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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79276 ***




                     ANTHOLOGY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE

                              ──────────────

               From the Earliest Period to the Present Time

                                    BY

                                LEO WIENER

      ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY


                               IN TWO PARTS


                   8^o with Photogravure Frontispieces


  PART I.--From the Tenth Century to the Close of the Eighteenth Century

  PART II.--The Nineteenth Century

                              ──────────────

                           G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

                             NEW YORK LONDON

                         [Illustration: TURGÉNEV]


                        IVÁN SERGYEEVICH TURGÉNEV

“In days of doubt, in days of anguished thought over the fate of my
native land, you alone are my staff and my support, O great, mighty,
true and free Russian language! Were it not for you how could one help
despairing at the sight of what is taking place at home? But it is
unthinkable that such a language should not be given to a great nation.”

                                                             TURGÉNEV.




                     Anthology of Russian Literature

               From the Earliest Period to the Present Time


                                    By

                                Leo Wiener

      Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University


                               IN TWO PARTS


                                 PART II

                          The Nineteenth Century


                           G. P. Putnam’s Sons
                           New York and London
                         The Knickerbocker Press
                                   1903




                                 PREFACE



Considerations of space compel me to give but a small selection of
authors from the last two decades of the nineteenth century, while some
of the writers, here omitted, of the beginning of this period have been
previously treated in the first volume of the Anthology. For the
intermediate time, the material here offered will be found sufficiently
complete, while the essays of Byelínski, Dobrolyúbov, Písarev, and
Merezhkóvski illustrate the evolution of Russian literature in the
nineteenth century, as viewed by the Russian critics themselves.

The introductory sketch is not intended as a preliminary exposition of
the Anthology, but as a résumé of all the matter contained there; it
will, therefore, be best perused after the extracts and biographical
sketches of the separate authors have become familiar to the reader. To
avoid undue annotations, literary allusions have not been mentioned in
the footnotes; they may readily be discovered by turning to the Index,
where all cross references are given.

During the preparation of the second volume, the interesting discovery
was made that not Sir John Bowring, but William D. Lewis, an American,
was the first to render Russian poetry into English; thus, the _Stanzas_
given on p. 394 of vol. i. originally appeared in the National Gazette
and Literary Register of Philadelphia, on January 31, 1821, while other
poems seem to have been translated by him much earlier.

I again wish to express my thanks to the authors and publishers by whose
permission translations are here reproduced, and to my colleague, Prof.
F. N. Robinson, who has patiently read through these pages and given me
his advice.




                                CONTENTS


                                                                 PAGE
  PREFACE                                                           v
  A SKETCH OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY          3
  THE NINETEENTH CENTURY                                           27
     Karamzín (1766-1826)                                          27
        Letters of a Russian Traveller                             28
           Tver                                                    28
           On the French Tragedy                                   30
           On Shakspere                                            31
           London                                                  32
        The Churchyard                                             33
        Poor Líza                                                  34
        History of the Russian Empire. Introduction                37
     Krylóv (1768-1844)                                            41
        The Ass and the Nightingale                                41
        The Quartette                                              43
        Damian’s Fishsoup                                          44
        The Swan, the Pike, and the Crab                           45
        The Lion and the Wolf                                      45
        The Cloud                                                  46
        The Shipwrecked Sailor and the Sea                         46
     Izmáylov (1779-1831)                                          46
        The Drunkard’s Vow                                         47
        The Canary and the Nightingale                             47
        The Two Cats                                               48
     Naryézhny (1780-1825)                                         49
        The Two Iváns; or, The Passion for Litigation              49
     Zhukóvski (1783-1852)                                         54
        Svyetlána                                                  55
        The Minstrel in the Russian Camp                           63
     Kozlóv (1779-1840)                                            67
        Solitude                                                   68
        Kíev                                                       69
        The Black Monk                                             70
     Bátyushkov (1787-1855)                                        73
        The Friend’s Shadow                                        73
        The Dying Tasso                                            75
     Glínka (1788-1880)                                            78
        Moscow                                                     79
        The Search for God                                         80
     Prince Vyázemski (1792-1878)                                  81
        The Samovár                                                82
        To My Three Absent Friends                                 84
        Death Reaps the Harvest of Life                            85
     Rylyéev (1796-1826)                                           86
        Voynaróvski                                                87
        Iván Susánin                                               88
     Griboyédov (1795-1829)                                        92
        Intelligence Comes to Grief                                93
     Bestúzhev (Marlínski) (1797-1837)                            102
        Ammalát Bek                                               102
     Lazhéchnikov (1794-1869)                                     111
        The Heretic                                               112
     Baron Délvig (1798-1831)                                     120
        Gloomy Thoughts                                           120
        Sang a little bird, and sang                              121
        Ah, you night, you little night                           122
     Púshkin (1799-1837)                                          122
        The Captain’s Daughter                                    125
        Evgéni Onyégin. Tatyána’s Letter                          131
        The Bakhchisaráy Fountain                                 133
        The Poison-Tree                                           135
        The Bird                                                  136
        The Prophet                                               137
        The Talisman                                              138
        The Lay of the Wise Olég                                  139
        To the Slanderers of Russia                               142
        Borís Godunóv                                             143
        Demons                                                    147
     Baratýnski (1800-1844)                                       149
        Finland                                                   150
        Spring                                                    151
        Truth                                                     151
     Yazýkov (1803-1846)                                          152
        The Sailor                                                153
        The Storm                                                 154
        To the Poet                                               155
     Lérmontov (1814-1841)                                        155
        A Hero of Our Times. Maksím Maksímych                     157
        The Demon                                                 165
        Dispute                                                   167
        Alone I wander out along the road                         170
        The Sail                                                  171
        The Prayer                                                171
        The Branch of Palestine                                   172
        Remember’st thou the day when we                          173
        At a Ball                                                 174
        Dream                                                     175
     Koltsóv (1808-1842)                                          176
        First Love                                                176
        The Abundant Harvest                                      177
        The Forest                                                179
        Betrayed by a Bride                                       181
        The Mower                                                 182
     Gógol (1809-1852)                                            185
        The Dnieper                                               187
        The Revizór                                               188
        Dead Souls. Mrs. Koróbochka                               199
     Byelínski (1811-1848)                                        205
        The Natural School                                        206
     Aksákov (1791-1859)                                          216
        The Family Chronicle                                      217
     Khomyakóv (1804-1860)                                        229
        To My Children                                            230
        The Eagle                                                 231
        Kíev                                                      232
     Tyútchev (1803-1873)                                         234
        Scarce cooled from midday heat                            234
        The Spring-Storm                                          235
        I suffer still from anguished longing                     235
        Sunrise                                                   235
     Gértsen (Herzen) (1812-1870)                                 236
        Slavophiles and Panslavism                                237
        Ogarév (1813-1877)                                        242
        To Iskánder                                               242
        Monologues                                                244
        The Village Watchman                                      244
     Count A. K. Tolstóy (1817-1875)                              245
        Prince Serébryany                                         246
        The Death of Iván the Terrible                            255
        The Kurgán                                                257
     Goncharóv (1812-1891)                                        259
        Oblómov                                                   260
     Dobrolyúbov (1836-1861)                                      271
        What is Oblómovism?                                       272
     Turgénev (1818-1883)                                         280
        Fathers and Sons                                          282
        Poems in Prose. Nature                                    295
     Grigoróvich (1822-1900)                                      296
        The Fishermen                                             297
     Polónski (1820-1898)                                         303
        The Birds                                                 303
        Night in the Crimea                                       304
        Love scared thee not                                      305
        Musician Grasshopper                                      305
     Písemski (1820-1881)                                         310
        The Old Proprietress                                      311
     Shenshín (Fet) (1820-1892)                                   319
        When deeply musing in the silence of the night            320
        Every feeling at night to me becomes clearer and deeper   320
        Stay here awhile, ’tis good                               321
        Night, thou art so blest with odours sweet and strong     321
        Tryst                                                     322
     Dostoévski (1821-1881)                                       322
        Crime and Punishment                                      323
     A. N. Máykov (1821-1898)                                     339
        The Peris                                                 340
        Who Was He?                                               341
        The Marble Faun                                           342
        Three Deaths. The Death of Seneca and of Lucius           344
     Nekrásov (1821-1877)                                         347
        Red-nosed Frost                                           348
        A Moral Man                                               352
        Who Lives in Russia Happily                               353
        The Unmown Strip                                          359
        A Mother’s Tears                                          360
     Nikítin (1824-1861)                                          361
        Burlák                                                    361
        The Gaffer                                                364
     Pleshchéev (1825-1894)                                       365
        Forward                                                   366
        My Country                                                367
        A Legend                                                  367
        Spring                                                    368
     Ostróvski (1823-1886)                                        369
        The Storm                                                 369
     Saltykóv (Shchedrín) (1826-1889)                             379
        Beyond the Border                                         380
     Písarev (1841-1868)                                          385
        Flowers of Harmless Humour                                386
     Count L. N. Tolstóy (1828-    )                              391
        Ánna Karénin                                              392
        War and Peace                                             401
     Uspénski (1840-1902)                                         408
        The Power of the Land. Iván Petróv                        409
     Levítov (1842-1877)                                          417
        Shoemaker Cock-of-the-Boots                               417
     Zlatovrátski (1845-    )                                     427
        Old Shadows                                               428
     Korolénko (1853-    )                                        436
        The Old Bell-ringer                                       437
     Garshín (1855-1888)                                          443
        That Which Was Not                                        443
     Potápenko (1856-    )                                        448
        A Thousand Talents                                        448
     Nádson (1862-1887)                                           457
        My Friend, My Brother!                                    458
        Poetry                                                    458
        Pity the stately cypress trees                            459
     Chékhov (1860-    )                                          459
        In the Court-room                                         460
     Pyeshkóv (Górki) (1871-    )                                 467
        In the Steppe                                             468
     Merezhkóvski (1865-    )                                     482
        From an Essay on “Pushkin”                                483
  INDEX                                                           495




                  A SKETCH OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE IN THE
                            NINETEENTH CENTURY



                                    I

Were we to compare English literature to the starred heavens with their
galaxies and their permanent constellations of varying magnitudes,
Russian literature would represent itself to us as the darkling sky
which is now illumined by the refracted glamour of the aurora borealis,
now by the illusive flashes of shooting meteors, and now again by the
steadier brilliancy of some errant comet, by the side of which stars
seem pale and insignificant. In England, as with the other great nations
of the West, there have been temporary suspensions of literary
activities, but with every new unshrouding the ancient combinations
gleam forth in the azure vault in untarnished brilliancy, even though
new stars may obtrude themselves to view. Not thus in Russia. After
every short period of celestial fireworks the heavens are suddenly
merged into palpable darkness, to dazzle us once more with an entirely
new display of unwonted splendour.

Such, at least, is the aspect Russian literature bears in the nineteenth
century. Though Púshkin’s poetry was naturally the crowning glory of the
incipient reign of Nicholas I., it bears but a faint resemblance to the
lacrimose verses of Karamzín, or to the elegant imitations and patriotic
ebullitions of Zhukóvski of the previous two decades, and yet Karamzín
lived till Púshkin reached man’s estate, while Zhukóvski was still
active after his death. Púshkin and his contemporaries are classed
separately from Lérmontov, though but fifteen years lie between their
births and only four between their deaths. No new division is made for
poetry since the days of Lérmontov, though in the light of Nekrásov’s
realism, who began writing in 1848, the poets of pure art, Máykov,
Polónski, Tyútchev, Fet,--all of them born long before Púshkin’s
demise,--were reviled by the democratic critics and suffered more or
less complete oblivion after the fifties. Still more pathetic is the
fate of Vyázemski who, reared in the school of Karamzín, had the
misfortune of surviving to a vigorous old age: he bitterly felt the
living literary death to which he was doomed for more than a quarter of
a century.

The vicissitudes of prose have been even more varied. Karamzín had
barely established the new style of writing, based on French and English
writers, still struggling with the reactionary tendency of Shishkóv,
whose antiquated style is prominent in Griboyédov’s comedy, when a whole
school of Romanticists, beginning with Bestúzhev-Marlínski and
Lazhéchnikov, and ending with Púshkin and Lérmontov, evolved, under the
influence of Walter Scott, the Russian novel. It is a far cry from
Karamzín’s _Líza_ to Púshkin’s _Captain’s Daughter_ and to Lérmontov’s
_Hero of Our Time_. Yet, within less than a decade after the latter had
charmed the public, Gógol’s _Dead Souls_ completely obliterated the fame
of all its predecessors, and Byelínski’s dictum in regard to the Natural
School at once set the pace for an entirely new set of writers,--the
novelists of the forties. Turgénev, Goncharóv, Tolstóy, Dostoévski,
Písemski, were trained in that school and wrote their first productions
in the lifetime of Gógol. Yet after the memorial year 1848 a reaction
set in in literature as well as in affairs, and the fifties, except for
rare flashes of genius from Turgénev and Tolstóy, were one barren waste.
Of Gógol’s example and Byelínski’s injunctions hardly a trace was left.
Then, during the reign of Alexander II., the atmosphere was again
cleared, and the sixties produced that wonderful series of writings for
which Russia is mainly known abroad. And yet, in 1862, Turgénev proved
by his _Fathers and Sons_ that he was no longer in touch with Russian
reality; and a few years later, after Tolstóy had written his _War and
Peace_ and _Anna Karénin_, began Tolstóy’s rapid departure from all
reality.

In the meantime the critics, from the master Byelínski down, through
Dobrolyúbov, Písarev and Chernyshévski, reached the _ne plus ultra_ of
negation, and with them rose a new set of authors, who returned to the
lowest elements of society for their themes,--to the peasants.
Grigoróvich, Pomyalóvski, Uspénski, and a whole host of minor writers,
many of them riotous in the absence of style, produced a vast amount of
literature. Dostoévski, revelling in excruciating psychological
analyses, wrote his best work, _Crime and Punishment_, in 1865. No
wonder, then, that after such a concentrated creative period there
should follow a decade of impotence, in which the only relief was
afforded by the older writers, who occasionally lighted up the darkness
with their phosphorescence. Then, since the eighties, there has been a
November shower of novelists, Korolénko, Potápenko, Chékhov, Boborýkin,
and many, many more, and but lately a new comet has loomed up in the
horizon in the person of Maksím Górki.

The periods of distinct literary ideals are so short, their activities
so varied, that one feels tempted to treat the nineteenth century by
decades, or, to avoid embarrassing results from a purely mechanical
arrangement, to survey each field of belles-lettres, poetry, drama,
prose, in its evolution from Karamzín to the present. Neither method,
however, is free from serious objections, and it will be found more
convenient to regard the literary movement under each reign, especially
since the Decembrist revolt at the end of the rule of Alexander I., the
Crimean War under Nicholas I., and the death of Alexander II. mark real
epochs in the intellectual movements of Russia. Each reign, in its turn,
is by some historical event divisible into two parts, the first of which
coincides with aspirations and vigorous activities in literature, the
second with relaxation and indifference. Such events were the year 1812
and, in a higher measure, the year 1848.

It would, however, be incorrect to identify the various periods with the
political changes of the Empire. Though, naturally, a new impetus may be
given at the beginning of a new reign, or a great national calamity may
rouse the dormant literary powers of the people, yet the accessions to
the throne of the successive rulers, and their policies, do not
sufficiently account for the shortness of each separate period and their
apparently abrupt cessations; just as, on the other hand, the political
changes themselves are frequently only the reflex of the antecedent
literary movement with the pronounced public opinion which is based upon
it. Thus, for example, the emancipation of the serfs, with its
tremendous political and social consequences, was not merely an
arbitrary act of the monarch, but the logical culmination of the
literary propaganda, with Turgénev and his _Memoirs of a Huntsman_ at
its head, which had preceded it.

Nor can governmental policy and severity of censorship be made
accountable for the short-lived literary influence of each individual
author, for the early maturity of genius, and the wide chasm between the
author’s sunny youth and his old age in the rare instances when he has
lived beyond his forties. At forty years of age, rather earlier than
later, all Russian writers have reached their apogee. Most authors have
gained their reputation long before that, and their old age passes by
unnoticed or in mystic abstractions, and in nearly all cases out of tune
with the realities of the day. And how appallingly large is the number
of those whose career was brought to an untimely end before they had
reached forty, either by violent means, as that of Púshkin and
Lérmontov, or through insanity, as that of Garshín, or through disease,
frequently as the result of dire wretchedness in youth, or of
intemperance, as that of Byelínski, Dobrolyúbov, Písarev, Nikítin,
Nádson, and many others!

The peculiar conditions of Russian literary life are the result of the
whole social structure of the country. Here we shall find an answer to
the many perplexing questions that the foreigner must necessarily put to
himself as he contemplates, not only the peculiar course of Russian
belles-lettres and their artistic and political maxims, but also the
exaggerated relation that Russian men of letters bear to the political
life of the nation.

The literate class of the people of Russia is at the present time but a
small part of the total population, and the cultured elements of society
form but a small percentage of all those who can read and write Russian.
The conditions were, naturally, much more unfavourable for education in
the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Western civilisation which
had spread over Russia since the days of Peter the Great had not
penetrated deep: it had not touched the core of things, had not changed
much in the semi-barbaric home life of the gentry and even of the higher
nobility. Below these classes it was practically non-existent. A desire
for learning there was, and the fathers who wished to have their
children benefited by the blessings of an education had either to fall
back on foreign tutors, or to send them to the schools maintained at
Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Lyceum at Tsárskoe-Seló was the chief
seminary of learning for the sons of the nobility. The sons were just as
eager to acquire the lustre of the foreign culture, but they invariably
understood this European learning merely as a counteraction to the
brutal surroundings of old Russia. They brought with them no home
traditions of refinement, no settled political and social views. At
their schools the young men were banded together by common interests of
progress against the world without, and they felt that the future of
Russia depended upon them as an intellectual force. Had the next
generation of students been recruited exclusively from the sons of men
who had enjoyed school advantages before, there would have been a
nucleus for traditional culture. But, in the nature of the case,
ever-new elements were availing themselves of the higher schooling, and
the younger generation was as much torn out of its barren surroundings
as the young men at the beginning of the century. They, too, were the
chosen few, and upon them, they knew, devolved the task of regenerating
their country. Unfortunately they lacked not only traditions of culture
in their families, but the school had not been able to transmit any
other positive tradition than the general desire for mental training and
literary brilliancy. The ethical principle of culture was but weakly
developed, and the absence of stated maxims of life made philosophic
moderation impossible. If the older generation had been carried away by
the prevailing French taste, or by Byron’s enticing poetry, or by the
powerful Romanticism of Germany, without, however, grasping the
underlying philosophy of either, or making it its own, the youths of the
thirties sat at the feet of the German philosophers, and with the
enthusiasm of new converts transferred their tenets into their whole
view of life and letters, however, by first eliminating from it the
essence of methodical thinking, which alone would have assured any
permanency to the Russian ecstasy.

Since culture was confined chiefly to the higher classes of society,
there was slowly growing up a select circle of cultivated men who, while
not characterised by the stability of the German intellectual class or
the dignified refinement of the English aristocracy, atoned for the
superficiality of their learning by a superabundance of youthful
enthusiasm. But, before the gentry had any time to crystallise into an
intellectual class, the doors of schools were thrown open to the nation
at large, and the middle classes began at once to avail themselves of
the privilege. There was a new influx of men without a tradition, and
the work of intellectualising had to be begun once more. The vigorous
burghers had not the wealth and position of their noble predecessors to
distract their spiritual energies, and to them the pursuit of learning
was a very serious matter. But their efforts were often thwarted by a
struggle against all kinds of adversities, and they frequently succumbed
in body and mind to the effects of poverty and persecution. If the sons
of the gentry in the previous generations stood out as a protest against
their fathers, the young men now added to it a protest against the
higher classes, and, as is natural in a state of chronic protests, they
rapidly reached the negation of everything. Russian literature passes
all the stages of negation, from the criticisms of Chátski in
Griboyédov’s comedy to the conscious superiority of Bazárov in
Turgénev’s _Fathers and Sons_, and from the critiques of Byelínski to
the negation of art and literature in the acrid solvent of Písarev’s
reviews and in the latter-day literary productions of the master-artist
Tolstóy.

The salutary effects of the renewal of the intellectual classes with
every generation have been in the extreme democratisation of Russian
society, and in the frequent and varied evolution of talent,--artistic,
musical, literary, political. But the democracy, lacking the moderation
of established procedure, too often loses itself in mazes of inactive
speculation, and, lacking historic perspective and philosophic
precision, is vacillating in its ultimate ends; while the same causes
militate against a concentration of talent, and rather disperse its
strength and nullify its effects. Hence the apt classification of the
heroes of Russian novels as so many Oblómovs, which Dobrolyúbov has made
in his review of Goncharóv’s famous work. It is, indeed, a notable fact
that Russia has not produced a single philosopher worthy of the name,
and a late attempt at discovering _The Philosophic Tendencies in Russian
Poetry_ has resulted in a meagre work which, though interesting for the
poets it harbours, is conspicuous for the absence of that philosophy
which it sets out to find.

Philosophy can have free sway only where there is calm reflection; and
reflection lies at the base of actions only where ideals of life are
formed at a mature age. Unfortunately for Russia, young men have stood
behind the cultural movements, and by “young men” are in Russia
understood those who have not yet reached the age of thirty. In the
Anglo-American civilisation men between thirty and fifty are supposed to
be young men, men of action, which view, having its origin in the
conservative spirit of Anglo-Saxon institutions, more than anything else
assures a cautious progress. In Russia, we have seen, the task of
fostering progress has fallen on school-lads and university students.
The consequence has been disastrous. Russian youths have tried to carry
high the banner of progress, and one cannot help but admire the courage
with which they have upheld their cause, the enthusiasm with which they
have advocated their tenets, the sacrifices which they have ever been
ready to bring. At the same time it must be evident that their courage
has frequently been ill-advised, their enthusiasm brittle because not
tempered by chill experience, and their sacrifices vain and useless.
There has been no bond of sympathy between the sons and their fathers,
and the enthusiasm of one generation has not been bequeathed in its turn
to the next.

As long as effervescent youth has lasted, Russians have not hesitated to
throw their whole souls into their cause. In Púshkin’s days they
surpassed Byron in the recklessness of their youthful excesses, and
would-be Manfreds could be met with in the flesh. As Slavophiles they
were willing to forego the fruits of Western civilisation, and gloried
in their unwieldy native costume. As Soilers and Populists they
renounced the society of their likes, and buried themselves in the
deadening wildernesses of distant villages. Even if the Government had
not nipped their efforts by exile and prisons, their fate could not
later in life have been happy. When their first fervour had evaporated,
and they were brought face to face with actualities, the discrepancy
between theories and practices of necessity produced a revulsion. The
stout of heart maintained their cherished hopes, but their minds became
variously affected by quiet sorrow, melancholy, despair. The men of
coarser texture turned liberal opportunists, temporisers, or downright
deniers of all their previous thoughts and acts. The Government absorbed
these as officials in various capacities, and thus the better elements,
through their abhorrence of compromise, have generally been lost to the
State.

The same disenchantment is noticeable in the life of every man of
letters. Literature has been in Russia the field in which all the
battles of progress have been fought. As there does not exist a
representative government, where political opinions may struggle for
recognition, and as there cannot exist a public opinion based on
tradition and class interests, literature alone appears as the medium
for advancing social and political ideas; and since scientific treatises
reach but a vanishing proportion of the nation, belles-lettres proper
have in Russia become the means for inculcating and propagating truths.
In the beginning of the nineteenth century this was not yet so apparent,
and literature for art’s sake could hold its own. But with the advancing
democratisation of society, literature gathered ever more around camps
with definite ideas, and literary art receded more and more and lived
out its day in oblivion. The individual authors have always been
conscious of their high calling, and in their youth have devoted
themselves with fervour to their tasks; but in middle life they
generally have been chilled by the actual conditions of life, and have
fallen a prey to disappointment, the effects of which were mysticism,
renunciation, opportunism, as the case might be.

Thus, also, there has followed a period of comparative stagnation and
even retrogression after every decade of concentrated production. The
men whom common interests had brought together in literary emulation had
passed their perihelion, and another generation had not yet reached
maturity; and in the interim the discordant notes could be heard more
clearly. In the last twenty years, however, a marked change has taken
place in Russian literature. While there has not risen an author of the
first magnitude, there has been no lack of writers and poets of the
second rank, and the reactionary element has been well kept in abeyance.
Russian critics stigmatise this period as one of mediocrity, and despair
of the future, since never before has there been so long a time without
some author of strong personality and influence. In reality, the
symptoms are very encouraging. It is evident from the long duration of
the smouldering literary life that society is becoming more stable, even
though temporarily less deep, and that literary sentiment and culture is
gaining in breadth. The next outburst of literary activities will
unquestionably be greater than any that have preceded it.


                                    II

The gloom which had spread over literature at the end of Catherine’s
reign was lifted at the very opening of the nineteenth century by the
accession of the liberal Alexander I. Instead of continuing the
persecution of the Free Masons and suppressing literature, the Emperor
himself favoured all kinds of mystic societies, and carried his
liberalism to the greatest extreme. He associated with Quakers, and
Jesuits were left unmolested in the capital. He proposed to reorganise
the country on Western models, and did not think it unwise to ask Thomas
Jefferson for a sketch of the American Constitution. He surrounded
himself with men of pronounced progressive tendencies, and heaped
honours on the author of the _Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow_,
whose advanced ideas had so displeased Catherine.

Yet only the end of his reign saw the fruition of the new spirit in
literature, when Púshkin with his mighty genius for ever settled the
direction Russian letters were to take. There could have been no sudden
change. No new ideals had taken the place of the literary traditions of
the eighteenth century, which looked upon authorship as a pleasant
pastime and profitable exercise of wit, but did not invest the authors
with the dignity of social factors. Though Romanticism was rapidly
displacing the older pseudo-classicism, many authors of the former style
were still active among the changing surroundings. Ózerov produced his
thunderous dramas and found a ready audience, and Derzhávin not only
continued his writing of odes, but was able to maintain a coterie of
literary men who would not listen to the innovations of Karamzín.

The most persistent stickler for the old conventions was Shishkóv. He
had no ear for the subtler beauties of verse, and identified poetry with
high-sounding epithets and well-turned phrases. His admiration for the
older bards led him to seek in their language, with the strange
admixture of Church-Slavic words, the proper norm for all time, and to
abhor the introduction of foreign words, which Karamzín so dexterously
applied in his formation of a new literary style. As President of the
Russian Academy Shishkóv exercised a certain influence, and the
discussion of the two styles agitated society for some time. There was
just a spark of truth in his contention. Like Shcherbátov before him,
and the Slavophiles thirty years later, he was anxious to see a greater
approach to the national spirit. Like his predecessor, he did not fail
to recognise that the colourless imitation of foreign models was not
bringing literature any nearer to the people, and, like the older
historian, he receded as far as possible into the past in his search for
native elements. Writers were at that time not yet prepared to look for
a common bond with the people in a living intercourse with them.

In the meanwhile Karamzín proceeded to find his models for composition
in the West, and to base his literary style on a close imitation of
French and English writers. He freely introduced such words and turns as
would mould Russian into a simpler and more harmonious instrument. His
example has been followed ever since. He was led by personal
predilection and a natural pensiveness to father that sentimentalism
which had found such a ready soil in Europe. How unnatural for Russian
that sentimentalism was, may be seen in the gentle transformation the
peasants have suffered in his novels. But in his day no one took
exception to such a treatment, and many affected that exotic sentiment
themselves.

In general, the particular direction of any author was very much a
matter of chance. Not the necessities of the time, not the spiritual
needs of any class of society decided what the poet was to sing and the
novelist was to write about,--indeed, society had not yet risen to a
well-defined spiritual life,--but the temporary whim of the author, the
accidental acquaintance with this or that manifestation in the foreign
literatures were the only reasons for transplanting the foreign models
upon Russian soil. The adroitness with which extraneous themes have been
handled by many of the writers is truly remarkable. In Bátyushkov it
reached masterly perfection. Having tried himself in imitations of
German, French, and classical models, his interest finally centred on
the Italian poets, especially Tasso. The result of his especial
predilection was that faultless poem, _The Dying Tasso_, which combines
epic calm and majesty of language as probably no other production in
Russian literature. But he had no contemporary audience that could
follow him in his exquisite interpretation of the Italian classical
spirit, just as Gnyédich, the famous translator of the Iliad, felt
aggrieved at the indifference with which society met his great
undertaking.

While a select number of authors, separating themselves from the life
that surrounded them, found inspiration in the distant past, Zhukóvski
devoted himself to familiarising his nation with the productions of the
German Romantic Muse. But, while in Europe Romanticism was the logical
outcome of the period of storm and stress through which it had just
passed, it bore no relation to actual spiritual needs in Russia.
Consequently only the external form and the technique, and not the inner
meaning was transplanted by Zhukóvski to his native soil. It is true, he
all the time preached a high ideal for poetry, but that ideal was only
superficially related to the fashionable Romantic verse in which he
enunciated it.

More original than these was Krylóv who, basing his fables on those of
La Fontaine, clad them in an idiomatic form and adorned them with an art
peculiarly his own. It would be, however, a mistake to suppose that he,
at least, fell back on the native element for his subjects. There is
absolutely nothing Russian in his fables. Not only do the popular animal
stories differ widely from those employed by him for illustration, but
he did not hesitate to introduce classical allusions whenever a chance
offered itself. The same method, though in a coarser vein, was also
pursued by Izmáylov.

The year 1812 had its immediate effects upon literature. It gave rise to
patriotic songs, like Zhukóvski’s _In the Camp of Russian Warriors_, and
to the patriotic series by Rylyéev. It led to a closer study of Russian
history, and Karamzín’s monumental work could not have come at a more
auspicious period. The consequences were even greater. Many young
officers who had formed their ideals of life through the imitations of
their native literature took part in the campaign in Germany and France,
and there came in contact with all the living movements that agitated
the best minds. They brought home with them a new enthusiasm, formed
secret societies in imitation of the German _Tugendbund_, and dreamed of
a violent reorganisation of Russia. All the best young forces were
directly or indirectly affected by the new ideal. In the meanwhile the
Government entered into its phase of reaction, and obscurantism became
rampant. University professors were watched by the secret police, and
instruction was carried on under great difficulties. The slightest
expression of independence or freedom led to banishment and
imprisonment. The strained relations between the youthful idealists and
the reactionaries culminated in the unfortunate and impossible
Decembrist conspiracy in 1825, when Rylyéev, among others, paid the
penalty of death for his rashness.

But the accumulated literary force could no longer be dispersed. A
galaxy of poets had with wonderful skill reproduced every imaginable
aspect of European verse, even though they did not enter into a full
understanding of the meaning and duty of their art. The language had
been polished by Karamzín and his followers to its utmost extent and was
now capable of every literary form. It only needed a subtle genius to
breathe a soul into that fair body. That genius was Púshkin.


                                   III

A period rich in literary experience and new modes of expression does
not necessarily presage the coming of a genius who will unify the
unrelated modes into a symmetric, intrinsically artistic whole. But,
given an ardent poetic soul and a time when the minds of men are
agitated by high aspirations and hopes, the opportunity is favourable
for that soul to become the focus of all the tendencies of the day, and
to reflect the accumulated force as one bright light for long years to
come. The conditions could not have been more auspicious for giving
direction and meaning to Púshkin’s genius. Not only Derzhávin, Karamzín,
Dmítriev, Zhukóvski, Bátyushkov, and Krylóv furnished him in his youth
with varied poetical productions for his imitation, but a large number
of minor poets, trained in the traditions of the eighteenth century,
Merzlyakóv, Neledínski-Melétski, Dolgorúki, were still active during the
formative time of his genius. And not only the external forms of verse
had been carried to a high perfection in his schooldays. The liberalism
of the Government in the beginning of Alexander’s reign, the stirring
patriotism of the nation consequent upon the events of the year 1812,
the crass obscurantism and reaction from above, and the secret
organisations of the youthful idealists which soon after superseded the
open progress of the previous decade,--all that combined to inspire the
younger generation of poets with the seriousness and dignity of their
mission.

In his evolution Púshkin passed through several stages. In _Ruslán and
Lyudmíla_, which he wrote in 1820, the year of his first exile, he
attempted to treat a popular subject in the Romantic style, but there is
little of a native element in it. During his banishment to the south he
came under the influence of Byron, and began his _Evgéni Onyégin_, the
first real Russian novel. In _Borís Godunóv_ he came under the spell of
Shakspere.

In the beginning of the new reign, Púshkin’s genius was clearly defined
and, departing from the Byronism of his former productions, became
completely original. At the same time he renounced the easy liberalism
of his younger days, and placed himself in the service of the Tsar.
Since he withdrew from the communion with the masses and preached an
aristocratism in letters as well as life, his real importance in Russian
literature has been obscured by the more democratic Gógol. The doctrine
which he taught, that art is to be exercised for art’s sake and not
polluted by contact with the vulgar, found no ready response in the
troubled years of the second half of the century. Only now, when the
battle for the masses has been fought, and literature is beginning to
lose its didactic and political value, there is to be noticed a growing
tendency to turn back to Púshkin as the fountainhead of Russian poetry.
This just renewal of the cult of Púshkin has already had the marked
effect of rediscovering and bringing to public notice the excellent
creations of the poets of his school, Tyútchev, Fet, Máykov, Polónski,
and others, and of stimulating the youngest generation of poets, whose
names are just beginning to be heard, to higher efforts.

Many contemporary poets were inspired by the master. Délvig, Rylyéev,
Baratýnski, Venevítinov, Yazýkov came under his influence, but they were
not able to follow him in his eagle flight, and stopped at the earlier
stages of his development. There were others who showed more
individuality, or even opened up new avenues in literature. Griboyédov’s
_Intelligence Comes to Grief_ stood out as the most remarkable drama
that had till then appeared in Russia, as it had seized with great
clearness the contradictory and indefinite tendencies of society, and
indicated the coming conflict between Westerners and Slavophiles. But
the indefinite tendencies of the time were reflected with far greater
power in Lérmontov.

Lérmontov’s _Hero of Our Time_ is, to a certain extent, an
autobiography. It is of the same spiritual family as _Evgéni Onyégin_,
but the greater indefiniteness and disenchantment of its hero supply a
true portrayal of the men of the thirties who had not yet come to have
any well-defined aims in life. Men were dissatisfied with the past, saw
all the misery and wretchedness that surrounded them, and wished for
something better to come, but did not have the energy to rise above
their surroundings and so lost themselves in contradictions and Byronic
despair. The same subjective tone runs through all his shorter poems and
through _The Demon_, that most precious flower of the whole Romantic
school. Such is the sweetness of his verse and the wealth of his imagery
that he is preferred by many foreign readers even to Púshkin.

More original than Lérmontov was his contemporary Koltsóv. His
middle-class surroundings had brought him in much closer contact with
the people than Púshkin, and his neglected early education operated in
favour of his poetic genius inasmuch as it kept him free from any
traditional associations. When his talent became apparent to him, he for
a short time tried his strength in the customary rhymed verses,
especially of the type of Púshkin, whom he greatly admired and
understood as few poets after him have done. But soon his native feeling
asserted itself, and he began to draw his inspiration from popular
songs. A number of poets before him, especially Délvig, had attempted
this kind of composition, but none of them had even distantly brought to
bear the same talent upon it as Koltsóv, and none after him have
equalled him.

While Romanticism was scoring its greatest successes, and a
novel-reading public was going into ecstasies over the impassioned
stories of Bestúzhev-Marlínski, Gógol evolved his series of naturalistic
stories, rising by pyramidal steps to his immortal _Dead Souls_, which
appeared in the very year that Lérmontov and Koltsóv died. A new chord
was struck,--one that reverberates even now through all Russian
literature. The foundation was placed for a Russian school of
belles-lettres, the first in its annals. All the peculiarities of
Russian literature for all time to follow are the direct outcome of the
tradition which begins with Gógol. His appearance, though startling and
unexpected, was not unprepared. There has always been a strong element
of sound naturalism in the Russian character. It shows frequently
through the Byzantine shroud in the earliest times; it refreshes us in
many a simple folktale; it is a pre-eminent characteristic of the
thoughts and acts of Peter the Great; it craves expression in the exotic
pseudo-classic rhetoric of the eighteenth century; it comes to the
surface in Púshkin’s best productions. Gógol had even a direct
predecessor in the manner of his stories in the person of Naryézhny who,
being born in the same locality with him, had fallen back on the same
rich narrative material of his native Little-Russia.

But in Gógol this naturalism was for the first time clearly expressed
and completely freed from all foreign contamination. Not at once,
however. He made his début with a Romantic idyl, and all his earlier
productions are still tinged with the current mannerism. Only in 1836
appeared his _Cloak_, the prototype of all later Russian novels. He was
not at once accepted by the public, so daring were his innovations, so
disenchanting his realism, so appalling the wretchedness of Russia which
he laid bare. He did not himself proceed consciously upon the new path,
but by the inspiration of his genius. Later in life, therefore, when a
reaction set in in his thoughts, he deeply regretted his earlier
activity. But there was no retracing his steps. The critic Byelínski had
subjected him to literary analysis, and had pronounced him the father of
the new school. It seemed to him as if there had not even existed a
literature before Gógol, and all previous writers henceforth barely eked
out an anthology existence.

The conscious tendency towards realism in Russia was due to another
fact. The predilection for the encyclopedic knowledge of France and its
literature had come to an end in the thirties. Young men had become
acquainted in Germany with the philosophy of Schelling and Hegel, and
the circles of Moscow were ever more familiarising themselves with the
more serious aspects of German science. Those who were not forgetful of
their obligations to Europe gathered around Byelínski in their advocacy
of a greater approach to Western ideals. Others, again, inspired by the
conceptions of _nation_, _national spirit_, _national destiny_, which
the German philosophers had evolved, were led to seclude themselves from
all foreign influence by advocating the narrow tenets of Slavophilism.
The Slavophiles have not produced one great author, for Khomyakóv is
better known for his theological writings than for his poetry, and
Aksákov, who had received his training before the thirties, wrote his
_Family Chronicle_ in his old age, evidently under the influence of
Gógol. All the great writers who are honoured abroad, Turgénev, Tolstóy,
Dostoévski, have issued from the camp of the Westerners, and had
received their impetus in the thirties and early in the forties.

After the year 1848 a reaction set in in letters, under the influence of
the political gloom that had been cast over Europe, but especially over
Russia. The censorship became more oppressive than ever, and a general
apathy took possession of society. Periodicals ceased to exist, or were
colourless and pedantic. The flimsiest society novels had pushed all the
great literature of the previous decade into the background. The gloom
hung over Russia until the end of the reign of Nicholas I., lighted up
only by the flashes of the great authors who were passing through their
apprenticeship.


                                    IV

Gógol more appropriately ends the old series of authors than begins the
new. His powerful genius raised him above his predecessors, but the
absence of a definite political or social tendency in his works makes
him more akin to the writers of pure art. In the forties, a younger
generation of writers was trained in the philosophical conceptions of
Germany, and the democratic spirit that swept over Europe affected them
in favour of the people. It became incumbent on these authors, not
merely to amuse by their productions, but to teach and propagate
definite social ideals, to become the protagonists in the battle for
human liberties. At the same time the vast abyss which lay between their
theories and the disheartening reality about them, the unmooring from
all the traditions of the past, and the hopelessness of the future
developed in them a strain of scepticism and self-analysis that sooner
or later led to pessimism.

The oldest of these new authors, Turgénev, who was the first to express
his interest in the people, remained all his life an advocate of a
peaceful progress on the basis of a cautious adoption of Western ideals.
In style he was a realist of a pronounced type, but his genius saved him
from carrying his naturalism to the appalling extent to which the French
novelists have carried it. In 1847 he began to attract attention by his
sketches from peasant life, but in the sixties he depicted the condition
of the intelligent classes as affected by the emancipation of the serfs.
The keynote to the conception of his heroes is struck in an article of
his on _Hamlet and Don Quixote_, in which he expresses the thought that
all people belong to one of these two types, but that in his days there
was a predominance of Hamlets, that is, of such as are prone to analysis
and scepticism.

Goncharóv, in his _Oblómov_, has given us a type of a passive man who
lacks every initiative, and has generalised in his hero all Russians as
by nature incapable of active progress; but Tolstóy very early began to
carry his analysis to the farthest extent and not only assumed a
negative attitude towards all the questions of the day, but soon reached
the negation of all progress in general, and sought refuge from the
world without in a close communion with the people. He is less careful
about style and artistic perfection of his productions than Turgénev,
but in the portrayal of separate incidents and in analysis of character
he often rises to the highest art. In the second half of his life, but
especially since the eighties, Tolstóy has carried negation to the
impossible point of non-resistance, thus repeating, though not in an
identical form, the experience of Gógol.

Dostoévski, born and bred in the city under distressing circumstances,
appropriated for himself the analysis of the lower elements of the
population of the towns. His long imprisonment in Siberia acquainted him
with the mental and moral life of the criminals, and his own epileptic
and extremely nervous condition made it possible for him to pry into the
recesses of the diseased and depraved mind. His democratic love for the
subjects he described, and the psychological analysis to which he
submitted them, however startling and unusual they are in his case, are
in keeping with the traditions of the men of the forties.

No new school, no new tendency, has since supplanted the democratic
school of analysis which these authors had inaugurated nearly half a
century ago. Nearly all authors have taken the _people_ for their motto.
The question has only been to decide what really constitutes the
_people_. Just before and soon after the emancipation the peasants came
in for the largest share of attention. At first their real condition was
not clearly understood, and they were, on the one hand, idealised, and,
on the other, represented as objects worthy of ridicule. In the
meanwhile the Slavophiles, in their attempt to discover the national
spirit, did a great deal to study their customs and their oral
literature. Thus, by degrees, a proper understanding of the real life of
the peasant was possible, and the _novelists of the people_ were able to
treat them with greater objectivity and truth. Among these writers of
one class or other were Danilévski, Ryeshétnikov, Levítov, Glyeb
Uspénski, and Zlatovrátski.

Others, again, proceeded to busy themselves with the intelligent class,
pre-eminently with the negative sides of their existence. Písemski
painted them in the blackest colours, while Saltykóv applied his great
satirical talents more especially to the disclosure of all the
wretchedness and dishonesty of the middle and the official strata of
society. Ostróvski, again, took for his dramas the Moscow merchant class
which stood on the border of the old Russian civilisation, and treated
it ideally, apologetically, or negatively at various stages of his
development. In poetry the democratic spirit of the forties is best
reflected in Nekrásov and in a much lesser degree in Nikítin. Though
these writers are related to Koltsóv in the treatment of popular themes,
they differ vastly in the application of the democratic motive from
their more artistic predecessor.

In the seventies there was the usual reaction in literature as well as
in the political life of the nation. Since then a large number of
novelists and poets have been endeavouring to reproduce the currents of
modern society. The background of all this new literature is still the
democracy of the forties, but the centre of interest has shifted from
the peasant and the intellectual class to the large burgher population
in its undefined tendency to form a substantial middle class. There are
no pronounced ideas which these writers feel themselves called to
propagate or defend, hence their task is comparatively more difficult
than that of the previous generation. They are conscious of this, and
when accused of scattering their energies and not rising to the high
points of the men of the forties, they have justly answered that they
are at a loss to discover any positive tendencies in the nation to
reproduce. In the external technique of their works, however, there is a
decided improvement over the generation which has just passed away, and
the works would, no doubt, greatly interest foreign readers if they did
not so much approach well-known models of the West.

In this greater cosmopolitanism of the newer Russian literature, in the
broadening of the intellectual horizon, even though the literary life is
more shallow, lies the hope of Russia’s future. Life is readjusting
itself on a more stable basis. The tendencies of society, though
indefinite, are more normal. Hence didacticism in literature is rapidly
passing away, and art, this time tempered by the democratic spirit of
the age, bids fair to regain its place in letters. Two illustrations
will suffice to make this clear. Górki, who by his private life and the
influence of the democratic school has been led to descend to the lowest
dregs of society for his subjects, absolutely refrains from inculcating,
directly or indirectly, any social or political tenet. Whatever he
paints, he paints with the consummate skill of the artist for the sake
of art. Merezhkóvski, who has not yet entirely passed his apprenticeship
in letters, is trying to bridge over the democratic epoch, which he
abhors, and aspires for the laurels of Púshkin.

Compared with its humble beginnings in 1800, Russian literature has made
a wonderful record in the nineteenth century. The Russian language has
been moulded into an instrument of great perfection: it is melodious,
and capable of all shades of expression and all literary forms. The
great authors of its literature have become the possession of all
nations. Intellectual Russia no longer stands aloof. It is an important
and valuable member of the great nations of the world. From the steady
progress in the past, frequently under the most trying opposition, must
be prognosticated a still greater advancement in the future. It has well
learned its lessons from the West: it may yet become its teacher.




                          THE NINETEENTH CENTURY





  Nikoláy Mikháylovich Karamzín. (1766-1826.)


  Karamzín was born in the Government of Simbírsk. At fourteen years of
  age he entered Professor Schaden’s school at Moscow, and later he
  attended the university. In 1783 he settled in St. Petersburg where he
  began his literary career in conjunction with his friend Dmítriev (see
  vol. i., p. 428 _et seq._); he entered the army for a short time, and
  spent the next year in his native place. After that he was taken to
  Moscow by I. P. Turgénev, a friend of Nóvikov (see vol. i., pp. 32 and
  327), and was brought by him under the educational influences of the
  Masonic Society, which, however, he never joined himself. He devoted
  himself to the study of the German language, from which he translated
  much, and acquainted himself with English literature. In 1789 he
  travelled extensively through Germany, Switzerland, France, and
  England, meeting wherever possible the famous men of letters. Upon his
  return he edited, among other periodicals, the _Moscow Journal_, in
  which had appeared his _Letters of a Russian Traveller_. These differ
  immensely in tone and literary execution from the similar compositions
  by Fon-Vízin (see vol. i., p. 355 _et seq._), and indicate the great
  stride made in the intellectual advancement of Russia in the short
  period of one decade. They created a sensation, not only on account of
  the pleasing and novel manner in which he treated serious subjects,
  but in a greater measure on account of the strong element of
  sentimental optimism that pervaded them. His sentimentalism is even
  more pronounced in his poems, and in his novels _Poor Líza_, _Natálya,
  the Boyár’s Daughter_, and _Burgomistress Márfa_.

  In 1803 Karamzín was appointed historiographer, and he began to busy
  himself with Russian antiquity. After twelve years of labour appeared
  the first eight volumes of his _History of the Russian Empire_, in
  which he continued the sentimental idealisation of the Russian past.
  Though extolled by his contemporaries, and even later, as the first
  real history of Russia, it differs from those of his predecessors, the
  Russians Shcherbátov (see vol. i., p. 287) and Tatíshchev (_ib._, p.
  218), and the German historians in Russia, not by any scientific
  method, but by its literary exposition, which served as a model for a
  generation of historical novelists. Karamzín’s greatest desert
  consists in having purified the Russian language from the dross of
  Church-Slavic words and constructions, by borrowing freely from the
  store of the spoken language, and by following the simpler
  constructions and the shorter sentences of the French and the English
  languages. This innovation involved him in a long controversy with the
  adherents of the old style, of which Admiral Shishkóv was the head,
  but he came out victorious, and for ever established the Russian
  literary norm.

  There are several translations, or rather paraphrases, of Karamzín’s
  stories, and one of his Travels, in English: _Russian Tales_, ...
  translated into English by J. B. Elrington, London, 1803; _Julia_,
  translated from the Russ into French by M. du Boullier, and from the
  French into English by Ann P. H.[awkins], St. Petersburg, 1803; _Tales
  from the Russian of Nicolai Karamsin_ [translated by A. A. Feldborg],
  London, 1804; _Travels from Moscow, through Prussia, Germany,
  Switzerland, France, and England_ ... translated from the German [by
  A. A. Feldborg], 3 vols., London, 1803. A few of his poems are given
  in Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part I.: _The
  Song of Bornholm_, _The Churchyard_, _Autumn_, _Lilea_, _To Nicander_;
  and in Part II.: _Raïssa_, _The Haven_, _Song of the Good Tzar_,
  _To ----_, _To the Nightingale_. An epigram is translated by V. E.
  Marsden in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 9, and there is
  also a version of _The Churchyard_ by W. H. Dole (publication not
  ascertainable).


                      LETTERS OF A RUSSIAN TRAVELLER


                                                   TVER, May 18, 1789.

I have departed from you, my dear ones, I have departed! My heart is
attached to you with all its tenderest feelings; and here I am getting
farther and farther away from you!

O heart, heart! Who knows what you want? For how many years travel has
been the fondest dream of my imagination! Did I not in rapture say to
myself: “At last you will start”? Did I not awaken joyfully in the
morning, did I not fall asleep with pleasure, thinking: “You are going
to travel”? How long I could think of nothing else, busy myself with
nothing else except the journey! And did I not count the days and hours?
But when the desired hour arrived, I grew sorrowful, for I came to the
first vivid realisation that I was about to part from the dearest people
in the world, and from all that, so to say, entered into the composition
of my moral existence.

Whatever I looked at, whether at the table upon which I had for years
committed my unripe thoughts and feelings to paper; at the window under
which I used to sit dolefully in my fits of melancholy, and where the
rising sun found me so often; at the Gothic house, the favourite object
of my eyes in the nocturnal hours,--in short, everything that came
within my vision was for me a precious monument of the bygone years of
my life, rich not in deeds, but in thoughts and feelings. I bade
farewell to inanimate things as to friends; and while I was overcome and
dispirited, my servants came, and began to weep and entreat me not to
forget them and to take them back upon my return. Tears are contagious,
my dear ones, especially in such circumstances.

But you are the dearest to me, and I had to part from you. My heart was
so full that I forgot to speak. But why should I tell you that? The
moment when we bade each other good-bye was such that a thousand
agreeable minutes of the future will scarcely repay me for it.

Dear Petróv accompanied me to the toll-gate. There we embraced each
other, and for the first time I observed his tears; there I seated
myself in the kibítka,[1] glanced at Moscow, where I left behind so much
that was dear to me, and said: “Good-bye!” The bells jingled, the horses
galloped away,--and your friend was orphaned in the world, and his soul
was orphaned!

The whole past is a dream and a shadow! Oh! where are the hours when my
heart was so at ease among you, my dear ones? If the future were
suddenly revealed to the most fortunate man, his heart would congeal
with terror, and his tongue would grow dumb the very moment in which he
deemed himself the happiest of mortals.

Upon my whole journey not one cheering thought entered my mind. At the
last station in Tver, my melancholy had so increased that, standing, in
the village tavern, before the caricatures of the French Queen and the
Roman Emperor, I felt, as Shakspere says, “my blood weeping from my
heart.” All that I had left behind appeared to me in such a touching
aspect. But enough, enough! I am again growing very sad. Good-bye! May
God console you! Remember your friend, but without any grievous feeling!

  [1] Native vehicle.


                          ON THE FRENCH TRAGEDY

In the so-called _French Theatre_ they play tragedies, dramas, and large
comedies. I have not changed my opinion of the French Melpomene. She is
noble, majestic, beautiful, but she never will touch and stir my heart
as does the Muse of Shakspere and of a few (’t is true, a very few)
Germans. The French poets have a delicate, refined taste, and may serve
as models in the art of writing. Only in the matter of invention,
warmth, and deep sentiment of Nature,--forgive me, sacred shades of
Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire!--they must concede the supremacy to the
English and the Germans. Their tragedies are filled with artistic
pictures in which the colours and shades are skilfully matched; but I
generally admire them with a cold heart. There is everywhere a mixture
of the natural with the romantic; everywhere “mes feux,” “ma foi”;
everywhere Greeks and Romans _à la française_, who are dissolved in
amatory raptures, who sometimes philosophise, express one thought in a
variety of choice words, and, losing themselves in a maze of eloquence,
forget to act. The public demands here of the author beautiful verses,
“des vers à retenir”; these make a play famous, and, consequently, the
versifiers use all their efforts to multiply their number, and are more
concerned about them than about the importance of the plot and the new,
extraordinary, yet natural situations, forgetting that character is
revealed in these unusual occurrences and that the very words obtain
their strength from them.

To be short, the creations of the French Melpomene are glorious, and
will always be glorious, by the beauty of their diction and brilliant
verses; but if a tragedy is deeply to stir our hearts or to terrify our
souls, Voltaire’s countrymen have, probably, no more than two real
tragedies, and D’Alembert very justly remarked that all their dramas
have been composed for reading rather than for the theatre.


                               ON SHAKSPERE

In dramatic poetry the English have nothing remarkable, except the works
of one author, but that author is Shakspere, and the English are rich!

It is easy to make light of him, not only with the mind of a Voltaire,
but also with the most ordinary mind. I do not wish even to dispute with
him who does not feel his great beauties. The amusing critics of
Shakspere resemble those naughty urchins who in the street surround a
strangely dressed man and cry out: “What a funny fellow! What a strange
fellow!”

Every author is marked with the stamp of his age. Shakspere wished to
please his contemporaries, knew their taste, and satisfied it. What
seemed to be witty then is now wearisome and repulsive; this is the
result of the evolution of the mind and taste, with which even the
greatest genius cannot count. But every real talent creates for
eternity, though paying the tribute to his age: the contemporary
beauties disappear, and the common ones that are based on the human
heart and on the nature of things preserve their strength, in Shakspere
as in Homer. The grandeur and truthfulness of the characters, the
attractiveness of the plot, the revelation of the human heart, and the
great thoughts that are scattered in the dramas of the British genius
will always keep their magic charm for people who are endowed with
sentiment. I know no other poet who has such an all-embracing, fertile,
inexhaustible imagination,--and you will find all kinds of poetry in
Shakspere’s works. He is the favourite son of the goddess Fancy who
surrendered to him her magic wand, and disporting in the luxuriant
gardens of the imagination he creates miracles at each step.


                                               LONDON, September, 1790

There was a time, when I had hardly seen any Englishmen, when I went
into ecstasy over them, and imagined England to be of all countries the
most agreeable to my heart. With what delight, being a boarding pupil at
Professor S’s, I used to read during the American war the reports of the
victorious British admirals! Rodney, Howe, did not leave my tongue; I
celebrated their victories and invited my young schoolmates to my room.
It seemed to me that to be an Englishman was to be brave, also
magnanimous, sentimental, and true. If I am not mistaken, novels were
the chief foundation for this opinion. Now I see the English at close
range, and I do them justice and praise them, but my praise is as cold
as they themselves are.

Above all, I should not like to pass my life in England on account of
its damp, gloomy, sombre climate. I know that one may be happy even in
Siberia when the heart is satisfied and joyful, but a cheerful climate
makes us more cheerful, and here one feels, in a fit of pining and
melancholy, more than elsewhere like committing suicide. The groves,
parks, fields, gardens,--all that is beautiful in England; but it is all
covered with fogs, darkness, and coal smoke. The sun rarely peeps
through, and then only for a short time; but without it life upon earth
is not a pleasure. “Give my regards to the sun,” someone wrote from here
to his friend in Naples; “I have not seen him for a long time.” The
English winter is not so cold as ours; but we have at least beautiful
days in winter, which are uncommon here even in summer. How, then, can
an Englishman keep himself from looking like September?

In the second place, their cold natures do not please me in the least.
“It is a snow-covered volcano,” a French emigrant said of them smilingly
to me. But I stand, watch, see no flame, and meanwhile freeze. My
Russian heart loves to bubble in a sincere, lively conversation, loves
the play of the eyes, the rapid changes of the face, the expressive
motion of the hands. The Englishman is reticent, indifferent, and speaks
as he reads, without ever expressing those sudden mental convulsions
that electrify our whole physical system. They say he is profounder than
others. Is it not rather that he _seems_ profounder? Is it not because
his thick blood moves more slowly in him, and gives him the aspect of
being deep in thoughts, though he often has none? The example of a
Bacon, Newton, Locke, Hobbes, proves nothing. Geniuses are born in all
lands; the universe is their country, and, then, can it be said in
justice that, for example, Locke is deeper than Descartes and Leibnitz?


                              THE CHURCHYARD

                               FIRST VOICE

       How frightful the grave! How deserted and drear!
       With the howls of the storm-wind, the creaks of the bier,
         And the white bones all clattering together!

                               SECOND VOICE

       How peaceful the grave! Its quiet how deep!
       Its zephyrs breathe calmly, and soft is its sleep,
         And flowerets perfume it with ether.

                               FIRST VOICE

       There riots the blood-crested worm on the dead,
       And the yellow skull serves the foul toad for a bed,
         And snakes in its nettle-weeds hiss.

                               SECOND VOICE

       How lovely, how lone the repose of the tomb!
       No tempests are there, but the nightingales come
         And sing their sweet chorus of bliss.

                               FIRST VOICE

       The ravens of night flap their wings o’er the grave:
       ’T is the vulture’s abode; ’t is the wolf’s dreary cave,
         Where they tear up the earth with their fangs.

                               SECOND VOICE

       There the coney at evening disports with his love,
       Or rests on the sod, while the turtles above
         Repose on the bough that o’erhangs.

                               FIRST VOICE

       There darkness and dampness with poisonous breath
       And loathsome decay fill the dwelling of death,
         The trees are all barren and bare.

                               SECOND VOICE

       Oh, soft are the breezes that play round the tomb,
       And sweet with the violet’s wafted perfume,
         With lilies and jessamine fair!

                               FIRST VOICE

       The pilgrim who reaches this valley of tears
       Would fain hurry by, and with trembling and fears
         He is launched on the wreck-covered river.

                               SECOND VOICE

       The traveller outworn with life’s pilgrimage dreary,
       Lays down his rude staff, like one that is weary,
         And sweetly reposes for ever.

      --From Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part
          I.


                                POOR LÍZA

Perchance none of those who live in Moscow know the surroundings of that
city so well as I do, because nobody is oftener in the open than I,
nobody oftener wanders about, planlessly, aimlessly, whither his eyes
carry him, through meadows and groves, over hills and vales. Every
summer I discover new places of delight, or new beauties in those I
already know.

But most pleasant to me is the place where rise the sombre Gothic towers
of the monastery of St. Simeon. Standing on that mound, you survey upon
your right nearly all of Moscow, that enormous mass of houses and
churches, that presents itself to the eyes in the form of a majestic
amphitheatre,--a superb picture, especially when the sun shines upon it,
when his evening rays gleam on the innumerable gilded cupolas and the
innumerable crosses that tower to heaven!

Below, stretch the luscious, dark-green, blossoming fields; beyond them,
there flows over the yellow sands the limpid river, stirred by the light
oars of fishing-boats, or splashing under the prows of freighted barges
that come from the more fertile parts of the Russian Empire and supply
hungry Moscow with grain. On the other side of the river there is seen
an oak grove, and near it graze numerous flocks. There young shepherds,
sitting in the shade of trees, sing simple, doleful songs, and thus
shorten the monotonous summer days. A little farther off, in the dense
verdure of ancient elms, gleams the gold-domed monastery of St.
Daniel’s; still farther away, almost on the verge of the horizon, loom
the blue outlines of the Sparrow Hills. To the left appear vast,
grain-covered fields, groves, three or four villages, and, in the
distance, Kolómna with its high palace.

I often repair to that spot, and nearly always meet spring there;
thither I also repair in the gloomy days of autumn, to mourn together
with Nature. The winds moan terribly within the walls of the deserted
monastery, in the rank grass of the graves, and in the dark corridors of
the cells. There I lean against the ruins of the tombstones and hearken
to the hollow groan of Time, the groan of those swallowed by the abyss
of the past, which makes my heart flutter and tremble. At times I enter
into the cells, and I picture to myself those who have lived in
them,--sad pictures! Here I see a grey-haired old man bending his knee
before the crucifix and imploring a swift liberation from his earthly
fetters, for all pleasures of life have left him, all his feelings are
dead, except the feeling of ill-health and weakness. There a youthful
monk, with pale face and languishing glance, looks through the latticed
window, sees the merry birds that freely swim in the aërial ocean,--sees
them, and bitter tears issue from his eyes. He pines, withers, dries
up,--and the dismal sound of a bell announces to me his untimely death.

At times I scan on the doors of the sanctuary the representation of
miracles that have taken place in this monastery: there fishes fall from
heaven to appease the hunger of the denizens of the cloister that is
besieged by a multitudinous host; here the image of the Mother of God
puts the enemy to flight. All that refreshes in my mind the history of
our country,--the sad history of those times when the savage Tartars and
Lithuanians with fire and sword laid waste the surroundings of the
Russian capital, and when luckless Moscow, like a defenceless widow,
awaited from God alone succour in her dire distress.

But most frequently of all I am attracted to the walls of St. Simeon’s
monastery by the memory of the tearful fate of Líza, poor Líza. Oh! I
love those objects that touch my heart and cause me to shed tears of
tender sorrow!

Some five hundred feet from the cloister wall there stands, near a birch
grove, amidst a green field, a deserted hut without doors, without
windows, without a floor; its roof is decayed and has fallen in long
ago. In that hut there lived, some thirty years ago, lovely Líza with
her old mother.

Líza’s father was a fairly well-to-do peasant, for he loved work,
carefully tilled the soil, and always led a sober life. But soon after
his death his wife and daughter fell into poverty. The indolent hand of
the hired servant ploughed the field carelessly, and the grain began to
give diminished returns. They were compelled to let their land to a
tenant, at an inconsiderable income. At the same time the poor widow,
who continuously shed tears for her deceased husband,--for peasant women
also know how to love,--grew weaker and weaker from day to day, and
finally could not work at all. Líza alone, who was fifteen years old at
her father’s death,--Líza alone did not spare her tender youth nor her
rare beauty, and laboured day and night: she wove hempen cloth, knit
stockings; in springtime picked flowers, and in winter berries, and sold
them in Moscow. Seeing the indefatigableness of her daughter, the
sensitive, gentle old woman frequently pressed her to her feebly beating
heart, called her “divine grace, protector, consolation of my old age,”
and prayed to God to reward her for all she did for her mother.

“God gave me hands to work,” Líza would say. “You nourished me at your
breast, watched me in my childhood. Now it is my turn to look after you.
Only stop grieving, stop weeping! Our tears will not bring father to
life.”

But often gentle Líza could not restrain her own tears, for oh! she
recalled that she had had a father, and that he was no more; but to
comfort her mother she tried to hide the grief of her heart, and to
appear calm and gay.

“In the world to come, beloved Líza,” the sorrowing old woman answered,
“in the world to come I shall cease to weep. There, they say, we shall
all be happy; I shall certainly be happy when I see your father again.
But I do not wish to die now, for what would become of you without me?
To whom could I leave you? No, God grant me first to see you provided
for! Maybe some good man will be found for you. Then I will bless you,
my dear children, will make the sign of the cross, and willingly will
lie down in the damp earth.”


                 FROM THE “HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE”

                               INTRODUCTION

History is in a certain sense the sacred book of the nations, their most
important and indispensable book, the mirror of their being and
activities, the tables of their revelation and of their laws, the
injunction of the ancestors to their posterity, the complement, the
exposition of the present, and the example for the future.

Rulers and lawgivers act according to the lessons of history, and look
upon its pages as the mariner looks upon his ocean charts. Human wisdom
is in need of experience, and life is short. It is necessary to know how
riotous passions have of yore agitated civil society, and in what manner
the beneficent dominion of reason has bridled its tempestuous onrush, in
order to establish order, harmonise the interests of men, and give them
the best attainable happiness upon earth.

But even a simple citizen must read history. It reconciles him to the
imperfection of the visible order of things, as to a common phenomenon
in all ages; consoles him in his country’s calamities, by certifying to
former similar, even more ominous misfortunes, by which the country did
not perish; it fosters a moral sense, and by its equitable judgment
inclines the soul to justice, by which our well-being and the concord of
society are confirmed.

Such is its usefulness, and many are the pleasures of heart and mind
that are derived from it. Curiosity is an innate feeling with the man of
culture and with the savage. At the famous Olympic games the noise died
down, and the masses preserved silence around Herodotus reading the
traditions of the ages. Even before knowing the use of letters, the
nations love history: the old man points out to the youth the elevated
tomb and narrates to him the deeds of the hero resting in it. The first
experiments of our ancestors in the art of writing were devoted to
religion and history; shrouded by a dense cloud of ignorance, the people
listened eagerly to the accounts of the chroniclers. Even fiction
pleases, but to get a full pleasure out of it we must deceive ourselves
and imagine that it is true. By opening the graves, raising the dead,
putting life into their hearts and words upon their lips, by recreating
kingdoms from the dust and presenting to the imagination a series of the
ages with their several passions, customs, acts,--history expands the
limits of our own existence. By its creative power we live with the men
of all times, see and hear them, love and hate them; before we think of
usefulness, we revel in the contemplation of the various occurrences and
of the characters that entertain the mind or nurture our sensibilities.

If every history, even the inartistically written, may be pleasing, as
Pliny says,--how much more that of our native land! A true cosmopolite
is a metaphysical being or so unusual a phenomenon that there is no need
of speaking of him, neither to praise nor to condemn him. We are all
citizens,--in Europe and in India, in Mexico and in Abyssinia; the
personality of each is closely bound up with his country: we love it
because we love ourselves. The Greeks and the Romans may captivate our
imagination: they belong to the family of the human race and are no
strangers to us in their virtues and in their weaknesses, in their glory
and in their calamities; but the name of a Russian has a special
attraction for us: my heart beats more strongly for Pozhárski[2] than
for Themistocles or Scipio. Universal history by its great recollections
embellishes the world in our eyes, but Russian history embellishes our
country in which we live and feel. How attractive are to us the banks of
the Vólkhov, Dnieper, Don, when we know what has taken place upon them
in remote antiquity! Not only Nóvgorod, Kíev, Vladímir, but even the
cabins of Eléts, Kozélsk, Gálich, become interesting monuments, and mute
objects grow eloquent. The shadows of bygone centuries everywhere draw
pictures before us.

Outside of their special value for us, sons of Russia, its annals have
an universal interest. Let us cast a glance at this unique Empire:
thought staggers! Rome in all her majesty, ruling from the Tiber to the
Caucasus, to the Elbe and to the African sands, could never equal it. Is
it not wonderful how a land that is disrupted by eternal barriers of
Nature, by immeasurable deserts and impenetrable forests, by cold and
hot climates, how Astrakhán and Lapland, Siberia and Bessarabia, could
have formed one empire with Moscow? And is that mixture of its
inhabitants less wonderful, that composite and heterogeneous mass of
varying degrees of civilisation? Like America, Russia has its savages;
like other countries of Europe, it displays the fruits of a protracted
civil existence. One need not be a Russian, one need only think, in
order to read with curiosity the traditions of a nation that by daring
and courage has obtained the dominion over the ninth part of the world,
has discovered countries, heretofore unknown, has entered them in the
universal system of geography and history, and has enlightened them
through God-sent faith, without violence, without atrocities practised
by the other devotees of Christianity in Europe and America, but merely
by dint of good example.

We shall admit that the deeds described by Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy,
are in general more interesting to others than to Russians, representing
as they do more force of character and a more vivid play of the
passions, since Greece and Rome were world powers and more enlightened
than Russia; yet we may boldly assert that certain incidents, pictures,
characters, of our history are not less curious than those of antiquity.
Such are the exploits of Svyatosláv, the scourge of Batý, the popular
rising under Donskóy, the fall of Nóvgorod, the taking of Kazán, the
victory of the civic virtues in the time of the interregnum. The giants
of the early dawn, Olég and the son of Ígor; the simple-minded knight,
blind Vasílko; the friend of his country, virtuous Monomákh; the brave
Mstislávs, terrible in war and an example of meekness in peace; Mikhaíl
of Tver, so famed for his magnanimous death; the ill-fated, truly
courageous Aleksándr Névski; the youthful hero, the vanquisher of
Mamáy,--the slightest sketch of them acts powerfully on the imagination
and on the heart. The reign of Iván III. alone is a rare treasure of
history; at least I know of no monarch more worthy to live and shine in
its sanctuary. The rays of his glory fall upon the cradle of Peter, and
between these two autocrats are the remarkable Iván IV. and Godunóv, who
merited his good fortune and his reverses; the strange False Demetrius;
and, after a host of valiant patriots, boyárs, and citizens, the mentor
of the enthroned, Patriarch Filarét with his august son, the
light-bearer in the darkness of our country’s woes; and Tsar Alexis, the
wise father of the Emperor whom Europe has called the Great. Either all
modern history must be silent, or that of Russia has a right to be
heard.

  [2] The liberator of Russia, during the interregnum of the False
  Demetrius.




  Iván Andréevich Krylóv. (1768-1844.)


  Krylóv’s biography is not satisfactory. It is known that he was the
  son of a poor army officer, and that he lost his father early in life.
  He received only the scantiest education, and while still a boy became
  acquainted with practical life. He served in various capacities in the
  government offices of St. Petersburg and the province. Then he
  disappeared from public view for a number of years, though it is
  surmised that he passed much of that time gambling at cards, to which
  he was passionately addicted. In 1812 he received an appointment at
  the Imperial (later the Public) Library, which gave him ample leisure
  to devote himself to literature, though his innate laziness made him
  very unproductive. Krylóv first entered the literary career before the
  age of twenty, by a series of mediocre comedies. From 1789 he edited a
  number of periodicals, the first of which, _The Spirit Post_, was in
  the manner of the older satirical journals. It was here that he began
  to develop the fine satirical vein for which his fables later became
  so famous. In 1809 appeared the first small collection of his fables.
  Most of his subjects he borrowed from the older writers, especially
  from La Fontaine, but he not only gave them a Russian surrounding, but
  invested them with such an artistic atmosphere as to make them the
  possession of all times and all nations. His fables have been
  translated into all the European and some of the Asiatic languages.

  There are several translations of Krylóv in English: _Krilof and his
  Fables_, by W. R. S. Ralston, London, 1869 (4th edition, 1883; several
  of the poems had been published before, in 1868 and 1870, in _Good
  Words_); _Krilof’s Fables, Illustrating Russian Social Life_,
  translated from the Russian for the Calcutta Weekly “Englishman” [by
  J. Long], Calcutta, 1869; _Kriloff’s Original Fables_, translated by
  I. H. Harrison, London, 1883. Separate fables have been translated by
  Sir John Bowring in his _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part I.
  (from the manuscript furnished him by Krylóv); three poems, given
  below [by W. D. Lewis] in the National Gazette and Literary Register,
  Philadelphia, 1825; in _Russian Fabulists, with Specimens_, in
  Fraser’s Magazine, 1839 and 1842; in Chambers’s Journal, vol. V.,
  1856; by Sutherland Edwards, in _The Russians at Home_, London, 1861;
  by R. Garnett, in The University Magazine, 1879 (_Fables from
  Krilof_); by C. T. Wilson, in _Russian Lyrics_, London, 1887; by John
  Pollen, in _Rhymes from the Russian_, London, 1891.


                       THE ASS AND THE NIGHTINGALE

            Chancing a Nightingale to meet,
            Thus did an Ass the songstress greet:--
            “Whither in such a hurry winging?
            I ’m told, my dear, you ’re famed for singing.
            My curiosity I fain would satisfy,
            So if you ’ll condescend to gratify,--
            Come! for a specimen of your rare skill,
            And let me hear how featly you can trill!”
            Forthwith the Nightingale began,
            And through her cadences she ran,
            Now tender and most soft,
            Anon her voice she raised aloft;
            While all around in silence hushed
              Listened to her melting strain,
            As its music sweetly gushed,
              And floated over dale and plain;
              Hardly breathed the enraptured swain
            As drank his ear of sound the stream,
            And as he mused on the varying theme.
            Ceased the songstress, the critic Ass
            His sentence thus began to pass:--
            “Upon my word, ’t is not amiss!
            Yet you should hear
            Friend Chanticleer.
            From him some lessons you ’d do well to take.
            His mode of singing well I know,
            Nor can there finer be, I trow.
            Yes! He is clever;
            And you, my dear, should by all means endeavour
            Like him to crow!
            He has a voice--a shake--
            That really keeps folks quite awake.
            Yet after all you do not sing amiss.”
            On hearing this,
            Far away the song-bird flew.

      --From _Russian Fabulists, with Specimens_, in Fraser’s Magazine,
          1842.


                              THE QUARTETTE

The tricksy Monkey, the Goat, the Ass, and bandy-legged Míshka the Bear,
determine to play a quartette. They provide themselves with the
necessary pieces of music--with two fiddles, and with an alto and
counter-bass. Then they sit down on a meadow under a lime-tree, prepared
to enchant the world by their skill. They work away at their
fiddlesticks with a will; and they make a noise, but there is no music
in it.

“Stop, brothers, stop!” cried the Monkey, “wait a little! How can we get
our music right? It ’s plain, you must n’t sit as you are. You, Míshka,
with your counter-bass, face the alto. I will sit opposite the fiddle.
Then a different sort of music will begin: we shall set the very hills
and forests dancing.”

So they changed places, and recommenced; but the music is just as
discordant as ever.

“Stop a little!” exclaims the Ass; “I have found out the secret. We
shall be sure to play in tune if we sit in a row.”

They follow its advice, and form in an orderly line. But the quartette
is as unmusical as ever. Louder than before there arose among them
squabbling and wrangling as to how they ought to be seated. It happened
that a Nightingale came flying that way, attracted by their noise. At
once they all entreat it to solve their difficulty.

“Be so kind,” they say, “as to bear with us a little, in order that our
quartette may come off properly. Music we have; instruments we have:
tell us only how we ought to place ourselves.”

But the Nightingale replies:

“To be a musician, one must have a quicker intelligence and finer ear
than you possess. You, my friends, may place yourselves just as you
like, but you will never become musicians.”

      --From W. R. S. Ralston’s _Krilof and his Fables_.


                            DAMIAN’S FISHSOUP

 “Well, neighbour, now you are a brick!
   Come, try some more.”
 “Neighbour, I ’m bursting quite.”--“No humbug, quick--
   One plateful let me pour:
 Real fishsoup, see what soup, done to a _t_.”--
 “But that ’s my third.”--“Hush! here we count nor plates nor glasses--
 With a good appetite all passes:
 Digestion ’s good for sleep, you see.
 ’T is tempting, ’t is a very jelly;
 Look at the amber that its surface coats,
   Indulge, old chum, unto thy heart’s content!
 See there, ’t is bream, here sterlet choice that floats!
   That liver there for thee was meant.
 Another spoonful!--Wife, thy reverence make!--
 One small one more, and for my sake!”
 Thus feasted Damian once his old friend Neddy;
 No time to breathe or talk, kept to it steady.
 Down Neddy’s face had long been trickling rain,
 But, yielding unto fate, his plate he hands again;
 And, summoning his strength remaining,
   He swallows all.--“Now, that a friend I call,”
   Exulting Damian cries; “why on excuses fall
 To spare my cheer? Then once more show your training!”
 Then hapless Neddy, who
 Doted on fish, at this aggression new,
 Seizing his coat,
 Stick, and capote,
 Ran straight and swiftly to his own street door,
 And ne’er set foot in Damian’s parlour more.

 Good author, happy thou in gift beyond dispute;
 But, if thou hast not learned yet to be mute,
 Boring unwilling ears to suit
 Nor time nor place, be sure--thy verse or prose
 More sickening e’en than Damian’s fishsoup grows.

      --From I. H. Harrison’s _Kriloff’s Original Fables_.


                     THE SWAN, THE PIKE, AND THE CRAB

              Whene’er companions don’t agree,
                They work without accord;
              And naught but trouble doth result,
                Although they all work hard.

              One day a Swan, a Pike, a Crab,
                Resolved a load to haul.
              All three were harnessed to the cart,
                And pulled together all.
              But though they pulled with all their might,
              That cart-load on the bank stuck tight.

              The Swan pulled upwards to the skies,
                The Crab did backwards crawl,
              The Pike made for the water straight:
                This proved no use at all.

              Now, which of them was most to blame
                ’T is not for me to say,
              But this I know,--the load is there
                Unto this very day.

      --From J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.


                          THE LION AND THE WOLF

             A hungry Lion on a lamb was feeding,
                When a poor dog passed by,
             And, with a patient look of meekness pleading,
               Shared in the banquet, while the royal beast
                 Smiled at his ignorant simplicity.
             A Wolf looked on, and said: “And surely I
                 May have a portion of the prey,--at least,
               Indeed, I ’ll try.”
                 He came,--came boldly: when the Lion saw
                 His purpose, he upraised his kingly paw,
               Smote him to earth, and left him there to die.
                 There ’s some excuse for inexperience;
                 But none for daring, insolent pretence.

      --From National Gazette and Literary Register, Philadelphia,
          September 3, 1825.


                                THE CLOUD

         Over the thirsty plains a pregnant Cloud
           Rolled on its forward way;
         Scorning the cliffs whose summit proud
             Beneath it lay;
         While to the overflowing sea
         It poured its waters forth rejoicingly.
         “Am I not liberal?” to the Mountain cried
         The Cloud, while the swift torrents swelled the tide.
         “Liberal! The panting field and sun-dried plain
         Asked for one drop, one single drop, in vain,”
         Exclaimed the Mountain; “liberal, indeed,
         To those who asked no favour,--felt no need!”

                                                               --_Ib._


                   THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR AND THE SEA.

            The waves had whelmed the venturous bark,
              And dashed the shipwrecked seaman to the shore;
              He turned himself, impatient at the roar,
              And cried, “Perfidious Sea!
              Why didst thou lure me, smiling tranquilly,
            To such a fate, so desolate and dark?”
            The Ocean-god awoke, and frowning said:
            “Hurl not thy vain reproaches at my head;
                My waters calmly ebb and flow,
              Till the land-warring tempests break their rest,
              Go! to the storm-winds be thy plaints addressed,
                Go! to the whirlwind, go!”

                                                               --_Ib._




  Aleksándr Efímovich Izmáylov. (1779-1831.)


  Izmáylov was for a short time vice-governor of Tver and Arkhángelsk.
  He published several periodicals, to which he contributed sentimental
  novels in Karamzín’s style. He wrote a number of fables in a somewhat
  coarse manner, which earned for him the title of “an author not for
  ladies.”

  _The Drunkard’s Vow_ is given in _Russian Fabulists_, in Fraser’s
  Magazine, vol. xxv., 1842; _The Drunkard’s Answer_, _The Ladder_, _The
  Donkey and the Horse_ are given in Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_. An
  epigram is translated by V. E. Marsden in The Anglo-Russian Literary
  Society, No. 9.


                            THE DRUNKARD’S VOW

   A toper made a solemn vow he never more would touch,
   Or punch, or grog, or spirits mixed, or any compounds such.
   Yet though to make ’t was easy, to keep so strict a vow,
   To prove an easy matter was not likely, you ’ll allow.
   Soon after was our tippler seen reeling ’long the street.
   “How now!” a neighbour cried, “why, you scarce can keep your feet.
   I thought you had forsworn for ever punch and grog?”
   “And so I have, nor do I now touch either, you dull dog;
   But I keep my vow unbroken by drinking spirits _neat_.”

      --From _Russian Fabulists_, in Fraser’s Magazine, vol. xxv.


                      THE CANARY AND THE NIGHTINGALE

In a beautiful cage near the window in the garden was a Canary who sang
the livelong day alone. At some distance, where an avenue of birches led
to a bramble bush, a lonely Nightingale sang through the nights and
early in the mornings. Both man and beast and bird, and all that have
blood, feel all-powerful love in spring. The two singers made each
other’s acquaintance, and forthwith the Canary forgot the naughty Parrot
in his foppish green uniform for the sake of the Nightingale. No sweeter
bird, in all the world, for her than the Nightingale, and what a
charming voice he had!

The Nightingale, the favourite of the roses, frequently left at night
his fragrant birches, and flitted near the window over the flower bed,
and in the hope of a reward serenaded her in the lilac bushes, for he
loved the Canary with all his heart. At first, like the artist he was,
he appeared awkward and timid, but at last he made up his mind and,
sighing, explained his burning passion for her. The sentimental daughter
of the Canary Islands, who was yellower than straw and lemons, blinking,
sang out in semitones that the best of singers was dear to her. The
lovers agreed to fly into the distant forest (they had forgotten to
close the cage); so, the heavens favouring them, the bridegroom and
bride started for the wished-for woods. They flew for a long while, and
at last, late in the evening, alighted in a thicket; they kissed each
other and began to sing,--but they had not eaten since morning. So the
bride said to her husband:

“How nice it is to listen to your singing! But, could I not have a bite
of something?”

“Right away, my angel!” and the Nightingale flew away, as if pursued by
a hawk, and returned a minute later:

“O friend of my soul! Here are little ants, they are very good! Here are
some ant eggs----”

“Sir, that is no food for a bird brought up in the capital! Bring me
crackers and candy!”

“Alas, there are none in the woods!”

“No? Do you expect me to starve?”

“Maybe I shall find some kernels in the field!”

“What? Do you expect me to peck kernels?”

And she began to scold her husband, broke her relations with him, and
transferred herself to the Parrot in the garden.

Inexperienced bridegrooms! If you are charmed by a _cultivated_ maiden
who has never been away from the luxurious capital,--read with her my
verses; if she will agree to eat _forget-me-not soup_, you may safely
marry her.


                               THE TWO CATS

Vánka the Cat and Váska were two brothers; they were both born and lived
in the same house. Vánka was so lean that it would frighten you to look
at him,--in truth, he was not rounder than a plank; whereas Váska was as
fat as the steward, and could barely waddle on account of his obesity;
his fur had the sheen of velvet.

“We have not the same luck, though we are of one mother,” said the
skeleton to him. “You know no cares; you are never without meat, not
even on week-days. You are free to eat meat, while with me it is always
Lent; you sleep long, while I hardly know of sleep, preserving the whole
house from mice and rats,--yet, with all my zeal, I am hungry----”

“And stupid!” the fat one interrupted him. “Brother, come to your
senses! Take me for an example, if you want to be fatter.”

“Pray, what am I to do?”

“Amuse your master, walk on your hind legs in his presence, dance, leap
over his arm when he stretches it out, and learn all my amusing tricks.
Believe me, you will be loved as well as have your hunger satisfied.
Know, silly one, that he who pleases people in trifles and foolish
things never loses by doing so; but he who labours for their benefit and
passes sleepless nights often stays hungry.”




  Vasíli Trofímovich Naryézhny. (1780-1825.)


  Naryézhny was born but a short distance from Gógol’s native place. In
  1801 he graduated from the Moscow University, and entered the army.
  After that he served in various departments, rising to the post of
  Chief of Department. He wrote a tragedy, _The False Demetrius_, which
  was published in 1804; in 1814 appeared the first three volumes of
  _The Russian Gil Blas_: the last three volumes did not get the
  censor’s imprimatur. There is much in the manner of this
  Little-Russian author that reminds of Gógol, who availed himself not
  only of the genre of his predecessor, but also of the very
  subject-matter for his classical creations. The very titles of
  Naryézhny’s later works, _The Seminarist: A Little-Russian Story_, and
  _The Two Iváns; or, The Passion for Litigation_, recur in a modified
  form in Gógol’s works. It was only a short time ago that this relation
  of the two authors was pointed out.


           FROM “THE TWO IVÁNS; OR, THE PASSION FOR LITIGATION”

The day was inclining to its fall, but the merriment in the house of the
hospitable host did not abate. A large number of visitors were not a
burden to him. He feasted the men, and his wife the women. Pan Kharitón
took the guests around in the garden, though the September winds had
already brought half of the leaves to the ground; to the barn, where he
figured out how much brandy every stack of rye would give him; to the
cattle yard, where he had occasion to boast of his bulls and cows, goats
and wethers. His spouse showed her friends from the window the flocks of
chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys, telling them in detail of the
peculiarities of every cock and hen. Is not that charming?

When all had gathered again in the room, where the table was set with
earthen wine-jugs filled with steaming spiced brandy, and the host and
guests had placed their cups at random before them, they heard in the
yard the rattle of wheels and the tramp of horses, and soon appeared in
the assembly a thick-set man of some fifty years, expansive about his
abdomen and broad in his shoulders. His bald head shone like the full
moon. Who was that guest? The scribe of the hundred-court, Pan Anúri.
All rose respectfully, and the host gave him a friendly embrace, offered
him his seat, and set before him his cup of mulled brandy. They all
looked into his eyes, eagerly caught every word of his, and laughed
uproariously when that fool smiled at his own witticisms.

When three cups had found their way into his entrails, he stood up
akimbo and announced: “What will you give me, Pan Kharitón, for the good
news which I bring you from town? The judge of the hundred-court said to
me, as he handed me this batch of papers: ‘Go, my friend, and place
these papers into the personal hands of Pan Kharitón!’ From this I
conclude,” proceeded Anúri, “that they are favourable, for I am seldom
wrong in my conclusions.”

“I understand, I understand!” said Pan Kharitón, and went out smiling.
Anúri had barely gotten away with the fourth cup, when Pan Kharitón
appeared with some gifts and offered him a new hat of the best cowhide,
new boots, permeated by the purest tar, and a clay pipe, the work of the
first Poltáva potter. Pan Anúri received the offerings with
condescension and hastened to his two-wheeled cart to deposit them
there, after which he entered the room with a large sealed batch of
papers, handed it respectfully to Pan Kharitón, and seated himself in
his old place. Pan Kharitón cursorily glanced at every paper and said:
“After all the troubles I have had, my eyes have grown dim. Be so kind,
Pan Anúri, as to read them. The decree of the hundred-court is no
secret.”

Pan Anúri took the documents with much dignity, selected from them the
judgment, put on his eyeglasses, and began to read: “Pan Kharitón Zanóza
appears as the plaintiff against Pan Iván Zúbar and Pan Iván Khtára,
claiming that they had burnt down his dove-cots with all the pigeons, of
which there were more than two hundred; the two Pans Iván, however,
declare that the apiary of the elder Iván, containing not less than
fifty hives, has been destroyed.

“The hundred-court, having taken into consideration all circumstances,
as is meet, decrees:

1. “Granting that during the fire of Pan Kharitón’s dove-cot all the
pigeons, of which there were more than two hundred, _i. e._, two hundred
and one, have perished, and estimating the price of each pigeon at the
maximum of a farthing, his damage amounts to fifty kopeks and a
farthing. But since the two Pans Iván declare under oath that they have
used as food only twenty birds, the real damage which they have done
amounts only to five kopeks; the rest of the pigeons either flew away,
or were burnt. Whereas nobody tied any of the aforesaid pigeons or cut
their wings, they might have flown away, and thus they were roasted by
their own free will.

2. “Pan Iván the elder has lost fifty hives that at the time were full
of honey. Upon inquiry it is found that such a hive is worth sixty
kopeks, and thus his damage amounts to thirty roubles. Excluding from
that sum five kopeks, Pan Kharitón has caused to Pan Iván the elder a
real damage of twenty-nine roubles and ninety-five kopeks, which sum is
without delay to be turned over within three days to Scribe Anúri. Of
this sum twenty-eight roubles and ninety-five kopeks will be retained
for the necessary expenses of the hundred-court; the remaining rouble is
to be turned over to Pan Iván the elder, he signing a receipt for it.”

Who will describe Pan Kharitón’s fury! He cracked the knuckles of his
fingers, stamped the floor with his feet, and rolled his eyes terribly.
Finally he jumped up like one beside himself, ran to the perplexed
scribe, grabbed the fatal judgment out of his hands, tore it to shreds,
and threw it into the eyes of the ambassador of the hundred-court. On
all sides was heard a noise and murmuring. Pan Kharitón paid no
attention to anything; he shouted to the scribe: “Why have you been
riding about upon my horses? Eh? Why have you been tilling your soil
with my steers, and sowing it with my grain? Eh? Why have you been
devouring my sheep and wethers, and making fur coats out of their hides?
Eh? Why have you been taking my money, you destroyers of souls,
good-for-nothings, robbers? Why have you been extorting money from me, I
say, if you had no intention to stand by me? Eh?”

With these words, to the horror of all the guests and their
families,--for at the thunderous roar of Pan Kharitón all the women and
daughters of the guests had made their appearance,--he pulled Pan Anúri
by his collar, dragged him out into the yard, lifted him up, banged him
into his cart, jammed the reins into his hands, gave him two mighty
blows in his occiput, raised from the ground a birch club and began to
belabour, now the horse, now Anúri. The poor animal flew out of the yard
into the road as fast as it could, and Pan Kharitón ran out after the
cart and shouted to the scribe: “Tell the fool of a hundred-judge and
the good-for-nothing members of the hundred-court that they are
transgressors of the law, and that I shall go to-morrow to Poltáva to
cite them before the regimental chancery!”


Having obtained such a famous victory over their worst enemy in the
matter of the burnt-down dove-cot and destroyed apiary, the two Pans
Iván were travelling in triumph from the town to their abode, when they
espied in the middle of the road near the tavern the cart, and they
immediately knew to whom it belonged.

“That ’s fortunate,” said Iván the elder: “we ’ll take the rouble that
belongs to us from Anúri and will give him a good treat.”

They entered the tavern and sure enough saw Pan Anúri sitting over a
cup, but in a most dejected attitude. “What ’s the matter, Pan Anúri?”
cried out Iván the elder: “The cup is at your very mouth, and you look
so sad,--those things do not fit together. Jew, give us two more cups,
of anything you please, so it ’s of the best spirits! Really, you, Pan
Anúri, are a great fellow and pretty slick! Who would have thought you
could manage in so short a time that riotous head of worthless Zanóza?”

“I should say I did manage!” said Anúri with a bitter smile and, filling
his cup, drank from it with unmistakable disgust. The two Iváns looked
at his strange action in wonderment, and pressed him with all kinds of
questions.

Anúri told them all in detail. Having listened with undisguised
attention to this incident which had been unheard of in Little-Russia
from its beginning, the two Iváns were heartily glad, and the elder one
clapped his hands. Anúri showed a very dissatisfied look and asked:

“Is it possible that you, whom I regarded as my friends, can rejoice at
my having had my occiput boxed and at the descent of full-weighted blows
upon my back?”

“Not at all,” answered Iván the elder: “we rejoice and are merry not
because you, our friend and go-between, have received a fine drubbing,
but because it has been administered to the worshipful scribe of the
hundred-court by the bold hand of furious Zanóza. We hope that this
wrongdoing will be his surer undoing than massacred coneys, maimed
geese, ducks, sheep and, finally, the destroyed apiary! It is no
trifling matter to dare box the occiput and warm up ten times with a
birch rod Pan Anúri, a man grown grey and bald among papers, ink, and
pens!”

“He ’s warmed me up just twelve times,” said Pan Anúri proudly, “and
though he missed me the thirteenth time, it ought to be counted a blow
all the same. Besides, he has disgraced the judge and the hundred-court
with the foulest curses, and in the presence of an immense throng of
noblemen and ladies; he dragged me through the whole room, which is the
same as if he dragged me through the whole house;--then by my collar
which reaches up to my occiput, hence it is the same as if he had pulled
me along by my hair. O Pans Iván! If you rejoice because Kharitón Zanóza
will be repaid for this godless deed with interest, I am glad! Oh, if he
had twice the property he possesses, it would not be enough to pay me
for the disgrace and battery. No! he will have to become acquainted with
the city prison and find out the taste of stale bread and water. I give
you my hand that this will happen, and before long!”




  Vasíli Andréevich Zhukóvski. (1783-1852.)


  Zhukóvski was the son of a landed proprietor of Túla, by the name of
  Búnin, and of a captive Turkish woman, but received his own name from
  his godfather, who happened to be living at Búnin’s house. After the
  death of his father he was adopted by Mrs. Búnin, who cared for him as
  for her own son. He was first educated in the public school of Túla,
  but was requested to be removed on account of dulness. He was then
  privately brought up in the house of his godmother, where, at the age
  of twelve, he composed and acted two dramas--one of them from Roman
  history. In 1796 he was taken to Moscow to be placed in the
  boarding-school that was connected with the Moscow University. He
  there came in contact with a number of talented young men who later
  made their mark in literature, and under the inspiring influence of
  the school began, at the early age of fourteen, to contribute poems to
  the periodical press. His earliest verses contained frequent
  references to death and the cemetery, and when, a few years later, he
  lost a friend, he remembered him by translating Gray’s _Elegy_. That
  was the beginning of his literary fame. He then translated a large
  number of poetical productions from the German, French, and English,
  invariably choosing melancholy subjects, as more adapted to his
  sentimental, reflective nature.

  It was chiefly Zhukóvski who transplanted the German Romanticism to
  Russia, but his deserts are not only in having abandoned the
  pseudo-classic style of poetry: he was the first to recognise the
  important educational value of poetry, and its moral power, which made
  it the equal of religion, or, as Zhukóvski put it, “Poetry is the
  terrestrial sister of heavenly religion,” and “Poetry is virtue.” He
  achieved his fame by his ballad _Svyetlána_. The _Minstrel of the
  Russian Camp_ was written by him at the campfires during the War of
  1812: it produced a tremendous outburst of enthusiasm among the whole
  army. He soon became a great favourite at the Court, and in 1817 was
  chosen as teacher of Russian to the German bride of Crown Prince
  Nicholas. In 1841 he left Russia never to return, and died in
  Baden-Baden in 1852. His body was taken to Russia, where he was buried
  by the side of Karamzín.

  Sir John Bowring gives in _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part I.:
  _The Mariner_, _Æolus’s Harp Song (Say, ye gentle breezes, say)_,
  _Romance_; in Part II.: _The Minstrel in the Russian Camp_,
  _Svyetlána_ (under the name of _Catherine_), _Theon and Æschines_,
  _The Bard_; a prose version of _Svyetlána_, under the name of
  _Christmas Omens_, by W. D. Lewis, was given in The Atlantic Souvenir,
  Philadelphia, 1828; another translation, under the title of _The Eve
  of St. Silvester_, from the Russian of Tzobovsk (?), by J. C. M., was
  given in Dublin University Magazine, vol. xxxi., 1848; C. T. Wilson,
  in _Russian Lyrics_, gives _The Flower_, extract from _The Minstrel in
  the Russian Camp, Svyetlána_; in the Library of the World’s Best
  Literature are given N. H. Dole’s translations of _Happiness in
  Slumber_ and _The Coming of Spring Night_.


                               SVYETLÁNA[3]

               St. Silvester’s evening hour
                 Calls the maidens round:
               Shoes to throw behind the door,
                 Delve the snowy ground.
               Peep behind the window there,
                 Burning wax to pour;
               And the corn for chanticleer
                 Reckon three times o’er.
               In the water-fountain fling
               Solemnly the golden ring,
                 Earrings, too, of gold;
               Kerchief white must cover them
               While we ’re chanting over them
                 Magic songs of old.

               Feebly through the vapours shine
                 Moonbeams on the hill;
               Silently sat Catherine,
                 Sorrowful and still.
               “Maiden, why so pensive? We
                 Fain thy voice would hear--
               Come and join our revelry!
                 Take the ring, thou dear!
               Sing, ‘Make haste and melt, and bring,
               Goldsmith! Come with golden ring,
                 Golden wreath for Kate!
               Ring to deck her hand of snow,
               Wreath to bloom upon her brow
                 At the altar-gate.’”

               “I can sing no choral song
                 While my love ’s away,
               For my days are sad and long,--
                 Gloomier every day.
               Left alone,--a year is past,--
                 Not a line to send,--
               Oh, my life is but a waste,
                 Severed from my friend!
               Hast thou then forgotten me?
               Tell me, wanderer! can it be?
                 Where ’s thy dwelling, where?
               See, I pine ’neath secret smart:
               Guardian angel! Watch my heart,--
                 Listen to my prayer!”

               Covered with a napkin white,
                 Stood a table there,
               Where a mirror, clear and bright,
                 Shone amidst the glare.
               Vacant seats for two were placed,--
                 “Look within, O look!
               ’T is the hour of spirits,--haste!
                 Read Fate’s opening book:
               To the mirror turn thy eye,
               And the door shall silently
                 Open,--list, ’t is he!
               Gently shall thy lover glide,
               Seat him by his maiden’s side,
                 And shall sup with thee.”

               Cath’rine sat before the glass,--
                 All alone was she,
               Watching all the shades that pass,
                 Shuddering inwardly.
               But the glass is dark and drear,
                 Still as death the room;
               Scarce a fading taper there
                 Flitted midst the gloom.
               Oh, how fear her bosom shook!
               Backwards then she dared not look!
                 Dread had dimmed her sight:
               And the dying taper’s noise,
               And the cricket’s chirping voice,
                 Cried,--“’T is middle-night!”

               Breathless terror chilled her o’er,
                 And she shades her brow:--
               List! a knock is at the door,
                 And it opens now:
               To the mirror then she turned,
                 Stupefied with fear;
               There two brilliant eyeballs burned,
                 Ever bent on her.
               Horror heaved her breast, when lo!
               Gentle accents, sweet and slow,
                 Glided on her ear:
               “All thy wishes are fulfilled,--
               All thy spirit’s sighs be stilled,--
                 ’T is thy lover, dear!”

               Cath’rine looked--her lover’s arm
                 Was around her thrown:
               “Maiden! Banish all alarm,
                 We are ever one!
               Come! the priest is waiting now,
                 Life with life to blend;
               Torches in the chapel glow,
                 Bridal songs ascend.”
               Cath’rine smiled,--her lover led,--
               O’er the snow-clad court they sped,
                 And the portals gain;
               There a ready sledge they found,--
               Two fleet coursers stamp the ground,
                 Struggling with the rein.

               Onwards! Like the wind they go,
                 When the storm awakes,
               Scattering round them clouds of snow,
                 While the pathway shakes.
               All was dark and wild as night,
                 Terrible and new;
               Mist-wreaths dimmed the pale moon’s light,
                 Plains were drenched in dew.
               Fear again possessed the maid,
               And in gentlest tones she said,
                 “Speak, my lover true!”
               He was silent then, but soon
               Turned him to the wintry moon,--
                 Pale and paler grew.

               Through the snow, a mountain’s height,
                 Next the wild steeds passed;
               And a church appeared in sight,
                 Midst a gloomy waste;
               Then a whirlwind burst the door--
                 Men are there who mourn;
               Clouds of incense rolling o’er,
                 Wax and taper burn.
               Lo! a black sepulchral shroud--
               “Dust to dust!” the priest aloud
                 Chants,--the horses flew
               Tow’rds the door,--her agony
               Rose,--he spoke no word,--but he
                 Pale and paler grew.

               Clouds of snow ascend again--
                 Lo! the coursers fly;
               And a raven on the plain
                 Croaks and passes by;
               ’T was an awful, ominous sound!
                 And the moonlight wanes;
               Darkness wraps the desert round
                 O’er the steaming manes.
               See! a glimmering light is there,
               And upon the heather bare
                 Stands a humble shed.
               Swifter, swifter flew the car,
               Whirled the snow around it far,
                 But no farther sped.

               At the door they stopped anon,
                 There, a moment stood:--
               Steeds, sledge, bridegroom,--all are gone:
                 All is solitude.
               Cath’rine on the waste was left,
                 Midst dense clouds of snow,
               Of her lover now bereft,
                 To commune with woe:
               But she hears a footstep now,
               Turns, and sees a taper glow,
                 Crosses her, and stalks
               Trembling to the door, and knocks:--
               Of itself the door unlocks,--
                 In the maiden walks.

               There, upon a winding-sheet,
                 Lay a mortal bier;
               Christ’s bright image at its feet
                 Shone resplendent there.
               Whither, whither art thou come,
                 Maiden, all unblest?
               Thou hast sought a wretched home,
                 Art a hapless guest!
               Cath’rine to the image flies,
               Wipes the snow-dust from her eyes,
                 Bends her down and weeps;
               Presses to her breast the cross,--
               Thoughts of heaven her soul engross,
                 And she silence keeps.

               All is still!--The storm is hushed,
                 Faint the tapers beam,
               Light across the chamber rushed,--
                 Momentary gleam:--
               All is wrapped in silence deep
                 As when visions come.
               List! what gentle rustlings sweep
                 Through the hallowed room:
               Lo! a dart of silvery white,
               Soft and still, with eyes of light,
                 Tow’rds the mourners springs:
               For a moment hovers there,
               Then upon her bosom fair
                 Flaps its beauteous wings.

               Silence reigned again.--Can all,
                 All illusion be?
               Lo! the corpse beneath the pall
                 Shudders fearfully:
               Burst the mantling bier of death,
                 Throws his shroudings by:
               On his brow he wore a wreath,
                 Frozen was his eye:
               From his lips a murmur breaks,
               With his hand a sign he makes,
                 Pointing to the maid:
               Trembling she,--she dared not move,--
               But the bright and silver dove
                 On her bosom played;

               Fanned her with its gentle wing:--
                 To the dead man’s breast
               Then she saw her sweet dove spring,--
                 There it seemed to rest.
               Heaved the icy corpse a sigh,
                 As in dark despair,
               Gnashed his teeth in agony,
                 Turned his eyes on her.
               Paler waxed those lips so pale;
               And the fixed eye told the tale
                 That life’s film was broke.
               Cath’rine! Lift thy drooping head!
               All is o’er,--thy lover’s dead!--
                 God!--and she awoke.

               Where?--within the selfsame room
                 Where the mirror stood:--
               Morn was chasing twilight’s gloom
                 With its golden flood;
               Chanticleer had clapped his wing,
                 Sung his early song:
               All is bright,--the matin rings,--
                 Oh, thy dream was long!
               Long indeed, and dreadful too;
               And my spirit long shall rue
                 The dread prophecy!
               Tell me, Future’s misty night,
               Shall my fate be dark or bright,
                 Bliss or misery?

               Cath’rine in the window sat,
                 Sorrowful and still:
               Tell me, tell me what is that?--
                 Mist-cloud on the hill?
               In the sunbeams shines the snow;
                 Leaps the frozen dew:
               List! I hear the bells below,
                 And the horses too.
               Lo! they come, the sledge is near,--
               Now the driver’s voice I hear,--
                 They have passed the grove:--
               Fling the gates wide open, fling--
               Who ’s the guest the coursers bring?
                 Who?--’T is thou, my love!

               Cath’rine, tell me now! The dream--
                 Is the dream forgot?
               Youths may faithful be who seem
                 Faithless,--may they not?
               When the light of love hath lent
                 Brightness to his eye;
               When his lips are eloquent;--
                 Timid maid! Reply!
               Open now the temple-gate,
               Spring on wings of joy elate,
                 Truth, we honour thee!
               Pour the glass, and join the hymn,
               Ne’er may days of darkness dim
                 Youth’s fidelity.

               Thou dost smile, sweet maid! But deem,
                 Deem it worth a thought,
               For that memorable dream
                 Stores of wisdom brought.
               Thou dost smile again,--but know,
                 It had lessons holy:
               Fame, it told thee, was but--show;
                 Worldly wisdom--folly.
               This my song was meant to say,
               Hope and trust should guide our way,
                 Maid! there ’s no mistaking:
               This the genuine moral seems,
               Miseries are only dreams.
                 Joy--is the awaking.

               O my Cath’rine! never dwell
                 On that dream of gloom:
               Heaven! build up her citadel,
                 There may grief ne’er come,
               Not a cloud her joy o’ershade,
                 Not a joy decay;
               Holy is that gentle maid
                 As the light of day.
               Ne’er be it obscured by woe,
               Let her days of comfort flow
                 Like a forest river!
               And let joy, with smiles serene,
               Be as it hath ever been,
                 Her bright guide for ever!

      --From Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part
          II.

  [3] Changed by Sir John Bowring in the poem to Catherine.


                     THE MINSTREL IN THE RUSSIAN CAMP

             Now silence wraps the battlefield!
               The tents with lights are gleaming;
             And lo! the bright moon’s silver shield
               In the calm heaven is beaming.
             Fill, fill the glass of rapture yet
               In unity full-hearted;
             In wine the bloody strife forget,
               The grief for the departed!
             The glasses’ ruby stream to drain
               Is glory’s pride and pleasure--
             Wine! conqueror thou of care and pain,
               Thou art the hero’s treasure.

             Now to the warriors of old time,
               The strong in fight and glory!
             These warriors and their deeds sublime
               Are lost in distant story!
             The grave hath gathered up their dust,
               Their homes,--the storm hath razed them;
             Their helmets are devoured by rust,
               And silent those who praised them:
             But in their children live their fires,
               We tread the land that bore them,
             And see the shadows of our sires
               With all their triumphs o’er them.

             Oh, come! in all your brightness, come,
               And smile complacent, near us;
             Look from your high and misty home,
               Encourage us and hear us.
             O Svyatosláv! time’s injured son,
               Thy path an eagle’s flying:
             “There is no shame in dying--On!
               There is no shame in dying!”
             And Donskóy, thou! courageous man,
               Midst heathen foes we find thee;
             Destruction leading in thy van,
               And naught but death behind thee.

             Thou, Peter! thou, the hero’s crown,
               “Poltáva!” is repeated:
             Thy foes have thrown their sabres down,
               Thee, all the world has greeted.
             What? Robbers, would you build your throne
               Upon our cities’ ruin?
             Thy horse and rider fell--begone!
               For vengeance is pursuing.
             Go hide thee in thy native woods,
               There by ambition smother;
             Fate drives thee to their solitudes,
               Yes! thou, the rebel’s brother.

             Who is that white-haired hero, who
               That northern more than Roman?
             His penetrating glance looks through
               The phalanx of the foeman;
             From yonder clouds what shadowy rows
               Are tow’rds his footsteps turning?
             The spirits of the Alpine snows
               Are wailing loud and mourning.
             Franks and Sarmatians, at his view,
               Death’s icy paleness borrow;
             Well they may fear him, well may rue,--
               It is the great Suvórov!

             Hail, sons of ages long gone by!
               Your glories are recorded;
             We follow you to victory,
               Like you to be rewarded.
             We see your ranks,--they lead us on,--
               The foe retreats before us;
             We scatter death, as ye have done,
               While ye are smiling o’er us.
             Drawn sword, and flowing glass, elate
               We look to our Creator!
             “And death for death, and hate for hate,
               And curses on the traitor.”

             This glass then to our country’s joys,
               Ne’er may our hearts feel colder;
             The scenes of mirth while we were boys,
               Of love, when we grew older!
             Our country’s plains, our country’s sky,
               The streams that flow beneath it;
             The memories of infancy,
               And all the thoughts that wreathe it
             With joyous hopes and visions blest,--
               Dear shrine of our affection,
             How glows our heart, how beats our breast,
               When beams the recollection!

             That is our country, there our home,
               There wife and babes attend us;
             And oft their prayers towards us roam,
               And oft to Heaven commend us!
             There dwell our plighted, chosen ones;
               How bright their memory flashes!
             Our monarchs’ dust, our monarchs’ thrones,
               And there our fathers’ ashes.
             For them we fight, for them we rove,
               For them have all forsaken;
             And may our land’s undying love
               In our sons’ breasts awaken!

             Now to the Tsar that rules the Russ,
               And be his sceptre glorious;
             His throne an altar is to us,--
               We swear to be victorious.
             The oath is heard,--’t is stamped in blood,--
               ’T is sworn,--there ’s no returning;
             Our swords shall make our promise good,
               Our hearts with love are burning.
             Each Russ a son of victory,
               To duty’s ranks we throng us;
             Let every craven coward fly,
               For fear was ne’er among us.

                   ────────────────────────────────────

             One glass to vengeance! In the fray
               “Heaven for the right!” our voices,
             And “death or victory!” proudly say;
               And victory’s self rejoices.
             Oh, count not on your numbers, foe!
               In vain ye boast your numbers;
             Our march is like the torrent’s flow,
               Which never, never slumbers.
             We have no treasures, but we bring
               Our arrows and our lances,
             And round us desolation fling,
               And death is in our glances.

             The Robber! he had spread his power
               Around our Moskvá’s borders;
             And from our Kremlin’s sacred tower
               He issued forth his orders.
             “I trample on the base-born clay,
               Which folly’s pride assembles,
             And prince and subject both obey.”
               Insulting one!--he trembles.
             For Vengeance wakes her from her rest,
               And arms her with her torches,
             Heaves ruin on the tyrant’s breast,
               And drives him from our porches.

             Now bring thy slavish princes, now,
               To our ice-girded nation;
             And lead them o’er our paths of snow
               To horror and starvation.
             Come, Winter! rouse thee from thy bed,
               And close our country’s portals.
             Oh, see! he strews the land with dead,
               With piles of frozen mortals.
             Now, Robber! look what thou hast done;
               Come, for the strife prepare thee!
             The land we fight on is our own,--
               God’s vengeance, wretch, is near thee!

      --From Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part
          II.




  Iván Ivánovich Kozlóv. (1779-1840.)


  After having served for some time in the army, Kozlóv in 1798 entered
  the Civil Service, living in Moscow and later in St. Petersburg. In
  1818 he was struck by paralysis, which deprived him of the use of his
  legs, and three years later he became totally blind. Though he had
  long been on friendly terms with Zhukóvski, he never thought of
  devoting himself to literature. But the calamity that had overtaken
  him compelled him to concentrate himself, and the result was the
  evolution of his poetical genius. He had learned French and Italian
  before, and, though blind, acquired the German and English languages
  so perfectly that he could recite by heart whole pages from the great
  writers, whom he also translated into Russian. His first poetical
  efforts were some verses in praise of Zhukóvski and Byron, but he
  gained his great reputation by his _The Black Monk_, written in 1824,
  which enjoyed the same popularity among the sentimental souls of the
  twenties that _Poor Líza_ (see p. 27) had had in the beginning of the
  century. This was soon followed by _Princess Natálya Borísovna
  Dolgorúki_ (see vol. i., p. 233) and a large number of minor poems
  that are distinguished for their elegiac and deep religious tone.

  In W. D. Lewis’s _The Bakchesarian Fountain_, Philadelphia, 1841, is
  given his _Solitude_; T. B. Shaw translated his _Kíev_ in Blackwood’s
  Edinburgh Magazine, 1844; in C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_ are given
  _The Village Orphan_, _The Wreck_, _The Dream of the Betrothed_, and
  _Chernetz (The Black Monk)_; in the Library of the World’s Best
  Literature is N. H. Dole’s translation of _The Vesper Bells_.


                                 SOLITUDE

 Upon a hill, which rears itself midst plains extending wide,
 Fair flourishes a lofty oak in beauty’s blooming pride;
 This lofty oak in solitude its branches wide expands,
 All lonesome on the cheerless height like sentinel it stands.
 Whom can it lend its friendly shade, should Sol with fervour glow?
 And who can shelter it from harm, should tempests rudely blow?
 No bushes green, entwining close, here deck the neighbouring ground,
 No tufted pines beside it grow, no osiers thrive around.
 Sad e’en to trees their cheerless fate in solitude if grown,
 And bitter, bitter is the lot for youth to live alone!
 Though gold and silver much is his, how vain the selfish pride!
 Though crowned with glory’s laurelled wreath, with whom that crown
    divide?
 When I with an acquaintance meet he scarce a bow affords,
 And beauties, half saluting me, but grant some transient words.
 On some I look myself with dread, whilst others from me fly,
 But sadder still the uncherished soul when Fate’s dark hour draws nigh;
 Oh! where my aching heart relieve when griefs assail me sore?
 My friend, who sleeps in the cold earth, comes to my aid no more!
 No relatives, alas! of mine in this strange clime appear,
 No wife imparts love’s fond caress, sweet smile, or pitying tear;
 No father feels joy’s thrilling throb, as he our transport sees;
 No gay and sportive little ones come clambering on my knees;--
 Take back all honours, wealth and fame, the heart they cannot move,
 And give instead the smiles of friends, the tender look of love!

      --From W. D. Lewis’s _The Bakchesarian Fountain_.


                                   KÍEV

         O Kíev! where religion ever seemeth
           To light existence in our native land;
         Where o’er Pechérski’s dome the bright cross gleameth,
           Like some fair star, that still in heaven doth stand;
         Where, like a golden sheet, around thee streameth
           Thy plain, and meads that far away expand;
         And by thy hoary well, with ceaseless motion,
         Old Dnieper’s foaming swell sweeps on to ocean.

         How oft to thee in spirit have I panted,
           O holy city, country of my heart!
         How oft, in vision, have I gazed enchanted
           On thy fair towers,--a sainted thing thou art!--
         By Lávra’s[4] walls or Dnieper’s wave, nor wanted
           A spell to draw me from this life apart;
         In thee my country I behold, victorious,
         Holy and beautiful, and great and glorious.

         The moon her soft ray on Pechérski poureth,
           Its domes are shining in the river’s wave;
         The soul the spirit of the past adoreth,
           Where sleeps beneath thee many a holy grave:
         Vladímir’s shade above thee calmly soareth,
           Thy towers speak of the sainted and the brave;
         Afar I gaze, and all in dreamy splendour
         Breathes of the past,--a spell sublime and tender.

         There fought the warriors in the field of glory,
           Strong in the faith, against their country’s foe;
         And many a royal flower yon palace hoary,
           In virgin loveliness, hath seen to blow.
         And Boyán sang to them the noble story,
           And secret rapture in their breast did glow;
         Hark! midnight sounds,--that brazen voice is dying,--
         A day to meet the vanished day is flying.

         Where are the valiant?--the resistless lances,--
           The brands that were as lightning when they waved?
         Where are the beautiful, whose sunny glances
           Our fathers, with such potency, enslaved?
         Where is the bard, whose song no more entrances?
           Ah! that deep bell hath answered what I craved:
         And thou alone, by these grey walls, O river!
         Murmurest, Dnieper, still, and flow’st for ever.

      --Transl. by T. B. Shaw, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 1844
          (vol. lv).

  [4] Name of certain monasteries.


                          FROM “THE BLACK MONK”

                            I.--THE MONASTERY

Beyond Kíev, where the broad Dnieper boils and booms between steep
banks, near a grove, upon a high hill, stands the hermits’ abode. Around
it is a crenelated wall, with four towers in the corners, and in the
midst,--the temple of the Lord with gilded cupolas. A row of cells, a
dark corridor, a chapel at the holy gates, with a miracle-working image,
and nearby a spring of cool water, whose medicinal stream bubbles under
the shade of a century linden tree.

The evening darkness is in the misty field; the twilight is dimming in
the heavens; the song is not heard in the meadows; the flocks are not
seen in the vales. The horn will not be blown in the forest,--no one
will come; only at times the bell tinkles in the distance upon the
highway; no fires are to be seen upon the fishermen’s boats on the
Dnieper. The midnight moon has risen, and the bright stars are shining;
the clearings, the woods, the waters are asleep. The fateful hour has
struck upon the tower,--the hermitage is merged in sleep,--and all
around is peace and quiet.

                  II.--THE CONFESSION OF THE BLACK MONK

“I left my deserted country. Alone, in despair, in tears, I wandered
around with my orphaned soul in distant defiles and woods. Gloomy clefts
and mountains heard my groan, my wail, my plaints with terror, for seven
years. Sullen, melancholy, wild, I pined away, dreaming an old dream,
and sobbed for what is not. The shades of night, the mountain torrent,
the whistling of the storm and the howl of the wind secretly united with
my murky thought, with my unquenchable yearning. And sorrow was a
delight, a sacred relic of former days; it seemed to me that through my
suffering I did not altogether part from it.

“Where the heart loves, where it suffers,--there is also our merciful
God; He gives the cross, and He also sends us hope with the cross. In
these seven hard, stormy years there has flashed for me a consoling
light. Once, at evening tide, I sat gloomy near the river; the
star-flaming vault of heaven, the quiet glimmer of the moon, the
rustling of the leaves, the plashing of the waves silvered by the moon,
involuntarily held my soul captive. Everything attracted me by its
mysterious beauty to a world of bliss.

“My crushed spirit awoke: ‘Creator of all! My babe with my unforgettable
mate dwell in Thy holy abode, and, perchance, I shall be with them, and
they there for ever mine!’ Love understands miracles: my heart trembled
hopefully in some mysterious expectation. I lifted my eyes to the skies,
dared to implore them with tears,--and it seemed to me that for an
answer was given me that calm ocean with its imperishable stars. Since
then, my father, have I found consolation in my misery itself, and I
have hoped by my heavy cross to earn my union with her. Though still, at
times, I shed tears, yet hope assuages them, and quiet grief has taken
place of bitter sorrow. Flaming with faith, I have forgotten my
misfortune and the villain: she with her babe in heaven appeared to my
heart in dreams of paradise. My soul rose to her, and my mind was full
of this: I wished to be as pure as she, and I gladly bid life farewell.
But I wanted to die in my native home. I began to pine away in mountains
of other lands. I wanted to cast my last glance upon our woods and our
dales, to see the country which was full of her, and our village house,
and the garden, and the blue waves of the Dnieper, and the church upon
the mound where in the shade of the birches sleeps their dust, and the
glowing evening sky over their quiet grave.

“Ah, what happened to my soul when suddenly, in all its sacred beauty,
before me lay the landscape of my native Kíev fields! As before they
were green, the waves of the Dnieper boomed as formerly, the same forest
lay dim in the distance, the same songs were sung in the fields, and
everything was the same in my native land, but she alone was not there.
Everywhere familiar valleys, brooks, mounds, and plains, in an
enchanting quiet, appeared to me on all sides, and brought back my
brighter years; but with a poisoned soul, a stranger in my own land, I
greeted them with tears and disconsolate melancholy.

“I walked. The day was inclining to the evening, and suddenly a rustic
temple of the Lord stood before my frightened eyes. Beside myself, I
approached the grave where my son, my wife,--my whole life lay buried. I
barely touched the ground with my feet, as if fearing to disturb their
eternal slumber. I repressed a deep groan within my breast, that their
rest be not broken. My saddened spirit dared not give vent to my
impassioned agitation. It seemed to me that upon their grave I breathed
a sacred air. A wondrous feeling came over me, and with an unearthly
hope I softly bent my knees, and prayed, and wept, and loved.”




  Konstantín Nikoláevich Bátyushkov. (1787-1855.)


  Bátyushkov received his education in the boarding-schools of St.
  Petersburg, from which he took away a good knowledge of French,
  German, and Italian, and little else, especially since all his
  schooling ended with his sixteenth year. He was then ushered into the
  circle of literary men by a relative of his, M. N. Muravév (see vol.
  i. p. 395), who also interested him in the ancient classics, among
  whom Bátyushkov admired most and imitated Horace and Tibullus. In 1806
  he was seized by the prevailing patriotic enthusiasm, after the
  disaster of Austerlitz, and joined the army. He was seriously wounded,
  but in 1813 he again took part in the campaign against Napoleon.
  During his stay in Germany he became intimately acquainted with the
  German literature, which he began to prefer to the French and Latin.
  He returned to Russia over England and Sweden. In 1818 he received a
  diplomatic post at Naples, which gave him an opportunity of making
  himself familiar with the country of his beloved author, Tasso. He
  soon returned home, where he was up to his death, for a period of
  thirty-three years, lost to Russian letters, having, like his mother
  before him, become hopelessly insane. No other poet had given such
  promise as Bátyushkov, and even Púshkin regarded him as his teacher.
  His fame rests mainly on his _Dying Tasso_ and _The Friend’s Shadow_,
  the Anacreontic character of the other poems and the absence of a
  Russian motive having otherwise almost obliterated his fame.

  In Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part I., there
  is a translation of his _To My Penates_, and in Part II., _To F. F.
  Kokoshkin_, _The Farewell_, _The Friend’s Shadow_, _Love in a Boat_,
  _The Prisoner_, _To the Rhine_. What purports to be a translation of
  his _Dying Tasso_ is given in The Foreign Quarterly Review, 1832.


                           THE FRIEND’S SHADOW

   From Albion’s misty isle across the waves I sped me:
   It looked as if interred beneath a leaden sea,
   And gathering round our bark the halcyon’s music led me,
   While all the crew rejoiced in their sweet melody.
   The dancing surge, the evening breezes falling,
   And through the sails and shrouds those breezes whistling thrill,
   And to the watch the active helmsman calling,
   The watch, who, midst the roar, sleeps tranquilly and still.
   All seemed to rock itself to gentle thought;
   Like an enchanted one, I, from the mast, looked forth,
   And through the night and through the mist I sought,
   I sought the star beloved of my domestic north.
   Then into memory melted every feeling,--
   My soul had sanctified my home of joy and peace,
   And the sea raging, and the zephyrs gently stealing,
   Covered my eyelids o’er with self-forgetfulness.
   Then dreams with other dreams were blended,
   And lo!--there stood, was it a dream?--the form
   Of that dear friend who his career had ended
   Nobly, amidst the thundering battle storm.
   He stood upon the mist, and smiled,--his face,
   Fresh as the morn and bloodless, shining
   Like the young spring in gaiety and grace,
   Even as an angel from high heaven declining:--
   “Comrade of better time! and is it thou?
   And is it thou?” I cried, “thou hero bright!
   Did I not in the fury of the fight
   Attend thee, and when thou hadst fallen below
   Make thy new grave,--and on a neighbouring tree
   Write with my sword thy feats of bravery,
   And followed thy cold ashes to their bed,
   And hallowed it with prayers, and with tears waterèd?
   Speak, unforgotten one, speak! Was it a deceit?
   Is all that ’s past a dream, a cheating dream?
   A dream that corpse, a dream that grave, that sheet
   Wrapt round thee,--were they not? did they but seem?
   Oh, but one word! Let that tongue’s melody
   Yet sweetly fall on my transported ear:
   O unforgotten one! Stretch out to me
   Thy old right hand of friendship, stretch it here!”
   I sprung towards him,--Oh! the mists had dimmed my eye,--
   He vanished like a shade, a lock of airy smoke,--
   Dispersed in the wide azure of the sky,
   And I, arousing from my dream, awoke.
   Beneath the wing of stillness all was sleeping;
   The very winds, the very waves at rest;
   And scarce a breath upon the sea was creeping;
   The pale moon swam along upon the white cloud’s breast.
   But I was troubled, peace had left my soul,--
   I stretched my hands tow’rds him, whom I no more could see,--
   I called on him, whom I could not control,--
   On thee, beloved one! best of friends, on thee!

      --From Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part
          II.


                             THE DYING TASSO

What solemnity does ancient Rome prepare? Whither rush the nation’s
noisy waves? For whom these fragrant fumes of incense and of myrrh, and
everywhere the vases full of odorous herbs? Wherefore above the streets
of the universal city, from the Tiber’s banks up to the Capitol, midst
flowers and laurels, are fluttering costly carpets and the purple?

Wherefore this noise? Wherefore the timbrel’s sound and thunder? Is it
of gladness or of victory the herald? Why with the standard gains the
house of prayer the mitred apostolic vicar? For whom this glittering
crown he holds,--a priceless gift of grateful Rome? For whom this
triumph? For thee, immortal singer, for thee this gift, O singer of
“Jerusalem.”

The din of joy has reached the cell where in death agony Torquato lies,
where o’er the sufferer’s immortal head is borne the spirit of wingèd
death. Neither tears of friendship, nor the prayers of the monks, nor
honours’ tardy due,--these will not curb indomitable fate that spares
not even the great. Half-shattered, he sees the threatening hour, hails
it with joy, and,--alluring swan!--bids life good-bye and utters these
last words:

“My friends, let me behold Rome the magnificent, where an untimely grave
awaits the poet, that my eyes may see your hills and smoke, O ancient
hearths of the Quirites! O sacred ground of miracles and heroes! O
glorious ruins and O glorious dust! Azure and purple of cloudless skies,
you poplars, ancient olives, and thou, eternal Tiber, wellspring of all
the nations, grave of the bones of the world’s citizens,--you, you I
greet within these sombre walls, where I lie doomed to an untimely end!

“’T is done! I stand o’er the abyss of destiny, shall not applauded
reach the Capitol, and laurels of fame upon my feeble head will not
assuage the singer’s bitter fate. From earliest youth a shuttlecock of
men, I was an exile from my very childhood; a poor wanderer under the
voluptuous heaven of my Italy, I have experienced all vicissitudes of
fate. Where was my bark not borne by the waves? Where found it rest?
Where wet I not my daily bread with tears of grief? Sorrento! cradle of
my luckless days, where in the night, like terrified Ascanius, I was
bereft by destiny of my mother, of her soft embraces and
caresses,--rememberest thou how many tears I shed while still a child?
Alas! since then, a prey of evil fate, all sorrows I have learned, all
misery of existence. The depths by Fortune furrowed were cleft below me,
and the thunder never silenced. Driven from vill to vill, from land to
land, I sought in vain a refuge upon earth: its unrelenting finger saw I
everywhere, and everywhere its lightnings struck the bard! Neither in
the humble ploughman’s hut, nor under cover of Alfonso’s palace, nor in
the quiet of the lowliest shelter, nor forest tangle, nor mountains, was
my head secure, the exile’s head, by shame and fame oppressed, and from
the cradle a victim of the goddess of the doom.

“Friends, what wrings so terribly my breast? What gnaws my heart, and
keeps it in a flutter? Whence have I come? What awful journey have I
made? What glimmers there behind me in the dark?
Ferrara----furies----and the snake of envy! Whither, whither, murderers
of genius? I ’m in the haven; ’t is Rome. Here are my family, my
brothers! Here are their tears and sweet caresses,--and Virgil’s crown
here in the Capitol!

“Yes, I have done Apollo’s bidding: his zealous priest from earliest
youth, I sang, midst lightnings, under raging skies, the fame and
majesty of bygone days. My soul, though fettered, never changed; the
rapture of the sweet-voiced Muses never died in me, and through my
sufferings my genius grew strong. It dwelt in the land of miracles, O
Sion, by thy walls, on Jordan’s flowery banks; and it communed with
thee, rebellious Cedron, and thee, peaceful retreats of Lebanon! ’T is
there the heroes of the ancient days rose from the dead, in the majesty
and glow of their grim glory. It beheld thee, Godfrey, ruler, lord of
kings, majestic, calm, while arrows whizzed; and thee, youthful Rinaldo,
fervid like Achilles and a happy victor in love and war. It saw thee
flying o’er the corpses of the foeman’s host, like fire, like death,
like the destroying angel,--and Tartarus vanquished by the gleaming
cross!

“O models of unheard-of valour! O holy triumph and victory of the pure
faith of our ancestors now long asleep! Torquato extricated you from the
abyss of time: he sang,--and you will never be forgotten; he sang: to
him a wreath of immortality has been decreed, wound by the hands of
Muses and of Glory. Too late: I stand o’er the abyss of destiny, shall
not applauded reach the Capitol, and laurels of fame upon my feeble head
will not assuage the singer’s bitter fate!”

He stopped. A sombre light glowed in his eyes, the final ray of genius
before its death; it seemed, the dying wished to snatch one day of
triumph from the Parcæ; his eyes sought eagerly the Capitolian walls; he
tried his best to raise himself but lay, exhausted from the dreadful
torment of his agony, immovable upon his bed. Day’s luminary was gliding
to the west, and merged in blood-red glow; the hour of death was
near----the sufferer’s gloomy brow was now agleam with its last light.
Refreshed by the evening coolness, he raised his right hand to the
hearkening heavens, like a righteous man, with hope and joy:

“See,” he addressed his sobbing friends, “the royal luminary flaming in
the west! ’T is he, ’t is he who calls me to the cloudless lands where
glows the eternal light----. The angel stands before me to guide me on;
he shades me with his azure pinions----. Give me Love’s token, this
mysterious cross----. Pray in hope and tears----all earthly things are
vanishing----and glory and the crown----the sublime creations of the
Arts and Muses: all is there eternal as the Lord, the Giver of the crown
of immortal glory! There is all the great my spirit fed upon, and I did
from my cradle breathe. O brothers, friends! weep not o’er me: your
friend has reached at last the longed-for goal. He’ll pass away in peace
and, strong in faith, will not perceive his cruel end: there, there----.
O bliss! ’midst virtuous women and ’midst angels Eleanor will meet him!”

And with the name of love the godly passed away; his friends sobbed
speechless o’er him. Daylight softly died away----the bell’s voice
spread the melancholy news down to the streets: “Dead is our Torquato!”
Rome cried in tears: “Dead is the bard who has deserved a better
fate!”---- The dawn perceived a sombre smoke of torches, and in mourning
shrouded was the Capitol.




  Fédor Nikoláevich Glínka. (1788-1880.)


  Glínka was born in the Government of Smolénsk and was educated in the
  First Cadet Corps, which he left in 1803 as lieutenant. He took part
  in the campaign of the Russian army against Napoleon in the Austrian
  possessions, serving as adjutant under Milorádovich. He described his
  experience in his _Letters of a Russian Officer_, which is a
  remarkable production for a young man of nineteen. After his return he
  devoted himself to literature, both prose and poetry. His poems
  attracted much attention on account of their sincerity and the
  harmoniousness of their verses. In 1869 he published a collection of
  _Spiritual Songs_.

  In C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_ are given _The Appearance of the
  Unknown_, _The Search for God_, and _Moscow_. N. H. Dole has
  translated his _Moscow_ (publication unascertainable).


                                  MOSCOW

                Wondrous city, ancient city,
                  Thou enfoldest in thy walls
                Villages and smiling suburbs,
                  Churches, palaces and halls.

                Thou art girt by grassy meadows,
                  Gay with gardens, rich in flowers;
                Seven the hills are which thou crownest
                  With thy temples, with thy towers.

                Thou unfoldest like a parchment
                  Written by a giant hand,
                And beside thy little river
                  Thou art glorious now and grand.

                Many are thine ancient churches
                  Towering like the northern pine;
                Where can eye see streets so noble,
                  Mother Moscow, as are thine?

                Capture Moscow’s mighty Kreml?
                  Who on earth would boast the power?
                Who could rob the golden bonnet
                  From the slender Iván tower?

                Who could ever swing the Tsar-bell,
                  Or the Tsar-gun overthrow?
                Reverence at the sacred gateway
                  Who could ever fail to show?

                In thine awful hour of peril,
                  When thy haughty neck was bent,
                All thy children, men of Russia,
                  Felt with thee the punishment.

                White-walled city, thou wast chastened
                  Like a martyr in the fire;
                And thy river, boiling, hastened
                  Onward to escape the pyre.

                Once a captive and dishonoured,
                  In thine embers thou didst lie!
                Now arisen from thine ashes
                  Changeless, lift thy head on high!

                Flourish through the countless ages,
                  Moscow! many-towered town.
                Thou art central heart of Russia,
                  Russia’s glory, Russia’s crown!

      --Transl. by N. H. Dole (publication not ascertainable).


                            THE SEARCH FOR GOD

               The heavens grow dark before mine eyes,
               The earth gives out a groaning sound;
               The stormy blasts in fury rise,
               And all obstructions quick confound;
               They drive apart hills with their foot,
               Huge trees they pluck up by the root:
               I call on God with loudest tone,--
               God is not in the tempest known.

               As I behold, the meadows fair
               Are breaking into mound and vale;
               The earth is shaking everywhere,
               The rocks roll down the hills like hail;
               Dense clouds of smoke the sight appall,
               With trembling voice on God I call,--
               But in the earthquake’s fearful round
               His holy footsteps are not found.

               On novel wonders still I gaze;
               The vaults of heaven with lightning blaze,
               The flames burst forth on every side,
               And onwards rush,--a raging tide,--
               Stirring the mind with direst fear,--
               But not in fire does God appear.

               Fair peace succeeds: the perfect calm
               My prescient spirit fills with balm;
               Like the young morn with glimmering light,
               So burns with haze of silver bright
               The presence pure of God:
               The soul, responsive to the strain,
               Breathes with unearthly life again;
               Sweet stillness settles on the scene,
               And, though deep distance intervene,
               God’s voice is heard abroad.

      --From C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_.




  Prince Petr Andréevich Vyázemski. (1792-1878.)


  Prince Vyázemski was one of the very few literary men in Russia whose
  career began before that of Púshkin and who were still active at a
  time when Tolstóy and Dostoévski had established their reputations.
  His father, dying, left him in charge of Karamzín, to whom he was
  related by marriage. Through him, Prince Vyázemski was early brought
  in contact with the literary circle, meeting there on a friendly
  footing Zhukóvski, Bátyushkov, and Púshkin. He took part in the
  campaign of 1812, and at Borodinó two horses were shot under him. He
  later occupied various posts, and was made Associate Minister of
  Public Instruction and a Senator in 1855. His literary works have
  lately been collected in twelve large volumes, and yet, in spite of
  his great talent as a satirist, critic, and lyricist, he has fallen
  into oblivion. The cause of this is that he persevered in the
  pseudo-classic, sentimental attitude of the school of Karamzín, while
  the Romantic spirit of Púshkin’s time touched him but lightly, and the
  realism of the period after the forties entrenched him only more in
  his old habits and confirmed him in his hostility to everything that
  departed from the code of Karamzín.

  Sir John Bowring gives in Part II. of the _Specimens of the Russian
  Poets_ translations of his _To My Three Absent Friends_, _To N. N._,
  and _Fragment_; John Pollen, in the _Rhymes from the Russian_, has
  translated his _Troika_. An epigram of his is given by V. E. Marsden
  in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 9.


                               THE SAMOVÁR

’T is pleasant, having strayed abroad, to find a familiar picture of
native customs, homelike bread-and-salt, a hospitable roof, a retreat, a
sacred retreat of your country’s Lares for the soul that is crusted by
the ice in the chill sea of the world, where to a native question there
is no native answer; where life is but an empty exchange of ceremonial
words; where you are only a stranger and only Monsieur N. ’T is pleasant
to warm yourself in a quiet haven and with confidence to look into
friends’ faces, eagerly to listen to the discourse in which there is
something familiar to the soul and a message from bygone days.

A wanderer’s days are like unto displaced pages: a teasing, malicious
spirit disrupts them,--there is no connection: each day you live anew,
yet life is only good through traditions of love, oneness of beliefs and
feelings, concord of impressions, and a gentle antiqueness of customary
relations. Our mind is cosmopolitan, but our heart home-bound: the mind
pleases itself in ever treading new paths, and has all its joys in the
future; but the heart grows young with old dreams, the heart lives on
old habits and blooms more gladly in the shadow of the past. Oh, be
blessed, roof of light and refuge, where, like a relative, the guest of
the moment has been received, where carelessly he could unfold his
heart, and for a time deceive his orphanhood! Where consciously and
sympathetically he partook of the dear family’s harmony and happiness,
and saw the young joys of the parents’ souls blooming in a cloudless
calm----.

But we are drawn even by another mysterious power to that familiar
retreat where, with usual kindness, the loving family waits for us at
the table. I love that hour,--almost the best of the day,--a poetic hour
’midst the prose of rude days, a sincere hour of life, a joyous interval
’twixt the labour of the day and the deep sleep of the night. All
accounts are cast,--in the balance we live: there are no cares of life,
nay, have not been; _to-day_ has vanished from your shoulders,
_to-morrow_ is not yet. Hour of friendly discourse at the tea table!
Honour and praise to the young hostess! Right Orthodoxly, not in German
fashion, not thin like water or childish drink, but redolent with
Russia, juicy and thick, the fragrant tea flows in an amber stream.

Very well! But I find one thing lacking: no, the stamp of Russian life
is not complete! Where is the native samovár, our family’s hearth, our
family altar, ark of domestic joys? In it boil, from it flow, the
traditions of all our days; in it live the recollections of Russian
antiquity; it alone has survived from the torso of former years,--the
inextinguishable grandfather has passed to the grandchildren. It is the
Russian rococo, formless, awkward, but inwardly good, though unsightly
from without; it preserves better the heat, and while it croons, the
discourse boils like its steaming liquid.

How many secret chapters of daily romances, life-stirring, heartfelt
romances that are not in books,--let one write as sweetly as one
may,--how many pure dreams of maidens’ souls and gentle quarrels of
love, and gentle peace-making, and quiet joys, and softly riotous joys
have stealthily taken fire in its flame and have invisibly been carried
in its cloud of steam! Wherever there are domestic Penates, from gilded
palaces to humble huts, wherever there is the brass samovár, an
inheritance of the orphan, the widow’s last wealth, and luxury of
poverty,--everywhere in holy and Orthodox Russia it is the chief
participator at family reunions. One cannot be born into the world, nor
enter into matrimony, nor will friends say “welcome” or “good-bye,” but
that, the end and beginning of all everyday affairs, the boiling
samovár, the domestic leader of the choir, raises its voice and calls
the family together.

The poet has said, and his verse we understand: “Our country’s smoke is
sweet and pleasant to us!” Was not our great poet--there can be no doubt
about it--then inspired by the samovár? Derzhávin’s shades, following
me, turn to you with the earnest request, to his honour and the honour
of the Orthodox country, to throw away the teapot and introduce the
samovár.


                        TO MY THREE ABSENT FRIENDS

               My brothers! whither scattered now?
                 What fate, what cruel fate could sever
                 Hands, souls, fast-bound, divided never?
                 But ye are fled, and fled for ever,
               And I am left alone with woe!

               The sigh I heave in silence here,
                 The careless zephyr bears away;
                 ’T is lost in twilight’s darkening ray,
                 ’T is veiled in night,--it fades in day,--
               It ne’er will reach your listening ear.

               Perchance e’en now, while round me roll
                 Dark storms and misty clouds, e’en now,
                 Pain’s icy sweat upon his brow,
                 One calls upon his friend, and oh!
               Death’s wintry curtain wraps his soul.

               Then sleep in peace, thou spirit blest!
                 My spirit seems to cling to thee;
                 From sorrow to felicity
                 Wafted, thy bark has passed the sea
               Of storms, in joy’s calm port to rest.

               How long shall absence’ misery last?
                 When, when shall dawn the hour of meeting?
                 Shall ne’er again the blessed greeting
                 Of social bliss return?--How fleeting
               Its rapture,--’t is for ever past!

               Cold, cold,--I feel my heart; delight
                 Can kindle ne’er its fire again;
                 My tears flow forth, they flow in vain;
                 My smiles,--no light those smiles retain;
               For what awaked it sinks in night.

               Time was, how blessèd to recall
                 That time, when our hands garlanded
                 The fairest wreaths of roses red,
                 And in youth’s spring the chorus led
               To heaven, the source, the end of all.

               Time was, but like a dream it fled!
                 The hymn,--’t is now a funeral dirge;
                 The garland,--’t is affliction’s scourge;
                 The dance,--its memories now emerge
               Like ghosts that wander midst the dead.

               And now the plaint ascends! Appear,
                 Appear, delightful hours, anew!
                 Spirit of youth, so fond, so true,
                 Awake! Suns, once so bright, so few,
               Shine,--let illusion’s mockery cheer!

               But see! the darkness creeps away,--
                 The clouds disperse, the storm is gone,--
                 Thy smile returns not, blessèd one!
                 The mountains see the morning dawn,
               To me, alas! there dawns no day.

      --From Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part
          II.


                     DEATH REAPS THE HARVEST OF LIFE

Death reaps the harvest of life, and every day and every hour asks for a
new prey of life, and sternly tears us asunder.

How many fair names he has already snatched away from the living, and
how many voiceless lyres hang on young cypresses!

How many companions are no more, how many younger ones have passed,
whose morning dawned when the sultry midday burnt us!

But we have remained, have survived that fateful carnage; but we are
impoverished after the death of our near ones, and no longer strive for
life as for a conflict.

Sadly finishing our days, we are waiting for the belated relief,--slowly
dying from day to day, until we shall be no more.

Sons of another generation, we are a last year’s flower in the new: the
impressions of the living are foreign to us, and they have no sympathy
for ours.

They care not for that which we love, and their passions do not agitate
us! They were not there where we have been, and not for us is where they
shall be!

Our world is an empty fane to them, our past is but a myth, and that
which for us are hallowed ashes, to them is but mute dust.

Yes! We are like ruins, and we stand on the crossroad of the living,
like mortuary monuments amidst the habitations of men!




  Kondráti Fédorovich Rylyéev. (1796-1826.)


  Rylyéev was at the early age of six inscribed by his mother in the
  Cadet Corps, in order to remove him from the influence of his brutal
  father. In 1814 he graduated as lieutenant, and took part in the
  expedition that entered Paris. Upon his return, he was stationed in
  the Governments of Minsk and Vorónezh; he later settled in St.
  Petersburg, where he distinguished himself for his official integrity
  as member of the Criminal Court and as Manager of the Russo-American
  Company. He began to write verses as a boy, and his ardent
  republicanism, coupled with a not less fervent patriotism, led him to
  an idealisation of ancient Russian heroes. He did this in the
  prevailing Romantic spirit, being urged on in his endeavours by his
  mentor and friend, Púshkin. Of his historical ballads the best are
  _Iván Susánin_ and _Voynaróvski_; they all created an outburst of
  patriotic enthusiasm upon their appearance. Of his other poems the
  most perfect are _The Citizen_ and _Civil Valour_. Rylyéev took an
  active part in the plot of the Decembrists, was at once arrested, and
  later publicly executed. His poems were prohibited in Russia until a
  comparatively recent time.

  An extract from _Voynaróvski_ was translated in the Foreign Quarterly
  Review, vol. ix., 1832; a large number of his poems, containing the
  whole of _Voynaróvski_, are given in _The Poems of K. F. Relaieff_,
  translated from the Russian by T. Hart-Davies, London (new and
  enlarged edition, 1887); C. T. Wilson has translated in _Russian
  Lyrics_ his _Iván Susánin_, _Svyatopólk_, and _Prayer Before Death_.
  In Free Russia, vol. xii., No. 2, _The Citizen_ is translated by
  Elizabeth Gibson.


                            FROM “VOYNARÓVSKI”

             But whose that wandering form that ’s seen
             Athwart the morning fog to creep
             From out yon hut, and on the steep
             Beneath which Lena’s waters sweep
             Pace with slow step and ’wildered mien?
             His arquebus slung at his back,
             His short caftan, and cap of black,
             Seem to denote him a Cossack
             From Dnieper’s shores. Stern is his face,
             And full of grief, for cankering thought
             Hath furrowed deep that brow, and wrought
             The stamp of age on manhood’s grace.
             See! to the west his hands extending,
             Wild lustre breaking from his eyes,
             Homeward his thoughts and wishes sending,
             He thus exclaims with tearless sigh:

               “Ye distant fields, that saw my birth,
                 My death you may not view!
               Tombs of my sires! The exile’s bones
                 Will never rest in you!
               In vain the flame of life yet burns,--
                 It never more may shine;
               In vain my soul the dastard spurns,--
                 The dastard’s lot is mine.”

                   ────────────────────────────────────

             Who is that exile? None may tell:
             Months, years have passed since first he came
             To this his far abode of shame,
             Here shunned, and shunning all, to dwell.
             Ne’er hath a smile been seen to play
             Across that face blanched by despair;
             And woe, not age, hath tinged with grey
             His unkempt beard and matted hair.
             Yet, not a felon deed hath sent
             That stranger hither; nor hath brent
             The glowing iron his scarred face,
             And charactered a slave’s disgrace;
             Though ne’er did branded felon show
             Such withered look, so wild a brow.
             Calmness is there, but ’t is the calm
             Of Baykal, ere the tempest rise
             To lash its waters to the skies,
             Spreading around dismay, alarm;
             And, as athwart the midnight gloom
             Flickers the lamp beside the tomb,
             So gleam with ghastly glare his eyes.
             Wandering alone o’er crag, through dell,
             He roams each day, and none may dare
             To ask his name, his grief, his care:
             His frown forbids, that frown ’s a spell.

                   ────────────────────────────────────

             “List, stranger, and with wonder learn
             How Fate, unpitying, wayward, stern,
             Delights us mortals to oppress.
             Beneath this garb uncouth, this dress
             So coarse, a slave it scarce befits,
             Thus abject here beside thee sits
             Mazeppa’s kinsman, friend, and heir.”

      --From Foreign Quarterly Review, 1832.


                               IVÁN SUSÁNIN

    “Where lead’st thou our footsteps? Here naught can be seen,”
    Thus shouted the foe to the brave Susanin,
    “We sink in the snow-heaps, we stick on the road,
    We ne’er shall arrive at thy sheltering abode;
    ’T is on purpose thou stray’st from the path, but in vain,
    From tricks like this Michael no safety will gain.

    “Though snow-storm may rage, though we wander afar,
    Yet death at the Poles’ hands shall come on thy Tsar;
    So lead on, or tremble! and shorten our pain,--
    All night with the tempest contending amain,
    Through snow-storms and cold thou hast made us to go,--
    But what dark spot is that in the valley below?”

    “’T is the hamlet,” the peasant replied, “see, there stand
    The corn-yards, the bridge, and the pales round the land!
    With me, on to the door, for the cottage hath been
    Long time ready warmed to receive guests within,
    So onward, and fear not!” “Well, well I must say
    Thou hast led us, my friend, a most cursed long way.

    “A night more infernal I never have seen,
    With snow stuck together my eyelids have been;
    My coat, pah! you wring it, there ’s not a thread dry.”
    Thus grumbled the Pole, and went in with the cry
    Of, “Wine, wine! we are cold, we are wet through and through,
    Or we ’ll take what our broadswords can wring out of you.”

    And now on the board the rough napkin was spread
    With beer and with wine-jugs, and each had his bread
    Before him, and soup made of cabbage was there
    And Russian wheat-gruel, a right welcome fare.
    Without the cold wind at the casemates was spurning,
    Within the dim spluttering torches were burning.

    Now midnight had passed, in tranquillity deep
    On the benches the Poles lay unheeding asleep,
    In the house filled with smoke no one stirring was seen,
    Save as sentinel standing the grey Susanin,
    In the corner he stood near the ikon, and there
    For the young Tsar’s protection he murmured a prayer.

    The silence the tramp of a horse’s hoofs stirred.
    Then stole Susanin to the doorway, and heard,
    “Is it thou, father dear? to find thee I am here.
    Where goest thou? Rough is the journey and drear,
    ’T is past midnight, no lull in the tempest hath come,
    Sure thou bringest distress to the hearts of thy home.”

    “It was God’s will thy steps to this village to guide,
    And now haste to the young Tsar,” the father replied,
    “And tell him, tell Michael, to flee and not wait,
    For the murderous Poles in their pride and their hate
    In secret to murder young Michael intend,
    And so doth a fresh woe o’er Moscow impend.

    “Tell him that I, loving my faith and my land,
    Will rescue the Tsar from the enemy’s hand;
    Tell him that his safety lies only in flight,
    That e’en now the assassins are with me this night.”
    “O my father, what say’st thou?--a moment refrain,”
    Said the youth, “if thou die, what to me will remain?

    “Who then my young sister, my mother will guard?”
    “The holy Creator will take them in ward,”
    Said brave Susanin, “and they never will fall,
    For assistance and shelter He giveth to all
    Who are orphans; so hasten, ’t is time now to go,
    ’T is for Russia, remember, I lay my life low.”

    With a sob the youth mounted, and swiftly did go,
    Like a whistling arrow just loosed from the bow.
    Through the clouds the moon shone, the wild snow-storm was o’er,
    All hushed were the winds and the tempest’s loud roar,
    In the east the dim dawn ’gan to glimmer afar,
    And the Poles woke from slumber, those foes of the Tsar.

    “Susanin,” they cried, “cease thy prayers to thy God,
    It is time for the start, we should be on the road!”
    So leaving the village in shouting array,
    Through the forest they followed a winding pathway.
    Susanin led them on; and now up rose the light,
    And the sun through the branches began to gleam bright.

    Soon his rays were obscured, then again brightly shone,
    Then with dim light he glimmered, and vanished anon.
    Scarce a rustle was heard from the beech or the oak,
    Scarce a sound ’neath the feet from the frost-bound snow broke,
    Scarce a crow rose in flight with a flutter and cry,
    And the woodpecker pecked at the willow-tree dry.

    In silence the Poles marched on singly in file,
    Still farther their grey-haired guide led them the while;
    Now high in the heavens the mid-day sun stood,
    But darker and drearer grew the thick wood,
    Till sudden before them the pathway was lost,
    And a hedge of fir-branches thick plaited and crossed

    With pine-boughs right down to the ground interlaced,
    On the road like some rough wall before them was placed;
    In vain did the scouts bend a listening ear,
    All was desert and dead, not a sound could they hear.
    “Whither now hast thou led us?” the wearied Poles cried.
    “To the place that was needed,” the peasant replied;

    “So slay me, a martyr, for here is my tomb,
    But know that I save the young Tsar from his doom;
    Ye thought ye had found a base traitor in me,
    But no Russ is a traitor, nor ever shall be!
    Here each loves his country from youth’s early day,
    And his fatherland vilely can never betray.”

    “Wretch!” yelled the fierce Poles with a wild fury torn,
    “Thou shalt die ’neath our sabres.” “Your anger I scorn,
    For the true Russian heart with content and with trust
    Ever joyfully dies in the cause which is just,
    Fear of death or of doom from my spirit is far,
    All untrembling I die for my country and Tsar.”

    “Die then!” to the hero the angry foe screamed,
    O’er his grey head the broadswords keen-whistling gleamed,
    “Perish, traitorous villain, thy life’s end is near!”
    Susanin wounded fell without shrinking or fear,
    By his purer blood’s red stream the pure snow was laved--
    ’T was that life-blood which Michael for Russia had saved.

      --From T. Hart-Davies’s _The Poems of K. F. Relaieff_.




  Aleksándr Sergyéevich Griboyédov. (1795-1829.)


  The famous author of the drama _Intelligence Comes to Grief_ was the
  son of wealthy and cultivated parents, who gave him a brilliant
  education. At the age of fifteen he spoke several languages fluently,
  and entered the university, from which he graduated two years later
  with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He immediately joined the army,
  but did not take part in the foreign campaigns as his regiment was
  kept back for home duty. During his leisure hours he translated and
  remodelled several French dramas, without displaying any especial
  talent for dramatic work. In 1818 he was appointed secretary of the
  Russian legation in Persia, and in recognition of his important
  services was highly decorated by both the Russian and the Persian
  governments. During his wearisome sojourn in Asia he laid the
  foundation for his drama _Intelligence Comes to Grief_, and he
  finished it in Moscow in 1823. He went with it to St. Petersburg to
  stage it, but the censor would not permit even its publication. In the
  meanwhile the drama became known throughout Russia in hundreds of
  manuscript copies, and it created a sensation unlike any previous work
  of literature. In portraying both the servility and corruption of the
  older temporising generation, and the carping criticism and would-be
  liberalism of the younger set, who in their endeavour to imitate the
  West sinned against the national character, Griboyédov incurred the
  animosities of all the camps; but by unanimous consent _Intelligence
  Comes to Grief_ is the greatest national drama of Russia. Since its
  first appearance on the stage in 1831, and its first publication in
  1833, it has had some fifty editions, and is still on the repertoire
  of Russian theatres. In 1828 Griboyédov was sent again to Persia, this
  time in the capacity of minister, but he was killed soon after his
  arrival in Teheran by an infuriated mob.

  _Intelligence Comes to Grief_ was translated into English under its
  Russian title, _Gore ot Ouma_, from the Russian of Griboiedoff, by N.
  Benardaky, London, Edinburgh, 1857. In The Anglo-Russian Literary
  Society, No. 15, is translated his _David_, by F. P. Marchant.


                    FROM “INTELLIGENCE COMES TO GRIEF”


                   ACT II, SCENE 1. FÁMUSOV AND SERVANT

_Fámusov._ Petrúshka, your caftan is eternally patched up or torn at the
elbow! Fetch down the almanac. Look there; don’t read like a sexton, but
with feeling, with understanding, with rests. Hold on! Write down on the
memorandum, against next week: “I ’m invited to Praskóvya Fédorovna on
Tuesday for trout.” How wonderful this world is made! Your brain is in a
whirl when you philosophise about it! Now you take care of yourself, and
now it is a dinner; you eat three hours, and it will not be digested in
three days. Oh, make a note for the same day--no, no! “For Thursday I am
called to a funeral.” O human race! It has slipped my mind that we all
shall have to get into that box where one can neither stand up nor sit.
Here is an example of a praiseworthy life: the defunct was an honourable
chamberlain, he held a key, and has managed to obtain a key for his son;
he was rich, and married to a rich woman; he married off his children
and grandchildren; he has passed away, and all mention him with regret:
“Maksím Petróvich, peace to his ashes!” Write down, on Thursday, while
you are about it, or may be, on Friday, or Saturday: “I am to be
godfather at the doctor’s widow.” The child is not yet born, but, if my
calculation is right, will be.


                  SCENE 2. FÁMUSOV, SERVANT, AND CHÁTSKI

_Fámusov._ Ah, Aleksándr Andréich, come nearer, take a seat!

_Chátski._ You are busy?

_Fámusov_ (_to the servant_). Go! (_Servant exit._) Yes, I have been
entering various memoranda on business matters, not to forget them by
any chance.

_Chátski._ You look disconcerted. Tell me, why? Is my arrival untimely?
Has, perchance, some sorrow come to Sophia Pávlovna? There is disquiet
in your face and movements.

_Fámusov._ What a riddle you have propounded, my friend! Not joyful! You
would not expect me, at my age, to dance a jig.

_Chátski._ Nobody asks you to. I just asked two words about Sophia
Pávlovna, fearing that she might be ill.

_Fámusov._ Pshaw, the Lord spare us! Five thousand times he repeats one
and the same thing: now it is, there is no one fairer in the world than
Sophia Pávlovna, now, Sophia Pávlovna is ill. Tell me, have you taken a
liking to her? You have raced through the whole world,--don’t you want
to get married?

_Chátski._ What is that to you?

_Fámusov._ It would not be bad to ask of me: I am, so to say, a near
relative of hers; at least, they have not in vain been calling me her
father.

_Chátski._ Suppose I should sue for her hand, what would you say?

_Fámusov._ I should say: First, do not make a fool of yourself, do not,
my friend, neglect your estate; but above all, take a government
position.

_Chátski._ I should gladly serve, but I hate to be subservient.

_Fámusov._ That ’s it! You are all a haughty lot! Ask how your fathers
have done! Learn from your elders. Let us take, for example, my deceased
uncle, Maksím Petróvich: he used to dine not upon silver, but upon gold;
a hundred servants were at his beck; he was all covered with
decorations; he travelled all the time in a procession, was all the time
at Court, and at what Court! It was not then as now: he served under
Empress Catherine! In those days there was some weight in dignity: bow
all you please to them, they would not nod their heads. A dignitary was
not an ordinary mortal: he drank and ate quite differently. And my
uncle,--what is your prince, your count? He had such a serious look,
such haughty mien,--but when it was necessary to be subservient, he knew
how to limber up his joints. Once he by chance made a misstep during
audience at Court: he fell, and almost hurt his occiput. The old man
groaned,--his hoarse voice provoked her Majesty’s smile, she deigned to
laugh. What did he do? He rose, arranged his clothes, wanted to make a
bow, and fell down again, but this time on purpose. The laughter was
louder than before,--he repeated his feat. Well, how is that according
to your ideas? According to ours, he was shrewd: he fell down in pain,
he rose quite well. Who was oftenest invited to whist? Who heard a kind
word at Court? Maksím Petróvich! Who was honoured above all others at
Court? Maksím Petróvich! That ’s no trifle! Who conferred ranks, and
gave pensions? Maksím Petróvich! Ah, you of to-day are what?

_Chátski._ Truly, the world has grown more stupid--you may say so with a
sigh! When we compare the present age with the one that ’s past, though
the tradition is living, it is hard to believe: he was most famous whose
neck was oftenest bent, and the brow took by assault in peace, not war;
they mercilessly knocked their brows against the floor. He who needed
it, took delight in grovelling in the dust; those who stood higher wove
flattery like lace,--it was a sincere age of submission and terror!
Under the mask of zeal for the Tsar--(I am not talking of your uncle: we
will not disturb his ashes). But now, who would, even in the most ardent
servility, undertake to amuse the people, and boldly to sacrifice his
occiput? Though then, many an equal of his, or some old man who was
falling to pieces in his ancient hide, seeing his capers, probably
remarked: “Oh, if I could do the same!” There are even now some servile
souls, but nowadays ridicule terrifies them and shame holds them in
check. Kings, with good reason, are slow to favour them.

_Fámusov._ My God, he is a carbonaro!

_Chátski._ No, this is a different world!

_Fámusov._ Dangerous man!

_Chátski._ Everybody breathes more freely, and nobody hastens to
inscribe himself in the army of fools.

_Fámusov._ How he talks! And he talks as he writes.

_Chátski._ To yawn at the ceiling in the house of your patrons, to make
your appearance and sit in silence, to courtesy, dine, fetch a chair,
lift up a handkerchief--

_Fámusov._ He wants to preach liberty!

_Chátski._ Who travels, who lives in the village--

_Fámusov._ He does not acknowledge the authorities!

_Chátski._ Who serves his office and not men--

_Fámusov._ I should most severely forbid such gentlemen to get within a
gunshot of the capitals!

_Chátski._ I will not give you any rest!

_Fámusov._ My patience is all exhausted, I have had enough!

_Chátski._ I have unmercifully scolded your age; I leave it to you to
reject part of it in favour of our times: I shall not contradict.

_Fámusov._ I do not wish to know you! I despise debauch!

_Chátski._ I have had my say.

_Fámusov._ Very well, I close my ears!

_Chátski._ What for? I shall not insult them.

_Fámusov_ (_rapidly_). Such are the people that race the world and waste
their time. When they return, what order can you expect of them?

_Chátski._ I am done.

_Fámusov._ Please, spare me!

_Chátski._ It is not my desire to continue the dispute.

_Fámusov._ At least leave my soul to repentance.


                      SCENE 3. THE SAME AND SERVANT

_Servant._ Colonel Skalozúb!

_Fámusov_ (_not seeing or hearing him_). You ’ll be court-martialled
yet! They ’ll give you to drink.

_Chátski._ You have a guest.

_Fámusov._ I do not hear! You ’ll be court-martialled!

_Chátski._ Your servant is reporting to you.

_Fámusov._ I do not hear! You ’ll be court-martialled, court-martialled,
I say!

_Chátski._ Just turn around, you are addressed.

_Fámusov_ (_turning around_). Oh, rebellion! I am expecting nothing but
Sodom!

_Servant._ Colonel Skalozúb! Shall he be received?

_Fámusov_ (_rising_). Asses! Shall I repeat it a hundred times? Receive
him, call him, ask him in, tell him I am at home, that I am glad.
Begone, be in a hurry! (_Exit Servant._) Please, sir, be careful in his
presence; he is a distinguished gentleman, of solid habits, and he has
no end of decorations; his rank is enviable, considering his age; ’t is
but a question of a short time when he will be general!


                   SCENE 5. CHÁTSKI, FÁMUSOV, SKALOZÚB

_Fámusov._ Sergyéy Sergyéich, come here, near us! ’T is warmer here,
come here! I ’ll open the register at once.

_Skalozúb_ (_in a heavy bass_). Why should you trouble yourself? As an
honourable officer I can’t permit that.

_Fámusov._ Why should I not take a step for a friend? Dear Sergyéy
Sergyéich, put down your hat, take off your sword. Here is a sofa: make
yourself comfortable.

_Skalozúb._ I do not care where, so I am seated.

(_All three sit down, Chátski at some distance._)

_Fámusov._ O friend, not to forget: let us figure out our
relationship--there is no inheritance to be divided here. Do you know--I
used to know, thanks to what your cousin told me--how Nastásya
Nikoláevna is related to you?

_Skalozúb._ Beg your pardon, I do not know: we did not serve together.

_Fámusov._ Sergyéy Sergyéich, do you say that? I am ready to get down on
my knees before a relative of mine, wherever I may find him, though he
be at the bottom of the sea. I seldom have subordinates who are not my
relatives: they are nearly all my sister’s children, or some near
relative’s; Molchálin only is not of my family, and for the reason that
he knows about affairs. How can one help thinking of his family, when
there is a chance for promotion or for decoration? Yet, your cousin told
me that through you he has had many advantages in his service.

_Skalozúb._ Cousin and I distinguished ourselves in 1813 in the
thirtieth of the Chasseurs, and later in the forty-fifth.

_Fámusov._ How fortunate is he who has such a son! He has, I believe, a
decoration in the buttonhole?

_Skalozúb._ For August third. We stuck to a trench. He received his in
the buttonhole, I--around my neck.

_Fámusov._ A lovely man! A fine fellow to look at! A splendid man is
your cousin!

_Skalozúb._ He ’s chock-full of new-fangled rules. He was to get a
higher rank, when he left the service, and began to read books in his
village.

_Fámusov._ Strange youth! To read, and then--look out! You have acted as
is proper: you have long been colonel, though you serve but shortly.

_Skalozúb._ I am sufficiently fortunate in my colleagues. Vacancies have
been open just at the right time: some older ones have been retired, and
others have been killed off.

_Fámusov._ Yes, if God wants to show one His favour, He advances him!

_Skalozúb._ Some are luckier than I. Not to go farther, I ’ll mention
our brigadier-general in the fifteenth division.

_Fámusov._ But, I pray, you are lacking nothing.

_Skalozúb._ I can’t complain,--I have not been overlooked; yet, I have
been two years with the same regiment.

_Fámusov._ Oh, you are after the rank of general! Still, in many other
things you have left others far behind.

_Skalozúb._ No, there are older ones than I in the army: I have been
serving since eighty-nine. Yes, there are many channels through which
one may get promotion; I judge of them like a real philosopher: all I
care for is the rank of general.

_Fámusov._ You judge excellently. God grant you health and the rank of
general--and, why delay it longer?--it would be time to begin talking of
a Mrs. Skalozúb.

_Skalozúb._ Get married? I am not disinclined.

_Fámusov._ Well! One has a sister, another a niece, a daughter. In
Moscow there is no lack of prospective brides: they breed each year! My
friend, confess, it would be hard to find another capital like Moscow.

_Skalozúb._ Distances of enormous proportion!

_Fámusov._ There are good taste, my friend, and excellent manners, and
for everything there are laws. There, for example, it is an old custom
with us that the son is honoured according to his father: let him be a
worthless chap, but let him have two thousand peasants to his name, and
he will be an eligible bridegroom; another may be much more agile, full
of all kinds of pride, let him pass for a clever fellow,--yet he will
not be a member of our families, nor need you wonder at this, for it is
only here that we still respect noble birth. Nor is this all! Take our
hospitable bread and salt: anyone who may wish to call on us is welcome!
The door is open for invited and uninvited guests, especially if they be
foreigners. It makes no difference to us whether they be honourable or
dishonest men: dinner is prepared for all alike. On all the Muscovites,
if you please, there is a special stamp. Just look at our youths, our
sons, and grandchildren: we lecture them, but look close at them, and
you will find that at fifteen years they are ready to teach their
teachers! And our old men? When a notion strikes them, and they discuss
affairs,--each word they say is a sentence passed. They are important
men, and care not a fig for anyone. Should someone hear their
discussions about the Government, there would be trouble! Not that they
introduce innovations--never! The Lord preserve us, no! They simply find
fault with this and that, and oftenest with nothing at all: they
quarrel, make a noise, and go each one to his home. They are true
ex-chancellors as regards their brains! I will tell you this much:
evidently time has not been propitious, but no affair will be decided
without them.

And the ladies? Let anyone try and get the better of them! They are
judges in all things and everywhere,--there are no judges over them.
When they rise in common riot at the cards,--then God grant us patience!
Remember, I have myself been married! Order them to command an army!
Send them to take their seats in the Senate! Irína Vlásevna! Lukórya
Aleksyéevna! Tatyána Yúrevna! Pulkhériya Andréevna! And he who has seen
their daughters will only hang his head! His Majesty the Prussian King
was here: he admired beyond measure the Moscow maidens,--their
mannerliness, not their faces! And forsooth! Can one be brought up
better! They know how to primp themselves in taffeta, velvet, and
dimity; they never say a word simply, but always with a grimace. They
sing French romances, and strike the upper notes. They cling to the
military,--because they are patriots. I must say emphatically: you will
scarcely find another such a capital as Moscow!

_Skalozúb._ In my opinion, the conflagration has done much for its
embellishment.

_Fámusov._ You have no cause for complaint: since then our roads, our
sidewalks, houses, and all creak in a new fashion.

_Chátski._ The houses are new, but the prejudices old. Rejoice: neither
years, nor fashion, nor conflagrations will annihilate them.

_Fámusov_ (_to Chátski_). Sir, tie a knot for memory’s sake! I asked you
to keep quiet,--’t is but a small service. (_To Skalozúb._) Permit me,
sir, to acquaint you with Chátski, a friend of mine, the son of the late
Andréy Ilích! He does not serve, that is, he sees no advantage in it; he
would make a good official, if he only wished so. ’T is a pity, a great
pity: he is a young man with a head, and he writes and translates
beautifully. One can’t help regretting----

_Chátski._ Can you not regret someone else? Even your praises anger me!

_Fámusov._ Not I alone,--everybody judges you thus.

_Chátski._ Who are the judges? They being old, their hostility against a
free life cannot be assuaged: they draw their judgments from forgotten
gazettes of the days of Ochákov and the conquest of the Crimea. Ever
ready to chide, they eternally sing one and the same song, and do not
notice that the older they grow, the worse they become. Where, show us,
are the fathers of the fatherland whom we are to assume as our models?
Perchance they are those who by robbery have grown rich, who find
protection against the courts in their friends and families, and who
erect magnificent palaces, where they indulge in banquets and
lavishness, and where the foreign clients will not efface the meanest
features of their former lives? Pray, whose mouth has in Moscow not been
closed by dinners, suppers, and dances? Is it, perhaps, he to whom you
took me still in my swaddling clothes, for some incomprehensible
purpose, to make obeisances,--that Nestor of noble scoundrels, who was
surrounded by a crowd of servants? They bestirred themselves for him,
and in houses of wine and brawls more than once had saved his honour and
his life,--and he suddenly exchanged three hounds for them. Or that
other man who, to please his fancy, brought together in many waggons to
an enforced ballet the children who had been torn away from their
parents? Himself merged in contemplation of Zephyrs and Cupids, he
caused all Moscow to admire their beauty; but he did not with all that
appease his creditors: the Cupids and Zephyrs were all sold one by one.

These are the men who have lived to have grey hair! It is these that you
wish us to respect in the wilderness! These are our austere arbiters and
judges! Let now one among us young men be found who is an enemy of
servility, who seeks neither a place, nor a promotion, who, thirsting
for knowledge, bends his mind to the sciences, or into whose soul God
Himself has implanted a fire for the high and beautiful creative
arts,--they at once cry: murder! fire! and you at once pass for a
dangerous dreamer. The uniform, nothing but the uniform! In their former
existence their beautiful gold-laced uniforms had cloaked their
pusillanimity and poverty of intelligence,--so they wish us Godspeed
upon their own path. And their wives and daughters have the same passion
for the uniforms. Is it long since I, sharing that weakness for it, have
renounced it? Now I shall never again be prone to such childishness. But
who would then not have been carried away together with all? When
someone of the Guards or from the Court came here for a time, the women
cried “Hurrah!” and threw their bonnets in the air.

_Fámusov_ (_aside_). He will get me into trouble yet! (_Aloud._) Sergyéy
Sergyéich, I shall wait for you in the study. (_Exit._)




  Aleksándr Aleksándrovich Bestúzhev (pseud. Marlínski). (1797-1837.)


  Bestúzhev was one of three brothers who took part in the Decembrist
  uprising. He had received a brilliant education at home, which, thanks
  to the industry of his highly cultivated father, was a museum in
  miniature. He turned his attention to literature in 1819, through his
  friend Rylyéev joined the December conspiracy, and was banished for
  only a few years to Siberia, because he had voluntarily surrendered
  himself. He was possessed of an unusually ardent nature, which led him
  to engage in most extravagant love affairs, with always a duel in
  prospect, and his many novels, with their transcendental Romanticism
  and perfervid diction, are only the expression of his inner
  experiences. He died in the Caucasus, in an engagement with the
  mountaineers, but his body was not recovered. He was, in his day, the
  most popular novelist, whom even Púshkin greatly admired, and several
  of his works have been translated into many languages, among them also
  into Georgian. His _Ammalát Bek_ was translated into English by Thomas
  B. Shaw, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, vol. liii., 1843; also
  _The Tartar Chief; or, A Russian Colonel’s Head for Dowry_, from the
  Russian of Marlinsky, by G. C. Hebbe, LLD., New York, 1846.


                            FROM “AMMALÁT BEK”

For some time past, the mountaineers had fallen in considerable numbers
only on Christian villages, for in the stanítsas[5] the resistance had
cost them very dear. For the plundering of houses they approached boldly
yet cunningly the Russian frontier, and on such occasions they
frequently escaped a battle. The bravest Uzdéns desire to meet with
these affairs that they may acquire fame, which they value even more
than plunder.

In the autumn of the year 1810, the Kabardinians and Chechenians,
encouraged by the absence of the commander-in-chief, assembled to the
number of fifteen hundred men to make an attack upon one of the villages
beyond the Térek, to seize it, carry off prisoners, and take the droves
of horses. The leader of the Kabardinians was the Prince Dzhembulát.
Ammalát Bek, who had arrived with a letter from Sultan Akhmét Khan, was
received with delight. They did not, indeed, assign him the command of
any division; but this arose from the circumstance that with them there
is no order of battle or gradation of command; an active horse and
individual courage secures the most distinguished place in action. At
first they deliberate how best to begin the attack,--how to repel the
enemy; but afterwards they pay no attention to plan or order, and chance
decides the affair.

Having sent messengers to summon the neighbouring Uzdéns, Dzhembulát
fixed on a place of general assembling; and immediately, on a signal
agreed on, from every height spread the cry: “Garáy, garáy!” (alarm),
and in one hour the Chechenians and Kabardinians were assembling from
all sides. To avoid treason, no one but the leader knew where the
night-camp was to be, from which they were to cross the river. They were
divided into small bands, and were to go by almost invisible paths to
the peaceful village, where they were to conceal themselves till night.
By twilight, all the divisions were already mustered.

As they arrived, they were received by their countrymen with frank
embraces; but Dzhembulát, not trusting to this, guarded the village with
sentinels, and proclaimed to the inhabitants that whoever attempted to
desert to the Russians should be cut to pieces. The greater part of the
Uzdéns took up their quarters in the sáklas of their kunáks or
relations; but Dzhembulát and Ammalát, with the best of the cavaliers,
slept in the open air around a fire, when they had refreshed their jaded
horses. Dzhembulát, wrapped in his búrka, was considering, with folded
arms, the plan of the expedition; but the thoughts of Ammalát were far
from the battlefield: they were flying, eagle-winged, to the mountains
of Avár, and bitterly, bitterly, did he feel his separation. The sound
of an instrument, the mountain balaláyka, accompanying a slow air,
recalled him from his reverie; and a Kabardinian sang an ancient song.

                “On Kazbék the clouds are meeting,
                  Like the mountain eagle-flock;
                  Up to them, along the rock,
                Dash the wild Uzdéns retreating;
                Onward faster, faster fleeting,
                  Routed by the Russian brood,
                  Foameth all their track with blood.

                “Fast behind the regiments yelling,
                  Lance and bayonet raging hot,
                  And the seed of death their shot.
                On the mail the sabre knelling,
                Gallop, steed! for far thy dwelling,--
                  See! they fall,--but distant still
                  Is the forest of the hill!

                “Russian shot our hearts is rending,
                  Falls the Moollah on his knee,
                  To the Lord of Light bows he,
                To the Prophet he is bending;
                Like a shaft his prayer ascending,
                  Upward flies to Allah’s throne--
                  Il-Allah! Oh, save thine own!

                “Ah, despair!--What crash like thunder!
                  Lo! a sign from heaven above!
                  Lo! the forest seems to move,
                Crashes, murmurs, bursts asunder!
                Lower, nearer, wonder! wonder!
                  Safe once more the Moslem bold
                  In their forest mountain-hold!”

“So it was in old times,” said Dzhembulát, with a smile, “when our men
trusted more to prayer, and God oftener listened to them; but now, my
friends, there is a better hope,--your valour! _Our_ omens are in the
scabbards of our sabres, and we must show that we are not ashamed of
them. Hark ye, Ammalát,” he continued, twisting his moustache, “I will
not conceal from you that the affair may be warm. I have just heard that
Colonel K---- has collected his division; but where he is, or how many
troops he has, nobody knows.”

“The more Russians there are the better,” replied Ammalát, quietly; “the
fewer mistakes will be made.”

“And the heavier will be the plunder.”

“I care not for that. I seek revenge and glory.”

“Glory is a good bird, when she lays a golden egg; but he that returns
with his toróks (straps behind the saddle) empty, is ashamed to appear
before his wife. Winter is near, and we must provide our households at
the expense of the Russians, that we may feast our friends and allies.
Choose your station, Ammalát Bek. Do you prefer to advance in front to
carry off the flocks, or will you remain with me in the rear? I and the
Abréks will march at a foot’s pace to restrain the pursuers.”

“That is what I also intend. I will be where the greatest peril is. But
what are the Abréks, Dzhembulát?”

“It is not easy to explain. You sometimes see several of our boldest
cavaliers take an oath, binding them for two or three years, or as long
as they like, never to mingle in games or gaieties, never to spare their
lives in battle, to give no quarter, never to pardon the least offence
in a brother or a friend, to seize the goods of others without fear or
scruple,--in a word, to be the foes of all mankind, strangers in their
family, men whom any person may slay if he can; in the village they are
dangerous neighbours, and in meeting them you must keep your hand on the
trigger; but in war one can trust them.”

“For what motive, or reason, can the Uzdéns make such an engagement?”

“Some simply to show their courage, others from poverty, a third class
from some misfortune. See, for instance, yonder tall Kabardinian; he has
sworn to be an Abrék for five years, since his mistress died of the
smallpox. Since that year it would be as well to make acquaintance with
a tiger as with him. He has already been wounded three times for blood
vengeance; but he cares not for that.”

“Strange custom! How will he return from the life of an Abrék to a
peaceable existence?”

“What is there strange in this? The past glides from him as water from
the wild-duck. His neighbours will be delighted when he has finished his
term of brigandage. And he, after putting off Abrékism, as a serpent
sheds his skin, will become gentle as a lamb. Among us, none but the
avenger of blood remembers yesterday. But the night is darkening. The
mists are spreading over Térek. It is time for the work.”

Dzhembulát whistled, and his whistle was repeated to all the outposts of
the camp. In a moment the whole band was assembled. Several Uzdéns
joined from the neighbouring friendly villages. After a short discussion
as to the passage of the river, the band moved in silence to the bank.
Ammalát Bek could not but admire the stillness, not only of the riders,
but of their horses; not one of them neighed or snorted, and they seemed
to place their feet on the ground with caution.

They marched like a voiceless cloud, and soon they reached the bank of
Térek, which, making a winding at this spot, formed a promontory, and
from it to the opposite shore extended a pebbly shoal. The water over
this bank was shallow and fordable; nevertheless, a part of the
detachment left the shore higher up, in order to swim past the Cossacks,
and, diverting their attention from the principal passage, to cover the
fording party. Those who had confidence in their horses leaped
unhesitatingly from the bank, while others tied to each fore-foot of
their steeds a pair of small skins, inflated with air like bladders: the
current bore them on, and each landed wherever he found a convenient
spot.

                   ────────────────────────────────────

Daybreak appeared; the fog began to separate, and discovered a picture
at once magnificent and terrible. The principal band of foragers dragged
the prisoners after it,--some were at the stirrup, others behind the
saddle, with their arms tied at their backs. Tears, and groans, and
cries of despair were stifled by the threats or frantic cries of joy of
the victors. Loaded with plunder, impeded by the flocks and horned
cattle, they advanced slowly towards the Térek. The princes and best
cavaliers, in mail-coats and casques glittering like water, galloped
round the dense mass, as lightning flashes round a living cloud.

In the distance were galloping up from every point the Cossacks of the
Line; they ambushed behind the shrubs and straggling oak-trees, and soon
began an irregular fire with the brigands who were sent against them. In
the meantime, the foremost had driven across the river a portion of the
flocks, when a cloud of dust, and the tramp of the cavalry, announced
the approaching storm.

About six hundred mountaineers, commanded by Dzhembulát and Ammalát,
turned their horses to repulse the attack, and give time to the rest to
escape by the river. Without order, but with wild cries and shouts, they
dashed forward to meet the Cossacks; but not a single gun was taken from
its belt, not a single sabre glimmered in the air: a Circassian waits
till the last moment before he seizes his weapons. And thus, having
galloped to the distance of twenty paces, they levelled their guns,
fired at full speed, threw their fire-arms over their backs, and drew
their sabres; but the Cossacks of the Line, having replied with a
volley, began to fly, and the mountaineers, heated by the chase, fell
into a stratagem which they often employ themselves.

The Cossacks had led them up to the Chasseurs of the brave forty-third
regiment, who were concealed at the edge of the forest. Suddenly, as if
the little squares had started out of the earth, the bayonets were
levelled, and the fire poured on them, taking them in flank. It was in
vain that the mountaineers, dismounting from their horses, essayed to
occupy the underwood and attack the Russians from the rear; the
artillery came up and decided the affair. The experienced Colonel
Kortsarév, the dread of the Chechenians, the man whose bravery they
feared and whose honesty and disinterestedness they respected, directed
the movements of the troops, and success could not be doubtful. The
cannon dispersed the crowds of brigands, and their grape flew after the
flying.

The defeat was terrible; two guns, dashing at a gallop to the
promontory, not far from which the Circassians were throwing themselves
into the river, enfiladed the stream; with a rushing sound, the shot
flew over the foaming waves, and at each fire some of the horses might
be seen to turn over with their feet in the air, drowning their riders.
It was sad to see how the wounded clutched at the tails and bridles of
the horses of their companions, sinking them without saving
themselves,--how the exhausted struggled against the scarped bank,
endeavouring to clamber up, fell back, and were borne away and engulfed
by the furious current. The corpses of the slain were whirled away,
mingled with the dying, and streaks of blood curled and writhed like
serpents on the foam. The smoke floated along the Térek, far in the
distance, and the snowy peaks of the Caucasus, crowned with mist,
bounded the field of battle.

Dzhembulát and Ammalát Bek fought desperately,--twenty times did they
rush to the attack, twenty times were they repulsed; wearied, but not
conquered, with a hundred brigands they swam the river, dismounted,
attached their horses to each other by the bridle, and began a warm fire
from the other side of the river, to cover their surviving comrades.
Intent upon this, they remarked, too late, that the Cossacks were
passing the river above them; with a shout, the Russians leaped upon the
bank, and surrounded them in a moment. Their fate was inevitable.

“Well, Dzhembulát,” said the Bek to the Kabardinian, “our lot is
finished. Do you what you will: but for me, I will not render myself a
prisoner alive. ’T is better to die by a ball than by a shameful cord!”

“Do you think,” answered Dzhembulát, “that my arms were made for a
chain? Allah keep me from such a blot! The Russians may take my body,
but not my soul. Never, never! Brethren, comrades!” he cried to the
others, “fortune has betrayed us, but the steel will not. Let us sell
our lives dearly to the Giaour. The victor is not he who keeps the
field, but he who has the glory; and the glory is his who prefers death
to slavery!”

“Let us die, let us die, but let us die gloriously!” cried all, piercing
with their daggers the sides of their horses, that the enemy might not
take them, and then piling up the dead bodies of their steeds, they lay
down behind the heap, preparing to meet the attack with lead and steel.

Well aware of the obstinate resistance they were about to encounter, the
Cossacks stopped, and made ready for the charge. The shot from the
opposite bank sometimes fell in the midst of the brave mountaineers,
sometimes a grenade exploded, covering them with earth and fragments;
but they showed no confusion, they started not, nor blenched; and, after
the custom of their country, began to sing, with a melancholy yet
threatening voice, the death-song, replying alternately stanza for
stanza.

                                DEATH-SONG

                                 _Chorus_

                       “Fame to us, death to you,
                       Alla-ha, Alla-hu!”

                               _Semichorus_

        “Weep, O ye maidens, on mountain and valley,
          Lift the dirge for the souls of the brave!
        We have fired our last bullet, have made our last rally,
          And Caucasus gives us a grave.
        Here the soft pipe no more shall invite us to slumber,--
          The thunder our lullaby sings;
        Our eyes not the maiden’s dark tresses shall cumber,
          Them the raven shall shade with his wings!
        Forget, O my children, your father’s stern duty,--
        No more shall he bring ye the Muscovite booty!”

                           _Second Semichorus_

        “Weep not, ye maidens! Your sisters in splendour,
          The Houris, they bend from the sky,
        They fix on the brave their sun-glance deep and tender,
          And to Paradise bear him on high!
        In your feast-cup, my brethren, forget not our story:
        The death of the Free is the noblest of glory!”

                            _First Semichorus_

        “Roar, winter torrent, and sullenly dash!
        But where is the brave one,--the swift lightning-flash?
          Soft star of my soul, my mother,
          Sleep, the fire let ashes smother;
        Gaze no more, thine eyes are weary,
          Sit not by the threshold stone;
        Gaze not through the night-fog dreary,
          Eat thine evening meal alone,
        Seek him not, O mother, weeping,
          By the cliff and by the ford!
        On a bed of dust he ’s sleeping,--
          Broken is both heart and sword!”

                           _Second Semichorus_

        “Mother, weep not! with thy love burning:
          This heart of mine beats full and free,
        And to lion-blood is turning
          That soft milk I drew from thee;
        And our liberty from danger
          Thy brave son has guarded well;
        Battling with the Christian stranger,
          Called by Azrael, he fell;
        From my blood fresh odours breathing,
          Fadeless flowers shall drink the dew;
        To my children fame bequeathing,
          Brethren, and revenge to you!”

                                 _Chorus_

        “Pray, my brethren, ere we part:
          Clutch the steel with hate and wrath!
        Break it in the Russian’s heart,--
          O’er corses lies the brave man’s path!
            Fame to us, death to you,
            Alla-ha, Alla-hu!”

Struck by a certain involuntary awe, the Chasseurs and Cossacks listened
in silence to the stern sounds of this song; but at last a loud _hurrah_
resounded from both sides. The Circassians, with a shout, fired their
guns for the last time, and breaking them against the stones, they threw
themselves dagger in hand, upon the Russians. The Abréks in order that
their line might not be broken, bound themselves to each other with
their girdles, and hurled themselves into the mêlée. Quarter was neither
asked nor given: all fell before the bayonets of the Russians.

“Forward! Follow me, Ammalát Bek,” cried Dzhembulát, with fury, rushing
into the combat which was to be his last: “Forward! For us death is
liberty!”

But Ammalát heard not his call: a blow from a musket on the back of the
head stretched him on the earth, already sown with corpses and covered
with blood.

      --Transl. by Thomas B. Shaw, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine,
          vol. liii. (1843).

  [5] Cossack villages.




  Iván Ivánovich Lazhéchnikov. (1794-1869.)


  Lazhéchnikov was the most famous of Russian novelists before Gógol.
  His father was a rich grain and salt merchant in the city of Kolómna,
  and he spared no money for the education of his son. At sixteen years
  Lazhéchnikov wrote his _Thoughts in Imitation of La Bruyère_, which
  was published in The Messenger of Europe. His father having lost all
  his property, he accepted a government position, but in 1812 joined
  the army and with it went through the whole French campaign. In 1819
  appeared his _Campaign Memoirs of a Russian Officer_, which are full
  of youthful ardour, patriotism, and a consciousness of the European
  importance of Russia. Having attracted the attention of the Court, he
  received various appointments, but again left the service in 1826. He
  then wrote his three great novels on which his reputation rests,
  namely, _The Last Noviks_, _The Ice House_, and _The Heretic_. His
  later stories did not sustain his fame.

  In English has appeared _The Heretic_, translated from the Russian of
  Lajetchnikoff, by Thomas B. Shaw (in three volumes), Edinburgh and
  London, 1844, and again, under the title _The Heretic and the Maid of
  Moscow, a Romance of Russia_, by Thos. B. Shaw, London, 1849.


                               THE HERETIC

                                 PROLOGUE

It was the 27th of October, 1505. As if for the coronation of a Tsar,
Moscow was decorated and adorned. The Cathedral of the Assumption, the
Church of the Annunciation, the Stone Palace, the Tower Palace, the
Kreml with its towers, a multitude of stone churches and houses
scattered over the city--all this, just come out of the hands of skilful
architects, bore the stamp of freshness and newness, as if it had risen
up in one day by an almighty will. In reality, all this had been created
in a short time by the genius of Ioánn III. A person who, thirty years
back, had left Moscow, poor, insignificant, resembling a large village,
surrounded by hamlets, would not have recognised it had he seen it now;
so soon had all Russia arisen at the single manly call of this great
genius.

Taking the colossal infant under his princely guardianship, he had torn
off its swaddling bands, and not by years, but by hours, he reared it to
a giant vigour. Nóvgorod and Pskov, which had never vailed their bonnet
to mortal man, had yet doffed it to him, and had even brought him the
tribute of liberty and gold: the yoke of the Khans had been cast off,
and hurled beyond the frontiers of the Russian land; Kazán, though she
had taken cover from the mighty hunter, yet had taken cover like the
she-wolf that has no earth,--her territories had melted away, and were
united into one mighty appanage; and the ruler who created all this was
the first Russian sovereign who realised the idea of a Tsar.

Nevertheless, on the 27th of October, 1505, the Moscow which he had thus
adorned was preparing for a spectacle not joyful but melancholy. Ioánn,
enfeebled in mind and body, lay upon his death-bed. He had forgotten his
great exploits; he remembered only his sins, and repented of them.

It was towards the evening-tide. In the churches gleamed the lonely
lamps; through the mica and bladder panes of the windows glimmered the
fires, kindled in their houses by faith or by necessity. But nowhere was
it popular love which had lighted them; for the people did not
comprehend the services of the great man, and loved him not for his
innovations. At one corner of the prison, the Black House, but later
than the other houses, was illumined by a weak and flickering light. On
the bladder which was the substitute for glass in the window, the iron
grating, with its spikes, threw a net-like shadow, which was only
relieved by a speck, at one moment glittering like a spark, at another
emitting a whirling stream of vapour. It was evident that the prisoner
had made this opening in the bladder, in order, unperceived by his
guards, to look forth upon the light of heaven.

This was part of the prison, and in it even now was pining a youthful
captive. He seemed not more than twenty. So young! What early
transgression could have brought him here? From his face you would not
believe in such transgressions; you would not believe that God could
have created that fair aspect to deceive. So handsome and so noble that
you would think never had one evil intention passed over that tranquil
brow, never had one passion played in those eyes, filled with love to
his neighbour and calm melancholy. And yet, by his tall and majestic
figure, as he starts from his reverie, and shakes his raven curls, he
seems to be born a lord, and not a slave. His hands are white and
delicate as a woman’s. On the throat of his shirt blazes a button of
emerald; in the damp and smoky room, on a broad bench against the wall,
are a feather-bed with a pillow of damask, and with a silken covering;
and by the bedside a coffer of white bone in filigree work. Evidently he
is not a common prisoner. No common prisoner!--no, he is a crowned
prince!--and pure in thought and deed as the dwellers of the skies.

All his crime is a diadem, which he did not seek, and which was placed
on his head by the caprice of his sovereign; in no treason, in no crime
had he been accomplice; he was guilty by the guilt of others,--by the
ambition of two women, the intrigues of the courtiers, the anger of his
grandfather against the others, and not against him. They had destined
him a throne, and they had dragged him to a dungeon. He understood not
why they crowned him, and now he understands not why they deprived him
of liberty,--of the light of heaven,--of all that they deny not even to
the meanest. For him his nearest kinsman dared not even pray aloud.

This was the grandson of Iván III., the only child of his beloved
son,--Dmítri Ivánovich.

At one time he sat in melancholy musing, resting his elbows on his
knees, and losing his fingers in the dark curls of his hair; then he
would arise, then lie down. He was restless as though they had given him
poison. No one was with him. A solitary taper lighted up his miserable
abode. The stillness of the room was disturbed only by the drops from
the ceiling, or the mice nibbling the crumbs that had fallen from the
captive’s table. The little light now died away, now flared up again;
and in these flashes it seemed as though rows of gigantic spiders crept
along the wall. In reality, these were scribbling in various languages,
scrawled with charcoal or with a nail. Hardly was it possible to spell
out among them--“Matheas,” “Marfa, burgomistress of Nóvgorod the Great,”
“Accursed be----,” “Liebe Mutter, liebe A----”; and several words more,
half obliterated by the damp which had trickled along the wall, or been
scratched out by the anger or the ignorance of the guards.

The door of the dungeon softly opened. Dmítri Ivánovich started up.
“Afóniya, is it thou?” he joyfully enquired; but seeing that he had
mistaken for another the person who entered, he exclaimed sadly: “Ah, is
it thou, Nebogáty! Why cometh not Afóniya? I am sad, I am lonely, I am
devoured by grief, as if a serpent lay at my heart. Didst thou not say
that Afóniya would come as soon as they lighted the candles in the
houses?”

“Afanási Nikítin[6] hath a mind as single as his eye,” said the deacon
Dmítri Nebogáty, a kind and good-natured officer, yet strict in the
performance of the charge given him by the Great Prince, of guarding his
grandson. (We may remark that at this time he, in consequence of the
illness of Dmítri, the treasurer and groom of the bedchamber, fulfilled
their duties. All honour to a prince, even though he be a prisoner!)

“Make thyself easy, Dmítri Ivánovich; soon, be sure, will come our
orator. Thou wottest thyself he groweth infirm, he seeth not well, and
so must grope along the wall; and till he cometh, my dear child, play,
amuse thyself with thy toys. Sit down cozily on thy bed; I will give
thee thy coffer.”

And Dmítri Ivánovich, a child, though he was more than twenty years old,
to escape from the weariness that oppressed him, instantly accepted the
proposition of his deacon, sat down with his feet on his bed, took the
ivory box upon his knees, and opened it with a key that hung at his
girdle. By degrees, one after the other, he drew out into the light a
number of precious articles which had been imprisoned in the coffer.

The young prince held up to the fire, now a chain of gold with bears’
heads carved on the links, or a girdle of scaly gold, then signet rings
of jacinth or emerald, then crucifixes, collars, bracelets, precious
studs: he admired them, threw the collars round his neck, and asked the
deacon whether they became him; took orient pearls and rubies by the
handful, let them stream like rain through his fingers, amused himself
in playing with them, like an absolute child--and suddenly, hearing a
voice in the neighbouring chamber, threw them all back anyhow into the
coffer. His face lighted up.

“’T is Afóniya!” he cried, giving back the box to the deacon, and
descending from the bed.

“Lock it, Dmítri Ivánovich!” said Nebogáty firmly: “without that I will
not receive it.”

Hastily clinked the key in the coffer; the door opened, and there
entered the room an old man of low stature, bowed down by the burden of
years; the silver of his hair was already becoming golden with age. From
the top of his head to the corner of his left eye was deeply gashed a
scar, which had thus let fall an eternal curtain before that eye, and
therefore the other was fixed in its place, like a precious stone of
wondrous water, for it glittered with unusual brilliancy, and seemed to
see for itself and for its unfortunate twin brother. No son more
affectionately meets a tenderly beloved father than Dmítri Ivánovich met
the old man. Joy sparkled in the eyes of the Tsarévich, and spoke in his
every gesture.

He took his guest’s walking-staff, shook from his dress the powdered
snow, embraced him, and seated him in the place of honour on his bed.
Nevertheless, the guest was no more than Afanási Nikítin, a merchant of
Tver, a trader without trade, without money, poor, but rich in
knowledge, which he had acquired in an adventurous journey to India,
rich in experience and fancies, which he knew how to adorn beside with a
sweet and enchanting eloquence. He lived on the charity of his friends,
and yet was no man’s debtor: the rich he paid with his tales, and to the
poor he gave them for nothing. He was allowed to visit the Great Prince
Dmítri Ivánovich (whom, however, it was forbidden to call Great Prince).
We may judge how delightfully he filled up the dreadful solitude of the
youth’s imprisonment, and how dear he therefore was to the captive. And
what did Dmítri give him for his labour? Much, very much to a good
heart,--his delight, the only pleasure left him in the world,--and this
reward the Tver man would not have exchanged for gold. Once the
Tsarévich had desired to present him with one of the precious articles
from his ivory box; but the deacon gently reminded the captive that all
the articles in his coffer were his, that he might play with them as
much as he pleased, but that he was not at liberty to dispose of them.

The day before Afanási Nikítin had begun a tale about the “Almayne,”
surnamed the _Heretic_. To-day, when he had seated himself, he continued
it. His speech flowed on like the song of a nightingale, which we listen
to from the flush of morning till the glow of eve without shutting our
eyes even for a moment. Greedily did the Tsarévich listen to the
story-teller, his cheeks burned, and often tears streamed from his eyes.
Far, very far, he was borne away from his dungeon, and only from time to
time the rude brawling of the guards behind the partition-wall recalled
him to bitter reality. In the meantime the deacon Nebogáty’s pen was
hurriedly scratching along the parchment: the sheets, pasted one to
another in a long line, were fast covered with strange hieroglyphics,
and wound up into a huge roll. He was writing down from Afanási
Nikítin’s mouth, _A tale touching a certain Almayne, surnamed the
Heretic_.

Suddenly, in the midst of the tale, there rushed into the dungeon the
court officer of the Great Prince. “Iván Vasílevich is about to render
up his soul to God,” said he hastily; “he grieveth much about thee, and
hath sent for thee. Make haste!”

The prince was convulsively agitated. Over his face, which became as
white as a sheet, passed some thought; it flashed in his eyes. Oh, this
was a thought of Paradise! Freedom----a crown----the
people----mercy----perhaps a block----what was there not in that
thought? The captive--the child who had just been playing with
jewels--arose the Great Prince of all Russia.

Iván was still a sovereign, though on his dying bed; death had not yet
locked for ever his lips, and those lips might yet determine on his
successor. The thoughts of another life, remorse, an interview with his
grandson, whom he had himself of his own free will crowned Tsar, and
whom they had just brought from a dungeon,--what force must these
thoughts have on the will of the dying man!

They gave the prince his bonnet, and just as he stood, conducted by the
deacon and other officers, he hastened to the Great Prince’s palace. In
the hall he encountered the sobbing of the kinsmen and servants of the
Tsar. “It is over!--My grandsire is dead!” thought he, and his heart
sunk within him, his steps tottered.

The appearance of Dmítri Ivánovich in the palace of the Great Prince
interrupted for a time the general lamentation, real and feigned. The
unexpectedness, the novelty of the object, the strange fate of the
prince, pity, the thought that he, perhaps, would be the sovereign of
Russia in a moment, overwhelmed the minds and hearts of the courtiers.
But even at this period there were among the long-beards some wise
heads: acute, far-sighted calculations, which we now call politics, were
then as now oracles of fate, and though sometimes, as happens even in
our own days, they were overthrown by the mighty hand of Providence.

These calculations triumphed over the momentary astonishment; the tears
and sobbing began again, and were communicated to the crowd. Only one
voice, amidst the expressions of simulated woe, ventured to raise itself
above them: “Haste, my lord, our native prince,--thou hast been sent for
no short time,--Iván Vasílevich is yet alive,--the Lord bless thee, and
make thee our Great Prince!”

This voice reassured the youth; but when he was about to enter the
bedchamber where the dying man lay, his strength began to fail. The door
opened; his feet seemed nailed to the threshold. Iván had only a few
minutes left to live. It seemed as if death awaited only the arrival of
his grandson, to give him his dismissal. Around his bed stood his sons,
the primate, his favourite boyárs, his kinsmen.

“Hither,--to me, Dmítri,--my dear grandson,” said the Great Prince,
recognising him through the mists of death.

Dmítri Ivánovich threw himself towards the bed, fell upon his knees,
kissed the cold hand of his grandsire, and bedewed it with tears. The
dying man, as if by the power of galvanism, raised himself, laid one
hand on his grandson’s head, with the other blessed him, then spoke in a
breathless voice: “I have sinned before God and thee----Forgive
me----forgive----The Lord and I have crowned thee----be----my----”

The face of Vasíli Ioánnovich was convulsed with envy and fear. Yet one
word more----

But death then stood on the side of the strongest, and that word was
never pronounced in this world. The Great Prince Iván Vasílevich yielded
up his last breath, applying his cold lips to the forehead of his
grandson. His son, who had been earlier designated by him as his heir,
immediately entered into all his rights. They tore Dmítri from the
death-bed, led him out of the Great Prince’s palace, and conducted him
back to his dungeon. There, stretched on his bed, was reposing Afóniya
in the deep slumber of the just. Having bewailed his woes, the ill-fated
Dmítri lay down beside the old man. Prince and peasant were there equal.
The one dreamed that night of royal banquets, and of a glorious crown,
glittering like fire, upon his head, and of giving audience to foreign
ambassadors, and reviewing vast armies; the other, of the hospitable
palm and the rivulet in the deserts of Arabia. The poor man awaked the
first, and how was he surprised to find the Tsarévich by his side!
Mournfully he shook his hoary head, and wept, and was about to bless
him, when he heard the joyful gallant cry of Dmítri Ivánovich as he
dreamed--“Warriors!----on the Tartars!----on Lithuania!----”

And immediately awoke the young prince. Long he rubbed his eyes, and
gazed around him, and then, falling on Afóniya’s bosom, he melted into
tears. “Ah, father, father, I have been dreaming----”

His words were strangled by sobs.

Soon all that he had seen and heard in the palace of the Great Prince
began to appear to him as a dream. Only when he recalled to his memory
that weary vision, he felt on his forehead the icy seal which had been
placed on it by the lips of the dying Tsar.

The winter came: all was as before in the Black House; nothing but the
decorations of the scene had changed: the uniform sound of the falling
drops was dumb, the bright speck had vanished from the bladder
window-pane; instead, a silvery film of frost adhered to the corners of
the walls and the crevices of the ceiling, and the bright speck, through
which the captive could see the heavens, with their sun and free birds,
was veiled with a thick patch. But Afóniya, as of old, visited the
dungeon. He had finished his tale of the Almayne, whom they called the
Heretic, and the scribe Nebogáty, putting it on paper word for word, had
placed the roll in his iron chest,--an amusement for his descendants.

Thus passed a little more than three years.

The royal prisoner was no longer in the dungeon, and Afanási Nikítin was
seen no more within it. Assuredly Dmítri Ivánovich had been set at
liberty. Yes, the Lord had set him free from all earthly bonds. Thus
writes an annalist: “In the year 1509, on the fourteenth of February,
departed this life the Grand Prince Dmítri Ivánovich, in prison.”
Gerberstein adds: “It is thought he was starved--with cold or with
hunger--to death, or stifled with smoke.”--From _The Heretic_,
translated from the Russian by Thomas B. Shaw, Edinburgh and London,
1844.

  [6] See vol. i., p. 111.




  Baron Antón Antónovich Délvig. (1798-1831.)


  Délvig entered the Lyceum at Tsárskoe-Seló on the same day with
  Púshkin, whose friend he remained to his death. He began writing
  poetry at about the same time as his more gifted schoolmate. At first
  he confined himself to more or less close imitations of Horace, but
  under Púshkin’s influence he soon turned his attention to original
  poems. Though only a star of the second magnitude, his verses became
  very popular and were set to music. Later they served as the
  starting-point for the popular poets, Koltsóv, Nekrásov, and others.


                             GLOOMY THOUGHTS

              To-day I feast with you, dear friends,
                With joy our spirits burn;
              To-morrow’s chance may find me there
                Whence I shall not return.

              Thus, long ago, I spake to those
                Who were with merriment wild;
              For gloomy thoughts of coming grief
                Possessed me from a child.

              My laughing friends around my locks
                Enwreathed a fresh bright crown;
              “For shame!” they cried; “youth’s not a time
                To wear a moody frown.”

              War breaking out, my friends to it
                As to a banquet prest;
              I with them; but me cruel fate
                Soon parted from the rest.

              In weary idleness their steps
                I followed mentally;
              And oft their relatives I cheered
                With words of victory.

              Time passed: the thoughts of days gone by
                Sad tears of sorrow yield;
              Then ceased the war. Where are my friends?
                Dead on the battlefield.

              Now I am sorrowful at feasts,
                Where others’ joy is great;
              In wine-cups e’en the past recalled
                Embitters all my state.

      --From C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_.

                                 ───────

                   Sang a little bird, and sang,
                     And grew silent;
                   Knew the heart of merriment,
                     And forgot it.
                   Why, O little songster bird,
                     Grew you quiet?
                   How learned you, O heart, to know
                     Gloomy sorrow?
                   Ah! the little bird was killed
                     By grim snow-blasts;
                   Perished is the fellow brave
                     Through ill gossips!
                   Had the bird but flown away
                     Tow’rds the blue sea!
                   Had the youth but run away
                     Tow’rds the forest!
                   On the sea the billows roar,
                     And not snow-blasts;
                   In the woods are evil beasts,
                     And not people!

                                 ───────

                  Ah, you night, you little night!
                  Ah, you night, you stormy night!
                  Why from early evening tide
                  Even to the midnight late
                  Twinkle not your little stars,
                  Shineth not your full-orbed moon?
                  You are veiled with darkling clouds!
                  ’T is with you, I think, O night,
                  Even as with me, young man,--
                  Villain grief has called on us!
                  When the dire one takes abode
                  Somewhere deep within the heart,--
                  You forget the lasses fair,
                  Dances and obeisances;
                  You forget from evening tide
                  Even to the midnight late,
                  Singing songs, to take delight
                  In the chorus and the dance.
                  No, you sob, you weep aloud,--
                  And, a sad and lonely lad,
                  You upon your coarse straw bed
                  Throw yourself as in the grave!




  Aleksándr Sergyéevich Púshkin. (1799-1837.)


  Púshkin was descended, on his father’s side, from a family of
  distinguished men, and, on his mother’s side, from Peter the Great’s
  favourite negro, Hannibal. Having early lost his mother, he was
  brought up by his grandmother, but the greatest influence upon his
  first education had his nurse, Arína Rodiónovna, who charmed him with
  her rich stock of popular stories and fairy tales, and who, even later
  in life, inspired him with national themes. In 1811 Púshkin entered
  the newly opened Lyceum at Tsárskoe Seló, where he did not display any
  especial aptitude for studies; but he soon began to write poetry, and
  in 1817, at graduation, read his own production which attracted
  attention. After leaving school he threw himself into the whirl of
  society pleasures, but at the same time devoted himself to his first
  great poem, still in the Romantic style of the older generation,
  _Ruslán and Lyudmíla_. In 1820 he incurred the displeasure of the
  Government for writing some verses on liberty and for his liberal
  utterances. He was banished to the south, passing part of the time in
  the Caucasus. Here his genius was unfolded in all its greatness. In
  the Caucasus he wrote _The Prisoner of the Caucasus_; the Crimea gave
  him material for his _Bakhchisaráy Fountain_; in the neighbourhood of
  Odessa he composed his _Gypsies_ and laid the foundation for _Evgéni
  Onyégin_, besides writing a large number of smaller poems. In 1824
  Púshkin was permitted to return to his native village, in the
  Government of Pskov, where he remained two years, after which he was,
  by the intercession of his friends, allowed to settle in the capitals.
  In this last period of his activity he devoted himself more especially
  to subjects taken from Russian life. He wrote his series of fairy
  tales, illustrated the acts of Peter the Great by a number of poems,
  of which _The Bronze Rider_ is the best known, and wrote a _History of
  the Pugachév Rebellion_. Aspersion upon his domestic life caused him
  to challenge to a duel the son of the Dutch ambassador, by whom he was
  killed in 1837, in his thirty-eighth year.

  Púshkin’s great poetical genius has not been surpassed by that of any
  other Russian poet, and has only been equalled by that of Lérmontov.
  All the later generations have drawn their inspiration from him. Since
  the forties his importance has been obscured by the universal
  domination of the democratic spirit in literature, as evidenced in the
  Russian novel. The celebration of the centennary anniversary of his
  birth has given rise to a wide-spread interest in Púshkin, and his
  influence is again in the ascendant.

  Púshkin’s prose tales have often been translated into English: _Queen
  of Spades_, in Chambers’s Papers, 1850, and Living Age, 1850, also in
  Gift of Friendship, 1854; _The Captain’s Daughter_, translated by J.
  F. Hanstein, London, 1859; some tales in _Simple Tales, a Reading Book
  for Little Folks_, by Mary Anna Pietzker, St. Petersburg, 1860; _The
  Pistolshot_, in the Albion, 1861; _Russian Romance_ (consisting of
  miscellaneous tales), by Mrs. J. B. Telfer (_née_ Mouravieff), London,
  1873 and 1880; _Queen of Spades_, in Lippincott’s Magazine, 1876;
  _Marie, a Story of Russian Love_, by Marie H. de Zielinska, Chicago,
  1877 (1876); _The Captain’s Daughter, a Tale of the Time of Catherine
  II. of Russia_, translated by Madame Igelström and Mrs. Percy Easton,
  London, 1883; _Queen of Spades_, in Modern Age, 1884; _The Daughter of
  the Commandant, a Russian Romance_, translated by Mrs. Milne Home,
  London, 1891; _The Queen of Spades and Other Stories_, from the
  Russian, by Mrs. Sutherland Edwards (the first three stories had
  appeared before in the Strand Magazine), London, 1892; _Tales from the
  Russian_, I.--_Dubrovsky_ (in Railway and General Automatic Library),
  London, 1892; _The Prose Tales of A. Poushkin_, from the Russian, by
  T. Keane, London, 1894 and 1896.

  Of his poetical works the following have been translated: Extracts
  from _Ruslán and Lyudmíla_, _The Prisoner_, _The Robbers_, in _Russian
  Literature and Poetry_, in Foreign Review, 1827; extracts from _The
  Fountain of Bakhchisaráy_ and _Poltava_ in The Foreign Quarterly
  Review, 1832; _The Talisman_, with Other Pieces (_The Hermit_),
  translated by George Borrow, St. Petersburg, 1835; _Pushkin, the
  Russian Poet_ (containing _October 19, 1825_, _Caucasus_, _To ----_,
  _The Mob_, _The Black Shawl_, _The Rose_, _Napoleon_, _The Storm_,
  _The General_, _Alas for Her_, _To the Sea_, _Echo_, _The Lay of the
  Wise Oleg_, _Remembrance_, _I have outlived the hopes that charmed
  me_, _Motion_, _To the Slanderers of Russia_, _Presentiment_, _The
  Madonna_, _André Chénier_), by T. B. Shaw, in The Edinburgh Blackwood
  Magazine, 1845; _The Bakhchesarian Fountain_, W. D. Lewis,
  Philadelphia, 1849; several poems, by W. R. Morfill, in Constitutional
  Press, 1860; _On the Calumniators of Russia_, by W. R. Morfill, in
  Literary Gazette, 1861; _Translations from Russian and German Poets_,
  by a Russian Lady (containing two extracts from _The Gypsies_, _The
  Poet_, _The Angel_, _The 19th of October_, _The Demon_, and several
  minor poems), Baden-Baden, 1878; _Eugene Oneguine_, translated by
  Lieut. Col. Spalding, London, 1881; _The Black Shawl_, _The Talisman_,
  _Ode to the Sea_, and several extracts (the first two, amended, in
  _The Story of Russia_, New York and London, 1890), by W. R. Morfill,
  in Westminster Review, 1883; _The Flower_, _The Birds_, _The
  Bridegroom_, _The Winter Journey_, _The Anchor_, _Poltava_, _Song of
  Oleg the Wise_, _To ----_, _The Angel_, _The Demons_, in C. T.
  Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_, London, 1887; _Poems by Alexander Pushkin_,
  translated by Ivan Panin, Boston, 1888; parts of _Boris Godunov_ in
  _Shakespeare and the Russian Drama_, by N. H. Dole, in Poet Lore, vol.
  i. (1889); _I wander down the noisy streets_, _Anacreontic_, _To his
  Wife_, _Let me not lose my senses_, _I’ve overlived aspirings_, _Peter
  the Great_, _The Prophet_, _Play_, _My Kathleen_, _A Monument_, _The
  Poet_, in John Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_, London, 1891. In
  Free Russia have appeared: by Charlotte Sidgwick, in vol. x., No. 1,
  _The Poison-Tree_, _ib._, No. 3, _The Monument_; by Mrs. M. G. Walker,
  in vol. x., No. 4, _The Prophet_; by Elizabeth Gibson, vol. xii., No.
  2, _A Message_. In The Anglo-Russian Literary Society have been
  published: some verses, by a Russian lady, in No. 11; by F. P.
  Marchant, _Scene from “Boris Godunov,”_ in No. 13, _The Shield of
  Oleg_, in No. 15, _The Prophet_, _The Three Springs_, _The Prayer_,
  _Truth_, in No. 22, _To My Friends_, in No. 32; by J. Pollen, _The
  Talisman_, in No. 22; by Miss H. Frank, _The Demons_, in No. 34; by L.
  A. Magnus, _Through clam’rous streets my feet may stray_, in No. 33.
  In the Library of the World’s Best Literature are given: by N. H.
  Dole, _The Bard_, _The Angel_, _The Free Life of the Bird_ (a
  different version of this poem is given below); reprints of several of
  T. B. Shaw’s and J. Pollen’s poems, and extracts from _Boris Godunov_
  and _Evgeni Onyegin_, by Miss I. Hapgood.


                      FROM “THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER”

As I crossed the square I saw several Bashkirs assembled round the
gibbets, engaged in dragging off the boots of those who had been hanged.
With difficulty I repressed my indignation, feeling convinced that if I
gave expression to it, it would have been perfectly useless. The
brigands invaded every part of the fortress, and plundered the officers’
houses. On every side resounded the shouts of the drunken mutineers. I
reached home. Savélich met me on the threshold.

“Thank God!” he exclaimed when he saw me; “I was beginning to think that
the villains had seized you again. Ah! my little father, Peter Andréich,
will you believe it, the robbers have plundered us of
everything--clothes, linen, furniture, plate--they have not left us a
single thing. But what does it matter? Thank God! they have spared your
life. But, my lord, did you recognise their leader?”

“No, I did not recognise him. Who is he then?”

“How, my little father! Have you forgotten that drunken scoundrel who
swindled you out of the pelisse at the inn? A brand new hairskin
pelisse; and the beast burst the seams in putting it on.”

I was astounded. In truth, the resemblance of Pugachév to my guide was
very striking. I felt convinced that Pugachév and he were one and the
same person, and then I understood why he had spared my life. I could
not but feel surprised at the strange connection of events--a child’s
pelisse, given to a roving vagrant, had saved me from the hangman’s
noose, and a drunkard, who had passed his life in wandering from one inn
to another, was now besieging fortresses and shaking the empire!

“Will you not eat something?” asked Savélich, still faithful to his old
habits. “There is nothing in the house; but I will go and search, and
get something ready for you.”

When I was left alone, I began to reflect. What was I to do? To remain
in the fortress now that it was in the hands of the villain, or to join
his band, was unworthy of an officer. Duty demanded that I should go
wherever my services might still be of use to my fatherland in the
present critical position of its affairs---- But love strongly urged me
to remain near Maria Ivánovna and be her protector and defender.
Although I foresaw a speedy and inevitable change in the course of
affairs, yet I could not help trembling when I thought of the danger of
her situation. My reflections were interrupted by the arrival of one of
the Cossacks, who came to inform me that “the great Tsar required me to
appear before him.”

“Where is he?” I asked, preparing to obey.

“In the Commandant’s house,” replied the Cossack. “After dinner our
father took a bath, but at present he is resting. Ah! your Excellency,
it is very evident that he is a distinguished person; at dinner he
deigned to eat two roasted sucking pigs, then he entered the bath, where
the water was so hot that even Tarás Kúrochkin could not bear it; he had
to give the besom to Fomká Bikbáev, and only came to himself through
having cold water poured over him. There is no denying it; all his ways
are majestic---- And I was told that in the bath he showed his Tsar’s
signs upon his breast: on one side a two-headed eagle as large as a
five-kopek piece, and on the other his own likeness.”

I did not consider it necessary to contradict the Cossack’s statement,
and I accompanied him to the Commandant’s house, trying to imagine
beforehand what kind of a reception I should meet with from Pugachév,
and endeavouring to guess how it would end. The reader will easily
understand that I did not by any means feel easy within myself.

It was beginning to get dark when I reached the Commandant’s house. The
gibbet, with its victims, loomed black and terrible before me. The body
of the poor Commandant’s wife still lay at the bottom of the steps, near
which two Cossacks stood on guard. The Cossack who accompanied me went
in to announce me, and, returning almost immediately, conducted me into
the room where, the evening before, I had taken a tender farewell of
Maria Ivánovna. An unusual spectacle presented itself to my gaze. At a
table, covered with a cloth and loaded with bottles and glasses, sat
Pugachév and some half a score of Cossack chiefs, in coloured caps and
shirts, heated with wine, with flushed faces and flashing eyes. I did
not see among them Shvabrín and his fellow traitor, the orderly.

“Ah! your Excellency!” said Pugachév, seeing me. “Welcome; honour to you
and a place at our banquet.”

The guests moved closer together. I sat down silently at the end of the
table. My neighbour, a young Cossack, tall and handsome, poured out for
me a glass of wine, which, however, I did not touch. I began to observe
the company with curiosity. Pugachév occupied the seat of honour, his
elbows resting on the table, and his broad fist propped under his black
beard. His features, regular and sufficiently agreeable, had nothing
fierce about them. He frequently turned to speak to a man of about fifty
years of age, addressing him sometimes as Count, sometimes as Timoféich,
sometimes as uncle. All those present treated each other as comrades,
and did not show any particular respect for their leader. The
conversation was upon the revolt, and of their future operations. Each
one boasted of what he had done, expressed his opinion, and fearlessly
contradicted Pugachév. And in this strange council of war it was
resolved to march upon Orenbúrg; a bold movement, and which was to be
very nearly crowned with success. The march was fixed for the following
day.

“Now, lads,” said Pugachév, “before we retire to rest, let us have my
favourite song. Chumakóv, begin!”

My neighbour sang, in a shrill voice, the following melancholy peasant’s
song, and all joined in the chorus:

         “Stir not, mother, green forest of oak,
         Disturb me not in my meditation;
         For to-morrow before the court I must go,
         Before the stern judge, before the Tsar himself.
         The great Lord Tsar will begin to question me:
         ‘Tell me, young man, tell me, thou peasant’s son,
         With whom have you stolen, with whom have you robbed?
         Did you have many companions with you?’
         ‘I will tell you, true-believing Tsar,
         The whole truth I will confess to you.
         My companions were four in number:
         My first companion was the dark night,
         My second companion was a steel knife,
         My third companion was my good horse,
         My fourth companion was my taut bow,
         My messengers were my tempered arrows.’
         Then speaks my hope, the true-believing Tsar:
         ‘Well done, my lad, brave peasant’s son;
         You knew how to steal, you knew how to reply:
         Therefore, my lad, I will make you a present
         Of a very high structure in the midst of a field--
         Of two upright posts with a cross-beam above.’”

It is impossible to describe the effect produced upon me by this popular
gallows song, trolled out by men destined for the gallows. Their
ferocious countenances, their sonorous voices, and the melancholy
expression which they imparted to the words, which in themselves were
not very expressive, filled me with a sort of poetical terror.

The guests drank another glass, then rose from the table and took leave
of Pugachév.

I wanted to follow them, but Pugachév said to me:

“Sit down; I want to speak to you.”

We remained face to face.

For some moments we both continued silent. Pugachév looked at me
fixedly, every now and then winking his left eye with a curious
expression of craftiness and drollery. At last he burst out laughing,
and with such unfeigned merriment that I, too, looking at him, began to
laugh, without knowing why.

“Well, your lordship,” he said to me, “confess now, you were in a
terrible fright when my fellows put the rope round your neck. I do not
believe that the sky appeared bigger than a sheepskin to you just
then---- You would have been strung up to the crossbeam if it had not
been for your servant. I knew the old fellow at once. Well, would your
lordship have thought that the man who conducted you to the inn was the
great Tsar himself?”

Here he assumed an air of mystery and importance.

“You have been guilty of a serious offence against me,” continued he,
“but I pardoned you on account of your virtue, and because you rendered
me a service when I was compelled to hide myself from my enemies. But
you will see something very different presently! You will see how I will
reward you when I enter into possession of my kingdom! Will you promise
to serve me with zeal?”

The rascal’s question, and his insolence, appeared to me so amusing that
I could not help smiling.

“Why do you smile?” he asked, frowning. “Perhaps you do not believe that
I am the great Tsar? Is that so?--Answer plainly!”

I became confused. To acknowledge a vagabond as emperor was quite out of
the question; to do so seemed to me unpardonable cowardice. To tell him
to his face that he was an imposter was to expose myself to certain
death, and that which I was prepared to say beneath the gibbet before
the eyes of the crowd, in the first outburst of my indignation, appeared
to me now a useless boast. I hesitated. In gloomy silence Pugachév
awaited my reply. At last (and even now I remember that moment with
self-satisfaction) the sentiment of duty triumphed over my human
weakness. I replied to Pugachév:

“Listen, I will tell you the whole truth. Judge yourself: can I
acknowledge you as emperor? You, a sensible man, would know that it
would not be saying what I really thought.”

“Who am I, then, in your opinion?”

“God only knows; but whatever you may be, you are playing a dangerous
game.”

Pugachév threw a rapid glance at me.

“Then you do not believe,” said he, “that I am the Emperor Peter? Well,
be it so. But is not success the reward of the bold? Did not Gríshka
Otrépev reign in former days? Think of me what you please, but do not
leave me. What does it matter to you one way or the other? Whoever is
pope is father. Serve me faithfully and truly, and I will make you a
field-marshal and a prince. What do you say?”

“No,” I replied with firmness. “I am by birth a nobleman; I have taken
the oath of fealty to the Empress; I cannot serve you. If you really
wish me well, send me back to Orenbúrg.”

Pugachév reflected.

“But if I let you go,” said he, “will you at least promise not to serve
against me?”

“How can I promise you that?” I replied. “You yourself know that it does
not depend upon my will. If I am ordered to march against you, I must
go--there is no help for it. You yourself are now a chief; you demand
obedience from your followers. How would it seem if I refused to serve
when my services were needed? My life is in your hands; if you set me
free, I will thank you; if you put me to death, God will be your judge;
but I have told you the truth.”

My frankness struck Pugachév.

“Be it so,” said he, slapping me upon the shoulder. “One should either
punish completely or pardon completely. Go then where you like. Come
to-morrow to say good-bye to me, and now go to bed. I feel very drowsy
myself.”

I left Pugachév and went out into the street. The night was calm and
cold. The moon and stars were shining brightly, lighting up the square
and the gibbet. In the fortress all was dark and still. Only in the
tavern was a light visible, where could be heard the noise of the late
revellers. I glanced at the pope’s house. The shutters and doors were
closed. Everything seemed quiet within.

I made my way to my own quarters and found Savélich grieving about my
absence. The news of my being set at liberty filled him with unutterable
joy.

“Thanks be to Thee, Almighty God!” said he, making the sign of the
cross. “At daybreak to-morrow we will leave the fortress and go wherever
God will direct us. I have prepared something for you; eat it, my little
father, and then rest yourself till the morning, as if you were in the
bosom of Christ.”

I followed his advice and, having eaten with a good appetite, I fell
asleep upon the bare floor, worn out both in body and mind.--From T.
Keane’s _The Prose Tales of Alexander Poushkin_.


                          FROM “EVGÉNI ONYÉGIN”

                       TATYÁNA’S LETTER TO ONYÉGIN

               I write to you! Is more required?
               Can lower depths beyond remain?
               ’T is in your power now, if desired,
               To crush me with a just disdain.
               But if my lot unfortunate
               You in the least commiserate
               You will not all abandon me.
               At first I clung to secrecy:
               Believe me, of my present shame
               You never would have heard the name,
               If the fond hope I could have fanned
               At times, if only once a week,
               To see you by our fireside stand,
               To listen to the words you speak,
               Address to you one single phrase
               And then to meditate for days
               Of one thing till again we met.
               ’T is said you are a misanthrope,
               In country solitude you mope,
               And we--an unattractive set--
               Can hearty welcome give alone.
               Why did you visit our poor place?
               Forgotten in the village lone,
               I never should have seen your face
               And bitter torment never known.
               The untutored spirit’s pangs calmed down
               By time (who can anticipate?)
               I had found my predestinate,
               Become a faithful wife and e’en
               A fond and careful mother been.

               Another! to none other I
               My heart’s allegiance can resign,
               My doom has been pronounced on high,
               ’T is Heaven’s will and I am thine.
               The sum of my existence gone
               But promise of our meeting gave,
               I feel thou wast by God sent down
               My guardian angel to the grave.
               Thou didst to me in dreams appear,
               Unseen thou wast already dear.
               Thine eye subdued me with strange glance,
               I heard thy voice’s resonance
               Long ago. Dream it cannot be!
               Scarce hadst thou entered thee I knew,
               I flushed up, stupefied I grew,
               And cried within myself: ’t is he!
               Is it not truth? in tones suppressed
               With thee I conversed when I bore
               Comfort and succour to the poor,
               And when I prayer to Heaven addressed
               To ease the anguish of my breast.
               Nay! even as this instant fled,
               Was it not thou, O vision bright,
               That glimmered through the radiant night
               And gently hovered o’er my head?
               Was it not thou who thus didst stoop
               To whisper comfort, love, and hope?--
               Who art thou? Guardian angel sent
               Or torturer malevolent?
               Doubt and uncertainty decide:
               All this may be an empty dream,
               Delusions of a mind untried,
               Providence otherwise may deem--
               Then be it so! My destiny
               From henceforth I confide to thee!
               Lo! at thy feet my tears I pour
               And thy protection I implore.
               Imagine! Here alone am I!
               No one my anguish comprehends,
               At times my reason almost bends,
               And silently I here must die--
               But I await thee: scarce alive,
               My heart with but one look revive;
               Or to disturb my dreams approach
               Alas! with merited reproach.

               ’T is finished. Horrible to read!
               With shame I shudder and with dread--
               But boldly I myself resign:
               Thine honour is my countersign!

      --From Lieut.-Col. Spalding’s _Eugene Onéguine_, London, 1881.


                     FROM “THE BAKHCHISARÁY FOUNTAIN”

              Days passed away; Maria slept
                Peaceful, no cares disturbed her, now--
              From earth the orphan maid was swept.
                But who knew when, or where, or how?
              If prey to grief or pain she fell,
              If slain or Heaven-struck, who can tell?
              She sleeps; her loss the chieftain grieves,
              And his neglected harem leaves,
                Flies from its tranquil precincts far,
              And with his Tartars takes the field,
                Fierce rushes mid the din of war,
              And brave the foe that does not yield,
                For mad despair hath nerved his arm,
              Though in his heart is grief concealed,
                With passion’s hopeless transports warm.
              His blade he swings aloft in air
                And wildly brandishes, then low
              It falls, whilst he with pallid stare
                Gazes, and tears in torrents flow.

              His harem by the chief deserted,
                In foreign lands he warring roved,
              Long nor in wish nor thought reverted
                To scene once cherished and beloved.
              His women, to the eunuch’s rage
              Abandoned, pined and sank in age.
              The fair Grusinian now no more
              Yielded her soul to passion’s power,
              Her fate was with Maria’s blended,
              On the same night their sorrows ended;
                Seized by mute guards the hapless fair
              Into a deep abyss they threw,--
                If vast her crime, through love’s despair,
              Her punishment was dreadful too!

              At length th’ exhausted Khan returned,
                Enough of waste his sword had dealt,
              The Russian cot no longer burned,
                Nor Caucasus his fury felt.
              In token of Maria’s loss
                A marble fountain he upreared
              In spot recluse:--the Christian’s cross
                Upon the monument appeared
              (Surmounting it a crescent bright,
              Emblem of ignorance and night!).
              Th’ inscription mid the silent waste
              Not yet has time’s rude hand effaced,
                Still do the gurgling waters pour
              Their streams dispensing sadness round,
                As mothers weep for sons no more,
              In never-ending sorrows drowned.
                In morn fair maids, (and twilight late,)
              Roam where this monument appears,
                And pitying poor Maria’s fate
              Entitle it the Fount of Tears!

      --From W. D. Lewis’s _The Bakchesarian Fountain_.


                             THE POISON-TREE

                Remote and dire, in desert-lands
                  Where naught but sunburnt sod is seen,
                Anchár, the Tree of Poison, stands--
                  A sentinel, with threatening mien.

                The thirsty steppe-land gave it birth
                  In bitterness and anger dark;
                It sucked foul venom from the earth,
                  Its roots and leaves are dead and stark.

                At noon, when fiercest sunlight glows,
                  The poison from its veins escapes,
                And trickling down the stem it flows
                  By evening into globèd shapes.

                No bird will seek this Tree of Death,
                  Nor dare the tiger prowl anigh,
                The hungry whirlwind’s dusty breath
                  Grows baneful as it hastens by.

                If e’er a wand’ring cloud distil
                  Soft rains upon its blighted top,
                Their harmless nature turns to ill,
                  And changed, in deadly dews they drop.

                But yet a man’s imperial nod
                  Sent forth a fellow-man afar,
                Whose meek, obedient footsteps trod,
                  Right to the base of foul Anchár.

                By morning he returned, and bore
                  The fatal resin, with a bough
                Of withered leaves, and like it wore
                  A wasted look--and from his brow

                Cold sweat was streaming, and he tried
                  To stand, but fell to earth prostrate.
                And there, poor slave! he sank and died
                  In presence of the Potentate,

                Who sopped his arrows in the bane,
                  And sent them dark--a doom new-found!--
                By messenger o’er hill and plain
                  To neighbours in the countries round.

      --Transl. by Charlotte Sidgwick, in Free Russia, January, 1899
          (vol. x., No. 1).


                                 THE BIRD

                  Naught of labour, naught of sorrow,
                    On God’s little bird doth rest,
                  And it questions not the morrow,
                    Builds itself no lasting nest.

                  On the bough it sleeps and swings
                    Till the ruddy sun appears,
                  Then it shakes its wings and sings,
                    When the voice of God it hears.

                  After Spring’s delightful weather,
                    When the burning Summer’s fled,
                  And the Autumn brings together
                    For men’s sorrow, for men’s dread,

                  Mists and storms in gloomy legions;
                    Then the bird across the main
                  Flies to far-off, southern regions,
                    Till the Spring returns again.

      --Transl. by N. H. Dole (publication unascertainable).


                               THE PROPHET

               By spiritual thirst opprest,
               I hied me to the desert dim,
               When lo! upon my path appeared
               The holy six-winged seraphim.
               My brow his fingers lightly pressed,
               Soothing my eyelids into rest:
               Open my inward vision flies,
               As ope a startled eaglet’s eyes.
               He touched my ears, and they were filled
               With sounds that all my being thrilled.
               I felt a trembling fill the skies,
               I heard the sweep of angels’ wings,
               Beneath the sea saw creeping things,
               And in the valleys vines arise.
               Over my lips a while he hung,
               And tore from me my sinful tongue--
               The babbling tongue of vanity.
               The sting of serpent’s subtlety
               Within my lips, as chilled I stood,
               He placed, with right hand red with blood.
               Then with a sword my bosom cut,
               And forth my quivering heart he drew;
               A glowing coal of fire he put
               Within my breast laid bare to view.
               As corpse-like on the waste I lay,
               Thus unto me God’s voice did say--
               “Prophet, arise! Confess My Name;
               Fulfil my will; submit to Me!
               Arise! Go forth o’er land and sea,
               And with high words men’s hearts inflame!”

      --From J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.


                               THE TALISMAN

              Where fierce the surge with awful bellow
                Doth ever lash the rocky wall,
              And where the moon most brightly mellow
                Doth beam when mists of evening fall;
              Where midst his harem’s countless blisses
                The Moslem spends his vital span,
              A sorceress there with gentle kisses
                Presented me a Talisman.

              And said: “Until thy latest minute
                Preserve, preserve my Talisman;
              A secret power it holds within it,--
                ’T was love, true love the gift did plan.
              From pest on land or death on ocean
                When hurricanes its surface fan,
              O object of my fond devotion!
                Thou scap’st not by my Talisman.

              “The gem in eastern mine which slumbers,
                Or ruddy gold ’t will not bestow;
              ’T will not subdue the turbanned numbers
                Before the Prophet’s shrine which bow;
              Nor high through air on friendly pinions
                Can bear thee swift to home or clan,
              From mournful climes or strange dominions,
                From South to North,--my Talisman.

              “But oh! when crafty eyes thy reason
                With sorceries sudden seek to move,
              And when in night’s mysterious season
                Lips cling to thine,--but not in love,--
              From proving then, dear youth, a booty
                To those who falsely would trepan,
              From new heart wounds, and lapse from duty,
                Protect thee shall my Talisman.”

      --From _The Talisman, and Other Pieces_, by George Borrow, St.
          Petersburg, 1835.


                         THE LAY OF THE WISE OLÉG

      Wise Olég to the war he hath bound him again,
        The Khozárs have awakened his ire;
      For rapine and raid, hamlet, city, and plain
        Are devoted to falchion and fire.
      In mail of Byzance, girt with many a good spear,
      The Prince pricks along on his faithful destrere.

      From the darksome fir-forest, to meet that array,
        Forth paces a grey-haired magician:
      To none but Perún did that sorcerer pray,
        Fulfilling the prophet’s dread mission:
      His life he had wasted in penance and pain:--
      And beside that enchanter Olég drew his rein.

      “Now rede me, enchanter, beloved of Perún,
        The good and the ill that ’s before me;
      Shall I soon give my neighbour-foes triumph, and soon
        Shall the earth of the grave be piled o’er me?
      Unfold all the truth; fear me not; and for meed,
      Choose among them,--I give thee my best battle-steed.”

      “O enchanters, they care not for prince or for peer,
        And gifts are but needlessly given;
      The wise tongue ne’er stumbleth for falsehood or fear,
        ’T is the friend of the councils of Heaven!
      The years of the future are clouded and dark,
      Yet on thy fair forehead thy fate I can mark:

      “Remember now firmly the words of my tongue;
        For the chief finds a rapture in glory:
      On the gate of Byzantium thy buckler is hung,
        Thy name shall be deathless in story;
      Wild waves and broad kingdoms thy sceptre obey,
      And the foe sees with envy so boundless a sway:

      “And the blue sea, uplifting its treacherous wave,
        In its wrath,--in the hurricane-hour,--
      And the knife of the coward, the sword of the brave,
        To slay thee shall never have power:
      Within thy strong harness no wound shalt thou know,
      For a guardian unseen shall defend thee below.

      “Thy steed fears not labour, nor danger, nor pain,
        His lord’s lightest accent he heareth,
      Now still, though the arrows fall round him like rain,
        Now o’er the red field he careereth;
      He fears not the winter, he fears not to bleed,--
      Yet thy death-wound shall come from thy good battle-steed!”

      Olég smiled a moment, but yet on his brow,
        And lip, thought and sorrow were blended:
      In silence he bent on his saddle, and slow
        The Prince from his courser descended;
      And as though from a friend he were parting with pain,
      He strokes his broad neck and his dark flowing mane.

      “Farewell then, my comrade, fleet, faithful, and bold!
        We must part,--such is Destiny’s power:
      Now rest thee,--I swear, in thy stirrup of gold
        No foot shall e’er rest, from this hour.
      Farewell! we ’ve been comrades for many a long year,--
      My squires, now I pray ye, come take my destrere.

      “The softest of carpets his horse-cloth shall be:
        And lead him away to the meadow;
      On the choicest of corn he shall feed daintilie,
        He shall drink of the well in the shadow.”
      Then straightway departed the squires with the steed,
      And to valiant Olég a fresh courser they lead.

      Olég and his comrades are feasting, I trow;
        The mead-cups are merrily clashing:
      Their locks are as white as the dawn-lighted snow
        On the peak of the mountain-top flashing:
      They talk of old times, of the days of their pride,
      And the fights where together they struck side by side.

      “But where,” quoth Olég, “is my good battle-horse?
        My mettlesome charger,--how fares he?
      Is he playful as ever, as fleet in the course;
        His age and his freedom how bears he?”
      They answer and say: on the hill by the stream
      He has long slept the slumber that knows not a dream.

      Olég then grew thoughtful, and bent down his brow:
        “O man, what can magic avail thee!
      A false lying dotard, Enchanter, art thou:
        Our rage and contempt shall assail thee.
      My horse might have borne me till now, but for thee!”
      Then the bones of his charger Olég went to see.

      Olég he rode forth with his spearmen beside;
        At his bridle Prince Ígor he hurried:
      And they see on a hillock by Dnieper’s swift tide
        Where the steed’s noble bones lie unburied:
      They are washed by the rain, the dust o’er them is cast,
      And above them the feather-grass waves in the blast.

      Then the Prince set his foot on the courser’s white skull,
        Saying: “Sleep, my old friend, in thy glory!
      Thy lord hath outlived thee, his days are nigh full:
        At his funeral feast, red and gory,
      ’T is not thou ’neath the axe that shall redden the sod,
      That my dust may be pleasured to quaff thy brave blood.

      “And am I to find my destruction in this?
        My death in a skeleton seeking?”
      From the skull of the courser a snake, with a hiss,
        Crept forth as the hero was speaking:
      Round his legs, like a ribbon, it twined its black ring;
      And the Prince shrieked aloud as he felt the keen sting.

      The mead-cups are foaming, they circle around,--
        At Olég’s mighty Death-Feast they ’re ringing;
      Prince Ígor and Ólga they sit on the mound;
        The war-men the death-song are singing:
      And they talk of old times, of the days of their pride,
      And the fights where together they struck side by side.

      --From T. B. Shaw’s _Pushkin, the Russian Poet_, in Blackwood’s
          Magazine, 1845.


                       TO THE SLANDERERS OF RUSSIA

     Why rave ye, babblers, so--ye lords of popular wonder?
     Why such anathemas ’gainst Russia do you thunder?
     What moves your idle rage? Is ’t Poland’s fallen pride?
     ’T is but Slavonic kin among themselves contending,
     An ancient household strife, oft judged but still unending,
     A question which, be sure, _ye_ never can decide.
         For ages past still have contended
         These races, though so near allied:
         And oft ’neath Victory’s storm has bended
         Now Poland’s, and now Russia’s side.
         Which shall stand fast in such commotion,
         The haughty Pole, or faithful Russ?
     And shall Slavonic streams meet in a Russian ocean--
         Or _that_ dry up? This is point for us.

         Peace, peace! your eyes are all unable
         To read our history’s bloody table;
         Strange in your sight and dark must be
         Our springs of household enmity!
         To you the Kreml and Prága’s tower
         Are voiceless all,--you mark the fate
         And daring of the battle-hour,--
         And understand us not, but hate----

         What stirs ye? Is it that this nation
     On Moscow’s flaming wall, blood-slaked and ruin-quenched,
         Spurned back the insolent dictation
         Of Him before whose nod ye blenched?
         Is it that into dust we shattered
     The Dagon that weighed down the earth so wearily?
         And our best blood so freely scattered
         To buy for Europe peace and liberty?

     Ye ’re bold of tongue--but hard, would ye in deed but try it.
     Or is the hero, now reclined in laurelled quiet,
     Too weak to fix once more Izmail’s red bayonet?
     Or hath the Russian Tsar ever in vain commanded?
         Or must we meet all Europe banded?
         Have we forgot to conquer yet?
     Or rather, shall they not, from Perm to Tauris’ fountains,
     From the hot Colchian steppes to Finland’s icy mountains,
         From the grey Kreml’s half-shattered wall,
         To far Kathay, in dotage buried,--
         A steely rampart close and serried,
         Rise, Russia’s warriors, one and all?
         Then send your numbers without number,
         Your maddened sons, your goaded slaves,
         In Russia’s plains there ’s room to slumber,
         And well they ’ll know their brethren’s graves!

      --From T. B. Shaw’s _Pushkin, the Russian Poet_, in Blackwood’s
          Magazine, 1845.


                           FROM “BORÍS GODUNÓV”

                                    I

                 Night: _A cell in the Chúdov monastery_

                    FATHER PÍMEN, GRIGÓRI (sleeping).

   _Pímen (writing before a lamp)._ Once more, one final anecdote, and
    then
 My manuscript will be complete, the task
 On me, a sinner, laid by God, fulfilled.
 ’T is not for naught that during all these years
 The Lord hath made me witness many things,
 And taught me all the art of writing books.
 When in the future some industrious monk
 Shall find my hard-accomplished, nameless work,
 He will, like me, illume his little lamp,
 And, brushing off the dust of centuries,
 Will copy down my truthful chronicle.
 Then will the children of believers true
 Read all the story of their native land,
 Recall the labours of their mighty Tsars,
 Performed for them, for glory and for right,
 And humbly offer prayers that God will blot
 The crimes, though dark, of him who wrought for them.
 Thus, bent for many years I live anew.
 The past before me rose its hurrying flood.
 Is ’t long ago that like the angry sea
 Time’s fateful surges broke in great events?
 And now it rests in motionless repose!
 Not many men my memory preserves,
 Not many words are in my mind engrossed,
 And all the rest for ever now are gone.
 But day is nigh, my little lamp burns dim,
 One more, one final story of the past! (_Writes._)
   _Grigóri_ (_wakes_). That dream again? How strange! That cursèd
    dream!
 Thrice have I dreamed it! But the aged man
 Still sits before his little lamp and writes.
 He hath not closed his eyes the livelong night
 In slumber: how I love his peaceful mien,
 As, deeply buried in the past, his soul
 Broods o’er the secret of his manuscript.
 How gladly would I scan his precious line.
 What writeth he: the Tatars’ bloody reign,--
 The cruel deeds of John the Terrible?
 The stormy council of old Nóvgorod?
 The glories of the fatherland? In vain!
 Nor in his glance nor in his lofty brow
 Can one discern the secrets of his mind:
 His mien is calm and full of majesty,
 As well becomes an aged priest who looks
 With cloudless eye on good and evil men
 Impartially, detecting right and wrong
 Or hatred or compassion knowing not.
   _Pímen._ Art thou awake?
   _Grigóri._                Thy blessing, honoured sire.
   _Pímen._ The Lord His blessing grant thee, oh, my son,
 To-day, hereafter, and for evermore!
   _Grigóri._ Long has thy pen been busy, nor has sleep
 Once brought thee sweet oblivion this night;
 But some strange, diabolic vision hath disturbed
 My rest: my enemy hath tormented me.
 I dreamed that up the winding narrow stairs
 I mounted to the windy tower alone;
 Before me from the top all Moscow lay
 Diminished like an ant-hill. Far below
 The people swarmed and babbled in the square
 And jeered at me with senseless ridicule.
 Shame mastered me and terror overwhelmed,
 And, falling headlong on my face, I waked.
 ’T is thrice that I have dreamed the selfsame dream.
 Is ’t not a marvel?
   _Pímen._         ’T is thy youthful blood
 Makes sport of thee: by prayer and strenuous fast
 Thy dreams will be with peaceful visions filled.
 ’T is e’en not otherwise with me when I,
 Dazed with involuntary drowsiness,
 E’er fail my soul with earnest prayer to guard--
 My aged dreams are then disturbed with sin:
 While scenes of banqueting torment me oft,
 Now warlike camps or surging battles rude,
 Now senseless dissipations of wild youth.
   _Grigóri._ How gaily must have passed thy youthful days!
 Thou wast in battle ’neath Kazán’s high walls;
 Hast shared the wars in Lithuania’s plains;
 Hast seen the wanton court of John the Great.
 How fortunate! But I from earliest years
 Have been immured in cells a needy monk!
 Why should not I have had delight in war
 And feasted at the table of the Tsar?
 Then, when I reached like thee the term of life,
 I might have turned me gladly from the world
 And all its vanities, and shut myself
 Within the calm retirement of a cell
 To meditate upon my holy vows.
   _Pímen._ Lament not, brother, that thou hast so soon
 The world abandoned, that a loving God
 Hath little of temptation sent to thee.
 Take thou my word, a fascination strong
 Is exercised upon us from afar,
 By glory, luxury, and woman’s wiles.
 Long have I lived and much have I enjoyed;
 But only true enjoyment have I known
 Since to the cloister God hath led my steps.
 Recall the mightiest Tsars that have ever lived.
 Who stands above them? God alone! And who
 Would venture to oppose them? None! What then?
 On them so sorely weighs the golden crown
 They would exchange it gladly for the cowl.
 E’en John the Tsar sought comfort and relief
 Within the semblance of monastic rule.
 His court, where swarmed his haughty favourites,
 The novel aspect of a cloister took;
 His body-guard, in sackcloth and in stole,
 Appeared like docile monks, the while the Tsar,
 Himself, the cruel Tsar, an abbot mild.
 Myself have seen, here in this very cell--
 (’T was then the abode of that most just of men,
 Kiríll, who suffered much, and even then
 I also had been led by God to see
 The folly of the world)--myself have seen,
 Here in this very cell, the mighty Tsar,
 Grown weary of his mad designs and wrath,
 Repenting, sit amongst us, meek and mild.
 We stood before him silent, motionless,
 And quietly he would converse with us,
 Would hold the abbot and the brotherhood:
 “Ye fathers, soon the wished-for hour will come,
 When I ’ll appear with hunger to be saved;
 Thou Nikodím, thou Sérgi, thou Kiríll,
 And all of ye, accept my heartfelt vow!
 I ’ll come to you a sinner in despair;
 I ’ll take upon myself the monk’s harsh garb,
 I ’ll fall, O holy father, at thy feet!”
 Thus spoke the mighty ruler of the realm;
 And gentle words flowed from his cruel lips,
 And tears bedewed his cheeks; and we in tears
 Would pray our Lord his sinful, suffering soul
 To fill with everlasting love and peace.
 But his son Feódor? Upon the throne
 Vowed to perpetual silence, like a monk;
 He sighed to lead a life of easy peace.
 He straightway changed the royal palace-halls
 To cloistered cells, the heavy cares of state
 Did not at all disturb his saintly soul.
 God mercifully gave the Tsar his peace;
 And while he lived, our Russia, undisturbed
 In taintless glory, owned his gentle sway.
 But when he died, a miracle was wrought,
 Unheard of: at his couch appeared a man
 With face of flame, seen by the Tsar alone.
 Feódor talked with him, and called him “Sire,”--
 “Great Patriarch.” All around were filled with fear
 To see the heavenly apparition there,
 Because the holy father was not then
 Within the chamber where the Tsar was laid.
 When he appeared sweet fragrance filled the halls,
 And like the sun his holy visage shone.

      --From _Shakespeare and the Russian Drama_, by N. H. Dole, in
          Poet-lore, vol. i., No. 11.


                                  DEMONS

                Clouds are shifting, clouds are flying,
                  Scarce the hidden moon’s pale light
                On the drifting snow is lying,--
                  Wild the heavens, wild the night.
                Swiftly o’er the stormswept lowland--
                  Jingle, jingle bells amain!
                Swiftly still, though heavy-hearted,
                  Drive I o’er the frozen main.

                “Ho there! driver, onward!” “Faster,
                  Good my lord, we may not go,
                For the stormwind blinds me, master,
                  And the road is choked with snow.”
                Useless all! the track is hidden;
                  We are lost to help and home;
                From afar the demon spies us--
                  Closer circling see him come!

                Ha! beside us he ’s careering,
                  Hissing, spitting,--now, I ween,
                Round the steeds so madly veering
                  On the brink of yon ravine.
                There--if near or far I know not--
                  He was whirling in my sight.
                There again he pined and dwindled,
                  Vanished into empty night!

                Clouds are shifting, clouds are flying,
                  Scarce the hidden moon’s pale light
                On the drifting snow is lying,--
                  Wild the heavens, wild the night.
                Courage fails to struggle longer,
                  Suddenly the sleigh bells cease--
                Pause the team--Declare thou yonder--
                  Wolf or tree-stem--is it peace?

                Hark, the wind is wailing sadly,
                  Loudly snort the startled team.
                There, see there he gambols madly,
                  Through the murk his eyeballs gleam.
                Once again the team has started--
                  Jingle, jingle bells amain!
                Lo, the spirit-hosts assemble
                  O’er the faintly gleaming plain!

                Form they have not, have no number,
                  Lightly whirling round, they seem
                Like the dead leaves of November
                  In the moon’s uncertain beam.
                Are they endless? whither fly they?
                  Why this wailful chanting, say!
                Mourn they now their dead? In marriage
                  Give they, else, some witch away?

                Clouds are shifting, clouds are flying,
                  Scarce the hidden moon’s pale light
                On the drifting snow is lying,--
                  Wild the heavens, wild the night.
                Still they come and still they vanish
                  In the darkness o’er the plain,
                Still their moaning and imploring
                  Rends my very heart in twain!

      --Transl. by Miss H. Frank, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society,
          No. 34.




  Evgéni Abrámovich Baratýnski. (1800-1844.)


  Baratýnski was the most talented of all the contemporary poets of
  Púshkin. He came of a distinguished family in the Government of
  Tambóv. At fifteen years he entered the Corps of Pages, but was soon
  expelled for some misdemeanour. This compelled his enlisting as a
  common soldier in St. Petersburg, where he came at once in contact
  with the leading poets of the day, and he began himself writing
  verses. The following six years he passed in Finland, the austere
  nature of which much impressed his mind and gave him ample material
  for his melancholy Muse. After rising to the rank of a commissioned
  officer, he retired and settled in Moscow. In 1843 he went abroad, and
  the next year he suddenly died in Naples. His best production, _The
  Gipsy Girl_, was at one time preferred to Púshkin’s poems, but he is
  now chiefly remembered as the earliest and most brilliant of Russian
  pessimistic poets.

  In C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_, London, 1887, is given _Faith
  Rewarded_; the same, under the title _The Madonna_, translated by F.
  P. Marchant, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 28.


                                 FINLAND

Into your clefts you have received the poet, granite rocks of Finland,
eternal granites, guardian heroes of the land of the glacial crown. With
the lyre he is among you. His greeting is a greeting to the masses of
the rock, contemporaneous with the world. Like them may he for ever be
unchangeable!

How wondrously everything about me charms my eye: there with its
immeasurable waters the sea is welded with the heavens; here the dreamy
pine-forest has descended with heavy tread from the mountain rock, and
mirrors itself in the smooth waters! ’T is late: day is out, but the
vault of heaven is bright; night comes without darkness upon the Finnish
cliffs, and only for its own adornment it leads out upon the horizon a
useless choir of diamond stars. This is the country of Odin’s
children,--the distant nations of the storm! This is the cradle of their
restless days, consecrated to famous warrings!

Silent is the sounding shield, not heard the voice of the skald; the
flaming oak is extinguished; the stormy wind has scattered the solemn
calls, the sons know not the exploits of their fathers, and prone in the
dust lie the prostrate forms of their gods,--and all around me is deep
silence. O ye who carried war from shore to shore, where are ye, heroes
of the north? Your vestige has disappeared from your native land. Do ye
press your grieving eyes against the cliffs and swim, a misty host, up
in the clouds? Do ye? Give me answer, listen to my voice calling to you
in the silence of the night. Mighty sons of these threatening, eternal
cliffs! How were ye severed from your rocky fatherland? Why are ye sad?
Why have I read upon your melancholy faces the smile of chiding? And ye
have hid yourselves in the abode of shades! And time has not spared your
names! What are our exploits, what the glory of our days, what is our
windy tribe? Oh, everything will in its turn disappear in the abyss of
years! For all there is one law,--the law of annihilation. In all I hear
the mysterious greeting of sought-for forgetfulness.

But I,--for life’s sake loving life in ingloriousness,--shall I with
careless soul tremble before destiny? Though not eternal in time, I am
eternal for myself: does not the storm of time speak to imagination
alone? The moment belongs to me, as I belong to the moment. What care I
for past or future races? Not for them do I strum the soft-voiced
strings: though not listened to, I am sufficiently rewarded with sounds
for sounds, and with dreams for dreams.


                                  SPRING

Spring, O spring! How pure the air, how clear the vault of heaven! With
its bright azure it blinds my eyes.

Spring, O spring! How, upon the pinions of the wind, caressing the
sunbeams, the clouds flit upon high!

The rivulets babble, the rivulets sparkle; roaring the river carries on
its triumphant back the uplifted ice.

The trees are still bare, but in the grove the old leaves, as before,
rustle under foot and emit fragrance.

Rising to the very sun and invisible in the clear height, the lark sings
the song of welcome to the spring.

What has happened to my soul? With the brook it is a brook, and with the
bird a bird: with one it babbles, with the other flies into heaven.

Why do sun and spring give it such joy? Does it, as a daughter of the
elements, make merry at their banquet?

Well, happy is he who there drinks oblivion from thought, who there is
carried far away from it!


                                  TRUTH

Yearning since childhood for happiness, I have ever been poor in
happiness! Or shall I never attain it in the wilderness of existence?

My young dreams have flitted from the heart,--I do not recognise the
world: I am deprived of my former aim of hopes, but have no new aim.

“Senseless are you and all your wishes!” spoke to me a secret voice, and
I cast off for ever the best creations of my dreams.

But wherefore has the disappointment of the soul not been complete? Why
lives within me the blind pity of my youthful dreams?

Thus I once murmured, meditating about my heavy lot: suddenly I saw--it
was no dream--Truth before me.

“My light will show the path to happiness!” said she. “Let me but
wish,--and I will teach you, impassioned one, joyful dispassionateness:

“Though through me you may lose the heat of your heart; though, learning
to know people, you, perchance, frightened, may cease to love your
neighbours and your friends.

“I shall destroy all the charms of existence, but shall put your mind
aright; I shall pour an austere cold over your soul, but shall give it
calm.”

I trembled, as I listened to her words, and grievously I replied to her:
“O unearthly guest, sad is your visitation!

“Your light is the funereal light of all earthly joys! Your peace, alas!
is the melancholy peace of the grave, and it is terrible to the living!

“No, I am not yours: in your severe science I shall not find happiness!
Leave me: I will somehow manage to wander upon my path.

“Good-bye! or no: when my luminary in the starry height will begin to
grow dim, and when the time will come to forget all that to my heart is
dear,--

“Appear then! Open then my eyes, enlighten my mind, that, despising
life, I may without murmuring descend into the abode of night!”




  Nikoláy Mikháylovich Yazýkov. (1803-1846.)


  Yazýkov was born in Simbírsk, where he remained to his twelfth year.
  In 1820 he entered the School of Mines at St. Petersburg, but before
  graduating went to the university at Dorpat, from which he also failed
  to get a diploma. He passed his student days in riotous bouts that
  completely undermined his health. His anacreontic poems early
  attracted the attention of Zhukóvski and Púshkin, and the latter
  became a warm friend of his. He then settled in Moscow, where he
  served in one of the governmental offices, and wrote a series of
  poems, among which _To the Poet_, _The Conflagration_, and _A Spring
  Night_ are his best. Ill health soon drove him abroad, and there he
  composed his famous _To the Rhine_; his other poems of the same period
  have a religious and patriotic tinge. Yazýkov’s poetry has been the
  subject of much controversy: some deny the intrinsic value of his
  productions, though all unite in extolling the exquisite musicalness
  and harmony of his verse.

  N. H. Dole has translated his _The Sailor_ (publication
  unascertainable). In C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_, London, 1887,
  are given _The Earthquake_, _Evening_, _Prayer_.


                                THE SAILOR

                Cruel is our lonely ocean,
                  Roaring always day and night;
                Buried ’neath its wild commotion
                  Many a wreck lies, far from sight.

                Courage, comrades! I, confiding,
                  To the free winds give my barque;
                Forth it hastens, swiftly riding
                  O’er the billows grim and dark.

                Thick the clouds fly o’er the heaven,
                  Fierce the gale grows,--black the waves;
                Hither, thither we are driven,
                  While the waking whirlwind raves.

                Courage, comrades! Peals the thunder,
                  High the watery heaps arise,
                Yawning gulfs now draw us under,
                  Now we ’re lifted to the skies.

                Yet behold, our ship is nearing
                  Through the storm the wished-for land;
                See, the vaults of heaven are clearing,
                  See, the port is near at hand.

                Thither but brave hearts and ready
                  Will the billows speed along!
                Courage, comrades! straight and steady
                  Flies our vessel, stanch and strong.

      --Transl. by N. H. Dole (publication not ascertainable).


                                THE STORM

Lo! behind the distant mountains is concealed the beautiful day; under
the protection of the woods above the waters the tremulous shade grows
ever longer in wavelike rows. In the river gleams the evening
star,--hills, vales, and shores are deserted: long processions of carts,
having left the fields, drive into the village. Now and then a watchdog
barks, or the breeze makes the leaves rustle in the darkling oak-forest,
or a bird flies timidly by, or a heavy, creaking waggon, drawn by a
tired horse, and counting off each plank with its wheels, crosses the
lightly poised bridge. And suddenly a broken, dull rattling is borne
over the river, already silent and dreamy,--and all is quiet again.

But in the distance, at the edge of the heavens, large, cloudy waves
have on all sides veiled the full moon: now they part, now they come
together again; now the silent clouds threateningly merge into one mass
that, lightning-bearing and black, steals from the east upon the azure
vault. Already is the speechlessness of the woods disturbed by the
encroachment of the wind; no longer is the nightly flowing of the river
peaceful and dark. In broad ripples flash upon it the far-stretched
groves of shadows,--just as a sail, trembling in the air and almost
furled by the sailor, when suddenly a storm arises, and rolling the
noisy floods, seizes the pinion of his barque and stretches it above the
whirling waters.

Darkness has drowned the heavens; rain pours down; the storm agitates
and stirs the waters and the woods.--it lightens, thunders, and raves.
Wondrous moments! When from end to end, through the stormy clouds a
furrow of toothed lightning gleams in purple fire,--then everything is
seen: the chain of the distant mountains and the variegated pictures of
the windings of the Sorót, the lakes, the villages, the banks, and the
vales. Suddenly the darkness grows more grim and murky, the thunder
claps are louder; noisier, thicker, faster are the torrents of the rain.
But to-morrow the luminary of the day will, in luxurious silence, appear
in the light-blue heaven, and will re-establish a golden morning in the
storm-washed country.


                               TO THE POET

When inspiration has grown one with you, and your breast heaves mightily
with it, and you perceive your consecration and know your God-blest
path, when all, by which the heavenly gift is patent upon earth, is
ready for your deeds,--the light and heat of mighty thought and the
fire-breathing word,--then go into the world, that it may hear the
prophet! But in the world be holy and majestic, kiss not the sugared
lips of vice, beg not, take no reward,--whether the morning star invite
you with its glow, or terrible be the tyranny of fate: be innocent as
the dove, and bold and brave as the eagle!

And harmonious and soothing sounds will rise from your thundering
strings; in these sounds the slave will forget his torments, and King
Saul will listen to them, and you will bloom in life of high solemnity,
and for ever bright will be your open brow and piercing, flaming eye!

But if you are filled with the earthly desire of praise and
pleasure,--gather not rich gifts upon the altar of your God: He will
ungraciously look upon you, will not accept your cunning offerings;
smoke and thunder will disperse them,--and the priest will recede,
trembling with fear and shame.




  Mikhaíl Yúrevich Lérmontov. (1814-1841.)


  Lérmontov was born in the house of his grandmother, who brought him up
  after the early death of his mother. Up to his tenth year he was
  educated at home, in the country, studying several modern languages
  and Greek. In 1826 he was taken to Moscow and placed in the Boarding
  School for Young Noblemen, which was connected with the university. He
  here distinguished himself as a student, but was much ridiculed by his
  mates on account of his awkward manner and unattractive exterior. This
  led him to withdraw from their company as much as possible, and to
  frequent solitary spots. He read a great deal, but his favourite
  author was Byron, whose life he set up as an example for himself to
  follow. Having been expelled from the university for some scandalous
  pranks, he entered in 1832 the School of the Guard Cadets at St
  Petersburg, where he soon gained the reputation of a clever poet of
  immodest verses. After graduation he passed his life in a whirl of
  society pleasures at St. Petersburg and at Tsárskoe Seló. Púshkin’s
  death, in 1837, roused Lérmontov from his inactivity. The poem, _On
  the Death of the Poet_, which he then wrote, and which was spread over
  Russia in a large number of manuscript copies, caused a sensation in
  higher society, and he was banished for it to the Caucasus, but was
  soon returned to the army. Lérmontov was at that time little known to
  the public at large, though his poem “Borodinó” had just appeared, as
  he kept himself aloof from the literary coteries. He first attracted
  universal attention by his _Ballad of the Tsar Iván Vasílevich_, after
  which followed a long series of his famous poems, and the prose novel
  _The Hero of our Time_. In 1840 he was again banished to the Caucasus
  for having fought a duel, but the next year he was killed in another
  duel with a fellow-officer.

  Lérmontov had displayed unusual talent before the age of twenty, and
  before his twenty-eighth year he had achieved a reputation that is
  hardly second to Púshkin’s. His fervid imagination led him to add to
  his fashionable Byronian mood a charm entirely his own: his melancholy
  and pessimism, which find their most beautiful expression in his long
  poem, _The Demon_, do not leave the reader disheartened and
  disappointed, but rather invite to pensive meditation. His poetry
  gives the impression of having no relation to active life; it seems as
  though the questions of the day did not exist for him. This is partly
  due to the fact that he stood aside from the literary circles, but
  more especially because he wrote at a time when the application of art
  to life had not yet become the watchword of Russian poets. He
  therefore characterises the transition period from Púshkin to Gógol.
  He was entirely under the influence of Byron, without, however,
  inheriting his political and humanitarian ideals.

  There are several translations of his prose tale: _Sketches of Russian
  Life in the Caucasus_, by a Russe (a literary forgery), London, 1853;
  _A Hero of Our Times_, now first translated into English, London,
  1854; _The Hero of Our Days_, from the Russian, by T. Pulszky (in The
  Parlour Library), London, [1854]; _A Hero of Our Time_, from the
  Russian, by R. I. Lipmann, London, [1886]; Russian Reader:
  _Lermontoff’s Modern Hero_, with English translation and biographical
  sketch, by Ivan Nestor-Schnurmann, Cambridge University Press, 1899.
  _Taman_ (part of _Hero of Our Time_) was also given in Railway and
  General Automatic Library, London, [1892]. _The Demon_ has been
  translated twice: _The Demon_, translated from the Russian, by A.
  Condie Stephen, London, 1875, 2nd ed., 1881, 3rd ed., 1886; _The Demon
  of Lermontoff_, translated from the Russian, by Francis Storr, London,
  1894. The _Mtsyri_ has appeared under the name, _The Circassian Boy_,
  translated through the German, by S. S. Conant, Boston, 1875.

  The following separate poems have been translated into English: _The
  Gifts of Terek_, by T. B. Shaw, in Edinburgh Blackwood Magazine, vol.
  liv.; _Rememberest thou the day_, by W. R. Alger, in _The Poetry of
  the Orient_, Boston, 1865; _Gifts of the Terek_, _The Cup of Life_,
  _Cossack Cradlesong_, _The Prisoner_, by A. E. Staley, in Blackwood’s
  Magazine, vol. cxxxvi.; _God’s Presence in Nature_, _Clouds_, _The Cup
  of Life_, _The Bark_, _The Dispute_, _Circassian Song_, _Cossack
  Cradlesong_, _The Prisoner_, _The Deserter_, _The Dream_, _Stanzas_,
  _The Nun’s Song_, _Prayer_, _The Branch from Palestine_, by C. T.
  Wilson, in _Russian Lyrics_, London, 1887; _The Angel_, _The Voyage_,
  _Prayer_, _Thanksgiving_, _On Death of Púshkin_, _Dream_, _Clouds_,
  _How Weary_, _Alone I pass along the lonely road_, _Men and Waves_,
  _The Queen of the Sea_, _The Prophet_, _When my native land_, _To
  ----_, _The Dagger_, _Not for Thee_, _Dispute_, _“Why?” Moscow_, in J.
  Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_, London, 1891; in Free Russia have
  appeared: by G. R. Tomson, _The Poet_, in vol. i., No. 6; by Mary
  Grace Walker, _The Death of Pushkin_, in vol. x., Nos. 6 and 7, _My
  Neighbour_, in vol. xi., No. 1, _My Country_, ib., No. 4; by Mrs. Ch.
  Sidgwick, _At a Ball_, ib., No. 2; in The Anglo-Russian Literary
  Society have been published: by F. P. Marchant, _The Angel_, _The
  Prayer_, in No. 11, _The Branch from Palestine_, and _Gratitude_, in
  No. 16, _Cossack Cradlesong_, in No. 25, _Ballad of the Tsar Ivan
  Vasilevich_, in No. 26; by Miss G. Shepherd, _Oh, he was born for
  happiness, for hope_, in No. 13; by A. C. Coolidge, _Alone I wander
  out along the road_ and _The Angel_, in No. 14 (given before in
  Harvard Monthly Magazine, 1895); by Mrs. Heath, _The Sail_, in No. 19;
  by J. Pollen, _The Gifts of the Terek_, in No. 20; by Anna Laura K.
  Bezant, _On life’s road I wander, lone and dreaming_, in No. 21; in
  the Library of the World’s Best Literature is given _The Cloud_, by N.
  H. Dole, and are reprinted _The Prisoner_ and _The Cup of Life_, by
  Staley, and _The Angel_, by Pollen.


                        FROM “A HERO OF OUR TIMES”

                             MAKSÍM MAKSÍMYCH

Leaving Maksím Maksímych, I rode at a rapid gait through the Térek and
Daryál cañons, breakfasted in Kazbék, drank tea at Lára, and hastened
away for supper to Vladikavkáz.

I stopped at the inn where all passengers stop----I was told that I
should have to pass three days longer here, since the chance-team had
not yet returned from Ekaterinográd and, consequently, could not start
on its return journey.

The first day I passed lonely. Early in the morning of the next day a
vehicle drove into the yard. “Ah, Maksím Maksímych!” We met like old
friends. I offered him my room; he accepted it without ceremony, even
clapped me on my shoulder and curved his mouth in the manner of a smile.
What a queer fellow!

Maksím Maksímych was well versed in the culinary art: he could broil a
pheasant remarkably well, superbly seasoned it with cucumber sauce, and
I must confess that without him I should have been obliged to live on
dry food. A bottle of Kakhetine wine helped us to forget the modest
number of our dishes, of which there was but one, and lighting our pipes
we seated ourselves,--I at the window, he at the stove, for it was a
damp and cold day. We were silent.

We sat for a long time. A few vehicles with dirty Armenians drove into
the yard of the inn, and behind them--an empty carriage.

“Thank the Lord!” said Maksím Maksímych, approaching the window. “What a
fine carriage!” he added----“Who can it be? Let us go and find out.”

We went into the corridor. A lackey was dragging, with the help of the
driver, some portmanteaus into a room.

“Listen, friend,” the staff-captain asked him, “to whom does this
magnificent carriage belong?----Eh? A fine carriage!”

The lackey did not turn around, but muttered something as he opened the
portmanteau. Maksím Maksímych grew angry. He touched the rude fellow on
the shoulder and said to him: “I ’m talking to you, my dear fellow.”

“To whom the carriage belongs? To my master?”

“And who is your master?”

“Pechórin.”

“You don’t say? Pechórin? Oh, good God! Did n’t he serve in the
Caucasus?” exclaimed Maksím Maksímych, pulling me by the sleeve. Joy
glistened in his eyes.

“I think he did, but I have not been long with him.”

“Well, that ’s it! Grigóri Aleksándrovich? That ’s his name? Your master
and I have been friends,” he added, giving the lackey a friendly slap on
the shoulder that made him stagger.

“Excuse me, sir, you are in my way,” he said, knitting his brow.

“How funny you are, friend! You must know that your master and I have
been bosom friends and have lived together. But what has become of him?”

The servant announced that Pechórin would remain for supper and the
night at Colonel N.’s.

“Won’t he come here in the evening?” said Maksím Maksímych. “Or, are n’t
you going down to see him for something or other? If you are, tell him
that Maksím Maksímych is here,--he knows,--I ’ll give you eight
grívenniks[7] for vódka.”[8]

The lackey made a scornful grimace when he heard of such a modest
promise, but he assured Maksím Maksímych that he would carry out his
order.

“He ’ll come right away!” Maksím Maksímych said to me, with a radiant
look. “I ’ll wait for him outside the gate. Oh, what a pity I don’t know
Colonel N.”

Maksím Maksímych sat down on a bench in front of the gate, and I went to
my room.

An hour later an invalid brought a boiling samovár and a teapot. “Maksím
Maksímych, don’t you want any tea?” I cried to him through the window.

“Thank you, I don’t feel like it.”

“Do take a glass! Look, it is already late and cold.”

“No, thank you.”

“Well, as you please!” I began to drink tea myself; some ten minutes
later the old fellow came into the room.

“You are right: it will be better to take some tea. I have been waiting,
but his man went to him long ago; evidently something has detained him.”

He hurriedly sipped a cup, declined a second, and went again outside the
gate, somewhat disturbed. It was clear that Pechórin’s negligence
annoyed the old fellow, especially since he had only lately been telling
me of his friendship, and since he was so sure an hour ago that Pechórin
would hurry to see him, the moment he heard his name.

It was late and dark when I again opened the window and began to call
Maksím Maksímych, saying that it was time to go to bed. He muttered
something through his teeth. I repeated the invitation, but he did not
answer.

I lay down on the divan and covered myself with my cloak. I left a
candle on the oven-bench and fell asleep. I should have slept quietly if
Maksím Maksímych had not entered very late into the room and awakened
me. He threw down his pipe on the table, began to pace over the room and
to poke the fire; finally he lay down, but he coughed, spit, and tossed
for a long time.

“Are bugs biting you?” I asked him.

“Yes, bugs,” he answered, drawing a deep sigh.

I awoke very early the next morning, but Maksím Maksímych had
anticipated me. I found him in front of the gate, seated on the bench.

“I must go down to the Commandant,” he said, “so please send for me if
Pechórin should come.”

I promised I would. He ran away as if his limbs had regained their
youthful vigour and flexibility.

Less than ten minutes had passed when at the end of the square appeared
the man we were waiting for. He was walking with Colonel N., who brought
him to the inn, bade him good-bye, and returned to the fort. I
immediately sent the invalid for Maksím Maksímych.

The horses were already hitched. The bells now and then tinkled over the
yoke, and the lackey had already twice approached Pechórin with the
report that all was ready, but Maksím Maksímych had not yet made his
appearance. Fortunately Pechórin was buried in meditation and was
looking at the blue crags of the Caucasus, and did not seem to be in a
hurry to leave. I went up to him.

“If you will wait a little,” I said, “you will have the pleasure of
meeting an old friend of yours.”

“Oh, that ’s so!” he answered rapidly. “I was told so yesterday; but
where is he?”

I turned to the square and saw Maksím Maksímych running at full speed. A
few minutes later he was near us; he could hardly breathe; perspiration
ran down his face; wet tufts of grey hair stood out from under his cap
and stuck to his brow; his knees were trembling. He wanted to throw
himself on Pechórin’s neck, but the latter quite coldly, though with a
pleasant smile, stretched out his hand to him. The staff-captain was
stupefied for a moment, but then eagerly grasped his hand with both of
his: he could not speak.

“How glad I am, dear Maksím Maksímych! Well, how are you getting along?”
Pechórin asked.

“And thou? and you?” the old man muttered with tears in his eyes. “How
many years--how many days--but where are you going to?”

“I am going to Persia, and still farther.”

“Right away? Do stay here a while, my friend! Are we really going to
separate at once? We have not seen each other for so long.”

“I must, Maksím Maksímych,” was his answer.

“O Lord! Where are you hurrying so? I should like to tell you so much,
and ask you so much! Well, have you retired? What have you been doing?”

“Having ennui!” Pechórin answered, smiling.

“Do you remember our life in the fort? ’T was a fine country for
hunting! You were a passionate hunter! And Béla?”

Pechórin grew slightly pale and turned away.

“Yes, I remember!” he said, yawning forcedly.

Maksím Maksímych began to entreat him to stay an hour or two with him.

“We shall have a fine dinner,” he said. “I have two pheasants, and the
Kakhetine wine is excellent,--of course not what it is in Georgia, yet
of the best sort. We shall talk. You will tell me of your life in St.
Petersburg. Well, what do you say?”

“Really, I have nothing to tell, dear Maksím Maksímych. Now good-bye, I
must go, I am in a hurry. Thank you for remembering me,” he added,
taking his hand.

The old man knit his eyebrows. He was sad and angry, though he tried to
hide it.

“Forget? No, I have forgotten nothing. Well, God be with you! I hoped to
meet you differently.”

“Well, well!” said Pechórin, embracing him in a friendly manner. “Am I
not the same? What ’s to be done? Each one has his road laid out. God
knows if we shall ever meet again!”

He was already in the carriage when he said this, and the driver was
arranging the reins.

“Wait, wait!” Maksím Maksímych suddenly shouted, catching hold of the
door of the carriage: “I almost forgot. I have your papers, Grigóri
Aleksándrovich, and I have been dragging them along with me. I had hoped
to find you in Georgia, but by the will of God we have met here. What
shall I do with them?”

“Whatever you please!” answered Pechórin. “Good-bye!”

“So you are making for Persia? When will you be back?” Maksím Maksímych
cried after him.

The vehicle was far off, but Pechórin made a sign with his hand which
could be interpreted as follows: “Hardly! And there is no reason why I
should!”

The tinkling of the bell and the rattling of the wheels on the flinty
road had long died away, but the poor old man was still standing in the
same place, buried in meditation.

“Yes,” he said at last, trying to assume an indifferent look, though
from time to time a tear of indignation glittered on his eyelashes. “We
have been friends, but what does friendship nowadays mean? What interest
can he have in me? I am not rich, have no title, and am not a match for
him as to age. What a swell he has become since he has been in St.
Petersburg. What a carriage! How much luggage! And what a proud lackey!”
These words were pronounced with an ironical smile. “Tell me,” he
continued, turning towards me: “What do you think about it? What demon
carries him now to Persia? It ’s ridiculous, upon my word, ridiculous! I
always knew that he was a flighty man upon whom one could not rely. But,
really, it ’s a pity he should end so badly,--it can’t be otherwise! I
always said it does no good to forget old friends!”

Here he turned away to conceal his agitation, and began to pace up and
down the yard, near his vehicle, as if to examine the wheels, while his
eyes kept filling with tears.

“Maksím Maksímych,” I said, walking over to him, “what kind of papers
are those that Pechórin has left with you?”

“God knows! Some memoirs.”

“What will you do with them?”

“What! I ’ll have them made into cartridges.”

“You had better give them to me.”

He looked at me in wonderment, muttered something through his teeth, and
began to rummage through his portmanteau. Then he took out a notebook,
threw it contemptuously on the floor, then another, a third, a tenth,
and they had all the same fate: there was something childish in his
anger; I was amused, and I pitied him.

“Here they are,” said he. “I congratulate you with your find.”

“And I may do with them what I wish?”

“As far as I am concerned, you may print them in newspapers. What do I
care? What am I to him? Neither a friend, nor a relative. It is true, we
have lived a long time together under the same roof. But there are many
others with whom I have lived!”

I grabbed the books and carried them quickly away, fearing that the
captain might regret his action. They announced to us soon after that
the carriage would start in an hour. I gave orders to pack. The captain
entered the room as I was putting on my cap. He was evidently not
getting ready to travel; he had a kind of a forced, cold look.

“Are n’t you going, Maksím Maksímych?”

“No, sir.”

“How so?”

“I have not yet seen the Commandant, and I have to hand over to him some
Crown goods.”

“But you have been with him?”

“Yes, I have, that ’s so,” he said, hesitatingly, “but he was not at
home, and I did not wait for his return.”

I understood him--the poor old man had, probably for the first time in
his life, neglected his official duties for private reasons, as they say
in chancery language, and how he was rewarded for it!

“Very sorry, Maksím Maksímych, that we are to part before our time.”

“We uncouth old men can’t keep up with you! You are a worldly, proud
young set. As long as you are under Circassian bullets, you are
passable, but when you meet one of our kind later, you are ashamed to
stretch out your hand to him.

“I have not deserved these reproaches, Maksím Maksímych.”

“I should not have mentioned it, if I had not been egged on. As for you,
I wish you good luck and a happy journey.”

We parted quite dryly. Good Maksím Maksímych became a stubborn,
quarrelsome staff-captain! Why? Because Pechórin, in his
absent-mindedness or for some other reason, stretched out his hand to
him, when he was ready to fall around his neck. It is sad to see a young
man lose all his best hopes and dreams, when the rose-coloured glass is
taken away from him through which he had been looking at human acts and
feelings, though there is hope that he will exchange his old illusions
for new ones, not less transitory, but also not less sweet. But what is
to take their place in a man of Maksím Maksímych’s years? The heart
involuntarily becomes hardened, and the soul closes up.

I travelled by myself.

  [7] A grívennik is equal to ten kopeks, or about five cents.

  [8] Native brandy.


                             FROM “THE DEMON”

                                    I

              A sombre fiend, a spirit banished,
              Was flying o’er this world of sin;
              While thoughts of better days, now vanished,
              Upon his brain were crowding in--
              Those days, when in the home of light
              Midst cherubim he too was bright.
              The time was when the comet fleeting,
              Its soft caressing smile of greeting
              To interchange with him was proud;
              When, through the never-ending cloud,
              He followed curiously the trace
              Of where the caravans had moved
              Of stars, whose paths were lost in space,--
              When he believed and when he loved.
              A happy first-born of creation,
              He knew no thought of fear or doubt:
              Existence then was his, without
              The weight of ages of damnation----
              And much and much,--but no, not all,
              Had he the strength that dared recall.

                                    II

              Through earthly deserts long he sped,
              Without a refuge or an aim.
              The ages after ages fled;
              Like minute after minute, came
              Recurring ceaselessly the same.
              In this mean world o’er which he lorded
              No ill he sowed, relief afforded;
              For nowhere he resistance met
              That stood against the snares he set.
              Sin did but weariness beget.

                                   III

              Now, o’er the Caucasus, on high,
              Was Eden’s outcast flying by.
              Kazbék, beneath, with diamond light
              Of everlasting snow shines blinding;
              And deep below, a streak of night,
              Like some dark cleft, the snake’s delight,
              In endless curves the Daryál’s winding
              And Térek like a lion springing,
              With bristling mane, in fury roars;
              The beast of prey, the bird, high winding
              Its flight in azure where it soars,
              Have heard the cry his waves give forth,
              And little golden clouds there are
              From southern lands,--ay, from afar,
              To follow on the journey north.
              The cliffs in serried masses seem,
              Replete with some mysterious dream,
              To bend their heads above the stream,
              And watch his waters as they gleam
              Perched on the rock, the castle tower,
              That stands on Caucasus to wait,
              A giant guardian at the gate,
              Seems sternly through the mist to glower,
              And wild and wonderful about
              Was all God’s world; but that proud sprite
              With but a glance of scorn looked out
              On all his God had wrought in might;
              His lofty brow did naught express
              Except the void of nothingness.

                                    IV

              Before him now another scene
              Had living beauties to display,
              Where Georgian valleys robed in green,
              Stretched outward like a carpet, lay.
              One of earth’s happy fertile nooks
              Where column-like the ruins stand;
              O’er stones of every hue, the brooks
              Run downward babbling through the land.
              The nightingales among the roses
              Sing tuneful love in accents fond
              To graceful mates that ne’er respond;
              The plane-tree’s spreading shade discloses
              The spot where ivy thick reposes;
              Here gorges where from burning day
              The timid deer lie hid away;
              And light, and life, and leaves that rustle,
              And voices’ hundred-sounding bustle,
              And plants whose thousand breaths compete,
              And fierce voluptuous noonday heat;
              And nights whose aromatic dew
              Distils a freshness ever new;
              And stars that are as bright as eyes,
              As glances of the Georgian maid.
              But nature in all charm arrayed
              To no new throb of life gave rise
              Within that outlaw’s sterile breast,
              Save for a hostile, cold unrest;
              And that which here he contemplated,
              He looked with scorn upon and hated.

      --Transl. by A. C. Coolidge (unpublished).


                                 DISPUTE

              Once, before a tribal meeting
                Of the mountain throng,
              Kazbék-hill with Shat-the-mountain
                Wrangled loud and long.
              “Have a care, Kazbék, my brother,”
                Shat, the grey-haired, spoke;
              “Not for naught hath human cunning
                Bent thee to the yoke.
              Man will build his smoky cabins
                On thy hillside steep;
              Up thy valley’s deep recesses
                Ringing axe will creep;
              Iron pick will tear a pathway
                To thy stony heart,
              Delving yellow gold and copper
                For the human mart.
              Caravans, e’en now, are wending
                O’er thy stately heights,
              Where the mists and kingly eagles
                Wheeled alone their flights.
              Men are crafty; what though trying
                Proved the first ascent!--
              Many-peopled, mark, and mighty
                Is the Orient.”

              “Nay, I do not dread the Orient,”
                Kazbék, answering, jeers;
              “There mankind has spent in slumber
                Just nine hundred years.
              Look, where ’neath the shade of plane-trees
                Sleepy Georgians gape,
              Spilling o’er their broidered clothing
                Foam of luscious grape!
              See, ’mid wreaths of pipe-smoke, lying
                On his flowered divan,
              By the sparkling pearly fountain
                Dozeth Teheran!
              Lo! around Jerusalem’s city,
                Burned by God’s command
              Motionless, in voiceless stillness,
                Deathlike, lies the land.

              “Farther off, to shade a stranger,
                Yellow Nilus laves,
              Glowing in the glare of noonday,
                Steps of royal graves.
              Bedouins forget their sorties
                For brocaded tents,
              While they count the stars and sing of
                Ancestral events.
              All that there the vision greeteth
                Sleeps in prized repose;
              No! the East will ne’er subdue me!
                Feeble are such foes!”
              “Do not boast thyself so early,”
                Answered ancient Shat;
              “In the North, look! ’mid the vapours,
                Something rises! What?”

              Secretly the mighty Kazbék
                At this warning shook,
              And, in trouble, towards the nor’ward
                Cast a hurried look.
              As he looks in perturbation,
                Filled with anxious care,
              He beholds a strange commotion,
                Hears a tumult there.
              Lo! from Ural to the Danube,
                To the mighty stream,
              Tossing, sparkling in the sunlight,
                Moving regiments gleam;
              Glancing wave the white-plumed helmets
                Like the prairie grass,
              While, ’mid clouds of dust careering,
                Flashing Uhlans pass.
              Crowded close in serried phalanx
                War battalions come;
              In the van they bear the standards,
                Thunders loud the drum;
              Streaming forth like molten copper
                Batteries, rumbling, bound;
              Smoking just before the battle
                Torches flare around;
              Skilled in toils of stormy warfare,
                Heading the advance,
              See! a grey-haired general guides them,
                Threat’ning in his glance.
              Onwards move the mighty regiments
                With a torrent’s roar;
              Terrible, like gathering storm-clouds,
                East, due east, they pour.

              Then, oppressed with dire forebodings,
                Filled with gloomy dreams,
              Strove Kazbék to count the foemen,
                Failed to count their streams.
              Glancing on his tribal mountains,
                Sadly gloomed the hill;
              Drew across his brows the mistcap,
                And for aye was still.

      --From J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.

                                 ───────

            Alone I wander out along the road;
              The stony way gleams through the mist afar;
            The night is calm; the waste lists to its God;
              And star is speaking unto star.

            In heaven wondrousness and grandeur reign;
              The earth sleeps in a glow of soft blue sky.
            Then why do I feel such distress, such pain?
              What have I to await? or what regret have I?

            Already I await no more from life;
              And nothing in the past do I regret.
            I seek for freedom, and an end to strife;
              I only wish to sleep and to forget.

            But not as in the tomb’s too chilly rest,
              My slumber through the ages I conceive
            With all Life’s vigour throbbing in my breast--
              That with my breathing it should gently heave,--

            That all the day and night, to soothe my ear,
              A tender voice to me of love should sing;
            And I must have, in green for ever near,
              A dark oak bending o’er me, murmuring.

      --Transl. by A. C. Coolidge, in The Harvard Monthly, 1895, and in
          The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 14.


                                 THE SAIL

              A solitary sail is gleaming,
                While, through the haze of th’ azure, she,
              In chase of chance’s fortune seeming,
                Far from a cherished home may be.

              The waves leap up,--the wind is blowing,
                The mast is bending low and creaks,--
              Alas! from happiness not going,
                It is not happiness she seeks.

              Beneath her prow blue floods are swelling,
                Above her glides the sunlit fleece,
              But still she prays for storms, rebelling--
                As if in storms there can be peace.

      --Transl. by Mrs. Heath, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society,
          No. 19.


                                THE PRAYER

                In life’s hard, trying moments,
                  With sorrow in my breast,
                I breathe a prayer most wonderful,
                  Which ever brings me rest.

                There is a power of blessedness
                  In those sweet words enshrined,
                Thought cannot grasp their sacred charm
                  That calms the anxious mind.

                Doubt stays no more, the soul is free,
                  Her burden rolls away,
                Her faith renewed, tears bring relief,
                  When this sweet prayer I pray.

      --Transl. by F. P. Marchant, in The Anglo-Russian Literary
          Society, No. 11.


                         THE BRANCH OF PALESTINE

               Branch of Palestine, the story
                 Of thy birth and beauty, say
               Of what hill and vale the glory
                 Were thy leaves and blossoms gay?

               Thee, by Jordan’s limpid fountains,
                 Did the Eastern sunbeam bless?
               Thee, on Lebanon’s great mountains,
                 Did the night-wind’s love caress?

               Salem’s sons, with sorrow smitten,
                 As they twined thy leaves with care--
               Sang they songs, in old times written?
                 Breathed they then a gentle prayer?

               Is thy parent-palm yet living
                 Where the summer sun beats down,
               Still to desert-travellers giving
                 Shade beneath her broad-leafed crown?

               Or, thy faded palm-tree sighing,
                 Withered at thy parting, grieves,
               While the thirsty dust is lying
                 Thickly on her yellow leaves?

               Whose the reverent hand that bore thee
                 From thy country to this place?
               Wept he often, bending o’er thee?
                 Have those hot tears left their trace?

               Was he of God’s host the flower,
                 Shone his cheek with rapture bright,
               Worthy heaven, like thee, each hour
                 In his God’s and comrades’ sight?

               Branch from Salem, guard unsleeping
                 Of the golden ikon fair,
               Watch before the holiest keeping,
                 Thou art weighed with silent care!

               Beauteous twilight, lamp-beams o’er thee;
                 Full of peace and comfort, shine;
               Ark and cross repose before thee,
                 Symbols of a love divine!

      --Transl. by F. P. Marchant, in The Anglo-Russian Literary
          Society, No. 16.

                                 ───────

                Remember’st thou the day when we--
                  Late was the hour--were forced to part?
                The night-gun boomed athwart the sea;
                  In painful silence beat each heart;
                The lovely day found cloudy close;
                  A heavy mist the landscape palled;
                And seemed it, when that shot arose,
                  An echo from the ocean called.

                Alone I wander by the flood;
                  And when a gun booms in its might,
                I think in pain how we once stood
                  Together on that parting night.
                And as the mournful echoes roll,
                  Muffled, along the fluid walls,
                From out the caverns of my soul
                  Death answeringly calls and calls.

      --From W. R. Alger’s _The Poetry of the Orient_, 1865.


                                AT A BALL

           How oft, surrounded by the motley crowd,
           Mid whirling dance, and din of music loud,
             I sink my senses in a dream,--
           When phrased convention, polished fiction, fly
           And all the men and women pass me by,--
             Like masks their faces seem.

           When my cold hands are met with colder still,
           And callous city beauties touch me chill,
             Bold but effete, with hollow cheer,
           Then, to appearance wrapped in light and glare,
           I cherish in my heart a fancy fair,--
             Echoes a bygone year.

           Forsaking all around, in heart and mind
           I fly--a free, free bird--to things behind,
             And see myself a child once more,
           In places old and dear. The house o’erhead,--
           The garden path I see,--the ruined shed,--
             The pond well-weeded o’er:

           And see across the pond the village lie,
           From clustered roof the smoke is rising high,
             The mists from meadows far away!
           I enter a dark alley: evening red
           Blinks through the shrubs, and underneath my tread
             The dead leaves rustling stray.

           Then a strange longing holds me,--yearning sore
           For love,--my fancy’s love and nothing more:--
             She was a dream and yet my love!
           Her sky-blue eyes could flash with silver flame,
           Her rosy smile with kindling sweetness came,
             Like sunrise through the grove.

           Thus, potent master of my fairyland,
           Alone I pass my hours, and understand
             The spell of those sweet days to save,
           Unharmed, unstained by passion or by doubt,
           Like some fair flowery islet, lying out
             Where leaps the wild sea wave.

           But suddenly a jar renews my sense,--
           The happy, happy dream is frighted hence,
             That gentle, uninvited guest.
           And wild I long my steel-cold lines to fling
           Upon the startled crowd, to smite and sting,
             With anger from my breast.

      --Transl. by Mrs. Charlotte Sidgwick, in Free Russia, vol. xi.,
          No. 2.


                                  DREAM

          ’Neath midday heat, in Dagestána’s Vale,
            With leaden ball in breast I lifeless lay;
          From a deep wound smoke rose upon the gale,
            And drop by drop my life-blood ebbed away.

          Alone I lay upon the sandy slopes;
            The craggy cliffs around me crowded steep;
          The sunlight burned upon their yellow tops,
            And burned on me who slept no mortal sleep.

          A dream I dreamed, and saw in sparkling bowers
            An evening feast in my home,--far away,--
          Where young and lovely women, crowned with flowers,
            Conversed of me in accents light and gay.

          But, in their happy talk not joining, one
            Sat far apart, and plunged in thought she seemed;
          And oh! the mystery knows God alone,--
            This was the dream her young soul sadly dreamed.

          She saw in vision Dagestána’s Vale,
            Where on the slope a well-known body lay;
          From the black wound smoke rose upon the gale,
            And in cold streams the life-blood ebbed away.

      --From John Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.




  Aleksyéy Vasílevich Koltsóv. (1808-1842.)


  Koltsóv was the son of a burgher of Vorónezh who dealt in hides and
  tallow. He received very little training in his coarse and ignorant
  family, and at ten years of age went to a school just long enough to
  learn to read and write. After that his father put him to work at his
  business, but the boy found enough time to read some Russian fairy
  tales and a few novels. Dmítriev’s poems, which fell into his hands,
  gave him a taste for poetry, and a “Russian Prosody,” given him by a
  local book-dealer, for the first time taught him the harmony of verse
  and its technical structure. He at once began to compose poems in
  imitation of such as he could procure, while a seminarist whose
  acquaintance he cultivated corrected and guided his first attempts. In
  1831 Koltsóv went to Moscow where he was introduced to the critic
  Byelínski, who at once recognised the unusual talent of the untutored
  bard. After a second visit, in 1836, the two became staunch friends,
  and under Byelínski’s influence Koltsóv produced the best of his
  poems. He soon returned to the sordid surroundings of his native
  place, and died shortly after of consumption. The striking
  picturesqueness of his verse, which is based on the inimitable,
  untranslatable diction of the peasant, has given rise to two
  diametrically opposed views: according to the one, he is the popular
  bard _par excellence_; according to the other, he has only made
  artistic use of the peasant’s language for productions that are
  eminently refined and, therefore, removed from the understanding of
  the masses.

  In English translation have appeared: _Season of Love_, _A Prayer_,
  _Two Lives_, _First Love_, in _A Russian Poet_, by W. R. S. Ralston,
  in Fortnightly Review, vol. vi., 1866; _The Abundant Harvest_, _The
  Mower_, _The Peasant Musing_, in _Russian Idylls_, by W. R. S.
  Ralston, in Contemporary Review, vol. xxiii., 1874; _The Ploughman’s
  Song_, _The Peasant’s Misgivings_, _The Orphan_, _Love’s Invitation_,
  in C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_, 1887; _The Forest_, _Betrayed by a
  Bride_, by I. H. Harrison, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No.
  16, and _A Winter Wooing_, _The Mower_, by Mrs. Rosa Newmarch, _ib._,
  No. 30.


                                FIRST LOVE

           Her whom I loved in early years
             So well, so tenderly,--who filled
           With a first passion’s hopes and fears
             A heart which time has not yet stilled,--
           Can I forget her? Day by day I strive
           Her well-loved image from my mind to drive;
           To find new dreams my old dreams to efface,
           And let another love my early love replace.
             But all in vain. I strive and strive, and yet
             Whate’er I do I never can forget.
           When in the silent hours of night I sleep,
             She comes in dreams; once more I see her stand
           Beside my couch; once more her accents steep
             My suffering soul in bliss; once more her hand
           In mine so gently, mournfully, she lays,
           While her dark eyes on mine in sadness gaze.
           Speed, kindly Time, my thoughts from her to sever,
           Or set me free with her to live for ever.

      --Transl. by W. R. S. Ralston, in Fortnightly Review, 1866 (vol.
          vi.).


                           THE ABUNDANT HARVEST

                                    I

 With a rosy flame the dawn burns on high, but the fog still broods over
    the face of the earth;
 Till the day has caught the fire of the sun, and rolled up the mists
    higher than the tops of the hills,
 And has pressed them into a black cloud. The black cloud has begun to
    knit its brows,--
 Has begun to knit its brows, as if reflecting, as though musing upon
    the place of its birth,
 As though remembering how the wild winds will drive it before them
    across the face of the wide world.
 Then it arms itself with the hurricane and the thunderbolt, with the
    lightning’s flash and the bow of the cloud.
 It has taken up arms, and flown abroad, and struck its stroke, and
    poured itself forth
 In a torrent of tears, in a flood of rain, over the copious bosom of
    the earth.

                                    II

 Now from heaven’s heights the dear sun looks down. The earth a
    plenteous draught has drunk.
 On their corn-fields and gardens, and meadows green, the rustic folk
    cannot gaze enough.
 For the grace of God these rustic folk have waited long with trembling
    and prayer.
 Together with the spring there have come to life the secret thoughts of
    their quiet minds.
 Thought the first: To pour into sacks the grain in the bins, and to set
    their carts in order.
 Thought the second: Forth from the village by night to drive their line
    of carts.
 Thought the third----When of this they thought, to God the Lord arose
    the prayers.
 With early dawn have they gone afield. There in handfuls heaped each
    scatters the grain, furrows the soil with the ploughshare’s blade,
    or rips it across with the harrow’s tooth.

                                   III

 I will go and gaze with gladdened eye at what God has sent to men for
    their toil.
 Above my waist the large-grained rye rises, then dreamily bends well
    nigh to the ground.
 On every side the corn, guest sent by God, greets with a smile the
    joyful day.
 Over it the breeze floats lustrously, streaming this way and that a
    wave of gold.
 Now in whole families the peasants commence their harvest, cutting
    close to the roots the stalks of the lofty rye.
 Into close-packed mows are the sheaves collected; from the lines of
    carts sounds music all the night long.
 On every side do the stacks erect their heads in the barnyards,--taking
    up much room, like nobles of yore in their robes of state.

                                    IV

 The dear sun sees that the harvest is done; so colder gleam his last
    autumnal rays.
 But with warm light glows the peasant’s taper--burning before the
    pictured form of the Mother of God.

      --Transl. by W. R. S. Ralston, in The Contemporary Review, 1874
          (vol. xxiii.).


                                THE FOREST

                           IN MEMORY OF PÚSHKIN

                   What does the silent wood
                   Dream of so pensively?
                   What is the sorrow that
                   Rides in its mystery?

                   Why dost thou, Knightly One,
                   Under its charm’s spell,
                   Head undefended
                   Hold ’gainst the wind-stroke,--

                   Standing there shamedly
                   Letting the storm-clouds
                   As they pass momently
                   Burst on thee savagely?

                   Thy helmet of green leaves
                   Bound fastly together
                   Is whirled from thee far off
                   And scattered to dust;

                   Thy boughs, as a mantle falls,
                   Lie all around thee;
                   Thou standest ashamedly,
                   Forced to submit thee.

                   Where hath vanished now
                   Speech that was mighty,
                   Strength that was prouder than
                   All a king’s bravery?

                   A night there hath been for thee,
                   A calm night within which
                   Thou heardest the nightingale’s
                   Deluge of song--

                   A day there hath been for thee
                   Triumphant, forgetless--
                   A friend and an enemy
                   Sought thy cool freshness;

                   ’T was late in the evening,
                   And loud blew the storm-blast
                   Of him that was speaking
                   Unto thy detractor.

                   His wrath drove the clouds off
                   That round thee had gathered,
                   His love clung around thee
                   Like wind-gusts, but warmer.

                   Thou said’st to the other,
                   With voice that changed loudly,
                   “Go, fall back beyond me!
                   Go, leave me in peace!”

                   That voice of his dizzied,
                   As tone on tone sounded;
                   Thy very depths trembled,
                   Their stoutest trunks reeling.

                   Then, startled from silence,
                   To life thou awakest;
                   A whistling of tempest
                   Re-echoed throughout thee;

                   ’T is the cry of the wood-sprite,
                   A witch’s note shrilling,
                   Until the loud rumble
                   Is borne away seaward.

                   Where now all thy glory
                   Of verdure and leaf?
                   Thou ’st put on dark clothing
                   Of rain-mist and grief;

                   Wild art thou and silent,
                   But, when the wind quickens,
                   Thy plaint sadly peals out
                   For him lost untimely.

                   And so, thou dark forest,
                   Life-long hast thou harassed
                   The Knightly, the Noble,
                   To combat for thee.

                   Against thee prevailed not
                   Those stronger than thou art;
                   Life’s autumn in him, though,
                   Seemed cruelly short.

                   The woods know in dreamland
                   That forces of evil
                   Their malice did spend on
                   Who least had deserved it:

                   From off Knightly shoulders
                   A head had been struck--
                   Not by a hero’s hand,
                   But by a recreant.

      --Transl. by I. H. Harrison, in The Anglo-Russian Literary
          Society, No. 16.


                           BETRAYED BY A BRIDE

                Warm the summer sun in heaven,
                But for me no heat is given!
                Frozen is the very heart’s blood,
                Through the bride that played me false.

                Grief’s black pall hath fallen o’er me,
                On my sorrow-bowed-down head:
                Mortal anguish tears my soul, and
                From this body would it break.

                Neighbours asked have I to help me;
                No man gave me aught but laughter;
                Then, to the grave of either parent--
                Neither heard the voice I called with.

                Light then changed for me to darkness,
                Senseless on the ground I lay,
                Dull the night, until a tempest
                Roused me from the tombstone cold.

                Raged the storm--a horse I saddled,
                Bent on riding--God knows where--
                Life is heartless toil to laugh at,
                Man’s fate evil alone to share.

      --Transl. by I. H. Harrison, in The Anglo-Russian Literary
          Society, No. 16.


                                THE MOWER

                   I can’t understand it,
                   I can’t make it out--
                   Yet why I can’t see
                   How it all came about?
                   In an unlucky day,
                   In an ill hour, alack,
                   I came into this world
                   With no shirt to my back!
                   Yet my grand-dad’s broad shoulders
                   Are mine, as you see;
                   And my mother’s deep chest;
                   In my cheeks flowing free
                   Burns the blood of my sire,
                   Like milk set afire
                   By dawn’s crimson light;
                   And my locks lie in clusters
                   As black as the night.
                   Yet, whatever I do--
                   Oh, it never goes right!
                   In an unlucky day,
                   In an ill hour, alack,
                   I came into this world
                   With no shirt to my back!

                   There’s darling Grunyúsha,
                   The Stárosta’s daughter--
                   Well, all through the spring
                   Did I patiently court her;
                   But he, the old churl,
                   Was finely put out!
                   To whom has he planned
                   That he ’ll marry the girl?
                   Oh, I can’t understand
                   How it all came about.
                   Does he think, the old ass,
                   I was after his money?
                   Let him stick to his brass
                   If he give me my honey--
                   ’T is for her that I pine.
                   Oh, her face is bright
                   And as rosy as sunrise,
                   Her rounded cheeks mellow,
                   And the flash of her eyes
                   Might drive a young fellow
                   Clean out of his wits.

                   Ah, ’t was only last night
                   That she wept so for me,
                   But her tears were in vain.
                   For her dad said downright
                   That it never could be.
                   Shall I never again
                   From my sorrow be free?
                   Come, I ’ll buy a new scythe,
                   And I ’ll sharpen it well,
                   Aye, its edge I will whet,
                   Ere I bid a farewell
                   To my own native place.
                   Nay, Grúnya, don’t fret,
                   Don’t worry, dear maid.
                   Though keen is the blade,
                   I ’ll not cut myself down;
                   Good-bye, little town.
                   You, hard parent, good-bye!
                   To a land far away
                   Will the young mower hie.
                   Down the Don’s bank I ’ll stray
                   Till I reach the quayside,
                   Where the suburbs stand gay
                   And the Steppe stretches wide.
                   There, wherever I glance,
                   The tall plume-grass is blown.
                   O Steppe, thou, my own,
                   How thy fertile expanse
                   Lies green on each hand,
                   So free and so vast,
                   Till it reaches at last
                   To the Black Sea’s far strand!
                   I have come as thy guest,
                   But I come not alone,
                   I have brought thee a friend,
                   One, my closest and best.
                   See, my sharp scythe is here,
                   As myself he is dear.
                   Oh, from end to far end,
                   What a joy it will be
                   To wander with him
                   O’er the Steppe’s grassy sea!

                   Swish, work away shoulders;
                   Swing arms to and fro,
                   While cool on my face
                   The light southern winds blow,
                   Refreshing and rippling
                   The Steppe’s endless space.
                   Now, scythe, hum a song,
                   Flash in circles thy blade;
                   How the long grass-ranks fall
                   As the steel moves along!
                   O ye poor blossoms all,
                   Your heads are low-laid!
                   Ye must dry up and fade
                   In the straight swathes of grass
                   As my young heart, alas,
                   Withers up for a maid,--
                   And I languish for Grúnya!
                   I ’ll rake up the hay
                   Till so high my stack stands
                   That the wife of the Cossack
                   Must pay with both hands.
                   I shall sew up my pocket,
                   My treasure to guard,
                   Then, home I ’ll betake me,
                   To the Stárosta say:
                   “Though tears could not make thee
                   Give Grúnya away,
                   Thou art not so hard
                   But my good pieces may.”

      --Transl. by Mrs. Rosa Newmarch, in The Anglo-Russian Literary
          Society, No. 30.




  Nikoláy Vasílevich Gógol (--Yanóvski). (1809-1852.)


  Gógol was born in the Government of Poltáva, in Little-Russia, and was
  educated at home up to his twelfth year. His father was a landed
  proprietor of more than ordinary culture, who had a private theatre at
  his estate, on which were played Little-Russian comedies, some his
  own. His grandfather had held an important post with the Zaporóg
  Cossacks, and being an excellent story-teller, had imbued his grandson
  with the spirit of the recent Cossack past. At the Gymnasium, Gógol
  evinced little interest in his studies, but devoted himself with
  enthusiasm to drawing and to the theatre which he himself created for
  his schoolmates. He even then composed some comedies and edited a
  manuscript periodical. After graduation he went to St. Petersburg in
  search of some occupation, but found himself unfit for any work. He
  also tried literature, and in 1829 appeared his romantic tale _Hans
  Küchelgarten_. It was so severely criticised that Gógol bought up the
  whole edition and committed it to the flames. He busied himself with
  the history of Little-Russia, and shortly after he wrote his beautiful
  _Evenings on the Farm near the Dikánka_, in which the idealisation of
  the past and of his native country is already tempered by realism.
  These _Evenings_ at once made him known, and he became intimate with
  Zhukóvski and Púshkin. He dreamed of devoting himself to history, but
  prolonged labour was distasteful to him, and he did not go beyond
  collecting material for his Little-Russian epic, _Tarás Búlba_. He
  really obtained a professorship at the university, but his
  professional career was a failure. Instead, he brought out a series of
  admirable stories, such as _Old-fashioned Landed Proprietors_, _The
  Nose_, _The Phaeton_, _The Mantle_, and his comedies, of which the
  _Revizór_ has remained a classic in the Russian repertoire. He was now
  completely launched into naturalism, and was at once recognized by the
  critic Byelínski (see p. 205), as forming a new school in literature.
  A few years later he gave to the world the first part of the _Dead
  Souls_, in which he reached the highest point of his artistic
  development. The plot of the story is simple: an unscrupulous
  ex-official travels about the country to buy up peasants, that in
  reality are dead but before the Government are still accounted alive
  until the following census and are subject to taxes; by nominally
  transferring them to his own estate, he is able to mortgage them at
  the rate of three hundred roubles for each “soul.” This plot served
  Gógol as a thread on which to string his different types of people. In
  1836 Gógol went abroad, and slowly succumbed to a species of
  melancholia, which showed itself in an increased tendency to
  mysticism. This led him to burn the greater part of what was to form
  the second book of the _Dead Souls_, and to practice
  self-chastisement.

  In English translation have appeared: _The Portrait_, in Blackwood’s
  Edinburgh Magazine and in Living Age, 1847; _Home Life in Russia_, by
  a Russian Noble (a literary forgery), 2 vols., London, 1854; _Cossack
  Tales_, translated by G. Tolstoy, London, [1860]; _St. John’s Eve and
  Other Stories_, translated by Miss I. F. Hapgood, New York, [1886],
  and London, 1887; _Taras Bulba_, by I. F. Hapgood, New York, [1886],
  (Lovell’s Library, No. 1016), and London, 1887; _Tchitchikoff’s
  Journey; or, Dead Souls_, by I. F. Hapgood, New York, [1886], and
  London, 1887; also _Dead Souls_, 1887 and 1888, and _Taras Bulba_,
  1887 and 1888, published by Vizetelly; _A May Evening_, in
  Cosmopolitan, vol. iii.; _The Cloak_, in Short Stories, 1891, and
  (with _The Portrait_ and _Old-fashioned Farmers_) in _Wayward Dosia_,
  by Gréville, Chicago, 1891; _Inspector General, or, Revizór_,
  translated by A. A. Sykes, London, 1892, 1893; _The Inspector_, a
  comedy, translated by T. Hart Davies, London, 1892; _On Christmas
  Eve_, translated by F. Volkhovsky, in Free Russia, vol. x., No. 12;
  _Marriage_ and _A Madman’s Diary_, in the _Humour of Russia_, by E. L.
  Voynich, London and New York, 1895; extracts from _The Inspector_, and
  from _Mirgorod_, translated by I. F. Hapgood, are given in the Library
  of the World’s Best Literature.


                               THE DNIEPER

Wonderful is the Dnieper in quiet weather when softly and smoothly he
hurries his full waters by forests and hills. He neither rustles, nor
thunders. You look at him, and you do not know whether his majestic
breadth is in motion, or not, and it looks as if he were all cast of
glass and as if his blue, mirrored path, measureless in breadth and
endless in length, meandered and wound over the wide green world. The
hot sun then joyfully looks down from his height and plunges his beams
in the coolness of the glassy waters, and the woods of the shore are
brightly reflected therein. Green-locked ones! They crowd together with
the field flowers to the brink, and bending over look into the water,
and do not get tired looking at their bright image, and smile to it, and
greet it, shaking their branches. They dare not look into the middle of
the Dnieper; none but the sun and the blue sky look upon it; rarely a
bird flies to the middle of the Dnieper. Proud one! There is not a river
in the world like him.

Wonderful, too, is the Dnieper in a warm summer night, when all is
asleep,--man, and beast, and bird,--and God alone majestically surveys
heaven and earth and majestically waves His garment. From the garment
fall stars; stars burn and gleam over the world, and all together are
reflected in the Dnieper. The Dnieper holds them all in his murky lap;
not one of them will escape him, unless it be dimmed in heaven. The
black forest, weighted down by sleeping ravens, and anciently disrupted
mountains hang down over him and attempt to cover him with their long
shadows. In vain! There is nothing in the world that could cover the
Dnieper. Ever blue, he spreads his gentle floods in the night as in the
day, and may be seen as far as the human eye can see. Proceeding in his
voluptuous course and hugging the shore in the coolness of the night, he
leaves behind him a silvery streak which flashes like the blade of a
Damascus sabre, but the blue one again falls asleep. Even then the
Dnieper is wonderful, and there is no river like him in the whole world!

But when the grey clouds pass like mountains over the sky, the black
forest shakes to its roots, the oaks crack, and the lightnings, piercing
through the clouds, at once illumine the whole world,--then the Dnieper
is terrible! The mounds of water thunder as they beat against the
mountains, and with a splash and groan they rush back, and weep, and
lose themselves in the distance. Thus grieves an old Cossack mother as
she leads her son to the army: in his best spirits and boldly he rides
forth on his black charger, his arms akimbo, his cap poised jauntily;
but she sobs and runs after him, seizes him by his stirrup, catches his
bridle, and wrings her hands, and is dissolved in bitter tears.


                               THE REVIZÓR

  ACT I. (_room in the Burgomaster’s house_). SCENE 1. THE BURGOMASTER,
    CURATOR OF CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS, INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS, JUDGE,
    CAPTAIN OF POLICE, DOCTOR, TWO SERGEANTS OF POLICE

_Burgomaster._ Gentlemen, I have called you together to give you a very
disagreeable piece of news: a Revizór is coming.

_Judge._ What, a Revizór?

_Curator._ What, a Revizór?

_Burgomaster._ A Revizór from St. Petersburg, incognito, and with secret
instructions, if you please.

_Judge._ I declare!

_Curator._ Things have been too easy with us, so there it is.

_Inspector._ Good gracious! With secret instructions!

_Burgomaster._ I really had a presentiment of it: last night I did
nothing but dream of two extraordinary rats. I tell you, I never saw the
like of them; they were black and of unusual size. They came, nosed
around, and went away. I ’ll read to you the letter I received from
Andréy Ivánovich Chmýkhov whom you, Artémi Filíppovich (Curator), know.
This is what he writes: “Dear friend, and benefactor” (_mutters in a
whisper as he runs down the lines_)----“and to let you know.” Ah, here
it is: “among other things I hasten to inform you that an official is
here with instructions to inspect the whole Government, and especially
our county (_significantly raises his finger_). I have learned this from
most trustworthy people, although he passes himself for a private
individual. Knowing that, like all people, you have some peccadilloes,
for you are a clever fellow and don’t let things slip through your
fingers----” (_Stops._) Oh, that ’s private----“I advise you to take the
proper precaution, for he is likely to come any hour, if he has not
arrived yet and is not living somewhere incognito----Yesterday”----Oh,
these are family matters: “sister Anna Kirílovna has been visiting us
with her husband; Iván Kirílovich has grown very stout, and is all the
time playing the fiddle----” and so forth, and so forth. So that ’s the
way it stands!

_Judge._ But that ’s an unusual affair. There must be something back of
it.

_Inspector._ But what is that all for, Antón Antónovich (Burgomaster)?
Why is the Revizór coming to us?

_Burgomaster_ (_sighing_). Why! It ’s evidently our fate! (_Sighing
again._) Thanks to the Lord, they have come down on other towns before
this; but now our turn has come.

_Judge._ I think, Antón Antónovich, that there is a delicate reason of a
political nature behind all this. It ’s simply this: Russia, you see, is
about to wage war, and the Minister has sent a special official to find
out whether there is not any treason here.

_Burgomaster._ What a guess! And you call yourself a clever man! Treason
in a county town! Does it lie on the border, eh? Why, you ’d have to
gallop three years from here to get to another country.

_Judge._ No, let me tell you. You don’t----no, you don’t----The
government is pretty shrewd about things: never mind its being far away,
but the government is on the lookout.

_Burgomaster._ Let it be or not, but I have given you warning,
gentlemen, so take notice! I, for my part, have taken some precautions,
and I advise you to do the same. Especially you, Artémi Filíppovich! No
doubt, the official will first of all want to inspect the charitable
institutions under your charge, and so you had better give everything a
decent appearance. Let there be clean caps, and don’t let the patients
look like blacksmiths, as they generally appear.

_Curator._ Oh, that is not hard! I see no reason for not putting on
clean caps.

_Burgomaster._ Yes. And let there also be written over every bed in
Latin, or some other language----that ’s your business, Christian
Ivánovich,--the name of every illness: when any of them got ill, what
day of the month----It is not right for your patients to smoke such
strong tobacco that one has to sneeze upon entering. Yes, it also would
be better if there were not so many of them, for it will be ascribed to
improper care or the physician’s lack of skill.

_Curator._ Oh, Christian Ivánovich and I have taken our measures in
regard to the doctoring: the nearer to nature, the better; we do not
employ expensive medicaments. A man is a simple affair: if he is to die,
he ’ll die anyway; and if he is to get well, he ’ll get well anyway.
Besides, it would not be an easy matter for Christian Ivánovich to carry
on a conversation with them, he does not know a word of Russian.

(_Christian Ivánovich emits a sound, somewhere between_ ee _and_ eh.)

_Burgomaster._ I should advise you also, Ammós Fédorovich, to direct
your attention to the court-house. In the antechamber, where the people
wait with their petitions, your janitors have been raising geese with
their goslings that continually get between one’s legs. I admit it is
praiseworthy to raise your own geese, and there is no reason why
janitors should not rear them; only, don’t you know, it is n’t quite the
thing to raise them in that place----I had in mind to tell you that
before, but I somehow forgot.

_Judge._ Well, I ’ll order them to be taken to the kitchen this very
day. Can’t you come and take dinner with me?

_Burgomaster._ Then again, it ’s wrong for all kinds of rags to be hung
out in the court-room to get dry, and on the case with the documents
lies a hunting-whip. I know you are fond of the chase; but it would be
better for the time being to take it away, and as soon as the Revizór
has gone, I don’t see why you can’t hang it back there again. Then again
your assessor----, of course, he is a clever fellow; but there is an
odour about him as if he had just come out of a still,--that won’t do
either. I had intended to tell you about that long ago, but something or
other drew my attention away from it. There are means against it, if it
is, indeed, as he says, a natural odour with him: you might recommend
him to eat garlic, onions, or something else. In this case Christian
Ivánovich might help him with some of his medicaments.

(_Christian Ivánovich emits the same sound as before._)

_Judge._ No, you can’t drive it out of him: he says that his nurse once
hurt him when he was a baby, and ever since he has had a brandy smell
about him.

_Burgomaster._ I only mention it to you. As to the internal disposition
and what Andréy Ivánovich in his letter calls “peccadilloes,” I can’t
say anything. Strange to say, there is not a man who has not some sin to
answer for. God Himself has arranged it so, and the followers of
Voltaire are in vain preaching against it.

_Judge._ What do you call peccadilloes, Antón Antónovich? There are
peccadilloes and peccadilloes. I tell everybody openly that I take
bribes, but what bribes? Greyhound pups. That ’s an entirely different
matter.

_Burgomaster._ Pups or anything else, it ’s bribes all the same.

_Judge._ Not at all, Antón Antónovich. But suppose a man’s fur-coat
costs five hundred roubles, and his wife’s shawl----

_Burgomaster._ What of it if your bribes consist in greyhound pups? But
you don’t believe in God; you never go to church. I am, at least, firm
in my faith and attend church regularly every Sunday; whereas you----Oh,
I know you: when you begin to talk about the creation of the world, my
hair simply stands on end.

_Judge._ I have reasoned it out all by myself, with my own intellect.

_Burgomaster._ Well, in this case much intelligence is worse than none
at all. However, I only mentioned the County Court. To tell the truth,
there is not much likelihood of anybody’s looking in there: it ’s an
enviable place, and God Himself protects it. But you, Lúka Lukích, as
Inspector of Schools, must take especial care of the teachers. They are,
of course, knowing people, and have been educated in all kinds of
colleges, but they have very strange ways about them, no doubt
inseparable from their learned profession. One of them, for
example,--the one with the fat face, I can’t think of his name,--can’t
get along, upon standing on the platform, without making a grimace like
this (_imitates him_), then he begins to claw his beard under the
necktie. Of course, it does not matter much if he makes such a face to a
pupil of his, and maybe that is necessary, for I am not a judge of that;
but judge yourself,--if he should do so to a visitor, it might have a
bad effect: the Revizór, or someone else, might take it to himself. The
devil knows what that might lead to.

_Inspector._ I declare I don’t know what to do. I have talked several
times to him about it. Only a few days ago, when the Marshal of the
Nobility entered his classroom, he made a face I had never seen before.
He did it from the goodness of his heart, but I had a reprimand for
instilling radical thoughts into the youths.

_Burgomaster._ I must also draw your attention to the teacher of
history. He is a learned man, that ’s evident, and is chockful of
knowledge, only he lectures with such fervour that he forgets himself. I
once listened to his lecture: as long as he was talking of Assyrians and
Babylonians, things went tolerably well; but when he got to Alexander
the Great, I can’t tell you what became of him. I thought there was a
fire, upon my word! He ran down from the platform and with all his might
and main smashed a chair against the floor! I ’ll admit Alexander the
Great was a hero, but why break chairs over him? There is only a loss to
the Crown from it.

_Inspector._ Yes, he is fiery! I have remarked so to him several times.
He says: “I don’t care, I ’ll not spare my life for the sake of
science!”

_Burgomaster._ Yes, such is the inexplicable law of fate: a clever
fellow is either a drunkard, or he makes faces so that you have to carry
out the holy images.

_Inspector._ God preserve us from being schoolmasters. You are afraid of
everything! Everybody meddles with you, everybody wants to show that he,
too, is a clever fellow.

_Burgomaster._ All that could pass,--but the accursed incognito! He ’ll
suddenly poke in his nose: “Ah, there you are, my darling! Who,” will he
say, “is the judge here?”--“Lyápkin-Tyápkin.”--“Fetch me in
Lyápkin-Tyápkin! And who is the Curator of the Charitable
Institutions?”--“Zemlyaníka.”--“Fetch in Zemlyaníka!” That ’s what is
bad.


                   SCENE 2. THE SAME AND THE POSTMASTER

_Postmaster._ Tell me, gentlemen, what is it,--what official is coming?

_Burgomaster._ Have n’t you heard?

_Postmaster._ I have heard from Petr Ivánovich Bobchínski. He was just
in my office.

_Burgomaster._ Well, what do you think of it?

_Postmaster._ What I think? Why, there will be a war with Turkey.

_Judge._ That ’s it! I thought so myself.

_Burgomaster._ Well, you ’re both wrong.

_Postmaster._ I insist, with Turkey. It ’s all the Frenchmen’s doing.

_Burgomaster._ Nonsense, war with Turkey! It ’s we who ’ll catch it, not
the Turks. So much is certain; I have a letter.

_Postmaster._ If that ’s the case, there will be no war with Turkey.

_Burgomaster._ Well, how do you feel about that, Iván Kuzmích?

_Postmaster._ How I feel? How do you feel, Antón Antónovich?

_Burgomaster._ How I feel? Not exactly afraid, but just a little shaky.
The shopkeepers and townspeople worry me. They say I ’ve laid it on to
them; but I declare that if I have taken here and there a thing from
one, I have done so without any ill-feeling. I even think (_takes his
arm and leads him aside_), I even think there might have been some
denunciation against me. For why should the Revizór come to us? Listen,
Iván Kuzmích, could n’t you, for our common good, you know, just open a
little and read every outgoing and incoming letter in your postoffice,
to see whether they do not contain some denunciation or simply some
report? If there is nothing in them, you may seal the letters again, or
for that, you can return the letters unsealed.

_Postmaster._ I know, I know. Don’t teach me; I have been doing it, not
exactly as a precaution, but chiefly from curiosity,--I ’m awfully fond
of knowing what ’s up in the world. I assure you, it makes most
interesting reading! Now and then there is a letter that I read with
real pleasure,--there are all kinds of incidents described in them, and
they are so edifying,--better than in the Moscow Gazette!

_Burgomaster._ Well, tell me, have n’t you found out from them something
about an official from St. Petersburg?

_Postmaster._ No, there ’s nothing in them about anybody from St.
Petersburg, but a great deal about Kostromá and Sarátov people. Really,
what a pity you do not read letters! There are fine passages in them.
For example, there was a lieutenant who in a letter to his friend
described a ball in a most playful----yes, very fine: “My life, my dear
friend,” says he, “flows in the empyrean: there are plenty of young
ladies, music is playing, the flag is flying----” he described it with
great, very great feeling. I purposely kept the letter. Do you want me
to read it to you?

_Burgomaster._ Well, this is not the right time for it. So do me the
favour, Iván Kuzmích: if, by chance, there should be a complaint or
denunciation, keep it back without any further ado.

_Postmaster._ With the greatest pleasure.

_Judge._ Look out, you ’ll get into trouble yet.

_Postmaster._ Good gracious!

_Burgomaster._ Not at all, not at all. It would be a different matter,
if you were to make a public affair out of it, but this is, so to say, a
family matter.

_Judge._ Yes, there ’s mischief brewing! I was really coming to tell
you, Antón Antónovich, that I wanted to present to you a puppy, a sister
to that dog that you know. You have heard that Chéptovich and
Varkhovínski have started a litigation; so I ’m in clover: I hunt hares
now on one estate, now on the other.

_Burgomaster._ Lord, what do I care for your hares now! That accursed
incognito is running through my head! I am only waiting for the door to
open, and----


    SCENE 3. THE SAME, BOBCHÍNSKI AND DOBCHÍNSKI ENTER, OUT OF BREATH

_Bobchínski._ An extraordinary occurrence!

_Dobchínski._ An unexpected occurrence!

_All._ What, what is it?

_Dobchínski._ An unforeseen affair: we come to the inn----

_Bobchínski_ (_interrupting him_). Petr Ivánovich and I come to the
inn----

_Dobchínski_ (_interrupting_). Eh, permit me, Petr Ivánovich, let me
tell it.

_Bobchínski._ Oh no, let me----let me, let me----you are n’t a good
speaker----

_Dobchínski._ And you ’ll get confused and you ’ll forget something.

_Bobchínski._ No, I won’t, upon my word, I won’t. Don’t bother me, let
me tell it, don’t bother me! Please, gentlemen, do tell Petr Ivánovich
not to bother me.

_Burgomaster._ For the Lord’s sake, do tell, what is it? My heart is in
my mouth. Sit down, gentlemen! Take seats! Petr Ivánovich, here is a
chair for you. (_All sit around the two Petr Ivánovichs._) Well, what is
it, what?

_Bobchínski._ Allow me, allow me; I ’ll tell it all in order. No sooner
had I the pleasure of leaving you, just as you were disturbed by the
letter you had received, yes, I at once ran----now, please don’t
interrupt me, Petr Ivánovich! I know it all, truly, I do. So, you see, I
ran to Koróbkin’s house. As I did not find him at home I turned in to
Rastákovski’s, and as I did not find him at home I stopped at Iván
Kuzmích’s house to inform him the piece of news you had received, and as
I was going away from there, I fell in with Petr Ivánovich.

_Dobchínski_ (_interrupting_). Near the booth where they sell cakes.

_Bobchínski._ Near the booth where they sell cakes. Yes, and as I fell
in with Petr Ivánovich, I said to him: “Have you heard the news that
Antón Antónovich has received in a trustworthy letter?” But Petr
Ivánovich had already heard that from your housekeeper Avdótya, who had
been sent for something or other to Filíp Ivánovich Pochechúev.

_Dobchínski_ (_interrupting_). For a keg of French brandy.

_Bobchínski_ (_warding him off with his hand_). For a keg of French
brandy. So Petr Ivánovich and I came to Pochechúev----Now, Petr
Ivánovich, please don’t----don’t interrupt me, please, don’t interrupt
me!----We went to Pochechúev, and on the way Petr Ivánovich said to me:
“Let ’s go,” says he, “to the inn. My stomach,--I have eaten nothing
since morning,--why, there ’s a rumbling in my stomach----” Yes, Petr
Ivánovich’s stomach---- “In the inn,” says he, “they have received some
fresh salmon, so we ’ll have a bite.” No sooner had we entered into the
inn, when a young man----

_Dobchínski_ (_interrupting_). Of good appearance and in citizen’s
clothes----

_Bobchínski._ Of good appearance and in citizen’s clothes, was walking
up and down the room, such an expression in his
face----physiognomy----carriage, and up here (_moves his hand around his
forehead_) very distinguished. I had a kind of presentiment, and I said
to Petr Ivánovich: “There ’s something up here.” Yes. And Petr Ivánovich
beckoned to the innkeeper and called him up,--’t was innkeeper
Vlas,--his wife had a baby three weeks ago, such a lively creature, he
’ll be an innkeeper like his father. So, calling up Vlas, Petr Ivánovich
asked him in a whisper: “Who,” says he, “is that young fellow?” to which
Vlas answered: “That,” says he----oh, don’t interrupt me, Petr
Ivánovich, I beg you, don’t interrupt me, you won’t be able to tell the
story, upon my word you won’t: you lisp, you have a whistling tooth in
your mouth, I know---- “That young man,” says he, “is an official,” yes,
“he ’s from St. Petersburg, and his name is,” says he, “Iván
Aleksándrovich Khlestakóv, sir, and he is on his way,” says he, “to the
Government of Sarátov, and,” says he, “he is acting very strangely: he
has been here nearly two weeks, he never leaves the inn, takes
everything on credit, and won’t pay a kopek.” When he told me that, a
light dawned upon me at once. “Oho!” said I to Petr Ivánovich----

_Dobchínski._ No, Petr Ivánovich, it was I who said “Oho!”

_Bobchínski._ First you said it, and then I. “Oho!” said we. “What
reason could he have to stay here, when his road is to the Government of
Sarátov?” Yes, sir, he is that very official.

_Burgomaster._ Who--what official?

_Bobchínski._ The official about whom you have received that
information,--the Revizór.

_Burgomaster_ (_terrified_). Don’t say that, the Lord be with you! it is
n’t he.

_Dobchínski._ He! He does n’t pay his bill, and he does n’t leave. Who
else could it be, if not he? His passport is made out for Sarátov.

_Bobchínski._ He--he--upon my word, he----He is so observing: he watches
everything. He saw Petr Ivánovich and me eating salmon,--mainly because
of, on account of, Petr Ivánovich’s stomach----yes, he even looked into
our plates. I just trembled with fear.

_Burgomaster._ Lord, have mercy upon us sinners! Where is he staying
there?

_Dobchínski._ Number five, under the staircase.

_Bobchínski._ The same room that the transient officers had a fight in
last year.

_Burgomaster._ Has he been here long?

_Dobchínski._ Some two weeks. He arrived on the day of St. Basil the
Egyptian.

_Burgomaster._ Two weeks! (_Aside._) Friends and saints, help me! Within
these two weeks the sergeant’s wife has been flogged! The prisoners have
received no provision. Drunkenness and dirt in the streets! Disgraceful!
Shameful! (_Tears his hair._)

_Curator._ Antón Antónovich, had we not better make an official call in
the inn?

_Judge._ No, no! First send the Mayor, the clergy, the merchants. It
says in the book “John the Mason”----

_Burgomaster._ No, no! Let me attend to it! I ’ve had hard cases before
in life, and I not only got out of them hale, but even received thanks.
Maybe God will succour me now too. (_Turning to Bobchínski._) You say,
he is a young man?

_Bobchínski._ Yes, about twenty-three or -four at most.

_Burgomaster._ So much the better: it is easier to get at the bottom of
a young fellow. It is a tough job, if you have an old devil to deal
with; but a young fellow is all on the surface. You, gentlemen, make
your proper arrangements, and I ’ll go myself, or maybe with Petr
Ivánovich, privately, just for a walk to see that travellers are
properly treated. Here, Svistunóv!

_Svistunóv._ At your service, sir!

_Burgomaster._ Fetch me at once the captain--or, no. I need you. Tell
somebody there to fetch me the captain as quickly as possible, and come
back here. (_The sergeant runs away._)

_Curator._ Let us go, let us go, Ammós Fédorovich. There might, indeed,
happen some misfortune.

_Judge._ What are you afraid of? Put clean nightcaps on the patients,
and your deed is done.

_Curator._ Bosh, nightcaps! The patients are supposed to get oat gruel,
and instead there is such a smell of cabbage in the corridors that you
are compelled to hold your nose.

_Judge._ I am at ease on that score. Indeed, who would think of looking
into the County Court? And if he should take it into his head to glance
at some papers, he ’ll wish he had not done it. It ’s now fifteen years
I have been occupying the bench, but when I look into a brief, I give it
up in despair. Solomon himself could not make out what is right and what
wrong.

(_The Judge, Curator of Charitable Institutions, Inspector of Schools,
and Postmaster go out, and in the door bump against the returning
sergeant._)


                            FROM “DEAD SOULS”

                             MRS. KORÓBOCHKA

“It ’s a fine village you have there, motherkin. How many souls are
there?”

“There are in it nigh upon eighty souls, my friend,” said the
proprietress. “The trouble is, times are bad: now, last year there was
such a failure of crops; God save us from another!”

“Yet your peasants are rather a fine lot, and their cabins look as if
they were in good trim. Oh, please tell me your name! I am so
distracted, having arrived here in night time----”

“Koróbochka, college secretary.”

“Much obliged. And your Christian name and patronymic?”

“Nastásya Petróvna.”

“Nastásya Petróvna? It ’s a fine name--Nastásya Petróvna. I have an
aunt, my mother’s sister, whose name is Nastásya Petróvna.”

“And what is your name?” asked the proprietress: “you are the
tax-collector, if I am not mistaken?”

“No, motherkin!” answered Chíchikov smiling: “not the tax-collector. I
am travelling on my own account.”

“Oh, then you are buying things! What a pity that I sold the honey so
cheap to the merchants! I am sure, my friend, you would have bought it
of me.”

“No, it is n’t honey I am after.”

“What then? Hemp? Why, I have n’t much of it just now,--something like
half a pud.”

“No, motherkin, it ’s different goods I want. Tell me, have any of your
peasants died?”

“Oh, my friend, eighteen of them?” said the old woman with a sigh. “And
it ’s all good workers that have died. There have been born some since,
it is true, but what good is there in them? It ’s all small fry. When
the tax-collector comes around, I ’ll have to pay for the dead ones all
the same as if they were living. Last week my blacksmith was burned; he
was such a fine blacksmith, and he was a locksmith too.”

“Have you had a fire, motherkin?”

“God has spared me that misfortune. A fire would have been worse; no, he
burnt himself, my friend. There was something inside of him that caught
fire: he had been drinking hard. A blue flame came out of him, and he
burnt all up, and grew black like coal. Oh, he was such a fine
blacksmith! Now I can’t drive out at all, for there is nobody here to
shoe the horses.”

“God’s will is in everything, motherkin!” said Chíchikov heaving a sigh:
“we must say nothing against the wisdom of God---- Turn them over to me,
Nastásya Petróvna!”

“Whom, my friend?”

“I mean all those that have died.”

“How do you mean, to turn them over?”

“Why, just turn them over, or, if you wish, sell them to me. I ’ll pay
you for them.”

“How do you mean that? I declare, I can’t see through it. Do you intend
to dig them up?”

Chíchikov perceived that she was far from the mark, and it became
necessary to explain to her the business. He told her in a few words
that the transfer or sale would be only on paper, and that the souls
would be mentioned as if they were still alive.

“What do you want them for?” said the old woman, as she stared at him.

“That ’s my affair.”

“But they are dead!”

“Well, who said they were alive? That ’s where your loss comes in,
because they are dead. You have been paying for them all this time, and
I will deliver you from trouble and expenses. You understand? I will not
only deliver you, but I ’ll pay you fifteen roubles to boot. Well, is it
clear now?”

“I confess, I don’t know,” said the proprietress deliberately: “I have
never before sold dead souls.”

“I guess not! It would, indeed, have been an odd thing if you had. Or do
you, really, think there is some use in them?”

“No, I don’t think exactly that. What use can there be in them? There ’s
no use in them. The thing that troubles me is, they are dead.”

“I see she is a thick-skulled old woman,” Chíchikov thought. “Listen,
motherkin! Just consider well: you are ruining yourself when you pay
taxes for them as if they were alive----”

“Oh, my friend, don’t mention it!” the proprietress interrupted him. “It
is n’t three weeks yet that I had to pay one hundred and fifty, and to
grease the tax-collector besides.”

“That ’s it, motherkin! Now, just consider that you will not have to
grease the tax-collector again, for it is I who am going to pay for
them, and not you. I take upon myself all obligations. I ’ll even have
the deed made out at my expense, do you understand that?”

The old woman became pensive. She saw that the business was indeed
advantageous, but so new and unusual that she was growing suspicious,
lest the purchaser should get the better of her, especially since God
knows where he came from, and that, too, at night time.

“Well, motherkin, is it a bargain?” said Chíchikov.

“Really, my friend, I have never yet had a chance to sell corpses. As
for living ones, it ’s only three years hence that I sold some to
Protopópov,--two girls at one hundred roubles apiece,--and he ’s been
thankful for them: they have turned out to be excellent workers, and
they can make even napkins.”

“But we are not concerned about living ones,--God be with them! I am
asking for dead ones.”

“Really, I am afraid, to begin with, I might sell them at a sacrifice.
Maybe, my friend, you are cheating me. Who knows but what they are worth
more?”

“Listen, motherkin,--what a funny woman you are! What worth can they
have? Think of it: they are dust. Do you understand?--they are nothing
but dust. Take any useless, worthless thing, say, a common rag, and that
has some value: it may be, at least, bought in the paper factory, but
what are these good for? Say yourself, what are they good for?”

“I ’ll agree, you are right. They are good for nothing. The only thing
that bothers me is that they are dead.”

“Confound that club-headed woman!” said Chíchikov to himself, as he was
beginning to lose patience. “Go and straighten things out with her! She
has made me sweat, accursed woman!” He took out a handkerchief from his
pocket and began to wipe off the perspiration that really had come out
on his forehead. In reality, Chíchikov had no special reason to lose his
patience: there is many an honourable man, a man of state, who is a fine
reproduction of Mrs. Koróbochka. Let him take some notion, and you will
not get him away from it; all your proofs in the world, even if they are
as clear as daylight, will rebound from him, like a rubber ball from the
wall. Having wiped off his perspiration, Chíchikov resolved to try her
from another side, hoping to get her at last on the right path.

“Motherkin, either you do not want to understand my words, or you are
just talking, to be a-talking. I am offering you money, fifteen roubles
in assignats,--do you understand? It is money I am offering you. You
can’t pick it up in the street. Now, confess, what did you sell your
honey at?”

“Twelve roubles a pud.”

“You are sinning a little, motherkin. You did not sell it at twelve.”

“Upon my word, I did.”

“Well, you see, but it is honey! You have been gathering it probably for
a year, with care, and trouble, and worry; you had to be about, to
starve the bees, to feed them a whole winter in the cellar--while dead
souls are not of this world. Here you have to undergo no trouble: it was
God’s will that they should leave this world and cause your estate a
loss. There you received a compensation for your labour and your care at
the rate of twelve roubles, and here you receive for nothing, and not
twelve, but fifteen, and not in silver, but in blue assignats.”

Chíchikov did not doubt that after such convincing proof the old woman
would finally capitulate.

“Really,” answered the proprietress, “I am such an inexperienced widow!
I think I had better wait a little: maybe some other purchasers will
come, and I ’ll get used to the price.”

“Shame, shame, motherkin! Simply, shame! Now, just think what you are
saying! Who is going to buy them? Well, what use can anybody make of
them?”

“Maybe they are some good on the estate----” retorted the old woman and
did not finish her speech. She opened her mouth and looked at him almost
with terror, wondering what he would say to that.

“Dead souls on the estate! What a guess you have made! What do you want
to do with them? Use them for scarecrows to drive the sparrows out of
your garden?”

“The power of the cross be with us! What awful things you say!” muttered
the woman, making the sign of the cross.

“Well, where else would you make use of them? Besides, I leave their
bones and graves to you: the transfer is only on paper. Well, what do
you say? Give me, at least, some kind of an answer.”

The old woman fell again to musing.

“What are you thinking about, Nastásya Petróvna?”

“Really, I can’t quite make it out; let me better sell you some hemp.”

“What do I want with the hemp? I declare, I am asking you for something
else, and you foist hemp upon me! The hemp is all right, I ’ll come
another time, and will take your hemp. How is it now, Nastásya
Petróvna?”

“Upon my word, it ’s such a strange article, and so odd.”

Here Chíchikov’s patience burst all bounds; in his anger he banged a
chair against the floor, and sent her to the devil.

The proprietress was dreadfully put out by the devil. “Oh, don’t mention
him, God be with him!” she cried out, while growing pale: “Only night
before last the accursed one appeared to me in my dream. I had
carelessly been laying cards to tell fortune in the evening after
prayers, so the Lord evidently sent him to me to punish me. Oh, he
looked so horrible: his horns were longer than a bull’s.”

“I wonder how it is they don’t come to you by the dozen. Out of mere
Christian charity I wanted to help a poor widow that is suffering
want---- Go to perdition with your whole village!----”

“What curses you are uttering!” said the woman, looking at him in
terror.

“I can’t find the right words with you! Really, not to use any bad
words, you are just like a watchdog that is lying on the hay: he does
n’t himself eat any hay, and won’t let anybody else eat it. I had
intended to buy all kinds of produce from you, for I am also a
government contractor----” He lied here, just in passing, without any
further thought, but it came in unexpectedly at the right moment.
Government contracts made a strong impression on Nastásya Petróvna; at
least she spoke in an almost imploring voice:

“But what has made you so dreadfully angry? If I had known before that
you are such an excitable man, I would n’t have contradicted you at
all.”

“There is really no cause for anger! The whole business is n’t worth an
empty eggshell, and why should I get angry over it?”

“Well, if you want them, I ’ll let you have them for fifteen in
assignats! Only, my friend, let me tell you about your government
contracts: if you have any occasion to buy up rye, or buckwheat, or
grit, or meat,--please don’t forget me.”

“No, motherkin, I won’t,” he said while wiping off the sweat that came
down his face in three streaks. He asked her whether she did not have in
town some attorney or friend whom she could give the power to make out
the deed and everything else that was necessary.

“Certainly! The son of Father Cyril, the protopope, serves in the
court-house,” said Koróbochka.

Chíchikov asked her to write a letter to him granting him power of
attorney, and, to save more trouble, began to compose the letter
himself.

“It would be nice,” Koróbochka said to herself in the meanwhile, “if he
bought flour and beef of me for the government. I must get on the good
side of him: there is some dough left from last night, so I ’ll go and
tell Fetínya to make some griddle cakes.”




  Vissarión Grigórevich Byelínski. (1811-1848.)


  Few persons have exerted such a far-reaching influence upon Russian
  literature as the critic Byelínski, and a whole generation of writers
  was cast in the mould of his æsthetic views. Byelínski was the son of
  a district physician in the Government of Pénza. His home life was
  exceedingly unhappy and his childhood was neglected; from the district
  school, to which he was sent up to his fourteenth year, he was
  transferred to the Gymnasium and later to the Moscow University, but
  he was a very poor student and careless about his person. In Moscow he
  joined the Schelling circle of the students and with them devoted his
  time to the study of literature, especially of Shakspere, Goethe,
  Schiller, and Hoffmann. In 1832 he left the university, and the next
  two years he passed in utter wretchedness and poverty. Then he took
  his first critical essay, _Literary Dreams_, to a magazine, and his
  literary career began. Under Schelling’s influence he denied the
  previous importance of Russian literature, and proclaimed the nascent
  genius of Gógol, who had just made his appearance. Between 1836 and
  1838 Byelínski’s circle of friends vaulted over to Hegel’s philosophy,
  and under this new influence Byelínski rejected all lyrics and satire
  as not compatible with an unbiased, objective contemplation of the
  phenomena of life, and discredited all productions that dealt with the
  living questions of the day. In 1839 he was called to St. Petersburg
  to take charge of the critical and bibliographical departments of the
  Memoirs of the Fatherland. Here began the third and most important
  period of his activity: he soon recanted his former æsthetic theories
  and evolved the theory of “art for life,” which henceforth became the
  criterion for all literary criticisms. Of his many excellent essays of
  this period dealing with Russian belles-lettres, the best is _A View
  on Russian Literature for the Year 1847_. He died of consumption,
  brought about mainly by his many privations.


                            THE NATURAL SCHOOL

Our literature has been the fruit of conscious thought; it appeared as
an innovation, it began by imitation. It did not stop there, but
continually strove to be independent, national; from being rhetorical it
strove to become simple, _natural_. This tendency has been made
perceptible by a continuous progress, and forms the meaning and soul of
the history of our literature. We will say without reserve that in no
Russian writer has this tendency been crowned by such success as in
Gógol. This end was attained only through the exclusive application of
art to reality, in spite of all ideals. It became necessary to direct
all the attention to the people, the masses, to depict common men, and
not merely the pleasant exceptions from the universal rule, that
invariably tempt the poets to idealise, and that bear upon themselves a
foreign stamp. That was Gógol’s great merit, and it is that precisely
which the men of the old culture regard as his crime against the laws of
art. By his manner he has completely changed the view on art itself. One
may apply to the works of all the Russian poets, by stretching the point
a little, the old and obsolete definition of poetry as “Nature adorned”;
but it is impossible to do so in relation to Gógol’s works. For these
the more appropriate definition is “a reproduction of reality in all its
truth.” Here the whole matter is in _types_, and the _ideal_ is here not
understood as an adornment (consequently--a lie), but as the correlation
of the types created by him, in accordance with the thought which he
wishes to develop in his production.

Art has in our days got the better of theory. The old theories have lost
all their credit; the very people that had been educated in them follow
not them, but a certain strange mixture of old and new conceptions.
Thus, for example, some of them, in rejecting the old French theory in
the name of Romanticism, were the first to give the aggravating example
of introducing into their novels persons from the lower strata, even
villains, under the appropriate appellation of Pilferer and Cutter; but
they immediately rectified themselves by bringing out moral persons,
together with the immoral ones, under the name of Truth-lover,
Charitable, etc. In the first case was to be seen the influence of new
ideas, in the second, of old conceptions, for according to the recipe of
ancient poetics at least one clever fellow must be added to a number of
fools, and at least one virtuous man to a number of good-for-nothings.
In either case these betweeners left out of sight the main thing,
namely, art; for it did not occur to them that their virtuous and
vicious persons were not men, not characters, but rhetorical
personifications of abstract virtues and vices. That explains better
than anything why for them theory, rule, is more important than fact,
reality: the latter is inaccessible to their comprehension. However, not
even talented writers and geniuses are always able to escape the
influence of theory. Gógol belongs to the number of the few who have
entirely avoided every influence of any and all theory. Though capable
of understanding art and of admiring it in the productions of other
poets, he nevertheless proceeded in his own way, following his deep and
true artistic instinct with which Nature had endowed him lavishly, and
without being tempted to imitate the successes of others. Of course,
that did not in itself give him any originality, but enabled him to
preserve and express in its entirety that originality which was the part
and parcel of his individuality, consequently, like talent, a natural
gift. It is for that reason that he appeared to many as having entered
Russian literature from without, while, in reality, he was its necessary
phenomenon, which was the logical conclusion of all its preceding
evolution.

Gógol’s influence on Russian literature has been enormous. Not only did
all the young talents throw themselves on the path which he had
indicated, but some writers who had already gained a reputation
abandoned their old way and proceeded on the new. Gógol wrote nothing
after the _Dead Souls_. There is only his school upon the arena of
literature. All blame and accusation that formerly was hurled at him is
now directed against the natural school, and whatever attack is still
made upon him is on account of that school. What is he, then, accused
of? There are but few accusations, and they are nearly always the same.
At first they attacked the school, they claimed, on account of its
eternal attacks upon the officials. In the representation of the life of
this class some saw sincerely, others feignedly, evil-minded
caricatures. These accusations have been silenced for some time. Now
they accuse the writers of the natural school for loving the people of
the lower occupations, for making heroes of their novels out of
peasants, janitors, coachmen, for describing the purlieus and refuges of
naked poverty and frequently of all kind of immorality. To put the new
writers to shame, the accusers point with triumph to the beautiful days
of Russian literature, refer to the names of Karamzín and Dmítriev, who
had chosen for their productions high and noble objects, and adduce as
an example of now forgotten prettiness the sentimental song: “Of all the
flowerets I loved most the rose!” But we shall remind them that the
first noteworthy novel, was written by Karamzín, and its heroine was
“Poor Líza,” a peasant girl, who was seduced by a coxcomb---- But, they
will say, everything is decent and pure there, and the Moscow peasant
girl does not yield to the best-brought-up lady. Now we have, at last,
come to the cause of the dispute: you see, the old poetics is to be
blamed for it. It does not mind your representing peasants, but not
otherwise than masqueraded in theatrical costumes, who display feelings
and ideas that are strange to their existence, position, and education,
and who express themselves in a language no one speaks, and least of all
peasants,--a literary language that is embellished by “wherewith,
aforementioned, than which,” and so forth.---- In short, the ancient
poetics permits you to represent anything you please, but immediately
prescribes so to adorn the subject under discussion as to make it
utterly impossible to discover what it is you had intended to represent.

The natural school follows the very opposite rule: the nearest possible
resemblance of the persons represented to their prototypes in reality
does not form its all, but is its first condition, a non-compliance with
which would vitiate anything good there may be in the composition. It is
a heavy condition which only a talent can comply with. After that, how
can those writers help loving and honouring that ancient poetics, who
formerly could without talent insinuate themselves successfully in the
field of poetry? How can they help regarding the natural school as their
most terrible enemy, since it has introduced a manner of writing which
is inaccessible to them? That, of course, refers only to people with
whom egotism enters in the discussion of this question; but there will
also be found many who in all sincere conviction do not love the natural
in art, through the influence of the old poetics upon them. These
people, in addition, complain with special bitterness, because art has
now forgotten its former purpose. “Poetry,” they say, “used to instruct
while amusing, compelled the reader to forget the tribulations and
sufferings of life, and represented to him only pleasant and smiling
pictures. The former poets used to represent also pictures of poverty,
but a poverty that was neat, washed, and expressing itself modestly and
with refinement; then, at the end of the novel there always appeared a
sentimental young lady or maiden, a daughter of rich and refined
parents, or at least a philanthropic young man,--and, in the name of
these kind hearts, was enthroned abundance and happiness where there was
poverty and misery, and grateful tears watered the beneficent hand,--and
the reader involuntarily raised his batiste handkerchief to his eyes and
felt that he was growing better and more sentimental----

“But now!--See what they are writing about now! Peasants in bast shoes
and gabardines who often smell of brandy; an old woman--a kind of
centaur, by whose dress one cannot easily tell of what gender that
creature may be; purlieus--refuges of misery, despair, and debauch,
which one can reach only by yards knee-deep in mud; some drunkard,--a
scribe or a seminarist turned teacher, expelled from service,--all that
is described from nature, in the nakedness of terrible truth, so that
the reading of it will give you some bad dreams----”

Thus, or in some such manner, speak the intrepid disciples of the
ancient poetics. In reality, their complaints are that poetry has quit
lying shamelessly, that it has changed from a nursery tale into a not
always pleasant narrative, that it has ceased being a rattle, by the
sound of which children leap about or fall asleep. Strange people, happy
people! They have succeeded in remaining all their life children, and
even in their old age to be minors,--and now they demand that all should
resemble them! Read your old fairy tales, nobody will keep you from
them; but leave to others the occupations that suit those who are of
age. For you--the lie; for us--truth: let us divide without quarrelling.
You do not want our share, and we will not take yours gratis----

But there is another cause which interferes with this friendly
division,--egotism which regards itself as virtue. Indeed, let us take a
man who is well-off, or even rich. He has just had a good, savoury
dinner (he has an excellent cook), has seated himself in his comfortable
arm-chair, with a cup of coffee, in front of a glowing fireplace; he
feels good and warm, a feeling of well-being makes him happy; he takes a
book and lazily turns its pages; his brow wrinkles over his eyes, the
smile disappears from his rosy lips, he is agitated, disturbed,
annoyed---- And there is reason for it! The book tells him that not all
people in the world live as well as he; that there are purlieus where a
whole family shakes with cold under rags, though it had, probably, but
lately known of ease; that there are people in the world who by birth
and fate are destined for misery,--that the last kopek goes for “green
wine” not always from indolence, but also from despair. And our happy
man feels ill at ease, and rather ashamed of his comfort. The whole
trouble is in that wretched book: he had picked it up for his pleasure,
and he had read himself into melancholy and ennui. Away with it! “A book
is to give you a pleasant pastime; I do not need it to find out that
there is much sorrow and sadness in life, and if I do read, it is to
forget it all!” he exclaims.

Yes, dear sybarite, for your peace books ought to lie, and the poor man
forget his woe, the hungry his hunger, the groans of suffering must
reach your ears as musical notes, lest your appetite be spoiled, your
sleep disturbed---- Now let us imagine another lover of pleasant reading
in the same situation. He has to give a reception, the time is drawing
near, and there is no money. His steward, Nikíta Fédorych, has for some
reason been slow in sending the amount. At last the money arrives, the
reception can come off. With a cigar in his mouth, happy and satisfied,
he is lying on the couch and, having nothing to do, his hands lazily
stretch out towards a book. Again the same story! That damnable book
tells him the exploits of his Nikíta Fédorych, that low-born churl, who
had been accustomed from childhood eagerly to pander to the passions and
whims of others, who was married to the ex-sweetheart of his master’s
progenitor---- Away with that wretched book!

Now imagine again another man in a comfortable condition, who in his
childhood had been running about barefooted, had been a messenger-boy,
and at fifty had somehow risen to rank, and who possessed a small
competency. Everybody reads, so he must too. But what does he find in
the book?--His biography and, at that, correctly told, though no one,
but himself, knows anything of the experiences of his life, and no
author could possibly have discovered his secret---- He is not merely
agitated, he is mad, and with a feeling of dignity he eases his anger by
the following consideration: “That’s the way they write nowadays! That’s
what Free Thought has come to! Did they write that way before? No! It
used to be such a fluent style, and they discussed such tender and
elevated subjects that it was a joy to read, and there was no cause for
annoyance!”

There is a special class of readers who, from a sentiment of
aristocratism, hate to meet people of the lower strata even in books,
especially those that have no sense of proprieties and refinement; they
despise dirt and misery, as the very opposite of their luxurious
parlours, boudoirs, and cabinets. These refer to the natural school only
with a haughty contempt and ironical smile---- Who are they, these
feudal barons, that they loathe the “low-born mob” that in their eyes is
lower than a good horse? Be not in a hurry to learn about them in books
of heraldry or at European courts: you will not find their
coats-of-arms; they do not go to Court, and if they have seen the
fashionable world, it was only in the street, through brilliantly
lighted windows, as much as curtains and blinds permitted them to do so.
They cannot boast of ancestors: they are generally officials, or
new-made nobles that are rich only in plebeian traditions of a
grandfather who was a steward, an uncle--a contractor, and, at times, a
grandmother--a baker of altar breads, and an aunt--a huckstress.

A contempt for the lower strata of society is in our days no longer a
vice of the higher classes; no, it is the disease of upstarts, a
monstrous outgrowth of ignorance, and vulgarity of feelings and
conceptions. A wise and cultured man would never manifest this disease,
if he were at all subject to it, because it does not comport with the
spirit of the time, because to proclaim it would be the croaking that
announces the raven. It seems to us that, though doublefacedness is
contemptible, in this case it is better than a raven sincerity, for it
bears witness to cleverness. The peacock that proudly opens his splendid
tail before the other birds has the reputation of a beautiful, not
clever, animal. What is to be said of the raven that haughtily displays
its borrowed plumage? Such haughtiness is always devoid of sense, and is
generally a plebeian vice. Where is there more display and pretence than
in those classes of society that come right after the lowest? It is so,
because there is most ignorance there. See how deeply the lackey
despises the peasant who is, in every respect, better, nobler, humaner
than he! Whence that pride in the lackey?--He has adopted his master’s
vices, and therefore he regards himself as more cultured than the
peasant. External lustre is ever taken by coarse natures for culture.

“What sense is there in flooding literature with peasants?” exclaim the
aristocrats of a certain category. In their opinion the writer is an
artisan who is to furnish work according to order. It does not enter
their minds that in the selection of the subject for his composition the
author cannot be guided by the will of others, or even his own free
choice, for art has its laws that must be complied with in order that
one may write well. It demands above all that the writer should be true
to his own nature, his talent, his fancy. How are we to explain the fact
that one likes to represent happy subjects, another sad ones, if not by
the nature, character, and talent of the poet? What one loves and is
interested in, that one knows best, and what one knows best, one
represents best. That is the most legitimate justification of the poet
who is blamed for the selection of his subjects; it is not satisfactory
only to those who have no understanding of art and vulgarly confound it
with the artisan’s profession.

Nature is the eternal model of art, and the greatest and noblest subject
in nature is man. And is a peasant not a man? But what can there be of
interest in a coarse, untutored man? Why, his soul, mind, heart,
passions, inclinations,--in short, the same as in the cultured man.
Granted, the latter is more interesting than the first; but is the
botanist interested only in artfully improved garden plants, and does he
neglect their wild-growing field prototypes? Is not for the anatomist
and physiologist the organism of a wild Australian as interesting as the
organism of an enlightened European? For what reason should art, in this
respect, differ so much from science? Then you say that a cultured man
is higher than an uncultured one. One has to agree with you in that, but
not unconditionally. Of course, the most frivolous worldly man stands
incomparably higher than a peasant, but in what respect? Only in worldly
education, but that in no way interferes with many a peasant’s being
higher than he, for example, as regards his mind, feelings, character.
Education only develops the moral powers of man, it does not give them;
Nature gives them to man. In this distribution of her precious gifts,
she acts blindly, without considering the classes. If from the educated
class of society there issues a greater number of remarkable men, it is
only because there are there more means for development, and not at all
because Nature has been more niggardly with the men of the lower classes
in the distribution of her gifts.

“What can one learn from a book in which is described some miserable
wretch who has drunk himself to perdition?” say again these second-hand
aristocrats. Why, certainly not worldly manners and refinement, but the
knowledge of man under certain conditions. One man gets drunk through
indolence, through bad bringing up, through weakness of character,
another through unfortunate circumstances in life for which he may not
bear the least blame. In either case, they are instructive and curious
examples for observation. Of course, it is much easier to turn away with
disgust from a fallen man than to stretch out to him a consoling and
helpful hand, just as it is much easier to judge him severely in the
name of morality than with sympathy and love to enter into his
situation, to probe the cause of his fall, and to pity him as a man,
even when he appears much to blame for his fall.

The Redeemer of the human race came into the world for all men; not wise
and educated men, but simple-minded and simple-hearted fishermen He
called to be “fishers of men”; not rich and happy men, but poor,
suffering, fallen men He sought, in order to console some, and encourage
and raise others. Festering sores on a body that was hardly covered with
unclean rags did not offend His eyes, which shone with love and charity.
He, the son of God, loved men humanely and sympathised with them in
their misery, dirt, shame, debauch, vices, wrongdoings. He bid those
throw a stone at the adulteress who could not in any way accuse their
own consciences, and put the hard-hearted judges to shame, and gave the
fallen woman a word of consolation,--and the robber, who breathed his
last on the cross as a well-deserved punishment, for one moment of
repentance, heard from Him the word of forgiveness and peace. But we,
the sons of men, we want to love only those of our brothers who are like
us, we turn away from the lower classes as from pariahs, fallen ones,
lepers. What virtues and deserts have given us the right to do so? Is it
not rather the very absence of all virtues and deserts? But the divine
word of love and brotherhood has not in vain been proclaimed to the
world.

That which formerly was only the duty of persons who had been called to
serve at the altar, or the virtue of the chosen few, has now become the
obligation of societies, and no longer serves as a token of mere virtue,
but also of culture of private individuals. See, how in our century
everybody is interested in the lot of the lower classes, how private
philanthropy is everywhere being changed into state institutions, how on
all sides are formed well-organised, richly endowed societies for the
aid of the needy and suffering, for the suppression and prevention of
misery and its inevitable consequence--immorality and debauch. This
universal movement, so noble, so humane, so Christian, meets its
detractors in the persons of the worshippers of a dull and stark
patriarchalism. They say that fashion, whim, vainglory, and not
philanthropy, are active here. Suppose it is so, but when and where have
similar trifling impulses not taken part in the best of human actions?
But how can one assert that only such impulses have been the cause of
these phenomena? How can one think that the chief creators of these
phenomena, who by their example have influenced the masses, are not
inspired by nobler and higher impulses? Naturally, there is no cause for
admiring the virtue of people who throw themselves into charity not from
a sense of neighbourly love, but from fashion, from imitation, from
vainglory. But it is a virtue as regards society which is so full of the
spirit that it can direct the activities of trivial people towards the
good! Is it not an extremely encouraging phenomenon of modern
civilisation, of progress of mind, education, and culture?

Entirely admitting that art must above all be art, we nevertheless think
that the idea of some kind of a pure, exclusive art that lives in its
own sphere, that has nothing in common with the other sides of life, is
an abstract, visionary idea. There has never and nowhere existed such an
art. No doubt, life is divided and subdivided into a multitude of sides
that have their separate existences; but these sides continually
interact in a living organism, and there is between them no sharply
drawn line. No matter how you may parcel out life, it is always one and
inseparable. They say: for science we need mind and reason, for art,
fancy, and they think that they have thus once and for all settled the
matter, and that it is fit to go in that shape into the archives. Does
not art need mind and reason as well? And can the savant get along
without fancy? No! The truth is that in art fancy plays the most active
and important part, while in science, mind and reason. There are, to be
sure, productions of poetry in which nothing is to be seen except a
strong, brilliant fancy; but that is not a common rule for artistic
productions.




  Sergyéy Timoféevich Aksákov. (1791-1859.)


  Aksákov represents the rare example in Russian literature of an author
  who passed from the pseudo-classic style to the realistic school of
  Gógol without taking part in the intervening Romantic movement. He was
  born at Ufá, and graduated from what was then the Kazán University at
  sixteen years of age. He then served as a government translator, and
  devoted himself to literature, mainly to translations from the French.
  His sympathies were entirely with Shishkóv, Karamzín’s opponent. In
  1827 he was made a censor, in which capacity he gained an unenviable
  reputation as an unscrupulous partisan. In the thirties he came under
  the influence of Gógol, and in 1833 he wrote _The Snowstorm_, which
  was later followed by an admirable series of sketches on angling and
  on hunting, containing charming pictures of animal life. In 1856
  appeared his great work, _The Family Chronicle_, in which he gives
  vivid descriptions from the life of a landed proprietor in the
  Orenbúrg country, abounding in exquisite landscape pictures. _The
  Family Chronicle_ differs from all the other productions of the
  realistic school in that there is not a word of fiction in it, but
  that it is based entirely on actual facts.


                       FROM “THE FAMILY CHRONICLE”

Towards the end of June the heat was oppressive. After a sultry night
there blew, at daybreak, a fresh eastern breeze, but it subsided as soon
as the sun grew warmer. Grandfather awoke at sunrise. He found it warm
sleeping in a small upper room, even though the old-fashioned window
frame with its tiny panes was lifted up to its fullest capacity, because
his bed was curtained with a bar of homespun netting. This was a
necessary precaution, for without the bar the pestering mosquitoes would
have eaten him up and would have kept him from falling asleep. The
winged musicians swarmed around in clouds and stuck their long stings
through the thin screen, and they hummed all night their wearisome
serenades. It is funny for me to say so, but I can’t help confessing
that I like the descant buzz and even the biting of the mosquitoes; I
hear in it the oppressive summer, the luxurious, sleepless nights, the
shores of the Buguruslán that are overgrown with green bushes, from
which resound on all sides the songs of the nightingales; I recall the
rapture of my young heart and the sweet, unaccountable pining for which
I would now gladly give the rest of my flickering life.

Grandfather awoke, with his warm hand wiped the sweat from his straight,
high forehead, put his head out from under the bar, and began to laugh.
Vánka Mazán and Nikánorka Tanaychénok were snoring on the floor on which
they were stretched out in laughable, though artistic, postures. “I
declare, the dog’s children are snoring!” said grandfather and smiled
again.

Stepán Mikháylovich was an enigmatic man. After such a strong verbal
exordium one would have expected a poke in the side of the sleeper, with
the viburnum cane which always stood by his bed, or a kick with the
foot, or even a greeting with the chair; but grandfather only laughed
out loud as he awoke, and thus, as they say, got into a good humour for
the whole day.

He rose without any noise, made one or two signs of the cross, stepped
with his bare feet into leather slippers that were worn red, and,
dressed in nothing but a shirt of peasant homespun (grandmother would
not let him have loom-woven linen for shirts), he went out on the porch
where he was refreshed by a whiff of the morning moisture. I just said
that Arína Vasílevna did not give him any loom-woven linen for shirts,
and every reader would be right in remarking that this was not in
keeping with the character of the wedded pair. But really I can’t help
it, and I beg you not to be angry with me, it was as I said: feminine
nature carried the day over the male, as is always the case! Though she
was frequently beaten for giving him coarse underwear, she continued to
offer him the same, until the old man took it as a matter of course.
Once grandfather made use of the last and the most efficacious means: he
chopped up with an axe, on the threshold of his room, all the underwear
that had been made of peasant homespun, in spite of grandmother’s wail,
who kept on imploring that Stepán Mikháylovich might strike her, but
should spare his own property, but even this means was of no avail; the
coarse underwear made its appearance again,--and the old man
surrendered.

I am much to be blamed for interrupting the story about “my
grandfather’s good day,” in order to contradict the reader’s possible
remark. Without disturbing anyone, he took down a felt blanket which
always lay in the storeroom, spread it out on the upper step of the
porch, and sat down upon it, to receive, as was his custom, the rising
sun.

Before sunrise a man’s heart experiences unconsciously a happy feeling;
but grandfather had the additional pleasure of looking at his estate
which was then already well provided with all necessary farm buildings.
It is true, the yard was not fenced in, and the cattle from the peasant
yards, which were gathering into a common herd before being driven out
into the pasture, made a call upon him in passing, just as on that
morning and as always happened in the evenings. A few dirty pigs rubbed
and scratched themselves against the very porch on which grandfather was
sitting, and, grunting, feasted on lobster shells and all kinds of
remnants from the dinner which were unceremoniously thrown out near the
same porch. Cows and sheep made their visits too. Naturally there were
left indecent traces of their calls, but grandfather saw nothing
disagreeable in all that, but on the contrary took his delight in
watching the healthy cattle, which were to him a sure sign of the
sufficiency and well-being of his peasants.

Soon the loud snapping of a long shepherd whip drove the visitors away.
The servants began to rise. The tall groom Spiridón, who was called
Spírka to a good old age, led out one after another two roan colts and
one bay, hitched them to a post, groomed them, and then walked them
around by a long rope, while grandfather admired their stature, as he
also took delight in the breed he expected to raise from them (he was
later completely successful in that). Then awoke also the old stewardess
who slept in the loft of the cellar; she came out of the cellar, went to
the Buguruslán to get washed, sighed, sobbed (that was her unchangeable
custom), prayed to God while turning to the east, and began to wash,
rinse, and clean the pots and dishes.

The swallows and martins chirped and sang, circling merrily in the sky;
the quails called loudly in the fields; the songs of the skylarks rang
out in the air; the crake cried hoarsely, sitting in the bushes; the
whistling of waterhens, and the tocking and bleating of wild snipes were
borne thither from the nearby swamp, and the blue-throated warblers vied
in mocking the nightingales.--The bright sun rolled out from beyond the
hill.

Smoke rose from the peasants’ huts, bending with the wind in light grey
columns, like a procession of river boats flaunting their flags; the
peasants started for the field.

Grandfather wanted to wash himself in cold water, and then to drink tea.
He awoke his disgracefully sleeping servants. They leaped up, like
half-witted people, in fright, but Stepán Mikháylovich’s merry voice
reassured them: “Mazán, fetch me some water! Tanaychénok, wake Aksyútka
and the lady,--and tea!” There was no need of repeating the commands:
awkward Mazán was running as fast as his feet could carry him with a
bright brass wash-basin to get some water at the spring; and agile
Tanaychénok awoke the homely servant girl Aksyútka who only fixed the
kerchief that had slipped from her head and at once went to wake the
good old lady Arína Vasílevna. A few minutes later the whole house was
on its feet, and everybody knew that the old gentleman had gotten up in
a good humour. Fifteen minutes later a table was placed near the porch,
and it was covered with a fine white cloth of home make; upon it boiled
a samovár in the shape of a huge brass tea-pot, and Aksyútka was busy
attending to it; the old lady, Arína Vasílevna, bade Stepán Mikháylovich
good-morning, without sighing and groaning, as would be proper on other
mornings, and loudly and merrily asked his health: “How did you rest
yourself, and what kind of dreams did you have?”

Grandfather greeted his wife kindly and called her Arísha; he never
kissed her hand, but gave her his hand to kiss as a token of his favour.
Arína Vasílevna bloomed out and grew younger. Her obesity and clumsiness
disappeared as if by magic! She brought a little stool and seated
herself on the porch near grandfather, which she never dared to do if he
did not receive her graciously.

“Let us have tea together, Arísha!” said Stepán Mikháylovich, “before it
is hot. Though it was sultry to sleep, I slept so well that I had no
dreams? And you?”

Such a question was an unusual favour, and grandmother speedily replied
that she slept well every time Stepán Mikháylovich passed a good night,
but that Tanyúsha had tossed a great deal. Tanyúsha was the youngest
daughter, and the old man loved her more than his other daughters, as is
often the case. These words disquieted him, and he ordered not to wake
Tanyúsha, but let her awaken herself. Tatyána Stepánovna had been
wakened together with Aleksándra and Elizavéta Stepánovna and they were
all dressed, but they did not dare tell him that. Tanyúsha immediately
undressed herself, went back to bed, ordered to close the shutters in
her room and, though she could not fall asleep, lay for two hours in the
dark; grandfather was satisfied because Tatyána had had a good rest. His
only son, who was nine years old, was never made to get up early.

The elder daughters appeared at once. Stepán Mikháylovich graciously
gave them his hand to kiss and called one Lizánka and the other Leksána.
Neither of them was a silly girl. Aleksándra united her father’s
vivacity and excitability with her cunning mind, but she did not have
his good qualities. Grandmother was a very simple woman and was
completely controlled by her daughters. If she ever undertook to outwit
Stepán Mikháylovich, she did so solely by their instigation, which the
old man knew all by heart and for which, on account of her
simple-mindedness, she had often to pay dearly. He also knew that his
daughters were ready to deceive him at any convenient moment, and only
from ennui, or in order to preserve his own peace, that is, only when he
was in good humour, did he allow them to think that they were really
deceiving him; but in the first fit of anger he told them all without
mercy, in the most unceremonious words, and sometimes he even beat them.
But the daughters, like Eve’s real grandchildren, did not lose their
courage: the moment the hour of anger passed and their father’s face was
becalmed, they set out once more to try their old tricks, and they were
often successful.

Having drunk his tea and talked over all kinds of things with his
family, grandfather got ready for the field. He had told Mazán long
before: “The horse!” and an old greyish brown gelding was already at the
porch; it was hitched to a long peasant waggon that was very
comfortable, being woven with a close rope netting and having a long
seat in the middle that was covered with a blanket. Groom Spiridón was
seated in the waggon as a coachman; his livery was quite simple, that
is, it consisted only of his shirt; he was barefooted and was girded
with a red woollen girdle from which hung a key and a brass comb. On a
previous occasion Spiridón had ventured out on such an expedition even
without a hat; but grandfather scolded him for it, so he had prepared
this time something in the shape of a hat out of broad bast bands.
Grandfather made fun of his headgear and, putting on his field coat of
unbleached homespun and a cap, and placing under him a cloak against
rainy weather, seated himself in the waggon. Spiridón placed under
himself his common gabardine, having folded it three times; it was made
of white cloth but was painted blood-red with madder, which grew very
profusely in the fields. This red colour was so customary with our old
men that the neighbours called the Bagróv servants “madderlings”; I
heard that nickname myself some fifteen years after my grandfather’s
death.

Stepán Mikháylovich was satisfied with everything in the field. He
looked at the deflorated rye which stood like a wall and as high as a
man’s stature. A soft breeze was blowing, and bluish waves passed over
it, appearing now lighter, now darker in the sun. It was a joy for the
master to look at such a field! Grandfather surveyed also the young oats
and all the summer crops; then he went to the untilled field, and had
himself taken up and down his ploughed-up acres. That was his usual way
of judging how well the ploughing had been done; every clod of earth
which had been untouched by the plough gave a jerk to the shaky waggon,
and if grandfather happened to be out of sorts, he stuck a small stick
or a withe into such a place, sent for the village elder, if he was not
with him, and the inquest began right on the spot. This time everything
went off favourably; there may have been some untouched spots, only
Stepán Mikháylovich did not notice them, or did not wish to notice them.

He cast also a glance at his prairie meadows, and looked with delight at
the dense high grass that was to be mowed in a few days. He visited also
the peasant fields, in order to find out for himself who was going to
have a good harvest and who not. He also looked at their untilled
ground, investigated matters closely, and forgot nothing. Passing by a
fallow field and noticing ripe strawberries, grandfather stopped and
with the aid of Mazán gathered a fine bunch full of fine, large berries
which he took home as a present for his Arísha. In spite of the heat he
was away until noon. The moment they noticed grandfather’s waggon coming
down the hill, the dinner stood on the table, and the whole family
waited for him on the porch.

“Well, Arísha,” merrily spoke grandfather, “it is a fine harvest God is
giving us! The Lord’s mercy is great! Here are some strawberries for
you!”

Grandmother beamed with joy.

“The berries are nearly all ripe,” he continued, “so let them begin
picking to-morrow!”

Saying these words, he went into the ante-chamber; the odour of warm
cabbage soup was wafted to him from the hall. “Ah, it is ready!” Stepán
Mikháylovich said with a happier mien, “thanks!” and without going to
his room, he went straight into the hall and seated himself at the
table. I must mention that it was grandfather’s custom, when he returned
from the field, whether it was early or late, to find the dinner on the
table, and God preserve them if they did not get ready with the meal
upon his return. Such mishaps had brought about some sad results. But on
that lucky day everything went as if greased, without a hitch. A sturdy
fellow, Nikólka Ruzán, stood behind grandfather with a large
birch-branch, in order to drive away the flies. The hot cabbage soup,
which a Russian will not refuse in the hottest weather, grandfather
sipped from a wooden spoon, because a silver spoon burned his lips. Then
followed cold beet soup with ice, with transparent sterlet, with salted
sturgeon, which was as yellow as wax, and with shelled crawfishes, and
similar light dishes. All that was washed down by home-brewed beer and
kvas, also with ice. It was a very jolly dinner. All spoke aloud,
jested, laughed. There were, however, dinners that passed in terrible
silence and in speechless expectation of some outbreak. All the boys and
girls of the estate knew that the master was dining in a good mood, and
they packed the hall, expecting to catch some dainties. Grandfather
treated them lavishly, because there was always prepared five times as
much food as was necessary. After dinner he at once lay down to sleep.
The flies were driven out from under the bar which was let down over
grandfather and tucked down under the feather mattress. Soon a mighty
snore gave evidence that the master was sleeping a heroic sleep.

Everybody went to his place to take a nap. Mazán and Tanaychénok, having
had a solid meal from the remnants of the master’s table, stretched
themselves out on the floor of the ante-chamber, near the very door into
grandfather’s sleeping-room. They had already had a nap in the forenoon,
which did not keep them from falling asleep again; but the stifling air
and burning sun which shone through the window woke them up soon. The
sleep and the heat had dried up their throats. They wanted to cool their
burning throats with the master’s iced home-brew, so these bold
lazybones had recourse to the following trick. Through the open door
they reached for grandfather’s morning gown and sleeping-cap which lay
on a chair, near the door. Tanaychénok put on his master’s garment and
seated himself on the porch, and Mazán ran with a pitcher to the cellar,
woke the stewardess, who, like everybody else in the house, slept the
sleep of the dead, and asked in a hurry for some iced beer for the
master who had just risen. When the stewardess expressed her doubt about
the master’s waking, Mazán pointed to Tanaychénok’s figure that was
sitting on the porch in morning gown and night-cap. The pitcher was
filled with beer, ice was put into it, and Mazán ran speedily away with
his booty. They divided the contents in a brotherly way, put the morning
gown and night cap in the old place, and had to wait for a whole hour
before grandfather awoke.

The master awoke in even a better frame of mind than upon the previous
day, and his first words were: “Cold beer!” The servants were frightened
out of their wits. Tanaychénok ran to the stewardess who saw immediately
that they had themselves drunk the first pitcher. She gave the liquor,
but followed the messenger to the porch where the real master was now
sitting in his morning gown. The deception was made evident from her
first words, and Mazán and Tanaychénok, trembling with fear, fell down
before the master’s feet, and what do you suppose grandfather did? He
laughed out loud, sent for Arísha and his daughters, and laughing loud,
told them the trick of his servants. The poor fellows breathed more
freely, and one of them even smiled. Stepán Mikháylovich noticed that
and came very near getting angry. His brows began to be furrowed, but
his soul was so full of calm restfulness from the whole merry day, that
his forehead cleared off right away, and he only looked angrily and
said: “Well, God will forgive you this time; but if it happens another
time--” It was not necessary to finish the sentence.

One can’t help marvelling how it is that the servants had dared to
practise such a sharp trick upon their master who was senselessly
excitable and who during his excitement became very cruel. I have
frequently noticed in the course of my life that the severer the master,
the more daring were the acts of their servants. That was not an
exceptional case with my grandfather. The same Vánka Mazán, having once
swept the sleeping room of Stepán Mikháylovich and just getting ready to
make the bed, was so seduced by the soft feather beds and pillows that
he took it into his head to pamper himself; so he lay down upon the
master’s bed and fell asleep. Grandfather found him sleeping in that
bed, and he only laughed out loud. It is true, he gave him a blow with
his viburnum stick, but that was only for fun, to have a good laugh at
Mazán’s fright.

He awoke about five o’clock in the afternoon, drank some iced homebrew,
and, in spite of the stifling heat, wanted to drink some tea, believing
that a hot drink would make the heat more bearable. He went down to take
a swim in the cool Buguruslán which flowed under the very windows of the
house, and, upon returning, found his whole family waiting for him at
the same tea table, which was now placed in the shade, with the same
boiling teapot-samovár, and with the same Aksyútka. Having had his fill
of his favourite sweat-producing drink, with thick cream and its browned
skin, grandfather proposed to all a ride to the mill. Of course, all
gladly consented, and two of my aunts, Aleksándra and Tatyána
Stepánovna, took some fishing rods with them, for they were very fond of
angling. In a minute two long waggons were hitched up: in one of them
seated themselves grandfather and grandmother, placing between them
their only heir, the precious scion of their ancient noble race. In the
other sat my three aunts and the lad Nikoláshka Ruzán, who was taken
along, in order to dig for worms in the dam and to put them on the
ladies’ hooks.

At the mill they brought a bench for grandmother, and she seated herself
in the shade of the mill barn, not far from the mill trough, near which
her younger daughters were fishing. The elder daughter, Elizavéta
Stepánovna, went, as much to please her father as from her own love of
farming, with Stepán Mikháylovich to look at the mill and the grinding.
The young boy now looked at the sister’s angling (he was not yet allowed
to fish in deep places), now played near his mother who did not turn her
eyes away from him, fearing that he might somehow roll into the water.

Both millstones were at work: in one of them they were grinding wheat
for the master’s table; in the other, rye for strangers; the stamping
mill was crushing millet. Grandfather was an expert in every part of the
farm; he knew well the mechanism of the mill, and was explaining all its
details to his clever and attentive daughter. He saw at a glance all the
imperfections in the gearing, or all the mistakes in the position of the
millstones. He ordered to let one down half a notch, and the flour came
out much finer, which pleased the customer very much. In the other
grinding apparatus he discovered by the sound that one pin in the wheel
was beginning to be worn out. He ordered to shut off the water, and
miller Boltunénok jumped down to examine the wheel. He said:

“You are right, Father Stepán Mikháylovich! One pin is a little worn
off.”

“Yes, yes, a little,” replied grandfather without any displeasure. “If I
had not come, the wheel would have broken over night.”

“It is my fault, Stepán Mikháylovich, I did not notice it.”

“God forgive you! Let us have a new wheel, and get a new pin made for
the old wheel; see to it that the new wheel is not any wider, nor
narrower than the rest, that is the main point.”

They brought a new wheel, which had been fitted before, and put it in
place; they oiled it, let in the water,--not all at once, but by degrees
(also by order of grandfather),--and the millstone started to hum and
grind, without interruption or rattling, but smoothly and evenly. Then
grandfather went with his daughter to the stamping mill, took out of the
stamp a handful of crushed millet, blew the dust away from the palm of
his hand, and said to the customer, a neighbouring Mordvínian: “Look
here, neighbour Vasyúkha! Don’t you see there is not a single unbroken
grain? If you let the stamping go on, there will be less of flour.”
Vasyúkha tried it himself, and he convinced himself that grandfather was
telling the truth. He thanked him and bowed, that is, he only shook his
head, and ran away to shut off the water.

From there grandfather went with his pupil to the barnyard. He found
everything in excellent order. There was a large number of geese, ducks,
turkeys, and hens, and an old woman and her grandchild looked after them
all. As a special favour, grandfather let them both kiss his hand, and
he ordered that the fowlkeeper should receive, in addition to the usual
allowance, twenty pounds of wheat flour a month for cakes. Stepán
Mikháylovich returned in good spirits to Arína Vasílevna, and he was
satisfied with everything: his daughter was clever, the mill was
grinding well, and the fowlkeeper Tatyána Gorozhána was looking well
after the fowls.

The heat had long subsided. The coolness from the water increased the
freshness of the approaching evening; a long cloud of dust rose along
the road and came nearer to the village; one could hear in it the
bleating and lowing of the farm animals; the declining sun disappeared
behind a steep hill. Standing on the dam, Stepán looked with delight at
the broad pond which lay immovable like a mirror between its low banks;
fishes kept on playing in the water and leaping up, but Stepán
Mikháylovich was not fond of fishing.

“Arísha, it is time to start home; the elder, I suppose, is waiting for
me,” said he. Seeing him in a happy frame of mind, the younger daughters
began to beg him to let them stay a little longer, saying that at
sundown the fish bite better, and that they would walk home in half an
hour. Grandfather consented and drove away in his waggon with
grandmother, while Elizavéta Stepánovna seated herself with her brother
in the other waggon. Stepán Mikháylovich was not mistaken. The elder was
waiting for him at the porch, and he was not alone, but several peasants
and their wives were there also. The elder had seen the master, and he
knew that he was in good humour, and he had told some peasants about it.
Some of them who had some special request to make, such as exceeded any
usual favour, made use of the favourable opportunity, and they were all
satisfied. Grandfather gave some grain to a peasant who had not yet paid
off his old debt, though he could have done so; he permitted another one
to marry off his son, without waiting for winter, and not to the girl
which he had himself selected; he permitted a guilty soldier’s widow,
whom he had ordered to be driven out of the village, to live with her
father, and so forth.

More than that. They were treated each to a silver cup of strong
home-made brandy, and this cup held more than a beakerful. Grandfather
gave short and clear orders to the elder, and hastened to the supper
which had been waiting for him for some time. The supper table differed
little from dinner, and undoubtedly they ate a more solid meal, because
it was not so hot. After supper Stepán Mikháylovich was in the habit of
sitting up another half an hour in his shirt and cooling himself on the
porch, after his family had been excused to retire. This time he jested
and laughed a little longer than usual with his servants. He ordered
Mazán and Tanaychénok to have a boxing match, and he urged them on in
such a way that they belaboured each other not in jest and tore each
other’s hair. Having had all the fun he wanted, grandfather gave the
command for them to come to their senses and stop.

A short, marvellous summer night lay over all Nature. The evening
twilight had not yet all disappeared! The azure of the sky grew darker
from hour to hour, and from hour to hour the stars shone more
brilliantly. Louder and louder became the voices and calls of the birds
of the night, as if they were getting nearer to man! The mill sounded
nearer, and the stamping mill stamped in the damp night mist----
Grandfather rose from his porch, made one or two signs of the cross
towards the starry heavens, and lay down to sleep, in spite of the
closeness of the room, on the hot feather bed, and he ordered the
servants to lower the mosquito bar over him.




  Aleksyéy Stepánovich Khomyakóv. (1804-1860.)


  Khomyakóv was born in Moscow, where he passed his early childhood and
  youth, and there early came in contact with some of the representative
  men of letters. In 1821 he was fired with enthusiasm for the Greek
  struggle for independence, and ran away from home to join the Greek
  patriots. He was, however, overtaken in time by his father, and
  entered the Russian army, which he left in 1825. Soon after began to
  appear his patriotic and religious songs that attracted the public
  attention by their artistic perfection. He again joined the army
  during the Turkish campaign of 1828. A few years later he wrote two
  tragedies, but they were a complete failure. He then devoted himself
  to prose, devoting all his energies to the cause of Slavophilism and
  the propagation of Greek-Catholic theology.

  Into English have been translated: _Kiev_, in C. T. Wilson’s _Russian
  Lyrics_, London, 1887; _To My Children_, in _Short Poems and Hymns_,
  the latter mostly translations, by W. Palmer, Oxford, 1845 (reprinted
  in _Russia and the English Church during the Last Fifty Years_, vol.
  i., London, 1895, and in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 17,
  and in Khomyakóv’s _Complete Works_, vol. iv., Moscow, 1900); _The
  Island_ and _To Russia_, in _Russia and the English Church_, vol. i.
  (reprinted in Khomyakóv’s _Complete Works_, vol. iv.); _The Eagle_ and
  several extracts, by H. Havelock, in The Anglo-Russian Literary
  Society, No. 17; _Russian Song_, by N. H. Dole, in Library of the
  World’s Best Literature.


                              TO MY CHILDREN

        Time was when I loved at still midnight to come,
        My children, to see you asleep in your room;
        The cross, holy sign on your foreheads to trace,
        And commend you in prayer to the love and the grace
            Of our gracious and merciful God.

        To keep gentle guard, and watch over your rest,
        To think how your spirits were sinless and blest,
        In hope to look forward to long happy years
        Of blithe, merry youth, without sorrows or fears,
            Oh, how sweet, how delicious it was!

        But now, if I go, all is silence, all gloom;
        None sleep in that crib, nothing breathes in that room;
        The light that should burn at the image is gone:
        Alas! so it is, children now I have none,
            And my heart, how it painfully throbs!

        Dear children, at that same midnight do ye,
        As I once prayed for you, now in turn pray for me;
        Me who loved well the cross on your foreheads to trace;
        Now commend me in turn to the mercy and grace
            Of our gracious and merciful God.

      --Transl. by Rev. W. Palmer, in _Short Poems and Hymns_, Oxford,
          1845.


                                THE EAGLE

            High hast thou built thine eyrie,
            Eagle of the Northern Slavs,
            Wide hast thou spread thy wings,
            High into heaven hast thou soared.
            Fly! But in the lofty deep of ether,
            Where thy scarce-breathing breast
            Is warmed by the passage of Freedom,
            Forget not thy younger kin!
            Look to the Southern Steppe,
            Look to the far-off West:
            Many are there, where the Danube rages,
            Where the Alpine clouds gather way,
            In the mountain dells, in the dark Carpathians,
            In the Balkan defiles wood-clothed,
            In the clutches of faithless Teutons,
            In the steely chains of the Tartar,
            And thy brothers walk in fetters
            Till thy voice shall sound in their ears,
            Till thy wings thou shalt spread protecting
            O’er their heads grown feeble with bondage.
            Forget them not, Northern Eagle,
            Send them thy resonant call
            And in slavery’s night console them
            With thy free and cheering light.
            Feed them with thoughts elating,
            With the hope of happier days,
            And warm with loving kindness
            These hearts whose blood is as thine.
            Their hour shall come: their pinions
            Wax strong, and their talons sharp,
            They shall cry, full-grown, and shall sunder
            At a breath the bonds that now bind.

      --Transl. by H. Havelock, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society,
          No. 17.


                                   KIEV

              Kiev! upon the Dnieper built,
                Thy lofty walls above me tower;
              Like silver from the furnace pure,
                The river gleams where dark hills lour.

              All hail to thee, thou ancient town!
                The cradle thou of Russia’s fame!
              And hail to thee, O Dnieper swift,
                The bath, whence glorious Russia came!

              In the calm air the songs resound,
                The evening bells ring out their note;
              “Whence come ye, Pilgrim-Brothers, say,
                Your homage who to God devote?”

              “I come from where the quiet Don
                Glides forth, the beauty of our homes”;
              “I come where stern Yenisey
                In boundless waters proudly foams.”

              “My home is on the Euxine shore.”
                “Mine in those distant realms is found
              Where wide-extending ice-fields hold
                The sea within their rigid bound.”

              “Savage the view of Altay’s ridge,
                Eternal is the snowy glare;
              My native town time-honoured Pskov,
                My own dear home is there, is there.”

              “I come from cold Ladoga’s Lake”;
                “I from the Neva’s soft blue face”;
              “I come from Kama’s flowing stream”;
                “And I from Moscow’s fond embrace.”

              All hail, Kiev! most wondrous town,
                With turbid stream which Dnieper laves!
              Grander than seats imperial are
                The silent shadows of thy caves.

              We know in night of times gone by,
                In darkness of antiquity,
              The brightly shining Eastern sun
                Glowed ever, Russia, over thee.

              And now, from strange, and distant, lands,
                From far-off steppes,--from unknown homes,--
              From deepest rivers of the North,--
                A crowd of praying children comes.

              In loving company well met,
                We gather in thy sanctuary;
              Where are thy sons, Volhynia?
                Galich, where is thy progeny?

              Woe! woe! as though by savage fires,
                They all by Poles consumèd are;
              By noisy banquetings deceived,
                They yield to festive charm and glare.

              Captives to sword and treachery,
                They are ensnared by falsehood’s flame;
              They move beneath a foreign flag,
                They bow unto a stranger’s name.

              Awake, Kiev! again arise,
                Upon thy fallen children call,
              On them let father’s tenderness,
                With voice of supplication, fall.

              Thy sons, erst ravished from thy breast,
                Will listen to thy soothing cry;
              Will tear asunder cunning chain,
                The foreign flag will pass it by;

              Will come again, as in past days,
                Will in thy love themselves disport,
              Will lay their faces in thy lap,
                Will bring their vessels to thy port.

              And all around their native flag
                Thy strong commands they will await;
              Their life’s full spirit,--spirit’s life,--
                Will be by thee regenerate!

      --From C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_.




  Fédor Ivánovich Tyútchev. (1803-1873.)


  Born almost at the same time with Púshkin, Tyútchev continued the
  tradition of Púshkin’s school until the seventies. When only fourteen
  years of age, he was chosen a member of the Society of Lovers of
  Russian Literature for his masterly translation of poems from Horace.
  In 1823 he was attached to the Russian embassy at Munich; then, after
  serving in various capacities, he was made president of the Commission
  of Foreign Censorship, which office he held to his death. Though
  frequently contributing to the periodicals, Tyútchev remained unknown
  to the middle of the century, when Nekrásov and Turgénev rediscovered
  him. His verses are very melodious and tunable, but rather narrow of
  scope.

  In English translation are to be found: _Scarce cooled from midday
  heat_ and _The Spring-Storm_, by John Pollen, in _Rhymes from the
  Russian_, London, 1891; _I suffer still from anguished longing_, by A.
  C. Coolidge, in Harvard Monthly Magazine, 1895, and The Anglo-Russian
  Literary Society, No. 15; _Spring Waters_, _Sunrise_, _Evening_, _The
  Leaves_, by N. H. Dole, in the Library of the World’s Best Literature.
  A few poems, translated by N. H. Dole, are given in G. Schirmer’s
  Octavo Choruses for Mixed Voices, New York; the _Sunrise_, by Dole,
  was also given in the Ladysmith Leader and Wellington Extension News,
  Nov. 6, 1901.


                 Scarce cooled from midday heat
                   Sparkles the summer night;
                 O’er sinful earth a threatening cloud
                   Trembles with lightnings bright.
                 Heaven’s sleepy eyelids ope,
                   And through its distant gleam,
                 The threatening orbs of One above
                   O’er earth to kindle seem.

      --From J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.


                             THE SPRING-STORM

               I love the storm in early May,
                 When spring’s first maiden thunder peals,
               And, laughing in its frolic play,
                 Across the blue sky softly steals.

               The little rumblings roll and reel;
                 The rain-shower glistens; flies the dust;
               The rain-drop pearls in clusters cling,
                 And golden gleams the fields encrust.

               From hillside headlong speeds the rill,
                 In groves the birds keep twittering,
               And chattering wood and murmuring hill
                 Echo with joy the thundering.

      --From J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.

                                 ───────

               I suffer still from anguished longing,
                 For towards thee still my spirit strives.
               In a twilight of memories thronging
                 E’en now thine image still survives.

               Thine image sweet, forgotten never,
                 Before me always, near and far,
               Unreachable, unchanging ever
                 As in the sky of night, a star.

      --Transl. by A. C. Coolidge.


                                 SUNRISE

               In solemn calm the Orient waits,
                 A deep, mysterious silence keeping;
                 No sign to tell if Day be sleeping
               Or if he halt before her gates.

               Now, now the mountain tops grow white,
                 The mists the vales below still cumber,
                 Still towns and peaceful hamlets slumber--
               But heavenward turn your eager sight!

               Behold it! Now a gleam awakes
                 And like young Passion’s timid blushes
                 The red glow brighter, rosier flushes,
               Then high above the zenith breaks!

               A moment passes: swift the light
                 Throughout the Ether’s vast dominions
                 Sweeps onward on her glittering pinions
               And conquers all the hosts of Night.

      --Transl. by N. H. Dole, in Schirmer’s Octavo Choruses, No. 623.




  Aleksándr Ivánovich Gértsen (Herzen). (1812-1870.)


  Gértsen was the son of a rich landed proprietor by the name of
  Yákovlev, and of a German mother (Herzen). He was brought up in the
  house of his father, where he early acquired several languages and a
  love for the German literature of the period, especially for Schiller
  and Goethe. He later devoted himself entirely to the exact sciences
  and graduated in 1833 from the University of Moscow with a silver
  medal for his thesis, _The Historical Evolution of the System of
  Copernicus_. While attending the university, Gértsen was the soul of
  one of those circles of the thirties where all kinds of philosophical
  and social themes were discussed with great wit and enthusiasm. He
  later served in several government capacities, chiefly in St.
  Petersburg, where he continued to be a centre around which gathered
  all the progressive forces of the younger generations. In 1844 the two
  extreme literary camps completely severed their connections: the
  Slavophiles rallied around Khomyakóv and the Aksákovs, while the
  Westerners gathered around Gértsen and Ogarév. In 1847 Gértsen went
  abroad never to return. In the last few years of his residence in St.
  Petersburg he had evinced great literary talent: his best known
  stories are _The Thieving Magpie_ and _Who is to be Blamed?_ During
  his long residence abroad he published the famous _Bell_, in which
  periodical he carried on a relentless propaganda for constitutionalism
  in Russia. In _From the Other Shore_ (originally published in German)
  he expressed his disenchantment with the West, and in _Past and
  Reflections_ he has given a series of vivid pictures of his times. His
  influence as a political agitator and as a man of letters may be
  traced through several generations in Russia.

  Gértsen wrote two of his works in English: _My Exile in Siberia_, 2
  vols., London, 1855, and _The Russian People and Their Socialism_, _A
  Letter to M. Jules Michelet_, Brantwood, 1855.


                        SLAVOPHILES AND PANSLAVISM

Side by side with our circle were our opponents, _nos amis les ennemis_,
or, more correctly, _nos ennemis les amis_,--the Moscow Slavophiles.

The war between us has long been ended, and we have shaken each others
hands; but in the beginning of the forties we had to meet as
enemies,--so a consistent adherence to our principles demanded. We might
have avoided quarrelling with them for their childish adoration of the
childish period of our history; but accepting their Orthodoxy at full
value, and seeing their ecclesiastic intolerance in both directions,--in
the direction of science and in the direction of the schism,--we had to
assume a hostile attitude towards them. We saw in their doctrine a new
oil with which to anoint the Tsar, a new chain imposed upon thought, a
new subordination of conscience to the servile Byzantine Church.

It is the Slavophiles’ fault that for a long time we did not understand
the Russian people, or their history: their iconographic ideals and
incense smoke have hindered our discerning the national life and the
foundations of the village commune.

The Orthodoxy of the Slavophiles, their historical patriotism and
exaggerated, irritating feeling of nationality were provoked by extremes
in the other direction. The importance of their view, its truth and
essential part are not in Orthodoxy and not in national exclusiveness,
but in those elements of Russian life which they have discovered beneath
the fertiliser of the artificial civilisation.

The idea of nationality is in itself a conservative idea, based on the
exclusiveness of its rights and the clannishness of its associations;
there are in it the Judaic conception of the superiority of race, and
the aristocratic pretensions of purity of blood and entailment.
Nationality, as a banner, as a battle-cry, only then is surrounded by a
revolutionary aureole when the nation fights for independence, when it
throws off a foreign yoke. It is for this reason that national
sentiments, with all their exaggerations, are full of poetry in Italy
and in Poland, and at the same time banal in Germany.

It would be even more ridiculous than with the Germans to prove our
nationality, for even those do not doubt it who curse us. They hate us
from fear, but do not deny us, as Metternich denied Italy. We ought to
have opposed our nationality to our Germanised government and to its
renegades. This domestic war could not be raised to an epos. The
appearance of the Slavophiles as a school and as a separate doctrine was
quite proper; but if they had found no other flag than the Orthodox
banner, and no other ideal than the _Domostróy_ and the extremely
Russian, but exceedingly harsh, period before Peter, they would have
passed for a curious party of transmogrified odd people who belonged to
another time. The strength and the future of Slavophilism lay in another
direction. It may be that their treasure was really hid in church
vessels of ancient workmanship, but its value was neither in the vessel,
nor in the form. They did not separate them at first.

To the historical recollections proper were added the memories of all
the related nations. Our Slavophiles assumed the sympathy for the
Western Panslavism to be identical in fact and in direction, forgetting
that there the exclusive nationalism was at the same time the lament of
a people that was oppressed by a foreign yoke. Western Panslavism was,
upon its appearance, regarded by the Austrian government as a
conservative step. It was evolved during the sad epoch of the Vienna
Congress. It was, in general, the time of all kinds of resurrections and
rehabilitations, the time of all kinds of Lazaruses,--fresh and stinking
ones. The Bohemian Panslavism arose by the side of the _Deutschthum_,
which was marching to the resurrection of the _happy_ days of Barbarossa
and the Hohenstaufens. The governments hailed this new tendency, and at
first encouraged the development of international hatred; the masses
again clung to their tribal interrelation, of which the knot was being
drawn tighter, and again were departing from the common demands for the
improvement of their existence; borders became ever more impassable, and
the tie and sympathy between nations were loosened. It goes without
saying that only weak, apathetic nations were allowed to awaken, and
that only so long as their activities were limited to scientific,
archeographic labours and etymological quarrels. In Milan and in Poland,
where nationality would not rest at grammar, it was held down with
spiked hands.

The Bohemian Panslavism incited the Slavic sympathies in Russia.

Slavism, or Russism, not as a theory, not as a doctrine, but as an
offended national feeling, as an indistinct recollection and correct
instinct, as a resistance to an exclusively foreign influence, has
existed since the shearing of the first beard by Peter the Great.

The resistance to the St. Petersburg terrorism of education has never
stopped: tortured and quartered and hung out on the spikes of the
Kremlin, to be shot at by Ménshikov and the other royal _jesters_ in the
shape of savage hunters, poisoned in the ravelin of the St. Petersburg
fortress, in the shape of Tsarévich Alexis, it appeared as the party of
the Dolgorúkis during the reign of Peter II., as the hatred of the
Germans under Birón, as Pugachév under Catherine II., as Catherine II.
herself, an Orthodox German, under the Prussian Holsteinian Peter III.,
as Elizabeth, who leaned on the Slavophiles of her day, in order to seat
herself on the throne (the people of Moscow were waiting for all the
Germans to be killed at her coronation).

All the dissenters are Slavophiles.

All the white and black clergy are Slavophiles of a different sort.

The soldiers who demanded the removal of Barclay de Tolly for his
foreign name were the predecessors of Khomyakóv and his friends.

The war of 1812 developed a strong feeling of national consciousness and
patriotism, but the patriotism of 1812 had no Orthodox, Slavic
character. We see it in Karamzín and Púshkin, and in Emperor Alexander
himself. It was practically an expression of that instinct of force
which all mighty nations feel when they are attacked by a foreign
people; and then it was a solemn feeling of victory, a proud
consciousness of a successful defence. But that theory was weak; in
order to love Russian history, the patriots transformed it according to
European models; they in general translated the Græco-Roman patriotism
from French into Russian, and did not go beyond the verse

            _Pour un cœur bien né, que la patrie est chère!_

It is true, Shishkóv even then raved of reëstablishing the ancient
style, but his influence was limited. The real popular diction was used
only by the Frenchified Count Rostopchín in his proclamations and
appeals.

In measure as the war was being forgotten, this patriotism cooled down
and finally deteriorated, on the one hand, into a low, cynical flattery
of _The Northern Bee_, on the other, into the trivial patriotism of
Zagóskin,[9] who called Shúya,[10] Manchester and Shebúyev, a Raphael,
and who boasted of the bayonets and the expanse from the ice of Torneå
to the Tauric Mountains----

In the reign of Nicholas the patriotism was transformed into something
knout-like and official, especially in St. Petersburg, where this
uncouth tendency ended, according to the cosmopolitan character of the
city, in the _invention_ of a national hymn from Sebastian Bach, and, by
Prokópi Lyapunóv, from Schiller.

To cut loose from Europe, from enlightenment, and from revolution, which
kept him in terror ever since the 14th of December, Nicholas, on his
side, raised the banner of _Orthodoxy_, _autocracy_, and _nationality_,
which was worked out in the manner of a Prussian standard, and supported
by any thing and everything: by the uncouth novels of Zagóskin, the
uncouth iconography, the uncouth architecture, by Uvárov, by the
persecution of the Uniates, and by _The hand of the Almighty has saved
the fatherland_.[11]

The meeting of the Moscow Slavophiles with the Petersburgian
Slavophilism of Nicholas was a great misfortune for them. Nicholas took
refuge in nationality and Orthodoxy from revolutionary ideas. There was
nothing in common between them but words. Their extremes and
insipidities were all unselfishly insipid, without any relation
whatsoever to the Third Division,--which, of course, did not in the
least hinder their insipidities from being exceedingly insipid.

Thus, for instance, there passed through Moscow, at the end of the
thirties, the Panslavist Gaj, who later played some indefinite rôle as a
Croatian agitator and at the same time was near to Ban Jelačić.
Muscovites believe in foreigners in general; Gaj was more than a
foreigner, and more than one of their own,--he was both. He,
consequently, had no difficulty in engaging the sympathy of our Slavs
for the fate of their suffering Orthodox brothers in Dalmatia and
Croatia; an enormous subscription was taken up in a few days, and in
addition to that Gaj was given a dinner in the name of all the Servian
and Ruthenian sympathies. At the dinner one of the Slavophiles, who by
his voice and by his profession was more gentle than the rest, a man of
_red_ Orthodoxy, who, no doubt, was heated by the toasts for the
Montenegrin ruler, and for all kinds of great Bosnians, Bohemians, and
Slovaks, improvised a poem in which occurred the following not quite
Christian expression:

          “I shall drink the blood of Magyars and of Germans.”

All who were still in their senses heard this phrase in disgust.
Fortunately the witty statistician Andrósov saved the bloodthirsty bard:
he jumped up from his chair, grabbed a fruit knife, and said:
“Gentlemen, pardon me, I shall leave you for a moment; it has just
occurred to me that my landlord, the old piano-tuner Diez, is a German;
I ’ll just run down to cut his throat, and I ’ll be back in a trice.”

A thunderous laughter drowned the indignation.

  [9] Russian novelist of the beginning of the century.

  [10] Manufacturing town in the Government of Vladímir; famous for its
  raw sheepskins.

  [11] A line in Ózerov’s tragedy _Dimítri Donskóy_ (see vol. i., p.
  418).




  Nikoláy Platónovich Ogarév. (1813-1877.)


  Ogarév was born in the Government of Pénza, in the estate of his
  father, where he was educated till his fourteenth year. He then
  attended the Moscow University, but before he finished his course he
  was arrested for singing some revolutionary songs, and was exiled to
  his father’s estate. He later passed his life abroad, aiding Herzen in
  his revolutionary propaganda. Though mainly known as a propagandist,
  he excels even more as a poet. His tender verses remind of Lérmontov,
  with whom he has much in common. Among his best poems are his
  _Monologues_, _The Village Watchman_, _The Sea of Life_.

  In C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_ are given: _Notturno_, _The Old
  House_, _The Village Watchman_, _The Child_, _Hidden Love_, and
  _Death_; in Free Russia: by Charlotte Sidgwick, in vol. xi., No. 11,
  _To Iskander_, in vol. xii., Nos. 6-7, _Summer_; by J. E. Lewis, in
  vol. xii., Nos. 8-10, _The Commandment_; by Mary Grace Walker, in vol.
  xii., No. 3, _A Prayer_.


                             TO ISKÁNDER[12]

      In days of my boyhood so gentle and tender,
      In days of my passionate youth in its splendour,
      Through manhood, while slowly to age I surrender,--
      Through all of my life and within my endeavour,
      One word in my ears there is ringing for ever--
              “Liberty! Liberty!”

      Tormented by slavery, sad and dejected,
      In alien lands all unknown and rejected,
      I live but to utter that name long neglected;
      Across the wide seas and the countries that sever,
      One word to my motherland calling for ever--
              “Liberty! Liberty!”

      It came o’er the waves to the place of my wailing,
      ’Mid silence, at midnight,--a rumour assailing
      My senses, through darkness and tempest prevailing--
      I hear it! my heart can abandon it never,
      That voice from my country that sounds on for ever--
              “Liberty! Liberty!”

      My heart, long accustomed to doubt in its yearning,
      Sprang up as it throbbed with new ecstasy burning,
      Like a bird from its cage to the wide world returning;
      It sings a farewell to its prison for ever,
      While solemn and clear rings the note of endeavour--
              “Liberty! Liberty!”

      In the dreams I behold, with the snows that surround him,
      The peasant, long-bearded,--the glad news has found him,--
      He shakes from his great limbs the fetters that bound him,--
      And speaks the glad word, the unchanging for ever
      Eternal,--the future can silence it never--
              “Liberty! Liberty!”

      But if there should chance,--if there came any reason,--
      To fear for that Liberty, let her in season
      Cry out, and I fly to encounter the treason;
      And if from that uttermost struggle I never
      Return, I can call with the cry “Live for ever,
              Liberty! Liberty!”

      It may be I die with the strangers around me,
      Yet hope and belief in the future have found me,
      O comrade! ere Death in his shackles has bound me;
      That name do thou whisper, to last me for ever,
      That name--of our love, of our faith and endeavour--
              “Liberty! Liberty!”

      --Transl. by Charlotte Sidgwick in Free Russia, vol. xi., No. 11.

  [12] Pseudonym of Herzen; see p. 236.


                                MONOLOGUES

What I wish? What?---- Oh, there are so many wishes, and their host is
so eager for a sally, that at times it seems that by their inward
agitation my brain will burn and my breast will burst. What I wish?----
Everything, in all its fulness! I thirst to know, I yearn for deeds, I
still desire to love with senseless pining, I want to feel the whole
thrill of life!

I feel in secret all the wishes vain, and life is niggardly, and
inwardly I am feeble,--my striving will be silent and unanswered, and in
endeavours will my strength be wasted. I seem unto myself, oppressed by
suffering, a kind of miserable, puny fool, a creature lost in endless
space, wearing away in empty fermentation.

It is not given to us to embrace at once the spirit of eternity, and the
cup of life we quaff in swallows; what we have drunk we most
regret,--the empty bottom shows more and more. With every day the soul
feels heavier the aging, and it is more painful to remember, and more
terrible to wish, and to live appears bold recklessness,--but the pulse
cannot stop beating. And I live on in hopeless striving, and take upon
myself the cross of life, and all the fervour of my soul I bear in eager
motion, grasping and losing moments after moments----

And I wish all! What?---- Oh, there are so many wishes, and their host
is so eager for a sally, that at times it seems that by their inward
agitation my brain will burn and my breast will burst.


                           THE VILLAGE WATCHMAN

               The night is dark, and clouds abound,
                 Appears the white snow everywhere;
               The crackling frost pervades the ground,
                 And frigid is the atmosphere.

               On either side the long, broad street
                 The peasants’ cottages are seen;
               The solitary watchman’s feet
                 Are heard, as he moves on between.

               Cold is he now; the hollow gale
                 Fills with violent blast the air;
               The frost has touched his visage pale,
                 And whitened all his beard and hair.

               Joy has fled from his gloomy brow,
                 He finds it hard to be alone;
               Through the dark night, and blinding snow,
                 His song resounds with mournful tone.

               By moonless nights he paces late,
                 Watching until the morn comes round;
               His hammer upon the iron plate
                 Gives out a dreary, dismal sound.

               And swaying ever to and fro,
                 The board prolongs its dreadful moan;
               The heart dies down with feelings low,
                 And sorrow weighs it, lorn and lone.

      --From C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_.




  Count Aleksyéy Konstantínovich Tolstóy. (1817-1875.)


  Count Tolstóy’s youth was passed in the estate of his uncle in the
  Government of Chernígov. He was early attached to the Russian legation
  at Frankfurt, and travelled extensively in Germany, France, and
  Switzerland. Upon his return to Russia, he settled in St. Petersburg
  and devoted himself to literature. He at first wrote a series of
  lyrics and some ballads which are perfect in technique but lack
  animation. After the Crimean War he was attached to the Court, and his
  renewed literary activity bore better fruits: the result of his
  careful historical investigations was the novel _Prince Serébryany_
  and the tragedy _The Death of Iván the Terrible_. There is no
  historical novel in Russian that surpasses _Prince Serébryany_ in its
  artistic setting and scrupulous adherence to facts. Tolstóy also wrote
  two other tragedies that form a trilogy with _The Death of Iván the
  Terrible_, but they are weaker in execution. Towards the end of his
  life he wrote a number of ballads in the style of the ancient Bylinas,
  of which _Alésha Popóvich_ is the best.

  _Prince Serébryany_ has been translated three times: _Prince
  Serebrenni_, translated by Princess Galitzine, 2 vols., London, 1874;
  _Prince Serbryani_, an Historical Novel of the Times of Iván the
  Terrible and of the Conquest of Siberia, by Jeremiah Curtin, New York
  and London, [1892]; _The Terrible Czar_, translated by Capt. H. C.
  Filmore, London, 1892 (and 1893, 1895). The following poems are to be
  found in English translation: _Believe it not_, _The Scolding_, in
  John Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_; _Speys the Dwarf_, _The
  Sinner_, in C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_; in The Anglo-Russian
  Literary Society, No. 21, by F. P. Marchant, _Prince Mikhailo Repnin_
  and _Dearest Country_, No. 23, by N. Shishkoff, _You know I like to
  seek_, _Into my soul so full of vain illusions_, _Where planets roll_,
  and _Autumn_, No. 25, by H. Havelock, _The Kurgan_; in Free Russia, by
  Elizabeth Gibson, in vol. xi., No. 3, _A Prayer_ and _The Convicts_,
  in Nos. 6 and 7, _The Sorrows of Ages Departed_; in the Library of the
  World’s Best Literature, reprint of J. Pollen’s _Believe it not_, and
  _Renewal_, by Prince Wolkonsky.


                         FROM “PRINCE SERÉBRYANY”

Tsar Iván Vasílevich was praying. The perspiration was already rolling
down his face; the bloody marks, imprinted upon his high forehead by
former prostrations, were now more clearly defined by the new devotion.
Suddenly, a rustling sound in the room caused him to turn around. He saw
his nurse Onúfrevna.

His nurse was an old woman. She had been taken to the Upper Apartments
by Grand Prince Vasíli Ivánovich of blessed memory, she had served under
Eléna Glínski. Ioánn was borne in her arms, and in her arms did the
dying father bless him. They said of Onúfrevna that much was known to
her which nobody even suspected. During the minority of the Tsar, the
Glínskis had been afraid of her; the Shúyskis and Byélskis tried in
every way to gain her favour.

Onúfrevna discovered many hidden things through divination, and she was
never mistaken. She predicted of Prince Telepnév during his very
greatness,--Ioánn was then only four years old,--that he would die of
starvation. And so it happened. Many years had passed since then, but
that prediction was still fresh in the memory of old men.

It was now almost the tenth decade that Onúfrevna was ending. She was
bent nearly double; the skin of her face was so wrinkled that it
resembled tree bark, and as moss grows out on old bark, so grey tufts of
hair burst out of her chin. She had long ago lost her teeth; her eyes,
it seemed, could not see; her head shook convulsively.

Onúfrevna bent with her bony hand on a staff. She looked at Ioánn for a
long time, drawing in her seared lips, as if she were chewing or
muttering something.

“Well?” at last said the nurse with a dull, trembling voice, “are you
praying, father? Pray, pray, Iván Vasílevich! It will take a great deal
of praying to get forgiveness. If you had only your old sins upon your
soul! God is merciful, and He might have forgiven you! But you add every
day a new sin, and many a day even two or three of them.”

“Hush, Onúfrevna,” said the Tsar, rising, “you do not know what you are
saying!”

“I do not know what I am saying! Have I grown insane,--what?”

And the lifeless eyes of the old woman suddenly sparkled.

“What have you been doing at the table to-day?----Why did you poison the
boyár? You thought I did not know it! Well? Why do you frown? Wait, when
your hour of death will strike, just wait! Your sins will stick to you,
like a thousand thousand puds; they will pull you down to the bottom of
hell. And the devils will run up and will catch you on their hooks!”

The old woman again began to chew.

The fervent prayer had prepared the Tsar for pious thoughts. His
irritable imagination had more than once presented to him a picture of
the future chastisement, but his power of will vanquished the terror of
the torments beyond the grave. Ioánn assured himself that this fear and
his bites of conscience were provoked in him by the fiend of the human
race, in order to distract the anointed of God from his high purposes.
The Tsar opposed prayer to the cunning of the devil; but he often
succumbed to the cruel onrush of his imagination. Then despair took
possession of him as with iron claws. The unrighteousness of his acts
appeared in all its nakedness, and the abyss of hell yawned terribly
before him. But that lasted only a short time, Ioánn immediately
regretted his pusillanimity. In anger at himself and at the spirit of
darkness, he, to spite hell and to oppose his conscience, again started
upon his work of blood and villainy, and never did his cruelty reach
such dimensions as after an involuntary exhaustion.

Now the thought of hell, illuminated by the approaching storm and the
prophetic voice of Onúfrevna, stirred him through and through with a
feverish chill. He seated himself upon the bed. His teeth chattered
against each other.

“Well, father?” said Onúfrevna, softening her voice. “What is the matter
with you? Are you ill? That ’s it, you are ill! I have given you a good
fright! But you need n’t be frightened, father. Only repent, and stop
sinning. I, too, am praying for you, day and night, and now I shall pray
more than ever. Why should n’t I? I had rather forfeit heaven, if I
could gain forgiveness for you.”

Ioánn looked at his nurse,--she seemed to be smiling, but her stern face
was not lit up by a smile that was reassuring.

“Thank you, Onúfrevna, thank you. I am feeling easier; go, the Lord be
with you!”

“Yes, yes, easier! Your terror leaves you the moment you are consoled!
And you at once drive me away! The Lord be with me, you say! But you,
father, had better not count too much upon God’s long-suffering. Even
God’s patience will give way in your case. Beware, He will renounce you,
and Satan will rejoice and--plump! will enter into you. There, you have
begun to shake again! It will not hurt you to drink a glass of mulled
honey. Drink a glass, father! Your father, the kingdom of heaven be his,
used to drink mulled honey at night! And your mother, God grant her soul
rest, was fond of mulled honey. And it was with mulled honey that the
accursed Shúyskis poisoned her.”

The old woman became absent-minded. Her eyes were dimmed; she again
began to chew, all the time shaking her head.

Suddenly something knocked at the window. Iván Vasílevich shuddered.

The old woman made the sign of the cross with her trembling hand.

“Just see,” she said, “how it is raining! And it is beginning to
lighten! And there is also thunder, father; God have mercy upon us!”

The storm increased in fury, and soon the sky was disturbed by
uninterrupted peals of thunder and a continuous sheet of lightning.

Ioánn shuddered at every thunderclap.

“What a chill you have, father! Wait a moment, I ’ll have them make you
some mulled honey.”

“It is not necessary, Onúfrevna, I am well.”

“Well! Why, your face does not show it! You had better lie down on your
bed and cover yourself with a quilt. What a bed you have here! Nothing
but boards. What a queer notion! Is that proper for a Tsar? That is all
right for a monk, but you are not a monk!”

Ioánn did not answer. He was intent on listening to something.

“Onúfrevna,” he suddenly said in fright, “who is walking there in the
corridor? I hear somebody’s steps!”

“Christ be with you, father! Who should be walking now? It is your
imagination.”

“No, there is someone walking there! Somebody is coming here! Go and
look, Onúfrevna!”

The old woman opened the door. A cold wind burst into the room. Beyond
the door appeared Malyúta.

“Who is that?” asked the Tsar, leaping up.

“Your red dog, father,” answered the nurse, casting an angry glance at
Malyúta, “Gríshka Skurátov. How the accursed one has frightened me!”

“Lukyánych!” said the Tsar, made happy by the arrival of his favourite,
“you are welcome; where do you come from?”

“From the prison, sir. I was at the inquest, and I have brought the
keys.”

Malyúta bowed low to the Tsar and looked askance at the nurse.

“The keys!” grumbled the old woman. “They will flog you in the other
world with red hot keys, you Satan! Upon my word, you are Satan! Your
very face is that of a devil! Though somebody else may escape the
eternal fire, you won’t. You, Gríshka, will be licking hot pans for all
your calumnies! You, accursed one, will be boiling in pitch, remember my
word!”

Lightning illuminated the threatening woman, and she was terrible with
her uplifted staff and her sparkling eyes.

Malyúta himself felt a little uncomfortable; but Ioánn was emboldened by
the presence of his favourite.

“Pay no attention to her, Lukyánych,” he said, “know what you are about,
and don’t listen to women’s babble. But you, old fool, go away and leave
us!”

Onúfrevna’s eyes sparkled once more.

“Old fool?” she repeated. “You will think of me in the next world! All
your companions, Ványa, will receive their retribution, and they will
receive it even in this world, every one of them, Gryaznóy, Basmánov,
and Vyázemski. Each of them will receive his due, but this one,” she
continued, pointing with her staff at Malyúta, “this one will not
receive his due: there is no adequate punishment for him in this world;
his punishment is in the lowermost pit of hell; there a place is ready
for him, and the devils are waiting for him and rejoicing! And there is
a place there for you, too, Ványa,--a big, warm place!”

The old woman went out, shuffling her feet and making a noise with her
staff.

Ioánn was pale. Malyúta did not speak a word. The silence lasted quite a
while.

“Well, Lukyánych?” said the Tsar at last, “do the Kolýchevs confess?”

“Not yet, sir. But they will, or they won’t get off so easily from me!”

Ioánn asked for the details of the inquest. The conversation about the
Kolýchevs gave another direction to his thoughts. It appeared to him
that he might be able to fall asleep. He sent Malyúta away, lay down
upon his bed, and lost consciousness.

He was awakened as if by a sudden push. The room was weakly lighted by
the lamps before the images. A moonbeam passed through the low window
and glittered on the painted flourishes of the couch. A cricket chirped
behind the couch. A mouse nibbled somewhere at the wood.

Iván Vasílevich was again terrified amidst this silence.

Suddenly it seemed to him as though the floor was being raised and a
poisoned boyár looked out from underneath.

Such visions were common occurrences with Ioánn. He ascribed them to the
persecutions of the devil. To get rid of the apparition, he made the
sign of the cross.

But the apparition did not disappear, as it did formerly.

The dead boyár kept on looking at him awry. The eyes of the old man
bulged out, and his face was as blue as then, at dinner, when he drank
the cup sent him by Ioánn.

“That ’s again the devil’s incitement!” thought the Tsar. “But I will
not submit to the power of Satan, and I will crush the cunning of the
devil. Let God arise, and may His foes be dispersed!”

The dead man slowly rose from the floor and came nearer to Ioánn.

The Tsar wanted to cry out, but he could not. There was a terrible din
in his ears.

The dead man bowed before the Tsar.

“Hail, Iván!” spoke a hollow, unearthly voice. “I greet you, who have
destroyed an innocent man.”

These words re-echoed in the very depth of Ioánn’s soul. He did not know
whether he heard them from the apparition, or whether his own thought
found expression in sounds tangible to the ear.

Then another board was raised; underneath appeared the face of Daníla
Adáshev who had been executed by Ioánn four years before.

Adáshev, too, rose from the floor, bowed to the Tsar, and said:

“Hail, Iván! I greet you who have executed an innocent man!”

After Adáshev there appeared the boyár’s wife Maria who had been
executed together with her children. She rose from the floor, with her
five sons. They all bowed to the Tsar, and all said:

“Hail, Iván! I greet you!”

Then appeared Prince Kurlyátev, Prince Obolénski, Nikíta Sheremétev, and
other persons who had been killed or executed by Ioánn.

The room was filled with dead people. They all bowed low to the Tsar,
and all said:

“Hail, hail, Iván! I greet you!”

And there rose monks, hermits, nuns, all in black garments, all pale and
blood-covered.

And there appeared warriors who had been at Kazán with the Tsar. Upon
them gaped terrible wounds, that were not gained in battle, but were
inflicted by the executioner.

And there appeared maidens in torn garments, and young women with
suckling babes. The children stretched their bloody hands to Ioánn and
lisped:

“Hail, hail, Iván, who have made us innocent ones to perish!”

The room was ever more filled with apparitions. The Tsar could no longer
distinguish his imagination from reality. The words of the apparitions
were repeated in hundred-fold echoes, while the prayers for the dead and
the singing of the vigils resounded above Ioánn’s ears. His hair stood
on end.

“In the name of the living God,” he spoke, “if you are evil spirits sent
by the power of the devil,--perish! If you are, in truth, the souls of
those I have executed,--wait for the terrible judgment of the Lord! God
will judge us all!”

The dead people moaned and circled around Ioánn, like autumn leaves
driven by the whirlwind. The singing of the vigils sounded more
pitifully, the rain again beat against the window, and amidst the howl
of the wind, the Tsar thought he heard the sound of trumpets and a voice
calling:

“Iván, Iván, to the judgment, to the judgment!”

The Tsar cried out aloud. The sleeping guards ran from the adjoining
apartments into the bedroom.

“Rise,” cried the Tsar, “all who are asleep now! The last day has come!
The last hour has come! Let us to the church, all after me!”

The courtiers bestirred themselves. The large bell was rung. The
opríchniks who had just fallen asleep heard the familiar sound, and they
jumped up from their couches and hastened to dress themselves.

Many were feasting at the house of Vyázemski. They were sitting at the
wine cups and singing drinking songs. When they heard the sound of the
bell, they jumped up from their seats, donned black cloaks over their
rich garments, and covered their heads with high hoods. The whole palace
quarter came into motion. The church of the Mother of God was
brilliantly illuminated. The excited inhabitants rushed to their gates
and saw a multitude of lights that wandered in the palace from room to
room. Then the lights formed a long chain, and the procession meandered
along the outward corridors that connected the palace with the temple of
God.

All the opríchniks, who were dressed in the identical black cloaks and
hoods, carried pitch torches. Their light was wonderfully reflected upon
the carved pillars and wall decorations. The wind scattered the cloaks,
and the moonlight and the light of the torches was reflected on the
cloth, the pearls, and the costly stones. The Tsar marched in front,
dressed as a monk, and he beat his breast and called out, sobbing aloud:

“Lord, have mercy on me, sinful man! Have mercy on me, stinking dog!
Have mercy on my evil head! Pacify, O Lord, the souls of those who have
been innocently killed by me!”

Before the doors of the temple Ioánn fell down exhausted. The torches
illuminated an old woman that was sitting on the steps. She stretched
out her trembling hand to the Tsar.

“Rise, father!” said Onúfrevna. “I will help you. I have been waiting
for you for a long while. Come, Ványa, let us pray together!”

Two opríchniks held up the Tsar under his arms. He entered the church.

New processions, also in black cloaks, also in high hoods, were
hastening over the streets with lighted torches. The doors of the temple
swallowed ever new opríchniks, and the gigantic forms of the saints
looked at them with disfavour from the walls and the vault of the
church.

In the night, which had till then been speechless, there was suddenly
heard the singing of several hundred voices, and the sound of the bell
and the chant of the psalms were borne afar.

The prisoners awoke in their dungeons and, rattling their chains, began
to listen.

“The Tsar is reading the matins!” they said. “O Lord, soften his heart,
put mercy into his soul!”

Small children that were sleeping by the side of their mothers awoke in
terror and began to cry. Many a mother could not quiet her babe for a
long time.

“Hush!” she finally said. “Hush, or Malyúta will hear you!”

At the mention of Malyúta the child stopped crying and in its fright
pressed close to its mother, and during the stillness of the night there
were again heard the psalms of the opríchniks, and the continuous
ringing of the bell.


                      THE DEATH OF IVÁN THE TERRIBLE


                             ACT I. SCENE 2.

  (_The Tsar’s bedchamber. Iván, pale and exhausted, in a black cassock,
    is sitting in an arm-chair, beads in his hand. Near him, on a table,
    lies the Cap of Monomákh; on the other side, on a stool, are the
    royal vestments. Grigóri Nagóy is handing him a goblet._)

         _Nagóy._ O Tsar! one drop of wine thou ’lt drink,
       One drop refuse not. Thou these many days
       Dost wear thyself out. All this time thy lips
       Have nothing touched.
         _Iván._               The body needs no food
       When the soul is fed on anguish. Henceforth
       Remorse shall be my food.
         _Nagóy._                  O mighty Tsar!
       Is ’t true thou wouldst forsake us? How will it
       With the Tsarítsa be? with the Tsarévich
       Thy Dimítri?
         _Iván._       God will not forsake them.
         _Nagóy._ But who can hold the reins of government
       Except thyself?
         _Iván._        My mind’s edge is blunted;
       My heart is faint; my hands are powerless
       To hold the reins; already for my sins,
       To th’ pagan God hath given victory,
       Commanded me my throne that I give up
       Unto another; my iniquities
       Are more than sands o’ th’ sea: a cannibal--
       Tormentor--lecher--church-profaner I:
       The boundlessness of God’s long-suffering
       Have I exhausted by the last misdeed.
         _Nagóy._ O Tsar! Thou dost exaggerate thy sin;
       Thy mind went not with it. Thou meantest not
       To slay the Tsarévich: thy staff by accident
       Did give the blow.
         _Iván._           ’T is false! I knowingly,
       On purpose, of free will did slay him. Or
       Was I then mad, knew not where fell my blow?
       No--I slew him purposely! On his back
       He fell, bathed in his blood, aye, kissing
       These my hands; and dying he forgave me
       My monstrous sin, but I forgive myself
       Such crimes dare not.
                         (_Speaks low._)
                                   This very night to me
       Appeared he, beckoned with bloody hand,
       And, pointing to a cowl, he waved me on
       With him along, unto the holy dwelling
       By the White Lake, ev’n there where lie the relics
       Of Cyril the Wonder-worker.
         There loved I formerly alone to be
       At times from out the tempests of the world;
       There loved I, far from every care, to think
       Of future rest, and the unthankfulness
       Of man, and the malicious wiles of foes forget;
       Mournfully sweet it was to me within
       Some cell to rest me from the day’s exertions,
       In evening hour to watch the clouds float by,
       Hear but the winds sough, and the cries of gulls,
       And of the lake the plash monotonous,
       All silent there. There passion’s all forgotten.
       There will I take the cowl, and it may be
       By prayer, by life-long fasting and contrition,
       That I shall merit pardon of my curse.
                                          (_A silence._)
       Go thou, and learn the reason that so long
       Their conference lasts. Soon shall I know their sentence.
       When come they with their Tsar? I ’ll lay on him
       At once the regal mantle and the crown!
                                          (_Exit Nagóy._)
       The end of all! And hither am I brought
       Along the lengthened path of majesty.
       What have I met with on ’t? Sufferings alone.
       E’en from my youth but knowing of unrest,
       Now on the steed, amid the whistling shot,
       The heathen subjecting, now in the Council
       Struggling against the boyárs in revolt,
       I see behind me but a long-drawn line
       Of sleepless nights and troubled days.
         I have not gracious to my people been--
       No! I had never mastery o’er myself.
       Father Sylvester, my good old tutor,
       Would say to me, “Iván, take care! In thee
       Satan would seat him. Open not thy soul
       To him, Iván.” But I was deaf unto
       The holy, aged man, and oped my soul
       Unto the devil. No, no Tsar am I.
       A wolf! a stinking cur! a tyrant!
       My son I ’ve slain! Cain’s crime I have outpast!
       A leper in soul and mind! The sores
       That eat away my heart are countless!
       O thou, God Christ, heal me, and forgive me
       From my unheard-of foulness, and among
       The choir of the blessèd count my soul.

      --From _The Death of Iván the Terrible_, transl. by I. H.
          Harrison.


                                THE KURGÁN

               Where the broad level steppe lies bare
                 There stands a lonely mound,
               Beneath a famous warrior erst
                 His latest honour found.

               Three days the funeral feast endured,
                 Three days his meinie strove;
               His wives the priests did offer there,
                 The war horse he did love.

               But when at length he buried lay,
                 The noisy rites were o’er,
               Singers foretold his fame to be,
                 Golden the lute he bore.

               “O hero, yet thy deeds shall be
                 A mighty nation’s boast,
               Nor shall thy loudly-sounded name
                 Through ages all be lost.

               “Nay, should thy lofty tomb be laid
                 Low as this barren plain,
               Yet far thy fame shall ever spread,
                 Honoured thy dust remain.”

               And see! the years have passed amain,
                 And centuries have ranged,
               Nations to nations given place,
                 Countries their fall have changed.

               But still that mound its head lifts high,
                 Where the great chief doth rest,
               Nor level with the ground it lies;
                 Still proudly soars its crest.

               But through the years his glorious name
                 Was lost, nor lived till now.
               Who was he, and what coronets
                 Graced his victorious brow?

               What blood was it he shed in streams,
                 What towns in ashes laid?
               What death was it he died, and when
                 Was his sepulture paid?

               This lonely mound doth naught reply,
                 The warrior is forgot,
               And games no more nor songs record
                 His once lamented lot.

               Only the wild giraffe darts by,
                 Bounding across the plain,
               Or locusts in a fluttering swarm
                 Settle, then on again.

               Anon the cranes from high in air,
                 Their goal is now in sight,
               Descend, shrill wayfarers, to rest
                 And preen for their last flight.

               And there the timid jerboa leaps
                 When slowly dies the day,
               Or rider high on mettled steed
                 Takes there his headlong way.

               And, as across the sky they sail,
                 The clouds let drop their tears,
               And lightly thence the passing breeze
                 The dust unheeded bears.

      --Transl. by H. Havelock, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society,
          No. 25.




  Iván Aleksándrovich Goncharóv. (1812-1891.)


  Goncharóv was born in Simbírsk where his father was a wealthy
  merchant. His first ten years he passed in his home amidst the sloth
  and indolence of the old Russian patriarchalism. In 1822 he was placed
  in an educational institution at Moscow, and twelve years later he
  graduated from the university. He began early to translate from the
  French and from other languages, in which he was versed, but his first
  original story appeared only in 1847. This novel, _A Usual Story_, at
  once attracted attention by its realistic pictures of details, and by
  the fine raillery at the Romantic extravagancies of its hero. In 1852
  Goncharóv was invited by the Ministry of Marine to accompany an
  expedition which was to circumnavigate the world on a mission to
  Japan. The result of this voyage was his memoirs, _Frigate Palláda_,
  which for brilliancy of description surpass any book in the Russian
  language on travels. During his voyage he, at the same time, worked on
  his great novel, _Oblómov_, for which he had laid the plan long
  before. It was published in 1858 and created a sensation unlike any
  other previous production in Russia. The country was on the eve of the
  emancipation, and everybody was filled with the optimism that the
  native indolence was soon to come to an end, when Goncharóv with
  marvellous plasticism generalised that very indolence in his hero, and
  made him succumb to it: everybody who read the book recognised
  himself, and trembled lest he should also become a victim of Russian
  fatalism. Goncharóv’s later novel, _The Declivity_, was less
  successful.

  In English there are some extracts translated from _Oblómov_ in the
  Library of the World’s Best Literature and in Garnett’s Universal
  Anthology.


                              FROM “OBLÓMOV”

“Go ahead with the description of the ideal of your life---- Well, good
friends around you: what next? How would you pass your days?”

“Well, I should rise in the morning,” began Oblómov, placing his hands
back of his head, and an expression of rest came over his face: he was
in thought already in the country. “The weather is fine, the sky
deep-blue, and there is not a cloud,” he said. “One side of my house is
turned with its balcony to the east, facing the garden and fields, the
other towards the village. While waiting for my wife to get up, I should
put on my smoking-jacket and should saunter through the garden, to
breathe the morning evaporations; there I should find the gardener, and
we should together water the flowers, and lop the bushes and trees. I
cull a bouquet for my wife. Then I take a bath in the bath-tub or in the
river; I return, the balcony is open; my wife has on a blouse and a
light morning cap that barely stays on the head and that will be wafted
away by the slightest breeze. She is waiting for me. ‘Tea is ready,’ she
says. What a kiss! What tea! What a restful armchair! I seat myself at
the table: upon it are toast, cream, fresh butter----”

“Then?”

“Then I don a comfortable coat or jacket, and lose myself with my wife
in an endless, deep avenue of trees: we walk softly, lost in meditation,
or think aloud, dream, count the moments of happiness, like the beating
of the pulse, and listen to the beating and fainting of the heart; we
look for sympathy in Nature----and by degrees we reach a brook or a
field---- The river barely splashes; the ears of corn wave with the
wind. ’T is warm----we seat ourselves in the boat, my wife rows, barely
raising the oars----”

“Yes, you are a poet, Ilyá!” Stolz interrupted him.

“Yes, a poet of life, for life is poetry. It is the privilege of people
to distort it! Then we can enter the greenhouse,” continued Oblómov,
himself becoming intoxicated with the ideal which he was depicting. He
extracted from his memory ready, long-present pictures, and therefore he
spoke with warmth, and without stopping. “We look at the peaches, at the
grapes,” he said: “We tell what to send to table; then we return, take a
light breakfast and wait for friends---- There is a note for my wife
from some Márya Petróvna, with a book or music; or a pine-apple has been
sent us as a present, or in our own garden a monster melon has ripened,
and we send it to some good friend, for to-morrow’s dinner, and we go
there ourselves---- In the meantime everything is busy in the kitchen;
the cook is running around in an apron and cap as white as snow: he puts
down one pot, takes up another; there he stirs, here he begins to mix
the dough; there he pours out some water--the knives are rattling--they
are chopping some spinach--there they turn the ice-cream freezer---- ’T
is a pleasure to look into the kitchen before dinner, to open a
saucepan, sniff, take a glance at the making of the cakes, and beating
of the cream. Then to lie down on the sofa; the wife reads aloud
something new; we stop, quarrel a bit---- But there are guests coming,
say, you and your wife.”

“Bah, you are getting me married, too?”

“By all means! Two, three friends more,--the same old faces. We take up
the unfinished conversation of yesterday. Then come jokes, or there
falls upon us an eloquent silence, a meditation,--not on account of the
loss of some place, not on account of some affair of the Senate, but
from the fulness of satisfied desire,--a meditation of enjoyment---- You
will hear no philippics, with foam upon the lips, against an absent
person; you will not notice a glance cast at you that promises you the
same the moment you have closed the door. You will not dip your bread in
his salt cellar whom you do not love, who is not good. In the eyes of
the interlocutors you will perceive sympathy, in their jests, a sincere,
harmless laughter---- Everything from the soul! What is in the eyes, is
in the words and hearts. After dinner--a mocha, a Havana cigar on the
terrace----”

“You are painting me there the same that has been with our fathers and
grandfathers.”

“No, not the same,” retorted Oblómov, almost offended. “How can you say
so? Do you suppose my wife would be preserving jams and mushrooms? Would
she be counting skeins, and looking after the homespun? Would she be
boxing the servant girls’ ears? Don’t you hear?--There would be music,
books, piano, fine furniture!”

“Well, and you yourself?”

“I myself would not be reading last year’s newspapers, would not travel
in a kolymága, would not eat noodles and goose meat, and would have my
cook taking lessons in the English club or at the ambassador’s.”

“And then?”

“Then, when the heat would subside, I should send a carriage with the
samovár, with a dessert, to the birch forest, or else, to the field, on
the newly mown grass, I should have carpets spread between the hayricks,
and there we should be staying in bliss until cold hash and beefsteak.
The peasants are returning from the field, with their scythes over their
shoulders; there creeps by a waggon with hay that conceals the vehicle
and the horse; above, a peasant’s cap, adorned with flowers, and a
child’s head stick out of the hay; there, a crowd of barefooted old
women, with sickles, talk aloud---- Suddenly they notice their masters,
and they grow silent, and bow low.

“’T is damp in the field, and dark; a mist, like an inverted sea, hovers
over the rye; the horses jerk their shoulders and stamp their hoofs: ’t
is time to go home. In the house the fires are lit; in the kitchen there
is a mighty rattle of knives; there is a pan of mushrooms, cutlets,
berries----there is music----Casta diva--Casta diva!” sang out Oblómov.
“I cannot mention with indifference Casta diva,” he said, after singing
the beginning of the cavatina; “how that woman weeps her heart away!
What melancholy there is in those sounds---- And no one around her knows
anything---- She is alone---- The secret weighs heavily upon her; she
confides it to the moon----”

“Do you like that aria? I am very glad: Ólga Ílinski sings it
beautifully. I ’ll introduce you to her,--what a voice, what singing!
And what a charming child she herself is! However, maybe I am a
prejudiced judge: I have a small weakness for her---- But, don’t let me
distract you,” Stolz added: “Go ahead with your description!”

“Well,” continued Oblómov, “what more?----yes, that ’s all---- The
guests scatter to the side buildings, to the pavilions; the next day
they go in different directions: one to fish, another to hunt; a
third,--well, just sits down----”

“How, with nothing in his hands?” asked Stolz.

“What do you want? Well, with a handkerchief, if you please. Why, would
you not like to pass such an existence?” asked Oblómov, “or, is n’t that
an existence?”

“All my life that way?” asked Stolz.

“To your grey hair, to the grave. This is life!”

“No, it is not.”

“How not? What is lacking here? Just consider that you would not see a
single poor, suffering face, no care, not a single question about the
Senate, exchange, shares, reports, audience at the minister’s, ranks,
increase of salary. Nothing but soul-felt conversations. You would never
have to move from one house to another,--that in itself is worth
something! And you say that is not life?”

“That is not life!” Stolz repeated stubbornly.

“What is it then according to you?”

“That is----” Stolz fell to musing and was trying to find a proper
expression for such a life, “I should call it---- Oblómovism!” he
finally said.

“Ob-lóm-ov-ism!” Oblómov uttered slowly, wondering at the strange word,
and pronouncing it by syllables: “Ob-lóm-ov-ism!”--he looked strangely
and fixedly at Stolz. “What, then, in your opinion, is the ideal of
life? What is not Oblómovism?” he asked timidly, without passion. “Do
not all strive for the same thing that I am dreaming of? Say yourself,”
he added more boldly, “is not the aim of all our running, passions,
wars, commerce, politics the obtaining of peace, is it not a striving
for that ideal of a lost paradise?”

“Your very Utopia is of the Oblómov kind,” retorted Stolz.

“Everybody is in search of rest and quiet,” Oblómov defended himself.

“Not all, and you yourself did not look for that in life ten years ago.”

“What did I look for?” Oblómov asked, perplexed, as he mentally
transferred himself into the past.

“Try to recall it. Where are your books and translations?”

“Zákhar has put them somewhere,” answered Oblómov, “they are somewhere
in the corner here.”

“In the corner!” Stolz said reproachfully. “In this same corner lie your
intentions ‘to serve, while strength lasts, because Russia needs hands
and heads to exploit its inexhaustible resources’--I am quoting your
words: ‘to work, in order to rest more sweetly; and to rest means to
live with the other, aristocratic, artistic side of life, the life of
artists, poets.’ Has Zákhar stored away all these intentions also in the
corner? Do you remember, you had intended, after having studied from
books, to travel in foreign countries, in order to know and love yours
better? ‘All life is thought and work,’ you used to repeat then: ‘an
unnoticed, dark, but incessant work, and to die with the consciousness
of having done your work’--well, in what corner does all that lie now?”

“Yes----yes----” said Oblómov, restlessly following every word of
Stolz’s, “I do remember, I really did----it seems---- That ’s so!” he
suddenly exclaimed, as the past returned to him. “Why, Andréy, we had
made up our minds to crisscross Europe, to walk through all of
Switzerland, to burn our feet on Mount Vesuvius, to go down to
Herculaneum. We almost went insane! How many foolish things!----”

“Foolish things!” Stolz repeated reproachfully. “Did you not say in
tears, as you looked at the engravings of Raphael’s Madonnas, at
Correggio’s Night, at the Apollo Belvedere: ‘Lord! Shall I really never
be able to gaze at the originals and be dumb with terror at the thought
that I am standing before the productions of Michael Angelo, Titian, and
that I tread the soil of Rome? Shall I pass my life seeing these
myrtles, cypresses, and orange trees in hothouses, and not in their
native home? Not to breathe the air of Italy, not to drink in the azure
of its sky!’ And what superb fireworks you used to send out of your
head. Foolish things!”

“Yes, yes! I remember,” said Oblómov, as he lost himself in the past.
“You once took me by my hand and said to me: ‘Let us promise not to die
before having seen all that!----”

“I remember,” continued Stolz, “how you once brought me a translation
from Say, with a dedication to me upon my birthday: I still have the
whole translation. How you shut yourself up with the teacher of
mathematics, and wanted by all means to find out what good there was in
knowing circles and squares, and then you gave it up before you were
half way through, without having found it out! You began to study
English--and you did not learn it! And when I made a plan of a journey
abroad, and asked you to come to see me at the German universities, you
jumped up, embraced me, and solemnly gave me your hand: ‘I am with you,
Andréy, everywhere with you,’ those are all your words. You have always
been something of an actor. Well, Ilyá? I have been twice abroad; after
having been crammed full of our native wisdom, I sat modestly on the
student benches at Bonn, Jena, Erlangen, then I studied Europe like my
estate. But one might say, a journey is a luxury and not all are able or
obliged to make use of that means; what about Russia? I have seen Russia
up and down. I work----”

“Sometime you ’ll stop working,” Oblómov remarked.

“I shall never stop. Why should I?”

“When you have doubled your capital,” said Oblómov.

“Not when I increase it fourfold.”

“What is all this unrest for,” he said after a silence, “if it is not
your aim to provide for the future and to retire later for a rest?”

“Country Oblómovism!” said Stolz.

“Or by service to gain importance and position in society, and then in
honourable indolence to enjoy a well-deserved rest----”

“Petersburg Oblómovism!” exclaimed Stolz.

“When is one to live, pray?” Oblómov replied with annoyance to Stolz’s
remarks. “Why should one worry a whole life away?”

“For work’s sake, and for nothing else. Work is the image, contents,
element, and aim of life, at least, of my life. You have driven work out
of life: what is it like now? I ’ll try to raise you, maybe, for the
last time. If you will be staying here after that, with your Tarántevs
and Aleksyéevs, you will go to perdition, and be a burden to yourself.
Now or never!” he concluded.

Oblómov listened, fixing his excited eyes upon him. His friend had, so
to say, placed a mirror before him, and he became frightened as he
recognised himself.

“Do not scold me, Andréy, but really help me!” he began with a sigh. “I
am tormented myself by it, and if you had seen or heard me only to-day,
how I am digging my own grave and lamenting over myself, you would never
have had the courage to blame me so much. I know and understand all, but
I have no strength and no will. Give me your will-power and mind, and
lead me where you wish. I shall probably go with you, but alone I will
never move from the spot. You are saying the truth: ‘Now or never!’
Another year, and it will be too late!”

“Is it you, Ilyá?” said Andréy. “I remember you as a slender, lively
boy, as you walked every day from Prechístenka to Kúdrino; there, in the
garden----you have not forgotten the two sisters? You have not forgotten
Rousseau, Schiller, Goethe, Byron, which you used to carry to them, and
you took away from them the novels of Cottin, Janlis----you put on such
importance before them, you wanted to purify their taste?----”

Oblómov jumped up from his bed. “What, you remember that too, Andréy?
That is so! I dreamt with them, whispered hopes of the future to them,
developed plans, ideas, and--feelings too, secretly from you, lest you
should ridicule me. All that is dead, it was never repeated! Where has
it all gone to, and why has it been extinguished? Incomprehensible!
There have been no storms, no violent perturbations with me; I have not
lost anything; no yoke burdens my conscience; it is as pure as glass; no
stroke has killed ambition in me. God knows why all that has gone!” He
sighed. “Do you know, Andréy? There has never burnt in my life, neither
a redeeming, nor a destructive fire! It has never resembled a morning
upon which gradually fall colours and fire until it is changed into day,
as with others; and then it flames up, and boils, moves in the brilliant
midday, and then softly, very softly, becomes paler and paler, and
naturally and gently dies out towards evening. No, my life began with
the extinction! Strange to say, it is so! From the first moment that I
have been conscious of myself, I have felt that I am already being
extinguished. I began to go out when I was writing documents in the
chancery; I was going out when, later, I read in books truths that I did
not know what to do with in life; I was going out among my friends, as I
listened to the disputes, gossips, malicious teasings, ill-minded and
cold prattle, emptiness, and as I looked at the friendship that was
supported by aimless and unsympathetic meetings; I was going out in the
languid and indolent saunterings along the Névski Prospect, among racoon
furcoats and beaver collars,--at evening entertainments, receptions,
where I was gladly received as a possible prospective bridegroom; I was
going out and trifling away life and reason when I migrated from the
city to the country, and from the country back to the Gorókhovaya
street, measuring spring by the arrival of oysters and lobsters, autumn
and winter by reception days, summer by excursions, and life in general
by an indolent and restful dreaming, like the rest---- Even my ambition,
what did I waste it upon? To order a garment from a well-known tailor,
in order to find my way into a certain house, in order that Prince P.
should press my hand. And ambition is the salt of life! What has become
of it? Either I did not understand this life, or it is good for nothing,
and I knew and saw nothing better, and no one showed it to me. You used
to appear and disappear like a comet, brilliantly, swiftly, and I forgot
all about it, and went out----”

Stolz no longer answered with a careless banter Oblómov’s speech. He
listened and kept a grim silence.

“You told me lately that my face was not quite fresh, that it was
crushed,” continued Oblómov. “Yes, I am a threadbare, old, worn-out
coat, but not from the effect of the climate, and labour, but because
for twelve years light was imprisoned within me; it sought an exit, and
only burnt the prison, and did not get its liberty, and went out. Thus,
my dear Andréy, have passed twelve years of mine, and I lost the desire
to awaken.”

“Why did you not tear yourself away and run somewhere, instead of
perishing in silence?” Stolz asked impatiently.

“Whither?”

“Whither? If you could do nothing better, with your peasants to the
Vólga: there is more motion there, there are there some kind of
interests, aims, work. I should have gone to Siberia, to Sitka----”

“You prescribe such dreadfully strong measures!” Oblómov remarked
languidly.

“I am not alone in that. There is Mikháylov, Petróv, Seménov, Aleksyéev,
Stepánov---- You can’t count them all: our name is legion!”

Stolz was still under the influence of that confession and he was
silent. Then he sighed. “Yes, much water has flowed since then!” he
said. “I will not leave you as you are; I ’ll take you away from here,
first abroad, and then into the country: you will grow a little thinner,
you will stop pining away, and we shall find some work for you----”

“Yes, let us get away from here!” the words escaped from Oblómov.

“To-morrow we will apply for a passport abroad, then we will pack up----
I will not leave you, do you hear, Ilyá?”

“It is always to-morrow with you!” retorted Oblómov, as though coming
down from the clouds.

“You would prefer, ‘Don’t put off for to-morrow what you can do to-day?’
What a hurry! It is too late now,” Stolz added. “In two weeks we shall
be far away----”

“You talk of two weeks, my friend! How so? Let us consider it properly
and get ready---- I ’ll have to get some carriage----say rather in three
months.”

“Talk of a carriage! We shall travel to the border in a stage coach, or
in a steamer as far as Lubeck, that will be much more convenient. There
we shall find railroads in many places.”

“And what about the house, and Zákhar, and Oblómovka? Some kind of
arrangements will have to be made,” Oblómov defended himself.

“Oblómovism, Oblómovism!” said Stolz, laughing; then he took a candle,
wished Oblómov good-night, and went to bed. “Now or never!--Remember!”
he added, as he turned back to Oblómov and closed the door behind him.

“Now or never!” were the first threatening words he thought of as he
awoke in the morning. He rose from his bed, walked three times up and
down the room, and looked into the sitting-room where Stolz was sitting
and writing. “Zákhar!” he called out, but he did not hear him jumping
down from the oven bed. Zákhar did not make his appearance,--Stolz had
sent him to the post-office. Oblómov walked up to his dusty table, sat
down, picked up a pen, dipped it in the inkstand, but there was no ink
in it, looked for some paper, but there was none. He fell to musing, and
mechanically began to draw with his finger in the dust, then he looked
down to see what he had written: it turned out to be “Oblómovism.” He
hurriedly wiped away the writing with his sleeve. That word he had been
dreaming of in the night: it was written in flaming letters upon the
wall, as at Belshazzar’s feast. Zákhar arrived and when he found Oblómov
not in his bed, he dimly looked at his master, wondering why he should
be on his legs. In that dull glance of astonishment was written:
“Oblómovism!” “One single word,” thought Ilyá Ilyích, “but how
poisonous!----”

Zákhar took, as usual, the comb, brush, and towel, and stepped towards
his master to fix his hair. “Go to the devil!” Oblómov exclaimed angrily
and knocked the brush out of Zákhar’s hands, and Zákhar himself dropped
the comb on the floor.

“Would you not like to lie down again?” asked Zákhar. “If so, I shall
fix the bed for you.”

“Bring me ink and paper,” answered Oblómov.

He fell to musing over the words: “Now or never!” As he listened
inwardly to this despairing appeal of reason and willpower, he
consciously weighed the little willpower that was left to him, whither
he would carry it, into what he would put that paltry remnant. After
having pondered over it painfully, he seized the pen, dragged a book out
of the corner, and in one hour wanted to read, write, and think all that
he had neglected to read, write, and think in ten years. What was he to
do now? To go ahead, or to remain? This Oblómov question was of more
import to him than Hamlet’s. To go ahead,--that would mean at once
doffing his comfortable dressing-gown, not only from the shoulders, but
from the soul and mind; together with the cobweb on the walls to sweep
away the cobweb from the eyes, and regain eyesight! What first step
should be made for this? Where begin? “I do not know--I cannot--no, I am
begging the question, I do know, and---- And here is Stolz by my side;
he will tell me. What will he tell me? ‘In a week,’ he will say, ‘you
must sketch a detailed instruction for your plenipotentiary and send him
into the village. Get your Oblómovka mortgaged, buy some more land, send
a plan of new buildings, give up your house, procure a passport, and go
abroad for six months, to get rid of your surplus fat, to throw off the
weight, to refresh the soul with the atmosphere of which you have
dreamed long ago with your friend, to live without a dressing gown,
without Zákhar and Tarántev, to put on your own socks and take off your
own boots, sleep only at night, travel where all travel, on railroads,
steamboats, and then---- Then to settle in Oblómovka, to find out what
sowing and threshing is, why peasants are poor or well-to-do, walk over
the fields, go to elections, to the factory, to the mill, the docks. At
the same time you are to read newspapers, books, and become excited why
the English have sent a warship to the East----’ That ’s what he will
say! That ’s what is meant by going ahead, and thus it is to be all my
life! Farewell, poetical ideal of life! That is some kind of a
blacksmith shop, not life! There is in it an eternal fire, hammering,
heat, din---- But when is one to live? Would it not be better to stay?
To stay means to put on a shirt over all, to hear the patter of Zákhar’s
feet as he jumps down from his couch, to dine with Tarántev, to think
less about anything, never to finish the “Voyage to Africa,” to grow
peacefully old in these chambers, at the house of Tarántev’s
ladyfriend.”

“Now or never!” “To be or not to be!” Oblómov was about to rise from his
chair, but his foot did not at once find its way into the slipper, and
he sat down again.




  Nikoláy Aleksándrovich Dobrolyúbov. (1836-1861.)


  Dobrolyúbov was the most powerful of critics belonging to the school
  of Byelínski. In the short period of three years in which he devoted
  himself exclusively to criticism, he produced four large volumes of
  minute analyses of the intellectual and social movements at the end of
  the fifties. His most famous essay is _What is Oblómovism?_ in which
  he places all the heroes of previous novels in the same category with
  the hero in Goncharóv’s story. Dobrolyúbov was born in Nízhni-Nóvgorod
  as the son of a poor priest. He studied at a Seminary and at the
  Pedagogical Institute at St. Petersburg, struggling all the time
  against want. He practised much asceticism, and kept strict account of
  himself and his mental evolution by means of a diary. He later
  transferred this asceticism and scrupulous self-examination to his
  literary work.


                           WHAT IS OBLÓMOVISM?

It was remarked long ago that all the heroes of the most noted Russian
stories and novels suffer from not seeing any aim in life and from not
finding any proper occupation for themselves. On account of this they
feel ennui and a dislike for all kinds of work, thus presenting a
striking similarity to Oblómov. Indeed, open, for example, _Evgéni
Onyégin_, _The Hero of Our Time_, _Who is to be Blamed_, _Rúdin_, or
_Useless Men_, or _Hamlet of Shchigróv County_,[13]--in every one of
them you will find traits that are literally identical with those in
Oblómov----

----One feels the breeze of a new life when, after reading Oblómov, one
stops to think what it is that has called forth this type in literature.
It cannot be ascribed solely to the personal talent of the author and to
the breadth of his views. Great talent and the broadest and humanest
conceptions are to be found also in the authors who have produced the
former types, mentioned above. But the fact is that since the appearance
of the first of these, Onyégin, up to the present, thirty years have
passed. What was then in the embryo, what was then whispered in
indistinct words, has now assumed a definite, concrete form, has been
proclaimed openly and aloud. The trite phrase has lost its meaning;
there has arisen in society itself the need for actual work.

Béltov[14] and Rúdin, men with really high and noble tendencies, not
only could not grasp the necessity, but could not even imagine the near
possibility of a terrible, mortal conflict with actualities that
oppressed them. They entered into a deep unknown forest, walked over a
dangerous bog, saw under their feet various reptiles and serpents, and
climbed a tree,--partly to see whether they could not discover a road
somewhere, partly to rest and for a time at least to save themselves
from the danger of sinking into the mire or being stung. The people who
followed them waited for them to say something, and looked at them with
respect as at people who had taken the lead. But these leaders saw
nothing from the elevation to which they had climbed: the forest was
very extensive and dense.

However, while climbing the tree, they have scratched their faces,
wounded the feet, spoiled their hands. They suffer, they are fatigued,
they must rest themselves, after having fixed a comfortable place upon
the tree. It is true, they do nothing for the common good, they have
discovered no way, and they say nothing. Those who stand beneath them
must, without their aid, clear for themselves a road through the forest.
But who will dare to throw a stone at these unfortunate men in order to
make them fall down from their height in which they have settled after
such difficulties, having in view the public good? They have the
sympathy of the others, they are not even required to take part in the
clearing of the forest; another work fell to their lot, and they did it.
If it led to nothing, it is not their fault. Every one of the former
authors could look at his Oblómov hero from that standpoint, and he was
right. To this was also added the circumstance that the hope of finding
a way out from the forest upon the road was long maintained by the whole
crowd of the travellers, just as their confidence was long maintained in
the far-sightedness of the leaders who had climbed the tree.

But by degrees the affair becomes clearer, and it takes a different
turn. The leaders have taken a liking to the tree: they very eloquently
discuss the ways and means of issuing from the bog and from the forest.
They have found on the tree some kind of fruit which they enjoy, after
throwing down the shell. They invite a few of the select from the crowd
to come to them, and these climb up and stay there, not to look for the
road, but to eat the fruit. They are now Oblómovs in the true sense. The
poor travellers who stand below sink in the mire, serpents sting them,
reptiles frighten them, and branches strike their faces. At last, the
crowd decides to be doing something, and want to get back those who have
lately climbed the tree; but the Oblómovs keep silent and glut
themselves on the fruit. Then the crowd turns to its former leaders and
begs them to come down and to help them in the common work. But the
leaders again repeat the old trite phrases that it is necessary to find
the road, but that it is useless to think of clearing the forest.

It is then that the poor travellers see their mistake, and turn their
backs on them and say: “Sure enough, you are all Oblómovs!” And they
begin to work with a vim and without cessation: they cut down the trees,
make a bridge with them through the bog, lay out a path, kill the
serpents and reptiles that are in their way, and no longer pay any
attention to those clever fellows with their strong natures, those
Pechórins and Rúdins, on whom they had all their dependence before and
whom they so admired. At first the Oblómovists look calmly at the common
movement, but later, as is their wont, they lose courage and begin to
cry:

“Oh, oh! Don’t do that; leave off!” they cry as they notice that the
tree upon which they are sitting is about to be cut down. “Consider, we
might be killed, and then there will perish with us all those beautiful
ideas, all those elevated sentiments, all those humane tendencies, that
eloquence, that pathos, that love for everything beautiful and noble,
which ever lived in us. Stop, stop! What are you doing?”

But the travellers have heard these beautiful phrases a thousand times,
and they continue their work, without paying any attention to them. The
Oblómovists have another chance to save their reputation: let them climb
down from the tree, and fall in with the work of the others. But, as
usual, they are at a loss what to do. “How do you expect us all of a
sudden?” they repeat in despair, and they continue to hurl their futile
curses against the stupid crowd that has lost respect for them.

The crowd, however, is right. If it has become conscious of the
necessity for actual work, it can be of no consequence to it whether
Pechórin stands before it, or Oblómov. We do not assert that Pechórin
would act in the given circumstances precisely like Oblómov; these very
circumstances cause him to develop in an entirely different direction.
But the types which a mighty genius creates are lasting: there are even
now some men living who represent, so to say, a chip of Onyégin,
Pechórin, and so forth, not in the form in which they might have
developed in other circumstances, but just exactly as they are
represented by Púshkin, Lérmontov, and Turgénev. But in the social
consciousness they are evermore changed into Oblómov.

It cannot be said that this change is already accomplished: no, even now
thousands of persons are wasting their time in talking, and thousands of
others are ready to regard this talking as work. But that this
transformation is beginning, is proved by the type of Oblómov which
Goncharóv has created. Its appearance would be impossible, if the
conviction had not grown ripe in at least a small part of society that
those quasi-talented natures that caused so much delight in former days
are quite insignificant. Formerly they were cloaked by all kinds of
mantles, adorned with all kinds of coiffures, and they attracted to
themselves by all kinds of talents. But now Oblómov appears before us
divested of his adornments, just as he is, uncommunicative, removed from
a beautiful pedestal to a soft divan, covered with an ample morning
robe, instead of a mantle. The question, What is he doing? Wherein is
the meaning and aim of his life? is put directly and clearly, and it is
not obscured by side questions. This is so, because the time for social
labour has at last come or is just coming. For this reason we say that
we see in Goncharóv’s novel a sign of the time.

Let us, indeed, see how the point of view has changed which was held in
regard to those cultivated and glib accumbents who in former days were
taken for real social workers.

Here is before you a young man; he is very handsome, agile, and
cultured. He makes his entry in fashionable society and he has success
there. He drives to the theatre, to balls and masquerades; he dresses
and dines superbly; he reads books and writes very orthographically. His
heart is agitated only by the routine of fashionable life, but he has
also an idea about higher questions. He likes to talk of passions,

                   Of prejudices centuries old
                   And fateful mysteries of the tomb.

He has a few honourable rules; he is capable

                    Of changing to light tenant pay
                    The yoke of old manorial labour;

he is capable of not taking advantage of the inexperience of a girl whom
he does not love; he is capable of not ascribing any special value to
his worldly successes. He stands so far above the fashionable society
which surrounds him that he has arrived at the consciousness of its
inanity; he is even able to leave that society and to settle in the
country; only, not knowing what work to find for himself, time weighs
heavily upon him. Having nothing to do, he quarrels with his friend and
frivolously kills him in a duel. A few years later he again makes his
appearance in society and falls in love with a woman whose love he
himself rejected before, because he would have been compelled to
renounce his roving life for her. You recognise Onyégin in this man. But
take a good look at him: it is Oblómov.

There is another man before you, with a more passionate soul, with a
broader egoism. He has, as it were, all that by nature which forms an
object of care to Onyégin. He does not worry about his toilet and
apparel; he is a man of the world without all that. He does not need to
pick his words and to shine with his tinsel knowledge: without all that
his tongue is as sharp as a razor. He actually despises men, well
knowing their weaknesses; he really knows how to conquer the hearts of
women, not for a short moment, but for a long time, often for ever.
Everything that hampers his way he knows how to remove or destroy. He
has only one misfortune: he does not know whither to go. His heart is
empty and cold to everything. He has experienced everything, and even
while a young man all pleasures which one can get for money palled on
him; he also loathes the love of worldly beauties, because it has given
nothing to his heart; he is tired of the sciences, because he sees that
neither glory nor happiness depend upon them, that ignoramuses are the
happiest people, and that glory is a matter of success; dangers of war
soon wearied him, because he saw no sense in them and because he readily
got used to them.

In fine, even the sincere, pure love of a country girl whom he really
likes annoys him: he does not find even in her any satisfaction for his
impulses. But what impulses are they? Whither do they draw him? Why does
he not give himself over to them with the whole power of his soul? It is
because he himself does not understand them and does not take the
trouble of thinking what to do with his power of soul. So he passes all
his life in making witticisms at the expense of fools, in disquieting
the hearts of inexperienced maidens, in mixing up with the affairs of
others’ hearts, inviting brawls, showing bravado in trifles, fighting
without any provocation---- You recollect that this is the history of
Pechórin, that with almost such words he explains his character to
Maksím Maksímych. Please, do take a good look at him: you will see
Oblómov even in him.

Here is another man who walks upon his path with greater
self-consciousness. He not only understands that he is endowed with
great power, but he also knows that he has a great purpose. It seems he
even suspects what that purpose is and where it is to be found. He is
noble, honest, though he frequently does not pay his debts; he discusses
with ardour not trifles, but higher questions; he assures us that he is
ready to sacrifice himself for the good of humanity. In his mind all
questions are solved, everything is brought into a living, harmonious
connection; by his mighty speech he entices inexperienced youths so
that, hearing him, they feel that they have been called to something
great.

Now, what does he spend his life on? On beginning everything and not
finishing it, on scattering himself in all directions, on following up
things with ardour, without accomplishing them. He falls in love with a
girl who finally tells him that, in spite of her mother’s prohibition,
she is ready to belong to him; whereat he answers: “Heavens! so your
mother does not give her consent! What a sudden shock! Lord, how soon!
There is nothing to be done,--we must submit.” And that is a real
picture of all his life. You already know that this is Rúdin. No, that
’s again Oblómov. If you will take a good look at this person, and will
place him face to face with the demands of contemporary life, you will
yourself come to this conclusion.

All these people have this in common: they have no work in life as their
vital necessity, as their heart’s holiness, their religion, that might
organically grow up with them so that to deprive them of it would mean
to take their life away. Everything is external with them, nothing has
any roots in their natures. They may be doing something if compelled by
outward necessity, just as Oblómov made calls wherever Stolz took him,
bought music and books for Ólga, and read what she made him read. But
they have not their souls in the work which accident imposes upon them.
If they were offered gratis all the external comforts which their labour
gives them, they would gladly turn away from their work. By dint of his
Oblómovism, the Oblómov official will stop going to his office, if that
would not interfere with getting his salary and his promotions. The
warrior will make a vow not to touch his arms, if he is offered the same
conditions, provided they permit him also to keep his beautiful uniform
which is very useful upon certain occasions. The professor will abandon
his lectures, the student his studies, the writer his authorship, the
actor will not appear on the stage, the artist will break his chisel or
his palette, to express myself in eloquent style, if they can see their
way of obtaining for nothing that which they now get by work.

They talk of higher aims, of the consciousness of moral obligations, of
being imbued with the interests of society,--but investigate it all, and
you will find that it is nothing but words and words. Their sincerest,
most heartfelt aim is their aim for rest, for the morning gown, and
their very activity is nothing else but _an honourable morning gown_
(the expression does not belong to me), with which they cover their
inanity and apathy. Even the most cultivated people, such as possess a
vivid nature and a warm heart, in practical life very easily depart from
their ideas and plans, very readily make their peace with the reality
that surrounds them, though they do not cease speaking of it as low and
contemptible. This means that everything of which they speak and dream
is, in their case, foreign and external; but in the depth of their soul
is rooted one dream, one ideal,--a most undisturbed rest, quietism,
Oblómovism. Many go even so far as not to be able to imagine a man
working for the love of it, from predilection----

----If I now see a landed proprietor discussing the rights of humanity
and the necessity for the development of the individual,--I know from
his first words that he is an Oblómov.

If I meet an official who complains of the intricacy and laboriousness
of the official routine,--he is an Oblómov.

If I hear from an officer tirades on the weariness of parades and bold
discussions of the uselessness of slow steps, etc., I have no doubt that
he is an Oblómov.

When I read in the periodicals liberalising sallies against malfeasance,
and expressions of joy that at last that which we have been hoping and
wishing for has been done,--I think that these must be correspondences
from Oblómovka.

When I am in a circle of cultivated people who feel warmly for the needs
of humanity and who for a series of years have with undiminished zeal
been telling the same anecdotes, or at times even new ones, about
bribe-takers, about oppressions, about illegalities of all kinds,--I
involuntarily feel that I am transferred to old Oblómovka.

Stop these people in their noisy disputations and say to them: “You say
that so and so is wrong; well, what is to be done?” They do not know.
Propose the simplest means to them, and they will say: “But pray, why so
suddenly?” You may be sure they will say that, because Oblómovs cannot
speak otherwise. Continue your conversation with them and ask them:
“What do you intend to do?” They will give you the same answer which
Rúdin gave to Natálya: “What is to be done? Of course, submit to fate.
What is to be done? I know too well how bitter, how hard and intolerable
it is, but judge yourself”----and so forth. You will get nothing else
out of them, because upon all of them is the stamp of Oblómovism.

Who will, at last, stir them from the spot with the almighty word
“Forwards!” of which Gógol has dreamed so much and for which Russia has
been waiting so long and so yearningly? So far there is no answer to
this question, neither in society, nor in literature. Goncharóv, who
knew how to grasp and represent to us our Oblómovism, could not help
paying his tribute to the universal delusion which still holds strong
sway over our society; he decided to bury Oblómovism and to hold a
funeral sermon over it. “Farewell, old Oblómovka, you have lived your
day,” he says with the lips of Stolz, but he tells an untruth. All
Russia that has read or will read Oblómov will not agree with it. No,
Oblómovka is our real country; its owners are our educators, its three
hundred Zákhars are ever ready for our services. In every one of us
there is a goodly part of Oblómov, and it is still too early to write
the inscription on our tomb.

  [13] These works are by the following authors: Púshkin, Lérmontov,
  Gértsen, Turgénev, Saltykóv, Turgénev.

  [14] Hero in _Who is to be Blamed?_




  Iván Sergyéevich Turgénev. (1818-1883.)


  Turgénev is the most noted of the novelists who began their literary
  career in the forties. He was brought up in the estate of his father,
  in the Government of Orél. His early impressions were extremely
  unpleasant: his father belonged to the brutal type of the old landed
  proprietors, and his mother developed, after the death of her husband,
  similar repellent characteristics. Thus Turgénev, who was himself
  possessed of a soft and refined nature, received an early bias against
  the whole institution of serfdom. In 1833 Turgénev entered the St.
  Petersburg University, and five years later he went to Berlin to
  finish his education. He had tried writing poetry before, but he met
  with little success. Upon his return to Russia he wrote _Parásha_, a
  novel in verse, in which the Romantic incident of the story is
  tempered by a goodly admixture of realism. It at once attracted
  attention, and Turgénev was fairly launched into literature. But he
  became a power in literature only at the end of the forties when he
  began to publish his series of sketches from the life of the peasants
  under the name of _Memoirs of a Hunter_: their effect was tremendous:
  it was the first time that the public read sympathetic stories about
  the serfs, and they did a great deal to hasten the emancipation. The
  government looked awry at this tendency of Turgénev’s novels, and when
  he, in 1852, wrote a eulogistic essay on Gógol, who had just died, he
  was banished to his estate. Upon his release, he went abroad where he,
  with short interruptions, passed the rest of his days. Then followed
  that series of brilliant novels, _Dimítri Rúdin_, _Faust_, _A Nest of
  Gentlefolk_, which made him famous throughout Europe. In 1862 appeared
  his _Fathers and Sons_. In this novel he attempted to give a picture
  of the new tendencies in Russian society. But he had been too long
  away from Russian surroundings, and so he has been blamed for not
  having grasped the positive characteristics of the younger generation.
  His later productions are tinged by pessimism, which finds its most
  pronounced expression in his _Poems in Prose_.

  The following translations of Turgénev’s works have been published:
  _After Death_, in Modern Age, 1883. _Annals of a Sportsman_, extracts
  in _Photographs from Russian Life_, in Fraser’s Magazine, and in
  Graham’s Magazine, 1854; _Russian Life in the Interior_, London, 1855;
  _Annals of a Sportsman_, translated from the French by F. P. Abbott
  (Leisure Hour Series, No. 164), New York, 1885; _Tales from the
  Note-book of a Sportsman_, translated by E. Richter, London, 1895.
  _The Antchar_, in Galaxy, 1873. _Asya_, under title _Assja_, in
  Galaxy, 1877; _Annouchka_, translated from the French by F. P. Abbott,
  Boston, 1884. _Daughter of Russia_, translated by G. W. Scott (Seaside
  Library), New York, 1882. _Desperate_, in Cosmopolitan, 1888. _Dimitri
  Roudine_ (Leisure Hour Series), New York, 1873 (reprinted from Every
  Saturday, 1873). _The Dream_, in Home Journal, 1878. _Fathers and
  Sons_, translated by E. Schuyler, New York, 1867, London, 1888, and
  (Leisure Hour Series and Seaside Library) New York, 1883; _Fathers and
  Children_, New York, 1883. _Faust_, in Galaxy, 1872. _First Love_, and
  _Punin and Baburin_, translated by S. Jerrold, London, 1884. _Hamlet
  and Don Quixote_, translated by J. Král and P. Durdík, in Poet Lore,
  vol. iv. _The Idiot_, London, 1887, and in Temple Bar, 1870. _A Leaf
  of the Steppes_, in London Society, and in Living Age, 1873; _Nobleman
  of the Steppes_, in Scribner’s Monthly, 1877. _The Living Mummy_, in
  Scribner’s Monthly, 1876. _Liza_, translated by W. R. S. Ralston,
  London, 1869 and 1884, and New York, 1872. _Mumu_, and _Diary of a
  Superfluous Man_, translated by H. Gersoni, New York, 1884. _Novels_
  (containing _Dimitri Roudine_,--_Fathers and Sons_, translated by E.
  Schuyler, _Liza_, translated by Ralston, _On the Eve_, by Turner,
  _Smoke_, by West, _Spring-floods_, by S. M. Butts, _A Leaf of the
  Steppes_, by W. H. Browne), 6 vols., New York, 1874-5. _On the Eve_,
  translated by C. B. Turner, London, 1871, and New York, 1873. _Poems
  in Prose_, Boston, 1873; _Senilia, Poems in Prose_, in MacMillan’s
  Magazine, vol. xlix, 1887, and Eclectic Magazine, vol. cii, 1887;
  _Senilia, Poems in Prose_, translated by S. J. Macmullan, Bristol,
  [1890]. _The Priest’s Son_, in Lippincott’s, 1877. _Punin and
  Baburin_, translated by G. W. Scott (Seaside Library), New York, 1882.
  _The Ruffian_ (?) (Overland Library, No. 13), New York, 188-. _Smoke,
  or, Life at Baden_, London, 1868; _Smoke_, translated from the French,
  by W. F. West, New York, 1873, and London, 1883. _Song of Triumphant
  Love_ (Seaside Library), New York, 1883. _The Sorcerer_, in Appleton’s
  1870; under title _How Russians meet Death_, in Temple Bar, and in
  Living Age, 1887. _Spring Floods_, translated by E. Richter, London,
  1896. _Strange Adventure of Lieut. Yergunof_, in Galaxy, 1877. _Tales
  from a Stormy Night_, New York, 1891. _Three Meetings_, in
  Lippincott’s, 1875. _An Unfortunate Woman_, also _Assya_, translated
  by H. Gersoni (Standard Library, No. 142), New York, 1886; _The
  Unfortunate One_, translated by A. R. Thompson, London, 1888.
  _Vassilissa_, in Romance, 1892. _Virgin Soil_, translated from the
  French by T. S. Perry (Leisure Hour Series), New York, 1877, and
  London, 1883--translated by A. W. Dilke, London, 1878 and 1879.
  _Visions_, in Galaxy, 1872, and in Cornhill, and Living Age, 1880.
  _The Watch_, in Lippincott’s, 1876, and in _The Bridal March_, from
  the Norwegian of Björnson, and _The Watch_, translated by J. E.
  Williams, London, 1893. _Works_ (containing _Dimitri Roudine_,
  _Fathers and Sons_, _Liza_, _Smoke_, and _Virgin Soil_), 5 vols.,
  London, 1889. There is also a complete set of his _Works_, translated
  from the Russian by Mrs. Garnett, London, and New York, 1894-99.


                         FROM “FATHERS AND SONS”

----Arkádi stepped towards his uncle, and he once more felt the touch of
his perfumed moustache upon his own cheeks. Pável Petróvich seated
himself at the table. He was dressed in an elegant morning gown after
the English fashion; his head was embellished by a small fez. This fez
and the carelessly tied neckerchief hinted of the freedom of country
life; but the stiff collar of the shirt, which was not white, but
coloured, as is proper for the morning toilet, stuck with customary
inexorability against the clean-shaven chin.

“Where is your new friend?” he asked Arkádi.

“He is not at home. He generally rises early and goes away. The main
thing is, not to pay any attention to him: he does not like ceremonies.”

“Yes, that is evident.” Pável Petróvich began leisurely to spread some
butter on his bread. “Is he going to stay here long?”

“That depends. He has stopped here on his way to his father’s.”

“Where does his father live?”

“In our Government, some eighty versts from here. He has a small estate
there. He used to be an army surgeon.”

“Well, well, well! That ’s why I kept on asking myself: ‘Where have you
heard that name Bazárov’? Nikoláy, it seems to me there was a surgeon by
the name of Bazárov in papa’s division.”

“I think there was.”

“That ’s right. So that surgeon is his father. Hm!” Pável Petróvich
smoothed his moustaches. “Well, and Mr. Bazárov himself, what is he?”
asked he with deliberation.

“What Bazárov is?” Arkádi smiled. “If you want, uncle, I ’ll tell you
what he really is.”

“Do me the favour, dear nephew.”

“He is a nihilist.”

“What?” asked Nikoláy Petróvich, and Pável Petróvich raised up his knife
with a piece of butter at the end of the blade, and remained immovable.

“He is a nihilist,” repeated Arkádi.

“Nihilist,” muttered Nikoláy Petróvich. “That is from the Latin _nihil_,
nothing, so far as I can judge; consequently that word designates a man
who--who acknowledges nothing?”

“Say, who respects nothing,” Pável Petróvich interrupted him, starting
again to spread his butter.

“Who looks at everything from the critical point of view,” remarked
Arkádi.

“Is not that the same?” asked Pável Petróvich.

“No, not the same. A nihilist is a man who bows to no authorities, who
accepts not a single principle on faith, no matter with what respect
that principle be surrounded.”

“And do you call that good?” Pável Petróvich interrupted.

“It depends, uncle. It ’s good for some, and very bad for others.”

“I declare. Well, that, I see, is beyond us. We are of the older
generation; we assume that without principles (Pável Petróvich
pronounced this word softly, in the French fashion, Arkádi, on the
contrary, pronounced it hard, with a decided accent on the first
syllable), without principles taken, as you say, on faith, it is
impossible to take a step, or breathe. _Vous avez changé tout cela._ God
grant you health and the rank of general,[15] but we shall only take
pleasure in looking at you, gentlemen----what do you call them?”

“Nihilists,” Arkádi said distinctly.

“Yes. Formerly there used to be Hegelists, and now there are nihilists.
Let us see how you are going to exist in the vacuum, in an airless
space. But now, please ring the bell, brother Nikoláy Petróvich; it is
time for me to drink my cocoa.”

----For some moments silence reigned upon the terrace. Pável Petróvich
sipped his cocoa, and then he suddenly raised his head.

“There is the nihilist coming to honour us with his presence,” he said
half aloud.

There was really Bazárov, crossing the beds in the garden. His linen
ulster and trowsers were smeared with mud; a prickly swamp plant
surrounded the band of his old round hat; in his right hand he held a
small bag, and in the bag were crawling living things. He rapidly
approached the terrace and said, nodding: “Good-morning, gentlemen!
Excuse me for being late to tea. I shall be back at once; I just want to
find a place for my captives.”

“What have you there, leeches?” asked Pável Petróvich.

“No, frogs.”

“Do you eat them or raise them?”

“For experiments,” indifferently answered Bazárov and went into the
house.

“You see, he is going to cut them up,” remarked Pável Petróvich. “He
does not believe in principles, but in frogs.”

Arkádi looked with pity at his uncle, and Nikoláy Petróvich stealthily
shrugged his shoulders. Pável Petróvich felt himself that he had made an
infelicitous remark, and began to talk about the estate and the new
manager who had come to him a few days before to complain of Fomá’s
having become useless on account of his reckless ways.

----Bazárov returned, seated himself at the table, and began hastily to
drink his tea. Both brothers looked at him in silence, and Arkádi threw
stealthy glances, now upon his father, now upon his uncle.

“Did you have a long tramp?” finally asked Nikoláy Petróvich.

“You have a small swamp near the aspen grove. I there scared up some
five snipes. Arkádi, you ’ll have some shooting there.”

“Are you not a hunter?”

“No.”

“I understand your specialty is physics?” asked Pável Petróvich in his
turn.

“Yes, physics; natural sciences in general.”

“They say the Teutons have of late made great progress in this field.”

“Yes, the Germans are in this our teachers,” Bazárov answered
carelessly.

Pável Petróvich had used the word Teutons, instead of Germans, in irony,
but no one took notice of it.

“Have you such a high opinion of the Germans?” spoke Pável Petróvich
with affected politeness. He began to feel a secret irritation.
Bazárov’s extreme plainness ruffled his aristocratic nature. That son of
a surgeon not only was not abashed, but he answered abruptly and as if
against his will, and in the sound of his voice there was something
harsh, nay, impudent.

“Their learned men are a fine lot.”

“Yes, yes. Well, I suppose, you have not the same flattering conception
of the Russian savants.”

“I guess you are right.”

“That is a very laudable self-abnegation,” retorted Pável Petróvich,
straightening himself, and throwing his head back. “But how is it Arkádi
Nikoláevich told a little while ago that you did not acknowledge any
authorities? Do you not believe them?”

“Why should I acknowledge them? And what should I believe? If I am told
a fact, I agree with it, that ’s all.”

“Do the Germans always tell facts?” spoke Pável Petróvich, and his face
assumed a disinterested, distant expression, just as if he had retired
to some cloudy height.

“Not all,” answered Bazárov with a slight yawn, evidently not wishing to
continue the discussion.

Pável Petróvich looked at Arkádi, as if to tell him: “I must say, your
friend is a polite chap.”

“As for me,” he spoke again with some effort, “I, sinful man, am not
particularly fond of the Germans. Not to mention the Russian Germans: we
all know what kind of birds they are. But I cannot stomach even the
German Germans. Those of the former generations were not half so bad;
they then had, well, a Schiller, or let us say, a Goethe----Brother
thinks quite favourably of them. But now there is such a procession of
chemists and materialists over there----”

“A decent chemist is twenty times more useful than any poet,” Bazárov
interrupted him.

“Indeed!” spoke Pável Petróvich, barely raising his eyebrows, as if
falling asleep. “So you do not acknowledge art?”

“The art to make money, or no more hemorrhoids!” exclaimed Bazárov with
a contemptuous smile.

“Yes, yes. How you please yourself to jest! So you deny all that? Very
well. So you believe only in science?”

“I have already reported to you that I believe in nothing. What is
science anyway, science in general? There are sciences, as there are
trades and professions; but science in general does not exist at all!”

“Very well, sir. Well, and do you assume the same negative attitude in
regard to all the other institutions, generally accepted in human
existence?”

“What is this, an inquest?” asked Bazárov.

Pável Petróvich grew slightly pale. Nikoláy Petróvich thought it
necessary to take part in the conversation.

“We will discuss this matter more thoroughly some other time, dear
Evgéni Vasílich; we shall then get your view, and we shall tell you
ours. I, for my part, am very glad to hear that you busy yourself with
the natural sciences. I have heard that Liebig has made some remarkable
discoveries in regard to the fertilisation of the fields. You could aid
me in my agronomic work by giving me some useful advice.”

“I am at your service, Nikoláy Petróvich; but what business have we with
Liebig? We must first learn the ABC, and then we may take to books; we
have not yet put our eyes on A.”

“I should say you _are_ a nihilist,” thought Nikoláy Petróvich. “Still,
let me in case of necessity have recourse to you,” he added aloud. “But
for the present, brother, I think it is time for us to go and have a
talk with the steward.”

Pável Petróvich rose from his chair.

“Yes,” he said, without looking at anyone, “it is a misfortune to live
five years in the country, away from great minds! You will just become a
round fool. You are trying not to forget what you have learned, and,
before you know it, it turns out that it is all nonsense, and you are
told that clever people no longer busy themselves with such trifles, and
that you, sir, are an old-fashioned night-cap. What is to be done? It
seems the younger generation is really more clever than we are.”

Pável Petróvich slowly turned upon his heels and walked away leisurely.
Nikoláy Petróvich went after him.

“Say, is he always that way?” Bazárov coolly asked Arkádi, when the door
was closed behind the two brothers.

“Listen, Evgéni, you have treated him altogether too brusquely,”
remarked Arkádi. “You have offended him.”

“I am not going to pamper these county aristocrats! It is with them
nothing but egotism, manners of society lions, dandyism! Well, he ought
to have continued his activities in St. Petersburg, if he is built that
way---- However, God be with him! I have found a fairly rare specimen of
a water beetle,--_Dysticus marginatus_, do you know it? I ’ll show it to
you!”

----They began to talk about one of the landowners of the neighbourhood.

“A scoundrel, a snob of an aristocrat,” calmly remarked Bazárov who had
met him in St. Petersburg.

“Permit me to ask you,” began Pável Petróvich, and his lips quivered,
“according to your conception, the words ‘scoundrel’ and ‘aristocrat’
mean one and the same thing?”

“I said ‘snob of an aristocrat,’” remarked Bazárov, lazily sipping his
tea.

“Just so. But I suppose you are of the same opinion about aristocrats,
as you are about snobs. I regard it my duty to inform you that I do not
share that opinion of yours. I dare say, I am known as a liberal man and
one who loves progress, and it is for that very reason that I respect
aristocrats, that is, real aristocrats. Remember, dear sir” (at these
words Bazárov turned his eyes to Pável Petróvich), “remember, dear sir,”
he repeated with acrimony, “the English aristocrats. They do not yield
an iota from their privileges, and therefore they respect the rights of
others. They demand the fulfilment of obligations towards them, and
therefore they fulfil their own obligations. The aristocracy gave
England its freedom, and the aristocracy supports it.”

“We have heard that old song before,” replied Bazárov. “But what do you
wish to prove by it?”

“I wish to prove by that there thing, dear sir” (when Pável Petróvich
got angry, he purposely said “that there” and “this here,” although he
knew full well that grammar did not permit any such forms. In this
oddity one might perceive a reminiscence of the traditions of the days
of Alexander I. The somebodies of those days were in the habit of using
“that there” and “that yer,” in the rare cases when they spoke their
native language, as much as to say: “We are native Russes, and at the
same time dignitaries, who have a right to disdain scholastic rules”),
“I wish to prove by that there thing that without the feeling of one’s
own dignity, without respect to oneself,--and in an aristocrat these
feelings are developed,--there is no secure foundation of society--_bien
public_--the social structure. Individuality, dear sir,--that is the
main thing: human individuality must be as strong as a rock, for
everything rests upon it. I know very well, that you please yourself to
find my habits, my toilet, in fine, my cleanliness, ridiculous, but it
all flows from my feeling of self-respect, from my feeling of duty, yes,
sir, yes, sir--duty. I am living in the country, in the wilderness, but
I do not let myself fall--I respect the man in me.”

“Permit me to say, Pável Petróvich,” spoke Bazárov, “you claim to
respect yourself, and yet you sit with folded hands; what good is that
to the _bien public_? It would be better, if you respected yourself
less, and did more.”

Pável Petróvich grew pale. “That is an entirely different question. It
is not my duty to explain to you now, why I am sitting with folded
hands, as you please to express yourself. I only want to say that
aristocratism is a principle, and in our days only immoral and brainless
people can live without principles. I told Arkádi so on the next day
after his arrival, and I repeat it to you. Am I not right, Nikoláy?”

Nikoláy Petróvich nodded his head.

“Aristocratism, liberalism, progress, principles,” Bazárov was saying in
the meantime. “Just think how many foreign and useless words! A good
Russian would not take them gratis.”

“Then what does he want, according to you? Listening to you, one might
conclude that we are living beyond the pale of humanity, beyond its
laws. Why, sir, the logic of history demands----”

“What do you want to do with that logic? We are getting along without
it.”

“How so?”

“We just do. I hope you do not need any logic in order to put a piece of
bread into your mouth, when you are hungry. What good to us are all
these abstractions?”

Pável Petróvich waved his hands.

“After that I do not understand you. You insult the Russian nation. I
can’t understand how one can fail to acknowledge principles and rules!
By dint of what do you act?”

“I told you before, uncle, that we do not acknowledge any authorities,”
interposed Arkádi.

“We act by dint of what we regard as useful,” spoke Bazárov. “At the
present time the most useful thing is negation,--we negate.”

“Everything?”

“Everything!”

“What? Not only art, poetry----but----it is terrible to say it----”

“Everything,” repeated Bazárov with inexpressible calm.

Pável Petróvich stared at him. He had not expected that, while Arkádi
even blushed with joy.

“But permit me to ask you,” again said Pável Petróvich, “you deny
everything, or, to express myself more correctly, you destroy
everything--but is it not necessary to build up again?”

“That is not our affair. First, the place has to be cleared.”

“The contemporary condition of the people demands it,” Arkádi added with
dignity. “We must execute these demands; we have no right to devote
ourselves to the satisfaction of our personal egotism.”

This last phrase evidently displeased Bazárov: it smacked of philosophy,
that is, of Romanticism, for Bazárov called philosophy Romanticism; but
he did not think it necessary to contradict his young disciple.

“No, no!” exclaimed Pável Petróvich in a sudden passion. “I do not wish
to believe that you, gentlemen, properly understand the Russian nation,
that you are the representatives of its needs, its aims! No, the Russian
nation is not as you represent it to yourselves. It reveres tradition,
it is patriarchal, it cannot live without faith----”

“I will not dispute that,” interrupted Bazárov; “I am even willing to
admit that you are right in this.”

“And if I am right----”

“And yet it proves nothing.”

“That ’s it, it proves nothing,” repeated Arkádi with the confidence of
an experienced chess player who, foreseeing the apparently dangerous
move of his antagonist, does not become in the least uneasy.

“How does it not prove anything?” muttered Pável Petróvich in
wonderment. “So you are going against your nation?”

“What of it, if I do? People imagine that when it thunders the prophet
Elias is riding in a chariot over the heavens. Well? Shall I agree with
them? Besides, they are Russians, and am I not myself a Russian?”

“No, you are not a Russian, after what you have just told me! I cannot
acknowledge you as a Russian.”

“My grandfather was a ploughman,” replied Bazárov with supercilious
pride. “Ask any of your peasants, in whom he will quicker recognise a
countryman of his, in you or me? You do not even know how to talk with
him.”

“But you speak with him and despise him at the same time.”

“Why not, if he deserves contempt! You find fault with my tendency, but
who told you that it is accidental in me? that it is not provoked by the
same national spirit that you are championing?”

“Well, of what good are the nihilists?”

“It is not for you to decide whether they are any good or not. Don’t you
regard yourself useful?”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please no personalities!” exclaimed Nikoláy
Petróvich, rising from his chair.

Pável Petróvich smiled and, putting his hand on his brother’s shoulder,
compelled him to sit down again.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I will not forget myself, by dint of that very
feeling of dignity that the gentleman, the doctor, makes so light of.
Permit me,” he turned again towards Bazárov, “you probably think that
your doctrine is something new. But you imagine that in vain. The
materialism which you preach has been in vogue more than once, and it
has always proved itself insufficient----”

“Again a foreign word!” interrupted Bazárov. He began to feel annoyed
and his face assumed a coarse coppery colour. “First of all, we preach
nothing; that is not our custom----”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I ’ll tell you what we do. In former days, not so long ago, we used to
say that the officials take bribes, that we have no roads, no commerce,
no regular justice.”

“Yes, yes, you are accusers, I think that is what you call it. I agree
with many of your accusations, but----”

“Then we came to the conclusion that to prate, nothing but prate, about
our sores is not worth the trouble, that it only leads to triteness and
doctrinarianism; we discovered that our wise men, the so-called leaders
and accusers, were good for nothing, that we were busying ourselves with
nonsense, were talking of art, unconscious creative power,
parliamentarism, of legalism, and the devil knows of what not, when we
ought to have talked of the daily bread, when we were oppressed by most
vulgar superstition, when all our commercial companies burst only
because there was a dearth of honest men, when the very liberty with
which the Government is concerned would hardly do us any good, because
our peasants would as lief rob themselves, if only they could fill
themselves with brandy in the tavern.”

“Ah,” Pável Petróvich interrupted him, “ah! You have convinced yourself
of all that, and so you have decided not to do anything seriously?”

“And we decided not to undertake anything,” grimly repeated Bazárov. He
suddenly felt irritated for having entered into a dispute with that
gentleman.

“And only to scoff?”

“To scoff.”

“And that is called nihilism.”

“And that is called nihilism,” again repeated Bazárov, but this time
with special rudeness.

Pável Petróvich slightly closed his eyes.

“Ah, that ’s the way!” he said with a strangely calm voice. “Nihilism is
to help all misery, and you--you--are our deliverers and heroes. Yes.
But why do you hold others in honour, say, those very accusers? Or do
you not prate like the rest?”

“You may accuse us of anything else, but not of that,” said Bazárov
through his teeth.

“Well? You act, don’t you? You are getting ready to act?”

Bazárov did not answer. Pável Petróvich shuddered, but he immediately
controlled himself.

“Hm!--Act, break--” he continued. “But how are you going to break, not
knowing for what purpose?”

“We break, because we are a force,” remarked Arkádi.

Pável Petróvich glanced at his nephew and smiled.

“Yes, force does not give any accounts of itself,” said Arkádi
straightening himself out.

“Miserable man!” lamented Pável Petróvich. He was absolutely unable to
hold himself any longer. “If you only thought what you are supporting in
Russia by your despicable phrase? No, that would make an angel lose his
patience! Force! A wild Calmuck, a Mongolian has force too, but of what
good is it to us? We treasure civilisation, yes, sir, yes, sir, dear
sir, we treasure its fruits. Don’t tell me that these fruits are
worthless. The last latherer, _un barbouilleur_, a fiddler who gets five
kopeks for an evening, are more useful than you, because they are the
representatives of a civilisation, and not of a rude Mongolian force!
You regard yourselves as leaders, but you ought to pass your days in a
Calmuck tent! Force! Remember, gentlemen of force, that there are only
four and a half of you, and there are millions of others who will not
permit you to tread under foot their most sacred beliefs and who will
crush you.”

“If they will crush us, then that is our destiny,” spoke Bazárov. “Only
you are slightly off. We are not as few as you imagine.”

“What? You think in earnest you will be able to stand out against a
whole nation?”

“You know, it was a kopek candle that caused the conflagration of
Moscow,” replied Bazárov.

“Yes, yes. First it is an almost satanic pride, and then contemptuous
scoffing. That ’s what the young generation is carried away with, that
’s what conquers the inexperienced hearts of boys! Just look at them:
one of them is sitting by your side; he almost worships you,--look at
him. (Arkádi turned away and frowned.) This plague has spread far and
wide. I have been told that our artists won’t visit the Vatican in Rome,
that they regard Raphael almost as a fool, because, don’t you see, he is
an authority; but they themselves are impotent and barren to nausea;
their fancy does not rise above a _Girl at the Fountain_, try as they
may! And the girl is horribly painted at that. In your opinion they are
a fine lot, are they not?”

“In my opinion,” retorted Bazárov, “Raphael is not worth a copper penny,
and they are not better than he.”

“Bravo! Bravo! Listen, Arkádi! That ’s the way modern young men must
express themselves! When I come to think of it, why should they not
follow you! Formerly young men had to study; they did not like to pass
for ignoramuses, and so they worked, even against their will. But all
they have to say now is: “Everything in the world is bosh!” and that ’s
all there is to it. The young people are happy. And really, formerly
they were nothing but blockheads, but now they have suddenly turned
nihilists.”

“There, your vaunted feeling of your personal dignity has played you
false,” phlegmatically remarked Bazárov, while Arkádi flamed up and his
eyes glistened. “Our discussion has gone too far---- It seems it would
be better to cut it short altogether. I will then be ready to agree with
you,” he added, rising, “when you will show me one single institution in
our present existence, social or domestic, which does not call for a
complete and merciless negation.”

“I will show you millions of such institutions,” exclaimed Pável
Petróvich, “millions! For example, the village commune.”

A cold smile contorted Bazárov’s lips.

“When it comes to the commune,” he said, “you had better have a talk
with your brother. He, it seems, has discovered in practice what kind of
a thing the commune is, and communal responsibility, temperance, and
similar fine things.”

“The family, if you please, the family, as it exists with our peasants!”
cried Pável Petróvich.

“It would be better, I suppose, not to enter into the details of that
affair. Listen, Pável Petróvich, give yourself two days’ time; you will
hardly find anything before that time. Run over all our conditions of
life, consider them all well, while, in the meantime, Arkádi and I
will----”

“Make light of everything,” interrupted Pável Petróvich.

“No, cut up frogs. Come, Arkádi! Good-bye, gentlemen!”

Both friends went out.

  [15] See page 98, line 28.


                         POEMS IN PROSE (SENILIA)


                                  NATURE

I dreamt that I entered an enormous subterranean hall with high vaults.
It was all filled with an even, subterranean light.

In the very centre of the hall sat a majestic woman in a flowing garment
of a green colour. Bending her head on her hand, she seemed to be buried
in deep meditation.

I saw at once that that woman was Nature herself, and, with a sudden
chill, a reverential awe entered my soul.

I approached the woman who was sitting there, and making a respectful
bow: “O our common mother!” I exclaimed. “What are you meditating on?
Are you, perchance, pondering on the future destiny of the human race?
Or, how it may reach the highest possible perfection and happiness?”

The woman slowly turned to me her dark, piercing eyes. Her lips moved,
and there issued from them a ringing voice, like the clanking of iron.

“I am thinking how to add greater strength to the muscles of a flea’s
legs, that it may more easily save itself from its enemies. The
equilibrium between attack and defence has been impaired---- It must be
re-established.”

“What?” I lisped an answer. “Is that what you are thinking about? But
are we not, men, your favourite children?”

The woman barely frowned: “All creatures are my children,” she spoke,
“and I take equal care of them, and equally exterminate them.”

“But goodness--reason--justice----” I muttered again.

“Those are human words,” was heard the woman’s voice. “I know neither
good nor evil---- Reason is not my law, and what is justice? I have
given you life, and I will take it from you and will give it to others,
worms or men----it makes no difference to me---- You defend yourself in
the meantime, and do not bother me!”

I wanted to retort--but the earth around me gave a dull groan and
trembled, and I awoke.




  Dmítri Vasílevich Grigoróvich. (1822-1900.)


  Grigoróvich was the son of a landed proprietor, and was born in a
  village on the Vólga, in the Government of Simbírsk. His early
  childhood he passed at home; at ten years of age he entered a boarding
  school in Moscow, and later the School of Engineers, where he studied
  at the same time as his friend Dostoévski. Having become infatuated
  with art, he transferred himself to the Academy of Arts and there
  studied drawing for two years. He began writing in 1844, and attracted
  the attention of the public and of the critic Byelínski by his
  sketches from the life of the serfs, _The Village_ and _Antón the
  Miserable_. These were followed by a large number of shorter stories
  and two novels, _The Fishermen_ and _The Emigrants_; they mainly excel
  for their artistic landscape painting, in which they abound. His warm
  advocacy of emancipation and his sympathetic descriptions of peasant
  life have earned for him the name of the Russian Beecher-Stowe.

  Two of his stories have been translated into English: _Cruel City_,
  after the Russian, with a sketch of the author, by E. de Pierson
  (Sunshine Series, No. 84), London and New York, 1891; _New Year’s Eve_
  (Railway and General Automatic Library), London, [1892].


                           FROM “THE FISHERMEN”

A gloomy, grey day. The vault of heaven looks as though lowered, as
though pensively reposing over the silent earth. If it were not for the
warmth of the air, the nascent odour of budding verdure, one might have
thought spring had suddenly been changed into autumn. There are many
such days in the beginning of spring. They resemble the fair, pensive
face of a young girl. All Nature suddenly grows still, like a lively
child in the open, who, having abandoned himself to noisy, boisterous
merriment, and not trusting his strength, suddenly throws himself tired
on the grass and sleeps a sweet sleep.

In such days you will not hear a sound. Everything living seems to hold
its breath, to get ready for something, to collect its strength for a
noisy celebration of the summer. The flocks are silent, as if
intoxicated by the strong aroma of the unfolding plants, which, lacking
the sunrays, is spreading over the ground; the animals are reclining on
the succulent grass, and hang their heads, or lazily wander about. The
birds dreamily slumber on the branches that are permeated by their
fresh, young sap; the insects are hid under the tree-bark, or have crept
into the narrow seams of the moss that, in an infinitely diminished
form, resembles impassable fir forests; not a fly buzzes in the air; the
air itself seems to be afraid to break the solemn quiet, and touches not
a blade, nor even raises the light down that is left in the meadows by
the young, newly hatched goslings.

Nothing can be more poetical than such days! A delicate, happily tuned
ear can distinguish, midst this dead silence, a measured, harmonious
singing. Your soul is filled with an inexpressibly pleasant sensation.
But not ecstatic agitation nor pensive sorrow (in which there is a charm
of their own) takes possession of your soul: no! your blood and brain
are in perfect composure; you simply feel happy; your whole being
involuntarily recognises the possibility of quiet, peaceful enjoyments,
of a modest, intimate life with yourself,--a life which you have been,
perchance, long seeking in vain; the capitals, with their din,
splendour, and enticements, do not exist for you: they appear so small
that you do not even notice them. In such moments your heart is light
and free, as in the first years of happy youth; not one evil thought
will enter your head. You are satisfied with yourself, satisfied with
your feelings, satisfied with your loneliness, and you bless Providence
for having given you a chance to live, breathe, and feel.

It was just such a day when Vanyúsha, early in the morning, bade his
family farewell. The landscape, it seemed, had assumed the most gloomy
and grey appearance in order to rouse in the heart of the lad as little
regret as possible in parting with familiar places. The fisherman’s
family was standing in the yard: it was not numerous now, for Peter,
Vasíli, and their wives and children had left the day before. There were
there in all: Glyeb, his old wife, his son, the adopted child, and
Grandfather Kondráti, who had come to see Vanyúsha off.

We find them during the most fateful and oppressive minute. The gate
that leads out to the small square is already open; grandfather Kondráti
has already taken back to the cabin the old ikon with which the parents
have blessed their son. It is only left to say: “Come!” but old Glyeb is
still hesitating. Gríshka has meanwhile told the companion of his youth
good-bye; he is standing some distance away; his head is bent, his brows
are knit, but his dark eyes, which are stealthily directed now to one
side of the yard, now to another, clearly indicate that his sorrowful
look is assumed only by necessity, to fit the occasion, and that he does
not share the family’s grief.

None of those present this minute think of the adopted child. Aunt Ánna
tightly clasps the neck of her beloved child with both her hands; the
face of the old woman is still more tightly pressed against his breast;
in a weak, dying voice she pronounces a disconnected parting prayer.
Before them Glyeb is standing; his eyes are dry; he utters no
complaints, no accusations, no bitter words of blame, but his hands
folded over his breast, the drooping head, the furrows, which one cannot
count upon his high brow, sufficiently indicate that the soul of the old
fisherman is passing through a heavy trial. In vain Grandfather
Kondráti, whom Glyeb always respected and obeyed, tries to console him,
calling to his aid soul-saving words: the words of the old man are
powerless now; they act upon Glyeb as upon a half-witted person: he
hears every word of the grandfather, distinguishes every sound of his
voice, but does not retain them in his memory. Glyeb is still unable to
collect his thoughts: in the last three days the old man had passed
through so much sorrow! The acts of his children have effaced from his
memory the whole sixty years of a quiet, undisturbed, one may even say,
happy life. But however much one may think, or feel grieved, nothing is
gained by it, and time passes. “Come!” says Glyeb.

Grandfather Kondráti warily unclasps the hands of the old woman who
thoughtlessly and speechlessly is hanging about the neck of her son;
Aunt Ánna has wept her last strength away with her last tears. Ványa
transfers her from his hands to the hands of Kondráti, hastily throws a
bundle with his possession over his shoulder, makes the sign of the
cross and, without raising his tearful eyes, hurries after his father
who meanwhile has bent around the corner of the cabin. A despairing,
heartrending cry, uttered behind him, chains the young lad to the spot.

“Ványa!--Ványa!”

“Cease, mother----do not grieve so----God is merciful!” says he,
embracing the old woman who is grasping him in her hands like an
insensate person.

But the consolations are in vain! Grandfather Kondráti and Ványa
continue their path, while supporting Ánna. Now, they have already
passed the garden, and now, they have crossed the brook. This brook,
witness of youthful years, serves as the last threshold of the paternal
house. Now, they have already reached the footpath, and they begin to
ascend the hill. Memories are crowding in the soul of the young lad;
with every advancing step there is a new parting.

However much the young fisherman strengthened himself with the thought
that by his action he had saved his old father from injustice and had
freed him from a heavy sin, however strong his faith in Providence was,
yet he could not restrain his tears that of their own accord coursed
down his youthful cheeks. It is, indeed, hard for the first time to part
from your paternal home, and you cannot control your heart: it will not
listen to reason, and is not deceived by fancies and hopes.

It is even more difficult for a common man to leave his native roof,
than for any other person. No matter how wretched the cabin of the poor
man may be, he is attached to it with all his feelings, with all his
soul. The attachment of the educated man for material objects to which
he has become accustomed, his attachment for his house and his soil, is
quite insignificant in comparison with the attachment of the common man
for the same objects with which he is familiar. This is easily
explained: the mental and spiritual life which more or less absolves man
from a coarse materialism is very limited in the common man. Living
almost exclusively a material, carnal life, he, so to say, grows one
with every object which surrounds him, with every log of his cabin; he
was born there, he has passed his life there without interruption; not
one thought has drawn him away beyond the confines of his native hut: on
the contrary, all his thoughts have been directed to the one object of
never leaving his home. The Russian peasant is pre-eminently a lover of
his family, and domestic in his habits.

I had once occasion to see a ploughman’s family who were of their own
free will emigrating to the fertile southern Governments, bidding
farewell to their field,--miserable two desyatínas of clayey, almost
worthless, soil. I have in all my life not seen such a terrible parting,
such terrible tears! A mother, who parts from her beloved children, does
not embrace them so passionately and does not kiss them so warmly, as
these peasants kissed the earth that had supported them so many years.
It seemed as though they left themselves in these two plots. Pieces of
earth were even sewed into the amulets of the suckling babes!

The common man bows to habit: when he parts from his house, he parts
from everything that binds him to the soil. He has lived in his
exclusive, limited sphere; there are no interests for him outside of his
home; he looks with suspicion at the world which transcends the limits
of his customary, narrow conceptions. When he leaves his home, he does
not strengthen himself, as we do, with dreams and hopes: he positively
knows only this,--that he is leaving his home, that he is leaving
everything which binds him to life, and therefore he abandons himself
with all his feelings, with all his soul to grief.

Having reached the summit of the high ridge of the river bank, from
which the deceased Uncle Akím had once timidly descended with Gríshka to
the cabin of the old fisherman, Glyeb stopped. It was not the rapid
ascent that had tired him: he would rather have walked more rapidly, and
would have gone higher up. A strange weight rested upon the old man’s
heart; he wished to walk a hundred versts without stopping, if the
exhaustion would only allay the persistent pining that was gnawing at
his heart. When Ványa and Grandfather Kondráti, who were still
supporting Ánna, had ascended the hill, Glyeb went up to them:

“Why did you bring her here?” said he impatiently: “it will not make
things easier. Well, old woman, that will do--say farewell, and the Lord
be with you! Too much parting,--too much weeping! Well, good-bye!”

“Good-bye, mother!” muttered the son, and for the first time he could
not control himself, and for the first time burst out into tears: he
wept bitterly, like a small boy.

The old woman shuddered at this sight: her oblivion disappeared, her
strength was resurrected. Drawing aside with her lean hands the kerchief
which covered her head, she cast a senseless glance on all present, as
if not yet quite conscious of what was happening, and then she suddenly,
with the rapidity of lightning, threw herself on her son, and placed her
hands over his head. The cry that accompanied that motion cut as with a
knife the hearts of the two old men. People of Grandfather Kondráti’s
age do not weep: all the tears have been wept, and their source itself
has long ago dried up. But Glyeb had yet seen little grief; and so his
strength left him. However much Glyeb fortified himself, however much he
turned his head aside, and knit his brows, large teardrops of their own
will burst from his eyes and silvered still more his grey beard. He
waved his hand and walked ahead more rapidly. Ványa tore himself away
from the embrace of his mother and ran after him, all the time making
the sign of the cross.

“Ványa! Ványa!”

The old woman started after her son; but her legs gave way. She fell
upon her knees and extended her hands before her.

Ványa meanwhile continued to follow his father. Only once did he turn
back: the cabins, the small squares, the brook, the boats, the
nets,--all had disappeared! At the edge of the hill, which hid the
indentation of the shore that served him for his native place, he saw
only Kondráti’s white head leaning over something prostrate in the road.
Beyond them, in the limitless depth, he saw the distant meadows. From
this height Grandfather Kondráti’s little lake appeared as in the palm
of the hand: a white moving dot glinted through the verdure that
surrounded the lake in a dark strip. Ványa almost stopped, but
immediately turned his head aside, made the sign of the cross, and
walked on more rapidly. When he found himself within a few steps from
his father, he did not hold out, and turned back once more; but this
time the eyes of the young lad no longer met familiar places: everything
had disappeared behind the hill, the dark ridge of which rested against
the gloomy, grey, cheerless sky.

Farewell, mother! Farewell home, childhood, memories,--farewell
everything!




  Yákov Petróvich Polónski. (1820-1898).


  Polónski was born in the city of Ryazán, where he graduated from the
  Gymnasium. After that he studied law at the Moscow University, and in
  1844 he published his first collection of poems, under the title of
  _Gamuts_. Then began for him years of restless wanderings in Russia
  and abroad, in his attempt to earn his daily bread. Upon his return to
  St. Petersburg, in 1859, he became an editor of a periodical, and soon
  after he was made a member in the Board of Foreign Censorship. His
  genius has been characterised by Turgénev as follows: “His talent
  represents a special, quite individual mixture of simple-hearted
  grace, a free picturesqueness of language, upon which still rests a
  reflection of Púshkin’s elegance, and a certain amiable, though
  frequently awkward, honesty and truthfulness of impressions. At times
  he, almost unconsciously to himself, surprises one with the sharpness
  of his poetic vision.” Many of his lyrics belong to the most popular
  of songs in Russia, and have been set to music. Of his longer poems,
  the fantastic tale _Musician Grasshopper_ enjoys the greatest
  popularity.

  But little of Polónski has been translated. In C. T. Wilson’s _Russian
  Lyrics_ are given _The Birds_, _Night in the Crimea_, _The Sun and the
  Moon_, _The Guardian Angel_; in John Pollen’s _Rhymes from the
  Russian_,--_On Skobelev_ (reprinted in the Library of the World’s Best
  Literature); in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 21, by H.
  Havelock, _Love scared thee not_, and _To the fond heart that
  passionately loveth_; in Free Russia, vol. xii, No. 11, by Charlotte
  Sidgwick, _A Vision_.


                                THE BIRDS

              The smell of fields pervades the air,
                And in the peaceful sky
              Are heard the lays of tuneful birds,
                Resounding far and high.

              Each has its mate, with whom it spends
                The hours of day and night;
              In unmown fields, and growing grass,
                Their homes are their delight.

              Up in the skies they pour their notes,
                Fired with enraptured song;
              But, still, to earth, though not for bread,
                The free birds all belong.

              While thus I listen to their voice,
                Vexation stirs my mind;
              Their happy lot with envy fills
                The hearts of all mankind.

      --From C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_.


                           NIGHT IN THE CRIMEA

           Bear’st thou in mind the moon’s glimmering light,
             On rocks the waves dashing with sullen roar,
           The rustling trees with sleepy leaves adight,
           The chirruping crickets in the fields anight,
             Close by the garden, on the sea-girt shore?

           In twilight soft, beneath the garden’s shade,
             We wandered; scent of laurel filled the air;
           We saw a grotto in the vineyard made,
           And water falling, as we careless strayed,
             Which sounded sweetly in the basin there.

           Dost thou recall the freshness of the hour,
             The smell of roses, and the murmuring brooks?
           All Nature seemed entranced with magic power,
           And at each other, in the perfumed bower
             Sitting, gazed we with absorbing looks.

           The music flowing from all Nature’s smiles,
             The melody working in the awakened soul,
           This have I heard mid all the cozening wiles
           Of life,--in direst storms,--and it beguiles
             My aching heart, and fills my spirit whole.

           I lent unto the chords attentive ear,
             While my mind warmèd to the beauteous sound,
           Which touched my senses with triumphant cheer;
           I listened till it drew me ever near,
             And all my soul with joyous rapture bound.

      --From C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_.

                                 ───────

          Love scared thee not, for early thy heart ripened;
          His was thy trust, and now thou mourn’st alone.
          O hapless, hopeless prey of lies and passion,
          Burst thou their net, and fear not any blame!

          The blame of men, their feigned reprobation,
          Heed not, nor weep, but clear thy clouded eyes.
          Not I thy judge, thy headsman, though I know it
          That with a laugh malice thy doom has signed.

          Has not each one of us been passion’s plaything?
          Will nought but death assuage thine enemies’ scorn?
          Will e’en thy friends not cease thy soul to torture?
          Feed not the fire, and malice self must die.

          And all that in thee was of pure, of holy,
          Of dear, shall sacred be to those that love thee,
          And rich as ever shall thy generous heart be,
          And thou shalt love as erst and, loving, smile.

      --Transl. by H. Havelock, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society,
          No. 21.


                       FROM “MUSICIAN GRASSHOPPER”

Not the blustering cricket chirping at the stove I sing: my hero is a
small grasshopper. He was of small size, but oblong in shape, and wore
over his back a greenish frock; he was thin-legged, lank, and broad of
brow, and he was a real genius, had a special gift: he was famed as a
musician among all the insects, and he often invited his friends to hear
his concerts. He lived under the luxuriant grass in the open field, and
drowned the air with the eternal piping of his orchestra. The frivolous
tribe of hoppers has forgotten that at that time he was the
representative of good taste and music.

Everything which the rustic dweller nowadays hears outside the window,
as he lies upon his bed, or as he walks out on the balcony in his
morning gown,--this crackling piping, this discordant din that is over
everything,--so dry and yet so tender,--if in this gloomy concert there
is at all any glowing voluptuousness and rapture,--believe me,--those
are the bygone, eternal creations, or imitations, of my hero.

Poor little grasshopper, your genius is forgotten! But you have passed
your life not without adventures. I know you did not in vain pass for an
idealist: you used to sit down in the silvery light of the moon, under
the canopy of night, upon a grassblade broken by the wind. Though the
bending ears are not lightly broken, yet the naughty wind crushes many
of them in the wavy meadow. You used to sit down, and with all your
might you scraped upon your fiddle, in order to glorify night. And the
empty-headed squeakers, the villainous mosquitoes, the trumpeters of the
steppe, teased you, and ladybirds fell in love with you, and envy roiled
many a little head with the same musical inclination and with the same
eagerness, but not with the same ability. And the gnat threatened to
kill, by means of science, the sounds which you produced, and the
weighty June-bug repeatedly assured all that it was pleasant to moisten
the ears at your concert, for otherwise the ears would dry up, like the
grass, from the terrible drouth.

In your private life you have frequently been put in an awkward position
by the good little ladybirds, flies, and little bugs: you listened to
their confessions, and timidly avoided secret meetings with them.
Nothing, however, disturbed your calm: no sting appeared injurious to
your talent: you were unconquerable in the musical world.

Little linden trees,--that was something in the nature of a park; in the
centre--a pond, and at the entrance--a bower of branches, unquestionably
a marvel of perfection; it was so spacious that--just think of it--two
hundred insects could enter it in a row. Hang me if I am telling an
untruth! The architect of it--I will not conceal it--was Nature herself;
only I do not know who paid her for the work; however, we are not
concerned here about Nature. Lest the journalists should peck us to
death, I will confess that it was hardly possible to describe the
staircase under the yellow carpet of moss, which was worn through in
spots; nor the gloomy antechamber, where the lackeys could remain from
early morning without their boots, but not without their liveries; nor
the parlour, where some mould, like stalactites, stuck to the cornices
and was wound about with verdure. An acquaintance of mine, a Russian
architect, saw in this parlour a bit of Etruscan art, and--I remember it
well--he boasted, without blushing, that the idea had struck him in that
parlour tastefully to adorn lordly rooms by covering the wall-paper with
white mould.

However, the house of the sylphid, to be sternly critical about the
style, resembled somewhat a hole in a tree. The grasshopper was so
charmed, or his heart was so electrified, that he trembled and wasted
away as he silently waited for the sylphid, while standing at the window
and looking at the sights. The sylphid was flitting about with someone
in the garden, and having a chat with pleasant guests. These guests were
worms of various appellations, and they lay in the grass in the form of
hooks. A black-skinned little bedbug, doubtless the porter’s son, or the
nurse’s grand-child--a godchild of the gentlefolk--announced to the
sylphid that a certain lank gentleman was waiting for her in the
drawing-room.

My hero was called in. His bow was returned with a smile, and he heard
the muttering: “Very, very happy!” The ladies examined his whole figure,
and hardly could withhold their laughter: they only looked askance at
the gentlemen. But the worms did not stir, for someone had so dreadfully
narrowed down their brains that they need only look at the decoration on
the ribbon or around the neck, in order not to pay any attention to the
rest, and remain in haughty calm.

The artist’s calling familiarises the soul with all kinds of meetings;
but my hero was not accustomed to the manners of the charming insects of
the higher order. Living at a distance from the garden, poor, sickly,
and pale, he wore from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet the
imprint of the field upon him. There clouds alone raise their voice, and
the harvest waves its ears, and the grain waits for the scythe.

I know, O grasshopper, how well you were received by the butterfly. You
acted proudly, as if you had spent all your life in higher society,
though from early childhood you had never travelled except in your own
carriage. But tell me, what became of you on that evening, and what
inexpressible feeling compressed your soul, and what thoughts ardently
possessed your genial brow, as you departed from the park and took your
fieldward way over the tufts? Will you say, or--shall we put down
periods?

Departing day wept behind the mountain, and, shedding tears, cast a warm
glow upon the edge of the meadow, from behind the dark grove. Night came
in the track of day, and mingling lights were reflected and, quivering,
wandered over her cheeks. Softly came out the lights, the heralds of the
moon, lighting the tapers before the throne of God. Far and wide the sea
of the tremulous harvest grew dark; the melancholy birch embraced the
linden tree; the grove grew silent; only the oak whispered, and the
woodpecker somewhere tapped his strong beak, and somewhere a rivulet
lisped sadly,--only fateful passions were not asleep, and only the
irrepressible world of insects vociferated without cessation in the
sleepless silence. The flies hummed, the mosquitoes trumpeted; those
whom the grasshopper led in the chorus merrily scraped their fiddles,
evidently knowing their music even without candles. In front of the
orchestra, he scraped his fiddle loudest of all, in honour of his queen.
It was the marriage of the butterfly’s cousin, and the bridegroom was a
fine fellow with a long mouthpiece; of course, he was not mentally
quick, but he came from a family of select worms. According to the
bride’s words, he was intolerable only because he indiscriminately
compared the odour of old pines with the vernal fragrance of violets,
and because he respected the brier and was afraid of jackdaws.

But what do we care for this nonsense? The ball was magnificent. The
choirs bubbled over with sounds. Dozens of Spanish flies in golden
liveries burnt incense in murky avenues. Glowworms, flaming up like
fire-pots and rockets, gleamed up and down all the paths. The guests
swarmed everywhere. The butterflies flitted in the moonshine in their
ball dresses; darning-needles flashed through the air, holding on to
darning-needles; the variegated whirl of the waltz spun around with a
rustling sound; bugs circled around the serving table; small beetles
crawled about, and the weighty persons of fashionable society, the
ladybugs, were gathered together to show their newest dresses. Two
beetles with big bellies on short legs silently approached two green
flies. An ant, laced in a waistcoat of the latest fashion, solemnly and
carelessly bent his knees, while dancing with a yellow ladybird. The
lively sylphid flapped her little wings: her eyes, her nose, her little
feet, the pattern of her dress,--everything in her involuntarily
attracted attention.

My artistic grasshopper’s soul was aflame; he did not turn his eyes away
from her and be played like a demon. At her own request he, his heart
being unchangeable, composed this inspired dance, by whose music hop
even to-day the myriads of insects on any flower-bed of your garden, if,
O reader, the Creator has at all given you a garden, or, at least, a
garden plot.

However, the ball of the insects did not pass without a scandal: they
say, there was an evil spider in the park who, having drawn his threads
from twig to twig, made such a devilishly clever and artistic, invisible
net, that, maybe, he had a nice little snack in secret. They say also
that a ladybird fell down and that from fright her corset gave way. The
artist himself noticed a little spider--he looked so innocent--throwing
something like a hook over the sylphid’s wing, and trying to draw her to
him, in order to find somewhere in the charming garden a place where he
could pass with her at least ten minutes in the cool shade, in silence,
in comfort, away from the bustle. But the jealous artist understood his
cunning, so he leaped up and tore the fateful threads.

The spider swelled with anger; and a mosquito buzzed to the artist:
“See, how you have soiled yourself, as if you had been in an improper
place.”

The grasshopper blushed, seeing the cobweb sticking to his sleeve. “What
a beast!” he grumbled, and he wiped it off. The butterfly said not a
word, and only chose another partner for the dance: the winged gentleman
was her neighbour’s silly brother.

“Is it true,” he asked, “there is a rumour in the meadow, that you are
dead in love with the maestro? They say that the grasshopper wants to
marry you, and that he is suing for your hand?”

“Don’t say that!” said the sylphid. “My husband--a grasshopper! What an
insult! Who has spread this gossip? Or have the flies concocted this
stupid thing?”

“No, not the flies at all! Someone from the orchestra said that he heard
it from the maestro.”

The fay controlled herself and did not show her anger and, flapping her
wings, cast a cold glance upon the musician, and when all, to honour his
talents, cried: “Bravo! Fora, fora!” she screwed up her face or smiled,
with downcast eyes.




  Aleksyéy Feofiláktovich Písemski. (1820-1881.)


  Písemski was the son of poor gentlefolk in the Government of Kostromá,
  where his father was an army officer. At fourteen years of age he
  entered the Gymnasium, and there developed a taste for the theatre and
  for writing; after graduation he studied mathematics at the Moscow
  University, but he devoted much of his time to acting in amateur
  theatricals and to public readings, becoming famous as a reader of
  Gógol. He began his literary career in 1847 and produced a large
  number of novels and dramas. In all these he evolved a cynical
  pessimism of the extremest kind, and unmercifully and without reserve
  laid bare the moral dirt and corruption that surrounded him. His
  pictures from the life of the common people, as found in _The
  Petersburgian_, _The Faun_, _Bitter Fate_, and _A Thousand Souls_, are
  remarkably realistic, though harrowing in their nakedness. Having
  incurred the enmity of the liberal writers of the sixties, who
  suspected him of retrograde tendencies, he, in 1863, wrote his novel,
  _Troubled Waters_, which roused a storm of indignation in the liberal
  camp. By depicting only the underside, with all its nastiness, of the
  movement of the sixties, he did great harm to progress in Russia.
  After that greatest of his works, his genius began to decline, and he
  died, amidst much mental and moral suffering, neglected and despised
  by the literary coteries.


                           THE OLD PROPRIETRESS

The cabin which I entered was large and neat, the woodwork was planed,
the stove white, the partition made of boards, the bench and shelves
washed clean. In the front corner, under the ikons, stood a table,
behind which sat an old man with a shaven beard, with two grey tufts of
hair on his temples, with a clever expression on his face and,
evidently, blind. He was dressed in a blue cloth coat of ancient cut,
underneath which could be seen a laced shirt front and a striped
cashmere vest, no doubt an ancient fashion, too. All that old costume of
his was clean and, it seemed, preserved in spite of time. By his side
sat a neat and trim-looking old woman, in a threadbare old hood and a
chintz capote. At first glance I thought they were poor gentlefolk. Upon
my entering, the old woman immediately rose and said something to the
old man: he raised himself, and both bowed to me.

“Please, be seated, I shall find a place,” said I.

“Never mind, sir,” said the old woman with an affected voice, brushing
aside her scanty possessions in a small bag.

“Be seated, please,” I repeated.

The old man heeded my words and, feeling the bench with the cautiousness
of a blind person, seated himself, and, bending over his staff, fixed
his dim eyes upon me. The old woman did not sit down but continued
standing in a respectful attitude. I guessed they were not gentlefolk.

“Whither are you travelling, friends?” asked I.

“To the capital of the Government, dear sir,” answered the old man in a
sad voice.

“The grandparents are seeing this lad off,--they are his grandparents,”
hastened to add the hostess, who was placing a samovár on the table.

“The grandparents of this fellow?” said I.

“Yes, sir,” answered the old man with a deep sigh, and hung his grey
head.

“What rank are you?”

“Burghers, your honour.”

“Burghers by birth?”

“By no means, sir; we were formerly manorial servants.”

“Not in this place ought a grandson of Yákov Ivánovich be,” interrupted
the hostess: “I will say it in the presence of this old man,” she
continued, “he was in his day a great gentleman, and full of mettle.
Whenever he stopped off here, I had to bestir myself: it would not have
done to offer him stale food or a dirty samovár.”

The old man smiled a bitter smile.

“We did not think, madam, that a child of our own could ever act thus,”
said the old woman in her affected and somewhat lackadaisical voice.

“What ’s to be done, mother? What ’s to be done?” replied the hostess,
also in a whining voice.

“He was left after my daughter,” proceeded the old woman. “He was our
precious diamond; we thought he would be the consolation and joy in our
loneliness and old age. We had him educated like a child of gentlefolk:
we placed him in Moscow with what we thought to be nice merchant
people.”

“What ’s to be done, what ’s to be done, mother!” again fell in the
hostess.

“Well, did he dissipate?” asked I.

“God knows, sir, whether it was the merchant people did not treat him
right, or he did not watch himself,” answered the old woman.

The old man smiled bitterly and interrupted his wife:

“He had not taken care of himself since his childhood, for he was born
and brought up a spoilt child. Other clerks in his business send money
home while they are still boys, but our lad kept on writing home for
some: we sent him money, until we were ruined. Meanwhile we heard that
he was getting into things that might bring him into jail. We wrote him
to come home, and he turned up only after two years: he was barefoot and
naked. We clothed him, hoping that he would mend under our eyes, but,
instead, he began the very first week to take everything from the house
to the inn.” With every new word there was heard more severity in his
voice, and tears stood in the eyes of the old woman.

“Who were your masters?” asked I, in order to interrupt the
conversation, which evidently gave them pain.

“Our mistress was Madam Court-intendant Pasmúrov,” reverently spoke the
old man.

“Madam Court-intendant Pasmúrov,” repeated I, remembering that my mother
used to tell about a Madam Court-intendant Pasmúrov, as in her day a
great lady.

“Your mistress was quite a prominent and well-known woman in these
parts?” said I.

At this question the face of the old man became quite serene.

“Our lady,” he began, speaking slowly and with emphasis, “was probably
the first person in Russia. She was a woman by sex, but not one man
could have stood out against her. As she said, so it was done. She was a
woman of immense brains.”

“They say she lived well, in a lordly manner,” said I.

“Royally, or as would become the wife of a field-marshal. She did not
visit her fellow landed proprietors the year round. There were forty
rooms in the manor, and yet they were crowded on holidays. They would
come down like the locusts with their nurses and their
children,--everybody was welcome,” concluded the old man in a boastful
tone.

I saw that I had before me one of those old servants of former lords,
who had grown up and become old, on the one hand, in what was then
regarded as modern fashions, and on the other, under the cane.

“You, no doubt, were a steward?” asked I.

“I was, sir,” answered he, compressing his eyes, as if to collect his
thoughts, “I was, as we used to call it in those days, chief servant of
the manor: for one thing, I had some twenty men and the musicians under
my command, but especially the serving at the table. Our lady of blessed
memory did not like things to be done half way: every day there was to
be a parade! Another thing: her eyesight was weak, so I had to write
letters at her dictation, and I had to attend courts in her behalf; I
was well instructed and, though I did not know the law as I ought to, I
knew how to get along with the officials. Up to the fiftieth year of my
life, sir, I never wore anything but silk stockings and full dress of
fine English cloth. God grant her the kingdom of heaven,--I enjoyed the
favour of my lady.”

“Nowadays there are no such masters,” said I.

“By no means, sir, and there cannot be,--I have not the honour of
knowing who you may be, for, being blind, I cannot see. There are no
such masters now,” answered the old man, as if restraining himself from
being open to me.

“I am a landed proprietor in this neighbourhood, and I should like to
ask you about those masters of olden times.”

The old man sighed.

“I am seeing my ninety-seventh year in this world, sir, and I see a
great change in everything: those old masters, I must say so, are in
comparison with those of to-day like eagles before sparrows,” spoke he,
significantly shaking his head.

“How so?” asked I.

The old man moved his hands in thoughts.

“The first thing,” he began, “they have somehow squandered their
properties, and they have not the same spirit. Gentlemen nowadays behave
differently, but then all was simple; there was plenty of everything:
grain, cattle, their own winepress,--they prepared liqueurs by the
barrel, and such meads and sweet drinks! They made merry and enjoyed
themselves; for example, they would bring together a lot of male and
female jesters on some holiday, and they would urge them on against each
other: and they fought and amused the gentlefolk; but nowadays they keep
little company with each other, and find more pleasure in books.”

Here the old man stopped, but he soon began anew with animation:

“There are not many gentlemen who now stay on their estates, unless they
be old or sick, but all serve in some capacity; there are no longer
great personages. Let us take, for instance, our lady, the
Court-intendant,” he continued, almost with emotion, “how she was
honoured in the Government! A new lieutenant, or, as you call him now, a
new governor, is appointed: he is still in St. Petersburg, but she is
already writing to her friends, the ministers and senators, that,
inasmuch as a new governor is coming to us, ‘you tell him to know me,
and I will know him.’ And the moment she receives the news that he has
arrived, she immediately sends for me. I make my appearance, and bow.
‘Listen,’ says she, ‘Yákov Ivánov!’--she always spoke a little through
her nose: ‘Listen! A new governor has arrived, so take the best
tróyka,[16] drive to Kostromá, go to such and such a jeweller and
purchase a silver basin; search out wherever you please the very best of
sterlets, or, still better, a live sturgeon; go in my name to the
governor, have yourself announced, and say this and that about your
mistress, the Court-intendant, and that, on account of ill-health, she
cannot come herself, so she congratulates him by proxy upon his arrival
and, as a resident, sends him, as a greeting and instead of the bread
and salt, fish in the basin.’ He receives it, I am given a fine treat,
and he sends a letter to our mistress.”

“So the amity began,” remarked I, in imitation of the old man’s voice.

“That ’s it, amity, your word is correct!” he fell in: “because, when
now his Excellency, the Chief of the Government, deigned to travel on
inspections, he would visit us, and those were magnificent assemblies.
From what I have seen and heard, governors nowadays travel with great
pomp, and demand great receptions and respect, and there is a great
fear, at least upon the small officials, but from what I know of the
past, the governors of to-day are nothing in comparison with them.”

“How was it then?” asked I.

“Formerly, sir, the governor travelled over the Government like a king
of the earth: what a lot of officials surrounded his person, and what a
lot of gentlefolk joined him everywhere on his journey! There was
one,--I dare not mention his name,--who was in the habit of travelling
over the Government with his wife, and she,--pardon me for saying
so,--on account of her feminine weakness, had a great love for dogs.
There was a special carriage for these dogs; and a special officer had
charge of them. He by accident lost one little dog; her Excellency the
governor’s wife, in spite of her exalted position, boxed his ears in
sight of all people, and he was discharged,--that ’s the kind of times
that were then!”

“Those were good, simple times,” remarked I.

“It was simple, sir,” concluded Yákov Ivánov; then, having thought a
moment, he continued: “It would happen, sir, that all that company
stayed with us for three or four days, or a whole week, and if the
governor chanced to praise some thing in our house, say a clock, a
picture, a silver platter, I had a standing order to take that thing in
the evening to his sleeping-room and to report that my lady was very
happy that such and such a thing had pleased him, and that she begged
him to accept it.”

“Did the old lady do it all from mere bravado?” asked I.

“Bravado there was,” answered Yákov Ivánov. “Of course, she had great
vanity, but more than that, she drew great advantages from it. For
instance, an estate was for sale by order of the chancery,--and my lady,
relying on her amicable relations to the chiefs of the Government, had
only to cast her eyes upon it, and it was ours. If I, the
plenipotentiary of Mrs. Pasmúrov, appeared at the sales in the chancery,
not a purchaser turned up: they knew full well that the Chief of the
Government did not desire it. I thanked where thanks were needed, and in
a befitting manner, and it was all right whatever was paid for the
estate. The estate of Byelogrívy, sir, came in those days into our hands
for one hundred and twenty roubles, and when I went down to take
possession of it, I collected two hundred roubles of delinquent dues
from the peasants, so you may figure out what the estate cost us.”

Saying this, the peasant evidently did not consider that he had said too
much, and when I cried out almost involuntarily:

“Old man! but that is a sin, that is stealing,” he was taken back, and
answered in an humbled voice and with a sigh:

“A sin, sir; in my wretchedness and blindness I see and feel it all; in
the commandments of the Lord it is said: thou shalt not covet thy
neighbour’s house, nor his village, nor his manservant,--but our old
lady had a desire for it all, though it must be said that all people are
not without weaknesses.” He strongly accentuated the last word.

“I should say, he and his mistress knew their advantage!” suddenly fell
in Gráchikha, who was busy at the stove: “you are telling of the estate,
but you had better tell how you delivered a gentleman into the army as a
recruit from your estate,” continued she, stepping out behind the
partition and standing near the ovenbed, while she leaned with one arm
on a beam and with the other against her fat side.

Yákov Ivánov frowned a little.

“How a gentleman?” asked I.

“They did,” answered Gráchikha. “Their mistress, the General’s wife, did
not like to get her peasants under the red hat, because she needed them
all; so there happened to turn up a poor gentleman: he was not a nice
fellow to behold; he must have been maimed when he was young,--his head
was so large and flat, and there was little sense in it, for he knew
neither count, nor days, nor anything else, and yet he knew enough to
live according to his estate. So these our falcons came to him and began
to persuade him: ‘You,’ they said, ‘are a gentleman, and yet you live as
a labourer among the peasants. You had better serve in the army; but as
you know neither how to read, nor write, you will not be ranked as a
gentleman, so you had better serve first for our estate, and later, when
you will declare yourself a gentleman, you will be properly advanced.’
Having no kin with whom to take counsel, he foolishly drank their wine
and ate their cates, and unthinkingly consented. The young gentleman was
brought to the recruiting office, and was declared a common peasant.
They called out: ‘Shave him!’ dressed him in soldier’s clothes, and
‘March!’ with the rest of the recruits. Three or four years later he
announced to his superior: ‘I,’ says he, ‘am a gentleman!’ ‘What kind of
a gentleman are you?’ says he, and he chaffed him a little, but he kept
on repeating: ‘I am a gentleman, that ’s all,’ and he went to the higher
authorities, and told them the same. They looked into the documents, and
saw that he was a peasant, so they reported that way. So our gentleman
had to give it up, and he served thirty-five years for their estate.
They knew how to fix documents! It may be that for their trickery they
are now paying with their own blood,” said Gráchikha half-loud, pointing
with her eyes to Yákov Ivánovich, who, in his turn, had listened to her
recital with bent head, and without saying a word.

I tried to change the subject, so I asked the old man:

“In whose hands is the estate of your mistress now? I saw it: it is
dilapidated and neglected, and the house is in ruins.”

“Our estate is now held in trust,” answered he, evidently satisfied with
the change. “Well, the guardians are strangers, and they either do not
care to look after things, or they steal into their own pockets. Not
only do they neglect the estate, but they do not keep the peasants in
order. Drunkards and wasters are living without fear, and those who are
better off now are frequently squeezed: ‘We will put your son,’ they
say, ‘into the army, or we will take him to our own estate.’”

“And now, peasant, pay your ransom. In former days you used to make a
great deal of money,” fell in Gráchikha.

Yákov Ivánov paid no attention to her words, and continued:

“And then the estate has no protection against the officials. In former
days, when my mistress was alive, our manorial servants were, to tell
the truth, a riotous lot. Not a church holiday passed without their
riots, when they would smash whole fairs, but the authorities,
considering who they were and to what lady they belonged, begged them
with words to stop; but nowadays, our rural captain of police, an
insignificant man, commands and punishes in our villages, just out of
interest to that accursed one himself, in whose favour he is so biassed
that he regards that day lost in which he has not had some advantage
from his office. I once met him in town, and says I to him: ‘Why and for
what cause do you, sir, so abuse the estate of my mistress?’ ‘Ah,’ says
he, ‘worthy old man, where are we, the rural police, to have our sway,
if not in the estates that are in trust? These are severe times, we are
not permitted to take bribes, but what we can pocket in any other way is
all right!’ and he laughed, sir!”

  [16] Three-horse carriage.




  Afanási Afanásevich Shenshín (Fet). (1820-1892.)


  Shenshín is one of the most melodious of the minor poets. He was born
  in the Government of Orél, and received his early education at home.
  Upon entering the Moscow University he was confronted with certain
  difficulties which compelled him to assume the name of Fet, after his
  mother by her first marriage, which he retained through life as his
  _nom de plume_. He then served in the army up to 1856, after which he
  retired to his Orél estate. He began writing in 1840, and at first
  distinguished himself as a translator from Goethe and Horace. His
  original poems, of which there is a large number, are all short and
  tunable lyrical outbursts, with rarely a title to know them by.

  Two short poems, _A Russian Scene_ and _Tryst_, are given in John
  Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_, reprinted in the Library of the
  World’s Best Literature; and the four nameless ones, given below, by
  I. H. Harrison in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 19.


      When deeply musing in the silence of the night,
        I see her, gentle Queen, above me shining clearly;
      When all the constellations pour out their rays of light,
        And Argo seems to dream, while twinkling, then I dearly
      Long for the coming hour, when I again shall see
        Thee near me, with a pain dull, dumb, and ever growing,
      As, frightened by each sound, I trembling wait for thee.
        Impatience gnaws my breast. Thou comest, slowly, showing
      By stealthy pace thy love, bashful, with timid glance
        Around thee, and I rush to see those clear eyes tell
      Their secret, and I read love’s answer in their dance,
        And hear thee softly whisper, smiling, “I love thee well!”
      I strive in vain to utter the words which fill my heart;
        All speech, by passion broken, ends but in sound unmeaning,
      And as I panting kiss thy hair, and feel a part
        Of thy breath mine becoming, I listen, o’er thee leaning,
      For what thou ’lt say, but no, I listen long in vain,--
        Without a word thy kisses freely respond to mine--
      O sweet one, may the happiness I feel be always thine,
        And mine lie in sure hope that we two meet again!

                                 ───────

 Every feeling at night to me becomes clearer and deeper,
 Shapes that are born of our fears terrible grow in the dark--
 Sounds I at once understand, e’en when o’er my book I sit musing,
 Motionless, lost in my thoughts, stung to the point of belief
 In impossible things, while that which seems strangest seems easy--
 In through the windows the moon shines, and the lamp burns on
 Dimly beside the couch, and far in the distance a tolling
 Breaks through the silence at times, filling the room with its swell;
 Gladly I yield to the charm which ever hath set my heart beating,
 Moistening mine eyes with night’s dew, tears of its infinite joy--
 Always I hear night’s song, but often the melody changes:
 Now ’t is the clang of brass, then ’t is of silver the ring.
 Strange ’t is that ears hear well when the mind is still working or
    vacant;
 Thought presses fast upon thought,--wave after wave in the sea,--
 Night with a mystical strength embraces, and into one fuses,
 Feelings and objects around, all that we see, think, and hear;
 Thus on the two-headed poppies midnight sheddeth its moisture,
 Giving them power of sleep--none can that mystery tell!

                                 ───────

   Stay here awhile,--’t is good!--Amid the shadows looming
     Widely, with jagged edge, by moonlight from the pines--
   Silence is over all! The sounds on hilltops booming
     Have here no leave to bring of heart’s unrest the signs.

   I will not go there where the stones, my faith deceiving,
     Fall from beneath my heel, as the cliff’s edge I tread,
   Sheer to the beach below; where the great waves are leaving,
     And rushing on, the shore--the play of waters dread.

   Thou, Silence, art alone before me, ’neath the quiet
     Of the deep stars, thou empress of feeling and of thought--
   But _there_ the rough wave comes, and brings its splashing riot--
     I will not go there where all is with tumult fraught.

                                 ───────

       Night, thou art so blest with odours sweet and strong,
         Thou rousest idlest fancies in the mind!
       All listen unto thee, and I cannot but long
         To speak of what I in thy stillness find.

       Thine azure vault spreads wide before my wondering eyes,
         And all thy golden lights are burning bright;
       It is as if thy stars were one great sun that tries
         To cast its rays upon my garden’s site.

       Even the moon, no longer swimming o’er tuft-crowned trees
         With placid gaze, seems like thyself to burn,
       Though all the while the brook glistens in plashing ease
         Beneath the boughs which hide its every turn.

       The feeblest noise resounds throughout thee like a blow;
         Air whispers, like the strings of a guitar,
       So tenderly to thee that all who hear him know
         The call to love from lands both near and far.

       All Nature seems aroused, in concert to cry out
         In speech that will not let our fancies die;
       We push the casement open to look on night without,
         And trembling try to read the silvery sky.

      --Transl. by I. H. Harrison, in The Anglo-Russian Literary
          Society, No. 19.


                                  TRYST

                    A whisper, a gentle sigh,
                      Trills of the nightingale;
                    The silver flash of the brook,
                      Asleep in the sleepy vale.
                    The shadows and shine of night--
                      Shadows in endless race;
                    The sweet of a magical change
                      Over a sweet young face.
                    The blush of a rose in a mist,
                      An amber gleam on the lawn;
                    A rush of kisses and tears--
                      And oh, “the Dawn! the Dawn!”

      --From John Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.




  Fédor Mikháylovich Dostoévski. (1821-1881.)


  Dostoévski was the second of seven children of a poor army surgeon. He
  was brought up at home, which consisted of but two living rooms, by
  his father. At thirteen years of age he was sent to a boarding school,
  and later to the School of Engineering in St. Petersburg from which he
  graduated in 1843. He received a good appointment, but soon resigned
  from it in order to devote himself to literature. His first novel,
  _Poor People_, appeared in 1846, and was proclaimed as the work of a
  “new Gógol.” In 1849 he was arrested for a supposed participation in a
  conspiracy and was sentenced for four years to Siberian prisons, after
  which he was to serve as a soldier in a Siberian regiment. His nerves,
  which had never been strong, were completely shattered in his
  imprisonment, and he at times had fits of epilepsy. He was permitted
  to return to European Russia in 1859. Two years later he published
  with his brother a periodical, _The Time_, in which appeared
  simultaneously two of his great novels, _The Humiliated and the
  Offended_, and _The Memoirs from the Dead House_. His best novel,
  _Crime and Punishment_, came out a few years later. Only towards the
  end of his life did his works and his literary labours furnish him
  with a competency. Dostoévski’s writings lack the artistic perfection
  of his great contemporaries, and almost entirely neglect the
  description of Nature; but they are unsurpassed for the psychological
  analysis of human character, especially of the diseased mind. It has
  been pointed out by a medical authority that in his analysis of
  pathological cases he has anticipated later scientific discoveries.

  The following works have been translated into English: _Buried Alive;
  or, Ten Years of Penal Servitude in Siberia_, translated by Marie von
  Philo, London and New York, 1881; _Prison Life in Siberia_, translated
  by H. S. Edwards, London, 1887; _Crime and Punishment_, London, 1885,
  New York, 1886 and 1889 (4th ed. London, 1893); _Injury and Insult_,
  translated by F. Whishaw, London, 1886; _Uncle’s Dream_, and _The
  Permanent Husband_, London, 1888-9; _Friend of the Family_, and _The
  Gambler_, London, 1887-9; _Poor Folk_ (Franklin Square Library, No.
  594), New York, 1887, translated by L. Milman, Boston, and London,
  1894; _The Idiot_, London, 1887-8; extracts from _Poor People_, and
  _Crime and Punishment_, translated by I. Hapgood, in the Library of
  the World’s Best Literature.


                       FROM “CRIME AND PUNISHMENT”


                         RASKÓLNIKOV’S CONFESSION

Raskólnikov again covered his face with his hands and dropped his head.
He suddenly grew pale, rose from his chair, looked at Sónya, and,
without uttering a word or being conscious of the act, seated himself on
her bed.

To his sensations, that moment bore a dreadful resemblance to the one
when he was standing back of the old woman and, having loosened the axe
from the noose, was feeling that not another minute was to be lost.

“What is the matter with you?” asked Sónya, terrified.

He could not speak a word. It was not at all that way that he had
intended to announce it to her, and he did not himself understand what
was going on within him. She softly went up to him, sat down on the bed
near him, and waited, without taking her eyes away from him. Her heart
alternately beat strongly or stopped beating. It became unbearable. He
turned his deathly pale face to her; his lips twitched impotently in a
vain effort to say something. Terror passed through Sónya’s heart.

“What is the matter with you?” she repeated, moving a little away from
him.

“Nothing, Sónya. Don’t get frightened. Nonsense! Really, when you come
to think of it, it is nonsense,” he muttered like a delirious person who
is not conscious of himself. “But why have I chosen you of all persons
to torment?” he added suddenly, looking at her. “Really, why? I am
continually asking myself this question, Sónya.”

It may be he had asked himself that question fifteen minutes before, but
just then he had lost control of himself and hardly knew what he was
about, feeling only an uninterrupted chill over his whole body.

“Oh, how you suffer!” she spoke with a painful expression, looking
fixedly at him.

“It ’s all bosh!---- Say, Sónya” (he, for some reason, suddenly for a
second or two smiled a pale and impotent smile), “do you remember what I
had intended to tell you yesterday?”

Sónya was waiting restlessly.

“I told you, as I left you, that it was probably the last time I was
bidding you good-bye, but that if I came back to-day, I would tell
you--who killed Lizavéta.”

A tremor suddenly passed over her whole body.

“So, you see, I have come to tell you.”

“So you really did yesterday----” she whimpered with difficulty. “But
how do you know?” she immediately asked, as if coming to.

Sónya began to breathe with difficulty. Her face grew paler and paler.

“I do know.”

She remained silent for a minute.

“Did they find him?” she asked him timidly.

“No, they did n’t.”

“How, then, do you know about it?” she again asked him barely audibly,
after a minute’s silence.

He turned around to her and fixed his gaze at her. “Guess!” he muttered
with the same convulsive and impotent smile as before.

Her whole body was shivering as if with cramps. “You--why do you--do you
frighten me?” she spoke and smiled like a child.

“It must be, then, I am a great friend of his, since I know,” proceeded
Raskólnikov, continuing uninterruptedly to look at her face, as though
it was beyond him to take his eyes away from her. “He did not mean
to--kill--that Lizavéta-- He--killed her by accident-- He wanted to kill
the old woman--when she was alone--and he came-- And then Lizavéta
entered-- He--then killed her too.”

Another terrible minute passed. They looked at each other.

“So you can’t guess?” he suddenly asked her, with a sensation as if he
were falling down a belltower.

“N--no!” Sónya lisped almost inaudibly.

“Take a good look.”

When he said that, the former, familiar sensation suddenly iced his
soul. He glanced at her, and immediately it appeared to him, he
recognised Lizavéta in her face. He vividly remembered the expression of
Lizavéta’s face as he approached her with the axe and she kept receding
to the wall, with outstretched hand, and perfectly childish expression
of fear in her face, precisely as little children do who, when they
suddenly become frightened at something, immovably and restlessly look
at the object of their fear, step back and begin to cry, while
stretching out their little hands. Almost the same took place with
Sónya. She looked at him for a while, just as powerless, with just the
same expression of terror; then, suddenly, she stretched out her left
hand, barely touched his breast with her fingers, and began to rise
slowly from the bed, all the time removing farther away from him and
ever more immovably fixing her eyes upon him.

Her terror was soon communicated to him, and he began to look at her,
almost with the same childish smile.

“Have you guessed?” he whispered at last.

“Lord!” A terrible moan issued from her breast. She fell powerless on
the bed, with her face on the pillows. But in a moment she was again on
her feet, rapidly walked up to him, seized his two hands, and, pressing
them hard with her thin fingers, as in a vise, again became motionless
as if glued to the place, and stared at him. With this last, despairing
glance she wanted to read some last hope in his face. But there was no
hope; there was no suspicion left; it was all so! Even later, when she
recalled that moment, she felt inexpressibly strange: how was it that
she then saw at once that there was no doubt whatsoever left? For
certainly she could not say that she had had a presentiment of that
kind. But just then, when he had barely told her about it, it suddenly
flashed upon her that she really had had some such presentiment.

“Stop, Sónya, stop! Do not torment me!” he begged her pitifully. He had
had the intention of telling her about it in an entirely different
manner, but it had turned out just that way.

She jumped up, as if beside herself, and, wringing her hands, stepped to
the centre of the room; but she immediately returned and seated herself
by his side, touching his shoulder with her own. Then she suddenly
quivered, as if pierced by an arrow, cried out aloud, and, without
knowing herself why, kneeled down before him.

“Oh, what have you done with yourself?” she cried in despair and, rising
to her feet, embraced his neck and pressed it with all her might.

Raskólnikov reeled back and looked at her with a sad smile.

“You are a strange girl, Sónya! You embrace and kiss me, though I told
you all about it. You are beside yourself.”

“No, there is not a more unfortunate man in the whole world than you
are!” she called out, as if in a stupor, without hearing his remark, and
suddenly bursting into tears, as if in hysterics.

A long unfamiliar feeling flooded his soul and at once softened it. He
did not struggle against it: two tears rolled out of his eyes and hung
upon his lashes.

“So you will not leave me, Sónya?” he spoke, looking almost hopefully at
her.

“No, no! Never and nowhere!” Sónya cried out. “I will go with you,
anywhere you want me to! O Lord! O miserable girl that I am. Oh, why,
why did I not know you before? Why did you not come to see me before? O
Lord!”

“You see, I have come now!”

“Now! Oh, what can now be done? Both of us, both of us!” she cried out
as if oblivious and again embraced him. “I ’ll go to Siberia with you!”

Something touched him to the quick, and his former hateful and almost
supercilious smile stood upon his lips.

“Sónya, as far as that is concerned, I may not yet be ready to go to
Siberia,” he said.

Sónya cast a swift glance at him.

After her first impassioned and vexatious sympathy with the unfortunate
man, the terrible idea of the murder struck her again forcibly. She
heard the murderer in his changed tone of voice. She looked in
wonderment at him. She knew nothing as yet, neither why, nor how, nor
for what purpose. Now all these questions burst at once upon her
consciousness. And again she could not believe: “He, he a murderer! But
is that possible?”

“But what is that? Where am I?” she exclaimed in great perplexity as if
still in a trance. “But how could you, you, take that step? How was it
possible?”

“Why, to rob. Stop, Sónya!” he answered, as if exhausted and even as if
annoyed.

Sónya stood for a moment, as if struck dumb, then she suddenly cried
out:

“You had been hungry! You--to help your mother? Yes?”

“No, Sónya, no,” he muttered and turned away his drooping head, “I was
not so hungry, I really wanted to help my mother, but--that is not quite
correct either--do not torment me, Sónya!”

Sónya wrung her hands.

“But can all this be really true? Lord, is it true? Who would believe
it?---- How can it be, you give away your last, and then you kill, in
order to rob! Ah!” she suddenly cried out. “The money, the money that
you had given Katerína Ivánovna--that money--Lord, can it be that money,
too?”

“No, Sónya,” he speedily interrupted her, “not that money, calm
yourself! That money mother sent me by a merchant, and I received it
when I was sick, and that very day I gave it away. No, that was my
money, my own money.”

Sónya listened to him perplexed and was invoking all her reasoning power
in order to form a concept.

“That money--I really do not even know whether there was any money
there,” he added softly and as if lost in meditation. “I did take off a
purse, a full chamois purse, from her neck, but I did not open it to
look into it; I suppose I did not have the time for it---- There were
some other things, studs, chains, and I know not what,--I buried all
that and the purse next morning under a rock in somebody’s yard, in the
V. Prospect---- It ’s all there yet----”

Sónya was straining herself to hear.

“Then why did you do it? You said yourself, you did it to rob, and then
you did not take anything?” she quickly asked him, trying to catch at a
straw.

“I do not know--I have not yet made up my mind whether to take that
money, or not,” he spoke, as if again lost in meditation, but suddenly
regaining consciousness, his face was lit up by a swift, soft smile.
“Oh, what a lot of bosh I have been just saying, eh?”

A thought flashed through Sónya’s mind: “Maybe he is insane!” but she
immediately arrested her thought: “No, there is something else there.”
She did not understand a thing, not a thing!

“Do you know, Sónya,” he suddenly said with a kind of inspiration, “do
you know what I will tell you? If I had murdered them because I was
hungry,” he continued, accentuating every word, and enigmatically,
though sincerely, looking at her, “I would now be happy! You had better
know that! What do you care, what do you care,” he cried out after a
moment in a voice akin to despair, “what do you care for my confession,
if I were to make it, that I have done wrong? What good could such a
foolish victory of yours over me do you? O Sónya, did I now come to you
for that?”

Sónya again wanted to say something, but she kept silent.

“That ’s why I wanted you last night to be with me, because you are the
only one left to me.”

“Where did you want me to go to?” Sónya asked timidly.

“Not to steal, nor murder, don’t worry--not for that,” he smiled
sarcastically. “I only now begin to understand what I called you for
last night! Yesterday, I did not understand what I called you for. I
called you for the same purpose for which I have come to see you now:
not to leave me. You will not leave me, Sónya?”

She pressed his hand.

“Now, why did I tell her, why did I confess to her,” he cried out a
minute later in despair, looking in endless torment at her. “You are
waiting for an explanation from me, Sónya; you are sitting there and
waiting, I see it; but what am I to tell you? You won’t understand a
word of it; you will only suffer torment--for me! There, there you are
weeping and again embracing me. Why are you embracing me? Is it because
I did not bear it all myself, but came to put it on other shoulders,
that by your suffering I may feel relieved? And you can love such a
villain?”

“Are n’t you suffering yourself?” Sónya exclaimed.

The same feeling again flooded his soul, and again for a moment softened
it.

“Sónya, my heart is bad. Take a note of that, for you will be able to
explain much by it. I came because I am bad. There are some who would
not have come. But I am a coward, a villain! Well, let it be! But that
is not it!----I ought to talk now, and I do not know how to begin----”

He stopped and fell to musing.

“Bah, we don’t belong together!” he again exclaimed. “We are not a match
for each other. Why, why did I come? I shall never forgive myself!”

“No, no! It is good that you have come!” exclaimed Sónya, “it is better
that I should know, much better!”

He looked in pain at her.

“After all, why not?” he said, as if pondering over it. “It certainly
happened that way! Listen: I wanted to be a Napoleon, that ’s why I
murdered---- Well, do you understand now?”

“N--no!” Sónya muttered naïvely and timidly, “but just go on! I ’ll
understand you, I ’ll make it out!” she begged him.

“You will understand? Very well, we shall see!”

He grew silent and pondered for a long while.

“It is like this: I once asked myself what would have happened if
Napoleon had been in my place, and had had nothing with which to begin
his career, neither Toulon, nor Egypt, nor crossing Mont-Blanc; if
instead of all these beautiful and monumental things there would be
nothing but a funny old woman, a registrar’s widow, whom, in addition,
it would be necessary to kill in order to get the money out of her trunk
(for the sake of a career, you understand!),--well, would he have made
up his mind to do so, if there had been no other way? Would he have had
scruples because it is far from being monumental, and--and because it is
sinful? Well, I tell you, this ‘question’ tormented me for a dreadfully
long time, so that I felt very much ashamed when at last I guessed (it
came all of a sudden to me), that he not only would not have had any
scruples, but that it would not even have occurred to him that it was
not monumental--and that he would have been at a loss to see what he was
to have any scruples about? And if no other road had been open to him,
he would have choked her to death, without giving her a chance to cry
out, and he would not even have brooded over it. Well, I--stopped
brooding over it--killed her--following the example of my authority----
It was precisely that way! You think it is funny? Yes, Sónya, the
funniest thing about all this is that it really happened that way----”

Sónya did not think it at all funny.

“You had better tell me straight, without examples,” she begged him more
timidly and in a hardly audible voice.

He turned towards her, sadly looked at her, and took her hands.

“You are again right, Sónya. That is indeed nonsense, nothing but empty
prattle! You see: you know that my mother hardly has a thing. My sister
has somehow managed to get an education, and she is destined to wear her
life away as a governess. All their hopes were centred in me. I studied,
but was unable to support myself in the university, and was compelled to
leave it for a time. Even as it was, I still might have hoped, if
circumstances became favourable, in ten or twelve years to be a teacher
or official, with a thousand roubles yearly salary.” He spoke as if he
had learned it by heart. “In the meanwhile my mother would dry up from
cares and grief, and I should not after all succeed in making her lot
easier, while my sister--well, something worse could happen to her!----
What pleasure is there in passing all your life by things and avoiding
them, in forgetting your mother, or, say, respectfully bearing the
insult offered to your sister? What for? To bury them, to get a family
of your own, wife and children, and then to leave these too without a
penny? Well--well, so I decided to get hold of the old woman’s money, to
use it for the first few years, by providing for myself in the
university, without putting my mother to any trouble, and to use it also
for the first steps after my university career. I had decided to do it
all in a broad, radical manner, so as to provide abundantly for my new
career, and to start on a new and independent road---- Of course, it is
wrong for me to have killed that old woman--well, enough of it!”

He dragged out the story in complete exhaustion, and his head fell down
on his breast.

“Oh, it is not that, not that,” Sónya exclaimed dejectedly, “how could
one--no, not that way, not that way!”

“You see yourself that it is not so! Still I have told you the whole
truth!”

“What truth is that! O Lord!”

“I have only killed a louse, Sónya, a useless, nasty, harmful louse.”

“You call a person a louse!”

“I know myself that she is not a louse,” he answered, looking at her in
a strange manner. “However, Sónya, I am lying,--I have been lying for a
long time---- No, it is not that; you are right. No, there are
altogether different reasons!---- I have not talked to anybody for a
long time, Sónya---- My head hurts me dreadfully.”

His eyes burnt with a feverish fire. He was almost growing delirious; a
restless smile hovered on his lips. A terrible impotence could be seen
through the excited condition of his soul. Sónya understood how he was
suffering. Her own head began to whirl. And he spoke so strangely, and
yet as if one might understand, but--“How is it possible? How is it
possible, O Lord?” and she wrung her hands in despair.

“No, Sónya, it is not that!” he began again, raising his head, as if a
sudden new turn in his thoughts had struck him and roused him. “It is
not that! But rather, suppose (yes, that is better!), suppose that I am
selfish, envious, malicious, villainous, revengeful, well--if you wish
it, inclined to insanity. (Let us grant all, while we are about it! We
spoke before of insanity, it seems!) I told you long ago that I could
not keep myself at the university. But do you know, I may have been able
to after all! Mother would have sent the amount for the fees, and very
likely I could have earned enough for shoes, clothes, and bread! There
was some tutoring to do, and they offered fifty kopeks an hour. Take
Razumíkhin, he is working! But I just got mad, and did n’t want to. That
’s it, mad,--that is a good word! I then kept to my corner like a
spider. You have been in my den, you have seen it---- Do you know,
Sónya, low ceilings and small rooms oppress soul and mind! Oh, how I did
hate that den! And yet, I did not wish to leave it! I did not leave it
for days at a time, and I did not want to work, or even eat, but lay
there all the time. If Nastásya brought me anything, I would eat it; if
not,--a day might pass without eating. I was so mad, I did not ask on
purpose. During the evenings I had no candles, but lay in darkness. I
did not try to earn enough for candles. I ought to have studied, but I
had sold my books; on my notes and copybooks that are lying on the table
there is even now an inch of dust. I preferred to lie and think. And I
did nothing but think---- I had such strange visions, such peculiar
dreams, just horrible! It was then that I began to imagine that--no,
that is n’t correct! I am again telling wrong! You see, I kept on asking
myself: why am I so stupid and do not try to be wiser, when others are
stupid and I am positive that they are stupid? Then I discovered, Sónya,
that it would take a long time to wait for others to get wiser---- Then
I found out that it would never happen, that people would not change,
that nobody could change them, and that it was not worth the while
anyway! Yes, that ’s the way! That ’s their law, their law, Sónya! That
’s so!---- I know even now, Sónya, that he who is strong and mighty in
soul and mind is their master! He who dares is right in their eyes. He
who looks with contempt at most things is their lawgiver, and he who
dares most of all is most right! So it has always been, and so it will
always be! Only a blind man will refuse to see that!”

Saying this, Raskólnikov looked at Sónya, but he was no longer concerned
about her understanding him. He was in a kind of sombre rapture. He had
really not exchanged any words with anyone for a long time. Sónya
understood that that gloomy catechism was his faith and law.

“I then came to the conclusion, Sónya,” he proceeded in an ecstatic
mood, “that power is given only to him who dares to bend in order to
take it up. That is the only thing,--one must dare! Then I worked out a
thought, for the first time in my life, which no one had ever worked out
before! Nobody! It all of a sudden became clear to me as the sun that it
was very strange that, passing by all that nonsense, no one had ever
dared or would dare to take the whole business by the tail and send it
flying to the devil! I--I wanted to dare, and I killed--I only wanted to
dare. Sónya, there is the whole reason!”

“Oh, hush, hush!” cried Sónya, and wrung her hands. “You have departed
from God, and God has struck you down, and has given you over to the
devil!”

“By the way, Sónya, when I was lying in the dark and all kinds of
thoughts came to me, was it the devil that was tempting me, eh?”

“Hush! Don’t laugh, blasphemer! You do not understand anything, not a
thing! O Lord! He will not understand anything!”

“Hush, Sónya, I am not at all laughing, I know myself that the devil was
dragging me all the time. Hush, Sónya, hush!” he repeated gloomily and
with emphasis. “I know all. I thought it all over and whispered it to
myself as I was lying there in the dark--I have discussed it all with
myself, down to the finest point, and I know all, I know all! And I got
then so tired of all that prattle! I wanted to forget and begin anew,
Sónya, and stop all that nonsense! Do you really think I went headlong,
like a fool? I went like a shrewd fellow, and it is this that has been
my undoing! Or do you really think that I did not know, for example,
that the very fact that I kept on asking myself and discussing with
myself whether I had a right to have power, was in itself a proof that I
had no such right? Or, that when I put the question to myself: ‘Is man a
louse?’ man is no longer a louse, as far as I am concerned, but that he
is only a louse for him who has no doubts about it, and proceeds without
any questions? The very fact that I was vexed for several days by the
question, whether Napoleon would have gone or not, showed that I clearly
felt that I was no Napoleon---- I suffered all the torment of that
nonsense, Sónya, and I wanted to get rid of it. I wanted to kill without
casuistry, Sónya, to kill for my own sake, only for me! I did not want
to lie in this matter, not even to myself! I did not kill in order to
help mother,--that ’s bosh! I did not kill in order to get the means and
the power with which to do good to humankind. Bosh! I simply killed,
killed for my own sake, only for me. No doubt, it was all the same to me
at that moment whether I was ever to become anybody’s benefactor, or
whether I was going, like a spider, to catch them all in my cobweb in
order to suck their vital sap!---- Nor was money the main thing that I
wanted when I killed her, Sónya; not so much the money as something
else---- Now I know it all---- Understand me: if I were to go on that
road again, I should never repeat that murder. I had to find out
something else,--something else drew me on. What I had to find out
then,--and find out at once,--was whether I was a louse or a man!
Whether I should be able to transgress or not! Whether I should be able
to bend and take up or not! Whether I am a trembling creature, or
whether I have the right----”

“To kill? Whether you have the right to kill?” Sónya wrung her hands.

“Ah, Sónya!” he exclaimed excitedly; he wanted to retort something, but
contemptuously kept silent. “Do not interrupt me, Sónya! I wanted to
prove but one thing to you: that the devil was then drawing me on, and
that only later he explained to me that I had no right to go there,
because I am just the same kind of a louse as anybody else. He has had
his laugh at me, and so I have come to you now! Here is a guest for you!
If I were not a louse, would I have come to you? Listen! When I was then
going to the old woman, I only went to try--I am telling you!”

“And you killed her! You killed her!”

“How killed her? Is that the way to kill? Do people go to kill the way I
went? I ’ll tell you sometime how I went then!---- Did I kill the old
woman? I killed myself, and not the old woman! I then crushed myself for
eternity!---- The devil killed the old woman, and not I---- Enough,
Sónya, enough! Leave me alone,” he suddenly cried out in convulsive
despair, “leave me alone!”

He bent over his knees and pressed his head with his hands, as if in a
vise.

“Oh, what torment!” Sónya moaned pitifully.

“Well, what is to be done now, speak!” he asked, suddenly raising his
head and looking at her with a face that was horribly distorted by
despair.

“What is to be done!” she exclaimed, jumping up from her seat, and her
eyes that had been full of tears suddenly began to sparkle.

“Rise!” She grabbed him by his shoulder; he raised himself and looked
almost perplexed at her. “Go at once, this very minute, stand at the
cross-road, make your obeisance, first kiss the earth that you have
polluted, then bow to the whole world, on all four sides, and cry out
aloud to all, so that all may hear it: ‘I have murdered!’ Then God will
send you life again. Will you go? Will you?” she asked him, trembling as
if in a fit. She seized both his hands, pressed them tightly with her
own, and looked at him with a fiery glance.

He was perplexed and was even surprised at her sudden ecstasy.

“You are talking about Siberia, Sónya, are n’t you? If I understand you
right, I am to accuse myself,” he said gloomily.

“What is necessary is to accept the suffering and redeem yourself
through suffering.”

“No, Sónya, I won’t go to them.”

“But how are you going to live?--how are you? What are you going to live
by?” Sónya exclaimed. “Will that be possible now? How are you going to
talk to your mother? Oh, what will become of them, what will become of
them now? But what am I saying? You have already abandoned mother and
sister. You have abandoned them, you have. O Lord!” she exclaimed, “he
knows all that himself! How, pray, how can one live without people? What
will become of you?”

“Be no child, Sónya,” he softly said. “What am I guilty of in their
presence? Why should I go? What shall I tell them? That is all
visionary---- They themselves get away with people by the million, and
regard it a virtue. They are rascals and villains, Sónya!---- I won’t
go. What should I tell them?--that I have killed somebody, and that I
did not dare take the money, but hid it under a rock?” he added with a
sarcastic smile. “Why, they will themselves laugh at me, and will say:
‘He was a fool not to take the money. A coward and a fool!’ They will
understand nothing, absolutely nothing, Sónya, and they do not deserve
to understand. Why should I go? Be no child, Sónya.”

“You will worry your life away, you will worry your life away,” she
repeated, stretching out her hands to him, and imploring him with a
despairing look.

“Maybe I have incriminated myself beyond necessity,” he remarked
gloomily, as if lost in meditation, “maybe I am still a man, and not a
louse, and have been too hasty in accusing myself---- I will struggle on
for a while.”

A haughty smile lay on his closed lips.

“To bear such a torment! And it is for a lifetime, for a lifetime!”

“I ’ll get used to it,” he said morosely and pensively. “Listen,” he
began a minute later, “it ’s time to stop weeping, and think of
business. I came to tell you that they are looking for me now, and
trying to catch me----”

“Ah!” exclaimed Sónya in fright.

“Why have you cried out! You yourself wanted me to be sent to the mines,
and now you are frightened. But let me tell you: I am not going to give
myself up to them. I will struggle on, and they will do nothing. They
have no real clue. Yesterday I was in great danger, and I thought that I
was undone; but to-day things have improved. All their proofs have two
ends to them, that is, I can turn their accusations to my advantage, do
you understand? And I will do so, for I have learned a thing or two. But
they will certainly put me in jail. If it had not been for just one
incident, they would have put me in jail to-day, and maybe they still
will---- But that is nothing, Sónya. I shall stay there a while, and
then they will let me out, for they have not a single proper proof, and
there will be none,--I give you my word for it. With what they know,
they cannot hold a man. Well, that ’s enough---- I just wanted you to
know---- I shall try to fix matters with my mother and sister, so as to
allay their suspicions and fears. Besides, my sister seems to be
provided for at present, consequently mother too. Well, that ’s all.
However, you want to be cautious. Will you come to see me in jail, when
I am taken there?”

“O yes, I will, I will!”

They were sitting side by side, sorrowful and crushed, as if cast by a
storm on a desolate shore. He looked at Sónya and he felt how much her
love was upon him, and, strange to say, he suddenly had a heavy and
painful feeling because he was loved. Yes, that was a strange and
terrible sensation! As he was on his way to Sónya, he felt that all his
hope was in her. He had hoped to put away part of his sufferings, and
now that all her heart had turned to him, he suddenly felt and knew that
he was infinitely more unhappy than he had been before.

“Sónya,” he said, “you had better not come to see me in jail.”

Sónya did not answer, she was weeping.

“You won’t, will you?”

“Here, take this cypress cross. I have another, of copper, that used to
belong to Lizavéta. Lizavéta and I have exchanged crosses: she gave me
her cross, and I gave her my image. I shall now wear Lizavéta’s, and you
keep this one. Take it--it is mine! It is mine!” she begged him. “We
will suffer together, let us together bear the cross!”

“Give it to me!” said Raskólnikov. He did not wish to offend her. But he
immediately drew back the hand that he had stretched out to receive the
cross.

“Not now, Sónya. Better some other time,” he added, in order to calm
her.

“Yes, yes, better later,” she said in rapture, “when you begin your
punishment, then you will put it on. You will come to me, and I shall
put it on you; then we will pray and we shall start.”




  Apollón Nikoláevich Máykov. (1821-1898.)


  A. N. Máykov was the grandson of V. I. Máykov, the author of the
  _Eliséy_ (see vol. i., p. 263), and the son of a well-known artist. He
  passed his early childhood in the country, near Moscow, until his
  family, in 1834, emigrated to St. Petersburg. Here he early came in
  contact with the literary circles, and was prepared for the university
  by Goncharóv (see p. 259), who was his tutor in Russian literature. At
  first he devoted himself entirely to painting, and attached little
  importance to his poetical talents; but his growing nearsightedness
  interfered with his artistic activity, and the flattering reception of
  his verses by Byelínski led him to turn his attention to poetry. In
  1842 he went abroad, staying more than a year in Italy, attending the
  Collège de France and the Sorbonne, and plunging into the Pan-slavic
  propaganda at Prague. Upon his return he wrote a large number of
  poems, dealing with his European impressions, and also some from
  Russian history. He excelled in the description of classic antiquity,
  which culminated in his great work, _The Two Worlds_, with _Three
  Deaths_ as a kind of prologue to it; his classic knowledge appears to
  great advantage in his _Anthological Poems_. Of his medieval poems may
  be mentioned _Savonarola_ and _The Council of Clermont_. He kept
  entirely aloof from the questions of the day, and Russian contemporary
  history and life occupied but a small space in his productions: he
  either betook himself to depicting scenery, as in _The Catching of the
  Fish_, or to the idealisation of the past. Of his many translations,
  mainly from the Slavic languages, must be especially mentioned his
  admirable modernisation of _The Word of Ígor’s Armament_.

  In Macmillan’s Magazine, vol. xxxiii. (1877), is given _To the Empress
  of India_; in C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_, London, 1887, are
  given: _The Cornfields_, _Hay-making_, _The Mountain Spring_, _The
  Idiot Girl_, _A Picture_; in John Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_,
  London, 1891: _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_, _Who Was He?_, _The Easter
  Kiss_, _On Lomonósov_, _Propriety_, _The Singer_, _A Little Picture_,
  _The Alpine Glacier_, _The Mother_, _The Kiss Refused_, _The
  Snowdrop_, _A Smile and a Tear_. In The Anglo-Russian Literary
  Society: by F. P. Marchant, _The Marble Faun_, in No. 19, _On
  Re-reading Pushkin_, in No. 32, _The Thought_, _Hesiod_, _The Muse_,
  _The Peris_, _The Hermit_, _Happy realm of youth eternal_, _When
  overwhelmed by grief_, _From the Gnostics_, in No. 33; by J. Pollen,
  reprint of his _A Little Picture_, in No. 33. In Free Russia are
  given: by Elizabeth Gibson, _The Council of Constance_, in vol. xi.,
  Nos. 8-10, and parts of the _Three Deaths_, in vol. xii., No. 4. In
  the Library of the World’s Best Literature are reprinted J. Pollen’s
  _The Easter Kiss_, _The Alpine Glacier_, _The Kiss Refused_.


                                THE PERIS

               Her sins atoned by tears of sorrow,
                 Those penitential tears scarce dry,
               The soul, by her Creator pardoned,
                 Flies on swift wings to realms on high.

               Through starry space, the soul embracing,
                 White peris take their flight along,
               While choirs of infant cherubs thronging
                 Greet her with bursts of joyous song.

               Oh, with ecstatic cries of rapture
                 She would fill all the heavenly plains,
               Would render thanks, and in rejoicing
                 Forget all former earthly pains!

               But, circling round with curious glances
                 And coaxing wiles, the peris all
               Entreat her, with most tender pleading,
                 To tell the story of her fall.

               Is it their joy a soul to comfort,
                 From earthly trials gone up on high?
               Or do they know by strange traditions
                 This world of sin beyond the sky?

      --Transl. by F. P. Marchant, in The Anglo-Russian Literary
          Society, No. 33.


                               WHO WAS HE?


                        A STORY OF PETER THE GREAT

              Upon the mighty Neva’s bank,
                Along the winding woodland way,
              A Horseman rode, in forest wilds
                Of elms, of pine, of mosses grey.

              Before him rose a Fisher’s hut;
                Beneath a pine, by the blue stream,
              An aged, bearded Fisherman
                Was mending his boat’s broken beam.

              The Horseman said, “Grandsire! Good-day!
                God help thee, friend! how livest thou?
              Dost thou catch much? and tell me, pray,
                Where dost thou sell thy takings now?”

              The old man answered sullenly,
                “Are fishes in the river few?
              And other market have I none
                Except the town, there, close to you.

              “And how am I to fish to-day?
                What kind of turmoil’s here, you see!
              You fight; and, in the fight, a shell
                Has smashed my fishing-boat for me!”

              The Horseman bounded from his horse,
                Without a word the tools he grasped;
              And in a twinkling planked the boat,
                The rudder in the stern set fast.

              “See, now, old friend, thy boat’s all right!
                Out on the water boldly set;
              And, in the name of Peter’s luck,
                Cast forth into the deep thy net.”

              He vanished. Mused the stern old man:
                “I wonder who the de’il was he!
              In every inch he looked a king,
                But plied the hatchet splendidly.”

      --From J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.


                             THE MARBLE FAUN

 Through a deserted garden-walk I wandered in the shade,
 The rosy twilight faded, and of leaves the trees all bare
 In dark clusters stood around me, while the autumn evening made
 The atmosphere quite chilly. Then among the thickets there
 I chanced to find a statue of a faun once white and clean,
 With rubbish, dust, and moss encrusted, dingy, mildewed, green.
 He glanced from out the branches with a pleasant smile, and these
 Set in motion gently by the wind, his strong visage swept,
 While hidden from my downward glance the marble form they kept.
 I saw the aged lindens shake, and lo, among the trees
 Were other forms of marble that within their foliage slept.
 But what of all most struck my view wrapped in the shrubs’ embrace
 Was that one marble image-head and mocking, smiling face.
 I admired the ancient idol, long neglected, for a while,
 And the face amid the thicket threw at me a cunning smile.
 I felt a kind of pity. “Thou wert held of old divine,
 Image cynical and smiling! To the flute’s melodious sound
 Men prepared to thee the sacrifice, for thee the flames did shine,
 They uttered prayers, the lamb expired, and thou wert sprinkled round
 With the fresh blood of the victim. Now, I pray thee, let me know,
 Art thou sighing for the days gone by,--thy vanished power and crown?
 Then upon those youthful races did a happier lot pour down?
 Or have sages merely fabled of the days of long ago?
 Was that tale a vain invention, of their lives of peace and joy,
 Or did ceaseless labour in the field their energies employ?
 Thou dost smile upon me, dost thou?--Then when dawned a later date
 Thou didst gaze, a mute spectator, on a splendid court and state;
 Thou wert looked on as a marvel when among the ruins found,
 Then the garden was laid out for thee, and thou wert compassed round
 With the tritons and the naiads, with Athenians old and wise,
 And with Rome’s Imperial Cæsars and Greek Sovereigns of the skies;
 Thou didst look on it with laughter, and thy pleasant visage glowed
 On the ball-scene’s glitter gazing. Then the garden overflowed
 With the ringing strains of music. In that alley’s gloomy shade
 A pair of youthful lovers from the guests their shelter made.
 Thou didst note their stolen interviews among the bushes dark,
 Thou didst hear the kiss resounding, and their fond caresses mark.
 Tell me further: were those lovers’ ardent pledges kept for long
 Unrepentant and unbroken? Was their hearts’ love always strong,
 Shining brightly, burning ever, not expiring like a spark?
 Were their names and plighted promise,--on thy pedestal here traced
 By precise and earnest fingers,--by the raindrops soon effaced?
 Or, maybe, they wandered here again, beneath thy lindens’ shade,
 Where to meet with other paramours they new appointments made?
 Through the thick boughs overhanging did thy sly and sneering smile
 From their amorous professions tear the treacherous mask away?
 Did their faces, flushed with crimson, their deceitful hearts betray?”

                   ────────────────────────────────────

 Thus I gazed in mute inquiry on the statue for a while,
 And the marble cynic answered with his calm, sarcastic smile.

      --Transl. by F. P. Marchant, in The Anglo-Russian Literary
          Society, No. 19.


                   FROM THE LYRIC DRAMA “THREE DEATHS”


                    THE DEATH OF SENECA AND OF LUCIUS

    (_Having embraced Seneca and Lucius, Lucan exit, in company of the
                                lictors._)

_Seneca_ (_wants to follow him, but stops as his disciples rush up to
him; stroking his brow, he speaks softly and solemnly_). I had but one
aim in life, and I have walked to it over a rugged path. My life has
ever been a moral school: and death is but a new lesson, a new letter,
amidst the eternal and wondrous alphabet, a pledge of a higher, endless
science! The Creator has given me a stern mind with which to scan the
universe, that what I have learned in me and it I may transmit to future
generations. He sent against me malice, monstrous and vile debauch,
that, like an oak upon the height midst storms, I might grow strong
through artful battling, that among a mass of deeds and acts I might
impress my image---- I have accomplished all. My form is cast. Yet one
more chisel’s sweep,--and proudly shall it stand through ages. The
chisel shall not quiver. Terror shall not bind my hands. My journey is
finished here,--but my spirit, made in this terrestrial life more
perfect and more wise, will enter eternity. Open is the door before me,
and I see the dawn of another life----

(_The philosopher’s friends, sobbing, embrace his knees. Looking at
them, he proceeds_:)

Life is good when in the world we are a necessary link, and one with all
the living; when at the banquet I am not superfluous; when going with
the people to the fane, I worship the same gods with them. But when the
crowd, apart from you, has raised up a divinity and with cruel malice
watches the movements of your heart; when, seeing you afar, they point
their fingers (oh, believe me, friends, it is not easy to live an
outcast wanderer!) at the remnants of better generations, with their
ancient virtue in their breast:--we pass like corpses, like shadows,
like jesters in the forum! And unobserved a mighty wind will drown us
midst the rippling waves, like worthless chips of once victorious
ships----

Our age is past. Our time is up, O brothers! Others have now come into
the world; other feelings and conceptions they have brought with
them---- Perchance, believing stubbornly in the traditions of our youth,
we, like an ominous blast, congeal the renovated lives of men.
Perhaps----the truth is not with us! Our mind no longer grasps it, and
looks up with weakened eyes, yet not ahead, nor sees the light of truth,
and wails: “No, there is no salvation!” And, perchance, another man will
come, and he will say: “Here is the light!” No! Our time is up!---- Cut
open now my arteries! O greatest of all gifts, O death, you are now in
my hands! O Socrates! O teacher! Dearest friend! To you I go!

(_Exit, accompanied by his disciples._)

_Lucius._ Well finished, Seneca! Thou borest it gloriously! And now, one
hero less!---- Looking at the man, I feel aggrieved! What matters it
that thou art dead? That to the end thy courage did not flag? For
gossips and for calumny thou hast for two days given food to Rome! In
this alone thy exploit lies!

(_Looks through the window at the sky and at the distant mountains._)

How all is quiet there! The mountains--clear---- Even thus the gods look
reckless from the heavens at the human race! And what is there to see?

(_Scans the room._)

’T is terrible here to live, and let alone--to die! But little time is
left for life. What use is there to grant one needless hour to cruel
Nemesis? For great exploits one needs a rest, a joyful mood, and--a good
supper---- Glory after death avails us not! What happiness is this that
in the future a bearded rhetorician will expound you as a model for his
schoolboys? With future mysteries I have no dealings! Or whether here my
life will come to an end, or bodiless my soul may live,--in any case I
’ll be no longer man! But now, while still I live, I may with honour
dismiss my body, my old servant---- O slave!

(_Enter slave, Lucius continuing._)

In my villa by the sea prepare a splendid supper; in the amphitheatre,
below the mountains, strew flowers on my couch; call a ballet of
Bacchantes, a chorus of Fauns----and lyres and timbrels,--not the kind
of chorus as last time, when the basso was a squeaker! Open in the
garden all the fountains. Here is the key: in the inner storeroom are
some cups of Grecian workmanship,--get them. And send at once the slaves
to call my friends. Let all come who are alive. Thyself go to Marcellus.
Ask him humbly, he has long had in keeping some Horatian wine. Tell him
that thy master begs him not to refuse him anything, and that to-day he
deigns to die! Well, think of everything--thou hast been a faithful
slave, and thou art not forgotten in my testament.

(_The slave falls down to his feet._)

Haggle not, nor be niggardly,--let the supper teem with fabulous
dainties! Yes, I have forgot the main thing: go, knock at the door of
careless Pyrrha! Take basketfuls of flowers to her and let her, laughing
heedlessly, come, brighter than springtime, to grace my supper.

(_Exit slave._)

And on the knees of the dear maid I will with tensest power of life
intoxicate my soul with the fragrance of the herbs, and with the
sleeping sea, and with the sun immerging in the waves, and Pyrrha’s
lucent beauty! And when my senses weary feasting, she will, with gentle
smiles, give to me, not knowing it herself, the deadly draught in wine,
and I will jesting die, scarce audible, a true, wise Sybarite who,
having surfeited his dainty appetite at the luxurious table, sleeps
peaceably, surrounded by aromas.




  Nikoláy Aleksyéevich Nekrásov. (1821-1877.)


  Nekrásov was the son of an impoverished landed proprietor who served
  on the military staff, and of a Polish mother, who was his first
  teacher. In 1832 he was sent to the Yarosláv Gymnasium. Here he made
  little progress in the ancient languages and in mathematics, and,
  having reached the fifth form, was obliged to leave on account of some
  satires he had written against the school authorities. He went to St.
  Petersburg and entered the university as a special student, but his
  extreme poverty made any regular progress impossible and undermined
  his health. He occasionally wrote prose stories for a variety of
  periodicals, and in 1840 he published his first volume of poems which,
  having been unfavourably received, he later bought up and destroyed.
  Then he published a number of volumes of miscellaneous collections,
  and in 1847 became the editor of _The Contemporary_, formerly
  Púshkin’s magazine. The most active period of Nekrásov’s life began in
  1856, since when he produced all the poems by which he lives. It is
  difficult to characterise Nekrásov’s poetry, as it represents so many
  different aspects: there are in it elegies and lyrics in Púshkin’s
  best style, satires which have earned for him the name of the Russian
  Juvenal, and popular verses dealing with the life of all classes of
  society, especially with the peasant. The great wealth of native
  scenery which he depicts, the idiomatic, inimitable language of his
  poems, the objectivity of his themes, united with a graceful lyricism,
  make him the most notable of Russian poets. Among his best productions
  are _Red-Nosed Frost_, _Who Lives in Russia Happily?_, _The Peddlers_,
  and a large number of shorter poems.

  English translations: _A Moral Man_, by Alexander Koumanin, in
  Cornhill Magazine, 1863; _The Forgotten Village_, _Village News_,
  _Brandy_, _The Unreaped Plot_, _On the Road_, and parts of _The
  Railroad_, _In the Village_, and _Red-Nosed Frost_, by W. R. S.
  Ralston, in the Contemporary Review, vol. xxvii. (1876); _Red-Nosed
  Frost_, translated in the original metres [by J. Sumner Smith],
  Boston, 1886, second edition emended, 1887; _The Forgotten Village_,
  _The Field Unreaped_, _Mary_, _The Hospital_, _The Song of the
  Convicts_, _A Mother’s Tears_, in C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_,
  London, 1887; _Te Deum_, _The Prophet_, _Offer my Muse a friendly
  hand_, _Dream_, _A Sick Man’s Jealousy_, _The Landlord of Old Times_,
  _The Russian Soldier_, in John Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_,
  London, 1891 (_The Prophet_ and _The Russian Soldier_ reprinted in
  Library of the World’s Best Literature); in Free Russia, by Charlotte
  Sidgwick, _I am weak, I am old, and another_, in vol. x., Nos. 8-10,
  and _The Song of the Poor Wanderer_, in vol. x., No. 12, and by Mary
  Grace Walker, _War_, in vol. x., No. 11; in The Anglo-Russian Literary
  Society, by A. C. Coolidge, _The Unmown Strip_ and _When from thine
  error_, in No. 14 (from the Harvard Monthly Magazine, 1895); by F. P.
  Marchant, _Farewell_ and _I gaz’d upon thy tomb_, in No. 16; by J.
  Pollen, _’Tis May in the meadows_, in No. 19; by Leo Wiener and A. C.
  Coolidge, _Who Lives Happily in Russia?_ (reprinted from Harvard
  Monthly Magazine, 1898), in No. 25; by Mrs. Rosa Newmarch, some
  extracts, in No. 30; by Leo Wiener, _The Railroad_, in No. 33; by L.
  A. Magnus, _The Poet to his Love_, in No. 34.


                          FROM “RED-NOSED FROST”

          Three grievous allotments had Fortune decreed:--
            Allotment the first,--with a slave man to marry;
          The second,--the mother to be of his seed;
            The third,--until death his hard yoke e’er to carry.
              And all these allotments so grievous did lie
              On woman ’neath Russia’s broad sky.

          The ages have passed: all for pleasure has striven;
          To manifold change all on earth has been given.

          The poor peasant woman alone is forgot:
            No change in her lot has God made.
          Of feminine beauty and strength, we all wot,
            The type, ’mong the Slavs, has decayed.

          Fortuitous victim of fate!
            Hast suffered unseen and unheard;
          The world has not told of thy strait,
            Of plaining hast uttered no word.

          But me thou, my friend, wilt tell all;
            From childhood together we ’ve plodded:--
          Fatigue and dismay on thee fall,
            All misery in thee is embodied.
              No heart in his breast carrieth he
              Who tears doth not shed over thee.

                   ────────────────────────────────────

          We ’ve thus of the serf woman spoken,
            However, with purpose to say:--
          The type of the stately Slavonian,
            Perhaps, may be found e’en to-day.

          In Russ hamlets women are dwelling,
            Of countenance earnest, serene;
          In all grace of movement excelling;
            In bearing and look like a queen.

          Perhaps they ’ll escape the dim-sighted;
            But one who can see says of them:--
          “She passes--with sunshine all ’s lighted!
            And looks--’t is like giving a gem!”

          The paths all our people are thronging
            They follow,--the same burthens bring;
          But mire, to their low lot belonging,
            To them as it were does not cling.

          See blooming,--a world’s admiration,--
            The beauty! tall, rosy, well-shaped;
          Proficient in each occupation;
            A beauty, however she ’s draped;

          Both hunger and cold calmly brooking;
            Content, ever patient, discreet.
          I oft as she moved have been looking:
            One flourish--a haycock complete!

          Her kerchief is o’er her ear slipping,
            Her tresses are ready to fall.
          And then some young fellow comes tripping--
            The rascal! and up throws them all:

          The flaxen, luxuriant tresses
            O’erspread her tanned bosom, and wrap
          Her little bare feet in caresses;
            Her eyes, too, in darkness entrap:

          She quickly her locks apart brushes,
            And fiercely a glance at him throws;
          Her tress-enframed, proud face with blushes
            Of passion, of hot anger glows.

          On work-days she likes full employment.
            But strange will to you be her face
          When from it the smile of enjoyment
            The sigil of toil shall erase:

          Such laughter, so hearty! such measure
            In song and in dance! no such treats
          With gold can be purchased. “What pleasure!”
            Each peasant to each oft repeats.

          The horseman she ’ll vanquish in racing;
            In danger, not flinching, she ’ll save:
          A galloping steed boldly facing;
            To enter a burning hut, brave.

          Her beautiful, regular teeth
            Seem pearls, when to view them one chances;
          But firmly the lips’ rosy sheath
            Conceals them from people’s rude glances.

          She rarely indulges in laughter,
            For jesting she ’s no time to spare;
          Not oft dares her neighbour come after
            Some item of her kitchen ware.

          No pity has she for the tramp,--
            Why country paths uselessly scour?
          Of scrupulous fitness the stamp
            She bears and of immanent power.

          She knows, as ’t were writ in her creed,
            In labour is all their salvation;
          And labour returns her the meed:--
            Her household knows never privation;

          They ’ve always a warm roof o’erhead,
            Bread well-baked, and kvas of good savour;
          The children are healthy, well-fed;
            For high-days there ’s some extra favour.

          This woman goes forth Sunday morn
            To mass, all her family guiding:
          Is sitting a child, two years born,
            Her bosom upon, and there riding:

          The mother, well dressed, by the hand
            Is leading her six-years-old boy.
          This picture all friends of Russ land,
            All friends of Russ folk will enjoy.

      --From [J. Sumner Smith’s] _Red-Nosed Frost_, Boston, 1887.


                               A MORAL MAN

          A strictly moral man have I been ever,
          And never injured anybody--never.

          I lent my friend a sum he could not pay,
          I jogged his memory in a friendly way,--
          Then took the law of him th’ affair to end,--
          The law to prison sent my worthy friend.
          He died there,--not a farthing for poor me!
          I am not angry, though I ’ve cause to be.
          His debt that very moment I forgave,
          And shed sad tears of sorrow o’er his grave.
          A strictly moral man have I been ever,
          And never injured anybody--never.

          I sent my slave to learn the art of dressing
          Meat;--he succeeded,--a good cook ’s a blessing;
          But he too oft would leave his occupation,
          And gained a taste not suited to his station.
          He liked to read, to reason, and discuss--
          I, tired of scolding, without further fuss
          Had the rogue flogged,--all for the love of him:
          He went and drowned himself,--’t was a strange whim.
          A strictly moral man have I been ever,
          And never injured anybody--never.

          My silly daughter fell in love one day,
          And with her tutor wished to run away:
          I threatened curses and pronounced my ban;
          She yielded, and espoused a rich old man.
          Their house was splendid, brimming o’er with wealth,
          But suddenly poor Mary lost her health,
          And in a year consumption wrought her doom:
          She left us mourning o’er her early tomb.
          A strictly moral man have I been ever,
          And never injured anybody--never.

      --By Alexander Koumanin, in Cornhill Magazine, 1863.


                    FROM “WHO LIVES IN RUSSIA HAPPILY”


                                 EPILOGUE

         What year it was,--you figure out!
         What land it was,--you guess yourself!
         Upon a level country road
         Were gathered seven muzhíks:
         They all had masters whom they served
         I’ the Government of Strained-too-hard,
         The county called Enduring-much,
         The district Fallowlandedness,
         In villages hard by:
         In Patchedupville and Raggedtown,
         In Emptyville and Freezingtown,
         In Burnedupville, and Hungerville,
         And in Cropfailingthorpe;
         They met and quarrelled straight away:
         “Who lives in Russia happily
         And to his heart’s content?”

         Román declared--“The landowner,”
         Demyán declared--“The bureaucrat,”
         Luká declared--“The priest.”
         “The merchant with his goodly paunch,”
         The Gúbin brothers both declared,
         Iván and Mitrodór.
         But old Pakhóm looked gloomily
         Upon the ground, and said at last:
         “The gentleman of noble birth,
         The minister of the Emperor,”
         While Prov declared: “The Tsar.”----

         Muzhíks are stubborn like the ox:
         Let any nonsense fill their heads,
         You cannot pound it out of them,
         Each one sticks to his mind.
         They started such a loud dispute
         That all the passers-by averred
         They must have found a treasure-trove,
         The fuss is--to divide.

         That forenoon each had left his house,
         On business each had sallied out:
         One to the blacksmith’s shop was bound,
         One to the town Ivánkovo
         To call the priest Prokópius,
         His baby to baptise.
         Pakhóm was taking honeycombs
         To market in Velíkoë,
         And both the brothers Gúbin had
         With bridle started out to catch
         The wild horse of the herd.
         ’T were better that they long ago
         Had gone each one where business called,
         Yet they together keep!
         They walk as if there were grey wolves
         Behind them, chasing after them,--
         The farther, quicker still;
         They walk, they brawl unceasingly;
         They cry and do not come to sense,
         But time waits not for them.
         They quarrelled on, they did not see
         The sun was red, was sinking fast,--
         The evening had set in.
         In faith, they would have walked all night,
         They would have walked not knowing where,
         If pockmarked old Durándikha
         Had not addressed them, meeting them,
         And spoken to them: “Gentlemen!
         As night has come upon you, where
         Do you intend to go?”----

         The old witch asked, then laughed aloud;
         She struck her gelding with a whip,
         And galloped out of sight.

         Where were they? As they gazed around,
         They did not know themselves;
         They stood, they paused, they drooped their heads,----
         ’T was night-time long ago,
         The stars were twinkling way above
         Upon the vaulted sky.
         The moon swam out, the shadows dark
         Stopped further headlong gait.
         O shadows, shadows black and thick!
         Who is there that you will not catch?
         Of whom will you not get ahead?
         And yet there ’s no one, shadows black,
         Can seize you and embrace!

         Into the wood and down the road
         Pakhóm looked round him silently;
         He looked, he pondered in his mind,
         And then at last he said:

         “The wood spirit has played on us
         A pretty joke to-night!
         Indeed we must have surely tramped
         Some thirty versts[17] at least;
         And, as for walking home again,--
         We ’re tired, we should peter out.
         Sit down--there ’s nothing to be done--
         Let ’s rest till break of day!”----

         Then blaming loud the wood spirit,
         Beside the road, right in the wood,
         The peasants sat them down.
         They made a fire, each did his part,
         And two of them for vódka[18] went,
         The while the others to the wood
         Repaired to make a drinking cup
         Of bark stripped from the birch.
         The vódka came in proper time;
         There also somehow came some food,--
         A feast for the muzhíks!
         Three glasses each man had to drink;
         They ate,--they quarrelled once again:
         “Who lives in Russia happily
         And to his heart’s content?”
         Román cried out: “The landowner,”
         Demyán cried out: “The bureaucrat,”
         Luká cried out: “The priest”;
         “The merchant with his goodly paunch,”--
         The Gúbin brothers both cried out,
         Iván and Mitrodór.
         Pakhóm cried out: “His Excellence,
         The gentleman of noble birth,
         The minister of the Emperor,”
         And Prov cried out: “The Tsar!”

         Thus worse than ever brawled again
         The quarrelsome muzhíks;
         They cursed, they called each other names,
         Till soon enough they came to blows,
         And grabbed each other’s hair.
         Look! as each one has grabbed the next,
         Román is hitting at Pakhóm,
         Demyán hits at Luká,
         And both the brothers Gúbin hit
         At Prov--while each one yells.

         The far-resounding echo woke,
         And rolling wandered on and on,
         And louder cried from side to side,
         As if to tease, to imitate,
         The obstinate muzhíks.
         “The Tsar!” it spoke to the right of them,
         But to the left the answer came:
         “The priest! The priest! The priest!”
         Then all the wood was full of fright:
         The very birds that flit about,
         The very beasts, the swift-footed,
         The very crawling, creeping things,--
         ’T was groan and roar and bawl.

         The grey-haired rabbit, first of all,
         From out the bush jumped suddenly
         And looked around distractedly,--
         He jumped and disappeared.
         The youthful jackdaws perched aloft
         Upon a birch-tree standing near
         Set up a piteous squeak.
         And in the neighbouring peewit’s home
         The baby from its mother’s nest
         Was scared and tumbled out.
         The little peewit chirped and wept:
         Where is her birdie gone?
         The old and feeble cuckoo woke,
         Awoke and sat there wondering
         If she should cuckoo now;
         Ten times, at least, she made a start,
         But every time she lost the beat,
         And had to start again----
         You cuckoo, cuckoo, dear old bird!
         As soon as wheat is in the ear
         You ’ll choke yourself with wheaten ears,[19]
         You ’ll cuckoo then no more.
         Next, seven horncoots from all sides
         Have gathered to enjoy the fight,--
         They peer from seven trees:
         These midnight ones are laughing loud;
         Their large round eyes of yellow hue
         Are burning just like fourteen lights
         Of pure and virgin wax.
         The raven, bird of common-sense,
         Is here and sitting on a tree
         Beside the burning fire;
         He sits and to the devil prays
         That they may somehow pound to death
         At least one of the lot.
         The cow, that with her bell had strayed
         Away that evening from the herd,
         Approached, attracted by the sound
         Of human voices’ tones.
         She slowly walked up to the fire,
         She stared at the muzhíks.
         She listened to their foolish talk,
         And then began with all her might
         To low, to low, to low.

         The silly cow is lowing loud,
         The youthful jackdaws squeak and pipe,
         The seven muzhíks are boisterous,--
         The echo seconds all.
         The echo has but this desire:
         To tease an honest man, to scare
         A woman or a child.
         No one has ever seen it yet,
         But all have heard it more than once:
         Without a body--yet it lives,
         Without a tongue--it cries.

         The owl, a Moscow princess once,[20]
         Is flitting here from side to side;
         She flies above the peasants’ heads,
         Or with her wings sweeps o’er the ground
         Or o’er the bush nearby.

         The fox himself, of crafty mind,
         With womanish curiosity
         Crept close to the muzhíks.
         He listened, listened carefully,
         And went away at last convinced--
         “The Deuce can’t make it out”;
         The brawlers hardly knew themselves,--
         They had forgotten by that time
         The cause of all the row.

         They hit each other lustily,
         Came to their senses finally,--
         Agreed to strike no more.
         They drank some water from the pool,
         They washed themselves, refreshed themselves,
         And sleepiness set in.

      --Transl. by L. Wiener, revised by A. C. Coolidge, in The Harvard
          Monthly, January, 1898, and in The Anglo-Russian Literary
          Society, No. 25.

  [17] A verst is about three-fifths of a mile.

  [18] The national liquor in Russia, consumed in large quantities.

  [19] According to a popular superstition in Russia the cuckoo is
  silent when the wheat is in the ear.

  [20] A Russian legend.


                             THE UNMOWN STRIP

      Late in the autumn, the rooks are diverted;
      Bare is the forest, the field is deserted.

      Only one strip which is lying unmown:
      Sad are its musings in stillness alone.

      “Truly,” each blade to the other is sighing,
      “Weary are we of the autumn wind crying:

      Weary of bowing to earth as we must,
      Burying our grain-laden heads in the dust.

      Scarce is it night, when the birds flocking near us
      Halt on their passage to greedily tear us.

      Hares tread us down, and the storm vents its hate.--
      Where is our peasant? What more does he wait?

      Were we, then, worse at our birth than all others?
      Have we not sprouted and grown like our brothers?

      No! We ’re not worse than the rest. Long in vain
      In us hath germed and hath ripened the grain.

      Was it for this he was ploughing and sowing,
      That we should bend to the autumn gales blowing?”

      Borne on the breeze the sad answer came back:
      “It is the power your peasant doth lack.

      He knew the why of his ploughing and sowing,
      Started his work, but his strength all unknowing.

      Ill fares the wight, he can drink not nor eat;
      For his sick heart is the canker-worm’s seat.

      And the strong arms that his plough used to guide him,
      Dried to dead stalks, now like whips hang beside him.

      Dim were his eyes, and his voice hollow rang;
      Mournful indeed was the song that he sang

      When with his hand at the plough ever present,
      Wrapped in his thoughts, o’er the strip moved the peasant.”

      --By A. C. Coolidge, in The Harvard Monthly, 1895.


                             A MOTHER’S TEARS

                 With each fresh victim in the strife,
                   When war’s dire terrors round us roll,
                 I pity neither friend, nor wife,
                   I pity not the heroic soul.

                 The wife will soon new comfort gain,
                   His friend the best of friends forget,
                 And scarce a single soul remain,
                   That, until death, remembers yet.

                 Amid the poor, prosaic round
                   Of things, which here so falsely show,
                 No tears are true, and sacred, found,
                   Save such as from a mother flow.

                 The sons, in battlefield who sleep,
                   Her tears to memory fond recall;
                 E’en like to willow-trees, which weep
                   O’er boughs, that ever earthward fall.

      --From C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_.




  Iván Sávich Nikítin. (1824-1861.)


  Nikítin was born in Vorónezh, the birthplace of Koltsóv (see p. 176),
  where his father was a chandler. At eight years of age he entered a
  religious school, and later, in 1841, the Seminary in his native town.
  He wrote his first poem while at school, but only in 1853 did he
  succeed in having his verses printed in the Vorónezh Governmental
  Gazette. These brought him in contact with the local cultured society
  who encouraged him to write more. His first volume of collected poetry
  was not favourably received by the literary circles of St. Petersburg,
  who saw in Nikítin’s verses mere imitations of Koltsóv and Nekrásov;
  his reputation has, however, risen since, and he is counted among the
  better popular poets. Among his best verses are _The Ploughman_, _The
  Plough_, _The Wife of the Driver_, _The Fist_, while such poems as
  _The Morning_, _The Swallow’s Nest_, _A Winter Night in the Village_,
  belong to the most popular of Russian songs.

  W. R. S. Ralston, in Contemporary Review, vol. xxiii. (1874), has
  translated _The Stubborn Father_, _Burlák_, _A Winter Night in the
  Village_. In C. T. Wilson’s _Russian Lyrics_ are translated _The
  Yamshchik’s Wife_, _The Grandfather_, _The State of the Departed_,
  _The Churchyard_. In The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 28, F. P.
  Marchant translated _The Inheritance_, and in No. 30 Mrs. Rosa
  Newmarch gives a part of _The Village Money-Lender_ and _The Gaffer_.


                                BURLÁK[21]

         Ah, friends! You too have had your sorrows,--else
         A song would never make you weep. Well now,
         Just hear what I have gone through,--then you ’ll know
         What sorrow really means.

                                   My father died
         When I was just nineteen, and I was left
         An orphan, and at first alone,--but soon
         A neighbour’s daughter won my heart; I pleased her,
         And we were married,--happily did we live
         Together. I could fancy she had brought me
         Happiness with her--(Heaven be hers, poor thing!)
         You can’t conceive how good a manager
         She was,--she would n’t waste a single farthing.
         In the long winter evenings, she would light
         A firewood splinter, and then spin away
         For hours,--not pausing till the cock would crow.
         Then would she lay her down,--but with the dawn
         She was up again,--would run to give their food
         To the sheep and cows,--next light the fire,--and then
         Betake her to the spinning-wheel again,
         Or find some other indoor work to do.
         When summer came, she helped to cut the rye
         And carry it, nor ever weary. I would say,
         “Is n’t it time to rest?”
                                   “Oh, no!” she ’d cry,
         “I ’m not a bit tired.”--
                                   Every now and then
         Perhaps I ’d buy her something as a present.
         “You need n’t have done that, my bonny bird,”
         She ’d say, “we love each other much too well
         To care for presents--don’t go wasting money
         On me.”--

                   My life with her was just as if
         I ’d been in Paradise.
                                But no one knows
         How calamity may fall upon him!
         My wife lay down to rest within the grave,--
         The world grows dark whene’er I think of it.

         My only consolation was my child,--
         I ’d only one,--a fair-skinned, dark-haired boy,
         As like his mother as one drop to another;--
         He had begun to spell a bit already,
         And I to think, “My boy will be a man.”
         But that was not God’s pleasure.--In the spring
         He got some kind of sickness. We called in
         Wise women, soothsayers, had magic drinks
         For him to take. I promised I would give
         A rouble for a candle,--to be burnt
         Before the holy image in the church----
         But God refused to listen to my prayer--
         I had to lay my darling in the coffin,
         And bear him to the graveyard.----

                                            In those days,
         Those dreary days, ’t was bitter for me, friends!
         My heavy arms hung listlessly,--my neighbours
         Gathered their harvest. All the fields around
         Were blithe with song--But there I pined away
         With heavy sorrow. When the day was done,
         The heavy-laden carts would come from the field
         And in a line drive creaking through the village.
         But in my cottage I would sit alone
         Trying to stem my tears.
                                  The autumn passed.
         I waited till the first snow fell.--Methought
         I ’ll sell my rye, fit up a sledge, and go
         And earn a living with it somewhere.
                                              Suddenly
         Woe upon woe! A murrain seized my cattle,--
         Never until I die shall I forget
         That fatal year.--
                            I managed to get through
         The winter somehow. But I saw I ’d lost
         My old position. In our village meetings,
         This one would flout me, saying:--“Good! It seems
         The barest beggar thinks he has the right
         To meddle in the business of the Commune!”
         That one would gird at me behind my back,
         And cry:--“The lazy fellow! Such a one as he
         Will never gain his bread. In my opinion,
         If one ’s a man, one never will give way,
         Whatever happens.”
                            All this talk and laughter
         Aroused me;--God assisted me, I think.
         I felt a longing for a freer life.
         I got a passport, paid up all my taxes,
         And joined the bargemen.
                                  Since that time my grief
         Has yielded to the Vólga’s dark blue wave----
         Rest follows toil: upon the river side
         Bright burns the evening fire,--a comrade starts
         A song,--the rest join in,--your spirits rise,--
         A thrill runs o’er your limbs,--you sing yourself.
         And if at times a dreary season comes,
         And half-forgotten sorrows vex your soul,--
         There ’s solace still. You hear the river’s roar,
         Singing a freedom to the sweeping plain.
         Fast beats your heart;--you burn,--though wintry cold
         The weather, yet you want no cloak to warm you.
         Aboard and take your seat! Fall back on the oar!
         Pleasant it is to brave the Russian storm.
         The waves run mountain-high,--in snowy flakes
         The foam flies fast; strange voices groan and wail.
         The tempest roars and whistles,--from your soul
         A cry arises: “Let God’s will be done.
         If we ’re to live, we ’ll live. And if to die,--
         Well then, so be it!” And you feel as though
         Your heart had never known what sorrow meant.

      --From W. R. S. Ralston’s _Russian Idylls_, in The Contemporary
          Review, 1874 (vol. xxiii.).

  [21] A labourer towing boats up the Vólga.


                                THE GAFFER

         Old Gaffer, with his beard and smooth bald head,
                    Sits in his chair.
         His little mug of water, and his bread,
                    Stand near him there.

         Grey as a badger he: his brow is lined;
                    His features worn.
         He ’s left a world of cark and care behind,
                    Since he was born.

         ’T is over now, his eyesight soon must go;
                    His strength is done.
         Death laid within the churchyard long ago
                    Grandchild and son.

         A cat the smoke-grimed hut with Gaffer shares--
                    Upon the stove
         All day he sleeps. He too is old, nor cares
                    From thence to move.

         The old man still plaits shoes, with fingers slow,
                    From bark of birch.
         His wants are few, his greatest joy to go
                    Into God’s church.

         He stands within the porch, against the wall,
                    Mutt’ring his prayers.
         A loyal child, he thanks the Lord for all
                    Life’s griefs and cares.

         Cheery he lives,--with one foot in the grave,--
                    In his dark hole.
         Whence does he draw the strength that keeps him brave,
                    Poor peasant soul?

      --Transl. by Mrs. R. Newmarch, in The Anglo-Russian Literary
          Society, No. 30.




  Aleksyéy Nikoláevich Pleshchéev. (1825-1894.)


  Pleshchéev was the most cultivated and the most sympathetic poet who
  belonged to Nekrásov’s camp. He was born in the city of Kostromá, of
  an ancient noble family. He studied at St. Petersburg at the School of
  the Guard Cadets and at the university, without graduating from
  either. He began writing poetry at the age of eighteen, and in 1846
  appeared the first edition of his poems. These were pervaded by a
  militant spirit of liberty, and soon his sympathies with the liberal
  movement brought him into trouble, for he was arrested in 1849 and
  banished to Orenbúrg, with loss of all his civil rights. He there
  served in the army as a common soldier, but rose in 1858 to the rank
  of a commissioned officer, when his privileges were restored to him,
  and he was permitted to return to Moscow. Up to that time he had
  entirely abandoned literature, but now his former activity began anew,
  and he enriched Russian letters with a large number of translations
  from various languages, and with original lyrical verses. These no
  longer are filled with the aspirations of his youth, but bear the
  imprint of melancholy disappointment and renunciation.

  _Spring_ and _Passion_ are given in John Pollen’s _Rhymes from the
  Russian_, and N. H. Dole has translated _A Legend_ (publication
  unascertainable).


                                 FORWARD

Forward, without fear or doubt, to the valiant deed, my friends! I have
already seen the dawn of the holy redemption in the skies!

Courage! We will take each other’s hands and boldly will move
onward,--and let our union grow and be strong under the banner of
science!

We will chastise the priests of sin and falsehood with the word of
truth,--and we will awaken the sleeping from their sleep and will lead
the host to battle.

We will not build an idol for ourselves, either upon earth, or in
heaven; we will not fall before it in the dust for all the gifts and
benefits of the world.

We will proclaim the teaching of Love to the poor and to the rich,--and
for it we will endure persecution, forgiving our malevolent enemies.

Blessed is he who has exhausted his life in a sanguinary struggle, in
heavy cares; he has not, like an indolent and tricky slave, buried his
talent in the ground!

Let holy truth burn as a guiding star for us,--and, believe me, a noble
voice will not resound in vain in the world.

Hearken, then, O brothers, to the word of a brother, as long as we are
full of youthful strength! Forward, forward,--and without returning,
whatever fate may have in store for us!


                                MY COUNTRY

Scanty Nature of my native land, you are dear to my sad soul! Formerly,
in the days of my fleeting spring, the distant shores of other countries
enticed me.

And my glowing imagination painted brilliant pictures before me: I saw
the transparently blue vault of the heavens, and the crenelated summits
of mighty mountains.

Merged in the gold of midday beams, it seemed to me, the myrtle, the
planes, and the olive trees called me into the shade of spreading
branches, and roses beckoned silently to me----

Those were days when my spirit did not ponder, among the seductions of
life, over the aims of existence, and, being frivolous, I only demanded
enjoyment from it.

But that time speedily disappeared without a trace,--and grief
unexpectedly visited me, and much with which my soul was not familiar
suddenly became dear to it.

I then abandoned my secret dream of a magic and distant land,--and in my
country I discovered beauties invisible to the worldly eye.

Furrowed fields, ears of yellow grain-fields, the speechless, majestic
expanse of the steppes, the freshets of broad rivers in the spring,
mysteriously rustling oak-forests;

Sacred silence of poor villages, where the labourer, oppressed by
misery, prayed to heaven for a new, a better day,--the great day of
liberty, to rise over him;

I understood you then,--and near to my heart suddenly grew the song of
my native land, whether in that song was heard deep pining or
unrestrained hilarity.

My country, nothing in thee captivates the stranger’s eye; but thou art
dear by thy stern beauty to him who himself has yearned for freedom and
the wide expanse, and whose spirit has borne oppressive fetters.


                                 A LEGEND

                Christ, when a child, a garden made,
                  And many roses flourished there.
                He watered them three times a day
                  To make a garland for His hair;
                And when in time the roses bloomed,
                  He called the children in to share.
                They tore the flowers from every stem,
                  And left the garden stript and bare.

                “How wilt Thou weave Thyself a crown
                  Now that Thy roses are all dead?”
                “Ye have forgotten that the thorns
                  Are left for me,” the Christ-child said.
                They plaited then a crown of thorns,
                  And laid it rudely on His head,--
                A garland for His forehead made;
                  For roses, drops of blood instead.

      --Transl. by N. H. Dole (publication unascertainable).


                                  SPRING

           Ah! who art thou, fair maid, with upland flowers
             Twined in the glossy silk of golden hair,
           With smile sunbright, with eyes the dove in hue,
             With ray-like raiment spun from upper air?
           Who gifted thee with deep mysterious power
             To heal the aching heart of human woe?
           At thy approach delights that long lay dead
             Revive, and once again with glad life glow.
           To honour thee a hymn doth Nature raise;
             The babbling brooks and birds in chorus blend;
           And pine-woods dark, shimmering in every spray,
             To thee, as to a friend, their arms extend.

           I ’m but a Stranger-Guest, sent from on high
             To weary souls a draught of peace to bring,
           To soften wrath, to soothe fierce enmity;
             I ’m but a Stranger-Guest,--they call me “Spring.”

      --From J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.




  Aleksándr Nikoláevich Ostróvski. (1823-1886.)


  No other dramatist is so characteristically Russian as Ostróvski. His
  father was a poor scribe who acted as a kind of attorney to that
  merchant class of Moscow which had not yet emerged from the manners
  and beliefs preceding the days of the reforms of Peter the Great.
  Ostróvski had, consequently, ample opportunity of getting acquainted
  with these people, who had heretofore entirely escaped the scrutiny of
  the litterateurs. When, in 1843, he was expelled from the university
  for some misbehaviour, he found employment in the Commercial Court,
  where he again came in contact with the merchant class. He had early
  developed a passion for the theatre, and in 1847 appeared two of his
  dramas, _Pictures of Family Happiness_ and _We’ll Square up Accounts
  with Our Own_. The latter play gave offence to the merchants, who
  complained to the authorities, and Ostróvski was placed under police
  surveillance. Only five years later did he take up his pen again, and
  as before he had strictly adhered to the traditions of Gógol’s school,
  so now he paid his tribute to the Slavophile sentiments of Moscow by
  idealising his characters. The best drama of that period is _Poverty
  is no Vice_. After the Crimean War he began to represent in his dramas
  the negative sides of the wealthy merchant class, and to oppose to
  them the honesty and dignity of intelligent men. His chief production,
  _The Storm_, belongs to that period. He also tried himself in
  historical dramas, or _Dramatic Chronicles_, as he called them, but
  they are the weakest of his works. All his dramas are more properly
  realistic scenes lacking the element of conscious effect: they are
  supremely natural and tax the ability of the greatest actors.
  Ostróvski’s dramas soon became very popular, and he was elected
  president of the Society of Russian Dramatic Authors. Just before his
  death the Moscow Theatre was put in his charge, but his new activity
  was cut short by his illness, brought about by years of privation and
  suffering.

  In English translation are to be found: _The Storm_, by Constance
  Garnett, London, 1899; _Incompatibility of Temper_ and _A Domestic
  Picture_, in _The Humour of Russia_, by E. L. Voynich, London and New
  York, 1895. Extracts from several dramas are given in _The Modern
  Russian Drama_, in Edinburgh Review, cxxviii. (1868).


                                THE STORM


  ACT V. SCENE 1. TWILIGHT. KULÍGIN (_sitting on a bench_), KABANÓV
    (_walking in the square_)

_Kulígin_ (_singing_).

               “In darkness shrouded are the skies,--
               To rest themselves all close their eyes.”

(_noticing Kabanóv_). Good-evening, sir! Which way are you bound?

_Kabanóv._ Home. Good friend, have you heard what has happened with us?
Our whole family is upset.

_Kulígin._ Yes, I have heard so, sir.

_Kabanóv._ I have been away to Moscow, you know. Mamma kept giving me
all kinds of instructions for my journey, but no sooner I got away, than
I began having a good time. I was so happy to be free. I drank all the
way up, and I kept on drinking in Moscow. I just went on a spree to last
me for a whole year! Not even once did I stop to think of home, and if I
did, I never should have dreamed what has happened here. You have heard
about it?

_Kulígin._ Yes, I have, sir.

_Kabanóv._ My friend, I am a miserable man now! I am ruined just for
nothing, for no cause at all.

_Kulígin._ Your mother is rather harsh.

_Kabanóv._ That ’s so. She is the cause of it all. Do tell me, why
should I suffer for it? I just stopped at Dikóy’s,--well, we took a
drink together; I thought it might make me feel easier, but no, Kulígin,
it ’s worse! See, how my wife has treated me! It could not be worse----

_Kulígin._ It ’s a mixed-up affair, sir. It is hard to judge between
you.

_Kabanóv._ No, don’t say that. What can there be worse? It is not enough
to kill her for that. Mamma says she ought be buried alive for a
punishment! But I love her, and it makes me feel bad to lay a finger
upon her. I did give her some blows, but mamma told me to do so. You
must understand, Kulígin, that I feel sorry for her. Mamma torments her
to death, and she walks around like a shadow and does not say a word.
She does nothing but weep, and she is melting away like wax. And I worry
myself to death, as I look at her.

_Kulígin._ Could you not, sir, make up with her? You ought to forgive
her, and never mention the affair again. I suppose you yourself are not
without sin!

_Kabanóv._ Of course not!

_Kulígin._ Only you must not reproach her when you are drunk! She would
make you a good wife, sir, I am sure, better than any other.

_Kabanóv._ Don’t you see, Kulígin, it is all right with me, but
mamma--there is no getting along with her!----

_Kulígin._ It is time, sir, to live by your own wits.

_Kabanóv._ Well, what am I to do,--to tear myself to pieces? They say, I
have no sense of my own, and so I have to live by other people’s sense.
I tell you, I ’ll drink away whatever little sense I have left, let
mamma then bother with me as with a senseless fool.

_Kulígin._ It is bad, sir! Well, and Borís Grigórevich, what about him?

_Kabanóv._ They are sending that scoundrel to Kyákhta, into China. His
uncle is sending him to the office of a merchant whom he knows there. He
is going there for three years.

_Kulígin._ Well, what does he do, sir?

_Kabanóv._ He is suffering, too: he weeps. We fell upon him, his uncle
and I, and we kept scolding him, but he did not say a word. He acts like
a wild man. “Do with me what you please,” says he, “only do not torment
her!” He is pitying her too.

_Kulígin._ He is a good man, sir.

_Kabanóv._ He is ready for the journey, and the horses are waiting. He
is pining for her dreadfully. He wants to say good-bye to her, I see.
What do I care? He has done enough harm. He is my enemy, you know,
Kulígin! He ought to be quartered, so that he might know----

_Kulígin._ We must forgive our enemies, sir!

_Kabanóv._ Go and talk to mamma about that, and see what she will tell
you. Yes, friend Kulígin, all our family is now broken up. They are
acting not like relatives to each other, but like enemies. Mamma has
been nagging Várvara so long; she could stand it no longer, and so she
just got up, and ran away.

_Kulígin._ Where has she gone?

_Kabanóv._ Who knows? They say she has run away with Vánka Kudryásh, and
he can’t be found anywhere either. Now, Kulígin, I must tell you that is
all mamma’s doing: she has been tormenting her, and locking her up.
“Don’t lock me up,” she said, “or it will be only worse!” And just so it
has happened. Do tell me, what I am to do now! Do instruct me how to
live now! I loathe the house, I am ashamed to meet people, and if I try
to work, my hands drop helpless. Here I am going home, but it is not to
find pleasure there. (_Enter Glásha._)

_Glásha._ Tíkhon Iványch!

_Kabanóv._ What is it now?

_Glásha._ Things have gone wrong at home, sir!

_Kabanóv._ Lord! There has been enough trouble! Speak, what is it?

_Glásha._ Your good wife----

_Kabanóv._ Well, what? Is she dead?

_Glásha._ No, sir, she has gone off, and we can’t find her anywhere. We
have run our legs off, trying to find her.

_Kabanóv._ Kulígin! We must look for her. Do you know, friend, what I am
afraid of? That in her wretchedness she may lay hands upon herself! It
is just terrible, how she is grieving! It makes my heart burst to look
at her. (_To Glásha._) That is the way you have watched her. Is it long
she has been gone?

_Glásha._ Not very long, sir! It is our fault, we did not watch her
better. However, one can’t be watching every minute.

_Kabanóv._ Well, what are you standing for? Go, run! (_Exit Glásha._)
Let us go, too, Kulígin! (_Exeunt. The stage is empty for a little
while. From the opposite side enters Katerína, and slowly walks across
the stage._)


  SCENE 2. KATERÍNA ALONE. (_During the whole monologue and the
    following scenes she speaks slowly and repeats words, as if in
    thought and in a state of forgetfulness._)

_Katerína._ No, he is nowhere! What is he doing now,--the poor fellow?
If I only could bid him good-bye, and then--and then I do not mind
dying. Why did I lead him into misfortune? I am no better off for that!
I alone ought to suffer! As it is, I have ruined myself, and I have
ruined him: to me--dishonour, to him--eternal remorse! Yes, to
me--dishonour, to him--eternal remorse. (_Silence._) If I only could
think what he said to me? How he pitied me? What were the words he said?
(_Clasps her head._) I can’t remember them, I have forgotten everything.
The nights, the nights weigh heavily upon me! All lie down to sleep, I
too. All feel well, but I feel as if I were going into the grave. It is
so terrible in the dark! I hear a noise and singing, as if they were
burying someone, only so soft, and barely heard, far, far from me----
How glad one is when daylight comes! But I do not like to get up,--the
same people again, the same talks, the same torment. Why do they look
that way at me? Why don’t they kill nowadays? Why have they changed it?
They say, they used to kill. If they took and threw me into the Vólga, I
should be happy. “If we kill you,” they say, “your sin will be taken
from you; so live and be tormented for your sin.” I have suffered
enough! How much longer shall I suffer? What am I to live for now, yes,
what for? I want nothing,--nothing gives me pleasure, God’s world gives
me no pleasure! But death does not come. You call for it, but it does
not come. Whatever I see, whatever I hear, causes me pain here (_points
to her heart_). If I could live with him, maybe there would be some
pleasure yet for me. Well, what difference does it make? I have lost my
soul anyway. How I long for him! Oh, how I long for him! If I cannot see
you, hear me at least from far away! Boisterous winds, bear my grief to
him! O Lord, I am weary, I am weary! (_Walks to the river bank and cries
at the top of her voice_:) My joy, my soul, my life, I love you! Answer!
(_Weeps. Enter Borís._)


                       SCENE 3. KATERÍNA AND BORÍS

_Borís_ (_not seeing Katerína_). O Lord! That is her voice! Where is
she? (_Looks round._)

_Katerína_ (_runs up to him and falls on his neck_). At last I see you
again! (_Weeps on his breast. Silence._)

_Borís._ Well, God has granted us to weep together.

_Katerína._ You have not forgotten me?

_Borís._ How can you speak of forgetting?

_Katerína._ Oh, no, it was not that, not that! You are not angry?

_Borís._ Angry for what?

_Katerína._ Forgive me! I did not mean to do you any harm: I was not
free myself. I did not know what I said, and what I did.

_Borís._ Don’t speak of it! Don’t!

_Katerína._ Well, how is it with you? What are you going to do?

_Borís._ I am going away.

_Katerína._ Where are you going?

_Borís._ Far away, Kátya, to Siberia.

_Katerína._ Take me away from here.

_Borís._ I can’t, Kátya. I am not going of my own will: my uncle is
sending me off, and the horses are waiting already. My uncle gave me but
a minute to be away; I wanted to bid farewell to the place where we used
to see each other.

_Katerína._ God speed you! Do not grieve over me. At first, I suppose,
you, poor fellow, will pine for me, but you will soon forget me.

_Borís._ Let us not talk of me! I am a free bird! But how will it be
with you? What of your mother-in-law?

_Katerína._ She torments me, she locks me up. She tells everybody, and
my husband too: “Do not trust her, she is sly!” They follow me all day
and laugh at me before my eyes. At every word they reproach me with you.

_Borís._ And your husband?

_Katerína._ He is now kind, and now angry, but he is drinking all the
time. I loathe him, I loathe him; I loathe his kindness worse than his
blows.

_Borís._ It is hard for you, Kátya.

_Katerína._ Yes, so hard, so hard, that death would be easier!

_Borís._ Who could have told that we would have to suffer so for our
love? It would have been better if I had run away then.

_Katerína._ It was for misfortune that I saw you. I have seen little
joy, but oh, how much sorrow! And how much there is still ahead of me!
Well, what use is there to think of what will be? I am seeing you now,
and that they will not take away from me! I need nothing else. All I
wanted was to see you. Now I feel much more at ease: as though a
mountain had rolled off my shoulders. And there, I thought that you were
angry with me, that you cursed me----

_Borís._ How could you? How could you?

_Katerína._ No, it is not that I mean. I wanted to say something else. I
was longing for you, that is it; and now, I have seen you----

_Borís._ If they should find us here!

_Katerína._ Wait, wait! I wanted to tell you something! I have forgotten
again! Something important I had to tell you! my head is in a whirl, I
can’t remember anything.

_Borís._ It is time for me to go, Kátya!

_Katerína._ Wait, wait!

_Borís._ Well, what was it you wanted to say?

_Katerína._ I will tell you right away. (_Thinking a moment._) Yes! As
you will travel on the road, don’t let any beggar go by without giving
him something, and tell them to pray for my sinful soul.

_Borís._ Ah, if these people knew how hard it is for me to leave you!
God grant they may some day feel as bad as I do now! Good-bye, Kátya!
(_Embraces her and is about to go._) Rascals! Monsters! If I only had
the power!

_Katerína._ Wait, wait! Let me take a last look at you! (_Looks into his
eyes._) That will do me! Now, God be with you! Go, go quickly!

_Borís_ (_walks a few steps and stops_). Kátya, something is wrong! You
have something in your mind! I shall worry on my journey, thinking of
you!

_Katerína._ No, no! God speed you! (_Borís is about to walk up to her._)
Don’t, don’t, that is enough!

_Borís_ (_sobbing_). Well, God be with you! I must pray to God that she
may die soon, that she may not suffer long! Farewell! (_Greets her._)

_Katerína._ Farewell! (_Exit Borís. Katerína follows him with her eyes
and stands a while, lost in thought._)


                       SCENE 4. KATERÍNA (_alone_)

Where shall I go now? Home? No, I might as well go into the grave.
What--home, what--grave? It is better in the grave---- A little grave
under a tree--how nice!---- The sun warms it, the rain waters it--in the
spring the grass, the soft grass will grow up--the birds will fly to
that tree, they will sing, and will bring up their little ones, the
flowers will bloom: yellow, red, blue, all kinds of flowers (_in
thought_), all kinds of flowers---- How quiet! how nice! I almost feel
better! I do not wish even to think of life! To live again? No, no, I do
not wish it--it is not good! I loathe the people, I loathe the house, I
loathe the walls! I will not go there! No, no, I will not! If I go to
them, they will come and talk to me, and what is that to me? Ah, it is
dark! And they are singing somewhere! What are they singing? I cannot
make it out---- Oh, if I could die now---- What are they singing? It is
all the same whether death will come to me, or I myself--no, I cannot
live! It is a sin! They will not pray for me? He who loves me, will
pray---- They cross the hands over the breast--in the coffin! Yes, it is
so--I remember. And if they catch me, they will take me home by
force---- Ah, quickly, quickly! (_Goes to the river bank. Aloud._) My
friend! My joy! Farewell! (_Exit. Enter Mrs. Kabanóv, Kabanóv, Kulígin,
and a workman with a lantern._)


               SCENE 5. MRS. KABANÓV, KABANÓV, AND KULÍGIN

_Kulígin._ They say, they saw her here.

_Kabanóv._ Is it certain?

_Kulígin._ They certainly saw her.

_Kabanóv._ Thank the Lord they saw her alive.

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ And you have been frightened and crying! And for whom?
Don’t fret: she will give us plenty of trouble yet.

_Kabanóv._ Who would have thought that she would come here! It is such a
public place. Who would ever think of hiding here.

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ You see for yourself what she is doing. The creature she
is! She wants to keep up her character! (_People come from all sides
with lanterns._)

_One of the Crowd._ Well, have you found her?

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ Why, no. She is vanished.

_A Few Voices._ I declare! That is strange! Where could she hide?

_One of the Crowd._ She will be found!

_Another._ Of course, she will be!

_A Third._ She will come herself, I think. (_A voice behind the scene_:
“Hoa there, a boat!”)

_Kulígin_ (_from the river bank_). Who is calling? What is up? (_Voice_:
“A woman has thrown herself in the water!” _Kulígin and several men
after him run out._)


                    SCENE 6. THE SAME WITHOUT KULÍGIN

_Kabanóv._ O God, it is she! (_Wants to run off. Mrs. Kabanóv holds him
back._) Mamma, let me go, I must! I will save her! or I will
myself--what is the use of living without her!

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ I will not let you, indeed not! Kill yourself for her
sake!--is she worth it? She has brought enough disgrace on us without
this!

_Kabanóv._ Let me!

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ They ’ll save her without you. I ’ll curse you if you
go.

_Kabanóv_ (_falling on his knees_). Just to look at her!

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ You will look at her when they have pulled her out.

_Kabanóv_ (_rises. To the crowd._) Well, friends, did you see anything?

_First._ It is dark down there, you can’t see anything. (_A noise behind
the scene._)

_Second._ They are calling there, but I can’t make out what.

_First._ That is Kulígin’s voice.

_Second._ They are walking along the bank with a lantern.

_First._ They are coming this way. They are carrying her. (_A few people
are returning._)

_One of the Returning Men._ Kulígin is a fine fellow! Here close by, in
the whirlpool, by the shore: with the fire we could see a distance off
in the water, and he saw her dress, and pulled her out.

_Kabanóv._ Is she alive?

_Another Man._ Alive? Why, she leaped high: the bank is steep here, and
she must have fallen on an anchor, the poor woman is bruised! And yet,
my friends, she looks as though alive! Only on the temple there is a
small wound, and only one small drop of blood. (_Kabanóv starts to run,
and meets Kulígin with the people carrying Katerína._)


                      SCENE 7. THE SAME AND KULÍGIN

_Kulígin._ Here is your Katerína. Do with her what you please! Her body
is here, take it; but her soul is not yours now: she is now before the
Judge who is more merciful than you! (_Puts her on the ground and runs
away._)

_Kabanóv_ (_rushes to Katerína_). Kátya! Kátya!

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ Enough! It is a sin even to weep for her!

_Kabanóv._ Mamma, you have killed her! You! You!

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ How dare you? Are you forgetting yourself? Do you know
to whom you are speaking?

_Kabanóv._ You have killed her! You! You!

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ I ’ll talk to you at home. (_Bowing low to the people._)
I thank you, good people, for your services! (_All bow._)

_Kabanóv._ It is well with you, Kátya! But why am I left in this world
to suffer! (_Falls on his wife’s body._)




  Mikhaíl Evgráfovich Saltykóv. (pseud. Shchedrín). (1826-1889.)


  Saltykóv was descended from an ancient noble family. He received his
  first education at home, at ten years of age entered the Moscow
  Institute for Sons of Noblemen, and two years later was chosen, on
  account of his excellent progress, to be sent to the Lyceum at
  Tsárskoe-Seló. In that school the memory of its distinguished alumnus,
  Púshkin, was still fresh, and it was expected that there should be a
  continuator of the great poet in every class. Thus Saltykóv wrote his
  first poem in 1841, but he soon abandoned poetry for satire. After
  leaving the Lyceum, Saltykóv threw himself into the whirlpool of
  pleasures, even in this emulating the older generation. In 1847
  appeared his first story. The following year he wrote _A Mixed
  Affair_, which, like his previous effort, was quite weak and
  insignificant, but as it happened to have made its appearance in the
  critical year 1848, when the censorship was unusually severe, he was
  suspected of evil purposes and was banished to the Government of
  Vyátka. He there remained eight years, but served with distinction
  under the Governor and rose to various posts of eminence. Upon his
  return from exile he published his _Provincial Sketches_, in which he
  gave some gloomy pictures of provincial oppression and dishonesty.
  Saltykóv created a special language for his satires, which, on account
  of the endless allusions and masterly word-creations, are the despair
  of the translator and have made his admirable works less known abroad
  than they deserve to be. In his long literary career Saltykóv has
  adapted himself to the conditions of the time, and thus his satires
  give a continuous record of the reverse of Russian life for upwards of
  forty years. Among his best works are _Pompadours and Pompadouresses_,
  _The Tashkentians_, _Refuge Monrepos_, _Diary of a Provincial at St.
  Petersburg_, and his famous _The Golovlévs_, which enjoys a reputation
  like Gógol’s _Dead Souls_.

  In English translation are to be found: _Tchinovniks_, _Sketches of
  Provincial Life_, from the memoirs of the retired Conseiller de Cour
  Stchedrin (Saltikow), translated with notes from the Russian by F.
  Aston, London, 1861; _The Recollections of Onésime Chenapan_, _The
  Self-Sacrificing Rabbit_, and _The Eagle as Mecænas_, in _The Humour
  of Russia_, by E. L. Voynich, London and New York, 1895; in Free
  Russia were given _The Fool_, in vol. i., No. 5, _The Deceitful Editor
  and the Credulous Reader_, in vol. i., No. 9, _Story of how One
  Peasant Saved Two Generals_, in vol. ii., No. 6, and _Misha and
  Vania_, in vol. iii., Nos. 6 and 7.


                         FROM “BEYOND THE BORDER”

Having grown tired of my fruitless sojourn in the world of concrete
facts, I self-confidently attempted to fly as a steel-grey eagle into
the sphere of abstractions. In my younger days I took such flights quite
often. Together with my other companions I liked to pamper myself with
excursions into that region where one is supposed to get “revelations of
invisible things,” and, I remember, these excursions were a source of
great pleasure to me. I cannot say I saw that region clearly defined,
but, in any case, the contemplation of it evoked in me no fear, but a
decidedly pleasurable sensation. In general, we then lived with more
vigour (of course, I have in view only myself and my contemporaries),
though I must confess our basal fund of life was impaired by
inconsistencies that bordered on frivolities. Two lives went side by
side: one, so to say, _pro domo_, the other for the fear of the Jews,
that is, in the manner of a justificatory document to the authorities.

You are sitting at home and with your whole being, so to say, have
transferred yourself into the sphere of the “revelation of invisible
things.” Suddenly, the fateful hour strikes,--run to your bureau! You
don your trowsers and your office uniform, and fifteen minutes later you
are in an entirely different sphere, in the sphere of the “confirmation
of visible things.” Of course, the questions in the two places are quite
different. In the first sphere the question is whether the golden age is
to be sought behind or before us; in the second the question is the
establishment of golden ages by means of provincial government offices
and departments of charity, on the basis of explicit statutory
enactments anent this subject. You stay there a while, scratch your pen,
and behold! again strikes the fateful hour. You run home again, change
your trowsers, put on a coat or a smoking-jacket, and you transport
yourself once more into the sphere of the “revelation of invisible
things.” Thus our youth passed----

The present generation will, no doubt, regard this running from one
sphere into another as not very consistent, but in those days we managed
to unite them, and we felt no awkwardness. And now, after many, many
years, passing in accidental solitude, the stream of my youth has
suddenly burst upon me. Come, thought I, I will run, as in olden days.
However, I did not get as far as running, for, though my youthful
recollections streamed upon me with vim, I had to convince myself that
my legs were not what they used to be, and that the blood in my veins
was no longer the same. And then, the questions that these recollections
brought back--really, I do not know what to call them. Some, who are
more lenient, call them untimely, while others, who are unquestionably
evil-minded, blankly call them harmful---- Well, you may judge for
yourself.

The first question: “Does history console?” Some forty years ago--I am
quite sure of it--I should in all truth have answered: “Yes, it
consoles.” But what shall I say now? To tell the truth, I have even
forgotten how to think by principles, without prefatory admixtures. I
begin with the tenebrousness of Time, and no sooner does light begin to
glimmer than I strike river Pinéga with Vilyúy, or some statute of
abatement, and there I stick fast. Precisely that has happened now.
Barely had the question peeped at me, and barely had I proceeded to
dismember it, when God knows whence bobbed up Major-General Terrible and
so flashed his eyes at me that I was completely stunned. “No, I had
better to-morrow--” I confusedly said to myself, and I that very moment
hastened to duck so that my ears might not be seen.

The second question: “Can one live with the people, and depend upon
them?” Forty years ago I certainly should have answered: “One not only
can, but it is not possible to live otherwise.” Now---- No sooner do I
begin to expatiate and prove “from principle” that human activity
outside of the sphere of the people is objectless and senseless, than
the hide of my whole being begins to shudder. There stare at me those
fellows of Hunting Row,[22] those colabourers of Hay Market, and, at
last, a whole mass of temporising rascals, _à la_ Napoleon III., who,
too, had proclaimed: _tout pour le peuple et par le peuple_---- Of
course, the conclusion was that I had better to-morrow----

The third question: “Is it possible to lead a life in which you are
supposed to eat mushroom pie exclusively that you may restrain your
tongue behind your teeth?” Forty years ago I, no doubt, should have
answered again: “No, it is not possible to live that way.” And
now?--Now: “No, I had better to-morrow----”

In short, I attempted to give answers to a whole stack of questions, but
alas! neither concreteness, nor abstraction,--nothing awakened impotent
thought. I struggled for quite a while, and I came very near calling
out: “Vódka!” but fortunately that drink is not so accessible in Paris
as to console one at will.

So I lay me down to sleep, having carried away from my two-days’ blues
the truth that under certain conditions of life a spree must be
considered not so much from the standpoint of a vitiated will as in the
sense of an irrepressible necessity of a grieving soul---- I had a
disturbed, painful dream. At first there hovered before me some
incoherent fragments, but by degrees they formed themselves into
something connected, there was a whole colloquy, the heroine of which
was--a swine! However, this colloquy is so interesting that I do not
regard it nugatory to share it with my readers in the form in which my
memory has preserved it.


  THE TRIUMPHANT SWINE, OR THE CONVERSATION OF THE SWINE WITH TRUTH--AN
                            INTERRUPTED SCENE


                             DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

  SWINE, _stall-fed beast; his bristles have become glossy and shining
    as the result of uninterrupted contact with the stable mire_.

  TRUTH, _a person that, by rights, is supposed to be eternally young,
    but in reality is badly knocked up. By order of the authorities she
    is covered with rags, through which glints her full classical
    uniform_, i. e., _nakedness_.

                 _The action takes place in the stable._

_Swine_ (_screwing up his face_). Is it true what they say, that the sun
is shining in the sky?

_Truth._ Yes, Swine.

_Swine._ Really? I have never seen any of your suns here in the stable
where I live.

_Truth._ That ’s so, Swine, because when Nature was creating you, she
kept on saying: ’T is not for you, O Swine, to see the bright sun!

_Swine._ You don’t say! (_Authoritatively._) In my opinion, all these
suns of yours are rank heresy--eh?

(_Truth, silent and embarrassed, arranges her rags. In the audience are
heard voices: “You are right, Swine! Heresy! Heresy!”_)

_Swine_ (_continues to grimace_). Is it so?--I have heard that they say
in papers that liberty is the most precious possession of human society?

_Truth._ Yes, Swine.

_Swine._ In my opinion, we are surfeited with liberty. Here, I have been
living without intermission in this stable, and I have no worry! What
more do I want? If I take a notion, I stick my snout in the trough, or
rummage the manure----what more liberty do I want? (_Authoritatively._)
You are all traitors, as I look at you--eh?

(_Truth again tries to conceal her nakedness. The audience shouts: “You
are right, Swine! Traitors! Traitors!” Some of the audience demand that
Truth shall be taken to the police station. The swine grunts with
self-satisfaction, seeing himself equal to the situation._)

_Swine._ What ’s the use, taking Truth to the station? They ’ll only
keep her there for appearances, and then they ’ll let her out again.
(_Lies down in the manure, and falls into sentimentality._) Oh, nowadays
those police people speak the same language as the feuilleton writers! A
few days ago I read in a paper that the cause of our weakness is that
our laws are only written for appearances----

_Truth._ So you read, Swine?

_Swine._ Now and then. Only I do not take it in as it is written---- I
understand it as I please---- (_To the audience._) So, as I say, my
friends! We will not send her to the police station, we ’ll get at her
in our own way---- To-day we ’ll put one little question to her, and
to-morrow--two---- (_Meditating._) We won’t get away with her at
once,--we ’ll just chaw her by degrees---- (_Panting, approaches Truth,
grabs her by her calf, and begins to bite her._) That ’s the way!

(_Truth shrinks with pain; the audience yells. Shouts are heard: “You
are a brick, Swine! You are a good one!”_)

_Swine._ What? You like it? Well, that ’ll be enough for this time!
(_Stops chawing._) Now, tell me, where is the root of evil?

_Truth_ (_confused_). The root of evil, Swine? The root of evil--the
root of evil--is (_with decision, and unexpectedly to herself_) in you,
Swine!

_Swine_ (_furious_). Ah, that ’s the way you talk! Now, look out! Did
n’t you say that universal truth was incomparably superior to
police-truth?

_Truth_ (_trying to avoid a direct answer_). Though under certain
conditions of life, one cannot deny----

_Swine._ Stop wagging your tail! We have heard of those ifs and buts
before! Talk straight! Is there in your opinion a certain special truth
that is superior to police-truth?

_Truth._ O Swine, how treacherously mean----

_Swine._ Very well, we ’ll talk later about that. (_Treading with
heavier step._) Go ahead! Is it true you have said that the laws must
protect all alike, for, say you, otherwise human society would change
into a chaotic mass of warring elements? What kind of laws have you been
talking about? What was the cause, madam, of your glibness, and at whose
door did you wish to place it--eh?

_Truth._ Ah, Swine!

_Swine._ Swine me no swine to my snout! I know without you that I am a
swine. I am a swine, and you are Truth---- (_The swine’s grunting sounds
like irony._) Go, Swine, make for Truth! (_Begins to chaw. To the
audience._) Fine, is n’t it?

(_Truth shudders with pain. The audience goes into convulsions. On all
sides is heard: “Fine! Give it to her, Swine! Give it to her! Go for
her! Chaw her! Look at that impudent one; she dares have anything to
say!”_)

                   ────────────────────────────────────

The colloquy was interrupted here. I could not make out anything else,
because there was raised such a hubbub in the stable that I could only
dimly catch the sounds: “Is it true that in the university----” “Is it
true that in the female colleges----” In a twinkling of the eye Truth
was enmeshed in a whole net of stupidly treacherous deceit, and every
attempt at disentangling from that net was met by the swine’s chawing
and the thunder of the crowd: “Friends, let us judge her with the
people’s judgment!”

I lay like one fettered, expecting any moment to be chawed up myself. I,
who had all my life been repeating in frivolous self-confidence: “God
won’t permit it, the swine won’t eat me!”--suddenly yelled out at the
top of my voice: “The swine will eat me up! He will!”

That very moment a loud rap at the door made me wake up.

  [22] Poultry and game market.




  Dmítri Ivánovich Písarev. (1841-1868.)


  Písarev was the son of wealthy gentlefolk who gave him a very careful
  training at home, so that at the age of four he spoke fluently three
  languages, at the age of eleven entered an advanced class of the
  Gymnasium, graduating with a gold medal, and at sixteen years was by
  especial permission admitted to the university. While there, he
  contributed some reviews for periodicals and wrote an elaborate
  dissertation on Apollonius of Tyana. In 1862 he was arrested for
  having furnished a secret printing establishment with an article on
  Herzen, and was kept for four years in prison. Here he composed his
  essays for which he is known. He taught a philosophic sensualism and
  denied the value of art, and with it of poetry for art’s sake,--in
  short, he stood on the standpoint of Bazárov in Turgénev’s _Fathers
  and Sons_. He thus represented the reaction of the early sixties
  against the opportunism of the previous decade. In his _Flowers of
  Harmless Humour_ he made an attack against the satirist Shchedrín,
  whom he advised to abandon his literary labours for the popularisation
  of the sciences. He died by accidental drowning.


                        FLOWERS OF HARMLESS HUMOUR

Poets fare badly in our days. Their credit is rapidly sinking. Unfeeling
critics and soulless scoffers are breaking down the public’s respect for
the great mysteries of the unconscious creative power. Formerly they
used to talk of a poet’s inspiration; formerly a poet was thought to be
a favourite of the gods and an intimate of the Muses. Though these
mythological metaphors were not supposed to be interpreted in a literal
sense, yet under these metaphors one continually felt something good and
mysterious, something intangible and inapproachable, something that must
for ever remain inaccessible to us, poor clodhoppers. Fellows of our
kind were permitted to learn something about it only from the indistinct
accounts of the artists who “like gods have access to the Olympian
halls,” where they are shown very interesting and frequently very
immodest scenes.

Now all that has changed. Brother clodhopper has gathered an enormous
force, and he undertakes to discuss everything. He does not acknowledge
any inspiration, does not hanker for any Olympian halls, in spite of the
fact that the poet gives a detailed account how a certain artist was
once shown in these halls “a white nape’s curvedness” in “eternal
ideals,” and things in general which “divinity discloses to mortals in
paltry doles” (A. Máykov). Our brother clodhopper denies all that with
his innate coarseness of feeling and boldness of expression. Those are
all flowers of fancy, he says, but you had better tell us: What mental
power does the poet possess? Is his development broad, and his culture
thorough?

What questions these are! Are they pertinent? Are they refined? Is it
permissible to summon a favourite of the gods and to question him like a
guilty high-school boy? If it at all has come to such unheard of
questions, if faith has been lost in divine inspiration, if the
periodicals find it more interesting to have their correspondents in
Paris or London, in Sarátov or Irkútsk, rather than upon Parnassus or in
the Olympian halls,--then, of course, there is nothing left for the
peaceable poet to do but to hang his darling lyre on a nail, and to
enter the Government service or turn to the sombre occupations of
agriculture. If it keeps on in that way, there will at last come a
dramatic moment, when the last poet will embrace the last esthetician
and, sobbing, will say to him:

“My friend, we are alone. The world has turned sour and is decaying. The
microscope and the scalpel give us no rest. If we do not conceal
ourselves or do not turn naturalists, they will put us alive into
spirits, in order to preserve complete the last specimens of an extinct
species that had remarkable external resemblances to man. My friend,
when we die, the last gate that leads to the Olympian dwellings will be
nailed up and securely hidden from view, not by bricks, but by a heap of
all the unsold copies of my poems and all the uncut sheets of your
critical essays.”

“Well,” will say the esthetician, “if it is so, then all is ended. The
gate will for ever remain inaccessible! No man will ever climb, no
animal will ever jump over my critiques and your poesy.” And, clasping
each other in a tight embrace, as people embrace on the grave of
everything that is dear to them, our last Mohicans will start on a run
to the shop to buy themselves a microscope and chemical retorts, as
appurtenances of a masquerade that is to save them from an untimely and
involuntary descent into spirits. The history of the regenerated
specimens of the extinct species will end by the esthetician’s and
poet’s marriage, _à la face du soleil et de la nature_, to two girls who
are medical practitioners and who in times of yore used to completely
upset their present admirers by their incomprehensibly solid education,
their indecently firm manner of thinking, and their complete absence of
feminine grace, that is, weakness, silliness, and affectation. The
children of these two happy pairs will get to hear some dim references
to estheticians and poets, but their grandchildren will never hear that.
Both species will become entirely unknown, as are unknown to us many
slugs of the primeval world, that have left neither bones, nor shells,
nor any other traces of their mundane existence.

From many separate features that are scattered in my prophetic
improvisation, the reader may notice that its realisation belongs to a
very distant future. In all likelihood the great-great-grandfathers and
the great-great-grandmothers of the last esthetician and the last poet
are at the present moment not yet in the wombs of their mothers; yet, in
spite of the remoteness of the decisive catastrophe, there are evil
omens of it even in our own time---- There are very many literary
parasites, but out of the murky and miserable crowd of the intellectual
proletariat rise only those who know how to acquire a flexible and
variegated form of expression. These brilliant parasites carry form to a
truly incredible perfection. They produce in their language the same
kind of wonderful roulades that Kóntski does on the violin or Rubinstein
on the piano. If this virtuosity is acquired by habit and practice, it,
naturally, behooves to make use of it: it is a capital from which one
must derive interest. And all the simple-minded reader has to do, is to
roll his eyes and take in the wonder! One is present at the creation of
a world in miniature: everything is made out of nothing; emptiness is
made to appear as fulness, and it is made to appear fulness so naturally
that one has only to shrug his shoulders: “Yes, he is an artist, a
painter, a professor of white magic, a Bosco, and even a Mikháyla
Vasílevich!” Of course, the public says “Ah!” and goes into ecstasies,
and how can it help going into ecstasies, when the miracles are produced
right before its eyes!

When the parasite begins to receive interest from his capital, he simply
and definitely creates, in order to apply his technical skill to
something. He has no prompting to tell society any ideas; he has no
feeling that is persistently seeking to come out and manifest itself; he
does not at all wish to act consciously upon the development of society
in one direction or another; he is not a thinker, not a social factor,
and not a poet in the higher and now forgotten sense of the word. He is
a master workman of articles, novels, or verses, and, being a sensible
artisan, he does not wish his skill to be lost in vain. Why should he
sit with folded hands, having learned a trade? Why should he not start
out on the hunt of roubles and laurel wreaths, as long as there are good
people who lavish both in fair abundance?

His reasoning is faultless, and this reasoning leads straightway to the
complete triumph and unlimited domination of pure art. Some people write
because their being boils over with the impassioned work of mind and
feelings. It is evident that their mind and feelings, being abroad
because of the creative process, are roused by impressions that are
independent of that process.

Others write in order to act upon society. The aim of their activity is
independent of the process, as we see in Byelínski, Dobrolyúbov, and the
author of _What is to be Done?_[23]

Others again write because they have learned to write and because they
can write without the least labour, just as a nightingale sings and a
rose exhales perfume. Their activity is causeless and aimless, that is,
they have a cause and an aim, but these can have no effect upon the
direction of the creative process. Suppose the versifier wants to have a
beaver collar sewn on to his warm overcoat. Here is a stimulating cause
for dipping his pen in the inkstand; however, he will, in all
probability, not write of beaver collars, but of the vicissitudes of
fate that affected three ancient sages,[24] or of the misfortunes of a
poor girl who died in the spring by the sounds of her father’s fiddle,
or of some other elevated and beautiful thing that has nothing in common
with the tempting display of the furrier next door.

He has also an aim: the versifier wishes to sell his poem to a
periodical, to get for it as much as possible, and to receive on account
all they will give him. Yet Seneca, Lucan, and Lucius warmly discuss the
immortality of the soul, and not where he will get most, whether in the
“Contemporary” or the “Memoirs of the Fatherland.” And dying Mánya, in
her last moments, is interested in the spring leafage, instead of
disquieting herself with the ticklish question: I wonder whether they
will let me have fifty roubles in advance at the “Russian Word”?

It is clear that cause and aim do not penetrate into the sanctuary of
creativeness. The sanctuary remains unpolluted, and people that pine for
a beaver collar and that dream of a tempting advance payment may be
recognised as high priests of pure art. The question will, naturally,
not be changed if instead of a beaver collar I should put a craving for
literary glory, and instead of an advance payment of fifty
roubles--applauses at public readings. The priest of pure art will in
either case remain true to his vocation, and in either case he will
remain a magnificent specimen of the genus parasite.

If it is not quite clear to the readers why our lyric poets, who
represent a complete absence of ideas, may be included in the list of
parasites that despoil the ideas of others, I will at once set them
aright. Our lyric poets feed their destitution on the tiniest grains of
thought and feelings that are the common possession of all men, stupid
and wise, cultured and uncultured, honest and dishonest. Every man has
some kind of a feeling when he looks at a pretty woman, and everybody
knows that sensation and understands that it is known to others also,
and that, consequently, it is useless and uninteresting to tell others
about it. But the lyricists live, like the humming-birds, on flower
dust; they have turned this trifling and well-known sentiment to their
advantage and have begun to elicit an income from it, thanks to their
ability to create something out of nothing and to clothe the intangible
dust in thin-woven and variegated garments of iambics, chorees,
anapests, dactyls, and amphibrachs.

The lyric poets, being tiny birds in the great family of parasites,
prosper on what everybody knows and none but the lyric poets can or wish
to make use of. Other larger parasites exploit in their favour not small
grains of feeling and germs of thought, but whole, big feelings and
whole, well-developed thoughts. These priests of pure art devour
remarkable theories and majestic world conceptions. There are among
these priests sparrows, and there are also elephants, and, as the
proverb says, the bigger the vessel, the better the sailing,--the
elephants, naturally, lay hold of the broadest and most daring world
conceptions. They discuss with another’s voice the most important and
the greatest questions of life; they perform their variations with so
much aplomb and with such overpowering thunder that the reader is
intimidated and reverentially bows his head before them.

But the temple of pure art is open alike for all its real devotees, for
all the priests who have a pure heart and are innocent of independent
mental labour. Thanks to this circumstance, the reader, though he may
marvel and not believe his eyes, will see at the same altar, on the one
hand, our little lyric poet Fet, on the other, our great humorist
Shchedrín.

  [23] Chernyshévski, whose name was tabooed by the censors.

  [24] Máykov is meant; see p. 344.




  Count Lev Nikoláevich Tolstóy. (1828-.)


  Count Tolstóy was born in the estate of Yásnaya Polyána, in the
  Government of Túla. In 1837 his family settled in Moscow, but his
  father died soon after, and he returned to Yásnaya Polyána. In 1843 he
  entered the university at Kazán, and in 1848 graduated from the
  Faculty of Jurisprudence at St Petersburg. He again returned to his
  estate, where he remained till 1851. He then enrolled in the army and
  was stationed in the Caucasus, where he began his literary career with
  his sketches, _Childhood_, _The Incursion_, _Boyhood_, _The Cossacks_.
  He took part in the Crimean War, and during the campaign wrote his
  stories about _Sebastopol_. After the war Tolstóy settled in St.
  Petersburg, where he published a series of shorter stories. In these
  his disenchantment with existing conditions is clearly perceptible. In
  1862 he married the daughter of Doctor Behrs, and went back to the
  estate of Yásnaya Polyána. Here he devoted himself to the education of
  the peasants and edited an educational periodical, _Yásnaya Polyána_,
  in which he evolved his radical views. Soon after he assumed a
  negative attitude to all progress, and has remained in it ever since.
  From 1865 to 1869 appeared his great novel _War and Peace_. Then he
  again returned to his pedagogical activity, and composed a large
  number of short stories for the peasants. In 1875 began to appear his
  other great novel, _Ánna Karénin_. At the same time he wrote his
  _Confession_, and devoted himself to the composition of theological
  tracts. His newly formulated theory of a return to common labour and
  simplicity of life has found many followers who emulate the life of
  their master under the name of Tolstoyists.

  The first novel of Tolstóy’s to be translated was _The Cossacks_, by
  Eugene Schuyler, in 1878. Since then such a large number of
  translations of most of his works have appeared that it is not
  advisable to give them here; they may easily be found in late
  publishers’ annuals. The following names figure as translators of
  Tolstóy: A. Hulme Beaman, M. Cruger, E. J. Dillon, A. Delano, N. H.
  Dole, H. Sutherland Edwards, Constance Garnett, G. B. Halsted, Isabel
  Hapgood, Ch. Johnston, A. Loranger, Y. A. Ludwig, Louise Maude, W.
  Aylmer Maude, Count Norraikow, C. Dopoff, S. Rapoport and J.
  Kenworthy, V. Tchertkoff, W. M. Thompson, B. R. Tucker.


                           FROM “ÁNNA KARÉNIN”

“Do you know, I have been thinking of you,” said Sergyéy Ivánovich.
“From what that doctor has told me, there are some awful things going on
in your county; the doctor is quite a clever fellow. I have been telling
you and I repeat it now: it is wrong for you not to go to the meetings
and altogether to keep away from all agrarian interests. If decent
people are going to withdraw from them, then, of course, everything will
go God knows how. We are paying out money; it all goes on salaries, and
we have no schools, no medical assistants, no midwives, no apothecary
shops, nothing.”

“I have tried,” Levín answered softly and unwillingly, “but I can’t!
What ’s to be done?”

“What is it that you can’t! I confess, I do not understand you.
Indifference and inability I do not admit; is it, then, simply
indolence?”

“Neither the one, nor the other, nor the third. I have tried, and I see
that I can’t do anything,” said Levín.

He did not pay much attention to what his brother was saying. As he
looked beyond the river at the field, he distinguished something black,
but he could not make out whether it was a horse or a clerk on
horseback.

“Why can’t you do anything? You have made an attempt, and in your
opinion you did not succeed, so you have given it up. Have n’t you any
ambition?”

“Ambition,” said Levín, touched to the quick by his brother’s words, “is
incomprehensible to me. If they had told me in the university that
others understand integral calculus, and that I do not, there would be a
case for ambition. But here one must be convinced first of all that one
must have a certain ability for that, and above all, that these affairs
are really important.”

“Well, is n’t that important?” said Sergyéy Ivánovich, himself touched
to the quick because his brother regarded as unimportant that which
interested him, and because, evidently, he was not listening.

“It does not seem important to me, and does not interest me, so what are
you going to do about that?” answered Levín, having in the meantime made
out that what he saw was really the clerk and that the clerk had, no
doubt, told the peasants to stop ploughing. They were turning over the
ploughs. “Is it possible, they have done the ploughing?” he thought.

“But listen,” said his elder brother, with a frown on his beautiful,
intelligent face, “there are limits to everything. It ’s all very nice
to be an odd fellow, and a sincere man, and not to like deception,--I
understand all that; but what you are saying has either no sense, or a
very bad sense. How is it you find it unimportant that the people whom
you profess to love----”

“I never professed,” thought Konstantín Levín.

“Are dying without receiving any aid? Coarse midwives are killing the
children, and the people are steeped in ignorance and remain in the
power of every scribe, whereas you have the means at hand to correct all
that, and you do nothing, because in your opinion it is not important.”

Sergyéy Ivánovich had placed a dilemma before him: “Either you are so
undeveloped that you cannot see all that you are able to do, or you do
not wish to sacrifice your quiet and your vainglory, or what not, in
order to do it.”

Konstantín Levín felt that there was nothing left for him to do but
submit or confess an absence of love for the common weal. And this
offended and grieved him.

“Both,” he spoke with decision; “I can’t see how one can----”

“What? You can’t, by making proper use of money, give them medical
help?”

“As far as I can see, it is impossible---- I see no possibility of
furnishing medical aid in all the places of the four thousand square
versts of our county, with our freshets, blizzards, and working season.
Besides, I have no faith in medicine.”

“Come now, that is not just---- I can give you a thousand examples----
Well, and schools?”

“What are the schools for?”

“You don’t mean that! Can there be any doubt of the use of education? If
it is good for you, it is also good for everybody else.”

Konstantín Levín felt himself morally pushed to the wall, and so he
became excited and involuntarily expressed the main cause of his
indifference to the common good.

“May be all that is good. But why should I bother about establishing
medical centres which I am not going to use, or schools to which I am
not going to send my children, to which even the peasants do not want to
send theirs, and I am not yet firmly convinced that they should?” said
he.

This unexpected view of the affair for a moment startled Sergyéy
Ivánovich; but he at once thought out a new plan of attack. He kept
silent, pulled out one fishing-rod, threw it in at another place, and,
smiling, turned to his brother.

“You will pardon me: in the first place, a medical centre is much
needed. There, we had to send for the county doctor to attend to Agáfya
Mikháylovna.”

“Well, I think her hand will always stay crooked.”

“That is an open question---- Then, a literate peasant will make a more
useful labourer.”

“I don’t know, you may ask anybody you please,” answered Konstantín
Levín emphatically,--“literate peasants are much worse as labourers. You
can’t fix the roads with them; and if they have to build a bridge, they
’ll swipe the material.”

“However,” frowningly said Sergyéy Ivánovich, who did not like
contradictions, especially such as continually jumped from one subject
to another and without connection adduced new proofs, so that it was
impossible to tell what to answer first, “however, that is not the
question. Let me ask you, do you acknowledge education to be a benefit
to the people?”

“I do,” said Levín incautiously, and immediately was conscious that he
did not say what was in his mind. He felt that since he did acknowledge
it, the proof would be forthcoming that he was talking senseless bosh.
He did not know how that would be argued, but he was sure that the
logical deduction was forthcoming, and he waited for that proof.

The argument was much simpler than Konstantín Levín had expected it.

“If you acknowledge it to be beneficial,” said Sergyéy Ivánovich, “you,
as an honest man, can’t help loving this thing and sympathising with it,
and consequently you can’t help wishing to work for it.”

“But I have not yet acknowledged this to be good,” said Konstantín
Levín, blushing.

“What? You have just told me----”

“That is, I do not acknowledge it to be good or possible.”

“You can’t know that, not having made an effort.”

“Well, granted,” said Levín, though he did not at all grant it,
“granted, it is so; I still can’t see, why I should bother about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, since we have gotten so far in our discussion, explain it to me
from the philosophical point of view,” said Levín.

“I don’t understand what need there is here of philosophy,” said Sergyéy
Ivánovich, in a tone which sounded to Levín as if he did not acknowledge
his brother’s right to discuss philosophy. This irritated Levín.

“It is this,” he said excitedly, “I think that the prime mover of all
our actions is, after all, our personal happiness. I, as a nobleman, see
at present nothing in the agrarian institutions by which my interests
are advanced. The roads are no better, and they can’t be better; my
horses take me just as easily over bad roads. I need no doctors and no
medical centres. I don’t want a justice of the peace,--I have never had
recourse to him, and I never will. I not only need no schools, but I
find them injurious, as I have told you. For me the agrarian
institutions mean only an obligation to pay eighteen kopeks per
desyatína, to travel to town, in order to pass the nights with bedbugs,
and to listen to all kinds of nonsense and commonplaces,--but my
personal interest in no way incites me.”

“Wait a moment,” Sergyéy Ivánovich interrupted him, with a smile, “our
personal interest did not incite us to work for the liberation of the
peasants, yet we worked.”

“No!” Konstantín interrupted him, getting ever more excited. “The
liberation of the peasants was an entirely different matter. There was a
personal interest connected with it. We wanted to get rid of the yoke
which was oppressing us, all the good people. But to be an alderman, to
discuss how many cleaners of privies are needed, and how the pipes are
to be laid in the town I am not living in,--to be a juryman and sit in
judgment over a peasant who has stolen a ham, and for six hours to
listen to all kinds of nonsense that is threshed out by the defence and
by the procurators, and the presiding judge asking my old peasant,
Aléshka the fool: ‘Do you, Mr. Defendant, plead guilty to
misappropriating the ham, eh?’”

Konstantín Levín was getting away from the argument, and began to act
the presiding judge and Aléshka the fool; it seemed to him that it all
was pertinent to the discussion.

But Sergyéy Ivánovich shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, what is it you are up to?”

“I want to say that I will always, with all my might, defend the rights
that touch me--my interest; that, when I was a student and the secret
police made a raid on us and read our letters, I was ready with all my
might to defend these rights, to defend my rights of culture and of
liberty. I can understand military duties that touch the fate of my
children, my brothers, and myself; I am ready to discuss what touches
me; but I do not understand, and do not want to understand, why I should
consider what to do with forty thousand roubles of the county money, or
why I should sit in judgment over Aléshka the fool.”

Konstantín Levín spoke as if the dam of his words had broken loose.
Sergyéy Ivánovich smiled.

“Suppose you will have a case at law to-morrow: well, would you prefer
to be judged in the old criminal court?”

“I will not have a case in court. I will not cut anybody’s throat, and I
have no need to do so. By the way!” he continued, again jumping over to
an entirely irrelevant matter, “all our county institutions and such
things are very much like the birch saplings that we stick up, as on
Whitsun Monday, in order to make them look like a forest that has grown
up of its own accord in Europe; but I have not the heart to water these
birches, nor have I any faith in them.”

Sergyéy Ivánovich only shrugged his shoulders, expressing by this motion
that he was at a loss to account for these birches in their discussion,
though he immediately saw what his brother had intended to say by them.

“Really, that is not a way of discussing the matter,” he remarked.

But Konstantín Levín was anxious to put himself right in regard to his
defect, of which he was conscious, that is, his indifference to the
common good, and he continued:

“I think,” said Konstantín, “that no activity can be permanent if it is
not based on personal interest. This is a universal truth, a philosophic
truth,” said he, emphatically repeating the word “philosophic,” as if to
show that he, too, had a right, like anybody else, to talk of
philosophy.

Sergyéy Ivánovich smiled again. “He has a philosophy of his own to suit
his inclinations,” thought he.

“Well, you had better leave philosophy alone,” said he. “The main
problem of philosophy has been in all ages to discover the necessary
connection that exists between personal and common interests. But that
is not to the point; it behooves me to correct your comparison. The
birch saplings were not stuck up, but some were set out, and some were
planted, and one has to tend them carefully. Only those nations have a
future, only those nations may be called historical, that have
discernment in what is important and significant in their institutions,
and that value them.”

Sergyéy Ivánovich transferred the question into the field of
philosophical history, which was inaccessible to Konstantín Levín, and
showed him the whole injustice of his view.

“But as to your having no love for it,--you must pardon me,--it is a
case of our Russian indolence and mannerism, and I am convinced that it
is only a temporary aberration which will pass.”

Konstantín was silent. He felt that he had been demolished all around,
but he felt at the same time that his brother did not understand what he
had intended to convey. But he did not know why he was not understood:
because he did not express clearly his thoughts, or because his brother
did not wish to understand him, or because he could not. However, he did
not pursue this thought any longer; he did not answer his brother, and
fell to musing about something different, some personal matter of his.

Sergyéy Ivánovich fastened his last fishing-rod, untied the horse, and
they drove away.


The waggon-load was full. Iván jumped down and led the gentle, well-fed
horse by the bridle. The woman threw her rake on the waggon, and,
swinging her arms, went with a rapid step to the other women who were
walking together. When Iván drove into the road, he joined a whole
procession of other waggons. The women were walking behind the waggons,
with their rakes over their shoulders, adorned with bright flowers and
prating away with their sonorous, merry voices. A coarse, low, woman’s
voice started a song and sang it out to the refrain; then half a hundred
of low and high healthy voices caught the refrain and sang the song
again from the beginning.

The singing women were approaching Levín, and it appeared to him as
though a cloud, discharging peals of joy, were passing over him. The
cloud came nearer, and overwhelmed him, and the stack on which he was
lying, and all the other stacks, and the waggons, and the whole meadow
with the distant field,--all moved and rocked with the rhythmical
measure of this wild, hilarious song, with its exclamations, its
whistling and shouting. Levín envied them their healthy merriment, and
he wished to take part in the expression of this joy of life. But he
could do nothing, and he was obliged to lie, and look and listen. When
the people disappeared with their song from the eye and the ear, a heavy
feeling of melancholy, on account of his loneliness, his physical
inactivity, his hostility to this world, took possession of Levín.

Some of the very peasants who had more than anybody else been disputing
with him on account of the hay, those whom he had offended, or those who
had wished to cheat him,--those very peasants merrily bowed to him and
evidently had no evil thought of him, nor could they have any; they had
not only no repentance but even no recollection of their having wished
to cheat him. Everything was drowned in the sea of the merry mass work.
God has given the day, God has given the strength to work. And the day
and the strength are devoted to work, and in it is its own reward. For
whom is this work? What will be the fruits of this work? These are
secondary, unimportant considerations.

Levín often admired this life, often experienced the feeling of envy
towards the people that lived this life, but it was to-day for the first
time, especially under the influence of what he had seen of the
relations of Iván Parménov to his young wife, that Levín was possessed
of the idea that it depended upon him to change the burdensome, empty,
artificial, and personal life which he was living for this busy, pure,
social, charming life.

The old man who had been sitting by his side had long ago gone home; the
people had all disappeared. Those who lived near by had gone home, and
those that were from a distance were preparing their supper and their
camp in the meadow. Unnoticed by the people, Levín remained lying on the
stack, in order to see, listen, and think. Those who had stayed for the
night in the field hardly closed their eyes in the short summer night.
At first one could hear a universal merry conversation and laughter
during the supper, and then again songs and laughter.

The whole long work-day had left no other trace in them but merriment.
Before the morning dawn everything grew quiet. One could hear only the
nocturnal sounds of the unsilenced frogs in the swamp, and of the horses
that neighed in the meadow in the mist that rose before morning.
Awakening from his revery, Levín climbed down from the stack and,
looking at the stars, he knew that night had passed.

“Well, what am I going to do? How am I going to do it?” said he to
himself, trying to formulate for himself all that he had thought out and
that he had felt in that short night. All that he had thought and felt
was divided into three different mental processes. One was the
renunciation of his old life, of his useless education. This
renunciation caused him pleasure, and it was easy and simple for him.
Other thoughts and ideas touched upon the life which he now wanted to
live. He clearly felt the simplicity, purity, and legality of this life,
and he was convinced that he would find in it that satisfaction, that
rest and dignity, the absence of which had caused him such painful
sensations. But the third series of thoughts circled about the question
how to make that transition from the old life to the new. But here he
could see nothing clearly. “To have a wife. Have work and the necessity
for work. Should I leave Pokróvskoe? Should I buy land? Join society?
Marry a peasant woman? How am I to do it?” he asked himself again and
found no answer. “However, I have not slept the whole night, and I have
no clear ideas,” said he to himself. “I will think it out later. One
thing is certain, this night has decided my fate. All my former ideas of
family life are bosh,” said he to himself. “This is much simpler and
better----”

“How beautiful!” thought he, as he looked at a strange, mother-of-pearl
shell of white cirrus clouds that stopped over his head in the middle of
the sky. “How superb everything is in this superb night! When has this
shell been formed? It is only a moment ago I was looking at the sky, and
there was nothing there but two white streaks. Yes, just so
imperceptibly have my views of life been changed!”


                           FROM “WAR AND PEACE”

                       NAPOLEON’S ENTRY INTO MOSCOW

On the night of the thirteenth of September was given Kutúzov’s order
for the Russian army to retreat beyond the Moskvá on the Ryazán road.

The first divisions started in the night. As long as it was dark, they
were in no hurry and moved slowly and in good order. But when the moving
army reached the Dorogomílov bridge at daybreak, they could see ahead of
them the endless masses of the army, pressing and hurrying over the
bridge, and emerging on the other side, and stopping up the streets and
byways, and behind them followed similar endless masses. An unnecessary
haste and alarm took possession of the army. They all pushed forward to
the bridge, over the bridge, to the fords, and into the boats. Kutúzov
had himself taken by back streets beyond the Moskvá.

By ten o’clock on the morning of September 14th there were left at large
in the Dorogomílov suburb only the battalions of the rear-guard. The
army was already beyond the Moskvá and out of sight of Moscow.

At just that time, at ten o’clock on the morning of September 14th,
Napoleon stood among his soldiers on the Poklónnaya Hill, and surveyed
the spectacle before him. Beginning with September 7th and up to
September 14th, from the battle at Borodinó up to the enemy’s entry into
Moscow, during all the days of that alarming and memorable week, there
was that unusual autumn weather, which always puzzles people, when the
low sun is warmer than in spring, when everything gleams in the pure,
rarified air, so as to hurt the eyes, when the breast grows stronger and
fresher as it inhales the fragrant autumn air, when even the nights are
warm, and when in these dark and warm nights golden stars shower down
from the heavens, causing continual fear and joy.

It was just such weather on September 14th, at ten o’clock in the
morning. The morning shone with a magic glow. Moscow spread far and wide
from the Poklónnaya Hill, with its river, its gardens and churches, and
seemed to be living its own life, its cupolas sparkling like stars in
the sunbeams.

At the sight of the strange city with its unfamiliar forms of unusual
architecture, Napoleon experienced that somewhat envious and restless
curiosity which people generally experience at the sight of forms of a
strange life that knows nothing of them. Evidently the city was living
with all the manifestations of its life. By those indefinable signs, by
which a living body is unfailingly distinguished at a great distance
from a dead one, Napoleon saw from the Poklónnaya Hill the palpitation
of life in the city, and, as it were, felt the breath of that great and
beautiful body. Looking at Moscow, every Russian feels that she is a
mother; every stranger, who looks at her and does not know her maternal
meaning, must perceive the feminine character of this city, and Napoleon
felt it too.

“There it is, at last, that famous Asiatic city with its innumerable
churches,--that holy Moscow! I ought to have seen it long ago!” said
Napoleon and, dismounting his horse, ordered to unfold before him the
map of that Moscow and called up the translator, Lelorme d’Ideville.

“A city that is taken by the enemy is like a girl who has lost her
innocence,” thought he (he had said so to Tuchkóv in Smolénsk). And from
this point of view he surveyed the Eastern beauty that lay before him
and that he had not yet seen. It appeared strange to him that at last
his old wish, which had seemed to him to be impossible, was fulfilled.
In the clear morning light he looked, now at the city, now at the map,
studying the details of the city, and the confidence of possessing it
agitated and frightened him.

“But could it have been otherwise?” thought he. “There is the capital:
it lies at my feet, expecting its fate. Where is Alexander now, and what
is he thinking about? Strange, beautiful, majestic city! And this is a
strange and majestic moment! In what light do I appear to them?” thought
he of his army. “Here is the reward for all these men of little faith,”
thought he, as he looked at those who surrounded him and at the
battalions that were defiled before him. “One word of mine, one motion
of my hand, and this ancient city of the Tsars is in ruins. But my mercy
is ever ready to be shown to the conquered. I must be magnanimous and
truly great. But no, it is not true that I am in Moscow,” it suddenly
occurred to him. “Still, there it lies at my feet, playing and trembling
with its golden cupolas and crosses in the rays of the sun. But I will
spare it. On the ancient monuments of barbarism and despotism I will
write great words of justice and mercy---- Alexander will feel that more
painfully than anything else, I know him.” It seemed to Napoleon that
the chief meaning of what was happening consisted in his personal
contest with Alexander. “From the summit of the Kremlin--yes, that is
the Kremlin, yes--will I give them laws of justice, will I show them the
true meaning of civilisation: I will cause generations of boyárs to
mention with love the name of their conqueror. I will tell the
deputation that I did not wish and do not now wish war; that I have made
war only on the false politics of their Court, that I love and respect
Alexander, and that I will accept in Moscow the conditions of peace,
such as is worthy of me and of my nations. I will not make use of the
fortune of war in order to lower their respected Tsar. ‘Boyárs,’ will I
say to them, ‘I want no war, I want the peace and well-being of all my
subjects----’ Indeed, I know their presence will inspire me, and I shall
speak as I always do,--clearly, majestically, and grandly. But is it
really true that I am in Moscow? Yes, there it is!”

“Bring the boyárs to me,” he said to his suite. A general at once
galloped away with a brilliant suite to fetch the boyárs.

Two hours passed. Napoleon had his breakfast, and again stood in the
same place upon Poklónnaya Hill, waiting for the deputation. His speech
to the boyárs was already clearly formed in his imagination. That speech
was full of dignity and grandeur, as Napoleon understood them.

That mood of magnanimity which Napoleon intended to exercise in Moscow
carried him away. In his imagination he appointed days of assembly in
the palace of the Tsars, where the Russian dignitaries were to meet the
dignitaries of the French Emperor. He mentally appointed a governor who
would be able to gain the love of the populace. Having heard that there
were many charitable institutions in Moscow, he decided in his
imagination to shower his favours on all these establishments. He
thought that, as it was necessary in Africa to sit in the mosque in a
burnous, so one must in Moscow be as charitable as the Tsars. And in
order to touch most deeply the hearts of the Russians, he, like every
Frenchman, who cannot imagine anything touching without the memory of
his dear, his tender, his poor mother, decided to have written in large
letters over these institutions: “Establishment dedicated to my dear
mother.” No, simply: “House of my mother,” he concluded with himself.
“But am I really in Moscow? Yes, there it is, before me; but why is the
deputation so late in making its appearance?” thought he.

In the meanwhile an agitated consultation took place between the
Imperial generals and marshals in the back of his suite. Those who had
been sent out to fetch the deputation returned with the news that Moscow
was deserted, that everybody had left the city. The faces of the
consulting men were pale and agitated. Not the fact that Moscow had been
abandoned by its inhabitants, however important that incident may have
appeared, frightened them, but how they were to announce it to the
Emperor, and how to avoid placing his Majesty into that terrible
position which the French call ridiculous, when they would inform him
that he had in vain been waiting so long for the boyárs, that there were
left crowds of drunken men, but no one else. Some said that it was by
all means necessary to get together some kind of a deputation; other
rejected that opinion and insisted that it behooved them carefully and
cleverly to prepare the Emperor, and to tell him the truth.

“But we must tell him by all means,” said the gentlemen of the suite.
“But, gentlemen--” The situation was the more difficult since the
Emperor, in considering his plans of magnanimity, was patiently walking
up and down, in front of the map, now and then shielding his eyes, in
order to look down the road to Moscow, and smiling happily and proudly.
“But it is awkward--impossible!” said the gentlemen of the suite,
shrugging their shoulders, and not venturing to pronounce the suppressed
terrible word, _le ridicule_.

In the meanwhile the Emperor, tiring of his vain expectation and feeling
with his histrionic sentiment that the majestic moment was lasting too
long and, consequently, was beginning to lose its majesticalness, gave a
sign with his hand. A single shot of the signalling cannon was heard,
and the troops that were besieging Moscow from various sides moved upon
the city, through the Tver, Kalúga, and Dorogomílov toll-gates. The
troops moved faster and faster, outrunning each other, in a rapid march
and a gallop, disappearing in the clouds of dust which they raised, and
filling the air with their deafening voices. Carried away by the
movement of the troops, Napoleon rode with the army to the Dorogomílov
toll-gate, but there he stopped again and, dismounting his horse, walked
up and down by the Kammer-Kolleg rampart, awaiting the deputation----

All this time Moscow was deserted. There were still some people in it,
there was still left one fiftieth part of all its former inhabitants,
but it was deserted. It was as deserted as is a queenless beehive in its
last moments.

In the queenless hive there is no life, but at a superficial glance it
appears as full of life as others. The bees swarm in the warm rays of an
afternoon sun just as merrily about the queenless hive, as around the
other live hives; from a distance it is just as fragrant with honey, and
bees fly in and out of it as before. But one has only to look more
closely at it, to discover that there is no life left within. The bees
do not fly here as in the live hives; not the same odour and not the
same sound strike the bee-keeper. To the bee-keeper’s tap on the wall of
the great beehive there is no longer the former immediate, unison answer
and humming of tens of thousands of bees that threateningly lower their
backs and by the swift motion of their wings produce that aërial life
sound, but some discordant buzzing is heard in various places of the
empty beehive. From the entrance does not proceed, as formerly, a
fragrant alcoholic odour of honey and pollen, nor does it exhale a warm
breath of fulness, but with the odour of honey is mingled an odour of
emptiness and decay.

At the entrance are no longer found the watch-bees, ready to defend the
hive to the last extremity, with their backs raised up and trumpeting
the alarm. There is no longer that even and soft sound, that palpitation
of work, resembling the sound of boiling, but one hears the incoherent,
discordant noise of disorder. Black, slender, honey-covered
plunderer-bees fly timidly and stealthily out of one hive into another;
they do not sting, but avoid danger. Formerly bees flew in with burdens
and out again without anything; now they fly off laden with booty.

The bee-keeper opens the lower part of the hive and looks at its bottom.
Instead of the black rows of well-fed bees that, pacified by their work,
hung down to the very bottom, holding each other by the legs, and with a
continuous murmur of labour drawing out the wax, now sleepy, dried-up
bees wander about distractedly over the bottom and over the walls of the
hive. Instead of the floor being pasted even with glue, and swept clean
by the fanning wings, it is covered with bits of wax, with excrements of
the bees, and with half-dead bees that barely move their feet, and with
entirely dead bees that have not been removed.

The bee-keeper opens the upper part of the hive, and inspects the top.
Instead of serried ranks of bees that have filled up all the interstices
in the honeycomb and that are warming their young brood, he sees only
the artistic, complicated work of the comb, but no longer in its
previous virgin purity. Everything is neglected and obstructed: the
black plunderer-bees race rapidly and stealthily over the structure;
while his own bees, dried up, wizened, and flaccid as if from age,
loiter slowly, without disturbing anyone, wishing nothing, and having
lost the consciousness of life. Drones, wasps, humble-bees, and moths in
their flight aimlessly beat against the walls of the hive. Here and
there, between the wax with the dead brood and the honey, is at times
heard from various sides an angry buzzing: two bees, from old habit, are
somewhere cleaning a nest of the hive, and carefully, above their
strength, dragging away a bee or humble-bee, not knowing themselves why
they are doing it. In another corner, two old bees are quarrelling, or
cleaning, or feeding each other, without thinking whether they are doing
it out of friendship or enmity. In a third place a crowd of bees press
against each other, and, attacking some victim, beat and choke it. And
the weakened or killed bee slowly, softly, like down, falls from above
upon the heap of corpses.

The bee-keeper unscrews the two middle combs, in order to see the nest.
In place of the thick, black rows of thousands of bees, sitting back to
back, and guarding the highest secrets of birth, he sees hundreds of
drowsy, barely living skeletons of bees. They have died, nearly all of
them, before they knew it, sitting on the sanctum which they have
guarded, and which is no more. They exhale an odour of decay and death.
Only a few of them are stirring: they rise, lazily fly up and alight on
the hand of the enemy, whom they sting, not being able to die, while the
other, the dead bees fall down like scales of fishes. The bee-keeper
closes the hive and marks it with a piece of chalk, and in proper time
breaks it open and burns it out.

Just so empty was Moscow when Napoleon, tired, restless, and frowning,
walked up and down the Kammer-Kolleg rampart, waiting for the external,
but, according to his ideas, necessary preservation of proprieties,--the
deputation.

Some people were still moving about senselessly in various corners of
Moscow, preserving the old habits, but not understanding what they were
doing.

When, with proper caution, it was announced to Napoleon that Moscow was
deserted, he angrily looked at him who reported it and, turning away,
continued to walk in silence.

“Bring the carriage,” said he. He seated himself in the carriage with an
adjutant of the day, and drove into the suburb.

“Moscow is deserted. What an incredible event!” said he to himself.

He did not drive into the city, but stopped at an inn in the Dorogomílov
suburb.

The finale of the theatrical performance was not a success!




  Glyeb Ivánovich Uspénski. (1840-1902.)


  Uspénski was born in the city of Túla, where his father was a
  government official. He attended the Gymnasia at Túla and Chernígov,
  devoting much of his time to the reading of the Russian classics. He
  then studied at the universities of St. Petersburg and Moscow, leaving
  them in 1863 without graduating. His literary career began in 1866
  with a series of sketches under the general title of _Customs of
  Perdition Street_, in which he described the proletariat that eke out
  their existence in small provincial towns, struggling with hunger and
  cold, and drowning in liquor the cheerless monotony of their lives. He
  next gave, in _Observations of a Lazy Fellow_ and other stories, a
  series of types from the proletariat of intelligence in the same
  provincial towns. In 1871 he went abroad, and wrote his _Letters from
  Servia_. Upon his return he determined to turn his attention to the
  “source,” that is, to the peasant. He settled for that purpose in the
  country, in the Government of Samára, but his experience was
  disappointing: he saw the peasant in his crude and savage nakedness.
  His _Drudgery_, which is the result of his study of peasant morality,
  was a revelation to Russia. Heretofore the peasant had been either
  idealised or detracted, according to the literary camp to which the
  writer belonged, but now he was for the first time painted from
  nature, without reserve or bias. His greatest production is _The Power
  of the Land_, based on another study in the Government of Nóvgorod, in
  which he comes to the conclusion that the peasant can be saved only
  when he is returned to his land.

  In English translation: _The Steam Chicken_ and _A Trifling Defect in
  the Mechanism_, in _The Humour of Russia_, by E. L. Voynich, London
  and New York, 1895.


                       FROM “THE POWER OF THE LAND”

                               IVÁN PETRÓV

Iván Petróv belongs to that useless, incomprehensible, disgraceful class
of village people (certainly disgraceful to such a country as Russia)
that has grown up in the last twenty years and that one can’t help
calling by any other name than “village proletariat.” This new-born
proletariat could absolutely have been avoided, if millions of measures
that are directed for the good of the masses paid at least as much
attention to the people’s conception of the world as they do to their
taxable qualities.

A peasant is frequently led to turn his back on his land and to prefer
the tavern to his house by some such inconsistency in the peasant
“rights” by which he may one day be a foreman of a jury or a judge who,
by pronouncing the life-giving words “not guilty!” magnanimously saves
some unfortunate man, and the next day after this manifestation of his
great “right” may be beaten black and blue by the village official
because while intoxicated he had insulted his elder with the words: “O
you stub-nosed bunny!” One would have to discard all morality, all
spiritual life, all ability to live according to one’s own ideas, if one
wanted to move silently and without murmuring between these two poles of
the peasant “rights.” But this example is only a drop in the sea of that
radical disorder that undermines the most radical foundations of the
popular world conception and that evolves a man “without any prospects,”
“without a to-morrow,” and tries to make a labourer and slave of a man
who, by the very essence of his nature, cannot exist otherwise than with
the consciousness that he is a “master.”

Look at this Iván Petróv, nicknamed Bosýkh: he is a man of great
physical power, and an agile and skilful workman; his wife is strong,
clever, and skilful, and was once a beauty; he can have all the land he
wants. In addition to being a husbandman, he is also a good village
joiner and a shoemaker; and even as a common day labourer--chopping
wood, or pressing hay--he could, by receiving seventy kopeks a day and
his board, live without any care. Instead, he has given up his farm, he
beats his wife, and she is continually weeping and complaining against
him; his three children loiter for days at a time in dirty rags in the
streets and without being cared for, and nobody knows whether they are
being fed. Though his hut is one of a row of new peasant huts where one
may see print curtains, Vienna furniture, clocks under glass globes,
etc., it is the acme of disorder: it is nearly all in ruins; instead of
window panes there are only rags; and yet one may see by the structure
of the cabin and outhouses that it was once a “rich” house, and that the
barns extended some two hundred feet in length; the posts are all of
oak, nearly six feet in circumference----

And the “master” himself? Ask about him the village people of standing,
and they will all give bad reports of him: he has sold the same hay to
three different parties, and the money he has spent in drinks; he has
taken on credit, “against the calf,” in three different shops, but he
has not paid anywhere, while he has sold the calf to somebody else and,
as usual, has spent the money in liquor. He has been several times
flogged in the village office for using abusive language to the
authorities, for unpaid taxes, and for beating his wife, whom, upon
returning from his punishment, he beat again mercilessly in the field.

“Don’t give him any money, for the Lord’s sake, don’t advance him any!”
is the advice a wary villager gives you.

“Don’t trust him a hair’s breadth!” says another villager who has been
cheated by Iván.

And yet, let Iván “come to” for a week or two, what a splendid, what a
good and clever, man he is! How much humour there is in him, how much
observation, tenderness, magnanimity, self-detraction, and how much
youthful freshness of soul! What is it then that sends him in an
intoxicated state into the wet and dirty gutter, without boots, without
garments, his swollen face downward, and his broad shoulders beaten by
the rains and the wind? The whole village remembers his family, and all
say that the Bosýkhs were at one time among the first farmers, that Iván
used to live peaceably with his wife, that they had been “first-class”
workers; all are convinced that let him only awaken and he will be
priceless, that he has “golden hands”; and they wonder why he has turned
his back to everything, why he cheats, causes disturbances, and like a
tramp does an occasional day’s work only to spend his wages in the
tavern.


Now, Iván’s intoxication has changed into a disease. The people
characterise this disease that oppresses not only Iván, but whole masses
of the village proletariat like him, by the name of “weakness.”
Physically Iván is, like hundreds of similar “weak” peasants, not only
healthy and strong, but even powerful, consequently his weakness did not
spring from physical but some other causes. I have had frequent
conversations with Iván in regard to these “weaknesses”; for a long time
they led to no satisfactory results, and often they were only confusing,
especially to the writer of these lines, that is, to a man who has been
in the habit of explaining the wretched state of the masses almost
exclusively as springing from material want, misery, taxes, and so
forth. I shall here relate one of these conversations as an example.

“Do tell me, Iván, why are you drinking so much?” I ask Iván in one of
those clear moments when he “comes to,” repents his dreadful actions,
and ponders over his bitter fate.

Iván draws a deep sigh and speaks with contrition, almost in a whisper:

“I have humoured myself too much---- I don’t know what to think---- We
had better not speak of it!---- When I think it over, I wish I were
dead, I swear I wish I were!”

“But why? Do tell me!”

“Why? Well, it ’s all--on account of--freedom! That ’s why! On account
of too much freedom!”

As this answer perplexes me, and I am absolutely unable to see how
“freedom” should ruin a man, Iván tries to dispel my perplexity, and he
gives me a more detailed explanation:

“On account of a free life, that ’s what it is!”

“But what does that mean?” I ask him, still perplexed.

“It means this: when I was living at the railroad station, I received
thirty-five roubles a month, and I had about ten men under my charge,
and I had an additional income of a rouble in silver for every
waggon,--now figure out how many waggons we sent out in a winter? Well,
it was there that I humoured myself----”

The word “humour” does not at all fit a strapping, forty years old,
bearded man, and it is hard to understand how in the explanation of his
conduct he can use an expression that is proper only for a baby. But
Iván cannot find a more exact word.

“Well, so I began to humour myself. When father was alive, I never took
a drop. He would have killed me, if I had, yes, he would have killed me
dead with his own hands. After father died, and I got married and had my
own household, I allowed myself a drink only when I was treated to it,
on a holiday, or once in a while a glass when I felt blue---- I was
careful, and I watched myself as long as I could. But when I had my
freedom at the railroad station, that is, my full liberty, then I began,
well, in a word, to be short, I let myself loose---- I kept it up for
days at a time, and I never could get enough---- I remember how it all
began, as though it were but yesterday: roadmaster Iván Rodiónych’s name
day fell on John of the Lent---- Well, he poured me out a glass of the
grape juice, they call it port---- I liked it, as I swallowed it--so I
took some more--and then gin, lemonade---- Since then that plague has
stayed with me. And why? It ’s all on account of freedom!---- Not being
used to it---- Making an easy living---- That ’s what it is from!---- I
used to have my pockets full of money---- Well, since then I have been a
regular pig----”

So it appears that “freedom,” “liberty, easy living, plenty of money,”
that is, that which is necessary for a man to establish himself, causes
his whole disorder, until he becomes “a regular pig.”

“Why did you spend your money not on your house but on drinking?” I ask
him.

“That ’s the trouble, I was not used to it! Life was too free to think
of house and farm---- Do anything you please, and nobody interferes with
you---- In short, there is a good chance to humour yourself----”

Seeing that his explanation explains nothing and that I am unable to
understand why an easy life makes a pig of a man, Iván tries to make his
idea clearer by an example, such as peasants are in the habit of having
recourse to in their conversations. I shall here give his example,
though I know that the reader will hardly be much enlightened by it.

“Because,” says he, “our peasant nature is n’t used to it---- We are by
nature a working lot---- Let me tell you an example---- There was living
in our neighbourhood a gentleman, by the name of Podsólnukhov, and he
was farming---- So he farmed and farmed, and seeing that there was no
profit in farming, he got it into his head to go into the dairy
business. He had no use for our breed of cattle, and it ’s so, our cows
are rather thin and coarse-haired---- ‘Well,’ says he, ‘I ’ll get a cow
from abroad.’ He sent for one. A telegram came, the cow was on her way,
and a learned German was bringing her---- There they were leading her,
why, almost in chains,--such a monster, some seven feet in height, ten
feet in length---- Her horns, her eyes, and such things,--God’s
wonder,--a regular giant, an Eruslán Lázarevich[25]---- They cleaned out
the cattle yard for her, spread some straw over it, and the moment she
came, she lay down on her side upon it. And the German asked for a lamp
to be used in the night. Very well. And the cow remained lying on her
side and eating in that posture. All the women did was to put the feed
within reach of her mouth. She kept on eating, but of milk there was not
a trace.

“‘What is the matter,’ says I to the German, ‘she is not giving any
milk?’

“‘Well,’ says he, ‘she is resting; it ’s so and so,’ says he. ‘She has
been travelling a long distance, and in the car, and so she is tired,
and is taking it easy----’

“‘How long,’ says I, ‘will she be taking it easy?’

“‘Maybe a month.’

“All right. We thought we would let her while away her time with our
village bull,--but that was a dreadful blunder. No sooner did he lay his
eyes on her majestic form, when he got frightened like a rabbit, for he
saw at once that he, with his country snout, had no business in her
presence,--and so he picked himself up and off he went, and it was only
twelve versts away that some peasants succeeded in catching him. But she
was resting herself all the time. She ate, and yawned, and ate again----
At last she evidently felt conscience-stricken and gave a whole pail of
milk. So our master said:

“‘Do you see, Iván?’ says he,--‘there is no comparison with our sickly
little cows!’

“‘Well, no, sir,’ says I; ‘considering what she has eaten up, our cattle
are worth more.’

“‘How so?’

“‘It ’s like this: figure out, how much she has eaten up, and compare it
with the milk she is giving. It ’s so, she does give a pailful, but that
pailful costs too much. If you were to give her feed to ten of our cows,
they would give you ten times the amount this monster is giving you.’

“Says the German: ‘She is not the kind of a breed,’ says he, ‘that ’s
just good for the milk; she is considering herself too; she is eating
for her own benefit--just look what firm flesh she has.’

“After these words says I to my master: ‘Do you see, sir,’ says I, ‘it
’s just it: our cows suit our case much better. We do not care about
their flesh, and they do not live for their benefit, but for work; they
give back what they eat up, and they do not consider themselves. Our
cows are born for work, and for work they live all their lives,--that ’s
their purpose.’

“And so there are all kinds of men. And we peasants are just the same.
We work the year round, and all our lives, without stopping. I tried to
get away from my peasant’s life, and I have almost killed myself with
drinking---- There are some who like that which is easy, and who want to
do nothing---- Some get rich by saving their money, but when I turned my
back on the village and ran away from a peasant’s work, and began to
live freely,--my money flew like chips. All I was interested in was how
to get rid of it, and I could think of no other place to spend it in but
the tavern. What? Well, I ’ll make a clean breast of it,” Iván spoke in
a whisper, “I had three mamzelles! I forgot the Law! I am speaking
before the Lord---- Freedom! liberty! I was only thinking how to do
wrong, pshaw! I so far forgot myself that I began to oppress my own
kind, my fellow-peasants! Why did I do it? I had simply lost my
conscience---- Some cold day they would be looking for me and having
found me in a saloon, they would bow and say:

“‘Let us have our hay; we have been here two days and spending our
money, but we can’t get at it.’

“It seems, it was not much for me to say to my assistant: ‘Mikháylo! Go
and get them the car!’ but Satan himself began to urge me on; so I sat
over my bottle, looking important, and said: ‘You have to do the best
you can.’

“‘But, friend, how are we to find it? We have walked all over the yards,
among whistling engines and no end of smoke, and we are afraid we shall
get killed yet, and we are worn out besides.’

“‘Look for it! Find the fellow you need!’

“‘But you, our protector----’

“And I would keep them off until someone of those present would say to
them:

“‘Stick three roubles into his mug,--that ’s what you want to do!’

“And it was only thus that I did them any favours---- If my wife came my
way, I used to scold her roundly. As long as I stayed in the village I
had use for her, but here where I had my freedom, I had others to pass
my time with, and what was I to do with her, a common peasant woman?
That ’s the kind of lawlessness I came to. I drank more and more, and
the authorities heard of it, and the superintendent of the division came
and mauled me all up (his face shone as he was telling this), and the
superintendent of traffic gave me a few mighty blows (a childish joy was
spread over his face), and they took me to the round-house, and laid it
on to me,--so I made the sign of the cross and, just as if I had risen
from the grave, I jumped up, and started on a run home, without my hat,
right through the cold! Over fields, over snowdrifts, by back roads, I
flew like a bird, not stopping for twenty-five versts, until I was back
to my farm. There I was, in my yard, without a thing to my name,
everything in ruins, but I felt as happy as if I had been resurrected.
Praised be the Lord! Praised be the Queen of Heaven! I am again a man, I
have found myself! I fell to my wife’s feet.

“‘Forgive me, my dear wife! Let me work, look after the farm! I shall
give up all my foolishness, I will be a man again!’

“And I went at it with a vim! I loved it all,--my field, my plough and
harrow, the sheds, the calf, the barn that was beginning to lean to one
side, and the fence, and the woodpile---- They were all my dear friends,
my nearest ones. It was just terrible to look at the desolation, but it
only gave me more courage. The more work I saw, the more work there was
ahead, the greater was my desire to do it, and the greater my
strength---- That ’s what our peasant nature is! But there where I had
been there was no work, but all kinds of distractions,--and money; but
that had almost deprived me of my senses, and I dragged my soul through
the mud, as a swine drags her belly. And what from? Freedom!----”

Iván would always begin and end his conversations with me by this
incomprehensible correlation of “freedom” and “moral fall,” but you see,
he not only did not make my misgivings clearer, but considerably
increased them.

  [25] Giant of Russian fairy tales.




  Aleksándr Ivánovich Levítov. (1842-1877.)


  Levítov was the son of a village priest in the Government of Tambóv.
  His early youth was passed at home in sordid peasant surroundings,
  where he learned just enough from his father to be able to read
  religious books. A seminarist having provided him with some of the
  Russian classics, he acquired a taste for literature and entered a
  Seminary. He was a brilliant student, but had to suffer much insult
  from his brutal companions for his physical weakness. Scenes from the
  Seminary later formed the main subject of his stories. He then entered
  the Moscow University, but soon afterwards transferred himself to the
  Medico-Surgical Institute at St. Petersburg. Having taken part in some
  political agitation, he was exiled to the north-east. Here he
  associated entirely with the lower classes, confirmed himself in his
  vicious habit of drinking, and in his sober moments composed his
  excellent _Steppe Sketches_, that abound in poetical descriptions of
  southern nature and in detailed pictures of the inhabitants of the
  steppe. Then began his roving life from town to town, from one capital
  to another, living all the time in the purlieus of the cities, and in
  cellars, garrets, and outhouses. This, combined with his chronic state
  of intoxication, led to consumption, and he finally died in a clinic.
  Levítov has given a series of pictures from the life of the most
  degraded townspeople with whom he came in contact, under the name of
  _The Misery of Country, Roads, and Towns_. They are a reflex of his
  own experiences and make painful reading, though, but for some
  discursiveness, they are artistic in conception and execution.


                       SHOEMAKER COCK-OF-THE-BOOTS


                                    I

There was in our village a good fellow,--a shoemaker. We just called him
Cock-of-the-Boots, because he deserved the name. Early in the morning
and late at night you might have seen him staggering through the village
streets, and yelling, in his drunken fit, and repeating the same phrase:

“Come out, you village wiseacre, if there is such a one among you! Come
out,” he shouted, “and I will have a chat with you.”

But no one dared to come out, being sure to get the worst of it.

He had come to us from down Usmán way. He was such a thick-set,
homely-looking fellow, with thick, monstrous moustaches, and he wore a
blue coat. His wife was as stubby and homely as he, and all in wrinkles,
but she had on a chintz dress that was good enough for a shopkeeper’s
wife and a red shawl over her shoulders. You would think that the moment
he drove into the village he would make for the inn? The Lord bless you,
he made plump for the tavern. That is, he and his wife went into the
tavern, but the cart was left in charge of six good-looking young
fellows, all of them in extensible boots, caps, and blue nankeen coats.
They stood around the cart. People began to come up to them, and
somebody asked them:

“Say, what kind of people are you, honourable gentlemen? Whence do you
come and whither do you tend?”

“Step aside,” they replied to us, “step aside as far as you can, before
dad comes back from the tavern, or there will be trouble!”

We all had to laugh, seeing that these strapping fellows were trying to
frighten us with their “dad.”

We looked around: there he was coming out of the tavern with a bretzel
in his hands, his cap poised way back on his head, while his wife
carried a quart of brandy in her hand, in order to treat her sons.

“Go ahead,” he said, “and drink, and then find some quarters, for I am
sleepy.”

Right near the tavern there was living in a hut a crazy old woman. We
had nicknamed her the Blue Rig. She had no relatives of any sort, and
managed to live somehow by charity. While he was cooling himself off in
the tavern, his youngsters found out that she was helpless, and so they
immediately reported to him:

“Dad, there is hereabouts a destitute old woman. They call her Blue Rig,
and we might stop at her hut.”

They settled there, and before long they smoked the old woman out of her
house. The township chief sent some hundred-men to oust
Cock-of-the-Boots, but he gave the hundred-men a mighty drubbing, and
told them that it was his house, and that the chief had better attend to
his own business.

The chief marvelled at the fellow, and himself came down upon him with a
posse. The whole village went to see the fun.

Cock-of-the-Boots took up a daring attitude in front of the chief, his
hands akimbo; then he stroked his moustache and said:

“What made you, sir, come to me when I did not invite you? You had
better wait for an invitation.”

“How dare you?” began the chief.

Now each of Cock-of-the-Boots’s sons had a special name: their father
called one of them Prince Kutúzov, another Paskévich, a third Díbich.
“They are all my generalissimos,” he would say. When the chief began to
call him names, he turned to Díbich:

“Díbich! Take him out!”

Díbich, without any further ado, took the chief by his shoulder and led
him out. The hundred-men and some of the villagers tried to
interfere,--but these protectors got dreadfully mauled by
Cock-of-the-Boots and his sons.

“I myself,” cried Cock-of-the-Boots, “with my good fellows can kick out
two such villages as this. I,” says he, “will root out any man that will
undertake to oppress me, because I am not afraid of anybody, and my
children are not afraid of anybody but me.”

And his wife seconded him: “That ’s right,” says she, “we are not afraid
of anybody!”

It was a fine family we had to deal with.

“It ’s now up with Cock-of-the-Boots,” we villagers thought, after that
occurrence. “They ’ll certainly drag him to Siberia for insulting such a
great gentleman.” But that ’s where we were wrong. The chief complained
to the district superintendent, saying: “It is so and so, and I can’t do
anything with Cock-of-the-Boots, because,” says he, “he has a powerful
lot of sons, and they get the better of the whole village.”

No sooner did Cock-of-the-Boots hear of that letter than he slung a
wallet with a slice of bread over his shoulder, lighted his pipe,--he
had a small pipe with a short carved stem,--and off he went to the
capital of the province. A lot of gentlemen were just entering the
Governor’s palace, and he somehow managed to slip in with them into the
audience room, where he waited for the Governor to appear, in the
meantime angrily twisting his moustache.

Then came his turn.

“Who are you?” asked the Chief, “and what do you want?”

“I am, sir,” answered Cock-of-the-Boots, “a crown peasant and a
shoemaker. And what I want is that you should kick out the township
chief,--his name is so and so,--because he is an embezzler of the Tsar’s
treasure, and a great nuisance to the commune. That ’s what I want,”
says he.

They say that the gentlemen that were present were stunned, seeing how
freely he spoke with the General. The Governor himself frowned and
looked for a long time at Cock-of-the-Boots with angry eyes, and finally
he said:

“Do you, Cock-of-the-Boots,” says he, “want me to put you in jail for
insulting me in that way?”

But Cock-of-the-Boots only smiled, and his moustaches twitched, and he
said to the Governor: “Let me tell you,” says he, “that I won’t go to
jail, but straight to Peter, to complain to the Emperor himself; and you
are not strong enough to stop me,” says he, “because I am not afraid of
anybody except God in heaven,” and he threw his wallet over his
shoulders, and started out.

The gentlemen present could not keep back any longer and burst out
laughing, and the Governor himself laughed.

“What a bold fellow!” says he, “I have not seen the like of him in all
my life. Fetch him back,” says he, “and send him to my cabinet. I will
talk to him later.”

“I see no objection to having a talk with him,” said Cock-of-the-Boots,
smiling. “I am always ready to talk to a Governor.”

It is not known what the Governor and he talked about, only,
Cock-of-the-Boots had not yet reached his village when the township
chief had an order from the capital to the effect that he had been a
chief long enough.


                                    II

You ought to have seen how we ever after honoured Cock-of-the-Boots. As
he and his wife passed a great part of their time in the tavern, they
were treated to many a cup by anybody who happened to be there and who
felt that they must offer them a part of their just labour. But
Cock-of-the-Boots would keep one of his hands in his pocket, and with
the other he would twist his moustache around his ears, saying:

“Now let we tell you why I am drinking all the time. It ’s because you
are all fools, and I can’t do anything with you.”

“That ’s correct,” was the invariable refrain of his wife.

And to tell the truth, if he had not been drinking so hard, he could
have gotten away with many a fellow, for he was very clever. He was a
great hand at his business! He could make any kind of boots, gentlemen’s
and shopkeepers’ boots, extensible and simple peasant boots,--it was
just a joy to look at them! The only trouble was, that accursed
Cock-of-the-Boots rarely ever finished a job. He nearly always carried
the leather that his customers gave him to the tavern to exchange it for
drinks.

“How did you dare, Cock-of-the-Boots, to buy drinks with my leather?”
they would ask him.

“Simply because I wanted to,” says he.

Nobody entered any complaints against him, because it did no good. He
knew how to amuse all the chiefs with his conversations and to gain all
kinds of favours from them. They tried to take the law into their own
hands, but that only ended in an all around fight, for his wife and sons
took his side, and also a stalwart sexton,--they called him
Katerínych,--and they easily vanquished the whole village. However, we
learned to find our way into Cock-of-the-Boots’s heart, only it took us
quite a while to find it out. All one had to do, when Cock-of-the-Boots
had spent the leather in drinks, was to take at once another piece to
him, and beg him not to spend this second piece.

“Won’t you, Grigóri Kuzmích, make me a pair of boots out of this? We ’ll
square up about the first piece later.”

“That ’s what I like!” Cock-of-the-Boots would say. “I like to be
trusted!” he would shout, “just as I would like to trust others, only I
have nothing to give.” And he immediately ordered his sons to make a
special effort with these boots.

“As you command, dad!” his sons would say, and they at once set to work,
so that you could see chips flying. They were a fine lot, and they
obeyed their parents so that we all envied them.

“Just look!” the whole village said, “father and mother are drunkards,
but the children are all right.” They not only were skilled in their
trade and could read and write, but every one of them had picked up some
specialty: one could play the accordion, another the guitar, or horn.
They used to go out, of a summer evening, into the street, after their
work was done, and, seating themselves in front of their hut, they began
to play some sweet song. There was not one of the whole family that did
not have a good voice. Their mother was such an insignificant woman to
look at; but when she began to trill “Lovely forget-me-not” with her
soft voice, everybody would stop to listen. Cock-of-the-Boots himself
was regarded as a first-class singer in these entertainments. At first
he would start with a fine tenor, and then he would carry the whole song
in a heavy bass. Where in the world did he get that bass from?

The whole village and people from the outlying hamlets used to come to
hear them.

Cock-of-the-Boots lived in this manner for three or four years. We all
got used to his intoxication, and shouting at night time, and his
blaspheming. We quit getting angry at him, because, in the first place,
he was a hopeless case, and, in the second, he did a great deal of good
in the village and the neighbouring hamlets. For example, if a rich
merchant began to flay the people in too open a manner, or the chief or
scribe put down the screws a little too tight, Cock-of-the-Boots and his
friend, the sexton, would go to their windows and would read them a
sermon, which made them wish they were dead.

“Just go away from these windows, good fellows, and stop this
disgraceful business,” such a man would say to them. “I ’ll treat you to
all the brandy you wish,” he would add.

They particularly annoyed the village dean. His daughters did not dare
to go out into the streets, or even stand outside the door, because the
dean had offended the sexton.

“Just wait, Katerínych!” the dean threatened the sexton, “I ’ll see to
it that you get your hair shaved off.”

“I am ready any minute,” said the sexton, “for I would rather live with
the devil in hell than be under your rule.”

The dean would spit out in anger, as he listened to these talks of the
sexton, and would walk away. But Cock-of-the-Boots and his friend rolled
with laughter, and they proclaimed all his secrets to the whole
Christian world:

“We ’ll teach you a thing or two! You just make a move against us!”

When they got tired standing under the window, they lay down opposite
the house, and proceeded with their scolding, and they would not go away
any sooner than they would be treated to brandy or money. When this was
sent out to them they only laughed:

“Look at these infidel devils! They think that they can wash down their
wrongs with this brandy. Don’t worry, you will not wash them down!”
Having had their fun, they walked away, and the sexton invariably
started a chant upon these occasions.

They were particularly successful in saving young men from conscription,
if these were unjustly worried by the commune, on account of their
poverty or orphaned state. All such an unfortunate man had to do was to
buy a keg of brandy, paper, and ink, and the sexton was ready to compose
a letter. He presented his case to the higher authorities in so
convincing a manner that many a recruit was returned from service and
the commune received severe reprimands. And if the higher authorities
stood in with the commune against these luckless fellows, our scribes
would add a postscript to their petition to the effect that: “If your
honour will not free Iván Lúchin who has been shaven a recruit against
the law, we will at once go to Peter to complain to our father the
Tsar.” And they both signed that letter.

“This petition,” they wrote, “has been signed in person by the village
sexton Kuzmá Lukích Zabubénny and the crown peasant and shoemaker
Grigóri Kuzmích, nicknamed Cock-of-the-Boots.”

Many a fellow was freed after such a letter. But they refused to
intervene in the case of a man whose evident fate it was to be a
soldier, and in no case did they receive any other remuneration than
brandy.

It was on account of his good soul, which we all saw, that we did not
interfere with his drinking. All of a sudden we heard the news of a
general conscription.

Our town officers scared us with such phrases: “There will be an
unusually large conscription. Three countries have risen against us. We
’ll have a job on hand.”

“Well,” we said, “if there is to be a big conscription, let there be.
Evidently it has to be.” In the meantime we began to fit out any of the
young fellows that might be called, that they might be ready at any time
and hour, for it was not for a day or two that our youngsters were to
leave us----

These rumours began to spread just before the battle of Sebastopol.

At last the time came to draw lots, and then to be examined as recruits.
Cock-of-the-Boots did not have to worry about his sons for something
like three years, because a nephew of his had become a soldier and,
consequently, his family was for the time being exempt.

“This Cock-of-the-Boots is a lucky chap,” we said. “He has raised six
fine eagles, and there they are to stay at home.”

One morning, we saw to our surprise that Cock-of-the-Boots was starting
out on the road with all his sons. He was walking at their head and
smoking his pipe, and he looked gloomy and his moustache hung down, but
he was not drunk. The mother was accompanying them and weeping torrents
of tears.

“Where are you starting out, Grigóri Kuzmích? Have you taken a liking to
another place, and do you want to leave us?”

“Good-bye, friends!” he said. “I am going to enter my sons, every one of
them, into the army, because a large host is up against us, and there
are as many of them as stars in heaven.”

Sexton Kuzmá was walking with them.

“Orthodox people,” he said, “don’t recall me with an evil thought! I
sha’n’t think of you at all, because I am sick of your foolishness. I
’ll try to find a place somewhere.”

“They are jesting!” we thought. “They are, no doubt, going out on the
chase or catching fish.”

But it was not a jest at all. He really inscribed all his sons and the
sexton in the army! And the provincial authorities were so much pleased
with his act, that he and his boys received a great deal of money, and
he was promised that all his sons and the sexton were to serve in one
and the same company.

They had wanted to put all his sons in the bodyguard, but
Cock-of-the-Boots begged them to let them go straightway to the war.

“I have brought them to go against the enemy,” he said.

The authorities gave him a written document in which they expressed
their thanks to him. When he returned home, he hung that letter up in
the hut of the Blue Rig, and started on a protracted spree.

His wife could not believe for a long time that he would give up all his
sons at once. She kept on hoping that to-day, or to-morrow, one of them
at least would return, say, the youngest. But when she saw that there
was no return from the army, she joined her husband in the spree.

She was all bent up and crushed, and she sailed along, vainly moving her
hands, and mumbling something; her red shawl fell down from one shoulder
and dragged along the ground.

She did not long continue to walk that way. She soon died. While on her
deathbed, she gave her husband a terrible tongue-lashing for having
separated her from her dear children.

Some people came to look at the dead person, and they found
Cock-of-the-Boots talking to her as if she were alive, for he was
dreadfully drunk just then.

“Foolish woman!” he muttered. “You do not know your own good luck. You
will be better off there! I myself have long wished to die, but death
does not come to me.”

He muttered that in an undertone, and not aloud as he used to. It was a
pity to see him left so alone. The hut looked dreadfully desolate, and
destitute of everything. The stove had all fallen in. The Blue Rig,
tattered and torn, and all wrinkled up, lay on the stove, and looked at
everybody like an insensate beast, and angrily gnashed her teeth at
them----


                                   III

Cock-of-the-Boots became gentler than a lamb when his family had all
left him. He sat for days at a time in the hut with the Blue Rig, and
they looked at each other. Village urchins came in and made fun of the
old people, but they received no reply. Only at midnight, when the whole
village was asleep, the neighbours could hear Cock-of-the-Boots wailing:

“My children, my children, what have I done with you?”

Neighbors stole up to the window, and they saw him wallowing on the
ground and tearing his hair. In daytime he again sat down in his den,
not leaving his place, and he was so sad, grey, and bald. When the
villagers saw that the old people not only could not provide for
themselves, but were even too weak to go a-begging, they began to bring
them bread, water, and kvas.

“Why do you sit here, Grigóri Kuzmích?” old people would ask him, when
he came a little to his senses.

“I am waiting for death, dear people! Maybe it will carry away my great
grief, which I have tried all my life to drown in the taverns, but never
succeeded in drowning!” And he began to weep bitterly, tears flowing in
torrents.

We wondered much what grief he was talking about. He had feasted nearly
all his life in taverns at other people’s expense, and now he was
grieving. If he was weeping for his sons, he had himself taken them to
be inscribed in the army.

His grief must, indeed, have been very great, for he lamented dreadfully
at night, and often woke us up. He woke us with his awful cries, like
the sound of the house spirit when he calls for an evil omen; and we,
hearing them, were very much frightened and, rising in the morning,
fervently prayed to our Lord----




  Nikoláy Nikoláevich Zlatovrátski. (1845-.)


  Zlatovrátski, the son of a village priest, was born in Vladímir, where
  he attended the Gymnasium. His father having established a library for
  the people, Zlatovrátski had an opportunity to acquaint himself with
  Russian literature. He then studied at the St. Petersburg
  Technological Institute, but his extreme poverty compelled him to look
  for work, and he became a proof-reader in one of the newspapers. This
  gave him an impetus to try himself in authorship, and his first
  sketch, _The Murrain_, appeared in 1866. Since then he has written a
  large number of shorter and longer stories, dealing with the life of
  the peasants in the period of the emancipation, and also with the
  intelligent classes at the same time. To the latter he assumes a
  negative attitude, regarding them as having departed from the simple,
  fundamental life of the Russian peasant. Though he treats his peasants
  with more consideration, there is a strong element of pessimism even
  in the sketches of that kind, thus, differing from the similar stories
  by Uspénski. They also differ from Uspénski’s novels by the
  musicalness of their language and the greater wealth of detailed
  descriptions. Among his best stories are _The History of a Village_,
  _Village Work Days_, _The Karaváevs_, _The Wanderer_.


                               OLD SHADOWS

In moments of heavy anguish of soul my “little grandfather” would visit
me, and he brought with him from the darkness of oblivion a series of
just such little and insignificant existences as himself. My childhood
and youth are, it seems, inseparably connected with these little
existences. I particularly recall those strange, mysterious forms that
suddenly appeared, one knew not whence,--both in our “old house” in the
provincial city, and in the old, weather-stained cabin of my
grandfather,--and just so vanished, one knew not whither. They were
wandering shadows that frightened our childish imagination,--especially,
since my grandmother, whom I cannot picture to myself otherwise than in
an enormous kerchief, with overhanging eyebrows and a huge frying fork
in her hand, had no use for them and called them “tramps,” “loafing
people,” and “worthless lot.” Yet, in spite of the existence of my stern
old grandmother, who always appeared before me as an incarnation of that
stern period,--these “loafing people,” it seemed to me, were breeding
more and more in our Russian land, and with it my stern grandmother gave
ever more a piece of her mind to my visionary mother and to the “village
windbag,” my little grandfather, who were giving refuge to these people,
and to whom, it seemed, they clung as a moth flits about the light.

Dimly pass before me those strange, mysterious forms which that
irrevocable past produced in such large numbers. I have before my mind
the tall, smoke-stained old cabin of my grandfather that was roughly
made of big logs. It is warm within, but in the open the frost is
getting stronger towards evening. Half of the panes are already covered
with downy hoar-frost, and there is a thumping, crackling sound now in
one corner, now in another. Grandfather is sitting by a tallow dip,
hurrying to mend his leaky felt boot with a piece of leather. Mother is
solemnly and chantingly reading the versified paraphrase of the psalms,
distinctly pronouncing the words,--and I enjoy the harmonious sound of
the words, though I ill understand their meaning.

Sister and I are snuggled up under a warm sheepskin, and we silently
move in some frivolous fairy world, for which there is no time and no
space: from the fantastic countries of the Eastern Shaherezade we are
rapidly transferred to the warm, soft shores of the Jordan, to the stern
kingdom of the Pharaohs, or suddenly we are borne in the whirl of a
joyous, bright light, amidst a sea of festive sounds of music, to the
splendour of a new, frivolous world of European capitals, whither so
enticingly beckon and call us all those vigorous, fresh young people,
who had managed before us to escape from the harsh and murky habitations
of the manorial hamlets---- Though sister and I are not saying anything,
yet I am quite convinced that her thoughts are taking her to the same
regions. I need only ask her: “Do you remember the letter mother read us
yesterday from Uncle Sásha in St. Petersburg?” in order to be sure that
her youthful fancy will immediately carry her, as it has carried me,
far, far away from these dim and dusky, though warm, walls of
grandfather’s cabin.

Suddenly a heavy creaking is heard on the bridge; the gate ring rattles;
someone coughs behind the door. We all listen intently; the door is
opened timidly and with indecision, and on the threshold appears a tall,
lean, strange figure, merged in steaming frost: he has on a long
sheepskin coat that is covered with snow, and on his head is a tall,
thick, cotton-filled cap and in his hands a long staff; over his
shoulder hangs a long calfskin-covered wallet; he has a long, thin, wet
face, with sunken cheeks, thick tufts of a greyish beard, and timid,
black eyes under long brows.

“Peace and blessing be upon your house!” distinctly enounces the
stranger on the threshold, without moving from the spot.

“Thank you,” says grandfather. “Whither are you bound? Másha, get a
slice of bread from grandmother,--say it ’s for a pilgrim.”

“Don’t you recognise me, father?” in the meantime asks the pilgrim,
without leaving the threshold.

“No, no---- Or are we acquaintances?” says grandfather, as he is looking
for his glasses. “Who are you?”

The pilgrim timidly surveys the room with his penetrating black eyes,
and softly says:

“A despised servant of the Lord, a slave of men--the manorial servant
Aleksándr--the wandering Jew, the accursed Ahasuerus----”

“O Aleksándr! I do recognise you, I do,” says grandfather. “You want to
warm yourself and stay over night; you are tired, no doubt. We will find
a place!---- Sit down, Aleksándr, pilgrim of the Lord!”

“Will you let me, father?” the pilgrim asks again, still timidly
surveying all around him.

“Have no fear, no fear! The Lord be with you, come in, make yourself at
home!”

The pilgrim slowly and with indecision takes off his wallet, and seats
himself on the bench with a heavy sigh.

“Well, Aleksándr, have you not yet found rest for your soul?” asks
grandfather.

But the pilgrim sits in silence, and lowers his head.

Then a deep sigh is heard again issuing from his breast. Then he begins
to speak clearly, without hurrying, lowering his eyes all the time, as
if ashamed to look at us.

“I have crossed all the borders--have been everywhere--have visited all
the holy places---- I have been in the countries of the midday sun and
of midnight--on sultry Athon and in the cold Solovétsk cells----
Everywhere, father---- I have continually looked for the eternal city,
and there is no refuge for the despised slave!---- Father, I have
suffered hunger and cold---- In summer and in winter I, as a thief, hide
from the light, and wander at night-time---- I come into cities, and
they drive me out, I knock at the cells, and they do not receive the
outcast---- I see neither my kin, nor my relations, neither wife, nor
children, who abide in servitude---- Be accursed, despised slave, for
having thought of liberty, abandoning your roof, and departing from your
kin!---- If I should wish to return to the house of my master, my
children and my kin would deny me, for the fear of the Jews, and my
master would turn me over to mockery and to outrage---- I am afraid to
return to slavery, and I shall wander about, as a thief, and my refuge
shall be the lair of beasts----”

And suddenly the pilgrim falls upon his knees with a dull sound, and
begins to pray. For a long time are heard, amidst a complete silence,
the deep sighs of the pilgrim and now and then a moan of my grandfather.

My mother, and sister, and I look with fixed attention at that lean,
bony face, which is as swarthy as if cast of bronze, and on which lie
the clear traces of his endless wanderings and immeasurable sorrow.

The pilgrim rises, straightens himself up, and still keeps his eyes on
the holy image. Large tears course down his cheeks, while his black eyes
sparkle at the same time evil despair and stern faith.

“Father!” he suddenly speaks, raising his hand to the image.
“There--there let us seek the eternal city!---- Only there---- There
they will not cast you off----”

“But do not despair, Aleksándr! God will uplift you,” says grandfather.
“There is not a tear, Aleksándr, that floweth in vain, and is not heard
at the throne of the Almighty! Not a hair of your head shall perish----
Seek, and you shall always find! Knock, and the gates of truth shall be
opened unto you!---- Sit down, Aleksándr, and strengthen yourself with
what God hath sent.”

The pilgrim is, it seems, quieted down, and he seats himself on the
bench again; but now his head is raised, and his gleaming eyes look
somewhere into the distance, as if they pierced the walls of our cabin,
and a strange struggle shines in them, as if they did not yet know on
what to rest their choice: on heaven or on earth.

“Well, Aleksándr, tell us something about God’s world. Many things are
revealed to you pilgrims. Come, sit down here!”

The pilgrim seats himself at the table, and I see my mother, her eyes
burning with some mysterious curiosity, moving up towards him, placing
her arms on the table, leaning her head upon them, and fixing her dreamy
eyes upon the pilgrim’s face.

And the pilgrim begins to speak. But my childish imagination is only
impressed by his stern, misty form, and has preserved nothing else, and
I recall his speeches only as the din of a turbid torrent that runs
across the endless steppes. And over these steppes rapidly marches,
driven by the wind, the tall, stern figure that is in vain seeking a
place where the son of man may lay down his head.

And the pilgrim has not yet ended his stories, which, it seems, are so
long that they last a whole night, and a day, and again a night, when
there appears in the door of our cabin a new strange being that strikes
our childish imagination.

At first we see only an immense old rough sheepskin coat that is held
together by a belt, and large old felt boots, but it is quite impossible
to define the sex, the age, or the occupation of the person that is
hidden in the recesses of that huge coat, above which is barely seen the
head so tightly wrapped in a frosted shawl that even the eyes cannot be
discerned. The strange coat nervously and rapidly makes three deep
inclinations before the holy image, and then to the corners of the room,
and just as rapidly begins to unravel the shawl, and by degrees appears,
at first, a thin, grey beard, then a thin, long nose, small, mouse-like,
grey eyes, and finally an immense bald head is freed from a sheepskin
cap, here and there feathered with dishevelled tufts of greyish red
hair. And when the coat suddenly and unexpectedly falls off in the
corner,--there stands before us one of the commonest, the most
“insignificant” of the “worthless lot” who, in the opinion of my
grandmother, live in this world: it is an old serf, in a patched and
torn gabardine. No sooner does the peasant feel himself freed from the
weight of the huge sheepskin that has oppressed him, than he becomes
nervously alive, sweetly smiles upon us all, bows again and again into
both corners, and, rapidly twitching his feet before grandfather, cries
out in an entreating voice: “Most worshipful one! Father! Give me a
lodging! Refresh me! Give me hope!”

“Ah, Filimón, Filimón! Is it you again?” says my “little grandfather” in
evident agitation, trying to find his snuff-box.

“Yes, I, worshipful man. Do not misjudge me,” says the peasant so softly
that you would think he was afraid of his own voice.

“Ah, Filimón!” says grandfather, for some reason shaking his head in
anguish and trying to console himself with a pinch of snuff. “When will
you come to rest? Friend, is there a living spot in you?”

It appears to us, indeed, that there is not a living spot in the
peasant: neither muscles, nor flesh, nor blood,--nothing but strong,
indestructible bones enclosed in a dark-brown skin.

The peasant, after grandfather’s words, smiles even more entreatingly;
his grey, little eyes apparently become even smaller,--and he suddenly
grows once more enlivened and agitated; all his bony members are in
motion, and, as if seized by some unusual care, he begins to rummage in
the breast of his torn outer garment.

He finally brings to light something that is wrapped in a dark kerchief.
He cautiously opens it with his trembling fingers and, timidly turning
to both sides, with a careworn glance places before grandfather some
old, stained papers, and again makes a low bow before him.

“Worshipful one! I have a request to make.”

“Ah, Filimón! Ah, Filimón!” sighs grandfather, again shaking his head in
anguish: “Why do you tempt God our Lord? If you do not care for
yourself, think of your kin. Pacify your spirit! It is enough! Enough,
Filimón! You have chastised yourself enough, my friend! The Lord seeth,
the Lord hath weighed and measured. He demandeth not complete
exhaustion. Do not tempt fate!”

“Most worshipful man! I am going! I have to care for people! I must go!”

“Whither are you going, senseless man? Take a breath. At least heal your
old wounds. Take your ease!”

“Father, they are healed! Do not misjudge me! I am going--to the higher
realms!”

And the peasant once more looks entreatingly into grandfather’s face,
and it seems to us that grandfather is unable to withstand that
entreating glance.

And grandfather rises, his glance becomes stern and serious, and he says
with severity:

“Filimón! Have pity on me! God will punish me, your councillor and
abettor, for you!”

“Father, do not deny me! I will knock once more: knock, knock, knock!
Maybe the Lord will grant me---- Just this way, lightly, father: knock,
knock, knock! ‘Who is there?’ they will ask. ‘’T is I,’ says I, as
before. ‘’T is I.’”

“How many times have you gone to knock?”

“’T is the eighth time, father. ’T is the eighth for the higher realms.
I was driven off six times. Six times they flayed me----”

“Dear Filimón, how much will there be left of you? Take pity on
yourself. Pity me, I pray, pity my soul. Why should I aid in your
suffering and destruction?”

The peasant once more smiles entreatingly into grandfather’s face, and
suddenly falls down before his feet.

“Most worshipful one! Do not begrudge me!”

And rising to his feet just as swiftly, he nervously and excitedly
flourishes his dry, bony hands, lets his mouse-like eyes roam timidly in
the corners, and begins to speak, without cessation, as if everything is
to come down in a rain, everything he has been carrying hither with the
greatest care for days and miles---- It is one endless, intent murmur,
like the distant din of the mill water, interrupted by some sudden
exclamations that make our childish hearts tremble with fear.

I remember how that intent murmur of the bony peasant made my head feel
as though compressed in a vise, how terribly my blood beat in my
temples, so that I was ready to burst out into sobs and run away from
the cabin,--far, far away from that terrible murmur, in spite of the
frost, and the deep snowdrifts, and the night storm that howled around
our cabin. And if that dreadful murmur that racked my nerves had lasted
one minute longer, I should have come out from under my warm fur, and
should have, indeed, run away as in a delirium. But the “little
grandfather” stepped up to us, and thoughtfully stroked our heads. Why
did he do it? He, evidently, did not notice it himself. Or, maybe, he
unconsciously wanted to ask our consent for something. And, interrupting
the peasant, he said:

“Filimón! For the last time, absolutely. I feel it, it is for the last
time. There shall be an end! It can’t be otherwise! There must be an
end! The Lord is great in His long-suffering, that is true, but also
terrible in His anger!”

The peasant’s face beams with pleasure, and he at once breaks off his
murmur.

“What shall I write about?” asks grandfather.

“Father, write the whole truth. Tell straight about everything. Hide
nothing, and have no mercy upon us: crush the blood of Judas! The blood
of Judas has begun to oppress the people! The main thing, father, tell
the whole truth about everything.”

And the peasant solemnly raises his hands to heaven.

“Write! I have suffered, and I can suffer more. I am afraid of no new
prison, and of no new chains. Most worshipful one, have no mercy!
Write!”

And for a long, long time, through the speechless quiet of a winter
night and through our disturbed dreams, we see the bony little peasant,
with his entreating smile and a certain childishly naïve decision and
faith, that enlighten his whole little face, and our “little
grandfather,” who has suddenly become so serious and stern and who with
the consciousness of some great obligation is slowly and deliberately
drawing his legible semi-uncial letters on the paper.

“Write, write, father! There is truth! There will be truth!” we again
hear the voice of the bony peasant, and the longer he watches
grandfather’s pen, the brighter, it seems, his face is growing.

We are, for some reason, happy for the peasant and for grandfather, but
at the same time we are oppressed by a mysterious feeling of terror and
of fear, because it seems to us that our stern grandmother will soon
come out of the living rooms, and will angrily cast her suspicious
glance upon all of us “useless” and “loafing” people, and will cry:

“Where did that worthless lot come from? Whence does God carry them?
Evidently punishments and threats do not take off all the loafing
people---- What have you found in each other? And why do you stick to
each other, like flies to honey? Well, this one has been half-witted
from her birth,” grandmother shakes her head at my mother, “but you, old
man? O deacon! Some evil will befall you, some evil will! Make a note of
my words. You will get a terrible reward for all these people!”

But the “loafing people,” who at first are really grieved and
intimidated by the angry words of my stern grandmother, not only do not
disappear, but grow more and more.




  Vladímir Galaktiónovich Korolénko. (1853.-)


  Korolénko is descended on his father’s side from the Cossacks; his
  mother was the daughter of a Polish landed proprietor. He graduated
  from a Real-Gymnasium in the Government of Zhitomír, and then, under
  untold hardships, studied in the Technological Institute of St.
  Petersburg and Peter’s Academy in Moscow. Here he was arrested for
  addressing a collective petition to the director of the school, and
  was sent to the Government of Vológda, and thence back to Krónstadt,
  where his family was residing. The next year he settled in St.
  Petersburg where he read proof. In 1879 he was again arrested, and his
  wanderings through all parts of European Russia and Siberia began. His
  first stories were published in 1879, but the first to attract the
  attention of the public was his _Makár’s Dream_, which deals with the
  semi-savages of the Siberian Tayga. The artistic perfection of his
  style, the harmoniousness of his diction, and the completeness of his
  stories are rare qualities among modern Russian authors. The sadness
  of his stories is not of the heartrending, cheerless kind, and rather
  invites a rereading. Among his best known books and separate sketches
  are _The Blind Musician_, _The Forest Rustles_, _The Old Bell-ringer_,
  _In Bad Society_.

  Many of Korolénko’s stories have been well translated into English:
  _The Vagrant and Other Tales_ (containing _The Old Bell-ringer_, _The
  Forest Roughs_, _Easter Night_, _A Saghalinian_, _Sketches of a
  Siberian Tourist_), translated by Mrs. A. Delano, New York and Boston,
  1887 (2d ed. 1896); _The Blind Musician_, translated by Mrs. A.
  Delano, with an introduction by G. Kennan, Boston, 1890; the same,
  translated by W. Westall and S. Stepniak (International Series, No.
  100), New York, 1890 (2d ed. 1893); the same (Seaside Library, No.
  1515), New York, 1890; _Makár’s Dream_, in Cosmopolitan, vol. vi.; _A
  Queer Girl_, in Free Russia, vol. ii., Nos. 9 and 10, and _In the
  Famine Year_, vol. x., No. 2; _A Saghalien Convict_ (in Pseudonym
  Library); _In Two Moods_ (and _In Bad Society_), translated by S.
  Stepniak and W. Westall (Lovell’s International Series, No. 178), New
  York, 1891, and (Seaside Library, No. 1943) New York, 1892; _The Old
  Bell-ringer_, translated by M. P. de Schatokhin, in The Anglo-Russian
  Literary Society, No. 8; _An Involuntary Murderer_, translated by
  Jessie Mackenzie, in Gentleman’s Magazine, 1898.


                           THE OLD BELL-RINGER

                              A SPRING IDYLL

It grows dark. Over the black, crenelated line of the dense forest
stands the full moon; it stands, but does not shine---- A small
settlement that nestles over the distant brook, in the pine forest, is
merged in that peculiar twilight, so common to spring nights, when the
moon stands pensively over the horizon, shrouded by a smoky veil. The
mist, rising from the earth, thickens the long shadows of the woods and
covers the open places with a silvery azure glamour---- All is quiet,
pensive, melancholy.

The village slumbers quietly.

The humble cabins barely stand out in their dark contours; here and
there glimmer fires; now and then a gate creaks, a watchful dog barks,
and all is silent again. At times there issue from the dark mass of the
softly rustling forest the figures of pedestrians, there passes by a
rider, creaks a vehicle. These are the inhabitants of lonely forest
hamlets who are going to their church to meet the spring holiday.

The church stands on a mound, in the centre of the village. Its windows
are bright with lights. The tall, murky, old belfry is lost with its
spire in the azure.

The steps of the staircase are creaking---- The old bell-ringer
Mikhyéich is ascending the bell tower, and soon his little lantern will
be suspended in mid-air, like a shooting star in space----

It is hard for the old man to climb the steep staircase. His old legs do
not serve him well, he is worn out, and his eyes see but dimly----’T is
time, it has long been time, that the old man should take his rest, but
God does not send him death. He has buried his sons, has buried his
grandchildren, has accompanied old men to their celestial dwelling, has
accompanied young men, but he is still alive. ’T is hard---- Many is the
time he has met the spring holiday, and he has lost the count of how
often he has waited for the appointed time on that very bell tower. And
there God has again decreed----

The old man walks to the opening in the tower and leans over the
banister. Below, around the church, the graves of the village cemetery
dot the darkness; the old crosses look as though they protected them
with their outstretched arms. Here and there leafless birches bend over
them---- From there, below, is wafted to Mikhyéich the aromatic odour of
young buds and reminds him of the melancholy silence of the eternal
sleep----

What will become of him in a year? Will he again climb to this top,
under the brass bell, in order to awaken light-sleeping night by its
metallic din, or will he lie--down there, in the dark corner of the
cemetery, under a cross? God knows---- He is prepared: in the meanwhile
may God grant him to meet the holiday once more. “Glory to Thee, Lord!”
his old lips mutter the customary formula and he looks upwards, at the
starred heaven that glows with a million lights, and he makes the sign
of the cross----

“Mikhyéich, oh, Mikhyéich!” calls out to him from below the tremulous
voice of an old man. The aged sexton looks up at the belfry, shades his
unsteady and tearful eyes with his open hand, but he does not see
Mikhyéich.

“What do you want? Here I am!” answers the bell-ringer, as he leans over
the banister. “Can’t you see me?”

“No, I can’t. Say, is it not time to ring? What do you think?”

Both look at the stars. Thousands of God’s fires twinkle down to them
from on high. The fiery “Wain” has risen way above them---- Mikhyéich is
making his calculation.

“No, not yet, wait a bit---- I know when----”

He does know. He needs no watch: God’s stars will tell him when the time
has come. Heaven and earth, and the white cloud that gently swims in the
azure, and the murky forest that indistinctly whispers below, and the
plash of the brook lost in the darkness,--all that is familiar to him,
all that is his own---- Not in vain has he passed his whole life
here----

The distant past arises before him---- He recollects how he for the
first time climbed this bell tower with his father. Lord, how long ago
that is--and yet how recent! He sees himself a blonde boy; his eyes are
aflame; the wind--not the wind that raises the dust in the streets, but
some special kind of wind that flaps its noiseless wings way above the
earth--dishevels his hair---- Below, way, way down, walk tiny people,
and the huts of the village are tiny too, and the forest has receded,
and the round clearing in which the village is situated looks so
enormous, so endless----

“Oh, there it is, all of it there!” the grey-haired old man smiles as he
looks down at the small clearing.

That is the way with life. In your youth you can’t see the end of it,
and there it is, all of it, as if in the palm of your hand, from the
beginning to that very little grave that he has taken a fancy to for
himself in the corner of the cemetery. Well, glory to Thee, Lord! ’t is
time for rest. The hard road has been passed honourably, and the damp
earth is his mother---- Soon, yes, very soon!----

But, it must be time! He looks once more at the stars, rises, takes off
his cap, makes the sign of the cross, grasps the bell ropes---- A minute
later the night air reverberates from the hollow stroke--another, a
third, a fourth--one after the other, filling the light-sleeping night
of the holiday’s eve, there flow the mighty, drawn-out sonorous singing
sounds----

The ringing stops. In the church begins the service. In former years
Mikhyéich used to go down the staircase and stand in the corner, at the
door, in order to pray and hear the singing. But this time he stays in
his belfry. It is hard for him to climb the stairs, and besides, he
feels rather tired. He seats himself on the bench and, hearing the dying
din of the rocking brass, falls into deep musing. About what? He is
hardly able to answer that himself. The tower is dimly illumined by the
lantern. The dull-sounding bells are merged in darkness; below, from the
church, the singing reaches him from time to time as a weak murmur, and
the night wind agitates the ropes that are attached to the iron hearts
of the bells.

The old man bends on his breast his grey head that is disturbed by
disconnected pictures. “They are singing the troparion!” he thinks to
himself, and sees himself in the church. In the chancel dozens of
children’s voices flow together; the aged priest, Father Naúm of blessed
memory, reads the litany with a quivering voice; hundreds of peasants’
heads bow down and rise again, like the ripe ears when the wind blows
through them. The peasants make the sign of the cross. They are all
familiar faces, and all of them now dead. There is the stern face of his
father; there his elder brother is with fervour making the sign of the
cross, and sighing, as he is standing by the side of his father. There
he is himself, abloom with health and strength, full of unconscious hope
of future happiness and joys of life---- Where is that happiness? The
old man’s memory flashes like a dying flame and a bright beam, gliding
through his consciousness, for a moment illumines all the nooks of his
past life. He sees work above endurance, sorrow, care. Where is that
happiness? A hard lot will make furrows on his young brow, will bend his
powerful spine, will teach him to sigh, like his elder brother.

There, at the left, among the village women, stands his young wife,
modestly bending her head. She has been a good woman, may she come to
the kingdom of heaven! She has suffered so much, the dear woman. Want
and work, and a woman’s inevitable sorrow will dry up her beauty; her
eyes will grow dim, and an expression of an eternal, dull fear of sudden
calamities will take the place of serenity in her face. Yes, where is
her happiness? One son is left to them, their hope and joy, and human
injustice has overpowered him.

There is also that rich fiend; he makes low obeisances, asking
forgiveness for the bloody tears of orphans. He fervently crosses
himself and falls upon his knees, and strikes his brow against the
floor. And Mikhyéich’s heart boils furiously, and the dusky faces of the
images look down from the walls upon human misery and human injustice.

All that is past, all that is behind him. Now his whole world is here in
the dark tower, where the wind moans in the night and swings the
bell-ropes. “God be your judge, God be your judge!” mutters the old man
and bends his grey head, and tears gently roll down the old cheeks of
the bell-ringer.

“Mikhyéich, oh, Mikhyéich! Oh there, have you fallen asleep?” they shout
below.

“What?” the old man cries out and jumps to his feet. “Lord! Have I
really fallen asleep? Never before have I so disgraced myself!”

Mikhyéich hastens to lay his hands on the ropes. Below him the peasant
crowd moves about like an ant-hill; banners wave in the air and glimmer
with their gilt brocade. The procession of the cross has made the round
of the church, and the joyous call reaches Mikhyéich’s ears:

“Christ is risen from the dead!”

And this call stirs a wave in the old man’s heart. It seems to him that
the flames of the wax tapers have burnt up more brightly in the
darkness, and the crowd is more agitated, and the banners flutter, and
the wakened wind seizes the waves of sound and with broad pinions
carries them up, to run together with the loud, solemn tones of the
bells.

Old Mikhyéich rings as he has never rung before.

It seems as though the old man’s full heart has passed into the dead
brass, and the tones sing and waver, laugh and weep, and interweaving in
a mighty stream are borne upwards, to the starry heaven. And the stars
flash more brightly and burn, and the tones tremble and pour down and
fall to the earth with loving grace.

A deep bass cries out loud in mighty tones that announces to heaven and
earth: “Christ is risen!”

And two tenors, trembling with the alternate beats of their iron hearts,
respond merrily and clangorously: “Christ is risen!”

And two soft sopranos, seemingly hastening not to be behindhand, push
themselves in between the larger ones, and joyfully, like little
children, sing out rapidly: “Christ is risen!”

And it seems as though the old tower were trembling and shaking, and as
though the wind that blows around the face of the bell-ringer flapped
its mighty pinions and repeated: “Christ is risen!”

The old heart forgets life that is full of cares and injury. The old
bell-ringer forgets that his life is confined to the grim narrow space
in the bell-tower, that he is alone in the world, like a lonely trunk
that the storms have broken. He hears those singing and weeping sounds
that rise to the heaven on high and fall down to poor earth, and it
seems to him that he is surrounded by his sons and grandchildren, that
he hears their joyful voices; the voices of the old and young are
combined into a chorus, and they sing to him of happiness and joy, which
he has not known in his life. The old bell-ringer jerks the ropes, tears
roll down his face, and his heart beats violently with the illusion of
happiness.

Down below people listen and say to each other that never before has old
Mikhyéich rung the bells so wonderfully.

Suddenly the great bell utters an uncertain tone, and grows dumb. The
disturbed smaller bells ring out with an unfinished trill, cutting it
short, as if to listen to the sad hollow note which trembles and flows
and weeps, gradually dying upon the air. The old bell-ringer drops down
upon the bench in utter exhaustion, and two last tears softly roll over
his pale cheeks----

“Ho there, send up a change; the old bell-ringer has done his
ringing----”




  Vsévolod Mikháylovich Garshín. (1855-1888.)


  Garshín was born in the Government of Ekaterinosláv, where his father
  was a small landed proprietor. In his early childhood he travelled a
  great deal over Russia, as his father was in the military service. He
  was placed in the Gymnasium at St. Petersburg, and there he excelled
  as a student, but in 1872 he had the first attacks of insanity which
  afterwards returned periodically and finally caused him to commit
  suicide by throwing himself headlong from an upper story. He took part
  in the Turko-Russian War as a common soldier, and while in the field
  composed his first story, _Four Days_, in which he described the
  suffering of a wounded comrade of his. Upon his return he wrote, in
  his lucid intervals, a series of wonderfully realistic stories, many
  of which deal with painful situations. Among his best are _The
  Coward_, _The Artists_, _The Red Flower_, _Attalea Princeps_, and
  _That Which Was Not_.

  In English translation are: _Four Days_, translated by N. H. Dole, in
  Poet Lore, vol. iii.; _Mad Love, or, An Artist’s Dream_, London, 1890,
  and _Stories_, translated by E. L. Voynich, London, 1893.


                            THAT WHICH WAS NOT

One beautiful June day--it was beautiful because it was twenty-eight
degrees Réaumur--one beautiful June day it was warm everywhere, but it
was even warmer in the clearing in the garden, where stood some ricks of
newly mown hay, because the place was protected from the wind by a
thick, impenetrable, cherry grove. Nearly everything was asleep: people
had had their fill and were devoting themselves to post-prandial lateral
occupations; the birds were silent; and even many insects had sought
shelter from the heat.

That was even more true of the domestic animals: the cattle took refuge
under some roof; the dog lay in a hole that he had dug out under the
barn and, with eyes half open, breathed intermittently, while sticking
out his tongue for almost more than a foot; at times he so yawned,
evidently from ennui superinduced by the deadly heat, that one could
hear a falsetto whine; the pigs, mother and her thirteen young ones,
went down to the river bank and there lay down in the black, thick mud
whence issued only their panting and snoring pig coins with two holes in
them, their oblong, mud-washed spines, and enormous pendent ears. Only
the hens were not afraid of the heat and managed to kill time by
scratching up the dry earth opposite the kitchen entry, though they knew
full well that there was not a kernel to be found there. The cock,
evidently, was not feeling very well, for now and then he assumed a
stupid attitude and cried amain: “What a scandal!”

There, we have walked away from the clearing where it was warmer than
elsewhere, and yet a whole wakeful company was sitting there. That is,
they were not all sitting. For example, the old bay, that was rummaging
a hayrick at the danger of feeling the whip of coachman Antón, could not
sit at all, being a horse; the caterpillar was not sitting either, but
rather lying on its belly; but we need not be so particular about words.
A small but very serious company was gathered under a cherry tree: a
snail, a dung beetle, a lizard, and the above-mentioned caterpillar;
then a grasshopper hopped up to them. Nearby stood the old bay,
listening to their conversation with one of his bay ears, on the inside
of which could be seen dark grey hairs. On the bay sat two flies.

The company discussed things politely, but with sufficient animation,
and, as is proper in such cases, nobody agreed with his neighbour, for
they all valued the independence of their opinions and characters.

“In my opinion,” said the Dung Beetle, “a decent animal must above all
care for his posterity. Life is a labour for the next generation. He who
conscientiously fulfils the obligations which Nature imposes upon him
stands on a firm foundation. He knows what he has to do, and no matter
what may happen, he is not responsible. Look at me: who works more than
I? Who for whole days at a time rolls such a heavy ball, a ball that I
have made with great art out of dung, with the great purpose in view of
giving the opportunity to new dung beetles like myself to grow up? But
then, I do not think there is anybody who has such a calm conscience, or
could with such a pure heart say: ‘Yes, I have done all I can and all I
ought to do,’ as I will say when these new dung beetles will see
daylight. That ’s what I call labour!”

“Don’t mention your labour, friend!” said an Ant that during the Dung
Beetle’s speech had dragged up an immense piece of a dry stalk. He
stopped for a moment, sat down on his four hind legs, and with his two
front legs wiped off the sweat from his tired-out face. “I work myself,
and much harder than you! But you work for yourself, or, what is the
same, for your baby beetles; not everybody is so fortunate as that. Just
try dragging logs for the commonwealth’s stores, as I do! I do not know
myself what it is that makes me work so hard, even in such hot weather.
Nobody will say ‘thanks!’ to me for it. We, unlucky working ants, all
work, and what good do we get out of it? It ’s just our fate!”

“You, Dung Beetle, look at life too dryly, and you, Ant, too gloomily,”
protested the Grasshopper. “No, Beetle, I do like to chirrup and leap
about a little, and, really, I have no scruples about it! Besides, you
have not touched the question that Madam Lizard has put. She asked:
‘What is the world?’ and you are talking about your dung ball. Why, that
is not even decent. The world is, in my opinion, a very good thing, if
for nothing else, because we find in it juicy grass, the sun, and the
breeze. And it is so big! Living under these trees, you can’t have the
slightest conception how big it is. When I am in the field, I sometimes
jump up as high as I can, and I assure you I reach an enormous height. I
see from way up there that there is no end to the world.”

“That ’s right,” thoughtfully assented the Bay. “But all the same none
of you will ever see one hundredth part of what I have seen in my
lifetime. What a pity, you can’t understand what a verst is! A verst
from here is the village Lupárevka: I go there every day with a barrel
for water. But they never feed me there. On the other side is Efímovka
and Kislyákovka; in the latter there is a church with a belfry. And then
comes Svyáto-Tróitskoe, and then Bogoyávlensk. In Bogoyávlensk they
always give me some hay, but the hay is not good there. And then there
is Nikoláevsk,--that ’s a town, twenty-eight versts from here,--there
the hay is better, and I get oats there; but I do not like to go to
Nikoláevsk: our master generally drives there, and he tells the coachman
to drive fast, and the coachman lays the whip on us dreadfully. And
there are also Aleksándrovka, Byelózerka, Khérson,--that ’s a town
too---- But how can you grasp that all! That is the world; I must say,
not the whole world, but yet a considerable part of it.”

The Bay grew silent, but his lower lip was quivering as if whispering
something. That was from old age: he was seventeen years old, and for a
horse that is as much as seventy-seven for a man.

“I do not understand your wise equine words, and, I confess, I am not
trying to catch their meaning,” said the Snail. “All I want is a
burdock: it is now four days I have been crawling over one, and it is
not yet all ended. Beyond this burdock there is another burdock, and in
that burdock there is, no doubt, another snail. There you have it all.
There is no need in leaping about,--that ’s all empty talk and bosh;
stay where you are, and eat the leaf on which you are sitting. If it
were not for my laziness, I should have long ago crawled away from you
and all your talk: it gives me only a headache, that ’s all.”

“Now, I beg your pardon, I don’t see why?” broke in the Grasshopper. “It
is quite enjoyable to chirrup, particularly about pleasant matters, like
infinity and so forth. Of course, there are practical natures who only
think of filling their bellies, like you, or that charming
Caterpillar----”

“Oh, no, leave me alone, I pray, leave me alone, don’t touch me!”
exclaimed the Caterpillar pitifully. “I am doing it all for the future
life, only for the future life.”

“What future life are you talking about?” asked the Bay.

“Don’t you know that after death I shall be turned into a butterfly with
colored wings?”

The Bay, the Lizard, and the Snail did not know it, but the insects had
some notion of it. And they all kept silent for a moment, for none of
them could say anything sensible about the future life.

“We ought to bow respectfully to solid convictions,” chirruped the
Grasshopper. “Is there nobody else who wants to say anything? Maybe
you?” he turned to the Flies.

And the older one answered:

“We can’t complain. We have just come out of the rooms; the lady had put
out some fresh jam in some dishes, and we crawled in under the covers,
and had lots to eat. We are satisfied. Dear mama stuck fast in the jam,
but what ’s to be done? She has lived long enough in this world. But we
are satisfied.”

“Gentlemen,” said the Lizard, “I think that you are all absolutely
right! But, on the other hand----”

The Lizard did not finish saying what there was on the other hand,
because she felt that something was jamming her tail to the ground.

It was coachman Antón who had just awakened and had come to fetch the
Bay. He accidentally stepped with his monstrous boot on the whole
company and smashed it. Only the flies flew away to lick off their dead,
sugared mama, and the Lizard got away with part of her tail. Antón took
the Bay by the forelock and led him out of the garden to hitch him to
the barrel, in order to fetch some water, and he kept saying: “Get up
there, shagtail!” to which the Bay answered only with a lisp.

The Lizard was left without a tail. ’T is true, after a time it grew out
again, but it always remained rather stumpy and blackish. When the
Lizard was asked how she came to injure her tail in that way, she
modestly answered:

“They tore it off, because I had made up my mind to express my
convictions.”

And she was absolutely right.




  Ignáti Nikoláevich Potápenko. (1856-.)


  Potápenko was born in the Government of Khérson, where his father was
  a priest. He himself was educated for the priesthood in Khérson and
  Odéssa, but he left the Seminary for the university, and the
  university again for the Conservatory of Music, from which he finally
  graduated in singing. Potápenko wrote his first sketch in 1881, and
  became known as an author through his novel, _Holy Art_, in which he
  depicted the literary Bohemia of St. Petersburg. His reputation was
  still more confirmed by his later novels, _In Active Service_, _Common
  Sense_, and _His Excellency’s Secretary_. His productions are
  characterised by a healthy optimism and an exquisite humour, which
  make them very pleasant reading.

  Potápenko has been translated into English by W. Gaussen, _A Russian
  Priest_ (Sunshine Series, No. 86, and Pseudonym Library, No. 7),
  London, 1891; _The General’s Daughter_ (Sunshine Series, No. 126,
  extra), London and New York, 1892; _Father of Six_, also _Occasional
  Holiday_ (Unknown Library, No. 26), London, 1893; _The Curse of
  Talent_, in _Memorials of a Short Life_, London, 1895.


                            A THOUSAND TALENTS

“Yes, my friend, I have a great mass of talents, only nothing sensible
comes of them. Yes, that ’s so. That is quite correct!----”

“Well, well, don’t say that!”

“Not say it? Why, but I tell you, it is the real truth!”----

“But how? And why?”

“Why? That is the question---- That is, really, the question!”

The man who was possessed of such an immense mass of talents was sitting
in a soft armchair, leaning with the whole weight of his body against
its broad, inclined back. He had a remarkably happy exterior. He was
neither handsome, nor stately, nor elegant, nor brilliant,--no, his
exterior cannot be defined by any other word than “happy.” There were
even half a dozen pits on his face,--traces of former smallpox; his
nose, which had at first been straight and even, unexpectedly began to
turn up at the point; there was not the slightest order in his russet
beard and moustaches; his brow looked too large; and he was all as white
as milk, while his face had a shade of copper. At last, his common, grey
eyes were not out of the ordinary, but everything taken together, his
whole face, breathed a serene, frank sincerity. There are such faces:
you look at them, and you want to be open with them, and to confide some
secret, to unburden your heart to them. He was awkwardly put together,
his movements were halting, and his voice was a little shrill, but even
thus he was sympathetic. In short, he had a happy exterior. His name was
Nikoláy Petróvich Bobróv.

His interlocutor was simply a respectable gentleman, an attorney in
important civil cases, the owner of large apartments, among which was a
study, in which they were seated, with soft, heavy furniture and with
bookshelves filled with a mass of learned and instructive books. That
was Kurázhev, Sergyéy Aleksyéevich, a well-known and esteemed person in
the city. He had but lately made Bobróv’s acquaintance, having met him
two or three times, but he was already in the power of his exterior.
Bobróv had this day called upon him for the first time, and a
conversation ensued. Kurázhev outside of his practice busied himself
with “social questions,” as he called them, and that meant that he was a
live, responsive man who was interested in life and people, and who
loved to “psychologise,” that is, to rummage in the human soul.

“I ’ll tell you why,--because I am a Russian! Yes, that ’s it,” said
Bobróv, this time not awaiting his host’s question.

“That is incomprehensible. You must make yourself clear!” remarked the
host, looking at him with the curiosity of a professional psychologist,
as if he were ready to take the knife, in order to cut open his breast,
and take a look inside his soul.

“Make myself clear? Well, I can make myself clear. I can and I am
prepared to make myself clear, only I shall have to go way back----”

“That is all right. I am ready to follow you into the depths of time.”

“Well, it is not exactly the depths of time, but I shall have to mention
my deceased progenitor, and maybe my grandmother too.”

“Or your great-grandfather, if you want to. You have interested me with
your strange statement----”

“My statement is not so strange, if you look at it closely. I affirm
that Russians suffer from their talented natures. Yes, that ’s it. It
ought not to be so. They always are possessed of a huge number of
talents, and that is why they never amount to anything. Yes, I beg your
pardon, you will contradict me later, but now let me---- I have struck a
good argument, so I can talk clearly and to the point. One does not
always succeed in that. Let us take the simplest kind of an example. I
had a cook,--by the way, she is still in evidence,--and she had a
husband,--he is at your service, too, and his name is Iván. By the way,
you might have guessed _a priori_ that all cooks have husbands by the
name of Iván. Now I must tell you how that Iván has surprised me, simply
stunned me, yes, sir! We hired his wife by herself, and he came to her a
week later. He stayed a while, ate some pumpkin seeds, and went away:
that was noble!

“Some three days later he made his appearance once more, but this time
it was in the morning. He ate his breakfast with her, washed the dishes,
remained for dinner,--all in proper shape. We took a liking to him; we
sent him on some errand, I think to the apothecary’s,--he started on a
run. Well, in short, to be done with it, two weeks later he settled in
the kitchen, and all that looked so simple and clear that it never
occurred to us to doubt his right to it, and to send him off. He is
there still, but that is another matter. We soon noticed that he never
went out to work, but that he was passing all the time in the kitchen,
washing dishes, blackening boots, running on errands, eating and
sleeping. I once asked him:

“‘Say, Iván! Do you know a trade?’

“‘I know all trades!’ he answered me with the greatest self-confidence.

“‘How so? You don’t mean all trades!’

“‘All, Nikoláy Petróvich!’ He never called me otherwise but Nikoláy
Petróvich.

“‘If so, why are you not doing anything?’

“‘Oh, well, no work has turned up---- I reckon, there is none for
me----’

“And you must know he was not lying, he really knew _all trades_. My
dining table became unglued; I told them to send for a joiner.

“‘What ’s the use in a joiner Nikoláy Petróvich? I will fix it for you
in first-class shape!’ he informed me, and, in reality, he fussed with
the table about three hours, and brought it back to life. It is true, it
was rather coarse work: the glue dried up in lumps, where it could be
seen, and the heads of the nails somehow stuck sideways in the
wood,--but it was solid. My wife was about to have the baby’s bathtub
fixed. He got hold of it, straightened out the indented sides, and
somehow soldered it, and in addition painted it inside and outside
white. Of course, I must say, it was not a particularly neat job, but
passable enough,--it could be used. We had to get one of the rooms
papered over,--he again proved himself a master, only in one corner he
hung a strip upside down. Finally, when spring came, he disappeared, and
did not return for three days. When he did show up, he was all smeared
with clay and lime.

“‘Where have you been?’

“‘I, sir? I have been doing some masonry.’

“‘What? You are a mason, too?’

“‘Why not? I am a mason, too---- I know all trades!’

“To make an end with Iván, I will tell you that he proved to be a
tailor, too, and with his own hand he made an overcoat for himself. Of
course, it was a wretched coat, but it held together over his back. He
finished up by getting drunk and beating his wife. This Iván is a
Russian, yes, sir. It is his misfortune to have too much ability, and a
bent for too many things. Thanks to that, he has learned many things,
but nothing properly, and he cannot stop, concentrate, and perfect
himself at anything. No sooner has he taken up calcimining, than the
mason is awakened in him; he takes up masonry, and he is at once drawn
to the tailor’s trade, and so on. No wonder that this man is all his
life suffering and tearing himself asunder, and that he, from time to
time, balances his accounts by getting drunk and dealing out blows to
his wife. And now it is clear to you that the misfortune of a Russian is
in the many-sidedness of his talents.

“It is quite different with the other nations. Take, for example, a
German. Of course, a German is not naturally stupid, but he has not the
slightest talent. He has but one talent,--patience, and just see what
wonders he performs by the aid of that modest companion of his. By the
aid of this patience alone, he accomplishes in all spheres of human
activities those results that make us with all our talents hold up our
hands in wonderment. And all that only because he has but that one
talent. He knows that himself, and he begins to develop it in his
swaddling clothes. I have heard it said that German babies rarely cry.
That is so because they early get used to patience. Now let us take the
English. No doubt, they are a clever nation, but they have only one
talent, and that is their egotism in the broadest sense of the word,
namely their self-respect, their worship of themselves, their contempt
for everything that is not English, and its exploitation in their
favour. That talent is carried out by them with the strictest
consistency in every thing,--from the most trifling to the most
stupendous,--and makes it possible for them to be the leaders in
everything in the world. Yes, sir.”

“But you have deviated a little. You had intended to speak of yourself!”
the attorney gently interrupted him.

“No, I did not deviate. I only began that way to come finally to my
case. Now I will pass over to that notable subject. You must know that
my father was not of high birth; he was of the gentry, but of those who
are greatly impoverished. He was the manager of some count’s estate. He
had received no education, but had seen and heard much, and was a man of
practical sense. At eight years of age I felt a hankering for the
violin. Yes, sir, for the violin. It was not the caprice of a spoilt
child, but a real hankering. I remember how my heart beat at the thought
of my father buying me a violin. Well, he bought me one. The leader of
the church choir showed me the first steps, taught me how to hold the
bow and the fingers, and I began scraping. I scraped horribly, but
something came of it. When I was ten years old I was taken to town to be
sent to the Gymnasium. Here I had a patented teacher whose violin was
worth three hundred roubles, if he was not fibbing. My father paid him
in kind: he would bring him cottage cheese, or a keg of herrings, or
pickling cucumbers. I learned from him my first correct steps, and what
do you suppose came of it all? Nothing. Many heard me and cried: ‘Oh,
what talent!’ And really, I did have talent. But you understand that I
ought to have played do-re-mi-fa-sol, and nothing else, when my aunt
visited me.

“‘Give me a tune, my darling, and I will give you a silver rouble for
it.’

“I began do-re-mi-fa-sol.

“‘Well, what is that? That is not even interesting. And yet they told me
that you had some talent. What kind of talent is that? I could
understand if you played something that would touch my soul. No, I don’t
think you have any talent!’--What, I have no talent? Aunty thinks so.
Wait, I ’ll prove you differently!--And I began secretly from the
teacher to learn _As I go alone into the street_, and I played it before
my aunt; it was so touching that she wiped her eyes, and said: ‘Now,
that ’s a different matter,--now I see that you have talent!’

“Then I learned _The hussar leaning on his sabre_, _In a gloomy autumn
evening_, and finally, to cap the climax, a quadrille from _Fair Helen_.
Then I went back to the village,--everybody was delighted. My repertoire
was popular. No sooner did anyone call at our house, than father began
to boast:

“‘You ought to hear him play the violin! Well, Kólenka, give us _The
hussar_!’

“I took up an attitude and played _The hussar_, and by degrees worked up
to _Fair Helen_. In this manner I gave concerts all summer, and I forgot
everything I had learned from my teacher, but above all I began to
despise do-re-mi-fa-sol, because that did not bring me any fame. And
thus, sir, I just stuck fast at the _Fair Helen_, yes, sir! Then,
suddenly, a passion for versifying came over me. Again a
hankering,--what will you do about that? I began writing verses
‘standing, lying, sitting, walking.’ I first did it secretly, for poetry
is a kind of love,--it seeks mystery and solitude. Here again my
accursed vanity ran away with me. My verses were not bad. I showed them
to a schoolmate or two; they took them up and carried them around, and I
became the attested school poet. The director found out about it, and he
asked for my note-book, and approved of it: ‘You have, sir, a divine
gift!’ They came to me for every solemn occasion: ‘Bobróv, write a
poem!’ And Bobróv wrote it and solemnly recited it. You understand what
it led to. Namely to this: Bobróv began to try acrobatic feats, and to
write in bombastic style, to imitate Derzhávin, and his youthful poetry
became flat. Consequently, nothing came of that. By that time I was in
the seventh form, and my breast was filled with ecstasies of a different
sort. I abandoned poetry, and was drawn to serious and clever books. At
first I drank deep from Byelínski, than Dobrolyúbov, and then Písarev
fell among us. I graduated from the Gymnasium, the university began----”

Bobróv stopped, rose from his seat, and began to walk across the room,
holding his hands behind his back.

“Yes, the university! I had brilliant ability, and what came of it all?
Do you know what? The devil knows what! I was attracted to science, and
I wanted to learn the history of the human race, and its creations,--so
I became a philologist, and began to swallow book after book. One of the
professors directed his attention to me, and had an eye on me,--but it
appeared to me that my country was not in need of such a science; so I
turned about, and began studying Smith, Mill, and Marx---- A year later,
behold, I was studying the law! Yes, sir! The law. And let me tell you I
showed ability in Smith-Mill-Marx too. I do not know where I got all my
eloquence, my indomitable logic, and so forth. I found mistakes in Mill,
so I would say: ‘Here and here Mill has made a mistake!’ Yes, sir! We
naturally recognised no authorities, except our own. Mill was to us not
a source of wisdom, but only an excuse for showing the depth of our
erudition before the ladies of our circle.

“There were some good-looking women among them, let me tell you. And it
is really a wonder I did not get married then! Upon my word, it is a
wonder. For they nearly all of them, one must say, paired off, and not
just one way or other, but in legal wedlock. Then half of them went off
with their wives, that is only natural. Though we had all come together
on Mill’s platform, yet, everybody knows, life is not Mill. Yes, sir!
And thus I came out hale. I must suppose that it was so because I was
too late. The respected fellow-members had picked out all the
good-looking ones, there was only left an indifferent lot, while I,
after all, had some esthetic taste. It did not take us long to crush
Mill--that ’s it, we crushed him. It suddenly became as evident as
daylight that he was not good for anything, because the salvation of our
country lay not at all in political economy, but in anatomy and
physiology. Well, the country had to be saved at all cost, and God
forbid another man but myself should save it,--that would have been a
personal insult.

“You can guess that the result of it was my going over to the department
of natural sciences. Just think of it! here I again found myself upon
the summit of my calling. I was glued to a chair, and the microscope was
glued to my nose. I sat there days and nights studying and analysing,
and don’t imagine that it was without results. Indeed not! I even made a
discovery: I brought to light, studied, and described some peculiar
property of the blood corpuscle, yes, sir! I do not remember what
property that was, but it produced an impression, and they even printed
my description of it in some periodical. But while I was dissecting the
blood corpuscle, a new tendency was ripening within me. The devil take
it, another talent! Nature had implanted as many of them within me as I
could hold, and each one of them was dying to show itself, and would not
yield to any other.

“I was drawn from time to time to the paper. I used to sit by a kerosene
lamp in the quiet of the night, and sketch some scene. At times it was
not half bad, and again it was quite passable. Yes, sir! Some friend of
mine read it: ‘Oh, but you have literary talent, you ought to write!’
Well, pictures of success, reputation, and even fame, the deuce take it,
began to swarm before my eyes. Fame! Whose head would it not turn? What
affair would one not throw to the dogs for it! And so, I was no longer
sitting over the microscope, but passed whole nights producing artistic
literary pictures. That took me from the province to St. Petersburg,
whither I hastened at once to find fame. My first experiment was a
success. They printed it, praised it, and entered it in the column of
the ‘promising.’ I was in a hurry, in a terrible hurry, I wanted to
pocket all fame at once, and, of course, I only made botch work of it,
and spoiled matters. My later works did not call forth any praise, but
were honoured with condescending silence. I was beside myself, began to
insist, to work still faster, and to spoil more and more. When an idea
flashed through my brain, I, instead of putting it away in a quiet
corner of my soul, and living and feeling it over, used to sit down at
once and work it out on paper. Something came out, but not what it ought
to have been. It turned out to be something pale, something born before
its time. Yes, sir! They would print it, but more as ballast. And yet,
there was talent, there really was,--everybody acknowledged it. But it
was something unfinished, like a phrase half spoken, a picture half
painted, furniture unpolished and unvarnished.

“At last, one more bent! My old talent for music awoke in me, and I
rushed at once to a musical school. I, the future composer, was studying
harmony and counterpoint, and again everybody found that I had talent.
The world of sounds swallowed me. I wanted to produce and create, and
before I had reached a fugue, I was writing little songs and publishing
them---- Ah, I did not finish here either. My two songs had success,
they were sung at concerts, yes, sir, and I decided I could write an
opera. What is the use learning when you have talent? That is a good
Russian reason----

“And do you know what I am now? I am a man without any definite
specialty. I am a Russian who has a thousand talents and who is unfit
for any definite business. I can play on the violin a quadrille from
_Fair Helen_, I can write a sonnet, I can discuss Russian literature and
history, I know a few things about Smith, Mill, and Marx, I have some
ideas about the blood corpuscle, I possess a literary style, can compose
a song,--and to sum all up, I am head-scribe in a bureau, of course,
through protection. Am I not the same Iván? We are both Russians. Both
he and I can do everything, and yet are good for nothing. Both of us
have a thousand talents apiece. Well? He is the husband of my cook, and
I--am head-scribe! The positions are different, but the sense of them is
the same---- Yes, sir!”

Here Bobróv rolled up a fat cigarette, gave a few puffs at it, took his
cap, and bid his host farewell.




  Semén Yákovlevich Nádson. (1862-1887.)


  Nádson’s grandfather was a Jew. His father, who had been a good
  musician, died when he was but two years old, and he also lost his
  mother and brothers early in youth. He was taken care of by relatives
  of his, and was sent to the Gymnasium, where he devoted himself to
  literature and music. His first printed poem appeared when he was but
  fifteen years old. Soon after began to show themselves the symptoms of
  consumption to which he finally succumbed. He went to the Caucasus,
  and was later sent to the south of France. Yet, under the most adverse
  conditions, he produced a series of poems of exquisite beauty, and
  gave promise of rivalling the best Russian poets. Shortly before his
  death he was awarded the Púshkin prize of five hundred roubles.

  _Pity the stately cypress trees_ is given in John Pollen’s _Rhymes
  from the Russian_, and a few shorter poems, by Mrs. M. S. Walker, in
  Free Russia, vol. xiii., No. 5.


                          MY FRIEND, MY BROTHER!

My friend, my brother, weary, suffering brother, whoever you be, be not
discouraged: let untruth and evil have full sway upon earth that is
watered with tears, let the sacred ideal be crushed and defamed, let
them shed the innocent blood:--believe me, the time is coming when Baal
will perish, and Love will return upon earth!

Not with a crown of thorns, nor oppressed with chains, nor with a cross
upon his bent shoulders,--he will come into the world in his strength
and splendor, in his hands a bright torch of glory. There will be in the
world neither tears, nor warring, nor crossless graves, nor serfs, nor
cheerless, deadening want, nor the sword, nor pillory.

O my friend! That bright vision is not a dream, nor an empty hope: look
about you,--everywhere evil oppresses too much, everywhere night is too
dark! The world will grow tired of torments, will drown in the blood,
will get weary of senseless battles,--and it will raise to Love, to
unhampered Love its eyes, full of yearning prayer----


                                  POETRY

Many years ago she descended from the quiet shades of Paradise into our
world, in a garland of fragrant roses, with a youthful smile, charming,
naked, and proud of her innocent beauty. She brought with her unknown
feelings, the harmony of heaven, and loyalty to dreams,--and her law was
art for art’s sake, and her command was to serve beauty.

But at her first steps they tore and trod into the dust her superb
flowers,--and her beautiful virgin features were shrouded in a dark
cloud of doubts and sorrow; and her former hymns are no more! The
storm’s breath carried tracklessly away her exultant sounds,--and her
song breathes fire of her soul’s anguish, and thorns wound her divine
brow.

                                 ───────

                Pity the stately cypress trees;
                  How freshly green they spring!
                Ah! why amidst their branches, child,
                  Have you put up your swing?
                Break not a single fragrant bough.
                  Oh, take thy swing away
                To heights where thick acacias bloom;
                  Mid dusty olives play!
                Thence you can see the ocean,
                  And, as your swing ascends,
                Through greening boughs a sunny glimpse
                  The sea in laughter sends
                Of white sails in the distance dim,
                  Of white gulls far away,
                Of white flakes foaming on the sands,
                  A fringe of snowy spray.

      --From J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.




  Antón Pávlovich Chékhov. (1860-.)


  Chékhov is the son of a former serf. He was born in the city of
  Taganróg, where he went through the Gymnasium. He then attended the
  Moscow University, where he graduated from the Department of Medicine
  in 1884. He began early to contribute short stories to various
  periodicals, and established his reputation in 1887 upon the
  appearance of his first collected volume. Of his longer stories some
  of the most artistic are _The Steppe_, _Fires_, _The Memoirs of an
  Unknown Man_, _A Wearisome Story_. A pessimistic vein runs through all
  his productions, and all his characters seem to be fit subjects for
  the psychiatrist; this is especially the case in two of his dramas,
  _The Mew_ and _Three Sisters_, in which there is not one redeeming
  person, and where the very language of the dramatis personæ is nothing
  but a series of semi-articulated hysterical ejaculations. He is a
  great favourite with the Russian reading public, but the foreigner
  will lay aside his books with great admiration for his talent and with
  a shudder at the hopeless condition of Russian society.

  In English has appeared but _Philosophy at Home_, in Short Stories,
  October, 1891.


                            IN THE COURT-ROOM

In the cinnamon-coloured governmental building of the county seat of N.,
in which the meetings of the Agronomic Council alternate with those of
the Justices of the Peace, of the Departments of Peasant Affairs, of the
Sale of Liquor, of Military Conscription, and of many more, a division
of the Circuit Court was one gloomy autumn day assembled to take up its
cases. A local administrator had made a pun in regard to this
cinnamon-coloured building:

“Here is Miss Justice, here is Police, here is Milice,--a regular
Institute for Noble Young Ladies.”

But, no doubt to justify the proverb that with seven nurses a child
generally loses an eye, this building produces a heavy, oppressive
sensation in a man who is neither officially connected nor familiar with
it, by its melancholy, barrack-like appearance, by its age, and by the
complete absence of any and all comforts, either within or without. Even
in bright spring days it looks as if it were covered by a dense shade,
and on clear, moonlit nights, when the trees and the houses of the
citizens are welded into one continuous shadow and are merged in a quiet
sleep, it alone rises awkwardly and out of place, like a crushing rock,
over the modest landscape, spoils the general harmony, and stays awake,
as though it could not rid itself of the grievous memory of past,
unforgiven sins. Within, everything is barn-like and exceedingly
unattractive. It is curious to see how easily all these elegant
prosecutors, members, leaders, who at home will raise a row at the
slightest sign of escaping coal gas or a mere speck on the floor, get
used to the buzzing ventilators, the nauseating smell of smoking
candles, and the dirty, eternally sweating walls.

The session of the Circuit Court began at ten o’clock. They at once took
up the docket, being evidently in a hurry. The cases were disposed of
one after the other, taking up no more time than a “mass without the
singing,” so that no sensible being could have formed a complete,
conceptual picture of that variegated crowd that moved about like a
freshet, of all the motions, speeches, misfortunes, truth, lies---- By
two o’clock much was accomplished: two people were sentenced to
perpetual imprisonment; one privileged person was deprived of all his
rights and sentenced to imprisonment in the jail; one man was found
innocent, and one case was postponed.

Precisely at two o’clock the presiding judge announced that now was to
be taken up the case of “the indictment found against the peasant
Nikoláy Kharlámov for the murder of his wife.” The composition of the
court remained the same as in the previous case, only the defence was
represented by a new individual,--a young, beardless candidate for
judicial honours, in a coat with bright buttons.

“Bring in the defendant!” ordered the presiding judge.

But the defendant was prepared even before, and he marched toward the
bench. He was a tall, muscular peasant, about fifty-five years of age,
completely bald, with a repulsive, hirsute face, and a long red beard.
He was followed by a small, wizened soldier with a gun.

When almost near the bench, there happened a slight accident to this
guard. He suddenly stumbled and dropped his gun, but he immediately
caught it in its fall, giving his knee a severe knock with the butt.
Either from pain or, perhaps, from embarrassment at his awkwardness the
soldier blushed crimson.

After the customary questions to the defendant, the rearrangement of the
jury, the roll-call, and the oath of the witnesses,--they began the
reading of the bill of the indictment. A narrow-chested, pale-faced
secretary, who had grown much too thin for his uniform and had a plaster
on his cheek,--he looked like a walking clinic,--read rapidly, like a
sexton, in a subdued, heavy bass, without raising or lowering his voice,
as if afraid to exert his lungs; he was seconded by the ventilator that
kept on buzzing behind the judge’s chair, and from this there resulted a
sound that gave to the stillness of the room a soporific, narcotic
character.

The presiding judge, who was not an old man, with an exceedingly tired
face, and near-sighted, was sitting in his chair without stirring, and
holding the palm of his hand near his brow, as if to keep the sun out of
his eyes. During the buzzing of the ventilator and of the secretary he
was thinking of something. When the secretary stopped for a second to
draw breath before beginning a new page, he suddenly started and looked
at the audience with his blinking eyes, then he leaned over the ear of
the fellow-judge by his side; and asked him with a sigh:

“You, Matvyéy Petróvich, are stopping at Demyánov’s?”

“Yes, at Demyánov’s,” answered the member, also startled.

“Next time I think I shall stop there myself. I declare, it is
impossible to stop at Tipyakóv’s. There is such a noise there all night
long! They make a racket, they cough, and the children cry. It ’s just
impossible to stand it!”

The associate prosecutor, a full-faced, well-fed, dark-complexioned man,
in gold spectacles, and with a beautiful, well-groomed beard, sat
immovably, like a statue, and, leaning his cheek on his closed hand,
read Byron’s _Cain_. His eyes were full of ardent attention, and his
brows rose admiringly higher and higher. Now and then he threw himself
against the back of his chair, looked for a moment indifferently ahead
of him, and then was once more lost in his reading.

The counsel for the defence moved the blunt end of his pencil over the
table and, bending his head aside, was meditating something. His
youthful face expressed nothing but unchangeable, cold ennui, such as is
to be seen in the faces of schoolboys and officials who are obliged to
sit day after day in one and the same place and to see all the time the
same faces and the same walls. The forthcoming speech did not worry him
in the least. What kind of a speech is it any way? By order of the
authorities he will deliver it without passion or fire before the jury,
according to an old stereotyped form, feeling all the time that it is
colourless and tiresome, and then he will gallop through mud and rain to
the station, then--to the capital, to get soon another order for some
other county seat, where he will make another speech---- It ’s tiresome!

The defendant at first coughed nervously into his sleeve and grew pale,
then the quiet, the universal monotony and the ennui were communicated
to him also. He looked with a dull respect at the uniforms of the
judges, at the tired faces of the jury, and calmly blinked with his
eyes. The judicial surroundings and procedure, waiting for which his
heart had been pining in the prison, now acted upon him most soothingly.
He did not meet here at all what he could have expected. Over him hung
the accusation of murder, and yet he did not meet here any threatening
faces, nor scorning glances, nor loud phrases of revenge, nor any
sympathy for his unusual fate; not one of those who were going to judge
him had turned their long, inquiring glances upon him. The murky
windows, the voice of the secretary, the pose of the prosecutor,--all
that was imbued with chancery indifference and exhaled a cold breath, as
though the murderer were a simple appurtenance of the chancery, or as
though not living men were judging him, but some unseen machine which
God knows who had introduced.

The composed peasant did not know that they were here as used to the
dramas and tragedies of life as one gets used to deaths in a hospital,
and that in this very machine-like indifference lay the whole terror and
the whole hopelessness of his position. I am sure that if he did not
remain silent, but rose and began to plead and implore for mercy with
tears in his eyes, to repent with fervour, if he died in despair,--all
that would break against their dull nerves and habit like a billow
against a rock.

When the secretary had finished, the presiding judge for some reason
rubbed the table, for a long time blinked at the defendant, and then
asked him, lazily moving his tongue:

“Defendant, do you plead guilty to having killed your wife on the night
of June 9th?”

“By no means,” answered the defendant, rising and holding the coat over
his breast.

After that the court hurriedly passed over to the examination of the
witnesses. There were examined two women, five peasants, and the coroner
who had held the inquest. All of them, mud-bespattered and tired from
their march and from the long waiting in the witness room, sad and
gloomy, deposed the same thing. They declared that Kharlámov had lived
“well” with his wife, just like anybody else: he used to strike her only
when he was intoxicated. On the 9th of June, about sundown, the woman
was found in the hall with her skull split open; an axe was lying near
her in a pool of blood. When they tried to find Nikoláy, in order to
tell him of the misfortune, he was neither in the house, nor in the
street. They began to run up and down the village to find him, they went
to all the taverns and cabins, but he could not be found. He had
disappeared, and two days later he came himself to the office, pale,
tattered, and trembling in his whole body. He was bound with ropes and
placed in the lockup.

“Defendant,” said the presiding judge to Kharlámov, “can’t you explain
to the court where you kept yourself during the two days after the
murder?”

“I wandered over the field, without eating or drinking.”

“Why did you hide yourself, if you did not kill her?”

“I was frightened. I was afraid I ’d be sentenced.”

“Ah! Very well, take your seat!”

The last witness was the county physician who had made the autopsy on
the old woman. He communicated to the court everything he could remember
from his notes of the autopsy and from what he had managed to work out
as he was walking to the court in the morning.

The presiding judge looked with half-closed eyes at his new shining,
black suit, at his dandyish necktie, at his moving lips, and in his
brain somehow stirred by itself the lazy thought: “Everybody wears now
short coats; then why did he have made such a long one? Really, why a
long one, and not a short one?”

Behind the presiding judge was heard the cautious creak of boots. It was
the associate prosecutor who had gone to the table to take up some
document.

“Mikhaíl Vladímirovich,” he leaned down to the ear of the presiding
judge, “that Koréyski has made a very careless inquest. The brother was
not examined, the elder was not examined, and you can’t make anything
out of the description of the room.”

“What is to be done, what is to be done?” sighed the presiding judge,
throwing himself back into the chair: “This is an endless sandglass!”

“By the way,” the associate prosecutor continued to whisper, “just look
down the audience, in the front bench, the third man from the left,--an
actor’s phiz. That is the local financial big-bug. He has a cash capital
of nearly five hundred thousand.”

“Yes? His face does n’t show it. How would it be, friend, if we took a
recess now?”

“Let us end this case, and then we shall----”

“Very well---- Well?” the presiding judge turned his eyes upon the
physician. “So you find that death was instantaneous?”

“Yes, on account of a considerable lesion of the brain matter.”

When the physician was through, the presiding judge looked into space,
between the prosecutor and the counsel, and he proposed:

“Have n’t you anything to ask?”

The associate prosecutor did not turn his eyes away from _Cain_, and
shook his head negatively, but the counsel moved unexpectedly and,
clearing his throat, asked:

“Tell me, doctor, is it possible to tell the mental condition of the
criminal by the dimension of the wound? That is, I want to know whether
the amount of the injury gives us a right to presuppose that the
defendant was mentally deranged.”

The presiding judge raised his sleepy, indifferent eyes upon the
counsel. The prosecutor tore himself away from his _Cain_, and looked at
the presiding judge. They only looked, but neither a smile, nor
wonderment, nor perplexity,--nothing was expressed upon their faces.

“Of course,” hesitated the physician, “if we take into consideration the
power with which--eh--eh--eh--the criminal strikes a blow---- However,
pardon me, I did not quite understand your question.”

The counsel did not get any answer to his question, nor did he feel any
need of it. It was quite clear to him that this question had strayed
into his head and had escaped from his tongue only under the influence
of the quiet, the ennui, and the buzzing ventilator. Having dismissed
the physician, the court passed to the examination of the material
instruments of evidence. First they examined the caftan, on the sleeve
of which there was a dark blood spot. Being asked of the origin of this
spot, Kharlámov declared:

“About three days before the death of my wife Penkóv bled his horse. I
was there, and as I helped him, I naturally got some on me.”

“But Penkóv has just now declared that he does not remember your being
present at the bleeding.”

“I don’t understand that!”

“Sit down!”

They passed to the examination of the axe with which the woman had been
killed.

“That is not my axe,” declared the defendant.

“Whose then?”

“I don’t know. I had no axe.”

“A peasant can’t get on a single day without an axe. Your neighbour Iván
Timoféich, with whom you fixed the sleigh, deposed that it is your axe.”

“I don’t know, only I swear before God,”--Kharlámov stretched his hand
with open fingers before him,--“I swear by the true Creator, I don’t
remember of ever having had an axe of my own. I once had one like it,
only a little smaller, but my son Prokhór lost it. Two years before his
military service he went out to cut some wood, but he was having a good
time with the boys, and he lost it.”

“All right, sit down!”

This systematic suspicion and unwillingness to listen to him no doubt
provoked and offended Kharlámov. He winked, and on his cheeks appeared
red spots.

“As before the Lord!” continued he, stretching out his neck. “If you do
not believe, ask my son Prokhór. Prokhór, where is my axe?” he suddenly
asked with a coarse voice, abruptly turning to the guard. “Where?”

That was a shocking moment! All seemed to have seated themselves and to
have become lower in stature---- Through all the heads, as many as there
were in the court-room, there flashed one and the same terrible,
impossible thought, the thought of the probable fatal accident, and not
a person risked or dared to look at the face of the soldier. All wished
not to believe their thought and hoped they had not heard correctly.

“Defendant, it is not permitted to speak to the guard,” the judge
hastened to say.

Nobody saw the face of the guard and terror invisibly passed through the
court-room. The bailiff softly rose from his seat and, balancing himself
with his arms, walked out of the room on tiptoes. Half a minute later
were heard hollow steps and sounds, such as are heard during the change
of sentinels.

Everybody raised his head and, trying to look as if nothing had
happened, they continued the case.




  Aleksyéy Maksímovich Pyeshkóv (pseud. Maksím Górki). (1871-.)


  Born as the son of an upholsterer, Górki, by which name Pyeshkóv is
  best known, was brought up by his mother’s parents. He had barely
  entered school when his grandparents’ reverses caused him to be
  apprenticed to a shoemaker. After that he tried himself in every
  possible capacity--as an engraver, painter of holy images, cook,
  hawker of apples, and so forth. In the meanwhile he had an opportunity
  to learn to read, and he read any and all books he could procure.
  Finally he fell in with a lawyer at Nízhni-Nóvgorod who did a great
  deal for his awakening. Then he once more started out on his
  wanderings, and in the Caucasus in 1893 wrote his first story,
  entitled _Makár Chúdra_, for a local paper. The next year he returned
  to Nízhni-Nóvgorod, and here he met the author Korolénko, under whose
  guidance his literary career began. Górki draws his vagabonds with a
  realism that surpasses all previous attempts in that field. Unlike
  Uspénski, Zlatovrátski, and the other writers who have treated similar
  subjects, he has no bias in any direction whatsoever, but depicts
  elementary passions at full play, quite unconcerned about the results
  to which they may lead. Not less characteristic are his pictures of
  southern scenes, of the steppe, the sea, and the noisy quay.

  In English translation have appeared: _Orloff Couple_, translated by
  Emily Jakowleff and Dora B. Montefiore, London, 1901; _Orloff and his
  Wife_, translated by I. F. Hapgood, New York, 1902; _Foma Gordyeeff_,
  translated by I. F. Hapgood, New York, 1901; _Foma Gordeyev_,
  translated by H. Bernstein, New York, 1901; _Twenty-six and One_, New
  York, 1902; _Twenty-six Men and a Girl_, translated by B. Jakowleff
  and D. B. Montefiore, London, 1902; _Tales from Gorky_, translated by
  N. H. Bain, New York, 1902; _The Devil_, by L. Wiener, National
  Magazine, 1901; _Makar Chudra_, by M. Mojaysky, Monthly Review, 1901;
  _Tchelkache_, by Katherine Wylde, Fortnightly Review, and Living Age,
  1901; _Song of the Falcon_, Contemporary Review, 1902; part of _The
  Awakening of a Conscience_, by L. Wiener, in Garnett’s Universal
  Anthology.


                              IN THE STEPPE

                             STORY OF A TRAMP

We left Perekóp in the worst possible mood,--we were as hungry as wolves
and angry with the whole world. For more than half a day we had
unsuccessfully applied all our talents and efforts to steal or earn
something, and when we at last convinced ourselves that we would fail in
both attempts, we decided to move on. Whither? That was a matter of
indifference, as long as we moved on. This was our unanimous resolution,
as we had expressed it to each other, but we were ready to proceed in
every respect upon the path of our actions upon which we had been
travelling quite a while,--that had been silently agreed to by everyone
of us and, though it was not spoken of in the hearing of all, it
sparkled clearly in the grim lustre of our hungry eyes.

There were three of us; we had but lately made each other’s
acquaintance, having met at Khérson, in a saloon on the bank of the
Dnieper.

One of us had been a soldier of a railroad battalion, later, as he
professed, a roadmaster with one of the Polish railways; he was a
red-haired, muscular man, with cold, grey eyes; he could speak German,
and possessed a very detailed knowledge of prison life.

People of our class don’t like to talk much about their past, generally
having more or less good reasons for not mentioning it; consequently we
all believed each other, at least outwardly, for inwardly we hardly
believed ourselves.

When our second companion, a small, wizened man with thin lips, that
were all the time skeptically compressed, said of himself that he had
been a student at the Moscow University,--the soldier and I accepted
this assertion as a fact. In reality, it was absolutely the same to us
whether he had ever been a student, a detective, or one of the
“orleans,”--the only important point was that at the time of our
acquaintanceship he was our equal: he was starving, he enjoyed in towns
the especial attention of the police, and in the country the suspicious
attitude of the peasants; he hated both with the hatred of a powerless,
persecuted, and hungry animal, and dreamt of a universal revenge upon
everybody and everything,--in short, by his position amidst the kings of
Nature and the potentates of life, and by his inclinations, he was a
bird of our feather.

Misfortune is the best cement to unite even the most contradictory
natures, and we were all convinced of our right to regard ourselves as
unfortunates.

I was the third. Out of modesty, which has been my characteristic ever
since my nails were grown, I will not say a word about my worth, and,
not wishing to appear naïve to you, I will keep silent about my faults.
However, to furnish you material for my characterisation, I will say
that I always regarded myself better than others, and that I still
successfully maintain this opinion.

So we left Perekóp and moved on, depending for that day upon the
shepherds, whom one may always ask for a piece of bread and who never
refuse it to pedestrians.

I walked by the side of the soldier, the “student” marched behind us.
Over his shoulders hung something that somewhat reminded of a
frock-coat; on his sharp-pointed, angular and clean-shaven head rested
the remnant of a broad-brimmed hat; grey trowsers with many-coloured
patches fitted tightly to his thin legs, and to the soles of his feet he
had fastened parts of a bootleg, which he had picked up on his way; he
held them in place by means of ropes which he had wound out of the
lining of his costume, and this affair he called sandals; he marched
silently, raising a great deal of dust and blinking with his small
greenish eyes. The soldier was dressed in a red fustian shirt which, to
use his words, he had by his own hand obtained at Khérson; over his
shirt there was a warm cotton jacket, and his head was adorned by a
soldier’s cap of indefinite colour, which was poised, according to the
military rule, “with a bend of the upper circle over the right brow”;
about his legs flapped broad Ukrainian carter’s pantaloons. He was
barefooted.

I was similarly dressed, and also barefooted.

We marched on, and all about us extended the steppe with a heroic sweep
and, being covered with the blue, burning cupola of a cloudless summer
sky, lay before us like an enormous black dish. The grey, dusty road cut
a broad swath across it, and burned our feet. Here and there we saw
bristly stretches of harvested grainfields that bore a striking
resemblance to the long-neglected cheeks of the soldier.

The soldier walked and sang with a hoarse voice:

“And we sing and praise Thy holy Sunday----”

During his military service he had been something like a sexton in the
battalion church, and he knew an endless number of hymns and chants,
which knowledge he misused every time our conversation did not flow
exactly right.

Ahead of us, on the horizon, rose some forms of soft contours and gentle
shades, from lilac to light pink.

“That ’s evidently the Crimean range,” said the student dryly.

“Mountains?” exclaimed the soldier. “It ’s mighty early, my friend, you
see them. Those are clouds, just clouds. You see what they look like?
Just like cranberry sauce with milk.”

I remarked that it would be exceedingly agreeable if the clouds really
consisted of cranberry sauce. This at once roused our hunger,--the great
question of the day.

“The devil!” cursed the soldier, and spit out. “If only a single living
soul came our way! Not a person---- We ’ll have to lick our own paws,
like bears in winter.”

“I said we ought to keep near inhabited places,” remarked the “student,”
moralising.

“You said!” said the soldier angrily. “That ’s why you are a learned
man, just to be a-talking. Where do you expect to find inhabited places
here? The devil knows where they are!”

The “student” grew silent and compressed his lips. The sun was going
down, and the clouds in the horizon displayed a variety of intangible
colours. The air smelled of land and salt.

This dry and appetising odour only increased our hunger.

There was a gnawing sensation in our stomachs. It was a strange and
disagreeable sensation: it felt as though the sap were flowing out of
all the muscles of the body, as though it evaporated, and the muscles
lost their vital flexibility. A sensation of stinging dryness filled the
cavity of the mouth and the throat; the head was dizzy, and dark spots
arose and flitted before the eyes. At times they assumed the form of
steaming pieces of meat, of big slices of bread; reminiscence furnished
these “visions of the past, silent visions” with their appropriate
aromas, and then it felt as though a knife were turning around in the
stomach.

We kept on marching, communicating to each other the description of our
sensations and being on a sharp lookout on both sides,--hoping to
discover somewhere a flock of sheep, or to hear the sharp creaking of a
Tartar’s cart taking fruit to an Armenian market.

But the steppe was deserted and speechless.

On the previous day we had eaten between us four pounds of rye bread and
some five melons, after having marched about forty versts,--there was a
discrepancy between assets and liabilities,--and, having fallen asleep
on the market place of Perekóp, we awoke from hunger.

The “student” had justly advised us not to lie down to sleep, but to go
to work in the night,--it is not considered proper in decent society to
speak aloud of the plans for trespassing on private property, and so I
shall keep silent. I only want to be truthful, and not vulgar, as
regards my own interests. I know that people are getting more and more
kind-hearted in these our highly cultured days and that when they take
their neighbour by the throat with the evident purpose of choking him,
they try to do so with the utmost politeness and with the observance of
all the proprieties, suited to the case. The experience of my own throat
compels me to notice this progress of manners, and I affirm with a
pleasant feeling of conviction that everything in this world is being
developed and perfected. This remarkable progress is, in particular,
sufficiently proved by the annual increase in prisons, saloons, and
“houses of toleration.”

So, swallowing our hungry spittle and attempting by a friendly
conversation to suppress the pain in our stomachs, we marched across the
deserted and speechless steppe, marched in the blood-red rays of the
declining sun, full of a dim hope of something. In front of us, the sun
was going down, gently descending into the soft clouds, which were
lavishly painted by its rays, and behind us and at our sides a bluish
mist, rising from the steppe towards heaven, narrowed down the
inhospitable horizon around us.

“Friends, collect material for a fire,” said the soldier, as he lifted a
stick by the wayside. “We will have to sleep out on the steppe, and
there is dew falling. Pick up dung chips and all kinds of dry stalks!”

We scattered on both sides of the road and began to collect dry weeds
and everything else that would burn. Every time I had to bend down, a
powerful desire to fall down upon the ground took possession of my body,
a desire to lie immovably and eat the rich, black earth, to eat a great
deal of it, to exhaustion, and then to fall asleep, even if it were to
fall asleep for ever, as long as there would be something to eat, and I
could chew and feel the thick, warm mass slowly passing from the mouth
over the dried-up œsophagus into the hungry and compressed stomach that
was burning with the desire of sucking something in.

“If we could only find some roots,” sighed the soldier. “There are some
edible roots.”

But there were no roots whatsoever in the black, ploughed-up earth. The
southern night came upon us rapidly, and the last sunbeam had not yet
gone out, when the stars began to glisten in the dark-blue vault, and
the dark shadows grew thicker around us, narrowing down the endless
extent of the steppe that held us.

“Friends,” said the “student” half-aloud, “there is a man lying to the
left of us.”

“A man?” doubted the soldier. “Why should he be lying there?”

“Go and ask him. No doubt, he has some bread, or he would not be camping
out in the steppe,” explained the “student.” The soldier looked aside,
where the man was lying, and, spitting out assertively, he said:

“Let us go to him!”

Only the “student’s” sharp green eyes could have discovered that the
dark mass that rose some three hundred and fifty feet to the left of the
road was a man. We started in that direction, swiftly striding over
clods of earth, and we felt the pang of hunger getting more acute in the
germinating hope of finding something to eat. We were near the place,
but the man did not move.

“Maybe that is not a man,” gloomily said the soldier, giving expression
to our common thought.

But our doubt was immediately dispersed, for the mass on the ground
moved, raised itself, and we saw that it was a real, live man who was
standing on his knees and stretching out his hands towards us.

He spoke to us with a dull and trembling voice:

“Not a step nearer, or I ’ll shoot!”

A dry, short click was heard in the murky air.

We stopped as commanded and kept silent for a few seconds, being dazed
by such an inhospitable reception.

“What a r-rascal!” muttered the soldier deliberately.

“Yes,” thoughtfully said the “student.” “He wanders about with a
revolver; evidently, the fish is full of spawn.”

“Oh there!” called out the soldier, having made up his mind for
something.

The man did not change his position and kept silent.

“Oh there! We will not touch you. Give us only some bread, if you have
any! For Christ’s sake, give us some, friend! Damn you, anathema!”

The last words the soldier spoke under his breath.

The man kept silent.

“Do you hear?” again spoke the soldier, with a tremor of anger and
despair. “Give us some bread, I say! We will not come near you. Throw
some to us!”

“All right!” said the man abruptly.

He might have said to us: “My dear brethren!” and if he had poured all
his holiest and purest sentiments into these three Christian words, they
would not have roused us so and would not have made us so human as this
dull and short:

“All right!”

“Don’t fear us, good man!” said the soldier softly and with a sweet
smile upon his face, though the man could not see his smile, for he was
separated from us by at least twenty paces.

“We ’re peaceable people, and are walking from Russia into the Kubán
country; we have spent our pennies on the way, and have eaten up our
provisions, and have n’t had a bite for two days.”

“Catch it,” said the good man, flourishing something in the air. A black
piece flashed by and fell not far from us on the ploughed field. The
“student” threw himself upon it.

“Catch again! Once more! That ’s all I have!”

When the “student” collected this original gift, it appeared that we had
about four pounds of stale wheat bread. It was all rolled in dirt and
very stale. The first did not detain our attention, the second pleased
us very much. Stale bread is more nourishing than fresh bread, because
there is less moisture in it.

“Here, and here, and here!” the soldier doled out the shares with
concentrated attention. “Hold on, the pieces are n’t equal! We ’ll have
to pinch off a piece of yours, learned man, or he will have too little.”

The “student” submitted without grumbling to the diminution of his piece
of bread by some five ounces; I took it and put it in my mouth.

I began to chew it, to chew it slowly, barely repressing the cramp-like
motion of my jaws that were ready to crush stones. It gave me an acute
pleasure to feel the palpitating cramps of my alimentary canal, and to
satisfy it slowly and by small drops. Swallow after swallow, warm and
inexpressibly, incomprehensibly appetising, penetrated into the burning
stomach and seemed immediately to be transformed into blood and brain.
Joy, such a strange, quiet, and vivifying joy, warmed my heart in the
measure as my stomach filled up, and my general condition was not unlike
a half-sleeping. I forgot those accursed days of my chronic hunger; I
forgot my companions, being all merged in the enjoyment by the
sensations through which I then passed.

But when I threw from my palm the last crumbs into my mouth, I felt that
I was deathly hungry.

“That accursed one has some bacon or some meat left,” grumbled the
soldier, sitting against me on the ground and rubbing his belly with his
hands.

“No doubt, for the bread smelled of meat. Yes, and he may have some
bread left, too,” said the “student” and softly added:

“If it were not for the revolver----”

“Who is he anyway?”

“Evidently, one of our kind.”

“A dog!” declared the soldier.

We were sitting closely together and kept looking askance at the place
where our benefactor was sitting with his revolver. Not a sound, nor a
sign of life proceeded from him.

Night was gathering around us her dark powers. There was a dead silence
in the steppe, and we could hear each other’s breathing. Now and then
the melancholy whistling of a gopher reached our ears. The stars--living
flowers of heaven--gleamed above us. We wanted to eat.

I say it proudly,--I was not worse nor better than my casual companions
in that somewhat strange night. I proposed to them that we should get up
and make for that man. We would not touch him, but we would eat up
anything he might have. He would shoot,--let him! He could hit but one
of us three, if he hit us at all; and even if he did, a bullet from a
revolver would hardly kill.

“Let us go!” said the soldier, jumping to his feet.

The “student” was slower in rising.

We started, we almost ran. The “student” kept towards one side, and
behind us.

“Partner!” cried the soldier to him reproachfully.

We were met with a dull grumbling and a sharp sound of a clicking
hammer. There was a flash of fire, and the dry sound of a shot was
heard.

“Missed!” joyfully exclaimed the soldier, reaching the man with one
bound. “Well, devil, I ’ll give it to you now!”

The “student” made a rush for his wallet.

The devil fell from his knees upon his back and, stretching out his
hands, began to snore.

“What the deuce!” wondered the soldier, who had already raised his foot
to give the man a kick. “Is it possible he has filled himself up with
lead? Oh, there, get up! Say, did you kill yourself, eh?”

“There is some bread, and some cakes, and bread--lots of it, friends!”
was heard the jubilant voice of the “student.”

“Well, the deuce take you, go to! Let us eat, friends!” cried the
soldier. I took the revolver out of the hands of the man, who had
stopped snoring and lay motionless. One barrel had a cartridge in it.

We ate again, and we ate in silence. The man lay silent, without moving
a limb. We paid no attention to him.

“Is it really so, my friends, that you did it all for the bread only?”
suddenly was heard a hoarse and quivering voice.

We all shuddered. The “student” even started up and, bending to the
ground, began to cough.

The soldier finished chewing and began cursing.

“You, soul of a dog, may you burst like a dry plank! What did you want
us to do? Take off your hide? What good would it do us? You stupid
snout, damned soul! I declare! Carrying arms, and shooting at people!
You anathema!”

He kept on cursing and eating, which latter fact much diminished the
expressiveness and strength of his curses.

“Just wait, when we are through eating, we ’ll square up with you,”
ominously threatened the “student.”

Then were heard, in the quiet of the night, howling sobs that frightened
us.

“Friends, how could I know? I fired because I was afraid. I am on my way
from New Afón to the Government of Orél. O Lord! The fever is undoing me
since the sun went down! It was the fever that made me leave Afón---- I
was doing some carpentering there---- I am a carpenter---- I have at
home a wife and two daughters--have n’t seen them these three years----
Friends! Eat everything----”

“We will, you need n’t ask us!” said the “student.”

“My Lord! If I had known that you were good, peaceable people, do you
suppose I would have fired at you? You see, my friends, it ’s the
steppe, and night--am I to be blamed, eh?”

As he said that, he wept, or to speak more correctly, emitted a
quivering, timorous howl.

“Hear him whine!” contemptuously said the soldier.

“He must have money about him,” declared the “student.”

The soldier blinked, looked at him, and smiled.

“You are a good guesser. Say: let us make a fire, and go to sleep!”

“And he?” inquired the “student.”

“The deuce take him! What do you want us to do--roast him?”

“We ought to!” the “student” shook his sharp-pointed head.

We went for the material which we had been gathering and which we had
thrown away where the carpenter had stopped us with his threatening
call; we brought it back, and soon we were sitting around a fire. It
glowed softly in the windless night and illuminated a small space which
we were occupying. We were feeling sleepy, though we could have supped
again.

“Friends!” cried out the carpenter. He was lying some three paces from
us, and at times it appeared to me that he was muttering something.

“Well?” said the soldier.

“May I move up to you, to the fire? My death is upon me, my bones are
aching. Lord! I don’t think I ’ll reach home.”

“Crawl up,” decided the “student.”

The carpenter slowly crawled along the ground towards the fire, as if
fearing to lose an arm or leg. He was a tall and dreadfully dried up
man: everything hung dreadfully loose about him, and his large dim eyes
reflected the pain that was consuming him. His wry face was bony and had
even in the light of the fire a kind of a yellowish earthy, deathly
color. He was all in a tremble and provoked a contemptuous pity. He
stretched out to the fire his long, lean hands, and rubbed his bony
fingers, but their joints bent lazily and slowly. In short, he was a
horrible sight.

“How is it you are in such a fix, and afoot? Are you so stingy?”
gloomily asked the soldier.

“They advised me not to go by sea, but to walk through the Crimea, on
account of the air. But I can’t walk, I am dying, brothers! I ’ll die
alone in the steppe--the birds will peck at me, and nobody will know
me---- My wife and daughters will be waiting---- I have written to
them--but the rains of the steppe will be bleaching my bones. My Lord,
my Lord!”

He whined with the melancholy whine of a wounded wolf.

“The devil,” cried out the soldier as he rose to his feet. “Don’t howl
so! Why don’t you give us people any rest? Are you dying? All right,
die, but keep quiet. Who wants you? Shut up!”

“Kick him in the pate!” proposed the “student.”

“Let us lie down to sleep,” said I. “And you, if you want to be by the
fire, don’t howl at least.”

“Did you hear?” sternly said the soldier. “Well, make a note of it. Do
you think we are going to pity you and look after you, for hurling bread
at us, and firing on us? You mean devil! Others----pah----”

The soldier grew silent and stretched himself out on the ground.

The “student” had lain down before. I lay down myself. The frightened
carpenter was all bent into a ball and moved to the fire, and looked at
it fixedly. I lay to the right of him and I could hear his teeth
chatter. The “student” was to the left of him and, it seemed, fell at
once asleep, having rolled up into a ball. The soldier put his hands
under his head and lay, face upwards, and looked at the sky.

“What a night! Lots of stars--warmth----” he turned to me after a time.

“What a sky! It ’s a coverlet, not a sky. I do love this life of a
tramp, my friend. You suffer cold and hunger, but it ’s a mighty free
life. There is no superior over you--you are master of your life. You
may chew off your head, and nobody will say a word to you. It ’s fine. I
have starved enough these days, and have had enough cause for anger, but
now I am lying and looking at the sky. The stars are twinkling to me, as
if to say: ‘Never mind, Lakútin, wander about over the earth and submit
to nobody.’ Yes---- And my heart feels light---- Oh, there, what do they
call you? Oh, there, carpenter! Don’t be angry with me, and have no
fear! As to our having eaten up your bread, that ’s nothing. You had
some bread, and we had none, so we ate up yours---- But you are a
savage, you fire off guns. Don’t you know that bullets may harm people?
It made me dreadfully mad, and if you had not fallen down, I would have
thrashed you, my friend, for your impudence. But as for the bread, you
will reach Perekóp to-morrow, and so you will buy some--I know you have
money---- How long is it since you caught the ague?”

The bass of the soldier and the quivering voice of the sick carpenter
resounded for quite a while in my ears. Dark, almost black night
descended more and more upon the earth, and the fresh, aromatic air
flowed into my breast.

From the fire came an even light and vivifying warmth. The eyes became
gluey, and before them was borne, through the drowsiness, something
soothing and purifying.

                   ────────────────────────────────────

“Get up! Lively there! Let us go!”

I opened my eyes with a feeling of terror and swiftly jumped to my feet,
being helped by the soldier, who jerked me up from the ground.

“Lively there! Move on!”

His face was stern and agitated. I looked around me. The sun was rising,
and its rose-coloured beam lay upon the immovable and blue face of the
carpenter. His mouth was open, his eyes stood far out of their sockets
and stared with a glassy glance, expressive of terror. His dress was all
torn over his chest, and he lay in an unnaturally contorted position.
The “student” was gone.

“Well, what are you tarrying for? I told you to go!” said the soldier
persuasively, pulling me all the time by my arm.

“Is he dead?” asked I, shuddering from the morning freshness.

“Of course. You would die, too, if they choked you,” explained the
soldier.

“What, did the ‘student’?” cried I.

“Well, who else? Maybe, you? Or I? Yes. There you have a learned man----
He got away with the man, and left his companions in a nice fix. If I
had known that yesterday, I would have killed that ‘student.’ I would
have killed him with one stroke. I would have banged his temple with my
fist, and there would have been a villain less in the world. Do you
understand what he did? Now we are compelled to walk in such a way that
not a soul shall see us in the steppe. Do you understand? Because they
will find the carpenter to-day, and they will discover that he had been
choked to death and robbed. And they will be on the lookout for fellows
of our kind: Where do you come from, and where did you pass your night?
Yes, and they will catch us---- Though we have n’t a thing of his--yes,
I have his revolver in my bosom. It ’s a nice fix we are in!”

“Throw it away,” I advised the soldier.

“Throw it away,” said he, thoughtfully. “It ’s worth something. And
then, maybe they will not catch us. No, I won’t throw it away. Who knows
that the carpenter had a gun? I won’t throw it away. It ’s worth three
roubles. There is a bullet in it. I tell you, I would like to send it
a-flying into the ear of our dear companion! I wonder how much money
that dog got away with! Anathema!”

“Poor daughters of the carpenter,” said I.

“The daughters? What daughters? Oh, his. Well, they ’ll grow up, and
they won’t marry us, so there is no use talking about them. Come,
friend, let us be off. Where shall we go?”

“I don’t know---- Anywhere.”

“I don’t know either, and I know that it makes no difference. Come, let
us to the right, there must be the sea.”

We went to the right.

I turned back. Far away from us rose a dark mound in the steppe, and the
sun shone over it.

“Are you trying to see if he has arisen from the dead? Don’t be afraid,
he won’t be up after us. The learned fellow is evidently a man of
experience, he has done his job thoroughly. Well, he ’s a fine partner!
He has put us in a nice hole! Friend! People are getting worse from year
to year, they are getting worse!” said the soldier mournfully.

The deserted and speechless steppe, bathed by the bright morning sun and
mingling in the horizon with the sky, was unfolded around us in such a
bright, gentle, and abundant light that every black and unrighteous deed
seemed impossible amidst the great extent of this free plain that was
covered by the blue cupola of the sky.

“I feel like having something to eat, friend!” said my companion, as he
rolled himself a cigarette out of coarse tobacco.

“What shall we eat to-day, and where and how?”

It was a problem!

                   ────────────────────────────────────

Having told me this, the storyteller, who was my neighbour in the
hospital, ended his narrative.

“That ’s all. The soldier and I got to be good friends, and we walked
together to the Kára territory. He was a good and very experienced
fellow, a typical barefoot tramp. I respected him. We walked together to
Asia Minor, and then I lost track of him.”

“Do you ever think of the carpenter?” asked I.

“As you see, or, as you heard.”

“Well, and--?”

He laughed.

“What am I to feel? It was not my fault what happened to him, not any
more than it is your fault what has happened to me. Nobody is to be
blamed for anything, because we are all alike--beasts.”




  Dmítri Sergyéevich Merezhkóvski. (1865-.)


  Merezhkóvski was born in 1865 and graduated from the university in
  1886. He began early to write poetry, but met with no success. A novel
  in verse, _Vyéra_, which he wrote in 1890, however, produced a
  favourable impression. Since then Merezhkóvski has devoted himself
  more especially to prose. He is opposed to the prevailing democratism
  in literature, and preaches a return to the ideal of Púshkin. He has
  evolved an unusually fine style for Russian literature, but his
  conceptions are rather fantastic, and not always coherent. His chief
  interest lies in the illustration of the struggle of two worlds, the
  pagan and the Christian. This idea runs through all his critical
  essays, in which he deplores the democratic spirit in literature since
  Gógol, and through his trilogy of novels, of which the first deals
  with Julian the Apostate, the second with Leonardo da Vinci, and the
  third is to treat of Peter the Great.

  In English translation have appeared: _The Death of the Gods_, _The
  Resurrection of the Gods_, and _Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, the
  Forerunner_, translated by H. French, London, 1902, the latter also
  New York, 1902; _Julian the Apostate_, Philadelphia, 1902; _Tolstoi as
  Man and Artist, with Essay on Dostoïevski_, New York, 1902.


                        FROM AN ESSAY ON “PÚSHKIN”

Not by sudden outbursts and by jerks, but premise after premise, step by
step, unavoidably and with dialectic precision, by evolving the one
sphere of Púshkin’s harmony, by sacrificing and killing the other, has
Russian literature at last reached that one-sidedness of Lev Tolstóy, so
suicidal for every artistic development.

Gógol, the nearest of Púshkin’s disciples, was the first to understand
and express the meaning of Púshkin for Russia, as no one after him has
been able to do. In his best creations, in the _Revizór_ and in the
_Dead Souls_, Gógol carried out the plans with which his teacher had
inspired him. It is difficult to find a case of closer adaptation in the
history of any literature. Gógol drew directly from Púshkin, that deep
and pure source of Russian harmony. Well? Did the disciple execute the
injunction of his teacher? Gógol was the first who unconsciously and
involuntarily betrayed Púshkin; he was the first who became a victim of
the great disorganisation, which was later more and more to take
possession of Russian poetry; he was the first to experience the attacks
of the all-devouring, sickly mysticism, which was to undermine also the
creative powers of others than himself.

It is a tragic fact in Russian literature that in departing with every
step more and more from Púshkin, that in destroying the most precious
creation of his spirit,--the co-ordination and equipoise of two
worlds,--it at the same time has regarded itself as the true guardian of
Púshkin’s legacies. Great men have no more dangerous enemies than their
nearest disciples,--those who recline upon their breast, for no one can,
loving and adoring, with such innocent cunning distort the real image of
their teacher.

Turgénev and Goncharóv made conscientious attempts to overcome the
incipient discord within them, the ill-omened dissonance of Lérmontov
and Gógol, to return to Púshkin’s objective calm and equipoise. If not
with their hearts, they understood with their minds the heroic deed of
Peter the Great, remaining strangers to the Slavophile pride of
Dostoévski, and they consciously, like Púshkin, bowed before the majesty
of Western culture. Turgénev appears in a certain measure as the legal
heir of Púshkin’s harmony, both on account of the perfect clearness of
the artistic architecture and the gentle grace of language.

But all that resemblance, all that harmony, is superficial and
deceptive. Neither Turgénev nor Goncharóv succeeded in the attempt to
conquer the approaching disorganisation, to return to Púshkin. A feeling
of great fatigue and satiety with all cultural forms, Schopenhauer’s
Buddhistic nirvana, Flaubert’s artistic nihilism, were much nearer to
Turgénev’s heart than Púshkin’s heroic wisdom. In Turgénev’s exceedingly
soft, feminine, and pliable language there is no longer Púshkin’s
manliness, his sturdy strength and simplicity. In Turgénev’s bewitching
melody you continually hear a penetrating, plaintive tone, like the
sound of a cracked bell,--a sign of a deepening spiritual discord,--the
terror of life, the terror of death, which Lev Tolstóy will later carry
to appalling limits.

Turgénev has created an endless gallery of what in his opinion are real
Russian heroes, that is, heroes of weakness, cripples, unsuccessful men.
He has surrounded his _Living Relics_ with an aureole of the same
Galilean poetry which surrounds the images of Tatyána, Tazít, the old
gipsy. He has reached the highest degree of his accessible inspiration,
by pointing out the superiority of weakness over strength, of the little
man over the great, and the humble over the proud, of Don Quixote’s
simple-minded insanity over Hamlet’s evil wisdom. The only strong
Russian in Turgénev is the nihilist Bazárov. Of course, the author of
_Fathers and Sons_ was enough of an objective artist to treat his hero
without anger or bias, but he nevertheless was afraid of him and could
not forgive him his strength. The poet seemed to say, as he pointed to
Bazárov, without noticing that he was not at all a hero, but just such
an abortion, just such an unsuccessful man, as the rest of his
superfluous people, who created nothing and who was doomed to ruin: “You
wanted to see a strong Russian,--here is a strong man! See for
yourselves what narrowness and limitation of will-power, which is
directed to destruction! What coarseness and awkwardness before the
tender mystery of love! What insignificance before the majesty of death!
That is what your heroes, your Russian strong men are like! Oh, do you
not a hundred times prefer my weak, superfluous, little, gentle heroes
of Russian wretchedness, indolence, and carelessness, my magnanimous
unsuccessful men and Don Quixotes?”

If a foreigner were to believe Gógol, Turgénev, and Goncharóv, the
Russian nation must represent itself to him as unique in history, as
denying the very essence of heroic will. If the depth of the Russian
spirit were exhausted by _only_ Christian meekness, _only_
self-sacrifice, _only_ the poetry of the pariahs, the humbled, and the
offended,--whence, then, comes that “Divine storm,” that blissful and
terrifying grandeur, that superabundance of success, will, and
merriment, that are felt in Peter and in Púshkin? How could arise these
two demoniac phenomena of infinite beauty and infinite love in the
country of Buddhistic nihilism and wretchedness, in the country of _Dead
Souls_ and _Living Relics_ in the Siloam pool of the maimed and the
halt? Or are Peter and Púshkin not our own, not Russians?

Goncharóv has gone even farther on this dangerous path The critics saw
in _Oblómov_ a satire, a moral. But Goncharóv’s novel is more venomous
and more terrible than any satire. For the poet himself there is in that
all-embracing artistic synthesis of Russian helplessness and Russian
“do-nothingness,” neither praise, nor blame, but there is only a full
justice, the representation of Russian reality in all its terror and in
all its beauty. In his best moments Oblómov, a bookish dreamer who with
the childlike serenity and azure chastity of his infinitely deep and
simple heart is unfit for too coarse a human existence, is surrounded
with the same aureole of quiet poetry, as the _Living Relics_ of
Turgénev. Goncharóv would, perhaps, have liked to be unjust to Oblómov,
but he could not, because he loved him; he, no doubt, intended to be
just to Stolz, but he could not, because he secretly hated him. The
German hero (he did not try to represent a Russian hero, so unnatural
did such a phenomenon seem to him) came out dead, cold, and formless.
Art reveals the secret feeling which the poet dares not express: is not
the resignation from stern life, the primitive simplicity, the wise
inactivity of the gentle hero of Russian indolence a thousand times more
noble than the prosaic bustle of the hero of German precision? From
Mahomet, Napoleon, Byron, the Bronze Rider, to a puny, hoarding,
bourgeois German, and to a gawky seminarist, a provincial tempting
demon, Mark Volokhóv,--what a sad metamorphosis, what a fall of the
Pushkin demigod!

But that is not yet the lowest step. Gógol, Turgénev, and Goncharóv
appear as writers full of objective equipoise, health, and harmony in
comparison with Dostoévski and Lev Tolstóy. The emaciated and half-dead
Russian heroes, the Russian strong men, Bazárov and Mark Volokhóv, come
once more to life in the person of Raskólnikov, Iván Karamázov, in the
monstrous visions of the _Devils_, in order to undergo the last
degrading punishment, the most refined, hellish torture,--in the
terrible hands of that demon of wretchedness and torment, the great
inquisitor Dostoévski.

How much stronger and more truthful he was than Turgénev and Goncharóv!
Dostoévski did not hide his dissonance, his discord, did not deceive
himself, nor the reader, did not make vain attempts to re-establish the
disturbed equilibrium,--the harmony of Púshkin’s form. And yet he valued
and understood this harmony with more penetration than Turgénev and
Goncharóv,--he loved Púshkin, as the most inaccessible, the most
opposite to his nature, just as the mortally ill man values health,--he
loved him, but no longer strove after that harmony.

The author of _Brothers Karamázov_ has maimed and violated the artistic
form of the epos, has with unheard-of audacity transformed it into a
terrible instrument of psychological torture. It is hard to believe that
the language that still possesses such vernal freshness and chaste
serenity in Púshkin has been so transformed as to serve for the
representation of the horrible nightmares and gloomy, fiery visions of
Dostoévski.

Dostoévski was more consistent than Turgénev and Goncharóv in even
another respect: he did not hide his immeasurable Slavophile pride,--he
did not ogle the civilisation of the West. Hellenic beauty was to him
Sodom, and Roman force the kingdom of the Antichrist. What could meek,
youthful, God-harbouring Russia learn from the haughty, decrepit,
Godless West? The Russian nation is not to strive after the ideal of the
West, that is, after universal paganism, but the West is to strive after
the ideal of the Russian nation, that is, after universal Christianity.

Nevertheless, as an artist he is nearer to Púshkin than Turgénev and
Goncharóv. He is the only one of the Russian authors who consciously
reproduces the struggle of two worlds. It is even possible that his
dualism is deeper than Púshkin’s. Yet it is withal, to its very depths,
a discord, a struggle, a torment. Dostoévski’s great soul is like a
battle-field, agitated, bloody, full of gnashing of teeth and sobbing of
the wounded, a field on which two irreconcilable foes have met. Who will
be the victor? No one, never. It is a hopeless, unending struggle. On
whose side is the poet? We only know on whose side he wants to be. But
in those very moments when you most trust his Christian humility, his
wretchedness, and his chastity,--there suddenly happens something
unusual and evil somewhere in the dark, dangerous corner of the author’s
psychological labyrinth where he slowly, like a spider, entices and
entangles the inexperienced reader, so that you look, and hardly know
whether it is he or not, and whether it really is, or you only imagine
it to be, a terrible were-wolf, a double, or a wolf in a sheepskin. And
the great inquisitor whispers with scarcely audible, insane laughter,
which sends a chill through your body, and through the meekness of the
martyr flickers the unlimited conceit of the devil, through the
wretchedness and chastity of the pious sufferer the lustful cruelty of
the devil.

To such monstrous insanity, to such epileptic fits of demonism has been
changed the beneficent dualism of Púshkin, the harmony of two worlds,
the divine music of the spheres that unite their voices to glorify the
One. Such is the vengeance of the vilified pagan gods.

It would seem the limit was reached, and that one could go no farther.
But Lev Tolstóy has proved that one may go farther on the same
road,--into the abyss, into self-torment, into the terror of dualism,
into the Titanic disorganisation.

Dostoévski to his last breath suffered, thought, struggled, and died,
without finding what he sought most in life,--spiritual peace. Lev
Tolstóy no longer seeks or struggles, or, at least, he wishes to assure
himself and others that he has nothing to struggle for, nothing to seek.
This calm, this silence and petrifaction of a whole subdued world, which
once was free and beautiful, but from the present standpoint of its
creator is to its very depths pagan and criminal, a world which
majestically evolved itself before us in _Ánna Karénin_ and _War and
Peace_,--that tranquillity of _The Kingdom of God_ produces a more
disquieting, a more oppressive impression than the sanguinary struggle,
contrition, sobs, and eternal agony of Dostoévski. Of course, Lev
Tolstóy did not suddenly, and not without painful efforts, reach the
final tranquillity, the final victory over the pagan world. But even in
_War and Peace_ and _Ánna Karénin_ we are present at a very strange
phenomenon: two elements there meet, without running together, like two
streams of one river. Where paganism is, all is life and passion, luxury
and ardour of physical sensations. Outside of good and evil,--as if good
and evil had never existed,--the poet expresses with infinite
truthfulness, with a childish and divine inability of being ashamed, of
hiding the nakedness of his heart, a thirsty, unsatisfiable love for
everything mortal and transitory,--a love for this great billowing ocean
of matter, for everything which from the Christian standpoint ought to
appear as vain and sinful,--for powerful physical health, for country,
glory, woman, and children.

Here is the whole gamut of physical pleasures, and they are told with
fearless openness, such as has never been in any other literature: the
sensation of muscular strength, the charm of field labour in the fresh
air, the gentleness of a child’s sleep, the intoxication with the first
games, with the mirth of youthful banquets, with the tranquil manliness
in sanguinary battles, with the speechlessness of eternal Nature, with
the bracing cold of Russian snows, with the aromatic warmth of the deep
summer grass.

Here is the whole gamut of physical pain, told with the same inexorable
candour, which sometimes rises to cynical coarseness and
shamelessness,--all the terrors of pain, beginning with the inhuman
cries of a beloved woman, dying in the agony of childbirth, up to the
terrible, crushing sound, when the spine of the horse racing in the
hippodrome is broken. What a terror, what an intoxication of unlimited
sensuality!

How could he himself, how could others believe in the icy, reflective
Christianity, and how did they not recognise in him a great, hidden
pagan? This paganism is proclaimed in all the best productions of
Tolstóy by all the voices of the human flesh, which is fresh and joyous
in the baby in its mother’s embrace, covered with the sweat of the agony
and half rotten on the terrible bed of Iván Ilích, blooming and lusty in
Ánna Karénin, and racked and bloody under the knives of the surgeons on
the operating tables of the military hospitals. Flesh everywhere, the
pagan soul of flesh, the one of the two struggling souls of which Goethe
sings:

               “Die eine hält in derber Liebeslust
               Sich an die Welt mit klammernden Organen.”

But in these very productions there come also to the surface insipid and
offensive parts that are connected by no inner tie with the artistic
woof of the production, as if written by a different man. Such are the
murderous sophistry of Pierre Bezúkhov, and the childishly clumsy and
unnatural Christian regenerations of Konstantín Levín. In these dead
pages the mighty carnal life, which had just been welling up in a
stream, suddenly becomes stark and frozen. The very language which had
reached Púshkin’s simplicity and clearness, the greatest in Russian
literature, abruptly changes: as though a gloomy ascetic took vengeance
upon him for his recent candour, his un-Christian luxury and audacity,
with which but a moment ago had been described the torments and
pleasures of sinful flesh. The ascetic unsparingly violates the
language, breaks, maims, stretches out, and forces into the Procrustean
bed towering, intricate syllogisms. “Two souls,” that were united in
Púshkin, that struggled in Gógol, Goncharóv, Turgénev, and Dostoévski,
for ever abandon each other in Tolstóy, so that the one does not see,
nor hear, nor answer the other.

We are at present past our suffering, we have become accustomed to all
monstrosity and dissonance, or else we certainly should have felt the
barbarity and unseemliness of the artist who, in killing himself and
blasphemously treading on God’s gift within himself, publicly recants
the best of his productions as a crime: “What is it you admire in _Ánna
Karénin_?” says he to the people: “do you not know it is a debauch, a
pagan nastiness of my soul?” The weakness of the great artist lies in
his unconsciousness, because he is a pagan not of the bright, heroic
type, but of the dark, elementary, barbarous type, the son of ancient
Chaos, _a blind Titan_. The small meek one came and placed a cunning
trap for the great one,--the terror of death, the terror of pain,--and
the blind Titan was caught; the meek one enmeshed him with the finest
nets of moral sophisms and Galilean wretchedness, and he overcame and
vanquished him. A few more agonising convulsions, desperate struggles
and outbursts,--and everything was for ever silenced and dead,--there
began the tranquillity of _The Kingdom of God_. Only rarely, amidst
monkish hymns and prayers, among icy, Puritanic discourses about the use
of tobacco, about the brotherhood of the nations, about corporal
punishment and chastity, are heard in the depth of depths a subterranean
din and hollow thunderclaps: it is the voice of the blind Titan, of
indomitable Chaos,--of the pagan love of physical life and pleasures, of
the pagan terror of physical pain and death.

Lev Tolstóy is the antipode, the complete opposite and negation of
Púshkin in Russian literature. And, as often happens, opposites deceive
the superficial observers by their external resemblances. Both in
Púshkin and in our Lev Tolstóy there is oneness, equilibrium, peace. But
Púshkin’s oneness is based on the harmonious union of two worlds; the
oneness of Tolstóy is based on the complete disunion, disruption, and
violence, committed against one of the two equally great, equally divine
elements. Púshkin’s calm and tranquillity witness to a fulness of life;
Lev Tolstóy’s calm and tranquillity witness to a petrified immobility,
to a deadening of the whole world. In Púshkin the thinker and artist are
welded into one being; in Lev Tolstóy the thinker despises the artist,
and the artist does not care for the thinker. Púshkin’s chastity
presupposes passion subject to the feeling of divine moderation; Lev
Tolstóy’s chastity flows from a desperate ascetic negation of love for a
woman. Púshkin’s hope, like Peter the Great’s, was Russia’s
participation in the universal life of the spirit, in universal
civilisation; but for that participation neither Púshkin nor Peter
denied the native element, the peculiarities of the Russian spirit. Lev
Tolstóy, an anarchist without violence, preaches the amalgamation of the
warring nations into a universal brotherhood; but for that brotherhood
he renounces love of country,--that jealous tenderness that filled the
hearts of Púshkin and Peter; and with unsparing haughtiness despises
those peculiar, for him too impassioned, pagan features of the separate
nations, which he would like to weld like the living colours of the
rainbow into one white, dead colour--into a cosmopolitan abstraction.

It is significant that the greatest of Tolstóy’s productions discrowns
that last incarnation of the heroic spirit in history, which for good
reasons had an irresistible charm for all those who in the democracy of
the nineteenth century had preserved a spark of the Promethean
fire,--Byron, Goethe, Púshkin, and even Lérmontov and Heine. Napoleon,
the Delphic god of strength, anger, and glory, “that wondrous man, the
messenger of Providence, the fateful executor of the nameless order,
that vanished king, vanished like a dream, like the shadow of the dawn,”
is transformed in Tolstóy not even into the nihilist Raskólnikov, not
even into one of the monstrous devils of Dostoévski, who are still
surrounded with the aureole of terror, but into a puny, low-born
parvenu, a self-satisfied and prosaic bourgeois, perfumed with
eau-de-Cologne, with fat calves, a pusillanimous and coarse-souled
French shopkeeper, into a comic general Bonaparte of the Moscow
chap-books. That is where the last step into the abyss has been reached,
when it is not possible to go any farther, for here the spirit of the
mob, the spirit of triumphant vulgarity blasphemes the Divine Spirit,
the sanctity of fate, the beneficent and awful appearance of the hero.
The most insinuating and modern of all the devils, the devil of
equality, the devil of the small and numberless, whose name is _Legion_,
has possessed the last great artist, the blind Titan, in order to
proclaim with his thunderous voice to the whole world: “Behold, here is
your hero, your god,--_he is as small as we, as vulgar as we!_”

Everybody has understood Tolstóy, everybody has accepted that watchword
of the mob! Not Púshkin, but Tolstóy is the representative of Russian
literature before the masses of the universe. Tolstóy, the victor over
Napoleon, is himself a Napoleon of the numberless democratic army of the
small, the miserable, the lamenting, and the crushed. They dispute with
Tolstóy, they hate and fear him: this is a sign that his fame is alive
and growing. Púshkin’s fame is becoming ever more academic and distant,
ever more unintelligible to the crowd. Who disputes with Púshkin, who in
Europe knows of Púshkin more than his name? We learn him by heart on our
school-benches, and his verses appear to us as cold and unnecessary for
active Russian life as the choirs of the Greek tragedies or the formulas
of higher mathematics. The most inaccessible and mysterious of all the
books is called the book of the vulgar, the “Vulgate.” Púshkin has
become the Vulgate of Russian literature. Everybody is ready to honour
him with dead lips, with dead laurels,--who honours him with his soul
and spirit? The crowd purchases in the acknowledgment of the great the
right of ignoring them, and avenges its too noble enemies by a memorial
plate in the academic Pantheon, and by oblivion in fame. Who would
believe that this god of the teachers of Russian literature is not only
more alive, more modern, but, from the standpoint of bourgeois
vulgarity, even more dangerous, more audacious than Lev Tolstóy? Who
would believe that the irreproachably aristocratic Púshkin, the singer
of the Bronze Rider, the nursling of his old nurse Arína, is nearer to
the heart of the Russian people, than the herald of universal
brotherhood, the merciless Puritan in the sheepskin coat of the Russian
peasant?

To what extent the heroic side of Púshkin’s poetry is not understood and
despised, is evident from the fact that two of the greatest of Púshkin’s
admirers, Gógol and Dostoévski, as if by common agreement, do not attach
the slightest importance to it. However strange it may be, if we leave
out of consideration the text-books and the dead academic recognition,
Púshkin, the only bard of the only hero in the country of Lev Tolstóy
and of Dostoévski, in the country of Russian nihilism and Russian
democracy, is a forgotten bard of a forgotten hero.




                                  INDEX.


  Abrék, its definition, 105

  Aksákov, S. T., biographical sketch and extract, 216 _seq._; _and see_
    19, 236

  Alexander I., and his period, 5; his liberalism, 12, 16; _and see_ 240

  Alexander II. and his period, 4, 5

  Alexis Mikháylovich, 40, 239

  American Constitution and Alexander I., 12

  American War and Karamzín, 32

  Analysis, in literature, 20; in Dostoévski, 21

  _Ánna Karénin_, 5, 391 _seq._; and see _L. N. Tolstóy_

  Arína Rodiónovna, Púshkin’s nurse, 122, 493

  Art for art’s sake, in literature, 16, 20; criticised by Písarev, 386
    _seq._


  Baratýnski, E. A., Púshkin’s influence on, 17; biographical sketch and
    extracts, 149 _seq._

  Bátyushkov, K. N., estimate of, 13 _seq._; biographical sketch and
    extracts, 73 _seq._; _and see_ 16, 81

  Beecher-Stowe, Russian, 297

  Belles-lettres, peculiar course of, in Russia, 6 _seq._

  Bestúzhev, A. A., biographical sketch and extract, 102 _seq._; _and
    see_ 4

  Boborýkin, 5

  _Borís Godunóv_, by Púshkin, 143 _seq._; _and see_ 16

  Bowring, Sir John, not the first translator from the Russian, v

  Boyán, 70

  Bronze Rider, The, Peter the Great so called, 123, 493

  Byelínski, V. G., and the Natural School, 4, 19; and Koltsóv, 176;
    biographical sketch and extract, 205 _seq._; _and see_ 5, 6, 9, 186,
    389, 492

  Bylínas, by A. K. Tolstóy, 246

  Byron, his influence, on Russian literature, 8, 10, 16, 17; on
    Púshkin, 16; on Kozlóv, 68; on Lérmontov, 155

  Byzantine period, 18


  Catherine II., 12, 239

  Censorship, and literature, 6; after 1848, 20; _and see_ 303

  Chékhov, A. P., biographical sketch and extract, 459 _seq._; _and see_
    5

  Chernyshévski, 5, 389

  Church-Slavic, and Shishkóv, 12; and Karamzín, 28

  _Cloak, The_, prototype of later novels, 19

  Comedy, Griboyédov’s, 17; and see _Griboyédov_, _Gógol_

  Cosmopolitanism of the newer Russian literature, 23

  _Crime and Punishment_, 5; and see _Dostoévski_

  Crimean War and literature, 5

  Criminals, portrayed in literature, 21; and see _Dostoévski_

  Critics, evolution of, 5; and see _Byelínski_, _Dobrolyúbov_,
    _Merezhkóvski_, _Písarev_

  Culture in nineteenth century, 7


  Danilévski, 22

  _Dead Souls_, 4, 18; and see _Gógol_

  Death, early, of literary men, 6

  Decembrist conspiracy, marking an epoch, 5; and Rylyéev, 86; _and see_
    15, 102

  Délvig, A. A., Púshkin’s influence on, 17; predecessor of Koltsóv, 18;
    biographical sketch and extracts, 120 _seq._

  Democracy, Russian, defined, 9; in the forties, 20, 21; Dostoévski’s,
    21; and Nekrásov, 22

  Democratic critics, their effect on poetry, 4

  Democratisation of Russian society, 9

  _Demon, The_, 17; and see _Lérmontov_

  Derzhávin, 12, 16

  Desyatína = various land measures, from 3-5 acres, _passim_

  Didacticism passing away, 23

  Disenchantment in Russian literature, 10 _seq._

  Dmítriev, and Karamzín, 27; _and see_ 16, 176, 208

  Dobrolyúbov, N. A., and _Oblómov_, 9; biographical sketch and extract,
    271 _seq._; _and see_ 5, 6, 389

  Dolgorúki, I. M., 16

  Dolgorúki, Princess, 68

  _Domostróy_, 238

  Dostoévski, F. M., estimate of, 21; biographical sketch and extract,
    322 _seq._; _and see_ 4, 5, 19, 81, 296

  Drama, Ostróvski’s, 22, 369 _seq._; Chékhov’s, 459; and see _Comedy_


  Eighteenth century in literature, 12

  Eighties, characterisation of period since, 11

  Emancipation of serfs, due to literary propaganda, 6; and Turgénev, 21

  England, 73 _seq._

  English, literature compared with Russian, 3; aristocracy compared
    with Russian nobility, 8; and Russian literary styles, 13; people
    and Karamzín, 32

  Enthusiasm, in Russian literature, 8; of Russian youths, 10

  _Evgéni Onyégin_, 16, 17; and see _Púshkin_


  Fables and Krylóv, 14, 41 _seq._

  _Family Chronicle, The_, 19; and see _Aksákov_

  _Fathers and Sons_, 4, 8, 9; and see _Turgénev_

  Fet, 4, 17, 391; and see _Shenshín_

  Fifties, the, 4

  Filarét, 40

  Flaubert, 484

  Folktales, naturalism in, 18

  Fon-Vízin, 27

  Forties, the novelists of the, 4

  Forty years, apogee reached by literary men at, 6

  France, its influence on Russian literature, 19

  French, and Russian literary styles, 13; realism, compared with
    Russian, 20


  Gaj, 241

  Garshín, V. M., biographical sketch and extract, 443 _seq._; _and see_
    6

  German, Romanticism in Russia, 8; influence, 15, 19; philosophy in the
    forties, 20

  Gértsen, A. I., biographical sketch and extract, 236 _seq._; estimate
    by Dobrolyúbov, 272 _seq._; _and see_ 242

  Glínka, F. N., 78 _seq._

  Gnyédich, 14

  Goethe, 492

  Gógol, N. V., novelist of the forties, 4; obscuring Púshkin, 16;
    estimate of, 18; marks end of older writers, 20; compared with
    Tolstóy, 21; and Naryézhny, 49; biographical sketch and extracts,
    185 _seq._; and Byelínski, 206 _seq._; and Turgénev, 281; and
    Dostoévski, 323; estimate of, by Merezhkóvski, 483 _seq._; _and see_
    4, 111, 156, 206, 217, 310, 369, 379

  Goncharóv, I. A., estimate of, 21; biographical sketch and extract,
    259 _seq._; and Dobrolyúbov, 271 _seq._; estimate of, by
    Merezhkóvski, 484 _seq._; _and see_ 4, 9, 339

  Górki, M., 5, 23; and see _Pyeshkóv_

  Government and progress, 10

  Gray’s _Elegy_ and Zhukóvski, 54

  Griboyédov, A. S., estimate of, 17; biographical sketch and extract,
    92 _seq._; _and see_ 4, 9

  Grigoróvich, D. V., and peasant in literature, 5; biographical sketch
    and extract, 296 _seq._


  Hamlets in Russian life, 21

  Hegel, his influence on Russian literature, 19; and Byelínski, 206

  Heine, 492

  _Hero of our Time_, 17; and see _Lérmontov_

  Herzen, see _Gértsen_

  History and Karamzín, 27


  _Iliad_ in Russian, 14

  _Intelligence Comes to Grief_, 17; and see _Griboyédov_

  Italian poetry, in Russian, 14

  Ivan III., 40, 112

  Ivan IV., 40, 246 _seq._

  Izmáylov, A. B., biographical sketch and extracts, 46 _seq._; _and
    see_ 14


  Jefferson, Thomas, and Alexander I., 12

  _Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow_, 12

  Juvenal, Nekrásov called the Russian, 347


  Karamzín, N. M., compared with Púshkin, 3; and Shishkóv, 4; and
    literary style, 13; biographical sketch and extracts, 27 _seq._;
    _and see_ 5, 12, 14-16, 55, 81, 208, 217, 240

  Khomyakóv, A. S., and Slavophiles, 19; biographical sketch and
    extracts, 229 _seq._; _and see_ 236, 239

  Koltsóv, A. V., estimate of, 18; biographical sketch and extracts,
    176; _and see_ 22, 120, 361

  Korolénko, V. G., biographical sketch and extracts, 436; _and see_ 5,
    468

  Kozlóv, I. I., biographical sketch and extracts, 67 _seq._

  Krylóv, I. A., biographical sketch and extracts, 41 _seq._; _and see_
    14, 16


  La Fontaine and Krylóv, 14

  Lazhéchnikov, I. I., biographical sketch and extract, 111 _seq._; _and
    see_ 4

  Lérmontov, M. Y., estimate of, 17; biographical sketch and extracts,
    155 _seq._; compared with Ogarév, 242; and Dobrolyúbov, 272 _seq._;
    estimate of, by Merezhkóvski, 484 _seq._; _and see_ 3, 4, 6, 123

  Levítov, A. I., biographical sketch and extract, 417 _seq._; _and see_
    22

  Lewis, W. D., first translator into English from the Russian, v

  Literary language and Karamzín, 13

  Literature and progress, 10

  Little-Russian authors, 18, 49, 185

  Lyapunóv, 240

  Lyceum at Tsárskoe-Seló, 7


  Marlínski, see _Bestúzhev_

  Masonic societies, 12, 27

  Maturity, early, of literary talent, 6

  Máykov, A. N., biographical sketch and extracts, 339 _seq._;
    criticised by Písarev, 386 _seq._; _and see_ 4, 17

  Máykov, V. I., 339

  _Memoirs of a Huntsman_, and liberation of serfs, 6; and see
    _Turgénev_

  Merezhkóvski, D. S., and didacticism, 23; biographical sketch and
    extract, 482 _seq._

  Merzlyakóv, 16

  Middle class, and culture, 8; in literature, 22

  Moscow, circles in the forties, 19; merchant class, 22, 369

  Muravév, 73


  Nádson, S. Y., biographical sketch and extracts, 457 _seq._; _and see_
    6

  Napoleon, in Russian literature, 63 _seq._; _and see_ 14 _seq._, 492

  Naryézhny, V. T., biographical sketch and extract, 49 _seq._; _and
    see_ 18

  Natural School, and Byelínski, 4; and Gógol, 186; defined by
    Byelínski, 206 _seq._; _and see_ 18

  Naturalism in Russian literature, 18

  Negation, in Russian literature, 5, 8; and Tolstóy, 21

  Nekrásov, N. A., his influence on poetry, 4; and democracy, 22;
    biographical sketch and extracts, 347 _seq._; _and see_ 120, 234,
    361, 365

  Neledínski, 16

  Nicholas I., literature under, 3, 5; and reaction, 20; and
    Slavophilism, 240 _seq._; _and see_ 240

  Nihilism defined, by Turgénev, 283 _seq._; by Merezhkóvski, 485

  Nikítin, Afanási, 114

  Nikítin, I. S., biographical sketch and extracts, 361 _seq._; _and
    see_ 6, 22

  Nobility and culture, 7

  Novel, the Russian, 17, 18

  Novelists, of the forties, 4; of the people, 22

  Nóvikov, 27


  _Oblómov_, as a type of Russians, 9; and see _Goncharóv_

  Ogarév, N. P., biographical sketch and extracts, 242 _seq._; _and see_
    236

  Optimism in Russian literature, 448

  Ostróvski, A. N., biographical sketch and extract, 369 _seq._; _and
    see_ 22

  Ózerov, 12, 241


  Pan, a Little-Russian (and Polish) word = Mr., 49 _seq._

  Panslavism, 238 _seq._; and see _Slavophilism_

  Peasant, in literature, 5; in Turgénev’s sketches, 20; and Byelínski,
    213 _seq._; and Uspénski, 408 _seq._; _and see_ 176

  People, its definition, 22 _seq._

  Periods, in literature, 3 _seq._; by reigns, 5

  Pessimism, in the forties, 20; and Baratýnski, 149

  Peter the Great, estimate of, by Merezhkóvski, 483 _seq._; _and see_
    7, 18, 40, 64, 123, 341

  Philosophy, its weakness in Russian literature, 9

  Písarev, D. I., biographical sketch and extract, 385 _seq._; _and see_
    6, 9

  Písemski, A. F., biographical sketch and extract, 310 _seq._; _and
    see_ 4, 22

  Pleshchéev, A. N., biographical sketch and extracts, 365 _seq._

  Poetry, Zhukóvski’s conception of, 55; _and see_ 4

  Politics and literature, 6, 11

  Polónski, Y. P., biographical sketch and extracts, 303 _seq._; _and
    see_ 4, 17

  Pomyalóvski, and peasant in literature, 5

  Populists, 10

  Potápenko, I. N., biographical sketch and extract, 448 _seq._; _and
    see_ 5

  Progress, carried by youths, 9 _seq._; and Turgénev, 20; of Russian
    literature in nineteenth century, 23

  Protest an important note in Russian literature, 8

  Pud, measure of weight = about 36 lbs., _passim_

  Púshkin, A. S., and Byron, 10; estimate, 16 _seq._; renewal of his
    cult, 17; and naturalism, 18; and Merezhkóvski, 23; and Bátyushkov,
    73; his death, and Lérmontov, 156; biographical sketch and extracts,
    122 _seq._; and Dobrolyúbov, 272 _seq._; estimate of, by
    Merezhkóvski, 483 _seq._; _et passim_

  Pyeshkóv, A. M., biographical sketch and extract, 467 _seq._


  Radíshchev, 12

  Reaction, periods of, in literature, 11; after 1848, 20

  Realism and Turgénev, 20

  _Revizór, The_, 188; and see _Gógol_

  Romanticism, and novels, 4; early, in Russia, 8; and Zhukóvski, 14,
    54; and Púshkin, 16; and Gógol, 19; and Bestúzhev, 102; and
    Byelínski, 207; and Turgénev, 280

  Russian language, 13, 28

  Russian literature compared with English, 3

  Ryeshétnikov, 22

  Rylyéev, K. F., and Decembrist conspiracy, 15; Púshkin’s influence on,
    17; biographical sketch and extracts, 86 _seq._; _and see_ 14, 102


  Saltykóv, M. B., and satire, 22; and Dobrolyúbov, 272 _seq._;
    biographical sketch and extract, 379 _seq._; and Písarev, 391; _and
    see_ 386

  Satire and Saltykóv, 22; and see _Saltykóv_

  Scepticism in the forties, 20

  Schaden’s school, 27

  Schelling, his influence on Russian literature, 19, 205

  Schools and culture, 7

  Schopenhauer, 484

  Scott, Sir Walter, his influence on Russian novel, 4

  Sentimentalism, 27

  Seventies in literature, 22

  Shakspere, his influence on Púshkin, 16; and Karamzín, 31

  Shchedrín, see _Saltykóv_

  Shcherbátov, 13, 27

  Shebúyev, 240

  Shenshín, A. A., biographical sketch and extracts, 319 _seq._

  Shishkóv, his antiquated style, 4; and Church-Slavic, 12, 28; and
    Aksákov, 217

  Slavophiles, their enthusiasm, 10; studying customs, 22; defined by
    Gértsen, 237 _seq._; and Ostróvski 369; _and see_ 13, 236, 484

  Slavophilism due to German philosophy, 19

  Soilers, 10

  Sons and fathers, 10

  Styles of language, 12 _seq._; _and see_ 5


  Talent not concentrated, 9

  Tasso and Bátyushkov, 14, 73, 75 _seq._

  Tatíshchev, 27

  Theatre and Ostróvski, 369

  Theology and literature, Khomyakóv’s, 230

  Tolstóy, A. K., biographical sketch and extracts, 245

  Tolstóy, L. N., novelist of the forties, 4; departing from reality, 5;
    as negator, 9; estimate of, 21; biographical sketch and extracts,
    391 _seq._; estimate of, by Merezhkóvski, 483 _seq._; _and see_ 19,
    81

  Tolstóyists, 392

  Tradition, absence of, in home life, 7; in school, 8

  Tsárskoe-Seló, lyceum at, 7

  Tugendbund in Russia, 15

  Turgénev, I. S., novelist of the forties, 4; and emancipation of the
    slaves, 6; a Westerner, 19; estimate of, 20 _seq._; and style, 21;
    and Dobrolyúbov, 272 _seq._; biographical sketch and extracts, 280
    _seq._; estimate of, by Merezhkóvski, 484 _seq._; _and see_ 9, 234,
    303, 385

  Tyútchev, F. I., biographical sketch and extracts, 234; _and see_ 417


  Uspénski, G. I., and peasant in literature, 5; biographical sketch and
    extract, 408 _seq._; _and see_ 22, 428, 468

  Uvárov, Count S. S. (lived 1786-1855), famous for his perfervid
    loyalty to the throne, 241


  Venevítinov, 17

  Vyázemski, P. A., his literary death, 4; biographical sketch and
    extracts, 81 _seq._


  _War and Peace_, 391 _seq._; and see _L. N. Tolstóy_

  Western ideals, in Russia, 7, 19; and Turgénev, 20

  _Word of Igor’s Armament, The_, modernised by Máykov, 340


  Yazýkov, N. M., Púshkin’s influence on, 17; biographical sketch and
    extract, 152 _seq._

  Young men, and school traditions, 7; in cultural movements, 9


  Zagóskin, 240

  Zhukóvski, V. A., and Romanticism, 14; biographical sketch and
    extracts, 54 _seq._; _and see_ 3, 16, 67, 68, 81, 152, 186

  Zlatovrátski, N. N., biographical sketch and extracts, 427 _seq._;
    _and see_ 22, 468




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                           Transcriber’s notes


New original cover art included with this ebook is granted to the public
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Italic text is enclosed in _underscores_. Small capital text has been
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Irregular spelling and hyphenation have been retained.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. The following
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