IVAN’S ADVENTURE.
“Adventures are to the adventurous.”--CONINGSBY.
Ivan Barrinka, or Ivan Pojarsky, as he may now be called, was a
genuine child of Russia. His nature was quick, mobile, restless,
passionate. He was capable of strong determination, but capable also of
changefulness and inconstancy, because the mood of the moment always
seized upon and swayed his whole soul. But he was all this only in the
germ, for his was as yet the unawakened, undeveloped mind of a child.
The simple-hearted guardians of his infancy had given him all they
could--food, shelter, and tenderness; and this not only without hope
of reward, but during some years under absolute terror of discovery
and punishment. But they could not give him the instruction to which
his intelligent mind would have so eagerly responded. No one in the
village, except the priest, knew the mysteries of the Russian alphabet;
and Pope Nikita, like most Russian priests, was in no real sense a
pastor or a teacher, but rather a machine for performing the numerous
ceremonies of his Church. All that could be said in his favour was,
that if he did little good, he did little harm. Neither from him nor
from the starost did Ivan learn any religion except a series of outward
acts and postures, of bowings and crossings, and formal repetitions of
“Gospodin pomilvi,”[4] with a respect for sacred pictures, and a vague
reverence for God, for the saints, and for the Czar. He never dreamed
that any of these mysterious, far-away powers should influence his
daily conduct, though he did believe that his patron St. John (Ivan is
the Russian form of John) might help him in a time of need; because,
when he had the measles, a picture of the saint had been blessed by
the pope and laid on his breast, and straightway he began to recover!
It was mournfully significant of the kind of instruction he received,
that he had but one and the same word to designate the divine Being and
the “gods of silver and gods of gold” that too often, in the popular
estimation, usurped His place. If any one had asked him, “Who made
you?” he would have answered, “Bog;” and had the question followed,
“What is that in the corner, before which the candle is burning?” he
would still have replied, without hesitation, “It is Bog.”
A few childish legends of the saints, a few stories of “kiki-noras” or
goblins, formed the staple of the “folk lore” that circulated round
the stove during the long winter evenings. The Bible narratives, so
familiar and so fascinating to the English child, were almost unknown
to Ivan; nor did exploits of the heroes of his own country hold the
place they sometimes do on the lips or in the hearts of the people.
Hence, when the starost told him that he was himself the heir of one
of the noblest of Russian names, no answering chord resounded in
his heart. The revelation, that ought to have moved him so deeply,
failed of its due effect, because his ignorance did not supply the
background that was needed to throw it into relief. He had always
known that he was something other, something greater than those around
him; but beyond that he had no power of measuring social distances.
Princes, boyars, all who were not mujiks, were alike to him; just as
it seemed to him nearly the same thing to go to the Moscow road, to
Moscow itself, or even to St. Petersburg. Therefore, after spending a
little vague, half-comprehending wonder upon the starost’s story, his
mind reverted, as days went on, to what was at this period his ruling
idea--the hope of rivalling and surpassing Michael in some deed of
daring, and consequently in the regard of Anna Popovna.
It was not for his advantage that his kindly foster-parents never
exacted from him any of the labours that fell to the lot of the little
mujiks, his playfellows. “Prepare to die, mujik, but till the soil,”
says the Russian proverb; and certainly where there is no other
education an early apprenticeship to manual toil is rather a blessing
than otherwise. Ivan’s idle hands and restless feet were left quite at
liberty to obey all the suggestions of his active, untaught mind; while
his naturally brave disposition was rendered still more fearless from
the fact of his never having been, upon any occasion, punished or even
thwarted or reproved.
One summer morning, just as the first faint streaks of dawn began to
brighten the cottage window, he rose softly from his sleeping-place on
the shelf above the stove. All the rest had worked hard the day before,
and were slumbering soundly now; so he dressed himself quietly, and
going to the great carved chest lifted the heavy lid with difficulty
and took out and put on his rough sheep-skin coat, or shuba; then he
drew on his warm boots of Russia leather lined with fur; next, he cut
for himself with a hatchet a great piece of sour black bread, and tied
it in a cloth as provision for the way; lastly, he went to a secret
hiding-place of his own and transferred to his pocket his greatest
treasure--a silver rouble mativshka had given him. Having done all
this, he was hurrying forth with quick noiseless footsteps, when he
remembered an omitted duty. Returning a step or two, he took his stand
before the picture in the corner, made a reverence, and repeated a
hasty prayer; then, with a brave heart and a quiet conscience, he went
forth in search of what fate might bring him,--a little knight-errant
going to look for adventures.
He passed through the sleeping village, with the familiar brown
cottages on either side of him looking peaceful and homelike in the
morning twilight. The church-bell in the tall elm-tree seemed to beckon
him near; he could scarcely resist the temptation of climbing the tree,
seizing the rope, and astonishing the village with an untimely peal.
Only the reflection that this would inevitably bring his own adventure
to an abrupt conclusion stayed his hand. Leaving the houses behind
him, he passed through fields rich with waving corn, then through
pasture-lands, from which he emerged at length upon a bare, monotonous,
sandy plain. Now, for the first time, he ventured to beguile his way
with a song; and his clear, ringing, childish voice sounded far and
wide, yet failed to reach any human ear. Nor would it have fared
otherwise with a cry for help, however shrill and agonized.
Ivan, happily, did not think of this. Fleet of foot and light of
heart, he pursued his course, still singing as he went, until village,
corn-fields, and birch-woods were all left far behind him. And now,
wherever he looked, he saw nothing but a dreary waste of sand, with
here and there a few patches of stunted herbage, and at rare intervals
a solitary pine or a little cluster of birch-trees. The stillness was
absolute: the children of the air eschewed that land of barrenness, and
the beasts of the field seemed also to have abandoned it. None of the
gentler races that man has succeeded in taming found pasture there;
and fortunately wolves were extremely rare, though not quite unknown.
Ivan never dreamed of them; his one concern was to keep the road, for
so he called the track made by the wheels of the rude waggons which
brought the produce of the corn-fields to the river Oka. He knew that
a ferry-boat crossed the river, bringing adventurous travellers to the
great Moscow road on the other side. This road was the goal of his
ambition. As already intimated, no clear distinction existed in his
mind between the Moscow road and Moscow itself, the holy city towards
which the heart of every Russian yearned with reverent love and
passionate longing. It was their Jerusalem, “beautiful for situation,
the joy of the whole earth.” Even ignorant little Ivan had heard of its
wonders and its glories; and he fancied that if once he gained the road
he might see in the distance the gilded spires and domes of the Kremlin
gleaming in the sun. Michael had never seen so much as that, nor been
so far from home!
The sun, in Russia such a rare and much-prized guest, was prodigal
of his favours that day, and shone forth from a cloudless sky. Ivan
had equipped himself for a winter journey, and about noon he began to
grow hot and weary. No shelter was near him, so he sat down on the
sand, rested a little, and ate some of his bread; but he longed in
vain for a draught of kvass[5] to finish his repast, nor could he find
a single drop of water anywhere. He rose unrefreshed and pursued his
way; but, in spite of all his childish courage, the utter loneliness of
the dreary waste around him began to tell upon his spirits. He sang,
he shouted, he talked aloud to himself, merely for the comfort of
hearing his own voice; until by-and-by he became too weary for these
exercises--all he could contrive to do was to keep moving on with a
kind of dogged determination. Once and again was he tempted to turn
back and give up the adventure; indeed, he would have done so, only for
the thought, “If I come back having seen nothing, Michael will jeer me,
and Anna Popovna will join in the laugh.”
At last he grew so tired and frightened that he threw himself on the
ground in a kind of despair, made the sign of the cross, said a prayer
to his patron St. John the evangelist, then fell into a state of
drowsiness, and lost all sense of time, until, after an interval of
perhaps an hour, he was aroused by the sound of voices.
Never had human voices seemed more welcome. Ivan started to his feet,
and saw to his great delight a party of five or six mujiks, carrying
large baskets of cabbages and other vegetables. Greetings were soon
exchanged. His new friends told him that they were journeying from a
distant village to a fair at Kaluga, a town on the other bank of the
Oka. They intended, after crossing the river, to travel all night,
that they might reach the fair with their merchandise early the next
morning. They took the tired little wayfarer by the hand and helped him
on, encouraging him with kind words, and telling him they were now not
far from the ferry.
At last the river appeared in the distance, glimmering in the light of
the rising moon. “Look,” cried his companions, “yonder is the Oka.” But
Ivan was by this time too weary to care; he could scarcely keep his
eyes open and his feet moving.
They drew nearer and nearer. The river was as broad as the Thames--a
fine sheet of water, with green banks on either side. From these there
came a hoarse, monotonous sound--the croaking of innumerable frogs,
which some one has unpoetically called “the nightingales of Russia.”
Soon a brown wooden shed came into view, where the men said they would
find kvass, and perhaps even vodka.[6] This roused Ivan, who was still
tormented with thirst. He saw the moonlight upon the waters; the grassy
sward beside them; the rough boat-house, out of which a withered old
woman, with a red handkerchief wrapped around her head and a torch of
pine-wood in her hand, came to meet the wayfarers.
There was no boat to be had, she said; her son had not returned, though
she expected him before sundown;--she could not think what detained
him. The peasants were grievously disappointed. The sale of their
merchandise depended on their reaching the fair in good time, so their
vexation was quite natural. It was somewhat allayed, however, by the
offer of vodka, that charmer so fatally dear to the heart of the mujik.
And their weary little companion was not quite forgotten. “Give the
little one a taste, mother,” they said. “Poor child, he is ready to
faint.”
It was to the honour of the people of Nicolofsky that, though
themselves no patterns of sobriety, they had at least kept the
destroyer from the young lips of their nursling. Ivan turned from the
fiery beverage with loathing, and asked for kvass. “Here is no kvass,”
said the old woman roughly. “No man would be fool enough to drink it
who could get vodka. But you can have water, if you like.”
With this he was content. He wrapped himself up in his shuba, lay down
beside the fire in the shed, and was soon fast asleep; while the mujiks
sat outside talking, laughing, singing, and drinking vodka.