CHAPTER 5. THE WHITE PAGE.

January 5, 1834.

Slowly opening the shutters, or, if you will, the gates of his truly weighty notebook, the at that moment exceptionally detached Martin Green, occasionally and carelessly touching his extraordinarily thick black beard, which was continuously trembling due to the surprisingly biting cold now prevailing in the area, with a Faber-Castell pencil, wrote with his hand nothing less than slowly on the whiteness of the parchment, which, it seemed, was one of the integral, but for some reason torn from the general mass, particles or, if you will, one of the strands of that gray hair, the following lines, which were, of course, the result of his aforementioned reflections:

“In the eastern part of the Wichita Mountains,
Having recently left Black Hills,
You managed to find protection,
From those who disturbed your peace.

Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho –
Was it not them that Dohasan cursed,
Was it not for them that he predicted the scaffold soon,
Stepping on this scaffold himself?

Unhappy son of a Kiowa chief,
Only having become a chief,
You realized how harsh life is –
The blood of your subjects like rain,
Prematurely watered the earth:

Your face did not betray you –
The massacre with the Osage raised,
In your soul a lot of strength!
One hundred and fifty Kiowa fell.

The sacred Tai-me was stolen –
What days awaited you,
If not in a merciless war?

The people were deprived of the Sun Dance –
Their cry is not heard among the Plains!
The faces, whose paint is clear bronze,
Have a single face and one gaze!

There is no White Ermine, there is no Thunder,
Kiowa, among your flowers –
All this is a consequence of the pogrom,
Near the shores of Rainy Mountain!

“Peoples of the ill-fated Lands,
When will you understand:
Without an agreement – freedom,
You will not see in that world?!

An American strikes a Briton,
The Briton immediately tries,
In revenge to release from his satchel,
The aconite of iron flesh.

An Indian strives to expel an Indian,
From his own land –
Is there really not enough space in the world,
For everyone to live in peace? –

So thought every philosopher,
Whose lot is to think and write:
His lips are scythes and sickles,
In his hands – a pen and ‘grace’! –

But what to write about a person,
At that very moment... oh, yes!... then,
When rivers flow from the heavens,
Of distant atoms: A Star,
Having blazed up with a keen pride,

Expelled from its country,
Its brethren – older, younger –
Having chosen the lot of utter darkness.”
The streams have dammed up the darkness,
And the Shawnee immediately said:

“For what the Sioux did,
The Spirit will now punish... us!
The end of all earthly things has come –
The Choctaw was truthful a while ago:

It cannot, truly, be that such wonders
Would perish twice!
He saw a similar chaos before,
His tongue told me about it –

Shining more and more,
The light did not blink, as if it were day!
The Great Spirit gave us hope,
But the world did not heed it again –

Now, tearing our clothes,
We smash our foreheads into blood!
But there is no salvation in prayers,
Do not expect good and blessings for that,

People whose fate is all in battles,
People who are thrown into darkness!
You will shine and soon –
You don't have long to shine:

The falling of stars is a great sorrow,
I intend to predict for you! –
The trace of the Kiowa will be lost,

Among the brought-in snows:
They are ruthless to peoples,
Whose ancestors' blood sleeps here!

They, like a merciless blizzard,
Will deprive you of your homes and children –
With a cold gust, with a greedy cold,
They will sit among the Steppes!..”

“Enough! Pau! Fox Tail!
Not all of them, not all are callous!
They are – white pages,
But the inscriptions on them are different!

Just look at Green,
His soul is white, like smoke!” –
Dohasan said spiritedly,
Without hiding his ardor at all.

Oh, if you knew, you rhetoricians,
Why I arrived in the New World,
Would you shelter me in your house,
Giving me a hearth and a blanket?

Would you trust me, you blind ones,
If you knew who I am?
I am a Messiah of a new life here,
And this rain is in my honor!

A naive, lame tribe –
From now on I am their master:
Time made me so for them,
And a number of acting disciplines.

The bison will entrust their food to me,
Their mountains are golden sand,
Their wives will give me children,
Their obedience is a sip of fire!..

In the eastern part of the Wichita Mountains,
Having recently left Black Hills,
You managed to find protection,
From those who disturbed your peace…”