Chapter XVI: Act V: SCENE 1. TWILIGHT. KULÍGIN (sitting on a bench), KABANÓV (1)

(_walking in the square_)

_Kulígin_ (_singing_).

“In darkness shrouded are the skies,--
To rest themselves all close their eyes.”

(_noticing Kabanóv_). Good-evening, sir! Which way are you bound?

_Kabanóv._ Home. Good friend, have you heard what has happened with us? Our whole family is upset.

_Kulígin._ Yes, I have heard so, sir.

_Kabanóv._ I have been away to Moscow, you know. Mamma kept giving me all kinds of instructions for my journey, but no sooner I got away, than I began having a good time. I was so happy to be free. I drank all the way up, and I kept on drinking in Moscow. I just went on a spree to last me for a whole year! Not even once did I stop to think of home, and if I did, I never should have dreamed what has happened here. You have heard about it?

_Kulígin._ Yes, I have, sir.

_Kabanóv._ My friend, I am a miserable man now! I am ruined just for nothing, for no cause at all.

_Kulígin._ Your mother is rather harsh.

_Kabanóv._ That ’s so. She is the cause of it all. Do tell me, why should I suffer for it? I just stopped at Dikóy’s,--well, we took a drink together; I thought it might make me feel easier, but no, Kulígin, it ’s worse! See, how my wife has treated me! It could not be worse----

_Kulígin._ It ’s a mixed-up affair, sir. It is hard to judge between you.

_Kabanóv._ No, don’t say that. What can there be worse? It is not enough to kill her for that. Mamma says she ought be buried alive for a punishment! But I love her, and it makes me feel bad to lay a finger upon her. I did give her some blows, but mamma told me to do so. You must understand, Kulígin, that I feel sorry for her. Mamma torments her to death, and she walks around like a shadow and does not say a word. She does nothing but weep, and she is melting away like wax. And I worry myself to death, as I look at her.

_Kulígin._ Could you not, sir, make up with her? You ought to forgive her, and never mention the affair again. I suppose you yourself are not without sin!

_Kabanóv._ Of course not!

_Kulígin._ Only you must not reproach her when you are drunk! She would make you a good wife, sir, I am sure, better than any other.

_Kabanóv._ Don’t you see, Kulígin, it is all right with me, but mamma--there is no getting along with her!----

_Kulígin._ It is time, sir, to live by your own wits.

_Kabanóv._ Well, what am I to do,--to tear myself to pieces? They say, I have no sense of my own, and so I have to live by other people’s sense. I tell you, I ’ll drink away whatever little sense I have left, let mamma then bother with me as with a senseless fool.

_Kulígin._ It is bad, sir! Well, and Borís Grigórevich, what about him?

_Kabanóv._ They are sending that scoundrel to Kyákhta, into China. His uncle is sending him to the office of a merchant whom he knows there. He is going there for three years.

_Kulígin._ Well, what does he do, sir?

_Kabanóv._ He is suffering, too: he weeps. We fell upon him, his uncle and I, and we kept scolding him, but he did not say a word. He acts like a wild man. “Do with me what you please,” says he, “only do not torment her!” He is pitying her too.

_Kulígin._ He is a good man, sir.

_Kabanóv._ He is ready for the journey, and the horses are waiting. He is pining for her dreadfully. He wants to say good-bye to her, I see. What do I care? He has done enough harm. He is my enemy, you know, Kulígin! He ought to be quartered, so that he might know----

_Kulígin._ We must forgive our enemies, sir!

_Kabanóv._ Go and talk to mamma about that, and see what she will tell you. Yes, friend Kulígin, all our family is now broken up. They are acting not like relatives to each other, but like enemies. Mamma has been nagging Várvara so long; she could stand it no longer, and so she just got up, and ran away.

_Kulígin._ Where has she gone?

_Kabanóv._ Who knows? They say she has run away with Vánka Kudryásh, and he can’t be found anywhere either. Now, Kulígin, I must tell you that is all mamma’s doing: she has been tormenting her, and locking her up. “Don’t lock me up,” she said, “or it will be only worse!” And just so it has happened. Do tell me, what I am to do now! Do instruct me how to live now! I loathe the house, I am ashamed to meet people, and if I try to work, my hands drop helpless. Here I am going home, but it is not to find pleasure there. (_Enter Glásha._)

_Glásha._ Tíkhon Iványch!

_Kabanóv._ What is it now?

_Glásha._ Things have gone wrong at home, sir!

_Kabanóv._ Lord! There has been enough trouble! Speak, what is it?

_Glásha._ Your good wife----

_Kabanóv._ Well, what? Is she dead?

_Glásha._ No, sir, she has gone off, and we can’t find her anywhere. We have run our legs off, trying to find her.

_Kabanóv._ Kulígin! We must look for her. Do you know, friend, what I am afraid of? That in her wretchedness she may lay hands upon herself! It is just terrible, how she is grieving! It makes my heart burst to look at her. (_To Glásha._) That is the way you have watched her. Is it long she has been gone?

_Glásha._ Not very long, sir! It is our fault, we did not watch her better. However, one can’t be watching every minute.

_Kabanóv._ Well, what are you standing for? Go, run! (_Exit Glásha._) Let us go, too, Kulígin! (_Exeunt. The stage is empty for a little while. From the opposite side enters Katerína, and slowly walks across the stage._)

SCENE 2. KATERÍNA ALONE. (_During the whole monologue and the
following scenes she speaks slowly and repeats words, as if in
thought and in a state of forgetfulness._)

_Katerína._ No, he is nowhere! What is he doing now,--the poor fellow? If I only could bid him good-bye, and then--and then I do not mind dying. Why did I lead him into misfortune? I am no better off for that! I alone ought to suffer! As it is, I have ruined myself, and I have ruined him: to me--dishonour, to him--eternal remorse! Yes, to me--dishonour, to him--eternal remorse. (_Silence._) If I only could think what he said to me? How he pitied me? What were the words he said? (_Clasps her head._) I can’t remember them, I have forgotten everything. The nights, the nights weigh heavily upon me! All lie down to sleep, I too. All feel well, but I feel as if I were going into the grave. It is so terrible in the dark! I hear a noise and singing, as if they were burying someone, only so soft, and barely heard, far, far from me---- How glad one is when daylight comes! But I do not like to get up,--the same people again, the same talks, the same torment. Why do they look that way at me? Why don’t they kill nowadays? Why have they changed it? They say, they used to kill. If they took and threw me into the Vólga, I should be happy. “If we kill you,” they say, “your sin will be taken from you; so live and be tormented for your sin.” I have suffered enough! How much longer shall I suffer? What am I to live for now, yes, what for? I want nothing,--nothing gives me pleasure, God’s world gives me no pleasure! But death does not come. You call for it, but it does not come. Whatever I see, whatever I hear, causes me pain here (_points to her heart_). If I could live with him, maybe there would be some pleasure yet for me. Well, what difference does it make? I have lost my soul anyway. How I long for him! Oh, how I long for him! If I cannot see you, hear me at least from far away! Boisterous winds, bear my grief to him! O Lord, I am weary, I am weary! (_Walks to the river bank and cries at the top of her voice_:) My joy, my soul, my life, I love you! Answer! (_Weeps. Enter Borís._)

SCENE 3. KATERÍNA AND BORÍS

_Borís_ (_not seeing Katerína_). O Lord! That is her voice! Where is she? (_Looks round._)

_Katerína_ (_runs up to him and falls on his neck_). At last I see you again! (_Weeps on his breast. Silence._)

_Borís._ Well, God has granted us to weep together.

_Katerína._ You have not forgotten me?

_Borís._ How can you speak of forgetting?

_Katerína._ Oh, no, it was not that, not that! You are not angry?

_Borís._ Angry for what?

_Katerína._ Forgive me! I did not mean to do you any harm: I was not free myself. I did not know what I said, and what I did.

_Borís._ Don’t speak of it! Don’t!

_Katerína._ Well, how is it with you? What are you going to do?

_Borís._ I am going away.

_Katerína._ Where are you going?

_Borís._ Far away, Kátya, to Siberia.

_Katerína._ Take me away from here.

_Borís._ I can’t, Kátya. I am not going of my own will: my uncle is sending me off, and the horses are waiting already. My uncle gave me but a minute to be away; I wanted to bid farewell to the place where we used to see each other.

_Katerína._ God speed you! Do not grieve over me. At first, I suppose, you, poor fellow, will pine for me, but you will soon forget me.

_Borís._ Let us not talk of me! I am a free bird! But how will it be with you? What of your mother-in-law?

_Katerína._ She torments me, she locks me up. She tells everybody, and my husband too: “Do not trust her, she is sly!” They follow me all day and laugh at me before my eyes. At every word they reproach me with you.

_Borís._ And your husband?

_Katerína._ He is now kind, and now angry, but he is drinking all the time. I loathe him, I loathe him; I loathe his kindness worse than his blows.

_Borís._ It is hard for you, Kátya.

_Katerína._ Yes, so hard, so hard, that death would be easier!

_Borís._ Who could have told that we would have to suffer so for our love? It would have been better if I had run away then.

_Katerína._ It was for misfortune that I saw you. I have seen little joy, but oh, how much sorrow! And how much there is still ahead of me! Well, what use is there to think of what will be? I am seeing you now, and that they will not take away from me! I need nothing else. All I wanted was to see you. Now I feel much more at ease: as though a mountain had rolled off my shoulders. And there, I thought that you were angry with me, that you cursed me----

_Borís._ How could you? How could you?

_Katerína._ No, it is not that I mean. I wanted to say something else. I was longing for you, that is it; and now, I have seen you----

_Borís._ If they should find us here!

_Katerína._ Wait, wait! I wanted to tell you something! I have forgotten again! Something important I had to tell you! my head is in a whirl, I can’t remember anything.

_Borís._ It is time for me to go, Kátya!

_Katerína._ Wait, wait!

_Borís._ Well, what was it you wanted to say?

_Katerína._ I will tell you right away. (_Thinking a moment._) Yes! As you will travel on the road, don’t let any beggar go by without giving him something, and tell them to pray for my sinful soul.

_Borís._ Ah, if these people knew how hard it is for me to leave you! God grant they may some day feel as bad as I do now! Good-bye, Kátya! (_Embraces her and is about to go._) Rascals! Monsters! If I only had the power!

_Katerína._ Wait, wait! Let me take a last look at you! (_Looks into his eyes._) That will do me! Now, God be with you! Go, go quickly!

_Borís_ (_walks a few steps and stops_). Kátya, something is wrong! You have something in your mind! I shall worry on my journey, thinking of you!

_Katerína._ No, no! God speed you! (_Borís is about to walk up to her._) Don’t, don’t, that is enough!

_Borís_ (_sobbing_). Well, God be with you! I must pray to God that she may die soon, that she may not suffer long! Farewell! (_Greets her._)

_Katerína._ Farewell! (_Exit Borís. Katerína follows him with her eyes and stands a while, lost in thought._)

SCENE 4. KATERÍNA (_alone_)

Where shall I go now? Home? No, I might as well go into the grave. What--home, what--grave? It is better in the grave---- A little grave under a tree--how nice!---- The sun warms it, the rain waters it--in the spring the grass, the soft grass will grow up--the birds will fly to that tree, they will sing, and will bring up their little ones, the flowers will bloom: yellow, red, blue, all kinds of flowers (_in thought_), all kinds of flowers---- How quiet! how nice! I almost feel better! I do not wish even to think of life! To live again? No, no, I do not wish it--it is not good! I loathe the people, I loathe the house, I loathe the walls! I will not go there! No, no, I will not! If I go to them, they will come and talk to me, and what is that to me? Ah, it is dark! And they are singing somewhere! What are they singing? I cannot make it out---- Oh, if I could die now---- What are they singing? It is all the same whether death will come to me, or I myself--no, I cannot live! It is a sin! They will not pray for me? He who loves me, will pray---- They cross the hands over the breast--in the coffin! Yes, it is so--I remember. And if they catch me, they will take me home by force---- Ah, quickly, quickly! (_Goes to the river bank. Aloud._) My friend! My joy! Farewell! (_Exit. Enter Mrs. Kabanóv, Kabanóv, Kulígin, and a workman with a lantern._)

SCENE 5. MRS. KABANÓV, KABANÓV, AND KULÍGIN

_Kulígin._ They say, they saw her here.

_Kabanóv._ Is it certain?

_Kulígin._ They certainly saw her.

_Kabanóv._ Thank the Lord they saw her alive.

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ And you have been frightened and crying! And for whom? Don’t fret: she will give us plenty of trouble yet.

_Kabanóv._ Who would have thought that she would come here! It is such a public place. Who would ever think of hiding here.

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ You see for yourself what she is doing. The creature she is! She wants to keep up her character! (_People come from all sides with lanterns._)

_One of the Crowd._ Well, have you found her?

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ Why, no. She is vanished.

_A Few Voices._ I declare! That is strange! Where could she hide?

_One of the Crowd._ She will be found!

_Another._ Of course, she will be!

_A Third._ She will come herself, I think. (_A voice behind the scene_: “Hoa there, a boat!”)

_Kulígin_ (_from the river bank_). Who is calling? What is up? (_Voice_: “A woman has thrown herself in the water!” _Kulígin and several men after him run out._)

SCENE 6. THE SAME WITHOUT KULÍGIN

_Kabanóv._ O God, it is she! (_Wants to run off. Mrs. Kabanóv holds him back._) Mamma, let me go, I must! I will save her! or I will myself--what is the use of living without her!

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ I will not let you, indeed not! Kill yourself for her sake!--is she worth it? She has brought enough disgrace on us without this!

_Kabanóv._ Let me!

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ They ’ll save her without you. I ’ll curse you if you go.

_Kabanóv_ (_falling on his knees_). Just to look at her!

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ You will look at her when they have pulled her out.

_Kabanóv_ (_rises. To the crowd._) Well, friends, did you see anything?

_First._ It is dark down there, you can’t see anything. (_A noise behind the scene._)

_Second._ They are calling there, but I can’t make out what.

_First._ That is Kulígin’s voice.

_Second._ They are walking along the bank with a lantern.

_First._ They are coming this way. They are carrying her. (_A few people are returning._)

_One of the Returning Men._ Kulígin is a fine fellow! Here close by, in the whirlpool, by the shore: with the fire we could see a distance off in the water, and he saw her dress, and pulled her out.

_Kabanóv._ Is she alive?

_Another Man._ Alive? Why, she leaped high: the bank is steep here, and she must have fallen on an anchor, the poor woman is bruised! And yet, my friends, she looks as though alive! Only on the temple there is a small wound, and only one small drop of blood. (_Kabanóv starts to run, and meets Kulígin with the people carrying Katerína._)

SCENE 7. THE SAME AND KULÍGIN

_Kulígin._ Here is your Katerína. Do with her what you please! Her body is here, take it; but her soul is not yours now: she is now before the Judge who is more merciful than you! (_Puts her on the ground and runs away._)

_Kabanóv_ (_rushes to Katerína_). Kátya! Kátya!

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ Enough! It is a sin even to weep for her!

_Kabanóv._ Mamma, you have killed her! You! You!

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ How dare you? Are you forgetting yourself? Do you know to whom you are speaking?

_Kabanóv._ You have killed her! You! You!

_Mrs. Kabanóv._ I ’ll talk to you at home. (_Bowing low to the people._) I thank you, good people, for your services! (_All bow._)

_Kabanóv._ It is well with you, Kátya! But why am I left in this world to suffer! (_Falls on his wife’s body._)

Mikhaíl Evgráfovich Saltykóv. (pseud. Shchedrín). (1826-1889.)

Saltykóv was descended from an ancient noble family. He received his
first education at home, at ten years of age entered the Moscow
Institute for Sons of Noblemen, and two years later was chosen, on
account of his excellent progress, to be sent to the Lyceum at
Tsárskoe-Seló. In that school the memory of its distinguished alumnus,
Púshkin, was still fresh, and it was expected that there should be a
continuator of the great poet in every class. Thus Saltykóv wrote his
first poem in 1841, but he soon abandoned poetry for satire. After
leaving the Lyceum, Saltykóv threw himself into the whirlpool of
pleasures, even in this emulating the older generation. In 1847
appeared his first story. The following year he wrote _A Mixed
Affair_, which, like his previous effort, was quite weak and
insignificant, but as it happened to have made its appearance in the
critical year 1848, when the censorship was unusually severe, he was
suspected of evil purposes and was banished to the Government of
Vyátka. He there remained eight years, but served with distinction
under the Governor and rose to various posts of eminence. Upon his
return from exile he published his _Provincial Sketches_, in which he
gave some gloomy pictures of provincial oppression and dishonesty.
Saltykóv created a special language for his satires, which, on account
of the endless allusions and masterly word-creations, are the despair
of the translator and have made his admirable works less known abroad
than they deserve to be. In his long literary career Saltykóv has
adapted himself to the conditions of the time, and thus his satires
give a continuous record of the reverse of Russian life for upwards of
forty years. Among his best works are _Pompadours and Pompadouresses_,
_The Tashkentians_, _Refuge Monrepos_, _Diary of a Provincial at St.
Petersburg_, and his famous _The Golovlévs_, which enjoys a reputation
like Gógol’s _Dead Souls_.

In English translation are to be found: _Tchinovniks_, _Sketches of
Provincial Life_, from the memoirs of the retired Conseiller de Cour
Stchedrin (Saltikow), translated with notes from the Russian by F.
Aston, London, 1861; _The Recollections of Onésime Chenapan_, _The
Self-Sacrificing Rabbit_, and _The Eagle as Mecænas_, in _The Humour
of Russia_, by E. L. Voynich, London and New York, 1895; in Free
Russia were given _The Fool_, in vol. i., No. 5, _The Deceitful Editor
and the Credulous Reader_, in vol. i., No. 9, _Story of how One
Peasant Saved Two Generals_, in vol. ii., No. 6, and _Misha and
Vania_, in vol. iii., Nos. 6 and 7.

FROM “BEYOND THE BORDER”

Having grown tired of my fruitless sojourn in the world of concrete facts, I self-confidently attempted to fly as a steel-grey eagle into the sphere of abstractions. In my younger days I took such flights quite often. Together with my other companions I liked to pamper myself with excursions into that region where one is supposed to get “revelations of invisible things,” and, I remember, these excursions were a source of great pleasure to me. I cannot say I saw that region clearly defined, but, in any case, the contemplation of it evoked in me no fear, but a decidedly pleasurable sensation. In general, we then lived with more vigour (of course, I have in view only myself and my contemporaries), though I must confess our basal fund of life was impaired by inconsistencies that bordered on frivolities. Two lives went side by side: one, so to say, _pro domo_, the other for the fear of the Jews, that is, in the manner of a justificatory document to the authorities.

You are sitting at home and with your whole being, so to say, have transferred yourself into the sphere of the “revelation of invisible things.” Suddenly, the fateful hour strikes,--run to your bureau! You don your trowsers and your office uniform, and fifteen minutes later you are in an entirely different sphere, in the sphere of the “confirmation of visible things.” Of course, the questions in the two places are quite different. In the first sphere the question is whether the golden age is to be sought behind or before us; in the second the question is the establishment of golden ages by means of provincial government offices and departments of charity, on the basis of explicit statutory enactments anent this subject. You stay there a while, scratch your pen, and behold! again strikes the fateful hour. You run home again, change your trowsers, put on a coat or a smoking-jacket, and you transport yourself once more into the sphere of the “revelation of invisible things.” Thus our youth passed----

The present generation will, no doubt, regard this running from one sphere into another as not very consistent, but in those days we managed to unite them, and we felt no awkwardness. And now, after many, many years, passing in accidental solitude, the stream of my youth has suddenly burst upon me. Come, thought I, I will run, as in olden days. However, I did not get as far as running, for, though my youthful recollections streamed upon me with vim, I had to convince myself that my legs were not what they used to be, and that the blood in my veins was no longer the same. And then, the questions that these recollections brought back--really, I do not know what to call them. Some, who are more lenient, call them untimely, while others, who are unquestionably evil-minded, blankly call them harmful---- Well, you may judge for yourself.

The first question: “Does history console?” Some forty years ago--I am quite sure of it--I should in all truth have answered: “Yes, it consoles.” But what shall I say now? To tell the truth, I have even forgotten how to think by principles, without prefatory admixtures. I begin with the tenebrousness of Time, and no sooner does light begin to glimmer than I strike river Pinéga with Vilyúy, or some statute of abatement, and there I stick fast. Precisely that has happened now. Barely had the question peeped at me, and barely had I proceeded to dismember it, when God knows whence bobbed up Major-General Terrible and so flashed his eyes at me that I was completely stunned. “No, I had better to-morrow--” I confusedly said to myself, and I that very moment hastened to duck so that my ears might not be seen.

The second question: “Can one live with the people, and depend upon them?” Forty years ago I certainly should have answered: “One not only can, but it is not possible to live otherwise.” Now---- No sooner do I begin to expatiate and prove “from principle” that human activity outside of the sphere of the people is objectless and senseless, than the hide of my whole being begins to shudder. There stare at me those fellows of Hunting Row,[22] those colabourers of Hay Market, and, at last, a whole mass of temporising rascals, _à la_ Napoleon III., who, too, had proclaimed: _tout pour le peuple et par le peuple_---- Of course, the conclusion was that I had better to-morrow----

The third question: “Is it possible to lead a life in which you are supposed to eat mushroom pie exclusively that you may restrain your tongue behind your teeth?” Forty years ago I, no doubt, should have answered again: “No, it is not possible to live that way.” And now?--Now: “No, I had better to-morrow----”

In short, I attempted to give answers to a whole stack of questions, but alas! neither concreteness, nor abstraction,--nothing awakened impotent thought. I struggled for quite a while, and I came very near calling out: “Vódka!” but fortunately that drink is not so accessible in Paris as to console one at will.

So I lay me down to sleep, having carried away from my two-days’ blues the truth that under certain conditions of life a spree must be considered not so much from the standpoint of a vitiated will as in the sense of an irrepressible necessity of a grieving soul---- I had a disturbed, painful dream. At first there hovered before me some incoherent fragments, but by degrees they formed themselves into something connected, there was a whole colloquy, the heroine of which was--a swine! However, this colloquy is so interesting that I do not regard it nugatory to share it with my readers in the form in which my memory has preserved it.

THE TRIUMPHANT SWINE, OR THE CONVERSATION OF THE SWINE WITH TRUTH--AN
INTERRUPTED SCENE

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

SWINE, _stall-fed beast; his bristles have become glossy and shining
as the result of uninterrupted contact with the stable mire_.

TRUTH, _a person that, by rights, is supposed to be eternally young,
but in reality is badly knocked up. By order of the authorities she
is covered with rags, through which glints her full classical
uniform_, i. e., _nakedness_.

_The action takes place in the stable._

_Swine_ (_screwing up his face_). Is it true what they say, that the sun is shining in the sky?

_Truth._ Yes, Swine.

_Swine._ Really? I have never seen any of your suns here in the stable where I live.

_Truth._ That ’s so, Swine, because when Nature was creating you, she kept on saying: ’T is not for you, O Swine, to see the bright sun!

_Swine._ You don’t say! (_Authoritatively._) In my opinion, all these suns of yours are rank heresy--eh?

(_Truth, silent and embarrassed, arranges her rags. In the audience are heard voices: “You are right, Swine! Heresy! Heresy!”_)

_Swine_ (_continues to grimace_). Is it so?--I have heard that they say in papers that liberty is the most precious possession of human society?

_Truth._ Yes, Swine.

_Swine._ In my opinion, we are surfeited with liberty. Here, I have been living without intermission in this stable, and I have no worry! What more do I want? If I take a notion, I stick my snout in the trough, or rummage the manure----what more liberty do I want? (_Authoritatively._) You are all traitors, as I look at you--eh?

(_Truth again tries to conceal her nakedness. The audience shouts: “You are right, Swine! Traitors! Traitors!” Some of the audience demand that Truth shall be taken to the police station. The swine grunts with self-satisfaction, seeing himself equal to the situation._)

_Swine._ What ’s the use, taking Truth to the station? They ’ll only keep her there for appearances, and then they ’ll let her out again. (_Lies down in the manure, and falls into sentimentality._) Oh, nowadays those police people speak the same language as the feuilleton writers! A few days ago I read in a paper that the cause of our weakness is that our laws are only written for appearances----

_Truth._ So you read, Swine?

_Swine._ Now and then. Only I do not take it in as it is written---- I understand it as I please---- (_To the audience._) So, as I say, my friends! We will not send her to the police station, we ’ll get at her in our own way---- To-day we ’ll put one little question to her, and to-morrow--two---- (_Meditating._) We won’t get away with her at once,--we ’ll just chaw her by degrees---- (_Panting, approaches Truth, grabs her by her calf, and begins to bite her._) That ’s the way!

(_Truth shrinks with pain; the audience yells. Shouts are heard: “You are a brick, Swine! You are a good one!”_)

_Swine._ What? You like it? Well, that ’ll be enough for this time! (_Stops chawing._) Now, tell me, where is the root of evil?

_Truth_ (_confused_). The root of evil, Swine? The root of evil--the root of evil--is (_with decision, and unexpectedly to herself_) in you, Swine!

_Swine_ (_furious_). Ah, that ’s the way you talk! Now, look out! Did n’t you say that universal truth was incomparably superior to police-truth?

_Truth_ (_trying to avoid a direct answer_). Though under certain conditions of life, one cannot deny----

_Swine._ Stop wagging your tail! We have heard of those ifs and buts before! Talk straight! Is there in your opinion a certain special truth that is superior to police-truth?

_Truth._ O Swine, how treacherously mean----

_Swine._ Very well, we ’ll talk later about that. (_Treading with heavier step._) Go ahead! Is it true you have said that the laws must protect all alike, for, say you, otherwise human society would change into a chaotic mass of warring elements? What kind of laws have you been talking about? What was the cause, madam, of your glibness, and at whose door did you wish to place it--eh?

_Truth._ Ah, Swine!

_Swine._ Swine me no swine to my snout! I know without you that I am a swine. I am a swine, and you are Truth---- (_The swine’s grunting sounds like irony._) Go, Swine, make for Truth! (_Begins to chaw. To the audience._) Fine, is n’t it?

(_Truth shudders with pain. The audience goes into convulsions. On all sides is heard: “Fine! Give it to her, Swine! Give it to her! Go for her! Chaw her! Look at that impudent one; she dares have anything to say!”_)

────────────────────────────────────

The colloquy was interrupted here. I could not make out anything else, because there was raised such a hubbub in the stable that I could only dimly catch the sounds: “Is it true that in the university----” “Is it true that in the female colleges----” In a twinkling of the eye Truth was enmeshed in a whole net of stupidly treacherous deceit, and every attempt at disentangling from that net was met by the swine’s chawing and the thunder of the crowd: “Friends, let us judge her with the people’s judgment!”

I lay like one fettered, expecting any moment to be chawed up myself. I, who had all my life been repeating in frivolous self-confidence: “God won’t permit it, the swine won’t eat me!”--suddenly yelled out at the top of my voice: “The swine will eat me up! He will!”

That very moment a loud rap at the door made me wake up.

[22] Poultry and game market.

Dmítri Ivánovich Písarev. (1841-1868.)

Písarev was the son of wealthy gentlefolk who gave him a very careful
training at home, so that at the age of four he spoke fluently three
languages, at the age of eleven entered an advanced class of the
Gymnasium, graduating with a gold medal, and at sixteen years was by
especial permission admitted to the university. While there, he
contributed some reviews for periodicals and wrote an elaborate
dissertation on Apollonius of Tyana. In 1862 he was arrested for
having furnished a secret printing establishment with an article on
Herzen, and was kept for four years in prison. Here he composed his
essays for which he is known. He taught a philosophic sensualism and
denied the value of art, and with it of poetry for art’s sake,--in
short, he stood on the standpoint of Bazárov in Turgénev’s _Fathers
and Sons_. He thus represented the reaction of the early sixties
against the opportunism of the previous decade. In his _Flowers of
Harmless Humour_ he made an attack against the satirist Shchedrín,
whom he advised to abandon his literary labours for the popularisation
of the sciences. He died by accidental drowning.

FLOWERS OF HARMLESS HUMOUR

Poets fare badly in our days. Their credit is rapidly sinking. Unfeeling critics and soulless scoffers are breaking down the public’s respect for the great mysteries of the unconscious creative power. Formerly they used to talk of a poet’s inspiration; formerly a poet was thought to be a favourite of the gods and an intimate of the Muses. Though these mythological metaphors were not supposed to be interpreted in a literal sense, yet under these metaphors one continually felt something good and mysterious, something intangible and inapproachable, something that must for ever remain inaccessible to us, poor clodhoppers. Fellows of our kind were permitted to learn something about it only from the indistinct accounts of the artists who “like gods have access to the Olympian halls,” where they are shown very interesting and frequently very immodest scenes.

Now all that has changed. Brother clodhopper has gathered an enormous force, and he undertakes to discuss everything. He does not acknowledge any inspiration, does not hanker for any Olympian halls, in spite of the fact that the poet gives a detailed account how a certain artist was once shown in these halls “a white nape’s curvedness” in “eternal ideals,” and things in general which “divinity discloses to mortals in paltry doles” (A. Máykov). Our brother clodhopper denies all that with his innate coarseness of feeling and boldness of expression. Those are all flowers of fancy, he says, but you had better tell us: What mental power does the poet possess? Is his development broad, and his culture thorough?

What questions these are! Are they pertinent? Are they refined? Is it permissible to summon a favourite of the gods and to question him like a guilty high-school boy? If it at all has come to such unheard of questions, if faith has been lost in divine inspiration, if the periodicals find it more interesting to have their correspondents in Paris or London, in Sarátov or Irkútsk, rather than upon Parnassus or in the Olympian halls,--then, of course, there is nothing left for the peaceable poet to do but to hang his darling lyre on a nail, and to enter the Government service or turn to the sombre occupations of agriculture. If it keeps on in that way, there will at last come a dramatic moment, when the last poet will embrace the last esthetician and, sobbing, will say to him:

“My friend, we are alone. The world has turned sour and is decaying. The microscope and the scalpel give us no rest. If we do not conceal ourselves or do not turn naturalists, they will put us alive into spirits, in order to preserve complete the last specimens of an extinct species that had remarkable external resemblances to man. My friend, when we die, the last gate that leads to the Olympian dwellings will be nailed up and securely hidden from view, not by bricks, but by a heap of all the unsold copies of my poems and all the uncut sheets of your critical essays.”

“Well,” will say the esthetician, “if it is so, then all is ended. The gate will for ever remain inaccessible! No man will ever climb, no animal will ever jump over my critiques and your poesy.” And, clasping each other in a tight embrace, as people embrace on the grave of everything that is dear to them, our last Mohicans will start on a run to the shop to buy themselves a microscope and chemical retorts, as appurtenances of a masquerade that is to save them from an untimely and involuntary descent into spirits. The history of the regenerated specimens of the extinct species will end by the esthetician’s and poet’s marriage, _à la face du soleil et de la nature_, to two girls who are medical practitioners and who in times of yore used to completely upset their present admirers by their incomprehensibly solid education, their indecently firm manner of thinking, and their complete absence of feminine grace, that is, weakness, silliness, and affectation. The children of these two happy pairs will get to hear some dim references to estheticians and poets, but their grandchildren will never hear that. Both species will become entirely unknown, as are unknown to us many slugs of the primeval world, that have left neither bones, nor shells, nor any other traces of their mundane existence.

From many separate features that are scattered in my prophetic improvisation, the reader may notice that its realisation belongs to a very distant future. In all likelihood the great-great-grandfathers and the great-great-grandmothers of the last esthetician and the last poet are at the present moment not yet in the wombs of their mothers; yet, in spite of the remoteness of the decisive catastrophe, there are evil omens of it even in our own time---- There are very many literary parasites, but out of the murky and miserable crowd of the intellectual proletariat rise only those who know how to acquire a flexible and variegated form of expression. These brilliant parasites carry form to a truly incredible perfection. They produce in their language the same kind of wonderful roulades that Kóntski does on the violin or Rubinstein on the piano. If this virtuosity is acquired by habit and practice, it, naturally, behooves to make use of it: it is a capital from which one must derive interest. And all the simple-minded reader has to do, is to roll his eyes and take in the wonder! One is present at the creation of a world in miniature: everything is made out of nothing; emptiness is made to appear as fulness, and it is made to appear fulness so naturally that one has only to shrug his shoulders: “Yes, he is an artist, a painter, a professor of white magic, a Bosco, and even a Mikháyla Vasílevich!” Of course, the public says “Ah!” and goes into ecstasies, and how can it help going into ecstasies, when the miracles are produced right before its eyes!

When the parasite begins to receive interest from his capital, he simply and definitely creates, in order to apply his technical skill to something. He has no prompting to tell society any ideas; he has no feeling that is persistently seeking to come out and manifest itself; he does not at all wish to act consciously upon the development of society in one direction or another; he is not a thinker, not a social factor, and not a poet in the higher and now forgotten sense of the word. He is a master workman of articles, novels, or verses, and, being a sensible artisan, he does not wish his skill to be lost in vain. Why should he sit with folded hands, having learned a trade? Why should he not start out on the hunt of roubles and laurel wreaths, as long as there are good people who lavish both in fair abundance?

His reasoning is faultless, and this reasoning leads straightway to the complete triumph and unlimited domination of pure art. Some people write because their being boils over with the impassioned work of mind and feelings. It is evident that their mind and feelings, being abroad because of the creative process, are roused by impressions that are independent of that process.

Others write in order to act upon society. The aim of their activity is independent of the process, as we see in Byelínski, Dobrolyúbov, and the author of _What is to be Done?_[23]

Others again write because they have learned to write and because they can write without the least labour, just as a nightingale sings and a rose exhales perfume. Their activity is causeless and aimless, that is, they have a cause and an aim, but these can have no effect upon the direction of the creative process. Suppose the versifier wants to have a beaver collar sewn on to his warm overcoat. Here is a stimulating cause for dipping his pen in the inkstand; however, he will, in all probability, not write of beaver collars, but of the vicissitudes of fate that affected three ancient sages,[24] or of the misfortunes of a poor girl who died in the spring by the sounds of her father’s fiddle, or of some other elevated and beautiful thing that has nothing in common with the tempting display of the furrier next door.

He has also an aim: the versifier wishes to sell his poem to a periodical, to get for it as much as possible, and to receive on account all they will give him. Yet Seneca, Lucan, and Lucius warmly discuss the immortality of the soul, and not where he will get most, whether in the “Contemporary” or the “Memoirs of the Fatherland.” And dying Mánya, in her last moments, is interested in the spring leafage, instead of disquieting herself with the ticklish question: I wonder whether they will let me have fifty roubles in advance at the “Russian Word”?

It is clear that cause and aim do not penetrate into the sanctuary of creativeness. The sanctuary remains unpolluted, and people that pine for a beaver collar and that dream of a tempting advance payment may be recognised as high priests of pure art. The question will, naturally, not be changed if instead of a beaver collar I should put a craving for literary glory, and instead of an advance payment of fifty roubles--applauses at public readings. The priest of pure art will in either case remain true to his vocation, and in either case he will remain a magnificent specimen of the genus parasite.

If it is not quite clear to the readers why our lyric poets, who represent a complete absence of ideas, may be included in the list of parasites that despoil the ideas of others, I will at once set them aright. Our lyric poets feed their destitution on the tiniest grains of thought and feelings that are the common possession of all men, stupid and wise, cultured and uncultured, honest and dishonest. Every man has some kind of a feeling when he looks at a pretty woman, and everybody knows that sensation and understands that it is known to others also, and that, consequently, it is useless and uninteresting to tell others about it. But the lyricists live, like the humming-birds, on flower dust; they have turned this trifling and well-known sentiment to their advantage and have begun to elicit an income from it, thanks to their ability to create something out of nothing and to clothe the intangible dust in thin-woven and variegated garments of iambics, chorees, anapests, dactyls, and amphibrachs.

The lyric poets, being tiny birds in the great family of parasites, prosper on what everybody knows and none but the lyric poets can or wish to make use of. Other larger parasites exploit in their favour not small grains of feeling and germs of thought, but whole, big feelings and whole, well-developed thoughts. These priests of pure art devour remarkable theories and majestic world conceptions. There are among these priests sparrows, and there are also elephants, and, as the proverb says, the bigger the vessel, the better the sailing,--the elephants, naturally, lay hold of the broadest and most daring world conceptions. They discuss with another’s voice the most important and the greatest questions of life; they perform their variations with so much aplomb and with such overpowering thunder that the reader is intimidated and reverentially bows his head before them.

But the temple of pure art is open alike for all its real devotees, for all the priests who have a pure heart and are innocent of independent mental labour. Thanks to this circumstance, the reader, though he may marvel and not believe his eyes, will see at the same altar, on the one hand, our little lyric poet Fet, on the other, our great humorist Shchedrín.

[23] Chernyshévski, whose name was tabooed by the censors.

[24] Máykov is meant; see p. 344.

Count Lev Nikoláevich Tolstóy. (1828-.)

Count Tolstóy was born in the estate of Yásnaya Polyána, in the
Government of Túla. In 1837 his family settled in Moscow, but his
father died soon after, and he returned to Yásnaya Polyána. In 1843 he
entered the university at Kazán, and in 1848 graduated from the
Faculty of Jurisprudence at St Petersburg. He again returned to his
estate, where he remained till 1851. He then enrolled in the army and
was stationed in the Caucasus, where he began his literary career with
his sketches, _Childhood_, _The Incursion_, _Boyhood_, _The Cossacks_.
He took part in the Crimean War, and during the campaign wrote his
stories about _Sebastopol_. After the war Tolstóy settled in St.
Petersburg, where he published a series of shorter stories. In these
his disenchantment with existing conditions is clearly perceptible. In
1862 he married the daughter of Doctor Behrs, and went back to the
estate of Yásnaya Polyána. Here he devoted himself to the education of
the peasants and edited an educational periodical, _Yásnaya Polyána_,
in which he evolved his radical views. Soon after he assumed a
negative attitude to all progress, and has remained in it ever since.
From 1865 to 1869 appeared his great novel _War and Peace_. Then he
again returned to his pedagogical activity, and composed a large
number of short stories for the peasants. In 1875 began to appear his
other great novel, _Ánna Karénin_. At the same time he wrote his
_Confession_, and devoted himself to the composition of theological
tracts. His newly formulated theory of a return to common labour and
simplicity of life has found many followers who emulate the life of
their master under the name of Tolstoyists.

The first novel of Tolstóy’s to be translated was _The Cossacks_, by
Eugene Schuyler, in 1878. Since then such a large number of
translations of most of his works have appeared that it is not
advisable to give them here; they may easily be found in late
publishers’ annuals. The following names figure as translators of
Tolstóy: A. Hulme Beaman, M. Cruger, E. J. Dillon, A. Delano, N. H.
Dole, H. Sutherland Edwards, Constance Garnett, G. B. Halsted, Isabel
Hapgood, Ch. Johnston, A. Loranger, Y. A. Ludwig, Louise Maude, W.
Aylmer Maude, Count Norraikow, C. Dopoff, S. Rapoport and J.
Kenworthy, V. Tchertkoff, W. M. Thompson, B. R. Tucker.

FROM “ÁNNA KARÉNIN”

“Do you know, I have been thinking of you,” said Sergyéy Ivánovich. “From what that doctor has told me, there are some awful things going on in your county; the doctor is quite a clever fellow. I have been telling you and I repeat it now: it is wrong for you not to go to the meetings and altogether to keep away from all agrarian interests. If decent people are going to withdraw from them, then, of course, everything will go God knows how. We are paying out money; it all goes on salaries, and we have no schools, no medical assistants, no midwives, no apothecary shops, nothing.”

“I have tried,” Levín answered softly and unwillingly, “but I can’t! What ’s to be done?”

“What is it that you can’t! I confess, I do not understand you. Indifference and inability I do not admit; is it, then, simply indolence?”

“Neither the one, nor the other, nor the third. I have tried, and I see that I can’t do anything,” said Levín.

He did not pay much attention to what his brother was saying. As he looked beyond the river at the field, he distinguished something black, but he could not make out whether it was a horse or a clerk on horseback.

“Why can’t you do anything? You have made an attempt, and in your opinion you did not succeed, so you have given it up. Have n’t you any ambition?”

“Ambition,” said Levín, touched to the quick by his brother’s words, “is incomprehensible to me. If they had told me in the university that others understand integral calculus, and that I do not, there would be a case for ambition. But here one must be convinced first of all that one must have a certain ability for that, and above all, that these affairs are really important.”

“Well, is n’t that important?” said Sergyéy Ivánovich, himself touched to the quick because his brother regarded as unimportant that which interested him, and because, evidently, he was not listening.

“It does not seem important to me, and does not interest me, so what are you going to do about that?” answered Levín, having in the meantime made out that what he saw was really the clerk and that the clerk had, no doubt, told the peasants to stop ploughing. They were turning over the ploughs. “Is it possible, they have done the ploughing?” he thought.

“But listen,” said his elder brother, with a frown on his beautiful, intelligent face, “there are limits to everything. It ’s all very nice to be an odd fellow, and a sincere man, and not to like deception,--I understand all that; but what you are saying has either no sense, or a very bad sense. How is it you find it unimportant that the people whom you profess to love----”

“I never professed,” thought Konstantín Levín.

“Are dying without receiving any aid? Coarse midwives are killing the children, and the people are steeped in ignorance and remain in the power of every scribe, whereas you have the means at hand to correct all that, and you do nothing, because in your opinion it is not important.”

Sergyéy Ivánovich had placed a dilemma before him: “Either you are so undeveloped that you cannot see all that you are able to do, or you do not wish to sacrifice your quiet and your vainglory, or what not, in order to do it.”

Konstantín Levín felt that there was nothing left for him to do but submit or confess an absence of love for the common weal. And this offended and grieved him.

“Both,” he spoke with decision; “I can’t see how one can----”

“What? You can’t, by making proper use of money, give them medical help?”

“As far as I can see, it is impossible---- I see no possibility of furnishing medical aid in all the places of the four thousand square versts of our county, with our freshets, blizzards, and working season. Besides, I have no faith in medicine.”

“Come now, that is not just---- I can give you a thousand examples---- Well, and schools?”

“What are the schools for?”

“You don’t mean that! Can there be any doubt of the use of education? If it is good for you, it is also good for everybody else.”

Konstantín Levín felt himself morally pushed to the wall, and so he became excited and involuntarily expressed the main cause of his indifference to the common good.

“May be all that is good. But why should I bother about establishing medical centres which I am not going to use, or schools to which I am not going to send my children, to which even the peasants do not want to send theirs, and I am not yet firmly convinced that they should?” said he.

This unexpected view of the affair for a moment startled Sergyéy Ivánovich; but he at once thought out a new plan of attack. He kept silent, pulled out one fishing-rod, threw it in at another place, and, smiling, turned to his brother.

“You will pardon me: in the first place, a medical centre is much needed. There, we had to send for the county doctor to attend to Agáfya Mikháylovna.”

“Well, I think her hand will always stay crooked.”

“That is an open question---- Then, a literate peasant will make a more useful labourer.”

“I don’t know, you may ask anybody you please,” answered Konstantín Levín emphatically,--“literate peasants are much worse as labourers. You can’t fix the roads with them; and if they have to build a bridge, they ’ll swipe the material.”

“However,” frowningly said Sergyéy Ivánovich, who did not like contradictions, especially such as continually jumped from one subject to another and without connection adduced new proofs, so that it was impossible to tell what to answer first, “however, that is not the question. Let me ask you, do you acknowledge education to be a benefit to the people?”