The Story of Gore-Gorinskoe.[1]
There once lived in a village two brothers, one of whom was rich, and the other poor. With the rich man everything went swimmingly, in everything he laid his hand to he found luck and bliss; but as for the poor man, slave and toil as he might, fortune flew away from him. The rich man, in a few years, so grew out of bounds that he went to live in the town, and built him the biggest house there, and settled down as a merchant; but the poor man got into such straits that sometimes he had not even a crust of bread in the house to feed a whole armful of children, small—smaller—smallest, who all cried together, and begged for something to eat and drink. And the poor man began to repine at his fate, he began to lose heart, and his dishevelled head began to sink deeper between his shoulders. And he went to his rich brother in the town and said, “Help me! I am quite worn out.”—“Why should I not?” replied the rich man. “We can well afford it, only you must come and work it out with me all this week.”—“Willingly,” said the poor man; so he set to work, swept out the yard, curried the horses, and split up firewood. At the end of the week the rich brother gave him a grisenka[2] in money and a large lump of bread. “Thanks even for that,” said the poor man, and was about to turn away homewards, when his brother’s conscience evidently pricked him, and he said, “Why dost thou slip off like that? To-morrow is my name day; stay and feast with us.” And the poor man stayed to his brother’s banquet. But, unfortunately for him, a great many rich guests assembled at his brother’s—men of renown; and these guests his brother served most zealously, bowing down low before them, and imploring them as a favour to be so good as to eat and drink their fill. But he forgot altogether about his poor brother, who could only look on from afar, and see all the good people eating and drinking, and enjoying themselves, and making merry. At last the banquet was over, the guests arose, they began to thank the host and hostess, and the poor man also bowed to his very girdle. The guests also went home, and very merry they all were; they laughed, and joked, and sang songs all the way. And the poor man went home as hungry as ever, and he thought to himself, “Come, now, I will sing a song too, so that people may think that I too was not overlooked or passed over on my brother’s name day, but ate to surfeit, and drank myself drunk with the best of them.” And so the peasant began singing a song, but suddenly his voice died away. He heard quite plainly that some one behind his back was imitating his song in a thin piping voice. He stopped short, and the voice stopped short; he went on singing, and again the voice imitated him. “Who is that singing? come forth!” shrieked the poor man, and he saw before him a monster, all shrivelled up and yellow, with scarcely any life in it, huddled up in rags, and girded about with the same vile rags, and its feet wound round with linden bast. The peasant was quite petrified with horror, and he said to the monster, “Who art thou?”—“I am Gore-Gorinskoe; I have compassion on thee; I will help thee to sing.”—“Well, Gore, let us go together through the wide[3] world arm in arm; I see that I shall find no other friends and kinsmen there.”—“Let us go, then, master; I will never desert thee.”—“And on what shall we go, then?”—“I know not what you are going upon, but I will go upon you,” and flop! in an instant he was on the peasant’s shoulders. The peasant had not strength enough to shake him off. And so the peasant went on his way, carrying Woeful Woe on his shoulders, though he was scarce able to drag one leg after the other, and the monster was singing all the time, and beating time to it, and driving him along with his little stick. “I say, master, wouldst thou like me to teach thee my favourite song?
I am Woe, the woefully woeful!
Girt about with linden bast rags,
Shod with beggars’ buskins, bark stript.
Live with me, then; live with Woe,
And sorrow never know.
If you say you have no money,
You can always raise it, honey;