The Exile: A novel about Taras Shevchenko

by Zinaida Tulub

  Kozlovsky’s manners and free and easy tone irritated and jarred upon Shevchenko, and so he answered evasively:

  “Well, you know how it happens. I wrote something, and some people didn’t exactly like it.”

  “A promissory note, I suppose?” Kozlovsky understood it in his own way and seemed to be glad. “I autographed a couple of them myself. Papa and me, we’ve got similar handwriting; you might even say it’s identical. Both of us are Kozlovsky, and both Andrei. Well, when the time came to pay my debt, my devil of an old man got wildly mad. ‘I’ve earned all that by working my fingers to the bone,’ he said, ‘and you think you’re just going to gamble it away?’ Well, my mama saved me a couple of times, but then he went and put me away. The damned old gizzard! He’ll croak one day, and you can be sure he won’t take his filthy lucre down into his grave. But I’ll pay him back yet!” He flashed his eyes angrily. “I’ll settle accounts with him one of these days!”

  “Please, excuse me,” Shevchenko interrupted him. “All this is very sad, even tragic, I would say, but I haven’t had a wink of sleep for eight days. My whole body aches from the jolting. I want to rest. Let’s have a talk another time.”

  “I understand! Comprene and pardon,” Kozlovsky said, jumping to his feet. “I’ll be going! But… could I have quelque chose on credit… Well, at least for a quarter of a bottle of vodka or for a nip.”

  His brazen face abruptly took on a humble and cringingly pathetic look like that of a hungry dog at the sight of food.

  Shevchenko searched in his pockets and gave him some coppers.

  “Thank you ever so much!” Kozlovsky said. “Have a good rest!”

  He made for the door with the same peculiarly swagger­ing gait, while Shevchenko stretched himself out on the bunk as before, but sleep would not come to him. Snatches of thoughts revolved in his mind in a restless swarm. The future rose before him in a black impenetrable curtain, while everything surrounding him seemed like a cesspool in which his life would have to ebb away. He got up, went to a water keg, drank of the water, and asked the orderly, making besoms of saltwort, to give him something to read.

  “We’re permitted to read only divine books,” the orderly answered after a thought. “Only those who belong to the Old Believers really care for such reading, but the nobility aren’t interested much!”

  “Give me something divine then,” Shevchenko said with a smile. “An intelligent person can find a lot of interesting things in the divine writings as well.”

  The orderly took a thick Bible in a half-torn binding down from a shelf, blew a cloud of dust off it by the door, and gave it to Shevchenko.

  “But mind you don’t tear any pages out of it for rolling cigarettes,” he added, and went back to his work.

  On approaching the man lying on the bunk, Lazarevsky stopped in indecision. His excitement made him suddenly forget the name of the poet and all the words expressing rapture, love and idolization he wanted to tell him.

  “Excuse me, are you Shevchenko, our Bard?” he asked in a stutter.

  Shevchenko leisurely put the Bible aside, looked Laza­revsky over with distrustful and rather unfriendly eyes, and sat up unhurriedly. What did this young civil servant want of him? After everything he had gone through since his arrest, he suspected every official to be either a spy or provocateur the gendarmes used to plant in the prison cells of the Third Department. At best it might be simply a provincial philistine, for whom the appearance of an exiled “versifier” would be, if not a sensation, in any case interesting news which could be broadcast to the Orenburg ladies and matrons whom it was easy to “take in” on what was presented as a big secret.

  “What can I do for you?” Shevchenko asked so coldly that any other visitor would have instantly lost every desire to continue the conversation.

  But Lazarevsky did not notice anything. He only knew that this was Shevchenko, the marvelous magician of the word who for the first time had made the Ukrainian lan­guage sound with the same force and beauty as the Russian under the magic pen of Pushkin and Lermontov or the German in the fiery verse of Friedrich Schiller.

  “My God! Where can I find the words to express what joy, what wonderful moments I experienced reading your Kobzar,” he said. “Serhiy Levitsky and I have been reading and rereading it the whole winter through! We’ve learned almost all of it by heart. After we subscribed to The Haidamaks we counted the days when the book would arrive at last. We could have hardly dreamed to meet you! Why, it is such a … such a –”

  He stopped abruptly, realizing that he could not call this soul-trying meeting either joyous or happy and, carried away by his reverence and sympathy, he enclosed Shevchenko in an embrace.

  Shevchenko freed himself with a light shrug of the shoulder, and without looking at Lazarevsky, answered dryly as before:

  “Thank you for your appreciation of my work. I am glad you have enjoyed it.”

  “Enjoy just isn’t the word. I was happy. We’re missing our homeland terribly, for we are countrymen after all — from Chernihiv Province, and were assigned to this place after graduating from the university. We’re in our third year of service here, and it’s boring.” The young man sighed so sincerely that for the first time Shevchenko looked at him attentively with an inquiring, although still distrustful look in his eyes.

  Lazarevsky sat on the outermost edge of the bunk and looked at his favorite poet like a schoolgirl would have regarded a famous actor after a breathtaking stage perform­ance. At the same time there was such a painful sadness in his look, and Shevchenko felt awkward for his distrust and reserve. But the bitter experience of the past two months had opened to him a facet of life which made him unwontedly cautious.

  Lazarevsky wanted to tell him everything that was on his mind and to hear at once everything from the poet he adored. But he felt uneasy about asking him, lest he touch the fresh wound in the poet’s soul. He faltered in embar­rassment, not venturing to raise the most horrible, albeit most important question: Who had dared do such a thing to the poet, and why? Shevchenko had not been simply banished to this place like some of the other political pris­oners, but conscripted by arbitrary force into twenty-five-year service as a private in a line battalion of the Orenburg Military Border District adjoining a wild steppe, where the ungovernable tribes of Kokand and Khiva frequently at­tacked the improvised forts and border posts.

  In the meantime, the two suspicious characters squatting at the oven had stealthily moved up closer and, pretending to be looking for something in their tattered greatcoats, overtly eavesdropped on their new neighbor and the lanky bright-haired official. Shevchenko noticed them and chose his words with extraordinary caution, trying to speak quietly and vaguely.

  Lazarevsky, however, did not see anything and was sud­denly carried away.

  “But how did they dare? Who, and why?” he almost cried out, throwing up his arms.

  Shevchenko winced at such a display of emotion, and replied with deliberate clarity, sternly and dryly:

  “By the supreme command of His Imperial Highness I, being of strong physical constitution, have been sentenced to military service as a soldier.”

  “Where are you being sent to serve?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been assigned to the Fifth Line Bat­talion and will be shortly sent to my place of service,” Shevchenko repeated, in an even voice, what he had been told by the commandant that morning.

  “1 wish they’d let you stay here,” Lazarevsky said with a sigh. “Life is easier in a town anyway. I’ll intercede for you and achieve my purpose. We have good, honest people here,” he said, burning with a desire to act immediately. “You tell me what you wish and what I can do for you, and I, for my part…”

  “Thank you, but I do not need any help,” Shevchenko said, shaking his head. “I will help myself, and earn some­thing for my livelihood. Even today the warden of the deportation prison asked me to teach his children. I’ll man­age somehow…”

  Lazarevsky hung hi
s head in confusion and embarrass­ment.

  “And still… I am so inextricably indebted to you for all the beautiful things I have thought, reading your Kobzar! I see the common people and even the Kirghiz absolutely differently now. You yourself do not know what light and truth emanates from every one of your words!”

  Emotion took his breath away, and his lips quivered.

  “All right,” Shevchenko said softly. “If I need anything, 1 will let you know, and you will help me.”

  “Yes, yes! Certainly!”

  Lazarevsky clasped Shevchenko’s hand and pressed it with both of his.

  “Do not lose courage. It’s just a temporary affair! Every­thing will pass! It cannot but pass. So hold out!”

  Shevchenko looked round. The two suspicious characters in tattered greatcoats had come still closer and eavesdropped openly. Somehow he had to warn this trusting and exalted young man. Recalling nothing better than a phrase he had frequently heard in the aristocratic homes when the nobles warned one another not to speak without reserve in the presence of the servants, he said:

  “Prenez garde: les gens!”

  Shevchenko got up, letting Lazarevsky understand that it was time to terminate the conversation. Lazarevsky turned red in the face and jumped to his feet.

  “Yes, yes. You are quite right, Taras…”

  “…Grigorievich,” the poet prompted, seeing off his new friend; and this time he shook his hand in a warm and strong manner.

  Lazarevsky rushed out of the fortress as though he took wing, passionately determined to plead for Shevchenko, regardless of whether the poet wanted it or not. Without knocking on the door, he flew into the office of the man­ager of the border commission, General Ladizhensky, which he usually entered only on official business and timidly at that.

  “Your Excellency!” he cried out from the threshold. “Shevchenko has been brought here. Our famous Kobzar! I saw him and spoke to him. What misfortune! We must help him somehow!”

  The general looked up in surprise, regarded the young man attentively, tiny wrinkles fanned out from the corners of his usually stern, steel-cold eyes; a kindly smile flut­tered and disappeared under his gray mustache. He under­stood that passionate and sincere impulse of the soul, but it had to be dampened somehow lest the cruel blow rebound on that bright-haired head. So lending his voice a ring of stern officialdom, the general said:

  “First of all, young man, you forgot to greet me on entering, and secondly, Shevchenko most probably deserved such a bitter fate. Besides, such things have to be approached with particular care and thought before voicing one’s sym­pathy for the convict, the more so before resenting the verdict of a court of law. And generally,” he raised his voice, “I am utterly surprised that you approach me with such a request. The office I head is unrelated whatsoever to the Third Department of the Office of His Imperial Highness, which considers such matters, nor to the war ministry, under whose authority Shevchenko finds himself right now. So from all points of view I have no possibility or right to interfere in the fate of your protégé.”

  Lazarevsky was taken aback, his face turned red, he muttered something incoherently, his cap slipped from his fingers, and he darted out of the office. The general gave a sigh and shook his head. “That’s how such effusive young men destroy themselves. He could get into an ugly mess now. But what a fresh and unspoiled nature he still has! He is on active duty for the third year now, but he is still as fervent as a student.”

  The general got up from behind his desk, picked up the cap, shook his head again, and rang a bell.

  “Catch up with Mr. Lazarevsky and give him his cap,” he ordered the courier.

  Sad and oppressed, Lazarevsky returned to his office where he, together with Levitsky and Galevinsky, started to think how they might help Shevchenko. After some lengthy arguments they came to a unanimous decision to appeal to Colonel Matveiev, the official who was respon­sible for special missions in the office of the Orenburg mili­tary governor and who was considered omnipotent in Oren­burg.

  Matveiev came from the Ural Cossacks and in his heart condemned Czar Nicholas’ regime which had considerably curtailed the old traditional privileges of the Yayïk Cossacks. A sincere and straightforward person, Matveiev hated to give ungrounded promises and dispense perfunctory conso­lation. After hearing out Lazarevsky, he was obviously moved and even excited. Lazarevsky pleaded that Shevchenko be left in Orenburg, where there were humane and educated people, good doctors, a library, and a kind of cultural life. The colonel did not promise anything, but the young man left his office inspired with hope and confi­dent that their request would at least not be forgotten.

  But when Matveiev had looked through Shevchenko’s papers the next day, it turned out that the order on his assignment to the Fifth Battalion, billeted partly in Orsk, partly in the neighboring forts, had already been signed, while a copy of the order had been sent to the war ministry in St. Petersburg by special messenger.

  Such hurry surprised Matveiev very much. He even had a horseman sent after the messenger, but the courier Widler had left Orenburg that very same morning and taken the messenger along in his tarantass. Matveiev’s man, nearly riding his horse to death, turned back from the first post station, without having carried out the order.

  3

  To the Jailiaou!

  Ten days after the death of Shakir, the scouts Djantemir had sent to choose, secretly from the other auls, and lay claim to the best summer pastures in the Alatau mountains, returned from their mission. Everyone had guessed by now that this year the aul would wander much farther than they usually did, but no one dared ask the terrible bai about it.

  On dismounting, the scouts went directly to Djantemir.

  “Well?” the bai asked, without responding to their sa­laams.

  “Glory be to Allah and his Prophet,” Murzabai replied; Djantemir trusted this forty-year-old man, more than the others, for his thriftiness. “Beyond the river Hi it’s already warm, but in the mountains the snow is still knee-deep. We have chosen a good place by a river fed from the huge glacier on the Kungei mountain ridge. Down below there are forests all around, full of berries, nuts and all sorts of fruit.”

  “I know!” Djantemir interrupted him. “Did you lay the aul’s claim to it?”

  “Of course! We’ve tied the grass in bunches in nine places by the waterfall, shoveled away the snow, and laid out your tamga with black stones on the ground.”

  “And then the snow will fall and cover up ‘my tamga’ so that it will be impossible to find!” Djantemir remarked derisively. “You’ve made me happy indeed!”

  “There is no reason for you to be angry, Djantemir Aga,” Murzabai rejoined calmly. “We’ve painted your tamga in yellow on the steep cliffs, then we made notches with axes on the fir trees in a lot of places, and here and there we stripped the bark and branded your tamga on the fresh wood with red-hot knives.”

  “Oh, that’s much better,” Djantemir gave a nod of sat­isfaction. “A good thing you thought up. All right, go and have a rest. If it doesn’t rain, we’ll set out tomorrow.”

  In the sheds near the bai’s white yurts stood the light yurts intended for the summer pastures in the mountains. All of Djantemir’s three wives — Zeineb, the thick-set Nurina, and Shauken — were taking down the yurts with the assistance of two servants, and the agile Kuljan was care­fully looking them over and telling the servants which of the yurts needed cleaning or patching. Not far away the jigits were sharpening their soyils, knives and Bukhara yatagans on whetting stones, as if they were preparing not to travel but to engage in a barimta or some other kind of raid. In the yurts the women were emptying their trunks and packing separately everything they would be needing for summer, and chose for themselves and their children the best adornments and holiday dresses for the ceremonial departure, while the old people got ready their fishing gear, nets, hooks, and what they called “muzzles” to catch fish in the numerous steppe rivers they would be crossing on th
eir way.

  The trek was to be a long one. It would be a happy event only for the children and teenagers riding on camels beside their mothers or on horseback. Everything they would be seeing on the way would be entertaining and joyous. But the shepherds and herders scowled sullenly, since nomadic wandering spelled the hardest and most responsible work for them.

  Kumish was worried: she understood that Djantemir would not postpone the departure even for the sake of his own son, but Jaisak could neither ride on horseback nor even get up on his feet without somebody’s aid. Kuljan, who brought them milk and mutton every day as she had done when Shakir was still alive, met a weeping Kumish.

  “What has happened, dear auntie Kumish?” she said, rushing to the widow.

  “It looks like we will have to stay here guarding the winter camp,” Kumish replied, swallowing her tears. “Jai­sak cannot ride on horseback yet. And without any cattle we’ll die here.”

  “But isn’t he strong enough to ride a camel? Didn’t my father fulfill his promise and give him a horse and a camel?”

  “He did, hut where can I get a saddle for a man who still cannot sit or stand?”

  “Zeineb has such a saddle,” Kuljan exclaimed joyously. “I just saw it by her cattle shed.”

  “But will she give it to me?”

  “I won’t even ask her,” Kuljan said with a jerk of her braids, her eyes flashing with an impish light. “Just don’t ride with all the women up front. If anyone asks where you are, I will say that you went to the grave of Shakir Aga to bid him farewell and will catch up with the aul at the summer camp. So get on a horse, we’ll put Jaisak on the camel, and you’ll follow us way behind the aul. The horses and sheep will raise such a cloud of dust nobody will see you behind it, and if anybody sees the saddle when we make a halt for the night, they’re not going to take it away from you, because I’ll be doing the explaining then.’’