AND OTHER STORIES
BY
translated from the russian by
S. S. KOTELIANSKY
and
GILBERT CANNAN
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1917
Copyright, 1917, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published August, 1917
(A PAINTER'S STORY)
IT happened nigh on seven years ago, when I was living in one of thedistricts of the J. province, on the estate of Bielokurov, a landowner,a young man who used to get up early, dress himself in a long overcoat,drink beer in the evenings, and all the while complain to me that hecould nowhere find any one in sympathy with his ideas. He lived in alittle house in the orchard, and I lived in the old manor-house, in ahuge pillared hall where there was no furniture except a large divan, onwhich I slept, and a table at which I used to play patience. Even incalm weather there was always a moaning in the chimney, and in a stormthe whole house would rock and seem as though it must split, and it wasquite terrifying, especially at night, when all the ten great windowswere suddenly lit up by a flash of lightning.
Doomed by fate to permanent idleness, I did positively nothing. Forhours together I would sit and look through the windows at the sky, thebirds, the trees and read my letters over and over again, and then forhours together I would sleep. Sometimes I would go out and wanderaimlessly until evening.
Once on my way home I came unexpectedly on a strange farmhouse. The sunwas already setting, and the lengthening shadows were thrown over theripening corn. Two rows of closely planted tall fir-trees stood like twothick walls, forming a sombre, magnificent avenue. I climbed the fenceand walked up the avenue, slipping on the fir needles which lay twoinches thick on the ground. It was still, dark, and only here and therein the tops of the trees shimmered a bright gold light casting thecolours of the rainbow on a spider's web. The smell of the firs wasalmost suffocating. Then I turned into an avenue of limes. And here toowere desolation and decay; the dead leaves rustled mournfully beneath myfeet, and there were lurking shadows among the trees. To the right, inan old orchard, a goldhammer sang a faint reluctant song, and he toomust have been old. The lime-trees soon came to an end and I came to awhite house with a terrace and a mezzanine, and suddenly a vista openedupon a farmyard with a pond and a bathing-shed, and a row of greenwillows, with a village beyond, and above it stood a tall, slenderbelfry, on which glowed a cross catching the light of the setting sun.For a moment I was possessed with a sense of enchantment, intimate,particular, as though I had seen the scene before in my childhood.
By the white-stone gate surmounted with stone lions, which led from theyard into the field, stood two girls. One of them, the elder, thin,pale, very handsome, with masses of chestnut hair and a litt