"The Power of Darkness" is the tragedy of sordid misery and dense
ignorance. It deals with a group of peasants steeped in poverty and
utter darkness. This appalling condition, especially in relation to the
women folk, is expressed by one of the characters in the play:
_Mitrich._ There are millions of you women and girls, but you are
all like the beasts of the forest. Just as one has been born, so she
dies. She has neither seen or heard anything. A man will learn
something; if nowhere else, at least in the inn, or by some chance,
in prison, or in the army, as I have. But what about a woman? She
does not know a thing about God,--nay, she does not know one day
from another. They creep about like blind pups, and stick their
heads into the manure.
_Peter_, a rich peasant, is in a dying condition. Yet he clings to his
money and slave-drives his young wife, _Anisya_, his two daughters by a
first marriage, and his peasant servant _Nikita_. He will not allow them
any rest from their toil, for the greed of money is in his blood and the
fear of death in his bones. _Anisya_ hates her husband: he forces her to
drudge, and he is old and ill. She loves _Nikita_. The latter, young and
irresponsible, cannot resist women, who are his main weakness and final
undoing. Before he came to old _Peter's_ farm, he had wronged an orphan
girl. When she becomes pregnant, she appeals to _Nikita's_ father,
_Akim_, a simple and honest peasant. He urges his son to marry the girl,
because "it is a sin to wrong an orphan. Look out, Nikita! A tear of
offense does not flow past, but upon a man's head. Look out, or the same
will happen with you."
_Akim's_ kindness and simplicity are opposed by the viciousness and
greed of his wife _Matrena_. _Nikita_ remains on the farm, and _Anisya_,
urged and influenced by his mother, poisons old _Peter_ and steals his
money.
When her husband dies, _Anisya_ marries _Nikita_ and turns the money
over to him. _Nikita_ becomes the head of the house, and soon proves
himself a rake and a tyrant. Idleness and affluence undermine whatever
good is latent in him. Money, the destroyer of souls, together with the
consciousness that he has been indirectly a party to _Anisya's_ crime,
turn _Nikita's_ love for the woman into bitter hatred. He takes for his
mistress _Akulina_, _Peter's_ oldest daughter, a girl of sixteen, deaf
and silly, and forces _Anisya_ to serve them. She had strength to resist
her old husband, but her love for _Nikita_ has made her weak. "The
moment I see him my heart softens. I have no courage against him."
Old _Akim_ comes to ask for a little money from his newly rich son. He
quickly senses the swamp of corruption and vice into which _Nikita_ has
sunk. He tries to save him, to bring him back to himself, to arouse the
better side of his nature. But he fails.
The ways of life are too evil for _Akim_. He leaves, refusing even the
money he needs so badly to purchase a horse.
_Akim._ One sin holds on to another and pulls you along. Nikita, you
are stuck in sins. You are stuck, I see, in sins. You are stuck
fast, so to speak. I have heard that nowadays they pull fathers'
beards, so to speak,--but this leads only to ruin, to ruin, so to
speak.... There is your money. I will go and beg, so to speak, but I
will not, so to speak, take the money.... Let me go! I will not
stay! I would rather sleep near the fence than in your nastiness.
The type of _Akim_ is most vividly characterized by Tolstoy in the talk
between the old peasant and the new help on the farm.
_Mitrich._ Let us suppose, for example, you have money, and I, for
example, have my land lying fallow; it is spring, and I have no
seed; or I have to pay the taxes. So I come to you, and say: "Akim,
give me ten roubles! I will have the harvest in by St. Mary's
Intercession and then I will give it back to you, with a tithe for
the accommodation." You, for example, see that I can be flayed,
having a horse or a cow, so you say: "Give me two or three roubles
for the accommodation." The noose is around my neck, and I cannot
get along without it. "Very well," says I, "I will take the ten
roubles." In the fall I sell some things, and I bring you the money,
and you skin me in addition for three roubles.
_Akim._ But this is, so to speak, a wrong done to a peasant. If one
forgets God, so to speak, it is not good.
_Mitrich._ Wait a minute! So remember what you have done: you have
fleeced me, so to speak, and Anisya, for example, has some money
which is lying idle. She has no place to put it in and, being a
woman, does not know what to do with it. So she comes to you: "Can't
I," says she, "make some use of my money?" "Yes, you can," you say.
And so you wait. Next summer I come to you once more. "Give me
another ten roubles," says I, "and I will pay you for the
accommodation." So you watch me to see whether my hide has not been
turned yet, whether I can be flayed again, and if I can, you give
me Anisya's money. But if I have not a blessed thing, and nothing to
eat, you make your calculations, seeing that I cannot be skinned,
and you say: "God be with you, my brother!" and you look out for
another man to whom to give Anisya's money, and whom you can flay.
Now this is called a bank. So it keeps going around. It is a very
clever thing, my friend.
_Akim._ What is this? This is a nastiness, so to speak. If a
peasant, so to speak, were to do it, the peasants would regard it as
a sin, so to speak. This is not according to the Law, not according
to the Law, so to speak. It is bad. How can the learned men, so to
speak-- ... As I look at it, so to speak, there is trouble without
money, so to speak, and with money the trouble is double, so to
speak. God has commanded to work. But you put the money in the bank,
so to speak, and lie down to sleep, and the money will feed you, so
to speak, while you are lying. This is bad,--not according to the
Law, so to speak.
_Mitrich._ Not according to the Law? The Law does not trouble people
nowadays, my friend. All they think about is how to clean out a
fellow. That's what!
As long as _Akulina's_ condition is not noticeable, the relation of
_Nikita_ with his dead master's daughter remains hidden from the
neighbors. But the time comes when she is to give birth to a child. It
is then that _Anisya_ becomes mistress of the situation again. Her
hatred for _Akulina_, her outraged love for _Nikita_ and the evil spirit
of _Nikita's_ mother all combine to turn her into a fiend. _Akulina_ is
driven to the barn, where her terrible labor pains are stifled by the
dread of her stepmother. When the innocent victim is born, _Nikita's_
vicious mother and _Anisya_ persuade him that the child is dead and
force him to bury it in the cellar.
While _Nikita_ is digging the grave, he discovers the deception. The
child is alive! The terrible shock unnerves the man, and in temporary
madness he presses a board over the little body till its bones crunch.
Superstition, horror and the perfidy of the women drive _Nikita_ to
drink in an attempt to drown the baby's cries constantly ringing in his
ears.
The last act deals with _Akulina's_ wedding to the son of a neighbor.
She is forced into the marriage because of her misfortune. The peasants
all gather for the occasion, but _Nikita_ is missing: he roams the place
haunted by the horrible phantom of his murdered child. He attempts to
hang himself but fails, and finally decides to go before the entire
assembly to confess his crimes.
_Nikita._ Father, listen to me! First of all, Marina, look at me! I
am guilty toward you: I had promised to marry you, and I seduced
you. I deceived you and abandoned you; forgive me for Christ's sake!
_Matrena._ Oh, oh, he is bewitched. What is the matter with him? He
has the evil eye upon him. Get up and stop talking nonsense!
_Nikita._ I killed your father, and I, dog, have ruined his
daughter. I had the power over her, and I killed also her baby....
Father dear! Forgive me, sinful man! You told me, when I first
started on this life of debauch: "When the claw is caught, the whole
bird is lost." But, I, dog, did not pay any attention to you, and so
everything turned out as you said. Forgive me, for Christ's sake.
The "Power of Darkness" is a terrible picture of poverty, ignorance and
superstition. To write such a work it is not sufficient to be a creative
artist: it requires a deeply sympathetic human soul. Tolstoy possessed
both. He understood that the tragedy of the peasants' life is due not to
any inherent viciousness but to the power of darkness which permeates
their existence from the cradle to the grave. Something heavy is
oppressing them--in the words of _Anisya_--weighing them down, something
that saps all humanity out of them and drives them into the depths.
"The Power of Darkness" is a social picture at once appalling and
gripping.