Chapter II Pilgrims and Wanderers
We know that in Russia
Are numbers of people
Who wander at large
Without kindred or home.
They sow not, they reap not,
They feed at the fountain
That’s common to all,
That nourishes likewise
The tiniest mouse
And the mightiest army:
The sweat of the peasant.
The peasants will tell you
That whole populations
Of villages sometimes
Turn out in the autumn
To wander like pilgrims.
They beg, and esteem it
A paying profession.
The people consider
That misery drives them
More often than cunning,
And so to the pilgrims
Contribute their mite.
Of course, there are cases
Of downright deception:
One pilgrim’s a thief,
Or another may wheedle
Some cloth from the wife
Of a peasant, exchanging
Some “sanctified wafers”
Or “tears of the Virgin”
He’s brought from Mount Athos,
And then she’ll discover
He’s been but as far
As a cloister near Moscow.
One saintly old greybeard
Enraptured the people
By wonderful singing,
And offered to teach
The young girls of the village
The songs of the church
With their mothers’ permission.
And all through the winter
He locked himself up
With the girls in a stable.
From thence, sometimes singing
Was heard, but more often
Came laughter and giggles.
Well, what was the upshot?
He taught them no singing,
But ruined them all.
Some Masters so skilful
There are, they will even
Lay siege to the ladies.
They first to the kitchens
Make sure of admission,
And then through the maids
Gained access to the mistress.
See, there he goes, strutting
Along through the courtyard
And jingling the keys
Of the house like a Barin.
And soon he will spit
In the teeth of the peasants;
The pious old women,
Who always before
At the house have been welcome,
He’ll speedily banish.
The people, however,
Can see in these pilgrims
A good side as well.
For, who begs the money
For building the churches?
And who keeps the convent’s
Collecting-box full?
And many, though useless,
Are perfectly harmless;
But some are uncanny,
One can’t understand them:
The people know Fóma,
With chains round his middle
Some six stones in weight;
How summer and winter
He walks about barefoot,
And constantly mutters
Of Heaven knows what.
His life, though, is godly:
A stone for his pillow,
A crust for his dinner.
The people know also
The old man, Nikífor,
Adherent, most strange,
Of the sect called “The Hiders.”
One day he appeared
In Usólovo village
Upbraiding the people
For lack of religion,
And calling them forth
To the great virgin forest
To seek for salvation.
The chief of police
Of the district just happened
To be in the village
And heard his oration:
“Ho! Question the madman!”
“Thou foe of Christ Jesus!
Thou Antichrist’s herald!”
Nikífor retorts.
The Elders are nudging him:
“Now, then, be silent!”
He pays no attention.
They drag him to prison.
He stands in the waggon,
Undauntedly chiding
The chief of police,
And loudly he cries
To the people who follow him:
“Woe to you! Woe to you! Bondsmen, I mourn for you!
Though you’re in rags, e’en the rags shall be torn from you!
Fiercely with knouts in the past did they mangle you: 120
Clutches of iron in the future will strangle you!”
The people are crossing
Themselves. The Nachálnik56
Is striking the prophet:
“Remember the Judge
Of Jerusalem, sinner!”
The driver’s so frightened
The reins have escaped him,
His hair stands on end….
And when will the people
Forget Yevressína,
Miraculous widow?
Let cholera only
Break out in a village:
At once like an envoy
Of God she appears.
She nurses and fosters
And buries the peasants.
The women adore her,
They pray to her almost.
It’s evident, then,
That the door of the peasant
Is easily opened:
Just knock, and be certain
He’ll gladly admit you.
He’s never suspicious
Like wealthier people;
The thought does not strike him
At sight of the humble
And destitute stranger,
“Perhaps he’s a thief!”
And as to the women,
They’re simply delighted,
They’ll welcome you warmly.
At night, in the Winter,
The family gathered
To work in the cottage
By light of “luchina,” [57]
Are charmed by the pilgrim’s
Remarkable stories.
He’s washed in the steam-bath,
And dipped with his spoon
In the family platter,
First blessing its contents.
His veins have been thawed
By a streamlet of vodka,
His words flow like water.
The hut is as silent
As death. The old father
Was mending the laputs,
But now he has dropped them.
The song of the shuttle
Is hushed, and the woman
Who sits at the wheel
Is engrossed in the story.
The daughter, Yevgénka,
Her plump little finger
Has pricked with a needle.
The blood has dried up,
But she notices nothing;
Her sewing has fallen,
Her eyes are distended,
Her arms hanging limp.
The children, in bed
On the sleeping-planks, listen,
Their heads hanging down.
They lie on their stomachs
Like snug little seals
Upon Archangel ice-blocks.
Their hair, like a curtain,
Is hiding their faces:
It’s yellow, of course!
But wait. Soon the pilgrim
Will finish his story—
(It’s true)—from Mount Athos.
It tells how that sinner
The Turk had once driven
Some monks in rebellion
Right into the sea,—
Who meekly submitted,
And perished in hundreds.
(What murmurs of horror
Arise! Do you notice
The eyes, full of tears?)
And now conies the climax,
The terrible moment,
And even the mother
Has loosened her hold
On the corpulent bobbin,
It rolls to the ground….
And see how cat Vaska
At once becomes active
And pounces upon it.
At times less enthralling
The antics of Vaska
Would meet their deserts;
But now he is patting
And touching the bobbin
And leaping around it
With flexible movements,
And no one has noticed.
It rolls to a distance,
The thread is unwound.
Whoever has witnessed
The peasant’s delight
At the tales of the pilgrims
Will realise this:
Though never so crushing
His labours and worries,
Though never so pressing
The call of the tavern,
Their weight will not deaden
The soul of the peasant
And will not benumb it.
The road that’s before him
Is broad and unending….
When old fields, exhausted,
Play false to the reaper,
He’ll seek near the forest
For soil more productive.
The work may be hard,
But the new plot repays him:
It yields a rich harvest
Without being manured.
A soil just as fertile
Lies hid in the soul
Of the people of Russia:
O Sower, then come!
The pilgrim Ióna
Since long is well known
In the village of “Earthworms.”
The peasants contend
For the honour of giving
The holy man shelter.
At last, to appease them,
He’d say to the women,
“Come, bring out your icons!”
They’d hurry to fetch them.
Ióna, prostrating
Himself to each icon,
Would say to the people,
“Dispute not! Be patient,
And God will decide:
The saint who looks kindest
At me I will follow.”
And often he’d follow
The icon most poor
To the lowliest hovel.
That hut would become then
A Cup overflowing;
The women would run there
With baskets and saucepans,
All thanks to Ióna.
And now, without hurry
Or noise, he’s beginning
To tell them a story,
“Two Infamous Sinners,”
But first, most devoutly,
He crosses himself.
Two Infamous Sinners
Come, let us praise the Omnipotent!
Let us the legend relate
Told by a monk in the Priory.
Thus did I hear him narrate:
Once were twelve brigands notorious,
One, Kudeár, at their head;
Torrents of blood of good Christians
Foully the miscreants shed.
Deep in the forest their hiding-place,
Rich was their booty and rare;
Once Kudeár from near Kiev Town
Stole a young maiden most fair.
Days Kudeár with his mistress spent,
Nights on the road with his horde;
Suddenly, conscience awoke in him,
Stirred by the grace of the Lord.
Sleep left his couch. Of iniquity
Sickened his spirit at last;
Shades of his victims appeared to him,
Crowding in multitudes vast.
Long was this monster most obdurate,
Blind to the light from above,
Then flogged to death his chief satellite,
Cut off the head of his love,—
Scattered his gang in his penitence,
And to the churches of God
All his great riches distributed,
Buried his knife in the sod,
Journeyed on foot to the Sepulchre,
Filled with repentance and grief;
Wandered and prayed, but the pilgrimage
Brought to his soul no relief. 311
When he returned to his Fatherland
Clad like a monk, old and bent,
’Neath a great oak, as an anchorite,
Life in the forest he spent.
There, from the Maker Omnipotent,
Grace day and night did he crave:
“Lord, though my body thou castigate,
Grant that my soul I may save!”
Pity had God on the penitent,
Showed him the pathway to take,
Sent His own messenger unto him
During his prayers, who thus spake:
“Know, for this oak sprang thy preference,
Not without promptings divine;
Lo! take the knife thou hast slaughtered with,
Fell it, and grace shall be thine.
“Yea, though the task prove laborious,
Great shall the recompense be,
Let but the tree fall, and verily
Thou from thy load shalt be free.”
Vast was the giant’s circumference;
Praying, his task he begins,
Works with the tool of atrociousness,
Offers amends for his sins.
Glory he sang to the Trinity,
Scraped the hard wood with his blade.
Years passed away. Though he tarried not,
Slow was the progress he made.
’Gainst such a mighty antagonist
How could he hope to prevail?
Only a Samson could vanquish it,
Not an old man, spent and frail.
Doubt, as he worked, began plaguing him:
Once of a voice came the sound,
“Heh, old man, say what thy purpose is?”
Crossing himself he looked round.
There, Pan58 Glukhóvsky was watching him
On his brave Arab astride,
Rich was the Pan, of high family,
Known in the whole countryside.
Many cruel deeds were ascribed to him,
Filled were his subjects with hate,
So the old hermit to caution him
Told him his own sorry fate.
“Ho!” laughed Glukhóvsky, derisively,
“Hope of salvation’s not mine;
These are the things that I estimate—
Women, gold, honour, and wine.
“My life, old man, is the only one;
Many the serfs that I keep;
What though I waste, hang, and torture them—
You should but see how I sleep!”
Lo! to the hermit, by miracle,
Wrath a great strength did impart,
Straight on Glukhóvsky he flung himself,
Buried the knife in his heart.
Scarce had the Pan, in his agony,
Sunk to the blood-sodden ground,
Crashed the great tree, and lay subjugate,
Trembled the earth at the sound. 371
Lo! and the sins of the anchorite
Passed from his soul like a breath.
“Let us pray God to incline to us,
Slaves in the shadow of Death….”