A Reckless Character, and Other Stories Part 39

"He would not heed me! He would not heed me!" he whispered dejectedly.

"However!" he said at last. "He would have been obliged to languish all his life in that frightful prison! At all events, he is not suffering now! Now he is better off! Evidently, so had his Fate decreed!

"And yet, it is a pity, from a human point of view!"

And the good soul continued to sob inconsolably over his unlucky friend.

December, 1878.

CHRIST

I saw myself as a youth, almost a little boy, in a low-ceiled country church.--Slender wax tapers burned like red spots in front of the ancient holy pictures.

An aureole of rainbow hues encircled each tiny flame.--It was dark and dim in the church.... But a ma.s.s of people stood in front of me.

All reddish, peasant heads. From time to time they would begin to surge, to fall, to rise again, like ripe ears of grain when the summer breeze flits across them in a slow wave.

Suddenly some man or other stepped from behind and took up his stand alongside me.

I did not turn toward him, but I immediately felt that that man was--Christ.

Emotion, curiosity, awe took possession of me simultaneously. I forced myself to look at my neighbour.

He had a face like that of everybody else,--a face similar to all human faces. His eyes gazed slightly upward, attentively and gently. His lips were closed, but not compressed; the upper lip seemed to rest upon the lower; his small beard was parted in the middle. His hands were clasped, and did not move. And his garments were like those of every one else.

"Christ, forsooth!" I thought to myself. "Such a simple, simple man! It cannot be!"

I turned away.--But before I had time to turn my eyes from that simple man it again seemed to me that it was Christ in person who was standing beside me.

Again I exerted an effort over myself.... And again I beheld the same face, resembling all human faces, the same ordinary, although unfamiliar, features.

And suddenly dread fell upon me, and I came to myself. Only then did I understand that precisely such a face--a face like all human faces--is the face of Christ.

December, 1878.

II

1879-1882

THE STONE

Have you seen an old, old stone on the seash.o.r.e, when the brisk waves are beating upon it from all sides, at high tide, on a sunny spring day--beating and sparkling and caressing it, and drenching its mossy head with crumbling pearls of glittering foam?

The stone remains the same stone, but brilliant colours start forth upon its surly exterior.

They bear witness to that distant time when the molten granite was only just beginning to harden and was all glowing with fiery hues.

Thus also did young feminine souls recently attack my old heart from all quarters,--and beneath their caressing touch it glowed once more with colours which faded long ago,--with traces of its pristine fire!

The waves have retreated ... but the colours have not yet grown dim, although a keen breeze is drying them.

May, 1879.

DOVES

I was standing on the crest of a sloping hill; in front of me lay outspread, and motley of hue, the ripe rye, now like a golden, again like a silvery sea.

But no surge was coursing across this sea; no sultry breeze was blowing; a great thunder-storm was brewing.

Round about me the sun was still s.h.i.+ning hotly and dimly; but in the distance, beyond the rye, not too far away, a dark-blue thunder-cloud lay in a heavy ma.s.s over one half of the horizon.

Everything was holding its breath ... everything was languis.h.i.+ng beneath the ominous gleam of the sun's last rays. Not a single bird was to be seen or heard; even the sparrows had hidden themselves. Only somewhere, close at hand, a solitary huge leaf of burdock was whispering and flapping.

How strongly the wormwood on the border-strips[75] smells! I glanced at the blue ma.s.s ... and confusion ensued in my soul. "Well, be quick, then, be quick!" I thought. "Flash out, ye golden serpent! Rumble, ye thunder! Move on, advance, discharge thy water, thou evil thunder-cloud; put an end to this painful torment!"

But the storm-cloud did not stir. As before, it continued to crush the dumb earth ... and seemed merely to wax larger and darker.

And lo! through its bluish monotony there flashed something smooth and even; precisely like a white handkerchief, or a s...o...b..ll. It was a white dove flying from the direction of the village.

It flew, and flew onward, always straight onward ... and vanished behind the forest.

Several moments pa.s.sed--the same cruel silence still reigned.... But behold! Now _two_ handkerchiefs are fluttering, _two_ s...o...b..a.l.l.s are floating back; it is _two_ white doves wending their way homeward in even flight.

And now, at last, the storm has broken loose--and the fun begins!

I could hardly reach home.--The wind shrieked and darted about like a mad thing; low-hanging rusty-hued clouds swirled onward, as though rent in bits; everything whirled, got mixed up, lashed and rocked with the slanting columns of the furious downpour; the lightning flashes blinded with their fiery green hue; abrupt claps of thunder were discharged like cannon; there was a smell of sulphur....

But under the eaves, on the very edge of a garret window, side by side sit the two white doves,--the one which flew after its companion, and the one which it brought and, perhaps, saved.

Both have ruffled up their plumage, and each feels with its wing the wing of its neighbour....

It is well with them! And it is well with me as I gaze at them....

Although I am alone ... alone, as always.