Essays on Russian Novelists | Page 6

in these two words. There is something in us,--an incapacity to give forth all that is in us. One might say, God has given us bow and arrow, but refused us the power to string the bow and send the arrow straight to its aim. I should like to discuss it with my father, but am afraid to touch a sore point. Instead of this, I will discuss it with my diary. Perhaps it will be just the thing to give it any value. Besides, what can be more natural than to write about what interests me? Everybody carries within him his tragedy. Mine is this same 'improductivite slave' of the Ploszowskis. Not long ago, when romanticism flourished in hearts and poetry, everybody carried his tragedy draped around him as a picturesque cloak; now it is carried still, but as a jagervest next to the skin. But with a diary it is different; with a diary one may be sincere. . . . To begin with, I note down that my religious belief I carried still intact with me from Metz did not withstand the study of natural philosophy. It does not follow that I am an atheist. Oh, no! this was good enough in former times, when he who did not believe in spirit, said to himself, 'Matter,' and that settled for him the question. Nowadays only provincial philosophers cling to that worn-out creed. Philosophy of our times does not pronounce upon the matter; to all such questions, it says, 'I do not know.' And that 'I do not know' sinks into and permeates the mind. Nowadays psychology occupies itself with close analysis and researches of spiritual manifestations; but when questioned upon the immortality of the soul it says the same, 'I do not know,' and truly it does not know, and it cannot know. And now it will be easier to describe the state of my mind. It all lies in these words: I do not know. In this--in the acknowledged impotence of the human mind--lies the tragedy. Not to mention the fact that humanity always has asked, and always will ask, for an answer, they are truly questions of more importance than anything else in the world. If there be something on the other side, and that something an eternal life, then misfortunes and losses on this side are, as nothing. 'I am content to die,' says Renan, 'but I should like to know whether death will be of any use to me.' And philosophy replies, 'I do not know.' And man beats against that blank wall, and like the bedridden sufferer fancies, if he could lie on this or on that side, he would feel easier. What is to be done?"*
*Translated by Iza Young.
Those last five words are often heard in Russian mouths. It is a favourite question. It is, indeed, the title of two Russian books.
The description of the Slavonic temperament given by Sienkiewicz tallies exactly with many prominent characters in Russian novels. Turgenev first completely realised it in "Rudin;" he afterwards made it equally clear in "Torrents of Spring," "Smoke," and other novels.* Raskolnikov, in Dostoevski's "Crime and Punishment," is another illustration; he wishes to be a Napoleon, and succeeds only in murdering two old women. Artsybashev, in his terrible novel, "Sanin," has given an admirable analysis of this great Russian type in the character of Jurii, who finally commits suicide simply because he cannot find a working theory of life. Writers so different as Tolstoi and Gorki have given plenty of good examples. Indeed, Gorki, in "Varenka Olessova," has put into the mouth of a sensible girl an excellent sketch of the national representative.
*Goncharov devoted a whole novel, "Oblomov," to the elaboration of this particular type.
"The Russian hero is always silly and stupid, he is always sick of something; always thinking of something that cannot be understood, and is himself so miserable, so m--i--serable! He will think, think, then talk, then he will go and make a declaration of love, and after that he thinks, and thinks again, till he marries. . . . And when he is married, he talks all sorts of nonsense to his wife, and then abandons her."
Turgenev's Bazarov and Artsybashev's Sanin indicate the ardent revolt against the national masculine temperament; like true Slavs, they go clear to the other extreme, and bring resolution to a reductio ad absurdum; for your true Russian knows no middle course, being entirely without the healthy moderation of the Anglo-Saxon. The great Turgenev realised his own likeness to Rudin. Mrs. Ritchie has given a very pleasant unconscious testimony to this fact.
"Just then my glance fell upon Turgenev leaning against the doorpost at the far end of the room, and as I looked, I was struck, being shortsighted, by a certain resemblance to my