Delphi Collected Poetical Works of Nikolay Nekrasov (Illustrated)

By Nikolay Nekrasov

Nikolay Nekrasov was a Russian poet, critic and publisher, whose deeply compassionate poems about peasant Russia made him the hero of liberal and radical circles of the intelligentsia. He is credited with introducing into Russian poetry ternary meters and the technique of dramatic monologue; working as the editor of several literary journals, Nekrasov was also singularly successful and influential, launching the career of Leo Tolstoy. The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of literature's finest poets, with superior formatting. This volume presents Nekrasov’s complete poetical works, with beautiful illustrations and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)

* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Nekrasov's life and works
* Concise introduction to Nekrasov’s life and poetry
* Excellent formatting of the poems
* Rare poems translated by Juliet M. Soskice, first time in digital print
* Includes Nekrasov’s epic poem WHO CAN BE HAPPY AND FREE IN RUSSIA?, translated by Juliet M. Soskice
* Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry
* Easily locate the poems you want to read
* Features a bonus biography - discover Nekrasov's literary life
* Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres

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CONTENTS:

The Life and Poetry of Nikolay Nekrasov
INTRODUCTION: NIKOLAY NEKRASOV
POEMS OF NIKOLAY NEKRASOV
WHO CAN BE HAPPY AND FREE IN RUSSIA?

The Poems
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

The Biography
NICHOLAS NEKRASOV: A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE by David Soskice

Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of poetry titles or buy the entire Delphi Poets Series as a Super Set

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Feb 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781786562111

Book preview

Nikolay Nekrasov

(1821-1878)

Contents

The Life and Poetry of Nikolay Nekrasov

INTRODUCTION: NIKOLAY NEKRASOV

POEMS OF NIKOLAI NEKRASOV

WHO CAN BE HAPPY AND FREE IN RUSSIA?

The Poems

LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

The Biography

NICHOLAS NEKRASOV: A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE by David Soskice

The Delphi Classics Catalogue

© Delphi Classics 2017

Version 1

Nikolay Nekrasov

By Delphi Classics, 2017

COPYRIGHT

Nikolay Nekrasov - Delphi Poets Series

First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2017.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78656 211 1

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

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The Life and Poetry of Nikolay Nekrasov

Nekrasov’s birthplace, Nemyriv, Podolia Governorate, Russian Empire

Nemyriv is today known as Vinnytsia Oblast in Ukraine

INTRODUCTION: NIKOLAY NEKRASOV

by Lascelles Abercrombie

THE works of the great Russian novelists have long been international property; and though poetry must, as a rule, travel beyond its native language more slowly than prose, some of the great Russian poets, such as Pushkin and Lermontov, have long been at least international names. But until Mrs. Soskice published, in a previous volume of this series, her translation of Who Can be Happy in Russia, Nekrasov, the author of this ‘epic’ (it is not an epic: but what else can one call it?) — Nekrasov, whom Russians regard as one of the very greatest of their poets — was, except for professed students of things Russian, a name entirely unknown in England. The fact was deplorable, first because Nekrasov can tell us what nobody else has told us; secondly, and chiefly, because Nekrasov is a poet whom no lover of poetry can afford to miss. But it was a very explicable fact. Tolerable translators of prose are not uncommon. A great prose author, obviously calling for translation, is pretty sure to find it. Even a mediocre translation will do. For in translating prose there is not so much that is liable to be lost, and of what survives there is not so much that is liable to be changed, as in translating poetry. The person who can re-create in another language the more complex, more highly organized and subtle life of poetry is a very unusual person. It is not surprising, therefore, that we should have had to wait so long for a translation of Nekrasov’s poems. That, however, does not altogether explain why Nekrasov’s name should have been so long a blank to us; for it is an odd fact, that the names and reputations of poets often go far beyond any knowledge of their work. Of those who know the name of Hafiz, what proportion knows anything of his poetry? Pushkin and Lermontov are international names; but is their work international? Nevertheless, it seems that, however the reputation of it may have got abroad, and however vaguely it may have been understood, it has been some international quality in their work that has given these names their great momentum. But in the case of Nekrasov, there was no such quality, the reputation of which might carry his name abroad. Of all Russian poets he is perhaps the most distinctively Russian; of all modern poets, it might possibly be said, he is the most national. Outside Russia, his reputation as a poet could only await the chance of an adequate translation.

Russians, we are told, find in Nekrasov something analogous to that which we may suppose the ancient Greeks found in Homer. The analogy, at first sight, might seem injudicious. But the suggestion is not that Who can be happy in Russia compares, or was ever meant to compare, with the splendour of the Homeric art or the grandeur of the Homeric theme. It is simply that in Nekrasov, as in Homer, a nation recognizes, typified once for all, and rendered into a shapely comprehension, its own peculiar manner of being conscious of its own peculiar life, as history, geography, ethnology, and a hundred other factors, have determined it. Nekrasov’s critics, I understand, even his Russian critics, accuse him of being ridden — perhaps hag-ridden — by a single idea. The accusation refers, apparently, to what we may roughly call his political attitude; and will certainly be ignored by those who are to decide whether translations from Nekrasov are worth making — whether, in fact, he shall take his place among the great poets of Europe as well as of Russia. For that, he will simply be judged as a poet; the judges will have no knowledge of and no concern with Russian politics, past or present. We may share his indignation against the censorship, because the mutilations it inflicted on his poetry are injuries to us as well as to him. But what does it matter, for Nekrasov’s poetic reputation outside Russia, what the politician in him thought about serfdom? As little as it matters, for Shakespeare’s poetic reputation, what he thought about the monarchy. Nevertheless, that Nekrasov was, as a poet, ridden by a single idea is the most obvious truth about him; and that idea was Russia. We are not to expect in him those ideas which bear the unmistakable stamp of international currency, like the ideas of Goethe, Shelley, or Leopardi. His theme is simply Russia: what life in Russia is, and means; and even if it is what life in Russia wants, the want is as Russian as the fact from which it seeks to escape.

It might very reasonably be thought, then, that a person who knows nothing about Russia, Russian, or Russians could hardly be the right person to introduce this second volume of Mrs. Soskice’s translations from Nekrasov. And yet it is, perhaps, my very ignorance which makes it permissible for me to assume that honour; since, after all, it is for people like me that such work is intended. The experts do not need it; and though they can tell us whether a translation is, according to this or that theory of the business, a good one or not, it is not they who put the test by which a translation must finally justify itself. We, the ignorant, are the people to do that; for to us a translation comes simply as a poem written in our own language. That is the crucial test. No doubt we like to feel that the translation is loyal to its original; but we shall not inquire too nicely what form this loyalty takes (and it may take many forms). And as soon as we begin to read, the question how far these English verses resemble verses written in a tongue we do not know, and probably never shall know, becomes a matter that interests us but faintly. What does interest us is just this: what is it that these English verses actually and positively give us in themselves? What new experience in the realm of poetry have we here?

Well, we have Russia: that seems to be the plain answer; and it seems to be also an answer that contradicts a good part of what I have just been saying. If Russia is Nekrasov’s gift to us, who can value the gift but those who already know something about it? Must not the value of it lie in its truth? And how can the ignorant judge of that? But poetry is nothing if it does not transmute the local and temporary into the universal and permanent; every time a poet expresses his experience in his art, he effects that, whatever his experience may have been. What is this Russia which Nekrasov gives us? — for we are not now concerned with any other Russia. We must admit, in the first place, that when poetry so national as Nekrasov’s is translated, the result for us must be very different from the effect of the original on his own people. Everything that is circumstantial in Nekrasov — the climate, the scene, the manners, the social structure, the average mentality — everything, that is to say, that must seem to a Russian entirely homely and familiar, has on us an effect clean contrary; it strikes us as wholly strange and outlandish. But it is not my business to speculate what Nekrasov may mean to his countrymen; I am merely trying to suggest, judging from myself, how a translation of Nekrasov is likely to appeal to the intelligent ignorant, to whom the whole notion of Russia is foreign. What will be the result of this sense of the strange and outlandish in the setting of his poetry? Will it be the annoyance, or perhaps the fascination, of the incomprehensible? I am sure it will be neither. About anything that can be brought under the heading of that disastrous word ‘psychology’, nonsense is sure to be talked. A great deal of nonsense has been talked about ‘Russian psychology’; by which is simply meant the behaviour of Russian temperament under Russian conditions. This is certainly, to us, strange enough; but, I believe, only superficially; and I doubt whether it is any more incomprehensible than the behaviour of Elizabethan temperament under Elizabethan conditions.

Now the effect of this outlandish setting and circumstance of Nekrasov’s poetry seems to be just this: it throws into unusual imaginative isolation its essential humanity; so that every gesture it mentions, every movement in it of thought and feeling, take on an air of important emphasis, and seem somehow vivid with significance. That is how it appeals to us; but it is the mark of great poetry that it can adapt its appeal to all sorts of readers. The final result, however, is no doubt the same for all. Nekrasov’s poetry can no more appeal to Englishmen in the same way as it does to Russians, than Paradise Lost (which is, or was, popular in Russia) can appeal to Russians in the same way as it does to Englishmen. But in each case, the difference of appeal will doubtless be found to lead to the same conclusion. In Nekrasov, by whatever means his poetry makes its effect on us, it is plain that we have a poet who is entirely content to abide by the reality of things; and reality, for him, is humanity. But his artistic contentment with reality proceeds from his extraordinary capacity not merely for seeing it but for seeing into it. In the lucid, lively movement of his art, we seem to have before us the very passage of reality, with its infinite pathos strangely complicated with infinite humour; and we watch this poetic reality with a clairvoyance which makes the familiar reality of everyday things seem, by comparison, a mist of baffling illusion. Let Red-Nose Frost, that masterpiece of a kind that cannot be paralleled in any other poet, typify what Nekrasov has to say, whether to Russian or to Englishman, whether by means of entirely national or by means of entirely foreign circumstance. There is astonishing penetration here into the inmost nature of humanity; there is an equally astonishing faithfulness to the harsh simplicity of mere fact. And by whatever means the appeal has been made, what comes home is a unique moment of understanding what an inexplicable world this is, and what an inexhaustible miracle in it human nature is. We can scarcely be too grateful to Mrs. Soskice for enabling us to share with Nekrasov the depth and riches of his sense of the mysterious and tragic privilege of being alive in this world.

LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE

Zinaida Nekrasova

Nekrasov, 1865

Leo Tolstoy, aged 20, c. 1848 — Nekrasov discovered Leo Tolstoy, helping him debut in his periodical ‘Sovremennik’ with his trilogy ‘Childhood, Boyhood and Youth’.

The title page of an issue of ‘Sovremennik’, printed after the death of Alexander Pushkin

Avdotya Panayeva

Krajewski House, Liteiny Prospect, St. Petersburg, which housed the editorial board of the journal Notes of the Fatherland and Nekrasov’s apartment.

‘Nekrasov and Panayev visiting sick Belinsky’ by A. Naumov

POEMS OF NIKOLAI NEKRASOV

Translated by Juliet M. Soskice

CONTENTS

PART I. RUSSIAN WOMEN (GRANDMOTHERS’ MEMOIRS)

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE CONCERNING RUSSIAN WOMEN

PRINCESS TROUBETZKOY (1826)

PRINCESS VOLKHONSKAYA (1826-7)

PART II. THE PEDLARS, ETC.

THE PEDLARS

PEASANT CHILDREN

POEMS DEDICATED TO RUSSIAN CHILDREN

UNCLE JAKE

THE NIGHTINGALES

GRANDAD MARZÁY AND THE HARES

GENERAL TOPTIGGIN

THE BEES

RED-NOSE FROST

VLASS

A SLEEPLESS NIGHT

ON THE ROAD

THE MOTHER

THE RAILWAY

THE SVAT AND THE BRIDEGROOM

Portrait of Nikolay Nekrasov by Nikolay Gay, the Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

PART I. RUSSIAN WOMEN (GRANDMOTHERS’ MEMOIRS)

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE CONCERNING RUSSIAN WOMEN

DURING the reign of Alexander I (1801-25), a liberal movement sprang up in Russia, the members of which were recruited principally from the ranks of military commanders, of the most aristocratic Russian families, who had distinguished themselves in the war against Napoleon, and had been influenced by liberal ideas during the prolonged stay in France of the victorious Russian armies. The sudden death of Alexander I, who was childless, and his brother Konstantin’s renunciation of his rights to the throne, after the troops and the high bureaucracy had already sworn allegiance to him, created great confusion in St. Petersburg. The leaders of the liberal movement seized this occasion to attempt a rising, with the object of obtaining a constitution from the new Tsar, Nicholas I. They gathered in a public square of St. Petersburg on the 14th December 1825, with the troops under their command fully armed. After a famous general, Miloradovitch, had been shot by the mutineers, the Tsar, Nicholas I, ordered an attack upon them by artillery. Hundreds were killed or wounded, and the rest dispersed. A great number of officers, including generals and colonels, were arrested, and confined to the fortress of SS. Peter and Paul. Five of the arrested were executed on the 24th July 1826, and scores of others were exiled. This event became famous in Russian history as the Decembrist Revolution. Prince Troubetzkoy and Prince Volkhonsky were sent to the Siberian mines, and it was the heroic action of their wives in following them to Siberia that inspired Nekrasov to write the poem, one of his most famous — Russian Women.

PRINCESS TROUBETZKOY (1826)

I

OF wondrous build, so light, so strong,

The little carriage speeds along.

The Father-Count since it was made,

Has more than once its worth essayed.

Six horses draw it in a team,

Within its depths a lantern’s gleam.

The Count has piled the cushions round,

And spread the bearskin on the ground;

The sacred image, with a prayer,

Has fastened in the corner there.

And... sobbed.... His daughter, the Princess,

Must voyage into the wilderness.

‘Our hearts we tear apart, ’tis true,

But tell me, Father dear,

What else would’st thou have had me do?

Would grief avail, or fear?

The one who could have helped I trow

Must be.... Oh, Father, pray,

Forgive and bless thy daughter now,

To cheer her lonely way!

‘God knows if we shall meet again!

My hopes are faint. But yet,

Thy last behest, thy care, thy pain,

I never shall forget.

Thy memory I’ll cherish deep,

Whate’er my fate may be;

’Tis hard, although I do not weep,

To tear myself from thee.

‘But other duties summon me,

More sacred, more severe,

Forgive me, love, I beg of thee,

Shed not that fruitless tear!

My future fraught with woe I feel,

My path lies drear and wild,

My breast I have encased in steel,

Be proud.... I am thy child!

‘My birth-place dear unto my breast,

Forgive me too! Oh, why,

Ill-fated town, wert thou the nest

Of all these ills?... Good-bye!

Thou wilt not dazzle those who’ve been

To London or to Rome,

Who Venice, Paris may have seen;

To me — thou wert my home.

‘My youth with many joyous thrills

Was spent within thy walls

I loved the sledging on thy hills,

Thy festivals, thy balls,

The Neva’s tuneful rippling course

On evenings still and fair,

The hero mounted on his horse

In the adjacent square.

‘I can’t forget.... In times to come

Our story will be told....’

(Several lines have here been omitted by the censor.) (Trans.)

Of wondrous build, so firm, so fast,

The carriage through the town has passed.

Within it sits the young princess,

Her face is pale and black her dress.

Her father’s secretary (decked

With orders to inspire respect)

With servants gallops on before.

The whistling lash, the coachman’s roar

‘Make way!’ has swept the roadway clear.

The capital is in the rear....

But far ahead the journey lies,

Forbidding are the wintry skies.

As every posting-station nears,

The traveller herself appears:

‘ Fresh horses. Quickly!’ she enjoins

And freely scatters golden coins.

But twenty days of arduous strain

Have scarcely brought them to Tiumeyn.

For ten days more they make their way

At topmost speed: ‘ Here’s Yenissey!’

The secretary says at last,

‘ The Tsar himself rides not so fast!’

Drive on! Her soul is full of grief,

The road has grown more wild,

But soothing dreams have brought relief:

She sees as when a child

The wealth, the brilliancy, the pride,

The house on Neva’s shores,

The stairways, carpeted and wide,

The lions before the door.

The rooms are decked with faultless choice,

And vivid light abounds,

There is a children’s ball. Rejoice!

Already music sounds.

With ribbons rosy-red they twine

Her plaits of yellow hair,

And flowers and silks and velvets fine

They bring, of beauty rare.

Her father comes. ‘Oh — ho!’ he cries,

The red-cheeked, grey-haired man,

‘They’ll none of them believe their eyes,

Why, what a sarafan!’

Her happiness is boundless quite,

The room about her whirls,

Before her is a flower-bed bright,

Of children’s heads and curls.

The children are like flowers, so fine,

The old are finer still,

And feathers, ribbons, orders shine.

The merry dancers fill

The air with sound of tapping heels;

The children spring about,

A thoughtless gaiety each feels;

A gleeful childish shout

Resounds. And then... the vision ends,

Another ball appears,

A handsome man above her bends,

His whisper low she hears....

And follows then ball after ball,

She’s now their hostess, queen,

The fashionable world are all

At her receptions seen,

And great grandees of honours full....

‘Depressed, my husband? Why?’

‘This worldly life is bad and dull,’

‘Come, darling, let us fly!’...

With the beloved afar she goes,

And soon before her eyes

A wondrous country dawns and grows,

And — Rome eternal lies.

What joy would in remembrance be

Of happy days bereft,

When from all bondage breaking free,

The fatherland we left;

Escaping from the Northern blight

The radiant South to gain,

Where none would be to claim the right

Our actions to restrain.

With our companion dear we may

Stroll leisurely and free,

An ancient temple view to-day,

Tomorrow choose to see

A palace, ruin, works of art....

How pleasant at the end

Our new sensations to impart

To the beloved friend!

Then, under beauty’s potent sway,

By sober thoughts possessed,

About the Vatican we stray

Despondent and oppressed,

Wrapped in the shadows of the past,

Far from the world of men....

Quite dazzled were we, and aghast

For one brief moment, when

Emerging from the Vatican

Into the brilliant day

We heard the song of artisan.

The asses strident bray,

The street-sellers on left and right

Maintained their busy cry:

‘See, tasty shell-fish, coral bright,

Iced water! Come, who’ll buy?’

The merry rabble eating sat,

Or danced, and fought, and played.

A bent old woman combed the plait

Of a young Roman maid:

’Twas black as tar.... What stifling heat

Unbearable the din!

Where can one peace and shadow meet?

A church! Come, let’s go in!

The hubbub dies away in here,

’Tis cool and tranquil too,

The light is dim, and thoughts austere

Oppress the soul anew.

On saints and angels overhead

The eye uplifted falls,

On jasper, porphyry, we tread,

Of marble are the walls.

How sweet the murmur of the sea,

As peacefully we sit

Beside it! Thoughts serene and free

Across our fancy flit.

To climb the mountain path we rise

Betimes, before the dawn:

What morning beauties feast the eyes!

The breath is lightly drawn.

But hotter grows the southern day,

No single dew-drop shines

Upon the valleys... come away

Beneath those spreading pines.

The princess speeding through the dark

Reviews those joys again,

Upon her soul they’ve left a mark,

Forever to remain.

Such days can never more befall,

Their happiness is fled,

As useless were it to recall

The tears for them she shed.

The joyful visions lasted not;

Her musings now depict

A country by the Lord forgot:

A master harsh and strict,

The slaves a crushed and toiling band.

How pitiable they!

How used the master to command,

The servants to obey!

In meadows and in fields well-known

She sees their beggared ranks,

She hears the bargemens’ husky groan

Along the Volga banks.

Her youthful spirit horrified,

She neither sleeps nor eats,

And, turning breathless to her guide:

‘Pray, tell me,’ she entreats,

‘Where one bright spot this blackness saves,

Is all this land the same?’

‘It is the realm of famished slaves....’

Abrupt the answer came.

She wakes... and lo, the dream seems true:

‘Stop! Stop!’ Her ear she strains,

Grim sounds out of the silence grew,

The mournful clank of chains:

A party into exile goes.

With anguish in her breast

Some coins into their midst she throws,

‘Our thanks! Thy path be blest!’

For long their faces are before

Her eyes. In truth it seems

She can’t forget them, and no more

Can lose herself in dreams.

Another party must have crept

Along that snowy waste;

The blizzards have their traces swept

Away. Oh, driver, haste!

The further East the more severe

The frost has hourly grown,

Three hundred versts again.... What’s here?

A wretched little town!

But even that is good to see:

A row of houses dark,

But where can all the people be?

Not e’en a watch-dog’s bark.

In such a frost at home folks stay,

Drink tea to pass the time.

A soldier comes. A loaded sleigh,

A clock begins to chime.

The windows frozen hard.... in one

A light is seen to gleam.

A church.... The prison further on....

The driver o’er his team

Has cracked his whip.... And now the town

Has vanished. On the right

The river and the mountains frown,

The forest, black as night,

Lies on the left.

          Her tortured brain

By morning is not freed.

Her heart is wracked. Dazed thoughts again

Rush past with painful speed.

And now her friends she dimly sees,

Now prison’s gaping jaws,

Now, something stranger far than these;

(God only knows the cause!)

It seems the starry skies o’er-head,

Are paper thickly strewn,

With sand — and there’s a circle red

Of sealing-wax — the moon!

The mountains vanish. She can see

A plain on either hand,

Entirely dead. No living tree

Upon its bosom stands....

‘The Tundra, look!’ the driver says

(A native Buriat he).

The princess sadly casts her gaze,

Around.... ‘ Alas,’ thinks she,

That men should by their greed be led,

So far for gold to bid,’

It lies along the river’s bed,

Beneath the swamps ’tis hid.

The river-toil the seeker’s curse,

The bogs in summer heat,

But oh — the mines, the mines are worse,

Deep down beneath our feet

No ray can pierce that stifling dark,

No sound can bring relief,

Accursed land! Why did Yermak

Reveal thee to our grief?

The night has fallen now, again,

The moon is up once more,

The princess cannot sleep, her brain

Is working as before.

She sleeps.... and of a tower she dreams,

She stands upon its height,

A well-known town before her teems

With life; a busy sight!

A crowd is making for the square,

It seems a countless throng,

Officials, merchants, popes are there,

All hurrying along.

With velvet, silks, and peasants’ coats,

The picture is alive.

One regiment is there, she notes,

And others soon arrive —

A thousand soldiers turning out

And more. ‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’ they shout,

They’re waiting, it is seen....

The people yawn, the people yell,

Yet scarce a hundred there could tell

What all this stir may mean.

But one in his moustaches grins

And peers with cunning glance,

Untroubled he by stormy dins:

A barber, come from France.

New regiments post-haste arrive:

‘Surrender!’ They will not.

But straight rebellious answer give,

With bayonet and shot.

A general, the gallant man,

Advanced: to threaten them began.

Him from his horse they threw.

Another to their lines drew near:

‘We promise pardon! Do not fear!’

He cried. They killed him too.

And next the Metropolitan

Himself, with Cross on high,

Appears, to calm them if he can:

They listen to his cry,

‘Repent, my children, on your knees!’

But answer to his face,

‘Begone, old man! Pray as you please,

But this is not your place.’

’Tis now the cannon’s turn to try:

‘First! Shoot!’ resounds the fatal cry.

Then darkens the princess’s sight,

She falls unconscious from her height.

A corridor she follows round,

At every step a guard,

’Tis long and damp, deep underground,

Each door securely barred.

Without — the sound of waves that seem

To lap against the walls,

Within — the lantern’s misty gleam

On polished rifles falls.

A sound of far-off footsteps dies,

The long-drawn echo mocks.

A sentry calls, and there arise

The mingled chimes of clocks.

An ‘Invalid’ with whiskers grey

Is set with keys to go

Before her. ‘Come, sad one, this way,

He whispers to her low,

‘Shalt see him!’ adds the kind old man,

‘He lives, and is unharmed.’

She trusts the good custodian,

And follows unalarmed.

For long they go.... A creaking door

Is opened wide — and see,

A living corpse now stands before

Her eyes!... Alas. ’Tis he.

Upon his heart in trembling haste

She asks, ‘What must I do?

I’ll courage find, no moment waste,

Shall I for mercy sue?’

‘Why dost thou speak so low, my own

Thy meaning is not clear,

Only the sentry’s strident tone,

And chiming clocks I hear.

‘Oh, why between us stands a third? ‘

‘That question is too naïve.’

The guard’s commanding voice is heard:

‘It’s time to go. Take leave.’

The princess glances round. Her eyes

Distraught with terror seem,

Her heart within her frozen lies:

Not all was here a dream.

The moon was sailing overhead,

’Twas dull, and threw no ray,

To left the gloomy forest spread,

To right the Yenissey.

How dark! No living soul they meet,

The driver slumbers on his seat,

In forest depths as they go by

A wolf sets up a famished cry.

The wind’s abroad, with gust and moan,

Across the river