night, a child of rich parents is born in the southwest of Russia.
Peter--the child--is blind. His whole life is to be but a groping in
the shadows toward the light. The mother adores the poor child and
suffers more than he. But she has not enough moral strength to bring
him up, and give him the necessary comfort and energy. His father,
a countryman, thinks only of his business. Happily, there is on the
mother's side an uncle called Maxim, one of the famous "thousand" of
Garibaldi, who has a noble and generous disposition. It is he who
brings up the child, with a tenderness just touched by severity.
Peter's young mind is constantly enriched with new pictures. Thanks
to the extreme acuteness of his hearing, he catches the very
slightest sounds of nature. When barely five years of age the boy
shows his love for music; he spends hours, motionless, listening to
the playing of one of the servants who has made for himself a kind
of flute. Soon Peter begins to study music, and especially the
violin. His rapid progress astonishes his teachers. However, in
spite of his love for music and the comfort that it gives him, the
blind boy suffers from his infirmity. To distract his mind from his
own suffering, his uncle takes him one day to a place where there
are some blind beggars. Peter listens to their plaintive melody:
"Alms, alms for a poor blind man ... for the love of Christ"; and as
if he had heard the voice of some phantom, the child returns home,
frightened, confused. From that day, he is transformed. Until then,
he had thought only of himself, he had become grey with his own
sorrow. Afterward, he suffers for others; his personal sorrow
diminishes, and his life becomes an expression of the sorrows of
his fellows in misery, an ardent and passionate prayer for others
who also are deprived of sight.
For several years he has been friends with a young girl of his
neighborhood. They marry, and Evelyn, his wife, brings some
happiness to the poor blind man. But soon there comes a time of
indescribable anguish. Evelyn gives birth to a boy, and Peter is
tortured by a presentiment of impending evil. Will the son be blind
like his father? The few moments when the doctors are testing the
infant's sight pass like so many centuries. Finally the physician
says: "The pupil is contracting, the child is not blind." Peter,
seated by the window, pale and motionless, rises quickly at these
words. In a moment fear has disappeared and hope is transformed into
certainty and fills the blind man's heart with joy. "The child is
not blind." One might say that these few words of the doctor had
burned a path in his brain.
"His whole frame vibrated like a taut cord which had been snapped. A
flash went through him, like lightning in a sunless sky, conjuring
up in him strange phantasms. Whether they were sounds or sights he
could not determine. But if they were sounds they were sounds which
he could see. They sparkled like the vault of the sky, shone like
the sun, waved like the rustling, whispering grass of the steppes.
These were the sensations of a moment. What followed he was unable
to recall. But he stubbornly affirmed that in this moment he had
_seen_. What had he seen? How had he seen? Had he really seen? This
always remained a mystery. People said that it was impossible. He,
however, affirmed that in that moment he had seen the earth, his
wife, his mother, his son, and Uncle Maxim.... He was standing up,
and his face was so illumined and so strange that every one around
him was silent.... Later on, there remained nothing but the
remembrance of a sort of joyous satisfaction, and the absolute
conviction that, at that moment, he had seen...."
A year later, at Kiev, at a concert for charity, Peter made his
debut. An enormous crowd gathered to hear the blind musician. From
the very first the audience was captivated. Moved to its depths, the
crowd became frantic. And Uncle Maxim heard something familiar in
the playing of his nephew.
He saw a large, crowded street, and a clear, gay wave of scolding
and jesting humanity. Then, gradually, this picture faded into the
background. A groaning was heard. It detached itself from the clamor
of the crowd and passed through the hall in a sweet but powerful
note, which sobbed and moved one's heart. Maxim knew it well, this
sad melody: "Alms, alms for the poor blind man ... for the love of
Christ."
"He understands suffering," murmured the uncle. "He has had his
share, and that is why he can change it into music for this happy
audience."
"And the head of the old warrior sank on his breast. His work was
done. He had made a good man. He had not lived in vain. He had but
to look at the crowd to be convinced of that."
* * * * *
Korolenko belongs to the school of Turgenev. In all of his works he
remains true to the principles which his master summed up in a
letter: "One must penetrate the surroundings, and take life in all
its manifestations; decipher the laws by which it is governed; get
at the very essence of life, while remaining always within the
boundaries of truth; and finally, one must not be contented with a
superficial study."
Korolenko lives up to all of these principles. Without tiring, he
watches life in all of its phases. He uses a large canvas for his
studies of inanimate nature, as well as of individuals in particular
and the masses in general. That is why his work gives us such an
exact reproduction of life.
Like Turgenev, he describes nature admirably. His descriptions are
not irrelevant ornaments, but they constitute an organic and
integral part of the picture. In both Turgenev and Korolenko the
surrounding country reflects the feelings and emotions of the
heroes, and takes on a purely lyric character. One might almost say
that these country scenes breathe, speak a human language, and
whisper mysterious legends.
Korolenko has given us several splendid landscapes. In some of these
nature seems to be in a serene mood, like a good mother whose
harmonious strength attracts man and shows him the need of reposing
on her bosom. In others, nature is like a strong, free element which
incites man to lead an independent life. Thus, in the beautiful
prose poem, "The Moment," in which the action passes in Spain, it is
the ocean beating against the prison walls that arouses Diatz from
his torpor and makes him attempt to escape.
* * * * *
But, in spite of the importance of the background in Korolenko's
work, it is really in the conscience of his characters that the
essential drama takes place. More than anything else, it is
psychology that beguiles the artist; it is only through psychology
that Korolenko depicts men and their mentalities. He studies the
strong and the weak, the simple and the complex; exaltation,
triumph, revolt, and downfall all interest him equally.
A simple analysis of his story, "Makar's Dream," will show his
psychological genius to greater advantage than could any critical
essay.
In the very heart of the dense woods of the "taiga," Makar, a poor
little peasant, who has become half savage by association with the
Yakutsk people, dreams of a better future.
Makar does not dream, however, when he is normal; he hasn't time to,
for he has to chop wood, plough, sow, and grind grain. He only
dreams when he is drunk. As soon as he is under the influence of
liquor, he weeps and says that he is going to leave everything and
go to the "sacred mountain" to gain salvation for his soul. What is
the name of this mountain? Where is it? He does not know exactly; he
only knows that it is very far away. On Christmas eve, Makar extorts
a ruble from two political refugees, and, instead of bringing them
some wood for the money, he quickly buys some tobacco and brandy.
After drinking and smoking a great deal, Makar goes to sleep and has
a dream. He dreams that the frost has got the better of him in the
woods, that he has died there, and that the priest Ivan, who has
also been dead a long time, takes him to the great Tayon--the god of
the woods--to be judged for his former deeds. Even there his
natural knavery does not forsake him; he tries to fool Tayon. But
the latter has everything that Makar has ever done, both good and
bad, written down, and becoming angry, he says: "I see that you are
a liar, a sluggard, and a drunkard."
He orders Makar to be transformed into a post-horse, to be used by
the police commissioner. And Makar, this Makar who never in his
lifetime was known to say more than ten words at a time, suddenly
finds that he has the faculty of speech. He begins by saying that he
does not want to be a horse, not because he is afraid of work but
because this decision is unfair. If one works geldings, one feeds
them with oats; but people have imposed upon him and tortured him
all his life and have never fed him, no, not even with oats.
"Who imposed upon you and tortured you?" asks old Tayon, moved by
compassion.
"Everybody! The men who demanded taxes, the heat and the cold, rain
and dryness, the pitiless earth, and the forest."
The beam of the balance wavers; the wooden dish, filled with sins,
rises, while the golden one sinks.
Makar continues: "You have everything written down, have you? Well,
look and see whether Makar has ever had any kindness shown to him.
He is here before his judges, dirty, his hair disordered, and his
clothes in rags. He is ashamed. However, he realizes that he was
born just like the others, with clear eyes in which both heaven and
earth were reflected, and with a heart ready to open and receive all
the beauty of the world."
Makar thus passes in review his miserable life. Old Tayon is moved.
"Makar, you are no longer on earth, and you shall receive justice."
Makar begins to weep, and Tayon weeps too.... And the young gods and
the angels, they also shed tears.
Again the balance moves. But this time it is in the opposite
direction.
Makar has received justice from the hands of Tayon.
* * * * *
Korolenko does not try to reconcile us to reality, but to mankind.
In all of the catastrophes in his books, in the most sombre
descriptions, he comforts us with a consolation, an ideal, a "little
fire" that burns in the distance and attracts us. But to get to that
fire we have to fight against evil. And it is perhaps in answer to
Tolstoy's doctrine of passive resistance that Korolenko wrote that
beautiful story called, "The Legend of Florus," the subject of which
was probably taken from "The War of the Jews," by Flavius Josephus.
This work takes us back to the time when Judaea was bowed down under
Roman rule. The Jews bear their lot without a murmur, and this
resignation encourages Florus, the governor of Judaea, to oppress
them more.
Soon there are two parties formed: the "pacifics" want to rid
themselves of Roman cruelty by humble submission, while the others
advise opposing this cruelty to the utmost. The chief of the latter
party is Menahem, the son of a famous warrior who has inherited from
his father his generous passions and his hatred of oppression.
Menahem's words inspire respect even in his enemies. But he does not
succeed in making peace among his people. In vain he cries to them,
as his father before him had cried: "It is disgraceful to bow down
to sovereigns, especially since these sovereigns are men; no human
being should bow down to any one excepting God, who created men that
they might be free." With great trouble he finally succeeds in
rousing a part of the people to rebellion. Then he leaves the city
with his followers, resolved to defend his country. Menahem has no
illusions as to the outcome; he knows that he will be conquered by
the Romans. Nevertheless he is fearless, for his whole being is
filled with a single thought,--the idea of justice, which imposes
upon men certain obligations which they must not scorn.
During his stay in Siberia Korolenko had a very good chance to
observe the deported convicts. Most of them are thieves, forgers,
and murderers. The others, urged on by a heroic desire to live their
own true lives, have been sent to this "cursed land" because of
"political offences."
Korolenko is not resigned to the sadness of life, he is not an enemy
to manly calls to active struggle, but he neither wants to, nor can
he, break the ties that bind him to the real life of the present. He
does not wish either to judge or to renounce this life. Nor does he
try, by fighting, to perpetuate a conflict which is in itself
eternal. If he struggles, it is rather in discontent than in
despair. Not all is evil in his eyes, and reality is not always and
entirely sad. His protestations hardly ever take the form of disdain
or contempt; he does not rise to summits which are inaccessible to
mankind. In fact, his ideal is close to earth; it is the ideal which
comes from mankind, from tears and sufferings. If the thoughts and
feelings of the author rise sometimes high above the earth, he never
forgets the world and its interests. Korolenko loves humanity, and
his ideals cannot separate themselves from it. He loves man and he
believes that God lives in their souls.
We find these theories in the sketch called "En Route." The
vagabond, Panov, is one of a party of deported convicts. At one of
the stops, an inspector arrives who remembers having seen Panov when
a young man. The old man goes over the history of his life, which
has been marked with constant success, with pleasure. He shows the
vagabond his little son, and with cruel egotism boasts of his
happiness. Standing before him, his back bent, and a sad light in
his eyes, Panov listens to the story. He feels vaguely that he has
not lived and that he lacks personality. There is nothing in store
for him except the useless existence of prison life. The egotistical
and debonair inspector, in his simplicity, does not understand the
anguish of the homeless prisoner, and, by his amicable chatter,
subjects him to horrible moral torture. It is too much for Panov.
When the inspector leaves, Panov, gripping the edge of his hard cot
in his convulsive hands, falls to the ground. He breathes heavily,
his lips move, but he does not speak. "That night Panov got drunk."
Two very different types appear in the novel called, "The Postillion
of the Emperor." We have here the idealist Misheka and the sectarian
Ostrovsky, a transported prisoner who is embittered by his hard lot,
and by life in general.
If Misheka protests against the complicated conditions of life to
which he cannot entirely submit, it is rather by instinct than
through reason. He is attracted by something invisible, something
distant and strange, to the repugnant world which surrounds him. As
a postillion of the State he has frequent communications with the
distant world which glows vaguely on his mental horizon. Everything
displeases him: both the savage country in which he has to live, and
the world of stupid, degenerate, and miserable postillions whom he
mercilessly criticizes. His random attempts to get away fail.
Despairing, he becomes an accomplice in a crime so that he can leave
this solitary place and go where his restless soul leads him.
At the side of Misheka we have the tragic figure of Ostrovsky, who
is the exasperated victim of the evil all around him.
The author and the travelers, driven by Misheka, have seen the
burning of Ostrovsky's house, which the latter burned himself so
that no one could profit by it. This action strikes Misheka as
wonderful.
"He begins to tell the story of the fire. Several years before,
Ostrovsky had been deported for having given up the orthodox faith.
His young wife and child followed him. They had been given a plot of
land in a broad and deep valley, between two walls of rock. The
place seemed fertile. It was not hard to sell wheat to the miners
and Ostrovsky worked diligently and steadily. But the inhabitants
had kept something from him: although the wheat grew in the valley,
it never ripened, because each year, without fail, in the month of
July it was destroyed by the cold winds from the northeast."
The first few years Ostrovsky attributed his failure to chance. He
carefully cared for his crop in the hopes of a better season.
Alas, his wife died of sorrow, and autumn brought him nothing but
straw. Ostrovsky, without weeping, dug a grave in the frozen ground
and buried his wife. Then he asked permission to go to the mines,
and borrowed some money for the trip from his neighbors. The latter
gladly loaned it to him, thinking thus to get rid of him and to get
the profit of his house and goods. But Ostrovsky fooled them in
their naive simplicity; he heaped up all of his possessions in his
little cottage and then set fire to it. He no longer thought of
justice; he was nothing but a despairing man.
The patriarch of the village in which he had taken refuge tried to
recall to him the faith for which he had been exiled:
"Do you remember," answered Ostrovsky, "the first visit I paid you
to ask for advice? Ah, so you have forgotten that and you speak of
God.... You are nothing but a crafty dog! All of you are dogs! There
is nothing here but woods and rocks, and you are all just as
insensible as the very rocks that surround you.... And your cursed
land, and your sky, and your stars...." "He wanted to say something
more, but he did not dare blaspheme, and there was silence again in
the little cottage...."
This Ostrovsky is among the very best of Korolenko's heroes. The
sight of this despairing and lonely man, who wanders about in the
Siberian forests with his little daughter, calls louder for justice
than all the speeches in the world.
* * * * *
Through the wealth of his talent and knowledge, Korolenko is of
tremendous social value in three fields of work,--practical affairs,
journalism, and art.
Among the many services which he has rendered to humanity, let us
first mention his brilliant defence of the half-savage Votiaks,
accused of ritual murder in the famous Malmige case. Although he had
just suffered great grief himself--he had lost two children--he
traveled to a distant town in order to be at the trial. He took his
seat on the bench of the defenders. He used all of his knowledge,
and all the love in his heart to defend the unhappy Votiaks, whose
acquittal he succeeded in securing.
As a publicist, he has written some very valuable articles. Among
them are observations on the famine year (he spent two months in one
of the worst districts). In other articles he has analyzed a moral
malady peculiar to our state of society:--honor. In the recent
Russian duels he studied the perverse notions of honor and the moral
changes produced by sickly egotism. He has studied the causes that
bring about the complete loss of individuality. Finally, in 1910, he
published under the title, "Present Customs (Notes of a Publicist
under Sentence of Death)" a series of documents gathered here and
there, which constitute an eloquent and passionate plea in favor of
the abolitionist thesis.
When the great Tolstoy read the preface of this work, he wrote to
Korolenko, "I often sobbed and wept. Millions of copies of this work
ought to be distributed; it ought to be read by every one who has a
heart. No discourse, no novel or play, can produce the effect that
your 'Notes' do."
But above all, it is as the pure artist that Korolenko merits most
attention. It is his talent that has already made him famous, and it
is his talent that will make him immortal in Russian literature.
Korolenko is at present one of the most popular writers among the
educated classes. They have amply proved this to him, especially in
1903 and 1908, when they celebrated his 50th birthday and the 30th
anniversary of his literary activity. On the occasion of these
celebrations, delegations from many cities and universities came to
St. Petersburg to congratulate and to thank the author who, through
so many trials, had never ceased to uphold the cause of truth and
goodness, and to claim for each human being the right to work,
happiness, and free thought.
IV
VIKENTY VERESSAYEV
Veressayev is well known in France for his "Memoirs of a Physician,"
a work that has been translated into almost every language. However,
his reputation in Russia is not based on this book, which is
considered his masterpiece, but rather on his stories and tales. Let
us, however, first take a glance at the life of this author, a life
so closely connected with the subjects of his works that it forms an
indispensable commentary on them.
Veressayev, whose real name is Vikenty Smidovich, was born in 1867,
in Tula. His father was a Pole and his mother a Russian. His father,
a very pious and strictly moral man, was a well known and well liked
physician. In 1877, the boy entered the local school and received
his degree there seven years later. In 1884, he left for the
University of St. Petersburg, where he enrolled in the department of
historical sciences. Four years later, when he was twenty-four and a
half, he received his degree of licentiate of letters.[5] Most of
his class-mates became school-teachers, but he preferred to pursue
his studies. Medicine tempted him. He left for Zhouriev (formerly
Dorpat, already famous for its department of medicine) and entered
the university, where, at the end of six years, he received his
doctor's degree.
[5] On the continent of Europe, a university degree between that
of bachelor and of doctor.
Two years before, in 1892, a cholera epidemic had broken out in
Russia. Young Smidovich, then a fourth-year student, asked to be
sent immediately to a province in the East, where the epidemic was
spreading like wildfire. He remained there several months, in fact
until the plague had gone. As a doctor's assistant in an infirmary
organized in one of the mining districts of the government of
Ekaterinoslav, he witnessed a peasant revolt in which several
doctors were killed and others cruelly burned by the exasperated and
ignorant mob. Veressayev has traced these sad events with tremendous
power in his story, "Astray."
His doctor's degree in his pocket, he went to Tula, where he
practised for several months, but soon the position of house-surgeon
was offered to him in the Botkin Hospital in St. Petersburg. He
remained there seven years, till 1901, when, by order of the
Minister of the Interior, who has charge of all hospital
appointments, he was forced to retire from office and was expelled
from St. Petersburg and forbidden to reside in either of the two
capitals, Moscow or St. Petersburg. The reason for this was, that
the name Veressayev appeared on the petition of the "intellectuals"
which had been given to the Minister of the Interior, protesting
against the brutal attitude of the police during a student
manifestation in the Kazan cathedral on March 4, 1901. This petition
brought severe punishment to almost all the people whose names were
signed to it. Veressayev went abroad; he visited Italy, France,
Germany and Switzerland.
Gifted with poetic inspiration, he had begun writing at an early
age. He was not more than fourteen when he translated some poems of
Koerner and Goethe into Russian verse. Later, when at college, he
wrote some short prose tales, which were published in various
papers. But it was in 1896, when the "Russkoe Bogatsvo," the large
St. Petersburg review, had published his two important stories,
"Astray" and "The Contagion," that renown came to him. It came so
suddenly that it troubled him and was almost a blow to his modesty,
which is one of the sympathetic traits of his personality.
In fact, there came a time when the attention of the literary world,
especially among the younger generation, became so wrapped up in his
works that Gorky and Tchekoff sank to a second level. This
enthusiasm was caused by the fact that Veressayev's works answered a
general need. They brought into the world of literature a series of
characters who summed up the rising fermentation of new ideas and
seemed to be spokesmen, around whom the Russian revolutionary forces
gathered,--forces which, up to this time, had been scattered. An era
of struggle for liberty began.
It is rather important, I think, for the proper understanding of
this period to say a few words concerning its history.
The struggle of the younger generation against the autocracy began
about 1860, at the time of the freeing of the serfs, a period known
in Russia as the "epoch of great reforms." These ameliorations,
which extended into almost every domain of Russian life, left intact
the autocracy, which, under pretence of protecting itself, fought
successfully against all activity and thus brought about, among the
younger generation, a general movement towards freedom and
socialism. But the autocracy found its best help in the ignorance of
the people. Urban commerce, little developed at that time,
practically interested only the peasants--which means nine-tenths of
the population of Russia. It was natural, then, that the peasants
should become the principal object of the revolutionary propaganda,
and that tremendous efforts should be made on all sides in order to
awaken them from their dangerous sleep.
The peasant uprisings in the history of Russia, especially the two
revolts directed by Stepan Razin in the 17th century, and Pugachev
in the 18th, proved the fact that the masses could unite in a
general insurrection. This time, the "intellectuals" joined. As they
advocated a sort of communism, periodic redivisions of land
according to the growth of the population, and as they harped on the
tradition that land was a gift of God which no one had a right to
own, we can easily see that the agricultural proletariat would
welcome with open arms the socialistic ideas.