Alas, his wife died of sorrow, and autumn brought him nothing but straw. Ostrovsky, without weeping, dug a grave in the frozen ground and buried his wife. Then he asked permission to go to the mines, and borrowed some money for the trip from his neighbors. The latter gladly loaned it to him, thinking thus to get rid of him and to get the profit of his house and goods. But Ostrovsky fooled them in their naïve simplicity; he heaped up all of his possessions in his little cottage and then set fire to it. He no longer thought of justice; he was nothing but a despairing man.
The patriarch of the village in which he had taken refuge tried to recall to him the faith for which he had been exiled:
"Do you remember," answered Ostrovsky, "the first visit I paid you to ask for advice? Ah, so you have forgotten that and you speakof God.... You are nothing but a crafty dog! All of you are dogs! There is nothing here but woods and rocks, and you are all just as insensible as the very rocks that surround you.... And your cursed land, and your sky, and your stars...." "He wanted to say something more, but he did not dare blaspheme, and there was silence again in the little cottage...."
This Ostrovsky is among the very best of Korolenko's heroes. The sight of this despairing and lonely man, who wanders about in the Siberian forests with his little daughter, calls louder for justice than all the speeches in the world.
Through the wealth of his talent and knowledge, Korolenko is of tremendous social value in three fields of work,—practical affairs, journalism, and art.
Among the many services which he has rendered to humanity, let us first mention his brilliant defence of the half-savage Votiaks, accused of ritual murder in the famous Malmige case. Although he had just suffered great grief himself—he had lost two children—he traveled to a distant town in order to be at the trial. He took his seat on the bench of the defenders. He used all of his knowledge, and all the love in his heart to defend the unhappyVotiaks, whose acquittal he succeeded in securing.
As a publicist, he has written some very valuable articles. Among them are observations on the famine year (he spent two months in one of the worst districts). In other articles he has analyzed a moral malady peculiar to our state of society:—honor. In the recent Russian duels he studied the perverse notions of honor and the moral changes produced by sickly egotism. He has studied the causes that bring about the complete loss of individuality. Finally, in 1910, he published under the title, "Present Customs (Notes of a Publicist under Sentence of Death)" a series of documents gathered here and there, which constitute an eloquent and passionate plea in favor of the abolitionist thesis.
When the great Tolstoy read the preface of this work, he wrote to Korolenko, "I often sobbed and wept. Millions of copies of this work ought to be distributed; it ought to be read by every one who has a heart. No discourse, no novel or play, can produce the effect that your 'Notes' do."
But above all, it is as the pure artist that Korolenko merits most attention. It is his talent that has already made him famous, and it is his talent that will make him immortal in Russian literature.
Korolenko is at present one of the most popular writers among the educated classes. They have amply proved this to him, especially in 1903 and 1908, when they celebrated his 50th birthday and the 30th anniversary of his literary activity. On the occasion of these celebrations, delegations from many cities and universities came to St. Petersburg to congratulate and to thank the author who, through so many trials, had never ceased to uphold the cause of truth and goodness, and to claim for each human being the right to work, happiness, and free thought.
Veressayev is well known in France for his "Memoirs of a Physician," a work that has been translated into almost every language. However, his reputation in Russia is not based on this book, which is considered his masterpiece, but rather on his stories and tales. Let us, however, first take a glance at the life of this author, a life so closely connected with the subjects of his works that it forms an indispensable commentary on them.
Veressayev, whose real name is Vikenty Smidovich, was born in 1867, in Tula. His father was a Pole and his mother a Russian. His father, a very pious and strictly moral man, was a well known and well liked physician. In 1877, the boy entered the local school and received his degree there seven years later. In 1884, he left for the University of St. Petersburg, where he enrolled in the department of historical sciences. Four years later, when he was twenty-four and a half, he received his degree of licentiate of letters.[5]Most of his class-mates became school-teachers, but he preferredto pursue his studies. Medicine tempted him. He left for Zhouriev (formerly Dorpat, already famous for its department of medicine) and entered the university, where, at the end of six years, he received his doctor's degree.
Two years before, in 1892, a cholera epidemic had broken out in Russia. Young Smidovich, then a fourth-year student, asked to be sent immediately to a province in the East, where the epidemic was spreading like wildfire. He remained there several months, in fact until the plague had gone. As a doctor's assistant in an infirmary organized in one of the mining districts of the government of Ekaterinoslav, he witnessed a peasant revolt in which several doctors were killed and others cruelly burned by the exasperated and ignorant mob. Veressayev has traced these sad events with tremendous power in his story, "Astray."
His doctor's degree in his pocket, he went to Tula, where he practised for several months, but soon the position of house-surgeon was offered to him in the Botkin Hospital in St. Petersburg. He remained there seven years, till 1901, when, by order of the Minister of the Interior, who has charge of all hospital appointments, he was forced to retire from office and was expelled from St. Petersburg and forbidden to reside in either of the two capitals, Moscow or St. Petersburg. The reason for thiswas, that the name Veressayev appeared on the petition of the "intellectuals" which had been given to the Minister of the Interior, protesting against the brutal attitude of the police during a student manifestation in the Kazan cathedral on March 4, 1901. This petition brought severe punishment to almost all the people whose names were signed to it. Veressayev went abroad; he visited Italy, France, Germany and Switzerland.
Gifted with poetic inspiration, he had begun writing at an early age. He was not more than fourteen when he translated some poems of Koerner and Goethe into Russian verse. Later, when at college, he wrote some short prose tales, which were published in various papers. But it was in 1896, when the "Russkoe Bogatsvo," the large St. Petersburg review, had published his two important stories, "Astray" and "The Contagion," that renown came to him. It came so suddenly that it troubled him and was almost a blow to his modesty, which is one of the sympathetic traits of his personality.
In fact, there came a time when the attention of the literary world, especially among the younger generation, became so wrapped up in his works that Gorky and Tchekoff sank to a second level. This enthusiasm was caused by the fact that Veressayev's works answered a general need. They brought into the worldof literature a series of characters who summed up the rising fermentation of new ideas and seemed to be spokesmen, around whom the Russian revolutionary forces gathered,—forces which, up to this time, had been scattered. An era of struggle for liberty began.
It is rather important, I think, for the proper understanding of this period to say a few words concerning its history.
The struggle of the younger generation against the autocracy began about 1860, at the time of the freeing of the serfs, a period known in Russia as the "epoch of great reforms." These ameliorations, which extended into almost every domain of Russian life, left intact the autocracy, which, under pretence of protecting itself, fought successfully against all activity and thus brought about, among the younger generation, a general movement towards freedom and socialism. But the autocracy found its best help in the ignorance of the people. Urban commerce, little developed at that time, practically interested only the peasants—which means nine-tenths of the population of Russia. It was natural, then, that the peasants should become the principal object of the revolutionary propaganda, and that tremendous efforts should be made on all sides in order to awaken them from their dangerous sleep.
The peasant uprisings in the history of Russia, especially the two revolts directed by Stepan Razin in the 17th century, and Pugachev in the 18th, proved the fact that the masses could unite in a general insurrection. This time, the "intellectuals" joined. As they advocated a sort of communism, periodic redivisions of land according to the growth of the population, and as they harped on the tradition that land was a gift of God which no one had a right to own, we can easily see that the agricultural proletariat would welcome with open arms the socialistic ideas.
Although this popular movement did not affect many people, it was attacked with such pitiless cruelty, that the revolutionists decided to have recourse to the red terror in order to fight the white terror which was cutting down their ranks. The secret goal of this movement was to replace the autocratic régime with political institutions emanating from the will of the people. In order to accomplish its reforms more quickly, this party, which called itself the "Popular Will," incited several attempts at murder; Russia then witnessed dynamite outrages against imperial trains and palaces, and finally, the assassination of the Emperor Alexander II. For a moment the autocratic régime seemed to totter under these sudden and fierce blows, but it soon recovered.The white terror proved to be stronger than the red. Many executions and banishments helped to crush the partisans of the "Popular Will;" then, when the movement had been checked, the authorities began to repress even the slightest desire for independence on the part of the press, the universities, or any other institutions which could do good to the people. Dejection and disillusion dominated this period from 1880 to 1900, which has been so faithfully portrayed in the works of Tchekoff.
Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that their ideals had come to nought, those of the red terror had not disappeared, and hope remained in their breasts.
Tchekoff was still living when new symptoms of fermentation appeared in Russia, and he could have alluded to this in his later works. But he did not have a fighting nature, and, in his solitude, he looked at conditions with melancholy scepticism. There was need of a man, a writer—like Gorky several years later—born right in the midst of this movement, who would be the very product of it, and for whom its ideas would be a reason for existence.
Veressayev was this man and writer, and it is as much by his political opinions as by his literary talents that he gained such a wide-spread reputation. If his works are not always irreproachable from a literary standpoint,they are always accurate in describing exactly what the author himself has seen and lived through.
Veressayev, in three great stories, gives us the three phases of the movement between 1880 and 1900. These three stories, "Astray," "The Contagion" and "At the Turn," are of such extreme importance, that in the following pages there will be a detailed analysis of each of them.
The two protagonists of the story, "Astray," are Dr. Chekanhov and his cousin Natasha. The former is at the end of his moral life, the latter is on the threshold, and both of them are "astray," because the one has not found the road on which to travel through life, and the other is just beginning to look for it. The entire existence of Chekanhov is dominated by the idea that it ishis duty to serve the people, which was the basis of the activity of the "narodnikis." According to him, the "intellectuals," who represent a small and privileged fraction of the population, are the debtors of the people and ought to pay their debt by giving the people knowledge and comfort. This theory is burned into his very soul; it is the leading thought that directs all of his actions. At this epoch, few men showed such absolute devotion. From 1880 to 1890, after the cruelsuppression of the movement of the "narodnikis," there was a stop in this revolutionary activity. Unaware of this pacification, Chekanhov makes great exertions; as a doctor, he combats disease and saves several people. But how exhaust the source of this evil, this misery, which is increased by a despotic social order? Chekanhov spends his energy in vain; where else shall he apply his strength?
The famine of 1891! Dr. Chekanhov speaks only of his despair: "A terrible malady beats down on one after another of the inhabitants; it is an epidemic of typhoid caused by the privations which left us numb and weak." In 1892 an epidemic of cholera broke out. In spite of the prayers of his parents, the young man rushes off to the most infected district. One day, he penetrates into an infected hovel. The children are sprawling everywhere, the mother is foolish and stupid, and the father, weakened by prison labor, has come down with cholera. The wife forbids the doctor, whom she accuses of poisoning the sick, to approach her husband. Scorning the danger, in order to encourage the sick man, the doctor drinks out of the very cup which the invalid has used. Nothing counts with him as long as he can inspire confidence and save people from death.
"What good is there in love between good and strong people," adds Chekanhov, after havingnoted down this cure in his "Journal," "since it results only in miserable abortions? And why are the people held down to work which is so rough and unpleasant? What motive supports them in their painful labor? Is it the desire to preserve their infected hovels?"
At the end of these reflections could not Chekanhov, absolutely in despair, have abandoned his task? No, he knew how to keep up his devotion. Sacrificing his life for others, Chekanhov begins to love life again. He says to himself: "Life is good ... but will it be for a long time?" We do not catch the answer.
Furious voices are heard, and a savage and cruel mob calls him a poisoner and hurls itself upon him, beating and striking him.
Exhausted by the blows and jeered at by those whom he had considered his brothers in need and for whom he had put himself in constant peril, he lies stretched out on his bed, suffering severely; but he nourishes no grudge against his tormentors; on the contrary, his apostle-like character is moved with pity at the thought of these uncultured and ignorant beings so unconscious of the evil that they are doing. And several days before his death he writes the following tragic words in his "Journal," almost terrifying in their simplicity:
"They have beaten me! They have beatenme like a mad dog because I came to help them and because I used all my knowledge and strength, in one word, gave all that I had. I am not thinking now about how much I loved these people and how badly I feel at the way they have treated me. I simply did not succeed in gaining their confidence; I did succeed in making them believe in me for a while, but soon a mere trifle was enough to plunge them back among their dark shadows and to awaken in them an elemental, brutal instinct. And now I have to die. I am not afraid of death, but of a tarnished life full of empty remorse. Why have I struggled? In the name of what am I going to die? I am only a poor victim stripped of the strength of an ideal and cared for by no one.... It had to be so, for we were always strangers to them, beings belonging to another world; we scornfully avoid them, without trying to know them, and a terrible abyss separates us from them."
It is interesting to note how Chekanhov is regarded by the new generation and especially by the woman he loves, his cousin Natasha. She believes in him, she expects a gospel of life from him; but Chekanhov cannot respond to her; he adheres to such vague expressions as: "work," "idea," "duty towards the people." He says to her: "You want an idea which will dominate you entirely and which will lead youto a definite goal; you want me to give you a standard and say: 'Fight and die for it.' I have read more than you, I have had more experience than you, but like you,I Do Not Know, and that is our torture." According to Chekanhov, all of his generation are in the same position: it isAstray, without a guiding star, it is perishing without realizing it.... Finally, in order to avoid the pressing questions of Natasha, who would like to work and sacrifice herself for the poor, he points out to her the salutary work of the village school-mistress. A few days later he dies, welcoming death with joy.
While the people who were ending their existence and those who were beginning it were so carefully looking for a field of action, the uncultivated ground of Russian life was gradually being cleared by the slow evolution of an economic movement. Between 1895 and 1900, as a result of the natural development of national commerce, the number of city workingmen grew to vast proportions and they formed an important class, which, on account of its situation, was much more qualified than the peasants to interest itself in the ideas of socialism and liberty. So from the very midst of the people certain individuals appeared capable of adopting progressive ideas; Marxismawaited them, the theory which is the basis of European democratic socialism. This doctrine was nothing new in Russia. But formerly, the proletariat of the cities had been very little developed and the Marxian doctrines had been of theoretical interest only.
"The Contagion" has for its heroine Natasha,—the Natasha that we have already met, but how transformed! She has at last found her bearings. If, in 1892, she was waiting for the right road to be shown to her, in 1896 she was enthusiastically following the new road opened by the doctrines of Marx.
In Zharoshenko's famous picture, "The Student," Uspensky notes something new in this type of femininity. He calls it "the masculine trait"; it is the mark of thought. He sees there the harmonious fusion of a young girl and an adolescent boy, with an expression neither feminine nor masculine, but exceptionally human. And this transforms Zharoshenko's "Student" into a luminous personification, unknown up to this time, a type which synthesizes "le type humain."
In the work of Veressayev this student is Natasha. Reflection has ripened her mind since her last talk with poor Chekanhov. She has become a regular "mannish woman," having seen and thought a great deal. She has traveled; she has lived in St. Petersburg and in thesouth of Russia. Full of courage and energy, she claims to be fully satisfied with her lot; she begs her companions to follow the road she has found, and when they refuse she becomes angry with them. In company with her comrade Dayev she vigorously attacks the convictions of the men of Kisselev, who see sufficient safety in the workingmen's associations; she rises up, in the name of Marxism, against the "narodnikis," whom she considers ingenuous idealists; she refuses to endorse the theories of the "intellectuals," who oppose the thought of any great work, since they believe that smaller deeds are more immediately realizable. When one of them, a doctor, Troïtsky, ends his conversation with her with these words: "It is not necessary to wear one's brains out trying to solve difficult problems while there is so much immediate need and so few workers," she puts an end to the discussion. Shrugging her shoulders, in a trembling voice she answers: "How can you live and think as you do? New problems confront us, and you stand before them and do nothing, because you have lost confidence. I can't work any longer with you, because it would mean dedicating myself blindly to 'spiritual death.'"
Veressayev does not show us how she solves the problems of which she speaks. The adepts of this sort of social apostleship usually propagatetheir ideas among the workingmen, help them, and play a part in conspiracies. Natasha offers herself up. But the censorship has not allowed Veressayev to carry his subject on, and he has limited himself to showing us Natasha in company with her friends and disciples, giving herself up to oratorical tilts, discussing principles, and uttering long discourses full of passion, faith, and juvenile impatience,—discourses which unfortunately are mistaken in their reasoning.
In realizing from the socialist ideal the logical and inevitable consequence of capitalism, which continues according to a law independent of human will, the Marxian doctrine dissipates the doubts and consolidates the faith of those who adopt it. According to this faith, the socialists do not have to create socialism, they only have to coöperate in the historical process which will inevitably make socialism grow. In thus recognizing the supremity of the law of history, socialism, utopian up to this time, becomes scientific and, under its new form, it is no longer subject to the influence of personal opinions, no matter how full of genius they may be. But this "scientific socialism," which, on account of the backwardness of political economy, could be only a step ahead, was taken by the younger generation of Russia as the"dernier mot" of the science. The result was, that several narrow and exclusive dogmas were grafted on this doctrine. Thus, the theory of "class struggle" transformed itself into the absolute negation of all community interests between the diverse social strata. The "materialistic"—or rather "economic"—point of view, according to which the products of spiritual activity in the history of humanity lose all independence, being only the consequences of economic organization, generated scorn for all idealism; and the proletariat character of the socialistic movement impelled society to divide into two hostile and irreconcilable parts, one of which is made up of the proletariats, the other of the elements opposed to socialism. To this last party the enormous mass of half-starved peasants joined itself. The peasants, according to the Marxian doctrine, cannot understand socialism until they have become proletariats themselves, instead of becoming miserable landed proprietors. And this "proletariazation" of about 100,000,000 peasants, the fervent Marxists consider a fatal and desirable event in the near future.
These theories, carried to excess, were sure to excite a reaction. It manifested itself by a neo-idealistic movement, which found the principal cause of social progress in the tendency of humanity to attain supreme development andperfection. Then there were the "narodnikis" who considered the "proletariazation" of the Russian peasant impossible and inopportune. There were also the various groups of Socialists who applauded the criticism that Bernstein made on the Marxian orthodoxy. So several deviations were made from the original theory; there were grave dissensions and interminable and bitter controversies. All this occupies a large part of "At the Turn," one of Veressayev's novels, in which these events are traced with almost stenographic exactitude.
The characters are, Tanya, a fanatic Marxist; her brother, Tokarev, whose soul is a field for spiritual battles; and Varenka, a village school-mistress. There are several eccentric characters around them, such as Serge, a young apostle of a somewhat Nietzschean egoism, Antsov and others. Tanya is none other than Natasha of "Astray," with this great difference, however, that Tanya has found truth already formulated for her, and does not have to grope about for it. Nevertheless, the essential characteristics of the two girls are the same. They both have the same joyous self-denial, the same love of life, the same courage in face of difficulties, and also the same faith in a better future. Tanya has lived during the whole winter with her comrades in a region devastated by the famine, and she has spent there all thatshe possesses. At Toliminsk, where she arrives after a long walk, she speaks of her meagre living and tells amusing stories without suspecting her wonderful heroism.
But this young girl, full of the joy of life and ready for any sacrifices, is pitiless towards her theoretical adversaries and has absolutely no compassion for them. The passage in "Crime and Punishment," in which Dostoyevsky depicts one of his heroes in the following manner: "He was young, he had abstract ideas, and was, consequently, cruel," perfectly fits Tanya. Veressayev tells the following incident: "One day, when she was at the station, some peasants rushed down from the platform. A railroad guard struck one of the peasants. The peasant put his head down and ran off.... Tanya, knitting her brows, said: 'That's good for him! Oh, these peasants!' And her eyes lighted up with scorn and hate...."
Just as Tanya brings Natasha to our mind, so does Varenka make us think of Dr. Chekanhov; the same feeling of duty governs them both. But, while Chekanhov wanted to devote himself to the social problem, without ever succeeding in doing so, because he did not exactly see the principles, Varenka was able to devote herself to her work without mental reservation. However, she refuses to, because she has not enough enthusiasm for this sort of research.Her understanding, which is deeper and broader than Tanya's, sees the error, the narrowness of her doctrine; she cannot admit it, and, fired by a desire to devote herself body and soul to some useful work, she chooses the laborious profession of a school-mistress in the village. But this humble and unpleasant career does not satisfy her. Little by little ennui and anguish drive her to suicide.
Between Tokarev, Tanya's brother, and Varenka, the contrast is complete. While still a student, he had accepted, with all the ardor of youth, the idea of duty, and he desired to give himself up to the cause of justice and truth; but, having encountered many obstacles, he felt, when he had reached his thirtieth year, that the sacred fire was going out.
He now dreamed only of his personal happiness, and of poor theories that justified this egoism. An assured material existence, comfort, a happy domestic life, work without risks, without sacrifices, but useful enough in appearance to satisfy the conscience, attracted him irresistibly. He then went to work to tear out his former ideas, which had taken a pretty firm root. Urged on by his conscience, which protested, he forced himself at times to resurrect his youthful enthusiasm; he thought a great deal about morals, about duty, and he read many books treating this subject; he says: "Ifeel that something extremely necessary has left me. My feelings about humanity have disappeared and nothing can replace them. I read a great deal now, and I am directing my thoughts towards ethics. I try to give morality a solid basis and I try to make clearer to myself the various categories of duty.... And I blush to pronounce the word, 'Duty.'"
Nevertheless, Tokarev tries, at times, to justify his inclinations towards peaceable bourgeois prosperity to the struggling youth who surround his sister Tanya. These cruel young people, however, answer him only with sarcastic remarks, and caustic arguments, and do not hesitate to express their doubts as to the sincerity of his opinions. To his conscience, they are like a living reproach from the past. Once he also was intolerant towards others as these people are towards him to-day. And that is why he suffers under their condemnation of him. He defends himself weakly, and after one of his oratorical tilts, he falls into such spiritual depression, that he almost thinks of suicide.
These, then, are the three main characters of Veressayev's novel. In the background we have the secondary characters. We have the proud proprietor and his wife, both of them liberals; we have the pedagogue Osmerkov, who does not like talented people because they bother everybody; and then there are the respectable inhabitantsof Gniezdelovka, Serge's father and mother, who are entirely absorbed with their household and with cards.
"The Comrades" is a variation on this theme: old school friends, who formerly had been wrapped up in a great ideal, are now living a life of shabby prosperity, and they feel that they have deteriorated, although they do not dare to confess it to each other.
And Veressayev profits by this to generalize on the causes of this fatal fall after the unselfish enthusiasms of youth. He sees them especially in a mysterious force: "The Invisible," already studied by Maeterlinck, Ibsen, Tchekoff, and especially by de Maupassant; and he sees them in the unhappy conditions of Russian history, which created a social and political organization favorable only to those who crawl along and not to those who plan.
Let us now analyze the stories in which Veressayev describes the life of the people.
The story of "The Steppe" is as follows: One beautiful autumn evening two men meet on the steppe. One of them, the forger Nikita, is returning to his native land; he is wounded in the leg and it is hard for him to walk. He is looking for work. The other is a professional beggar.
The beggar, who is never hungry because he has no scruples, offers Nikita something to eat. After resting a short while, the travelers continue on their way. In the first village that they come to, the pilgrim beggar makes a speech to the inhabitants and sells them certain "sacred properties" which he keeps in his bag. After pocketing gifts of money and various other things, the false pilgrim pursues his way, still accompanied by Nikita. On the road once more, he offers to share with his comrade the fruits of his "work," but the latter refuses.
"What a fool!" cries the beggar, and bursts out laughing. But Nikita, indignant, gives him a heavy blow and leaves him for good.
"For a Home" and "In Haste" gave Veressayev an opportunity to note one of the characteristic traits of the ambitious villagers: their strong desire to preserve their homes and to propagate the race.
In the first of these stories, two old people, Athanasius and his wife, want to marry their daughter Dunka, but the "mir,"—the assembly of peasants,—egotistical and inflexible towards people who are growing weak, oppose them. "We have not enough land for our own children," is the answer of the "mir." Dunka remains unmarried, and dies at an early age. Her mother soon follows her. Old Athanasius lives alone in his freezing "isba," which is in astate of ruin, while the neighboring isbas, solid and austere, "spitefully watch him die."
In the last story, we have a widower who is the father of five children, and is therefore looking everywhere for a woman with some bodily defect, because he knows that other women will not want to have anything to do with him.
It is the same wish to preserve his home that makes a peasant go to the city to earn his living while he leaves his family in the country to take care of the house.
The peasant is, besides, entirely engrossed with the difficulties of existence. Necessity often urges him to desperate acts.... Some, who are almost starving, ingratiate themselves with the raftsmen. They force wages down by asking only 5 copecks (5 cents) a day.... If they are contented with this absurd pay, it is because they avoid seeing how their little children are suffering at home. "It's hard living at present; there is not enough space; ground is scarce and there are too many people." "Men haven't room enough," says a sad-looking man with prominent cheek-bones. "But," he goes on, "they tell me that sickness has struck our village, and that the men are losing blood! Is that true?" "Yes, it's true!" "So much the better! That will clean out thepeople; it will be easier to live then," he concludes, thoughtfully. (From "In the Cold Spell.")
In almost all the work of Veressayev a voice proclaims that the Russian peasant is near his end; that he is not useful to any one. The poverty of the villages is painted in the most sombre colors. The people are unanimous in believing that the struggle for life has become terrible. "On what will you live?" one asks the other. "The earth does not nourish us. The holdings are small; in summer, one must cultivate, and in winter the cottages have to be closed while we look for work or charity. What is there to eat? Hay! Let us thank God that the cattle have enough of that. Oats? We have to give four hectoliters and two measures of our oats to the common granary.... And taxes and clothes? coal-oil, matches, tea, sugar? Tell me, how can one live?"
The unfortunates even go so far as to bless war and epidemics. "Everything went better then. Men lived peacefully in the fear of God, the Lord took care of every one. War, smallpox, famine came and cleaned out the populace; those that remained, after having got the coffins ready, lived easier. God pitied us. Now there is no more war; He leaves us to our own poor devices."
Speeches like this abound in the works ofVeressayev. A dull sadness, bordering on despair, breathes forth from the pages. It seems, at times, as if the Russian peasant could never awake from his torpor, because the author represents him as full of infinite egoism, without any spirit of solidarity, sacrificing everything for love of his sorry little house and his morsel of ground, which is insufficient to nourish him. But we must remember that the Marxian point of view, which the author takes, explains in part the horror of such pictures.
According to Veressayev the poor peasants can better their position only by getting rid of their land, in order to become free proletarians. But if the peasant class is unfortunate, it is so, for the most part, because it is the most exploited and the most oppressed. It is not, then, the getting rid of their land that will bring the peasants salvation; on the contrary, they must fight for it against their oppressors. The peasants are beginning to understand the necessity of this struggle, and their late uprisings in several provinces have shown that they lack neither solidarity nor organization.
In the story called, "The End of Andrey Ivanovich," which is about the working class of Russia, we see the transformation of a peasant into a "city man." In his new surroundings,it is true, the wine-shop plays an important rôle, but schools are organized there which inspire a taste for reading, and "thought" gradually awakens.
Andrey has not yet rid himself of his rustic unsociability; however, he is beginning to become civilized, and is receiving city culture. He tries to free himself from his misery, from his degradation. He beats his wife when he is drunk, but, at the same time, he gets angry at a friend when he beats his mistress.... According to his own confession he reads many useless things, nevertheless he can become interested in a serious work. If he drinks to excess, it is to "drive away the thoughts" that torment him. He wants to analyze every question and find out what is at the bottom of it. He is the spiritual brother of Natasha, Chekanhov, and Tanya.
The sequel to this story is "The Straight Road." This time we are transported into the world of factory workers, a world lamentable for its misery, despair, and crime. Andrey Ivanovich's wife, Alexandra Mikhailovna, being without resources after the death of her husband, with a little daughter in arms, enters a book-binding establishment, belonging to a man named Semidalov. But the foreman, a vicious and evil-minded man, reigns as despot. It is he who gives out the work. The younggirls who listen to his advances are sure of being shown partiality; the others are badly treated. As Alexandra wants to live honestly, her work in the shop is made very hard. Her best friend, Tanya, who inadvertently spilled oil on some paper and could not pay for the damage, had to give herself to the foreman. Finally Tanya despairs and ends by drowning herself. Alexandra is saved, thanks to a "loveless" marriage with the locksmith, Lestmann. She accepts this union so that she will not have to starve and can remain "straight." Thus, the "straight road" which Alexandra wanted to follow has forced her finally to sell herself, to marry a man whom she does not love.
Each page of Veressayev's work exists merely to throw light on this or that social question, considered from a well defined point of view. The secret of his success rests mostly in the frank, sincere manner in which he has approached certain problems. At the same time, all of his work breathes forth a deep and tender love for those who suffer. In reality, there is not a single book by Veressayev which might not be a confession; all that he writes he has already experienced himself, and his work vibrates with a delicate and personal emotion. It is only necessary to read "The Memoirs of a Physician," which is almost an autobiography,in order to perceive the moral relationship that exists between Veressayev and the heroes of his stories.
This book is the confession of a physician from the time of his early studies. The young man isastonishedat the number of maladies that exist and by the unbelievable variety of keen suffering that nature inflicts upon the human species, man. Soon he is obliged to make a discovery that stuns him: that medicine is incapable of curing many evils. It only gropes about, trying thousands of remedies before it arrives at a sure result. The scruples and anxiety of the student increase, especially after an autopsy on a woman in the amphitheatre, when the professor announces that the woman has succumbed because the surgeon, who was operating, swooned, and ends by saying: "In such difficult operations the very best surgeons are not safe from accidents of this kind." After this, the professor shook hands with his colleague and every one left. At that time, doubt entered the mind of the young man. And so, within a period of ten years, he passes from extreme optimism to the same degree of pessimism.
We follow him in the hospitals, where he is scandalized by the brutality of the teaching, which makes use of the unwilling bodies of sick people. "Not being able to pay for theirtreatment in money, they have to pay with their bodies." Finally, the student becomes a doctor himself. Full of faith and knowledge, he starts practice in a small market-town of central Russia. But his work soon cools him down; in the clinic he had studied mostly exceptional cases; now he is disconcerted by simple and every-day sicknesses. His ignorance leads to the following tragic case:
One day, a poor and widowed washerwoman brings him her sick child, whom she does not want to take to the hospital because her two oldest children died there. The child is a weak boy of eight years who has caught scarlet-fever. At first, the inside of the throat begins to swell, and, to prevent an abscess, the doctor orders rubbings with a mercurial ointment. The next day, he finds the boy all aquiver and covered with pimples. "There is no mistake," he says, "the rubbing has spread the infection into the neighboring organs and a general poisoning of the blood has taken place. The little boy is lost.... All that day and night I wandered about the streets. I could think of nothing, and I felt crushed by the horror of the thing. Only at times this thought came into my mind: 'I have killed a human being!'" The child lived ten days more. The night before his death Veressayev comes to see him. The poor mother is sobbing in a corner of themiserable room. She pulls herself together, however, and taking three rubles out of her pocket, offers them to the trembling doctor, who refuses them. Then this woman falls down on her knees and thanks him for having pitied her son. "I'll leave everything, I'll give up everything," sobs the doctor.... "I have decided to leave for St. Petersburg to-morrow in order to study some more even if I die of hunger!"
Once the resolution was made to pursue his studies in a more practical manner, he becomes the house-surgeon of a hospital. But even there a mass of problems disturb him. He sees how dangerous the simplest operations are; he is frightened by the unrestraint of the doctors, who try new methods on the sick, methods the effects of which are not known, methods that result in the patient's being inoculated with more sickness. Medicine cannot progress without direct experimentation, and experience is gained at the expense of the more unfortunate. Nevertheless, Veressayev does not argue against this way of working; he shows the facts, and leaves it to the reader to decide. On the other hand, he does not hide his fear of the common ignorance of all doctors. Every individual differs from his neighbor. How distinguish their idiosyncrasies? Once the scope of a sickness is known, what remedy shall beused? Some say this, others, that. How shall one choose? Veressayev has felt all of this; he has tried to harden himself against the unreasonable ingratitude of some, the scepticism of others; he realizes that patience, resignation, and heroism are needed in order to struggle against and support the mortifications in the career of a doctor. How much easier it would be not to consider medicine as infallible; to study it as an art rather than as a science. But people prefer to believe that doctors know everything. They do not want to see the reality, and this is the reason why sad, and at times tragic conflicts arise between patient and physician.
Finally, what could the most perfect medical science and the cleverest doctor do against the enormous mass of sickness and suffering that are the inevitable result of the social evils, of which poverty is the most conspicuous? How can one tell a man that his trade is running him down and that he does not get enough nourishment? How can one order a man to eat better food, to get more sleep and more pure air? First, and most important, is the necessity of curing the social organism.
It is easy to see why this book made many enemies for its author. There is too much frankness and conscientiousness in these studies not to anger those who have theirgreatest interest in concealing the truth! The upright man who sees primarily in medicine a means to relieve human suffering, cannot realize without sadness the many abuses hidden under the name of this science.
"In the War," recently published, is the story of Veressayev's campaign in Manchuria. In this work, the author has painted vividly the peregrinations of his moving hospital, and also the terrible sufferings of the Russian army. By the thousands, the starved children of the campaign, the Russian foot-soldiers, stoics and fatalists, sacrificing their lives for a strange and incomprehensible cause, pass before the eyes of the reader. And in the background, detaching themselves from the crowd, in their gold and silver embroidered uniforms, are "the heroes of the war, these vultures of the advance and rear-guard, who enrich themselves at the expense of the unfortunate soldiers." A number of these great chiefs, whose infamy was evident at the end of the war, since they had shown themselves incapable of dealing with the foreign enemy, had distinguished themselves by the ferocity they exhibited in quelling internal troubles. As to the military doctors, the greater number of them went into the campaign only for commercial gain. Among the nurses who accompanied them, aside from thosewho were real heroines of goodness and devotion, there were many who prostituted themselves shamefully.
Corruption, carelessness, disorder, and cowardice are shown on every page of this story, as well as the terrible suffering endured by the wounded in the hospitals. The wounded were the real martyrs of this frightful campaign.
Veressayev, like all of his heroes and heroines, wants to help the people, and for this reason he gets in touch with the revolutionists who consecrate their work to political and social regeneration, under the various titles, "narodnikis," Marxists, Socialists, idealists and so on.... Which of these does he prefer? We do not know. We find the influence of Marx in his ideas, but we cannot affirm that he is an absolute Marxian. It seems as if Veressayev, troubled by the innumerable divergencies of opinion, asks himself secretly: "Will this war lead to the unity of opinion and program, so necessary for victory, or by its quarrels will it only retard the harmony so much sought after?"
It is not discussion that will finally lead to unity, but rather life itself, with all its realities.
It would be most interesting to read a sequel to the three famous novels of Veressayev—"Astray,""The Contagion," and "At the Turning"—in which he would give us the psychology of his former heroes under present conditions. To-day, the people are not "astray"; the field is big enough for every one to find the place that best suits his ideas, tastes, and temperament. Dr. Chekanhov, if he were living now, instead of being maltreated by the people, would certainly be their well beloved champion, and perhaps represent them in the Duma; the timid Tokarev, in spite of his aversion to the ideas of the revolutionists, could find a place in the liberal party of the Reforming Democrats, or at least among the Octobrists; the unfortunate Varenka would not be worn out by her work as school-mistress, for she would be supported by the peasants. The peasants themselves are not the miserable and resigned creatures of Veressayev's earlier stories. Certainly, liberty is not yet a legal thing in Russia, and the Duma is still an unstable institution, but the end of absolutism is near, for a great event has taken place in the empire of the Tsar, namely, this awakening of the feeling of human dignity, and the spirit of revolt among the lower strata of the Russian people, which in the past, by its unconsciousness, formed the granite pedestal of autocracy. The struggle is terrible, but confidence in final victory redoubles the energy of the strugglers.A certain Russian was right when he said: "Formerly, life was formidable, but now it is both formidable and gay."
In reading the works of Veressayev, Tchekoff, and other painters of modern Russian society, it is easy to note that not one of them anticipated this sudden change of scenery on the Russian political stage, a change which, however, was being prepared in the souls of the peasants. But let us not reproach them! Russia will always remain an enigma.
There is a very old story about the son of the peasant Ilya Murometz. After remaining lazily resting in his "isba" for thirty years, he suddenly arose, and began to walk with such fury that the earth trembled. How could these writers conceive the time when this lazy giant would make up his mind to walk? It is enough to have the assurance that now, no matter what happens, since hehasarisen, he will not lie down again.
Maxim Gorky is the most original and, after Tolstoy, the most talented of modern Russian writers. He was born in 1868 or 1869—he does not know exactly when himself—in a dyer's back shop at Nizhny Novgorod. His mother, Barbara Kashirina, was the daughter of the aforementioned dyer; and his father, Maxim Pyeshkov, was an upholsterer. The child was christened Alexis. His real name, then, is Alexis Pyeshkov, and Maxim Gorky[6]is only his pseudonym. When he was four, he lost his father, and three years later, his mother. He was then taken by his grandfather, who had been a soldier under Nicholas I, a hard, authoritative, pitiless old man, before whom all trembled. And it was under his rude tutelage that the child first began to read. When he was nine, he was sent to work for a shoemaker, an evil sort of man who maltreated him.
"One day," Gorky tells us, "I was warming some water for him; the bowl fell, and I burned my hands badly. That evening I ran away,my grandfather having scolded me severely. I then became a painter's apprentice."
He did not remain long in this position. From this time on, his unsatisfied soul was seized with the "wanderlust." First apprenticed to an engraver, and then as a gardener, he finally became a scullion on one of the boats that plies up and down the Volga. Here he felt more at ease.
On board, in the person of the master-cook, named Smoury, he unexpectedly met a teacher. This cook, who had been a soldier, loved to read, and he gave the child all the books that he had in an old trunk. They consisted of the works of Gogol, Dumas' novels, the "Lives of the Saints," a manual of geography, and some popular novels. Surely, a queer collection!
Smoury inspired his scullion, then sixteen years of age, "with an ardent curiosity for the printed word." A "furious" desire to learn seized the young fellow; he went to Kazan, a university city, in the hope of "learning gratuitously all sorts of beautiful things." Cruel deception! They explained to him that "this was not according to the established order." Discouraged, a few months later, he took a position with a baker. He who dreamed of the sun and the open air had to be imprisoned in a filthy and damp cellar. He remained there for two years, earning two dollars a month, boardand lodging included; the food, however, was putrid, and his lodging consisted of an attic which he shared with five other men.
"My life in that bakery," he has said, "left a bitter impression. Those two years were the hardest of my whole life." He has thus described his recollections in one of his stories:
"We lived in a wooden box, under a low and heavy ceiling, all covered with cobwebs and permeated with fine soot. Night pressed us between the two walls, spattered with spots of mud and all mouldy. We got up at five in the morning and, stupid and indifferent, began work at six o'clock. We made bread out of the dough which our comrades had prepared while we slept. The whole day, from dawn till ten at night, some of us sat at the table rolling out the dough, and, to avoid becoming torpid, we would constantly rock ourselves to and fro while the others kneaded in the flour. The enormous oven, which resembled a fantastic beast, opened its large jaws, full of dazzling flames, and breathed forth upon us its hot breath, while its two black and enormous cavities watched our unending work....
"Thus, from one day to the next, in the floury dust, in the mud that our feet brought in from the yard, in the suffocating and terrible heat, we rolled out the dough and made cracknels, moistening them with our sweat; we hatedour work with an implacable hatred; we never ate what we made, preferring black bread to these odorous dainties."
At this period of his life, he had occasion to study at first hand certain places where he received original information which he later used in writing "Konovalov" and "The Ex-Men," which have thus acquired an autobiographical value. In fact, he worked a long while with these "ex-men;" like them, he sawed wood, and carried heavy burdens. At the same time, he devoted all his spare time to reading and thinking about problems, which became more and more "cursed" and alarming. He had found an attentive listener and interlocutor in the person of his comrade, the baker Konovalov. These two men, while baking their bread, found time to read. And the walls of the cellar heard the reading of the works of Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Karamzine, and others. Then they used to discuss the meaning of life. On holidays, Gorky andKonovalovhad for the moment an opportunity to come out of the hole—this word does not exaggerate—in which they worked, to breathe the fresh air, to live a bit in nature's bosom, and to see their fellow men.
"On holidays," Gorky tells us, "we went with Konovalov down to the river, into the fields; we took a little brandy and bread withus, and, from morning till evening, we were in the open air."
They often went to an old, abandoned house which served as a refuge for a whole tribe of miserable and wandering people, who loved to tell of their wandering lives. Gorky and his companion were always well received on account of the provisions which they distributed so generously.
"Each story spread out before our eyes like a piece of lace in which the black threads predominated—they represented the truth—and where there were threads of light color—they were the lies. These people loved us in their way, and were attentive listeners, because I often read a great deal to them."
Often, these expeditions were not without their risks. One day, two of the baker's workmen happened to drown in a bog; another time, they were taken in a police raid and passed the night in the station house.
It was also at this time that Gorky frequented the company of several students, not care-free and happy ones, but miserable young fellows like those whom Turgenev described as "nourished by physical privations and moral sufferings."
On leaving the bakery, where his health, very much weakened by the lack of air and by bad food, did not permit him to remain any longer,he joined those vagabonds, those wanderers, whose melancholy companion he had been, and whose painter and poet he was to be. In their company, he traveled through Russia in every sense of the word, now as a longshoreman, now as a wood-chopper. Whenever he had a copeck in his pocket he bought books and newspapers and spent the night reading them. He suffered hunger and cold; he slept in the open air in summer, and, in winter, in some refuge or cellar. The feverish activity of so keen an intellect in an organism so crushed had, as its consequence, one of the attempts at suicide which are so frequent among the younger generation of the Russians.
In 1889, at the age of twenty-one, Gorky shot himself in the chest, but he did not succeed in killing himself. Soon afterwards, he became gate-keeper for the winter at Tzaratzine; but the summer had hardly come before he began his vagabondage again, in the course of which he undertook a thousand little jobs in order to keep himself alive. On the road, he noticed those pariahs whom society does not want or who do not want society. And of these, in his short stories, he has created immortal types.
Life was still very hard for him at this time. He has given us a moving sketch of it in his story entitled: "Once in Autumn." The hero,who is none other than the author himself, passes the night under an old, upturned boat, in the company of a prostitute who is just as poor and just as abandoned as himself. They have broken into a booth in order to steal enough bread to keep them from starving. Gorky is sad; he wants to weep; but the poor girl, miserable as she is, consoles him and covers him with kisses.
"Those were the first kisses any woman ever gave me, and they were the best, for those that I received later always cost me a lot and never gave me any joy.... At this time, I was already preparing myself to be an active and powerful force in society; it seemed to me at times that I had in part accomplished my purpose.... I dreamed of political resolutions, of social reorganization; I used to read such deep and impenetrable authors that their thoughts did not seem to be a part of them—and now a prostitute warmed me with her body, and I was in debt to a miserable, shameful creature, banished by a society that did not want to accord her a place. The wind blew and groaned, the rain beat down upon the boat, the waves broke around us, and both of us, closely entwined, trembled from cold and hunger. And Natasha consoled me; she spoke to me in a sweet, caressing voice, as only a woman can. In listening to her tender and naïve words, Iwept, and those tears washed away from my heart many impurities, much bitterness, sadness and hatred, all of which had accumulated there before this night."
At daybreak, they say good-bye to each other, and never see one another again.
"For more than six months, I looked in all the dives and dens in the hope of seeing that dear little Natasha once more, but it was in vain...."
We find him again at Nizhny Novgorod at the time of the call for military recruits. Gorky was reformed, for, he says, "They do not accept those who are fallen." Meanwhile, he became a kvass merchant and exercised this trade for several months. Finally, he became the secretary of a lawyer, named Lanine. The latter, who had a very good reputation, took a deep interest in the poor boy whom life had treated so ill. He became interested in his intellectual development and, according to Gorky himself, had a great influence on him. At Nizhny Novgorod, as at Kazan, Gorky felt himself attracted by the circle of young people who discussed the "cursed" questions, and he soon was noticed by his comrades. They spoke of him as "a live and energetic soul."
Easy as life was for Gorky in this city, where he remained for a while, the "wanderlust"again seized him. "Not feeling at home among these intelligent people," he traveled. From Nizhny Novgorod, he went, in 1893, to Tzaratzine; then he traveled on foot through the entire province of the Don, the Ukraine, entered into Bessarabia, and from there descended by the coast of the Crimea as far as Kuban.
In October, 1892, Gorky found himself at Tiflis, where he worked in the railroad shops. That same year, he published in a local paper his first story, "Makar Choudra," in which already a remarkable talent was evident.
Leaving Tiflis after a short sojourn there, he came to the banks of the Volga, in his native country, and began to write stories for the local papers. A happy chance made him meet Korolenko, who took a great interest in the "debutante" writer. "In the year 1893-1894," writes Gorky, "I made the acquaintance of Vladimir Korolenko, to whom I owe my introduction into 'great' literature. He has done a great deal for me in teaching me many things."
The important influence of Korolenko on the literary development of Gorky can best be seen in one of the latter's letters to his biographer, Mr. Gorodetsky. "Write this," he says to his biographer, "write this without changing a single word: It is Korolenko who taught Gorky to write, and if Gorky has profited but little bythe teaching of Korolenko, it is the fault of Gorky alone. Write: Gorky's first teacher was the soldier-cook Smoury; his second teacher was the lawyer Lanine; the third, Alexander Kalouzhny, an 'ex-man;' the fourth, Korolenko...."
From the day when he met Korolenko, Gorky's stories appeared mostly in the more important publications. In 1895, he published "Chelkashe" in the important Petersburg review, "Russkoe Bogatsvo;" a year later, other publications equally well known published, "Konovalov," "Malva," and "Anxiety." These works brought Gorky into the literary world, where he soon became one of the favorite writers. The critics, at first sceptical, soon joined their voices with the enthusiastic clamor of the people.
Gorky's wandering life has given his works a peculiar and universally established form. He is, above all others, the poet of the "barefoot brigade," of the vagabonds who eternally wander from one end of Russia to the other, carelessly spending the few pennies that they have succeeded in earning, and who, like the birds of the sky, have no cares for the morrow.
But this does not suffice to explain this author's popularity, especially among the younger generation. The "barefoot brigade" is nota novelty in Russian literature. We find it in the works of Reshetnikov, Uspensky, Mamine, Zhassinsky, and others. It is true that, up to this time, the vagabonds had been represented as the dregs of the people, as hopeless drunkards, thieves, and murderers. The writers who represented them were satisfied in rousing in their readers pity for the victims of this social disorder, victims so wounded by fate, that they have not even a realization of the injustice with which they are treated. And it is only in the works of the great dramatist Ostrovsky that we find any happy vagabonds, with a deep love of nature and beauty.
Gorky's vagabonds have, like Ostrovsky's, exalted feelings for natural beauties, but they possess, besides, a full consciousness of themselves, and they declare open war against society. Gorky lives the lives of his heroes; he seems to sink himself into them, and, at the same time, he idealizes them, and often uses them as his spokesmen. Far from being crushed by fate, his vagabonds clothe themselves with a certain pride in their misery; for them, the ideal existence is the one they lead, because it is free; with numerous variations, they all exalt the irresistible seduction of vagabondage:
"As for me, just listen! How many things I've seen in my fifty-eight years," says Makar Choudra. "In what country have I not been?That is the only way to live. Walk, walk, and you see everything. Don't stay long in one place: what is there out of the ordinary in that? Just as day and night eternally run after one another, thus you must run, avoiding daily life, so that you will not cease to love it...."
"I, brother,"—says, in turn, Konovalov,—"I have decided to go all over the earth, in every sense of the word. You always see something new.... You think of nothing.... The wind blows, and you might say that it blows the dust out of your soul. You feel free and easy.... You are not troubled by any one. If you are hungry, you stop, and work to earn a few pennies; if there is no work to be had, you ask for some bread and it is given to you. So you see many countries, and the most diverse beauties...."
Likewise, in "Tedium," Kouzma Kossiyak thus clearly expresses himself:
"I would not give up my liberty for any woman, nor for any fireplace. I was born in a shed, do you hear, and it is in a shed that I am going to die; that is my fate. I am going to wander everywhere until my hair turns grey.... I get bored when I stay in the same place."
In their feeling of hostility to all authority, and all fixed things, including bourgeois happiness and economical principles, some of Gorky's characters resemble some of those superiorheroes of Russian literature, like Pushkin's Evgeny Onyegin, Lermontov's Pechorine, and, finally, Turgenev's Rudin, who, in their way, are vagabonds, filled with the same independent spirit in their respective social, intellectual, or political circles.
On the other hand, Gorky's wandering beggars are closely related to those "free men" to whom M. S. Maximov attributes a historic rôle which was favorable to the extension of the Russian empire. "Russia," he says, in his book, "Siberia and the Prison," "lived by vagabondage after she became a State; thanks to the vagabonds, she has extended her boundaries: for, it is they who, in order to maintain their independence, fought against the nomad tribes who attacked them from the south and the east...."
There is a marked difference between these two classes: men of the former look for a place on this earth where they can establish themselves; while men of the other class, those who are out of work, drunkards, and lazy men, have no taste for a sedentary life.
But if Gorky has not created the type of vagabond which is so familiar to those who know Russian literature, on the other hand, he has remodeled it with his original, energetic, and vibrantly realistic talent. His nomad "barefoot brigade," picturesquely encamped, is surroundedwith a sort of terribly majestic halo in these vast stretches of country, a background against which their sombre silhouettes are set off. From the perfumed steppes to the roaring sea, they conjure up to the eye of their old co-mate the enchanting Slavic land of which they are the audacious offsprings. And Gorky also lovingly gives them a familiar setting, painted with bold strokes, of plains and mountains which border in the distance the glaucous stretch of the sea. The sea! With what fervor does Gorky depict the anger and the peace of the sea. It always inspires, like an adored mistress:
"... The sea sleeps.
"Immense, sighing lazily along the strand, it has gone to sleep, peaceful in its huge stretch, bathed in the moonlight. As soft as velvet, and black, it mingles with the dark southern sky and sleeps profoundly, while on its surface is reflected the transparent tissue of the flaky, immobile clouds, in which is incrusted the gilded design of the stars."
Thus, like a "leitmotiv," the murmuring of the water interrupts the course of the story. And the steppe, this steppe "which has devoured so much human flesh and has drunk so much blood that it has become fat and fecund," surrounds with its immensity these miserable wandering beings and menaces them with its storm:
"Suddenly, the entire steppe undulated, enveloped with a dazzling blue light which seemed to enlarge the horizon ... the shadows trembled and disappeared for a moment ... a crash of thunder burst forth, disturbing the sky, where many black clouds were flying past....
"... At times the steppe stretched forth like an oscillating giant ... the vast stretch of blue and cloudless sky poured light down upon us, and seemed like an immense cupola of sombre color."
The wind passed "in large and regular waves, or blew with a sharp rattle, the leaves sighed and whispered among themselves, the waves of the river washed up on the banks, monotonous, despairing, as if they were telling something terribly sad and mournful," the entire country vibrated with a powerful life that harmonized with the souls of the people.
In "Old Iserguile," Gorky writes: "I should have liked to transform myself into dust and be blown about by the wind; I should have liked to stretch myself out on the steppe like the warm waters of the river, or throw myself into the sea and rise into the sky in an opal mist; I should have liked to drink in this evening so wonderful and melancholy.... And, I know not why, I was suffering...."
Gorky's stories, always short enough, have little or no plot, and the characters are barely sketched. But, in these simple frames, he has confined the power of an art which is prolific, supple and profoundly living. Let us take, for example, "The Friends." Dancing Foot and The One Who Hopes are ordinary thieves, the terror of the villagers whose gardens they rob. One day, when they are especially desperate, they steal a thin horse which is browsing at the edge of the woods. The One Who Hopes gets an incurable sickness, and it is perhaps on account of his approaching death that he feels scruples at this crime. Dancing Foot expresses the scorn that the weakness of his companion inspires him with, but he ends by giving in and returns the animal. One hour later, The One Who Hopes falls dead in front of Dancing Foot, who is tremendously upset in spite of his affected indifference.
A dry outline cannot possibly convey the emotion contained in this little drama, where the low mentality of the characters is rendered with the mastery which Gorky usually shows in creating his elemental heroes. Among other works that should be noted are "Cain and Arteme," so poignantly ironical in its simplicity, "To Drive Away Tedium," "The Silver Clasps," "The Prisoner," and that little masterpiece, "Twenty-Six Men and a Girl," in which we seetwenty-six bakers pouring out an ideal and mystical love on Tanya, the little embroiderer, who they believe, is as pure as an angel. One day, a brutal soldier comes to defy them, and boasts that he will conquer this young girl. He succeeds. Then the twenty-six insult their fallen idol; the tragedy is not so much in the insults that they hurl at her, as in the suffering they undergo through having lost the illusion that was so dear to them.
Let us note, incidentally, the existence of a sort of comic spirit in these works which relieves the tragedy of the situations. In spite of their dark pessimism, the actors in these little dramas have an appearance of gaiety which deceives. It is by this popular humor that Gorky is the continuator of the work of Gogol; this is especially noticeable in "The Fair at Goltva."