Old Izergil (Gorky)
Short summary
Near Akkerman in Bessarabia, after a day of grape-picking, a young Russian man stayed behind with an elderly woman while other workers went to the sea.
The old woman pointed to shadows on the steppe and told him two ancient legends.
First, she told of Larra, son of an eagle and a woman. Proud and cruel, he killed a girl who rejected him. The tribe condemned him to eternal life alone. Unable to die, he became a shadow wandering the earth forever.
Between legends, Izergil shared her own past - a life of many passionate loves across different lands, from fishermen to nobles, Turks to Poles. She had lived fully but now felt old and alone.
Her second tale was of Danko, who led his people through a dark forest. When they lost faith and turned on him, he performed an incredible act.
And suddenly he ripped open his breast and tore out his heart and held it high above his head. It shone like the sun, even brighter than the sun.
His burning heart lit their way to freedom. Danko died, and someone crushed his heart. Blue sparks from it still appear on the steppe before storms.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
Meeting with old Izergil and Larras origins
On an evening near Akkerman in Bessarabia, after a day of grape-picking, a group of Moldavians went down to the seashore, leaving behind a young Russian man and an elderly woman named Izergil in the deep shadow of grape-vines. The night was filled with the sounds of singing and laughter from the bronzed workers with their thick black moustaches and graceful companions with dark-blue eyes.
The atmosphere was heavy with sea tang and earth vapours, while storm-clouds meandered across the sky in odd forms. When the moon rose, large and blood-red, old Izergil pointed to moving shadows on the steppe and claimed to see Larra fleeing across the landscape. The narrator saw only ordinary cloud shadows, but Izergil insisted one darker shadow was all that remained of Larra after thousands of years.
Izergil began her tale of ancient times, when a powerful tribe lived in a distant land where every leaf cast a shadow large enough to protect a man from the merciless sun. During a feast, an eagle flew from the sky and carried off a beautiful black-haired maiden. The men's arrows could not reach the bird, and despite their search, the maiden was forgotten as all things on earth are forgotten.
Twenty years later, the woman returned, worn and wizened, accompanied by a handsome youth as strong as she had been two decades before. She explained that the eagle had taken her to the mountains as his wife, and this was their son. The eagle had died by plunging from great heights when he felt his strength ebbing.
Larras crime and eternal punishment
The tribe gazed in amazement at the eagle's son, who differed from them only in having the cold, proud gleam of the king of birds in his eyes. When addressed, he sometimes did not deign to reply, and when the elders approached him, he spoke to them as equals. This insulted the tribe, who told him that thousands like him paid them homage, but he declared there were no others like himself and refused to show respect.
The elders declared there could be no place for him among them, so he went to a fair maiden who had been studying him intently and took her in his arms. She was the daughter of one of the elders who had reproved him. Though he was handsome, she thrust him away in fear of her father. Enraged, he struck her mightily, and when she fell, he stamped upon her breast until blood spurted from her mouth as high as the sky, and the maiden died.
The witnesses stood speechless with fear, having never seen a woman killed so brutally. They seized and bound him, finding that simply killing him would give them little satisfaction. The elders gathered to decide on a punishment equal to such a crime, considering various tortures but finding none satisfactory. Finally, a wise man suggested they ask him why he had committed this act.
When unbound, he explained that he killed her because she repulsed him and he had need of her. When told she was not his, he questioned why people possessed things beyond their own bodies. They replied that a man must pay for what he takes with his mind, strength, or life, but he declared he had no wish to pay. The tribe realized he considered himself above everyone else and had isolated himself from the world.
He had isolated himself from the whole world. He had neither tribe nor mother nor cattle nor wife; nor did he wish to have any of these things.
The wise man declared that the punishment lay within the youth himself - they should unbind him and let him go free. Thunder struck from a cloudless sky, confirming this decision. The youth, henceforth named Larra meaning the despised and rejected, laughed at the people who had rejected him. He began living as free as his father had been, stealing cattle and maidens, protected by invisible armor from the highest punishment. For a long time he hovered alone at the edge of human communities, until one day he sought death but found he was unable to die.
Just see what a man's pride can bring him to!
From that time he remained alone, wandering the earth like a shadow, waiting for death that would never come. He understood nothing of human speech or actions, forever searching for something he could never find, unable to live yet unable to die.
Izergils life of passionate love and adventure
After finishing the tale of Larra, Izergil spoke of her own youth and the many loves of her life. She had lived near Falmi on the banks of the Birlat River when she was fifteen and a tall, dark, graceful fisherman from the Prut came to their farm. He called out for wine and food, and when he saw her through the ash-tree branches, he declared he had found a fair maid he knew nothing of. Four days later, she gave herself to him, and they went boating together every night.
When her mother discovered the affair and beat her, the fisherman urged her to run away with him to Dobruja and beyond to the Danube tributaries. But Izergil had grown tired of him - he did nothing but sing and make love, which she found boring. Through a friend, she met a young Hutsul with flaming red hair and whiskers, who was sometimes moody, sometimes tender, and sometimes fought like a wild beast. Once he struck her face, and she sprang on his chest like a cat and bit his cheek, leaving a dimple he liked her to kiss.
Both the fisherman and the Hutsul were eventually hanged together in Dobruja. Izergil went to see them executed - the fisherman was deathly pale and wept, but the Hutsul walked straight ahead smoking his pipe, hands in his pockets, one moustache sweeping his shoulder, the other his chest. When he saw her, he cried out farewell, and she wept for him a whole year.
Izergil then fell in love with a Turk and became one of his harem in Scutari. She lived there for a week before finding the life tiresome - nothing but women everywhere, eight of them, who ate, slept, chattered nonsense, and quarreled like cackling hens. The Turk was not young, with almost white hair, very rich and important, with black eyes that looked straight into one's soul.
She ran away with the Turk's sixteen-year-old son, a slim dark-haired youth, to Bulgaria. There a Bulgarian woman knifed her in the chest because of her husband or lover. The Turkish boy died, pining away with homesickness or love, withering like a sapling with too much sun. He became blue and transparent as ice yet consumed by flames of love, begging her to lie beside him and warm his poor body. One day she woke to find him stone-cold and dead.
After recovering in a nunnery, she went to Poland with a Polish monk who was beastly and absurd. When he wanted a woman, he would rub against her like a tom-cat with honey oozing between his lips, but after satisfaction, he would lash her with his tongue like a knout. One day by a river, when he said something proud and insulting, she picked him up like a baby and hurled him into the water.
In Poland, she witnessed preparations for an uprising against the Russians. In Bochnia, a Jew bought her to trade with her body, and she agreed, needing to earn a living. Rich gentlemen came and feasted with her, fighting over her and being brought to ruin. She fell in love with a worthy gentleman with a scarred face, marked by Turkish sabres from helping the Greeks fight the Turks. He had lost an eye and two fingers but yearned to do brave deeds.
Her last great love was a devilishly handsome Polish gentleman named Arkadek, but by then she was forty and old. Though she won him after a long battle, he cast her off once he had her, mocking her to others. When he went to fight the Russians and was taken prisoner, she disguised herself as a beggar-woman and infiltrated the village where he was held. She killed a sentry by drowning him in a puddle and helped four Polish prisoners escape, including Arkadek.
Never had I been the slave of anyone... I was living in Krakow in fine style, with horses and gold and servants and everything else I wanted.
When they reached safety, Arkadek thanked her pompously and knelt before her calling her his queen, but his falseness disgusted her. She kicked him and would have slapped him, but he sprang aside. The prisoners suspected she might betray their direction, showing what beasts they were. Eventually she made her way to Dobruja, where she had lived for the last thirty years with her Moldavian husband, who had died a year ago.
Dankos sacrifice and the flaming heart
As blue sparks flickered in the distance like ethereal flowers, Izergil explained they came from the flaming heart of Danko. She told of ancient times when a strong, brave, cheerful people lived bounded by impenetrable forests and steppe. When other tribes drove them into the dark, swampy forest, poisonous vapours arose and people began to sicken and die. They faced two choices: return to face their enemies or push forward through the giant trees with closely interwoven branches.
As the people grew weak from brooding and fear gripped their hearts, cowardly words were spoken of surrendering their freedom to the enemy. At this moment, Danko appeared - young, handsome, and courageous, with eyes aglow with life and strength. He urged them not to exhaust their energies thinking but to arise and go through the forest until they reached the other end.
Stones are not to be removed by thinking. He who does naught will come to naught. Why should we exhaust our energies thinking and brooding?
The people chose Danko as their leader, and he led them through the difficult path. As they went deeper into the forest, it grew thicker and their limbs weaker. During a terrible storm, when lightning flashed and trees sang sinister songs, the exhausted people turned against Danko, accusing him of being incapable and threatening to kill him. When they pressed around him like wolves, expecting no mercy, Danko's heart flamed with yearning to save them.
Suddenly he ripped open his breast and tore out his heart, holding it high above his head. It shone brighter than the sun, subduing the raging forest and lighting the way like a torch of great love for mankind. The people followed him as if under a spell as he rushed forward with his flaming heart. The forest parted before them, and they emerged into sunlight and rain-washed air, reaching the endless steppe and freedom.
The brave Danko cast his eye over the endless steppe... and gave a proud laugh. And then he fell, down and died.
Sparks in the steppe and final reflections
The people were so full of joy and hope that they did not notice Danko had died or that his brave heart still flamed beside his body. However, one timid creature noticed the flaming heart and, fearing he knew not what, stamped upon it.
But one timid creature noticed it and, fearing he knew not what, stamped on the flaming heart. And it sent up a shower of sparks and went out.
As old Izergil finished her beautiful tale, the steppe grew incredibly still, as if overawed by the strength of brave Danko who set fire to his own heart for his fellow-men. The old woman dozed off, and the narrator covered her frail body, lying down beside her in the dark and still steppe as clouds floated wearily across the sky and the sea murmured softly and mournfully.