"Their lands are so poor,
They are sand, moss, or boggy,
Their cattle half-famished,
Their crops yield but twofold;
And should Mother Earth
Chance at times to be kinder,
That too is misfortune: 390
The market is crowded,
They sell for a trifle
To pay off the taxes.
Again comes a bad crop—-
Then pay for your bread
Three times higher than ever,
And sell all your cattle!
Now, pray to God, Christians,
For this year again
A great misery threatens: 400
We ought to have sown
For a long time already;
But look you—the fields
Are all deluged and useless….
O God, have Thou pity
And send a round[13] rainbow
To shine in Thy heavens!"
Then taking his hat off
He crossed himself thrice,
And the peasants did likewise.
"Our village is poor 411
And the people are sickly,
The women are sad
And are scantily nourished,
But pious and laborious;
God give them courage!
Like slaves do they toil;
'Tis hard to lay hands
On the fruits of such labour.
"At times you are sent for 420
To pray by the dying,
But Death is not really
The awful thing present,
But rather the living—
The family losing
Their only support.
You pray by the dead.
Words of comfort you utter,
To calm the bereaved ones;
And then the old mother 430
Comes tottering towards you,
And stretching her bony
And toil-blistered hand out;
You feel your heart sicken,
For there in the palm
Lie the precious brass farthings!
Of course it is only
The price of your praying.
You take it, because
It is what you must live on; 440
Your words of condolence
Are frozen, and blindly,
Like one deep insulted,
You make your way homeward.
Amen…."
* * * * *
The pope finished
His speech, and touched lightly
The back of the gelding.
The peasants make way,
And they bow to him deeply. 450
The cart moves on slowly,
Then six of the comrades
As though by agreement
Attack poor Luká
With indignant reproaches.
"Now, what have you got?—
You great obstinate blockhead,
You log of the village!
You too must needs argue;
Pray what did you tell us? 460
'The popes live like princes,
The lords of the belfry,
Their palaces rising
As high as the heavens,
Their bells set a-chiming
All over God's world.
"'Three years,' you declared,
'Did I work as pope's servant.
It wasn't a life—
'Twas a strawberry, brethren; 470
Pope's kasha[14] is made
And served up with fresh butter.
Pope's stchee[14] made with fish,
And pope's pie stuffed to bursting;
The pope's wife is fat too,
And white the pope's daughter,
His horse like a barrel,
His bees are all swollen
And booming like church bells.'
"Well, there's your pope's life,— 480
There's your 'strawberry,' boaster!
For that you've been shouting
And making us quarrel,
You limb of the Devil!
Pray is it because
Of your beard like a shovel
You think you're so clever?
If so, let me tell you
The goat walked in Eden
With just such another 490
Before Father Adam,
And yet down to our time
The goat is considered
The greatest of duffers!"
The culprit was silent,
Afraid of a beating;
And he would have got it
Had not the pope's face,
Turning sadly upon them,
Looked over a hedge 500
At a rise in the road.
CHAPTER II
THE VILLAGE FAIR
No wonder the peasants
Dislike a wet spring-tide:
The peasant needs greatly
A spring warm and early.
This year, though he howl
Like a wolf, I'm afraid
That the sun will not gladden
The earth with his brightness.
The clouds wander heavily,
Dropping the rain down 10
Like cows with full udders.
The snow has departed,
Yet no blade of grass,
Not a tiny green leaflet,
Is seen in the meadows.
The earth has not ventured
To don its new mantle
Of brightest green velvet,
But lies sad and bare
Like a corpse without grave-clothes
Beneath the dull heavens. 21
One pities the peasant;
Still more, though, his cattle:
For when they have eaten
The scanty reserves
Which remain from the winter,
Their master will drive them
To graze in the meadows,
And what will they find there
But bare, inky blackness? 30
Nor settled the weather
Until it was nearing
The feast of St. Nichol,
And then the poor cattle
Enjoyed the green pastures.
The day is a hot one,
The peasants are strolling
Along 'neath the birch-trees.
They say to each other,
"We passed through one village, 40
We passed through another,
And both were quite empty;
To-day is a feast-day,
But where are the people?"
вернуться
13
There is a Russian superstition that a round rainbow is sent as a sign of coming dry weather.