Further Foolishness | Page 7

power. All this appears in
Serge the Superman. It is the directest, tersest, crudest thing we have
ever seen. We showed the manuscript to a friend of ours, a critic, a man
who has a greater Command of the language of criticism than perhaps
any two men in New York to-day. He said at once, "This is big. It is a

big thing, done by a big man, a man with big ideas, writing at his very
biggest. The whole thing has a bigness about it that is--" and here he
paused and thought a moment and added--"big." After this he sat back
in his chair and said, "big, big, big," till we left him. We next showed
the story to an English critic and he said without hesitation, or with
very little, "This is really not half bad." Last of all we read the story
ourselves and we rose after its perusal--itself not an easy thing to
do--and said, "Wonderful but terrible." All through our (free) lunch that
day we shuddered.

CHAPTER I
As a child. Serge lived with his father--Ivan Ivanovitch --and his
mother--Katrina Katerinavitch. In the house, too were Nitska, the
serving maid. Itch, the serving man, and Yump, the cook, his wife.
The house stood on the borders of a Russian town. It was in the heart of
Russia. All about it was the great plain with the river running between
low banks and over it the dull sky.
Across the plain ran the post road, naked and bare. In the distance one
could see a moujik driving a three-horse tarantula, or perhaps Swill, the
swine-herd, herding the swine. Far away the road dipped over the
horizon and was lost.
"Where does it go to?" asked Serge. But no one could tell him.
In the winter there came the great snows and the river was frozen and
Serge could walk on it.
On such days Yob, the postman, would come to the door, stamping his
feet with the cold as he gave the letters to Itch.
"It is a cold day," Yob would say.
"It is God's will," said Itch. Then he would fetch a glass of Kwas
steaming hot from the great stove, built of wood, that stood in the
kitchen.

"Drink, little brother," he would say to Yob, and Yob would answer,
"Little Uncle, I drink your health," and he would go down the road
again, stamping his feet with the cold.
Then later the spring would come and all the plain was bright with
flowers and Serge could pick them. Then the rain came and Serge could
catch it in a cup. Then the summer came and the great heat and the
storms, and Serge could watch the lightning.
"What is lightning for?" he would ask of Yump, the cook, as she stood
kneading the mush, or dough, to make slab, or pancake, for the morrow.
Yump shook her knob, or head, with a look of perplexity on her big
mugg, or face.
"It is God's will," she said.
Thus Serge grew up a thoughtful child.
At times he would say to his mother, "Matrinska (little mother), why is
the sky blue?" And she couldn't tell him.
Or at times he would say to his father, "Boob (Russian for father), what
is three times six?" But his father didn't know.
Each year Serge grew.
Life began to perplex the boy. He couldn't understand it. No one could
tell him anything.
Sometimes he would talk with Itch, the serving man.
"Itch," he asked, "what is morality?" But Itch didn't know. In his simple
life he had never heard of it.
At times people came to the house--Snip, the schoolmaster, who could
read and write, and Cinch, the harness maker, who made harness.
Once there came Popoff, the inspector of police, in his blue coat with
fur on it. He stood in front of the fire writing down the names of all the

people in the house. And when he came to Itch, Serge noticed how Itch
trembled and cowered before Popoff, cringing as he brought a
three-legged stool and saying, "Sit near the fire, little father; it is cold."
Popoff laughed and said, "Cold as Siberia, is it not, little brother?"
Then he said, "Bare me your arm to the elbow, and let me see if our
mark is on it still." And Itch raised his sleeve to the elbow and Serge
saw that there was a mark upon it burnt deep and black.
"I thought so," said Popoff, and he laughed. But Yump, the cook, beat
the fire with a stick so that the sparks flew into Popoff's face. "You are
too near the fire, little inspector," she said. "It burns."
All that evening Itch sat in the corner of the kitchen, and Serge saw