Chapter I

Have your love, you black haired maidens,
But avoid the Moskals,
For the Moskals--they are strangers,
And they treat you foully.
Yes, the Moskal loves you lightly,
Lightly he will drop you,
Goes away unto his country,
And the maiden’s ruined.
Were that all, it would be nothing,
But her aged mother
Who into God’s world once brought her,
She must perish with her.
So her heart will pine a-singing,
If she knows the reason;
People will her heart not notice,
And they’ll say: “She’s nothing.”
Have your love, you black haired maidens,
But not with the Moskals,
For the Moskals--they are strangers,
And they always mock you.

Katerina did not listen
To her father, mother,
But she went and loved a Moskal,
As her heart had urged her.
So she loved the youthful stranger,
Went into the garden,
And she ruined there her fortune
And herself, unthinking.
Mother calls her to have supper,
Daughter does not listen;
Where she dallies with her Moskal,
There the night she spendeth....
Not two nights she spent caressing
His black eyes so charming,
Till the gossip in the village
Had condemned her roundly.
Let the people talk about her,
Say whate’er they’re thinking;
She’s in love and will not notice
That there’s evil brewing.
Suddenly bad news is coming--
He must go on service--
Unto Turkey went the Moskal,
It Katrusya startled.
She cared not, as ’twere a trifle,
That her head was covered,
For her lover she would either
Sing or grieve at random.
He, the black haired lover, promised,
If he did not perish,
That he would come back unto her,
And then Katerina
Should become herself a Moskal
And forget her sorrow;
In the meanwhile let the people
Say whate’er they’re wishing--
Katerina does not worry!
Wipes away her weeping,
For the maidens who surround her
Sing their songs without her,
And she takes the pails at nightfall
To go for the water,
That her foes may never see her;
To the spring she’s coming,
Takes a place beneath the bushes
And of Hrits she’s singing;
So she sings and so repeats it
Till the bushes sorrow.
She comes back--in perfect quiet
That no one may see her.
Katerina does not worry,
She has no forebodings;
In her new and modern kerchief
She looks out the window.
Katerina looks around her--
Six months now are passing.
At her heart a pain is gnawing,
And her side is aching.
Katerina feels her illness,
It prevents her breathing.
She recovers. In her cradle
There’s a child now lying.
And the women foully murmur,
Jest unto her mother,
That the Moskals are returning
And in her are resting.
“Yes, you have a black haired daughter,
And she is not lonely,
On the stove she has in training
A good Moskal baby.
She has now a black haired baby,
Mayhap she has studied.”
May the devil, scandalmongers,
Beat you as severely
As that mother whom you’re mocking
For her little baby.
Katerina, O my darling!
You are so unhappy!
Where can you go to find refuge
With a little orphan?
Who will feed you or receive you
Without your dear lover?
Father, mother now are strangers,
Hard ’tis to live with them.

Katerina was now healthy,
Left her little quarters,
Looked upon the street around her,
And caressed her baby;
As she looks, there’s no one friendly!
What is next to happen?
If she went into the garden,
People there would see her.
At the sunrise Katerina
Walks around the garden,
In her arms her son she carries,
And her eyes she covers;
“Here I looked at them parading,
Here I used to greet him,
There, O there ... my son, my baby!”
More she never uttered.

In the garden soon the cherries
Hung all full of blossoms.
When the first came out in flower,
Katerina walked out,
Walked out but she was not singing,
As was her old custom,
When she waited for the Moskal
In the cherry orchard.
Now the black haired maiden sings not,
Curses her ill fortune,
While the bitter, hateful women
Say whatever moves them,
Hammer out their unkind speeches.
What will be her future?
Were the black haired lover present,
He could stop their talking.
But the black haired lover’s distant,
Hears not, does not notice
How her enemies laugh at her,
How Katrusya’s weeping.
Has the black haired lover perished
By the quiet Danube?...
Or in Muscovy he’s staying
With another darling?
No, the lover has not perished,
He is well and living.
Where can he find eyes so handsome,
Black hair so alluring?
There in Muscovy the distant
Or across the blue sea--
There he has no Katerina.
Here she’s doomed to sorrow!
Mother knew to give her black hair,
Coal black eyes to give her,
But she knew not how to give her
Fortune for her lifetime.
Without fortune is her beauty
But a fading flower;
In hot sunshine, raging breezes,
Soon it ’gins to wither.
Wash your white face every hour
With your tears so bitter,
For the Moskals have gone homeward,
Other roads they’ve taken.