THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Nikoláy Mikháylovich Karamzín. (1766-1826.)

Karamzín was born in the Government of Simbírsk. At fourteen years of age he entered Professor Schaden’s school at Moscow, and later he attended the university. In 1783 he settled in St. Petersburg where he began his literary career in conjunction with his friend Dmítriev (see vol. i., p. 428 et seq.); he entered the army for a short time, and spent the next year in his native place. After that he was taken to Moscow by I. P. Turgénev, a friend of Nóvikov (see vol. i., pp. 32 and 327), and was brought by him under the educational influences of the Masonic Society, which, however, he never joined himself. He devoted himself to the study of the German language, from which he translated much, and acquainted himself with English literature. In 1789 he travelled extensively through Germany, Switzerland, France, and England, meeting wherever possible the famous men of letters. Upon his return he edited, among other periodicals, the Moscow Journal, in which had appeared his Letters of a Russian Traveller. These differ immensely in tone and literary execution from the similar compositions by Fon-Vízin (see vol. i., p. 355 et seq.), and indicate the great stride made in the intellectual advancement of Russia in the short period of one decade. They created a sensation, not only on account of the pleasing and novel manner in which he treated serious subjects, but in a greater measure on account of the strong element of sentimental optimism that pervaded them. His sentimentalism is even more pronounced in his poems, and in his novels Poor Líza, Natálya, the Boyár’s Daughter, and Burgomistress Márfa.

In 1803 Karamzín was appointed historiographer, and he began to busy himself with Russian antiquity. After twelve years of labour appeared the first eight volumes of his History of the Russian Empire, in which he continued the sentimental idealisation of the Russian past. Though extolled by his contemporaries, and even later, as the first real history of Russia, it differs from those of his predecessors, the Russians Shcherbátov (see vol. i., p. 287) and Tatíshchev (ib., p. 218), and the German historians in Russia, not by any scientific method, but by its literary exposition, which served as a model for a generation of historical novelists. Karamzín’s greatest desert consists in having purified the Russian language from the dross of Church-Slavic words and constructions, by borrowing freely from the store of the spoken language, and by following the simpler constructions and the shorter sentences of the French and the English languages. This innovation involved him in a long controversy with the adherents of the old style, of which Admiral Shishkóv was the head, but he came out victorious, and for ever established the Russian literary norm.

There are several translations, or rather paraphrases, of Karamzín’s stories, and one of his Travels, in English: Russian Tales, ... translated into English by J. B. Elrington, London, 1803; Julia, translated from the Russ into French by M. du Boullier, and from the French into English by Ann P. H.⁠[awkins], St. Petersburg, 1803; Tales from the Russian of Nicolai Karamsin [translated by A. A. Feldborg], London, 1804; Travels from Moscow, through Prussia, Germany, Switzerland, France, and England ... translated from the German [by A. A. Feldborg], 3 vols., London, 1803. A few of his poems are given in Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part I.: The Song of Bornholm, The Churchyard, Autumn, Lilea, To Nicander; and in Part II.: Raïssa, The Haven, Song of the Good Tzar, To ⁠⸺, To the Nightingale. An epigram is translated by V. E. Marsden in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 9, and there is also a version of The Churchyard by W. H. Dole (publication not ascertainable).

LETTERS OF A RUSSIAN TRAVELLER

Tver, May 18, 1789.

I have departed from you, my dear ones, I have departed! My heart is attached to you with all its tenderest feelings; and here I am getting farther and farther away from you!

O heart, heart! Who knows what you want? For how many years travel has been the fondest dream of my imagination! Did I not in rapture say to myself: “At last you will start”? Did I not awaken joyfully in the morning, did I not fall asleep with pleasure, thinking: “You are going to travel”? How long I could think of nothing else, busy myself with nothing else except the journey! And did I not count the days and hours? But when the desired hour arrived, I grew sorrowful, for I came to the first vivid realisation that I was about to part from the dearest people in the world, and from all that, so to say, entered into the composition of my moral existence.

Whatever I looked at, whether at the table upon which I had for years committed my unripe thoughts and feelings to paper; at the window under which I used to sit dolefully in my fits of melancholy, and where the rising sun found me so often; at the Gothic house, the favourite object of my eyes in the nocturnal hours,⁠—in short, everything that came within my vision was for me a precious monument of the bygone years of my life, rich not in deeds, but in thoughts and feelings. I bade farewell to inanimate things as to friends; and while I was overcome and dispirited, my servants came, and began to weep and entreat me not to forget them and to take them back upon my return. Tears are contagious, my dear ones, especially in such circumstances.

But you are the dearest to me, and I had to part from you. My heart was so full that I forgot to speak. But why should I tell you that? The moment when we bade each other good-bye was such that a thousand agreeable minutes of the future will scarcely repay me for it.

Dear Petróv accompanied me to the toll-gate. There we embraced each other, and for the first time I observed his tears; there I seated myself in the kibítka,[1] glanced at Moscow, where I left behind so much that was dear to me, and said: “Good-bye!” The bells jingled, the horses galloped away,⁠—and your friend was orphaned in the world, and his soul was orphaned!

The whole past is a dream and a shadow! Oh! where are the hours when my heart was so at ease among you, my dear ones? If the future were suddenly revealed to the most fortunate man, his heart would congeal with terror, and his tongue would grow dumb the very moment in which he deemed himself the happiest of mortals.

Upon my whole journey not one cheering thought entered my mind. At the last station in Tver, my melancholy had so increased that, standing, in the village tavern, before the caricatures of the French Queen and the Roman Emperor, I felt, as Shakspere says, “my blood weeping from my heart.” All that I had left behind appeared to me in such a touching aspect. But enough, enough! I am again growing very sad. Good-bye! May God console you! Remember your friend, but without any grievous feeling!

ON THE FRENCH TRAGEDY

In the so-called French Theatre they play tragedies, dramas, and large comedies. I have not changed my opinion of the French Melpomene. She is noble, majestic, beautiful, but she never will touch and stir my heart as does the Muse of Shakspere and of a few (’t is true, a very few) Germans. The French poets have a delicate, refined taste, and may serve as models in the art of writing. Only in the matter of invention, warmth, and deep sentiment of Nature,⁠—forgive me, sacred shades of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire!⁠—they must concede the supremacy to the English and the Germans. Their tragedies are filled with artistic pictures in which the colours and shades are skilfully matched; but I generally admire them with a cold heart. There is everywhere a mixture of the natural with the romantic; everywhere “mes feux,” “ma foi”; everywhere Greeks and Romans à la française, who are dissolved in amatory raptures, who sometimes philosophise, express one thought in a variety of choice words, and, losing themselves in a maze of eloquence, forget to act. The public demands here of the author beautiful verses, “des vers à retenir”; these make a play famous, and, consequently, the versifiers use all their efforts to multiply their number, and are more concerned about them than about the importance of the plot and the new, extraordinary, yet natural situations, forgetting that character is revealed in these unusual occurrences and that the very words obtain their strength from them.

To be short, the creations of the French Melpomene are glorious, and will always be glorious, by the beauty of their diction and brilliant verses; but if a tragedy is deeply to stir our hearts or to terrify our souls, Voltaire’s countrymen have, probably, no more than two real tragedies, and D’Alembert very justly remarked that all their dramas have been composed for reading rather than for the theatre.

ON SHAKSPERE

In dramatic poetry the English have nothing remarkable, except the works of one author, but that author is Shakspere, and the English are rich!

It is easy to make light of him, not only with the mind of a Voltaire, but also with the most ordinary mind. I do not wish even to dispute with him who does not feel his great beauties. The amusing critics of Shakspere resemble those naughty urchins who in the street surround a strangely dressed man and cry out: “What a funny fellow! What a strange fellow!”

Every author is marked with the stamp of his age. Shakspere wished to please his contemporaries, knew their taste, and satisfied it. What seemed to be witty then is now wearisome and repulsive; this is the result of the evolution of the mind and taste, with which even the greatest genius cannot count. But every real talent creates for eternity, though paying the tribute to his age: the contemporary beauties disappear, and the common ones that are based on the human heart and on the nature of things preserve their strength, in Shakspere as in Homer. The grandeur and truthfulness of the characters, the attractiveness of the plot, the revelation of the human heart, and the great thoughts that are scattered in the dramas of the British genius will always keep their magic charm for people who are endowed with sentiment. I know no other poet who has such an all-embracing, fertile, inexhaustible imagination,⁠—and you will find all kinds of poetry in Shakspere’s works. He is the favourite son of the goddess Fancy who surrendered to him her magic wand, and disporting in the luxuriant gardens of the imagination he creates miracles at each step.

London, September, 1790

There was a time, when I had hardly seen any Englishmen, when I went into ecstasy over them, and imagined England to be of all countries the most agreeable to my heart. With what delight, being a boarding pupil at Professor S’s, I used to read during the American war the reports of the victorious British admirals! Rodney, Howe, did not leave my tongue; I celebrated their victories and invited my young schoolmates to my room. It seemed to me that to be an Englishman was to be brave, also magnanimous, sentimental, and true. If I am not mistaken, novels were the chief foundation for this opinion. Now I see the English at close range, and I do them justice and praise them, but my praise is as cold as they themselves are.

Above all, I should not like to pass my life in England on account of its damp, gloomy, sombre climate. I know that one may be happy even in Siberia when the heart is satisfied and joyful, but a cheerful climate makes us more cheerful, and here one feels, in a fit of pining and melancholy, more than elsewhere like committing suicide. The groves, parks, fields, gardens,⁠—all that is beautiful in England; but it is all covered with fogs, darkness, and coal smoke. The sun rarely peeps through, and then only for a short time; but without it life upon earth is not a pleasure. “Give my regards to the sun,” someone wrote from here to his friend in Naples; “I have not seen him for a long time.” The English winter is not so cold as ours; but we have at least beautiful days in winter, which are uncommon here even in summer. How, then, can an Englishman keep himself from looking like September?

In the second place, their cold natures do not please me in the least. “It is a snow-covered volcano,” a French emigrant said of them smilingly to me. But I stand, watch, see no flame, and meanwhile freeze. My Russian heart loves to bubble in a sincere, lively conversation, loves the play of the eyes, the rapid changes of the face, the expressive motion of the hands. The Englishman is reticent, indifferent, and speaks as he reads, without ever expressing those sudden mental convulsions that electrify our whole physical system. They say he is profounder than others. Is it not rather that he seems profounder? Is it not because his thick blood moves more slowly in him, and gives him the aspect of being deep in thoughts, though he often has none? The example of a Bacon, Newton, Locke, Hobbes, proves nothing. Geniuses are born in all lands; the universe is their country, and, then, can it be said in justice that, for example, Locke is deeper than Descartes and Leibnitz?

THE CHURCHYARD

⁠—From Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part I.

POOR LÍZA

Perchance none of those who live in Moscow know the surroundings of that city so well as I do, because nobody is oftener in the open than I, nobody oftener wanders about, planlessly, aimlessly, whither his eyes carry him, through meadows and groves, over hills and vales. Every summer I discover new places of delight, or new beauties in those I already know.

But most pleasant to me is the place where rise the sombre Gothic towers of the monastery of St. Simeon. Standing on that mound, you survey upon your right nearly all of Moscow, that enormous mass of houses and churches, that presents itself to the eyes in the form of a majestic amphitheatre,⁠—a superb picture, especially when the sun shines upon it, when his evening rays gleam on the innumerable gilded cupolas and the innumerable crosses that tower to heaven!

Below, stretch the luscious, dark-green, blossoming fields; beyond them, there flows over the yellow sands the limpid river, stirred by the light oars of fishing-boats, or splashing under the prows of freighted barges that come from the more fertile parts of the Russian Empire and supply hungry Moscow with grain. On the other side of the river there is seen an oak grove, and near it graze numerous flocks. There young shepherds, sitting in the shade of trees, sing simple, doleful songs, and thus shorten the monotonous summer days. A little farther off, in the dense verdure of ancient elms, gleams the gold-domed monastery of St. Daniel’s; still farther away, almost on the verge of the horizon, loom the blue outlines of the Sparrow Hills. To the left appear vast, grain-covered fields, groves, three or four villages, and, in the distance, Kolómna with its high palace.

I often repair to that spot, and nearly always meet spring there; thither I also repair in the gloomy days of autumn, to mourn together with Nature. The winds moan terribly within the walls of the deserted monastery, in the rank grass of the graves, and in the dark corridors of the cells. There I lean against the ruins of the tombstones and hearken to the hollow groan of Time, the groan of those swallowed by the abyss of the past, which makes my heart flutter and tremble. At times I enter into the cells, and I picture to myself those who have lived in them,⁠—sad pictures! Here I see a grey-haired old man bending his knee before the crucifix and imploring a swift liberation from his earthly fetters, for all pleasures of life have left him, all his feelings are dead, except the feeling of ill-health and weakness. There a youthful monk, with pale face and languishing glance, looks through the latticed window, sees the merry birds that freely swim in the aërial ocean,⁠—sees them, and bitter tears issue from his eyes. He pines, withers, dries up,⁠—and the dismal sound of a bell announces to me his untimely death.

At times I scan on the doors of the sanctuary the representation of miracles that have taken place in this monastery: there fishes fall from heaven to appease the hunger of the denizens of the cloister that is besieged by a multitudinous host; here the image of the Mother of God puts the enemy to flight. All that refreshes in my mind the history of our country,⁠—the sad history of those times when the savage Tartars and Lithuanians with fire and sword laid waste the surroundings of the Russian capital, and when luckless Moscow, like a defenceless widow, awaited from God alone succour in her dire distress.

But most frequently of all I am attracted to the walls of St. Simeon’s monastery by the memory of the tearful fate of Líza, poor Líza. Oh! I love those objects that touch my heart and cause me to shed tears of tender sorrow!

Some five hundred feet from the cloister wall there stands, near a birch grove, amidst a green field, a deserted hut without doors, without windows, without a floor; its roof is decayed and has fallen in long ago. In that hut there lived, some thirty years ago, lovely Líza with her old mother.

Líza’s father was a fairly well-to-do peasant, for he loved work, carefully tilled the soil, and always led a sober life. But soon after his death his wife and daughter fell into poverty. The indolent hand of the hired servant ploughed the field carelessly, and the grain began to give diminished returns. They were compelled to let their land to a tenant, at an inconsiderable income. At the same time the poor widow, who continuously shed tears for her deceased husband,⁠—for peasant women also know how to love,⁠—grew weaker and weaker from day to day, and finally could not work at all. Líza alone, who was fifteen years old at her father’s death,⁠—Líza alone did not spare her tender youth nor her rare beauty, and laboured day and night: she wove hempen cloth, knit stockings; in springtime picked flowers, and in winter berries, and sold them in Moscow. Seeing the indefatigableness of her daughter, the sensitive, gentle old woman frequently pressed her to her feebly beating heart, called her “divine grace, protector, consolation of my old age,” and prayed to God to reward her for all she did for her mother.

“God gave me hands to work,” Líza would say. “You nourished me at your breast, watched me in my childhood. Now it is my turn to look after you. Only stop grieving, stop weeping! Our tears will not bring father to life.”

But often gentle Líza could not restrain her own tears, for oh! she recalled that she had had a father, and that he was no more; but to comfort her mother she tried to hide the grief of her heart, and to appear calm and gay.

“In the world to come, beloved Líza,” the sorrowing old woman answered, “in the world to come I shall cease to weep. There, they say, we shall all be happy; I shall certainly be happy when I see your father again. But I do not wish to die now, for what would become of you without me? To whom could I leave you? No, God grant me first to see you provided for! Maybe some good man will be found for you. Then I will bless you, my dear children, will make the sign of the cross, and willingly will lie down in the damp earth.”

FROM THE “HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE”

INTRODUCTION

History is in a certain sense the sacred book of the nations, their most important and indispensable book, the mirror of their being and activities, the tables of their revelation and of their laws, the injunction of the ancestors to their posterity, the complement, the exposition of the present, and the example for the future.

Rulers and lawgivers act according to the lessons of history, and look upon its pages as the mariner looks upon his ocean charts. Human wisdom is in need of experience, and life is short. It is necessary to know how riotous passions have of yore agitated civil society, and in what manner the beneficent dominion of reason has bridled its tempestuous onrush, in order to establish order, harmonise the interests of men, and give them the best attainable happiness upon earth.

But even a simple citizen must read history. It reconciles him to the imperfection of the visible order of things, as to a common phenomenon in all ages; consoles him in his country’s calamities, by certifying to former similar, even more ominous misfortunes, by which the country did not perish; it fosters a moral sense, and by its equitable judgment inclines the soul to justice, by which our well-being and the concord of society are confirmed.

Such is its usefulness, and many are the pleasures of heart and mind that are derived from it. Curiosity is an innate feeling with the man of culture and with the savage. At the famous Olympic games the noise died down, and the masses preserved silence around Herodotus reading the traditions of the ages. Even before knowing the use of letters, the nations love history: the old man points out to the youth the elevated tomb and narrates to him the deeds of the hero resting in it. The first experiments of our ancestors in the art of writing were devoted to religion and history; shrouded by a dense cloud of ignorance, the people listened eagerly to the accounts of the chroniclers. Even fiction pleases, but to get a full pleasure out of it we must deceive ourselves and imagine that it is true. By opening the graves, raising the dead, putting life into their hearts and words upon their lips, by recreating kingdoms from the dust and presenting to the imagination a series of the ages with their several passions, customs, acts,⁠—history expands the limits of our own existence. By its creative power we live with the men of all times, see and hear them, love and hate them; before we think of usefulness, we revel in the contemplation of the various occurrences and of the characters that entertain the mind or nurture our sensibilities.

If every history, even the inartistically written, may be pleasing, as Pliny says,⁠—how much more that of our native land! A true cosmopolite is a metaphysical being or so unusual a phenomenon that there is no need of speaking of him, neither to praise nor to condemn him. We are all citizens,⁠—in Europe and in India, in Mexico and in Abyssinia; the personality of each is closely bound up with his country: we love it because we love ourselves. The Greeks and the Romans may captivate our imagination: they belong to the family of the human race and are no strangers to us in their virtues and in their weaknesses, in their glory and in their calamities; but the name of a Russian has a special attraction for us: my heart beats more strongly for Pozhárski[2] than for Themistocles or Scipio. Universal history by its great recollections embellishes the world in our eyes, but Russian history embellishes our country in which we live and feel. How attractive are to us the banks of the Vólkhov, Dnieper, Don, when we know what has taken place upon them in remote antiquity! Not only Nóvgorod, Kíev, Vladímir, but even the cabins of Eléts, Kozélsk, Gálich, become interesting monuments, and mute objects grow eloquent. The shadows of bygone centuries everywhere draw pictures before us.

Outside of their special value for us, sons of Russia, its annals have an universal interest. Let us cast a glance at this unique Empire: thought staggers! Rome in all her majesty, ruling from the Tiber to the Caucasus, to the Elbe and to the African sands, could never equal it. Is it not wonderful how a land that is disrupted by eternal barriers of Nature, by immeasurable deserts and impenetrable forests, by cold and hot climates, how Astrakhán and Lapland, Siberia and Bessarabia, could have formed one empire with Moscow? And is that mixture of its inhabitants less wonderful, that composite and heterogeneous mass of varying degrees of civilisation? Like America, Russia has its savages; like other countries of Europe, it displays the fruits of a protracted civil existence. One need not be a Russian, one need only think, in order to read with curiosity the traditions of a nation that by daring and courage has obtained the dominion over the ninth part of the world, has discovered countries, heretofore unknown, has entered them in the universal system of geography and history, and has enlightened them through God-sent faith, without violence, without atrocities practised by the other devotees of Christianity in Europe and America, but merely by dint of good example.

We shall admit that the deeds described by Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, are in general more interesting to others than to Russians, representing as they do more force of character and a more vivid play of the passions, since Greece and Rome were world powers and more enlightened than Russia; yet we may boldly assert that certain incidents, pictures, characters, of our history are not less curious than those of antiquity. Such are the exploits of Svyatosláv, the scourge of Batý, the popular rising under Donskóy, the fall of Nóvgorod, the taking of Kazán, the victory of the civic virtues in the time of the interregnum. The giants of the early dawn, Olég and the son of Ígor; the simple-minded knight, blind Vasílko; the friend of his country, virtuous Monomákh; the brave Mstislávs, terrible in war and an example of meekness in peace; Mikhaíl of Tver, so famed for his magnanimous death; the ill-fated, truly courageous Aleksándr Névski; the youthful hero, the vanquisher of Mamáy,⁠—the slightest sketch of them acts powerfully on the imagination and on the heart. The reign of Iván III. alone is a rare treasure of history; at least I know of no monarch more worthy to live and shine in its sanctuary. The rays of his glory fall upon the cradle of Peter, and between these two autocrats are the remarkable Iván IV. and Godunóv, who merited his good fortune and his reverses; the strange False Demetrius; and, after a host of valiant patriots, boyárs, and citizens, the mentor of the enthroned, Patriarch Filarét with his august son, the light-bearer in the darkness of our country’s woes; and Tsar Alexis, the wise father of the Emperor whom Europe has called the Great. Either all modern history must be silent, or that of Russia has a right to be heard.

Iván Andréevich Krylóv. (1768-1844.)

Krylóv’s biography is not satisfactory. It is known that he was the son of a poor army officer, and that he lost his father early in life. He received only the scantiest education, and while still a boy became acquainted with practical life. He served in various capacities in the government offices of St. Petersburg and the province. Then he disappeared from public view for a number of years, though it is surmised that he passed much of that time gambling at cards, to which he was passionately addicted. In 1812 he received an appointment at the Imperial (later the Public) Library, which gave him ample leisure to devote himself to literature, though his innate laziness made him very unproductive. Krylóv first entered the literary career before the age of twenty, by a series of mediocre comedies. From 1789 he edited a number of periodicals, the first of which, The Spirit Post, was in the manner of the older satirical journals. It was here that he began to develop the fine satirical vein for which his fables later became so famous. In 1809 appeared the first small collection of his fables. Most of his subjects he borrowed from the older writers, especially from La Fontaine, but he not only gave them a Russian surrounding, but invested them with such an artistic atmosphere as to make them the possession of all times and all nations. His fables have been translated into all the European and some of the Asiatic languages.

There are several translations of Krylóv in English: Krilof and his Fables, by W. R. S. Ralston, London, 1869 (4th edition, 1883; several of the poems had been published before, in 1868 and 1870, in Good Words); Krilof’s Fables, Illustrating Russian Social Life, translated from the Russian for the Calcutta Weekly “Englishman” [by J. Long], Calcutta, 1869; Kriloff’s Original Fables, translated by I. H. Harrison, London, 1883. Separate fables have been translated by Sir John Bowring in his Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part I. (from the manuscript furnished him by Krylóv); three poems, given below [by W. D. Lewis] in the National Gazette and Literary Register, Philadelphia, 1825; in Russian Fabulists, with Specimens, in Fraser’s Magazine, 1839 and 1842; in Chambers’s Journal, vol. v., 1856; by Sutherland Edwards, in The Russians at Home, London, 1861; by R. Garnett, in The University Magazine, 1879 (Fables from Krilof); by C. T. Wilson, in Russian Lyrics, London, 1887; by John Pollen, in Rhymes from the Russian, London, 1891.

THE ASS AND THE NIGHTINGALE

⁠—From Russian Fabulists, with Specimens, in Fraser’s Magazine, 1842.

THE QUARTETTE

The tricksy Monkey, the Goat, the Ass, and bandy-legged Míshka the Bear, determine to play a quartette. They provide themselves with the necessary pieces of music⁠—with two fiddles, and with an alto and counter-bass. Then they sit down on a meadow under a lime-tree, prepared to enchant the world by their skill. They work away at their fiddlesticks with a will; and they make a noise, but there is no music in it.

“Stop, brothers, stop!” cried the Monkey, “wait a little! How can we get our music right? It ’s plain, you must n’t sit as you are. You, Míshka, with your counter-bass, face the alto. I will sit opposite the fiddle. Then a different sort of music will begin: we shall set the very hills and forests dancing.”

So they changed places, and recommenced; but the music is just as discordant as ever.

“Stop a little!” exclaims the Ass; “I have found out the secret. We shall be sure to play in tune if we sit in a row.”

They follow its advice, and form in an orderly line. But the quartette is as unmusical as ever. Louder than before there arose among them squabbling and wrangling as to how they ought to be seated. It happened that a Nightingale came flying that way, attracted by their noise. At once they all entreat it to solve their difficulty.

“Be so kind,” they say, “as to bear with us a little, in order that our quartette may come off properly. Music we have; instruments we have: tell us only how we ought to place ourselves.”

But the Nightingale replies:

“To be a musician, one must have a quicker intelligence and finer ear than you possess. You, my friends, may place yourselves just as you like, but you will never become musicians.”

⁠—From W. R. S. Ralston’s Krilof and his Fables.

DAMIAN’S FISHSOUP

⁠—From I. H. Harrison’s Kriloff’s Original Fables.

THE SWAN, THE PIKE, AND THE CRAB

⁠—From J. Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian.

THE LION AND THE WOLF

⁠—From National Gazette and Literary Register, Philadelphia, September 3, 1825.

THE CLOUD

⁠—Ib.

THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR AND THE SEA.

⁠—Ib.

Aleksándr Efímovich Izmáylov. (1779-1831.)

Izmáylov was for a short time vice-governor of Tver and Arkhángelsk. He published several periodicals, to which he contributed sentimental novels in Karamzín’s style. He wrote a number of fables in a somewhat coarse manner, which earned for him the title of “an author not for ladies.”

The Drunkard’s Vow is given in Russian Fabulists, in Fraser’s Magazine, vol. xxv., 1842; The Drunkard’s Answer, The Ladder, The Donkey and the Horse are given in Wilson’s Russian Lyrics. An epigram is translated by V. E. Marsden in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 9.

THE DRUNKARD’S VOW

⁠—From Russian Fabulists, in Fraser’s Magazine, vol. xxv.

THE CANARY AND THE NIGHTINGALE

In a beautiful cage near the window in the garden was a Canary who sang the livelong day alone. At some distance, where an avenue of birches led to a bramble bush, a lonely Nightingale sang through the nights and early in the mornings. Both man and beast and bird, and all that have blood, feel all-powerful love in spring. The two singers made each other’s acquaintance, and forthwith the Canary forgot the naughty Parrot in his foppish green uniform for the sake of the Nightingale. No sweeter bird, in all the world, for her than the Nightingale, and what a charming voice he had!

The Nightingale, the favourite of the roses, frequently left at night his fragrant birches, and flitted near the window over the flower bed, and in the hope of a reward serenaded her in the lilac bushes, for he loved the Canary with all his heart. At first, like the artist he was, he appeared awkward and timid, but at last he made up his mind and, sighing, explained his burning passion for her. The sentimental daughter of the Canary Islands, who was yellower than straw and lemons, blinking, sang out in semitones that the best of singers was dear to her. The lovers agreed to fly into the distant forest (they had forgotten to close the cage); so, the heavens favouring them, the bridegroom and bride started for the wished-for woods. They flew for a long while, and at last, late in the evening, alighted in a thicket; they kissed each other and began to sing,⁠—but they had not eaten since morning. So the bride said to her husband:

“How nice it is to listen to your singing! But, could I not have a bite of something?”

“Right away, my angel!” and the Nightingale flew away, as if pursued by a hawk, and returned a minute later:

“O friend of my soul! Here are little ants, they are very good! Here are some ant eggs⁠⸺”

“Sir, that is no food for a bird brought up in the capital! Bring me crackers and candy!”

“Alas, there are none in the woods!”

“No? Do you expect me to starve?”

“Maybe I shall find some kernels in the field!”

“What? Do you expect me to peck kernels?”

And she began to scold her husband, broke her relations with him, and transferred herself to the Parrot in the garden.

Inexperienced bridegrooms! If you are charmed by a cultivated maiden who has never been away from the luxurious capital,⁠—read with her my verses; if she will agree to eat forget-me-not soup, you may safely marry her.

THE TWO CATS

Vánka the Cat and Váska were two brothers; they were both born and lived in the same house. Vánka was so lean that it would frighten you to look at him,⁠—in truth, he was not rounder than a plank; whereas Váska was as fat as the steward, and could barely waddle on account of his obesity; his fur had the sheen of velvet.

“We have not the same luck, though we are of one mother,” said the skeleton to him. “You know no cares; you are never without meat, not even on week-days. You are free to eat meat, while with me it is always Lent; you sleep long, while I hardly know of sleep, preserving the whole house from mice and rats,⁠—yet, with all my zeal, I am hungry⁠⸺”

“And stupid!” the fat one interrupted him. “Brother, come to your senses! Take me for an example, if you want to be fatter.”

“Pray, what am I to do?”

“Amuse your master, walk on your hind legs in his presence, dance, leap over his arm when he stretches it out, and learn all my amusing tricks. Believe me, you will be loved as well as have your hunger satisfied. Know, silly one, that he who pleases people in trifles and foolish things never loses by doing so; but he who labours for their benefit and passes sleepless nights often stays hungry.”

Vasíli Trofímovich Naryézhny. (1780-1825.)

Naryézhny was born but a short distance from Gógol’s native place. In 1801 he graduated from the Moscow University, and entered the army. After that he served in various departments, rising to the post of Chief of Department. He wrote a tragedy, The False Demetrius, which was published in 1804; in 1814 appeared the first three volumes of The Russian Gil Blas: the last three volumes did not get the censor’s imprimatur. There is much in the manner of this Little-Russian author that reminds of Gógol, who availed himself not only of the genre of his predecessor, but also of the very subject-matter for his classical creations. The very titles of Naryézhny’s later works, The Seminarist: A Little-Russian Story, and The Two Iváns; or, The Passion for Litigation, recur in a modified form in Gógol’s works. It was only a short time ago that this relation of the two authors was pointed out.

FROM “THE TWO IVÁNS; OR, THE PASSION FOR LITIGATION”

The day was inclining to its fall, but the merriment in the house of the hospitable host did not abate. A large number of visitors were not a burden to him. He feasted the men, and his wife the women. Pan Kharitón took the guests around in the garden, though the September winds had already brought half of the leaves to the ground; to the barn, where he figured out how much brandy every stack of rye would give him; to the cattle yard, where he had occasion to boast of his bulls and cows, goats and wethers. His spouse showed her friends from the window the flocks of chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys, telling them in detail of the peculiarities of every cock and hen. Is not that charming?

When all had gathered again in the room, where the table was set with earthen wine-jugs filled with steaming spiced brandy, and the host and guests had placed their cups at random before them, they heard in the yard the rattle of wheels and the tramp of horses, and soon appeared in the assembly a thick-set man of some fifty years, expansive about his abdomen and broad in his shoulders. His bald head shone like the full moon. Who was that guest? The scribe of the hundred-court, Pan Anúri. All rose respectfully, and the host gave him a friendly embrace, offered him his seat, and set before him his cup of mulled brandy. They all looked into his eyes, eagerly caught every word of his, and laughed uproariously when that fool smiled at his own witticisms.

When three cups had found their way into his entrails, he stood up akimbo and announced: “What will you give me, Pan Kharitón, for the good news which I bring you from town? The judge of the hundred-court said to me, as he handed me this batch of papers: ‘Go, my friend, and place these papers into the personal hands of Pan Kharitón!’ From this I conclude,” proceeded Anúri, “that they are favourable, for I am seldom wrong in my conclusions.”

“I understand, I understand!” said Pan Kharitón, and went out smiling. Anúri had barely gotten away with the fourth cup, when Pan Kharitón appeared with some gifts and offered him a new hat of the best cowhide, new boots, permeated by the purest tar, and a clay pipe, the work of the first Poltáva potter. Pan Anúri received the offerings with condescension and hastened to his two-wheeled cart to deposit them there, after which he entered the room with a large sealed batch of papers, handed it respectfully to Pan Kharitón, and seated himself in his old place. Pan Kharitón cursorily glanced at every paper and said: “After all the troubles I have had, my eyes have grown dim. Be so kind, Pan Anúri, as to read them. The decree of the hundred-court is no secret.”

Pan Anúri took the documents with much dignity, selected from them the judgment, put on his eyeglasses, and began to read: “Pan Kharitón Zanóza appears as the plaintiff against Pan Iván Zúbar and Pan Iván Khtára, claiming that they had burnt down his dove-cots with all the pigeons, of which there were more than two hundred; the two Pans Iván, however, declare that the apiary of the elder Iván, containing not less than fifty hives, has been destroyed.

“The hundred-court, having taken into consideration all circumstances, as is meet, decrees:

1. “Granting that during the fire of Pan Kharitón’s dove-cot all the pigeons, of which there were more than two hundred, i. e., two hundred and one, have perished, and estimating the price of each pigeon at the maximum of a farthing, his damage amounts to fifty kopeks and a farthing. But since the two Pans Iván declare under oath that they have used as food only twenty birds, the real damage which they have done amounts only to five kopeks; the rest of the pigeons either flew away, or were burnt. Whereas nobody tied any of the aforesaid pigeons or cut their wings, they might have flown away, and thus they were roasted by their own free will.

2. “Pan Iván the elder has lost fifty hives that at the time were full of honey. Upon inquiry it is found that such a hive is worth sixty kopeks, and thus his damage amounts to thirty roubles. Excluding from that sum five kopeks, Pan Kharitón has caused to Pan Iván the elder a real damage of twenty-nine roubles and ninety-five kopeks, which sum is without delay to be turned over within three days to Scribe Anúri. Of this sum twenty-eight roubles and ninety-five kopeks will be retained for the necessary expenses of the hundred-court; the remaining rouble is to be turned over to Pan Iván the elder, he signing a receipt for it.”

Who will describe Pan Kharitón’s fury! He cracked the knuckles of his fingers, stamped the floor with his feet, and rolled his eyes terribly. Finally he jumped up like one beside himself, ran to the perplexed scribe, grabbed the fatal judgment out of his hands, tore it to shreds, and threw it into the eyes of the ambassador of the hundred-court. On all sides was heard a noise and murmuring. Pan Kharitón paid no attention to anything; he shouted to the scribe: “Why have you been riding about upon my horses? Eh? Why have you been tilling your soil with my steers, and sowing it with my grain? Eh? Why have you been devouring my sheep and wethers, and making fur coats out of their hides? Eh? Why have you been taking my money, you destroyers of souls, good-for-nothings, robbers? Why have you been extorting money from me, I say, if you had no intention to stand by me? Eh?”

With these words, to the horror of all the guests and their families,⁠—for at the thunderous roar of Pan Kharitón all the women and daughters of the guests had made their appearance,⁠—he pulled Pan Anúri by his collar, dragged him out into the yard, lifted him up, banged him into his cart, jammed the reins into his hands, gave him two mighty blows in his occiput, raised from the ground a birch club and began to belabour, now the horse, now Anúri. The poor animal flew out of the yard into the road as fast as it could, and Pan Kharitón ran out after the cart and shouted to the scribe: “Tell the fool of a hundred-judge and the good-for-nothing members of the hundred-court that they are transgressors of the law, and that I shall go to-morrow to Poltáva to cite them before the regimental chancery!”

Having obtained such a famous victory over their worst enemy in the matter of the burnt-down dove-cot and destroyed apiary, the two Pans Iván were travelling in triumph from the town to their abode, when they espied in the middle of the road near the tavern the cart, and they immediately knew to whom it belonged.

“That ’s fortunate,” said Iván the elder: “we ’ll take the rouble that belongs to us from Anúri and will give him a good treat.”

They entered the tavern and sure enough saw Pan Anúri sitting over a cup, but in a most dejected attitude. “What ’s the matter, Pan Anúri?” cried out Iván the elder: “The cup is at your very mouth, and you look so sad,⁠—those things do not fit together. Jew, give us two more cups, of anything you please, so it ’s of the best spirits! Really, you, Pan Anúri, are a great fellow and pretty slick! Who would have thought you could manage in so short a time that riotous head of worthless Zanóza?”

“I should say I did manage!” said Anúri with a bitter smile and, filling his cup, drank from it with unmistakable disgust. The two Iváns looked at his strange action in wonderment, and pressed him with all kinds of questions.

Anúri told them all in detail. Having listened with undisguised attention to this incident which had been unheard of in Little-Russia from its beginning, the two Iváns were heartily glad, and the elder one clapped his hands. Anúri showed a very dissatisfied look and asked:

“Is it possible that you, whom I regarded as my friends, can rejoice at my having had my occiput boxed and at the descent of full-weighted blows upon my back?”

“Not at all,” answered Iván the elder: “we rejoice and are merry not because you, our friend and go-between, have received a fine drubbing, but because it has been administered to the worshipful scribe of the hundred-court by the bold hand of furious Zanóza. We hope that this wrongdoing will be his surer undoing than massacred coneys, maimed geese, ducks, sheep and, finally, the destroyed apiary! It is no trifling matter to dare box the occiput and warm up ten times with a birch rod Pan Anúri, a man grown grey and bald among papers, ink, and pens!”

“He ’s warmed me up just twelve times,” said Pan Anúri proudly, “and though he missed me the thirteenth time, it ought to be counted a blow all the same. Besides, he has disgraced the judge and the hundred-court with the foulest curses, and in the presence of an immense throng of noblemen and ladies; he dragged me through the whole room, which is the same as if he dragged me through the whole house;⁠—then by my collar which reaches up to my occiput, hence it is the same as if he had pulled me along by my hair. O Pans Iván! If you rejoice because Kharitón Zanóza will be repaid for this godless deed with interest, I am glad! Oh, if he had twice the property he possesses, it would not be enough to pay me for the disgrace and battery. No! he will have to become acquainted with the city prison and find out the taste of stale bread and water. I give you my hand that this will happen, and before long!”

Vasíli Andréevich Zhukóvski. (1783-1852.)

Zhukóvski was the son of a landed proprietor of Túla, by the name of Búnin, and of a captive Turkish woman, but received his own name from his godfather, who happened to be living at Búnin’s house. After the death of his father he was adopted by Mrs. Búnin, who cared for him as for her own son. He was first educated in the public school of Túla, but was requested to be removed on account of dulness. He was then privately brought up in the house of his godmother, where, at the age of twelve, he composed and acted two dramas⁠—one of them from Roman history. In 1796 he was taken to Moscow to be placed in the boarding-school that was connected with the Moscow University. He there came in contact with a number of talented young men who later made their mark in literature, and under the inspiring influence of the school began, at the early age of fourteen, to contribute poems to the periodical press. His earliest verses contained frequent references to death and the cemetery, and when, a few years later, he lost a friend, he remembered him by translating Gray’s Elegy. That was the beginning of his literary fame. He then translated a large number of poetical productions from the German, French, and English, invariably choosing melancholy subjects, as more adapted to his sentimental, reflective nature.

It was chiefly Zhukóvski who transplanted the German Romanticism to Russia, but his deserts are not only in having abandoned the pseudo-classic style of poetry: he was the first to recognise the important educational value of poetry, and its moral power, which made it the equal of religion, or, as Zhukóvski put it, “Poetry is the terrestrial sister of heavenly religion,” and “Poetry is virtue.” He achieved his fame by his ballad Svyetlána. The Minstrel of the Russian Camp was written by him at the campfires during the War of 1812: it produced a tremendous outburst of enthusiasm among the whole army. He soon became a great favourite at the Court, and in 1817 was chosen as teacher of Russian to the German bride of Crown Prince Nicholas. In 1841 he left Russia never to return, and died in Baden-Baden in 1852. His body was taken to Russia, where he was buried by the side of Karamzín.

Sir John Bowring gives in Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part I.: The Mariner, Æolus’s Harp Song (Say, ye gentle breezes, say), Romance; in Part II.: The Minstrel in the Russian Camp, Svyetlána (under the name of Catherine), Theon and Æschines, The Bard; a prose version of Svyetlána, under the name of Christmas Omens, by W. D. Lewis, was given in The Atlantic Souvenir, Philadelphia, 1828; another translation, under the title of The Eve of St. Silvester, from the Russian of Tzobovsk (?), by J. C. M., was given in Dublin University Magazine, vol. xxxi., 1848; C. T. Wilson, in Russian Lyrics, gives The Flower, extract from The Minstrel in the Russian Camp, Svyetlána; in the Library of the World’s Best Literature are given N. H. Dole’s translations of Happiness in Slumber and The Coming of Spring Night.

SVYETLÁNA[3]

⁠—From Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part II.

THE MINSTREL IN THE RUSSIAN CAMP

⁠—From Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part II.

Iván Ivánovich Kozlóv. (1779-1840.)

After having served for some time in the army, Kozlóv in 1798 entered the Civil Service, living in Moscow and later in St. Petersburg. In 1818 he was struck by paralysis, which deprived him of the use of his legs, and three years later he became totally blind. Though he had long been on friendly terms with Zhukóvski, he never thought of devoting himself to literature. But the calamity that had overtaken him compelled him to concentrate himself, and the result was the evolution of his poetical genius. He had learned French and Italian before, and, though blind, acquired the German and English languages so perfectly that he could recite by heart whole pages from the great writers, whom he also translated into Russian. His first poetical efforts were some verses in praise of Zhukóvski and Byron, but he gained his great reputation by his The Black Monk, written in 1824, which enjoyed the same popularity among the sentimental souls of the twenties that Poor Líza (see p. 27) had had in the beginning of the century. This was soon followed by Princess Natálya Borísovna Dolgorúki (see vol. i., p. 233) and a large number of minor poems that are distinguished for their elegiac and deep religious tone.

In W. D. Lewis’s The Bakchesarian Fountain, Philadelphia, 1841, is given his Solitude; T. B. Shaw translated his Kíev in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1844; in C. T. Wilson’s Russian Lyrics are given The Village Orphan, The Wreck, The Dream of the Betrothed, and Chernetz (The Black Monk); in the Library of the World’s Best Literature is N. H. Dole’s translation of The Vesper Bells.

SOLITUDE

⁠—From W. D. Lewis’s The Bakchesarian Fountain.

KÍEV

⁠—Transl. by T. B. Shaw, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1844 (vol. lv).

FROM “THE BLACK MONK”

I.⁠—THE MONASTERY

Beyond Kíev, where the broad Dnieper boils and booms between steep banks, near a grove, upon a high hill, stands the hermits’ abode. Around it is a crenelated wall, with four towers in the corners, and in the midst,⁠—the temple of the Lord with gilded cupolas. A row of cells, a dark corridor, a chapel at the holy gates, with a miracle-working image, and nearby a spring of cool water, whose medicinal stream bubbles under the shade of a century linden tree.

The evening darkness is in the misty field; the twilight is dimming in the heavens; the song is not heard in the meadows; the flocks are not seen in the vales. The horn will not be blown in the forest,⁠—no one will come; only at times the bell tinkles in the distance upon the highway; no fires are to be seen upon the fishermen’s boats on the Dnieper. The midnight moon has risen, and the bright stars are shining; the clearings, the woods, the waters are asleep. The fateful hour has struck upon the tower,⁠—the hermitage is merged in sleep,⁠—and all around is peace and quiet.

II.⁠—THE CONFESSION OF THE BLACK MONK

“I left my deserted country. Alone, in despair, in tears, I wandered around with my orphaned soul in distant defiles and woods. Gloomy clefts and mountains heard my groan, my wail, my plaints with terror, for seven years. Sullen, melancholy, wild, I pined away, dreaming an old dream, and sobbed for what is not. The shades of night, the mountain torrent, the whistling of the storm and the howl of the wind secretly united with my murky thought, with my unquenchable yearning. And sorrow was a delight, a sacred relic of former days; it seemed to me that through my suffering I did not altogether part from it.

“Where the heart loves, where it suffers,⁠—there is also our merciful God; He gives the cross, and He also sends us hope with the cross. In these seven hard, stormy years there has flashed for me a consoling light. Once, at evening tide, I sat gloomy near the river; the star-flaming vault of heaven, the quiet glimmer of the moon, the rustling of the leaves, the plashing of the waves silvered by the moon, involuntarily held my soul captive. Everything attracted me by its mysterious beauty to a world of bliss.

“My crushed spirit awoke: ‘Creator of all! My babe with my unforgettable mate dwell in Thy holy abode, and, perchance, I shall be with them, and they there for ever mine!’ Love understands miracles: my heart trembled hopefully in some mysterious expectation. I lifted my eyes to the skies, dared to implore them with tears,⁠—and it seemed to me that for an answer was given me that calm ocean with its imperishable stars. Since then, my father, have I found consolation in my misery itself, and I have hoped by my heavy cross to earn my union with her. Though still, at times, I shed tears, yet hope assuages them, and quiet grief has taken place of bitter sorrow. Flaming with faith, I have forgotten my misfortune and the villain: she with her babe in heaven appeared to my heart in dreams of paradise. My soul rose to her, and my mind was full of this: I wished to be as pure as she, and I gladly bid life farewell. But I wanted to die in my native home. I began to pine away in mountains of other lands. I wanted to cast my last glance upon our woods and our dales, to see the country which was full of her, and our village house, and the garden, and the blue waves of the Dnieper, and the church upon the mound where in the shade of the birches sleeps their dust, and the glowing evening sky over their quiet grave.

“Ah, what happened to my soul when suddenly, in all its sacred beauty, before me lay the landscape of my native Kíev fields! As before they were green, the waves of the Dnieper boomed as formerly, the same forest lay dim in the distance, the same songs were sung in the fields, and everything was the same in my native land, but she alone was not there. Everywhere familiar valleys, brooks, mounds, and plains, in an enchanting quiet, appeared to me on all sides, and brought back my brighter years; but with a poisoned soul, a stranger in my own land, I greeted them with tears and disconsolate melancholy.

“I walked. The day was inclining to the evening, and suddenly a rustic temple of the Lord stood before my frightened eyes. Beside myself, I approached the grave where my son, my wife,⁠—my whole life lay buried. I barely touched the ground with my feet, as if fearing to disturb their eternal slumber. I repressed a deep groan within my breast, that their rest be not broken. My saddened spirit dared not give vent to my impassioned agitation. It seemed to me that upon their grave I breathed a sacred air. A wondrous feeling came over me, and with an unearthly hope I softly bent my knees, and prayed, and wept, and loved.”

Konstantín Nikoláevich Bátyushkov. (1787-1855.)

Bátyushkov received his education in the boarding-schools of St. Petersburg, from which he took away a good knowledge of French, German, and Italian, and little else, especially since all his schooling ended with his sixteenth year. He was then ushered into the circle of literary men by a relative of his, M. N. Muravév (see vol. i. p. 395), who also interested him in the ancient classics, among whom Bátyushkov admired most and imitated Horace and Tibullus. In 1806 he was seized by the prevailing patriotic enthusiasm, after the disaster of Austerlitz, and joined the army. He was seriously wounded, but in 1813 he again took part in the campaign against Napoleon. During his stay in Germany he became intimately acquainted with the German literature, which he began to prefer to the French and Latin. He returned to Russia over England and Sweden. In 1818 he received a diplomatic post at Naples, which gave him an opportunity of making himself familiar with the country of his beloved author, Tasso. He soon returned home, where he was up to his death, for a period of thirty-three years, lost to Russian letters, having, like his mother before him, become hopelessly insane. No other poet had given such promise as Bátyushkov, and even Púshkin regarded him as his teacher. His fame rests mainly on his Dying Tasso and The Friend’s Shadow, the Anacreontic character of the other poems and the absence of a Russian motive having otherwise almost obliterated his fame.

In Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part I., there is a translation of his To My Penates, and in Part II., To F. F. Kokoshkin, The Farewell, The Friend’s Shadow, Love in a Boat, The Prisoner, To the Rhine. What purports to be a translation of his Dying Tasso is given in The Foreign Quarterly Review, 1832.

THE FRIEND’S SHADOW

⁠—From Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part II.

THE DYING TASSO

What solemnity does ancient Rome prepare? Whither rush the nation’s noisy waves? For whom these fragrant fumes of incense and of myrrh, and everywhere the vases full of odorous herbs? Wherefore above the streets of the universal city, from the Tiber’s banks up to the Capitol, midst flowers and laurels, are fluttering costly carpets and the purple?

Wherefore this noise? Wherefore the timbrel’s sound and thunder? Is it of gladness or of victory the herald? Why with the standard gains the house of prayer the mitred apostolic vicar? For whom this glittering crown he holds,⁠—a priceless gift of grateful Rome? For whom this triumph? For thee, immortal singer, for thee this gift, O singer of “Jerusalem.”

The din of joy has reached the cell where in death agony Torquato lies, where o’er the sufferer’s immortal head is borne the spirit of wingèd death. Neither tears of friendship, nor the prayers of the monks, nor honours’ tardy due,⁠—these will not curb indomitable fate that spares not even the great. Half-shattered, he sees the threatening hour, hails it with joy, and,⁠—alluring swan!⁠—bids life good-bye and utters these last words:

“My friends, let me behold Rome the magnificent, where an untimely grave awaits the poet, that my eyes may see your hills and smoke, O ancient hearths of the Quirites! O sacred ground of miracles and heroes! O glorious ruins and O glorious dust! Azure and purple of cloudless skies, you poplars, ancient olives, and thou, eternal Tiber, wellspring of all the nations, grave of the bones of the world’s citizens,⁠—you, you I greet within these sombre walls, where I lie doomed to an untimely end!

“’T is done! I stand o’er the abyss of destiny, shall not applauded reach the Capitol, and laurels of fame upon my feeble head will not assuage the singer’s bitter fate. From earliest youth a shuttlecock of men, I was an exile from my very childhood; a poor wanderer under the voluptuous heaven of my Italy, I have experienced all vicissitudes of fate. Where was my bark not borne by the waves? Where found it rest? Where wet I not my daily bread with tears of grief? Sorrento! cradle of my luckless days, where in the night, like terrified Ascanius, I was bereft by destiny of my mother, of her soft embraces and caresses,⁠—rememberest thou how many tears I shed while still a child? Alas! since then, a prey of evil fate, all sorrows I have learned, all misery of existence. The depths by Fortune furrowed were cleft below me, and the thunder never silenced. Driven from vill to vill, from land to land, I sought in vain a refuge upon earth: its unrelenting finger saw I everywhere, and everywhere its lightnings struck the bard! Neither in the humble ploughman’s hut, nor under cover of Alfonso’s palace, nor in the quiet of the lowliest shelter, nor forest tangle, nor mountains, was my head secure, the exile’s head, by shame and fame oppressed, and from the cradle a victim of the goddess of the doom.

“Friends, what wrings so terribly my breast? What gnaws my heart, and keeps it in a flutter? Whence have I come? What awful journey have I made? What glimmers there behind me in the dark? Ferrara⁠⸺furies⁠⸺and the snake of envy! Whither, whither, murderers of genius? I ’m in the haven; ’t is Rome. Here are my family, my brothers! Here are their tears and sweet caresses,⁠—and Virgil’s crown here in the Capitol!

“Yes, I have done Apollo’s bidding: his zealous priest from earliest youth, I sang, midst lightnings, under raging skies, the fame and majesty of bygone days. My soul, though fettered, never changed; the rapture of the sweet-voiced Muses never died in me, and through my sufferings my genius grew strong. It dwelt in the land of miracles, O Sion, by thy walls, on Jordan’s flowery banks; and it communed with thee, rebellious Cedron, and thee, peaceful retreats of Lebanon! ’T is there the heroes of the ancient days rose from the dead, in the majesty and glow of their grim glory. It beheld thee, Godfrey, ruler, lord of kings, majestic, calm, while arrows whizzed; and thee, youthful Rinaldo, fervid like Achilles and a happy victor in love and war. It saw thee flying o’er the corpses of the foeman’s host, like fire, like death, like the destroying angel,⁠—and Tartarus vanquished by the gleaming cross!

“O models of unheard-of valour! O holy triumph and victory of the pure faith of our ancestors now long asleep! Torquato extricated you from the abyss of time: he sang,⁠—and you will never be forgotten; he sang: to him a wreath of immortality has been decreed, wound by the hands of Muses and of Glory. Too late: I stand o’er the abyss of destiny, shall not applauded reach the Capitol, and laurels of fame upon my feeble head will not assuage the singer’s bitter fate!”

He stopped. A sombre light glowed in his eyes, the final ray of genius before its death; it seemed, the dying wished to snatch one day of triumph from the Parcæ; his eyes sought eagerly the Capitolian walls; he tried his best to raise himself but lay, exhausted from the dreadful torment of his agony, immovable upon his bed. Day’s luminary was gliding to the west, and merged in blood-red glow; the hour of death was near⁠⸺the sufferer’s gloomy brow was now agleam with its last light. Refreshed by the evening coolness, he raised his right hand to the hearkening heavens, like a righteous man, with hope and joy:

“See,” he addressed his sobbing friends, “the royal luminary flaming in the west! ’T is he, ’t is he who calls me to the cloudless lands where glows the eternal light⁠⸺. The angel stands before me to guide me on; he shades me with his azure pinions⁠⸺. Give me Love’s token, this mysterious cross⁠⸺. Pray in hope and tears⁠⸺all earthly things are vanishing⁠⸺and glory and the crown⁠⸺the sublime creations of the Arts and Muses: all is there eternal as the Lord, the Giver of the crown of immortal glory! There is all the great my spirit fed upon, and I did from my cradle breathe. O brothers, friends! weep not o’er me: your friend has reached at last the longed-for goal. He’ll pass away in peace and, strong in faith, will not perceive his cruel end: there, there⁠⸺. O bliss! ’midst virtuous women and ’midst angels Eleanor will meet him!”

And with the name of love the godly passed away; his friends sobbed speechless o’er him. Daylight softly died away⁠⸺the bell’s voice spread the melancholy news down to the streets: “Dead is our Torquato!” Rome cried in tears: “Dead is the bard who has deserved a better fate!”⁠⸺ The dawn perceived a sombre smoke of torches, and in mourning shrouded was the Capitol.

Fédor Nikoláevich Glínka. (1788-1880.)

Glínka was born in the Government of Smolénsk and was educated in the First Cadet Corps, which he left in 1803 as lieutenant. He took part in the campaign of the Russian army against Napoleon in the Austrian possessions, serving as adjutant under Milorádovich. He described his experience in his Letters of a Russian Officer, which is a remarkable production for a young man of nineteen. After his return he devoted himself to literature, both prose and poetry. His poems attracted much attention on account of their sincerity and the harmoniousness of their verses. In 1869 he published a collection of Spiritual Songs.

In C. T. Wilson’s Russian Lyrics are given The Appearance of the Unknown, The Search for God, and Moscow. N. H. Dole has translated his Moscow (publication unascertainable).

MOSCOW

⁠—Transl. by N. H. Dole (publication not ascertainable).

THE SEARCH FOR GOD