The Steam-Chicken.
(A Story fit to be printed only in the Christmas holidays.)[[42]]
By GLYEB USPÈNSKY.
Although I cannot protest against the above observation, which very truly characterises this little sketch, I am bound to remark that the title—“A Story”—given to this production by the editor in question, is entirely out of character with both the subject under discussion and the manner in which that subject is treated. The sketch contains no coherent story at all, nor is it founded upon any story in real life. A group of people were simply discussing “the soul,” and one of the disputants, a poultry-farmer on a journey, delivered a kind of lecture upon the subject, bringing forward some very interesting facts concerning gallinaceous psychology. That is all.
This is how it happened:—
I got tired of waiting for my train in the stuffy little general waiting-hole of the most microscopic station on the whole N—— Railway, so I went out to sit and smoke on the platform. It was getting on for eleven o’clock on a warm, dark autumn night. The only light on the platform came from three small paraffin lamps, placed at long distances from one another, and giving so little light that I was quite unable to see clearly the group of dark human silhouettes collected on the platform close to me, and, like myself, waiting for the train. I could see several black shadows, but it was impossible to form an idea what sort of people they were. The conversation that they were carrying on together was, however, distinctly audible in the motionless silence of the dusky, sultry night.
Unfortunately, this conversation was of a most gloomy character. It referred to an unusual misfortune which had happened early that morning at a neighbouring station, and had been a subject of general conversation along the whole line. A certain publichouse keeper, well known to every one connected with the railway, had thrown himself in front of the train. He had been a confirmed drunkard for some years, and had arrived at absolute beggary.
“You see, mates, towards the last he went off his head altogether,” said one of the black silhouettes, whom, from the glittering of his badge when he moved, one could guess to be the railway watchman. “He tried to do it five times before ... but he always got frightened. He’d run up to the train and then begin to yell.... The train would come thundering along, and he’d just scream with terror, and yet he’d run on, throwing up his hands. ‘Ah!—ah!—ah!—ah!’ and yet he’d run at it.... He was mortally scared, and yet he couldn’t let it alone!... God always saved him; the good Christian people didn’t want to let him die; ... they’d catch him and take him home by force; ... they put him in the hospital.... Well, it seems this time he was too sharp for them.”...
“Did he call out? Did any one hear?”
“They said afterwards that somebody yelled like a wild thing. They say they heard something crying and screaming.... But, you see, it was night-time; it was quite dark that’s plain!”...
“The devil’s will, you mean. In such business as that, it’s the devil that’s lord and master, not God!” said a voice from the group of silhouettes.
“True! true!” muttered several voices; and a short silence followed.
The conversation was an unpleasant one; the subject under discussion was gloomy and fearful, and the people seemed ill at ease in talking of it. But maybe for that very reason they were unable to free themselves from the haunting idea, and enter into the ordinary small talk of chance-met passengers. Unpleasant as it was to think and talk of a suicide, the conversation about it started afresh.
“They do say it was all his wife’s doing that he got like that; he took to drinking because of her.”
“Did the silly fellow care more for his wife than his soul?”
“Ah! but then, you know, ... she ran away from him—and he got lonely without her—and so——”
“Ran away! Why, the devil take her, let her run away as far as she likes; there are plenty of women to be got!”
“Plenty of women, but only one soul!”
“He’ll have to answer for his soul to God in the next world!”...
“Ah! the soul! the soul!”... said the watchman, with a sigh; and the conversation would probably have broken off if the young assistant-stationmaster had not suddenly appeared beside the group. No one had heard him come up on account of his indiarubber galoshes.
He was a very cheerful young man; he had just got his situation, just got married, just put on his new uniform, and naturally felt that now he was “decently set up.” He stopped, as he was sauntering past, to smoke a cigarette with the group, and, for want of anything to do, cheerfully threw in a word.
“What’s the talk about? What soul?”
He had accidentally caught, in passing, the word “soul”; his thoughts were altogether at the other end of the earth from any stray conversations; he was going merrily home to his young wife and his boiling samovar, and was altogether thoroughly contented with himself.
“Why, we were just talking about the misfortune that happened to-day ... about the publican.”...
“Well, what about him?”
He struck a match on his coat-sleeve, hardly listening to what was said.
“We were just talking, sir; that’s all.... You see, the poor fellow’s lost his immortal soul.”
“What soul?”
The cigarette lighted suddenly, and scattered little sparks all round.
“What soul? What nonsense are you talking?”
“Why! your honour! his soul!”
“The man was simply a drunkard! It’s all nonsense!”
“But what about the next world?”
“What’s the use of talking rubbish? Don’t get drunk, and you won’t be run over.... The deuce knows what they’ll say next—a soul!”
His young wife and his boiling new samovar occupied his thoughts so completely that they made his whole conversation merry, and gave it a tone of “all fiddle-sticks!” Having uttered his few remarks in a cheerful manner, he walked away, also in a cheerful manner, along the platform, and flung back at the group of silhouettes one last word—
“Twaddle!”
He then disappeared in the darkness, humming “Strièlochka.”
“No, it isn’t twaddle!” rather decidedly remarked one of the silhouettes; and his dark figure moved forwards, hiding all the other silhouettes. “It’s anything but twaddle—a soul is!”
The appearance of the cheerful stationmaster had somehow driven away the gloomy thoughts of the group, and, not finding at the moment any pleasant theme for conversation, they did not support the unknown orator by any positive announcement at all. But their silence in no way put him out of countenance, and he continued, in an impressive tone of voice—
“Twaddle! It’s easy for him to talk!... The man simply doesn’t believe in God—he’s a Nihilist, that’s what he is!... If he believed in God he wouldn’t dare to talk like that.... I used to be no better than a dead log myself until I got conviction.... What can any of us understand? We know how to say our prayers; we know how to put candles before the altar; but what do we know about the wisdom of the Lord?... And yet, if the Lord God should call me now to the lot, first of a fish and then of a hen, and should give me a talent and allow me to enter into it, I tell you, mates, I understand all about it now!... Yes! There is a soul, mates! there is indeed!... That’s what I say—it’s true; it’s not twaddle!”
The audience had at first some difficulty in understanding what this poultry-farmer was talking about. The most incompatible images and ideas had got so mixed up together in his speech—God, the soul, a fish’s lot, a hen’s lot—all this was too hard for the silhouettes to digest at once. Somebody tried how it would do to make one of the stock remarks of the Russian citizen in difficulties: “Of course it is!”—one of those phrases which will serve for an answer at a pinch, but have no meaning in particular (though they are constantly used in commerce); but he said it in a timid whisper, and relapsed into silence.
The silence was, however, of short duration. A pleasanter topic had been started, and the conversation grew lively.
“I don’t quite understand—allow me to ask, do hens have souls?” slowly and deliberately inquired one of the silhouettes, with the evident intention of starting a long discussion. “Kindly explain to me on what you base that opinion. A soul is bound to be Christian; and there is surely nothing said in the Holy Scriptures about hens’ and fishes’ souls.”...
“I grant you there is really nothing about it in the Scriptures; but I, you see me, Selivèrstov, poultry-farmer—I tell you—yes! You can believe me or not, as you like, but I assure you that when I get to really understand the affairs of fishes, and especially of poultry, then I began to believe in the Almighty Creator. Up till then I was just a dead log! You can think what you like. Yes!...”
There was great animation in the tone of the poultry-farmer’s voice, but it was evident that the immensity of the theme which so deeply interested him rendered his position embarrassing and perplexed him in speaking.
“Yes,” he continued, repeating the words he had already said, “it was through the poultry that I grew to recognise the wisdom of God. You must make what you can of that.”
There was a short silence.
“And do poultry have souls?” inquired one of the silhouettes, in a tone of evident irony. The poultry-farmer hesitated a moment, then, as it were, gave himself a little shake, plucked up his courage, and growled, in a deep bass—
“They do!”
“What! Hens have souls?”
“Yes, sir.”
This answer was evidently given in blind recklessness, and the poultry-farmer, seeing that he could no longer draw back, continued loudly and rapidly—
“I tell you, positively, I would swear it before the Lord Himself—fowls do have souls, may I die to-night if they don’t! There!”
Silence.
“They do!” cried the poultry-farmer again.
Once more there was silence.
“Yes! They do, indeed they do!”
“There! there! friend.... It strikes me, my man, that you ... you know....”
“Not, ‘you know,’ at all! What’s the use of ‘you know’? It’s the truth I’m telling you; not ‘you know.’ ... Now I’ll just catechise you, and you see if you can answer me.”
“Why shouldn’t I be able to answer you? If you talk like a human being, I’ll answer you like a human being.”
“You didn’t suppose I was going to bark at you?”
“Well, if you don’t bark, I won’t cry: ‘cock-a-doodle-doo!’... Fire away!”
“Very well, then; if you can answer me, I’ll put questions to you.... First of all: we were just talking about the destroying of souls.... Now, tell me, why did the publican throw himself under the train?”
“’Twas the devil’s doing, and nothing else,” again interposed the decided voice from the group of silhouettes, before the person addressed had time to answer.
“Of course it’s the devil’s doing, I know that,” said the poultry-farmer; “but what I want to know is, on what pretence this same devil got him to go under the wheels; that’s what I want to know!”
“Why, you heard what was said—that he got cut up about his wife,” answered the other speaker. “Got upset about a woman, took to drinking, and of course any sort of thing can come of the drink....”
“So that, if you look into the matter, it appears like as if the first cause was trouble?”
“I s’pose so....”
“Very well, then; now you explain. What part of him did the wheel go over?”
“I don’t know; you’d better ask him.... I say! Mikhàilych! where did the wheel go over the publican?”
“It cut him right across the body,” answered the watchman—“like this.”
“And of course it went over his back and all?” demanded the poultry-farmer, like a regular expert.
“Of course it smashed every bit of him that came under it....”
“That’s all right! Now, allow me to ask you, When you say that it happened ‘from trouble,’ tell me whereabouts in him was the trouble—was it in his back, or his body, or anywhere in his bones?”
This question appeared to the audience so amazingly incongruous, that, after a short silence, several persons went off into fits of laughing; and the interlocutor of the poultry-farmer, evidently not wishing to continue such an idle conversation, remarked—
“Eh! friend! if one wants to talk with you, one must hang a cloth tongue in one’s mouth; one’s own would soon get wagged off.... Your head’s so empty, that one can hear the wind whistle through it, even on a close night like this!... The trouble was in his inside.”
“Do you mean the trouble about his wife was in his inside?”
“There! shut up with your foolery!” exclaimed the other, irritably; “I never heard a fellow rattle off such stuff!...”
“All that is because you haven’t got any gift of reflection.”
“Reflection be hanged!”
“Supposing a soldier’s foot is cut off, that means it was his foot that was bad, not his back or his inside. Supposing my hand is cut off, it must have been my hand that was bad, and not my ear or my nose.... Very well, then; if a man goes and breaks his back under a railway train from grief, I should like to know where was his grief—in his back, or in his inside?”
Silence.
“Now, you see, that’s just the whole point.... The trouble was in his conscience, in his soul—not in his bones or his ribs.... That’s why you should say: ‘He’s lost his soul,’ instead of saying ‘Twaddle,’ as that grand gentleman said.... It was his soul that was ill; and it was his soul that went to pieces under the train....”
“It’s the devil’s work, and nothing else,” obstinately growled the unseen bass in the group of silhouettes.
“The devil’s work? Of course it’s the devil’s work! Only, the devil doesn’t pull you under the train by your leg, but by your conscience, by your soul. That’s just the whole thing. No, no, mates! There is a soul, there is indeed!...”
“And what about the hen’s soul?” began again the man who had just broken off his conversation with the poultry-farmer.
“Hens have souls too.... It was a hen’s soul that brought me to my senses.... You see my hamper of chickens over there?”
The hamper was probably standing somewhere on the platform, though it could not be seen in the darkness.
“Well, what about it?”
“Very well, then; I thought I’d take our women in once more with a steam-chicken; but they were too sharp for me. I thought I’d trick them, you see, and pay them for their eggs with a steam-chicken, but I had tried it once too often—they would not take it.”
“WELL, I LOOKED, AND I THOUGHT TO MYSELF, ‘HOW DID ALL THAT FIRE GET INTO THAT LITTLE GLASS GLOBE.’”
“Why?”
“Because the steam-chicken has no soul! He has no soul at all, and so he doesn’t breed. That’s just the whole thing. I work on a steam-chicken farm. Well, you see, at one time we used to exchange steam-chickens for eggs. We’d give a woman a cock and hen—for that matter, it was quite worth our while to give a cock and two hens for a dozen or a dozen and a half eggs.... We could always raise ten or fifteen out of two or three dozen; so we made our profit. At first the women took them and it was all right—and of course it was better for us than paying in money. But after a bit we couldn’t get anybody to take them; all the women came and made a row about it: ‘Your machine-hens won’t lay!’ And there you are! It’s no use, whatever you do; they won’t lay! And it’s just the same with fish. All those machine-raised fish—you know, you can rear them artificially now—but they won’t breed.... Now, just you think of that—the wisdom of it! The temperature’s there—’cause, you know, it’s done with hot water and steam—but there’s no soul!”
“But it can run about, your machine-chicken—can’t it? and eat?”
“It runs about and it eats, but it hasn’t any reason.... It doesn’t know how to think about life....”
“Strikes me, my man, you’re gone off the hooks!...”
“Off the hooks or not, there’s not much sense in your talk either.... Runs about! What’s running to do with it? There’s your steam-engine runs, better than any horse; but just you go and tell it: ‘Turn to the left,’ ‘Stop at the publichouse,’—d’ye think it’ll turn?... Runs! ’Tis all the same thing as the ’lectric light. I’ve got a neighbour that’s lamplighter in a theatre, and he said to me, ‘Just look, this is the new fire they’ve invented!’ Well, I looked, and I thought to myself: ‘How did all that fire get in that little glass globe (’twas made just like a flower) and not break it?’ So I said to him, ‘Why doesn’t the glass crack with all that fire?’ and my neighbour just burst out laughing. ‘It’s a very dreadful sort of fire, that is,’ said he; ‘just you spit at it and see how it will hiss.’ Well, I spat at that tulip-flower, and it never hissed at all. ‘How’s that?’ says I. ‘Why,’ says he, ‘that fire’s just a made-up fire; it’s a heathen fire; it’s as cold as ice.... Just take hold of the tulip.’ I took it, and it really was like ice. But it’s fire all the same.... Now, how’s a man to know after that what’s God and what’s Mumbo Jumbo?... It’s just the same with the machine-fish and the steam-chicken—they’ve got a temperature, but they haven’t got a conscience! There you see; it was the same with the publican: it was his conscience that ached; and if he went and broke his back, it wasn’t his back that felt bad because his wife ran away—it was his soul.”
“You put the cart before the horse again, my man! Why doesn’t the steam-hen lay?”
“She doesn’t lay because she’s a machine invention, a creature of temperature, not a creature of God. A steam-hen has nothing but temperature; but a real hen has a conscience. That’s why she lays. She lays because she’s capable of mental reflections and considerations. There aren’t any mental reflections in temperatures, but there are in souls!...”
“Are there?”
“Of course there are!”
“And were you ever in a madhouse?”
“Never, thanks be to God!”
“Glad to hear it! I was just thinking, perhaps they hadn’t looked after you properly and kept the door locked....”
“No one can talk sense to a fellow like you, without being taken for a madman.... What do you know about souls?”
“As much as you know about hens’ consciences, I dare say!”
“I know all about them!”
“Do you?”
“I tell you, yes! I understand the whole soul of a hen! What’s the use of your cackling? Just you answer me one thing: Do you know how to make a hen sit?”
“No, I don’t; and it’s not my business; I’m a wood merchant.”
“TO THE ARCADIA AND MASKED BALLS.”
“Then, if it’s not your business, hold your tongue and listen.... The hen, my man, is none too fond of sitting.... All she cares for is just to lay her egg, and then go off again to the café-restaurant to lark about with the cocks, and sing songs, and make love.... Why, you may have a hen so frivolous that if you keep her three days on the eggs with a coop over her, you can’t make her sit on them; she just wriggles away to one side; she thinks to herself, like any fine lady, ‘If I take care of the children myself, I may spoil the shape of my bust, and no one will love me!’... And she wriggles away into a corner; and there the poor eggs lie, out in the cold.... Well, then, when you take off the coop,—up she jumps and off she runs, and clucks and cackles for all the farmyard to hear; and complains of how she was shut up and ill-treated; and the cock comes running up at her bidding to take her part; he’s sorry for her, you see! And off they go into the bushes, to the Islands,[[43]] to the Arcadia, and masked balls. Why, some hens are so larky that one doesn’t know how to manage them! So this is what the women do with a gay hen of that kind: they make little balls of bread, and dip them in spirits and give them to her.... The gay young hen eats them and gets tipsy; then they stick her on the eggs and put a coop over her.... Of course while she’s asleep she doesn’t think about dancing and masked balls; and by the time she wakes up, she’s got familiar like with the eggs.... Then, you know, the eggs get warm from her, and she feels the warmth of the eggs.... And when you take the coop off she can’t get up! She knows as well as any one that it would be fun to go off on the spree; she hears the cock calling her, and singing romances; she knows he’s going off to the Islands; and yet she can’t get up, her conscience won’t let her! She’s learned to pity her little ones; her soul has waked up.... And there she’ll sit, till she sits all the feathers off her body, and the flesh gets raw; she’ll sit till she aches all over! And why? Because of her conscience!... Her conscience puts all kind of thoughts into her head. She thinks about how she lived before she was married (she has so long to sit, you know, she has plenty of time to think), and how she went off on the spree, and what she saw, and how the cock came up to her (she’ll remember every feather on his body a hundred times over), and how it all happened, and then how she fell ill, and then how her baby was born, and how she cried when it was born—she’ll think over all that while she’s sitting.... Now, you see, all these thoughts go out of her soul into the chicken’s soul, like; and the chicken begins to think and feel as she does.... He gets all his soul from the hen, while he’s the least bit of a thing,—and ideas, and everything.... They’re just like little seeds, no bigger than a pin’s head, just stuck about here and there in him; and then of course they grow with him; and by the time he’s a grown-up fowl, they’re grown-up thoughts.... No, no, mates! it isn’t a temperature of fifty degrees, or whatever it is, that does it; it’s a soul speaking to a soul!... It’s all the same with people. If a woman with child gets frightened at a fire, and beats her head with her two hands, her child is born with marks on its head—it’s just the same thing here. The hen thinks it over, and sighs, and remembers all her youth, and everything that happened afterwards; and all that enters into the chicken’s soul.... Why are so many cocks hatched? Because the hen thinks so much about the cock, of course; she remembers all his feathers.... Everybody knows that if a peasant goes to the priest, or the starshinà,[[44]] or the village clerk, he always take a cock for a present. The hens think a great deal about cocks. So, you see, all these thoughts and cares pass from the hen’s soul into the chicken’s; and the chicken gets to understand that it will have to be young and unmarried, and then that cocks will come, and it will have to lay eggs.... All that passes into its soul while it’s in the egg.... But there is nothing of all that in hot water; there’s nothing but temperature in it.... Do you suppose temperature thinks about a hen’s life? Do you suppose temperature thinks about cocks?—about how tired it is of sitting, but how it must keep on for the baby’s sake? It doesn’t think about anything at all! And that’s why the chicken comes out without any soul, or mind, or conscience, and doesn’t care for anything.... It’s just like with the ’lectric light—it can’t make the grass grow.... That’s what God is!... It isn’t twaddle, mates; don’t you believe it! A soul’s one thing, and a make-up’s another. No, no, it isn’t twaddle; it’s a thing that takes a lot of understanding!”
“I don’t know,” remarked the other man, indifferently; “it’s a bit too learned for me.... Seems to me like as if there aren’t any other souls except Christian souls.... And as for a hen’s conscience, I don’t know about that ... don’t see it at all!”
“That’s just what I say: you don’t know.”
The discussion was evidently finished. But as the train had not yet come, and no one had anything to do, the company would have found it a little awkward to let the conversation drop at the conclusion of the poultry-farmers speech. Every one felt (as is the case at the meetings of learned societies) the need of some kind of answer or continuation. After a moment’s silence, therefore, one of the silhouettes (I think, from his voice, it was the one who had laid the suicide of the publican to the devil’s account) suddenly remarked—
“You talk about inventions—you’re right there; there’s no end to what they’ve invented nowadays! One day, when I was in Petersburg, I was going along the Isàkievskaya Square, and there was a grand sledge driving past, with a beautiful horse; it must have cost thousands, for harness and everything was splendid; and the driver was just like a figure in a picture. And what do you think, mates! they’d got stuck on to that driver, just here like—it’s as true as I live ... just in this place....”
“Where?”
“Here, I tell you!... It’s the truth. What do you think he’d got stuck on?... A watch!...”
“Stuck on to him there?”
“A great watch, half as big as my hand.... That’s so the gentleman in the sledge can always see it. I should have felt ashamed, if I’d been the driver.”
“I suppose the gentleman was so grand he couldn’t take the trouble to unbutton his coat.”
“I s’pose he wanted to know, to a second, how long he was driving; his time must have been precious! I dare say he had a lot of business.”
“Well!” interposed the poultry-farmer, contemptuously; “if that’s what you call an invention! There are inventions of quite another sort nowadays, my friend! People are getting too clever to live with their inventions.”
The tone in which these words were uttered plainly showed that the poultry-farmer was an ordinary hard-up peasant who found a difficulty in paying taxes.
“When I lived, as a merchant’s driver, in Moscow, my master used to pay me two roubles to go from Nikòlsk to Nìzhegorod.... ‘Only make haste,’ he would say; ‘I want to know if the goods have come in.’... But nowadays he can just mumble something into a pipe, and it goes along a wire, and there you are.... You can talk on a wire to people in Nìzhegorod, or Smolensk, or anywhere you like; and as for us poor drivers!”...
“That’s what they call a telephone,” remarked the poultry-farmer.
“Agafòn, or Falalèï, or anything you like ... all their inventions only make it worse for us poor peasants. Wherever we go, there are always inventions in the way, taking the bread out of our mouths! But it’s all one to the tax-gatherer.”
All the gloomy images called up by the tragedy of the morning, and all the fantastic ideas suggested by the lecture on souls, were put out of everybody’s head by this peasant’s comment. His remark had brought back the thoughts of all the group to the realities of life; and thus put an end to this conversation of chance-met strangers, in the right and proper manner—the manner in which, in our days, all kinds of discussions end, no matter how they begin.
The Story
of
a Kopeck.
BY
S. STEPNIAK.
PUBLISHED BY THE SECRET
PRESS.
Ah, my lads! it was a fine, free life in Russia when there were neither landlords nor priests nor fat shopkeepers.
But that didn’t last long, the old men say, for the devil saw that the peasant was getting the better of him; there was no stealing or lying on earth, because every one lived happily; and the devil began to think—how could he spoil the race of men. Seven years long he thought, never eating, drinking, or sleeping—then he invented the priest. Then he thought seven years more—and invented the barine.[[45]] Then he thought seven years more—and invented the merchant.
Then the devil was pleased, and chuckled till all the leaves fell off the trees.
So the devil sent priest, barine, and merchant to the peasant. But the silly peasant, instead of shaking them off, clothed and fed them and let them ride on his neck.
So from that time on there were no more good days for the peasant; priests and barines and shopkeepers tore him in pieces.
Not with knives or swords they wounded him, but with a copper kopeck. When the sun rose he thought: Where shall I get a kopeck? When the sun set he thought, Where shall I get a kopeck?
Then the peasant prayed to his Mother Earth: “Oh, Mother Earth, tell me where to get a kopeck.”
And the Earth answered, muttering: “In me is thy wealth.”
The peasant took a spade and began to dig. He dug all the day long, and a second and a third day. He dug a deep, deep pit, but still there was no kopeck. He dug through the soil and came to sand, through the sand and came to mud. He dug and dug and baled out the water. At last he came to clay. His spade was all spoiled, and yet there was no kopeck. Then he began to dig with his hands, and dug and dug; then he came to stone and could dig no further.
The peasant fell down on the breast of his Mother Earth, and asked her why she had jested with him so bitterly. Suddenly he saw; under a clod lay a copper kopeck. It was all green and spotted with damp, and as rough as the earth itself.
The peasant seized it, kissed it, wrapped it up and put it in his breast. Then he crawled out to God’s daylight and went home with his kopeck.
As he went the birch tree with her thick tresses greeted him and asked—
“Peasant, peasant, why is thy clothing like a fishing-net?”
“I have gained a kopeck,” he answered.
“Thy kopeck costs thee dear,” said the birch tree, shaking her locks.
He went on further and the forest bird asked him—
“Peasant, peasant, why art thou all roughened and blistered like oak-bark?”
“I have gained a kopeck.”
The bird whistled and flew away, saying to herself, “I’m glad I’m not a peasant.”
He walked on, and the river fish asked him—
“Peasant, peasant, why art thou as thin as a herring?”
“I have gained a kopeck.”
The fish said nothing, she only whisked her tail and dived right down to the river-bed to get away from the world, for fear she should be made into a peasant too.
The peasant walked on and met a priest, so he took off his cap and went to receive his blessing. The priest saw that the peasant was coming home from work, so that he very likely had a kopeck; and the priest thought he would like to have that kopeck himself. So he came up to the peasant and said—
“Open your mouth.”
The peasant opened it.
“Put out your tongue.”
He put it out. The priest put his hand in his pocket, took out some bread crumbs and sprinkled a little on the peasant’s tongue. What was left he put by for another time.
“Now give me your kopeck,” he said.
The peasant gave it him and went home.
“Well,” said his wife, “did you get a kopeck?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave it for the kingdom of heaven,” he answered.
“Thanks be to God,” said his wife; “and now come to dinner.”
They said grace and sat down to dinner—fir-bark and rain-water. When they had finished the peasant gave thanks to God for these earthly blessings, and lay down to rest.
Meantime the priest went home, thinking what he should do with the peasant’s kopeck. He thought and thought; at last he said, “I know!” and called the Ponomàr.[[46]]
The Ponomàr not only sang in the choir; he was not too proud to drive bargains too.
So the Ponomàr came, and the priest said to him—
“Look here, long-mane! It’s a fast to-day, so I’ve had no meat. Here’s a kopeck for you; roast me your sucking-pig, and see you don’t blab to any one, or I’ll tear your hair out. But if you manage it properly I’ll give you the tail to pick.”
The Ponomàr went away. “What next, Fat-paunch,” he thought. “No, no! You can pick the tail yourself, and I’ll fatten up the sucking-pig and sell it to the Arkhierèy[[47]] himself.”
And he took the kopeck to the village shopkeeper, and said—
“Look here, gossip, here’s a kopeck for you; give the priest a sucking-pig for it and me a hive of honey for my trouble.”
The shopkeeper laughed, but he took the kopeck. “I’ll go to the peasant,” he thought.
So he went to the peasant and showed him the kopeck.
“Do you see this kopeck?” he said. “Well, you give me for it your sucking-pig and a hive of honey and a wolf-skin for a coat.”
“All right,” said the peasant, “I’m well rested now.”
First of all he gave the shopkeeper his sucking-pig, that he had kept for a holiday—the greatest holiday in the year.
“Well, never mind,” he thought. “When my little son that lies in his cradle now grows up we’ll have a proper holiday.”
Then he took a slice of bark-bread, put a knife into his boot, and went to the forest. He walked on, sniffing; does it smell of honey anywhere? No, not a bit. He went on and on; he had eaten his bread, and had to live on roots and acorns, and still no honey. At last he smelt it faintly in the distance, and went on till he came to a great lime-tree, with the bees swarming round it. But see! a huge bear was standing by the hollow trunk, and just going to put his paw in.
“Oh, Lord!” cried the peasant, “surely he is not going to take the honey from me!”
He drew out his knife and rushed at the bear; the bear turned round, drew himself up grandly, and came to meet him. The peasant hastily tore off a lot of fine birch twigs, twisted them round his left hand, and took the knife in his right.
They met. The bear put out his paw, but the peasant warded him off with the left hand, and with the right plunged the knife up to its handle right into his heart. Then he sprang back sharply, but unluckily he got tangled in a branch, so that the bear was able to catch him, and they met in a hand-to-hand fight. First the bear hugged him and nearly broke his bones; then he hugged the bear. The blood rushed from the wound, and Mishka fell down dead.
The peasant rubbed himself a little after the bear’s embrace, and thought: “God is merciful even to peasants! If He had not sent me the bear I should have had to go hunting for a wolf heaven knows how long; but now, perhaps, the shopkeeper won’t mind taking a bear’s skin instead of a wolf’s.”
He skinned the bear, took the honey, and went home with his prize. But when the shopkeeper saw the bear-skin he shook his head and said—
“A bear-skin instead of a wolf-skin! What will you give into the bargain?”
“Why, what can I give?” said the peasant; “my breeches?”
“All right.”
The peasant took off his breeches and gave them to the shopkeeper; then he received his kopeck and took it to the barine to pay off his debt for last year’s cattle-drinking tax; no doubt it was the barine’s prayers that made the water flow in the river so that the peasant’s cattle could drink.
As he went the peasant looked at the kopeck that he held in his hand. It had passed through many hands, and was no longer so rough and rusty as when he had given it to the priest for the kingdom of heaven. It was the same kopeck, but the peasant did not recognise it, and said: “All right. This is a nice kopeck, much cleaner than my old one. I’ll give it to the barine now; it won’t soil his honour’s hands.”
So he went up to the manor-house, took off his cap and stood at the gate. But as ill luck would have it the barinya was looking out of the window to see whether a young officer was coming, and when she saw the peasant without breeches she cried out—
“Ah! ah! I shall die!” turned up her eyes, fainted away, and dropped on the carpet, only just kicking a little.
The servants ran to tell the barine that the barinya was graciously pleased to see a peasant without breeches and is dying. The barine rushed out and stamped his foot at the peasant and shouted at him, but when he heard that the peasant had come to pay the tax he got quiet. He graciously took the kopeck, and just wrote a note and gave it to the peasant.
“Here, my man,” he said, “just take this note for me to the Stanovòy.”[[48]]
The peasant took the note, gave it to the Stanovòy, and was just going when he looked at the Stanovòy and stopped short. The Stanovòy was clenching his fists and grinding his teeth and panting with rage.
“How dare you!” he shouted to the peasant; “you clown! how dare you insult the lady?”
The peasant tried to explain, but it was no use; the Stanovòy grew more furious than ever.
“What? You want to deny it, you hound! I’ll send you to Siberia! I’ll flay you alive!”—and so on, and so on. And he flew at the peasant as if he wanted to toss him or jump into his mouth.
The peasant’s wife heard the row, caught up a cock, ran to the Stanovòy and dropped at his feet.
“Little father!” she cried, “there is a cock for you. Take it, and welcome, but don’t kill my good man, or I and all the children will starve.”
The Stanovòy almost choked with fury.
“A cock! How dare you offer me a cock! I’ve served God and the Emperor for twenty years as Stanovòy and never suffered such an insult yet. Bring me your goat at once, or I’ll have your cottage pulled down!”
There was nothing for it; they brought him the goat. The Stanovòy grew calm and ordered the peasant to be only flogged and then let go free. The peasant went home and told his wife to make him new breeches, because he must soon go to work in the barine’s garden to pay off a debt, and perhaps the barinya might see him again.
The barine was walking about the manor thinking what he should do with the kopeck. At last he sent for the peasant.
“Look here, friend,” he said, “you said you wanted firewood. There’s a stick in the kitchen-garden that you may have, only you must do an errand for me. You must go to my friend, Saffròn Kouzmìch—he lives only five hundred versts off—and tell him that I send him my compliments, and ask him to visit me.”
“All right,” said the peasant.
So he went to Saffròn Kouzmìch. He walked and walked and walked. At last he got to the place and gave his message.
Saffròn Kouzmìch came at once, for he and our barine were great friends; when they were young they had served the Tzar together. So he came to visit the barine, and they played for the kopeck. Saffròn Kouzmìch won it, and drove away very merry and sang all the way home. But our barine was very angry, so he called the Sòtsky[[49]] and told him to collect taxes from the peasant.
The Sòtsky came to the peasant and asked for the taxes.
“Where am I to get the money from?” asked the peasant.
“Where you like. But you must get it somewhere, or the barine will send for the Stanovòy again.”
The peasant scratched his head. However, there was nothing for it, he must get the money. So he went to look for work. He went everywhere, and could find no work. At last he came to the same gentleman who had won the kopeck, and asked him for work. The gentleman called his steward.
“Is there any work?” he asked.
“Certainly,” said the steward, “the dam is broken down, and must be mended at once. But it’s very dangerous work, for the workman may get carried away by the water, and besides, it’s just under the mill-wheel. It will do nicely for this peasant; any peasant will jump into the fire, let alone the water, for a kopeck.”
“Very well,” said the gentleman.
The steward went to the peasant and said—
“Mend the mill-dam, and just build a cottage for me, because I took your part and got you the job. You shall have a kopeck. Only mind you do the cottage first, for we are in the Almighty’s hands, and you may get drowned.”
“All right,” said the peasant.
He took an axe, cut down some trees, dragged them to the steward’s yard and built a cottage. The steward came and looked—a capital cottage.
“Very good,” he said, and gave the peasant a glass to smell, out of which he had drunk vodka two days before.
“Thank you,” said the peasant. “That was very kind.”
Then he went to mend the dam. The water was seething like a boiling pot. He got the job done at last, but the water swept him down right under the mill-wheel.
“He’s lost!” thought the steward; “the kopeck he has earned remains with me.”
But the peasant dived, and so got out of the water safe and sound, and the steward had to give him his kopeck. The peasant walked home with the kopeck, thinking—
“God be thanked! Now the barine won’t demand the tax for a week. I shall have time to do some work for myself, and to rest enough for the whole year as well.”
“‘VERY GOOD,’ HE SAID, AND GAVE THE PEASANT A GLASS TO SMELL, OUT OF WHICH HE HAD DRUNK VODKA TWO DAYS BEFORE.”
He went straight to the manor. All the court was strewn with juniper—every one was in black clothes, and there were two candles in the window.
“What has happened?” asked the peasant.
“The barine is dead,” they told him.
The peasant burst into tears. “God rest his soul!” he thought; “he was a kind barine.”
He asked for the barinya to take her the kopeck, but she could not see him. She was broken-hearted about the barine, and a young officer was consoling her in her grief. So she would let no one in. The peasant went home, dug a pit in the cellar, and put his kopeck into it, just so that it should not get lost.
Some days afterwards, as he was going home, he heard some one sobbing. He looked round and saw a little girl sitting by the road and crying bitterly.
“What are you crying for, my lass?” he asked.
The child told him that her brother was very ill, so that a priest had to be called, to dip his finger in oil and rub it on the sick man’s lips. The priest would not come for nothing, and they could not pay him.
The peasant laid his great rough hand on the child’s head, ruffled her hair and said—
“Don’t cry, silly child! I’ll pay the priest.”
The little girl thanked him and ran to the priest; and the peasant went down into the cellar, dug out his kopeck, and brought it to the light. He looked at it and clasped his hands: he had recognised his kopeck—the same that with such toil he had won from the bosom of Mother Earth. Lying in the earth again, it had become just as green and rough as it was then.... And the peasant wept bitter tears of anger and grief, for he understood that all his labour had been in vain: he had gained nothing but this same kopeck, which had been his already. Now it must go to the priest again, and wander about the world once more, and every one into whose hands it fell would ride upon his neck. And if by chance it should come into his cottage again, he must only give it away once more, either to the barine or to the priest.
“I will give no one my kopeck!” the peasant decided.
“‘GIVE ME THE KOPECK! I’VE LISTENED TO ENOUGH OF YOUR NONSENSE!’”
He went to the neighbour’s cottage, and saw that the sick man’s lips were already smeared with oil, and in the middle of the room stood the priest, who had collected all kinds of things—cakes, eggs, flaxen threads—and was looking round to see what more he could get. He saw there was nothing more to give, and turned to the peasant.
“Well, now give me the kopeck.”
“Oh, little father, little father!” said the peasant; “do not rob the Orthodox people!”
“You rascal!” cried the priest. “How dare you say such things to your spiritual father!”
“Little father, little father! From my very soul I say it;—do not rob the Orthodox people. Think what you are doing, little father!”
The priest caught up the baby’s cradle, rushed at the peasant and cried—
“Give me the kopeck! I’ve listened to enough of your nonsense!”
The peasant answered, holding him by the hands—
“No, little father, go your way, and God go with you; I will not give you the kopeck. It would be a sin to encourage your sin.”
The priest lifted up the tail of his cassock and rushed straight to the manor-house. He ran in and found the barinya with the officer. The officer was merry, as merry as could be, for he had just asked the barinya to be his wife, and she had consented.
“Why, little father, what’s the matter with you?” he asked, laughing. “Has your wife been thrashing you?”
“My wife! That would be nothing serious; we could soon settle that. The peasant has mutinied, that’s what has happened!” And he told them what the peasant had said.
“Well, you’re a fine fellow to call yourself a priest! Your hair may be long, but your head’s short enough! Couldn’t manage a peasant!”
“Bring him to me,” said the new barine to his lackey. “I won’t even speak; I’ll just look at him, and you’ll see how tame he’ll get!”
The lackey went to fetch the peasant, and the barine twirled his moustaches and waited to show off his courage to the priest and the barinya. Presently the lackey came back with the peasant, and stood at the door.
“Bring him here!” said the barine; “let me look at him.” And he glanced sideways, now at the priest, now at the barinya.
They brought in the peasant. The barine stood in the middle of the room, with his left arm akimbo, his right hand in his pocket, and his neck stretched out, clenching his teeth and rolling his eyes. The peasant looked at him, and got quite frightened.
“Little father!” he cried, “you must be ill! Wait a minute, poor fellow, I’ll bring you some water to drink!”
Without waiting for an answer, he ran out into the yard, took off his greasy cap, filled it from the water-tub, and brought it to the barine.
“There, little father, drink!”
But the barine sat blinking his eyes; he was ashamed before the priest and the barinya. The barinya flew at the peasant; she was almost ready to tear his beard out.
“How dare you bring the barine water in your filthy cap?” she cried.
He emptied the water out of the window and asked the barine—
“What do you want with me?”
The barine had recovered himself; he leaned back in the armchair, put his hands in his pockets, and said—
“What are you mutinying for, my friend?”
“Mutiny? It’s a sin for the priest to rob the people, and to encourage him is a sin too; that’s all!”
“What do you mean, my friend? Why, the priest is your spiritual father. Do you want him to live by his own labour, instead of yours? I suppose you’ll say next that I ought to support myself too, instead of your working for me!”
“You’re no fool, even if you are a barine,” said the peasant. “You have just guessed it; I won’t pay you either.”
The barine started up as if he had been stung, rushed at the peasant and demanded the kopeck of him; but it was no use, the peasant would not give him the kopeck.
The peasant went home, but officer, priest, and barinya sat thinking what they should do with him. They thought and thought, and at last agreed to send a message to the Stanovòy, that the peasant had mutinied, and would not give up his kopeck, and that the Stanovòy must come and manage him. The Stanovòy turned quite white when he read the letter.
“Heavens!” he thought; “my end is come, the peasant will murder me!”
However, he was an official, and must go. He put four pistols into his belt, mounted his fleetest horse and rode off. He rode slowly till he came to a hundred paces from the peasant’s cottage, then started his horse at a furious gallop, and rushed past the cottage like a whirlwind, crying out—
“Give up the kopeck! Give up the kopeck, you villain! I will tear you in pieces if you don’t; I will sweep you off the face of the earth!” And he lashed his horse furiously.
There was a fearful hubbub in the cottage. The peasant was not at home; but when the Stanovòy made such a noise outside, the cow began to moo, the pig began to grunt, the sheep began to bleat, and the dogs jumped over the fence and rushed, barking, after the Stanovòy.
“I am lost!” he thought. He dropped the reins, caught at the horse’s mane and closed his eyes, so as not to see death, and the horse rushed on and knocked against a huge stone. The Stanovòy was flung head over heels on to the ground, where he lay and thought: “I am killed! God receive my soul!”
The dogs ran up, smelt him all over, and ran home again, wagging their tails. He lay still, waiting for death. He waited and waited, but it did not come; at last he opened one eye, then the other. Then he cautiously lifted his head and looked round. His horse lay beside him with its legs broken.
“Oh, Lord!” thought the Stanovòy, “what shall I do? The peasant will seize me and take me into captivity!”
He almost died of terror, but he plucked up his courage and set off to run. He ran on, stumbling and falling, now among the brambles, now in the mud, till he got so dirty and scratched, that he looked like a wild creature. At last he reached the police-station, and sat down at once to write a report to the Governor, stating that the peasant had mutinied and refused to give up his kopeck; that he, the Stanovòy, had gone to persuade him; but that the peasant would not listen, and in answer had bellowed like a whole herd of cattle. Then the peasant had loosed upon him a peculiar breed of dogs, which he had got for the purpose; these dogs were fearful to see—the size of calves—and ran like the wind. Then the peasant had flung a great stone at him, as big as a bull, and broken the forelegs of his horse.
The Governor read this report and said—
“The Stanovòy must be rewarded for his bravery with St. George’s Cross!”
Then he ordered off a squadron of soldiers to fight the peasant. Early next morning the Governor, the Stanovòy, and the squadron of soldiers started off on their campaign against the peasant. In the evening they reached the wood where the peasant lived. The soldiers pitched their tent and lay down to sleep, and the officers met in the Governor’s tent to hold council and decide how they should capture the peasant. Finally they agreed that a direct attack was dangerous, so they must wait till dawn, when the peasant would come out into the wood to wash in the spring, and then surround and seize him.
The next morning they surrounded the spring, and hid themselves in the bushes, so that the peasant should not see them. Just as he was going to stoop down and wash, they suddenly blew their trumpets and beat their drums and shouted on all sides of him.
“What can it be?” thought the peasant, rubbing his eyes. But the Stanovòy, fired with courage, rushed forwards, like one possessed, waving his sword and shouting to the soldiers—
“Courage, men! We will die for our father the Tzar, and for the Orthodox faith!”
Then he caught up a banner and cried—
“Follow me! hurrah!”
“Hurrah! hurrah! hurra-a-ah!” yelled the soldiers, and charged upon the peasant.
He tried to defend himself, but it was useless; in a moment they seized him, tied his hands and led him to the Governor. But he had time to break several guns, and bite through two bayonets.
“Give up the kopeck!” shouted the Governor.
“I won’t!” said the peasant.
So they put him in prison and tried him. They sentenced him, for the crime of mutiny and obstinacy, to receive twenty-five thousand lashes, and then to be sent back to his former habitation. Further (in order that he might not continue to hide his kopeck), to feed a squadron of soldiers, who should be billeted upon him until he gave up the kopeck. And for the bayonets that he had bitten through, and the Stanovòy’s uniform that was spoiled, to pay costs.
The punishment was inflicted, and the peasant sent home. Then the soldiers arrived, and sat down to dinner.
The peasant killed them a sheep. They ate it and cried—“More!”
He killed a pig—“More! More!”
He killed a cow—“Why,” they cried, “we are hungrier than before dinner!”
“If they go on like this,” thought the peasant, “they’ll end by eating me.”
“Wait a minute, mates,” he said; “I’ll go to the beehives and get you honey.”
“All right,” said the soldiers.
He took his cap and ran out of the cottage.
“Now sit and gnaw logs for honey, accursed brood!” he thought; “and if you don’t like that, try bricks instead, but I’ll not feed you any more!”
And he went away into the deep, dense forest. He walked on for three days and three nights, till, in the evening of the third day, he came to wild thickets, where no human foot had ever trod. Then he sat down on a hillock, looked around him, lifted his left foot and took from under his ankle-straps his kopeck—that same kopeck for which he had suffered so much. He looked at it and said—
“I have suffered many griefs for thee, my kopeck, since first I carried thee in my bosom, to bring down on me the birds of prey. I know that without thee I shall be still more unhappy; but they shall rather tear out my eyes than thou, my kopeck that I have toiled for, shalt go to serve my enemies!”
And he dug a pit and buried his kopeck. Then he lay down on the grave of his kopeck and thought in bitterness of spirit—
“If thou hast no kopeck, lie down in thy coffin; if thou hast a kopeck, drown thee in the river!”
And the peasant sighed heavily, heavily, and he fell down upon the earth and prayed, saying—
“Oh, Mother Earth! teach me, for I know not, what I shall do, that I may have not only sorrow and misery—that even in my life there may be bright days!”
And the peasant fell asleep.
Sunrise is wiser than nightfall. Next morning the peasant awoke, and, after pondering deeply, he broke off a strong bough, cut it with a stone and made a spade; with this he raised an earthen hut. And he covered it with brushwood, and filled the chinks with moss, and roofed it over. Then he closed the entrance with a stone and took up his dwelling there.
Time passed on, and a household grew up about the peasant, with fields and pastures and all things needful. There he dwelt and passed his days in peace and joy, praising God.
What then, my lads? If the good folk were but a bit wiser and would stand up for themselves and their own, maybe every man might live in peace and plenty, and never need to slip away and hide his head in the forest. Think of that!
THE DOG’S PASSPORT.
(TOLD BY A PEASANT.)[[50]]
Well, you see, once there was a man with an old dog; and he took the old dog and turned him out of doors, he did. So the dog up and says: “Give me a passport that I lived with you.” So the man wrote him a passport, and let him go his way—to the four winds. Well, the dog went his way, and at last he came to another man as hadn’t got a dog; and he just hung on and begged him to let him bide. So the man took him, and he bided there one day, and two days,—and all at once he saw the cat. And it was a fine cat. And all their lives they two had never cast eyes one on the other. So the dog says—“Who are you?” and the cat says—“I am the cat, and I live here, and I look after the master.... And who are you?” she says. “I am the dog,” says he; “and I’ve got a passport; I live in the back-yard, and look after the master.” “And where’s the passport?” “Here it is, under my paw.” “Give it to me; I’ll hide it away safe, or you will be getting it all sopping wet when the rain comes.” “Well,” says the dog, “take it, but give it me back when I tell you.” So those two were right good mates together. Only one night the cat ran after a wee mousie, and she dropped the passport in the old straw, and the gammer took it and burnt it up in the fire, she did. Well, then the gaffer took the dog and turned him out of doors, because he hadn’t got his passport; and the dog called the cat. “Give back my passport!” “It’s gone,” says she; “I lost it!” And that dog, it just flew at the cat, and tore it into little wee bits.... There now! If the cat hadn’t happened to have burnt the passport, those two would have been mates like, and the dog would have bided at home. Only think of that!
THE DOG’S PASSPORT.