Tales of the Wilderness by Boris Pilniak

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Vilyashev brooded a long while beside the swiftly running waters; but
at sunset's approach he rose hastily, and returned to the tumulus.
The sky was wrapped in its evening shroud of deep, mysterious
darkness. Set brightly against the sombre background of the tumulus-
crowned hill stood shining silver birch trees and dark shaggy firs:
they now looked wan and spectral in the fading light. For a fleeting
moment the world glowed like a huge golden ball; then the whole
countryside was one vast vista of green, finally merging into a deep
illimitable purple. Down the valley crept the mist, trailing its
filmy veils over point and peak and ridge. The air throbbed with the
cries of geese and bitterns. The hush of the spring-time night set in
and covered the world--that hush that is more vibrant than thunder,
that gathers the forest sounds and murmurs to itself, and weaves them
all into a tense, vernal harmony.

Prince Constantine's gaunt form struck a sharp note of discord as he
walked straight up to the tumulus. His presence breathed conflict and
stress that accorded ill with the universal peace of nature.

He greeted his brother, and began to smoke; the light from his
cigarette illumined his eagle nose and bony brow; his quiet grey eyes
gleamed with a wintry look.

"One longs to fly away like a bird in the spring," he murmured; then
added with a sharp change of tone; "How did Natalya die?"

"In her right mind, thank God! But, she had lived torn by a madness
of hatred and contempt, loathing all, despising all."

"What wonder, look around you!" cried Constantine. He hesitated a
moment then said softly: "To-morrow is the Annunciation--the
recollection of that festival made me think. Look around!"

The tumulus stood out sheer and stark, a grim relic of a bygone age.
There was a faint rustling through last year's wormwood. The air
arose from the plains in a crescendo of quivering chords, gushing
upward like a welling spring. There was the scent of decaying
foliage. The sky beyond had darkened, charged to the brim with
mystery. The atmosphere became moist and cold; the valley lay
beneath--empty, boundless, a region of illimitable space.

"Do you hear?" Constantine asked.

"Hear what?"

"The earth's groans."

"Yes, it is waking. Do you hear the soft stir and shudder among the
roots of the flowers and grass? The whisper of the trees, the tremor
of leaves and fronds? It is the earth's joyful welcome to the
Spring."

Constantine shook his head: "Not joy ... sorrow. The air is permeated
with the scent of decay. To-morrow will see the Annunciation, a great
festival, little brother, and that recollection has set me thinking.
Look round you! Everywhere are savages--men gone mad with blood and
terror. Death, famine, barbarity ride the world! Idolatry is still
rampant: to this day men believe in wood-spirits, witches and the
devil--and God, oh yes, men still believe in God! They bury their
dead when the bodies should be burnt. They seek to drive away typhus
by religious processions!"

He laughed mockingly.

"I stood the whole time in the train to avoid infection. But the
people do not even think of that: their one thought is bread. I
wanted to sleep through the journey; but a wretched woman, starving
before my very eyes, prevented me. She said she was going to a sister
so as to get milk to drink. She made me feel sick; she could not say
bread, meat, milk, and butter, but called them 'brud,' 'mate,'
'mulk,' and 'buzzer'. 'Ah, for a bit of buzzer--how I will ate it and
enjoy it!' she kept muttering.

"I tell you, Vilyashev, the people are bewildered. The world is
returning to savagery. Remember the history of all times and of all
peoples--an endless repetition of schisms, deceptions, stupidity,
superstition and cannibalism--not so long ago--as late as the Thirty
Years War--there was cannibalism in Europe; human flesh was cooked
and eaten.... Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! How fine they sound! But
better for Fraternity ever to remain a mere ideal than to be
introduced by the butt-end of a rifle."

Constantine took off his cap, and his bony forehead seemed pale and
green in the ghostly darkness of the night. His eyes were deep
sunken, and for an instant his face resembled a skull.

"I am bewildered, brother; I feel so utterly alone! I am wretched and
disillusioned. In what does man transcend the beast?..." He turned
towards the west, and a cruel, rapacious, predatory look flitted over
his face; he took a piece of bread from his overcoat pocket and
handed it to Vilyashev:

"Eat, brother; you are hungry."

From the valley uprose the muffled chime of a church bell, and a low
baying of dogs could be heard round the village settlements. Great
gusts of wind swept over the earth, which shook and trembled beneath
their rush. In thin, high, piercing notes it ascended--the song of
the winds to the setting sun.

"Listen," continued Constantine; "I was thinking of the Annunciation ...
and I had a dream.

"The red glow of sunset was slowly fading. Around stretched huge,
slumbering, primeval forests, shadow-filled bogs, and wide green
marshes. Wolves howled mournfully through the woods and the valleys.
Carts were creaking; horses were neighing; men were shouting--this
wild race of the Ancient Russians was marching to collect tribute.
Down a forest roadway they went, from the Oka to the rivers Sozh and
Desna.

"A Prince pitched his camp on a hill: his son lay dying with the
slowly-sinking sunlight. They prayed to the gods to spare the
princeling. They burned youths and maidens at the stake. They cast
men into the river to appease the water-spirit. They invoked the
ancient Slavic god Perun. They called on Jesus and the Mother of God.
In vain! In the terrible, lurid light of that vernal evening the
princeling died.

"Then they slew his horse and his wife, and raised the tumulus.

"In the Prince's suite was an Arab scholar named Ibn-Sadif. He was as
thin as an arrow, pliant as a bow, as dark as pitch, with the eyes
and nose of an eagle under his white turban. He was a wanderer over
the earth, for, learned in all else, he still sought knowledge of men
and of countries. He had gone up by the Volga to the Kama and to the
Bulgarians. Now he was wending his way with the Russians to Kiev and
Tsargrad.

"Ibn-Sadif ascended the hill, and beheld a blazing pile. On a log of
wood lay a maiden with her left breast ripped open; flames licked her
feet. Around were sombre, bearded men with swords in their hands. An
ancient Shaman priest was circling in front of the funeral pyre and
shouting furiously.

"Ibn-Sadif turned aside from the fire, and descended the forest
pathway to the river.

"The sky was thickly studded with stars that shone like points of
living gold in the warm deeps of the night; the water gave back a
glittering reflection. The Arab gazed up at that vast space where the
shining constellations swam towards the bosom of the Infinite, then
down at their fantastically mirrored image in the river's depths--and
cried aloud:

"'Woe! Woe!'"

"In the far distance beyond the water the wolves howled.

"At nightfall Ibn-Sadif joined the Prince who was directing the
ancient funeral rites. The Arab raised his hands to the sky; his
white garments flew round him like the wings of a bird; in a shrill,
eerie voice like an eagle's he cried to the fierce bearded men
gathered around:

"'This night just a thousand years ago, the Archangel told the Mother
of God in Nazareth of the coming of your God, Jesus. Woe! A thousand
years ago! Can it be?'

"Thus spoke Ibn-Sadif. None in the camp knew of the Annunciation, of
that fair, sacred day when the birds will not even build their nests
lest their labour desecrate its holiness."

Constantine paused; then lifted his head and listened.

"Do you hear, brother? Bells are tolling! Do you hear how the dogs
are barking?... And, just as of yore, death, famine, barbarity,
cannibalism shadow the earth. I am heart stricken!"

The night deepened to an intense blue; a faint chill stole through
the air. Prince Constantine sat down resting his head on his stick.
Suddenly he rose:

"It is late and cold; let us go. I am miserable, for I have lost my
faith. This reversion to savagery is horrible and bewildering. What
are we? What can we do when barbarians surround us? The loneliness
and desolation of our plight! I feel utterly lost, Vilyashev. We are
no good to anyone. Not so long ago our ancestors used to flog
peasants in the stables and abduct maidens on their wedding-nights.
How I curse them! They were wild beasts! Ibn-Sadif spoke the truth ...
a thousand years--and still the Mark of the Beast!"

The Prince's cry was low; but deep, and wild. Vilyashev answered
quietly:

"I have the strength of a mailed knight, Constantine. I could smash,
rend, and trample the peasants underfoot as my forebears did, but
they have wound themselves round my heart; they are like little
children!"

They went along by the hill; the tumulus was left behind. A light
sparkling frost powdered the rich loamy earth. Through the darkness,
swimming with purple shadows, came a great continuous murmur from the
ancient forests. A pair of cranes cried softly as they roosted for
the night, and a pearl grey mist rolled down to the meadows and
enveloped them in innumerable murkyscarves. The brothers entered a
village as still as the grave. Somewhere beyond, a dog barked. Not a
sound broke the utter, solemn silence as they walked along.

"There is typhus and barbarity in every peasant's hut," Constantine
muttered. Then he, too, lapsed into silence, listening.

Beyond some huts on a village by-path girls' voices could be heard
singing an Annunciation hymn. In the vasts depths of silence it
sounded solemn, simple, sane. The two princes felt it to be as
immutable as the Spring with its law of birth. They remained standing
there a long while, resting first on one foot, then on the other.
Each felt that mankind's blood and energy still flowed bright and
unsullied despite the world upheaval.

"Good! That is infinitely touching. That will not die," declared
Vilyashev. "It has come down to us through the Ages."

"Aye," replied Prince Constantine bitterly, "wonderfully good.
Pathetically good. Abominably good!"

From the bend in the road the girls appeared in their coloured
aprons; they passed decorously in pairs, singing:

"Rejoice, O Virgin Mother! Blessed art Thou amongst women"....

The earth was moist and exhaled a sweet, delicate odour of rich,
fresh vegetation. Reluctantly, at last, the two brothers resumed
their way. They heard the weird midnight-crowing of the cock. A pale
silvery moon--the last before Easter Day--rose gently in the East,
letting down its luminous web from the sky, flinging back the dark
shadows of the night.

On reaching home, the cabin seemed damp and cold and inexpressibly
dreary--as on the day Natalya died; when the door had slammed
incessantly. The brothers went hastily to their rooms without
speaking or lighting up. Constantine lay on Natalya's bed.

At dawn he awoke Vilyashev.

"I am going. Goodbye! It is ended! I am going out of Russia, out of
Europe. Here, where were we born, they have called us their masters,
their fathers--carrion crows, vultures! Like the fierce Russian
tribes of old, they have let loose the hounds of destruction on
wolves and hares and men alike! Woe!... Ibn-Sadif!"

Constantine lighted a candle on a table, and crossed the room. In the
strange blue light of dawn his livid shadow fell on the whitewashed
wall. Vilyashev was amazed; the shadow was so extraordinarily blue
and ghastly--it seemed as if his brother were dead.

OVER THE RAVINE

I

The ravine was deep and dark.

Its yellow clay slopes, overgrown with red-trunked pines, presented
craggy ridges; at the bottom flowed a brook. Above, right and left,
grew a pine forest--dark, ancient, covered with lichen and shubbery.
Overhead was a grey, heavy, low-hanging sky.

Man seldom came to this wild and savage spot.

The trees had in the course of time been uprooted by storms of wind
and rain, and had fallen just where they stood, strewing the earth,
rotting, emitting thick pungent odours of decaying pinewood.
Thistles, chicory, milfoil, and wormwood had flourished there for
years undisturbed, and they now covered the ground with thorny
bristles. There was a den of bears at the bottom of the ravine; many
wolves prowled through the forest.

Over the edge of the steep, yellow slope hung a fallen pine, and for
many years its roots were exposed, raised on high in the air. They
looked like some petrified octopus stretching up its hideous
tentacles to the elements, and were already covered with lichen and
juniper.

In the midst of these roots two great grey birds--a male and a
female--had built themselves a nest.

They were large and grey, thickly covered by yellowish-grey and
cinnamon-coloured feathers. Their wings were short, broad, and
strong; their feet, armed with great claws, were covered with black
down. Surmounting their short, thick necks were large quadratic heads
with yellow, rapaciously curved beaks and round, fierce, heavy
looking eyes.

The female was the smaller. Her legs were more slender and handsome,
and there was a kind of rough, heavy gracefulness in the curves of
her neck. The male was fierce and stiff; his left wing did not fold
properly; he had injured it at the time he had fought other males for
his mate.

There was steepness on three sides of their nest. Above it was the
wide expanse of the sky. Around, about, and beneath it lay bones
washed and whitened by the rain. The nest itself was made of stones
and mud, and overspread with down.

The female always sat in the nest.

The male hummed to himself on the end of a root that was suspended
over the steep, alone, peering far into the distance around and below
him with his heavy, pensive eyes; perched with his head sunk deep
into his shoulders and his wings hanging heavily down.

II

These two great birds had met here, not far from the ravine, one
evening at twilight.

It was spring; the snow was thawing on the slopes, whilst in the
forest and valleys it became grey and mellow; the pine-trees exhaled
a pungent odour; and the brook at the bottom of the ravine had
awakened.

The sun already gave warmth in the daytime. The twilight was
verdurous, lingering, and resonant with life. Wolf-packs were astir,
and the males fought each other for the females.

This spring, with the sun and the soft breeze, an unwonted heaviness
pervaded the male-bird's body. Formerly he used to fly or roost,
croak or sit silent, fly swiftly or slowly, because there were causes
both around and within him: when hungry he would find a hare, kill,
and devour it; when the sun was too hot or the wind too keen, he
would shelter from them; when he saw a crouching wolf, he would
hastily fly away from it.

Now it was no longer so.

It was not a sense of hunger or self-preservation now that induced
him to fly, to roost, cry, or be silent: something outside of him and
his feelings now possessed him.

When the twilight came, as though befogged, not knowing why, he rose
from the spot on which he had perched all day and flew from glade to
glade, from crag to crag, moving his great wings softly and peering
hard into the dense, verdurous darkness. In one of the glades he saw
birds similar to himself, a female among them. Without knowing why,
he threw himself amidst them, feeling an inordinate strength within
him and a great hatred for all the other males.

He walked slowly round the female, treading hard on the ground,
spreading out his wings, tossing back his head to look askance at the
males. One, he who until now had been victor, tried to impede him--
then flew at him with beak prepared to strike, and a long silent,
cruel fight began. They flew at each other, beating with their bills,
chests, wings, and claws, blindly rumpling and tearing each others'
feathers and body.

His opponent proved the weaker and drew off; then again he threw
himself towards the female and walked round her, limping a little
now, and trailing his blood-stained left wing along the ground.

Pine-trees surrounded the glade; the earth was bestrewn with dry,
withered leaves; the night sky was blue.

The female was indifferent to him and to all; she strode calmly about
the glade, pecked at the ground, caught a mouse and quietly swallowed
it. She appeared to pay no attention to the males.

It was thus all night long.

But when the night began to pale and over the east lay the greenish-
blue outline of dawn, she moved close to him who had conquered the
rest, leaned her back against his breast, tipped his injured wing
tenderly with her bill--as though she would nurse and dress it; then
slowly rising from the ground, she flew towards the ravine.

And he, moving his injured wing painfully but without heeding it,
emitting shrill cries of joy, flew after her.

She came down just by the roots of that pine where afterwards they
built their nest.

The male perched beside her. He was irresolute and apparently
abashed.

The female strutted several times round him, scenting him again.
Then, pressing her breast to the ground, tail uplifted, her eyes
half-closed--she waited. The male threw himself towards her, seized
her comb with his bill, clapping the ground with his heavy wings; and
through his veins there coursed such a wonderful ecstasy, such
invigorating joy, that he was dazzled, feeling nothing else save this
delicious rapture, croaking hoarsely and making the ravine
reverberate with a dull echo that ruffled the stillness of the early
morn.

The female was submissive.

III

In the winter the pines stood motionless and their trunks were a
greyish brown. The snow lay deep, swept into great drifts which
reared in a dark pile towards the ravine. The sky was a grey stretch;
the days short and almost dim.

At night the tree-boles cracked in the frost and their branches
broke. The pale moon shone calmly in the stillness, and seemed to
make the frost still harder.

The nights were weirdly horrible with the frost and the
phosphorescent light of the moon; the birds sat tucked in their nest,
pressing close together to keep themselves warm. Yet still the frost
penetrated their feathers, got into their skin and made their feet,
bills, and backs feel cold. The errant light of the moon was also
disquieting; it made the whole earth appear to be a great wolfish
eye--that was why it shone so terribly!

The birds had no sleep.

They turned painfully in their nest, changing their position; their
large green eyes emitted a greenish light. Had they possessed the
power of thought, they would certainly have longed for the advent of
morning.

While it was still an hour before dawn, as the moon was fading and
the first faint glimmer of daylight approaching, they began to feel
hungry; in their mouths there was a disagreeable, bitterish taste,
and from time to time their craws painfully contracted.

When the grey morning had at last come, the male bird flew off for
his prey; he flew slowly, spreading his wings wide and rarely
flapping them, vigilantly eying the ground beneath him. He usually
hunted for hares. It was sometimes a long while before he found one;
then he rose high over the ravine and set out on a distant flight
from his nest, far away from the ravine into the vast white expanse
of snow.

When there were no hares about, he seized young foxes and magpies,
although their flesh was unsavoury. The foxes would defend themselves
long and stubbornly, biting viciously, and they had to be attacked
cautiously and skilfully. It was necessary to strike the bill at once
into the animal's neck near its head, and, immediately clutching its
back with the talons, to rise into the air--for there the fox ceased
all resistance.

With his prey the bird flew back to his nest by the ravine, and here
he and his mate at once devoured it. They ate but once in the day,
and so satiated themselves that they could move only with difficulty
afterwards, and their crops hung low. They even ate up the snow which
had become soaked with blood. The female threw the bones that
remained down the side of the steep.

The male perched himself on the end of a root, ruffling his feathers
in an effort to make himself more comfortable; and the blood coursed
warmly through his veins after his meal.

The female was sitting in the nest.

Towards evening the male, for some unknown reason, began to croak.

"Oo-hoo-hoo-oo!" he cried in guttural tones, as though the sound in
his throat came from across the water.

Sometimes as he sat solitary on his height, the wolves would observe
him, and one of the famished beasts would begin clambering up the
precipitous side of the ravine.

The female would then take fright, and flap her wings; but the male
would look down calmly with his big, glistening eyes, watching the
wolf slowly clamber, slip and fall headlong downwards, bringing a
heap of snow with it, tumbling over and over and yelping in fright.

The twilight crept on.

IV

In March, as the days lengthened, the sun grew warmer; the snow
darkened and thawed; the twilight grew balmy; and the wolf-packs
stirred, while prey became more abundant, for now all the forest
denizens felt the overwhelming, entrancing throb of Spring, and
wandered through the glades, down the ravines and into the woods,
powerless under the sway of the early Spring-time langour; and it was
easy to catch them.

The male-bird brought all his kill to his mate--he ate little
himself: only what she left him, usually the entrails, the flesh of
the thoracic muscles, the skin and the head, although she usually
pecked out the eyes as the most savoury portion.

The sun was bright. There was a soft, gentle breeze. At the bottom of
the ravine the dark, turbulent brook rushed gurgling between the
sharp outlines of its snow-laden banks.

It was cool. The male-bird sat roosting with his eyes closed, his
head sunk deep into his shoulders. Outwardly he bore a look of great
humility, of languishing expectation, and a droll look of guiltiness
wholly unbecoming to his natural severity.

At dusk he grew restless. He stood up on his feet, stretched his
neck, opened wide his round eyes, spread out his wings, beating the
air with them: then closed them again. Curling up into a ball,
drawing his head into his shoulders and blinking, he croaked:

"Oo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" The rueful cry scared the forest denizens.

And the echo in the ravine answered back:

"Oo-oo..."

The twilight was green, merging into blue. The sky was spangled with
great glowing stars. The pine-trees exhaled an oily odour. In the
night-frost, the brook at the bottom of the ravine grew still.
Somewhere, caught in its current, birds were crying. Yet all was in a
state of watchful calm.

When at length the night set in, the male stealthily and guiltily
approached the female in the nest, cautiously spreading his big,
awkward feet, which were so clumsy on the ground . . . A great and
beautiful passion urged him to the side of his mate.

He perched beside her, smoothing her feathers with his bill, still
with that droll absurd look of guilt. The female responded to his
caresses; she was very soft and tender; but behind this tenderness
could be detected her great strength and power over the male: perhaps
she realized it herself.

In the language of instinct, she said to her mate:

"Yes, you may."

The male succumbed to his passion, and she yielded to him.

V

It was thus for a week or ten days.

Then at last, when the male came to her one night-time, she said:

"No! Enough!"

She spoke instinctively, for another time had come--the time for the
birth of her children.

The male-bird, abashed, as though conscience-stricken at not having
divined the bidding of his mate earlier, went away from her only to
return at the end of a year.

VI

From Spring-time, all through the Summer until September, the male
and female were absorbed in the great, beautiful, indispensable task
of breeding their young. In September the fledgelings took wing.

The Spring and Summer developed in their multi-coloured glory: they
burned with fiery splendour; the pine-trees glowed with a resinous
phosphorescence. There was the fragrance of wormwood. Chicory, blue-
bells, buttercups, milfoil, and cowslip blossomed and faded; prickly
thistles abounded.

In May the nights were deeply blue.

In June they were pale green.

The dawn broke in a blood-red flare like a great conflagration, and
at night pale silvery mists moved along the bottom of the ravine,
washing the tops of the pines.

At first the nest contained five grey eggs with green speckles. Then
came the little birds, big-headed, with disproportionately large
yellow mouths, their bodies covered with down. They chirruped
plaintively, stretching their long necks out from the nest, and they
ate voraciously.

They flew in June, though as yet clumsily, piping, and awkwardly
fluttering their immature wings.

The female was with them all the time, ruffling her feathers,
solicitous and petulant.

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