When I served as a coachman at the post office - the text (words) of the song. When I served as a coachman at the post office L. N. Trefoliov
As a song, the poem began to be performed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (in other words, this song is not at all an "old coachman's song"). In the discography of Nina Dulkevich, the author of the music is indicated - Yakov Prigozhy, pianist-arranger of the Moscow restaurant "Yar" (recording on the plate of the Pate company, 1912, 26736. See: Black eyes: Old Russian romance. - M .: Izd- in Eksmo, 2004, p. 175); maybe he's just an arranger. Other sources usually indicate "folk music".
The text is based on Leonid Trefolev's poem "Coachman" (1868) - a translation of the poem "Postman" by the Polish poet Vladislav Syrokomlya (real name Ludwig Kondratovich, 1823-62). Based on a true story that happened to a Belarusian postman on the St. Petersburg-Warsaw postal route, 70 miles from Minsk. In those parts, on the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, mail was delivered not by yamskaya chase, but by a postman on a horse, with a bag and a signal horn. These features got into the Russian song: “I accepted the package - and rather on the horse”, “jumped off the horse” - the hero rides on horseback, and not on a sleigh with a troika, as a coachman would be supposed to.
Favorite site.
Leonid Trefolev is a real Russian poet, not one of the great ones, but he wrote a beautiful ballad, it can and should be included in the golden fund of Russian poetry
Dmitry Golovin. rare record
Sergey Yakovlevich Lemeshev
Ivan Skobtsov
Vadim Kozin
Lidia Ruslanova
Oleg Pogudin
Vyacheslav Malezhik
Vladislav Piavko
Vladimir Kovalenko
An old coachman's song to the words of L. Trefolev
I was young, I had strength,
And firmly, brothers, in one village
I loved the girl at that time.
At first, I did not smell trouble in the girl,
Then he bluffed in earnest:
Wherever I go, wherever I go
I'll turn everything to my dear for a minute.
And it is pleasant, but there is no rest,
And my heart hurts more and more.
One day the boss gives me a package:
“Bring, they say, to the post office faster!”
I accepted the package - and rather on the horse,
And rushed across the field with a whirlwind,
And my heart aches and aches,
As if she had never seen her for a century.
And what is the reason, I can not understand,
And the wind howls so sadly ...
And suddenly - as if my horse froze on the run,
And looks sideways timidly.
My heart beat faster,
And I looked ahead in alarm,
Then he jumped off a remote horse -
And I see a corpse on the road.
And the snow has completely covered that find,
The blizzard dances over the corpse.
I dug up a snowdrift and grew to the place -
Frost came under the sheepskin coat.
Under the snow, brothers, she lay ...
Brown eyes closed.
Pour, pour more wine
There is no more urine to tell!
ORIGINAL POEM
Leonid Trefolev
We drink, have fun, and you, unsociable,
You sit like a slave in the gate.
And we will reward you with a cup and a pipe,
When you tell us grief.
The bell does not amuse you sometimes,
And the girls don't care either. In sadness
You live for two years, friend, with us, -
You were not greeted cheerfully.
“I am bitter even so, and without a glass of wine,
Not nice in the world, not nice!
But give me a cup - she will help
Say that I'm tired.
When I worked as a coachman at the post office,
He was young, he was strong.
And I was hardly a bonded sign,
Tormented by a terrible race.
I rode at night, I rode during the day;
They gave me a bar for vodka,
We will get a ruble and quietly kutnem,
And we rush, hitting everyone.
There were many friends. The caretaker is not evil;
We even became friends with him.
And the horses! I whistle - they will rush with an arrow ...
Hold on, rider, in the carriage!
Oh, nice I went! It happened to be a sin
You will exhaust the horses in order;
But, as you carry the bride with the groom,
You'll probably get a chervonets.
In a neighboring village I fell in love with one
Maiden. Loved in earnest;
Wherever I go, I will turn to her,
To be together for a moment.
One night the caretaker gives me an order:
"Live take the baton!"
Then the weather was with us,
There is not a star in the sky.
The caretaker is quiet, through his teeth, scolding
And the evil coachman's share,
I grabbed the package and, jumping on the horse,
Rushed across the snowy field.
I ride and the wind whistles in the dark
Frost touches the skin.
Two versts flashed, on the third verst ...
On the third ... Oh, my God!
Among the whistles of the storm I heard a groan,
And someone asks for help
And snowflakes from different sides
Someone in the snowdrifts brings.
I urge the horse to go rescue;
But, remembering the caretaker, I'm afraid,
Someone whispered to me: on the way back
Save the Christian soul.
I got scared. I barely breathed
Hands trembled with fear.
I blew a horn to drown out
Deathly faint sounds.
And at dawn I'm going back.
I still got scared
And, like a broken bell, out of tune
My heart was pounding in my chest.
My horse got scared before the third mile
And he ruffled his mane angrily:
There the body lay, simple canvas
Yes, covered in snow.
I shook off the snow - and my bride
I saw faded eyes ...
Give me wine, let's hurry
Tell no more urine!
An old coachman's song to the words of L. Trefolev
I was young, I had strength,
And firmly, brothers, in one village
I loved the girl at that time.
At first, I did not smell trouble in the girl,
Then he bluffed in earnest:
Wherever I go, wherever I go
I'll turn everything to my dear for a minute.
And it is pleasant, but there is no rest,
And my heart hurts more and more.
One day the boss gives me a package:
“Bring, they say, to the post office faster!”
I accepted the package - and rather on the horse,
And rushed across the field with a whirlwind,
And my heart aches and aches,
As if she had never seen her for a century.
And what is the reason, I can not understand,
And the wind howls so sadly ...
And suddenly - as if my horse froze on the run,
And looks sideways timidly.
My heart beat faster,
And I looked ahead in alarm,
Then he jumped off a distant horse -
And I see a corpse on the road.
And the snow has completely covered that find,
The blizzard dances over the corpse.
I dug up a snowdrift and stuck to the place -
Frost came under the sheepskin coat.
Under the snow, brothers, she lay ...
Brown eyes closed.
Pour, pour more wine
There is no more urine to tell!
From the repertoire of Nadezhda Plevitskaya (1884-1941).
Singing Ivan Skobtsov
As a song, the poem began to be performed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (in other words, this song is not at all an "old coachman's song"). In the discography of Nina Dulkevich, the author of the music is indicated - Yakov Prigozhy, pianist-arranger of the Moscow restaurant "Yar", perhaps he is just an arranger. Other sources usually indicate "folk music".
Singing Vadim Kozin
The text is based on Leonid Trefolev's poem "Coachman" (1868) - a translation of the poem "Postman" by the Polish poet Vladislav Syrokomlya (real name Ludwig Kondratovich, 1823-62). Based on a true story that happened to a Belarusian postman on the St. Petersburg-Warsaw postal route, 70 miles from Minsk. In those parts, on the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, mail was delivered not by yamskaya chase, but by a postman on a horse, with a bag and a signal horn. These features got into the Russian song: “I accepted the package - and rather on the horse”, “jumped off the horse” - the hero rides on horseback, and not on a sleigh with a troika, as a coachman would be supposed to.
ORIGINAL POEM
Coachman
Leonid Trefolev
We drink, have fun, and you, unsociable,
You sit like a slave in the gate.
And we will reward you with a cup and a pipe,
When you tell us grief.
The bell does not amuse you sometimes,
And the girls do not amuse. In sadness
You live for two years, friend, with us, -
You were not greeted cheerfully.
“I am bitter even so, and without a glass of wine,
Not nice in the world, not nice!
But give me a cup - she will help
Say that I'm tired.
When I worked as a coachman at the post office,
He was young, he was strong.
And I was hardly a bonded sign,
Tormented by a terrible race.
I rode at night, I rode during the day;
They gave me a bar for vodka,
We will get a ruble and quietly kutnem,
And we rush, hitting everyone.
There were many friends. The caretaker is not evil;
We even became friends with him.
And the horses! I whistle - they will rush with an arrow ...
Hold on, rider, in the carriage!
Oh, nice I went! It happened to be a sin
You will exhaust the horses in order;
But, as you carry the bride with the groom,
You'll probably get a chervonets.
In a neighboring village I fell in love with one
Maiden. Loved in earnest;
Wherever I go, I will turn to her,
To be together for a moment.
One night the caretaker gives me an order:
"Live take the baton!"
Then the weather was with us,
There is not a star in the sky.
The caretaker is quiet, through his teeth, scolding
And the evil coachman's share,
I grabbed the package and, jumping on the horse,
Rushed across the snowy field.
I ride and the wind whistles in the dark
Frost touches the skin.
Two versts flashed, on the third verst ...
On the third ... Oh, my God!
And someone asks for help
Someone in the snowdrifts brings.
But, remembering the caretaker, I'm afraid,
Save the Christian soul.
Hands trembled with fear.
Deathly faint sounds.
And at dawn I'm going back.
I still got scared
And, like a broken bell, out of tune
My heart was pounding in my chest.
My horse got scared before the third mile
And he ruffled his mane angrily:
There the body lay, simple canvas
Yes, covered in snow.
I saw faded eyes ...
Give me wine, let's hurry
Tell no more urine!
<1868>
Singing Sergey Lemeshev
It is interesting that in the folk song version the drama of the story is greatly softened, I would even say that the most important thing is lost.
In the original poem, this is a situation of real moral choice, and the narrator in it looks far from attractive:
Among the whistles of the storm I heard a groan,
And someone asks for help
And snowflakes from different sides
Someone in the snowdrifts brings.
Those. she was still alive, she could be saved! But not immediately, as in the song: a corpse on the road ...
I urge the horse to go rescue;
But, remembering the caretaker, I'm afraid ...
Someone whispered to me: on the way back
Save the Christian soul.
So always helpfully "someone" tells us in a critical situation that someday later, when we do our own business, we will have time to help our neighbor ... Especially who knows.
I got scared. I barely breathed
Hands trembled with fear.
I blew a horn to drown out
Deathly faint sounds.
He even involuntarily, completely senselessly (but psychologically and artistically very accurately!) creates a noise around himself, probably to drown out the voice of conscience, calling to help a clearly dying person - to help, perhaps to his own detriment. Isn't that how we sometimes justify ourselves?
And, as if in the form of a mystical punishment for the cowardice shown by the coachman, this person, frozen through his fault, soon inexorably turns out to be ... precisely his beloved...
I shook off the snow - and my bride
I saw faded eyes ...
That's why he thentwo years stays in sadness, him bitter, not cute in the world, he is still tormented, remembering - not just some kind of misfortune, but his own sin that haunts him!
Those. the idea of the poem can be formulated something like this: "do not put off helping the needy, he can really be your neighbor."
In the song, all this is lost, and we hear only the usual folk horror story, without internal logic. It turned out, as it were, a pure accident that he suddenly found in the frozen steppe exactly the girl he loved. And it is not entirely clear why he suffers for so long and so much - moreover, it is clearly in connection with the event itself, and not only because of the fact of her death ...
Singing Vyacheslav Mozardo
When I worked as a coachman at the post office,
I was young, I had strength,
And firmly, brothers, in one village
I loved a girl at that time.
At first, I did not smell trouble in the girl,
Then he bluffed in earnest:
Wherever I go, wherever I go
I’ll turn everything to my dear for a minute.
And it is pleasant, but there is no rest,
And my heart hurts more and more.
One day my boss gives me a package:
“Bring, they say, to the post office faster!”
I accepted the package - and rather on the horse
And rushed across the field with a whirlwind,
And my heart aches and aches,
As if she had never seen her for a century.
And what is the reason, I can not understand,
And the wind howls so sadly ...
And suddenly - as if my horse froze on the run
And looks sideways timidly.
My heart beat faster,
And I looked ahead in alarm,
Then he jumped off a distant horse -
And I see a corpse on the road.
And the snow really brought that find,
The blizzard dances over the corpse.
I dug up a snowdrift and grew to the place -
Frost came under the sheepskin coat.
Under the snow, brothers, she lay ...
Brown eyes closed.
Pour, pour more wine
Tell no more urine!
Here I am answering a request tin_tina
and tell the story of this famous song. The fact is that on many recordings of this song it is simply indicated "Russian folk song". In other places, however, it is indicated that the author of the words is L. Trefolev, and the music is folk. This, as we shall see, is not entirely true.
Here it is, for starters, performed by the wonderful Russian singer Ivan Skobtsov.
To begin with, it could be noted that this song is not the only Russian song about the coachman that is folk or has become almost folk. Actually, it became popular because the "coachman's theme" and in general the theme of the road was very popular. One of the earliest such songs is "The bell rattles monotonously", which also practically became a folk song, although it also has the author of the music - Gurilev (there is also a second version, to the music of Sidorovich), and much later the author of the words was established - the poet Ivan Makarov. There are many other such songs - "Here is a daring troika rushing", "Troika rushing, troika galloping", etc. ("Coachman, don't drive horses" - much later).
Here I will not tell the story of each of these songs, it would be too long.
It is important that the "coachman's theme" fits perfectly into the nature of the folk song.
Meanwhile, this song is not entirely of Russian origin. The author of the original words was the Polish poet Vladislav Syrokomlya (real name - Ludwik Vladislav Kondratovich), who wrote poetry in Polish and Belarusian. Kondratovich came from a poor gentry family of the Syrokoml coat of arms - this name later became his pseudonym. A native of the then Minsk province, he served as a manager of the Radziwill estates in Nesvizh in his youth. In 1844 he married Paulina Mitrashevskaya (with whom he later had four children) and left the service. In the same year, he made his debut in the Vilna magazine "Atheneum" (this magazine was edited by another outstanding cultural figure of that time, Józef Kraszewski) with the poetic ballad "Postman". Here you can see the original source text of the author:
https://wolnelektury.pl/katalog/lektura/syrokomla-gawedy-pocztylion.html
The legend says that the tragic story of the postman was first heard by Syrokomley in a tavern at the Mir Castle (which, like Nesvizh, belonged to the Radziwill family). In ancient times, the so-called "castle road" connected the ancient cities of Slutsk, Kopyl, Mesvizh, Korelichi, Novogrudok and Lida. Five centuries ago, this road served as a kind of defensive belt. Here, at a distance of 20-30 km from each other, there were medieval castles. The town and the Mir castle are located just in the middle of the "Castle Road". And for centuries, on the square in the middle of the town there was a tavern, and next to it - a post station. This is how this poem was born.
Vladislav Syrokomlya (Ludvik Kondratovich). 1823-1862
The following years, Syrokomlya was actively engaged in literature, history, and local history. In the 1850s, he published small collections of "gavends" (Polish gawęda) - poetic ballads that imitate the ingenuous story of a man from the people. Another genre characteristic of him is the "obrazek", that is, a "picture", a scene from folk life.
He also wrote historical poems, plays from the history of medieval Lithuania, staged by the Vilna theater. Author of a two-volume history of literature in Poland. Syrokomlya actively collaborated with the Vilna Archaeological Commission and the Vilna Bulletin of Adam Kirkor (see here).
Among his works of local lore are "Wanderings in my former environs", "Minsk", "Neman from the source to the mouth", etc.; and this is not just a dry presentation of facts, but a deeply personal attitude of the author to the fate of his country, region, not the look of an outsider, but the interested memories of a caring citizen.
Syrokomlya was also actively involved in translations. He translated into modern Polish the poems of medieval Polish authors who wrote in Latin, translated Goethe, Heine, Beranger; from Russian poetry - Lermontov, Ryleev (the poem "Voynarovsky"), Nekrasov. Shevchenko's "Kobzar" translated by Syrokomly was published as a separate edition in Vilna.
In 1860-1862, a wave of patriotic manifestations swept through the Western Territory. At one of them in Kovno in 1861, Syrokomlya was arrested for reading "forbidden" poems and kept in prison in Vilna. There is information that during the preparation of the January Uprising, he was associated with the emerging Lithuanian organization of the "Reds" in Lithuania (the Lithuanian Provincial Committee headed by Kalinovsky), but this may be speculation of Soviet historiography. In any case, the investigation could not incriminate him with anything serious, and he was allowed to settle in his own estate Boreykovshchina under police supervision and without the right to leave. By this time, the poet was already seriously ill. A few months later, due to illness, he was allowed to visit Vilna, where he died in September 1862. He was only 39 years old. The funeral resulted in a patriotic demonstration of many thousands, which was attended, according to various estimates, from 6 to 20 thousand people (this is a lot, given the population of the then Vilna).
Memorial plaque in the house where Syrokomlya died in Vilna
The grave of Syrokomly-Kondratovich and his wife in Vilna at the Ross cemetery
(An interesting detail - there are two streets in Warsaw in honor of the poet, one is called Vladislav Syrokomly Street, and the other is Ludwik Kondratovich Street. No, these are not four different people) :)
The poem "Postman" was translated into Russian in the 1860s by a number of authors, including the already mentioned L. Palmin and others. However, the translation of Leonid Nikolaevich Trefolev became a popular song.
Leonid Nikolaevich Trefolev (1839-1905) - Russian poet, publicist, public figure
Trefolev is primarily a Yaroslavl author. A graduate of the Demidov Law Lyceum in Yaroslavl, he served for some time in the provincial government. Almost all of his life is connected with this city. Since 1857, he began to be published in the newspaper "Yaroslavl Gubernskie Vedomosti"; for several years his poems were published there (“Ivan Susanin”, “Katanya”, etc.), translations from Beranger, etc. Since 1864, Trefolev began to be published in the capital's publications of the democratic (“Iskra”, “Domestic Notes”) and Slavophile ("Den", "Russian Thought") directions. In the last years of his life, already at the beginning of the 20th century, he was the chairman of the Yaroslavl provincial scientific archival commission, published many local history materials, including in the well-known historical journals Russian Archive, Historical Bulletin, etc. He translated Heine’s poems into Russian, Syrokomli, Shevchenko.
Many of Trefolev's poems and translations have become songs - so, in addition to "Coachman", he owns one of the versions of the processing of the famous "Dubinushka", this version is somewhat different from the canonical one ().
Today, a monument to Trefolev has been erected in Yaroslavl, on which scenes from his famous songs are carved as bas-reliefs.
The translation of Syrokomly's poem "The Postman" was made by Trefoloff in 1868. The translation preserved the realities of the original poem: in the Western Territory and on the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, mail was delivered by a postman on a horse, with a bag and a signal horn, and not on a sleigh with a troika.
Here is the full text of Trefolev's translation
We drink, have fun, and you, unsociable.
You sit like a slave in the gate.
And we will reward you with a cup and a pipe,
When you tell us grief.
The bell does not amuse you sometimes,
And the girls do not amuse. In sadness
You live for two years, friend, with us, -
You were not greeted cheerfully.
"I'm bitter and so, and without a glass of wine,
Not cute in the world, not cute!
But give me a glass; she will help
Say that I'm tired.
When I worked as a coachman at the post office,
He was young, he was strong.
And I was hardly a bonded sign,
Tormented by a terrible race.
I rode at night, I rode during the day;
They gave me a bar for vodka.
We will get the ruble and famously kutnem,
And we rush, hitting everyone.
There were many friends. The caretaker is not evil;
We even became friends with him.
And the horses! I whistle - they will rush with an arrow ...
Hold on, rider, in the carriage!
Oh, nice I went! It happened to be a sin
You will exhaust the horses in order;
But, as you carry the bride with the groom,
You'll probably get a chervonets.
In a neighboring village I fell in love with one
Maiden. Loved in earnest;
Wherever I go, I will turn to her,
To be together for a moment.
One night the caretaker gives me an order;
"Live take the baton!"
Then bad weather stood with us;
There is not a star in the sky.
The caretaker is quiet, through his teeth, scolding
And the evil coachman's share,
I grabbed the package and, jumping on the horse,
Rushed across the snowy field.
I ride and the wind whistles in the dark
Frost touches the skin.
Two versts flashed, on the third verst...
On the third... Oh my God!
Among the whistles of the storm I heard a groan,
And someone asks for help
And snowflakes from different sides
Someone in the snowdrifts brings.
I urge the horse to go rescue;
But, remembering the caretaker, I'm afraid.
Someone whispered to me: on the way back
Save the Christian soul.
I got scared. I barely breathed;
Hands trembled with fear.
I blew a horn to drown out
Deathly faint sounds.
And at dawn I'm going back.
I still got scared
And, like a broken bell, out of tune
My heart was pounding in my chest.
My horse got scared before the third mile
And he ruffled his mane angrily:
There the body lay, simple canvas
Yes, covered in snow.
I shook off the snow - and my bride
I saw faded eyes ...
Give me wine, let's hurry
To tell further - there is no urine! .. "
As you can see, the song is greatly reduced from the original poem. The exact time of the appearance of the song is unknown, it began to spread somewhere in the late XIX-early XX century. Among her early performers were Chaliapin, then Lemeshev (it is interesting that the first is bass, the second is tenor) and what is curious is that the discography also shows women, well-known at that time performers of romances Nina Dulkevich and Nadezhda Plevitskaya (later this song was also sung by Lydia Ruslanova) - it is interesting because the story seems to be conducted obviously from a male person.
And who is the author of the music? And we don't know for sure either. In the discography of Nina Dulkevich, the author of the music is indicated - Yakov Prigozhy, pianist-arranger of the Moscow restaurant "Yar" (recording on the plate of the Pate company, 1912); however, he may not be so much a composer as an arranger. Other sources usually indicate "folk music".
Yakov Fyodorovich Prigozhy (1840-1920), conductor, pianist, composer, arranger
Yakov Prigozhy - by origin a Karaite from Yevpatoriya - was also a very interesting person of his time. In the 1870s - 1880s, he led a number of gypsy and Russian choirs, for which he created many (over two hundred) arrangements of popular romances and urban songs, and traveled with concerts throughout Russia. In fact, it is he who is the creator of the "Russian gypsy romance" genre. Subsequently, he became a kind of artistic director of the popular restaurant "Yar", for which he wrote the entire repertoire, concert programs, arrangements of gypsy dances, etc. "," A pair of bay "and many others. Over time, the authorship of Prigogine for many songs was forgotten and they began to be perceived as truly folk melodies that lived their own lives and were subjected to subsequent alterations.
He died in 1920 in Moscow.
Actually, that's the story of this song. Listen to some more good performances. Unfortunately I didn't find a female voice.
Singing Vadim Kozin:
More modern performance - Vyacheslav Malezhik sings
Here Vasily Pyanov sings - a very artistic man:
And in conclusion, it can be noted that the line "When I served as a coachman at the post office" was used by the rock group "Agatha Christie" in the song "Fabulous Secret" (in memory of Leonid Gaidai). Here is that song:
This is how the Polish postman turned into a Russian coachman, and then into a geologist ...
When I worked as a coachman at the post office,
I was young, I had strength,
And firmly, brothers, in one village
I loved the girl at that time.
At first, I did not smell trouble in the girl,
Then he bluffed in earnest:
Wherever I go, wherever I go
I’ll turn everything to my dear for a minute.
And it is pleasant, but there is no rest,
And my heart hurts more and more.
One day my boss gives me a package:
"Bring, they say, to the post office faster!"
I accepted the package - and rather on the horse
And rushed across the field with a whirlwind,
And my heart aches and aches,
As if she had never seen her for a century.
And what is the reason, I can not understand,
And the wind howls so sadly ...
And suddenly - as if my horse froze on the run
And looks sideways timidly.
clogged upmy heart is stronger
And I looked ahead in alarm,
Then he jumped off a distant horse -
And I see a corpse on the road.
And the snow really brought that find,
The blizzard dances over the corpse.
I dug up a snowdrift and grew to the place -
Frost came under the sheepskin coat.
Under the snow, brothers, she lay ...
Brown eyes closed.
Pour, pour more wine
There is no more urine to tell!
Old coachman's song
to words by L. Trefolev
The literary prototype of the song is the poem by L. N. Trefolev (1839-1905) "Coachman", which follows below.
In some sources, Trefolev's poem is called: "When I served as a coachman at the post office" and it is said that it is a translation of the poem "Coachman" by the Polish poet V. Syrokomly. The lyrics of the song are close to those given here.
Coachman
We drink, have fun, and you, unsociable,
You sit like a slave in the gate.
And we will reward you with a cup and a pipe,
When you tell us grief.
The bell does not amuse you sometimes.
And the girls do not amuse. In sadness
You live for two years, friend, with us, -
Merry you were not met.
"I'm bitter and so, and without a glass of wine,
Not nice in the world, not nice!
But give me a cup, she will help
Say that I'm tired.
When I worked as a coachman at the post office,
He was young, he was strong.
And I was hardly a bonded sign,
Tormented by a terrible race.
I rode at night, I rode during the day;
They gave me a bar for vodka,
Rublyovik get and famously kutnem
And we rush, hitting everyone.
There were many friends. The caretaker is not evil;
We even became friends with him.
And the horses! I whistle - they will rush with an arrow ...
Hold on, rider, in the carriage!
Oh, nice I went! It happened to be a sin
You will exhaust the horses in order;
But, as you carry the bride with the groom,
You'll probably get a chervonets.
In a neighboring village I fell in love with one
Maiden. Loved in earnest;
Wherever I go, I will turn to her,
To be together for a moment.
One night the overseer gives me an order:
"Live take the baton!"
Then the weather was with us,
There is not a star in the sky.
The caretaker is quiet, through his teeth, scolding
And the evil coachman's share,
I grabbed the package and, jumping on the horse,
Rushed across the snowy field.
I ride and the wind whistles in the dark
Frost touches the skin.
Two versts flashed, on the third verst...
On the third... Oh, my God!
Among the whistles of the storm I heard a groan,
And someone asks for help
And snowflakes from different sides
Someone in the snowdrifts brings.
I urge the horse to go rescue;
But, remembering the caretaker, I'm afraid,
Someone whispered to me: on the way back
Save the Christian soul.
I got scared. I was barely breathing.
Hands trembled with fear.
I blew a horn to drown out
Deathly faint sounds.
And at dawn I'm going back.
I still got scared
And, like a broken bell, out of tune
My heart was pounding in my chest.
My horse got scared before the third mile
And he ruffled his mane angrily:
There the body lay, simple canvas
Yes, covered in snow.
I shook off the snow - and my bride
I saw faded eyes ...
Give me wine, let's hurry
There's no point in telling any more!"
L. N. Trefolev
< 1868 . >
