Chapter XV: Epilogue

What year it was,--you figure out!
What land it was,--you guess yourself!
Upon a level country road
Were gathered seven muzhíks:
They all had masters whom they served
I’ the Government of Strained-too-hard,
The county called Enduring-much,
The district Fallowlandedness,
In villages hard by:
In Patchedupville and Raggedtown,
In Emptyville and Freezingtown,
In Burnedupville, and Hungerville,
And in Cropfailingthorpe;
They met and quarrelled straight away:
“Who lives in Russia happily
And to his heart’s content?”

Román declared--“The landowner,”
Demyán declared--“The bureaucrat,”
Luká declared--“The priest.”
“The merchant with his goodly paunch,”
The Gúbin brothers both declared,
Iván and Mitrodór.
But old Pakhóm looked gloomily
Upon the ground, and said at last:
“The gentleman of noble birth,
The minister of the Emperor,”
While Prov declared: “The Tsar.”----

Muzhíks are stubborn like the ox:
Let any nonsense fill their heads,
You cannot pound it out of them,
Each one sticks to his mind.
They started such a loud dispute
That all the passers-by averred
They must have found a treasure-trove,
The fuss is--to divide.

That forenoon each had left his house,
On business each had sallied out:
One to the blacksmith’s shop was bound,
One to the town Ivánkovo
To call the priest Prokópius,
His baby to baptise.
Pakhóm was taking honeycombs
To market in Velíkoë,
And both the brothers Gúbin had
With bridle started out to catch
The wild horse of the herd.
’T were better that they long ago
Had gone each one where business called,
Yet they together keep!
They walk as if there were grey wolves
Behind them, chasing after them,--
The farther, quicker still;
They walk, they brawl unceasingly;
They cry and do not come to sense,
But time waits not for them.
They quarrelled on, they did not see
The sun was red, was sinking fast,--
The evening had set in.
In faith, they would have walked all night,
They would have walked not knowing where,
If pockmarked old Durándikha
Had not addressed them, meeting them,
And spoken to them: “Gentlemen!
As night has come upon you, where
Do you intend to go?”----

The old witch asked, then laughed aloud;
She struck her gelding with a whip,
And galloped out of sight.

Where were they? As they gazed around,
They did not know themselves;
They stood, they paused, they drooped their heads,----
’T was night-time long ago,
The stars were twinkling way above
Upon the vaulted sky.
The moon swam out, the shadows dark
Stopped further headlong gait.
O shadows, shadows black and thick!
Who is there that you will not catch?
Of whom will you not get ahead?
And yet there ’s no one, shadows black,
Can seize you and embrace!

Into the wood and down the road
Pakhóm looked round him silently;
He looked, he pondered in his mind,
And then at last he said:

“The wood spirit has played on us
A pretty joke to-night!
Indeed we must have surely tramped
Some thirty versts[17] at least;
And, as for walking home again,--
We ’re tired, we should peter out.
Sit down--there ’s nothing to be done--
Let ’s rest till break of day!”----

Then blaming loud the wood spirit,
Beside the road, right in the wood,
The peasants sat them down.
They made a fire, each did his part,
And two of them for vódka[18] went,
The while the others to the wood
Repaired to make a drinking cup
Of bark stripped from the birch.
The vódka came in proper time;
There also somehow came some food,--
A feast for the muzhíks!
Three glasses each man had to drink;
They ate,--they quarrelled once again:
“Who lives in Russia happily
And to his heart’s content?”
Román cried out: “The landowner,”
Demyán cried out: “The bureaucrat,”
Luká cried out: “The priest”;
“The merchant with his goodly paunch,”--
The Gúbin brothers both cried out,
Iván and Mitrodór.
Pakhóm cried out: “His Excellence,
The gentleman of noble birth,
The minister of the Emperor,”
And Prov cried out: “The Tsar!”

Thus worse than ever brawled again
The quarrelsome muzhíks;
They cursed, they called each other names,
Till soon enough they came to blows,
And grabbed each other’s hair.
Look! as each one has grabbed the next,
Román is hitting at Pakhóm,
Demyán hits at Luká,
And both the brothers Gúbin hit
At Prov--while each one yells.

The far-resounding echo woke,
And rolling wandered on and on,
And louder cried from side to side,
As if to tease, to imitate,
The obstinate muzhíks.
“The Tsar!” it spoke to the right of them,
But to the left the answer came:
“The priest! The priest! The priest!”
Then all the wood was full of fright:
The very birds that flit about,
The very beasts, the swift-footed,
The very crawling, creeping things,--
’T was groan and roar and bawl.

The grey-haired rabbit, first of all,
From out the bush jumped suddenly
And looked around distractedly,--
He jumped and disappeared.
The youthful jackdaws perched aloft
Upon a birch-tree standing near
Set up a piteous squeak.
And in the neighbouring peewit’s home
The baby from its mother’s nest
Was scared and tumbled out.
The little peewit chirped and wept:
Where is her birdie gone?
The old and feeble cuckoo woke,
Awoke and sat there wondering
If she should cuckoo now;
Ten times, at least, she made a start,
But every time she lost the beat,
And had to start again----
You cuckoo, cuckoo, dear old bird!
As soon as wheat is in the ear
You ’ll choke yourself with wheaten ears,[19]
You ’ll cuckoo then no more.
Next, seven horncoots from all sides
Have gathered to enjoy the fight,--
They peer from seven trees:
These midnight ones are laughing loud;
Their large round eyes of yellow hue
Are burning just like fourteen lights
Of pure and virgin wax.
The raven, bird of common-sense,
Is here and sitting on a tree
Beside the burning fire;
He sits and to the devil prays
That they may somehow pound to death
At least one of the lot.
The cow, that with her bell had strayed
Away that evening from the herd,
Approached, attracted by the sound
Of human voices’ tones.
She slowly walked up to the fire,
She stared at the muzhíks.
She listened to their foolish talk,
And then began with all her might
To low, to low, to low.

The silly cow is lowing loud,
The youthful jackdaws squeak and pipe,
The seven muzhíks are boisterous,--
The echo seconds all.
The echo has but this desire:
To tease an honest man, to scare
A woman or a child.
No one has ever seen it yet,
But all have heard it more than once:
Without a body--yet it lives,
Without a tongue--it cries.

The owl, a Moscow princess once,[20]
Is flitting here from side to side;
She flies above the peasants’ heads,
Or with her wings sweeps o’er the ground
Or o’er the bush nearby.

The fox himself, of crafty mind,
With womanish curiosity
Crept close to the muzhíks.
He listened, listened carefully,
And went away at last convinced--
“The Deuce can’t make it out”;
The brawlers hardly knew themselves,--
They had forgotten by that time
The cause of all the row.

They hit each other lustily,
Came to their senses finally,--
Agreed to strike no more.
They drank some water from the pool,
They washed themselves, refreshed themselves,
And sleepiness set in.

--Transl. by L. Wiener, revised by A. C. Coolidge, in The Harvard
Monthly, January, 1898, and in The Anglo-Russian Literary
Society, No. 25.

[17] A verst is about three-fifths of a mile.

[18] The national liquor in Russia, consumed in large quantities.

[19] According to a popular superstition in Russia the cuckoo is
silent when the wheat is in the ear.

[20] A Russian legend.

THE UNMOWN STRIP

Late in the autumn, the rooks are diverted;
Bare is the forest, the field is deserted.

Only one strip which is lying unmown:
Sad are its musings in stillness alone.

“Truly,” each blade to the other is sighing,
“Weary are we of the autumn wind crying:

Weary of bowing to earth as we must,
Burying our grain-laden heads in the dust.

Scarce is it night, when the birds flocking near us
Halt on their passage to greedily tear us.

Hares tread us down, and the storm vents its hate.--
Where is our peasant? What more does he wait?

Were we, then, worse at our birth than all others?
Have we not sprouted and grown like our brothers?

No! We ’re not worse than the rest. Long in vain
In us hath germed and hath ripened the grain.

Was it for this he was ploughing and sowing,
That we should bend to the autumn gales blowing?”

Borne on the breeze the sad answer came back:
“It is the power your peasant doth lack.

He knew the why of his ploughing and sowing,
Started his work, but his strength all unknowing.

Ill fares the wight, he can drink not nor eat;
For his sick heart is the canker-worm’s seat.

And the strong arms that his plough used to guide him,
Dried to dead stalks, now like whips hang beside him.

Dim were his eyes, and his voice hollow rang;
Mournful indeed was the song that he sang

When with his hand at the plough ever present,
Wrapped in his thoughts, o’er the strip moved the peasant.”

--By A. C. Coolidge, in The Harvard Monthly, 1895.

A MOTHER’S TEARS

With each fresh victim in the strife,
When war’s dire terrors round us roll,
I pity neither friend, nor wife,
I pity not the heroic soul.

The wife will soon new comfort gain,
His friend the best of friends forget,
And scarce a single soul remain,
That, until death, remembers yet.

Amid the poor, prosaic round
Of things, which here so falsely show,
No tears are true, and sacred, found,
Save such as from a mother flow.

The sons, in battlefield who sleep,
Her tears to memory fond recall;
E’en like to willow-trees, which weep
O’er boughs, that ever earthward fall.

--From C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_.

Iván Sávich Nikítin. (1824-1861.)

Nikítin was born in Vorónezh, the birthplace of Koltsóv (see p. 176),
where his father was a chandler. At eight years of age he entered a
religious school, and later, in 1841, the Seminary in his native town.
He wrote his first poem while at school, but only in 1853 did he
succeed in having his verses printed in the Vorónezh Governmental
Gazette. These brought him in contact with the local cultured society
who encouraged him to write more. His first volume of collected poetry
was not favourably received by the literary circles of St. Petersburg,
who saw in Nikítin’s verses mere imitations of Koltsóv and Nekrásov;
his reputation has, however, risen since, and he is counted among the
better popular poets. Among his best verses are _The Ploughman_, _The
Plough_, _The Wife of the Driver_, _The Fist_, while such poems as
_The Morning_, _The Swallow’s Nest_, _A Winter Night in the Village_,
belong to the most popular of Russian songs.

W. R. S. Ralston, in Contemporary Review, vol. xxiii. (1874), has
translated _The Stubborn Father_, _Burlák_, _A Winter Night in the
Village_. In C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_ are translated _The
Yamshchik’s Wife_, _The Grandfather_, _The State of the Departed_,
_The Churchyard_. In The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 28, F. P.
Marchant translated _The Inheritance_, and in No. 30 Mrs. Rosa
Newmarch gives a part of _The Village Money-Lender_ and _The Gaffer_.

BURLÁK[21]

Ah, friends! You too have had your sorrows,--else
A song would never make you weep. Well now,
Just hear what I have gone through,--then you ’ll know
What sorrow really means.

My father died
When I was just nineteen, and I was left
An orphan, and at first alone,--but soon
A neighbour’s daughter won my heart; I pleased her,
And we were married,--happily did we live
Together. I could fancy she had brought me
Happiness with her--(Heaven be hers, poor thing!)
You can’t conceive how good a manager
She was,--she would n’t waste a single farthing.
In the long winter evenings, she would light
A firewood splinter, and then spin away
For hours,--not pausing till the cock would crow.
Then would she lay her down,--but with the dawn
She was up again,--would run to give their food
To the sheep and cows,--next light the fire,--and then
Betake her to the spinning-wheel again,
Or find some other indoor work to do.
When summer came, she helped to cut the rye
And carry it, nor ever weary. I would say,
“Is n’t it time to rest?”
“Oh, no!” she ’d cry,
“I ’m not a bit tired.”--
Every now and then
Perhaps I ’d buy her something as a present.
“You need n’t have done that, my bonny bird,”
She ’d say, “we love each other much too well
To care for presents--don’t go wasting money
On me.”--

My life with her was just as if
I ’d been in Paradise.
But no one knows
How calamity may fall upon him!
My wife lay down to rest within the grave,--
The world grows dark whene’er I think of it.

My only consolation was my child,--
I ’d only one,--a fair-skinned, dark-haired boy,
As like his mother as one drop to another;--
He had begun to spell a bit already,
And I to think, “My boy will be a man.”
But that was not God’s pleasure.--In the spring
He got some kind of sickness. We called in
Wise women, soothsayers, had magic drinks
For him to take. I promised I would give
A rouble for a candle,--to be burnt
Before the holy image in the church----
But God refused to listen to my prayer--
I had to lay my darling in the coffin,
And bear him to the graveyard.----

In those days,
Those dreary days, ’t was bitter for me, friends!
My heavy arms hung listlessly,--my neighbours
Gathered their harvest. All the fields around
Were blithe with song--But there I pined away
With heavy sorrow. When the day was done,
The heavy-laden carts would come from the field
And in a line drive creaking through the village.
But in my cottage I would sit alone
Trying to stem my tears.
The autumn passed.
I waited till the first snow fell.--Methought
I ’ll sell my rye, fit up a sledge, and go
And earn a living with it somewhere.
Suddenly
Woe upon woe! A murrain seized my cattle,--
Never until I die shall I forget
That fatal year.--
I managed to get through
The winter somehow. But I saw I ’d lost
My old position. In our village meetings,
This one would flout me, saying:--“Good! It seems
The barest beggar thinks he has the right
To meddle in the business of the Commune!”
That one would gird at me behind my back,
And cry:--“The lazy fellow! Such a one as he
Will never gain his bread. In my opinion,
If one ’s a man, one never will give way,
Whatever happens.”
All this talk and laughter
Aroused me;--God assisted me, I think.
I felt a longing for a freer life.
I got a passport, paid up all my taxes,
And joined the bargemen.
Since that time my grief
Has yielded to the Vólga’s dark blue wave----
Rest follows toil: upon the river side
Bright burns the evening fire,--a comrade starts
A song,--the rest join in,--your spirits rise,--
A thrill runs o’er your limbs,--you sing yourself.
And if at times a dreary season comes,
And half-forgotten sorrows vex your soul,--
There ’s solace still. You hear the river’s roar,
Singing a freedom to the sweeping plain.
Fast beats your heart;--you burn,--though wintry cold
The weather, yet you want no cloak to warm you.
Aboard and take your seat! Fall back on the oar!
Pleasant it is to brave the Russian storm.
The waves run mountain-high,--in snowy flakes
The foam flies fast; strange voices groan and wail.
The tempest roars and whistles,--from your soul
A cry arises: “Let God’s will be done.
If we ’re to live, we ’ll live. And if to die,--
Well then, so be it!” And you feel as though
Your heart had never known what sorrow meant.

--From W. R. S. Ralston’s _Russian Idylls_, in The Contemporary
Review, 1874 (vol. xxiii.).

[21] A labourer towing boats up the Vólga.

THE GAFFER

Old Gaffer, with his beard and smooth bald head,
Sits in his chair.
His little mug of water, and his bread,
Stand near him there.

Grey as a badger he: his brow is lined;
His features worn.
He ’s left a world of cark and care behind,
Since he was born.

’T is over now, his eyesight soon must go;
His strength is done.
Death laid within the churchyard long ago
Grandchild and son.

A cat the smoke-grimed hut with Gaffer shares--
Upon the stove
All day he sleeps. He too is old, nor cares
From thence to move.

The old man still plaits shoes, with fingers slow,
From bark of birch.
His wants are few, his greatest joy to go
Into God’s church.

He stands within the porch, against the wall,
Mutt’ring his prayers.
A loyal child, he thanks the Lord for all
Life’s griefs and cares.

Cheery he lives,--with one foot in the grave,--
In his dark hole.
Whence does he draw the strength that keeps him brave,
Poor peasant soul?

--Transl. by Mrs. R. Newmarch, in The Anglo-Russian Literary
Society, No. 30.

Aleksyéy Nikoláevich Pleshchéev. (1825-1894.)

Pleshchéev was the most cultivated and the most sympathetic poet who
belonged to Nekrásov’s camp. He was born in the city of Kostromá, of
an ancient noble family. He studied at St. Petersburg at the School of
the Guard Cadets and at the university, without graduating from
either. He began writing poetry at the age of eighteen, and in 1846
appeared the first edition of his poems. These were pervaded by a
militant spirit of liberty, and soon his sympathies with the liberal
movement brought him into trouble, for he was arrested in 1849 and
banished to Orenbúrg, with loss of all his civil rights. He there
served in the army as a common soldier, but rose in 1858 to the rank
of a commissioned officer, when his privileges were restored to him,
and he was permitted to return to Moscow. Up to that time he had
entirely abandoned literature, but now his former activity began anew,
and he enriched Russian letters with a large number of translations
from various languages, and with original lyrical verses. These no
longer are filled with the aspirations of his youth, but bear the
imprint of melancholy disappointment and renunciation.

_Spring_ and _Passion_ are given in John Pollen’s _Rhymes from the
Russian_, and N. H. Dole has translated _A Legend_ (publication
unascertainable).

FORWARD

Forward, without fear or doubt, to the valiant deed, my friends! I have already seen the dawn of the holy redemption in the skies!

Courage! We will take each other’s hands and boldly will move onward,--and let our union grow and be strong under the banner of science!

We will chastise the priests of sin and falsehood with the word of truth,--and we will awaken the sleeping from their sleep and will lead the host to battle.

We will not build an idol for ourselves, either upon earth, or in heaven; we will not fall before it in the dust for all the gifts and benefits of the world.

We will proclaim the teaching of Love to the poor and to the rich,--and for it we will endure persecution, forgiving our malevolent enemies.

Blessed is he who has exhausted his life in a sanguinary struggle, in heavy cares; he has not, like an indolent and tricky slave, buried his talent in the ground!

Let holy truth burn as a guiding star for us,--and, believe me, a noble voice will not resound in vain in the world.

Hearken, then, O brothers, to the word of a brother, as long as we are full of youthful strength! Forward, forward,--and without returning, whatever fate may have in store for us!

MY COUNTRY

Scanty Nature of my native land, you are dear to my sad soul! Formerly, in the days of my fleeting spring, the distant shores of other countries enticed me.

And my glowing imagination painted brilliant pictures before me: I saw the transparently blue vault of the heavens, and the crenelated summits of mighty mountains.

Merged in the gold of midday beams, it seemed to me, the myrtle, the planes, and the olive trees called me into the shade of spreading branches, and roses beckoned silently to me----

Those were days when my spirit did not ponder, among the seductions of life, over the aims of existence, and, being frivolous, I only demanded enjoyment from it.

But that time speedily disappeared without a trace,--and grief unexpectedly visited me, and much with which my soul was not familiar suddenly became dear to it.

I then abandoned my secret dream of a magic and distant land,--and in my country I discovered beauties invisible to the worldly eye.

Furrowed fields, ears of yellow grain-fields, the speechless, majestic expanse of the steppes, the freshets of broad rivers in the spring, mysteriously rustling oak-forests;

Sacred silence of poor villages, where the labourer, oppressed by misery, prayed to heaven for a new, a better day,--the great day of liberty, to rise over him;

I understood you then,--and near to my heart suddenly grew the song of my native land, whether in that song was heard deep pining or unrestrained hilarity.

My country, nothing in thee captivates the stranger’s eye; but thou art dear by thy stern beauty to him who himself has yearned for freedom and the wide expanse, and whose spirit has borne oppressive fetters.

A LEGEND

Christ, when a child, a garden made,
And many roses flourished there.
He watered them three times a day
To make a garland for His hair;
And when in time the roses bloomed,
He called the children in to share.
They tore the flowers from every stem,
And left the garden stript and bare.

“How wilt Thou weave Thyself a crown
Now that Thy roses are all dead?”
“Ye have forgotten that the thorns
Are left for me,” the Christ-child said.
They plaited then a crown of thorns,
And laid it rudely on His head,--
A garland for His forehead made;
For roses, drops of blood instead.

--Transl. by N. H. Dole (publication unascertainable).

SPRING

Ah! who art thou, fair maid, with upland flowers
Twined in the glossy silk of golden hair,
With smile sunbright, with eyes the dove in hue,
With ray-like raiment spun from upper air?
Who gifted thee with deep mysterious power
To heal the aching heart of human woe?
At thy approach delights that long lay dead
Revive, and once again with glad life glow.
To honour thee a hymn doth Nature raise;
The babbling brooks and birds in chorus blend;
And pine-woods dark, shimmering in every spray,
To thee, as to a friend, their arms extend.

I ’m but a Stranger-Guest, sent from on high
To weary souls a draught of peace to bring,
To soften wrath, to soothe fierce enmity;
I ’m but a Stranger-Guest,--they call me “Spring.”

--From J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.

Aleksándr Nikoláevich Ostróvski. (1823-1886.)

No other dramatist is so characteristically Russian as Ostróvski. His
father was a poor scribe who acted as a kind of attorney to that
merchant class of Moscow which had not yet emerged from the manners
and beliefs preceding the days of the reforms of Peter the Great.
Ostróvski had, consequently, ample opportunity of getting acquainted
with these people, who had heretofore entirely escaped the scrutiny of
the litterateurs. When, in 1843, he was expelled from the university
for some misbehaviour, he found employment in the Commercial Court,
where he again came in contact with the merchant class. He had early
developed a passion for the theatre, and in 1847 appeared two of his
dramas, _Pictures of Family Happiness_ and _We’ll Square up Accounts
with Our Own_. The latter play gave offence to the merchants, who
complained to the authorities, and Ostróvski was placed under police
surveillance. Only five years later did he take up his pen again, and
as before he had strictly adhered to the traditions of Gógol’s school,
so now he paid his tribute to the Slavophile sentiments of Moscow by
idealising his characters. The best drama of that period is _Poverty
is no Vice_. After the Crimean War he began to represent in his dramas
the negative sides of the wealthy merchant class, and to oppose to
them the honesty and dignity of intelligent men. His chief production,
_The Storm_, belongs to that period. He also tried himself in
historical dramas, or _Dramatic Chronicles_, as he called them, but
they are the weakest of his works. All his dramas are more properly
realistic scenes lacking the element of conscious effect: they are
supremely natural and tax the ability of the greatest actors.
Ostróvski’s dramas soon became very popular, and he was elected
president of the Society of Russian Dramatic Authors. Just before his
death the Moscow Theatre was put in his charge, but his new activity
was cut short by his illness, brought about by years of privation and
suffering.

In English translation are to be found: _The Storm_, by Constance
Garnett, London, 1899; _Incompatibility of Temper_ and _A Domestic
Picture_, in _The Humour of Russia_, by E. L. Voynich, London and New
York, 1895. Extracts from several dramas are given in _The Modern
Russian Drama_, in Edinburgh Review, cxxviii. (1868).

THE STORM