The week’s reading, after August 4Недельное чтение после 4 августа

The Great Bear (The Dipper). The SparrowБольшая Медведица (Ковш). Воробей

Большая Медведица (Ковш). Воробей

The Great Bear is a legend Tolstoy translated from the English journal The Herald of Peace (1904), whose English was not found; a version printed in America from 1895 tells the same story. The Sparrow is Ivan Turgenev’s prose poem (1878), with small changes by Tolstoy.

БОЛЬШАЯ МЕДВЕДИЦА (КОВШ)

The Great Bear (The Dipper)

Была давно-давно на земле большая засуха: пересохли все реки, ручьи, колодцы, и засохли деревья, кусты и травы, и умирали от жажды люди и животные.

Long, long ago there was a great drought on the earth: all the rivers, streams, and wells dried up, and the trees, bushes, and grasses withered, and people and animals were dying of thirst.

Раз ночью вышла девочка из дома с ковшиком поискать воды для больной матери. Нигде не нашла девочка воды и с усталости легла в поле на траву и заснула. Когда она проснулась и взялась за ковшик, она чуть не пролила из него воду. Он был полон чистой, свежей воды. Девочка обрадовалась и хотела было напиться, но потом подумала, что недостанет матери и побежала с ковшиком домой. Она так спешила, что не заметила под ногами собачки, споткнулась на нее и уронила ковшик. Собачка жалостно визжала. Девочка хватилась ковшика.

One night a little girl went out of the house with a dipper to look for water for her sick mother. Nowhere did the girl find water, and, tired out, she lay down on the grass in a field and fell asleep. When she woke and took hold of the dipper, she nearly spilled the water out of it. It was full of clean, fresh water. The girl was glad and was about to drink, but then she thought that there would not be enough for her mother, and she ran home with the dipper. She was in such a hurry that she did not notice a little dog under her feet; she tripped over it and dropped the dipper. The little dog was squealing pitifully. The girl looked around for the dipper.

Она думала, что разлила его, но нет, он стоял прямо на своем дне, и вся вода была цела в нем. Девочка отлила в ладонь воды, и собачка всё вылакала и повеселела. Тогда девочка взялась опять за ковшик, он из деревянного стал серебряным. Девочка принесла ковшик домой и подала матери. Мать сказала: «Мне всё равно умирать, пей лучше сама», и отдала ковшик девочке. И в ту же минуту ковшик из серебряного стал золотой. Тогда девочка не могла уже больше удерживаться и только хотела приложиться к ковшику, как вдруг в дверь вошел странник и попросил напиться. Девочка проглотила слюни и поднесла страннику ковшик. И вдруг на ковшике выскочило семь огромных брильянтов, и из него полилась большая струя чистой, свежей воды.

She thought she had spilled it, but no: it stood upright on its bottom, and all the water was still in it. The girl poured some water into her palm, and the little dog lapped it all up and brightened. Then the girl took hold of the dipper again; it had turned from wood to silver. The girl brought the dipper home and gave it to her mother. The mother said, “I am going to die anyway; better drink it yourself,” and handed the dipper to the girl. And at that very moment the dipper turned from silver to gold. Then the girl could hold back no longer, and she was just about to put her lips to the dipper when suddenly a wanderer came in at the door and asked for a drink. The girl swallowed hard and held the dipper out to the wanderer. And suddenly seven huge diamonds sprang out on the dipper, and a great stream of clean, fresh water poured from it.

А семь брильянтов стали подниматься выше и выше и поднялись на небо и стали Большой Медведицей.

And the seven diamonds began to rise higher and higher, and they rose into the sky and became the Great Bear.

С английского.

From the English

ВОРОБЕЙ

The Sparrow

Я возвращался с охоты и шел по дорожке сада. Собака бежала впереди меня.

I was coming back from hunting and walking along a path in the garden. The dog was running ahead of me.

Вдруг она уменьшила свои шаги и начала красться, как бы зачуяв перед собою дичь. Я глянул в даль дорожки и увидал молодого воробья, с желтизной около клюва и пухом на голове. Он упал из гнезда (ветер сильно качал березы) и сидел неподвижно, беспомощно растопырив едва прораставшие крылышки.

Suddenly it shortened its steps and began to creep, as though it had scented game ahead of it. I glanced down the path and saw a young sparrow, with yellow around its beak and down on its head. It had fallen from its nest (the wind was rocking the birches hard) and was sitting motionless, helplessly spreading its barely sprouting little wings.

Моя собака медленно приближалась к нему, как вдруг, сорвавшись с близкого дерева, старый черногрудый воробей камнем упал перед самой ее мордой и, весь взъерошенный, искаженный, с отчаянным и жалким писком прыгнул раза два в направлении зубастой раскрытой пасти.

My dog was slowly drawing near it when suddenly, darting from a nearby tree, an old black-breasted sparrow dropped like a stone right in front of the dog’s muzzle and, all ruffled, contorted, with a desperate and pitiful cheeping, hopped once or twice toward the toothy, open jaws.

Он кинулся спасать, он заслонил собою свое детище, а всё его маленькое тело трепетало от ужаса, голосок одичал и охрип, он замирал, он жертвовал собою! Каким громадным чудовищем должна была ему казаться собака! И все-таки он не мог усидеть на своей высокой, безопасной ветке... Сила, сильнее его воли, сбросила его оттуда.

He rushed to the rescue, he shielded his offspring with his own body, while all his little frame trembled with terror, his little voice grew wild and hoarse, he was fainting, he was sacrificing himself! What a huge monster the dog must have seemed to him! And yet he could not keep his seat on his high, safe branch… A force stronger than his will flung him down from there.

Собака остановилась, попятилась... Видно, и она признала эту силу.

The dog stopped, backed away… Evidently it too recognized this force.

Я поспешил отозвать смущенного пса и удалился, благоговея.

I hurried to call off the abashed dog and withdrew in reverence.

Да, я благоговел перед той маленькой великодушной птицей, перед любовным ее порывом.

Yes, I stood in reverence before that small, great-hearted bird, before its loving impulse.

Любовь, — думал я, — сильнее смерти, и страха смерти. Только ею, только любовью держится и двигается жизнь.

Love, I thought, is stronger than death, and than the fear of death. Only by it, only by love, is life sustained and moved.

И. С. Тургенев.

Ivan Turgenev

Translation notes

The girl’s «ковшик», “dipper,” is the diminutive of «ковш», the dipper or ladle of the title. «Ковш» is a Russian name for the seven bright stars of the Great Bear, which American English calls the Big Dipper. ↑
«Проглотила слюни», literally “swallowed her spittle,” is said of someone whose mouth waters with longing. ↑

Where each paragraph came from

Source not found yet .

Related · The Legend of the Dipper

Once in a country far away the people were dying of thirst.

There had been no rain for months.

The rivers and springs and brooks had all dried up.

The plants and flowers had withered and died.

Source text: archive.org

Details

Not found yet. «Большая Медведица (Ковш)», a legend Tolstoy translated from The Herald of Peace (London), 1904.

Not found: the English of The Herald of Peace (1904) was not reached. The American "Legend of the Dipper", reprinted in many papers from 1895, opens the same way: a drought, the rivers and springs dried up, the plants withered, the people dying of thirst. It sets the story "in a country far away" and adds birds too hoarse to sing; Tolstoy's opening, «Была давно-давно на земле большая засуха», names wells, trees, bushes, and animals too.

Searched: The Herald of Peace for 1904: archive.org (metadata search for the title, and its full-text search for the journal's name with the legend's words) holds no volume after 1843; HathiTrust's catalogue answered with a Cloudflare bot check and was not used further; Google Books could not be searched (the Books API's anonymous daily quota was spent, and google.com's book search needs a browser); Papers Past (Incapsula) and Welsh Newspapers Online (Cloudflare) answered with bot checks. The legend's English: archive.org full-text search and the Library of Congress's Chronicling America ("dipper", "seven diamonds", "Great Bear", "sick mother", "wooden dipper", and variants) found the American "Legend of the Dipper" in many printings of 1895-1915 and Sara E. Wiltse's version of 1890, none naming The Herald of Peace, and no English version with a wooden dipper or without the servant. English translations of Tolstoy's Russian were not opened.

Source not found yet .

Related · The Legend of the Dipper

One night after the stars had come out a little girl with a tin dipper in her hand crept quietly out of a house and went into a wood near by.

Kneeling down under a tree she folded her hands and prayed that God would send rain, if it were only enough to fill her little dipper.

She prayed so long that at last she fell asleep. When she awoke she was overjoyed to find her dipper full of clear, cool water.

Remembering that her dear mother was ill and dying of thirst she did not even wait to moisten her parched lips, but taking up her dipper she hurried home. In her haste she stumbled, and, alas! dropped her precious cup.

Source text: archive.org

Details

Not found yet. «Большая Медведица (Ковш)», a legend Tolstoy translated from The Herald of Peace (London), 1904.

Not found. The American legend has the same turns in the same order: the girl goes out at night with a dipper, sleeps, wakes to find it full of clear, cool water, does not drink because her mother is dying of thirst, hurries home, stumbles, and drops it, and a little dog is there. It differs in its frame. Its girl goes into a wood and kneels to pray for rain until she falls asleep; Tolstoy's girl goes out to look for water for her sick mother, finds none, and lies down in a field from weariness, with no prayer («Нигде не нашла девочка воды и с усталости легла в поле на траву и заснула»). Tolstoy's girl wants to drink and stops herself («хотела было напиться, но потом подумала, что недостанет матери»); the American girl "did not even wait to moisten her parched lips". Tolstoy's dog is under her feet and whimpers («Собачка жалостно визжала»); the American dog is found in the grass after the fall, dying of thirst itself.

Source not found yet .

Related · The Legend of the Dipper

Pouring out a few drops on her hand she held it out for the dog to lick. He did so, and seemed much revived, but as she poured out the water the tin dipper had changed to one of beautiful silver.

"Oh," said her mother, "I will not take it. I shall not live, anyhow. You are younger and stronger than I."

The servant was just abor.t to give each person in the house a spoonful of the precious water when she saw a stranger at the door. He looked sad and weary, and she handed him the dipper of water.

He took it, saying: "Blessed is he that gives a cup of cold water in His name." A radiance shone all about him, and immediately the goldt-n dipper became studded with seven sparkling diamonds. Then it burst forth into a fountain, which supplied the thirsty land with water.

Source text: archive.org

Details

Not found yet. «Большая Медведица (Ковш)», a legend Tolstoy translated from The Herald of Peace (London), 1904.

Not found. The American legend has the same turns: nothing spilled, water poured into the girl's hand for the dog, the dipper turned to silver, the mother refusing the water because she will not live anyway ("I shall not live, anyhow"), the dipper turned to gold, the water given to a stranger, seven diamonds on the dipper, and a fountain. It differs in four things. Its dipper is tin, Tolstoy's wooden («он из деревянного стал серебряным»); a servant carries the water to the mother and gives it to the stranger, where in Tolstoy's version the mother gives the dipper back to the girl and the girl, about to drink at last, gives it to the stranger herself («Девочка проглотила слюни и поднесла страннику ковшик»); its stranger stands at the door and speaks a blessing, "Blessed is he that gives a cup of cold water in His name", where Tolstoy's comes in and asks for a drink; and its stranger is surrounded by a radiance, which Tolstoy's version does not have. Whether these differences were already in The Herald of Peace or are Tolstoy's cannot be told without its text.

Source not found yet .

Related · The Legend of the Dipper

The seven diamonds rose higher until they reached the sky, and there changed into bright stars, forming the "Great Dipper," telling the story of an unselfish act.

Source text: archive.org

Details

Not found yet. «Большая Медведица (Ковш)», a legend Tolstoy translated from The Herald of Peace (London), 1904.

Not found. The American legend ends the same way, the seven diamonds rising until they reach the sky and become the stars of the "Great Dipper"; it adds that they tell the story of an unselfish act, a moral Tolstoy's version does not state. Tolstoy's title gives the constellation both its names, «Большая Медведица (Ковш)», the Great Bear and the Dipper.

From Стихотворения в прозе · reworded by Tolstoy .

Original · Russian

Я возвращался с охоты и шел по аллее сада.

Собака бежала впереди меня.

Source text: ru.wikisource.org

In English · Constance Garnett, 1897

I was returning from hunting, and walking along an avenue of the garden, my dog running in front of me.

Source text: gutenberg.org

Полное собрание сочинений И. С. Тургенева, 4-е изд., т. 8

Я возвращался съ охоты и шелъь по аллеф сада.

Source text: archive.org

Details

The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Стихотворения в прозе (Senilia), «Воробей».

Turgenev's words with one change the Jubilee commentary lists: «шел по аллее сада» (walked along the avenue of the garden) is «шел по дорожке сада» (walked along the garden path). Tolstoy makes the same change twice in the next paragraph, so that the tree-lined avenue of an estate becomes a path.

From Стихотворения в прозе · reworded by Tolstoy .

Original · Russian

Вдруг она уменьшила свои шаги и начала красться, как бы зачуяв перед собою дичь.

Я глянул вдоль аллеи и увидел молодого воробья с желтизной около клюва и пухом на голове.

Он упал из гнезда (ветер сильно качал березы аллеи) и сидел неподвижно, беспомощно растопырив едва прораставшие крылышки.

Source text: ru.wikisource.org

In English · Constance Garnett, 1897

Suddenly he took shorter steps, and began to steal along as though tracking game.

I looked along the avenue, and saw a young sparrow, with yellow about its beak and down on its head.

It had fallen out of the nest (the wind was violently shaking the birch-trees in the avenue) and sat unable to move, helplessly flapping its half-grown wings.

Source text: gutenberg.org

Полное собрание сочинений И. С. Тургенева, 4-е изд., т. 8

Я глянульъ вдоль аллеи и увидалъ молодого воробья, съ желтизной около клюва и пухомъ на головЪ.

Source text: archive.org

Details

The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Стихотворения в прозе (Senilia), «Воробей».

Two of Turgenev's paragraphs joined, with two changes the Jubilee commentary lists. «Я глянул вдоль аллеи» (I looked along the avenue) is «Я глянул в даль дорожки» (I looked down the path; the commentary quotes it as «вдоль дорожки»), and «(ветер сильно качал березы аллеи)» (the wind was shaking the birches of the avenue) loses «аллеи»: «(ветер сильно качал березы)». «увидал» and the comma after «воробья» are the 1897 printing's (the Academy text has «увидел» and no comma), so Tolstoy's copy probably read so.

From Стихотворения в прозе · close to the original .

Original · Russian

Моя собака медленно приближалась к нему, как вдруг, сорвавшись с близкого дерева, старый черногрудый воробей камнем упал перед самой ее мордой — и весь взъерошенный, искаженный, с отчаянным и жалким писком прыгнул раза два в направлении зубастой раскрытой пасти.

Source text: ru.wikisource.org

In English · Constance Garnett, 1897

My dog was slowly approaching it, when, suddenly darting down from a tree close by, an old dark-throated sparrow fell like a stone right before his nose, and all ruffled up, terrified, with despairing and pitiful cheeps, it flung itself twice towards the open jaws of shining teeth.

Source text: gutenberg.org

Details

The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Стихотворения в прозе (Senilia), «Воробей».

Word for word, with a comma for Turgenev's dash: «перед самой ее мордой — и весь взъерошенный» is «перед самой ее мордой и, весь взъерошенный».

From Стихотворения в прозе · close to the original .

Original · Russian

Он ринулся спасать, он заслонил собою свое детище… но всё его маленькое тело трепетало от ужаса, голосок одичал и охрип, он замирал, он жертвовал собою!

Каким громадным чудовищем должна была ему казаться собака!

И все-таки он не мог усидеть на своей высокой, безопасной ветке…

Сила, сильнее его воли, сбросила его оттуда.

Source text: ru.wikisource.org

In English · Constance Garnett, 1897

It sprang to save; it cast itself before its nestling ... but all its tiny body was shaking with terror; its note was harsh and strange.

What a huge monster must the dog have seemed to it!

A force stronger than its will flung it down.

Source text: gutenberg.org

Полное собрание сочинений И. С. Тургенева, 4-е изд., т. 8

Онъ кинулся спасать, онъ заслонилъ собою свое д$- тище....

Source text: archive.org

Details

The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Стихотворения в прозе (Senilia), «Воробей».

Two of Turgenev's paragraphs joined, and one word changed, as the Jubilee commentary lists: «свое детище… но всё его маленькое тело трепетало» (his offspring… but his whole little body trembled) is «свое детище, а всё его маленькое тело трепетало» (his offspring, and his whole little body trembled). «кинулся» (rushed) is the 1897 printing's reading; the Academy text has «ринулся».

From Стихотворения в прозе · reworded by Tolstoy .

Original · Russian

Мой Трезор остановился, попятился… Видно, и он признал эту силу.

Source text: ru.wikisource.org

In English · Constance Garnett, 1897

My Trésor stood still, drew back.... Clearly he too recognised this force.

Source text: gutenberg.org

Полное собрание сочинений И. С. Тургенева, 4-е изд., т. 8

Мой Трезоръ остановилея, попятился.... Видно, и онъ призналъ эту силу.

Source text: archive.org

Details

The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Стихотворения в прозе (Senilia), «Воробей».

Tolstoy removes the dog's name, as the Jubilee commentary lists: «Мой Трезор остановился, попятился… Видно, и он признал эту силу» (My Trésor stopped, backed away… Evidently he too acknowledged this force) is «Собака остановилась, попятилась... Видно, и она признала эту силу» (The dog stopped, backed away... Evidently she too acknowledged this force), the dog now feminine with the noun. The commentary quotes Turgenev as «Мой Трезорка остановился»; the 1897 printing and the Academy text both have «Трезор».

From Стихотворения в прозе · close to the original .

Original · Russian

Я поспешил отозвать смущенного пса — и удалился, благоговея.

Source text: ru.wikisource.org

In English · Constance Garnett, 1897

I hastened to call off the disconcerted dog, and went away, full of reverence.

Source text: gutenberg.org

Details

The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Стихотворения в прозе (Senilia), «Воробей».

Word for word, without Turgenev's dash: «пса — и удалился» is «пса и удалился».

From Стихотворения в прозе · reworded by Tolstoy .

Original · Russian

Да; не смейтесь.

Я благоговел перед той маленькой героической птицей, перед любовным ее порывом.

Source text: ru.wikisource.org

In English · Constance Garnett, 1897

Yes; do not laugh.

I felt reverence for that tiny heroic bird, for its impulse of love.

Source text: gutenberg.org

Details

The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Стихотворения в прозе (Senilia), «Воробей».

Two changes the Jubilee commentary lists. Turgenev's aside to the reader, «Да; не смейтесь. Я благоговел» (Yes; do not laugh. I was filled with reverence), is «Да, я благоговел» (Yes, I was filled with reverence), and «перед той маленькой героической птицей» (before that small heroic bird) is «перед той маленькой великодушной птицей» (before that small magnanimous bird).

From Стихотворения в прозе · close to the original .

Original · Russian

Любовь, думал я, сильнее смерти и страха смерти.

Только ею, только любовью держится и движется жизнь.

Source text: ru.wikisource.org

In English · Constance Garnett, 1897

Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death.

Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.

Source text: gutenberg.org

Details

The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Стихотворения в прозе (Senilia), «Воробей».

Word for word but one form, which the Jubilee commentary lists: Turgenev's «держится и движется жизнь» (life holds together and moves) is «держится и двигается жизнь», the commoner form of the same verb. The Circle sets «думал я» between dashes and puts a comma before «и страха смерти».

Tolstoy TodayТолстой сегодня · tolstoytoday.org/august/4/weekly