Short Fiction by Xavier de Maistre (digital e reader txt) 📕
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Xavier de Maistre lived mostly as a military man, fighting in France and Russia around the turn of the 19th century. In 1790 a duel he participated in led him to be put under arrest in Turin; during his confinement in a tiny chamber, he wrote his most famous work, “A Journey Round My Room.”
“Journey” is a short story written as a parody of the grand travelogues popular at the time. He frames his six weeks’ confinement as a long journey across the unknown land of his room, visiting the furniture, the paintings on the wall, and even venturing to the north side. De Maistre didn’t hold the work in very high regard, but after his brother had it published in 1794 it became a fast success, eventually calling for a sequel (“A Night Journey Round My Room”), and warranting allusions in fiction by writers like D. H. Lawrence, Wilkie Collins, W. Somerset Maugham, and Jorge Luis Borges.
The rest of his literary corpus is modest, and consists entirely of short works. “The Leper of the City of Aosta” is a philosophical dialogue on the struggles of a leper whose days are seemingly filled with unending sorrow; “The Prisoners of the Caucasus” is the fictional narrative of a captured general and his faithful servant, set against a rich background of Cossack factions in the Caucasus of Imperial Russia reminiscent of Tolstoy’s Hadji Murád; and “The Young Siberian” is the true story of Prascovia Lopouloff, a poor Russian girl who sets out on a journey to secure an imperial pardon for her exiled father.
De Maistre never set out to have a literary career, but his carefully-considered output made him famous across the continent.
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- Author: Xavier de Maistre
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From the dusky corner where he was lying, Ivan examined eagerly the scene before him. The glimmer of the fire, which blazed from time to time, shone on an axe deposited in a hole in the wall. The old man, at length, over come by sleep, let his head at intervals decline on his breast. Ivan rose. The suspicious gaoler asked him immediately, in a rough tone, “What is the matter?” Instead of replying, Ivan came near the fire, yawning aloud, as a person who was just awaking from a profound sleep. Ibrahim, who was endeavouring to keep himself awake, called on Kascambo to play on his guitar. The Major refusing to comply, Ivan reached him the instrument, whispering, “Take it, I have something to tell you.” Kascambo immediately tuned the guitar, and after a short prelude sang with his servant the following duet; introducing at each question and reply, the couplets of a Russian air.
Kascambo
“Hai luli! hai luli! What hast thou to tell me?—take care.
“I’m weary and sad, but in truth
No wonder my spirits have flown,
For here I expected the youth,
And now I’m forlorn and alone.
Hai luli! hai luli!
What can the matter be?—
It grieves one to be thus alone.”
Ivan
“See the hatchet, but do not stare at it. Hai luli! hai luli! I shall split that rascal’s head.
“As oft as I sit at my wheel,
The thread is e’er snapping in twain.
Tomorrow I’ll spin—for I feel
That today I am too much in pain.
Hai luli! hai luli!
What can the matter be,
That today I am so much in pain?”
Kascambo
“Gratuitous murder! hai luli! How could I rid myself of my irons?
“As the kid its mother attends,
As the shepherd e’er follows his sheep,
As the doe to the valley descends
When the herbage is first seen to peep
Hai luli! hai luli!
What can the matter be?
Thus fondly I watch till I weep.”
Ivan
“The key of your chains is probably in the brigand’s pocket.
“I set off at dawn with my pail;
But, ere to the fountain I come,
Unconscious I take without fail
The pathway that leads to his home.
Hailuli! hai luli!
What can the matter be?
The pathway that leads to his home.”
Kascambo
“The woman will give the alarm—hai luli!
“While thus at his absence I grieve,
Ungrateful he’s free from all care;
Nay, trying perhaps to deceive
Some other too credulous fair.
Hai luli! hai luli!
What will become of me?
Some other too fortunate fair.”
Ivan
“Happen what may! would it be better to die of misery and hunger? hai luli! hai luli!
“If, forgetting the oaths he has sworn,
He leave me another to woo,
The village I’d freely see burn,
And see myself burn with it too.
Hai luli! hai luli!
Who would not pity me?—
And see myself burn with it too.”
The old man becoming attentive, they repeated oftener the burden “hai luli!” and accompanied it with some loud irregular notes. “Play, master,” said the soldier, “play the Cossack song, and I will dance round the room to catch the axe: play with courage.”
Kascambo
“I will play, but methinks our last hour is at hand.”
In saying this, he turned away his head, and played with all the strength he could master.
Ivan began the steps and the grotesque attitudes of the dance, which had generally most amused the old gaoler, but now added many new jumps and gambols and screams, the more to withdraw his attention. When Kascambo supposed that Ivan was near the place where the axe was hanging, his heart beat with violence. The instrument of his deliverance was deposited in a little closet made in the wall, without a door, at a height which Ivan could with difficulty reach. Yet by a fortunate effort he seized it, and, with the same self-possession with which he had acted all this time, he laid it within the shadow of Ibrahim’s figure. The old man raised his eyes to him, when he was already again capering and whirling around the room. This awful scene had lasted already a long while, and Kascambo wanted strength and spirits to continue, the more so as he believed that his servant had lost courage, or despaired of success. He glanced thus at him, at the moment when, having seized the axe, he advanced with a firm step towards the gaoler, to discharge a deadening blow on his head. The Major’s emotion was too strong to permit him to continue playing. His guitar fell at his feet. Ibrahim had stooped down to push some brambles into the fire, the dry leaves of which immediately threw a bright blaze, and the old man adjusted himself to take his seat again.
Had Ivan proceeded, at that moment, in his design, a struggle would have ensued, and the noise probably have given the alarm; but his presence of mind obviated these dangers. As soon as he remarked the Major’s perplexity, and saw Ibrahim rise, he laid the hatchet behind the block on which the latter was sitting, and again began his dance: “Zounds! play,” said he to his master, “what are you thinking of?” The Major took his guitar. But the gaoler, without the least suspicion of his impending fate, ordered them to cease their music, and to go to sleep. Ivan went with perfect composure for the guitar case, and laid it on the hearth; but instead of taking the instrument which his master held out to him, with a sudden effort he seized the axe, and let it fall with so terrible a weight upon the head of the gaoler, that his victim fell lifeless and without a groan into the fire, and his long grizzled beard rose into a blaze. Ivan drew out the corpse by the feet, and covered it with the mat.
He and his master were now in agonizing doubts, to know whether the woman in the next room was awake; but this uncertainty did not last long; for, probably astonished of the silence
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