Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 132.djvu/182

176 He shrugged his shoulders. "You should have asked my aunt that. There was no lack of bidders who offered a good price, and who were anxious to get wood."

"Good heavens!" cried Von der Kolk at every step; "what a shame! what a shame!"

What most of all excited his pity was the sight of the oaks which were lying on the ground; and, no doubt, any miller would have paid handsomely for them. Archip, the bailiff, preserved an impenetrable composure, and uttered no plaint; he even jumped across them with an air of satisfaction, and kept striking at them with his whip.

As we rode on to the place where the wood was being felled, suddenly we heard the crash of a falling tree, and immediately afterwards a confused sound of voices and cries. A few moments later a young peasant came tearing out of the thickets, with a pale face and streaming hair.

"What's the matter? where are you running?" asked Ardalion. He stopped short.

"Ah, little father! Ardalion Michaelovitch!" he cried; "such a misfortune!"

"What is it?"

"Maxim has been smashed by a tree, master!"

"What! Maxim the foreman?"

"Yes, master. We were felling an ash, and he stood looking on. — He stood there a little while, and then he went away to the well; he was thirsty, I suppose. All at once the ash trembled, and bent his way. We called to him: 'Run, run, run.' — He should have run aside, but he ran straight on; frightened, maybe. So he came just under the top branches of the ash. Heaven only knows why it fell so quickly. It must have been rotten at the core."

"Well, it struck him down?"

"Yes, master."

"Is he dead?"

"No, little father, he is still alive; but his arms and legs are smashed. I was just running for the surgeon."

Ardalion told the bailiff to gallop to the village for the surgeon, and he himself rode fast on to where the wood was being cut. I followed him. We found poor Maxim lying on the ground. Some ten peasants stood round him. We got off our horses. The wounded man scarcely uttered a single moan. Now and then he opened his eyes and looked round him, as if astonished, and occasionally he bit his livid lips. His chin twitched convulsively, his hair clung to his temples, his heart rose and fell in irregular gasps; he was already doing battle with death. The soft shadow of a young lime-tree fell gently on his face.

We bent over him, and he recognized Ardalion.

"Little father!" he began in a scarcely audible voice; "send — for the priest — God has stricken me — broken my arms and legs — to-day — Sunday — and I — I — did not let the lads knock off work."

He was silent for a while, struggling for breath.

"Give my money — to my wife — to pay off — Onesimus knows — to whom — how much there is owing."

"We have sent for the doctor, Maxim," said my neighbor; "perhaps you won't die after all."

He tried to open his eyes, and at last with difficulty managed to raise his eyelids.

"No, I shall die. There — there it comes — there it is — there — forgive me, lads, if I — if anything "

"God will forgive thee, Maxim Andrevitch," said the peasants all together, in a husky voice, as they bared their heads.

"Do thou forgive us."

Suddenly he shook his head with a despairing gesture, tried to sit up, but fell back again.

"We cannot let him die here," cried Ardalion; "fetch the mat out of the telega; we will carry him to the hospital."

Two woodcutters ran off to the telega.

"Yesterday — I bought a horse" — murmured the dying man, "from Geoffry — Sitchoffsky — hansel-money down — so it's mine — give it too to my wife."

They tried to lay him on the mat. He quivered all over just like a wounded bird, and then stiffened.

"He is dead," muttered the peasants. We mounted our horses in silence, and rode away.

The scene that I had just witnessed made me thoughtful. Remarkable, truly, is the way the Russian dies! His state before his latter end is neither indifference nor stolidity. He takes death as if it were some rite, and dies coolly, and with perfect simplicity.

Some years ago a peasant got burned in a kiln on my neighbor's estate. (He would have remained there had not a passer-by pulled him out half dead.)

I went to the peasant's hut to see him — a hut dark, smoky, stifling — and asked where the patient was.

"There he lies, sir, over the stove," answered, in a sort of sing-song, a woman who was sitting in a corner.

I drew near. There lay the man, 