We still say that we are clever, but our elders go and quarrel with us
and say, “No, we had more sense than you.” But the tale tells that, even
when our grandfathers had not learned their lessons and our
great-great-great-great-grandfathers had not been born, in a certain
kingdom, in a certain land, once there lived an old man who had taught
his three sons reading and writing.
“Now, children,” he said to them, “I shall die; do you come and read
prayers over my grave.”
“Very well, _bátyushka_,” the three sons answered. And the two elder
brothers were indeed fine lads, and they grew up fine stout fellows; but
the youngest, Vanyúshka,[32] was under-sized, like a starved duckling,
and flat-chested. The old man, their father, died.
Just about then a decree was issued by the Tsar that his daughter, Eléna
Tsarévna the Fair, had ordered a temple to be built for her, with twelve
columns and twelve wreaths. She was going to sit in this temple on a
lofty throne, and was going to wait for the bridegroom—the valiant man
who should on a flying horse, at a single spring, kiss her on the lips.
All the young folks were bustling about, washing themselves clean,
combing their hair, and considering to whom should the great honour
fall.
“Brothers,” Vanyúshka said, “our father is dead: who of us will go and
read prayers on his grave?”
“Whoever wishes may go,” answered the brothers.
So the youngest went. But the elders got ready and mounted their horses,
curled their hair, dyed their hair; and all their kinsmen gathered
round.
Then the second night came: “Brothers, I read the prayers last night,”
Ványa said; “it’s your turn; which of you will go?”
“Any one who wishes may go; don’t interfere with us.”
They gave their hats a knowing tilt, whooped and shouted, flew about,
and rushed and galloped abroad on the open fields; and once again Ványa
read the prayers; and so, too, on the third night. But the brothers
saddled their horses, combed out their whiskers, and got ready on the
very morrow to try their prowess in front of the eyes of Eléna the Fair.
“What about our youngest brother?” they thought.
“Never mind about him; he will only disgrace us and make people smile:
let us go by ourselves.” So they started.
But Ványa also very much wanted to look at Princess Eléna the Fair, and
so he wept sorely, and he went to his father’s grave, and his father
heard him in his last home, and he came up to him, shook off the grey
earth from his forehead, and said, “Do not grieve, Vanyúshka; I will aid
you in your sorrow.” Then the old man got up, whistled and halloed with
a young man’s voice, with a nightingale’s trill; and from some source or
other a horse ran up, and the earth trembled, and from his nostrils and
from his ears flames issued forth. He breathed smoke, and stood in front
of the old man as though he were rooted to the ground, and asked him,
“What do you wish?”
Ványa mounted the horse by one ear, dismounted it by the other, and
turned into so fine a youth as no tale can tell and no pen can write. He
sat on the horse, bent over sideways; and he flew like your hawk over
there, straight to the palace of Eléna the Fair Tsarévna. He stretched
out, leaped on, and he did not reach two of the crowns. He again made an
effort, flew up, jumped; there was only one wreath left. He made one
more effort, turned round once more, and, as fire leaps to the eyes, he
instantly kissed and smacked Eléna the Fair on the lips. “Who is it! Who
is it! Catch him!” For his very trace had vanished. Then he leapt back
to his father’s grave, and he let his horse free into the open field;
and he then bowed down to the earth and asked advice of his father, and
the old man gave him advice. Ványa went back home as though he had never
been there; and the brothers told him where they had been, what they had
done and seen; and he listened as though he had never heard of it
before.
There was another bout next day, and you could never see an end of the
_boyárs_ and the lords seated at the royal palace. The elder brothers
started out, and the younger brother set out on foot secretly and
quietly, just as though he had never kissed the Tsarévna, and he stopped
in his distant corner. Eléna Tsarévna was asking for her bridegroom;
Eléna Tsarévna was wishing to show him to the whole world, desiring to
give him the half of her kingdom; but never a bridegroom appeared. They
were looking for him in the midst of the _boyárs_, in the midst of the
generals; and they went to them all, but they could not find him. But
Ványa looked on and smiled, and waited until his bride came to him. For
he said, “I won her like a knight; now she is to love me in my
_kaftán_.”
So she got up, looked out of the open windows, glanced through them all,
and then she saw and recognised her bridegroom, took him to herself, and
soon the betrothal took place. And oh, what a fine young man he was—so
sensible, brave, and so handsome! He used to sit on his flying horse,
undo his cap, put his arms a-kimbo; and he seemed like a king, like the
reigning king; and you looked on, and you would never have imagined that
at one time he could ever have been poor Vanyúshka.