Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov (Penguin Classics) (33 page)

Tears rolled down Prokopich’s cheeks – his heart was truly touched.

‘My son,’ he said, ‘dear Danilushko … Whatever else I know, I will share it with you … I won’t keep anything from you …’

Nevertheless, that was the end of Danilushko’s life of freedom. The very next day the steward sent for him and began giving him tasks for his training. At first, of course, it was simple things: women’s brooches, jewellery boxes. Then it was lathe work: candlesticks and all sorts of finery. And then it was carving. Little leaves and petals, patterns and flowers. The malachite craft is painstaking work. A piece may seem trifling – yet the number of hours the craftsman has slaved over it! And so Danilushko grew into manhood.

And when from a single piece of stone he fashioned a bracelet in the form of a snake, the steward acknowledged him as a fully-fledged master. He wrote to the squire: ‘We now have a new master in the malachite craft: Danilko the Scrawny. He works well, only he’s very young so he’s a bit slow. Do you wish to leave him at his training or release him on a quit-rent basis, like Prokopich?’

Danilushko was not really working slowly at all, but with astonishing deftness and speed. Prokopich had shown his usual cunning. When the steward set Danilushko a task to be completed, say, in five days, Prokopich had been going along and saying, ‘He can’t manage that. It will take him a fortnight. The lad’s still studying, after all. If he does it in a rush, he’ll just end up wasting good stone.’

Well, the steward would argue a while, but he’d end up allowing him a few more days. And so Danilushko was able to take it easy. He even, without the steward getting to hear about it, learned some reading and writing. It was just the bare minimum, of course, but he knew his letters. Here, too, Prokopich was helping him. But when, on top of all this, Prokopich tried to do the tasks the steward had set Danilushko, the boy did not allow it:

‘What are you doing, Uncle? You can’t take my place at the workbench! Look, your beard’s turned green from malachite dust, your health’s not what it used to be, but you can’t say this work’s doing
me
any harm!’

By then Danilushko had indeed grown strong and sturdy. People still called him Danilushko the Scrawny, but only out of habit. How he had changed! Tall and ruddy, curly-headed and
merry. In a word, enough to make the girls swoon. Prokopich began talking about brides, but Danilushko would just shake his head: ‘What’s the hurry? First let me become a true master, then we can think about brides.’

In reply to the steward’s report, the squire wrote:

‘Let that Danilko who is apprenticed to Prokopich make a footed chalice for my house. Then I shall decide whether to release him on a quit-rent basis or let him continue with his training. Only be sure that Prokopich does not give him a hand. If you fail to do this, there will be a penalty to pay.’

When the steward received this letter, he called for Danilushko and said, ‘You’re going to be working here, with me. You’ll be given a workbench and all the stone you need.’

When Prokopich heard about this, he was upset. What could all this mean, he wondered. What was going on? He went to the steward, but the steward wouldn’t even listen to him … He just shouted, ‘It’s none of your business!’

So Danilushko went to work at the steward’s. Before he left, Prokopich warned him: ‘Take your time, Danilushko! Don’t show them all you can do!’

At first Danilushko was on his guard. He was spending most of the time measuring things up and looking them over, but he soon grew tired of working so slowly. Whether or not he was working, he still had to put in his time at the steward’s; he still had to be there from morning till night. Well, out of boredom Danilushko went and started working flat out. In no time at all he’d completed the chalice. Acting as if everything was normal, the steward said, ‘Make another one just the same!’

Danilushko made a second one, then a third. Only when he’d finished the third one did the steward say, ‘I won’t let you get away with it this time! I’ve caught you and Prokopich at your game. After I wrote to him, the squire gave you a deadline for one chalice, but you’ve turned out three. Now I know what you’re capable of. You won’t be able to trick me any more – I’ll teach that old dog to pander to you! I’ll make an example of him!’

So he wrote to the squire about what had happened and sent him the three chalices. Only the squire – perhaps because he
happened to be in a good mood, perhaps because he was annoyed with the steward for some other reason – did the very opposite of what the steward was expecting.

He set Danilushko a piffling quit-rent and he allowed the lad to remain with Prokopich – if the two men were working together, perhaps they would be able to come up with something new. Along with the letter he sent a drawing. It showed a chalice with all sorts of fiddly bits. Along the rim was a carved border, around the middle was a lattice ribbon of stone and on the foot were some little leaves. In a word, it was a real concoction. And on the drawing the squire had written: ‘Even if it takes you five years, I want it done exactly as shown.’

So the steward had to take back his words. He told Danilushko what the squire had written, handed him the drawing and sent him back to Prokopich.

Danilushko and Prokopich brightened up again, and they began working with renewed enthusiasm. Danilushko soon set to work on this new chalice. It had any number of intricacies. The least slip and the piece would be ruined; you’d have to start all over. Still, Danilushko had sharp eyes, his hand was sure and he had strength enough – the work was going well. Only one thing riled him: while there was no end of challenges, the chalice had absolutely no beauty at all. He spoke to Prokopich, but Prokopich merely seemed puzzled: ‘What’s it to you? If that’s what they’ve drawn, then it must be what they want. Goodness knows how many pieces I’ve turned and carved, but where they end up, I’ve no idea.’

Danilushko tried talking to the steward, but that got him nowhere. The steward merely stamped his feet and waved his hands about. ‘Are you crazy? That drawing cost a mint. It was likely done by the best artist in the entire capital. Who do you think you are to question it?’

Then he must have remembered what the squire had said – that between them, the two men might be able to come up with something new. He went on, ‘I’ll tell you what … Make this chalice from the squire’s drawing, and if you want to think up another of your own design, that’s up to you. I won’t stop you. There’s no shortage of stone. Whatever you need I’ll provide.’

At this point Danilushko sank into thought. It’s been said many times that any fool can knock another man’s work, but to create something of your own means many a night of tossing and turning. Danilushko continued to work on the squire’s chalice, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking away, wondering what flower and leaf would best suit the malachite stone. He became pensive and gloomy. Prokopich noticed, and asked, ‘Are you all right, Danilushko? Take it easy with this chalice. What’s the hurry? You should go out and enjoy yourself sometimes – it’s not right to do nothing but sit there, day in, day out!’

‘You’re right,’ said Danilushko. ‘I ought at least to go down to the forest. Perhaps I’ll spot what I’m after.’

From then on he began going to the forest almost every day. It was the time for haymaking and picking berries. The wild grasses and herbs were in flower. Danilushko would stop in a hayfield or a forest glade and stand there staring at something. Then he would wander the hayfields again, examining the grass as though searching for something. There were a lot of people about making hay or gathering herbs and berries. They would ask Danilushko, ‘Lost something?’ He would smile joylessly and say, ‘No, I haven’t lost anything, there’s just something I can’t find.’

‘There’s something not right with the lad,’ these folks began saying.

He’d go back home, make straight for the bench and sit there till morning. As soon as the sun came up, he’d be off to the forest and hayfields again. He began bringing home all sorts of little leaves and flowers, more and more of them from poisonous plants that the cattle avoided: white hellebore and hemlock, moonflower and marsh tea, and various kinds of sedge. His face became drawn, his eyes began to look troubled, his hands lost their boldness. Prokopich well and truly started to worry. Danilushko said to him, ‘The chalice gives me no peace. My only wish is to bring out the full power of the stone.’

Prokopich tried to talk some sense into him:

‘Why does it bother you so much? You’re well fed, what else do you need? Let the squires amuse themselves however they
like. What matters for us is to be left in peace. If they think up some design, then we’ll do as they ask, but why go out of your way for them? You’re just giving yourself an extra burden, that’s all.’

But Danilushko would not budge.

‘It’s not that I’m trying to please the squire,’ he said. ‘I just can’t get this chalice out of my head. I see what fine stone we have, and what do we do with it? We turn it and carve it and burnish it, but all in vain. But I’ve a yearning now to make something that will allow me to see the full power of the stone and reveal it to others.’

After a while Danilushko went and sat down to work on the chalice from the squire’s drawing. Now and again he laughed: ‘A stone ribbon with little holes, a carved rim …’

All of a sudden he abandoned this chalice and began work on something else. And he just went on standing there at the bench, not taking a moment’s rest. He said to Prokopich, ‘I shall make the chalice in the shape of the moonflower.’

Prokopich tried to talk him out of it. At first Danilushko did not want to listen. Three or four days later, however, after making a slip, he said, ‘All right then. First I’ll finish the squire’s chalice, then I’ll start on my own. Only you mustn’t try to stop me … I really can’t get it out of my head.’

‘All right,’ said Prokopich. ‘I won’t bother you.’ To himself, however, he was thinking: ‘The lad’s calming down, soon he’ll forget about this chalice of his. He needs a wife, that’s what. Once he’s got a family to provide for, that’ll clear his head of all this nonsense.’

Danilushko started on the chalice. It was a lot of work; it was going to take him more than a year. He worked hard at it, and he didn’t bring up the moonflower even once. Prokopich began to talk about marriage: ‘What about Katya Letemina, how about her for a bride? She’s a good girl … There’s not a word can be said against her.’

Prokopich was being artful. He had long since noticed that Danilushko had his eye on this girl. And she for her part was certainly not turning away from him. That’s why Prokopich, as if just in passing, had mentioned her. But Danilushko stood
firm: ‘Wait! First let me get this chalice out of the way. I’m fed up with it. Any moment now I might make a slip with the hammer and crack it, and all you can do is harp on about marriage! Katya and I have agreed everything already. She’s going to wait for me.’

Well, Danilushko finished the chalice from the squire’s drawing. Of course, they didn’t tell the steward, and they decided to have a little party at home. Katya, his betrothed, came with her parents; the other guests were mostly malachite masters. Katya marvelled at the chalice: ‘How ever did you manage to carve out that pattern without breaking the stone anywhere? It’s so smooth and perfectly turned!’

The master craftsmen also gave their approval: ‘It’s exactly the same as the drawing. There’s really nothing one can fault. You’ve done a perfect job – and you’ve done it so fast. If you go on working like this, we’ll have a hard time keeping up with you.’

Danilushko listened to all this. Then he said, ‘That’s just it – there’s nothing to fault. It’s smooth and even, the pattern’s come out perfectly, it’s been carved just like the drawing, but where’s the beauty in it? Look at a flower – even the plainest flower brings delight to your heart. Well, who could this chalice bring delight to? What’s it for? Anyone who looks at it will marvel, just like Katya did, at the master’s eye and hand, at the patience he must have had not to chip the stone anywhere—’

‘And where he has slipped up,’ the masters laughed, ‘he’ll have glued it together and covered it with polish, and no one will ever know the difference.’

‘Exactly … But where, I ask, is the beauty of the stone? There was a vein here, and I have to drill holes in it and cut flowers into it. Why? What are they doing here? The stone’s been ruined. And what a stone it was! The finest stone! The very finest!’

He was getting worked up. He had clearly had a bit to drink.

The craftsmen gave Danilushko the same advice that Prokopich had repeated time and time again: ‘Stone’s stone, and there’s nothing more to it. Our job is simply to turn it and carve it.’

Only there was an old man there. Long ago he had taught
Prokopich and the other masters. They all called him Grandad. He was very old and frail indeed, but he understood what was being said, and he advised Danilushko: ‘My dear son, you stay away from that path! Don’t even think of it! Else you’ll end up as one of the Mistress’s mountain masters …’

‘What masters are they, Grandad?’

‘Ah … the masters who live inside the mountain, nobody sees them … Whatever the Mistress desires, they will create it. Once I chanced to see their work. Now that was true craftsmanship! Bears no resemblance to what we do here.’

Everybody became curious. They asked what it was he had seen.

‘It was a snake,’ he said. ‘A snake bracelet.’

‘Well? What was it like?’

‘Nothing like our own work, I tell you. Any master would know at a glance that it was from somewhere else. Our snakes, no matter how perfect they are, they’re stone – but this one seemed alive. The black pattern on its back, its little eyes … It looked as if it might bite you at any moment. Well, to them that’s just child’s play! They’ve seen the stone flower, they understand true beauty.’

The moment the old man mentioned the stone flower, Danilushko immediately began questioning him. The old man answered candidly enough, ‘I don’t know, dear son. I’ve heard that such a flower exists. Our craftsmen must never set eyes on it. Whoever so much as glimpses it, the whole world will go dark for him.’