It was towards the close of a September day. Old Gregor and his grandson Sasha were returning home through the forest with their bundles of wood, the old man stooping low under the weight of the heavier sticks he carried, while the boy dragged his great bunch of twigs and splints by a rope drawn over his shoulder. Where the trees grew thick, the air was already quite gloomy, but in the open spaces they could see the sky and tell how near it was to sunset.

Both were silent, for they were tired, and it is not easy to talk and carry a heavy load at the same time. But presently something gray appeared through the trees, at the foot of a low hill; it was the rock where they always rested on the way home. Old Gregor laid down his bundle there, and wiped his face on the sleeve of his brown jacket, but Sasha sprang upon the rock and began to balance himself upon one foot, as was his habit whenever he tried to think about anything.

“Grandfather,” he said, at last, “why should all the forest belong to the Baron, and none of it to you?”

Gregor looked at him sharply for a moment before he answered.

“It was his father’s and his grandfather’s; it has been the property of the family for many a hundred years, and we have never had any.”

“I know that,” said Sasha. “But why did it come so first?”

Gregor shook his head. “You might as well ask how the world was made.” Then, seeing that the boy looked troubled, he added in a kinder tone, “What put such a thought in your head?”

“Why, the forest itself!” Sasha cried. “The Baron lets us have the top branches and little twigs, but he always takes the logs and sells them for money. I know all the trees, and he doesn’t; I can find my way in the woods anywhere, and there’s many a tree that would say to me, if it could talk, ‘I’d rather belong to you, Sasha, because I know you.’”

“Aye, and the moon would say the same to you, boy, and the sun and stars, maybe. You might as well want to own them,—and you don’t even belong to yourself.”

Gregor’s words seemed harsh and fierce, but his voice was very sad. Sasha looked at him and knew not what to say, but he felt that his heart was beating violently. All at once he heard a rustling among the dead leaves, and a sound like steps approaching. The old man took hold of his grandson’s arm and made a sign to him to be silent. The sound came nearer, and nearer, and presently they could distinguish some dusky object moving towards them through the trees.

“Is it a robber?” whispered Sasha.

“It is not a man unless he uses his knees for hind feet. I see his head; it is a bear. Keep quiet, boy! make no noise; take this tough stick, but hold it at your side, as I do with mine. Look him in the face, if he comes close; and if I tell you to strike, hit him on the end of the nose!”

It was, indeed a full-grown bear, marching slowly on his great flat feet. He was not more than thirty yards distant, when he saw them, and stopped. Both kept their eyes fixed upon his head, but did not move. Then he came a few paces nearer, and Sasha tried hard not to show that he was trembling inwardly, more from excitement than fear. The bear gazed steadily at them for what seemed a long time: there was an expression of anger, but also of stupid bewilderment, in his eyes. Finally he gave a sniff and a grunt, tossed up his nose, and slowly walked on, stopping once or twice to turn and look back, before he disappeared from view. Sasha lifted his stick and shook it towards him; he felt that he should never again be much afraid of bears.

“Now, boy,” said Gregor, “you have learned how to face danger. I have been as near to a loaded cannon as to that bear, and the wind of the ball threw me on my face; but I was up the next minute, and then the gunner went down! Our colonel saw it, and I remember what he said—ay, every word! He would have kept his promise, but we carried him from the field the next day, and that was the end of the matter. It was in France.”

“Grandfather,” Sasha suddenly asked, “are there forests in France?—and do they belong to the barons?”

“Pick up your fagot, boy, and come along! It will be dark before we get to the village and the potatoes are cooked by this time.”

The mention of the potatoes revived all Sasha’s forgotten hunger, and he obeyed in silence. After walking for a mile as rapidly as their loads would permit, they issued from the forest, and saw the wooden houses of the village on a green knoll, in the last gleams of sunset. The church, with its three little copper-covered domes, stood on the highest point; next to it the priest’s house and garden; then began the broad street, lined with square log-cabins and adjoining stables, sloping down to a large pond, at the foot of which was a mill. Beyond the water there was a great stretch of grazing meadow, then long, rolling fields of rye and barley, extending to the woods which bounded the view in every direction. The village was situated within a few miles of the great main highway running from Warsaw to Moscow, and the waters of the pond fed the stream which flowed into one of the branches of the river Dnieper.

The whole region including the village and nearly all the people in it, belonged to the estate of Baron Popoff, the roofs of whose residence were just visible to the southward, on a hill overlooking the road to Moscow. The former castle had been entirely destroyed during the retreat of Napoleon’s army, and the Baron’s grandfather suffered so many losses at the time that he was only able to build a large and very plain modern house; but the people always called it “the Castle,” or “the Palace,” just as before. Although the Baron sold every year great quantities of timber, grain, hemp, and wool from his estates, he always seemed to be in want of money. The servants who went with him every winter to St. Petersburg were very discreet, and said little about their master’s habits of life; but the people understood, somehow, that he often lost large sums by gambling. This gave them a good deal of uneasiness, for if he should be obliged to part with the estate, they would all be transferred with it to a new owner—and this might be one who had other estates in other parts of Russia, to which he could send them if he were so minded.

At the time of which I am writing, twenty-two millions of the Russian people were serfs. Their labor, even their property, belonged to the owner of the land upon which they lived. The latter had not the power to sell them to another, as was formerly the case with slaves in the South, but he could remove them from one estate to another if he had several. Baron Popoff was a haughty and indifferent master, but not a cruel one; the people of the village had belonged to his family for several generations, and were accustomed to their condition. At least, they saw no way of changing it, except by a change of masters, which was more likely to be a misfortune than a benefit.

It was nearly dark when old Gregor and Sasha threw down their loads, and entered the house. Their supper was already waiting, for Sasha’s sister, little Minka, had been up to the church door to see whether they were coming. In one corner of the room a tiny lamp was burning before a picture of the Virgin Mary and Child Jesus, all covered with gilded brass except the hands and faces, which were nearly black, partly from the smoke, and partly because the common Russian people imagine that the Hebrews were a very dark-skinned race. Sasha’s father, Ivan, had also lighted a long pine-splint, and the room looked very cheerful. The boiled potatoes were smoking in a great wooden bowl, beside which stood a dish of salt, another of melted fat, and a loaf of black bread. They had neither plates, knives nor forks; only some coarse wooden spoons, and all ate out of the bowl, after the salt had been sprinkled and the fat poured over the potatoes. For drink there was an earthen pitcher of quass, a kind of thin and rather sour beer.

Old Gregor sat on one side of the table, and his son Ivan with Anna, his wife, opposite. There were five children, the oldest being Alexander (whom we know by his nickname “Sasha,” which is the Russian for “Aleck” or “Sandy”), then Minka, Peter, Waska, and Sergius. Sasha was about thirteen years old, rather small for his age, and hardly to be called a handsome boy. Only there was something very pleasant in his large gray eyes, and his long, thick, flaxen hair shone almost like silver when the sun fell upon it. However, he never thought about his looks. When he went to the village bath-house, on a Saturday evening, to take his steam-bath with the rest, the men would sometimes say, after examining his joints and muscles, “You are going to be strong, Sasha!”—and that was as much as he cared to know about himself.

The boy was burning with desire to tell the adventure with the bear, but he did not like to speak before his grandfather, and there was something in the latter’s eye which made him feel that he was watching him. Gregor first lighted his pipe, and then, in the coolest possible manner—as if it were something that happened every day—related the story. “Pity I hadn’t your gun with me, Ivan,” he said at the close; “what with the meat, the fat and the skin, we should have had thirty roubles.”

The children were quite noisy with excitement. Little Peter said: “What for did you let him go, Sasha? I’d have killed him and carried him home!” Then all laughed so heartily that Peter began to cry and was soon packed into a box in the corner, where he slept with Waska and Sergius.

“Take the gun with you to-morrow, father,” said Ivan.

“It’s too much, with my load of wood,” Gregor answered; “the old hunting-knife is all I want. Sasha will stand by me with a club; he’ll not be afraid, the next time.”

Sasha was about to exclaim: “I wasn’t afraid the first time!” but before he spoke, it flashed across his mind that he did tremble a little—just a very little.

By this time it was dark outside. Two pine-splints had burned out, one after the other, and only the little lamp before the shrine enabled them dimly to see each other. The older people went to bed in their narrow rooms, which were hardly better than closets; and Sasha, spreading a coarse sack of straw on the floor, lay down, covered himself with his sheep-skin coat, and in five minutes was so sound asleep that he might have been dragged about by the heels without being awakened.

The next day, in the forest, old Gregor worked more rapidly than usual. He spoke very little, in spite of Sasha’s eagerness to talk, and kept the boy so busy that all the wood was gathered together and the bundles made up two or three hours before the usual time.

They were in a partially cleared spot, near the top of some rising ground. The old man looked at the sky, nodded his head, and said with a satisfied air: “We have plenty of time left for ourselves, Sasha; come with me, and I’ll show you something.”

He set out in a direction opposite from home, and the boy, who expected nothing less than the finding of another bear, seized a tough, straight club, and followed him. They went for nearly a mile over rolling ground, through the forest, and then descended into a narrow glen, at the foot of which ran a rapid stream. Very soon, rocks began to appear on either side, and the glen became a chasm where there was barely room to walk. It was a cold, gloomy, strange place; Sasha had never seen anything like it. He felt a singular creeping of the flesh, but not for the world would he have turned back.

The path ceased, and there was a waterfall in front, filling up the whole chasm. Gregor pulled off his boots and stepped into the stream, which reached nearly to his knees: he gave his hand to Sasha, who could hardly have walked alone against the force of the current. They reached the foot of the fall, the spray of which was whirled into their faces. Then Gregor turned suddenly to the left, passed through the thin edge of the falling water, and Sasha, pulled after him, found himself in a low, arched vault of rock, into which the light shone down from another opening. They crawled upwards on hands and feet, and came out into a great, circular hole, like a kettle, through the middle of which ran the stream. There was no other way of getting into it, for the rocks leaned inward as they rose, making the bottom considerably broader than the top.

On one side, under the middle of the rocky arch, stood a square black stone, about five feet high, with a circle of seven smaller stones resembling seats around it. Sasha was dumb with surprise at finding himself in such a wonderful spot.

But old Gregor made the sign of the cross, and muttered something which seemed to be a prayer. Then he went to the black stone, and put his hand upon it.

“Sasha,” he said, “this is one of the places where the old Russian people came, many thousand years ago, before ever the name of Christ was heard of. They were dreadful heathen in those days, and this was what they had in place of a church. A black stone had to be the altar, because they had a black god, who was never satisfied unless they fed him with human blood.”

“Where is he now?” Sasha asked.

“They say he turned into an evil spirit, and is hiding somewhere in the wilderness; but I don’t know whether it’s true. His name was Perun. Most men do not dare to say it, but I have the courage, because I’ve been a soldier and have an honest conscience. Are you afraid to stand here?”

“Not if you are not, grandfather,” said Sasha.

“If your heart were bad and false, you might well be afraid. Come here to me.”

Sasha obeyed. The old man opened the boy’s coarse shirt and laid his hand upon his heart; then he made him do the same to himself, so that the heart of each beat directly against the hand of the other.

“Now, boy,” he then said, “I am going to trust you, and if you say a word you do not mean, or think otherwise than you speak, I shall feel it in the motion of your heart. Do you know the difference between a serf and a free man? Would you rather live like your father, without anything he can call his own, or like the Baron, with houses and forests that nobody could take away from you—unless it might be the Emperor?”

Sasha’s heart gave a great thump, before he opened his mouth. The old man smiled, and he said to himself: “I was right.” Then he continued: “I should be a free man now, if our colonel had lived. Your father had not wit and courage enough to try, but you can do it, Sasha, if you think of nothing else and work for nothing else. I will help you all I can; but you must begin at once. Will you?”

“Yes! yes!” cried Sasha, eagerly.

“Promise me that you will say nothing to any living soul; that you will obey me and remember all I say to you while I live, and be none the less faithful to the purpose when I am dead!”

Sasha promised everything, at once. After a moment’s silence, Gregor took his hand from the boy’s breast, and said: “Yes, you truly mean it. The old people used to say that if anybody broke a promise made before this stone, the black heathen god would have power over him.”

“Perhaps the bear was the black god,” Sasha suggested.

“Perhaps he was. Look him in the face, as you did yesterday, remember your promise, and he can’t harm you.”

As they walked slowly back through the forest, Gregor began to talk, and the boy kept close beside him, listening eagerly to every word.

“The first thing,” he said, “is to get knowledge. You must learn, somehow, to read and write, and count figures. I must tell you all I know, about everything in the world, but that’s very little; and it’s so mixed up in my head, that I don’t rightly know where to begin. It’s a blessing that I’ve not forgotten much; what I picked up I held on to, and now I see the reason why. There’s nothing you can’t use, if you wait long enough.”

“Tell me about France!” Sasha cried.

“France and Germany, too! I was two or three years, off and on, in those foreign parts, and I could talk smartly in the speech of both—Allez! Sortez! Donnez-moi du vin!”

Gregor stopped and straightened his bent back, his eyes flashed, and he laughed long and heartily.

“Allez! Sortez! Donnez-moi du vin!” repeated Sasha.

Gregor caught up the boy in his arms, and kissed him. “The very thing!” he cried: “I’ll teach you both tongues,—and all about the strange habits of the people, and their houses and churches, and which way the battle went, and what queer harness they have on their horses, and a talking bird I once saw, and a man that kept a bottle full of lightning in his room——.”

So his tongue ran on. It was a great delight to him to recall his memories of more than thirty years and he was constantly surprised to find how many little things that seemed forgotten came back to his mind. Sasha’s breath came quick, as he listened; his whole body felt warm and nimble, and it suddenly seemed to him possible to learn anything and everything. Before reaching home, he had fixed twenty or thirty French words in his memory. There they were, hard and tight; he knew he should never forget them.

From that day began a new life for both. Old Gregor’s method of instruction would simply have confused a pupil less ignorant and less eager to be taught; but Sasha was so sure that knowledge would in some way help him to become a free man that he seized upon everything he heard. In a few months he knew as much German and French as his grandfather, and when they were alone they always spoke, as much as possible, in one or the other language. But the boy’s greatest desire was to learn how to read. During the following winter he made himself useful to the priest in various ways, and finally succeeded in getting from him the letters of the alphabet and learning how to put them together. Of course, he could not keep secret all that he did; it was enough that no one guessed his object in doing it.

One day, in the spring, just after the Baron had returned with his wife from St. Petersburg, Sasha was sent on an errand to the castle. He was bareheaded and barefooted; his shirt and wide trousers were very coarse, but clean, and his hair floated over his shoulders like a mass of shining silk. When he reached the castle, the Baron and Baroness, with a strange lady, were sitting on the balcony. The latter said, in French, “There’s a nice-looking boy!”

Sasha was so glad to find that he understood, and so delighted with the remark, that he looked up suddenly and blushed.

“I really believe he understands what I said,” the lady exclaimed.

The Baron laughed. “Do you suppose my young serfs are educated like princes?” he asked. “If he were so intelligent as that, how long could I keep him?”

Sasha bent down his head, and kicked the loose pebbles with his feet, to hide his excitement. The blood was humming in his ears; the Baron had said the same thing as his grandfather—to get knowledge was the only way to get freedom!

The summer passed away, and the second autumn came. Gregor had told all he knew; told it twice, three times; and Sasha, more eager than ever, began to grow impatient for something more. He had secured a little reading-book, such as is used for children, and studied it until he knew the exact place of every letter in it, but there was none to give the poor boy another volume, or to teach him anything further.

One afternoon, as he was returning alone from a neighboring village by a country road which branched off from the main highway, he saw three men sitting on the bank, under the edge of a thicket. They were strangers, and they seemed to him to be foreigners. Two were of middle age, with harsh, evil faces; the third was young, and had an anxious, frightened look. They were talking earnestly, but before he could distinguish the words, one of them saw him, made a sign to the others, and then he was very sure that they suddenly changed their language; for it was German he now heard.

He felt proud of his own knowledge, and his first thought was to say “Good-day!” in German. Then he remembered his grandfather’s command, “Never show your knowledge until there’s good reason for it!” and gave his greeting in Russian. The young man nodded in return; the others took no notice of him. But in passing he understood these sentences:

“He will bring a great deal of money.... There’s no danger—he will be alone.... Grain and hemp both sold to-day.... It will be already dark.”

Just beyond the thicket the road made a sharp turn and entered the woods. Sasha never afterwards could explain the impulse which led him to dart under the trees as soon as he was out of sight, to get in the rear of the thicket, crawl silently nearer on his hands and knees, and then lie down flat within hearing of the men’s voices. For a moment, he was overcome with a horrible fear. They were silent, and his heart beat so loudly that he thought they could no more help noticing it than a blacksmith’s hammer.

Presently one of them spoke,—this time in Russian. “There’s a hill from which you can see both roads,” he said; “but he’ll hardly take the highway.”

“Are you sure his groom was not in the town?” asked another.

“It’s all as I say—rely upon that!” was the answer. “For all his title he’s no more than another man, and we are three!”

In talking further, they mentioned the name of the town; it was the place only a few miles distant, where the grain, hemp, and other products of the estate were sold to traders—and this was the day of the sale! The plot of the robbers flashed into Sasha’s mind; and if he had had any remaining doubts they were soon dissipated by his hearing the Baron’s name. The latter was to be waylaid—plundered—killed, if he resisted. Then the oldest of the three men said, as he got up from the bank where they were sitting:

“We must be on our way. Better be too early than too late.”

“But it’s a terrible thing,” the youngest remarked.

“You can’t turn back now!” the other cried.

Sasha waited until he could no longer hear their footsteps. Then he started up, and keeping away from the road they had taken, ran through the woods and thicket in the direction of the town. His only thought was to reach the hill the robbers had mentioned, from which both roads could be seen. He knew it well; there was a bridle-path, shorter than the main highway, and the Baron would probably take it, as he was on horseback. The hill divided the two roads; it was covered with young birch trees, which grew very thickly on the summit and almost choked up the path. But there was a long spur of thicket, he remembered, running out on the ridge, and whoever stood at the end of it could almost look into the town.

Sasha was so excited that he took a track almost as short as a bird flies. He tore through bushes and brambles without thinking of the scratches they gave him; he jumped across gullies and ran at full speed over open fields; he was faint, and bruised, and breathless, but he never paused until the farthest point of the thicket on the hill was reached. It was then about an hour before sunset, and only one or two foot-travellers were to be seen upon the highway. The town was half a mile off, but he could plainly see where the bridle-path issued from a little lane between the houses. Carefully concealing himself under a thick alder-bush, he kept his eyes fixed upon that point.

He was obliged to wait for what seemed a long, long while. The sun was just setting when, finally, a horseman made his appearance, and Sasha knew by the large white horse that it must be the Baron. The rider looked at his watch, and then began to canter along the level towards the hill. There was no time to lose; so, without pausing a moment to think, Sasha sprang out of his hiding-place, and darted down the grassy slope at full speed, crying “Lord Baron! Lord Baron!”

The rider, at first, did not seem to heed. He cantered on, and it required all Sasha’s remaining strength to reach the path in advance of him. Then he dropped upon his knees, lifted up his hands, and cried once more, “Stop, Lord Baron!”

The Baron reined up his horse just in time to avoid trampling on the boy. Sasha sprang to his feet, seized the bridle, and gasped, “The robbers!”

“Who are you?—and what does this mean?” the Baron asked in a stern voice.

But Sasha was too much in earnest to feel afraid of the great lord. “I am Sasha, the son of Ivan, the son of Gregor,” he said; and then related, as rapidly as he could, all that he had seen and heard.

The Baron looked at his pistols. “Ha!” he cried, “the caps are taken off! You may have done me good service, boy. Wait here; it’s not enough to escape the rascals; we must capture them!”

He turned his horse, and galloped back at full speed towards the town. Sasha watched him, thinking only that he was saved at last. It was growing dark, when the boy’s quick ear caught the sound of steps in the opposite direction. He turned and saw the three men approaching rapidly. With a deadly sense of terror he started and ran towards the town.

“Kill the little spy!” shouted, behind him, a voice which he well knew.

Sasha cried aloud for help as he ran; but no help came. He was already weak and exhausted from the exertion he had made, and he heard the robbers coming nearer and nearer. All at once it seemed to him that his cries were answered; but at the same moment a heavy blow came down upon his head and shoulder. He fell to the ground and knew no more.

When Sasha came to his senses, it seemed to him that he must have been dead for a long time. First of all, he had to think who he was; and this was not so easy as you may suppose, for he found himself lying in a bed, in a room he had never seen before. It was broad daylight, and the sun shone upon one of his hands, which was so white and thin that it did not seem to belong to him. Then he lifted it, and was amazed to find how little strength there was in his arm. But he brought it to his head at last,—and there was another surprise. All his long, silken hair was gone! He was so weak and bewildered that he groaned aloud, and the tears ran down his cheeks.

There was a noise in the room, and presently old Gregor bent over the bed.

“Grandad,” said the boy—and how feeble his voice sounded!—“am I your Sasha still?”

The old man, crying for joy, dropped on his knees and said a prayer. “Now you will get well!” he cried; “but you mustn’t talk; the doctor said you were not to talk!”

“Where am I?” Sasha asked.

“At the palace! And the Baron’s own doctor comes every day to see you; and they let me stay here to nurse you—it will be a week to-morrow!”

“What’s the matter?”—“what has happened?”

“Don’t talk, for the love of Heaven,” said Gregor; “you saved the Baron from being robbed and killed; and the head robber struck your head and broke your arm; and the Baron and the people came just at the right time; and one of them was shot, and the other two are in jail. O my boy, remember the altar of the black god, Perun; be obedient to me; shut your eyes and keep quiet!”

But Sasha could not shut his eyes. Little by little his memory came back, and a sense of what he had done filled his mind and made him happy. He felt a dull ache in his left arm, and found that it was so tightly bandaged he could not move it; so he lay quite still, while Gregor sat and watched him with sparkling eyes. After a time the door opened, and a strange gentleman came in; it was the physician. The old man rose and conversed with him in whispers. Then Sasha found that a spoon was held to his lips; he mechanically swallowed something that had a strange, pleasant taste, and almost immediately fell asleep.

In a day or two he was strong enough to sit up in bed, and was allowed to talk. Then the Baron and Baroness came, with the lady who was their guest, to see him. They were all eager to learn the particulars of the occurrence, especially how Sasha had discovered the plot of the robbers. He began at the beginning, and had got as far as the latter’s change of language on seeing him, when he stopped in great confusion and looked at his grandfather.

Gregor neither spoke nor moved, but his eyes seemed to say plainly, “Tell everything.”

Sasha then related the whole story to the end. The Baroness came to the bedside, stooped down, kissed him, and said, “You have saved your lord!”

But the other lady, who had been watching him very curiously, suddenly exclaimed: “Why, it’s the same nice-looking little serf I saw before; and when I spoke of him in French he blushed. I’m sure he understood me! Don’t you understand me now, my boy?”

She asked the question in French, and Sasha answered in the same language, “Yes, madam.”

The lady clapped her hands in delight; but the Baron asked very sternly, “Where did you learn so many languages?”

“From me!” Gregor answered. “The boy likes to know things, and I’ve always thought—saving your opinion, my good lord—that when God gives any one a strong wish for knowledge He means it to be answered. So I opened to him all there is in this foolish old head of mine, while we were together in the forest; and it was such a pleasure for him to take that it came to be a pleasure for me to give. You understand, my lady?”

“Yes,” said the Baroness, “I understand that without Sasha’s knowledge of German, my husband would probably have been murdered.”

“That’s not so certain,” the Baron replied. “But some celebrated man has said ‘All’s well that ends well,’ The fellow did his duty like a full-grown man, and I’ll take care of him.”

Therewith they went out of the room, and Sasha immediately asked, in some anxiety, “Grandfather, you meant I should tell?”

“Yes,” Gregor answered; “for the youngest robber has already confessed that they spoke in German, and thought themselves safe, while you were passing. They are vagabonds from the borders of Poland, and knew a little of three or four tongues. It is all right, my boy; the Baron is satisfied, and means to help you. Your chance has come sooner than I expected. I must have a little time to think about it; my head is like a stiff joint, hard to bend when I want to use it. It’s good luck to me that you can’t get out of bed for a week to come!”

He laughed as he left the bedside, and took his seat on the broad stone bench beside the stove. Sasha kept silent, for he knew that the old man’s brain was hard at work. He tried to do a little thinking himself, but it made him feel weak and giddy; in fact, the blow upon his head would have killed a more delicate boy.

His strength came back so rapidly, however, that in a week he was able to walk out, with his arm in a sling. He was still pale, and looked so strange in his short hair that on his first visit home his mother burst into tears on seeing him. Then Minka, Peter, Sergius, and Waska lifted up their voices and cried; and Ivan, who was at first angry with them, finally cried also, without knowing why he did it. All this made Sasha feel very uncomfortable, and he was on the point of saying “I won’t do it again!” when old Gregor made silence in the house. He had looked through the window and seen some of the neighbors coming; so the whole family became cheerful again as rapidly as they could.

By this time, Gregor had made up his mind. Sasha knew that he could not change it if he would, and he was therefore very glad to find how well his grandfather’s notions agreed with his own. While he was waiting for the Baron to speak again, he was not losing time; for the strange lady who was visiting at the castle took quite a friendly interest in teaching him French and German, and giving him Russian books which were not too difficult to read. He was so eager to satisfy her, that he really made astonishing progress.

When the robbers were tried before the judge, he was called upon to give testimony against them. One of the three having been killed, the youngest one was not afraid to confess, and his story and Sasha’s agreed perfectly. The boy described the unwillingness of the former to undertake the crime; even the Baron said a word in his favor; and the judge, at last, sentenced him to be banished to Siberia for only ten years, while the older robber was sent there for life.

That evening, the Baron asked Sasha, “Would you like to be one of my house-servants, boy?”

Just as his grandfather had advised him, Sasha answered: “It is not for me to choose my lord; but I think I can serve you much more to your profit if you will let me try to become a merchant.”

“A merchant!” the Baron exclaimed.

“Not all at once,” said Sasha; “I could be of use now, as a boy to help carry and sell things, because I can count and speak a little in other tongues. I should make myself so useful to some merchant that he would give me a chance to learn the whole business in time. Then I should earn money, and could pay you for the privilege.”

The Baron had often envied noblemen of his acquaintance, some of whose serfs were rich manufacturers or merchants, and paid them large annual sums for the privilege of living for themselves. Here seemed to be a chance for him to gain something in the same way. The boy spoke so confidently, and looked in his face with such straightforward eyes, that he felt obliged to consider the proposition seriously.

“How will you get to St. Petersburg?” he asked.

“When you go, my lord,” said Sasha, “I could sit on the box at the coachman’s feet. I will help him with the horses, and it shall cost you nothing. When I get there, I know I shall find a place.”

The Baron then said, “You may go.”

Here, as a boy not yet fifteen, Sasha begins his career as a man. The task he has undertaken demands the industry, the patience, and the devotion of his life, but he has been prepared for it by a sound, if a somewhat hard, experience. I hope the boys who read this feel satisfied already that he is going to succeed; yet I know, also, that they like to be certain, and to have some little information as to how it came about. So I will let fifteen years pass, and we will now look upon Sasha, for the last time, as a man of thirty.

He has a store and warehouse on the great main street of St. Petersburg, which is called the Nevsky Prospekt,—that is the Perspective of the Neva, because when you look down it you see the blue waters of the Neva at the end. Over the door there is a large sign, with the name, “Alexander Ivanovitch.” (Ivanovitch means “the son of Ivan”; Russian family names are formed in this manner, and therefore the son has a different name from the father, unless their baptismal names are the same.) He employs a number of clerks and salesmen, and has a servant who would go through fire and water to help him. I must relate how he found this man, and why the latter is so faithful.

On one of his journeys of business, five years before, Sasha visited the town of Perm, on the western side of the Ural Mountains. It is on the main highway to Siberia, and criminals are continually passing, either on the way thither in chains, or returning in rags when their time of banishment has expired. One evening Sasha found by the roadside, in the outskirts of the town, a miserable-looking wretch who seemed to be at the point of death. He felt the man’s pulse, lifted up his head, and looked in his face, and was startled at recognizing the younger of the three robbers. He had him taken to the inn, tended and restored, and, after being convinced of his earnest desire to lead a better life, gave him employment. The robber was not naturally a bad man, but very ignorant and superstitious. It seemed to him both a miracle and a warning that he should have been saved by Sasha, and he fully believed that his soul would be lost if he should ever act dishonestly towards him.

Keeping his heart steadily upon the great purpose of his life, Sasha rose from one step to another until he became an independent and wealthy merchant,—far wealthier, indeed, than the Baron supposed. He paid the latter a handsome annual sum for his time, and sent only small presents of money to his parents, for he knew how few and simple their needs were. He felt a thousand times more keenly than old Gregor what it was to be a serf. The old man was still living, but very feeble and helpless, and Sasha often grew wild at the thought that he might die before knowing freedom.

His plan of action had long been fixed, and now the hour had come when he determined to try it. He had for years kept a strict watch over the Baron’s life in St. Petersburg, knew the amount of his increasing debts and the embarrassment they occasioned him, and could very nearly calculate the moment when ruin would come. He was not disappointed therefore, at receiving an urgent summons from his master.

“Sasha,” said the latter, laying his hand upon the serf’s shoulder with a familiarity he had never displayed before, “you are an honest, faithful fellow. I need a few thousand roubles for a month or two; can you get the money for me?”

“I have heard, my lord,” Sasha answered, “that you are in difficulty. I knew why you sent for me; and I come to offer you a way out of all your troubles. Your debts amount to more than a hundred thousand roubles; would you like to be relieved of them?”

“Would I not!—but how?” the Baron cried.

“I will pay them, my lord; but you will do one thing for me in return.”

“You?—You?”

“I,” Sasha quietly answered; “I will free you, and you will free me.”

“Ha!” the Baron cried, springing to his feet. His pride was touched. He was fond of boasting that he also had a serf who was a rich merchant, and the fact had many a time helped his credit when he wanted to borrow money. Unconsciously, he shook his head.

“You have not the money,” he said.

Sasha, who understood what was passing through the Baron’s mind, suffered so much from his cruel uncertainty that he turned deadly pale.

“I am well known,” he answered, “and can procure the money in an hour. How much is my serfdom worth to you? My annual payment is hardly one tenth of the usurious interest which your debt wrings from you. I offer to release you from all trouble and thus add not less than eight thousand roubles a year to your income. And my freedom, which you can now sell back to me at such a price, may be mine without buying in a few years more.”

The Emperor, Alexander II., had at that time just succeeded to the throne, and his intention to emancipate the serfs was already suspected by the people. Sasha knew that he was running a great risk in what he said; but his clasped hands, his trembling voice, his eyes filled with tears, affected the Baron more powerfully than his words.

There was a long silence. The master turned away to the window, and weighed the offer rapidly in his mind; the serf waited, in breathless anxiety, in the centre of the room.

Suddenly the Baron turned and struck his clenched fist on the table. Then he stretched out his hand, and said: “Alexander Ivanovitch I am glad to make your acquaintance as a friend. I am no longer your master.”

Sasha took the hand, kissed it, and his tears fell fast. “Dear lord Baron!” he cried; “give also the freedom of my father and grandfather and I will add a payment of five thousand roubles a year, for ten years to come!”

“And your ancestors for five hundred years back,” the Baron answered laughing. “I don’t know their names, but they can be all thrown into the deed, in one lump.”

Before another day it was done. Sasha and the living members of his family were free, and his ancestors would also have been free if they had not been dead. With the parchment, signed and sealed, in his pocket, he took a carriage and post-horses and travelled day and night until he reached his native village. No one knew the stranger in his rich merchant’s dress; his father and brothers were in the fields at work, and his mother had stepped out to see a neighbor; old Gregor was alone in the house. He was leaning back in a rude arm-chair with a sheep-skin over his knees; his eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open, and his face so haggard and sunken that Sasha thought him dead.

He kneeled down beside the chair, and placed his hand on the old man’s heart, to see if it still beat. Presently came a broken voice: “The black god—the truth, my boy!” and Gregor feebly stretched a hand toward Sasha’s breast. The latter tore open his dress, and spread the cold, horny fingers over his own heart, the warmth of which seemed to kindle a fresh life in the old man. He at last opened his eyes. “Little Sasha,” he said, “little Sasha will keep his word.”

“I have kept it, grandfather!” Sasha cried.

“Old Gregor was alone in the house.”
Drawing by F. S. Coburn