The Exile: A novel about Taras Shevchenko

by Zinaida Tulub

  “How’s your eagle?” the poet asked.

  “He’s a fine hunter: killed me three wolves.”

  “And what about fox?”

  “That’s just why I came here — to sell furs of fox and wolves.”

  Jaisak got up quickly, went into the kitchen, and was back a minute later, carrying a carpet bag stuffed tightly with furs.

  He took out two large silver-fox furs and gave them to Shevchenko: “That’s a present for you. When you get married, give them to your bride. Yesterday I took them to a merchant. He offered me ten and two rubles a piece. I wanted to ask your advice: is it a good price or not?”

  “In the store they sell them for fifty. Ask for twenty — twenty-five rubles.”

  “The storekeeper won’t give me that much. They must be sold to women, but I don’t know anyone around here. Meshka Mayir is going back to Jaman Kala tomorrow, and takes me along. What am I to do, Taras Aga?”

  Shevchenko looked at the clock.

  “Jaisak, I have to go now. I am painting the portrait of the wife of the biggest chief in Orenburg, and I am late already. Stay here or go with me and I will show you the house of a much respected lady whose portrait I painted, too. You’ll go in and show her the furs yourself. Tell her that you were sent by the artist who painted her portrait, and ask thirty rubles for the bigger furs and twenty-five for the smaller. This is a town. I myself cannot go around and offer them for sale; I’d get into big trouble, if I did it.”

  “All right, I’ll sell them myself.”

  Jaisak gathered up his furs and they walked quickly to the house of Baroness Blaramberg. On approaching gate, Shevchenko showed Jaisak where to enter, and went on his way.

  Mathilda Petrovna was already waiting for him. Shev­chenko apologized for being late and told her about the golden eagle and the silver-fox furs which had helped a young jigit marry the girl he loved.

  Shevchenko’s story about Djantemir, Kuljan and Jaisak was very much to the liking of the governor’s wife. In its funny places she laughed sincerely. During these moments Shevchenko captured at last that sparkle of life in her face that lent its chilly and aloof expression a sudden flash of inspiration, through which a little part of her soul could be glimpsed.

  The work on the portrait became easy and joyous, and progressed at an unusually rapid pace when suddenly it was interrupted by the appearance of the smart looking noncom who had reported to the general of Shevchenko’s arrival the first time.

  “Excuse me, your Excellency,” he said, clicking his heels and stiffening in front of Mathilda Petrovna. “There is a Kirghiz who keeps insisting that he be let in. He says he’s come to see the painter to offer silver-fox furs for sale.”

  “Impossible!” Shevchenko got frightened and put his palette aside. “Excuse me, Mathilda Petrovna, the man does not understand what is allowed and what is not. I saw him to the house of the baroness, and didn’t even tell him where 1 was going. By what miracle did he find me here?”

  He wanted to leave together with the noncom, but Ma­thilda Petrovna stopped him.

  “Don’t chase him away, Taras Grigorievich! You excited my curiosity about that Asian Romeo and his Juliet so much that … Call him in. I want to have a look at him … and well… at his silver-fox furs, too.”

  “But I told you already: I need Taras Aga who is painting the chief’s wife as if she were alive,” Jaisak indig­nantly pressed home his demand to Obruchev’s cook and batman. “Call me Taras Aga, please.”

  Presently Shevchenko and the noncom entered the kitchen.

  “Why did you come here, Jaisak?” Shevchenko said re­proachfully. “I told you to show the furs to the other lady and then go to my quarters…”

  “But I have to go back to Jaman Kala with Meshka Mayir tomorrow! That general’s woman took two furs, but I still got a lot of them. They all must be sold,” Jaisak said.

  “All right, then! I didn’t call you to this place, but since you’ve come, the lady wishes to see you. Let’s go! Where are your furs?”

  Jaisak took off his sheepskin coat, fur cap and felt boots, and with fur socks on his feet, followed Shevchenko.

  “Good day, woman of the biggest chief in Orenburg,” Jaisak said, greeting her with a bow.

  “Good day, my dear,” she replied, regarding the young Kazakh with curiosity. “Show mo your fox furs.”

  Jaisak sat down on the carpet, crossing his feet in Orien­tal fashion, and started taking the furs out of his carpet bag one by one.

  “Oh, they smell horribly!” she could not hold herself in check.

  “The smell will disappear in a couple of days. The furs must have been kept in a trunk together with sheep skins,” Shevchenko explained.

  “How much do you ask for them?” she said at last.

  “Thirty rubles, and if you take two, it will be twenty-five a piece,” Shevchenko replied for Jaisak.

  Mathilda Petrovna fingered the fur reflectively, and then reached for the bell.

  “Ask the master,” she said to the lackey.

  Obruchev entered almost the next moment.

  “Look, Voldemar, what furs I have been brought. This is a hunter who kills his game with a golden eagle,” she explained pointing at Jaisak who had got to his feet the moment the general came in. “He asks thirty rubles for one fur. Shouldn’t we take two of them?”

  “Of course, if you like them. You cannot go around in sable every day, and the ermines don’t go together with your black dresses.”

  Shevchenko stood off to one side stiff at attention, although he was dressed in a frock coat.

  “Oh, good morning, Shevchenko,” the general said, notic­ing the poet.

  “Good morning, your Excellency,” Shevchenko responded promptly, worried how the general would react at the sight of the civvies, although Mathilda Petrovna herself had told him to come in civilian clothes “so as to feel closer to art.”

  “Well, how does your work progress?” Obruchev asked, forgetting Jaisak and his furs for a moment.

  “Little by little, your Excellency. I managed to convey the likeness at once, but the portrait lacked… well, how should I put it… it lacked some life perhaps. It was only today that I suddenly captured it, and I think the portrait has come to live under my brush.”

  The general went up to the easel and looked at the unfinished portrait for a long time.

  “Yes, something has changed in it indeed. Look, Mathil­da, it seems the sun has splashed its ray on it. Well, carry on. I won’t be distracting you anymore. So are you taking the furs?” he said, turning round at the door. “Yes? Good, I’ll have the money brought to you at once.”

  “I’ll take two of the largest furs,” Mathilda Petrovna said, watching Jaisak with curiosity all the time.

  He picked out a pair of the best furs. She took the money from the lackey, silently counted off not five but six red ten-ruble bills, and then turned to Shevchenko: “Will you go on painting?”

  “Yes, if you are not tired yet,” Shevchenko said, picking up the palette and taking Jaisak by the elbow.

  “Wait for me outdoors. I’ll be busy for some time, or you can go to my quarters. I’ll be back soon, and in the evening we’ll think things over.”

  When Jaisak left, Shevchenko started working quickly, putting dab after dab onto the canvas with a sense of joy and self-confidence.

  Mathilda Petrovna sat with a thoughtful expression on her face, occasionally smiling faintly and a shade sadly at her thoughts, as if she were bidding farewell to the half-forgotten, naïve dreams of her youth which had unexpect­edly surfaced from the bottom of her heart. No longer was she a reserved lady of fifty, which made her look like a school marm or like a dried-up flower. Today her soul opened to the eyes of the artist for the first time, although she did not say a single word to him; her soul was so lonely in the huge, luxuriously furnished and empty parlors and halls of this palace. Jaisak’s youth and the story about his love had roused her. And although a faint odor of the sheepskin sti
ll hung in the air, the image of the young herder whose eyes beamed happiness, a confidence in life, and an unconquerable power of youth, had produced a deep impression on her. It made her feel bitter; it pained her at the thought that she had not experienced such great, unselfish and pure love in her life.

  From the Obruchevs Shevchenko hurried to his quarters where Jaisak was waiting for him.

  “Meshkov will leave no sooner than by midday,” Shev­chenko told Jaisak. “By that time we’ll have made a visit to Gern. Maybe Sophia Ivanovna will buy a fur for her­self or for her sister.”

  They soon went to bed in order to be up early next morning.

  “Are you really in such a hurry to get back to Kuljan?” Shevchenko asked, as they walked to the town’s outskirts in the morning. “You miss her, don’t you?”

  “No,” Jaisak shook his head. “On the day when you celebrate the birth of your God, a large caravan is to arrive at Jaman Kala from Moscow. It will be heading for Margelan and Bukhara. I am going to Bukhara. Two of my brothers — Kasim and Tyulenbai — are there. I promised ata I’d buy them out of slavery when I grew rich. That’s what my ata willed before he died. They must be free.”

  Jaisak’s words made Shevchenko start, and he did not utter a single word during the rest of their way.

  Sophia Ivanovna bought one fur from Jaisak, and Gern gave them the address of her sister; but it was late already, Jaisak quickly said goodbye to Shevchenko, and trotted off to the fortress lest he miss Meshkov. Shevchenko re­mained in his studio and plunged deep in thought.

  Jaisak’s words had settled on the poet’s heart in a heavy black cloud. He had graduated from an Academy of Fine Arts, stood on his own feet, achieved fame, traveled through­out Ukraine, published his album of engravings Pictur­esque Ukraine, and made his way in life, while his brothers and sisters vegetated as serfs. What had he done to save them? Now he reproached himself for every goblet of cham­pagne he had drunk, for every party, at which he had dressed in aristocratic clothes, wooed women, commanded the attention of friends, and recited his poems about the bitter lot of serfs, without using the occasional money he had made to free his kith from serfdom.

  It is for them that fate had punished me so severely, he thought with despair.

  Leaden drops of tears rolled from his eyes.

  Throughout the whole day Shevchenko was in a taciturn and gloomy mood. He sat in loneliness in his studio till dusk fell, chewed on the dry bread he had bought in the morning, and went to sleep on the narrow army cot, because he could not return to the quarters he shared with his friends who would immediately start asking him questions and make his misery the more unbearable.

  Once Baroness Blaramberg took Shevchenko under her wing, he received several more commissions to paint por­traits, which kept him busy from the earliest hours of the morning, since the December days were the shortest in the year.

  On the thirty-first of December a courier carrying an official letter with five seals of red wax resembling blood blotches mercilessly whipped his tired horses through the Sakmar Gate and burst into Orenburg — and the next moment the headquarters clerks started writing long lists of those who had been decorated with orders, promoted, or assigned to higher offices. No one in Orenburg, except for Obruchev, Gern and the clerks, knew what joy or disappointment the morning of New Year held in store.

  Shevchenko sat in his studio, chewing on his pen and thinking about what the next year would bring him, when Gern suddenly entered. He greeted the poet, looked into all corners, and sat down opposite him.

  “What, you’re about the same affair again?” Shevchenko asked, raising his blue eyes to Gern.

  “No, I just wanted to tell you that your album will be presented to the czar only after Butakov finishes writing and presents his Description of the Aral Sea first. Not the scientific one with all the data and figures he prepares for the Geographical Society, nor the hydrographic descrip­tion he forwarded to his ministry of the navy, but an ab­breviated one written in a simple language, which will be shown to the czar together with your album. That is why your future will be decided upon not now, but later on, after Butakov leaves for the capital.”

  Shevchenko discerned something ominous in Gern’s voice, and asked anxiously:

  “What’s happened, Karl Ivanovich?”

  “So far we’ve received only the response to our plea of two years ago, in which we asked the authorities to permit you to paint and alleviate your lot because of your illness.”

  Shevchenko grew pale, got on his feet, and leaning on the table with his palms, bent toward Gern: “And what happened?”

  “It was only now that Count Orlov presented our plea to the czar, and, the way he wrote it, “the most august permission did not follow.”

  “Which means that I have again been prohibited from taking up either brush or pencil, doesn’t it?” Shevchenko asked in a dull voice.

  “It means that you’ll have to be careful now. Nobody will hide away the Aral drawings you did for the needs of the state, but accepting commissions for portraits openly and painting them here in the studio is out of the question; you’ll have to be extremely careful with the people who’ll be asking you to do their portraits, and accept orders only from the absolutely honest and decent under the condition that nobody else will catch you at the work. But don’t lose heart,” Gern took him by the band, “everything will pass and change for the better.”

  “Yes, of course, everything will pass,” Shevchenko replied dejectedly.

  “Obruchev asks you to hope for better times and not be sad. Continue painting Mathilda Petrovna’s portrait, and we’ll warn her to have the sittings arranged in another room and during the hours when there are no officers in the palace. So cheer up, old chap! He’ll see your album — and everything will be all right! Now listen to the news: Butakov has been awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, and Serhiy Levitsky has been transferred to St. Petersburg to a much higher office. Colonel Matveiev got a St. Anna Order, and from tomorrow on Obruchev is a General of the Infantry.”

  “What about Ensign Isaiev? When I was painting his portrait, he told me he was expecting a promotion.”

  “Such a straitlaced fool expecting a promotion? Let him be content with his rank for several years more until he becomes a bit brighter, if that’s still possible at all. But putting it frankly, if a head is empty, reason will hardly grow in it.”

  Shevchenko regained his self-control and even laughed at what he heard, but when Gern left, he again dropped his head in grief.

  The New Year was celebrated at home. Up till midnight Shevchenko did not tell anyone the news he had heard, but when the cuckoo called midnight and Butakov as the senior, both in age and rank, raised the goblet and congrat­ulated everyone on the New Year, Shevchenko congratulated Butakov on receiving his decoration and Serhiy Levitsky on his promotion and transfer to the capital.

  The news made everyone merry and joyous, and only moments later did the friends notice that Shevchenko did not share their merriment.

  “And what does the New Year promise you?” Butakov asked, worried.

  “I, too, received a present from the Holsteinian Prince.”

  Then he told them about the reply of Count Orlov. Everyone fell silent. The expression of joy on Levitsky’s face faded, and suddenly he felt miserable wretched and ashamed for his luck at a time when dark clouds obscured Shevchenko’s prospects. Butakov’s brow furrowed. He realized like no one else that if the czar had not forgotten Shevchenko’s poetry, no drawing, no album whatsoever would win Shevchenko his freedom. But he did not utter a word nor show in any way how his heart sank at the presentiment of evil times to come.

  On New Year’s Day Butakov and Pospelov went visiting their friends and acquaintances. Levitsky left, too; Shevchenko stayed at home and wrote Varvara Repnina a letter that was full of despair. He begged her to intercede for him and save the artist and poet in him. The letter came out tragically worded, but Shevchenko did not attempt to change its tenor;
then he wrote a letter to Zhukovsky who had helped him so much in gaining his freedom.

  Even now Shevchenko did not realize that the entire royal family considered him their personal enemy. He complained bitterly to Zhukovsky that Brüllow could, but did not wish to, come to his rescue, and implored Zhukovsky to help him obtain at least the permission to draw and to paint.

  Levitsky was busy with the preparations for his departure, while Butakov was finishing his Description of the Aral Sea. The sailors, too, were in a hurry to return to the Baltic Sea, and Shevchenko’s quarters were a beehive of a pre-departure bustle.

  In the middle of January, a letter from Mikhailo Lazarevsky addressed to his brother Fedir arrived from St.Petersburg. Fedir was out of town on business. Since his friends had no secrets from each other, they decided to open the letter and read it over tea in the evening.

  After the customary New Year’s greetings and inquiries about his brother’s health, Lazarevsky described the execution of the members of Petrashevsky’s secret circle:

  “It was something unbearably horrible. From dawn people in their hundreds moved to the square where this disgusting and gory show was to take place. In the crowd, the mothers, brothers and parents of the doomed were pointed out. Some of them could not stand on their feet and were supported by strangers who themselves trembled from agitation.

  “At last their horrible cortege appeared under a strong escort. They were driven in open carts in twos and threes without any caps and dressed in light summer coats in which they had been arrested in the spring, although there was a fierce Epiphany frost outdoors. Blue from the cold and with prison pallor on their faces, the resembled corpses.

  “I wanted to run away from the scene, but my feet seemed to be rooted to the ground, as my keen attention greedily captured and seared in my mind all the stages of this frightening ceremony.

  “The verdict was read for an endlessly long time. In the crowd dozens of pallid lips repeated the names and the horrible words “To death.’ Then each of the sentenced men was made to get on his knees, and the executioner wearing a blood red shirt, black velveteen trousers and lacquered boots, broke over the heads of the doomed a sword that had been filed down beforehand. In this symbolic way, they were deprived of their honor, nobility status, titles, all human rights, diplomas, decorations as well as military and civilian ranks; then the priest came up and gave them the last blessing. At long last shrouds — long, coarse shirts with sleeves reaching to the ground — were pulled over their heads.