THE WITCH
IT was approaching nightfall. The sexton, Savely Gykin, was lying in
his huge bed in the hut adjoining the church. He was not asleep, though it
was his habit to go to sleep at the same time as the hens. His coarse red
hair peeped from under one end of the greasy patchwork quilt, made up of
coloured rags, while his big unwashed feet stuck out from the other. He
was listening. His hut adjoined the wall that encircled the church and the
solitary window in it looked out upon the open country. And out there a
regular battle was going on. It was hard to say who was being wiped off
the face of the earth, and for the sake of whose destruction nature was
being churned up into such a ferment; but, judging from the unceasing
malignant roar, someone was getting it very hot. A victorious force was in
full chase over the fields, storming in the forest and on the church roof,
battering spitefully with its fists upon the windows, raging and tearing,
while something vanquished was howling and wailing. . . . A plaintive
lament sobbed at the window, on the roof, or in the stove. It sounded not
like a call for help, but like a cry of misery, a consciousness that it was too
late, that there was no salvation.