Old Nichifor at once began to put dust on the fire to smother it.
"From now on, Mistress Malca, you can sleep without anxiety till the day dawns. There! I've put out the fire and forgotten to light my pipe. But I've got the tinder box. The devil take you nightingales: I know too well you make love to each other!"
Old Nichifor sat thinking deeply until he had finished his pipe, then he rose softly and went up to the carriage on the tips of his toes.
Malca had begun to snore a little. Old Nichifor shook her gently and said:
"Mistress Malca! Mistress Malca!"
"I hear, Mosh Nichifor," replied Malca, trembling and frightened.
"Do you know what I've been thinking as I sat by the fire?"
"What, Mosh Nichifor?"
"After you have gone to sleep, I will mount one of the mares, hurry home, fetch an axle-pin and axe, and by daybreak I shall be back here again."
"Woe is me! Mosh Nichifor, what are you saying? Do you want to find me dead from fright when you come back?"
"May God preserve you from such a thing! Don't be frightened, I was only talking at random."
"No, no, Mosh Nichifor, from now on I shall not want to sleep; I shall get down and sit by you all night."
"You look after yourself, young lady; you sit quietly where you are, for you are comfortable."
"I am coming all the same."
And as she spoke down she came and sat on the grass by old Nichifor. And first one, and then the other was overcome by sleep, till both were slumbering profoundly. And when they woke it was broad daylight.
"See, Mistress Malca, here's the blessed day! Get up and come and see what's to be done. There, no one has eaten you, have they? Only you have had a great fright!"
Malca fell asleep again at these words. But old Nichifor, like a careful man, got up into the carriage, and began rummaging about all over the place, and under the forage bags, and what should there be but the axe and a measure and a gimlet beneath the seat.
"Who would have believed it! Here's a pity! I was wondering why my old woman didn't take care of me. Now because I wronged her so terribly I must take her back a red fez and a bag of butter to remind her of our youth. Evidently I took them out yesterday with my pipe. But my poor, good old wife, difficult though she is, knew all I should want on the journey, only she did not put them in their right place. But the woman tried to understand all her husband wanted! Mistress Malca! Mistress Malca!"
"What is it, Mosh Nichifor?"
"Do you know that I have found the axe, and the rope and the gimlet and everything I want."
"Where, Mosh Nichifor?"
"Why, under your bundles. Only they had no mouths with which to tell me. We have made a mistake: we have been like some one sitting on hidden treasure and asking for alms. But it's good that we have found them now. It shows my poor old woman did put them in."
"Mosh Nichifor, you are feeling remorse in your heart."
"Well, yes, young lady. I see I am at fault. I must sing a song of penitence:
Poor old wife of mine!
Be she kind or be she harsh, Still her home is mine."
And so saying old Nichifor rolled up his sleeves, cut a beech stick, and made a wonderful axle-pin. Then he set it in position, put the wheel in place, harnessed the mares, quietly took the road and said:
"In you get, young lady, and let's start."
As the mares were refreshed and well rested they were at Peatra by middle day.
"There you will see your home, Mistress Malca."
"Thank God, Mosh Nichifor, that I came to no harm in the forest."
"The fact is, young lady, there's no doubt about it, there's no place like home."
And while they were talking they reached the door of Itzic's house. Itzic had only just come back from the school, and when he saw Malca he was beside himself with joy. But when he heard all about the adventures they had met with and how the Almighty had delivered them from danger he did not know how to thank old Nichifor enough. What did he not give him! He himself marvelled at all that was given him. The next day old Nichifor went back with other customers. And when he reached home he was so gay that his old woman wondered what he had been doing, for he was more drunk than he had been for a long time.
From now on Malca came every two or three weeks to visit her parents-in-law in Neamtzu: she would only let old Nichifor take her back home, and she was never again afraid of wolves.
A year, or perhaps several years, after, over a glass of wine, old Nichifor whispered to one of his friends the story of the adventure in the "Dragon" Wood, and the fright Mistress Malca got. Old Nichifor's friend whispered it again to some friends of his own, and then people, the way people will do, began to give old Nichifor a nickname and say: "Nichifor, the Impostor: Nichifor, the Impostor:" and even though he is dead the poor man has kept the name of Nichifor, the Impostor, to this very day.
COZMA RACOARE
By M. SADOVEANU
He was a terrible man, Cozma Racoare!
When I say Cozma, I seem to see, do you know, I seem to see before me, a sinister-looking man riding upon a bay horse; two eyes like steel pierce through me; I see a moustache like twin sparrows. Fierce Rouman! He rode with a gun across his back, and with a knife an ell long, here, in his belt, on the left side. It was thus I always saw him. I am old, you know, nigh on a hundred, I have travelled much about the world, I have met various characters, and many people, but I tell you, a man like Cozma Racoare I have never seen! Yet he was not physically so terrible; he was a man of middle height, lean, with a brown face, a man like many another--ha! but all the same! only to have seen the eyes was to remember him. Terrible Rouman!
There was grief and bitterness in the land at that time. Turks and Greeks were overrunning the country on all sides, everywhere honest men were complaining--they were hard times! Cozma had no cares. To-day he was here, to-morrow one heard of him, who knows where! Every one fled before the storm, but he, good Lord, he never cared! They caught him and put him in chains. What need? He just shook himself, wrenched the bars with one hand, whistled to his horse, and there he was on the road again. Who did not know that Racoare had a charmed life? Ah, how many bullets were aimed at his breast! But in vain! It was said of him: only a silver bullet can slay him! Where do you see men like that nowadays? Those times are gone for ever.
Have you heard of the Feciorul Romancei? He was a fire-eater too! He robbed the other side of Muntenia, Cozma robbed this, and one night--what a night!--they both met at Milcov, exchanged booty, and were back in their homes before dawn. Were the frontier guards on the watch? Did they catch them as they rode? Why! Racoare's horse flew like a phantom, no bullet could touch him! What a road that is from here, across the mountains of Bacau, to the frontier! Eh! to do it, there and back in one night, you mark my words, that's no joke! But that horse! That's the truth of the matter, that horse of Racoare's was not like any other horse. That's clear.
Voda-Calimbach had an Arabian mare, which his servants watched as the apple of his eye; she was due to foal. One night--it was in the seventh month--Cozma got into the stall, ripped open the mare and stole the foal. But that was not all he did! You understand the foal was wrapped in a caul. Racoare cut the caul, but he cut it in such a way as to split the foal's nostrils. And look, the foal with the split nostrils grew up in the dark fed upon nut kernels; and when Cozma mounted it--well, that was a horse!
Even the wind, therefore, could not out-distance Cozma. On one occasion--I was a volunteer then--Cozma woke to find himself within the walls of Probot, with volunteers inside and the Turks outside. The Turks were battering the walls with their guns. The volunteers decided to surrender the fortress. Cozma kept his own counsel. The next day Cozma was nowhere to be found. But from the walls, up to the forest of Probot, was a line of corpses! That had been Racoare's road!
That is how it always was! His were the woods and fields! He recognized no authority, he did not know what fear was, nor love--except on one occasion. Terrible Rouman! It seems to me I can see him now, riding upon his bay horse.
At that time a Greek was managing the Vulturesht estate, and on this side, on our estate, within those ruined walls, there ruled such a minx of a Roumanian as I had never seen before. The Greek was pining for the Roumanian. And no wonder! The widow had eyebrows that met, and the eyes of the devil--Lord! Lord! such eyes would have tempted a saint. She had been married, against her will, to a Greek, to Dimitru Covas; the Greek died, and now the lady ruled alone over our estate.