Vasíli Ivánovich Máykov. (1728-1778.)
Máykov was the son of a landed proprietor. He entered military service, in 1766 was made Associate Governor of Moscow, and occupied other high offices. He began to write early and, being an admirer of Sumarókov,—like all the other writers of his day,—he wrote odes, eulogies, fables, tragedies, all of them in the pseudo-classic style. He knew no foreign languages, and his imitations are at second hand. This, however, gave him a great advantage over his contemporaries, in that he was better acquainted with Russian reality than with foreign models. His mock-heroic poem Eliséy, or Excited Bacchus, from which “The Battle of the Zimogórans and Valdáyans,” given below, is an extract, is far superior for real humour, Russian environment and good popular diction to anything else produced by the Russian writers of the eighteenth century; and the undisputed popularity of the Eliséy, which was not dimmed even by Bogdanóvich’s Psyche, was well merited.
THE BATTLE OF THE ZIMOGÓRANS AND VALDÁYANS
The field was all ploughed and sowed in oats, and after these labours all the cattle and we were resting. Already had the grain sprouted a quarter of an inch, and our time had come to cut the hay. Our meadow, as all know well, bordered on the meadow of the Valdáyans; no one could tell where the line between them was but a surveyor, so the strongest hand mowed the grass there, and the meadows were always a cause of quarrels; even then they were the cause of our terrible battle.
The day had come, and we went into the meadow, taking with us milk, eggs and whey-cheese, loading ourselves with kvas, beets, dumplings, brandy and buckwheat cakes. No sooner had we appeared with our provender in the meadow, than we espied the host before us: the proud Valdáyans were standing there with arms of war. We became frightened and ran away like rabbits, and running we looked for weapons resembling theirs: withes, pales, poles, cudgels and clubs. We vied with each other to arm ourselves with sticks and to prepare ourselves for the fray. The chief of our village, foreseeing a terrible calamity, seated himself on his horse and gathered us all together; having gotten us together, he took a pen and began to scribble. Though he was not a Frenchman nor a Greek, but a Russian, yet he was a government official and wore a crimson uniform. God forfend that a scribe should be a military commander! He took out his pen, and began to write down the names, while our backs were already smarting from the descent of a hail of stones upon them. Is it possible Pallas was with the scribe? For he was still writing down names, while the Valdáyans were drubbing us. Old women in the huts were lamenting to heaven; small children, all the girls and women, and chickens hid behind the stove and underneath it.
Seeing that there was to be no end to his writing, we no longer listened to the scribe, but like a whirlwind swept down from all sides and, pressing forward in a mass, hastened to the fight. Neither fences nor water could keep us back, and the only salvation for the Valdáyans was in flight; but they stood out stubbornly against us, and with agility swung their wooden arms at us. We could not break asunder the order of their ranks, and from both sides there flew upon us stones and mud, the implements of war of furious men. We were bespattering and striking each other down without mercy, but ours stood like a firm wall.
Forgive me for mentioning names which it would not be otherwise proper to utter here, except that without them we would not have been victorious. Even if our scribe had been much wiser, he would not have broken that wall with his skull, which we barely smashed with our clubs. We had for some time been striking each other mightily with stones, when our Stépka the intrepid (he was not very clever, but a powerful man) rushed with grim rage into the thickest fight among the Valdáyans: he struck them down with a cudgel, and they raised a cry, but Stépka hacked among them like a butcher. Then his nephew, too, took a club, flew at them, but lost courage and showed them his back, whereupon a frisky Valdáyan jumped upon it and was on top of our hero. In the very midst of the sanguinary fray he had jumped upon the hero’s shoulder, and boasted before his whole horde that he had begun with a battle and had ended with leapfrog. But the jest ended badly for him, for the Valdáyan had not yet thanked us for the ride, when Stépka’s nephew grabbed the Valdáyan by the girdle and so hurled him to the ground that he broke his nose and so flattened it that he now has to wear a plaster upon it.
Then, lo, we all suddenly noticed in the distance a rider all covered with dust: that was the proud leader of the Valdáyans; that beast was a worthy likeness of our own manager. Raging with an internal fire against us, he galloped upon his steed towards our hero. All thought that they would end the terrible battle by a duel; we all stood in quiet expectancy, and terror seized us all. Already the heroes approached each other on their horses, but suddenly, it seemed, they changed their minds: they did not fight, they only cursed each other, leaving us alone to finish the battle, while their horses took them back to their homes.
In the meantime, if you wish to know it, the sun shone so that it was time for us to dine; if the accursed battle had not taken place, I, no doubt, would have swallowed two or three bites by that time; but, under the circumstances, I thought neither of beet soup nor buckwheat mush.
When the horses had taken away the commanders, we carried on a real war: all order was suddenly gone, and at the same time all distinction of great and small disappeared; we were all mixed up, and all were equal. Suddenly my brother swooped down like a hawk, to aid us, and he mixed up the battle, like wheat mush in a vat. Accuse me not of lying in what I am going to tell of my brother: holding a heavy club in his hand, he carried terror to all our enemies: wherever he passed there was a street, and where he turned about, there was a square. He had been vanquishing the Valdáyans for an hour, and they had all been running away from him, when all at once there appeared his adversary. My brother’s exploit was stopped, for that Valdáyan hung upon his neck, and bit off my brother’s right ear. And thus my beloved brother Ilyúkha, who had come to the battle with ears, went away with but one. He dragged himself along, bleeding like a pig, maimed, torn, but above all, disgraced.
Think of my loss! He lost an ear, and I a brother! Since then I no longer recognise him as my brother. Do not imagine that I have spoken this in vain: when he was possessed of both ears, he was easily moved by the words of the unfortunate; but now that door is entirely locked, and he hears only when one says: “Here, take this!” but he no longer hears the word “give,” and with his left ear accepts nobody’s prayers. In an empty well it is not likely you will find a treasure, and without it I do not care even for my brother.
Having lost such a hero, we were bereft of all means of victory; the Valdáyans henceforth got the better of us, struck us down, pressed hard upon us and drove us from the field. We should have been that day entirely undone, had not Stépka saved us from our dire distress: like a bolt of lightning he suddenly rushed upon us from behind, and stopped us, who were then in full flight. “Stand still, good fellows!” he yelled, “stand still! Come together in close array, and begin anew the battle!” All was changed. O most happy hour! At Stépka’s voice crowds of men came together, came, bore down the adversary, defeated them, and wrung the victory they held from their hands. They rushed together, correcting their disorder, and hotter than before the battle was renewed.
Already we were driving our enemy back to their village, and depriving them of their cudgels and sticks, and our battle would have been at an end, if a monk had not appeared to their aid. This new Balaam was urging on his beast and beating it with a stick for its sluggishness; but all his beating of his dobbin moved her not a step ahead. He somehow managed to reach the top of the hill, and there his holy lips uttered curses against us. But neither these, nor the wooden arms, kept us back, and we flew against our enemy, and did our work among them. That worthy man, seeing our stubbornness, leaped from his horse, and showed the swiftness of his feet, which was greater than when he first had come, and, showing us his back, fled to his house.
Dark night had already put out its veil, when all were worn out with fighting. The Valdáyans being vanquished, we all went from the field, and reached home, though hungry, yet alive.
THE COOK AND THE TAILOR
’Tis easier for a cook to roast and stew than for a tailor to talk of cookery. It was, I know not where, in Lithuania or Poland,—he knows of it who knows more than I; all I know is that a lord was travelling, and as he was returning from a visit he was, naturally, drunk. A man came from the opposite direction, and he met the lord, phiz to phiz. The lord was blown up with conceit and liquor, and two servants led his horse for him. The horse strutted proudly along, and the lord was steeped in arrogance like a cock. The man that met him was poorly clad. The lord interrogated him, like a man of sense:
“What handicraft have you?”
“A cook, my lord, stands before you.”
“If so, then answer me, before I spit into your face: you are a cook, so you know what dainties are; what then is the greatest dainty?”
“A roast pig’s hide,” the cook answered without hesitation.
“You, cook, are not a fool,” the lord said to him, “and gave me readily an answer, from which I conclude that you know your business.”
With these words, the lord gave him a generous reward, just like a father, though he had begot no children. My cook, for joy, tripped lightly along and was soon out of sight. Whom should he meet but a tailor, an old acquaintance, nay, a friend,—not to the grave, yet a friend.
“Whither do you hurry so fast, friend Ilyá?”
The other replied: “Now, my friend, I can boldly assure you that the cook’s profession is better than yours. You, drunken Petrúshka, do not even guess that Ilyá is going to have a big celebration! Look at my pocket. I and my wife will be satisfied with what we now have; we cannot unto our deaths spend all the lord, who just passed me drunk upon the road, has given me.”
And he pulled out his purse that was filled with gold coins: “That’s what I got for a pig!”
And he showed his money in his bag, and told his friend all that had happened. The tailor was melting with envy, as he tried to count the money, and he thought: “Of course the lord is a fool for having given a bag full of money for a pig; I will run after him, and overtake him, and if all the wisdom is only in a pig’s hide, I’ll shave him clean, like a scribe.”
Having said this, the senseless man started on the road. The lord was riding leisurely along, and as the tailor was running fast, he soon overtook him. He cried to him:
“Wait, lord! I am not a Tartar, and I will not cut you down; I have no sword, and I will not injure you. I am all worn out with running; I am a cook, and not a thief.”
The lord heard the words and, looking back, saw that it was not a robber with a club, so he reined in his horse. The tailor ran up to him, panting like a dog, and barely breathing, having lost his strength in running. The lord asked him:
“Why, beast, have you been running so senselessly after me? You have only frightened me: I thought it was a robber with a club that was after me.”
The tailor said: “I am not a thief, my lord!”
To which the lord: “What manner of creature are you, then?”
“I am a cook by trade, and know how to stew and roast well.”
The lord asked him at once: “What is the sweetest part of the ox?”
The rash man said: “The hide.”
No sooner said than the cook’s sides and face, and belly and back were swollen, being struck with a whip. The tailor walked slowly off, weeping disconsolately, and cursing the lord and the trade of a cook.