Vasyl Stefanyk

Evening Hour

Something drove him from wall to wall so hard that he couldn’t sit down. He kept pacing the
room. The surrounding furniture and corners blurred and disappeared in the evening twilight,
while images from the past grew clearer in his head every moment.

— This was the time of day when small children ran out of their homes to the crossroads and
played boisterously. Girls would not drive herds home, saying that when the evening star rose in
the sky, voices would carry with the settling dew — and they would sing, so that their voices
would carry. In winter, Mother would spin wool and sing songs from her girlhood, but so sadly,
as if lamenting her lost youth. Children would sit together on the stove, whispering something to
each other, and then fall asleep without eating dinner. There was something magical about the
evening.

He kept pacing and stroking his forehead with his hand, as if he wanted to lock all of his
thoughts in his head so they wouldn’t fly out, because he very much wanted to think them
through.

— Eh, who knows what’s happened to him? He was such a good friend. I remember sitting in his
yard one time. I think then he talked about white clouds. A white cloud, he said, outlined in gold,
is moving across the sky leaving white lilies behind, and continues sowing, sowing white against
a blue sky — an hour later, there was no cloud or lily, just a blue sky shimmering, like a blue
sea. For some reason, my friend was sad then.

He kept pacing, and his eyes grew wide and innocent, like a child’s.

— I already forgot the ending. So, now I’m forgetting Mother’s songs! But I knew it not so long
ago. Just a second. Mariyka and I drove the sheep into the field that had been mowed for hay.
Mariyka was embroidering shirtsleeves in a bean-shaped pattern. She was embroidering the
beans in red, their stems in blue, and outlining the borders between the beans with black thread. I
was the one who was made to drive the sheep, since Mariyka was older. But there was one
white-headed sheep that caused a lot of trouble and wandered into every garden and field. So I
would take off my belt and we would tie the sheep with it. Peace and quiet at last. I would run
around without a belt under the willows and whistle and shout across the entire field. And then
Mariyka would call me to eat. We would eat bread and cheese from a leaf.

He was already sitting in a soft chair, but his boyhood memories continued to drive him, as in a
dream, into wild fields filled with flowers, and you could pick them and pick them.

— Then Mother came to us. She was returning from the fields, where she had brought food for
the field hands. She gave us some food and milk and looked at Mariyka’s embroidery. She told
Mariyka never to thread a needle with three threads, but with two, since the beans would be too
fat. Then Mother told me not to roll down hills because I would rip my shirt or hurt my stomach.
‘Young man, don’t run around the field all unbuttoned like a wild horse. Sit by Mariyka’s side
and watch the sheep.” And I would lie around next to Mother hitting the grass with my heels,
and Mother would say, “Can’t you sit quietly even for a minute?” At that moment, a stork landed
on the hayfield next to us. Mother took me and sat me on her lap and began to sing:

O, stork, don’t mow the hay,

You’ll get soaked in dew up to your knees.
Leave the mowing to the gull,
Who wears his hat tipped back carefree.

He gathered all the strength of his memory to remember the song, but couldn’t. His eyes grew
sad.

— Wait, wait. Mother went home, while I chased the stork until the evening, singing: “O, stork,
don’t mow the hay…”

Like a boy running to jump across a ditch, he would stop every time he reached that ditch. He
repeated the first verse of the song out loud, but couldn’t remember the rest. He sighed, and the
dark circles around his eyes grew darker.

— My God, I can’t continue the thread that broke off! It was already breaking when they washed
my feet and tore clean foot wrappings out of an old shirt for me, while Father wiped my boots
clean. We all wept then, because I was going out into the world to start my studies. And I’ve
wandered this earth, and bent like a willow branch for a piece of bread, and felt hundreds of
haughty eyes looking at me.

He waved his hand, as if to chase those haughty eyes away.

— After many years I went to visit my mother. Father was no longer alive. Bent with age, old,
with a walking stick in her hands, she sat on the porch of the house, warming herself in the sun.
She didn’t recognize me at first, but then she greeted me. “Son, our Maria has died. I didn’t write
to you about it because I didn’t want to upset you. As she was dying, she kept asking about you.
We kept fooling her, saying that you would come. On the day she died, she said that if only she
could see you through the window, or just stepping through the door. And she died.” That’s how
the thread broke.

He was unconsciously speaking the words of the song: “O, stork, don’t mow the hay…”

— Mother and I went to the cemetery. Mother barely made it. “See, son, this is Maria’s grave.
I’ve already planted rue and myrtle and had the cross painted, but I haven’t planted a cherry tree
yet — I’ll plant one in the fall.” We sat by the grave, and Mother told me about Mariya’s woes.
The husband was wicked, the children were little, in a word, misfortune, poverty. The wind blew
white blossoms from the cherry trees. The blossoms fell on the grave and on us. It seemed as
though the white blossoms were becoming one with Mother’s white hair and their dew was
rolling down Mother’s face. I was remembering how Mariyka and I would take the sheep to
graze…

Hot tears fell on the table.

— And then Mother died. Mother’s grave is not far from Maria’s. Blossoms from Mother’s
cherry tree fall on Maria’s grave, and from Maria’s cherry tree — on Mother’s. Once, I went
there. As I sat between the graves, Mother’s song came to me again. I no longer knew how it
ended. I sat there and then left the mounds. Cherry blossoms that had been lying on the graves
floated after me, as though my sister and mother were imploring me, through those blossoms, not
to leave.

He paced the room for a long time yet, repeating unconsciously:

O, stork, don’t mow the hay,

You’ll get soaked in dew up to your knees.
Leave the mowing to the gull,
Who wears his hat tipped back carefree.