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trade with a person unknown to him. The girl had listened silently both to the news of Peter and also to my business talk; but now when I said I would go to Okuneff, without any word she went from the hut and soon returned with a neighbor woman, to whom she explained what had to be done while she was away from the home that day. 'Well, my swallow, well, my birdie, I will do so,' the neighbor agreed.

When the compact was made, and not before, did the young girl calmly ask of me if she might go in my sledge to Okuneff's.

"There is plenty of room, you see, and I will take but small space,' she said. 'And if Peter is so ill, I must go at once to a very old man who is living now in the house of your friend, the Barin Okuneff. So please to make for me this grace.'

Of course I agreed, and we started away. We traveled about twenty versts, and this girl at my side was silent still as any fish could possibly be. I learned her name, Pelageia - but not another word from her could I draw out along the road. In the concentrated way she sat, as if she thought of something.

What it was I did not know- and as I looked at her I guessed that not even she herself knew her thoughts. So at last we came to Okuneff's estate. Exceedingly glad to see me there, at once in his stentorian voice he cried:

'Juvenal Vassilievich arrived! Now make for us a big fish-pie! Be quick as possible! Don't forget to serve the nice zakooski, too!'

And then followed the further orders which he shouted from his room down to the kitchen far below.

IV

That was a splendid feast we had. With the appetites of heroes we con

sumed appalling heaps of food. After dinner we slept a bit, about two hours, hours, and when again I came into the front room of the house, I saw the girl Pelageia there, sitting with a little old man who was dressed in the black garb of a monk. He was wiry, thin, and quite white-haired; but he had the strong determined face, and a tremendous force was felt both in his voice and in his eyes- though his manner was quite humble and his speech was very low. The girl must have been telling him about Maria's husband; for when I entered the little old man rose and greeted me, and began to ask intently in detail what I had heard from the doctors about Peter's hopeless case. When I had explained, he asked as well all about the lazaret — just where it was in Petrograd, how large, how many rooms it had, and just where was Peter's bed. He inquired as though he himself were intending to go and see the sick man there. When all this information he had, he thanked me and rose and went to his room.

Then I asked my friend Okuneff who was this little holy man? He answered me that now for some time the old fellow had lived within his house, and that he was glad to have him there so quiet and good he always was, so little trouble did he make. He stayed most of the time alone in his room, and his meals were the water and the rye bread-only rarely a dish of sauerkraut with sunflower oil, which he took as a feast. The strange healing-power he sometimes had; many peasants had been cured by him. So much for his case. With Okuneff I soon forgot about him now, and all evening long we talked of the war of prices, how they rose and rose; and of new laws by the government, each one more stupid than the last or not so stupid, rather done by the German influence at court, to bring all our trade and industries down.

So, after this good cheerful talk, which most Russians like so well, finally we went to bed.

The next day when leaving Okuneff's house, I saw the old man of the night before. He said, in the low and quiet voice, 'I attended to the trouble of Peter, and I received news that now all will go well.'

I smiled to myself. For how could such a simple old man travel six hundred versts in a night to the lazaret where Peter lay? I went into my sledge with Pelageia, and we started back to Bor. Though she had heard what the old man said, she took it quite as a matter of course. She was rather communicative now, and explained to me that it would be hard to buy the linen and laces in Bor; for the women did not like to sell except in the cases exceedingly rare. Too much toil their stuff had cost. But still she would try to persuade them to sell to me something, if only a little. Very calmly on she talked. Long ago some merchants had bought the lace in Bor, she said, but could not sell it in the big towns, because the ladies there preferred to buy the laces foreign-made. 'For to them it was the shocking taste to wear anything made in Russia!' she said. So now her friends and neighbors in Bor were quite indignant that their fine work should be refused for the bad lace made with machines in Germany! Pelageia spoke of those ladies in towns, most heartily despising them all! 'No self-respecting Barina,' she said, 'would wear such trash from Germany!'

But about the little old man she did not say a single word. And when I asked if she thought he would help, the girl replied, 'It is not a good thing to speak of the Starzy (Holy Man).'

In Bor, through her aid, I bought what I could. Of all the money which I had I spared only enough for the ticket third class and so I went

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back to Petrograd. But when I arrived with my linen and laces I found the girl Maria still there; and to my enormously great chagrin, my mother would barely look at this stuff! Instead, she began to tell me now of a most strange adventure which they have had while I was gone. A little old man, in the garb of a monk or of a pilgrim, came to them. Though all the doors were closed, she told, without trouble or sound he entered silently into the room where they were sitting; and after greeting Maria, he said, 'I have been to your Peter and talked with him, and have found that now he will soon be quite well.'

...

Then quickly and strangely he went away. While my mother told this tale, I saw the girl Maria looking intently at my face, as if she were asking, 'And what do you know?' But I told them nothing yet of the man that I had seen at Okuneff's house. In the great interest and surprise I began to question both of them, and soon they were disagreeing as to many small details-just how he looked, just what he said. But the general story was the same. The next morning, they told me, they went to see Peter.

'And really, Junechka, the boy was much better!' my excited mother declared, 'He breathed quite well without oxygen now but still was too weak to say anything more than that he had seen an old man there — and that now all would be well with him!'

V

With all my curiosity stirred I went the next day to the lazaret - and there I found Peter so much improved that he could talk quite easily and listen to what I had to tell. I did not speak of the little old man; I only told how I had gone to his village and seen his wife's young sister there. With the

calm interest of the peasant, Peter listened to my talk. At last I asked him how it was that he was feeling better now-and then he said very quietly:'One came to me two nights ago.' 'Who came to you? What do you mean?' I asked. 'No visitors can come here in the night. Perhaps you were sleeping and had a dream.'

'No, I was awake,' he replied. 'But I was lying in the state where you cannot say, "Here is life

there is death"

- because you can feel yourself just between. And this was very hard for me. I did not know what I should do. Should I ask for the death and pray for my soul, or should I be begging the God for my life and thinking of my family? I grew quite tired with such thoughts, and all the fighting in my chest. But I cannot say that I was asleep, for I saw all about me quite clearly and well, and I heard how the Sister beside my bed was saying, "Look, now, how he plays with his hands, always drawing the blanket up to his chin. That is the sure sign of death." So I lay and I listened. So quiet I grew that now it was quite the same to me, whether I lived or whether I died. She dropped her needle. I opened my eyes and watched how she stooped and tried to find it on the floor. "Will she find it," I asked, "before I die?" She found it soon, and drew her chair a little closer to my bed

and now she was sewing quietly here. "Now," I thought, "in this long war, she is so used to see men die. What is she sewing?" I watched her still.

"Then something pulled upon my thoughts, and I turned my face toward the door. And I saw, at first dimly, then quite clear, how there had entered a little old man in the dark robe of Holy Church, his face quite bright, a happy one, yet quiet too with the deep strength of joy and peace within his

soul streaming from him like the light. So he came and looked at me with a good smile. "Good day, Peter," he said. "You will soon be much better. I have heard that you are ill, so I have gone and inquired for you, and learned you will recover soon. You must pray to the God for recovery." I replied to him, "For what should I pray - when I cannot tell which is life, which is death? I am lying between." Then he said to me, "You must pray to the God at once for the life! You are still a

young man and you have a young wife, and soon there will be a child for you, too! A fine strong boy he is going to be! What reason have you to think of the death? You are going to pray to live, my boy!" Then he told to me how I should pray, and I repeated it, word by word. While I was talking I heard the good Sister, who sat sewing still at my side, say very softly, "Now the poor man is saying a burial prayer for himself." I looked around to smile at her then and when I looked back, the old man was gone.

"Then I fell asleep and slept all of the night. The next day the Sister looked at me and said, "You were the funny man last night! Quickly you turned and began to speak with somebody who was not here! And then you began to pray to the God!" I said to the Sister, "But did you not see the old man who came and spoke to me?" She laughed and took hold of my hand and said, "Well, well, if there was, or there was not - do not let it trouble you! I am glad that you are better now!" Then she went and brought the doctor here, and when he came he was much surprised. Barely could he believe his own eyes that I was not a dead man to-day. And he said to me, "Peter you are the bull! The strong and lusty bull you must be!" So said the learned doctor. But look at me, Barin, if I am the bull.'

Peter drew off his blanket and opened

his shirt. And he was like a skeleton very closely clad in skin!

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"The Sister told to the doctor then,' he continued quietly, 'how I spoke with someone who was not here though of course he was here, as I have said. She told to the doctor, too, how I prayed. Then he asked, "How was his fever last night?" It was under the normal, the Sister replied; and she told how close I was to the death. Now the doctor understood all, and he said, "Just so it was. The poor fellow was mad. For in such a crisis, when the soul does not know whether to stay or depart, often the man will grow quite mad, and see what is not in the room." So I listened, and I thought, "Now of course it must be so for he is the very learned man. How many dead men have slipped through his hands! The great experience he has had! He must be right! So I am mad!" But soon again I fell asleep, and when I awoke I grew better still. And now I do not think I am mad and I feel that soon I will return to my home.' He grew tired then and could talk no more. Quietly closing his eyes he said, "Tell me, please, Barin, about my home all that you saw while you were there. Was the horse in the stable? Or has my wife been forced to sell him in this damned war?'

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"Yes, the horse was there,' I replied. 'But now I will tell you something else.' And I told how the girl Pelageia went with me to Okuneff's house, and

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'Only, Barin — please do not speak of this to the doctors here! For they are the quite learned men! They can make a man die with one little pill! And if they knew what we are talking, for me it would soon be dangerously bad! For they think I am mad! They do not know! They live in such cities -so large, so large, and filled with so many learned books that they cannot grasp our very plain and simple little village ways! So let us just slip away from them!'

Ten days later, with his wife, Peter went calmly back to his home — as though nothing strange had happened at all. We heard no more from them for a month- and then the girl Pelageia, almost as silent as before, came to our lodgings with quite a huge bag of linen and laces which she and Maria had made for my mother, as a gift. And she told us that Maria had just given birth to a son.

UTOPIA INTERPRETED

BY SARAH N. CLEGHORN

[THE coming in of the Family Order of society, and the actual practice, among such large groups of the Race, of the Discipline of Happiness both in the bringing up of children and in the treatment of social disturbers, seem to have stolen upon us like a thief in the night. Events have so crowded each other, since the apathetic decade following the L. C. W.1, up to the dramatic revival of Nomadry in 1963, that it has become ever more and more difficult for historians to trace cause and effect. Especially is this noticeable in the recent History of Earth, published last year by the Interracial press at Cairo.2

This magazine, six months ago, opened a contest for the best Interpretation of these changes. Hundreds of persons presented their opinions. We now publish four of the most interesting of these Interpretations; and every reader of the magazine is entitled to one vote upon the most convincing of them.- From a note by the Editors, under date of JULY 1995]

First Interpretation

THE ICE AGE BUBBLE

I DON'T think it's because some of my ancestors were Single Taxers that I've always had a sort of filial feeling about Earth little green pellet that she is among the stars! Of course everybody nowadays thinks of Earth as alive. But I believe I realized before other people did, and more sharply, too, that Earth has an animal existence of her own, has emotions of her own, conscious, of course, and her own. instincts and habits. I've always had a dramatic feeling about Earth, an impulse to think of her as a buxom young thing engaged in a sort of Marathon morris-dance, with all of us, her raft of tiny children, clinging to her shoulders, and all surrounded by a long twirling veil of atmosphere.

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1 Last Christian War.

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If I felt thus romantically even in my young days, what must I feel now, when with one cool touch of her hand she has straightened out the sticky, sobbing mess our human relations were in, and had been in so long? For of course I think the one thing that quieted and reasonablized us was the Ice Age Bubble of the thirties.

Nobody remembers better than I do the beginnings of the Bubble. So far back as 1925 I'd been thrilled by an obscure little item, tucked away somewhere in the interior of one of those huge cumbersome newspapers we used to have then: dinosaurs of which we think with wonder now, as we tuck away the morning's newsleaf into our watch-pockets.

2 Compiled by forty scholars of the Black, White, and Yellow races.

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