At times we met great heaps of stones, at times it was a brown cone. Some god-forsaken man was digging peat, nobody knows why, — at times we came across a lonely little hut along the roadway, with its one window, with its chimney sticking out from the stove, with not a tree anywhere around. And the forest that dragged on beyond the plain seemed even gloomier than it really was. After a short while there began to appear little islands of trees even on this plain, trees overgrown with moss and covered with cobwebs, most of them as warped and ugly as those in the drawings that illustrate a horribly frightening tale.
I was ready to weep out loud, such resentment did I feel.
And as if to spite us, the weather changed for the worse: low dark clouds were creeping on to meet us, and here and there leaden strips of rain came slanting down at us. Not a single crested-lark did we see on the road, and this was a bad sign: it would rain cats and dogs all night through.
I was ready to turn in at the first hut, but none came in sight. Cursing my friend who had sent me here, I told the man to drive faster, and I drew my raincloak closer around me. But the sky became filled with dark, low rain-clouds; over the plain there descended such a gloomy and cold twilight that it made me shiver. A feeble streak of lightning flashed in the distance.
No sooner did the disturbing thought strike me that at this time of the year it was too late for thunder, than an ocean of cold water came pouring down on me, on the horses and the coachman.
Someone had handed the plain over into the clutches of night and rain.
And the night was as dark as soot, I couldn't see my fingers even, and only guessed that we were still moving on because of the jolting of the carriage. The coachman, too, could probably see nothing and gave himself up entirely to the instincts of the horses.
Whether they really had the instincts I don't know: the fact is that our closed carriage was thrown out from a hole onto a kind of hillock and back again into a hole.
Lumps of clay, marsh dirt and paling flew into the carriage, onto my cloak, into my face, but I resigned myself to this and prayed for only one thing: not to fall into the quagmire. I knew that the most forsaken places are met with in these marshes — the carriage, the horses, and the people, all would be swallowed up — and it would never enter anybody's mind that somebody had ever been there, that only a few minutes ago a human being had screamed there until the thick brown marsh mass had stopped his mouth, that now that being was lying together with the horses buried six metres down below the ground.
Suddenly there was a roar, a dismal howl: a long, drawn-out howl, an inhuman howl... The horses gave a jerk... I was almost thrown out... they ran on, heaven knows where, apparently straight on across the swamp. Then something cracked, and the back wheels of the carriage were drawn down. On feeling water under my feet, I grabbed the coachman by the shoulder and he, with a kind of indifference, uttered:
“It's all over with us, sir. We shall die here!”
But I did not want to die. I snatched the whip from out of the coachman's hand and began to strike in the darkness where the horses should have been.
An unearthly howl was heard and the horses neighed madly and pulled, the carriage trembled as if it were trying with all its might to pull itself out of that swamp, then a loud smacking noise from under the wheels, the cart bent, jolted even worse, the mare began to neigh! And lo! A miracle!.. The cart rolled on, and was soon knocking along on firm ground. Only now did I comprehend that it was none other than I myself who had uttered those heart-rending cries. How ashamed I felt!
I was about to ask the coachman to stop the horses on this relatively firm ground, and spend the night there, when the rain began to quiet down.
At this moment something wet and prickly struck me in the face. “The branch of a fir-tree,” I guessed. “Then we must be in a forest. The horses will stop of their own accord.”
However, time passed, once or twice fir-tree branches hit me in the face again, but the carriage slid on evenly and smoothly: a sign that we were on a forest path.
I decided that it had to lead somewhere and gave myself up to fate. And indeed, when about thirty minutes had passed, ahead of us in this dank and pitch-dark night a warm and beckoning light appeared.
We soon saw that it was not a woodsman's hut and not a tarsprayer's hut as I had thought at first, but some kind of a tremendous building, a building too large even for the city. In front of us — a flower-bed, a black opening in the fir-tree lane through which we had come, and all around wet grass.
The entrance had a kind of high roof over it, on the door there was a heavy bronze ring.
At first I and then the coachman, then again I, knocked on the door with this ring. We rang timidly, knocked a little louder, beat the ring very bravely, stopped, called, then beat the door with our feet — but to no avail. At last we heard somebody moving behind the door, uncertainly, timidly. Then from somewhere at the top came a woman's voice, hoarse and husky:
“Who's there?”
“We're travellers, dear lady, let us in.”
“You aren't from the Hunt, are you?”
“Whatever hunt are you speaking of? We're wet through, from head to foot, can hardly stand on our feet. For God's sake let us in.”
The woman remained silent, then in a hesitating voice:
“But whoever are you? What's your name?”
“Biełarecki is my name. I'm with my coachman.”
“Count Biełarecki?”
“I hope I am a Count,” I answered with the plebian's lack of reverence for titles.
The voice became severe:
“Well then, go your way, my good man, back to where you came from. Just think of it! He hopes he is a Count! Jokes in the night? Come on, off with you! Go back and look for some lair in the forest, if you're such a smart fellow.”
“My dear lady,” I begged, “gladly would I look for one and not disturb people, but I am a stranger in these parts. I'm from the district town, we've lost our way, not a dry thread on us.”
“Away, away with you!” answered an inexorable voice.
In answer to that, anybody else in my place would have probably grabbed a stone and begun beating on the door with it, swearing at the cruel owners, but even at such a moment I could not rid myself of the thought it was wrong to break into a strange house. Therefore I only signed and turned to the coachman.
“Well then, let's leave this place.”
We were about to return to our carriage, but our ready agreement had apparently made a good impression, for the old woman softening, called after us:
“Just a moment, wayfarers, but who are you, anyway?”
I was afraid to answer “an ethnographer”, because twice before after saying this I had been taken for a bad painter. Therefore I answered:
“A merchant.”
“But how did you happen into the park when a stone wall and an iron fence encircle it?”
“Oh! I don't know,” I answered sincerely. “We were riding somewhere through the marsh, fell somewhere through somewhere, we hardly got out... Something roared there...” Truth to tell, I had already given up all hope, however, after these words of mine the old woman quietly sighed and said in a frightened voice:
“Oh! Oh! My God! Then you must have escaped through the Giant's Gap, for it's only from that side that there's no fence. That's how lucky you were. You're a fortunate man. The Heavenly Mother saved you! Oh! Good God! Oh! God's martyrs!”
And such sympathy, and such kindness were heard in those words, that I forgave her the hour of questioning at the entrance. The woman thundered with the bolts, then the door opened, jand a dim orange-coloured stream of light pierced the darkness of the night.
A woman stood before us, short of stature, in a dress wide as a church bell with a violet-coloured belt, a dress which our ancestors wore in the times of King Sas, and on her head was a starched cap. The face was covered with kind wrinkles, the nose hooked, the mouth immence — resembling a nutcracker, the lips slightly protruding. She was round like a small keg, of medium height, with plump little hands, as if she were asking to be called “Mother dear”. In the hands of this old woman there were tremendous oven prongs: a weapon to defend herself with! I was about to burst into laughter, but remembered in time the cold outside and the rain, and kept silent. How many people even to this very day keep from laughing at things deserving to be laughed at, fearing the rain outside?
We went into a little room where it smelled of mice, and immediately pools of water ran down from our clothes onto the floor. I glanced at my feet and was horrified: almost up to my knees there was a brown mass of mud that looked like boots.
The old woman only shook her head.
“You, Mr. Merchant, must light a big candle as an offering to God for having escaped so easily!” And she opened a door leading into a neighbouring room where the fireplace was lit. “You've had a narrow escape. Take off your clothes, dry yourselves. Have you any other clothes to get into?”
My sack luckily was dry. I changed my clothing before the fireplace. Our clothes — mine and the coachman's — the woman dragged away somewhere and returned with dry clothing for the coachman. She came in paying no attention to the coachman being quite naked, standing bashfully with his back turned to her.
She looked at his back that had turned blue and said disapprovingly: