The entire conversation was in Russian, so that Anna Fetisovna must have heard it all word for word.
The princess told me some not entirely “legal” things from court bucolics and political rhapsodies. The baron smiled.
I have no need to recall all this, but one thing I find it appropriate to observe, that my interlocutrice tried to construe many features of the Austrian emperor’s character for me in terms of the seeking of popularity.
This treatise on popularity, or, more correctly, on popularism, was developed with specific details and examples, among which that day’s mug of beer popped up again. And—if I’m mistaken, the fault is mine—it seemed to me that this was done much less for our benefit than for that of Anna Fetisovna, who kept coming in and going out all the time, serving something her mistress needed.
It was some sort of woman’s caprice, which carried my compatriot away so much that she went on from the emperor to the nation, or nations, to the Austrians and us. She even admired the way the “Viennese cobblers” had borne themselves “with dignity,” and then she quickly switched to the motherland, to our Russian people, to their feasts and amusements, to vodka, and again to the tears and upsets of the impressionable Anna Fetisovna.
This last was spoken in French, but even so the baron only went on smiling.
“We shall ask my esteemed Jeanne her opinion again,” said the princess, and when the maid came to take a cup, she said:
“Anna Fetisovna, did you like the local king very much today?”
“Yes, ma’am, very much,” Anna Fetisovna answered quickly.
“She’s angry,” the princess whispered to me, and went on aloud:
“And what would you think if he came to us in Moscow, to the fairground?”
The maid said nothing.
“You don’t want to talk with us?”
“What would he come to us in Moscow for?”
“Well, but suppose he just up and came? What do you think: would he go sitting with our muzhiks?”
“Why should he sit with ours when he’s got his own?” Anna Fetisovna replied and quickly went to her room carrying an empty cup.
“She’s decidedly angry,” the princess said in French and added that Anna Fetisovna was a flaming patriot and suffered from a passion for generalizations.
The baron went on smiling and soon left. I left an hour later.
When I was taking my leave, Anna Fetisovna, with a candle in her hand, went to show me the way to the stairs through the unfamiliar passages of the hotel and asked unexpectedly:
“And do you agree, sir, that our kind are all people without dignity?”
“No,” I said, “I do not.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t want to argue to no purpose.”
“Oh, no, sir, it wouldn’t have been to no purpose … And in front of a foreign baron at that … How come it’s always so hurtful when it’s about your own! As if we like everything bad and nothing good.”
I felt sorry for her, and also ashamed before her.
My wanderings abroad did not last long. By the fall I was back in Petersburg, and one day, in one of the passages of a shopping arcade, I unexpectedly ran into Anna Fetisovna with a basket of knitting. We greeted each other, and I asked her about the princess, and Anna Fetisovna replied:
“I know nothing about the princess, sir—we parted from each other.”
“You mean there, abroad?”
“Yes, I came back alone.”
Knowing their long-standing habitude—one might almost say, friendship—I expressed my unfeigned astonishment and asked:
“Why did you part?”
“You know the reason: it was in your presence …”
“You mean on account of the Austrian emperor?”
Anna Fetisovna was silent for a moment, and then suddenly snapped:
“What have I got to tell you: you saw for yourself … He was very polite, and the more honor to him, but I felt pained on account of the princess—on account of her lack of education.”
“What does the princess’s education have to do with it?”
“It’s that he is a king, and he knows how to behave, he went and sat with them all as an equal, while we sat in our carriage like statues put up for show. They all laughed at us.”
“I didn’t see anyone laugh at us there,” I said.
“No, sir, not there, but in the hotel—the porter, and all the people.”
“What did they say to you?”
“They didn’t say anything, because I don’t understand their language, but in their eyes I saw how they had no respect for our lack of education.”
“Well, ma’am, and that was enough to make you part from the princess!”
“Yes … why … what’s surprising, when the Lord is like to have confused our tongues, and we’ve started not understanding each other in anything … It was impossible to stay, when there was disagreement in all our thoughts, so I asked to come back here. I don’t want to serve anymore: I live by my own dim nature.”
In that “nature” a true dignity could be felt, which made lack of education painful for her.
Not for nothing did the princess call her a “flaming patriot.”
* “Where is the kaiser?” Trans.
† “[Raise them] high!” Trans.
‡ “Ever servile! That’s how one gets to heaven.” Trans.
Lefty
The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea
I
When the emperor Alexander Pavlovich finished up the Congress of Vienna,1 he wanted to travel through Europe and have a look at the wonders in the various states. He traveled around all the countries, and everywhere, owing to his amiability, he always had the most internecine conversations with all sorts of people, and they all astonished him with something and wanted to incline him to their side, but with him was the Don Cossack Platov,2 who did not like such inclinations and, longing for his own backyard, kept luring the sovereign homewards. And the moment Platov noticed that the sovereign was getting very interested in something foreign, while his suite all remained silent, Platov would say at once: “Well, so, we’ve got no worse at home,” and would sidetrack him with something.
The Englishmen knew that, and by the sovereign’s arrival they had thought up various ruses so as to charm him with foreignness and distract him from the Russians, and on many occasions they succeeded, especially at large gatherings, where Platov could not speak fully in French; but that was of little interest to him, because he was a married man and regarded all French talk as trifles that were not worth fancying. But when the Englishmen started inviting the sovereign to all sorts of warehouses, ammunition and soap-rope factories, so as to show their advantage over us in everything and glory in it, Platov said to himself:
“Well, that’ll do now. I’ve put up with it so far, but no further. Maybe I can speak or maybe I can’t, but I won’t let our people down.”
And he had only just said these words to himself when the sovereign said to him:
“Well, so, tomorrow you and I will go and have a look at their armory collection. They have such perfections of nature there,” he says, “that, once you’ve seen them, you’ll no longer dispute that we Russians, with all our importance, are good for nothing.”
Platov made no reply to the sovereign, but only lowered his hooked nose into his shaggy cape and, coming to his quarters, told his servant to fetch a flask of Caucasian vodka from the cellaret, tossed off a good glassful, said his prayers before the folding traveling icon, covered himself with his cape, and set up such a snoring that no Englishman in the whole house was able to sleep.
He thought: “Morning’s wiser than evening.”
II
The next day the sovereign and Platov went to the collection. The sovereign took no other Russians with him, because the carriage they gave him was a two-sitter.
They pull up to a very big building—an indescribable entry, end
less corridors, rooms one after another, and finally, in the main hall, various henormous blustres, and in the middle under a canoply stands the Apollo Belderear.
The sovereign keeps glancing at Platov, to see if he’s very surprised and what he’s looking at; but the man walks with lowered eyes, as if seeing nothing, and only twists his mustache into rings.
The Englishmen at once start showing them various wonders and explaining what military circumstances they are suited to: sea blowrometers, drench coats for the infantry, and for the cavalry tarred waterprovables. The sovereign is delighted with it all, to him it all seems very good, but Platov holds back his agectation, as if it all means nothing to him.
The sovereign says:
“How is it possible—where did you get such insensitivity? Can it be that nothing here surprises you?”
And Platov replies:
“One thing here surprises me, that my fine lads from the Don fought without any of it and drove off two and ten nations.”3
The sovereign says:
“That’s an imprejudice.”
Platov replies:
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I daren’t argue and must hold my peace.”
And the Englishmen, seeing such exchanges with the sovereign, at once bring him straight to Apollo Belderear and take from his one hand a Mortimer musket4 and from the other a pistolia.
“Here,” they say, “this is what our productivity is like,” and they hand him the musket.
The sovereign looked calmly at the musket, because he had one like it in Tsarskoe Selo,5 but then they handed him the pistolia and said:
“This is a pistolia of unknown, inimitable craftsmanship—an admiral of ours pulled it from the belt of a pirate chief in Candelabria.”
The sovereign gazed at the pistol and could not take his eyes from it.
He oh’d and ah’d something awful.
“Ah, oh, ah,” he says, “how is it … how is it even possible to do such fine work!” And he turns to Platov and says in Russian: “If I had just one such master in Russia, I’d be extremely happy and proud, and I’d make that master a nobleman at once.”
At these words, Platov instantly thrusts his right hand into his wide balloon trousers and pulls out a gunsmith’s screwdriver. The Englishmen say, “It can’t be opened,” but, paying no attention, he starts poking at the lock. He turns once, turns twice—and the lock comes out. Platov indicates the trigger to the sovereign, and there, right on the curve, is a Russian inscription: “Ivan Moskvin, town of Tula.”
The Englishmen were astonished and nudged each other.
“Oh-oh, we’ve slipped up!”
And the sovereign says woefully to Platov:
“Why did you embarrass them so? Now I feel sorry for them! Let’s go.”
They got back into the same two-sitter and drove off, and the sovereign went to a ball that evening, but Platov downed an even bigger glass of vodka and slept a sound Cossack sleep.
He was glad that he had embarrassed the Englishmen and had put the Tula masters in the limelight, but he was also vexed: why did the sovereign feel sorry for the Englishmen in such a case!
“What made the sovereign so upset?” Platov thought. “I just don’t understand it.” And in such thoughts he got up twice, crossed himself, and drank vodka, until he made himself fall into a sound sleep.
But the Englishmen also did not sleep during that time, because they got all wound up as well. While the sovereign was making merry at the ball, they arranged such a new surprise for him that it robbed Platov of all his fantasy.
III
The next day, when Platov appeared before the sovereign with his good mornings, the latter said to him:
“Have the two-sitter hitched up at once, and we’ll go to see some new collections.”
Platov even ventured to suggest that they might have had enough of looking at foreign products, and it might be better if they got ready to go back to Russia, but the sovereign said:
“No, I want to see more novelties: they’ve boasted to me how they make first-rate sugar.”
Off they went.
The Englishmen kept showing the sovereign the various first-rate things they had, but Platov looked and looked and suddenly said:
“Why don’t you show us your molvo sugar factories?”
But the Englishmen don’t even know what molvo sugar is. They exchange whispers, wink at each other, say “Molvo, molvo” to each other, but cannot understand that this is a kind of sugar we make, and have to confess that they have all kinds of sugar, but not “molvo.”
Platov says:
“Well, so there’s nothing to boast about. Come and visit us, we’ll serve you tea with real molvo sugar from the Bobrinskoy factory.”6
But the sovereign pulls him by the sleeve and says softly:
“Please, don’t spoil the politics on me.”
Then the Englishmen invited the sovereign to the last collection, where they have mineral stones and nymphosoria collected from all over the world, starting from the hugest Egyptian overlisk down to the subderminal flea, which cannot be seen with the eye, but causes remorsons between skin and body.
The sovereign went.
They looked at the overlisks and all sorts of stuffed things and were on their way out, and Platov thought to himself:
“There, thank God, everything’s all right; the sovereign’s not marveling at anything.”
But they had only just come to the very last room, and there stood the workmen in their jackets and aprons, holding a tray with nothing on it.
The sovereign suddenly got surprised that they were offering him an empty tray.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he asks. And the English masters reply:
“This is our humble offering to Your Majesty.”
“What is it?”
“Here,” they say, “kindly notice this little speck.”
The sovereign looked and saw that there was, in fact, the tiniest little speck lying on the silver tray.
The workmen say:
“Kindly lick your finger and place it on your palm.”
“What do I need this little speck for?”
“It is not a speck,” they reply, “it is a nymphosoria.”
“Is it alive?”
“By no means alive,” they reply. “It is the likeness of a flea, fashioned by us of pure English steel, and inside there is a wind-up mechanism and a spring. Kindly turn the little key: it will begin at once to do a danser.”
The sovereign became curious and asked:
“But where is the little key?”
And the Englishmen say:
“The key is here before your eyes.”
“Why, then,” says the sovereign, “do I not see it?”
“Because,” they reply, “for that you need a meagroscope.”
They gave him a meagroscope, and the sovereign saw that there was indeed a little key lying on the tray next to the flea.
“Kindly take it on your palm,” they say. “It has a little winding hole in its belly. Turn the key seven times and it will start to danser …”
With difficulty the sovereign got hold of this little key and with difficulty pinched it between his fingers, and with the other hand he pinched the flea, and as soon as he put in the key, he felt the flea move its feelers, then its legs, and then it suddenly hopped and with one leap broke into a danser, with two veritations to one side, then to the other, and thus in three veritations it danced out a whole quandrille.
The sovereign ordered that the Englishmen be given a million at once, in whatever money they liked—silver five-kopeck coins or small banknotes.
The Englishmen asked to be paid in silver, because they had no clue about banknotes; and then at once they produced another of their ruses: they had offered the flea as a gift, but they had not brought its case; and neither the flea nor the key could be kept without the case, lest they get lost and be thrown away with the litter. And the case for the flea was made o
f a solid diamond nut and had a little place hollowed out in the middle. They had not brought it, because, they said, the case belonged to the state treasury, and there were strict rules about state property, even for a sovereign—it could not be given away.
Platov was very angry, because, he said:
“What’s all this skullduggery! They made a gift and got a million for it, and it’s still not enough! A thing,” he said, “always comes with its case.”
But the sovereign says:
“Leave off, please, it’s not your affair—don’t spoil the politics on me. They have their ways.” And he asks: “What’s the price of the nut that the flea is kept in?”
The Englishmen asked another five thousand for it.
The sovereign Alexander Pavlovich said, “Pay it,” lowered the flea into the nut, and the key along with it, and so as not to lose the nut, he put it into his gold snuffbox, and ordered the snuffbox to be placed in his traveling chest, which was all inlaid with mutter-of-pearl and fish bone. As for the English masters, the sovereign dismissed them with honor, saying: “You are the foremost masters in the whole world, and my people can do nothing up against you.”
They were very pleased with that, and Platov could say nothing against the sovereign’s words. He only took the meagroscope, without speaking, and dropped it into his pocket, because “it comes with it,” he said, “and you’ve taken a lot of money from us as it is.”
The sovereign did not know of it until their arrival in Russia, and they left very soon, because military affairs made the sovereign melancholy, and he wanted to have a spiritual confession in Taganrog with the priest Fedot.* There was very little pleasant talk between him and Platov on the way, because they were having quite different thoughts: the sovereign considered that the Englishmen had no equals in craftsmanship, while Platov argued that ours could make anything shown to them, only they lacked useful education. And he put it to the sovereign that the English masters had entirely different rules of life, learning, and provisioning, and each man of them had all the absolute circumstances before him, and consequently an entirely different understanding.
The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories Page 45
