Anthology of Russian literature, part II

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY — Nikoláy Mikháylovich Karamzín. (1766-1826.) — LETTERS OF A RUSSIAN TRAVELLER — THE CHURCHYARD — POOR LÍZA — FROM THE “HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE” — 41 Iván Andréevich Krylóv. (1768-1844.) — THE ASS AND THE NIGHTINGALE — 43 THE QUARTETTE — 44 DAMIAN’S FISHSOUP — 45 THE SWAN, THE PIKE, AND THE CRAB — THE LION AND THE WOLF — THE CLOUD — THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOR AND THE SEA. — Aleksándr Efímovich Izmáylov. (1779-1831.) — THE DRUNKARD’S VOW — THE CANARY AND THE NIGHTINGALE — THE TWO CATS — Vasíli Trofímovich Naryézhny. (1780-1825.) — FROM “THE TWO IVÁNS; OR, THE PASSION FOR LITIGATION” — Vasíli Andréevich Zhukóvski. (1783-1852.) — SVYETLÁNA [3] — THE MINSTREL IN THE RUSSIAN CAMP — Iván Ivánovich Kozlóv. (1779-1840.) — SOLITUDE — KÍEV — FROM “THE BLACK MONK” — Konstantín Nikoláevich Bátyushkov. (1787-1855.) — THE FRIEND’S SHADOW — THE DYING TASSO — Fédor Nikoláevich Glínka. (1788-1880.) — MOSCOW — THE SEARCH FOR GOD — Prince Petr Andréevich Vyázemski. (1792-1878.) — 82 THE SAMOVÁR — 84 TO MY THREE ABSENT FRIENDS — DEATH REAPS THE HARVEST OF LIFE — Kondráti Fédorovich Rylyéev. (1796-1826.) — FROM “VOYNARÓVSKI” — IVÁN SUSÁNIN — Aleksándr Sergyéevich Griboyédov. (1795-1829.) — 93 FROM “INTELLIGENCE COMES TO GRIEF” — 102 Aleksándr Aleksándrovich Bestúzhev (pseud. Marlínski). (1797-1837.) — FROM “AMMALÁT BEK” — Iván Ivánovich Lazhéchnikov. (1794-1869.) — 112 THE HERETIC — Baron Antón Antónovich Délvig. (1798-1831.) — GLOOMY THOUGHTS — Aleksándr Sergyéevich Púshkin. (1799-1837.) — FROM “THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER” — FROM “EVGÉNI ONYÉGIN” — FROM “THE BAKHCHISARÁY FOUNTAIN” — THE POISON-TREE — THE BIRD — THE PROPHET — 138 THE TALISMAN — 139 THE LAY OF THE WISE OLÉG — TO THE SLANDERERS OF RUSSIA — FROM “BORÍS GODUNÓV” — DEMONS — Evgéni Abrámovich Baratýnski. (1800-1844.) — 150 FINLAND — SPRING — TRUTH — Nikoláy Mikháylovich Yazýkov. (1803-1846.) — THE SAILOR — 154 THE STORM — 155 TO THE POET — Mikhaíl Yúrevich Lérmontov. (1814-1841.) — FROM “A HERO OF OUR TIMES” — 165 FROM “THE DEMON” — DISPUTE — THE SAIL — THE PRAYER — THE BRANCH OF PALESTINE — 174 AT A BALL — DREAM — 176 Aleksyéy Vasílevich Koltsóv. (1808-1842.) — FIRST LOVE — THE ABUNDANT HARVEST — 179 THE FOREST — BETRAYED BY A BRIDE — THE MOWER — Nikoláy Vasílevich Gógol (⁠—Yanóvski). (1809-1852.) — THE DNIEPER — THE REVIZÓR — FROM “DEAD SOULS” — Vissarión Grigórevich Byelínski. (1811-1848.) — THE NATURAL SCHOOL — Sergyéy Timoféevich Aksákov. (1791-1859.) — FROM “THE FAMILY CHRONICLE” — Aleksyéy Stepánovich Khomyakóv. (1804-1860.) — TO MY CHILDREN — 231 THE EAGLE — 232 KIEV — Fédor Ivánovich Tyútchev. (1803-1873.) — 235 THE SPRING-STORM — SUNRISE — Aleksándr Ivánovich Gértsen (Herzen). (1812-1870.) — SLAVOPHILES AND PANSLAVISM — Nikoláy Platónovich Ogarév. (1813-1877.) — TO ISKÁNDER [12] — 244 MONOLOGUES — THE VILLAGE WATCHMAN — Count Aleksyéy Konstantínovich Tolstóy. (1817-1875.) — FROM “PRINCE SERÉBRYANY” — 255 THE DEATH OF IVÁN THE TERRIBLE — THE KURGÁN — Iván Aleksándrovich Goncharóv. (1812-1891.) — FROM “OBLÓMOV” — Nikoláy Aleksándrovich Dobrolyúbov. (1836-1861.) — WHAT IS OBLÓMOVISM? — Iván Sergyéevich Turgénev. (1818-1883.) — FROM “FATHERS AND SONS” — POEMS IN PROSE (SENILIA) — Dmítri Vasílevich Grigoróvich. (1822-1900.) — FROM “THE FISHERMEN” — Yákov Petróvich Polónski. (1820-1898). — THE BIRDS — NIGHT IN THE CRIMEA — FROM “MUSICIAN GRASSHOPPER” — Aleksyéy Feofiláktovich Písemski. (1820-1881.) — THE OLD PROPRIETRESS — Afanási Afanásevich Shenshín (Fet). (1820-1892.) — TRYST — Fédor Mikháylovich Dostoévski. (1821-1881.) — FROM “CRIME AND PUNISHMENT” — Apollón Nikoláevich Máykov. (1821-1898.) — THE PERIS — WHO WAS HE? — THE MARBLE FAUN — FROM THE LYRIC DRAMA “THREE DEATHS” — Nikoláy Aleksyéevich Nekrásov. (1821-1877.) — FROM “RED-NOSED FROST” — 352 A MORAL MAN — 353 FROM “WHO LIVES IN RUSSIA HAPPILY” — THE UNMOWN STRIP — A MOTHER’S TEARS — Iván Sávich Nikítin. (1824-1861.) — BURLÁK [21] — THE GAFFER — Aleksyéy Nikoláevich Pleshchéev. (1825-1894.) — FORWARD — 367 MY COUNTRY — A LEGEND — SPRING — 369 Aleksándr Nikoláevich Ostróvski. (1823-1886.) — THE STORM — 379 Mikhaíl Evgráfovich Saltykóv. (pseud. Shchedrín). (1826-1889.) — 380 FROM “BEYOND THE BORDER” — Dmítri Ivánovich Písarev. (1841-1868.) — FLOWERS OF HARMLESS HUMOUR — Count Lev Nikoláevich Tolstóy. (1828-.) — FROM “ÁNNA KARÉNIN” — FROM “WAR AND PEACE” — Glyeb Ivánovich Uspénski. (1840-1902.) — FROM “THE POWER OF THE LAND” — Aleksándr Ivánovich Levítov. (1842-1877.) — SHOEMAKER COCK-OF-THE-BOOTS — Nikoláy Nikoláevich Zlatovrátski. (1845-.) — OLD SHADOWS — Vladímir Galaktiónovich Korolénko. (1853.-) — THE OLD BELL-RINGER — Vsévolod Mikháylovich Garshín. (1855-1888.) — THAT WHICH WAS NOT — Ignáti Nikoláevich Potápenko. (1856-.) — A THOUSAND TALENTS — Semén Yákovlevich Nádson. (1862-1887.) — MY FRIEND, MY BROTHER! — POETRY — Antón Pávlovich Chékhov. (1860-.) — IN THE COURT-ROOM — Aleksyéy Maksímovich Pyeshkóv (pseud. Maksím Górki). (1871-.) — IN THE STEPPE — Dmítri Sergyéevich Merezhkóvski. (1865-.) — FROM AN ESSAY ON “PÚSHKIN”

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 29arrived, 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 30so 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!

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 31diction 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.

32London, 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 33mental 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?

⁠—From Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part I.

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 35Gothic 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 36in 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 37indefatigableness 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.”

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 38beneficent 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 39unusual 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 40the 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.

⁠—From Russian Fabulists, with Specimens, in Fraser’s Magazine, 1842.

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.

⁠—From I. H. Harrison’s Kriloff’s Original Fables.

⁠—From J. Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian.

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

⁠—Ib.

⁠—Ib.

⁠—From Russian Fabulists, in Fraser’s Magazine, vol. xxv.

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 48heart. 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.

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.

49“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.”

The day was inclining to its fall, but the merriment in the house of the hospitable host did not abate. A large number 50of 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 51first 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 52Anúri. 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 53from 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 54proudly, “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!”

⁠—From Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part II.

⁠—From Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part II.

⁠—From W. D. Lewis’s The Bakchesarian Fountain.

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

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 71four 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.

72“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 73my 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.”

⁠—From Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part II.

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 76the 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 77there 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 78was 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.

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

⁠—From C. T. Wilson’s Russian Lyrics.

’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 83table! 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.

⁠—From Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part II.

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.

86Sadly 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!

⁠—From Foreign Quarterly Review, 1832.

⁠—From T. Hart-Davies’s The Poems of K. F. Relaieff.

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.

94Fámusov. 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, 95she 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!

96Chátski. 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 97times? 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?

98Skalozúb. 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 99example, 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 100one 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 101meanest 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.)

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 103arose 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.

“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.”

105“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 106him 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. 107The 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 108the 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 109all, 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

111Struck 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).

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 113or 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 114destined 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 115that 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, 116which 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 117to 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 118of 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 119his 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 120Nebogáty, 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.

⁠—From C. T. Wilson’s Russian Lyrics.

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 126wandering 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 127house. 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:

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 129merriment 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.”

130“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 131light 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.

TATYÁNA’S LETTER TO ONYÉGIN

⁠—From Lieut.-Col. Spalding’s Eugene Onéguine, London, 1881.

⁠—From W. D. Lewis’s The Bakchesarian Fountain.

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

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

⁠—From J. Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian.

⁠—From The Talisman, and Other Pieces, by George Borrow, St. Petersburg, 1835.

⁠—From T. B. Shaw’s Pushkin, the Russian Poet, in Blackwood’s Magazine, 1845.

⁠—From T. B. Shaw’s Pushkin, the Russian Poet, in Blackwood’s Magazine, 1845.

I

Night: A cell in the Chúdov monastery

FATHER PÍMEN, GRIGÓRI (sleeping).

⁠—From Shakespeare and the Russian Drama, by N. H. Dole, in Poet-lore, vol. i., No. 11.

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

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.

151But 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, 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!

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.

152But 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!”

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

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.

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.

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.

158The 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, 159giving 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 160that 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.”

161“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?”

162“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. 163“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.

164“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.

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

⁠—From J. Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian.

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

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

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

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

⁠—From W. R. Alger’s The Poetry of the Orient, 1865.

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

⁠—From John Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian.

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

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

IN MEMORY OF PÚSHKIN

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

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

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

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, 188and 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.

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 189unusual 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 190government 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 191is 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⸺

192Burgomaster. 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 193the 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 194who ’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 195it 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 196bother 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⸺

197Bobchínski. 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 198me 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.)

199Curator. 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.)

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.”

200“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?”

201Chíchikov 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 202she 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.

203“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.

204“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 205known 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.”

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 207point 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 208imitate 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 209peasant 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 210sentimental 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 211and 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 212risen 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 213the 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, 214inclinations,⁠—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.

215The 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 216when 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.

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.

218Grandfather 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 219reader’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 220hoarsely, 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, 221“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.

222Having 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 223village 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 224in 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 225night-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 226blow 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 227all 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 228to 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 229of 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.

⁠—Transl. by Rev. W. Palmer, in Short Poems and Hymns, Oxford, 1845.

⁠—Transl. by H. Havelock, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 17.

⁠—From C. T. Wilson’s Russian Lyrics.

⁠—From J. Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian.

⁠—From J. Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian.

⁠—Transl. by A. C. Coolidge.

⁠—Transl. by N. H. Dole, in Schirmer’s Octavo Choruses, No. 623.

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 238purity 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 239hailed 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.

240The 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

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, 241autocracy, 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:

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 242fruit 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.

⁠—Transl. by Charlotte Sidgwick in Free Russia, vol. xi., No. 11.

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.

⁠—From C. T. Wilson’s Russian Lyrics.

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 247happened. 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 248cunning 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.”

249The 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?”

250“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!”

251Ioánn 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.

252Adáshev, 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 253the 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 254the 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.

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.)

⁠—From The Death of Iván the Terrible, transl. by I. H. Harrison.

⁠—Transl. by H. Havelock, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 25.

“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 261listen 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 262absent 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 263of 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 264at 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 265returned 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 266able 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 267slender, 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 268life 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 269flowed 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 270he 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 271mortgaged, 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.

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 273a 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 274them, 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 275to 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 276reads 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,

He has a few honourable rules; he is capable

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 277is 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 278directions, 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 279is 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 280Oblómovs 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.

⁠⸺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.

283“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 284authorities, 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.”

285“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.

286“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 287sciences, 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 288Arkádi, 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 289“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 290pale 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.

291“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.

292Pável 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 293Bazárov. 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 294there 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 295cut 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.

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 296exclaimed. “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.

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 298measured, 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.

299None 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 300and 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 301Governments, 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.

302The 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 303ridge of which rested against the gloomy, grey, cheerless sky.

Farewell, mother! Farewell home, childhood, memories,⁠—farewell everything!

⁠—From C. T. Wilson’s Russian Lyrics.

⁠—From C. T. Wilson’s Russian Lyrics.

⁠—Transl. by H. Havelock, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 21.

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 306among 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 307park; 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 308look 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 309a 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 310innocent⁠—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.

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.

312“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:

313“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 314hand, 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 315themselves; 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, 316and 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 317chancery, 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 318came 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.’”

319“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!”

⁠—Transl. by I. H. Harrison, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 19.

⁠—From John Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian.

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.

324To 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.”

325“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, 326immovably 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 327despair 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?”

328“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 329it 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; 330you 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, 331would 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 332offered 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 333(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, 334and 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 335a 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 336he 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.

337“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⸺”

338“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?”

339“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.”

⁠—Transl. by F. P. Marchant, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 33.

A STORY OF PETER THE GREAT

⁠—From J. Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian.

⁠—Transl. by F. P. Marchant, in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 19.

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 345the 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, 346O 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 347to-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.

⁠—From [J. Sumner Smith’s] Red-Nosed Frost, Boston, 1887.

⁠—By Alexander Koumanin, in Cornhill Magazine, 1863.

EPILOGUE

⁠—Transl. by L. Wiener, revised by A. C. Coolidge, in The Harvard Monthly, January, 1898, and in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 25.

⁠—By A. C. Coolidge, in The Harvard Monthly, 1895.

⁠—From C. T. Wilson’s Russian Lyrics.