TT came into the
world frail, weak. The gossips, who had gathered around the plank bed of the
sick ' woman, shook their heads over mother and child. The wife of Simon the
blacksmith, who was the wisest among them, began to console the sick woman.
" Let
me," said she, " light a blessed candle above you. Nothing will come
of you, my gossip; you must prepare for the other world, and send for the
priest to absolve you from your sins."
" Yes !
" said another, " but the boy must be christened this minute : he
cannot wait for the priest. It is well even to stop him from becoming a
vampire."
So saying, she
lighted the blessed candle, and taking the child sprinkled him with water till
his eyes began to blink; and then she said : —
" I baptize
thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I give thee Yan as name ;
and now, Christian soul, go to the place whence thou earnest. Amen ! "
But the
Christian soul had no wish what- ever to go to the place whence it came and
leave its lean little body. It began to kick with the legs of that body as far
as it was able, and to cry, though so weakly and pitifully that, as the gossips
said, " One would think 't is a kitten; 'tis not a kitten, — what is
it?"
They sent for the priest : he
came, he did his duty, he went his way, — the sick woman grew better. In a week
she went out to her work. The little boy barely " puled," — still, he
puled on till in the fourth year the cuckoo brought him sickness in spring ;
still, he recovered, and with some kind of health reached the tenth year of his
life.
He was always lean and sunburnt,
with bloated stomach and sunken cheeks ; he had a forelock of hemp color almost
white and falling on clear staring eyes, looking at the world as if gazing into
some immense distance.
In winter he used to sit behind
the stove and cry in silence from cold, and from hunger too, at times when his
mother had nothing to put into the stove or the pot. In the summer he went
around in a shirt, with a strip of cloth for a belt, and a straw hat, from
beneath the torn brim of which he looked with head peering upward like a bird.
His mother, a poor lodger, living
from day to day, like a sparrow under a stranger's roof, loved him perhaps in
her own way; but she flogged him often enough and called him " giddy-head
" generally. In the eighth year of his life he went to herd cattle, or,
when there was nothing to eat in the cottage, to the pine woods for mushrooms.
It was through the compassion of God that a wolf did not eat him.
He was a very dull little fellow,
and, like village children, when spoken to put his finger in his mouth. People
did not even promise that he would grow up, and still less that his mother
could expect any good from him, for he was a poor hand at work. It is unknown
whence such a creature could have come; but he was eager for one thing, that
is, music. He listened to it everywhere, and when he had grown up a little he
thought of nothing else. He would go to the woods for the cattle, or for
berries, but would come home without berries and say stammering, — "Mamma,
something was playing in the woods. Oi I oi ! "
And the mother 'would say :
" I '11 play for thee, never fear ! "
And in fact she made music for
him, some- times with the poker. The boy screamed and promised that he would
not do it again, and still he was thinking, "Something is playing out
there in the woods." What was it, — did he know ? Pines, beeches, golden
orioles, all were playing, — the whole forest was playing, and that was the end
of it !
The echo, too ! In the field the
artemisia played for him; in the garden near, the sparrows twittered till the
cherry-trees were trembling. In the evening he heard all the voices that were
in the village, and thought to himself that certainly the whole village was
playing. When they sent him to work to spread manure, even then the wind played
on the fork- tines.
The overseer caught him once
standing with dishevelled forelock and listening to the wind on the wooden
tines : he looked at the boy, and unbuckling his leather belt, gave him a good
keepsake. But what use in that? The people called him " Yanko the musician."
In the springtime he ran away from the house to make whistles near the river.
In the night, when the frogs were croaking, the land-rail calling in the
meadows, the bittern screaming in the dew, the cocks crowing behind the wicker
fences, he could not sleep, — he did nothing but listen ; and God alone knows
what he heard in that playing. His mother could not take him to church, for as
soon as the organ began to roar or the choir sang in sweet voices, the child's
eyes were covered with mist, and were as if not looking out of this world.
The watchman who walked through
the village at night and counted the stars in the sky to keep from sleeping, or
conversed in a low voice with the dogs, saw more than once the white shirt of
Yanko stealing along in the darkness toward the public house. But the boy was
not going to the public house, only near it. There he would cower at the wall
and listen. The people were dancing the obertas ; at times some young fellow
would cry, " U-ha I " The stamping of boots was heard ; then the
querying voices of girls, "What?" The fiddles sang in low tones:
" We will eat, we will drink, we shall be merry ; " and the bass viol
accompanied in a deep voice, with importance : " As God gave ! As God gave
! " The windows were gleaming with life, and every beam in the house
seemed to tremble, singing and playing also; but Yanko was listening.
How much would he give to have
such a fiddle playing thinly: "We will eat, we will drink, we shall be
merry " ! Such singing bits of wood ! But from what place could he get
them, — where were they made ? If they would just let him hold such a thing in
his hand even once ! How could that be? He was only free to listen, and then to
listen only till the voice of the watchman was heard behind him in the
darkness,—
“Wilt thou go home, little devil?
" Then he fled away home in his bare feet, but in the darkness behind him
ran the voice of the fiddle : " We will eat, we will drink, we shall be
merry," and the deep voice of the bass : " As God gave ! As God gave
! As God gave ! "
Whenever he could hear a fiddle
at a harvest- home or some wedding, it was a great holiday for him. After that
he went behind the stove and said nothing for whole days, looking like a cat in
the dark with gleaming eyes. Then he made himself a fiddle out of a shingle and
some horsehair, but it would not play beautifully like that one in the public
house, — it sounded low, very low, just like mice of some kind, or gnats. He
played on it however from morning till evening ; though for doing that he got
so many cuffs that at last he looked like a pinched, unripe apple. But such was
his nature. The poor child became thinner and thinner, only he had always a big
stomach ; his forelock grew thicker and thicker, and his eyes opened more and
more widely, though filled oftener with tears ; but his cheeks and his breast
fell in more and more.
He was not at all like other
children ; he was rather like his fiddle formed of a shingle, which hardly made
a noise. Before harvest, besides, he was suffering from hunger, for he lived
most frequently on raw carrots, and also the wish to possess a fiddle.. But
that wish did not turn out well for him.
At the mansion the lackey had a
fiddle and he played on it sometimes at twilight to please the waiting-maid.
Yanko crept up at times among the burdocks as far as the open door of the
pantry to look at it. It hung on the wall opposite the door; the boy would send
his whole soul out to it through his eyes, for it seemed to him that that was
some unattainable object, which he was unworthy to touch, that that was some
kind of dearest love of his. Still he wanted it. He would like to have it in
his hand at least one time, to look at it near by. The poor little fellow's
heart trembled from happiness at the thought.
A certain night there was no one
in the pantry. Their lordships had been in foreign countries for some time, the
hoiise was empty, the lackey was at the other side with the waiting-maid.
Yanko, lurking in the burdocks, had been looking for a long time through the
broad door at the object of all his desires. The moon in the sky was full, and
shone in with sloping rays through the pantry window, which it reflected in the
form of a« great quadrangle on the opposite wall. The quadrangle approached the
fiddle gradually and at last illuminated every bit of it. At that time it
seemed in the dark depth as if a silver light shone from the fiddle, —
especially the plump bends in it were lighted so strongly that Yanko could
barely look at them. In that light everything was perfectly visible, — the
sides with incisions, the strings, and the bent handle. The pegs in it gleamed
like fireflies, and at its side was hung the bow in the form of a silver rod.
Ah, all was beautiful and almost
enchanted ; and Yanko looked more and more greedily. He was crouched in the
burdocks, with his elbows pressed on his lean knees ; with open eyes he looked
and looked. Now terror held him to the spot, now a certain unconquerable desire
pushed him forward. Was that some enchantment, or what? But the fiddle in the
bright light seemed sometimes to approach, as it were to float toward the boy.
At times it grew darker, to shine up again still more. Enchantment, clearly
enchantment ! Then the breeze blew; the trees rustled quietly, there was a
noise in the burdocks, and Yanko heard, as it were, distinctly, — " Go,
Yanko, there is no one in the pantry ; go, Yanko ! "
The night was clear, bright. In
the garden a nightingale began to sing and whistled with a low voice, then
louder. " Go ! go in ! take it." An honest wood-owl turned in flight
around the child's head, and cried : " Yanko, no ! no ! " The owl
flew away, but the night- ingale and the burdocks muttered more distinctly
: “There is no one inside ! " The
fiddle shone again.
The poor little bent figure
pushed forward slowly and carefully ; meanwhile the nightingale was whistling
in a very low voice, " Go ! go in ! take it ! "
The white shirt appeared nearer
and nearer to the pantry. The dark burdocks covered it no longer. On the
threshold of the pantry was to be heard quick breathing from the weak breast of
the child. A moment more the white shirt has vanished ; there is only one naked
foot outside the threshold. In vain, O wood-owl, dost thou fly once again and
cry : " No ! no ! " Yanko is in the pantry.
The great frogs began to croak in
the garden pond, as if frightened, but afterward grew silent. The nightingale
ceased to sing, the burdocks to rustle. Meanwhile Yanko crept along silently
and carefully, but all at once fear seized him. In the burdocks he felt as if
at home, as a wild beast feels in the thicket; but now he was like a wild beast
in a trap. His movements became hurried, his breath short and whistling; at the
same time, darkness seized hold of him. A quiet summer lightning flashed
between the east and west, and lighted up once more the interior of the pantry,
and Yanko on all fours with his head turned upward. But the lightning was
quenched, a small cloud hid the moon, and nothing was to be seen or heard.
After a while a sound came out
from the darkness, very low and complaining, as if some one had touched strings
unguardedly, and on a sudden some rough, drowsy voice, coming out of the corner
of the pantry, asked angrily, —
"Who is there?"
Yanko held his breath in his
breast, but the rude voice inquires again, —
"Who is there?"
A match became visible on the
wall ; there was a light, and then — Oh, my God ! curses, blows, the wailing of
a child, and crying " Oh, for God's sake ! " — the barking of dogs,
moving of lights behind the window, a noise through the whole building !
The next day Yanko stood before
the tribunal of the village mayor.
Was he to be tried as a criminal?
Of course ! The mayor and elders looked at him as he stood before them with his
finger in his mouth, with staring and terrified eyes, small, poor, starved,
beaten, not knowing where he was or what they wanted of him. How judge such a
poor little misery, who was ten years of age, and barely able to stand on his
legs ? Send him to prison, — - how help it ? Still it was necessary to have
some small mercy on children. Let the watchman take him and give him a
flogging, so that he won't steal a second time, and that's the whole business.
It was indeed !
They called Stah, who was the
night watch.
"Take him and give him
something for a keepsake."
Stah nodded his dull beastlike
head, thrust Yanko under his arm as he would a cat, and took him out to the
barn. The child, whether he failed to understand what the question was, or
whether he was frightened — 'tis enough that he uttered not a syllable ; he
merely stared like a bird. Did he know what they were doing with him? Only when
Stah took the handful to the stable, stretched it on the ground, and raising
the shirt from it struck a full blow, only then did Yanko scream, " Mother
! " and as long as Stah flogged him he cried, " Mother ! mother !
" but always lower and weaker, until after a certain blow the child called
mother no longer.
The poor broken fiddle !
Ai, stupid, angry Stah, who beats
children that way? Besides, this one is small and weak, hardly living.
The mother came, took the little
boy, but had to carry him home. The next day Yanko did not rise from the bed,
and the third day, in the evening, he died quietly on the plank cot under hemp
matting.
The swallows were twittering in
the cherry- tree which grew at the cottage ; the rays of the sun entered
through the window pane and colored with the brightness of gold the dishevelled
hair of the little boy and the face in which there remained not a drop of blood.
That ray was as it were a road upon which the soul of the boy was to go away.
It was well that it went out by a broad shining road in the moment of death,
for during life it went on a thorny one, truly. Meanwhile the emaciated breast
moved with another breath, and the face of the child was as if absorbed in
listening to the sounds of the village which came in through the open window.
It was evening, so the girls coming back from hay-making were singing,
"Oi, on the green field ! " and from the stream came the playing of
pipes. Yanko listened for the last time to the sounds of the village. On the
matting lay the shingle fiddle at his side.
All at once the face of the dying
boy lighted up, and from his whitening lips came out the whisper, " Mother
! "
"What, my son?"
answered the mother, whom tears were choking.
" Mother, will the Lord God
give me a real fiddle in heaven?"
" He will, my son, He will
give thee one,"
answered the mother; but she
could speak no longer, for suddenly in her hard breast burst the gathering
sorrow, and groaning only, " O Jesus ! O Jesus ! " she fell with her
face on a box, and began to wail as if she had lost her reason, or as a man
wails who sees that he cannot wrest from death the beloved one.
In fact, she did not wrest him; for
when she raised herself again she looked at the child. The eyes of the little
musician were open, it is true, but fixed ; his face was very dignified,
gloomy, and rigid. The ray of the sun had gone also.
Peace to thee, Yanko.
" And what a people of artists
! On estheureux de chercher la-bas des talents et de les proteger," added
the young lady.
The birches were murmuring above
Yanko.
On the second day the master and
mistress of the mansion returned to their residence from Italy, with their
daughter and the cavalier who was paying court to her. The cavalier said, —
" Quel beau pay que l'ltalie
! "
