that makes existence happy or bitter, deep and human, remains a
closed book. Neither religion nor morality, neither science nor art,
exists for him. Instead of a real and ardent faith, he feels in
himself a motley array of feelings. His habitual veneration of
religious rites mingles with mean superstitions. He is not
courageous enough to deny God, not strong enough to believe in Him.
He does not love his fellow-men, and cannot feel the intense
happiness of devoting himself to his fellow-creatures and even dying
for them. But neither does he experience that hate for others which
gives a man a terrible joy in his struggle with his fellow-men. Not
being capable of elevating himself high enough or falling low enough
to reign over the lives of men, he lives or rather vegetates with a
keen feeling of his mediocrity, which makes him despair. And the
pitiless words of Zarathustra ring in his ears: "If your life is not
successful, if a venomous worm is gnawing at your heart, know that
death will succeed." And Serge Petrovich, desperate, commits
suicide.
The hero of "At the Window" is quite different. This man has
succeeded in building for himself a sort of fortress, "in which he
retires, sheltered from life." Like Serge Petrovich, although not as
often, he is tormented by restless thoughts, and, from time to time,
he is obliged to defend his "fortress." But usually he is contented
with watching life, that is to say, that part which he can see from
his window. Nothing troubles the tranquillity of his mind, not even
the desire to live like other men. One day, he speaks of his
theories to a simple, uneducated young girl whom he thinks of
marrying. She is astonished and stupefied by them. She perceives
that he leads an insipid and morose life. Andrey Nikolayevich does
not take into account or understand the stupefaction of the young
girl.
"This then is your life?" she asks, incredulously.
"This is it. What more could you want?"
"But it must be terribly monotonous to live in that way, apart from
the world."
"What good does one find in mankind? Nothing but tedium. When I am
alone, I am my own master, but among men you never know what
attitude to take to please them. They drag you into drunkenness,
into gambling; then they denounce you to your superiors. I, however,
love calmness and frankness. Some of them accept bribes and allow
themselves to become corrupt; I do not like that.... I adore
tranquillity."
Moreover, he does not marry the young girl. He gives her up because
he is afraid of the incumbrances that housekeeping will bring.
In "The Grand Slam" four provincial "intellectuals" are locked up in
the same fortress, and, by playing cards, they escape the terrible
problems of a life which is inimical to them. Their existence has
been passed among these cards, which, by a mysterious phenomenon,
have become real living creatures to them. One of the players has
dreamed all through his life of getting a grand slam, when, one
evening, he sees he has the necessary cards in his hand. He has but
to take one more card, the ace of spades, and his dream will be
realized. But at the very moment when he is stretching forth his
hand to take it, he falls down dead. His partners are terrified. One
of them, a timorous and exact old man, named Jacob Ivanovich, is
particularly struck. A thought comes to him; he quickly rises, after
making sure that it was the ace of spades that the dead man was
going to take, and cries:
"But he will never know that he was going to get the ace of spades
and a grand slam! Never.... Never...."
"Then it appeared to Jacob Ivanovich that, up to this moment, he had
never understood what death was. Now he understood, and what he saw
was senseless, horrible, and irreparable!... The dead man would
never know!"
The poignant irony of this story is not unusual with Andreyev.
It is again found in the short and symbolic story "The Laugh." A
student, profiting by the fact that it is carnival time, disguises
himself as a Chinaman and goes to the house of the girl he loves.
The mute, immobile, and stupidly calm mask, and the whole "get-up"
are so funny, that the unfortunate man rouses irresistible laughter
wherever he goes. The young girl cannot help herself, and, while
listening to his very touching and sincere declaration, which, at
any other time, would have brought tears to her eyes, she bursts out
laughing and cannot again become serious, although she realizes that
a living and unhappy being is hidden under this impassive and
foolish Chinaman's mask.
* * * * *
In "The Lie" we see a man who, by isolating himself from life, has
lost the feeling of reality, and all capacity of discerning the true
from the false. He suffers terribly from the feeling that something
unknown is happening around him. This man, who would be ready to
sacrifice everything, even his life, in order to know truth, guesses
the lie that comes between him and the person who is dearest to him.
He falls into a despair that soon turns to fury. In order to recover
his calm, he begs the girl he loves, whom he suspects of having
deceived him, to reveal the whole truth to him. But he cannot
believe her protestations of innocence. One word bursts from his
being, breaks forth from the depths of his soul: "Lies! Lies! Lies
everywhere!"
"In looking at her beautiful pure forehead," he writes, "I dreamed
that truth was there, on the other side of that thin barrier, and I
felt a senseless desire to break that barrier and at least to see
the truth. Lower down, beneath her white breast, I heard the beating
of her heart, and I had a mad desire to open her breast so that I
could read, at least once, what there was at the bottom of her
heart."
He ends by killing that which he loved, and thinks that he is
satisfied: he believes he has killed the lie.
In "The Thought" we see the gradual development of insanity during
the period when it is doubtful, when the will is almost entirely
annihilated and replaced by a fixed idea, and when conscience is not
entirely abolished. Dr. Kerzhenzev kills his friend, obeying a
mental suggestion, which now forbids him to do it, now urges him on.
Then, like the "half-insane" or those sick people who feign madness
in order more easily to attain their end, this man suggests to
himself that he is in reality insane. This idea gets a hold on him
after the murder and fills his soul with mortal terror, the exposure
of which forms the most supremely pathetic part of the whole story.
All this drama of a foundering intelligence, complicated by bizarre
contradictions, is developed with a penetrating power of analysis.
Andreyev tells us that on the day of judgment the alienists are
divided as to the insanity of Kerzhenzev. The story ends at this
place. But the principal interest of the story does not lie in this
or that solution of the problem, which is not mysterious, for the
doctor is doubtlessly abnormal, and it is only as to the degree of
insanity that there can be any question. The main interest lies in
another direction, in the subtle analysis of this special mental
condition, which is done with consummate art.
This story had the honor of occupying an entire meeting of the
psychiatrists attached to the Academy of Medicine of St. Petersburg.
According to the report of Dr. Ivanov, the assembly was almost
unanimous in declaring the murderer insane. Another psychiatrist,
who thought he saw proofs of an abnormal mentality in all the
stories of Andreyev, pronounced the same verdict against Dr.
Kerzhenzev, in a meeting of doctors.
* * * * *
"All of priest Vassily Fiveyisky's life was weighed down by a cruel
and enigmatic fatality,"--it is thus that the story, "The Life of a
Pope," opens. "As if struck by an unknown malediction, he had from
his youth been made to carry a heavy burden of sorrows, sickness and
misfortunes; he was solitary among men as a planet is among planets;
a peculiar and malevolent atmosphere surrounded him. Son of an
obscure, patient, and submissive village priest, he also was patient
and submissive, and he was a long time in recognizing the
particular rancour of destiny. He fell rapidly and arose slowly.
Twig by twig he restored his nest. Having become a priest, the
husband of a good woman, the father of a son and a daughter, he
thought that all was going well with him, that all was solidly
established, and that he would remain thus forever. And he blessed
God."
But fate was always on the watch for him. It had showed him
happiness only to take it away again. After seven years of
prosperity, his little son is drowned one summer's day in the river.
Death and nameless misfortunes again invade the home of Vassily. One
does not live there any more, one prowls around gropingly in a
mournful stupor. From morning till evening, his wife comes and goes,
silent and indifferent to everything, as if she were looking for
some one or something.
In losing his son, poor Vassily has also lost his wife, his helpmate
and friend, for the unfortunate woman takes to drink. The faith of
the priest holds in this terrible trial. But his misery increases
immeasurably. The vice of his wife, his own sick weakness, excite
the meanness of the people. Insults have to be borne in silence,
tears hidden. At home, the priest's wife has no rest. She has the
idea that she can have another son who will take the place of the
dead one and be a balm to her broken heart. In her alcoholic desire,
a prey to savage fury, she demands that her husband gratify her
desire.
"Give him to me, Vassily! Give him back to me, I tell you...."
At last her desire is realized: a son is born to her; but the child,
conceived in madness, is born half-witted. The mother takes to drink
again, and the despair of Vassily increases. One day the unfortunate
woman hangs herself. The pope comes in, however, in time to save
her; but now another noose has tightened itself about the priest's
heart. One question oppresses him:
"Why these sufferings? If God exists, and if God is love, how is
such misery possible?"
Vassily's faith trembles. He decides to leave his cassock, to fly,
to put his idiot son out to board and to start life over again. This
resolution relieves him. His wife breathes easier. It seems to him
that she also can begin a new life. But fate does not loosen its
reins.
One day, on coming back from the harvest, he finds his house burned.
His wife, in a drunken stupor, had probably set fire to it. She is
dying of her burns. Vassily can only sigh. This new misfortune does
not put an end to the priest, but rather inspires him. His old faith
comes back, he sees in this supreme test a predestination. He kneels
down and cries:
"I believe! I believe! I believe!"
From that time on he devotes himself entirely to prayer and
macerations. He lives in perpetual ecstasy. The people around him
understand nothing of this change and are astounded. Every one of
them is waiting for something unusual. And their waiting is not in
vain. One day, when he is delivering the funeral oration of a
workingman, who has been suddenly killed, Vassily abruptly
interrupts the ceremony, approaches the corpse, which has begun to
decay, and addresses it thus three times:
"I tell you: arise!"
But the dead man does not move. Then the priest looks at this inert
and deformed corpse. He notices the fetid odor that arises from it,
the odor of the slow but sure decomposition, and he has a sort of
sudden revelation. The scepticism which, for a long time, has been
brooding in his heart suddenly is transformed into absolute
negation, and addressing himself to Him in whom he had believed,
Vassily cries out:
"Thou wishest to deceive me? Then why did I believe? Why hast Thou
kept me in servitude, in captivity, all of my life? No free thought!
No feeling! No hope! All with Thee! All for Thee! Thee alone! Well,
appear! I am waiting! I am waiting!... Ah! Thou dost not want to?
Very well...."
He does not finish. In a burst of savage madness he rushes forth
from the now empty church. He rushes straight ahead and finally
falls in the middle of the road. Death has put an end to his
miseries.
"Silence" also shows us a priest, stubborn in his prejudices. This
man, Father Ignatius by name, is a sort of rude and authoritative
Hercules. All tremble before his stern air, except his daughter, who
has decided to continue her studies in St. Petersburg, against the
will of her father. Coming back to her home after a long absence,
she wanders about, sad and silent. For days at a time she wanders
about, pale and melancholy, speaking little, seeking solitude. She
hides what oppresses her; she keeps her secret from all. One night,
she throws herself under a train, taking her secret with her.
Her grief-stricken mother gets a paralytic stroke which transforms
her into a sort of living corpse. The father, crushed by these two
catastrophes, which have destroyed all the joy of his life, becomes
the prey of a singular mental state: his conscience revolts against
the severe maxims and the pitiless prejudices that he has always
defended. Tender love, which he has hitherto concealed under his
pride, now softens him; he needs affection, and a vague feeling
suggests to him that he himself is to blame for all of these
misfortunes. His past life, his daughter, and his wife appear to
him as so many enigmas which raise anguishing questions in his
heart. He calls out, but no one answers. A death-like silence has
invaded the presbytery, and this silence is especially dreadful near
the paralyzed wife, who is dying without speaking. Even her eyes do
not betray a single thought. Gradually, a terrible desire to know
why his daughter committed suicide seizes him. At twilight, softly,
in his bare feet, he goes up to the room of his dead daughter and
speaks to her. He entreats her to tell him the truth, to confess to
him why she was always so sad, why she has killed herself. Only the
silence answers him. Then he rushes to the cemetery, where his
daughter's tomb irresistibly attracts him; again he implores, begs,
threatens. For a moment he thinks that a vague answer arises from
the earth; he places his ear on the rough turf.
"Vera, tell me!" he repeats in a loud and steady voice.
"And now Father Ignatius feels with terror that something
sepulchrally cold is penetrating his ear and congealing his brain;
it is Vera, who is continually answering him with the same prolonged
silence. This silence becomes more and more sinister and restless,
and when Father Ignatius arises with an effort, his face is as livid
as death."
Crushed by the same blind destiny which annihilated the powerful
personality of Father Ignatius, the piteous and tearful hero of "The
Marseillaise" moves us even more than does the old priest. The poor
fellow cannot grasp the reason for the ferocity of stupid fate,
which unrelentingly preys upon him. Arrested by mistake as a
revolutionist and condemned to deportation, he becomes an object of
derision to his comrades. However, gradually, he finds the strength
to share the severe privations of his companions who have sacrificed
themselves to their ideal of justice and liberty. And, on his
death-bed, he is elated by all that he has endured; he dreams of
liberty, which, up to this time, had been indifferent to him, and
asks them to sing the Marseillaise over his grave.
"He died, and we sang the Marseillaise. Our young and powerful
voices thundered forth this majestic song of liberty, accompanied by
the noise of the ocean which carried on the crests of its waves
towards 'dear France,' pale terror and blood-red hope.
"It became our standard forever, the picture of this nonentity with
the hare's body and the man's heart.
"On your knees to the hero, friends and comrades!
"We sang. The guns, with their creaking locks, were pointed
menacingly at us; the steel points of the bayonets were pointed at
our hearts. The song resounded louder and louder, with increasing
joy. Held in the friendly hands of the 'strugglers,' the black
coffin slowly sank into the earth.
"We sang the Marseillaise!"
* * * * *
The two main characters of "The Gulf," a student and a school-girl,
are walking and discussing rather deep things, such as immortality
and the beauty of pure and noble love. They feel some sadness in
speaking about these things, but love appears more and more luminous
to them. It rises before their eyes, as large as the world, bursting
forth like the sun and marvelously beautiful, and they know that
there is nothing so powerful as love.
"You could die for the woman you loved?" asked Zinochka.
"Of course," replies Nemovetsky unhesitatingly, in a frank and
sincere voice, "and you?"
"I too!" She remains pensive a moment. "To die for the one you love,
that is a great happiness! Would that that were to be my destiny!"
Gradually night falls. Nemovetsky and his companion lose their way
in the woods; they finally arrive in a clearing, where three
filthy-looking men are seated about an empty bottle. These
intoxicated men, whose wicked eyes light up with a brutal envy of
enjoyment and love of destruction, try to quarrel with Nemovetsky,
and one of them ends by striking him full in the face with his fist.
Zinochka runs away. His heart full of terror, Nemovetsky can hear
the shrieks of his friend, whom the vagabonds have caught. Then a
feeling of emptiness comes over him, and he loses consciousness. Two
of the men throw him into a ravine.
An hour later, Nemovetsky regains consciousness; he gets up with
great pain, for he is badly wounded. He remembers what has happened.
Fright and despair seize him. He begins to run and call for help
with all his strength, at the same time looking among all the
bushes, when at his feet, he sees a dim, white form. It is his
companion, who lies there motionless. He falls down on his knees and
touches her. His hand encounters a nude body, damp and cold, but
still living. It seems to grow warm at his touch. He pictures to
himself with abominable clearness what the men have done. A feeling
of strange strength circulates in his members. On his knees in front
of the young girl, in the obscurity of the forest, he tries to bring
her back to life, calling her sweet names, caressing her hair,
rubbing her cold hands.
"With infinite precautions, but also with deep tenderness, he tries
to cover her with the shreds of her torn dress, and the double
sensation of the cloth and the nude body are as keen as a sword and
as inconceivable as madness. And now he cries for help, now he
presses the sweet and supple body to his breast. His unconscious
abandonment unchains the savageness of his passion. He whispers in a
low voice, 'I love you, I love you.' And throwing himself violently
upon her lips, he feels his teeth entering her flesh.
"Then, in the sadness and impetuousness of the kiss, the last bit of
his mind gives way. It seems to him that the lips of the young girl
tremble. For an instant, a terrible terror fills his soul and he
sees a horrible gulf yawning at his feet.... And he hurls himself
into the mad throes of his insane passion."
The account of the collegian, which forms the plot of the story "In
the Fog," is even more daring in its realism. It actually oppresses
the reader, not so much by certain details that provoke disgust, as
by the analysis of the sufferings of an unfortunate young man, whose
mind is pure, but who has let himself be dragged into excesses which
are followed by a sickness of ill name. Severely reprimanded by his
father, the poor young fellow, overcome with sorrow, the victim of
an instinct which he could not conquer, ends his days in a most
horrible way: one evening, he leaves home and goes out into the
streets in an adventuresome spirit. A half-intoxicated prostitute
touches him in passing; he follows her. As they go along, a
conversation starts up, and the young man, although she is repugnant
to him, goes home with her. Once in her room, a violent quarrel
starts up and he kills her, and then commits suicide.
These two stories, especially "The Gulf," caused many lively
discussions on the part of the public, and then in the newspapers.
Mr. Bourenine, the well-known critic of the "Novoye Vremya," says
that he received from several correspondents a series of letters
which blamed Andreyev vehemently and requested that this "skunk" of
literature be called to order according to his deserts. These
protestations were reenforced by an ardent letter from Countess
Tolstoy, the wife of the great author, who reproached Andreyev for
having so complacently painted such sombre pictures, with such low
and violent scenes, all of which tended to pervert youth. The
writers were not the only ones to take offence. Two important
Russian newspapers organized a sort of inquiry, and they published
many of the answers received from the young people of both sexes,
but these were all favorable to Andreyev.
In truth, all these judgments are too passionate. It is true that
"most of the critics have understood Andreyev only in a superficial
manner," as Tolstoy rightfully asserted. The double impression, for
instance, produced by "The Gulf," is the result of a simple
misunderstanding. Those who think that the adventure of young
Nemovetsky is a slice of life and characterizes certain
psychological states, have, without a doubt, the right to judge this
story as an indiscretion, and to reproach the author with a
deviation from morality; but Andreyev has not taken his hero from
reality; he has not tried to give us a picture of manners, but has
expressed an idea, born in his brain under the influence of the
philosophy of Nietzsche. It illustrates the terrible power and the
brutality of a dormant instinct lurking in the purest minds.
* * * * *
Besides, "The Gulf" and "In the Fog" are compositions which are
exceptional in the work of Andreyev. The idea that he mostly
presents is not the power of bestial instincts, but rather the
indestructible vitality of human feelings and aspirations towards a
better existence, which sometimes comes to light among the most
miserable and depraved people, and even among those who are in the
most abject material condition.
In the destiny of these beings, there are, however, rays of hope.
The slightest incident serves to transform them; suddenly their
hearts begin to beat happily, tears of tenderness moisten their
eyes, they vaguely feel the existence of something luminous and
good. A profound sensibility, an ardent love of life bursts forth
in their souls. This sensibility, this attachment to existence, form
the theme of four touching stories: "He Was," "Petka in the
Country," "The Cellar," and "The Angel."
The action of "He Was" takes place in a hospital, where a deacon, a
foolishly debonair man, who is attached to his stunted existence,
and a pessimistic merchant, thoroughly satiated, are at the point of
death. The deacon has an incurable sickness, and his days are
numbered. But he does not know it, and speaks with enthusiasm of the
pilgrimage he is going to make after he is cured, and of the
apple-tree in his garden, which he expects will bear a great deal of
fruit. The fourth Friday of Lent he is taken into the amphitheatre.
He comes back, very much moved and making the sign of the cross.
"Ah! my brothers," he says, "I am all upset. The doctor made me sit
down in a chair and said to the students: 'Here you see a sick man.'
Ah! how painful it was to hear him add: 'He was a deacon!'"
"The unfortunate man stopped, and continued in a choking voice: '"He
was a deacon," the doctor told them. He told them the story of my
whole life, he even spoke about my wife. It was terrible! One would
have said that I was dead already, and that he was talking over my
coffin.'
"And as the deacon is thus speaking, all of the others see clearly
that he is going to die. They see it as clearly as if death itself
was standing there, at the foot of the bed...."
The merchant is a very different sort of man: he does not believe in
God; he has had enough of life and is not afraid of death. All of
his strength he has spent unnecessarily, without any appreciable
result, without joy. When he was young he had stolen meat and fruit
from his master. Caught in the act, he had been beaten, and he
detested those who had struck him. Later on, having become rich, he
crushed the poor with his fortune and scorned those who, on falling
into his hands, answered his hate with scorn. Finally, old age and
sickness had come; people now began to steal from him, and he, in
turn, beat those whom he caught terribly. And thus his life had been
spent; it had been nothing but a series of transgressions and
hatreds, where the flames of desire, in dying out, had left nothing
but cold ashes in his soul. He refuses to believe that any one can
love this existence, and he disdainfully looks at the sallow face of
the deacon, and mutters: "Fool!" Then, he looks at the third man in
the room, a young student who is asleep. This student never fails to
embrace his fiancee, a pretty young girl, whenever she comes to see
him. As he looks the merchant, more bitterly than before, repeats:
"Fool!"