Chapter I: Introduction

The genius of Turgeniev and Tolstoy, of Dostoevsky and Gorky, has given fame and distinction to the Russian novel, but while the principal works of these great writers and their fellows are well known to English readers, the women novelists of Russia have been left almost untouched by the translator. Yet there are many authoresses of talent in the literary world of Russia at the present day; notably Madame Dmitrieva, born 1859, of peasant parents. Her first novel was entitled _From the Heart not from the Head._ Two of her best-known books are _Mityukha, the Schoolmaster,_ and _In Various Directions._ She has said that "her first school was the village street, and her teachers, the grey old village folk and dire need."

Other writers of ability are Olga Chumina (born 1864), who has translated several poems by Francis Coppée, and also produced a play entitled _The Flicker that Went Out;_ Madame Smirnov, author of the powerful novel, _The Salt of the Earth;_ M. V. Krestovskaya (born 1862), whose stories of theatrical life have the charm of simplicity and truth, and whose _Woman-Artist_ appeared in the _Journal des Débats;_ Madame Verbitskaya, who attained an extraordinary popularity with her daring novel _The Keys of Happiness;_ and Madame Lidia Ivanovna Veselitskaya, who, under the pseudonym of V. Mikoulitch, has written sketches of Russian society which are full of humour and clever characterisation. The best known are the series entitled _Mimi's Marriage, Mimi_ (or Mimotchka) _at the Springs,_ and _Mimi Poisons Herself,_ which have been translated into no less than six European languages.

The writer of these genial satires on the weaknesses of her sex was born in 1857. She belonged to a noble family with estates in Southern Russia, and was educated at the Pavlovsk Institute, one of the great schools for women in Russia. Soon after her debut in society, she married an officer in the Russian army.

She began her literary career with some simple tales intended for young people; _Family Evenings, In the Family and in the School,_ and _Of Children's Reading,_ but in 1883 she struck a bolder note with _Mimotchka, the Bride,_ or _Mimi's Marriage,_ which made its first appearance in the _Vestnik Evropy,_ a leading Russian monthly review. But it was not until the second of the series, _Mimotchka at the Springs,_ was published seven years later that "V. Mikoulitch" sprang to her present position of widespread popularity. The witty superficiality of the chapters descriptive of Mimi's girlhood develops in _Mimi at the Springs_ into a brilliant, incisive study of a selfish, empty-headed, and exceedingly pretty young woman. The analysis of her character is so penetrating and pitiless that Tolstoy, who admired the book, remarked that "the author must be a man, as no woman would be so frank in writing of her own sex."

Mimi bears a surface resemblance to Anna Karenina, but she escapes the whirl-pool of passion that engulfed Tolstoy's ill-starred heroine, and glides almost unscathed through the romantic episode of _l'homme au chien._ The latter, though only lightly sketched in, is a cleverly suggested portrait of a cultivated and elegant Russian of the wealthy upper classes who, if he permits himself an occasional lapse from conjugal fidelity, trims the balance by the "correction" of his manners. He is a past master in the art of guiding a novice through the mazes of flirtation and emerging free from entanglement.

At the end of it all Mimi's heart is touched but not broken. Perhaps she Was even slightly disillusioned by the calmness with which her "correct" admirer met the crisis of her departure from the Caucasus.

The secondary characters are also well drawn; notably that of the mother of Mimi, a self-sacrificing "doormat" whose mission in life is to make things smooth for her cherished daughter; but to those who seek to discover the personality of an author through the medium of his puppets, and are ready to find a veiled autobiography in the career of the hero or heroine, it may be suggested that the character of Vava, the lonely, idealistic, day-dreaming cousin of Mimi, is far nearer to the writer's heart than the fascinating heroine who fills the title-role.

Vava has many traits in common with the boy-hero of Tolstoy's _Childhood,_ which is only another way of saying that in Russia young people of both sexes are more thoughtful, introspective, and inclined to philosophise upon abstract subjects than the romps and tomboys of our English nurseries and schoolrooms.

The sympathetic earnestness of the description of Vava's love of solitude in the Caucasian woods, amounts to an avowal that the author also has felt the joy of loneliness shared with crickets, lady-birds, butterflies, and bees, "while over her head a great eagle soars calmly up, as if carrying on his broad wings her dreams, her hopes, and her faith in God." In scenes like these the prevailing tone of playful irony yields to one of genuine emotion, and one is tempted to wish that the writer had given her inner convictions fuller play. V. Mikoulitch has, however, struck a deeper note of human feeling in her recent story of humble life entitled _The Bath--_ a village tragedy turning upon the incident of the theft of an old woman's petticoat in the public bath-house; but it seems doubtful whether her success in this new vein will equal that of her earlier works.

To the background of _Mimi at the Springs_ may be ascribed some measure of its popularity. The Caucasus has inspired many of the greatest of the writers of Russia, and to the Russian reading public it is still dear as the land of legend and romance.

Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy (in his early masterpiece _The Cossacks,_) have each revelled in the beauty of the great southern mountain range, with its luxuriant forests, its snow-clad peaks, and innumerable springs of mineral water.

The Slav temperament, with its swift transitions from feverish gaiety to nervous exhaustion, finds peculiar relief in reverting to the simple life of the Caucasian watering-places. There many a disgraced official or disappointed genius has regained contentment if not happiness, and realised, despite the pain of exile, that there is a sweetness in adversity.

In describing the scenery of the Caucasus, V. Mikoulitch has followed not unworthily in the steps of her great fore-runners, and shown that her cynicism is the mere protective armour of one who is at heart an idealist.

A sequel, _Mimi Poisons Herself,_ appeared in the _Vestnik Evropy_ in 1893, but was received more coldly than its predecessor, owing, perhaps, to the disappointment of readers with a taste for tragedy, since Mimi does not succeed in poisoning herself after all.