THE WITCH
IT was approaching nightfall. The sexton, Savely Gykin, was lying
in his huge bed in the hut adjoining the church. He was not
asleep, though it was his habit to go to sleep at the same time
as the hens. His coarse red hair peeped from under one end of the
greasy patchwork quilt, made up of coloured rags, while his big
unwashed feet stuck out from the other. He was listening. His hut
adjoined the wall that encircled the church and the solitary
window in it looked out upon the open country. And out there a
regular battle was going on. It was hard to say who was being
wiped off the face of the earth, and for the sake of whose
destruction nature was being churned up into such a ferment; but,
judging from the unceasing malignant roar, someone was getting it
very hot. A victorious force was in full chase over the fields,
storming in the forest and on the church roof, battering
spitefully with its fists upon the windows, raging and tearing,
while something vanquished was howling and wailing. . . . A
plaintive lament sobbed at the window, on the roof, or in the
stove. It sounded not like a call for help, but like a cry of
misery, a consciousness that it was too late, that there was no
salvation. The snowdrifts were covered with a thin coating of
ice; tears quivered on them and on the trees; a dark slush of mud
and melting snow flowed along the roads and paths. In short, it
was thawing, but through the dark night the heavens failed to see
it, and flung flakes of fresh snow upon the melting earth at a
terrific rate. And the wind staggered like a drunkard. It would
not let the snow settle on the ground, and whirled it round in
the darkness at random.
Savely listened to all this din and frowned. The fact was that he
knew, or at any rate suspected, what all this racket outside the
window was tending to and whose handiwork it was.
"I know!" he muttered, shaking his finger menacingly under the
bedclothes; "I know all about it."
IT was approaching nightfall. The sexton, Savely Gykin, was lying
in his huge bed in the hut adjoining the church. He was not
asleep, though it was his habit to go to sleep at the same time
as the hens. His coarse red hair peeped from under one end of the
greasy patchwork quilt, made up of coloured rags, while his big
unwashed feet stuck out from the other. He was listening. His hut
adjoined the wall that encircled the church and the solitary
window in it looked out upon the open country. And out there a
regular battle was going on. It was hard to say who was being
wiped off the face of the earth, and for the sake of whose
destruction nature was being churned up into such a ferment; but,
judging from the unceasing malignant roar, someone was getting it
very hot. A victorious force was in full chase over the fields,
storming in the forest and on the church roof, battering
spitefully with its fists upon the windows, raging and tearing,
while something vanquished was howling and wailing. . . . A
plaintive lament sobbed at the window, on the roof, or in the
stove. It sounded not like a call for help, but like a cry of
misery, a consciousness that it was too late, that there was no
salvation. The snowdrifts were covered with a thin coating of
ice; tears quivered on them and on the trees; a dark slush of mud
and melting snow flowed along the roads and paths. In short, it
was thawing, but through the dark night the heavens failed to see
it, and flung flakes of fresh snow upon the melting earth at a
terrific rate. And the wind staggered like a drunkard. It would
not let the snow settle on the ground, and whirled it round in
the darkness at random.
Savely listened to all this din and frowned. The fact was that he
knew, or at any rate suspected, what all this racket outside the
window was tending to and whose handiwork it was.
"I know!" he muttered, shaking his finger menacingly under the
bedclothes; "I know all about it."
