Contemporary Russian Novelists Part 12

The school-mistress, Vera, has conceived the daring project of teaching the soldiers who are quartered in the village. She gets some of them together at the edge of the neighboring woods and there she tries to show them the ignominy of the roles they play in times of uprisings. Angered by this unexpected talk, the soldiers threaten the young girl. But her coolness and sincerity finally make them listen to her with a respect mingled with admiration.

A third story, called "Slaves," in a masterful way retraces the catastrophes of the now historical journey of January 9, 1905, at the end of which, a crowd of 200,000 men, led by the famous pope Gapon, went to the Tsar's palace to present their demands to him, and were received with cannon shots.

These stories were followed by three works of great merit: "Mother,"

"A Confession," and "The Spy."

The novel "Mother" takes us into the midst of revolutionary life.

The heroes of this book belong, for the most part, to that workingman and agricultural proletariat whose role has lately been of such great importance in the Russian political tempests. With marvelous psychological a.n.a.lysis, Gorky shows how some of these simple creatures understand the new truth, and how it gradually penetrates their ardent souls.

Pavel Vla.s.sov, a young, intelligent workingman, is thirsty for knowledge, and is the apostle of the new ideal. He throws himself heart and soul into the dangerous struggle he has undertaken against ignorance and oppression. The Little Russian, Andrey, is all feeling and thought, and the peasant Rybine is inflamed by action.

Sashenka is a young girl who sacrifices herself entirely to the Idea, and the coal-man Ignatius is driven by an obscure force to help in a cause which he does not understand. Finest of them all is Pelaguaya Vla.s.sov, the princ.i.p.al character of the book, and Pavel's mother.

Old and grey, Pelaguaya has pa.s.sed her whole life in misery. She has never known anything but how to suffer in silence and endure without complaint; she has never dreamed that life could be different. One day her father had said to her:

"It's useless to make faces! There is a fool who wants to marry you,--take him. All girls marry, all women have children; children are, for all parents, a sorrow. And are you, yes or no, a human being?"

She then marries the workingman Michael Vla.s.sov, who gets drunk every day, beats her cruelly and kicks her, and even on his death-bed, says: "Go to the devil.... b.i.t.c.h! I'll die better alone."

He dies, and his son Pavel begins to bring forbidden books into the house. Friends come and talk; a small group is formed. Pelaguaya listens to what is said, but understands nothing. Gradually, however, there begins to filter into her old breast, like a stream of joy, an understanding of something big, of something in which she can take part. She discovers that she too is a free creature, and, obscurely, there is formed in her mind the notion that every human being has a right to live. Then she speaks: "The earth is tired of carrying so much injustice and sadness, it trembles softly at the hope of seeing the new sun which is rising in the bosom of mankind."

So the obscure and miserable woman gradually rises to the dignity of "The Mother of the Prophet." And when Pavel accepts, like the martyrdom of the cross, his banishment to Siberia, with a joyous heart she sacrifices her son to the Idea.

Her soul opens wide to the new truth that is lighting it. With the most touching abnegation, she tries to carry on the work of the absent one. But the police are watching. One day, when she is about to take the train to a neighboring town to spread the "good word"

there, she is recognized and apprehended. Seeing that she is lost, the Mother, whose personality at this moment grows absolutely symbolic, cries out to the crowd:

"'Listen to me! They condemned my son and his friends because they were bringing the truth to everybody! We are dying from work, we are tormented by hunger and by cold, we are always in the mire, always in the wrong! Our life is a night, a black night!'

"'Hurrah for the old woman!' cries some one in the crowd.

"A policeman struck her in the chest; she tottered, and fell on the bench. But she still cried:

"'All of you! get all your forces together under a single leader.'

"The big red hand of the policeman struck her in the throat, and the nape of her neck hit against the wall.

"'Shut up, you hag!' cried the officer in a sharp voice.

"The Mother's eyes grew larger and shone brightly. Her jaw trembled.

"'They won't kill a resurrected soul!'

"'b.i.t.c.h!'

"With a short swing the policeman struck her full in the face.

"Something red and black momentarily blinded the Mother; blood filled her mouth.

"A voice from the crowd brought her to herself:

"'You haven't the right to strike her!'

"But the officers pushed her, and hit her on the head.

"'... It's not blood that will drown what's right.'...

"Dulled and weakened, the Mother tottered. But she saw many eyes about her, glowing with a bold fire, eyes that she knew well and that were dear to her.

"'... They will never get at the truth, even under oceans of blood!'

"The policeman seized her heavily by the throat.

"There was a rattling in her throat:

"... 'The unfortunates!'

"Some one in the crowd answered her, with a deep sigh."

"A Confession" is the story of a restless soul who untiringly searches for the G.o.d of truth and goodness. Found as a child in a village of central Russia, Matvey was first taken by a sacristan, and, after his death, by t.i.tov, the inspector of the domain. In order to debase Matvey, whose superiority irritates him, t.i.tov asks him to partic.i.p.ate in his extortions. Having become the son-in-law of his adopted father, Matvey, on account of his love for his wife, accepts the shameful life. But the G.o.d in whom Matvey has placed his distracted confidence, seems to want to chastise him cruelly. After having lost, one after the other, his wife and child, he goes away at a venture. He enters a monastery where, among the dissolute monks, whose vices are most repugnant, his soul gradually shakes off the Christian dogma. On one of his pilgrimages, he gets to Damascus. Among the workingmen, where chance has taken him, he feels his heart opening to the truth, which he follows up with the determination of a real Gorkyan hero. The life of the people appears to him in its sublime simplicity. And it is in the midst of a dazzling apotheosis--which reminds one of the most grandiose pages of Zola's "Lourdes"--that he finally confesses the G.o.d of his ideal: it is the people.

"People! you are my G.o.d, creator of all the G.o.ds that you have formed from the beauty of your soul, in your troubled and laborious search!

"Let there be no other G.o.ds on the earth but yourself, for you are the only G.o.d, the creator of miracles!"

"The Spy" is a study of the Russian police. The novel treats of the terrible Okhrana, whose mysterious affairs have become the laughing-stock of all the foreign papers.

The princ.i.p.al character, about whom circle the police spies and secret agents, is a poor orphan, weak and timid, called Evsey Klimkov, whom his uncle, the forger Piotr, has taken into his house and brought up with his son, the strong and brutal James. Beaten by his schoolmates and by his cousin, the child lives in a perpetual trance. Life seems formidable to him, like a jungle in which men are the pitiless beasts. Everywhere, brute force or hypocrisy triumph; everywhere, the weak are oppressed, downtrodden, conquered. And in his feverish imagination, daily excited by facts which his terror distorts, Evsey delights in conceiving another existence, all made of love and goodness, an existence that he unceasingly opposes against the hard realities of daily life, with the stubborn fervor of a mystic.

Having entered the service of the old bookseller Raspopov, the young man does his duty with the faithfulness of a beast of burden. His home no longer pleases him at all; there, things and people are still hostile to him; but his uncle Piotr seems enchanted with his new position. Evsey spends his days in arranging and cla.s.sifying the books which his master has bought. A young woman, Ra.s.sa Petrovna, keeps house for the book-dealer, and as every one knows, they live like man and wife. In this queer environment, the faculties of the young man become sharpened, and serve him well. It does not take long for him to find out what they are hiding from him. A few words addressed by Raspopov to a certain Dorimedonte Loukhine reveal to Evsey the part that is being played by his patron. Raspopov, who is an agent of the secret police, gives Dorimedonte--who, by the way, is deceiving him with Ra.s.sa--the names of the buyers of the forbidden books in which he trades. And here it is that the tragedy suddenly breaks forth.

Ra.s.sa, tired of being tormented by Raspopov, who accuses her of poisoning him, strangles the old man in a moment of cold anger, under the very eyes of Evsey. Thanks to Dorimedonte, this crime goes unpunished. Evsey, having become the lodger of the two lovers, now enters the Okhrana, at the advice of his new master. After a while, Ra.s.sa, haunted by remorse, commits suicide, and Dorimedonte is killed by some revolutionists.

All the interest of the book, however, is centered in the picture of the police inst.i.tutions. From the chief Philip Philipovich to the agent Solovyev, Gorky presents, with consummate art, the ma.s.s of corrupt and greedy agents who wearily accomplish their tasks.

Among them, young Evsey leads a miserable and ridiculous existence.

Bruised by an invincible power, he sees himself compelled to arrest an old man who has confided his revolutionary ideas to him; then a young girl with whom he is in love; finally, his own cousin, a revolutionary suspect.

Gradually his eyes are opened. He realizes that he cannot extricate himself from the position in which he has placed himself. Tired of leading a life which his conscience disapproves of, he thinks of killing his superior, who has driven him to do so many infamous deeds. He will thus get justice. His project miscarries; maddened, he throws himself under a pa.s.sing train.

These three remarkable works, riddled by the Russian censor, so that the complete version has appeared only abroad, have recently been followed by two important stories: "Among the People" and "Matvey Kozhemyakine."

With his accustomed power, Gorky shows us, in the first of these stories, the spread of socialism among the agricultural proletariat.

He depicts village life with its pettiness and ignominy. The village is for the most part a backward place, hostile to everything that makes a breach in tradition. The hatching of socialism goes on slowly. From day to day, new obstacles, helped on by the ignorance of the peasants, hinder those who are trying to carry out their belief. Even the village guard, Semyon, pursues them with his hatred.

But Igor Petrovich, the propagator of these new ideas, finds, in a few old friends and in a village woman who becomes his mistress, some precious helpers. Thanks to them, he gradually gets up a little circle of firm believers who gather in a cave in the woods. Every evening, they read, discuss, and dream of a better organization, out there in the cave. All would have gone well, if some of them had not betrayed the leader to the police. While being led to the city prison, the leader spoke to the soldiers who were escorting him: