A RUSSIAN JESTER AND HIS JOKES.
Popular traditions in Russia unite in representing the jester Balakireff as the constant attendant of Peter the Great, who figures largely in all the stories attached to the name of his buffoon.
On one occasion Balakireff begged permission of his imperial master to attach himself to the guard stationed at the palace, and Peter, for the sake of the joke, consented—warning him at the same time that any officer of the guard who happened to lose his sword, or to be absent from his post when summoned, was punished with death. The newly-made officer promised to do his best; but the temptation of some good wine sent to his quarters that evening by the Czar, “to moisten his commission,” proved too strong for him; and he partook so freely as to become completely “screwed.” While he was sleeping off his debauch, Peter stole softly into the room, and carried off his sword. Balakireff missing it on awakening, and frightened out of his wits at the probable consequences, could devise no better remedy than to replace the weapon with his own professional sword of lath,—the hilt and trappings of which were exactly similar to those of the guardsmen. Thus equipped, he appeared on parade the next morning, confident in the assurance of remaining undetected, if not forced to draw his weapon. But Peter, who had doubtless foreseen this contingency, instantly began storming at one of the men for his untidy appearance, and at length faced round upon Balakireff with the stern order, “Captain Balakireff, draw your sword and cut that sloven down!”
The poor jester, thus brought fairly to bay, laid his hand on his hilt as if to obey, but at the same time exclaimed fervently, “Merciful Heaven! let my sword be turned into wood!”
And drawing the weapon, he exhibited in very deed a harmless lath. Even the presence of the Emperor was powerless to check the roar of laughter which followed, and Balakireff was allowed to escape.
The jester’s ingenuity occasionally served him in extricating others from trouble as well as himself. A cousin of his, having fallen under the displeasure of the Czar, was about to be executed; and Balakireff presented himself at Court to petition for a reprieve. Peter, seeing him enter, and at once divining his errand, shouted to him: “It’s no use your coming here; I swear that I will not grant what you are going to ask!”
Quick as thought, Balakireff dropped on his knees, and exclaimed, “Peter Alexejevitch, I beseech you put that scamp of a cousin of mine to death!”
Peter, thus caught in his own trap, had no choice but to laugh, and send a pardon to the offender.
During one of the Czar’s Livonian campaigns, a thick fog greatly obstructed the movements of the army. At length a pale watery gleam began to show itself through the mist, and two of the Russian officers fell to disputing whether this were the sun or not. Balakireff, happening to pass by at that moment, they appealed to him to decide. “Is that light yonder the sun, brother?”
“How should I know,” answered the jester; “I’ve never been here before!”
At the end of the same campaign, several of the officers were relating their exploits, when Balakireff stepped in among them. “I’ve got a story to tell, too,” cried he, boastfully; “a better one than any of yours!”
“Let us hear it, then,” answered the officers; and Balakireff began,—
“I never liked this way of fighting, all in a crowd together, which they have nowadays; it seems to me more manly for each to stand by himself; and therefore I always went out alone. Now it chanced that one day, while reconnoitering close to the enemy’s outposts, I suddenly espied a Swedish soldier lying on the ground, just in front of me. There was not a moment to lose; he might start up and give the alarm. I drew my sword, rushed upon him, and at one blow cut off his right foot!”
“You fool!” cried one of the listeners, “you should rather have cut off his head!”
“So I would,” answered Balakireff, with a grin, “but somebody else had done that already!”
At times Balakireff pushed his waggeries too far, and gave serious offense to his formidable patron. On one of these occasions the enraged Emperor summarily banished him from the Court, bidding him “never appear on Russian soil again.” The jester disappeared accordingly; but a week had hardly elapsed when Peter, standing at his window, espied his disgraced favorite coolly driving a cart past the very gates of the palace. Foreseeing some new jest, he hastened down, and asked with pretended roughness, “How dare you disobey me, when I forbade you to show yourself on Russian ground?”
“I haven’t disobeyed you,” answered Balakireff, coolly; “I’m not on Russian ground now!”
“Not on Russian ground?”
“No; this cart-load of earth that I’m sitting on is Swedish soil. I dug it up in Finland only the other day!”
Peter, who had doubtless begun already to regret the loss of his jester, laughed at the evasion, and restored him to favor. Some Russian writers embellished this story (a German version of which figures in the adventures of Tyll Eulenspiegel) with the addition that Peter, on hearing the excuse, answered, “If Finland be Swedish soil now, it shall be Russian before long”—a threat which he was not slow to fulfill.