderbolt, in striking, had melted and twisted it into one formless mass. It was dislodged and hanging down

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one side of the column, along a wide gaping crack. ... Yes, Ivan had spoken the truth: the heavenly fire had burnt and annihilated the cross on this hapless tomb. This fact was still stranger!

Greatly perplexed, I approached the railing, near which stood the priest in ghastly amazement. But when I looked at him, I felt still more surprised. Father Wassiliy was as pale as death, and his dark eyes, so calm and serious at all times, were positively staring with a look of the wildest terror in them. . . .

Slowly, without turning his head, as though his gaze was nailed for ever to the tombstone, he put down heavily his left hand upon mine, while indicating with the forefinger of the right the tumular inscription on the tombstone column.

It was almost destroyed by the zigzag progress of the electric fluid. The larger bronze-cast letters were nearly all knocked off their places and melted. A very few had remained uninjured.

“Look attentively, read, spell . . .” whispered the priest, his lips white with horror.

I followed his advice, and spelt out the remaining letters. . . Suddenly a terrible light dawned upon me.

“The shadow of the Holy Cross be upon us!” I exclaimed, as my hand raised itself to make the saving symbol.

The tumular inscription had consisted of the following words: –

The Countess
Acsenia Cuprianovna
Sedminska.

The first two words, the title, had melted into one unrecognisable mass of bronze; but out of the three names, the baptismal and the family name, eight letters had remained. This is how they now stood: –

Ac . . . . . cu . r . . . . . . .
Sed . . . . . .

This coincidence was stranger than all!

And now, ladies and gentlemen, was I right in prefacing my narrative by saying that strange events do happen in one’s life?

Vera Jelihovsky.

Footnotes

↑ Ksiondz means, in Polish, a Roman Catholic “Priest.”
↑ The common title of Russian priests.
↑ The Polish word for “Mister.”
↑ A contemptuous name given by the Poles to the Muscovites.
↑ It is an old custom in Russia and Poland that on the eve of the marriage ceremony the Bride and the Bridegroom should give each a farewell soirée, one to her unmarried female, the other to his bachelor, friends.
↑ This is an untranslatable term, popooshtyen’iyé meaning something allowed to occur passively and without either opposing or permitting it.

[v3-p97-n1-1] Ksiondz means, in Polish, a Roman Catholic “Priest.”

[v3-p98-n1-2] The common title of Russian priests.

[v3-p99-n1-3] The Polish word for “Mister.”

[v3-p100-n1-4] A contemptuous name given by the Poles to the Muscovites.

[v3-p102-n1-5] It is an old custom in Russia and Poland that on the eve of the marriage ceremony the Bride and the Bridegroom should give each a farewell soirée, one to her unmarried female, the other to his bachelor, friends.

[v3-p309-n1-6] This is an untranslatable term, popooshtyen’iyé meaning something allowed to occur passively and without either opposing or permitting it.

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