A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections Part 21

Nothing could more perfectly ill.u.s.trate this point of view than the following little story, written in 1881, called "The Two Brothers and the Gold."

In ancient times there lived not far from Jerusalem two brothers, the elder Afanasy, the younger Ioann. They dwelt on a hill not far from the town, and subsisted on what people gave them. Every day the brothers spent in work. They did not toil at their own work, but at the work of the poor. Wherever there were men overwhelmed with work, wherever there were sick people, orphans and widows, thither went the brothers, and there they toiled and nursed the people, accepting no remuneration. In this wise did the brothers pa.s.s the whole week apart, and met only on Sat.u.r.day evening in their abode. Only on Sunday did they remain at home, praying and chatting together.

And the angel of the Lord descended to them and blessed them.

On Monday they parted and each went his way. Thus the two brothers lived for many years, and every week the angel of the Lord came down and blessed them.

One Monday as the brothers were starting out to work, and had already separated, going in different directions, Afanasy felt sorry to part with his beloved brother, and halted and glanced back. Ioann was walking, with head bowed, in his own direction, and did not look back. But all of a sudden, Ioann also halted, and as though catching sight of something, began to gaze intently in that direction, shading his eyes with his hand.

Then he approached what he had espied there, suddenly leaped to one side, and without looking behind him fled down the hill and up the hill, away from the spot, as though a fierce wild beast were pursuing him. Afanasy was amazed and went back to the place in order to find out what had so frightened his brother.

As he came near he beheld something gleaming in the sunlight.

He approached closer. On the gra.s.s, as though poured out of a measure, lay a heap of gold.... And Afanasy was the more amazed, both at the gold, and at his brother's leap.

"What was he frightened at, and what did he flee from?" said Afanasy to himself. "There is no sin in gold, the sin is in man. One can do evil with gold, but one can also do good with it. How many orphans and widows can be fed, how many naked men clothed, how many poor and sick healed with this gold. We now serve people, but our service is small, according to the smallness of our strength, but with this gold we can serve people more." Afanasy reasoned thus with himself, and wished to tell it all to his brother, but Ioann had gone off out of earshot, and was now visible on the opposite mountain, no bigger than a beetle.

And Afanasy took of his garment, raked into it as much gold as he was able to carry, flung it on his shoulders and carried it to the city. He came to the inn, gave the gold over to the innkeeper, and went back after the remainder. And when he had brought all the gold he went to the merchants, bought land in the town, bought stone and timber, hired workmen, and began to build three houses. And Afanasy dwelt three months in the town and built three houses in the town, one house, an asylum for widows and orphans, another house, a hospital for the sick and the needy, a third house for pilgrims and paupers. And Afanasy sought out three pious old men, and he placed one over the asylum, another over the hospital, and the third over the hostelry for pilgrims. And Afanasy had three thousand gold pieces left. And he gave a thousand to each old man to distribute to the poor. And people began to fill all three houses, and men began to laud Afanasy for what he had done.

And Afanasy rejoiced thereat so that he did not wish to leave the city. But Afanasy loved his brother, and bidding the people farewell, and keeping not a single gold piece for himself, he went back to his abode in the same old garment in which he had quitted it.

Afanasy came to his mountain and said to himself, "My brother judged wrongly when he sprang away from the gold and fled from it. Have not I done better?"

And no sooner had Afanasy thought this, than suddenly he beheld, standing in his path and gazing sternly at him, that angel who had been wont to bless them. And Afanasy was stupefied with amazement and could utter only, "Why is this, Lord?" And the angel opened his mouth and said, "Get thee hence! Thou art not worthy to dwell with thy brother. Thy brother's one leap is more precious than all the deeds which thou hast done with thy gold."

And Afanasy began to tell of how many paupers and wanderers he had fed, how many orphans he had cared for, and the angel said to him, "That devil who placed the gold there to seduce thee hath also taught thee these words."

And then did Afanasy's conscience convict him, and he understood that he had not done his deeds for the sake of G.o.d, and he fell to weeping, and began to repent. Then the angel stepped aside, and left open to him the way, on which Ioann was already standing awaiting his brother, and from that time forth Afanasy yielded no more to the temptation of the devil who had poured out the gold, and knew that not by gold, but only by labor, can one serve G.o.d and men.

And the brothers began to live as before.[46]

Unfortunately, the best of Tolstoy's peasant stories, such as "Polikushka," "Two Old Men" (the latter belonging to the recent hortatory period), and the like, are too long for reproduction here. But the moral of the following, "Little Girls Wiser than Old Men," is irreproachable, and the style is the same as in the more important of those written expressly for the people.

Easter fell early that year. People had only just ceased to use sledges. The snow still lay in the cottage yards, but rivulets were flowing through the village; a big puddle had formed between the cottages, from the dung-heaps, and two little girls, from different cottages, met by this puddle--one younger, the other older. Both little girls had been dressed in new frocks by their mothers. The little one's frock was blue, the big one's yellow, with a flowered pattern. Both had red kerchiefs bound about their heads. The little girls came out to the puddle, after the morning service in church, displayed their clothes to each other, and began to play. And the fancy seized them to paddle in the water. The younger girl was on the point of wading into the pool with her shoes on, but the elder girl says, "Don't go Malasha, thy mother will scold. Come, I'll take off my shoes, and do thou take off thine." The little la.s.ses took off their shoes, tucked up their frocks and waded into the puddle, to meet each other. Malasha went in up to her knees, and says, "It's deep, Akuliushka--I'm afraid" "Never mind," says she; "it won't get any deeper. Come straight towards me." They began to approach each other, and Akulka says, "Look out, Malasha, don't splash, but walk quietly." No sooner had she spoken, than Malasha set her foot down with a bang in the water, and a splash fell straight on Akulka's frock. The sarafan was splashed, and some of it fell on her nose and in her eyes as well. Akulka saw the spot on her frock, got angry at Malasha, stormed, ran after her, and wanted to beat her. Malasha was frightened when she saw the mischief she had done, leaped out of the puddle, and ran home. Akulka's mother came along, espied the splashed frock and spattered chemise on her daughter. "Where didst thou soil thyself, thou hussy?" "Malasha splashed me on purpose." Akalka's mother seized Malasha, and struck her on the nape of the neck. Malasha shrieked so that the whole street heard her. Malasha's mother came out. "What art thou beating my child for?" The neighbor began to rail. One word led to another, the women scolded each other. The peasant men ran forth, a big crowd a.s.sembled in the street. Everybody shouted, n.o.body listened to anybody else.

They scolded and scolded. One gave another a punch, and a regular fight was imminent, when an old woman, Akulka's grandmother, interposed. She advanced into the midst of the peasants, and began to argue with them. "What are you about, my good men? Is this the season for such things? We ought to be joyful, but you have brought about a great sin." They paid no heed to the old woman, and almost knocked one another down, and the old woman would not have been able to dissuade them had it not been for Akulka and Malasha. While the women were wrangling, Akulka wiped off her frock, and went out again to the puddle in the s.p.a.ce between the cottages. She picked up a small stone and began to dig the earth out at the edge of the puddle, so as to let the water out into the street. While she was digging away, Malasha came up also, and began to help her by drawing the water down the ditch with a chip. The peasant men had just come to blows, when the little girls had got the water along the ditch to the street, directly at the spot where the old woman was parting the men.

The little girls came running up, one on one side, the other on the other side of the rivulet. "Hold on, Malasha, hold on!"

cried Akulka. Malasha also tried to say something, but could not speak for laughing.

The little girls ran thus, laughing at the chip, as it floated down the stream. And they ran straight into the midst of the peasant men. The old woman perceived them, and said to the men, "Fear G.o.d! Here you have begun to fight over these same little girls, and they have forgotten all about it long ago, and are playing together again in love--the dear little things. They are wiser than you!"

The men looked at the little girls, and felt ashamed of themselves; and then the peasants began to laugh at themselves, and went off to their houses.

"Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."

It is a pity that Count Tolstoy, the greatest literary genius of his time, should put his immense talent to such a use as to provoke, on his contradictions of himself, comment like the following, which is quoted from a work by V. S. Solovieff, an essayist and argumentative writer, who quotes some one on this subject, to this effect:

"Sometimes we hear that the most important truth is in the Sermon on the Mount; then again, we are told that we must till the soil in the sweat of our brows, though there is nothing about that in the Gospels, but in Genesis--in the same place where giving birth in pain is mentioned, but that is no commandment at all, only a sad fate; sometimes we are told that we ought to give everything away to the poor; and then again, that we never ought to give anything to anybody, as money is an evil, and one ought not to harm other people, but only one's self and one's family, but that we ought to work for others; sometimes we are told that the vocation of women is to bear as many healthy children as possible, and then, the celibate ideal is held up for men and women; then again, eating no meat is the first step towards self-perfection, though why no one knows; then something is said against liquor and tobacco, then against pancakes, then against military service as if it were the worst thing on earth, and as if the primary duty of a Christian were to refuse to be a soldier, which would prove that he who is not taken into service, for any reason, is already holy enough."

This may be a trifle exaggerated, but it indicates clearly enough the utter confusion which the teachings of Count Tolstoy produce on ordinary, rational, well-meaning persons.[47] In short, he should be judged in his proper sphere as one of the most gifted authors of any age or country, and judged by his legitimate works in his legitimate province, the novel, as exemplified by "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenin."

The reform movement of the '60's of the nineteenth century ended in a reaction which took possession of society as a whole during the '70's.

Apathy, dejection, disenchantment superseded the previous exultation and enthusiastic impulse to push forward in all directions. Dull discontent and irritation reigned in all cla.s.ses of society and in all parties.

Some were discontented with the reforms, regarding them as premature, and even ruinous; others, on the contrary, deemed them insufficient, curtailed, only half-satisfactory to the needs of the country, and merely exasperating to the public demands.

These conditions created a special sort of literary school, which made its appearance in the middle of the '70's, and attained its complete development in the middle of the '80's. We have seen that the same sort of thing had taken place with every previous change in the public sentiment. The first thing which impresses one in this school is the resurrection of artistic feeling, a pa.s.sion for beauty of imagery and forms, a careful and extremely elegant polish imparted to literary productions in technique. None of the authoritative and influential critics preached the cult of pure art. Yet Garshin, the most promising of the young authors of the day, who was the very last person to be suspected of that cult, finished his works with the utmost care, so that in elegance of form and language they offer an example of faultless perfection. There can be no doubt that this renaissance of the artistic element of poetry, of beauty, was closely connected with the subsidence of the flood-tide of public excitement and agitation, which up to that time had carried writers along with it into its whirlpools, and granted them neither the time nor the desire to polish and adorn their works, and revel in beauty of forms.

Vsevolod Mikhailovitch Garshin, the son of a petty landed proprietor in the south of Russia, was born in 1855. Despite his repeated attacks of profound melancholia, which sometimes pa.s.sed into actual insanity, and despite the brevity of his career (he flung himself down stairs in a fit of this sort and died, in 1889), he made a distinct and brilliant mark in Russian literature.

Garshin's view of people in general was thus expressed: "All the people whom I have known," he says, "are divided (along with other divisions of which, of course, there are many: the clever men and the fools, the Hamlets and the Don Quixotes, the lazy and the active, and so forth) into two categories, or to speak more accurately, they are distributed between two extremes: some are endowed, so to speak, with a good self-consciousness, while the others have a bad self-consciousness. One man lives and enjoys all his sensations; if he eats he rejoices, if he looks at the sky he rejoices. In short, for such a man, the mere process of living is happiness. But it is quite the reverse with the other sort of man; you may plate him with gold, and he will continue to grumble; nothing satisfies him; success in life affords him no pleasure, even if it be perfectly self-evident. The man simply is incapable of experiencing satisfaction; he is incapable, and that is the end of the matter." And in view of his personal disabilities, it is not remarkable that all his heroes should have belonged to the latter category, in a greater or less degree, some of the incidents narrated being drawn directly from his own experiences. Such are "The Red Flower," his best story, which presents the hallucinations of a madman, "The Coward,"

"Night," "Attalea Princeps," and "That Which Never Happened." On the other hand, the following have no personal element: "The Meeting," "The Orderly and the Officer," "The Diary of Soldier Ivanoff," "The Bears,"

"Nadezhda Nikolaevna," and "Proud Aggei."

Another writer who has won some fame, especially by his charming sketches of Siberian life, written during his exile in Siberia, is Grigory Alexandrovitch Matchtet, born in 1852. These sketches, such as "The Second Truth," "We Have Conquered," "A Worldly Affair," are both true to nature and artistic, and produce a deep impression.

Much more talented and famous is Vladimir Galaktionovitch Korolenko (1853), also the author of fascinating Siberian sketches, and of a more ambitious work, "The Blind Musician." One point to be noted about Korolenko is that he never joined the pessimists, or the party which professed pseudo-peasant tendencies, and followed Count L. N. Tolstoy's ideas, but has always preserved his independence. His first work, a delightful fantasy, ent.i.tled "Makar's Dream," appeared in 1885.

Korolenko has been sent to Siberia several times, but now lives in Russia proper,[48] and publishes a high-cla.s.s monthly journal.

Until quite recently opinion was divided as to whether Korolenko or Tchekoff was the more talented, and the coming "great author." As we shall see presently, that question seems to have been settled, and in part by Korolenko's friendly aid, in favor of quite another person.

Anton Pavlovitch Tchekoff (pseudonym "Tchekhonte," 1860) is the descendant of a serf father and grandfather. His volumes of short stories, "Humorous Tales," "In the Gloaming," "Surly People," are full of humor and of brilliant wit. His more ambitious efforts, as to length and artistic qualities, the productions of his matured talent, are "The Steppe," "Fires," "A Tiresome History," "Notes of an Unknown," "The Peasant," and so forth.

Still another extremely talented writer, who, unfortunately, has begun to produce too rapidly for his own interest, is Ignaty Nikolaevitch Potapenko (1856), the son of an officer in a Uhlan regiment, and of a Little Russian peasant mother. His father afterwards became a priest--a very unusual change of vocation and cla.s.s--and the future writer acquired intimate knowledge of views and customs in ecclesiastical circles, which he put to brilliant use later on. A delicate humor is the characteristic feature of his work, as can be seen in his best writings, such as "On Active Service"[49] and "The Secretary of His Grace (the Bishop)."

The former is the story of a talented and devoted young priest, who might have obtained an easy position in the town, among the bishop's officials, with certain prospect of swift promotion. He resolutely declines this position, and requests that he may be a.s.signed to a village parish, where he can be "on active service." Every one regards the request as a sign of an unsettled mind. After much argument he prevails on his betrothed bride's parents to permit the marriage (he cannot be ordained until he is married), and hopes to find a helpmeet in her. The rest of the story deals with his experiences in the unenviable position of a village priest, where he has to contend not only with the displeasure of his young wife, but with the avarice of his church staff, the defects of the peasants, the excess of attention of the local gentlewoman, and financial problems of the most trying description. It ends in his wife abandoning him, and returning with her child to her father's house, while he insists on remaining at his post, where, as events have abundantly proved, the ministrations of a truly disinterested, devout priest are most sadly needed. It is impossible to convey by description the charm and gentle humor of this book.

But acclaimed on all sides, by all cla.s.ses of society, as the most talented writer of the present day, is the young man who writes under the name of Maxim Gorky (Bitter). The majority of the critics confidently predict that he is the long-expected successor of Count L. N. Tolstoy. This gifted man, who at one stroke, conquered for himself all Russia which reads, whose books sell with unprecedented rapidity, whose name pa.s.ses from mouth to mouth of millions, wherever intellectual life glows, and has won an unnumbered host of enthusiastic admirers all over the world, came up from the depths of the populace.

"Gorky" Alexei Maximovitch Pyeshkoff was born in Nizhni Novgorod in 1868 or 1869. Socially, he belongs to the petty burgher cla.s.s, but his grandfather, on the paternal side, was reduced from an officer to the ranks, by the Emperor Nicholas I., for harsh treatment of the soldiers under his command. He was such a rough character that his son (the author's father) ran away from home five times in the course of seven years, and definitively parted from his uncongenial family at the age of seventeen, when he went afoot from Tobolsk to Nizhni Novgorod, where he apprenticed himself to a paper-hanger. Later on he became the office-manager of a steamer company in astrakhan. His mother was the daughter of a man who began his career as a bargee on the Volga, one of the lowest cla.s.s of men who, before the advent of steam, hauled the merchandise-laden barks from astrakhan to Nizhni Novgorod, against the current. Afterwards he became a dyer of yarns, and eventually established a thriving dyeing establishment in Nizhni.

Gorky's father died of cholera at astrakhan when the lad was four years old. His mother soon married again, and gave the boy to his grandfather, who had him taught to read and write, and then sent him to school, where he remained only five months. At the end of that time he caught smallpox, and his studies were never renewed. Meanwhile his mother died, and his grandfather was ruined financially, so Gorky, at nine years of age, became the "boy" in a shoeshop, where he spent two months, scalded his hands with cabbage soup, and was sent back to his grandfather. His relations treated him with hostility or indifference, and on his recovery, apprenticed him to a draftsman, from whose harshness he promptly fled, and entered the shop of a painter of holy pictures. Next he became scullion on a river steamer, and the cook was the first to inculcate in him a love of reading and of good literature. Next he became gardener's boy; then tried to get an education at Kazan University, under the mistaken impression that education was free. To keep from starving he became a.s.sistant in a bakery at three rubles a month; "the hardest work I ever tried," he says; sawed wood, carried heavy burdens, peddled apples on the wharf, and tried to commit suicide out of sheer want and misery.[50] "Konovaloff" and "Men with Pasts"[51]

would seem to represent some of the experiences of this period, "Konovaloff" being regarded as one of his best stories. Then he went to Tzaritzyn, where he obtained employment as watchman on a railway, was called back to Nizhni Novgorod for the conscription, but was not accepted as a soldier, such "holy" men not being wanted. He became a peddler of beer, then secretary to a lawyer, who exercised great influence on his education. But he felt out of place, and in 1890 went back to Tzaritzyn, then to the Don Province (of the Kazaks), to the Ukraina and Bessarabia, back along the southern sh.o.r.e of the Crimea to the Kuban, and thence to the Caucasus. The reader of his inimitable short stories can trace these peregrinations and the adventures incident to them. In Tiflis he worked in the railway shops, and in 1892 printed his first literary effort, "Makar Tchudra," in a local newspaper, the "Kavkaz." In the following year, in Nizhni Novgorod, he made acquaintance with Korolenko, to whom he is indebted for getting into "great literature," and for sympathy and advice. When he published "Tchelkash," in 1893, his fate was settled. It is regarded as one of the purest gems of Russian literature. He immediately rose to honor, and all his writings since that time have appeared in the leading publications.

Moreover, he is the most "fashionable" writer in the country. But he enjoys something more than mere popularity; he is deeply loved. This is the result of the young artist's remarkable talent for painting absolutely living pictures of both persons and things. The many-sidedness of his genius--for he has more than talent--is shown, among other things, by the fact that he depicts with equal success landscapes, _genre_ scenes, portraits of women. His episode of the singers in "Foma Gordyeeff" (pp. 217-227) is regarded by Russian critics as fully worthy of being compared with the scenes for which Turgeneff is renowned. His landscape pictures are so beautiful that they cause a throb of pain. But, as is almost inevitable under the circ.u.mstances, most of his stories have an element of coa.r.s.eness, which sometimes repels.

In general, his subject is "the uneasy man," who is striving after absolute freedom, after light and a lofty ideal, of which he can perceive the existence somewhere, though with all his efforts he cannot grasp it. We may a.s.sume that in this they represent Gorky himself. But although all his heroes are seeking the meaning of life, no two of them are alike. His characters, like his landscapes, grip the heart, and once known, leave an ineffaceable imprint. Although he propounds problems of life among various cla.s.ses, he differs from the majority of people, in not regarding a full stomach as the panacea for the poor man. On the contrary (as in "Foma Gordyeeff," his most ambitious effort), he seems to regard precisely this as the cause of more ruin than the life of "the barefoot brigade," the tramps and stepchildren of Dame Fortune, with whom he princ.i.p.ally deals. His motto seems to be "Man shall not live by bread alone." And because Gorky bears this thought ever with him, in brain and heart, in nerves and his very marrow, his work possesses a strength which is almost terrifying, combined with a beauty as terrifying in its way. If he will but develop his immense genius instead of meddling with social and political questions, and getting into prison on that score with disheartening regularity, something incalculably great may be the outcome. It is said that he is now banished in polite exile to the Crimea. If he can be kept there or elsewhere out of mischief, the Russian government will again render the literature of its own country and of the world as great a service as it has already more than once rendered in the past, by similar means.

In the '70's and '80's Russian society was seized with a mania for writing poetry, and a countless throng of young poets made their appearance. No book sold so rapidly as a volume of verses. But very few of these aspirants to fame possessed any originality or serious worth.

Poetry had advanced not a single step since the days of Nekrasoff and Shevtchenko, so far as national independence was concerned.

The most talented of the young poets of this period was s.e.m.e.n Yakovlevitch Nadson (1862-1887). His grandfather, a Jew who had joined the Russian Church, lived in Kieff. His father, a gifted man and a fine musician, died young. His mother, a Russian gentlewoman, died at the age of thirty-one, of consumption. At the age of sixteen, Nadson fell in love with a young girl, and began to write poetry. She died of quick consumption shortly afterwards. This grief affected the young man's whole career, and many of his poems were inspired by it. He began to publish his poems while still in school, being already threatened with pulmonary trouble, on account of which he had been sent to the Caucasus at the expense of the government, where he spent a year. In 1882 he graduated from the military school, and was appointed an officer in a regiment stationed at Kronstadt. There he lived for two years, and some of his best poems belong to this epoch: "No, Easier 'Tis for Me to Think that Thou Art Dead," "Herostrat," "Dreams," "The Brilliant Hall Has Silent Grown," "All Hath Come to Pa.s.s," and so forth. He retired from the military service in 1883, being already in the grasp of consumption.

His poems ran through ten editions during the five years which followed his death, and still continue to sell with equal rapidity, so remarkable is their popularity. He was an ideally poetical figure; moreover, he charms by his flowing, musical verse, by the enthralling elegance and grace of his poetical imagery, and genuine lyric inspiration. All his poetry is filled with quiet, meditative sadness. It is by the music of his verse and the tender tears of his feminine lyrism that Nadson penetrates the hearts of his readers. His masterpiece is "My Friend, My Brother," and this reflects the sentiment of all his work.[52] Here is the first verse:

My friend, my brother, weary, suffering brother, Whoever thou may'st be, let not thy spirit fail; Let evil and injustice reign with sway supreme O'er all the tear-washed earth.

Let the sacred ideal be shattered and dishonored; Let innocent blood flow in stream-- Believe me, there cometh a time when Baal shall perish And love shall return to earth.

Another very sincere, sympathetic, and genuine, though not great poet, also of Jewish race, is s.e.m.e.n Grigorievitch Frug (1860-1916), the son of a member of the Jewish agricultural colony in the government of Kherson. He, like Nadson, believes that good will triumph in the end, and is not in the least a pessimist.

Quite the reverse are Nikolai Maximovitch Vilenkin (who is better known by his pseudonym of "Minsky" from his native government), and Dmitry Sergyeevitch Merezhkovsky (1865) who, as a poet, is generally bombastic.

His novels are better.

There are many other good, though not great, contemporary writers in Russia, including several women. But they hardly come within the scope of this work (which does not aim at being encyclopedic), as neither their work nor their fame is likely to make its way to foreign readers who are unacquainted with the Russian language. For those who do read Russian there are several good handbooks of contemporary literature which will furnish all necessary information.

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