What the Jack­daw Saw

A jack­daw was fly­ing above an end­less snow plain, heav­ily lift­ing her tired wings.

Above her, a pale green­ish sky re­ceded up­wards. On one side it merged with the ground in a smoky haze. One the other side, where the sun had just set, the last re­flec­tions of sun­light were dy­ing away. The jack­daw could still see the crim­son-red, matte sphere of the set­ting sun, but down be­low the dark­ness of the long win­ter night was al­ready grow­ing thick. Wher­ever the eye turned—a gray­ing plain, bound by a strong, burn­ing frost. The mo­tion­less si­lence of the sharp air was faintly in­ter­rupted by the cold waves set off by the jack­daw’s tired wings car­ry­ing her to­wards a for­est, a for­est which only she could see and where she de­cided to spend the night. When the jack­daw reached the dense for­est, hazily black­en­ing upon the white plain, the stars were al­ready lit and the night’s dark­ness en­veloped the frozen earth with its cold shroud. Up above one could hear how the trees, their branches spread out and weighed down by fine, pow­dery snow, crack­led from the frost. Tree shoots snapped un­der the care­ful foot of some for­est an­i­mal set­ting out on a hunt. From the dark dis­tance the eerie, dis­turb­ing sounds of a wolf’s howl reached the jack­daw, drawn-out and wild. With a sharp turn the jack­daw changed the di­rec­tion of her flight, strain­ing the last of her strength, and sped to where she sensed the road was.

She en­joyed hu­man com­pany, and she found the wilder­ness of the for­est un­pleas­ant.

Here is the road. It can be rec­og­nized by the dark, fra­grant piles of horse ma­nure, which the jack­daw would not have failed to make use of had she not wanted so badly to go to sleep. Not far away the rail­ing of a bridge black­ened above a deep ravine, which was cur­rently out of sight. This ravine was fa­mil­iar to the jack­daw be­cause of the bit­ter dis­ap­point­ment it had caused her. Not longer than a year ago, around this same time, she man­aged to peck out a pair of eyes, in­cred­i­bly de­li­cious eyes, from some young man with a black mus­tache. For a long time, de­spite the cold, he calmly lay naked atop the hard, icy snow. Thick, red blood was still ooz­ing from his smashed head. Only a faint move­ment of the lit­tle fin­ger in­formed the jack­daw that she be­gan her work pre­ma­turely and that she was peck­ing at sighted eyes—but triv­i­al­i­ties like this could not de­ter a bird used to hu­man com­pany. The fol­low­ing day, hav­ing in­vited sev­eral of her ac­quain­tances, she re­turned in or­der to grab a more sub­stan­tial snack, and what a dis­ap­point­ment it was for her and her friends when in­stead of a slightly frozen corpse they found only a dark spot of blood and a mass of wolves’ foot­prints. These gen­tle­men were not ashamed to tear the jack­daw’s prop­erty apart, and it ap­peared that some un­for­tu­nate late ar­rival even tried to eat the blood soaked snow. Only by means of a stormy, screech­ing man­i­fes­ta­tion could the jack­daw ex­press her re­sent­ment and of­fer her empty stom­ach a kind of spir­i­tual sat­is­fac­tion.

Hav­ing a cho­sen a sat­is­fac­tory tree, the jack­daw sat down com­fort­ably atop a thin branch, which bent un­der her weight and sprin­kled dry, pow­dery snow. She cawed in or­der to clear her chilled throat and, hav­ing con­tracted into a ball, so that her friend, the frost, could only spread out his hands see­ing as there was no pos­si­bil­ity of find­ing any­where a de­fense­less spot, the jack­daw sweetly closed one of her black eyes, and then the other, and at once fell asleep.

Whether or not much time had passed the jack­daw, in the ab­sence of a clock, could not tell, but the fact was that she woke up with­out hav­ing got­ten a good sleep, and this made her un­happy. What woke her up was a sen­sa­tion of her prox­im­ity to hu­mans. Near the bridge were two gray, swathed fig­ures. Cu­ri­ous, like all women, the jack­daw flew over to a near­est tree and lis­tened in to their voices.

“Who’d the devil bring here on a night like this?” said one of them through his teeth, the taller one, as he let out a cloud of va­por through his frosted mus­tache and beard. “What a freeze!”

“Let’s wait half an hour,” replied the other, pat­ting his hands.

Hunched down, both swathed fig­ures hid un­der the bridge. It is as easy for the jack­daw to fall asleep as it is to wake up. Dis­ap­pointed, she fell asleep, un­til some sound woke her up again. The squeak­ing of run­ners against hard, pressed snow could be heard from be­hind the turn in the road. A small sleigh made its ap­pear­ance. A short, pot­bel­lied lit­tle horse was briskly shift­ing its chilled legs. One man sat slouch­ing atop the box; some­thing dark could be seen in the sleigh, also some­thing like a man…

“Halt!”

The two fig­ures leapt onto the road, the ones who were hid­ing un­der the bridge. An in­ter­ested jack­daw cawed lightly to her­self from plea­sure and lis­tened in. The lit­tle horse stopped. The coach­man said some­thing to the man sit­ting in the sleigh, and he par­tially rose. The col­lar of his fur coat con­cealed his face and head. One of the jack­daw’s first two ac­quain­tances grabbed hold of the horse’s reins and the other, the taller one, cried: “Halt!” and ap­proached the sleigh. In his low­ered hand he was hold­ing some­thing heavy.

“Hail to your grace!” he said roughly. “Now then, off the sleigh—you’ve ar­rived!”

“Mur­derer, brig­and,” came a muf­fled re­ply from be­hind the col­lar of the fur coat. “What is it you plan to do?”

“You’ll see.”

“Lis­ten, good man, don’t touch us,” said the one in the dri­ver’s seat. “It’s not worth it.”

“Shut up if you want to live!” cried the tall one, cast­ing back a se­vere glance. “Off the sleigh!”

“Lis­ten, good man…”

The tall one raised the thing he was hold­ing and it flashed un­der the faint glim­mer of the stars. The other flew head over heels off his seat and, see­ing that the raised axe was not be­ing low­ered, whis­pered un­der his breath: “Oh look how prickly we are—your aunt’s a bram­ble!” The one sit­ting on the sleigh also got off and, crouch­ing down, started un­wrap­ping some­thing on the seat. He then picked up the un­wrapped ob­ject and, hold­ing it in front of him­self, be­gan to slowly make his way to­wards the tall one, who was wait­ing im­pa­tiently for the meet­ing to con­clude.

Never be­fore or since had the jack­daw been so sur­prised! The tall one be­gan to move back from the long­haired man ap­proach­ing him, as if from a ghost. He backed up to his com­rade who, hav­ing no­ticed what the long­haired man was hold­ing be­fore him, some­thing gleam­ing from an un­seen light source, re­leased the horse and also be­gan to back away. Thus they moved: the long­haired one and the two brig­ands be­fore him. Now one of them re­luc­tantly raised his hand and took off his hat; with a quick move­ment the other threw off his. The long­haired one stopped, and so did they.

The one who had ear­lier sat in the dri­ver’s seat picked up the axe and said:

“Didn’t I tell you not to touch us. See, I’m car­ry­ing a priest. Oh you, crow!”

The jack­daw cawed in re­sent­ment, but the ones who stood fac­ing each other heard nei­ther her nor the one who had just spo­ken.

“On this day Christ was born, and what are you do­ing, mur­der­ers, brig­ands!” ut­tered a soft, el­derly voice.

Si­lence.

“I, God’s un­wor­thy ser­vant, am car­ry­ing sa­cred gifts for a dy­ing one. And you too will one day be dy­ing, to whose court then will you go for your judge­ment?”

Si­lence, only the jack­daw’s move­ment caused the branch un­der it to emit a soft crunch.

“Christ com­manded us to love each other, and what are you do­ing? You are spilling the blood of Chris­tians, you are ru­in­ing your own souls. The slain will en­ter the king­dom of heaven, and you?”

The tall one’s knees buck­led and he fell down. His com­rade quickly fol­lowed him. Thus they lay in the snow, not feel­ing how their fin­gers be­gan to pet­rify, and above them sounded a soft, el­derly voice:

“It’s not to me you should bow, but to Him, the mer­ci­ful, who has sent me to you. He loves man and has for­given mur­der­ers and vil­lains.”

“Fa­ther, for­give us,” whis­pered the tall one.

“For­give us, Fa­ther, we won’t, by God, we won’t do it no more,” the other joined in, rais­ing his head.

The priest turned around in si­lence and walked to­wards the sleigh.

The jack­daw did not want to ad­mit to her­self that she was per­son­ally in­ter­ested in the out­come of the en­ter­prise. Caw­ing dis­ap­prov­ingly she thought that she was only stand­ing guard af­ter the in­ter­ests of the es­tates. Truly, life would be so good for jack­daws if men would act so del­i­cately with each other! Bristling her feath­ers iron­i­cally, the jack­daw pre­tended not to look at the road, but not a mo­ment had passed be­fore she bent the law and glanced askance at the trans­gres­sors of an­i­mal-wide rights.

“I said, didn’t I, good man, don’t touch us. Ah! Take your belt off then!”

The tall one obe­di­ently un­tied his belt and gave it to the work­man, who slowly and me­thod­i­cally tied the brig­and’s hands be­hind his back.

“Right then, you! What are you drool­ing for? Give me your belt,” he ad­dressed the other.

“But, but!” the other protested weakly as he glanced side­ways at the priest, but he un­tied his belt and handed it over.

“Let them go, Stephen,” said the priest.

“How can I do that, Fa­ther Ivan. Your wife would scold me.”

“Let them go. They won’t an­swer to men, but to God.”

Stephen re­luc­tantly un­tied the tall one, gave his com­rade a light cuff on the nape, and sat down on the box.

“But with the axe, good man, you’ll have to part,” he said as he grabbed the reins.

Soon the sleigh and the rid­ers dis­ap­peared into the night’s dark­ness, from which one could hear:

“I said, didn’t I, don’t touch us. Ah…”

In­dig­nant and as­ton­ished to the ut­most de­gree, the jack­daw turned her head to the side and looked with in­ter­est at the re­main­ing pair, hold­ing onto a vague hope that the en­ter­prise might still be re­cov­ered. The tall one stood in si­lence, his eyes low­ered. His com­rade touched his arm.

“Let’s go!”

The tall one started off in si­lence, and his com­rade walked hur­riedly af­ter him. Very soon these two also dis­ap­peared into the dark­ness, and the jack­daw, who greatly en­joyed hu­man com­pany, was left alone. That said, on this oc­ca­sion she did not find hu­man com­pany all that en­joy­able.