Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/202

188 yet that confidence which existed between the older ones and me.

"Well," said one of them, "then we will go into the zakas"

The zakas, or "prohibition," was a small grove about two hundred paces from the house.

More eager in his pleadings than all the rest was Fedka, a lad of ten years old, an affectionate, impressible, poetic, and spirited nature. Danger constituted for him apparently the chief condition of pleasure. In summer it was always terrible to see how he and two other boys would swim out into the very middle of the pond, which was three hundred and fifty feet wide, and occasionally disappear in the hot reflection of the summer sun, and then dive into the depths, and float on their backs, and squirt up streams of water, and shout in clear, shrill voices to their comrades on the shore to see how courageous they were.

Now he knew that there were wolves in the forest, and so he wanted to go into the zakas. All took up with the idea, and we went, four of us, into the woods.

Another lad,—I will call him Semka,—healthy both in body and soul, and another small lad of twelve, named Vavilo, went on ahead, and kept shouting and howling in their abundant voices.

Pronka, a sickly, sweet-tempered, and very gifted lad, the son of a poor family,—sickly he was apparently more for want of food than any other cause,—walked by my side. Fedka was between me and Semka, and kept talking all the time in his peculiarly soft voice, now telling how when summer came he should bring the horses here to watch them, then declaring that he was not afraid of anything, then asking, "Suppose some one should spring out at us," and all the time urging me to tell them some story.

We did not go quite to the middle of the forest, for that would have been too terrifying, but even at the edge of the woods it kept growing darker and darker;