Peasant Tales of Russia

by Vasilii Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko

"He is there.... Standing. Oh, listen! Do you hear?"

Ivan leant forward, straining his ear to catch mysterious sounds. As a matter of fact distant and strange moanings were audible. Was it the complaint of a spring imprisoned in the rock? Was it the noise of a landslip? Or was it simply the sound made by a current of air passing through the fissures of the rock?

"A terrible thing happened here. Blood has been shed, yes, yes, I remember," murmured the old man, talking to himself and glancing about him. "Yes, it is there. He struck him on the head with his pick. He killed his brother ... like Cain. This is where they buried him.... Here I am, Lord, here I am!" And he resumed his march.

The chief miner who had heard him remembered a long-forgotten tragedy, that of two brothers who had quarrelled just here. The elder, goaded to fury by the jeers of the younger, had raised his pickaxe and struck his brother with the point. Without even uttering a cry, the latter had collapsed. He had been probably buried on the spot where he had fallen.

VII

However, the more they went on, the more alarmed the miners grew. Whither was the old man leading them? What would happen if they lost themselves in the labyrinth of these subterranean galleries, whose silence had not been disturbed for long years? The darkness itself seemed startled by the sight of this terrified crowd. The miners would have gladly halted, but what would happen then? To go back was to go to certain destruction. As long as they followed Ivan, they had a vague hope of some mysterious aid, reckoning on the unknown power which supported him and had restored to him for some hours a little of his former vigour for the deliverance of his comrades perhaps. Those who had no belief in this hesitated nevertheless to separate from the rest, knowing not what to do in this silence and darkness. If they had to die, they would die together. At any rate, they soon understood that they would have inevitably perished in the gallery which they had just left, for they had hardly been following the old man for an hour when a dull and prolonged sound was heard in the distance. Then it came nearer, as though it were pursuing them. Its last echo seemed to them quite close, behind the wall they were skirting at that moment. It was evident that the gallery where they worked, as well the one which they had just quitted, had both fallen in. If they had remained there, they would have shared the fate of those of their comrades whose hands and feet only were projecting from the mass of earth which covered them.

The distant shock also re-echoed in the gallery they were traversing when they heard it. Fragments of earth fell from the roof and a great rock suddenly projected just above old Ivan's head, while the wall on the right hand bulged out. The miners rushed forward terrified, but Ivan stopped them and made them go more slowly. Some cowards flung themselves on their stomachs and hid their faces, but they were lifted up and obliged to proceed. The gallery they were now in became narrower and narrower. After having begun their march five abreast, they could now only go two by two with difficulty. A few minutes more, and they were obliged to walk in single file. Then the chief miner let the rest go in front of him and took the last place. He was among the few who had not lost their heads and acted thus, lest some cowards might remain behind stretched on the ground in an access of blind fear.

The gallery became ever more contracted. However, that did not seem to trouble old Ivan, who continued to advance with confidence. He still saw distinctly the white Apparition Who shed a mysterious radiance in the darkness. From time to time he murmured, "Here I am Lord, here I am!" and that renewed his strength.

Even now when his two elbows touched the walls, and the lowness of the rocky roof above his head prevented him raising his torch which he was obliged to hold in front of him a little slanted and at arm's length, the old man never doubted that he was guided by our Lord in person, Who pointed him out the way. Behind him the miners were half suffocated because the thick smoke of the torches filled the narrow passage in which it was difficult to breathe, as the confined atmosphere had been unchanged for an immeasurable time. This was apparent by the way in which the flames of the torches lengthened themselves, seeming to seek the oxygen they required, and then burning dimly in the darkness.

All at once Ivan halted. He was confronted by a dead wall without any apparent outlet. However, doubt was not possible for him, for he had distinctly seen the white Apparition pass through the wall. Now it was waiting for him on the other side of the wall which had so unexpectedly intervened.