CHAPTER I
SNOW ROSES
A blizzard is covering the roads with a thick coating of snow. Thehorses are up to their fetlocks in it. The dark-green firs bend beneathits weight, and what has melted in the midday sun already hangs from theslender branches of the undergrowth in thick masses of icicles; and asthe wind sweeps through the forest the ice-covered leaves and branchesring and jingle like fairy bells.
Ever and anon the moon shines out from amid the fast-flying clouds;then, as though it has seen enough, hides itself again under the ghostlymist. The sighing of the wind through the forest is like the tremblingof fever-stricken nature. In the stillness of night, through thepathless forest, rides a troop of horsemen. Their little long-manedhorses sniff their way with low, sunk necks; by the shaggy fur caps oftheir riders, and their long lances hanging far back at their sides,they are to be recognized as a party of Don Cossacks.
They ride in battle array. In the van a picket with drawn carbines; nextto them a detachment; then a cannon drawn by six horses. After thatfollow a large body of men; then, again, a mounted gun andartillerymen. Behind these another troop of mounted horsemen, andanother gun-carriage drawn by six horses. But to this the cannon iswanting. In its stead a human form lies bound. The head hangs down overthe back of the rattling carriage, and as the moon ever and anon peepsout from between the clouds, it discloses a face distorted with agony,from which all trace of hair on head or beard has been cut away--perhapsdragged out. The eyes and mouth are wide open. A coarse horseclothcovering is fastened underneath the man. A corner of it drags along thesnow-covered ground. From it every now and then a drop of blood falls--asign that, in bleeding, the man still lives. The drops of blood in thesnow fantastically change, as they fall, into roses. Red flowers on thewhite snow-field! The ghost-like procession disappears in the mist.
Keeping carefully to one side, but ever following closely on the trackof the soldiers, is a horseman, also mounted on a long-maned,broad-headed pony. He wears a thick fur coat; a fur-bordered czamarka ison his head; icicles hang from his long beard. He rides slowly andcautiously, his horse taking long strides, as though its master wereseeking something on the ground. Then, as often as he sees a red roseupon the snow, he dismounts, kneels, and with a golden spoon he takes upthe crystallized token and places it in an enamelled reliquary, thenrides on to the next.
The way leads without interruption through a primeval forest. It is theforest of Bjelostok. Only there, in all Europe, are bisons to be metwith. There no sound of axe is ever heard; storms alone bring down thegiant trees. One forest arises out of the decay of the former. Beeches,oaks, limes, vie in height with tall pines. In the dead of night resoundthe shriek of the lynx, and the roar of the female bison anxiouslycalling for its sucking calf. But no human sound is to be heard. Nohuman dwelling is near. Had not the path through the forest been ahighway, undergrowth had long since made it impenetrable.
The fallen drops of blood lead the rider on farther and farther. Nowthey appear at longer intervals. At length the last rose is reached; thetrack left by the wheels of the gun carriage is now his only guide. Thehorseman continues to follow it. The man bound to the gun-carriage isassuredly dead by this time. If dead, they will as surely bury himsomewhere.
Upon the endless solitary forest follow towns equally void of humanbeings. On the banks of a great river stand two towns facing oneanother, marked upon maps of a former century as still fortified places,but now only to be classed among ruins. At that time they were specifiedby name, Kazimir and Ivanowicze, I believe. Now their very names arelost to history. Fallen walls, heaps of bricks and stones everywhere.Nettles grow rank in the snow-covered squares and streets; castles,churches, and temples are overgrown with briers to the very roofs. Thebroad river is frozen over; from out the ice rise the piles of ahalf-burned drawbridge, near to which stretches a track across the snow.The solitary horseman follows the traces. In the middle of the river hisscrutinizing search is suddenly brought to a halt by a newly made gap inthe ice.
That it is newly made is shown by the broken ice lying about, upon whichno fresh layer of snow has had time to form. The shape of the gap isoblong--like an open grave. Close round it are traces of many feet uponthe snow; not far away the smooth surface shows the pressure of a humanform, which must have lain there face downwards. Here, without a doubt,has been the place of burial. They had lowered the body under the ice (asecure burial-place, indeed); the current would then convey it gently tothe sea.
The horseman dismounts, kneeling down beside the open space and baringhis head. He murmurs something--perhaps a prayer. Into the water beneaththere drops something--perhaps a tear.
At that instant the moon shines out resplendent. The man's head isdistinctly visible--a head once seen not easily forgotten. A highforehead; the hair of reddish hue, but already tinged with gray, growinglow upon it; the face thin, nervous; cheek-bones and chin prominent;nose aquiline; deep-set eyes; the towsled beard brushed forward; thecharacter of the whole face was one of suppressed suffering, of silentwoe. The moon has again disappeared under the clouds. A thick, heavymist falls around. Primeval forest and ruins alike fade; the figure ofthe horseman grows more and more shadowy.
Through the thick mist, in the dead stillness of black night, is a weirdsound of sighing and moaning. Perhaps it is the she-bison calling heryoung--perhaps it is the voice of one singing "Boze cos Polske."