Peasant Tales of Russia by V.I. Nemirovitch-Dantchenko

Author:V.I. Nemirovitch-Dantchenko
Format: epub

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THE LUCK OF IVAN THE FORGETFUL

[Illustration: "A strange sight brought her to a standstill."]

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THE LUCK OF IVAN THE FORGETFUL

I

The old convict spent the whole day walking up and down the prison courtyard, wearing a gloomy expression and sunk in deep meditation like a man trying to recollect something which he had long forgotten. He was entered on the roll of prisoners as Ivan the Forgetful, but his fellow-prisoners nicknamed him "Ivan the Runaway," because of his numerous attempts to escape. No one spoke to him, for all knew that nothing could be got from him but words of abuse and gloomy looks. On this particular day Ivan the Runaway was in a specially bad humour.

The spring had arrived in the previous night, and the mounds of snow at the corners of the grey towers, which in winter were so hard that the prisoners could amuse themselves by climbing on them, were now as full of holes as a sponge and discharged dirty-looking rivulets into the pools near them.

The sky was so warm and bright, and the wind blew so softly that a strange giddiness seized the old man, and the thick walls with the iron-barred windows seemed to him more hateful than ever. He was taken back to his cell; the key turned creaking in the door; he felt as though something in his heart were turned round with it, and his expression became more gloomy and morose than ever; he looked at the door like a hunted wolf. Ah, if he could only grip the warder's throat!--one squeeze would finish the business! The convict went to the window, and laid his hot face against the cold rusty iron bars. He could not gaze long enough at the deep blue sky behind them, and dreamt of dark forests, wide fields and majestic rivers rolling freely along. Just then a little cloud rose and hung motionless in space; rosy lights passed over it and its edges glowed like fiery gold. "The sun is setting," thought the prisoner, and lingered by the window till the little wandering cloud turned pale and was lost in the darkness, and the first star began to tremble in the sky. Ivan the Runaway went to sleep, but in dreams he heard the tops of the pines whispering, and the fir-cones dropping on the soft soil of the forest; he heard invisible wings beating and the stream fretting against the gnarled roots which barred its way to liberty.

II

The first thunderstorm, the harbinger of spring, has aroused the earth from her light slumber. At day-break, the convicts were mustered outside the prison walls. "Ivan the Forgetful," called out the warder, with the list in his hand. The old convict sulkily took his place in the row. He scanned with a searching glance the weak-looking undergrown soldiers of the escort, who in their ill-fitting grey cloaks looked almost deformed. Their bayonets gleamed in the sun, their musket-barrels were stopped with wads of cloth. "Loaded," said the old man to himself and smiled significantly.

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