picked them up later and laid them on the table. Then I remembered that these papers were the chief reason why he had died before his time, and in my anger I nearly tore them up and threw them out of the window. But then the thought came to me that this was Jan’s writing,—that it contained his thoughts, I should have liked to read them, and perhaps keep them for a remembrance. I knew that Jan’s father had often called his writing a foolish pastime, and had threatened his son that he would burn these papers if he caught him at them again. So as I came away, I tok the papers with me.”
“And you have them at home?” I asked.
“Yes,” declared the girl, and with that she stared at me with astonishment in her clear brown eyes, upon whose lashes tiny tears were glistening. “But is there anything important in these papers?”
I merly gave a slight nod, and after taking my leave of Jan’s parents, I asked the girl to go with me and bring me the papers. How differrent was the view which greeted me outside, when I had left the close room, the scene of death and sorrow. The lovely smile of the spring sun was shinging on the cottages, on the vine-leaves and the hopes which trailed around them, in countless flowers and upon the rich green tree-tops of the forest close by, in front of which, upon the fresh grass of a meadow under a blossoming pear-tree, a troop of children was romping around a merrily blazing little fire.
I went with the girl to a low-roofed hut. On the threshold a wrinkled old woman was warming herself in the sun; she had a crutch under her arm and in her hand a rosary, whose pimpernel beads her shrunken fingers were slowly counting out. “I am praying for neighbour’s Jenik” she mumbled with her toothless lips, “God grant that he may enter into heaven”. The girl slipped, passed her into the cottage and remained there for a considerable time. She returned in manifest alarm, and asked the old woman: “Do you know, what has become of those papers that I put on the box?”—“How should I know” muttered the old woman. “I expect those young imps of ours,—they are always getting up to some mischief or other,—I think they took some papers out of the room,—they are over there, hm, hm,” and with a cough she lifted her crutch and pointed to the group of children under the pear-tree.
I hurried there with the girl, and in the middle of the frolicking band of children I saw upon a small, half burnt-out fire a smouldering pile of papers; some of them had just finished burning and were still writhing and softly wheezing as if in pain. The children were gloating over the death struggles and sighs of the unhappy poem, and were delighted by the gambols of the playful sparks upon the blackening fibres. Of course, they had not the slightest notion that each one of these sparks meant that a great and beautiful thought was being utterly destroyed, that with them, the last traces of an extraordinary and lofty spirit were vanishing for ever from te surface of the earth.”
“So it is all burnt up?” I exclaimed almost simultaneously with Uljana.
“Practically all. Only a single sheet of paper was saved from the children’s auto-da-fé. It lay beside the fire with its edges only slightly charred. It was the epilogue, the lines of which had ben completed in pencil, and with them the poet had accomplished his life’s work,—now rendered useless,—almost in the very moment of death. I have kept this sheet in my pocket-book. Perhaps after you return home you could publish at least these few verses in some native periodical. In my opinion they are beautiful, extremely beautiful, and yet they form only a very insignificant and paltry fragment of the splendid magical palace,, through the radiant passages of which I walked alone that night, and which collapsed into nothing behind me as if at the touch of an evil wizard. At the most they can arouse profound regret at the loss of an extraordinary—”
Two shots in quick succession interrupted his words. Alarmed and also inquisitive, the party scrambled to the slope of the mountain from which they had resounded. I also joined in. I soon observed that something very ordinary had happened. As time was hanging heavily on their hands, our Cossacks had been doing some hunting and they had shot an animal. So I returned to our camping-place. But there my steps were arrested by the following brief incident which I saw through a gap in the thicket which separated me from our deserted camp with the lonely ash-tree in the background. It was not entirely deserted. Uljana, whose agitation and moodiness I had noticed the whole time that the surgeon was speaking, had remained there. Perhaps in her deep thoughts she had overheard even the two shots. She was sitting there with her head buried in her hands. Now she suddenly arose, looked hastily around her, and perceiving nobody upon the camping-place, she gave a single leap up to the young ash-tree, clasped her hands around its slender trunk, and half concealed by the vine-tendrils trailing about it, she pressed her lips upon the grey bark. She remained for a little while in this posture. And just at that moment the top of the ash-tree quivered in the light breeze, its feathery, transparent foliage began gently to sway and rustle.
What was the meaning of this incident? Was it one of those mysterious outbursts of unfathomed emotion, which suddenly with the vehemence of a whirlwind set a young soul astir, and then suddenly disappear without after-effects? Or was Uljana the incarnation of that beautiful vision, for which the unhappy youth had vainly sighed throughout his life and with whose bodily image he would only meet beyond the grave? And truly, the ash-tree quivered as strangely as if Jan himself were actually standing there in
