Asakiyume mita

There was a greenness before his eyes. Andrey Yefimitch understood that his end had come, and remembered that Ivan Dmitritch, Mihail Averyanitch, and millions of people believed in immortality. And what if it really existed? But he did not want immortality—and he thought of it only for one instant. A herd of deer, extraordinarily beautiful and graceful, of which he had been reading the day before, ran by him; then a peasant woman stretched out her hand to him with a registered letter . . . . Mihail Averyanitch said something, then it all vanished, and Andrey Yefimitch sank into oblivion for ever.

“When my mother was pregnant with me, she used to say that she wanted a good future for her child. She tried to find out from wealthy people how they came by their fortune, but when they spoke only of inheritances, natural talents and suchlike, she gave up. Then one day, an old woman came to her and told her that, if fate smiled upon her, she might accidentally meet the spirit of seduction, Pontiana. My mother didn’t believe in chance, though, and so she prepared herself just in case. Every night, she would sit outside the house next to the old gondoeiro tree where she imagined Pontiana lived. She protected herself with the scent of flowers and sandalwood and left a clay pot full of water to act as a mirror to attract the spirit. She thought that, like all seducers, Pontiana was bound to be vain and wouldn’t be able to resist peering into the pot of water to look at herself or to was her face before getting dressed up to seduce some errant young man. Her vigil, however, was often disturbed by the arrival of owls, and, being superstitious, she made a fire and scared off the noisy intruders with fiery brands. Sometimes, my father would demand that she come and lied down beside him on their sleeping-mat. And he used to say that, if she didn’t, he would have an account to settle with Pontiana. Many moons passed and that prolonged waiting meant that my mother, while growing big with me, was gradually becoming thinner and thinner. Just as I saw the light of day and gave my first yell, she uttered her last sigh and was snuffed out in darkness. My father buried her next to the gondoeiro tree, promising to avenge himself on the spirit. When he tried to cut the tree down, he saw my mother’s face in the middle of the whirling leaves and he pursued the wind that traced across the fields and which sowed misfortune and destruction. He did this so often that he became known to the other farmers as the storm thief. They waited a long time and worked out which day he would make his next crossing of a particular valley through which the winds passed. The members of the two main houses arranged themselves at the entrance. They said he would doubtless be tired. As the storm passed, they tightened a rope across the pass and he fell to the ground. With his bristling mane of hair, he loked like a wild horse, slavering and panting, expelling the air accumulated over the half millennium he had spent in pursuit of my mother’s spirit. When we buried my father, the two houses that had joined forces to trip him up got into an argument over ownership of the rope. Each claimed exclusive rights. Driven out of the village, the members of the Kaibauk house took refuge in the cave of a large lizard which immediately promised them reparation. And so it was that my village, as that time dominated by the members of the Nakroma house, was put to the torch. I wandered far and wide and I ended up here, as if I had risen up from the depths of the river. That’s why I feel this constant dampness inside me.”