Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/24

10 head. I never thought that anything like this would happen."

I opened the folded sheet. It was a copy of the decision of the Odessa district court-martial. An officer of the 54th Don Cossack regiment, Medviedev, age 25, had committed a crime while in a state of intoxication. Medviedev came to a farm-house and demanded wine from the host. When he was refused, he fired two shots into a window. Luckily, the shots did no damage. Perhaps taking this circumstance into consideration, the court-martial punished Medviedev by a sentence of only twelve years of penal servitude.

"Won't you help me? I'll pray to God for you all my life!" sobbed the old man, while I was saying,

"But what can I do? How can I help you?"

"You ought to know," answered the old man in firm conviction. He stood there before me, so pitiful, yet so strong and handsome. "I have four sons there, but I never expected such shame. We've never been in court, or fined for anything. And now ... If he was killed fighting, or was wounded, it wouldn't be so hard. But this way ... And lost the Cossack's rank, too!"

"But it wasn't for nothing. Suppose he had killed somebody?"

"The Lord knows what got hold of him. He never drank at home. He was so quiet. And now, see what he's done. The old woman and I can't sleep any more. When we look at his children, the heart begins to burn. How will they live with this blot on them? Won't you tell me what to do?"

Everything is still, with the stillness that comes when heavy clouds overcast the sky, when dark shadows hang shroud-like over the fields, when the white sands of the river-bank grow grey, when the purple hills and the blue grove on the horizon lose their coloring and disappear in the greyish mist, and when all living sounds, so familiar to the ear, suddenly die away, as if swallowed by some monster,—when everything disappears within itself, crowding around its own thoughts and vague questionings about life.

Life in the far-away quiet nooks and corners flows along its long-trodden paths, and yet the war has cast a heavy shadow on it. The village street is empty on week-days. And yet there is an hour of the day when, from the window of my room, I can see crowds gathering about the well in front of the post office. At noon the mail arrives from the station ... The whole population of the village is there, old men, women, priests, a doctor, the teachers, boys, girls, messengers,—persons of all ages,