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Nikolai V. Gogol

SHORT-STORY MASTERPIECES

VOLUME III—RUSSIAN

DONE INTO ENGLISH
BY JOHN COURNOS

INTRODUCTIONS BY
J. BERG ESENWEIN

Editor of Lippincott’s Magazine

The Home Correspondence School
Springfield, Massachusetts
1913

Copyright 1912 and 1913—J. B. Lippincott Company
Copyright 1913—The Home Correspondence School

CONTENTS - VOLUME III

THE RUSSIAN SHORT-STORY

In introducing the volumes of this series which deal with the work of French fictionists I commented upon the real distinction existing between the French short-story and the short-story in French, asserting that the former is a precise term because the greater number of worthy short-stories in French really exhibit the typical French spirit and are therefore French.

The Russian short-story is even more pronouncedly national in theme, in tone, and in treatment than is its French contemporary; indeed, Muscovite literature is the most markedly national of any in Europe. This would not be so significant a statement were modern Russian literature—by which I mean all such literature which really counts—more than a century old; but this ancient, remote, and self-sufficient people really lived for so long a time apart from the great highways of Continental thought that they were not nationally conscious of those titanic upheaving and levelling passions whose fitful and at times appalling force shook France, England, and even Poland to the very heart and forced their thinkers to express the spirit of the revolutionary era in undying prose.

Instead, Russian writers of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries occupied their pens with imitations of foreign—chiefly French—literature, or wrote minute local descriptions which were important not so much for what they were as for what they pointed to—a new national consciousness.

But in order to get an understanding of modern Russian literature we turn backward in our swift survey. When Peter the Great, that much magnified and more maligned potentate, ascended the throne, he found Russia the home of bigotry, prejudice, and barbarism. But before his unceremonious blows the doors swung reluctantly open, and from the west a steady concourse of European ideas, often accompanied in person by their thinkers, moved through the gates and penetrated every upper circle. Naturally, literature was the first of the arts to throb with this infusion of outside blood, and naturally, also, its first expressions were in that form of flattery which is alleged to be most sincere.

But when national consciousness is awakened, national pride soon begins to utter lusty sounds, and its theme is certain to be as national as its form of expression. So, with the dawn of the nineteenth century—Lomonosoff, Kantemier, Sumarakov, the Empress Catherine, Von Viezin, Derzhavin, Karamsin, and Zhukovski having in the previous century done fine service in poetry, history, and the drama—there opened a new era: the period of artistic Russian fiction. The barbaric richness and fearless crudity of the old poetry were exchanged for sophisticated prose.

Kriloff deserves special mention here, even though to Gogol and Pushkin must go the trail-blazers’ honor. His fables and tales were distinctly in advance of previous similar work, but the real fictive creators were yet to come. Kriloff was at once the last of the old and the first of the new prose-writers.

It is a curious coincidence that the youngest two literatures of the world, American and Russian, should each have contributed so materially to the development of the short-story. During the eighteenth century American literature was compassing a slow growth; but in Russia literature was virtually sleeping. Later, both come to effective expression at about the same time. While Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Harte, Stockton, James, and O. Henry were telling wonderful stories in our land, Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoi, Dostoevski, Korolenko, Garshin, Chekhov, Andreev, and Gorki were doing the like in Russia. The balance dips toward America for literary art, but for sheer strength it unmistakably drops on the side of the Slav. Thus throughout the nineteenth century and till now the short-story has been a form to be reckoned with in any adequate estimate of Russian writers, just as in the two other literatures whose recent development follows similar lines—American and French.

When the modern short-story was born in its technical perfection in America, France, and Russia almost simultaneously, the French Revolution had worn out most of its evil effects and the New Spirit was beneficently at work in every enlightened land. The superior value of human beings, the benumbing effects of slavery, the priceless qualities of real liberty, and the absolute necessity for an enlightenment which should be something more than education, became ideals worth fighting and dying for.

It is important to note here that great short-stories from that day to this have developed themes vital to the people for whom and by whom they were written.

But we must look deeper than the spirit of an era if we are to account for a national tone in any given literature, and in the characteristic Russian temperament we shall in this case find the inspiring cause.

The word Slav has given to the world our word slave. In the pathetic and expressive phrase of Waliszewski, “The Slav race, the latest comer into the world of civilization, has always been at school, always under some rod or sway. Whether it be the Oriental and material conquests of the thirteenth century, or the Western and moral one of the eighteenth, it merely undergoes a change of masters.” Yet in the face of all this the Russian people has persistently maintained, and even accentuated, its personality. To me, this personality is marked by six great characteristics: hugeness, passion, simplicity, religiousness, suffering, and fatalism. Herzen said that “sadness, skepticism, irony, are the three strings of Russian literature—the skepticism is not typical; the other qualities are.”

In looking for the typical and distinctive elements of national character in Russian literature we must remember that they are more to be observed in the tone of the author considered than in the characters he portrays, and this for a perfectly obvious reason: Russia is a land of extremes, not alone of condition but of advancement. One class outrivals the Parisian in refinement of desires, while no people in Europe can surpass the remoter peasant in his stolidity; the greatest wealth is just across the way from the most tax-oppressed poverty; high-minded patriotism sits on the same park-bench with a Red maniac; skepticism and religious credulity run to astounding contra extremes.

Of course, the Russian composite character is modified by the antipodal nature of its society, but its literature is enriched by a vast variety of types, and when, as in the stories of Tolstoi, these types appear in dramatic juxtaposition; the effect is unique.

It would be interesting to trace here each of these six nationally characteristic traits, but all are either dwelt upon in the succeeding introductory studies or are clearly illustrated in the accompanying stories; it may therefore be enough to point out in brief how naturally each takes its place in the sum total of Russian temperament.

The physical vastness of this self-sufficient land, with its sweep of continent-wide, continent-long domain, must at once suggest the bigness of its spirit. Even its people grow big and Norse-like in frame, while the centuries of indifference to the outlanders’ views and ideals culminate readily in direct, fearless self-expression.

Passion, too, finds a similar origin, encouraged by Tartar fire, Cossack physicality, and the composite life bred of oriental contact.

Simplicity is often in our day written down as the sign of ignorance, or at least of inexperience of the great world; but in the Russian character it has mainly a nobler origin. What need for hesitation, finesse, caution in word and attitude, when one is certain of being the chosen of Heaven? Not even the Jew is more firmly convinced and poised than the Muscovite.

The essential religiousness—the mystical religiousness—of the Slav is as old as his history. In fact, his Aryan origin, so often boasted of, points to the Hindu origin of his religious attitude of mind. True, many of his matter-of-fact appeals to divine things are habitual rather than reverential and often have too close association with base dealing to be convincing; still the peasant particularly is colored in all his life by his church and her tenets.

The Russian countenance is typically sad, almost despairing. The yoke worn for so many ages by the masses, the bitterness of a life devoted to service for the “big man,” the hopelessness born of petty and major oppressions, result for the Russian, as for all barbaric peoples—for Russia is still largely barbaric—in a resigned suffering which has not yet begun to be mitigated by the great increase of revolutionary ideas among the people. Indeed, protest against the ruling order has thus far yielded only greater present sadness, how hopeful soever the future may be.

And lastly we have that most terrible, most pathetic, most depressing temper—fatalism. And yet this is not the precise word, for no single English word expresses the pessimism, the apathy, the expectation of nothing, the anticlimax of ambition in which a whole race begins as a Napoleon and—peters out.

All this may sound unlovely. And doubtless it is, for loveliness is not the tone of Nihilism, nor is beauty the consort of despair. Yet the towering ambition that ends in puny deeds shows even now signs of a more effective result, and larger liberties, the outgrowth of contact with the world without, must sooner or later bring to life a more ardent and hope-cherishing Russia.

The short-story of today in Russia is strong—terribly strong, for the most part, for it is not charming, certainly. But as an augury of what the Russian people will yet become it has a thousand-fold more promise than may be found in the perfumed politeness of an anæmic fiction such as floods the magazines of England and America. Notwithstanding all her gloom, Russia’s strength is her bow of promise.

PUSHKIN AND THE NEW ERA

Alexander Sergyevitch Pushkin was born in Moscow, June 7, 1799, at a time when Russia was aswirl with various currents. Therefore, to gain some clear vision of the distinguished service which he rendered the literature of his native land, we must at least glance at the great intellectual and political tides—they were largely coincident—which swept Russia, first away from her own self-sufficient life, then toward France, next in the direction of Germany, and finally out into a national thought-channel of her own.

Pushkin is one of those writers who are big enough to have founded and dominated an era, not solely because of his own preëminent genius, but for the deeper reason that he represented in himself the culmination of a series of national steps, each as definite as it was important.

For all the centuries of her life up to the nineteenth, Russia had lived a separate existence from that of her great neighbors. In seeking a cause for this condition, we must remember that the imperial bigness of Russia, and her remote location, are not the only factors entering into her segregate character. The great factor is that Russia is much more largely Asiatic in spirit than it is European. The typical Slav of today is, temperamentally, though not in a precise sense racially, a mixture of Tartar fierceness, old Slavonic stolidity, and Hindu Nirvana, which, being translated into Russian, is essentially Nihilism. Yet, today as for many centuries, the Slavic race is as truly homogeneous as any can be.

During this long era of Russia’s ultra-exclusiveness, the polished periods of Montaigne and the brilliant dramas of Corneille, Racine, and Molière were delighting France, and Spenser, Milton, and Dryden were doing rare things for English literature. At the same time, nationally unconscious of all this, Russia was singing its epical and ballad folk-songs, with only now and then a note of premeditated art sounding forth. Here indeed was a true poetry of the people—which, as Dr. Gummere has pointed out, is a very different thing from that pseudo-folk-poetry which is merely about the people. Still, it required influences from without to bring Russian literature to artistic national expression.

The great autocratic rulers of Russia, and her leading nobles, at last began to feel the allurement of the French, and Peter the Great even travelled abroad, coming home imbued with new ideas for a progressive nation. When a giant people, long content to be sufficient unto itself, awakens to see that other ideals of life, other habits of thought, other standards of conduct, have brought other great nations to a brilliancy of position which its own solitary bigness has not enabled it to attain, the first feeling is one of contempt for “those others,” as the French would say. Later comes a naïve passion to imitate. And finally, enter a whole train of foreign influences, good and bad.

So it was with Russia after the powerful, rough, and somewhat benevolently autocratic reign of Catherine II, at whose court Pushkin’s father was a complacent noble. The French tongue, which even Pushkin himself called “the language of Europe,” already prevailed at the Russian court, and the literature of the country consisted chiefly of imitations of the pseudo-classical French school, adaptations, or even translations, from other languages, and here and there a struggling voice which lifted itself with difficulty above the imitative clack. All three of these types Catherine herself fostered—intermittently, though still with some success.

But the alarming revolutionary ideas bruited from France, and the Napoleonic campaign against Russia, caused a powerful revulsion of feeling toward Germany and away from France. In Germany, however, Young Russia met the same humanistic tendencies and passion for free thought with which France had been gradually impregnating the empire of the Slavs. Add to this the influence of Byron’s poetry, now stirring Europe, and we have the external forces which drove Russia to look at her own self with honest eyes—forces which at length found their literary climax in Pushkin’s giving to his native land a literature which was of the Russians, for the Russians, and by a Russian—a literature born of the Russian spirit, breathing her ideals, speaking her marvellously expressive tongue in new combinations of beauty, and set against a background of her soil and her cities.

A further remarkable influence was operating to prepare both Russia and Pushkin for the work of new creation: in the hands of Zhukovski and others who immediately preceded our author, the Russian language began suddenly to assume a flexibility and richness which, as I have intimated, were destined to be still more greatly enlarged by the gifts of Pushkin.

The author-to-be wasted no time beginning his career. Even at the age of ten, while an unstudious but omnivorously reading school-boy, he made deft imitations of French verse and the French drama, while at twelve he knew four or five languages and was reading Rousseau, Voltaire, and Molière with avidity. At this age the lad became a pupil in the College Tsarskoïé-Siélo, in 1811, the year of its founding by Alexander I. But while he absorbed enough to cause his wild genius to flourish, he was incorrigible, and always in hot-water—except among his comrades, by whom his dash, impudence, and wit made him to be both admired and feared.

When Pushkin was only fifteen, the European Messenger published anonymously a series of clever but obscene Russian verses in the style of Ossian and Parny. The name of the author soon leaked out, however, and when the following year the boy read on a public speech-day a suitable poem entitled “Recollections of Tsarskoïé-Siélo,” he was hailed as a gifted poet. The poetic form was miraculous—the thought, just about what a precocious lad could produce.

In 1817 Pushkin was graduated, and entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At once he was lionized by literary society, and became the leader of a brilliant but rakish clique—the story of their escapades would read like a tenderloin police-docket. At length, in 1820, the year when “Ruslan and Lyudmila,” his first great poem, was published, he committed some folly too outrageous to be condoned—probably an especially licentious expression in verse—and was banished to South Russia, where, wandering among the Caucasus ranges which color all his later work, and living near the romantic Black Sea, he remained for several years; until, in 1824, his banishment was commuted to confinement to his father’s estates. In a literary way this date marks the beginning of his new era, for he now began to bring into final form the master-poem, “Eugene Onyegin,” on which he had been working for several years—of which more presently.

Some—why, I cannot conceive—have attributed Pushkin’s ungovernable disposition to the mixed blood that flowed in his veins, as was the case with the elder Dumas. Pushkin’s maternal great-grandfather was that Abram Hannibal, “Peter the Great’s Arab favorite,” who was really an Abyssinian slave. The African youth was educated in France by his royal master and godfather, later admitted to his friendship, and eventually married to a Russian lady. Their son became a great Russian general. The poet himself bore unmistakable marks of his ancestry in his short curly hair and thick, sensuous lips, though his eyes were blue, his skin fair, and his hair light in hue.

During these earlier years of his short life, Pushkin was profoundly influenced by Byron, and even was willing to be called “the Russian Byron.” Indeed, his license-loving and liberty-adoring nature was quite like that of his English model. This influence is seen not only in his poetic methods, but in his teachings and in his themes. The poem “Poltava,” published in 1829, takes Mazeppa for its hero, and his poetic masterpiece, “Eugene Onyegin,” published in 1828, is really Don-Juanesque. Nor is it difficult to trace other evidences of this frankly admiring spirit.

Singularly enough, “Eugene Onyegin” (which Tschaikovsky has made the subject of an opera) is at once in the style of Byron (somewhat resembling his “Beppo”), while in theme, locale, and handling it throws off the trammels of Byronism, and indeed all foreignism, and becomes the first really great work of modern Russian literature. Whatever the original debt Pushkin owed to the author of “Don Juan,” in this and later work he strikes out with all the self-confidence and attainment of an original genius. So tender, so pathetic, yet so humorous, so full of human understanding, so informed with the spirit of contemporary Russian society, is this remarkable work, that its author achieved immortality in its writing. Thus did the years of exile on the paternal manor bear notable fruit.

Because this creation sets so lasting an initial mark, by establishing Russian literature upon a basis of art, it seems worth while to recite its argument here in full.

Eugene Onyegin is a “Byronic young society man,” who is recalled to the country from his city dissipations by his father’s death. Here he lives, for a long time avoiding all contact with his less cultivated neighbors. A young poet, Vladimir Lensky, the son of one of these manorial families, returns from abroad, and a congenial friendship springs up between the young men. Lensky, who is betrothed to Olga Larin, persuades Onyegin to call upon her family with him. Tatyana, Olga’s elder sister, at once falls in love with Onyegin, and writes him a letter of frank avowal—one of the most famous passages of the drama. But Onyegin gently turns her aside by assuming the rôle of a fatherly adviser, and the incident remains unknown to all except themselves and Tatyana’s old nurse. Soon afterwards, Lensky induces Onyegin to go to the Larins’ on the occasion of Tatyana’s name-day festival. For the sake of preventing gossip in a district given over to small talk, Onyegin yields and goes. At table, by the innocent scheming of her family, he is placed opposite to Tatyana, and finds the situation so embarrassing that he determines to revenge himself on the innocent Lensky by flirting with Olga, who is shortly to become Lensky’s wife. During the evening, Olga, pretty but weak-natured, accepts Onyegin’s attentions with such interest that Lensky challenges him. Heart-sick at the results of his momentary unjust anger, Onyegin would gladly apologize, were it not that Lensky has chosen as his representative an old fire-eater and tattler who would misrepresent his motives and perhaps compromise Tatyana. Therefore, he accepts—and Lensky falls. Onyegin then goes off on his travels. Olga soon consoles herself with a handsome officer, and after their marriage goes with him to his regiment. Tatyana, however, who is of a reserved, intense character, pines, refuses all offers of marriage, and, by the advice of friends, is finally taken to Moscow for the winter. There, as a wall-flower at her first ball, she captivates a prince from St. Petersburg—a distinguished and socially important general. She follows her parents’ wishes and marries him. When Onyegin returns to the capital a few years later, he finds, to his great astonishment, “that the little country girl whom he has patronized, rejected, almost scorned, is one of the great ladies of the court and society.” He falls madly in love with her, in his turn, but she gives him not the slightest sign of friendship. Driven to despair by this coldness, he writes her three letters, but she does not reply. Then, entering her boudoir unexpectedly, through the carelessness of her servants, he finds her in tears, reading his letter. He again avows his love. She is obliged to confess that she loves him still, but finally makes him understand that she will be true to her kind and high-minded husband. Thus the drama ends.

After the production of his masterpiece, followed a notable poetic tragedy, “Boris Godunov,” in which may be discerned the author’s admiration for the methods of Shakespeare, to whom he turned, yet not slavishly, after freeing himself from the overshadowing Byron.

It is inevitable that we should speculate upon the splendid work which might have come from the pen of this greatest of Russian poets had he not fallen in his prime. The story is sad and sordid enough. In 1831, having been restored to imperial favor, he had married the beautiful Natalya Nikolaevna Gontcharoff, and they plunged into society, loaded with recognition by the court.

He had been married but five years when society began to gossip about “the lovely Madame Pushkin” and Baron George Hekkeren-Dantes, the natural son of the Dutch minister to Russia. Pushkin attached no blame to his wife for the indiscretions of the infatuated young chevalier of the Guards, but challenged him nevertheless. Dantes averted a meeting by marrying Pushkin’s sister. Still the gossip persisted, and eventually, being refused access to the Pushkin home, Dantes made his persecutions so patent, and was so seconded by the elder Hekkeren, that the poet challenged the father. The son intervened, adopted the quarrel, and in a duel at St. Petersburg Pushkin was killed, January 29, 1837, being only thirty-eight years old.

The last six years of Pushkin’s life established his claim to greatness not only as a poet and a dramatist, but also as a master of Russian prose. We may not term him a novelist, but as a writer of prose tales he set a new mark in the literature of his land. When we recall that it was in the first years of that significant decade, 1830-1840, that Poe, Balzac, and Mérimée perfected and brought to its modern form the short-story, we shall realize what a great forward step was being made in Russia at the very same time when Pushkin produced his “Prose Tales.” His longer tales, “A Prisoner of the Caucasus” and “The Captain’s Daughter,” exhibit little plot, but they are notable impressionistic stories, full of rich and effective coloring.

Two of his shorter stories I outline, both on account of their intrinsic interest and for the fact that they illustrate the romantic vein which runs through all of Pushkin’s work. Else how could he ever have turned to Byron? Gogol, a contemporary of Pushkin and in some senses his successor, was the father of Russian realism. The two may be said to be the joint parents of Russian fiction.

“The Queen of Spades” is like a “Weird Tale” by Hoffmann, or a conception of Poe’s. It ranks as one of the world’s great short-stories.

At the house of a cavalry officer, several young Russians are gambling. One of them asks Herman why he never plays. He replies, “Play interests me greatly, but I hardly care to sacrifice the necessities of life for uncertain superfluities.”

Tomsky says that he can understand Herman’s being economical, but that he cannot understand why his own grandmother, the Countess Anna Fedorovna, should not play, for, although she is eighty years of age, she knows a secret which makes winning at faro certain. Tomsky then goes on to relate how the old woman secured the secret from a friend of hers in order to save her from the disastrous results of enormous losses in cards. The secret consists of choosing three certain cards in succession. This plan she followed, winning every time, and was soon out of debt.

Being in need of funds, Herman is impressed with the story, and begins to haunt the outside of the aged Countess’s home. In order to gain admission and learn the secret, he contrives to flirt with Lisaveta Ivanovna, the Countess’s ward, who at length arranges a way in which he can gain admission to the house while the family are attending a ball. He is to pass through the Countess’s apartments and await the girl in her sitting-room, but instead of doing this the young officer secretes himself in the apartments of the Countess. After she is in bed he emerges and demands the names of the three cards, placing a pistol at her brow, but assuring her that he means no harm if she will do as he asks. She tremblingly tells him that it was only a jest, that there is nothing in the report of her knowledge, but Herman insists, and after a short time he grasps her arm roughly and is about to renew his threats when he finds that she is dead.

Presently Herman makes his way to Lisaveta’s apartment, where he tells her all. She realizes that she is not loved, and discerns the true reason why the young man has sought her acquaintance. However, she helps him to get out of the house safely.

The next night he drinks heavily and throws himself on his bed without undressing. During the night he awakes with a start and sees looking in at the window some one who quickly disappears. Presently he hears the shuffling of loose slippers, the door of his room opens, and a woman in white enters. As she comes close to his bed, the terrified man recognizes the Countess. “I have come to you against my will,” she says abruptly, “but I was commanded to grant your request. The trey, the seven, and the ace are the magic cards. Twenty-four hours must elapse after the use of each card, and after the three have been used you must never play again.”

The phantom then turns and walks away.

The next night he enters a fashionable gambling club in St. Petersburg, stakes forty thousand rubles, and wins a huge sum. The next night he chooses a seven-spot and wins ninety-four thousand rubles.

The following evening he went again. His appearance was the signal for the cessation of all occupation, every one being eager to watch the development of events. He selected his card—an ace.

The dealing began: to the right, a queen; to the left, an ace.

“The ace wins,” remarked Herman, turning up his card without glancing at it.

“Your queen is killed,” remarked Tchekalinsky quietly.

Herman trembled; looking down, he saw, not the ace he had selected, but the queen of spades. He could scarcely believe his eyes. It seemed impossible that he could have made such a mistake. As he stared at the card, it seemed to him that the queen winked one eye at him mockingly.

“The old woman!” he exclaimed involuntarily.

The croupier raked in the money while he looked on in stupid terror. When he left the table, all made way for him to pass. The cards were shuffled, and the gambling went on.

Herman became a lunatic. He was confined at the hospital at Oboukov, where he spoke to no one, but kept constantly murmuring in a monotonous tone: “The trey, seven, ace! The trey, seven, queen!”

“The Shot” is in a different vein, being a tale of singular dramatic intensity. There is a legend that it is largely biographical, Pushkin himself having coolly eaten cherries, as did the Count, while under fire in a duel.

A group of military men stationed in the dull little town of N—— welcome to their society the one eligible civilian, a certain Silvio, a taciturn man of thirty-five, who has retired from the Hussars. He lives meagrely in a small house, where he frequently entertains the officers with the best he has, which always includes plenty of champagne. The walls of this house are punctured with bullet-holes, for its occupant is a marvellous shot with the pistol. Regarding his past, he says practically nothing, but every one feels that some tragic event has stamped his career.

One day a new-comer among the officers quarrels with Silvio, and slaps his face. Much to the surprise and disappointment of all, Silvio does not challenge him, but accepts a lame explanation. It takes some time for Silvio to rehabilitate himself with his friends, but his good qualities at last accomplish this, except with one officer, who tells the story.

One day Silvio, all excitement, announces that a change has come in his affairs, and that he must leave N——. He packs his goods, and invites the officers to a final feast. At its close he asks the narrator to remain, and tells him this story, to explain why he avoided challenging his offender.

Some years before, while serving in the Hussars, Silvio was known as a great rake and an incorrigible duellist. His popularity waned, however, with the advent of a brilliant young Count, of whom he soon became jealous, and upon whom he fixed a quarrel. In the duel which followed, the Count won the first shot, and pierced his adversary’s cap, but showed such nonchalance—having coolly eaten cherries while standing to receive Silvio’s shot—that the latter decided to relinquish his chance until a later time. In all these years a favorable opportunity had not come in which to make the Count show fear, and that was why Silvio was not willing to risk his life by engaging in another duel, even though he knew he was a remarkable shot: he was holding himself for his revenge. And now his opening had come, for he had just learned that the Count had married a beautiful young woman and was enjoying his honeymoon.

The narrator never sees Silvio again, but some time after the latter has left N——, the narrator goes back to his own native village, and there meets Count and Countess B——. At their first meeting their visitor is interested by seeing two bullet-holes which have pierced a painting. It transpires that Count B—— is the very one with whom Silvio fought his duel. The Count then narrates the sequel.

Shortly after their marriage, the Count returned with his bride to his estates, where he was startled to find Silvio, claiming the right of the shot which was his due. The Count gallantly yielded to him and stood up in his drawing-room, but Silvio a second time declined to shoot, and proposed that they again draw for the first shot. The Count won, and shot over Silvio’s head, making one of the two bullet-holes. At this juncture the Countess came in and flung herself at Silvio’s feet. In shame, the Count made her rise, and Silvio prepared to take his shot, whereupon the Countess threw herself upon her husband’s breast. As he saw Silvio point his weapon at them both, at last the Count showed terror, although not for himself. Being satisfied with this exhibition of fear, natural though it was, Silvio declined to shoot. As he left the room, he turned, however, and, almost without looking, took a parting shot at the painting, which he penetrated with a bullet-hole precisely below that which had been made by the Count’s bullet. And so this strange man passed out of their lives.

“The Snow-Storm” seems to me to be Pushkin’s greatest short-story. It has a well-defined plot, a surprising dénouement, the action marches on to its climax, and both local color and characterization are of a high order. It is especially remarkable for its having been produced at the very opening of the decade which gave to the world the modern short-story.

THE SNOW-STORM

By Alexander Pushkin

Towards the close of the year 1811, during that very memorable epoch, there lived in the village of Nenaradova the good Gavrila Gavrilovich R——. He was famed throughout the district for his hospitality and good-nature; and his neighbors continually kept coming to his house to partake of food and drink, and to play the game of Boston at five kopecks with his wife, Prascovia Petrovna. Others came, however, to inspect their daughter, Maria Gavrilovna, a graceful, pale, seventeen-year-old girl. She was considered a rich match, and many a visitor had had designs upon her for himself or for his son.

Maria Gavrilovna had been brought up on French novels, and consequently was in love. The object chosen by her for her love was a poor army lieutenant, who was now on a leave of absence in his native village. It goes without saying that the young man returned her passion. The parents of the girl, however, having noted the mutual inclinations of the pair, forbade their daughter even to think of him; while him they received even worse than if he were a dismissed petty official.

Our lovers exchanged notes, and saw each other every day, alone, in the pine wood or in the old chapel. There they vowed to each other eternal love, bewailed their fate, and formed all sorts of plans. Their discussions carried on in this way naturally brought them to the following conclusion: “If we can’t exist without each other, and the will of stern parents stands in the way of our felicity, why shouldn’t we manage without them?” Needless to say, this happy idea originated in the mind of the young man, and that it appealed strongly to the romantic imagination of Maria Gavrilovna.

Winter came on, and interrupted their meetings. This, however, only served to quicken the correspondence. Vladimir Nikolaevich, in every letter, entreated her to give herself to him, to wed secretly, to remain in concealment a while, and then to throw themselves at the feet of the parents, who, to be sure, would be touched finally by the heroic constancy and unhappiness of the lovers, and undoubtedly say to them, “Children, come to our arms!”

Maria Gavrilovna hesitated a long time; and several of the plans to run away she rejected. At last she consented. On the appointed day she was to do without supper and escape to her room on the plea of a headache. Her maid was in the plot. The two of them were to make their way into the garden by means of the back-stairs. Outside the garden a sledge would stand ready to take them straight to the church of Jadrino, a village five versts away, where Vladimir would await them.

On the eve of the decisive day Maria Gavrilovna hardly slept at all. She spent the night in packing some linens and dresses to take with her; and wrote a long letter to a sentimental girl friend, and another to her parents. She bade them farewell in the most touching terms, and excused her action on grounds of a terrible overruling passion, concluding by saying that she should consider it the most blessed moment of her life when she should be permitted to throw herself at the feet of her beloved parents. Having sealed both letters with a Toula seal, on which were engraved two flaming hearts, accompanied by an appropriate inscription, she threw herself on her bed just before daybreak, and dozed off.

Terrible dreams, however, kept crowding upon her and constantly awakened her. Now it seemed to her that the very moment she entered the sledge for her journey her father stopped her and with a most painful rapidity dragged her over the snow and cast her into a dark, bottomless abyss.... Then she flew about precipitately, with an indescribable oppression of the heart. Then she saw Vladimir lying on the grass, pale, bleeding. Dying, he entreated her in shrill voice to make haste to wed him.... Still other shapeless, incoherent visions continued to pass before her. In the end she arose, looking more pale than usual, with a real headache. Her father and her mother noticed her agitation; their gentle solicitude and their ceaseless inquiries, “What is the matter with you, Masha? Are you ill, Masha?” rent her heart. She tried to quiet them, to appear cheerful, but she could not.

The evening came. The thought that this was the last day she would spend in the midst of her family oppressed her. She scarcely could breathe. Secretly she was bidding each one a separate farewell, as well as all the objects which surrounded her. When the supper was announced her heart beat violently. In a trembling voice she said that she could not eat, and wished her father and her mother good-night. They kissed her and, according to their custom, also blessed her.

Once in her own room, she threw herself into the arm-chair and wept. Her maid tried to prevail upon her to be calm and to take courage; everything was ready—in another half-hour Masha would leave forever her paternal home, her room, her quiet, girlish life....

Outdoors, the snow was falling; the wind howled, the shutters rattled and shook; all seemed to her to assume the aspect of a warning, the sad presaging of disaster. Soon everything in the house grew quiet and sank into slumber.

Masha wrapped a shawl around her, put on a long, warm mantle, took into her hands her treasure-casket, and walked down the back-stairs. The maid followed her with two bundles. They entered the garden. The storm did not subside; the wind blew in their faces, as if it sought to stop the young culprit. With the greatest difficulty, they reached the end of the garden. On the road a sledge awaited them. The chilled horses would not stand still, and Vladimir’s coachman was restlessly walking in front of them, trying to quiet them. He assisted the young lady and her maid into the sledge, and in disposing of the bundles and the casket, then seized the reins, and off the horses flew.

Having thus committed the maiden to the care of fate and the skill of Tereshka, the coachman, we will now return to our young lover.

The whole day long Vladimir spent in driving about. His first morning errand was to the priest at Jadrino—it was with the greatest difficulty that he prevailed upon him; he then journeyed to find witnesses from among the neighboring land-owners. The first to whom he appeared was the retired, forty-year-old cornet Dravin, who consented with alacrity. This adventure, he assured Vladimir, recalled to him his earlier days and his pranks in the Hussars. He persuaded Vladimir to remain for dinner, and assured him that there would be no trouble about the other two witnesses. Indeed, immediately after dinner there appeared Surveyor Schmidt, with mustaches and spurs, and the son of the chief of police, a youngster of sixteen years, who had only lately joined the Uhlans. Not only were they in sympathy with Vladimir’s plans, but they even swore to lay down their lives for him. Vladimir embraced them joyously, and returned home to get everything ready.

It had already been dark for some time. He sent off the trusty Tereshka to Nenaradova with his troika, after giving him most exact instructions; while for himself he ordered a small sledge with a single horse. He left alone for Jadrino, where two hours hence Maria Gavrilovna was also due to arrive. The road was familiar to him; and altogether it meant a twenty-minute journey.

Hardly, however, had Vladimir reached the open field, when the wind rose; immediately it developed into a blinding snow-storm, so that he could not see anything. In a remarkably short time the road became hidden under the snow, while the surrounding landmarks were obliterated in the nebulous, yellowish haze through which flew about great white flakes of snow. The sky and the earth merged into one. Vladimir found himself in the field, and it was in vain that he tried to find the road again. The horse advanced at random, and now drove into a snowdrift and now fell into a hole—the sledge kept on upsetting. Vladimir made an effort not to lose the right direction. It seemed strange to him, however, that after a half-hour’s driving he had not yet reached the Jadrino wood.

Another ten minutes passed—still no wood in sight. Vladimir drove across a field which was intersected by deep ditches. The storm did not abate, the sky did not clear. The horse began to grow tired, and the perspiration rolled down his body in large drops, notwithstanding the fact that he was being half-buried in snow almost continually.

At last Vladimir concluded that he was not driving in the right direction. He stopped, tried to recall, to consider, and decided that he ought to take to the right; which he did. His horse made way slowly. He had been on the road more than an hour. Jadrino could not be very distant. On and on he drove his horse, but there seemed to be no end to the field—only snowdrifts and ditches. The sledge kept on upsetting, he kept on righting it. Time passed; Vladimir began to fret.

At last a dark shape seemed to loom up ahead. Vladimir jerked the reins in that direction. On closer approach, he saw it was a wood. “Thank God!” he thought, “now it is near.” He kept going along the edge of the wood, hoping to strike the familiar road, or to make a detour of the forest. Jadrino, he knew, was situated somewhere behind it. He soon found the road, and drove into the darkness among the trees, which stood in their winter nakedness. The wind could not make much headway here; the road was smooth; the horse braced itself, and Vladimir regained confidence.

On and on he continued his journey—and still no Jadrino in sight; there was no end to the road. In consternation, Vladimir became aware that he had entered an unfamiliar forest. Despair seized hold of him. He lashed the horse; the poor animal went off at a canter, but soon slowed down, and after a quarter of an hour relapsed into a walk, despite all exertions on the part of the unhappy Vladimir.

Gradually the wood grew less dense, and Vladimir came out again into the open. No Jadrino in sight. It must have been about midnight. Tears gushed from his eyes; he drove about at random. The storm quieted down, the clouds dispersed; before him lay a valley, covered with a white, undulating carpet. The night was sufficiently clear. He discerned not far off a tiny village, consisting of some four or five houses. Vladimir drove towards it. At the very first cottage he sprang out of his sledge, ran to the window, and began to knock. In a few minutes the wooden shutter went up, and an old man stuck out his gray beard.

“What do you want?”

“Is Jadrino far from here?”

“Is Jadrino far from here!”

“Yes, yes, is it far?”

“Not far—ten versts or so!”

At this answer Vladimir caught hold of his hair and stood motionless, like one condemned to death.

“And where do you come from?” continued the old man.

Vladimir had no courage left to reply to the question.

“Can you, old man,” he asked, “procure me horses to take me to Jadrino?”

“How should we have horses?” answered the peasant.

“Can you at least give me a guide? I will pay as much as he wants.”

“Wait,” said the old man, lowering the shutter. “I’ll send my son out to you. He’ll guide you.”

Vladimir waited. A minute had not elapsed when he began knocking again. The shutter went up again, the same gray beard made its appearance.

“What do you want?”

“Well, where’s your son?”

“He’ll be out soon. He’s putting on his boots. Are you cold? Step in and warm yourself.”

“Thanks, send your son out quickly.”

The gate creaked; a lad came out with a heavy stick in hand. He went in front, now indicating, now searching for, the road hidden under snowdrifts.

“What hour is it?” Vladimir asked him.

“It will soon be daylight,” replied the young peasant.

Vladimir spoke not another word.

The cocks were crowing and it was already light when they reached Jadrino. The church was closed. Vladimir paid his guide and drove to the priest’s house. His troika was not there. What news awaited him!

Let us return, however, to the good land-owners of Nenaradova and see what is passing there.

Nothing out of the way.

The old people had had their sleep and had gone to the dining-room—Gavrila Gavrilovich in his night-cap and flannel jacket, Prascovia Petrovna in her dressing-gown of wadding. The samovar was brought in, and Gavrila Gavrilovich sent the maid to ask Maria Gavrilovna about her health and how she had rested. The maid returned, announcing that the young lady had slept badly, but was feeling better now, and that presently she would be in to breakfast. Very shortly, in fact, the door opened, and Maria Gavrilovna came forward to greet her papa and mamma.

“How is your head, Masha?” asked Gavrila Gavrilovich.

“Better, Papa,” replied Masha.

“Masha, you must have got a headache yesterday from the fumes of the heater,” said Prascovia Petrovna.

“Perhaps so, Mamma,” answered Masha.

The day passed happily, but by night Masha was taken ill. A doctor was sent for from town. He arrived towards evening and found the sick girl in delirium. She developed high fever, and for two weeks the poor girl was at death’s door.

No one in the house knew what had happened. The letters written by her on the eve of her planned elopement were burned; her maid, fearing the wrath of her master, had said a word to no one. The priest, the retired cornet, the mustached surveyor, and the little Uhlan were quiet, and with good reason. Tereshka, the driver, never uttered a superfluous word, even when in drink. The secret was thus well kept by more than a half-dozen conspirators. Maria Gavrilovna herself gave away her secret while in delirium. Her words, however, were so incoherent that her mother, who never left her bedside, could only gather that her daughter was passionately in love with Vladimir Nikolaevich, and that this love was apparently the cause of her illness. She held counsel with her husband, and with some of the neighbors, and in the end they unanimously decided that there was no getting around fate, that poverty was no crime, that the man was the thing—not wealth, and so on. Such moral discourses are astonishingly useful in those instances when we are at a loss to find justification for our actions.

In the meantime, the young lady was returning to health. Vladimir hadn’t been seen for a long time in the house of Gavrila Gavrilovich. He had been frightened away by the previous receptions accorded him. It was proposed to send for him and to announce to him his unawaited good fortune: the consent to marriage. Imagine the amazement of the proprietors of Nenaradova when in answer to their proposal they received from him a half-insane letter! He informed them that his foot would never be set in their house, and implored them to forget an unhappy man, for whom death alone remained as an alleviation. In the course of a few days it was learned that Vladimir had joined the army. This was in the year 1812.

For a long time they dared not tell this to the convalescent Masha. She never spoke about Vladimir. Several months having passed, she one day discovered his name among the distinguished and the dangerously wounded at the battle of Borodino, whereupon she fainted, and it was feared that high fever would recur. God be thanked, however, the fainting fit had no serious consequences.

Another sorrow visited her: Gavrila Gavrilovich died, leaving her heiress to all his estates. But her wealth did not comfort her; she free-heartedly shared the affliction of the poor Prascovia Petrovna, and vowed never to part with her. Together they left Nenaradova, the place of their sorrowful memories, and went to live on one of their estates.

Here also many suitors paid court to the lovely heiress; but she gave none the slightest hope. Her mother occasionally tried to persuade her to choose a mate; in answer, Maria Gavrilovna would only shake her head and grow thoughtful. Vladimir no longer existed; he had died in Moscow, on the eve of the entry of the French. His memory Masha held sacred; at least, she kept all that could remind her of him: there were the books he had read, his drawings, his notes, and poems he had copied for her. The neighbors, who knew her story, wondered at her constancy, and with great curiosity awaited the hero who would in the end triumph over the melancholy fidelity of this virgin Artemis.

In the meantime, the war ended with glory. Our regiments were returning from alien soil. The nation greeted them with joy. The musicians played the victorious songs, “Vive Henri-Quatre,” Tyrolese waltzes, the airs from “Joconda.” Some of the officers who had entered upon the campaign mere lads were returning from the battles grown into manhood, decorated with crosses. The soldiers talked gaily among themselves, mingling constantly with their speech German and French words. It was a never-to-be-forgotten time! A time of glory and joy! How strongly beat the Russian heart at the word “fatherland”! How sweet were the tears at meeting again! How harmoniously did we combine the feeling of national pride with love for the Czar! And for him—what a moment!

Women—the Russian women—were in those days incomparable! Their usual coldness vanished. Their rapture was really intoxicating when, upon meeting the victors, they cried, “Hurrah!” and threw their caps into the air....

Who from among the officers of that day does not confess that to the Russian women he owed his best, most valued reward?... During that brilliant time Maria Gavrilovna lived with her mother in the —— Province, and did not see how both capitals celebrated the return of the troops. In the country districts and in the villages the general enthusiasm was perhaps even stronger. The appearance of an officer in such places was always the occasion of real triumph to him, and the lover in the frock coat had a hard time of it in his presence.

We have already stated that, notwithstanding her coldness, Maria Gavrilovna, as before, was surrounded by suitors. All of them, however, were compelled to step aside when there appeared one day in her castle the wounded Colonel of the Hussars, Bourmin, with the cross of St. George in his buttonhole, and with “an interesting pallor” on his face, to use the words of the young ladies of the place. He seemed to be about twenty-six years old. He arrived, on leave, at his estate, which neighbored upon that of Maria Gavrilovna. Maria showed him distinction. Before him her usual pensiveness vanished. It cannot be said that she played the coquette with him; but the poet, making note of her conduct, would have said:

Se amor non è, che dunche?...

Bourmin was indeed a most charming young man. He possessed precisely that sense which is pleasing to women—a sense of decorum and alertness, without pretensions; and an easy humor. His behavior towards Maria Gavrilovna was simple and free; but, no matter what she said or did, his soul and his glances followed her. He seemed a quiet, unassuming sort of man, though rumor had it that he had been quite a rake in his day, which did not, however, injure him in the eyes of Maria Gavrilovna, who (like young ladies generally) was most willing to overlook little larks which indicated boldness and a spirited character.

But above all (more than his gentleness, more than his agreeable speech, more than his interesting pallor, more than his bandaged arm) the silence of the young Hussar stirred her curiosity and imagination. She could not but feel conscious that she pleased him immensely; undoubtedly, he too, with his keenness of perception, and experience, had noted her preference for him; and she could not explain why she had not yet seen him at her feet and had not heard his declaration. What restrained him? Was it the timidity which is inseparable from true love, or pride, or the coquetry of a shrewd wooer? This was a riddle to her. Having reflected on the matter, she concluded that timidity was the sole reason; and this decided her to encourage him with greater attention, and, if the circumstances permitted it, even tenderness. She anticipated the most surprising dénouement; and with impatience awaited a romantic explanation. A secret, whatever its nature may be, is always oppressive to the feminine heart. Her aggressive tactics had the desired result; at least, Bourmin fell into such a pensive mood, and his dark eyes fixed themselves with such a fire upon Maria Gavrilovna, that the decisive moment seemed close at hand. The neighbors talked of the forthcoming marriage as of a thing settled, and the good Prascovia Petrovna rejoiced that her daughter had found at last a worthy mate.

The old mother was sitting one day in the drawing-room, playing patience, when Bourmin entered and immediately inquired after Maria Gavrilovna.

“She is in the garden,” answered the old lady. “You go out to her, and I’ll await you here.”

Bourmin went into the garden, and the old lady crossed herself and thought, “The matter will be settled today.”

At the pond, under a willow, Bourmin found Maria Gavrilovna, dressed in white, looking like a real heroine of a novel. After the first questions, Maria Gavrilovna purposely refrained from sustaining the conversation, intending in this manner to create a mutual embarrassment, from which it was possible to free oneself only by an instant and decisive explanation. That was, in fact, what happened. Bourmin, feeling the embarrassment of his position, said that he had long sought an opportunity to reveal his heart to her, and requested a moment’s attention from her. Maria Gavrilovna closed the book and cast down her eyes as a sign of assent.

“I love you,” said Bourmin. “I love you passionately.” (Maria Gavrilovna blushed and inclined her head even lower.) “I have behaved imprudently in yielding to the sweet pleasure of seeing and hearing you every day.” (Maria Gavrilovna recalled the first letter of St. Preux.[1]) “It is too late now to resist my fate: the mere recollection of you, your lovely, incomparable image, shall be the torment and consolation of my life. It is still left to me, however, to execute a weighty responsibility, to reveal to you a terrible secret which will raise between us an insurmountable barrier.”

“It has always existed,” interrupted Maria Gavrilovna, in an excited manner. “I could never be your wife.”

“I know,” he answered quietly. “I know that you once loved; and that he died, and that you had mourned for three years.... My good, adorable Maria Gavrilovna! Please don’t deprive me of my last consolation: the thought that you would have consented to make my happiness if——Please, not a word—for God’s sake, not a word! You torture me. Yes, I know it, that you would have been willing to become mine, but I—I am a most unhappy creature.... I am already married!”

Maria Gavrilovna looked at him in amazement.

“Yes, I am married,” continued Bourmin; “and this is the fourth year of my marriage, and I don’t know—who my wife is, where she is, or whether I shall ever see her.”

“What are you saying?” exclaimed Maria Gavrilovna. “How strange! But continue—I also have something to tell—do me the kindness, continue!”

“In the beginning of the year 1812,” resumed Bourmin, “I was making haste to rejoin my regiment at Wilna. Having arrived late one night at a station, I ordered horses to be harnessed immediately, when suddenly a terrible snow-storm broke out, and the station-master and the drivers advised me to wait. At first I agreed, but an incomprehensible restlessness took possession of me; it seemed to me as if some one were prodding me on. The storm, however, showed no signs of abatement. I could stand it no longer, ordered the horses to be harnessed, and proceeded on my journey in the very height of the storm. The driver took a notion into his head to drive along the river, which would shorten the journey by three versts. The banks were buried under snowdrifts; we drove past the place where we should have turned into the road, and so chance took us into strange parts. The storm did not quiet down. I saw a small light in the distance, and asked to be driven there. We arrived in a village; there was light in the wooden church. The church was open; within the outside enclosure stood several sledges; people could be seen walking about on the porch of the church. ‘This way! This way!’ cried a number of voices. I ordered my man to drive up closer. ‘What made you so late, pray?’ some one said to me. ‘The bride has fainted; the priest doesn’t know what to do; we were just getting ready to go home. Come quickly!’ Silently I sprang out of my sledge and entered the church, which was but dimly lighted by two or three candles. The girl was sitting on a bench in a dark corner of the church; another was rubbing her temples. ‘Thank God,’ said the latter, ‘you have made up your mind to come! You have almost killed her!’ The old priest approached me with the question, ‘Shall we begin?’ ‘Begin, begin, Father,’ I replied absently. The girl was raised on her feet. She seemed to me not at all bad-looking .... An incomprehensible, unforgivable heedlessness .... I stood beside her before the pulpit; the priest made haste; three men and the maid supported the bride, and were giving her all their attention. We were married. ‘Now kiss each other,’ they said to us. My wife turned towards me her pale face. I made a movement to kiss her .... She cried out, ‘Oh, it is not he, not he!’ and fainted away. The witnesses directed on me their frightened eyes. I turned round and left the church without the slightest interference, threw myself into my sledge, and cried out, ‘Let her go!’”

“My God!” cried out Maria Gavrilovna. “And you don’t know what became of your poor wife?”

“I don’t know,” answered Bourmin. “I even don’t know the name of the village where I was married. I can’t remember by what station I went. At that time I attached so little importance to my wicked lark, that, after leaving the church, I slept soundly and awakened only next morning, having reached by that time the third station. My servant, who was then with me, died in the campaign, so that I haven’t the slightest hope of finding her upon whom I played such a horrible joke, and who now is so terribly avenged.”

“My God! My God!” said Maria Gavrilovna, grasping his hand. “So, then, it was you! And you do not recognize me?”

Bourmin became pale ... and threw himself at her feet ....

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In La Nouvelle Heloise, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

GOGOL, THE FIRST RUSSIAN REALIST

Professor William Lyon Phelps has noted that the year 1809 gave many great men to literature, among them Darwin, Tennyson, Poe, Lincoln, Gladstone, Holmes, and Gogol. Thus in a period of expanding ideas the Russian genius was born, March 19 (March 31), of a small land-owner’s family, at the town of Sorotchintzi, government of Poltava, in the land of the Cossacks—in Little Russia, or the Ukraine, as it is variously called.

When the lad of twelve was sent to school at Niéjine, a town near Kiev, he found that the pupils prided themselves upon having their own college journal. In this he soon published an early novel, “The Brothers Tviérdislavitchy,” and later a tragedy, “The Robbers.” He also contributed certain satires and ballads—all equally sophomoric. Certainly in these beginnings there were no deep marks of genius. To record that Gogol was a poor student is to bring to mind amusingly the number of great littérateurs who were either dismissed from college or showed no genius for application. I have often wondered how, in the face of such alluring evidence, professors of literature succeed in convincing ambitious young quill-drivers that their better course would be conscientious devotion to the curriculum. At all events, Gogol really derived more benefit from the training he secured while writing for the school theatre than from his mathematical and linguistic studies.

Upon leaving college, in 1828, the young enthusiast—romantic, dreaming of great deeds for his country, and taking himself much too seriously—went to the inevitable St. Petersburg, thinking that he could easily secure employment there. But he was disillusionized, for his talent excited no interest whatever. So, taking some hardly-saved money which his mother had sent him for another purpose, he embarked for foreign parts—some say for America. But his heart failed him, and he got no farther than Lübeck, where he left the boat, and, after three days’ wandering about the city, returned to St. Petersburg and secured employment as a copying clerk in the Ministry of Domain. Let us not forget this experience as we read “The Cloak.”

In this billet he remained for a year, chafing under the grinding routine, whose pressure at length compelled him to resign. He took up acting next, but his voice was not considered to be strong enough, and he then became a tutor in the families of the nobility in the Russian capital. Eventually he was appointed to a professorship of history in the University. His opening address was altogether brilliant, but, never a thorough student, he soon sounded the depths of his knowledge, and his students complained that he put them to sleep. That ended his teaching.

All these successive failures—for such they really were—drove him to the one means of self-expression: literature. He now published a few modest essays in the leading journals. These attracted some attention and brought about his introduction to Pushkin, who received him warmly, and advised him to write of the land and people that he knew so well. This wise counsel resulted in a collection of brilliant fictional sketches entitled “Evenings at a Farm Near Dikanka” (1828-1831).

The most important of these is probably “St. John’s Eve.” It is instinct with the superstitious beliefs of his native province. The story is soon told, how that a young man, finely favored of body, falls in love with the daughter of his farmer-employer. His attentions having been discovered, he is flatly dismissed, whereupon a certain Mephistophelian character who has been doing tricksy things about the village offers to procure for the youth a plentiful supply of gold wherewith to win the favor of the girl’s father. This leads to a night meeting with a witch, accompanied with all the traditional manifestations. Under an incantation, the young man digs, finds a coffer, and is about to take out the gold, when the witch admonishes him that he first must perform a duty—thrust a knife into a large bag which stands before him. He refuses, and tears open the bag, when to his horror the form of his sweetheart’s little brother is disclosed. The demon-man pictures all that the youth is about to lose by his unwillingness to murder the child; and, thus tempted, he plunges in the knife.

Thereafter all things go according to promise—he has plenty of gold, wins the favor of the father, and marries the girl, but he can never get over his settled melancholy as he thinks upon his terrible deed. Eventually—quite in the manner of all the tales which involve the sale of the soul to the devil—he disappears and goes to his Master.

The whole story is told with a remarkable handling of the weird. Perhaps no tale of witchcraft was ever more vividly and brilliantly handled—it is typical, both in matter and manner, of the Ukraine.

And this leads me to say that those writers are most interesting who are the most distinctly national, and by “national” I mean those who temperamentally exhibit the typical characteristics of their land, who glory in its peculiar traits, and who in their writings picture and interpret its spirit.

Little Russia is neither north nor south, but, for reasons which the scientists may explain, displays quite marvellously the elements of both north and south in the two great seasons of the year. The few short summer months are saturated with flaring sunshine, causing the fields fairly to leap toward the farmer, full-handed with harvests. In these halcyon days the people revel in the miraculous transformation of nature, but when winter comes, the land of the Dnieper feels the sweep of icy northern winds quite as bitterly as do the dwellers on the Neva.

The population, too, is just as antipodal—in fact, it is really complex. Little Russia was at one time dominated by the Turks, who left many of their oriental traits among the people they had conquered; later, the Ukraine was subdued by Poland, which “transmitted something of its savage luxury to its vassals;” then Tartar hordes constantly swept across its borders and kept alive the joy of savage warfare; finally the Cossack leagues established themselves in the Ukraine and set up a wild chivalry upon whose picturesque exploits the Little Russian has ever since dwelt with prideful interest.

Gogol was born with a full measure of the Cossack spirit, descended, as he was, directly from this stock. His native Poltava is the very heart of the Cossack country, and Gogol’s grandfather, who was his first teacher, infused the young spirit with all the imagery and fanciful extravagance of Cossack folk-lore. His mother, too, of whom he speaks most tenderly in his “Confessions of an Author,” poured into his ears the legends of her land.

This primal literary equipment was bestowed upon a temperament that never ceased to be mystical, religious, and at the last melancholy—traits that are characteristic of almost every great Russian writer.

Gogol was also a humorist, but from the strangest reason, a reason which, unhappily, several other humorists shared with him: he wrote grotesque and laughter-provoking conceits to keep his mind from brooding on dark and depressing visions. Perhaps it may have been bodily weakness—for Gogol was small, weazened, unlovely to look upon, and often ill—or perhaps the result of an intensely religious nature turned in upon itself, but some cause constantly evoked in him the wildest hallucinations. Once while suffering the extremes of chilling penury in St. Petersburg, he contemplated suicide. He saw Death, and thus writes of the vision to his mother:

Mother, dearest mother, I know you are my truest friend. Believe me, even now, though I have shaken off something of the dread, even now, at the bare recollection of it, an indescribable agony comes over my soul. It is only to you that I speak of it. You know that I was in my boyhood endowed with a courage beyond my years. Who, then, could have expected I should prove so weak? But I saw her—no, I cannot name her—she is too majestic, too awful for any mortal, not merely for me, to name. That face, whose brilliant glory in one moment burns into the heart; those eyes that quickly pierce the inner soul; that consuming, all-penetrating gaze: these are the traits of none that is born of woman. Oh, if you only had seen me in that moment! True, I could hide myself from all, but how hide myself from myself? The pains of hell, with every possible torture, filled my breast. Oh, what a cruel condition! I think, whatever the hell prepared for sinners may be, its tortures cannot equal mine. No, that was not love. At least, I never heard of love like that.... And then, my heart softened; I recognized the inscrutable finger of Providence that ever watches over us, and I blessed Him, who thus marvellously had pointed out the path wherein I should walk. No; this being whom He sent to rob me of quiet, and to topple down my frail plans, was no woman.... But I pray you, do not ask me who she is. She is too majestic, too awful, to be named.

A later series of short-stories and sketches appeared from 1831 to 1833 under the title of “Mirgorod.”

The first part of this collection constitutes one of the great romances of history—“Taras Bulba.” It is long enough to be a short novel, and, indeed, it is a novel in plot. Briefly, it tells the story of a mighty Cossack colonel, whose name gives the work its title. The romance opens with his two sons, Ostap and Andríi, coming home from school and meeting their Homeric old father and gentle, homely, and adoring mother. The father cannot be convinced that his boys have not been injured by their course at school until he engages in violent fisticuffs with Ostap. Almost immediately, to the heart-breaking of the old lady, who plays a small part in the whole scheme of her husband’s life, Taras Bulba personally takes his boys away to the great Cossack camp, where these corsairs of the steppes are gathered waiting for some chance of foray, or a war that may promise them spoils. The revelling scenes of the camp are pictured with tremendous verve, and the doughty, fear-despising, Jew-abusing Cossack is pictured to the life.

At length, a cause of war against the Tartars is cooked up and their city besieged. One night, Andríi, the younger son of Taras Bulba, is awakened by the gliding of a woman’s figure near his sleeping quarters. She proves to be the servant of a beautiful Tartar maiden, the daughter of the Governor of the beleaguered city, who with all the other inhabitants is dying of starvation. Andríi gathers some provisions and follows the old woman by a secret underground passage into the city, where he meets the young beauty, who had previously enchanted him with a single glance while he was on the march from his home to the Cossack camp. For the sake of her love he renounces his own people and fights tremendously against them in the subsequent battle. During the mêlée he meets his father, who slays him with a single blow and scarcely regrets the death of his traitorous son. Ostap is captured and carried away to a distant city. Knowing that his son is to be executed with torture, old Taras Bulba arises from his bed of many wounds and, after a long journey, makes his way to the foot of the scaffold in the public square. The boy suffers terribly, but is brave to the end.

But when they took him to the last deadly tortures, it seemed as though his strength were failing. He turned his eyes about.

Oh, God! all strangers, all unknown faces! If only some of his relatives were present at his death! He would not have cared to hear the sobs and anguish of his feeble mother, or the unreasoning cries of a wife, tearing her hair and beating her white breast; he would have liked to see the strong man who could refresh him with a wise word, and cheer his end. And his strength failed him, and he cried in the weakness of his soul, “Father, where are you? Do you hear all?”

“I hear!” rang through the universal silence, and all that million of people shuddered in concert.

Force is its prime quality—physical, mental, religious. “In this story,” writes Professor Phelps, “the old Cossacks, centuries dead, have a genuine resurrection of the body. They appear before us in all their amazing vitality, their love of fighting, of eating and drinking, their intense patriotism, and their blazing devotion to their religious faith. Never was a book more plainly inspired by passion for race and native land. It is one tremendous shout of joy”—which even tragedy cannot silence.

Gogol was a stylist of no mean order, as “Taras Bulba” well demonstrates. It is full of Homeric passages, whose pungent vigor even survives translation. And for sheer beauty what can surpass this, the opening passage of “Night in May”?

Do you know the beauty of the nights of Ukraine? The moon looks down from the deep, immeasurable vault, which is filled to overflowing and palpitating with its pure radiance. The earth is silver; the air is deliciously cool, yet almost oppressive with perfume. Divine, enchanting night! The great forest trees, black, solemn, and still, reposing as if oppressed with thought, throw out their gigantic shadows. How silent are the ponds! Their dark waters are imprisoned within the vine-laden walls of the gardens. The little virgin forest of wild cherry and young plum-trees dip their dainty roots timidly into the cold waters; their murmuring leaves angrily shiver when a little current of the night wind stealthily creeps in to caress them. The distant horizon sleeps, but above it and overhead all is palpitating life; august, triumphal, sublime! Like the firmament, the soul seems to open into endless space; silvery visions of grace and beauty arise before it. Oh, the charm of this divine night!

Suddenly life, animation, spreads through forest, lake, and steppe. The nightingale’s majestic trill resounds through the air; the moon seems to stop, embosomed in clouds, to listen. The little village on the hill is wrapt in an enchanted slumber; its cluster of white cottages gleams vividly in the moonlight, and the outlines of their low walls are sharply clear-cut against the dark shadows. All songs are hushed; silence reigns in the homes of these simple peasants. But here and there a twinkling light appears in a little window of some cottage, where supper has waited for a belated occupant.

Gogol’s reputation as a humorist is strongly supported by his comedy “Revizor” (“The Inspector-General”). It is held to be the best comedy in the Russian language, and, while it brought out no immediate followers, it did arouse an immense amount of amused discussion at the time of its production.

The plot is simple enough. The officials of a provincial government office are looking for the arrival of an inspector, who is supposed to be coming incognito to inspect their accounts. A traveller happens to arrive at the inn, and him they all suppose to be the dreaded official. Made anxious by their guilty consciences, each attempts to plead his own cause with the supposed judge, and no one hesitates to denounce a colleague in order to better his own standing. The traveller is at first amazed, but he is astute enough to accept the situation and pocket the money. The confusion grows until the crash of the final thunderbolt, when the real inspector arrives upon the scene.

In his “Confessions of an Author,” Gogol says: “In the ‘Revizor,’ I tried to present in a mass the results arising from the one crying evil of Russia, as I recognized it in that year; to expose every crime that is committed in those offices, where the strictest uprightness should be required and expected. I meant to satirize the great evil. The effect produced upon the public was a sort of terror; for they felt the force of my true sentiments, my real sadness and disgust, through the gay satire.”

The play was received with uproarious laughter all over the empire, but it is a singular comment upon the Russian character of the period to observe that, while it produced so great a furor that the Czar read it with tears of laughter and afterwards handsomely pensioned the author, it led to no official reforms.

A single specimen of its dry humor will illustrate. I quote from Turner’s “Studies in Russian Literature.”

The prefect is alarmed at the intelligence that his superior, the revising [inspecting] officer, may be expected on any day or at any hour, and begs the postmaster to open all the letters that may in the meantime pass through his office. That exemplary official informs him that such has always been his custom, “not from any state reason,” as he takes care to explain, “but from curiosity;” some of the letters he had opened being so entertaining that he really could not find the heart to send them on, but had kept them in his desk. When reminded by a cautious colleague that this is likely to get him into trouble with the public, the prefect cuts short the remonstration by crying out, “Oh, batoushka

Gogol founded the realistic school in Russia when he produced his masterpiece “Dead Souls,” a work sufficiently powerful to raise him at once to the pinnacle of literary fame. The idea of the book consists of the ingenious plan of a certain Tchitchikoff, who had lost his place in consequence of his misdemeanors in the custom-house having been discovered. In order to retrieve his fortune he visits different landed proprietors and buys from them the names of all their serfs who have died since the last census. Having thus established an ownership, he succeeds in borrowing large sums of money by giving the names of the dead serfs as security, since these dead souls have been legally made over to him. Naturally, the bankers think that they are making the loan upon good live collateral. What becomes of Tchitchikoff, we do not know, for Gogol destroyed the manuscript of the last section of his work—some say, in a fit of abstraction; others, under the influence of religious enthusiasm.

Upon this framework, the author has produced a series of remarkable descriptions—not pure realism, indeed, in our modern acceptation of the term, but rather akin to the realism of Dickens. Its truthful picture of Russian life, its repellent yet attractive qualities, its penetratingly keen analysis of character, caused Pushkin to exclaim when Gogol read him the first chapters of his book, “God, how miserable life is in Russia!”

Rarely do power and delicacy unite in a stylist as they do in Gogol. For the one, we may find an origin in his love for the sun-steeped and snow-blown plains of his native Cossack country—a love which constantly manifested itself in a real nostalgia, yet never brought him back for long from his wanderings, especially in Italy. But for the other, that delicate power of evocation—that compound of Loti’s subtlety of nature-sense, Hoffmann’s light fantasy, and Daudet’s airy narrative manner, half-humorous, half-pathetic—for this we must look to some inborn faculty. In any other writer we might trace this gossamer lightness to much commerce with the thoughts of women. But no woman ever entered largely into Gogol’s life, and when he died, on March 4, 1852, being not yet forty-three years of age, his mother—always his mother—was still his only love. His last days were shadowed by a growing ineptitude. His frail body weakened by religious fastings, his resources scattered by prodigal gifts, his mind enfeebled and depressed—his passing was sad, lonely, and almost unnoticed.

Gogol was the first great prose artist in Russian literature. In the tale and the sketch, in comedy, in romance, and in realism, he not only blazed new trails but penetrated so far into the unknown that others for a long time followed only at a distance. But follow they did, for, as one of his compatriot wits has observed, “We have all hidden under ‘The Cloak.’”

The masterpiece of fantastic narration and character delineation which follows in translation was published, under the title “Shinel,” in 1839, when Gogol was thirty. It is overlong, according to our modern standards, yet not as a piece of artistic workmanship. Its humor, its suggestiveness, its pathos, its whimsicality, all rank it with the world’s great short fictions.

THE CLOAK

By Nikolai Gogol

In the department of ——— but it is better not to name the department. Nothing is more annoying than all kinds of departments, regiments, law courts—in a word, any branch of public service. Nowadays things have come to such a pass that every individual considers all society offended in his person. Only lately, I have heard it told, a complaint has been received from a district chief of police—I don’t remember of what town—in which he sets forth clearly that the Imperial institutions are on the wane, and that the Czar’s sacred name is being uttered in vain; and in proof of his assertion he appended to the petition a voluminous romance, in which a district chief of police is made to appear at least once every ten pages, often in a hopelessly drunken condition. Therefore, to avoid all unpleasantness, it is better to designate the department in question as a certain department.