Part 1

The Steel Flea

_Translated from the Russian of_

NIKOLAI SEMYONOVITCH LYESKOFF

BY

ISABEL F. HAPGOOD

_Privately printed for the_ COMPANY OF GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS at The Merrymount Press, Boston 1916

_Copyright, November 22, 1890, by Isabel F. Hapgood_

Preface

I cannot tell precisely where the first germ of the Legend concerning the Steel Flea had its birth--that is to say, whether it originated in Tula, the Izhma, or Sestroryetzk; but, evidently, it came from one of these places.

In any case, the tale of the Steel Flea is a legend which distinctly belongs to the Armorers' Guild and expresses the pride of Russian gunsmiths. It depicts a contest between our workmen and English workmen, from which our artisans emerged the victors, having utterly routed and humiliated the Englishmen.

Herein, also, is explained a certain secret cause of military disasters in the Crimea.

I jotted down this Legend in Sestroryetzk from the lips of an aged gunsmith, an emigrant from Tula, who had removed to the Sestra River during the reign of Alexander the First. The narrator was still hale and hearty two years ago, and of sound memory; he was fond of recalling the days of yore, cherished great respect for the Emperor Nikolai Pavlovitch, lived "according to the ancient faith," read devout books, and bred canary-birds. People treated him with much consideration.[1]

FOOTNOTE:

[1] TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. In spite of this circumstantial prefatory statement, and the accusation which was brought against this "legend" on its first appearance by one over-clever critic,--viz., that it was ancient and threadbare in public knowledge,--the fact remains that the Author invented every syllable of it. Tula is the Sheffield of Russia, being the seat of the Government gun-works, and possessed of innumerable shops engaged in the manufacture and sale of all sorts of metal goods.

Sestroryetzk, on the shore of Finland, opposite Kronstadt, is the site of a gun-factory, founded by Peter the Great in 1714.

"The ancient faith" means that the old gunsmith belonged to "The Old Believers," also called the _Raskolniki_--a sect which insists that the proper, Orthodox manner of making the sign of the Cross is with the thumb and forefinger, instead of with the thumb and first two fingers; and which refused to accept the correction of typographical errors in the Church Service books ordered by the Patriarch Nikon, in the reign of Peter the Great's father. In the early days they were harshly treated, and even burned themselves alive rather than accept the "heresy" of the "State Church." Nowadays, no attention is paid to them, officially or otherwise.

The Steel Flea[2]

I

When the Emperor Alexander Pavlovitch had finished the Congress of Vienna he took a fancy to travel all over Europe and view the marvels of the different realms. He journeyed through all lands, and everywhere, by reason of his amiability, he always held the most internecine[3] discussions with all men, and all amazed him by one means or another and sought to incline him to their side. But he had a Cossack of the Don, named Platoff, attached to his personal service, who did not like this inclination, and, being homesick for his own hearthstone, he constantly sought to lure the Emperor to his home.

So, as soon as Platoff perceived that the Emperor took a deep interest in any foreign thing and all his suite held their peace, he began to say immediately: "Thus and so, and we have the same thing of our own at home, not a whit worse,"--and then he would turn him aside in one way or another.

The English people were aware of this, and had prepared various cunning devices against the Emperor's arrival, to the end that they might captivate him with foreign things, and in many cases they attained their object, especially in the great assemblies where Platoff could not express himself perfectly in French; but he did not mind that over-much because he was a married man, and regarded all French conversation as mere emptiness, unworthy of his imagination.

But when the English began to invite the Emperor to all their arsenals, armories, shops, and soap-sawing factories, in order to demonstrate their superiority over us in all things, Platoff said to himself: "Come, there has been enough of this sort of thing. Up to this point I have endured in patience, but beyond this 'tis impossible. I may manage to say the right thing or I may not, but I won't betray my own people."

And no sooner had he uttered these words to himself than the Emperor said to him: "Thus and so. To-morrow you and I will go to inspect their arsenal museum. There," says he, "exist such perfections of nature, that when you look upon them you will no longer dispute the fact that we Russians, in spite of all our self-importance, are of no account whatever."

Platoff made no reply, but merely buried his hooked nose in his shaggy felt cloak,[4] retired to his quarters, commanded his orderly to fetch a flask of Caucasian brandy--_kizlyarki_[5]--from the cellaret, tossed off a bumper, prayed to God before a holy picture which folded up for travelling, wrapped himself in his thick felt mantle, and began to snore so that not a single Englishman in all the house was able to sleep.

He said to himself: "The morning is wiser than the evening."

FOOTNOTES:

[2] The Author's title is: "The Left-handed Man. (Legend of the Squint-eyed, Left-handed Man and the Steel Flea.)" I. F. H.

[3] The old gunsmith's love for big words and lack of education lead to many comical results, as in this substitution of "internecine" for "international." A good many of these punning or dart-winged words cannot be adequately indicated in English, but they produce quite inimitable results in the original.

[4] The _burka_, which is impenetrable to rain, and serves as blanket, also.

[5] Made from the _kizil_, a small sourish fruit which grows in the Caucasus and the Crimea.

II

On the following day the Emperor and Platoff went to the museum. The Emperor took none of the other Russians with him, because he had been provided only with a two-seated carriage.[6]

They drive up to a smallish building--the entrance indescribable, corridors stretching out interminably, and a row of chambers one after another, and, at last, in the chief hall of all, divers huge busts, and in the centre, under a canopy, stands the Abolo Polveder.[7]

The Emperor casts a glance at Platoff, to see whether he is much amazed, and what he is gazing at, but Platoff is walking along with downcast eyes as though he beholds nothing, and is merely twisting his mustaches into rings.

The Englishmen immediately begin to exhibit divers marvels and explain to what ends they are adapted in military matters--sea buremeters, mamel's hair mantals of the infantry regiments,[8] and for the cavalry tarred waterproofs. All this delights the Emperor greatly--everything seems to him very good, but Platoff preserves his apathy, and nothing has any significance in his opinion.

The Emperor says: "How is this possible--why is there such unfeelingness in thee? Is there really nothing here that astonishes thee?"

And Platoff replies: "One thing only here astonishes me, that my dashing lads of the Don made war without all this and conquered a dozen nations."

The Emperor says: "This is folly."

Platoff replies: "I know not to what to attribute it, but I dare not to dispute and must needs hold my tongue."

But the Englishmen, beholding such a discussion between him and the Emperor, immediately led them to the Abolo Polveder himself, and took from one of his hands a Mortimer gun, and from the other a pistol.[9]

"Here," said they, "this is the sort of manufactures we have," and they gave him the gun.

The Emperor gazed calmly on the Mortimer gun, because he has such in Tzarskoe Selo,[10] and then they gave him the pistol, and said: "This pistol is of unknown, inimitable workmanship--our Admiral plucked it from the belt of a bandit chief in Candelabria."

The Emperor looked at the pistol, and could not tear his eyes from it. He gave vent to terrible "ahs!"

"Ah, ah, ah!" says he, "what a weapon is this!... how is it possible to work so delicately?" And he turns to Platoff and says in Russian: "There now, if I had but one such artisan in Russia, I should be extremely happy and proud, and I would instantly make that man a noble."

But the very minute Platoff hears these words, he thrusts his hands into his voluminous trousers and draws thence a gunsmith's screw-driver.

"This does not unscrew," say the Englishmen. But he, paying no heed, picks away at the lock. He gives it one turn, he gives it another,--and takes out the lock. Platoff shows the catch to the Emperor, and there, on the curve, stands a Russian inscription: "Ivan Moskvin in the town of Tula."

The Englishmen marvelled, and nudged one another: "Oh, alas! we have blundered!"

But the Emperor says sadly to Platoff: "Why hast thou covered them with such confusion? Now I am very sorry for them. Let us go."

They took their places again in the same two-seated carriage, and drove away; and that day the Emperor went to a ball, but Platoff gulped down a still mightier bumper of kizil vodka, and slept a mighty Cossack sleep.

He rejoiced that he had put the Englishmen to confusion, and had placed the Tula artisan in the proper light, but he was also vexed. Why had the Emperor felt pity for the Englishmen on such an occasion?

"For what reason did the Emperor grieve?" thought Platoff. "I don't understand it at all;" and, engaged in this meditation, he twice arose, crossed himself, and drank vodka until, by sheer force, he brought upon himself a profound sleep.

But the Englishmen were not asleep at that time, either, because their heads were whirling round with dizziness. While the Emperor was enjoying himself at the ball, they prepared for him such a fresh marvel that they deprived Platoff of all his fantasy.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] The Emperor always has a Cossack orderly on the box of his carriage. Platoff has been promoted by the gunsmith to a seat inside.

[7] "Half-bucket Apolo" is the old gunsmith's rendering of Apollo Belvedere.

[8] Barometers; camel's hair mantles.

[9] A mortar.

[10] Tzarskoe Selo is a suburban town about sixteen miles from Petrograd, with two Imperial palaces, fine Imperial parks, barracks for the Hussars of the Guard, and so forth. The Arsenal there formerly contained a splendid collection of arms, now removed to the Hermitage Museum, in Petrograd.

III

The next day, when Platoff presented himself to the Emperor to wish him good-morning, the latter said to him: "Let the two-seated carriage be put to immediately, and let us look at more museums."

Platoff went so far as to suggest: "Had they not seen enough foreign products, and would it not be better to betake themselves to Russia?" but the Emperor says: "No, I desire to behold still other novelties. They have boasted to me that they make the very finest sort of sugar here."

They drove off.

The Englishmen kept showing the Emperor the different prime products they had, but Platoff stared and stared, and suddenly said: "Show us your manufactures of _molva_ sugar."[11]

But the Englishmen did not even know what _molva_ was. They whispered together, and winked at one another, and kept repeating "_Molva_, _molva_" but they could not understand that such a sugar was made in our parts, and were obliged to confess that they had all sorts of sugar, but not _molva_.

Platoff says: "Well, then, you have nothing to brag about. Come to us, and we will treat you to tea with real _molva_ from the Bobrinsky factories."[12]

But the Emperor plucked him by the sleeve, and said softly: "Please don't ruin my politics."

Then the Englishmen invited the Emperor to the last museum of all, where were collected all the mineral stones and nymfozoria[13] from the whole world, beginning with the hugest Egyptian Keramids,[14] and going down to the subcutaneous flea, which cannot be seen by the eye, though its bite is between the skin and the body.

The Emperor went.

They had inspected the Keramids and all sorts of stuffed animals, and were on their way out, and Platoff thinks to himself: "Now, glory to God, all is well--the Emperor admires nothing!"

But no sooner had they reached the very last room, when lo! there stood workmen in their every-day waistcoats and aprons, holding a salver on which there was nothing at all. And the Emperor began to wonder what they were giving him on the empty salver.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asks.

And the English artisans reply: "This is a respectful gift from us to Your Majesty."

"But what is it?"

"Here," they say, "please to observe this tiny speck."

The Emperor looked and saw that the tiniest sort of a speck really was lying upon the salver.

The workmen say: "Please spit on your finger, and take it in your palm."

"But what am I to do with this speck?"

"It is not a speck," they answer, "but a nymfozoria."

"Is it alive?"

"Not at all," they reply; "it is not alive, but it has been forged by us in the image of a flea, out of pure English steel, and in the middle of it are works and a spring. Please wind it up with the little key; it will immediately begin to dance."

The Emperor's curiosity was aroused, and he asked: "And where is the little key?"

And the Englishmen said: "Here is the key, right before your eyes."

"Why do not I see it?" says the Emperor.

"Because," they reply, "a melkoscope is necessary."

They gave him the melkoscope, and the Emperor saw that, beside the flea, on the silver salver, there actually lay a tiny key.

"Please take it in your palm," said they. "There is a hole in its little belly to wind it, and the key must be turned seven times, and then it will begin to dance."

With difficulty did the Emperor grasp the tiny key, and with difficulty did he hold it between his finger and thumb; and with the other forefinger and thumb he gripped the flea. And no sooner had he applied the little key than it began to move its feelers; next it began to wriggle its legs, and at last it gave a sudden skip, and in one bound it made a straight dance and two variations to one side, then to the other, and thus danced out an entire quadrille in three figures.

The Emperor immediately commanded that a million be given to the artisans, in any money they preferred--in silver five-kopek pieces, if they liked, or in small bank-bills, if they liked that.

The Englishmen requested that silver money be issued to them because they did not understand paper money;[15] and then they immediately exhibited another cunning device of theirs: they had made a present of the flea, but had brought no case for it. But without a case it was impossible to keep either the flea or the key, because they would get lost, and be thrown out into the dust-heap. Yet they had made a case for it, fashioned out of a solid diamond, the size of a walnut, and its place was hollowed out in the centre. This they did not present, because, said they, the case was the property of the Crown, and they were held to strict account for Crown property, and they could not make a gift of it even to the Emperor.

Platoff came near getting into a great rage, because, says he: "Why such rascality? They have made a gift, and received a million for it, and all that is not enough! The case always goes with every article."

But the Emperor said: "Stop that, please," says he. "This is no business of thine; don't spoil my politics. They have their own customs." And he inquires: "What is the value of this walnut, in which the flea is lodged?"

The Englishmen rated it at five thousand more.

"Pay them," said the Emperor Alexander Pavlovitch; and himself dropped the tiny flea into the little nut, and the key with it; and in order that he might not lose the walnut itself, he placed it in his gold snuff-box, and ordered the snuff-box to be placed in his travelling-casket, which was all encrusted with mother of pearl and fish-bone.[16] And the Emperor dismissed the English workmen with honor, and said to them: "You are the finest artisans in the world, and my people can do nothing in comparison with you."

They were highly pleased with this, and Platoff could utter nothing contrary to the Emperor's words. Only, he took the melkoscope, and without uttering a syllable, he dropped it into his pocket, "because it belongs here, also," says he, "and you have taken enough money from us already, anyway."

The Emperor did not know of this until his arrival in Russia, but they went away speedily, because melancholy had seized upon the Emperor on account of military affairs, and he desired to make his spiritual confession to Priest Feodot in Taganrog.[17]

During the journey there was very little agreeable conversation between him and Platoff, because they had formed entirely different opinions; the Emperor thought that Englishmen had no equals in art, while Platoff insisted that our men had only to look at a thing and they could make everything,--only, they lacked good instruction. And he expounded to the Emperor that the English workmen had entirely different rules of life for everything, and different sciences and materials, and that each man of them had all absolute circumstances before him, and hence a wholly different understanding of things.

The Emperor was not willing to listen long to this, but Platoff would get out at every posting-station, and drink a beer-glass of vodka through vexation, and eat a little round salted cracknel, and light his birch-root pipe, which held a whole pound of Zhukoff tobacco at one filling.[18] And then he would take his place, and sit in silence beside the Tzar in the carriage. The Emperor gazed in one direction, while Platoff thrust his pipe out of the opposite window and smoked away in the breeze. And thus they journeyed until they reached Petrograd; and the Emperor did not take Platoff to Priest Feodot with him.

"Thou art intemperate in spiritual converse," said he, "and thou smokest so excessively that soot has settled in my head from thy fumes."

Platoff was offended, and lay upon the couch of vexation at home. And there he lay incessantly, and smoked Zhukoff tobacco without intermission.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Probably intended for _khalva_, a very rich paste of honey and nuts.

[12] Count Bobrinsky's extensive beet-sugar factories, in southwest Russia.

[13] Evidently "infusoriae."

[14] Pyramids.

[15] There was a very great difference in the value of silver and paper money in Russia at that date, and the Englishmen chose wisely.

[16] Walrus ivory.

[17] AUTHOR'S NOTE. "Priest Feodot" is not a pure invention; the Emperor Alexander Pavlovitch, before his death in Taganrog, did confess to a Priest, Alexyei Feodotoff-Tchekovskoy, who thereafter was styled "his Majesty's Confessor," and who was fond of calling this purely fortuitous circumstance to the attention of every one. So this Feodotoff-Tchekovskoy is, evidently, the "Pope Feodot" of the legend.

[18] Zhukoff is a very coarse, Russian-grown tobacco.

IV

The wonderful flea, of burnished English steel, remained in Alexander Pavlovitch's casket beneath the fish's bone until he died in Taganrog, he having given it to Priest Feodot to transmit to the Empress later, when she should have grown calm. The Empress Alexandra Alexyevna looked at the flea's variations, and burst out laughing, but she did not occupy herself with it.

"My state is now that of a widow," said she, "and no sort of amusement is seductive to me;" and on her return to Petrograd, she gave this marvel and all the other treasures in the inheritance to the new Emperor.

The Emperor Nikolai Pavlovitch also paid no heed to the flea at first, because there was a disturbance at his accession to the throne. But later on, one day, he began to inspect the casket which had come to him from his brother, and from it he drew forth the snuff-box, and from the snuff-box the diamond as big as a walnut, and in it he found the steel flea, which had not been wound up for a long time, and therefore did not work, but lay as though petrified.

The Emperor gazed at it and marvelled. "What sort of a nonsensical trifle is this? and why did my brother preserve it so carefully?"

The courtiers wanted to fling it away, but the Emperor said: "No, this has some meaning."

They summoned a chemist from the apothecary's shop at the Anitchkoff Bridge, who was accustomed to weigh out poisons on the tiniest of scales, and showed it to him; and he immediately took the flea, and placed it on his tongue, and said: "I feel a chill, as from some strong metal." And then he bit it gently with his teeth, and announced: "You may say what you please, this is not a real flea, but a nymfozoria, and 'tis made of metal, and the work is not ours, not Russian."

The Emperor ordered that they should instantly find out whence came this thing, and what was the meaning of it.

They flew to look in the archives and lists, but nothing was recorded in the archives. They began to question first one person and then another--no one knew anything about it. But, happily, that Cossack of the Don, Platoff, was still alive, and even still reclining on his couch of vexation and smoking his pipe. When he heard the uproar in the palace, he rose immediately from his couch, flung away his pipe, and presented himself before the Emperor in all his Orders.

The Emperor says; "What dost thou want from me, valiant old man?"

And Platoff answers: "I want nothing from Your Majesty for myself, since I eat and drink what I please, and am content with all things: but I am come to report to you concerning that nymfozoria which has been found. It was thus and so," says he, "and this is what took place before my own eyes in England--and there is a tiny key with it, and I have the very melkoscope with which it can be seen, and with the key the nymfozoria can be wound up through its belly, and it will skip over any space you like, and make variations in all directions."

They wound it up, and it began to leap, and Platoff says: "This, Your Majesty, is really a very delicate and interesting bit of work, but it is not meet that we should view it with ecstasy of spirit only; we must also submit it to Russian inspection in Tula or in Sesterbek,"--Sesthoryetzk was still called Sesterbek at that time,--"to see whether our artisans cannot surpass this, so that the English may not exalt themselves above the Russians."

"Thou sayest well, valiant old man, and I commission thee to establish this matter. This little box I do not want at present, in all my anxieties, therefore do thou take it with thee; and stretch thyself not again upon thy couch of vexation, but go thou to the peaceful Don, and hold there with my men of the Don internecine converse with regard to their life and loyalty, and as to what pleaseth them. And when thou shalt pass through Tula, show thou this nymfozoria to my Tula artisans, and bid them meditate upon it. Say to them from me that my brother marvelled at this thing and praised the people who made the nymfozoria above all others; but I am convinced that my own people are no worse than they. They will not let my words pass unheeded, but will make something."

V

Platoff took the steel flea, and as he passed through Tula on his way to the Don he showed it to the Tula gunsmiths and repeated to them the Emperor's words, and they asked: "And now, what shall we do about it, Orthodox believers?"