Vasilii Nemirovich-Danchenko - Peasant Tales of Russia

He seemed to feel the breath of the rocks reaching him through invisible fissures. He heard the musical complaint of a spring imprisoned in the rock, or it might be a distant song. His ear caught distinctly harmonious sounds, which sometimes melted together and sometimes followed each other, sporting like butterflies in the field, and he eagerly listened to their ineffable melody. Thus he would pass hours and even entire nights while, forgotten by his comrades, he remained alone in the enormous mine, alone with his visions and the fantastic echoes of a world unknown and invisible. But to-day these things hardly occupied his mind at all.

The next day was a Saturday, and he had to break as much ore possible and convey it, together with the piles already prepared, to the principal gallery, where the overseer of the mine would take it over. In the evening he would receive his pay, the whole of which he would take to an old woman living in the village. She looked after him, prepared his meagre repasts, mended his clothes, and bought his boots. People said she was his sister, but he felt doubtful about it. He knew that he had passed his childhood far away from her, for while he was always in the mine with his mother, she was growing up in a strange family who took care of her. He never spoke to her. When he entered in the evening he silently placed his money on the table, let his head drop in his hands, and remained sitting in this attitude. When she called him to sit down at table, he rose and obeyed, otherwise he would have remained as he was till the morning, as motionless as a log. When he happened to remain in the mine for the night, his sister was not anxious about it; she knew that he had taken with him a large chunk of bread and a handful of salt; as for water, there was no lack of that in the mine! She knew also that in a corner of the sepulchral vault, where he worked like a mole from morning to night, there was a can of oil, and that he could re-light his lamp whenever it went out.

Ivan stooped down, looked for his pickaxe, found it, and sat down to break pieces from a block of ore which projected from the wall. This ferruginous earth was as hard to break as stone. Ivan worked slowly, sparing his strength because he could not do otherwise; care had been taken to show him a place where the rock was not so hard as elsewhere. Fragments of yellowish earth fell on the ground, and the rays of the little lamp lit up the particles of copper which glittered here and there in the pieces of rock. After two hours' work the pickaxe fell from the old man's hand. Feeling quite exhausted, he squatted down on the ground, cut himself a large slice of bread, sprinkled it plentifully with salt, and began to munch the soft part of it with the remnants of his teeth.

There was in one corner a wheelbarrow light enough for the old man to push it. After having rested, he filled it with ore, and crawled, pushing the barrow in front of him, through the narrow passage which led to the main gallery. At the end of the passage a point of yellow light was visible. This proceeded from the main gallery where a large number of miners worked, and the yellow light was that cast by their lamps. Several times the old man sank exhausted on his stomach on the ground; then after resting a minute or two to recover strength, he began to crawl on again, pushing his load in front of him. The point of light grew larger from moment to moment and soon became a broad luminous disk against which the outline of a miner stood out in sharp relief. A few minutes more and the wheelbarrow issued from the passage, pushed by the old man, who sank as he did so on the ground.

"Stop a minute! You are tired: let me help you, old man," said a young miner who had finished his work. The old man lifted his head, looked at him for a moment, and sank down again. The younger laid hold of the wheelbarrow, but Ivan took it brusquely from him, and shook his head with an air of disapproval.

"What fly is buzzing in your head, comrade?" several of the other miners said to the young one. "Have you forgotten the old man's habits? You know that he never allows any one to enter his hole, nor to touch his barrow, for he has heaped up riches in it. Since he has worked in the mine, he has found so much gold that he has become a regular Crœsus."

The miners laughed good-naturedly, tapping the old man's shoulder with their horny fingers.

"March on in front, Ivan, and the other one will follow," they said to soothe him.

Instead of answering, Ivan removed his old leather cap and commenced bowing to right and to left as if to give his comrades a good view of his bald head.

"That's enough, old man! Yes, we know your zeal!" said the miners, laughing. "He is quite a child, eh?"

"He has forgotten how to talk," some one remarked.

"Yes, he is an innocent. Ah, my God! What is that?"

In the twinkling of an eye every one was on their feet. It seemed as though the huge mountain was breathing with all its lungs. The noise came from a distance and drowned all the others. The miners were deafened. Suddenly a gust of wind rushed violently through the gallery, extinguishing nearly all the lamps. Somewhere, one knew not where, rose cries of anguish which were soon lost in an immense uproar. After hurriedly re-lighting their lamps, the miners rushed in the direction of the cries. A gleam of intelligence lit up the eyes of old Ivan as he tottered after them on his feeble legs.

In front of what had been the exit from the gallery the miners stood silent. Others were running up from the more or less distant side galleries; their steps could be heard approaching and their lamps seen.

"What has happened, sir?" they exclaimed in alarm, as they came staring in a stupefied way at the place where a moment before had stood the principal shaft of the mine.

If the vaulted roof of the gallery had resisted the formidable shock of the collapse, it was only because it was part of the solid rock. Already the miners' feet were standing in water which had been liberated by this displacement of masses of earth and flowed into the gallery, reflecting the faint lights of the lamps and the vivid flame of the torch which the overseer of the mine held above his head, while its smoke ascended towards the high black vaulted roof.

"Lost! We are lost!" some one exclaimed in the crowd with a sob.

Old Ivan pushed his way to the front of the crowd. Neither he nor the others noticed that the water was flowing round their ankles. They found themselves confronted by a huge and visibly growing mass, composed of a mixture of stones from the ruined shaft and fragments of timber-work and earth. In the midst of all lay upside-down, the bucket which had become detached from its chain and carried away.

The overseer held his torch near a mass of earth which had assumed a round shape. It lit up the head of a miner with eyes immensely wide open whose fixed look seemed to be concentrated on the flame of the torch. There was something terrible in the sight of those motionless eyelids, those white teeth gleaming between two torn lips, that deep wound in the temple from which blood was oozing. A little lower down one saw projecting from the earth a hand with wide-extended fingers and a broken wrist. Still lower down could be seen the feet of miners whose bodies were invisible, buried under the earth. Not a single one moved.

Up to that moment no one had noticed them, but when the torch lit up this tragic spectacle the whole crowd of miners instinctively started backward. As he turned round, the overseer only saw faces pale with fright and shrinking from his torch as though there were something terrible about it. However, one miner, leaning his hand on the wall, bent forward, looking attentively at the dead man's face. What did he see extraordinary in it? He could not have said himself, but it was plain that he had not the power to turn his terrified eyes away from it. Another miner approached and touched something with his pickaxe which he quickly withdrew.