Four Plays | Page 3

his were ever composed. Yet as a master of realistic technique he must not be compared with Ibsen, or even with many less noted men among modern dramatists. His plays have not the neat, concise construction that we prize to-day. Pages of dialogue sometimes serve no purpose except to make a trifle clearer the character of the actors, or perhaps slightly to heighten the impression of commonplace reality. Even in "Sin and Sorrow" and "A Prot��g��e" whole passages merely illustrate the background against which the plot is set rather than help forward the action itself. Many plays, such as "A Family Affair," end with relatively unimportant pieces of dialogue. Of others we are left to guess even the conclusion of the main action: will N��dya in "A Prot��g��e" submit to her degrading fate, or will she seek refuge in the pond?
Ostr��vsky rarely uses the drama to treat of great moral or social problems. He is not a revolutionary thinker or an opponent of existing society; his ideal, like that of his predecessor G��gol, is of honesty, kindliness, generosity, and loyalty in a broad, general way to the traditions of the past. He attacks serfdom not as an isolated leader of a forlorn hope, but as an adherent of a great party of moderate reformers.
Thus Ostr��vsky's strength lies in a sedate, rather commonplace realism. One of the most national of authors, he loses much in translation.[1] His style is racy, smacking of the street or the counting-house; he is one of the greatest masters of the Russian vernacular. To translate his Moscow slang into the equivalent dialect of New York would be merely to transfer Broadway associations to the Ily��nka. A translator can only strive to be colloquial and familiar, giving up the effort to render the varying atmosphere of the different plays. And Ostr��vsky's characters are as natural as his language. Pig-headed merchants; apprentices, knavish or honest as the case may be; young girls with a touch of poetry in their natures, who sober down into kindly housewives; tyrannical serf-owners and weak-willed sons of noble families: such is the material of which he builds his entertaining, wholesome, mildly thoughtful dramas. Men and women live and love, trade and cheat in Ostr��vsky as they do in the world around us. Now and then a murder or a suicide appears in his pages as it does in those of the daily papers, but hardly more frequently. In him we can study the life of Russia as he knew it, crude and coarse and at times cruel, yet full of homely virtue and aspiration. Of his complex panorama the present volume gives a brief glimpse.
[Footnote 1: Ostr��vsky, it may be remarked, has been singularly neglected by translators from the Russian. The only previous versions of complete plays in English known to the present writer are "The Storm." by Constance Garnett (London and Chicago, 1899, and since reprinted), and "Incompatibility of Temper" and "A Domestic Picture" (in "The Humour of Russia," by E.L. Voynich, London and New York, 1895).]

A PROT��G��E OF THE MISTRESS
SCENES FROM VILLAGE LIFE IN FOUR PICTURES
CHARACTERS
MADAM ULANB��KOV,[1] _an old woman of nearly sixty, tall, thin, with a large nose, and thick, black eyebrows; of an Eastern type of face, with a small mustache. She is powdered and rouged, and dressed richly in black. She is owner of two thousand serfs._
[Footnote 1: The name hints at a Circassian origin and a tyrannical disposition. Ostr��vsky frequently gives to the persons in his plays names that suggest their characteristics.]
LEON��D, _her son, eighteen years old, very handsome, resembling his mother slightly. Wears summer dress. Is studying in Petersburg._
VASIL��SA PEREGR��NOVNA, a toady of MADAM ULANB��KOV'S, _an old maid of forty. Scanty hair, parted slantingly, combed high, and held by a large comb. She is continually smiling with a wily expression, and she suffers from toothache; about her throat is a yellow shawl fastened by a brooch._
POT��PYCH, _the old steward. Tie and vest, white; coat black. Has an air of importance._
NAD��ZHDA[2] (called N��DYA), _seventeen years old, favorite prot��g��e of_ MADAM ULANB��KOV; _dressed like a young lady._
[Footnote 2: Hope.]
GAVR��LOVNA, _the housekeeper; an elderly woman, plump, with an open countenance._
GR��SHA, _a boy of nineteen, a favorite of the mistress, dandified in dress, wearing a watch with a gold chain. He is handsome, curly-headed, with a foolish expression._
NEGLIG��NTOV, _a clerk in a government office; a very disreputable young man._
L��ZA, _a housemaid, not bad-looking, but very stout and snub-nosed; in a white dress, of which the bodice is short and ill-fitting. About her neck is a little red kerchief; her hair is very much pomaded._
_A peasant girl, a footman, and a housemaid: mute personages._
_The action takes place in the springtime, at the suburban estate of_ MADAM ULANB��KOV

A PROT��G��E OF THE MISTRESS
I
_Part of a densely grown garden; on the right benches; at