Chapter 17

But what are they to do, poor fellows? Although it is not proper--generally speaking--to worship ... yet in this case, if one does not do it, he will find himself classed among the men who are behind the times!

There is a career for fools among cowards.

April, 1878.

AN ORIENTAL LEGEND

Who in Bagdad does not know the great Giaffar, the sun of the universe?

One day, many years ago, when he was still a young man, Giaffar was strolling in the suburbs of Bagdad.

Suddenly there fell upon his ear a hoarse cry: some one was calling desperately for help.

Giaffar was distinguished among the young men of his own age for his good sense and prudence; but he had a compassionate heart, and he trusted to his strength.

He ran in the direction of the cry, and beheld a decrepit old man pinned against the wall of the city by two brigands who were robbing him.

Giaffar drew his sword and fell upon the malefactors. One he slew, the other he chased away.

The old man whom he had liberated fell at his rescuer's feet, and kissing the hem of his garment, exclaimed: "Brave youth, thy magnanimity shall not remain unrewarded. In appearance I am a beggar; but only in appearance. I am not a common man.--Come to-morrow morning early to the chief bazaar; I will await thee there at the fountain--and thou shalt convince thyself as to the justice of my words."

Giaffar reflected: "In appearance this man is a beggar, it is true; but all sorts of things happen. Why should not I try the experiment?"--and he answered: "Good, my father, I will go."

The old man looked him in the eye and went away.

On the following morning, just as day was breaking, Giaffar set out for the bazaar. The old man was already waiting for him, with his elbows leaning on the marble basin of the fountain.

Silently he took Giaffar by the hand and led him to a small garden, surrounded on all sides by high walls.

In the very centre of this garden, on a green lawn, grew a tree of extraordinary aspect.

It resembled a cypress; only its foliage was of azure hue.

Three fruits--three apples--hung on the slender up-curving branches. One of medium size was oblong in shape, of a milky-white hue; another was large, round, and bright red; the third was small, wrinkled and yellowish.

The whole tree was rustling faintly, although there was no wind. It tinkled delicately and plaintively, as though it were made of glass; it seemed to feel the approach of Giaffar.

"Youth!"--said the old man, "pluck whichever of these fruits thou wilt, and know that if thou shalt pluck and eat the white one, thou shalt become more wise than all men; if thou shalt pluck and eat the red one, thou shalt become as rich as the Hebrew Rothschild; if thou shalt pluck and eat the yellow one, thou shalt please old women. Decide! ... and delay not. In an hour the fruits will fade, and the tree itself will sink into the dumb depths of the earth!"

Giaffar bowed his head and thought.--"What am I to do?" he articulated in a low tone, as though arguing with himself.--"If one becomes too wise, he will not wish to live, probably; if he becomes richer than all men, all will hate him; I would do better to pluck and eat the third, the shrivelled apple!"

And so he did; and the old man laughed a toothless laugh and said: "Oh, most wise youth! Thou hast chosen the good part!--What use hast thou for the white apple? Thou art wiser than Solomon as thou art.--And neither dost thou need the red apple.... Even without it thou shalt be rich. Only no one will be envious of thy wealth."

"Inform me, old man," said Giaffar, with a start, "where the respected mother of our God-saved Caliph dwelleth?"

The old man bowed to the earth, and pointed out the road to the youth.

Who in Bagdad doth not know the sun of the universe, the great, the celebrated Giaffar?

April, 1878.

TWO FOUR-LINE STANZAS

There existed once a city whose inhabitants were so passionately fond of poetry that if several weeks passed and no beautiful new verses had made their appearance they regarded that poetical dearth as a public calamity.

At such times they donned their worst garments, sprinkled ashes on their heads, and gathering in throngs on the public squares, they shed tears, and murmured bitterly against the Muse for having abandoned them.

On one such disastrous day the young poet Junius, presented himself on the square, filled to overflowing with the sorrowing populace.

With swift steps he ascended a specially-constructed tribune and made a sign that he wished to recite a poem.

The lictors immediately brandished their staves. "Silence! Attention!" they shouted in stentorian tones.

"Friends! Comrades!" began Junius, in a loud, but not altogether firm voice:

"Friends! Comrades! Ye lovers of verses! Admirers of all that is graceful and fair! Be not cast down by a moment of dark sadness! The longed-for instant will come ... and light will disperse the gloom!"[70]

Junius ceased speaking ... and in reply to him, from all points of the square, clamour, whistling, and laughter arose.

All the faces turned toward him flamed with indignation, all eyes flashed with wrath, all hands were uplifted, menaced, were clenched into fists.

"A pretty thing he has thought to surprise us with!" roared angry voices. "Away from the tribune with the talentless rhymster! Away with the fool! Hurl rotten apples, bad eggs, at the empty-pated idiot! Give us stones! Fetch stones!"

Junius tumbled headlong from the tribune ... but before he had succeeded in fleeing to his own house, outbursts of rapturous applause, cries of laudation and shouts reached his ear.

Filled with amazement, but striving not to be detected (for it is dangerous to irritate an enraged wild beast), Junius returned to the square.

And what did he behold?

High above the throng, above its shoulders, on a flat gold shield, stood his rival, the young poet Julius, clad in a purple mantle, with a laurel wreath on his waving curls.... And the populace round about was roaring: "Glory! Glory! Glory to the immortal Julius! He hath comforted us in our grief, in our great woe! He hath given us verses sweeter than honey, more melodious than the cymbals, more fragrant than the rose, more pure than heaven's azure! Bear him in triumph; surround his inspired head with a soft billow of incense; refresh his brow with the waving of palm branches; lavish at his feet all the spices of Arabia! Glory!"

Junius approached one of the glorifiers.--"Inform me, O my fellow-townsman! With what verses hath Julius made you happy?--Alas, I was not on the square when he recited them! Repeat them, if thou canst recall them, I pray thee!"

"Such verses--and not recall them?" briskly replied the man interrogated.--"For whom dost thou take me? Listen--and rejoice, rejoice together with us!"

'Ye lovers of verses!'--thus began the divine Julius....

"'Ye lovers of verses! Comrades! Friends! Admirers of all that is graceful, melodious, tender! Be not east down by a moment of heavy grief! The longed-for moment will come--and day will chase away the night!'

"What dost thou think of that?"

"Good gracious!" roared Junius. "Why, those are my lines!--Julius must have been in the crowd when I recited them; he heard and repeated them, barely altering--and that, of course, not for the better--a few expressions!"

"Aha! Now I recognise thee.... Thou art Junius," retorted the citizen whom he had accosted, knitting his brows.--"Thou art either envious or a fool!... Only consider just one thing, unhappy man! Julius says in such lofty style: 'And day will chase away the night!'.... But with thee it is some nonsense or other: 'And the light will disperse the gloom!?'--What light?! What darkness?!"

"But is it not all one and the same thing...." Junius was beginning....

"Add one word more," the citizen interrupted him, "and I will shout to the populace, and it will rend thee asunder."

Junius prudently held his peace, but a grey-haired old man, who had overheard his conversation with the citizen, stepped up to the poor poet, and laying his hand on his shoulder, said:

"Junius! Thou hast said thy say at the wrong time; but the other man said his at the right time.--consequently, he is in the right, while for thee there remain the consolations of thine own conscience."

But while his conscience was consoling Junius to the best of its ability,--and in a decidedly-unsatisfactory way, if the truth must be told,--far away, amid the thunder and patter of jubilation, in the golden dust of the all-conquering sun, gleaming with purple, darkling with laurel athwart the undulating streams of abundant incense, with majestic leisureliness, like an emperor marching to his empire, the proudly-erect figure of Julius moved forward with easy grace ... and long branches of the palm-tree bent in turn before him, as though expressing by their quiet rising, their submissive obeisance, that incessantly-renewed adoration which filled to overflowing the hearts of his fellow-citizens whom he had enchanted!

April, 1878.

THE SPARROW

I had returned from the chase and was walking along one of the alleys in the garden. My hound was running on in front of me.

Suddenly he retarded his steps and began to crawl stealthily along as though he detected game ahead.

I glanced down the alley and beheld a young sparrow, with a yellow ring around its beak and down on its head. It had fallen from the nest (the wind was rocking the trees of the alley violently), and sat motionless, impotently expanding its barely-sprouted little wings.

My hound was approaching it slowly when, suddenly wrenching itself from a neighbouring birch, an old black-breasted sparrow fell like a stone in front of my dog's very muzzle--and, with plumage all ruffled, contorted, with a despairing and pitiful cry, gave a couple of hops in the direction of the yawning jaws studded with big teeth.

It had flung itself down to save, it was shielding, its offspring ... but the whole of its tiny body was throbbing with fear, its voice was wild and hoarse, it was swooning, it was sacrificing itself!

What a huge monster the dog must have appeared to it! And yet it could not have remained perched on its lofty, secure bough.... A force greater than its own will had hurled it thence.

My Trésor stopped short, retreated.... Evidently he recognised that force.

I hastened to call off the discomfited hound, and withdrew with reverence.

Yes; do not laugh. I felt reverential before that tiny, heroic bird, before its loving impulse.

Love, I thought, is stronger than death.--Only by it, only by love, does life support itself and move.

April, 1878.

THE SKULLS

A sumptuous, luxuriously illuminated ball-room; a multitude of cavaliers and ladies.

All faces are animated, all speeches are brisk.... A rattling conversation is in progress about a well-known songstress. The people are lauding her as divine, immortal.... Oh, how finely she had executed her last trill that evening!

And suddenly--as though at the wave of a magic wand--from all the heads, from all the faces, a thin shell of skin flew off, and instantly there was revealed the whiteness of skulls, the naked gums and cheek-bones dimpled like bluish lead.

With horror did I watch those gums and cheek-bones moving and stirring,--those knobby, bony spheres turning this way and that, as they gleamed in the light of the lamps and candles, and smaller spheres--the spheres of the eyes bereft of sense--rolling in them.

I dared not touch my own face, I dared not look at myself in a mirror. But the skulls continued to turn this way and that, as before.... And with the same clatter as before, the brisk tongues, flashing like red rags from behind the grinning teeth, murmured on, how wonderfully, how incomparably the immortal ... yes, the immortal songstress had executed her last trill!

April, 1878.

THE TOILER AND THE LAZY MAN

A CONVERSATION

THE TOILER

Why dost thou bother us? What dost thou want? Thou art not one of us.... Go away!

THE LAZY MAN[71]

I am one of you, brethren!

THE TOILER

Nothing of the sort; thou art not one of us! What an invention! Just look at my hands. Dost thou see how dirty they are? And they stink of dung, and tar,--while thy hands are white. And of what do they smell?

THE LAZY MAN--_offering his hands_

Smell.

THE TOILER--_smelling the hands_

What's this? They seem to give off an odour of iron.

THE LAZY MAN

Iron it is. For the last six years I have worn fetters on them.

THE TOILER

And what was that for?

THE LAZY MAN

Because I was striving for your welfare, I wanted to liberate you, the coarse, uneducated people; I rebelled against your oppressors, I mutinied.... Well, and so they put me in prison.

THE TOILER

They put you in prison? It served you right for rebelling!

_Two Years Later_

THE SAME TOILER TO ANOTHER TOILER

Hearken, Piótra!... Dost remember one of those white-handed lazy men was talking to thee the summer before last?

THE OTHER TOILER

I remember.... What of it?

FIRST TOILER

They're going to hang him to-day, I hear; that's the order which has been issued.

SECOND TOILER

Has he kept on rebelling?

FIRST TOILER

He has.

SECOND TOILER

Yes.... Well, see here, brother Mitry: can't we get hold of a bit of that rope with which they are going to hang him? Folks say that that brings the greatest good luck to a house.

FIRST TOILER

Thou'rt right about that. We must try, brother Piótra.

April, 1878.

THE ROSE

The last days of August.... Autumn had already come.

The sun had set. A sudden, violent rain, without thunder and without lightning, had just swooped down upon our broad plain.

The garden in front of the house burned and smoked, all flooded with the heat of sunset and the deluge of rain.

She was sitting at a table in the drawing-room and staring with stubborn thoughtfulness into the garden, through the half-open door.

I knew what was going on then in her soul. I knew that after a brief though anguished conflict, she would that same instant yield to the feeling which she could no longer control.

Suddenly she rose, walked out briskly into the garden and disappeared.

One hour struck ... then another; she did not return.

Then I rose, and emerging from the house, I bent my steps to the alley down which--I had no doubt as to that--she had gone.

Everything had grown dark round about; night had already descended. But on the damp sand of the path, gleaming scarlet amid the encircling gloom, a rounded object was visible.

I bent down. It was a young, barely-budded rose. Two hours before I had seen that same rose on her breast.

I carefully picked up the flower which had fallen in the mire, and returning to the drawing-room, I laid it on the table, in front of her arm-chair.

And now, at last, she returned, and traversing the whole length of the room with her light footsteps, she seated herself at the table.

Her face had grown pale and animated; swiftly, with merry confusion, her lowered eyes, which seemed to have grown smaller, darted about in all directions.

She caught sight of the rose, seized it, glanced at its crumpled petals, glanced at me--and her eyes, coming to a sudden halt, glittered with tears.

"What are you weeping about?" I asked.

"Why, here, about this rose. Look what has happened to it."

At this point I took it into my head to display profundity of thought.

"Your tears will wash away the mire," I said with a significant expression.

"Tears do not wash, tears scorch," she replied, and, turning toward the fireplace, she tossed the flower into the expiring flame.

"The fire will scorch it still better than tears," she exclaimed, not without audacity,--and her beautiful eyes, still sparkling with tears, laughed boldly and happily.

I understood that she had been scorched also.

April, 1878.

IN MEMORY OF J. P. VRÉVSKY

In the mire, on damp, stinking straw, under the pent-house of an old carriage-house which had been hastily converted into a field military hospital in a ruined Bulgarian hamlet, she had been for more than a fortnight dying of typhus fever.

She was unconscious--and not a single physician had even glanced at her; the sick soldiers whom she had nursed as long as she could keep on her feet rose by turns from their infected lairs, in order to raise to her parched lips a few drops of water in a fragment of a broken jug.

She was young, handsome; high society knew her; even dignitaries inquired about her. The ladies envied her, the men courted her ... two or three men loved her secretly and profoundly. Life smiled upon her; but there are smiles which are worse than tears,

A tender, gentle heart ... and such strength, such a thirst for sacrifice! To help those who needed help ... she knew no other happiness ... she knew no other and she tasted no other. Every other happiness passed her by. But she had long since become reconciled to that, and all flaming with the fire of inextinguishable faith, she dedicated herself to the service of her fellow-men. What sacred treasures she held hidden there, in the depths of her soul, in her own secret recesses, no one ever knew--and now no one will ever know.

And to what end? The sacrifice has been made ... the deed is done.

But it is sorrowful to think that no one said "thank you" even to her corpse, although she herself was ashamed of and shunned all thanks.

May her dear shade be not offended by this tardy blossom, which I venture to lay upon her grave!

September, 1878.

THE LAST MEETING

We were once close, intimate friends.... But there came an evil moment and we parted like enemies.

Many years passed.... And lo! on entering the town where he lived I learned that he was hopelessly ill, and wished to see me.

I went to him, I entered his chamber.... Our glances met.

I hardly recognised him. O God! How disease had changed him!

Yellow, shrivelled, with his head completely bald, and a narrow, grey beard, he was sitting in nothing but a shirt, cut out expressly.... He could not bear the pressure of the lightest garment. Abruptly he extended to me his frightfully-thin hand, which looked as though it had been gnawed away, with an effort whispered several incomprehensible words--whether of welcome or of reproach, who knows? His exhausted chest heaved; over the contracted pupils of his small, inflamed eyes two scanty tears of martyrdom flowed down.

My heart sank within me.... I sat down on a chair beside him, and involuntarily dropping my eyes in the presence of that horror and deformity, I also put out my hand.

But it seemed to me that it was not his hand which grasped mine.

It seemed to me as though there were sitting between us a tall, quiet, white woman. A long veil enveloped her from head to foot. Her deep, pale eyes gazed nowhere; her pale, stern lips uttered no sound....

That woman joined our hands.... She reconciled us forever.

Yes.... It was Death who had reconciled us....

April, 1878.

THE VISIT

I was sitting at the open window ... in the morning, early in the morning, on the first of May.

The flush of dawn had not yet begun; but the dark, warm night was already paling, already growing chill.

No fog had risen, no breeze was straying, everything was of one hue and silent ... but one could scent the approach of the awakening, and in the rarefied air the scent of the dew's harsh dampness was abroad.

Suddenly, into my chamber, through the open window, flew a large bird, lightly tinkling and rustling.

I started, looked more intently.... It was not a bird: it was a tiny, winged woman, clad in a long, close-fitting robe which billowed out at the bottom.

She was all grey, the hue of mother-of-pearl; only the inner side of her wings glowed with a tender flush of scarlet, like a rose bursting into blossom; a garland of lilies-of-the-valley confined the scattered curls of her small, round head,--and two peacock feathers quivered amusingly, like the feelers of a butterfly, above the fair, rounded little forehead.

She floated past a couple of times close to the ceiling: her tiny face was laughing; laughing also were her huge, black, luminous eyes. The merry playfulness of her capricious flight shivered their diamond rays.

She held in her hand a long frond of a steppe flower--"Imperial sceptre"[72] the Russian folk call it; and it does, indeed, resemble a sceptre.

As she flew rapidly above me she touched my head with that flower.

I darted toward her.... But she had already fluttered through the window, and away she flew headlong....

In the garden, in the wilderness of the lilac-bushes, a turtle-dove greeted her with its first cooing; and at the spot where she had vanished the milky-white sky flushed a soft crimson.

I recognised thee, goddess of fancy! Thou hast visited me by accident--thou hast flown in to young poets.

O poetry! O youth! O virginal beauty of woman! Only for an instant can ye gleam before me,--in the early morning of the early spring!

May, 1878.

NECESSITAS--VIS--LIBERTAS

A BAS-RELIEF

A tall, bony old woman with an iron face and a dull, impassive gaze is walking along with great strides, and pushing before her, with her hand as harsh as a stick, another woman.

This woman, of vast size, powerful, corpulent, with the muscles of a Hercules, and a tiny head on a bull-like neck-and blind--is pushing on in her turn a small, thin young girl.

This girl alone has eyes which see; she resists, turns backward, elevates her thin red arms; her animated countenance expresses impatience and hardihood.... She does not wish to obey, she does not wish to advance in the direction whither she is being impelled ... and, nevertheless, she must obey and advance.

_Necessitas--Vis--Libertas_:

Whoever likes may interpret this.

May, 1878.

ALMS

In the vicinity of a great city, on the broad, much-travelled road, an aged, ailing man was walking.

He was staggering as he went; his emaciated legs, entangling themselves, trailing and stumbling, trod heavily and feebly, exactly as though they belonged to some one else; his clothing hung on him in rags; his bare head drooped upon his breast.... He was exhausted.

He squatted down on a stone by the side of the road, bent forward, propped his elbows on his knees, covered his face with both hands, and between his crooked fingers the tears dripped on the dry, grey dust.

He was remembering....

He remembered how he had once been healthy and rich,--and how he had squandered his health, and distributed his wealth to others, friends and enemies.... And lo! now he had not a crust of bread, and every one had abandoned him, his friends even more promptly than his enemies.... Could he possibly humble himself to the point of asking alms? And he felt bitter and ashamed at heart.

And the tears still dripped and dripped, mottling the grey dust.

Suddenly he heard some one calling him by name. He raised his weary head and beheld in front of him a stranger: a face calm and dignified, but not stern; eyes not beaming, but bright; a gaze penetrating, but not evil.

"Thou hast given away all thy wealth," an even voice made itself heard.... "But surely thou art not regretting that thou hast done good?"

"I do not regret it," replied the old man, with a sigh, "only here am I dying now."

"And if there had been no beggars in the world to stretch out their hands to thee," pursued the stranger, "thou wouldst have had no one to whom to show thy beneficence; thou wouldst not have been able to exercise thyself therein?"

The old man made no reply, and fell into thought.

"Therefore, be not proud now, my poor man," spoke up the stranger again. "Go, stretch out thy hand, afford to other good people the possibility of proving by their actions that they are good."

The old man started, and raised his eyes ... but the stranger had already vanished,--but far away, on the road, a wayfarer made his appearance.

The old man approached him, and stretched out his hand.--The wayfarer turned away with a surly aspect and gave him nothing.