IV.
One evening Petrùsya was sitting alone on the hillock above the river. The sun was setting, the air was still, and only the tranquil, far-away sound of the lowing herds returning to the village reached his ear. The boy had but just ceased playing and had thrown himself on the grass, yielding to the half dreamy languor of a summer evening. He had been dozing for a minute, when he was roused by a light footstep. With a look of annoyance he rose on his elbow, and listened. At the foot of the hill the unfamiliar steps paused. He did not recognize them.
“Boy!” he heard a child’s voice exclaim, “do you know who it was that was playing here just now?”
The blind boy disliked to have his solitude disturbed. Therefore his answer to the question was given in no amiable tone,—“It was I.”
A slight exclamation of surprise greeted this statement; and directly the girl’s voice added with the utmost simplicity and in tones of approval,—“How well you play!”
The blind boy made no reply. “Why don’t you go away?” he asked presently, when he perceived that his unwelcome visitor had not left the spot.
“Why do you drive me away?” asked the girl, and her clear tones expressed genuine surprise.
The tranquil sound of the child’s voice was grateful to the blind boy’s ear; nevertheless he answered in his former tone,—“I don’t like to have people come here.”
The girl burst into a peal of laughter. “Really? What a strange idea! Is this all your land, and have you the right to forbid other people to walk upon it?”
“Mamma has given orders that no one shall come here.”
“Your mamma?” asked the girl, thoughtfully; “but my mamma allowed me to walk over the river.”
The boy, somewhat spoiled by the universal submission to his wishes, was not used to such persistency. An angry flush swept like a wave over his face, and half rising he exclaimed rapidly and excitedly,—“Go away! go away! go away!”
It is impossible to tell how this scene would have ended, for just then Joachim’s voice sounded from the direction of the mansion, calling the boy to tea, and he ran quickly down the hill.
“Ah, what a hateful boy!” was the indignant exclamation he heard follow him.
The next day while he was sitting on the very same spot, yesterday’s adventure came to his mind. Now, this memory excited no vexation; on the contrary, he wished that the girl with the quiet, tranquil voice, such as he had never heard before, would come back again. All the children that he knew shouted, laughed, fought, and cried noisily; not one had such a pleasant voice. He felt sorry to have offended the stranger, who probably would never return.
The girl indeed did not return for three whole days. But on the fourth day Petrùsya heard her steps below on the river’s bank. She was walking slowly, humming something to herself in a low voice, and apparently paying no attention to him.
“Wait a moment!” he called out, when he perceived that she was going past; “is that you again?”
The girl at first made no reply, for her feelings had been hurt by her former reception; but suddenly it seemed to occur to her that there was something strange in the boy’s question, and she paused. “Can’t you see that it is I?” she asked with much dignity, as she went on arranging a nosegay of wild flowers which she held in her hand.
This simple question sent a thrill of pain through the heart of the blind boy. He threw himself back on the grass and made no reply.
But the conversation had been started, and the girl still standing on the same spot and busying herself with her flowers, asked again: “Who taught you to play so well on the pipe?”
“Joachim taught me,” replied Petrùsya.
“You do play very well. Only why are you so cross?”
“I—am not cross with you,” replied the boy gently.
“Well, then, neither am I. Let us play together.”
“I don’t know how to play with you,” he replied, hanging his head.
“Don’t know how to play? Why not?”
“Because.”
“Tell me why.”
“Because,” he replied scarce audibly, and dropped his head still lower. Never before had he been obliged to speak of his blindness, and the innocent tone of the voice of the girl, who asked this question with such artless persistency, produced a painful impression upon him.
“How odd you are!” she said with compassionate condescension, seating herself beside him on the grass. “It must be because you are not acquainted with me. When you know me better, you will no longer be afraid of me. Now, I am not afraid of anybody.”
She said this with careless simplicity, as she played with her corn-flowers and violets. Meanwhile the blind boy had accepted her challenge to more intimate acquaintance, and as he knew but one way of learning to know a person’s face, he naturally had recourse to his usual method. Grasping the girl’s shoulder with one hand he began with the other to feel of her hair and her eye-lashes; he passed his fingers swiftly over her face, pausing occasionally to study the unfamiliar features with deep attention. All this was so unexpected, and done with such rapidity, that the girl in her utter amazement never opened her lips; she only looked at him with wide-open eyes in which could be seen a feeling akin to horror. Not until now had she noticed anything unusual in the face of her new acquaintance. The pale and delicately cut features of the boy were rigid with a look of constrained attention, which seemed in some way incongruous with his fixed gaze. His eyes looked straight ahead, without any apparent relation to what he was doing, and in them shone a strange reflection from the setting sun. For a moment the girl felt as if it were some dreadful nightmare.
Releasing her shoulder from the boy’s hand, she suddenly sprang to her feet and burst into a flood of tears. “What are you doing to me, you naughty boy?” she exclaimed angrily through her tears. “Why do you touch me? What have I done to you? Why?”
Confused as he was, he remained sitting on the same spot with drooping head, while a strange feeling of mingled anger and vexation filled his heart with burning pain. Now for the first time he felt the degradation of a cripple; for the first time he learned that his physical defect might inspire alarm as well as pity. Although he had no power to formulate the sense of heaviness that oppressed him, he suffered none the less because this feeling was dim and confused. A sense of burning pain and bitter resentment swelled the boy’s throat; he threw himself down on the grass and wept. As the weeping increased, convulsive sobs shook his little frame,—the more violently, because his innate pride made him struggle to repress this outburst.
The girl, who had scarcely reached the foot of the hill, hearing those stifled sobs turned in amazement. When she saw that odd new acquaintance of hers lying face downward on the ground, crying so bitterly, she felt a sympathy for him, and climbing the hill again she stood over the weeping boy.
“What is it?” she said. “Why are you crying? Perhaps you think that I shall complain? Don’t cry! I shall not say a word to any one.”
These words of sympathy and the caressing voice excited a still more violent fit of sobbing. Then the girl sitting down beside the boy, devoted herself to the task of comforting him.
Passing her hand gently over his hair, with an instinct purely feminine, and a gentle persistency, she raised his head and wiped the tears from his eyes, like a mother who tries to comfort her grieving child.
“There, there, I am no longer vexed,” she said in the soothing tone of a grown-up woman. “I see you are sorry to have frightened me.”
“I did not mean to frighten you,” he replied, drawing a long breath in his efforts to repress his nervous sobs.
“Well, it is all right now. I am no longer angry. You will never do it again,” she added, raising him from the ground and trying to make him sit down beside her.
Petrùsya yielded. Again he sat facing the sunset, and when the girl saw his face lighted by the crimson rays, she was impressed by its unusual expression. The tears were still standing in the boy’s eyes, which were as before immovable, while his features were twitching convulsively with childlike sobs,—all the signs of a deep sorrow, such as a mature nature might feel, were evident.
“How queer you are—really!” she said with thoughtful sympathy.
“I am not queer,” replied the boy with a pitiful look. “No, I am not queer! I am—blind!”
“Bli—nd?” she repeated, prolonging the word in her surprise, while her voice trembled, as though that sad word, softly uttered by the boy, had given a heavy blow to her womanly little heart. “Blind?” she repeated again; her voice trembled still more, and then as though seeking a refuge from the uncontrollable sense of misery that had come over her, she suddenly threw her arms around the boy’s neck and hid her face on his breast.
This sad discovery taking her entirely by surprise, had instantly changed the self-composed little woman to a grieved and helpless child, who in her turn wept bitterly and inconsolably.