Chapter XIII: Act I: Scene 2 (3)

Little linden trees,--that was something in the nature of a park; in the centre--a pond, and at the entrance--a bower of branches, unquestionably a marvel of perfection; it was so spacious that--just think of it--two hundred insects could enter it in a row. Hang me if I am telling an untruth! The architect of it--I will not conceal it--was Nature herself; only I do not know who paid her for the work; however, we are not concerned here about Nature. Lest the journalists should peck us to death, I will confess that it was hardly possible to describe the staircase under the yellow carpet of moss, which was worn through in spots; nor the gloomy antechamber, where the lackeys could remain from early morning without their boots, but not without their liveries; nor the parlour, where some mould, like stalactites, stuck to the cornices and was wound about with verdure. An acquaintance of mine, a Russian architect, saw in this parlour a bit of Etruscan art, and--I remember it well--he boasted, without blushing, that the idea had struck him in that parlour tastefully to adorn lordly rooms by covering the wall-paper with white mould.

However, the house of the sylphid, to be sternly critical about the style, resembled somewhat a hole in a tree. The grasshopper was so charmed, or his heart was so electrified, that he trembled and wasted away as he silently waited for the sylphid, while standing at the window and looking at the sights. The sylphid was flitting about with someone in the garden, and having a chat with pleasant guests. These guests were worms of various appellations, and they lay in the grass in the form of hooks. A black-skinned little bedbug, doubtless the porter’s son, or the nurse’s grand-child--a godchild of the gentlefolk--announced to the sylphid that a certain lank gentleman was waiting for her in the drawing-room.

My hero was called in. His bow was returned with a smile, and he heard the muttering: “Very, very happy!” The ladies examined his whole figure, and hardly could withhold their laughter: they only looked askance at the gentlemen. But the worms did not stir, for someone had so dreadfully narrowed down their brains that they need only look at the decoration on the ribbon or around the neck, in order not to pay any attention to the rest, and remain in haughty calm.

The artist’s calling familiarises the soul with all kinds of meetings; but my hero was not accustomed to the manners of the charming insects of the higher order. Living at a distance from the garden, poor, sickly, and pale, he wore from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet the imprint of the field upon him. There clouds alone raise their voice, and the harvest waves its ears, and the grain waits for the scythe.

I know, O grasshopper, how well you were received by the butterfly. You acted proudly, as if you had spent all your life in higher society, though from early childhood you had never travelled except in your own carriage. But tell me, what became of you on that evening, and what inexpressible feeling compressed your soul, and what thoughts ardently possessed your genial brow, as you departed from the park and took your fieldward way over the tufts? Will you say, or--shall we put down periods?

Departing day wept behind the mountain, and, shedding tears, cast a warm glow upon the edge of the meadow, from behind the dark grove. Night came in the track of day, and mingling lights were reflected and, quivering, wandered over her cheeks. Softly came out the lights, the heralds of the moon, lighting the tapers before the throne of God. Far and wide the sea of the tremulous harvest grew dark; the melancholy birch embraced the linden tree; the grove grew silent; only the oak whispered, and the woodpecker somewhere tapped his strong beak, and somewhere a rivulet lisped sadly,--only fateful passions were not asleep, and only the irrepressible world of insects vociferated without cessation in the sleepless silence. The flies hummed, the mosquitoes trumpeted; those whom the grasshopper led in the chorus merrily scraped their fiddles, evidently knowing their music even without candles. In front of the orchestra, he scraped his fiddle loudest of all, in honour of his queen. It was the marriage of the butterfly’s cousin, and the bridegroom was a fine fellow with a long mouthpiece; of course, he was not mentally quick, but he came from a family of select worms. According to the bride’s words, he was intolerable only because he indiscriminately compared the odour of old pines with the vernal fragrance of violets, and because he respected the brier and was afraid of jackdaws.

But what do we care for this nonsense? The ball was magnificent. The choirs bubbled over with sounds. Dozens of Spanish flies in golden liveries burnt incense in murky avenues. Glowworms, flaming up like fire-pots and rockets, gleamed up and down all the paths. The guests swarmed everywhere. The butterflies flitted in the moonshine in their ball dresses; darning-needles flashed through the air, holding on to darning-needles; the variegated whirl of the waltz spun around with a rustling sound; bugs circled around the serving table; small beetles crawled about, and the weighty persons of fashionable society, the ladybugs, were gathered together to show their newest dresses. Two beetles with big bellies on short legs silently approached two green flies. An ant, laced in a waistcoat of the latest fashion, solemnly and carelessly bent his knees, while dancing with a yellow ladybird. The lively sylphid flapped her little wings: her eyes, her nose, her little feet, the pattern of her dress,--everything in her involuntarily attracted attention.

My artistic grasshopper’s soul was aflame; he did not turn his eyes away from her and be played like a demon. At her own request he, his heart being unchangeable, composed this inspired dance, by whose music hop even to-day the myriads of insects on any flower-bed of your garden, if, O reader, the Creator has at all given you a garden, or, at least, a garden plot.

However, the ball of the insects did not pass without a scandal: they say, there was an evil spider in the park who, having drawn his threads from twig to twig, made such a devilishly clever and artistic, invisible net, that, maybe, he had a nice little snack in secret. They say also that a ladybird fell down and that from fright her corset gave way. The artist himself noticed a little spider--he looked so innocent--throwing something like a hook over the sylphid’s wing, and trying to draw her to him, in order to find somewhere in the charming garden a place where he could pass with her at least ten minutes in the cool shade, in silence, in comfort, away from the bustle. But the jealous artist understood his cunning, so he leaped up and tore the fateful threads.

The spider swelled with anger; and a mosquito buzzed to the artist: “See, how you have soiled yourself, as if you had been in an improper place.”

The grasshopper blushed, seeing the cobweb sticking to his sleeve. “What a beast!” he grumbled, and he wiped it off. The butterfly said not a word, and only chose another partner for the dance: the winged gentleman was her neighbour’s silly brother.

“Is it true,” he asked, “there is a rumour in the meadow, that you are dead in love with the maestro? They say that the grasshopper wants to marry you, and that he is suing for your hand?”

“Don’t say that!” said the sylphid. “My husband--a grasshopper! What an insult! Who has spread this gossip? Or have the flies concocted this stupid thing?”

“No, not the flies at all! Someone from the orchestra said that he heard it from the maestro.”

The fay controlled herself and did not show her anger and, flapping her wings, cast a cold glance upon the musician, and when all, to honour his talents, cried: “Bravo! Fora, fora!” she screwed up her face or smiled, with downcast eyes.

Aleksyéy Feofiláktovich Písemski. (1820-1881.)

Písemski was the son of poor gentlefolk in the Government of Kostromá,
where his father was an army officer. At fourteen years of age he
entered the Gymnasium, and there developed a taste for the theatre and
for writing; after graduation he studied mathematics at the Moscow
University, but he devoted much of his time to acting in amateur
theatricals and to public readings, becoming famous as a reader of
Gógol. He began his literary career in 1847 and produced a large
number of novels and dramas. In all these he evolved a cynical
pessimism of the extremest kind, and unmercifully and without reserve
laid bare the moral dirt and corruption that surrounded him. His
pictures from the life of the common people, as found in _The
Petersburgian_, _The Faun_, _Bitter Fate_, and _A Thousand Souls_, are
remarkably realistic, though harrowing in their nakedness. Having
incurred the enmity of the liberal writers of the sixties, who
suspected him of retrograde tendencies, he, in 1863, wrote his novel,
_Troubled Waters_, which roused a storm of indignation in the liberal
camp. By depicting only the underside, with all its nastiness, of the
movement of the sixties, he did great harm to progress in Russia.
After that greatest of his works, his genius began to decline, and he
died, amidst much mental and moral suffering, neglected and despised
by the literary coteries.

THE OLD PROPRIETRESS

The cabin which I entered was large and neat, the woodwork was planed, the stove white, the partition made of boards, the bench and shelves washed clean. In the front corner, under the ikons, stood a table, behind which sat an old man with a shaven beard, with two grey tufts of hair on his temples, with a clever expression on his face and, evidently, blind. He was dressed in a blue cloth coat of ancient cut, underneath which could be seen a laced shirt front and a striped cashmere vest, no doubt an ancient fashion, too. All that old costume of his was clean and, it seemed, preserved in spite of time. By his side sat a neat and trim-looking old woman, in a threadbare old hood and a chintz capote. At first glance I thought they were poor gentlefolk. Upon my entering, the old woman immediately rose and said something to the old man: he raised himself, and both bowed to me.

“Please, be seated, I shall find a place,” said I.

“Never mind, sir,” said the old woman with an affected voice, brushing aside her scanty possessions in a small bag.

“Be seated, please,” I repeated.

The old man heeded my words and, feeling the bench with the cautiousness of a blind person, seated himself, and, bending over his staff, fixed his dim eyes upon me. The old woman did not sit down but continued standing in a respectful attitude. I guessed they were not gentlefolk.

“Whither are you travelling, friends?” asked I.

“To the capital of the Government, dear sir,” answered the old man in a sad voice.

“The grandparents are seeing this lad off,--they are his grandparents,” hastened to add the hostess, who was placing a samovár on the table.

“The grandparents of this fellow?” said I.

“Yes, sir,” answered the old man with a deep sigh, and hung his grey head.

“What rank are you?”

“Burghers, your honour.”

“Burghers by birth?”

“By no means, sir; we were formerly manorial servants.”

“Not in this place ought a grandson of Yákov Ivánovich be,” interrupted the hostess: “I will say it in the presence of this old man,” she continued, “he was in his day a great gentleman, and full of mettle. Whenever he stopped off here, I had to bestir myself: it would not have done to offer him stale food or a dirty samovár.”

The old man smiled a bitter smile.

“We did not think, madam, that a child of our own could ever act thus,” said the old woman in her affected and somewhat lackadaisical voice.

“What ’s to be done, mother? What ’s to be done?” replied the hostess, also in a whining voice.

“He was left after my daughter,” proceeded the old woman. “He was our precious diamond; we thought he would be the consolation and joy in our loneliness and old age. We had him educated like a child of gentlefolk: we placed him in Moscow with what we thought to be nice merchant people.”

“What ’s to be done, what ’s to be done, mother!” again fell in the hostess.

“Well, did he dissipate?” asked I.

“God knows, sir, whether it was the merchant people did not treat him right, or he did not watch himself,” answered the old woman.

The old man smiled bitterly and interrupted his wife:

“He had not taken care of himself since his childhood, for he was born and brought up a spoilt child. Other clerks in his business send money home while they are still boys, but our lad kept on writing home for some: we sent him money, until we were ruined. Meanwhile we heard that he was getting into things that might bring him into jail. We wrote him to come home, and he turned up only after two years: he was barefoot and naked. We clothed him, hoping that he would mend under our eyes, but, instead, he began the very first week to take everything from the house to the inn.” With every new word there was heard more severity in his voice, and tears stood in the eyes of the old woman.

“Who were your masters?” asked I, in order to interrupt the conversation, which evidently gave them pain.

“Our mistress was Madam Court-intendant Pasmúrov,” reverently spoke the old man.

“Madam Court-intendant Pasmúrov,” repeated I, remembering that my mother used to tell about a Madam Court-intendant Pasmúrov, as in her day a great lady.

“Your mistress was quite a prominent and well-known woman in these parts?” said I.

At this question the face of the old man became quite serene.

“Our lady,” he began, speaking slowly and with emphasis, “was probably the first person in Russia. She was a woman by sex, but not one man could have stood out against her. As she said, so it was done. She was a woman of immense brains.”

“They say she lived well, in a lordly manner,” said I.

“Royally, or as would become the wife of a field-marshal. She did not visit her fellow landed proprietors the year round. There were forty rooms in the manor, and yet they were crowded on holidays. They would come down like the locusts with their nurses and their children,--everybody was welcome,” concluded the old man in a boastful tone.

I saw that I had before me one of those old servants of former lords, who had grown up and become old, on the one hand, in what was then regarded as modern fashions, and on the other, under the cane.

“You, no doubt, were a steward?” asked I.

“I was, sir,” answered he, compressing his eyes, as if to collect his thoughts, “I was, as we used to call it in those days, chief servant of the manor: for one thing, I had some twenty men and the musicians under my command, but especially the serving at the table. Our lady of blessed memory did not like things to be done half way: every day there was to be a parade! Another thing: her eyesight was weak, so I had to write letters at her dictation, and I had to attend courts in her behalf; I was well instructed and, though I did not know the law as I ought to, I knew how to get along with the officials. Up to the fiftieth year of my life, sir, I never wore anything but silk stockings and full dress of fine English cloth. God grant her the kingdom of heaven,--I enjoyed the favour of my lady.”

“Nowadays there are no such masters,” said I.

“By no means, sir, and there cannot be,--I have not the honour of knowing who you may be, for, being blind, I cannot see. There are no such masters now,” answered the old man, as if restraining himself from being open to me.

“I am a landed proprietor in this neighbourhood, and I should like to ask you about those masters of olden times.”

The old man sighed.

“I am seeing my ninety-seventh year in this world, sir, and I see a great change in everything: those old masters, I must say so, are in comparison with those of to-day like eagles before sparrows,” spoke he, significantly shaking his head.

“How so?” asked I.

The old man moved his hands in thoughts.

“The first thing,” he began, “they have somehow squandered their properties, and they have not the same spirit. Gentlemen nowadays behave differently, but then all was simple; there was plenty of everything: grain, cattle, their own winepress,--they prepared liqueurs by the barrel, and such meads and sweet drinks! They made merry and enjoyed themselves; for example, they would bring together a lot of male and female jesters on some holiday, and they would urge them on against each other: and they fought and amused the gentlefolk; but nowadays they keep little company with each other, and find more pleasure in books.”

Here the old man stopped, but he soon began anew with animation:

“There are not many gentlemen who now stay on their estates, unless they be old or sick, but all serve in some capacity; there are no longer great personages. Let us take, for instance, our lady, the Court-intendant,” he continued, almost with emotion, “how she was honoured in the Government! A new lieutenant, or, as you call him now, a new governor, is appointed: he is still in St. Petersburg, but she is already writing to her friends, the ministers and senators, that, inasmuch as a new governor is coming to us, ‘you tell him to know me, and I will know him.’ And the moment she receives the news that he has arrived, she immediately sends for me. I make my appearance, and bow. ‘Listen,’ says she, ‘Yákov Ivánov!’--she always spoke a little through her nose: ‘Listen! A new governor has arrived, so take the best tróyka,[16] drive to Kostromá, go to such and such a jeweller and purchase a silver basin; search out wherever you please the very best of sterlets, or, still better, a live sturgeon; go in my name to the governor, have yourself announced, and say this and that about your mistress, the Court-intendant, and that, on account of ill-health, she cannot come herself, so she congratulates him by proxy upon his arrival and, as a resident, sends him, as a greeting and instead of the bread and salt, fish in the basin.’ He receives it, I am given a fine treat, and he sends a letter to our mistress.”

“So the amity began,” remarked I, in imitation of the old man’s voice.

“That ’s it, amity, your word is correct!” he fell in: “because, when now his Excellency, the Chief of the Government, deigned to travel on inspections, he would visit us, and those were magnificent assemblies. From what I have seen and heard, governors nowadays travel with great pomp, and demand great receptions and respect, and there is a great fear, at least upon the small officials, but from what I know of the past, the governors of to-day are nothing in comparison with them.”

“How was it then?” asked I.

“Formerly, sir, the governor travelled over the Government like a king of the earth: what a lot of officials surrounded his person, and what a lot of gentlefolk joined him everywhere on his journey! There was one,--I dare not mention his name,--who was in the habit of travelling over the Government with his wife, and she,--pardon me for saying so,--on account of her feminine weakness, had a great love for dogs. There was a special carriage for these dogs; and a special officer had charge of them. He by accident lost one little dog; her Excellency the governor’s wife, in spite of her exalted position, boxed his ears in sight of all people, and he was discharged,--that ’s the kind of times that were then!”

“Those were good, simple times,” remarked I.

“It was simple, sir,” concluded Yákov Ivánov; then, having thought a moment, he continued: “It would happen, sir, that all that company stayed with us for three or four days, or a whole week, and if the governor chanced to praise some thing in our house, say a clock, a picture, a silver platter, I had a standing order to take that thing in the evening to his sleeping-room and to report that my lady was very happy that such and such a thing had pleased him, and that she begged him to accept it.”

“Did the old lady do it all from mere bravado?” asked I.

“Bravado there was,” answered Yákov Ivánov. “Of course, she had great vanity, but more than that, she drew great advantages from it. For instance, an estate was for sale by order of the chancery,--and my lady, relying on her amicable relations to the chiefs of the Government, had only to cast her eyes upon it, and it was ours. If I, the plenipotentiary of Mrs. Pasmúrov, appeared at the sales in the chancery, not a purchaser turned up: they knew full well that the Chief of the Government did not desire it. I thanked where thanks were needed, and in a befitting manner, and it was all right whatever was paid for the estate. The estate of Byelogrívy, sir, came in those days into our hands for one hundred and twenty roubles, and when I went down to take possession of it, I collected two hundred roubles of delinquent dues from the peasants, so you may figure out what the estate cost us.”

Saying this, the peasant evidently did not consider that he had said too much, and when I cried out almost involuntarily:

“Old man! but that is a sin, that is stealing,” he was taken back, and answered in an humbled voice and with a sigh:

“A sin, sir; in my wretchedness and blindness I see and feel it all; in the commandments of the Lord it is said: thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, nor his village, nor his manservant,--but our old lady had a desire for it all, though it must be said that all people are not without weaknesses.” He strongly accentuated the last word.

“I should say, he and his mistress knew their advantage!” suddenly fell in Gráchikha, who was busy at the stove: “you are telling of the estate, but you had better tell how you delivered a gentleman into the army as a recruit from your estate,” continued she, stepping out behind the partition and standing near the ovenbed, while she leaned with one arm on a beam and with the other against her fat side.

Yákov Ivánov frowned a little.

“How a gentleman?” asked I.

“They did,” answered Gráchikha. “Their mistress, the General’s wife, did not like to get her peasants under the red hat, because she needed them all; so there happened to turn up a poor gentleman: he was not a nice fellow to behold; he must have been maimed when he was young,--his head was so large and flat, and there was little sense in it, for he knew neither count, nor days, nor anything else, and yet he knew enough to live according to his estate. So these our falcons came to him and began to persuade him: ‘You,’ they said, ‘are a gentleman, and yet you live as a labourer among the peasants. You had better serve in the army; but as you know neither how to read, nor write, you will not be ranked as a gentleman, so you had better serve first for our estate, and later, when you will declare yourself a gentleman, you will be properly advanced.’ Having no kin with whom to take counsel, he foolishly drank their wine and ate their cates, and unthinkingly consented. The young gentleman was brought to the recruiting office, and was declared a common peasant. They called out: ‘Shave him!’ dressed him in soldier’s clothes, and ‘March!’ with the rest of the recruits. Three or four years later he announced to his superior: ‘I,’ says he, ‘am a gentleman!’ ‘What kind of a gentleman are you?’ says he, and he chaffed him a little, but he kept on repeating: ‘I am a gentleman, that ’s all,’ and he went to the higher authorities, and told them the same. They looked into the documents, and saw that he was a peasant, so they reported that way. So our gentleman had to give it up, and he served thirty-five years for their estate. They knew how to fix documents! It may be that for their trickery they are now paying with their own blood,” said Gráchikha half-loud, pointing with her eyes to Yákov Ivánovich, who, in his turn, had listened to her recital with bent head, and without saying a word.

I tried to change the subject, so I asked the old man:

“In whose hands is the estate of your mistress now? I saw it: it is dilapidated and neglected, and the house is in ruins.”

“Our estate is now held in trust,” answered he, evidently satisfied with the change. “Well, the guardians are strangers, and they either do not care to look after things, or they steal into their own pockets. Not only do they neglect the estate, but they do not keep the peasants in order. Drunkards and wasters are living without fear, and those who are better off now are frequently squeezed: ‘We will put your son,’ they say, ‘into the army, or we will take him to our own estate.’”

“And now, peasant, pay your ransom. In former days you used to make a great deal of money,” fell in Gráchikha.

Yákov Ivánov paid no attention to her words, and continued:

“And then the estate has no protection against the officials. In former days, when my mistress was alive, our manorial servants were, to tell the truth, a riotous lot. Not a church holiday passed without their riots, when they would smash whole fairs, but the authorities, considering who they were and to what lady they belonged, begged them with words to stop; but nowadays, our rural captain of police, an insignificant man, commands and punishes in our villages, just out of interest to that accursed one himself, in whose favour he is so biassed that he regards that day lost in which he has not had some advantage from his office. I once met him in town, and says I to him: ‘Why and for what cause do you, sir, so abuse the estate of my mistress?’ ‘Ah,’ says he, ‘worthy old man, where are we, the rural police, to have our sway, if not in the estates that are in trust? These are severe times, we are not permitted to take bribes, but what we can pocket in any other way is all right!’ and he laughed, sir!”

[16] Three-horse carriage.

Afanási Afanásevich Shenshín (Fet). (1820-1892.)

Shenshín is one of the most melodious of the minor poets. He was born
in the Government of Orél, and received his early education at home.
Upon entering the Moscow University he was confronted with certain
difficulties which compelled him to assume the name of Fet, after his
mother by her first marriage, which he retained through life as his
_nom de plume_. He then served in the army up to 1856, after which he
retired to his Orél estate. He began writing in 1840, and at first
distinguished himself as a translator from Goethe and Horace. His
original poems, of which there is a large number, are all short and
tunable lyrical outbursts, with rarely a title to know them by.

Two short poems, _A Russian Scene_ and _Tryst_, are given in John
Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_, reprinted in the Library of the
World’s Best Literature; and the four nameless ones, given below, by
I. H. Harrison in The Anglo-Russian Literary Society, No. 19.

When deeply musing in the silence of the night,
I see her, gentle Queen, above me shining clearly;
When all the constellations pour out their rays of light,
And Argo seems to dream, while twinkling, then I dearly
Long for the coming hour, when I again shall see
Thee near me, with a pain dull, dumb, and ever growing,
As, frightened by each sound, I trembling wait for thee.
Impatience gnaws my breast. Thou comest, slowly, showing
By stealthy pace thy love, bashful, with timid glance
Around thee, and I rush to see those clear eyes tell
Their secret, and I read love’s answer in their dance,
And hear thee softly whisper, smiling, “I love thee well!”
I strive in vain to utter the words which fill my heart;
All speech, by passion broken, ends but in sound unmeaning,
And as I panting kiss thy hair, and feel a part
Of thy breath mine becoming, I listen, o’er thee leaning,
For what thou ’lt say, but no, I listen long in vain,--
Without a word thy kisses freely respond to mine--
O sweet one, may the happiness I feel be always thine,
And mine lie in sure hope that we two meet again!

───────

Every feeling at night to me becomes clearer and deeper, Shapes that are born of our fears terrible grow in the dark-- Sounds I at once understand, e’en when o’er my book I sit musing, Motionless, lost in my thoughts, stung to the point of belief In impossible things, while that which seems strangest seems easy-- In through the windows the moon shines, and the lamp burns on Dimly beside the couch, and far in the distance a tolling Breaks through the silence at times, filling the room with its swell; Gladly I yield to the charm which ever hath set my heart beating, Moistening mine eyes with night’s dew, tears of its infinite joy-- Always I hear night’s song, but often the melody changes: Now ’t is the clang of brass, then ’t is of silver the ring. Strange ’t is that ears hear well when the mind is still working or vacant; Thought presses fast upon thought,--wave after wave in the sea,-- Night with a mystical strength embraces, and into one fuses, Feelings and objects around, all that we see, think, and hear; Thus on the two-headed poppies midnight sheddeth its moisture, Giving them power of sleep--none can that mystery tell!

───────

Stay here awhile,--’t is good!--Amid the shadows looming
Widely, with jagged edge, by moonlight from the pines--
Silence is over all! The sounds on hilltops booming
Have here no leave to bring of heart’s unrest the signs.

I will not go there where the stones, my faith deceiving,
Fall from beneath my heel, as the cliff’s edge I tread,
Sheer to the beach below; where the great waves are leaving,
And rushing on, the shore--the play of waters dread.

Thou, Silence, art alone before me, ’neath the quiet
Of the deep stars, thou empress of feeling and of thought--
But _there_ the rough wave comes, and brings its splashing riot--
I will not go there where all is with tumult fraught.

───────

Night, thou art so blest with odours sweet and strong,
Thou rousest idlest fancies in the mind!
All listen unto thee, and I cannot but long
To speak of what I in thy stillness find.

Thine azure vault spreads wide before my wondering eyes,
And all thy golden lights are burning bright;
It is as if thy stars were one great sun that tries
To cast its rays upon my garden’s site.

Even the moon, no longer swimming o’er tuft-crowned trees
With placid gaze, seems like thyself to burn,
Though all the while the brook glistens in plashing ease
Beneath the boughs which hide its every turn.

The feeblest noise resounds throughout thee like a blow;
Air whispers, like the strings of a guitar,
So tenderly to thee that all who hear him know
The call to love from lands both near and far.

All Nature seems aroused, in concert to cry out
In speech that will not let our fancies die;
We push the casement open to look on night without,
And trembling try to read the silvery sky.

--Transl. by I. H. Harrison, in The Anglo-Russian Literary
Society, No. 19.

TRYST

A whisper, a gentle sigh,
Trills of the nightingale;
The silver flash of the brook,
Asleep in the sleepy vale.
The shadows and shine of night--
Shadows in endless race;
The sweet of a magical change
Over a sweet young face.
The blush of a rose in a mist,
An amber gleam on the lawn;
A rush of kisses and tears--
And oh, “the Dawn! the Dawn!”

--From John Pollen’s _Rhymes from the Russian_.

Fédor Mikháylovich Dostoévski. (1821-1881.)

Dostoévski was the second of seven children of a poor army surgeon. He
was brought up at home, which consisted of but two living rooms, by
his father. At thirteen years of age he was sent to a boarding school,
and later to the School of Engineering in St. Petersburg from which he
graduated in 1843. He received a good appointment, but soon resigned
from it in order to devote himself to literature. His first novel,
_Poor People_, appeared in 1846, and was proclaimed as the work of a
“new Gógol.” In 1849 he was arrested for a supposed participation in a
conspiracy and was sentenced for four years to Siberian prisons, after
which he was to serve as a soldier in a Siberian regiment. His nerves,
which had never been strong, were completely shattered in his
imprisonment, and he at times had fits of epilepsy. He was permitted
to return to European Russia in 1859. Two years later he published
with his brother a periodical, _The Time_, in which appeared
simultaneously two of his great novels, _The Humiliated and the
Offended_, and _The Memoirs from the Dead House_. His best novel,
_Crime and Punishment_, came out a few years later. Only towards the
end of his life did his works and his literary labours furnish him
with a competency. Dostoévski’s writings lack the artistic perfection
of his great contemporaries, and almost entirely neglect the
description of Nature; but they are unsurpassed for the psychological
analysis of human character, especially of the diseased mind. It has
been pointed out by a medical authority that in his analysis of
pathological cases he has anticipated later scientific discoveries.

The following works have been translated into English: _Buried Alive;
or, Ten Years of Penal Servitude in Siberia_, translated by Marie von
Philo, London and New York, 1881; _Prison Life in Siberia_, translated
by H. S. Edwards, London, 1887; _Crime and Punishment_, London, 1885,
New York, 1886 and 1889 (4th ed. London, 1893); _Injury and Insult_,
translated by F. Whishaw, London, 1886; _Uncle’s Dream_, and _The
Permanent Husband_, London, 1888-9; _Friend of the Family_, and _The
Gambler_, London, 1887-9; _Poor Folk_ (Franklin Square Library, No.
594), New York, 1887, translated by L. Milman, Boston, and London,
1894; _The Idiot_, London, 1887-8; extracts from _Poor People_, and
_Crime and Punishment_, translated by I. Hapgood, in the Library of
the World’s Best Literature.

FROM “CRIME AND PUNISHMENT”

RASKÓLNIKOV’S CONFESSION

Raskólnikov again covered his face with his hands and dropped his head. He suddenly grew pale, rose from his chair, looked at Sónya, and, without uttering a word or being conscious of the act, seated himself on her bed.

To his sensations, that moment bore a dreadful resemblance to the one when he was standing back of the old woman and, having loosened the axe from the noose, was feeling that not another minute was to be lost.

“What is the matter with you?” asked Sónya, terrified.

He could not speak a word. It was not at all that way that he had intended to announce it to her, and he did not himself understand what was going on within him. She softly went up to him, sat down on the bed near him, and waited, without taking her eyes away from him. Her heart alternately beat strongly or stopped beating. It became unbearable. He turned his deathly pale face to her; his lips twitched impotently in a vain effort to say something. Terror passed through Sónya’s heart.

“What is the matter with you?” she repeated, moving a little away from him.

“Nothing, Sónya. Don’t get frightened. Nonsense! Really, when you come to think of it, it is nonsense,” he muttered like a delirious person who is not conscious of himself. “But why have I chosen you of all persons to torment?” he added suddenly, looking at her. “Really, why? I am continually asking myself this question, Sónya.”

It may be he had asked himself that question fifteen minutes before, but just then he had lost control of himself and hardly knew what he was about, feeling only an uninterrupted chill over his whole body.

“Oh, how you suffer!” she spoke with a painful expression, looking fixedly at him.

“It ’s all bosh!---- Say, Sónya” (he, for some reason, suddenly for a second or two smiled a pale and impotent smile), “do you remember what I had intended to tell you yesterday?”

Sónya was waiting restlessly.

“I told you, as I left you, that it was probably the last time I was bidding you good-bye, but that if I came back to-day, I would tell you--who killed Lizavéta.”

A tremor suddenly passed over her whole body.

“So, you see, I have come to tell you.”

“So you really did yesterday----” she whimpered with difficulty. “But how do you know?” she immediately asked, as if coming to.

Sónya began to breathe with difficulty. Her face grew paler and paler.

“I do know.”

She remained silent for a minute.

“Did they find him?” she asked him timidly.

“No, they did n’t.”

“How, then, do you know about it?” she again asked him barely audibly, after a minute’s silence.

He turned around to her and fixed his gaze at her. “Guess!” he muttered with the same convulsive and impotent smile as before.

Her whole body was shivering as if with cramps. “You--why do you--do you frighten me?” she spoke and smiled like a child.

“It must be, then, I am a great friend of his, since I know,” proceeded Raskólnikov, continuing uninterruptedly to look at her face, as though it was beyond him to take his eyes away from her. “He did not mean to--kill--that Lizavéta-- He--killed her by accident-- He wanted to kill the old woman--when she was alone--and he came-- And then Lizavéta entered-- He--then killed her too.”

Another terrible minute passed. They looked at each other.

“So you can’t guess?” he suddenly asked her, with a sensation as if he were falling down a belltower.

“N--no!” Sónya lisped almost inaudibly.

“Take a good look.”

When he said that, the former, familiar sensation suddenly iced his soul. He glanced at her, and immediately it appeared to him, he recognised Lizavéta in her face. He vividly remembered the expression of Lizavéta’s face as he approached her with the axe and she kept receding to the wall, with outstretched hand, and perfectly childish expression of fear in her face, precisely as little children do who, when they suddenly become frightened at something, immovably and restlessly look at the object of their fear, step back and begin to cry, while stretching out their little hands. Almost the same took place with Sónya. She looked at him for a while, just as powerless, with just the same expression of terror; then, suddenly, she stretched out her left hand, barely touched his breast with her fingers, and began to rise slowly from the bed, all the time removing farther away from him and ever more immovably fixing her eyes upon him.

Her terror was soon communicated to him, and he began to look at her, almost with the same childish smile.

“Have you guessed?” he whispered at last.

“Lord!” A terrible moan issued from her breast. She fell powerless on the bed, with her face on the pillows. But in a moment she was again on her feet, rapidly walked up to him, seized his two hands, and, pressing them hard with her thin fingers, as in a vise, again became motionless as if glued to the place, and stared at him. With this last, despairing glance she wanted to read some last hope in his face. But there was no hope; there was no suspicion left; it was all so! Even later, when she recalled that moment, she felt inexpressibly strange: how was it that she then saw at once that there was no doubt whatsoever left? For certainly she could not say that she had had a presentiment of that kind. But just then, when he had barely told her about it, it suddenly flashed upon her that she really had had some such presentiment.

“Stop, Sónya, stop! Do not torment me!” he begged her pitifully. He had had the intention of telling her about it in an entirely different manner, but it had turned out just that way.

She jumped up, as if beside herself, and, wringing her hands, stepped to the centre of the room; but she immediately returned and seated herself by his side, touching his shoulder with her own. Then she suddenly quivered, as if pierced by an arrow, cried out aloud, and, without knowing herself why, kneeled down before him.

“Oh, what have you done with yourself?” she cried in despair and, rising to her feet, embraced his neck and pressed it with all her might.

Raskólnikov reeled back and looked at her with a sad smile.

“You are a strange girl, Sónya! You embrace and kiss me, though I told you all about it. You are beside yourself.”

“No, there is not a more unfortunate man in the whole world than you are!” she called out, as if in a stupor, without hearing his remark, and suddenly bursting into tears, as if in hysterics.

A long unfamiliar feeling flooded his soul and at once softened it. He did not struggle against it: two tears rolled out of his eyes and hung upon his lashes.

“So you will not leave me, Sónya?” he spoke, looking almost hopefully at her.

“No, no! Never and nowhere!” Sónya cried out. “I will go with you, anywhere you want me to! O Lord! O miserable girl that I am. Oh, why, why did I not know you before? Why did you not come to see me before? O Lord!”

“You see, I have come now!”

“Now! Oh, what can now be done? Both of us, both of us!” she cried out as if oblivious and again embraced him. “I ’ll go to Siberia with you!”

Something touched him to the quick, and his former hateful and almost supercilious smile stood upon his lips.

“Sónya, as far as that is concerned, I may not yet be ready to go to Siberia,” he said.

Sónya cast a swift glance at him.

After her first impassioned and vexatious sympathy with the unfortunate man, the terrible idea of the murder struck her again forcibly. She heard the murderer in his changed tone of voice. She looked in wonderment at him. She knew nothing as yet, neither why, nor how, nor for what purpose. Now all these questions burst at once upon her consciousness. And again she could not believe: “He, he a murderer! But is that possible?”

“But what is that? Where am I?” she exclaimed in great perplexity as if still in a trance. “But how could you, you, take that step? How was it possible?”

“Why, to rob. Stop, Sónya!” he answered, as if exhausted and even as if annoyed.

Sónya stood for a moment, as if struck dumb, then she suddenly cried out:

“You had been hungry! You--to help your mother? Yes?”

“No, Sónya, no,” he muttered and turned away his drooping head, “I was not so hungry, I really wanted to help my mother, but--that is not quite correct either--do not torment me, Sónya!”

Sónya wrung her hands.

“But can all this be really true? Lord, is it true? Who would believe it?---- How can it be, you give away your last, and then you kill, in order to rob! Ah!” she suddenly cried out. “The money, the money that you had given Katerína Ivánovna--that money--Lord, can it be that money, too?”

“No, Sónya,” he speedily interrupted her, “not that money, calm yourself! That money mother sent me by a merchant, and I received it when I was sick, and that very day I gave it away. No, that was my money, my own money.”

Sónya listened to him perplexed and was invoking all her reasoning power in order to form a concept.

“That money--I really do not even know whether there was any money there,” he added softly and as if lost in meditation. “I did take off a purse, a full chamois purse, from her neck, but I did not open it to look into it; I suppose I did not have the time for it---- There were some other things, studs, chains, and I know not what,--I buried all that and the purse next morning under a rock in somebody’s yard, in the V. Prospect---- It ’s all there yet----”

Sónya was straining herself to hear.

“Then why did you do it? You said yourself, you did it to rob, and then you did not take anything?” she quickly asked him, trying to catch at a straw.

“I do not know--I have not yet made up my mind whether to take that money, or not,” he spoke, as if again lost in meditation, but suddenly regaining consciousness, his face was lit up by a swift, soft smile. “Oh, what a lot of bosh I have been just saying, eh?”

A thought flashed through Sónya’s mind: “Maybe he is insane!” but she immediately arrested her thought: “No, there is something else there.” She did not understand a thing, not a thing!

“Do you know, Sónya,” he suddenly said with a kind of inspiration, “do you know what I will tell you? If I had murdered them because I was hungry,” he continued, accentuating every word, and enigmatically, though sincerely, looking at her, “I would now be happy! You had better know that! What do you care, what do you care,” he cried out after a moment in a voice akin to despair, “what do you care for my confession, if I were to make it, that I have done wrong? What good could such a foolish victory of yours over me do you? O Sónya, did I now come to you for that?”

Sónya again wanted to say something, but she kept silent.

“That ’s why I wanted you last night to be with me, because you are the only one left to me.”

“Where did you want me to go to?” Sónya asked timidly.

“Not to steal, nor murder, don’t worry--not for that,” he smiled sarcastically. “I only now begin to understand what I called you for last night! Yesterday, I did not understand what I called you for. I called you for the same purpose for which I have come to see you now: not to leave me. You will not leave me, Sónya?”

She pressed his hand.

“Now, why did I tell her, why did I confess to her,” he cried out a minute later in despair, looking in endless torment at her. “You are waiting for an explanation from me, Sónya; you are sitting there and waiting, I see it; but what am I to tell you? You won’t understand a word of it; you will only suffer torment--for me! There, there you are weeping and again embracing me. Why are you embracing me? Is it because I did not bear it all myself, but came to put it on other shoulders, that by your suffering I may feel relieved? And you can love such a villain?”

“Are n’t you suffering yourself?” Sónya exclaimed.

The same feeling again flooded his soul, and again for a moment softened it.

“Sónya, my heart is bad. Take a note of that, for you will be able to explain much by it. I came because I am bad. There are some who would not have come. But I am a coward, a villain! Well, let it be! But that is not it!----I ought to talk now, and I do not know how to begin----”

He stopped and fell to musing.

“Bah, we don’t belong together!” he again exclaimed. “We are not a match for each other. Why, why did I come? I shall never forgive myself!”

“No, no! It is good that you have come!” exclaimed Sónya, “it is better that I should know, much better!”

He looked in pain at her.

“After all, why not?” he said, as if pondering over it. “It certainly happened that way! Listen: I wanted to be a Napoleon, that ’s why I murdered---- Well, do you understand now?”

“N--no!” Sónya muttered naïvely and timidly, “but just go on! I ’ll understand you, I ’ll make it out!” she begged him.

“You will understand? Very well, we shall see!”

He grew silent and pondered for a long while.

“It is like this: I once asked myself what would have happened if Napoleon had been in my place, and had had nothing with which to begin his career, neither Toulon, nor Egypt, nor crossing Mont-Blanc; if instead of all these beautiful and monumental things there would be nothing but a funny old woman, a registrar’s widow, whom, in addition, it would be necessary to kill in order to get the money out of her trunk (for the sake of a career, you understand!),--well, would he have made up his mind to do so, if there had been no other way? Would he have had scruples because it is far from being monumental, and--and because it is sinful? Well, I tell you, this ‘question’ tormented me for a dreadfully long time, so that I felt very much ashamed when at last I guessed (it came all of a sudden to me), that he not only would not have had any scruples, but that it would not even have occurred to him that it was not monumental--and that he would have been at a loss to see what he was to have any scruples about? And if no other road had been open to him, he would have choked her to death, without giving her a chance to cry out, and he would not even have brooded over it. Well, I--stopped brooding over it--killed her--following the example of my authority---- It was precisely that way! You think it is funny? Yes, Sónya, the funniest thing about all this is that it really happened that way----”

Sónya did not think it at all funny.

“You had better tell me straight, without examples,” she begged him more timidly and in a hardly audible voice.

He turned towards her, sadly looked at her, and took her hands.

“You are again right, Sónya. That is indeed nonsense, nothing but empty prattle! You see: you know that my mother hardly has a thing. My sister has somehow managed to get an education, and she is destined to wear her life away as a governess. All their hopes were centred in me. I studied, but was unable to support myself in the university, and was compelled to leave it for a time. Even as it was, I still might have hoped, if circumstances became favourable, in ten or twelve years to be a teacher or official, with a thousand roubles yearly salary.” He spoke as if he had learned it by heart. “In the meanwhile my mother would dry up from cares and grief, and I should not after all succeed in making her lot easier, while my sister--well, something worse could happen to her!---- What pleasure is there in passing all your life by things and avoiding them, in forgetting your mother, or, say, respectfully bearing the insult offered to your sister? What for? To bury them, to get a family of your own, wife and children, and then to leave these too without a penny? Well--well, so I decided to get hold of the old woman’s money, to use it for the first few years, by providing for myself in the university, without putting my mother to any trouble, and to use it also for the first steps after my university career. I had decided to do it all in a broad, radical manner, so as to provide abundantly for my new career, and to start on a new and independent road---- Of course, it is wrong for me to have killed that old woman--well, enough of it!”

He dragged out the story in complete exhaustion, and his head fell down on his breast.

“Oh, it is not that, not that,” Sónya exclaimed dejectedly, “how could one--no, not that way, not that way!”

“You see yourself that it is not so! Still I have told you the whole truth!”

“What truth is that! O Lord!”

“I have only killed a louse, Sónya, a useless, nasty, harmful louse.”

“You call a person a louse!”