September 2, 2025 • 50 mins
Step into the mesmerizing world crafted by world-renowned Russian author Ivan Turgenev, as he presents a captivating collection of stories that delve into dreams, lost love, fleeting specters, and ominous premonitions. This anthology also features a selection of sketches and prose poems, all penned in Turgenevs deceptively simple but profoundly articulate style. These aren‚t your typical tales of romance and nature; instead, Turgenev intertwines a thread of cynicism and melancholy that enriches his poetic language, inviting readers to explore the deeper complexities of the human experience. (Summary by Ben Tucker)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section six of dream Tales and Prose Poems by Ivan Turgenev.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
Bin Tucker. Poems and Prose, Part one The Country, the
last day of July, for a thousand versts around Russia,
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our native land. An unbroken blue flooding the whole sky,
a single cloud lit upon it, half floating, half fading away, windlessness, warmth,
air like new milk. Larks are trilling powder, pigeons cooing noiselessly.
The swallows dart to and fro. Horses are neighing and munching.
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The dogs do not bark, and stand peaceably, wagging their tails.
A smell of smoke and of hay, and a little
of tar too, and a little of hides. The hemp,
now in full bloom, sheds its heavy, pleasant fragrance. A
deep but slope ravine. Along its sides willows and rows
with big heads above, trunks cleft below. Through the ravine
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runs a brook. The tiny pebbles at its bottom are
all aquiver through its clearless eddies. In the distance, on
the border line between Earth and Heaven, the bluish streak
of a great river along the ravine on one side,
tidy barns, little storehouses with close shut doors. On the
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other side, five or six pine wood huts with boarded roofs.
Above each roof, the high pole of a pigeon house,
over each entry, a little short maned horse of wrought iron.
The window panes of faulty glass shine with all the
colors of the rainbow. Jugs of flowers are painted on
the shutters. Before each door, a little bench stands prim
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and neat on the mounds of earth. Cats are basking,
their transparent ears pricked up alert. Beyond the high door
sills is the cool dark of the outer rooms. I
lie on the very edge of the ravine on an
outspread horsecloth. All about her whole stacks of fresh cut hay,
oppressively fragrant. The sagacious husbandmen have flung the hay about
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before the huts. Let it get a bit drier in
the baking sunshine, and then into the barn with it.
It will be first rate sleeping on it. Curly childish
heads are sticking out of every haycock crested hens are
looking in the hay for flies and little beetles, and
a white lipped pup is rolling among the tangled stalks.
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Flaxen headed lads in clean smocks, belted low in heavy boots,
leaning over an unharnessed wagon, fling each other smart volleys
of banter, with broad grins showing their white teeth. A
round faced young woman peeps out of window, laughs at
their words or at the romps of the children. In
the mounds of hay. Another young woman with powerful arms
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draws a great wet bucket out of the well. The
bucket quivers and shakes, spilling long glistening drops. Before me
stands an old woman in a new striped petticoat and
new shoes. Fat hollow beads are wound in three rows
about her dark, thin neck. Her gray head is tied
up in a yellow kerchief with red spots. It hangs
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low over her failing eyes, but there is a smile
of welcome in the aged eyes, a smile all over
the wrinkled face. The old woman has reached, I dare say,
her seventieth year, and even now one can see she
has been a beauty in her day. With a twirl
of her sun burnt finger, she holds in her right
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hand a bowl of cold milk with the cream on
it fresh from the cellar. The sides of the bowl
are covered with drops like strings of pearls. In the
palm of her left hand, the old woman brings me
a huge hunch of warm bread, as though to say
eat and welcome. Passing guest, A cock suddenly crows and
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fussily flaps his wings. He is slowly answered by the
low of a calf shut up in the stall. My word,
what oats I hear my coachman saying, Oh the content,
the quiet, the plenty of the Russian open country, Oh
the deep peace and well being. And the thought comes
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to me, what is it all to us? Here? The
cross on the cupola of Saint Sophia in Constantinople, and
all the rest that we are struggling for, we men
of the town a conversation. Neither the young Frau nor
the finster aar horn has yet been trodden by the
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foot of man. The topmost peaks of the Alps, a
whole chain of rugged precipices, the very heart of the mountains.
Over the mountain, a pale green, clear, dumb sky, bitter
cruel frost, hard sparkling snow sticking out of the snow.
The sullen peaks of the ice covered when swept mountains.
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Two massive forms, two giants on the side of the horizon,
the young Fraw and the Fence to ar Horn. And
the young Frow speaks to its neighbor. What canst thou
tell that is new? Thou canst see more? What is
there down below? A few thousand years go by one minute,
and the fence to ar Horn roars back in answer.
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The clouds cover the earth. Wait a little thousands more
years go by one minute? Well, and now asks the
young Fraw. Now I see there below? All is the same.
There are blue waters, black forests, gray heaps of piled
up stones. Among them are still fussing to and fro
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the insects. Thou knowest the bipeds that have never yet
once defiled thee nor me men? Yes, men, thousands of
years go by one minute? Well, and now asks the
young Fraw. There seem fewer insects to be seen, thunders
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the fens to our horn. It is clear down below
the waters have shrunk, the forests are thinner again. Thousands
of years go by one minute? What see it'st thou
says the young Frow. Close about us, it seems pure,
answers the fence to our horn. But there in the distance,
in the valleys are still spots, and something is moving.
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And now, asks the young frow, after more thousands of years,
one minute, Now it is well, answers the fence to
our horn. It is clean, everywhere, quite white. Wherever you look.
Everywhere is our snow, unbroken snow and ice. Everything is frozen.
It is well now, It is quiet, good, the young frow.
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But we have gossiped enough, old fellow. It's time to slumber.
It is time. Indeed, the huge mountains sleep, the green,
clear sky sleeps over the region of eternal silence. The
old woman. I was walking over a wide plain alone,
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and suddenly I fancied light, cautious footsteps behind my back.
Someone was walking after me. I looked round and saw
a little, bent old woman, all muffled up in gray rags.
The face of the old woman alone peeped out from them,
a yellow, wrinkled, sharp nosed, toothless face. I went up
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to her. She stopped, who are you? What do you want?
Are you a beggar? Do you seek alms? The old
woman did not answer. I bent down to her and
noticed that both her eyes were covered with a half
transparent membrane or skin, such as is seen in some birds.
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They protect their eyes with it from dazzling light. But
in the old woman the membrane did not move nor
uncover the eyes, from which I concluded she was blind.
Do you want alms? I repeated my question, why are
you following me? But the old woman, as before, made
no answer, but only shrank into herself a little. I
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turned from her and went on my way, and again
I hear behind me the same light, measured as it
were stealthy steps. Again that woman, I thought, why does
she stick to me? But then I added inwardly, most
likely she has lost her way, being blind, and now
is following the sound of my steps, so as to
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get with me to some inhabited place. Yes, yes, that's it.
But a strange uneasiness gradually gained possession of my mind.
I began to fancy that the old woman was not
only following me, but that she was directing me, that
she was driving me to right and to left, and
that I was unwittingly obeying her. I still go on, however,
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but behold before me on my very road, something black
and wide, a kind of hole. A grave flashed through
my mind. That is where she is driving me. I
turned sharply back. The old woman faced me again, but
she sees. She is looking at me with big, cruel,
malignant eyes, the eyes of a bird of prey. I
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stoop down to her face, to her eyes again, the
same opaque membrane, the same blind, dull countenance. Ah. I
think this old woman is my fate, the fate from
which there is no escape for man, no escape, no escape,
what madness one must try. And I rush away in
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another direction. I go swiftly but light footsteps as before,
patter behind me, close, close, and before me again the
dark hole. Again. I turn another way, and again the
same patter behind and the same menacing blur of darkness before.
And whichever way I run, doubling like a hunted hare,
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it's always the same, the same. Wait. I think I
will cheat her, I will go nowhere, And I instantly
sat down on the ground. The old woman stands behind
two paces from me. I do not hear her, but
I feel she is there. And suddenly I see the
blur of darkness in the distance is floating, creeping of
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itself towards me. God, I look round again. The old
woman looks straight at me, and her toothless mouth is
twisted in a grin. No escape. The dog us two
in the room, my dog and me outside fearful storm
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is howling. The dog sits in front of me and
looks me straight in the face, And I too, look
into his face. He wants, it seems to tell me something.
He is dumb, he is without words. He does not
understand himself. But I understand him. I understand that at
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this instant there is living in him and in me,
the same feeling, that there is no difference between us.
We are the same. In each of us. There burns
and shines the same trembling spark. Death sweeps down with
a wave of its chill, broad wing and the end.
Who then can discern what was the spark that glowed
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in each of us? No, we are not beast and
man that glance at one another. They are the eyes
of equals, those eyes riveted on one another. And in
each of these, in the beast and in the man,
the same life huddles up in fear, close to the earth.
Other my adversary. I had a comrade who was my adversary,
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not in pursuits, nor in service, nor in love. But
our views were never alike on any subject, and whenever
we met, endless argument arose between us. We argued about
everything about art and religion and science, about life on
earth and beyond the grave, especially about life beyond the grave.
He was a person of faith and enthusiasm. One day
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he said to me, you laugh at everything, but if
I die before you, I will come to you from
the other world. We shall see whether you will laugh then.
And he did in fact die before me, while he
was still young. But the years went by, and I
had forgotten his promise, his threat. One night I was
lying in bed and could not, and indeed would not
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sleep in the room. It was neither dark nor light.
I fell to staring into the gray twilight, and all
at once I fancy that between the two windows my
adversary was standing, and was slowly and mournfully nodding his
head up and down. I was not frightened, I was
not even surprised, But raising myself a little and propping
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myself on my elbow, I stared still more intently at
the unexpected apparition. The latter continued to nod his head well.
I said, at last, Are you triumphant or regretful? What
is this warning or reproach? Or do you mean to
give me to understand that you are wrong? That we
were both wrong? What are you experiencing the torments of
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hell or the bliss of paradise? Utter one word at least,
But my opponent did not utter a single sound, and
only as before, mournfully and submissively nodded his head up
and down. I laughed, He vanished the beggar. I was
walking along the street. I was stopped by a decrepit
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old beggar, bloodsh tearful eyes, blue lips, coarse rags, festering wounds. Oh,
how hideously poverty had eaten into this miserable creature. He
held out to me a red, swollen, filthy hand. He groaned,
he mumbled, of help. I began feeling in all my pockets.
No purse, no watch, not even a handkerchief. I had
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taken nothing with me, and the beggar was still waiting,
and his outstretched hand feebly shook and trembled. Confused, abashed,
I warmly clasped the filthy, shaking hand. Don't be angry, brother,
I have nothing. Brother. The beggar stared at me with
his bloodshot eyes, his blue lips smiled, and he, in
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his turn, gripped my chilly fingers. What of it, brother,
he mumbled, thanks for this too. That is a gift too. Brother.
I knew that I too had received a gift from
my brother. Thou shalt hear the fool's judgment, pushkin, thou
shalt hear the fool's judgment. You always told the truth, o,
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great singer of ours, you spoke at this time too,
the fool's judgment, and the laughter of the crowd. Who
has not known the one and the other, all that
one can and one ought to bear, and who has
the strength, let him despise it. But there are blows
which pierce more cruelly to the very heart. A man
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has done all that he could, has worked strenuously, lovingly, honestly,
and honest hearts turn from him in disgust. Honest faces
burn with indignation at his name. Begone away with you,
honest young voices scream at him, We have no need
of you, nor of your work. You pollute our dwelling places.
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You know us not and understand us not. You are
our enemy. What is that man to do, go on working,
not try to justify himself, and not even look forward
to a fairer judgment. At one time, the tillers of
the soil cursed the traveler who brought the potato, the
substitute for bread, the poor man's daily food. They shook
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the precious gift out of his outstretched hands, flung it
in the mud, and trampled it under foot. Now they
are fed with it and do not even know their
benefactor's name. So be it. What is his name to them?
He nameless, though he be, saves them from hunger. Let
us try only that what we bring should be really
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good food. Bitter unjust reproach on the lips of those
you love, but that too can be borne. Beat me
but listen, said the Athenian leader to the Spartan. Beat me,
but be healthy and fed, we ought to say a
contented man. A young man goes skipping and bounding along
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a street in the capital. His movements are gay and alert.
There is a sparkle in his eyes, a smirk on
his lips, a pleasing flush on his beaming face. He
is all contentment and delight. What has happened to him?
Has he come in for a legacy. Has he been promoted?
Is he hastening to meet his beloved? Or is it
simply he has had a good breakfast, and the sense
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of health, the sense of well fed prosperity is at
work in all his limbs. Surely they have not put
on his neck thy lovely eight pointed cross, O Polish
king stanislass. No, he has hatched a scandal against a friend,
has sedulously sown it abroad, has heard it this same
slander from the lips of another friend, and has himself
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believed it. Oh, how contented, how kind? Indeed? At this
minute is this amiable, promising young man. A rule of life.
If you want to annoy an opponent thoroughly, and even
to harm him, said a crafty old knave to me,
you reproach him with the very defect or vice you
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are conscious of in yourself. Be indignant and reproach him
to begin with. It will set others thinking you have
not that vice. In the second place, your indignation may
well be sincere. You can turn to account the pricks
of your own conscience. If you, for instance, are a turncoat,
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reproach your opponent with having no convictions. If you are
yourself slavish at heart? Tell him reproachfully that he is slavish,
the slave of civilization, of Europe, of socialism. One might
even say, the slave of anti slavishness. I suggested you
might even do that, assented the cunning knave. The end
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of the world a dream I fancied. I was somewhere
in Russia, in the wilds, and a simple country house.
The room big and low pitched, with three windows, the
walls whitewashed, no furniture. Before the house a barren plain,
Gradually slowing downwards, it stretches into the distance. A gray,
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monotonous sky hangs over it, like the canopy of a bed.
I am not alone. There are some ten persons in
the room with me, all quite plain people, simply dressed.
They walk up and down in silence, as it were, stealthily.
They avoid one another, and yet are continually looking anxiously
at one another. No one knows why he has come
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into this house, and what people there are with him
on all the faces uneasiness and despondency. All in turn
approach the windows and look about intently, as though expecting
something from without. Then again they fall to wandering up
and down among us as a small sized boy. From
time to time he whimpers in the same thin voice, Father,
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I am frightened. My heart turns sick at his whimper,
And I too begin to be afraid of what I
don't know myself. Only I feel there is coming nearer
and nearer, a great, great calamity. The boy keeps on
and on with his wail. Oh, to escape from here,
how stifling, how weary, how heavy? But escape is impossible.
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That sky is like a shroud, and no wind, is
the air dead? Or what? All? At once the boy
runs up to the window and shrieks in the same
piteous voice. Look, Look, the earth has fallen away? How
fallen away? Yes, just now? There was a plane before
the house, and now it stands on a fearful height.
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The horizon has sunk, has gone down, and from the
very house drops an almost overhanging, as it were, scooped
out black precipice, well crowded to the window. Horror froze
our hearts. Here it is here, it is, whispers one
next to me, And behold along the whole far boundary
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of the earth. Something began to stir, some sort of small,
roundish hillock began heaving and falling. It is the sea,
the thought flashed on us all at the same instant.
It will swallow us all up directly. Only how can
it grow and rise upwards to this precipice. And yet
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it grows, grows enormously. Already there are not separate hillocks
heaving in the distance. One continuous, monstrous wave embraces the
whole circle of the horizon. It is swooping, swooping down
upon us in an icy hurricane. It flies, swirling in
the darkness of hell. Everything shuddered, and there in this
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flying mass was the crash of thunder, the iron wail
of thousands of throats. Ah, what are roaring and moaning?
It was the earth howling for terror, the end of it,
the end of all. The child whimpered once more. I
tried to clutch at my companions, but already we were
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all crushed, buried, drowned, swept away by that pitch black,
icy thundering wave, darkness, darkness, everlasting, scarcely breathing. I awoke Masha.
When I lived many years ago in Petersburg, every time
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I chanced to hire a sledge, I used to get
into conversation with the driver. I was particularly fond of
talking to the night drivers, poor peasants from the country
round who come to the capital with their little ochre
painted sledges and wretched nags, in the hope of earning
food for themselves and rent for their masters. So one
day I engaged such a sledge driver. He was a
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lad of twenty, tall and well made, a splendid fellow
with blue eyes and ruddy cheeks. His fair hair curled
in little ringlets under the shabby, little patched cap that
was pulled over his eyes. And how had that little
torn smock ever been drawn over those gigantic shoulders. But
the handsome, beardless face of the sledge driver looked mournful
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and downcast. I began to talk to him. There was
a sorrowful note in his voice too. What is it, brother,
I asked him, Why aren't you cheerful? Have you some trouble?
The lad did not answer me for a minute. Yes, sir,
I have, he said at last, And such trouble there
could not be a worse. My wife is dead. You
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loved her, your wife. The lad did not turn to me,
He only bent his head a little. I loved her, sir,
it's eight months since then, but I can't forget it.
My heart is gnawing at me. So it is, And
why had she to die? A young thing? Strong? And
one day cholera snatched her away? And was she good
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to you? Ah sir, the poor fellow sighed heavily, And
how happy we were together? She died without me the
first I heard here. They buried her already, you know.
I hurried off at once to the village home. I
got there, it was past midnight. I went into my hut,
stood still in the middle of the room and softly whispered, masha,
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eh masha, Nothing but the cricket chirping. I fell a crying,
then sat on the hut floor and beat on the
earth with my fists. Greedy earth, says I, you have
swallowed her up. Swallow me too, ah Masha masha, he
added suddenly, in a sinking voice, and without letting go
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of the cord reins, he wiped the tears out of
his eyes with his sleeve, shook it, shrugged his shoulders,
and uttered not another word. As I got out of
the sledge, I gave him a few coppers over his fare.
He bowed low to me, grasping his cap in both hands,
and drove off at a walking pace, over the level
snow of the deserted street, full of the gray fog
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of a anuary frost. The fool There lived a fool.
For a long time. He lived in peace and contentment.
But by degrees rumors began to reach him that he
was regarded on all sides as a vulgar idiot. The
fool was abashed, and began to ponder gloomily how he
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might put an end to these unpleasant rumors. A sudden
idea at last illuminated his dull little brain, and without
the slightest delay, he put it into practice. A friend
met him in the street and fell to praising a
well known painter. Upon my word, cried the fool. That
painter was out of date long ago. You didn't know it.
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I should never have expected it of you. You are
quite behind the times. The friend was alarmed and promptly
agreed with the fool. Such a splendid book I read yesterday,
said another friend to him. Upon my word, cried the fool,
I wonder you're not ashamed. That book's good for nothing.
Every one seen through it long ago didn't you know it.
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You're quite behind the times. This friend too was alarmed,
and he agreed with the fool. What a wonderful fellow,
my friend an inn is, said a third friend to
the fool. Now there's a really generous creature upon my word,
cried the fool in in the notorious scoundrel. He swindled
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all his relations. Every one knows that you are quite
behind the times. The third friend too was alarmed, and
he agreed with the fool, and deserted his friend. And
whoever and whatever was praised in the fool's presence, he
had the same retort for everything. Sometimes he would add, reproachfully,
and do you still believe in authorities? Spiteful, malignant. His
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friends began to say, of the fool, but what a
brain and what a tongue? Others would add, oh, yes,
he has talent. It ended in the editor of a
journal proposing to the fool that he should undertake their
reviewing column. And the fool fell to criticizing everything in
every one, without in the least changing his manner or
his exclamations. Now he who once declaimed against authorities is
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himself an authority. And the young men venerate him and
fear him, and what else can they do? Poor young men?
Though one ought not as a general rule to venerate
any one, but in this case, if one didn't venerate him,
one would find one's self quite behind the times. Fools
have a good time among cowards. An Eastern legend who
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in Baghdad knows not Ja'afar, the son of the Universe.
One day, many years ago, he was yet a youth.
Ja'afar was walking in the environs of Baghdad. Suddenly a
hoarse cry reached his ear. Some one was calling desperately
for help. Ja'afar was distinguished among the young men of
his age by prudence and sagacity, but his heart was compassionate,
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and he relied on his strength. He ran at the
cry and saw an infirm old man pinned to the
city wall by two brigands who were robbing him. Ja'afar
drew his saber and fell upon the miscreants. One he killed,
the other he drove away. The old man, thus liberated,
fell at his deliverer's feet, and, kissing the hem of
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his garment, cried, valiant youth, your magnanimity shall not remain unrewarded.
In appearance, I am a poor beggar, but only in
appearance I am not a common man. Come tomorrow in
the early morning to the chief bazaar. I will await
you at the fountain, and you shall be convinced of
the truth of my words. Ja'afar thought, in appearance, this
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man is a beggar, certainly, but all sorts of things happen.
Why not put it to the test, And he answered,
very well, good father, I will come. The old man
looked into his face and went away. The next morning,
the sun had hardly risen. Ja'far went to the bazaar.
The old man was already awaiting him, leaning with his
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elbow on the marble basin of the fountain. In silence,
he took Ja'afar by the hand and led him into
a small garden and closed on all sides by high walls.
In the very middle of this garden, on a green lawn,
grew an extraordinary looking tree. It was like a cypress,
only its leaves were of an azure hue. Three fruits
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three apples hung on the slender, upward bent twigs. One
was of middle size, long shaped, and milk white. The second,
large round bright red, The third small, wrinkled yellowish. The
whole tree faintly rustled. Though there was no wind, it
emitted a shrill, plaintive ringing sound, as of a glass bell.
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It seemed it was conscious of Ja'far's approach. Youth, said
the old man, Pick any one of these apples, and know.
If you pick and eat the white one, you will
be the wisest of all men. If you pick and
eat the red, you will be rich as the jew rothschild.
If you pick and eat the yellow one, you will
be liked by old women. Make up your mind and
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do not delay. Within an hour, the apples will wither,
and the tree itself will sink into the dumb depths
of the earth. Ja'far looked down and pondered how am
I to act? He said, in an undertone, as though
arguing with himself. If you become too wise, maybe you
will not care to live. If you become richer than
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any one, every one will envy you. I had better
pick and eat the third, the withered apple, And so
he did, And the old man laughed a toothless laugh,
and said, O wise, young man, you have chosen the
better part. What need have you of the white apple.
You are wiser than Solomon as it is, and you've
no need of the red either. You will be rich
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without it. Only your wealth. No one will envy. Tell me,
old man, said Jafar, rousing himself, where lives the honored
mother of our Caliph, protector of heaven. The old man
bowed down to the earth and pointed out to the
young man the way who in Baghdad knows not the
son of the universe, the great, the renowned Ja'afar two Stanzas.
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There was once a town, the inhabitants of which were
so passionately fond of poetry that if some weeks passed
by without the appearance of any good new poems, they
regarded such a poetic dearth as a public misfortune. They
used at such times to put on their worst clothes,
to sprinkle ashes on their heads, and assembling in crowds
in the public squares, to shed tears, and bitterly to
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upbraid the muse who had deserted them. On one such
inauspicious day, the young poet Junius came into a square
thronged with the grieving populace. With rapid steps, he ascended
a forum constructed for this purpose, and made signs that
he wished to recite a poem. The electors at once
brandished their faces silence attention. They shouted loudly, and the
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crowd was hushed in expectation. Friends, Comrades, began Junius in
a loud but not quite steady voice. Friends, comrades, lovers
of the muse, Ye, worshippers of beauty and of grace,
Let not a moment's gloom, dismay your souls. Your heart's
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desire is nigh, and light shall banish darkness. Junius ceased,
and in answer to him, from every part of the
square rose a hubbub of hissing and laughter. Every face
turned to him, glowed with indignation, Every eye sparkled with anger.
Every arm was raised and shook a menacing fist. He
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thought to dazzle us with that, growled angry voices. Down
with the imbecile rhymster from the forum, Away with the idiot,
rotten apples, stinking eggs for the motley fool, Give us
stones stones here. Junius rushed head over heels from the forum,
but before he had got home, he was overtaken by
the sounds of peals of enthusiastic applause, cries and shouts
(33:15):
of admiration. Filled with amazement, Junius returned to the square, trying, however,
to avoid being noticed, for it is dangerous to irritate
an infuriated beast. And what did he behold? High above
the people upon their shoulders, on a flat golden shield,
wrapped in a purple clemise, with a laurel wreath on
his flowing locks, stood his rival, the young poet Julius,
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and the population all round him shouted glory, glory, glory
to the immortal Julius. He has comforted us in our sorrow,
in our great woe. He has bestowed on us verses
sweeter than honey, more musical than the cymbal's note, more
fragrant than the rose, purer than the azure of heaven.
Carry him in triumph, encircle his inspired head with the
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soft breath of incense, cool his brow with the rhythmic
movement of palm leaves, scatter at his feet, all the
fragrance of the mirror of Arabia. Glory. Junius went up
to one of the applauding enthusiasts, enlighten me o my
fellow citizen, What were the verses with which Julius has
made you happy? I, alas, was not in the square
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when he uttered them. Repeat them if you remember them,
pray verses like those I could hardly forget. The man
addressed responded with spirit, what do you take me for?
Listen and rejoice. Rejoice with us, lovers of the muse,
So the deified Julius had begun, lovers of the muse, comrades,
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friends of beauty, grace and music, worshippers, Let not your
hearts by gloom, af frighted bee, the wished for moment comes,
and day shall scatter night? What do you think of them? Heavens,
cried Julius, But that's my poem. Julius must have been
(35:02):
in the crowd when I was reciting them. He heard
them and repeated them, slightly varying and certainly not improving
a few expressions. Aha, Now I recognize you. You are Junius,
the citizen he had stopped, retorted with a scowl on
his face. Envious manner, fool, note, only luckless wretch. How
sublimely Julius has phrased it, and day shall scatter night?
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While you had some such rubbish, and light shall banish darkness?
What light? What darkness? But isn't that just the same?
Junius was beginning say another word, the citizen cut him short.
I will call upon a people. They will tear you
to pieces. Junius judiciously held his peace. But a gray
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headed old man, who had heard the conversation, went up
to the unlucky poet, and, laying a hand upon his shoulder, said, Junius,
you uttered your own thought, but not at the right moment.
And he uttered not his own thought, but at the
right moment. Consequently, he is all right, while for you
is left the consolations of a good conscience. But while
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his conscience, to the best of its powers, not over
successfully to tell the truth, was consoling Junius as he
was shoved on one side in the distance, amid shouts
of applause and rejoicing in the golden radiance of the
all conquering sun, resplendent and purple, with his brow shaded
with laurel, among undulating clouds of lavish incense, with majestic deliberation,
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like a czar making a triumphal entry into his kingdom,
moved the proudly erect figure of Julius, and the long
branches of palm rose and fell before him, as though
expressing in their soft vibration, in their submissive obedience, the
ever renewed adoration which filled the hearts of his enchanted
fellow citizens. The sparrow. I was returning from hunting and
(36:57):
walking along an avenue of the garden, my dog running
in front of me. Suddenly he took shorter steps and
began to steal along, as though tracking game. I looked
along the avenue and saw a young sparrow with yellow
about its beak and down on its head. It had
fallen out of the nest. The wind was violently shaking
the birch trees in the avenue, and sat unable to move,
(37:20):
helplessly flapping its half grown wings. My dog was slowly
approaching it, when suddenly, darting down from a tree close by,
an old, dark throated sparrow fell like a stone right
before his nose, and all ruffled up. Terrified with despairing
and pitiful cheaps, it flung itself twice toward the open
jaws of shining teeth. It sprang to save it cast
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itself before its nestling, but all its tiny body was
shaking with terror. Its note was harsh and strange. Swooning
with fear, it offered itself up. What a huge monster
must the dog have seemed to it? And yet it
could not stay on its high branch. Out of danger,
A four longer than its will flung it down. My
tresore stood still, drew back. Clearly, he too, recognized this force.
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I hastened to call off the disconcerted dog, and went
away full of reverence. Yes, do not laugh. I felt
reverence for that tiny heroic bird, for its impulse of love. Love,
I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death.
Only by it. By love, life holds together and advances.
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The skulls a sumptuous, brilliantly lighted hall, a number of
ladies and gentlemen. All the faces are animated. The talk
is lively. A noisy conversation is being carried on about
a famous singer. They call her divine immortal. Oh, how
finely yesterday she rendered her last trill. And suddenly, as
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by the wave of an enchanter's wand from every head
and from every face, slipped off the delicate covering of
skin and instantaneously exposed the deadly whiteness of skulls, with
here and there the leaden shimmer of bare jaws and gums.
With horror I beheld the movements of those jaws and gums,
the turning, the glistening, the light of the lamps and
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candles of those lumpy, bony balls, and the rolling in
them of other smaller balls, the balls of the meaningless eyes.
I dared not touch my own face, dared not glance
at myself in the glass. And the skulls turned from
side to side as before, and with their former noise,
peeping like little red rags. Out of the grinning teeth,
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rapid tongues lisped, how marvelously, how inimitably the immortal, yes,
immortal singer had rendered that last trill. The workmen and
the man with white hands a dialog. Workmen, why do
you come crawling up to us? What do ye want?
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You're none of us? Get along, man with white hands.
I am one of you, comrades, the workmen, one of us. Indeed,
that's a notion. Look at my hands, d'ye see how
dirty they are? And they smell of muck and of pitch.
But yours sea are white. And what do they smell
of the man with white hands offering his hands. Smell them,
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the workman sniffing his hands. That's a queer start. Seems
like a smell of iron, the man with white hands, Yes,
iron it is. For six long years I wore chains
on them, the workman. And what was that for prey?
The man with white hands? Why? Because I worked for
your good, tried to set free the oppressed and the ignorant,
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stirred folks up against your oppressors. Resisted the authorities, so
they locked me up. The workmen locked you up? Did
they serve your right for resisting? Two years later, the
same workman to another, I say, p to your remember
the year before last, a chap with white hands talking
to you? The other workman, Yes, what of it? The
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first workman they're going to hang him today? I heard
say that's the order. The second workman. Did he keep
on resisting the authorities? The first workman he kept on
The second workman, Ah, Now, I say, mate, couldn't we
get hold of a bit of the rope they're going
to hang him with? They do say it brings good
luck to a house. The first workman, you're right there.
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We'll have a try for it mate the rose. The
last days of August Autumn was already at hand. The
sun was setting. A sudden downpour of rain without thunder
or lightning, had just passed rapidly over our wide plain.
The garden in front of the house glowed and steamed
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and filled with the fire of the sunset and the
deluge of rain. She was sitting at a table in
the drawing room, and with persistent dreaminess, through the half
open door into the garden. I knew what was passing
at that moment in her soul. I knew that, after
a brief but agonizing struggle, she was at that instant
giving herself up to a feeling she could no longer master.
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All at once, she got up, went quickly out into
the garden, and disappeared. An hour passed, a second she
had not returned. Then I got up, and getting out
of the house, I turned along the walk, by which
of that I had no doubt she had gone. All
was darkness about me. The night had already fallen, but
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on the damp sand of the path a roundish object
could be discerned, bright red even through the mist. I
stooped down. It was a fresh, new blown rose. Two
hours before I had seen this very rose on her bosom.
I carefully picked up the flower that had fallen in
the mud, and, going back to the drawing room, laid
it on the table before her chair. And now at
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last she came back, and, with light footsteps, crossing the
whole room, sat down at the table. Her face was
both paler and more vivid. Her downcast eyes that looked
somehow smaller, strayed rapidly in happy confusion from side to side.
She saw the rose, snatched it up, glanced at its
crushed muddy petals, glanced at me, and her eyes, brought
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suddenly to a standstill, were bright with tears. What are
you crying for? I asked, Why see this rose? Look
what has happened to it? Then I thought fit to
utter a profound remark. Your tears will wash away the mud,
I pronounced, with a significant expression. Tears do not wash,
They burn, she answered, and turning to the hearth, she
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flung the rose into the dying flame. Fire burns even
better than tears. She cried with spirit, and her lovely eyes,
still bright with tears, laughed boldly and happily. I saw
that she too had been in the fire to the
memory of U. P Vrevsky, on dirt, on stinking wet straw,
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under the shelter of a tumbled down barn, turned in
haste into a camp hospital in a ruined Bulgarian village.
For over a fortnight she lay dying of typhus. She
was unconscious, and not one doctor even looked at her.
The six soldiers whom she had tended as long as
she could keep on her legs and their turn, got
up from their pestilent litters to lift a few drops
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of water in the hollow of a broken pot to
her parched lips. She was young and beautiful. The great
world knew her. Even the highest dignitaries had been interested
in her. Ladies, had envied her, men, had paid her court,
two or three had loved her secretly, And truly life
had smiled on her. But there are smiles that are
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worse than tears. A soft, tender heart, and such force,
such eagerness for sacrifice to help those who needed help.
She knew of no other happiness, knew not of it,
and had never once known. Every other happiness passed her by.
But she had long made up her mind to that,
and all aglow with the fire of unquenchable faith, she
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gave herself to the service of her neighbors. What hidden
treasure she buried there in the depth of her heart,
in her most secret soul, no one ever knew, And now,
of course no one will ever know. Aye, And what
need her sacrifice is made? Her work is done, But
grievous it is to think that no one set thanks
even to her dead body, though she herself was shy
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and shrank from all thinks. May her dear shade pardon
this belated blossom which I make bold to lay upon
her grave the last meeting. We had once been close
and warm friends. But an unlucky moment came and we
parted as enemies. Many years passed by, and coming to
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the town where he lived, I learnt that he was
helplessly ill and wished to see me. I made my
way to him, went into his room. Our eyes met
I hardly knew him. God, what sickness had done to him?
Yellow wrinkled, completely bald, with a scanty gray beard. He
sat clothed in nothing but a shirt purposely slit open.
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He could not bear the weight of even the lightest clothes. Jerkily.
He stretched out to me his fearfully thin hand that
looked as if it were gnawed away. With an effort,
muttered a few indistinct words, whether of welcome or reproach.
Who can tell? His emaciated chest heaved, and over the
dwindled pupils of his kindling eyes rolled two hard, wrung
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tears of suffering. My heart sank. I sat down on
a chair beside him, and involuntarily dropped my eyes before
the horror and hideousness of it. I too held out
my hand, but it seemed to me that it was
not his hand that took hold of me. It seemed
to me that between us is sitting a tall, still
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white woman. A law long robe shrouds her from head
to foot. Her deep pale eyes look into vacancy. No
sound is uttered by her pale, stern lips. This woman
has joined our hands. She has reconciled us forever. Yes,
death has reconciled us. A visit. I was sitting at
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the open window in the morning, the early morning of
the first of May. The dawn had not yet begun,
but already the dark, warm night grew pale and chill
at its approach. No mist had risen, no breeze was astir.
All was colorless and still, but the nearness of the
awakening could be felt, and the rarer air smelt keen
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and moist with dew. Suddenly, at the open window, with
a light whir and rustle, a great bird flew into
my room. I started, looked closely at it. It was
not a bird. It was a tiny winged woman, dress
in a narrow, long robe flowing to her feet. She
was gray all over, the color of mother of pearl.
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Only the inner side of her wings glowed with the
tender flush of an opening rose. A wreath of valley
lilies entwined the scattered curls upon her little round head,
and like a butterfly's feeler's, two peacock feathers waved drolly
above her lovely rounded brow. She fluttered twice about the ceiling.
Her tiny face was laughing. Laughing too were her great,
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clear black eyes. The gay frolic of her sportive flight
set them flashing like diamonds. She held in her hand
the long stalk of a flower of the steps, the
Tsar's scepter, the Russians call it. It is really like
a scepter, flying rapidly above me. She touched my head
with a flower. I rushed towards her, but already she
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had fluttered out of window and darted away. In the garden,
in a thicket of lilac bushes, a wood dove greeted
her with its first morning warble, And where she vanished,
the milk white sky flushed a soft pink. I know
thee goddess of fantasy. Thou didst pay me a random visit.
By the way thou hast flown on to the young poets,
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O poesy youth, virginal beauty of woman, Thou couldst shine
for me, but for a moment in the early dawn
of early spring, Necessitas v libertas a baw relief, a tall,
bony old woman with iron face and dull fixed look,
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moves with long strides, and with an arm dries a stick.
Pushes before her another woman, This woman of huge stature,
powerful thick set with the muscles of a hercules, with
a tiny head, set on a bold neck, and blind
in her turn, pushes before her a small, thin girl.
This girl alone has eyes that see. She resists, turns round, lifts,
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fair delicate hands, her face full of life, shows impatience
and daring. She wants not to obey, She wants not
to go where they are driving her. But still she
has to yield and go. Necessitas vi libertas who will
may translate. End of Section six Poems and Prose, Part
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one
Section six of dream Tales and Prose Poems by Ivan Turgenev.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
Bin Tucker. Poems and Prose, Part one The Country, the
last day of July, for a thousand versts around Russia,
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our native land. An unbroken blue flooding the whole sky,
a single cloud lit upon it, half floating, half fading away, windlessness, warmth,
air like new milk. Larks are trilling powder, pigeons cooing noiselessly.
The swallows dart to and fro. Horses are neighing and munching.
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The dogs do not bark, and stand peaceably, wagging their tails.
A smell of smoke and of hay, and a little
of tar too, and a little of hides. The hemp,
now in full bloom, sheds its heavy, pleasant fragrance. A
deep but slope ravine. Along its sides willows and rows
with big heads above, trunks cleft below. Through the ravine
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runs a brook. The tiny pebbles at its bottom are
all aquiver through its clearless eddies. In the distance, on
the border line between Earth and Heaven, the bluish streak
of a great river along the ravine on one side,
tidy barns, little storehouses with close shut doors. On the
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other side, five or six pine wood huts with boarded roofs.
Above each roof, the high pole of a pigeon house,
over each entry, a little short maned horse of wrought iron.
The window panes of faulty glass shine with all the
colors of the rainbow. Jugs of flowers are painted on
the shutters. Before each door, a little bench stands prim
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and neat on the mounds of earth. Cats are basking,
their transparent ears pricked up alert. Beyond the high door
sills is the cool dark of the outer rooms. I
lie on the very edge of the ravine on an
outspread horsecloth. All about her whole stacks of fresh cut hay,
oppressively fragrant. The sagacious husbandmen have flung the hay about
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before the huts. Let it get a bit drier in
the baking sunshine, and then into the barn with it.
It will be first rate sleeping on it. Curly childish
heads are sticking out of every haycock crested hens are
looking in the hay for flies and little beetles, and
a white lipped pup is rolling among the tangled stalks.
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Flaxen headed lads in clean smocks, belted low in heavy boots,
leaning over an unharnessed wagon, fling each other smart volleys
of banter, with broad grins showing their white teeth. A
round faced young woman peeps out of window, laughs at
their words or at the romps of the children. In
the mounds of hay. Another young woman with powerful arms
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draws a great wet bucket out of the well. The
bucket quivers and shakes, spilling long glistening drops. Before me
stands an old woman in a new striped petticoat and
new shoes. Fat hollow beads are wound in three rows
about her dark, thin neck. Her gray head is tied
up in a yellow kerchief with red spots. It hangs
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low over her failing eyes, but there is a smile
of welcome in the aged eyes, a smile all over
the wrinkled face. The old woman has reached, I dare say,
her seventieth year, and even now one can see she
has been a beauty in her day. With a twirl
of her sun burnt finger, she holds in her right
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hand a bowl of cold milk with the cream on
it fresh from the cellar. The sides of the bowl
are covered with drops like strings of pearls. In the
palm of her left hand, the old woman brings me
a huge hunch of warm bread, as though to say
eat and welcome. Passing guest, A cock suddenly crows and
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fussily flaps his wings. He is slowly answered by the
low of a calf shut up in the stall. My word,
what oats I hear my coachman saying, Oh the content,
the quiet, the plenty of the Russian open country, Oh
the deep peace and well being. And the thought comes
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to me, what is it all to us? Here? The
cross on the cupola of Saint Sophia in Constantinople, and
all the rest that we are struggling for, we men
of the town a conversation. Neither the young Frau nor
the finster aar horn has yet been trodden by the
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foot of man. The topmost peaks of the Alps, a
whole chain of rugged precipices, the very heart of the mountains.
Over the mountain, a pale green, clear, dumb sky, bitter
cruel frost, hard sparkling snow sticking out of the snow.
The sullen peaks of the ice covered when swept mountains.
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Two massive forms, two giants on the side of the horizon,
the young Fraw and the Fence to ar Horn. And
the young Frow speaks to its neighbor. What canst thou
tell that is new? Thou canst see more? What is
there down below? A few thousand years go by one minute,
and the fence to ar Horn roars back in answer.
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The clouds cover the earth. Wait a little thousands more
years go by one minute? Well, and now asks the
young Fraw. Now I see there below? All is the same.
There are blue waters, black forests, gray heaps of piled
up stones. Among them are still fussing to and fro
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the insects. Thou knowest the bipeds that have never yet
once defiled thee nor me men? Yes, men, thousands of
years go by one minute? Well, and now asks the
young Fraw. There seem fewer insects to be seen, thunders
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the fens to our horn. It is clear down below
the waters have shrunk, the forests are thinner again. Thousands
of years go by one minute? What see it'st thou
says the young Frow. Close about us, it seems pure,
answers the fence to our horn. But there in the distance,
in the valleys are still spots, and something is moving.
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And now, asks the young frow, after more thousands of years,
one minute, Now it is well, answers the fence to
our horn. It is clean, everywhere, quite white. Wherever you look.
Everywhere is our snow, unbroken snow and ice. Everything is frozen.
It is well now, It is quiet, good, the young frow.
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But we have gossiped enough, old fellow. It's time to slumber.
It is time. Indeed, the huge mountains sleep, the green,
clear sky sleeps over the region of eternal silence. The
old woman. I was walking over a wide plain alone,
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and suddenly I fancied light, cautious footsteps behind my back.
Someone was walking after me. I looked round and saw
a little, bent old woman, all muffled up in gray rags.
The face of the old woman alone peeped out from them,
a yellow, wrinkled, sharp nosed, toothless face. I went up
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to her. She stopped, who are you? What do you want?
Are you a beggar? Do you seek alms? The old
woman did not answer. I bent down to her and
noticed that both her eyes were covered with a half
transparent membrane or skin, such as is seen in some birds.
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They protect their eyes with it from dazzling light. But
in the old woman the membrane did not move nor
uncover the eyes, from which I concluded she was blind.
Do you want alms? I repeated my question, why are
you following me? But the old woman, as before, made
no answer, but only shrank into herself a little. I
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turned from her and went on my way, and again
I hear behind me the same light, measured as it
were stealthy steps. Again that woman, I thought, why does
she stick to me? But then I added inwardly, most
likely she has lost her way, being blind, and now
is following the sound of my steps, so as to
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get with me to some inhabited place. Yes, yes, that's it.
But a strange uneasiness gradually gained possession of my mind.
I began to fancy that the old woman was not
only following me, but that she was directing me, that
she was driving me to right and to left, and
that I was unwittingly obeying her. I still go on, however,
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but behold before me on my very road, something black
and wide, a kind of hole. A grave flashed through
my mind. That is where she is driving me. I
turned sharply back. The old woman faced me again, but
she sees. She is looking at me with big, cruel,
malignant eyes, the eyes of a bird of prey. I
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stoop down to her face, to her eyes again, the
same opaque membrane, the same blind, dull countenance. Ah. I
think this old woman is my fate, the fate from
which there is no escape for man, no escape, no escape,
what madness one must try. And I rush away in
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another direction. I go swiftly but light footsteps as before,
patter behind me, close, close, and before me again the
dark hole. Again. I turn another way, and again the
same patter behind and the same menacing blur of darkness before.
And whichever way I run, doubling like a hunted hare,
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it's always the same, the same. Wait. I think I
will cheat her, I will go nowhere, And I instantly
sat down on the ground. The old woman stands behind
two paces from me. I do not hear her, but
I feel she is there. And suddenly I see the
blur of darkness in the distance is floating, creeping of
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itself towards me. God, I look round again. The old
woman looks straight at me, and her toothless mouth is
twisted in a grin. No escape. The dog us two
in the room, my dog and me outside fearful storm
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is howling. The dog sits in front of me and
looks me straight in the face, And I too, look
into his face. He wants, it seems to tell me something.
He is dumb, he is without words. He does not
understand himself. But I understand him. I understand that at
(11:21):
this instant there is living in him and in me,
the same feeling, that there is no difference between us.
We are the same. In each of us. There burns
and shines the same trembling spark. Death sweeps down with
a wave of its chill, broad wing and the end.
Who then can discern what was the spark that glowed
(11:43):
in each of us? No, we are not beast and
man that glance at one another. They are the eyes
of equals, those eyes riveted on one another. And in
each of these, in the beast and in the man,
the same life huddles up in fear, close to the earth.
Other my adversary. I had a comrade who was my adversary,
(12:06):
not in pursuits, nor in service, nor in love. But
our views were never alike on any subject, and whenever
we met, endless argument arose between us. We argued about
everything about art and religion and science, about life on
earth and beyond the grave, especially about life beyond the grave.
He was a person of faith and enthusiasm. One day
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he said to me, you laugh at everything, but if
I die before you, I will come to you from
the other world. We shall see whether you will laugh then.
And he did in fact die before me, while he
was still young. But the years went by, and I
had forgotten his promise, his threat. One night I was
lying in bed and could not, and indeed would not
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sleep in the room. It was neither dark nor light.
I fell to staring into the gray twilight, and all
at once I fancy that between the two windows my
adversary was standing, and was slowly and mournfully nodding his
head up and down. I was not frightened, I was
not even surprised, But raising myself a little and propping
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myself on my elbow, I stared still more intently at
the unexpected apparition. The latter continued to nod his head well.
I said, at last, Are you triumphant or regretful? What
is this warning or reproach? Or do you mean to
give me to understand that you are wrong? That we
were both wrong? What are you experiencing the torments of
(13:36):
hell or the bliss of paradise? Utter one word at least,
But my opponent did not utter a single sound, and
only as before, mournfully and submissively nodded his head up
and down. I laughed, He vanished the beggar. I was
walking along the street. I was stopped by a decrepit
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old beggar, bloodsh tearful eyes, blue lips, coarse rags, festering wounds. Oh,
how hideously poverty had eaten into this miserable creature. He
held out to me a red, swollen, filthy hand. He groaned,
he mumbled, of help. I began feeling in all my pockets.
No purse, no watch, not even a handkerchief. I had
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taken nothing with me, and the beggar was still waiting,
and his outstretched hand feebly shook and trembled. Confused, abashed,
I warmly clasped the filthy, shaking hand. Don't be angry, brother,
I have nothing. Brother. The beggar stared at me with
his bloodshot eyes, his blue lips smiled, and he, in
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his turn, gripped my chilly fingers. What of it, brother,
he mumbled, thanks for this too. That is a gift too. Brother.
I knew that I too had received a gift from
my brother. Thou shalt hear the fool's judgment, pushkin, thou
shalt hear the fool's judgment. You always told the truth, o,
(15:04):
great singer of ours, you spoke at this time too,
the fool's judgment, and the laughter of the crowd. Who
has not known the one and the other, all that
one can and one ought to bear, and who has
the strength, let him despise it. But there are blows
which pierce more cruelly to the very heart. A man
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has done all that he could, has worked strenuously, lovingly, honestly,
and honest hearts turn from him in disgust. Honest faces
burn with indignation at his name. Begone away with you,
honest young voices scream at him, We have no need
of you, nor of your work. You pollute our dwelling places.
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You know us not and understand us not. You are
our enemy. What is that man to do, go on working,
not try to justify himself, and not even look forward
to a fairer judgment. At one time, the tillers of
the soil cursed the traveler who brought the potato, the
substitute for bread, the poor man's daily food. They shook
(16:08):
the precious gift out of his outstretched hands, flung it
in the mud, and trampled it under foot. Now they
are fed with it and do not even know their
benefactor's name. So be it. What is his name to them?
He nameless, though he be, saves them from hunger. Let
us try only that what we bring should be really
(16:29):
good food. Bitter unjust reproach on the lips of those
you love, but that too can be borne. Beat me
but listen, said the Athenian leader to the Spartan. Beat me,
but be healthy and fed, we ought to say a
contented man. A young man goes skipping and bounding along
(16:50):
a street in the capital. His movements are gay and alert.
There is a sparkle in his eyes, a smirk on
his lips, a pleasing flush on his beaming face. He
is all contentment and delight. What has happened to him?
Has he come in for a legacy. Has he been promoted?
Is he hastening to meet his beloved? Or is it
simply he has had a good breakfast, and the sense
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of health, the sense of well fed prosperity is at
work in all his limbs. Surely they have not put
on his neck thy lovely eight pointed cross, O Polish
king stanislass. No, he has hatched a scandal against a friend,
has sedulously sown it abroad, has heard it this same
slander from the lips of another friend, and has himself
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believed it. Oh, how contented, how kind? Indeed? At this
minute is this amiable, promising young man. A rule of life.
If you want to annoy an opponent thoroughly, and even
to harm him, said a crafty old knave to me,
you reproach him with the very defect or vice you
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are conscious of in yourself. Be indignant and reproach him
to begin with. It will set others thinking you have
not that vice. In the second place, your indignation may
well be sincere. You can turn to account the pricks
of your own conscience. If you, for instance, are a turncoat,
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reproach your opponent with having no convictions. If you are
yourself slavish at heart? Tell him reproachfully that he is slavish,
the slave of civilization, of Europe, of socialism. One might
even say, the slave of anti slavishness. I suggested you
might even do that, assented the cunning knave. The end
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of the world a dream I fancied. I was somewhere
in Russia, in the wilds, and a simple country house.
The room big and low pitched, with three windows, the
walls whitewashed, no furniture. Before the house a barren plain,
Gradually slowing downwards, it stretches into the distance. A gray,
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monotonous sky hangs over it, like the canopy of a bed.
I am not alone. There are some ten persons in
the room with me, all quite plain people, simply dressed.
They walk up and down in silence, as it were, stealthily.
They avoid one another, and yet are continually looking anxiously
at one another. No one knows why he has come
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into this house, and what people there are with him
on all the faces uneasiness and despondency. All in turn
approach the windows and look about intently, as though expecting
something from without. Then again they fall to wandering up
and down among us as a small sized boy. From
time to time he whimpers in the same thin voice, Father,
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I am frightened. My heart turns sick at his whimper,
And I too begin to be afraid of what I
don't know myself. Only I feel there is coming nearer
and nearer, a great, great calamity. The boy keeps on
and on with his wail. Oh, to escape from here,
how stifling, how weary, how heavy? But escape is impossible.
(20:12):
That sky is like a shroud, and no wind, is
the air dead? Or what? All? At once the boy
runs up to the window and shrieks in the same
piteous voice. Look, Look, the earth has fallen away? How
fallen away? Yes, just now? There was a plane before
the house, and now it stands on a fearful height.
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The horizon has sunk, has gone down, and from the
very house drops an almost overhanging, as it were, scooped
out black precipice, well crowded to the window. Horror froze
our hearts. Here it is here, it is, whispers one
next to me, And behold along the whole far boundary
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of the earth. Something began to stir, some sort of small,
roundish hillock began heaving and falling. It is the sea,
the thought flashed on us all at the same instant.
It will swallow us all up directly. Only how can
it grow and rise upwards to this precipice. And yet
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it grows, grows enormously. Already there are not separate hillocks
heaving in the distance. One continuous, monstrous wave embraces the
whole circle of the horizon. It is swooping, swooping down
upon us in an icy hurricane. It flies, swirling in
the darkness of hell. Everything shuddered, and there in this
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flying mass was the crash of thunder, the iron wail
of thousands of throats. Ah, what are roaring and moaning?
It was the earth howling for terror, the end of it,
the end of all. The child whimpered once more. I
tried to clutch at my companions, but already we were
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all crushed, buried, drowned, swept away by that pitch black,
icy thundering wave, darkness, darkness, everlasting, scarcely breathing. I awoke Masha.
When I lived many years ago in Petersburg, every time
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I chanced to hire a sledge, I used to get
into conversation with the driver. I was particularly fond of
talking to the night drivers, poor peasants from the country
round who come to the capital with their little ochre
painted sledges and wretched nags, in the hope of earning
food for themselves and rent for their masters. So one
day I engaged such a sledge driver. He was a
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lad of twenty, tall and well made, a splendid fellow
with blue eyes and ruddy cheeks. His fair hair curled
in little ringlets under the shabby, little patched cap that
was pulled over his eyes. And how had that little
torn smock ever been drawn over those gigantic shoulders. But
the handsome, beardless face of the sledge driver looked mournful
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and downcast. I began to talk to him. There was
a sorrowful note in his voice too. What is it, brother,
I asked him, Why aren't you cheerful? Have you some trouble?
The lad did not answer me for a minute. Yes, sir,
I have, he said at last, And such trouble there
could not be a worse. My wife is dead. You
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loved her, your wife. The lad did not turn to me,
He only bent his head a little. I loved her, sir,
it's eight months since then, but I can't forget it.
My heart is gnawing at me. So it is, And
why had she to die? A young thing? Strong? And
one day cholera snatched her away? And was she good
(23:50):
to you? Ah sir, the poor fellow sighed heavily, And
how happy we were together? She died without me the
first I heard here. They buried her already, you know.
I hurried off at once to the village home. I
got there, it was past midnight. I went into my hut,
stood still in the middle of the room and softly whispered, masha,
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eh masha, Nothing but the cricket chirping. I fell a crying,
then sat on the hut floor and beat on the
earth with my fists. Greedy earth, says I, you have
swallowed her up. Swallow me too, ah Masha masha, he
added suddenly, in a sinking voice, and without letting go
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of the cord reins, he wiped the tears out of
his eyes with his sleeve, shook it, shrugged his shoulders,
and uttered not another word. As I got out of
the sledge, I gave him a few coppers over his fare.
He bowed low to me, grasping his cap in both hands,
and drove off at a walking pace, over the level
snow of the deserted street, full of the gray fog
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of a anuary frost. The fool There lived a fool.
For a long time. He lived in peace and contentment.
But by degrees rumors began to reach him that he
was regarded on all sides as a vulgar idiot. The
fool was abashed, and began to ponder gloomily how he
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might put an end to these unpleasant rumors. A sudden
idea at last illuminated his dull little brain, and without
the slightest delay, he put it into practice. A friend
met him in the street and fell to praising a
well known painter. Upon my word, cried the fool. That
painter was out of date long ago. You didn't know it.
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I should never have expected it of you. You are
quite behind the times. The friend was alarmed and promptly
agreed with the fool. Such a splendid book I read yesterday,
said another friend to him. Upon my word, cried the fool,
I wonder you're not ashamed. That book's good for nothing.
Every one seen through it long ago didn't you know it.
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You're quite behind the times. This friend too was alarmed,
and he agreed with the fool. What a wonderful fellow,
my friend an inn is, said a third friend to
the fool. Now there's a really generous creature upon my word,
cried the fool in in the notorious scoundrel. He swindled
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all his relations. Every one knows that you are quite
behind the times. The third friend too was alarmed, and
he agreed with the fool, and deserted his friend. And
whoever and whatever was praised in the fool's presence, he
had the same retort for everything. Sometimes he would add, reproachfully,
and do you still believe in authorities? Spiteful, malignant. His
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friends began to say, of the fool, but what a
brain and what a tongue? Others would add, oh, yes,
he has talent. It ended in the editor of a
journal proposing to the fool that he should undertake their
reviewing column. And the fool fell to criticizing everything in
every one, without in the least changing his manner or
his exclamations. Now he who once declaimed against authorities is
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himself an authority. And the young men venerate him and
fear him, and what else can they do? Poor young men?
Though one ought not as a general rule to venerate
any one, but in this case, if one didn't venerate him,
one would find one's self quite behind the times. Fools
have a good time among cowards. An Eastern legend who
(27:39):
in Baghdad knows not Ja'afar, the son of the Universe.
One day, many years ago, he was yet a youth.
Ja'afar was walking in the environs of Baghdad. Suddenly a
hoarse cry reached his ear. Some one was calling desperately
for help. Ja'afar was distinguished among the young men of
his age by prudence and sagacity, but his heart was compassionate,
(28:03):
and he relied on his strength. He ran at the
cry and saw an infirm old man pinned to the
city wall by two brigands who were robbing him. Ja'afar
drew his saber and fell upon the miscreants. One he killed,
the other he drove away. The old man, thus liberated,
fell at his deliverer's feet, and, kissing the hem of
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his garment, cried, valiant youth, your magnanimity shall not remain unrewarded.
In appearance, I am a poor beggar, but only in
appearance I am not a common man. Come tomorrow in
the early morning to the chief bazaar. I will await
you at the fountain, and you shall be convinced of
the truth of my words. Ja'afar thought, in appearance, this
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man is a beggar, certainly, but all sorts of things happen.
Why not put it to the test, And he answered,
very well, good father, I will come. The old man
looked into his face and went away. The next morning,
the sun had hardly risen. Ja'far went to the bazaar.
The old man was already awaiting him, leaning with his
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elbow on the marble basin of the fountain. In silence,
he took Ja'afar by the hand and led him into
a small garden and closed on all sides by high walls.
In the very middle of this garden, on a green lawn,
grew an extraordinary looking tree. It was like a cypress,
only its leaves were of an azure hue. Three fruits
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three apples hung on the slender, upward bent twigs. One
was of middle size, long shaped, and milk white. The second,
large round bright red, The third small, wrinkled yellowish. The
whole tree faintly rustled. Though there was no wind, it
emitted a shrill, plaintive ringing sound, as of a glass bell.
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It seemed it was conscious of Ja'far's approach. Youth, said
the old man, Pick any one of these apples, and know.
If you pick and eat the white one, you will
be the wisest of all men. If you pick and
eat the red, you will be rich as the jew rothschild.
If you pick and eat the yellow one, you will
be liked by old women. Make up your mind and
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do not delay. Within an hour, the apples will wither,
and the tree itself will sink into the dumb depths
of the earth. Ja'far looked down and pondered how am
I to act? He said, in an undertone, as though
arguing with himself. If you become too wise, maybe you
will not care to live. If you become richer than
(30:36):
any one, every one will envy you. I had better
pick and eat the third, the withered apple, And so
he did, And the old man laughed a toothless laugh,
and said, O wise, young man, you have chosen the
better part. What need have you of the white apple.
You are wiser than Solomon as it is, and you've
no need of the red either. You will be rich
(30:57):
without it. Only your wealth. No one will envy. Tell me,
old man, said Jafar, rousing himself, where lives the honored
mother of our Caliph, protector of heaven. The old man
bowed down to the earth and pointed out to the
young man the way who in Baghdad knows not the
son of the universe, the great, the renowned Ja'afar two Stanzas.
(31:24):
There was once a town, the inhabitants of which were
so passionately fond of poetry that if some weeks passed
by without the appearance of any good new poems, they
regarded such a poetic dearth as a public misfortune. They
used at such times to put on their worst clothes,
to sprinkle ashes on their heads, and assembling in crowds
in the public squares, to shed tears, and bitterly to
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upbraid the muse who had deserted them. On one such
inauspicious day, the young poet Junius came into a square
thronged with the grieving populace. With rapid steps, he ascended
a forum constructed for this purpose, and made signs that
he wished to recite a poem. The electors at once
brandished their faces silence attention. They shouted loudly, and the
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crowd was hushed in expectation. Friends, Comrades, began Junius in
a loud but not quite steady voice. Friends, comrades, lovers
of the muse, Ye, worshippers of beauty and of grace,
Let not a moment's gloom, dismay your souls. Your heart's
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desire is nigh, and light shall banish darkness. Junius ceased,
and in answer to him, from every part of the
square rose a hubbub of hissing and laughter. Every face
turned to him, glowed with indignation, Every eye sparkled with anger.
Every arm was raised and shook a menacing fist. He
(32:53):
thought to dazzle us with that, growled angry voices. Down
with the imbecile rhymster from the forum, Away with the idiot,
rotten apples, stinking eggs for the motley fool, Give us
stones stones here. Junius rushed head over heels from the forum,
but before he had got home, he was overtaken by
the sounds of peals of enthusiastic applause, cries and shouts
(33:15):
of admiration. Filled with amazement, Junius returned to the square, trying, however,
to avoid being noticed, for it is dangerous to irritate
an infuriated beast. And what did he behold? High above
the people upon their shoulders, on a flat golden shield,
wrapped in a purple clemise, with a laurel wreath on
his flowing locks, stood his rival, the young poet Julius,
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and the population all round him shouted glory, glory, glory
to the immortal Julius. He has comforted us in our sorrow,
in our great woe. He has bestowed on us verses
sweeter than honey, more musical than the cymbal's note, more
fragrant than the rose, purer than the azure of heaven.
Carry him in triumph, encircle his inspired head with the
(34:01):
soft breath of incense, cool his brow with the rhythmic
movement of palm leaves, scatter at his feet, all the
fragrance of the mirror of Arabia. Glory. Junius went up
to one of the applauding enthusiasts, enlighten me o my
fellow citizen, What were the verses with which Julius has
made you happy? I, alas, was not in the square
(34:21):
when he uttered them. Repeat them if you remember them,
pray verses like those I could hardly forget. The man
addressed responded with spirit, what do you take me for?
Listen and rejoice. Rejoice with us, lovers of the muse,
So the deified Julius had begun, lovers of the muse, comrades,
(34:42):
friends of beauty, grace and music, worshippers, Let not your
hearts by gloom, af frighted bee, the wished for moment comes,
and day shall scatter night? What do you think of them? Heavens,
cried Julius, But that's my poem. Julius must have been
(35:02):
in the crowd when I was reciting them. He heard
them and repeated them, slightly varying and certainly not improving
a few expressions. Aha, Now I recognize you. You are Junius,
the citizen he had stopped, retorted with a scowl on
his face. Envious manner, fool, note, only luckless wretch. How
sublimely Julius has phrased it, and day shall scatter night?
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While you had some such rubbish, and light shall banish darkness?
What light? What darkness? But isn't that just the same?
Junius was beginning say another word, the citizen cut him short.
I will call upon a people. They will tear you
to pieces. Junius judiciously held his peace. But a gray
(35:46):
headed old man, who had heard the conversation, went up
to the unlucky poet, and, laying a hand upon his shoulder, said, Junius,
you uttered your own thought, but not at the right moment.
And he uttered not his own thought, but at the
right moment. Consequently, he is all right, while for you
is left the consolations of a good conscience. But while
(36:08):
his conscience, to the best of its powers, not over
successfully to tell the truth, was consoling Junius as he
was shoved on one side in the distance, amid shouts
of applause and rejoicing in the golden radiance of the
all conquering sun, resplendent and purple, with his brow shaded
with laurel, among undulating clouds of lavish incense, with majestic deliberation,
(36:32):
like a czar making a triumphal entry into his kingdom,
moved the proudly erect figure of Julius, and the long
branches of palm rose and fell before him, as though
expressing in their soft vibration, in their submissive obedience, the
ever renewed adoration which filled the hearts of his enchanted
fellow citizens. The sparrow. I was returning from hunting and
(36:57):
walking along an avenue of the garden, my dog running
in front of me. Suddenly he took shorter steps and
began to steal along, as though tracking game. I looked
along the avenue and saw a young sparrow with yellow
about its beak and down on its head. It had
fallen out of the nest. The wind was violently shaking
the birch trees in the avenue, and sat unable to move,
(37:20):
helplessly flapping its half grown wings. My dog was slowly
approaching it, when suddenly, darting down from a tree close by,
an old, dark throated sparrow fell like a stone right
before his nose, and all ruffled up. Terrified with despairing
and pitiful cheaps, it flung itself twice toward the open
jaws of shining teeth. It sprang to save it cast
(37:42):
itself before its nestling, but all its tiny body was
shaking with terror. Its note was harsh and strange. Swooning
with fear, it offered itself up. What a huge monster
must the dog have seemed to it? And yet it
could not stay on its high branch. Out of danger,
A four longer than its will flung it down. My
tresore stood still, drew back. Clearly, he too, recognized this force.
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I hastened to call off the disconcerted dog, and went
away full of reverence. Yes, do not laugh. I felt
reverence for that tiny heroic bird, for its impulse of love. Love,
I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death.
Only by it. By love, life holds together and advances.
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The skulls a sumptuous, brilliantly lighted hall, a number of
ladies and gentlemen. All the faces are animated. The talk
is lively. A noisy conversation is being carried on about
a famous singer. They call her divine immortal. Oh, how
finely yesterday she rendered her last trill. And suddenly, as
(38:52):
by the wave of an enchanter's wand from every head
and from every face, slipped off the delicate covering of
skin and instantaneously exposed the deadly whiteness of skulls, with
here and there the leaden shimmer of bare jaws and gums.
With horror I beheld the movements of those jaws and gums,
the turning, the glistening, the light of the lamps and
(39:15):
candles of those lumpy, bony balls, and the rolling in
them of other smaller balls, the balls of the meaningless eyes.
I dared not touch my own face, dared not glance
at myself in the glass. And the skulls turned from
side to side as before, and with their former noise,
peeping like little red rags. Out of the grinning teeth,
(39:37):
rapid tongues lisped, how marvelously, how inimitably the immortal, yes,
immortal singer had rendered that last trill. The workmen and
the man with white hands a dialog. Workmen, why do
you come crawling up to us? What do ye want?
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You're none of us? Get along, man with white hands.
I am one of you, comrades, the workmen, one of us. Indeed,
that's a notion. Look at my hands, d'ye see how
dirty they are? And they smell of muck and of pitch.
But yours sea are white. And what do they smell
of the man with white hands offering his hands. Smell them,
(40:21):
the workman sniffing his hands. That's a queer start. Seems
like a smell of iron, the man with white hands, Yes,
iron it is. For six long years I wore chains
on them, the workman. And what was that for prey?
The man with white hands? Why? Because I worked for
your good, tried to set free the oppressed and the ignorant,
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stirred folks up against your oppressors. Resisted the authorities, so
they locked me up. The workmen locked you up? Did
they serve your right for resisting? Two years later, the
same workman to another, I say, p to your remember
the year before last, a chap with white hands talking
to you? The other workman, Yes, what of it? The
(41:07):
first workman they're going to hang him today? I heard
say that's the order. The second workman. Did he keep
on resisting the authorities? The first workman he kept on
The second workman, Ah, Now, I say, mate, couldn't we
get hold of a bit of the rope they're going
to hang him with? They do say it brings good
luck to a house. The first workman, you're right there.
(41:29):
We'll have a try for it mate the rose. The
last days of August Autumn was already at hand. The
sun was setting. A sudden downpour of rain without thunder
or lightning, had just passed rapidly over our wide plain.
The garden in front of the house glowed and steamed
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and filled with the fire of the sunset and the
deluge of rain. She was sitting at a table in
the drawing room, and with persistent dreaminess, through the half
open door into the garden. I knew what was passing
at that moment in her soul. I knew that, after
a brief but agonizing struggle, she was at that instant
giving herself up to a feeling she could no longer master.
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All at once, she got up, went quickly out into
the garden, and disappeared. An hour passed, a second she
had not returned. Then I got up, and getting out
of the house, I turned along the walk, by which
of that I had no doubt she had gone. All
was darkness about me. The night had already fallen, but
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on the damp sand of the path a roundish object
could be discerned, bright red even through the mist. I
stooped down. It was a fresh, new blown rose. Two
hours before I had seen this very rose on her bosom.
I carefully picked up the flower that had fallen in
the mud, and, going back to the drawing room, laid
it on the table before her chair. And now at
(42:58):
last she came back, and, with light footsteps, crossing the
whole room, sat down at the table. Her face was
both paler and more vivid. Her downcast eyes that looked
somehow smaller, strayed rapidly in happy confusion from side to side.
She saw the rose, snatched it up, glanced at its
crushed muddy petals, glanced at me, and her eyes, brought
(43:20):
suddenly to a standstill, were bright with tears. What are
you crying for? I asked, Why see this rose? Look
what has happened to it? Then I thought fit to
utter a profound remark. Your tears will wash away the mud,
I pronounced, with a significant expression. Tears do not wash,
They burn, she answered, and turning to the hearth, she
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flung the rose into the dying flame. Fire burns even
better than tears. She cried with spirit, and her lovely eyes,
still bright with tears, laughed boldly and happily. I saw
that she too had been in the fire to the
memory of U. P Vrevsky, on dirt, on stinking wet straw,
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under the shelter of a tumbled down barn, turned in
haste into a camp hospital in a ruined Bulgarian village.
For over a fortnight she lay dying of typhus. She
was unconscious, and not one doctor even looked at her.
The six soldiers whom she had tended as long as
she could keep on her legs and their turn, got
up from their pestilent litters to lift a few drops
(44:27):
of water in the hollow of a broken pot to
her parched lips. She was young and beautiful. The great
world knew her. Even the highest dignitaries had been interested
in her. Ladies, had envied her, men, had paid her court,
two or three had loved her secretly, And truly life
had smiled on her. But there are smiles that are
(44:47):
worse than tears. A soft, tender heart, and such force,
such eagerness for sacrifice to help those who needed help.
She knew of no other happiness, knew not of it,
and had never once known. Every other happiness passed her by.
But she had long made up her mind to that,
and all aglow with the fire of unquenchable faith, she
(45:08):
gave herself to the service of her neighbors. What hidden
treasure she buried there in the depth of her heart,
in her most secret soul, no one ever knew, And now,
of course no one will ever know. Aye, And what
need her sacrifice is made? Her work is done, But
grievous it is to think that no one set thanks
even to her dead body, though she herself was shy
(45:31):
and shrank from all thinks. May her dear shade pardon
this belated blossom which I make bold to lay upon
her grave the last meeting. We had once been close
and warm friends. But an unlucky moment came and we
parted as enemies. Many years passed by, and coming to
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the town where he lived, I learnt that he was
helplessly ill and wished to see me. I made my
way to him, went into his room. Our eyes met
I hardly knew him. God, what sickness had done to him?
Yellow wrinkled, completely bald, with a scanty gray beard. He
sat clothed in nothing but a shirt purposely slit open.
(46:15):
He could not bear the weight of even the lightest clothes. Jerkily.
He stretched out to me his fearfully thin hand that
looked as if it were gnawed away. With an effort,
muttered a few indistinct words, whether of welcome or reproach.
Who can tell? His emaciated chest heaved, and over the
dwindled pupils of his kindling eyes rolled two hard, wrung
(46:36):
tears of suffering. My heart sank. I sat down on
a chair beside him, and involuntarily dropped my eyes before
the horror and hideousness of it. I too held out
my hand, but it seemed to me that it was
not his hand that took hold of me. It seemed
to me that between us is sitting a tall, still
(46:58):
white woman. A law long robe shrouds her from head
to foot. Her deep pale eyes look into vacancy. No
sound is uttered by her pale, stern lips. This woman
has joined our hands. She has reconciled us forever. Yes,
death has reconciled us. A visit. I was sitting at
(47:23):
the open window in the morning, the early morning of
the first of May. The dawn had not yet begun,
but already the dark, warm night grew pale and chill
at its approach. No mist had risen, no breeze was astir.
All was colorless and still, but the nearness of the
awakening could be felt, and the rarer air smelt keen
(47:45):
and moist with dew. Suddenly, at the open window, with
a light whir and rustle, a great bird flew into
my room. I started, looked closely at it. It was
not a bird. It was a tiny winged woman, dress
in a narrow, long robe flowing to her feet. She
was gray all over, the color of mother of pearl.
(48:06):
Only the inner side of her wings glowed with the
tender flush of an opening rose. A wreath of valley
lilies entwined the scattered curls upon her little round head,
and like a butterfly's feeler's, two peacock feathers waved drolly
above her lovely rounded brow. She fluttered twice about the ceiling.
Her tiny face was laughing. Laughing too were her great,
(48:29):
clear black eyes. The gay frolic of her sportive flight
set them flashing like diamonds. She held in her hand
the long stalk of a flower of the steps, the
Tsar's scepter, the Russians call it. It is really like
a scepter, flying rapidly above me. She touched my head
with a flower. I rushed towards her, but already she
(48:51):
had fluttered out of window and darted away. In the garden,
in a thicket of lilac bushes, a wood dove greeted
her with its first morning warble, And where she vanished,
the milk white sky flushed a soft pink. I know
thee goddess of fantasy. Thou didst pay me a random visit.
By the way thou hast flown on to the young poets,
(49:14):
O poesy youth, virginal beauty of woman, Thou couldst shine
for me, but for a moment in the early dawn
of early spring, Necessitas v libertas a baw relief, a tall,
bony old woman with iron face and dull fixed look,
(49:35):
moves with long strides, and with an arm dries a stick.
Pushes before her another woman, This woman of huge stature,
powerful thick set with the muscles of a hercules, with
a tiny head, set on a bold neck, and blind
in her turn, pushes before her a small, thin girl.
This girl alone has eyes that see. She resists, turns round, lifts,
(50:00):
fair delicate hands, her face full of life, shows impatience
and daring. She wants not to obey, She wants not
to go where they are driving her. But still she
has to yield and go. Necessitas vi libertas who will
may translate. End of Section six Poems and Prose, Part
(50:24):
one
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