Lillian Morris, and Other Stories

The women were not singing; they were, rather, muttering with sleepy and tired voices a hymn in which these words were repeated continually, —

“And when the hour of death comes,Gain for us, gain from Thy Son.”

After a time the singing stopped. One of the women stood up at the seat, and began to say, with a trembling voice, “Hail, Mary, full of grace!” And others responded, “The Lord is with Thee,” etc.; but since it was the day of Kaliksta’s funeral, each “Hail, Mary,” concluded with the words, “Lord, grant her eternal rest, and may endless light shine on her!”

Marysia, the dead woman’s daughter, was sitting on a bench at the side of one of the old women. Just then the snow, soft and noiseless, was falling on the fresh grave of her mother; but the little girl was not ten years old yet, and seemed not to understand either her loss, or the pity which it might rouse in another. Her face, with large blue eyes, had in it the calmness of childhood, and even a certain careless repose. A little curiosity was evident, – nothing beyond that. Opening her mouth, she looked with great attention at the banner on which was painted hell with sinners; then she looked into the depth of the church, and afterward on the window at which the sparrows were hammering.

Her eyes remained without thought. Meanwhile, the women began to mutter, sleepily, for the tenth time, —

“And when the hour of death comes.”

The little girl twisted the tresses of her light-colored hair, woven into two tiny braids not thicker than mice tails. She seemed tired; but now the old man occupied her attention. He went to the middle of the church, and began to pull a knotty rope hanging from the ceiling. He was ringing for the soul of Kaliksta, but he did this in a purely mechanical manner; he was thinking, evidently, of something else.

That ringing was also a sign that vespers were ended. The women, after repeating for the last time the prayer for a happy death, went out on the square. One of them led Marysia by the hand.

“But, Kulik,” asked another, “what will you do with the girl?”

“What will I do? She will go to Leschyntsi. Voytek Margula will take her. But why do you ask me?”

“What will she do in Leschyntsi?”

“My dears, the same as here. Let her go to where she came from. Even at the mansion they will take in the orphan, and let her sleep in the kitchen.”

Thus conversing, they passed through the square to the inn. Darkness was increasing every moment. It was wintry, calm; the sky was covered with clouds, the air filled with moisture and wet snow. Water was dropping from the roofs; on the square lay slush formed of snow and straw. The village, with wretched and tattered houses, looked as gloomy as the church. A few windows were gleaming with light; movement had ceased, but in the inn an organ was playing.

It was playing to entice, for there was no one inside. The women entered, drank vodka; Kulik gave Marysia half a glass, saying, —

“Drink! Thou art an orphan; thou wilt not meet kindness.”

The word “orphan” brought the death of Kaliksta to the minds of the women. One of them said, —

“To you, Kulik, drink! Oh, my dears, how that paralus [paralysis] took her so that she couldn’t stir! She was cold before the priest came to hear her confession.”

“I told her long ago,” said Kulik, “that she was spinning fine [near her end]. Last week she came to me. Said I, ‘Ah, better give Marysia to the mansion!’ But she said, ‘I have one little daughter, and I’ll not give her to any one.’ But she grew sorry, and began to sob, and then she went to the mayor to put her papers in order. She paid four zloty and six groshes. ‘But I do not begrudge it for my child,’ said she. My dears, but her eyes were staring, and after death they were staring still more. People wanted to close them, but could not. They say that after death, even, she was looking at her child.”

“Let us drink half a quarter over this sorrow!”

The organ was playing continually. The women began to be somewhat tender. Kulik repeated, with a voice of compassion, “Poor little thing! poor little thing!” and the second old woman called to mind the death of her late husband.

“When he was dying,” said she, “he sighed so, oh, he sighed so, he sighed so! – ” and drawling still more, her voice passed into a chant, from a chant into the tone of the organ, till at last she bent to one side, and in following the organ began to sing, —

“He sighed, he sighed, he sighed,On that day he sighed.”

All at once she fell to shedding hot tears, gave the organist six groshes, and drank some more vodka. Kulik, too, was excited by tenderness, but she turned it on Marysia, —

“Remember, little orphan,” said she, “what the priest said when they were covering thy mother with snow, that there is a yamyol [an angel] above thee – ” Here she stopped, looked around as if astonished, and then added, with unusual energy, “When I say that there is a yamyol, there is a yamyol!”

No one contradicted her. Marysia, blinking with her poor, simple eyes, looked attentively at the woman. Kulik spoke on, —

“Thou art a little orphan, that is bad for thee! Over orphans there is a yamyol. He is good. Here are ten groshes for thee. Even if thou wert to start on foot to Leschyntsi, thou couldst go there, for he would guide thee.”

The second old woman began to sing:

“In the shade of his wings he will keep thee eternally,Under his pinions thou wilt lie without danger.”

“Be quiet!” said Kulik. And then she turned again to the child, —

“Knowest thou, stupid, who is above thee?”

“A yamyol,” said, with a thin voice, the little girl.

“Oh, thou little orphan, thou precious berry, thou little worm of the Lord! A yamyol with wings,” said she, with perfect tenderness, and seizing the child she pressed her to her honest, though tipsy, bosom.

Marysia burst into weeping at once. Perhaps in her dark little head and in her heart, which knew not yet how to distinguish, there was roused some sort of perception at that moment. The innkeeper was sleeping most soundly behind the counter; on the candle-wicks mushrooms had grown; the man at the organ ceased to play, for what he saw amused him.

Then there was silence, which was broken by the sudden plashing of horses’ feet before the door, and a voice calling to the horses, —

“Prrr!”

Voytek Margula walked into the inn with a lighted lantern in his hand. He put down the lantern, began to slap his arms to warm them, and at last said to the innkeeper, —

“Give half a quarter.”

“Margula, thou chestnut,” cried Kulik, “thou wilt take the little girl to Leschyntsi.”

“I’ll take her, for they told me to take her,” replied Margula.

Then looking closely to the two women he added, —

“But ye are as drunk as – ”

“May the plague choke thee,” retorted Kulik. “When I tell thee to be careful with the child, be careful. She is an orphan. Knowest thou, fool, who is above her?”

Voytek did not see fit to answer that question, but determined evidently to raise another subject, and began, —

“To all of you – ”

But he didn’t finish, for he drank the vodka, made a wry face, and putting down the glass with dissatisfaction, said, —

“That’s pure water. Give me a second from another bottle.”

The innkeeper poured from another. Margula twisted his face still more:

“Ai! haven’t you arrack?”

Evidently the same danger threatened Margula that threatened the women; but at that very time, in the mansion at Lupiskory, the landowner was preparing for one of the journals a long and exhaustive article, “On the right of landowners to sell liquor, this right being considered as the basis of society.” But Voytek co-operated only involuntarily to strengthen the basis of society, and that all the more because the sale here, though in a village, was really by the landowner.

When he had co-operated five times in succession he forgot, it is true, his lantern, in which the light had gone out, but he took the half-sleeping little girl by the hand, and said, —

“But come on, thou nightmare!”

The women had fallen asleep in a corner, no one bade farewell to Marysia. The whole story was this: Her mother was in the graveyard and she was going to Leschyntsi.

Voytek and the girl went out, sat in the sleigh. Voytek cried to the horses, and they moved on. At first the sleigh dragged heavily enough through the slush of the town, but they came out very soon to fields which were broad and white. Movement was easy then; the snow barely made a noise under the sleigh-runners. The horses snorted at times, at times came the barking of dogs from a distance.

They went on and on. Voytek urged the horses, and sang through his nose, “Dog ear, remember thy promise.” But soon he grew silent, and began to “carry Jews” (nod). He nodded to the right, to the left. He dreamt that they were pounding him on the shoulders in Leschyntsi, because he had lost a basket of letters; so, from time to time, he was half awake, and repeated: “To all!” Marysia did not sleep, for she was cold. She looked with widely opened eyes on the white fields, hidden from moment to moment by the dark shoulders of Margula. She thought also that her “mother was dead;” and thinking thus, she pictured to herself perfectly the pale and thin face of her mother with its staring eyes, – and she felt half consciously that that face was greatly beloved, that it was no longer in the world, and would never be in Leschyntsi again. She had seen with her own eyes how they covered it up in Lupiskory. Remembering this, she would have cried from grief; but as her knees and feet were chilled, she began to cry from cold.

There was no frost, it is true, but the air was penetrating, as is usual during thaws. As to Voytek he had, at least in his stomach, a good supply of heat taken from the inn. The landowner at Lupiskory remarked justly: “That vodka warms in winter, and since it is the only consolation of our peasants, to deprive landowners of the sole power of consoling peasants is to deprive them of influence over the populace.” Voytek was so consoled at that moment that nothing could trouble him.

Even this did not trouble him, that the horses when they came to the forest slackened their pace altogether, though the road there was better, and then walking to one side, the beasts turned over the sleigh into a ditch. He woke, it is true, but did not understand well what had happened.

Marysia begun to push him.

“Voytek!”

“Why art thou croaking?”

“The sleigh is turned over.”

“A glass?” asked Voytek, and went to sleep for good.

The little girl sat by the sleigh, crouching down as best she could, and remained there. But her face was soon chilled, so she began to push the sleeping man again.

“Voytek!”

He gave no answer.

“Voytek, I want to go to the house.”

And after a while again: “Voytek, I’ll walk there.”

At last she started. It seemed to her that Leschyntsi was very near. She knew the road, too, for she had walked to church over it every Sunday with her mother. But now she had to go alone. In spite of the thaw the snow in the forest was deep, but the night was very clear. To the gleam from the snow was added light from the clouds, so that the road could be seen as in the daytime. Marysia, turning her eyes to the dark forest, could see tree-trunks very far away outlined distinctly, black, motionless, on the white ground; and she saw clearly also snow-drifts blown to the whole height of them. In the forest there was a certain immense calm, which gave solace to the child. On the branches was thick, frozen snow, and from it drops of water were trickling, striking with faint sound against the branches and twigs. But that was the only noise. All else around was still, white, silent, dumb.

The wind was not blowing. The snowy branches were not stirring with the slightest movement. Everything was sleeping in the trance of winter. It might seem that the snowy covering on the earth, and the whole silent and shrouded forest, with the pale clouds in the heavens, were all a kind of white, lifeless unity. So it is in time of thaw. Marysia was the only living thing, moving like a little black speck amid these silent greatnesses. Kind, honest forest! Those drops, which the thawing ice let down, were tears, perhaps, over the orphan. The trees are so large, but also so compassionate, above the little creature. See, she is alone, so weak and poor, in the snow, in the night, in the forest, wading along trustfully, as if there is no danger.

The clear night seems to care for her. When something so weak and helpless yields itself, trusts so perfectly in enormous power, there is a certain sweetness in the act. In that way all may be left to the will of God. The girl walked rather long, and was wearied at last. The heavy boots, which were too large, hindered her; her small feet were going up and down in them continually. It was hard to drag out such big boots from the snow. Besides, she could not move her hands freely, for in one of them, closed rigidly, she held with all her strength those ten groshes which Kulik had given her. She feared to drop them in the snow. She began at times to cry aloud, and then she stopped suddenly, as if wishing to know if some one had heard her. Yes, the forest had heard her! The thawing ice sounded monotonously and somewhat sadly. Besides, maybe some one else had heard her. The child went more and more slowly. Could she go astray? How? The road, like a white, broad, winding ribbon, stretches into the distance, lies well marked between two walls of dark trees. An unconquerable drowsiness seized the little girl.

She stepped aside and sat down under a tree. The lids dropped over her eyes. After a time, she thought that her mother was coming to her along the white road from the graveyard. No one was coming. Still, the child felt certain that some one must come. Who? A yamyol. Hadn’t old Kulik told her that a yamyol was above her? Marysia knew what a yamyol is. In her mother’s cottage there was one painted with a shield in his hand and with wings. He would come, surely. Somehow the ice began to sound more loudly. Maybe that is the noise of his wings, scattering drops more abundantly. Stop! Some one is coming really; the snow, though soft, sounds clearly; steps are coming, and coming quietly but quickly. The child raises her sleepy eyelids with confidence.

“What is that?”

Looking at the little girl intently is a gray three-cornered face with ears, standing upright, – ugly, terrible!

THE BULL FIGHT

A Reminiscence of Spain

IT is Sunday! Great posters, affixed for a number of days to the corners of Puerta del Sol, Calle Alcala, and all streets on which there was considerable movement, announce to the city that to-day, “Si el tiempo lo permite” (if the weather permits), will take place bull-fight XVI., in which Cara-Ancha Lagartijo and the renowned Frascuello are to appear as “espadas” (swords). Well, the weather permits. There was rain in the morning; but about ten o’clock the wind broke the clouds, gathered them into heaps, and drove them away off somewhere in the direction of the Escurial. Now the wind itself has ceased; the sky as far as the eye can reach is blue, and over the Puerta del Sol a bright sun is shining, – such a Madrid sun, which not only warms, not only burns, but almost bites.

Movement in the city is increasing, and on people’s faces satisfaction is evident.

Two o’clock.

The square of the Puerta del Sol is emptying gradually, but crowds of people are advancing through the Calle Alcala toward the Prado. In the middle is flowing a river of carriages and vehicles. All that line of equipages is moving very slowly, for on the sidewalks there is not room enough for pedestrians, many of whom are walking along the sides of the streets and close to the carriages. The police, on white horses and in showy uniforms and three-cornered hats, preserve order.

It is Sunday, that is evident, and an afternoon hour; the toilets are carefully made, the attire is holiday. It is evident also that the crowds are going to some curious spectacle. Unfortunately the throng is not at all many-colored; no national costumes are visible, – neither the short coats, yellow kerchiefs á la contrabandista, with one end dropping down to the shoulder, nor the round Biscay hats, nor girdles, nor the Catalan knives behind the girdles.

Those things may be seen yet in the neighborhood of Granada, Seville, and Cordova; but in Madrid, especially on holidays, the cosmopolitan frock is predominant. Only at times do you see a black mantilla pinned to a high comb, and under the mantilla eyes blacker still.

In general faces are dark, glances quick, speech loud. Gesticulation is not so passionate as in Italy, where when a man laughs he squirms like a snake, and when he is angry he gnaws off the top of his hat; still, it is energetic and lively. Faces have well-defined features and a resolute look. It is easy to understand that even in amusement these people retain their special and definite character.

However, they are a people who on weekdays are full of sedateness, bordering on sloth, sparing of words, and collected. Sunday enlivens them, as does also the hope of seeing a bloody spectacle.

Let us cut across the Prado and enter an alley leading to the circus.

The crowd is becoming still denser. Here and there shouts are rising, the people applauding single members of the company, who are going each by himself to the circus.

Here is an omnibus filled with “capeadors,” that is, partakers in the fight, whose whole defence is red capes with which they mislead and irritate the bull. Through the windows are visible black heads with pigtails, and wearing three-cornered hats. The coats of various colors worn by the capeadors are embroidered with gold and silver tinsel. These capeadors ride in an omnibus, for the modest pay which they get for their perilous service does not permit a more showy conveyance.

Somewhat farther, three mounted “picadors” push their way through the people. The sun plays on their broad-brimmed white hats. They are athletic in build, but bony and lean. Their shaven faces have a stern, and, as it were, concentrated look. They are sitting on very high wooden saddles, hence they are perfectly visible over the crowd. Each of them holds in his hand a lance, with a wooden ball at the end of it, from which is projecting an iron point not above half an inch long. The picador cannot kill a bull with a weapon like that, – he can only pierce him or stop him for a moment; but in the last case he must have in his arm the strength of a giant.

Looking at these men, I remember involuntarily Doré’s illustrations to “Don Quixote.” In fact, each of these horsemen might serve as a model for the knight “of the rueful visage.” That lean silhouette, outlined firmly on the sky, high above the heads of the multitude, the lance standing upright, and that bare-boned horse under the rider, those purely Gothic outlines of living things, – all answer perfectly to the conception which we form of the knight of La Mancha, when we read the immortal work of Cervantes.

But, the picadors pass us, and urging apart the crowd slowly, push forward considerably. Now only three lances are visible, three hats, and three coats embroidered on the shoulders. New men ride up, as incalculably similar to the first as if some mill were making picadors for all Spain on one pattern. There is a difference only in the color of the horses, which, however, are equally lean.

Our eyes turn now to the long row of carriages. Some are drawn by mules, but mules so large, sleek, and beautiful that, in spite of the long ears of the animals, the turn-out does not seem ridiculous. Here and there may be seen also Andalusian horses with powerful backs, arched necks, and curved faces. Such may be seen in the pictures of battle-painters of the seventeenth century.

In the carriages are sitting the flower of Madrid society. The dresses are black, there is very black lace on the parasols, on the fans, and on the heads of ladies; black hair trimmed in forelocks, from under which are glancing eyes, as it were, of the lava of Vesuvius. Mourning colors, importance, and powder are the main traits of that society.

The faces of old and of young ladies also are covered with powder, all of them are equally frigid and pale. A great pity! Were it not for such a vile custom, their complexion would have that magnificent warm tone given by southern blood and a southern sun, and which may be admired in faces painted by Fortuni.

In the front seats of the carriages are men dressed with an elegance somewhat exaggerated; they have a constrained and too holiday air, – in other words, they cannot wear fine garments with that free inattention which characterizes the higher society of France. But the walls of the circus are outlined before us with growing distinctness. There is nothing especial in the building: an enormous pile reared expressly to give seats to some tens of thousands of people, – that is the whole plan of it.

Most curious is the movement near the walls. Round about, it is black from carriages, equipages, and heads of people. Towering above this dark mass, here and there, is a horseman, a policeman, or a picador in colors as brilliant as a poppy full blown.

The throng sways, opens, closes, raises its voice; coachmen shout; still louder shout boys selling handbills. These boys squeeze themselves in at all points among footmen and horsemen; they are on the steps of carriages and between the wheels; some climb up on the buttresses of the circus; some are on the stone columns which mark the way for the carriages. Their curly hair, their gleaming eyes, their expressive features, dark faces, and torn shirts open in the bosom, remind me of our gypsies, and of boys in Murillo’s pictures. Besides programmes some of them sell whistles. Farther on, among the crowds, are fruit-venders; water-sellers with bronze kegs on their shoulders; in one place are flower dealers; in another is heard the sound of a guitar played by an old blind woman led by a little girl.

Movement, uproar, laughter; fans are fluttering everywhere as if they were wings of thousands of birds; the sun pours down white light in torrents from a spotless sky of dense blue.

Suddenly and from all sides are heard cries of “mira, mira!” (look, look!) After a while these cries are turned into a roar of applause, which like real thunder flies from one extreme to another; now it is quiet, now it rises and extends around the whole circus.

What has happened? Surely the queen is approaching, and with her the court?

No! near by is heard “eviva Frascuello!” That is the most famous espada, who is coming for laurels and applause.

All eyes turn to him, and the whole throng of women push toward his carriage. The air is gleaming with flowers thrown by their hands to the feet of that favorite, that hero of every dream and imagining, that “pearl of Spain.” They greet him the more warmly because he has just returned from a trip to Barcelona, where during the exhibition he astonished all barbarous Europe with thrusts of his sword; now he appears again in his beloved Madrid, more glorious, greater, – a genuine new Cid el Campeador.

Let us push through the crowd to look at the hero. First, what a carriage, what horses! More beautiful there are not in the whole of Castile. On white satin cushions sits, or reclines, we should say, a man whose age it is difficult to determine, for his face is shaven most carefully. He is dressed in a coat of pale lily-colored satin, and knee-breeches of similar material trimmed with lace. His coat and the side seams of his breeches are glittering and sparkling from splendid embroidery, from spangles of gold and silver shining like diamonds in the sun. The most delicate laces ornament his breast. His legs, clothed in rose-colored silk stockings, he holds crossed carelessly on the front seat, – the very first athlete in the hippodrome at Paris might envy him those calves.

Madrid is vain of those calves, – and in truth she has reason.

The great man leans with one hand on the red hilt of his Catalan blade; with the other he greets his admirers of both sexes kindly. His black hair, combed to his poll, is tied behind in a small roll, from beneath which creeps forth a short tress. That style of hair-dressing and the shaven face make him somewhat like a woman, and he reminds one besides of some actor from one of the provinces; taken generally, his face is not distinguished by intelligence, a quality which in his career would not be a hindrance, though not needed in any way.