The Created Legend

I take a piece of life, coarse and poor, and create from it a delightful legend⁠—because I am a poet. Whether it linger in the darkness; whether it be dim, commonplace, or raging with a furious fire⁠—life is before you; I, a poet, will erect the legend I have created about the enchanting and the beautiful.

Chance caught in the entangling net of circumstance brings about every beginning. Yet it is better to begin with what is splendid in earthly experience, or at any rate with what is beautiful and pleasing. Splendid are the body, the youth, and the gaiety in man; splendid are the water, the light, and the summer in nature.

It was a bright, hot midday in summer, and the heavy glances of the flaming Dragon fell on the River Skorodyen. The water, the light, and the summer beamed and were glad; they beamed because of the sunlight that filled the immense space, they were glad because of the wind that blew from some far land, because of the many birds, because of the two nude maidens.

Two sisters, Elisaveta and Elena, were bathing in the River Skorodyen. And the sun and the water were gay, because the two maidens were beautiful and were naked. And the two girls felt also gay and cool, and they wanted to scamper and to laugh, to chatter and to jest. They were talking about a man who had aroused their curiosity.

The sinuous road with two wagon-ruts revealed picturesque views at every turn. The path finally chosen by the sisters led to a hollow. Its sides, overgrown with bushes and weeds, looked wildly beautiful. From its depth came the sweet, warm odour of clover, and down below its white bosom grass was visible. A small narrow bridge, propped up from below with thin slender stakes, hung over the hollow. On the other side of the bridge a low hedge stretched right and left, and in this hedge, quite facing the bridge, a small gate was visible.

The sisters crossed the bridge, holding on to its slender handrail of birch. They tried the gate⁠—it was closed. They looked at one another. Elisaveta, growing red with vexation, said:

“We’ll have to go back again.”

“Everyone says that you can’t get into the place,” said Elena, “that you’ve got to get over the hedge, and that even that is impossible for some reason or other. It’s very strange. I wonder what they can be up to?”

Suddenly there was a slight rustle in the bushes by the hedge. The branches parted. A pale boy ran up to them. He looked quickly at the sisters with his clear, intensely calm, almost dead eyes. There was something strange in the shape of his pale lips, thought Elisaveta. A motionless, sorrowful expression lurked in the corners of his mouth.

Kirsha felt in his pocket, took out a key, and opened the door. It creaked unpleasantly and breathed out cold, dampness, and fear. A long dark passage became discernible. Kirsha pressed a spot near the door. The dark passage became lit up as though by electric light, but the lights themselves were not visible.

The sisters entered the grotto. The light poured from everywhere. But the sources of light remained a mystery. The walls themselves seemed to radiate. The light fell evenly, and neither bright reflections nor shadowy places were to be seen.

The sisters went on. Now they were alone. The door closed behind them with a grating sound. Kirsha ran on ahead. The sisters no longer saw him. The corridor was sinuous. It was difficult to walk fast for some unknown reason. A kind of weight seemed to fetter their limbs. The passage inclined slightly downwards. They walked on like this a long time. It grew hotter and damper the farther they advanced. There was an aroma⁠—strange, sad, and exotic. The fragrance increased, became more and more languorous. It made the head dizzy and the heart ready to faint with a sweetness not free from pain.

It seemed an incredibly long way. Their legs now moved more slowly. The stone floor was cruelly hard.

“It’s almost impossible to walk,” whispered Elisaveta.

Those few moments seemed like ages in that dank, sultry underground. There seemed to be no end to the narrow winding passage; the two sisters felt as though they were doomed to walk on and on, forever and ever, without reaching any place.

An old witch, grey, and all bent, appeared from somewhere; she swung a crutch and stumbled on in haste. She was mumbling angrily:

“It doesn’t smell of our spirit. Strangers have come! Why have they come? What can strangers want here? What are they seeking? They’ll find what they don’t want to find. Ours will see them, and will tear them to pieces, and will scatter the pieces before all the winds.”

Suddenly there was a weird rustle, there rose all about them the squeak of piping little voices, and the sounds of a confused scampering. At the crosspaths there darted in all directions, as thick as dust, countless hordes of grey sprites and evil spirits. Their running was so impetuous that they could have borne along with them every living, weak-willed soul. And it could already be seen that running in their midst were the pitiful souls of little people. Kirsha whispered in a voice full of fear:

“Quicker, quicker into the ring! They will bear us away if we don’t mark ourselves in.”

Trirodov called quietly:

“Come here, come here, quiet boy, draw a circle around us with your nocturnal little stick.”

They no sooner had succeeded in marking themselves in with the magic line than the dead began to pass down the Navii path. The throng of the dead, submitting to some evil malediction, walked towards the town. The spectres walked in the nocturnal silence and the traces they left behind them were light, curious, and hardly distinguishable. Whispered conversations were heard⁠—lifeless words. The dead walked at random, without any defined order. At the beginning the voices merged into a general drone, and only afterwards, by straining one’s ears, it was possible to distinguish separate words and whole phrases.

“Be good yourself, that’s the chief thing.”

And coarse life already hovered near them behind their backs, and was about to intrude upon them. Elisaveta gave a sudden faint outcry at the unexpectedness of an unseemly apparition. A dirty, rough-looking man, all in tatters, was almost upon them; he had approached them upon the mossy ground as softly as a wood fairy. He stretched out a dirty, horny hand, and asked, not at all in a begging voice:

“Give a hungry man something to buy bread with.”

Trirodov frowned in annoyance, and without looking at the beggar took a silver coin out of the pocket of his waistcoat. He always kept a trifle about him to provide for unexpected meetings. The ragged one smiled, turned the coin, threw it upward, caught it, and hid it adroitly in his pocket.

“I thank your illustrious Honour most humbly,” he said. “May God give you good health, a rich wife, and assured success. Only I want to say something to you.”

He grew silent, and assumed a grave, important air. Trirodov frowned even more intensely than before, and asked stiffly:

“What is it you wish to tell me?”

The ragged one said with frank derision in his voice:

“It’s this. You were reading a book, my good people, but not the right one.”

He laughed a pathetic, insolent laugh. It was as if a timorous dog suddenly began to whine hoarsely, insolently, and cautiously.

Trirodov asked again in astonishment:

“Not the right one, why not?”

The ragged one began to speak with awkward gestures, and he gave the impression that he was able to speak well and eloquently, and that he merely assumed his stupid, unpolished manner of speaking.