In bad company

II

He was in his fifth year, thin and weakly. Indoors, he moved, even ran, about the rooms with perfect freedom. A strange, seeing how confidently he walked—never hesitating at a turn, never at a loss to find things that he wanted—might not have realised that he was blind; might have taken him simply for an unusually contemplative child, with dreamy eyes that seemed to look far out into vague distances. Out of doors, however, things were not so easy. He walked with a stick, feeling the ground with it before every step he took. When he had no stick, he would get down on hands and knees and crawl, swiftly investigating with his fingers every object encountered in his path.

III

It was a quiet summer evening. Uncle Maxim was out in the garden. The child's father, as usual, was still away in some distant field. Everything was still. The village was sinking into sleep, and the talk in the servants' hall had died away. The child had been put to bed half an hour past.
He lay in his room, only half-asleep. For some days, now, the very thought of this quiet evening hour had called strange memories to his mind. He could not see the darkening sky, of course; could not see the swaying tree-tops outlined in black against its starry velvet, or the shadows that gathered under the shaggy eaves of barns and stable, or the blue blackness creeping over the earth, or the glinting gold of moonbeams and starlight. Yet, day after day, he would drop off to sleep under some beautiful spell that, in the morning, he could not explain.
It would come at the hour when sleep began to dull his senses, when he no longer consciously heard the murmur of the beeches at his window, or the distant barking of the village dogs, or the trilling of the nightingale beyond the river, or the mournful tinkle of tiny bells where a colt was grazing in the meadow; when all individual sounds seemed to fade and vanish. Merged in new, soft harmony, they would now seem to come again, all these sounds, and hover in his room, filling his heart with vague, but very pleasant fancies. When morning came, he would wake in a softened, tender mood, and question his mother eagerly:
"What was it, last night? What was it?"
The mother could not answer. Perhaps, she thought, the child had been having dreams. She would put him to bed herself, every evening, bless him devoutly, and linger by his side until he seemed asleep. She never noticed anything out of the ordinary. Yet, in the morning, he would speak again of a pleasant something experienced the night before:
"It was so fine, so fine! What was it, Mother?"
And so, this evening, she had decided to stay in the child's room and watch, in the hope of finding some solution to this riddle. She sat quietly beside the bed, knitting mechanically, listening to little Petro's even breathing. Soon he seemed fast asleep. But suddenly she heard him whisper through the darkness:
"Are you still here, Mother?"
"Yes, Petro."
"Do go away. It's afraid of you, and it doesn't come. I was almost asleep already, and it doesn't come."
This plaintive, sleepy whisper brought a strange feeling to the mother's heart. He spoke so confidently of his fancies, as though of something very real! Still, she got up, bent over the bed to kiss the child, and slipped quietly out of the room. She would go around through the garden, she thought, and creep up unnoticed outside his open window.
And as she was coming through the garden the mystery was suddenly solved for her. The soft strains of a village pipe came floating from the stable: a simple, unembroidered melody, mingling with the night's soft murmurings. Yes, clearly, it must be this music, coming at the magic moments just before sleep, that gave the child such pleasant memories.
She paused awhile to listen, charmed by the tender Ukrainian melody, then turned back, her heart at ease, to join Uncle Maxim in the garden.
How well Iochim played! Strange, that such tender, delicate feeling should come from so seemingly coarse a fellow.