Category: Russian Literature

“The Wanderer” by N. P. Ogarev (translation)

This year at Cambridge I founded a small Russian poetry translation group. Unlike my German poetry translation group, which never made it beyond a Facebook group chat, I can call the Russian one a success. We have yet to meet in person, but already we have seen each other over Zoom a few times. This poem, by Nikolai Ogarev, was the first poem I translated specifically for the group.

I came across it while flicking through an anthology of Russian religious poetry that I have. Much as with Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, which I wrote about last week, I enjoy religious poetry because it makes people’s beliefs accessible and stamps them with an individual’s personality. We often come away from religious poetry believing in belief, even if we don’t get any further.

As for why I translated Ogarev’s poem instead of any of the hundred others included, the answer is rather more simple – it is nice and short! “The Wanderer” is the only poem of his included, so there was lots of white space around it, which gave me a place to begin the translation.

Anyway, here’s the poem:

The Wanderer

 Misty lies our dreary vale,
 Clouds conceal the sky.
 Sadly blows each mournful gale,
 Sadly looks each eye.
  
 Though you wander, have no fear,
 Though this life is hard -
 Peace and prayer are always near,
 Safe within your heart!

I enjoyed translating this poem, just as I enjoyed reading the original. One of the advantages of translating a poem (and poet) which is not too well known is that it is far easier than something from a “Great” poet. Both because the poet has inevitably been translated many times already (and certainly better than you could), but also because it’s nice to feel a certain degree of equality to your quarry. It is certainly presumption on my part, but there you go. I don’t feel, from the original, that Ogarev is a fantastic artist, but I felt he was one I was good enough to be able to translate. A similar train of thought is how I explain my success with Theodor Storm’s poetry in German.

I don’t feel the poem itself needs much explanation. It’s the kind of optimistic call for self-reliance that is always necessary for a revolutionary (and most of the rest of us). But I like it. It’s a nice little credo, the sort of thing that perhaps really can be mumbled before bed.

A photo of the page in my anthology of Russian prayers where I translate Ogarev's "The Wanderer".
My surprisingly neat attempts at translating “The Wanderer”. Generally it is much worse – I feel particularly sorry for my copy of Fet’s poems.

Nikolai Ogarev is best known now for his association with Alexander Herzen, a major Russian radical who lived for much of his adult life in exile in London. Together they printed the newspaper “The Bell”, which was smuggled into Russia and provided a far more liberal outlook than could be found in most Russian papers because of tsarist censorship. Today there is a website with the same name, run from America (in English and Russian), which gives an interesting look on Russian affairs. The spirit of criticism lives on, even though there is little else that links the two.

Thanks for reading. For more Russian poetry, look at my translation of Baratynsky.

Misery / Toska by Anton Chekhov (Translation)

Chekhov’s story, Misery (Toska in Russian), is one of my favourites. It has a certain mystical resonance, in spite of its earthy subject matter. I first tried to translate it two years ago, but never got further than the first paragraph. This time I have managed to get to the end. It has previously been translated under the title “Heartache” (by Payne) and “Misery” (by Garnett). After the conclusion I will write a few final comments.

Misery

To whom shall I tell my sorrow?

The day is ending. Large wet snow lazily flutters around the recently-lit streetlamps and lies in a thin layer upon roofs, the backs of horses, on hats and shoulders. The coachman Iona Potapov is completely white… white as a ghost. He has curled himself up as tightly as any living being can and sits where he is without moving a muscle. Even if an entire snowdrift fell upon him… even then he would not think to shake the snow from himself… His little horse is also white and motionless. With the way that she doesn’t move, with the blockiness of her body and her legs straight as sticks, she looks more like a toy horse than any real one. It seems she is lost in thought. If you had been torn from your plough and the usual dull pictures of life and thrust here, into this confusion of monstrous fires, the endless crack of the whip and people constantly running past… if this happened to you, it would be strange not to be left with something to think about.

Iona and his horse have been in their spot for a long time now. They left home before lunch, and so far nobody has had need of them. And now an evening gloom is descending on the whole city. The pale light of the streetlamps becomes brighter and more intense, and the hustle and bustle of the street grows louder.

“Driver, take us to Vyborgskaya” Iona hears. “Driver!”

Iona shudders and sees through eyelashes sticky with snow an officer in a hooded overcoat.

“To Vyborgskaya,” repeats the officer. “Wake up man! Take me to Vyborgskaya!”

To show his agreement Iona gives a tug on the reins. Powdery snow falls from his shoulders and from the horse’s back… The officer sits in the sledge. His driver smacks his lips, extends his neck like a swan, sits up straight and gives his horse a whip, more from habit than any real need. His little horse also extends her neck, bends her stick-legs, and uncertainly moves off from their spot…

“What are you doing, idiot!” As soon as they got going Iona hears shouting from some dark mass, moving forward and back nearby. “Where the devil are you going? Stay in your lane!”

“Can’t you drive? Stick to the right!” The officer complains.

The dark mass attacking him was a coachman with a private carriage. A pedestrian crossing the road has bumped into Iona’s horse and now glares at him and shakes the snow from his sleeve. Iona shifts about uneasily, as if he is sitting on needles, sticks his elbows out to the side and lets his eyes wander, as though not in his right mind. It’s as if he doesn’t understand where he is or what he’s doing.

“What a bunch of scoundrels they all are!” says the witty officer. “Either they try to bump into you or they just throw themselves under your horse. They have it all worked out.”

Iona looks at his passenger and his lips quiver. He seems to want to say something, but he only croaks.

“What?” Asks the officer.

Ion bends his mouth into a smile, tenses his throat and croaks:

“My son, sir, he… my son passed away this week.”

“Hm!… and what did he die of?”

Iona twists his whole torso round to his passenger and says: “Who knows? Probably from fever… Three days he lay in the hospital and then he died… It was God’s will.”

“Out of the way, damn you!” Sounds ring out in the darkness. “You dog, what’s wrong with you? Use your eyes!”

“Come on, come on…” Says the passenger. “Otherwise we won’t make it till tomorrow. Give her another go with the whip!”

The coachman once more extends his neck, straightens himself out and with a certain solid gracefulness waves his whip. Later he looks at his passenger a few times, but the other has already closed his eyes and no longer seems in the mood to listen. Once he has let him out at Vyborgskaya, Iona stops outside an inn, curls into himself again and waits without stirring… Wet snow once more paints him and his horse white. An hour passes, then another…

Along the pavement, loudly clacking their galoshes and teasing each other, come three young men. Two of them are tall and thin; the third is short and stooped.

“Driver, take us to Politseiskii Bridge!” Shouts the hunchback with a rasping voice. “Twenty copecks for the three of us.”

Iona pulls on his reins and smacks his lips. Twenty copecks isn’t fair, but what does he care? What’s the difference between a rouble and ten? For him it’s all the same, so long as he has a passenger… The young people, swearing and shoving at each other, approach the sledge and all three of them immediately climb into the space for seating. Now they start to argue about who will sit and who will have to stand? After a long argument, much capriciousness and reproaches, they decide that the hunchback, as the smallest, is the one who ought to stand.

“Well, let’s get going!” Rasps the hunchback, settling himself just behind Iona and breathing on the back of his neck. “Chop chop! That’s quite a hat, mate! I don’t think you could find a more wretched piece of work anywhere in all Petersburg…”

“Hehe… hehe…” Laughs Iona. “Yes, it is a strange one…”

“Well, whatever it is, come on and get us moving. Are we going to go this slow the whole journey? Come on, or I’ll give you something to help speed you up.”

“My head is killing me…” Says one of the taller men. “When I was at the Dukmasovs’ house yesterday Vasya and I managed four bottles of cognac between us.”

“I just don’t understand why you always lie about this stuff.” Says the other taller man. “You lie like a dog.”

“God be my witness, it’s true…”

“It’s just as true as saying a flea can cough.”

“Hehe!” Says Iona with a smirk. “What good-natured gentlemen you are!”

“Tfu, what do you know?…” says the hunchback indignantly. “Are you going or not, you old thing? Is this really how you drive? Give her a whip! What the hell. Come on!”

Behind his back Iona feels the hunchback turn and the rumbling of his voice. He hears the swearing, sees the people, and little-by-little he starts to feel the loneliness retreat from his heart. The hunchback keeps complaining in the most elaborate manner until at last a fit off coughing comes over him. The two taller men start to talk about some or other Nadezhda Petrovna. Iona looks round to them. He waits for a short pause, then he turns round again and murmurs: “This week my, my son… he passed away!”

“We all die.” Says the hunchback, drying his lips after the last of the coughing has finished. “Well, come on, get to it! God, I’m afraid I really can’t go on like this! When on earth are we going to get there?”

“Why don’t you give him a whack to get him going? Just a small one!”

“Old man, do you hear us? You don’t want me to give you a whack in the neck, do you? No point just waiting around with you, better to leave and do the rest on foot. Do you hear us, you snake? Or do you not give a damn about what we have to say?”

And Iona hears the sound of the blow more than he feels it.

“Hehe…” he laughs. “What cheerful gentlemen… may God grant you health!”

“Eh, driver, are you married?” Asks a tall one.

“Me, sir? Hehe, cheery gentlemen! Nowadays the only wife I have is the earth beneath our feet. Hoho… The grave, I mean!… My son is dead, and yet I live… What a strange thing to happen… Death must have mixed us up. Instead of coming for me, he went for my boy…”

And Iona turns to tell them the story of his son, but just at that moment the hunchback sighs with relief and announces that they – thank God! – have arrived. Iona gets his twenty kopecks, and for a long time he looks after the walkers, and watches as they disappear into a dark entranceway. Once more he is alone, once more he has only silence for company… The great miserythat he had managed to keep down returns and makes his chest fit to burst with its strength. Iona’s eyes run over the crowds scurrying down both sides of the street anxiously, like the eyes of a martyr. Is there not one person among the many thousands who would hear him out? But the crowds run on, caring neither for him nor his misery… His misery is enormous, it flows without limits. If Iona’s chest split open and all his misery spilled out there would be nowhere on earth that wouldn’t be overwhelmed by it. And yet nobody can see it. Somehow it has managed to fit inside such a worthless little shell that even in broad daylight you wouldn’t be able to make it out…

Iona sees a doorman with a paper bag and decides to talk with him.

“What time would you say it is, my good man?” He asks.

“Ten… what are you doing still here? Get a move on!”

Iona drives a few feet away, bends over, and surrenders to his misery…It already seems like nobody wants to speak with him. But in less than five minutes he straightens up, shakes his head, as if he had felt a stinging pain, and pulls on the reins… He can’t take it any longer.

“Let’s go back.” He thinks. “Let’s go back to the yard!”

And his horse, understanding his thought perfectly, begins to trot the way. Half an hour later, and Iona is already sitting by the big and dirty stove. On the stove, on the floor, on the benches, people are snoring. The air was heavy and stuffy…  Iona looks on the sleepers, scratches himself and thinks that it was a mistake to go back so early.

“And I didn’t get enough done to afford any oats…” he thinks. “That’s true misery for you… A man who knows his work… who has eaten well and fed his horse… such a man will be at ease forevermore…”

In one of the corners a young coachman pushes himself up, yawns sleepily, then reaches for a bucket of water.

“After a drink?” Iona asks.

“Looks like it, doesn’t it!”

“Well, here’s to your health, then. Now, as for me, my son has died… have you heard? Just this week in the hospital… what a story!”

Iona watches to see what effect his words have. But the younger coachman has already covered his head and gone back to sleep. The old man sighs and scratches himself… Just like the young man wanted to drink, he himself wants to talk. Soon it will be a whole seek since his son died, and in all that time he hasn’t spoken with anybody about it… He needs to speak about it seriously, with purpose… He needs to say everything: about how his son got ill, and how he suffered, what he said before he died, and how he died… He needs to describe how the funeral went and his trip to the hospital to pick up the dead man’s clothes. His daughter Anisa is still alive, back in his home village… He needs to say something about her too… The only way to speak about all this would take time. His listener should sigh, and gasp, and wail… It would be best of all to talk with the women. They may be stupid, but they always listen attentively and cry at the right moments.

“Let’s go and check on the horse.” Thinks Iona. “You’ll always have a chance to get some sleep later… Probably you’ll sleep enough to get your fill…”

He gets dressed and goes into the stables where his horse is. He thinks about oats and hay and the weather… Alone, he doesn’t dare think of his son… He could speak with someone about him, but to think about him or even just imagine his face was unbearably painful for him without company…

“Having a nibble?” Iona asks his horse, seeing her shining eyes. “Well, keep at it… If we didn’t earn enough for oats, I suppose there’s always hay for the two of us… Yes… I’m already too old for driving… It’s my son who should be driving, not me… He was a real coachman – you could tell… if only he had lived…”

Iona stands in silence for a while before continuing: “That’s the way it is, old girl. Kuzma Ionich is no more… He should have lived a long life, but he was taken before his time… How can I explain it? Let’s say you have a foal, and you’re its mother… and let’s say this foal is supposed to have a long life… wouldn’t you be sorry?

The horse continues to nibble. She listens and breathes onto the hands of her owner…

And Iona gives himself over to his misery and tells her the whole story.

Closing Remarks

Who has not felt the particular loneliness of trying to speak only to find that nobody is willing to listen? Not all of us have lost a child, and I certainly haven’t, but still that feeling that the world has turned its back against us is one that I feel from time to time. And in those moments of misery, the path back to joy can be so strange that we’d never have considered it otherwise. Talking to a horse may be just the thing we need.

It’s worth noting that the Russian title, Toska, is one of those words which are regularly touted as untranslatable. Nabokov, indeed, rhapsodises about it. And it’s true that the word is in a way untranslatable, because not all of its meanings correspond to one specific English word. There’s often a hint of wistful boredom about it, of being stuck at home and not quite knowing what to do. But that’s certainly not the case here, where the sense of melancholy is overwhelmed by the pain of loss. I felt my title was adequate. So, it seems, did Constance Garnett.

I enjoyed translating this. If it has any major problems, do let me know in the comments. Although I’d be more interested to here if the story resonates with you, so why not comment about that too?

Temptation and Pride in Tolstoy’s Father Sergius

Although I’ve been having a go at Tolstoy lately, I still admire him, and would probably rank his writings above those of anyone else. Unfortunately, Tolstoy’s novella, “Father Sergius”, is another one of those frustrating prophet-Tolstoy pieces, so today’s post will be stained once again with disappointment. It shouldn’t be, in a way. Father Sergius, like Hadji Murat, was not published while Tolstoy was alive. Tolstoy shied away from publishing both works because they revealed too much about himself – at least, I remember reading that view somewhere among the criticism on Hadji. But whereas Hadji Murat revealed that Tolstoy still knew how to write cracking fiction even after he was old, “Father Sergius” reveals that Tolstoy was an awful egotist who thought he was better than everyone else. Because that’s basically what the novella is about: Tolstoy, Tolstoy, Tolstoy.

Leo Tolstoy, at about the time he was writing “Father Sergius”. The story was finished in 1898.

I recently read George Orwell’s essay on Tolstoy, “Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool”. To my knowledge, Orwell hadn’t come across “Father Sergius”, but the two pieces go together quite well. Orwell argues that the lives of Tolstoy and King Lear are curiously similar. Both were men who, in their old age, renounced their power, but then became bitter and angry for it. Both Lear and Tolstoy practiced self-denial – something normally associated with saintliness and goodness – for selfish reasons. In renouncing their earthly power, both men aimed to gain spiritual power and with it a greater sway over hearts and minds. Tolstoy gave up his copyrights, he neglected his fiction, but he did not give up the idea that he ought to influence people. Quite the opposite, as the torrent of moralistic pamphlets he produced evidences.

In short, Tolstoy’s renunciation was incomplete. Or, as Orwell puts it, “if you live for others, you must live for others, and not as a roundabout way of getting an advantage for yourself.”

What does all this have to do with “Father Sergius”? Quite a lot, actually. Tolstoy’s novella is essentially a dramatization of this conflict. Our hero, Father Sergius, becomes a famous monk, but he remains unsatisfied with his life. Though he is supposedly serving God, he finds that in reality he is serving other people – the people who come to his refuge, the other members of his monastery. And of course, he is also serving his own pride. But, as with Hadji Murat, “Father Sergius” is also the story of how its central character reaches enlightenment of a Tolstoian sort. What happens?

A Bad Breakup – The Opening of “Father Sergius”

D’ya ever have that thing where you go off and become a monk just because your girlfriend turned out to have had a previous partner? Nobody? Tolstoy, with his many children with peasant girls, of course knew a thing or two about previous partners. But after his religious conversion he became very anti-sex, which we can see most clearly in The Kreutzer Sonata, but which is also on display in “Father Sergius”. Our hero is Prince Stepan Kasatsky, a young man at the story’s beginning, but one who has already risen almost to the peak of society. Apart from his one weakness, sudden bursts of rage (amazingly, Tolstoy suffered from this also), he’s a model man. He is the best at everything he tries, and has rather gotten used to that feeling of superiority. True, he’s not admitted to the very highest reaches of society, but otherwise he can’t complain.

He has a good role in the military, and has made an excellent match to a young lady. But here is where his problems start. What he doesn’t know is that this girl has been the lover of Nicholas I. In the second chapter we’re taken into her garden, a little while before the wedding. Everything seems perfect – even the nightingales are a-twitter. But “Mary” (a foreignized name in Russian literature almost always means something’s wrong) is in a state. She needs to admit to her past before the marriage, but it’s hard. Eventually manages to work up the courage, but Kasatsky is not willing to give her a hearing at all. (I’m pretty sure if the Emperor of all the Russians wanted to bed you, you didn’t have much choice in the matter). He gets up, gets angry, sells his estate, leaves his job, and becomes a monk.

As you do, of course.

Monk Days

Why does he become a monk? There are two reasons, we’re told. The first is that it lets him “stand above those, who thought they could look down on him”. The second is a real religious feeling, which is mixed up with pride and a desire to be the best. Anyway, Kasatsky becomes Father Sergius, but his problems do not end there. One day, while helping at a service, he is recognised by some ladies, who point him out to each other in French. Then, after the service his superior calls him round back to chat with a general who used to know him. Father Sergius is angry at the fact that even being a monk doesn’t save him from the people he was trying to escape. What is worse, the monks themselves aren’t as good as they’re supposed to be. There’s only one thing for it – to become a hermit!

A still from the 1918 film adaptation of Father Sergius.

A Hermit and his Temptation

Father Sergius gets permission to go to another monastery, further from civilization, and there he occupies the quarters of a recently deceased hermit. All seems well, and a few years pass. But one night a group of revellers is passing by, and one of their company, Makovkina, a young lady, decides to go and see Father Sergius, whose old identity they are all familiar with. Makovkina comes up with a plan to seduce him. (As you do). Anyway, she makes her way to his rooms and asks for shelter, saying she’s lost. At first, Father Sergius can’t believe she’s real – he thinks she’s an apparition, or else the devil. (“For the devil always appears as a woman”). But eventually, he lets her in.

Father Sergius has been a hermit all this time but he is still weak to “lust”. This woman causes a resurgence of his old feelings. Her power is that she is a normal human being. Her laughter, “cheerful, natural, kind,” has an effect on him. But normal human beings are evil people, Tolstoy would have us know, and this woman is a temptress! There is a great moment here, when the woman is drying herself and getting warm (Father Sergius refuses to see her more than he needs to), and we only hear her, just as Sergius does. It’s nice to remember that Tolstoy does know how to write.

Anyway, Father Sergius knows he has to see her, but he’s scared he will be unable to defeat his lust. So what is the logical solution? He cuts off his finger with an axe. Of course, when you have cut off your finger you end up a little distracted, with the result that temptresses can’t bother you. He goes in to see her, with his hand bleeding, like some axe murderer from a horror movie, and says: “dear sister, why did you want to destroy your eternal soul?” Amazingly, instead of being terrified, she leaves the hovel, changes her life, and becomes a nun. Cool, huh?

A Healer in Need of Healing

Time passes. Father Sergius acquires a reputation as a healer. And his isolation is brought to an end. Instead of living on simple food, his monastery now ensures he eats properly and is kept healthy. He has a constant stream of visitors, but in all of this he feels a growing dissatisfaction. He is being driven away from God and among the people:

“He had become like a place where once there had been a stream. “There was once a weak trickle of living water, which quietly flowed from me, and through me. That was the true life… but now I have had no time to gather water, for the thirsty are always coming, closing in and pushing at each other. They have crushed everything – now there is only dirt left.””

Father Sergius doesn’t like the people he meets, and it’s not clear that he can actually heal them either. They come to him “with their selfish demands”, and he gives them what they want. One day a merchant comes to him, wanting him to heal his daughter. He agrees. But when she comes, alone, she seduces Father Sergius instead. The next day, acting on plans he had made long ago, Sergius flees the monastery.

Flight

Tolstoy also fled a life that didn’t satisfy him. He died at the railway station at Astapovo, that being as far as he could get from his family before his body failed. “Father Sergius” was written over ten years before Tolstoy’s death, but the idea of fleeing was not a new one for him, just as the suicide Sergius also considers wasn’t either. Sergius goes to an old acquaintance, Pashenka, who he had treated unkindly as a child. He discovers her living poorly, surrounded by family, and struggling to survive. But the meeting brings an epiphany to him. “I lived for people under the pretext of serving God, while Pashenka lives for God, imagining that she’s living for people.” This final revelation allows him to live freely as an unknown wanderer, before eventually he is stopped by police and sent to Siberia for not having identity documents.

And there he lives happily ever after.

Tolstoy and The Holy Life – Identity and Truth

There are some interesting bits and pieces in “Father Sergius”, but they are ideas more than the story itself. One of the main themes in the story is that of identity. “Father Sergius” as a title is not a reflection of Stepan Kasatasky’s ultimate identity, but only an intermediary stage in its development. When Kasatsky first becomes a monk people often refer to his past by using his pre-monastic name, such as the women in the church or else Makovkina. Later he becomes “Father Sergius” the healer. But he is not a holy person – the story’s title is in fact ironic: “He now had no love, no humbleness, not even any purity”, he thinks after becoming well-known.

When he eventually flees, he destroys all of those past ideas of himself and returns to his own childhood. Pashenka calls him “Stiva” (the familiar version of “Stepan”), marking a new stage in his development. Finally, once he is a beggar, he answers the question of his identity by saying he is simply “a servant of God”. At last, he has removed all those connections with his past that made him a selfish person, and he is “free” to enjoy himself.

In connection with the subject of identity, “Father Sergius” also contains a persistent critique of organised religion. This is perhaps unsurprising – Tolstoy was excommunicated by the Orthodox Church in 1901, a few years after he’d finished “Father Sergius”. In the story the other monks are just as concerned about power, fame, and wealth as everyone else. More importantly, though, they are not shown to be in touch with any real kind of faith, either. Father Sergius himself regularly prays, but there is no sense that his prayers are answered until he finally leaves the monastery after his night with the merchant’s daughter.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m not sure I’m glad I read “Father Sergius”. I had expected something like Hadji Murat or “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, where Tolstoy manages to squeeze in a moral message into a brilliant story. “Father Sergius” is a moral with a story attached, and there’s plenty to dislike here. In particular I hate the misogyny underlying Tolstoy’s depiction of women, something which is even stronger than the general atmosphere of misanthropy that pervades the story. There’s so little positivity here. The moral that we should serve God/our hearts rather than other people is, I suppose, okay, but when it’s combined with such dislike for humanity it’s hard to take seriously.

It’s like Tolstoy forgot that God (in Christian cosmology) created the world and wanted us to enjoy it. The whole thing’s just stupid. Alas, just as Orwell suggested, once Tolstoy gained his new faith, he didn’t seem to realise that he often appeared a fool. He would have been a lot more convincing, both as a writer and as a moral writer, if he had a little more self-awareness.

Anyway, if you’re after Tolstoy, go read Hadji Murat, or Anna Karenina, or “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, or War and Peace. And if you’ve read them already, read them again, and again, and again.