|
|
|
Anton Chekhov
- The Black Monk
I
II
III IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
II
In the country he led just as nervous and
restless a life as in town. He read and wrote a great deal, he
studied Italian, and when he was out for a walk, thought with
pleasure that he would soon sit down to work again. He slept so
little that every one wondered at him; if he accidentally dozed
for half an hour in the daytime, he would lie awake all night,
and, after a sleepless night, would feel cheerful and vigorous
as though nothing had happened.
He talked a great deal, drank wine, and smoked expensive cigars.
Very often, almost every day, young ladies of neighbouring
families would come to the Pesotskys', and would sing and play
the piano with Tanya; sometimes a young neighbour who was a good
violinist would come, too. Kovrin listened with eagerness to the
music and singing, and was exhausted by it, and this showed
itself by his eyes closing and his head falling to one side.
One day he was sitting on the balcony after evening tea,
reading. At the same time, in the drawing-room, Tanya taking
soprano, one of the young ladies a contralto, and the young man
with his violin, were practising a well-known serenade of
Braga's. Kovrin listened to the words -- they were Russian --
and could not understand their meaning. At last, leaving his
book and listening attentively, he understood: a maiden, full of
sick fancies, heard one night in her garden mysterious sounds,
so strange and lovely that she was obliged to recognise them as
a holy harmony which is unintelligible to us mortals, and so
flies back to heaven. Kovrin's eyes began to close. He got up,
and in exhaustion walked up and down the drawing-room, and then
the dining-room. When the singing was over he took Tanya's arm,
and with her went out on the balcony.
"I have been all day thinking of a legend," he said. "I don't
remember whether I have read it somewhere or heard it, but it is
a strange and almost grotesque legend. To begin with, it is
somewhat obscure. A thousand years ago a monk, dressed in black,
wandered about the desert, somewhere in Syria or Arabia. . . .
Some miles from where he was, some fisherman saw another black
monk, who was moving slowly over the surface of a lake. This
second monk was a mirage. Now forget all the laws of optics,
which the legend does not recognise, and listen to the rest.
From that mirage there was cast another mirage, then from that
other a third, so that the image of the black monk began to be
repeated endlessly from one layer of the atmosphere to another.
So that he was seen at one time in Africa, at another in Spain,
then in Italy, then in the Far North. . . . Then he passed out
of the atmosphere of the earth, and now he is wandering all over
the universe, still never coming into conditions in which he
might disappear. Possibly he may be seen now in Mars or in some
star of the Southern Cross. But, my dear, the real point on
which the whole legend hangs lies in the fact that, exactly a
thousand years from the day when the monk walked in the desert,
the mirage will return to the atmosphere of the earth again and
will appear to men. And it seems that the thousand years is
almost up. . . . According to the legend, we may look out for
the black monk to-day or to-morrow."
"A queer mirage," said Tanya, who did not like the legend.
"But the most wonderful part of it all," laughed Kovrin, "is
that I simply cannot recall where I got this legend from. Have I
read it somewhere? Have I heard it? Or perhaps I dreamed of the
black monk. I swear I don't remember. But the legend interests
me. I have been thinking about it all day."
Letting Tanya go back to her visitors, he went out of the house,
and, lost in meditation, walked by the flower-beds. The sun was
already setting. The flowers, having just been watered, gave
forth a damp, irritating fragrance. Indoors they began singing
again, and in the distance the violin had the effect of a human
voice. Kovrin, racking his brains to remember where he had read
or heard the legend, turned slowly towards the park, and
unconsciously went as far as the river. By a little path that
ran along the steep bank, between the bare roots, he went down
to the water, disturbed the peewits there and frightened two
ducks. The last rays of the setting sun still threw light here
and there on the gloomy pines, but it was quite dark on the
surface of the river. Kovrin crossed to the other side by the
narrow bridge. Before him lay a wide field covered with young
rye not yet in blossom. There was no living habitation, no
living soul in the distance, and it seemed as though the little
path, if one went along it, would take one to the unknown,
mysterious place where the sun had just gone down, and where the
evening glow was flaming in immensity and splendour.
"How open, how free, how still it is here!" thought Kovrin,
walking along the path. "And it feels as though all the world
were watching me, hiding and waiting for me to understand it. .
. ."
But then waves began running across the rye, and a light evening
breeze softly touched his uncovered head. A minute later there
was another gust of wind, but stronger -- the rye began
rustling, and he heard behind him the hollow murmur of the
pines. Kovrin stood still in amazement. From the horizon there
rose up to the sky, like a whirlwind or a waterspout, a tall
black column. Its outline was indistinct, but from the first
instant it could be seen that it was not standing still, but
moving with fearful rapidity, moving straight towards Kovrin,
and the nearer it came the smaller and the more distinct it was.
Kovrin moved aside into the rye to make way for it, and only
just had time to do so.
A monk, dressed in black, with a grey head and black eyebrows,
his arms crossed over his breast, floated by him. . . . His bare
feet did not touch the earth. After he had floated twenty feet
beyond him, he looked round at Kovrin, and nodded to him with a
friendly but sly smile. But what a pale, fearfully pale, thin
face! Beginning to grow larger again, he flew across the river,
collided noiselessly with the clay bank and pines, and passing
through them, vanished like smoke.
"Why, you see," muttered Kovrin, "there must be truth in the
legend."
Without trying to explain to himself the strange apparition,
glad that he had succeeded in seeing so near and so distinctly,
not only the monk's black garments, but even his face and eyes,
agreeably excited, he went back to the house.
In the park and in the garden people were moving about quietly,
in the house they were playing -- so he alone had seen the monk.
He had an intense desire to tell Tanya and Yegor Semyonitch, but
he reflected that they would certainly think his words the
ravings of delirium, and that would frighten them; he had better
say nothing.
He laughed aloud, sang, and danced the mazurka; he was in high
spirits, and all of them, the visitors and Tanya, thought he had
a peculiar look, radiant and inspired, and that he was very
interesting.
|
|
|
