In a certain kingdom in a certain empire, there lived, once upon a
time, an old man and an old woman, and they had a son called little
Martin. Time went on, the old man fell ill and died, and though he
had worked hard all his days, the only inheritance he left behind
him was two hundred rubles. [52] The old woman did not want to waste
this money, but what was to be done? There was nothing to eat, so
she had to have recourse to the pot containing the patrimony. The
old woman counted out a hundred rubles, and sent her son to town
to buy provision of bread for a whole year. So Martin the widow's
son went to town. He went past the meat market, and saw crowds of
people gathered together, and his ears were deafened by the din and
noise and racket. Little Martin went into the midst of the throng
and saw that the butchers had caught a terrier, and had fastened it
to a post, and were beating it unmercifully. Little Martin was sorry
for the poor dog, and said to the butchers, "My brothers! why do you
beat the poor dog so unmercifully?"--"Why should we not beat him,
when he has spoiled a whole quarter of beef?"--"Yet, beat him not,
my brothers! 'Twere better to sell him to me!"--"Buy him if you like
then!" said the butchers, mockingly, "but for such a treasure as that
we could not take less than a hundred rubles."--"Well, one hundred
rubles is only one hundred rubles after all!" replied little Martin,
and he drew out the money and gave it for the dog. But the dog's name
was Jurka. [53] Martin then went home, and his mother asked him,
"What hast thou bought?"--"Why look, I have bought Jurka!" replied
her son. His mother fell a-scolding him, and reproached him bitterly:
"Art thou not ashamed? Soon we shall not have a morsel to eat, and
thou hast gone and thrown away so much money on a pagan dog." The next
day the old woman sent her son into the town again, and said to him,
"Now there is our last one hundred rubles, buy with it provision of
bread. To-day I will collect together the scrapings of the meal-tub and
bake us fritters, but to-morrow there will not even be that!" Little
Martin got to town and walked along the streets and looked about
him, and he saw a boy who had fastened a cord round a cat's neck
and was dragging it off to drown it. "Stop!" shrieked Martin,
"whither art thou dragging Vaska?" [54]--"I am dragging him off to
be drowned!"--"Why, what has he done?"--"He is a great rascal. He
has stolen a whole goose."--"Don't drown him, far better sell him to
me!"--"I'll take nothing less than one hundred rubles!"--"Well, one
hundred rubles is only one hundred rubles after all; here! take the
money!" And he took Vaska from the boy. "What hast thou bought, my
son?" asked his mother when he got home.--"Why the cat Vaska!"--"And
what besides?"--"Well, perhaps there's some money still left, and
then we can buy something else."--"Oh, oh, oh! what a fool thou
art!" screeched the old woman. "Go out of the house this instant and
beg thy bread from the stranger!"
Martin dared not gainsay his mother, so he took Jurka and Vaska
with him and went into the neighbouring village to seek work. And
there met him a rich farmer. "Whither art thou going?" said he. "I
want to hire myself out as a day-labourer."--"Come to me then. I
take labourers without any contract, but if thou serve me well for a
year thou shalt not lose by it." Martin agreed, and for a whole year
he worked for this farmer without ceasing. The time of payment came
round. The farmer led Martin into the barn, showed him two full sacks,
and said, "Take which thou wilt." Martin looked; in one of the sacks
was riches, in the other sand, and he thought to himself, "That's not
done without a reason; there's some trickery here. I'll take the sand;
something will come of it no doubt." So Martin put the sack of sand
on his back, and went to seek another place. He went on and on, and
strayed into a dark and dreary wood. In the midst of the wood was a
field, and on the field a fire was burning, and in the fire a maiden
was sitting; and it was such a lovely maiden that it was a delight to
look at her. And the Beauty said to him, "Martin the widow's son, if
thou wishest to find happiness, save me. Extinguish this flame with
the sand which thou hast gotten for thy faithful service."--"Well,
really," thought Martin, "why should I go on dragging this load about
on my shoulders? Far better to help a body with it." So he undid his
sack and emptied all the sand on the fire. The fire immediately went
out, but the lovely damsel turned into a serpent, bounded on to the
bosom of the good youth, wound itself round his neck, and said, "Fear
me not, Martin the widow's son. Go boldly into the land of Thrice-ten,
into the underground realm where my dear father rules. Only mark this;
he will offer thee lots of gold and silver and precious stones; thou,
however, must take none of them, but beg him for the little ring off
his little finger. That ring is no common ring; if thou move it from
one hand to the other twelve young heroes will immediately appear,
and whatever thou dost bid them do they will do it in a single night."
Then the young man set out on his long, long journey, whether 'twere
a long time or a short I know not, but at last he drew nigh to the
kingdom of Thrice-ten, and came to a place where a huge stone lay
across the way. Here the snake leaped from his neck, lit on the damp
ground, and turned into the former lovely damsel. "Follow me," said
she to Martin, and showed him a little hole beneath the stone. For
a long time they went through this underground way, and came into
a wide plain beneath the open sky; and in this plain a castle was
built entirely of porphyry, with a roof of golden fish-scales, with
sharp-pointed golden pinnacles. "That's where my father lives, the
Tsar of this underground region," said the lovely damsel to Martin.
The wanderers entered the castle, and the Tsar met them kindly and
made them welcome. "My dear daughter," said he to the lovely damsel,
"I did not expect to see thee here. Where hast thou been knocking
about all these years?"--"Dear father, and light of my eyes, I should
have been lost altogether but for this good youth, who saved me from
an unavoidable death!" The Tsar turned, looked with a friendly eye
at Martin, and said to him, "I thank thee, good youth. I am ready
to reward thee for thy good deeds with whatever thou desirest. Take
of my gold and silver and precious stones as much as thy soul longs
for."--"I thank thee, Sovereign Tsar, for thy good words. But I want
no precious stones, nor silver, nor gold; but if thou of thy royal
grace and favour wouldst indeed reward me, then give me, I pray, the
ring from the little finger of thy royal hand. Whenever I look upon
that ring I'll think of thee; but if ever I meet with a bride after
mine own heart I will give it to her." The Tsar immediately took off
the ring, gave it to Martin, and said, "By all means, good youth,
take the ring, and may it be to thy health! But mark this one thing:
tell no one that this ring of thine is no common ring, or it will be
to thy hurt and harm!"
Martin the widow's son thanked the Tsar and took the ring, and returned
by the same way through which he had reached the underground realm. He
returned to his native place, sought out his old widowed mother, and
lived and dwelt with her without either want or care. Yet for all the
good life he led, Martin seemed sorrowful; and why should he not? for
Martin wanted to marry, and the bride of his choice was not his like
in birth, for she was a king's daughter. So he consulted his mother,
and sent her away as his matchmaker, and said to her, "Go to the King
himself, and woo for me the thrice-lovely Princess."--"Alas! my dear
son," said his old mother, "'twould be far better for thee if thou
wert to chop thine own wood. [55] But what art thou thinking of? How
can I go to the King and ask him for his daughter for thee? 'Twould
be as much as thy head and my head were worth."--"Fear not, dear
mother! If I send thee, thou mayest go boldly. And mind thou dost
not come back from the King without an answer."
So the old woman dragged herself to the royal palace. She went into
the royal courtyard, and without being announced she went right up to
the very staircase of the King. The guards shook their arms at her as
a sign that nobody was allowed to go there, but she didn't trouble her
head about that one bit, but kept on creeping up. Then all the royal
lacqueys came running up, and took the old woman under the arms and
would have quite gently led her down again; but the old woman made
such a to-do and fell a-shrieking so loudly that it pierced through
everything, and the King himself in his lofty carved palace heard
the noise, and looked out of his little window into the courtyard,
and saw his servants dragging an old woman down the staircase, and
preventing her from entering the royal apartments, while the old woman
was resisting and shrieking with all her might. "I won't go out! I
have come to the King on a good errand!" The King commanded them
to admit the old woman. The old woman entered the carved palace,
and saw sitting in the front corner, on the high carved throne,
on cushions of purple velvet, the King in state, holding a council
in the midst of his grandees and his councillors. The old woman
invoked the aid of the holy ikons, [56] and bowed very low before
the King. "What hast thou to say, old woman?" asked the King.--"Now,
lo! I have come to your Majesty--be not wroth at my words--I have
come to your Majesty as a matchmaker!"--"Art thou in thy senses, old
woman?" cried the King, and his brow was wrinkled with a frown.--"Nay,
O father-king! pray do not be angry; pray give me an answer. You have
the wares--a little daughter, a beauty; I have the purchaser--a young
man, so wise, so cunning, a master of every trade, so that you could
not find a better son-in-law. Tell me, therefore, straight out, won't
you give your daughter to my son?" The King listened and listened
to the old woman, and at first his frown was blacker than night,
but he thought to himself, "Does it become me, a king, to be wroth
with a silly old woman?" And the royal councillors were amazed, for
they saw the wrinkles on the King's forehead smoothing out, and the
King looked at the old woman with a smile. "If thy son is so cunning,
and a master of every trade, let him build me within twenty-four hours
a palace more gorgeous than my own, and let him hang a crystal bridge
between this palace and my palace, and let luxuriant apple trees grow
up all along this bridge, and let them bear silver and golden pippins,
and let birds of paradise sing within these apple trees. And on the
right-hand side of this crystal bridge let him build a cathedral five
storeys high, with golden pinnacles, where he may receive the wedding
crown with my daughter, and where the marriage may be celebrated. But
if thy son fulfil not all this, then for thy and his presumption I
will have you both smeared with tar and rolled in feathers and down,
and hanged up in cages in the market-place as a laughing-stock to
all good people." And the King condescended to smile still more
pleasantly, and his grandees and his councillors held their sides,
and rolled about the floor for laughter, and they began with one voice
to praise his wisdom and thought amongst themselves, "What fun it will
be to see the old woman and her son hung up in cages! 'Tis as plain as
daylight; a beard will sooner grow out of the palm of his hand than
he be able to accomplish so shrewd a task." The poor old woman was
near to swooning. "What!" said she to the King, "is this thy final
sovereign word? Is this what I must say to my son?"--"Yes, thus must
thou say: if he accomplish this task, I will give him my daughter;
if he does not accomplish it, I will put you both into cages."
The poor old woman went home more dead than alive. She staggered
from side to side, and shed floods of scalding tears. When she saw
Martin, she began screeching at him from afar. "Did not I tell thee,
my son, to go and chop thine own wood? Now thou seest that our poor
little heads are lost." And she told her son all about it. "Cheer up,
mother," said little Martin, "pray to God and lie down to sleep, the
morning is always wiser than the evening." But he himself went out of
the hut, took his little ring from one hand and put it on the other,
and the twelve youths immediately appeared before him and said,
"What dost thou require?" He told them of the royal task, and the
twelve youths answered, "To-morrow, everything will be ready."
The King awoke next morning, and lo! right in front of his palace
towered another palace, and a crystal bridge led from one to the
other. Along the sides of the bridge stood luxuriant apple trees, and
upon them hung golden pippins, and birds of paradise were singing in
the trees; and on the right hand of the bridge, blazing like fire in
the sun, stood the cathedral with its golden pinnacles; and the bells
of the cathedral were ringing and pealing in all directions. The
King had to keep his word. He raised his son-in-law high in rank,
gave him a rich inheritance with his daughter, and he took her to
wife. Great was the wedding-feast. The wine flowed in streams, and
they drank of mead and beer till they could drink no more.
So Martin lived in his palace, and he ate of the best and drank of
the best, and his life went as smoothly as cheese with butter. But the
Princess did not love him at heart, and when she reflected that they
had not married her to the son of a tsar, or the son of a king, or
even to a prince from across the sea, but to simple Martin the widow's
son, her wrath waxed hot within her. And she fell a-thinking by what
means she might best rid herself of a husband she hated. So she took
care to caress him, and flatter him, and waited upon him herself, and
made him comfortable, and when they were quite alone she would ask him
what it was that made him so wise and clever. And it happened one day
that when he had been the King's guest, and had drunk and made merry
with all his lords one after another, and had returned home and laid
him down to rest, that the Princess came to him and caressed him, and
coaxed him with wheedling words, and made him drunk with strong mead,
and in that way found out what she wanted to know, for Martin told
her all about his enchanted ring, and showed her how to turn it. And
no sooner was little Martin asleep and snoring, than the Princess
took off the enchanted ring from his little finger, went forth into
the broad courtyard, moved the ring from one finger to the other,
and the twelve youths immediately appeared before her. "What is thy
pleasure, and what is thy desire?"--"That to-morrow morning there may
be neither palace, nor bridge, nor cathedral on this spot, but only
a wretched little hut as heretofore, and cast this drunkard into it,
but remove me far from him into the Empire of Thrice-ten."--"It shall
be done," replied the twelve youths with one voice.
In the morning, when the King awoke, he felt inclined to go and pay
a visit to his son-in-law and his daughter, so he went out upon the
balcony, and lo! there was neither palace, nor bridge, nor cathedral,
nor garden. In place of them stood a wretched old hut, leaning on
one side, and scarce able to stand at all. The King sent for his
son-in-law, and began asking him what it all meant; but little Martin
could only stare blankly at him without uttering a word. And the
King bade them sit in judgment on his son-in-law for deceiving him
by magic, and destroying his daughter, the thrice-lovely Princess,
and they condemned Martin to be put on the top of a lofty stone column
with nothing to eat or drink; there he was to be left to die of hunger.
Then it was that Jurka and Vaska remembered how little Martin had
saved them from an evil death, and they came and laid their heads
together about it. Jurka growled and snarled, and was ready to tear
every one to bits, for his master's sake; but Vaska purred and
hummed and scratched himself behind the ear with his velvet paw,
and began to think the matter over. And the artful cat hit upon
a plan, and said to Jurka, "Let us go for a walk about the town,
and as soon as we meet a roll-baker with a tin on his head, you run
between his legs and knock the tin off his head, and I'll be close
behind and immediately seize the rolls, and take them to master." No
sooner said than done. Jurka and the cat took a run into the town,
and they met a roll-baker. He was carrying a tin on his head, and he
looked about him on all sides and cried with a loud voice, "Hot rolls,
hot rolls, fresh from the oven!" Jurka ran between his legs, the baker
stumbled, the tin fell, and all the rolls were scattered about. But
while the angry baker was chasing Jurka, Vaska hid all the rolls in
the hedges. Then the cat and Jurka ran to the tower where Martin was
placed, dragged with them the stores of bread, and Vaska scrambled
up to the top, looked in at the little window, called to his master,
and said, "Alive, eh?"--"Scarcely alive!" replied little Martin; "I
am quite exhausted from want of food, and it will not be long before I
die of hunger."--"Don't grieve; wait a bit, and we'll feed you," said
Vaska, and he began to drag the food up from below--rolls and cakes,
and all kinds of bread, till he had dragged up for his master a large
store. Then he said, "Master, Jurka and I will go to the kingdom of
Thrice-ten, and get you back your enchanted ring. Take care to make
the bread last till we return." Then they both took leave of their
master, and departed on their long journey.
They ran on and on, and they smelt out the scent everywhere and
followed it; paid great attention to what people told them; carefully
made friends with all the other dogs and cats they met; asked about
the Princess, and found out at last that they were not far from the
kingdom of Thrice-ten, whither she had told the twelve youths to
carry her. They ran into the kingdom, went to the palace, and made
friends with all the dogs and cats there, asked them all about the
Princess's ways, and turned the conversation to the subject of the
enchanted ring; but no one could give them certain information about
it. But one day it happened that Vaska went a-hunting in the royal
cellars. There he waylaid a big fat mouse, threw himself upon it,
dug his cruel claws into it, and was going to begin with its head,
when the big mouse spoke to him: "Dear little Vaska, don't hurt me,
don't kill me. Perhaps I may be of service to you. I'll do all I can
for you. But if you kill me, the Mouse-Tsar, all my mousey tsardom will
fall to pieces."--"Very well," said Vaska; "I'll spare you; but this
is the service you must do me. In this palace dwells the Princess, the
wicked wife of our master; she has stolen from him his wonder-working
ring; till you have got me that ring, I will not let you out of my
claws under any pretence whatever."--Agreed," said the Mouse-Tsar,
"I'll try"; and he piped and whistled all his people together. A
countless multitude of mice assembled, both small and great, and they
sat all round the cat Vaska, and waited to hear what the Mouse-Tsar
would say to them from beneath Vaska's claws. And the Mouse-Tsar said
to them: "Whichever of you shall get the wonder-working ring from
the Princess, he will save me from a cruel death, and I will raise
him to the highest place about my person." Then a little mouse rose
up and said: "I have often been in the Princess's bed-chamber, and
I've noticed that the Princess's eye rests more often on a certain
little ring than on anything else. In the daytime she wears it on
her little finger, but at night she stuffs it into her mouth behind
her cheeks. If you wait a bit, I'll get you that ring." And the little
mouse ran into the Princess's bed-chamber and waited till night, and as
soon as ever the Princess was asleep, it wriggled into her bed, picked
the down out of her swan-feathered bolster, and strewed it all about
under her nose. The fine down went up the Princess's nose and into
her mouth, she sprang up and began to sneeze and cough, and spat out
the enchanted ring on to the counterpane. The little mouse immediately
snatched it up, and ran off with it to save the life of the Mouse-Tsar.
Vaska and Jurka set off to bring their master the wonder-working
ring. Whether they took a long time or a short time matters not,
but they arrived at last, and ran to the tower in which Martin was
put to die from starvation. The cat immediately climbed up to the
window, and called to its master, "Art thou alive, Martin the widow's
son?"--"I am scarce able to keep body and soul together. This is
the third day I have been sitting here without bread."--"Well, thy
woes are over now. There will be a feast in your street now [57];
we have brought you your ring." Martin was overjoyed, and began to
stroke the cat, and the cat rubbed itself against him, and began
purring its own little songs through its nose; but at the bottom
of the tower Jurka was leaping and whining and barking for joy,
and leaping high in the air. Martin took the ring and turned it from
one hand to the other. The twelve youths immediately appeared: "What
is thy pleasure, and what thy command?"--"Give me to eat and drink
till I can eat and drink no more, and let cunning music be played on
the top of this tower to me all day." When the music began to play,
the good folks hastened to the King, and told him that little Martin
was up to no good in the tower there. "He ought to have ceased to be
among the living long ago," they said, "and yet he is having such
a merry time of it on the top of the tower. They are stamping with
their feet, and knocking their plates, and clashing their glasses,
and such splendid music is playing, that you can't help listening to
it." The King sent an express messenger to the tower, and there he
stood and listened to the music; the King sent his highest officer,
and there they all remained standing, and opened wide their ears. The
King himself went to the tower, and the music seemed to turn him
into a statue. But little Martin again called his twelve youths,
and said to them, "Restore my old palace, as it was before; throw
a crystal bridge across from it to the royal palace; let the former
five-storeyed cathedral stand by the side of the palace; and let my
faithless wife also be found in the palace." And while he was yet
expressing the wish, the whole thing was done. And he went out of
the tower, took his father-in-law the King by the hand, led him into
the palace, led him up to the sleeping-chamber, where the Princess,
in fear and trembling, awaited an evil death, and said to the King,
"My dear little father-in-law, a great deal of trouble and anguish
has befallen me from living with thy daughter; what shall we sentence
her to?"--"My dear son-in-law, let mercy prevail over justice; exhort
her with good words, and live with her as heretofore." And Martin
listened to his father-in-law, upbraided his wife for her treachery,
and to the end of his life he never parted with the ring, nor with
Jurka and Vaska, and saw no more misery.