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The hour dragged itself toward night. Silas Graves, the keeper of the abandoned chapel, lay in his tiny lodge on an enormous bed, wide awake — though normally he’d pass out with the chickens. From under one edge of a greasy, patchwork quilt, stitched together from mismatched rags of every faded color, his wiry red hair stuck out like a warning. From the other edge, his large, long-unwashed feet dangled over the side. He was listening…
His lodge butted right up against the cemetery fence, and its single window faced an open field. And out in that field, something truly infernal was unfolding. It was hard to tell who was trying to obliterate whom, or for whose destruction nature had brewed this bloody stew — but judging by the relentless, sinister roar, someone out there was having a very, very bad time. An unstoppable force was chasing something across the field, raging through the forest and across the chapel roof, pounding its fists against the window with malevolent fury, smashing and tearing. And something else — something defeated — was howling and sobbing in response… The pitiful wail came first from outside the window, then from above the roof, then from within the drafty stove. It wasn’t a plea for help. It was something worse: a raw, aching despair — the terrible awareness that it was already too late, that there was no salvation. Snowdrifts had crusted over with thin ice; tears trembled on their surfaces and on the branches of trees, while dark slush — a foul brew of mud and melting snow — spread across the roads and paths. In short, a thaw had settled over the land. But the sky, through the impenetrable darkness, took no notice. It kept hurling fresh flakes of snow onto the dissolving earth with all its might. And the wind — the wind raced around like a mad thing possessed. It refused to let the snow settle, spinning it through the blackness however it pleased.
Silas listened to this wretched symphony, and his face grew darker. The thing was — he knew, or at least he suspected — what all this commotion outside his window was leading up to, and whose handiwork it was.
“I knooow!” he muttered under his breath, shaking a finger at someone — or something — from under the quilt. “I know everything.”
By the window, on a rickety stool, sat his wife, Raven. A tin lamp perched on another stool, casting its feeble, flickering light as if embarrassed by its own weakness. The light spilled across her broad shoulders, the beautiful, tempting curves of her body, and the heavy braid that brushed the floor. Raven was sewing — sewing from rough burlap sacks, the kind you can guess. Her hands moved quickly, but her whole body — the expression in her eyes, her brows, her full lips, her white neck — seemed frozen, submerged in that monotonous, mechanical task, as if asleep. Only occasionally would she lift her head to rest her tired neck, glance briefly at the window where the blizzard raged, then bend back over the fabric. No desires, no sorrow, no joy — nothing reflected on her beautiful face with its upturned nose and the dimples in her cheeks. She was like a beautiful fountain with its water run dry.
But then she finished one sack, tossed it aside, stretched lazily, and fixed her dull, unmoving gaze on the window… Tears streamed down the glass panes, and short-lived snowflakes froze there for an instant. A flake would land on the glass, glance at Raven — and melt.
“Go to bed,” Silas grumbled.
Raven said nothing. But suddenly, her lashes fluttered, and a spark of attention glowed in her eyes. Silas, who had been watching her expression from under the quilt, stuck his head out and asked:
“What?”
“Nothing… I think someone’s coming,” she answered quietly.
Silas kicked and shoved the quilt off, knelt up on the bed, and stared blankly at his wife. The lamplight timidly illuminated his hairy, pockmarked face and slid over his disheveled, stiff hair.
“You hear it?” his wife asked.
Through the monotonous howl of the blizzard, he made out a barely audible, thin, ringing moan — like the whine of a mosquito that wants to land on your cheek but is enraged by every swat.
“It’s the post,” Silas grumbled, sinking back onto his heels.
Three miles from the church ran the postal road. When the wind blew from the highway toward the church, the lodge’s inhabitants could hear the jingling bells.
“Lord,” Raven sighed. “Who would want to travel in this weather?”
“Government business. Like it or not, you ride.”
The moan hung in the air for a moment and faded.
“Gone,” Silas said, lying back down.
But before he could pull the quilt over himself, a clear ringing sound reached his ears. The deacon’s apprentice glanced nervously at his wife, jumped out of bed, and shuffled across the floor, swaying from side to side. The bell rang briefly and fell silent again, as if cut off.
“Nothing…” Silas muttered, stopping and squinting at his wife.
But in the same instant, the wind slammed against the window and carried that thin, ringing moan to his ears. Silas went pale, grunted, and began slapping his bare feet across the floor again.
“The post is being driven in circles!” he rasped, glaring spitefully at his wife. “You hear that? The post is being circled!… I… I know! You think I don’t understand?” he babbled. “I know everything, damn you!”
“What do you know?” Raven asked softly, not taking her eyes off the window.
“I know that this is all your doing, you she-devil! Your doing, may you burst! This blizzard, the post being circled — you arranged all of it! You!”
“You’re raving, fool,” his wife observed calmly.
“I’ve been noticing this for a long time! The very first day we married, I knew your blood was unclean!”
“Tch!” Raven gasped, shrugging and crossing herself. “Just cross yourself, you idiot!”
“A witch is a witch,” Silas continued in a low, almost tearful voice, hurriedly blowing his nose into the hem of his shirt. “Even if you are my wife, even if you come from a church family — I’ll say it at confession, what you really are… How else? Lord, save and protect! Last year, on the feast of Daniel and the Three Young Men, there was a blizzard — and what happened? Some tradesman showed up, drawn to the light. Then, on Alexei the Man of God, the river broke its banks and brought us the police sergeant… He spent the whole night with you, cursed woman, chattering away. And when he went out in the morning and I got a look at him — his eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow! Huh? During the Dormition Fast, we had two thunderstorms, and both times a hunter came to spend the night. I saw everything, may he rot! Everything! Oh, your face is turning red as a lobster! Aha!”
“You didn’t see anything…”
“Oh yeah? And this winter, before Christmas, on the day of the Ten Martyrs of Crete — when the blizzard raged day and night… remember? — the clerk from the district office lost his way and landed here, the dog… And what did you see in him?! Pah! A clerk! Was it worth stirring up a storm for him? A worm, a shriveled mushroom, barely visible above the ground, his face covered in pimples, his neck crooked… If he were handsome — but no! Pah! Satan!”
Silas caught his breath, wiped his lips, and listened. The bell was silent, but the wind tore across the roof, and through the darkness outside the window, the jingling started again.
“And now too!” Silas went on. “It’s no accident the post is being driven in circles! Spit in my eyes if it’s not you they’re looking for! Oh, the devil knows his business, a good helper he is! He’ll circle and circle — and lead them right here. I knooow! I see it! You can’t hide, you devil’s chatterbox, you idol’s lust! The moment the blizzard started, I understood exactly what you were thinking.”
“What a fool!” Raven smirked. “You think I make the storms happen, in your stupid opinion?”
“Hmph… Smirk away! Whether it’s you or not, I’ve noticed: whenever your blood starts to boil — there comes bad weather. And whenever bad weather comes — it drags some bastard here. Every single time! So it’s you.”
For emphasis, Silas pressed a finger to his forehead, closed his left eye, and began to chant in a singsong voice:
“Oh, madness! Oh, spawn of Judas! If you really are a human and not a witch, use your head and think: what if those weren’t tradesmen, hunters, or clerks, but devils in their guise? Huh? Think about that!”
“You’re just dense, Silas,” Raven sighed, looking at her husband with pity. “When Papa was alive and lived here, crowds came to him to be cured of fever — from the village, from the farms, from the Armenian settlements. Almost every day people came — and no one called them devils. But if someone stops by once a year in bad weather to warm up — it’s a miracle to a fool like you, and your head fills with all kinds of nonsense.”
His wife’s logic stung Silas. He spread his bare feet, tilted his head, and fell into thought. He wasn’t yet entirely convinced of his suspicions, and Raven’s sincere, indifferent tone had thrown him off completely. But after thinking a little, he shook his head and said:
“It’s not just old men or cripples, but all young ones who beg for shelter… Why is that? And it wouldn’t be so bad if they only warmed themselves — but no, they flirt with sin. No, woman, there is no creature on this earth more cunning than your female kind! Real intelligence in you — God forbid — less than a sparrow has, but devilish cunning — ohhh! Save us, Queen of Heaven! Listen, the post is ringing! The blizzard has only just started, and I’ve already read all your thoughts! You’ve conjured this, you spider!”
“Why are you attacking me, you damned man?” Raven finally lost her temper. “Why are you picking on me, you tar?”
“Because if something happens tonight, God forbid — you listen to me! — if something happens, I’ll go at dawn to Father Nicodemus in Dyadkovo and tell him everything. ‘So and so, Father Nicodemus, forgive me generously, but she is a witch.’ ‘Why?’ ‘You want to know why? Allow me…’ And woe to you, woman! You’ll be punished not only on Judgment Day, but in this life too! It’s not for nothing that there are prayers against your kind in the prayer book!”
Suddenly, a knock came at the window — so loud and so strange that Silas went pale and crouched in fear. Raven jumped up and also turned white.
“For God’s sake, let us in to warm up!” came a trembling, deep bass voice. “Anyone there? Please! We’ve lost our way!”
“And who are you?” Raven asked, afraid to look at the window.
“Postal service!” answered another voice.
“So the devilry wasn’t for nothing!” Silas waved his hand. “Just as I thought! My truth… Well, you just watch out!”
The apprentice jumped twice in front of the bed, collapsed onto the feather mattress, and, snorting angrily, turned his face to the wall. Soon, a breath of cold air hit his back. The door creaked, and in the doorway appeared a tall figure, covered head to toe in snow. Behind him, a second one — just as white — flashed by.
“Bring the cargo in?” asked the second in a hoarse bass.
“We can’t just leave it out there.”
With these words, the first man began to untie his hood, but didn’t wait — tore it off his head along with his cap and threw both angrily toward the stove. Then he pulled off his coat, tossed it there as well, and without greeting anyone, began pacing the lodge.
He was a young, blond postman in a worn-out uniform tunic and dirty reddish boots. Warming himself with movement, he sat down at the table, stretched his muddy legs toward the sacks, and propped his head on his fist. His pale, red-spotted face still bore the traces of recent pain and fear — a face twisted with anger, with fresh marks of physical and mental suffering, with melting snow on his brows, mustache, and round beard. And despite everything, it was a handsome face.
“Goddamn life,” the postman muttered, his eyes tracing the walls as if he couldn’t believe he had found warmth. “We almost died. If it weren’t for your light — who knows what would’ve happened… When will it end? This dog’s life has no end. Where did we end up?” he asked, lowering his voice and raising his eyes to Raven.
“On Gulyaevsky Hill, at General Kalinovsky’s estate,” she answered, flustered and blushing.
“Hear that, Stepan?” the postman turned to the driver, who was stuck in the doorway with a large leather bundle on his back. “We’ve ended up on Gulyaevsky Hill.”
“Yeah… a bit off course.”
Uttering this in a hoarse, broken exhale, the driver went out and a minute later brought in another, smaller bundle. Then he went out again and this time returned with the postman’s sabre on a wide belt — shaped like that long, flat sword with which Judith is depicted approaching the bed of Holofernes in cheap religious prints. Stacking the bundles along the wall, he went out into the entryway, sat down there, and lit a cigarette.
“Would you like some tea after your journey?” Raven offered.
“What tea!” the postman frowned. “We need to warm up quickly and get going, or we’ll miss the train. We’ll sit for ten minutes — and then back on the road. Just please, show us the way…”
“God has cursed us with this weather,” Raven sighed.
“Mmm… And who are you here?”
“Us? We’re local, attached to the chapel. We’re from the church family. That’s my husband lying there. Silas, get up and say hello! There used to be a parish here, but a year and a half ago it was abolished. Of course, when the gentry lived here — there were people, it made sense to keep the parish. But now, without the gentry — judge for yourself, how is the clergy supposed to live when the nearest village is Markovka, five miles away? Now Silas is out of office and… serving as a watchman instead. Ordered to look after the chapel.”
And the postman soon learned that if Silas would only go to the general’s widow and get a note from her to the bishop, he’d be given a good position. But he wouldn’t go to the general’s widow because he was lazy and afraid of people.
“Still, we are of the clerical estate,” Raven added.
“And how do you live?” asked the postman.
“There’s a hayfield and vegetable gardens by the chapel. Only we don’t get much from them,” she sighed. “Father Nicodemus from Dyadkovo — his eyes are full of envy. He serves here on the summer feast of St. Nicholas and the winter feast, and for that he takes almost everything for himself. There’s no one to stand up for us.”
“You’re lying!” rasped Silas. “Father Nicodemus is a holy soul, a lamp of the church. And if he takes — it’s according to the canons!”
“How angry he is,” the postman smiled. “And how long have you been married?”
“It’s been four years since Forgiveness Sunday. Before, my father served here as a deacon’s assistant. Then, when his time came to die, so that the place would stay with me, he went to the consistory and asked them to send me some unmarried clerk as a husband. And so I was married.”
“Aha, so you killed two birds with one stone,” said the postman, looking at Silas’s back. “Got the position and a wife.”
Silas impatiently jerked his leg and pressed closer to the wall. The postman got up from the table, stretched, and sat down on one of the mail sacks. After a moment’s thought, he kneaded the sacks with his hands, moved the sabre to another spot, and stretched out, letting one leg dangle to the floor.
“A dog’s life,” he muttered, putting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. “I wouldn’t wish this life on a fierce Tatar.”
Soon, silence fell. Only Silas’s snoring and the sleeping postman’s steady, slow breathing could be heard — each exhale producing a thick, drawn-out “khhhhh…” Sometimes some little wheel creaked in his throat, and his trembling leg rustled against the sack.
Silas tossed and turned under the quilt and slowly looked back. Raven sat on her stool, her cheeks pressed to her palms, staring at the postman’s face. Her gaze was motionless — like that of someone who has seen something terrible and frozen in place.
“What are you gawking at?” Silas whispered viciously.
“What’s it to you? Lie still!” Raven answered, not taking her eyes off the blond head.
Silas angrily exhaled all the air from his chest and turned sharply to face the wall. After about three minutes, he started tossing again, knelt up in bed, and resting his hands on the pillow, glanced sideways at his wife. She still hadn’t moved and was staring at the guest. Her cheeks had gone pale, and her eyes had lit up with a strange, feverish fire. The deacon’s apprentice grunted, slid off the bed on his belly, walked over to the postman, and covered his face with a rag.
“What’s that for?” Raven asked.
“So the light doesn’t get in his eyes.”
“Why don’t you just put out the light altogether?”
Silas gave his wife an incredulous look, leaned his lips toward the lamp, but immediately caught himself and threw up his hands.
“Isn’t that devilish cunning?” he exclaimed. “Huh? Is there any creature more cunning than the female kind?”
“Oh, you long-skirted Satan!” Raven hissed, her face twisting with annoyance. “Just you wait.”
And settling herself more comfortably, she resumed her staring at the postman. It didn’t matter that his face was covered. What captivated her was not so much his face as his entire presence, the novelty of this man. His chest was broad, powerful; his hands were beautiful, slender yet muscular; his legs were long and shapely — far more handsome and masculine than Silas’s two “stumps.” There was simply no comparison.
“Even if I am a long-skirted unclean spirit,” Silas said after a pause, “they’ve got no business sleeping here… Yes… They have government business, but we’ll be the ones held responsible if we keep them too long. If you’re carrying the mail, then carry it — no sleeping. Hey, you!” Silas shouted into the entryway. “You, driver… what’s your name? Shall I guide you out? Get up, you don’t sleep with the mail!”
And now worked up, Silas jumped over to the postman and tugged his sleeve.
“Hey, your honor! If you’re going, go. If not — then don’t… But sleeping’s not right.”
The postman sat up with a start, looked around the lodge with bleary eyes, and lay back down.
“And when are we supposed to go?” Silas rattled on, tugging his sleeve. “The whole point of the post is to be on time, understand? I’ll guide you.”
The postman opened his eyes. Warmed and weakened by sweet first sleep, not yet fully awake, he saw — as if through a fog — a white neck and the still, oily gaze of Raven. He closed his eyes and smiled — as if it were all a dream.
“Why go anywhere in this weather?” he heard a soft woman’s voice. “Just sleep and sleep, to your health.”
“But the mail?” Silas grew alarmed. “Who’ll carry the mail? What, will you drive it? You?”
The postman opened his eyes again, looked at the shifting dimples on Raven’s face, remembered where he was, and understood Silas. The thought of having to ride out into the cold and darkness ran down his body like a trail of icy goosebumps, and he shuddered.
“Five more minutes of sleep…,” he yawned. “We’re already late anyway.”
“Maybe we’ll still make it on time,” came a voice from the entryway. “Who knows — the train itself might be delayed, luck being what it is.”
The postman got up, stretched sweetly, and began pulling on his coat.
Seeing that the guests were preparing to leave, Silas almost whinnied with pleasure.
“Give me a hand, will you?” the driver called to him, lifting a sack from the floor.
The apprentice ran over and together they dragged the postal cargo out into the yard. The postman began unraveling the knot on his hood. And Raven looked into his eyes, as if trying to burrow into his very soul.
“You should have some tea,” she said.
“I wouldn’t mind… but they’re ready,” he agreed. “We’re late anyway.”
“Just stay,” she whispered, lowering her eyes and touching his sleeve.
The postman finally untied the knot and, hesitating, slung the hood over his elbow. It was warm standing next to her.
“What a neck you have…”
He touched her neck with two fingers. When she didn’t resist, he stroked her neck, her shoulder…
“Phew… what a…”
“Stay… have some tea.”
“Where are you putting that? Hey, you molasses-soaked kutiya!” came the driver’s voice from the yard. “Lay it across!”
“Stay… Listen to the wind howl…”
And the postman — not fully awake, not yet having shaken off the enchantment of that young, languorous sleep — was suddenly seized by a desire for which mail sacks, postal trains, everything in the world could be forgotten. Frightened, as if wishing to run or hide, he glanced at the door, grabbed Raven by the waist, and was already leaning toward the lamp to blow it out when boots clattered in the entryway and the driver appeared in the doorway. Silas peered over his shoulder. The postman quickly dropped his hands and stood frozen, as if deep in thought.
“All set,” said the driver.
The postman stood for a moment, shook his head sharply — like a man finally fully awake — and followed the driver. Raven was left alone.
“Well, get in, show us the road!” she heard.
One bell jingled lazily, then another, and the ringing sounds drifted away from the lodge in a fine, long chain.
As they slowly faded, Raven sprang from her seat and began pacing nervously from corner to corner. First she was pale; then red blotches spread across her whole body. Hatred twisted her face, her breath trembled, her eyes blazed with wild, ferocious anger, and as she paced like a caged animal, she looked like a tigress being taunted with a red-hot iron. She stopped for a moment and surveyed her home. Nearly half the room was taken up by the bed, which stretched along the entire wall and consisted of a dirty feather mattress, grey hard pillows, a quilt, and various nameless rags. That bed was a formless, hideous lump — much like the one that sat on Silas’s head when he took it into his head to grease his hair. From the bed to the door leading to the cold entryway stretched a dark stove with pots and hanging cloths. Everything — not excluding Silas himself, who had just gone out — was filthy, greasy, smoke-stained beyond belief, so that it was strange to see a white neck and fine, delicate skin in such surroundings. Raven ran to the bed, reached out her hands as if wanting to scatter, trample, and grind it all to dust — but then, as if afraid to touch the filth, she recoiled and began pacing again…
When Silas returned two hours later, plastered with snow and exhausted, she was already undressed and lying in bed. Her eyes were closed, but the small twitches crossing her face told him she was not asleep. On the way home, he had sworn to himself to remain silent until morning and not to touch her, but now he couldn’t resist — he had to take a jab.
“You conjured for nothing — he left!” he said, grinning maliciously.
Raven said nothing, but her chin trembled. Silas slowly undressed, climbed over his wife, and lay down against the wall.
“And tomorrow I’ll explain to Father Nicodemus what kind of wife you are,” he muttered, curling into a ball.
Raven turned to face him quickly, her eyes flashing.
“The position should be enough for you,” she said. “Find yourself a wife in the forest. What kind of wife am I to you? Damn you to pieces! A fool, a lazybones, God forgive me, foisted himself upon me!”
“There, there… Sleep.”
“Unhappy woman that I am!” Raven burst into sobs. “If not for you, I might have married a merchant or even a nobleman! If not for you, I’d be loving a husband right now! May the snow have buried you, may you have frozen to death out there on the highway, you Herod!”
Raven cried for a long time. Finally, she took a deep breath and fell silent. Outside, the blizzard still raged. Something was crying in the stove, in the chimney, behind every wall — Silas thought it was crying inside him, in his ears. That evening, he finally became certain of his suspicions about his wife. That his wife, with the help of unclean forces, controlled the winds and the postal routes — of this he no longer had any doubt. But to his profound grief, this mystery, this supernatural, wild power gave the woman lying next to him a peculiar, incomprehensible allure that he had never noticed before. Because he, in his stupidity and without realizing it, had poetized her, she now seemed somehow whiter, smoother, more untouchable…
“Witch!” he fumed. “Pah, abomination.”
And yet, waiting until she had quieted down and her breathing became steady, he touched the back of her neck with his finger… He held her heavy braid in his hand. She didn’t stir. Emboldened, he stroked her neck.
“Get off!” she snapped, and struck him with her elbow right on the bridge of the nose so hard that sparks flew from his eyes.
The pain in his nose faded quickly, but the torment — that was just beginning.