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Title: Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia?
Author: Nicholas Nekrassov
Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9619] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 13, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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WHO CAN BE HAPPY AND FREE IN RUSSIA?
BY
NICHOLAS NEKRASSOV
Translated by Juliet M. Soskice
With an Introduction by Dr. David Soskice
1917
[Illustration: Nicholas Nekrassov]
NICHOLAS ALEXEIEVITCH NEKRASSOV
Born, near the town Vinitza, province of Podolia, November 22, 1821
Died, St. Petersburg, December 27, 1877.
_'Who can be Happy and Free in Russia?' was first published in Russia in 1879. In 'The World's Classics' this translation was first published in 1917._
- CONTENTS
NICHOLAS NEKRASSOV: A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE
PROLOGUE
PART I.
CHAP.
I. THE POPE
II. THE VILLAGE FAIR
III. THE DRUNKEN NIGHT
IV. THE HAPPY ONES
V. THE POMYESHCHICK
PART II.--THE LAST POMYESHCHICK
PROLOGUE
I. THE DIE-HARD
II. KLIM, THE ELDER
PART III.--THE PEASANT WOMAN
PROLOGUE
I. THE WEDDING
II. A SONG
III. SAVYELI
IV. DJOMUSHKA
V. THE SHE-WOLF
VI. AN UNLUCKY YEAR
VII. THE GOVERNOR'S LADY
VIII. THE WOMAN'S LEGEND
PART IV.--A FEAST FOR THE WHOLE VILLAGE
PROLOGUE
I. BITTER TIMES--BITTER SONGS
II. PILGRIMS AND WANDERERS
III. OLD AND NEW
EPILOGUE
NICHOLAS NEKRASSOV: A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE
Western Europe has only lately begun to explore the rich domain of Russian literature, and is not yet acquainted with all even of its greatest figures. Treasures of untold beauty and priceless value, which for many decades have been enlarging and elevating the Russian mind, still await discovery here. Who in England, for instance, has heard the names of Saltykov, Uspensky, or Nekrassov? Yet Saltykov is the greatest of Russian satirists; Uspensky the greatest story-writer of the lives of the Russian toiling masses; while Nekrassov, "the poet of the people's sorrow," whose muse "of grief and vengeance" has supremely dominated the minds of the Russian educated classes for the last half century, is the sole and rightful heir of his two great predecessors, Pushkin and Lermontov.
Russia is a country still largely mysterious to the denizen of Western Europe, and the Russian peasant, the moujik, an impenetrable riddle to him. Of all the great Russian writers not one has contributed more to the interpretation of the enigmatical soul of the moujik than Russia's great poet, Nekrassov, in his life-work the national epic, _Who can be Happy in Russia?_
There are few literate persons in Russia who do not know whole pages of this poem by heart. It will live as long as Russian literature exists; and its artistic value as an instrument for the depiction of Russian nature and the soul of the Russian people can be compared only with that of the great epics of Homer with regard to the legendary life of ancient Greece.
Nekrassov seemed destined to dwell from his birth amid such surroundings as are necessary for the creation of a great national poet.
Nicholas Alexeievitch Nekrassov was the descendant of a noble family, which in former years had been very wealthy, but subsequently had lost the greater part of its estates. His father was an officer in the army, and in the course of his peregrinations from one end of the country to the other in the fulfilment of his military duties he became acquainted with a young Polish girl, the daughter of a wealthy Polish aristocrat. She was seventeen, a type of rare Polish beauty, and the handsome, dashing Russian officer at once fell madly in love with her. The parents of the girl, however, were horrified at the notion of marrying their daughter to a "Muscovite savage," and her father threatened her with his curse if ever again she held communication with her lover. So the matter was secretly arranged between the two, and during a ball which the young Polish beauty was attending she suddenly disappeared. Outside the house the lover waited with his sledge. They sped away, and were married at the first church they reached.
The bride, with her father's curse upon her, passed straight from her sheltered existence in her luxurious home to all the unsparing rigours of Russian camp-life. Bred in an atmosphere of maternal tenderness and Polish refinement she had now to share the life of her rough, uncultured Russian husband, to content herself with the shallow society of the wives of the camp officers, and soon to be crushed by the knowledge that the man for whom she had sacrificed everything was not even faithful to her.
During their travels, in 1821, Nicholas Nekrassov the future poet was born, and three years later his father left military service and settled in his estate in the Yaroslav Province, on the banks of the great river Volga, and close to the Vladimirsky highway, famous in Russian history as the road along which, for centuries, chained convicts had been driven from European Russia to the mines in Siberia. The old park of the manor, with its seven rippling brooklets and mysterious shadowy linden avenues more than a century old, filled with a dreamy murmur at the slightest stir of the breeze, stretched down to the mighty Volga, along the banks of which, during the long summer days, were heard the piteous, panting songs of the burlaki, the barge-towers, who drag the heavy, loaded barges up and down the river.
The rattling of the convicts' chains as they passed; the songs of the burlaki; the pale, sorrowful face of his mother as she walked alone in the linden avenues of the garden, often shedding tears over a letter she read, which was headed by a coronet and written in a fine, delicate hand; the spreading green fields, the broad mighty river, the deep blue skies of Russia,--such were the reminiscences which Nekrassov retained from his earliest childhood. He loved his sad young mother with a childish passion, and in after years he was wont to relate how jealous he had been of that letter[1] she read so often, which always seemed to fill her with a sorrow he could not understand, making her at moments even forget that he was near her.
The sight and knowledge of deep human suffering, framed in the soft voluptuous beauty of nature in central Russia, could not fail to sow the seed of future poetical powers in the soul of an emotional child. His mother, who had been bred on Shakespeare, Milton, and the other great poets and writers of the West, devoted her solitary life to the development of higher intellectual tendencies in her gifted little son. And from an early age he made attempts at verse. His mother has preserved for the world his first little poem, which he presented to her when he was seven years of age, with a little heading, roughly to the following effect:
My darling Mother, look at this,
I did the best I could in it,
Please read it through and tell me if
You think there's any good in it.
The early life of the little Nekrassov was passed amid a series of contrasting pictures. His father, when he had abandoned his military calling and settled upon his estate, became the Chief of the district police. He would take his son Nicholas with him in his trap as he drove from village to village in the fulfilment of his new duties. The continual change of scenery during their frequent journeys along country roads, through forests and valleys, past meadows and rivers, the various types of people they met with, broadened and developed the mind of little Nekrassov, just as the mind of the child Ruskin was formed and expanded during his journeys with his father. But Ruskin's education lacked features with which young Nekrassov on his journeys soon became familiar. While acquiring knowledge of life and accumulating impressions of the beauties of nature, Nekrassov listened, perforce, to the brutal, blustering speeches addressed by his father to the helpless, trembling peasants, and witnessed the cruel, degrading corporal punishments he inflicted upon them, while his eyes were speedily opened to his father's addiction to drinking, gambling, and debauchery. These experiences would most certainly have demoralised and depraved his childish mind had it not been for the powerful influence the refined and cultured mother had from the first exercised upon her son. The contrast between his parents was so startling that it could not fail to awaken the better side of the child's nature, and to imbue him with pure and healthy notions of the truer and higher ideals of humanity. In his poetical works of later years Nekrassov repeatedly returns to and dwells upon the memory of the sorrowful, sweet image of his mother. The gentle, beautiful lady, with her wealth of golden hair, with an expression of divine tenderness in her blue eyes and of infinite suffering upon her sensitive lips, remained for ever her son's ideal of womanhood. Later on, during years of manhood, in moments of the deepest moral suffering and despondency, it was always of her that he thought, her tenderness and spiritual consolation he recalled and for which he craved.
When Nekrassov was eleven years of age his father one day drove him to the town nearest their estate and placed him in the local grammar-school. Here he remained for six years, gradually, though without distinction, passing upwards from one class to another, devoting a moderate amount of time to school studies and much energy to the writing of poetry, mostly of a satirical nature, in which his teachers figured with unfortunate conspicuity.
One day a copy-book containing the most biting of these productions fell into the hands of the headmaster, and young Nekrassov was summarily ejected from the school.
His angry father, deciding in his own mind that the boy was good for nothing, despatched him to St. Petersburg to embark upon a military career. The seventeen-year-old boy arrived in the capital with a copy-book of his poems and a few roubles in his pocket, and with a letter of introduction to an influential general. He was filled with good intentions and fully prepared to obey his father's orders, but before he had taken the final step of entering the nobleman's regiment he met a young student, a former school-mate, who captivated his imagination by glowing descriptions of the marvellous sciences to be studied in the university, and the surpassing interest of student life. The impressionable boy decided to abandon the idea of his military career, and to prepare for his matriculation in the university. He wrote to his father to this effect, and received the stern and laconic reply:
"If you disobey me, not another farthing shall you receive from me."
The youth had made his mind up, however, and entered the university as an unmatriculated student. And that was the beginning of his long acquaintance with the hardships of poverty.
"For three years," said Nekrassov in after life, "I was hungry all day, and every day. It was not only that I ate bad food and not enough of that, but some days I did not eat at all. I often went to a certain restaurant in the Morskaya, where one is allowed to read the paper without ordering food. You can hold the paper in front of you and nibble at a piece of bread behind it...."
While sunk in this state of poverty, however, Nekrassov got into touch with some of the richest and most aristocratic families in St. Petersburg; for at that time there existed a complete comradeship and equality among the students, whether their budget consisted of a few farthings or unlimited wealth. Thus here again Nekrassov was given the opportunity of studying the contrasts of life.
For several years after his arrival in St. Petersburg the true gifts of the poet were denied expression. The young man was confronted with a terrible uphill fight to conquer the means of bare subsistence. He had no time to devote to the working out of his poems, and it would not have "paid" him. He was obliged to accept any literary job that was offered him, and to execute it with a promptitude necessitated by the requirements of his daily bill of fare. During the first years of his literary career he wrote an amazing number of prose reviews, essays, short stories, novels, comedies and tragedies, alphabets and children's stories, which, put together, would fill thirty or forty volumes. He also issued a volume of his early poems, but he was so ashamed of them that he would not put his name upon the fly-leaf. Soon, however, his poems, "On the Road" and "My Motherland," attracted the attention of Byelinsky, when the young poet brought some of his work to show the great critic. With tears in his eyes Byelinsky embraced Nekrassov and said to him:
"Do you know that you are a poet, a true poet?"
This decree of Byelinsky brought fame to Nekrassov, for Byelinsky's word was law in Russia then, and his judgement was never known to fail. His approval gave Nekrassov the confidence he lacked, and he began to devote most of his time to poetry.
The epoch in which Nekrassov began his literary career in St. Petersburg, the early forties of last century, was one of a great revival of idealism in Russia. The iron reaction of the then Emperor Nicholas I. made independent political activity an impossibility. But the horrible and degrading conditions of serfdom which existed at that time, and which cast a blight upon the energy and dignity of the Russian nation, nourished feelings of grief and indignation in the noblest minds of the educated classes, and, unable to struggle for their principles in the field of practical politics, they strove towards abstract idealism. They devoted their energies to philosophy, literature, and art. It was then that Tolstoy, Turgenieff, and Dostoyevsky embarked upon their phenomenal careers in fiction. It was then that the impetuous essayist, Byelinsky, with his fiery and eloquent pen, taught the true meaning and objects of literature. Nekrassov soon joined the circles of literary people dominated by the spirit of Byelinsky, and he too drank at the fountain of idealism and imbibed the gospel of altruistic toil for his country and its people, that gospel of perfect citizenship expounded by Byelinsky, Granovsky, and their friends. It was at this period that his poetry became impregnated with the sadness which, later on, was embodied in the lines:
My verses! Living witnesses of tears Shed for the world, and born In moments of the soul's dire agony, Unheeded and forlorn, Like waves that beat against the rocks, You plead to hearts that scorn.
Nekrassov's material conditions meanwhile began to improve, and he actually developed business capacities, and soon the greatest writers of the time were contributing to the monthly review Sovremenik (the Contemporary) which Nekrassov bought in 1847. Turgenieff, Herzen, Byelinsky, Dostoyevsky gladly sent their works to him, and Nekrassov soon became the intellectual leader of his time. His influence became enormous, but he had to cope with all the rigours of the censorship which had become almost insupportable in Russia, as the effect of the Tsar's fears aroused by the events of the French Revolution of 1848.
Byelinsky died in that year from consumption in the very presence of the gendarmes who had come to arrest him for some literary offence. Dostoyevsky was seized, condemned to death, and when already on the scaffold, with the rope around his neck, reprieved and sent for life to the Siberian mines. The rigours still increased during the Crimean War, and it was only after the death of Nicholas I., the termination of the war, and the accession of the liberal Tsar, Alexander II., that Nekrassov and Russian literature in general began to breathe more freely. The decade which followed upon 1855 was one of the bright periods of Russian history. Serfdom was abolished and many great reforms were passed. It was then that Nekrassov's activity was at its height. His review Sovremenik was a stupendous success, and brought him great fame and wealth. During that year some of his finest poems appeared in it: "The Peasant Children," "Orina, the Mother of a Soldier," "The Gossips," "The Pedlars," "The Rail-way," and many others.
Nekrassov became the idol of Russia. The literary evenings at which he used to read his poems aloud were besieged by fervent devotees, and the most brilliant orations were addressed to him on all possible occasions. His greatest work, however, the national epic, _Who can be Happy in Russia?_ was written towards the latter end of his life, between 1873 and 1877.
Here he suffered from the censor more cruelly than ever. Long extracts from the poem were altogether forbidden, and only after his death it was allowed, in 1879, to appear in print more or less in its entirety.
When gripped in the throes of his last painful illness, and practically on his deathbed, he would still have found consolation in work, in the dictation of his poems. But even then his sufferings were aggravated by the harassing coercions of the censor. His last great poem was written on his deathbed, and the censor peremptorily forbade its publication. Nekrassov one day greeted his doctor with the following remark:
"Now you see what our profession, literature, means. When I wrote my first lines they were hacked to pieces by the censor's scissors--that was thirty-seven years ago; and now, when I am dying, and have written my last lines, I am again confronted by the scissors."
For many months he lay in appalling suffering. His disease was the outcome, he declared, of the privations he had suffered in his youth. The whole of Russia seemed to be standing at his bedside, watching with anguish his terrible struggle with death. Hundreds of letters and telegrams arrived daily from every corner of the immense empire, and the dying poet, profoundly touched by these tokens of love and sympathy, said to the literary friends who visited him:
"You see! We wonder all our lives what our readers think of us, whether they love us and are our friends. We learn in moments like this...."
It was a bright, frosty December day when Nekrassov's coffin was carried to the grave on the shoulders of friends who had loved and admired him. The orations delivered above it were full of passionate emotion called forth by the knowledge that the speakers were expressing not only their own sentiments, but those of a whole nation.
Nekrassov is dead. But all over Russia young and old repeat and love his poetry, so full of tenderness and grief and pity for the Russian people and their endless woe. Quotations from the works of Nekrassov are as abundant and widely known in Russia as those from Shakespeare in England, and no work of his is so familiar and so widely quoted as the national epic, now presented to the English public, _Who can be Happy in Russia?_
DAVID SOSKICE.
PROLOGUE
The year doesn't matter,
The land's not important,
But seven good peasants
Once met on a high-road.
From Province "Hard-Battered,"
From District "Most Wretched,"
From "Destitute" Parish,
From neighbouring hamlets--
"Patched," "Barefoot," and "Shabby,"
"Bleak," "Burnt-Out," and "Hungry,"
From "Harvestless" also, 11
They met and disputed
Of who can, in Russia,
Be happy and free?
Luka said, "The pope," [2]
And Roman, "The Pomyeshchick," [3]
Demyan, "The official,"
"The round-bellied merchant,"
Said both brothers Goobin,
Mitrodor and Ivan. 20
Pakhom, who'd been lost
In profoundest reflection,
Exclaimed, looking down
At the earth, "'Tis his Lordship,
His most mighty Highness,
The Tsar's Chief Adviser,"
And Prov said, "The Tsar."
Like bulls are the peasants:
Once folly is in them
You cannot dislodge it 30
Although you should beat them
With stout wooden cudgels:
They stick to their folly,
And nothing can move them.
They raised such a clamour
That those who were passing
Thought, "Surely the fellows
Have found a great treasure
And share it amongst them!"
They all had set out 40
On particular errands:
The one to the blacksmith's,
Another in haste
To fetch Father Prokoffy
To christen his baby.
Pakhom had some honey
To sell in the market;
The two brothers Goobin
Were seeking a horse
Which had strayed from their herd. 50
Long since should the peasants
Have turned their steps homewards,
But still in a row
They are hurrying onwards
As quickly as though
The grey wolf were behind them.
Still further, still faster
They hasten, contending.
Each shouts, nothing hearing,
And time does not wait. 60
In quarrel they mark not
The fiery-red sunset
Which blazes in Heaven
As evening is falling,
And all through the night
They would surely have wandered
If not for the woman,
The pox-pitted "Blank-wits,"
Who met them and cried:
"Heh, God-fearing peasants, 70
Pray, what is your mission?
What seek ye abroad
In the blackness of midnight?"
So shrilled the hag, mocking,
And shrieking with laughter
She slashed at her horses
And galloped away.
The peasants are startled,
Stand still, in confusion,
Since long night has fallen, 80
The numberless stars
Cluster bright in the heavens,
The moon gliding onwards.
Black shadows are spread
On the road stretched before
The impetuous walkers.
Oh, shadows, black shadows,
Say, who can outrun you,
Or who can escape you?
Yet no one can catch you, 90
Entice, or embrace you!
Pakhom, the old fellow,
Gazed long at the wood,
At the sky, at the roadway,
Gazed, silently searching
His brain for some counsel,
And then spake in this wise:
"Well, well, the wood-devil
Has finely bewitched us!
We've wandered at least 100
Thirty versts from our homes.
We all are too weary
To think of returning
To-night; we must wait
Till the sun rise to-morrow."
Thus, blaming the devil,
The peasants make ready
To sleep by the roadside.
They light a large fire,
And collecting some farthings 110
Send two of their number
To buy them some vodka,
The rest cutting cups
From the bark of a birch-tree.
The vodka's provided,
Black bread, too, besides,
And they all begin feasting:
Each munches some bread
And drinks three cups of vodka--
But then comes the question 120
Of who can, in Russia,
Be happy and free?
Luka cries, "The pope!"
And Roman, "The Pomyeshchick!"
And Prov shouts, "The Tsar!"
And Demyan, "The official!"
"The round-bellied merchant!"
Bawl both brothers Goobin,
Mitrodor and Ivan.
Pakhom shrieks, "His Lordship, 130
His most mighty Highness,
The Tsar's Chief Adviser!"
The obstinate peasants
Grow more and more heated,
Cry louder and louder,
Swear hard at each other;
I really believe
They'll attack one another!
Look! now they are fighting!
Roman and Pakhom close, 140
Demyan clouts Luka,
While the two brothers Goobin
Are drubbing fat Prov,
And they all shout together.
Then wakes the clear echo,
Runs hither and thither,
Runs calling and mocking
As if to encourage
The wrath of the peasants.
The trees of the forest 150
Throw furious words back:
"The Tsar!" "The Pomyeshchick!"
"The pope!" "The official!"
Until the whole coppice
Awakes in confusion;
The birds and the insects,
The swift-footed beasts
And the low crawling reptiles
Are chattering and buzzing
And stirring all round. 160
The timid grey hare
Springing out of the bushes
Speeds startled away;
The hoarse little jackdaw
Flies off to the top
Of a birch-tree, and raises
A harsh, grating shriek,
A most horrible clamour.
A weak little peewit
Falls headlong in terror 170
From out of its nest,
And the mother comes flying
In search of her fledgeling.
She twitters in anguish.
Alas! she can't find it.
The crusty old cuckoo
Awakes and bethinks him
To call to a neighbour:
Ten times he commences
And gets out of tune, 180
But he won't give it up....
Call, call, little cuckoo,
For all the young cornfields
Will shoot into ear soon,
And then it will choke you--
The ripe golden grain,
And your day will be ended![4]
From out the dark forest
Fly seven brown owls,
And on seven tall pine-trees 190
They settle themselves
To enjoy the disturbance.
They laugh--birds of night--
And their huge yellow eyes gleam
Like fourteen wax candles.
The raven--the wise one--
Sits perched on a tree
In the light of the fire,
Praying hard to the devil
That one of the wranglers, 200
At least, should be beaten
To death in the tumult.
A cow with a bell
Which had strayed from its fellows
The evening before,
Upon hearing men's voices
Comes out of the forest
And into the firelight,
And fixing its eyes,
Large and sad, on the peasants, 210
Stands listening in silence
Some time to their raving,
And then begins mooing,
Most heartily moos.
The silly cow moos,
The jackdaw is screeching,
The turbulent peasants
Still shout, and the echo
Maliciously mocks them--
The impudent echo 220
Who cares but for mocking
And teasing good people,
For scaring old women
And innocent children:
Though no man has seen it
We've all of us heard it;
It lives--without body;
It speaks--without tongue.
The pretty white owl
Called the Duchess of Moscow 230
Comes plunging about
In the midst of the peasants,
Now circling above them,
Now striking the bushes
And earth with her body.
And even the fox, too,
The cunning old creature,
With woman's determined
And deep curiosity,
Creeps to the firelight 240
And stealthily listens;
At last, quite bewildered,
She goes; she is thinking,
"The devil himself
Would be puzzled, I know!"
And really the wranglers
Themselves have forgotten
The cause of the strife.
But after awhile
Having pummelled each other 250
Sufficiently soundly,
They come to their senses;
They drink from a rain-pool
And wash themselves also,
And then they feel sleepy.
And, meanwhile, the peewit,
The poor little fledgeling,
With short hops and flights
Had come fluttering towards them.
Pakhom took it up 260
In his palm, held it gently
Stretched out to the firelight,
And looked at it, saying,
"You are but a mite,
Yet how sharp is your claw;
If I breathed on you once
You'd be blown to a distance,
And if I should sneeze
You would straightway be wafted
Right into the flames. 270
One flick from my finger
Would kill you entirely.
Yet you are more powerful,
More free than the peasant:
Your wings will grow stronger,
And then, little birdie,
You'll fly where it please you.
Come, give us your wings, now,
You frail little creature,
And we will go flying 280
All over the Empire,
To seek and inquire,
To search and discover
The man who in Russia--
Is happy and free."
"No wings would be needful
If we could be certain
Of bread every day;
For then we could travel
On foot at our leisure," 290
Said Prov, of a sudden
Grown weary and sad.
"But not without vodka,
A bucket each morning,"
Cried both brothers Goobin,
Mitrodor and Ivan,
Who dearly loved vodka.
"Salt cucumbers, also,
Each morning a dozen!"
The peasants cry, jesting. 300
"Sour qwass,[5] too, a jug
To refresh us at mid-day!"
"A can of hot tea
Every night!" they say, laughing.
But while they were talking
The little bird's mother
Was flying and wheeling
In circles above them;
She listened to all,
And descending just near them 310
She chirruped, and making
A brisk little movement
She said to Pakhom
In a voice clear and human:
"Release my poor child,
I will pay a great ransom."
"And what is your offer?"
"A loaf each a day
And a bucket of vodka,
Salt cucumbers also, 320
Each morning a dozen.
At mid-day sour qwass
And hot tea in the evening."
"And where, little bird,"
Asked the two brothers Goobin,
"And where will you find
Food and drink for all seven?"
"Yourselves you will find it,
But I will direct you
To where you will find it." 330
"Well, speak. We will listen."
"Go straight down the road,
Count the poles until thirty:
Then enter the forest
And walk for a verst.
By then you'll have come
To a smooth little lawn
With two pine-trees upon it.
Beneath these two pine-trees
Lies buried a casket 340
Which you must discover.
The casket is magic,
And in it there lies
An enchanted white napkin.
Whenever you wish it
This napkin will serve you
With food and with vodka:
You need but say softly,
'O napkin enchanted,
Give food to the peasants!' 350
At once, at your bidding,
Through my intercession
The napkin will serve you.
And now, free my child."
"But wait. We are poor,
And we're thinking of making
A very long journey,"
Pakhom said. "I notice
That you are a bird
Of remarkable talent. 360
So charm our old clothing
To keep it upon us."
"Our coats, that they fall not
In tatters," Roman said.
"Our laputs,[6] that they too
May last the whole journey,"
Demyan next demanded.
"Our shirts, that the fleas
May not breed and annoy us,"
Luka added lastly. 370
The little bird answered,
"The magic white napkin
Will mend, wash, and dry for you.
Now free my child."
Pakhom then spread open
His palm, wide and spacious,
Releasing the fledgeling,
Which fluttered away
To a hole in a pine-tree.
The mother who followed it 380
Added, departing:
"But one thing remember:
Food, summon at pleasure
As much as you fancy,
But vodka, no more
Than a bucket a day.
If once, even twice
You neglect my injunction
Your wish shall be granted;
The third time, take warning: 390
Misfortune will follow."
The peasants set off
In a file, down the road,
Count the poles until thirty
And enter the forest,
And, silently counting
Each footstep, they measure
A verst as directed.
They find the smooth lawn
With the pine-trees upon it, 400
They dig all together
And soon reach the casket;
They open it--there lies
The magic white napkin!
They cry in a chorus,
"O napkin enchanted,
Give food to the peasants!"
Look, look! It's unfolding!
Two hands have come floating
From no one sees where; 410
Place a bucket of vodka,
A large pile of bread
On the magic white napkin,
And dwindle away.
"The cucumbers, tea,
And sour qwass--where are they then?"
At once they appear!
The peasants unloosen
Their waistbelts, and gather
Around the white napkin 420
To hold a great banquet.
In joy, they embrace
One another, and promise
That never again
Will they beat one another
Without sound reflection,
But settle their quarrels
In reason and honour
As God has commanded;
That nought shall persuade them 430
To turn their steps homewards
To kiss wives and children,
To see the old people,
Until they have settled
For once and forever
The subject of discord:
Until they've discovered
The man who, in Russia,
Is happy and free.
They swear to each other 440
To keep this, their promise,
And daybreak beholds them
Embosomed in slumber
As deep and as dreamless
As that of the dead.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
THE POPE[7]
The broad sandy high-road
With borders of birch-trees
Winds sadly and drearily
Into the distance;
On either hand running
Low hills and young cornfields,
Green pastures, and often--
More often than any--
Lands sterile and barren.
And near to the rivers 10
And ponds are the hamlets
And villages standing--
The old and the new ones.
The forests and meadows
And rivers of Russia
Are lovely in springtime,
But O you spring cornfields,
Your growth thin and scanty
Is painful to see.
"'Twas not without meaning 20
That daily the snow fell
Throughout the long winter,"
Said one to another
The journeying peasants:--
"The spring has now come
And the snow tells its story:
At first it is silent--
'Tis silent in falling,
Lies silently sleeping,
But when it is dying 30
Its voice is uplifted:
The fields are all covered
With loud, rushing waters,
No roads can be traversed
For bringing manure
To the aid of the cornfields;
The season is late
For the sweet month of May
Is already approaching."
The peasant is saddened 40
At sight of the dirty
And squalid old village;
But sadder the new ones:
The new huts are pretty,
But they are the token
Of heartbreaking ruin.[8]
As morning sets in
They begin to meet people,
But mostly small people:
Their brethren, the peasants, 50
And soldiers and waggoners,
Workmen and beggars.
The soldiers and beggars
They pass without speaking.
Not asking if happy
Or grievous their lot:
The soldier, we know,
Shaves his beard with a gimlet,
Has nothing but smoke
In the winter to warm him,-- 60
What joy can be his?
As evening is falling
Appears on the high-road
A pope in his cart.
The peasants uncover
Their heads, and draw up
In a line on the roadway,
Thus barring the passage
In front of the gelding.
The pope raised his head, 70
Looked inquiringly at them.
"Fear not, we won't harm you,"
Luka said in answer.
(Luka was thick-bearded,
Was heavy and stolid,
Was obstinate, stupid,
And talkative too;
He was like to the windmill
Which differs in one thing
Alone from an eagle: 80
No matter how boldly
It waves its broad pinions
It rises no higher.)
"We, orthodox peasants,
From District 'Most Wretched,'
From Province 'Hard Battered,'
From 'Destitute' Parish,
From neighbouring hamlets,
'Patched,' 'Barefoot,' and 'Shabby,'
'Bleak,' 'Burnt-Out,' and 'Hungry,' 90
From 'Harvestless' also,
Are striving to settle
A thing of importance;
A trouble torments us,
It draws us away
From our wives and our children,
Away from our work,
Kills our appetites too.
Pray, give us your promise
To answer us truly, 100
Consulting your conscience
And searching your knowledge,
Not feigning nor mocking
The question we put you.
If not, we will go
Further on."
"I will promise
If you will but put me
A serious question
To answer it gravely, 110
With truth and with reason,
Not feigning nor mocking,
Amen!"
"We are grateful,
And this is our story:
We all had set out
On particular errands,
And met in the roadway.
Then one asked another:
Who is he,--the man 120
Free and happy in Russia?
And I said, 'The pope,'
And Roman, 'The Pomyeshchick,'
And Prov said, 'The Tsar,'
And Demyan, 'The official';
'The round-bellied merchant,'
Said both brothers Goobin,
Mitrodor and Ivan;
Pakhom said, 'His Lordship,
The Tsar's Chief Adviser.' 130
"Like bulls are the peasants;
Once folly is in them
You cannot dislodge it
Although you should beat them
With stout wooden cudgels,
They stick to their folly
And nothing can move them.
We argued and argued,
While arguing quarrelled,
While quarrelling fought, 140
Till at last we decided
That never again
Would we turn our steps homeward
To kiss wives and children,
To see the old people,
Until we have found
The reply to our question,
Until we've discovered
For once and forever
The man who, in Russia, 150
Is happy and free.
Then say, in God's truth,
Is the pope's life a sweet one?
Would you, honoured father,
Proclaim yourself happy?"
The pope in his cart
Cast his eyes on the roadway,
Fell thoughtful and answered:
"Then, Christians, come, hear me:
I will not complain 160
Of the cross that I carry,
But bear it in silence.
I'll tell you my story,
And you try to follow
As well as you can."
"Begin."
"But first tell me
The gifts you consider
As true earthly welfare;
Peace, honour, and riches,-- 170
Is that so, my children?"
They answer, "It is so."
"And now let us see, friends,
What peace does the pope get?
In truth, then, I ought
To begin from my childhood,
For how does the son
Of the pope gain his learning,
And what is the price
That he pays for the priesthood? 180
'Tis best to be silent." [9]
"Our roadways are poor
And our parishes large,
And the sick and the dying,
The new-born that call us,
Do not choose their season:
In harvest and hay-time,
In dark nights of autumn,
Through frosts in the winter,
Through floods in the springtime, 190
Go--where they may call you.
You go without murmur,
If only the body
Need suffer alone!
But no,--every moment
The heart's deepest feelings
Are strained and tormented.
Believe me, my children,
Some things on this earth
One can never get used to: 200
No heart there exists
That can bear without anguish
The rattle of death,
The lament for the lost one,
The sorrow of orphans,
Amen! Now you see, friends,
The peace that the pope gets."
Not long did the peasants
Stand thinking. They waited
To let the pope rest, 210
Then enquired with a bow:
"And what more will you tell us?"
"Well, now let us see
If the pope is much honoured;
And that, O my friends,
Is a delicate question--
I fear to offend you....
But answer me, Christians,
Whom call you, 'The cursed
Stallion breed?' Can you tell me?"
The peasants stand silent 221
In painful confusion;
The pope, too, is silent.
"Who is it you tremble
To meet in the roadway[10]
For fear of misfortune?"
The peasants stand shuffling
Their feet in confusion.
"Of whom do you make
Little scandalous stories? 230
Of whom do you sing
Rhymes and songs most indecent?
The pope's honoured wife,
And his innocent daughters,
Come, how do you treat them?
At whom do you shout
Ho, ho, ho, in derision
When once you are past him?"
The peasants cast downwards
Their eyes and keep silent. 240
The pope too is silent.
The peasants stand musing;
The pope fans his face
With his hat, high and broad-rimmed,
And looks at the heavens....
The cloudlets in springtime
Play round the great sun
Like small grandchildren frisking
Around a hale grandsire,
And now, on his right side 250
A bright little cloud
Has grown suddenly dismal,
Begins to shed tears.
The grey thread is hanging
In rows to the earth,
While the red sun is laughing
And beaming upon it
Through torn fleecy clouds,
Like a merry young girl
Peeping out from the corn. 260
The cloud has moved nearer,
The rain begins here,
And the pope puts his hat on.
But on the sun's right side
The joy and the brightness
Again are established.
The rain is now ceasing....
It stops altogether,
And God's wondrous miracle,
Long golden sunbeams, 270
Are streaming from Heaven
In radiant splendour.
"It isn't our own fault;
It comes from our parents,"
Say, after long silence,
The two brothers Goobin.
The others approve him:
"It isn't our own fault,
It comes from our parents."
The pope said, "So be it! 280
But pardon me, Christians,
It is not my meaning
To censure my neighbours;
I spoke but desiring
To tell you the truth.
You see how the pope
Is revered by the peasants;
The gentry--"
"Pass over them,
Father--we know them." 290
"Then let us consider
From whence the pope's riches.
In times not far distant
The great Russian Empire
Was filled with estates
Of wealthy Pomyeshchicks.[11]
They lived and increased,
And they let us live too.
What weddings were feasted!
What numbers and numbers 300
Of children were born
In each rich, merry life-time!
Although they were haughty
And often oppressive,
What liberal masters!
They never deserted
The parish, they married,
Were baptized within it,
To us they confessed,
And by us they were buried. 310
And if a Pomyeshchick
Should chance for some reason
To live in a city,
He cherished one longing,
To die in his birthplace;
But did the Lord will it
That he should die suddenly
Far from the village,
An order was found
In his papers, most surely, 320
That he should be buried
At home with his fathers.
Then see--the black car
With the six mourning horses,--
The heirs are conveying
The dead to the graveyard;
And think--what a lift
For the pope, and what feasting
All over the village!
But now that is ended, 330
Pomyeshchicks are scattered
Like Jews over Russia
And all foreign countries.
They seek not the honour
Of lying with fathers
And mothers together.
How many estates
Have passed into the pockets
Of rich speculators!
O you, bones so pampered 340
Of great Russian gentry,
Where are you not buried,
What far foreign graveyard
Do you not repose in?
"Myself from dissenters[12]
(A source of pope's income)
I never take money,
I've never transgressed,
For I never had need to;
Because in my parish 350
Two-thirds of the people
Are Orthodox churchmen.
But districts there are
Where the whole population
Consists of dissenters--
Then how can the pope live?
"But all in this world
Is subjected to changes:
The laws which in old days
Applied to dissenters 360
Have now become milder;
And that in itself
Is a check to pope's income.
I've said the Pomyeshchicks
Are gone, and no longer
They seek to return
To the home of their childhood;
And then of their ladies
(Rich, pious old women),
How many have left us 370
To live near the convents!
And nobody now
Gives the pope a new cassock
Or church-work embroidered.
He lives on the peasants,
Collects their brass farthings,
Their cakes on the feast-days,
At Easter their eggs.
The peasants are needy
Or they would give freely-- 380
Themselves they have nothing;
And who can take gladly
The peasant's last farthing?
"Their lands are so poor,
They are sand, moss, or boggy,
Their cattle half-famished,
Their crops yield but twofold;
And should Mother Earth
Chance at times to be kinder,
That too is misfortune: 390
The market is crowded,
They sell for a trifle
To pay off the taxes.
Again comes a bad crop---
Then pay for your bread
Three times higher than ever,
And sell all your cattle!
Now, pray to God, Christians,
For this year again
A great misery threatens: 400
We ought to have sown
For a long time already;
But look you--the fields
Are all deluged and useless....
O God, have Thou pity
And send a round[13] rainbow
To shine in Thy heavens!"
Then taking his hat off
He crossed himself thrice,
And the peasants did likewise.
"Our village is poor 411
And the people are sickly,
The women are sad
And are scantily nourished,
But pious and laborious;
God give them courage!
Like slaves do they toil;
'Tis hard to lay hands
On the fruits of such labour.
"At times you are sent for 420
To pray by the dying,
But Death is not really
The awful thing present,
But rather the living--
The family losing
Their only support.
You pray by the dead.
Words of comfort you utter,
To calm the bereaved ones;
And then the old mother 430
Comes tottering towards you,
And stretching her bony
And toil-blistered hand out;
You feel your heart sicken,
For there in the palm
Lie the precious brass farthings!
Of course it is only
The price of your praying.
You take it, because
It is what you must live on; 440
Your words of condolence
Are frozen, and blindly,
Like one deep insulted,
You make your way homeward.
Amen...."
The pope finished
His speech, and touched lightly
The back of the gelding.
The peasants make way,
And they bow to him deeply. 450
The cart moves on slowly,
Then six of the comrades
As though by agreement
Attack poor Luka
With indignant reproaches.
"Now, what have you got?--
You great obstinate blockhead,
You log of the village!
You too must needs argue;
Pray what did you tell us? 460
'The popes live like princes,
The lords of the belfry,
Their palaces rising
As high as the heavens,
Their bells set a-chiming
All over God's world.
"'Three years,' you declared,
'Did I work as pope's servant.
It wasn't a life--
'Twas a strawberry, brethren; 470
Pope's kasha[14] is made
And served up with fresh butter.
Pope's stchee[14] made with fish,
And pope's pie stuffed to bursting;
The pope's wife is fat too,
And white the pope's daughter,
His horse like a barrel,
His bees are all swollen
And booming like church bells.'
"Well, there's your pope's life,-- 480
There's your 'strawberry,' boaster!
For that you've been shouting
And making us quarrel,
You limb of the Devil!
Pray is it because
Of your beard like a shovel
You think you're so clever?
If so, let me tell you
The goat walked in Eden
With just such another 490
Before Father Adam,
And yet down to our time
The goat is considered
The greatest of duffers!"
The culprit was silent,
Afraid of a beating;
And he would have got it
Had not the pope's face,
Turning sadly upon them,
Looked over a hedge 500
At a rise in the road.
CHAPTER II
THE VILLAGE FAIR
No wonder the peasants
Dislike a wet spring-tide:
The peasant needs greatly
A spring warm and early.
This year, though he howl
Like a wolf, I'm afraid
That the sun will not gladden
The earth with his brightness.
The clouds wander heavily,
Dropping the rain down 10
Like cows with full udders.
The snow has departed,
Yet no blade of grass,
Not a tiny green leaflet,
Is seen in the meadows.
The earth has not ventured
To don its new mantle
Of brightest green velvet,
But lies sad and bare
Like a corpse without grave-clothes
Beneath the dull heavens. 21
One pities the peasant;
Still more, though, his cattle:
For when they have eaten
The scanty reserves
Which remain from the winter,
Their master will drive them
To graze in the meadows,
And what will they find there
But bare, inky blackness? 30
Nor settled the weather
Until it was nearing
The feast of St. Nichol,
And then the poor cattle
Enjoyed the green pastures.
The day is a hot one,
The peasants are strolling
Along 'neath the birch-trees.
They say to each other,
"We passed through one village, 40
We passed through another,
And both were quite empty;
To-day is a feast-day,
But where are the people?"
They reach a large village;
The street is deserted
Except for small children,
And inside the houses
Sit only the oldest
Of all the old women. 50
The wickets are fastened
Securely with padlocks;
The padlock's a loyal
And vigilant watch-dog;
It barks not, it bites not,
But no one can pass it.
They walk through the village
And see a clear mirror
Beset with green framework--
A pond full of water; 60
And over its surface
Are hovering swallows
And all kinds of insects;
The gnats quick and meagre
Skip over the water
As though on dry land;
And in the laburnums
Which grow on the banksides
The landrails are squeaking.
A raft made of tree-trunks 70
Floats near, and upon it
The pope's heavy daughter
Is wielding her beetle,
She looks like a hay-stack,
Unsound and dishevelled,
Her skirts gathered round her.
Upon the raft, near her,
A duck and some ducklings
Are sleeping together.
And hark! from the water 80
The neigh of a horse comes;
The peasants are startled,
They turn all together:
Two heads they see, moving
Along through the water--
The one is a peasant's,
A black head and curly,
In one ear an ear-ring
Which gleams in the sunlight;
A horse's the other, 90
To which there is fastened
A rope of some yards length,
Held tight in the teeth
Of the peasant beside it.
The man swims, the horse swims;
The horse neighs, the man neighs;
They make a fine uproar!
The raft with the woman
And ducklings upon it
Is tossing and heaving. 100
The horse with the peasant
Astride has come panting
From out of the water,
The man with white body
And throat black with sunburn;
The water is streaming
From horse and from rider.
"Say, why is your village
So empty of people?
Are all dead and buried?" 110
"They've gone to Kousminsky;
A fair's being held there
Because it's a saint's day."
"How far is Kousminsky?"
"Three versts, I should fancy."
"We'll go to Kousminsky,"
The peasants decided,
And each to himself thought,
"Perhaps we shall find there
The happy, the free one." 120
The village Kousminsky
Is rich and commercial
And terribly dirty.
It's built on a hill-side,
And slopes down the valley,
Then climbs again upwards,--
So how could one ask of it
Not to be dirty?[15]
It boasts of two churches.
The one is "dissenting," 130
The other "Established."
The house with inscription,
"The School-House," is empty,
In ruins and deserted;
And near stands the barber's,
A hut with one window,
From which hangs the sign-board
Of "Barber and Bleeder."
A dirty inn also
There is, with its sign-board 140
Adorned by a picture:
A great nosy tea-pot
With plump little tea-cups
Held out by a waiter,
Suggesting a fat goose
Surrounded by goslings.
A row of small shops, too,
There is in the village.
The peasants go straight
To the market-place, find there 150
A large crowd of people
And goods in profusion.
How strange!--notwithstanding
There's no church procession
The men have no hats on,
Are standing bare-headed,
As though in the presence
Of some holy Image:
Look, how they're being swallowed--
The hoods of the peasants.[16] 160
The beer-shop and tavern
Are both overflowing;
All round are erected
Large tents by the roadside
For selling of vodka.
And though in each tent
There are five agile waiters,
All young and most active,
They find it quite hopeless
To try to get change right. 170
Just look how the peasants
Are stretching their hands out,
With hoods, shirts, and waistcoats!
Oh, you, thirst of Russia,
Unquenchable, endless
You are! But the peasant,
When once he is sated,
Will soon get a new hood
At close of the fair....
The spring sun is playing 180
On heads hot and drunken,
On boisterous revels,
On bright mixing colours;
The men wear wide breeches
Of corduroy velvet,
With gaudy striped waistcoats
And shirts of all colours;
The women wear scarlet;
The girls' plaited tresses
Are decked with bright ribbons; 190
They glide about proudly,
Like swans on the water.
Some beauties are even
Attired in the fashion
Of Petersburg ladies;
Their dresses spread stiffly
On wide hoops around them;
But tread on their skirts--
They will turn and attack you,
Will gobble like turkeys! 200
Blame rather the fashion
Which fastens upon you
Great fishermen's baskets!
A woman dissenter
Looks darkly upon them,
And whispers with malice:
"A famine, a famine
Most surely will blight us.
The young growths are sodden,
The floods unabated; 210
Since women have taken
To red cotton dresses
The forests have withered,
And wheat--but no wonder!"
"But why, little Mother,
Are red cotton dresses
To blame for the trouble?
I don't understand you."
"The cotton is French,
And it's reddened in dog's blood! 220
D'you understand now?"
The peasants still linger
Some time in the market,
Then go further upward,
To where on the hill-side
Are piled ploughs and harrows,
With rakes, spades, and hatchets,
And all kinds of iron-ware,
And pliable wood
To make rims for the cart-wheels. 230
And, oh, what a hubbub
Of bargaining, swearing,
Of jesting and laughter!
And who could help laughing?
A limp little peasant
Is bending and testing
The wood for the wheel-rims.
One piece does not please him;
He takes up another
And bends it with effort; 240
It suddenly straightens,
And whack!--strikes his forehead.
The man begins roaring,
Abusing the bully,
The duffer, the block-head.
Another comes driving
A cart full of wood-ware,
As tipsy as can be;
He turns it all over!
The axle is broken, 250
And, trying to mend it,
He smashes the hatchet.
He gazes upon it,
Abusing, reproaching:
"A villain, a villain,
You are--not a hatchet.
You see, you can't do me
The least little service.
The whole of your life
You spend bowing before me, 260
And yet you insult me!"
Our peasants determine
To see the shop windows,
The handkerchiefs, ribbons,
And stuffs of bright colour;
And near to the boot-shop
Is fresh cause for laughter;
For here an old peasant
Most eagerly bargains
For small boots of goat-skin 270
To give to his grandchild.
He asks the price five times;
Again and again
He has turned them all over;
He finds they are faultless.
"Well, Uncle, pay up now,
Or else be off quickly,"
The seller says sharply.
But wait! The old fellow
Still gazes, and fondles 280
The tiny boots softly,
And then speaks in this wise:
"My daughter won't scold me,
Her husband I'll spit at,
My wife--let her grumble--
I'll spit at my wife too.
It's her that I pity--
My poor little grandchild.
She clung to my neck,
And she said, 'Little Grandfather, 290
Buy me a present.'
Her soft little ringlets
Were tickling my cheek,
And she kissed the old Grand-dad.
You wait, little bare-foot,
Wee spinning-top, wait then,
Some boots I will buy you,
Some boots made of goat-skin."
And then must old Vavil
Begin to boast grandly, 300
To promise a present
To old and to young.
But now his last farthing
Is swallowed in vodka,
And how can he dare
Show his eyes in the village?
"My daughter won't scold me,
Her husband I'll spit at,
My wife--let her grumble--
I'll spit at my wife too. 310
It's her that I pity--
My poor little grandchild."
And then he commences
The story again
Of the poor little grandchild.
He's very dejected.
A crowd listens round him,
Not laughing, but troubled
At sight of his sorrow.
If they could have helped him 320
With bread or by labour
They soon would have done so,
But money is money,
And who has got tenpence
To spare? Then came forward
Pavloosha Varenko,
The "gentleman" nicknamed.
(His origin, past life,
Or calling they knew not,
But called him the 'Barin'.) 330
He listened with pleasure
To talk and to jesting;
His blouse, coat, and top-boots
Were those of a peasant;
He sang Russian folk-songs,
Liked others to sing them,
And often was met with
At taverns and inns.
He now rescued Vavil,
And bought him the boots 340
To take home to his grandchild.
The old man fled blindly,
But clasping them tightly,
Forgetting to thank him,
Bewildered with joy.
The crowd was as pleased, too,
As if had been given
To each one a rouble.
The peasants next visit
The picture and book stall; 350
The pedlars are buying
Their stock of small pictures,
And books for their baskets
To sell on the road.
"'Tis generals, you want!"
The merchant is saying.
"Well, give us some generals;
But look--on your conscience--
Now let them be real ones,
Be fat and ferocious." 360
"Your notions are funny,"
The merchant says, smiling;
"It isn't a question
Of looks...."
"Well, of what, then?
You want to deceive us,
To palm off your rubbish,
You swindling impostor!
D'you think that the peasants
Know one from another? 370
A shabby one--he wants
An expert to sell him,
But trust me to part with
The fat and the fierce."
"You don't want officials?"
"To Hell with officials!"
However they took one
Because he was cheap:
A minister, striking
In view of his stomach 380
As round as a barrel,
And seventeen medals.
The merchant is serving
With greatest politeness,
Displaying and praising,
With patience unyielding,--
A thief of the first-class
He is, come from Moscow.
Of Bluecher he sells them
A hundred small pictures, 390
As many of Fotyi[17]
The archimandrite,
And of Sipko[17] the brigand;
A book of the sayings
Of droll Balakireff[17]
The "English Milord," too.
The books were put into
The packs of the pedlars;
The pictures will travel
All over great Russia, 400
Until they find rest
On the wall of some peasant--
The devil knows why!
Oh, may it come quickly
The time when the peasant
Will make some distinction
Between book and book,
Between picture and picture;
Will bring from the market,
Not picture of Bluecher, 410
Not stupid "Milord,"
But Belinsky and Gogol!
Oh, say, Russian people,
These names--have you heard them?
They're great. They were borne
By your champions, who loved you,
Who strove in your cause,
'Tis their little portraits
Should hang in your houses!
"I'd walk into Heaven 420
But can't find the doorway!"
Is suddenly shouted
By some merry blade.
"What door do you want, man?"
"The puppet-show, brothers!"
"I'll show you the way!"
The puppet-show tempted
The journeying peasants;
They go to inspect it.
A farce is being acted, 430
A goat for the drummer;
Real music is playing--
No common accordion.
The play is not too deep,
But not stupid, either.
A bullet shot deftly
Right into the eye
Of the hated policeman.
The tent is quite crowded,
The audience cracking 440
Their nuts, and exchanging
Remarks with each other.
And look--there's the vodka!
They're drinking and looking,
And looking and drinking,
Enjoying it highly,
With jubilant faces,
From time to time throwing
A right witty word
Into Peterkin's speeches, 450
Which _you'd_ never hit on,
Although you should swallow
Your pen and your pad!...
Some folk there are always
Who crowd on the platform
(The comedy ended),
To greet the performers,
To gossip and chat.
"How now, my fine fellows,
And where do you come from?" 460
"As serfs we used only
To play for the masters,[18]
But now we are free,
And the man who will treat us
Alone is our Master!"
"Well spoken, my brothers;
Enough time you've wasted
Amusing the nobles;
Now play for the peasants!
Here, waiter, bring vodka, 470
Sweet wine, tea, and syrup,
And see you make haste!"
The sweet sparkling river
Comes rolling to meet them;
They'll treat the musicians
More handsomely, far,
Than their masters of old.
It is not the rushing
Of furious whirlwinds,
Not Mother Earth shaking-- 480
'Tis shouting and singing
And swearing and fighting
And falling and kissing--
The people's carouse!
It seems to the peasants
That all in the village
Was reeling around them!
That even the church
With the very tall, steeple
Had swayed once or twice! 490
When things are in this state,
A man who is sober
Feels nearly as awkward
As one who is naked....
The peasants recrossing
The market-place, quitted
The turbulent village
At evening's approach.
CHAPTER III
THE DRUNKEN NIGHT
This village did not end,
As many in Russia,
In windmill or tavern,
In corn-loft or barn,
But in a large building
Of wood, with iron gratings
In small narrow windows.
The broad, sandy high-road,
With borders of birch-trees,
Spread out straight behind it-- 10
The grim etape--prison.[19]
On week-days deserted
It is, dull and silent,
But now it is not so.
All over the high-road,
In neighbouring pathways,
Wherever the eye falls,
Are lying and crawling,
Are driving and climbing,
The numberless drunkards; 20
Their shout fills the skies.
The cart-wheels are screeching,
And like slaughtered calves' heads
Are nodding and wagging
The pates limp and helpless
Of peasants asleep.
They're dropping on all sides,
As if from some ambush
An enemy firing
Is shooting them wholesale. 30
The quiet night is falling,
The moon is in Heaven,
And God is commencing
To write His great letter
Of gold on blue velvet;
Mysterious message,
Which neither the wise man
Nor foolish can read.
The high-road is humming
Just like a great bee-hive; 40
The people's loud clamour
Is swelling and falling
Like waves in the ocean.
"We paid him a rouble--
The clerk, and he gave us
A written petition
To send to the Governor."
"Hi, you with the waggon,
Look after your corn!"
"But where are you off to, 50
Olyenushka? Wait now--
I've still got some cakes.
You're like a black flea, girl,
You eat all you want to
And hop away quickly
Before one can stroke you!"
"It's all very fine talk,
This Tsar's precious Charter,
It's not writ for us!"
"Give way there, you people!" 60
The exciseman dashes
Amongst them, his brass plate
Attached to his coat-front,
And bells all a-jangle.
"God save us, Parasha,
Don't go to St. Petersburg!
_I_ know the gentry:
By day you're a maid,
And by night you're a mistress.
You spit at it, love...." 70
"Now, where are you running?"
The pope bellows loudly
To busy Pavloosha,
The village policeman.
"An accident's happened
Down here, and a man's killed."
"God pardon our sins!"
"How thin you've got, Dashka!"
"The spinning-wheel fattens
By turning forever; 80
I work just as hard,
But I never get fatter."
"Heh, you, silly fellow,
Come hither and love me!
The dirty, dishevelled,
And tipsy old woman.
The f--i--ilthy o--l--d woman!"
Our peasants, observing,
Are still walking onwards.
They see just before them 90
A meek little fellow
Most busily digging
A hole in the road.
"Now, what are you doing?"
"A grave I am digging
To bury my mother!"
"You fool!--Where's your mother?
Your new coat you've buried!
Roll into the ditch,
Dip your snout in the water. 100
'Twill cool you, perhaps."
"Let's see who'll pull hardest!"
Two peasants are squatting,
And, feet to feet pressing,
Are straining and groaning,
And tugging away
At a stick held between them.
This soon fails to please them:
"Let's try with our beards!"
And each man then clutches 110
The jaw of the other,
And tugs at his beard!
Red, panting, and writhing,
And gasping and yelping,
But pulling and pulling!
"Enough there, you madmen!"...
Cold water won't part them!
And in the ditch near them
Two women are squabbling;
One cries, "To go home now 120
Were worse than to prison!"
The other, "You braggart!
In my house, I tell you,
It's worse than in yours.
One son-in-law punched me
And left a rib broken;
The second made off
With my big ball of cotton;
The cotton don't matter,
But in it was hidden 130
My rouble in silver.
The youngest--he always
Is up with his knife out.
He'll kill me for sure!"
"Enough, enough, darling!
Now don't you be angry!"
Is heard not far distant
From over a hillock--
"Come on, I'm all right!"
A mischievous night, this; 140
On right hand, on left hand,
Wherever the eye falls,
Are sauntering couples.
The wood seems to please them;
They all stroll towards it,
The wood--which is thrilling
With nightingales' voices.
And later, the high-road
Gets more and more ugly,
And more and more often 150
The people are falling,
Are staggering, crawling,
Or lying like corpses.
As always it happens
On feast days in Russia--
No word can be uttered
Without a great oath.
And near to the tavern
Is quite a commotion;
Some wheels get entangled 160
And terrified horses
Rush off without drivers.
Here children are crying,
And sad wives and mothers
Are anxiously waiting;
And is the task easy
Of getting the peasant
Away from his drink?
Just near to the sign-post
A voice that's familiar 170
Is heard by the peasants;
They see there the Barin
(The same that helped Vavil,
And bought him the boots
To take home to his grandchild).
He chats with the men.
The peasants all open
Their hearts to the Barin;
If some song should please him
They'll sing it through five times; 180
"Just write the song down, sir!"
If some saying strike him;
"Take note of the words!"
And when he has written
Enough, he says quietly,
"The peasants are clever,
But one thing is bad:
They drink till they're helpless
And lie about tipsy,
It's painful to see." 190
They listen in silence.
The Barin commences
To write something down
In the little black note-book
When, all of a sudden,
A small, tipsy peasant,
Who up to that moment
Has lain on his stomach
And gazed at the speaker,
Springs up straight before him 200
And snatches his pencil
Right out of his hand:
"Wait, wait!" cries the fellow,
"Stop writing your stories,
Dishonest and heartless,
About the poor peasant.
Say, what's your complaint?
That sometimes the heart
Of the peasant rejoices?
At times we drink hard, 210
But we work ten times harder;
Among us are drunkards,
But many more sober.
Go, take through a village
A pailful of vodka;
Go into the huts--
In one, in another,
They'll swallow it gladly.
But go to a third
And you'll find they won't touch it!
One family drinks, 221
While another drinks nothing,
Drinks nothing--and suffers
As much as the drunkards:
They, wisely or foolishly,
Follow their conscience;
And see how misfortune,
The peasants' misfortune,
Will swallow that household
Hard-working and sober! 230
Pray, have you seen ever
The time of the harvest
In some Russian village?
Well, where were the people?
At work in the tavern?
Our fields may be broad,
But they don't give too freely.
Who robes them in spring-time,
And strips them in autumn?
You've met with a peasant 240
At nightfall, perchance,
When the work has been finished?
He's piled up great mountains
Of corn in the meadows,
He'll sup off a pea!
Hey, you mighty monster!
You builder of mountains,
I'll knock you flat down
With the stroke of a feather!
"Sweet food is the peasant's! 250
But stomachs aren't mirrors,
And so we don't whimper
To see what we've eaten.
"We work single-handed,
But when we have finished
Three partners[20] are waiting
To share in the profits;
A fourth[21] one there is, too,
Who eats like a Tartar--
Leaves nothing behind. 260
The other day, only,
A mean little fellow
Like you, came from Moscow
And clung to our backs.
'Oh, please sing him folk-songs'
And 'tell him some proverbs,'
'Some riddles and rhymes.'
And then came another
To put us his questions:
How much do we work for? 270
How much and how little
We stuff in our bellies?
To count all the people
That live in the village
Upon his five fingers.
He did not _ask how much
The fire feeds the wind with
Of peasants' hard work_.
Our drunkenness, maybe,
Can never be measured, 280
But look at our labour--
Can that then be measured?
Our cares or our woes?
"The vodka prostrates us;
But does not our labour,
Our trouble, prostrate us?
The peasant won't grumble
At each of his burdens,
He'll set out to meet it,
And struggle to bear it; 290
The peasant does not flinch
At life-wasting labour,
And tremble for fear
That his health may be injured.
Then why should he number
Each cupful of vodka
For fear that an odd one
May topple him over?
You say that it's painful
To see him lie tipsy?-- 300
Then go to the bog;
You'll see how the peasant
Is squeezing the corn out,
Is wading and crawling
Where no horse or rider,
No man, though unloaded,
Would venture to tread.
You'll see how the army
Of profligate peasants
Is toiling in danger, 310
Is springing from one clod
Of earth to another,
Is pushing through bog-slime
With backs nearly breaking!
The sun's beating down
On the peasants' bare heads,
They are sweating and covered
With mud to the eyebrows,
Their limbs torn and bleeding
By sharp, prickly bog-grass! 320
"Does this picture please you?
You say that you suffer;
At least suffer wisely.
Don't use for a peasant
A gentleman's judgement;
We are not white-handed
And tender-skinned creatures,
But men rough and lusty
In work and in play.
"The heart of each peasant 330
Is black as a storm-cloud,
Its thunder should peal
And its blood rain in torrents;
But all ends in drink--
For after one cupful
The soul of the peasant
Is kindly and smiling;
But don't let that hurt you!
Look round and be joyful!
Hey, fellows! Hey, maidens! 340
You know how to foot it!
Their bones may be aching,
Their limbs have grown weary,
But youth's joy and daring
Is not quite extinguished,
It lives in them yet!"
The peasant is standing
On top of a hillock,
And stamping his feet,
And after being silent 350
A moment, and gazing
With glee at the masses
Of holiday people,
He roars to them hoarsely.
"Hey you, peasant kingdom!
You, hatless and drunken!
More racket! More noise!"
"Come, what's your name, uncle?"
"To write in the note-book?
Why not? Write it down: 360
'In Barefoot the village
Lives old Jacob Naked,
He'll work till he's taken,
He drinks till he's crazed.'"
The peasants are laughing,
And telling the Barin
The old fellow's story:
How shabby old Jacob
Had lived once in Peter,[22]
And got into prison 370
Because he bethought him
To get him to law
With a very rich merchant;
How after the prison
He'd come back amongst them
All stripped, like a linden,
And taken to ploughing.
For thirty years since
On his narrow allotment
He'd worked in all weathers, 380
The harrow his shelter
From sunshine and storm.
He lived with the sokha,[23]
And when God would take him
He'd drop from beneath it
Just like a black clod.
An accident happened
One year to old Jacob:
He bought some small pictures
To hang in the cottage 390
For his little son;
The old man himself, too,
Was fond of the pictures.
God's curse had then fallen;
The village was burnt,
And the old fellow's money,
The fruit of a life-time
(Some thirty-five roubles),[24]
Was lost in the flames.
He ought to have saved it, 400
But, to his misfortune,
He thought of the pictures
And seized them instead.
His wife in the meantime
Was saving the icons.[25]
And so, when the cottage
Fell in, all the roubles
Were melted together
In one lump of silver.
Old Jacob was offered 410
Eleven such roubles
For that silver lump.
"O old brother Jacob,
You paid for them dearly,
The little chap's pictures!
I warrant you've hung them
Again in the new hut."
"I've hung them--and more,"
He replied, and was silent.
The Barin was looking, 420
Examining Jacob,
The toiler, the earth-worm,
His chest thin and meagre,
His stomach as shrunk
As though something had crushed it,
His eyes and mouth circled
By numberless wrinkles,
Like drought-shrivelled earth.
And he altogether
Resembled the earth, 430
Thought the Barin, while noting
His throat, like a dry lump
Of clay, brown and hardened;
His brick-coloured face;
His hands--black and horny,
Like bark on the tree-trunk;
His hair--stiff and sandy....
The peasants, remarking
That old Jacob's speech
Had not angered the Barin, 440
Themselves took his words up:
"Yes, yes, he speaks truly,
We must drink, it saves us,
It makes us feel strong.
Why, if we did not drink
Black gloom would engulf us.
If work does not kill us
Or trouble destroy us,
We shan't die from drink!"
"That's so. Is it not, sir?" 450
"Yes, God will protect us!"
"Come, drink with us, Barin!"
They go to buy vodka
And drink it together.
To Jacob the Barin
Has offered two cups.
"Ah, Barin," says Jacob,
"I see you're not angry.
A wise little head, yours,
And how could a wise head 460
Judge falsely of peasants?
Why, only the pig
Glues his nose to the garbage
And never sees Heaven!"
Then suddenly singing
Is heard in a chorus
Harmonious and bold.
A row of young fellows,
Half drunk, but not falling,
Come staggering onwards, 470
All lustily singing;
They sing of the Volga,
The daring of youths
And the beauty of maidens ...
A hush falls all over
The road, and it listens;
And only the singing
Is heard, broadly rolling
In waves, sweet and tuneful,
Like wind-ruffled corn. 480
The hearts of the peasants
Are touched with wild anguish,
And one little woman
Grows pensive and mournful,
And then begins weeping
And sobs forth her grief:
"My life is like day-time
With no sun to warm it!
My life is like night
With no glimmer of moon! 490
And I--the young woman--
Am like the swift steed
On the curb, like the swallow
With wings crushed and broken;
My jealous old husband
Is drunken and snoring,
But even while snoring
He keeps one eye open,
And watches me always,
Me--poor little wife!" 500
And so she lamented,
The sad little woman;
Then all of a sudden
Springs down from the waggon!
"Where now?" cries her husband,
The jealous old man.
And just as one lifts
By the tail a plump radish,
He clutches her pig-tail,
And pulls her towards him. 510
O night wild and drunken,
Not bright--and yet star-lit,
Not hot--but fanned softly
By tender spring breezes,
You've not left our peasants
Untouched by your sweetness;
They're thinking and longing
For their little women.
And they are quite right too;
Still sweeter 'twould be 520
With a nice little wife!
Cries Ivan, "I love you,"
And Mariushka, "I you!"
Cries Ivan, "Press closer!"
And Mariushka, "Kiss me!"
Cries Ivan, "The night's cold,"
And Mariushka, "Warm me!"
They think of this song now,
And all make their minds up
To shorten the journey. 530
A birch-tree is growing
Alone by the roadside,
God knows why so lonely!
And under it spreading
The magic white napkin,
The peasants sit round it:
"Hey! Napkin enchanted!
Give food to the peasants!"
Two hands have come floating
From no one sees where, 540
Place a bucket of vodka,
A large pile of bread,
On the magic white napkin,
And dwindle away.
The peasants feel strengthened,
And leaving Roman there
On guard near the vodka,
They mix with the people,
To try to discover
The one who is happy. 550
They're all in a hurry
To turn towards home.
CHAPTER IV
THE HAPPY ONES
In crowds gay and noisy
Our peasants are mixing,
Proclaiming their mission:
"Let any man here
Who esteems himself happy
Stand forth! If he prove it
A pailful of vodka
Is at his disposal;
As much as he wishes
So much he shall have!" 10
This fabulous promise
Sets sober folk smiling;
The tipsy and wise ones
Are ready to spit
In the beards of the pushing
Impertinent strangers!
But many are willing
To drink without payment,
And so when our peasants
Go back to the birch-tree 20
A crowd presses round them.
The first to come forward,
A lean discharged deacon,
With legs like two matches,
Lets forth a great mouthful
Of indistinct maxims:
That happiness lies not
In broad lands, in jewels,
In gold, and in sables--
"In what, then?" 30
A peaceful
And undisturbed conscience.
That all the dominions
Of land-owners, nobles,
And Tsars are but earthly
And limited treasures;
But he who is godly
Has part in Christ's kingdom
Of boundless extent:
"When warm in the sun, 40
With a cupful of vodka,
I'm perfectly happy,
I ask nothing more!"
"And who'll give you vodka?"
"Why, you! You have promised."
"Be off, you lean scamp!"
A one-eyed old woman
Comes next, bent and pock-marked,
And bowing before them
She says she is happy; 50
That in her allotment
A thousand fine turnips
Have grown, this last autumn.
"Such turnips, I tell you!
Such monsters! and tasty!
In such a small plot, too,
In length only one yard,
And three yards in width!"
They laugh at the woman,
But give her no vodka; 60
"Go, get you home, Mother!
You've vodka enough there
To flavour the turnips!"
A soldier with medals,
Quite drunk but still thirsty,
Says firmly, "I'm happy!"
"Then tell us, old fellow,
In what he is happy--
The soldier? Take care, though,
To keep nothing back!" 70
"Well, firstly, I've been
Through at least twenty battles,
And yet I'm alive.
And, secondly, mark you
(It's far more important),
In times of peace, too,
Though I'm always half-famished,
Death never has conquered!
And, third, though they flogged me
For every offence, 80
Great or small, I've survived it!"
"Here, drink, little soldier!
With you one can't argue;
You're happy indeed!"
Then comes a young mason,
A huge, weighty hammer
Swung over his shoulder:
"I live in content,"
He declares, "with my wife
And beloved old mother; 90
We've nought to complain of."
"In what are you happy?"
"In this!"--like a feather
He swings the great hammer.
"Beginning at sunrise
And setting my back straight
As midnight draws near,
I can shatter a mountain!
Before now, it's happened
That, working one day, 100
I've piled enough stones up
To earn my five roubles!"
Pakhom tries to lift it--
The "happiness." After
Prodigiously straining
And cracking all over,
He sets it down, gladly,
And pours out some vodka.
"Well, weighty it is, man!
But will you be able 110
To bear in old age
Such a 'happiness,' think you?"
"Don't boast of your strength!"
Gasped a wheezing old peasant,
Half stifled with asthma.
(His nose pinched and shrivelled
Like that of a dead man,
His eyes bright and sunken,
His hands like a rake--
Stiffened, scraggy, and bony, 120
His legs long and narrow
Like spokes of a wheel,
A human mosquito.)
"I was not a worse man
Than he, the young mason,
And boasted of my strength.
God punished me for it!
The manager knew
I was simple--the villain!
He flattered and praised me. 130
I was but a youngster,
And pleased at his notice
I laboured like four men.
One day I had mounted
Some bricks to my shoulder,
When, just then, the devil
Must bring him in sight.
"'What's that!' he said laughing,
'Tis surely not Trifon
With such a light burden? 140
Ho, does it not shame
Such a strapping young fellow?'
'Then put some more bricks on,
I'll carry them, master,'
Said I, sore offended.
For full half an hour
I stood while he piled them,
He piled them--the dog!
I felt my back breaking,
But would not give way, 150
And that devilish burden
I carried right up
To the high second story!
He stood and looked on,
He himself was astounded,
And cried from beneath me:
'Well done, my brave fellow!
You don't know yourself, man,
What you have been doing!
It's forty stone, Trifon, 160
You've carried up there!'
"I did know; my heart
Struck my breast like a hammer,
The blood stood in circles
Round both of my eyeballs;
My back felt disjointed,
My legs weak and trembling ...
'Twas then that I withered.
Come, treat me, my friends!"
"But why should we treat you?
In what are you happy? 171
In what you have told us?"
"No, listen--that's coming,
It's this: I have also,
Like each of us peasants,
Besought God to let me
Return to the village
To die. And when coming
From Petersburg, after
The illness I suffered 180
Through what I have told you,
Exhausted and weakened,
Half-dazed, half-unconscious,
I got to the station.
And all in the carriage
Were workmen, as I was,
And ill of the fever;
And all yearned for one thing:
To reach their own homes
Before death overcame them. 190
'Twas then I was lucky;
The heat then was stifling,
And so many sick heads
Made Hell of the waggon.
Here one man was groaning,
There, rolling all over
The floor, like a lunatic,
Shouting and raving
Of wife or of mother.
And many such fellows 200
Were put out and left
At the stations we came to.
I looked at them, thinking,
Shall I be left too?
I was burning and shaking,
The blood began starting
All over my eyeballs,
And I, in my fever,
Half-waking, was dreaming
Of cutting of cocks' throats 210
(We once were cock-farmers,
And one year it happened
We fattened a thousand).
They came to my thoughts, now,
The damnable creatures,
I tried to start praying,
But no!--it was useless.
And, would you believe me?
I saw the whole party
In that hellish waggon 220
Come quivering round me,
Their throats cut, and spurting
With blood, and still crowing,
And I, with the knife, shrieked:
'Enough of your noise!'
And yet, by God's mercy,
Made no sound at all.
I sat there and struggled
To keep myself silent.
At last the day ended, 230
And with it the journey,
And God had had pity
Upon His poor orphan;
I crawled to the village.
And now, by His mercy,
I'm better again."
"Is that what you boast of--
Your happiness, peasant?"
Exclaims an old lackey
With legs weak and gouty. 240
"Treat me, little brothers,
I'm happy, God sees it!
For I was the chief serf
Of Prince Peremeteff,
A rich prince, and mighty,
My wife, the most favoured
By him, of the women;
My daughter, together
With his, the young lady,
Was taught foreign languages, 250
French and some others;
And she was permitted
To sit, and not stand,
In her mistress's presence.
Good Lord! How it bites!"
(He stoops down to rub it,
The gouty right knee-cap.)
The peasants laugh loudly!
"What laugh you at, stupids?"
He cries, getting angry, 260
"I'm ill, I thank God,
And at waking and sleeping
I pray, 'Leave me ever
My honoured complaint, Lord!
For that makes me noble!'
I've none of your low things,
Your peasants' diseases,
My illness is lofty,
And only acquired
By the most elevated, 270
The first in the Empire;
I suffer, you villains,
From gout, gout its name is!
It's only brought on
By the drinking of claret,
Of Burgundy, champagne,
Hungarian syrup,
By thirty years' drinking!
For forty years, peasants,
I've stood up behind it-- 280
The chair of His Highness,
The Prince Peremeteff,
And swallowed the leavings
In plates and in glasses,
The finest French truffles,
The dregs of the liquors.
Come, treat me, you peasants!"
"Excuse us, your Lordship,
Our wine is but simple,
The drink of the peasants! 290
It wouldn't suit you!"
A bent, yellow-haired man
Steals up to the peasants,
A man from White Russia.
He yearns for the vodka.
"Oh, give me a taste!"
He implores, "I am happy!"
"But wait! You must tell us
In what you are happy."
"In bread I am happy; 300
At home, in White Russia,
The bread is of barley,
All gritty and weedy.
At times, I can tell you,
I've howled out aloud,
Like a woman in labour,
With pains in my stomach!
But now, by God's mercy,
I work for Gubonine,
And there they give rye-bread, 310
I'm happy in that."
A dark-looking peasant,
With jaw turned and twisted,
Which makes him look sideways,
Says next, "I am happy.
A bear-hunter I am,
And six of my comrades
Were killed by old Mishka;[26]
On me God has mercy."
"Look round to the left side." 320
He tries to, but cannot,
For all his grimaces!
"A bear knocked my jaw round,
A savage young female."
"Go, look for another,
And give her the left cheek,
She'll soon put it straight!"
They laugh, but, however,
They give him some vodka.
Some ragged old beggars 330
Come up to the peasants,
Drawn near by the smell
Of the froth on the vodka;
They say they are happy.
"Why, right on his threshold
The shopman will meet us!
We go to a house-door,
From there they conduct us
Right back to the gate!
When we begin singing 340
The housewife runs quickly
And brings to the window
A loaf and a knife.
And then we sing loudly,
'Oh, give us the whole loaf,
It cannot be cut
And it cannot be crumbled,
For you it is quicker,
For us it is better!'"
The peasants observe 350
That their vodka is wasted,
The pail's nearly empty.
They say to the people,
"Enough of your chatter,
You, shabby and ragged,
You, humpbacked and corny,
Go, get you all home!"
"In your place, good strangers,"
The peasant, Fedocy,
From "Swallow-Smoke" village, 360
Said, sitting beside them,
"I'd ask Ermil Girin.
If he will not suit you,
If he is not happy,
Then no one can help you."
"But who is this Ermil,
A noble--a prince?"
"No prince--not a noble,
But simply a peasant."
"Well, tell us about him." 370
"I'll tell you; he rented
The mill of an orphan,
Until the Court settled
To sell it at auction.
Then Ermil, with others,
Went into the sale-room.
The small buyers quickly
Dropped out of the bidding;
Till Ermil alone,
With a merchant, Alternikoff, 380
Kept up the fight.
The merchant outbid him,
Each time by a farthing,
Till Ermil grew angry
And added five roubles;
The merchant a farthing
And Ermil a rouble.
The merchant gave in then,
When suddenly something
Unlooked for occurred: 390
The sellers demanded
A third of the money
Paid down on the spot;
'Twas one thousand roubles,
And Ermil had not brought
So much money with him;
'Twas either his error,
Or else they deceived him.
The merchant said gaily,
'The mill comes to me, then?' 400
'Not so,' replied Ermil;
He went to the sellers;
'Good sirs, will you wait
Thirty minutes?' he asked.
"'But how will that help you?'
'I'll bring you the money.'
"'But where will you find it?
You're out of your senses!
It's thirty-five versts
To the mill; in an hour now 410
The sales will be finished.'
"'You'll wait half an hour, sirs?'
'An hour, if you wish.'
Then Ermil departed,
The sellers exchanging
Sly looks with the merchant,
And grinning--the foxes!
But Ermil went out
And made haste to the market-place
Crowded with people 420
('Twas market-day, then),
And he mounted a waggon,
And there he stood crossing
Himself, and low bowing
In all four directions.
He cried to the people,
'Be silent a moment,
I've something to ask you!'
The place became still
And he told them the story: 430
"'Since long has the merchant
Been wooing the mill,
But I'm not such a dullard.
Five times have I been here
To ask if there would be
A second day's bidding,
They answered, 'There will.'
You know that the peasant
Won't carry his money
All over the by-ways 440
Without a good reason,
So I have none with me;
And look--now they tell me
There's no second bidding
And ask for the money!
The cunning ones tricked me
And laughed--the base heathens!
And said to me sneering:
'But, what can you do
In an hour? Where find money?' 450
"'They're crafty and strong,
But the people are stronger!
The merchant is rich--
But the people are richer!
Hey! What is his worth
To their treasury, think you?
Like fish in the ocean
The wealth of the people;
You'll draw it and draw it--
But not see its end! 460
Now, brother, God hears me,
Come, give me this money!
Next Friday I'll pay you
The very last farthing.
It's not that I care
For the mill--it's the insult!
Whoever knows Ermil,
Whoever believes him,
Will give what he can.'
"A miracle happened; 470
The coat of each peasant
Flew up on the left
As though blown by a wind!
The peasants are bringing
Their money to Ermil,
Each gives what he can.
Though Ermil's well lettered
He writes nothing down;
It's well he can count it
So great is his hurry. 480
They gather his hat full
Of all kinds of money,
From farthings to bank-notes,
The notes of the peasant
All crumpled and torn.
He has the whole sum now,
But still the good people
Are bringing him more.
"'Here, take this, too, Ermil,
You'll pay it back later!' 490
"He bows to the people
In all four directions,
Gets down from the waggon,
And pressing the hat
Full of money against him,
Runs back to the sale-room
As fast as he can.
"The sellers are speechless
And stare in amazement,
The merchant turns green 500
As the money is counted
And laid on the table.
"The sellers come round him
All craftily praising
His excellent bargain.
But Ermil sees through them;
He gives not a farthing,
He speaks not a word.
"The whole town assembles
At market next Friday, 510
When Ermil is paying
His debt to the people.
How can he remember
To whom he must pay it?
No murmur arises,
No sound of discussion,
As each man tells quietly
The sum to be paid him.
"And Ermil himself said,
That when it was finished 520
A rouble was lying
With no one to claim it;
And though till the evening
He went, with purse open,
Demanding the owner,
It still was unclaimed.
The sun was just setting
When Ermil, the last one
To go from the market,
Assembled the beggars 530
And gave them the rouble." ...
"'Tis strange!" say the peasants,
"By what kind of magic
Can one single peasant
Gain such a dominion
All over the country?"
"No magic he uses
Save truthfulness, brothers!
But say, have you ever
Heard tell of Prince Yurloff's 540
Estate, Adovshina?"
"We have. What about it?"
"The manager there
Was a Colonel, with stars,
Of the Corps of Gendarmes.
He had six or seven
Assistants beneath him,
And Ermil was chosen
As principal clerk.
He was but a boy, then, 550
Of nineteen or twenty;
And though 'tis no fine post,
The clerk's--to the peasants
The clerk is a great man;
To him they will go
For advice and with questions.
Though Ermil had power to,
He asked nothing from them;
And if they should offer
He never accepted. 560
(He bears a poor conscience,
The peasant who covets
The mite of his brother!)
Well, five years went by,
And they trusted in Ermil,
When all of a sudden
The master dismissed him
For sake of another.
And sadly they felt it.
The new clerk was grasping; 570
He moved not a finger
Unless it was paid for;
A letter--three farthings!
A question--five farthings!
Well, he was a pope's son
And God placed him rightly!
But still, by God's mercy,
He did not stay long:
"The old Prince soon died,
And the young Prince was master. 580
He came and dismissed them--
The manager-colonel,
The clerk and assistants,
And summoned the peasants
To choose them an Elder.
They weren't long about it!
And eight thousand voices
Cried out, 'Ermil Girin!'
As though they were one.
Then Ermil was sent for 590
To speak with the Barin,
And after some minutes
The Barin came out
On the balcony, standing
In face of the people;
He cried, 'Well, my brothers,
Your choice is elected
With my princely sanction!
But answer me this:
Don't you think he's too youthful?' 600
"'No, no, little Father!
He's young, but he's wise!'
"So Ermil was Elder,
For seven years ruled
In the Prince's dominion.
Not once in that time
Did a coin of the peasants
Come under his nail,
Did the innocent suffer,
The guilty escape him, 610
He followed his conscience."
"But stop!" exclaimed hoarsely
A shrivelled grey pope,
Interrupting the speaker,
"The harrow went smoothly
Enough, till it happened
To strike on a stone,
Then it swerved of a sudden.
In telling a story
Don't leave an odd word out 620
And alter the rhythm!
Now, if you knew Ermil
You knew his young brother,
Knew Mityenka, did you?"
The speaker considered,
Then said, "I'd forgotten,
I'll tell you about it:
It happened that once
Even Ermil the peasant
Did wrong: his young brother, 630
Unjustly exempted
From serving his time,
On the day of recruiting;
And we were all silent,
And how could we argue
When even the Barin
Himself would not order
The Elder's own brother
To unwilling service?
And only one woman, 640
Old Vlasevna, shedding
Wild tears for her son,
Went bewailing and screaming:
'It wasn't our turn!'
Well, of course she'd be certain
To scream for a time,
Then leave off and be silent.
But what happened then?
The recruiting was finished,
But Ermil had changed; 650
He was mournful and gloomy;
He ate not, he drank not,
Till one day his father
Went into the stable
And found him there holding
A rope in his hands.
Then at last he unbosomed
His heart to his father:
'Since Vlasevna's son
Has been sent to the service, 660
I'm weary of living,
I wish but to die!'
His brothers came also,
And they with the father
Besought him to hear them,
To listen to reason.
But he only answered:
'A villain I am,
And a criminal; bind me,
And bring me to justice!' 670
And they, fearing worse things,
Obeyed him and bound him.
The commune assembled,
Exclaiming and shouting;
They'd never been summoned
To witness or judge
Such peculiar proceedings.
"And Ermil's relations
Did not beg for mercy
And lenient treatment, 680
But rather for firmness:
'Bring Vlasevna's son back
Or Ermil will hang himself,
Nothing will save him!'
And then appeared Ermil
Himself, pale and bare-foot,
With ropes bound and handcuffed,
And bowing his head
He spoke low to the people:
'The time was when I was 690
Your judge; and I judged you,
In all things obeying
My conscience. But I now
Am guiltier far
Than were you. Be my judges!'
He bowed to our feet,
The demented one, sighing,
Then stood up and crossed himself,
Trembling all over;
It pained us to witness 700
How he, of a sudden,
Fell down on his knees there
At Vlasevna's feet.
Well, all was put right soon,
The nobles have fingers
In every small corner,
The lad was brought back
And young Mityenka started;
They say that his service
Did not weigh too heavy, 710
The prince saw to that.
And we, as a penance,
Imposed upon Ermil
A fine, and to Vlasevna
One part was given,
To Mitya another,
The rest to the village
For vodka. However,
Not quickly did Ermil
Get over his sorrow: 720
He went like a lost one
For full a year after,
And--though the whole district
Implored him to keep it--
He left his position.
He rented the mill, then,
And more than of old
Was beloved by the people.
He took for his grinding
No more than was honest, 730
His customers never
Kept waiting a moment,
And all men alike:
The rich landlord, the workman.
The master and servant,
The poorest of peasants
Were served as their turn came;
Strict order he kept.
Myself, I have not been
Since long in that district, 740
But often the people
Have told me about him.
And never could praise him
Enough. So in your place
I'd go and ask Ermil."
"Your time would be wasted,"
The grey-headed pope,
Who'd before interrupted,
Remarked to the peasants,
"I knew Ermil Girin, 750
I chanced in that district
Some five years ago.
I have often been shifted,
Our bishop loved vastly
To keep us all moving,
So I was his neighbour.
Yes, he was a peasant
Unique, I bear witness,
And all things he owned
That can make a man happy: 760
Peace, riches, and honour,
And that kind of honour
Most valued and precious,
Which cannot be purchased
By might or by money,
But only by righteousness,
Wisdom and kindness.
But still, I repeat it,
Your time will be wasted
In going to Ermil: 770
In prison he lies."
"How's that?"
"God so willed it.
You've heard how the peasants
Of 'Log' the Pomyeshchick
Of Province 'Affrighted,'
Of District 'Scarce-Breathing,'
Of village 'Dumbfounded,'
Revolted 'for causes
Entirely unknown,' 780
As they say in the papers.
(I once used to read them.)
And so, too, in this case,
The local Ispravnik,[27]
The Tsar's high officials,
And even the peasants,
'Dumbfounded' themselves.
Never fathomed the reason
Of all the disturbance.
But things became bad, 790
And the soldiers were sent for,
The Tsar packed a messenger
Off in a hurry
To speak to the people.
His epaulettes rose
To his ears as he coaxed them
And cursed them together.
But curses they're used to,
And coaxing was lost,
For they don't understand it: 800
'Brave orthodox peasants!'
'The Tsar--Little Father!'
'Our dear Mother Russia!'
He bellowed and shouted
Until he was hoarse,
While the peasants stood round him
And listened in wonder.
"But when he was tired
Of these peaceable measures
Of calming the riots, 810
At length he decided
On giving the order
Of 'Fire' to the soldiers;
When all of a sudden
A bright thought occurred
To the clerk of the Volost:[28]
'The people trust Girin,
The people will hear him!'
"'Then let him be brought!'" [29]
A cry has arisen 820
"Have mercy! Have mercy!"
A check to the story;
They hurry off quickly
To see what has happened;
And there on a bank
Of a ditch near the roadside,
Some peasants are birching
A drunken old lackey,
Just taken in thieving.
A court had been summoned, 830
The judges deciding
To birch the offender,
That each of the jury
(About three and twenty)
Should give him a stroke
Turn in turn of the rod....
The lackey was up
And made off, in a twinkling,
He took to his heels
Without stopping to argue, 840
On two scraggy legs.
"How he trips it--the dandy!"
The peasants cry, laughing;
They've soon recognized him;
The boaster who prated
So much of his illness
From drinking strange liquors.
"Ho! where has it gone to,
Your noble complaint?
Look how nimble he's getting!" 850
"Well, well, Little Father,
Now finish the story!"
"It's time to go home now,
My children,--God willing,
We'll meet again some day
And finish it then...."
The people disperse
As the dawn is approaching.
Our peasants begin
To bethink them of sleeping, 860
When all of a sudden
A "troika" [30] comes flying
From no one sees where,
With its silver bells ringing.
Within it is sitting
A plump little Barin,
His little mouth smoking
A little cigar.
The peasants draw up
In a line on the roadway, 870
Thus barring the passage
In front of the horses;
And, standing bareheaded,
Bow low to the Barin.
CHAPTER V
THE POMYESHCHICK
The "troika" is drawing
The local Pomyeshchick--
Gavril Afanasich
Obolt-Oboldooeff.
A portly Pomyeshchick,
With long grey moustaches,
Some sixty years old.
His bearing is stately,
His cheeks very rosy,
He wears a short top-coat, 10
Tight-fitting and braided,
Hungarian fashion;
And very wide trousers.
Gavril Afanasich
Was probably startled
At seeing the peasants
Unflinchingly barring
The way to his horses;
He promptly produces
A loaded revolver 20
As bulky and round
As himself; and directs it
Upon the intruders:
"You brigands! You cut-throats!
Don't move, or I shoot!"
"How can we be brigands?"
The peasants say, laughing,
"No knives and no pitchforks,
No hatchets have we!"
"Who are you? And what 30 Do you want?" said the Barin.
"A trouble torments us,
It draws us away
From our wives, from our children,
Away from our work,
Kills our appetites too,
Do give us your promise
To answer us truly,
Consulting your conscience
And searching your knowledge, 40
Not sneering, nor feigning
The question we put you,
And then we will tell you
The cause of our trouble."
"I promise. I give you
The oath of a noble."
"No, don't give us that--
Not the oath of a noble!
We're better content
With the word of a Christian. 50
The nobleman's oaths--
They are given with curses,
With kicks and with blows!
We are better without them!"
"Eh-heh, that's a new creed!
Well, let it be so, then.
And what is your trouble?"
"But put up the pistol!
That's right! Now we'll tell you:
We are not assassins, 60
But peaceable peasants,
From Government 'Hard-pressed,'
From District 'Most Wretched,'
From 'Destitute' Parish,
From neighbouring hamlets,--
'Patched,' 'Bare-Foot,' and 'Shabby,'
'Bleak,' 'Burnt-out,' and 'Hungry.'
From 'Harvestless,' too.
We met in the roadway,
And one asked another, 70
Who is he--the man
Free and happy in Russia?
Luka said, 'The pope,'
And Roman, 'The Pomyeshchick,'
Demyan, 'The official.'
'The round-bellied merchant,'
Said both brothers Goobin,
Mitrodor and Ivan;
Pakhom said, 'His Highness,
The Tsar's Chief Adviser,' 80
And Prov said, 'The Tsar.'
"Like bulls are the peasants;
Once folly is in them
You cannot dislodge it,
Although you should beat them
With stout wooden cudgels,
They stick to their folly,
And nothing can move them!
We argued and argued,
While arguing quarrelled, 90
While quarrelling fought,
Till at last we decided
That never again
Would we turn our steps homeward
To kiss wives and children,
To see the old people,
Until we have settled
The subject of discord;
Until we have found
The reply to our question-- 100
Of who can, in Russia,
Be happy and free?
"Now tell us, Pomyeshchick,
Is your life a sweet one?
And is the Pomyeshchick
Both happy and free?"
Gavril Afanasich
Springs out of the "troika"
And comes to the peasants.
He takes--like a doctor-- 110
The hand of each one,
And carefully feeling
The pulse gazes searchingly
Into their faces,
Then clasps his plump sides
And stands shaking with laughter.
The clear, hearty laugh
Of the healthy Pomyeshchick
Peals out in the pleasant
Cool air of the morning: 120
"Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!"
Till he stops from exhaustion.
And then he addresses
The wondering peasants:
"Put on your hats, gentlemen,
Please to be seated!"
(He speaks with a bitter[31]
And mocking politeness.)
"But we are not gentry;
We'd rather stand up 130
In your presence, your worship."
"Sit down, worthy citizens,
Here on the bank."
The peasants protest,
But, on seeing it useless,
Sit down on the bank.
"May I sit beside you?
Hey, Proshka! Some sherry,
My rug and a cushion!"
He sits on the rug. 140
Having finished the sherry,
Thus speaks the Pomyeshchick:
"I gave you my promise
To answer your question....
The task is not easy,
For though you are highly
Respectable people,
You're not very learned.
Well, firstly, I'll try
To explain you the meaning 150
Of Lord, or Pomyeshchick.
Have you, by some chance,
Ever heard the expression
The 'Family Tree'?
Do you know what it means?"
"The woods are not closed to us.
We have seen all kinds
Of trees," say the peasants.
"Your shot has miscarried!
I'll try to speak clearly; 160
I come of an ancient,
Illustrious family;
One, Oboldooeff,
My ancestor, is
Amongst those who were mentioned
In old Russian chronicles
Written for certain
Two hundred and fifty
Years back. It is written,
''Twas given the Tartar, 170
Obolt-Oboldooeff,
A piece of cloth, value
Two roubles, for having
Amused the Tsaritsa
Upon the Tsar's birthday
By fights of wild beasts,
Wolves and foxes. He also
Permitted his own bear
To fight with a wild one,
Which mauled Oboldooeff, 180
And hurt him severely.'
And now, gentle peasants,
Did you understand?"
"Why not? To this day
One can see them--the loafers
Who stroll about leading
A bear!"
"Be it so, then!
But now, please be silent,
And hark to what follows: 190
From this Oboldooeff
My family sprang;
And this incident happened
Two hundred and fifty
Years back, as I told you,
But still, on my mother's side,
Even more ancient
The family is:
Says another old writing:
'Prince Schepin, and one 200
Vaska Gooseff, attempted
To burn down the city
Of Moscow. They wanted
To plunder the Treasury.
They were beheaded.'
And this was, good peasants,
Full three hundred years back!
From these roots it was
That our Family Tree sprang."
"And you are the ... as one 210
Might say ... little apple
Which hangs on a branch
Of the tree," say the peasants.
"Well, apple, then, call it,
So long as it please you.
At least you appear
To have got at my meaning.
And now, you yourselves
Understand--the more ancient
A family is 220
The more noble its members.
Is that so, good peasants?"
"That's so," say the peasants.
"The black bone and white bone
Are different, and they must
Be differently honoured."
"Exactly. I see, friends,
You quite understand me."
The Barin continued:
"In past times we lived, 230
As they say, 'in the bosom
Of Christ,' and we knew
What it meant to be honoured!
Not only the people
Obeyed and revered us,
But even the earth
And the waters of Russia....
You knew what it was
To be One, in the centre
Of vast, spreading lands, 240
Like the sun in the heavens:
The clustering villages
Yours, yours the meadows,
And yours the black depths
Of the great virgin forests!
You pass through a village;
The people will meet you,
Will fall at your feet;
Or you stroll in the forest;
The mighty old trees 250
Bend their branches before you.
Through meadows you saunter;
The slim golden corn-stems
Rejoicing, will curtsey
With winning caresses,
Will hail you as Master.
The little fish sports
In the cool little river;
Get fat, little fish,
At the will of the Master! 260
The little hare speeds
Through the green little meadow;
Speed, speed, little hare,
Till the coming of autumn,
The season of hunting,
The sport of the Master.
And all things exist
But to gladden the Master.
Each wee blade of grass
Whispers lovingly to him, 270
'I live but for thee....'
"The joy and the beauty,
The pride of all Russia--
The Lord's holy churches--
Which brighten the hill-sides
And gleam like great jewels
On the slopes of the valleys,
Were rivalled by one thing
In glory, and that
Was the nobleman's manor. 280
Adjoining the manor
Were glass-houses sparkling,
And bright Chinese arbours,
While parks spread around it.
On each of the buildings
Gay banners displaying
Their radiant colours,
And beckoning softly,
Invited the guest
To partake of the pleasures 290
Of rich hospitality.
Never did Frenchmen
In dreams even picture
Such sumptuous revels
As we used to hold.
Not only for one-day,
Or two, did they last--
But for whole months together!
We fattened great turkeys,
We brewed our own liquors, 300
We kept our own actors,
And troupes of musicians,
And legions of servants!
Why, I kept five cooks,
Besides pastry-cooks, working,
Two blacksmiths, three carpenters,
Eighteen musicians,
And twenty-two huntsmen....
My God!"...
The afflicted 310
Pomyeshchick broke down here,
And hastened to bury
His face in the cushion....
"Hey, Proshka!" he cried,
And then quickly the lackey
Poured out and presented
A glassful of brandy.
The glass was soon empty,
And when the Pomyeshchick
Had rested awhile, 320
He again began speaking:
"Ah, then, Mother Russia,
How gladly in autumn
Your forests awoke
To the horn of the huntsman!
Their dark, gloomy depths,
Which had saddened and faded,
Were pierced by the clear
Ringing blast, and they listened,
Revived and rejoiced, 330
To the laugh of the echo.
The hounds and the huntsmen
Are gathered together,
And wait on the skirts
Of the forest; and with them
The Master; and farther
Within the deep forest
The dog-keepers, roaring
And shouting like madmen,
The hounds all a-bubble 340
Like fast-boiling water.
Hark! There's the horn calling!
You hear the pack yelling?
They're crowding together!
And where's the red beast?
Hoo-loo-loo! Hoo-loo-loo!
And the sly fox is ready;
Fat, furry old Reynard
Is flying before us,
His bushy tail waving! 350
The knowing hounds crouch,
And each lithe body quivers,
Suppressing the fire
That is blazing within it:
'Dear guests of our hearts,
Do come nearer and greet us,
We're panting to meet you,
We, hale little fellows!
Come nearer to us
And away from the bushes!' 360
"They're off! Now, my horse,
Let your swiftness not fail me!
My hounds, you are staunch
And you will not betray me!
Hoo-loo! Faster, faster!
Now, at him, my children!"...
Gavril Afanasich
Springs up, wildly shouting,
His arms waving madly,
He dances around them! 370
He's certainly after
A fox in the forest!
The peasants observe him
In silent enjoyment,
They smile in their beards....
"Eh ... you, mad, merry hunters!
Although he forgets
Many things--the Pomyeshchick--
Those hunts in the autumn
Will not be forgotten. 380
'Tis not for our own loss
We grieve, Mother Russia,
But you that we pity;
For you, with the hunting
Have lost the last traces
Of days bold and warlike
That made you majestic....
"At times, in the autumn,
A party of fifty
Would start on a hunting tour; 390
Then each Pomyeshchick
Brought with him a hundred
Fine dogs, and twelve keepers,
And cooks in abundance.
And after the cooks
Came a long line of waggons
Containing provisions.
And as we went forward
With music and singing,
You might have mistaken 400
Our band for a fine troop
Of cavalry, moving!
The time flew for us
Like a falcon." How lightly
The breast of the nobleman
Rose, while his spirit
Went back to the days
Of Old Russia, and greeted
The gallant Boyarin.[32] ...
"No whim was denied us. 410
To whom I desire
I show mercy and favour;
And whom I dislike
I strike dead on the spot.
The law is my wish,
And my fist is my hangman!
My blow makes the sparks crowd,
My blow smashes jaw-bones,
My blow scatters teeth!"...
Like a string that is broken, 420
The voice of the nobleman
Suddenly ceases;
He lowers his eyes
To the ground, darkly frowning ...
And then, in a low voice,
He says:
"You yourselves know
That strictness is needful;
Bu