“Adventures ere to the adventurous.” ―CONINGSBY.
IVAN BARRINKA, or Ivan Pojarsky, as he may now be called, was a genuine child of Russia. His nature was quick, mobile, restless, passionate. He was capable of strong determination, but capable also of changefulness and inconstancy, because the mood of the moment always seized upon and swayed his whole soul. But he was all this only in the germ, for his was as yet the unawakened, undeveloped mind of a child. The simple-hearted guardians of his infancy had given him all they could―food, shelter, and tenderness; and this not only without hope of reward, but during some years under absolute terror of discovery and punishment. But they could not give him the instruction to which his intelligent mind would have so eagerly responded. No one in the village, except the priest, knew the mysteries of the Russian alphabet; and Pope Nikita, like most Russian priests, was in no real sense a pastor or a teacher, but rather a machine for performing the numerous ceremonies of his Church. All that could be said in his favor was, that if he did little good, he did little harm. Neither from him nor from the starost did Ivan learn any religion except a series of outward acts and postures, of bowings and crossings, and formal repetitions of “Gospodin pomilvi,” with a respect for sacred pictures, and a vague reverence for God, for the saints, and for the Czar. He never dreamed that any of these mysterious, far-away powers should influence his daily conduct, though he did believe that his patron St. John (Ivan is the Russian form of John) might help him in a time of need; because, when he had the measles, a picture of the saint had been blessed by the pope and laid on his breast, and straightway he began to recover! It was mournfully significant of the kind of instruction he received, that he had but one and the same word to designate the divine Being and the “gods of silver and gods of gold” that too often, in the popular estimation, usurped His place. If anyone had asked him, “Who made you?” he would have answered, “Bog;” and had the question followed, “What is that in the corner, before which the candle is burning?” he would still have replied, without hesitation, “It is Bog.”
A few childish legends of the saints, a few stories of “kikifloras” or goblins, formed the staple of the “folk lore” that circulated round the stove during the long winter evenings. The Bible narratives, so familiar and so fascinating to the English child, were almost unknown to Ivan; nor did exploits of the heroes of his own country hold the place they sometimes do on the lips or in the hearts of the people. Hence, when the starost told him that he was himself the heir of one of the noblest of Russian names, no answering chord resounded in his heart. The revelation, that ought to have moved him so deeply, failed of its due effect, because his ignorance did not supply the background that was needed to throw it into relief. He had always known that he was something other, something greater than those around him; but beyond that he had no power of measuring social distances. Princes, boyars, all who were not mujiks, were alike to him; just as it seemed to him nearly the same thing to go to the Moscow road, to Moscow itself, or even to St. Petersburg. Therefore, after spending a little vague, half-comprehending wonder upon the starost’s story, his mind reverted, as days went on, to what was at this period his ruling idea―the hope of rivaling and surpassing Michael in some deed of daring, and consequently in the regard of Anna Popovna.
It was not for his advantage that his kindly foster-parents never exacted from him any of the labors that fell to the lot of the little mujiks, his playfellows. “Prepare to die, mujik, but till the soil,” says the Russian proverb; and certainly where there is no other education an early apprenticeship to manual toil is rather a blessing than otherwise. Ivan’s idle hands and restless feet were left quite at liberty to obey all the suggestions of his active, untaught mind; while his naturally brave disposition was rendered still more fearless from the fact of his never having been, upon any occasion, punished or even thwarted or reproved.
One summer morning, just as the first faint streaks of dawn began to brighten the cottage window, he rose softly from his sleeping-place on the shelf above the stove. All the rest had worked hard the day before, and were slumbering soundly now; so he dressed himself quietly, and going to the great carved chest lifted the heavy lid with difficulty and took out and put on his rough sheep-skin coat, or shuba; then he drew on his warm boots of Russia leather lined with fur; next, he cut for himself with a hatchet a great piece of sour black bread, and tied it in a cloth as provision for the way; lastly, he went to a secret hiding place of his own and transferred to his pocket his greatest treasure―a silver ruble mativshka had given him. Having done all this, he was hurrying forth with quick noiseless footsteps, when he remembered an omitted duty. Returning a step or two, he took his stand before the picture in the corner, made a reverence, and repeated a hasty prayer; then, with a brave heart and a quiet conscience, he went forth in search of what fate might bring him,―a little knight-errant going to look for adventures.
He passed through the sleeping village, with the familiar brown cottages on either side of him looking peaceful and homelike in the morning twilight. The church bell in the tall elm tree seemed to beckon him near; he could scarcely resist the temptation of climbing the tree, seizing the rope, and astonishing the village with an untimely peal. Only the reflection that this would inevitably bring his own adventure to an abrupt conclusion stayed his hand. Leaving the houses behind him, he passed through fields rich with waving corn, then through pasture lands, from which he emerged at length upon a bare, monotonous, sandy plain. Now, for the first time, he ventured to beguile his way with a song; and his clear, ringing, childish voice sounded far and wide, yet failed to reach any human ear. Nor would it have fared otherwise with a cry for help, however shrill and agonized.
Ivan, happily, did not think of this. Fleet of foot and light of heart, he pursued his course, still singing as he went, until village, cornfields, and birch-woods were all left far behind him. And now, wherever he looked, he saw nothing but a dreary waste of sand, with here and there a few patches of stunted herbage, and at rare intervals a solitary pine or a little cluster of birch trees. The stillness was absolute: the children of the air eschewed that land of barrenness, and the beasts of the field seemed also to have abandoned it. None of the gentler races that man has succeeded in taming found pasture there; and fortunately wolves were extremely rare, though not quite unknown. Ivan never dreamed of them; his one concern was to keep the road, for so he called the track made by the wheels of the rude wagons which brought the produce of the cornfields to the river Oka. He knew that a ferry boat crossed the river, bringing adventurous travelers to the great Moscow road on the other side. This road was the goal of his ambition. As already intimated, no clear distinction existed in his mind between the Moscow road and Moscow itself, the holy city towards which the heart of. every Russian yearned with reverent love and passionate longing. It was their Jerusalem, “beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth.” Even ignorant little Ivan had heard of its wonders and its glories; and he fancied that if once he gained the road he might see in the distance the gilded spires and domes of the Kremlin gleaming in the sun. Michael had never seen so much as that, nor been so far from home!
The sun, in Russia such a rare and much-prized guest, was prodigal of his favors that day, and shone forth from a cloudless sky. Ivan had equipped himself for a winter journey, and about noon he began to grow hot and weary. No shelter was near him, so he sat down on the sand, rested a little, and ate some of his bread; but he longed in vain for a draft of kvass to finish his repast, nor could he find a single drop of water anywhere. He rose unrefreshed and pursued his way; but, in spite of all his childish courage, the utter loneliness of the dreary waste around him began to tell upon his spirits. He sang, he shouted, he talked aloud to himself, merely for the comfort of hearing his own voice; until by-and-by he became too weary for these exercises—all he could contrive to do was to keep moving on with a kind of dogged determination. Once and again was he tempted to turn back and give up the adventure; indeed, he would have done so, only for the thought, “If I come back having seen nothing, Michael will jeer me, and Anna Popovna will join in the laugh.”
At last he grew so tired and frightened that he threw himself on the ground in a kind of despair, made the sign of the cross, said a prayer to his patron St. John the evangelist, then fell into a state of drowsiness, and lost all sense of time, until, after an interval of perhaps an hour, he was aroused by the sound of voices.
Never had human voices seemed more welcome. Ivan started to his feet, and saw to his great delight a party of five or six mujiks, carrying large baskets of cabbages and other vegetables. Greetings were soon exchanged. His new friends told him that they were journeying from a distant village to a fair at Kaluga, a town on the other bank of the Oka. They intended, after crossing the river, to travel all night, that they might reach the fair with their merchandise early the next morning. They took the tired little wayfarer by the hand and helped him on, encouraging him with kind words, and telling him they were now not far from the ferry.
At last the river appeared in the distance, glimmering in the light of the rising moon. “Look,” cried his companions, “yonder is the Oka.” But Ivan was by this time too weary to care; he could scarcely keep his eyes open and his feet moving.
They drew nearer and nearer. The river was as broad as the Thames―a fine sheet of water, with green banks on either side. From these there came a hoarse, monotonous sound―the croaking of innumerable frogs, which someone has unpoetically called “the nightingales of Russia.” Soon a brown wooden shed came into view, where the men said they would find kvass, and perhaps even vodka. This roused Ivan, who was still tormented with thirst. He saw the moonlight upon the waters; the grassy sward beside them; the rough boathouse, out of which a withered old woman, with a red handkerchief wrapped around her head and a torch of pine wood in her hand, came to meet the wayfarers.
There was no boat to be had, she said; her son had not returned, though she expected him before sundown―she could not think what detained him. The peasants were grievously disappointed. The sale of their merchandise depended on their reaching the fair in good time, so their vexation was quite natural. It was somewhat allayed, however, by the offer of vodka, that charmer so fatally dear to the heart of the mujik. And their weary little companion was not quite forgotten.
“Give the little one a taste, mother,” they said. “Poor child, he is ready to faint”
It was to the honor of the people of Nicolofsky that, though themselves no patterns of sobriety, they had at least kept the destroyer from the young lips of their nursling. Ivan turned from the fiery beverage with loathing, and asked for kvass. “Here is no kvass,” said the old woman roughly. “No man would be fool enough to drink it who could get vodka. But you can have water, if you like.”
With this he was content. He wrapped himself up in his shuba, lay down beside the fire in the shed, and was soon fast asleep; while the mujiks sat outside talking, laughing, singing, and drinking vodka.