Piotr found the death of the Pope very upsetting. Like the Rome Tribune, he believed the war was to blame. Simple people in Hutsul country found it hard to accept that great people die just like lesser people, through illness or old age. The death of the powerful on this earth is usually associated with events of world significance.
I suppose—Piotr surmised—it’s because the clergy permit killing. Not only do they permit it; they expressly demand it. It now seems that the killing of a Muscovite is not a sin at all, or it is just a half-sin, like the killing of a Jew. Although it isn’t the same. Jews are non-believers, whereas Orthodox Christians believe in Jesus Christ. Piotr knew some Orthodox Christians; they lived not far away, in Bukovina. They were Romanians, it’s true, but they were subjects of Emperor Franz Joseph, just like the Hutsuls. They even dressed like them. On the railway, they talked of the wonders of the residence of the “Orthodox” archbishop of Czerniowce. Of course Count Szeptycki, the Golden Metropolitan himself, had visited—it must be four years ago now. On that occasion, the Hutsuls erected a magnificent triumphal arch in Śniatyn and welcomed their metropolitan with bread and salt, music and horsemen in traditional costumes. He passed this way, through Topory-Czernielica station, in a private saloon compartment. If the Orthodox congregations had been non-believers, he would not have come to visit them. This is all very confusing. You can no longer tell who is with us and who is the enemy, who is righteous and who is a sinner. They say the Muscovites are retreating, yet they tell us to run away. They say the Muscovites must be thrashed, because they are Orthodox and recognize their beloved Tsar instead of the Holy Father in Rome, and the Romanians are Orthodox as well, yet they are loyal to our Emperor and care nothing for the Tsar. But today the Lord has taken away his earthly deputy and nobody knows if that is a punishment, or…
The death of God’s deputy evoked certain gloomy associations. It brought to mind the murder in Lwów of the Tsar’s governor in Poland, Count Andrzej Potocki, seven years earlier. The murderer was a Ruthenian, a Ukrainian. The entire Ruthenian people were tainted with the blood of the victim of this political assassination. Piotr Niewiadomski was a Ruthenian too, though his father was Polish. One’s religion was the deciding factor. National consciousness had never been Piotr’s strong point. If the expression may be permitted, Piotr was poised on the very threshold of national consciousness. He spoke Polish and Ukrainian, he believed in God according to the Greek-Catholic rites while serving the Austro-Hungarian Emperor. Ukrainian insurgents had reached Topory, it’s true, but they had not succeeded in undermining Father Makarucha’s authority, which was dependent on good relations with the landed gentry—and not only in respect of his dealings in honey. During the elections for the Galician Diet, the priest spoke out from the pulpit, encouraging his congregation to vote for the Old Ruthenian party, but he was not too upset when a certain Polish count was elected thanks to the support of Hutsul voters. The parliamentary elections proceeded in a similar fashion, although in certain more enlightened constituencies Hutsuls voted for Hutsuls. Piotr Niewiadomski consumed the sausage donated by the Ukrainian candidate, but he voted for the count—he was a safer bet. It was common knowledge that counts, princes and the baronial classes have always ruled the world, and always will. And they are close to the Emperor. The Emperor talks to them, and he listens to them. What can some peasant deputy do? He has no chance of intruding in the gentry’s circles and getting involved in government affairs.
But since the world had been at war everything had become confused. Evidently, the devil had resolved to deprive the human race of the little good sense it still possessed. Perhaps this was why the Pope had died, then. What would happen now? Christendom without a Pope is like a human being without a head, like a station without a sign bearing its name. Now would the devil begin to run riot. Piotr was overcome with a fear of the devil. Infernal visions were conjured up before his eyes. And he shuddered at the thought that the devil had robbed the Lord of the entire fifth commandment and sold it to the Emperors.
He crossed himself three times to drive away the devil. Then he went outdoors to get a breath of fresh air. It was midday. The sun was high in the sky, directly over Topory. It beat down on his uncovered head. The tolling of the bells had ceased. From the meadows came the soothing sound of the scythe and the lowing of the cattle. The rams were bleating, the geese were honking, the grasshoppers were chirping. The charming chatter of little birds twittering among the branches of the trees was heard all around and the swallows chased one another through the air—lone, dark, flitting shapes against the motionless blue sky. The sky was as blue as the Adriatic Sea. Cockerels were crowing incessantly, and once more the artillery barrage began; people were slowly getting accustomed to it. Piotr returned to the cottage and lifted the lid off a pot to see whether the potatoes were ready. Today he wanted to add to them some of the pork fat Magda had brought for his journey. He put the salt on the table and washed a spoon and a knife. He cut a slice of bread and tasted the pork fat. It was excellent. Steam was soon rising in clouds from the pot. Piotr poured off the boiling water and he was about to begin his meal.
All of a sudden it began to get dark, though there was not a cloud in the sky. With every passing second the sun lost more of its radiance and a cool breeze swept in from the orchard, even though not a single leaf stirred on the trees.
Suddenly, the sparrows had stopped twittering, taking shelter in their nooks in the trees, as they do at dusk. The swallows swooped to their nests, chirruping anxiously. The larks, alarmed at the descending darkness, swooped down to the ground, abandoning their singing high in the sky. Even the insects were seized by panic. Wasps, mosquitoes, butterflies, gadflies, common or garden flies—everything that flies in the air—tried to reach terra firma, cling on to a twig, snuggle among the foliage, crawl into a crevice in the bark of a tree, or hide among straw and moss. Everywhere a bitter chill pervaded, like that experienced inside old churches.
Piotr Niewiadomski looked up from his pot and glanced out of the window.
“What’s going on? The sun is disappearing! It’s in the middle of the sky in the south and it’s disappearing.”
Suspended in a dreary void, the sun was fading in dark red agony like an enormous round lamp, as when a fault suddenly occurs at the power station. Cold fear flowed in Piotr’s veins, rushing into his heart. The ladle full of hot potatoes fell from his trembling hand. The potatoes were strewn across the floor. Bass thought they were intended for him, but they burnt his tongue. Piotr, struggling to overcome his terror, went outdoors. At the sight of the bats emerging one after another from beneath the roof, squealing horrendously and circling in their frenzy from tree to tree, he began to pray for aid to the Immaculate Mother of God.
The sun was extinguished almost completely, and the world went dark, as if people’s eyes were veiled in mourning crepe. Fear fell on the whole of Pokuttya, although many Hutsuls knew that it was a solar eclipse. Knowing the astronomical fact that the moon is intruding between the earth and the sun does not ward off that fear of sudden, unexpected darkness rooted deep in the soul, any more than the biological interpretation of the phenomenon of death diminishes our dread. It is pointless to explain to the dying that the disintegration of proteins in their bodies is caused by enzymes, that the putrefaction of the corpse is merely the passive decaying of proteins, and that the poisons forming in the corpse are the product of this decay. Not even a naturalist, when dying, is consoled by well-known certainties, and in the last moments of consciousness he does not reassure his family with the principle he has asserted throughout his life, that “nothing in nature is lost”.