The events which are here related took place in Wolhynian Poland, in that little corner of the earth, happily overlooked, where up to the present time neither great highways nor roads frequented by carriages are to be seen,--a land remote, almost lost, where the antique modesty, simplicity, innocence, and poverty of past ages are still preserved. I do not mean by this to say that all human vices with burdens of sins upon their backs are always to be seen following in the footsteps of civilization along the great highways; but unfortunately there is always, between one social condition just ended and another which is beginning, a period of transition during which the old life is extinguished, and the new does not yet exist; and the result is indecision and sad confusion. That hour, which has already chimed for other nations and other provinces, has not yet sounded for this little nook of our land. Here people live, particularly in the dwors^[1] of the lesser nobles, according to the traditions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which have left upon the people the impress of their thought, their faith, and their manners.

It is true that in those yellow-painted dwors belonging to the richer nobles certain reforms have been adopted and a few new customs are in use; but the mass of the lesser nobility are astonished and scandalized at these innovations. Can it be otherwise in this honest little corner of the earth, where the newspapers arrive in bundles once a month; where the sending and receiving of letters is managed only by means of the Jews who come to pass the Sabbath in the neighbouring town; where the whole business of the country, with the exception of some traffic in building timber, of which we shall speak farther on, is the breeding of livestock and the manufacture and sale of shoes made of bark? Some persons perhaps will find it difficult to believe that there still exists a spot on earth so remote and so behind the rest of the world; but it is really true that in the district of Zarzecze, in the environs of the marshes of Pinsk, not very long ago, there were still homes of nobles, whose occupants sometimes inquired of travellers for news of the health of King Stanislaus-Augustus, and were still in complete ignorance of all events which had taken place since the days of Kosciusko.

Soldiers are never seen there; officials are unknown. Even those of the inhabitants who go to Pinsk to pay taxes never ask the names of those to whom they pay them, and wrapping their receipts carefully in their handkerchiefs, never dare to examine them closely, fearing lest this might cost them dear.

The portion of country which will be the scene of our narrative was, however, neither so remote nor so wild. The almanac of Berdyczew regularly found its way there in the latter days of December, bringing a far-off reflection of foreign civilization and a collection of the facts most necessary to the inhabitants,--such as the name of the dominant planet for the current year, the date of the feast of Easter, the hour of the rising and setting of the sun, and the receipt for the destruction of insects which had been brought over from England. The post-office was only ten miles away, and the richer nobles sent a messenger for their newspapers every month or six weeks; some of them even received letters by this means still so little used.

The majority of the inhabitants preferred, in fact, to confide their commissions to the hands of a messenger on foot, even when he had to go as far as fifty miles, for the Polesian messenger is superior to all others. None walk so rapidly; none are so discreet, so faithful; none ask so few tormenting questions; and none so surely and so cleverly escape all sorts of dangers. At first sight one would take this peasant porter for a beggar or vagabond, with his torn and threadbare old gray coat, and his wallet containing a few crusts of bread and a change of shoes; but closer examination would reveal that in the folds of his girdle or in the lining of his cap, wrapped in an old ragged handkerchief or a scrap of paper, he carried titles, documents, and papers representing hundreds of millions of francs, or interests of the greatest importance. When God created the Polesian He made him a messenger: he always finds the shortest road by instinct; he never loses his way; and he goes through the most difficult places with marvellous ease. Consequently a tradition concerning messengers is current among the gentry; they hold that the promptest and surest post never can replace them. And therefore each village possesses a certain number of these hireling footmen, who tramp over the space of a hundred miles like apostles, and who, provided the recompense were sufficient, would not hesitate to carry a letter to Calcutta.

The portion of country of which we are speaking, whose geographical position it is not necessary more exactly to determine, is not so remote from Pinsk as Zarzecze, nor so near as Western Wolhynia; but it touches both of these regions, and thus occupies an intermediate position.

It is a long strip of land still in great part covered with forests of pine and oak. In the midst of it are to be found fields recently and with great difficulty reclaimed, and miserable villages all smoked and blackened by the resinous vapours from the forests.

The river Horyn flows through these forests, thus rendering them of great commercial value, for the principal revenue of the country is derived from the sale of timber transported to Dantzick in rafts. Thanks to their simple habits, almost all the inhabitants become rich in their old age. In fact, the Polesian, in spite of his wretched and poverty-stricken appearance, in spite of the inconveniences of the plica,^[2] with which they are frequently afflicted, would not change his condition for that of his cousin, the Wolhynian, who is apparently much more robust and prosperous.

In this country the peasant does not depend for support entirely upon the cultivation of the soil; there are varied means of subsistence which prevent his entertaining too great a dread of the unproductive seasons which are so terribly felt in other parts of the world. The forests and the river, to which the nobles grant him access, are for him an inexhaustible source of certain revenue and small industries. Those forests particularly from which the proprietors draw no profit after the trees suitable for sale have been cut down, furnish the principal wealth of the peasants,--bark from the oak and linden trees, barrel-hoops, bark slippers, osiers and rushes for the manufacture of baskets, blocks of beech and box wood for making domestic utensils, resinous torches, laths, and shavings. The dwellers in the dwors do not take the trouble to pick up all these refuse objects; but the peasants gather them and gain both profit and pleasure. Then, too, dried mushrooms, strawberries, mulberries, pears and wild apples, the berries of the guelder-rose and hawthorn furnish the peasant so many small harvests which yield him a modest and certain profit.

The working-men frequent the river shore. The young men of the villages are employed as raftsmen to float the timber down the river; they stretch nets and weirs, and hunt with the sparrow-hawk and boar-spear,--in a word, no one dies of hunger, and although famine sometimes threatens the poor people of the villages (and where does not this stern benefactress show her face?), if only they can hold out till harvest-time, they are sure to be able to live along together quite comfortably during another year. There are, it is true, bad days,--dark days, as the people call them. Sometimes they are obliged to make bread of bark, hay, and buckwheat. But the world would not be the world if one always enjoyed in it the peace and happiness of heaven.

The nobles who dwell in the dwors lead a patriarchal life, toward the maintenance of which the commercial relations with foreign countries contribute so little that these might without much inconvenience be altogether done away with. Everything is found, everything is manufactured in the villages; the people buy only sugar and coffee, a few bottles of Franconia wine, which is here called French wine, a few pounds of tea, a little pepper, and that is all. In many instances honey, which costs nothing, is substituted for sugar and chiccory for coffee; camomile or balm and lime tree flowers, infinitely more healthy, for tea, and horse-radish for pepper. Meat necessary for household purposes is frequently butchered at home; at other times the Jews bring it for sale at six and seven cents a pound, and tongues and tripes for even less. The poultry-yard furnishes fowls and eggs; candles are moulded in the old fashion; cloth is woven after an antique method, admirable for its simplicity; linen also is equally well spun and woven in the villages; and there are no trades necessary to daily life which are not practised in the somewhat larger towns. Everywhere one will find farriers, wheelwrights, carpenters, coopers, and masons, usually very industrious, although it must be said not very skilful. And besides, in urgent or difficult cases, when one is in a hurry, for instance, and a workman is not just at hand, there is always some Polesian who remembers having seen the thing made somewhere, and who will undertake the needed job. He does it as well as he can, and usually after several attempts becomes a tolerable workman.

I do not mean to say that trades and the arts are in a flourishing condition in Polesia; in a country so simple, but little that is artistic is required. When the shoemaker brings you a pair of boots, at first sight they will certainly not seem to be made for a human foot, they look so awkward, hard, large, rounded, and apparently moulded on a block of iron. But try them, wear them for two years in water and mud, and not a crack will be seen in the leather, not a peg will have come out, they are so solid, strong, and conscientiously made. No one asks, it is true, if his feet are more or less comfortable; has he not something for which to thank God if a good piece of ox-hide covers them and a thick sole protects them? And as for corns and bunions, he considers them the natural consequence of years and hard work, and not the effect of ill-made shoes.

It is in this way that everything is done there,--strongly, solidly, roughly. If the epidermis suffers in consequence, so much the worse for a skin which has been made tender by too much care, and for the eye which has become too delicate and exacting from the effects of luxury and studied refinement, I will only observe further that in this fortunate country each mechanic, who is oftener an amateur, and who has very few rivals professionally, thinks himself an artist, a being of superior nature, uncomprehended and unappreciated by his fellow-citizens. The frequent communications which he has with the dwors, the efforts he makes to possess himself of the secrets of his trade, the consciousness of being a necessary man,--a sort of axle in the social mechanism which surrounds him,--contributes to arouse in him feelings which, even if absurd, are manifested in other spheres and under other skies than those of our Polesia.

In this country vast green forests form the frame and horizon of each landscape. As we pass along we come to an occasional clearing; there a pond glitters, or a slow, deep river runs; there damp marshes stagnate eternally, and meadows grow green, half buried under rushes. Farther on rise the roofs of huts blackened by the everlasting smoke. The Horyn, like a rich silver girdle, surrounds this sleeping country with its sparkling waters, which enrich and fertilize it; almost all the small towns of this region are grouped along the river shore.

In other countries the name of town is not given to such miserable, straggling villages; but in Polesia any assemblage of houses among which may be found an inn, a Catholic chapel, a cerkiew (Russian church), a market-place, and above all two or three Jews, is called a town.

The number of Israelites dwelling in a small town constitutes its wealth; the more of them, the richer it is considered. In each of these little capitals one encounters a Boruch, a Zelman, an Abram, or a Majorko, who trades in everything; who furnishes to each person whatever he desires, from a coat of lamb-skin to a gold watch; who buys wheat and grists of corn, keeps an inn, sells rum, tobacco, pipes, and sugar, and is acquainted with the whole history and condition of all the gentlemen in the neighbourhood, numbers of whose notes and receipts he has in his portfolio. The great storehouse situated on the market-place supplies the general needs of the poor villagers, who find there pots, girdles, bonnets, iron, salt, tar, etc.; besides, there are two or three little shops containing stuffs and haberdashery and a few groceries, and that is all. The entire little town is nourished, clothed, and subsists by means of the activity of the Jews who are its soul. The cultivation of the soil, it is true, which is carried on by the inhabitants of the towns, according to the ancient Slavic custom, also furnishes other supplies.

A few poor gentlemen, one or two functionaries poorer still, the curate, the Russian priest, and the employees of the dwor compose almost all the population. During the week the town seems deserted; only the Jewish children run about the streets playing at quoits and skittles. The chickens, goats, and cows wander peaceably through the market-place. But on Sunday it is almost impossible to pass on the square, there are so many riding horses, so many wagons laden with wood and fodder, and so brisk is the trade going on in all sorts of produce. And when once a year the day of the town holiday comes, then there are all sorts of noises, and a crowd, and a fair. Then the pedlers arrive with their little wagons, and display their bundles of merchandise upon the square. The Jew hatter hangs from long poles planted along the wall the bonnets and hats of his own manufacture; the Gypsy horse-doctor appears; hand-organs abound; and the crowd increases every moment. All the land-holders of the neighbouring parishes also come with their wives; the stewards and managers, the poor gentry who own only one field, the villagers who wish to get rid of any surplus commodity or useless provision, such as leather, wool, cloth, or linen,--all are there.

It is a pleasure to see, and a delight to hear, the noise and commotion with which business is carried on. On the square every few moments some of the men conclude a bargain and go off to the inn to confirm the agreement by emptying a pint mug; the old women venders of onions, garlic, tobacco, girdles, and red ribbons pick up as many big coppers as they want. The day after the fair, and even for many succeeding days, unless a good rain storm washes out the numberless traces, one would divine at first glance what had taken place. Possibly the pools of the blood of slaughtered goats and sheep which are drying and blackening on the ground might even suggest that some dark crime had been enacted.

But with the exception of this one day of bustle and gayety, the whole country reposes during the entire year in that state of sweet torpor and melancholy silence which is the normal condition of its daily life. Man always absorbs, more or less voluntarily, the external influences to which he is exposed. We are, in the scale of universal order, like the caterpillar who clothes himself with a green robe while living on the leaves of a tree, and with gorgeous attire when his food is the heart of its purple fruit.

In a country fast asleep, like Polesia, where the murmur of the venerable trees lulls the thin grass and the rushes on the marshes, where peace and torpor is inhaled with the heavy air,--damp, and filled with resinous vapours,--the inhabitants, with their growth, feel the blood flow more and more slowly in their veins; thoughts arise more and more slowly in their minds, and man, thus quieted and softened, desires only repose, trembles at the idea of a sterner and more active destiny, and clings like a mushroom to the soft, damp earth.

The peasants at about forty years of age have long beards like old men; the nobles at that age cease to wear coats, wrap themselves in dressing-gowns, allow their mustaches to grow at will, and to the end of their lives, if they have wives and children, never again go out of their houses. As for the old bachelors of the same age, they begin then to consider that the sole result of marriage is inconvenience and useless subjection.

There is but little visiting, although generally there is much cordiality between the land-holders; but in summer it is too warm, in winter it is too cold; in the autumn the mud and wind are disagreeable, and in the spring there are the gnats. If ever one of them determines to overcome his laziness, it is only on the occasion of a feast at the house of an esteemed neighbour or in case of inevitable necessity. As, however, it is not possible to live without some news, and some intellectual intercourse, the Jew who owns the inn of the town undertakes to retail the one and furnish the other. He comes at the slightest call, or naturally in virtue of his ordinary occupations; he stops at the door and begins at once to give an account of what he has heard during the week, either in his excursions through the neighbourhood or from the peasants who come to the mill or to the blacksmith's shop. Generally the amount of his information consists in being able to tell who has sown, who has harvested, who has sold, who has gone on a journey, how much money the one has received and why the other has departed. But this scanty supply of news feeds the curiosity of the noble for a time, amuses him or wearies him, makes him gloomy, irritates him, and sometimes even suffices to drag him out of his house.

Let us not therefore seek in this country any modern innovations, any enterprise or invention of the day; they would be greeted here only by incredulity, distrust, and dislike. Everything is done in an old-fashioned way; and if one should seek for the living tradition, perfect and entire, of the life of past times, he will find it nowhere in such perfection as here. The noble has the same respect for old customs as the peasant; and if outwardly he laughs at them, in the bottom of his heart he renders them homage, because with his blood and his milk, with his eyes and his ears, he has absorbed them from his infancy.

Thus it happens that in places where once rose a castle, and where now a new dwor stands in its place, the site of the new edifice retains the old name, and the peasants who haul wood for the proprietor still say that they are taking it to the castle. The spot once occupied by an ancient cerkiew is perhaps now a potato field, but the gardens of the proprietor are none the less called the monastery. At the cross-roads in the forest, where the foot-paths meet, a grave dug ages ago has disappeared under the grass so that no trace of it remains; the wooden cross has fallen and rotted in the sod, and may be traced in the thick green grass which alone marks the spot where the soil has been enriched by the decayed body. Still, not a peasant passes that way without throwing, according to Pagan custom, a stone or a broken branch upon the spot. Everything that has lived in this country lives there still. The legend of the founding of a colony whose limits were traced by a pair of black bulls whose privilege it was to preserve the future city from infection and diseases common to cattle; the story of the prince who drowned himself in a pond; the narrative of the Tartar invasion; the sad fate of the two brothers in love with the same young girl, on whose account they killed each other in single combat, and who afterward, in despair, hung herself on their tomb,--all these survive.

The same songs have been sung for a thousand years; the same customs continue to prevail; and all are faithful to them as to an engagement sacredly entered into with their ancestors.