That year spring came early. It was violent and, as always in Polyessie, unexpected. Brown, shining, turbulent streams began to run down the village streets, foaming angrily round the stones, whirling splinters and feathers along with it. In the huge pools of water was reflected the azure sky, with the round, spinning white clouds that swam in it. Heavy drops pattered noisily from the eaves. Flights of sparrows covered the roadside willows, and chattered with such noisy excitement that nothing could be heard above the clamour. Everywhere was felt the joyous, quick alarm of life.

The snow disappeared. Dirty yellow patches remained here and there in the hollows and the shady thickets. From beneath it peeped the warm wet soil, full of new sap after its winter sleep, full of thirst for a new maternity. Over the black fields swung a light vapour, filling the air with the scent of the thawed earth, with the fresh, penetrating, mighty smell of the spring, which one can distinguish even in the town from a hundred other smells. Together with this scent I felt that the sweet and tender sadness of spring poured into my soul, exuberant with restless expectations and vague presentiments, that romantic sadness which makes all women159 beautiful in one’s eyes, and is always tinged with indefinite regrets for the springs of the past. The nights grew warmer. In their thick moist darkness pulsed the unseen and urgent creation of Nature.

In those spring days the image of Olyessia never left me. Alone, I loved to lie down and close my eyes that I might better concentrate upon her. Continually in my imagination I summoned her up, now stern, now cunning, now with a tender smile resplendent in her face, her young body nurtured on the richness of the old forest to be as harmonious and mighty as a young fir-tree, her fresh voice with its sudden low velvety notes.... ‘In all her movements, and her words,’ I thought, ‘there is a nobility, some native grace of modulation.’ I was drawn to Olyessia also by the halo of mystery which surrounded her, her superstitious reputation as a witch, her life in the forest thicket amid the marsh, and above all her proud confidence in her own powers, that had shown through the few words she said to me.

Surely there is nothing strange in it that, so soon as the forest paths were dry, I set out for the hut with the chicken legs. In case it should be necessary to placate the querulous old woman I bore with me a half-pound of tea and a few handfuls of sugar.

I found them both at home. The old woman was moving about by the bright burning stove, and Olyessia was sitting on a very tall bench spinning flax. I banged the door as I entered,160 and she turned round. The thread snapped and the spindle rolled on to the floor.

For some time the old woman stared at me with angry intentness, frowning, and screening her face from the heat of the stove with her hand.

‘How do you do, granny?’ I said in a loud, hearty voice. ‘It must be you don’t recognise me. You remember I came in here last month to ask my way? You told me my fortune too.’

‘I don’t remember anything, sir,’ the old woman began to mumble, shaking her head with annoyance. ‘I remember nothing. I can’t make out at all what you’ve forgotten here. We are no company for you. We’re simple, plain folk.... There’s nothing for you here. The forest is wide, there’s room enough to wander....’

Taken aback by the hostile reception, and utterly nonplussed, I found myself in the foolish situation of not knowing what to do: whether to turn the rudeness to a joke, or to take offence, or finally to turn and go back without a word. Involuntarily I turned to Olyessia with a look of helplessness. She gave me the faintest trace of a smile of derision, that was not wholly malicious, rose from the spinning-wheel and went to the old woman.

‘Don’t be afraid, granny,’ she said reassuringly. ‘He’s not a bad man. He won’t do us any harm. Please sit down,’ she added, pointing me to a bench in the corner of honour, and paying no more attention to the old woman’s grumbling.

161 Encouraged by her attention, I suddenly decided to adopt the most decisive measures.

‘But you do get angry, granny.... No sooner does a guest appear in your doorway than you begin to abuse him. And I had brought you a present,’ I said, taking the parcels out of my bag.

The old woman threw a swift glance at the parcels; but instantly turned her back upon me.

Immediately, I handed her the tea and sugar. This soothed the old woman somewhat, for though she continued to grumble, it was no longer in the old implacable tone. Olyessia sat down to her yarn again, and I placed myself near to her, on a small, low, rickety stool. With her left hand Olyessia was swiftly twisting a white thread of flax, silky soft, and in her right the spindle whirled with an easy humming. Now she would let it fall almost to the floor; then she would catch it neatly, and with a quick movement of her fingers send it spinning round again. In her hands this work (which at the first glance appears so simple, but in truth demands the habit and dexterity of centuries), went like lightning. I could not help turning my eyes to those hands. They were coarsened and blackened by the work, but they were small and of shape so beautiful that many a princess would have envied them.

‘You never told me that granny had told your fortune,’ said Olyessia, and, seeing that I gave a cautious glance behind me, she added: ‘It’s162 quite all right, she’s rather deaf. She won’t hear. It’s only my voice she understands well.’

‘Yes, she did. Why?’

‘I just asked ... nothing more.... And do you believe in it?’ She gave a quick, stealthy glance.

‘Believe what? The fortune your granny told me, or generally?’

‘I mean generally.’

‘I don’t quite know. It would be truer to say, I don’t believe in it, but still who knows? They say there are cases.... They write about it in clever books even. But I don’t believe what your granny told me at all. Any village woman could tell me as much.’

Olyessia smiled.

‘Yes, nowadays she tells fortunes badly, it’s true. She’s old, and besides she’s very much afraid. But what did the cards say?’

‘Nothing interesting. I can’t even remember it now. The usual kind of thing: a distant journey, something with clubs.... I’ve quite forgotten.’

‘Yes, she’s a bad fortune-teller now. She’s grown so old that she has forgotten a great many words.... How could she? And she’s scared as well. It’s only the sight of money makes her consent to tell.’

‘What’s she scared of?’

‘The authorities, of course.... The village policeman comes, and threatens her every time. “I can have you put away at any minute,” he says. “You know what people like you get for163 witchcraft? Penal servitude for life on Hawk Island.” Tell me what you think. Is it true?’

‘It’s not altogether a lie. There is some punishment for doing it, but not so bad as all that.... And you, Olyessia, can you tell fortunes?’

It was as though she were perplexe............