Long ago, very long ago—or so it seems to me, for I see those days now as through a mist—for the first time in my life I heard a fine men's choir singing in unison in one of the largest churches of Podlasia. The church was filled to overflowing with a compact mass of human beings, who joined in the chants which streamed from the choir like burning lava. Loud at first, their voices passed into sobbing until they died into a low and yet lower groan, imploring and scarcely audible.

My small body shivered as with fever. I pressed my burning forehead to the cold floor and folded my hands, stretching them out to God and begging Him to quiet the sorrowful sounds which were tearing my childish heart; I prayed that those people in the choir might sing less sadly, and that they might feel brighter and happier. "Have mercy, have mercy, Lord," I repeated with so much faith and confidence that I held my breath and waited after each appeal for the sound of a voice like thunder, which would smother the prayers and painful groans, so that the joyful Christmas hymn or the triumphant Easter "Allelujah" might flow from the choir with healing balm upon the crowd of praying people. The last sobs were hushed; the last sighs of a thousand breasts fell with a deadened echo from the high vaulting on to the bowed heads praying below, and oppressed the suppliants with a sense of universal pain. Bent to the ground, they humiliated themselves almost to extinction. I was not conscious of those many bent heads, but only of their eyes, which, fixed on the figure of Christ, were addressing a last prayer to Him.

The faintest echo of prayers and sighs was lost in the deep vaulting; dead silence—an awful silence—reigned throughout the church; it seemed as if all the prayers of a thousand faithful worshippers had been brought before a void, were dissolving into nothingness, and perishing—unheard.

The awe of such a moment is terrifying, and the soothing strains of music alone make it endurable. Those tightened lips were silent, and the bruised hearts raised no sigh; but soft tones, resembling human voices, were floating above amid the vaulting, and descended faintly through the heavy atmosphere.

The lifeless organ had become animate under the touch of human fingers, and the crowd of worshippers, hearing their own supplications as if rising from a stronger heart than theirs, were soothed by the musician's skill. Imploring and praying with fresh confidence, they were strengthened by renewed faith, until at length tears came, and in those tears they found relief.

It seemed as if the choir had been waiting for this moment, for scarcely were the tears seen on the people's faces before it sent forth another moving entreaty, and all hearts burnt with fresh ardour.

Once again the people groaned and prostrated themselves, weighed down by the load of sighs drawn from their aching hearts.

I groaned with them. I prayed still more fervently, stretching out my hands more beseechingly to the stern God. I held my breath still longer, always expecting a visible miracle. But God was silent, and my childish hopes were shattered.

The choir led the people in a new and still more ardent prayer.

"O God, my God, when will this dreadful praying end?"

I felt my strength was failing me, and that to pray thus any longer would be impossible. I clung to my dear father, who was praying beside me, hoping he would soothe me, as was his way. But my father did not see me, although he bent down to me, for his eyes were full of tears, and I only heard his heated whisper:

"Pray, my child; pray, dear boy, and never forget this wonderful prayer!"

So I prayed once more, concentrating all my thoughts and feelings in this one prayer. The perspiration stood in large drops on my forehead; I held my breath still longer, and waited—waited in vain! God was silent. But the choir raised a fresh entreaty.

"O God, my God, why art Thou so long in hearing us?"

It was so hot and close; a terrible sensation came over me now. My head seemed on fire; the singing of the choir, the sound of the organ, the human groans and sighs, all mingled in a chaotic whirr in my ears. This whirr passed gradually into a measured peal, commencing slowly, becoming quicker later, at first near, then farther off, resembling the flapping of a large bird's wings. The grey smoke of the incense reddened before my eyes. It flashed into my weary mind that our prayers could not reach God. I looked up and flung myself into my father's arms. There, above—it seemed to me—like birds assembling for their autumn flight, but confined by the high vaulting of the church, the human prayers were circling and clamouring. Streaks of sunlight were penetrating the narrow church windows, and all the bitter human groans and pain and tears were beating their wings against them—pressing towards the sun.

"Father! father! let us go outside to pray—there, in the sunshine! God Almighty will hear us there, and nothing will hinder our prayers."

The winter of 18— began unusually early in X——, as in all parts of the Yakutsk district. Already by the end of August the night frosts had shrivelled and blackened foliage of every kind, depriving it of its natural beauty. The broad stretch of valley in which the town lay now looked barer than usual; only miserable yurta were to be seen, no large buildings, nothing even distantly approaching the populous villages in Poland, which are so cheerful in autumn. During that early although short autumn I was attacked for the first time by home-sickness in all its dread severity.

Halfway through November the famous "sorokowiki"[9] began, which frequently last without interruption for two months. But the malady to which I had fallen a victim had developed rapidly and completely worn me out a long while before the "sorokowiki" came. Being a novice in such matters, I did a number of things which in themselves are not unwise, and are practised by experienced men, but only to a very limited extent. All who have suffered from nostalgia carefully avoid everything which may bring about a return of the malady; they talk unwillingly of their past, are obstinately silent when their native country is mentioned, and in public show a strange, incomprehensible indifference to all that should be dear to them. Of course, this indifference is assumed. At first I did not understand this strange fact. But later on, when I had been there longer, I realized that people who were seemingly hardened and indifferent were sheltering their suffering hearts beneath a breast-plate of despair, and that they were continuing their existence in the world by a great effort. I understood that this indifference is a form of heroism—an unassuming form, it is true, as heroism shown in misery always is, but heroism nevertheless.

People of all ranks and positions cover themselves here with this shield of indifference and assumed forgetfulness, some with more consciousness of what they are actually doing, and with more perseverance, others with less. But, among the seemingly indifferent, without question those most remarkable for strength of will are the peasants. It needs a long, long time before a spark can be kindled from the deep grief of a peasant; but when the fire has broken out it burns so fiercely that a man either hides from the glare or stares in dismay.

I had struggled with this severe illness for some months already and by the time Christmas Eve came I was straining after everything that recalled home, with the unhappy perversity with which a drunkard's thoughts run on spirits, or the thoughts of a lunatic on his mania. A letter received some days beforehand enclosing the symbol of Christmas, the wafer broken into small pieces,[10] had poured oil on the fire. I had read that letter through countless times, and as I now ran to and fro in my room, like a squirrel shut up in its round cage, I was no longer thinking of the letter alone. I had drunk all the poison of memories which the past sleepless nights had called forth in feverish haste without a moment's respite, and my harassed and exhausted imagination could go no farther. The day which had awakened so many remembrances and brought me so much suffering had come. My only desire was to spend the evening in such a way as to drain the cup of treacherous sweetness to the dregs, and surround myself with an atmosphere which would revive the irrevocable past—if but for a moment and but remotely—and would suggest new and actual pictures to nourish my exhausted imagination; although these might be of the coarsest, they would give it food for new visions, fresh hallucinations.

There were some hospitable Polish houses in X—— at the time, and Christmas was being celebrated in one or two of them. Yet I could not bring myself to go to any of them. It can easily be conjectured that on this day I wished to break away from the oppressive bonds of conventionality, and to spend Christmas Eve beyond the border-line of "society."

Imagine yourself walking in the evening, when there is a hard frost, through the empty streets of X——, and coming to the end of Cossack Street; you would then find yourself at a point whence the smaller part of the town stretches far away before you. The old mud-choked riverbed separates it just at that spot from the principal part. If the frost is very bitter, you will remain there with all the greater pleasure to enjoy the sight in front of you. A number of little lights, bright or pale, strong or flickering, are continually visible here, even through the mist of snow. In an uninhabited and desolate country the sight of any fair-sized colony is so attractive that I never once walked this way without feasting my eyes on so visible a proof of man's strength and vitality. I knew every house there: near at hand the brightly lighted houses of the richer tradesmen and officials; farther off the Cossacks' houses, like yurta; still farther the house of the shoemaker and church clerk, and Jan Pietrzak's forge; still farther, scarcely visible through the frozen panes, the feeble little lights from the Yakut yurta; and beyond them—the end of life, a boundless snowy space.

Oh, how cold it must be there! And how forsaken, how powerless a man feels amid those plains banked up with snow, glistening with ice, darkened by gloomy taiga, and exhaling cold, cold, and only cold!

Well do I remember how I trembled and my heart beat more quickly when I stopped on the hill, as usual, some weeks before Christmas, and noticed for the first time a very small fire shining through the foggy light from the desolate space which commenced beyond the Yakut yurta. It disappeared, and showed again. Good God! was it a phantom? I could not believe my own eyes, and rubbed them once or twice. But there, remote from human dwellings, this lonely fire flickered in the distance more and more distinctly. I stood for a long while before I guessed that this solitary firelight was shining from the horrible, execrated house, the house the inhabitants of the place avoided in fear. People had died from smallpox in it some years before, and to-day any of the local townsmen would sooner die than enter it. I could not guess in the least, therefore, who had dared to light a fire there at night. A Yakut was just passing me, so I stopped him, and, explaining what I wanted as well as I could, I asked if he knew how there came to be a fire in the old hospital. The Yakut listened attentively as long as he did not understand what I was asking. But as soon as he began to take it in he started back several steps, and when at last he thoroughly grasped it he tore off his cap, screamed out in an inhuman voice, "KabÝs abasÀ!"[11] and fled terrified.

The next day I learned that the plague-stricken house was permanently inhabited by some Poles, people without a roof to shelter them and with nothing to look forward to. From time to time people whose misfortunes deprived them of other shelter also took refuge there for a short time.

In this way a small colony had formed in the desert solitude beyond the town, whose members were of two sorts, permanent and temporary. During the last few weeks I had been a frequent guest in this lonely little colony, and now, after some deliberation, I decided to spend Christmas Eve there.

I set out about five o'clock, relying on the kindness—or unkindness—of the frost, which, if it had sent out its murderous "chijus," could have completely upset my plans by driving me to the nearest acquaintance's house. But, fortunately for me, although the frost was fiendish, it was as silent as the grave. The terrible "chijus" had not yet left its Polar hiding-place, and the air was absolutely still. Thanks to this circumstance, I reached the place unharmed.

The echo of my footsteps, with the creaking snow under my boots, played sharply and shrilly round the two unheated rooms through which I was obliged to pass in order to reach the inhabited part of the house. It seemed to be even colder here than out of doors. The windows were boarded up. But although in the impenetrable darkness I hit against fragments of pots and other useless lumber at every turn, and they tumbled about or broke with a crash, though the door grated on its rusty hinges, none of the people living there even looked out or paid any attention to it. At last I came into the inhabited part of the house.

It was not much lighter in the large room than in those through which I had just passed. A thin tallow candle on a shoemaker's low bench barely lighted one corner of the room. Two people were working at the bench.

The one sitting nearer me, a tall thin man, unmistakably a born shoemaker, was knocking wooden pegs into a sole with an expert and sure hand. He had not been long in the town, but he already had plenty of work, and would be certain not to remain long in this solitude.

The second, sitting farther off, a handsome man, was considerably shorter than Pan JÓzef. He was planing and polishing a heel, but slowly, without that deftness with which Pan JÓzef worked. One glance at the short shoemaker's face would have been enough to convince the most ardent opponent of all theories on heredity that this man had not always sat at a cobbler's bench.

As a matter of fact, Pan Jan Horodelski had once been a medical student; later ... but what he was later could not be told in two evenings. He had now been a shoemaker for five years, and, to speak the candid truth, a drunken shoemaker. His bad habit did not allow him even to think of carrying on business for himself; he therefore wandered round to all the local workshops, using other people's tools, and finding life very hard. Each master took a large percentage for the tools, and it is probable that Pan JÓzef charged him no less than other masters did.

His spirit had once been proud and audacious, but life had bruised it and trodden it into the dust. Some souls emerge thence not only beautiful and noble, but even strong. Horodelski had not that strength which braves all storms, and was now a permanent inhabitant of this solitude. His days were numbered; the intellect and knowledge he once possessed made him now fully conscious of his condition and filled up his cup of bitterness, the depth of which was known only to himself.

It was either the seal of death on his forehead, or possibly other and deeper reasons, which gave his face its particular expression. I said before that it was the face of a very handsome man, and I ought to add that it also expressed that gentleness and tenderness which belongs essentially to feminine beauty, and that it was stamped with indescribable sadness. He varied a good deal in his behaviour; his way of expressing himself and his manners frequently betrayed the influence of the surroundings in which he had been living for long past. Frequently—though not always—he could control himself, however, and then there appeared on his face a new sign of the manhood not yet completely crushed—namely, a blush of shame at his present position.

The shoemakers, as became busy men, did not even move on their stools when I entered. I therefore took off my things and brushed away the hoar-frost in silence, and it was only when I went up nearer to them that they both raised their bent heads, welcoming me with a friendly smile. As he was holding his pegs in his teeth, Pan JÓzef was able to offer me his hand, dropping it again immediately with a mechanical movement, and murmuring something indistinctly. Horodelski, after giving his greeting, looked at the heel, still unfinished, and, setting the boot on the ground, exclaimed with a sigh: "Well, that's finished!"

This was his favourite expression.

"What's finished?" I asked, however.

"Everything," came the equally stereotyped answer.

"Except the heel," Pan JÓzef muttered, taking the last peg from his teeth.

"It's possible the heel may get done too—that is, of course, if I don't leave this cursed ruin and go back to the church clerk," Horodelski answered quickly.

"Are you uncomfortable here, or what's up?" chaffed Pan JÓzef. "The Lord be praised, it's a good workshop, there are enough tools—and rooms, too; if you like, you can dance a quadrille."

But Horodelski did not listen, and continued:

"Yes, it may very possibly be that I shall give up shoemaking, if only for as long as I stay with the clerk. I shall leave it just because this shoemaker has made it as clear as day to me that I am no good at my trade, and can only be assistant to a bungling clerk."

Pan JÓzef tittered, highly pleased, and was just preparing to answer suitably, when a grave bass voice interrupted him.

"You may go to the clerk or not, but you'll never be a shoemaker."

The bass voice came from a dark corner of the same room. I therefore looked more attentively in that direction.

On a low plank bed, with his head bent forward, and emptying his pipe, sat a stalwart peasant, known as Bartek the Shepherd.

"Why not?" I asked, greeting the speaker.

"Why not?" Bartek answered. "Because no one can escape his destiny. A dog can't become a bitch, nor a woman a man."

"That is quite a different matter."

"So you'd think; but it's really all the same. Take me, for example. No one could say of me that I'm work-shy, yet nothing I have to do with ever comes off. And why?—Why? Because I'm not at my own work. So though I work and don't drink, I'm wasting like sheep in rough weather. I'm already more like a dog at a fair than a man,—only there's no fair. I saw that from the moment I came here. For isn't it a queer thing that a land like this, with rivers like the sea, mountains as big as the Lysia GÓra at home, meadows with grass up to your middle, should have no sheep! Our shepherds are wise men; they can bewitch you and free you from spells, and have remedies for this and that; yet if you told them that in all this big country there are no sheep, they wouldn't believe you."

Bartek was a temporary inhabitant of this desert solitude. He was a very respectable man, but a kind of fatality hung over him; he was industrious and honest, yet he had never been able to find an occupation in which he could display his qualities and draw attention to himself. He had come here not long beforehand, attracted by the promises of some emigration agents. The promises had not been fulfilled, and Bartek, taking advantage in the meantime of this shelter, was only waiting for the frosts to abate a little before setting out on his return journey. He was a grave man—in fact, almost too serious. He did not care for idle talk, and rarely started a conversation; but when he did speak, it was always laconically and with decision, brooking no contradiction. As the representative of a class which for long ages had been fairly privileged, he was an ardent Conservative, and did not admit the desirability of social reform. "A dog is a dog, and a sheep is a sheep," was his maxim. He raised the authority of his moral leaders almost to a religious cult, and it was not always safe to express an opinion before him, which even remotely reflected on the authority he acknowledged.

"Who says so?" Bartek would ask threateningly on such occasions. And when he was not too much irritated, and able to control himself, he would shake his thick fist in the speaker's face, and solemnly announce:

"Only fools talk like that!"

In the other equally large room two more permanent inhabitants of this solitude were to be found: the locksmith, Porankiewicz, and the ex-landowner, once Pan Feliks Babinski.

If Horodelski was a man standing on the edge of a precipice, Porankiewicz had rolled to the very bottom long ago. When I went into the room, he was scraping together something near the little table which he called his bench. He was pale, thin, and very small, and appeared still smaller owing to his stoop; few quite old men would walk more bent.

"Do hold yourself straight just for once," I often used to say to him.

"Hah, hah, hah!" Porankiewicz would laugh good-naturedly; "only the ground, the ground, my dear sir, will straighten me. I have sat working from morning till night since I was ten years old, and even steel gets bent at last."

This man's life was a real Odyssey—only he, poor wretch! was no Odysseus. Ill-fortune had driven him through all parts of Siberia, and it was his lot to breathe his last in the worst of them.

Babinski was asleep when I went in, but our conversation woke him, and he got up. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had a strong physique, and his dark face with large projecting eyebrows and surrounded by a beard as black as coal, always had a stern expression. I never saw him moved to tears; when something touched him very deeply, he would only blink hard and stretch out his hand for the vodka. He was indefatigable and competent and knew how to work and had worked like an ox until two years previously, when he had begun to drink desperately. "He has either been 'overlooked' or he has a screw loose," Bartek used to say of him. So now he seemed to be lost irretrievably, although under favourable circumstances he might perhaps yet draw himself out of the abyss into which he had rolled; for he was a man of exceptionally strong character.

There are black cart-horses in Russia, called "bitiugs," which are bad-tempered, tall, and uncommonly strong. These animals walk with an even, measured step, and without the least effort. When you inquire what weight they are drawing, you will find that it is at least sixty poods, and they frequently draw a hundred.

Babinski was like a "bitiug"; he even walked with a "bitiug's" step. When he slouched along with his big strides, it was never possible to keep pace with him. He always did the shopping in the town—bread, meat, and vodka—for no one walked as quickly as he, and no one could stand frost, however severe, as he could.

He was a very hard man, and however much there might be weighing upon him, no one would have guessed it;—he was a real "bitiug." He also possessed a certain shrewdness, which often saved him from sinking altogether. It was he who had occupied this solitary house, and was the host de jure; but what was still more remarkable was that he had succeeded in finding a Yakut woman, as hideous as hell, who had consented to be cook in the colony, and was as honest as only savage people can be. Eudoxia was thus the sixth soul in this lonely place.

Not all the inhabitants agreed to the festive celebration of Christmas. Bartek, and, stranger still, Horodelski, were most strongly opposed to it. "No, never!" Horodelski persisted. "I will drink as much vodka as you like, and eat what you give me—but Christmas? No!" And he only gave way after Bartek's refractoriness also had been softened by unusual eloquence on Porankiewicz's part.

The usual order of these social gatherings was that first of all Babinski rushed off without delay for provisions, and quickly returned with flour, butter, "pepki,"[12] and a large bottle of wine. Having stilled our hunger a little, and refreshed ourselves by a good glass of wine, we went out into the front room in order not to hinder the preparations which Eudoxia was making under Porankiewicz's direction. He was immensely proud of the honour shown him, and threw his head back, as he always did when trying to hold himself straighter, assuming an air of extreme gravity. He was so deeply moved he was almost unable to speak, and instead of words gave indistinct grunts which, especially at first, nearly choked him. Ultimately the grunts ceased, and the sounds proceeding from the kitchen, of hissing butter, logs being split, and dough kneaded, told us that, having overcome his emotion, Porankiewicz was directing culinary affairs in his own way.

Things were now becoming noisier in the front room. Bartek and Horodelski, relaxing their restraint, were already growing boisterous. They began to recall and count up how many years it was since they had last kept Christmas Eve; and when Bartek remarked that it would be worth while "getting a little clean to sit down to such a great festivity," a public washing and changing began, as though everyone were preparing for a ball.

Pan JÓzef produced a very fetching collar, reaching halfway up his cheek, and ornamented his throat with a fascinating tie, made out of a checked handkerchief. Bartek pulled a small bag out of the cupboard, and, after rummaging in it for a long time, took out a threadbare piece of cheap ribbon, which he tried unsuccessfully to tie round his neck. His clumsy, unaccustomed hands quite refused to obey him, and the ribbon slipped through his fingers. But attracted by the sight of the shoemaker's tie, Bartek turned to him with the request: "Help me with this, will you?" The shoemaker set himself to the task, yet he either undertook it carelessly or murmured something about the shabbiness of the ribbon; for only when Bartek had said in a low voice, "But it comes from home," the shoemaker answered "A-ah!" in a different tone, and, leading Bartek to the light, arranged a tie for him with which "one might dare to go courting." Bartek walked about with this as if he had swallowed a poker. Then, when Babinski also pinned on a freshly starched collar, and Horodelski sported an antiquated jacket, on which he had been working for the last half-hour to get out the stains, the external appearance of our whole party harmonized with its inner sense of festivity.

Of the whole party, I repeat; for, when the door of the next room opened wide, Porankiewicz appeared dressed equally smartly in a long, threadbare coat, and although his collar was smaller, his tie was by no means inferior to the shoemaker's.

Porankiewicz cleared his throat once or twice—indeed, he cleared it a third time. Holding the door with one hand, and waving the other towards us, he said with a solemn bow:

"Dinner is ready!"

The sight which met us on entering was so unexpected that we stood thunderstruck.

By the inner wall of the room stood a fair-sized table, covered, as it should be, with a white cloth. The hay spread on the table[13] underneath the cloth was peeping through the holes. The table was lighted with two candles in very battered candlesticks. At one end stood a large dish heaped with temptingly smoking and savoury "oladis,"[14] at the other end a dish of pepki, prepared with vinegar and pepper. Round the dish lay bread, and a bottle of wine stood near it, surrounded by small drinking vessels of various kinds. But in the very centre of the table, on the only plate—once white, now yellow and chipped—lay the fragments of the wafer which had been sent to me from home.

No one had expected either the tablecloth, the hay, or the wafer; the impression produced by so many unexpected accessories was therefore very great.

Highly pleased with the effect, Porankiewicz now went to the table and carefully took up the plate with the wafer. Straightening himself until his back almost cracked, he cleared his throat, opened his mouth, and when everyone was on tiptoe of expectation, awaiting a speech, he said in a trembling voice:

"H'm-h'm! Gentlemen, the wafer comes straight from Warsaw!"

Chrysostom himself could not have spoken more powerfully.

We had been impatient to sit down to table beforehand, for the inviting smell of the oladis had begun to gain ascendancy over the solemnity of the moment. But these few words threw a dead silence round the room, and somehow we all involuntarily drew ourselves up into a row, and our five heads turned to the plate alone.

Porankiewicz straightened himself once more.

"H'm-h'm! Gentlemen, this is such a sacred——"

"Has it been blessed by the priest?" Bartek interrupted anxiously, full of joyful admiration.

"I should hope so! They would not otherwise have sent it," Porankiewicz answered, with deep conviction. "But," he continued, "h'm—I should like to say, as it is such a sacred thing, shall we not break it?"

"Let us break it! Of course we must break it!" came from five mouths as though from one.

Porankiewicz made a fresh effort to hold himself straighter.

"But since—that is—I should like to say—without offence to our dear Pan Babinski"—and he bowed to him respectfully—"we are all hosts of this palace, I therefore hope—that is, I think—it will be best if this gentleman, who is our guest, takes it round...."

As crimson and perspiring as after the hardest piece of work, he handed me the plate with a bow.

And now, when it was my own turn to speak, I understood the difficulty my predecessor had had in making his short speech. My hands trembled, and I could not utter a word. Babinski became as white as a sheet, and when I went up to him his stern face was as still as if it had been cut out of marble. Had it not been that his eyelids quivered, I might have thought that it was a corpse and not a living man before me. He was a long time in gathering the crumbs; they fell from his hands, and I doubt if he ate even one.

It was the same with all the rest.

Porankiewicz, being the softest-hearted, was the first to begin sobbing like a child; and although Bartek, who was standing beside him, kept nudging and touchingly entreating him to "be quiet, or he himself would bleat like a sheep," it was of no avail. By the time I came to Bartek, his strength was failing; he bent his grey head low, and, stretching out his hand for the wafer, he slowly began aloud: "In the Name of the Father ... and of the Son ... and of the Holy Ghost.... And of the Holy Ghost," he repeated lower, and burst out crying in a loud voice.

Tears brought relief to us all—to all but Babinski, who, instead of weeping with us, stood as though petrified, merely blinking his eyes. We could see that he was touched to the quick. For, standing near the table, he stretched out both hands among the cups and glasses standing round the wine-bottle, and clinked a glass loudly. His eyelids quivered and his hands trembled as in fever, refusing to obey him; and when Porankiewicz, who was calm again, ran up to him, he only whispered in a weak voice:

"Pour it out, brother."

Porankiewicz began to pour, and every hand was stretched out towards the table.

It was, of course, impossible for all to pour at once. But as we all found we needed something to drink, we reproached one another for not having thought of filling the glasses earlier. This, however, Bartek cut short by sagely observing that "nobody here was the Holy Ghost, and could know that so much sorrow would fall upon all of us." When at last all the cups and glasses had been filled, we emptied them in silence, fearing a fresh outburst of emotion, and proceeded in turn to the peppered and salted pepki course. This is food of the kind which cannot be eaten without being suitably moistened. So when Porankiewicz repeatedly took up the bottle, all hands were again stretched towards him. And then we noticed that Babinski's hand was not among the rest.

Babinski stood in the same attitude as before, with his empty glass, silent, immovable, and pale. Bartek, who had experience of sick people, was the first to perceive his danger, and, going up to him at once, examined him anxiously.

"It's clear it has got hold of him all at once," was his final verdict. "If it has no outlet, it may strangle him, just as a savage wolf kills a lamb. There's only one way to prevent it: if sorrow doesn't come out with tears through the eyes, you must let it flow down gently inside, and as it slowly runs off, the pressure leaves the heart. He ought to have drunk out three glasses at once. But it's not so bad yet; he's a strong man; he'll come to himself after a bit."

And, choosing the grandest cup, Bartek ordered: "Fill it, Porankiewicz!"

Porankiewicz filled it, and Babinski drained it mechanically; again he filled it, and again Babinski drained it. But the pain having evidently not abated, Bartek began to examine him afresh.

"Haven't you got some spirits somewhere, by chance?"

Babinski nodded in assent; and when the vodka had been brought, Bartek chose an ordinary glass from among the other drinking vessels, filled it well to the half, and offered it to Babinski.

The remedy worked wonders. Babinski sipped it, but when he had drained the glass the pallor left his face, and he sat down to the table and asked for something to eat. He was offered some pepki, and when we had all had visible proof that it was disappearing with due rapidity, a heavy weight fell from our minds. Bartek was now no less proud of his remedy than Porankiewicz of his Christmas Eve dinner, and each began to call the other to testify to his excellence. So when Babinski had consumed two pounds of pepki, and stopped eating, the first critical episode of the evening was safely over.

There was now a buzzing in the solitude, as of a swarm of bees; everyone talked, and, although it appeared to each that he spoke in his natural voice, there was enough noise for twelve.

We were all filled with the happiness for which we had yearned, and our hearts were so softened that recent troubles, long-forgotten pain, and wounds which each had concealed from the world more closely than even a miser conceals his chest filled with ducats were opened to receive the balm of comfort. Phantoms of manifold suffering passed before us in a long unending chain, showing us all forms of human misery, as though through a kaleidoscope.

Having now experienced the relief we longed for, and seeing the faces round us wet with tears of sympathy, we each spontaneously acknowledged our failings and sins, making our confession in public, as it were, and expressing sincere penitence for our misdeeds.

Bartek beat his breast, accusing himself of very great weakness; Porankiewicz sobbed, piteously begging to be pardoned for his bad habit on account of the difficulties he had gone through, which had been beyond his strength; the others also accused themselves.

Only after each had shown penitence and regret, and full pardon for the failings by which every one had been overcome on his thorny road had restored our lost dignity, the yellow, wrinkled faces brightened with sincere and childlike joy, and we dared to look up. Now we were all on an equality. The second episode, no less critical than the first, had passed safely.

It gave way to the third episode.

The harmony reigning amongst us, the happy feeling of mutual love, brotherhood, and sympathy, began to thrill us with delight, and foretold the longed-for moment.

Like birds flying to the fire on a dark night, the people inexperienced in the life here fling themselves upon that deadly hashish. But the experienced flee from the cup of sweetness which had so often ensnared and deluded us by its bewitching draught. They fly from it as from the phantom of death. That cup now stood unveiled before us. One after the other the coverings hiding the tempting poison had fallen away; there was nothing left but to approach and drink—to drink till strength was utterly exhausted.

The first to recall the delightful recollections of home was old Bartek, who unrolled on a golden background pictures of his native Sandomierz fields, pictures full of strength, simplicity, and charm. With dishevelled hair, with face aflame, and the inspired look of an old Biblical prophet, he showed us the most beautiful plains, meadows, and forests, of his native soil. He led us to hamlets with rustic thatched roofs; he grieved over the misery sheltering beneath them; he led us to the churches where the Name of God is hallowed.

And the longed-for miracle took place; the goal of hidden desires, dreamt of when watching through sleepless nights, was realized. Our distant country, our native air, the golden sun, were with us here in this dark room in the solitude. We saw that country, felt and touched it; we were here, yet living there; far away from it, we decked it with verdure, we adorned it with flowers, we decorated it with the most beautiful of decorations, with our hearts beating alone for our country—our bride to whom we would be faithful while strength lasted.

Is this no exertion? Indeed, may God preserve everyone from such an exertion! Strong men have tried to lift that stone of Sisyphus, and to-day their bones whiten the cemeteries. A few drunkards, tramping from tavern to tavern, a throng of madmen, breathing their last in hospitals, are testimonies to the fact that this stone shall not be lifted; for the higher a man is fool enough to lift it, with the greater force will it crush his frenzied head.

A frenzy had seized us all, and with bloodshot eyes, distended nostrils, and hearts ready to burst from our anguished breasts, we undertook this superhuman task.

Then woe to the bold man who would have dared to handle our illusions rudely! Woe to the unhappy one whose strength gave out too soon! Ere he could recollect himself, a knife, brandished by an otherwise friendly hand, would have flashed before his eyes. The unhappy man would have perished as the weaker wild animals perish without mercy among an enraged herd.

A choir composed of six voices resounded with a deep echo round the large rooms of the solitary house. Sad and joyful songs alternated naturally in the same unchangeable order in which everything is carried out in this world. A native of the Cracow district, Bartek with his Cracowiaks[15] was a host in himself. "We're not such bad fellows"[16] alone would have satisfied the most ardent vocal enthusiast, we sang it so many times. For it was not five or ten, but rather twenty years or even more, since many of us had heard that little song. So, although Bartek was already hoarse, to everyone's delight he sang it again for the fifth time, repeating the second verse, which is the more beautiful, six or seven times. Each word of that song, so charmingly and poetically naÏve, called forth indescribable enthusiasm.

"Ay, ay, what a song! That is a song!" the brief applause burst out; and although Bartek sang on without interruption, glancing round triumphantly, he found time to answer each exclamation briefly but distinctly:

"That's a Cracowian song!"

Babinski followed the melody of each ballad or song, and rattled it out like a barrel organ, merely repeating two very discordant syllables innumerable times: "Dyna, dyna, dyna, dyna." He sang with the greatest enthusiasm, however; strong as he always was and burning with inward fire, he was terrible now with his wordless songs, into which he put all the sufferings and sorrows he had never expressed in words.

At last we had exhausted all the songs we knew, and sung them to the end; no one could recall any more. But since the frenzy which had seized us had now reached its height, it was necessary to find some new song giving ample outlet by its words and motifs to the emotions already aroused, and answering to our present state of feeling.

Among the songs of our nation which give an outlet to its longings, the greatest are the religious songs; for whether sad or joyous, mournful or festive, they are always noble in their deep and calm feeling. The people who can hear and find nothing in these songs are poor indeed. The Lenten, Easter, and Christmas songs are the greatest artistic inheritance handed down to us from the past. It is the one sphere of artistic creativeness not produced by separate epochs and classes, but to which the whole nation has contributed throughout the centuries of its existence, giving to it all its earthly joys and griefs—all its soul.

And therefore we possess a treasury of melodies which are as deep as the soul of the nation—indifferent to superficial or cheap sentiment—and as great as existence itself, obscured by the veil of ages.

Cast into this depth any amount of the blackest sorrow or the most exuberant joy, its surface will never even be ruffled. It replies to the greatest cataclysms with a ripple, and its smooth current scarcely even suggests any troubling of its waters.

From this treasury, as yet insufficiently prized, the great artists of the future will draw inspiration, as those in real suffering do to-day.

Who does not know the favourite carol, "Star of the Sea"? Yet it is probably sung in few churches as we sang it there. Both words and melody corresponded to our feelings. The simple words of the song might have been written for us; its solemn, grand melody soothed our hearts, which were suffering so terribly from self-inflicted wounds. Bartek was the first to fall on his knees. The rest of us followed his example, and earnest, ardent prayers flowed from our lips. But when we came to the words, "Turn from us hunger and grievous plague, protect us from bloodshed and war," we prayed with so much fervour that hearing we did not hear, and seeing we did not see Bartek rise weeping. "Oh, the merciful Father won't hear such a great prayer from this den of infection! We must pray to the God of the heavens in the open!" he cried, and went out of the room dressed as he was.

But our strength was now nearly exhausted. Even Babinski stopped singing now and then, showing only by his open mouth and hand beating time that he was still singing on in his heart. Suddenly, electrifying us afresh, a strong voice sounded outside the door: "God is born, power trembles"; and Bartek, led in by Eudoxia from the "open," in which he would infallibly have been frozen, started the carol in his bass voice.

Another spring, not struck as yet, gushed out before us. Was it possible we could have forgotten this? So, although our lips could scarcely move, we drank eagerly from this fresh source, and our choir sang a fresh song in unison with strength refreshed. The joyful song of the Birth of our Lord bore us far away again from the Yakut country, and kindled our hearts with new fire, the fire of truth, confidence, and hope.

We prayed long and fervently. Even Eudoxia, attracted by our praying, came in carrying a holy eikon, and bowing before it, repeated imploringly:

"Tangara! Aj, Tangara! Aj, Tangara, urÙj!"[17]