Short Fiction by Vladimir Korolenko (ready player one ebook TXT) 📕

but oh, how well a man who knows it can make it talk! When Opanas ran his hand across the strings it told him everything: how the dark pine forest sings in a storm; how the wind hums through the sedge on the desert steppe; how the dry grass whispers on a high Cossack grave.

No, lad, you won’t hear such playing as that nowadays!

All kinds of people come here now that have been not only in our Polyesie but in other countries as well: all over the Ukraine, in Chirigin and Poltava and Kiev. They say that players of the bandura are out of fashion now and that you never hear them at fairs and in the bazaars. I still have an old bandura hanging on the wall of the hut. Opanas taught me to play it, but no one has learnt to play it from me. When I die⁠—and that will be soon⁠—who knows, perhaps nobody in the wide world will ever hear the notes of a bandura again. No, indeed!

And Opanas began singing a song in a low voice. Opanas’ voice was not loud; it was brooding and sad, and went straight to the heart. And the song, lad, was made up for the Count by the Cossack himself. I have never heard it again, and when, later, I used to tease Opanas to sing it, he always refused.

“The man for whom that song was sung,” he would say, “is no longer in this world.”

The Cossack told the Count all the truth in that song, and what the Count’s fate would be, and the Count wept; the tears even trickled down his beard, and yet it was plain that not one word did he understand.

Okh, I can’t remember the song; I can only remember a few words. The Cossack sang about Count Ivan:

“Oi, Ivan! Alas, oi, Count!
The Count is clever and much he knows.
He knows that the falcon soars in the sky, and falls upon the crow.
Oi, Ivan! Alas, oi, Count!
But the Count does not know
How it is in this world,
That the crow will at last kill the falcon at its nest.”

There, lad! I seem to hear that song at this moment, and to see those men again. There stands the Cossack with his bandura; the Count is sitting on his carpet; his head is bowed, and he is weeping. The Count’s men are gathered about him and are nudging one another with their elbows, and old Bogdan is shaking his head. And the forest is murmuring, just as it is murmuring now, and the bandura is chiming softly, dreamily, while the Cossack sings of how the Countess wept over the grave of Count Ivan:

“She cries, the Countess cries,
While over the grave of Count Ivan a black crow flies.”

Okh, the Count did not understand that song. He wiped his eyes and said:

“Come now, Raman! Come, lads, mount your horses! And you, Opanas, ride with them; I’ve had enough of your singing! That was a good song, only you sang of things that never happen in this world.”

But the Cossack’s heart was softened by his song and his eyes were dim.

“Okh, Count, Count,” says Opanas. “In my country the old men say that legends and songs contain the truth. But in legends the truth is like iron that has passed through the world from hand to hand for many years and has grown rusty. But the truth in songs is like gold that rust will never corrode. That’s what the old men say!”

But the Count waved his hand.

“It may be so in your country, but here it is not so. Go, go, Opanas; I am tired of listening to you.”

The Cossack stood still for a moment and then fell at the Count’s feet.

“Do as I beseech you, Count!” he cried. “Mount your horse and ride home to your Countess! My heart foretells disaster.”

At that the Count grew angry in earnest. He kicked the Cossack aside with his boot as if he had been a dog.

“Get out of my sight!” he shouted. “Now I see that you’re not a Cossack but an old woman! Leave me, or evil will befall you! What are you waiting for, hounds? Am I no longer your master? Here, I’ll show you something that your fathers never saw done by my father!”

Opanas rose like a dark thundercloud and exchanged glances with Raman. Raman was standing off at one side, leaning on his carbine as if nothing had happened.

The Cossack struck his bandura against a tree; the bandura flew to pieces and the sound of its groan echoed through the forest.

“Very well, then!” he cried. “Let the devils in the next world teach him who will not hear wise counsel in this! I see, Count, you have no need of a faithful servant!”

Before the Count could answer Opanas had jumped into his saddle and ridden away. The other attendants mounted their horses too. Raman shouldered his carbine and walked away; as he passed the hut he called out to Aksana:

“Put the boy to sleep, Aksana; it is time. And prepare a bed for the Count!”

They had soon all ridden away into the wood by that road there, and the Count went into the hut; only the Count’s horse was left standing outside, tied to a tree. Night was already falling; a murmur was going about the forest, and a few drops of rain were falling, just as they are now. Aksana laid me to sleep in the hayloft and made the sign of the cross over me for the night. I could hear my Aksana crying.

Okh, what could a little lad like me understand of all that was going on? I wrapped myself in the hay and lay listening to the storm singing its song in the forest until I began to fall asleep.

Eh, hey! Suddenly I heard footsteps outside the hut. They reached the tree, and someone untied the Count’s horse. The horse snorted and stamped and galloped away into the forest. The