: The Essays of Prishvin

Author: Prishvin (Soviet Union)
Publisher:
Publishing Time: Not available
Features: Only in terms of the description of nature, Prishvin's observations and experiences are much more detailed than those of his predecessors. The author, with the sharp eye of an artist, pays particular attention to the role of light, such as: "In these valleys facing the sea, I took my camera, not just chasing the sunlight. Early in the morning, the sun shone on the reeds in the mountains, and the reeds were lightly frosted, as if embroidered with a border, or turned into dewdrops—large, bright dewdrops appearing against the backdrop of dark cliffs and the boundless blue Pacific." The author also specially mentions "the spring of light": "In the past, even among great poets, how many could particularly appreciate the 'spring of light'—the most beautiful time of the year? Now, neat squares and streets are filled with free and joyful sunlight, and every ordinary person becomes a poet. In the sunlight, the headscarves and blouses of the crowd flash bright colors, and the eyes are blue, brown, or black, all radiant and unable to hide it." Now I finally understand why, when I was in Paris, I couldn't see my fiancée as a lover (the theme of "Ginseng"): I wasn't pursuing this. I finally understand why I was unwilling to marry her, because I was far from ready. I finally understand why that love became my heartache and why I couldn't get rid of it. Indeed, it was my illness (mental?), and I had to treat it with the simple life of childhood. Blok, after reading my "Small Loaves," asked me: "You have merged with nature during your travels. Tell me, how can a person merge with nature? It's impossible." If I put my life in parentheses and call it seclusion, perhaps a holy seclusion, then my answer is close to the truth. To become a child, this is both the simplest and hardest thing. It's simple because you no longer argue about anything, no longer demand anything from anyone, and no longer harm anyone (Tolstoy also adopted this method of returning to childhood as a criterion for moral behavior, and he wasn't the only one). The difficulty lies in being satisfied with this for a long time. "Where do you come from?" he asked us. Hearing that we came from Moscow, we quickly rowed and disappeared into the darkness. "God knows what's going on!" my companion said, looking up at the stars. Another companion wiped the salty water from his mustache and said: "Damn it!" Suddenly, a firelight lit up on the other side of the river in the middle of the mountain, indicating that there was a house there. I judged that it must be the Chinese who had returned to the headquarters to report, thinking we were poachers, and had lit the lights. Probably the Chinese had also notified the guard dogs, and the dogs suddenly barked wildly. Then, deer calls echoed from all directions. After a while, we heard the sound of oars. This was Eugene, the brave deer farm owner, coming to pick us up. Just as we expected, the headquarters building was indeed embedded in the cliffs. Shortly after, we entered the headquarters and comfortably sat at the table, talking about the poachers. Poaching in this area is a very profitable business! According to Eugene, once he got lost like us and found a small, isolated house far from the village. The owner of the house chatted with him and, in the heat of the moment, directly said that he had poached deer antlers twice on Askold Island and used the money to buy everything: a horse, a cow, household utensils, and various tools; even this small house was bought with deer antlers. Poachers exist in all civilized countries, whether in Europe or Canada. How could there be none here! Moreover, a single deer's antlers can sell for 1,000 yen. And the poachers' shooting skills are all excellent. They all use small-caliber rifles, the bullets are small, and the sound is small, specifically targeting the deer's spinal cord. They must be brave and skilled. There was once such an incident when the deer herd on Askold Island was owned by the hunter's association. The association chairman, Captain Bushuev, caught a poacher on the spot and aimed his pistol at him, ordering him to put down his gun. This poacher was very clever and, at the moment of throwing the gun, fired the bullet, instantly killing the chairman. Those were famous poachers, three brothers, very cunning, nicknamed "foxes." Once, one of the foxes was caught on the island, but the guard didn't tie him up immediately, thinking the boat had already been confiscated and he could escape somewhere else. But the fox was even more cunning. He tied two logs together with his underpants and lay in the middle, using his hands to paddle, and stubbornly rowed 8 versts across the sea to the shore. On Putiatin Island, the guard at the deer farm had a gunfight with the poachers and killed one of them, whose surname was Strakhov. They made a coffin out of boat planks and buried him on the shore. But the other poachers dug up the coffin in the middle of the night, pulled out the nails, took off the planks, repaired the boat, and escaped by boat. The famous poacher Kokergin was the most reckless. He often came with his brother during festivals, placing a water cup on his younger brother's head and shooting with his gun, hitting every time. He also liked to spy on Korean fishermen who secretly fished in the bay's no-fishing area. He would shoot them from a very long distance when the Koreans held the sail with their hands and bent over the water, making them fall into the water without a trace. The association offered a reward for his head, and naturally, many people wanted to kill him, but at the critical moment, they hesitated and were killed by him. Once, a guard on Askold Island fell asleep under the bushes and, when he woke up, saw Kokergin sitting on the ground cutting deer antlers through the bushes. He should have reached for his gun, but his hand wouldn't move. So, the moment he saw Kokergin, he froze, sitting like a fool in the bushes, not daring to move. But this was understandable, as these guards were locals. If they killed Kokergin, they wouldn't just get the reward but would also be shot in the back of the head, because Kokergin had many accomplices and relatives. In the end, it was a Korean who killed him. This Korean shot Kokergin with three bullets and, after receiving the reward from the association, fled to Korea. The goats all starved to death. Of course, the goats could be fed, and when they were extremely hungry, they would also come to the trough to eat, but the goats weren't taken care of, and the roe deer wouldn't let the goats eat in the trough. Deer are very selfish animals. There have been cases where wild deer would also come to the trough to eat in the hungry winter, but all the domestic reindeer would rush over and drive them away. From this perspective, the life of animals is simple, and all the work of domesticating animals is based on this simple sense of hunger. In fact, all these deer farms in the Far East are like naturally occurring in the vast forest: a herd of wild deer is eating somewhere in the forest, and they have lived there for a long time. As long as people enclose this cape or peninsula with barbed wire and separate it from the entire forest, the life of the deer herd will change dramatically, and they will no longer be wild deer, while the wild deer may continue to live as they did near the barbed wire. In the Mai River deer farm, the deer pens are also full. As soon as the guard blows the horn, the deer run from all directions. Long troughs are placed on the platform, with soybeans and corn scattered in them for feeding the deer. Three days before I arrived, a new deer pen was built, 3 kilometers long, and about 300 deer, including fawns, rushed into the new pen with fresh grass. I thought that with such spacious pens, the deer would no longer gather when the horn sounded, but Ivan Fyodorovich, the guard, understood the nature of the deer, the common inertia of animals, and decided to gather them specifically for me to see how beautiful these spotted animals were. As soon as he blew the horn, a doe with a fawn came out. It was obviously nearby, looked around, understood what was happening, and immediately hid in the bushes. When it reappeared, it brought along a smaller fawn. While the doe was going back to find its fawn, a group of does, including two that had already shed their antlers and one with newly grown tender antlers, ran over from somewhere. No deer appeared from the old pen. The old pen was built on the marshy ground of the river valley, with a black path for the deer in the green grass. This path had forks: one led directly to the Mai River and the other to the mouth of the Mai River, where both banks were cliffs, and further ahead was the Ussuri Bay. The old pen is now empty, only the green grass of the deer-eaten plants remains, and dark, gnawed young branches stand against the green background. A deer passed by this bush and stretched its head to eat a green leaf on a branch. I seized the opportunity to take a photo, which, of course, scared the deer. But the manager walked over curiously to examine the green leaf. What surprised him was that the deer had left the old pen only three days ago, yet the leaves had already grown so quickly. Meanwhile, Ivan Fyodorovich kept blowing the horn, scattering soybeans into the trough from his pockets. Now, a large group of deer gathered around the trough, and deer kept running over from the bushes. I had become accustomed to observing deer eating alone or in groups in the forest or on the mountains from a distance, hiding in the bushes or cliffs and watching them with a telescope from a very far distance. Now, such a large herd of sika deer surrounded us densely, and even standing right in front of them was just as beautiful. A few deer in the herd had become accustomed to being fed by hand and could be approached freely, even stroked like dogs. The deer had become used to the hunting dog "Tsyanka," completely ignoring it, except for some does who protected their fawns and, to protect their children from non-existent dangers, would charge at the dog and try to kick it with their hooves. But this hunting dog was very agile, able to evade a leopard, and two hunting dogs together could even bite the ear of a half-grown wild boar. However, even horses stumble. The hunting dog felt something bite it where it itched, and it bit so hard that it wrinkled its nose, sticking its head under its tail, and bit with its teeth, just like a barber using a razor to shave a beard. It wanted to bite a flea. A small doe noticed this German hunting dog in a predicament and, with beautiful eyes sparkling with mischief, approached cautiously like a guide dog, suddenly kicking the dog's back with its hooves. This scared the big dog badly, and we laughed for a long time. Ivan Fyodorovich took out some soybeans from his pocket and deliberately scattered them thinly to prevent the deer from gathering, ensuring that the entire trough was evenly distributed, so that I could create the effect of an "endless" scene of deer eating when taking photos. Indeed, the fawn calves were too afraid to squeeze into the large group and instead gathered in small groups on the side, some of them making impatient calls, similar to the calls of eagles sometimes heard high in the sky. When the soybeans were eaten, the deer gradually scattered, and the does went to find their fawns, some feeding their children immediately, while most took their children and slowly moved toward the new pen. Soon, the old pen will be completely closed for repairs. The new pen will no longer allow the deer to eat the grass so bare, so they will be moved to the third pen, so that the three pens can be used in rotation. During the feeding, I also heard an interesting story. Once, a large herd of deer was busy eating, and a wild pigeon flew over, picked up food from under the trough and was stepped on by a doe. The wild pigeon flapped its wings, scaring the doe, and suddenly jumped away, spreading terror through the herd. In an instant, 300 deer charged the thick barbed wire, like bursting through a spider web, and all ran into the wild forest. After a while, hunting dogs were sent to find them. The deer, fearing the fierce hunting dogs, ran back to seek human protection. The trees in the coastal areas are different from those in our place: our wood is hard and dense, while here the trees are loose, and if used for food containers, they would seep salt when pickling fish. The reason for the trees being loose is the same as the rapid erosion of the coastal rocks: in general, the weather is changeable. In early spring, the roots are still in the frozen soil, but during the day, the sun heats the above-ground parts of the plants, and the juices in the trees begin to move. In the evening, the cold returns, and these juices freeze and expand, splitting the wood and making it loose. Therefore, the trees often have holes, even enough for people to live in. Bears often use these tree holes as dens. Hunters often tell stories that bears sometimes climb down from the tree tops into the holes, and only when they see them panting, with frost or very cold on the trees, or when white steam rises from the trees, do they know that the bears are hiding in the holes.