News promoted by a recent BBC wildlife documentary claiming that the Corvus genus of the Corvidæ family – crows and ravens – boasts the most intelligent creatures to be found anywhere in the animal kingdom – both in the lab and in the wild – jolted a memory . . . and I recalled the penultimate chapter of my as-yet-unpublished crime novel, D-r Tchékhov, Detektiv, in which a talking raven’s prophecies awaken in the writer atavistic instincts that defy his own psychopathological insights as a graduate doctor and draw him closer to the animistic pagan beliefs of a Cheremissian shaman-medicineman.
In the following passage, D-r Anton Tchékhov, aged 28 years, having investigated the mysterious duelling death of an aristocratic cadet in a remote snowbound northern garrison, mounts up to observe the burial party.
In the following passage, D-r Anton Tchékhov, aged 28 years, having investigated the mysterious duelling death of an aristocratic cadet in a remote snowbound northern garrison, mounts up to observe the burial party.
An Unwreathed Burial.
Huge flickering shadows danced like elusive spirits over the Prince’s shroud.The cadets, Kulikov and Toichina, handed their torches to the ritual torch-bearer, and mounted as one. On their backs were strapped entrenching tools.
In the moonlight, their horses had a silver sheen, a pale metallic bloom.
Snow began to fall.
Old Ivanishche plunged his spurs into his steed and, with a persuasive word, tugged at the traces.
The sledge went burrowing through the storm carrying its grisly load.
Tchékhov shrugged, thumbed in the direction of the old feldsher and, in a husky solemn voice which veiled his drollery, said to the General : ‘Over the grand panslavic plain roams a race of mischievous men.’
From the General a half groan was followed by a horse laugh.
Now and again the moon showed through the snow clouds gathering above the forest.
Where the lower track descended to the exercise grounds the burial duty sheered away through the gap in the boundary fence.
Kulikov raised his hands smartly to his cap. Neither prince nor plebeian, he played his part well, without gaucherie – with natural grace – a dash of the Oriental in the uniform of the Occident, patrolling the pregnable western wall of his Tsar’s empire.
Under the hood, in the shadows of the grey cloak, the cavernous grin of Old Vańuška widened and yawned like Death himself.
‘I saw Death mounted on horseback and did not draw back,’ breathed Anton pensively, his words turning to ice.
Ivanishche stabbed his finger at the dead body.
‘A kucher daresn’t stop when he’s harnessed to a soul.’ He larraped the shaft-horse and the attendant cadets galloped after at a fast lick favoured by a following wind like two outriders of the gale.
‘Death gleans men, one after another,’ Anton thought, ‘it knows its business.’
The watching figure paused until the riders vanished, moved by an impulse to chase their strange journeying to the last post.
Some things were to be seen but once in the great game, he brooded, and it was worthwhile seeing them, even if life were the shorter for it.
Anton kept well into the shadows of the trees fringing the side of the path.
Ahead of him he could hear Ivanishche singing in a cracked voice a chant du cosaque composed by the hard-drinking Cossack leader Davidoff at the time of Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Moscow.
(‘A crust,’ mused Anton. Now Ivanishche was out of earshot of the Camp, the Tcheremis apostate must be referring to his humiliating, enforced vow of allegiance to the Tsar. Anton knew that any unbelievers among the new conscripts were forced at gunpoint to eat bread from the blade-tip of the adjutant’s sword, and repeat : ‘Thank you for bread and salt ... Spasibo za khleb da sol.’)Half a kopeck for the master,
Silver on the horse’s feet,
Good oats for the charger fleet ;
A crust for you – you’ll ride the faster.
Their massy shadow like a rolling black ball bowled along the length of the duelling pitch at which point the cantering hacks were swallowed by the greater shadow of the vast forest.
They were moving at a break-neck pace, high-tailing it through the trees, Kulikov running a short hair second. The only way Anton could distinguish them in the darkness was the fact that the rump of Ivanishche’s horse had a white patch, and that the entrenching tool by his side glinted at a certain angle.
So much ice had become attached to the hoofs of Old Roarer, that the unfortunate creature seemed to be walking on stilts, no two of which were the same length, and, to make matters worse, Anton had almost lost all feeling in his own extremities due to the intense cold. He should have liked to walk on foot to restore his circulation but he could not for he feared losing the party among the trees.
Soon the éskort emerged on to open ground, a vast snowy plain of infinite desolation, and the shadow of a ridge appeared on which could be seen the dark outlines of the tumuli which marked the site of the ancient burial grounds.
At the foot of the rise was an abandoned fortalice, the forpost of the garrison’s western defences and, since the cholera epidemic, unoccupied save for crows and ravens.
A raven, rousant, perched on one of the isolation huts took wing.
(During those cholera months, a scene had presented itself, the General had said, which few minds could conceive or pens depict. ‘The ghastly countenances of those poor fellows presented a dismal sight, their sunken eyes ever darting after you, beseeching assistance.’ Ivanishche had worked like a madman, unthinking of the danger, administering relief by pouring water over the livid bodies of soldiers labouring under the pangs of premature dissolution, their faces dewed with the cold and clammy damp of death. In the final days, only Ivanishche had summoned the courage to remain beside the pallets of his charges, as they died in agony, and only Ivanishche had walked alive from that dreadful place.)
When Tchékhov neared the crown of the ridge he saw the stars had ceased their pulsing and shone steadily on a slope of scattered graves.
A huge mass of rock projected on the north eastern face.
Drawing closer to the cemetery, and shielded by a kurgan barrow which broke the skyline, Anton was able to observe the gravediggers about their tasks, as the old feldsher dismounted from the rusty roan and unloaded his grim cargo.
‘Lay ’im on them big stones,’ Kulikov was instructed by his mentor.
Anton heard a crunt from a cudgel as the feldsher smashed the ice, then Old Ivanishche, raised his axe to cleave the frozen soil for the grave.
Anton could distinguish the Tcheremis graves from the rest, as their plots lay feet-first to the southeast with their headstones to northwest.
In that Golgotha there were skulls of all sizes. The unconsecrated plots lay between the cholera cemetery and the Jewish burial ground, the furthermost from the town, where the collapsed sarcophagi – with their indecipherable pseudo-Hebraic inscriptions memorialising long departed hakams – had fallen into the vaults beneath, until the exilic graves had become, Anton mused, like ‘...tombs even of themselves’, recalling Goethe’s essay in a schoolbook, printed more than half a century earlier.
On the ground, outside the cholera victims’ enclosure, a sleigh in which the soldiers’ corpses had been carried, and pieces of wood remaining from the boards used to make the coffins, had been left to rot (for they were not burnt according to superstition lest the faces of the corpses became blistered).
The Tcheremis burial ground – their sacred šügarla - was a forlorn bare place without any fenced reshetka ; and in place of the Christian krestel – the grave cross – was a mensur of undressed rock.
Evidently, the Tcheremis yüzo had chosen the grave site with care.
By the light of the carriage lamp on the sleigh the men quickly broke the ice-lens beneath the surface snow, and penetrated the softer strata of an interpermafrost talik which lay unfrozen below.
Judging from the burial tailings from the dig, which appeared to steam, a thermal spring flowed through the ice core at this point.
The Prince was buried unwreathed.
Tchékhov overheard Old Vańuška’s muttered explanation to Kulikov : ‘Khadoško keäš.’*
Anton murmured : ‘Just as I shall lie alone in my grave so shall I live alone.’
There was no ceremony ; no Mass of Requiem ; simply the cries of a raven.
‘Khar-r-r-kai! Khar-r-r-kai! Khar-r-r-kai! K-k-kopai awk-up, k-k-koldan! O-o-rrt, khr-r-romoi, khor-r-roniat kr-r-raplenogo kor-r-rju kovar-r-rnogo kr-r-rasavtsa-fr-r-ranta! Sokr-r-rushenniy! Pokar-r-ranniy! Jar-r-r-r - Kor-r-rak, kur-r-rier kar-r-ry. k-kar-r-rkayu kr-r-rah i Khaos!’
Ivanishche laughed, inexplicably,† as the shaman put the Prince to bed with a shovel at last, buried with his teeth upward, facing southeast.
‘Quork!’‡ the raven cried.
Anton observed Old Ivanishche toss a crust on to the burial mound, and place an abundant supply of cooked leavings on the grave to discourage the return to the barracks of the famished spirit of the departed.
‘R-r-a-ab!’§ the raven jeered, seizing one of the offerings.
‘Ra-ab!’ yelled Ivanishche in the same malevolent voice and shook his fist.
When Anton turned the mare and piloted her towards the railhead, the last glimpse of Ivanishche he was destined to carry with him was of the Tcheremis warlock spitting thrice into the pit to sanctify the new-made grave.
The mare seemed to know the way and they passed beyond the dissenter’s tombstones where rude wreaths hung upon little pine crosses.
An upspringing breeze caught a garland and cast it over the edge of a bluff which, as he advanced, to Anton’s surprise, was revealed to be carved by the upper reaches of the river.
Below, beside a log chute, were the wreaths of the departed, clinging to a spit of ice thick enough to bear a railway train.
A dark wreath, encircled with a saw-edge of ice, detached itself and began to drift downstream.
‘Such a beginning, such an end.’
Anton’s words were stopped by a ruckling cough, and he shuddered, thinking of the youth’s eternal sleep, his mouth full of mould, reduced to adipocere in a pit.
He shivered.
Fresh horns of ice several inches thick had formed on the nose of the mare and he urged her forward.
He had no wish to remain a moment longer at this dismal spot and dwell upon his own end ; his heart suddenly leapt with a passion and he gripped the harness fiercely, shaken by the knowledge that he had no other mortal wish than the desire to probe life ever deeper, to live it to the full, to race the whole gamut of experiences, follies, loves, and sacrifices, to squeeze the orange dry, and then to die quite young, having gone the full compass, the needle pointing home.
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* To die by one’s own hand is ‘to die out of grace’ (Tcheremiss).
† On the contrary, quite explicable, when compared with Tchékhov’s transliterated raven cries. (See Glossary below. ) The cries resemble in Russian : ‘Spit! Spit! Spit! Dig your trench, O Wizard! Look there, Lame One! There is buried the treacherous beau-galant, blighted with sores! Failed! Punished! I, Korak, messenger of retribution, prophesy failure and Chaos!’
‡ ‘Korka’ means ‘Crust of bread’.
§ The cry resembles ‘Rab’, meaning ‘Slave’.
Glossary of Raven Speech
Tchékhov’s study of ravens is documented at length in his private writings, a product, perhaps, of his bird-hunting youth and his visits to the Taganrog bird market as a child. The caging of wild songbirds is a Russian custom which Tchékhov was never to abandon, and his deepest affection was reserved for the family Corvidæ – indeed, his affinity with ravens extends further ; like Tchékhov they share a gift for mimicry and may live over forty years. (Tchékhov was to die in his forty-fourth year.)
Significantly, a talking raven is mentioned in Tchékhov’s story, After the Theatre, 1892, and, in this same year, to satisfy his reawakening animism, he acquired a tame crow, ‘Karkasha’ and a raven, ‘Voron Voronovich’.
Cheremisian and Russian raven legends are recorded in his notebooks :
The onomatoeic ‘Kh'er’ correlates closely with the stem present in most European words for ‘raven’. Greek = korax. Tcheremis = korak. Old Icelandic = krakr, &c. That magical powers are attributed to the raven Old Vańuška had learned from Mari folklore, particularly, I suspect, the fable of the resurrection of a dismembered corpse. The Mari people believe strongly that a raven digs a hole in the ground to find the source of the Water of Life ; that is why the raven lives so long. If a man’s limbs are severed the Tcheremis sends a raven with a bowl to bring back the Water of Life to make the man whole again. Is this why Vańuška feared the powers of the raven? It is the custom of the Tcheremis to wash themselves on Easter eve, ‘before the raven washes himself’, that is why the Mari people retire to bed early. They wish to use the Water of Life before the raven reaches it. When there is a drought the Tcheremisians make Raven’s kasha so the ravens bring them rain. The cult of the all-seeing raven, I believe, will never die. To possess ‘raven’s knowledge’ is to be truly wise.Following this passage, on the next page, Tchékhov notes the ability of his caged raven to imitate human calls and even, the barking of a dog. ‘The raven, after he was caught, I saw had been clearly separated from a distraught mate who distantly mimicked her captive partner’s idiosyncratic alarm calls with astonishing exactitude to prompt a response and locate her beloved.
‘The complete transliteration of a Russian raven’s speech is a task which I regard with the greatest gravity. I trust I will be granted time on earth to complete my research and to publish the prophetic utterances I have brought to light which I dare not breathe to a soul until I have exhausted every effort to establish contact with these supranatural beings, and succeed in knowing their ways with the same facility as Vańuška.’
Transliterated Sound Resembles (Russian)
Awk! oko (eye)
Awk-up! okop (trench)
Ggaagga-ggaagga! Garotting
Kaah! See “Kar-kat!”
Kakoy krah! kakoi (what, which, how)
Kak-to! kak-to (one day, somehow)
Kar-kat! karkat (to hawk up phlegm)
Kaw! khor (chorus)
Kee-aw! kur'er (messenger)
Ko-pick! kopeyka (kopeck = penny)
Kow! -
Krah! krak (financial crash ; bankruptcy ; failure)
Kraap! krap (specks or marks made by
card-sharper on deck of cards)
Krrk! krik (cry, shout)
Kuork! korka (crust of bread, poverty)
Kuort! kort (court) kurit' (smoke)
Kurort! kurort (spa)
Ku-uk-kuk! kukovat (to “cuckoo” ; to drag out
a lonely existence)
Kvvar-kat! kvakat (to croak, to prophecy ill)
Kwulkulkul! –
Ky! kii (cue)
Nakh-rrnm! Nigynam (Tcheremis = ‘Nevermore’)
Nuhk! Nyukh (scent)
O-ort! Vo't (There! Now! There is!)
Prurrhk! prok (use, benefit)
Rhaap! rab (slave)
Rührr! –
Spror-spree-spruck-spor-per-
rhick-rhür-rhuck! –
Tuktu-tavani! –
Whoo-oo-woo! –
For a further extract from the manuscripts of D-r Tchékhov, Detektiv, see also Dead Wife, New Hat at
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/dead-wife-new-hat-femme-morte-chapeau.html
and D-r Tchékhov, Detektiv. A long lost novel . . .
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/d-r-tchekhov-detektiv-long-lost-novel.html
and Inductive Detection . . .
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/inductive-detection.html
and Winter Rules . . .
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/winter-rules-and-le-diable-boiteux.html
•
Catherine Eisner believes passionately in plot-driven suspense fiction, a devotion to literary craft that draws on studies in psychoanalytical criminology and psychoactive pharmacology to explore the dark side of motivation, and ignite plot twists with unexpected outcomes. Within these disciplines Eisner’s fictions seek to explore variant literary forms derived from psychotherapy and criminology to trace the traumas of characters in extremis. Compulsive recurring sub-themes in her narratives examine sibling rivalry, rivalrous cousinhood, pathological imposture, financial chicanery, and the effects of non-familial male pheromones on pubescence,
see Eisner’s Sister Morphine (2008)
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/sister-morphine.html
http://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/sister-morphine.html
and Listen Close to Me (2011)
