قراءة كتاب Iermola
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small painting on wood of the German school, much injured, and representing the birth of our Saviour.
The only real adornment of the room, therefore, was the exquisite neatness and order which reigned in it. There was no litter to be seen in any part of it, not the smallest crumb or the least speck of dust; each thing was in its place, and although in this poor apartment all sorts of things were mingled,--provisions, food, cooking utensils, the poor man's wardrobe, and all his simple stores,--there was neither inconvenience nor confusion. Cupboards were made on the walls, shelves set up in the corners of the room, the large chests rolled under the table; the hiding-place behind the stove--the fireplace, over which a piece of cloth was hung--served to shut up and conceal all disorderly objects. Even the chips and bits of wood used to kindle the fire were piled up neatly in their own proper corner. It is true that Iermola had very near at hand, in the ruins of the inn, a sort of cellar surrounded by walls, where he stored his more cumbrous provisions; but he could not leave many things in a place which had no fastening, for poverty, scorning the laws of proprietorship, often dares to share with poverty.
On entering, the old man contented himself with lighting in the stove his pieces of resinous wood, for candles or oil were luxuries which he did not allow himself; then he looked around to see if all was in good order in his dwelling. After that he took one of his pots and proceeded to warm his supper, which the cossack's widow usually prepared for him in the village, or which he sometimes cooked himself on his return to his lodging; and then he seated himself on a stool in the corner of the fireplace, and began to say his prayers.
The wind sighed fitfully in the branches of the pines and the oaks close by his little garden; a deep silence reigned all about him; and Iermola, sad and motionless, was beginning to dream as he prayed, when in the midst of this profound stillness the cry of a baby was suddenly heard, at first feeble and indistinct, then loud and shrill.
It was like the cry of a new-born baby; and it seemed very near, as though it came from the other side of the garden, out of the clump of pines and oaks.
"What can it be?" said the old man, interrupting his prayers, and rising from his bench. "It is now so late. Can it be possible that any silly woman can have crossed the river with her baby to come and ask for medicine?"
He paused and listened, but the trembling, feeble wailing did not seem to come nearer nor to recede; evidently the child remained in the same place. It was impossible to believe that any woman working in the fields could have left her cradle there; the chilliness of the evening, the lateness of the hour, the solitude of the secluded place, would not permit such a thought. And still the wailing cry continued.
"Ah! it is doubtless an owl," thought the old man, as he seated himself once more. "It is perched on one of the trees at the end of the garden, singing. But one could swear that it was a baby. How perfectly they can imitate the human voice!"
He continued to listen; the wailing became more and more distinct and pitiful.
"No, truly, it cannot be an owl; I must go and see. Perhaps some accident has happened. But what can it be?"
So saying, Iermola rose quickly, put on his cap, seized his stick, and rushed to the door, forgetting his pipe, which usually he never left behind him. When he reached the threshold, he became convinced that there was no longer any doubt that the cry he heard was not that of an owl, but the wail of an infant. This frightened the good man, who, following the sound of the voice, set out to see whence it came. He went at once to the garden, and thought he saw something white lying at the foot of one of the nearest oak-trees. The old man's eyes had not deceived him; on the thickly interwoven roots, padded and made velvety with mosses, a little baby, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, lay crying.
A baby! A baby here! all alone! deserted and cast off by its parents! The good man could scarcely conceive such an idea. He trembled with fright, surprise, sorrow, and pity; and darting forward, scarcely knowing what he did, he tenderly lifted the poor little creature, who, feeling perhaps that some one was near, immediately ceased to cry and be frightened.
Then, bewildered and forgetting his stick, the old man fled back to his chamber, carrying the baby, trembling, crying, and repeating over and over to himself, "A baby! A baby! How could this have happened?"
Suddenly it occurred to him that doubtless the little one had only been left alone for a moment; that the mother would be very anxious if she should not find it again on the spot where she had just left it.
He then began to shout as loudly as he could, repeating all the calls known to the Polesian tongue, which brought back to him his shepherd days; but no one answered.
"At any rate it is impossible to leave this poor baby out on so cold a night," said he, with emotion; "I shall take it to my room. Any one will immediately suppose that it is I who have picked it up."
He opened the door of his lodging. The fire had gone out in the stove; it was pitch dark. He deposited his living bundle on the bed, and again lighted his chips and twigs, of which this time he was lavish.
But when the light again glimmered through the room, and the old man returned to the side of the baby, who moaned constantly, his fright and astonishment knew no bounds. The little creature evidently did not belong to the peasant class; the clothing in which it was wrapped sufficed to show that. And in vain did Iermola imagine a thousand reasons, admit a thousand suppositions; he could not comprehend how a mother or a father could have been able to decide thus to abandon the innocent little creature, the very sight of whom caused him to shed tears of tenderness and emotion. In fact, from the moment when the baby's first cry had reached his ears and his heart, a strange feeling had taken possession of this old man hitherto so tranquil. He felt moved, frightened, but at the same time awakened and enlivened; it seemed as though he had grown twenty years younger in a few moments. He therefore examined with curiosity this little unknown being whom Providence, perhaps in pity for his terrible isolation, had sent him as a consolation at the very moment when he was sadly longing for some one tie which might still bind him to life.
The child, swaddled with care, was nevertheless clothed externally in such a manner as at first sight to conceal his origin. The heartless mother and unfeeling father, touched by some small feeling of solicitude, had covered the baby's long clothes entirely with a large piece of coarse white percale, leaving exposed only a part of the little suffering, weeping face.
Iermola gazed at the baby with his own sad eyes, and took its little hands in his.
It was some time before he remembered that there was something else to do; that a baby who cried so was perhaps hungry; that an unlooked-for burden had been sent him from heaven; that it would be difficult for him to take care of it, even with every exertion that he could make. Then came flashing like lightning before his mind the images of a cradle, a nurse, smiles, maternal cares, at the same time also his own poverty, which would not allow him to pay any one to take care of the little one.
Suddenly he said to himself that hireling hands were not fit to touch this gift of God,--this frail new-born being whom Providence had doubtless intrusted to him that he might be its nurse and father. Then he trembled, as it occurred to him that some one might take this baby from