‘It’s true,’ she whispered, hardly
audibly; ’it’s time to end our talk; but
what does it matter! Now, when you leave me, I
can be silent as long as I like. Any way, I’ve
opened my heart....’
I began bidding her good-bye. I repeated my promise
to send her the medicine, and asked her once more
to think well and tell me—if there wasn’t
anything she wanted?’
‘I want nothing; I am content with all, thank
God!’ she articulated with very great effort,
but with emotion; ’God give good health to all!
But there, master, you might speak a word to your
mamma—the peasants here are poor—if
she could take the least bit off their rent! They’ve
not land enough, and no advantages.... They would
pray to God for you.... But I want nothing; I’m
quite contented with all.’
I gave Lukerya my word that I would carry out her
request, and had already walked to the door....
She called me back again.
‘Do you remember, master,’ she said, and
there was a gleam of something wonderful in her eyes
and on her lips, ’what hair I used to have?
Do you remember, right down to my knees! It was
long before I could make up my mind to it....
Such hair as it was! But how could it be kept
combed? In my state!... So I had it cut
off.... Yes.... Well, good-bye, master!
I can’t talk any more.’...
That day, before setting off to shoot, I had a conversation
with the village constable about Lukerya. I learnt
from him that in the village they called Lukerya the
‘Living Relic’; that she gave them no trouble,
however; they never heard complaint or repining from
her. ’She asks nothing, but, on the contrary,
she’s grateful for everything; a gentle soul,
one must say, if any there be. Stricken of God,’
so the constable concluded, ’for her sins, one
must suppose; but we do not go into that. And
as for judging her, no—no, we do not judge
her. Let her be!’
* * * *
*
A few weeks later I heard that Lukerya was dead.
So her death had come for her... and ‘after
St. Peter’s day.’ They told me that
on the day of her death she kept hearing the sound
of bells, though it was reckoned over five miles from
Aleksyevka to the church, and it was a week-day.
Lukerya, however, had said that the sounds came not
from the church, but from above! Probably she
did not dare to say—from heaven.
THE RATTLING OF WHEELS
‘I’ve something to tell you,’ observed
Yermolai, coming into the hut to see me. I had
just had dinner, and was lying down on a travelling
bed to rest a little after a fairly successful but
fatiguing day of grouse-shooting—it was
somewhere about the 10th of July, and the heat was
terrific.... ‘I’ve something to tell
you: all our shot’s gone.’
I jumped off the bed.
’All gone? How’s that? Why,
we took pretty nearly thirty pounds with us from the
village—a whole bag!’
