Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov (Penguin Classics) (50 page)

Ivan closed the bag with an iron lock and threw the key out of the window.

Ivan went outside into the world. This time there was no one else. He mounted his horse and set off back home.

His mother saw Ivan coming. At first she didn’t recognize him, although little time had passed since he had left. It was indeed difficult to recognize Ivan. From fighting against the giant warriors he had matured in strength, and thoughtfulness had come onto his face.

Ivan said to his mother, ‘Come with me, mother. I’ve found you a good life.’

They rode to the hut where the warriors had been living.
Ivan sat on the horse, and he held his mother in his arms so that she would not be exhausted by the journey. When they arrived, Ivan’s mother saw at once that it was a good strong hut: yes, brigands always have good huts.

Ivan left his horse outside and led his mother into the hut. They went into the best room. Ivan knocked on the floor with the stick, the same as before. Yashka-Red-Shirt appeared at once: what were their orders?

Ivan said to him, ‘Show everything, just as you showed me before.’

Yashka showed them everything in the world – everything that could be seen and that could not be seen. The mother gazed, wondered and was filled with joy. And when she had gazed her fill, Ivan ordered Yashka:

‘Lay a meal for us on the table.’

Yashka brought many good things. He put bread and salt, foodstuffs and wine on the table, and then disappeared until they should call him again. It was evident that he was humble, that the warriors had taught him obedience.

Ivan’s mother tasted the different foods and washed them down with wine. She felt merry and began to dance. Ivan looked at his mother and felt glad that he had a young mother and that she had a happy heart.

‘Life here will be merrier for you,’ he said.

‘Who knows, my son? It still remains to be seen where life is better.
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I’m afraid there may be brigands here.’

‘You’re right,’ said Ivan. ‘I’ll go out on my horse and have a look.’

The mother was left on her own. She walked about the hut and looked everything over like a true housewife, seeing what was stored where and how many goods had been laid in. The hut was spacious. There were two front rooms, a kitchen and storerooms. The mother could see a large bag hanging on the wall: did it perhaps contain something good? She felt the bag. It was kept shut by an iron padlock and the key wasn’t there. She remembered about Yashka-Red-Shirt, took hold of the stick and knocked on the floor.

Yashka appeared.

‘What are your orders?’

‘Find me the key.’

‘Straight away.’

Yashka found the key and disappeared again. Ivan’s mother opened the iron lock, then watched as a man rose up out of the bag. He had a stretch and pulled back his shoulders; he was strong, handsome and clean-faced. Never had Ivan’s mother seen such a man. The men in her village had all been thin and weak. The earth had consumed them with work, and life had eaten them away with its cares. ‘So this is what a true warrior looks like!’ thought Ivan’s mother. ‘Probably he has a wife of his own, but I can be a guest to him!’

No sooner had the warrior climbed out of the bag than he sat down and ate what was left on the table; he had become very hungry in the empty bag. The warrior ate; his cheeks grew pinker and drops of sweat began to fall from his forehead.

‘Have you had all you want, or do you want more?’ asked Ivan’s mother.

‘I want more,’ said the warrior. ‘Call Yashka!’

The mother knocked with the stick. Yashka appeared. He brought food, drink and various delicacies. And after that, he came twice more, bringing more food.

‘Had enough now?’ asked the mother.

She was looking at the warrior and admiring him. Her heart moved towards him; she had begun to love him.

‘Well,’ said the warrior. ‘I have goods of all kinds and a large hut, but the hut has no mistress.’

‘You’ve got Yashka,’ said the mother. ‘He cooks for you and does everything that needs to be done in the home.’

‘Yashka’s a servant,’ said the warrior. ‘Yashka serves me, but he has no soul. He makes himself useful to anyone. But you – I promise you – can be the mistress here in my home.’

‘I’d gladly be your mistress,’ the mother answered the warrior. ‘But I have a son and I have to talk to him and see what he thinks. If he doesn’t want you as a stepfather, then you’ll never get the better of him. He’ll prove stronger than you.’

‘We’ll do away with your son,’ said the warrior. ‘We’ll rid ourselves of him.’

The mother felt frightened. She began to listen: what would her heart say? And what would her conscience say? Her conscience was saying nothing at all, but her heart was speaking – and her heart loved the warrior. The mother asked, ‘And how are you going to do away with Ivan?’

‘Let me teach you,’ said the warrior.

And he taught her what she must say to her son. Then he climbed back into the bag and hid away.

Ivan came back and found his mother lying ill in bed.

‘Are you ailing, mother?’

‘Yes, my dear son, I’m ailing. But listen to me – I want to tell you something I heard about long ago. Far away from here – you have to go on foot, you can’t get there on horseback – lies a dark forest. And in this forest, together with her cubs, lives a warrior she-wolf. If only you could bring me milk from the breast of that she-wolf! Then I’d drink it and be strong again!’

Ivan listened to his mother and replied, ‘I’ll bring you whatever you need, dearest mother, even if I have to go to the other world.’

Ivan released his horse – out into the open steppe. ‘Let it live free and eat all it wants,’ he thought. ‘Why should it always have to gallop beneath me?’ And he went on foot into the dark forest.

Meanwhile, the warrior, still in his bag, was thinking, ‘Soon the wolf will be tearing Ivan to pieces. She can toss a man half a mile just like that. Soon there’ll be no one stronger than me in the whole wide world!’

The warrior climbed out of the bag.

‘Call Yashka,’ he said to his new mistress, Ivan’s mother. ‘And give me something to eat!’

Ivan, for his part, was making his way through the dark forest. Then he caught sight of the warrior she-wolf. She was dozing beneath a tree, suckling her four cubs.

The she-wolf opened her eyes and looked at Ivan.

Ivan walked up close, sat down beside her and said, ‘Give me some of your milk. If you don’t, I’ll milk you myself. My mother’s ailing. She says she needs your milk to get better.’

The she-wolf thought for a moment: other than mosquitoes
and forest birds, no one in the forest ever came near her – but now a man had appeared right by her side. She would have liked to get up and tear this man to pieces, but it would have been a pity to disturb her children: let them go on feeding.

‘Where will you put the milk?’ asked the she-wolf.

Ivan thought for a moment: he had brought nothing with him.

‘Let one of your cubs fill his mouth with milk,’ he said. ‘Then he can come with me – he can run behind me.’

The she-wolf raised her head off the ground.

‘A little child of my own flesh!’ she said. ‘You cherish your mother, but I cherish my sons. I’m not letting you take one of my sons away.’

Ivan got to his feet, tore up an old oak along with its roots and threw it far into the distance.

‘I’ll bring your child back,’ he said. ‘I won’t harm him in any way.’

The wolf realized she was no match for Ivan in strength.

‘All right,’ she replied, ‘he can go with you.’ Then she licked one of her little cubs and said, ‘Serve the man, as you have served me. Fill your mouth with milk, but don’t swallow it. Go where you must go, and come back to me soon.’

The little wolf cub sucked till his mouth was full, then got up from the ground. Ivan looked at the cub; he was almost as big as a horse.

He and the cub set off at a walk. Then they began to run, to get everything done sooner.

Towards evening Ivan’s mother finished tidying the hut and looked out of the window. There was her son, riding on the back of a wolf: the wolf must have been frightened – he was going at a run.

‘See!’ she said to her warrior. ‘You thought the she-wolf would tear Ivan to pieces, but here he is – riding home on the back of a wolf! Get back into the bag.’

After saying this, she lay down on the bed and began to groan, as if she were ill.

In came Ivan. He took a wooden bowl and told the young wolf-child to pour the milk out from his mouth and into the bowl.

Ivan gave the milk to his mother and said, ‘Drink, dear mother. Then your illness will pass.’

His mother replied, ‘Wait a little, my son. I’ve grown weak. I can’t swallow anything at all now.’

‘As you like, dear mother,’ said Ivan. ‘But I made the wolf cub gallop through the forest, so you’d have help as soon as possible.’

Ivan went back outside to the wolf cub. His mother took the bowl with the she-wolf’s milk and was about to pour it away under the floor. But the warrior peeped out from the bag and said, ‘Give it to me to drink. Maybe it will make me stronger.’

And he drank the milk of a wild beast.

The mother lay down again, as if she were ill. Then the warrior said to her, ‘You must say to your son Ivan that the she-wolf’s milk didn’t help you. Let him go tomorrow to fetch milk from a lioness. He won’t be able to get the better of the lioness. She’ll tear him to pieces and gnaw his bones clean.’

In the morning the mother told her son to go to the lioness.

‘Then maybe I’ll get to my feet again and go on living.’

Ivan called the wolf cub and went into the forest with him. They walked a short way, they walked a long way – but Ivan did not know where the lioness lived. He asked the wolf cub, but the wolf cub did not know either.

‘But my mother’s sure to know,’ said the wolf cub.

They went to ask the mother she-wolf. She was overjoyed that Ivan had brought back her son, her own little cub. And Ivan asked if she knew where the lioness lived.

‘Yes,’ answered the she-wolf. ‘My son can show you the way.’

The mother she-wolf instructed her cub where they should go in order to find the lioness.

This time the wolf cub as big as a horse ran on ahead, while Ivan followed.

They ran for days and nights, through morning and evening twilights, through noons and midnights. There was no longer anything at all. Ivan could see neither forest, nor grassy steppe; all he could see was bare rock. And there, lying beneath a very large rock, was a lioness. She was giving her dugs to her lion-cub children.

The wolf cub felt wary. He stopped. But Ivan went up close to the lioness, seized her by the jaw and was about to tear her in half, to rip her lion’s head from her body. Ivan saw the eyes of the lioness fill with tears. He took his hands away.

‘Don’t kill me, Ivan-Wonder,’ said the lioness. ‘Don’t make my children into orphans. Tell me what you need.’

‘Give me some of your milk. And let one of your children carry it behind me in his mouth.’

‘I don’t cherish my milk,’ said the lioness, ‘but I cherish a son of mine a great deal.’

‘I’ll bring him back to you again,’ Ivan promised her. ‘And I’ll put him back beneath your dug, just as he was.’

This gladdened the lioness, and she let her lion-cub child go with his mouth full of milk.

Ivan set off back home. Now he was one of three.

His mother looked out of the window and saw Ivan coming back home alive, with two wild beasts running behind him. She told the warrior to hide in the bag on the wall and she herself lay down again and began groaning, as if she were ill.

‘What are we going to do now?’ she asked her warrior of a husband.

The warrior crept back into the bag and answered her from inside it, ‘Let Ivan fetch from the eagle an egg that she has not yet sat on. The eagle lives on a cliff. The cliff is on a mountain, and the mountain stands on a hill. Beneath the hill lies an abyss. Ivan will fall from the cliff into the abyss and be dashed to pieces.’

That night the mother gave her warrior husband the milk of the lioness, and in the morning she told Ivan to go and fetch from the eagle an egg that she had not yet sat on. Whoever ate such an egg, she said, was sure to become strong. The milk of the lioness hadn’t, after all, made her any better.

Ivan set off to find the eagle. The two beasts went with him. Ivan came to where the lioness lived and said to her, ‘I’ve brought you your son. Tell me now, for you’ve wandered a long way over the earth: where does the eagle live in her nest?’

The mother lioness instructed her little lion-cub son where to go in the mountains. Then she sent him off with Ivan.

Ivan came to the hill. The hill was steep, but Ivan was agile and patient. He climbed to the top of the hill, and the wolf cub and the lion cub scrambled up after him. But on top of the hill stood a stone mountain, tall and smooth as a wall, and on top of the mountain stood a sheer cliff – and it was there on that cliff that the eagle had her nest. Ivan looked at the mountain of rock and saw that agility was not enough; no degree of agility would help him climb to the top if there were no handholds or footholds. The only way to the top was by flying – but Ivan had no wings. Ivan stood and thought for a while, but he did not grow sad. Instead, he smiled. He had grown quickly in strength, but his good sense and goodness of heart had grown still more quickly. Through work, he understood, the impossible can be made possible.

Then Ivan told the wolf cub and the lion cub that they should each gnaw off one sharp stone. The beasts began gnawing away at the mountain, but they couldn’t gnaw their way through the stone; they were still children and their teeth had not grown properly. They ran back down, found some stones in a stream, took them in their jaws and brought them to Ivan.

Ivan began hitting the mountain with these stones and breaking it up. At first only little crumbs broke away, but then bigger pieces came off and soon Ivan had destroyed a whole slab. And with that slab he began knocking big cliffs out of the mountain – and the mountain began to subside until, in the end, Ivan had taken the whole of it apart. When the peak of the mountain was level with Ivan’s shoulders, he caught sight of the eagle in a cleft up in the very highest cliff of all. She was sitting there in her nest.