I'm furious! I hurry the horse, all the way I touch the hilt of the sword, as if afraid of losing it on the way. Yes, I want to kill her–I am so angry for this vile deception!

It all started with the fact that I met her at the well, but I was so fascinated by her beauty that I did not dare to say a word. But when I met him another time, I asked for his name and told him his own. She, not in the least embarrassed by the difference in our positions, answered me kindly and with a smile. I even fancied in her sparkling eyes an invitation to something more, and one day I accepted it. He called her to his castle, fearing that such a frank proposal would confuse and frighten the poor peasant girl, but it did not happen at all: she seemed to be waiting for that. This alone should have alerted me, but I was completely blinded by my infatuation and did not want to think about any decency, much less dangers.

So we became close, then again and again. She came to me without shyness and affectation, did not set conditions, did not ask for anything in return. And if I had behaved the same way, nothing would have happened. But it seemed to me that there were few unintentional joys, I began to be tormented by questions about who she was and from where, why I had not seen her in the village before, and with whom she spends her days. And then I began to leave the castle more often and wander around, hoping to ambush her and follow her home. When these measures, as well as numerous requests, failed, I resorted to treacherous cunning.

One day, after our caresses, I imperceptibly picked up the rope I had saved in advance from the floor and threw it over my guest, without even letting her get dressed. Having tightly bound her members, I began to pry for the truth, but the girl became completely enraged, poured out streams of abuse on me, threatened with a curse. Her flawless beauty was distorted by such malice that I regretted my action: being sweet and gentle, I liked her much more. However, I decided not to back down and did not loosen the rope, warning my beloved that she would not leave this room until she told the truth about herself. But the unexpected happened...

When night came, and the first ray of the full moon fell through the dense fabric into the chambers, her smooth skin began to darken and wrinkle, and the wonderful beauty turned into an old man's ugliness. She was all wrinkled, shrunken, hunched over and monstrously ugly. I froze in fear, and she suddenly gained unprecedented strength and easily tore the ropes. Here she gets out of bed and walks towards me, shaking her bodily folds and stretching bony fingers to my throat. Then I came to my senses and rushed out, locked the door behind me and leaned on it with my shoulder for safety. Then he sat down on the floor and sat there until morning. And when the sun dispersed the night's gloom, I cautiously opened the door. The room was empty - apparently, the witch got out through the window.

I had no doubt that it was a witch –rumors about this creature had been running around for a long time, although few people had seen it with their own eyes. It was said that she lived at the far end of the forest, on the edge of the swamp itself. And although we could have sent a detachment there a long time ago and done away with the witch, I did not see much need for that – she did not bother the inhabitants of our region, and some believed that an ordinary old woman who had lost her mind had settled there, who might have already died. Why exactly did I happen to meet her charms face to face and remain so cruelly fooled? The more I thought about it, the more I inflamed my anger. The plan of cruel revenge for the violated love was simple: I decided to kill her and burn the remains along with the house. And one morning, feeling another fit of rage and longing, I jumped on a horse, and now I'm galloping through the forest, not even wearing armor.

Here is the edge, here is the house. Quite strong, not a wreck. I dismount from my horse, take out my sword, and she calmly leaves the house and looks at me with a smile. In a young guise, of course, because of which I get somewhat lost and stop feeling like the master of the situation. I freeze in place, looking at her, as if trying to remember. What have you done, you damned thing! Or maybe I did it? But now I gather my thoughts and remember what I came for. I go to her, and suddenly I feel my legs getting heavier, filled with something unaffordable, and now it's hard for me to take a step, and it's hard to lift a sword, because my hands are tired, as if I've been working in a quarry for a thousand years. And then I stop, unable to go any further. Surely another sorcery!

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What a disgusting feeling: my legs seem to grow to the ground, becoming something indistinguishable from it, my body stiffens, my arms rise up and straighten, and my face freezes in eternal surprise - everything except my eyes. Clothes burst and fall off, I grow wider and rounder, I grow up, side shoots grow out of my hands, roots grow out of my legs. But thoughts are as fast as before, and they bring me a terrible truth – I turn into a tree…

Lord Jesus, savior of the world, where are you, don't you see - the dark forces have overcome me? An abominable devilry, or perhaps something more ancient, triumphs on the Lord's earth, showing through the eyes of this vile snake, the daughter of Hecate, who looks at me with a smile, as once before. Here she comes up to me and strokes the skin that has become bark, so insensitive that these touches sound in my mind only a distant echo. Here the moisture runs over me, from the bottom up, from the ground to the sky, I dress in new clothes - cheerful noisy foliage that does not know a second of peace.

- Life is always movement, - says the witch, - only now you need to learn to understand the movement inside. Movement is not the movement of a body, but of matter, as the passage of cycles, as birth, death and the new birth of a seed. Your essence is the transformation of one into another: water into juice, juice into tissue, one tissue into another.

What kind of tree am I? - I think. It looks like an oak tree.

– Behind the shell of the oak there is a solid axis of the world – Axis Mundi - as if a witch reads my thoughts. – You connect the spheres, you are integrity and strength, you are organized life, exalted above the mortal realm of the earth and reaching for the eternal kingdom of heaven. You are also the source of my strength, which I turn into youth. And you're even more useful to me in tree form than in human form.

Oh yes, I am at the same time so deep and so high, so strong and so defenseless, so empty and so full…

"How beautiful is your trunk–" she continues, taking off her clothes and snuggling up to me. – How sad I am without the hardness of the vertical! How beautiful are your branches! They are like a multitude of consequences emanating from a common cause. How whimsical are your curly leaves! There is no better evidence that many things are one.

And she said a lot of other things, both on this day and on others. I told about the customs of the ancients - gods and people, about the supreme meaning of trees, and about my role as a giver of the power of life to all the suffering. And one day these sufferers appeared: naked and torn, old age and infirmity, but only until nightfall, when they took hands and began to walk around me like a wheel turning around an axis – and the folds of their skins were smoothed, and strength returned, and their eyes flashed with the fire of youth. And then they fell to the ground and began to share with each other everything they had, and she was between them. She is with everyone, and everyone is with her, but I forgot what heartache is, and what jealousy is, because now I don't live for myself alone, and I don't know the word "mine" anymore. And so people returned to their former selves again, and I was moving away from my former self, dissolving into the vegetable kingdom, which is higher than the earth by a step, but lower than the animal, and lower than the human, and lower than the heavenly. She thinks that my height is in the tops of the branches, but there is no real height in the trees, only a fussy appearance. Only blind strength and thirst for life. So I'll give it to you, I'll give you as much as I can, but don't expect more. I don't need to be a source of reason, and you don't need reason…

So the years have passed, and although the age of the tree is long, it is not infinite, and the source of power is not bottomless. I feel that it is being exhausted, and the land around me is getting poorer, and even the rains revive me only for a moment. Life goes away, the movement of juices freezes, and worms and beetles are getting bolder... The flesh becomes numb and rotten, leaves fall, so that they no longer grow, and there are no fruits, and birds fly around me. And for a long time I have not been able to return to my witch the appearance that once captivated me. More and more often, she, so old, old, sits at the threshold and looks into the forest, as if she is preparing to go somewhere into the darkness – to perish or search for a new rebirth.

And I'm almost gone, I'm collecting the rest of myself in the last leaf that still resists the autumn wind, and I'm holding on, holding on with the last of my strength. But the movement of life is weaker and weaker, and the wind is angrier, and the connection is broken…

Goodbye, my love.