Kitabı oku: «Contemporary Russian Novelists», sayfa 13

Merezhkovsky, then, has reason for thinking that the social renovation of Christianity will be accomplished in Russia. And as this work is the especial concern of the clergy, Merezhkovsky, who several years ago was present at a meeting where the Russian priests affirmed their desire to free themselves from the yoke of their religious and secular chiefs, proposed to accomplish this great mission. "It is indispensable," he says, "for the Russian Church to untie the knots that bind it to the decayed forms of the autocracy, to unite itself to the 'intellectuals' and to take an active part in the struggle for the great political and social deliverance of Russia. The Church should not think of its own liberty at present, but of martyrdom."

We will not criticize these, perhaps illusory, ideas and previsions of Merezhkovsky. Russian life has become an enigma; who knows to what moral crisis the social conscience may be led by the present political crisis? Merezhkovsky's Olympian æsthetics have made him a foreigner in Russian literature. Yet as soon as the tempest burst forth, certain familiar traits showed themselves, traits common to the best Russian writers and to the general spirit of Russian literature. In his absolute, and even exaggerated, distaste for "bourgeoisisme," and his desire for an ideal, he is a legitimate son of this literature. The nature of his ideas is in harmony with those we have already found in Tolstoy, with his gospel of Christian anarchism, in Dostoyevsky, with his ideas about the "omni-humanity" of the Russian spirit, in Vladimir Solovyev, with his idea of universal theocracy, and, finally, in Chadayev, one of the most remarkable thinkers of the first half of the last century, who, although now almost forgotten, was the real source of all these ideas.

Thus in the conception of socialized Christianity Merezhkovsky seeks the end of the great antithesis between the "God-man" and the "man-God," between Christ and Bacchus, an antithesis which makes the generality of men often conduct themselves after the manner of that German petty kingdom, of which Heine speaks, where the people, while venerating Christ, do not forget to honor Bacchus by abundant libations. Merezhkovsky's idea ought to appear in the form of a synthetic fusion of the joyous religion of Greece and the religion of love, as taught by Jesus.¹⁵

VIII
ALEXANDER KUPRIN

The work of Kuprin contrasts strongly with the writings of his predecessors and of his contemporaries. It would be useless to try to connect him with Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, or Gorky. This does not mean that he came under foreign influence. As a matter of fact his work clearly shows the imprint of Slavic genius and receives its richness from qualities which have always appeared in Slavic literature, – sincerity and accuracy of observation, a passionate love for all manifestations of modern life, lyrical fullness, and power of suggestion. But Alexander Kuprin does not depict adepts of the "religion of pity," nor the psychology of the abnormal, the "pathological case," so curious and rare, and so dear to the author of "Crime and Punishment."¹⁶ He does not reincarnate the sad genius of Korolenko. He is equally separated from Tolstoy and Gorky. He is himself. That is to say, he is an exquisite story-teller, profound and touching, who imposes neither thesis nor moral upon his reader, but paints life as it appears to him, – not seen through the medium of a temperament, – but in all sincerity, without too much ardor or too much indifference.

This author was born in 1870. After having attended the Cadet School and the Military School at Moscow, he entered military service as an active lieutenant in 1890, but resigned seven years later in order to devote his time to literature. Before this, he had published several stories.

In spite of the undeniable talent which is found in his earlier writings, the public hesitated to praise him. Certain lucky circumstances, however, favored the beginning of his work. One of his relatives, at the start, offered him a position on a magazine which she was then editing. This was a wonderful opportunity for him, for usually at his age the more gifted writers are still groping around for light. But merit alone seldom suffices to form the basis of literary fame. Scandal is often necessary to consecrate, as one might say, a growing reputation. Kuprin, without seeking to start a scandal, did so, in spite of himself, when he published "The Duel," a study of military life, in which he showed the most absolute impartiality.

To his great surprise, the public accepted this book as a new indictment of the army. It was because the Manchurian campaign was so recent. Every portrayal of military life passed as a violent satire on the corrupt and disgraced army. Kuprin in vain tried to change this unexpected judgment. As he was an ardent partisan of the theory of "art for art's sake," he could not allow a purpose to be attributed to his work. He had only faithfully portrayed what he had witnessed in the course of his brief career. But in order to strengthen his defence, he alleged reasons which could not be understood in an altruistic country. Besides, several of his stories, such as, "The Wedding," full of the dissolute life led by the officers in their garrisons, "The Inquest," where the author shows the violences to which the Russian soldiers are subjected, "The Night's Lodging," and "The Ensign of the Army," which stigmatize certain lace-bedecked "Lovelaces," only help to nullify his best arguments. In short, his fame spread rapidly and the young writer had to accept the renown that became his.

From that time on Kuprin's road was mapped out. According to the dictates of his fancy he depicts thousands of the ever-changing, different aspects of life. He is equally impelled to write about petty tradesmen, actors, acrobats, and sinners in the Crimea. To the accomplishment of his task, he brings an over-minute and cruel observation. With the genius that is his he dwells on certain important, carefully selected traits of people who live intensely.

In "The Disciple," we see a young sharper on a boat on the Volga. He has the tired eyes of a precocious old man, stubby fingers, and the hands of a murderer alert to strike the fatal blow. He has just fleeced a party of travelers, and he discovers, in a savory conversation with an old cheat, who has found him out, that his soul is being consumed with insatiable desires. And as the old sharper admires the "savoir-faire" of his young friend, the latter observes, not without scorn, that they belong to two very different categories of sharpers. "Among you old fellows," he sneers, "there was romanticism. You loved beautiful women, champagne, music and the song of the tziganes… We, however, we others are tired of everything. Fear and debauch are equally unknown to us…"

After the sharper we have the spy in "Captain Rybnikov." He passes for a Siberian, and says that he has been wounded in the Russo-Japanese war. He goes out into society a great deal, and is most commonly seen in the military offices and in the best "salons" of St. Petersburg. One night, when he is asleep at a courtesan's house, he mutters the war-cry of Japan: "Banzai! Banzai!" The courtesan denounces him to a policeman who happens to be there, and the pseudo-captain, who is no other than a colonel in the Japanese army, is arrested.

Before leaving the military world, let us analyze "The Delirium." Captain Markov has been ordered by the government to suppress the revolution in certain provinces. Disgusted with the duty of daily executioner, the officer frets himself into a high fever. A non-commissioned officer enters to ask him to decide the fate of three men who have been arrested the previous night, one of whom is an old man with a peaceful and strangely beautiful face. The sergeant knows that they ought to be shot, but these executions are so repulsive to him, that he is anxious to have the sentence of death confirmed by his chief, who seems to him to have the sole responsibility.

"I don't want you ever again to ask me such a question," cries Markov, who has guessed the intention of his subordinate. "You know what you ought to do." And he dismisses him. But the soldier remains motionless.

"What else do you want?" asks the captain.

"The men," answers the stubborn soldier, "are anxious to know what to do with the … old … man…"

"Get out of here!" the officer roars, exasperated. "Do you understand?"

"Very well, captain. But as to-day is December 31, allow me to offer you my best wishes for a happy New Year."

"Thank you, my friend," replies Markov in a voice which has suddenly become soft.

During the night the captain begins to rave. The old man whom he has just condemned to death appears and speaks to him. He says that his name is Cain, and confesses the murder of his brother. Cursed by God, he wanders disconsolately through the centuries, followed by the groaning of his victim.

Just before dawn the sergeant awakens Markov.

"What about those three men?" asks the captain eagerly.

"Shot, captain!"

"And the old man? The old man?.. what have you done with him?"

"We shot him along with the others, captain."

The next day Captain Markov asks for his discharge, having decided to leave the army for good.

This story, which is one of the most powerful in Russian literature, would have been enough to bring the young writer renown, even if he had never written anything else. But his work, which is already imposing in amount, abounds in pages of great merit, and especially in well-constructed, brief, tragic stories.

Under this class should be mentioned "Humble People," a short story, the scene of which is laid in the extreme north. It is the story of a close friendship between a nurse in a dispensary and a school-teacher.

Snowed in by a terrible winter – a winter of seven months – these two friends find in their daily meetings the only pleasure that can make their enforced solitude easier for them. However, in spite of their mutual friendship, they often find their lot hard to endure. And they continually quarrel, only to become reconciled almost immediately. But now an unexpected event comes to break the monotony of their existence. They are invited to a dance, given by the priest of the neighboring village, and there they fall in love with two charming young girls, who, they are happy to find, are not indifferent to them. Once at home, they bestow lavish praises on their new friends. With the touching devotion of simple and starved hearts they speak about them as if the young girls already were theirs.

"Mine has eyes of velvet," says the one.

"And mine has hair of pure gold," replies the other.

Gradually, however, their recollections grow weaker, and fade, just as flowers do. Their sad life would have begun again if the spring had not come, and with it brought deliverance. The two friends, full of new sprightliness, get up a fishing party one day. A foolish accident makes them both fall into the river, and they are drowned.

"The End of a Story," which we are about to analyze, deserves, as does "Humble People," a special place in the work of Kuprin. It is a little masterpiece of graceful emotion.

Kotik, a child of seven, and the son of a celebrated painter, teases his father to tell him a story. The father racks his memory. He has told so many that his fount is almost dry.

Suddenly an idea comes to him. Is not his own life a tender, melancholy, and charming story? It is not a long time, twelve years at the most, since he was a poor, obscure painter, neglected by his masters and tormented by the miseries of his life. Discouraged, he used continually to curse the hour in which he chose to devote himself to art. One day, a young girl, believing in his talent, gave him her hand and comforted him with her tenderness and angelic goodness. And love had triumphed.

To-day his name is celebrated among the most famous, and his paintings adorn the galleries of kings and emperors. The plot of the story is ready.

"Listen," says the father to his son. "There was once upon a time a king who, feeling that he was going to die, gathered his many children about him and said to them: 'I will leave my kingdom to that one of you who can enter a marble palace situated in a very dense forest, and there light his torch from the sacred fire which always burns there. The forest is full of wild beasts and venomous serpents. The palace is guarded by three lions: Envy, Poverty, and Doubt.'

"The young people set out on the road. But, while the older ones search outside of the forest for a road that is not beset with dangers, the youngest courageously starts on the regular path. He there is exposed to many dangers and temptations. Already, his strength failing, he feels that he is almost on the point of succumbing, when a fairy appears and stretches forth her hand to him. The young man blesses this providential aid. The fairy brings back his courage and leads him to the palace."

Near them on the terrace, concealed by some plants, there sat a young and beautiful woman who was eagerly listening to the story. She was Kotik's mother, the fairy of the story, and the favorite pupil of the painter. Some of her paintings had already made a sensation.

The story ended, the father led the child to his room and with the help of his nurse undressed him and put him to bed.

"He had started back towards the terrace, when suddenly two arms embraced his neck, while two sweet lips pressed against his.

"The story was finished."

With these words the story really ends.

Kuprin shows the same grace and the same delicate emotion in his recent story, "The Garnet Necklace," a tale which is analogous to the legend of the troubadour Geoffrey Rudel, which has been made into a play by Rostand in his "Princesse Lointaine."

Geltov, a Russian petty official, loves the beautiful Princess Sheïne with a desperate love. After long hesitation he decides to send her a garnet necklace, with a tender and respectful note enclosed. Alas! his gift is returned to him and the husband of the princess angrily threatens the naïve lover. The latter has not the strength to face the situation, and commits suicide. But before dying he writes to the princess: —

"I saw you for the first time eight years ago in a theatre, and since that time I have loved you with boundless passion. It is not my fault, Princess, that God has sent this great happiness to me… My life for the last eight years has been bound up in one thought, – you. Believe what I say, believe me because I am going to die… I am neither a sick man nor an enthusiast… I consider my love for you as the greatest happiness that God could have given me… This happiness I have enjoyed for eight years. May God give you happiness, and may nothing henceforth trouble you…"

This naïve and touching letter moves the princess. At the grave of her unhappy lover, she recalls the words of an old friend of her father's: "Perhaps he was an abnormal man or a maniac… Perhaps, – who knows? – your life was illumined by a love of which women often dream, a kind of love that one does not see nowadays."

One can judge by these summaries how little Kuprin "pads" his stories. Most of them are reduced to a commonplace anecdote, which the author is careful not to ornament in the least. He respects truth to such a degree that he offers it to his readers in its disconcerting bareness. He would think that he was failing in his duty as an observer if he disguised it by any literary mechanism.

His work, stripped of all general ideas and of all subjective aspects, is of a rather curious impersonality. Nothing ever betrays his intimate thoughts or feelings. And it is in this respect that he differs so much from most of the writers of to-day, who give themselves up completely to their attractive heroes and vituperate their odious people. Kuprin's objective tendencies are best shown in his story called "Peaceful Life."

A retired official, Nassedkine, who has been enriched by the gratuities which he has exacted from those who have had to do business with him, has made it his duty to play censor in his little town. He makes use of a very discreet and edifying method: to all of the citizens whose honor is in danger, he sends one or more anonymous letters telling them of the "extent of their misfortune."

Nassedkine has just finished writing two laconic notes, one of which is to a young woman whom he tells to visit one of her friends on a certain day, when, he assures her, her husband is always to be found there. At this moment the church bells ring, and Nassedkine, who is religious, goes to vespers. On entering, he notices a fashionable lady, all dressed in black, in a dark corner of the church. Nassedkine, more than any one else, knows the heart-rending story of this woman. She had recently, against her will, married an excessively rich wood merchant who was almost forty years older than she. One day, when she thought that her husband had gone off on business, he returned unexpectedly and found her in the arms of one of his employees. He had been warned that same morning, by an anonymous letter, that his wife was deceiving him.

"Beside himself with rage, the merchant threw his employee out of the house, and then satiated his brutal jealousy on his wife. He struck her with his big, hobnailed boots; then he called his coachman and valet, made her undress completely, and had each of them in turn lash her beautiful body until, covered with blood, she fainted away.

"And as the priest at the altar was reciting: 'Lord, I offer Thee the tears of a woman who has sinned,' Nassedkine repeated this phrase with satisfaction. Then he left the church in order to post the two letters he had just written."

This characteristic dryness does not come, as one is liable to think, from ill-disguised insensibility. Kuprin's soul, on the contrary, is of such exquisitely fine texture that all human emotions vibrate there. The few times when he has expressed himself are enough to convince the reader. He has often pitied women with a discreet, fraternal compassion. He has also devoted many pages to the sufferings of animals, be it the story of circus horses hurt by the rolling of the ship, or the story of a kitten mutilated by wolves. Only a few words are needed to make us tender and to bring tears to our eyes. And it is with the eyes of a poet or a child that he has viewed nature.

No one ever studies a Russian author without finally asking himself what the author's influence was on the political manifestations of society. The answer here is not hard to find: Kuprin, observer, artist, and painter of life, has had no influence. If we except one story, "The Toast," in which he shows his deep affection for the oppressed classes, nothing in his work betrays even slightly his opinions on this subject. Always, the thought of Kuprin deserts the social struggle to fly into more vast and serene surroundings than the theatre of wars and revolutions. And he is doubtless ready to exalt above this terrible struggle, the one thing that he judges eternal, the love of woman.

"There have been kingdoms and kings," he says in his beautiful novel, "Sulamite," "and the only trace that is left of them is the wind in the desert. There have been long and pitiless wars, at the end of which the names of the leaders sparkled like stars: time has effaced all memory of them.

"But the love of a poor girl of the vineyards and a great king¹⁷ will never be effaced and will always live in the minds of men, because love is divinely beautiful, because every woman who loves is a queen, because love is stronger than death."

IX
WRITERS IN VOGUE

As we have already noted in the first chapter of this book, Russian literature from 1830 to 1905 is distinctly different from European literature: it is, above all, a literature of action and social propagandas which puts the popular cause in the place of prominence.

This cause has been abandoned by several writers during the last few years. From 1905 to 1910, an evolution, accelerated by the most audacious hopes and the most lively beliefs, has transformed the story and the novel, and has brought to the front certain authors who, up to this time, had scarcely been known. It seems as if suddenly the ancient tradition of Russian literature had been broken. Contrary to the rule of their predecessors, whose thoughts were on justice and liberty, and whose works breathe forth a wholesome quality, a large number of the present writers have been gradually attracted by metaphysical questions, which fill their works with a veritable chaos of morbid conceptions and disenchantment. Some express with acuteness man's unconquerable fear of life or death; others treat of the divine or satanic principles in man; still others study, with a sickly passion, the problems of the flesh in all of its manifestations.¹⁸

Among the latter, Michael Artzybashev is a writer of great breadth, whose erotic tendencies have spoiled some of his best traits. His novel, "Sanine," which recently caused so much talk, pretends to paint the youth of to-day in Russia. If we believed the author, we should conclude that the above-mentioned youth consisted of hysterical people in whom chastity was the least of virtues.

The heroes of his novel are two representatives of the revolutionary youth, Sanine and Yuri Svagorich. Both of them have deserted "the cause," Sanine, through lassitude, and Yuri, who has met nothing but a despairing indifference among those whom he wanted to save from "the oppression of the shadows," through scorn. Yuri, "a man of the past," is an "intellectual" entirely impregnated with generous altruism, haunted by social and political preoccupations. But he is also a "failure" who falls from one deception into another, because he is thoroughly powerless to combat life.

On the other hand, his friend, Vladimir Sanine, "the man of the future," is, without a doubt, capable of living. None is freer than he from all social and political preoccupations, and none is more than he resolved to obey only his lucid egotism, or the suggestions of his instincts.

These two young fellows meet, one summer, in the country. Yuri lives with his father, a retired colonel; Sanine, with his mother. Sanine's sister, Lida, is in love with the officer Zaroudine, who abandons her later when she is with child. Lida wants to commit suicide, but Sanine stops her and proposes that she marry Dr. Novikov, who has been in love with her for a long time. Parallel to the history of Lida, the life story of Karsavina is presented. Yuri falls in love with this young and pretty school-teacher. But, although she returns Yuri's love, the young girl, in a moment of passion, gives herself to Sanine, whom she does not love. Disgusted with life, feeling himself weak, neurasthenic, and sick, Yuri, only twenty-six years of age, commits suicide. Karsavina, terribly affected by this act of despair, leaves Sanine. And the latter, after Yuri's funeral, disappears from the city…

All the characters in the book, from Sanine to Karsavina, are continually preyed upon by carnal desires. Long passages of funereal scenes alternate with pictures of the transports of love and the descriptions of masculine and feminine bodies. "Your body proclaims the truth, your reason lies." This is the "leitmotiv" of all the theories that the characters in the book preach.

Let us hasten to add to the praise of the Russian public, that the enormous success of "Sanine" was not justified by the extreme licentiousness of the book, but by the eloquence with which the author claims the right of free love for man and woman.

Although its success was less than that of "Sanine," Artzybashev's second novel, "Morning Shadows," is more interesting and is more realistic than his first.

Tired of their sometimes happy, sometimes monotonous existence, two young people from the provinces, Lisa and Dora, go to St. Petersburg to take some courses there and to join the movement. They have read Nietzsche, and want to "live dangerously." In order to realize this project, Lisa has not hesitated to break off her engagement with the charming and naïve Lieutenant Savinov. However, their existence in the capital is nothing but a long and bitter deception: Dora's literary ambitions disappointed! the love of Lisa, who has given herself to the student Korenyev, disappointed! In a fit of despair Lisa kills herself, and her friend, who has not had the courage to follow her example, falls victim to a terrorist outrage which the author describes with rare power.

In his recent novel, "Before Expiration," – which recalls "Sanine" to our minds again, – Artzybashev has found some ingenious variations on the old theme, "love and death." The story of the love affairs of the painter Mikhailov, a cynical and brutal Lovelace who abandons his mistresses when they are with child, is intermingled incessantly with gloomy episodes, such as the agonies of an old man or of a child. It is a book for "blasé" people, a book which a reader with moral health will not read without a certain feeling of uneasiness.

We are also indebted to Artzybashev for a series of highly colored stories. "Sub-Lieutenant Golobov," "Blood," "The Workingman Shevshrev," and "The Millions" are some of the most remarkable.

Like Artzybashev, but with less talent, Anatol Kamensky has written little stories happily enough conceived. Thus, "Laida" – the story of a worldly woman so taken up with liberty that she exhibits herself nude before her husband's guests. Another story called "Four," tells of four women taken from the most diverse social classes, ranging from a young school-girl to the wife of a clergyman, who give themselves to an officer at the end of a trip of twenty-four hours. Then there is also the story of a woman who proposes to an unknown man that he should play a game of cards with her companions, she being the prize. This story is called "The Game." Finally, there is the story of a young man whose agreeable profession consists in living among others gratuitously and in seducing women under the eyes of their husbands.

These stories are sadly spoiled by a crude philosophy and by "anarchistic" protestations against present values.

Certain authors wander into far-away countries for their subjects: to Sodom and Lesbos. The best known is Michael Kouzmine. This writer, who happily began with stories of the Orient in the Middle Ages, has now acquired a rather sad renown for himself with his story called "The Wings," which appeared at the end of 1906. The scandalous success which this book won, encouraged the author to go on in the same manner. In poor verse, and especially in the story, "The Castle of Cards," Kouzmine has exalted the sin of Sodom as being the most supreme form of æsthetic emotions.

Closely related to these writers, although surpassing them all in original talent, Feodor Sologoub is the most intellectual and subtle of the Russian modernists. His principal work consists in depicting the small provincial towns. His heroes are little bourgeois petty officials, school-teachers, and country proprietors.

This chanter of birth and death, disgusted by the banality of existence, has given us, under the title, "The Little Demon," a pathetic picture of human baseness and sordidness, which cannot be read without emotion.

The atmosphere of an arbitrary regime engenders almost always "demonomania." The insecurity of life, and the consecutive injustices in the cavils of the police administration, develop in society a reciprocal fear and distrust. From feeling themselves in danger of being denounced and menaced in their liberty, men rapidly become the prey of terror. And the terrible life, sooner or later, awakens demoniacal terror among the weak. But people of this sort are legion in Russia, and Peredonov, the hero of "The Little Demon," represents this class so graphically that to-day Russian historians and authors designate the era from 1880 to 1905 by the name "peredonovchina." The following is a brief outline of the story:

Peredonov is a school-teacher in a provincial town. His fondest dream is to be nominated primary inspector. He lives with his mistress, the old dressmaker, Varvara by name. One of his mistress's clients, a virtuous and philanthropic princess, makes him understand, one day, that she will have him nominated if he marries Varvara. Peredonov does not love his mistress; he simply lives with her from habit and because she bears, without complaining too much, his coarseness, his cavilling, and his bad humor. However, he will marry her if the princess can get him the position he desires. But will the princess keep her word? It is some time since she has let herself be heard from. What is to be done?

"Marry," says his friend Routilov to him, when he is told the condition of things. "I have three sisters," he continues. "Choose the one you like best and marry her immediately. Thus Varvara will know nothing and cannot throw any obstacles in the way."

"Done!" cries Peredonov, who has known the three sisters for a long time. He chooses the youngest, Valerie.

"Go and tell her about it. I will wait for you in the hall and then we'll go to the priest's together."

Alone, Peredonov again muses: "Doubtless, Valerie is pretty and I shall be happy to have her as my wife. But she is young, pretentious; she will demand lots of new clothes, she will want to go out a lot, in fact, so much that I'll not be able to lay anything aside. Moreover, she'll not look after the kitchen, I'll have poor food, and the cook will rob us." Anguish seizes him. He knocks at the window, calls his friend, and says:

"I've changed my mind."

"Ah!" exclaimed the other, horrified.

"Yes, I have reflected, and I have decided that I prefer the second, Lyoudmila."

Lyoudmila consents, for, besides his personal fortune, Peredonov occupies an enviable position, and the sisters are poor. She hurriedly gets dressed; in a quarter of an hour she will be ready to accompany him to the priest's.