Chapter XX: Act I: , Scene 1. Mrs. Uncouth, Mitrofán, Eremyéevna

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_examining Mitrofán’s caftan_). The caftan is all ruined. Eremyéevna, bring here that thief Tríshka! (_Exit Eremyéevna._) That rascal has made it too tight all around. Mitrofán, my sweet darling, you must feel dreadfully uncomfortable in your caftan! Go call father. (_Exit Mitrofán._)

SCENE 2. MRS. UNCOUTH, EREMYÉEVNA, TRÍSHKA

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_to Tríshka_). You beast, come here. Didn’t I tell you, you thief’s snout, to make the caftan wide enough? In the first place, the child is growing; in the second place, the child is delicate enough, without wearing a tight caftan. Tell me, you clod, what is your excuse?

_Tríshka._ You know, madam, I never learned tailoring. I begged you then to give it to a tailor.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ So you have got to be a tailor to be able to make a decent caftan! What beastly reasoning!

_Tríshka._ But a tailor has learned how to do it, madam, and I haven’t.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ How dare you contradict me! One tailor has learned it from another; that one from a third, and so on. But from whom did the first tailor learn? Talk, stupid!

_Tríshka._ I guess the first tailor made a worse caftan than I.

_Mitrofán_ (_running in_). I called dad. He sent word he’ll be here in a minute.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Go fetch him by force, if you can’t by kindness.

_Mitrofán._ Here is dad.

SCENE 3. THE SAME AND UNCOUTH

_Mrs. Uncouth._ You have been hiding from me! Now see yourself, sir, what I have come to through your indulgence! What do you think of our son’s new dress for his uncle’s betrothal? What do you think of the caftan that Tríshka has gotten up?

_Uncouth_ (_timidly stammering_). A li-ittle baggy.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ You are baggy yourself, you wiseacre!

_Uncouth._ I thought, wifey, that you thought that way.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Are you blind yourself?

_Uncouth._ My eyes see nothing by the side of yours.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ A fine husband the Lord has blessed me with! He can’t even make out what is loose and what tight.

_Uncouth._ I have always relied upon you in such matters, and rely even now.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ You may rely also upon this, that I will not let the churls do as they please. Go right away, sir, and tell them to flog----

SCENE 4. THE SAME AND BEASTLY

_Beastly._ Whom? For what? On the day of my betrothal! I beg you, sister, for the sake of the celebration, put off the flogging until to-morrow, and to-morrow, if you wish, I’ll gladly take a hand in it myself. My name is not Tarás Beastly, if I don’t make every offence a serious matter. In such things my custom is the same as yours, sister. But what has made you so angry?

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Here, brother, I’ll leave it to you. Mitrofán, just come here! Is this caftan baggy?

_Beastly._ No.

_Uncouth._ I see now myself, wifey, that it is too tight.

_Beastly._ But I don’t see that. My good fellow, the caftan is just right.

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_to Tríshka_). Get out, you beast! (_To Eremyéevna._) Go, Eremyéevna, and give the child his breakfast. I am afraid the teachers will soon be here.

_Eremyéevna._ My lady, he has deigned to eat five rolls ere this.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ So you are too stingy to give him the sixth, you beast? What zeal! I declare!

_Eremyéevna._ I meant it for his health, my lady. I am looking out for Mitrofán Teréntevich: he has been ill all night.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Oh, Holy Virgin! What was the matter with you, darling Mitrofán?

_Mitrofán._ I don’t know what, mamma. I was bent with pain ever since last night’s supper.

_Beastly._ My good fellow, I guess you have had too solid a supper.

_Mitrofán._ Why, uncle! I have eaten hardly anything.

_Uncouth._ If I remember rightly, my dear, you did have something.

_Mitrofán._ Not much of anything: some three slices of salt bacon, and five or six pies, I do not remember which.

_Eremyéevna._ He kept on begging for something to drink all night long. He deigned to empty a pitcher of kvas.

_Mitrofán._ And even now I am walking around distracted. All kinds of stuff passed before my eyes all night long.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ What kind of stuff, darling Mitrofán?

_Mitrofán._ At times you, mamma, at others--dad.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ How so?

_Mitrofán._ No sooner did I close my eyes, than I saw you, mamma, drubbing dad.

_Uncouth_ (_aside_). It is my misfortune, the dream has come to pass!

_Mitrofán_ (_tenderly_). And I felt so sorry.

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_angrily_). For whom, Mitrofán?

_Mitrofán._ For you, mamma: you got so tired drubbing dad.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Embrace me, darling of my heart! Son, you are my comfort.

_Beastly._ I see, Mitrofán, you are mother’s son and not father’s.

_Uncouth._ I love him anyway as becomes a father: he is such a clever child, such a joker! I am often beside myself with joy when I look at him, and I can’t believe that he is my own son.

_Beastly._ Only now our joker looks a little gloomy.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Had I not better send to town for the doctor?

_Mitrofán._ No, no, mamma. I’ll get well myself. I’ll run now to the dove-cot, maybe----

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Maybe God will be merciful. Go, have a good time, darling Mitrofán. (_Exeunt Mitrofán and Eremyéevna._)

SCENE 5. MRS. UNCOUTH, UNCOUTH, BEASTLY

_Beastly._ Why do I not see my fiancée? Where is she? The betrothal is to be this evening, so it is about time to let her know that she is to be married soon.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ There is time for that, brother. If we were to tell her that ahead of time, she might get it into her head that we are reporting to her as to a superior person. Although I am related to her through my husband, yet I love even strangers to obey me.

_Uncouth_ (_to Beastly_). To tell the truth, we have treated Sophia like a real orphan. She was but a baby when her father died. It is now half a year since her mother, who is related to me by marriage, had an apoplectic fit----

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_as if making the sign of the cross_). The Lord be with us!

_Uncouth._--which took her to the other world. Her uncle, Mr. Conservative, has gone to Siberia, and as there has been no news from him for some years we regard him as dead. Seeing that she was left alone, we took her to our village, and we watch her property like our own.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ What makes you talk so much to-day, husband? My brother might think that we took her to our house for our own interest.

_Uncouth._ How could he think so? We can’t move up Sophia’s property to ours.

_Beastly._ Even if her movable property has been removed, I won’t go to law for that. I don’t like the law courts, and I am afraid of them. No matter how much my neighbours have insulted me, no matter how much damage they have done me, I have never had any litigations with them. Rather than have trouble with them, I make my peasants suffer for the damages my neighbours do me, and that’s the end of it.

_Uncouth._ That is so, brother. The whole district says that you are a great hand at getting work out of your peasants.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ I wish, brother, you would teach us to do likewise, for since we have taken everything away from the peasants that they had, there is nothing left with them which we can carry off. It’s a real misfortune!

_Beastly._ I don’t mind, sister, giving you a lesson, only first marry me to Sophia.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Have you really taken a liking to the girl?

_Beastly._ No, it is not the girl I like.

_Uncouth._ Then it is her adjoining villages?

_Beastly._ Not even her villages; but that which is to be found in her villages, and for which I have a great passion.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ What is it, brother?

_Beastly._ I like the pigs, sister. Down our way there are some very big pigs: why, there is not one among them that if it stood up on its hind legs would not be a head taller than any of us.

_Uncouth._ Now, brother, this is a wonderful family resemblance. Our dear Mitrofán is just like his uncle: he has had the same passion for pigs ever since babyhood. He was only three years old when he would tremble with joy every time he saw a pig.

_Beastly._ Truly wonderful! All right: Mitrofán loves pigs because he is my nephew. There is some resemblance there. But why have I such a passion for pigs?

_Uncouth._ There must be some resemblance there too, that’s what I think.

SCENE 6. THE SAME AND SOPHIA

(_Sophia enters holding a letter in her hand and looking cheerful._)

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_to Sophia_). Why so merry, dear? What has made you so happy?

_Sophia._ I have just received some joyful news. My uncle, of whom we have not heard for a long time, whom I love and honour like my father, arrived in Moscow a few days ago. This is the letter I have just received from him.

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_frightened, angrily_). What, Conservative, your uncle, is alive? And you think it right to jest about his resurrection? A fine story you have invented!

_Sophia._ Why, he never was dead.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ He did not die! Why could he not have died? No, madam, that is your invention. You are trying to frighten us with your uncle, that we might give you your liberty. You judge like this: “My uncle is a clever man; he seeing me in other people’s hands, will find a way of rescuing me.” That’s what you are happy about, madam. But your joy is all in vain: of course, your uncle has never thought of rising from the dead.

_Beastly._ Sister, but if he never died?

_Uncouth._ God be merciful to us, if he did not die.

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_to her husband_). How not dead? You are talking nonsense. Don’t you know that I have had people remember him in their prayers for the rest of his soul? Is it possible my humble prayers have never reached heaven? (_To Sophia._) You let me have that letter! (_Almost tears it out of her hand._) I will wager anything that it is some love letter, and I can guess from whom. It’s from that officer that was trying to marry you, and whom you were ready to marry yourself. Who is that rascal that dares hand you letters without telling me first about them? I’ll get at him! That’s what we have come to: they write letters to girls! And girls know how to read!

_Sophia._ Read it yourself, madam: you will see that there can be nothing more harmless than that letter.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ “Read it yourself!” No, madam! Thank the Lord, I have not been educated that way! I may receive letters, but I order others to read them to me. (_To her husband._) Read it!

_Uncouth_ (_looking at it for sometime_). It’s more than I can read.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ I see, they have educated you like a fair maiden. Brother, be so kind as to read it.

_Beastly._ I? I have never read a line since I was born! God has saved me that annoyance.

_Sophia._ Let me read it to you.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ I know you will read it, but I don’t trust you. There! Mitrofán’s teacher will soon be here, so I’ll tell him----

_Beastly._ So you have begun to teach your son reading?

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Oh, my brother! He has been studying these four years. It shall not be laid to our door that we are not giving Mitrofán an education: we pay three teachers for it. The deacon from Pokróv, Carouse, comes to him for reading and writing. Arikmethick he studies with an ex-sergeant, Cipher. They both come from town, which is only two miles from us. French and all the sciences he takes from a German, Adam Adámych Bluster. He gets three hundred roubles a year. We let him eat at table with us; our peasant women wash his linen; if he has to travel anywhere, he gets our horses; at the table he always has a glass of wine, and at night a tallow candle, and Fomká fixes his wig for nothing. To tell the truth, we are satisfied with him, for he does not drive our child. I don’t see, anyway, why we should not fondle Mitrofán as long as he is a minor. He will have to suffer enough some ten years hence, when serving the Government. You know, brother, some people have luck from their birth. Take our family of Uncouths: they get all kinds of advancements while lying softly on their sides. With what is our Mitrofán worse than they? Ah, there is our dear guest.

SCENE 7. THE SAME AND TRUTHFUL

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Brother, I recommend to you our dear guest, Mr. Truthful; and to you, sir, I recommend my brother.

_Truthful._ Am glad to make your acquaintance.

_Beastly._ Very well, sir. What is your name? I did not quite hear it.

_Truthful._ My name is Truthful, so that you may hear it.

_Beastly._ Where born, sir? Where are your villages?

_Truthful._ I was born in Moscow, if you must know that, and my villages are in this province.

_Beastly._ And may I ask you,--I do not know your name and patronymic,--are there any pigs in your villages?

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Now, stop, brother, asking about your pigs. We had better talk about our trouble. (_To Truthful._) Listen, sir! By God’s command we have taken this maiden upon our hands. She deigns to receive letters from her uncles: you see, her uncles write to her from heaven. Do us the kindness, sir, and read us this letter aloud.

_Truthful._ Excuse me, madam, I never read letters without the permission of those to whom they have been addressed.

_Sophia._ On the contrary, I beg you to do me the favour.

_Truthful._ If you so order. (_He reads._)

“Dear niece! My affairs have compelled me to live for some years away from my relatives, and the great distance has deprived me of the pleasure of hearing any news from you. I am now living in Moscow after having been for some years in Siberia. I am a living example that it is possible by work and honesty to gain some wealth. By these means, fortune smiling upon me, I have saved up enough to have ten thousand roubles yearly income----”

_Beastly and the Uncouths._ Ten thousand!

_Truthful_ (_reads_). “Of which I make you, dear niece, my sole heiress----”

_Mrs. Uncouth._ You an heiress! } } _Uncouth._ Sophia an heiress! } (_All together._) } _Beastly._ Her an heiress! }

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_hastening to embrace Sophia_). I congratulate you, Sophia! I congratulate you, my darling! I am beside myself with joy! Now you need a husband. I, I could not wish a better bride for my Mitrofán. That’s what I call a fine uncle! A real father! I always thought that God was taking care of him, that he was still alive.

_Beastly_ (_stretching out his hand_). Well, sister, let us settle it right away.

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_whispering to Beastly_). Wait, brother, first we have to ask her whether she wants you.

_Beastly._ What a question! Or do you really want to report to her as to a superior person?

_Truthful._ Do you want me to finish the letter?

_Beastly._ What for? Even if you were to keep on reading for five years you could not read out of it anything better than ten thousand.

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_to Sophia_). Sophia, my darling! Come with me to my sleeping-room. I have some important matter to talk to you about (_leading Sophia out_).

_Beastly._ Pshaw! I see there is not much chance for a betrothal to-day!

SCENE 8. TRUTHFUL, UNCOUTH, BEASTLY, A SERVANT

_Servant_ (_to Uncouth, out of breath_). Sir, sir! Soldiers have come; they have stopped in our village.

_Uncouth._ There is a misfortune! They will ruin us completely.

_Truthful._ What frightens you so?

_Uncouth._ Oh, I have seen terrible things, and I am afraid to show up before them.

_Truthful._ Don’t be afraid. Of course, an officer is leading them, and he will not permit any insolence. Come, let us go to him. I am confident you are unnecessarily frightened. (_Truthful, Uncouth and Servant exeunt._)

_Beastly._ They have all left me alone. I think I’ll take a walk in the cattle yard.

_End of Act I._

AN OPEN-HEARTED CONFESSION OF MY ACTS AND THOUGHTS

My parents were pious people, but as in our childhood they did not wake us for the morning service, there was a night service held in our house every church holiday, as also in the first and last weeks of Lent. As soon as I learned to read, my father made me read at the divine services. To this I owe whatever knowledge of Russian I possess, for, reading the church books, I became acquainted with the Slavic language, without which it is impossible to know Russian. I am thankful to my father for having watched carefully my reading: whenever I began to read indistinctly, he would say to me: “Stop mumbling! or do you imagine God is pleased with your muttering?” But more than that: whenever my father noticed that I did not understand the passage that I had just read, he undertook the labour of explaining it to me,--in short, he showed endless care in my instruction. As he was not able to hire teachers of foreign languages for me, he did not delay, I may say, a day to place me and my brother in the University as soon as it was founded.

Now I shall say something of the manner of instruction at our University. Justice demands that I should state at the start that the University of to-day is quite a different thing from what it was in my days. Both the teachers and students are of a different calibre, and however much the school was then subject to severe criticism, it now deserves nothing but praise. I shall relate, as an example, how the examination was conducted in the lower Latin class. The day before the examination we were being prepared. Here is what was done: our teacher came in a caftan that had five buttons, while his vest had only four. This peculiarity surprised me much, and I asked the teacher for the cause of it. “My buttons seem to amuse you,” he said, “but they are the guardians of your honour and of mine: those on the caftan stand for the five declensions, and on the vest for the four conjugations. And now,” he proceeded, as he beat the table with his hand, “be all attentive to what I have to say! When they shall ask you for the declension of some noun, watch what button I am touching: if you see me holding the second button, answer boldly ‘The second declension.’ Do similarly in regard to the conjugations, being guided by the buttons on my vest, and you will never make a mistake.” That is the kind of an examination we had!

O you parents who take pleasure in the reading of gazettes, when you find the names of your children mentioned in them as having received prizes for diligence, listen what I got a medal for! Our inspector had a German friend who was made a professor of geography. He had only three students. As this teacher was more stupid than our Latin teacher, he arrived at the examination in a full complement of buttons, and we were consequently examined without preparation. My companion was asked: “Where does the Vólga flow to?” “Into the Black Sea,” was his answer. The same question was put to my other schoolmate. “Into the White Sea,” was his answer. Then they asked me the same question. “I don’t know,” I said with such an expression of simplicity, that the examiners unanimously voted to give me a medal. Now, I did not in the least earn this medal for any geographical knowledge, though I deserved it for an illustration of practical morals.

However it may be, I owe the University a grateful recognition: I learned there Latin, and thus laid the foundation for some of my sciences. I also learned there some German, and especially acquired a taste for literary studies. A love for writing was developed in me very early in my childhood, and I practised for many years translating into Russian.

* * * * *

At that time our director had taken it into his head to journey to St. Petersburg with a few of his students, in order to show the founder of the University the fruits of his school. I do not know how, but my brother and I were among the number of the chosen pupils. The director started for St. Petersburg in the winter with his wife and ten of us youngsters. This was the first, and consequently a difficult, journey for me and my companions, but I must make a grateful acknowledgment of the kind attention we received from our director and which alleviated our hardships. He and his wife looked after us as after their children. When we arrived in St. Petersburg, my brother and myself stopped at the house of an uncle of ours. A few days later, our director presented us to the curator. This esteemed gentleman, whose deserts Russia must not forget, received us very kindly. He took hold of my hand and led me to a man whose appearance had attracted my respectful attention. That was the immortal Lomonósov. He asked me what I had learned. “Latin,” said I. Then he began to speak with great eloquence of the importance of the Latin language.

After dinner of the same day we were at Court, it being a reception day, but the Empress did not appear. I was wonder-struck by the magnificence of the Empress’s palace. All around us was sparkling gold, a gathering of men in blue and red ribbons, a mass of beautiful women, an enormous orchestra,--all that bewildered and blinded me, and the palace appeared to me to be the dwelling-place of a superhuman being. Indeed, it could not have been otherwise, for I was then only fourteen years old, had never seen anything, and everything appeared to me new and charming. Having returned to the house, I asked my uncle whether they had often receptions at Court, to which he answered: “Almost every Sunday.” I decided to stay in St. Petersburg as long as possible, in order to see more of the Court. This desire was the result of curiosity and impulse: I wanted to enjoy the magnificence of the Court and hear agreeable music. This desire soon subsided, and I began to pine for my parents, whom I became impatient to see. The day I received letters from them was for me the pleasantest of all, and I went often to the post to ask for them.

Nothing delighted me in St. Petersburg so much as the theatre, which I saw for the first time in my life. They were playing a Russian comedy, _Henry and Pernilla_, and I remember it as if it happened to-day. I saw there Shúmski, who so amused me with his jokes that I lost all sense of propriety and laughed as loud as I could. It is almost impossible to describe the feelings which the theatre aroused in me. The comedy which I saw was quite stupid, but I looked upon it as the production of the greatest mind, and upon the actors as great people, whose acquaintance I regarded as the greatest happiness. I almost went insane when I found out that these actors frequented the house of my uncle, where I was living. After a little while I there became acquainted with our famous actor, Iván Afanásevich Dmitrévski, an honourable, clever and cultured gentleman, whose friendship I am enjoying even now.

Standing once in the pit, I struck up an acquaintanceship with the son of a distinguished gentleman, who had taken a fancy to my face. As soon as he received a negative answer to his question whether I knew French, he suddenly changed and became cold to me. He looked upon me as an ignoramus and badly educated man, and began to make fun of me. When I noticed from his manner of speech that he did not know anything else but French, which he spoke badly, I made such a biting repartee, that he stopped his raillery, and invited me to his house; I answered politely, and we parted as friends. But I learned from this how necessary it was for a young man to know French; so I began to study the language in earnest, continuing at the same time the study of Latin, in which language I heard the lectures on logic by Professor Sháden, who was then rector. This learned man has the rare gift of lecturing and expounding so clearly that we all made palpable progress, and my brother and I were soon admitted as real students. All that time I did not stop practising translations from German into Russian; among other things I translated _Seth, the Egyptian King_, but not very successfully. My knowledge of Latin was exceedingly useful to me in my study of French. In two years I could understand Voltaire, and I began translating in verse his _Alzire_. That translation was nothing more than a youthful error, nevertheless there are some good verses in it.

LETTERS TO COUNT P. I. PÁNIN, DURING HIS FIRST JOURNEY ABROAD

MONTPELLIER, November 22 (December 3), 1777.

... I found this city (Leipsic) full of learned men. Some of these regard it as their chief desert that they are able to talk in Latin, which, by the way, five-year-old children were able to do in the days of Cicero. Others soar in thoughts in the sky, and are ignorant of what goes on upon earth. Others again are strong in artificial logic, having an extreme absence of natural logic. In short, Leipsic proves beyond controversy that learning does not beget common sense. I left these pedants, and went to Frankfurt-on-the-Main. This city is celebrated for its antiquities, and is noteworthy from the fact that the Roman Emperor is chosen here. I was in the election room from which he issues to the people. But its antiquity consists merely in being old: all I saw there were four empty walls in an old building. They showed me also the famous so-called La Bulle d’Or of Emperor Charles IV., which was written in the year 1356, and I was also in the Imperial Archives. But it was hardly worth my while to climb up garrets and down cellars, in order to see the relics of a rude age. From Frankfurt I travelled through German principalities: every step a new principality. I saw Hanau, Mainz, Fulda, Sachsen-Gotha, Eisenach and a few other principalities of minor princes. I found the roads frequently not paved, but I had nevertheless to pay dearly for the pavement. When they pulled me out of a bog and asked pavement money of me, I had the courage to ask them: “Where is it?” To which they answered me that his Majesty, the reigning prince, had the intention of having the roads paved, but that at the present he was only collecting toll. Such justice in regard to strangers has led me to make my own conclusions in regard to their relations with their subjects, and I did not at all wonder when from every hut there came out a crowd of beggars and followed my carriage....

From here I went into France, and reached the famous city of Lyons. In this country the roads are very good; but in the cities the streets are so narrow and are so badly kept that I cannot understand how people with their five senses manage to live in such dirt. It is evident that the police does not interfere with it. To prove this I shall take the liberty of telling your Highness an occurrence. I was walking in the finest and largest street in Lyons (which, however, cannot compare with our by-streets), and saw in bright daylight burning torches and a crowd of people in the middle of the street. Being near-sighted, I naturally thought it was some elegant funeral. Upon approaching nearer out of curiosity, I saw how great my mistake was: Messrs. Frenchmen had simply stuck a pig and were singeing it in the middle of the street! The stench, dirt and a crowd of leisure people who were watching the operation compelled me to take another street. I have not yet seen Paris, so I do not know whether my olfactories will suffer there less; in any case, all the French cities which I have so far seen are badly off as to their cleanliness.

PARIS, March 20 (31), 1778.

... Voltaire’s arrival in Paris produced the same effect on the people here as if a divinity had come down upon earth. The respect shown to him in no way differs from worship. I am confident that if his deep old age and ailments did not oppress him, and he wished to preach now some new sect, the whole nation would at once turn to him. Your Excellency will form your own opinion from what follows whether one can come to any other conclusion from the reception the public gave him.

When he arrived here, the poets who are devoted to him began to write poems in his honour, while those who hate him sent him anonymous satires. The first are printed, but not the other, for the Government has by a special rescript forbidden to print anything that might be prejudicial to Voltaire. This consideration is shown him as much for his great talents as for his advanced age. This man of eighty-five years has composed a new tragedy, _Irene and Alexis Comnenus_, which has been performed. Although it can by no means be compared to his former plays, yet the public received it with rapture. The author being ill, he was not present at the first presentation. It is only the first time yesterday that he has driven out: he was in the Academy, then in the theatre, where they purposely gave his new tragedy.

As he drove out from his house, the carriage was accompanied as far as the Academy by an endless throng of people who kept up applauding. All the academicians came out to meet him. He was seated in the president’s chair and, waiving the customary voting, was elected by acclamation to be president for the April quarter. As he walked down the staircase and took his seat in the carriage, the populace demanded vociferously to take off hats. From the Academy to the theatre he was accompanied by the people’s cheering. When he entered his box, the audience applauded repeatedly with indescribable rapture, and a few minutes later the oldest actor, Brisard, stepped into his box with a wreath which he placed on Voltaire’s head. Voltaire immediately took the wreath off and with tears of joy spoke aloud to Brisard: “Ah, Dieu! vous voulez donc me faire mourir!” The tragedy was played with much greater perfection than at any previous performance. At its conclusion there was a new spectacle. All the actors and actresses surrounded Voltaire’s bust and adorned it with laurel wreaths. This homage was followed by the people’s applause, which lasted nearly fifteen minutes. Then Madame Vestrice, who had played Irene, turned towards Voltaire and read some laudatory verses. To show their appreciation, the public demanded that the verses be read again, and they applauded wildly. As soon as Voltaire seated himself in his carriage, the people stopped the coachman and cried: “Des flambeaux, des flambeaux!” When the torches were brought, they ordered the coachman to drive at a slow pace, and an endless crowd accompanied him to his very house with torches, crying all the time: “Vive Voltaire!” Voltaire has received many an ovation in his lifetime, but yesterday was, no doubt, the best day of his life, which, however, will soon come to an end. Your Excellency will see how he now looks from his portrait which I here enclose and which is a very good likeness of him.

Ermíl Ivánovich Kostróv. (1750-1796.)

Kostróv was the son of a peasant. He studied in a seminary and began to write verses early, first under the influence of Lomonósov, in the pseudo-classic style,--later, under the influence of Derzhávin, he cultivated a simpler and better language. His chief services to Russian literature are his translations of Apuleius, Ossian, and the Iliad. The ode which is given here marks the turning-point in his manner of writing, and at the same time indicates how great was the change brought about by Derzhávin’s _Felítsa_ (see p. 378) in Russian poetry.

LETTER TO THE CREATOR OF THE ODE IN PRAISE OF “FELÍTSA, THE KIRGÍZ-KAYSÁK PRINCESS”

Singer, to whom with a gentle smile the Muse has lately brought from the Parnassian heights a wreath, I hanker for your friendship and union with you. Moscow is my habitation, you sing the Neva stream. But not the distant roads, nor mounts, nor hills, nor forests, nor rivers shall impede my zeal to you, which to Petropolis shall be borne, to issue in your breast and ears: not impossible to Muses is what the Muses will.

Tell me, I pray, how without a lyre, nor violin, not even having saddled the Parnassian steed, you have sung so sweetly Felítsa’s acts, and her crown’s life-giving beams? You evidently have walked all streets and byways on Pindus’ heights and in the grassy vale of the pure Muses, and to glorify, console, make happy, amuse the Princess, you have discovered a new, untrodden path. Having discovered it, you ran it at will, and neither stump nor stone e’er tripped you, but all appeared to you a grassy mead, and your caftan was nowhere rent by thorns. Proclaiming the praises of the Princess, recounting the pleasures of the bashaws, you played the bagpipe, yet sang enticingly withal.

Disdaining the evil conscience of the envious, you onward bore, which boldness seeing, Parnassus wound a wreath for you. Their flowing hair descending on their arms, disporting on their pink-white breasts and cheeks, the forms of fairy nymphs from the Neva rose; gently waving on the crests, they listened intent to you, and praised the beautiful innovation of your verse. In token of their heartfelt tribute, they clapped their hands in ecstasy, then disappeared into the crystal depths.

By easy post Felítsa’s praise was borne to Moscow, to the delight of all the hearts, and all who read have sung your praise, and arbiters of taste have wound a wreath for you. They have read it a hundred times, yet listen gladly, with attention, when someone in their presence reads it again, and cannot assuage their spirits, nor satisfy their captive ears, while listening to its sportive jests. Just so a garden, with charming shrubs and shade of trees, planted on a hill above a stream of limpid waters, though it be well known to us, though known the taste of every fruit therein, though familiar to us its every path, yet drawn by a mysterious feeling, we hasten to walk in it once more, and turn our glances all about us, to discover something new, though we have seen it all before.

Our ears are almost deaf from the vociferous lyric tones, and, meseems, ’tis time to come down from the clouds, lest, forgetful of the law of equilibrium, and flying from the heights, one break his arms and legs: no matter what our endeavour be to rise on high, Felítsa’s deeds will still be higher. She likes simplicity of style, so ’t were better, treading that road in modesty, to raise our voice to her. Dwelling on Parnassus in union with the nymphs, I have thrummed the sonorous harp, while praising the Kirgíz-Kaysák Princess, and have only earned cold praises. All lauded there my verses, flattered me, though themselves were but amused; and now they have the honour in oblivion to lie: ’tis evident high-soaring odes are out of fashion.

Above us you have risen through your simplicity! Write, as formerly, again a letter to your neighbour; you have well depicted his luxurious mind, how he invites a hungry mob to dinner, games and luxuries on the tables; or, loving Nature’s beauties, sing of the crystal waters, as once you sang the Spring of Grébenev. This spring, flowing through the valley, even now is pleasing to me: whenever I slaked my thirst, a ray of joy shone to me.

But to you, who preside most wisely, leader of the Muses, their labours’ judge, listening to their sweet thunderous music, to you this honour and praise is due, because, burning with zeal and inventive of new paths, you labour to advance our native tongue. It is majestic, sweet and rich, thunderous, elate, liquid and strong, and great is your work of its perfection. Encouraged by you, the lovers of the sciences have with heartfelt zeal walked on the glorious path: we see the fair Russian diction in their labours, and its progress in him who has extolled you.

I shall say it without hesitation: you emulate Minerva, and bring your rest as a sacrifice to the Muses, and the glory of your country is your pleasure and consolation. Your exploits are enviable to men. With Felítsa’s beloved, precious name, with Felítsa’s praise and the laudation of her wise acts the beginning of these labours has been adorned, and has brought joy and rapture to its readers. Blessed is that beginning where her resplendent name appears, and the end is crowned with success. To him who thus has glorified Felítsa, and has given a new flavour to his verses, honour and glory from the depth of our hearts!

Alexander Nikoláevich Radíshchev. (1749-1802.)

In 1765 Catherine II. sent twelve young men to Leipsic to be educated in the University; among the number was Radíshchev. He studied philosophy under Platner, and for his own amusement took a full course in medicine. Upon his return he was attached to the Kommerz-Kolleg, a kind of Department of Finance, where he distinguished himself for his unexampled honesty and gained the love of its President, Count Vorontsóv, whom he had the courage to oppose in a decision at law, in order to save some innocent men from transportation to Siberia. When he was later put in charge of the Customs House of St. Petersburg, he discovered that the considerable traffic with England demanded a knowledge of English, if he wished to dispense with a translator; accordingly at the age of thirty he acquired the English language and began to read its literature, which exerted a great influence upon him.

In 1790 he wrote his _Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow_, which he distributed among his friends, though it had not been approved by the censor. This work, written in the style of Sterne’s _Sentimental Journey_, is not only remarkable as a piece of literature, but also as a political pamphlet. It attacks the institution of Russia in the light of the most advanced liberalism of France and North America. Radíshchev advocated in no unmistakable terms the liberation of the serfs, almost half a century before Turgénev. When Catherine II. read the book, she exclaimed: “He is a Martinist. He is worse than Pugachév, he praises Franklin.” Radíshchev was banished to Siberia. There he devoted himself to literature, wrote his _Ode to Liberty_, which is the forerunner of all the poems of liberty by Rylyéev, Ogarév, Odoévski, and a few longer poems in a lighter vein. Emperor Paul pardoned him, and Emperor Alexander advanced him to higher honours. When an acquaintance of his accused him of returning to his youthful ideals and warned him of subjecting himself to the danger of another banishment, he committed suicide in a moment of despondency.

JOURNEY FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW

DEPARTURE

After having taken supper with my friends, I took my seat in the kibítka. The driver drove the horses at full gallop, as was his wont, and in a few minutes we were outside the city. It is hard to part, even for a short time, from those who have become necessary to us at every moment of our existence. It is hard to part,--but happy is he who can part without smiling, for love or friendship is his consolation. You weep as you say “good-bye”; but think of your return,--and let your tears dry up at this thought, as dries up the dew before the face of the sun. Happy is he who weeps, hoping to be consoled! Happy is he who sometimes lives in the future! Happy is he who lives in meditation! His existence is enriched; his joy is multiplied, and calm assuages the gloom of his pining, generating images of happiness in the mirrors of his contemplation.

I lay in the kibítka. The tinkling of the post bell was monotonous to my ears, and finally brought to me beneficent Morpheus. The grief of my parting persecuted me in my deathlike state, and painted me to my imagination as forlorn. I saw myself in a spacious vale which had lost all its amenity and greenness of leafage through the hot rays of the sun. There was not a spring to offer coolness, nor tree-shade to protect from the heat. I was a hermit, left in the midst of Nature! I shuddered. “Miserable man!” I sighed, “where are you? What has become of all that has enticed you? Where is all that has made your life agreeable? Is it possible that the pleasures which you have tasted are only an idle dream?”

Luckily there was a deep rut in the road, and my kibítka, getting into it, jostled me and woke me up. The kibítka stopped. I raised my head and saw three habitations in a barren spot.

“What is that?” I asked my driver.

“A post station.”

“Where are we?”

“In Sofíya,” and he unhitched the horses.

SOFÍYA

All around me was silence. I was absorbed in contemplation and did not notice that the kibítka had been standing quite a while without the horses. My driver broke my meditation:

“Master, father, some money for a drink!”

This tax is illegal, but no one objects to paying it, in order that he may be able to travel at his ease; the twenty kopeks I gave him were a good investment. Who has travelled by post knows that a passport is a precaution without which any purse, unless it be a general’s, will have to suffer. I took it out of my pocket and went with it, as people sometimes go with the cross for their defence.

I found the Post Commissary snoring. I touched his shoulder.

“Whom does the devil drive so? What a miserable habit to depart from the city at night? There are no horses here,--it’s too early yet. Go into the inn and drink tea, or go to sleep!”

Having said that, the Commissary turned to the wall, and went to snoring again. What was I to do? I once more shook the Commissary by his shoulder.

“What is the matter with you? I told you there are no horses!” and, covering himself with the blanket, the Commissary turned away from me.

If the horses are all engaged, I thought to myself, then it is not right for me to disturb the Commissary’s sleep. But if there are any horses in the stable ... I made up my mind I would find out whether the Commissary told the truth. I went into the yard, hunted up the stable and found some twenty horses in it. It is true, one could count the bones on them, yet they would have taken me to the next station. From the stable I returned to the Commissary, and shook him harder than before, for I felt I had a right to do so, having discovered that he had told a lie. He jumped up from his bed and without opening his eyes asked who had arrived. “I ...” But coming to his senses, and noticing me, he said:

“Young man, you are evidently in the habit of commanding drivers of olden days, when they used to beat them with sticks. Well, that won’t work now-a-days.” The Commissary lay down angrily in his bed again. I had really a desire to treat him like one of those drivers when they were discovered cheating; but my generosity to the city driver caused the Sofíya drivers to hurry up and hitch the horses to the kibítka. Just as I was getting ready to commit a crime on the back of the Commissary, the bells were heard in the yard. I remained a good citizen, and thus twenty kopeks saved a peaceable man from an inquest, my children from an example of incontinence in anger, and I discovered that reason is a slave to impatience.

The horses carried me away. The driver started a song which, as usual, was a doleful one. He who knows the tunes of Russian popular songs will admit that there is something in them that speaks of sadness of spirit. Nearly all the tunes of such songs are in the minor key. In this musical inclination of the popular ear one may find a solution of the trend of his actions. In it one may discover the condition of the nation’s soul. Look at a Russian! You will always find him lost in meditation. If he wants to drive away ennui, or, as he calls it, have a good time, he goes to the inn. In his intoxication he is impulsive, bold, quarrelsome. If anything takes place not to his liking, he at once starts a brawl or fight. A churl who goes into the inn with a downcast look and returns from it covered with blood from having had his ears boxed may throw a light on many an enigmatic point in Russian history.

My driver was singing. It was three o’clock in the morning. As before the bell, so now his song put me to sleep: “O Nature! Having swathed man at his birth in the winding-sheets of sorrow, dragging him all his life over the forbidding crags of fear, ennui and sadness, you have given him sleep as a consolation. You fall asleep, and all is at an end! Unbearable is the awakening to the unfortunate man. Oh, how acceptable death is to him! And if it is the end of sorrow.... All-kind Father! Wilt Thou turn away Thy look from him who ends his life in a manly way? To Thee, the source of all goodness, this sacrifice is brought. Thou alone givest strength when creation trembles and is convulsed. It is the voice of the Father, calling His child unto Himself! Thou hast given me life, to Thee I return it: upon earth it has become useless.”

TOSNÁ

When I left St. Petersburg I thought I would find a very good road. All those who have travelled upon it after the Emperor have thought so. It had been such, indeed, but only for a short time. The dirt which had been put upon the road in dry weather in order to make it even had been washed by the rains, forming a swamp in the summer, and made it impassable. Fearing bad weather, I got out of the kibítka and went into the post station, intending to take a rest. In the room I found a traveller who was sitting behind a long, common peasant table in the nearer corner and was turning over some papers. He asked the Post Commissary to give him horses as soon as possible. To my question who he was, I learned that he was a pettifogger of the old style, and that he was going to St. Petersburg with a stack of torn papers which he was then examining. I immediately entered into a conversation with him, and here is what he said:

“Dear sir,--I, your humble servant, have been a Registrar in the Archives of the Estates, where I had an opportunity to make good use of my position: by assiduous labour I have collected a genealogy, based on clear documentary proof, of many Russian families, and I can trace their princely or noble origin several centuries back. I can reinstate many a man in his princely dignity, by showing his origin from Vladímir Monomákh, or even from Rúrik. Dear sir,” he continued, as he pointed to his papers, “all Great-Russian nobles ought to purchase my work, paying for it more than for any other wares. But with the leave of your High Birth, Noble Birth, or High and Noble Birth, for I do not know how to honour you, they do not know what they need. You know how the orthodox Tsar Feódor Aleksyéevich of blessed memory has injured the Russian nobility by doing away with the prefecture. That severe legislation placed many honourable princely and royal families on a level with the Nóvgorod nobility. But the orthodox Emperor Peter the Great has entirely put them in the shade by his Table of Ranks. He opened the way to all for obtaining the title of nobility through military and civil service, and he, so to say, has trampled the old nobility in the dirt. Our Most Gracious Mother, now reigning, has confirmed the former decrees by her august Law of the Nobility, which has very much disquieted all our higher nobles, for the old families are placed in the Book of the Nobility lower than the rest. There is, however, a rumour that there will soon be issued a supplementary decree by which those families that can trace their noble origin two or three hundred years back will be granted the title of Marquis or something like it, so that they will have some distinguishing feature from the other families. For this reason, dear sir, my work must be acceptable to all the old nobility. But there are rascals everywhere. In Moscow I fell in with a company of young gentlemen to whom I proposed my work, in order to be repaid through their kindness at least for the paper and ink wasted upon it. But instead of kindness they heaped raillery upon me; so I left that capital from grief, and am on my way to St. Petersburg, where there is more culture.”

Saying this, he made a deep bow, and straightening himself up, stood before me with the greatest respect. I understood his thought, took something out of my purse and, giving it to him, advised him to sell his paper by weight to peddlers for wrapping paper, for the prospective marquisates would only turn people’s heads, and he would be the cause of a recrudescence of an evil, now passed in Russia, of boasting of old genealogies.

LYUBÁNI

I suppose it is all the same to you, whether I travelled in summer or winter, especially since it is not uncommon for travellers to travel both summer and winter, starting out in a sleigh and returning in a wheel carriage. The corduroy road wore out my sides. I crawled out of the kibítka, and started on foot. While I was lying in the kibítka, my thoughts were directed to the immeasurableness of the world, and while my soul flitted away from the earth, it seemed easier to bear the jostling of the carriage. But spiritual exercises do not always distract our corporeality, and it was in order to save my sides that I went on foot.

A few steps from the road I noticed a peasant who was ploughing his field. It was warm; I looked at my watch: it was twenty minutes to one. I left the city on Saturday, so it was Sunday then. The peasant that was ploughing evidently belonged to a landowner that did not receive any tax from him. The peasant was ploughing with great care; evidently the field did not belong to the master. He was turning the plough with remarkable ease.

“God aid you!” I said as I approached the ploughman, who did not stop but finished the furrow he had begun.

“God aid you!” I repeated.

“Thank you, sir!” said the ploughman as he cleaned the ploughshare and transferred the plough to a new furrow.

“You are, of course, a dissenter, since you work on Sunday.”

“No, sir, I make the correct sign of the cross,” he said, and showed me his three fingers put together; “but God is merciful and does not want a person to starve, as long as he has a family and sufficient strength.”

“Have you not any time to work during the week, that you work on a Sunday, and at that in a great heat?”

“In the week, sir, there are six days, and we have to work for the manor six times a week, and in the evening we haul the hay from the meadows, if the weather is good; and on holidays the women and girls go to the woods to gather mushrooms and berries. God grant a rain this evening,” he added as he made the sign of the cross. “Sir, if you have any peasants, they are praying for the same.”

“I have no peasants, my friend; and so nobody curses me. Have you a large family?”

“Three sons and three daughters. My eldest is ten years old.”

“How do you manage to get enough grain, if you have only the Sundays to yourself?”

“Not only the Sundays,--the nights are ours too. We need not starve, if we are not lazy. You see, one horse is resting; and when this one gets tired, I’ll take the other, and that’s the way I make my work count.”

“Do you work the same way for your master?”

“No, sir! It would be sinful to work the same way; he has in his fields one hundred hands for one mouth, and I have but two hands for seven mouths, if you count it up. If you were to work yourself to death at your master’s work, he would not thank you for it. The master will not pay the capitation tax; he will let you have no mutton, no hempen cloth, no chicken, no butter. Our people are fortunate in those places where the master receives a rent from the peasant, particularly without a superintendent! It is true, some good masters ask more than three roubles for each soul, yet that is better than tenant labour. They are now getting in the habit of letting farms out to renters who, being poor, flay us alive. They do not give us our own time, and do not let us go out in the winter to work for ourselves, because they pay our capitation tax. It is a devilish idea to let one’s peasants do work for somebody else! There is at least a chance of complaining against a superintendent, but to whom is one to complain against a tenant?”

“My friend! You are mistaken: the laws do not permit to torture people.”

“Torture, yes! But, sir, you would not want to be in my hide!” In the meantime the ploughman hitched another horse to his plough and, bidding me good-bye, began a new furrow.

The conversation with this agriculturist awakened a multitude of thoughts in me. Above all, I thought of the inequality of the peasant’s condition. I compared the crown peasants with those of the proprietors. Both live in villages, but while the first pay a stated tax, the others have to be ready to pay whatever the master wishes. The first are judged by their peers; the others are dead to the laws, except in criminal matters. A member of society only then is taken cognisance of by the Government that protects him when he violates the social bond, when he becomes a criminal! That thought made all my blood boil. Beware, cruel proprietor! On the brow of every one of your peasants I see your condemnation!

Absorbed in these thoughts I accidentally turned my eyes to my servant, who was sitting in front of me in the kibítka and was shaking from side to side. I felt a sudden darkness come over me, which passed through all my blood and drove a burning feeling upwards and made it spread over my face. I felt so heartily ashamed of myself, that I wanted to cry. “In your anger,” I said to myself, “you attack the cruel master who maltreats his peasants in the field; and are you not doing the same, or even worse? What crime did your poor Petrúshka commit that you do not allow him to enjoy the comfort of our misfortunes, the greatest gift of Nature to the unfortunate man,--sleep? ‘He receives his pay, his food and dress; I never have him whipped with a scourge or sticks.’ O you kind man! You think that a piece of bread and a rag give you the right to treat a being that resembles you as a top? You are merely boasting that you do not very often whip it as it is whirling about. Do you know what is written in the first law of each man’s heart? ‘If I strike anyone, he has the right to strike me also.’ Remember the day when Petrúshka was drunk and did not dress you fast enough! Remember how you boxed his ears! Oh, if he had then, drunk as he was, come to his senses, and had answered your question in a befitting manner! Who has given you the right over him? The law! Law! And you dare besmirch that sacred name! Wretch!...” Tears flowed from my eyes, and in this condition the post horses brought me to the next station.

Alexander Onisímovich Ablesímov. (1742-1783.)

Ablesímov was a frequent contributor to several periodical publications; his contributions present no special interest, but he gained a great reputation by his comic opera _The Miller_, which, though it is an imitation of a foreign original, was the first play to introduce a popular element, taken directly from the life of the people. The public hailed this comedy as a new departure; it was given to crowded houses twenty-seven times in succession, and a number of imitations appeared with the same element of sorcery and country life for their background.

THE MILLER