“Oh, old chap, there is more to it than you realize,” Gern said. “Just count what a lot of taxes we have levied on them: on the yurts, fishing, salt from the salinas. Could you really survive even one day in such broiling summer heat without salt, eating not bread but meat and milk? Even the wood for the kereges is taxed. These people have never held money in their hands, because they trade in sheep. Their poverty is appalling. It’s a wonder they still exist in this world. To tell you the truth, it is their bais who have reduced them to such misery, But we, for our part, are not too eager to offer these people any salvation either. All right, Taras Grigorievich, let us repair to my study for a smoke and chat about your affairs.”
When they were in the privacy of the study, Gern asked the poet to recite the verse which had made him a convict. Shevchenko complied.
After hearing him out, Gern remained silent, reflectively drawing on his cigarette and flicking the ashes into an ashtray now and then.
“Yes,” he said at length, “now everything is clear to me: your poetry does not simply call for a peasant rebellion, but for an assault on the Bastille. The gendarmes have a good nose for such things. They smelled right away where the smoke was coming from, and to make your punishment the more direful, they drew the czar’s attention to the very lines in which he and the czarina were mentioned. Ours is a rancorous and vindictive monarch. There is one thing I want to tell you frankly, like a friend, and I beg your pardon for my frankness. Your poem A Dream has one verse which, as I see it, does not sound … too good: you make fun of the empress for her illness. She is a fairly old woman, by the way, who does not interfere in state affairs.”
Shevchenko gave him a look of disguised irony.
“I am a peasant and a serf,” he said. “No one has taught me how to treat a sick empress. But, unfortunately, I know only too well how fairly old, sick serf women, who don’t meddle in politics either, are treated by the blessing of the czars, czarinas and their courtiers. I wrote the way people see it. Although … from a narrower, human point of view, as it were, you are probably in the right.”
“I told you that, because I took a liking to you,” Gern said, confused, and strongly pressed the poet’s hand. “I pray to God that back in St. Petersburg these lines will be forgotten as soon as possible.”
After seeing Shevchenko off to the wicket gate, Gern went back into the house and, deep in thought, made for the bedroom. Sophia Ivanovna was already in bed, reading the Kobzar.
“Has he gone?” she asked, raising her eyes from the book. “You know, I am not too good at Little Russian, but I really like his poetry. It is written in such a novel way, simply and touching. Did you find out what he was convicted for?”
“I did. His affairs are bad. I am afraid that neither the czar nor the czarina or even their descendants will ever forgive him several lines from his poem. He was not simply forced into the army, but prohibited from writing and painting. Besides, in his dossier there is an order to have the poor chap transferred to the farthest fort, from which it would be difficult to bring him back that fast. He has been assigned to Orsk where the battalion is commanded by Major Meshkov, an unusually hidebound person and a blockhead: a martinet of an officer who rose in rank from the noncoms. I am afraid his Prussian drill will plague the life out of the poor chap. General Fedyaev and I had a talk about him and wrote a letter to Meshkov, asking him to pay particular attention to Shevchenko and help him in whatever way possible.”
7
On the Way to Orsk
The sound of a bugle roused Shevchenko from sleep in the transit barracks. He got up quickly, dressed, had his breakfast, received his travel rations, and packed his personal belongings. At seven sharp he was summoned to the office where a young officer he did not know was waiting for him.
“Shevchenko?” the officer raised his eyes inquiringly.
“Yes, sir!” the poet said, snapping to attention.
“Good morning” the officer said and extended his hand. “I am Ensign Dolgov. I am off to Orsk and am taking you with me. Are you ready?”
“Yes, sir!”
Beyond the town the road followed the winding course of the river Ural. The riverside meadows were gray with the dew, and the dust did not whirl about yet on the road. Dolgov shot sidelong glances at his companion, probably studying and observing him. The poet kept silent as well, not knowing how to behave in regard to someone who might probably be his future commander.
“Tell me, please, what is dearer to you — painting or poetry?” Dolgov asked suddenly.
Shevchenko did not reply at once.
“I don’t know. When I was a boy, I was fond only of drawing. Then I was captured by poetry, but now… now I am like a mother of two children who have been committed to prison. They will die if nobody helps them, because their mother’s hands are too weak to pull down the walls of that prison,” he said and fell silent, angry at his unexpected impulsiveness.
“Hm-m… I see,” Dolgov mumbled and suddenly turned to Shevchenko. “You know, you are the talk of the whole town. There is an old captain in Orenburg. He should have been discharged a long time ago, but he’s still serving. Some days ago I was talking with Karl Ivanovich when that captain ran up to us and said, ‘Did you hear? There’s some versifier arrived here who’s got a horrible verdict: he’s prohibited from singing and talking. But that makes life impossible!’”
Shevchenko smiled wryly.
The conversation came abruptly to an end. Dolgov had never met a real poet or artist before. From his childhood he believed such people to be next to supernatural, something like prophets or clairvoyants, so usual simple words did not come to his mind to keep the conversation flowing. Shevchenko, on the other hand, knew that most of the army officers were either drunkards, gamblers, or duellists, and though Dolgov did not exactly resemble such a type, Shevchenko tried to keep a low profile and answer the questions as tersely as possible.
Every twenty or twenty-five versts they changed horses at a station. The road twisted along the Ural as before. The meadows around were grassy and luxuriant. Occasionally they came across shady groves and little gullies, at the bottoms of which gurgled cold streams, where they stopped several times for a drink of water. The sand gritted under their teeth, and soon Dolgov’s snow-white service jacket and Shevchenko’s white shirt turned gray. But the heat was gradually subsiding.
“When’s the next station?” Dolgov asked impatiently.
“Over the hillock there, sir, will be the stanitsa of Ostrovnaya, and then it’s another ten versts to the station,” the coachman said, taking the whip. “Giddup, you sluggards!” he laid the whip across the horses’ rumps.
The tarantass went up the hillock like a whirlwind.
Shevchenko almost let out a cry of pleasant surprise at what appeared before his eyes: down in the valley spread a large stanitsa immersed in the dense verdure of orchards and tree-enclosed meadows. Snow-white cottages shone in the sun with a dazzling cleanliness. The green unbound tresses of weeping willow trees dropped languidly over a pond, and a girl with a garland of live flowers and a varicolored, neat plakhta skirt drove a long-horned cow down the road.
For a moment Shevchenko thought he was back in his Ukraine in the environs of Sedniv on his way to pay a call on his friend Andriy Lizohub — and his heart gave a jump.
“Where do we spend the night?” Dolgov asked the coachman.
“Wherever you wish: some stay at the stanitsa, others go to the station of Ozernaya. The officers mostly drop in on the stanitsa ataman or the Cossack Captain Stesenko.”
“Let us spend the night here,” Shevchenko suggested suddenly.
“It reminds you of your homeland, doesn’t it?” Dolgov said with a smile. “Agreed. Let us go to the stanitsa ataman.”
“Permit me to seek a humbler lodging,” Shevchenko asked.
“As you wish. But mind you don’t oversleep. We’ll be setting off early, while it’s still cool.”
Dolgov ordere
d the coachman to stop. Shevchenko got off. He slowly walked down the road, inhaling the hot air which suddenly became near and dear to him. In the distance he saw a cottage under a thick straw thatch. Sitting outside was a Cossack with a long mustache, reflectively sucking on a pipe, and only by the faded blue strips on the sides of his wide trousers Shevchenko could tell that this was not a Zaporozhian but a Ural Cossack.
“Hello, Cossack,” Shevchenko said, and bowed as he came closer.
“Hello,” the Cossack responded cordially. “Where have you come from?”
“Now it’s from Orenburg, and earlier from Kiev. Could I stay at your home for the night?”
“Sure! We’re always glad to take in good people. Have you come alone or with somebody else?”
“With an ensign, but he went to the stanitsa ataman,” Shevchenko replied, sitting down beside the Cossack.
As was the custom with every real Ukrainian, the host answered the guest’s questions briefly and unhurriedly, while the hostess, on looking outdoors and seeing them, immediately went into a bustle of preparing an evening meal. To make the conversation livelier and pay indirectly for the lodging, Shevchenko asked casually:
“Do you have a tavern at your stanitsa?”
“We don’t, but people distil their own vodka and brew their own beer. If anyone needs it, he can buy it.”
Shevchenko took some bills out of his pocket, and on noticing a girl of about ten bashfully hiding behind the door, extended the money to her, saying:
“Run, child, and bring us some horilka for supper.”
On hearing this, the hostess rushed behind the house to kill some chicken for the meal, and then went to her neighbors for eggs, because her own stock had dwindled.
During supper Shevchenko treated the hosts to one, then to another drink; for the girl and her five-year-old brother he found a lump of sugar for each in his pocket. On the table stood a bowl with pickled cucumbers, fried potatoes, and the smell of garlic-spiced sausages tickled the palate of the famished traveler.
The drinks made the host talkative, and he told the guest that his grandfather had come here from Ukraine with a company of Cossacks during the reign of Czarina Catherine. The Ural Cossacks received them eagerly.
“Of course, this was no Sich but a stanitsa, so our young men married either our or the local girls. We were given land to till — that’s how our forebears built this stanitsa,” the host added, accepting the third drink.
When their initial hunger was appeased, they started singing Ukrainian songs, according to ancient custom.
The lights in the stanitsa were going out one after another, but Shevchenko remained sitting at the table with his compatriots, recalling the past and singing songs.
Shevchenko’s fate touched the hosts to the bottom of their hearts. The hostess did not know how best to please and treat him. After hearing out his story, the host lapsed into a long silence, and then said with a deep sigh:
“All our troubles come from the czars, but people don’t know yet how to do without them.”
The next morning they left the stanitsa only at nine o’clock when if was already hot in the sun, and they reached the station in an hour and a half. At Ozernaya they had to wait for a long time again until they could get a pair of fresh horses.
The ensign and private of the Fifth Line Battalion felt less inhibited by now and the conversation flowed easily and unrestrained. The son of an Orenburg general, Dolgov asked Shevchenko about St. Petersburg, a city he had never visited. He had never traveled any farther than the town of Ufa after graduating from a military school in Orenburg. On learning that Shevchenko had been a student of Brüllow — who had painted a portrait of the poet Zhukovsky which was raffled off to buy Shevchenko’s freedom from serfdom — and that he was acquainted with Prince Repnin, the former viceregent of Saxony, Dolgov fell into complete confusion and apologized for having let Shevchenko stay at the home of a minor stanitsa dweller instead of inviting him to dinner at the station and taking him to the stanitsa ataman.
Shevchenko put his mind at ease. “On the contrary, I am very grateful to you for having permitted me to stay with my compatriots.”
Dolgov fell silent: the future confronted him with a big question mark. He did not know yet whether he was fated to get out of this steppe; he could be killed by a bullet, lariat or soyil of a rebel Kireghiz, and so he kept silent, just as depressed as Shevchenko.
“And there is Orsk,” the coachman said as if to himself.
Shevchenko started and looked intently into the steppe, across which gray shadows of clouds drifted like huge hats. It took him some time to make out the barely discernible hill topped by the white speck of a fort that seemed to be outlined in red against the skyline. There was not a single green tree around it, just like throughout the entire desolate desert.
The horses went at an easy but eager trot. The white speck on the hill soon turned into a diminutive church surrounded by public buildings. From a distance their roofs looked like red stripes. On the road a group of people were reparing the road under the watchful eye of armed guards.
When the tarantass came level with them, Shevchenko recoiled at the sight: every broad-cheeked Mongol face was scarred by a brand on the forehead, and many had their nostrils and ear lobes torn.
“What are these people?” Shevchenko asked the coachman.
“Oh, these are rebels — convicts, that is,” the coachman replied. “They must be from Kenessary’s band. Well, our soldiers gave them a good drubbing. Some were sentenced to death, others were branded.”
The convicts followed the passing tarantass with a mysterious indifference, but Shevchenko realized that under this outward indifference there blazed an inextinguishable hatred.
There it is, my grave, Shevchenko thought. Suddenly he asked himself: Can a song really ring out here? And he answered himself: No, a song cannot resound here, nor can joy come to flower.
8
Barimta
The aul stayed at its ruined camp throughout the entire day. An additional number of people were dug out of the sand and brought back to their senses, but three of Djantemir’s people were beyond rescue. The broken kereges and the pieces of felt were dug out as well and brought together. A part of the aul’s property and most of the sheep were saved, but still over two hundred cattle from the huge herd of Djantemir and his kin had perished.
After the sandstorm a spell of cold set in, but it was thirst which tormented man and beast most of all.
The dead were buried, the bitter tears of their relatives being substituted for the last ablutions. Several days later the desperate crying of orphaned children died away as did the laments of berieved mothers and wives.
Now Djantemir’s aul was not alone: it had joined a huge noisy stream of auls moving to the summer pastures — the jailiaou. The shepherds and herders had to watch carefully lest the herds got mixed up. Nights were the most trying stages of the trek. Each aul branded its camels and horses with a kin tamga, but the goats, sheep and rams were unmarked and belonged to almost one and the same breed. Every hour of the day several score of sheep were found missing in one or another flock, which provoked arguments and squabbles, shouts, cursing, and at times spontaneous fights. As is usual in such cases of confusion, it was not the thieves who suffered, but those who had weaker fists, a lesser number of herders or well-armed tyulenguts.
The Aral Sea had long been passed, and to their right, beyond the low horizon of the steppe, flowed the mighty Syr Darya. Some auls left the caravan and turned to the banks of the river to spend the summer amid the luxuriant wet meadows, but Djantemir persistently pushed on to where the most powerful and the richest bais were heading.
Djantemir was close-mouthed and gloomy like a black cloud. He could not reconcile himself with the disappearance of such a large number of cattle, and brooded day and night over how to regain his losses.
Jaisak did not see anything of the strange things going on about him. As a seni
or herder and shepherd, he was up to his ears in daily work and troubles. But Kumish had a rich experience of life and made out a lot of what was up.
“Today he sent Iskhak and his lazybones somewhere,” she told her son in the evening. “No sooner had we set forth in the morning than they galloped off to one side and caught up with our aul toward the evening, after which Djantemir ordered Taijan to sharpen the yatagans, knives and soyils, and drive more nails into their shakpars as if in preparation for a fight.”
“To hell with it, apa!” Jaisak said drowsily. “I’ve got other things to worry about. We’ll have to get on our feet firmly and throw off this yoke, because I cannot keep on looking quietly how the bai is sucking the last dregs of life out of you.”
“Oh, my dear son,” Kumish sighed. “Shakir and I thought the same once, but our fate must have been ordained to be bitter. I beg only one thing of you — if the bai sends you on a dishonest job, don’t go! It’s enough that the wolves maimed you, and for him it’s enough that you saved the flock and daughter who will bring him such big bride money.”
His mother’s words caused him pain. Yes, Kuljan was engaged, and no force could undo that.
“Don’t you worry, apa,” he said with a sigh. “He won’t make me do his dirty work for him. As for Kuljan, I saved her not because of the bai, but because she’s got a heart of gold. It is only thanks to her that we meet with any good here.”
Kumish was right. In the morning, Iskhak stayed in his father’s yurt for a long time along with his stepmother Shauken who had stationed the deaf Abdullah before the entrance to keep anyone from eavesdropping on their conversation. Come night, Djantemir roused his tyulenguts, had them gathered in his yurt, gave each a soyil and shakpar, and his eldest sons — Baisali, Undasin and Iskhak — a rifle and yatagan, and all, under the command of Iskhak, quietly left the sleeping aul, each leading a saddled horse by the bridle. At dawn they drove into the aul a flock of no less than six hundred sheep they had rustled.
The Exile: A novel about Taras Shevchenko Page 9
