Chapter XIX: Act V: SCENE 1. TWILIGHT. KULÍGIN (sitting on a bench), KABANÓV (4)

There, we have walked away from the clearing where it was warmer than elsewhere, and yet a whole wakeful company was sitting there. That is, they were not all sitting. For example, the old bay, that was rummaging a hayrick at the danger of feeling the whip of coachman Antón, could not sit at all, being a horse; the caterpillar was not sitting either, but rather lying on its belly; but we need not be so particular about words. A small but very serious company was gathered under a cherry tree: a snail, a dung beetle, a lizard, and the above-mentioned caterpillar; then a grasshopper hopped up to them. Nearby stood the old bay, listening to their conversation with one of his bay ears, on the inside of which could be seen dark grey hairs. On the bay sat two flies.

The company discussed things politely, but with sufficient animation, and, as is proper in such cases, nobody agreed with his neighbour, for they all valued the independence of their opinions and characters.

“In my opinion,” said the Dung Beetle, “a decent animal must above all care for his posterity. Life is a labour for the next generation. He who conscientiously fulfils the obligations which Nature imposes upon him stands on a firm foundation. He knows what he has to do, and no matter what may happen, he is not responsible. Look at me: who works more than I? Who for whole days at a time rolls such a heavy ball, a ball that I have made with great art out of dung, with the great purpose in view of giving the opportunity to new dung beetles like myself to grow up? But then, I do not think there is anybody who has such a calm conscience, or could with such a pure heart say: ‘Yes, I have done all I can and all I ought to do,’ as I will say when these new dung beetles will see daylight. That ’s what I call labour!”

“Don’t mention your labour, friend!” said an Ant that during the Dung Beetle’s speech had dragged up an immense piece of a dry stalk. He stopped for a moment, sat down on his four hind legs, and with his two front legs wiped off the sweat from his tired-out face. “I work myself, and much harder than you! But you work for yourself, or, what is the same, for your baby beetles; not everybody is so fortunate as that. Just try dragging logs for the commonwealth’s stores, as I do! I do not know myself what it is that makes me work so hard, even in such hot weather. Nobody will say ‘thanks!’ to me for it. We, unlucky working ants, all work, and what good do we get out of it? It ’s just our fate!”

“You, Dung Beetle, look at life too dryly, and you, Ant, too gloomily,” protested the Grasshopper. “No, Beetle, I do like to chirrup and leap about a little, and, really, I have no scruples about it! Besides, you have not touched the question that Madam Lizard has put. She asked: ‘What is the world?’ and you are talking about your dung ball. Why, that is not even decent. The world is, in my opinion, a very good thing, if for nothing else, because we find in it juicy grass, the sun, and the breeze. And it is so big! Living under these trees, you can’t have the slightest conception how big it is. When I am in the field, I sometimes jump up as high as I can, and I assure you I reach an enormous height. I see from way up there that there is no end to the world.”

“That ’s right,” thoughtfully assented the Bay. “But all the same none of you will ever see one hundredth part of what I have seen in my lifetime. What a pity, you can’t understand what a verst is! A verst from here is the village Lupárevka: I go there every day with a barrel for water. But they never feed me there. On the other side is Efímovka and Kislyákovka; in the latter there is a church with a belfry. And then comes Svyáto-Tróitskoe, and then Bogoyávlensk. In Bogoyávlensk they always give me some hay, but the hay is not good there. And then there is Nikoláevsk,--that ’s a town, twenty-eight versts from here,--there the hay is better, and I get oats there; but I do not like to go to Nikoláevsk: our master generally drives there, and he tells the coachman to drive fast, and the coachman lays the whip on us dreadfully. And there are also Aleksándrovka, Byelózerka, Khérson,--that ’s a town too---- But how can you grasp that all! That is the world; I must say, not the whole world, but yet a considerable part of it.”

The Bay grew silent, but his lower lip was quivering as if whispering something. That was from old age: he was seventeen years old, and for a horse that is as much as seventy-seven for a man.

“I do not understand your wise equine words, and, I confess, I am not trying to catch their meaning,” said the Snail. “All I want is a burdock: it is now four days I have been crawling over one, and it is not yet all ended. Beyond this burdock there is another burdock, and in that burdock there is, no doubt, another snail. There you have it all. There is no need in leaping about,--that ’s all empty talk and bosh; stay where you are, and eat the leaf on which you are sitting. If it were not for my laziness, I should have long ago crawled away from you and all your talk: it gives me only a headache, that ’s all.”

“Now, I beg your pardon, I don’t see why?” broke in the Grasshopper. “It is quite enjoyable to chirrup, particularly about pleasant matters, like infinity and so forth. Of course, there are practical natures who only think of filling their bellies, like you, or that charming Caterpillar----”

“Oh, no, leave me alone, I pray, leave me alone, don’t touch me!” exclaimed the Caterpillar pitifully. “I am doing it all for the future life, only for the future life.”

“What future life are you talking about?” asked the Bay.

“Don’t you know that after death I shall be turned into a butterfly with colored wings?”

The Bay, the Lizard, and the Snail did not know it, but the insects had some notion of it. And they all kept silent for a moment, for none of them could say anything sensible about the future life.

“We ought to bow respectfully to solid convictions,” chirruped the Grasshopper. “Is there nobody else who wants to say anything? Maybe you?” he turned to the Flies.

And the older one answered:

“We can’t complain. We have just come out of the rooms; the lady had put out some fresh jam in some dishes, and we crawled in under the covers, and had lots to eat. We are satisfied. Dear mama stuck fast in the jam, but what ’s to be done? She has lived long enough in this world. But we are satisfied.”

“Gentlemen,” said the Lizard, “I think that you are all absolutely right! But, on the other hand----”

The Lizard did not finish saying what there was on the other hand, because she felt that something was jamming her tail to the ground.

It was coachman Antón who had just awakened and had come to fetch the Bay. He accidentally stepped with his monstrous boot on the whole company and smashed it. Only the flies flew away to lick off their dead, sugared mama, and the Lizard got away with part of her tail. Antón took the Bay by the forelock and led him out of the garden to hitch him to the barrel, in order to fetch some water, and he kept saying: “Get up there, shagtail!” to which the Bay answered only with a lisp.

The Lizard was left without a tail. ’T is true, after a time it grew out again, but it always remained rather stumpy and blackish. When the Lizard was asked how she came to injure her tail in that way, she modestly answered:

“They tore it off, because I had made up my mind to express my convictions.”

And she was absolutely right.

Ignáti Nikoláevich Potápenko. (1856-.)

Potápenko was born in the Government of Khérson, where his father was
a priest. He himself was educated for the priesthood in Khérson and
Odéssa, but he left the Seminary for the university, and the
university again for the Conservatory of Music, from which he finally
graduated in singing. Potápenko wrote his first sketch in 1881, and
became known as an author through his novel, _Holy Art_, in which he
depicted the literary Bohemia of St. Petersburg. His reputation was
still more confirmed by his later novels, _In Active Service_, _Common
Sense_, and _His Excellency’s Secretary_. His productions are
characterised by a healthy optimism and an exquisite humour, which
make them very pleasant reading.

Potápenko has been translated into English by W. Gaussen, _A Russian
Priest_ (Sunshine Series, No. 86, and Pseudonym Library, No. 7),
London, 1891; _The General’s Daughter_ (Sunshine Series, No. 126,
extra), London and New York, 1892; _Father of Six_, also _Occasional
Holiday_ (Unknown Library, No. 26), London, 1893; _The Curse of
Talent_, in _Memorials of a Short Life_, London, 1895.

A THOUSAND TALENTS

“Yes, my friend, I have a great mass of talents, only nothing sensible comes of them. Yes, that ’s so. That is quite correct!----”

“Well, well, don’t say that!”

“Not say it? Why, but I tell you, it is the real truth!”----

“But how? And why?”

“Why? That is the question---- That is, really, the question!”

The man who was possessed of such an immense mass of talents was sitting in a soft armchair, leaning with the whole weight of his body against its broad, inclined back. He had a remarkably happy exterior. He was neither handsome, nor stately, nor elegant, nor brilliant,--no, his exterior cannot be defined by any other word than “happy.” There were even half a dozen pits on his face,--traces of former smallpox; his nose, which had at first been straight and even, unexpectedly began to turn up at the point; there was not the slightest order in his russet beard and moustaches; his brow looked too large; and he was all as white as milk, while his face had a shade of copper. At last, his common, grey eyes were not out of the ordinary, but everything taken together, his whole face, breathed a serene, frank sincerity. There are such faces: you look at them, and you want to be open with them, and to confide some secret, to unburden your heart to them. He was awkwardly put together, his movements were halting, and his voice was a little shrill, but even thus he was sympathetic. In short, he had a happy exterior. His name was Nikoláy Petróvich Bobróv.

His interlocutor was simply a respectable gentleman, an attorney in important civil cases, the owner of large apartments, among which was a study, in which they were seated, with soft, heavy furniture and with bookshelves filled with a mass of learned and instructive books. That was Kurázhev, Sergyéy Aleksyéevich, a well-known and esteemed person in the city. He had but lately made Bobróv’s acquaintance, having met him two or three times, but he was already in the power of his exterior. Bobróv had this day called upon him for the first time, and a conversation ensued. Kurázhev outside of his practice busied himself with “social questions,” as he called them, and that meant that he was a live, responsive man who was interested in life and people, and who loved to “psychologise,” that is, to rummage in the human soul.

“I ’ll tell you why,--because I am a Russian! Yes, that ’s it,” said Bobróv, this time not awaiting his host’s question.

“That is incomprehensible. You must make yourself clear!” remarked the host, looking at him with the curiosity of a professional psychologist, as if he were ready to take the knife, in order to cut open his breast, and take a look inside his soul.

“Make myself clear? Well, I can make myself clear. I can and I am prepared to make myself clear, only I shall have to go way back----”

“That is all right. I am ready to follow you into the depths of time.”

“Well, it is not exactly the depths of time, but I shall have to mention my deceased progenitor, and maybe my grandmother too.”

“Or your great-grandfather, if you want to. You have interested me with your strange statement----”

“My statement is not so strange, if you look at it closely. I affirm that Russians suffer from their talented natures. Yes, that ’s it. It ought not to be so. They always are possessed of a huge number of talents, and that is why they never amount to anything. Yes, I beg your pardon, you will contradict me later, but now let me---- I have struck a good argument, so I can talk clearly and to the point. One does not always succeed in that. Let us take the simplest kind of an example. I had a cook,--by the way, she is still in evidence,--and she had a husband,--he is at your service, too, and his name is Iván. By the way, you might have guessed _a priori_ that all cooks have husbands by the name of Iván. Now I must tell you how that Iván has surprised me, simply stunned me, yes, sir! We hired his wife by herself, and he came to her a week later. He stayed a while, ate some pumpkin seeds, and went away: that was noble!

“Some three days later he made his appearance once more, but this time it was in the morning. He ate his breakfast with her, washed the dishes, remained for dinner,--all in proper shape. We took a liking to him; we sent him on some errand, I think to the apothecary’s,--he started on a run. Well, in short, to be done with it, two weeks later he settled in the kitchen, and all that looked so simple and clear that it never occurred to us to doubt his right to it, and to send him off. He is there still, but that is another matter. We soon noticed that he never went out to work, but that he was passing all the time in the kitchen, washing dishes, blackening boots, running on errands, eating and sleeping. I once asked him:

“‘Say, Iván! Do you know a trade?’

“‘I know all trades!’ he answered me with the greatest self-confidence.

“‘How so? You don’t mean all trades!’

“‘All, Nikoláy Petróvich!’ He never called me otherwise but Nikoláy Petróvich.

“‘If so, why are you not doing anything?’

“‘Oh, well, no work has turned up---- I reckon, there is none for me----’

“And you must know he was not lying, he really knew _all trades_. My dining table became unglued; I told them to send for a joiner.

“‘What ’s the use in a joiner Nikoláy Petróvich? I will fix it for you in first-class shape!’ he informed me, and, in reality, he fussed with the table about three hours, and brought it back to life. It is true, it was rather coarse work: the glue dried up in lumps, where it could be seen, and the heads of the nails somehow stuck sideways in the wood,--but it was solid. My wife was about to have the baby’s bathtub fixed. He got hold of it, straightened out the indented sides, and somehow soldered it, and in addition painted it inside and outside white. Of course, I must say, it was not a particularly neat job, but passable enough,--it could be used. We had to get one of the rooms papered over,--he again proved himself a master, only in one corner he hung a strip upside down. Finally, when spring came, he disappeared, and did not return for three days. When he did show up, he was all smeared with clay and lime.

“‘Where have you been?’

“‘I, sir? I have been doing some masonry.’

“‘What? You are a mason, too?’

“‘Why not? I am a mason, too---- I know all trades!’

“To make an end with Iván, I will tell you that he proved to be a tailor, too, and with his own hand he made an overcoat for himself. Of course, it was a wretched coat, but it held together over his back. He finished up by getting drunk and beating his wife. This Iván is a Russian, yes, sir. It is his misfortune to have too much ability, and a bent for too many things. Thanks to that, he has learned many things, but nothing properly, and he cannot stop, concentrate, and perfect himself at anything. No sooner has he taken up calcimining, than the mason is awakened in him; he takes up masonry, and he is at once drawn to the tailor’s trade, and so on. No wonder that this man is all his life suffering and tearing himself asunder, and that he, from time to time, balances his accounts by getting drunk and dealing out blows to his wife. And now it is clear to you that the misfortune of a Russian is in the many-sidedness of his talents.

“It is quite different with the other nations. Take, for example, a German. Of course, a German is not naturally stupid, but he has not the slightest talent. He has but one talent,--patience, and just see what wonders he performs by the aid of that modest companion of his. By the aid of this patience alone, he accomplishes in all spheres of human activities those results that make us with all our talents hold up our hands in wonderment. And all that only because he has but that one talent. He knows that himself, and he begins to develop it in his swaddling clothes. I have heard it said that German babies rarely cry. That is so because they early get used to patience. Now let us take the English. No doubt, they are a clever nation, but they have only one talent, and that is their egotism in the broadest sense of the word, namely their self-respect, their worship of themselves, their contempt for everything that is not English, and its exploitation in their favour. That talent is carried out by them with the strictest consistency in every thing,--from the most trifling to the most stupendous,--and makes it possible for them to be the leaders in everything in the world. Yes, sir.”

“But you have deviated a little. You had intended to speak of yourself!” the attorney gently interrupted him.

“No, I did not deviate. I only began that way to come finally to my case. Now I will pass over to that notable subject. You must know that my father was not of high birth; he was of the gentry, but of those who are greatly impoverished. He was the manager of some count’s estate. He had received no education, but had seen and heard much, and was a man of practical sense. At eight years of age I felt a hankering for the violin. Yes, sir, for the violin. It was not the caprice of a spoilt child, but a real hankering. I remember how my heart beat at the thought of my father buying me a violin. Well, he bought me one. The leader of the church choir showed me the first steps, taught me how to hold the bow and the fingers, and I began scraping. I scraped horribly, but something came of it. When I was ten years old I was taken to town to be sent to the Gymnasium. Here I had a patented teacher whose violin was worth three hundred roubles, if he was not fibbing. My father paid him in kind: he would bring him cottage cheese, or a keg of herrings, or pickling cucumbers. I learned from him my first correct steps, and what do you suppose came of it all? Nothing. Many heard me and cried: ‘Oh, what talent!’ And really, I did have talent. But you understand that I ought to have played do-re-mi-fa-sol, and nothing else, when my aunt visited me.

“‘Give me a tune, my darling, and I will give you a silver rouble for it.’

“I began do-re-mi-fa-sol.

“‘Well, what is that? That is not even interesting. And yet they told me that you had some talent. What kind of talent is that? I could understand if you played something that would touch my soul. No, I don’t think you have any talent!’--What, I have no talent? Aunty thinks so. Wait, I ’ll prove you differently!--And I began secretly from the teacher to learn _As I go alone into the street_, and I played it before my aunt; it was so touching that she wiped her eyes, and said: ‘Now, that ’s a different matter,--now I see that you have talent!’

“Then I learned _The hussar leaning on his sabre_, _In a gloomy autumn evening_, and finally, to cap the climax, a quadrille from _Fair Helen_. Then I went back to the village,--everybody was delighted. My repertoire was popular. No sooner did anyone call at our house, than father began to boast:

“‘You ought to hear him play the violin! Well, Kólenka, give us _The hussar_!’

“I took up an attitude and played _The hussar_, and by degrees worked up to _Fair Helen_. In this manner I gave concerts all summer, and I forgot everything I had learned from my teacher, but above all I began to despise do-re-mi-fa-sol, because that did not bring me any fame. And thus, sir, I just stuck fast at the _Fair Helen_, yes, sir! Then, suddenly, a passion for versifying came over me. Again a hankering,--what will you do about that? I began writing verses ‘standing, lying, sitting, walking.’ I first did it secretly, for poetry is a kind of love,--it seeks mystery and solitude. Here again my accursed vanity ran away with me. My verses were not bad. I showed them to a schoolmate or two; they took them up and carried them around, and I became the attested school poet. The director found out about it, and he asked for my note-book, and approved of it: ‘You have, sir, a divine gift!’ They came to me for every solemn occasion: ‘Bobróv, write a poem!’ And Bobróv wrote it and solemnly recited it. You understand what it led to. Namely to this: Bobróv began to try acrobatic feats, and to write in bombastic style, to imitate Derzhávin, and his youthful poetry became flat. Consequently, nothing came of that. By that time I was in the seventh form, and my breast was filled with ecstasies of a different sort. I abandoned poetry, and was drawn to serious and clever books. At first I drank deep from Byelínski, than Dobrolyúbov, and then Písarev fell among us. I graduated from the Gymnasium, the university began----”

Bobróv stopped, rose from his seat, and began to walk across the room, holding his hands behind his back.

“Yes, the university! I had brilliant ability, and what came of it all? Do you know what? The devil knows what! I was attracted to science, and I wanted to learn the history of the human race, and its creations,--so I became a philologist, and began to swallow book after book. One of the professors directed his attention to me, and had an eye on me,--but it appeared to me that my country was not in need of such a science; so I turned about, and began studying Smith, Mill, and Marx---- A year later, behold, I was studying the law! Yes, sir! The law. And let me tell you I showed ability in Smith-Mill-Marx too. I do not know where I got all my eloquence, my indomitable logic, and so forth. I found mistakes in Mill, so I would say: ‘Here and here Mill has made a mistake!’ Yes, sir! We naturally recognised no authorities, except our own. Mill was to us not a source of wisdom, but only an excuse for showing the depth of our erudition before the ladies of our circle.

“There were some good-looking women among them, let me tell you. And it is really a wonder I did not get married then! Upon my word, it is a wonder. For they nearly all of them, one must say, paired off, and not just one way or other, but in legal wedlock. Then half of them went off with their wives, that is only natural. Though we had all come together on Mill’s platform, yet, everybody knows, life is not Mill. Yes, sir! And thus I came out hale. I must suppose that it was so because I was too late. The respected fellow-members had picked out all the good-looking ones, there was only left an indifferent lot, while I, after all, had some esthetic taste. It did not take us long to crush Mill--that ’s it, we crushed him. It suddenly became as evident as daylight that he was not good for anything, because the salvation of our country lay not at all in political economy, but in anatomy and physiology. Well, the country had to be saved at all cost, and God forbid another man but myself should save it,--that would have been a personal insult.

“You can guess that the result of it was my going over to the department of natural sciences. Just think of it! here I again found myself upon the summit of my calling. I was glued to a chair, and the microscope was glued to my nose. I sat there days and nights studying and analysing, and don’t imagine that it was without results. Indeed not! I even made a discovery: I brought to light, studied, and described some peculiar property of the blood corpuscle, yes, sir! I do not remember what property that was, but it produced an impression, and they even printed my description of it in some periodical. But while I was dissecting the blood corpuscle, a new tendency was ripening within me. The devil take it, another talent! Nature had implanted as many of them within me as I could hold, and each one of them was dying to show itself, and would not yield to any other.

“I was drawn from time to time to the paper. I used to sit by a kerosene lamp in the quiet of the night, and sketch some scene. At times it was not half bad, and again it was quite passable. Yes, sir! Some friend of mine read it: ‘Oh, but you have literary talent, you ought to write!’ Well, pictures of success, reputation, and even fame, the deuce take it, began to swarm before my eyes. Fame! Whose head would it not turn? What affair would one not throw to the dogs for it! And so, I was no longer sitting over the microscope, but passed whole nights producing artistic literary pictures. That took me from the province to St. Petersburg, whither I hastened at once to find fame. My first experiment was a success. They printed it, praised it, and entered it in the column of the ‘promising.’ I was in a hurry, in a terrible hurry, I wanted to pocket all fame at once, and, of course, I only made botch work of it, and spoiled matters. My later works did not call forth any praise, but were honoured with condescending silence. I was beside myself, began to insist, to work still faster, and to spoil more and more. When an idea flashed through my brain, I, instead of putting it away in a quiet corner of my soul, and living and feeling it over, used to sit down at once and work it out on paper. Something came out, but not what it ought to have been. It turned out to be something pale, something born before its time. Yes, sir! They would print it, but more as ballast. And yet, there was talent, there really was,--everybody acknowledged it. But it was something unfinished, like a phrase half spoken, a picture half painted, furniture unpolished and unvarnished.

“At last, one more bent! My old talent for music awoke in me, and I rushed at once to a musical school. I, the future composer, was studying harmony and counterpoint, and again everybody found that I had talent. The world of sounds swallowed me. I wanted to produce and create, and before I had reached a fugue, I was writing little songs and publishing them---- Ah, I did not finish here either. My two songs had success, they were sung at concerts, yes, sir, and I decided I could write an opera. What is the use learning when you have talent? That is a good Russian reason----

“And do you know what I am now? I am a man without any definite specialty. I am a Russian who has a thousand talents and who is unfit for any definite business. I can play on the violin a quadrille from _Fair Helen_, I can write a sonnet, I can discuss Russian literature and history, I know a few things about Smith, Mill, and Marx, I have some ideas about the blood corpuscle, I possess a literary style, can compose a song,--and to sum all up, I am head-scribe in a bureau, of course, through protection. Am I not the same Iván? We are both Russians. Both he and I can do everything, and yet are good for nothing. Both of us have a thousand talents apiece. Well? He is the husband of my cook, and I--am head-scribe! The positions are different, but the sense of them is the same---- Yes, sir!”

Here Bobróv rolled up a fat cigarette, gave a few puffs at it, took his cap, and bid his host farewell.

Semén Yákovlevich Nádson. (1862-1887.)

Nádson’s grandfather was a Jew. His father, who had been a good
musician, died when he was but two years old, and he also lost his
mother and brothers early in youth. He was taken care of by relatives
of his, and was sent to the Gymnasium, where he devoted himself to
literature and music. His first printed poem appeared when he was but
fifteen years old. Soon after began to show themselves the symptoms of
consumption to which he finally succumbed. He went to the Caucasus,
and was later sent to the south of France. Yet, under the most adverse
conditions, he produced a series of poems of exquisite beauty, and
gave promise of rivalling the best Russian poets. Shortly before his
death he was awarded the Púshkin prize of five hundred roubles.

_Pity the stately cypress trees_ is given in John Pollen’s _Rhymes
from the Russian_, and a few shorter poems, by Mrs. M. S. Walker, in
Free Russia, vol. xiii., No. 5.

MY FRIEND, MY BROTHER!

My friend, my brother, weary, suffering brother, whoever you be, be not discouraged: let untruth and evil have full sway upon earth that is watered with tears, let the sacred ideal be crushed and defamed, let them shed the innocent blood:--believe me, the time is coming when Baal will perish, and Love will return upon earth!

Not with a crown of thorns, nor oppressed with chains, nor with a cross upon his bent shoulders,--he will come into the world in his strength and splendor, in his hands a bright torch of glory. There will be in the world neither tears, nor warring, nor crossless graves, nor serfs, nor cheerless, deadening want, nor the sword, nor pillory.

O my friend! That bright vision is not a dream, nor an empty hope: look about you,--everywhere evil oppresses too much, everywhere night is too dark! The world will grow tired of torments, will drown in the blood, will get weary of senseless battles,--and it will raise to Love, to unhampered Love its eyes, full of yearning prayer----

POETRY

Many years ago she descended from the quiet shades of Paradise into our world, in a garland of fragrant roses, with a youthful smile, charming, naked, and proud of her innocent beauty. She brought with her unknown feelings, the harmony of heaven, and loyalty to dreams,--and her law was art for art’s sake, and her command was to serve beauty.

But at her first steps they tore and trod into the dust her superb flowers,--and her beautiful virgin features were shrouded in a dark cloud of doubts and sorrow; and her former hymns are no more! The storm’s breath carried tracklessly away her exultant sounds,--and her song breathes fire of her soul’s anguish, and thorns wound her divine brow.

───────

Pity the stately cypress trees;
How freshly green they spring!
Ah! why amidst their branches, child,
Have you put up your swing?
Break not a single fragrant bough.
Oh, take thy swing away
To heights where thick acacias bloom;
Mid dusty olives play!
Thence you can see the ocean,
And, as your swing ascends,
Through greening boughs a sunny glimpse
The sea in laughter sends
Of white sails in the distance dim,
Of white gulls far away,
Of white flakes foaming on the sands,
A fringe of snowy spray.

--From J. Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.

Antón Pávlovich Chékhov. (1860-.)

Chékhov is the son of a former serf. He was born in the city of
Taganróg, where he went through the Gymnasium. He then attended the
Moscow University, where he graduated from the Department of Medicine
in 1884. He began early to contribute short stories to various
periodicals, and established his reputation in 1887 upon the
appearance of his first collected volume. Of his longer stories some
of the most artistic are _The Steppe_, _Fires_, _The Memoirs of an
Unknown Man_, _A Wearisome Story_. A pessimistic vein runs through all
his productions, and all his characters seem to be fit subjects for
the psychiatrist; this is especially the case in two of his dramas,
_The Mew_ and _Three Sisters_, in which there is not one redeeming
person, and where the very language of the dramatis personæ is nothing
but a series of semi-articulated hysterical ejaculations. He is a
great favourite with the Russian reading public, but the foreigner
will lay aside his books with great admiration for his talent and with
a shudder at the hopeless condition of Russian society.

In English has appeared but _Philosophy at Home_, in Short Stories,
October, 1891.

IN THE COURT-ROOM

In the cinnamon-coloured governmental building of the county seat of N., in which the meetings of the Agronomic Council alternate with those of the Justices of the Peace, of the Departments of Peasant Affairs, of the Sale of Liquor, of Military Conscription, and of many more, a division of the Circuit Court was one gloomy autumn day assembled to take up its cases. A local administrator had made a pun in regard to this cinnamon-coloured building:

“Here is Miss Justice, here is Police, here is Milice,--a regular Institute for Noble Young Ladies.”

But, no doubt to justify the proverb that with seven nurses a child generally loses an eye, this building produces a heavy, oppressive sensation in a man who is neither officially connected nor familiar with it, by its melancholy, barrack-like appearance, by its age, and by the complete absence of any and all comforts, either within or without. Even in bright spring days it looks as if it were covered by a dense shade, and on clear, moonlit nights, when the trees and the houses of the citizens are welded into one continuous shadow and are merged in a quiet sleep, it alone rises awkwardly and out of place, like a crushing rock, over the modest landscape, spoils the general harmony, and stays awake, as though it could not rid itself of the grievous memory of past, unforgiven sins. Within, everything is barn-like and exceedingly unattractive. It is curious to see how easily all these elegant prosecutors, members, leaders, who at home will raise a row at the slightest sign of escaping coal gas or a mere speck on the floor, get used to the buzzing ventilators, the nauseating smell of smoking candles, and the dirty, eternally sweating walls.

The session of the Circuit Court began at ten o’clock. They at once took up the docket, being evidently in a hurry. The cases were disposed of one after the other, taking up no more time than a “mass without the singing,” so that no sensible being could have formed a complete, conceptual picture of that variegated crowd that moved about like a freshet, of all the motions, speeches, misfortunes, truth, lies---- By two o’clock much was accomplished: two people were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment; one privileged person was deprived of all his rights and sentenced to imprisonment in the jail; one man was found innocent, and one case was postponed.

Precisely at two o’clock the presiding judge announced that now was to be taken up the case of “the indictment found against the peasant Nikoláy Kharlámov for the murder of his wife.” The composition of the court remained the same as in the previous case, only the defence was represented by a new individual,--a young, beardless candidate for judicial honours, in a coat with bright buttons.

“Bring in the defendant!” ordered the presiding judge.

But the defendant was prepared even before, and he marched toward the bench. He was a tall, muscular peasant, about fifty-five years of age, completely bald, with a repulsive, hirsute face, and a long red beard. He was followed by a small, wizened soldier with a gun.

When almost near the bench, there happened a slight accident to this guard. He suddenly stumbled and dropped his gun, but he immediately caught it in its fall, giving his knee a severe knock with the butt. Either from pain or, perhaps, from embarrassment at his awkwardness the soldier blushed crimson.

After the customary questions to the defendant, the rearrangement of the jury, the roll-call, and the oath of the witnesses,--they began the reading of the bill of the indictment. A narrow-chested, pale-faced secretary, who had grown much too thin for his uniform and had a plaster on his cheek,--he looked like a walking clinic,--read rapidly, like a sexton, in a subdued, heavy bass, without raising or lowering his voice, as if afraid to exert his lungs; he was seconded by the ventilator that kept on buzzing behind the judge’s chair, and from this there resulted a sound that gave to the stillness of the room a soporific, narcotic character.

The presiding judge, who was not an old man, with an exceedingly tired face, and near-sighted, was sitting in his chair without stirring, and holding the palm of his hand near his brow, as if to keep the sun out of his eyes. During the buzzing of the ventilator and of the secretary he was thinking of something. When the secretary stopped for a second to draw breath before beginning a new page, he suddenly started and looked at the audience with his blinking eyes, then he leaned over the ear of the fellow-judge by his side; and asked him with a sigh:

“You, Matvyéy Petróvich, are stopping at Demyánov’s?”

“Yes, at Demyánov’s,” answered the member, also startled.

“Next time I think I shall stop there myself. I declare, it is impossible to stop at Tipyakóv’s. There is such a noise there all night long! They make a racket, they cough, and the children cry. It ’s just impossible to stand it!”

The associate prosecutor, a full-faced, well-fed, dark-complexioned man, in gold spectacles, and with a beautiful, well-groomed beard, sat immovably, like a statue, and, leaning his cheek on his closed hand, read Byron’s _Cain_. His eyes were full of ardent attention, and his brows rose admiringly higher and higher. Now and then he threw himself against the back of his chair, looked for a moment indifferently ahead of him, and then was once more lost in his reading.

The counsel for the defence moved the blunt end of his pencil over the table and, bending his head aside, was meditating something. His youthful face expressed nothing but unchangeable, cold ennui, such as is to be seen in the faces of schoolboys and officials who are obliged to sit day after day in one and the same place and to see all the time the same faces and the same walls. The forthcoming speech did not worry him in the least. What kind of a speech is it any way? By order of the authorities he will deliver it without passion or fire before the jury, according to an old stereotyped form, feeling all the time that it is colourless and tiresome, and then he will gallop through mud and rain to the station, then--to the capital, to get soon another order for some other county seat, where he will make another speech---- It ’s tiresome!

The defendant at first coughed nervously into his sleeve and grew pale, then the quiet, the universal monotony and the ennui were communicated to him also. He looked with a dull respect at the uniforms of the judges, at the tired faces of the jury, and calmly blinked with his eyes. The judicial surroundings and procedure, waiting for which his heart had been pining in the prison, now acted upon him most soothingly. He did not meet here at all what he could have expected. Over him hung the accusation of murder, and yet he did not meet here any threatening faces, nor scorning glances, nor loud phrases of revenge, nor any sympathy for his unusual fate; not one of those who were going to judge him had turned their long, inquiring glances upon him. The murky windows, the voice of the secretary, the pose of the prosecutor,--all that was imbued with chancery indifference and exhaled a cold breath, as though the murderer were a simple appurtenance of the chancery, or as though not living men were judging him, but some unseen machine which God knows who had introduced.

The composed peasant did not know that they were here as used to the dramas and tragedies of life as one gets used to deaths in a hospital, and that in this very machine-like indifference lay the whole terror and the whole hopelessness of his position. I am sure that if he did not remain silent, but rose and began to plead and implore for mercy with tears in his eyes, to repent with fervour, if he died in despair,--all that would break against their dull nerves and habit like a billow against a rock.

When the secretary had finished, the presiding judge for some reason rubbed the table, for a long time blinked at the defendant, and then asked him, lazily moving his tongue:

“Defendant, do you plead guilty to having killed your wife on the night of June 9th?”

“By no means,” answered the defendant, rising and holding the coat over his breast.

After that the court hurriedly passed over to the examination of the witnesses. There were examined two women, five peasants, and the coroner who had held the inquest. All of them, mud-bespattered and tired from their march and from the long waiting in the witness room, sad and gloomy, deposed the same thing. They declared that Kharlámov had lived “well” with his wife, just like anybody else: he used to strike her only when he was intoxicated. On the 9th of June, about sundown, the woman was found in the hall with her skull split open; an axe was lying near her in a pool of blood. When they tried to find Nikoláy, in order to tell him of the misfortune, he was neither in the house, nor in the street. They began to run up and down the village to find him, they went to all the taverns and cabins, but he could not be found. He had disappeared, and two days later he came himself to the office, pale, tattered, and trembling in his whole body. He was bound with ropes and placed in the lockup.

“Defendant,” said the presiding judge to Kharlámov, “can’t you explain to the court where you kept yourself during the two days after the murder?”

“I wandered over the field, without eating or drinking.”

“Why did you hide yourself, if you did not kill her?”

“I was frightened. I was afraid I ’d be sentenced.”

“Ah! Very well, take your seat!”

The last witness was the county physician who had made the autopsy on the old woman. He communicated to the court everything he could remember from his notes of the autopsy and from what he had managed to work out as he was walking to the court in the morning.

The presiding judge looked with half-closed eyes at his new shining, black suit, at his dandyish necktie, at his moving lips, and in his brain somehow stirred by itself the lazy thought: “Everybody wears now short coats; then why did he have made such a long one? Really, why a long one, and not a short one?”

Behind the presiding judge was heard the cautious creak of boots. It was the associate prosecutor who had gone to the table to take up some document.

“Mikhaíl Vladímirovich,” he leaned down to the ear of the presiding judge, “that Koréyski has made a very careless inquest. The brother was not examined, the elder was not examined, and you can’t make anything out of the description of the room.”

“What is to be done, what is to be done?” sighed the presiding judge, throwing himself back into the chair: “This is an endless sandglass!”

“By the way,” the associate prosecutor continued to whisper, “just look down the audience, in the front bench, the third man from the left,--an actor’s phiz. That is the local financial big-bug. He has a cash capital of nearly five hundred thousand.”

“Yes? His face does n’t show it. How would it be, friend, if we took a recess now?”

“Let us end this case, and then we shall----”

“Very well---- Well?” the presiding judge turned his eyes upon the physician. “So you find that death was instantaneous?”

“Yes, on account of a considerable lesion of the brain matter.”

When the physician was through, the presiding judge looked into space, between the prosecutor and the counsel, and he proposed:

“Have n’t you anything to ask?”

The associate prosecutor did not turn his eyes away from _Cain_, and shook his head negatively, but the counsel moved unexpectedly and, clearing his throat, asked:

“Tell me, doctor, is it possible to tell the mental condition of the criminal by the dimension of the wound? That is, I want to know whether the amount of the injury gives us a right to presuppose that the defendant was mentally deranged.”

The presiding judge raised his sleepy, indifferent eyes upon the counsel. The prosecutor tore himself away from his _Cain_, and looked at the presiding judge. They only looked, but neither a smile, nor wonderment, nor perplexity,--nothing was expressed upon their faces.

“Of course,” hesitated the physician, “if we take into consideration the power with which--eh--eh--eh--the criminal strikes a blow---- However, pardon me, I did not quite understand your question.”

The counsel did not get any answer to his question, nor did he feel any need of it. It was quite clear to him that this question had strayed into his head and had escaped from his tongue only under the influence of the quiet, the ennui, and the buzzing ventilator. Having dismissed the physician, the court passed to the examination of the material instruments of evidence. First they examined the caftan, on the sleeve of which there was a dark blood spot. Being asked of the origin of this spot, Kharlámov declared:

“About three days before the death of my wife Penkóv bled his horse. I was there, and as I helped him, I naturally got some on me.”

“But Penkóv has just now declared that he does not remember your being present at the bleeding.”

“I don’t understand that!”

“Sit down!”

They passed to the examination of the axe with which the woman had been killed.

“That is not my axe,” declared the defendant.

“Whose then?”

“I don’t know. I had no axe.”

“A peasant can’t get on a single day without an axe. Your neighbour Iván Timoféich, with whom you fixed the sleigh, deposed that it is your axe.”

“I don’t know, only I swear before God,”--Kharlámov stretched his hand with open fingers before him,--“I swear by the true Creator, I don’t remember of ever having had an axe of my own. I once had one like it, only a little smaller, but my son Prokhór lost it. Two years before his military service he went out to cut some wood, but he was having a good time with the boys, and he lost it.”

“All right, sit down!”

This systematic suspicion and unwillingness to listen to him no doubt provoked and offended Kharlámov. He winked, and on his cheeks appeared red spots.

“As before the Lord!” continued he, stretching out his neck. “If you do not believe, ask my son Prokhór. Prokhór, where is my axe?” he suddenly asked with a coarse voice, abruptly turning to the guard. “Where?”

That was a shocking moment! All seemed to have seated themselves and to have become lower in stature---- Through all the heads, as many as there were in the court-room, there flashed one and the same terrible, impossible thought, the thought of the probable fatal accident, and not a person risked or dared to look at the face of the soldier. All wished not to believe their thought and hoped they had not heard correctly.

“Defendant, it is not permitted to speak to the guard,” the judge hastened to say.

Nobody saw the face of the guard and terror invisibly passed through the court-room. The bailiff softly rose from his seat and, balancing himself with his arms, walked out of the room on tiptoes. Half a minute later were heard hollow steps and sounds, such as are heard during the change of sentinels.

Everybody raised his head and, trying to look as if nothing had happened, they continued the case.

Aleksyéy Maksímovich Pyeshkóv (pseud. Maksím Górki). (1871-.)

Born as the son of an upholsterer, Górki, by which name Pyeshkóv is
best known, was brought up by his mother’s parents. He had barely
entered school when his grandparents’ reverses caused him to be
apprenticed to a shoemaker. After that he tried himself in every
possible capacity--as an engraver, painter of holy images, cook,
hawker of apples, and so forth. In the meanwhile he had an opportunity
to learn to read, and he read any and all books he could procure.
Finally he fell in with a lawyer at Nízhni-Nóvgorod who did a great
deal for his awakening. Then he once more started out on his
wanderings, and in the Caucasus in 1893 wrote his first story,
entitled _Makár Chúdra_, for a local paper. The next year he returned
to Nízhni-Nóvgorod, and here he met the author Korolénko, under whose
guidance his literary career began. Górki draws his vagabonds with a
realism that surpasses all previous attempts in that field. Unlike
Uspénski, Zlatovrátski, and the other writers who have treated similar
subjects, he has no bias in any direction whatsoever, but depicts
elementary passions at full play, quite unconcerned about the results
to which they may lead. Not less characteristic are his pictures of
southern scenes, of the steppe, the sea, and the noisy quay.

In English translation have appeared: _Orloff Couple_, translated by
Emily Jakowleff and Dora B. Montefiore, London, 1901; _Orloff and his
Wife_, translated by I. F. Hapgood, New York, 1902; _Foma Gordyeeff_,
translated by I. F. Hapgood, New York, 1901; _Foma Gordeyev_,
translated by H. Bernstein, New York, 1901; _Twenty-six and One_, New
York, 1902; _Twenty-six Men and a Girl_, translated by B. Jakowleff
and D. B. Montefiore, London, 1902; _Tales from Gorky_, translated by
N. H. Bain, New York, 1902; _The Devil_, by L. Wiener, National
Magazine, 1901; _Makar Chudra_, by M. Mojaysky, Monthly Review, 1901;
_Tchelkache_, by Katherine Wylde, Fortnightly Review, and Living Age,
1901; _Song of the Falcon_, Contemporary Review, 1902; part of _The
Awakening of a Conscience_, by L. Wiener, in Garnett’s Universal
Anthology.

IN THE STEPPE

STORY OF A TRAMP

We left Perekóp in the worst possible mood,--we were as hungry as wolves and angry with the whole world. For more than half a day we had unsuccessfully applied all our talents and efforts to steal or earn something, and when we at last convinced ourselves that we would fail in both attempts, we decided to move on. Whither? That was a matter of indifference, as long as we moved on. This was our unanimous resolution, as we had expressed it to each other, but we were ready to proceed in every respect upon the path of our actions upon which we had been travelling quite a while,--that had been silently agreed to by everyone of us and, though it was not spoken of in the hearing of all, it sparkled clearly in the grim lustre of our hungry eyes.

There were three of us; we had but lately made each other’s acquaintance, having met at Khérson, in a saloon on the bank of the Dnieper.