My Ántonia Read online

  When Pavel and Peter were young men, living at home in Russia, they wereasked to be groomsmen for a friend who was to marry the belle of anothervillage. It was in the dead of winter and the groom's party went over tothe wedding in sledges. Peter and Pavel drove in the groom's sledge, andsix sledges followed with all his relatives and friends.

  After the ceremony at the church, the party went to a dinner given by theparents of the bride. The dinner lasted all afternoon; then it became asupper and continued far into the night. There was much dancing anddrinking. At midnight the parents of the bride said good-bye to her andblessed her. The groom took her up in his arms and carried her out to hissledge and tucked her under the blankets. He sprang in beside her, andPavel and Peter (our Pavel and Peter!) took the front seat. Pavel drove.The party set out with singing and the jingle of sleigh-bells, the groom'ssledge going first. All the drivers were more or less the worse formerry-making, and the groom was absorbed in his bride.

  The wolves were bad that winter, and every one knew it, yet when theyheard the first wolf-cry, the drivers were not much alarmed. They had toomuch good food and drink inside them. The first howls were taken up andechoed and with quickening repetitions. The wolves were coming together.There was no moon, but the starlight was clear on the snow. A black drovecame up over the hill behind the wedding party. The wolves ran likestreaks of shadow; they looked no bigger than dogs, but there werehundreds of them.

  Something happened to the hindmost sledge: the driver lost control,--he wasprobably very drunk,--the horses left the road, the sledge was caught in aclump of trees, and overturned. The occupants rolled out over the snow,and the fleetest of the wolves sprang upon them. The shrieks that followedmade everybody sober. The drivers stood up and lashed their horses. Thegroom had the best team and his sledge was lightest--all the others carriedfrom six to a dozen people.

  Another driver lost control. The screams of the horses were more terribleto hear than the cries of the men and women. Nothing seemed to check thewolves. It was hard to tell what was happening in the rear; the people whowere falling behind shrieked as piteously as those who were already lost.The little bride hid her face on the groom's shoulder and sobbed. Pavelsat still and watched his horses. The road was clear and white, and thegroom's three blacks went like the wind. It was only necessary to be calmand to guide them carefully.

  At length, as they breasted a long hill, Peter rose cautiously and lookedback. "There are only three sledges left," he whispered.

  "And the wolves?" Pavel asked.

  "Enough! Enough for all of us."

  Pavel reached the brow of the hill, but only two sledges followed him downthe other side. In that moment on the hilltop, they saw behind them awhirling black group on the snow. Presently the groom screamed. He saw hisfather's sledge overturned, with his mother and sisters. He sprang up asif he meant to jump, but the girl shrieked and held him back. It was eventhen too late. The black ground-shadows were already crowding over theheap in the road, and one horse ran out across the fields, his harnesshanging to him, wolves at his heels. But the groom's movement had givenPavel an idea.

  They were within a few miles of their village now. The only sledge leftout of six was not very far behind them, and Pavel's middle horse wasfailing. Beside a frozen pond something happened to the other sledge;Peter saw it plainly. Three big wolves got abreast of the horses, and thehorses went crazy. They tried to jump over each other, got tangled up inthe harness, and overturned the sledge.

  When the shrieking behind them died away, Pavel realized that he was aloneupon the familiar road. "They still come?" he asked Peter.

  "Yes."

  "How many?"

  "Twenty, thirty--enough."

  Now his middle horse was being almost dragged by the other two. Pavel gavePeter the reins and stepped carefully into the back of the sledge. Hecalled to the groom that they must lighten--and pointed to the bride. Theyoung man cursed him and held her tighter. Pavel tried to drag her away.In the struggle, the groom rose. Pavel knocked him over the side of thesledge and threw the girl after him. He said he never remembered exactlyhow he did it, or what happened afterward. Peter, crouching in the frontseat, saw nothing. The first thing either of them noticed was a new soundthat broke into the clear air, louder than they had ever heard itbefore--the bell of the monastery of their own village, ringing for earlyprayers.

  Pavel and Peter drove into the village alone, and they had been alone eversince. They were run out of their village. Pavel's own mother would notlook at him. They went away to strange towns, but when people learnedwhere they came from, they were always asked if they knew the two men whohad fed the bride to the wolves. Wherever they went, the story followedthem. It took them five years to save money enough to come to America.They worked in Chicago, Des Moines, Fort Wayne, but they were alwaysunfortunate. When Pavel's health grew so bad, they decided to try farming.

  Pavel died a few days after he unburdened his mind to Mr. Shimerda, andwas buried in the Norwegian graveyard. Peter sold off everything, and leftthe country--went to be cook in a railway construction camp where gangs ofRussians were employed.

  At his sale we bought Peter's wheelbarrow and some of his harness. Duringthe auction he went about with his head down, and never lifted his eyes.He seemed not to care about anything. The Black Hawk money-lender who heldmortgages on Peter's live-stock was there, and he bought in the sale notesat about fifty cents on the dollar. Every one said Peter kissed the cowbefore she was led away by her new owner. I did not see him do it, butthis I know: after all his furniture and his cook-stove and pots and panshad been hauled off by the purchasers, when his house was stripped andbare, he sat down on the floor with his clasp-knife and ate all the melonsthat he had put away for winter. When Mr. Shimerda and Krajiek drove up intheir wagon to take Peter to the train, they found him with a drippingbeard, surrounded by heaps of melon rinds.

  The loss of his two friends had a depressing effect upon old Mr. Shimerda.When he was out hunting, he used to go into the empty log house and sitthere, brooding. This cabin was his hermitage until the winter snowspenned him in his cave. For Antonia and me, the story of the wedding partywas never at an end. We did not tell Pavel's secret to any one, butguarded it jealously--as if the wolves of the Ukraine had gathered thatnight long ago, and the wedding party been sacrificed, to give us apainful and peculiar pleasure. At night, before I went to sleep, I oftenfound myself in a sledge drawn by three horses, dashing through a countrythat looked something like Nebraska and something like Virginia.