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Title: Three Deaths Author: Leo Tolstoy Date: 1887 Language: en Topics: fiction Source: Original text from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=10318, 2021. Written 1859, translated 1857 by Nathan Haskell Dole.
It was autumn.
Along the highway came two equipages at a brisk pace. In the first
carriage sat two women. One was a lady, thin and pale; the other, her
maid, with a brilliant red complexion, and plump. Her short, dry locks
escaped from under a faded cap; her red hand, in a torn glove, put them
back with a jerk. Her full bosom, incased in a tapestry shawl, breathed
of health; her keen black eyes now gazed through the window at the
fields hurrying by them, now rested on her mistress, now peered
solicitously into the corners of the coach. Before the maid’s face swung
the lady’s bonnet on the rack; on her knees lay a puppy; her feet were
raised by packages lying on the floor, and could almost be heard
drumming upon them above the noise of the creaking of the springs and
the rattling of the windows. The lady, with her hands resting in her lap
and her eyes shut, feebly swayed on the cushions which supported her
back, and, slightly frowning, tried to suppress her cough.She wore a
white nightcap, and a blue neckerchief twisted around her delicate pale
neck. A straight line, disappearing under the cap, parted her perfectly
smooth blond hair, which was pomaded; and there was a dry deathly
appearance about the whiteness of the skin, in this wide parting. The
withered and rather sallow skin was loosely drawn over her delicate and
pretty features, and there was a hectic flush on the cheeks and
cheekbones. Her lips were dry and restless, her thin eyelashes had lost
their curve, and a cloth traveling capote made straight folds over her
sunken chest. Although her eyes were closed, her face gave the
impression of weariness, irascibility, and habitual suffering.
The lackey, leaning back, was napping on the coachbox. The yamshchik, or
hired driver, shouting in a clear voice, urged on his four powerful and
sweaty horses, occasionally looking back at the other driver, who was
shouting just behind them in an open barouche. The tires of the wheels,
in their even and rapid course, left wide parallel tracks on the limy
mud of the highway.The sky was gray and cold, a moist mist was falling
over the fields and the road. It was suffocating in the carriage, and
smelt of eau-de-Cologne and dust. The invalid leaned back her head, and
slowly opened her eyes. Her great eyes were brilliant, and of a
beautiful dark color.“Again!” said she, nervously, pushing away with her
beautiful attenuated hand the end of her maid’s cloak, which
occasionally hit against herleg. Her mouth contracted painfully.
Matriosha raised her cloak in both hands, lifting herself up on her
strong legs, and then sat down again, farther away. Her fresh face was
suffused with a brilliant scarlet.The invalid’s beautiful dark eyes
eagerly followed the maid’s motions; and then with both hands she took
hold of the seat, and did her best to raise herself a little higher, but
her strength was not sufficient.Again her mouth became contracted, and
her whole face took on an expression of unavailing, angry irony.“If you
would only help me ... ah! It’s not necessary. I can do it myself. Only
have the goodness not to put those pillows behind me.... On the whole,
you had better not touch them, if you don’t understand!“The lady closed
her eyes, and then again, quickly raising the lids, gazed at her maid.
Matriosha looked at her, and gnawed her red lower lip. A heavy sigh
escaped from the sick woman’s breast; but the sigh was not ended, but
was merged in a fit of coughing. She scowled, and turned her face away,
clutching her chest with both hands. When the coughing fit was over, she
once more shut her eyes, and continued to sit motionless. The coach and
the barouche rolled into a village. Matriosha drew her fat hand from
under her shawl, and made the sign of the cross.“What is this?” demanded
the lady.“A post-station, madame.”“Why did you cross yourself, I should
like to know?” “The church, madame.“The invalid lady looked out of the
window, and began slowly to cross herself, gazing with all her eyes at
the great village church, in front of which her carriage was now
passing.
The two vehicles came to a stop together at the post-house. The sick
woman’s husband and the doctor dismounted from the barouche, and came to
the coach.“How are you feeling?” asked the doctor, taking her pulse.
“Well, my dear, aren’t you fatigued?” asked the husband in French.
“Wouldn’t you like to get out?” Matriosha, gathering up the bundles,
squeezed herself into the corner, so as not to interfere with the
conversation.“No matter, it’s all the same thing,” replied the invalid.
“I will not get out.“The husband, after standing there a little, went
into the post-house. Matriosha, jumping from the coach, tiptoed across
the muddy road into the enclosure.“If I am miserable, there is no reason
why the rest of you should not have breakfast,” said the sick woman,
smiling faintly to the doctor, who was standing by her window. “It makes
no difference to them how I am,” she remarked to herself as the doctor,
turning from her with slow step, started to run up the steps of the
station-house. “They are well, and it’s all the same to them. O my God!”
How now, Eduard Ivanovitch?” said the husband, as he met the doctor, and
rubbing his hands with a gay smile. “I have ordered my traveling-case
brought; what do you say to that?” “That’s worth while,” replied the
doctor.“Well, now, how about her?” asked the husband, with a sigh,
lowering his voice and raising his brows. “I have told you that she
cannot reach Moscow, much less Italy, especially in such weather.” “What
is to be done, then? Oh! My God! My God!“The husband covered his eyes
with his hand.... “Give it here,” he added, addressing his man, who came
bringing the traveling-case.“You’ll have to stop somewhere on the
route,” replied the doctor, shrugging his shoulders.“But tell me, what
can I do?” rejoined the husband. “I have employed every argument to keep
her from going; I have spoken to her of our means, and of our children
whom we should have to leave behind, and of my business. She would not
hear a word. She has made her plans for living abroad, as if she were
well. But if I should tell her what her real condition is, it would kill
her.”“Well, she is a dead woman now; you may as well know it, Vasili
Dmitritch. A person cannot live without lungs, and there is no way of
making lungs grow again. It is melancholy, it is hard, but what is to be
done about it? It is my business and yours to make her last days as easy
as possible. The confessor is the person needed here.”“Oh, my God! Now
just perceive how I am situated, in speaking to her of her last will.
Let come whatever may, yet I cannot speak of that. And yet you know how
good she is.” “Try at least to persuade her to wait until the roads are
frozen,” said the doctor, shaking his head significantly; “something
might happen during the journey.” ... “Aksiusha, oh, Aksiusha!” cried
the superintendent’s daughter, throwing a cloak over her head, and
tiptoeing down the muddy back steps. “Come along. Let us have a look at
the Shirkinskaya lady; the say she’s got lung trouble, and they’re
taking her abroad. I never saw how any one looked in
consumption.“Aksiusha jumped down from the door-sill; and the two girls,
hand in hand, hurried out of the gates. Shortening their steps, they
walked by the coach, and stared in at the lowered window. The invalid
bent her head toward them; but, when she saw their inquisitiveness, she
frowned and turned away.“Oh, de-e-ar!” said the superintendent’s
daughter, vigorously shaking her head..... “How wonderfully pretty she
used to be, and how she has changed! It is terrible! Did you see? Did
you see, Aksiusha?”“Yes, andhow thin she is!” assented Aksiusha. “Let us
go by and look again; we’ll make believe we are going to the well. Did
you see, she turned away from us; still I got a good view of her. Isn’t
it too bad, Masha?”“Yes, but what terrible mud!” replied Masha, and both
of them started to run back within the gates.“It’s evident that I have
become a fright,” thought the sick woman..... “But we must hurry, hurry,
and get abroad, and there I shall soon get well.”“Well, and how are you,
my dear?” inquired the husband, coming to the coach with still a morsel
of something in his mouth. “Always one and the same question,” thought
the sick woman, “and he’s even eating!”“It’s no consequence,” she
murmured, between her teeth.“Do you know, my dear, I am afraid that this
journey in such weather will only make you worse. Edouard Ivanovitch
says the same thing. Hadn’t we better turn back?” She maintained an
angry silence. “Maybe the weather will improve, the roads will become
good, and that would be better for you; then at least we could start all
together.” “Pardon me. If I had not listened to you so long, I should at
this moment be at Berlin and have entirely recovered.”“What’s to be
done, my angel? It was impossible, as you know. But now if you would
wait a month, you would be ever so much better; I could finish up my
business, and we could take the children with us.” ....“The children are
well, and I am not.”“But just see here, my love, if in this weather you
should grow worse on the road .... At least we should be at home.”“What
is the use of being at home? ... Die at home?” replied the invalid,
peevishly.But the word die evidently startled her, and she turned on her
husband a supplicating and inquiring look. He dropped his eyes, and said
nothing.The sick woman’s mouth suddenly contracted in a childish
fashion, and the tears sprang to her eyes. Her husband covered his face
with his handkerchief, and silently turned from the coach.“No, I will
go,” cried the invalid; and, lifting her eyes to the sky, she clasped
her hands, and began to whisper incoherent words. “My God! Why must it
be?” she said, and the tears flowed more violently.She prayed long and
fervently, but still there was just the same sense of constriction and
pain in her chest, just the same gray melancholy in the sky and the
fields and the road; just the same autumnal mist, neither thicker nor
more tenuous, but ever the same it in its monotony, falling on the muddy
highway, on the roofs, on the carriage, and on the sheepskin coats of
the drivers, who were talking in strong, gay voices, as they were oiling
and adjusting the carriage.
The coach was ready, but the driver loitered. He had gone into the
drivers’ room [izba]. In the izba it was warm, close, dark, and
suffocating, smelling of human occupation, of cooking bread, of cabbage,
and of sheepskin garments.Several drivers were in the room; the cook was
engaged near the oven, on top of which lay a sick man wrapped up in his
sheepskins.“Uncle Khveodor! Hey! Uncle Khveodor,” called a young man,
the driver, in a tulup, and with his knout in his belt, coming into the
room, and addressing the sick man. “What do you want, rattlepate? What
are you calling to Fyedka for?” asked one of the drivers. “There’s your
carriage waiting for you.” “I want to borrow his boots. Mine are worn
out,” replied the young fellow, tossing back his curls and straightening
his mittensin his belt. “Why? Is he asleep? Say, Uncle Khvodor!” he
insisted, going to the oven.“What is it?” a weak voice was heard saying,
and an emaciated face was lifted up from the oven.
A broad, gaunt hand, bloodless and covered with hairs, pulled up his
overcoat over the dirty shirt that covered his bony shoulder. “Give me
something to drink, brother; what is it you want?“The young fellow
handed him a small dish of water.“I say, Fyedya,” said he, hesitating,
“I reckon you won’t want your new boots now; let me have them? Probably
you won’t need them any more.” The sick man, dropping his weary head
down to the lacquered bowl, and dipping his thin, hanging mustache into
the brown water, drank feebly and eagerly.His tangled beard was unclean;
his sunken, clouded eyes were with difficulty raised to the young man’s
face. When he had finished drinking, he tried to raise his hand to wipe
his wet lips, but his strength failed him, and he wiped them on the
sleeve of his overcoat. Silently, and breathing with difficulty through
his nose, he looked straight into the young man’s eyes, and tried to
collect his strength.
“Maybe you have promised them to some one else?” said the young driver.
“If that’s so, all right. The worst of it is, it is wet outside, and I
have to go out to my work, and so I said to myself, ‘I reckon I’ll ask
Fyedka for his boots; I reckon he won’t be needing them.’ But may you
will need them, — just say.” .... Something began to bubble up and
rumble in the sick man’s chest; he bent over, and began to strangle,
with a cough that rattled in his throat.“Now I should like to know where
he would need them?” unexpectedly snapped out the cook, angrily
addressing the whole hovel. “This is the second month that he has not
crept down from the oven. Just see how he is all broken up! And you can
hear how it must hurt him inside. Where would he need boots? They would
not think of burying him in new ones! And it was time long ago, God
pardon me the sin of saying so. Just see how he chokes! He ought to be
taken from this room to another, or somewhere. They say there’s
hospitals in the city; but what’s you going to do? He takes up the whole
room, and that’s too much. There isn’t any room at all. And yet you are
expected to keep neat.”
“Hey! Seryoha, come along, take your place, the people are waiting,”
cried the head man of the station, coming to the door. Seryoha started
to go without waiting for his reply, but the sick man during his cough
intimated by his eyes that he was going to speak.“You take the boots,
Seryoha,” said he, conquering the cough, and getting his breath a
little. “Only, do you hear, buy me a stone when I am dead,” he added
hoarsely.“Thank you, uncle; then I will take them, and as for the stone,
— yei-yei! — I will buy you one.“There, children, you are witnesses,”
the sick man was able to articulate, and then once more he bent over and
began to choke.“All right, we have heard,” said one of the drivers. “But
run, Seryoha, or else the starosta will be after you again. You know
Lady Shirkinskaya is sick.“Seryoha quickly pulled off his ragged,
unwieldy boots, and flung them under the bench. Uncle Feodor’s new ones
fitted his feet exactly, and the yung driver could not keep his eyes off
them as he went to the carriage.
“Ek! What splendid boots! Here’s some grease,” called another driver
with the grease-pot in his hand, as Seryoha mounted to his box and
gathered up the reins. “Get them for nothing?” “So you’re jealous, are
you?” cried Seryoha, lifting up and tucking around his legs the tails of
his overcoat. “Of with you, my darlings,” he cried to the horses,
cracking his knout; and the coach and barouche, with their occupants,
trunks, and other belongings, were hidden in the thick autumnal mist,
and rapidly whirled away over the wet road.The sick driver remained on
the oven in the stifling hovel, and, not being able to throw off the
phlegm, by a supreme effort turned over on the other side, and stopped
coughing.
Till evening there was a continual coming and going, and eating of meals
in the room, and the sick man was not noticed. Before night came on, the
cook climbed up on the oven, and got the ssheepskin coat from the
farther side of his legs.“Don’t be angry with me, Nastasya,” exclaimed
the sick man. “I shall soon leave your room.”“All right, all right, it’s
of no consequence,” muttered the woman. “But what is the matter with
you, uncle? Tell me.” “All my inwards are gnawed out. God knows what it
is!”“And I don’t doubt your gullet hurts you when you cough so!”“It
hurts me all over. My death is at hand, that’s what it is. Okh! Okh!
Okh!” groaned the sick man. “Mow cover up your legs this way,” said
Nastasya, comfortably arranging the overcoat so that it would cover him,
and then getting down from the oven.
During the night the room was faintly lighted by a single taper.
Nastasya and a dozen drivers were sleeping, snoring loudly, on the floor
and the benches. Only the sick man feebly hawked and coughed, and tossed
on the oven.In the morning no sound was heard from him.“I saw something
wonderful in my sleep,” said the cook, as she stretched herself in the
early twilight the next morning. “I seemed to see Uncle Khveodor get
down from the oven and go out to cut wood. ‘Look here,’ says he, ‘I’m
going to help you, Nastya;’ and I says to him, ‘How can you split wood?’
but he seizes the hatchet, and begins to cut so fast, so fast that
nothing but chips fly. ‘Why,’ sais I, ‘haven’t you been sick?’ — ‘No,’
says he, ‘I am well,’ and he kind of lifted up the ax, and I was scared;
and I screamed and woke up. He can’t be dead, can he? — Uncle Khveodor!
Hey, uncle!“Feodor did not move.“Now he can’t be dead, can he? Go and
see,” said one of the drivers, who had just waked up. The emaciated
hand, covered with reddish hair, that hung down from the oven, was cold
and pale. “Go tell the superintendent; it seems he is dead,” said the
driver. Feodor had no relatives. He was a stranger. On the next day they
buried him in the new burying-ground behind the grove; and Nastasya for
many days had to tell everybody of the vision which she had seen, and
how she had been the first to discover that Uncle Feodor was dead.
Spring had come.
Along the wet streets of the city swift streamlets ran purling between
heaps of dung-covered ice; bright were the colors of people’s dresses
and the tones of their voices, as they hurried along. In the walled
gardens, the buds on the trees were burgeoning, and the fresh breeze
swayed their branches with a soft gentle murmur. Everywhere transparent
drops were forming and falling.....
The sparrows chattered incoherently, and fluttered about on their little
wings. On the sunny side, on the walls, houses, and trees, all was full
of life and brilliancy. The sky, and the earth, and the heart of man
overflowed with youth and joy.
In front of a great seigniorial mansion, in one of the principal
streets, fresh straw had been laid down; in the house lay that same
moribund invalid whom we saw hastening abroad.
Near the closed doors of her room stood the sick lady’s husband, and a
lady well along in years. On a divan sat the confessor, with cast-down
eyes, holding something wrapped up under his stole. In one corner, in a
Voltaire easy-chair, reclined an old lady, the sick woman’s mother,
weeping violently.
Near her stood the maid, holding a clean handkerchief, ready for the old
lady’s use when she should ask for it. Another maid was rubbing the old
lady’s temples, and blowing on her gray head underneath her cap.
“Well, Christ be with you, my dear,” said the husband to the elderly
lady who was standing with him near the door: “she has such confidence
in you; you know how to talk with her; go and speak with her a little
while, my darling, please go!”
He was about to open the door for her; but his cousin held him back,
putting her handkerchief several times to her eyes, and shaking her
head.
“There, now she will not see that I have been weeping,” said she, and,
opening the door herself, went to the invalid.
The husband was in the greatest excitement, and seemed quite beside
himself. He started to go over to the old mother, but, after taking a
few steps, he turned around, walked the length of the room, and
approached the priest.The priest looked at him, raised his brows toward
heaven, and sighed. The thick gray beard also was lifted and fell
again.“My God! My God!” said the husband.“What can you do?” exclaimed
the confessor, sighing and again lifting up his brows and beard, and
letting them drop.“And the old mother there!” exclaimed the husband
almost in despair. “She will not be able to endure it. You see, she
loved her so, she loved her so, that she .... I don’t know. You might
try, father, to calm her a little, and persuade her to go away.“The
confessor arose and went over to the old lady.“It is true, no one can
appreciate a mother’s heart,” said he, “but God is compassionate.”
The old lady’s face was suddenly convulsed, and a hysterical sob shook
her frame.“God is compassionate,” repeated the priest, when she had
grown a little calmer. “I will tell you, in my parish there was a sick
man, and much worse than Marya Dmitrievna, and he, though he was only a
shopkeeper, was cured in a very short time, by means of herbs. And this
very same shopkeeper is now in Moscow. I have told Vasili Dmitrievitch
about him; it might be tried, you know. At all events, it would satisfy
the invalid. With God, all things are possible.”“No, she won’t get
well,” persisted the old lady. “Why should God have taken her, and not
me?“And again the hysterical sobbing overcame her, so violently that she
fainted away.
The invalid’s husband hid his face in his hands, and rushed from the
room.In the corridor the first person whom he met was a six-year-old
boy, who was chasing his little sister with all his might and main.“Do
you bid me take the children to their mamasha?” inquired the nurse.“No,
she does not like to see them. They distract her.“The lad stopped for a
moment, and, after looking eagerly into his father’s face, he cut a dido
with his leg, and with merry shouts ran on.“I’m playing whe’s a horse,
papasha,” cried the little fellow, pointing to his sister.
Meantime, in the next room, the cousin had taken her seat near the sick
woman, and was skillfully bringing the conversation by degrees round so
as to prepare her for the thought of death. The doctor stood by the
window, mixing some draft.The invalid, in a white capote, all surrounded
by cushions, was sitting up in bed, and gazed silently at her
cousin.“Ah, my dear!” she exclaimed, unexpectedly interrupting her,
“don’t try to prepare me; don’t treat me like a little child! I am a
Christian woman. I know all about it. I know that I have not long to
live; I know that if my husband had heeded me sooner, I should have been
in Italy, and possibly, yes probably, should have been well by this
time. They all told him so. But what is to be done? It’s as God saw fit.
We all of us have sinned, I know that; but I hope in the mercy of God,
that all will be pardoned, ought to be pardoned. I am trying to sound my
own heart. I also have committed many sins, my love. But how much I have
suffered in atonement! I have tried to bear my sufferings patiently.”
....
“Then shall I have the confessor come in, my love? It will be all the
easier for you, after you have been absolved,” said the cousin.The sick
woman dropped her head in token of assent. “O God! Pardon me, a sinner,”
she whispered.The cousin went out, and beckoned to the confessor. “She
is an angel,” she said to the husband, with tears in her eyes. The
husband wept. The priest went into the sick room; the old lady still
remained unconscious, and in the room beyond all was perfectly quiet. At
the end of five minutes the confessor came out, and, taking off his
stole, arranged his hair.“Thanks be to the Lord, she is calmer now,”
said he. “She wishes to see you.“The cousin and the husband went to the
sick room. The invalid, gently weeping, was gazing at the images. “I
congratulate you, my love,” said the husband.“Thank you. How well I feel
now! What ineffable joy I experience!” said the sick woman, and a faint
smile played over her thin lips. “How merciful God is! Is He not? He is
merciful and omnipotent!“And again with an eager prayer she turned her
tearful eyes toward the holy images.Then suddenly something seemed to
occur to her mind. She beckoned to her husband.“You are never willing to
do what I desire,” said she, in a weak and querulous voice.The husband,
stretching his neck, listened to her submissively.“What is it, my
love?”“How many times I have told you that these doctors don’t know
anything! There are simple women doctors; they make cures. That’s what
the good father said.... A shopkeeper .... Send for him.” ...“For whom,
my love?” “Good heavens! You can never understand me.” And the dying
woman frowned, and closed her eyes. The doctor came to her, and took her
hand. Her pulse was evidently growing feebler and feebler. He made a
sign to the husband. The sick woman remarked this gesture, and looked
around in fright. The cousin turned away to hide her tears. “Don’t weep,
don’t torment yourselves on my account,” said the invalid. “That takes
away from me my last comfort.”“You are an angel!” exclaimed the cousin,
kissing her hand.“No, kiss me here. They only kiss the hands of those
who are dead. My God! My God!”
That same evening the sick woman was a corpse, and the corpse in the
coffin lay in the parlor of the great mansion. In the immense room, the
doors of which were closed, sat the clerk, and with a monstrous voice
read the Psalms of David through his nose.
The bright glare from the wax candles in the lofty silver candelabra
fell on the white brow of the dead, on the heavy waxen hands, on the
stiff folds of the cerement which brought out into awful relief the
knees and the feet.The clerk, not varying his tones, continued to read
on steadily, and in the silence of the chamber of death his words rang
out and died away. Occasionally from distant rooms came the voice of
children and their romping. “Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled;
thou takest away their breath, they die and return to their dust.“Thou
sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the fact
of the earth. “The glor of the Lord shall endure forever.” ...
The face of the dead was stern and majestic. But there was no motion
either on the pure cold brow, or the firmly closed lips. She was all
attention! But did she perhaps now understand these majestic words?
At the end of a month, over the grave of the dead a stone chapel was
erected. Over the driver’s there was as yet no stone, and only the fresh
green grass sprouted over the mound which served as the sole record of
the past existence of a man.
“It will be a sin and a shame, Seryoha,” said the cook at the
station-house one day, “if you don’t buy a gravestone for Khveodor. You
kept saying, ‘it’s winter, winter,’ but now why don’t you keep your
word? I heard it all. He has already come back once to ask why you don’t
do it; if you don’t buy him one, he will come again, he will choke you.”
“Well, now, have I denied it?” urged Seryoha. “I am going to buy him a
stone, as I said I would. I can get one for a ruble and a half. I have
not forgotten about it; I’ll have to get it. As soon as I happen to be
in town, then I’ll buy him one.”“You ought at least to put up a cross,
that’s what you ought to do,” said an old driver. It isn’t right at all.
You’re wearing those boots now.” “Yes. But where could I get him a
cross? You wouldn’t want to make one out of an old piece of stick, would
you?”“What is that you say? Make one out of an old piece of stick? No;
take your ax, go out to the wood a little earlier than usual, and you
can hew him out one. Take a little ash tree, and you can make one. You
can have a covered cross. If you go then, you won’t have to give the
watchman a little drink of vodka. One doesn’t want to give vodka for
every trifle. Now, yesterday I broke my axletree, and I go and hew out a
new one of green wood. No one said a word.”
Early the next morning, almost before dawn, Seryoha took his ax, and
went to the wood.Over all things hung a cold, dead veil of falling mist,
as yet untouched by the rays of the sun.The east gradually grew
brighter, reflecting its pale light over the vault of heaven still
covered by light clouds. Not a single grass-blade below, now a single
leaf on the topmost branches of the tree-top, waved. Only from time to
time could be heard the sound of fluttering wings in the thicket, or a
rustling on the ground broke in on the silence of the forest.
Suddenly a strange sound, foreign to this nature, resounded and died
away at the edge of the forest. Again the noise sounded, and was
monotonously repeated again and again, at the foot of one of the
ancient, immovable trees. A tree-top began to shake in an extraordinary
manner; the juicy leaves whispered something; and the warbler, sitting
on one of the branches, flew off a couple of times with a shrill cry,
and wagging its tail, finally perched on another tree.
The ax rang more and more frequently; the white chips, full of sap, were
scattered upon the dewy grass, and a slight cracking was heard beneath
the blows.
The tree trembled with all its body, leaned over, and quickly
straightened itself, shuddering with fear on its base.
For an instant all was still, then once more the tree bent over; a crash
was heard in its trunk; and, tearing the thicket, and dragging down the
branches, it plunged toward the damp earth.
The noise of the ax and of footsteps ceased.
The warbler uttered a cry, and flew higher. The branch which she grazed
with her wings shook for an instant, and then came to rest like all the
others their foliage.
The trees, more joyously than ever, extended their motionless branches
over the new space that had been made in their midst.
The first sunbeams, breaking through the cloud, gleamed in the sky, and
shone along the earth and heavens.
The mist, in billows, began to float along the hollows; the dew,
gleaming, played on the green foliage; translucent white clouds hurried
along their azure path.
The birds hopped about in the thicket, and, as if beside themselves,
voiced their happiness; the juicy leaves joyfully and contentedly
whispered on the tree-tops; and the branches of the living trees slowly
and majestically waved over the dead and fallen tree.