Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories Read online

in a world of whitish-golden mist, deep stillness, delicate sleep....

  And how mysteriously, like sparks of silver, the stars filtered

  through the mist! We were both silent. The fantastic beauty of the

  night worked upon us: it put us into the mood for the fantastic.

  VI

  Tyeglev was the first to speak and talked with his usual hesitating

  incompleted sentences and repetitions about presentiments ... about

  ghosts. On exactly such a night, according to him, one of his friends,

  a student who had just taken the place of tutor to two orphans and was

  sleeping with them in a lodge in the garden, saw a woman's figure

  bending over their beds and next day recognised the figure in a

  portrait of the mother of the orphans which he had not previously

  noticed. Then Tyeglev told me that his parents had heard for several

  days before their death the sound of rushing water; that his

  grandfather had been saved from death in the battle of Borodino

  through suddenly stooping down to pick up a simple grey pebble at the

  very instant when a volley of grape-shot flew over his head and broke

  his long black plume. Tyeglev even promised to show me the very pebble

  which had saved his grandfather and which he had mounted into a

  medallion. Then he talked of the lofty destination of every man and of

  his own in particular and added that he still believed in it and that

  if he ever had any doubts on that subject he would know how to be rid

  of them and of his life, as life would then lose all significance for

  him. "You imagine perhaps," he brought out, glancing askance at me,

  "that I shouldn't have the spirit to do it? You don't know me ... I

  have a will of iron."

  "Well said," I thought to myself.

  Tyeglev pondered, heaved a deep sigh and dropping his chibouk out of

  his hand, informed me that that day was a very important one for him.

  "This is the prophet Elijah's day--my name day.... It is ... it is

  always for me a difficult time."

  I made no answer and only looked at him as he sat facing me, bent,

  round-shouldered, and clumsy, with his drowsy, lustreless eyes fixed

  on the ground.

  "An old beggar woman" (Tyeglev never let a single beggar pass without

  giving alms) "told me to-day," he went on, "that she would pray for my

  soul.... Isn't that strange?"

  "Why does the man want to be always bothering about himself!" I

  thought again. I must add, however, that of late I had begun noticing

  an unusual expression of anxiety and uneasiness on Tyeglev's face, and

  it was not a "fatal" melancholy: something really was fretting and

  worrying him. On this occasion, too, I was struck by the dejected

  expression of his face. Were not those very doubts of which he had

  spoken to me beginning to assail him? Tyeglev's comrades had told me

  that not long before he had sent to the authorities a project for some

  reforms in the artillery department and that the project had been

  returned to him "with a comment," that is, a reprimand. Knowing his

  character, I had no doubt that such contemptuous treatment by his

  superior officers had deeply mortified him. But the change that I

  fancied I saw in Tyeglev was more like sadness and there was a more

  personal note about it.

  "It's getting damp, though," he brought out at last and he shrugged

  his shoulders. "Let us go into the hut--and it's bed-time, too." He

  had the habit of shrugging his shoulders and turning his head from

  side to side, putting his right hand to his throat as he did so, as

  though his cravat were constricting it. Tyeglev's character was

  expressed, so at least it seemed to me, in this uneasy and nervous

  movement. He, too, felt constricted in the world.

  We went back into the hut, and both lay down on benches, he in the

  corner facing the door and I on the opposite side.

  VII

  Tyeglev was for a long time turning from side to side on his bench and

  I could not get to sleep, either. Whether his stories had excited my

  nerves or the strange night had fevered my blood--anyway, I could not

  go to sleep. All inclination for sleep disappeared at last and I lay

  with my eyes open and thought, thought intensely, goodness knows of

  what; of most senseless trifles--as always happens when one is

  sleepless. Turning from side to side I stretched out my hands.... My

  finger hit one of the beams of the wall. It emitted a faint but

  resounding, and as it were, prolonged note.... I must have struck a

  hollow place.

  I tapped again ... this time on purpose. The same sound was repeated.

  I knocked again.... All at once Tyeglev raised his head.

  "Ridel!" he said, "do you hear? Someone is knocking under the window."

  I pretended to be asleep. The fancy suddenly took me to play a trick

  at the expense of my "fatal" friend. I could not sleep, anyway.

  He let his head sink on the pillow. I waited for a little and again

  knocked three times in succession.

  Tyeglev sat up again and listened. I tapped again. I was lying facing

  him but he could not see my hand.... I put it behind me under the

  bedclothes.

  "Ridel!" cried Tyeglev.

  I did not answer.

  "Ridel!" he repeated loudly. "Ridel!"

  "Eh? What is it?" I said as though just waking up.

  "Don't you hear, someone keeps knocking under the window, wants to

  come in, I suppose."

  "Some passer-by," I muttered.

  "Then we must let him in or find out who it is."

  But I made no answer, pretending to be asleep.

  Several minutes passed.... I tapped again. Tyeglev sat up at once and

  listened.

  "Knock ... knock ... knock! Knock ... knock ... knock!"

  Through my half-closed eyelids in the whitish light of the night I

  could distinctly see every movement he made. He turned his face first

  to the window then to the door. It certainly was difficult to make out

  where the sound came from: it seemed to float round the room, to glide

  along the walls. I had accidentally hit upon a kind of sounding board.

  "Ridel!" cried Tyeglev at last, "Ridel! Ridel!"

  "Why, what is it?" I asked, yawning.

  "Do you mean to say you don't hear anything? There is someone

  knocking."

  "Well, what if there is?" I answered and again pretended to be asleep

  and even snored.

  Tyeglev subsided.

  "Knock ... knock ... knock!"

  "Who is there?" Tyeglev shouted. "Come in!"

  No one answered, of course.

  "Knock ... knock ... knock!"

  Tyeglev jumped out of bed, opened the window and thrusting out his

  head, cried wildly, "Who is there? Who is knocking?" Then he

  opened the door and repeated his question. A horse neighed in the

  distance--that was all.

  He went back towards his bed.

  "Knock ... knock ... knock!"

  Tyeglev instantly turned round and sat down.

  "Knock ... knock ... knock!"

  He rapidly put on his boots, threw his overcoat over his shoulders and

  unhooking his sword from the wall, went out of the hut. I heard him

  walk round it twice, asking all the time, "Who is there? Who goes

  there? Who
is knocking?" Then he was suddenly silent, stood still

  outside near the corner where I was lying and without uttering another

  word, came back into the hut and lay down without taking off his boots

  and overcoat.

  "Knock ... knock ... knock!" I began again. "Knock ... knock ...

  knock!"

  But Tyeglev did not stir, did not ask who was knocking, and merely

  propped his head on his hand.

  Seeing that this no longer acted, after an interval I pretended to

  wake up and, looking at Tyeglev, assumed an air of astonishment.

  "Have you been out?" I asked.

  "Yes," he answered unconcernedly.

  "Did you still hear the knocking?"

  "Yes."

  "And you met no one?"

  "No."

  "And did the knocking stop?"

  "I don't know. I don't care now."

  "Now? Why now?"

  Tyeglev did not answer.

  I felt a little ashamed and a little vexed with him. I could not bring

  myself to acknowledge my prank, however.

  "Do you know what?" I began, "I am convinced that it was all your

  imagination."

  Tyeglev frowned. "Ah, you think so!"

  "You say you heard a knocking?"

  "It was not only knocking I heard."

  "Why, what else?"

  Tyeglev bent forward and bit his lips. He was evidently hesitating.

  "I was called!" he brought out at last in a low voice and turned away

  his face.

  "You were called? Who called you?"

  "Someone...." Tyeglev still looked away. "A woman whom I had hitherto

  only believed to be dead ... but now I know it for certain."

  "I swear, Ilya Stepanitch," I cried, "this is all your imagination!"

  "Imagination?" he repeated. "Would you like to hear it for yourself?"

  "Yes."

  "Then come outside."

  VIII

  I hurriedly dressed and went out of the hut with Tyeglev. On the side

  opposite to it there were no houses, nothing but a low hurdle fence

  broken down in places, beyond which there was a rather sharp slope

  down to the plain. Everything was still shrouded in mist and one could

  scarcely see anything twenty paces away. Tyeglev and I went up to the

  hurdle and stood still.

  "Here," he said and bowed his head. "Stand still, keep quiet and

  listen!"

  Like him I strained my ears, and I heard nothing except the ordinary,

  extremely faint but universal murmur, the breathing of the night.

  Looking at each other in silence from time to time we stood motionless

  for several minutes and were just on the point of going on.

  "Ilyusha..." I fancied I heard a whisper from behind the hurdle.

  I glanced at Tyeglev but he seemed to have heard nothing--and still

  held his head bowed.

  "Ilyusha ... ah, Ilyusha," sounded more distinctly than before--so

  distinctly that one could tell that the words were uttered by a woman.

  We both started and stared at each other.

  "Well?" Tyeglev asked me in a whisper. "You won't doubt it now, will

  you?"

  "Wait a minute," I answered as quietly. "It proves nothing. We must

  look whether there isn't anyone. Some practical joker...."

  I jumped over the fence--and went in the direction from which, as far

  as I could judge, the voice came.

  I felt the earth soft and crumbling under my feet; long ridges

  stretched before me vanishing into the mist. I was in the kitchen

  garden. But nothing was stirring around me or before me. Everything

  seemed spellbound in the numbness of sleep. I went a few steps

  further.

  "Who is there?" I cried as wildly as Tyeglev had.

  "Prrr-r-r!" a startled corn-crake flew up almost under my feet and

  flew away as straight as a bullet. Involuntarily I started.... What

  foolishness!

  I looked back. Tyeglev was in sight at the spot where I left him. I

  went towards him.

  "You will call in vain," he said. "That voice has come to us--to

  me--from far away."

  He passed his hand over his face and with slow steps crossed the road

  towards the hut. But I did not want to give in so quickly and went

  back into the kitchen garden. That someone really had three times

  called "Ilyusha" I could not doubt; that there was something plaintive

  and mysterious in the call, I was forced to own to myself.... But who

  knows, perhaps all this only appeared to be unaccountable and in

  reality could be explained as simply as the knocking which had

  agitated Tyeglev so much.

  I walked along beside the fence, stopping from time to time and

  looking about me. Close to the fence, at no great distance from our

  hut, there stood an old leafy willow tree; it stood out, a big dark

  patch, against the whiteness of the mist all round, that dim whiteness

  which perplexes and deadens the sight more than darkness itself. All

  at once it seemed to me that something alive, fairly big, stirred on

  the ground near the willow. Exclaiming "Stop! Who is there?" I rushed

  forward. I heard scurrying footsteps, like a hare's; a crouching

  figure whisked by me, whether man or woman I could not tell.... I

  tried to clutch at it but did not succeed; I stumbled, fell down and

  stung my face against a nettle. As I was getting up, leaning on the

  ground, I felt something rough under my hand: it was a chased brass

  comb on a cord, such as peasants wear on their belt.

  Further search led to nothing--and I went back to the hut with the

  comb in my hand, and my cheeks tingling.

  IX

  I found Tyeglev sitting on the bench. A candle was burning on the

  table before him and he was writing something in a little album which

  he always had with him. Seeing me, he quickly put the album in his

  pocket and began filling his pipe.

  "Look here, my friend," I began, "what a trophy I have brought back

  from my expedition!" I showed him the comb and told him what had

  happened to me near the willow. "I must have startled a thief," I

  added. "You heard a horse was stolen from our neighbour yesterday?"

  Tyeglev smiled frigidly and lighted his pipe. I sat down beside him.

  "And do you still believe, Ilya Stepanitch," I said, "that the voice

  we heard came from those unknown realms...."

  He stopped me with a peremptory gesture.

  "Ridel," he began, "I am in no mood for jesting, and so I beg you not

  to jest."

  He certainly was in no mood for jesting. His face was changed. It

  looked paler, longer and more expressive. His strange, "different"

  eyes kept shifting from one object to another.

  "I never thought," he began again, "that I should reveal to

  another ... another man what you are about to hear and what ought

  to have died ... yes, died, hidden in my breast; but it seems it is

  to be--and indeed I have no choice. It is destiny! Listen."

  And he told me a long story.

  I have mentioned already that he was a poor hand at telling stories,

  but it was not only his lack of skill in describing events that had

  happened to him that impressed me that night; the very sound of his

  voice, his glances, the movements which he made with his fingers and

  his hands--everything about him, indeed, s
eemed unnatural,

  unnecessary, false, in fact. I was very young and inexperienced in

  those days and did not know that the habit of high-flown language and

  falsity of intonation and manner may become so ingrained in a man that

  he is incapable of shaking it off: it is a sort of curse. Later in

  life I came across a lady who described to me the effect on her of her

  son's death, of her "boundless" grief, of her fears for her reason, in