Владимир Короткевич - King Stach's Wild Hunt

He had the look of a thief caught in the act of committing a crime. His low forehead reddened, his eyes began to wander. However, from the look on my face, he probably understood that I was in no mood for joking.

“What can one do... Promissory notes...” he muttered.

“You gave Mr. Dubatoŭk promissory notes secured by Janoŭskaja's estate, which does not belong to you?”

And again I struck home aiming at the sky.

“It was such a miserly sum. Only 3,000 roubles. The kennel requires so much.”

Things were beginning to fall into their places. Dubatoŭk's monstrous plan gradually became clear.

“According to Raman Janoŭski's will,” he mumbled, removing something from his morning-coat with trembling fingers, “such a substitution was established. Janoŭskaja's children receive the inheritance...” and he looked at me pitifully in the eyes. “There won't be any. She'll die, you know... She'll die soon. After her — her husband. But she is mad, who will marry her?.. Then the next step — the last of the Janoŭskis. But there aren't any, after Śvieciłovič's death — none. I am Janoŭskaja's relative in the female line. If there aren't any children or a husband — the castle is mine.” And he began to whimper: “But how could I wait? I've so many promissory notes. I'm such an unfortunate person. Mr. Ryhor has bought up most of my notes. And in addition gave 3,000 roubles. Now he'll be the owner here.”

“Listen to me,” speaking through set teeth, “there was, is, and will be only one owner here, Miss Nadzieja Janoŭskaja.”

“I laid no hope on receiving an inheritance. Janoŭskaja could get married. So I gave him a promissory note, its security being the castle.”

“So! You lack both shame and a conscience. You probably do not even know what they are. But don't you really know that from the financial aspect this act is not valid? That it's criminal?”

“No, I don't. I was glad.”

“But you know, don't you, that you drove Dubatoŭk into committing a terrible crime, a crime for which there is no word even in man's language? Of what is the poor girl guilty that you decided to deprive her of her life?”

“I suspected that it was a crime,” he babbled, “but my kennel, my house...”

“You lousy thing! I don't want to dirty my hands on you. The provincial court will busy itself with you. And in the meantime, on my own authority, I'll put you in the dungeon of this house for a week, so you won't be able to warn the other rascals.”

He began to whimper and whine:

“That's coercion.”

“It's for you, is it, to speak of coercion? You villain! It's for you, is it, to appeal to the law?” I flung at him. “What do you know about that? You who lick people's boots!”

I called Ryhor, and he pushed Haraburda into the dungeon, under the central part of the building where there weren't any windows.

An iron door thundered behind him.

The small light of a candle loomed somewhere in the distance behind dark window-panes. When I lifted my eyes, I saw close by the reflection of my face in sharp shadows.

I was looking through Bierman's papers. It still seemed to me that I might find something of interest in them. Bierman was too complicated a character to have lived the life of a foolish sheep.

And so, here I was with the consent of the mistress. I had taken out all the papers from the secretaire and put them on the table, also all the books, letters and documents, and I sat, sneezing from the thick layer of dust on these relics.

There was little of interest, however, in them. I came across a letter from Bierman's mother, in which she asked for help, and the rough draft of his answer, where he wrote that he was supporting his brother, that now his brother didn't interfere with his mother living as she liked, and as for the rest — they were quits. Strange! What brother, where is he now?

I dug out something resembling a diary in which next to monetary expenditures and rather clever remarks on Belarusian history, I found also Bierman's discourses such as these:

“The Northwest Territory as a concept is a fiction. The reason for this possibly lies in the fact that it serves with its blood and brain the idea of the universe as a whole, but not as of five provinces, that it pays off all debts and obligations, and that it is preparing a new Messiah in its very depths for the salvation of mankind, and therefore its lot is to suffer. This, however, does not refer to those who are its best representatives, people possessing energy, strength and an aristocratic spirit.”

“Well, just take a look, with the spirit of a knight, a strong man in torn pants,” I muttered.

“My only love is my brother. At times it seems to me that all other people are only caricatures of him and there is need of a person who would remake everybody in his likeness. People must be creatures of darkness. Animal beauty appears more clearly in their organisms, a beauty that we must guard and love. Then isn't the only difference between the genius and the idiot the fig-leaf, which man himself revised? Biełarecki's mediocrity irritates me, and, by God, it would be better for him if he disappeared, and the sooner the better.”

And yet another note:

“Money is the emanation of human authority over a herd of others (regretfully so!). We should have learned to perform castration of the brains of all those who do not deserve the life of a conscious being. And the best should be given boundless happiness, for such a thing as justice is not foreseen by nature itself. This applies also to me. I need peace, which we have here more than anything else, and money in order to mature the idea for the sake of which I appeared in the world, the idea of splendid and exceptional injustice. And it seems to me that the first step might be the victory over that towards which my body is striving and which, however, it's necessary to overcome, the desire for the mistress of Marsh Firs. She is anyway condemned by blind fate to be done away with — the curse on her is being fulfilled by the appearance of the Wild Hunt at the walls of the castle. Though she is stronger than I had thought: she hasn't lost her mind yet. King Stach is weak, and I am ordained to correct his mistakes. I am, nevertheless, jealous of all young men and especially of this Biełarecki. I shot at him yesterday, but was forced to retreat. I shoot badly.”

The next sheet:

“It is possible that if I fulfilled the role of God's will, of his highest design (such as has been known to happen with ordinary mortals) the evil spirits will leave this place and I shall remain the master here. I convinvced Biełarecki that the chief danger lies in the Hunt. But what danger can there be in apparitions? Quite another matter the Little Man.”

“Gold, gold! Thousands of panegyrics could be sung to your power over people's souls. You are everything: the baby's diaper, the girl's body that is bought, friendship, love and power, the brain of the greatest geniuses, even the decent hole in the earth. And I will achieve all this.”

I crumpled the paper and squeezed my fingers until they ached.

“Abomination!”

And suddenly my hand came across a sheet of parchment folded in four among piles of paper. I unfolded the sheet on my knees and could only shake my head: it was the plan of Marsh Firs, a plan of the sixteenth century. And in this plan four listening channels were clearly indicated in the walls. Four! But they were so hidden in the plafonds that to find them was simply impossible. One of them, by the way, led from the dungeons in the castle to the room near the library (probably in orded to overhear prisoners' conversations), and the second one connected the library, the now abandoned servants' rooms on the first floor and — the room in which Janoŭskaja lived. The two others remained unknown to me: they opened into the corridor where were located the rooms belonging to Janoŭskaja and myself, but where they led to had been carefully rubbed out.