Contemporary Russian Novelists

Finally, what could the most perfect medical science and the cleverest doctor do against the enormous mass of sickness and suffering that are the inevitable result of the social evils, of which poverty is the most conspicuous? How can one tell a man that his trade is running him down and that he does not get enough nourishment? How can one order a man to eat better food, to get more sleep and more pure air? First, and most important, is the necessity of curing the social organism.

It is easy to see why this book made many enemies for its author. There is too much frankness and conscientiousness in these studies not to anger those who have their greatest interest in concealing the truth! The upright man who sees primarily in medicine a means to relieve human suffering, cannot realize without sadness the many abuses hidden under the name of this science.

"In the War," recently published, is the story of Veressayev's campaign in Manchuria. In this work, the author has painted vividly the peregrinations of his moving hospital, and also the terrible sufferings of the Russian army. By the thousands, the starved children of the campaign, the Russian foot-soldiers, stoics and fatalists, sacrificing their lives for a strange and incomprehensible cause, pass before the eyes of the reader. And in the background, detaching themselves from the crowd, in their gold and silver embroidered uniforms, are "the heroes of the war, these vultures of the advance and rear-guard, who enrich themselves at the expense of the unfortunate soldiers." A number of these great chiefs, whose infamy was evident at the end of the war, since they had shown themselves incapable of dealing with the foreign enemy, had distinguished themselves by the ferocity they exhibited in quelling internal troubles. As to the military doctors, the greater number of them went into the campaign only for commercial gain. Among the nurses who accompanied them, aside from those who were real heroines of goodness and devotion, there were many who prostituted themselves shamefully.

Corruption, carelessness, disorder, and cowardice are shown on every page of this story, as well as the terrible suffering endured by the wounded in the hospitals. The wounded were the real martyrs of this frightful campaign.

Veressayev, like all of his heroes and heroines, wants to help the people, and for this reason he gets in touch with the revolutionists who consecrate their work to political and social regeneration, under the various titles, "narodnikis," Marxists, Socialists, idealists and so on… Which of these does he prefer? We do not know. We find the influence of Marx in his ideas, but we cannot affirm that he is an absolute Marxian. It seems as if Veressayev, troubled by the innumerable divergencies of opinion, asks himself secretly: "Will this war lead to the unity of opinion and program, so necessary for victory, or by its quarrels will it only retard the harmony so much sought after?"

It is not discussion that will finally lead to unity, but rather life itself, with all its realities.

It would be most interesting to read a sequel to the three famous novels of Veressayev – "Astray," "The Contagion," and "At the Turning" – in which he would give us the psychology of his former heroes under present conditions. To-day, the people are not "astray"; the field is big enough for every one to find the place that best suits his ideas, tastes, and temperament. Dr. Chekanhov, if he were living now, instead of being maltreated by the people, would certainly be their well beloved champion, and perhaps represent them in the Duma; the timid Tokarev, in spite of his aversion to the ideas of the revolutionists, could find a place in the liberal party of the Reforming Democrats, or at least among the Octobrists; the unfortunate Varenka would not be worn out by her work as school-mistress, for she would be supported by the peasants. The peasants themselves are not the miserable and resigned creatures of Veressayev's earlier stories. Certainly, liberty is not yet a legal thing in Russia, and the Duma is still an unstable institution, but the end of absolutism is near, for a great event has taken place in the empire of the Tsar, namely, this awakening of the feeling of human dignity, and the spirit of revolt among the lower strata of the Russian people, which in the past, by its unconsciousness, formed the granite pedestal of autocracy. The struggle is terrible, but confidence in final victory redoubles the energy of the strugglers. A certain Russian was right when he said: "Formerly, life was formidable, but now it is both formidable and gay."

In reading the works of Veressayev, Tchekoff, and other painters of modern Russian society, it is easy to note that not one of them anticipated this sudden change of scenery on the Russian political stage, a change which, however, was being prepared in the souls of the peasants. But let us not reproach them! Russia will always remain an enigma.

There is a very old story about the son of the peasant Ilya Murometz. After remaining lazily resting in his "isba" for thirty years, he suddenly arose, and began to walk with such fury that the earth trembled. How could these writers conceive the time when this lazy giant would make up his mind to walk? It is enough to have the assurance that now, no matter what happens, since he has arisen, he will not lie down again.

V

MAXIM GORKY

Maxim Gorky is the most original and, after Tolstoy, the most talented of modern Russian writers. He was born in 1868 or 1869 – he does not know exactly when himself – in a dyer's back shop at Nizhny Novgorod. His mother, Barbara Kashirina, was the daughter of the aforementioned dyer; and his father, Maxim Pyeshkov, was an upholsterer. The child was christened Alexis. His real name, then, is Alexis Pyeshkov, and Maxim Gorky6 is only his pseudonym. When he was four, he lost his father, and three years later, his mother. He was then taken by his grandfather, who had been a soldier under Nicholas I, a hard, authoritative, pitiless old man, before whom all trembled. And it was under his rude tutelage that the child first began to read. When he was nine, he was sent to work for a shoemaker, an evil sort of man who maltreated him.

"One day," Gorky tells us, "I was warming some water for him; the bowl fell, and I burned my hands badly. That evening I ran away, my grandfather having scolded me severely. I then became a painter's apprentice."

He did not remain long in this position. From this time on, his unsatisfied soul was seized with the "wanderlust." First apprenticed to an engraver, and then as a gardener, he finally became a scullion on one of the boats that plies up and down the Volga. Here he felt more at ease.

On board, in the person of the master-cook, named Smoury, he unexpectedly met a teacher. This cook, who had been a soldier, loved to read, and he gave the child all the books that he had in an old trunk. They consisted of the works of Gogol, Dumas' novels, the "Lives of the Saints," a manual of geography, and some popular novels. Surely, a queer collection!

Smoury inspired his scullion, then sixteen years of age, "with an ardent curiosity for the printed word." A "furious" desire to learn seized the young fellow; he went to Kazan, a university city, in the hope of "learning gratuitously all sorts of beautiful things." Cruel deception! They explained to him that "this was not according to the established order." Discouraged, a few months later, he took a position with a baker. He who dreamed of the sun and the open air had to be imprisoned in a filthy and damp cellar. He remained there for two years, earning two dollars a month, board and lodging included; the food, however, was putrid, and his lodging consisted of an attic which he shared with five other men.

"My life in that bakery," he has said, "left a bitter impression. Those two years were the hardest of my whole life." He has thus described his recollections in one of his stories:

"We lived in a wooden box, under a low and heavy ceiling, all covered with cobwebs and permeated with fine soot. Night pressed us between the two walls, spattered with spots of mud and all mouldy. We got up at five in the morning and, stupid and indifferent, began work at six o'clock. We made bread out of the dough which our comrades had prepared while we slept. The whole day, from dawn till ten at night, some of us sat at the table rolling out the dough, and, to avoid becoming torpid, we would constantly rock ourselves to and fro while the others kneaded in the flour. The enormous oven, which resembled a fantastic beast, opened its large jaws, full of dazzling flames, and breathed forth upon us its hot breath, while its two black and enormous cavities watched our unending work…

"Thus, from one day to the next, in the floury dust, in the mud that our feet brought in from the yard, in the suffocating and terrible heat, we rolled out the dough and made cracknels, moistening them with our sweat; we hated our work with an implacable hatred; we never ate what we made, preferring black bread to these odorous dainties."

At this period of his life, he had occasion to study at first hand certain places where he received original information which he later used in writing "Konovalov" and "The Ex-Men," which have thus acquired an autobiographical value. In fact, he worked a long while with these "ex-men;" like them, he sawed wood, and carried heavy burdens. At the same time, he devoted all his spare time to reading and thinking about problems, which became more and more "cursed" and alarming. He had found an attentive listener and interlocutor in the person of his comrade, the baker Konovalov. These two men, while baking their bread, found time to read. And the walls of the cellar heard the reading of the works of Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Karamzine, and others. Then they used to discuss the meaning of life. On holidays, Gorky and had for the moment an opportunity to come out of the hole – this word does not exaggerate – in which they worked, to breathe the fresh air, to live a bit in nature's bosom, and to see their fellow men.

"On holidays," Gorky tells us, "we went with Konovalov down to the river, into the fields; we took a little brandy and bread with us, and, from morning till evening, we were in the open air."

They often went to an old, abandoned house which served as a refuge for a whole tribe of miserable and wandering people, who loved to tell of their wandering lives. Gorky and his companion were always well received on account of the provisions which they distributed so generously.

"Each story spread out before our eyes like a piece of lace in which the black threads predominated – they represented the truth – and where there were threads of light color – they were the lies. These people loved us in their way, and were attentive listeners, because I often read a great deal to them."

Often, these expeditions were not without their risks. One day, two of the baker's workmen happened to drown in a bog; another time, they were taken in a police raid and passed the night in the station house.

It was also at this time that Gorky frequented the company of several students, not care-free and happy ones, but miserable young fellows like those whom Turgenev described as "nourished by physical privations and moral sufferings."

On leaving the bakery, where his health, very much weakened by the lack of air and by bad food, did not permit him to remain any longer, he joined those vagabonds, those wanderers, whose melancholy companion he had been, and whose painter and poet he was to be. In their company, he traveled through Russia in every sense of the word, now as a longshoreman, now as a wood-chopper. Whenever he had a copeck in his pocket he bought books and newspapers and spent the night reading them. He suffered hunger and cold; he slept in the open air in summer, and, in winter, in some refuge or cellar. The feverish activity of so keen an intellect in an organism so crushed had, as its consequence, one of the attempts at suicide which are so frequent among the younger generation of the Russians.

In 1889, at the age of twenty-one, Gorky shot himself in the chest, but he did not succeed in killing himself. Soon afterwards, he became gate-keeper for the winter at Tzaratzine; but the summer had hardly come before he began his vagabondage again, in the course of which he undertook a thousand little jobs in order to keep himself alive. On the road, he noticed those pariahs whom society does not want or who do not want society. And of these, in his short stories, he has created immortal types.

Life was still very hard for him at this time. He has given us a moving sketch of it in his story entitled: "Once in Autumn." The hero, who is none other than the author himself, passes the night under an old, upturned boat, in the company of a prostitute who is just as poor and just as abandoned as himself. They have broken into a booth in order to steal enough bread to keep them from starving. Gorky is sad; he wants to weep; but the poor girl, miserable as she is, consoles him and covers him with kisses.

"Those were the first kisses any woman ever gave me, and they were the best, for those that I received later always cost me a lot and never gave me any joy… At this time, I was already preparing myself to be an active and powerful force in society; it seemed to me at times that I had in part accomplished my purpose… I dreamed of political resolutions, of social reorganization; I used to read such deep and impenetrable authors that their thoughts did not seem to be a part of them – and now a prostitute warmed me with her body, and I was in debt to a miserable, shameful creature, banished by a society that did not want to accord her a place. The wind blew and groaned, the rain beat down upon the boat, the waves broke around us, and both of us, closely entwined, trembled from cold and hunger. And Natasha consoled me; she spoke to me in a sweet, caressing voice, as only a woman can. In listening to her tender and naïve words, I wept, and those tears washed away from my heart many impurities, much bitterness, sadness and hatred, all of which had accumulated there before this night."

At daybreak, they say good-bye to each other, and never see one another again.

"For more than six months, I looked in all the dives and dens in the hope of seeing that dear little Natasha once more, but it was in vain…"

We find him again at Nizhny Novgorod at the time of the call for military recruits. Gorky was reformed, for, he says, "They do not accept those who are fallen." Meanwhile, he became a kvass merchant and exercised this trade for several months. Finally, he became the secretary of a lawyer, named Lanine. The latter, who had a very good reputation, took a deep interest in the poor boy whom life had treated so ill. He became interested in his intellectual development and, according to Gorky himself, had a great influence on him. At Nizhny Novgorod, as at Kazan, Gorky felt himself attracted by the circle of young people who discussed the "cursed" questions, and he soon was noticed by his comrades. They spoke of him as "a live and energetic soul."

Easy as life was for Gorky in this city, where he remained for a while, the "wanderlust" again seized him. "Not feeling at home among these intelligent people," he traveled. From Nizhny Novgorod, he went, in 1893, to Tzaratzine; then he traveled on foot through the entire province of the Don, the Ukraine, entered into Bessarabia, and from there descended by the coast of the Crimea as far as Kuban.

In October, 1892, Gorky found himself at Tiflis, where he worked in the railroad shops. That same year, he published in a local paper his first story, "Makar Choudra," in which already a remarkable talent was evident.

Leaving Tiflis after a short sojourn there, he came to the banks of the Volga, in his native country, and began to write stories for the local papers. A happy chance made him meet Korolenko, who took a great interest in the "debutante" writer. "In the year 1893-1894," writes Gorky, "I made the acquaintance of Vladimir Korolenko, to whom I owe my introduction into 'great' literature. He has done a great deal for me in teaching me many things."

The important influence of Korolenko on the literary development of Gorky can best be seen in one of the latter's letters to his biographer, Mr. Gorodetsky. "Write this," he says to his biographer, "write this without changing a single word: It is Korolenko who taught Gorky to write, and if Gorky has profited but little by the teaching of Korolenko, it is the fault of Gorky alone. Write: Gorky's first teacher was the soldier-cook Smoury; his second teacher was the lawyer Lanine; the third, Alexander Kalouzhny, an 'ex-man;' the fourth, Korolenko…"

From the day when he met Korolenko, Gorky's stories appeared mostly in the more important publications. In 1895, he published "Chelkashe" in the important Petersburg review, "Russkoe Bogatsvo;" a year later, other publications equally well known published, "Konovalov," "Malva," and "Anxiety." These works brought Gorky into the literary world, where he soon became one of the favorite writers. The critics, at first sceptical, soon joined their voices with the enthusiastic clamor of the people.

Gorky's wandering life has given his works a peculiar and universally established form. He is, above all others, the poet of the "barefoot brigade," of the vagabonds who eternally wander from one end of Russia to the other, carelessly spending the few pennies that they have succeeded in earning, and who, like the birds of the sky, have no cares for the morrow.

But this does not suffice to explain this author's popularity, especially among the younger generation. The "barefoot brigade" is not a novelty in Russian literature. We find it in the works of Reshetnikov, Uspensky, Mamine, Zhassinsky, and others. It is true that, up to this time, the vagabonds had been represented as the dregs of the people, as hopeless drunkards, thieves, and murderers. The writers who represented them were satisfied in rousing in their readers pity for the victims of this social disorder, victims so wounded by fate, that they have not even a realization of the injustice with which they are treated. And it is only in the works of the great dramatist Ostrovsky that we find any happy vagabonds, with a deep love of nature and beauty.

Gorky's vagabonds have, like Ostrovsky's, exalted feelings for natural beauties, but they possess, besides, a full consciousness of themselves, and they declare open war against society. Gorky lives the lives of his heroes; he seems to sink himself into them, and, at the same time, he idealizes them, and often uses them as his spokesmen. Far from being crushed by fate, his vagabonds clothe themselves with a certain pride in their misery; for them, the ideal existence is the one they lead, because it is free; with numerous variations, they all exalt the irresistible seduction of vagabondage:

"As for me, just listen! How many things I've seen in my fifty-eight years," says Makar Choudra. "In what country have I not been? That is the only way to live. Walk, walk, and you see everything. Don't stay long in one place: what is there out of the ordinary in that? Just as day and night eternally run after one another, thus you must run, avoiding daily life, so that you will not cease to love it…"

"I, brother," – says, in turn, Konovalov, – "I have decided to go all over the earth, in every sense of the word. You always see something new… You think of nothing… The wind blows, and you might say that it blows the dust out of your soul. You feel free and easy… You are not troubled by any one. If you are hungry, you stop, and work to earn a few pennies; if there is no work to be had, you ask for some bread and it is given to you. So you see many countries, and the most diverse beauties…"

Likewise, in "Tedium," Kouzma Kossiyak thus clearly expresses himself:

"I would not give up my liberty for any woman, nor for any fireplace. I was born in a shed, do you hear, and it is in a shed that I am going to die; that is my fate. I am going to wander everywhere until my hair turns grey… I get bored when I stay in the same place."

In their feeling of hostility to all authority, and all fixed things, including bourgeois happiness and economical principles, some of Gorky's characters resemble some of those superior heroes of Russian literature, like Pushkin's Evgeny Onyegin, Lermontov's Pechorine, and, finally, Turgenev's Rudin, who, in their way, are vagabonds, filled with the same independent spirit in their respective social, intellectual, or political circles.

On the other hand, Gorky's wandering beggars are closely related to those "free men" to whom M. S. Maximov attributes a historic rôle which was favorable to the extension of the Russian empire. "Russia," he says, in his book, "Siberia and the Prison," "lived by vagabondage after she became a State; thanks to the vagabonds, she has extended her boundaries: for, it is they who, in order to maintain their independence, fought against the nomad tribes who attacked them from the south and the east…"

There is a marked difference between these two classes: men of the former look for a place on this earth where they can establish themselves; while men of the other class, those who are out of work, drunkards, and lazy men, have no taste for a sedentary life.

But if Gorky has not created the type of vagabond which is so familiar to those who know Russian literature, on the other hand, he has remodeled it with his original, energetic, and vibrantly realistic talent. His nomad "barefoot brigade," picturesquely encamped, is surrounded with a sort of terribly majestic halo in these vast stretches of country, a background against which their sombre silhouettes are set off. From the perfumed steppes to the roaring sea, they conjure up to the eye of their old co-mate the enchanting Slavic land of which they are the audacious offsprings. And Gorky also lovingly gives them a familiar setting, painted with bold strokes, of plains and mountains which border in the distance the glaucous stretch of the sea. The sea! With what fervor does Gorky depict the anger and the peace of the sea. It always inspires, like an adored mistress:

"… The sea sleeps.

"Immense, sighing lazily along the strand, it has gone to sleep, peaceful in its huge stretch, bathed in the moonlight. As soft as velvet, and black, it mingles with the dark southern sky and sleeps profoundly, while on its surface is reflected the transparent tissue of the flaky, immobile clouds, in which is incrusted the gilded design of the stars."

Thus, like a "leitmotiv," the murmuring of the water interrupts the course of the story. And the steppe, this steppe "which has devoured so much human flesh and has drunk so much blood that it has become fat and fecund," surrounds with its immensity these miserable wandering beings and menaces them with its storm:

"Suddenly, the entire steppe undulated, enveloped with a dazzling blue light which seemed to enlarge the horizon … the shadows trembled and disappeared for a moment … a crash of thunder burst forth, disturbing the sky, where many black clouds were flying past…

"… At times the steppe stretched forth like an oscillating giant … the vast stretch of blue and cloudless sky poured light down upon us, and seemed like an immense cupola of sombre color."

The wind passed "in large and regular waves, or blew with a sharp rattle, the leaves sighed and whispered among themselves, the waves of the river washed up on the banks, monotonous, despairing, as if they were telling something terribly sad and mournful," the entire country vibrated with a powerful life that harmonized with the souls of the people.

In "Old Iserguile," Gorky writes: "I should have liked to transform myself into dust and be blown about by the wind; I should have liked to stretch myself out on the steppe like the warm waters of the river, or throw myself into the sea and rise into the sky in an opal mist; I should have liked to drink in this evening so wonderful and melancholy… And, I know not why, I was suffering…"

Gorky's stories, always short enough, have little or no plot, and the characters are barely sketched. But, in these simple frames, he has confined the power of an art which is prolific, supple and profoundly living. Let us take, for example, "The Friends." Dancing Foot and The One Who Hopes are ordinary thieves, the terror of the villagers whose gardens they rob. One day, when they are especially desperate, they steal a thin horse which is browsing at the edge of the woods. The One Who Hopes gets an incurable sickness, and it is perhaps on account of his approaching death that he feels scruples at this crime. Dancing Foot expresses the scorn that the weakness of his companion inspires him with, but he ends by giving in and returns the animal. One hour later, The One Who Hopes falls dead in front of Dancing Foot, who is tremendously upset in spite of his affected indifference.