Works of Alexander Pushkin (88 page)
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Authors: Alexander Pushkin
“I should like to know,” he continued, “to what historical topic does the person, who has chosen this theme, allude?... I should feel very grateful if this person would kindly explain.”
Nobody hastened to reply. Several ladies directed their glances toward the plain-looking girl who had written a theme at the command of her mother. The poor girl observed this hostile attention, and became so embarrassed, that the tears came into her eyes.... Charsky could not endure this, and turning to the improviser, he said to him in Italian:
“It was I who proposed the theme. I had in view a passage in Aurelius Victor, who alleges that Cleopatra named death as the price of her love, and that there were found adorers whom such a condition neither frightened nor repelled. It seems to me, however, that the subject is somewhat difficult.... Could you not choose another?”
But the improviser already felt the approach of the god.... He gave a sign to the musicians to play. His face became terribly pale; he trembled as if in a fever; his eyes sparkled with a strange fire; he pushed his dark hair off his forehead with his hand, wiped his lofty brow, covered with beads of perspiration, with his handkerchief... then suddenly stepped forward and folded his arms across his breast.... The music ceased.... The improvisation began:
The palace shone. Sweet songs resounded
To lyres and flutes. The dazzling queen
With voice and look inspired the feasters
And kindled the resplendent scene;
Her throne drew all men’s hearts and glances,
But suddenly her fervor fled;
Pensive, she held the golden goblet,
And o’er it bent her wondrous head..
..
The regal feast seems hushed in slumber,
The guests, the choir, are still. But she
Now lifts her head up to address them
With an assured serenity:
“My love brings bliss, have you not sworn it?
That bliss the man who wills may buy;
Attend me: I shall make you equal,
Bid if you dare, the boon am I.
Who starts the auction-sale of passion?
I sell my love; but at a fee;
Who, at the cost of life, will purchase
The guerdon of a night with me?”
She spoke — and all are seized with horror,
Each heart with passion waxes bold;
Unmoved, she hears the troubled murmur,
Her face is insolent and cold,
Her gaze contemptuously circles
The thronged admirers gathered there.
..
Now one steps forth, two others follow,
Who greatly love and greatly dare.
As they approach her throne she rises
—
Their eyes are clear, their step is free.
The bargain’s sealed: three nights are purchased,
And death will take the lovers three.
The hall is frozen into silence,
Still as a statue sits each guest,
As lots are drawn in slow succession
From the dread urn the priests have blessed.
First Flavius, face sternly chiseled.
Who in the legions had grown grizzled
—
Not readily the Roman bore
Affront: was life so dear a treasure?
The cost he did not stop to measure,
Accepting, as in time of war,
The challenge that was flung by pleasure.
Next Crito came, a sage though young,
Born in the groves of Epicurus;
The Graces he had loved and sung,
And Aphrodite too, and Eros...
The last, who charmed both heart and eye,
Was like a flower scarce unfolded;
It was his lot to love and die
Unknown, alas; his cheeks were shaded
With tender down, his eyes were bright,
With youthful ecstasy alight;
The violence of virgin passion
Was surging in his boyish breast...
On him the scornful queen permitted
Briefly a grieving look to rest.
“I vow... Mother of joy, to serve you,
And strangely, since for man and boy
I
play the harlot, and surrender
Myself unto a purchased joy.
Then hear my vow, great Aphrodite,
Kings of the nether regions, hear,
You gods who govern dreadful Hades,
I vow — till dawn’s first rays appear
I shall delight my masters wholly
And show them every shape of bliss
That satisfies the lover’s ardor
With soft caress and curious kiss
—
But when eternal Eos enters
In morning purple, then — I vow
—
The lucky ones will greet the headsman,
And to his ax their necks will bow.”
And lo! the fevered day has passed,
The golden-horned moon is rising.
About the Alexandrian palace
The tender shade of night is cast.
Rare incense smokes, the lamps burn softly,
The fountains play with sounds of mirth,
The darkness brings voluptuous coolness
For those who shall be gods on earth.
‘Midst marvels of a queen’s designing,
In a luxurious dim room,
Behind the curtains’ purple gloom,
The aureate couch is softly shining....
[Published posthumously, 1837]
DUBROVSKY
Translated by T. Keane
Written in 1832 and published after Pushkin’s death in 1841, this unfinished novel concerns Vladimir Dubrovsky, a young nobleman whose land is confiscated by Kirila Petrovitch Troekurov, a greedy and powerful aristocrat. Determined to win justice, Dubrovsky gathers a band of serfs and steals from the rich to give to the poor.
Leonid Sobinov as Vladimir Dubrovsky in Eduard Nápravník’s operatic adaptation of the unfinished novel, 1914
CONTENTS
I
SOME years ago, there lived on one of his estates a Russian gentleman of the old school named Kirila Petrovich Troyekurov. His wealth, distinguished birth, and connections gave him great weight in the provinces where his estates were situated. The neighbors were ready to gratify his slightest whim; the government officials trembled at his name. Kirila Petrovich accepted all these signs of obsequiousness as his rightful due. His house was always full of guests, ready to indulge his lordship in his hours of idleness and to share his noisy and sometimes boisterous mirth. Nobody dared to refuse his invitations or, on certain days, omit to put in an appearance at the village of Pokrovskoye. In his home circle, Kirila Petrovich exhibited all the vices of an uneducated man. Spoilt by all who surrounded him, he was in the habit of giving way to every impulse of his passionate nature, to every caprice of his somewhat narrow mind. In spite of the extraordinary vigor of his constitution, he suffered two or three times a week from surfeit, and became tipsy every evening.
Very few of the serf-girls in his household escaped the amorous attempts of this fifty-year-old satyr. Moreover, in one of the wings of his house lived sixteen girls engaged in needlework. The windows of this wing were protected by wooden bars, the doors were kept locked, and the keys retained by Kirila Petrovich. The young recluses at an appointed hour went into the garden for a walk under the surveillance of two old women. From time to time Kirila Petrovich married some of them off, and newcomers took their places. He treated his peasants and domestics in a severe and arbitrary fashion, in spite of which they were very devoted to him: they loved to boast of the wealth and influence of their master, and in their turn took many a liberty with their neighbors, trusting to his powerful protection.
Troyekurov’s usual occupations were driving over his vast domains, feasting at length, and playing practical jokes, invented newly every day, the victims being generally new acquaintances, though his old friends did not always escape, one only — Andrey Gavrilovich Dubrovsky — excepted.
This Dubrovsky, a retired lieutenant of the Guards, was his nearest neighbor, and the owner of seventy serfs. Troyekurov, haughty in his dealings with people of the highest rank, respected Dubrovsky, in spite of his humble situation. They had been in the service together and Troyekurov knew from experience his impatient and resolute character. Circumstances separated them for a long time. Dubrovsky with his reduced fortune, was compelled to leave the service and settle down in the only village that remained to him. Kirila Petrovich, hearing of this, offered him his protection; but Dubrovsky thanked him and remained poor and independent. Some years later, Troyekurov, having retired with the rank of general, arrived at his estate. They met again and were delighted with each other. After that they saw each other every day, and Kirila Petrovich, who had never deigned to visit anybody in his life, came quite without ceremony to the modest house of his old comrade. In some respects their fates had been similar: both had married for love, both had soon become widowers, and both had been left with an only child. The son of Dubrovsky was being brought up in Petersburg; the daughter of Kirila Petrovich was growing up under the eyes of her father, and Troyekurov often said to Dubrovsky:
“Listen, brother Andrey Gavrilovich; if your Volodka should turn out well, I will let him have Masha for his wife, in spite of his being as poor as a church mouse.”
Andrey Gavrilovich used to shake his head, and generally replied:
“No, Kirila Petrovich; my Volodka is no match for Marya Kirilovna. A penniless gentleman, such as he, would do better to marry a poor girl of the gentry, and be the head of his house, rather than become the bailiff of some spoilt baggage.”
Everybody envied the good understanding existing between the haughty Troyekurov and his poor neighbor, and wondered at the boldness of the latter when, at the table of Kirila Petrovich, he expressed his own opinion frankly, and did not hesitate to maintain an opinion contrary to that of his host. Some attempted to imitate him and ventured to overstep the limits of due respect; but Kirila Petrovich taught them such a lesson, that they never afterward felt any desire to repeat the experiment. Dubrovsky alone remained beyond the range of this general law. But an accidental occurrence upset and altered all this.
One day, in the beginning of autumn, Kirila Petrovich prepared to go out hunting. Orders had been given the evening before for the whips and huntsmen to be ready at five o’clock in the morning. The tent and kitchen had been sent on beforehand to the place where Kirila Petrovich was to dine. The host and his guests went to the kennels where more than five hundred harriers and greyhounds lived in luxury and warmth, praising the generosity of Kirila Petrovich in their canine language. There was also a hospital for the sick dogs, under the care of staff-surgeon Timoshka, and a separate place where the pedigreed bitches brought forth and suckled their pups. Kirila Petrovich was proud of this magnificent establishment, and never missed an opportunity of boasting about it before his guests, each of whom had inspected it at least twenty times. He walked through the kennels, surrounded by his guests and accompanied by Timoshka and the head whips, pausing before certain kennels, either to ask after the health of some sick dog, to make some observation more or less just and severe, or to call some dog to him by name and speak tenderly to it. The guests considered it their duty to go into raptures over Kirila Petrovich’s kennels; Dubrovsky alone remained silent and frowned. He was an ardent sportsman; but his modest fortune only permitted him to keep two harriers and one pack of greyhounds, and he could not restrain a certain feeling of envy at the sight of this magnificent establishment.