to cough, and I knew instantly whether he was pleased with me or not."
Till this time Assja had never spoken to me of her father. That struck
me.
"You loved your father very much?" I asked, and I felt to my great
annoyance that I was blushing.
She did not answer, but she also blushed. We were both silent. In the
distance a steamboat with its trailing smoke was descending the Rhine:
our looks followed it.
"Why do you not tell me something?" Assja said half aloud.
"Why did you laugh to-day when you saw me coming?" I asked her.
"I do not know myself. Sometimes I want to cry, and yet must laugh. You
must not judge me by what I do. Ah, by the way, what a wonderful story
it is about the Lorelei. Isn't it her rock that we see yonder? They say
that at first she drew every one else beneath the water, but after she
was acquainted with love, she cast herself in. The story pleases me.
Frau Luise tells me all sorts of fairy stories. Frau Luise has a black
cat with yellow eyes----"
Assja raised her head and threw back her hair.
"Ah, how comfortable I feel!" she said.
At this moment broken, monotonous tones fell on our ears. Hundreds of
voices in unison repeated a hymn with measured pauses. A troop of
pilgrims was moving along the way beneath us with flags and crosses.
"I would like to go with them!" cried Assja, while she listened to the
sound of the voices, gradually dying away.
"Are you so devout?"
"I would like to go somewhere far off, to pray, to accomplish something
difficult," she added. "The days hurry by, life will come to an end, and
what have we done?"
"You are ambitious," I said. "You do not wish to live in vain. You would
like to leave behind some trace of your existence."
"Would it be impossible?"
"Impossible," I had nearly repeated. I looked into her clear eyes and
only said:
"Well, try it."
"Tell me," Assja began after a little silence, while flying shadows
followed each other across her face, which had grown pale again--"did
that lady please you very much? You remember, my brother drank to your
health once, in the ruins; it was the day after we had made
acquaintance."
I laughed aloud.
"It was a jest of your brother's; no lady has pleased me, at least no
one now pleases me."
"What is it that pleases you in women?" asked Assja, tossing back her
head in childish curiosity.
"What a singular question!" I exclaimed.
Assja was a little disturbed.
"I should not have asked the question--not so? Forgive me. I am used to
chatter about everything that goes through my head. That is why I am
afraid to talk."
"Only talk, for heaven's sake! Don't be afraid," I broke in. "I am so
glad that at last you cease to be shy." Assja lowered her eyes and
laughed; a still, gentle laughter that I did not recognize as hers.
"Well, tell me something then," she said, while she smoothed her dress
and tucked it about her feet as if disposing herself to sit for a long
while--"tell me something, or read something aloud, as that time when
you read to us out of 'Onegin.'"
She grew suddenly thoughtful.
Where now in green boughs' shadow
The cross rests on my mother's grave--
she said to herself in a low voice.
"In Pushkin the verse is somewhat different," I ventured.[J]
[Footnote J: In Pushkin it reads, "On my nurse's grave."]
"I would have liked to be Pushkin's Tatiana," she continued, still lost
in thought. "Tell me something," she cried suddenly, with vivacity.
But I could find nothing to say. I looked at her as she sat there,
gentle and peaceful, surrounded with the clear sunshine. Everything
about us glowed with happiness; the sky, the earth, the water. It seemed
as if the very air was bathed in a splendor.
"Look, how beautiful!" I said, involuntarily lowering my voice.
"Yes, beautiful," she answered as gently, without looking at me. "If we
were both birds, we would fly high up there--would soar. We would sink
deep into that blue. But we are no birds."
"We may have wings though," I answered.
"How?"
"In time you will discover. There are feelings that swing us off from
the earth. Don't fear; you will have wings."
"Have you had them then?"
"How shall I say? I believe that I have never flown till now."
Assja fell again into thought. I bent toward her a little.
"Can you waltz?" she asked unexpectedly.
"Yes, I can," I answered, somewhat surprised.
"Then come, come--I will ask my brother to play a waltz for us--we will
imagine that we are flying, that our wings have grown."
She ran to the house. I hastened after her, and in a few moments we were
whirling round the narrow room to the music of a charming waltz. Assja
danced exceedingly well, with lightness and skill. Something soft and
feminine came suddenly into her childish, earnest face. For a long time
afterward my hand felt the contact of her delicate form, for a long time
I seemed to feel her close, quickened breathing, and to see before me
the dark, fixed, half-closed eyes, and the animated pale face with its
wreathing hair.
* * * * *
This whole day passed so that one could not have wished it better. We
were merry as children. Assja was very lovable and natural. It was a
pleasure for Gagin to see her. It was late when I went away. In the
middle of the Rhine I told the ferryman to leave the boat to the
current. The old man drew in his oars and the majestic stream bore us
onward. While I looked about me and listened, and called forgotten
things to memory, I felt a sense of unrest in my heart. I turned my eyes
to the heavens, but in the heavens was no rest; with its glittering host
of stars it was in steady motion, revolving, trembling. I bent to the
river, but there also in the dark, cool depths the stars were dancing
and flickering; everywhere the restless spirit of life met me, and the
restlessness in my own heart grew stronger. I leaned over the side of
the boat. The murmuring of the breeze in my ears, the low splash of the
water against the stern of the boat, excited me, and the freshness of
the waves did not cool me. Somewhere on the shore a nightingale began
her song, and this music worked upon me like a sweet poison. Tears
filled my eyes, but not the tears of an indefinite rapture. What I
experienced was not the vague feeling of boundless longing in which it
seems as if the heart could embrace everything: no. In me arose a
burning desire for happiness. Only as yet I did not dare call this
happiness by its real name. But bliss--bliss to overflowing was what I
longed for. The boat drifted further and further, and the old ferryman
sat bowed over his oars and fast asleep.
* * * * *
On my way to the Gagins the following day I did not ask myself if I was
in love with Assja, but I thought of her continually; her destiny
absorbed me, and I rejoiced over our unhoped-for meeting. I felt that I
had known her only since yesterday. Until then she had always avoided
me. And now that she had finally admitted me to her friendship, in what
a bewitching light did her image appear to me; what a mysterious charm
streamed from it to me.
Hastily I sprang up the well-known path, straining my eyes for a glimpse
of the little white house in the distance. I did not think of the
future; I did not think even of the morrow; but my heart was light in
me.
Assja blushed as I entered the room. I observed that she had again
dressed herself with great care, but the expression of her face did not
correspond with her finery; it was melancholy. And I had come so happily
disposed! I believe that she was inclined to run away in her usual
fashion, but forcibly compelled herself to remain. I found Gagin in that
peculiar mood of artistic enthusiasm which catches dilettanti by
surprise whenever they imagine themselves about to take nature by storm,
as they express it. He stood with hair disordered, and bedaubed with
paint, before a fresh canvas, drawing madly. Furiously he nodded to me,
stepped backward, half closed his eyes, and then precipitated himself
again upon his work. I did not like to disturb him, and sat down beside
Assja. Slowly her dark eyes turned on me.
"You are not as you were yesterday," I ventured, after I had made some
vain attempts to bring a smile to her lips.
"No, I am not," she replied, with a slow, suppressed voice. "But that is
nothing. I did not sleep well. I was thinking the whole night."
"About what?"
"Oh, I thought about many things. It has been my habit from childhood,
even when I was living with my mother."
She spoke this with a certain emphasis, and repeated it.
"When I was living with my mother I--I wondered why no one can know
beforehand what is to happen to him. Sometimes one sees a misfortune
coming, and yet cannot turn away from it; and why cannot one always say
boldly the truth? Then I thought that I do not know anything, and that I
must learn. I must be educated over again. I have been very badly
brought up. I do not know how to play the piano, I cannot draw, I sew
dreadfully; I have no capacity; I must be very tiresome."
"You are unjust to yourself," I answered. "You have read much, you are
cultivated, and with your intellect----"
"Have I an intellect?" she asked with such naive curiosity that I could
not help laughing. She did not laugh.
"Brother, have I an intellect?" she asked Gagin.
He made her no answer, but continued his work, busily laying on his
colors, and with one arm flourished in the air.
"Sometimes I hardly know myself what goes through my head," Assja went
on with the same thoughtful expression. "At certain times I am actually
afraid of myself. Ah, I wish---- Is it really true that women ought not
to read much?"
"It is not necessary that they should read much, but----"
"Will you tell me what to read? Will you tell me what to do? I will do
everything that you tell me," she said, turning to me with an innocent
confidence.
I did not readily find any answer to make.
"The time with me will not seem long to you?"
"How can you think so!" I said.
"Well, I thank you," cried Assja, "but I thought you might be _ennuye_."
And her little hot hand grasped
mine tightly.
"N.!" cried Gagin at this moment, "isn't this background too dark?"
I went over to him. Assja rose and left the room.
* * * * *
An hour afterward she returned, stood in the doorway, and beckoned to
me.
"Listen," she said. "Would you be sorry if I died?"
"What ideas you have to-day!" I exclaimed.
"I imagine that I shall die soon. Sometimes it seems to me as if
everything about me was taking leave of me. It is better to die than to
live as---- Ah, don't look at me so. Indeed I am not a hypocrite. I
shall be afraid of you again."
"Have you ever been afraid of me?"
"If I am unlike other people, the fault is not mine," she answered.
"Already, you see, I cannot laugh any more."
She was melancholy and depressed until evening. Something was passing in
her that I could not understand. Her eyes often rested on me, and every
time they did so I felt my heart chilled by their strange expression.
She was quiet--and yet whenever I looked at her it seemed to me that I
must beg her to be calm. Her appearance fascinated me; I found the
greatest charm in her pale features, in her slow, aimless movements; but
she fancied--I do not know why--that I was in ill humor.
"Listen," she said to me a little while before my departure. "The
thought haunts me that you think me frivolous. In future you must
believe everything that I tell you, and you must be frank with me. I
will always tell you the truth, I give you my word of honor."
This "word of honor" made me laugh.
"Oh, do not laugh," she broke in with eagerness, "or else I must say to
you to-day what you said to me yesterday: 'Why do you laugh so much?'"
And after a short silence she continued: "Do you remember, yesterday we
were talking of wings? My wings are grown--but where shall I fly?"
"What are you saying!" I replied. "To you all ways are open."
Assja looked in my eyes long and keenly.
"You have a bad opinion of me today," she said, and drew her eyebrows
together.
"I have a bad opinion? Of you!"
"What is the matter with you two to-day?" Gagin interrupted me. "Shall I
play a waltz for you as I did yesterday?"
"No, no," exclaimed Assja, clasping her hands together--"not for the
world to-day."
"I won't insist--be easy."
"Not for the world," she repeated, and her cheeks grew pale.
* * * * *
Does she love me? I thought, as I came to the Rhine, whose waves rolled
swiftly by.
Does she love me? I asked myself when I awoke the next morning. I did
not wish to look into my own heart. I felt that her image--the image of
the "girl with the bold laugh"--had impressed itself upon my soul, and
that I could not easily get rid of it. I went to L---- and remained there
the whole day; but I had only one glimpse of Assja. She was not well;
her head ached. She came down stairs for a few moments with her head
bound up, her eyes half closed, pale and weak; she smiled feebly, said,
"It will pass; it is nothing; everything passes, does it not?" and went
away. I was depressed and had a painful sense of blankness, but I would
not go home till very late, without, however, seeing her again.
I spent the next day like a man walking in his sleep. I tried to work,
but could not; then I tried to be absolutely idle, and to think of
nothing; but neither did that succeed. I strolled about the town,
returned home, and went out again.
"Are you Mr. N.?" said suddenly the voice of a child behind me. I
turned. A little boy was standing before me. "From Miss Annette," and
handed me a note.
I opened it, and recognized Assja's irregular and scrawling handwriting.
"I must see you," she wrote. "Come to-day at four o'clock to the stone
chapel on the way to the ruins. Something unexpected has happened. For
heaven's sake, come. You shall know everything. Say to the bearer,
'yes.'"
"Any answer?" the boy asked me.
"Say 'yes,'" I replied. The boy ran off.
* * * * *
When I had reached my room I sat down and fell into deep thought. My
heart beat forcibly. I read Assja's note several times over. I looked at
the clock; it was not yet midday.
The door opened: Gagin walked in.
His face was gloomy. He seized my hand and shook it warmly. Apparently
he was very much excited.
"What is the matter?" I asked him.
Gagin took a chair and drew it near mine. "Four days ago," he began with
a forced smile, and stammering a little, "I amazed you with a
confidence; and to-day I shall amaze you even more. With any other I
probably should not--so plainly. But you are a man of honor; you're my
friend, are you not? Well, here then; my sister Assja loves you."
I started up from my chair.
"You say--your sister----"
"Yes, yes," Gagin interrupted me. "I tell you she has lost her senses
and will make me lose mine, moreover. Happily she is not used to lying
and has great trust in me. Oh, what a soul the girl has! But she will
surely do herself a mischief."
"You must be mistaken," I said.
"No, I'm not. Yesterday, you know, she staid in bed nearly all day; she
ate nothing: to be sure she complained of nothing. She never complains.
I was not uneasy, although toward evening she grew feverish. But at two
o'clock this morning our landlady roused me. 'Come to your sister,' said
she. 'There is something wrong with her.' I hastened to Assja, and found
her not yet undressed, very feverish, in tears: her head was burning
hot, her teeth chattered. 'What's the matter?' I asked. 'Are you sick?'
She threw herself upon my neck, and insisted that I should take her away
from there as speedily as possible if I wished her to remain alive. I
could make nothing of it--tried to pacify her. Her sobs increased, and
suddenly among her sobs I heard--well, in one word, I discovered that
she loves you. I assure you, neither of us, being reasonable men, can
have the smallest idea of the impetuosity of her feelings and the
incredible violence with which she expresses them; it is as sudden and
as inevitable as a thunder storm. You are a delightful fellow," Gagin
continued, "But I must confess that I do not see why she has fallen in
love with you. She believes that she has loved you from the first moment
she saw you. She was crying lately on that account, even when she was
declaring that she loved nobody but me. She imagines that you despise
her; she fancies that you know her origin. She asked me if I had told
you the story of her life. I naturally denied it, but it is astonishing
how keen she is. She wishes only one thing: to go away: immediately
away. I staid with her till morning. She wrung a promise from me that we
would leave here to-morrow, and then at last she fell asleep. I thought
it over and over, and decided--to talk with you. Assja is right, in my
opinion. It is best that we should both leave this place. I should have
taken her away to-day if an idea that has got into my head didn't
prevent it. Perhaps--who can tell?--my sister pleases you? If this
should be the case, why should I take her away? So I determined to put
shame aside. Besides, I have myself noticed--so I decided--from your own
mouth to learn----" Poor Gagin became hopelessly confused. "Pray excuse
me," he added. "I am inexperienced in such matters."
I seized his hand.
"You wish to know whether your sister pleases me? Yes, she pleases me,"
I said in a steady voice. Gagin looked at me.
"But," he said with an effort, "you don't want to marry her?"
"How can I answer such a question? Think, yourself, how could I at this
moment----"
"I know, I know," Gagin interrupted me. "I have not the least right to
expect an answer from you, and my question was improper--to the last
degree. But what was I to do? One cannot play with fire. You do not know
Assja. It would be possible for her to drown herself--to run away, to
seek an interview with you. Any other girl would know how to conceal
everything and to wait opportunities--but not she. This is her first
experience. That is the worst of it! If you had seen her as she lay
sobbing at my feet, you would share my anxiety."
I became thoughtful. Gagin's expression, "seek an interview with you,"
sank into my heart. It seemed abominable not to answer his confidence
with confidence as free.
"Yes," I said at last. "You are right. An hour ago I received a note
from your sister. Here it is."
Gagin took the note, read it hurriedly, and let his hands fall on his
knees. The expression of his features was ludicrous enough, but I was in
no mood for laughter.
"You're a man of honor. I repeat it," he said. "But what is to be done
now? What! She wishes to hurry away from here, yet she writes to you and
reproaches herself for her own want of foresight. And when can she have
written this? What does she want of you?"
I succeeded in calming him, and we began to talk, as coolly as we could,
about what we might have to do.
At last we decided as follows: To guard against any desperate step on
her part, I was to meet Assja at the appointed place, and have a fair
explanation with her. Gagin pledged himself to remain at home and to
avoid all appearance of knowing about the note. In the evening we agreed
to meet again. "I have full confidence in you," said Gagin, and pressed
my hand strongly. "Spare Assja and myself. But we shall leave
to-morrow," he added as he rose, "for you will not marry Assja."
"Give me time till evening," I said.
"So be it. But you will not marry her."
He went away. I threw myself on the sofa and shut my eyes. My head spun
round like a top. Too many emotions came crowding upon me. Gagin's
frankness annoyed me, and I was angry with Assja. Her love distressed
and delighted me at once. I could not understand how she could betray
herself to her brother. The necessity of a hasty, an instantaneous
decision tormented me. "Marry a seventeen-year-old girl of such a
disposition! How can I do it?" I said, getting up from my seat.
* * * * *
I crossed the Rhine at the appointed hour, and the first face that met
me on the opposite shore was that of the same boy who had come to me in
the morning. He seemed to be waiting for me.
"From Miss Annette," he said, and gave me another letter. Assja wrote to
appoint another place for our meeting. In half an hour I was to come,
not to the chapel, but to the house of Frau Luise, knock at the door,
and ascend to the third story.
"'Yes' again?" the boy asked me.
"Yes," I answered, and walked along the bank of the river. There was not
time to return to my house, and I had no inclination to stroll about the
streets. Just beyond the limits of the village there was a little garden
with a covered bowling alley and tables for beer drinkers. I entered it.
A few middle-aged men were playing ninepins. The balls rolled noisily,
and from time to time I caught expressions of applause. A pretty girl,
with eyelids reddened by crying, brought me a glass of beer. I looked
her in the face. She turned hastily away and disappeared.
"Yes, yes," said a fat and ruddy-cheeked man who was sitting near me.
"Our little Nancy is in great trouble to-day. Her lover is gone with the
conscripts." I looked after her. She had retired to a corner and buried
her face in her hands. One after another the tears trickled through her
fingers. Some one called for beer. She brought it, and went back to her
place. Her grief reacted upon me. I began to think of the interview
before me; but I thought of it with anxiety, not with joy. I did not go
light-hearted to the rendezvous. No joyful exchange of mutual love was
before me; I had a promise to redeem, a hard duty to perform. "There is
no jesting possible with her"--this expression of Gagin's pierced my
soul like an arrow. And was not this the very happiness for which I had
longed four days ago, in the little boat which the waves bore onward?
Now it seemed to be possible--but I wavered, I thrust it from me; I must
put it away from me. The very unexpectedness of it confused me. Assja
herself, with her impetuosity, her past history, her education--this
charming but singular being--let me confess it--inspired me with fear.
For a long time I gave myself up to these conflicting feelings. The
deferred tryst was at hand. "I cannot marry her," I decided at last,
"and she shall not know that I love her."
I rose, and after I had pressed a thaler in poor Nancy's hand (for which
she did not even thank me) I went straight to Frau Luise's house.
Already the shadow of dusk was in the air, and above the darkening
streets a narrow streak, the reflection of the sunset, reddened in the
sky. I knocked lightly at the door. It was opened instantly. I stepped
across the threshold and found myself suddenly in darkness.
"This way!" whispered an old woman's voice. "Some one is waiting for
you."
I advanced a couple of steps, stumbling. A skinny hand clutched mine.
"Is it you, Frau Luise?" I asked.
"Yes," the same voice answered. "Yes, it is I, my handsome young
gentleman." The old woman led me up one steep staircase and stopped at
the bottom of a second. By the dull light which came in through a little
window I recognized the wrinkled visage of the burgomaster's widow. A
hateful, sly smile distorted her shrunken lips and half closed the
little bleared eyes. She pointed out a small door to me. I opened it
with a hand that trembled, and shut it again behind me.
* * * * *
It was nearly dark in the little room which I entered, and at first I
did not discover Assja. Wrapped in a great cloak, she was sitting in a
chair by the window, with her head averted and almost hidden, like a
frightened bird. Her breath came quickly, and she was trembling in every
limb. I felt an inexpressible pity for her. I approached her; she turned
her head away still more.
"Anna Nicolaevna!" I addressed her.
She started suddenly as if she wished to look at me, but dared not. I
took her hand. It was cold, and lay in mine like a dead thing.
"I wished," Assja began, and tried to smile, but her pallid lips would
not obey her--"I wanted--no, I cannot," she said, and was silent. And in
truth her voice broke at every word.
I sat down beside her.
"Anna Nicolaevna!" I repeated, and again found nothing further to say.
There was a silence. I still held her hand and looked at her. She was in
the same constrained attitude as before: breathed heavily, and bit her
under lip in order to keep back her tears. My eyes were fixed on her.
There was something touchingly helpless in her shy immobility. It seemed
as if she had just been able to reach the chair, and had fallen there.
My heart overflowed.
"Assja!" I whispered, almost inaudibly.
Slowly she raised her eyes to mine. Oh, the glance of a woman who loves!
Who shall describe it? Her eyes expressed entreaty, trust, questioning,
surrender. I could not withstand their magic. A burning fire thrilled me
like the prick of red-hot needles. I bent down and pressed my lips to
her hand.
A little hurried sound as of a broken sob fell on my ear, and I felt on
my hair the tender touch of a hand that trembled like a leaf. I raised
my head, and looked in her face. The expression of fear was gone from
her features. Her glance swept past me into the room. Her lips were a
little apart, her forehead white as marble, and the hair pushed off as
if the wind had blown it back. I forgot everything; I drew her toward
me; willingly her hand obeyed, and her whole body followed; the shawl
slipped from her shoulders, and her head bowed silently to my breast and
laid itself against my burning lips.
"Yours!" she whispered faintly.
Already my arm was about her, when suddenly, like a gleam of lightning,
the thought of Gagin flashed through my brain. "What are we doing?" I
cried, and moved roughly away. "Your brother knows all--he knows that we
are here together."
Assja sank into her chair.
"Yes," I went on, while I rose and went over to the other side of the
room. "Your brother knows everything. I had to tell him everything."
"You had to?" she stammered unintelligibly. She could not come to
herself, and only half comprehended me.
"Yes, yes," I repeated with a certain bitterness, "and you are to blame
for it--you alone. Why did you betray your secret? Who compelled you to
tell your brother? He himself was with me to-day, and told me of your
conversation with him."
I avoided looking at Assja, and went up and down the room with great
strides. "Now everything is lost--everything, everything."
Assja was about to get up from her chair.
"Oh, sit still," I cried; "sit still, I beg you. You have to do with a
man of honor--yes, with a man of honor. But in Heaven's name what
disturbed you so? Have you seen any change in me? But it was impossible
for me to conceal it from your brother when he made me a visit to-day."
"What am I saying?" I thought to myself, and the idea that I should be a
base hypocrite, that Gagin knew of this meeting, that everything had
been talked over, twisted and spoiled, maddened me.
"I did not call my brother," Assja said, in a frightened, harsh voice.
"He came of his own will."
"Only see what you have done," I went on. "Now you want to go away."
"Yes, I must go," she said in a whisper, "and I only asked you to come
here that I might take leave of you."
"And do you think," I retorted, "that it is easy for me to part from
you?"
"Why were you obliged to tell my brother?" repeated Assja with an
expression of amazement.
"I tell you, I could not do otherwise. If you had not betrayed
yourself----"
"I had locked myself into my chamber," she answered simply. "I did not
know that my landlady had another key."
This innocent speech from her mouth at such a moment nearly cost me my
self-control. Even now I cannot think of it without emotion. Poor,
honest, innocent child!
"And so it is all over," I began again. "All. Now indeed we must part."
I threw a stolen glance at Assja, whose face became more and scarlet.
She was, I felt, alarmed and ashamed. I myself was greatly agitated, and
spoke like one in a fever. "You did not leave the budding feeling time
to unfold itself. You yourself have torn the bond between us. You had no
confidence in me; you cherished suspicion against me."
While I was speaking Assja bent forward more and more, then sank
suddenly on her knees, let her head fall into her hands, and broke into
sobs. I rushed to her and tried to raise her, but she resisted me. I
cannot endure women's tears; when I see them I lose my self-possession
at once.
"Anna Nicolaevna, Assja!" I cried repeatedly. "I beg, I implore you!
Stop, for God's sake!" I took her hand again.
But to my extremest astonishment she sprang up suddenly, sped like a
flash through the door, and vanished.
When Frau Luise came in a few moments later, I still stood in the middle
of the chamber as if thunderstruck. I could not believe that the
interview had come to an end so abrupt, so unmeaning, when I myself had
not said the hundredth part of what I meant to say, and was, besides,
quite uncertain how it should finally terminate.
"Is the young lady gone?" Frau Luise asked me, and raised her yellow
eyebrows quite to the parting of her hair.
I stared at her like an idiot, and went away.
* * * * *
I left the village and made my way into the fields. Vexation, the
keenest vexation possessed me. I overwhelmed myself with reproaches. How
had it been possible for me to misunderstand the reason which had
induced Assja to change our place of meeting? How could I have failed to
know what it must have cost her to go to the old woman? Why had I not
detained her! Alone with her in the dim, empty room I had found the
strength, I had had the heart to drive her from me--even to reproach her
for coming. Now her image followed me; I besought her pardon. The memory
of that pale face, those shy, wet eyes, that hair flowing over the bowed
back, the soft nestling of her head against my breast, consumed me like
a fire. "Yours!" Her whisper still rang in my ears. "I have acted
conscientiously," I tried to say to myself. Lies! What was the
conclusion I truly wished? Am I in a condition to part with her? Can I
lose her? "O fool! fool!" I repeated with bitterness.
By this time the night had fallen. With hasty steps I sought the house
where Assja lived.
* * * * *
Gagin came to meet me.
"Have you seen my sister?" he called to me, still at a distance.
"Isn't she at home then?" I returned.
"No."
"She has not come back?"
"No. Excuse me," Gagin went on. "I could not stand it. I went to the
chapel in spite of our agreement; she was not there; she cannot have
gone there."
"She did not go to the chapel."
"And you have not seen her?"
I had to acknowledge that I had seen her.
"Where?"
"At Frau Luise's. We separated an hour ago," I added. "I believed
certainly that she had come home."
"Let us wait," said Gagin.
We entered the house and sat down near each other. We were silent.
Neither of us was without anxiety. We watched the door and listened. At
last Gagin rose.
"This is the end of everything," he cried. "I don't know if my heart is
in my body. She will kill me yet, by God! Come, let us search for her."
We went out. It had grown dark.
"Of what did you talk with her?" asked Gagin as he crushed his hat down
over his eyes.
"I was with her five minutes at longest," I answered. "I spoke to her as
we had decided."
"Well," he said, "we would better go, each for himself; in that way we
shall find her sooner. In any event, come back here in an hour."
* * * * *
Hastily I descended the hill and ran to the town. I made my way rapidly
through all the streets, staring in all directions, took another glance
at the windows of Frau Luise's house, reached the Rhine, and began to
walk quickly along its bank. From time to time I met women, but Assja
was nowhere to be seen. It was no longer vexation that I felt. A secret
fear oppressed me, and not fear alone; no, remorse, the warmest pity.
Love! yes, tenderest love! Wringing my hands, I called on Assja, into
the gathering darkness of the night; softly at first, then louder and
louder; a hundred times I repeated that I loved her. I swore never to
part from her. I would have given everything in the world to hear her
gentle voice again, to hold her cold hand, to see herself standing
before me. So near had she been to me, in perfect trustfulness, in utter
simplicity of heart and feeling had she come to me and laid her
inexperienced youth in my hands; and I had not caught her to my heart; I
had thrown away the bliss of seeing the shy face bloom into a joy, a
rapture of peace--this thought drove me to madness.
"Where can she be gone? What is become of her?" I called out, desperate
with helpless fears. Suddenly something white glimmered near by on the
shore. I knew the spot. An old half sunken cross with quaint inscription
stood there, over the grave of a man drowned seventy years before. My
heart stood still in my body. I ran to the cross. The white figure had
disappeared. "Assja!" I shouted. My wild cry terrified me. No one made
answer.
I determined to see if Gagin had found her.
* * * * *
As I hastened up the footpath I saw a light in Assja's chamber. It
calmed me a little.
I drew near the house. The door was fastened. I knocked. A window in the
darkened first story was carefully raised, and Gagin's head showed
itself.
"Found?" I asked.
"She is come back," he whispered to me. "She is in her chamber, and
undressing. All is as it should be."
"God be thanked!" I cried, in a transport of inexpressible joy. "God be
thanked! Now all will be well. But you know we have something to say to
each other."
"Another time," he answered, softly closing the window--"another time.
For this, good-by."
"Till to-morrow then," I said. "Tomorrow everything will be clear."
"Good-by," Gagin repeated, and the window was shut. I came near to
knocking again. I wished to tell Gagin at once that I sought his
sister's hand. But such a wooing, at such an hour! "Till to-morrow
then," I thought. "To-morrow I shall be happy!"
"To-morrow I shall be happy!" Happiness has no to-morrow; it has no
yesterday; it knows of no past; it thinks of no future. The present
belongs to it, and not even the present day--only the moment.
I do not know how I reached S----. Not my feet brought me; not the boat
carried me; I was borne over as if on broad, mighty wings. My way led me
by a thicket in which a nightingale was singing. It seemed to me it sang
of my love and my joy.
* * * * *
The next morning, as I drew near the familiar little house, one
circumstance seemed strange: all its windows were open, and the door as
well. Scraps of paper lay strewn about the threshold, and behind the
door a maid was visible with her broom.
I stepped up to her.
"They're off!" she volunteered, before I could ask her if the Gagins
were at home.
"Off!" I repeated. "What, gone? Where?"
"They went at six o'clock this morning, and did not say where. But stop.
You are surely Mr. N."
"I am Mr. N."
"There is a letter for you inside." She went in and returned with a
letter. "Here it is, if you please."
"But it isn't possible. How can it be?" I said. The maid stared at me
stupidly, and began to sweep.
I opened the letter. It was Gagin who wrote. From Assja not a line. He
began with a hope that I would not be angry with him on account of his
sudden departure. He felt assured that, after mature thought, I would
agree to his decision. He had found no other way out of a situation
which might easily become difficult, even dangerous. "Yesterday," he
wrote, "as we were both waiting silently for Assja, I convinced myself
fully that a separation was necessary. There are prejudices which I know
how to respect. I understand that you cannot marry Assja. She has told
me everything. For her own sake I am compelled to yield to her repeated,
desperate prayers." In conclusion he expressed his regret that our
acquaintance should be broken off so abruptly; wished me happiness;
shook my hand affectionately; and assured me that it would be useless
for me to try to find them.
"What prejudices?" I cried out, as if he could hear me. "Nonsense! Who
has given him the right to rob me of her?" I clutched my head with my
hands.
The maid began to call loudly for the landlady. Her terror rendered me
my self control. One thought took possession of me--to find them, to
find them at whatever cost. To submit to this stroke, to calmly accept
it, was impossible. I learned from the landlady that they had taken a
steamboat about six o'clock in the morning to go down the Rhine. I went
to the office. There I was told that they had taken tickets for Cologne.
I went home with the intention to pack at once and follow them. My way
led me by Frau Luise's house. All at once I heard some one call me. I
raised my head, and saw the Burgomaster's widow at the window of the
very room where, the day before, I had met Assja. She summoned me with
her disagreeable smile. I turned away, and would have gone on, but she
called after me that something was there for me. This brought me to a
standstill, and I entered the house. How shall I describe my feelings as
I again beheld that little room?
"To tell the truth," the old woman said to me, handing me a little note,
"I was only to give you that if you came here of your own free will. But
you are such a handsome young gentleman. Take it."
I took the letter.
The following words were hastily scrawled in pencil on a scrap of paper:
"Farewell! We shall not see each other any more. It is not from pride
that I go. No; I cannot do anything else. Yesterday, when I was crying
before you, it only needed a word from you--only one single word. I
should have staid. You did not speak it. It must be better so. Farewell,
for always."
* * * * *
One word! Fool that I had been! This word! I had said it with tears over
and over. I had scattered it to the wind. I had repeated it--how
often--to the lonely fields; but to her I had not said it. I had not
told her that I loved her. And now I must never say it. When I met her
in that fatal room, I myself had no clear consciousness of my love.
Perhaps I was not even yet awakened to it while I was sitting with her
brother in helpless and fearful silence. A moment later it broke out
with irresistible force as I shuddered at the possibility of harm to
her, and began to seek her, to call her, but then it was already too
late. "But that is impossible," you say. I do not know whether it is
possible, but I know that it is true. Assja would not have left me if
there had been a trace of coquetry in her, and if her position had not
been a false one. She could not bear that which every other girl could
have borne; but that I had not realized. My evil genius held my
confession back from my lips, as I saw Gagin for the last time, at the
dark window, and the last thread that I might have seized slipped from
my fingers.
On the same day I returned to L---- with my travelling trunk, and took
passage for Cologne. I remember that, as the boat was under way, and I
was taking leave in spirit of the streets and the places I should never
lose from memory, I saw Nancy on the bank. She was sitting on a bench.
Her face was pale, but not sorrowful, and a stalwart young peasant stood
beside her, laughing and talking to her. On the other shore of the river
the little Madonna looked out, sad as ever, from the green shadow of the
old oak tree.
* * * * *
I found myself on the Gagins' track in Cologne. I learned that they had
started for London. Hastily I followed them; but in London all my
inquiries were fruitless. For a long time I would not be discouraged,
for a long time I kept up an obstinate search; but at last I was obliged
to give up hope of finding them.
And I never saw them again; I never saw Assja again. Of her brother I
heard brief news sometimes; but she had for ever vanished from my sight.
I do not know if she is yet living. Once, while travelling, years
afterward, I caught a hasty glimpse of a woman in a railway carriage
whose face reminded me vividly of features never to be forgotten, but I
was deceived by a chance resemblance. Assja remained in my memory as I
had known her in the fairest days of my life, and as I had last seen
her, bowed over the arm of the low wooden chair.
But I will confess that I did not grieve too long for her. Yes, I have
even fancied that Fate had been kind in refusing to unite us. I consoled
myself with the thought that I could not have been happy with such a
wife. I was young, and the future--this short, fleeting life--seemed
endless to me. Why should not that be again which once had been so
sweet, and even better and more beautiful? I have known other women, but
the feeling which Assja awakened in me--that deep and ardent
tenderness--has never repeated itself.
No! No eyes could compensate me for the loss of those that once were
lifted, with such love, to mine. No heart has ever rested on my breast
which could make my own beat with such delicious anguish! Condemned to
the solitary existence of a man without a family tie, I bring my life to
its gloomy end; but I guard still, as a sacred relic, her letters and
the dried geranium sprig which she once tossed me from the window. There
clings a faint fragrance to it even yet; but the hand that gave it, the
hand that it was only once vouchsafed to me to kiss, has mouldered,
perhaps, for many a year in the grave. And I--what has become of me?
What remains to me of myself--of those happy and painful days--of those
winged hopes and desires? So the slight fragrance of a feeble weed
outlasts all the joys and all the sorrows of a man. Nay, it outlasts the
man himself!
TO BEETHOVEN.
Clasped in a too strict calyxing
Lay Music's bud o'er-long unblown,
Till thou, Beethoven, breathed her spring:
Then blushed the perfect rose of tone.
O loving Soul, thy song hath taught
All full-grown passion fast to flee
Where science drives all full-grown thought--
To unity, to unity.
For he whose ear with grave delight
Brings brave revealings from thine art
Oft hears thee calling through the night:
_In Love's large tune all tones have part._
Thy music hushes motherwise,
And motherwise to stillness sings
The slanders told by sickly eyes
On nature's healthy course of things.
It soothes my accusations sour
'Gainst frets that fray the restless soul:
The stain of death; the pain of power;
The lack of love 'twixt part and whole;
The yea-nay of Free-will and Fate,
Whereof both cannot be, yet are;
The praise a poet wins too late
Who starves from earth into a star;
The lies that serve great parties well,
While truths but give their Christs a cross
The loves that send warm souls to hell,
While cold-blood neuters live on loss;
Th' indifferent smile that nature's grace
On Jesus, Judas, pours alike;
Th' indifferent frown on nature's face
When luminous lightnings blindly strike;
The sailor praying on his knees
Along with him that's cursing God--
Whose wives and babes may starve or freeze,
Yet Nature will not stir a clod.
If winds of question blow from out
The large sea-caverns of thy notes,
They do but clear each cloud of doubt
That round a high-path'd purpose floats.
As: why one blind by nature's act
Still feels no law in mercy bend,
No pitfall from his feet retract,
No storm cry out, _Take shelter, friend!_
Or, Can the truth be best for them
That have not stomachs for its strength?
Or, Will the sap in Culture's stem
E'er reach life's furthest fibre-length?
How to know all, save knowingness;
To grasp, yet loosen, feeling's rein;
To sink no manhood in success;
To look with pleasure upon pain;
How, teased by small mixt social claims,
To lose no large simplicity;
How through all clear-seen crimes and shames
To move with manly purity;
How, justly, yet with loving eyes,
Pure art from cleverness to part;
To know the Clever good and wise,
Yet haunt the lonesome heights of Art.
O Psalmist of the weak, the strong,
O Troubadour of love and strife,
Co-Litanist of right and wrong,
Sole Hymner of the whole of life,
I know not how, I care not why,
Thy music brings this broil at ease,
And melts my passion's mortal cry
In satisfying symphonies.
Yea, it forgives me all my sins,
Fits Life to Love like rhyme to rhyme,
And tunes the task each day begins
By the last trumpet-note of Time.
SIDNEY LANIER.
THE DRAMATIC CANONS.
At intervals of varying length, the journals of the Anglo-Saxon races
are given to discussing the question whether the present age be one of
decadence or progress in dramatic art. Most readers of "The Galaxy" have
seen some phases of this discussion, which starts up afresh after the
arrival of every noted foreign actor or the production of a new play. It
is at present confined to the English-speaking nations, and prevails
more in America than England just now.
In France there is no lively interest in the theme. The French dramatic
authors seem to be pretty well satisfied themselves, and to satisfy
their audiences; their best claim to success being found in the fact
that English and American dramatic authors of the present day almost
invariably pilfer from them.
In the course of this perennial discussion we constantly meet with
appeals, on the part of those learned gentlemen, the theatrical critics,
to the "dramatic canons." Such and such a play is said to offend against
these "canons," and they are spoken of as something of which it is
shameful to be ignorant, but at the same time with a vagueness of phrase
betraying a similar vagueness of definition. It has seemed to us that an
inquiry into the nature of these canons may not be out of place at the
present time. This we propose to determine by consulting the practice of
those authors of former times whose productions still hold the stage as
"stock plays," so called, and of those modern authors still living whose
plays are well known and famous, being still successfully acted. By such
an analysis we may possibly settle something, especially if our inquiry
shall call forth the actual experience of those living who have attained
great success, whether as authors or adapters.
The most obvious division of our subject is into tragedy, comedy,
melodrama; but inasmuch as it is plain that the laws of success in all
these walks of dramatic art must contain much in common, we have
preferred a different division for analysis, leaving the kind of drama
as a subdivision common to each part of the inquiry. A less obvious but
equally just division will be as to the canons regulating the subject,
the treatment, and the production of a successful drama, in whatever
walk. We propose to ascertain our canons from the successful plays,
still holding the stage, of Shakespeare, Sheridan, Knowles, Bulwer, Dion
Boucicault, Tom Taylor, Augustin Daly, and Gilbert, together with such
single plays, like "The Honeymoon," "Masks and Faces," and a few others,
as are better known to the public than their authors, whose sole
dramatic successes they were. Ephemeral successes, however great, cannot
be safely taken as guides to a canon; but an established success of long
standing, however repugnant to our tastes, must be examined, even if it
take the form of the "Black Crook."
The influence of the French drama on Anglo-Saxon art has been so decided
that no safe estimates of canons can be made which do not take into
account the works of Sardou, Dumas, and the minor French authors, whose
name is legion. Fortunately for our subject, the French work on simple
principles, and will not confuse us any more than the Greeks, whom they
imitate. Let us try, then, to ascertain our canons in their order,
beginning with the subject of the drama.
What subjects are fit for dramatic treatment, and are there any entirely
unfitted therefor?
We find a pretty wide range in the successful dramas of modern time. In
tragedy we have ancient history, as shown by "Coriolanus," "Julius
Caesar," "Virginius," "Alexander the Great"; medieval history, in
"Macbeth," "Richard III."; legendary stories, in "Lear," "Hamlet,"
"Othello," "Romeo and Juliet." In comedy and melodrama we have an almost
infinite variety, as much so as in novel writing. History, legend, and
pure invention claim equal right in the field. We have "The Tempest,"
"As You Like It," "Much Ado about Nothing," "Twelfth Night," "Henry
IV.," "Henry V.," "Merchant of Venice," "The Wonder," "The Honeymoon,"
"Masks and Faces," "London Assurance," "School for Scandal," "The
Rivals," "The Lady of Lyons," "Richelieu," "Wild Oats," "The Colleen
Bawn," "Arrah-na-Pogue," "The Shaughraun," "The Wife," "The Merry Wives
of Windsor," "Under the Gaslight," "Don Caesar de Bazan," "American
Cousin," "Rip Van Winkle," and the "Black Crook," all well known and
successful plays, many perhaps being acted this very night all over the
Union and England. We are not here examining the question of the
goodness or badness of these plays, their merits or demerits: we are
merely recognizing them as well known plays, constantly being acted, and
always successful when well acted. Of all of these, the most constantly
successful and most frequently acted are those of Shakespeare, Sheridan,
and Bulwer, among the old plays, and those of Boucicault and Daly among
living authors. Almost all playgoers are familiar with these works, and
have seen them once or more; and every new aspirant for histrionic
honors has one or more of the plays of the first three in his list of
test characters. If he be a man and a tragedian, he must play Hamlet,
Othello, Richard, Shylock, Macbeth, Richelieu, Claude Melnotte; if
versatile, he must add Benedick, Charles Surface, Captain Absolute, and
others to the list; if a lady, she must be tested in Portia, Ophelia,
Pauline, Lady Teazle, Juliet--who knows what? Some very versatile ladies
have tried all the light comedy characters, finishing with Lady Macbeth
as an experiment. A short time ago there was quite an epidemic of Lady
Macbeths, but that is over for the present. The stray sheep have
returned to the fold. Let us return to them.
What can we glean about the limitations of the dramatic subject from
these successful plays? There is a limitation somewhere, and the first
and most obvious is--time. A novelist can make the minute description of
a life interesting. The most celebrated novels, such as "Robinson
Crusoe," "Vicar of Wakefield," "David Copperfield," "Pendennis," "The
Three Guardsmen," and others, have been just such books, imitations of
real biographies. But a play is limited in length to five acts, or six
at most, and its time of acting has a practical limit of three hours,
with the inter-acts. Each act is further practically limited to five
scenes, and it is but seldom that it stretches over three, while the
latter average is never exceeded and seldom reached in a five-act play.
No scene can properly contain more than a chapter of a novel, so we find
ourselves practically limited to a story which can be told inside of
fifteen chapters, the further inside the better. The French, who are
much more artificial than the English in their dramatic canons, almost
invariably limit their acts to a single scene, reducing their story
thereby to only five chapters. A careful comparison of successful acting
plays will generally end in bringing us to one obvious canon:
I. The subject of a drama must be capable of being fully
treated in fifteen chapters at most.
The next limitation that we meet is in the nature of the story. A
novelist can describe his hero and heroine and the scenes in which they
move. He can depict them in motion, and describe a long journey in
strange countries, trusting to picturesque scenery and incident to help
him out. He can give us a sketch of their former life, and tell how they
fared after they were happily married. The dramatist cannot do this. He
must put his people down in a given place and leave them there till his
scene is over, opening another scene or another act after a silent
interval. He can, indeed, put a narrative of supposed events into the
mouth of any of his characters, but such narratives are always dull and
prosy, and to be avoided. Shakespeare uses them sometimes, but only when
he cannot help himself, and always makes them short. The nearest
instances that occur to us are, the description by Tressel to Henry VI.
of the murder of Prince Edward, usually put now in the first act of
"Richard III.," and the story of Oliver in "As You Like It." Sometimes a
short story cannot be helped, but if told, it is always found to be of a
collateral circumstance not directly leading to the catastrophe. It
generally is brought in only to explain the presence of a character on
the stage in the successful drama. Sometimes it happens otherwise. For
instance, Coleman makes Mortimer, in the "Iron Chest," tell the whole
mystery of his life in the form of a story instead of acting it. The
result is a poor play, seldom acted, and generally to small audiences,
being only valuable for some special features of which we shall speak
later. It is not too much to ask for acceptance of this second canon
regarding the subject:
II. The subject should be capable of being acted without the
aid of narrative.
Is it still possible to limit the subject, and do novels and dramas
differ still further? A third limitation will reveal itself, if we
compare a typical drama, like "Much Ado About Nothing," or "Hamlet,"
with a typical novel such as "David Copperfield" or "Robinson Crusoe."
These latter depend for their interest on a series of adventures which
befall a hero, sometimes entirely unconnected with each other, just as
they happen to a man in real life, wherein he meets many and various
scenes and persons. Neither possesses any sequence of events, depending
on each other, such as pervades "Hamlet" and all acting plays. It is
true that some few novelists, such as Wilkie Collins, write novels that
depend on plot for their interest, but those typical novels which stand
at the head of the list do not. The masterpieces of Scott, such as
"Ivanhoe," "Talisman," "Old Mortality," are antiquarian studies, with
very slight plots; Dickens and Thackeray's best novels have no plot
worth mentioning; and where perfect plots are found, it is rare to find
a lasting and enduring novel. In a play, on the other hand, a plot seems
to be absolutely necessary to interest the spectator, the more intricate
the better. We have all seen Shakespeare's plays so often, that we are
apt to forget how intricate and involved many of his plots are; and when
we consider that most of his plots were taken from very bad novels which
have utterly perished from sight, while the plays still live, we begin
to realize by the force of contrast another canon relating to the
subject, which is this:
III. The subject must have a connected plot, in which one
event depends on the other.
When we come to restrict the dramatic subject any further, we encounter
more difficulty. Some might hold that the interest of the subject should
depend on either love or death, but we are met at once by instances of
plays in which the real interest is almost wholly political, such as
"Henry V.," "Richard III.," or moral, such as "Lear." Referring once
more to the effect of contrast with the novel for guidance, we find it
very difficult to separate subjects proper for dramatic treatment any
further than we have done, and almost impossible to lay down any
absolute rule to which distinguished exceptions cannot be quoted. It
might be said that the interest should turn on a single action, as it
does in most plays, and especially in tragedies, but here we are met by
"Much Ado About Nothing," "The Honeymoon," and other plays, where two or
three plots progress side by side in perfect harmony. It seems,
therefore, that any further absolute limitation of the abstract dramatic
subject is impracticable, and we must be content with adding a mere
recommendation for our fourth canon, much as follows:
IV. The interest of the plot generally turns on either love
or death, and generally hinges on a single action or
episode.
When we come to speak of the _best_ subjects of dramatic writing, we are
really approaching the domain of treatment, which is much wider and
better defined. There it becomes a question for judgment and discretion,
and much more certainty can be attained. Instead of considering all
dramas, we narrow our search to the best only, judging them by the
simple tests of success and frequency of acting, and finding what sort
of subjects have been taken, and how they have been treated.
Let us then come at once to the question, What is the best method of
treating a given subject? Here we are again confronted by a variety of
decisions, some of which seem to conflict with others, but which all
agree in some common particulars. In the dramas written, down to the
time of Boucicault, it seemed to be assumed as a matter of course that
every first-class play, comedy or tragedy, must be written in five acts.
All of Shakespeare's, Sheridan's, Knowles's, follow this old rule, as
inflexible and artificial as some of the French canons, but with the
same compensating advantage, that author and audience knew what was
expected of each, and troubled themselves little over the structure of
their dramas. Of late years another custom has taken the place of the
five-act play, and many if not most of the modern dramas, while of the
same length as the old ones, are divided into four and even three acts.
Especially is this the case with comedies, and those nondescript plays
that are variously called "melodramas," "dramas," and "domestic dramas."
In the case of three-act plays, the number of scenes in each act is
frequently five, sometimes six or seven, but the common modern practice
restricts the last act, if possible, to a single scene. The number of
scenes must of course depend on how many are absolutely necessary to
develop the story. The French system of a single scene to each act has
one great advantage. It permits of very much finer scenery being
introduced than in a scene which is to be shifted, whether closed in or
drawn aside. For instance, when the curtain comes down between each
scene, the stage may be crowded with furniture, and those temporary
erections called "set pieces." There will always be plenty of time to
remove these between the acts, and noise of hammering is of no
consequence when the curtain is down. If there is more than one scene in
the act, all this is changed. Let us say there are only two scenes. One
of these must be a full-depth scene, but all the furniture and set
pieces are restricted to that part of the stage which lies behind the
two "flats" which make the front scene. In that front scene furniture
is inadmissible, without rudely disturbing the illusion. Let us suppose
the front scene to be the first, and that any furniture is left on the
stage. At the close of the scene the characters leave the stage, but
there stands the furniture. The old way to get rid of it is simple.
Enter a "supe" in livery, who picks up the one table and two chairs.
Exit, amid the howls of the gods in the gallery, who shriek "Soup!
soup!" as if they were suddenly stricken with hunger. Of course this
spoils the illusion; and the better the scenery, the more perfect the
other illusions, the easier they are disturbed by such incongruity.
Sometimes the set pieces in front, if there are any, and the furniture,
disappear through trap doors. In the large city theatres, such as those
where spectacular pieces are constantly produced, this method of
changing a scene is common, but such theatres themselves are not common,
and it costs a great deal to run them on account of the number of
workmen required. Our present inquiry is directed to the ordinary
theatre, with its stock company, simple scenery, and few traps. Of this
kind of theatre every town furnishes at least one sample. In such
theatres at least it will always be best to keep furniture and set
pieces out of the front scenes as much as possible, to preserve the
illusion. If the front scene come after the full-depth one, the wisdom
of this rule becomes still more apparent. A "supe" taking out furniture
is not half as ludicrous as one bringing it in, and without a trap such
a spectacle is unavoidable. The first canon offered by common sense is
obviously sound:
V. Keep furniture and set pieces out of front scenes, if
possible.
This rule being followed, will probably reduce the front scenes of a
drama to the open air, woods, gardens, halls, streets, church porches,
and similar places, where the attention will be concentrated on the
actors, not the picture. The scope of a front scene is further
restricted by the fact that you must bring your characters on and take
them off, being deprived of that valuable ally to illusion, the
"tableau." If the scene be the first of the act, a tableau may indeed be
discovered, but it cannot close the scene. The most common place for a
front scene is between a first and a third full-depth scene, to give
time for the change that goes on behind. This change always makes a
certain amount of noise, and the use of the front scene is to take off
the attention of the audience. This intention must be hidden at any
price, for, if perceived, it is fatal to the illusion. To hide it there
is only one method always reliable, which is to rivet the attention of
the audience on your characters, put in your best writing, and get up an
excitement to cover the scene. If you have any brilliant dialogue, any
passage of great emotion, any mystery to be revealed, put it in your
front scene so that your design may not be suspected, but the scene
appear natural. In brief the canon says:
VI. Put the best writing into the front scenes.
The next question that arises as to the front scene relates to the
character of incident that should be treated therein. It is obvious that
it will not do to put in a crisis or a climax at such a place. At its
best a front scene is only a makeshift, a preparation for the full
scene. Its employment necessitates a loss of nearly three-quarters of
the available space, and the tableau loses all its power, as developed
in the full-depth scene. Its use is therefore a disagreeable necessity,
so disagreeable that the French discard it entirely. Mechanically it is
only an introduction to the full scene, and the more it partakes of the
same character intellectually, the less will it weary the audience. The
best preparation an audience can have for a scene is to make them eager
therefor, and the best way to make them eager is to leave them in
suspense, so that they are impatient for the movement of the flats that
opens the next picture. A familiar instance of this employment of the
front scene is found in the "Shaughraun," by Boucicault, before the
Irish wake. The front scene represents the outside of a cottage with a
door in the right flat; the peasants and other characters come in, talk
about the wake, and enter the house one after another. In this scene it
is also explained that the supposed corpse is not dead, but shamming, so
that there is no tragic interest associated with the coming scene, but
every one is anxious to see it. At last all the characters are off, the
flats are drawn aside, and the celebrated Irish wake makes its
appearance, taking the whole depth of the stage. The audience is
satisfied, and the front scene has answered its end, as expressed in
this canon:
VII. Front scenes ought to terminate in a suspense, which
the following scene will relieve.
From this canon it follows that the front scene should deal only with
explanatory and dependent matters, not the principal action of the
drama. Sheridan, in "The Rivals" and the "School for Scandal," opens his
first acts with front scenes, which introduce little of the matter of
the story. I am inclined to think that he had a reason for this which
still prevails, in the noise made by the audience. The beginning of the
first act of most plays is distinguished in the auditorium by much
shuffling of feet, opening of doors, taking of seats, especially by
those who take the reserved seats in front of the house. All this
disturbs the audience and makes them lose any fine points at the
beginning of a play, unless the actors strain their voices unduly. In a
front scene the flats immediately behind the actors serve as a sounding
board for the voice, and reduce the volume of space to be filled by the
speakers. The advantage gained in this way is balanced by the loss to
the eye in losing the full-depth scene, wherefore this method of opening
a play is not much in favor; but its use in the cases mentioned leads to
a general canon as to the first act of a play, which also recommends
itself to common sense:
VIII. Avoid fine points, and have plenty of action at the
beginning of the first act.
This rule, however safe and sensible, is hampered by the necessities of
the subject, to which everything must be subordinated. Let us see how
the greatest masters of dramatic construction in modern times open their
first acts. Of these Boucicault comes first, _facile princeps_. We will
take the "Shaughraun" and "Flying Scud" for examples. Both open in a
similar manner: in the first a young woman, in the second an old man,
engaged in household work, singing away at nothing particular. A quiet
picture not requiring close attention. To each, enter a disturber,
somewhat disagreeable, arresting attention. A short squabble, then more
characters coming on, one or more at a time, till the stage is pretty
full, and no flagging of interest. The act does not drag. Compare this
with Sardou's "Frou-Frou," "Fernande," and others. Sardou's first acts
almost invariably drag, and the success does not come till afterward.
One great difference is immediately perceptible. Sardou almost always
brings on his people in pairs, and takes them off together, leaving the
first act a succession of dualogues, with very little action. Now take
"The Lady of Lyons," an old success, which nowhere drags. It opens with
a picture, mother and daughter, doing nothing particular. Enter
disagreeable Beauseant, who makes an offer and is rejected. A mild
excitement at once arises, shut in by a front scene, short, lively, and
spirited, where Glavis and Beauseant plot for revenge on Pauline. The
scene ends in suspense, the actors having gone for Claude Melnotte, and
the flats draw aside, revealing Melnotte's cottage and introducing the
hero. By this time the audience is quiet and can take the fine points,
so the third scene of the first act can be made exciting. There is thus
no flagging of interest in either Bulwer or Boucicault. One does the
thing in three scenes, the other in a single scene, but both employ the
same means, which are thus expressed:
IX. Open the first act with a quiet picture, and bring in
the disturbing element at once. Having aroused attention,
bring on all your characters, and end with an excitement.
Avoid bringing on characters in pairs in this act.
The first act of a play is always surrounded with difficulties. The
interest of the audience has to be aroused, and all the characters
brought in. Every part of it must hang together, and the attention must
be excited more and more as the act progresses. This rule applies to the
whole play likewise, but in the first act it is especially necessary,
because there are so many things to divert attention, and the object of
the act is to catch it. After a certain period it must flag, and the
object of the dramatist must be to close his act before that dreadful
period. The office of the first act is to prepare for the second;
therefore it resembles the front scene in one important principle--it
should end in suspense, and make the audience eager for the second act.
Ending as it should in a full scene, it has the advantage over the front
scene that a tableau is possible, and should be used. This tableau must
be natural, and must come, as all tableaux come, out of a climax, but
the climax must not be complete. It must leave the audience in suspense,
and give them something to talk about in the inter-act. It must not be
too long delayed, or the act will drag. These and various other reasons
have led to this further canon, generally observed:
X. The first act should be the shortest, and as soon as a
partial climax is reached the curtain should come down. The
tableau and action should indicate suspense and preparation.
This general rule indicates that the villain should be temporarily
triumphant, if the play is to end in his discomfiture. If his first
scheme fails in the first act, it is difficult to arouse interest in the
nominally imperilled innocence which is left in danger. The structure
becomes too artificial, and the dictum _ars est celare artem_ has been
violated. No rule is so safe in dramatic writing, as also in acting. The
end is--_illusion_.
The rule of putting only suspensory and preparatory action in the first
act is universally followed by Shakespeare and all other successful
writers of plays, and is better settled than any other. The first act
occupies the office of the first volume of a novel, explaining all the
story. Very frequently, in the modern French drama especially, it
assumes the form of a prologue, the action transpiring at an interval of
several years, sometimes a whole generation, before the rest of the
play. Only one instance of this character is found in Shakespeare, in
the "Winter's Tale," where the action of the drama demands a prologue,
but it is quite common in modern times, while another custom of
Shakespeare's--that of dividing a historical play into two "parts"--has
quite gone out of fashion. Its only modern example is that of Wagner's
opera of the "Niebelungen Ring," which takes a week to get through. The
Chinese and Japanese have a strong taste for this kind of play, but the
practice has vanished from Anglo-Saxon civilization. It must be
confessed that the employment of a prologue is rather a clumsy way of
opening a play. It is too apt to be complete in itself, and to join
clumsily to the rest of the drama. Besides this, it is hard to preserve
the illusion that the small child who appears in the prologue has
developed into the good-looking young person who is the heroine of the
rest of the play. The "Sea of Ice" is a familiar instance of this sort
of thing, where the same actress who personates the mother in the first
act, and gets drowned, blossoms into a girl of eighteen in the second
act, supposed to be her own daughter, last seen as a small child. In
"Winter's Tale" there is nothing of this. The supposed Perdita of Act I.
is merely a rag baby, and mother and child reappear together thereafter.
In cases where the interval between prologue and play is limited to a
year or two, this objection does not apply; in fact such prologues are
quite common and useful. The fanciful and magic prologue to the "Marble
Heart" is a very happy instance of conquest of the difficulties inherent
in long separated prologues. The wrench is so sudden from a Greek
sculptor to a French sculptor, from Athenian dresses to Parisian, that
the main interest of the play lies in the identification of the ancient
characters in the new dress, and the very fanciful absurdity of the plot
lends it an air of reality essentially dramatic. The end is illusion,
and illusion it is.
There is little more clear and positive to be said about the first act.
Study of the best models will reveal many points inherent in all, but no
general rules so clear as those of brevity, action, and suspense. The
practical limit of time is from fifteen to thirty minutes, the medium of
twenty being common to mono-scenic acts, but on this no positive canon
can be ascertained. It depends on the interest, and only this general
rule is partially true, that no interest can carry an audience through a
first act of forty-five minutes.
We next come to the middle acts of the play, and here again general
rules are hard to find. The number of acts varies so much that nothing
positive can be said except as regards fixed lengths of drama. Treating
all between the first and last acts as a whole, the first certain rule
that meets us is this truism:
XI. From the second to the last act the interest must be
regularly increased, and each act must end in suspense,
leading to the next.
Without an observance of this rule no play can ever be permanently
successful as a general thing. There have been some poor plays with
little interest, that have been bolstered up for a time by the force of
a single character, portrayed by a peculiar actor, but in that case the
play becomes a mere "star play," not amenable to the common rules, and
useless out of the hands of the peculiar star who owns it. Of such are
those multiform dramas, constantly varying, of which Mr. Sothern makes
Lord Dundreary and Sam the central figures. The actor found he had made
a lucky hit in his character, and he hired out the work of altering the
play to any sort of literary hacks, so that he himself is really the
creator of the plays, and when he dies they will die. In the "American
Cousin," as it was first played, the interest lay entirely in Asa
Trenchard, and the drama was very skilfully constructed, with ascending
interest, to develop the ideal Yankee. In that part Jefferson made his
first public hit. As soon as he found that Dundreary had stolen the play
from its hero, Jefferson was wise enough to drop the contest between
high comedy and broad farce, in which the latter must conquer when they
come together. By taking up the ideal Dutchman (or rather German, as he
makes it) in Rip Van Winkle, he created a part of which no one can
deprive him, but which will probably die with him. No one else has
succeeded with it to the same degree, and "Rip Van Winkle" stands as a
model of a successful star play, wherein all the interest hangs on a
single character.
It is not the intention of this article to enter into the question of
what constitutes the interest of such plays as "Rip Van Winkle." To do
so would be to enter into a field where everything is uncertain, and
where judgment is only an expression of individual liking. The main
elements of the success appear to be humor and pathos, those twin
brethren of genius whose identity and individuality are frequently so
inextricable from each other. Both are drawn in broad, simple lights and
shadows, so that the simplest audience can take the points, while the
most cultivated members of that audience are studying the delicate
touches of the actor. The contrast between--but we must refrain from the
digression, however tempting. We are examining the dramatic canons, and
the only settled canons about which there is little doubt are those
relating to construction, not to sources of interest. In the kingdom of
invention genius is supreme, and amenable to no rules. Each writer must
work out his own salvation.
Constructively it is obvious that the number of acts in a play must be
regulated by the number of natural episodes in the action of its
subject; and the perfection of its construction is tested by the
liberties that can be taken with the acts and scenes. Of late years it
has become the fashion to alter and remodel Shakespeare's and other old
plays, by changing scenes and acts, cutting out and putting in. To an
ardent worshipper of Shakespeare as read, these alterations frequently
appear desecrations, but there is little question that they were and are
improvements. The construction of many of Shakespeare's plays is
decidedly faulty, and the nature of the improvements made by managers
and actors is best illustrated when the original play unaltered is tried
against the adaptation. The acting edition of "Richard III." is a
familiar instance of this. Colley Cibber arranged it, he being a shrewd
old actor and manager. His edition holds the stage today, and always
succeeds, where the original "Richard" fails. In this matter of
construction the chances are all in favor of the improvement of a work
by a shrewd adapter. His attention is directed to only one thing, the
successful presentation of the play. He is not an artist so much as a
workman. He creates nothing, he only alters and improves. He may be
perfectly incapable of creating an ideal character, while yet he can
make its language more compact, can concentrate its action. Such an
adapter is a skilful gardener. He cannot create the fruit tree, but he
can prune it, and stimulate it to the perfection of fruit-bearing.
The French stage has been a prolific nursery for these skilful workmen,
and they have managed to extract splendid successes from their work. It
is by comparing their English adaptations with a simple translation of
the work that one best sees the improvement. For instance, there is the
"Two Orphans," with a plot and incidents so repulsive in the original
that its translation failed in London in spite of its weird power.
Adapted and cleansed by a clever American author, it was the great
success of last year in New York, and is now running a fresh career of
success. Another instance that occurs is Sardou's "Fernande." It was
altered and adapted in New York by Augustin Daly, and succeeded. Another
version by Mr. Schoenberg, then of Wallack's, a straight translation,
failed to secure a hearing in Boston, and ended in a lawsuit. This was
not for want of merit in the translation, which was excellent, but, as
appears from a comparison of the two plays, simply because Daly had
improved on Sardou. The alterations were small, but masterly, and showed
that Daly understood his business. In Sardou's play there appears a
certain character, a young count (I forget his name) who comes in at the
beginning of the first act, the close of the last. In the last he has
some very important business to do, but he appears nowhere else. Of
himself he does not aid the plot, but his last action is indispensable.
In the original play also appears the Spanish Commander, a mere sketch
in the first act. Daly suppressed the Count altogether, gave his best
business to the Commander, and brought the latter in all through the
play. The result was one good character instead of two poor ones, and
indicates a canon which can be confirmed by many other instances. This
canon shapes itself something like this:
XII. Concentrate the interest on few characters, and avoid
numerous unimportant parts.
This canon rests on the necessities of a stock company, as those before
rest on the nature of scenery and audiences. Every company has its
leading man, leading lady, low comedians, old man and old woman, and
those ordinary characters which all playgoers know by heart. If the play
does not fit these, it will not succeed. The appreciation of this fact
is one secret of the great success of Boucicault, Daly, and Lester
Wallack as play writers. They know the exact capacity of their stages
and companies from long experience, and write their plays to fit them.
With even ordinary talents they would have a great advantage to start
with over writers of greater genius, writing with vague ideas of what
the manager wants. As managers they know exactly what they want, and
what their companies can do. To a young writer the difficulties are all
in the start, unless he be an actor, or so closely related to actors or
managers as to be able to get behind the scenes at all times, and become
familiar with scenery, traps, machinery, rehearsals, and all the details
of the _business_ of theatricals. In former times, especially two
centuries ago, the task of writing a good acting play was far easier
than now. Scenery was simple, access behind the scenes easier--there was
not such a wall of separation as now exists between actors and audience
in a first-class city theatre. Even in those days, however, the writing
of plays was confined chiefly to actors, managers, and those men of
fashion who were given to haunting the green room. In the present day no
amount of talent in a writer seems capable of overcoming the
difficulties of technical construction of a drama. It is rare to find an
author of acknowledged talent in other departments, especially in
America, distinguished as a dramatist, and when one of them tries his
hand at playwriting he fails, not from lack of good dialogue and
literary finish, but solely from lack of knowledge of the business of
the drama, the limitations of actors and scenery, and the technique of
dramatic construction.
There is more hope to the American stage in the future in the production
of such undeniably original if mechanically faulty plays as Bret Harte
has given us in the "Two Men of Sandy Bar," than in the rapid carpentry
and skilful patchwork of hosts of French adaptations, whether they run
ten or five hundred nights. Our Hartes and our yet unknown writers daily
coming to the front, with freshness in their hearts and brains in their
heads, lack only technique and the custom of the stage, which no one can
give them but the managers and actors, who shall welcome them as
apprentices to learn the trade. That these latter will find it to their
advantage in the end to encourage a cordial alliance between the men of
the quill and the men of the sock and buskin, follows from a simple
calculation. If men of confessedly small talent and low character, such
as the host of lesser playwrights who furnish pabulum for the outlying
theatres, can write fair acting plays, simply by using mechanical
knowledge and stolen materials, it is probable that men of original
talent, already experienced writers in other branches of literature,
will end by producing much better and fresher work, when they are
offered and have enjoyed the same technical advantages.
FREDERICK WHITTAKER.
AN EVENING PARTY AMONG THE COSSACKS OF THE DON.
Sunset on the Lower Don; a dim waste of gray, unending steppe, looking
vaster and drearier than ever under the fast falling shadows of night; a
red gleam far away to the west, falling luridly across the darkening sky
and the ghostly prairie; a dead, grim silence, broken only by the plash
and welter of our laboring steamer, or the shrill cry of some passing
bird; an immense, crushing loneliness--the solitude not of a region
whence life has died out, but of one where it has never existed. Even my
three comrades, hardened as they are to all such influences, appear
somewhat impressed by the scene.
"Cheerful place, ain't it?" says Sinbad, the traveller; "and the whole
of southern Russia is just the same style--multiply a billiard board by
five million, and subtract the cushions!"
"I wonder what the population of this district can be," muses Allfact,
the statistician, looking disconsolately at his unfilled note-book.
"It's almost impossible to get any reliable information in these parts.
But I should think one man to three square miles must be about the
proportion."
"And not a feather of game in the whole shop!" growls Smoothbore, the
sportsman, with an indignant glance at his pet double barrel. "It's as
bad as that desert where the old sportsman committed suicide, leaving a
letter beside him to the effect that he must be firing at something, and
there being nothing else to shoot, he had shot himself!"
"I'll give you one entry for your note-book, Allfact, my boy,"
interrupted I; "there are _thirty-nine_ sand banks between this and
Rostoff, at the head of the estuary; and the upper stream is all banks
together--no navigation at all!"
"I should think not, by Jove, with that kind of thing going on!" says
Smoothbore, pointing to a solitary horseman who is coolly riding across
our bows with an aggravating grin, his dog following. Our outraged
captain has barely time to hurl at him some pithy suggestions respecting
his portion in a future life, which had better not be quoted, when there
comes a tremendous bump, and we are aground once more!
Just at this moment two wild figures come dashing along the bank at full
gallop, sitting so far forward as to be almost on the horse's
neck--their hair tossing in the wind like a mane, their small black eyes
gleaming savagely under the high sheepskin cap, their dark lean faces
thrust forward like vultures scenting prey--shooting a sharp, hungry
glance at us as they swoop by, in mute protest against the iron age
which compels them to pass a party in distress without robbing it. These
are the famous Cossacks of the Don, the best guerillas and the worst
soldiers in the world; at once the laziest and most active of
men--strangest of all the waifs stranded on the shore of modern
civilization by the ebb of the middle ages--a nation of grown-up
children, with all the virtues and all the vices of barbarism--simple,
good-natured, thievish, pugnacious, hospitable, drunken savages.[K]
[Footnote K: The Cossack is often erroneously classed by untravelled
writers with the native Russian, from whom he is as distinct as the
Circassian or the Tartar.]
It takes us fully ten minutes to "poll off" again, and we have hardly
done so when there comes a sound through the still air, like the moan of
a distant sea; and athwart the last gleam of the sinking sun flits a
cloud of wide-winged living things, shadowy, silent, unearthly, as a
legion of ghosts. The wild fowl of the steppes are upon their annual
migration, and for many minutes the living mass sweeps over us unbroken,
orderly, and even as an army in battle array--a resemblance increased by
the exertions of an active leader, who keeps darting back from his post
at the head of the column, and trimming the ranks like an officer on
parade.
"I wonder how many birds there are in that column," says Allfact,
instinctively feeling for his note-book, as if expecting some leading
bird to volunteer the desired information.
"Just like their mean tricks," mutters Smoothbore savagely. "First the
game won't show at all, and then they come so thick that no fellow would
be such a cad as to fire at 'em."
Night comes on, and the foul-creeping mist begins to steam up from the
low banks of greasy black mud, driving us perforce into the cabin, where
we speedily fall asleep on the benches along the walls--for bed-places
there are none. About midnight I begin to dream that I am a Christian
martyr in the reign of Diocletian, "in the act" (as Paddy would, say) of
being burned alive; and I awake to find it all but true. The fact is,
the steward, with a thoroughly Russian love of overheating, has put wood
enough into the stove to roast an ox; and there is nothing for it but to
bolt on deck again, where we remain for the rest of the night.
The panorama of the deck in the early morning forms an ethnological
study hard to match, except perchance by the Yokohama packet steaming
out of 'Frisco, or a "coolie boat" coming over from Demerara to
Trinidad. Gaunt, aquiline Cossacks, and portly Germans, and bumfaced
Tartars; red-capped, broad-visaged, phlegmatic Turks; slim, graceful
Circassians, beautiful with all the sleek tiger-like beauty of their
gladiator race; sallow, beetle-browed Russians, and black-robed,
dark-eyed, melancholy Jews. We have _one_ Persian on board--a lanky,
hatchet-faced rogue, half buried under a huge black sheepskin cap not
unlike a tarred beehive. He smokes one half the day and sleeps the other
half, and is only once betrayed into any show of emotion. This occurs at
one of our halting places on the second day, when he comes on board
again grinning and whooping like a madman, having succeeded (as I learn
when his excitement subsides) in cheating a Cossack out of a halfpenny.
But the appearance of the Russian _mujiks_ (peasants), and the manner in
which they curl themselves up anywhere and anyhow, and sleep the sleep
of the just with their heads in baskets and their feet in pools of dirty
water, baffles all description. A painter would revel in the third-class
deck about sunrise, when the miscellaneous hash of heads and limbs
begins to animate itself, like a coil of snakes at the approach of
spring--when mothers of families look anxiously about for the little
waddling bundles of clothes that are already thrusting their round faces
and beady black eyes into every place where they ought _not_ to go; and
when brawny peasants, taking their neighbor's elbow out of their mouth,
and their knee out of their neighbor's stomach, make three or four rapid
dips, like a drinking duck, to any village church that may be in sight,
and then fall to with unfailing zest to the huge black loaf which seems
to be their only baggage. The whole thing is like a scene in a fairy
tale:
There was an old captain that lived in a "screw."
He had so many passengers he didn't know what to do;
They'd got nary baggage but one loaf of bread.
They squatted round the funnel, and _that_ was their bed.
As we move southward, our surroundings alter very perceptibly. A genial
warmth and a rich summer blue replace the cold gray sky of the north;
the banks begin to rise higher, and to clothe themselves with thick
patches of bush, and even trees, instead of the coarse prairie grass;
while at every halting place the little wooden jetty is heaped with
perfect mounds of splendid grapes, sold at three cents per pound, by men
in shirtsleeves--phenomena which, to us who are fresh from the furred
wrappings and snow-blocked streets of Moscow, have a rather bewildering
effect. But the most striking sight is (to our friend Allfact at least)
the huge masses of coal which now fuel the steamer instead of the split
logs of the Volga.
"You see Russia's richer than her neighbors think," remark I. "On the
Don alone there are 16,000 square miles of the finest anthracite, which
leaves only two per cent. of ashes in burning."
"Sixteen thousand square miles!" cries the statistician, whipping out
his note-book. "Why on earth doesn't she use it, then, instead of
destroying all that valuable timber?"
"Well, you see, the railways are not completed yet; but when they are I
can promise you that Russia will cut out England altogether in supplying
Constantinople and the Levant."
One by one the little villages slip by us: Alexandrosk, the first sign
of which is the glitter of its gilded church-tower; Nikolaievo, with its
black marble monument to the late Crown Prince; Konstantirovskoe, the
birthplace of Prince Potemkin, brightest and most worthless of Russian
favorites, who "lived like an emperor and died like a dog." They are all
vary much of one pattern: substantial log-cabins, curiously painted,
with little palisaded gardens in front, and red-shirted men sitting
smoking at their doors, alternating with little wickerwork hovels daubed
with mud, which look very much like hampers left behind by a monster
picnic. Gangs of lean dogs (the pest of every Cossack village) are
sniffing hungrily about, while scores of sturdy wenches, with
berry-brown arms and feet, and sunburnt children clothed only in short
pinafores lined with dirt, run to stare at the wonderful fire-breathing
vessel as she comes gliding in.
The sun is just dipping below the horizon as we reach Semi-Karakorskaya,
and anchor for the night as usual; for to navigate the Lower Don in the
dark is beyond the power of any pilot afloat. Here a Cossack
official,[L] whose acquaintance we have made on board, proposes to us to
land and be presented to the "Ataman," or chief of the tribe, with the
certainty of seeing something worth looking at. The offer is joyfully
accepted, and five minutes later we are scrambling up the steep,
crumbling bank--in the course of which feat Allfact slips and rolls
bodily down into the river.
[Footnote L: The "Army of the Don," though now an integral part of
Russia, is still officered to a great extent by its own people.]
"There's something for the notebook at last, old boy!" cries Smoothbore
spitefully. "Write down that you notice _a great falling off_ in this
part of the country!"
To find one's way into a Cossack village at night is almost as hopeless
as the proverbial hunt for a needle in a haystack. The whole country
seems to consist of a series of carefully dug pitfalls, into which we
tumble one over the other, like fish out of a net; and our final
approach to the village is only to be guessed by the yells of the dogs,
which come about us with such zeal as to necessitate some vigorous
cudgelling, and a shower of trenchant Russian oaths, in which our
leader, thanks to his official character, seems to be quite a
proficient. At length a few lights, which appear to start from the very
ground under our feet, announce that we are among houses--underground
ones, it is true, but houses still. Then the first glimmer of the rising
moon lights up a row of log-cabins on either side, and the abyss of
half-dried mud between them; and at last, following our leader, we enter
one of those immeasurable courtyards in which the Cossack heart
delights, pass through a low doorway, ascend a creaking, ladder-like
stair, and, entering a small room at the head of it, find ourselves in
the presence of two men--one old and decrepit, the other in the prime of
life. The younger is the Ataman himself; the elder is his father, an old
soldier of the first campaigns of Nicholas.
Seen by the dim light of the lamp that stands on the rough-hewn table,
the "interior" is sufficiently picturesque: the heavy crossbeams of the
roof, the skins that cover the walls, intermingled with weapons of every
kind, from the long Cossack lance to the light carabine which is fast
superseding it; the fresh complexions and Western costume of the English
party, contrasting strangely enough with the commanding figure and dark,
handsome face of our host, in his picturesque native dress and high
boots; the long white beard and vacant, wondering eyes of the ancient
soldier; the picture of the Ataman's patron saint in the corner, with
its little oil light burning before it, and a pious cockroach making a
laborious pilgrimage around its gilt frame; and, through the narrow,
loophole-like window, a glimpse of the great waste outside, lit by
fitful gleams of moonlight.
Hospitality has been a Cossack virtue since the day that Bogdan
Khmelnitski gave meat from his own dish to the prisoners whom he was
about to slaughter; and we have hardly time to exchange greetings with
our new friends when we are set down to a plentiful meal of rye bread,
the splendid grapes of the Don, and "nardek"--a rich syrup strained from
the rind of the watermelon, not unlike molasses both in appearance and
flavor.
The "bread and salt" (as the Russians technically call it) being
despatched, my three comrades, with the native official as interpreter,
fasten upon the Ataman, while I devote myself to the old soldier, and
begin to question him on the Danubian campaign of 1826. It is a sight to
see how the worn old face lights up, and how the sunken eyes flash at
the sound of the familiar name; and he plunges at once into his story.
Seldom is it given to any man to hear such a tale as that to which I
listen for the next half hour, told by one of its chief actors. Weary
struggles through miles of hideous morass--men dropping from sheer
exhaustion, with the wheels of the heavy artillery ploughing through
their living flesh; vultures haunting the long march of death to tear
the still quivering limbs of the fallen; soldiers, in the rage of
hunger, feeding upon the corpses of their comrades--all the hideous
details of that terrible campaign, told in a quiet, matter-of-course
way, which makes them doubly horrible. My impromptu Xenophon is still in
full swing when high above the clamor of tongues rises a sound from
without, which nothing on earth can match save the war whoop of the
Western Indian--the shrill, long-drawn "Hourra!" of the Cossack, which
made many a veteran grenadier's stout heart grow chill within, as it
came pealing over the endless snows of 1812. We rush headlong to the
outer door, and this is what we see:
In the centre of the courtyard, under the full splendor of the
moonlight, stand some twenty tall, sinewy figures, in the high sheepskin
cap, wide trousers, and huge knee-high boots of the Cossack irregular.
They salute the Ataman as he appears by drawing their long knives and
waving them in the air, again uttering their shrill war cry; and then
begin to move in a kind of measured dance, advancing and retreating by
turns, to the sound of a low, dirge-like chant. Presently the music
grows quicker, the motion faster and fiercer; the dancers dart to and
fro through each other's ranks, brandishing their weapons, turning,
leaping, striking right and left--acting in terribly lifelike pantomime
the fury of a deadly battle. Seen in the heart of this great solitude,
with the cold moon looking silently down upon it, this whirl of wild
figures, and gleaming weapons, and dark, fierce faces, all eyes and
teeth, has a very grim effect; and even Sinbad's seasoned nerves quiver
slightly as the dancers at length join hands, and, whirling round like
madmen, burst forth with the deep, stern chorus with which their
ancestors swept the coasts of the Black Sea five hundred years ago:
Our horses have trodden the steep Kavkaz (Caucasus);
Of the Krim (Crimea) we have taken our share;
And the way that we went is dabbled with blood,
To show that _we_ have been there!
The volume of sound (stern and savage to the last degree, but yet full
of a weird, unearthly melody) fills the whole air like the rush of a
storm; and now, the Cossack blood being thoroughly heated, the play
suddenly turns to earnest. The nearest dancer, a tall, handsome lad with
a heavy black moustache, suddenly fells his next neighbor with a
tremendous blow between the eyes, which Heenan himself might have
applauded. The next moment the conqueror falls in his turn before a
crushing right-hander from his _vis-a-vis_; and in an instant the whole
band are at it hammer and tongs--apparently without "sides," order, or
object of any kind, except the mere pleasure of thrashing and being
thrashed. There is little science among the combatants, who deliver
their blows in a slashing, round-hand style that would agonize a
professional "bruiser"; but every blow dealt by those brawny arms leaves
its mark, and the whole company speedily look as if they had been taking
part in an election.
"By Jove!" says Smoothbore, with considerable feeling; "it does one good
to see a real good fight so far away from home!"
"You'd see plenty such in Central Russia," answer I. "Two villages often
turn out to fight, just as we'd turn out to play cricket.[M] They call
it 'Koolatchni boi.'"
[Footnote M: I remember one such battle near Moscow, in October, 1809,
in which more than a thousand men took part.]
But Sinbad, being a man of humane temper, thinks that the sport has gone
far enough, and appeals to the Ataman to stop it. One word from the
all-powerful chief suffices to part the combatants; and, a messenger
being despatched for some corn-whiskey, they are speedily chinking
glasses as merrily as if nothing had happened. I am standing
unsuspectingly in their midst when suddenly the whole company rush upon
me as one man, and I find myself lifted in their arms and tossed bodily
into the air six times in succession, amid yells of applause, to which
all the previous uproar is as nothing.[N] Next they pounce upon Allfact,
who, in his thirst for new ideas, submits readily enough; but Sinbad and
Smoothbore take to their heels at once, and are with difficulty pacified
by our host and his venerable father, who are looking on from the
doorway.
[Footnote N: This singular compliment (a universal one among the
Cossacks) is probably a relic of the old custom of raising their
"Kosbevoi," or head chief, on a shield when elected.]
This closes the entertainment, for it is now nearly midnight, and we are
to start again at sunrise. We take a cordial leave of our new friends,
and depart, laden with bunches of grapes which are somewhat difficult to
carry conveniently.
"I wonder why they tossed me up like that?" muses Allfact, as we grope
our way down to the shore.
"Why!" answers Smoothbore. "Why, to take a _rise_ out of you, to be
sure."
DAVID KER.
DRIFT-WOOD.