Part I

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THE METAPHYSICIAN

A father had heard that children were sent beyond the sea to study, and that those who had been abroad are invariably preferred to those who had never been there, and that such people are respected as being possessed of wisdom. Seeing this, he decided to send his son also beyond the sea, for he was rich and did not wish to fall behind the others.

His son learned something, but, being stupid, returned more stupid yet. He had fallen into the hands of scholastic prevaricators who more than once have deprived people of their senses by giving explanations of inexplicable things; they taught him no whit, and sent him home a fool for ever. Formerly he used to utter simply stupid things, but now he gave them a scientific turn. Formerly fools only could not understand him, but now even wise men could not grasp him: his home, the city, the whole world, was tired of his chattering.

Once, raving in a metaphysical meditation over an old proposition to find the first cause of all things,--while he was soaring in the clouds in thought,--he walked off the road and fell into a ditch. His father, who happened to be with him, hastened to bring a rope, in order to save the precious wisdom of his house. In the meantime his wise offspring sat in the ditch and meditated: “What can be the cause of my fall? The cause of my stumbling,” the wiseacre concluded, “is an earthquake. And the precipitous tendency towards the ditch may have been produced by an aërial pressure, and a coactive interrelation of the seven planets and the earth and ditch.”...

His father arrived with the rope: “Here,” he said, “is a rope for you! Take hold of it, and I will pull you out. Hold on to it and do not let it slip!” “No, don’t pull yet: tell me first what kind of a thing is a rope?”

His father was not a learned man, but he had his wits about him, so, leaving his foolish question alone, he said: “A rope is a thing with which to pull people out of ditches into which they have fallen.” “Why have they not invented a machine for that? A rope is too simple a thing.” “’T would take time for that,” his father replied, “whereas your salvation is now at hand.” “Time? What kind of a thing is time?” “Time is a thing that I am not going to waste with a fool. Stay there,” his father said, “until I shall return!”

How would it be if all the other verbose talkers were collected and put in the ditch to serve him as companions? Well, it would take a much larger ditch for that.

Yákov Borísovich Knyazhnín. (1742-1791.)

Knyazhnín was born in Pskov, where he received his early education; in St. Petersburg he acquired German, French and Italian, and began to write verses. He served in civil and military government offices. In 1769 he wrote his first tragedy, _Dido_, which attracted Catherine’s attention to him. He then married Sumarókov’s daughter and devoted himself more especially to literature. Knyazhnín wrote a number of tragedies and comedies: the subject of all of these is taken from Italian and French, thus his _Vadím of Nóvgorod_ is based on Metastasio’s _Clemenza di Tito_, and the original of _Odd People_ is Destouches’s _L’homme singulier_. The _Vadím of Nóvgorod_ had a peculiar history. Knyazhnín had great admiration for Catherine and her autocratic rule. In his _Vadím_ he tried to depict the struggle between republican Nóvgorod and the monarchic Rúrik, in which the latter comes out victorious, to the advantage of unruly Nóvgorod. He had written it in 1789, but did not stage it on account of the disturbed condition of Europe under the incipient French Revolution. Two years after his death, in 1793, Princess Dáshkov, the President of the Academy, inadvertently ordered it to be published. The book appeared most inopportunely, at the very time the Revolution had broken forth. The tendency of the tragedy was overlooked, and only the republican utterances of Vadím were taken notice of. The book was ordered to be burnt by the executioner, but as only a few copies could be found in the storeroom of the Academy, the rest having been sold in the meanwhile, they were privately destroyed.

VADÍM OF NÓVGOROD

## ACT I., SCENE 2. VADÍM, PRENÉST AND VÍGOR

_Vadím._ Could Rúrik so transform your spirit that you only weep where your duty is to strike?

_Prenést._ We burn to follow you, to be glorified for ever, to crush the haughty throne, to resuscitate our land; but though the zeal already burns within our hearts, it sees as yet no means of its fulfilment. Disdaining harsh and laborious days, if needs we must die, we are ready; but that our death be not in vain and could save our beloved land from evil, and that, intent to break the fetters, we tighten them not more in servitude,--we must expect the aid of the immortals, for the gods can give us a favourable opportunity.

_Vadím._ So we must depend alone upon the gods and ingloriously remain the slaves we are? The gods have given us the opportunity to wrest back freedom, and hearts to dare, and hands to strike! Their aid is within us: what else do you wish? Go, creep, await in vain their thunder, but I alone, boiling with anger, will move to die for you, for I can brook no master! O fate! For three years absent from my country, enticed by victory for its glory I left liberty and happiness within these walls against us erected, and have been hurling pride into the dust. I bear the fruit of my exploits a gift to my nation: but what do I see? Lords who have lost their liberty bent in loathsome slavery before the king, and kissing their yoke under the sceptre. Tell me, how could you, seeing your country’s fall, for a moment prolong your life in shame? And if you could not preserve your liberty,--how could you bear the light and want to live?

_Vígor._ As before, we burn with love for our fatherland!

_Vadím._ Prove it not with words, but with your blood! From your speech reject that sacred word. Or can slaves have a fatherland?

_Vígor._ Your spirit justly is with grief embittered, but in vain you, bedimmed by anger, accuse us, who are innocent, of such an evil crime. No sooner did you before the army bid our land good-bye, than many lords, seeing a means for evildoing, they, the mighty, let into the city, for the country’s doom, arrogance, envy, hatred, riot. The home of peace was transformed into a hell; the holy truth henceforth passed away; liberty, flurried, tottered to its fall; civil strife with brazen brow erected a house of death upon the bodies of its citizens. The people seeing itself a prey of hungry ravens fought with madness for the election of a tyrant. The whole Vólkhov boiled with reeking blood. Pitiful Nóvgorod, you saw no salvation! The venerable Gostomýsl, with grey hair adorned, had lost all his sons under these our walls, and, weeping not for them but the calamity of the citizens, was alone given to us a consolation by the immortals. He invited Rúrik to our aid, and with his sword returned happiness to us. Just then, worn out from years and woes, Gostomýsl ended his days, beaming with joy for having brought back peace to his country; but departing to the gods and honouring Rúrik’s heroism, he enjoined the nation to leave to him the power which had put a stop to its groans and sorrows. Our people, touched by so great deserts, placed the saviour over itself as ruler.

_Vadím._ Ruler! Rúrik! What nation has he saved? Having come to our aid, what has he done for us? He has paid a debt! However his benefactions may have seemed to you to deserve repayment, were you compelled to pay with your liberty, and make your enslavement a gift to merit? O low souls that fall down before fate and are inveigled by the stream of chance,--oh, if you had known how to respect yourselves! Blessed would Rúrik be, if he had been able, though clad in porphyry, to become equal to our citizens. Renowned by his high title among all kings, he would have been sufficiently rewarded by this distinction. Tell me: did Gostomýsl, aware of his heroic deeds, enjoin fetters to you, to end your woes, or was his will the freedom of the citizens? Or did he turn you over to him, like those beasts whom anyone who lists may bridle?

ODD PEOPLE

## ACT II., SCENE 2. MRS. INDOLENT, ÚLINKA, WEATHERVANE

_Weathervane._ Ma charmante Úlinka! Oh, how beautiful you are! Tous ces gens, how stupid, how dishonest, and they will not see in your eyes what I see.

_Úlinka._ And what do you see?

_Weathervane._ Friponne! As if you did not know yourself that it is not possible to hate you, that you are fairer than heaven! (_Úlinka courtesies._) You courtesy! How elegant! What a consolation to have such a daughter! (_To Mrs. Indolent._) Is it not so, Maman?

_Mrs. Indolent._ I must confess that her education is what her birth demands, and as she has all liberty in her movements, as behooves a daughter born of me, she is, sir, removed from all coarseness; and keeping herself aloof from everything, as our dignity demands, she knows neither how to sew nor weave, leaving such occupations to common people; she dances like a peacock, sings like a nightingale, and, knowing French like a Frenchwoman, she would like to forget her Russian; she retires at three o’clock, rises at twelve, and passes two hours at her toilet.

_Weathervane._ Bravo, madam! That’s the way it ought to be before the world and men,--ah, how do you call it? pour les gens du haut ton. You must pardon me a little, madam, if I too, duly cautious of my honour, regard our language to be nothing but a jargon, in which it is not possible properly to express your thoughts, and where you have to wear yourself out mercilessly in the attempt of finding your ideas. Only out of compulsion do I speak that language to my lackey, coachman and with all common people, where there is no need to exert yourself in thinking. But with our distinguished people it would be to appear a fool, not to speak French to them. Pray tell me, how could I fall in love? Je brûle, je languis! How could I express that in Russian to charming Úlinka: I faint, I burn,--fi donc! I must assume that you speak French, and so does your époux....

_Mrs. Indolent_ (_perplexed_). Of course, of course! Comment vous portez-vous?

_Weathervane._ Bravo, madam!

_Mrs. Indolent._ I am now a little out of practice, but formerly I never prattled in Russian.

_Weathervane._ You will hardly believe how poor I am in Russian! In Russian my intelligence is so narrow, so small! But in French: o, que le diable m’emporte! My intelligence at once walks in by the grande porte. I’ll tell you what once happened to me. I was once sitting with a young lady who did not know two words of French, and that caused ma tête horriblement to ache, so that I had to pass a whole day at home in undress.

_Mrs. Indolent._ I should not think the harm could be so great. The pain, no doubt, was caused through nagimation.

_Weathervane._ Imagination you meant to say?

_Mrs. Indolent._ That’s it. You see, though I am a little out of practice, I am still able to adorn our coarse tongue, which I despise, with French morsels. My époux has always seemed such an odd fellow to me because, though he knows French like a Frenchman, he does not care to amuse himself with that charming language.

_Weathervane._ That, madam, I cannot understand. A nobleman....

_Mrs. Indolent._ Oh! His race is as distinguished as the ace of trumps, and nobody can compare with him in antiquity of origin: he can recount his ancestors a thousand years back.

_Weathervane._ And so there is not the least obstacle, ma charmante Úlinka, for regarding you as my own! (_Úlinka makes a courtesy._) Everything is equal in us: the graces, and pleasures, and intelligence, je m’en flatte, and even our families. (_Úlinka courtesies._) How delicate your courtesying at the mention of family! Courtesying takes the place of redundant language, de discours frivoles, superfluous babbling. She knows how to say everything in a charming manner, and with modesty to express an immodest wish, who knows how to courtesy like Úlinka. (_Noticing Mrs. Indolent’s husband._) Please tell me who is that bear that is walking towards us?

_Mrs. Indolent._ My husband.

_Weathervane._ You are joking! Is it not rather his ancestor who a thousand years ago began his race?

_Mrs. Indolent._ The exterior, you know, does not tell much. In this world, sir, it is not rare for hidden nobility to deceive the eye: though the diamond does not shine in the dark, yet it is a diamond. He is, I assure you, a nobleman of ancient race, and, forgive me, a bit of a philosopher.

_Weathervane._ Is it not a shame to rank yourself with asses? Is it an occupation for a nobleman to philosophise?

_Mrs. Indolent_ (_to Úlinka_). Now, Úlinka, you cannot stay here; we have to talk with father about you. (_Úlinka courtesies. Exit._)

## SCENE 3. INDOLENT, MRS. INDOLENT, WEATHERVANE

_Mrs. Indolent_ (_aside_). O Heaven! Help me to end all successfully. I tremble, I am afraid my husband will give me away, for he cannot speak a word of French, and it is but recently that he was made a nobleman. How unfortunate I am! How am I to bear it all? (_To her husband._) You see here that distinguished cavalier who is doing us the extreme honour.

_Weathervane_ (_bending, greets him foppishly_). I wish to be a son-in-law....

_Indolent_ (_seating himself_). He who wants to sit down, let him sit down. I have no use for your manners, according to which one has to be urged to sit down. Well, distinguished cavalier ... (_Weathervane bows again foppishly_) please quit your monograms which you are making with your feet. By bowing in flourishes, between us be it said, you will find little favour with me. With all these goatlike leaps a person appears to me to be full of wind and without a soul. Sir, make a mental note of it, if you wish to be my son-in-law.

_Weathervane._ If I wish? O ciel! Those are tous mes vœux! Agnes Sorel was not so loved by the French king, as your daughter by me. Je jurerai toujours, I may say without making any court to her, she is a divinité!

_Indolent_ (_to his wife in amazement_). From where, dear wife, has God sent you such a cavalier?

_Weathervane._ Beaucoup d’honneur, monsieur! So I have found favour in your eyes? I knew I would. You will not find another one like me, monsieur!

_Indolent._ Mosyo, give me a chance to regain my senses! I beg you....

_Weathervane._ But you put me to shame: you flatter me by saying that you are stunned by me.

_Indolent._ Proceed, tormentor!

_Weathervane._ ’Tis true I have merite; without boasting, j’ose vous dire that; but I do not know whether it will cause any delire,--only the world says that it would take a pretty good man to beat me for talent; qu’un homme tel que moi....

_Indolent._ Don’t believe it, the world often rants.

_Weathervane._ Comment?

_Indolent._ Tell me, are you a Russian or a Frenchman?

_Weathervane._ Hélas! I am not a Frenchman!

_Indolent._ What makes you groan so?

_Weathervane_ (_sorrowfully_). I am a Russian, and that is a burden on my heart.

_Indolent._ And so you regard it an insult to be a Russian? A fine distinguished nobleman!

_Weathervane._ I am very, very glad, on ne peut plus, that I have pleased you, monsieur; que vous avez the same thoughts as I. How can we best prove our nobility? By not knowing Russian, despising all that is ours,--those are the veritable signs of our descent.

_Indolent._ Though I cannot understand everything you say, since I do not know any foreign words, yet by the marks....

_Weathervane._ Vous vous moquez, monsieur. You do know French.

_Indolent_ (_angrily_). No, no, no!

_Weathervane._ At your age, monsieur, it is not proper for you to deceive me. You speak French like a Frenchman, or like myself.

_Indolent_ (_impatiently_). Wife, assure him of it, and put a stop to this nonsense.

_Weathervane_ (_angrily_). Je ne le croirai point! How stubborn you are!

_Indolent_ (_excitedly_). The devil....

_Mrs. Indolent_ (_rapidly_). My darling, please do not get angry.

_Indolent_ (_excitedly_). Both of you go to! I have not seen the like of him in all my life.

_Mrs. Indolent._ You are a philosopher, and does Seneca, sir, teach you that?

_Indolent_ (_coolly_). I am ready to constrain myself, if only he will talk Russian with me.

_Weathervane._ What! you are of a very noble origin, and you are piqued?

_Indolent_ (_beside himself_). Who told you so? I am of burgher origin, but of a good family.

_Weathervane._ You, monsieur, have been a nobleman these thousand years.

_Indolent._ Believe me, I am a new-baked dumpling; but I am more juicy than those that have grown tough.

_Mrs. Indolent._ Stop that....

_Indolent._ That we may understand each other, I shall tell you plainly: my father, all remember that, was an honest smith.

_Weathervane._ Qu’entends-je! (_He walks away, singing a French song._)

_Indolent._ Good-bye!

_Mrs. Indolent_ (_fainting away_). I am undone! Oh, I am sick!

_Indolent._ What nonsense! To feel sick because I cannot speak French, and because my father is a smith! You ought not to have treated me that way, by lying about me. No, my Úlinka shall not marry him.

Princess Ekaterína Románovna Dáshkov. (1743-1810.)

Princess Dáshkov was educated in the house of her uncle, Vice-Chancellor Vorontsóv. She knew a number of foreign languages and took an interest in politics, rummaging through the documents in her uncle’s archives. She travelled much abroad, where she cultivated the acquaintance of Diderot and Voltaire; during a visit in England, when her son was graduating from the Edinburgh University, she met also Robertson and Adam Smith. Upon her return to Russia, Catherine II., partly from a sincere respect for her talents, and partly to reward her for her efforts in obtaining the throne for the Empress, made her the President of the Russian Academy which Princess Dáshkov had herself founded. Her labours for the Academy were both thorough and far-reaching. She encouraged young writers, sent men abroad to be educated, published the first dictionary of the Russian language, caused others to translate from foreign tongues, and herself translated, especially from English; she established several periodicals and did much for the advancement of science. In 1795, Princess Dáshkov incurred the Empress’s disfavour for permitting Knyazhnín’s drama, _Vadím of Nóvgorod_, to be published in the _Russian Theatre_ (see p. 308). Paul, who ascended the throne the next year, removed her from her post, but at the accession of Alexander I., the Academy unanimously voted to reinstate her as its President, but she declined the offer.

Her _Memoirs_ were originally written in French, but they first saw the light in English, under the title: _Memoirs of Princess Dashkaw, Written by Herself_, edited by Mrs. W. Bradford, London, 1840, 2 vols.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A RUSSIAN ACADEMY

One day, whilst I was walking with the Empress in the gardens of Tsárskoe Seló, our conversation turned on the beauty and richness of the Russian language, which led me to express a sort of surprise that her Majesty, who could well appreciate its value, and was herself an author, had never thought of establishing a Russian Academy.

I observed that nothing was wanting but rules, and a good dictionary, to render our language wholly independent of those foreign terms and phrases, so very inferior to our own in expression and energy, which had been so absurdly introduced into it.

“I really know not,” replied her Majesty, “how it happens that such an idea has not been already carried into effect; the usefulness of an establishment for the improvement of our own language has often occupied my thoughts, and I have even given directions about it.”

“That is very surprising, madam,” said I, “for surely nothing can well be easier than the execution of such a project. There is a great variety of models to be found, and you have only to make choice of the best.”

“Do you, Princess, I beg,” returned her Majesty, “give me a sketch of one.”

“It would be better, madam,” replied I, “were you to order one of your secretaries to present you with a plan of the French Academy, the Academy at Berlin, and a few others, with remarks on such particulars as might be better adapted to the genius and habits of your own people.”

“I entreat of you, I must beg to repeat it,” said the Empress, “that you will take upon yourself this trouble, for then I can confidently look forward, through your zeal and activity, to the accomplishment of an object which, with shame I confess it, has been too long delayed.”

“The trouble, madam,” I said, “will be very trifling, and I will obey you as expeditiously as possible; but I have not the books I wish to refer to at hand, and I must be allowed the liberty of again assuring your Majesty that any of the secretaries in the ante-chamber would execute the commission better than myself.”

Her Majesty, however, continuing to express herself of a different opinion, I found it useless to offer objections.

When I returned home in the evening, I set myself, therefore, to consider how I might best execute her orders, and before I went to bed I drew up a sort of plan, which I thought might furnish some ideas for the formation of the establishment in view, and sent it off to the Empress, more, indeed, for the purpose of complying with her wishes than from any serious thought of furnishing a design worthy of her choice and adoption. My astonishment may therefore be imagined, when I received back, from the hands of her Majesty, this imperfect outline of a scheme hastily conceived and informally drawn up, with all the ceremonial of an official instrument, confirmed by the sanction of her Imperial signature, and accompanied with an ukase which conferred on me the presidentship of the embryo academy. A copy of this ukase, I at the same time learned, had been transmitted to the Senate.

Though this had the air of the Empress’s being in earnest, and resolute in her intentions with regard to me, I nevertheless went to Tsárskoe Seló two days afterwards, still hoping to prevail on her Majesty to make choice of some other president. Finding my efforts unavailing, I told her Majesty that as Director of the Academy of Arts and Sciences I had already at my disposal sufficient funds for the maintenance of the new establishment, and that she need be at no other expense, at present, than the purchase of a house for it. These funds, I observed, in explanation, would arise out of the five thousand roubles which she gave annually, from her private purse, for translations of the classics. The Empress evinced her surprise and satisfaction, but expressed her hopes that the translations should be continued.

“Most assuredly, madam,” said I, “the translations shall be carried on, and I trust more extensively than hitherto, by the students of the Academy of Sciences, subject to the revision and correction of the professors; and thus the five thousand roubles, of which the directors have never rendered any account, and which, to judge from the very few translations that have appeared, they seem to have put into their own pockets, may now be turned to a very useful purpose. I will have the honour, madam,” added I, “of presenting you soon with an estimate of all the necessary expenses of the proposed establishment; and considering the sum I have stated as the extent of its means, we shall then see if anything remains for the less absolute requisites, such as medals and casts,--a few of which may be deemed, indeed, almost indispensable, in order to reward and distinguish the most deserving of its students.”

In the estimate, which I accordingly made, I fixed the salary of two secretaries at 900 roubles, and of two translators at 450 roubles each. It was necessary, also, to have a treasurer, and four persons, invalid soldiers, to heat the stove and take care of the house. These appointments together I estimated at 3300 roubles, which left the 1700 for fuel, paper and the occasional purchase of books, but no surplus whatever for casts and medals.

Her Majesty, who had been accustomed to a very different scale of expenditure, was, I think, more surprised than pleased at this estimate; but signified her desire to add whatever was wanted for the purposes not provided for in it, and this I fixed at 1250 roubles. The salary of the president, and contingent perquisites of office, were not usually forgotten in estimates of this nature, but in the present I had not assigned myself a single rouble; and thus was a most useful establishment, answering every object of its institution, founded and supported at no greater expense to her Majesty than the price of a few honorary badges.

To sum up all that may be said on the subject of the Russian Academy, I may be allowed to state the following particulars: viz., in the first place, that with three years’ arrears of her Majesty’s bounty, originally granted for the translation of the classics, which had not been paid to Mr. Domáshnev,--that is to say, with 15,000 roubles, in addition to what sums I could spare from the economic fund,--I built two houses in the court of the house given by the Empress for the Academy, which added a rent of 1950 roubles to its revenue; I furnished the house of the Academy, and by degrees purchased a very considerable library, having, in the meantime, lent my own for its use; I left 4900 roubles as a fund, placed in the Foundling Hospital; I began, finished and published a dictionary; and all this I had accomplished at the end of eleven years. I say nothing of the new building for the Academy, the elevation of which has been so much admired, executed, indeed, under my directions, but at the expense of the Crown, and therefore not to be enumerated among those labours which were more especially my own. Besides, had it been, strictly speaking, a work of mine, I could never have considered it as one of my labours; for with so decided a taste, or rather passion, as I had for architecture, such a work would have formed one of my highest gratifications.

I ought to observe, before I dismiss the subject, that many things occurred at Court relative to the concerns of my office both to vex and disgust me. The enlightened part of the public, indeed, rendered me more than justice in the tribute of praise they bestowed on my zeal and public-spiritedness, to which they were pleased to refer all the merit of the institution of a Russian Academy, as well as the astonishing rapidity with which the first dictionary of our native language was completed.

This latter work was the subject of a very clamorous criticism,

## particularly as to the method of its verbal arrangement, which was

not according to an alphabetical, but an etymological order. This was objected to, as rendering the dictionary confused, and ill adapted for popular use; an objection very loudly echoed by the courtiers as soon as it was known to have been made by the Empress, who asked me more than once why we had adopted so inconvenient an arrangement. It was, I informed her Majesty, no unusual one in the first dictionary of any language, on account of the greater facility it afforded in showing and even discovering the roots of words; but that the Academy would publish, in about three years, a second edition, arranged alphabetically, and much more perfect in every respect.

I know not how it was that the Empress, whose perception could embrace every object, even those the most profound, appeared not to comprehend me, but this I know, that I experienced in consequence much annoyance, and notwithstanding my repugnance to declare the opinion which her Majesty had pronounced against our dictionary, at a sitting of the Academy, I determined to bring forward the question again at our first meeting, without entering into some other matters connected with it for which I had often been made accountable.

All the members, as I expected, gave their judgment that it was impossible to arrange otherwise the first dictionary of our language, but that the second would be more complete, and disposed in alphabetical order.

I repeated to the Empress, the next time I saw her, the unanimous opinion of the academicians, and the reason for it. Her Majesty, however, continued to retain her own, and was, in fact, at that time much interested in a work dignified by the name of a dictionary, of which Mr. Pallas was the compiler. It was a sort of vocabulary, in nearly a hundred languages, some of which presented the reader with about a score of words only, such as _earth_, _air_, _water_, _father_, _mother_ and so forth. Its learned author, celebrated for the publication of his travels in Russia, and for his attainments in natural history, had dared to run up the expense of printing this work, called a dictionary, to flatter a little prejudice of her Majesty, to a sum exceeding 20,000 roubles, not to mention the very considerable cost it brought on the Cabinet in dispatching couriers into Siberia, Kamchatka and so forth, to pick up a few words in different languages, meagre and of little utility.

Paltry and imperfect as was this singular performance, it was extolled as an admirable dictionary, and was to me at that time an occasion of much disgust and vexation.

Semén Andréevich Poroshín. (1741-1769.)

Poroshín studied in the military school, where he distinguished himself for his knowledge of foreign languages and mathematics. Even as a student, he became a contributor to literary magazines. After leaving school, he was attached as adjutant to Peter III. From 1762 he was teacher of mathematics to Paul, whom he tried to impress with a sense of duty and love of country. In 1764 and 1765 he kept a diary of his relations to the young Grand Duke, hoping some day to use it as material for a history of his reign. In 1769 he died during an expedition against Turkey, being then commander of a regiment of infantry.

FROM HIS “DIARY”

_October 29, 1764._--Having dressed himself, his Highness sat down to study. Then he went incognito to his drawing-room to get a look at the Turkish ambassador, who was having an audience with his Excellency Nikíta Ivánovich. He was received in the same manner as the first time. But when I arrived, his Highness did not receive me so kindly as to make me satisfied with him. I do not wish now to enter into any especial discussion of the cause of it, but will only remark that his Highness is frequently greatly influenced by the remarks made in regard to absent persons which he happens to overhear. I have repeatedly noticed that if anything favourable or laudatory is said in his hearing of someone, his Highness later shows himself kindly disposed to him; if, on the contrary, something unfavourable and deprecatory is said of anyone, especially when the remark is not made directly to his Highness, but as if by accident, he, seeing him, appears to be cold to him.

We seated ourselves at the table. His Excellency Nikíta Ivánovich did not dine with us. Of outsiders there was only Count Alexander Sergyéich Stroganóv. I have suffered terrible anguish to-day at table. How could one help suffering, considering what had taken place? We were talking about Peter the Great. Someone, passing in silence all the great qualities of that monarch, deemed it proper to dwell only on the fact that the Tsar used often to get drunk, and that he beat his ministers with his cane. Another person, incautiously emulating this conversation, which ought in no way be tolerated in the presence of his Highness, added that when the Tsar was at one time beating with his cane one of his generals who was a German, the latter later repeated from the Bible: “The hand of the Lord was upon me, etc.” The first person continued, saying that history knew only of two royal wallopers, Peter I. and the late King of Prussia, the father of the present King. Later he began to praise Charles XII., the King of Sweden; I told him that Voltaire had written that Charles XII. deserved to be the first soldier in Peter the Great’s army. Upon this his Highness asked whether it was really so. The speaker answered his Highness that it was very likely written that way, but that it was nothing but mere flattery.

When I later spoke of the Emperor’s letters, which he had written from abroad to his ministers, and remarked that for the correct understanding of his time it was necessary to have these letters, and that I possessed many of them, and so forth, the first speaker did not deign to make any other remarks thereupon except that these letters were very funny because the Emperor often addressed them to “Min Her Admiral,” and signed them “Piter.” I found it difficult to dissemble my dissatisfaction, and to subdue my excitement.

I leave it to the whole intelligent and unbiassed world whether it is proper to let his Imperial Highness, the heir apparent of the Russian throne, and a great-grandchild of Emperor Peter the Great, to be a witness to such malicious remarks. Xenophon has represented in his Cyrus a perfect king, and his rule a beneficent rule, and an example for the emulation of the monarchs of future generations. Senseless historians in many points contradict Xenophon’s history, and try to point out the weaknesses of his hero. But clever and far-sighted men care very little whether Cyrus was really such as Xenophon has painted him, or otherwise, and extol the historian for having given us a perfect model for kings, and they adduce his wise rule as an example for them to follow. Thus, too, many other monarchs, whose great deeds history has preserved to our own days, are adduced as an example. Is it not necessary to present to his Highness the praiseworthy deeds of famous heroes, in order to rouse in him the desire and noble impulse of emulating them? That seems to be evident and incontrovertible. Now, whose deeds will awaken in him a greater attention, will produce a stronger effect upon him, and are more important for his knowledge, than the deeds of Emperor Peter the Great of blessed memory? They are esteemed great and glorious in the whole subsolar world, and are proclaimed with ecstasy by the lips of the sons of Russia. The Grand Duke, his Highness’s own grandchild, was born in the same nation, and by the decree of God will in time be the ruler of the same nation.

If there had never been on the Russian throne such an incomparable man as was his Highness’s great ancestor, it would be useful to invent him, for his Highness’s emulation. But we have such a famous hero,--and what happens? I do not mean to say that the Emperor Peter the Great was free from imperfections. Who of mortals is? As many great men as history knows have all been subject to certain weaknesses. But when they are used as examples, we must not sermonise about their vices, but about their virtues. Vices may either entirely be passed over in silence, or they may be mentioned, but only incidentally, with the remark that the ruler who is taken as a model tried his best to free himself from them and that he overcame them. And the very opposite has happened....

At table Prince Baryatínski remarked that during his stay in Sweden he had heard that all the wearing apparel, sword, boots and everything else that had belonged to King Charles XII. was preserved in the arsenal. I retorted that in our Museum are preserved the wearing apparel and other belongings of Peter the Great, but that we naturally had more reason to keep these things than the Swedes, because the one defended his country and brought it to a nourishing condition, while the other had brought his to such ruin that even to the present day it has not been resuscitated, and that, of course, not one intelligent Swede could mention the name of Charles XII. without disgust. Prince Sergyéich assented to this. Then the conversation turned to Keissler’s travels, and then to the academic translators Teplóv, Golubtsóv and Lébedev. I said that they knew and translated Russian well. The first speaker remarked to that: “And yet they all died the same death, namely, from drinking.” Thereupon the Grand Duke turned to me and said: “Now, you hear that yourself. I suppose that is not a lie?” I answered that I did not know them intimately, that I was not acquainted with the manner of their demise, and that equally I did not know where that gentleman got his information.

_February 28, 1765._--His Highness arose at eight o’clock. After having dressed himself, he sat down to his customary studies. After his lesson he looked with me carefully at the road map to Moscow, and recollected where and how we passed the time on our last journey thither. I read to his Highness Vertot’s _History of the Order of Maltese Knights_. Then he amused himself with his toys, and, attaching to his cavalry the flag of the admiralty, imagined himself a Maltese Knight. At ten o’clock we sat down to breakfast. We spoke of Moscow and dramatic performances. We were about to rise from table, when someone, I do not remember who, asked for butter and cheese. The Grand Duke became angry at the butler and said: “Why did you not put it on the table before?” and then turning to us: “They simply steal the things for themselves!” We all armed ourselves against the Grand Duke and told him in French how bad it was to insult in this way a man of whom he could not know whether he was guilty or not.

When we left the table, this sermon was continued. Mr. Osterwald and I told his Highness in strong terms how bad his action was, and how easily he could cause those people to hate him. Then our conversation turned to the labours that an Emperor must undertake. His Highness remarked among other things: “But an Emperor cannot work all the time! He needs also some rest, and his amusements.” To this I retorted to the Grand Duke: “No one demands that an Emperor should never have any rest, for that is above human strength, and an Emperor is just such a man as anybody else; only he has been exalted to his position by God for his nation, and not for himself; that, consequently, he must use all his endeavour in the welfare and advancement of his nation; that his amusements and pleasures ought to consist in his knowledge and vivid representation of the great mass of his subjects who through his labours and cares enjoy well-being and numberless advantages, and of the flourishing condition of his country as the result of his work, and how his name will in just glory redound to the future generations.” These are the exact words which I spoke to his Highness. He listened to them very attentively.

_September 20, 1765._--The birthday of his Imperial Highness; he is eleven years old. His Highness arose a little after seven.... I was not yet all dressed, when he appeared in my room, took me by my hand and began to walk around with me. I congratulated the Tsarévich upon his birthday, and explained to him my wishes in regard to him, which were similar to those of all the faithful sons of the country. Having dressed himself, he went into the yellow room. His Reverence, Father Platón, addressed to the Tsarévich a short congratulation, in which he presented very strongly and wittily our wishes and hopes in the progress of his Highness’s studies. Then his Highness went into the interior apartments to the Empress, and from there with her Highness to church. At the end of the liturgy, Father Platón spoke a sermon on the theme: “Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer” (Luke xxi. 14). The whole sermon was beautiful. But especially the final address to her Highness and the Grand Duke visibly moved the hearts of all. Many eyes were seen in tears.... The Empress went from church to her inner apartments, and his Highness followed her. As we were there admitted to kiss her hand, she said among other things: “Father Platón does with us what he wants. If he wants us to weep, we weep; if he wants us to laugh, we laugh.”

The Satirical Journals (1769-1774), and Nikoláy Ivánovich Nóvikov. (1744-1818.)

The first attempt at a periodical was made as early as the year 1728, when literary essays were regularly added to the news of the day in the _St. Petersburg Gazette_, but the first literary journal was established in 1759 by Sumarókov under the name of _The Industrious Bee_. The example of Russia’s first littérateur was at once imitated by a number of private individuals, and magazines became common, though their life was nearly always very short. In 1769 there was issued by Grigóri Kozítski, under Catherine’s supervision, the first satirical journal, under the name of _All Kinds of Things_. During the time of reforms, satire appears as a natural weapon of attack against the old order of things, and there was, therefore, nothing unusual in the popularity which this and the following satirical journals attained. There is, however, also another reason for their appearance. The English _Spectator_, _Tatler_ and _Rambler_ were at that time well known in Russia, and the literary part of the _St. Petersburg Gazette_ brought out a large number of translations from these English journals. _All Kinds of Things_ shows plainly the influence of Addison in the tone of playful censure which was to Catherine’s liking and which it cultivated.

Of the several satirical periodicals that followed, the _Hell’s Post; or, Correspondence between the Lame and the Halt Devils_, by F. Émin, and the famous _Drone_, by N. I. Nóvikov, may be mentioned. The name of the latter is evidently chosen in contradistinction to Sumarókov’s _Industrious Bee_, and its editor, of whose imposing personality we shall speak later, belonged to that enlightened class of men who were in sympathy with the most advanced reforms, but had no love for the flimsy Voltairism which pervaded Russian society, and, like the Slavophile Shcherbátov (see p. 287), thought he discerned some stern virtues in the generations preceding the reforms of Peter the Great. He therefore set out to scourge vice wherever he found it. The satirical journals were divided into two camps: some clung to the mild and harmless satire of _All Kinds of Things_, the others took the _Drone_ for their model. When the collaboration of Catherine in the first became known, Nóvikov found it necessary to desist from his attacks, to avoid the displeasure of the Empress, and soon his journal stopped entirely. He later edited for a short time the _Painter_ and the _Purse_, but in 1774 all satirical journals ceased to exist. The most important of these journals has been the _Painter_, from which a generation of writers drew subjects for their satire or comedy.

Nóvikov’s early education was received at the Gymnasium connected with the Moscow University; he was excluded from it in 1760 for laziness and insufficient progress. He soon drifted into literature, and directed his attention to the dissemination of useful knowledge among the people. He developed a prodigious activity from 1772 to 1778, publishing a large number of chronicles and documents dealing with Russian antiquity. In 1779 he rented the University press for ten years, published in three years more books than had been issued by that institution in the preceding twenty-four years of its existence, opened bookstores all over Russia and encouraged and protected a whole generation of young writers. He was a zealous Mason, and in that capacity practised a most generous philanthropy by using the very great income from his venture for the establishment of charities and schools. Catherine was never favourable to the Masons and other mystics who had got a firm foothold in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and when the French Revolution had broken out, she suspected such men as Radíshchev (see p. 361) and Nóvikov of belonging to a secret society whose object was the overturning of the existing order of things. At first she ordered the metropolitan Platón to examine into the soundness of Nóvikov’s religious views, but the enlightened prelate reported: “I implore the all-merciful God that not only in the flock which has been entrusted by God and you to me, but in the whole world there should be such good Christians as Nóvikov.” Nevertheless, Catherine later found an excuse for seizing Nóvikov and imprisoning him in the fortress of Schlüsselburg, from which he was released by Emperor Paul, who is said with tears in his eyes and upon his knees to have begged Nóvikov’s forgiveness for his mother’s cruelty to him. He passed the rest of his days in his estate of Tikhvín.

FROM “ALL KINDS OF THINGS”

I lately went to dine in a Moscow suburb with a friend of mine. To my great displeasure I found the house in great sorrow because his wife had had a bad dream which threatened some danger to him, her and their children. We seated ourselves at the table. Their youngest boy, who was sitting at the end of the table, began to cry: “Mamma, I shall begin my problems on Monday.” “On Monday!” exclaimed his mother: “The Lord preserve us! Nobody begins anything new on Monday. Tell the deacon to begin on Tuesday.” The lady of the house asked me to pass her the salt. I hastened to do her the favour, but, being timid and overzealous, I dropped the salt-cellar in passing it. She trembled when she saw the mishap, and immediately remarked that the salt was spilled in her direction. Collecting herself again, she sighed and said to her husband: “My darling, misfortune never comes single. You will remember that the dove-cot broke down the same day our servant girl spilled the salt on the table.” “Yes, I remember,” said her husband, “and next day we received the news of the battle of Zorndorf.” I managed to finish my dinner, though with a heavy heart. The dinner being over, I accidentally placed my knife and fork crosswise on my plate. The hostess asked me to put them together. I soon learned from the lady’s behaviour that she looked upon me as an odd fellow and foreboder of misfortunes.

Gentlemen:--He who writes _All Kinds of Things_ ought not to disdain anything. In this hope I, though a common labourer, take up the pen without hesitation, thinking that you might find something of interest in what I write. I have no intricate style, but write simply, just as I think.

I am a silversmith. Though I was not born here, I love Russia. I am not the only German whom it supports. The Lord may grant all to feel as gratefully to Russia, but people feel differently about that. I work for many people, among them for a French teacher. You know there are bushels of them in Moscow. The one I am telling you about came to his profession in a strange manner. He was originally a shoemaker. Suddenly he was seized by the spirit of heroism, or, to tell the truth, indolence and starvation compelled him to enlist as a soldier. After the battle of Rossbach, he fled in company with many others. He worked in many capacities, wandering about from place to place, and finally reached Russia, where he developed the proper qualifications for a coachman. But he soon grew tired of sitting on the coachman’s seat, and had a strong desire of getting inside the carriage. He found no easier way of accomplishing his ambition than by becoming a teacher, emulating in this the example of many of his countrymen who, some from the box, like him, others from the footman’s stand, have found their way into the carriage. And he succeeded. Thus a lazy shoemaker, runaway soldier and bad coachman was turned into a first-class teacher. At least he appears to me to be good because he pays promptly for my work and does not feed me, as other gentlemen do, with to-morrows.

SOUND REASONING ADORNS A MAN

My teacher made me once a present of a doll on my name-day, accompanying it with the following noteworthy words: “Every brainless man is a doll.” I asked him whom he meant by the word “brainless,” and he answered: “Him who obeys more his will than established rules.” I wanted to know why. He said: “Will without rule is licence, and licence is injurious to oneself and his neighbour, whereas rules have been established in life in order to curb harmful lusts.” I sighed and said: “Oh, I see, then our neighbour committed an act of licence, and did not obey the established rules, when he took away our meadows so that our cattle are starving.” “Our neighbour,” he answered with a smile, “has his own rules. He belongs to the class of people who say every morning: ‘Lord, I am in need of everything, but my neighbour is in need of nothing.’”

We paid such a high salary to this teacher that my step-mother found it necessary to dismiss him, in order to add one hundred roubles to the cook’s wages, and another cheaper teacher was hired for me. He belonged to the class of people who write in their will that they are to be buried without being washed. His affection for his ungrateful country was so strong that he always had the name of Paris in his mouth, in spite of the fact that he had been driven out of his country with the coat of arms of a full-blown lily imprinted on his back.[144] He knew by heart the names of all the streets of Paris, and the external walls of all the prominent buildings of that city were familiar to him, but he had never had the courage to enter them. He was so adorned with wisdom that he knew everything without having studied anything. He had an absolute contempt for everything that did not transpire in France. For other things he had no mind, for frequently, in a fit of abstraction, he put other people’s property into his pockets, the result of which was a certain misunderstanding, as he called it, between him and the police. The police proved that he had stolen, but he affirmed the word “steal” was the invention of crass ignorance, and that an honest man must defend his honour from the police by means of the rapier. So he invited the commissary of police to fight a duel with him. The latter not being as good a talker as he was wont to stick to incontrovertible proofs, ordered my mentor to be cast into prison. My mother was quite put out about him, for she said she did not know where to get another cheap teacher like him. However, there arrived at that time some guests at our house who assured her that that very day there had arrived in Moscow the coachman of the French ambassador, with his scullion, hair-dresser, courier and lackey, who did not wish to return with him, and that for the common good of the people of Moscow they had the intention of imparting their arts to those who wanted to be instructed for a reasonable consideration, though somewhat higher than the price they had received in the stable, kitchen, kennel, or for blackening shoes and making wigs.

I once went to see my friend and, as he was not at home, went to his wife’s apartments. She had stepped down into the nursery. As I am quite at home there, I went down into the nursery myself and found her surrounded by her four children. The smallest boy started crying; to pacify him, his mother made him beat the nurse with a handkerchief. She pretended she was crying, while the mother kept on repeating: “Beat her, my darling, beat well the stupid nurse! She had no business annoying baby.” The child was trying to strike the nurse hard; and the harder he struck her, she feigned weeping harder, whereat the child smiled. A little while later, another child fell down. The mother told it to spit on the floor and to kick the place where it had stumbled. When I remarked that it was not good education to allow the child to do that, she answered me: “My friend, you are always philosophising. As if we had not been brought up in the same way! Why should it be different with these babies?” Then I heard the whining of a dog. I looked around and saw a third child pinching a pup, while another child was frightening a canary bird by striking with his hands against the cage: the poor little bird flitted about distressed from one corner to another. I lost my patience, and told their mother: “You are making tyrants of these children, if you do not teach them to respect man and beast. I’ll tell your husband so!” and I slammed the door as I went out.

FROM THE “DRONE”

RECIPE FOR HIS EXCELLENCY, MR. LACKSENSE

This nobleman suffers from a quotidian fever of boasting of his family. He traces his family tree to the beginning of the universe, and hates all those who cannot prove their aristocratic blood at least five hundred years back, and loathes to speak with those whose nobility is only a hundred years old or less. He shakes with fever the moment somebody mentions burghers or peasants in his presence. In opposition to the modern current appellation, he does not even honour them with the name “low-born,” but in the fifty years of his fruitless life he has not yet been able to find a proper term for them. He does not travel to church nor in the streets, for fear of a dead faint which would unavoidably fall upon him the moment he met an ignoble man. Our patient complains hourly against fate for having destined him to share the same air, sun and moon with the common people. He wishes there were no other beings on the whole globe but aristocrats, and that the common people should all be annihilated. He had repeatedly handed in projects to that effect, and they had been highly praised for the good and novel ideas contained therein, though many rejected them, because the inventor demanded three million roubles in advance in order to execute his plans.

Our aristocrat hates and loathes all the sciences and arts, and regards them as a disgrace for any noble gentleman. In his opinion a blueblood can know everything without having learned it; but philosophy, mathematics, physics and all the other sciences are trifles that are below a nobleman’s attention. Books of heraldry and letters patent that have just escaped the dust-pile and mould are the only books which he continually reads by spelling out. Alexandrian sheets, on which the names of his ancestors are written in circles, are the only pictures with which his house is adorned. But to be short; the trees by which he illustrates the descent of his family have many a dry limb, but there is no more rotten twig upon them than he himself is, and in all his family coats of arms there is not such a beast as is his Excellency. However, Mr. Lacksense thinks differently of himself, and worships himself as a great man in mind, and as a small god in his nobility. To make the whole world believe the same way, he tries to differ from all others, not by useful and glorious deeds, but by magnificent houses, carriages and liveries, though he spends on his foolishness all his income that ought to support him ten years hence.

_Recipe, to cure Mr. Lacksense of his fever._--It is necessary to inoculate the sick man with a good dose of common sense and philanthropy, in order to kill in him his empty superciliousness and the lofty contempt for other people. Noble descent is, indeed, a great privilege, but it will always be dishonoured if it is not fortified by personal worth and noble services to your country. Meseems it is more laudable to be a poor yeoman or burgher and a useful member of society than a distinguished drone who is known only for his stupidity, his house, carriages and liveries.

THE LAUGHING DEMOCRITOS

Bah! There is the miser in his rags and tags, who has all his life been hoarding money and squandering his conscience; who is dying from hunger and cold; who teaches his servants to eat to live, that is, not more than is necessary to keep body and soul together; who is known far and wide for his unlawful usury; who has imposed upon himself and all his slave cattle a whole year’s fast; who in winter heats his miserable hut only once a week; who is ready to sell himself for a dime, and who has forty thousand roubles, in order to leave them after his death to his stupid nephew, that seventeen-year-old wretch who in miserliness and unscrupulous usury has surpassed his uncle of sixty years; who steals money from himself and takes a fine from himself for this theft; and who does not want to get married all his life, only not to spend his income on his wife and children. Oh, they deserve being laughed at. Ha, ha, ha!

Meseems I see his opposite. Of course, it is Spendthrift? Certainly. Oh, that young man has not the vices of his father, but he is infested by other vices, not less objectionable. His father hoarded money by unlawful exactions, and he spends it recklessly. His miserly father consumed in one month what he ought to have eaten in one day; Spendthrift, on the contrary, devours in a day what he ought to eat up in a year. The other walked in order not to spend money for the feeding of the horses; this one keeps six carriages and six tandems, not counting the saddle and sleigh horses, only that he may not get tired of travelling all the time in one and the same carriage. The other wore for twenty years the same miserable caftan; while to Spendthrift twenty pairs a year seem too little. In short, his father collected a great treasure through all illegal means, usury, maltreatment of his kin, and ruin of the helpless; but Spendthrift ruins himself and lavishes on others: they are both fools, and I laugh at both. Ha, ha, ha, ha!

Who is galloping there so swiftly? Bah! it is Simple. He is hurrying to some aristocratic house, to show there his stupidity. Simple glories in visiting distinguished people. He goes to see them as often as possible and, to please them, makes a fool of himself, then boasts to others of the influence he has there. He takes part in their conversations and, though he knows nothing, thinks he is posing as a wise man; he reads books, but he does not understand them; goes to the theatre, criticises the actors and, repeating what he has heard elsewhere, speaks authoritatively: this actor is good, that one is bad. He tells distinguished people all kinds of jokes, and wants to be cutting in his remarks, though he never adapts them to the occasion; in short, Simple tries to convince himself that his acts are intelligent, but others think that they are silly. Ha, ha, ha!

Hypocrite steps humbly out of church and distributes to the poor that surround him a farthing each, and counts them off on his rosary. As he walks along, he mumbles his prayers. He turns his eyes away from women, and shades them with his hands, for he avers he would take them out if they tempted him. Hypocrite sins every minute, but he appears as a righteous man that walks over a path strewn with thorns. His simulated prayers, piety and fasts in no way keep him from ruining and oppressing his like. Hypocrite has stolen thousands, and he gives them away by farthings. By such appearances he deceives many. He hourly preaches the nine virtues to young people, but in the sixty years of his life he has never carried out one himself. Hypocrite always walks humbly and never turns his looks to heaven, for he cannot hope to deceive those that abide there; but he looks upon the earth whose inhabitants he cheats. Ha, ha, ha!

FROM “HELL’S POST”

LETTER FROM HALT TO LAME

Last evening I took a walk in the park where nearly the whole town disports itself twice a week. I seated myself with a friend on a bench: four men, all acquaintances of my friend, passed by us; one of them was an ex-officer who had left the service, in order that he may not serve the Tsar, that he may cheat the world and become rich through illegal means. All the pettifoggers and the minor officials at the court of justice, and all the large litigators are known to him. He hardly ever goes out of the Land Office, and even in other places there appears almost every day a complaint of his. All the doubtful villages are his, and he frequently makes application for them, proving that they once belonged to his ancestors. He has no end of genealogies in his pocket, and upon request can prove his descent from any family he pleases. He buys promissory notes at a great discount, and gets the money from the creditor with all the interest due thereupon. If anybody borrows money from him, he never asks more than five kopeks from the rouble a month, and he deducts the interest in advance.

FROM LAME TO HALT

A certain secretary of a government office in this town got himself into trouble by taking bribes, but he very soon freed himself through his cunning. Although many orders explicitly demand that no bribes should be received by officers, yet they insist that it is superhuman to receive nothing from complainants. Many people of that class, however, do not submit to the common weakness of the office, and live on their incomes and salaries, but they have always empty pockets. Scribe S. is much richer than Secretary V. because the one sells every step of his, while the other attends to the affairs under his charge for nothing. Now many of these gentlemen have discovered a secret of stealing in a diplomatic way, that is, they no longer take bribes themselves, but send the complainant to their wives, who receive them very graciously. If he is a merchant, she asks for some stuffs or velvet for a dress. When the goods have been brought to her house, she says to the merchant: “My friend, come again in a few days, and I will pay you!” The merchant knows what that means and, being in need of her husband, goes home and for ever bids good-bye to the goods he has furnished. If the complainant is a nobleman, the officer’s wife tells him that she has no servant-girl, or boy, and that she is compelled to do all the work herself; and the complainant, having of necessity learned this conventional language, answers her as she wants to be answered. Thus, in the taking of bribes there has been produced this change: formerly the husband was dishonest, now his wife helps him. But there are some officials who are even more cunning and who steal in an honourable manner. They invite the complainant who has any dealing with them to dinner, after which they sit down and play cards with him. When they lose, they assume a very angry look, but when they win, they look exceedingly satisfied: this language the complainants have soon learned to understand. To please the host, they throw off trumps and, losing to the host, say two hundred roubles or as much as the host expects for the case in hand, receive the next day a favourable decision for it. Even the merchants have become refined and frequent the houses of officials to play cards with them.

FROM THE “PAINTER”

To My Son Falaléy:--

Is that the way you respect your father, an honourably discharged captain of dragoons? Did I educate you, accursed one, that I should in my old age be made through you a laughing-stock of the whole town? I wrote you, wretch, in order to instruct you, and you had my letter published. You fiend, you have ruined me, and it is enough to make me insane! Has such a thing ever been heard, that children should ridicule their parents? Do you know that I will order you to be whipped with the knout, in strength of ukases, for disrespect to your parents! God and the Tsar have given me this right, and I have power over your life, which you seem to have forgotten. I think I have told you more than once that if a father or mother kills a son, they are guilty only of an offence against the church.[145] My son, stop in time! Don’t play a bad trick upon yourself: it is not far to the Great Lent, and I don’t mind fasting then. St. Petersburg is not beyond the hills, and I can reach you by going there myself.

Well, my son, I forgive you for the last time, at your mother’s request. If it were not for her, you would have heard of me ere this, nor would I have paid attention to her now, if she were not sick unto death. Only I tell you, look out: if you will be guilty once more of disrespect to me, you need not expect any quarter from me. I am not of Sidórovna’s[146] kind: let me get at you, and you will groan for more than a month.

Now listen, my son: if you wish to come into my graces again, ask for your resignation, and come to live with me in the country. There are other people besides you to serve in the army. If there were no war now, I should not mind your serving, but it is now wartime, and you might be sent into the field, which might be the end of you. There is a proverb: “Pray to God, but look out for yourself”; so you had better get out of the way, which will do you more good. Ask for your discharge and come home to eat and sleep as much as you want, and you will have no work to do. What more do you want? My dear, it is a hard chase you have to give after honour. Honour! Honour! It is not much of an honour, if you have nothing to eat. Suppose you will get no decoration of St. George, but you will be in better health than all the cavaliers of the order of St. George. There are many young people who groan in spite of their St. George, and many older ones who scarcely live: one has his hands all shot to pieces, another his legs, another his head: is it a pleasure for parents to see their sons so disfigured? And not one girl will want you for a husband.

By the way, I have found a wife for you. She is pretty well off, knows how to read and write, but, above all, is a good housekeeper: not a blessed thing is lost with her. That’s the kind of a wife I have found for you. May God grant you both good counsel and love, and that they should give you your dismissal! Come back, my dear: you will have enough to live on outside of the wife’s dowry, for I have laid by a nice little sum. I forgot to tell you that your fiancée is a cousin of our Governor. That, my friend, is no small matter, for all our cases at law will be decided in our favour, and we will swipe the lands of our neighbours up to their very barns. I tell you it will be a joy, and they won’t have enough land left to let their chickens out. And then we will travel to the city, and I tell you, my dear Falaléy, we are going to have a fine time, and people will have to look out for us. But why should I instruct you? You are not a baby now, it is time for you to use your senses.

You see I am not your ill-wisher and teach you nothing but that is good for you and that will make you live in greater comfort. Your uncle Ermoláy gives you the same advice; he had intended to write to you by the same messenger. We have discussed these matters quite often, while sitting under your favourite oak where you used to pass your time as a child, hanging dogs on the branches, if they did not hunt well for the rabbits, and whipping the hunters, if their dogs outran yours. What a joker you used to be when you were younger! We used to split with laughter looking at you. Pray to God, my friend! You have enough sense to get along nicely in this world.

Don’t get frightened, dear Falaléy, all is not well in our house: your mother, Akulína Sidórovna, is lying on her death-bed. Father Iván has confessed her and given her the extreme unction. It is one of your dogs that was the cause of her ailment. Somebody hit your Nalétka with a stick of wood and broke her back. When she, my little dove, heard that, she fainted away, and fell down like dead. When she came to again, she started an inquiry into the matter, which so exhausted her that she came back scarcely alive, and had to lie in bed. Besides, she emptied a whole pitcher of cold water, which gave her a fever. Your mother is ill, my friend, very ill! I am waiting every minute for God to take her soul away. So I shall have to part, dear Falaléy, from my wife, and you from your mother and Nalétka. It will be easier for you to bear the loss than for me: Nalétka’s pups, thank the Lord! are all alive. Maybe one of them will take after his mother, but I shall never have such a wife again.

Alas, I am all undone! How can I ever manage to look after all things myself? Cause me no more sorrow, but come home and get married, then I shall at least be happy to have a daughter-in-law. It is hard, my dear Falaléy, to part from my wife, for I have got used to her, having lived with her for thirty years. I am guilty before her for having beaten her so often in her lifetime; but how could it be otherwise? Two pots staying a long time together will get knocked a great deal against each other. Indeed it could not be otherwise: I am rather violent, and she is not yielding; and thus, the least thing gave occasion for fights. Thank the Lord! she was at least forgiving. Learn, my son, to live well with your wife; though we have had many a quarrel, yet we are living together, and now I am sorry for her. It’s too bad, my friend, the fortune-tellers cannot do your mother any good: there have been a lot of them here, but there is no sense in it, only money thrown away. And now I, your father, Trifón, greet you and send you my blessing.

My Darling Falaléy Trifónovich:--

What kind of tricks have you been playing there, darling of my heart? You are only ruining yourself. You have known Pankrátevich ere this, so why don’t you take care of yourself? If you, poor wretch, got into his hands, he would maim you beyond mercy. There is no use denying it, Falaléy, he has a diabolical character, the Lord forgive me for saying so! When he gets into a temper, all my trying to soothe him does no good. When he begins to yell, it’s a shame to leave the holy images in the room. And you, my friend, just think what you have done! You have given his letter to be published! All his neighbours are now making fun of him: “A fine son you have! He is ridiculing his father.” They say a great deal more, but who can know all that the evil-minded people say? God help them, they have their own children to look to, and God will pay them their due. They always find fault with somebody else’s children, and think that theirs are faultless: well, they had better take a closer look at their own children!

Take good care of yourself, my friend, and don’t anger your father, for the devil could not get along with him. Write him a kind letter, and lie yourself out of the affair: that would not be a great sin, for you would not be deceiving a stranger. All children are guilty of some misbehaviour, and how can they get along without telling their fathers some lie? Fathers and mothers do not get very angry with children for that, for they are of necessity their friends. God grant you, darling of my heart, good health!

I am on my death-bed; so do not kill me before my time, but come to us at once, that I may have my last look at you. My friend, I am feeling bad, quite bad. Cheer me up, my shining light, for you are my only one, the apple of my eye,--how can I help loving you? If I had many children, it would not be so bad. Try to find me alive, my dear one: I will bless you with your angel, and will give you all my money which I have hoarded up in secret from Pankrátevich, and which is for you, my shining light.

Your father gives you but little money, and you are yet a young boy, and you ought to have dainty bits and a good time. You, my friend, are yet of an age to enjoy yourself, just as we did when we were young. Have a good time, my friend, have a good time, for there will later come a time when you will not think of enjoyment. My dear Falaléy, I send you one hundred roubles, but don’t write father about it. I send it to you without his knowledge, and if he found it out, he would give me no rest. Fathers are always that way: they only know how to be surly with their children, and they never think of comforting them. But I, my child, have the heart not of a father, but of a mother: I would gladly part with my last kopek, if that would add to your pleasure and health.

My dear Falaléy Trifónovich, my beloved child, my shining light, my clever son, I am not feeling well! It will be hard for me to go away from you. To whose care shall I leave you? That fiend will ruin you; that old brute will maim you some day. Take good care of yourself, my shining light, take the best care you can of yourself! Leave him alone, for you can’t do anything with that devil, the Lord forgive me for saying so! Come to our estate, my dear one, as soon as you can. Let me get a look at you, for my heart has the presentiment that my end has come. Good-bye, my dear one, good-bye, my shining light: I, your mother Akulína Sidórovna, send you my blessing and my humblest greeting, my shining light. Good-bye, my dove: do not forget me!

FOOTNOTES:

[144] French criminals had the lily burnt upon their backs, hence they wanted to be buried unwashed, that their disgrace should not become apparent.

[145] For which the punishment would be a penance of fasting.

[146] His wife’s name.

Denís Ivánovich Fon-Vízin. (1744-1792.)

Denís Fon-Vízin tells us in his _Confession_ (given below) what his early education was. Even the Moscow University was filled with ignorant, corrupt teachers, and in the country the conditions were naturally much worse. Nor could it have been different in the early part of Catherine’s reign. The older generation was steeped in ignorance and superstition, and the upper classes, who carried Voltaire and liberalism on their lips, ranted of a culture of the heart, which was nothing else than an excuse for extreme superficiality, as something superior to culture of the mind. Such a period is naturally productive of characters for comedy and satire. Fon-Vízin, who had the talent for satirical observation, was himself a product of the superficiality of his time. In his letters from abroad he assumed a haughty air of Russian superiority over matters French, German and European in general, aiding in the evolution of a sickly Slavophilism which a Russian critic has characterised as “subacid patriotism.” Unfortunately for their originality, most of these attacks on the French and Germans are taken from French and German sources.

Fon-Vízin wrote two comedies, _The Brigadier_ and _The Minor_, both of which are regarded as classical. Neither the subjects nor the plots are original. They follow French plays; but Fon-Vízin has so excellently adapted them to the conditions of his time, and has so well portrayed the negative characters of contemporary society, that the comedies serve as an historical document of the time of Catherine II. How true to nature his Ciphers, Beastlys, Uncouths and Brigadiers are may be seen from a perusal of contemporary memoirs and the satirical journals. These give an abundance of such material, and indeed Fon-Vízin has made ample use of them. As there were no positive characters in society, so the characters of his plays that stand for right and justice are nothing more than wordy shadows.

In _The Minor_, of which the first act is here translated, the author gives a picture of the lower nobility, who had not yet outgrown the barbarism of the days preceding Peter’s reforms, though anxious to comply, at least outwardly, with the imperative demands of the Government. Peter the Great had promulgated a law that all the children of the nobility must immediately appear to inscribe themselves for service. These “minors” had to present a proof or certificate that they had received instruction in certain prescribed subjects. Without that certificate they could not enter any service, or get married. Up to the time of Catherine II. there were issued laws dealing with such “minors.” Mitrofán, the “minor” of the play, has become the nickname for every grown-up illiterate son of the nobility.

THE MINOR

## ACT I., SCENE 1. MRS. UNCOUTH, MITROFÁN, EREMYÉEVNA

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_examining Mitrofán’s caftan_). The caftan is all ruined. Eremyéevna, bring here that thief Tríshka! (_Exit Eremyéevna._) That rascal has made it too tight all around. Mitrofán, my sweet darling, you must feel dreadfully uncomfortable in your caftan! Go call father. (_Exit Mitrofán._)

## SCENE 2. MRS. UNCOUTH, EREMYÉEVNA, TRÍSHKA

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_to Tríshka_). You beast, come here. Didn’t I tell you, you thief’s snout, to make the caftan wide enough? In the first place, the child is growing; in the second place, the child is delicate enough, without wearing a tight caftan. Tell me, you clod, what is your excuse?

_Tríshka._ You know, madam, I never learned tailoring. I begged you then to give it to a tailor.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ So you have got to be a tailor to be able to make a decent caftan! What beastly reasoning!

_Tríshka._ But a tailor has learned how to do it, madam, and I haven’t.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ How dare you contradict me! One tailor has learned it from another; that one from a third, and so on. But from whom did the first tailor learn? Talk, stupid!

_Tríshka._ I guess the first tailor made a worse caftan than I.

_Mitrofán_ (_running in_). I called dad. He sent word he’ll be here in a minute.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Go fetch him by force, if you can’t by kindness.

_Mitrofán._ Here is dad.

## SCENE 3. THE SAME AND UNCOUTH

_Mrs. Uncouth._ You have been hiding from me! Now see yourself, sir, what I have come to through your indulgence! What do you think of our son’s new dress for his uncle’s betrothal? What do you think of the caftan that Tríshka has gotten up?

_Uncouth_ (_timidly stammering_). A li-ittle baggy.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ You are baggy yourself, you wiseacre!

_Uncouth._ I thought, wifey, that you thought that way.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Are you blind yourself?

_Uncouth._ My eyes see nothing by the side of yours.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ A fine husband the Lord has blessed me with! He can’t even make out what is loose and what tight.

_Uncouth._ I have always relied upon you in such matters, and rely even now.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ You may rely also upon this, that I will not let the churls do as they please. Go right away, sir, and tell them to flog----

## SCENE 4. THE SAME AND BEASTLY

_Beastly._ Whom? For what? On the day of my betrothal! I beg you, sister, for the sake of the celebration, put off the flogging until to-morrow, and to-morrow, if you wish, I’ll gladly take a hand in it myself. My name is not Tarás Beastly, if I don’t make every offence a serious matter. In such things my custom is the same as yours, sister. But what has made you so angry?

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Here, brother, I’ll leave it to you. Mitrofán, just come here! Is this caftan baggy?

_Beastly._ No.

_Uncouth._ I see now myself, wifey, that it is too tight.

_Beastly._ But I don’t see that. My good fellow, the caftan is just right.

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_to Tríshka_). Get out, you beast! (_To Eremyéevna._) Go, Eremyéevna, and give the child his breakfast. I am afraid the teachers will soon be here.

_Eremyéevna._ My lady, he has deigned to eat five rolls ere this.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ So you are too stingy to give him the sixth, you beast? What zeal! I declare!

_Eremyéevna._ I meant it for his health, my lady. I am looking out for Mitrofán Teréntevich: he has been ill all night.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Oh, Holy Virgin! What was the matter with you, darling Mitrofán?

_Mitrofán._ I don’t know what, mamma. I was bent with pain ever since last night’s supper.

_Beastly._ My good fellow, I guess you have had too solid a supper.

_Mitrofán._ Why, uncle! I have eaten hardly anything.

_Uncouth._ If I remember rightly, my dear, you did have something.

_Mitrofán._ Not much of anything: some three slices of salt bacon, and five or six pies, I do not remember which.

_Eremyéevna._ He kept on begging for something to drink all night long. He deigned to empty a pitcher of kvas.

_Mitrofán._ And even now I am walking around distracted. All kinds of stuff passed before my eyes all night long.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ What kind of stuff, darling Mitrofán?

_Mitrofán._ At times you, mamma, at others--dad.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ How so?

_Mitrofán._ No sooner did I close my eyes, than I saw you, mamma, drubbing dad.

_Uncouth_ (_aside_). It is my misfortune, the dream has come to pass!

_Mitrofán_ (_tenderly_). And I felt so sorry.

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_angrily_). For whom, Mitrofán?

_Mitrofán._ For you, mamma: you got so tired drubbing dad.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Embrace me, darling of my heart! Son, you are my comfort.

_Beastly._ I see, Mitrofán, you are mother’s son and not father’s.

_Uncouth._ I love him anyway as becomes a father: he is such a clever child, such a joker! I am often beside myself with joy when I look at him, and I can’t believe that he is my own son.

_Beastly._ Only now our joker looks a little gloomy.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Had I not better send to town for the doctor?

_Mitrofán._ No, no, mamma. I’ll get well myself. I’ll run now to the dove-cot, maybe----

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Maybe God will be merciful. Go, have a good time, darling Mitrofán. (_Exeunt Mitrofán and Eremyéevna._)

## SCENE 5. MRS. UNCOUTH, UNCOUTH, BEASTLY

_Beastly._ Why do I not see my fiancée? Where is she? The betrothal is to be this evening, so it is about time to let her know that she is to be married soon.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ There is time for that, brother. If we were to tell her that ahead of time, she might get it into her head that we are reporting to her as to a superior person. Although I am related to her through my husband, yet I love even strangers to obey me.

_Uncouth_ (_to Beastly_). To tell the truth, we have treated Sophia like a real orphan. She was but a baby when her father died. It is now half a year since her mother, who is related to me by marriage, had an apoplectic fit----

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_as if making the sign of the cross_). The Lord be with us!

_Uncouth._--which took her to the other world. Her uncle, Mr. Conservative, has gone to Siberia, and as there has been no news from him for some years we regard him as dead. Seeing that she was left alone, we took her to our village, and we watch her property like our own.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ What makes you talk so much to-day, husband? My brother might think that we took her to our house for our own interest.

_Uncouth._ How could he think so? We can’t move up Sophia’s property to ours.

_Beastly._ Even if her movable property has been removed, I won’t go to law for that. I don’t like the law courts, and I am afraid of them. No matter how much my neighbours have insulted me, no matter how much damage they have done me, I have never had any litigations with them. Rather than have trouble with them, I make my peasants suffer for the damages my neighbours do me, and that’s the end of it.

_Uncouth._ That is so, brother. The whole district says that you are a great hand at getting work out of your peasants.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ I wish, brother, you would teach us to do likewise, for since we have taken everything away from the peasants that they had, there is nothing left with them which we can carry off. It’s a real misfortune!

_Beastly._ I don’t mind, sister, giving you a lesson, only first marry me to Sophia.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Have you really taken a liking to the girl?

_Beastly._ No, it is not the girl I like.

_Uncouth._ Then it is her adjoining villages?

_Beastly._ Not even her villages; but that which is to be found in her villages, and for which I have a great passion.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ What is it, brother?

_Beastly._ I like the pigs, sister. Down our way there are some very big pigs: why, there is not one among them that if it stood up on its hind legs would not be a head taller than any of us.

_Uncouth._ Now, brother, this is a wonderful family resemblance. Our dear Mitrofán is just like his uncle: he has had the same passion for pigs ever since babyhood. He was only three years old when he would tremble with joy every time he saw a pig.

_Beastly._ Truly wonderful! All right: Mitrofán loves pigs because he is my nephew. There is some resemblance there. But why have I such a passion for pigs?

_Uncouth._ There must be some resemblance there too, that’s what I think.

## SCENE 6. THE SAME AND SOPHIA

(_Sophia enters holding a letter in her hand and looking cheerful._)

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_to Sophia_). Why so merry, dear? What has made you so happy?

_Sophia._ I have just received some joyful news. My uncle, of whom we have not heard for a long time, whom I love and honour like my father, arrived in Moscow a few days ago. This is the letter I have just received from him.

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_frightened, angrily_). What, Conservative, your uncle, is alive? And you think it right to jest about his resurrection? A fine story you have invented!

_Sophia._ Why, he never was dead.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ He did not die! Why could he not have died? No, madam, that is your invention. You are trying to frighten us with your uncle, that we might give you your liberty. You judge like this: “My uncle is a clever man; he seeing me in other people’s hands, will find a way of rescuing me.” That’s what you are happy about, madam. But your joy is all in vain: of course, your uncle has never thought of rising from the dead.

_Beastly._ Sister, but if he never died?

_Uncouth._ God be merciful to us, if he did not die.

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_to her husband_). How not dead? You are talking nonsense. Don’t you know that I have had people remember him in their prayers for the rest of his soul? Is it possible my humble prayers have never reached heaven? (_To Sophia._) You let me have that letter! (_Almost tears it out of her hand._) I will wager anything that it is some love letter, and I can guess from whom. It’s from that officer that was trying to marry you, and whom you were ready to marry yourself. Who is that rascal that dares hand you letters without telling me first about them? I’ll get at him! That’s what we have come to: they write letters to girls! And girls know how to read!

_Sophia._ Read it yourself, madam: you will see that there can be nothing more harmless than that letter.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ “Read it yourself!” No, madam! Thank the Lord, I have not been educated that way! I may receive letters, but I order others to read them to me. (_To her husband._) Read it!

_Uncouth_ (_looking at it for sometime_). It’s more than I can read.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ I see, they have educated you like a fair maiden. Brother, be so kind as to read it.

_Beastly._ I? I have never read a line since I was born! God has saved me that annoyance.

_Sophia._ Let me read it to you.

_Mrs. Uncouth._ I know you will read it, but I don’t trust you. There! Mitrofán’s teacher will soon be here, so I’ll tell him----

_Beastly._ So you have begun to teach your son reading?

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Oh, my brother! He has been studying these four years. It shall not be laid to our door that we are not giving Mitrofán an education: we pay three teachers for it. The deacon from Pokróv, Carouse, comes to him for reading and writing. Arikmethick he studies with an ex-sergeant, Cipher. They both come from town, which is only two miles from us. French and all the sciences he takes from a German, Adam Adámych Bluster. He gets three hundred roubles a year. We let him eat at table with us; our peasant women wash his linen; if he has to travel anywhere, he gets our horses; at the table he always has a glass of wine, and at night a tallow candle, and Fomká fixes his wig for nothing. To tell the truth, we are satisfied with him, for he does not drive our child. I don’t see, anyway, why we should not fondle Mitrofán as long as he is a minor. He will have to suffer enough some ten years hence, when serving the Government. You know, brother, some people have luck from their birth. Take our family of Uncouths: they get all kinds of advancements while lying softly on their sides. With what is our Mitrofán worse than they? Ah, there is our dear guest.

## SCENE 7. THE SAME AND TRUTHFUL

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Brother, I recommend to you our dear guest, Mr. Truthful; and to you, sir, I recommend my brother.

_Truthful._ Am glad to make your acquaintance.

_Beastly._ Very well, sir. What is your name? I did not quite hear it.

_Truthful._ My name is Truthful, so that you may hear it.

_Beastly._ Where born, sir? Where are your villages?

_Truthful._ I was born in Moscow, if you must know that, and my villages are in this province.

_Beastly._ And may I ask you,--I do not know your name and patronymic,--are there any pigs in your villages?

_Mrs. Uncouth._ Now, stop, brother, asking about your pigs. We had better talk about our trouble. (_To Truthful._) Listen, sir! By God’s command we have taken this maiden upon our hands. She deigns to receive letters from her uncles: you see, her uncles write to her from heaven. Do us the kindness, sir, and read us this letter aloud.

_Truthful._ Excuse me, madam, I never read letters without the permission of those to whom they have been addressed.

_Sophia._ On the contrary, I beg you to do me the favour.

_Truthful._ If you so order. (_He reads._)

“Dear niece! My affairs have compelled me to live for some years away from my relatives, and the great distance has deprived me of the pleasure of hearing any news from you. I am now living in Moscow after having been for some years in Siberia. I am a living example that it is possible by work and honesty to gain some wealth. By these means, fortune smiling upon me, I have saved up enough to have ten thousand roubles yearly income----”

_Beastly and the Uncouths._ Ten thousand!

_Truthful_ (_reads_). “Of which I make you, dear niece, my sole heiress----”

_Mrs. Uncouth._ You an heiress! } } _Uncouth._ Sophia an heiress! } (_All together._) } _Beastly._ Her an heiress! }

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_hastening to embrace Sophia_). I congratulate you, Sophia! I congratulate you, my darling! I am beside myself with joy! Now you need a husband. I, I could not wish a better bride for my Mitrofán. That’s what I call a fine uncle! A real father! I always thought that God was taking care of him, that he was still alive.

_Beastly_ (_stretching out his hand_). Well, sister, let us settle it right away.

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_whispering to Beastly_). Wait, brother, first we have to ask her whether she wants you.

_Beastly._ What a question! Or do you really want to report to her as to a superior person?

_Truthful._ Do you want me to finish the letter?

_Beastly._ What for? Even if you were to keep on reading for five years you could not read out of it anything better than ten thousand.

_Mrs. Uncouth_ (_to Sophia_). Sophia, my darling! Come with me to my sleeping-room. I have some important matter to talk to you about (_leading Sophia out_).

_Beastly._ Pshaw! I see there is not much chance for a betrothal to-day!

## SCENE 8. TRUTHFUL, UNCOUTH, BEASTLY, A SERVANT

_Servant_ (_to Uncouth, out of breath_). Sir, sir! Soldiers have come; they have stopped in our village.

_Uncouth._ There is a misfortune! They will ruin us completely.

_Truthful._ What frightens you so?

_Uncouth._ Oh, I have seen terrible things, and I am afraid to show up before them.

_Truthful._ Don’t be afraid. Of course, an officer is leading them, and he will not permit any insolence. Come, let us go to him. I am confident you are unnecessarily frightened. (_Truthful, Uncouth and Servant exeunt._)

_Beastly._ They have all left me alone. I think I’ll take a walk in the cattle yard.

_End of Act I._

AN OPEN-HEARTED CONFESSION OF MY ACTS AND THOUGHTS

My parents were pious people, but as in our childhood they did not wake us for the morning service, there was a night service held in our house every church holiday, as also in the first and last weeks of Lent. As soon as I learned to read, my father made me read at the divine services. To this I owe whatever knowledge of Russian I possess, for, reading the church books, I became acquainted with the Slavic language, without which it is impossible to know Russian. I am thankful to my father for having watched carefully my reading: whenever I began to read indistinctly, he would say to me: “Stop mumbling! or do you imagine God is pleased with your muttering?” But more than that: whenever my father noticed that I did not understand the passage that I had just read, he undertook the labour of explaining it to me,--in short, he showed endless care in my instruction. As he was not able to hire teachers of foreign languages for me, he did not delay, I may say, a day to place me and my brother in the University as soon as it was founded.

Now I shall say something of the manner of instruction at our University. Justice demands that I should state at the start that the University of to-day is quite a different thing from what it was in my days. Both the teachers and students are of a different calibre, and however much the school was then subject to severe criticism, it now deserves nothing but praise. I shall relate, as an example, how the examination was conducted in the lower Latin class. The day before the examination we were being prepared. Here is what was done: our teacher came in a caftan that had five buttons, while his vest had only four. This peculiarity surprised me much, and I asked the teacher for the cause of it. “My buttons seem to amuse you,” he said, “but they are the guardians of your honour and of mine: those on the caftan stand for the five declensions, and on the vest for the four conjugations. And now,” he proceeded, as he beat the table with his hand, “be all attentive to what I have to say! When they shall ask you for the declension of some noun, watch what button I am touching: if you see me holding the second button, answer boldly ‘The second declension.’ Do similarly in regard to the conjugations, being guided by the buttons on my vest, and you will never make a mistake.” That is the kind of an examination we had!

O you parents who take pleasure in the reading of gazettes, when you find the names of your children mentioned in them as having received prizes for diligence, listen what I got a medal for! Our inspector had a German friend who was made a professor of geography. He had only three students. As this teacher was more stupid than our Latin teacher, he arrived at the examination in a full complement of buttons, and we were consequently examined without preparation. My companion was asked: “Where does the Vólga flow to?” “Into the Black Sea,” was his answer. The same question was put to my other schoolmate. “Into the White Sea,” was his answer. Then they asked me the same question. “I don’t know,” I said with such an expression of simplicity, that the examiners unanimously voted to give me a medal. Now, I did not in the least earn this medal for any geographical knowledge, though I deserved it for an illustration of practical morals.

However it may be, I owe the University a grateful recognition: I learned there Latin, and thus laid the foundation for some of my sciences. I also learned there some German, and especially acquired a taste for literary studies. A love for writing was developed in me very early in my childhood, and I practised for many years translating into Russian.

* * * * *

At that time our director had taken it into his head to journey to St. Petersburg with a few of his students, in order to show the founder of the University the fruits of his school. I do not know how, but my brother and I were among the number of the chosen pupils. The director started for St. Petersburg in the winter with his wife and ten of us youngsters. This was the first, and consequently a difficult, journey for me and my companions, but I must make a grateful acknowledgment of the kind attention we received from our director and which alleviated our hardships. He and his wife looked after us as after their children. When we arrived in St. Petersburg, my brother and myself stopped at the house of an uncle of ours. A few days later, our director presented us to the curator. This esteemed gentleman, whose deserts Russia must not forget, received us very kindly. He took hold of my hand and led me to a man whose appearance had attracted my respectful attention. That was the immortal Lomonósov. He asked me what I had learned. “Latin,” said I. Then he began to speak with great eloquence of the importance of the Latin language.

After dinner of the same day we were at Court, it being a reception day, but the Empress did not appear. I was wonder-struck by the magnificence of the Empress’s palace. All around us was sparkling gold, a gathering of men in blue and red ribbons, a mass of beautiful women, an enormous orchestra,--all that bewildered and blinded me, and the palace appeared to me to be the dwelling-place of a superhuman being. Indeed, it could not have been otherwise, for I was then only fourteen years old, had never seen anything, and everything appeared to me new and charming. Having returned to the house, I asked my uncle whether they had often receptions at Court, to which he answered: “Almost every Sunday.” I decided to stay in St. Petersburg as long as possible, in order to see more of the Court. This desire was the result of curiosity and impulse: I wanted to enjoy the magnificence of the Court and hear agreeable music. This desire soon subsided, and I began to pine for my parents, whom I became impatient to see. The day I received letters from them was for me the pleasantest of all, and I went often to the post to ask for them.

Nothing delighted me in St. Petersburg so much as the theatre, which I saw for the first time in my life. They were playing a Russian comedy, _Henry and Pernilla_, and I remember it as if it happened to-day. I saw there Shúmski, who so amused me with his jokes that I lost all sense of propriety and laughed as loud as I could. It is almost impossible to describe the feelings which the theatre aroused in me. The comedy which I saw was quite stupid, but I looked upon it as the production of the greatest mind, and upon the actors as great people, whose acquaintance I regarded as the greatest happiness. I almost went insane when I found out that these actors frequented the house of my uncle, where I was living. After a little while I there became acquainted with our famous actor, Iván Afanásevich Dmitrévski, an honourable, clever and cultured gentleman, whose friendship I am enjoying even now.

Standing once in the pit, I struck up an acquaintanceship with the son of a distinguished gentleman, who had taken a fancy to my face. As soon as he received a negative answer to his question whether I knew French, he suddenly changed and became cold to me. He looked upon me as an ignoramus and badly educated man, and began to make fun of me. When I noticed from his manner of speech that he did not know anything else but French, which he spoke badly, I made such a biting repartee, that he stopped his raillery, and invited me to his house; I answered politely, and we parted as friends. But I learned from this how necessary it was for a young man to know French; so I began to study the language in earnest, continuing at the same time the study of Latin, in which language I heard the lectures on logic by Professor Sháden, who was then rector. This learned man has the rare gift of lecturing and expounding so clearly that we all made palpable progress, and my brother and I were soon admitted as real students. All that time I did not stop practising translations from German into Russian; among other things I translated _Seth, the Egyptian King_, but not very successfully. My knowledge of Latin was exceedingly useful to me in my study of French. In two years I could understand Voltaire, and I began translating in verse his _Alzire_. That translation was nothing more than a youthful error, nevertheless there are some good verses in it.

LETTERS TO COUNT P. I. PÁNIN, DURING HIS FIRST JOURNEY ABROAD

MONTPELLIER, November 22 (December 3), 1777.

... I found this city (Leipsic) full of learned men. Some of these regard it as their chief desert that they are able to talk in Latin, which, by the way, five-year-old children were able to do in the days of Cicero. Others soar in thoughts in the sky, and are ignorant of what goes on upon earth. Others again are strong in artificial logic, having an extreme absence of natural logic. In short, Leipsic proves beyond controversy that learning does not beget common sense. I left these pedants, and went to Frankfurt-on-the-Main. This city is celebrated for its antiquities, and is noteworthy from the fact that the Roman Emperor is chosen here. I was in the election room from which he issues to the people. But its antiquity consists merely in being old: all I saw there were four empty walls in an old building. They showed me also the famous so-called La Bulle d’Or of Emperor Charles IV., which was written in the year 1356, and I was also in the Imperial Archives. But it was hardly worth my while to climb up garrets and down cellars, in order to see the relics of a rude age. From Frankfurt I travelled through German principalities: every step a new principality. I saw Hanau, Mainz, Fulda, Sachsen-Gotha, Eisenach and a few other principalities of minor princes. I found the roads frequently not paved, but I had nevertheless to pay dearly for the pavement. When they pulled me out of a bog and asked pavement money of me, I had the courage to ask them: “Where is it?” To which they answered me that his Majesty, the reigning prince, had the intention of having the roads paved, but that at the present he was only collecting toll. Such justice in regard to strangers has led me to make my own conclusions in regard to their relations with their subjects, and I did not at all wonder when from every hut there came out a crowd of beggars and followed my carriage....

From here I went into France, and reached the famous city of Lyons. In this country the roads are very good; but in the cities the streets are so narrow and are so badly kept that I cannot understand how people with their five senses manage to live in such dirt. It is evident that the police does not interfere with it. To prove this I shall take the liberty of telling your Highness an occurrence. I was walking in the finest and largest street in Lyons (which, however, cannot compare with our by-streets), and saw in bright daylight burning torches and a crowd of people in the middle of the street. Being near-sighted, I naturally thought it was some elegant funeral. Upon approaching nearer out of curiosity, I saw how great my mistake was: Messrs. Frenchmen had simply stuck a pig and were singeing it in the middle of the street! The stench, dirt and a crowd of leisure people who were watching the operation compelled me to take another street. I have not yet seen Paris, so I do not know whether my olfactories will suffer there less; in any case, all the French cities which I have so far seen are badly off as to their cleanliness.

PARIS, March 20 (31), 1778.

... Voltaire’s arrival in Paris produced the same effect on the people here as if a divinity had come down upon earth. The respect shown to him in no way differs from worship. I am confident that if his deep old age and ailments did not oppress him, and he wished to preach now some new sect, the whole nation would at once turn to him. Your Excellency will form your own opinion from what follows whether one can come to any other conclusion from the reception the public gave him.

When he arrived here, the poets who are devoted to him began to write poems in his honour, while those who hate him sent him anonymous satires. The first are printed, but not the other, for the Government has by a special rescript forbidden to print anything that might be prejudicial to Voltaire. This consideration is shown him as much for his great talents as for his advanced age. This man of eighty-five years has composed a new tragedy, _Irene and Alexis Comnenus_, which has been performed. Although it can by no means be compared to his former plays, yet the public received it with rapture. The author being ill, he was not present at the first presentation. It is only the first time yesterday that he has driven out: he was in the Academy, then in the theatre, where they purposely gave his new tragedy.

As he drove out from his house, the carriage was accompanied as far as the Academy by an endless throng of people who kept up applauding. All the academicians came out to meet him. He was seated in the president’s chair and, waiving the customary voting, was elected by acclamation to be president for the April quarter. As he walked down the staircase and took his seat in the carriage, the populace demanded vociferously to take off hats. From the Academy to the theatre he was accompanied by the people’s cheering. When he entered his box, the audience applauded repeatedly with indescribable rapture, and a few minutes later the oldest actor, Brisard, stepped into his box with a wreath which he placed on Voltaire’s head. Voltaire immediately took the wreath off and with tears of joy spoke aloud to Brisard: “Ah, Dieu! vous voulez donc me faire mourir!” The tragedy was played with much greater perfection than at any previous performance. At its conclusion there was a new spectacle. All the actors and actresses surrounded Voltaire’s bust and adorned it with laurel wreaths. This homage was followed by the people’s applause, which lasted nearly fifteen minutes. Then Madame Vestrice, who had played Irene, turned towards Voltaire and read some laudatory verses. To show their appreciation, the public demanded that the verses be read again, and they applauded wildly. As soon as Voltaire seated himself in his carriage, the people stopped the coachman and cried: “Des flambeaux, des flambeaux!” When the torches were brought, they ordered the coachman to drive at a slow pace, and an endless crowd accompanied him to his very house with torches, crying all the time: “Vive Voltaire!” Voltaire has received many an ovation in his lifetime, but yesterday was, no doubt, the best day of his life, which, however, will soon come to an end. Your Excellency will see how he now looks from his portrait which I here enclose and which is a very good likeness of him.

Ermíl Ivánovich Kostróv. (1750-1796.)

Kostróv was the son of a peasant. He studied in a seminary and began to write verses early, first under the influence of Lomonósov, in the pseudo-classic style,--later, under the influence of Derzhávin, he cultivated a simpler and better language. His chief services to Russian literature are his translations of Apuleius, Ossian, and the Iliad. The ode which is given here marks the turning-point in his manner of writing, and at the same time indicates how great was the change brought about by Derzhávin’s _Felítsa_ (see p. 378) in Russian poetry.

LETTER TO THE CREATOR OF THE ODE IN PRAISE OF “FELÍTSA, THE KIRGÍZ-KAYSÁK PRINCESS”

Singer, to whom with a gentle smile the Muse has lately brought from the Parnassian heights a wreath, I hanker for your friendship and union with you. Moscow is my habitation, you sing the Neva stream. But not the distant roads, nor mounts, nor hills, nor forests, nor rivers shall impede my zeal to you, which to Petropolis shall be borne, to issue in your breast and ears: not impossible to Muses is what the Muses will.

Tell me, I pray, how without a lyre, nor violin, not even having saddled the Parnassian steed, you have sung so sweetly Felítsa’s acts, and her crown’s life-giving beams? You evidently have walked all streets and byways on Pindus’ heights and in the grassy vale of the pure Muses, and to glorify, console, make happy, amuse the Princess, you have discovered a new, untrodden path. Having discovered it, you ran it at will, and neither stump nor stone e’er tripped you, but all appeared to you a grassy mead, and your caftan was nowhere rent by thorns. Proclaiming the praises of the Princess, recounting the pleasures of the bashaws, you played the bagpipe, yet sang enticingly withal.

Disdaining the evil conscience of the envious, you onward bore, which boldness seeing, Parnassus wound a wreath for you. Their flowing hair descending on their arms, disporting on their pink-white breasts and cheeks, the forms of fairy nymphs from the Neva rose; gently waving on the crests, they listened intent to you, and praised the beautiful innovation of your verse. In token of their heartfelt tribute, they clapped their hands in ecstasy, then disappeared into the crystal depths.

By easy post Felítsa’s praise was borne to Moscow, to the delight of all the hearts, and all who read have sung your praise, and arbiters of taste have wound a wreath for you. They have read it a hundred times, yet listen gladly, with attention, when someone in their presence reads it again, and cannot assuage their spirits, nor satisfy their captive ears, while listening to its sportive jests. Just so a garden, with charming shrubs and shade of trees, planted on a hill above a stream of limpid waters, though it be well known to us, though known the taste of every fruit therein, though familiar to us its every path, yet drawn by a mysterious feeling, we hasten to walk in it once more, and turn our glances all about us, to discover something new, though we have seen it all before.

Our ears are almost deaf from the vociferous lyric tones, and, meseems, ’tis time to come down from the clouds, lest, forgetful of the law of equilibrium, and flying from the heights, one break his arms and legs: no matter what our endeavour be to rise on high, Felítsa’s deeds will still be higher. She likes simplicity of style, so ’t were better, treading that road in modesty, to raise our voice to her. Dwelling on Parnassus in union with the nymphs, I have thrummed the sonorous harp, while praising the Kirgíz-Kaysák Princess, and have only earned cold praises. All lauded there my verses, flattered me, though themselves were but amused; and now they have the honour in oblivion to lie: ’tis evident high-soaring odes are out of fashion.

Above us you have risen through your simplicity! Write, as formerly, again a letter to your neighbour; you have well depicted his luxurious mind, how he invites a hungry mob to dinner, games and luxuries on the tables; or, loving Nature’s beauties, sing of the crystal waters, as once you sang the Spring of Grébenev. This spring, flowing through the valley, even now is pleasing to me: whenever I slaked my thirst, a ray of joy shone to me.

But to you, who preside most wisely, leader of the Muses, their labours’ judge, listening to their sweet thunderous music, to you this honour and praise is due, because, burning with zeal and inventive of new paths, you labour to advance our native tongue. It is majestic, sweet and rich, thunderous, elate, liquid and strong, and great is your work of its perfection. Encouraged by you, the lovers of the sciences have with heartfelt zeal walked on the glorious path: we see the fair Russian diction in their labours, and its progress in him who has extolled you.

I shall say it without hesitation: you emulate Minerva, and bring your rest as a sacrifice to the Muses, and the glory of your country is your pleasure and consolation. Your exploits are enviable to men. With Felítsa’s beloved, precious name, with Felítsa’s praise and the laudation of her wise acts the beginning of these labours has been adorned, and has brought joy and rapture to its readers. Blessed is that beginning where her resplendent name appears, and the end is crowned with success. To him who thus has glorified Felítsa, and has given a new flavour to his verses, honour and glory from the depth of our hearts!

Alexander Nikoláevich Radíshchev. (1749-1802.)

In 1765 Catherine II. sent twelve young men to Leipsic to be educated in the University; among the number was Radíshchev. He studied philosophy under Platner, and for his own amusement took a full course in medicine. Upon his return he was attached to the Kommerz-Kolleg, a kind of Department of Finance, where he distinguished himself for his unexampled honesty and gained the love of its President, Count Vorontsóv, whom he had the courage to oppose in a decision at law, in order to save some innocent men from transportation to Siberia. When he was later put in charge of the Customs House of St. Petersburg, he discovered that the considerable traffic with England demanded a knowledge of English, if he wished to dispense with a translator; accordingly at the age of thirty he acquired the English language and began to read its literature, which exerted a great influence upon him.

In 1790 he wrote his _Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow_, which he distributed among his friends, though it had not been approved by the censor. This work, written in the style of Sterne’s _Sentimental Journey_, is not only remarkable as a piece of literature, but also as a political pamphlet. It attacks the institution of Russia in the light of the most advanced liberalism of France and North America. Radíshchev advocated in no unmistakable terms the liberation of the serfs, almost half a century before Turgénev. When Catherine II. read the book, she exclaimed: “He is a Martinist. He is worse than Pugachév, he praises Franklin.” Radíshchev was banished to Siberia. There he devoted himself to literature, wrote his _Ode to Liberty_, which is the forerunner of all the poems of liberty by Rylyéev, Ogarév, Odoévski, and a few longer poems in a lighter vein. Emperor Paul pardoned him, and Emperor Alexander advanced him to higher honours. When an acquaintance of his accused him of returning to his youthful ideals and warned him of subjecting himself to the danger of another banishment, he committed suicide in a moment of despondency.

JOURNEY FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW

DEPARTURE

After having taken supper with my friends, I took my seat in the kibítka. The driver drove the horses at full gallop, as was his wont, and in a few minutes we were outside the city. It is hard to part, even for a short time, from those who have become necessary to us at every moment of our existence. It is hard to part,--but happy is he who can part without smiling, for love or friendship is his consolation. You weep as you say “good-bye”; but think of your return,--and let your tears dry up at this thought, as dries up the dew before the face of the sun. Happy is he who weeps, hoping to be consoled! Happy is he who sometimes lives in the future! Happy is he who lives in meditation! His existence is enriched; his joy is multiplied, and calm assuages the gloom of his pining, generating images of happiness in the mirrors of his contemplation.

I lay in the kibítka. The tinkling of the post bell was monotonous to my ears, and finally brought to me beneficent Morpheus. The grief of my parting persecuted me in my deathlike state, and painted me to my imagination as forlorn. I saw myself in a spacious vale which had lost all its amenity and greenness of leafage through the hot rays of the sun. There was not a spring to offer coolness, nor tree-shade to protect from the heat. I was a hermit, left in the midst of Nature! I shuddered. “Miserable man!” I sighed, “where are you? What has become of all that has enticed you? Where is all that has made your life agreeable? Is it possible that the pleasures which you have tasted are only an idle dream?”

Luckily there was a deep rut in the road, and my kibítka, getting into it, jostled me and woke me up. The kibítka stopped. I raised my head and saw three habitations in a barren spot.

“What is that?” I asked my driver.

“A post station.”

“Where are we?”

“In Sofíya,” and he unhitched the horses.

SOFÍYA

All around me was silence. I was absorbed in contemplation and did not notice that the kibítka had been standing quite a while without the horses. My driver broke my meditation:

“Master, father, some money for a drink!”

This tax is illegal, but no one objects to paying it, in order that he may be able to travel at his ease; the twenty kopeks I gave him were a good investment. Who has travelled by post knows that a passport is a precaution without which any purse, unless it be a general’s, will have to suffer. I took it out of my pocket and went with it, as people sometimes go with the cross for their defence.

I found the Post Commissary snoring. I touched his shoulder.

“Whom does the devil drive so? What a miserable habit to depart from the city at night? There are no horses here,--it’s too early yet. Go into the inn and drink tea, or go to sleep!”

Having said that, the Commissary turned to the wall, and went to snoring again. What was I to do? I once more shook the Commissary by his shoulder.

“What is the matter with you? I told you there are no horses!” and, covering himself with the blanket, the Commissary turned away from me.

If the horses are all engaged, I thought to myself, then it is not right for me to disturb the Commissary’s sleep. But if there are any horses in the stable ... I made up my mind I would find out whether the Commissary told the truth. I went into the yard, hunted up the stable and found some twenty horses in it. It is true, one could count the bones on them, yet they would have taken me to the next station. From the stable I returned to the Commissary, and shook him harder than before, for I felt I had a right to do so, having discovered that he had told a lie. He jumped up from his bed and without opening his eyes asked who had arrived. “I ...” But coming to his senses, and noticing me, he said:

“Young man, you are evidently in the habit of commanding drivers of olden days, when they used to beat them with sticks. Well, that won’t work now-a-days.” The Commissary lay down angrily in his bed again. I had really a desire to treat him like one of those drivers when they were discovered cheating; but my generosity to the city driver caused the Sofíya drivers to hurry up and hitch the horses to the kibítka. Just as I was getting ready to commit a crime on the back of the Commissary, the bells were heard in the yard. I remained a good citizen, and thus twenty kopeks saved a peaceable man from an inquest, my children from an example of incontinence in anger, and I discovered that reason is a slave to impatience.

The horses carried me away. The driver started a song which, as usual, was a doleful one. He who knows the tunes of Russian popular songs will admit that there is something in them that speaks of sadness of spirit. Nearly all the tunes of such songs are in the minor key. In this musical inclination of the popular ear one may find a solution of the trend of his actions. In it one may discover the condition of the nation’s soul. Look at a Russian! You will always find him lost in meditation. If he wants to drive away ennui, or, as he calls it, have a good time, he goes to the inn. In his intoxication he is impulsive, bold, quarrelsome. If anything takes place not to his liking, he at once starts a brawl or fight. A churl who goes into the inn with a downcast look and returns from it covered with blood from having had his ears boxed may throw a light on many an enigmatic point in Russian history.

My driver was singing. It was three o’clock in the morning. As before the bell, so now his song put me to sleep: “O Nature! Having swathed man at his birth in the winding-sheets of sorrow, dragging him all his life over the forbidding crags of fear, ennui and sadness, you have given him sleep as a consolation. You fall asleep, and all is at an end! Unbearable is the awakening to the unfortunate man. Oh, how acceptable death is to him! And if it is the end of sorrow.... All-kind Father! Wilt Thou turn away Thy look from him who ends his life in a manly way? To Thee, the source of all goodness, this sacrifice is brought. Thou alone givest strength when creation trembles and is convulsed. It is the voice of the Father, calling His child unto Himself! Thou hast given me life, to Thee I return it: upon earth it has become useless.”

TOSNÁ

When I left St. Petersburg I thought I would find a very good road. All those who have travelled upon it after the Emperor have thought so. It had been such, indeed, but only for a short time. The dirt which had been put upon the road in dry weather in order to make it even had been washed by the rains, forming a swamp in the summer, and made it impassable. Fearing bad weather, I got out of the kibítka and went into the post station, intending to take a rest. In the room I found a traveller who was sitting behind a long, common peasant table in the nearer corner and was turning over some papers. He asked the Post Commissary to give him horses as soon as possible. To my question who he was, I learned that he was a pettifogger of the old style, and that he was going to St. Petersburg with a stack of torn papers which he was then examining. I immediately entered into a conversation with him, and here is what he said:

“Dear sir,--I, your humble servant, have been a Registrar in the Archives of the Estates, where I had an opportunity to make good use of my position: by assiduous labour I have collected a genealogy, based on clear documentary proof, of many Russian families, and I can trace their princely or noble origin several centuries back. I can reinstate many a man in his princely dignity, by showing his origin from Vladímir Monomákh, or even from Rúrik. Dear sir,” he continued, as he pointed to his papers, “all Great-Russian nobles ought to purchase my work, paying for it more than for any other wares. But with the leave of your High Birth, Noble Birth, or High and Noble Birth, for I do not know how to honour you, they do not know what they need. You know how the orthodox Tsar Feódor Aleksyéevich of blessed memory has injured the Russian nobility by doing away with the prefecture. That severe legislation placed many honourable princely and royal families on a level with the Nóvgorod nobility. But the orthodox Emperor Peter the Great has entirely put them in the shade by his Table of Ranks. He opened the way to all for obtaining the title of nobility through military and civil service, and he, so to say, has trampled the old nobility in the dirt. Our Most Gracious Mother, now reigning, has confirmed the former decrees by her august Law of the Nobility, which has very much disquieted all our higher nobles, for the old families are placed in the Book of the Nobility lower than the rest. There is, however, a rumour that there will soon be issued a supplementary decree by which those families that can trace their noble origin two or three hundred years back will be granted the title of Marquis or something like it, so that they will have some distinguishing feature from the other families. For this reason, dear sir, my work must be acceptable to all the old nobility. But there are rascals everywhere. In Moscow I fell in with a company of young gentlemen to whom I proposed my work, in order to be repaid through their kindness at least for the paper and ink wasted upon it. But instead of kindness they heaped raillery upon me; so I left that capital from grief, and am on my way to St. Petersburg, where there is more culture.”

Saying this, he made a deep bow, and straightening himself up, stood before me with the greatest respect. I understood his thought, took something out of my purse and, giving it to him, advised him to sell his paper by weight to peddlers for wrapping paper, for the prospective marquisates would only turn people’s heads, and he would be the cause of a recrudescence of an evil, now passed in Russia, of boasting of old genealogies.

LYUBÁNI

I suppose it is all the same to you, whether I travelled in summer or winter, especially since it is not uncommon for travellers to travel both summer and winter, starting out in a sleigh and returning in a wheel carriage. The corduroy road wore out my sides. I crawled out of the kibítka, and started on foot. While I was lying in the kibítka, my thoughts were directed to the immeasurableness of the world, and while my soul flitted away from the earth, it seemed easier to bear the jostling of the carriage. But spiritual exercises do not always distract our corporeality, and it was in order to save my sides that I went on foot.

A few steps from the road I noticed a peasant who was ploughing his field. It was warm; I looked at my watch: it was twenty minutes to one. I left the city on Saturday, so it was Sunday then. The peasant that was ploughing evidently belonged to a landowner that did not receive any tax from him. The peasant was ploughing with great care; evidently the field did not belong to the master. He was turning the plough with remarkable ease.

“God aid you!” I said as I approached the ploughman, who did not stop but finished the furrow he had begun.

“God aid you!” I repeated.

“Thank you, sir!” said the ploughman as he cleaned the ploughshare and transferred the plough to a new furrow.

“You are, of course, a dissenter, since you work on Sunday.”

“No, sir, I make the correct sign of the cross,” he said, and showed me his three fingers put together; “but God is merciful and does not want a person to starve, as long as he has a family and sufficient strength.”

“Have you not any time to work during the week, that you work on a Sunday, and at that in a great heat?”

“In the week, sir, there are six days, and we have to work for the manor six times a week, and in the evening we haul the hay from the meadows, if the weather is good; and on holidays the women and girls go to the woods to gather mushrooms and berries. God grant a rain this evening,” he added as he made the sign of the cross. “Sir, if you have any peasants, they are praying for the same.”

“I have no peasants, my friend; and so nobody curses me. Have you a large family?”

“Three sons and three daughters. My eldest is ten years old.”

“How do you manage to get enough grain, if you have only the Sundays to yourself?”

“Not only the Sundays,--the nights are ours too. We need not starve, if we are not lazy. You see, one horse is resting; and when this one gets tired, I’ll take the other, and that’s the way I make my work count.”

“Do you work the same way for your master?”

“No, sir! It would be sinful to work the same way; he has in his fields one hundred hands for one mouth, and I have but two hands for seven mouths, if you count it up. If you were to work yourself to death at your master’s work, he would not thank you for it. The master will not pay the capitation tax; he will let you have no mutton, no hempen cloth, no chicken, no butter. Our people are fortunate in those places where the master receives a rent from the peasant, particularly without a superintendent! It is true, some good masters ask more than three roubles for each soul, yet that is better than tenant labour. They are now getting in the habit of letting farms out to renters who, being poor, flay us alive. They do not give us our own time, and do not let us go out in the winter to work for ourselves, because they pay our capitation tax. It is a devilish idea to let one’s peasants do work for somebody else! There is at least a chance of complaining against a superintendent, but to whom is one to complain against a tenant?”

“My friend! You are mistaken: the laws do not permit to torture people.”

“Torture, yes! But, sir, you would not want to be in my hide!” In the meantime the ploughman hitched another horse to his plough and, bidding me good-bye, began a new furrow.

The conversation with this agriculturist awakened a multitude of thoughts in me. Above all, I thought of the inequality of the peasant’s condition. I compared the crown peasants with those of the proprietors. Both live in villages, but while the first pay a stated tax, the others have to be ready to pay whatever the master wishes. The first are judged by their peers; the others are dead to the laws, except in criminal matters. A member of society only then is taken cognisance of by the Government that protects him when he violates the social bond, when he becomes a criminal! That thought made all my blood boil. Beware, cruel proprietor! On the brow of every one of your peasants I see your condemnation!

Absorbed in these thoughts I accidentally turned my eyes to my servant, who was sitting in front of me in the kibítka and was shaking from side to side. I felt a sudden darkness come over me, which passed through all my blood and drove a burning feeling upwards and made it spread over my face. I felt so heartily ashamed of myself, that I wanted to cry. “In your anger,” I said to myself, “you attack the cruel master who maltreats his peasants in the field; and are you not doing the same, or even worse? What crime did your poor Petrúshka commit that you do not allow him to enjoy the comfort of our misfortunes, the greatest gift of Nature to the unfortunate man,--sleep? ‘He receives his pay, his food and dress; I never have him whipped with a scourge or sticks.’ O you kind man! You think that a piece of bread and a rag give you the right to treat a being that resembles you as a top? You are merely boasting that you do not very often whip it as it is whirling about. Do you know what is written in the first law of each man’s heart? ‘If I strike anyone, he has the right to strike me also.’ Remember the day when Petrúshka was drunk and did not dress you fast enough! Remember how you boxed his ears! Oh, if he had then, drunk as he was, come to his senses, and had answered your question in a befitting manner! Who has given you the right over him? The law! Law! And you dare besmirch that sacred name! Wretch!...” Tears flowed from my eyes, and in this condition the post horses brought me to the next station.

Alexander Onisímovich Ablesímov. (1742-1783.)

Ablesímov was a frequent contributor to several periodical publications; his contributions present no special interest, but he gained a great reputation by his comic opera _The Miller_, which, though it is an imitation of a foreign original, was the first play to introduce a popular element, taken directly from the life of the people. The public hailed this comedy as a new departure; it was given to crowded houses twenty-seven times in succession, and a number of imitations appeared with the same element of sorcery and country life for their background.

THE MILLER

## ACT I

_The stage represents on one side a forest, with small villages in the distant hills, and on the other a mill, and nearby a waggon with sacks. In front of it is a tree._

## SCENE 1

_Miller_ (_alone. He is planing a board and sings, only the song is without words and music. Then he says_): What song is that?... Oh, yes: “How our night from midnight” ... that’s it ... (_he begins to sing that tune, continuing his work_).

How our night from midnight, From midnight to white day ...

What a downpour it has been, and now it has stopped! (_He sings again, and continues his song._)

’Twas at the dawn, the early one, At the fall of the shining moon....

How it did blow! I declare, it did blow; why, it almost tore my mill down. I would have been left with nothing. It has done some damage,--thanks to the Lord, not much damage. Did I say not much damage? Well, I have enough to do to fix it up. (_Putting the level to the board._) It’ll come out all right, and all will go well again. (_Advancing towards the orchestra._) I have to laugh every time I think of it; they say that a mill cannot exist without a wizard, and that a miller isn’t just a man like anybody else: he is on speaking terms with the house-spirit, and the house-spirits live in their mills like devils ... ha, ha, ha, ha! What bosh! Am I not a miller through and through? I was born, brought up, and have grown old in the mill, and yet I have never laid my eyes on a house-spirit. Now, to tell the gospel truth, it’s just this: if you are a shrewd fellow and a good hand at cheating, that sorcery business is a good thing.... Let them prattle what they please, but we earn our bread by our profession.

Who by cheating makes a living, Him at once all call a gipsy, And you gain through gipsy dealings The reputation of a wizard. Even in that way the witches Make a living by deception. There’s a big lot of these rascals: Some of them bespeak the water, Others turn the sieve for people, And through such tricks make a living! Just like me, sinful man!...

## SCENE 2. FILIMÓN AND THE FORMER

_Miller_ (_noticing him_). Ah! I am getting a guest. I’ll earn a penny this day. (_To Filimón._) Godspeed, young man!

_Filimón._ My respects, old man.

_Miller._ Whence come you, whither tend you?

_Filimón._ Not farther than my business takes me.

_Miller._ Of your own will, or by compulsion?

_Filimón._ I am looking for horses: my roan and grey have gotten away from me; they are fine horses, such fine horses. (_Aside._) He is a fortune-teller: I’ll try my fortune with him. (_To the Miller._) Say, old man, I want to ask you----

_Miller._ What is it you want? As you please, I am at your service.

_Filimón._ That’s good! And I’ll pay you for it. Tell me my fortune: shall I find my horses?

_Miller._ Shall you find your horses?

_Filimón._ That’s it, old man. I am very anxious to find out about them.

_Miller._ Now, how about that; is there going to be anything? (_Stretches out his hand to him._)

_Filimón._ First tell me, old man, and then we’ll see.

_Miller_ (_turns away from him, and angrily begins a song_):

Tell the fortune: As the guess is, So is the pay.

_Filimón._ But, old man, I expect to pay you.

_Miller._

’Tis with a promise As with a chair: If you sit and do not eat, Then your belly is not full.

_Filimón._ Believe me, I am not lying to you.

_Miller._

If it’s so, All this talking is in vain; Take out your purse, Don’t talk uselessly, Count out the money. (_Puts out his hand, and looks in his eyes._)

_Filimón._ Well, I don’t care: I’ll give you some money in advance.

_Miller._ Only this?

_Filimón._ It will do for the present; what more do you want?

_Miller_ (_aside_). You won’t get off with less than half a rouble.

_Filimón._ What are you going to tell me now?

_Miller._ What is it now, early in the morning?

_Filimón._ Not very late yet, the sun has not yet set behind the woods.

_Miller._ Turn three times around, towards the sun.

_Filimón._ What for?

_Miller._ That’s what I need in my sorcery. Do as you are told!

_Filimón._ To please you, I’ll turn around. (_Turns around once._)

_Miller._ Once more, towards the sun.

_Filimón_ (turning around). Here it is, and towards the sun.

_Miller._ Now stand against this tree. (_Filimón is about to start for the tree, but the Miller says_): No, no, stop! Have you a kerchief?

_Filimón_ (_taking out his handkerchief_). Here it is.

_Miller._ Close your eyes tight, and tie your kerchief over them. That’s all right! Now listen: you must stand quiet, and don’t move from the spot, nor speak a word to anyone, while I go and see the elder.

_Filimón_ (_does all the Miller commands him to do_). But suppose someone should come and ask me why I am standing there, and why my eyes are tied up?

_Miller._ Not a word to anybody; but you may grumble to yourself.

_Filimón._ May I sing a song?

_Miller._ You will frighten all. No, you must not.

_Filimón_ (_aside_). What is it all going to be?

_Miller._ Stand still and don’t move!

Ippolít Fédorovich Bogdanóvich. (1743-1803.)

Ippolít Bogdanóvich, the son of a minor official, entered the mathematical school connected with the Senate; at fourteen years of age he began to study at the University and to write verses under the guidance of Kheráskov. He then served as secretary of legation in Saxony, and later was connected with the Government Archives. His reputation rests only on his _Psyche_, which is a paraphrase in verse of La Fontaine’s _Les amours de Psyché et de Cupidon_, itself an imitation of an episode in Apuleius’s _Golden Ass_. It is a mock-heroic in the style of Máykov’s _Eliséy_ (see p. 263), and was immensely popular at the end of the eighteenth century, and even Dmítriev, Púshkin and Byelínski found pleasure in reading it. There are traces in his poems of an intimate acquaintance with the Russian popular literature, from which are introduced many characters. The poem found so many admirers because it was an expression of the reverse side of the philosophy, of the eighteenth century, with its frivolity and superficiality.

PSYCHE

FROM