Vasilii Nemirovich-Danchenko - Peasant Tales of Russia

The old man regarded the prospect of such a collapse calmly, for to die in a mine seemed to him quite natural as he had been born there. He would have found it strange if his sad existence had ended on the surface of the ground; on the other hand a death down here seemed quite simple and natural. Here he felt at home. He remembered how when seized with illness on one occasion, before he had become old, he had not even ascended to the surface, but remained in the gallery where he worked all the time, his comrades bringing him food. He had often passed the night in his gallery stretched on comparatively soft ground. In old times he had been often seized with a desire to ascend, to see again the sun and the starry nights, but all that was now far away. Now he felt at home here in this darkness where it was so warm and so comfortable, that, but for the dampness, one would like to remain there always!

The water kept on coming down in resonant cascades. But in spite of this, the old man distinctly heard not far off the blows of the miners' innumerable pickaxes, the dull echoes of explosions in distant galleries, and vague human noises. Here and there in the walls of the shaft one saw black holes, once the entrances to ancient galleries which had long ago been exhausted of their ore and abandoned.

The miners were now working in another stratum. But the old Ivan had not forgotten these ancient galleries, for he had left in each of them a little of his strength, and each of them had been moistened by his perspiration. He rose and looked downwards; the flickerings of little lamps like his own were visible, and vague sounds came up to him. The gleam of water was also to be seen, for the bottom of the shaft was entirely flooded. Pumps were no longer of any use to expel the water, for pump as one might, the water kept pouring in. However, they had to keep on pumping, for if they stopped, even for an hour, the whole mine would have been flooded and the water would have rapidly penetrated all the galleries, drowning the miners who were working in them.

"Earth and water – both are in the hands of God," said the miner to himself.

The rusty chain ceased to unwind and the bucket stopped its descent half-submerged in the water which covered the bottom of the shaft. The miners ran up from all sides, holding their little lamps. "See who comes!" they said with a laugh. "Good day, father!" They laid a plank for him and helped him to get out. Then, as he always did, he removed his cap and made a low bow to the miners, showing his bald head.

Numerous galleries diverged from this point in all directions, and their darkness was pierced by little lights which ran hither and thither. Sounds of voices were heard clearly as well as the noise of subterranean explosions, but all other sounds were dominated by the roar of the waters.

The old man re-lighted his little lamp, which had gone out, and stooping forward, as though he were examining some mysterious footprints, he went towards his gallery with unsteady steps.

The gallery in which the old man worked was fairly high. Here and there beams sustaining the roof were visible, but their decrepit condition testified to their age. Above these worm-eaten beams, the earth formed protuberances bristling with pointed rocks. The ground was strewn with fragments of rock which had fallen from the roof.

Old Ivan remembered having seen one day one of these fragments kill as it fell a little boy who had been a great pet of his. This little boy generally accompanied his father, and his gay bursts of careless laughter animated a little the sepulchral silence of the mine. It seemed but yesterday that the old man had seen the child running merrily along the gallery. All at once a misshapen block protruded from the roof. The child stopped, out of curiosity, raised his clear eyes to see what it was, and the huge stone suddenly dropped, burying and crushing him entirely. His father was in utter despair and the other miners could not restrain their tears; as for Ivan, he persisted in prowling for a long time round the great black stone, as though he were expecting to hear from under the enormous block the well-known laugh of the little one. But nothing came to awaken the melancholy silence of the gallery.

The old man now halted near this murderous rock and held his lamp near it, lighting up the indistinct outlines of a cross rudely engraved in the stone. After looking round, as though he were afraid of being seen, he rapidly made the sign of the cross above the "tomb." If the miners had been able to watch him just then, they would have been astonished to his perpetually closed lips moving. But no one could have said whether he only wished to speak or actually spoke, for none but himself heard the vague murmur which issued from his lips.

On his left hand there was an extremely narrow passage; the old man entered it, crawled through it, and stood upright again, for he had reached the place where he worked, which was fairly roomy. However, although one could stand upright in it, the place had a sepulchral aspect.

The old man raised his lamp, whose tiny gleam lit up for a moment the black walls discoloured by stains of yellowish rust. Here it was almost dry and the light of the lamp revealed no moisture. Little irregular heaps of ore dotted the ground. However, there was one damp corner, and in it grew thickly together a little group of mushrooms with little flat hoods of a sickly white colour on stalks which were also white and very slender. The old man took care of them and avoided covering them with any of the earth which he dug out. One day he had even brought to this corner a piece of turf in the midst of which were some field-flowers. But neither the buttercups nor the daisies consented to live without the sun; they gradually died, fading away by stages like consumptives who are deprived of the sun and of its warmth. Only one little flower had a tougher life than the rest and held out a long time, although it completely lost its colour in the eternal darkness of this tomb. Ivan watched it with curiosity until it also hung its head over its desiccated stalk. Then he had nothing left but the mushrooms and a kind of greyish lichen which spotted the rock at intervals.

To-day old Ivan was very tired; he sat down on a heap of ore, placed his little lamp in a niche of the rock, which was already blackened with smoke, and buried his head in his hands. Not a single echo reached this spot. A melancholy silence reigned in this vault, but the old man was accustomed to it. He for whom the darkness was peopled by mysterious apparitions vanishing as soon as they appeared, heard also strange voices down here. Sometimes it was like the fragment of an incomplete song or a distant call which pierced the silence. At other times, when his pickaxe penetrated deeply the heart of the rock, he fancied he heard a stifled sigh as if the tool had pierced the breast of a living creature. All these vague sounds seemed to him full of significance. Having nothing in common with the world of reality, he lived in fancies and dreams.

Sometimes, after making sure that he had a supply of matches, he put out his lamp, lay on his back on the ground and fixed his wide-open eyes on the darkness. Then it seemed to him that the walls of his black prison expanded indefinitely. The vaulted roof overhead rose to a prodigious height, and he felt himself for the first few moments lost in such a terrible void that his breath seemed to stop. He felt a strange uneasiness mixed with fear, for in the absolute darkness he seemed suspended alone and without the least support in the immensity of space, and every moment about to fall.

But this lasted only a short time, and the darkness gradually became less dense. First of all the blackness was diversified by spots of light, then by blazing spirals of fire; these then changed into golden circles, which in their turn disappeared in showers of sparks. Then the spots of light assumed all the colours of the rainbow and the fiery spirals shone with a dazzling light, revolving rapidly in the darkness, which, however, was not dispersed by this lightning-like splendour. Then they melted together and rose to giddy heights, appearing up there like glittering mirages. Sometimes the spots of light assumed indistinct shapes which seemed to have transparent wings, while white robes fluttered behind them. Mysterious spirits who shunned the light of the lamp escaped from the black rock bastion and gathered round the old man, leaning over him and gazing intently into his wide-open eyes. At such times he heard a vague rustling around him.