Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov (Penguin Classics) (30 page)

Bazhov’s literary activity began with the 1917 October Revolution, when he started editing army and civilian newspapers and writing sketches and short stories. Later, he wrote, ‘It is likely that I would not have written any literary works if the Revolution had not taken place.’ During the Civil War, Bazhov headed army political units, helped to set up partisan units in Siberia and Altai and oversaw initiatives to eradicate illiteracy. For seven years from 1923 he worked for
The Peasants’ Gazette (Krestyanskaya gazeta)
, travelling to villages and factories to gather material for reports on the lives of the workers.

Initially Bazhov had been linked to the Socialist Revolutionary Party, or SRs, but in 1918 he joined the Communist Party. During the Civil War he was taken prisoner by the Whites and escaped. In the 1930s, when former SRs were being persecuted, he wrote to the Party administration denying formal membership of the Socialist Revolutionaries. Nevertheless, he was twice expelled from the Communist Party, in 1933 and in 1937. Bazhov had worked as a censor, and both expulsions resulted from denunciations by an author whom he had censored. On the second occasion, a book he had edited was described as ‘counter-revolutionary’ and ‘Trotskyist’; it was based on a collection of the memories of various revolutionaries, some of whom had been declared ‘enemies of the people’ just as the book came off the press. The book was removed from circulation and Bazhov was fired from his job as editor of a publishing house. A year later, when the men responsible for his expulsion had themselves been declared ‘enemies of the people’, his case was reopened and his Party membership restored, although the book remained banned. After this, Bazhov stopped writing non-fiction.

At the height of the Purges, Bazhov received a summons to the NKVD.
⁴
He packed a small suitcase and arrived at the appointed time, but after waiting for several hours in the corridor he realized that, in the general confusion, they had forgotten about him. Bazhov quietly slipped home and spent a year in hiding, afraid to go out into the streets. With no income of his own, his family was supported by his sister-in-law’s modest teacher’s salary. Bazhov dug in the vegetable patch by day, composing stories, and he devoted his nights to writing them out. Thus emerged the stories that made up the first edition of
The Malachite Casket
.

On his sixtieth birthday, in 1939, the first copy of
The Malachite Casket
came off the press. And in 1943 Bazhov was awarded the Stalin Prize, in response to which he told a friend: ‘Hailed today, jailed tomorrow.’

One day, two men from our town went to look at their grass. Their meadows, however, were a fair distance away. Somewhere beyond Severushka.

It was a holiday, and the heat was sweltering. Both men worked in the mountain, that is to say at Gumeshki. They mined malachite ore, and also lapis lazuli. And when they struck nuggets and nodules of copper and the like, then that too.

One was a young lad, not yet married, and there was a hint of green in his eyes already. The other was a little older. He was completely burnt out from work. His eyes were all green, and there was a dusting of green over his cheeks. And he was forever coughing.

It was good to be in the forest. The birds were singing gaily, there was a haze rising from the earth and the air was gently scented. The lads felt warm and drowsy. They reached the Krasnogorsk mine. In those days they mined iron ore there. Well, our lads lay down on the grass under a mountain ash and went straight to sleep. But the young lad suddenly awoke – as if someone had jabbed him in the side. He looked: in front of him, sitting on a heap of ore near a large stone, was a woman. She had her back to the lad, but he could see from her plait that she was a maiden. The plait was blue-black and, rather than hanging loose as our lasses’ plaits do, it seemed stuck to her back. It was tied with ribbons that shimmered now red, now green. Light shone through them and they were tinkling very softly like copper leaf. The lad marvelled at the plait, and carried on looking at her. The girl had a pleasing figure and was not too tall, and she was such a bundle of energy that she could
not keep still for a moment. She would lean forward as though searching for something underfoot, then spring back again; she would bend to one side, then the other. She would jump to her feet and wave her arms about, then lean forward again. In a word, the girl was quicksilver. He could hear her babbling something, but in what language and to whom he couldn’t make out. Only she said everything with a laugh. She seemed full of mirth.

The lad had been about to say something to her, when all of a sudden it hit him:

‘Oh my, it must be the Mistress herself! Just look at her clothes. How could I not have noticed? It was her plait had me spellbound.’

Her clothes were indeed of a kind you could never find in all the world. Her dress was of silken malachite. There really is such a thing. Stone, but like silk to the eye. And it even feels like silk.

‘What terrible luck!’ thought the lad. ‘How can I get away before she notices me?’ You see, he’d heard about this Mistress – this malachite girl – from the old men. They’d said that she loves to play tricks on people.

He had barely thought this when she turned around. She looked cheerfully at the lad, grinned and said teasingly, ‘Stepan Petrovich, what are you doing staring at a maiden’s beauty for free? People pay money for looking, you know. Come closer. Let’s have a little chat.’

The lad was terrified, of course, but he didn’t show it. He steeled himself. She might be a mysterious power, but all the same she was a girl. Well, and he was a lad – and that meant he was ashamed to appear scared in front of her.

‘I don’t have time for chatting,’ he said. ‘We’ve overslept as it is, and we’re on our way to check the grass.’

She laughed, then said, ‘That’s enough of your play-acting. Come here, I have a proposition for you.’

Well, the lad saw there was no way out. He began to walk towards her, and she gestured with her hand, as if to tell him to walk round the other side of the ore heap. He walked round and there he saw vast numbers of lizards. And they were all
different. Some were green, some were sky-blue merging into indigo, and there were others that looked like clay or sand speckled with gold. Some glistened like glass or mica; others were like faded grass, but they too were adorned with patterns.

The girl laughed.

‘Don’t tread on them,’ she said, ‘Stepan Petrovich, my soldier. See how big and heavy you are, compared to my little ones.’ And she clapped her hands together, and the lizards scattered, freeing a path.

The lad walked closer, then stopped. Then she clapped her hands once more and said, laughing away, ‘Now there’s nowhere for you to step. If you flatten one of my servants, you’ll find yourself in trouble.’

He looked down – now he couldn’t see the ground at all. The lizards had all flocked to one spot, and the ground had become like a patterned floor. Stepan looked: Good grief – so it was copper ore! Every kind, and all burnished. There was mica, and blende, and all sorts of glittering stones, with some that looked like malachite.

‘Well, have you recognized me yet, Stepanushka?’ the malachite girl asked, and she let out a peal of laughter.

Then, after a pause, she said, ‘Don’t be frightened. I won’t do anything bad to you.’

This riled the lad. The girl was mocking him. He grew mighty angry, and he even shouted, ‘I work in the mountain – who do you think
I’m
going to be afraid of?’

‘Good,’ answered the malachite girl. ‘That’s just what I need, a man who’s not afraid of anyone. As you go down into the mountain tomorrow, you’ll see your factory steward. Now here’s what you must say to him – and mind you don’t forget the words: “The Mistress of the Copper Mountain has ordered you, you rank old goat, to clear out of the Krasnogorsk mine. If you go on breaking up this iron cap of hers, she will drive all the copper in Gumeshki so deep that you won’t be able to reach it at all.” ’

She narrowed her eyes and went on, ‘Have you understood, Stepanushka? You say you work in the mountain, that you’re not afraid of anyone? Then do as I bid and say those words to
the steward. And now be on your way – and mind you don’t say anything to the man you came with. He’s burnt out from work, no need to get him mixed up in this. I’ve already told the lapis lazuli to help him a little.’

Again she clapped her hands, and the lizards all scattered. Then she leapt to her feet, gripped a stone with both hands, hopped up onto it and, just like a lizard, scurried across it. Her hands and feet were now green paws, a lizard’s tail was poking out, there was a black stripe going halfway up her spine, while her head was still human. She ran to the summit, turned back and said, ‘Don’t forget what I told you, Stepanushka: “She orders you, you rank old goat, to clear out of Krasnogorsk.” Do what I ask, Stepanushka, and I’ll marry you!’

This made the lad furious. He spat on the ground.

‘Ugh, what an abomination! Marry a lizard!’

Seeing this, she burst into laughter.

‘All right,’ she shouted, ‘we can talk about it later. Maybe you’ll change your mind!’

And she vanished behind the hill, with just a flash of her green tail.

The lad was left all alone. Down at the mine everything was quiet. The only sound was his companion snoring gently behind the heap of ore. He went and woke him. They made their way to the meadows and inspected the grass, then towards evening they turned back for home. Stepan, though, could think about only one thing: what was he to do? To speak like that to the steward would be a grave matter indeed, and, as it happened, the steward really was rank – they said there was something rotting in his insides. The thought of not saying anything was no less frightening. She was, after all, the Mistress. She could change any ore you like into mere blende. How would he ever get his work done then? And worse still, he was ashamed of looking a vain braggart in front of the girl.

He thought and thought, then plucked up his courage: ‘Come what may, I’ll do as she bids.’

The next morning, as the men were gathering at the hoist, the factory steward approached. Everyone took off their caps, of course. Then they fell silent, but Stepan walked up to him
and said, ‘Yesterday I saw the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, and she bade me say this to you. She orders you, you rank old goat, to clear out of Krasnogorsk. If you ruin this iron cap of hers, then she’ll drive all the copper in Gumeshki so deep that nobody will be able to reach it.’

The steward’s moustache began to quiver.

‘What’s this? Are you drunk, or have you gone plain crazy? What mistress? And who do you think you’re speaking to? I’ll have you left in the mountain to rot!’

‘Your will is your will,’ said Stepan, ‘but that is what she bade me say.’

‘Flog him,’ yelled the steward, ‘then take him into the mountain and chain him up at the workface! So he doesn’t peg out, feed him some dog oats, and show him no mercy if he doesn’t meet his task. And if he puts a foot wrong, whip him without pity!’

Well, of course, they flogged the lad and took him into the mountain. The mining overseer, who was also an absolute scoundrel, took him to the very worst stope of all. It was wet there, and there was no decent ore – the place should have been abandoned long ago. They shackled Stepan to the workface, using a long chain so as not to stop him from working. Well, this was in the days of serfdom, you know. There were all manner of abuses against folks. And the overseer said, ‘You can cool off here a bit. Your quota will be such-and-such an amount of pure malachite’ – and he named some unimaginable quantity.

There was nothing for it. As soon as the overseer left, Stepan began swinging his pick, he was a spirited lad, after all. He looked about – and things suddenly didn’t seem so bad. The malachite was just falling off the rock; it was as though someone was tossing it down to him. And the rock face was now quite dry; the water had all disappeared.

‘Now this is good,’ he thought. ‘Seems the Mistress hasn’t forgotten about me.’

Barely had he thought this when something flashed. He looked up – and there was the Mistress, right in front of him.

‘Well done, Stepan Petrovich!’ she said. ‘You have shown yourself to be honourable. You weren’t afraid of the rank old
goat. You spoke out, good and proper. Now come and look at my dowry. I don’t go back on my word either.’

And she knitted her brows a little as though something were troubling her. She clapped her hands, and the lizards came running. They released Stepan from his chain, and the Mistress instructed them: ‘Now, I want double the quota. And make it the very finest malachite, silken grade.’ Then she said to Stepan, ‘Well, my betrothed, let’s go and look at my dowry.’

So off they went. She walked on ahead, and Stepan followed. Wherever she went, the way ahead opened to her. There was one large room after another, and in each one the walls were different. One was entirely green, the next was yellow with gold flecks. In another the walls were covered with copper flowers. Other rooms were deep blue from lapis lazuli. In short, words cannot describe how beautifully the chambers were decorated. And the dress the Mistress wore kept changing. One moment it glinted like glass, the next it suddenly paled, then it began to sparkle with diamond dust, or turn from red to copper, then shimmer silken green again. They walked on and on. Then she stopped.

‘From here on,’ she said, ‘there is mile upon mile of speckled yellow and grey stone. Not worth seeing. And here we are right below Krasnogorsk itself. It’s my most treasured place after Gumeshki.’

Stepan saw a vast room, with a bed, tables, little stools – all made from copper nuggets. The walls were of malachite and diamond, and the ceiling was dark crimson tinged with black, with copper flowers on it.

‘Let’s sit here and talk,’ she said. They sat down on the stools, and the malachite girl said: ‘Have you seen my dowry?’

‘I have,’ said Stepan.

‘So, what do you think
now
about marrying me?’