Read Ebook: Yhteiskunnan pylväät: Nelinäytöksinen näytelmä by Ibsen Henrik Lehtonen Joel Translator

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Ebook has 990 lines and 24069 words, and 20 pages

The Prince threw the reins to his servant and sprang from the sledge.

"Where is he?" demanded he.

The Muzhik in the doorway of the hut stood bowing to the ground. He did not presume to lift his eyes to the High Noble, but they had flashed up like signal-fires at the words. Yet he affected not to understand.

"Bother Ivan Ivanovitch!" interrupted the Prince, impatiently. "What do I want with your father? It is Ivanka, your son, I come to see--the little one who slew the wolf. At least," he added quickly, with a shrug, "so they say, but I do not believe it. Why, it is impossible! A child--a mere puppy!"

The Muzhik had thrown out his hands. He could contain himself no longer. "The High Noble does not believe?" he cried, wildly. Then he rushed into the house to return in a moment brandishing in one hand a knife, and in the other holding aloft a shaggy hide.

"The Noble Prince does not believe?" he repeated, and his eyes seemed to emit sparks. "Let him behold the proofs. Ivanka, my little one, slew the wolf, in very truth! Alone--alone he slew it!"

As though a flash of electric fire had flown from the man's lips direct to the hearts of his listeners, the faces of both flamed up. The man in the sledge lifted his cap and crossed himself with fervent mutterings. He passed the cuff of his coat across his wet, shining eyes.

The Prince took the knife in his hand. Such a thing it was! You can buy the like for twenty copeks at any Russian fair. One of the sort used by the Russian peasant to cut forage, having a crooked blade and horn handle. It was stained, both blade and hilt, with blood.

"I have bought another for use," observed the peasant.

"It is wonderful," murmured the Prince, as he turned the knife about in his hands.

Presently the Prince looked up. "But the boy!" he cried. "Let us see this wonderful child and hear the story from his own lips."

The peasant looked sharply round.

"He was here even when the High Noble drew up. There is the hatchet and the wood he was chopping. Ivanka! Ivanka! He has hidden himself, the rascal."

The Prince laughed.

Then it was that a coat of sheep's skin that just cleared the ground emerged from behind the hut and moved slowly over the trodden snow to within a few paces of the Prince. You could only tell by the shining eyes and the tip of a small red nose that peeped between the high stand-up collar that inside of it was a small boy.

"What is this I hear of you, Ivanka?" he began. "They say that you have slain a wolf!"

Ivanka would have hung his head but that his collar prevented it. So he dropped his eyes in guilty silence. The peasant, behind the Prince's back, rubbed his hands and chuckled.

"Come here," commanded the Prince, his moustached lip twitching with a whimsical smile.

The coat moved to the Prince's feet. Then the small boy inside it felt himself caught up in strong arms and borne into the hut.

Now, though it was a ruddy winter sunset outside, in the hut it was quite gloomy. The window was very small. A dull yellow glow, like a big bull's-eye, came from the open door of the stove, and a glimmer like a glow-worm from the tiny lamp that burned before the Holy Image. The dim outline of a woman with a child in her arms could be discerned by the stove. She came forward as the Prince entered, and bending low raised the hem of his fur mantle to her lips and silently returned to her seat.

"How old are you, Ivanka?" inquired the Prince.

"Ten years, Noble Prince," faltered the boy. But his eyes meeting those of the Prince at that moment he ceased to tremble. And the longer he looked the more comfortable he felt.

"And you have slain a wolf?" continued the Prince.

"Yes, Noble Prince."

"And what had the wolf done to you, Ivanka, that you should have taken his life?"

"He had seized our little Minka and would have eaten her up." Ivanka drew a sharp breath.

"How terrible!" exclaimed the Prince. "But you--midge! How did you dare to tackle such a foe? It is incredible! Come, tell me all about it. Begin at the beginning, Ivanka."

Ivanka gazed at the ground in silence. He twisted one leg round the other, cracked all his knuckles in succession, but the words would not come.

"Speak, Ivanka, do," came a woman's coaxing voice from the gloom. "Tell his High Nobility how it happened."

Another pause, and at length in a shy, hesitating voice, Ivanka began:--

"Mother had gone to the town in the sledge, and father lay asleep on the top of the stove. It was afternoon. I was minding Minka, and we played at having a shop with the bits of pot from the mug Minka broke. Then I remembered it was time to cut the fodder and feed the beasts, which I can do as well as father now. So I took the fodder knife and stole out. I left the door open a bit--not enough to let the cold in on father, but enough to hear Minka if she cried. I had fed the cows in the byre and had got to the corner of the house coming back, when I heard Minka scream."

As Ivanka uttered the last word his breath came fast. He tossed back his locks with a sudden jerk of the head. Like a gladiator preparing for combat, he threw out his chest, setting his teeth, whilst his small, muscular fingers contracted, doubling in like the claws of a falcon. Forgotten was the princely presence with that piteous appeal smiting his ears.

"I sprang forward," he continued, "and saw Minka. She was on the ground just outside the door. And over her hung a monster, grim and terrible. His wicked eyes gleamed red, and his cruel teeth were long and sharp. I saw them as he lifted his bristling lip to seize her in his jowl."

A dry sob rose in Ivanka's throat and made him pause. He coughed it impatiently away.

"It seemed to me then--just for a moment of horror--as though my limbs were bound and I could not move, until the beast began to drag Minka away. At the sight strength came to me, and with a yell I threw myself upon him."

"You were not afraid?" put in the Prince, who had never taken his eyes off the boy since he began to speak.

"I did not think of fear," replied Ivanka, "I thought of my poor little Minka, and oh, how fiercely I hated the monster. Hate kills fear," he added, reflectively.

"And then?" inquired the Prince.

"Oh, then he dropped Minka, and over and over we rolled in the snow, he snarling and worrying my sheep's skin. He would soon have made an end of me but for my sheep's skin." And the boy patted his breast and looked himself over complacently.

"And after?" the Prince again recalled him.

"After that he shook me until my bones rattled in my skin. Then I was under him and my mouth was full of his hair, and I was so spent that I would have let him finish me. But Minka cried, 'Ivanka! Ivanka!' and it seemed too hard to leave her. It was that moment I remembered that I still grasped the knife.

"How I struggled round between his mighty paws until my arm was free to plunge the weapon in his throat I know not, but I felt the blood gush out over my face. And then--and then, Minka's voice went farther and farther away and I seemed to be falling as a star falls through the air."

As Ivanka ceased speaking, a half-stifled sob was heard from the interior of the room. The Prince had covered his eyes with his hand as though dazzled. Yet the sun had gone down and the place was more gloomy than ever. The peasant stepped forward out of the shadows and stood before the Prince in the dim light of the window. He took up the tale.

"It was the screams of the little one that awoke me, your High Nobility, and I ran out. Ah, never shall I forget the sight that met my eyes! There lay my little son, dabbled in blood, and beside him the wolf on its back, kicking in death convulsions. When I picked up my Ivanka I thought him dead, and my heart would have broken had he not at once opened his eyes.

"'Minka,' he whispered, 'is she hurt?'

"'My darling, no,' I answered. 'She screams too lustily to be hurt.'

"'And the wolf?' He raised his head from my shoulder and looked wildly around.

"'He is dead. You have slain him, my hero,' I assured him.

"Then he shut his eyes with a great sigh.

"'Let me sleep, father,' he murmured. 'I am so tired.'"

The peasant chuckled. "He was played out, my little wolf-slayer. The Noble Prince should have seen how he lay like a sack, and slept and slept!"

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