Chapter XII: Act II: Scene I (10)

So the birds of prey flew off in all directions to fulfil the Eagle’s commands. No one can say they dawdled over their business. First of all they drove in a whole flight of rooks, registered their names, and gave them out passports. The rook, you see, is a fertile bird, and puts up with everything. Its best quality is that it admirably represents the peasant class; and everybody knows that if once you have got the peasants settled, all the rest is a matter of detail and quite easily managed. And they certainly managed beautifully. The corn-crakes and mud-suckers were trained for an orchestra; the parrots were dressed up for acrobats; the white-feathered magpie, being a notorious thief, was intrusted with the keys of the treasury; and the owls and night-jars were put on duty as sentinels. In a word, the whole thing was arranged in a manner that would have done credit to any nobleman’s establishment. Even the cuckoo was not forgotten; employment was found for her as fortune-teller to the female Eagle; and a foundling hospital was instituted for orphan cuckoos.

But before the whole arrangement was fairly in working order the managing directors realised that something was wanting. For a long time they could not think what it could be; but at last they remembered that in all high-class establishments Science and Art are supposed to be represented, and they had made no provision for either the one or the other. Three birds especially felt themselves aggrieved by this omission—the robin, the woodpecker, and the nightingale.

The robin was a smart little soul and had practised whistling since his fledgling days. He had received his earliest education in an ecclesiastical school; then he had served as regimental clerk; and as soon as he had learned the rules of correct punctuation he had begun to edit, without preliminary censorship, a newspaper: _The Forest Gazette_. But, somehow or other, he could never get it right: whenever he touched upon a subject, it turned out to be taboo; whenever he refrained from mentioning a subject, that subject particularly ought to have been mentioned; and for all these mistakes he used to get hard knocks on his poor little head. So at last he decided: “I will enter the service of the Eagle; all I shall have to do will be to sing his praises every morning; and no one will punish me for that.”

The thrush was a modest and studious person, who led a strictly solitary life; he had no acquaintances (many even believed him to be a drunkard, like all very learned persons), but would sit for whole days alone upon a fir-branch, cramming up information. He managed to plod through a perfect desert of historical investigations: “The Ancestral Records of a Bogie,” “Was the old Woman who rode on a Broomstick married?” “What Sex should be ascribed to Witches in the Register-Papers?” and so forth. But, however hard the poor bird crammed, he could not find a publisher for his pamphlets. At last it occurred to him too: “I’ll engage myself as Court-Historiographer to the Eagle; perhaps he will print my investigations in rook’s dung!”

As for the nightingale, he couldn’t complain of the cruelty of fate; he sang so exquisitely that not only the mighty fir-trees, but even the Moscow shopkeepers were quite touched when they heard him. All the world adored him; all the world held its breath to listen when he poured out torrents of divine song from among the branches of some silent grove. But the nightingale was ambitious beyond measure, and desperately given to falling in love. He was not content with making the forest ring with his wild melodies, or filling sad hearts with the harmony of sound ... he kept on thinking how the Eagle would hang round his neck a shining chain of ants’ eggs, and decorate his breast with live beetles, and how the female Eagle would appoint secret meetings with him by moonlight.... In short, all three birds gave the falcon no peace till he undertook to speak on their behalf.

The Eagle listened attentively to the falcon’s assurances of the necessity of encouraging science and art; but did not quite understand. He sat sharpening his claws, and his eyes flashed back the sunlight like polished gems. He had never seen a newspaper in his life; he had never taken the slightest interest in either witches or the old woman who rode on a broomstick; and about the nightingale he had only heard that it was a little bit of a bird not worth soiling one’s beak over.

“I daresay you don’t even know that Buonaparte is dead,” said the falcon.

“Who was Buonaparte?”

“There you are! And you certainly _ought_ to know about that. Supposing visitors come and begin a polite conversation; they’ll say: ‘In Buonparte’s days so-and-so happened’; and you’ll just have to sit and blink your eyes. That won’t do.”

They called in the owl as adviser, and she agreed with the falcon that science and art must be introduced into the establishment; for they amuse Eagles, and it does ordinary mortals no harm to enjoy them from a distance either. Knowledge is light, and ignorance is darkness. Any fool knows how to eat and sleep; but just try and work out a problem; take the one about the flock of geese, for instance, that’s a very different matter. In the old days the clever landowners understood that; they knew that forewarned was forearmed; they were sharp enough to see which side their bread was buttered. Just take the case of the finch: all the learning he has is how to draw water in a little bucket, and yet see what a high price he fetches just for that one trick! “I,” concluded the owl, “can see in the dark, and I am called wise for that; now, you can stare at the sun for hours together without ever blinking; and all people say about you is: ‘That Eagle’s a bit of a blockhead.’”

“Well, I have no objection to science,” said the Eagle, rather snappishly.

No sooner said than done. On the next day the “Golden Age” began in the Eagle’s establishment. The starlings set to work to learn by heart the hymn: “Let our youth be fed with science”; the corn-crakes and mud-suckers began practising the trumpet; the parrots invented new tricks. A new tax was laid upon the rooks, to be called “Public Instruction Tax.” A _Corps des Cadets_ was founded for fledgling falcons and vultures; and an Academy of Science for owls. They even went the length of buying a farthing alphabet apiece for the baby rooks. Last but not least, the oldest patriarch among the starlings was appointed poet-laureate, with the honorary title of “Vasìli Kirìlych Trediakòvsky,”[61] and commanded to prepare for a public competition with the nightingale, to be held on the next morning.

At last the great day dawned. The newly-elected flunkeys were admitted into the presence of the Eagle, and the tournament of arts began.

The most successful competitor was the robin. Instead of reciting his compliments, he read aloud an article, so clear and simple that even the Eagle fancied he understood. The robin said that people ought to live in happiness and prosperity; and the Eagle remarked, “Exactly so.” He said that if he could make his paper sell properly he would be quite indifferent to all other questions; and the Eagle repeated, “Exactly so.” He said that the life of a servant is preferable to that of a master; for the master has many responsibilities, whereas the servant lives under his master’s protection, free from care; and the Eagle again repeated, “Exactly so!” He said that, in the days when he kept a conscience, he could not get a pair of trousers to wear, but, now that he had got rid of his conscience, he was in the habit of putting on two pair at once; and the Eagle once more repeated, “Exactly so!”

At last the Eagle began to get bored, and snappishly commanded: “The next one.”

The woodpecker began by tracing the pedigree of the Eagle back to the Sun, and the Eagle confirmed his statements with the remark: “That’s just what I used to hear from poor papa.” According to the woodpecker, the Sun had three children: two sons, the Lion and the Eagle; and one daughter, the Shark. The Shark misconducted herself; and her father, as a punishment, sent her to rule the depths of ocean; the Lion turned aside from his father’s way, and the father made him ruler of the deserts; but the Eagle was a son after his father’s heart, and the father kept him nearest to himself and gave to him the realms of air for a kingdom. But before the poor woodpecker had got through even the prosy introduction to his history, the Eagle called out impatiently: “The next one! The next one!”

Then the nightingale began his song, and made a mess of it from the very first note. He sang of the joy of the flunkey hearing that God has sent him a master; he sang of the magnanimity of Eagles, and of their liberality in tipping flunkeys.... But, however desperately he tried to pitch his voice in the true flunkey tone, the art that dwelt within his breast somehow or other would not be controlled. He himself was a flunkey from beak to tail (he had even got hold, somehow, of a second-hand white cravat, and had ruffled up the feathers on his little head into a hairdresser’s curl), but his _art_ refused to be confined within flunkeyish bounds, and kept on bursting forth in spite of all his efforts. It wasn’t any use for him to sing; he could not give satisfaction anyhow.

“What’s that booby droning about?” cried the Eagle; “call Trediakòvsky!”

Vasìli Kirìlych was quite in his element. He chose just the same toadyish subjects, but gave so clear an exposition of them that the Eagle kept on all the time repeating—

“Exactly so! Exactly so!”

When the competition was over, the Eagle hung upon Trediakòvsky’s neck a chain of ants’ eggs, and flashed his eyes at the nightingale, exclaiming—

“Take away that scoundrel!”

Thus ended the nightingale’s, ambitious dreams. He was quickly hustled into a hen-coop and sold out of the way to the tavern “Parting Friends,” where, to this day, he fills with sweet poison the hearts of tipsy “meteors.”

Nevertheless, the work of public instruction was not abandoned. The fledgling vultures and falcons attended the gymnasium regularly; the Academy of Science began to publish a dictionary, and got half through the letter A; the woodpecker finished the tenth volume of “The History of Bogies.” The robin, however, kept very quiet. From the first day he had felt an instinctive conviction that all this educational rage would come to a speedy and grievous end; and apparently his presentiments were well founded.

The troubles began with a grave mistake on the part of the owl and falcon, who had accepted the management of the work of education: they took it into their heads to teach the Eagle himself to read and write. They taught him upon the easy and agreeable phonetic system; but, notwithstanding all their efforts, after a whole year’s training, instead of “Eagle,” he signed his name “Agull”; the result of which was that he could not get a single respectable financier to accept his bonds. The owl and falcon also made another great mistake: like all pedagogues, they never gave their pupil any peace. Every minute of the day the owl would follow at the poor Eagle’s heels, screaming out, “B-b-b-b; Z-z-z; D-d-d; K-k-k;” while the falcon as incessantly dinned into his ears that it is impossible to divide the prey one has caught without knowing the first four rules of arithmetic.

“Suppose you have stolen ten goslings, of which you have given two to the police-inspector’s clerk, and eaten one yourself, how many have you left?” asked the falcon, in a reproachful voice.

The Eagle was not able to work this problem, so he remained silent; but anger against the falcon burned in his heart more and more fiercely with every day.

All this resulted in a condition of general tension, which was at once taken advantage of by intriguing adventurers. The ringleader of the conspiracy was the kite; he enticed over the cuckoo, who took to whispering in the ear of the female Eagle—

“They are simply killing our dear master with their learning.”

Whereupon the female Eagle began ironically calling her mate “Wiseacre! Wiseacre!” The conspirators next turned their energies to the business of arousing “evil passions” in the vulture.

One morning, just at dawn, and while the Eagle was still sleepily rubbing his eyes, the owl, as usual, slipped behind him and began her eternal buzzing in his ear—

“V-v-v.... Z-z-z.... R-r-r——”

“Oh! go away, you awful bore!” murmured the Eagle, wearily.

“Be so good, your worship, as to repeat B-b-b.... K-k-k.... M-m-m——”

“I tell you, for the second time, go away!”

“P-p-p.... H-h-h.... Sh-sh-sh——”

“For the third time, go away!”

“S-s-s.... F-f-f.... J-j-j——”

With the quickness of lightning the Eagle turned upon the owl and tore her in pieces. An hour later the falcon, knowing nothing of what had happened, returned from the morning hunt.

“Here is a problem for you,” said he. “We have brought back 60 lbs. of game. Now, suppose we divide the game into two equal parts, one half for you and the other half for the remainder of the establishment, how much of the 60 lbs. will fall to your share?”

“All of it,” replied the Eagle.

“No, no; answer properly,” persisted the falcon. “If it had been “all,” I shouldn’t have asked you!”

It was not the first time that he had set his pupil such problems; but on this occasion the tone in which the question was asked struck the Eagle as quite intolerable. All his blood boiled at the thought that, when he said “all,” his slave should dare to answer “not all.” Now, it is a well-known peculiarity of Eagles that, when their blood begins to boil, they become incapable of distinguishing pedagogical disquisitions from revolution. The Eagle acted accordingly.

Nevertheless, after finishing up the falcon, the Eagle announced—

“The Scientific ’Cademy is to stop as it is.”

The choir of starlings once more repeated their hymn, “Let our youth be fed with science.” But it was already plain to every one that the “Golden Age” was drawing to its close. In the near future darkness and ignorance were at hand, with their inevitable train—civil war and general confusion.

The disturbances began with the competition of two candidates for the post of the defunct falcon—the vulture and the kite. As the attention of the two rivals was absorbed exclusively in their personal interest, the affairs of the establishment were to some extent shoved aside and gradually fell into a neglected condition. In a month there remained not a trace of the “Golden Age.” The starlings had grown lazy; the corn-crakes played all out of tune; the white-feathered magpie took to stealing right and left; and the rooks got so hopelessly behindhand with the taxes that there was nothing for it but an “_execution_.”[62] Matters went so far that the servants began to bring the Eagle and his mate bad meat for dinner.

In order to exculpate themselves from responsibility in all this mismanagement, the vulture and the kite, for the moment, played into each other’s claws, and threw all the blame upon education.

“Science,” said they, “is undoubtedly a useful thing, but only under the right conditions. Our ancestors,” said they, “managed to live without any science; and we can do the same.”

And, to prove that all the troubles came from science, they set to work to hunt up conspiracies, and particularly conspiracies in which some book, if only a prayer-book, was concerned. There began a perfect rain of searches, police-investigations, and trials.

“Drop it!” suddenly rang through the aerial heights.

It was the Eagle who said that. The process of education broke off short. Throughout the whole establishment there reigned such dead silence that one could even hear the whispers of slander creeping along the earth.

The first victim of the new tendency of affairs was the woodpecker. Indeed, indeed the poor bird was not guilty; but he knew how to read and write, and that was quite sufficient ground for an accusation.

“Do you know the rules of punctuation?”

“Not only the rules of ordinary punctuation, but even those for extra signs, such as quotation marks, hyphens, parentheses; on my conscience, I always put them right.”

“And can you distinguish the feminine from the masculine gender?”

“I can. I should not make a mistake, even by night.”

And that was all. The woodpecker was chained and placed in solitary confinement for life in a hollow tree. On the next day, being devoured by ants, he gave up the ghost in his prison. His sorrows were hardly over when the thunderbolt fell on the Academy of Science.

The owls and night-jars, however, defended themselves sturdily; they did not wish to be evicted from their cosy free quarters. They said that they followed scientific pursuits, not in order to popularise science, but to protect it from the evil eye. But the kite instantly demolished their arguments by asking—

“What’s the use of having science at all?”

This being an unexpected question, they could give no answer. They were then separated and sold to market-gardeners, who killed and stuffed them and set them up in their nurseries for scarecrows. The farthing alphabets were next taken away from the baby rooks, and mashed up in a mortar, to form a homogeneous mass of pulp, which was then made into playing-cards.

Matters grew worse and worse. After the owls and the night-jars came the turn of the starlings; then the corn-crakes, parrots, and finches. Even the deaf heath-cock was suspected of “a certain way of thinking,” on the ground that he held his tongue all day and slept all night.

The staff of the establishment gradually dwindled away. At last there was no one left to serve the Eagle and his mate but the vulture and the kite. In the background there remained, of course, a crowd of rooks, who multiplied at a pace that was perfectly disgraceful; and the faster they multiplied the more their arrears of taxes accumulated.

Finally the kite and vulture, having no one else to intrigue against (of course you don’t count the vulgar rooks), began to intrigue one against the other; and all on the ground of science. The vulture denounced the kite as reading the prayer-book in secret; and the kite invented against the vulture the slander that he kept the “New Song-Book” hidden in a hollow tree.

The Eagle began to grow uneasy.

But just at this moment an extraordinary thing happened. Finding themselves left without supervision, the rooks suddenly raised the question—

“By the by, what did the farthing alphabet say about all this?”

And, without stopping to remember clearly what was said, they all left their nests in a body and flew away.

The Eagle started off to pursue them, but it was no use; the indolent life he had been living had so enervated him that he could hardly flap his wings.

He returned to his mate, and uttered these words of wisdom—

“Be this a lesson to Eagles!”

But in what exactly the “lesson” consisted—whether it were that education is injurious to Eagles, or that Eagles are injurious to education, or, finally, that each is injurious to the other—that he never explained.

THE WALTER SCOTT PRESS, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.

-----

Footnote 1:

In Russia marriages cannot be solemnised during the weeks appointed by
the Greek Church as fasts.

Footnote 2:

The district of St. Petersburg in which stands the terminus of the
Moscow railway.

Footnote 3:

The north-east district of St. Petersburg.

Footnote 4:

Literally, “Omelette” or “Custard.”

Footnote 5:

Government clerk.

Footnote 6:

“Bring some bread, my man.”

Footnote 7:

Son of a dog.

Footnote 8:

Pomòy—dish-water.

Footnote 9:

Yarỳzhnik—rake, roué.

Footnote 10:

Perepryèlyi—stewed too long.

Footnote 11:

Dỳrka—any little hole or gap.

Footnote 12:

“The Island,” in the singular, means the Vasìlyevsky Island.

Footnote 13:

The pious ejaculation used, with the sign of the cross, by strict
members of the Orthodox Greek Church, on starting upon any enterprise,
great or small.

Footnote 14:

Interval of one month between the Second and Third Pictures.

Footnote 15:

Warden’s Council.

Footnote 16:

Gentleman of the Emperor’s Bedchamber.

Footnote 17:

Sledge-driver.

Footnote 18:

Assistant to a village priest in Russia.

Footnote 19:

Long coat worn by Russian peasants.

Footnote 20:

Metropolitan.

Footnote 21:

In provincial places in Russia it is customary to use an abacus in
adding up accounts.

Footnote 22:

Colloquial for “the wife of Lòpàtin.”

Footnote 23:

The Patronymic without the Christian name of the person addressed is a
common colloquialism.

Footnote 24:

A Russian proverb.

Footnote 25:

Russian hymn.

Footnote 26:

Russian sacred songs.

Footnote 27:

Special canticle on a Saint’s day.

Footnote 28:

In the Greek Church the psalms are divided up into a kind of rosary.

Footnote 29:

Literally “Pig’s ear.”

Footnote 30:

And I, at what risks and perils, go and waste myself expending saliva!
What folly!

Footnote 31:

Extorsion des _nédoymkàs_, une espèce de peine corporelle, en vigueur
en Russie, surtout dans le cas où le paysan, par suite d’une mauvaise
récolte, n’a pas de quoi payer les impôts.—_Chenapan._[63]

Footnote 32:

Oh, my poor mother! Oh, my sister, wasting her youth in the vain hope
of a husband!

Footnote 33:

“The law, good gracious, we have fifteen volumes of law!”

Footnote 34:

1853.

Footnote 35:

Mr. Chenapan has again made rather a muddle of his Russian. “Zvon
pobièdy, razdavaïsia!” (“Bells of victory, ring out!”) is the opening
line of one of Derzhàvin’s pompous, servile, and essentially jingoish
odes on the victories of Catherine II.—_Translator._

Footnote 36:

“This is _our_ way of giving tips.”

Footnote 37:

A well-known French actress of that time in St. Petersburg.—AUTHOR.

Footnote 38:

Evidently a mistake; there are no municipal counsellors in
Russia.—AUTHOR.

Footnote 39:

“Now you’ll see me at my business!”

Footnote 40:

The St. Petersburg Arcade.

Footnote 41:

A quotation from Griboyèdov.

Footnote 42:

The observation of a certain editor.

Footnote 43:

The Islands in the Delta of the Neva are recognised places for fast
amusements. The Arcadia is a well-known music-hall there.

Footnote 44:

Village syndic.

Footnote 45:

Landlord and Serf-owner (corruption of the ancient word “boyàrin”).

Footnote 46:

The village bell-ringer.

Footnote 47:

Bishop.

Footnote 48:

District Police Inspector.

Footnote 49:

Inferior police official, who collects taxes.

Footnote 50:

The peasant is satirizing the Russian “Passport regulations,”
according to which it is a penal offence for a householder to take in
any inmate who cannot show police certificates.

Footnote 51:

Colloquial for Mikhail.

Footnote 52:

Principal town of any province.

Footnote 53:

A famous group of statuary in Moscow.

Footnote 54:

A slang term for the gendarmes; probably because their uniforms are
“deeply, darkly, beautifully blue,” like the waters of the
Mediterranean.—TRANSLATOR.

Footnote 55:

Equipage with three horses.

Footnote 56:

Member of the Committee of Inquiry.

Footnote 57:

Contemptuous diminutive of Lipàtkin.

Footnote 58:

Of the clerical class.

Footnote 59:

Fragments of popular songs.

Footnote 60:

The popular emblem of hospitality.

Footnote 61:

A flunkeyish poetaster at the Court of Catherine II.

Footnote 62:

“_Exekoùtzia_,” official term for wholesale flogging, in case of
mutiny, or inability to pay taxes, among the peasantry.

Footnote 63:

Mr. Chenapan has made a slight mistake. _Nedoìmka_ is the Russian word
for debt; but he is so far right that “recovery of nedoìmki” is the
expression officially used for the extortion of taxes from a starving
population, and that such extortion is very often accomplished by
means of “une espèce de peine corporelle.”—_Translator._

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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DOCTOR DECHAR: “AND YET YOU DECLARED THE OPERATION MUST BE DONE?”

DOCTOR RAPPASS: “OF COURSE. YOU MUST ALWAYS OPERATE.”
]

THE HUMOUR OF FRANCE.

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“HE WAS TOO FOND OF DELIVERING LONG SPEECHES AT THE ALEHOUSE.”
]

“SIT THE GOOD TOWNSPEOPLE OF A SUMMER EVENING.”
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(FROM THE HUMOUR OF ITALY.)

PULCINELLA’S DUEL.
]

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“SHE SHRILLY OBSERVES, THOMAS JEFFERSON, COME RIGHT INTO THE HOUSE
THIS MINIT.”
]

“KOSCIUSKO AND I FROLICKED AROUND.”
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(FROM THE HUMOUR OF HOLLAND.)

“AND HE WAS QUITE SATISFIED.”
]

THE HUMOUR OF HOLLAND.

Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by A. WERNER. With numerous
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“KAPBLOK, THE BUTCHER’S MAN.”
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Elizabeth Lee. With numerous Illustrations by Paul Frénzeny.

THE HUMOUR OF GERMANY. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by
Hans Müller-Casenov. With numerous Illustrations by C. E. Brock.

THE HUMOUR OF ITALY. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by A.
Werner. With 50 Illustrations and a Frontispiece by Arturo Faldi.

THE HUMOUR OF AMERICA. Selected with a copious Biographical Index of
American Humorists, by James Barr.

THE HUMOUR OF HOLLAND. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by
A. Werner. With numerous Illustrations by Dudley Hardy.

THE HUMOUR OF IRELAND. Selected by D. J. O’Donoghue. With numerous
Illustrations by Oliver Paque.

THE HUMOUR OF SPAIN. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by S.
Taylor. With numerous Illustrations by H. R. Millar.

THE HUMOUR OF RUSSIA. Translated, with Notes, by E. L. Boole, and an
Introduction by Stepniak. With 50 Illustrations by Paul Frénzeny.

THE HUMOUR OF JAPAN. Translated, with an Introduction, by A. M. With
Illustrations by George Bigot (from Drawings made in Japan). [_In
preparation._

London: WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, Paternoster Square.

_SPECIMEN._ (FROM THE HUMOUR OF SPAIN.)

PEPITA AND THE YOUNG PRIEST.
]

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 3. Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 5. Encosed upside down text in ⓇCIRCLED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER RⓇ.