Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov (Penguin Classics) (49 page)

The cat and the dog caught the fish guts and started to eat. They had only eaten a little when there was a crunch. Something hard. Yes – there was the ring!

They left their food and ran into the village. They ran up to their own hut: was their master there? No, there was no sign of Semyon – and it seemed his mother was still wandering about begging. The cat and the dog ran on into the city, to Semyon’s prison.

The cat climbed up and began walking along the top of the outer wall. She was looking for Semyon, but she had no idea where he was. She wanted to purr or mew to him, but the ring was under her tongue and she was afraid of dropping it.

Towards evening Semyon looked out through his prison window. He wanted a glimpse of the wide world – of the bright world outside his prison. The cat saw Semyon. She climbed down a gutter, then made her way along a wall and into his cell.

Semyon took the cat in his arms. ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘she may only be a cat, but she has a loyal, faithful heart. She hasn’t forgotten me.’

The cat mewed and dropped the magic ring onto the floor in front of him.

Semyon picked it up and summoned the twelve young men.
They appeared straight away. ‘Greetings, dear old master!’ they said. ‘Tell us what you want done. We won’t waste time about it.’

‘Take my mansion from wherever it is now,’ said Semyon, ‘and bring it here. And if there’s anyone living in my mansion, bring him or her along too. I’d like to have a look at them. And you can move the crystal bridge here as well, but turn it so that the other end is in the next village instead of by the imperial hut.’

Semyon’s orders were carried out to the letter. His mansion was back in place straight away. Inside Semyon found the young tsarevna, together with her Aspid. They left quickly and went to live with the tsarevna’s father. Where else could they go?

When Aspid understood just what had happened, when he realized that the tsarevna had lost the ring, his rage transformed him into a viper.

And this time he was unable to turn himself back into a young man, because this rage didn’t pass. He couldn’t get over his fury with the tsarevna. And so Aspid remained a viper. All he could do was curse and hiss at the tsarevna. This made her old father remember Semyon.

‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘Semyon may only have been a peasant but he was a good fellow. And Aspid may be a tsarevich, but he’s a viper.’

And Semyon and his mother, and their cat and dog, were soon all living together again in their mansion.

Semyon now goes every day to the next village. He rides there in his self-powered carriage. With the crystal bridge it’s no distance at all.

They say Semyon’s going to take a wife from that village – that he’s asked for the hand of a young orphan girl who’s even more beautiful than the tsarevna.

Soon there’ll be a wedding. Semyon and the orphan girl will marry and have children. And that will be the beginning of a new tale.

All this was a long time ago; there were people living then, too. Among them were a peasant and his wife. Their life was a good life. The wife knew no harm from her husband and they had enough to eat – though not more than enough; the earth did not bear wheat and rye easily. Their land was a distant land, a forest land where people lived humbly.

For nearly five years the husband and wife lived in harmony in every way, but they had no children and one can’t live without children; a life without children is no life at all.

The husband began to get angry with his wife, and his wife would keep crying. She would go off to the barn, where no one could see her, and weep alone. She would weep and not tell anyone and not say a word to her husband. And what could she have said to her husband? Nothing: a childless wife is as orphaned as a motherless child.

During the sixth year of their marriage the wife fell pregnant and conceived a child. Now the husband was still more furious. ‘This child is no child of mine,’ he said. ‘It’s from someone else. Be off with you. Never let me set eyes on you again!’

Where was the woman to go? Not to her mother and father. In the old days a mother and father would never have allowed a married daughter back into the home. They would have ordered her to return to her husband and do as he said.

The wife resolved, ‘I’ll go where my eyes look. I’ll go into the dark forest. There I’ll meet a fierce beast, and the beast will eat me.’ And so off into the dark forest she went. She was hungry and her hair was hanging loose, and she was thinking, ‘I’ve lived
only a very little of life – but I’m still young, and in my womb I am bearing my first child to his death.’

On she walked into the dark and boundless forest. Here and there she ate a little – a few berries, some roots and herbs that she found in the glades.

The last of her time was coming; soon she would have to give birth. She collected some brushwood and small branches and built herself a little shack. And there she gave birth.

She gave birth to a son, and she gave him the same name as her father: Ivan. She wrapped him in her skirt, warmed him and lifted him to her breast. Ivan drank his mother’s milk, slept a little, then stretched out to her breast again. The mother gave him her breast straight away. Ivan emptied it and stretched out to the other breast.

A day passed, and then another day. The mother could see that her son Ivan was growing like leavened dough. By the third day Ivan was already talking to his mother. On the fourth day it was the mother’s turn to talk; she told her son everything about how people live in the world and how she herself had lived. The mother felt sad and lonely in the forest – but she could see that her son, though he had lived little, had been born with a quick understanding. And so they went on living in the forest, conversing like equals. Before his mother knew it, she and Ivan were equals no more; he had outgrown her. But very little time had passed; it was only a week or two since Ivan had first come into the world.

Ivan got up off the ground, had a stretch, looked into the forest and saw a grey wolf running along. Ivan walked straight towards the wolf, seized him by the scruff of his neck, held him to the ground and pressed down on him – and that was the end of the wolf.

The mother saw what Ivan had done.

‘My son is quick to understand,’ she thought. ‘And he’s strong too! But whether he’s kind and good it’s still too soon to tell.’

The mother flayed the wolf, then laid out the skin on the floor of their shack. Ivan took the flesh of the wolf outside and threw it down on the ground, not far away.

Two bears came up and tried to snatch the meat, each wanting it for itself, and they began to fight.

The mother saw the bears and felt frightened.

‘The bears will eat us, my son.’

‘They won’t touch us. I’ll share out the meat for them, and they’ll quieten down.’

Ivan went out, tore the meat in half and threw it to the bears, giving each an equal portion. Then he went back to his mother. But the bears had seen Ivan tearing the wolf’s flesh and the bones flying every which way, and they felt wary: what if Ivan began tearing them in half too? And so the bears went off into the forest, without eating any of the wolf meat at all.

Ivan began wandering about further. To feed his own mother, he needed to gather berries and dig up sweet roots. And besides, he wished to have a look at the earth. He had been born on earth to see light, but all he had seen so far was the mother who had given birth to him and dark forest. His mother, though, had told him that not everywhere was forest, that there was also open steppe.

Ivan went off to look for open steppe. He saw a path. ‘I’ll walk somewhere trodden,’ he thought. ‘I’ve never done that before.’ He went a little way. Then he heard a knock and a clatter. The leaves on the trees began to tremble. Ivan stopped; he didn’t know what to think.

Wild horses were running past him on their way to a drinking place. But Ivan had never set eyes on horses before and he had no idea who these horses were. He seized one horse by the mane, so that it would stop and he could have a good look at it. The horse tried to keep going; it would have torn any other man’s arm from his shoulder – but Ivan had been born mighty strong … He gave a sharp tug to the horse’s mane that made the horse kneel on the ground before him. It looked at Ivan out of the corner of one eye and then got back onto its feet, dumbstruck.

Soon after this Ivan walked up to his mother. He was walking on foot, holding the horse by its mane.

When his mother saw this, she said, ‘Why are you leading the horse when you could be riding on it?’

The mother told her son how he should ride on a horse. Ivan leaped onto the horse and shouted into its ear. Frightened by his voice, the horse galloped off. Trees trembled at the mere sight of the horse; bushes flew out from under its hooves.

Ivan came out into open steppe. Here it was bright, and the sky above him was full of space, not like in the forest. The sight of all this filled Ivan with joy. The horse beneath him galloped on ever further. Now Ivan could see strangers walking about, and some kind of huts standing on the ground. They were covered with yellow grass. Ivan had never seen other people before, only himself and his mother. Nor had he ever seen villages, and huts covered with straw.

Right into his horse’s ear Ivan shouted, ‘Stop!’

The horse was so frightened it stopped then and there.

Ivan told the horse to wait for him while he walked through the village. He felt like having a look at the wide world, at people, at things he had never seen before.

Ivan saw little children walking along the village street. He himself, of course, was a little child, even though he was big and strong.

He went into the street and stood in the middle of the little children. He wanted to play. He lifted up one child and turned the child’s head towards him. He wanted to stroke the child or say something childish to it, but then he saw that the child’s head had fallen onto the ground. ‘What’s the matter?’ Ivan wondered. ‘Why’s it flown off like that? Hasn’t it grown on properly yet?’

He went up to a little boy the same age as himself and took him by the hand. The boy’s whole arm fell off. Ivan began to feel pity for these little children. He picked the head up from the ground, stuck it on the headless child’s neck and pressed down on it; it grew back, just as it had been before. Then he put the arm back in place, and it took root too.

Ivan mounted his horse and galloped off. On runs his steed – the earth trembles indeed. If a stove is unsound, it falls to the ground. If a hut has weak walls, to the ground this hut falls.

No good, Ivan realized, came from a gallop like this. He shouted into his horse’s ear, ‘You there! Wolf meal, grass gobbler! Stop pounding the ground – fly along it instead!’

The horse flew on still faster, no longer even troubling the grass beneath it.

Ivan rode a long way. He looked around him. There was nothing but open steppe, and the sky was touching the edge of the earth. And there on the edge of the earth he could see a little hut. Ivan rode up to the little hut. He tethered his horse and went inside. The table had been laid; on it was both food and wine. Ivan tried the food. He liked it; there were both salty dishes and sweet dishes – everything he could have wanted. Then he tried the wine – and didn’t like it at all. It made his mouth feel all bitter. Ivan saw a stick that had been cut and trimmed; it was standing in the corner. He took it in his hand: was it strong? Might it come in useful? He knocked it against a floorboard. From under the floor jumped Yashka-Red-Shirt.

‘What are your orders?’

‘Well,’ Ivan answered, ‘what can you do? Show me everything in the world.’

Yashka-Red-Shirt opened a view for Ivan: now Ivan could see everything in the world. As for Yashka himself – he just went back where he’d come from.

Ivan knocked on the floor a second time. Straight away Yashka-Red-Shirt was there in front of him.

‘What are your orders?’

‘I’ve looked long enough. Close the view. Let something be left for my mother to look at.’

Now there was nothing. ‘I’ll go and fetch my mother,’ thought Ivan. ‘It’s lighter living in open steppe.’

But just as Ivan was crossing the threshold, he saw a giant warrior coming towards him. This hut was the warrior’s home.

‘Who are you and where are you from?’ asked the warrior. ‘Who asked
you
to come and make yourself at home here, you know-nothing lout?’

‘I’m not a know-nothing,’ said Ivan. ‘I’m my mother’s son.’

This angered the warrior. He hit Ivan with his fist.

‘Huh!’ said Ivan. ‘You didn’t bring me into this bright world, and you’re not going to force me out of this bright world!’

Ivan seized hold of the warrior, lifted him off the ground, swung him horizontally through the air and hurled him
somewhere far off. The warrior struck the ground and that was the end of him.

Ivan went over to his horse. He looked up – and saw another giant warrior coming towards him. He was the brother of the one before, but he was still stronger and fiercer.

‘Who asked
you
here, you unwashed, know-nothing lout?’

The warrior was about to attack Ivan, but Ivan seized him and threw him against the ground. And that was the end of the warrior – he had breathed his last breath. All Ivan could see was a little steam rising off him. Ivan tried to grab hold of the steam, but he was left empty-handed. It was a shame that nothing remains of a man. What was Ivan to do now? He’d rather the warrior could go on being a warrior. After all, there was nothing that could frighten Ivan. ‘But what can I do,’ thought Ivan, ‘so as not to damage a man to death? It would be better to teach him a lesson first. Then he can be alive and know.’

Up rode another warrior, the brother of the two who were no more.

‘What kind of a know-nothing are you?’

‘I’m no know-nothing. I’m my mother’s son.’

The warrior seized hold of Ivan, meaning to kill him, but Ivan just took him in his arms and began wondering what to do with him. There on the wall he could see a large bag. Ivan stuffed the warrior into the bag, crumpling him so that he would fit in better, and hung the bag back on the wall, on an oak peg. Let the warrior hang there, bent more than double.