"So I suppose the wood is the Artamonovs' too?" Meliton inquired, looking about him. "Yes, it is the Artamonovs'; only fancy... I had completely lost myself. I got my face scratched all over in the thicket."
He sat down on the wet earth and began rolling up a bit of newspaper into a cigarette.
Like his voice, everything about the man was small and out of keeping with his height, his breadth, and his fleshy face: his smiles, his eyes, his buttons, his tiny cap, which would hardly keep on his big, closely-cropped head. When he talked and smiled there was something womanish, timid, and meek about his puffy, shaven face and his whole figure.
"What weather! God help us!" he said, and he turned his head from side to side. "Folk have not carried the oats yet, and the rain seems as though it had been taken on for good, God bless it."
The shepherd looked at the sky, from which a drizzling rain was falling, at the wood, at the bailif's wet clothes, pondered, and said nothing.
"The whole summer has been the same," sighed Meliton. "A bad business for the peasants and no pleasure for the gentry."
The shepherd looked at the sky again, thought a moment, and said deliberately, as though chewing each word:
"It's all going the same way.... There is nothing good to be looked for."
"How are things with you here?" Meliton inquired, lighting his cigarette. "Haven't you seen any coveys of grouse in the Artamonovs' clearing?"
The shepherd did not answer at once. He looked again at the sky and to right and left, thought a little, blinked.... Apparently he attached no little significance to his words, and to increase their value tried to pronounce them with deliberation and a certain solemnity. The expression of his face had the sharpness and staidness of old age, and the fact that his nose had a saddle-shaped depression across the middle and his nostrils turned upwards gave him a sly and sarcastic look.
"No, I believe I haven't," he said. "Our huntsman Eryomka w as saying that on Elijah's Day he started one covey near Pustoshye, but I dare say he was lying. There are very few birds."
"Yes, brother, very few.... Very few everywhere! The shooting here, if one is to look at it with common sense, is good for nothing and not worth having. There is no game at all, and what there is is not worth dirtying your hands over—it is not full-grown. It is such poor stuff that one is ashamed to look at it."
Meliton gave a laugh and waved his hands.
"Things happen so queerly in this world that it is simply laughable and nothing else. Birds nowadays have become so unaccountable: they sit late on their eggs, and there are some, I declare, that have not hatched them by St. Peter's Day!"
"It's all going the same," said the shepherd, turning his face upwards. "There was little game last year, this year there are fewer birds still, and in another five years, mark my words, there will be none at all. As far as I can see there will soon be not only no game, but no birds at all."
"Yes," Meliton assented, after a moment's thought. "That's true."
The shepherd gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
"It's a wonder," he said, "what has become of them all! I remember twenty years ago there used to be geese here, and cranes and ducks and grouse—clouds and clouds of them! The gentry used to meet together for shooting, and one heard nothing but pouf-pouf-pouf! pouf-pouf-pouf! There was no end to the woodcocks, the snipe, and the little teals, and the water-snipe were as common as starlings, or let us say sparrows—lots and lots of them! And what has become of them all? We don't even see the birds of prey. The eagles, the hawks, and the owls have all gone.... There are fewer of every sort of wild beast, too. Nowadays, brother, even the wolf and the fox have grown rare, let alone the bear or the otter. And you know in old days there were even elks! For forty years I have been observing the works of God from year to year, and it is my opinion that everything is going the same way."
"What way?"
"To the bad, young man. To ruin, we must suppose... The time has come for God's world to perish."
The old man put on his cap and began gazing at the sky.
"It's a pity," he sighed, after a brief silence. "O God, what a pity! Of course it is God's will; the world was not created by us, but yet it is a pity, brother. If a single tree withers away, or let us say a single cow dies, it makes one sorry, but what will it be, good man, if the whole world crumbles into dust? Such blessings, Lord Jesus! The sun, and the sky, and the forest, and the rivers, and the creatures—all these have been created, adapted, and adjusted to one another. Each has been put to its appointed task and knows its place. And all that must perish."
A mournful smile gleamed on the shepherd's face, and his eyelids quivered.
"You say—the world is perishing," said Meliton, pondering. "It may be that the end of the world is near at hand, but you can't judge by the birds. I don't think the birds can be taken as a sign."
"Not the birds only," said the shepherd. "It's the wild beasts, too, and the cattle, and the bees, and the fish.... If you don't believe me ask the old people; every old man will tell you that the fish are not at all what they used to be. In the seas, in the lakes, and in the rivers, there are fewer fish from year to year. In our Pestchanka, I remember, pike used to be caught a yard long, and there were eel-pouts, and roach, and bream, and every fish had a presentable appearance; while nowadays, if you catch a wretched little pikelet or perch six inches long you have to be thankful. There are not any gudgeon even worth talking about. Every year it is worse and worse, and in a little while there will be no fish at all. And take the rivers now... the rivers are drying up, for sure."
"It is true; they are drying up."
"To be sure, that's what I say. Every year they are shallower and shallower, and there are not the deep holes there used to be. And do you see the bushes yonder?" the old man asked, pointing to one side. "Beyond them is an old river-bed; it's called a backwater. In my father's time the Pestchanka flowed there, but now look; where have the evil spirits taken it to? It changes its course, and, mind you, it will go on changing till such time as it has dried up altogether. There used to be marshes and ponds beyond Kurgasovo, and where are they now? And what has become of the streams? Here in this very wood we used to have a stream flowing, and such a stream that the peasants used to set creels in it and caught pike; wild ducks used to spend the winter by it, and nowadays there is no water in it worth speaking of, even at the spring floods. Yes, brother, look where you will, things are bad everywhere. Everywhere!"
A silence followed. Meliton sank into thought, with his eyes fixed on one spot. He wanted to think of some one part of nature as yet untouched by the all-embracing ruin. Spots of light glistened on the mist and the slanting streaks of rain as though on opaque glass, and immediately died away again—it was the rising sun trying to break through the clouds and peep at the earth.
"Yes, the forests, too..." Meliton muttered.
"The forests, too," the shepherd repeated. "They cut them down, and they catch fire, and they wither away, and no new ones are growing. Whatever does grow up is cut down at once; one day it shoots up and the next it has been cut down—and so on without end till nothing's left. I have kept the herds of the commune ever since the time of Freedom, good man; before the time of Freedom I was shepherd of the master's herds. I have watched them in this very spot, and I can't remember a summer day in all my life that I have not been here. And all the time I have been observing the works of God. I have looked at them in my time till I know them, and it is my opinion that all things growing are on the decline. Whether you take the rye, or the vegetables, or flowers of any sort, they are all going the same way."