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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛЮТИЙ 2015 WWW.UNWLA.ORG 17 horror of it all. But don't you lose your mind, my wife! You have seven children! That's how it was. And I had to tell you all of this. Do not forget about this dream. And later, when our chil- dren are grown up, let them relate it to their chil- dren. Let it not be lost, even though their father has marched off their horizon... ...Did one of the children shriek just now, as if some phantom were approaching it? Is one of them ill? Perhaps the youngest? Is death sneaking up on it? Death is the master everywhere now, and a child senses this and screams... Do not become ill, my wife, because then the little one who suckles your breast will follow its father. Perhaps it's a boy? I did not see it, this seventh one; I was marching farther and farther away from it when it came into the world. Look after this child, Mariya; I fear for this seventh one... Once more, and for the last time, I have been brought back from the military office to this prison, and once again I am sitting alone as be- fore... Never kill crickets, Mariya, even if they crawl on your breast or on your lips. Back home, crickets chirp in our house when dusk falls, when a fire burns in the oven- stove, when people come home from working in the field, sit on the pryz’ba [earthen embankment abutting the house], and wait for their supper... It is then that they begin to chirp in some nook... where they are hidden, in deep crevices... I have to cry, Mariya... My eyes ache so badly, it's as if I had balls of fire in my head in- stead of eyes... Oh, Mariya! The Lord sees eve- rything... Do not kill them! I still have two hours left to sit behind these stone walls, and the cricket that has crawled in here unnoticed chirps so plaintively from time to time that I see before me my na- tive country, my fields, my home, and you and the children. It is the last comrade that I will hear. A cricket! How wonderfully our grain rippled last year, Mariya! And it is rippling this year, my wife, oh, yes, how it is rippling this year as well. But am I reproaching it? ...The more tightly my lips are pressed together, the more the tears flow from my eyes. But I do want to write to you—and don't you cry! It is so quiet in my prison cell—even the light creeps in almost furtively through the grate. And only the two of us are here—the cricket and I. It keeps track of me, and I listen to it, and tears fall from my eyes. No one hears me. I am a stranger here; I am what the war has made of me, for the judgment went against me. “Chirp on, my comrade. Don’t stop! Back home my seven children are chirping at their mother’s knees as she cooks their food for them, and their father is in prison awaiting death...” Death is not evil, my wife. Do not com- plain about it. Does it thrust itself on anyone? Does it come on its own? It is always some oth- er misfortune that brings it. “ Oh, cricket, you are my last, my final comrade who reminds me of my native land... and of my death... But hush...” It has fallen silent for a moment... I had hoped. Now, let death come, I am not afraid. If only it were not for one thing, my wife. In my soul, a question, like a bucket full of blood, keeps emerging and coming to the fore, and then it sinks back down again—what am I suffering for? For what? Is it my language that is to blame, the distance from my native land— my fatherland? Or is it because God is the only witness of my innocence? I heard so often that our peasants were accused of betrayal, so often, but hush... It’s all over. Together with my ques- tion approaches my final destiny. I still have two hours to live... I was able to secure this much by pleading with the gen- tlemen in the military tribunal, so that I could write some more to you before they shoot me... And so I am writing, little by little, like that worn-out horse that pulls the plough with its last ounce of strength. The end has to come somewhere. Do you see it in me, my wife? Where is the dividing line? I marched away with my regiment to It- aly. Here, misfortune struck me. It comes and goes, but when you do not look to see where it is coming from, then others come and tell you what you are, and you stand and look, and you stand and think, but all the while, you are what you were before... a doomed man. Yes, Mariyka. You should thank God that you're a woman. It takes a lot to be a wom- an, but it is still more difficult to be a man. A
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