It was a calm summer evening. Uncle Maxim was sitting in the garden. The father as usual was occupied in some distant field. Everything was quiet in the yard and around the house; the hamlet was to all appearances going to sleep, and the hum of the servants’ and workmen’s voices had likewise ceased.
The boy had already been in bed for half an hour. He lay between sleeping and waking. For a certain length of time this peaceful hour had seemed to arouse strange memories within him. Of course he could see neither the dusky blue sky, nor the dark waving tree-tops, outlined sharp and clear against the starry heavens, nor the frowning peaks of the courtyard buildings, nor the blue haze overspreading the ground, mingling with the pale golden light of the moon and the stars. For several days he had fallen asleep under the charm of a spell of which he could render no account the following day. When drowsiness had benumbed his senses, when he could no longer hear the rustle of the beech-trees, or the distant barking of the village dogs, or the voice of the nightingale beyond the river, or the melancholy tinkling of the bells attached to the colt browsing in the neighboring field,—when all these varied sounds grew faint and indistinct, it seemed to the blind boy that they were all merged in one harmonious melody, which made its way quietly into the room, and hovering over his bed brought in its train vague but enticing dreams. The next morning when he woke he still felt their influence, and asked his mother: “What was that—yesterday? What was it?”
The mother did not know what her child meant; she thought he was probably excited by some dream. That night she put him to bed herself, and when she saw that he was on the point of falling asleep, she left him without observing anything unusual. But on the following day the boy again spoke to her of something he had heard the previous evening which had made him feel so happy. “It was lovely, mamma,—so lovely! What was it?”
That night the mother decided to remain longer by her child’s bedside, to discover if possible the solution to this strange riddle. She sat in a chair beside the crib, knitting mechanically, listening meanwhile to the even breathing of her Petrùsya.[6] She thought he was asleep, when suddenly his gentle voice was heard in the darkness:
“Mamma, are you there?”
“Yes, yes, my boy!”
“Please go away; it must be afraid of you; it has not come. I had almost dropped to sleep, and still it has not come.”
The astonished mother heard the child’s drowsy and plaintive whisper with a strange sensation. He spoke of his dreams in the most perfect good faith, as though they were reality. Nevertheless the mother rose, bent down to kiss him, and then quietly left the room; but she determined to creep cautiously round to the open window that looked out into the garden. Before she succeeded in carrying her plan into execution, the riddle was solved. Suddenly from the stable came the soft musical tones of a shepherd’s pipe, blending with the gentle rustling sounds of the southern evening. She had no difficulty in divining the pleasing influence which these simple modulations of an artless melody, harmonizing with the witching hour of dreams, would naturally possess over the imagination of her boy. She herself paused, and stood for a moment listening to the tender strains of a song of Little Russia, and with a sense of relief entered the dusky garden in search of Uncle Maxim.
“Joachim plays well,” the mother thought. “It is strange that this fellow who seems so rough should possess such an amount of feeling.”