Essays on Russian Novelists | Page 6

nervous patient when the physician tells him that his symptoms are
common enough, and that many others suffer from the same disease. . . .
I thought about that 'improductivite slave' all night. He had his wits
about him who summed the thing up 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