The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 4/Fame (2)
It was a strange gathering. In this magnificent mountain region, which ten or so years previously had still swarmed with savage Circassians, on the slope of a Caucasian height, was this cheerful European party, comfortably arranged in the thick grass around a huge shining samovar, with two sturdy Cossacks and the horses grazing in the background as a picturesque setting.
The tea gave an inner warmth, the sun glowed from above, several faces were beaded with drops of sweat, what did it matter! The Chinese nectar fulfilled its duty. Whenever I saw such a party of Russians around the samovar, and then noticed how their faces became radiant, their eyes gleamed with satisfaction, their lips became inclined for mirth and conversation, and even their gestures and movements acquired a greater vivacity, I always used to think that tea is to the Russians almost what water is to the fish, a vital element in which they must be continually splashing about, if they are not to lose their proper humor. From the samovar comes the breath of the Russian animation.
“What were you arguing about so excitedly just now?” asked Anna Kirilovna suddenly.
“About something which I expect is of little interest to you, darling.” said Tabunov with a smile. “About fame.”
“About fame? You are right. An argument about the preserving of fruit would certainly have interested me more.”
“But,—Anna Kirilovna!” twittered Duňaška. “Do you think so little of fame then? Ah, I should like to be famous. What a pity that I can’t become a General. . . How lovely that would be! You know, like in Lermontov’s poem:
The battalion comes,
See the banners in the van-guard,
Hear the beat of drums.
Tried in many frays,
Leads his soldiers into battle,
Sternness in his gaze.
At this she became silent, her face bashfully reddening, and in embarrassment she lowered her little auburn head....but she immediately raised it again, looked round merrily with gleaming eyes, her white teeth flashing with suppressed laughter; she rubbed her hands hastily and wriggled like a chicken among the ashes,—a charming combination of child-like shyness and playfulness.
“Well,” Suslikov chimed in, “we have all expressed our opinions about this subject, but Pavel Semenovič has contributed only a mysterious smile to our discussion. Let us hear your ideas as well, Pavel Semenovič.”
“Yes, yes, Pavel Semenovič,—you also must tell us what you think about fame,” exclaimed the rest.
Tabunov smiled and reflected for a moment. Something like a shadow flitted suddenly across his face, and with his former smile he remarked: “So you are asking me what fame is in my opinion? Very well then, I will tell you. But I warn you that it will take a very long time,—it is a regular history.”
“That doesn’t matter. Let us hear it. We have still plenty of time,” announced the voices of the inquisitive members of the party round about.
While at the touch of Anna Kirilovna’s plump hand the steaming liquid from the silvery falcon’s beak which formed the ornamental cap of the samovar filled his glass, Tabunov rolled a cigarette, whereupon, after taking a hearty gulp of tea and blowing a few whitish rings of fragrant smoke, he began thus: “Last year, one day in the spring, I was in the bazaar, when a Czech settler from Metodějovka came to me and asked me to ride over to see his son who was ill. I promised that I would look in there during the afternoon, and immediately after lunch I galloped on horseback to the Czech settlement near by.”
“Have you paid a visit yet to your fellow countrymen there?” asked the surgeon turning to me, and when I nodded my head in reply, he continued: “Well, you saw there a group of tiny huts standing between the foot of the mountains on one side and the fringe of the impenetrable, marshy forest on the other. As a matter of fact you can catch a glimpse of the village from where we are now.. Besides that one, there are a number of other Czech settlements in this district, Kyrilovka, Glebovka, Vladimirovka, Pavlovka and Varvarovka. Well, our Government wanted to form a settlement of Czechs all over the district which had been left bare after the migration of the Circassians. But somehow or other it was not successful. Why? I do not wish to express a definite opinion on the subject. What is certain is that the whole of this scheme for colonisation fell through. The emigrants cannot carry on agriculture here entirely as they are accustomed. It is true that a certain amount of rye and barley,—corn to a smaller extent,—is cultivated, but the chief attention has to be paid to tobacco, vines, maize and cattle breeding. That at least is my view. There is little outlet for the produce. Our people are not used to the climate which is rather unhealthy. Besides that there is the remoteness of this region, the sparse population, the scanty connection with the rest of the world. But I think that in spite of it all the Czech settlers could have prospered here after overcoming the first difficulties and getting used to the character of the country. The soil is fertile, there is an abundance of supplies. If you go over to the Government of Tiflis, you will see there a number of pleasant German settlements; a stone church, a school, neat and inviting cottages built of bricks and beams, covered with vines, with beautiful little gardens in front, everything is orderly and clean, there are stalwart men in German attire, sturdy girls in broad straw hats,—in short, you would imagine that you had been conveyed by magic to some township right in the middle of Germany. But I must cease reflecting about colonisation, and return to my story.
“So I rode to Metodějovka, and on the way my thoughts were occupied with my new patient. From what the father had told me in the morning about his only son, he was not an uninteresting person, especially in our district. I understood that he had completed his studies at school in his native land, and had in fact even attended the University, but he had not finished his studies, he had got hold of various queer ideas, had given up studying, and, to make matters worse, had fallen ill,—in short, he had returned as a worthless student to his father in the country and had remained there. Then his health had gradually improved. But shortly after that, his father had been induced by unfavorable circumstances to emigrate to the Caucasus. He had taken his son with him. The latter was not a suitable partner for this region, where there is a need for strong and industrious hands. The young man then began to fall ill again, and this time he had to take to his bed. As far as I could judge from his father’s brief remarks. he was suffering from a disease of the chest. This was a sad ending for a voung man’s wasted life, here in this distant and lonely foreign country.
“Amid such thoughts I reached the end of my journey. The sick man’s parents. a solemn, elderly farmer, and his statelv middle-aged wife with kind features now filled with sadness, led me amid the freshly whitewashed walls of a low room, the ceiling of which consisted only of logs and planks, and the floor of which was formed of earth stamped down flat. Unvarnished chairs and a table of soft wood, a small mirror decorated with a switch of catkins and a number of tawdry pictures of Saints,—this was the whole furniture. One part of the room was divided off by a plank partition of medium height something like a screen, upon which were pasted little pictures cut out of calendars and papers. Behind it I found my patient.
He was a young man of about twenty-four, of slender build and with a longuish face, the features of which were exactly regular and beautiful, but which nevertheless, and also in spite of the thinness and pallor caused by his illness, could not be called ugly. His pallor was heightened by his thick black hair which in a state of disorder enclosed his high white forehead and his sunken temples and cheeks. His eyes were dark, large and with a kind of dreamy stare. He was lying upon a straw mattress on top of a coarse sheet which covered a wretched bedstead of plain wood, with three ordinary red-striped pillows under his head, and dressed in an old, faded and tattered dressing gown. In the recess behind him, upon the chair by the bed and upon the ground, various books and papers lay scattered in disorder. Upon my arrival he raised himself laboriously from the bed, slipped a pair of worn-out slippers on his feet, and propped himself up with his delicate and almost transparantly white hand against the back of the chair. But at that moment he was shaken by a violent and painful fit of coughing, and his weak body sank halfway back on to the bed.
When his coughing had become easier, I addressed him in Czech. I am something of a Panslav, as they call it in Western countries; I have become especially fond of your language, and from grammars and books as well as from frequent contact with the settlers here, I have acquired it sufficiently well to speak it with a fair amount of fluency. I asked him a number of questions directed towards the diagnosis of his illness. He replied briefly. but all at once he asked with a vivid gleam in his eye:—“Are you a Czech, sir?”
“No, but I understand Czech fairly well’ I answered.
“How glad I am of that” said the sick man and added softly: “I am anxious for you, sir, to ask my parents to go out of the room. I should very much like to speak to you alone.”
After looking at him with a slight astonishment, I complied with his request. When we were left alone in the room, the sick man stood up and throwing the books off the chair by the bed, he offered it to me with a weary movement of his hand and a beseeching glance: then he sat or rather sank down on the edge of the bed and pronned himself up with his hands against the bed-post. Through the small windows, from which could be seen the rankly tangled brushwood of the forest close by, pierced a narrow strip of sunshine, which, lightly sprinkling a golden tinge unon the hair by the sick man’s temples, fell like a halo upon the sinall portrait of Byron pasted among the other pictures on the partition.
“I dare say” began the young man in a low voice, and from time to time his speech was interrupted by a fit of coughing, “that my father told you I deserted my studies and ruined my prospects. And yet I have conscientiously fulfilled my task in life. I know very well that I have not much longer to live. Do not shake your head, do not smile comfortingly,—I do not need any consolation. Whether my end comes within a year, or within a week,—I shall die contented. What I was able to accomplish in this short life of mine, I have accomplished. I have worked diligently, of course, my good but simple parents could not appreciate this work, but I have concealed it from others as well. A comparison with the growth of maize forces itself upon my mind; in its green husk, concealed from human eyes, it seethes and ripens until finally the leafy covering withers and falls, and the splendid crop of golden grain emerges to view. In the same way, what I have created in secret will soon come to light. This bodily wrapping will fall and decay, but the fruit will remain and shine for evermore. You are an educated man. Moreover I have had confidence in you from the very first moment I saw you. Well then, I will entrust you with my secret,—I am a poet.”
So he was a poet! So he was a victim of that youthful sickness from which happily the vast majority recover soon after their moustache begins to grow, but which nevertheless causes a few to rhyme themselves gradually to death. In my youth I myself meddled with “The golden strings of the lyre.” But now it is a long time since I even read any poems. I do not care for them, especially lyrical ones. I am not fond of exciting myself over other people’s fantasies, especially as they are always a little artificial. My poem is the starry night, when I am returning on horseback from a patient through the slumbering forest, in whose black chaos glimmers the flowery cynosure of the wild elder-tree which dazes me with the strength of its fragrance. when the thicket in front of me is set asparkle by a swarm of glow-worms, so that it lookes like Moses’ burning bush . . . My poem is the hurricane when it sweeps down with its mighty blast upon our golf. so that masts are shattered, waves beat howling and hissing upon the shore, and the forest shrieks and groans dreadfully. It might be supposed that, holding such opinions as these. I coldly drew the young poet’s attention to the fact that I was not an editor but a doctor, and that I had no time for literary discussions. But actually I felt deep compassion for this young man.
“Yes. I am a poet,” continued the sick man after a while. “Not one of those vain young men who rack their brains with the counting of syllables merely so that they can plume themselves with the name of poets. I am a true poet, one of the elect. Yes, I am,—I am! It is only ecstacy which summons me to song, now, even now it approaches afresh,—it roars like an ocean,—I feel it here in my throbbing temples,—here upon my trembling lips,—here within my quivering breast,—my whole body from head to foot is set astir by this blissful tempest.”
At that moment he was like a different man. He stood up with lifted hand; it seemed as if his limbs had suddenly gained strength and suppleness, movements of fire. His eyes glittered rapturously beneath the arched curve of their delicate brows, his cheeks reddened slightly, his gentle beardless face was at that moment almost beautiful. And his cough had left him for the time being.
It was like the outburst of some mental malady. I pointed out to him that excitement of that sort would do him harm. He sat down again silently and lifting up the pillow, reached deep down beneath the straw mattress. With a trembling hand he drew forth a voluminous pile of paper which was covered with verses. He laid it down upon his lap and slowly turning over the leaves, he continued: “Here you see my life’s work which is now all but completed. I composed the greater part of it here in the Caucasus, but secretly, because my good father would not allow this “everlasting useless writing.” Nobody has yet had a glimpse of these papers, and except you, nobody will see them before my death. I am not concerned about fame during my life time, about appearing in the literary arena, where the feverish bustle of the ambitious, the petty intrigues of rivals, the verdicts of unqualified judges, the applause or abuse of the common rabble tarnish the pure radiance of poetry and poison the soul,—what I am striving after is fame beyond the grave, the wafting of my spirit, as I have embodied it in this poem, above the stream of future ages. But sir, I have an urgent favor to ask of you. I regard you as the one whom fate has sent me as the executor of my will. Are you willing to undertake this task?”
“Oh, you have plenty of time to make your will.” I remarked with a forced smile. “however, if you have a wish and if it is in my power to fulfill it, I shall be glad to be of service to you.”
“Well sir, I want you to take charge of the publication of this work of mine after I am dead. I will give you the names of persons in my country to whom you could apply in this matter. I am certain that you will soon find someone there who would undertake to publish my literary remains. You need only send a copy for their inspection. Perhaps I shall still have time myself—”
“No, you must not write now.” I interrupted him. “I will see to the copy myself. You can rely upon me entirely.”
“Thanks, my warmest thanks”, whispered the sick man, at the same time handing me the manuscript of his work. “But for the present please take these poetical remains of mine, and read something of them when you get home, even if it is only few pages. Perhaps you will find some spare time for it. And then tell me candidly, what impression it has made on you. You will be the only man whose opinion I shall hear.”
“But I must confess to you,” I objected, “that I do not know very much about poetry.”
“Oh, every educated man can understand a real poem. Anyhow, your opinion will not change my own opinion in any way. Well, will you grant my second request as well?”
“If it means a lot to you,—with pleasure.”
Embarrassed by the strange task which I had undertaken, I turned the leaves over. The first one was blank. “You have not found a title yet?” I could not help asking.
“I have not even thought about it yet. What does a title matter?”
“And here is a dedication: To the Unknown. Of course you have left this Unknown with your heart on the shores of Vltava?”
“Oh, not at all. She really is unknown to me,—and yet known. I cannot tell, how I am to explain this properly to you. While I was still a child, a bewitching form, a beautiful face, hovered before my imagination,—but I never saw it as a real thing. I might call it my ideal of maidenly beauty. And yet I always felt convinced that it is not mere ideal, that this lovely form does actually live, and that one day I shall certainly meet with it. Now of course I have already abandoned this foolish hope. But in dreams and meditations this vision has accompanied me through my whole life. Nay, more than that. I have seen it not only in dreams and in meditations when my eyes were closed, but at times it hovered in the air before me, as if it were woven from sunbeams, mistily fragile and vet visible. I could almost draw her charming features for you,—only those eyes,—no, not the brush of the greatest master could catch the beauty of those eyes, the radiant blue, like the peaceful surface of the sea, when the gleaming sky is reflected in it. Whether I gazed into the shifting clouds, into the dusk of tangled forest branches, into the drab corner of this room,—her beautiful countenance always emerged from there at the last. My spirit had no place for any other besides her. She was the invisible queen of my heart. How often in imagination have I walked with her through the alluring solitude of old parks, amid the festive stir of splendid halls, in enchanted palaces and gardens of a fairy world. I hope that when my last moment comes, her face will emerge from his ceiling above me, that she will tremblingly descend towards me with open embrace, and that I shall die with her kiss upon my brow as it grows numb.”
This is very much like a fixed idea, I thought to myself. In order to end the conversation, which was causing the sick man more and more excitement, I said as I stood up: “Well then, I will read it through, and I will visit you again the day after tomorrow.”
“I shall be very grateful to you,” declared the young man. “But please bring back the manuscript with you. I will let you have it again later,—if it comes to the worst, you will find it here in the bed, in the hiding-place under my pillow. I only want to finish writing the epilogue now.”
“You must write nothing now,” I urged him insistently; “it would do you a great deal of harm. You must keep your mind completely at rest.”
He said nothing.
I made the necessary medical arrangements with regard to his illness, and having comforted his distressed parents, I galloped back to Novorossijsk, with the voluminous manuscript clutched to my chest. As I passed the last cottage of Metodějovka, I caught sight of a girl running amongst the trees of the dense wood which skirts the roadway. Where the thicket hid the village from me at the bend in the road, the girl suddenly stepped out from behind a tree-trunk. Clearly she had run across the wood so as to intercept me and speak to me without being observed from the village. She called out to me in Czech, and jumped nimbly up to my horse. I stopped.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I wanted,—to ask you, Doctor,—” stammered the girl in embarrassment.
“Well?”
“—How Jan is.”
“Jan? Ah, the sick student? Why do you want to know? Are you a relative of his?”
I looked at her more closely. She was a sturdy village girl of about eighteen. Good-looking and well-made. She had a pleated kerchief, displaying the fiery color of wild poppy, twisted at the back around her fair hair, which was almost of a whitish color, and her lear brown eyes were full of radiance and life. Her full fresh lips resembled the most beautiful cherries. Her body, dressed in the simple garb of Czech village girls, revealed an abounding vitality, but at the same time a symmetry and beauty of figure. In short, she was a guilelessly alluring village girl in the full fresh bloom of youth and beauty. As I looked at her lowered eyes and the glowing blush with which her face was suffused, I easily guessed all.
“Confess,” I said, pointing my finger in playful threat.
She blushed still more vividly and bent her head. She raised the tip of her flower-pattern apron to her eyes, and when she turned them towards me again, tears were glistening beneath them.
“Ah no,” she said. “He doesn’t like me. He despises me. And I am so sorry for him,—I would give my life to make him well again. But don’t tell him that I said so. He would be angry with me. I think that he has hated me for a long time. He never had a kind look for me, although we were neighbors at home in Bohemia. He never had a friendly word for any of the girls from the village,—he is in love with some lady of high rank.”
He is in love with the empty air, with a phantom, with a creation of his morbid fancy,—and here is this beautiful and wholesome reality, I thought to myself.
“He does nothing but write,” continued the girl; “writing isn’t good for him, is it?”
“No, not at all.”
“He writes in the night time as well,—only yesterday there was a light in his window until after midnight,—he was writing,—he was seen by,—by,—one of his neighbors.”
“Indeed? Well, at my next visit I must see that it does not occur again. Otherwise he will certainly bring an early death upon himself. Goodbye.”
I spurred my horse on, and heard the girl’s thanks behind me as I cantered towards Novorossijsk.
Tabunov stood up.
“Well, go on, go on,” said various members of the party.
But the surgeon declared with determination: “We must strike our tents and move forwards if we are to reach our destination before the swelter of noon. Then in the pleasant shadow I will finish my story about fame.”