The Witch Page #10

"The Witch" by Aleksandr Kuprin is a haunting novella that explores the themes of love, obsession, and the supernatural. Set in a small Russian village, the story follows the enigmatic figure of a beautiful woman rumored to be a witch. As the protagonist becomes entranced by her mysterious allure, he navigates the boundaries between desire and despair, grappling with the darker aspects of human emotion and the consequences of his actions. Kuprin's lyrical prose and psychological depth create a compelling narrative that delves into the complexities of passion and the fear of the unknown.

• Novel

								

conclusions, like those which we offer to a stammerer. And, indeed,
in the end her pliant mobile mind and her fresh imagination triumphed
over my pedagogic impotence. I became convinced that, considering her
environment and her education (rather, lack of education) her abilities
were amazing.

Once I happened in passing to mention Petersburg. Olyessia was
instantly intrigued.

‘What is Petersburg? A small town?’

‘No, it’s not a small one. It’s the biggest Russian city.’

‘The biggest? The very largest of all? There isn’t one bigger?’ she
insisted naïvely.

‘The largest of all. The chief authorities live there ... the big
folks. The houses there are all made of stone; there aren’t any wooden
ones.’

‘Of course, it’s much bigger than our Stiepany?’ Olyessia asked
confidently.

‘Oh, yes. A good bit bigger. Say five hundred times as big. There are
houses there so big that twice as many people live in a single one of
them as in the whole of Stiepany.’

‘My God! What kind of houses can they be?’ Olyessia asked almost in
fright.

‘Terrible houses. Five, six, even seven stories. You see that fir tree
there?’

‘The tall one. I see.’

‘Houses as tall as that, and they’re crammed with people from top to
bottom. The people live in wretched little holes, like birds in cages,
ten people in each, so that there isn’t enough air to breathe. Some of
them live downstairs, right under the earth, in the damp and cold. They
don’t see the sun from one end of the year to the other, some of them.’

‘Nothing would make me change my forest for your city,’ Olyessia said,
shaking her head. ‘Even when I go to the market at Stiepany, I’m
disgusted. They push, shout, swear ... and I have such a longing for
the forest, that I want to throw everything away and run and never look
back. God may have your city: I don’t want to live there.’

‘But what if your husband comes from a town?’ I asked with the trace of
a smile.

Her eyebrows frowned and her nostrils trembled.

‘What next!’ she said with scorn. ‘I don’t want a husband.’

‘You say that now, Olyessia. Nearly every girl says the same, but still
they marry. You wait a bit: you’ll meet somebody and you’ll fall in
love--and you’ll follow him, not only to town, but to the end of the
earth.’

‘No, no.... We won’t talk of that, please,’ she cut me short in
vexation. ‘Why should we talk like this? I ask you not to.’

‘How funny you are, Olyessia. Do you really believe you’ll never love a
man in your life? You’re so young, handsome, strong. If your blood once
catches fire, no oaths of yours will help you.’

‘Well, ... then, I’ll love,’ Olyessia answered with a challenge in her
flashing eyes. ‘I shan’t ask anybody’s leave.’

‘So you’ll have to marry too,’ I teased her.

‘I suppose you’re meaning the church?’ she guessed.

‘Exactly--the church. The priest will lead you round the altar; the
deacon will sing, “Isaiah, rejoice!” they’ll put a crown on your
head....’

Olyessia cast down her eyes and shook her head, faintly smiling.

‘No, dear.... Perhaps you won’t like what I say, but in our family no
one was ever married in church. My mother and my grandmother before
her managed to live without that.... Besides, we must not enter a
church....’

‘All because of your witchery?’

‘Yes, because of our witchery,’ Olyessia replied with a calm
seriousness. ‘How could I dare to appear in a church? From my very
birth my soul was sold to Him.’

‘Olyessia, dear.... Believe me, you’re deceiving yourself. It’s wild
and ridiculous what you say.’

Once more there appeared on Olyessia’s face the strange expression of
convinced and gloomy submissiveness to her mysterious destiny, which I
had noticed before.

‘No, no.... You can’t understand it.... But I feel it.... Just
here....’ She pressed her hand strongly to her heart. ‘I feel it in my
soul. All our family is cursed for ever and ever. But think yourself,
who is it that helps us if it is not He? Can an ordinary person do
the things I can do? All our power comes from Him.’

Every time our conversation touched upon this strange theme it ended
in the same way. In vain I exhausted every argument to which Olyessia
was sensible; in vain I spoke in simple terms of hypnotism, suggestion,
mental doctors, and Indian fakirs; in vain I endeavoured to explain
certain of her experiments by physiology, such, for instance, as blood
charming, which is easily produced by skilful pressure on a vein. Still
Olyessia, who believed me so implicitly in all else, refuted all my
arguments and explanations with obstinate insistence.

‘Very well, I’ll make you a present of blood charming,’ she said,
raising her voice in the heat of the discussion. ‘But where do the
other things come from? Is blood charming the only thing I know? Would
you like me to take away all the mice and beetles from a hut in a
single day? If you like, I’ll cure the most violent fever in two days
with plain cold water, even though all your doctors give the patient
up. I can make you forget any word you like, completely? And how is it
I interpret dreams? How is it I can see the future?’

The discussion always ended by our mutual silence, from which a certain
inward irritation against each other was not wholly absent. Indeed,
for much of her black art I could find no explanation in my small
science. I do not know and cannot say whether Olyessia possessed one
half the secrets of which she spoke with such naïve belief. But the
things which I frequently witnessed planted an unshakable conviction
in me that Olyessia had access to that strange knowledge, unconscious,
instinctive, dim, acquired only by accidental experience, which has
outrun exact science for centuries, and lives intertwined with wild and
ridiculous superstitions, in the obscure impenetrable heart of the
masses, where it is transmitted from one generation to another as the
greatest of all secrets.

For all our disagreement on this single point, we became more and more
strongly attached to one another. Not a word had been spoken between us
of love as yet, but it had become a necessity for us to be together;
and often in moments of silence I saw Olyessia’s eyes moisten, and a
thin blue vein on her temple begin to pulse.

But my relations with Yarmola were quite ruined. Evidently my visits
to the chicken-legged hut were no secret to him, nor were my evening
walks with Olyessia. With amazing exactness, he always knew everything
that went on in the forest. For some time I noticed that he had begun
to avoid me. His black eyes watched me from a distance, with reproach
and discontent every time I went out to walk in the forest, though he
did not express his reproof by so much as a single word. Our comically
serious studies in reading and writing came to an end; and if I
occasionally called Yarmola in to learn during the evening he would
only wave his hand.

‘What’s the good? It’s a peggling business, sir!’ he would say with
lazy contempt.

Our hunting also ceased. Every time I began to talk of it, Yarmola
found some excuse or other for refusing. Either his gun was out of
								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes