Chapter III. The Little Poet
The little fort of Bélogorsk lay about forty versts[28] from Orenburg. From this town the road followed along by the rugged banks of the R. Yaïk. The river was not yet frozen, and its lead-coloured waves looked almost black contrasted with its banks white with snow. Before me stretched the Kirghiz Steppes. I was lost in thought, and my reverie was tinged with melancholy. Garrison life did not offer me much attraction. I tried to imagine what my future chief, Commandant Mironoff, would be like. I saw in my mind’s eye a strict, morose old man, with no ideas beyond the service, and prepared to put me under arrest for the smallest trifle.
Twilight was coming on; we were driving rather quickly.
“Is it far from here to the fort?” I asked the driver.
“Why, you can see it from here,” replied he.
I began looking all round, expecting to see high bastions, a wall, and a ditch. I saw nothing but a little village, surrounded by a wooden palisade. On one side three or four haystacks, half covered with snow; on another a tumble-down windmill, whose sails, made of coarse limetree bark, hung idly down.
“But where is the fort?” I asked, in surprise.
“There it is yonder, to be sure,” rejoined the driver, pointing out to me the village which we had just reached.
I noticed near the gateway an old iron cannon. The streets were narrow and crooked, nearly all the izbás[29] were thatched. I ordered him to take me to the Commandant, and almost directly my kibitka stopped before a wooden house, built on a knoll near the church, which was also in wood.
No one came to meet me. From the steps I entered the ante-room. An old pensioner, seated on a table, was busy sewing a blue patch on the elbow of a green uniform. I begged him to announce me.
“Come in, my little father,” he said to me; “we are all at home.”
I went into a room, very clean, but furnished in a very homely manner. In one corner there stood a dresser with crockery on it. Against the wall hung, framed and glazed, an officer’s commission. Around this were arranged some bark pictures[30], representing the “Taking of Kustrin” and of “Otchakóf”[31], “The Choice of the Betrothed,” and the “Burial of the Cat by the Mice.” Near the window sat an old woman wrapped in a shawl, her head tied up in a handkerchief. She was busy winding thread, which a little, old, one-eyed man in an officer’s uniform was holding on his outstretched hands.
Примечания
1
Celebrated general under Petr’ the Great, and the Tzarina Anna Iwanofna; banished by her successor, the Tzarina Elizabeth Petrofna.
2
Savéliitch, son of Savéli.
3
Means pedagogue. Foreign teachers have adopted it to signify their profession.
4
One who has not yet attained full age. Young gentlemen who have not yet served are so called.
5
Dvorovuiye lyudi, that is to say, courtyard people, or serfs, who inhabit the quarters.
6
Eudosia, daughter of Basil.
7
Diminutive of Petr, Peter.
8
Anastasia, daughter of Garassim.
9
Orenburg, capital of the district of Orenburg, which – the most easterly one of European Russia – extends into Asia.
10
Touloup, short pelisse, not reaching to the knee.
11
John, son of John.
12
One kopek = small bit of copper money.
13
The rouble was then worth, as is now the silver rouble, about 3s. 4d. English money.
14
“Kvass,” kind of cider; common drink in Russia.
15
Whirlwind of snow.
16
Curtain made of the inner bark of the limetree which covers the hood of a kibitka.
17
Marriage godfather.
18
Torch of fir or birch.
19
Tributary of the River Ural.
20
Tea urn.
21
A short caftan.
22
Russian priest.
23
Russian peasants carry their axe in their belt or behind their back.
24
Under Catherine II., who reigned from 1762–1796.
25
i.e., “palati,” usual bed of Russian peasants.
26
Allusion to the rewards given by the old Tzars to their boyárs, to whom they used to give their cloaks.
27
Anne Ivánofna reigned from 1730–1740.
28
One verstá or verst (pronounced viorst) equal to 1165 yards English.
29
Peasant cottages.
30
Loubotchnyia, i.e., coarse illuminated engravings.
31
Taken by Count Münich.