jess: journal of estonian short stories (issue 1 / autumn 2014)
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JESS
Journal of Estonian
Short Stories
Issue 1 / August 2014
Villane Raamat MTÜ
Tartu, 2014
JESS: Journal of Estonian Short Stories
Print version ISSN 2346-6456
Digital version ISSN 2346-6464
Published by Villane Raamat MTÜ
Printed at the Estonian Printing Museum
JESS Editorial ∙ Edited by James Baxenfield and Tiina Aleman
Iannotti
Illustrations Jaan Škerin
Cover “Amethyst” by Fatima Susanna Dominguez Ortiz
Contents
Foreword i
An Estonian Folktale
“The Northern Frog” 1
Lady Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake
“The Wolves” 21
Sir Stephen George Tallents
“The Silver Cup” 45
Agnieszka Kunz
“The Story of Oliver and Scarymouse” 59
Tina Rowe
[untitled] 67
i
Foreword
In this first issue of JESS, Villane Raamat presents you,
the reader, with a selection of stories that span a number
of centuries, accompanied by original artwork by Jaan
Škerin and a cover image designed by Fatima Sussana
Dominguez Ortiz.
By chance the stories have been arranged in alpha-
betical order by author, assuming that the origin of the
folktale “The Northern Frog” has been lost to the ages;
coming down to us through oral tradition. If the name of
an author to the tale was to be given it could only be
attributed to that amazingly prolific author ‘Anony-
mous’, and again, buy chance, the placement of stories
would still be alphabetical.
Consciously, the stories have been arranged in a
loose chronological order, based upon when they ap-
peared and the amount of time the author (where pre-
sent) spent time in Estonia. Again by chance, this
chronological arrangement presents not only a linear
progression through time but also in content. For the
most part, the contributors to this volume, past and pre-
sent, are foreign to Estonia. Their stories, whether
based-up their experiences or inspired by them, offer an
insight into the changing face of Estonia over time.
JESS
JESS
Journal of Estonian
Short Stories
1
The Northern Frog
An Estonian Folktale
Once upon a time, as old people relate, there existed a
horrible monster which came from the north. It
exterminated men and animals from large districts, and
if nobody had been able to arrest its progress, it might
gradually have swept all living things from the earth.
It had a body like an ox and legs like a frog; that is to
say, two short ones in front, and two long ones behind.
Its tail was ten fathoms long. It moved like a frog, but
cleared two miles at every bound. Fortunately it used to
remain on the spot where it had once alighted for
several years, and did not advance farther till it had
eaten the whole neighbourhood bare. Its body was
entirely encased in scales harder than stone or bronze,
so that nothing could injure it. Its two large eyes shone
like the brightest tapers both by day and night, and
2
3
whoever had the misfortune to meet their glare became
as one bewitched, and was forced to throw himself into
the jaws of the monster. So it happened that men and
animals offered themselves to be devoured, without any
necessity for it to move from its place. The
neighbouring kings offered magnificent rewards to any
one who could destroy the monster by magic or
otherwise, and many people had tried their fortune, but
their efforts were all futile. On one occasion, a large
wood in which the monster was skulking was set on fire.
The wood was destroyed, but the noxious animal was
not harmed in the slightest degree. However, it was
reported among old people that nobody could overcome
the monster except with the help of King Solomon's
Seal, on which a secret inscription was engraved, from
which it could be discovered how the monster might be
destroyed. But nobody could tell where the seal was
now concealed, nor where to find a sorcerer who could
read the inscription.
At length a young man whose head and heart were in
the right place determined to set out in search of the
seal-ring, trusting in his good fortune. He started in the
direction of the East, where it is supposed that the
wisdom of the ancients is to be sought for. After some
years he met with a celebrated magician of the East, and
asked him for advice. The sorcerer answered, “Men
have but little wisdom, and here it can avail you nothing,
but God's birds will be your best guides under heaven, if
you will learn their language. I can help you with it if
you will stay with me for a few days.”
The young man thankfully accepted this friendly
offer, and replied, “I am unable at present to make you
4
any return for your kindness, but if I should succeed in
my enterprise, I will richly reward you for your
trouble.” Then the sorcerer prepared a powerful charm,
by boiling nine kinds of magic herbs which he had
gathered secretly by moonlight. He made the young
man drink a spoonful every day, and it had the effect of
making the language of birds intelligible to him. When
he departed, the sorcerer said, “If you should have the
good luck to find and get possession of Solomon's Seal,
come back to me, that I may read you the inscription on
the ring, for there is no one else now living who can do
so.”
On the very next day the young man found the world
quite transformed. He no longer went anywhere alone,
but found company everywhere, for he now understood
the language of birds, and thus many secrets were
revealed to him which human wisdom would have been
unable to discover. Nevertheless, some time passed
before he could learn anything about the ring. At length
one evening, when he was exhausted with heat and
fatigue, he lay down under a tree in a wood to eat his
supper, when he heard two strange birds with bright
coloured plumage talking about him in the branches.
One of them said, “I know the silly wanderer under the
tree, who has already wandered about so much without
finding a trace of what he wants. He is searching for the
lost ring of King Solomon.” The other bird replied, “I
think he must seek the help of the Hell-Maiden, who
would certainly be able to help him to find it. Even if
she herself does not possess the ring, she must know
well enough who owns it now.” The first bird returned,
“It may be as you say, but where can he find the Hell-
Maiden, who has no fixed abode, and is here to-day and
5
there to-morrow? He might as well try to fetter the
wind.” “I can't say exactly where she is at present,” said
the other bird, “but in three days' time she will come to
the spring to wash her face, as is her custom every
month on the night of the full moon, so that the bloom
of youth never disappears from her cheeks, and her face
never wrinkles with age.” The first bird responded,
“Well, the spring is not far off; shall we amuse ourselves
by watching her proceedings?” “Willingly,” said the
other.
The young man resolved at once to follow the birds
and visit the spring; but two difficulties troubled him. In
the first place, he feared he might be asleep when the
birds set out; and secondly, he had no wings, with which
he could follow close behind them. He was too weary to
lie awake all night, for he could not keep his eyes open,
but his anxiety prevented him from sleeping quietly, and
he often woke up for fear of missing the departure of the
birds. Consequently he was very glad when he looked
up in the tree at sunrise, and saw the bright-coloured
birds sitting motionless with their heads under their
wings. He swallowed his breakfast, and then waited for
the birds to wake up. But they did not seem disposed to
go anywhere that morning; but fluttered about as if to
amuse themselves, in search of food, and flew from one
tree-top to another till evening, when they returned to
roost at their old quarters. On the second day it was just
the same. However, on the third morning one bird said
to the other, “We must go to the spring to-day, to see the
Hell-Maiden washing her face.” They waited till noon,
and then flew away direct towards the south. The young
man's heart beat with fear lest he should lose sight of his
guides. But the birds did not fly farther than he could
6
see, and perched on the summit of a tree. The young
man ran after them till he was all in a sweat and quite
out of breath. After resting three times, the birds reached
a small open glade, and perched on a high tree at its
edge. When the young man arrived, he perceived a
spring in the midst of the opening, and sat down under
the tree on which the birds were perched. Then he
pricked up his ears, and listened to the talk of the
feathered creatures.
“The sun has not set,” said one bird, “and we must
wait till the moon rises and the maiden comes to the
well. We will see whether she notices the young man
under the tree.” The other bird replied, “Nothing
escapes her eyes which concerns a young man. Will this
one be clever enough to escape falling into her net?”
“We will see what passes between them,” returned the
first bird.
Evening came, and the full moon had already risen
high above the wood, when the young man heard a
slight rustling, and in a few moments a maiden emerged
from the trees, and sped across the grass to the spring so
lightly that her feet hardly seemed to touch the ground.
The young man perceived in an instant that she was the
most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life, and
he could not take his eyes from her.
She went straight to the well, without taking any
heed of him, raised her eyes to the moon, and then fell
on her knees and washed her face nine times in the
spring. Every time she looked up at the moon, and cried
out, “Fair and round-cheeked, as now thou art, may my
beauty likewise endure imperishably.” Then she walked
nine times round the spring, and each time she sang –
7
“Let the maiden's face not wrinkle,
Nor her red cheeks lose their beauty;
Though the moon should wane and dwindle,
May my beauty grow for ever,
And my joy bloom on for ever!”
Then she dried her face with her long hair, and was
about to depart, when her eyes suddenly fell upon the
young man who was sitting under the tree, and she
turned towards him immediately. The young man rose
up to await her approach. The fair maiden drew nearer,
and said to him, “You have exposed yourself to severe
punishment for spying on the private affairs of a maiden
in the moonlight, but as you are a stranger, and came
here by accident, I will forgive you. But you must
inform me truly who you are, and how you came here,
where no mortal has ever before set foot.”
The youth answered with much politeness, “Forgive
me, fair lady, for having offended you without my
knowledge or intention. When I arrived here, after long
wanderings, I found this nice place under the tree, and
prepared to camp here for the night. Your arrival
interrupted me, and I remained sitting here, thinking that
I should not disturb you if I looked on quietly.”
The maiden answered in the most friendly manner,
“Come to our house to-night. It is better to rest on
cushions than on the cold moss.”
The young man hesitated for a moment, uncertain
whether he ought to accept her friendly invitation or to
decline it. One of the birds in the tree remarked to the
other, “He would be a fool if he did not accept her
8
offer.” Perhaps the maiden did not know the language of
birds, for she added, “Fear nothing, my friend. I have
not invited you with any ill intention, but wish you well
with all my heart.” The birds responded, “Go where you
are asked, but beware of giving any blood, lest you
should sell your soul.”
Then the youth went with her. Not far from the
spring they arrived at a beautiful garden, in which stood
a magnificent mansion, which shone in the moonlight as
if the roof and walls were made of gold and silver.
When the youth entered, he passed through very
splendid apartments, each grander than the last;
hundreds of tapers were burning in gold chandeliers,
and everywhere diffused a light like that of day. At
length they reached a room where an elegant supper was
laid out, and two chairs stood at the table, one of silver
and the other of gold. The maiden sat down on the
golden chair, and invited the youth to take the other.
White-robed damsels served up and removed the dishes,
but they spoke no word, and trod as softly as if on cats'
feet. After supper the youth remained alone with the
royal maiden, and they kept up a lively conversation, till
a woman in red garments appeared to remind them that
it was bedtime.
Then the maiden showed the young man to another
room, where stood a silken bed with cushions of down,
after which she retired. He thought he must have gone
to heaven with his living body, for he never expected to
find such luxuries on earth. But he could never
afterwards tell whether it was the delusion of dreams or
whether he actually heard voices round his bed crying
out words which chilled his heart – “Give no blood!”
9
Next morning the maiden asked him whether he
would not like to stay here, where the whole week was
one long holiday. And as the youth did not answer
immediately, she added, “I am young and fair, as you
see yourself, and I am under no one's authority, and can
do what I like. Until now, it never entered my head to
marry, but from the moment when I saw you, other
thoughts came suddenly into my mind, for you please
me. If we should both be of one mind, let us wed
without delay. I possess endless wealth and goods, as
you may easily convince yourself at every step, and thus
I can live in royal state day by day. Whatever your heart
desires, that can I provide for you.”
The cajoleries of the fair maid might well have
turned the youth's head, but by good fortune he
remembered that the birds had called her the Hell-
Maiden, and had warned him to give her no blood, and
that he had received the same warning at night, though
whether sleeping or waking he knew not. He therefore
replied, “Dear lady, do not be angry with me if I tell you
candidly that marriage should not be rushed upon at
racehorse speed, but requires longer consideration. Pray
therefore allow me a few days for reflection, until we
are better acquainted.” "Why not?” answered the fair
maid. “I am quite content that you should think on the
matter for a few weeks, and set your mind at rest.”
Lest the youth might feel dull, the maiden led him
from one part of the magnificent house to another, and
showed him all the rich storehouses and treasure-
chambers, thinking that it might soften his heart. All
these treasures were the result of magic, for the maiden
could have built such a palace with all its contents on
10
any day and at any place with the aid of Solomon's Seal.
But everything was unsubstantial, for it was woven of
wind, and dissolved again into the wind, without leaving
a trace behind. But the youth was not aware of this, and
looked upon all the glamour as reality.
One day the maiden led him into a secret chamber,
where a gold casket stood on a silver table. This she
showed him, and then said, “Here is the most precious
of all my possessions, the like of which is not to be
found in the whole world. It is a costly golden ring. If
you will marry me, I will give it you for a keepsake, and
it will make you the happiest of all mankind. But in
order that the bond of our love should last for ever, you
must give me three drops of blood from the little finger
of your left hand in exchange for the ring.”
The youth turned cold when he heard her ask for
blood, for he remembered that his soul was at stake. But
he was crafty enough not to let her notice his emotion,
and not to refuse her, but asked carelessly what were the
properties of the ring.
The maiden answered, “No one living has been able
to fathom the whole power of this ring, and no one can
completely explain the secret signs engraved upon it.
But, even with the imperfect knowledge of its properties
which I possess, I can perform many wonders which no
other creature can accomplish. If I put the ring on the
little finger of my left hand, I can rise in the air like a
bird and fly whithersoever I will. If I place the ring on
the ring-finger of my left hand, I become invisible to all
eyes, while I myself can see everything that passes
around me. If I put the ring on the middle finger of my
left hand, I become invulnerable to all weapons, and
11
neither water nor fire can hurt me. If I place it on the
index finger of my left hand, I can create all things
which I desire with its aid; I can build houses in a
moment, or produce other objects. As long as I wear it
on the thumb of my left hand, my hand remains strong
enough to break down rocks and walls. Moreover, the
ring bears other secret inscriptions which, as I said
before, no one has yet been able to explain; but it may
readily be supposed that they contain many important
secrets. In ancient times, the ring belonged to King
Solomon, the wisest of kings, and in whose reign lived
the wisest of men. At the present day it is unknown
whether the ring was formed by divine power or by
human hands; but it is supposed that an angel presented
the ring to the wise king.”
When the youth heard the fair one speak in this way,
he determined immediately to endeavour to possess
himself of the ring by craft, and therefore pretended that
he could not believe what he had heard. He hoped by
this means to induce the maiden to take the ring out of
the casket to show him, when he might have an
opportunity of possessing himself of the talisman. But
he did not venture to ask her plainly to show him the
ring. He flattered and cajoled her, but the only thought
in his mind was to get possession of the ring. Presently
the maiden took the key of the casket from her bosom as
if to unlock it; but she changed her mind, and replaced it,
saying, “There's plenty of time for that afterwards.”
A few days later, their conversation reverted to the
magic ring, and the youth said, “In my opinion, the
things which you tell me of the power of your ring are
quite incredible.”
12
Then the maiden opened the casket and took out the
ring, which shone through her fingers like the brightest
sun-ray. Then she placed it in jest on the middle finger
of her left hand, and told the youth to take a knife and
stab her with it wherever he liked, for it would not hurt
her. The youth protested against the proposed
experiment; but, as she insisted, he was obliged to
humour her. At first he began in play, and then in
earnest to try to strike the maiden with the knife; but it
seemed as if there was an invisible wall of iron between
them. The blade would not pierce it, and the maiden
stood before him unhurt and smiling. Then she moved
the ring to her ring-finger, and in an instant she vanished
from the eyes of the youth, and he could not imagine
what had become of her. Presently she stood before him
smiling, in the same place as before, holding the ring
between her fingers.
“Let me try,” said he, “whether I can also do these
strange things with the ring.”
The maiden suspected no deceit, and gave it to him.
The youth pretended he did not quite know what to
do with it and asked, “On which finger must I place the
ring to become invulnerable to sharp weapons?” “On
the ring-finger of the left hand,” said the maiden,
smiling. She then took the knife herself and tried to
strike him, but could not do him any harm. Then the
youth took the knife from her and tried to wound
himself, but he found that this too was impossible. Then
he asked the maiden how he could cleave stones and
rocks with the ring. She took him to the enclosure where
stood a block of granite a fathom high. “Now place the
ring,” said the maiden, “on the thumb of your left hand,
13
and then strike the stone with your fist, and you will see
the strength of your hand.” The youth did so, and to his
amazement he saw the stone shiver into a thousand
pieces under the blow. Then he thought, “He who does
not seize good fortune by the horns is a fool, for when it
has once flown, it never returns.” While he was still
jesting about the destruction of the stone, he played with
the ring, and slipped it suddenly on the ring-finger of his
left hand. Then cried the maiden, “You will remain
invisible to me until you take off the ring again.” But
this was far from the young man's thoughts. He hurried
forwards a few paces, and then moved the ring to the
little finger of his left hand, and soared into the air like a
bird. When the maiden saw him flying away, she
thought at first that this experiment too was only in jest,
and cried out, “Come back, my friend. You see now that
I have told you the truth.” But he who did not return
was the youth, and when the maiden realised his
treachery, she broke out into bitter lamentations over her
misfortune.
The youth did not cease his flight till he arrived,
some days later, at the house of the famous sorcerer who
had taught him the language of birds. The sorcerer was
greatly delighted to find that his pupil's journey had
turned out so successfully. He set to work at once to
read the secret inscriptions on the ring, but he spent
seven weeks before he could accomplish it. He then
gave the young man the following instructions how to
destroy the Northern Frog: – “You must have a great
iron horse cast, with small wheels under each foot, so
that it can be moved backwards and forwards. You must
mount this, and arm yourself with an iron spear two
fathoms long, which you will only be able to wield
14
when you wear the magic ring on the thumb of your left
hand. The spear must be as thick as a great birch-tree in
the middle, and both ends must be sharpened to a point.
You must fasten two strong chains, ten fathoms long, to
the middle of the spear, strong enough to hold the frog.
As soon as the frog has bitten hard on the spear, and it
has pierced his jaws, you must spring like the wind from
the iron horse to avoid falling into the monster's throat,
and must fix the ends of the chains into the ground with
iron posts so firmly that no force can drag them out
again. In three or four days' time the strength of the frog
will be so far exhausted that you can venture to
approach it. Then place Solomon's ring on the thumb of
your left hand, and beat the frog to death. But till you
reach it, you must keep the ring constantly on the ring-
finger of your left hand, that the monster cannot see you,
or it would strike you dead with its long tail. But when
you have accomplished all this, take great care not to
lose the ring, nor to allow anybody to deprive you of it
by a trick.”
Our friend thanked the sorcerer for his advice, and
promised to reward him for his trouble afterwards. But
the sorcerer answered, “I have learned so much magic
wisdom by deciphering the secret inscriptions on the
ring, that I need no other profit for myself.” Then they
parted, and the young man hastened home, which was
no longer difficult to him, as he could fly like a bird
wherever he wished.
He reached home in a few weeks, and heard from the
people that the horrible Northern Frog was already in
the neighbourhood, and might be expected to cross the
frontier any day. The king caused it to be proclaimed
15
everywhere that if any one could destroy the frog, he
would not only give him part of his kingdom, but his
daughter in marriage likewise. A few days later, the
young man came before the king, and declared that he
hoped to destroy the monster, if the king would provide
him with what was necessary; and the king joyfully
consented. All the most skilful craftsmen of the
neighbourhood were called together to construct first
the iron horse, next the great spear, and lastly the iron
chains, the links of which were two inches thick. But
when all was ready, it was found that the iron horse was
so heavy that a hundred men could not move it from its
place. The youth was therefore obliged to move the
horse away alone, with the help of his ring.
The frog was now hardly four miles away, so that a
couple of bounds might carry it across the frontier. The
young man now reflected how he could best deal with
the monster alone, for, as he was obliged to push the
heavy iron horse from below, he could not mount it, as
the sorcerer had directed him. But he unexpectedly
received advice from the beak of a raven, “Mount upon
the iron horse, and set the spear against the ground, and
you can then push yourself along as you would push a
boat from the shore.” The young man did so, and found
that he was able to proceed in this way. The monster at
once opened its jaws afar off, ready to receive the
expected prey. A few fathoms more, and the man and
the iron horse were in the monster's jaws. The young
man shook with horror, and his heart froze to ice, but he
kept his wits about him, and thrust with all his might, so
that the iron spear which he held upright in his hand,
pierced the jaws of the monster. Then he leaped from
the iron horse, and sprang away like lightning as the
16
monster clashed his jaws together. A hideous roar,
which was heard for many miles, announced that the
Northern Frog had bitten the spear fast. When the youth
turned round, he saw one point of the spear projecting a
foot above the upper jaw, and concluded that the other
was firmly fixed in the lower one; but the frog had
crushed the iron horse between his teeth. The young
man now hastened to fasten the chains in the ground, for
which strong iron posts several fathoms long had been
prepared.
The death-struggles of the monster lasted for three
days and three nights, and when it reared itself, it struck
the ground so violently with its tail, that the earth was
shaken for fifty miles round. At length, when it was too
weak to move its tail any longer, the young man lifted a
stone with the help of his ring, which twenty men could
not have moved, and beat the monster about the head
with it until no further sign of life was visible.
Immeasurable was the rejoicing when the news
arrived that the terrible monster was actually dead. The
victor was brought to the capital with all possible
respect, as if he had been a powerful king. The old king
did not need to force his daughter to the marriage, for
she herself desired to marry the strong man who had
alone successfully accomplished what others had not
been able to effect with the aid of a whole army. After
some days, a magnificent wedding was prepared. The
festivities lasted a whole month, and all the kings of the
neighbouring countries assembled to thank the man who
had rid the world of its worst enemy. But amid the
marriage festival and the general rejoicings it was
forgotten that the monster's carcass had been left
17
unburied, and as it was now decaying, it occasioned
such a stench that no one could approach it. This gave
rise to diseases of which many people died. Then the
king's son-in-law determined to seek help from the
sorcerer of the East. This did not seem difficult to him
with the aid of his ring, with which he could fly in the
air like a bird.
But the proverb says that injustice never prospers,
and that as we sow we reap. The king's son-in-law was
doomed to realise the truth of this adage with his stolen
ring. The Hell-Maiden left no stone unturned, night or
day, to discover the whereabouts of her lost ring. When
she learned through her magic arts that the king's son-
in-law had set out in the form of a bird to visit the
sorcerer, she changed herself into an eagle, and circled
about in the air till the bird for which she was waiting
came in sight. She recognised him at once by the ring,
which he carried on a riband round his neck. Then the
eagle swooped upon the bird, and at the moment that
she seized him in her claws she tore the ring from his
neck with her beak, before he could do anything to
prevent her. Then the eagle descended to the earth with
her prey, and they both stood together in their former
human shapes. “Now you have fallen into my hands,
you rascal,” cried the Hell-Maiden. “I accepted you as
my lover, and you practised deceit and theft against me:
is that my reward? You robbed me of my most precious
jewel by fraud, and you hoped to pass a happy life as
the king's son-in-law; but now we have turned over a
new leaf. You are in my power, and you shall atone to
me for all your villainy.” “Forgive me, forgive me,” said
the king's son-in-law. “I know well that I have treated
you very badly, but I heartily repent of my fault.” But
18
the maiden answered, “Your pleadings and your
repentance come too late, and nothing can help you
more. I dare not overlook your offence, for that would
bring me disgrace, and make me a byword among the
people. Twice have you sinned against me: for, firstly,
you have despised my love; and, secondly, you have
stolen my ring; and now you must suffer your
punishment.” As she spoke, she placed the ring on the
thumb of her left hand, took the man on her arm like a
doll, and carried him away. This time she did not take
him to a magnificent palace, but to a cavern in the rocks
where chains were hanging on the walls. The maiden
grasped the ends of the chains and fettered the man hand
and foot, so that it was impossible for him to escape,
and she said in anger, “Here shall you remain a prisoner
till your end. I will send you so much food every day,
that you shall not die of hunger, but you need never
expect to escape.” Then she left him.
The king and his daughter endured a time of terrible
anxiety as weeks and weeks passed by, and the traveller
neither returned nor sent any tidings. The king's
daughter often dreamed that her consort was in great
distress, and therefore she begged her father to assemble
the sorcerers from all parts, in hopes that they might
perhaps be able to give some information respecting
what had happened to him, and how he could be rescued.
All the sorcerers could say was that he was still alive,
but in great distress, and they could neither discover
where he was, nor how he could be found. At length a
famous sorcerer from Finland was brought to the king,
who was able to inform him that his son-in-law was
kept in captivity in the East, not by a human being, but
by a more powerful creature. Then the king sent
19
messengers to the East to seek for his lost son-in-law.
Fortunately they met with the old sorcerer who had read
the inscriptions on Solomon's Seal, and had thus learned
wisdom which was hidden from all others. The sorcerer
soon discovered what he wished to know, and said,
“The man is kept prisoner by magic art in such and such
a place, but you cannot release him without my help, so
I must go with you myself.”
They set out accordingly, and in a few days, led by
the birds, they reached the cavern in the rock where the
king's son-in-law had already languished for seven years
in captivity. He recognised the sorcerer immediately, but
the latter did not know him, he was so much worn and
wasted. The sorcerer loosed his chains by his magic art,
took him home, and nursed and tended him till he had
recovered sufficient strength to set out on his journey.
He reached his destination on the very day that the old
king died, and was chosen king. Then came days of joy
after long days of suffering; and he lived happily till his
end, but he never recovered the magic ring, nor has it
ever since been seen by human eyes.
This is a reproduction of an old story as it appeared
at the time of its publication. From William Forsell
Kirby, The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in
the Romantic Literature of that Country, Vol. II
(London: John C. Nimmo, 1895), pp. 237-261.
20
21
The Wolves
Lady Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake
There is a kind of savage luxury, however gorgeous and
costly, which perfectly assimilates with savage life, and
where the eye may pass at one glance from the
pampered inmate of the palace to the wild beast in the
woods, without any sense of inconsistency to the mind.
This may be remarked, more or less, with all oriental
nations. The Indian prince is in keeping with the tiger in
the jungle, the Russian noble with the bear in his forests.
But it is a different and very strange sensation to find
yourself in a country where inward and outward life are
at variance; where the social habits of the one by no
means prepare you for the rude elements of the other;
where nature is wild, and man tame. This is
22
23
conspicuously the case in the north-western part of
Russia, where a German colony, although lords of the
soil for hundreds of years, are still as foreign to it as
they were at first; having originally brought a weak
offset of civilised life into a country for which only the
lineal descendants of the savage were fitted, and having
since then rather vegetated upon the gradually
impoverishing elements they transplanted with them,
than taken root in the gradually improving soil around
them. Life, therefore, in this part of the world passes
with a monotony and security which reminds you of
what, in point of fact, it really is, viz. a remote and
provincial state of German society of the present day.
Both the inclinations and occupations of the colonists
confine them to a narrow range of activity and idea. The
country is too wild, the population too scattered, the
distances too great, the impediments, both of soil and
season, too many for them to become acquainted with
the secrets of the wild nature around them; or rather, not
without a trouble which no one is sufficiently interested
to overcome. They travel much, from place to place,
upon roads bad enough, it is true, but always beaten;
they have no pursuit but mere business or mere pleasure,
and no interest except in what promotes the one or the
other; and, in short, know as little of what goes on in the
huts of the native peasantry, or in the forest and morass
haunts of the native animals, as if they were strangers in
the land, instead of its proprietors. It is, therefore, as we
before remarked, a strange and most unpleasant feeling,
while spending your days in a state of society which
partakes of the security and ease of the present day, to
be suddenly reminded by some accidental circumstance
of a state of nature which recalls the danger and
24
adventure of centuries back.
It was early in the spring, after a long and very
severe winter, when the earth was just sufficiently
softened to admit its stock of summer flowers, though
not sufficiently warmed to vivify them, that the garden
belonging to a country-house situated in this part of
Russia had become the scene of great activity. Hundreds
of leafless plants and shrubs, which has passed their
winter in the darkness and warmth of the house-cellar,
were now brought out to resume their short summer
station, and lay strewed about in various groups,
roughly showing the shape of the bed or border they
were to occupy. The balmy air had also summoned forth
the lovely mistress of the mansion, a delicate flower,
more unsuited to this wintry land even than those which
lay around her, who went from one plant to another,
recognising in the leafless twigs the beautiful flowers
which had been, or were to be, and shifting and
reshifting their places on the fresh bare earth till they
assumed that position which her taste or fancy approved
— just as a fine London or Paris lady may be seen in a
jeweller's shop shifting her loose diamonds, upon a
ground of purple velvet, into the order in which they are
to be finally set. A younger lady was with her — a
cousin by birth and a companion by choice — who had
recently joined her, after a long separation, in a home
foreign to each. Her two children were there also,
beautiful and happy creatures; the elder one glad to be
of use, the younger one delighted to think herself so;
while Lion, an enormous dog, the living image, in size,
colour, and gentleness, of Vandyke's splendid mastiff in
his picture of the children of Charles I., lazily followed
their steps, putting up his huge head whenever a child
25
stooped hers, and laying himself invariably down
exactly where a flower was to be planted.
After spending some time in this occupation, and
having at length marked out the summer-garden to their
satisfaction, the party turned their steps towards the
house, where some beds, close under the windows, had
been planted the preceding evening.
“Lion, Lion!” exclaimed the eldest child, “you
should know better than to come across the fresh-raked
beds,” showing us a tract of large, clumsy footmarks,
which had gone directly over it. “Yes, look at the
mischief you have done, old dog, and be ashamed of
yourself; but keep off now! keep off!” for Lion was
pressing forward with all his weight, snuffing at the
prints with quick-moving nostrils. The lady stooped
eagerly over the animal.
“These are no dog's footprints,” she said; and then,
pointing to more distant traces farther on, “No, no. Oh,
this is horrible! And so fresh too. A wolf has been here!”
She was right; the footmarks were very different
from a dog's —larger and coarser even than the largest
dog's, longer in shape, and with a deeper indentation of
the ball of the foot. It was truly a painful and a fearful
feeling to look at that flower-bed, on which the hand of
man had been so recently employed, now tracked over
by the feet of one of the most savage animals that exists;
and the lady drew back shuddering. And Louisa, for that
was the cousin's name, shuddered too, if not with so real
a sense of fear, yet with a much more unlimited
impression of terror. She was a stranger as much to the
idea as to the sight, and, as she looked up at the window
26
just above — her own bedroom window — with its
peaceful white curtains and swallow's nest at the comer,
and remembered that she had been sleeping within
while the wild beast was trampling beneath, she felt as
if she should never rest easily there again. As for the
children, they both looked terrified at first, chiefly
because their elders did, and then each acted according
to the character within her — Olga, the elder, holding
quietly by her mother's hand, and afraid even to look at
the footprints, though approaching them docilely when
she was bidden; while little Miss Constance, unscrewing
her rosy face from its momentary alarm, trotted with
great glee over the fresh-raked bed, delighted to make
the most of a privilege usually forbidden her, and
discovered new wolf's steps in all directions as fast as
Lion made them.
They now called some of the workmen, who
instantly confirmed their verdict.
“This is an old wolf, Prauer” said a rough, long-
haired, shrewd-looking old peasant, scrutinising the
tracts with Indian-like closeness and sagacity — “this is
an old wolf, he walked so heavily; and here's a wound
he has got to this paw, who knows when, from some
other wolf, or maybe from Lion, — I dare say they are
acquainted,” pointing out to the party a slight
irregularity in the print of one of the hind feet, as if from
a distorted claw. “He was here the beginning of the
morning, that I can see.”
“But where was Lion ?” said the lady, eagerly.
“I went to the mill, Prauer, at sunrise, and took Lion
with me, and by the time we got back the beast must
27
have been off. I saw the old dog snuffing about, but the
heavy dew would stop any scent. The wolves are hungry
now, the waters have driven them up together, and the
cattle are not let out yet. He is not far off, either; we
must keep a sharp look-out. An old wolf like this will
prowl about for days together round the same place, till
he picks up something.”
“Heavens! how dreadful! Constance, come back this
moment,” said the young mother, with an expression of
anxiety which would have touched the roughest heart.
“Who knows where the creature may be now?”
“Never fear, Prauer; he's off to the woods by this
time – plenty of his footmarks to be found there, I
warrant,” pointing to a low, dismal-looking tract of
brushwood, which formed the frontier to an immense
morass, about a werst off. “Never fear old Pertel and old
Lion will take care of the little Preilns. Polle üchtige!
nothing at all, not a hair on their heads shall be hurt,
bless them!”
“Yes, yes, good Pertel,” said the lady, with a nod and
a smile, to the rough creature, “I know that. But under
our very windows! — I never knew them come so near
before.”
“Dreist wie ein wolf — bold as a wolf,” said the
phlegmatic head-gardener, a German; “that's an old
proverb.”
They now returned to the house with minds ready to
take alarm at any sight or sound. The cousin knew not
how much there was or was not to fear; and, though the
lady did, the voice of her maternal anxiety amply made
up for all the silence of her imagination. The children,
28
of course, were not slow in catching the infection; and,
what with fear and what with fun, there was no end to
the wolves that were seen in the course of the next four-
and-twenty hours. Any and every object served their
turn: sheep, foals, and calves; old men and old women;
stunted trees in the distance, and round grey stones near;
not to mention innumerable articles of furniture in
various corners of the house — all stood for wolves; not
only successively, but over and over again. Lion,
however, was the greatest bugbear of all, and the good
old dog could not push open the door, and come lazily
in, with all his claws rattling on the smooth parquête
floor, without setting the children screaming, and
startling the two ladies much more than they liked to
confess.
But this state of things was too inconvenient to last.
A succession of false alarms is the surest cure for false
fears; and, to quote the fable for once in its literal sense,
they were weary of hearing “Wolf!” called.
Nevertheless, they did not undertake long walks without
protection, and never at all in the direction of the morass;
the children were not allowed to wander a step alone;
doors and windows, which otherwise, at this time of the
year, are very much left to please themselves by night as
well as by day, were now every evening punctiliously
closed; and one door especially, next Louisa's bedroom,
at the end of a long corridor, which communicated with
an unfinished addition to the house then in progress,
was always eyed with great distrust. It had no means of
shutting whatsoever. Nightly a bar was talked of, and
daily forgotten; but “Dreist wie ein wolf!” sounded in
Louisa's ears, and she pushed a heavy box firmly against
it.
29
Several days passed away, and the episode of the
wolf's footprints was almost forgotten, when suddenly a
scream and a shout were heard from a kind of baking-
house within view of the windows. Lion started up from
the cool drawing-room floor, where he lay stretched at
full-length, and leaped out of the open window.
Workmen from the new building rushed across the
lawn, each with such implements in their hands as they
had been working with; and out of the baking-house,
followed by a lad, sprung an immense wolf. At first, he
bounded heavily away, and was evidently making for
the wood; but Lion came close upon him, overtook him
in a few seconds, and attacked him with fury. The wolf
turned, and a struggle began. For a while the brave dog
was alone; each alternately seemed to hang with deadly
gripe upon the other, and yells, and snorts, and sharp
howls filled the air. But now the foremost of the
pursuers reached the spot; dog and wolf were so rolled
together, that at first he stayed his blows; but soon a
terrible stroke with the hatchet was given, — another,
and another. The animal relinquished the dog, tried to
turn upon the man, and soon: lay dead at his feet.
Meanwhile, the ladies from the mansion were also
hurrying forward, full of horror for the scene, and of
anxiety for Lion, but unable, in the excitement of the
moment, to keep back. There lay the animal, the ground
ploughed up violently around it, a monstrous and terrific
sight. Death had caught it in the most savage posture, —
the claws all extended, — the hind feet drawn up, the
fore ones stretched forward, — the head turned sharp
round, and the enormous jaws, which seemed as if they
would split the skull asunder, wide open. Nature could
30
hardly show a more repulsive-looking creature — one
which breathed more of the ferocity of the wild beast, or
excited less of the humanity of man; and, as Louisa
looked down at the lifeless carcass, all lean, starved, and
time-worn, with ghastly gashes, where late every nerve
had been strained in defence of that life which God had
given it, entangling doubts came over her mind of the
justice of that Power which could make an animal to be
hated for that which His Will alone had appointed it to
be. But, fortunately for her, she came from a land where,
with all its faults, the stone of sophistry is not given for
the bread of faith; quickly, therefore, came that antidote
thought, which all who seek will find — the sole key to
all we understand not in the moral world — leaving
only a pardonable pity for a creature born to hunt and be
hunted, ordained neither to give nor to find quarter, and
to whom life had apparently been as hard as death had
been cruel. Poor beast! It was a savage wolf all over;
rough, coarse, clumsy, and strong; the hair, or rather
bristles, dusky, wiry, and thin; and not one beauty about
it, except, perhaps, those long, white, sharp teeth, which
had drawn so much blood, and were now tinged with
that of the fine old dog. Lion lay panting beside his dead
enemy, the blood trickling down his throat, on which the
wolf had fixed a gripe which life could not long have
sustained.
The whole history was now heard from the lad.
There had been baking going on that morning in the
outhouse, and he went in to light his pipe. As he blew up
the ashes he saw a great animal close beside him. In the
dark he mistook it for Lion, and put out his hand; but it
rose at once against him with an action not to be
mistaken by a native of these climes; on which he
31
screamed as loud as he could, for his breath stood still,
the poor boy assured them, with fright; and the creature,
taking alarm, rushed out of the door.
“The Prauer may let the little ladies run about now,”
said old Pertel. “That's the same wolf that crossed the
bed last Thursday; I know him by this left hind-foot;”
and he held up a grim limb where an old wound had
turned the claw aside. “He got this in some of his battles;
many a foal yet unborn would have felt it this summer."
And the old man stroked the dead animal with
satisfaction.
They now all left the scene of battle, and
refreshments were given to those who had assisted at it.
Olga proposed giving the boy, who was still trembling
with fright, a glass of sugar and water, this being what
the ladies of this country invariably take when their
nerves are shaken; but her mother suggested that a glass
of brandy would be much more to his taste; and
accordingly he received a dose, which not only restored
the courage he had lost, but lent him a large temporary
stock in addition. Lion, too, was well cared for, and
immensely pitied. The wound on his throat, which was
too close under his own long tongue to be reached by it,
was washed with certain balsams with which this
country abounds; after which, the old dog employed
himself in slobbering over various rents and scratches in
more accessible parts of his body, and finally went fast
asleep, which the children hoped would do him much
good, and, for about two minutes, spoke over him in
whispers, and went round him on tiptoe.
Since the day of the footprints, the lady and her
cousin had carefully refrained from any subject
32
connected with wolves, or wild beasts in general; for the
children's imaginations required to be studiously
tranquillized, and even their own were quite lively
enough without additional stimulus. But now nothing
else was discussed; everything was àpropos of wolves;
and some acquaintances from a distant part of the
country coming in for the evening, the whole time was
passed in telling wolf anecdotes.
The fact of the animal being discovered in the baking
house was soon explained; for it appeared that the wolf,
like the bear, is excessively fond of bread, and that, after
the smell of fresh blood, that of fresh baking is surest to
attract him. A peasant woman, who had just drawn her
hot rye-loaves out of the oven, quitted her cottage for a
few minutes, leaving her two young children playing at
the same bench on which the smoking bread was laid.
Scarcely had she turned her back, when an enormous
wolf sprang in, took no notice of the screaming children,
but snatched a loaf from the bench. The mother, hearing
screams, hastened back, and as she reached the door the
wolf bounded out of it with the hot bread in his jaws. “I
have heard the old woman often tell the tale,” said the
speaker; “and she invariably added, ‘and so I lost my
biggest loaf; but never was there a guest more welcome
to it.’”
Another time, a kitchen-maid, whose office it is to
bake the common rye bread, was carrying the hot loaves,
towards night, across the court, when she met a large
animal which she mistook in the dark for one of the
huge cattle-dogs. But it rose upon her, and she felt the
claws upon her bare arm, ready, at the next moment, to
slit the skin, as is their wont, and rend her down. In her
33
terror, she crammed a loaf into the creature's jaws, and
he made off with the sop, perfectly content.
Upon the whole, it is very difficult to procure
information about the wolf’s habits, or even tidings of
its depredations. The common peasant, who alone
knows anything about the animal, is withheld by
superstition from even mentioning the name of wolf;
and if he mentions him at all, designates him only as the
“old one,” or the “grey one,” or the “great dog;” feeling,
as was also the case in parts of Great Britain with regard
to the fairies, that to call these animals by their true
name is a sure way to exasperate them. This caution
may be chiefly attributed, however, to the popular and
very ancient belief in the “Wär Wolf;”1
not a
straightforward, open-mouthed, plain-spoken beast,
against which the cattle may plunge, and fight, and
defend themselves as best they may, and which either
wounds or kills its prey in a fair and ferocious way; but
that odious combination of human weakness and
decrepitude, with demoniacal power and will, which all
nations who have believed in have most unjustly
persecuted and most naturally hated — in other words, a
bad, miserable old woman leagued body and soul with
1“This mysterious and widely spread superstition – the ware
wolf of England, the loup garrou of France – was especially
current in Germany, where many tales of its terror still exist.
Two warlocks were executed in the year 1810, at Liege, for
having, under the form of ware wolves, killed several
children. They had a boy of twelve years of age with them,
who completed the Satanic trio, and, under the form of a
raven, consumed those portions of the prey which the
warlocks left.” – Grimm's Deutsche Sagen.
34
Satan, who, under the form of a Wär Wolf, paralyses the
cattle with her eye, and from whom the slightest wound
is death. Be this as it may, the superior intelligence of
the upper classes is to this day occasionally puzzled to
account for the fate of a fine young ox, who will be
found in the morning breathing hard, his hide bathed in
foam, and with every sign of fright and exhaustion,
while, perhaps, only one trifling wound will be
discovered on the whole body, which swells and
inflames as if poison had been infused, the animal
generally dying before night. Nor does the mystery end
here; for, on examining the body, the intestines will be
found to be torn as with the claws of a wolf, and the
whole animal in a state of inflammation, which
sufficiently accounts for death.
This same superstition also favours the increase of
this dreadful animal, for the peasant has a strong feeling
against destroying a wolf; says that, if you disturb them,
they will disturb you, and generally attributes the loss of
his foal, or of foal and mother together (a too frequent
occurrence), to the plunder of a wolf's nest by his less
superstitious neighbour. Nevertheless the destruction of
their young is the only way in which an efficient
warfare with the wolf can be carried on, and the
provincial government of this part of Russia wisely
bestows a small reward in money for every pair of
wolves' ears that is brought to the magistrate of the
district; thus setting up one powerful passion in the
human breast against another. But superstition has the
best of it at present, and, perhaps, in the long run, is the
better thing of the two.
The wolves make their nests usually deep in the
35
morasses, a few sticks being dragged together in a small
hollow, or under a juniper-bush, where the young
wolves lie with great jaws, which open wide at the
slightest noise, like; the bill of a young bird, and equally
disproportionate to their size. It is at this season that the
wolves are the most rapacious and dauntless, defying
danger, and facing daylight to provide prey for their
young. In old times, if tradition is to be believed, the
abduction of peasant children for the young wolves was
a thing of no uncommon occurrence, so that the father
of a former day had as little chance of rearing all his
children as the farmer of the present his foals. But now,
with the culture of the land, and the gradual increase of
farming stock, a favourable change has taken place, and
the recent introduction of sheep especially has proved a
great accommodation to both parties. Nevertheless, the
wail of a poor peasant mother for a missing child is still
raised from time to time, though the widely scattered
population, and the remote situation of single villages,
on that account more exposed to such depredations,
allow only the occasional echo of such distress to reach
the ears of the upper classes. The peasant also is an un-
communicative being; the slave of one set of foreigners,
the subject of another, and oppressed by both, he shuts
up his mouth and his heart, and cares little to divulge the
more sacred sorrows of his life to those who are the
authors of almost every other.
The evening visitors, however, related a wonderful
instance which had occurred under their own
knowledge :– A peasant child, just able to trot alone, and
as such left to trot just where it pleased, was carried off
unperceived and unhurt by a she-wolf to her nest at
some distance. The young wolves, however, had just
36
consumed some larger and commoner prey, and knew
when they had had enough; so they let the child lie
among them, and saved it up for another day. The little
creature remained thus through the night, when the old
one quitting the nest again, and the young ones probably
sleeping, it crawled gradually away, as unintentional of
escape as it had been unconscious of danger, and at
length reached the fence of a remote field, where it was
picked up by a labourer and brought to the house of the
narrator. But the innocent child had suffered terribly,
and bore upon its tender body such marks of the wolf's
den as would, so long as it lived, sufficiently attest an
otherwise almost incredible fact. The young wolves had
forborne to devour their prey, but they had tasted it! The
skin of the forehead was licked raw; all the fingers were
more or less injured, but two of them were sucked and
mumbled completely off!
This tale was now followed by another more tragic
and equally true, having taken place only the summer
before upon a neighbouring estate, so that the lady of
the house, her beautiful brow contracted, and her voice
lowered, related it herself to the party. A woman, whose
husband, being a Junker, or something less obnoxious
than a Disponent, lived in a more comfortable way than
the usual run of peasants, though still classing as a
peasant, was washing one day before the door of her
house, with her only child, a little girl of four years old,
playing about close by. Her cottage stood in a lonely
part of the estate, forming almost an island in the midst
of low, boggy ground. She had her head down in the
wash-tub, and, hot and weary, was bending all her
efforts to complete her task, when a fearful cry made her
turn, and there was the child, clutched by one shoulder,
37
in the jaws of a great she-wolf, the other arm extended
to her. The woman was so close that she grasped a bit of
the child's little petticoat in her hand, and with the other
hand, screaming frantically, beat the wolf with all her
force to make it let go its hold. But those relentless jaws
stirred not for the cries of a mother — that gaunt form
cared not for the blows of a woman. The animal set off
at full speed with the child, dragging the mother along,
who clung with desperation to her grasp. Thus they
continued for two or three dreadful minutes, the woman
only just able to hold on. Soon the wolf turned into
some low, uneven ground, and the woman fell over the
jagged trunk of a tree, tearing in her fall the piece of
petticoat, which now only remained in her hand. The
child hitherto had been aware of its mother's presence,
and, so long as she clung; had not uttered a scream; but
now the little victim felt itself deserted, and its screams
resounded through the wood. The poor woman rose in a
moment, and followed over stock and stone, tearing
herself pitiably as she went, yet knowing it not; but the
wolf increased in speed, the bushes grew thicker, the
ground heavier, and soon the screams of the child
became her only guide. Still she dashed on, frantic with
distress, picked up a little shoe which the closing bushes
had rubbed off, saw traces of the child's hair and clothes
on the low, jagged boughs, which crossed the way; but,
oh! the screams grew fainter, then louder, and then
ceased altogether!
“The poor mother saw more on her way, but I can't
tell what that was” said the lady, her voice choked with
horror, and her fair face streaming with tears. Her
hearers did not press to know, for they were chilled
enough already. “And only think” she continued, “of the
38
wretchedness of the poor afflicted creature, when her
husband returned at night and asked for the child. She
told me that she placed the piece of petticoat and the
little shoe before him, but how she told him their great
misery God only knows! she has no recollection. And
now you don't wonder,” she added, “that I shuddered at
seeing those footprints;” and she shuddered again.
“Sometimes I am in terror when my children are longer
out of my sight than usual, and fancy every person that
approaches me is charged with some dreadful
announcement; but God avert this! mistrust is wrong.”
With these words the circle broke up. The long
droshky, like a chaiselongue put upon wheels, came to
the door, and the guests drove off. It was one of those
exquisite nights peculiar to these climes, which the
French aptly term des nuits blanches, — a night, light
without moon, a day shaded without clouds, — the last
glow of the evening and the first grey of morning
melted together; a period when all the luminaries of the
heavens seem to rest their beams without withdrawing
them. The cousins stood at the door, hand in hand,
gazing in the direction which their guests had taken; and
a looker-on might have imagined they were envying
them that calm, cool drive. But they envied them not;
they honoured all that was good in this strange land, and
prized all who were good to them; but a sense of
solitude hung heavy upon them in the society of others,
which only the solitude of their own could dispel. They
had much, also, to say to one another, which a native of
these climes could not comprehend, or would not like.
Not that they said aught that was strange, or wrong, or
unkind; but they spoke as they thought, and they
thought unlike all the world around them. So they
39
lingered beneath that beautiful light, talking calmly of
what was peculiar in their lot, yet not complaining of
the evil, but rather extracting the good; and they spoke,
too, as those speak who have no time to lose, but rather
much to recover, plainly, earnestly, and touchingly,
because so truly; each seeking to give knowledge of her
own mind, and comfort to that of her companion. And
from that which concerned their own hearts individually
they soon passed on to that which concerns every heart
that beats; and thoughts came which all have heard, but
not all have listened to — thoughts which are locked to
some, checked to others, and not even breathed freely to
the most kindred spirit, except at those moments, few
and fleeting, which favour their utterance and suit their
sacredness. They discoursed on the wonderful economy
of happiness in a world full of woe; how, the fewer the
joys, the higher the enjoyment, till the last and highest
of all, true peace of mind, is found to contain every
other. And then they spoke of the blessing of sorrow,
and of the mystery of sin, and turning to her companion
that angel's face, more angelic still in the soft light, and
with a transition of expression peculiar to herself, the
lady added, —
“And sin brought the wolves too, dear one!”
“True, true,” said Louisa; “I thought of that when the
poor beast lay dead at our feet to-day.”
And so they turned and went into the house.
They now took their usual last look at the children,
who slept in opposite cots in the same room. Each lay
the sleeping effigy of her waking self. The eldest,
composed, cool, and orderly; with pale cheek and
40
smooth hair; the limbs straight, the head gently bent, the
bed-clothes lying unruffled upon the regularly heaving
chest; all that was beautiful, gentle, and meek; looking
as if stretched out for a monumental effigy. On the other
side, defying all order and bursting all bounds, was the
little Constance, flushed, tumbled, and awry; the round
arms tossed up, the rosy face flung back, the bed-clothes
pushed off, the pillow flung out, the nightcap one way,
the hair another; all that was disorderly and most lovely
by night — all that was unruly and most winning by day.
“Come, my lovely one, mamma will set all to
rights!” And, with a few magical movements, which the
young mother's hand best knows, the head was raised up,
the limbs smoothed down, the little form adjusted into a
fresh position, and, with sighs and smiles, and a few
murmuring sounds, the blooming creature was fast
asleep again.
“Only think, that poor woman's child was the age of
Constance!”
“Don't think of it,” said Louisa, “it will haunt your
sleep;” and she led her cousin to her room through the
children's, where they parted for the night.
“You need not shut the children's door, nor any as
you go along; the house is oppressively warm, and
Constance is hot.”
Louisa came through two halls and down the
corridor, looked at the door into the new building, and
remembered that the bar had again been forgotten;
pushed the box again up, and then went into her own
room and shut the door.
41
The night, as we have described, was one of those
which seem too good to be passed in sleep. Louisa was
sad and serious, and all without and within tempted her
to watch. But so long as the heaviness of the heart can
yield to that of the head, there is not much that is amiss
in either. By the time, therefore, that she had fully
resolved to lie awake, recalling old griefs and conjuring
up new, past and future, with their cares and fears, had
vanished away, and of the present she knew as little as
the children she had left in their cots.
How long this lasted she knew not, some hours it
seemed, when she was roused by a sound in the
adjoining unfinished building. At first the drowsy senses
paid little attention, and dozed on; but again she was
roused, louder and louder, and, starting up, she shook
off sleep, flew out of bed, and, opening the door, looked
into the dark passage. To her astonishment the door into
the new building was half open; she advanced to shut it,
when again a noise made her turn her head in the
opposite direction; and there — oh, Heavens! the poor
girl's blood froze in her veins — there, stealing down
the passage, its back towards her, was — a wolf! An
exclamation of horror which burst from her lips
disturbed the animal; it turned, and the light from the
half-open door shone on its green eyes and white teeth
as it sprang upon her. With one convulsive bound
Louisa cleared the threshold, dashed her door to, locked
it, barred it, flung a chair against it, and, this done, stood
in a state of agony for which no words exist. She
seemed to see all in a moment; herself safe, but those
children! — those children! not a door closed between
them and those dreadful jaws! She was stupified with
terror and a strange, dinning sound, like her heart's own
42
throbbing filled her ears, and shut out every other sense.
“Dreist wie ein Wolf! — Dreist wie ein Wolf!” she
repeated, mechanically; and then, forcing herself from
the fainting, trance-like feeling that oppressed her, she
thought for one moment that she would follow the wild
beast. Her hand was on the lock, but she looked round
for some weapon of defence. There was not a thing she
could use, — not a stanchion to the window, not a rod to
the bed. Then she listened at the door, and distinctly
heard the trampling claws on the boards. The animal
was still close to her door, and there was time, if she
could keep her senses together, to consider some means
of help. Oh, if she could but have stopped that dinning
sound in her ears! but it came again, beating louder and
louder, and perfectly paralysed her. The effort to open
the window restored her. How she got out she knew not,
but there she was on the damp ground, alone in the open
garden. And now there was no time to be lost; she had
to get round the end of the house, which was half closed
up with bushes, half blocked up with building materials,
stones, and timber. But the night had grown darker; she
could not see the path; she knew that she was losing
time, and yet that all depended on her haste; she felt
fevered with impatience, yet torpid with terror. At length
she disengaged herself from the broken, uneven ground,
and struggled forward. There were the windows of the
children's and her cousin's rooms; she had fancied that
she could reach and open them with her hands, and call
to those within; but how confused was her head! they
belonged to a later part of the house, and were much
higher than her own. She called and called, but her
voice failed, and no one answered; she stooped for a
stone or something to throw up, but only soft grass or
43
moist leaves came into her hand. Suddenly a scream
was heard, it was Constance's voice, — scream over
scream. Frantic with terror, Louisa now dashed to
another part of the house where the servants slept. As
she reached it, a figure came towards her. Thank Heaven,
it was old Pertel! But those screams; — they reached
her louder and louder! She could only ejaculate,
“Weiche Preilns! — Weiche Preilns!” — “The little
ladies — the little ladies!” But he seemed neither to
heed her words nor the dreadful sounds that impelled
them, and took her hand, in peasant fashion, to kiss it.
“Weiche Preilns! — Weiche Preilns!” she reiterated; but
again he took her hand. She struggled, but he held it
firm. She looked down, and there was the fairest, softest
hand locked round hers; she looked up, and there was
the sweetest, gentlest face bent laughing over her.
“I must say, darling, you speak better Esthnish in
your sleep than you do when you are awake. What has
made you sleep so late? Olga has been knocking twice
at your door, — she would not come in unbidden for the
world, — and Constance has been screaming, in one of
her fits of play, till the whole house heard her. And
when I came at last, and took your hand to waken you,
you only knocked it aside, and ejaculated 'Weiche
Preilns!' with such a pitiable expression, that I woke
you with my laughing. How sound you have slept!”
“Slept!” said Louisa, “indeed I have, — such a sleep
as I never wish for again! But I see it all; the wolf of
yesterday — Olga's knocking — Constance's screaming
— your hand!” And she related her dream.
The cousins laughed together, but also thanked God
together that such scenes only exist in dreams. For
44
wolves neither jump up to windows, nor open doors, nor
walk up and down corridors. Nevertheless, a bar was
put on to that door before night.
Lady Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake (1809-1893) was an
English writer, art critic and art historian. She
travelled extensively and resided briefly in Estonia
during 1838-1841, 1844 and 1878. This story was
originally published as “The Wolves of Esthonia”
in Fraser's Magazine, 31 (April 1844), pp. 392-400
and then again in a collection of works by Lady
Elizabeth entitled Livonian Tales (London: John
Murray, 1846), pp. 121-136, under the title that it
appears here.
45
The Silver Cup
Sir Stephen George Tallents
I
I met him first one March night in a farmhouse in
Estonia, behind the Bolshevik front, and of that night I
chiefly remember the cold. I was a war correspondent
then, and had been spending a couple of days in an
armoured train, when one evening, just about sundown,
my host asked if I would like to ride out with him and
have supper with the headquarters’ staff of a
neighbouring regiment. It had been a depressing day of
snow-storms in which our men had failed to dislodge
46
47
the Bolsheviks from a village a few miles ahead of our
train, and I was tired of waiting in a stuffy railway
carriage for an advance. So I agreed gladly, and soon
found myself astride of a shivering pony, waiting for my
host to start and watching a small fire which some of his
men had kindled under shelter of a bank at the forest
edge.
Oh! but it was cold. There was an icy wind blowing
as we cantered behind our guide away from the railway,
uphill through trees and scrub. And when we reached
the top of the hill it met us straight in the face. I felt my
little horse quail before it as we came out into the open,
and I drew down the flaps of my fur cap over my ears to
save them from frostbite. Even so, my feet and my
fingers were soon like ice and, if I had dismounted, I do
not think I could ever have got up again. We struck
presently into a forest track and into partial shelter from
the freezing wind; and at last, after half an hour's riding,
emerged into a clearing set on a knoll, where a sentry in
a sheepskin coat stopped us and walked on with us to
the farm. By a gate he showed us in the failing light two
dead men lying almost concealed by the drifting snow.
Bolsheviks, he said, caught running out of the farm
when it had been taken a couple of days before. The
head of one of them lay uncovered, the fine-featured
face of quite a young boy. For a moment I wondered to
myself how he could have joined that company. And
then we were at the door.
Our escort knocked at the door and a guard opened it
– a ragged fellow with a rifle. The door opened straight
into the living room of the farm, and a knot of officers
sitting at the table stood up as we entered. The wind
48
blew the candle flames about their supper table, and the
movement of the light half disguised their faces.
Through a door at the back of the room I had a glimpse
of a peasant woman, a girl and a very old man, peering
out to see who the new-comers were.
The bearded Colonel of the regiment, a man, I
suppose, of about forty, got up from the head of the
table and shook hands with me. I repeated this formality
– it is the way of the country – with all the officers
present, and then sat down on the Colonel's right, where
the adjutant made way for me. Dinner began, served by
the women of the farm from the adjoining room. There
were two bottles of potato spirit on the table, and from
these we drank each other's health, eating meantime
black bread and butter and some small fish, evidently a
preserve from the sea coast. In the middle of the table
stood a chased silver cup of fine workmanship; and on
my remarking it, my host first pledged me with it, and
then told how it had been captured from the Bolsheviks
ten days before. It must be very old, he said. No doubt
the Reds had looted it from the country house of some
baron. Then, as the restraint of myself and my new
companions melted, we began to talk.
“You didn't expect to find an Englishman here, did
you?” said my host.
I looked up, bewildered.
He indicated with a bend of his head a man sitting
opposite me and to my right, who smiled at the
introduction and bowed slightly and ironically. He was
tall, with prominent cheekbones and light blue eyes set
into a wide forehead, and above it a shock of tawny hair.
49
He might, I thought, be about thirty-five years of age.
“Are you an Englishman?” I said.
“Partly,” he replied, speaking in English with a
noticeable foreign accent. “My father was English, but
my mother was a Russian.”
“Have you ever been in England?” I asked.
“Once,” he said, “when I was a lad. I've been in most
European countries in my time,” he added, smiling.
“We must have a talk some day,” I said in English,
and then turned back to converse in Russian with the
others.
There were sounds of a man knocking the snow off
his boots at the door, and a rifleman with a sheepskin
cap and coat entered and stood to attention inside the
door. Again the flames of the candles bent before the
wind, and I caught the eyes of the Englishman looking
at me across the table, with a sense that he too, like me,
was partly a spectator of what was happening. The other
officers were helping each other to bits of meat and
potato from a dish set down in front of us.
“What is it?” said the Colonel to the new-comer.
“The Bolsheviks drove us out just before dark. We
saw about twenty men, and they've got a machine gun.”
“I'll go for them at daylight,” said the Colonel. “We
must go and see our men,” he added abruptly. “Excuse
me, but the Englishman will keep you company.”
He and the officers filed out into the darkness. My
riding companion went with them. The Englishman and
50
I were left alone. I went across and sat over the fire and
the Englishman joined me.
“How did you come into this country?” I asked him.
“The Bolsheviks destroyed my home. They would
have killed me if they could have caught me. I lived
among them in disguise for a while, and then, as I was
starving, I escaped along the coast and joined the
Estonians. But there's nothing for a man to do in these
parts now, except to fight somebody.”
“And what's the end of it all going to be?”
“God alone knows!” he said. “As long as you treat
Russia as a play, what hope is there for her?”
I laughed, and asked him what he meant.
“Before the war you used to pretend that Russia was
a fairyland. Now you make out she's possessed by
demons. And you're not even content to watch. You
must take sides in the play, just as the crowd watching a
melodrama will always cheer the hero and boo at the
villain. And it's not for nothing that all the poor students
in Moscow used to draw lots for the privilege of
standing in the queue outside the theatre of a bitter
autumn's afternoon. Treat us like characters in a play,
and you may be sure that we're much too fond of the
theatre not to play up to you, while the filth in the
streets of Moscow will go on piling itself up until it
reaches the first-floor windows. For Heaven's sake try
the plan of treating us like ordinary human beings. I
dare say we shan't enjoy it half so much at first,” he
ended up, laughing grimly; “but believe me, no nation
can spend all its time behind the footlights and survive.”
51
“Do you mean to go back to Russia," I said, "or shall
you come to England?”
“To-morrow morning," he said, "I'm for the attack.
What's the good of thinking about anything beyond
that?”
And then his Colonel came in again and it was time
for my friend and me to be gone.
I mounted heavily into the saddle, with difficulty
supporting the weight of my coat. At the corner of the
farm we turned to wave farewell to the lighted door.
Then with collars turned high about our ears we
followed our guide into the darkness of the open country.
The wind had dropped and the distant stars shone faintly
in the sky. The snow glimmered about us. The black fir
trees rose solemnly from the snow. I had the vision of a
vast and peaceful country, dotted miserably and
insignificantly with the frightened hearts of men.
II
It was early autumn before I saw the Englishman again,
and I had settled down in Riga in some rooms I had
found that looked past a warehouse on the river front
towards the wooden bridge. I was living then in a flat
that had belonged once to a Baltic nobleman, now fled
to Berlin or overseas to Scandinavia; and I had a single
servant – a Russian girl with, I fancy, some Balt blood
in her veins, whose home had been in Moscow. She
52
brought me my meals and kept my rooms clean; but we
rarely talked. Once, I remember, when I spoke of the
“Englishman,” she told me some tale that had been
current about him in Moscow – how one night for a
freak he'd bought up all the tables in the Moscow
restaurants, and then had dined in state with a single
companion at one of them. “The Madman” they had
called him in those days. It gave me a clue to his life;
but I did not make out whether she had ever known him
personally. A Lettish officer, too, of my acquaintance
spoke about him one evening as an outlaw on whose
head three armies already had set a price. I gathered that
he had left the Estonians and joined the Letts. But of
himself I saw but little, though I ran up against him once
or twice on the road, when I was wandering about the
country among the troops. At those meetings I had little
chance of talking to him, and, looking back, remember
the setting of them rather than the man. I saw him, for
example, early in the morning of the day on which the
Baltic troops so nearly took Riga. All night long the
retreating Lettish army had defiled back across the
bridge and I, after standing for a while and watching the
silent and dispirited procession of men and carts, had
lain down in my clothes for broken snatches of sleep,
expecting any moment that the enemy would be in the
town. Someone, however, set to and held the further end
of the bridge. I could see, when from time to time I got
up and looked out of the window, the flashes of rifle and
machine-gun fire leaping into the darkness five hundred
yards away across the river, and wondered how the fight
was going. But afterwards no one seemed to know for
certain who had been the hero of the night. Later, in
passing talk, I heard the Englishman's name coupled
53
with the exploit. But, when he came and knocked on my
door the next morning, he told me nothing of the night
or of the part he had played in it – only sat gulping
down a hurried breakfast, silently and with a
preoccupied air, and when he had finished, caught up
his revolver and his steel helmet again and went out,
with a muttered word of thanks, to rejoin his men.
Nearly a month later, I met him one day out in the
country to the west of Dünamünde. Snow – the first
snow of the year – had fallen in the night; and the white
earth, tinged with blue and with the long shadows of the
brief day upon it, was hardly distinguishable at the
horizon from the delicate blue of the autumn sky. I
remember chiefly how strange the world looked that
morning, like a woman in whom the donning of a new
dress had pointed a noble and unsuspected beauty. As I
was watching it from the corner of a wood, the
Englishman passed me with a troop of Lettish cavalry,
eager with the pursuit of the retiring Germans; but I had
no time to do more than wave my hand to him before he
and his company were gone.
A few weeks later I came across him one night just
in front of Mitau. They had told us in Riga that the
German headquarters there had been captured, and I had
pushed out in the hope of being early in the town.
I had ridden out to where a bridge across a frozen
river had been blown up by the retiring enemy, and then
had gone slowly forward on foot along the high road
through the forest, with the red glare of a great fire
glowing ahead of me in the sky. Just outside Mitau I
came upon the headquarters of a Lettish regiment, and
in the kitchen of the country house where they were
54
established found the Englishman bending over a map
in a company of other officers. He was told off, I
learned, to take a report back to Riga, and I, finding that
Mitau was still feebly holding out, arranged to go back
with him. We spoke but little as we trudged back to the
frozen river. The fir trees, dim and mysterious, stood
ranked upon our either hand. From time to time there
met us out of the darkness and the falling snow, men
marching up to the front, silently, with heads bent
forward and packs and rifles slung across their
shoulders. But snow and darkness seemed to separate us
from them, and I at least, in spite of my companion, was
oppressed with loneliness. Both of us, I am sure, were
glad to reach the river, where we mounted and rode
back to Riga.
We crossed the Dwina bridge together, and then my
companion went off with his report to headquarters,
while I went straight to my rooms to prepare for the two
of us. We had been fasting for many hours, and when at
length we sat down to the table, we still talked but little
till we had eaten a good supper and drawn up our chairs
round the open wood fire with a bottle of Grand Marnier,
which I had brought out from England, set between us,
and the silver cup that had been given to me on the night
of our first meeting, standing by its side.
“Well,” said the Englishman, as he settled down into
an arm-chair, threw his feet up against the stove, and,
pouring it out, drank half a cupful of the liqueur, “that's
finished.” And he put down the cup on the table with a
gesture in which there seemed to be no satisfaction, but
only the embittered taste of despair. “I've fought those
fellows,” he cried, and he swept his arm in a circle to
55
the east, “as I've fought the Germans and anyone else I
could find to fight. But sometimes I've felt that if I
stopped fighting for a moment, I should go through the
lines and take my chance of being shot for the sake of
joining them.”
“You've deserved a rest,” said I.
“Rest!” said he. “I can't rest.” And I caught in his
eyes a plain flicker of the same despair with which he
had laid down the silver cup.
I refrained from adding another platitude, and waited
for him to go on.
“Perhaps,” he went on, and for a moment he smiled,
“perhaps it's the curse of my mixed blood. I suppose
you think that I might settle down in the town here now
and take a pension, if this damned Government could
afford it, and hang my trophies on the walls and buy
some furniture from the Jews and marry and grow fat ...
But have you ever seen children trying to run away from
their own shadows? That's me always trying to escape
from the shadow of myself.”
And he blew a great cloud of smoke out into the still
air of the room.
I looked out of the window. Far away across the river
the horizon was still red with the glare of burning farms.
“There'll be peace here now ... perhaps ... for a while.
And about the ashes of those farms they'll try and build
up an imitation of England, with officials and factories
and trade unions, and a host of hungry Jews waiting as
the grey crows wait on the Dwina ice to pick up morsels
as it floats melting down. It may be it was all worth
56
fighting for. It may even be that for a time they will
seem to succeed. But that's a question that I needn't ask.
I'm not one of your reconstructors. I couldn't sit down
peacefully in Riga and help to build all that up again.
My father, you know, was an English doctor” -– I didn't
know, for he had never spoken in detail of his parentage
before – “an English doctor, who left his practice one
autumn morning and fled to Moscow with my mother. A
home was destroyed when I was conceived, and I can
never be anything but an instrument of destruction. My
father died when I was fifteen, but I've not forgotten
some of the things he used to read to me. There was
something about bringing to the world not peace but a
sword. There was something, too, about the poor
inheriting the earth. I've wandered in my time and I've
never come across a country yet that wasn't organised
with the main intention of preventing the poor from
inheriting the earth. And what's the result? All Europe
east of the Rhine in hunger and despair, and west of the
Rhine – towns like I once saw in Lancashire the only
time that I visited my grandfather. Isn't it worth spilling
the blood and destroying the happiness of a generation
in an attempt to devise a better life than that?
“Do you know what it is to be always waiting for
something to happen? I've always been like that; and
when other men have been sitting and playing cards and
smoking and making love and making money,
something within me has always driven me apart to
solitude, feeling that everything about me was unreal
and that there was something yet to come. Often I've
thought that it was my mixed blood that made me
separate, that I was homeless, cursed, like the Jews. But
now the whole world's homeless and I'm solitary no
57
longer. All the breadth of Europe they're coming to meet
me, leaving their cards and their women and their
roubles, hurrying to join a force that they feel is
becoming stronger. Look at those red fires in Courland!
'A few burning farms,' you'll say. Yes, but those few
burning farms are the flares of a dying civilisation.
That's the signal that the world's been waiting for. And
now it's given, be sure that the world will obey it, and
march no one knows where.”
He stopped, and taking a stick from the fireside, bent
forward and lit his pipe. As he sat back in his chair, his
eyes caught the silver cup on the table beside us.
“There's the curse of the world!” he said abruptly.
“What's civilisation meant to us but the fear of those
who drank out of goblets and the hatred of those who
couldn't?”
We sat staring at the piece of silver, till he, seizing
the bottle itself, drained the liqueur that remained in it.
“They told me,” he said, putting the bottle down, “to
go back with a message in the morning. Well, it's nearly
morning already. But why should I rob of its privilege
the one country that is left to put a price on my head?”
And with that, he sprang up and strode across the
room to take up his belt and arms and to put on his
greatcoat. I sat staring at the silver goblet. Outside in the
cold I could hear the stamping of horses on the stones.
Then the door shut. I heard footfalls on the stairs, a
movement among the horses outside, the start of a horse
being mounted; and then, sharp and diminishing, the
steps of horses that moved away quickly down the street.
58
Sir Stephen George Tallents CB, CBE (1884-1958) was
a British civil servant and an expert of public relations.
He was appointed British Commissioner for the Baltic
Provinces in February 1919 and assisted with drawing
up the treaty that established Estonia, Latvia and Lithu-
ania. He also adjudicated the establishment of the bor-
der between Estonia and Latvia, notably in relation to
dividing the city of Valga/Valka. This story originally
appeared in a collection of short stories: Stephen Tal-
lents, The Dancer and Other Tales (London: Constable
& Company Limited, 1922), pp. 96-106.
59
The Story of Oliver and Scarymouse
Agnieszka Kunz
Another rainy day at the museum. Jane hated November
and everything connected to it. ‘The worst time of the
year ever’ – she thought – ‘the rain doesn’t want to go
away to make room for the snow.’ She definitely liked
winter, mostly because of the moment when she got
home, changed her clothes and curled up under a warm
blanket with a cup of tea or hot chocolate. But right now
she just had to survive November and overcome her
hatred for this type of weather.
It had been almost three months since she started to
work at the museum. But this Saturday was different
from the ones she had experienced so far. Somehow
everyone was busy and she was the only one who had
60
61
showed up. While cleaning the floor in the room behind
the studio, she found a really old looking box full of
books. It was not unusual to find books at the museum;
pretty much every room was full of them, discarded
from libraries all over the country. This box was
different though. But she couldn’t say why. Maybe
because it had no label, making it impossible to say
where it came from. Maybe because it was hidden in the
corner of the room. Or maybe because of the drawing of
a plush animal on the top of the box. It looked a little bit
like a mix of a teddy bear and a mouse, drawn by a
small child. She could not resist opening the box. As
soon as she did, all the lights went out. ‘Weird’ – she
thought – ‘I have never seen that happen before.’ She
looked in the office and in the warehouse for a new light
bulb, but couldn’t find any and the closest shop was too
far to walk. She was intrigued by the bizarre drawing.
Jane noticed a small lamp on a table, which seemed to
work. Back in the room, she started to take books out of
the box. All of them were in English and by famous
English authors like Kipling, Huxley and Conan Doyle.
And then she found it. The cover of the book had
exactly the same picture of the strange animal that was
on the outside of the box. “The Story of Oliver and
Scarymouse” was the title. The name of the author was
too blurry to make out and it didn’t appear anywhere
else inside. The cover was damaged and some of the
pages were missing. Apparently it had been read a lot.
On the second page she found a barely visible
dedication written in pencil – “To my dear Alice, don’t
be afraid to pack your backpack.” She sat down cross-
legged on the floor and started to read.
Oliver didn’t want to admit it in front of his travel
62
companion, but he didn’t exactly know where they were
going. When they left home in the morning, all he knew
was that he had to go somewhere. He was sure he would
recognise the place when he got there. He planned to
travel alone, without his parents or his friends Timothy
and Robin, and even without Scarymouse. But he hadn’t
thought of telling Scarymouse not to go with him.
Because even if he had, she probably still would have
followed him, because Scarymouse always did what she
wanted and Oliver had to accept that. Secretly, he hoped
that Scarymouse would find her own way and just leave
him alone because he didn’t need anything or anyone in
his life.
The mouse walked beside Oliver every day, though
most of the time she was actually running with her small
plush legs. ‘People walk too fast’ – she thought – ‘and
they do not look at other smaller creatures.’ She didn’t
want to admit that every night she slept with one eye
open, because she was afraid that Oliver would leave
under the cover of the night and she wouldn't be able to
find him again.
They marched for several hours, during which Oliver
didn’t say a word, and Scarymouse wanted to sing and
dance because of the adventure they were having
together. Maybe it was the greatest adventure of their
lives. ‘It's funny’ – Scarymouse thought – ‘Often, when
people want to do something, they are afraid of other
people’s reactions or ashamed of their own desires. And
yet this is so easy, to just wake up one day and fulfill
your dreams.’
Jane stopped after a few pages because her hands
were shaking. It was already getting late, and dusk and
coldness were breaking into the museum from every
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corner. She found an old woolen blanket, wrapped it
around herself, and went back to the story.
The journey continued. Oliver still wasn’t talking
much, but at least now he was answering Scarymouse’s
questions.
“Why are you so silent?” - Scarymouse asked,
breaking the silence.
“Because I have nothing to say” – Oliver answered.
“If people only spoke when they had something to
say, the ability to speak would have probably
disappeared by now” – she said. Oliver did not react to
her words.
Night came. Scarymouse didn’t like nights. Well,
maybe she liked them, but only when she slumbered
soundlessly on the shelf in front of Oliver’s bed. At night
the world is scary, shrubs and trees turn into strange
creatures, their boughs into writhing snakes. Nights give
ordinary objects frightening shapes. ‘That is why no one
should be alone at night’ – she thought at the exact
same moment that Oliver said the words out loud.
“No one should be alone at night.”
He covered her with his blanket. And for the first
time since they left home, she was not afraid of the
snakes.
Jane was touched by the story. It reminded her of her
childhood that she spent with his father in the
countryside. Her mother worked as a professor at the
university, and every summer she read books that she
didn’t have time to read during the year. Unfortunately
she didn’t have time for her own daughter, but Jane’s
father tried to make it up to her by organising some day
trips. Jane had her own small backpack, where she
always put a blanket, a box with sandwiches, apples
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from the garden and her favourite sweater. The trips
stopped when Jane turned 14 and her father died. The
last thing he gave her was a new, bigger backpack for
longer journeys they would have taken.
Her memories were bittersweet and Jane didn’t want
to think any more about her childhood. She took a
breath and went back to the story. Unfortunately a few
of the pages were partly torn out, but she was able to
gather that Oliver and Scarymouse met another
scarymouse on the way, who told them about Scaryland
– the place where all the plush mice live together in
harmony and happiness. And they found it.
Oliver knew that the time for Scarymouse to leave.
But he did not want to let her go because he was afraid
of being alone. And she was too afraid to start a
conversation about leaving because she didn’t want to
hurt him.
And so they left Scaryland after only a few days. This
time, however, they didn’t laugh and joke or even talk
because they were both immersed in their own thoughts.
“You know I like you very much, Scarymouse” – said
Oliver, expressing his feelings for the first time in his life.
“I know” – for the first time in her life she said very
little.
“And I want the best for you.” She did not answer;
she just smiled under her mouse whiskers. “I'm afraid of
being alone and I wanted you to accompany me on the
journey. But now I see how selfish I was. And right now,
your place is not with me but with them in Scaryland.
And I have to let you go.”
Scarymouse’s eyes flashed but she remained silent.
She walked slowly dragging her feet until she
disappeared beyond the horizon. A few minutes later she
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ran back into her friend’s arms. The hugs lasted a long
time, but in the end Scarymouse went back to the land of
plush mice. Oliver sat down and wept. ‘This is how it is’
– he thought – ‘some people stay with us even though
they don’t want to and some leave because they have
to.’
It was nearly midnight when Jane finished the book.
For a brief moment, she couldn’t get up from the floor.
Then she realised that somewhere in the bottom of her
closet there should be the old backpack she got from her
father. She went home, found it and put “The Story of
Oliver and Scarymouse” inside. And then she went to
sleep.
Agnieszka Kunz: This is the first time a short
story of Agnieszka’s has been published,
although there have been many writing
attempts now hiding in a sock drawer. She
was born in Poland, but for the past two years
she has been sharing her time between the
children centre where she works and the
Printing Museum in Tartu. She is currently
working on her new blog “Tartumania”.
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67
[untitled]
Tina Rowe
I'm 51 and it surprises me. In April 2014, I spent almost
four days with people in their early 20s. It felt strange to
be in the company of so many adults who had parents
the same age (and even younger) as me. It made me
think about my father because I am coming to the same
age that my father was when he died. I tell people he
had a problem with his heart, and he did, in a kind of
way, he suffered from depression and it beat him. At the
age of 52 on a beautiful autumn day in 1979 he
committed suicide and left us all reeling, guilty and
bereft.
My father was a nice man, but in my eyes he was
always just that. A father. My special kind of adult
whose 6ft bulky presence was all about authority and
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experience. He was from another world that I would
never have to be part of because he was born in the
1920s and that was so long ago those times were in
some ways completely irrelevant. To be honest, I never
considered that he had existed at all until I did.
His death wrecked my education in some respects
and I stopped studying art and started to look at the
world. I have travelled a lot. My father only left the
country on two occasions. First just after the war, when
for some reason or other he was flown to Holland and
he came back with photographs of tulip fields. The
second time he and mother went on one of those strange
cruise lets, from some port in the UK to a port in
Belgium or even Holland again. They did not get off the
ship, but they went away together. That was during the
last good year of his life.
I find it difficult to keep myself moored at home. I
am restless and greedy for other places and ways of
doing things. I've lived in two countries besides the one
I belong to and intend to live abroad again. For the most
part I have done this travelling alone. I started writing
this sitting in an apartment in an old communist bloc in
the Estonian town of Tartu, where I was spending a
month as artist in residence and it smelt just like one I
had lived in in Poland 20 years earlier, I found it kind of
comforting. I could easily have seen my father, given
the opportunity, living the kind of life I had lived though
as a musician rather than a teacher. I could see him
playing the drums or piano in some jazz band, smoking
foreign cigarettes, drinking too much wine and shyly
getting his heart broken by the wrong type of girl.
Whenever I have been abroad, I have always found
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myself addressing him at some point. Talking about
what I am seeing and feeling because the man I knew
would have been interested. It inevitably ends up with
me being wrapped in a blanket of sadness. He has had
many candles lit in his name, in Europe, in Asia, in
Australasia and North America.
But I could never find a vocabulary about him that
satisfied me because I only saw him as my father. And
then something shifted during the stay in a beautiful
Estonian house in the bleak and pretty Estonian
countryside on the island of Saaremaa. I got so irritated
hearing other people talking young stuff that I left off to
take some photographs of a collapsed house I had seen
from the car when we arrived. During the walk, I found
myself talking about him instead of to him as I usually
do.
My father had mostly just been a person who had
responsibility for me and for the most part acquitted
himself well and with great care. He helped me with
school work, patiently taking me through my times table,
showing me how to progress chords on the piano and to
play by ear. He had taken me to colleges before I left
school to make it easier for me to make my decisions
about my future. Education was extremely important to
him as his own lack of school certificate, scuppered by
the Second World War, had effectively bricked him into
the wall.
At 16, I thought I was a grown up. I had left school, I
was a student and pretty soon I would be away from
home at Camberwell, or Wimbledon or somewhere
similar, learning to be an illustrator, or a print maker,
who knows. Nobody will ever know as it didn't happen
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because of what he did and I allowed it to dictate what I
did next.
After he died it never occurred to me just how much
I had got from him and how I was letting him down by
allowing myself to become mired in sadness about what
happened. When everybody else was just about ready to
file me under bin, he had kept the faith. After his death
the only part of my college experience that had any
meaning for me was photography with his camera and
that just wasn't an art subject at the end of the 1970s so I
kept it but didn't make the most of it.
I have seen him in the abstract for years, an adult I
loved who died. As if being an adult wasn't what I have
become. But I am an adult; I have been an adult for
years. I made the mistake of thinking I was the most
adult amongst the group this weekend and one of the
things an adult does is listen to younger people and
think to themselves how empty most conversations are
when you are young.
But those conversations are not really empty; they
are just tempered with inexperience. There is none of
the appearance of depth that is really just the sheer
weight of decades. When you are young, the idea of
decades is a survey of constant change. When you are
older, it becomes the gradual layering of more and more
of the same.
1979 is the year that defines me. On 3rd
of May
Margaret Thatcher was swept to power over the rotting
staves of what socialism had become. My god I hated
her. For good reason it turned out. When she died, I
checked my feelings for her, and found those feelings
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were as profound as they ever were and she wasn't dead
enough.
On the 2nd October 1979, I had a row with my
mother at the breakfast table because I had decided that
I didn't want to stay at art college after only two weeks
and wanted to leave home and live in London. I went to
leave the house without kissing her goodbye. My father
intercepted me at the door, stooped enough that his eyes
were level with mine and said: “Kiss your mother
goodbye please. Kiss your mother goodbye for me.”
Privately, I called myself Judas for a long time for doing
as he asked. But now, I know it would have prevented
nothing had I chosen to ignore him.
Two days in 1979 define me, on one day came a
profound and terrible sadness on another a loathing so
ingrained that I cannot squeeze the slightest drop of
compassion for the wounded and confused husk
Margaret Thatcher became.
At that time I was in some respects still a child. My
politics were unsubtle; my knowledge was not in any
way sophisticated. In truth some of my dearly held
beliefs from that time are not even memories and I can
only stare blankly when I am reminded of some jinks of
the high or low variety that I indulged in. And this is the
thing that coalesced while I was striding down a dirt
track, on an island, closer to a Russia that didn't even
exist when I was young than where I am supposed to be.
I realised that I am still the same person as I was at 16.
But I became aware that I am just a little more than one
year younger than my father was when he died. I have
one foot still in my childhood and it will always be the
same. It was during that walk that my father stopped
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being just an adult parent to me and the conflicting pulls
of dreaming and responsibility started to make sense.
Tina Rowe: Tina is an artist from the
United Kingdom. She wrote this piece
whilst undertaking an artist residency in
Estonia during spring 2014. You can see
her work at www.tinarowe.co.uk.
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Made with the support of Siim Sutrop and Taimo Peelo.
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