his friend and rival, the doctor, throw himself on his neck and sob
there like a little child, But he finds that the doctor himself has
an unquenchable thirst for consolation and encouragement, whilst poor
Sonia can bear her maiden sorrows no longer. They all go wandering
round with big, lost eyes, looking for someone to relieve them from
_part_ of their woes, at least. And lo, everybody is in the same street
as themselves. All are over-heavy-laden, not one can carry his own
burden, let alone give a lift to another's. The last consolation is
taken away. It is no use complaining: there is no sympathetic response.
On all faces the same expression of hopelessness and despair. Each must
bear his cross in silence. None may weep nor utter pitiful cries--it
would be uncalled-for and indecent. When Uncle Vanya, who has not
realised at once the extremity of his situation, begins to cry out:
"My life's a waste!" nobody wants to listen to him. "Waste, waste!
Everybody knows it's a waste! Shut your mouth, howling won't help you:
neither will pistol-shots solve anything. Everyone of us might start
your cry--but we don't, neither do we shout:
_--You think I'll weep_;
_No, I'll not weep: I have full cause of weeping,_
_But this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws_,
_Or ere I'll weep; O Fool, I shall go mad_."
Gradually there settles down a dreadful, eternal silence of the
cemetery. All go mad, without words, they realise what is happening
within them, and make up their minds for the last shift: to hide
their grief for ever from men, and to speak in commonplace, trivial
words which will be accepted as sensible, serious, and even lofty
expressions. No longer will anyone cry: "Life is a waste," and intrude
his feelings on his neighbours. Everybody knows that it is shameful for
one's life to be a waste, and that this shame should be hidden from
every eye. The last law on earth is--loneliness.
_Résigne-toi, mon cœur, dors ton sommeil de brute_!
85
_Groundless assumptions_.--"Based on nothing," because they seem to
derive from common assumption of the reasonableness of human existence,
which assumption surely is the child of our desires, and probably a
bastard at that..... In his _Miserly Knight_ Poushkin represented a
miser as a romantic figure. Gogol, with his Plyushkin, creates on the
contrary a repulsive figure of a miser. Gogol was nearer to reality. A
miser is ugly, whatever view you take of him--inward or outward. Yet
Gogol ought not to teach people to preserve in their age the ideals of
their youth. Once old age is upon us--it must not be improved upon,
much less apologised for. It must be accepted, and its essence brought
to light. Plyushkin, the vulgar, dirty maniac is disgusting--but who
knows? perhaps he is fulfilling the serious mission of his own being.
He is possessed by one desire--to everything else, to all happenings in
the outer world he is indifferent. It is the same to him whether he is
hungry or full, warm or cold, clean or dirty. Practically no event can
distract his attention from his single purpose. He is disinterestedly
mean, if one may say so. He has no need for his riches. He lets them
rot in a disgusting heap, and does not dream, like Poushkin's knight,
of palaces and power, or of sportive nymphs. Upon what end is he
concentrated? No one has the time to think it out. At the sight of
Plyushkin everyone recalls the damage the miser has done. Everyone
of course is right: Plyushkins, who heap up fortunes to let them rot,
are very harmful. The social judgment is nearly always to the point.
But not quite always. It won't hurt morals and social considerations
if at times they have to hold their tongue--and at such times we might
succeed in guessing the riddle of meanness, sordidness, old age.
86
We have sufficient grounds for taking life mistrustfully: it has
defrauded us so often of our cherished expectations. But we have still
stronger grounds for mistrusting reason: since if life deceived us, it
was only because futile reason let herself be deceived. Perhaps reason
herself invented the deception, and then to serve her own ambitious
ends, threw the blame on life, so that life shall appear sick-headed.
But if we have to choose between life and reason, we choose life, and
then we no longer need try to foresee and to explain, we can wait, and
accept all that is unalterable as part of the game. And thus Nietzsche,
having realised that all his hopes had gradually crumbled, and that
he could never get back to his former strength, but must grow worse
and worse every day, wrote in a private letter of May 28, 1883: "_Ich
will es so schwer haben, wie nur irgend ein Mensch es hat; erst writer
diesem Drucke gewinne ich das gute Gewissen dafür, etwas zu besitzen,
das wenige Menschen haben und gehabt haben: Flügel, um im Gleichnisse
zu reden_." In these few simple words lies the key to the philosophy of
Nietzsche.
87
"So long as Apollo calls him not to the sacred offering, of all the
trifling children of men the most trifling perhaps is the poet." Put
Poushkin's expression into plain language, and you will get a page
on neuropathology. All neurasthenic individuals sink from a state of
extreme excitation to one of complete prostration. Poets too: and they
are proud of it.
88
Shy people usually receive their impressions post-dated. During those
moments when an event is taking place before their eyes, they can see
nothing, only later on, having evoked from their memory a fragment of
what happened, they make for themselves an impression of the whole
scene. And then, retrospectively arise in their soul feelings of pity,
offence, surprise, so vivid, as if they were the flames of the instant
moment, not rekindlings from the past. Thus shy people always think a
great deal, and are always too late for their work. It is never too
late for thought. Timid before others, they reach great heights of
daring when alone. They are bad speakers--but often excellent writers.
Their life is insignificant and tedious, they are not noticed,--until
they become famous. And by the time fame comes, they do not need
popular attention any more.
89
If Tchekhov's Layevsky, in _The Duel_, had been a writer with a
literary talent, people would have said of him that he was original,
and that he was engaged in the study of the "mysticism of sex," like
Gabriele D'Annunzio for example; whereas, as he stands, he is only
banal. His idleness is a reproach to him: people would prefer that at
least he should copy out extracts from documents.
90
_From observations on children_.--Egoism in a man strikes us
unpleasantly because it betrays our poverty. "I cannot dole out my
abundance to my neighbour, for if I do I myself shall be left with
little." We should like to be able to scatter riches with a royal hand;
and, therefore, when we see someone else clutching his rags with the
phrase, "property is sacred," we are hurt. What is sacred comes from
the gods, and the gods have plenty of everything, they do not count and
skimp, like mortals.
91
We see a man repent for his actions, and conclude that such actions
should be avoided: an instance of false, but apparently irreproachable
reasoning. Time passes, and we see the same man repenting again of the
self-same acts. If we love logic, this will confirm us in our first
conclusion. But if we do not care for logic, we shall say: man is
under an equal necessity to commit these acts, and to repent of them.
Sometimes, however, the first conclusion is corrected differently.
Having decided that repentance proves that a certain course of action
should be avoided, man avoids it all his life; only to realise in the
end, suddenly, with extraordinary clarity, how bitter is his regret
that he has not trodden the forbidden course. But by this time a new
conclusion is already useless. Life is over, and the newly-enlightened
mind no longer knows how to rid itself of the Superfluous light.
92
A version of one of the scenes of Tolstoy's _Power of Darkness_ reminds
us exactly of a one-act piece of Maeterlinck. There can be no question
of imitation. When the _Power of Darkness_ was written nobody had
heard of Maeterlinck. Tolstoy evidently wanted to try a new method
of creating, and to get rid of his own manner, which he had evolved
through tens of years of dogged labour. But the risk was too great. He
preferred to cure himself of his doubts by the common expedient, manual
toil and an outdoor life. So he took up the plough.
93
Every woodcock praises its own fen; Lermontov saw the sign of spiritual
pre-eminence in dazzling white linen, and therefore his heroes always
dressed with taste. Dostoevsky, on the other hand, despised show:
Dmitri Karamazov wears dirty linen--and this is assigned to him as a
merit, or almost a merit.
94
While he was yet young, when he wrote his story, _Enough_, Turgenev
saw that something terrible hung over his life. He saw, but did not
get frightened, although he understood that in time he ought to become
frightened, because life without a continual inner disturbance would
have no meaning for him.
95
Napoleon is reputed to have had a profound insight into the human soul;
Shakespeare also. And their vision has nothing in common.
96
What we call imagination, which we value so highly in great poets--is,
essentially, unbridled, loose, or if you will, even perverted
mentality. In ordinary mortals we call it vice; but to the poets
everything is forgiven on account of the benefit and pleasure we derive
from their works. In spite of our high-flown theories we have always
been extremely practical, great utilitarians. Two-and-a-half-thousand
years went by before Tolstoy got up, and, in his turn, offered the
poets their choice: either to be virtuous, or to stop creating and
forfeit the fame of teachers. If Tolstoy did not make a laughing-stock
of himself, he has to thank his grey hairs and the respect which was
felt for his past. Anyhow, nobody took him seriously. Far from it;
for never yet did poets feel so free from the shackles of morality
as they do now. If Schiller were writing his dramas and philosophic
essays to-day, he would scarcely find a reader. In Tolstoy himself it
is not so much his virtues as his vices which we find interesting.
We begin to understand his works, not so much in the light of his
striving after ideals, but from the standpoint of that incongruity
which existed between the ideas he artificially imposed upon himself,
and the demands of his own non-virtu ous soul, which struggled ever
for liberty. Nicolenka Irtenyev, in _Childhood, and Youth_, would sit
for hours on the terrace, turning over in his mind his elder brother
Volodya's love-making with the chambermaids. But, although he desired
it "_more than anything on earth_" he could never bring himself to
be like Volodya. The maid said to the elder brother, "Why doesn't
Nicolai Fetrovitch ever come here and have a lark?" She did not know
that Nicolai Petrovitch was sitting at that moment under the stairs,
ready to give _anything on earth_ to take the place of the scamp
Volodya. "_Everything on earth_" is twice repeated. Tolstoy gives a
psychological explanation of his little hero's conduct. "I was timid
by nature," Nicolenka tells us, "but my shyness was increased by the
conviction of my ugliness." Ugliness, the consciousness of one's
ugliness, leads to shyness! What good can there be in virtue which
has such a suspicious origin? And how can the morality of Tolstoy's
heroes be trusted i Consciousness of one's ugliness begets shyness,
shyness drives the passions inwards and allows them no natural outlet.
Little by little there develops a monstrous discrepancy between the
imagination and its desires, on the one hand, and the power to satisfy
these desires, on the other. Permanent hunger, and a contracted
alimentary canal, which does not pass the food through. Hence the
hatred of the imagination, with its unrealised and unrealisable
cravings.... In our day no one has scourged love so cruelly as Tolstoy
in _Power of Darkness_. But the feats of the village Don Juan need not
necessarily end in tragedy. "More than anything on earth," however,
Tolstoy hates the Don Juans, the handsome, brave, successful, the
self-confident, who spontaneously act upon suggestion, the conquerors
of women, who stretch out their hands to living statues cold as stone.
As far as ever he can he has his revenge on them in his writing.
97
In the drama of the future the whole presentation will be different.
First of all, the difficulties of the dénouement will be set aside.
The new hero has a past-reminiscent--but no present; neither wife,
nor sweetheart, nor friends, nor occupation. He is alone, he communes
only with himself or with imaginary listeners. He lives a life apart.
So that the stage will represent either a desert island or a room in
a large densely-populated city, where among millions of inhabitants
one can live alone as on a desert island. The hero must not return
to people and to social ideals. He must go forward to loneliness, to
absolute loneliness. Even now nobody, looking at Gogol's Plyushkin,
will feel any more the slightest response to the pathetic appeal for
men to preserve the ideals of youth on into old age. Modern youths go
to see Plyushkin, not for the sake of laughing at him or of benefiting
from the warning which his terrible miserly figure offers them, but in
order to see if there may not be some few little pearls there where
they could be least expected, in the midst of his heap of dirt.
... Lycurgus succeeded in fixing the Spartans like cement for some
centuries--but after that came the thaw, and all their hardness
melted. The last remains of the petrified Doric art are now removed to
museums.... Is something happening----?
98
If I sow not in the spring, in autumn I shall eat no bread. Every
day brings troubles and worries enough for poor, weak man. He had
to forget his work for a moment, and now he is lost: he will die of
hunger or cold. In order merely to preserve our existence we have to
strain mind and body to the utmost: nay more, we have to think of the
surrounding world exclusively with a view to gaining a livelihood from
it. There is no time to think about truth! This is why positivism was
invented, with its theory of natural development. Really, everything
we see is mysterious and incomprehensible. A tiny midge and a huge
elephant, a caressing breeze and a blizzard, a young tree and a
rocky mountain--what are all these? What are they, why are they? we
incessantly ask ourselves, but we may not speak out. For philosophy is
ever pushed aside to make room for the daily needs. Only those think
who are unable to trouble about self-preservation, or who will not
trouble, or who are too careless: that is, sick, desperate, or lazy
people. These return to the riddle which workaday men, confirmed in the
certainty that they are right, have construed into "naturalness."
99
Kant, and after him Schopenhauer, was exceedingly fond of the epithet
"disinterested," and used it on every occasion when the supply of
laudatory terms he had at his disposal was exhausted. "Disinterested
thinking," which does not pursue any practical aim, is, according to
Schopenhauer, the highest ideal towards which man can strive. This
truth he considered universal, an _a priori_. But had he chanced to
be brought amongst Russian peasants he would have had to change his
opinion. With them thoughts about destiny and the why and wherefore of
the universe and infinity and so on, would by no means be considered
disinterested, particularly if the man who devoted himself to such
thoughts were at the same time to announce, as becomes a philosopher,
that he claimed complete freedom from physical labour. There the
philosopher, were he even Plato, would be stigmatised with the
disgraceful nickname, "Idle-jack." There the highest activity is
interested activity, directed towards strictly practical purposes; and
if the peasants could speak learnedly, they would certainly call the
principle upon which their judgment is founded an _a priori_. Tolstoy,
who draws his wisdom from the folk-sources, attacks the learned for
the very fact that they do not want to work, but are disinterestedly
occupied in the search for truth.
100
It is clear to any impartial observer that practically every man
changes his opinion ten times a day. Much has been said on this
subject, it has served for innumerable satires and humorous sketches.
Nobody has ever doubted that it was a vice to be unstable is one's
opinions. Three-fourths of our education goes to teaching us most
carefully to conceal within ourselves the changeableness of our moods
and judgments. A man who cannot keep his word is the last of men:
never to be trusted. Likewise, a man with no firm convictions: it is
impossible to work together with him. Morality, here as always making
towards utilitarian ends, issues the "eternal" principle: thou shalt
remain true to thy convictions. In cultured circles this commandment
is considered so unimpeachable that men are terrified even to appear
inconstant in their own eyes. They become petrified in their beliefs,
and no greater shame can happen to them than that they should be
forced to admit that they have altered in their convictions. When a
straightforward man like Montaigne plainly speaks of the inconstancy of
his mind and his views, he is regarded as a libeller of himself. One
need neither see, nor hear, nor understand what is taking place around
one: once your mind is made up, you have lost your right to grow, you
must remain a stock, a statue, the qualities and defects of which are
known to everybody.
101
Every philosophic world-conception starts from some or other solution
of the general problem of human existence, and proceeds from this to
direct the course of human life in some particular direction or other.
We have neither the power nor the data for the solution of general
problems, and consequently all our moral deductions are arbitrary,
they only witness to our prejudices if we are naturally timid, or to
our propensities and tastes if we are self-confident. But to keep up
prejudices is a miserable, unworthy business: nobody will dispute that.
Therefore let us cease to grieve about our differences in opinion,
let us wish that in the future there should be many more differences,
and much less unanimity. There is no arbitrary truth: it remains to
suppose that truth lies in changeable human tastes and desires. In so
far as our common social existence demands it--let us try to come to
an understanding, to agree: but not one jot more. Any agreement which
does not arise out of common necessity will be a crime against the Holy
Spirit.
102
Tchekhov was very good at expounding a system of philosophy--even
several systems. We have examples in more than one of his stories,
particularly in _The Duel,_ where Fon-Koren speaks _ex cathedra_.
But Tchekhov had no use for such systems, save for purely literary
purposes. When you write a story, and your hero must speak clearly
and consistently, a system has its value. But when you are left to
yourself, can you seriously trouble your soul about philosophy? Even
a German cannot, it seems, go so far in his "idealism." Vladimir
Semionovitch, the young author in Tchekhov's _Nice People_, sincerely
and deeply believes in his own ideas, but even of him, notwithstanding
his blatantly comical limitations, we cannot say more than that
his ideas were constant little views or pictures to him, which had
gradually become a second natural setting to everything he saw.
Certainly he did not live by ideas. Tchekhov is right when he says that
the singing of _Gaudeamus igitur_ and the writing of a humanitarian
appeal were equally important to Vladimir Semionovitch. As soon as
Vladimir's sister begins to think for herself, her brother's highest
ideas, which she has formerly revered, become banal and objectionable
to her. Her brother cannot understand her, neither her hostility
to progress and humanitarianism, nor to the university spree and
_Gaudeamus igitur._ But Tchekhov _does_ understand. Only, let us
admit, the word "understand" does not carry its ordinary meaning
here. So long as the child was fed on its mother's milk, everything
seemed to it smooth and easy. But when it had to give up milk and take
to vodka,--and this is the inevitable law of human development--the
childish suckling dreams receded into the realm of the irretrievable
past.
103
The summit of human existence, say the philosophers, is spiritual
serenity, _aequanimitas_: But in that case the animals should be our
ideal, for in the matter of imperturbability they leave nothing to be
desired. Look at a grazing sheep, or a cow. They do not look before
and after, and sigh for what is not. Given a good pasture, the present
suffices them perfectly.
104
A hungry man was given a piece of bread, and a kind word. The kindness
seemed more to him than the bread. But had he been given only the kind
word and no bread, he would perhaps have hated nice phrases. Therefore,
caution is always to be recommended in the drawing of conclusions:
and in none more than in the conclusion that truth is more urgently
required than a consoling lie. The connections of isolated phenomena
can very rarely be discerned. As a rule, several causes at once produce
one effect. Owing to our propensity for idealising, we always make
prominent that cause which seems to us loftiest.
105
A strange anomaly! we see thousands of human beings perish around us,
yet we walk warily lest we crush a worm. The sense of compassion is
strong in us, but it is adapted to the conditions of our existence. It
can relieve an odd case here and there--and it raises a terrific outcry
over a trifling injustice. Yet Schopenhauer wanted to make compassion
the metaphysical basis of morality.
106
To discard logic as an instrument, a means or aid for acquiring
knowledge, would be extravagant. Why should we? For the sake of
consequentialism? _i.e._ for logic's very self? But logic, as an aim
in itself, or even as the _only_ means to knowledge, is a different
matter. Against this one must fight even if he has against him all the
authorities of thought--beginning with Aristotle.
107
"When the yellowing corn-fields sway and are moved, and the fresh
forest utters sound to the breeze ... then I see happiness on earth,
and God in heaven." It may be so, to the poet; but it may be quite
different. Sometimes the corn-field waves, the woods make noise in
the wind, the stream whispers its best tales: and still man cannot
perceive happiness, nor forget the lesson taught in childhood, that
the blue heavens are only an optical illusion. But if the sky and the
boundless fields do not convince, is it possible that the arguments of
Kant and the commentations of his dozens of talentless followers can do
anything?
108
_The greatest temptation_.--In Dostoevsky's _Grand Inquisitor_
lurks a dreadful idea. Who can be sure, he says--metaphorically, of
course--that when the crucified Christ uttered His cry: "Lord, why hast
thou forsaken me?" He did not call to mind the temptation of Satan, who
for one word had offered Him dominion over the world? And, if Jesus
recollected this offer, how can we be sure that He did not repent not
having taken it?... One had better not be told about such temptations.
109