The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 4

The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 4

At last he grew so tired and frightened that he threw himself on the

ground in a kind of despair, made the sign of the cross, said a prayer

to his patron St. John the evangelist, then fell into a state of

drowsiness, and lost all sense of time, until, after an interval of

perhaps an hour, he was aroused by the sound of voices.

 

Never had human voices seemed more welcome. Ivan started to his feet,

and saw to his great delight a party of five or six mujiks, carrying

large baskets of cabbages and other vegetables. Greetings were soon

exchanged. His new friends told him that they were journeying from a

distant village to a fair at Kaluga, a town on the other bank of the

Oka. They intended, after crossing the river, to travel all night,

that they might reach the fair with their merchandise early the next

morning. They took the tired little wayfarer by the hand and helped him

on, encouraging him with kind words, and telling him they were now not

far from the ferry.

 

At last the river appeared in the distance, glimmering in the light of

the rising moon. “Look,” cried his companions, “yonder is the Oka.” But

Ivan was by this time too weary to care; he could scarcely keep his

eyes open and his feet moving.

 

They drew nearer and nearer. The river was as broad as the Thames--a

fine sheet of water, with green banks on either side. From these there

came a hoarse, monotonous sound--the croaking of innumerable frogs,

which some one has unpoetically called “the nightingales of Russia.”

Soon a brown wooden shed came into view, where the men said they would

find kvass, and perhaps even vodka.[6] This roused Ivan, who was still

tormented with thirst. He saw the moonlight upon the waters; the grassy

sward beside them; the rough boat-house, out of which a withered old

woman, with a red handkerchief wrapped around her head and a torch of

pine-wood in her hand, came to meet the wayfarers.

 

There was no boat to be had, she said; her son had not returned, though

she expected him before sundown;--she could not think what detained

him. The peasants were grievously disappointed. The sale of their

merchandise depended on their reaching the fair in good time, so their

vexation was quite natural. It was somewhat allayed, however, by the

offer of vodka, that charmer so fatally dear to the heart of the mujik.

And their weary little companion was not quite forgotten. “Give the

little one a taste, mother,” they said. “Poor child, he is ready to

faint.”

 

It was to the honour of the people of Nicolofsky that, though

themselves no patterns of sobriety, they had at least kept the

destroyer from the young lips of their nursling. Ivan turned from the

fiery beverage with loathing, and asked for kvass. “Here is no kvass,”

said the old woman roughly. “No man would be fool enough to drink it

who could get vodka. But you can have water, if you like.”

 

With this he was content. He wrapped himself up in his shuba, lay down

beside the fire in the shed, and was soon fast asleep; while the mujiks

sat outside talking, laughing, singing, and drinking vodka.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III.

 

SOMETHING WONDERFUL HAPPENS TO IVAN.

 

“Dir ist dein Ohr geklungen

Vom Lob das man dir bot,

Doch ist zu ihn gedrungen

Ein schwacher Schrei der Noth.

Der ist ein Held der Freien

Der, wenn der Ruhm ihn kränzt,

Noch gluht, zu dem zu weihen,

Das frommet und nicht glänzt.”--RUCKÄRT.

 

 

When Ivan awoke it was broad daylight; the shed was empty, and all

around him still and silent. After a few moments of bewilderment, he

remembered where he was, and a sudden terror seized him lest the boat

might have come and gone, and his companions have crossed the river

without him. So he threw on his shuba and hurried out. They were

standing on the bank, watching eagerly for the boat--or rather for

the boatman, of whom as yet there was no appearance, though they were

tantalized by the sight of the empty boat lying high and dry on the

opposite bank. Their irritation increased every moment, and curses were

not wanting, which lost none of their effect uttered in that hard,

resonant, metallic language.

 

At this point a new wayfarer joined the group. He came with long

strides, as one in eager haste, and his annoyance at the delay seemed

even greater than that of the rest. He was a fine, active, young

fellow, neatly dressed, and with a mason’s trowel stuck in the sash of

his caftan, where all the others carried the indispensable axe. Seeing

no sign of the approach of a boat, he grew pale, and ground his teeth

with angry disappointment.

 

“Just like my luck!” he muttered. “As well throw myself into the river

at once, as wait here much longer.”

 

“Patience, friend,” said the oldest of the mujiks. “Are we not all in

the like case? Nay, we are worse off than you, for we have waited here

all night.”

 

“Worse off! you little know! With you it is a matter of a few kopecks;

with me it is life and death. If I am not at Klopti by sundown, there

is the knout for my back.”

 

“Why? In Heaven’s name, what have you done?”

 

“Done! nothing in the world but work at my trade, and pay my obrok

truly to my lord” (for he was one of that numerous class of serfs

who were permitted by their lords to work on their own account, upon

payment of an annual tax, or _obrok_). “But he raised my obrok three

times, until at last I could scarcely live, and was left no chance of

saving a rouble or two for the future. Then last summer I fell from

the scaffolding of a house I was building, and was sore hurt. Only

that the people I lodged with were good Christians, it would have gone

ill with me. But I recovered, thanks to my patron St. Stefen; and when

the spring came on I got work again--government work too, which is

well paid. I made up my obrok, and then--why then, my brothers, the

world went well with me, and my heart was light. Little Katinka, the

daughter of the kind soul that took care of me while I was ill, was the

prettiest girl in the quarter, and good and pure like a candle of white

wax made to burn before the picture of a holy saint. So we gave each

other our troth; and I think the Czar himself on his golden throne was

scarce happier than I. But five days ago there came a messenger from

Klopti to call me home at once. My lord wants to make him a new house,

and must needs have me to build it for him and to teach the men of the

village to build also. It was sudden; but my lord does not think much

of us poor people--God forgive him!”

 

“But, brother;--what is it you call yourself?” asked the mujik who had

spoken before.

 

“Stefen Alexitch, at your service.”

 

“Well, then, Brother Stefen, why did you not set out at once? You would

have been by this time at your journey’s end.”

 

“I know it. Indeed I was wrong, very wrong. But the very next day was

Katinka’s feast-day, and as I knew only too well that I was never

likely to look on her sweet face again, I was tempted to stay, just

that I might dance one more measure with her. I thought I could have

walked more quickly. And now this cursed delay! God grant my lord may

not lose patience altogether, and wreak his vengeance on my poor old

father and mother! That would be worse than the knout across my own

shoulders.”

 

Stefen’s narrative elicited many __EXPRESSION__s of compassion.

 

“Poor lad! thy case is hard indeed,” said one.

 

“Ah,” sighed another, “how true the proverb, ‘Heaven is high, and the

Czar far off.’”

 

But at that moment a third exclaimed joyfully,--

 

“Look, brothers!--the boat at last!”

 

So it was. At first it was seen to shoot rapidly across the strong

current of the river; but by-and-by the rower seemed to flag, and his

strokes grew uncertain and unsteady.

 

The mujiks were too glad to see him on any terms to be critical about

the quality of his performances. They crowded to the river’s brink,

that they might be ready to spring into the boat the moment it touched

the land.

 

Ivan took advantage of the confusion to steal up to Stefen and slip his

silver rouble quietly into his hand. “Take it,” he whispered. “It is

all I have; but you can get a fairing with it to send to Katinka.”

 

It was poor consolation; but he meant it well, and Stefen’s sore heart

was soothed by the gentle touch. He bent over the boy and kissed him.

There was no time to do more; if they wished to get places in the boat,

they must hasten.

 

The boatman, meanwhile, was volubly explaining the cause of his delay,

his speech thickened with much vodka. A party of boyars--_very_ great

boyars, high and mighty excellencies--had come to the post-house on

the Moscow road, and the postmaster had kept him busy going on their

errands, both last night and this morning. It was easy to see in what

coin his services had been paid for; he had taken so much vodka that

he was scarcely able to row the boat at all, and, moreover, it was too

heavily freighted for safety, not to say for comfort.

 

Ivan had never been on the water before, and he soon became thoroughly

frightened; not without reason. When they reached the middle of the

river the boatman showed himself so manifestly incapable that Stefen

offered to take the oars. Russian peasants are usually good-tempered,

even when under the influence of vodka; but the boatman, unhappily,

was surly and dogged by nature, and rudely refused to yield his place.

For a few minutes Stefen waited quietly; then seeing that the man was

allowing the boat to drift, to the peril of all their lives, he made an

attempt to take the oars from him by force. The boatman resisted, and

a struggle ensued, from which Ivan hid his face in terror; for now the

two men were standing up, striking and pushing each other wildly, while

the frail, heavily-laden boat swayed and rocked beneath their reckless