Who Can Be Happy and Free in Russia | Page 8

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Need suffer alone!
But no,--every moment
The heart's deepest
feelings
Are strained and tormented.
Believe me, my children,

Some things on this earth
One can never get used to: 200
No heart
there exists
That can bear without anguish
The rattle of death,
The
lament for the lost one,
The sorrow of orphans,
Amen! Now you
see, friends,
The peace that the pope gets."
Not long did the peasants
Stand thinking. They waited
To let the
pope rest, 210
Then enquired with a bow:
"And what more will you
tell us?"
"Well, now let us see
If the pope is much honoured;
And
that, O my friends,

Is a delicate question--
I fear to offend you....

But answer me, Christians,
Whom call you, 'The cursed
Stallion
breed?' Can you tell me?"
The peasants stand silent 221
In painful confusion;
The pope, too,
is silent.
"Who is it you tremble
To meet in the roadway[10]
For fear of
misfortune?"

The peasants stand shuffling
Their feet in confusion.
"Of whom do you make
Little scandalous stories? 230
Of whom do
you sing
Rhymes and songs most indecent?
The pope's honoured
wife,
And his innocent daughters,
Come, how do you treat them?

At whom do you shout
Ho, ho, ho, in derision
When once you are
past him?"
The peasants cast downwards
Their eyes and keep silent. 240
The
pope too is silent.
The peasants stand musing;
The pope fans his
face
With his hat, high and broad-rimmed,
And looks at the
heavens....
The cloudlets in springtime
Play round the great sun
Like small
grandchildren frisking
Around a hale grandsire,
And now, on his
right side 250
A bright little cloud
Has grown suddenly dismal,

Begins to shed tears.
The grey thread is hanging
In rows to the earth,

While the red sun is laughing
And beaming upon it
Through torn
fleecy clouds,
Like a merry young girl
Peeping out from the corn.
260
The cloud has moved nearer,
The rain begins here,
And the
pope puts his hat on.
But on the sun's right side
The joy and the
brightness
Again are established.
The rain is now ceasing....
It
stops altogether,
And God's wondrous miracle,
Long golden
sunbeams, 270
Are streaming from Heaven

In radiant splendour.

"It isn't our own fault;
It comes from our parents,"
Say, after long
silence,
The two brothers Goóbin.
The others approve him:
"It
isn't our own fault,
It comes from our parents."
The pope said, "So be it! 280
But pardon me, Christians,
It is not
my meaning
To censure my neighbours;
I spoke but desiring
To
tell you the truth.
You see how the pope
Is revered by the peasants;

The gentry--"
"Pass over them,
Father--we know them." 290


"Then let us consider
From whence the pope's riches.
In times not
far distant
The great Russian Empire
Was filled with estates
Of
wealthy Pomyéshchicks.[11]
They lived and increased,
And they let
us live too.
What weddings were feasted!
What numbers and
numbers 300
Of children were born
In each rich, merry life-time!

Although they were haughty
And often oppressive,
What liberal
masters!
They never deserted
The parish, they married,
Were
baptized within it,
To us they confessed,
And by us they were
buried. 310
And if a Pomyéshchick
Should chance for some reason

To live in a city,
He cherished one longing,
To die in his
birthplace;
But did the Lord will it
That he should die suddenly

Far from the village,
An order was found
In his papers, most surely,
320
That he should be buried
At home with his fathers.
Then
see--the black car
With the six mourning horses,--
The heirs are
conveying
The dead to the graveyard;
And think--what a lift
For
the pope, and what feasting
All over the village!
But now that is
ended, 330
Pomyéshchicks are scattered
Like Jews over Russia

And all foreign countries.
They seek not the honour

Of lying with
fathers
And mothers together.
How many estates
Have passed
into the pockets
Of rich speculators!
O you, bones so pampered 340

Of great Russian gentry,
Where are you not buried,
What far
foreign graveyard
Do you not repose in?
"Myself from dissenters[12]
(A source of pope's income)
I never
take money,
I've never transgressed,
For I never had need to;

Because in my parish 350
Two-thirds of the people
Are Orthodox
churchmen.
But districts there are
Where the whole population

Consists of dissenters--
Then how can the pope live?
"But all in this world
Is subjected to changes:
The laws which in
old days
Applied to dissenters 360
Have now become milder;

And that in itself
Is a check to pope's income.
I've said the
Pomyéshchicks
Are gone, and no longer
They seek to return
To

the home of their childhood;
And then of their ladies
(Rich, pious
old women),
How many have left us 370
To live near the convents!

And nobody now
Gives the pope a new cassock
Or church-work
embroidered.
He lives on the peasants,
Collects their brass farthings,

Their cakes on the feast-days,
At Easter their eggs.
The peasants
are needy
Or they would give freely-- 380
Themselves they have
nothing;
And who can take gladly
The peasant's last farthing?
"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