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.
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