The Created Legend | Page 7

he could shut it
again. Elisaveta quietly asked him:
"Who are these?"
With a light movement of her head she indicated the bushes, where the
boy and the girl were hiding. The cheerful urchin looked in the
direction of her glance, then at her, and said:
"There's no one there."
And actually no one was now visible in the bushes. Elisaveta persisted:
"But I did see a boy and a girl there. Both were quite white, not at all
brown like the rest of you. They stood ever so quietly and looked."
The cheery, dark-eyed lad looked attentively at Elisaveta, frowned
slightly, lowered his eyes, reflected, then again eyed the sisters
attentively and sadly, and said:
"In the main building, where Giorgiy Sergeyevitch lives, there are more
of these quiet children. They are never with us. They are quiet ones.
They do not play. They have been ill. It's likely they haven't improved
yet. I don't know. They are kept separately."

The boy said this slowly and thoughtfully, as if he were astonished
because there, in the house of the master, were other children, quiet
ones, who did not join in their play. Suddenly he shook his head lustily,
banishing, as it were, unaccustomed thoughts, then took off his cap and
exclaimed cheerily and with some tenderness:
"A happy journey, darlings! Follow this footpath."
He made an obeisance and ran off. The sisters were quite alone now.
They went on in the direction given them by the boy. A quiet vale
opened up before them, and in the distance a white wall was visible,
which concealed Trirodov's house. They continued their way towards
the house. In front of them, keeping close to the bushes, walked a boy
in a white dress; he appeared to be showing them the way.
It was very quiet. High above them, protecting himself from the human
eye by dark purple shields, the flaming Dragon rested. His look from
behind the deceptive, vacillant shields was hot and evil; he poured out
his dazzling light, tormented men with it, yet wished them to rejoice in
his presence and to compose hymns to him. He wished to rule, and it
seemed as though he were motionless, as though he would never decide
to retire. But his livid weariness already began to incline him
westwards. Still his passion grew, and his kisses were scorching, and
his infuriated gaze with its livid purple dimmed the glances of the two
girls.
The girls' glances were seeking--seeking Trirodov's house.
Trirodov's house stood about a verst and a half from the edge of the
town, not at the end where the dirty and smoky factory buildings
squatted, but quite at the other end, along the River Skorodyen, above
the town of Skorodozh. This house and the estate attached to it
occupied a considerable space, surrounded by a stone wall. One side of
the place faced the river, the other the town, the rest adjoined the fields
and woods. The house stood in the middle of an old garden. From
behind the tall white stone wall the tops of the trees were to be seen,
while between them, quite high, two turrets of the house, one somewhat
higher than the other, were visible. The sisters felt as if some one in the

high turret were looking down upon them.
There were ominous rumours concerning the house even in the days
when it belonged to the previous tenant Matov, a kinsman of the
Rameyev sisters. It was said that the house was inhabited by ghosts,
and by phantoms who had left their graves. There was a footpath close
to the house which led across the northern part of the estate, through a
wood, to the Krutitsk cemetery. In the town they called this the
footpath of Navii,[2] and they were afraid to walk upon it even by day.
Many legends grew up around it. The local intelligentsia tried vainly to
disprove them. The whole property was sometimes called Navii's
playground. There were some who said that they had seen with their
own eyes this enigmatic inscription on the gates: "Three went in, two
came out." This inscription was, of course, no longer there. Now only
lightly cut-out figures were to be seen, one under the other: '3' on top,
'2' lower, and '1' at the bottom.
[Footnote 2: Footpath of the dead.]
All the evil rumours and warnings did not prevent Giorgiy
Sergeyevitch Trirodov from buying the house. He made changes in it,
and then settled here after his comparatively brief educational career
had been rudely cut short.
It took a long time to rebuild and transform the house. The high walls
prevented any one from seeing what was being done there. This
aroused the curiosity of the townsfolk and caused all sorts of malicious
gossip. The