It was a fine, noble-toned poem, perfectly rhythmical, and true to every rule of composition. The rhetorical warmth rising gradually to an impassioned climax, the under-current expressing that deep spirit of yearning melancholy which harmonizes so entirely with the spirit of the people.
The poem recited, all united to congratulate the youthful Tyrtæus; while Zeneida, with eyes filled with tears, kissed him on both cheeks.
Pushkin, annoyed, looked away. For a woman to kiss a man is the accepted custom in Russian society. Ghedimin scarcely heeded Zeneida's action, and he certainly had the best right to demur; but Pushkin was plainly annoyed by it. He envied Ryleieff: envied him the kiss; how much more the poem which answered its purpose—faute de mieux!
"The verses are splendid!" exclaimed Prince Ghedimin. "We will have a million copies of them struck off in Lunin's press, and distributed among the peasants."
"You forget, Prince," put in Zeneida, "that our peasants cannot read. I would suggest it were more practical to have the poem set to music, that it might be diffused more rapidly among them. In that way it would pass from field to field; mowers, reapers, wagoners, would carry it from village to village, and what is once sung among them never dies out. In our Finnish Volkslieder has lived the history of the nation, the traditions of its historical life, its freedom. These no man can take away. The Marseillaise alone raised an army in France."
"But to whom confide the setting of it to music?" asked the Prince.
"Here is Herr Pushkin," said Zeneida. "He composes charming melodies."
Pushkin felt as if stung by a tarantula.
He compose the melody to Ryleieff's song of freedom! Subordination can be carried to a nicety of perfection. A state councillor, when he puts on the uniform of a private of volunteers, may find he has to obey the orders of his own chancery clerk and corporal; or a duke, if he become a freemason, have to make obeisance to a bootmaker, as master of the lodge; but for one poet to be called upon to write the music to another poet's effusion, when he feels himself to be Cæsar and the other man Pompey, is a sheer impossibility.
Pushkin's face crimsoned.