Conceive the joy of a lover of nature who, leaving the art galleries,
wanders out among the trees and wild flowers and birds that the
pictures of the galleries have sentimentalised. It is some such joy
that the man who truly loves the noblest in letters feels when
tasting for the first time the simple delights of Russian literature.
French and English and German authors, too, occasionally, offer
works of lofty, simple naturalness; but the very keynote to the
whole of Russian literature is simplicity, naturalness,
veraciousness.
Another essentially Russian trait is the quite unaffected conception
that the lowly are on a plane of equality with the so-called upper
classes. When the Englishman Dickens wrote with his profound
pity and understanding of the poor, there was yet a bit; of
remoteness, perhaps, even, a bit of caricature, in his treatment of
them. He showed their sufferings to the rest of the world with a
"Behold how the other half lives!" The Russian writes of the poor, as it were, from within, as one of them, with no eye to theatrical
effect upon the well-to-do. There is no insistence upon peculiar
virtues or vices. The poor are portrayed just as they are, as human
beings like the rest of us. A democratic spirit is reflected, breathing
a broad humanity, a true universality, an unstudied generosity that
proceed not from the intellectual conviction that to understand all
is to forgive all, but from an instinctive feeling that no man has the
right to set himself up as a judge over another, that one can only
observe and record.
In 1834 two short stories appeared, The Queen of Spades, by
Pushkin, and The Cloak, by Gogol. The first was a finishing-off of the old, outgoing style of romanticism, the other was the beginning
of the new, the characteristically Russian style. We read Pushkin's
Queen of Spades, the first story in the volume, and the likelihood is we shall enjoy it greatly. "But why is it Russian?" we ask. The answer is, "It is not Russian." It might have been printed in an American magazine over the name of John Brown. But, now, take
the very next story in the volume, The Cloak. "Ah," you exclaim,
"a genuine Russian story, Surely. You cannot palm it off on me
over the name of Jones or Smith." Why? Because The Cloak for the first time strikes that truly Russian note of deep sympathy with
the disinherited. It is not yet wholly free from artificiality, and so is not yet typical of the purely realistic fiction that reached its
perfected development in Turgenev and Tolstoy.
Though Pushkin heads the list of those writers who made the
literature of their country world-famous, he was still a romanticist,
in the universal literary fashion of his day. However, he already
gave strong indication of the peculiarly Russian genius for
naturalness or realism, and was a true Russian in his simplicity of
style. In no sense an innovator, but taking the cue for his poetry
from Byron and for his prose from the romanticism current at that
period, he was not in advance of his age. He had a revolutionary
streak in his nature, as his Ode to Liberty and other bits of verse and his intimacy with the Decembrist rebels show. But his youthful
fire soon died down, and he found it possible to accommodate
himself to the life of a Russian high functionary and courtier under
the severe despot Nicholas I, though, to be sure, he always hated
that life. For all his flirting with revolutionarism, he never
displayed great originality or depth of thought. He was simply an
extraordinarily gifted author, a perfect versifier, a wondrous lyrist,
and a delicious raconteur, endowed with a grace, ease and power
of expression that delighted even the exacting artistic sense of
Turgenev. To him aptly applies the dictum of Socrates: "Not by
wisdom do the poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and
inspiration." I do not mean to convey that as a thinker Pushkin is to be despised. Nevertheless, it is true that he would occupy a lower
position in literature did his reputation depend upon his
contributions to thought and not upon his value as an artist.
"We are all descended from Gogol's Cloak," said a Russian writer.
And Dostoyevsky's novel, Poor People, which appeared ten years
later, is, in a way, merely an extension of Gogol's shorter tale. In
Dostoyevsky, indeed, the passion for the common people and the
all-embracing, all-penetrating pity for suffering humanity reach
their climax. He was a profound psychologist and delved deeply
into the human soul, especially in its abnormal and diseased
aspects. Between scenes of heart-rending, abject poverty, injustice,
and wrong, and the torments of mental pathology, he managed
almost to exhaust the whole range of human woe. And he analysed
this misery with an intensity of feeling and a painstaking regard for
the most harrowing details that are quite upsetting to normally
constituted nerves. Yet all the horrors must be forgiven him
because of the motive inspiring them—an overpowering love and
the desire to induce an equal love in others. It is not horror for
horror's sake, not a literary tour de force, as in Poe, but horror for a high purpose, for purification through suffering, which was one of
the articles of Dostoyevsky's faith.
Following as a corollary from the love and pity for mankind that
make a leading element in Russian literature, is a passionate search
for the means of improving the lot of humanity, a fervent
attachment to social ideas and ideals. A Russian author is more
ardently devoted to a cause than an American short-story writer to
a plot. This, in turn, is but a reflection of the spirit of the Russian
people, especially of the intellectuals. The Russians take literature
perhaps more seriously than any other nation. To them books are
not a mere diversion. They demand that fiction and poetry be a true
mirror of life and be of service to life. A Russian author, to achieve
the highest recognition, must be a thinker also. He need not
necessarily be a finished artist. Everything is subordinated to two
main requirements—humanitarian ideals and fidelity to life. This is
the secret of the marvellous simplicity of Russian-literary art.
Before the supreme function of literature, the Russian writer stands
awed and humbled. He knows he cannot cover up poverty of
thought, poverty of spirit and lack of sincerity by rhetorical tricks
or verbal cleverness. And if he possesses the two essential
requirements, the simplest language will suffice.
These qualities are exemplified at their best by Turgenev and
Tolstoy. They both had a strong social consciousness; they both
grappled with the problems of human welfare; they were both
artists in the larger sense, that is, in their truthful representation of life, Turgenev was an artist also in the narrower sense—in a keen
appreciation Of form. Thoroughly Occidental in his tastes, he
sought the regeneration of Russia in radical progress along the
lines of European democracy. Tolstoy, on the other hand, sought
the salvation of mankind in a return to the primitive life and
primitive Christian religion.
The very first work of importance by Turgenev, A Sportsman's
Sketches, dealt with the question of serfdom, and it wielded
tremendous influence in bringing about its abolition. Almost every
succeeding book of his, from Rudin through Fathers and Sons to Virgin Soil, presented vivid pictures of contemporary Russian
society, with its problems, the clash of ideas between the old and
the new generations, and the struggles, the aspirations and the
thoughts that engrossed the advanced youth of Russia; so that his
collected works form a remarkable literary record of the successive
movements of Russian society in a period of preparation, fraught
with epochal significance, which culminated in the overthrow of
Czarism and the inauguration of a new and true democracy,
marking the beginning, perhaps, of a radical transformation the
world over.
"The greatest writer of Russia." That is Turgenev's estimate of Tolstoy. "A second Shakespeare!" was Flaubert's enthusiastic
outburst. The Frenchman's comparison is not wholly illuminating.
The one point of resemblance between the two authors is simply in
the tremendous magnitude of their genius. Each is a Colossus.
Each creates a whole world of characters, from kings and princes
and ladies to servants and maids and peasants. But how vastly
divergent the angle of approach! Anna Karenina may have all the
subtle womanly charm of an Olivia or a Portia, but how different
her trials. Shakespeare could not have treated Anna's problems at
all. Anna could not have appeared in his pages except as a sinning
Gertrude, the mother of Hamlet. Shakespeare had all the prejudices
of his age. He accepted the world as it is with its absurd moralities,
its conventions and institutions and social classes. A gravedigger is
naturally inferior to a lord, and if he is to be presented at all, he
must come on as a clown. The people are always a mob, the rabble.
Tolstoy, is the revolutionist, the iconoclast. He has the completest
independence of mind. He utterly refuses to accept established
opinions just because they are established. He probes into the right
and wrong of things. His is a broad, generous universal democracy,
his is a comprehensive sympathy, his an absolute incapacity to
evaluate human beings according to station, rank or profession, or
any standard but that of spiritual worth. In all this he was a
complete contrast to Shakespeare. Each of the two men was like a
creature of a higher world, possessed of supernatural endowments.
Their omniscience of all things human, their insight into the
hiddenmost springs of men's actions appear miraculous. But
Shakespeare makes the impression of detachment from his works.
The works do not reveal the man; while in Tolstoy the greatness of
the man blends with the greatness of the genius. Tolstoy was no
mere oracle uttering profundities he wot not of. As the social,
religious and moral tracts that he wrote in the latter period of his
life are instinct with a literary beauty of which he never could
divest himself, and which gave an artistic value even to his
sermons, so his earlier novels show a profound concern for the
welfare of society, a broad, humanitarian spirit, a bigness of soul
that included prince and pauper alike.
Is this extravagant praise? Then let me echo William Dean
Howells: "I know very well that I do not speak of Tolstoy's books
in measured terms; I cannot."
The Russian writers so far considered have made valuable
contributions to the short story; but, with the exception of Pushkin,
whose reputation rests chiefly upon his poetry, their best work,
generally, was in the field of the long novel. It was the novel that
gave Russian literature its pre-eminence. It could not have been
otherwise, since Russia is young as a literary nation, and did not
come of age until the period at which the novel was almost the
only form of literature that counted. If, therefore, Russia was to
gain distinction in the world of letters, it could be only through the
novel. Of the measure of her success there is perhaps no better
testimony than the words of Matthew Arnold, a critic certainly not
given to overstatement. "The Russian novel," he wrote in 1887,
"has now the vogue, and deserves to have it… The Russian
novelist is master of a spell to which the secret of human nature—
both what is external and internal, gesture and manner no less than
thought and feeling—willingly make themselves known… In that
form of imaginative literature, which in our day is the most popular
and the most possible, the Russians at the present moment seem to
me to hold the field."
With the strict censorship imposed on Russian writers, many of
them who might perhaps have contented themselves with
expressing their opinions in essays, were driven to conceal their
meaning under the guise of satire or allegory; which gave rise to a
peculiar genre of literature, a sort of editorial or essay done into
fiction, in which the satirist Saltykov, a contemporary of Turgenev
and Dostoyevsky, who wrote under the pseudonym of Shchedrin,
achieved the greatest success and popularity.
It was not however, until the concluding quarter of the last century
that writers like Korolenko and Garshin arose, who devoted
themselves chiefly to the cultivation of the short story. With Anton
Chekhov the short story assumed a position of importance
alongside the larger works of the great Russian masters. Gorky and
Andreyev made the short story do the same service for the active
revolutionary period in the last decade of the nineteenth century
down to its temporary defeat in 1906 that Turgenev rendered in his
series of larger novels for the period of preparation. But very
different was the voice of Gorky, the man sprung from the people,
the embodiment of all the accumulated wrath and indignation of
centuries of social wrong and oppression, from the gentlemanly
tones of the cultured artist Turgenev. Like a mighty hammer his
blows fell upon the decaying fabric of the old society. His was no
longer a feeble, despairing protest. With the strength and
confidence of victory he made onslaught upon onslaught on the old
institutions until they shook and almost tumbled. And when
reaction celebrated its short-lived triumph and gloom settled again
upon his country and most of his co-fighters withdrew from the
battle in despair, some returning to the old-time Russian mood of
hopelessness, passivity and apathy, and some even backsliding into
wild orgies of literary debauchery, Gorky never wavered, never
lost his faith and hope, never for a moment was untrue to his
principles. Now, with the revolution victorious, he has come into
his right, one of the most respected, beloved and picturesque
figures in the Russian democracy.
Kuprin, the most facile and talented short-story writer next to
Chekhov, has, on the whole, kept well to the best literary traditions
of Russia, though he has frequently wandered off to extravagant
sex themes, for which he seems to display as great a fondness as
Artzybashev. Semyonov is a unique character in Russian literature,
a peasant who had scarcely mastered the most elementary
mechanics of writing when he penned his first story. But that story
pleased Tolstoy, who befriended and encouraged him. His tales
deal altogether with peasant life in country and city, and have a
lifelikeness, an artlessness, a simplicity striking even in a Russian
author.
There is a small group of writers detached from the main current
of Russian literature who worship at the shrine of beauty and
mysticism. Of these Sologub has attained the highest reputation.
Rich as Russia has become in the short story, Anton Chekhov still
stands out as the supreme master, one of the greatest short-story
writers of the world. He was born in Taganarok, in the Ukraine, in
1860, the son of a peasant serf who succeeded in buying his
freedom. Anton Chekhov studied medicine, but devoted himself
largely to writing, in which, he acknowledged, his scientific
training was of great service. Though he lived only forty-four
years, dying of tuberculosis in 1904, his collected works consist of
sixteen fair-sized volumes of short stories, and several dramas
besides. A few volumes of his works have already appeared in
English translation.
Critics, among them Tolstoy, have often compared Chekhov to
Maupassant. I find it hard to discover the resemblance. Maupassant
holds a supreme position as a short-story writer; so does Chekhov.
But there, it seems to me, the likeness ends.
The chill wind that blows from the atmosphere created by the
Frenchman's objective artistry is by the Russian commingled with
the warm breath of a great human sympathy. Maupassant never
tells where his sympathies lie, and you don't know; you only guess.
Chekhov does not tell you where his sympathies lie, either, but you
know all the same; you don't have to guess. And yet Chekhov is as
objective as Maupassant. In the chronicling of facts, conditions,
and situations, in the reproduction of characters, he is scrupulously
true, hard, and inexorable. But without obtruding his personality,
he somehow manages to let you know that he is always present,
always at hand. If you laugh, he is there to laugh with you; if you
cry, he is there to shed a tear with you; if you are horrified, he is
horrified, too. It is a subtle art by which he contrives to make one
feel the nearness of himself for all his objectiveness, so subtle that
it defies analysis. And yet it constitutes one of the great charms of
his tales.
Chekhov's works show an astounding resourcefulness and
versatility. There is no monotony, no repetition. Neither in incident
nor in character are any two stories alike. The range of Chekhov's
knowledge of men and things seems to be unlimited, and he is
extravagant in the use of it. Some great idea which many a writer
would consider sufficient to expand into a whole novel he disposes
of in a story of a few pages. Take, for example, Vanka, apparently but a mere episode in the childhood of a nine-year-old boy; while it
is really the tragedy of a whole life in its tempting glimpses into a
past environment and ominous forebodings of the future—all
contracted into the space of four or five pages. Chekhov is lavish
with his inventiveness. Apparently, it cost him no effort to invent.
I have used the word inventiveness for lack of a better name. It
expresses but lamely the peculiar faculty that distinguishes
Chekhov. Chekhov does not really invent. He reveals. He reveals
things that no author before him has revealed. It is as though he
possessed a special organ which enabled him to see, hear and feel
things of which we other mortals did not even dream the existence.
Yet when he lays them bare we know that they are not fictitious,
not invented, but as real as the ordinary familiar facts of life. This
faculty of his playing on all conceivable objects, all conceivable
emotions, no matter how microscopic, endows them with life and a
soul. By virtue of this power The Steppe, an uneventful record of peasants travelling day after day through flat, monotonous fields,
becomes instinct with dramatic interest, and its 125 pages seem all
too short. And by virtue of the same attribute we follow with
breathless suspense the minute description of the declining days of
a great scientist, who feels his physical and mental faculties
gradually ebbing away. A Tiresome Story, Chekhov calls it; and so it would be without the vitality conjured into it by the magic touch
of this strange genius.
Divination is perhaps a better term than invention. Chekhov
divines the most secret impulses of the soul, scents out what is
buried in the subconscious, and brings it up to the surface. Most
writers are specialists. They know certain strata of society, and
when they venture beyond, their step becomes uncertain.
Chekhov's material is only delimited by humanity. He is equally at
home everywhere. The peasant, the labourer, the merchant, the
priest, the professional man, the scholar, the military officer, and
the government functionary, Gentile or Jew, man, woman, or
child—Chekhov is intimate with all of them. His characters are
sharply defined individuals, not types. In almost all his stories,
however short, the men and women and children who play a part in
them come out as clear, distinct personalities. Ariadne is as vivid a
character as Lilly, the heroine of Sudermann's Song of Songs; yet Ariadne is but a single story in a volume of stories. Who that has read The Darling can ever forget her—the woman who had no
separate existence of her own, but thought the thoughts, felt the
feelings, and spoke the words of the men she loved? And when
there was no man to love any more, she was utterly crushed until
she found a child to take care of and to love; and then she sank her
personality in the boy as she had sunk it before in her husbands
and lover, became a mere reflection of him, and was happy again.
In the compilation of this volume I have been guided by the desire
to give the largest possible representation to the prominent authors
of the Russian short story, and to present specimens characteristic
of each. At the same time the element of interest has been kept in
mind; and in a few instances, as in the case of Korolenko, the
selection of the story was made with a view to its intrinsic merit
and striking qualities rather than as typifying the writer's art. It
was, of course, impossible in the space of one book to exhaust all
that is best. But to my knowledge, the present volume is the most
comprehensive anthology of the Russian short story in the English
language, and gives a fair notion of the achievement in that field.
All who enjoy good reading, I have no reason to doubt, will get
pleasure from it, and if, in addition, it will prove of assistance to
American students of Russian literature, I shall feel that the task
has been doubly worth the while.
Korolenko's Shades and Andreyev's Lazarus first appeared in Current Opinion, and Artzybashev's The Revolutionist in the Metropolitan Magazine. I take pleasure in thanking Mr. Edward J.
Wheeler, editor of Current Opinion, and Mr. Carl Hovey, editor of the Metropolitan Magazine, for permission to reprint them.
[Signature: Thomas Seltzer]
"Everything is subordinated to two main requirements—
humanitarian ideals and fidelity to life. This is the secret of the
marvellous simplicity of Russian literary art."—THOMAS
SELTZER.
BEST RUSSIAN SHORT STORIES
THE QUEEN OF SPADES
BY ALEXSANDR S. PUSHKIN
I
There was a card party at the rooms of Narumov of the Horse
Guards. The long winter night passed away imperceptibly, and it
was five o'clock in the morning before the company sat down to
supper. Those who had won, ate with a good appetite; the others
sat staring absently at their empty plates. When the champagne
appeared, however, the conversation became more animated, and
all took a part in it.
"And how did you fare, Surin?" asked the host.
"Oh, I lost, as usual. I must confess that I am unlucky: I play
mirandole, I always keep cool, I never allow anything to put me
out, and yet I always lose!"
"And you did not once allow yourself to be tempted to back the
red?… Your firmness astonishes me."
"But what do you think of Hermann?" said one of the guests,
pointing to a young Engineer: "he has never had a card in his hand
in his life, he has never in, his life laid a wager, and yet he sits here till five o'clock in the morning watching our play."
"Play interests me very much," said Hermann: "but I am not in the position to sacrifice the necessary in the hope of winning the
superfluous."
"Hermann is a German: he is economical—that is all!" observed
Tomsky. "But if there is one person that I cannot understand, it is my grandmother, the Countess Anna Fedotovna."
"How so?" inquired the guests.
"I cannot understand," continued Tomsky, "how it is that my grandmother does not punt."
"What is there remarkable about an old lady of eighty not
punting?" said Narumov.
"Then you do not know the reason why?"
"No, really; haven't the faintest idea."
"Oh! then listen. About sixty years ago, my grandmother